Next Manager To Be Sacked Odds | February 2021

As the distorted colossus of animal flesh burned by the barn, Cooper emerged from the ranch, his Winchester still in hand.
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“Christ’s sake, the hell was that thing?” He demanded. His eyes were bright in the firelight, which chased away the darkness that enveloped us as night fell. Starkmann only continued to stare at the dead creature, as if he expected it to rise up again and keep on fighting. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if it had.
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“Hell if I know,” I replied. Even I could hear the uneasy tremble in my voice. “Dead animals stitched together… Thought they were dead, anyway.”
“Well they look fuckin’ dead now,” Cooper said before spitting in the dirt. He glanced over at Starkmann who rolled a cigarette with a shaking hand and wiped the sweat off his brow. For a moment, all of us were silent and we watched that thing burn until we couldn’t recognize what parts had belonged to what animals anymore. Cooper shook his head again and took a step back towards the ranch. I could see a rush in his gait as if he aimed to get the hell away from that thing as soon as possible. I could hardly blame him.
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“Roy, Doc. c’mon. Let’s get us some goddamn answers.” He growled. My eyes lingered on the burning carcass of the thing in the barn before I followed Cooper. Starkmann didn’t move at all. The man seemed lost in his own little world. I let him be.
“Please tell me there ain’t more of those fucking things in the house,” I said under my breath.
“No, but there’s something else.” He’d replied as he stepped through the door.
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The fire from outside lit up the small kitchen and cast an orange glow that allowed us to see clearly enough. The Marshal led me up the stairs and into a bedroom, where I spotted the shape of a woman curled into a ball, almost hiding underneath one of the nearby beds. Cooper stayed outside the door, his gun still in hand as if he was expecting trouble. Me on the other hand? I knew otherwise.
“Christ, is that Martha Roberts?” I asked. I glanced at Cooper but I couldn’t read his face.
“You tell me, son.” He replied.
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Slowly, I approached the woman under the bed. Even in the long, flickering shadows cast from the fire outside, I recognized her although only barely. She was rail-thin, pale, and sickly. She barely resembled the smiling, rosy-cheeked woman I’d met ten years back. Her eyes were sunken in, her hair looked stringy and thin. But I still remembered her.
“Martha?” I asked. She didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge my voice.
“Martha, it’s me, Roy. Roy Wilson. You remember me?”
Still no reply. Not even a shift of her head, to let me know she’d heard me.
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“I’d just found her like that before I heard the shooting.” Cooper said, “Didn’t have much time to talk to her… Didn’t get anything anyway. I presume you two know each other.”
“Yeah. She’s Dick Roberts wife.” I replied. I gently reached out to try and coax her upwards. She didn’t put up any resistance and I managed to get her into a sitting position. Her breathing was slow and steady but her eyes seemed vacant. The stillness in her reminded me too much of Egor Starkmann.
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“Question is, where’s Dick Roberts.” Cooper said. He came up behind me and crouched down at my side. He put on that boyish smile of his and tried to speak to her.
“Are you alright, ma’am? You hurt in any way?”
No response. Martha’s eyes didn’t so much as move to acknowledge him. Her head just slumped to the side, like a corpse. Her eyes were vacant and unfocused. If she weren’t still suckin’ air I might have thought she really was dead.
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“Ma’am?” Cooper asked one last time, although I got the sense he’d already given up hope on her. “Christ… Same as the folks on the train…” He muttered under his breath before standing up.
“Which means Jonesy was here.” I added, “Could be they left something behind. We should poke around. Maybe we’ll figure out where they’re headed.”
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I could tell that Cooper was thinking the same thing.
“Hell, if we’re lucky your friend Dick is still here. Alive, preferably.”
“Dick…” A voice rasped from behind us. Both Cooper and I turned to look at Martha. She stayed by the bed, slumped against it but her eyes had finally focused on us.
“Dick…” She repeated and I returned to her side.
“Yeah Martha, we’re looking for Dick. Where’s he at?”
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Her eyes glazed over towards the window. She slowly lifted an arm and pointed towards it. I didn’t need to go and look to know what she was pointing at. I could see the barn from where I stood, and the glow of the fire from the dead thing we’d found inside.
“Dick…” She repeated.
“The hell is she on about?” Cooper asked. He looked at Martha again. “Where the hell is your husband, woman?”
I just continued to stare out the window, before looking back at Martha.
“I think that was her husband, Cooper…”
“What? That thing in the yard? Christ's sakes, Roy! That thing wasn’t even human! How the fuck was that Dick Roberts?”
“I don’t know,” I replied plainly, before shaking my head. I figured that so long as Martha was sorta talking, maybe I might get something resembling answers.
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“Forget it… Martha. What about Daniel Jones? Jonsey. You see him come through here?”
Her eyes shifted to me. It took a moment, but I saw her head begin to nod. The movement was slow but deliberate.
“Jonsey…” She repeated. “And… Her…”
“Her?” Cooper asked, his brow furrowed. “Who the hell is she talking about, Roy?”
“Beats me… Who do you mean by ‘Her’, Martha?”
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The woman seemed to curl up a little bit, as if she was expecting to be struck. She shook her head, a violent jerking motion from side to side before she collapsed. Cooper got down to help her up again.
“Who was with Jonsey, Martha?” I asked, “I need to know. Who was with him?”
Her eyes burned into mine, wide and brimming with new tears.
“Her…” Martha croaked, “Her… Her… Her…”
“Who?” Cooper asked, trying not to raise his voice. He glanced from me, back to Martha as she continued to mutter that same word over and over again.
“Her… Her… Her…”
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Her body went limp in Cooper's arms, her words slurred as she twitched and convulsed. Her eyes seemed wild and stared blankly up at the ceiling.
“Shit, she’s not right…” Cooper cried, “DOC! STARKMANN!”
He gently moved Martha into my arms before running for the window to call Starkmann. The woman just continued to twitch and babble although, for just a second, her eyes met mine as she spoke her last word.
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“Shaal…” She said it so clearly, and that word hit me like a cold exhale. Then… Nothing. Her body went limp. She was gone. I could hear Starkmann's boots thudding against the floor out in the hall. When he burst into the room, I laid Martha down so he could try and save her. I suspect I already knew that she was too far gone to save though.
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That last word hung in my mind, unwilling to leave.
‘Shaal.’
Something about it sent a chill through me. I rubbed my temples and recalled the drawings in Egors room, the strange horizons with the great cross left blank in the sky. Cooper put an arm around me and led me out of the room as Starkmann did his vain work.
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“Christ… What a fucking mess…” He murmured. He took off his hat and wiped at his brow, before looking at me again.
“I don’t figure you’ve got any ideas who ‘Her’ might be?”
“No, I don’t. Blake didn’t run with no women. Not while I was with him. He sure as hell didn’t run with anyone who’d leave a person like that…”
“Christ…” He repeated. “Hell, we’ll search. See what we turn up.”
“Yeah. We’ll see.” I said absently. I could hear Starkmann's efforts to revive Martha in the next room going silent.
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“Marshal, I don’t suppose you’d recognize the name Shaal, would you?”
“Shaal?” He repeated, “No. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Martha said it when you went to call Starkmann… Right before she stopped breathing.”
“Sounds like a name. Someone else in Jones’ crew? Could even be our mysterious lady friend.”
“I ain’t never heard of anyone named Shaal.” I said.
“Well, you have now. I’ll send a line to some associates of mine back in San Antonio. Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll recognize the name.” Cooper said. I didn’t feel so sure of that.
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Starkmann stepped out of the bedroom, his face grim. His silence told us all we needed to know and for a moment, the three of us shared that silence. “We’ll start by searching the rooms, and we’ll bury her before we go.” Cooper finally said. There was an exhaustion in his voice. “Roy, check the barn. We know that’s clear… Starkmann, check downstairs. We’ll check the cellar together.”
Starkmann just gave a nod, before turning to head back downstairs. I hesitated for just a moment before making my way down to the barn.
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The stink from that rotten beast hadn’t gone away quite yet. If anything, burning it had only made it stink worse. What was left was no more than a pile of charred flesh, that split and curled back, making the crude stitches that held it together popping. I kept my distance as I returned to the barn, my iron in my hand just in case there was anything else waiting for me in there.
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The barn itself looked like nothin’ special. Aside from the mess of dried blood and buzzing flies, I might not have thought too much of it at a glance. As I pressed on inside, the wooden floor creaked with every footstep. Looking up, I saw the crucified dog that Starkmann had mentioned. My stomach lurched a bit. It didn’t seem right to see a kindly animal strung up like that. The cross wasn’t like a normal cross, though. No, this one was in the shape of a X. Like the one St. Andrew died on. Somehow, I doubted that this had been a tribute to him. No, if anything this seemed like something else. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a small desk sitting in one corner of the barn, along with a few papers strewn about atop it. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
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The light from the fire outside was enough for me to try to read those papers, but there wasn’t much on them I could clearly make out. Diagrams of animals, like what a butcher might use, mixed with a looping, effeminate script. The fragments that I read didn’t make sense to me and I didn’t dwell on them long. I felt something metallic bump against my boot and looked down to see what it was.
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It was a metal ring, looped through a small cellar doorway on the floor. I hesitated for a moment, before giving it a good couple of stomps with my heel. If there were anything down there, some noise might have woken it. I didn’t hear anything. I reached down and opened the cellar door. There was a set of wooden stairs leading into what looked like a dirt hole, hastily dug out beneath the barn. No doubt it had been used in the past to store ill-gotten goods… and yet judging by the pile of leavings and the dirty bedding in one corner, there’d been a man down there not all that long ago.
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I spotted the glimmer of something shiny in amongst the bedding and reached down to pick it up. It looked to be a gold rosary, with a rather ornate design. I backed out of the little hole under the barn to get a better look at it in the firelight. It might’ve been loot from the train robbery… Or an heirloom belonging to the fella who’d been down in that little hole. I clutched it tight and made my way back to the house, hoping that Cooper might know a thing or two about it.
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Cooper was downstairs with Starkmann when I got back into the house. They’d lit up a lamp and were at the kitchen table, fussing over Cooper's map, and some charred piece of paper.
“You two find something?” I asked.
“In the fireplace.” Cooper replied, “Map of some sort from the looks of it. Starkmanns trying to figure out what it shows. There wasn’t anything to find upstairs and the cellar’s just got stores and rats. You find anything in the barn?”
“Few things, actually,” I said and held up the rosary. Starkmann glanced at it from the corner of his eye before shooting upright, a funny look in his eye.
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“You found that in the barn?” He asked. He outstretched a hand for it, and I tossed it to him.
“Beneath the barn. There was a little dirt cellar. Looked to me like someone was being kept down there, up until recently.”
Cooper's brow furrowed.
“Jesus…”
“You find anything else?” Starkmann asked, “Clothes? A letter? Anything?”
“Not in the hole I didn’t. There were some awful queer papers on the butchery of animals… Didn’t look like much use, though.” I paused and studied the way that Starkmann clutched the rosary tight.
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“What’s it to you?” I asked.
“I know this rosary.” Starkmann said, “I know the man who this belongs to. You said you found it in the barn, you mean that?”
“Why the hell would I lie about it?”
“YOU SWEAR YOU FOUND THIS IN THE BARN!” Starkmann roared. Cooper raised an arm between us and I caught myself shrinking back a step.
“Now just wait a minute, Doc. Calm down. Who did that rosary come from.”
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“Bishop John Strickland. He’s been a close friend of the Starkmann family for many years. He and my father grew up together, they were like brothers. My father gave him this rosary. A gift, for his enthronement. I’d know it anywhere.” He paused, taking a moment to compose himself. I could see his hands trembling as he swore and kicked at the wall. “We had a mutual friend in San Antonio, Egor and I had gotten word from Strickland that his health had taken a turn for the worst. He’d left to say his goodbyes before it was too late. The only reason I was not on that train with him, was the health of one of my own patients.”
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Cooper and I traded a glance.
“I don’t know about you, but that seems a strange coincidence that the man who was likely in that cellar was a close friend of a man from that train robbery…” I said quietly.
“A strange coincidence indeed…” Cooper agreed, “I’d reckon that Egor knew where to find Bishop Strickland, right?”
“Of course he knew.” Starkmann replied harshly, “Hell, he might’ve been one of the few people who did know… I think there’s no need to pretend we all haven’t come to the very same conclusion. Our train robbery was no simple robbery. They were after Father Strickland, or at the very least someone who knew where they might find him.”
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“Let’s just take it back a step.” Cooper said, “Before we start jumping to conclusions here, let’s look at the facts. Now, we’re sure that it was Daniel Jones behind that robbery and we’re sure that not only was he here, but he had Pastor Strickland in his custody. We’re all clear on that, right?”
“Crystal,” Starkmann said, through a frustrated exhale.
“Right. So, before we lose our heads let’s start asking where we’re headed for next. The obvious destination is wherever they marked on that map, correct?”
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“Correct…” I could see some of the tension draining from Starkmanns shoulders, and I approached the map on the table. I leaned over it and studied the crudely scribbled landmarks. I could see a river nearby and checked the map Cooper had laid out for anything that matched. Starkmann had probably already seen the same thing I’d seen… But as I followed the bends of the rivers, I wondered if perhaps he’d only looked at the rivers in Texas...
“So, we find out where they’re headed, we find the Bishop and they all hang in San Antonio.”
“Or we leave ‘em in the dirt for the vultures.” I added, “The river on the map they burned, that branches off the Rio Grande, into Mexico.”
“The hell it does…” Cooper said as he leaned over my shoulder. He scanned the map and saw that I was right on the money. “Well shit…”
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“They’re headed south of the border if they ain’t there already,” I said. “Last I checked, your authority ends at the border, Marshal.”
“More or less,” Cooper said, looking none too happy about it. “I’d need to send word to Virginia, maybe then we might get a warrant to pursue…”
“Which would take how long?” Starkmann demanded.
“Too damn long.” Cooper replied, “But that’s the only avenue we’ve got.”
“The only one you’ve got.” Starkmann corrected, “Not me. I have a friend in danger and a brother left scarred by these men, Marshal! I’ll not sit idly by and wait for approval before I pursue. Chances are the Bishop will be long dead or worse by the time you get word back from Virginia!”
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“Doc, if you’re aiming to charge across the border by yourself, guns blazing, you’ve got another thing coming,” Cooper warned. “Now I admire your spirit. Truly I do. But if Jones and his men don’t kill you, you’ll answer to the law in Mexico and might end up dead anyway.”
“If that’s what it takes, I’ll have no regrets,” Starkmann said. He glanced at me as if expecting me to chime in. I hardly can say I knew the man and I sure as hell didn’t know him well enough to die for him… But all the same, I caught myself sighing.
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“The Doc is right, Cooper. If we wait on this, we’ll lose them and we’ll probably lose the Bishop.”
“And here I thought you didn’t want to go chasing after Jones.” Cooper said, “Why the change of heart?”
“Well, when I said that there weren’t no hostages involved. I ain’t exactly a saint but I don’t think I’d sleep too well if I left a man of the cloth to his fate… And given what we’ve seen here already, I’d prefer not to think on just what that fate may be.” I looked over at Starkmann, who for the first time since I’d met him looked genuinely happy to hear my voice.
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“So, if you’re crossing the border then I am too. Now I understand that you’ve got rules you need to follow so we’ll go with or without you Marshal. I’ll think no less of you if you stay behind.”
Cooper looked between the two of us, his usual boyish smile absent. He was silent for a moment and leaned on the table as he thought things over. He glanced up at the window, where the fire that consumed the carcass of whatever we’d killed still burned bright.
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“You know… Normally, I’d wish you two well, bury the girl, forget what I saw today and be on my way.” He said as he stared through the window. “But we ain’t even been gone a day yet and my gut tells me that there ain’t one thing normal about any of this. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t place my money on this shit getting any less weird either… But I suppose you both know that already, don’t you?” He looked away from the window and shook his head. “We bury the girl first then we’ll talk about Mexico back at Chestnut Springs. I need a fucking drink.”
On that last part, all three of us were agreed.
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We left the ranch behind after we’d buried Martha Roberts. The fire had spread to the barn and I thought it wouldn’t be long until it spread to the house as well. Perhaps that might be for the best. Whatever twisted things were done on that land were probably best burned. Starkmann, Cooper, and I will catch a train at dawn for Del Rio. Then we will find our way across the border. There, we’ll travel to the point on that burned map, and see what awaits us.
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The whisky at the saloon in Chestnut Springs has not removed my memories of that thing in the barn… I believe I shall see it again in my dreams, perhaps for the rest of my life. That much, I could tolerate. And yet the thing that keeps me awake is the fear that what we killed at Stone Acres, whatever it was, was not the only one of its kind.
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June 15th, 1887
We crossed the border two days ago and found ourselves in the wilderness of Coahuila. The journey was slow, almost grueling at times. We followed the river slowly getting closer to the spot marked on the map. The ride itself had been unremarkable, but between the three of us, we hardly spoke. I could see it in the eyes of Starkmann and Cooper. They hadn’t been sleeping any better than I had. Even during the nights, I could hear them tossing and turning. I didn’t need to ask why.
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We still saw it when we tried to sleep. The limbs of that abomination, horse and cattle legs twisted until they were spider-like. The swollen, lumbering carcass of dead flesh that seemed to rip itself apart with its very bulk... I still see the dead eyes of the horse head, mounted clumsily over the skull of that bull… I still smell the stink of it. I knew they shared the same fear as I did long before we made it to the town. It just wasn’t until after we got there that we actually had a name for it…
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We saw the fog first, so thick and heavy you could barely see the horse in front of you.
“Maybe we should stop for a bit.” I heard Cooper call, “Can’t see shit in this and if we lose one of the horses…”
“Terrains level enough for now.” Starkmann replied, “Don’t see any reason not to keep going.”
I didn’t weigh in. Unlike them, I saw the faded lights just ahead of us and kept my horse moving in that direction.
“Roy?” I heard Cooper call, followed by silence. I knew he’d seen what I’d seen and I suspected he knew what it must’ve meant too. Whatever we were looking for out there, we’d just found it.
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“The hell is this?” Cooper asked, “A town of some sort?”
“Maybe at one point,” I said. I glanced at an old house that looked to be in the midst of collapsing. “Not anymore.”
I stopped my horse and glanced behind me to make sure Starkmann and Cooper were still close behind. They were. I dropped off, reaching for my iron and moving deeper into the fog.
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“The hell are you doing?” Cooper demanded.
“Shh. We’ll be quieter on foot.” I replied. In the fog behind me, I saw Cooper starting to dismount his horse. Thankfully the man had seen my point. I figured Starkmann was likely right behind him.
I moved deeper into the abandoned town. There was no sound, no birds. Nothing at all. The silence was deafening.
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“The hell happened here?” I heard Starkmann murmur, “Place feels like a goddamn graveyard…”
“Could be Jonsey and his friends have already moved on.” Cooper said, “God damn… If we’ve missed them…”
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“Hello?”
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A voice called out through the fog in front of us, and the three of us froze. Cooper went for his six-gun and aimed it into the blank white ahead. It took me a few seconds to see what he saw. The shape of a man coming closer through the fog. The shape stopped, dead in its tracks.
“Hector? That you?”
“Guess I spoke too soon…” Cooper murmured and thought for a moment before calling out.
“It’s Hector!”
Both Starkmann and I glanced at him, no doubt wondering what the hell he was thinking when the voice replied.
“The hell are you doing out in the mist, Hector? C’mon back!”
Evidently, we were dealing with some sort of moron.
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With his gun still drawn, Cooper walked towards the stranger in the mist as if there wasn’t a problem in the world. The poor dumb fool probably couldn’t get a clear look at his face in the fog and by the time he did, he didn’t even get to let off a scream before Cooper had knocked him into the dirt. Starkmann and I flanked him, as Cooper dragged our new, dumb friend through the dirt and slammed him up against the ruins of a building. Our new friend was just a boy, no older than 16 with bright red hair and eyes wide like a gutted deer. Cooper kept a hand over his mouth and put the barrel of his gun up against the bottom of his jaw.
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“You scream and I’ll blow your head clean off, boy.” He warned. “Do I make myself explicitly clear?”
The boy tried to nod and Cooper slammed him against the wall.
“I said am I clear!”
This time, the boy made a little more effort and Cooper took his hand away.
“Daniel Jones. Where is he?” He growled.
“C-Church… Him and Kennard…” The boy stammered.
“Kennard?” Cooper asked, “That the woman’s name?”
“Y-yeah. Kennard! Primrose Kennard! Jonsey brought her down from somewhere. Mississippi, Missouri? I-I don’t remember!”
Cooper studied the boy for a moment, before forcefully turning him around.
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“Roy, get some rope from my horse and help me truss up this little shit.”
I got up to head back to the horses when I heard another voice from the fog, from the direction we’d come from.
“Henry? You there?”
“HECTO-” The boy tried to scream but Cooper covered his mouth again.
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“Get rid of that one. Quiet.” He whispered to me. I gave a half nod before pulling my hunting knife from my belt. I could see the shape of a man approaching our horses. I was sure he had a gun drawn, so I ducked behind one of the old houses, and circled around it.
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“Henry?” Hector called again, just as I’d rounded the house and came out right behind him. If he heard me coming, he didn’t have time to stop me before I was behind him, with my knife in his throat. The moment happened quickly. One minute, I was behind him and he was alive, the next he was bleeding out in my arms, no different than the animals I’d hunted. I’d killed a man before… But it’d been so long that I couldn’t help but pause as I ended that stranger's life. It felt… Odd. Wrong. But the deed was done. I let the body drop. Hector hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, choking on his own blood as he did. I tried not to dwell on that. I backed up towards Cooper's horse and grabbed the rope.
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The boy, Henry I suppose his name was, was dead still by the time I returned to him and Cooper. No doubt he’d seen me waste his friend.
“You count yourself lucky I’m a softie, kid,” Cooper said as he bound his wrists. “Now if you’ll be so obliged, where’s the Church?”
“U-up the road… J-just up the road. You can’t miss it, mister!” The boy stammered, “Please… I don’t wanna die…”
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Cooper just cracked a smile.
“Well ain’t really got room for prisoners. But hell if I’m just gonna kill some kid whose balls ain’t even dropped yet… Oh no. You’re comin’ back to Texas with us.” With that, he jammed a rag into Henry's mouth and left him on the ground. Starkmann regarded him quietly before heading up the road, through the fog, and towards the Church.
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We heard the voices as we got closer, a man's distant screams. I could see Starkmann picking up his pace, and knew he recognized that voice. Through the fog, I could see the church. It was old, its paint was chipped and worn. It had seen better days but was still intact.
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Cooper raced past me and put a firm hand on Starkmann’s shoulder as he neared the door, pulling him back. He glanced back at the Marshal with rage in his eyes, although relented quickly.
“Look first. Shoot second.” Cooper whispered. He gestured to the door and we quietly drew nearer. The doors were open, just enough for us to see inside and as we got closer I heard a woman's voice speaking.
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“Be honored, your Excellency… Very few are given the chance to serve the True Gods. Your life is in servitude to a higher purpose. That, I promise you…”
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The Church was well lit with oil lamps along the walls. I peered through the broken door and spotted a man, dressed in the dirty robes of a bishop on his knees before the altar. No doubt, this was Strickland. Just a few feet away from him I spotted a figure I recognized as old Jonsey. He’d grown huskier in the years since I’d last seen him but I knew his face all too well.
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Yet the star of the show was the woman… Primrose Kennard, she’d been called. I hadn’t quite known what to expect, but she both lived up to and defied my expectations. She was tall, and lovely with pitch-black hair that fell to her shoulders. She had a slight baby's face, yet that only seemed to add to her loveliness. She wore no guns, and yet something about her still sent a cold chill through me. In one hand, she carried a bone knife and held it to the Bishop's throat.
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“Don’t be afraid…” She crooned, cradling his face like a lover. “I won’t make you face It again…” Her thumbs ran gently over his cheeks, she smiled sweetly at him as she bent down to kiss his forehead.
“No… You’re not meant for Shaal, Bishop… You’re here to show me the way…”
I saw the knife dip lower, moving towards the Bishop's throat and I knew that whatever she’d been building up to, she was about to do it.
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“You drop that knife, Woman!” I heard Starkmann yell. He pushed past us and threw open the door, aiming his gun right at that woman's heart. Kennard pulled back, eyes wide in surprise at first, before her lips curled into a smile.
“Well, well… We have visitors!” She crooned.
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Besides Starkmann, Cooper and I entered the Church as well. His gun was trained on Jones, as was mine. Jones stood protectively before Starkmann, and I felt his eyes on me.
“Roy Wilson…” He said, his voice lower and gruffer than before, “Well I’ll be… Is that you?”
“Been too long Jonsey.” I replied coldly, “I thought you hung ten years back.”
“Almost.” He replied, “No thanks to you. You a Marshal now?”
“No, but I’ll put you in the ground all the same.”
Jonesy’s crooked smile widened, exposing yellowed teeth.
“Good luck to you…” He glanced back at Kennard, who still clutched her knife tightly, before going for his guns.
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I couldn’t tell you who shot first, myself, Cooper, or Starkmann. What I know for sure is that we filled that sonofabitch with enough lead to kill him five times over, and he didn’t so much as fucking flinch. Jonsey drew his iron as if we hadn’t even shot at us. His first three shots struck the walls. I scrambled for cover behind a pew. From the corner of my eye, I saw Cooper doing the same on the opposite side of the chapel. Jonsey kept a gun aimed at each of us, although when he saw Starkmann try to make a run from the door to the altar, he forgot about us. He fired twice before Starkmann dove low and Cooper took advantage of his lapse in judgment to take a shot at him. I saw his muzzle flash and I saw part of Jonsey’s skull shatter. I swear I saw bits of his brain dribbling down the side of his head but that bastard still stood tall, shooting back like he had all day and laughing quietly all the while.
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Behind him, I watched as Kennard seized the Bishop by the hair. Starkmann had tried to get up to make another run for him but Jonsey shot just above his head as soon as he saw him trying to poke it out.
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None of us could’ve saved Bishop Strickland. Not even if we’d wanted to. Kennard drew the knife violently across his throat, damn near taking his head off. Then, with the bloodied knife still in hand, she turned towards the altar, almost oblivious to the carnage behind her.
“Ancient Guardian, I beg of thee… With sacred blood, on the sacred ground I invoke thee… Grant me an audience in exchange for this holy life…”
She drove the knife into the wooden altar, and I felt the ground itself quake.
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The world around us seemed to dim into a blackness darker than even the nighttime. Jonsey paused, looking back with what was left of his skull at Kennard who stood triumphantly before the altar. I saw my shot, and I took it. I’d never killed a woman before, much less shot one in the back but given the circumstances, I wouldn’t have lost any sleep.
​
I know my aim was true. The bullet should’ve hit her dead on. Instead, I felt a pain in my shoulder, like someone had just slugged me hard. For the first couple of seconds, it hardly registered as painful… But then it started to burn. I saw a blood-red stain blooming on my shoulder. The gun fell from my hand and looking at Kennard, I saw her smiling at me and I knew that somehow, she’d done this to me. I collapsed back down behind the pew as a great shadow grew from the darkness before her.
​
I clutched at my new bullet wound, trying as best I could to stop the bleeding. Jonsey still stood in the aisle of the chapel, keeping close to Kennard and trading bullets with Cooper. For a moment, I was sure that he’d been the one who’d shot me, but I was sure he hadn’t so much as looked my way when I’d shot at Kennard. From the corner of my eye, I saw Starkmann pop out from cover to take a few more shots at Jonesy. I can’t say why he bothered, the bastard remained as unflinching as ever. Even with half his skull blown away he hardly seemed to give a damn. He looked back towards Kennard, and watched as the darkness before her grew larger. I saw a shape inside of it, something tall and looming. Its limbs seemed thin, like bones but I could’ve sworn they had a texture like wood. I saw what looked to be a bare human skull looking down at her, and yet a pair of beady eyes lurked deep within their sockets. The entity that had answered Kennard's summons spoke in a deep, rumbling voice although I couldn’t make out the words over the gunfire.
​
I saw Starkmann crawling behind the same pew Cooper was behind, having given up his mission to save the Bishop. Blood dripped from a fresh gash in his temple where he’d been grazed.
“Not a bad effort, but y’all won’t be killing me today…” I heard Jonsey say, his voice thick and wet. “Miss Kennard’s made some… Modifications… That’s her specialty, see?”
I could hear his heavy footsteps drawing nearer to us.
“Maybe when I’m done with you boys, she might find somethin’ she can salvage… Eyes, guts, bones… I suppose I could use a new skull…” He chuckled deeply.
​
From behind his pew, Cooper glanced over at me and I saw real hopelessness in his eyes. We were cooked and we all knew it. Jonsey was just coming to finish the job. I spotted my gun on the floor near me and grabbed at it. I knew it was almost surely suicide, but I had one idea that just might work.
​
I dove out from behind the pew and unloaded my pistol into Jonsey’s legs. I aimed for the knee, and I saw the blood spatter against the pews. Just as I’d hoped, the bastard’s newly busted legs couldn’t support him. I saw the panic in his one good eye before he went down. He braced himself against the pews to try and avoid collapsing outright, and that gave us the window I needed.
​
With my last shot, I took aim at one of the oil lamps on the walls. Fire had killed the thing at the ranch, maybe it might kill Jonesy too. The least it could do was cover our escape. Flames erupted from the broken lamp, quickly catching on the old pews. That Church was likely gonna be an inferno in a few minutes, and I didn’t want to stick around to see for sure.
​
“Move!” I yelled, before bolting towards the Church door. Cooper and Starkmann both took the hint. They followed me to the door. Starkmann paused for only a moment to take a parting shot at Jonsey’s head. But I didn’t get to see if it made any difference. Clutching my bleeding shoulder, I sprinted through the fog, almost falling once or twice. I didn’t stop until I saw the horses.
​
“C’mon! Move your asses!” I yelled. Looking back again, I saw Starkmann coming up behind me. Cooper had stopped to grab that goddamn boy we’d left trussed up. If I’d had time, I would’ve cursed him out for it. With Starkmanns help, I was able to get up on my horse. Through the fog, I could see the Church burning, and yet I had a sick feeling in my stomach that our troubles were far from over.
​
We hadn’t won. We just hadn’t died.

Hello everyone, It’s me again. It’s been 2 years since I posted my first horrorstory here. Now I wanted to tell you another bizarre event that happened while I was on the DM seat. It involves Steve, and old friend featured on my last story, and a new player, who we’ll call Joe.
WARNING: MILD "The Curse of Strahd" campaign spoilers.
Spoler-free TLDR at the bottom.
​
Cast
Me: The stunned DMSteve: Miloryn son of Maloryn (Druid)Joe: Kazov (Warrior)
So, after a long time without new players, our team decides to recruit some newbies to integrate them into our Rpg group. Since everyone wanted to be a player, it was my job to DM for the new guys along with some veteran. In total I think there was 6 players.
Now, I didn’t have too much free time to prepare since I was writing my university thesis at that time, so I offered to run a modified version of The Curse of Strahd, something I had already ran before with lackluster results. I thought that running it again would give me more time to get to know the characters deeply without having to focus too much on the story, at least for the first 4 sessions. I also didn’t want to run the game with D&D rules, so I modified it a little bit and ran it on the All flesh must be eaten system, a game I was much comfortable with.
So, I ask the new players to make the characters they want to play first. Joe wants to go with a russian inspired warrior named Kazov (with a cape made of bear fur) and the other new player wants to run a sorcerer. Then the veterans decide to play more supportive roles like a paladin, a rogue. Steve decides to go with a dwarven druid called Miloryn. I inform them that COS is a horror setting and it might be difficult for new players: stakes are high and if they make a mistake is very likely that some –if not all- could die.
The first time I DM’d Curse of Strahd the veteran players didn’t get very far. They only made it to the city of Vallaki. Still, I warn them that I would not tolerate any metagaming from them. This will be important later.
The firsts sessions run great. I try my best to describe this new and terrible world the characters fall into. The mist is omnipresent and feels oppressive and intimidating. They go through the village of Barovia and I’m pleased to see how the new players are getting a little bit more confident with their characters. At one point Kazov starts flirting with Irena (a VERY important npc). I try to encourage him and ask him to roll for seduction. He crits and the beautiful redheaded lady blushes at his approach.
This dynamic continues when the party arrives to the Vistani camp, with Kazov being less subtle every time. At one point he declares that will sing a love song in honor to Irena in front of everyone as they gathered around the fire.
Obviously Strahd is informed by his spies of this and takes a keen interest to this handsome warrior trying to court HIS lady.
The next day Strahd presents himself riding his fiery nightmare to the party, asking everyone’s names and informing them that this is his land and will not tolerate ruffians and brigands. Everyone must abide to his law. The party is humbled by this display of authority and meekly tell him that they mean no harm. Some good role-play and successful diplomacy rolls later, Strahd allows the party to continue with Irena to the nearby city of Vallaki. (Strahd is toying with them and will not kill them so soon). Then, being obviously the lord of this land ask a gift of good will worthy of his status from the party. The heroes, not carrying anything of value, are a little bit stunned by this request and don’t know what to offer. Strahd then approaches Kazov and ask if he would graciously give him a lock of his blonde hair (He wants to know why Irena finds him so charming). Kazov accepts not really understanding the consequences. (He’s not a magic user nor understands magic at all, so I didn’t tell him that now Strahd can scry on him very easily).
Strahd, being the magnanimous and generous lord, decides to reward Kazov’s bravery and generosity and gives him his personal sword, an exquisite sabre gilded in gold and rubies worth more than all the gold they’ve ever seen in their lives. It’s also a +2 sword. (Pretty op since the party is only lvl 2). Actually Strahd was only seeding dissent among the party by favoring one over the others. Oh boy, this’ll pay off.
So, after Strahd is gone, I allow the party to make an arcane check. They soon realize that Strahd can scry on the party (or at least the warrior) and they ask Kazov to throw that sword away. He refuses.
A day passes without much trouble and the next morning the party arrives to a big bridge
DM: After a torturous journey though a steep and narrow road, you finally reach the Tser River. The water roars in fury echoing though the cliffs. The mist mixes with the water creating a white shade that covers it’s surface. And though this mist, very high in the sky you can see lonely bridge that crosses the river. One final climb and you’ll be back again on the old barovian road.
(When they’re on the middle of the bridge I ask for a perception check. Of course, Kazov crits)
DM*: You eyes perceive something odd. Very very far, on the other side of the river, down the cliff, there’s a simple yet off putting burlap sack. If you want to reach it you’ll have to climb the steep side of the cliff and that would probably take you an hour.*
Kazov: Hey everyone, there’s a sack there!
Miloryn: Yeah? But it’s hard to reach, we should leave it.
Kazov: Well, it could have treasures.
Miloryn : If it has treasures then it has an owner.
Kazov: If it has an owner then he could be hurt. We should help him!
I can see that Joe really wants the bag, maybe he was thinking this was some kind of videogame rpg and since he critted his perception check then the sack must had something of value. I didn’t wanted to ruin his experience so I gave a stern look at Steve and say No metagaming ! (He, being a veteran player already knew what the burlap sack had)
Miloryn: FINE ! If you want that bag so bad well get it. But, let’s make this interesting. I bet all my dwarven gold that I can reach the sack before you.
Kazov (takes off his armor and begins to stretch, grinning maliciously. He was a very good at running had something like +9 in d&d terms): Okay, I’ll have all your dwarven gold.
Miloryn: But if I win you’ll give me that beautiful sword.
I saw where this was going, but I dared not to intervene.
Kazov stutters a little: M-mm-y s-sword ?
Miloryn: Yes, and the beautiful lady Irena can signal the start and reward the winner with her favor.
Irena blushes and agrees, fully expecting Kazov to win against this overweight and funny smelling dwarf.
Joe goes pale. He’s cornered. Now it’s not only about gold but his honor and the favor of Irena. He cannot backtrack now.
The runners stand at a signaled spot and lady Irena drops a silk handkerchief, when it touches the floor, the race begins. Joe is ready to roll for athletics, dice in hand.
Miloryn: I stand on the ledge of the bridge, turn back, smile and leap down.
Kazov at this point is panicking: WHAT ?
DM facepalming: You see how this dwarf turns to you and smiles before jumping off the cliff.
Kazov: I jump and try to catch him !
-Dead silence-
Then a chorus of shouting voices tell Joe to stop and reconsider. I can see that he’s confused and panicking, so I raise my hands and ask them to shut up. I wanted Joe to make his own decision.
DM: You reach to the ledge and see Miloryn freefalling. He’s curling like a ball and emitting weird noises you cannot understand. Black feathers flying in the air. Deep down you can almost see the water running violently. It must be a 100 ft drop.
Joe understands now. Miloryn is a druid and can turn into a raven. Now, I told Steve at the beginning of the game that his character, being lvl 2, can only transform into an animal no bigger than a cat. And would have his strength reduced to 1 while he keeps this form.
Kazov: I try to catch him.
I never knew if he wanted to catch Miloryn mid air and pull some “The legend of Zelda” trick or what. But I said to myself that I should be a consistent DM so I let him try to do it.
DM: Miloryn, do you want him to catch you?
Miloryn: No ! He’ll drag me down and we’ll both die.
DM: Miloryn, please make an evasion check against Kazov’s grapple.
- Kazov rolls a nat 1-
DM, trying to give his character a last chance: Please, Kazov, make a constitution check.
- Nat 1 –
At this point I stand up, and go out for a cigarette. Kazov was dead. The +2 sword was lost in the waters and Lord Strahd was very confused.
I don’t know If I could have managed the situation better. I tried to keep the metagaming at minimum but at the same time I don’t think I was unfair. After all he was the one who decided to jump off the bridge. Joe was stunned and I think I cried a little bit in the bathroom. I felt a little bad (it was the first time I killed a PC as a DM) When he came back I try to console him and tell him that he can make a new character at level 3 with a good item already in his possession.
So yeah. this event would be known in my multiverse version of Ravenloft as “The song of the Bear and the Raven”.
TLDR: Two players bet on a race while in the middle of a bridge. The druid jumps off and turns into a raven mid air. The warrior fails to grab him, falls 100ft and meets a horrible and stupid death.
Edit: Thanks everyone for the reply and comments. First, while I don't think is nearly as bad as others stories we can read no this subreddit, still was a sour moment for Joe. Later he would say that he "feels stupid" around us. Secondly, as some of you have noticed, I homebrewed all the classes and the druid get's a very limited shape-shifting ability at first level. He couldn't talk nor cast on that shape and can only do it 1/day per lvl (so 2 times at lvl 2) and max 10 minutes per transformation. Also his strength was reduced to 1 and couldn't operate or manipulate objects.

Hi everyone. I'm a long time DM and have run COS three times. This happened the second time I ran the module, with some veteran players that had already played the first attempt.
I uploaded this story at rpghorrorstories bit I think that it also deserves a spot in this subreddit. I didn't wanted to crosspost thinking that it might be considered spam.
​
Cast
Me: The stunned DM Steve: Miloryn son of Maloryn (Druid) Joe: Kazov (Warrior)
So, after a long time without new players, our team decides to recruit some newbies to integrate them into our Rpg group. Since everyone wanted to be a player, it was my job to DM for the new guys along with some veteran. In total I think there was 6 players.
Now, I didn’t have too much free time to prepare since I was writing my university thesis at that time, so I offered to run a modified version of The Curse of Strahd, something I had already ran before with lackluster results. I thought that running it again would give me more time to get to know the characters deeply without having to focus too much on the story, at least for the first 4 sessions. I also didn’t want to run the game with D&D rules, so I modified it a little bit and ran it on the All flesh must be eaten system, a game I was much comfortable with.
So, I ask the new players to make the characters they want to play first. Joe wants to go with a russian inspired warrior named Kazov (with a cape made of bear fur) and the other new player wants to run a sorcerer. Then the veterans decide to play more supportive roles like a paladin, a rogue. Steve decides to go with a dwarven druid called Miloryn. I inform them that COS is a horror setting and it might be difficult for new players: stakes are high and if they make a mistake is very likely that some –if not all- could die.
The first time I DM’d Curse of Strahd the veteran players didn’t get very far. They only made it to the city of Vallaki. Still, I warn them that I would not tolerate any metagaming from them. This will be important later.
The firsts sessions run great. I try my best to describe this new and terrible world the characters fall into. The mist is omnipresent and feels oppressive and intimidating. They go through the village of Barovia and I’m pleased to see how the new players are getting a little bit more confident with their characters. At one point Kazov starts flirting with Irena (a VERY important npc). I try to encourage him and ask him to roll for seduction. He crits and the beautiful redheaded lady blushes at his approach.
This dynamic continues when the party arrives to the Vistani camp, with Kazov being less subtle every time. At one point he declares that will sing a love song in honor to Irena in front of everyone as they gathered around the fire.
Obviously Strahd is informed by his spies of this and takes a keen interest to this handsome warrior trying to court HIS lady.
The next day Strahd presents himself riding his fiery nightmare to the party, asking everyone’s names and informing them that this is his land and will not tolerate ruffians and brigands. Everyone must abide to his law. The party is humbled by this display of authority and meekly tell him that they mean no harm. Some good role-play and successful diplomacy rolls later, Strahd allows the party to continue with Irena to the nearby city of Vallaki. (Strahd is toying with them and will not kill them so soon). Then, being obviously the lord of this land ask a gift of good will worthy of his status from the party. The heroes, not carrying anything of value, are a little bit stunned by this request and don’t know what to offer. Strahd then approaches Kazov and ask if he would graciously give him a lock of his blonde hair (He wants to know why Irena finds him so charming). Kazov accepts not really understanding the consequences. (He’s not a magic user nor understands magic at all, so I didn’t tell him that now Strahd can scry on him very easily).
Strahd, being the magnanimous and generous lord, decides to reward Kazov’s bravery and generosity and gives him his personal sword, an exquisite sabre gilded in gold and rubies worth more than all the gold they’ve ever seen in their lives. It’s also a +2 sword. (Pretty op since the party is only lvl 2). Actually Strahd was only seeding dissent among the party by favoring one over the others. Oh boy, this’ll pay off.
So, after Strahd is gone, I allow the party to make an arcane check. They soon realize that Strahd can scry on the party (or at least the warrior) and they ask Kazov to throw that sword away. He refuses.
A day passes without much trouble and the next morning the party arrives to a big bridge
DM: After a torturous journey though a steep and narrow road, you finally reach the Tser River. The water roars in fury echoing though the cliffs. The mist mixes with the water creating a white shade that covers it’s surface. And though this mist, very high in the sky you can see lonely bridge that crosses the river. One final climb and you’ll be back again on the old barovian road.
(When they’re on the middle of the bridge I ask for a perception check. Of course, Kazov crits)
DM*: You eyes perceive something odd. Very very far, on the other side of the river, down the cliff, there’s a simple yet off putting burlap sack. If you want to reach it you’ll have to climb the steep side of the cliff and that would probably take you an hour.*
Kazov: Hey everyone, there’s a sack there!
Miloryn: Yeah? But it’s hard to reach, we should leave it.
Kazov: Well, it could have treasures.
Miloryn : If it has treasures then it has an owner.
Kazov: If it has an owner then he could be hurt. We should help him!
I can see that Joe really wants the bag, maybe he was thinking this was some kind of videogame rpg and since he critted his perception check then the sack must had something of value. I didn’t wanted to ruin his experience so I gave a stern look at Steve and say No metagaming ! (He, being a veteran player already knew what the burlap sack had)
Miloryn: FINE ! If you want that bag so bad well get it. But, let’s make this interesting. I bet all my dwarven gold that I can reach the sack before you.
Kazov (takes off his armor and begins to stretch, grinning maliciously. He was a very good at running had something like +9 in d&d terms): Okay, I’ll have all your dwarven gold.
Miloryn: But if I win you’ll give me that beautiful sword.
I saw where this was going, but I dared not to intervene.
Kazov stutters a little: M-mm-y s-sword ?
Miloryn: Yes, and the beautiful lady Irena can signal the start and reward the winner with her favor.
Irena blushes and agrees, fully expecting Kazov to win against this overweight and funny smelling dwarf.
Joe goes pale. He’s cornered. Now it’s not only about gold but his honor and the favor of Irena. He cannot backtrack now.
The runners stand at a signaled spot and lady Irena drops a silk handkerchief, when it touches the floor, the race begins. Joe is ready to roll for athletics, dice in hand.
Miloryn: I stand on the ledge of the bridge, turn back, smile and leap down.
Kazov at this point is panicking: WHAT ?
DM facepalming: You see how this dwarf turns to you and smiles before jumping off the cliff.
Kazov: I jump and try to catch him !
-Dead silence-
Then a chorus of shouting voices tell Joe to stop and reconsider. I can see that he’s confused and panicking, so I raise my hands and ask them to shut up. I wanted Joe to make his own decision.
DM: You reach to the ledge and see Miloryn freefalling. He’s curling like a ball and emitting weird noises you cannot understand. Black feathers flying in the air. Deep down you can almost see the water running violently. It must be a 100 ft drop.
Joe understands now. Miloryn is a druid and can turn into a raven. Now, I told Steve at the beginning of the game that his character, being lvl 2, can only transform into an animal no bigger than a cat. And would have his strength reduced to 1 while he keeps this form.
Kazov: I try to catch him.
I never knew if he wanted to catch Miloryn mid air and pull some “The legend of Zelda” trick or what. But I said to myself that I should be a consistent DM so I let him try to do it.
DM: Miloryn, do you want him to catch you?
Miloryn: No ! He’ll drag me down and we’ll both die.
DM: Miloryn, please make an evasion check against Kazov’s grapple.
- Kazov rolls a nat 1-
DM, trying to give his character a last chance: Please, Kazov, make a constitution check.
- Nat 1 –
At this point I stand up, and go out for a cigarette. Kazov was dead. The +2 sword was lost in the waters and Lord Strahd was very confused.
I don’t know If I could have managed the situation better. I tried to keep the metagaming at minimum but at the same time I don’t think I was unfair. After all he was the one who decided to jump off the bridge. Joe was stunned and I think I cried a little bit in the bathroom. I felt a little bad (it was the first time I killed a PC as a DM) When he came back I try to console him and tell him that he can make a new character at level 3 with a good item already in his possession.
So yeah. this event would be known in my multiverse version of Ravenloft as “The song of the Bear and the Raven”.

It felt like the whole world stopped when he walked into our bookstore. All the customers turned from browsing the shelves, paying for their purchases, sipping their coffees at the Bookshop Café. The barista boggled behind the coffee machine, the cashier stared with their scanner still in hand.
“Oh my god,” Scott, my co-worker at the information desk whispered, dropping a bunch of books to the counter.
I was immediately blindsided by the person, hit with a dizzying feelings of love. I wanted to protect him, stroke his soft black hair, wrap him up in my arms. I wanted to kiss him all over his lovely face. If anyone else touched them, I might just go insane, I might just rip them to shreds with my bare hands. I didn’t want him to leave, I wanted to stay in his presence forever.
He wandered over to the colouring books. He flicked through them, with a slight smile as his fingers danced across the pages. Then he looked over at the racks full of arty postcards. He picked up a Starry Night one and gazed at it with his sleepy looking doe eyes. Everyone watched him in silence. Then he looked up, noticing the stares. Immediately, he put the book and the postcard back down and strode as fast as he could out of the store again. He’d only been there for a minute but it had felt like hours. As the door shut behind him, it felt like the whole building released the breath it was holding.
I staggered away from the counter and hid in the staff breakroom. As soon as he’d left I felt like a wave of depression hit me. I needed to see him again, right now, now, now. What was happening to me? I mean, I was pretty damn sure I was straight. I’d never had feelings for another man before. This didn’t feel like a normal crush either. This felt like I’d been injected with a hit of love potion straight into my bloodstream. I was coated in sweat and I felt almost feverish. Wrenching the freezer open, I stuck my head in, feeling the cold air cool me down.
Just relax, just relax, I told myself. So you’ve had your first man-crush. There’s no need to freak the fuck out about it.
I slowly breathed in and then out before removing my head from the freezer. I just had to get back to my work routine and I’d feel better. I checked the fridge, finding we were out of milk. That would be a good distraction. Leaving the staff room, I went through the book shelves towards the café that adjoined the shop. Most of the women I passed had dreamy looks on their faces and a lot of the men appeared just as shaken and confused as me, sitting down, staring into their hands like they were going through a personal crisis. Passing the cashier, Morgan, I saw she had the same disturbed look on her face as most of the male customers.
I entered the café. At the front table by the counter was Ray, the delivery guy who brought the books in and took orders off to customers. He spent every lunch break in the café flirting with the barista Kelly. I didn’t get along with either of them. Ray was a frat boy douche and Kelly was just as obnoxious. So in other words, they were perfect for each other.
Ray’s fists were clenched, jaw set, staring down into his cup of coffee like it had called his mother a bitch. Kelly was standing next to the toaster oven with a slightly dazed look on her face.
“Hi,” I said and they both jumped. “We’ve run out of milk, just grabbing some.”
“I was miles away,” said Kelly, as I went behind the counter. “God, did you see that guy? He’s not even my type…”
“I don’t think you’re his type either,” Ray cut in and we both looked around at him. “I mean, what guy flounces around like that, looked like he had mascara on the fuckin’ fairy.”
He crossed his arms across his chest. His eyes were simmering with a mixture of discomfort and anger.
“Wow, did we just go back in time twenty years?” I said. “Maybe we should take him to a conversion camp where he belongs huh?”
“He was just joking, Devin, chill,” Kelly snapped at once.
“Oh yes, he’s really just a fountain of wit, the biggest wit I’ve ever met,” I replied as I grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and went to walk off.
“You shouldn’t speak to paying customers like that, I could report you!” Ray yelled after me.
As I went into the break room to put the milk away, I found Scott sitting at the table looking wide eyed and extremely agitated.
“You don’t understand, something’s wrong,” he whispered to me as I put the milk in the fridge. “Devin, I’ve never ever had romantic or sexual feelings for anyone in my life. I just spoke to Morgan and she’s really goddamned dazed and confused as well, she liked him too!”
“Morgan has a girlfriend?” I said and Scott nodded.
“Why is some stranger getting everyone, everyone no matter if they’re a straight man, gay woman, asexual person, why is he getting them all to fall in love with him? Something’s not fucking right here.”
“What, you think he’s an incubus or something?” I said, raising my eyebrow. Scott threw his hands up.
“Maybe?” he said. “I don’t care if I sound crazy, this whole situation is crazy!”
He took a deep breath, rubbing his arms like his skin was itching off his bones.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is just very unnatural for me. I don’t like it. I feel so goddamn uncomfortable right now.”
The phone rang at the information desk and I left Scott to himself so he could settle down. The bookshop was beginning to calm but there was a confused buzzing energy in the air, everyone exchanging looks with each other, or whispering behind their hands. It was like that for the rest of the shift.
When it was time to leave, I bought a carton of orange and poppy seed muffins from Kelly before I headed to my car. I live in a dying tourist town. Back in the good old days, we had hundreds of visitors to our national park to admire the beautiful waterfall, surrounding bushlands and wildlife. But two huge disasters had happened that had scared away all tourists. An oil spill had turned the waterfall into a disgusting black sludge, rotted the grass and trees and killed animals left and right. It had been left a disgusting wasteland for years and just recently had it slowly begun to heal again.
No-one ever owned up to causing the oil spill either. We had no idea who was responsible. There was an infamous image attached to our town, a picture from the papers of a bunch of dead deer and birds by the river that was floating with dead fish.
I drove out of the main street and up the hill past the ruins of the national park, until I reached my Aunt Noelle’s big old country house next to the school. I still lived with her even though I had money to move out. She’d been laid off from her job as a primary school teacher for bullshit reasons. The new principal had said she was ‘going dotty’ even though Aunt Noelle had always been eccentric. She couldn’t afford for me to move out and I owed it to her to stay and help out with the bills.
When I pulled into the driveway, my Aunt looked up from the kitchen window. She waved as I got out of the car.
“I brought those muffins you like,” I said as I walked in.
“Oh lordy, lordy I’m a lucky duck today,” said Aunt Noelle as she wiped her hands on the dishtowel, turning away from the sink. “I don’t have to cook at all tonight! Philippa came over with this odd little stew thingy-ma-jig called Ozza Bucka.”
“Osso Bucco,” I corrected her. Aunt Noelle was the type who thought black pepper was spicy, but she was still interested in trying all these ‘wild’ food like brie cheese and sundried tomatoes.
“Yes that’s the one, it looks very peculiar, but I’m sure we’ll enjoy it!” said Aunt Noelle. “So Phillipa’s daughter Cressida, y’know Cressida who’s with that cashier Morgan at your work, well she was right all along, I did sell a few nice dresses and scarves on the Esky store online!”
“Etsy?” I said as I sat down at the table. She busied around making me a cup of hot chocolate.
“Yes, yes that’s the one,” she said. “Cressida does all the fancy webwork and she sends them all over the world can you believe! My little ol’ dresses might be worn in Korea or Denmark or New Zealand or anywhere!”
“That’s awesome,” I said. She nodded with excitement. Although she was loving and affectionate, Aunt Noelle was incredibly self-centred never interested in anyone else’s life but her own. I didn’t mind though, I liked that she never pried into my business.
Later that night we were watching recorded tapes of 80s soap operas, that I secretly enjoyed myself when my dad rang my phone. I got up to take the call.
“Do you want me to pause it?” yelled my Aunt as I went into my room.
“No thanks, I’ve already seen it a hundred times!” I yelled back.
“Days of Our Lives?” asked Dad teasingly.
“You know it,” I replied. “How’s it going in there?”
“Oh yeah just fuckin’ great,” he said. I heard one of the guards yell, “Watch your language, Angel!”
“Sorry, darlin’,” my dad murmured back and I laughed at the old joke.
“Cheers for the father’s day gift,” he said. “I got to hide it so the boys don’t nick it.”
“Why would any inmate want one of my paintings?” I asked.
“I dunno, wipe their arse with it,” he replied. “Everyone always wants whatever you have that they don’t. I could have a toothpick and ten blokes would wanna nick it. Ridiculous.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Anyway tell me about ya day at the bookshop,” he said. “That bitchy barista give ya grief?”
“No, it was kind of a weird day actually,” I said. “This man walked in and everyone fell in love with him at once. Even Scott who’s asexual, Morgan the cashier who’s a lesbian and me and that douchebag Ray and we’re both straight. Scott thinks he was an incubus or something.”
I expected a laugh from my dad. But there was a long silence instead. I stared down at my phone for a second, thinking I might have accidentally hung up on him.
“Hello?” I said. “You still there?”
There was a cough from the other line, a nasty smoker’s cough that I’d grown up with my whole life.
“What he look like?” he said in a gruff voice.
“Uhh,” I replied, confused at his strangely serious tone. “Black hair, big hazel eyes, y’know a pretty boy, like he’d be in a picture a teenage girl would pin up on her wall or something.”
Dad was quiet again. I heard a guard yell, “time’s up, Angel, move along.”
“Gotta go,” he muttered.
“Okay,” I replied, feeling more baffled than ever.
Normally a person like Aunt Noelle would be the craziest in someone’s family, but she was nothing compared to my parents. When someone says that their parents are crazy I just have to laugh. I don’t think anyone can compete with mine.
Oscar Angel or as he was known in the media, the Angel of Death had been in jail my whole life. I remember growing up and eavesdropping on Aunt Noelle and Philippa gossiping in the lounge room over tea and biscuits. Philippa had asked in a hushed whisper if I was a conjugal baby and I’d seen through the crack of the door my Aunt nod. My mother apparently had been one of these prisoner groupies, like the ones who wrote fan-mail to Bundy and Manson. My mum ran off on me leaving me with my Aunt when I was a baby. Like her sister, my mother was incredibly self-centred but she had no redeeming qualities to make up for it.
My father was the second disaster that had destroyed all tourist interest in our town. My Dad was in jail for kidnapping four men, taking them up into the bushland, letting them loose and then hunting them all down. There’d only been one survivor who told the cops. My dad had pleaded guilty and been put in jail for life. Kids at school taunted me for having a slasher villain for a dad. There’d actually been a few crappy horror films and true crime documentaries based on him and that was what drew the trickle of tourists to us nowadays, just people wanting to see the place where it had all happened. It was like being related to a celebrity in the worst kind of way. The interviews made me a fair bit of money though. I trolled the reporters, saying the spirits of the dead men haunted my nightmares, making my hands shake and my eye twitch. Dad told me he'd piss himself laughing when they played them on the TV in the rec room.
He sent me presents for my birthday, carved rocks and woodwork in the shapes of dragons. Aunt Noelle always took me to see him and I remember him picking me up as a toddler and twirling me around in a hug. I’d tell him I’d been doing well at school or showed him a drawing I’d done and he’d beam with pride. No-one ever lied to me or tried to soften the story. I’d always grown up knowing he was in jail cause he was a bad man who killed people. Yet I still loved him.
“What did your father say?” Aunt Noelle asked, peering excitedly into the room. I knew she wanted juicy titbits to whisper about with Philippa. It was one of the reasons she took me down to the prison as a kid, so she’d have a few days’ worth of gossip with everyone in town who’d listen.
“A man had to be taken to the nursing unit today,” I said. “He got stabbed with a toothpick.”
“Oh my good goodness,” said Aunt Noelle, clutching her chest. “Wait til I tell Philippa, she’ll kneel over, I swear!”
After a shower and Aunt Noelle’s chamomile tea, I bustled myself off to bed.
In my dreams, I was strolling down the riverbank, the crash of the waterfall ahead of me. Yet it wasn’t like it was today, full of dead grass, black trees and foul smelling water. I could smell flowers in the air and my bare feet squished through the wet green grass. The water was clear, fish swimming around the mossy bottom, the waterfall spilling white foam down on the slick black rocks. Birds were chittering in the distance and the air was warm and pleasant. I felt totally at ease.
I could hear a soft singing beneath the roar of the water.
On the other side of the river, lying in a bed of yellow daisies was a figure, the sun shining off his peachy skin, reflecting in his black hair. The huge hazel eyes opened, the light throwing it into a kaleidoscope of green, brown, gold and amber.
I put my foot into the warm water of the river. I was going to join him. I took off my shirt and dropped my pants, the fabric being swept away down the stream. If only that bird in the tree would stop chirping like that. As I swam naked towards the other end of the river, I realized it wasn’t a bird. It was an alarm and I was lying in my bed.
I gasped staring at my bedroom ceiling. At first I felt annoyed at being woken before the good stuff happened. Then I felt slightly in shock with myself. I’d had naughty dreams about girls when I was in high school. I wasn’t that creative, I mainly dreamt about motor boating Mila Kunis and Angelina Jolie. I’d never had a sex dream about a man before.
As I got ready for work, the shock turned to guilt. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye as I arrived at the bookshop that morning. Maybe they’d look at my face and just know what I’d dreamed about the night before. In the break-room I tore open a muesli bar as Scott made himself his morning coffee. We still had a little while until the store opened
“I can’t believe it Devin,” Scott said to me, shaking his head. “I had my first ever wet dream over Inky…”
“Why Inky?” I asked.
“Cause he’s an incubus,” Scott replied with a shrug. “I posted about him on my twitter, you should bloody know! How dare you not follow me Judas.”
“I don’t have any of the twits and grams and books and snaps, you know that,” I replied.
“You like your social media as antisocial as possible,” he said.
“You know it,” I replied and we both laughed. He stared into my shifty eyes and then grinned.
“You had an Inky dream too!” he said. “Holy shit I bet everyone who saw him yesterday did. The laundrette’s gonna be full to the brim, everyone needs to wash their dirty sheets…”
“Classy,” I said. Kelly walked through the door, dumping her bag in one of the lockers.
“Nearly broke my finger last night thinking about Inky,” she said with a giggle.
“Thanks I didn’t want to eat anyway,” I said, putting down my muesli bar. Scott took a seat, settling in to watch us argue. He said our banter was what brought him to work every day. He never bothered even engaging with Kelly and sometimes I wished I could do the same.
“Don’t be such a prude!” she said to me as she got an apple from her bag. “You all wanked off to him as well, don’t even lie.”
Scott wrinkled up his nose at her.
“I don’t normally go for like sissy looking guys y’know, but he like did something to me, I dunno. I’d destroy him oh my god, I’d give him the fuck of his life. Where do you think he lives? Next time he’s here I should follow him home…”
“Yeah I think that’s called stalking,” I said. Scott muffled a laugh.
“Good point, don’t want to share a cell with your Dad do I?” Kelly replied.
“You don’t have to worry about that, I’m not sure if you know this but they actually have separate prisons for men and women? Unless you have a very well-kept secret of course.”
“They’re not gonna arrest me for following a guy home, that’s insane Devin, God,” Kelly snapped at once. “Like maybe if I was a creep like you, yeah but I’m a girl so…”
“Hurray for double standards,” I said.
“Fuck off,” she said. “You’re just mad that I have the balls to ask someone out or at least take them into my car and fuck their brains out. You see a pretty girl you just hide in here like you always do. I mean when’s the last time you actually went on a date?”
“Oh yes, yes we’re all just burning with jealousy over you, Kelly,” I said trying to hide the fact that her remark had actually stung a bit.
“Ignore the question then,” Kelly said, looking rather pleased with herself. She didn’t often win our verbal spats. She quickly hurried from the room before I could possibly get another word in.
“Poor form, Devin,” said Scott. “I hope you’re not losing your touch, I’ll quit if you and Kelly stop having your fights. It’s like Tyrion versus Cersei.”
“C’mon you flatter me too much, I’m no way near as cool as Tyrion,” I said.
“But Kelly’s as bad as Cersei then?” said Scott. I just shrugged and Scott laughed.
Later on I didn’t really feel like having lunch in the staff breakroom so I went outside to eat. It was good to get a bit of exercise and fresh air as I hiked up the hill towards the park. Like I said, in the past ten years the area had begun to recover slightly. Around the river and waterfall was still pretty disgusting but the bushlands that led that way had cleared, grass and flowers slowly beginning to bloom again. The tourists were still afraid to return so it was always quiet. I found it a nice place to sit by myself.
As I sat down on the bench and opened my container of left-over ozzo bucco, I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. I could hear a soft voice gently singing out a song. Turning around I saw sitting cross-legged in a flowerbed the man from yesterday. A stray cat that would always hiss and claw if you came near it, was curled up in his lap and he was scratching it behind the ears. I boggled at him and he looked up. When he caught eyes with me, I felt myself flush and my heart flutter. His shoulders went up under his ears, his body stiffened and a look of fear crossed his face. He was scared of me.
I watched as he carefully put the cat down, who meowed unhappily at him. He walked as fast as he could in the direction of the waterfall, disappearing around a corner.
People started to see him every day. He’d be staring up at the mural in the carpark behind the main street, or sitting on a bench with the stray cat in his lap, or in the park admiring the flowers. I didn’t approach him, but many others tried. He’d always get up and scarper off the second he saw someone coming near. Every time he’d run in the direction of the waterfall.
About a week after we’d first spotted Inky, I went to the mailbox in the morning to find I’d gotten a letter from my Dad. I put it in my jacket pocket and forgot about it for the rest of the day.
I went to the bar that night. The bookstore staff often caught up for drinks Fridays and Saturdays. Ray and Kelly were making a ruckus in the front room. Ray was even more annoying than usual as Kelly giggled at his every word, perched on his knee.
“Why don’t we have the fuckin’ footy playin’ c’mon this is bullshit…!” he was yelling at the bartender.
“Go to the pub if you’re so mad, man…?” the bartender tried to say.
“No, no, don’t goddamn brush me off why can’t you have it here huh? This whole place with ya fruity fuckin’ drinks and entrees, fuckin’ hire me, I’ll put in a stripper pole, topless waitresses, run this place properly.”
He groped at Kelly’s tits.
“I already got my first employee right here!”
“Oh my god, I’m not being a stripper what the fuck!” Kelly laughed as she spilled her cocktail down her front. The bartender rolled his eyes, turning away from them to serve me. The one thing me and Kelly had in common that got me a lot of mockery was our taste in booze. I ordered a cosmopolitan as Ray sneered at me.
“Take me out back and shoot me if I ever drink one of them willingly,” he said as he took a swig of his pint of beer.
“Wow willingly that’s a big word for you isn’t it, three entire syllables!” I replied, taking my drink. Ray’s eyes flashed dangerously and he tried to rise out of his seat, obviously forgetting he still had Kelly in his lap. She shrieked, throwing her arms around his neck, spilling the rest of her drink down his back. Ray swore at the top of his lungs.
"That's it, you're out of here, the pair of youse…!” the bartender snapped as I slunk towards the smoking area. It was an ugly cement area next to the bins. I wasn’t a smoker but I preferred sitting back here. It was where I found the best conversation. There was a few people gathered around and I had a quick glance to see if there were any mates about. I spotted Morgan and Cress sitting on milk crates, having a smoke. I went to them, pulling over a keg to sit on.
“Drinking your fruit juice again?” Morgan said as I sat down.
“Oi this has a mad high alcohol content compared to your watered down wheat runoff,” I said.
“Is that a scientific term, mad high?” said Morgan.
“You know it,” I said. “Your alcohol content is classified as piss poor.”
Morgan laughed. I turned to Cress who was staring up at the night sky.
“You got Aunt Noelle all in a tizzy over her Esky store,” I said and Cress blinked slowly and then laughed.
“Sorry, I had a cheeky joint before I got here I don’t know up from down,” she said, shaking her head. “I been thinking about Inky.”
“Haven’t we all,” I said as Morgan shifted uncomfortably on the spot.
“God that was bizarre,” Morgan said. “I’ve been a dead set lesbo my whole life and Inky walks in and makes me question everything. How does someone fuck with everyone’s sexuality all at once? You notice Ray trying to act as hetero as possible out front? Poor fucker’s rattled as all hell just like all of us.”
Cress waved her hand around dismissively at this.
“Naw I wasn’t no rattlesnake,” said Cress. “See, when he walked past my storefront I got the nerves at first but then I saw everyone else got hit, realized it was just a love spell and it didn’t mean nothing y’know.”
“Scott reckons he’s an incubus,” I said and Cress snorted, rolling her eyes.
“Bullshit,” she said. “Scott don’t know nothing.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Listen,” said Cress clicking her fingers. “I run the spiritual shop, I know my shit. Incubus? Nah man, nah way. He can’t be an incubus, he’s not done any seducin’, he goes and scrams the minute any of us see 'im. And the dreams don’t fit the description either. If a cubi can’t seduce you in the real world, they go into your dreams, screw you silly and leave you exhausted and drained of all your energy, they steal your bread batter and put buns in ovens. I asked around, no-one’s had any dreams where he took their bread batter or took ‘em to pound town. No takin’ bread batter, no puttin’ buns in oven, no seducin’. He ain’t no incubus. Unless he stole your batter, Devin?”
I muffled laughter as she took a puff from her cigarette to recover from her rant.
“Nah he didn’t steal my bread batter, Cress,” I said as Morgan bit back a smirk.
“Anyway,” said Morgan. “I thought the whole incubus and succubus myth was just people not understanding sleep paralysis.”
“Boo,” said Cress at once, elbowing her.
“Yeah fuck your rational scientific explanation,” I piped in.
Morgan put her hands up in defeat.
“Deepest apologies,” she said. “I’m gonna get another drink, youse want anything?”
I shook my head no as Cress got up as well.
The couple walked out of the smoking area leaving me alone. It was chilly out and I tucked my hands into my jacket pocket. There was a rustle and I realized I’d forgotten to read Dad’s letter. I took out the wrinkled papers. I blinked. There were about half a dozen grey-lead pencil drawings inside, along with a scrawled letter.
I went through the pictures, feeling cold fingers of unease tickling up my spine. The first drawing was of an alleyway and bins. There was a figure crouched down with a few cats around them, tickling one under the chin. He had familiar dark, soft looking hair and sweet innocent eyes. It was Inky.
The next picture was of Inky curled up naked in the grass. His face was contorted and black liquid was dribbling from his eyes, nose and mouth. The third picture was of the figure now dressed in a baggy plaid shirt and jeans, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face away. The fourth was nearly the same except Inky was looking up, staring from the paper with tear-filled eyes. The fifth picture was the back of a car with four figures tied up together with burlap sacks over their heads squashed up beside each other.
The final picture was of a forest scene. There was a stake in the ground and a fat, middle-aged man was skewered on it, the stake impaling him through his anus, the pointed end sticking out of his mouth. Above him in the trees was another man, younger with a shaggy beard and hair. His abdomen was torn open and he was hanging from the branches by his intestines. A third man was lying in the soil, his hands chained to a tree trunk, his body smeared with a sticky looking substance. I couldn’t make out his features as his flesh were crawling with ants and flies that were eating him alive. I could see in the far distance, the familiar figure of Inky, looking over the scene with his mouth hanging open, his miserable face dripping with black liquid.
At the bottom of each drawing was my Dad’s scrawled signature.
“What’s that you’re reading?” said Morgan as she walked back outside. “Cress’s abandoned me to dance, you’re left with my wonderful company now.”
I didn’t answer and her cheerful look changed to confusion.
“You alright mate?” she said as she sat down beside her. I gave her the pictures with shaking hands. She looked over them one by one, the colour slowly draining from her face, her eyes boggling wider and wider until they looked the size of ping-pong balls.
“You’re dad drew these?” she whispered. I nodded, my whole body feeling numb. Her eyes flicked over to the letter I was still holding.
“What’s it say?” she said and I looked down at the messy scrawl. I offered it to her so we could both read. She frowned, shaking her head.
“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t make head or tails of that.”
I’d forgotten that most people couldn’t read my dad’s chicken scratch writing and bad spelling. I started to read it for her, my voice trembling.
“Dear Devin,” I said. “They’re letting me send you these cause it ain’t new information, I already told the cops all about this when I was arrested. They didn’t believe half of it but I swear it’s fucking true. I know about that man you were talking about. I never thought I’d hear about him again. I could barely believe it when you told me. Let me tell you everything.”
“In the 60s I worked as a handyman at a hotel in town. It was a fancy art hotel, had all these paintings on the wall. I was there to fix elevators and phones and TVs and all that shit.”
“Look I’ve been in jail for bloody decades surrounded by men twenty-four seven and I ain’t never been tempted to do anything with any of them. Never had a problem with blokes who swing that way either, it just ain’t for me. I always thought I was straight as an arrow but there was one exception what made me question meself. The fella what visited the hotel every time we changed the art on the walls who’d come down and admire it for hours, who I saw feeding the strays out in the alleyway. I was bloody besotted. Frightened me it did, didn’t know what the hell was happening to me.”
“Everyone in the hotel loved him too. He never booked a room for himself and didn’t speak a word so we didn’t know his name. Everyone called him Baby. I tended to just avoid Baby if he came into the hotel, didn’t want to confront these bloody feelings y’know it wasn’t like today, you could get arrested, put in the loony bin, your reputation ruined for liking blokes.”
"Now I knew one of the concierges was dodgy, we all did. He could get a guest anything they wanted for a bit of extra cash. I didn’t stick my nose in, cause I didn’t think it was too serious. He’d just get the drugs and hookers to the guests and all that. I started hearing rumours he was getting worse. Starting to send drugged up women to rooms, children for creeps. But he kept his tracks squeaky clean and there wasn’t any evidence he’d done a thing wrong. He looked like such a little harmless punk I didn’t believe he’d get into that really evil business. I just thought naw it’s gossip is all.”
“One day I was fixing the fridge in a room belonging to these three business men when I heard whispering. I didn’t know what it meant and was too focused to really pay it much attention. All I heard was “help us get him to our room and you can join in.”’
“I wished I’d paid proper attention, enough to fuckin’ stop them. But I didn’t. All hell broke loose that night. The concierge came back from his dinner break as cool as a cucumber and then five minutes later the hotel collapsed.”
“The marble staircase cracked right down the middle. All the paintings fell off the walls, all the windows and chandeliers shattered and the ceiling caved in. I was running for the front entrance when I saw this huge river of black oil flooding down the broken staircase. It was making this awful sound, like a widow at a funeral. I’d never heard something so heartbroken in my life. It crashed out onto the street and swept off and away. We were lucky to be in an off-season so no-one died, but quite a few were injured.”
“I followed the black stain all the way through town and up into the woods. That’s where I found Baby, curled up and naked. He was absolutely traumatized, wouldn’t speak a word to me, oozing black oil from his mouth. I stayed with him. Wouldn’t go near enough to touch him cause I’d figured out what the men had done and knew he wouldn’t want another bloke to lay a finger on him. But I gave him a new set of clothes, gave him food and drink, kept guard as he slept and said comforting things when he woke up from nightmares. I took care of him.”
“He didn’t get better. The nightmares got worse, he couldn’t keep food down. He was wasting away and the woods were just rotting to bits around him. The trees trunks were full of maggots and the ground was this stinking mud and all the fish in the river floated up dead to the surface. I felt furious at these fucking mongrels who done it to him. So then well, you know what I did to them don’t ya?”
“I was fucking nuts, I thought, look what I did for you, this will make you feel better. The look on Baby’s face. He was crying, turning away to vomit up the black oil. I tried to go to him and he cowered like a kicked dog. Terrified, he was terrified of me. Baby ran into the woods and I never saw him again. But I heard him crying that widow’s wail, echoing all through the forest. I wanted to die. I wanted to throw myself into the river and drown. I’d buried the concierge alive but he managed to dig himself out and run to the cops. I didn’t resist. I let them arrest me, convict me and put me away.”
“Funnily enough the concierge is in here with me now. Years after I was convicted, the law caught up with him. In here for a fuckload of fucked up shit. They keep us separated though, obviously scared I’m gonna try to kill him again. Little weaselly scumbag.”
“But I loved my Baby with all my heart and soul. I still do. I pray he’ll forgive me. But I know he never will. I can’t forgive myself either. The only good thing that’s come out of all of this is having you, Devin. If not for you I think I would have hung meself years ago. ”
“So that’s it I guess. I couldn’t tell you this all in a visit or a phone call, you understand. Had to write it down. Love ya kiddo. From your psycho bastard Dad.”
I put the letter down and Morgan and I just stared at each other. The other people in the smoking area seemed far away, the world just focused in on just me, Morgan and the letter in my hands.
“But he’s back,” I said in a croaky voice. “Dad said it was the 60s? Baby, Inky whatever it is, still looks like he’s in his mid to late twenties? How’s that possible?”
“Obviously he’s not human,” Morgan muttered back, looking completely dazed. “I don’t know what the hell he is.”
We became aware of a lot of excited whispering among the smoker’s area. People were getting up to run off into the front room. Morgan and I exchanged looks and got up to follow the crowd. Groups of people were gathered around the windows and front door, peering out into the street.
“What’s happening?” I asked Cress, who was spinning a pen on the countertop.
“Inky sighting,” she replied with a shrug. I saw across the road, the slender shape wandering down the pavement, looking around himself with his usual slightly sleepy expression. A big sigh went through the people in the building, people smiling sappily, their clasped hands beneath the chins.
“Such an angel…” someone said.
We all watched as he turned the corner. He was heading for the mural in the carpark again. When he was out of eyesight, the admiring onlookers dispersed, going back to the bar or trickling into the smoker’s area again. Morgan and I hovered by the door. In the distance, I could hear a faint yelling.
“I saw him, I saw that little fairy, he was just here a second ago!” Ray’s voice rang out down the road. “I just wanna talk to him, I just wanna fuckin’ talk!”
Kelly, laughing with a bottle in one hand and her shoes in the other was staggering a few paces behind him.
“You’re crazy!” she kept saying, zigzagging down the pavement. “You’re crazy Ray!”
They went around the corner in the direction of the carpark.
“Cress we gotta go,” Morgan said at once.
“Why what’s going on?” Cress replied, looking up from her pen spinning.
“You explain,” I said to Morgan, shoving the letter and drawings into her hand. “I’ll go.”
I raced down into the cold, dark street, my breath heavy, my heart in my chest. I remembered the pictures of Inky curled up naked, crying with oil spilling down his face. The back seat full of the tied up, hooded men. I imagined the scream as the downfall of black oil exploded over the white marble of the hotel staircase.
The mural was lit by a golden streetlight, taking up an entire wall, depicting the waterfall back before it had been polluted. It had bright, glittering blue water, surrounded by a rainbow of flowers and wild deer pranced through the emerald green of the riverbank.
Inky had his fingertips just grazing the painting as he slowly looked it over. His face was slightly furrowed as he stroked the painted brick.
“Fuckin’ poof!” yelled Ray, staggering across the carpark. “I bet ya wanna fuckin’ suck me off don’t ya you little fuckin’…”
Then he fell over sideways into the bushes, crumpling to the ground. He struggled to get to his feet, swearing and thrashing about like an upended turtle. Then he just gave up, curling up in the fetal position in the bushes, sticking his thumb in his mouth. In five seconds he was fast asleep and snoring.
Kelly had completely forgotten about Ray as she swayed over towards Inky.
“I’m just gonna smack his arse is all,” Kelly slurred into her drink. “I wanna grab it so bad. Maybe grab his dick too. Look he’s a skinny little thing, not like he’s gonna push me off, is he? And look he’s a man, all men want it. I’m gonna make Inky’s goddamn night.”
I barged towards her, getting in her way and she instantly pushed my chest trying to get around me.
“For fuck’s sake,” I said. “Kelly have you lost your mind? Jesus.”
I grabbed her by the shoulder and for a second a dark urge stirred in my chest. I wanted to grab her by the hair and smash her stupid face into the brick wall. Smash it until the brains leaked out. Grab the bottle and break it over her head.
“Get off me, just chill, just fuckin’ chill,” she said, fighting against my grip. “You’re insane! Let me go!”
I could do it. I could pull out a chunk of her hair, gouge my fingers into her eyes until they bled, stab my keys into her ear and rupture the eardrum. I could feel my breath heavy in my chest and Kelly looked into my eyes. She stopped struggling and just went still. The bottle smashed to the ground beneath us. I saw the terror in her face, heard the tiny whimper in her throat.
There was a sound behind me. It was a low, long and agonized moan of utter misery and fear.
My hand dangled down by my side.
“Just go home alright,” I managed to say. “Just sleep it off.”
Kelly nodded, tears streaming down her face. Over at the bushes, Morgan and Cress were helping Ray to his feet as he muttered about how he wanted to be the meat in their lesbian sandwich.
“Alrighty girlie,” Cress called to Kelly. “You come with us now, we walk ya drunk mess home.”
Sending a fearful look over her shoulder at me, Kelly nearly ran towards them. Morgan sent me a stiff nod as the four of them started heading down the street together, leaving me behind. Feeling like I was underwater in an ice cold pool, I slowly turned around.
The creature was standing stock still in the middle of the carpark. His hands were shaking and his eyes were filled with black liquid. I could see an oily black trail seeping from the corner of his mouth down his chin. But he wasn’t wailing anymore.
I felt the shame twist my insides. I’d helped to terrify him into that state. My skin felt cold and I was trembling all over. Would I have really done it? If I hadn’t had heard the crying, what would I have done to Kelly?
I brushed my own tears from my eyes and turned to puke up into the nearest bush. The acid burned my throat, my body cramped and my stomach heaved as I retched endlessly. It seemed like hours had passed when I’d manage to throw everything up. I wiped my mouth on the back on my hand and staggered to my feet again. Turning around to look behind me, I saw the creature had gone.
Kelly called in sick for the next few days. No-one saw Inky either. He’d gone back into hiding it seemed. Finally around Thursday, while I was eating breakfast in the break-room, Kelly slunk through the door. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she silently put her bag away.
“Hey,” Kelly murmured. “Thanks for the other night. I nearly did something really stupid.”
“Yeah you did,” I responded at once. I knew she was trying to extend an olive branch to me but being sarcastic to her was just second nature. Kelly cast her eyes down and didn’t answer. Then she silently nodded in agreement and hurried out of the break-room again. I went back to my bowl of muesli.
“Look Devin,” Scott said when he came in, showing me his phone. “Apparently the waterfall is cleaner then it’s been since the oil spill. Everyone’s in goddamn shock, it’s mending so fast out of absolutely nowhere.”
He smiled, shaking his head.
“And all the wild deer have come back too.”

It felt like the whole world stopped when he walked into our bookstore. All the customers turned from browsing the shelves, paying for their purchases, sipping their coffees at the Bookshop Café. The barista boggled behind the coffee machine, the cashier stared with their scanner still in hand.
“Oh my god,” Scott, my co-worker at the information desk whispered, dropping a bunch of books to the counter.
I was immediately blindsided by the person, hit with a dizzying feelings of love. I wanted to protect him, stroke his soft black hair, wrap him up in my arms. I wanted to kiss him all over his lovely face. If anyone else touched them, I might just go insane, I might just rip them to shreds with my bare hands. I didn’t want him to leave, I wanted to stay in his presence forever.
He wandered over to the colouring books. He flicked through them, with a slight smile as his fingers danced across the pages. Then he looked over at the racks full of arty postcards. He picked up a Starry Night one and gazed at it with his sleepy looking doe eyes. Everyone watched him in silence. Then he looked up, noticing the stares. Immediately, he put the book and the postcard back down and strode as fast as he could out of the store again. He’d only been there for a minute but it had felt like hours. As the door shut behind him, it felt like the whole building released the breath it was holding.
I staggered away from the counter and hid in the staff breakroom. As soon as he’d left I felt like a wave of depression hit me. I needed to see him again, right now, now, now. What was happening to me? I mean, I was pretty damn sure I was straight. I’d never had feelings for another man before. This didn’t feel like a normal crush either. This felt like I’d been injected with a hit of love potion straight into my bloodstream. I was coated in sweat and I felt almost feverish. Wrenching the freezer open, I stuck my head in, feeling the cold air cool me down.
Just relax, just relax, I told myself. So you’ve had your first man-crush. There’s no need to freak the fuck out about it.
I slowly breathed in and then out before removing my head from the freezer. I just had to get back to my work routine and I’d feel better. I checked the fridge, finding we were out of milk. That would be a good distraction. Leaving the staff room, I went through the book shelves towards the café that adjoined the shop. Most of the women I passed had dreamy looks on their faces and a lot of the men appeared just as shaken and confused as me, sitting down, staring into their hands like they were going through a personal crisis. Passing the cashier, Morgan, I saw she had the same disturbed look on her face as most of the male customers.
I entered the café. At the front table by the counter was Ray, the delivery guy who brought the books in and took orders off to customers. He spent every lunch break in the café flirting with the barista Kelly. I didn’t get along with either of them. Ray was a frat boy douche and Kelly was just as obnoxious. So in other words, they were perfect for each other.
Ray’s fists were clenched, jaw set, staring down into his cup of coffee like it had called his mother a bitch. Kelly was standing next to the toaster oven with a slightly dazed look on her face.
“Hi,” I said and they both jumped. “We’ve run out of milk, just grabbing some.”
“I was miles away,” said Kelly, as I went behind the counter. “God, did you see that guy? He’s not even my type…”
“I don’t think you’re his type either,” Ray cut in and we both looked around at him. “I mean, what guy flounces around like that, looked like he had mascara on the fuckin’ fairy.”
He crossed his arms across his chest. His eyes were simmering with a mixture of discomfort and anger.
“Wow, did we just go back in time twenty years?” I said. “Maybe we should take him to a conversion camp where he belongs huh?”
“He was just joking, Devin, chill,” Kelly snapped at once.
“Oh yes, he’s really just a fountain of wit, the biggest wit I’ve ever met,” I replied as I grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and went to walk off.
“You shouldn’t speak to paying customers like that, I could report you!” Ray yelled after me.
As I went into the break room to put the milk away, I found Scott sitting at the table looking wide eyed and extremely agitated.
“You don’t understand, something’s wrong,” he whispered to me as I put the milk in the fridge. “Devin, I’ve never ever had romantic or sexual feelings for anyone in my life. I just spoke to Morgan and she’s really goddamned dazed and confused as well, she liked him too!”
“Morgan has a girlfriend?” I said and Scott nodded.
“Why is some stranger getting everyone, everyone no matter if they’re a straight man, gay woman, asexual person, why is he getting them all to fall in love with him? Something’s not fucking right here.”
“What, you think he’s an incubus or something?” I said, raising my eyebrow. Scott threw his hands up.
“Maybe?” he said. “I don’t care if I sound crazy, this whole situation is crazy!”
He took a deep breath, rubbing his arms like his skin was itching off his bones.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is just very unnatural for me. I don’t like it. I feel so goddamn uncomfortable right now.”
The phone rang at the information desk and I left Scott to himself so he could settle down. The bookshop was beginning to calm but there was a confused buzzing energy in the air, everyone exchanging looks with each other, or whispering behind their hands. It was like that for the rest of the shift.
When it was time to leave, I bought a carton of orange and poppy seed muffins from Kelly before I headed to my car. I live in a dying tourist town. Back in the good old days, we had hundreds of visitors to our national park to admire the beautiful waterfall, surrounding bushlands and wildlife. But two huge disasters had happened that had scared away all tourists. An oil spill had turned the waterfall into a disgusting black sludge, rotted the grass and trees and killed animals left and right. It had been left a disgusting wasteland for years and just recently had it slowly begun to heal again.
No-one ever owned up to causing the oil spill either. We had no idea who was responsible. There was an infamous image attached to our town, a picture from the papers of a bunch of dead deer and birds by the river that was floating with dead fish.
I drove out of the main street and up the hill past the ruins of the national park, until I reached my Aunt Noelle’s big old country house next to the school. I still lived with her even though I had money to move out. She’d been laid off from her job as a primary school teacher for bullshit reasons. The new principal had said she was ‘going dotty’ even though Aunt Noelle had always been eccentric. She couldn’t afford for me to move out and I owed it to her to stay and help out with the bills.
When I pulled into the driveway, my Aunt looked up from the kitchen window. She waved as I got out of the car.
“I brought those muffins you like,” I said as I walked in.
“Oh lordy, lordy I’m a lucky duck today,” said Aunt Noelle as she wiped her hands on the dishtowel, turning away from the sink. “I don’t have to cook at all tonight! Philippa came over with this odd little stew thingy-ma-jig called Ozza Bucka.”
“Osso Bucco,” I corrected her. Aunt Noelle was the type who thought black pepper was spicy, but she was still interested in trying all these ‘wild’ food like brie cheese and sundried tomatoes.
“Yes that’s the one, it looks very peculiar, but I’m sure we’ll enjoy it!” said Aunt Noelle. “So Phillipa’s daughter Cressida, y’know Cressida who’s with that cashier Morgan at your work, well she was right all along, I did sell a few nice dresses and scarves on the Esky store online!”
“Etsy?” I said as I sat down at the table. She busied around making me a cup of hot chocolate.
“Yes, yes that’s the one,” she said. “Cressida does all the fancy webwork and she sends them all over the world can you believe! My little ol’ dresses might be worn in Korea or Denmark or New Zealand or anywhere!”
“That’s awesome,” I said. She nodded with excitement. Although she was loving and affectionate, Aunt Noelle was incredibly self-centred never interested in anyone else’s life but her own. I didn’t mind though, I liked that she never pried into my business.
Later that night we were watching recorded tapes of 80s soap operas, that I secretly enjoyed myself when my dad rang my phone. I got up to take the call.
“Do you want me to pause it?” yelled my Aunt as I went into my room.
“No thanks, I’ve already seen it a hundred times!” I yelled back.
“Days of Our Lives?” asked Dad teasingly.
“You know it,” I replied. “How’s it going in there?”
“Oh yeah just fuckin’ great,” he said. I heard one of the guards yell, “Watch your language, Angel!”
“Sorry, darlin’,” my dad murmured back and I laughed at the old joke.
“Cheers for the father’s day gift,” he said. “I got to hide it so the boys don’t nick it.”
“Why would any inmate want one of my paintings?” I asked.
“I dunno, wipe their arse with it,” he replied. “Everyone always wants whatever you have that they don’t. I could have a toothpick and ten blokes would wanna nick it. Ridiculous.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Anyway tell me about ya day at the bookshop,” he said. “That bitchy barista give ya grief?”
“No, it was kind of a weird day actually,” I said. “This man walked in and everyone fell in love with him at once. Even Scott who’s asexual, Morgan the cashier who’s a lesbian and me and that douchebag Ray and we’re both straight. Scott thinks he was an incubus or something.”
I expected a laugh from my dad. But there was a long silence instead. I stared down at my phone for a second, thinking I might have accidentally hung up on him.
“Hello?” I said. “You still there?”
There was a cough from the other line, a nasty smoker’s cough that I’d grown up with my whole life.
“What he look like?” he said in a gruff voice.
“Uhh,” I replied, confused at his strangely serious tone. “Black hair, big hazel eyes, y’know a pretty boy, like he’d be in a picture a teenage girl would pin up on her wall or something.”
Dad was quiet again. I heard a guard yell, “time’s up, Angel, move along.”
“Gotta go,” he muttered.
“Okay,” I replied, feeling more baffled than ever.
Normally a person like Aunt Noelle would be the craziest in someone’s family, but she was nothing compared to my parents. When someone says that their parents are crazy I just have to laugh. I don’t think anyone can compete with mine.
Oscar Angel or as he was known in the media, the Angel of Death had been in jail my whole life. I remember growing up and eavesdropping on Aunt Noelle and Philippa gossiping in the lounge room over tea and biscuits. Philippa had asked in a hushed whisper if I was a conjugal baby and I’d seen through the crack of the door my Aunt nod. My mother apparently had been one of these prisoner groupies, like the ones who wrote fan-mail to Bundy and Manson. My mum ran off on me leaving me with my Aunt when I was a baby. Like her sister, my mother was incredibly self-centred but she had no redeeming qualities to make up for it.
My father was the second disaster that had destroyed all tourist interest in our town. My Dad was in jail for kidnapping four men, taking them up into the bushland, letting them loose and then hunting them all down. There’d only been one survivor who told the cops. My dad had pleaded guilty and been put in jail for life. Kids at school taunted me for having a slasher villain for a dad. There’d actually been a few crappy horror films and true crime documentaries based on him and that was what drew the trickle of tourists to us nowadays, just people wanting to see the place where it had all happened. It was like being related to a celebrity in the worst kind of way. The interviews made me a fair bit of money though. I trolled the reporters, saying the spirits of the dead men haunted my nightmares, making my hands shake and my eye twitch. Dad told me he'd piss himself laughing when they played them on the TV in the rec room.
He sent me presents for my birthday, carved rocks and woodwork in the shapes of dragons. Aunt Noelle always took me to see him and I remember him picking me up as a toddler and twirling me around in a hug. I’d tell him I’d been doing well at school or showed him a drawing I’d done and he’d beam with pride. No-one ever lied to me or tried to soften the story. I’d always grown up knowing he was in jail cause he was a bad man who killed people. Yet I still loved him.
“What did your father say?” Aunt Noelle asked, peering excitedly into the room. I knew she wanted juicy titbits to whisper about with Philippa. It was one of the reasons she took me down to the prison as a kid, so she’d have a few days’ worth of gossip with everyone in town who’d listen.
“A man had to be taken to the nursing unit today,” I said. “He got stabbed with a toothpick.”
“Oh my good goodness,” said Aunt Noelle, clutching her chest. “Wait til I tell Philippa, she’ll kneel over, I swear!”
After a shower and Aunt Noelle’s chamomile tea, I bustled myself off to bed.
In my dreams, I was strolling down the riverbank, the crash of the waterfall ahead of me. Yet it wasn’t like it was today, full of dead grass, black trees and foul smelling water. I could smell flowers in the air and my bare feet squished through the wet green grass. The water was clear, fish swimming around the mossy bottom, the waterfall spilling white foam down on the slick black rocks. Birds were chittering in the distance and the air was warm and pleasant. I felt totally at ease.
I could hear a soft singing beneath the roar of the water.
On the other side of the river, lying in a bed of yellow daisies was a figure, the sun shining off his peachy skin, reflecting in his black hair. The huge hazel eyes opened, the light throwing it into a kaleidoscope of green, brown, gold and amber.
I put my foot into the warm water of the river. I was going to join him. I took off my shirt and dropped my pants, the fabric being swept away down the stream. If only that bird in the tree would stop chirping like that. As I swam naked towards the other end of the river, I realized it wasn’t a bird. It was an alarm and I was lying in my bed.
I gasped staring at my bedroom ceiling. At first I felt annoyed at being woken before the good stuff happened. Then I felt slightly in shock with myself. I’d had naughty dreams about girls when I was in high school. I wasn’t that creative, I mainly dreamt about motor boating Mila Kunis and Angelina Jolie. I’d never had a sex dream about a man before.
As I got ready for work, the shock turned to guilt. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye as I arrived at the bookshop that morning. Maybe they’d look at my face and just know what I’d dreamed about the night before. In the break-room I tore open a muesli bar as Scott made himself his morning coffee. We still had a little while until the store opened
“I can’t believe it Devin,” Scott said to me, shaking his head. “I had my first ever wet dream over Inky…”
“Why Inky?” I asked.
“Cause he’s an incubus,” Scott replied with a shrug. “I posted about him on my twitter, you should bloody know! How dare you not follow me Judas.”
“I don’t have any of the twits and grams and books and snaps, you know that,” I replied.
“You like your social media as antisocial as possible,” he said.
“You know it,” I replied and we both laughed. He stared into my shifty eyes and then grinned.
“You had an Inky dream too!” he said. “Holy shit I bet everyone who saw him yesterday did. The laundrette’s gonna be full to the brim, everyone needs to wash their dirty sheets…”
“Classy,” I said. Kelly walked through the door, dumping her bag in one of the lockers.
“Nearly broke my finger last night thinking about Inky,” she said with a giggle.
“Thanks I didn’t want to eat anyway,” I said, putting down my muesli bar. Scott took a seat, settling in to watch us argue. He said our banter was what brought him to work every day. He never bothered even engaging with Kelly and sometimes I wished I could do the same.
“Don’t be such a prude!” she said to me as she got an apple from her bag. “You all wanked off to him as well, don’t even lie.”
Scott wrinkled up his nose at her.
“I don’t normally go for like sissy looking guys y’know, but he like did something to me, I dunno. I’d destroy him oh my god, I’d give him the fuck of his life. Where do you think he lives? Next time he’s here I should follow him home…”
“Yeah I think that’s called stalking,” I said. Scott muffled a laugh.
“Good point, don’t want to share a cell with your Dad do I?” Kelly replied.
“You don’t have to worry about that, I’m not sure if you know this but they actually have separate prisons for men and women? Unless you have a very well-kept secret of course.”
“They’re not gonna arrest me for following a guy home, that’s insane Devin, God,” Kelly snapped at once. “Like maybe if I was a creep like you, yeah but I’m a girl so…”
“Hurray for double standards,” I said.
“Fuck off,” she said. “You’re just mad that I have the balls to ask someone out or at least take them into my car and fuck their brains out. You see a pretty girl you just hide in here like you always do. I mean when’s the last time you actually went on a date?”
“Oh yes, yes we’re all just burning with jealousy over you, Kelly,” I said trying to hide the fact that her remark had actually stung a bit.
“Ignore the question then,” Kelly said, looking rather pleased with herself. She didn’t often win our verbal spats. She quickly hurried from the room before I could possibly get another word in.
“Poor form, Devin,” said Scott. “I hope you’re not losing your touch, I’ll quit if you and Kelly stop having your fights. It’s like Tyrion versus Cersei.”
“C’mon you flatter me too much, I’m no way near as cool as Tyrion,” I said.
“But Kelly’s as bad as Cersei then?” said Scott. I just shrugged and Scott laughed.
Later on I didn’t really feel like having lunch in the staff breakroom so I went outside to eat. It was good to get a bit of exercise and fresh air as I hiked up the hill towards the park. Like I said, in the past ten years the area had begun to recover slightly. Around the river and waterfall was still pretty disgusting but the bushlands that led that way had cleared, grass and flowers slowly beginning to bloom again. The tourists were still afraid to return so it was always quiet. I found it a nice place to sit by myself.
As I sat down on the bench and opened my container of left-over ozzo bucco, I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. I could hear a soft voice gently singing out a song. Turning around I saw sitting cross-legged in a flowerbed the man from yesterday. A stray cat that would always hiss and claw if you came near it, was curled up in his lap and he was scratching it behind the ears. I boggled at him and he looked up. When he caught eyes with me, I felt myself flush and my heart flutter. His shoulders went up under his ears, his body stiffened and a look of fear crossed his face. He was scared of me.
I watched as he carefully put the cat down, who meowed unhappily at him. He walked as fast as he could in the direction of the waterfall, disappearing around a corner.
People started to see him every day. He’d be staring up at the mural in the carpark behind the main street, or sitting on a bench with the stray cat in his lap, or in the park admiring the flowers. I didn’t approach him, but many others tried. He’d always get up and scarper off the second he saw someone coming near. Every time he’d run in the direction of the waterfall.
About a week after we’d first spotted Inky, I went to the mailbox in the morning to find I’d gotten a letter from my Dad. I put it in my jacket pocket and forgot about it for the rest of the day.
I went to the bar that night. The bookstore staff often caught up for drinks Fridays and Saturdays. Ray and Kelly were making a ruckus in the front room. Ray was even more annoying than usual as Kelly giggled at his every word, perched on his knee.
“Why don’t we have the fuckin’ footy playin’ c’mon this is bullshit…!” he was yelling at the bartender.
“Go to the pub if you’re so mad, man…?” the bartender tried to say.
“No, no, don’t goddamn brush me off why can’t you have it here huh? This whole place with ya fruity fuckin’ drinks and entrees, fuckin’ hire me, I’ll put in a stripper pole, topless waitresses, run this place properly.”
He groped at Kelly’s tits.
“I already got my first employee right here!”
“Oh my god, I’m not being a stripper what the fuck!” Kelly laughed as she spilled her cocktail down her front. The bartender rolled his eyes, turning away from them to serve me. The one thing me and Kelly had in common that got me a lot of mockery was our taste in booze. I ordered a cosmopolitan as Ray sneered at me.
“Take me out back and shoot me if I ever drink one of them willingly,” he said as he took a swig of his pint of beer.
“Wow willingly that’s a big word for you isn’t it, three entire syllables!” I replied, taking my drink. Ray’s eyes flashed dangerously and he tried to rise out of his seat, obviously forgetting he still had Kelly in his lap. She shrieked, throwing her arms around his neck, spilling the rest of her drink down his back. Ray swore at the top of his lungs.
"That's it, you're out of here, the pair of youse…!” the bartender snapped as I slunk towards the smoking area. It was an ugly cement area next to the bins. I wasn’t a smoker but I preferred sitting back here. It was where I found the best conversation. There was a few people gathered around and I had a quick glance to see if there were any mates about. I spotted Morgan and Cress sitting on milk crates, having a smoke. I went to them, pulling over a keg to sit on.
“Drinking your fruit juice again?” Morgan said as I sat down.
“Oi this has a mad high alcohol content compared to your watered down wheat runoff,” I said.
“Is that a scientific term, mad high?” said Morgan.
“You know it,” I said. “Your alcohol content is classified as piss poor.”
Morgan laughed. I turned to Cress who was staring up at the night sky.
“You got Aunt Noelle all in a tizzy over her Esky store,” I said and Cress blinked slowly and then laughed.
“Sorry, I had a cheeky joint before I got here I don’t know up from down,” she said, shaking her head. “I been thinking about Inky.”
“Haven’t we all,” I said as Morgan shifted uncomfortably on the spot.
“God that was bizarre,” Morgan said. “I’ve been a dead set lesbo my whole life and Inky walks in and makes me question everything. How does someone fuck with everyone’s sexuality all at once? You notice Ray trying to act as hetero as possible out front? Poor fucker’s rattled as all hell just like all of us.”
Cress waved her hand around dismissively at this.
“Naw I wasn’t no rattlesnake,” said Cress. “See, when he walked past my storefront I got the nerves at first but then I saw everyone else got hit, realized it was just a love spell and it didn’t mean nothing y’know.”
“Scott reckons he’s an incubus,” I said and Cress snorted, rolling her eyes.
“Bullshit,” she said. “Scott don’t know nothing.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Listen,” said Cress clicking her fingers. “I run the spiritual shop, I know my shit. Incubus? Nah man, nah way. He can’t be an incubus, he’s not done any seducin’, he goes and scrams the minute any of us see 'im. And the dreams don’t fit the description either. If a cubi can’t seduce you in the real world, they go into your dreams, screw you silly and leave you exhausted and drained of all your energy, they steal your bread batter and put buns in ovens. I asked around, no-one’s had any dreams where he took their bread batter or took ‘em to pound town. No takin’ bread batter, no puttin’ buns in oven, no seducin’. He ain’t no incubus. Unless he stole your batter, Devin?”
I muffled laughter as she took a puff from her cigarette to recover from her rant.
“Nah he didn’t steal my bread batter, Cress,” I said as Morgan bit back a smirk.
“Anyway,” said Morgan. “I thought the whole incubus and succubus myth was just people not understanding sleep paralysis.”
“Boo,” said Cress at once, elbowing her.
“Yeah fuck your rational scientific explanation,” I piped in.
Morgan put her hands up in defeat.
“Deepest apologies,” she said. “I’m gonna get another drink, youse want anything?”
I shook my head no as Cress got up as well.
The couple walked out of the smoking area leaving me alone. It was chilly out and I tucked my hands into my jacket pocket. There was a rustle and I realized I’d forgotten to read Dad’s letter. I took out the wrinkled papers. I blinked. There were about half a dozen grey-lead pencil drawings inside, along with a scrawled letter.
I went through the pictures, feeling cold fingers of unease tickling up my spine. The first drawing was of an alleyway and bins. There was a figure crouched down with a few cats around them, tickling one under the chin. He had familiar dark, soft looking hair and sweet innocent eyes. It was Inky.
The next picture was of Inky curled up naked in the grass. His face was contorted and black liquid was dribbling from his eyes, nose and mouth. The third picture was of the figure now dressed in a baggy plaid shirt and jeans, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face away. The fourth was nearly the same except Inky was looking up, staring from the paper with tear-filled eyes. The fifth picture was the back of a car with four figures tied up together with burlap sacks over their heads squashed up beside each other.
The final picture was of a forest scene. There was a stake in the ground and a fat, middle-aged man was skewered on it, the stake impaling him through his anus, the pointed end sticking out of his mouth. Above him in the trees was another man, younger with a shaggy beard and hair. His abdomen was torn open and he was hanging from the branches by his intestines. A third man was lying in the soil, his hands chained to a tree trunk, his body smeared with a sticky looking substance. I couldn’t make out his features as his flesh were crawling with ants and flies that were eating him alive. I could see in the far distance, the familiar figure of Inky, looking over the scene with his mouth hanging open, his miserable face dripping with black liquid.
At the bottom of each drawing was my Dad’s scrawled signature.
“What’s that you’re reading?” said Morgan as she walked back outside. “Cress’s abandoned me to dance, you’re left with my wonderful company now.”
I didn’t answer and her cheerful look changed to confusion.
“You alright mate?” she said as she sat down beside her. I gave her the pictures with shaking hands. She looked over them one by one, the colour slowly draining from her face, her eyes boggling wider and wider until they looked the size of ping-pong balls.
“You’re dad drew these?” she whispered. I nodded, my whole body feeling numb. Her eyes flicked over to the letter I was still holding.
“What’s it say?” she said and I looked down at the messy scrawl. I offered it to her so we could both read. She frowned, shaking her head.
“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t make head or tails of that.”
I’d forgotten that most people couldn’t read my dad’s chicken scratch writing and bad spelling. I started to read it for her, my voice trembling.
“Dear Devin,” I said. “They’re letting me send you these cause it ain’t new information, I already told the cops all about this when I was arrested. They didn’t believe half of it but I swear it’s fucking true. I know about that man you were talking about. I never thought I’d hear about him again. I could barely believe it when you told me. Let me tell you everything.”
“In the 60s I worked as a handyman at a hotel in town. It was a fancy art hotel, had all these paintings on the wall. I was there to fix elevators and phones and TVs and all that shit.”
“Look I’ve been in jail for bloody decades surrounded by men twenty-four seven and I ain’t never been tempted to do anything with any of them. Never had a problem with blokes who swing that way either, it just ain’t for me. I always thought I was straight as an arrow but there was one exception what made me question meself. The fella what visited the hotel every time we changed the art on the walls who’d come down and admire it for hours, who I saw feeding the strays out in the alleyway. I was bloody besotted. Frightened me it did, didn’t know what the hell was happening to me.”
“Everyone in the hotel loved him too. He never booked a room for himself and didn’t speak a word so we didn’t know his name. Everyone called him Baby. I tended to just avoid Baby if he came into the hotel, didn’t want to confront these bloody feelings y’know it wasn’t like today, you could get arrested, put in the loony bin, your reputation ruined for liking blokes.”
"Now I knew one of the concierges was dodgy, we all did. He could get a guest anything they wanted for a bit of extra cash. I didn’t stick my nose in, cause I didn’t think it was too serious. He’d just get the drugs and hookers to the guests and all that. I started hearing rumours he was getting worse. Starting to send drugged up women to rooms, children for creeps. But he kept his tracks squeaky clean and there wasn’t any evidence he’d done a thing wrong. He looked like such a little harmless punk I didn’t believe he’d get into that really evil business. I just thought naw it’s gossip is all.”
“One day I was fixing the fridge in a room belonging to these three business men when I heard whispering. I didn’t know what it meant and was too focused to really pay it much attention. All I heard was “help us get him to our room and you can join in.”’
“I wished I’d paid proper attention, enough to fuckin’ stop them. But I didn’t. All hell broke loose that night. The concierge came back from his dinner break as cool as a cucumber and then five minutes later the hotel collapsed.”
“The marble staircase cracked right down the middle. All the paintings fell off the walls, all the windows and chandeliers shattered and the ceiling caved in. I was running for the front entrance when I saw this huge river of black oil flooding down the broken staircase. It was making this awful sound, like a widow at a funeral. I’d never heard something so heartbroken in my life. It crashed out onto the street and swept off and away. We were lucky to be in an off-season so no-one died, but quite a few were injured.”
“I followed the black stain all the way through town and up into the woods. That’s where I found Baby, curled up and naked. He was absolutely traumatized, wouldn’t speak a word to me, oozing black oil from his mouth. I stayed with him. Wouldn’t go near enough to touch him cause I’d figured out what the men had done and knew he wouldn’t want another bloke to lay a finger on him. But I gave him a new set of clothes, gave him food and drink, kept guard as he slept and said comforting things when he woke up from nightmares. I took care of him.”
“He didn’t get better. The nightmares got worse, he couldn’t keep food down. He was wasting away and the woods were just rotting to bits around him. The trees trunks were full of maggots and the ground was this stinking mud and all the fish in the river floated up dead to the surface. I felt furious at these fucking mongrels who done it to him. So then well, you know what I did to them don’t ya?”
“I was fucking nuts, I thought, look what I did for you, this will make you feel better. The look on Baby’s face. He was crying, turning away to vomit up the black oil. I tried to go to him and he cowered like a kicked dog. Terrified, he was terrified of me. Baby ran into the woods and I never saw him again. But I heard him crying that widow’s wail, echoing all through the forest. I wanted to die. I wanted to throw myself into the river and drown. I’d buried the concierge alive but he managed to dig himself out and run to the cops. I didn’t resist. I let them arrest me, convict me and put me away.”
“Funnily enough the concierge is in here with me now. Years after I was convicted, the law caught up with him. In here for a fuckload of fucked up shit. They keep us separated though, obviously scared I’m gonna try to kill him again. Little weaselly scumbag.”
“But I loved my Baby with all my heart and soul. I still do. I pray he’ll forgive me. But I know he never will. I can’t forgive myself either. The only good thing that’s come out of all of this is having you, Devin. If not for you I think I would have hung meself years ago. ”
“So that’s it I guess. I couldn’t tell you this all in a visit or a phone call, you understand. Had to write it down. Love ya kiddo. From your psycho bastard Dad.”
I put the letter down and Morgan and I just stared at each other. The other people in the smoking area seemed far away, the world just focused in on just me, Morgan and the letter in my hands.
“But he’s back,” I said in a croaky voice. “Dad said it was the 60s? Baby, Inky whatever it is, still looks like he’s in his mid to late twenties? How’s that possible?”
“Obviously he’s not human,” Morgan muttered back, looking completely dazed. “I don’t know what the hell he is.”
We became aware of a lot of excited whispering among the smoker’s area. People were getting up to run off into the front room. Morgan and I exchanged looks and got up to follow the crowd. Groups of people were gathered around the windows and front door, peering out into the street.
“What’s happening?” I asked Cress, who was spinning a pen on the countertop.
“Inky sighting,” she replied with a shrug. I saw across the road, the slender shape wandering down the pavement, looking around himself with his usual slightly sleepy expression. A big sigh went through the people in the building, people smiling sappily, their clasped hands beneath the chins.
“Such an angel…” someone said.
We all watched as he turned the corner. He was heading for the mural in the carpark again. When he was out of eyesight, the admiring onlookers dispersed, going back to the bar or trickling into the smoker’s area again. Morgan and I hovered by the door. In the distance, I could hear a faint yelling.
“I saw him, I saw that little fairy, he was just here a second ago!” Ray’s voice rang out down the road. “I just wanna talk to him, I just wanna fuckin’ talk!”
Kelly, laughing with a bottle in one hand and her shoes in the other was staggering a few paces behind him.
“You’re crazy!” she kept saying, zigzagging down the pavement. “You’re crazy Ray!”
They went around the corner in the direction of the carpark.
“Cress we gotta go,” Morgan said at once.
“Why what’s going on?” Cress replied, looking up from her pen spinning.
“You explain,” I said to Morgan, shoving the letter and drawings into her hand. “I’ll go.”
I raced down into the cold, dark street, my breath heavy, my heart in my chest. I remembered the pictures of Inky curled up naked, crying with oil spilling down his face. The back seat full of the tied up, hooded men. I imagined the scream as the downfall of black oil exploded over the white marble of the hotel staircase.
The mural was lit by a golden streetlight, taking up an entire wall, depicting the waterfall back before it had been polluted. It had bright, glittering blue water, surrounded by a rainbow of flowers and wild deer pranced through the emerald green of the riverbank.
Inky had his fingertips just grazing the painting as he slowly looked it over. His face was slightly furrowed as he stroked the painted brick.
“Fuckin’ poof!” yelled Ray, staggering across the carpark. “I bet ya wanna fuckin’ suck me off don’t ya you little fuckin’…”
Then he fell over sideways into the bushes, crumpling to the ground. He struggled to get to his feet, swearing and thrashing about like an upended turtle. Then he just gave up, curling up in the fetal position in the bushes, sticking his thumb in his mouth. In five seconds he was fast asleep and snoring.
Kelly had completely forgotten about Ray as she swayed over towards Inky.
“I’m just gonna smack his arse is all,” Kelly slurred into her drink. “I wanna grab it so bad. Maybe grab his dick too. Look he’s a skinny little thing, not like he’s gonna push me off, is he? And look he’s a man, all men want it. I’m gonna make Inky’s goddamn night.”
I barged towards her, getting in her way and she instantly pushed my chest trying to get around me.
“For fuck’s sake,” I said. “Kelly have you lost your mind? Jesus.”
I grabbed her by the shoulder and for a second a dark urge stirred in my chest. I wanted to grab her by the hair and smash her stupid face into the brick wall. Smash it until the brains leaked out. Grab the bottle and break it over her head.
“Get off me, just chill, just fuckin’ chill,” she said, fighting against my grip. “You’re insane! Let me go!”
I could do it. I could pull out a chunk of her hair, gouge my fingers into her eyes until they bled, stab my keys into her ear and rupture the eardrum. I could feel my breath heavy in my chest and Kelly looked into my eyes. She stopped struggling and just went still. The bottle smashed to the ground beneath us. I saw the terror in her face, heard the tiny whimper in her throat.
There was a sound behind me. It was a low, long and agonized moan of utter misery and fear.
My hand dangled down by my side.
“Just go home alright,” I managed to say. “Just sleep it off.”
Kelly nodded, tears streaming down her face. Over at the bushes, Morgan and Cress were helping Ray to his feet as he muttered about how he wanted to be the meat in their lesbian sandwich.
“Alrighty girlie,” Cress called to Kelly. “You come with us now, we walk ya drunk mess home.”
Sending a fearful look over her shoulder at me, Kelly nearly ran towards them. Morgan sent me a stiff nod as the four of them started heading down the street together, leaving me behind. Feeling like I was underwater in an ice cold pool, I slowly turned around.
The creature was standing stock still in the middle of the carpark. His hands were shaking and his eyes were filled with black liquid. I could see an oily black trail seeping from the corner of his mouth down his chin. But he wasn’t wailing anymore.
I felt the shame twist my insides. I’d helped to terrify him into that state. My skin felt cold and I was trembling all over. Would I have really done it? If I hadn’t had heard the crying, what would I have done to Kelly?
I brushed my own tears from my eyes and turned to puke up into the nearest bush. The acid burned my throat, my body cramped and my stomach heaved as I retched endlessly. It seemed like hours had passed when I’d manage to throw everything up. I wiped my mouth on the back on my hand and staggered to my feet again. Turning around to look behind me, I saw the creature had gone.
Kelly called in sick for the next few days. No-one saw Inky either. He’d gone back into hiding it seemed. Finally around Thursday, while I was eating breakfast in the break-room, Kelly slunk through the door. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she silently put her bag away.
“Hey,” Kelly murmured. “Thanks for the other night. I nearly did something really stupid.”
“Yeah you did,” I responded at once. I knew she was trying to extend an olive branch to me but being sarcastic to her was just second nature. Kelly cast her eyes down and didn’t answer. Then she silently nodded in agreement and hurried out of the break-room again. I went back to my bowl of muesli.
“Look Devin,” Scott said when he came in, showing me his phone. “Apparently the waterfall is cleaner then it’s been since the oil spill. Everyone’s in goddamn shock, it’s mending so fast out of absolutely nowhere.”
He smiled, shaking his head.
“And all the wild deer have come back too.”

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 178 parts long and 700,000+ words. For more information, check out the link below:
What is the Cryopod to Hell?
Official Discord Server.
I will be reposting the full story at a rate of one part every day until I've reached the current part. Once that happens, new parts will be posted on HFY and RedditSerials, alongside my main subreddit as they become available.
Thank you for reading, and enjoy.
...................................
"Just one last signature to confirm, Jason." A scientist named Rebecca smiles at me and tugs on her long, curly black hair.
She hands me a clipboard with a legal form clamped onto it. I barely glance at the paper before writing my name down. My body feels a little numb; it's hard to believe I'm finally committing.
"You'll be awake in less than the snap of a finger!" She smiles cheerfully, then steps back and presses a button on the side of my cryopod. A hatch closes in front of me, and a large glass window slides down, barring me from the outside world. It's my last chance to quit, back out, and leave... but I won't. I'm not going anywhere.
I stare out the transparent plexiglass around me as the pod closes. Nine other pods are here; their lids clamp down simultaneously. Each of their occupants' faces has a range of emotions, from nervousness, to fear, to even a bit of curiosity. The general atmosphere is intense, as this is only the third clinical trial the doctors have performed.
Compared to the others, my mind works a little differently. A calmness overtakes me, making me feel as if I'm about to land softly in a field of butterflies. My eyes lazily take in the scene around me. When I next wake up, it will be a thousand years in the future. Humanity won't look anything like they do now. They'll probably all transform themselves into sci-fi robots, or they'll live in a massive virtual reality simulation, spinning around the sun in a Dyson sphere.
Gas hisses into the small enclosed space around me. First I'll be put to sleep, then I'll be frozen, and later the auto-warmup routine will run, waking me up. This machine is supposed to have enough power attached to its battery that it won't run out before the designated time, and it will still wake me up if the battery runs low early.
If it fails... I don't even care. Maybe I'll die, frozen like an icicle. My eyes suddenly need to shut. I'm so sleepy... it's time to have no regrets...
...
An instant passes.
Oh shit, I'm awake!
My thoughts scream in my mind, like a drunken man in a bar. I jerk forward and bash my face on the plexiglass. The glass is fogged up. Didn't the gas knock me out? I was deathly calm a second ago, but now I'm a bucket of nerves. My hands are shaking, and my body is stiff, what just happened? Did I even go to sleep? Rebecca wasn't joking. That was insanely fast. I don't remember dreaming. Or maybe I'm still asleep?
I pinch my thigh, only to realize my grip is almost nonexistent. I'm weaker than a wet piece of paper, and my sense of touch is barely present, since most of my body is numb.
Another hissing sound. Is that more sleeping gas? No wait, the hatch is opening. I can't see anything, the glass is still fogged up, and there's no room for my hands to move so I can wipe the fog away. Might as well wait.
The hatch starts moving slowly. Very slowly. It must be crawling at a fraction of an inch per minute. Why is it so sluggish? By the time it's moved several inches, I'm ready to kill myself out of boredom. I can only see past the cracks of the hatch as it lifts up, but there's no mistake, darkness shrouds the room. The only visible light source emanates from atop my cryopod.
A shiver goes down my spine as the glass slowly inches away from my face. I can't see more than a foot forward, not even to the floor. The light is dim, and it seems to be getting fainter every second. Is the battery failing? Not good. It had better have enough juice to release me. The generator should easily last a thousand years.
Luckily it does. After the door stops moving after reaching the top, the light brightens dramatically. It must have dimmed since they share the same power source.
The problem is what I see next. My skin crawls at the emptiness surrounding me. There are no other pods here. The shiny metallic floor that I remember, the towering roof, all of it is gone. I'm not in the laboratory anymore. Hell, maybe I am and a thousand years has done a number on the place.
I cautiously stagger forward, using the door frame to prop my body up. I reach my bare foot out, and as it touches the floor, I feel a curious sensation. My heel and toes are still somewhat numb, but the flat of my feet register that the ground is warm. And it's smooth. The land is earthen, but it isn't a layer of dirt covering the floor of the Cryotek facility.
I take in the room around me. Everything including the walls, floor, and ceiling are made of that same smooth dirt. The walls are much closer than I remember. The whole space is maybe twenty feet wide and deep, and about fourteen feet tall. I have no memory of this place. Someone must have moved my pod, but to what end?
My eyes roam around the bare room until I spot a giant stone door to the right.
I need to get out of this room. The cryo-preserved storage cases the scientists left me with aren't here, and I'm weak with hunger. God, what if I'm not even in the future? What if I've woken up ten days later and this is all some elaborate prank? The researchers could have set up all kinds of crazy experiments, and I wouldn't know. I should have read the small print!
The thought this is all a prank is comforting but unlikely, given what I know about CryoTek. There must've been an accident.
I stumble over to the door. It's massive, standing nearly the full height of the wall. It appears to be a double door, with the center being what I have to push on to open it. I shove it with all my might and hear a hissing sound as it opens. I'm reminded of when Indiana Jones opened a sarcophagus and oxygen sucked inside. Suddenly, strength returns to my body, and I realize I was taking shallow breaths until just now. The room was nearly devoid of fresh air. I'm lucky I survived.
With a new surge of energy, I heave the door open.
I don't know what I expected.
The door opens, and I see nothing. There's a room somewhere in the darkness, but my eyes are useless at piercing the veil of shadow. Maybe if I could cast magic missile, that would change. Why can't humanity of The Year 3000 pay the goddamn electric bill?
A humming noise fills the air around me. My bones rattle under my skin, though the sensation is faint and indistinct. It's everywhere, yet nowhere. The air itself seems to quiver in fear.
Oh, damn, maybe being frozen for a thousand years made me evolve ESP or something. That would be awesome, but unlikely.
My hopes dash against the rocks. Let's be realistic about this, Jason, and consider what we know.
The floor is comfortably warm, like sitting a few feet away from a fire, while also covered in smooth dirt. The air itself is trembling in fear. Everyone I've ever known and loved is probably dead.
I'm at least somewhat sure that I'm not in the original CryoTek lab where I started out, and I may have evolved a spider-sense.
Yeah, this isn't helping. The future makes no sense at all.
I wander back over to the pod. What once required a small feat of endurance is now just a few light steps away. It's amazing how my life can change so quickly!
Examining the pod, I find a small hatch on its rear. When I pop it out, a little compartment appears, with some items inside.
There's a ten-foot nylon rope, a badly rusted handgun of some sort, a knife that's corroded and flaking apart, and what I assume is a flashlight. Also a few cans of 'food'? They aren't labeled, and while food preservation might be a precise science, I'm terrified of what the contents will reveal. I'll skip the chow for right now.
I pull the stuff out of the compartment and find a small knapsack made from nylon at the bottom, with straps for wearing it like a backpack. It's stiff as hell, but after yanking and beating it around a bit, I'm able to give it new life.
Well, that's handy. At least I have some tools. I don't think a rusted dull knife will be much use, the flashlight might not work, the gun is toast, and god only knows what Satan himself put in the cans of food, but at least I have supplies even if they're meager.
I stick everything into the knapsack and click the flashlight. Nothing happens. Great, that's just wonderful. I figured this was a waste of time! But wait, there's a crank on the top? Oh, that's right, this looks like one of those flashlights from the as-seen-on-TV ads, where I can spin the lever and power it. But surely it won't work, right?
After grinding the gears around inside the device, the light flickers on. Hallelujah, I'm saved! I crank it with all my strength and get a dim light that shines forward ten or so feet. The illumination is weak at best, but at least I won't be falling into any bottomless chasms or spike pits now that I have a light source.
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Recommended Listening
Walking towards the still-open door, I crank the flashlight and light up the next room.
In the middle of the chamber, there's a goddamn terrifying statue there. My knees shake and teeth chatter as I walk toward it. If I had to describe the thing, I'd call it a- well, a Gargoyle, I suppose, though unlike any I've seen in my life. It looks fucking demonic.
It's a two-headed monster. The right head has a long beak sticking out with hundreds of tiny teeth lining the inside. The left one looks more humanoid, with nasty hair hanging down and a third eye on its forehead. On the outside of each one's skull, a horn sticks up into the air, with an overlapping bony pattern visible. Four 'arms' with five crocodilian talons at the ends protrude from the sides of its body.
The thing's chest has several eyes all over, each of them facing different directions. Each one is small and beady, and they appear to follow me as I move around the room. When I shine my flashlight on the statue, the eyes flicker and glow red, startling me, so I quickly aim the light away. The marble construct might be twice my size, but I'm not ballsy enough to pull out a tape measure and check.
What's up with this terrifying sculpture? Why is it facing my door, like a warning or a threat to me when I exit? I swear, if this is some elaborate ruse to screw with me, I'm going to murder whoever did it. I'd also rather it be a prank at this point because the unease wracking my heart is making my life expectancy drop several years.
Carefully, I shimmy my way past the monstrous effigy. On the opposite side of the room is yet another door. A thought occurs to me as I touch it to push it open. How am I breathing oxygen? Pulling away, I glance upward, above the statue. A small, square hole, barely big enough for a cat to fit through, catches my eye. I shine my flashlight up at it and sigh, realizing there's no point trying to climb up inside of it. Not only wouldn't I fit, but I'd also have to climb on top of the statue to reach, and no way is that happening, no sir. I get the creeps knowing the thing is in the same room as me.
Turning my attention back to the door, I start shoving it with all my might, but I'm surprised when the massive slab of stone easily flings open as if it were gliding on ice. I trip and fall forward, slamming on the ground and dropping my flashlight. In a panic, I grab my only source of light and shine it back at the statue, but the thing is in the same place as it was before. Damn my irrational paranoia.
Cautiously, I pull myself to my feet and aim the light into the new room. Well, it isn't actually a room, it's a hallway. The walls expand outward, widening dramatically to almost three times the width of the chamber I'm in now, and the ceiling is so high that the flashlight's beam can't reach it.
Slowing my breath to abnormal levels, I mutter to nobody in particular, "No need to be afraid. There's nothing here but your nerves, Jason," and slowly I tiptoe out into the corridor, glancing around nervously as I patter forward.
Darkness stretches out all around me. I can just barely see the walls on each side, and cranking the light doesn't give it much more juice. "H-hello?" My words are but a whisper, and the ether sucks them from my lips, absorbing them into the faint humming of the background noise that permeates this place.
No response greets me, as I walk further into the darkness. All at once, I feel a faint breeze on my back, and my body stiffens. Before I can spin around, a thunderous BOOM from behind nearly makes me piss myself in terror.
The door from the Cryopod room. It just closed.
Oh my god, oh my god...
It's no big deal! The door must have had a spring on it or something!
My mind screams irrationally at me as I slowly turn around and shine my flashlight at the source of the noise.
What I see next chills me to my very core.
The statue. It's gone.
For a moment, I lose the ability to control my body. My legs give out, and I fall to the floor as I stare at the spot where that goddamned statue was standing only a few seconds before. I don't feel like a human right now. My eyes leap from one crevice of the room to another, frantically scanning for threats. My mind invents a thousand possibilities for where the statue went, even thinking of crazy shit, like maybe it's just invisible to the human eye suddenly, haha!
No matter where I look, one thing is evident: the room that once held the statue is now empty.
It's hard to calm my mind down and reason. My hands shake as I carefully pull myself off the ground. I take a few steps back, as one very obvious thought crosses my mind. What if that wasn't a statue after all?
Everything about this creepy, dark dungeon makes my skin crawl. If someone is trying to pull a practical joke on me, they've won. I give up.
Jesus Christ! What if the statue monster is sitting behind the door, waiting for me to turn my back so it can pounce on me and devour my insides?! I'm thinking of opening the door to my Cryopod's chamber for some dumb reason but that would be suicidal haha why would anyone do that?!
Quickly, and stealthily, I rush over to the second door and push it shut as quietly as possible, then break into a dead run in the opposite direction, making sure to only run on my tiptoes. You bet your sweet ass I don't want that thing to hear me! Please tell me the statue demon isn't hungry. Please!
Even as I run for minutes, putting distance between myself and the room behind me, my breath starts to come in ragged gasps, and I have to slow to a stop, doubling over and gasping as sweat pours off my forehead. I was never a particularly athletic young man in school, and I sat around playing video games and Chess to pass the time before my appointment with Cryotek came up. I'm surprised I made it this far.
To make matters worse, I have no food or water. If the abomination doesn't eat me, I'll die of hunger and dehydration. I need to catch a break!
As I plop down on the ground, finally deciding to catch my breath, my heart slams against my chest. I hear something, something from very far behind me in the direction I fled.
Footsteps. Distinct, loud, and very very slow.
Thud. One, two, three, Thud. One, two, three, thud.
Oh god. It's coming.
...................................
Recommended Listening
My eyes nearly pop out of my skull, and my knees rattle in terror as I stare into the darkness behind me. The monster is in the distance, and it's coming this way. I'm going to die. I can hear the bells tolling in the back of my mind.
This is no time to rest, you lazy sack of shit, get your ass up and MOVE, my conscience and inner ego scream at me. My limbs moan in pain but I somehow manage to leap to my feet thanks to a surge of adrenaline.
I don't have the strength to run, but if that thing is coming as slowly as it sounds like it is, a power-walk will hopefully keep me ahead of it.
Ahead of it? The realization that a monster is coming to eat me makes me quicken my pace. What is going on? What kind of purgatory am I in? Did I die? Am I in Hell? Yeah Satan, you're hilarious, you goddamn piece of garbage! Just throw everything you've got at me all at once!
I do my best to walk-jog and stay ahead of the plodding footsteps behind me, but I pause for a moment and listen intently. Something is off about their tempo.
Thud... one, two, Thud... one, two, Thud.
The monster is quickening its pace. It's speeding up, and I'm still thoroughly exhausted. At this rate, I'm going to die from my heart imploding before the damn thing can catch me. What if the statue monster is toying with me? Maybe it's like a bird teaching its babies to feed.
Hold on... babies? Haha, that's- NO! What about the hole in the ceiling? That can't be- nope, I must purge the thought.
Just as I turn around and start jogging, a new sight greets my eyes. The opposite wall. I've finally reached it.
A colossal double-door looms before me, stretching all the way up to the ceiling a hundred feet above. I can't see the top of it with my flashlight, but one thing is for sure: it's much too big for me to open. I'm trapped.
Wait! On both sides of it, to the left and right, much smaller doors sit. Each one is about the same size as the stone slabs from before.
The footsteps that once sounded distant are growing steadily closer. Not much longer and that fucking dinosaur reject is going to emerge from the darkness and tear me to ribbons. Which way do I go?!
My gut tells me 'left is right,' so without any reason whatsoever, I charge into the left one, shoving with all my might until it groans open. Quickly, I slam the door behind me and lean against it, breathing like my lungs are on fire. Before me is a narrow hallway that curves slightly to the side. Wherever this leads, I have to follow it.
I'm not going back out there.
The adrenaline rush as my body trembles in terror eventually winds down once the footsteps grow silent behind me. Slowing to a tentative walk, I stare ahead into the corridor, always shining my flashlight forward, aside from when I check behind myself for jump-scares.
The first thing I begin to realize is that I'm very subtly descending downward. Indeed, conventional logic would imply that to escape this place, I must head upward, to the outside sky, but I don't have much choice in the matter. In fact, not only is the floor gently sloping down, but it's also curving to the left, though I wasn't sure at first as the change was somewhat gradual.
After I gather my bearings, I continue walking down the sloping corridor, wondering all the while if I will ever see anything besides these dark, earthen walls. I pause eventually, as I notice that the humming sound has grown more noticeable, but I still don't hear the monster following me.
My flashlight sputters slightly, and I sigh as I reach for the crank. Just as it goes out, I pause, noticing a faint light up ahead. Squinting, I take a few steps forward and confirm that yes, in fact, there is a light somewhere at the end of this damned corridor. This realization fills me with hope, as well as dread. One does not merely illuminate the darkness in a place like this without disturbing some ancient horror.
Despite the lack of light around me, I press on, creeping forward slowly. My flashlight would probably reveal my presence if there's something up ahead. I'd prefer not to expose myself to a different monster, especially after I narrowly escaped the first.
The light brightens. I carefully tiptoe down the hallway, and soon it's intense enough that I can easily see all around myself. My body is coated in fluid from the cryo-chamber, but it's begun to dry and harden into millions of sticky white flakes. I'll be lucky if I ever feel clean again.
The room where the light is pouring from is just through the doorway up ahead. I lean around the corner and peek with one eye, and what I see takes my breath away.
Three colossal statues, standing at least a hundred feet tall, tower over everything else in the room. I almost cry when I realize they aren't representations of monsters, but of human men.
Each statue is against a different wall, and all three of them are unique, holding different poses.
The first is a man with a long beard. A crown rests atop his head, and while the crown may be the same drab grey as the person it rests upon, bumps and dots line it, indicating it was a crown with many jewels studded inside. The man wears many layers of robes, each piled atop the other, and a long staff with a jewel is in his grasp, held proudly, as if he were going to cast a spell with it. To describe him, I would say he was a wise leader, someone who was fair and just. No evil escaped his gaze, but no righteousness went unrewarded either.
The next statue is of a man holding a mighty sword, both hands grasping its handle, the sword pointed out from his body, as if at any moment he could leap into action and cut his foes down. His expression is grim. He has seen many battles in his lifetime, and I can tell from the way the statue was carved that he was a feared warrior among his people. Some kings order their men from the rear flanks, while others lead the charge.
The final person is different. His arms hang limply at his sides, and his head is bowed, eyes closed. Tears, or perhaps drops of blood, roll down his cheeks. This man gave everything he had and fought to the end, but it wasn't enough. A closer glance reveals a necklace hanging from one of his hands, barely wrapped around one of his fingers. He died before his time was right, and now his likeness is frozen forever in memory of his final thoughts, I wish I had done more.
The statues aren't the only thing in the room. Gold coins are piled in the center of the room, mounds and heaps as far as I can see. If I weren't in a dark, festering hell, I might be tempted to call it the wealth of El Dorado. Amidst the gold, I spot weapons, armor, and even jewels.
But despite the incredible sights to behold, all of it pales in comparison to the final object that catches my gaze. The incredibly brilliant source of light that illuminates the entire room.
An orb rests atop a small, nondescript altar. A light not unlike that of the sun shines forth from it, reflecting off the gold and creating a dazzling display to draw my eyes to it.
The light isn't a static thing, like a lightbulb, but alive, coursing with energy. The humming that I've been feeling, without a doubt, emanates from it.
Slowly, I step toward it, my eyes darting around, looking for enemies and threats. None appear. I stare at the orb silently for a moment, and a sudden chill rushes down my back. Behind me, just around the bend I came from, a scratching sound, like a foot scuffing pavement, makes my breath catch in my throat.
Something did follow me.
My bones click together violently as I hear the thing creeping around the bend behind me. You're dead! It's going to eat you, my mind screams in alarm. Tears pour down my face, but I dare not wipe them away. I don't have time.
Suddenly my shaking stops. An idea forms in my mind. Instinct takes over. That orb. I need it. I must have it! It has to be significant!
I go from a shaking mess about to be devoured, to an animal fleeing to the only possible refuge, the one thing in this room that I know must mean something. As I rush toward the glowing orb of spirituality, a sudden scrambling noise behind me makes my skin crawl as the thing races around the corner after me. The last thing I hear before I grab the orb is a terrifying, unearthly scream, like that of a woman being torn apart by an abomination.
Serenity. Peace.
My hand rests on the orb, and the panic in my body melts away. There's nothing to be afraid of now, someone unknown says to me. Perhaps it's my mind playing tricks.
Calmly, I look back over my shoulder. The statue monster isn't there, but something else is. A shadow. I don't mean the sort of shadow made when something blocks the light, but a creature comprised entirely of blackness. I can barely even see it thanks to the brilliance of the orb and how it illuminates every corner of the room all at once, but it's there.
For a moment, it seems that the Shadow isn't moving, but after a few seconds of staring, I realize it is. Time has slowed to a crawl. It's as if I'm in the Matrix, and touching the orb has transformed me into an awakened Neo. I cock my head and stare at the creature for a moment, realizing that I'm not panicking, and yet I should be. My mind warns me that the monster is dangerous, but my body hasn't a care in the world. A sensation of power flows through my body, making me feel as if I could crush a rock with my mind.
How strange. Perhaps it isn't that time has slowed down, but that I have sped up. I'm no longer exhausted, and in fact, I could run a triathlon this very instant. Why am I so full of energy? Before, my breath was ragged and my legs scarcely even worked, but now, my body is as ready for action as if I had napped for a year straight.
After gazing at the Shadow for a moment, my eye catches the glint of something behind it. This may sound strange, but an object is glowing in the distance, and it isn't in my room. Instead, I will my eyes to pierce through the walls, spotting a sword elsewhere in this accursed maze. In another direction, a crown glows, as if it's a beacon designed to draw my attention. I quickly look around, spotting even more glowing objects. A set of chest armor, a belt, a pair of boots, all of them drawing my eyes like a moth to a flame.
When I lower my eyes to look below me, my happiness fades. Something roils in the deep, frightening and disturbing, and the longer I gaze at it, the more my newfound calmness transforms into abject horror.
A glowing sea of green, rapidly flowing from east to west, but inside the water is-
No. I don't- I can't believe it. This is too much! I don't want to be here anymore! I want to go back to the past!!
Humans fill the river, or rather, their souls do. Bubbling up from the deep, millions, perhaps billions of faces rise and fall, screaming in pain and agony. They rise out of the hellish river, their skin begins to grow back, but they fall back in, only for that cycle to continuously repeat, over and over again. Their eternal suffering won't end, for they are cursed to wallow in misery, until the end of time.
I'm not in the future. I think I died and went to Hell.
Turning back to the Shadow, I narrow my eyes. Instinctively, I raise my palm up and spread my fingers out in a 'stop' gesture. The Shadow, unable to halt its snail-worthy momentum, continues to leap at me, but a single word escapes my lips. "Light."
A ray of energy shoots out of my hand, enveloping the Shadow's entire side of the room in a luminous warmth, almost as bright as gazing at the sun during the heat of the midday. The shadow opens its mouth, but no sound comes out, as it melts away, devoured by the power of a single word.
A moment later, all is still.
Why did I do that? How and why did I know that I could shoot magical light rays out of my hand? Am I in some form of virtual reality? Of course not, that would be ludicrous! Besides, the floor beneath me still feels quite warm, and my sense of touch can't easily be fooled like my eyes and ears can.
But then, if I were in the future, especially a thousand years or so, perhaps VR might have evolved? Who knows what futuristic humans might come up with? A primitive human like me probably couldn't imagine the reality of the future.
Time returns to normal, and the orb dulls somewhat, no longer acting like a miniature sun in the palm of my hands. While it doesn't illuminate as much of the room, my eyes hurt much less, so it's an improvement compared to before.
In any case, I'm not going to figure out where I am or understand my predicament by randomly guessing. This orb has given me the ability to shoot holy rays of light, so it's a suitable weapon. I'm useless with a sword, and the armor laying around is way too big for me, so I doubt I'll need anything else. I'd better leave.
Sloshing my way through the piles of gold, I almost trip a few times but manage to keep myself together. I consider taking some of the gold with me, but I doubt it'll be any use. It'll slow me down. I can come back later if I find a use for it.
After wading through the gold, I evaluate the three statues. To the right of each one, on all three walls opposite the door I entered from, passages lead to various other hallways. I can go right, left, or forward, and there are no indicators which way is the correct path to take. Hell, with my luck, they're all the wrong path.
I don't know where the passages lead, but one thing is for sure; I do not want to head down. It may be miles and miles below, but that river of souls is the last place I want to be.
When I was fleeing the statue monster, I used the left door, and it paid off for me. Since the left passage seems to head back up, in the opposite direction as the river of souls, I trudge past the piles of coin and step inside the hallway, and am pleasantly surprised to see rocks embedded in the walls, every ten feet or so, that glow. While they don't illuminate much, they don't need to, either. That's what my new orb is for, after all!
With a pep in my step, I force the thoughts of the statue monster to the back of my mind and head down the passage, praying to whatever gods may still exist to watch over me.
...........................................................
As the puny human leaves the room, the Three Great Kings turn their heads to look at one another.
The Knowledge-Seeker: Is that boy a candidate?
The One Who Weeps: Difficult to say. I saw no rejection. Anything is possible.
The Greatest Sinner: He is part of the great cycle. In the direst times of need, a champion will rise. The time is right.
The One Who Weeps: It doesn't matter. The boy cannot redeem our failures. All hope is lost.
The Greatest Sinner: As long as one draws breath, there is always hope. You have forgotten the ancient struggles.
The Knowledge Seeker: You speak the truth, Arthur. As long as the boy has the Power of the Kings, he can right the wrongs we've wrought.
The One Who Weeps: He will break, just as we did, just as all heroes do. Man cannot overcome his weakness.
The Knowledge Seeker: Ye of little faith. That is why you fail.
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Next Part
Author Note:
This is Jason Hiro, the protagonist of Cryopod.