The Yahara Journal Presents

This book contains the student written submissions to a scary story contest The Yahara Journal hosted

during October 2014.

Scary StoriesOctober 2014

Table of ContentsPrologue Bryan Simpson 7

The Man in the Silver Suit Alexander Scott McMiller 11

The Great Great Grandson Daniel L. St. Louis 19

The Carousel Daniel L. St. Louis 23

Oak Ian T. Sanderson 27

Night Terror Vic Gear 31

Mirror-Brother Anthony Brylski 35

Long Story Short Bryan Simpson 39

Haunting Danielle Sandiford 43

The Foster Child Matthew Roth 47

Epilogue Bryan Simpson 51

7

Prologue

Jerry Wentz woke up this morning with a terrible headache. He knew he had stayed up late last night watching television, though he couldn’t tell you what it was he had stayed up watching.

The last thing he remembered was watching a documentary on the Bermuda Triangle (from which he learned a few things he didn’t already know), looking in on his wife and two sons (all of whom were sleeping soundly, a luxury he hadn’t enjoyed in two months), making himself a snack (crunchy peanut butter and grape jelly on whole wheat bread with a big pile of potato chips on the side), and then sitting down to watch some more TV.

After that, things start to get a little fuzzy.

He remembered taking one bite of his sandwich, picking up several chips to hold in reserve as he began to chew, grabbing the remote, sitting back on the couch, and then commencing to flip through the channels in hopes of finding something good to watch at such an ungodly hour.

When he awoke four hours later (almost time to get up and get ready for work), the television was on (an infomercial for a garment that, when worn properly, would make the wearer appear drastically thinner), the remote was on the floor, the potato chips were all crunched up in his clenched fist and on his lap, and the one bite of peanut butter and jelly was still in his mouth. Everything else was just as he had left it.

Bryan Simpson

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As the effects of sleep continued to wear off and Jerry became more lucid and, in turn, more confused, he began gagging on the soggy mess in his mouth. He sat up on the couch and leaned forward over the coffee table, letting the sandwich ooze out of his mouth and onto the plate where the rest of the food sat getting stale, then wiped his hands and lap clean. He found these events to be very strange, but decided it must be a result of the annoying insomnia he had suffered recently. A little embarrassed, he was glad the rest of the family was still in bed.

He had gotten ready for work and eaten breakfast without incident, so he kissed his wife and boys good-bye and headed off for another eight-hour day at his mind-numbingly terrible job. He paused at the door a moment, his hand on the half-turned knob. He wondered why he had thought that. He had a good paying government job with great benefits and a wonderful retirement package. He liked his job. Actually, if he was to be completely honest with himself, he used to like his job. When had that happened?

His wife asked him if he was feeling all right, for the second time that morning, causing him to snap out of his little trance. He assured her that he was fine. He said he just felt like he had forgotten something, which wasn’t entirely untrue. He kissed her again and headed out toward the driveway and his car. On the way, he realized that these feelings had only gotten really bad over the course of the past two months, about the same time the insomnia started. He wondered if there was a connection between the two. More than that, he wondered how he could suddenly just completely forget about liking his job. For a moment there, all he felt was a deep hatred for the work and the people he worked with.

Strange.

Prologue

9

But now he was driving, and feeling much better, except for the stupid headache, of course, and so he tried to focus on the traffic. He would later admit to having a lot of strange thoughts on the way to work. And hearing things, too. Probably just from being so tired and having a headache. Also, his eyes were very blurry and dry, probably his contacts, and so his eyes were playing tricks on him.

When Jerry arrived at work, early as usual, he walked into the building, hung his coat on the coat rack, went to his desk, and sat down. He smiled at Alice, the older woman who sat at the desk across from him, and then looked over his workstation. He was missing a certain form that he was told to fill out first thing in the morning. He knew he had left it sitting on his desk the afternoon before; he even placed a paperweight on top of it so it wouldn’t go anywhere overnight.

He opened the top drawer of his desk.

There was a moment of confusion and fear, but only a moment. He saw it, realized what it was, and then there was nothing. Everything went black. Had he fainted from the sight of it? That didn’t seem right. Witnesses would later testify that he had suffered from “some kind of seizure, or something.” Jerry, his mind still working on some level, trying instinctively to fight its way out of the blackness, thought he heard the faint sound of sirens in the distance. That, or people screaming.

Bryan Simpson

11

The Man in the Silver Suit

It always starts the same way. I am walking down the street with my girlfriend, on a dark, cloudy, winter night. We’re talking about where we will go once we graduate, and she is laughing because I stumble on a crack in the road.

“Oof!”

“You alright?” she asks, and I smile and stand back.

“Yes,” I reply. “Hey do you recognize this place? It’s where we first met.”

I point to the coffee shop where I first got up the nerve to talk to her.

She laughs again. She’s always laughing like that. She is a good-humored woman and she has always brightened my day since the first time we met.

“Yes, of course, David, I will always remember that place.”

I turn and take her hand. “Darling Laurie, you are my sunshine, and I cannot imagine life without you.” I get down on one knee. “So Laurie, I would really love for you to do me the honor of becoming my wife.” I grin as I pull out the gold ring with a blood-red ruby in the center.

“Oh David!” She starts crying. “Of course I will!”

I stand up, hug her, and then place a big kiss on her lips.

Alexander Scott McMiller

12

“Thank God!” I shout, “I don’t know what I would do if you said no.”

“David, the ring, you’re still holding the ring,” she laughs.

I look at my hand and realize she’s right. I slip it onto her finger. By now I am shaking with excitement. I sigh and she says, “It must have cost you a fortune.”

“It’s all worth it for you.”

We kiss again and then someone shouts out, “Ooh, looks like someone is getting lucky tonight!”

We turn to face two thugs who are approaching us.

“What do you want?” I demand.

“Are you David Anderson?” one of them asks.

“Yes, so?”

The second one charges at me, and he drives a pocket knife into my stomach.

I cry out, and he stabs me in the chest.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Laurie screams.

He stabs me in my neck and my vision goes blurry as I bleed out.

I try to shout “run!” to Laurie, but all that happens is blood gurgles out of my mouth. She is frozen in fear. I fall to the ground, dying. The first man grabs my dear Laurie, and as I lay there dying, the two thugs have their way with her. She is screaming and I cough up blood as my vision goes black. The last thing I hear is her screams.

And then I wake up screaming! I am drenched in sweat and I turn to see Laurie in bed next to me, a diamond ring on her

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finger signifying our marriage three years ago. My heart is racing and I am gasping for breath. She sits up.

“Are you alright David?”

I breathe hard. “Yeah, it was that dream again. The one where they attack you.” I gulp, tears starting to trickle down my face.

I look at the clock on my bedside table: 3:30 AM. She gets out of bed and walks out to the kitchen to make some warm milk. She always does this when I have that dream. I hear the microwave open and close, and then it starts buzzing. It dings forty-five seconds later and she returns, handing it to me, and then she kisses me. I drink the milk, my heart still pounding, and after I finish, we lay back down, and she puts her arm around me. She falls asleep a few minutes later, but I cannot. I stare at the motionless ceiling fan. After a while, my body gives in, and I fall back asleep.

My alarm goes off at 6 AM, and I hit it, slowly getting up out of bed. It is still dark outside, but I stand up and dress for my days work. I work as a desk clerk in the lobby of a big office building. I kiss Laurie goodbye and make my way outside to the bus stop where I wait for my bus. There is a cool wind blowing, which sends a shiver down my spine. I lean on the bus stop sign and look around in the darkness of our suburban neighborhood. My neighbor Bill arrives at the stop and he greets me.

“Hello Dave, cool morning isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I am still tired from the morning’s terrors. I stare at the houses across the street, and then I see something. I jump.

“What is it Dave?” Bill asks.

“The-there, do you see that man. He is standing in the shadows. He wears a silver suit.” I point.

Alexander Scott McMiller

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Bill looks. “I don’t see anything.”

“There, he has this sort of glow to him. How can you not see him?”

“Are you all right Dave. You look pale.”

I see the man. He stands there, his face obscured by the shadows. His suit is definitely glowing with a yellowish-whitish aura. He watches me as if I have done something wrong. He fingers the blood-red tie around his collar, and he stares at me.

“Stop looking at me!” I cry out.

Bill looks at me with a look of curiosity. “Do you still see that man? Because there is nothing there.”

I feel my palms going sweaty. “It must be the way the shadows move,” I lie knowing full well that the man is still there. The bus comes down the road, and the area is bathed in a dim pale light. I can see the man now, but something is not right. He stands there, but not I realize why I could not see his face. He does not have one! I scream.

“Maybe you should take the day off Dave. You don’t look so well.”

The man in the silver suit turns away and disappears into the darkness. I shake with terror.

“He’s-he’s g-g-go-gone,” I stammer.

Bill gets on the bus. I follow him. I look out the driver’s side window.

“Did you see that man?” I ask the driver.

She gives me a look of incredulity.

“Are you crazy, man? There is no one there but you and your friend,” she says.

The Man in the Silver Suit

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I nod and follow Bill back. The bus starts driving again and I look out the window. There is just darkness, and as the bus makes its way into the transfer point, I see him again. His faceless horror watches me. I go over to confront the man in the silver suit, but as I approach, he turns and boards one of the buses, and Bill is calling me back to our bus.

“Where were you going?” Bill asks, as I board our bus to downtown.

“I saw him again,” I say, my body feeling like one big block of cold ice.

He shakes his head. “Maybe you should go home today. Take the day off.”

“No it’s fine, I am fine.”

Bill shrugs, “Whatever Dave, but you look very pale, maybe you are coming down with something.”

“I’M NOT COMING DOWN WITH ANYTHING! I AM BEING FOLLOWED!”

The bus goes quiet as the passengers look at me. “Sorry,” I mutter, “I am just really stressed right now. Work is stressful, and I have been having a lot of nightmares lately.”

Bill nods sympathetically. “Okay Dave, okay...”

About twenty minutes later, I get off at my office and walk in through the employee entrance. I sign in, and walk over to the front desk, and I take my seat behind it. Carol, a lawyer who works in one of the offices comes in.

“Hello Mr. Anderson, some guy out there asked for me to give you this letter.”

Alexander Scott McMiller

16

I take it. The envelope is sealed shut with one of those wax emblems that they used to put on envelopes to mark who sent them. The emblem is a blood red skull and cross bones.

“Wh-wh-who gave you this Carol? What did he look like?”

“He wore a light gray suit, with a dark red tie.”

“What did he look like?!” I demand.

She stands there, taken aback. “I didn’t see his face, he kept it down.”

I nod, at a loss for words.

She walks off to the elevator and I break the seal and open the envelope. An old, yellowed letter falls out, with a small newspaper article from seven years ago.

The story on the paper details the discovery of the body of a New York City gangster. He had his skull smashed in and they featured a photograph of the crime scene. My shaking hands finger the yellow letter. The paper is old, but the ink was fresh.

Dear Mr. Anderson,

Joe’s dead, you’re next!

There was no signature. Suddenly the phone rang, and I let out a yelp.

“Y-y-yes?”

“Hello Mr. Anderson, I assume you got my letter. Remember Michael Davis. Remember who he was?”

“Who is THIS?!”

“Michael Davis.” My eyes widen and I jump the desk, running toward the exit.

There he stands: the man in the silver suit, a blood red tie around his collar.

The Man in the Silver Suit

17

“You!” I scream.

He lunges at me and I can see his face, it is one of the thugs from my dreams. His hands close around my throat and I cry out as I suffocate. Someone tries to tackle the man, but he throws them off.

“You killed Joe! You killed Joe!”

He grip loosens so I shout out, “You two raped Laurie, dear Laurie! How could you rape her?! I told you to kill her boyfriend, and not harm her!”

“Yes, yes!” he cries joyfully. He lets go and I fall to the floor.

And then I see her, my dear Laurie.

“You bastard! You sent them to kill Michael! You had him murdered when he proposed?!”

“Laurie, you don’t understand!” I cry. She turns as two police officers come into the lobby. “Laurie, I love you!”

She points at me, “Y-you are a monster! I knew it! I knew it!”

“What are you doing here?” I sob as I am handcuffed.

Her face is furious. “You killed my Michael, just so you could marry me! I knew it! Those dreams that you have been having, I knew they sounded fami-familiar. You dreamt you were Michael! I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but somehow I just knew you were behind our attack!” She breaks down in loud, painful sobs.

Another cop comes in. This one is a detective.

“They weren’t supposed to rape you Laurie,” I say, though my voice is almost gone.

Alexander Scott McMiller

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The detective speaks, “David Anderson, you are under arrest for the murders of Michael Davis, and Joe Jackman. You will be accompanied by Agent Sampson here back to New York where you will stand trial for conspiracy to commit murder, and for the murder of Mr. Jackman.” He gestured to the thug who now produces a FBI badge. He reads me my rights.

“You are a hard man to capture, Mr. Davis,” the thug-disguised agent of the FBI says. “We’ve had our eye on you for years, but it was not until your wife contacted us, that we could finally build a case on your fears. Thanks to your guilty conscience, you will finally go to prison.

It occurs to me now that I have fallen into their trap. And those hands that I felt on my throat, well that was just my throat closing up in fear. And the man in the silver suit, well he was there always. Bill was in on it. Everyone it seems was in on it. Now I am tired, and this is:

The End.

The Man in the Silver Suit

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The Great Great Grandson

Poe wrote a story you all might know

of an Old Man with a Hazy Blue Eye that one felt stone cold

He was Wickedly Dispatched and Systematically Disassembled

but this Poor Old Man I do resemble

For I am The Son of The Son of The Son of The Son of That Man

and I have inherited a Curse deeper and darker than the Legend of the Son of Sam

within my Blue Eyes, pale but not yet old

live the Demons of Hell, and My Legend begins to unfold

that Murderous Bastard’s next of kin

are about to Atone for such a Deadly Sin

Christa was as nice and sweet as could be

but through her veins runs a past’s Dirty Deed

so I shadowed and stalked as The Curse bubbled with Hate

past seven days and now we’re on Eight

I introduced myself Kindly and with flowers

then dismissed myself to the Shadows until she would shower

outside her window her full figure I could See

Daniel L. St. Louis

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and The Evil inside me had begun to fill these Blue Eyes with Glee

her fingers Ran and Coursed through her brown hair

but she would Frighteningly Discover more than shampoo was there

Under her nails and Upon her fair skin

they felt like Congealed water droplets and She went As Still as a mannequin

Creeping and Crawling the Abundance was Amassing

tens of hundreds of thousands of minute Eight Legged Assassins

out of Her Hair and the head of that shower

Blacker than Night with the Glass of an Hour

spreading Faster and more Angrily than Napalm of Fire

wanting Her Last Breath came from my Intrinsic Demonistic Desire

Quicker and Thicker they rained out of that spout

they Swarmed into Her nostrils and Even More in her mouth

now came the Final Gasp of her Very Last Breath

the Demons cackled about Me and ‘twas time for Her Dance with Death

Satisfaction so Primal from spilling Not So Innocent blood

Retribution begun for The Old Man who was Smothered and Snubbed

The Great Great Grandson

21

The Carousel

You awake suddenly, completely disoriented with a thick haze clouding your mind. Why can’t you see? What is going on? The last thing you remember is being at a Halloween party having a great time with your classmates, with no memories of anything unusual. You don’t remember leaving the party, but you know you didn’t drink. Intense pain spiderwebs through your cerebral cortex, instantly ceasing your ability to think. Back into the depths of unconsciousness you slip.

Again you awake, determined to figure out what’s going on. As you fight to regain your senses, it occurs to you that there’s familiar music playing. It sounds like that which would come from a carnival, or maybe a circus. Abruptly a putrid stench fills your nostrils, unlike anything you’ve experienced before. You force yourself to focus on regaining sight, but your eyes feel glued shut. Agony fills your entire being as your eyes begin to open, the realization that your eyelids are tearing apart as you start to see for the first time. Everything is red, sheets of red, as the sensation of warm blood dripping onto your retinas from the remnants of your eyelids taints your soul. Nausea hits you like a truck, and the feeling of being in motion intensifies it.

“DEAR GOD!” is all you try and scream at the initial realization of what your surroundings behold. You’re on a carousel, chained to the bar protruding from the happily dancing horse you’re atop. It’s the music of the carousel, a once childhood favorite, that now turns your heart cold. Your vision finally starts coming into focus enough to see past your prancing steed.

Daniel L. St. Louis

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You’re not alone. This carousel is at maximum capacity, each horse and sleigh filled with your classmates. Your attempts to scream fail – you’re gagged by something. The more your dilated pupils scan the area, the more you fill with unimaginable fear. That stench is coming from blood raining from the carousel onto all of you. Wait, it’s more than that. Littered alongside the freshly blood-painted carousel are rotting corpses, most appear to have been brutally dismembered and scattered about. The room is enclosed in mirrors that are also running with the crimson of blood. Please let this be a nightmare!

By now everyone is awake and fighting to free themselves. One of the mirrors opens like a door, but before you can see what is coming out, the center of the carousel rounds into your view. All you can hope for is help…

Oh don’t you wish it was help! One by one, multiple figures file out of the secret door. Clowns! But not even Pennywise could have been this demonic had he been real! Their hair is surreal; its movement like a rolling inferno, yet black. Not even black, more like the absence of light, seemingly absorbing the light from around it. The eyes, oh how they penetrated into your soul! As green as the evilest envy, you could feel them sucking your lifeforce out. Faces so demented and disfigured, but all with huge evil grins, as if they had yet to begin having fun. Blood runs down their black razor-sharp teeth, so jagged and hideous, and onto lips so grotesque that they could be fashioned of rotten alligator hide.

Around and around they danced, opposing the direction of the joyously moving carousel. Blood splashed about their feet and parts of corpses being kicked around as they frolicked. This can’t be real, no way in Hell can this be real!

But this is all too real. They launch onto the moving carousel, sniffing at each of you and tasting your fear with

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forked, snake-like tongues. One by one, each chooses their next victim. You’re passed by one of these ethereal clowns, and you feel a brief moment of relief as you’re not chosen. This has to be good for your chances. Or is it?

The first chosen classmate to experience horrors beyond that of Clive Barker is directly in front of you. You watch her sweat and attempt to fight free. This demonic clown pulls a rusty old drill from his coat and cackles in a multitude of voices at once. He ungags her and instantly screams of terror emerge from deep within her. Unamused by this, the clown shoves his face into hers and shreds her lips and tongue with his black, crag-like teeth. The room bursts with what sounds like a million demons at play as they all laugh in unison.

He now holds the drill against her face and blasts a hole through her jaw and clean out the other side. You cringe at the screeching sounds of a rusty drill bit boring through bone and flesh. Sounds of her gurgling on her own blood and vomit make you gag. Each tooth is systematically drilled through until the bit goes all the way through her jaw, continuing until she’s nothing more than a sack of lifeless flesh.

Each of your friends suffer similarly horrific deaths before your eyes, leaving you to wonder what’s in store for you. People are cut in half with chainsaws, chopped into pieces with hatchets, and splattered with sledgehammers like Gallagher with watermelons. All you can hope for is a quick death.

Oh you must be special, as you’re the last to meet your destiny. They surround you, taking turns tasting the blood running down your face with their forked tongues. What is going to happen to you?

A dull serrated object is thrust into your back, and you feel your skin being cut and peeled off. Each of them joins in, removing pieces of flesh and devouring it. After every inch

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of your skin has been torn off and consumed, they begin dismembering you.

All that’s left is your head and torso, somehow you have an ounce of life left. The last thing you see is the clowns encircle you, laughing that unholy chord of laughter, and the flash of bloody black teeth descend upon you.

The Carousel

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Oak

In the middle of a street on the edge of a tired little town, there was a pastel-yellow house. Its windows weighed heavy on its sagging frame, and painted edges peeled away to bare its weather-worn lumber. The cement path and porch were sunken into the ground, and the once straight divide between ground natural and artificial was unkempt and irregular. The house’s most prominent feature was the large oak tree which dominated the small backyard, reaching all the way up past the bedroom window and above the top of the house. It was in this small two-story house that I would make my first home. Despite its state of moderate disrepair, the seemingly secluded nature of the house appealed to me, and came with an agreeable price. I spent several days unpacking all my belongings, and on the first night I slept in the top-floor bedroom, sparsely populated by a bed and a few boxes. It was then that I first encountered what would become a regular nocturnal occurrence. A tapping, irregular in rhythm but regular in tone, began on the window that was out of sight above the head of my bed. A true neurotic, the irregular tapping annoyed me to no end, and though I was exhausted from a day of extraditing innumerable cardboard boxes, I could not escape the tapping through sleep. Too tired to sit up and remedy the cause, yet too distracted to fall asleep, I lay awake until the tapping ceased, many hours later into that night.

When the morning had sufficiently lit my room so that I might find it difficult to return to my troubled sleep, I finally optioned to remain conscious. Looking, now very aware of the sleep that I had been robbed of, at the culprit, I found that there was a large oak branch that extended all the way to my window

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from its behemoth parent in my yard. A twisted and elongated finger that seemed to sway in the slightest breeze, I assumed that this limb had been the cause of my night of distress. I resolved to confirm my theory when I returned from my place of work to sleep for the night.

Waiting for sleep in my bed, I again heard the drumming at my window. I had just worked up the mental resolve to break the chains of comfort when an errant thought crossed into the headlights of my mind’s eye. What if it wasn’t the oak branch? While at first this might seem a benign imagining, with it came a myriad of other paranoid visualizations; what if it was some perverse human being, come to enjoy the restlessness that their tapping had wrought in their victim? Worse, what if it wasn’t even human? A monster of unparalleled horror manifested in the stage of my cognition, and so frightened I became that I couldn’t bring myself to look out into the inhuman gaze of an alleged monster that I now supposed to be standing there, watching me realize complete despair. I lay there unable to remain yet unable to run, lest the monster somehow realize that I was a tantalizing victim by my doing so. And so I was condemned to lie there until the tapping ceased, and I was able to drift off to a fitful night of sleep.

I awoke shame-faced and distressed at my inability to confront and confirm the source of that abominable tapping. I resolved that on this night, I would ignore the self-imposed fear that had previously deterred me. With newfound determination, I set about my usual day of workplace drudgery.

How truly terrifying the monster that incessantly tapped at my window must be, to be so abiotic in its nightly arrival yet so distinctly biological in its arrhythmic beating of my window pane. Despite my morning-light induced resolution, in the dark and the fear of my bedroom, there was no room for such acts

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bereft of foresight. And so, my nightly terror continued for days on end; though I felt shame in my inaction come every morning, come every night I found myself paralyzed by fear. Every night I considered moving to another room to sleep in peace, but in my sunlight-bolstered confidence refused to let myself be scared away by the offending tree limb. The maddening cycle continued for weeks, sleep deprivation and humiliation coalescing into a toxic disposition that drove all other thoughts away from my conscious. Finally, I came to a conclusion that, had you told me that I would even consider it a month prior, I would have said that you must have me mistaken for another. I had decided to remove my problem – rather literally – by the roots. I would remove the oak, the single most notable part of an otherwise unremarkable building, from the premises.

One day later and with a significantly smaller bank balance, I returned to my residence and headed straight for my backyard. I looked upon the oak with heavy and purple-ringed eyes, and felt nothing but unadulterated malice for the goliath. Hauling all of my newfound equipment into that yard, I began to ready my weapon of choice. I have never been very knowledgeable in the use of power tools or general home maintenance, so by the time I had gotten the newly-purchased chainsaw running, the world was already tinted yellow by the setting sun. Revving the toothed monstrosity, I bit into the side of that tree with zeal, and as the sun fell, so too did that incorrigible oak tree.

Tucked back into my bed, I tasted triumph knowing that on this night, I would finally be free of the scourge that had so deprived and degraded me for what had seemed like ages. Laying there in complete stillness, I could feel the saccharine bliss of slumber inch its way over my eyelids. It was here, mere moments away from lackadaisical paradise, that I heard an arrhythmic tapping at my window.

Ian T. Sanderson

29

Night Terror

Ayda awoke in a cold sweat, beads of the liquid falling past the curves of her face. She sat up in the darkness and grasped her purple comforter to her thin frame as she looked into the darkness, soft gasps escaping from her full lips. She looked into the shadows of her room in slight confusion. Where was the sun? For as long as she could remember, her nightly terrors always took hold until morning’s light. Did I forget to pull the curtains away, she thought, still shaky from the horrors that swirled in her head. With slow unsteady fingers she reached besides her, to the stand where her lamp and analog clock lay. As she switched the lamp on, light flooded the room in a warm glow, while shadows fought to hang onto the fringes of where the light lay. The soft tick tock of her clock drilled into her thoughts as she glanced at it. The white faced golden clock, fashioned with an old fashioned bell read, 2:23 am.

As she looked around her room, she wetted her lips as they felt oddly dryer than she could remember feeling before. Something was off. Even as she tried to calm herself that there was a first for everything, in the back of her mind she wandered onto another thought altogether. She knew as she sat there, thinking of whether or not she should attempt going back to sleep, that she would likely just lay there in the dark for hours on end. Ayda slowly pulled away her covers and stepped onto the plush pink rug on the floor besides her bed and stood. She paced from one corner to the other, picking up books, or toys to make sure she was awake for sure. All felt real enough, and she thought since there was no school tomorrow, that she would stay up until tomorrow night. Ayda stepped towards her door

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and gripped the handle, thinking that to pass the time, she would go downstairs and watch TV with a possible snack. But the moment she opened her door wide and took a step into the hallway, a great rush of cold air slammed into her like a freight train. She screamed as her thin body was flung backwards like a rag doll, unable to do anything but pray the wind would let go of her. But, instead of colliding into the wall of her bedroom, she kept whirling, head over heels. Her voice ran hoarse as the onslaught continued, the air shredding at her night gown. The wind stopped suddenly, and Ayda found herself shivering in her torn and bloodied night gown, sitting in an old recliner. The air around her was thick with dust, and her heart felt like it was about to explode. She sat facing a fire, but before her very eyes that scene changed into that of a long corridor, with a black door at its end. As she sat, her mind unhinged, her chest rising and falling sharply, the door began to creak open. She tried to stand, but found she had been strapped onto the chair with metal binding that dug into her olive flesh.

A stark white, boney hand slid from the confines behind the door, and as the door opened wider, there stood in all its horrific glory, a strange monster made of rotting flesh and white bleached bones. Ayda recognized it: the horrific stench, to the chattering of its fanged teeth, the lurching as its left leg, with no muscle to propel it forward. But, suddenly it stopped as a chain that was hooked into what was left of its flesh, kept it from moving forward. It wasn’t much longer when the one holding the other end of the chain appeared from beyond the black door as well. This too was a monster she had seen in her night terrors since she was old enough to remember. But, unlike the horrific monster that had no name, this was a creature that was man like and held a name for itself, Deimos. Dressed to the nines in a smooth mauve Zoot suit, a black silken tie with sharp leather boots, and slicked back black hair, he might have seemed

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somewhat human, somewhat presentable. But his smooth alabaster flesh, always cracked when he grinned, flashing black decayed fangs.

“Pretty pretty Ayda. At last we meet, face to face,” cried out Deimos with delight, each syllable causing Ayda’s mind to convulse. “Although, filling your nights with terror has brought me great joy, tonight’s the night we tango. One last time.”

Ayda’s eyes widened in horror, as Deimos let go of the creatures chain, and it came bounding for her, faster than she had ever seen it. She struggled, causing the metal to rip at her flesh. Screaming and crying she begged for it to stop.

Ayda lay in her bed, screaming and thrashing. It wasn’t long until her father burst into the room, knowing all too much of the night terrors, and jumped to her side, holding onto her tightly as he spoke in a loud, yet calm voice.

“Ayda, Ayda. You’re safe. Daddy’s here.” Her thrashing slowly subsided and she opened her eyes, her lips trembling as she realized where she was. She clasped onto her father and shook, doing her best to forget all that had happened.

“It felt so real daddy. I thought that this time...it..”

“Shh. It was all but a nightmare.” He said petting her head with his pale fingers.

“My pretty pretty Ayda...” his smile cracked at the lips, “It’s all right.”

Vic Gear

33

Mirror-Brother

I met Kyle on my first day at the diner. He trained me to his old position at the dishwashing station. Once I understood the basics, he backed off and let me work. We were both nineteen so we talked about car trouble and girls and parties. He tried to speed me up but I didn’t need much encouragement. The stacks of plates were a challenge and I scrubbed as fast as I could to keep the stacks low.

After I had worked through the lunch rush he showed me the peculiarity of the wash room. It was a narrow room with sinks on one wall and drying racks on the other. Each of the narrow sides had a single swinging door. Every time one door was opened the other door opened in the same direction. He said it was a nifty trick of air pressure that would always work.

In return, I showed him a trick I’d picked up at theater camp, the mimic dance. One dancer would face the other’s back. The one who couldn’t see his partner was called the director. He’d make a move, let the other catch up and make another move. Eventually, the director would turn around. The partner would turn around as well and he would become the new director. Control of the dance could go back and forth until the dancers got bored. Kyle was very impressed and he took to it immediately.

Kyle started his duties as a short-order cook so we didn’t get to talk as much at work. Instead we started hanging out together and going to the same parties. It didn’t take many drinks before Kyle would insist we do the mimic dance. It was

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always a hit because we never did it the same way. Sometimes we danced to music and other times we did a mime act. We tried adding other people to the dance but we were already so good that they got discouraged and dropped away.

One party was in somebody’s backyard on a summer night. Neither of us had to be at work until noon so we were having a great time. After the usual mimic dance it was time to let someone else entertain the group. A girl in a near-black dress offered to hypnotize someone. Kyle, of course, nominated me. I had already had a few drinks so I was feeling buzzed and confident. She told me to stare into her left eye and blink as little as possible. As I stared she said some long words I couldn’t understand. I closed my eyes.

When I opened my eyes again I was facing Kyle’s back. I immediately changed my posture to match his. It was just like the mimic dance but I knew his moves just as he made them. I didn’t have to think about anything I did because his motion was the only thing on my mind. He finally turned around and I lost sight of him. In an instant, the sights and sounds and smells of the party all rushed in at once. The party broke out into applause. They clapped me on the back and said I had matched Kyle’s every move, even his face. They asked the girl to hypnotize Kyle next but that was when the police came to break up the party.

Everybody turned and ran. Kyle ran and I followed him step for step. He ran through another back yard and past another house. I copied every twitch of his head. He didn’t turn to look back so I didn’t either. He ran into the street and was hit by a car. The force of the impact whirled him around faster than I could move and my trance broke. The car gave us some space before screaming off into the night. I never even saw what color it was.

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Kyle was on his back and I thank God for that. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d been face down. I’ll spare you the details, but one arm was broken and his skull had taken a beating from the concrete. There were no mushy last words. I watched his chest fall for the last time and I felt the warmth leave his good hand. I called the police on my phone and waited for the big fuss to start.

I worked my whole shift the next day. I said almost nothing to anyone. When my boss asked me where Kyle was I shrugged and got back to scrubbing. The dishes piled up and I worked the pile down again. I dumped bones, sauce and peas into the garbage. I dodged waitresses and customers to bus tables. I knew my job well enough that no one had to tell me what to do.

The last dishes were washed and the garbage was out. I was about to start cleaning the wash room when I saw Kyle. His back was to me and I matched his posture the best I could. The back of his head was a mess and his right arm was curled up like a fried chicken wing. He pushed open the door with his left hand and my left arm stretched out into space. His right leg must have been hurt somehow because I found myself lurching into the wash room after him. He kept his arm outstretched so the door wouldn’t hit my face. He limped across the wet floor without a sound and pushed the second door open with his still-extended arm. He stepped through and turned as quickly as he could.

I came back to myself with the first door swinging into place. I spun back to the far door and saw it stand perfectly still. I heard the whoosh of the first door behind me and still the far door didn’t move. Kyle pushed the far door open from the outside. He grinned at me and gave me the thumbs up. He

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faded out of view and the far door swung shut. I immediately punched out and locked myself in my car where I cried like a baby. When I was done I never felt bad for him again.

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Long Story Short

You want a scary story? Well, have a seat; this one’s a doozy. It’s getting dark, though, so I’ll give you the short version.

I had three close friends growing up—George, the tough guy; Max, the coward; and Steph, the tomboy, who I would later end up marrying. We had heard stories of a strange creature lurking in the woods, typical kid stuff. So, naturally, when Halloween rolled around, the subject was raised again.

“We should go into the woods, on Halloween, go looking for Wood River Werewolf.” Try saying that three times fast.

“It’s not a werewolf, Max.” That was me, the logical one, the Spock of the group. “That’s stupid.”

“Stupid? Okay, well, what is it then if it’s not a werewolf, huh?”

“How should I know?”

“Exactly!” He sure looked proud of himself. And then George spoke up.

“Hey, that sounds like a good idea.”

Max’s cocky grin vanished. “What?”

“Let’s do it.” George was getting excited. This was bad. “What do you say, guys?”

Max was the first to attempt an answer. “I don’t know–”

And George jumped on him, as usual. “What do you mean you don’t know? It was your idea, you little worm!”

“I’m not a worm!”

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“Oh, sorry. Fat slug.”

“Hey!”

“Guys, come on.” Ah, yes. Steph would bring order to this chaos. “If we’re gonna do this, you can’t be arguing all night.”

“Wait,” I interjected, a bit bewildered, “you wanna go?”

“Sure. Why not?”

To which George added, “Yeah, why not?”

Little did I know about what was going on behind the scenes and in the hearts of my friends—Steph was developing quite a crush on George, and we all loved her. It’s funny sometimes, and horribly, tragically sad at other times, how life works out.

“Well,” George said, “what do you say, Morris? What’s it gonna be?”

I knew my hesitation would be taken as cowardice, but I didn’t like the idea. I didn’t believe in werewolves or monsters, but at that moment, in my mind, I could see them clearly. “Sure. Whatever.”

“All right!” At least George was happy.

We worked the whole thing out in no time. Max and I would say that we were sleeping at George’s house – his mom did drugs and his dad worked nights, so they never knew where he was or what he was doing—and Steph paid her older sister to lie and say that she would be with her, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters. We hit a few houses ourselves, and then, with the sun just a sliver on the horizon, we journeyed into those dark woods.

Max, Steph, and I were nervous, but George had an image to uphold. I noticed Steph clinging to George’s side, and I didn’t

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like it. I think that was the night I realized my true feelings for her. So Max and I walked behind them, me trying to hear what they were saying, and Max trying to talk his way out of his fear.

“I mean, a werewolf, that’s crazy, right?”

“Max, I told you, there are no werewolves. There’s no such thing.”

This gave him no more comfort than it did the other eight times I said it. “Then, what do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, Max! It’s probably just a bear. Or an actual wolf!”

He seemed just as scared at that prospect. “But–”

And then it started, just as it would if it were a bona fide Hollywood horror movie, with the snapping of a twig. We all stopped, even George.

Then Max whispered, barely audible, “Is that a growl?”

“No.” But I knew it was, and as soon as I said it, it got louder. We all looked in the direction of the sound. We saw the eyes, bloodred, piercing the darkness, watching us, and our hearts collectively stopped beating.

Max, shaking violently, whimpered, “I can’t do this,” and started crying.

I held up a finger. “Shh.”

We watched as a hand, scaly with dried dirt and covered in thick hair, came into view, and crept along the bark.

“I can’t do this!” Max tried to run, and the creature erupted from the trees.

Steph was the first to realize what this meant. “Max! Run!”

Frozen in place, we listened, hearing Max, screaming, crying, panting, calling for help. But what could we do? The

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creature, whatever it was, let out a shriek. We heard the slicing sounds, the screams of pain, the growling, biting, chomping.

When Max’s screams were silenced, we ran, away from our friend and away from that creature. Soon after, the thing dropped down right in front of us, as if it had been swinging through the trees.

I tackled Steph, covering her, protecting her. I didn’t see what happened next, only heard it. I heard George cry out like the hurt, lonely, terrified thirteen-year-old boy that I had always known he was, and then he was gone, his screams carried up and away into the trees above us.

Steph and I lay huddled on the ground for what had to be hours. When we finally looked up, we were alone, the thing had not returned. Why not? Why leave us? Eventually, we forced ourselves to stand up. The walk back home, through those woods, was the longest, hardest trip I have ever made. Words cannot explain how utterly terrifying it was, how insanely scared we were. But we made it out. We were alive.

There was a search party, then an investigation, but no results. Stephanie and I got married. We live in the city. She won’t even go outside; neither one of us goes out after dark. We lock ourselves up tight. We remember that night in our own way; we don’t talk about it anymore. Though we don’t say it, I know we both remember that creature, and we both know that it’s looking for us. It got our scent, and I’m sure it liked what it smelled.

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Haunting

Jaime hated driving. To her driving was exactly like being in a shiny metal death trap. Or not so shiny, she couldn’t really afford shiny. She had a new house that she had just bought. Buying a house for only one person was stupid, but it was a small house, and it was cheaper than a lot of places. It sucked though because she didn’t exactly live close to school.

Jaime didn’t see the car coming until it was right there in front of her and too late to do anything about it. The car hit her dead on. All Jaime was aware of was the car flipping and then everything went black.

* * *

Jaime woke up frightened. She’d been having that exact same nightmare for what seemed like a couple months so she was pretty used to it by now, but it wasn’t the nightmare that freaked her out this time though. What freaked her out was the loud bang from the kitchen that woke her.

Jaime got out of bed and walked to the kitchen keeping it dark by not turning on the lights. If there was an intruder it would be stupid to let them know she was there. However when she got to the kitchen she discovered nothing out of place and no one there.

Jamie went to check the locks on all her doors but they were still in place so she went back to bed. There was only a couple hours before she had to get up for school but when you were in college every minute is needed to stay focused.

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When Jaime woke the next morning it was still dark. She was used to that because of school. She hadn’t needed an alarm clock for a long time. She supposed it was because of her internal alarm clock but it could have something to do with the nightmares waking her up off and on all night.

Jaime walked to the kitchen; turning on all the lights and remembering the events of last night. She wondered if she should call the police but decided against it. No one was here and all the doors had been locked still. It was probably all just her mind playing tricks with her. She had stepped into the kitchen and turned on the lights when a loud scream came from behind her. She spun around just in time to see a little girl standing there staring at her and then disappear into thin air.

Jaime stood there in shock. There was no explanation for what she had just witnessed. Though Jaime had always believed in ghosts to have that confirmed was startling. She wondered if that was why the house was so cheap when she bought it. It would make sense, though she thought there were laws about having to mention people dying in the house. Maybe the little girl didn’t die in the house though; maybe she was just familiar with the house, like she used to live here. She heard of ghosts doing that sometimes. She didn’t get why the ghost was just appearing to her now, though. She didn’t live in the house that long but a month is a good amount of time for ghosts to make themselves known isn’t it?

Jaime heard running in the house, but didn’t see anything when the sound of it made it to the kitchen. She did hear a male voice talking and a child crying. It was probably the little girl, and it didn’t sound like the little girl was alone. Jaime realized she probably wasn’t. She was probably with her parents, or at least a father. That would explain the male voice she could hear now.

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“Who’s there,” Jaime called out. Maybe the ghosts would say who they were. She wasn’t going to make it to school today, obviously, but she could learn about the ghosts. She just bought the house, so she hoped she didn’t have to move out of the place.

The lights went out in the kitchen and then all the lights that she had turned on started going out. One booming male voice shouted the word: “Leave”. Or that was the only word she heard.

Jaime was scared now. When a ghost shouted the words “Leave” usually that meant it was time to move. That was ridiculous though for then to ask her to leave. She had been living here for a month. They were the ones who needed to leave.

Jaime heard a knock on the front door and went to answer it but just as she was reaching out for the handle the door opened on its own. No one was there but she heard the voice of the man from earlier greeting someone. “He’s letting more ghosts in!” she thought and started to back away but stopped when she figured she could find out who these people were by what they were saying.

“Thanks for coming; we really need your help. She scared my daughter this morning. She keeps turning on the lights really early in the morning, too,” the male voice said. This was weird; Jaime didn’t know ghosts consulted other ghosts about humans moving in.

“How long ago did it start,” a women’s voice asked him. She must have been the ghost the male ghost had let in.

“When we moved in, that was about two weeks ago,” he said. “Can you see her?”

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“Yes, but she can’t see me. It seems like she doesn’t know she is dead.”

“What are they talking about?” Jaime thought aloud.

“This was her house in life,” the women continued. “She died in a car accident on her way home, to this house.”

Jaime thought of the nightmare; and she realized. She was the ghost not them.

Jaime screamed and all the lights went on suddenly and then shattered.

All Jaime was aware of was the car flipping and then everything went black.

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The Foster Child

With Halloween closing in, I am left with my cherished childhood memories of the lodge. Each year, as the candy-laden trick-or-treaters were busy expanding their waste lines with sugar, our family was stationed at a lonely cabin in Springfield Corners, Wisconsin. It wasn’t really all that lonely. The trees spoke many colors, the pond waked many words. I remember walking through the forest, holding my mother’s hand as she kept me separated from my older sister, who I much enjoyed pestering. My dad, focused on giving us memorable childhoods, would always be preoccupied with the details, making sure to pack everything before leaving, cooking our dinner just right, and taking as many pictures as possible. It wasn’t any question why he would always take so long before getting in the car before departure.

As I grew older, though, I became less interested in the lodge. Last year at this time, my parents weren’t exactly proud of the son they had raised. I was changed, and preferred to hang out with friends instead. I was held aback the first time they shouted at me when I asked if I could skip that year’s trip. They apologized for shouting at me, and told me they would think about it. I kept asking them for the next week, and eventually they broke and decided it was alright, though I could see the disappointment in their eyes, especially my dad.

Come the Friday before Halloween, my parents and older sister packed the van with their things as I watched my parents blatantly ignore my looks. I watched my dad closely as

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he packed his things. He went into the closet below our stairs, presumably to grab something, but came back out with nothing. That was strange, I thought. Perhaps he just looked in the wrong place for one of his things. Nothing to over-analyze.

An hour later, and I was home alone waiting for my friend to swing by and pick me up. We had a killer night planned: Call of Duty Zombies all night, and two full bags of gummy worms and a jar of caramel waiting to be dissolved in our bellies. As I sat on the couch watching out the window, I heard a sound; sort of quiet at first, probably the neighbors, but slowly its volume became bothersome. It sounded like an instrument, like a trumpet. Strange. Having known our neighbors since we moved in, none of them played any instruments. I opened the window and looked outside some more, thinking it might be someone’s radio or perhaps my friend, but no cars were nearby, and I couldn’t hear any music coming from outside.

Bemused by this, and by my excitement for the night to come, I closed the window and sat back down. Whatever it was, the sound silenced, which had me unsettled. I searched for the TV remote so I could have some sound going on, and flipped the news on. I couldn’t quite hear it, even after turning the volume up, and realized that some other noise was overpowering it. I hit the mute button, and the sound stopped. I hit it again, and it started again, along with the TV. I tried changing the channel, but the sound was still there. So I got up and inspected the TV, and the sound grew quieter as I went toward it. The sound wasn’t coming from the TV, I thought.

I turned off the TV, and was suddenly startled by a car horn. My head snapped toward the window as my nerves had jumped out of my skin. My friend was in his car, waiting for me to get in. I rolled my eyes back and called myself an idiot for

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becoming frightened. I waved, grabbed my things, and we were on our way. After devouring a large taco pizza, we headed to his basement to play some good old Zombies.

“Shit!” I proclaimed to him, searching my things.

“What is it?” He smirked.

“I forgot my controller. Damn it.”

“Good job, Mr. Straight-A student. Let’s go back and grab it.”

We headed back to my house, the sun now down as stars began to litter the sky. Arriving at my house, the lights all off, we were both a bit spooked to enter that old place alone. However, no man could resist a show of bravery, as I went in to grab my things. As I entered, I turned on the lights in the creepy silence, and headed toward my room for my controller. On my way back out, I stopped as I heard a trumpet playing, coming from the closet under the stairs. I must have been crazy, but I went in, and a trumpet fell and made a thud as it missed my feet. I grabbed it to put it back in. It was a warm and moist, as if it had just been played. I dropped it and ran the hell out of there. My friend was amused by my performance, but I shook it off.

Come the next day, my family returned, as did I, to our house. I was greeted by my dad, who was clearly mad at me. He asked if I went into the closet, and I explained it all to him. Oddly, he wasn’t skeptical at all. I asked him to explain whose trumpet it was, but he proclaimed it belonged to no one. I later asked my mom, and badgered her until she finally told me.

My parents once had a foster child before my sister and I. She loved to play trumpet, and was a straight-A student. She was antisocial, though, and was bullied for being a foster child. Half way though middle school she had enough and put an

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end to it. My parents, desolate, took some time before deciding to raise another child. Every weekend before Halloween, the trumpet spoke to them at night. The lodge was an escape.

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Epilogue

Jerry Wentz woke up this morning expecting to have a terrible headache. But he didn’t. He actually felt pretty good—rested, clearheaded.

There was only one thing that was troubling him, and that was the fact that he was currently strapped into a bed in a room that looked like a cross between an operating room and a prison cell. It was all white, with lots of shiny medical equipment, and a big mirror that took up most of one wall.

Curious, he gently tugged on the restraints. The sound seemed very loud in the empty room. His heart began to beat faster. They were too tight. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, even though his breathing was fast and heavy. He tugged harder on the restraints. How did he get here? Where was here?

“Hello?” He could hear nothing. There were no signs of life. As far as he knew, he was the last man on earth. “Hello!”

Of course, he was not the last man on earth. There were at least three other men in this building with him, and they all stood on the other side of that big mirror in a room that smelled like old coffee, watching Jerry struggle. They didn’t look happy or sad. They did not appear to be sympathetic to Jerry’s situation or his frustration, nor did they appear to be gaining any pleasure from it. They simply observed.

The bigger man in the nicer suit and the fuller head of hair asked the smaller man with glasses in the lab coat the first of his questions. “How long did it take for the effects to wear off?”

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The nerdy doctor cleared his throat and nervously answered. “Three days.”

“And he slept the entire time?”

“Every second.”

The man in the suit narrowed his eyes, taking in every answer and weighing all the possibilities. “That’s fine if we get to them first, but what if something goes wrong and the police get to one of them before we do?”

“Oh, uh, well, we’re working on that,” the doctor stammered as he pushed his glasses up on his nose with a shaky finger. “We should see better results in the next trial.”

“And two months for the process to sink in?”

The doctor smiled a little. “Yes. We want it to be gradual. Uh, that way the family and coworkers can all corroborate the same story. That he, or she, wasn’t sleeping well, they seemed stressed out, like something was on their mind or–”

“And he doesn’t remember any of it?”

“No sir. It’s almost perfected. It shouldn’t be long at all now and we can start picking bigger targets.”

The man in the suit slowly moved his eyes over to the right until they met the doctor’s. “We?”

The doctor’s mouth dropped open. He quickly snapped it shut and swallowed hard. “Well, that is to say, you can start picking out...different–” His strained voice trailed off as the man in the suit returned his vicious stare to the adjacent room. He looked on as Jerry yelled for help. The speaker was off on their side of the mirror, so he couldn’t actually hear what Jerry was saying, but it was pretty obvious. It was written all over his panic-stricken face. It was kind of comical, to him anyways, the

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way he was yelling and writhing. It reminded him of a silent movie.

“And how are we getting rid of this one?” he asked, getting back down to business.

Now it was the third man’s turn to speak. He also wore a suit; he just didn’t look as authoritative in it. “Stabbed to death in county lockup. Most likely one of the other inmates saw the news, recognized him. It’s under investigation.”

“Good work, gentlemen.”

“Thank you, sir.” The doctor was smiling until the suited man looked him in the eyes again.

The man in the suit took one last look at Jerry Wentz, paused, and then he turned and walked out, followed by the good doctor and the fellow conspirator.

Although Jerry Wentz never saw the inside of an actual jail cell, the newspapers printed the story of the seemingly normal government employee who unexpectedly snapped and viciously and horrifically murdered eleven of his coworkers and injured twelve more. And even though it was all over before the police even knew it had begun, the newspapers would go on to report how the brave men and women of the police force apprehended the suspect a mere block away from his home, where his wife and two sons were. He was still carrying the gun he had used on his coworkers, which he somehow managed to smuggle into his desk.

Jerry Wentz would of course go on living, as the prisoner of a faceless entity, until they decided they were done with him.

Bryan Simpson