The Film Student
Carol was a young film student. She was recently engaged to a nice boy she
had been dating for three years. She liked hanging out with her friends,
going to the movies and listening to music. Really, she was quite typical
for a girl her age.
Every once in a while, Carol liked to take her camera, drive out to her
parents summer home in the woods, and film the wildlife. She entered the
footage in wildlife photography and video competitions, hoping to make a
name for herself.
One spring day, Carol loaded up her car with her camera equipment. She said
told her roommate she would be back in a couple of days, and asked the
roommate to feed her fish. She called her fiancé and let him know she would
be at her parent’s summer home this weekend. She let him know her cell didn’t
get signal out there, and that they didn’t keep a landline. She told him she
would be out of touch for the entire weekend.
-----
The drive up to the summer home was pleasant enough. She got there with no
problems. Her parents were not due to the summer home for another couple
weeks, so she had the place to herself. By the time she got unpacked, it
was getting late so she went to bed deciding she would start shooting in
the morning.
At sunrise the next morning, she gathered her camera equipment and went out
to shoot some wildlife. It was a tiring but productive day. She got some
great footage of an eagle catching a mouse. At one point she nodded off while
waiting for a deer to come to a pond she knew the animals frequented. When
she woke up, she found a pair of young deer drinking the water. She spent a
little bit of time filming a humming bird darting from flower to flower. She
caught footage of a huge rattlesnake resting on a rock. Then she took a long
hike up a hill to try and catch some footage of fireflies lighting up a clearing.
By the time she got back to her parents summer home, it was just after dark.
She had been lugging her equipment around all day and was very tired. She
didn’t even bother showering. She just dropped her hat and camera on the
chair next to her bed and passed out.
-----
The next morning she was reviewing her footage on her laptop. The eagle was
majestic. Probably some of her best work ever. She watched the footage of the
deer. She thought they were very cute. Something in one of the deer shot caught
her eye though. It was only there for a second. She thought she saw a very tall
man with very pale skin in the bushes. It looked like he was watching her.
She rewound the footage, and looked again, this time in slow motion. She could
certainly make out a figure, but she couldn’t tell if there was actually someone
standing there, or if it was just a trick of light on some bushes.
Carol put the strange image out of her head and kept reviewing her footage. The
humming bird footage didn’t come out well. The little guy was moving too fast,
and the light was bad. The rattlesnake was cool though, even if it was a little
boring. After she watched the bit with the fireflies, she was pretty sure she
was going to win some kind of award. The natural lighting was just perfect. When
the firefly footage cut off, she noticed that she still had one video file left
to watch. Curious, she opened it. It was a video of her, sleeping in her bed.
Her insides turned to ice when she noticed the reflection in her bedroom window.
There was a very tall, albino man wearing a suit. She couldn't seem to make out
any facial detals. He was breathing heavily.
Carol slammed her computer shut, not wanting to see any more. The video stopped.
The heavy breathing did not.
Japanese Game Show
It was late, very late, and Ted still couldn't sleep; jet lag from the flight left him with little to do but lean against his headboard and flick through the upper channels of his hotel room's TV. Japanese television broadcasted some weird shit, especially in the early AM hours, and at least that gave him something to do while he waited for the city to come back alive for the morning.
The game show had been interesting enough, full of enough abject humiliation and public nudity that it seemed rather ridiculous for anyone to accept a spot on it for the paltry prizes given to those who successfully completed a challenge. Some of the contestants even broke down in tears when it was revealed what they had to do on what was presumably nationally-broadcast television. It became obvious that the only "winners" were the audience, and admittedly Ted was happy to be a part of it. There was a pure voyeuristic thrill in watching some idiot desperate for free stuff part with all dignity for a cheap toaster. What came on after the clock rolled into 4am and the credits finally ran, however, was even more disconcertingly addictive; apparently, the Japanese had seen "The Blair Witch Project" and decided they could go one better.
-
There were no subtitles - not for something this far into the broadcast downtimes - but the premise was easy enough to figure out. Grainy shots from "hidden cameras" placed in various locations captured voyeur shots of people in every day situations... as they were shown being silently stalked by men dressed in a variety of hilarious costumes. Some anime-twisted version of Mickey Mouse haunted an elderly woman's visit to an almost deserted supermarket, a weird bug-thing in a thong snuck through the empty halls of some fancy resort, and a Village People reject crept up on some sad drunk stumbling around a park. It was entertaining enough like that, but became positively captivating once Mickey pulled a knife. Sometimes the chosen victims managed to escape - the old lady spotted her pursuer around an aisle and managed to flee to her car, speeding off into the distance with the oversize mascot still struggling to make it through the small door of the marketplace. The drunk wasn't so lucky, and a distant camera shot showed him being gruesomely set upon by a bad copy of a Cherokee in full headdress wielding a tomahawk. The rough camera angles, cuts of static, and green tint of nightvision made the whole thing seem freakishly real - sick voyeurism at its peak of perfection.
-
And then, Murphy being Murphy, the television cut out mid-broadcast. Ted felt around for the remote, contemplating throwing it straight through the damn thing as he stared at his reflection in the now dead glass of the screen. Before that, however, he tried the power button - maybe he'd sat on it again accidentally - and his reflection suddenly changed position. The Ted on the TV immediately became its own mirror image, shifting everything from the lamp on the bedside table to the hand holding the remote. Trying the power button again flipped the image once more, restoring it to its original position and leaving the owner of the reflected image staring at it in complete confusion. It was only then that he noticed the tiny camera set on top of the screen.
Let Us In
My Internet Service Provider used to have offices in a shopping center before
they moved to their (comparatively) lush accommodations elsewhere. There was
a drop box at that original location. The monthly bill was due, and thus, there
but for the Grace of the Net I went. It was about 9:30 p.m. when I left. From
my relatively isolated apartments, it's about 10-15 minutes or so to downtown
(Abilene has a population of about 110,000).
Right next to Camalott Communications' old location is a $1.50 movie theater.
At the time, the place was featuring that masterwork of modern film, Mortal
Kombat. I drove by the theater on the way into the center proper and pulled
into an empty parking space.Using the glow of the marquee to write out my check,
I was startled to hear a knock on the driver's-side window of my car.I looked
over and saw two children staring at me from street. I need to describe them,
with the one feature (you can guess what it was) that I didn't realize until
about half-way through the conversation cleverly omitted. Both were boys, and
my initial impression is that they were somewhere between 10-14.
Boy No. 1 was the spokesman. Boy No. 2 didn't speak during the entire conversation
-- at least not in words.Boy No. 1 was slightly taller than his companion, wearing
a pull-over, hooded shirt with a sort of gray checked pattern and jeans. I couldn't
see his shoes. His skin was olive-colored and had curly, medium-length brown
hair. He exuded an air of quiet confidence. Boy No. 2 had pale skin with a
trace of freckles. His primary characteristic seemed to be looking around
nervously. He was dressed in a similar manner to his companion, but his pull-over
was a light green color. His hair was a sort of pale orange.
-----
They didn't appear to be related, at least directly."Oh, great," I thought.
"They're gonna hit me up for money." And then the air changed. There I was,
filling out a check in my car (which was still running) and in a sudden panic
over the appearance of two little boys. I was confused, but an overwhelming sense
of fear and unearthliness rushed in nonetheless.
The spokesman smiled, and the sight for some inexplicable reason chilled my blood.
I could feel fight-or-flight responses kicking in. Something, I knew instinctually,
was not right, but I didn't know what it could possibly be.I rolled down the window
very, very slightly and asked "Yes?"The spokesman smiled again, broader this time.
His teeth were very, very white.
-----
"Hey, mister, what's up? We have a problem," he said. His voice was that of a
young man, but his diction, quiet calm and ... something I still couldn't put
my finger on ... made my desire to flee even greater. "You see, my friend and
I want to see the films, but we forgot our money," he continued. "We need to
go to our house to get it. Want to help us out?" Okay. Journalists are required
to talk to lots of people, and that includes children. I've seen and spoken to
lots of them. Here's how that usually goes: "Uh ... M ... M ... Mister? Can I
see that camera? I ... I won't break it or anything. I promise. My dad has a
camera, and he lets me hold it sometimes, I guess, and I took a picture of my dog
-- it wasn's very good, 'cause I got my finger in the way and ..." Add in some
feet shuffling and/or body swaying and you've got a typical kid talking to a
stranger. In short, they're usually apologetic. People generally teach children
that when they talk to adults, they're usually bothering them for one reason or
another and they should at least be polite. This kid was in no way fitting the mold.
His command of language was incredible and he showed no signs of fear. He spoke as
if my help was a foregone conclusion. When he grinned, it was as if he was trying
to say, "I know something ... and you're NOT gonna like it. But the only way you're
going to find out what it is will be to do what I say ..." "Uh, well ..." was the
best reply I could offer.
-----
Now here's where it starts to get strange.The quiet companion looked at the spokesman
with a mixture of confusion and guilt on his face. He seemed in some ways shocked,
not with his friend's brusque manner but that I didn't just immediately open the door.
He eyed me nervously. The spokesman seemed a bit perturbed, too. I still was
registering something wrong with both. "C'mon, mister," the spokesman said again,
smooth as silk. Car salesmen could learn something from this kid. "Now, we just want
to go to our house. And we're just two little boys." That really scared me. Something
in the tone and diction again sent off alarm bells. My mind was frantically trying to
process what it was perceiving about the two figures that was "wrong."
"Eh. Um ...." was all I could manage. I felt myself digging my fingernails into the
steering wheel. "What movie were you going to see?" I asked finally. "Mortal Kombat,
of course," the spokesman said. The silent one nodded in affirmation, standing a few
paces behind. "Oh," I said. I stole a quick glance at the marquee and at the clock in
my car. Mortal Kombat had been playing for an hour, the last showing of the evening.
The silent one looked increasingly nervous. I think he saw my glances and suspected
that I might be detecting something was not above-board.
----
"C'mon, mister. Let us in. We can't get in your car until you do, you know," the
spokesman said soothingly. "Just let us in, and we'll be gone before you know it.
We'll go to our mother's house." We locked eyes. To my horror, I realized my hand had
strayed toward the door lock (which was engaged) and was in the process of opening it.
I pulled it away, probably a bit too violently. But it did force me to look away from
the children. I turned back. "Er ... Um ...," I offered weakly and then my mind
snapped into sharp focus.
For the first time, I noticed their eyes. They were coal black. No pupil. No iris.
Just two staring orbs reflecting the red and white light of the marquee. At that point,
I know my expression betrayed me. The silent one had a look of horror on his face
in a combination that seemed to say "We've been found out!" The spokesman, on the
other hand, wore a mask of anger. His eyes glittered brightly in the half-light.
"Cmon, mister," he said. "We won't hurt you. You have to LET US IN. We don't have a gun ..."
That last statement scared the living hell out of me, because at that point by his
tone he was plainly saying, "We don't NEED a gun." He noticed my hand shooting down
toward the gear shift. The spokesman's final words contained an anger that was complete
and whole, and yet contained in some respects a tone of panic: "WE CAN'T COME IN UNLESS
YOU TELL US IT'S OKAY. LET ... US .... IN!"
-----
I ripped the car into reverse (thank goodness no one was coming up behind me) and tore
out of the parking lot. I noticed the boys in my peripheral vision, and I stole a quick
glance back. They were gone. The sidewalk by the theater was deserted. I drove home in
a heightened state of panic. Had anyone attempted to stop me, I would have run on through
and faced the consequences later. I bolted into my house, scanning all around --
including the sky. What did I see? Maybe nothing more than some kids looking for a ride.
And some really funky contacts. Yeah, right.
A friend suggested they were vampires, what with the old "let us in" bit and my
compelled response to open the door. That and the "we'll go see our mother" thing. I'm
still not sure what they were, but here's an epilogue I find chilling: A close friend
of mine recently moved to Amarillo, but at the time this happened was still living in
San Angelo. I called him and talked to him briefly. He had two friends with him at the
time, both professing some type of psychic ability.
-----
I started telling him the story, leaving out the part about the black eyes for the kicker.
One of the women (we were on a speakerphone) stopped me. "These children had black eyes,
right?" she asked. "I mean, all-black eyes?" "Er ... Yes." I said. I was a bit taken aback.
"Hmmm," she said. "One night last week, I had a dream about children with black eyes.
They were outside my house, wanting to be let in, but there was something wrong with
them. It took me a while to realize it was the eyes."
I hadn't even gotten as far as them wanting to come in. "What did you do?" I asked. "I
kept the doors and windows locked," she said. "I knew if they came in, they would kill
me." She paused. "And they would have killed you, too, if you had let them into your car."
Gateway of the Mind
In 1983, a team of deeply pious scientists conducted a radical experiment in an undisclosed facility. The scientists had theorized that a human without access to any senses or ways to perceive stimuli would be able to perceive the presence of God.
They believed that the five senses clouded our awareness of eternity, and without them, a human could actually establish contact with God by thought. An elderly man who claimed to have “nothing left to live for” was the only test subject to volunteer. To purge him of all his senses, the scientists performed a complex operation in which every sensory nerve connection to the brain was surgically severed.* Although the test subject retained full muscular function, he could not see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. With no possible way to communicate with or even sense the outside world, he was alone with his thoughts.
Scientists monitored him as he spoke aloud about his state of mind in jumbled, slurred sentences that he couldn’t even hear. After four days, the man claimed to be hearing hushed, unintelligible voices in his head. Assuming it was an onset of psychosis, the scientists paid little attention to the man’s concerns.
Two days later, the man cried that he could hear his dead wife speaking with him, and even more, he could communicate back. The scientists were intrigued, but were not convinced until the subject started naming dead relatives of the scientists. He repeated personal information to the scientists that only their dead spouses and parents would have known. At this point, a sizable portion of scientists left the study.
After a week of conversing with the deceased through his thoughts, the subject became distressed, saying the voices were overwhelming. In every waking moment, his consciousness was bombarded by hundreds of voices that refused to leave him alone. He frequently threw himself against the wall, trying to elicit a pain response. He begged the scientists for sedatives, so he could escape the voices by sleeping. This tactic worked for three days, until he started having severe night terrors. The subject repeatedly said that he could see and hear the deceased in his dreams.
Only a day later, the subject began to scream and claw at his non-functional eyes, hoping to sense something in the physical world. The hysterical subject now said the voices of the dead were deafening and hostile, speaking of hell and the end of the world. At one point, he yelled “No heaven, no forgiveness” for five hours straight. He continually begged to be killed, but the scientists were convinced that he was close to establishing contact with God.
After another day, the subject could no longer form coherent sentences. Seemingly mad, he started to bite off chunks of flesh from his arm. The scientists rushed into the test chamber and restrained him to a table so he could not kill himself. After a few hours of being tied down, the subject halted his struggling and screaming. He stared blankly at the ceiling as teardrops silently streaked across his face. For two weeks, the subject had to be manually rehydrated due to the constant crying. Eventually, he turned his head and, despite his blindness, made focused eye contact with a scientist for the first time in the study.
He whispered “I have spoken with God, and He has abandoned us” and his vital signs stopped.
There was no apparent cause of death.
Tower of Silence
January 19, 2003 --
Indian officials ventured into a deep jungle, investigating several missing persons reports from a nearby city. What they found was a "Tower of Silence," or dakhma. Zoroastrians use these sites to dispose of bodies in the open air.
While sites like these are not uncommon in certain parts of india, several peculiarities hint at something more unusual...
None of the bodies depicted in the photograph were identified. Villagers from nearby, though initially surprised at the sheer number of corpses in the dakhma, proved unable to recognize the bodies. The corpses also do not match the descriptions of the missing people. There were no animals around except for maggots and flies. Zoroastrians rely on birds (i.e. buzzards) to dispose of the bodies, in the belief they are contributing back to the Earth. Officials found the corpses relatively untouched by any sort of animal. There is no official count of the bodies. In fact, little work was actually accomplished at the site and, perhaps, this is why only one photograph has emerged. Officials avoided the spot - not only because they felt uneasy looking at it, but for the following, as well: The deep pit in the center of the photograph was filled with several feet of festering blood - far more than the bodies on the outside could ever supply. The stench was so unbearable that many of the officials began to get nauseous when they first approached the dakhma. The expedition was ended when a villager accidentally kicked a small bone into the pit, penetrating the coagulated surface of the pool. A massive burst of gas from the decomposing blood erupted from the pit, splashing those looking into it, along with the photographer.
Those caught in the explosion were immediately sent to the hospital, where they were quarrantined for possible infection. They became delirious with fever, shouting about "being tainted with the blood of Ahriman" (the personification of evil in Zoroastrianism), despite never having admitted having any familiarity with the religion.
In fact, many of them had no idea what the dakhma was when they had found it. Delirium turned to insanity as many began to attack hospital staff until they were sedated. The fever eventually killed all of them.
When officials returned with HAZMAT gear the following day, the site was empty. All the bodies had been removed and, astonishingly, the pool of blood inthe pit had been drained. All that remained of the incident was this photograph.
The Keyhole
A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed. The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye.
What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to. This disinclination saved his life. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red.
At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, "Did you look through the keyhole?" The man told her that he had and she said, "Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red."
666 Messages
It's early in the morning. The sun won't be up for another couple of hours. You're fast
asleep in bed, lost in a dream, when the phone rings. Rather than waking up, you roll
over and cover your head with a pillow. Hours pass. The sun rises. The phone is ringing.
When you wake up, your alarm clock is blaring and the phone is ringing. By the time
you will yourself to turn the alarm off, the phone has stopped ringing. You realize
that it's been ringing all morning. You slide out of bed and press the blinking red
button on your phone as you stumble into the bathroom. The phone beeps, followed by
the friendly, electronic voice. Hello. You have six hundred and sixty-six new messages.
Message one. The phone beeps again, and you're not prepared for what comes next.
Screaming.
You spin around, thinking that she's standing right behind you. There's pure terror in
her screams, accompanied by other disturbing noises. You stand there, horrified, for
about ten seconds. Screaming gives way to hysterical, garbled crying before dying out
with the sounds of spilling meat and tearing flesh.
The phone beeps again. You're shaking.
Message two.
Guard Dog
A young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. When night approaches, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows but one won't close. She decides to leave it unlocked and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.
In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. The girl is too scared to go check so she reaches her hand under the bed. She feels a reassuring lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog. Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog with its throat slit open and its blood
dripping into the bathtub.
Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye she turns around. Written on the bathroom mirror in her dog's blood are the words "I CAN LICK TOO".
Mr. Widemouth
During my childhood my family was like a drop of water in a vast river, never remaining in one location for long. We settled in Rhode Island when I was eight, and there we remained until I went to college in Colorado Springs. Most of my memories are rooted in Rhode Island, but there are fragments in the attic of my brain which belong to the various homes we had lived in when I was much younger.
Most of these memories are unclear and pointless– chasing after another boy in the back yard of a house in North Carolina, trying to build a raft to float on the creek behind the apartment we rented in Pennsylvania, and so on. But there is one set of memories which remains as clear as glass, as though they were just made yesterday. I often wonder whether these memories are simply lucid dreams produced by the long sickness I experienced that Spring, but in my heart, I know they are real.
We were living in a house just outside the bustling metropolis of New Vineyard, Maine, population 643. It was a large structure, especially for a family of three. There were a number of rooms that I didn’t see in the five months we resided there. In some ways it was a waste of space, but it was the only house on the market at the time, at least within an hour’s commute to my father’s place of work.
The day after my fifth birthday (attended by my parents alone), I came down with a fever. The doctor said I had mononucleosis, which meant no rough play and more fever for at least another three weeks. It was horrible timing to be bed-ridden– we were in the process of packing our things to move to Pennsylvania, and most of my things were already packed away in boxes, leaving my room barren. My mother brought me ginger ale and books several times a day, and these served the function of being my primary form of entertainment for the next few weeks. Boredom always loomed just around the corner, waiting to rear its ugly head and compound my misery.
I don’t exactly recall how I met Mr. Widemouth. I think it was about a week after I was diagnosed with mono. My first memory of the small creature was asking him if he had a name. He told me to call him Mr. Widemouth, because his mouth was large. In fact, everything about him was large in comparison to his body– his head, his eyes, his crooked ears– but his mouth was by far the largest. “You look kind of like a Furby,” I said as he flipped through one of my books.
Mr. Widemouth stopped and gave me a puzzled look. “Furby? What’s a Furby?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You know… the toy. The little robot with the big ears. You can pet and feed them, almost like a real pet.”
“Oh.” Mr. Widemouth resumed his activity. “You don’t need one of those. They aren’t the same as having a real friend.”
I remember Mr. Widemouth disappearing every time my mother stopped by to check in on me. “I lay under your bed,” he later explained. “I don’t want your parents to see me because I’m afraid they won’t let us play anymore.”
We didn’t do much during those first few days. Mr. Widemouth just looked at my books, fascinated by the stories and pictures they contained. The third or fourth morning after I met him, he greeted me with a large smile on his face. “I have a new game we can play,” he said. “We have to wait until after your mother comes to check on you, because she can’t see us play it. It’s a secret game.”
After my mother delivered more books and soda at the usual time, Mr. Widemouth slipped out from under the bed and tugged my hand. “We have to go the the room at the end of this hallway,” he said. I objected at first, as my parents had forbidden me to leave my bed without their permission, but Mr. Widemouth persisted until I gave in.
The room in question had no furniture or wallpaper. Its only distinguishing feature was a window opposite the doorway. Mr. Widemouth darted across the room and gave the window a firm push, flinging it open. He then beckoned me to look out at the ground below.
We were on the second story of the house, but it was on a hill, and from this angle the drop was farther than two stories due to the incline. “I like to play pretend up here,” Mr. Widemouth explained. “I pretend that there is a big, soft trampoline below this window, and I jump. If you pretend hard enough you bounce back up like a feather. I want you to try.”
I was a five-year-old with a fever, so only a hint of skepticism darted through my thoughts as I looked down and considered the possibility. “It’s a long drop,” I said.
“But that’s all a part of the fun. It wouldn’t be fun if it was only a short drop. If it were that way you may as well just bounce on a real trampoline.”
I toyed with the idea, picturing myself falling through thin air only to bounce back to the window on something unseen by human eyes. But the realist in me prevailed. “Maybe some other time,” I said. “I don’t know if I have enough imagination. I could get hurt.”
Mr. Widemouth’s face contorted into a snarl, but only for a moment. Anger gave way to disappointment. “If you say so,” he said. He spent the rest of the day under my bed, quiet as a mouse.
The following morning Mr. Widemouth arrived holding a small box. “I want to teach you how to juggle,” he said. “Here are some things you can use to practice, before I start giving you lessons.”
I looked in the box. It was full of knives. “My parents will kill me!” I shouted, horrified that Mr. Widemouth had brought knives into my room– objects that my parents would never allow me to touch. “I’ll be spanked and grounded for a year!”
Mr. Widemouth frowned. “It’s fun to juggle with these. I want you to try it.”
I pushed the box away. “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble. Knives aren’t safe to just throw in the air.”
Mr. Widemouth’s frown deepend into a scowl. He took the box of knives and slid under my bed, remaining there the rest of the day. I began to wonder how often he was under me.
I started having trouble sleeping after that. Mr. Widemouth often woke me up at night, saying he put a real trampoline under the window, a big one, one that I couldn’t see in the dark. I always declined and tried to go back to sleep, but Mr. Widemouth persisted. Sometimes he stayed by my side until early in the morning, encouraging me to jump.
He wasn’t so fun to play with anymore.
My mother came to me one morning and told me I had her permission to walk around outside. She thought the fresh air would be good for me, especially after being confined to my room for so long. Exstatic, I put on my sneakers and trotted out to the back porch, yearning for the feeling of sun on my face.
Mr. Widemouth was waiting for me. “I have something I want you to see,” he said. I must have given him a weird look, because he then said, “It’s safe, I promise.”
I followed him to the beginning of a deer trail which ran through the woods behind the house. “This is an important path,” he explained. “I’ve had a lot of friends about your age. When they were ready, I took them down this path, to a special place. You aren’t ready yet, but one day, I hope to take you there.”
I returned to the house, wondering what kind of place lay beyond that trail.
Two weeks after I met Mr. Widemouth, the last load of our things had been packed into a moving truck. I would be in the cab of that truck, sitting next to my father for the long drive to Pennsylvania. I considered telling Mr. Widemouth that I would be leaving, but even at five years old, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps the creature’s intentions were not to my benefit, despite what he said otherwise. For this reason, I decided to keep my departure a secret.
My father and I were in the truck at 4 a.m. He was hoping to make it to Pennyslvania by lunch time tomorrow with the help of an endless supply of coffee and a six-pack of energy drinks. He seemed more like a man who was about to run a marathon rather than one who was about to spend two days sitting still.
“Early enough for you?” he asked.
I nodded and placed my head against the window, hoping for some sleep before the sun came up. I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. “This is the last move, son, I promise. I know it’s hard for you, as sick as you’ve been. Once daddy gets promoted we can settle down and you can make friends.”
I opened my eyes as we backed out of the driveway. I saw Mr. Widemouth’s silouhette in my bedroom window. He stood motionless until the truck was about to turn onto the main road. He gave a pitiful little wave good-bye, steak knife in hand. I didn’t wave back.
Years later, I returned to New Vineyard. The piece of land our house stood upon was empty except for the foundation, as the house burned down a few years after my family left. Out of curiosity, I followed the deer trail that Mr. Widemouth had shown me. Part of me expected him to jump out from behind a tree and scare the living bejeesus out of me, but I felt that Mr. Widemouth was gone, somehow tied to the house that no longer existed.
The trail ended at the New Vineyard Memorial Cemetery.
I noticed that many of the tombstones belonged to children.
WAKE UP
It's been theorized that when people are experiencing a traumatic experience,
like rape, their body shuts down. They enter a dreamlike state in which they
like to stay. Around their fantasy world, the body will leave clues to help
them WAKE UP. Sometimes these will make the person WAKE UP, other times it
won't. But outside the mind, in the real world, everyone they love is quietly
telling them to PLEASE WAKE UP.
_________________________________________________________________
I never thought much of my life. I grew up in a small trailer with my parents and eventually moved into a better house once my mother took on 3 different job positions in medical transcription. My father also spent his time in college to upgrade from a heating and a/c specialist to what is now his occupation; Cardio Vascular Technician. Which brings us to how my life has decided to roll in some way I can't explain very thoroughly. Many things have changed. My body became aware of acid reflux, I began hearing voices when trying to sleep at night due to what they call a "chemical imbalance". I don't buy it, but what can I do about it?
I never thought much of my life. I grew up in a small trailer with my parents and eventually moved into a better house once my mother took on 3 different job positions in medical transcription. My father also spent his time in college to upgrade from a heating and a/c specialist to what is now his occupation; Cardio Vascular Technician. Which brings us to how my life has decided to roll in some way I can't explain very thoroughly. Many things have changed. My body became aware of acid reflux, I began hearing voices when trying to sleep at night due to what they call a "chemical imbalance". I don't buy it, but what can I do about it?
Anyway, I've noticed how eerily different my reality has become over the years. People deny things I've heard them say or seen them do when I was younger. Not that they say anything... paranormal, for a lack of a better word. But the fact that I can't prove something happened. Things like my father creating energy in his hands and letting me feel its shock against my skin, yet denying he ever did that to this day.
Let's get right down to the point though, shall we? You've experienced this same phenomenon. It's not really a question. You know you have. I know you have. But we can't prove it, can we?
I originally wrote this message for you differently before. But you put it off as some creepy story. I believe it was called... "WAKE UP"?
Regardless, I think you should know that you're sick and really need to WAKE UP. This reality you've created for yourself has made it very difficult for me to reach you. You've let yourself fall so deep. This may be the last message I may ever be able to give you. You almost didn't get it, but thank god you did. Your trauma almost had you sucked into the beginnings of some non-existent protagonist's childhood.
You must understand... Your time is almost out. For god's sake... WAKE UP!
Up
Do you know what a Cordyceps is? I didn’t either until 20 minutes ago.
It’s a family of thousands of different types of fungus, grows all
around the word in various rainforests and jungles. The awful thing
about them is they’re parasitic, they grow on other animals. An ant
happens to run into some spores, and then it starts to colonize his
insides, starting with his brain. At some point, the ant starts to
act visibly ill; standing in place and shivering, or walking in
circles. If a fellow colony member sees him in this condition, he
will be dragged to the border of the colony and exiled.
Then, when it’s almost over, the ant weakly climbs as high as he can
up the vines, and locks his body on tight. Finally, he dies, and the
fungus emerges from the back of his head, bursting forth like a long
and foul fruit. After a short time, the little stalk spews forth its
own spores, leaving the mummified and broken ant clinging to the
stalk, his eye cavities filled with drying fungus.
I mention this because last night, when I was up on the roof of my
apartment complex, I found my brother’s body. He’s been back from 18
months on duty in the Philippines for less than three days. This was
the first I’d seen him. My parents called me up the day before
yesterday to tell me that he was on his way up. They told me he’d
stayed in his room since he got home, and then suddenly got up and
announced he was on his way to see me. They thought he was drunk,
I thought he’d never made it.
He must have come straight up to the roof and died, by the smell of
it. I was just finishing a cigarette, all torn up with anxiety and
head throbbing, and when the acrid smoke vanished I caught a whiff
of rot on the hot wind. It took me just a few minutes before I’d
found him; face down behind the vents and fans. A slimy gray column
rose up obscenely from the base of his skull, and a frozen waterfall
of roots and tendrils was dangling from his eye sockets and mouth.
At the top of stalk was small arrangement of feathery wisps, a white
powder drifting idly from it tips.
The spores must have drifting over the north side of the building
all day. My side of the building. I came down to my apartment to
try to call up the police, and my headache was rising to a feverish
throb. I got through the door, and the moment I reached for the
phone, pain flared in my head, so bad I almost passed out. I’ve
since tried three times and I can never get my hand up on it.
The same thing happens when I try to get up and leave the room; I
feel spines of ice tunneling up into my skull and my limbs lock up
and shudder.
The ants, in their last moments crawl as high up the vines as he
can climb. This is so the spore will spread over more of the colony
below. In the end, the parasite controls the ant with an almost
intelligent drive. God help me.
The pain is almost blinding now, and a new thought has been rising
up rhythmically in my head, like a record skipping. Up. Up. Up.
It’s joined by an image of my office tower. It’s taller than my
apartment, the tallest place I can think off and although the bulge
on the back of my neck is the size of a peach, the skin stretched
shiny, and I’m dizzy and my eyes are cloudy, I think I can make it
there. Up.
No. I’m sick. I need help.
The building pulses again in my mind. The cold wind. The roof and
the sky. These images and concepts dull the pain momentarily as
they pass through my mind. I think I can get there. Up. Up.
If you live in downtown New York, I would get the fuck out.
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