Author: Paul O

The House of Prosperity By Nicholas Zielinski

It didn’t look like a haunted house. The photo attached to the listing was perfectly normal. It depicted a cream-colored split-level house in the suburbs with navy blue trim and a bright red door. The house had a name, which isn’t so unusual—some landlords give their buildings names for marketing reasons. In this case, the building was called “The House of Prosperity,” and the sales copy guaranteed whoever lived there would prosper, though it didn’t provide a precise definition for the word “prosper,” which I found extremely irritating.

This is because I’m a neurotic. I call myself a neurotic because it sounds more self-deprecating than saying I’m a depressive. Depressive invites pity. Neurotic invites knowing smiles, because it sounds more like a personality quirk than a mental illness. And my strain of neuroticism was particularly active when The House of Prosperity’s listing crossed my desk. I was having the worst sales year of my real estate career, which triggered the worst depressive episode I’d experienced in decades. I thought that solving my financial problems would also solve my emotional problems, which is why, when I finished reading The House of Prosperity’s listing, I thought, Maybe I should move there myself. Though I still had some reservations, because I wanted to prosper financially, and the type of prosperity the listing offered was not defined, which was frustrating.

Within a few hours, my frustration metastasized into serious intrigue, and I had free time in the afternoon, so I booked a viewing at The House of Prosperity under the guise of an interested leasing agent, rather than a potential tenant, because building managers are more honest with agents than they are with tenants.

On the way there, I avoided taking Robertson Boulevard, even though it was the fastest route between my office and The House of Prosperity. I’d recently spent a fortune on bus shelter ads along Robertson—all of which featured my picture. And I looked like a moron in that picture. Just a big, toothy, salesman grin blasting out of a gray suit and matching tie, like a Jewish Steve Harvey without the moustache. It wasn’t the real me. It looked like an older, fatter, greedier version of me I’d grown to despise, because the image reminded me of my own incompetence. The copy was boring and the picture was insincere. The worst part was, at one point, I thought those ads were incredible. I thought they would communicate a sophisticated and trustworthy image to the public, but the message I received when I drove past them now was, Fat Idiot Sells Houses. Based on the number of leads those ads generated, the buying public got the same message.

Avoiding Robertson forced me to drive on side-streets, where I bobbed and weaved between women in pastel-colored jogging outfits, who acted like they’d never seen a real estate agent speeding through their neighborhood in a leased Cadillac before. The Cadillac was another thing I invested in because I thought it would help my business, but it didn’t help at all. It wasn’t until I was trapped in a three-year lease that I found out no one wealthy enough to buy property in Los Angeles was impressed by a Cadillac. The car, the ads, these were just two entries in a long list of strategies I employed to help my business, none of which succeeded, due to my terrible instincts.

When I arrived at the house, the building manager was sitting on a miniature park bench next to the front door. He said his name was James, and he looked like he was in his late fifties, but dressed like he’d arrived in a time machine from the nineteen sixties—bowling shirt, flatcap, pleated pants and huarache sandals with brass buckles. He had an insincerely calm demeanor, and deep circles of gray flesh beneath his eyes, which made him look like he’d seen the horrors of war and used a calm affectation to mask his PTSD. He took his time showing me the place, which was pre-furnished with the most non-descript, pre-fabricated, Target-tier, mid-century modern pieces imaginable. Everything was square. The chairs, the tables, even the couch was as square as a six-piece sectional could possibly be, as if whoever decorated the house wanted it to scream, “Perfectly normal! Nothing weird to see here!”

But there were plenty of weird things to see.

Upstairs, one of the bedrooms had been converted into a library, with four shelves full of handmade books on one side and a crafting bench on the other. The library’s bookshelves were made of plywood stained a dark walnut color, and every book on the shelf looked like it was made by hand, messily bound and unevenly sized. On top of the crafting bench was a heap of paper, ink, and gold tape. I was told that the new tenant wouldn’t be allowed to touch it under any circumstances, which wouldn’t be a problem if I chose to move in.

Across the hall was another room which was sealed and barricaded with a padlock and an iron bar. This room was another place the future tenant wasn’t allowed to enter, according to James. I asked him why, but the answer was unsatisfying. Some muffled reply about storage. I didn’t press the issue, because it was a three-bedroom house, and I was just one person. The place was renting for such a low price that I didn’t feel deprived by losing a bedroom, especially one as gloomy as that.

Downstairs, in the living room, James asked if I had any questions, so I said, “In the listing you claim that anyone who lives here will ‘prosper.’ What do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what it says. People who live here prosper. That’s the pattern I’ve observed, over time.” He furrowed his brow in concentration and counted to six on his fingers. “We’ve had six tenants who’ve lived here since the pandemic. All of them have prospered, in different ways, while they lived here, after they got used to the house rules.” His eyes narrowed, and he looked me up-and-down, as if he was inspecting me, before saying, “I have two versions of the house rules. Would you like to see the one for people who believe in ghosts, or the one for people who don’t?”

I didn’t answer immediately, because I was searching his face to see whether he was joking or not. After a moment, I decided he was serious, so I answered seriously.

“Give me the one for people who don’t.”

He spent a few minutes rifling through a briefcase stuffed with papers, then handed me the list. It was a ragged, inkjet-printed document written in sans-serif type with three numbered items:

(1) Place a medium-sized bowl of strawberries on the kitchen table every morning.

(2) Read a picture book aloud, and describe the pictures, outside of the sealed bedroom every night.

(3) If you ever hear someone say “Marco,” you must answer “Polo” until the other person stops saying “Marco.”

“What’s the point of these?”

He folded his arms and eyed me defensively. “Through a process of trial and error, I’ve found that faithful adherence to these rules allows a person to prosper while they live in this house. And that’s all I have to say about the topic. Unless you believe in ghosts.”

I had to think for a moment, because I wasn’t sure if I did or not. “I don’t.”

“Then don’t try to make sense of the rules. Just assure your clients they will have a nice, easy, prosperous life in this house, as long as they follow the rules with perfect obedience.”

I pressed him about the rules a bit more, but he refused to elaborate, which was annoying. I left the place feeling unsatisfied, as if I lost a game of tug-of-war, because I wasn’t used to getting so much pushback from building managers when I asked them basic questions about their property. Most of the time, building managers are eager enough to rent the place they’ll answer any question I ask. But James lacked that sense of urgency, which gave him all the negotiating power.

Outside of the house’s bothersome quirks, the weird rooms on the second floor, the annoying house rules, and James’s coy demeanor, the house passed the vibe test, which is an informal way of saying it didn’t feel off. It felt like a nice place to live, and it was close to my office, which was a bonus, given my twice-daily, hour-long, ten-mile commute through Los Angeles traffic.

The next day, I rented The House of Prosperity, and called it a business investment.

            I couldn’t afford to take moving day off. So, I hauled my possessions into the house, without unpacking any boxes, and drove to work.

My day was filled with appointments. None of them went well, and I didn’t understand why until my last appointment. During this appointment, I discovered that my terrible social instincts were to blame for the sour faces and disagreeable attitudes I’d been receiving from my clients throughout the day. I made this discovery when my final client was riding shotgun in my Cadillac, and I told her the city of Beverly Hills used to be one, gigantic bean farm. Then the client said, “Fascinating” in a tone that sounded sincere, which made me think she was interested in history, so I started monologuing about Hammel and Dinker, the farmers-turned-developers who created Beverly Hills. After a few minutes, the client withdrew. She stopped pretending to be interested in my historical digression, so I changed the subject to something more general, but my attempt to re-ignite the conversation fell flat. That sent me into a doom spiral. I was sure she hated me, at that point. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere except my Cadillac, and the tension was so high that I cut the viewing short, and told her I had to go home to feed my dog, which was a lie. I didn’t have a dog. I just needed to escape the interaction before I blew my brains out.

It took me an hour to drive from my appointment to The House of Prosperity. After I arrived, I sat at the kitchen table, pulled out a legal pad, and tried to think of conversation topics I could deploy in future situations where I’m trapped with a client who doesn’t enjoy long monologues about my interests. And the topics were terrible. Dogs versus cats, favorite restaurants, New York versus LA. I was getting bored just looking at the list I’d written, but then again, my idea of excitement is opening a box of wine and letting the palliative drone of Ken Burns’s narration transport me to the Civil War.

I could have come up with better ideas if I’d had more time. But there were only five items on my list when, from somewhere in the house, I heard someone say, “Maaarcooooooo.”

When I heard the voice, my muscles clenched, involuntarily. I sat there, breathing loudly, wondering whether I’d actually heard something, or just imagined it. The house rules made it clear that I’d experience something like this eventually, but I didn’t let myself speculate on the question of how or why this might happen. I didn’t let myself wonder whether the voice would come from a stereo, a neighbor, or a ghost, as James obliquely suggested, because I came there to improve my business, not mount an investigation into the house rules.

Then I heard the voice a second time.

“Maaaaarcooooo,” said the voice.

“Polo,” I meekly replied.

After a few seconds, the voice called again, and it sounded far away. So I replied again. And the exchange continued for several minutes. Each time I replied, the voice would wait a few seconds, or a few minutes, before they’d say Marco again, giving the game an unpredictable rhythm. In this way, the game deviated from the games of Marco Polo I played as a child.

When I was a child, we played Marco Polo in complete darkness. Robbed of our vision, we’d split ourselves into two groups. One kid would play the role of Marco, and the rest of us would play the role of Polo. The one who played Marco would shout “Marco!” And the rest of us would reply, “Polo!” Marco would then use their sense of hearing to identify where, in the dark, the Polos were located. Every time the Polos spoke, the Marco would come closer, then say “Marco” again, listen for a reply, and repeat the cycle until one of the Polos got tagged, at which point the tagged Polo would become the new Marco.

But the game I played in The House of Prosperity was different. The voice didn’t seem to know where I was, or care, even though I’d shouted “Polo” scores of times, and never moved from my position. Sometimes, the voice sounded far away, and sometimes it sounded close. There was no sense of linear progression, no sense of impending closure, no sense that my opponent was interested in tagging me. It was just a drawn-out exchange of words that seemed like it was meant to prevent me from working, rather than play a serious game of Marco Polo. When the game started, I was terrified. And when it ended, I was still terrified, but also thrumming with dissatisfaction from the game’s unresolved conclusion.

Twenty minutes after the final “Marco,” I sensed the game was over. Then I stood up, walked to the freezer, and poured myself a glass of whiskey to calm my nerves. It was late at night, so the kitchen window was dark. The only sounds in the room were my footsteps and a persistent knock against the window caused by a leafless tree-branch, swaying in the wind, that looked like a gnarled claw from a fossilized vulture. When I drank the whiskey, I did it while standing up, with my back to the kitchen table, and my face pointing to the kitchen window.

I have a phobia of swallowing insects, which is why I held the whiskey glass at eye level, while inspecting the whiskey for floating bugs. In the glass’s reflection, I saw something behind me, standing on the kitchen table.

It was a little girl in a black dress.

I dropped the glass and screamed while glass fragments and whiskey exploded on the kitchen counter. I felt my muscles clench, and the room get hotter as I stood still, staring straight ahead, unwilling to look behind me, lest I see her again, and be forced to confront something I was unwilling to face. This wasn’t part of the deal, I thought—I didn’t sign up for this. James suggested there were ghosts associated with this house, but he didn’t say I’d see one, so I hoped it would never happen, because if it could happen, he would have warned me about it. At least that’s what I assumed. And I clung to that assumption, even after I saw her reflected in the glass. Part of me believed the experience didn’t really happen, that my restless nerves misidentified the reflection, causing me to confuse a stack of moving boxes for a little girl.

I wasn’t ready to look at the table. I wasn’t ready to face what I thought I’d seen. I needed time to gather strength, to calm down, to relax before returning my gaze to the table and confronting reality. For several minutes, I stood there with eyes closed and willed my heartbeat to slow down until I felt ready to turn around. Then I opened my eyes, and slowly turned, prepared to reckon with whatever I’d seen. Thankfully, when I turned, I saw no little girl standing on the table, nor any sign that she was ever there.

As I stood in the kitchen, dazed and sweating through my shirt, I heard an unmistakable sound. Echoing through the room, from some distant part of the house, I heard the sound of a young girl’s laugh.

That night I didn’t sleep, even though I desperately needed rest. While I laid in bed, I remembered something I’d read about insomnia. If an insomniac closes their eyes, and pretends to sleep, the body will initiate its resting phase, allowing the insomniac to reap the benefits of sleep without losing consciousness. So that’s what I did. I pretended to sleep for seven hours, and tried my best to avoid thinking about the reflection I’d seen in the whiskey glass.

And when I ‘awoke’, I was exhausted.

In the morning, I arranged a bowl of strawberries on the table, as the house rules prescribed, and rushed out the door without letting my eyes linger on too many reflective surfaces. When I left The House of Prosperity I felt almost as energetic as a background actor on The Walking Dead. Luckily, I’d pre-booked my appointments for the day, so I didn’t have to devote any attention to marketing, which is a cognitively demanding task, and I couldn’t use my brain after losing so much sleep.

But this turned out to be a good thing. Because I came to work tired, which meant I was quiet, which is unusual, and my clients responded well to my new attitude, which is even more unusual. Something about my quiet manner caused them to open up in ways I wasn’t used to. I didn’t feel an impulse to be entertaining, because I was too braindead to think of things to say, which, I suspect, relaxed my clients, and took the pressure out of our appointments, because they felt like they weren’t being sold anything. I imagine the experience, for them, felt like more like an organic meeting with a social acquaintance than one man’s desperate attempt to extract money from a relationship.

The downside? I didn’t close any deals, which meant I made no money. If “prosperity” means functional brain-death, then it took a single day for The House of Prosperity to fulfill its promise.

After work, I went home and unpacked the boxes I brought with me when I moved in. As I loaded my dishware into the cabinets, I looked at the kitchen table and saw the bowl of strawberries I left there. The bowl was in the same place, but the strawberries inside looked different. They’d lost their color. When I left, they were bright red with green stems. But when I came back, their stems were black, and their bodies were a hideous shade of gray, like they’d been transformed into stone. Naturally, I felt an urge to inspect them. So, I approached the table, treading cautiously, becoming more confused with each step I took toward the bowl, and wondering whether I’d really looked at the strawberries before I’d placed them there. Could it be that my restless state caused me to place a bowl of dead strawberries on the table without noticing?

I leaned over the bowl, and took a close look at the berries. They were sitting in a vessel made of glass, on a table made of lacquered oak, and the strawberries themselves looked grainy, like I wasn’t viewing strawberries at all, but photographs of strawberries shot on black and white film. I reached out to touch them, expecting my finger to touch something solid, but when my finger touched the strawberry at the top of the pile, it encountered no resistance. When I touched the strawberry, it crumbled into weightless dust which crumbled down the pile of strawberries beneath it, distorting their shapes as well. Then I withdrew my index finger and looked at my fingerprint, which was coated in a dusty substance. It wasn’t until I held my finger to my nose and smelled the substance that I knew what it was. Somehow, while I was at work, the strawberries had transformed into a pile of strawberry-shaped ashes.

My heart leaped at the implications. If the entity which spoke to me the previous night was responsible for removing the vitality from these berries, then surely it could do the same to me. What if, some future night, it decided I was no longer worthy of the color behind my cheeks? Would I suffer the same fate as these desiccated strawberries? I wondered if this had happened to others before me. Perhaps there were dried-out bodies hidden behind the sealed room on the second floor, and that’s what James meant by “prosperity,” some nihilistic conception of death-by-cremation as the ultimate source of happiness.

I shuddered at the thought. But later I talked myself out of it. Truly, I reasoned, there was no good cause to assume I’d meet the same fate as these strawberries, even in the most extreme circumstances. That would be like watching someone eat a sandwich and assuming that, because they ate a sandwich, they might also eat a person—sandwich eating cannibals probably exist, but I suspect they are extremely rare. Up to that point, the entity, the ghost, with whom I shared this house hadn’t harmed me in any way, or threatened to do so, and if it had harmed other tenants in the past, I probably would have heard about it on the news, or on some video compilation called Tier Ranking Bizarre Deaths (Part 1).

It was late, and I was tired. I wanted to go to sleep, but the house rules demanded I read a picture book outside the sealed room every night, and I didn’t want to break the rules, and run afoul of this life-draining ghost. So, I walked upstairs, into the library, and hoped I would find something readable among the handmade books on the shelves. But when I stood before the shelves, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. Every book had a strip of gold-colored tape on its binding. And these strips of gold tape matched the spool of gold tape sitting on the crafting bench beside me, suggesting the books were crafted and bound inside The House of Prosperity. To read someone’s handmade book is an intimate thing, like searching the deepest chambers of an author’s heart. And I was afraid of learning too much about the people associated with this house, because knowledge leads to intimacy, and intimacy leads to involvement in other people’s affairs. I didn’t have time to manage my own affairs, let alone involve myself in other people’s.

Had I slept the previous night, I may have had enough energy to leave the house, and buy a new book, rather than draw an unsettling book from the house’s library. But I was exhausted. My need for sleep outweighed my fear of learning too much about the house, and the people associated with it. That’s why I grabbed a book off the shelf, and hoped my mental defenses were strong enough to withstand whatever intimate disclosures I might encounter upon reading one of these books.

My mental defenses received their first test when I saw the book’s cover. The title was written in felt marker, and calligraphic strokes flowed between every letter. It was called, The Story of Mary’s Life, By Mary, Her Own Self.

The cover depicted a girl in a black dress sitting on a swing with a dog standing on its hind legs in the background, bouncing a ball in the air with its nose, like a seal. The art was cute, but disturbing, because, even though it was drawn in a cartoonish, unrealistic style, the girl on the swing looked like the girl I’d seen reflected in the glass two nights prior.

I didn’t want to know more about her than I needed to. Intimacy is frightening, even with a corporeal being, let alone a ghost. Then again, I thought, my instincts are historically unreliable. And the illustrations were sort of funny looking. They belied a sentimental and lighthearted sensibility, implicitly promising a happy story about a girl and her ball-bouncing dog, which is less frightening than many other things.

I found a chair in the library, and set it up outside the sealed room before sitting down to read the book.

The plot was simple. It told the story of a girl named Mary who lived with her father in Los Angeles. As a baby, Mary discovered a passion for drawing, and when she turned four, she decided to become an artist, then dedicated the rest of her life to perfecting her drawing skills, which her father encouraged. Every day, Mary would practice drawing, in order to become a great artist, like her hero, Rebecca Sugar, creator of the television cartoon Stephen Universe. And then, at eleven years old, Mary caught the COVID-19 virus and became very ill, dying at the age of twelve.

After she died, Mary went to heaven, which looked like a big forest with a pool in the middle, and everyone there was having fun, except her, because she never got good at drawing, while she was alive, and that made her sad. So, Mary went looking for God, and found him on the top of a mountain. She asked God to send her back home, so she could get better at drawing, and eat her favorite food, and play her favorite game, because she missed those things more than she enjoyed being in heaven. Then God sent her back to earth. But when she came back, her father was too scared to play with her, and whenever she drew him pictures, the pictures made him cry, even though they were happy pictures. So she started writing stories to go with the pictures, in order to explain how happy she was, and how much she loved her father, even though she wasn’t alive anymore. But no matter how happy the stories were, they still made her father sad.

After a while, her father moved out of the house, but he didn’t sell it, because he wanted to make sure that Mary had everything she needed to become a great artist. That’s why her father started renting the house to new tenants, and made up the house rules, to show Mary’s art to people who don’t get sad when they see it.

Because of this, Mary gets to show her work to all kinds of people. Sometimes people like her art, and sometimes they don’t.

But Mary is happy when people don’t like her art, because every failure is a chance to get better, and you have to fail before you become a great artist.

“And that’s the moral of the story,” was the book’s final line.

As I closed the book, my hands were trembling.

Reading a book apparently written by a ghost is tremendously unnerving, even if they’re trying to be light and cheerful, as Mary seemed to be. I was so distressed, while I read the book, that I struggled to read the words aloud. Amplifying my distress was the section that dealt with heaven, where I saw illustrations of God as a giant node of electricity, with filaments of energy extending in every direction, like an eerie supernova drawn in a cartoon-inflected style. Reading about the death and rebirth of a child, her subsequent abandonment by her father, and my role in the tragedy filled me with conflicting emotions. There was fear, sadness, awe, plus a kind of sympathetic longing for a life that I’d never lived, a life I’d seen in the book. A domestic harmony rubbed out of existence by disease and heartbreak.

I stood up from the chair feeling numb, like all the blood had been drained from my body, and my head was swimming with unprocessed emotions. I walked across the hall in a stupor, and entered the library, impassively searching for the space on the bookshelf from which I’d drawn the book. Then I felt a pair of words thunder through my soul. The experience felt as if someone crawled inside me, bypassing my senses, and spoke the words directly into the center of my body. The tone was gentle, but the voice was loud.

“Thank you,” said the voice.

Though I’d grown accustomed to weirdness in this house, the experience of hearing the voice still frightened me. I jumped at the sound of it, though calling it a sound is imprecise, and calling it a thought is equally inexact. This was another kind of communication. One that chilled the center of my being when it happened, like a wave of icy water sloshing out of my heart and coursing through my chest.

When I regained my bearings, I lightly, gracefully, and carefully replaced the book on the shelf before descending the stairs as quietly as I could, hoping, by excessive caution, to avoid interacting with Mary. Because her voice’s tone was gentle, but it was far from comforting.

The previous night had taught me not to dwell on my interactions with her, because that led to sleeplessness. I couldn’t afford another day of exhaustion, so I banished all thoughts of Mary from my head as I descended the stairs, undressed, climbed into bed, and shut my eyes. Then I prayed, as hard as I could, for a dreamless rest.

A few hours later I awoke with a burst of energy. It was my first night of decent sleep since I’d moved in, and I needed it, because I didn’t have any appointments booked that day, which meant I’d have to devote the day to marketing. And I despised marketing, because marketing forced me to contemplate my image, and I hated contemplating my image, so I drove to the office with the radio on full blast, distracting myself from the dread I always felt on marketing days.

When I came home, I went straight to the refrigerator. When I opened the door, I was greeted by an odd sight. All my food was gone, and in its place was a flat plane of ash. The ash was spread over the top shelf, from corner to corner. And in the center, someone had drawn a frowny face with their finger.

The sight was so unexpected that my brain needed an extra beat to understand what I’d seen. But then it hit me. In my rush to leave the house that morning, I’d forgotten to lay a bowl of strawberries on the kitchen table. And I think this bothered Mary. At least that’s what I inferred from the frowny face. I assumed she’d transformed my food into ashes as an act of vengeance. And that might have made me anxious, except something about her finger-painted frowny face diffused my anxiety.

It had so much character. The mouth was very long, like an upside-down U, which exaggerated the frown to comic proportions. And its V-slanted eyebrows made the frowny face look so melodramatically angry that I had to smile. The act was unpleasant, but the execution was charismatic.

I was charmed. But the charm didn’t quell my hunger.

As quickly as I could manage, I drove to the grocery store in order to feed myself and restock the fridge. On the way home, I stopped at a high-end grocery store, much fancier than the one I usually patronize, and bought the best strawberries I could find, in the largest quantity I could afford, in order to surprise Mary with a level of strawberry quality she wasn’t used to. I bought some flowers, too, because I thought she’d like them.

On the way home, I drove down Robertson Boulevard, and I passed the bus shelter ads I hated so much, those monuments to my personal failure. And when I saw the first ad, on the corner of Robertson and Pico, I giggled. Unexpectedly, when I saw the ad, I didn’t feel ashamed. Instead, I felt amused. Suddenly, the picture looked ridiculous to me, like one of those insulting portraits illustrated by caricature artists, rather than a cruel reminder of my own incompetence.

As I continued down the street, I wondered why my reaction to the picture had changed so much in the past few days. Those ads haunted me, tortured me, disgusted me only three days prior, yet now I felt differently, and I didn’t understand why.

Then I remembered the way I felt after reading Mary’s book. After I read it, something cracked inside of me. Some trap loosed its grip on my heart. I wasn’t conscious of this change at the time. It happened on a subterranean level of my mind, after I learned about the role I played in Mary’s development.

Discovering I played a role in Mary’s quest for happiness gave me a purpose unbound from success in real estate. I believe this catalyzed a shift in my thinking. And there was magic in that shift, there was magic in caring about her, about participating in her success, which forced me to divert attention away from myself. Before learning about Mary, I was trapped inside an invisible cage and drinking a poison I didn’t know I was ingesting, the poison of self-obsession, a poison which magnified every personal failure into an apocalyptic event.

Living at The House of Prosperity didn’t help my business. It didn’t make me rich. But it did show me another kind of prosperity.

One that felt like love.

When I arrived at home, I was hungry, and tired. So, I stocked my newly purchased food in the refrigerator, being careful not to upset the plane of ash on the top shelf, because I was sentimentally attached to the frowny face with the exaggerated mouth. Despite my hunger, I didn’t eat immediately. Instead, I did something else. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, and turned around, so my body faced the staircase, then cupped my hands around my mouth, took a deep breath, and shouted a word I hadn’t shouted for thirty years.

In a gentle voice, I shouted, “Marcooooo.”

And listened for Mary’s reply.

We sat down to ask horror writer, Paul Edmonds, our questions on his magnificent story, Vertebrae. We recommend you read the story first as there may be spoilers ahead.

1. I love how you use the story to talk about how pain and major events can change people – where did the idea for this come from?

I grew up in a factory town where most of the working-age men had jobs at one of the tool or furniture plants. There was this guy I knew. Not well, just through acquaintances. Good dude. He got into a forklift accident. Nothing life-threatening, but it laid him up for a while. I remember how he was before it happened. Hardworking, family man, all that. But as he recovered, something shifted. He started screwing around on his wife, got rough with his kids. It was sad.

I was thinking about him one day, and that’s where the idea for “Vertebrae” came from. How something can get knocked loose in a person after a traumatic event. Or in this case, something gets crushed inside them, and they’re never the same again. I’m interested in that moment where someone realizes they’re not who they were a month ago, or even a day ago. What happens when that shift goes to the extreme. What’s left on the other side.

Q2. There’s a real meanness to this tale as we decent to the end of it. How important is it that horror writers ‘not look away’ from the horrific moments?

I think it’s important that writers don’t step back. That doesn’t mean shocking people just for the sake of it, but if something needs to be said, you should say it. If a moment is best communicated in a way that’s bloody or uncomfortable, maybe cuts a little too deep, then you should go there. I don’t think a writer—especially one working in darker stories—should pull their punches out of fear of how it might be received. With “Vertebrae,” that meant following things all the way through and not softening the moments that needed to land.

Q3. What was your favourite thing about writing this tale?

It was just a really exciting story to write. It felt sharp from the start. I wanted it to feel immediate. And the fact that it tied back to someone I’d known made it more personal. I felt energized the whole way through. The momentum never dropped, which isn’t always the case.

Q4. How much of your time do you spend writing short stories compared to novels, etc?

Right now, it’s all short stories. That’s really where my focus is. Of course, I’ll spend time brainstorming, outlining, working through different ideas—kind of figuring out the architecture of a piece—but it all lives in the short form at the moment. I do see a novel on the horizon, though.

Q5. Do you have any other projects you want to make everyone aware of? (add links if you have them).

Yeah, definitely. I recently had a story published on the Horrific Scribes website called “Grand Guignol.” It’s an analog horror piece about a group of dirtbags watching a cursed porno flick (horrificscribblings.com/grand-guignol). I also had a story appear in the anthology Humans from Earth!! from Daft Notions, which is available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLWW3H6L). I’ve got a Weird Western story coming out soon in audio form on the Tales to Terrify site, and a couple more slated for publication.

Rufus by Corinne Engber

On the last day of the school year, Aria Wilson stayed in her seventh-grade classroom until eight pm to take down all the bulletin boards, and then went home to find that her boyfriend Sam had killed himself.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur. If pressed by her therapist, she could recall it in pieces—Sam’s mom wailing on the floor at the casket selection appointment, crunching through under-seasoned macaroni salad at the wake, cutting the palm of her hand badly on the tape dispenser’s serrated edge as she packed up their things—but in truth, any recollection of the time between discovering him curled up on their brand-new low pile rug and pulling the U-Haul into the driveway of her parents’ empty house nine hundred miles away felt more like imagining scenes between cuts in a movie. Half-formed, awkward sequences, filmed only to carpet the cutting room floor.

Her parents were in Iceland. They fucking loved Iceland. Aria had never met two people who loved a place more aside from literally everyone she’d ever met from Cleveland, and at least the people who loved Cleveland had the moral fortitude to stay when the weather got cold. But this reverse snowbird migration meant that the house in Westbrooke, Ohio—her childhood house—stood empty all summer. A place to land for the broke prodigal daughter, with the bonus of a de facto summer house sitter while she got her shit together.

As if she wanted to. As if she could.

The house was enormous and pink. It squatted on a full half-acre, ringed around back by a rich copse of trees, and bent slightly over the driveway like a child benignly watching ants through a magnifying glass. The lilac bush by the front door was gone, replaced by rapacious honeysuckle. Two spaced windows above the garage resembled lidded eyes, the garage door itself a tight and grinning mouth. Welcome home, baby girl. Come on in.

Aria stepped down from the U-Haul’s cabin into lazy silence. Ribbons of heat rose from the fresh blacktop, her sneakers thumping as she approached the garage keypad. It did not respond when she pressed the buttons.

“Just go in through the garage,” Aria muttered to herself, retrieving the hideakey from beneath the front doormat. “Of course the batteries still work. Typical.”

Inside: unchanged. Her parents decorated the house once, at the turn of the millennium when they bought it—off-white carpet, fish-themed bathrooms and fake Persian rugs. The kitchen’s yellow floral wallpaper peeled where it met the cabinets. A ring of fresh-cut house keys waited on the kitchen island. Aria pocketed them, returned the hideakey to its place and set to work unpacking her truck.

In the hour it took to empty the remains of her measly life onto the driveway, not a single car drove through the neighborhood. The nearby houses—standing apart from each other, separated by trees or fences or privacy shrubs—appeared well-tended but vacant, their shutters closed and cars sequestered in double-wide garages. Once, as she carried a box past the bikes and her father’s dusty sedan, she thought she heard children laughing somewhere through the trees. The faint ring of bike bells echoing in the neighborhood cul-de-sac, a good seven-minute walk away.

Already dripping with sweat, Aria set her box in the foyer, sat on the stairs beside the railing and stared up at the vaulted ceiling.

“This will be good for you,” her therapist said, just before the move took Aria outside her license’s purview. “Spend some time thinking about what you want to do next, without the financial pressure. I’ll send you the contact info for a colleague of mine out there.”

Aria did not want the contact info of a colleague out here. She did not want to think about finding a smaller apartment, or going back to her job, or her fucking finances. Weeks of weeping and thanking strangers for their condolences had left her voice worn thin, her capacity for desire diminished to only the basics: food, warmth, quiet. To be alone.

So she would spend the next few months alone. She would read and cook and swim laps in the rec center pool. She would smoke legal weed in the land of lawns.

Through the window above the front door, the sky was going orange. Aria got up, cracked her wrists and stepped outside.

#

She didn’t see him lying there at first. The next-door neighbor’s grass grew tall and tangled around the porch, and between that and the dappled light through the trees, he was nearly invisible. Only when Aria stooped to pick up another box did she catch sight of his hair, and then the rest of him, curled up in the shade.

A smear of color cut across her vision: Sam on the rug, eyes closed, back curved. Pale and limp as a jarred fetus. Involuntarily, she went: “Hey.”

The figure did not move.

“HEY!”

She was across the lawn before he lifted his scarlet head. A boy, or just more than one—dressed in a polo and light wash jeans, with freckles on his forearms. Fine stubble colored his raw-boned face.

“Are you okay?” Aria asked, breathless.

Still horizontal, the boy yawned hugely and stretched all four limbs parallel to the ground. He tilted his chin up, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight. His eyes were a vivid, inhuman hazel. “Yes.”

Instantly, something felt off. She pushed the sensation away. Everything felt off now. “What are you doing?”

Languid, the boy propped himself up on one elbow. “Slee-ping.” His voice, thin and affected, crawled from his red mouth. “Who are you?”

“Aria,” said Aria, before she could think better of it. “I’m sorry, I saw you and thought… Are you all right?”

The man cocked his head back and forth with a soft crunch. “Yes. Only rest-ting.” Huge irises, shifting with his eyes on a half-second delay. Oversized color contacts reduced the sclera to slivers. He tapped his chest with the curled knuckle of his index finger. “Ru-fus.”

A creeping sensation began in the base of Aria’s spine, but she tightened her core against it. She’d seen far weirder things than someone asleep in the sun on their own front lawn. “You shouldn’t lie in long grass. You’ll get ticks.”

Rufus made a low humming sound and pushed himself upright, his hands in loose fists against the dirt. His gaze shifted to the boxes behind her.

“Not seen you before,” he said. “Moving in?”

The feeling got worse. It was the voice—creaky, as if damaged by years of screaming. But that wasn’t his fault.

“Uh,” Aria said. “Not really. Temporarily. But I used to. Have you lived in the neighborhood long?”

“Mm.” He was still sitting on his heels in the grass, leaning slightly forward onto his hands, staring up at her. “A while. Your family live here too? Boyfriend?”

Of course. Of course. “Yes,” Aria said loudly, “my boyfriend and I live here together.”

Again, Rufus looked at the driveway behind her. “He make you unpack? All by yourself?”

Aria’s face went hot. Broad daylight still, but the other houses sat quiet and far away. Her hand wandered to her pocket for her keychain, but it, and the unused canister of mace, rested inside on the kitchen island. “He’s coming later. After his krav maga class and court-mandated anger management therapy.”

To her surprise, Rufus drew away. Still on his knees, he inched backwards toward the porch, a furrow cut between his eyebrows. “Don’t be scared. Did not mean to scare Aria.”

The creeping feeling was in her stomach now. Blood beat in her palms. When she didn’t respond, Rufus cocked his head again. Something jingled around his neck.

“Aria… scared of dogs?”

“Now, see.” She could kick him if he came at her. Really hard, in the mouth. “We’re not doing this. Cut it out.”

“Don’t worry. Rufus is a ve-ry good dog.” Without extending his fingers, he pulled down his collar to reveal the leather strap buckled around his neck. A heart-shaped tag hung from the front loop, lasercut with his name. “People own him, train him very good. Not mean or scary to anybo-dy. Promise.”

“I’m gonna stop you right fucking there.” The sun was sickeningly bright, her whole body hot with adrenaline. “I do not have a problem with any of this, okay? Whatever you do in your house is your business. But you cannot do it with strangers. Stop this right now and talk to me like a normal person.”

Rufus let out a yipping laugh. “Aria person.” He tapped his chest again. “Rufus dog.”

“Stop it.” Tears rose fast in her sore eyes. She’d always been an angry crier. “I’m serious.”

Another low sound. “Aria scared. Did not mean to scare, not at all. Rufus go, not scare a-ny more.”

But he didn’t stand up. Through the blur of her tears, Aria watched him rise to all fours, amble through the grass, up the porch steps and through the flap in the neighbor’s front door.

She stood there crying for a long time. Sobbing great wracking sobs until her throat closed and snot ran into her mouth. Across the street, the houses watched, and nobody came out. The birds chattered. The wind blew through the trees. She was thirty-five and fucked.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?”

Her scalp was sweating. Her hands smelled sweet and familiar. Nearby, somebody cut their rumbling engine.

“Ma’am?”

She looked up. A pickup truck had parked at the curb, its red wheel wells chewed up with rust. Several bags of mulch slumped in the bed, a riding mower in the utility trailer. Inside, a man with short fingernails and a cap pulled over his curls leaned from the window.

“Are you okay?” he asked again.

“No,” said Aria. “I am not okay.”

The man’s arm dangled over a peeling label on the door: Dylan’s Landscaping. He dug around inside, then as if approaching a baby deer, stepped gingerly onto the grass with his hand outstretched.

“Here,” he said. “If you want.”

Aria stared at the twin packets pinched between his fingers: a rumpled sleeve of tissues and a blister pack of cinnamon Extra. Her face twisted.

“Why are you offering me gum?”

Helplessly, Dylan said, “I don’t have anything else. Unless—” he touched his breast pocket, “—do you want a cigarette?”

Sniffling, Aria took the tissues. “Do you have a cigarette?”

He produced a rigid red box, put two between his lips to light and then said, “Shit.”

“I’ll smoke it,” Aria said. “I don’t care. Just give it to me.”

She hadn’t smoked a Red in years. The filter tasted garlicky, but it made her pulse slow.

Dylan did not ask for her name. He did not ask why she was crying or if he could have her phone number. Instead, he stood there quietly, smoking, and took the butt when she was done.

“I should let you get back to it.” He tilted his head at the U-Haul. “I’d offer to help, but figure you’d rather not have a strange man in your house.”

“I’ve got it. Thanks, though.”

“No worries.” He moved to get back in his truck. “Have a good night, ma’am.”

Aria said, “Wait. Do you have a card?”

“For?”

She gestured to the lawn, the overgrowth of weeds at the treeline. “Landscaping?”

“Oh! I… I don’t have any on me. But, uh,” he reached through the open window and jotted down a number, “here. I don’t have a lot of regulars in this neighborhood, but you might see me around sometime.”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” said Aria. “Thanks for the smoke.”

Then, heart still thrumming, she watched his truck until it turned the corner and disappeared.

#

Keeping busy was a fool’s errand. Grocery shopping, laundry—things that would take an hour in the city took upwards of fifteen minutes in the suburbs, and driving around ate more money than free time. In the first week, Aria slept ten hours a night and still managed to burn through forty-five hours of podcasts, none of which distracted her for even a moment from the miserable trudge of her thoughts. At dusk, she sat on dirty patio furniture languishing in the ample backyard and sucked her vape until it tasted like batteries. She could almost see Sam’s shadow in the chair beside her.

He hated this house. She’d only brought him for Christmas the once, and he hadn’t slept at all. Too hot in the guest room, he said. And the carpet smelled weird.

It did, but she’d resented him for it then, and the longer she sat there, getting chewed by mosquitos, the more resentment came up inside her. If you loved me, she thought, you’d have left a note. And then: I’m sorry. This is all my fault.

Even then, as the velvet dark filled the empty second chair, she knew it wasn’t. She tried to think of what she could have done, what he might say to comfort her now, but there was nothing. Funny. His presence had been so huge. Aria slumped back, rubbing her bare heels on the concrete patio. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a dog began to howl.

Every bit of her flesh crawled. She had done her best to push Rufus from her mind, had not even seen him since that first day, but he still crouched in her brain, poised on his knuckles. An uncanniness.

Aria was not easy to shock. Her first year teaching, a fifth grader as tall as she was threw his chair at her head. Her second, a shooter got all the way up to the second floor and walked past her full classroom before another teacher disarmed him. Every year, something new, and yet she rarely raised her voice and could bring a room to heel with a look. She would not be frightened by some weird twenty-year-old.

But when the howling didn’t cease, she went inside, popped a Trazodone and dreamt of men, nude and kneeling, baying at the moon.

#

Her parents were difficult to reach, and during the brief calls that did connect, they only wanted to talk about Iceland. Anything she asked about the house next door either required so much repetition that she gave up, or did not seem to go through at all.

“A couple rents the place,” her mother said briskly, during a spare moment of clean air, “and I think they have a son, but I’ve never met him. You don’t turn off all the lights at night, do you? There was a burglary in the cul-de-sac seven months ago, and I don’t want anybody to think the house is empty.”

“I keep a light on,” Aria lied, “but—” The call dropped for the second time. She didn’t bother putting it through again.

All around her, summer continued its plod. Through the triptych of kitchen windows, she drank scaly Keurig coffee and watched sunlight scorch the neglected backyard, the overgrown place where her swing set had been. Sometimes, she sat in the public library until dark, or got lapped in the rec center pool by wiry old ladies. Her routine took shape by inches—lazy mornings, late nights. Lots of books and frozen meals, and a subtle definition in her shoulders. Occasionally, mostly in the dark, she thought of Dylan.

Then, about three weeks in, she made a mistake.

There was a summer storm—one of those big ones, the last great scream of a hurricane. Aria slept through most of it, but when she emerged from the garage the next morning, the carnage was everywhere. Enormous branches littered the lawn, and a huge chunk of the fence had been crushed by a fallen tree. One of the privacy hedges next door was down, and as Aria picked her way around the house to assess the damage, a flash of red caught her periphery.

Rufus sat in a lawn chair on the neighbor’s finished back deck. Before him, a shattered patio table lay in a billion beads. He was barefoot, his face screwed up and puffy, crying into his knees.

Automatically, Aria went, “Rufus?”

He startled and tried to scramble out of the chair.

“No, wait!” Aria held up her hands. “Don’t get up, there’s glass everywhere.”

Rufus froze. Without the glamor of sleep, his features were painfully human,. His hair hung limp in the front and stuck up in the back. Without opening his mouth, he made a soft, anxious noise, and turned his head away when Aria stepped to the edge of her property.

“Are you all right?” she asked. He still wore those contacts, and the collar, but she looked instead at his exhausted, miserable face. “You shouldn’t be out here without shoes. You’ll get cut. Is anybody here with you? Do you want me to call someone?”

Rufus shook his head no. He could have been twelve then, or six—a child too scared to sleep in the storm.

“Hey,” Aria said, and cleared her throat. Her voice was hoarse from lack of use. “Listen. You go put on some shoes, and I’ll get a broom. I’ll help you. All right?”

The way he looked at her. Blinking, like he was staring into the sun. When she returned, ratty broom and dustpan in hand, the empty table frame was upright and he knelt in the grass, sweeping glass into a dustpan of his own.

Only after the mess had been cleared did Aria look at Rufus, still on the ground, and say, “Are you sure there’s no one I can call? Your parents, or…?”

She expected a reaction, some nameable emotion, but the contacts sucked the nuance from his eyes. His eyebrows knit and unknit convulsively.

“Rufus people gone,” he said.

Why wouldn’t he break character? Did he expect her to play along? The thought made her skin itch. “Enough. Stand up,” she said, and Rufus turned his head abruptly like he’d been slapped. His collar jingled.

“People gone,” he continued without moving. “Trained Rufus, went a-way. Rufus wait-ting. They come back soon.” A lilt to his voice. “Hap-py to wait.”

Aria’s gaze flicked to her damaged fence, then to the empty street several yards away. He’s not hurting anyone, thought her most generous self. He’s only playing. There are a thousand innocent reasons for this. Trauma, social anxiety.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Tone light, mind open, but revulsion still rose in her. Every second spent standing here, she was encouraging him. Like glancing over at some creep in a bar by accident. “Do you ever… see anyone else?”

Rufus cocked his head. “See neighborhood. See Ari-a.”

Paranoia lit like a match in her skull. “I should finish cleaning up.”

He brightened. “Rufus help?”

“No, no.” That uneasy feeling, up from some ancient tar pit. “You stay here. Just stay here.”

Obediently, Rufus sat back on his heels. Hours later, when she glanced out the window into the dark backyard, she could just make out the shape of him, kneeling there. Looking into the night at something she could not see.

#

Aria hoped, naively, that if she ignored him, he would stop. She left the house at dawn and returned at dusk, driving twice past his empty porch only to pull into her driveway and find him ambling on all fours to the property line. Once, on a rare occasion when she went to get the mail, he trotted the full length from door to box with a red rubber ball in his mouth, calling her name.

“Aria! Aria! Aria!”

Desperate, she knocked on several neighborhood doors and received either no response or a rebuff about solicitation through the mail slot. She thought about calling the police, but this was the suburbs—shoot first, questions later, and as unsettling as she found Rufus, Aria didn’t want him dead. So she kept up the charade, ignoring his bids for attention and vaping out the open kitchen window.

Then the grass got long.

Dylan wanted her. Not in the base, slavering way of a young man, but subtle, almost shy. She knew it the first time he came to tend her lawn, the way he lit their cigarettes, his big hand cupping the flame. He wasn’t forward, or coarse. He didn’t touch her. But when she asked if he’d like to stay for dinner, eat on the patio and watch the fireflies, he said yes with such urgency that she almost laughed.

“I’m really not much of a cook,” she lied, just to hear him argue. “You’ll have to grade me on a curve.”

 “I’m not picky. Mind if I take an hour to change?”

“Sure. I’m not going anywhere. Just don’t leave me hanging.”

She stood on the driveway to watch him go, and where the guilt and shame should have been, there was only drowsy anticipation. She did not imagine what Sam would say. She did not think of him at all.

She turned back toward the front door, and there was Rufus.

He squatted on the welcome mat, knees spread, knuckles to the concrete. In all those weeks, never once had he crossed the property line, and now he sat at her own threshold, blocking it.

Aria’s fear lasted only a moment. She’d seen enough of him that he had become ordinary. A lonely creep with a crush.

Without moving, she said, “Get away from my door.”

Rufus pawed nervously at the ground. His eyes scanned the road and the empty windows on the other side.

“Get away from my door,” Aria said again. Rufus rose to all fours, straining front limbs, his skinny hips locking into place beneath his cargo shorts. He padded down the driveway with his head bowed. He stopped and sat several body lengths away. Beneath his chin, a shaving cut stood out clotted and scarlet.

“I’m not playing this game with you anymore.” Teacher voice. I’m-not-fucking-around voice. “Get off my property or I will remove you.”

Rufus growled up in his sinuses. “Not pla-ying,” he yipped, without mirth. “You let him in?”

“Excuse me?”

“In.” He tossed his head toward the door. “In Aria house.” His lips peeled away from his teeth. “Saw you.”

“You were spying on us?”

“Not spy. Just see. Don’t want Aria let him i-n.”

She advanced on him. “It is none of your business who I let into my home.”

Rufus shrank back. “Rufus know things. Aria should li-sten.”

“No. You listen to me. I already told you I do not consent to this, and you have repeatedly ignored me. Unless you stand up and speak to me in your normal voice, this is the last conversation we will have. Do you understand?”

Rufus did not move. The cords of his throat tightened. Then, gruffly, “Only one voice. This voice, only.”

Aria turned back toward the open garage. If he followed her, she would scream and somebody would come. Somebody would come if she screamed.

He did not follow her. By the time Dylan arrived with a case of beer under one arm, the driveway was empty. But Aria thought of him. He lay curled up in her mind all through dinner, his hands folded neatly beneath his chin. Only after two beers did she begin to think of anything else.

“Got any siblings?”

“Nope.” She got up from the kitchen table to put their empty plates in the sink. “Just me. You?”

“Three younger sisters.” A tipsy flush crept into Dylan’s face. “They’re all gone now, though. Moved away.”

Aria popped the top on another, feeling his eyes linger on the embroidered back pocket of her jeans. “Nothing to keep them in Westbrooke?”

“Not much to keep anybody in Westbrooke.” He’d changed his shirt, changed his pants, probably changed his underwear, but the smell of grass and diesel still clung to his hands.

“What about you?” Aria asked.

“What about me?”

“You’re still here.”

Dylan shrugged. “No money to go anywhere else. But it’s nice around here. Quiet. Everybody minds their own business.”

“Is that so?” Barefoot on the linoleum, the humid air tonguing the back of her neck. “For some reason, I’m finding that hard to believe.”

He laughed. “Okay. Maybe I don’t mind my own business. But for some reason, I’m getting the sense you don’t mind so much.”

“I don’t.” She stepped one long, careful leg between his thighs. “Want another beer?”

All at once, he was on her. Thumb through her belt loop, pulling her pelvis-first against him. Delighted, Aria realized that without his boots, he was an inch shorter than her.

“How about dessert instead?” he asked, and sucked in a breath when Aria cupped the diamond tenting his chinos.

“Yeah,” she said, “let’s have dessert.”

They fumbled to the couch. Dylan wrenched off her jeans and panties with both hands, his tongue flat, unhesitating. Aria grasped for his hair.

“I’m on a lot of medication,” she said breathlessly. “I might not be able to…”

Without lifting his head, Dylan gave a thumbs up. Dead tissue lit up against his face. A howl, a flush of color—carbonation rising in her bloodstream. Warm light. She jerked against him, pressed his ears between her thighs. Her head turned toward the window beside the TV and the half-foot of night between the blinds and the sill.

A set of bulging eyes peered in from the dark.

Aria screamed. She scrambled for the afghan on the back of the couch, screaming and screaming until Dylan could extract himself to run outside. He returned empty-handed, the flush dead on his cheeks.

“I walked around the whole house twice. There’s nobody out there.”

“I saw him,” Aria said.

Dylan pulled down the blinds and sat beside her on the couch. “There’s nobody. Maybe it was a deer, or a stray cat?”

“You don’t understand. There’s a…” She paused. There’s a man next door pretending to be a dog, and nobody’s seen him but me.

Dylan was looking at her expectantly.

“Never mind,” Aria said. “You’re right. It was probably just… a cat.” A levitating cat, with dinner plate eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Dylan brought his face close to her neck. “Just relax.”

Aria stared at the white phalanx of the blinds. The illusion of inside, separated from the long, low dark. A flimsy boundary.

Too loudly, she said, “Let’s take this to the bedroom.”

When Dylan picked her up, his mouth on her shoulder, she didn’t resist.

#

Afterwards, nearing sleep in the windowless spare room, he asked if she was okay.

“Me?” She had been thinking about Sam. He never held her like this after they made love. How much must he have hated her, in those final days. If he even thought of her at all.

Dylan propped himself up on his free elbow. His belly pressed against the small of her back.

“Yeah, you,” he said. “What’s up? You’re quiet.”

It was too soon to have done this. She couldn’t turn to face him. “I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing. Do you do this with all your clients?”

A soft laugh behind her. “No, can’t say that I do.” He shifted onto his back, and after a moment, Aria rested her cheek against his warm shoulder.

“I don’t, either,” she said. “Not that I know many landscapers.”

They lay there, watching the dusty ceiling fan oscillate. His heart thudded slowly under his ribs. “Gotta say, I’m glad I stopped a couple weeks back. Usually wouldn’t in a neighborhood like this, but you were so…”

“Soggy?” Her voice stayed light. Detached. “I must have looked awful.”

“Nah. Just sad.”

“Scared, more like.”

This seemed to surprise him. “Of?”

She couldn’t say. She shouldn’t. But he felt so close and careful beside her. “My neighbor, I guess.”

“Your neighbor?” Dylan shifted. “Which neighbor?”

“The one with the porch.” Then, when Dylan abruptly sat up beside her, “What?”

“There isn’t supposed to… I mean, I know the folks who live there.” Tension bled into his voice. “Nice older couple. Cut their grass once or twice, but I thought they were away for the summer.”

His reaction threw her. Immediately, she thought of Rufus, hiding in the crawlspace or sleeping curled up between a pair of corpses.

“I’ve not met them,” she said. “My parents said they might be renting, or maybe it was their son.”

“They told my boss they were gone. Their son’s been weird to you?”

“He’s been… I don’t know. He just doesn’t seem well.”

“How?” His attention made her suddenly self-conscious. “Did he make a pass at you?”

“No. It’s hard to say. He hasn’t done anything.”

“But he creeps you out.” Dylan paused. “Do you want me to go over there?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not? I wouldn’t mention you.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything. Please, just leave it.”

Dylan settled onto his back again, his shoulder touching hers. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep.”

But she could feel his curiosity breathing beside her all night, like an animal in the dark.

#

When she woke, the covers were still warm. She unfolded herself from the bed, slipped into her robe and emerged into the silent house.

“Dylan?” Her voice travelled up to the vaulted ceiling.

No reply. Maybe he had gone out to his truck, or had an early appointment. Feeling vaguely slighted, Aria began to open the blinds in the kitchen. The freshly manicured backyard looked wonderful, if you liked that kind of thing. In the family room, she hesitated, tempted to just keep the blinds closed and block out the house next door completely.

Relax, she thought, and pulled up the blinds.

Dylan was on the neighbor’s porch. He stood before the open front door, gesturing to somebody just out of sight. As she watched, eyes wide, he threw his head back and laughed.

Aria tore through the house and spilled out onto the front lawn. The sun hovered hot over her neck like an open mouth.

She had nearly reached the porch before she saw him.

Rufus, two-legged, standing on the threshold of his house.

He was awful to look at, badly constructed, all cheap, cartoonish angles. His shoulders rolled forward like a chimpanzee’s. His mouth was open.

She could almost smell him—earth, wet hair. A dog, dressed as a man.

From the porch, Dylan turned, raised a hand.

“Morning!” he called, as if they were strangers. Blind to the lurid horror standing over him. Then, back to Rufus, “Tell your folks to give us a call when they get back, all right?”

Unblinking, Rufus nodded and disappeared into the house.

The trance broke. Aria stalked up the porch steps, dripping sweat. She raised her fist and hammered hard on the chipped white paint.

“Rufus!” she screamed. “Rufus! I know you can hear me!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Dylan held out his hands, but she could not see him through the bloody tunnel of her vision.

“I know what you’re doing! Come out here and play your little game!”

Dylan stepped between her and the door. “Aria, calm down.”

Something exploded inside her, like a glass falling from a cabinet onto the kitchen floor. He moved to take her shoulder, and she slapped his hand away.

“I told you not to speak to him.”

Dylan drew back. The late morning light carved triangles beneath his cheekbones and eyes.

Coolly, he said, “I wasn’t talking to him about you.”

“But now he’s seen you.” Aria’s face crumpled. “He knows I told you!”

Dylan caught her wrist when she swiped at him again. “That’s enough.”

“Let me go.” She pulled, but he held her fast.

“Not until you calm down.”

The sound that came from her started low and rose into a wordless, full-body scream. Across the street, no one emerged from the houses. “Let me go. Let me go!”

Dylan did not let her go. His eyes raked over her, wide with disgust. Sam’s eyes.

“Fine,” he said. “But if you hit me again, I’ll hit you back.”

Aria buried her dripping face in her hands. “I never want to see you again.”

The sound of his boots tromping down the porch stairs. The jingle of his keys. Burnt orange afterimages decorated the backs of her eyes and within, an absence. A hole in the shape of a dog.

#

Aria called her parents three times before they answered.

“I can’t stay here. I need to go home.”

“Aria? We’re hiking Látrabjarg,” said her mother. In the background, seabirds shrieked at each other. “What is it?”

“Please… Please send me some money so I can go home.”

“Slow down.” Her father sounded like he was speaking through a tin can. “What do you need money for?”

“To go home. Please?”

Her mother said, “Did something happen?”

“I… I just need to go…”

Go home? To where? Her lease was done, her few friends living in one bedrooms without room for an air mattress. She had no savings, no job until her contract renewal in the fall.

“What happened?” asked her parents. “Is this about Sam?”

The future peered at her through the lensless eye of a pinhole camera—tiny, upside down. “Not everything is about Sam.”

“Then what?”

An absurd calm took her. It stirred through her sinuses up to the shallow veins of her scalp. Why should she go? What could Rufus do when the worst thing she could imagine had already happened?

“Aria. Are you still there?” Her mother’s voice took on the teacher’s edge. “Answer me.”

“Forget it.” She hung up.

She spent the rest of the day at the rec, where she swam until her legs shook walking back to the car. No sign of anybody when she drove past the house, but she lapped the neighborhood anyway, noting illuminated streetlights and a single lawn flooded with kids’ toys. Inside the house, she retrieved the hideakey and examined each closed room. Then, satisfied, she checked the locks again, popped a Trazodone and fell into bed.

The sleep that came was soft and deep, the sheets cool on her legs. She slipped down, down into the murk, down into the windowless dark.

#

It was still dark when she woke. Unthinking in her haze, she stretched out her limbs.

Her foot struck something solid.

Her big toe traced the edge of it, then glanced off into the expanse of unoccupied sheet.

She opened her eyes to pure black. Darker even than the map in her mind. She could not make out the battered recliner in the corner, or the bathroom’s door frame.

But she could see the shape at the foot of the bed.

Her eyes shut. The afterimage remained: a pile of fair skin.

She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming, and yet she could move, and think. Inches away, the figure shifted. She felt the air change.

The smell. The smell. Indole. Saline.

A breath stayed locked behind her teeth. She didn’t dare open her eyes again. Rufus would know. He would raise his head and train his bulging, whiteless gaze upon her.

She could not let him realize she was awake. But she had to breathe.

Aria exhaled silently through her nose. The trembling outline of her chest went down, and up, and down. Her heart beat like a rabbit’s.

Slowly, her foot drew toward the edge of the mattress. Her flesh rasped deafeningly against the sheets.

Slower. Her pinky toenail breached the duvet. Then the rest of them, one at a time, until the whole foot was out.

The carpet creaked as she set her foot down.

The mound did not move.

With great effort, she began to breathe again. In and out. In and out. Slow.

With both feet on the carpet, Aria couldn’t bring herself to stand.

Okay. Okay. To the car… no. She couldn’t open the garage door without rousing him, and how could she know he hadn’t tampered with it somehow? The house with the toys spilled across the yard came to her. She would cut across to the cul-de-sac and scream until they let her in.

All that remained was getting to the back door.

The pile on the bed seemed to pulse. It did not stir as she slid out from beneath the covers, nor when her knee popped under her weight. With exaggerated slowness, she crept for the door. The pile remained still, dreaming. Sweaty hand on the shining doorknob—a soft click.

To open it, she had to look away from the bed. She turned her head and the shape disappeared. Would the hinges squeak? Not if she opened it in one push. Aria gripped the doorknob and shoved. She was through. Her head snapped to the bed.

The figure was gone.

Aria shot down the hallway, clipping the wall with her shoulder, the kitchen and its screen door just a few feet away.

He caught her by the hair before she reached the kitchen island: the silk bonnet slipped away from her skull. Another grab for the back of her t-shirt, and she was ensnared. The floor leapt up to meet her. She fell hard, scrabbling for the kitchen tile, and then she saw him.

He was naked, his penis bobbing against his belly like a dowsing rod. His hands, enrobed in black nitrile gloves. His face obscured by a balaclava.

No. Not a balaclava. A mask. A leather dog mask, its muzzle hanging loose by a single rivet to reveal a smear of gums and teeth. The eyes, shining black from their holes.

The systems of her body failed. Her joints locked. Her bladder let go.

Through a mouthful of shining teeth, Rufus said, “Told ya, Ari-a.”

Aria could only groan.

“Told ya not to let him i-in.” When he spoke, something fluttered and dripped from his mouth. “He come back, when Aria gone. Case neighbo-rhood. Check windows and locks. Rufus see.”

“Wh…what?”

“Burg-laaar.” His voice lilted, self-satisfied. “He came here to-night to Rufus house. See if somebody home. Aria’s too. And Aria all al-lone.” He shook his head. Cold saliva and blood spattered Aria’s face. “But Rufus catch him. Rufus good dog.”

“Rufus.” Her nails dug deep in the carpet. “Where is… Where is Dylan?”

Rufus tossed his head toward the door. “Outside. Rufus stop him. Then Rufus come to check. Make sure Aria safe.” He bent forward, panting slightly. From his neck dangled a dripping key. “With copy.”

“You made a…” All at once she could see it. The hideakey. The fucking hideakey. She let out a high, keening sob.

Rufus’s lips curled. The air around him stank of blood and shit. “Aria lonely,” he rasped. “Rufus stay with her. Protect her.” He tilted his chin down, and the scant light caught the hazel in his eyes. “Rufus good do-og.”

Aria forced herself to hold his gaze. Her digestive system squirmed.

“Y-Yes,” she said. “Ru… Rufus is a good dog.”

Instantly, his body language changed. His head came down, his shoulders rounding. The awful limbs curled in obediently.

Aria sat up and said, “Come here. G-Good dog. Good boy.”

Bent almost double, he pressed his face into her outstretched palm. The leather fold of his ear slotted between her thumb and forefinger. From between the fences of teeth, his rough, bloody tongue lapped at her forearm.

Crazily, she thought of that urban legend of the girl woken by her puppy licking her hand, only to find the animal disembowelled in the tub and the message, Humans can lick too.

“Oh, what a good dog. Aria’s good boy.”

Her other hand reached up to cup the back of his head. A tuft of sweaty hair pressed flat and fanning from the hem of the mask. She brought him forward, into a half crouch, so he could look into her eyes. “Come kiss my face, good boy.”

   The tongue pulled itself from her arm, moved to her neck. Her chin. She could smell the offal on his breath. She cradled his whole head in her arms now.

And turned abruptly making him stumble. With the force of his falling, Aria smashed his face into the wooden slat. Gripping the mask, she smashed it again. And again, and then she was on top of him, fingers in the eyeholes, twisting the mask around until its gaping face screamed up at her.

Aria pulled. Rufus’s neck craned backward, hands clawing the carpet. A cry through the skintight leather seal over his mouth. Reek of bile, clotted blood.

With both hands, Aria wrenched the mask back until his bones creaked. He thrashed, gasping, beneath her. Then the hands went limp.

Long after he was still, long after it was over, she remained on top of him—straddling his back, fists full of leather. Only when her shoulders shrieked in pain did she let go.

His head hit the floor with a thump. Panting, Aria stood and, without looking back, staggered into the backyard.

A finger of indigo breached the horizon. She lurched forward, onto the grass, and stepped in Dylan.

Little more than a shape in the dark, he crunched like a spider. Aria convulsed. “I’m sorry,” she said, weeping, pulling her foot free. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this.”

Through the space in the fence, into the next lawn. The cul-de-sac, the children’s toys. Only a seven-minute walk away.

#

Rufus came back to the sound of a telephone. He could not see, but reached backwards and found his face on the other side of his skull. The interior smelled rotten, until he turned the mask and smelled hair and dust instead.

The telephone ceased, then began again.

Frustration welled in him. How could she do this to him? He’d been a good boy, she said so. Had he not explained how he was protecting her well enough? Or had she not been listening?

The telephone shrieked. He answered it.

“H’lo? Aria? No, she’s not here. No, I’m her… neighbor.” His breath came in soft, exhausted puffs. “No. Somebody tried to break in. She asked me to stay with her, but she just stepped out.” A pause. “No, ma’am. No. She left me in charge. But she’ll be right back. Yes, I’ll tell her. You too. Bye.”

The line went out. Rufus rolled his neck, then rose on his legs again, and performed an experimental growl.

A good dog is patient. A good dog would wait. But it was so dark.

She couldn’t have gotten far.

On posting our latest story, we spoke to horror writer Corinne Engber. You can read Rufus here. There may be minor spoilers for the tale ahead.

Q1. I’ve never read a story with an antagonist quite like our Rufus – where did the idea spawn from and why does he creep me out so very much?

This is going to sound a little weird, but my wife and I are both horror writers and sometimes when we’re in bed at night, we like to talk about scary things before we go to sleep. Like, top five scariest environments to wake up in, top five scariest types of guy to be in the apartment right now, that sort of thing. Rufus arose from one of these conversations: I had recently read about the filmGood Boy, where a character appears to live as a dog, and its failures to maintain tension or push the envelope with the concept, and the thought spiralled out from there.

The horror of Rufus is that his motivations are unknowable. Aria (and by extension, the reader) can infer what he wants—companionship, love, sex—but we never really know for sure. This, coupled with suburban isolation and the shackles of Midwestern social niceties, means that Aria is trapped in an unwilling relationship with someone who does not care if she is uncomfortable as long as he gets his. BDSM is so ripe for horror, but so much BDSM-adjacent horror is focused on whips and chains and sadistic dominants, which I don’t find all that scary. What I do find scary, both in fiction and in real life, is malice masquerading as willful ignorance or ineptitude. Rufus is the worst of the worst of entitled subculture creeps, and I write a lot of entitled subculture creeps.

Q2. I love the mix of emotions you have going on in this story. We are obviously frightened by Rufus, but we very much feel for the main character who is not in the best of places. I really felt all of the emotions from fright, anxiety, through to passion and love. Did you spend a lot of time trying to hit these notes or did it all come through as a natural part of the story?  

This is an excellent question. I really find that horror lives and dies by the emotions of its characters. It doesn’t matter how gruesome the events: if the characters aren’t scared, I’m not scared, and when I write horror, the person I’m trying to scare most is myself.

Writing clear emotion actually doesn’t come naturally to me at all; I experience moderate alexithymia or emotional blindness, which makes it difficult for me to identify and portray emotions in a way that doesn’t seem overblocked and hammy. However, because my experience of emotion is so nebulous, it opens the door for physical representations of emotion beyond the typical stable of happy, sad, scared, etc. For example, when Aria sees Rufus walk for the first time, I wanted to evoke the feeling of being so powerless and angry at the ridiculousness of a situation that you just have to cry. So too with Aria’s relationship with Dylan; their chemistry needs to be believable, and Dylan’s kindness very clear in contrast to Rufus’ self-interest. All of this is deliberate and at the forefront of my mind when I’m writing.

Q3. Another thing I love about this story is that it doesn’t ‘look away’ and all of Aria’s reactions come from a very human, very honest place that writers sometimes shy away from. How do you feel about the role of honesty in your fiction?  

Oh, I don’t think I could be dishonest in my writing if I tried. I’m a painfully earnest person in real life, so representing any sort of detachment in my work is somewhat laborious. I also find that real reactions create real discomfort; isn’t it awful when you’re reading something and the characters don’t speak or behave like real people? This sort of irony or profound genre awareness can work, but more often than not, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, I also dislike insistence that characters should only ever behave reasonably and rationally, especially in horror. Sometimes people are irrational, or make choices based on incomplete information. Sometimes you realize the dog man is only doing the dog thing to you and it freaks you out. I think that’s reasonable! Honestly, I think everything Aria does is reasonable.

Q4. How much of your time do you spend writing short stories versus other projects?

Though I’ve always loved reading short stories, I actually only started writing short fiction seriously around 2021-2022. Before that, it was all poetry and novels, all the time, but now that I’ve started writing short fiction, I’ve really developed an affection for it. Like short films, short stories are incredible vehicles for horror: they’re tight and self-contained, but with plenty of room to play. I usually have a short story going on in the background while I’m working on my longer projects, but sometimes an idea will grab me and I’ll write it all the way through in a couple of weeks, put it to my workshop group and then write it again from the top, but good this time. At this point, I’d say I spend about a third of my writing time on short fiction, two-thirds on my novel. It’s nice not to be locked in on only one project!

Q5. What other works do you have on the go? Anything you’d like to promote?

Aside from my novel-in-progress Space Trash, which is a sci-fi lesbian road trip through Body Horror World, I’ve got another short story in rewrites called “Dead Wife” which is about the successful resurrection of a marriage and also a lovely corpse. I’ve also been submitting a story called “Dollbaby,” about yet another subculture creep who meets an odd couple way, way weirder than he is.

In the publication pipeline, I have a sci-fi food service horror piece forthcoming with Penumbric Speculative Fiction, and recently, my Gothic timeloop story “The Sound of a Gong” was published by Tales to Terrify! It’s beautifully narrated by Krystal Hammond and Andrew Gibson and I could not be happier to share it.

My other work can be found all over; there’s a pinned post on my Tumblr @synonymsfordismember with links if you’d like to check it out.

THE FOLLOWING EVENTS occurred on a small island of isolated position in a large Canadian lake, to whose cool waters the inhabitants of Montreal and Toronto flee for rest and recreation in the hot months. It is only to be regretted that events of such peculiar interest to the genuine student of the psychical should be entirely uncorroborated. Such unfortunately, however, is the case.

Our own party of nearly twenty had returned to Montreal that very day, and I was left in solitary possession for a week or two longer, in order to accomplish some important “reading” for the law which I had foolishly neglected during the summer.

It was late in September, and the big trout and maskinonge were stirring themselves in the depths of the lake, and beginning slowly to move up to the surface waters as the north winds and early frosts lowered their temperature. Already the maples were crimson and gold, and the wild laughter of the loons echoed in sheltered bays that never knew their strange cry in the summer.

With a whole island to oneself, a two-storey cottage, a canoe, and only the chipmunks, and the farmer’s weekly visit with eggs and bread, to disturb one, the opportunities for hard reading might be very great. It all depends!

The rest of the party had gone off with many warnings to beware of Indians, and not to stay late enough to be the victim of a frost that thinks nothing of forty below zero. After they had gone, the loneliness of the situation made itself unpleasantly felt. There were no other islands within six or seven miles, and though the mainland forests lay a couple of miles behind me, they stretched for a very great distance unbroken by any signs of human habitation. But, though the island was completely deserted and silent, the rocks and trees that had echoed human laughter and voices almost every hour of the day for two months could not fail to retain some memories of it all; and I was not surprised to fancy I heard a shout or a cry as I passed from rock to rock, and more than once to imagine that I heard my own name called aloud.

In the cottage there were six tiny little bedrooms divided from one another by plain unvarnished partitions of pine. A wooden bedstead, a mattress, and a chair, stood in each room, but I only found two mirrors, and one of these was broken.

The boards creaked a good deal as I moved about, and the signs of occupation were so recent that I could hardly believe I was alone. I half expected to find someone left behind, still trying to crowd into a box more than it would hold. The door of one room was stiff, and refused for a moment to open, and it required very little persuasion to imagine someone was holding the handle on the inside, and that when it opened I should meet a pair of human eyes.

thorough search of the floor led me to select as my own sleeping quarters a little room with a diminutive balcony over the verandah roof. The room was very small, but the bed was large, and had the best mattress of them all. It was situated directly over the sitting-room where I should live and do my “reading,” and the miniature window looked out to the rising sun. With the exception of a narrow path which led from the front door and verandah through the trees to the boat-landing, the island was densely covered with maples, hemlocks, and cedars. The trees gathered in round the cottage so closely that the slightest wind made the branches scrape the roof and tap the wooden walls. A few moments after sunset the darkness became impenetrable, and ten yards beyond the glare of the lamps that shone through the sitting-room windows — of which there were four — you could not see an inch before your nose, nor move a step without running up against a tree.

The rest of that day I spent moving my belongings from my tent to the sitting-room, taking stock of the contents of the larder, and chopping enough wood for the stove to last me for a week. After that, just before sunset, I went round the island a couple of times in my canoe for precaution’s sake. I had never dreamed of doing this before, but when a man is alone he does things that never occur to him when he is one of a large party.

How lonely the island seemed when I landed again! The sun was down, and twilight is unknown in these northern regions. The darkness comes up at once. The canoe safely pulled up and turned over on her face, I groped my way up the little narrow pathway to the verandah. The six lamps were soon burning merrily in the front room; but in the kitchen, where I “dined,” the shadows were so gloomy, and the lamplight was so inadequate, that the stars could be seen peeping through the cracks between the rafters.

I turned in early that night. Though it was calm and there was no wind, the creaking of my bedstead and the musical gurgle of the water over the rocks below were not the only sounds that reached my ears. As I lay awake, the appalling emptiness of the house grew upon me. The corridors and vacant rooms seemed to echo innumerable footsteps, shufflings, the rustle of skirts, and a constant undertone of whispering. When sleep at length overtook me, the breathings and noises, however, passed gently to mingle with the voices of my dreams.

A week passed by, and the “reading” progressed favourably. On the tenth day of my solitude, a strange thing happened. I awoke after a good night’s sleep to find myself possessed with a marked repugnance for my room. The air seemed to stifle me. The more I tried to define the cause of this dislike, the more unreasonable it appeared. There was something about the room that made me afraid. Absurd as it seems, this feeling clung to me obstinately while dressing, and more than once I caught myself shivering, and conscious of an inclination to get out of the room as quickly as possible. The more I tried to laugh it away, the more real it became; and when at last I was dressed, and went out into the passage, and downstairs into the kitchen, it was with feelings of relief, such as I might imagine would accompany one’s escape from the presence of a dangerous contagious disease.

While cooking my breakfast, I carefully recalled every night spent in the room, in the hope that I might in some way connect the dislike I now felt with some disagreeable incident that had occurred in it. But the only thing I could recall was one stormy night when I suddenly awoke and heard the boards creaking so loudly in the corridor that I was convinced there were people in the house. So certain was I of this, that I had descended the stairs, gun in hand, only to find the doors and windows securely fastened, and the mice and black-beetles in sole possession of the floor. This was certainly not sufficient to account for the strength of my feelings.

The morning hours I spent in steady reading; and when I broke off in the middle of the day for a swim and luncheon, I was very much surprised, if not a little alarmed, to find that my dislike for the room had, if anything, grown stronger. Going upstairs to get a book, I experienced the most marked aversion to entering the room, and while within I was conscious all the time of an uncomfortable feeling that was half uneasiness and half apprehension. The result of it was that, instead of reading, I spent the afternoon on the water paddling and fishing, and when I got home about sundown, brought with me half a dozen delicious black bass for the supper-table and the larder.

As sleep was an important matter to me at this time, I had decided that if my aversion to the room was so strongly marked on my return as it had been before, I would move my bed down into the sitting-room, and sleep there. This was, I argued, in no sense a concession to an absurd and fanciful fear, but simply a precaution to ensure a good night’s sleep. A bad night involved the loss of the next day’s reading, — a loss I was not prepared to incur.

I accordingly moved my bed downstairs into a corner of the sitting-room facing the door, and was moreover uncommonly glad when the operation was completed, and the door of the bedroom closed finally upon the shadows, the silence, and the strange fear that shared the room with them.

The croaking stroke of the kitchen clock sounded the hour of eight as I finished washing up my few dishes, and closing the kitchen door behind me, passed into the front room. All the lamps were lit, and their reflectors, which I had polished up during the day, threw a blaze of light into the room.

Outside the night was still and warm. Not a breath of air was stirring; the waves were silent, the trees motionless, and heavy clouds hung like an oppressive curtain over the heavens. The darkness seemed to have rolled up with unusual swiftness, and not the faintest glow of colour remained to show where the sun had set. There was present in the atmosphere that ominous and overwhelming silence which so often precedes the most violent storms.

I sat down to my books with my brain unusually clear, and in my heart the pleasant satisfaction of knowing that five black bass were lying in the ice-house, and that to-morrow morning the old farmer would arrive with fresh bread and eggs. I was soon absorbed in my books.

As the night wore on the silence deepened. Even the chipmunks were still; and the boards of the floors and walls ceased creaking. I read on steadily till, from the gloomy shadows of the kitchen, came the hoarse sound of the clock striking nine. How loud the strokes sounded! They were like blows of a big hammer. I closed one book and opened another, feeling that I was just warming up to my work.

This, however, did not last long. I presently found that I was reading the same paragraphs over twice, simple paragraphs that did not require such effort. Then I noticed that my mind began to wander to other things, and the effort to recall my thoughts became harder with each digression. Concentration was growing momentarily more difficult. Presently I discovered that I had turned over two pages instead of one, and had not noticed my mistake until I was well down the page. This was becoming serious. What was the disturbing influence? It could not be physical fatigue. On the contrary, my mind was unusually alert, and in a more receptive condition than usual. I made a new and determined effort to read, and for a short time succeeded in giving my whole attention to my subject. But in a very few moments again I found myself leaning back in my chair, staring vacantly into space.

Something was evidently at work in my sub-consciousness. There was something I had neglected to do. Perhaps the kitchen door and windows were not fastened. I accordingly went to see, and found that they were! The fire perhaps needed attention. I went in to see, and found that it was all right! I looked at the lamps, went upstairs into every bedroom in turn, and then went round the house, and even into the ice-house. Nothing was wrong; everything was in its place. Yet something was wrong! The conviction grew stronger and stronger within me.

When I at length settled down to my books again and tried to read, I became aware, for the first time, that the room seemed growing cold. Yet the day had been oppressively warm, and evening had brought no relief. The six big lamps, moreover, gave out heat enough to warm the room pleasantly. But a chilliness, that perhaps crept up from the lake, made itself felt in the room, and caused me to get up to close the glass door opening on to the verandah.

For a brief moment I stood looking out at the shaft of light that fell from the windows and shone some little distance down the pathway, and out for a few feet into the lake.

As I looked, I saw a canoe glide into the pathway of light, and immediately crossing it, pass out of sight again into the darkness. It was perhaps a hundred feet from the shore, and it moved swiftly.

I was surprised that a canoe should pass the island at that time of night, for all the summer visitors from the other side of the lake had gone home weeks before, and the island was a long way out of any line of water traffic.

My reading from this moment did not make very good progress, for somehow the picture of that canoe, gliding so dimly and swiftly across the narrow track of light on the black waters, silhouetted itself against the background of my mind with singular vividness. It kept coming between my eyes and the printed page. The more I thought about it the more surprised I became. It was of larger build than any I had seen during the past summer months, and was more like the old Indian war canoes with the high curving bows and stern and wide beam. The more I tried to read, the less success attended my efforts; and finally I closed my books and went out on the verandah to walk up and down a bit, and shake the chilliness out of my bones.

The night was perfectly still, and as dark as imaginable. I stumbled down the path to the little landing wharf, where the water made the very faintest of gurgling under the timbers. The sound of a big tree falling in the mainland forest, far across the lake, stirred echoes in the heavy air, like the first guns of a distant night attack. No other sound disturbed the stillness that reigned supreme.

As I stood upon the wharf in the broad splash of light that followed me from the sitting-room windows, I saw another canoe cross the pathway of uncertain light upon the water, and disappear at once into the impenetrable gloom that lay beyond. This time I saw more distinctly than before. It was like the former canoe, a big birch-bark, with high-crested bows and stern and broad beam. It was paddled by two Indians, of whom the one in the stern — the steerer — appeared to be a very large man. I could see this very plainly; and though the second canoe was much nearer the island than the first, I judged that they were both on their way home to the Government Reservation, which was situated some fifteen miles away upon the mainland.

I was wondering in my mind what could possibly bring any Indians down to this part of the lake at such an hour of the night, when a third canoe, of precisely similar build, and also occupied by two Indians, passed silently round the end of the wharf. This time the canoe was very much nearer shore, and it suddenly flashed into my mind that the three canoes were in reality one and the same, and that only one canoe was circling the island!

This was by no means a pleasant reflection, because, if it were the correct solution of the unusual appearance of the three canoes in this lonely part of the lake at so late an hour, the purpose of the two men could only reasonably be considered to be in some way connected with myself. I had never known of the Indians attempting any violence upon the settlers who shared the wild, inhospitable country with them; at the same time, it was not beyond the region of possibility to suppose. . . . But then I did not care even to think of such hideous possibilities, and my imagination immediately sought relief in all manner of other solutions to the problem, which indeed came readily enough to my mind, but did not succeed in recommending themselves to my reason.

Meanwhile, by a sort of instinct, I stepped back out of the bright light in which I had hitherto been standing, and waited in the deep shadow of a rock to see if the canoe would again make its appearance. Here I could see, without being seen, and the precaution seemed a wise one.

After less than five minutes the canoe, as I had anticipated, made its fourth appearance. This time it was not twenty yards from the wharf, and I saw that the Indians meant to land. I recognised the two men as those who had passed before, and the steerer was certainly an immense fellow. It was unquestionably the same canoe. There could be no longer any doubt that for some purpose of their own the men had been going round and round the island for some time, waiting for an opportunity to land. I strained my eyes to follow them in the darkness, but the night had completely swallowed them up, and not even the faintest swish of the paddles reached my ears as the Indians plied their long and powerful strokes. The canoe would be round again in a few moments, and this time it was possible that the men might land. It was well to be prepared. I knew nothing of their intentions, and two to one (when the two are big Indians!) late at night on a lonely island was not exactly my idea of pleasant intercourse.

In a corner of the sitting-room, leaning up against the back wall, stood my Marlin rifle, with ten cartridges in the magazine and one lying snugly in the greased breech. There was just time to get up to the house and take up a position of defence in that corner. Without an instant’s hesitation I ran up to the verandah, carefully picking my way among the trees, so as to avoid being seen in the light. Entering the room, I shut the door leading to the verandah, and as quickly as possible turned out every one of the six lamps. To be in a room so brilliantly lighted, where my every movement could be observed from outside, while I could see nothing but impenetrable darkness at every window, was by all laws of warfare an unnecessary concession to the enemy. And this enemy, if enemy it was to be, was far too wily and dangerous to be granted any such advantages.

I stood in the corner of the room with my back against the wall, and my hand on the cold rifle-barrel. The table, covered with my books, lay between me and the door, but for the first few minutes after the lights were out the darkness was so intense that nothing could be discerned at all. Then, very gradually, the outline of the room became visible, and the framework of the windows began to shape itself dimly before my eyes.

After a few minutes the door (its upper half of glass), and the two windows that looked out upon the front verandah, became specially distinct; and I was glad that this was so, because if the Indians came up to the house I should be able to see their approach, and gather something of their plans. Nor was I mistaken, for there presently came to my ears the peculiar hollow sound of a canoe landing and being carefully dragged up over the rocks. The paddles I distinctly heard being placed underneath, and the silence that ensued thereupon I rightly interpreted to mean that the Indians were stealthily approaching the house. . . .

While it would be absurd to claim that I was not alarmed — even frightened — at the gravity of the situation and its possible outcome, I speak the whole truth when I say that I was not overwhelmingly afraid for myself. I was conscious that even at this stage of the night I was passing into a psychical condition in which my sensations seemed no longer normal. Physical fear at no time entered into the nature of my feelings; and though I kept my hand upon my rifle the greater part of the night, I was all the time conscious that its assistance could be of little avail against the terrors that I had to face. More than once I seemed to feel most curiously that I was in no real sense a part of the proceedings, nor actually involved in them, but that I was playing the part of a spectator — a spectator, moreover, on a psychic rather than on a material plane. Many of my sensations that night were too vague for definite description and analysis, but the main feeling that will stay with me to the end of my days is the awful horror of it all, and the miserable sensation that if the strain had lasted a little longer than was actually the case my mind must inevitably have given way.

Meanwhile I stood still in my corner, and waited patiently for what was to come. The house was as still as the grave, but the inarticulate voices of the night sang in my ears, and I seemed to hear the blood running in my veins and dancing in my pulses.

If the Indians came to the back of the house, they would find the kitchen door and window securely fastened. They could not get in there without making considerable noise, which I was bound to hear. The only mode of getting in was by means of the door that faced me, and I kept my eyes glued on that door without taking them off for the smallest fraction of a second.

My sight adapted itself every minute better to the darkness. I saw the table that nearly filled the room, and left only a narrow passage on each side. I could also make out the straight backs of the wooden chairs pressed up against it, and could even distinguish my papers and inkstand lying on the white oilcloth covering. I thought of the gay faces that had gathered round that table during the summer, and I longed for the sunlight as I had never longed for it before.

Less than three feet to my left the passage-way led to the kitchen, and the stairs leading to the bedrooms above commenced in this passage-way, but almost in the sitting-room itself. Through the windows I could see the dim motionless outlines of the trees: not a leaf stirred, not a branch moved.

A few moments of this awful silence, and then I was aware of a soft tread on the boards of the verandah, so stealthy that it seemed an impression directly on my brain rather than upon the nerves of hearing. Immediately afterwards a black figure darkened the glass door, and I perceived that a face was pressed against the upper panes. A shiver ran down my back, and my hair was conscious of a tendency to rise and stand at right angles to my head.

It was the figure of an Indian, broad-shouldered and immense; indeed, the largest figure of a man I have ever seen outside of a circus hall. By some power of light that seemed to generate itself in the brain, I saw the strong dark face with the aquiline nose and high cheek-bones flattened against the glass. The direction of the gaze I could not determine; but faint gleams of light as the big eyes rolled round and showed their whites, told me plainly that no corner of the room escaped their searching.

For what seemed fully five minutes the dark figure stood there, with the huge shoulders bent forward so as to bring the head down to the level of the glass; while behind him, though not nearly so large, the shadowy form of the other Indian swayed to and fro like a bent tree. While I waited in an agony of suspense and agitation for their next movement little currents of icy sensation ran up and down my spine and my heart seemed alternately to stop beating and then start off again with terrifying rapidity. They must have heard its thumping and the singing of the blood in my head! Moreover, I was conscious, as I felt a cold stream of perspiration trickle down my face, of a desire to scream, to shout, to bang the walls like a child, to make a noise, or do anything that would relieve the suspense and bring things to a speedy climax.

It was probably this inclination that led me to another discovery, for when I tried to bring my rifle from behind my back to raise it and have it pointed at the door ready to fire, I found that I was powerless to move. The muscles, paralysed by this strange fear, refused to obey the will. Here indeed was a terrifying complication!

There was a faint sound of rattling at the brass knob, and the door was pushed open a couple of inches. A pause of a few seconds, and it was pushed open still further. Without a sound of footsteps that was appreciable to my ears, the two figures glided into the room, and the man behind gently closed the door after him.

They were alone with me between the four walls. Could they see me standing there, so still and straight in my corner? Had they, perhaps, already seen me? My blood surged and sang like the roll of drums in an orchestra; and though I did my best to suppress my breathing, it sounded like the rushing of wind through a pneumatic tube.

My suspense as to the next move was soon at an end — only, however, to give place to a new and keener alarm. The men had hitherto exchanged no words and no signs, but there were general indications of a movement across the room, and whichever way they went they would have to pass round the table. If they came my way they would have to pass within six inches of my person. While I was considering this very disagreeable possibility, I perceived that the smaller Indian (smaller by comparison) suddenly raised his arm and pointed to the ceiling. The other fellow raised his head and followed the direction of his companion’s arm. I began to understand at last. They were going upstairs, and the room directly overhead to which they pointed had been until this night my bedroom. It was the room in which I had experienced that very morning so strange a sensation of fear, and but for which I should then have been lying asleep in the narrow bed against the window.

The Indians then began to move silently around the room; they were going upstairs, and they were coming round my side of the table. So stealthy were their movements that, but for the abnormally sensitive state of the nerves, I should never have heard them. As it was, their cat-like tread was distinctly audible. Like two monstrous black cats they came round the table toward me, and for the first time I perceived that the smaller of the two dragged something along the floor behind him. As it trailed along over the floor with a soft, sweeping sound, I somehow got the impression that it was a large dead thing with outstretched wings, or a large, spreading cedar branch. Whatever it was, I was unable to see it even in outline, and I was too terrified, even had I possessed the power over my muscles, to move my neck forward in the effort to determine its nature.

Nearer and nearer they came. The leader rested a giant hand upon the table as he moved. My lips were glued together, and the air seemed to burn in my nostrils. I tried to close my eyes, so that I might not see as they passed me; but my eyelids had stiffened, and refused to obey. Would they never get by me? Sensation seemed also to have left my legs, and it was as if I were standing on mere supports of wood or stone. Worse still, I was conscious that I was losing the power of balance, the power to stand upright, or even to lean backwards against the wall. Some force was drawing me forward, and a dizzy terror seized me that I should lose my balance, and topple forward against the Indians just as they were in the act of passing me.

Even moments drawn out into hours must come to an end some time, and almost before I knew it the figures had passed me and had their feet upon the lower step of the stairs leading to the upper bedrooms. There could not have been six inches between us, and yet I was conscious only of a current of cold air that followed them. They had not touched me, and I was convinced that they had not seen me. Even the trailing thing on the floor behind them had not touched my feet, as I had dreaded it would, and on such an occasion as this I was grateful even for the smallest mercies.

The absence of the Indians from my immediate neighbourhood brought little sense of relief. I stood shivering and shuddering in my corner, and, beyond being able to breathe more freely, I felt no whit less uncomfortable. Also, I was aware that a certain light, which, without apparent source or rays, had enabled me to follow their every gesture and movement, had gone out of the room with their departure. An unnatural darkness now filled the room, and pervaded its every corner so that I could barely make out the positions of the windows and the glass doors.

As I said before, my condition was evidently an abnormal one. The capacity for feeling surprise seemed, as in dreams, to be wholly absent. My senses recorded with unusual accuracy every smallest occurrence, but I was able to draw only the simplest deductions.

The Indians soon reached the top of the stairs, and there they halted for a moment. I had not the faintest clue as to their next movement. They appeared to hesitate. They were listening attentively. Then I heard one of them, who by the weight of his soft tread must have been the giant, cross the narrow corridor and enter the room directly overhead — my own little bedroom. But for the insistence of that unaccountable dread I had experienced there in the morning, I should at that very moment have been lying in the bed with the big Indian in the room standing beside me.

For the space of a hundred seconds there was silence, such as might have existed before the birth of sound. It was followed by a long quivering shriek of terror, which rang out into the night, and ended in a short gulp before it had run its full course. At the same moment the other Indian left his place at the head of the stairs, and joined his companion in the bedroom. I heard the “thing” trailing behind him along the floor. A thud followed, as of something heavy falling, and then all became as still and silent as before.

It was at this point that the atmosphere, surcharged all day with the electricity of a fierce storm, found relief in a dancing flash of brilliant lightning simultaneously with a crash of loudest thunder. For five seconds every article in the room was visible to me with amazing distinctness, and through the windows I saw the tree trunks standing in solemn rows. The thunder pealed and echoed across the lake and among the distant islands, and the flood-gates of heaven then opened and let out their rain in streaming torrents.

The drops fell with a swift rushing sound upon the still waters of the lake, which leaped up to meet them, and pattered with the rattle of shot on the leaves of the maples and the roof of the cottage. A moment later, and another flash, even more brilliant and of longer duration than the first, lit up the sky from zenith to horizon, and bathed the room momentarily in dazzling whiteness. I could see the rain glistening on the leaves and branches outside. The wind rose suddenly, and in less than a minute the storm that had been gathering all day burst forth in its full fury.

Above all the noisy voices of the elements, the slightest sounds in the room overhead made themselves heard, and in the few seconds of deep silence that followed the shriek of terror and pain I was aware that the movements had commenced again. The men were leaving the room and approaching the top of the stairs. A short pause, and they began to descend. Behind them, tumbling from step to step, I could hear that trailing “thing” being dragged along. It had become ponderous!

I awaited their approach with a degree of calmness, almost of apathy, which was only explicable on the ground that after a certain point Nature applies her own anæsthetic, and a merciful condition of numbness supervenes. On they came, step by step, nearer and nearer, with the shuffling sound of the burden behind growing louder as they approached.

They were already half-way down the stairs when I was galvanised afresh into a condition of terror by the consideration of a new and horrible possibility. It was the reflection that if another vivid flash of lightning were to come when the shadowy procession was in the room, perhaps when it was actually passing in front of me, I should see everything in detail, and worse, be seen myself! I could only hold my breath and wait — wait while the minutes lengthened into hours, and the procession made its slow progress round the room.

The Indians had reached the foot of the staircase. The form of the huge leader loomed in the doorway of the passage, and the burden with an ominous thud had dropped from the last step to the floor. There was a moment’s pause while I saw the Indian turn and stoop to assist his companion. Then the procession moved forward again, entered the room close on my left, and began to move slowly round my side of the table. The leader was already beyond me, and his companion, dragging on the floor behind him the burden, whose confused outline I could dimly make out, was exactly in front of me, when the cavalcade came to a dead halt. At the same moment, with the strange suddenness of thunderstorms, the splash of the rain ceased altogether, and the wind died away into utter silence.

For the space of five seconds my heart seemed to stop beating, and then the worst came. A double flash of lightning lit up the room and its contents with merciless vividness.

The huge Indian leader stood a few feet past me on my right. One leg was stretched forward in the act of taking a step. His immense shoulders were turned toward his companion, and in all their magnificent fierceness I saw the outline of his features. His gaze was directed upon the burden his companion was dragging along the floor; but his profile, with the big aquiline nose, high cheek-bone, straight black hair and bold chin, burnt itself in that brief instant into my brain, never again to fade.

Dwarfish, compared with this gigantic figure, appeared the proportions of the other Indian, who, within twelve inches of my face, was stooping over the thing he was dragging in a position that lent to his person the additional horror of deformity. And the burden, lying upon a sweeping cedar branch which he held and dragged by a long stem, was the body of a white man. The scalp had been neatly lifted, and blood lay in a broad smear upon the cheeks and forehead.

Then, for the first time that night, the terror that had paralysed my muscles and my will lifted its unholy spell from my soul. With a loud cry I stretched out my arms to seize the big Indian by the throat, and, grasping only air, tumbled forward unconscious upon the ground.

I had recognised the body, and the face was my own!. . . .

It was bright daylight when a man’s voice recalled me to consciousness. I was lying where I had fallen, and the farmer was standing in the room with the loaves of bread in his hands. The horror of the night was still in my heart, and as the bluff settler helped me to my feet and picked up the rifle which had fallen with me, with many questions and expressions of condolence, I imagine my brief replies were neither self-explanatory nor even intelligible.

That day, after a thorough and fruitless search of the house, I left the island, and went over to spend my last ten days with the farmer; and when the time came for me to leave, the necessary reading had been accomplished, and my nerves had completely recovered their balance.

On the day of my departure the farmer started early in his big boat with my belongings to row to the point, twelve miles distant, where a little steamer ran twice a week for the accommodation of hunters. Late in the afternoon I went off in another direction in my canoe, wishing to see the island once again, where I had been the victim of so strange an experience.

In due course I arrived there, and made a tour of the island. I also made a search of the little house, and it was not without a curious sensation in my heart that I entered the little upstairs bedroom. There seemed nothing unusual.

Just after I re-embarked, I saw a canoe gliding ahead of me around the curve of the island. A canoe was an unusual sight at this time of the year, and this one seemed to have sprung from nowhere. Altering my course a little, I watched it disappear around the next projecting point of rock. It had high curving bows, and there were two Indians in it. I lingered with some excitement, to see if it would appear again round the other side of the island; and in less than five minutes it came into view. There were less than two hundred yards between us, and the Indians, sitting on their haunches, were paddling swiftly in my direction.

I never paddled faster in my life than I did in those next few minutes. When I turned to look again, the Indians had altered their course, and were again circling the island.

The sun was sinking behind the forests on the mainland, and the crimson-coloured clouds of sunset were reflected in the waters of the lake, when I looked round for the last time, and saw the big bark canoe and its two dusky occupants still going round the island. Then the shadows deepened rapidly; the lake grew black, and the night wind blew its first breath in my face as I turned a corner, and a projecting bluff of rock hid from my view both island and canoe.

After publishing The Woods at Night, we sat down to ask the author some questions. There may be spoilers ahead, so we suggest reading the tale first.

Q1. This story is part fever dream, part waking nightmare. Did you spend a lot of time on weaving that feeling through your story or did it come out naturally?  

I wrote the whole thing in one shot, and it came out without much struggle. It’s not always like that, so I got lucky. Once Henry started talking, I could barely type fast enough to keep up with him.

Q2. This tale haunts me still, and I hope I did it justice. How did you come up with the idea?

Henry came up with the best parts of the story. I guess I came up with the ending. It seemed natural once I got there.

Q3. Who are your biggest inspirations and did any of them have a hand in what you’ve accomplished here?   

This story is me trying my best to imitate the voice and style of “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” by Alvin Schwartz. I’ve always liked to read through story collections by talented authors, then sit down and try to write something while their voice is fresh in my head. I have a few Ray Bradbury imitation stories, one in the style of Richard Matheson, a few Larry Brown knock-offs, at least one Chuck Palahniuk counterfeit, and a dozen or so Stephen King replicates. At the time I wrote “Woods,” I was re-reading “Scary Stories” for the first time in a few years.

Q4. How much of your time do you spend writing short stories versus other projects?

The majority of my time goes to short stories, but I’ve spent almost as much time on the five novels I’ve written. Short stories are quicker–they don’t require months long first drafts or weeks long revisions–but they add up if you stay diligent with them. I’ve only written a few screenplays, but they tend to come out much faster than traditional prose.

Q5. What other works do you have on the go? Anything you’d like to promote?

At the moment, I have a novel I’m trying to get published, I’m doing research on a potential non-fiction project, which is unusual for me (I’d rather come up with entertaining lies than go through the trouble of getting the facts straight), and I have a Dark Fantasy novella about Florida mermaids that needs an illustrator, so I’m looking for an artist who would be passionate about working on such a thing.

https://youtu.be/Ycpbbp1wLLQ
 

There is a man lying in bed with me but he is not my husband. He looks like my husband. Same blue eyes, same scratchy mustache, same angular cheeks. But it’s not him. When he lies on his side, his hair – black-speckled grey and curly – topples over his forehead just like my husband’s does. He smells the same after his nightly shower – citrus soap and deodorant – but he’s not the same man.

Even now, him lying next to me, big spoon to my little, I know it’s not him. I can feel it. The way this man’s hand absent-mindedly cups my breast, rough skin on mine, does not bring me comfort like it did with my husband. The easy naturalness our bodies had shared is replaced with a crawling anxiety. Like his hand is a giant carapaced insect perched on me, ready to bite.

He even responds to my husband’s name.

“Brian…” I say, feigning sleepiness.

“Yes, Hon?” he replies. The voice of my husband, coming out of a stranger.

“Nothing. G’night.”

“Night.”

I don’t know what to say to him.

My husband has been gone for three days. Replaced by this other man. A simulacra. He’s warm and fleshy, like a real person, and he knows everything that my husband would know. I try to trip him up sometimes, but he’s done his homework. Or, a more sinister explanation, he’s somehow absorbed all the knowledge that my husband had. His pet-names for me. His favorite foods. His daily routines. ATM pin codes, phone numbers, how he sometimes cooks a single giant family-sized pancake to please our son.

Lonny, poor Lonny. Unaware that his father has been replaced. And I can’t bring it up to him! Or to anyone else. I have no proof. I need to learn more. I need to push this man a little. Pry my fingers at the edges of him. Get under the fleshy surface and prove that what is underneath that skin is not the beating heart of the man I fell in love with.

#

There is a woman lying in bed with me, but she is not my wife. She looks like my wife. Same long brown hair, same dark eyes, same pink lips hiding her tiny teeth. But it’s not her. When she lies on her side, she pokes just the tip of her feet out from under the blanket, just like my wife does. She smells the same, clean laundry and sea salt, but it’s not the same woman.

Even now, her lying next to me, the little spoon to my big, I know it’s not her. I can feel it. My arm fits perfectly below the hollow of her neck, her long hair tickling my bicep, and I cup her breast like I normally do. But it doesn’t feel the same. That easy familiarity I have with my wife is gone. It feels like I’m holding a warm corpse. My skin crawls.

“Brian…” the woman says my name. Her voice is that of my wife. A mental disconnect that my brain can’t fathom.

“Yes, Hon?” I respond, playing the part.

“Nothing. G’night.”

“Night.”

I don’t know what to say to her.

My wife has been gone for three days. Replaced by this other woman. A golem of some sort. Flesh and blood molded to look like the woman I love, its purpose unknown. Somehow, it knows everything my wife would know. How she squeezes my shoulder when she walks behind me. How long to cook the tater tots in our air fryer. Relative’s birthdays. Email passwords. The names of our son’s fifth-grade teachers.

Lonny. Poor kid! He doesn’t know what is going on. That his mother has been replaced. There is no way I can tell him. Or anyone else for that matter. No one will believe me without proof. But proof, that I can get. So far, this woman has not slipped up. But she will. She will. I just have to shake things up a bit. Poke holes in the fleshy membrane that this creature has so carefully created. I will expose its unnatural insides so everyone can see that it is not the woman that I fell in love with.

#

I got up early, before my parents, to continue my plan. It’s before sun-up. Silence from their bedroom, as expected. I turn on only one kitchen light, to be safe, and open their coffee jar. The ceramic one with the chipped lid. The smell hits me. I hate that smell. I don’t know why adults drink coffee. They seem miserable without it but also miserable with it, too.

When I’m done with the task, for the fourth morning in a row, I close the jar and turn the light off. Then I wait a few minutes for any signs they are awake. Nada. Zilch. Perfect.

The sun is starting to come up now, so I make myself a bowl of cereal and sit at the table. I’m not really hungry. Eating breakfast is only an excuse for me to be up this early. Not that I need one. When my parents finally emerge, they don’t even notice me at first. They are arguing with each other.

I watch how they are acting, to see if my plan is working. Arguing might not be a good sign. Max, my friend who gave me the stuff, said that his parents only got lazy, quiet and agreeable.

“Why are you asking so many questions?” my Dad says to my Mom.

They are both in pajamas. That reminds me of some good memories of weekend mornings when I was really small. Those lazy mornings where we got up late and had a big breakfast and watched cartoons and played games together, laughing and joking. This isn’t one of those.

“What’s wrong with asking questions? Are you scared you’ll give the wrong answers?” my mom replies.

They both pull chairs out from the table, slam down into them, ignoring me completely. I just munch my flakes, watching.

“It’s almost like you’re gathering information about me,” Dad says.

“About you? You’re my husband. Shouldn’t I know everything?”

“You do seem to know an awful lot. But maybe you are on me all morning because your information isn’t one-hundred percent complete. And when it is, what then? Am I next?”

“Are you next for what? You are being defensive now. And I think it’s because you don’t know the answer! Did I finally ask something so obscure that you hadn’t anticipated it? Tell me, where was our first date? Unless you don’t know.”

“Oh, I know the answer. But do you? Is that the final piece of information you need? So you tell me – what is your purpose?”

“My purpose? What is your purpose?!”

They get out of their chairs, and are screaming now, starting to circle around the kitchen like two boxers in a ring. Me, I’m getting alarmed, my cereal spoon frozen halfway between the bowl and my mouth, dripping milk.

Was this argument because of Max’s stuff I’ve been giving them? A little sprinkle into their coffee each morning couldn’t do this, could it? They were supposed to get more agreeable. Care less about things. I mean, Max’s parents took the powder for fun, and they were pretty normal. My parents never fought like this before. I didn’t want to ruin their marriage, I only wanted to get a new Playstation. But now I’m like a deer in the headlights, watching a car-crash happen right in front of my eyes. They are still screaming at each other. The neighbor’s dog has started barking. My parent’s words bounce back and forth at each other in a cacophony of chaos. Nothing they say makes sense.

“What do you want with me?” “Who are you really?” “Where did you come from!” “What have you done with my wife/husband!”

The last was screamed by both of them simultaneously. My mom has inched closer to the dishrack, grabbed a big knife that was drying there. The one she cut a watermelon with last night. My dad has grabbed the large frying pan off the hook above the stove. This time I don’t think he’s going to make his famous family-pancake.

They both strike at the same time, muscles corded, spittle flying, hate and fear widening their big crazy eyes. And I’m just sitting here. What am I to do? The only thing I can manage is to avert my eyes and drop my spoon. My face is splattered with milk. Their screams cut off with a crash.

There is silence in the kitchen. The neighbor’s dog is still barking.

I open my eyes and my parents are gone. Nowhere to be seen. I wipe the milk off of my face with one hand. The liquid is warm. That’s when I see my fingers, smeared red. That wasn’t milk.

My heart, already beating out of my chest, increases its thuds. I stand up, pushing my chair back so hard it tumbles over. My red-fingered hand shaking. My bare feet are ice cold as I stumble backwards.

Now I can see my parents. Both of them lying on the floor, unmoving. My mom’s head cracked open, gunk spilling out. The knife sticking out of my father’s neck. Blood is spilling out of both of their wounds and running together into a single puddle between them. Their limbs are tangled together in an embrace. I can see their vacant open eyes, staring at me. Two accusatory glares, the grimaces of hate still tattooed upon their faces, faces growing paler by the second.

These two people lying on the floor, they are not my parents.

They look like my parents. Same pajamas. Same hair. Same hands. Same teeth.

But it’s not them.

It can’t be them.

Editor’s Note

I love what this tale does with repetition. The echo of the first two characters and what they’re seeing and feeling is wonderfully done. I love these small, domestic type tales.