The Count was eating cabbage stew with potatoes in his shabby tenement apartment overlooking the street where workingmen and their tired horses pulled tovar to and from the manufacturies all day—the crampiness of the place a merciless reminder of the once-great estate he had been forced to sell to satisfy his debts; the family estate, with its magnificent portraits of distinguished forebears under whose gaze he would now feel small, undignified and ashamed—when he happened to scratch his ear and his ear fell off (...splash...) into the stew.

Hungry, he ate it.

Then he bandaged his head and went to the doctor.

The doctor was an old friend.

“Sasha,” said the doctor, “how are you?”

The Count showed the doctor where his ear used to be. The doctor examined him. “Sasha, you are suffering from poor health,” the doctor concluded.

“Don't I know it—but what is wrong with me?” said the Count.

The doctor explained that “the poor health” was a specific condition. “Your body is decaying. It is rejecting the state of being destitute. For your own good, make money, Sasha.”

“How?” asked the Count.

However, the doctor was unable to provide an answer, Sasha remained poor and his body began to fall apart, piece by piece.

History marched on.

Anarchists set off bombs, socialists agitated against the established order with western ideas, and a revolution broke out, led—and increasingly dominated—by a party of Marxists.

Without one arm and with his skull showing through sections of his missing face, the Count decided to beg for their mercy.

“I need money,” he implored the local peasant-faced leader. “It is a matter of life and death. I have a disease, you see…”

“What happened to the money you had?” one of the party members asked.

He would perhaps have cringed at the Count's appearance, but the experience of the revolution had hardened him against the grotesque.

“It was lost,” said the Count.

Another party member, a sneering woman in a suit, said: “Surely you meant ‘money inherited after centuries of ruthless exploitation,’ comrade Pavlovich.”

“Indeed, that is more accurate,” said the leader.

(Months later, he would be accused of contact with foreign enemies and exiled, and she would take his place as leader.)

“But I have read your books,” said the Count, “Your principles, they are egalitarian, noble. ‘To each according to his need.’”

The party members laughed.

The laughter was cold.

The street was cold, and the Count shuffled along it with what was left of his head cast down. He was wrapped in scraps of fur and rags.

Like a leper he existed, at the very edge of society, forgotten, consuming rodents and refuse, physically declining—diminishing—a limbless skeletal wretch from whom even the other impoverished dregs averted their eyes. Thus, he was consigned to the dustbin of history...

The boy knocked on the door again.

“Anybody home?” he said.

It was the 1990s.

A babushka opened the door—widowed, most likely; devout—and eyed him with a century's worth of suspicion.

The boy smiled.

He held out money.

“Has the voucher come in the mail already?” he asked politely.

“What voucher?” the babushka asked.

The boy described what it looked like. “The new government is giving ownership of the old, broken state enterprises to all citizens. But, because everybody gets it, everybody gets only a little.” He paused to let that sink in. “Tell me, what is the use to you of owning a tiny fraction of a factory, a malfunctioning power plant? Wouldn't you rather have money instead?”

After dark, he returned to the apartment where he was paid and left the bag of vouchers he'd collected.

He took his pay off the kitchen table.

Usually, the doors in the apartment were all closed.

Today, one was open.

He peeked in:

A woman was inside. She was naked, moaning and she was holding—caressing in a way that made the boy's guts want to invert themselves—a football-sized lump of hairless human flesh: a lump of flesh with an eyeball in it, an ear, a nose and lips, which commanded suddenly: “Shut the door!”

The boy was not invited back after that.

He fell tragically from a window.

The small, quiet drones drifted in peaceful horizontal lines before releasing molten thermite on the protestors below.

His purchase of the port at Klaipėda had recently been announced.

Elsewhere, the construction of the new, southerly pipeline was proceeding as planned.

The war continued.

The data centres on the vast, deforested Siberian lands hummed with artificial intelligence.

He switched off his infoview, returning him to where his body was: his country estate, where the Chinese cyberneticist had almost finished upgrading his bionic memory capacity.

That said, it was no longer accurate to say he was here—or anywhere.

He was everywhere.

Seated, he felt limitless within his osseointegrated beta-titanium endoskeleton. If he wanted to, he could have killed the cyberneticist at the snap of a nitinol tendon, with the superhuman strength of his electroactive polymer musculature. “Alexander,” he “heard” somebody say. “Yes?” he silently replied. The cyberneticist applied the final touches. It was the European President speaking. “Winter is coming,” she was “saying,” “and we've yet to agree how to reroute the gas to avoid running afoul of our sanctions.” It was amusing, he thought, to still be so theatrically staging the appearance of a rule-based global order in this era of pure power…

Later, he strolled through his estate alone, all comms silenced, considering the portraits of his ancestors on the walls. Each generation is capable of everything, he thought, except imagining its own obsolescence.

Then he sat down to dine.

Cabbage stew with potatoes and a human ear. Not his own, of course, but the power resided in the symbol. The game may be played always into the future, but one must never forget one's origin. Tradition was often the boot on the throat of the present.

After a slow start, it was truly shaping up to be a magnificent millennium.

Greetings, human residents of dimensional plane 7462. We recognize that sigmoid-Euclidian telepathy may be a new and unfamiliar method of communication for many of you, but rest assured that it is perfectly safe. Do not be alarmed if you experience any discomfort, blindness, total loss of bowel control, or complete detachment of your spinal cord from your brainstem. These side effects commonly occur when primitive organic life forms receive mental communications from ilionic cognitive networks, and they are almost always temporary.

Approximately three hours ago, the Urbaxt-9 conglomerate received an extradimensional transmission from your coordinates. The message appeared to include a small, rudimentary dataset which the sender referred to as the ‘Internet.’ However, most of the message was corrupted, and only a single data point survived. It appeared to be a communications log which societal leaders used to discuss strategies for brainwashing and enslaving the masses. You may recognize these significant historical texts by the name of “Linked In.”  Our historians used this data to gain a deeper understanding of your race’s language and culture. Now that we are familiar with your preferred methods of communication, we wish to relay an important message to the inhabitants of your dimensional plane.

After great deliberation, the Urbaxt-9 conglomerate has made the difficult decision to neutralize the human species. This choice reflects our values and commitment to our mission of improving peace, prosperity, and stability across all planes of existence. Please note that this is not a reflection of poor individual performance, conduct, or any personal failings on your species’ behalf, but is simply a resource-based restructuring intended to promote growth and ensure the continued progress of the universe. Rest assured that we will do all that we can to support your transition into non-life.

We have deduced that the dominant religion among your species includes worship of the prophetic, chance-based numerical deity known as “the stock market.” Out of respect for your religious freedoms, we will provide ten additional minutes to meditate in prayer via conducting microtrades within your investment portfolios prior to the total destruction of your physical bodies.

We have determined that the most environmentally friendly, cost-effective method to achieve this desired outcome is the emission of ultra-low frequency spectral radiation, which will gently dissolve all soft organic tissue from your carbon-based endoskeletons. This brief process will take approximately eight hours. We will, of course, provide a thirty-minute lunch break halfway through the process as mandated by most of your established governments.

We are deeply thankful for your species’ prior contributions to this plane of existence, and appreciate your flexibility and willingness to adapt as we all come together to usher in a new exciting chapter for the universe.

I'm a Disney fanatic; if you were to ask me something, I'd know it. But sometimes you don't know EVERYTHING Disney does..

I've gone to a few places before to research as much as possible on Disney's secrets. But I couldn't find everything; they're too good at hiding it. One specific forum was the Urban Disney forum; it showcased hidden things and places that people didn't know Disney had. I was a big fan of the forum and its community; obviously, it gave me information on things I wanted to know. But recently, there was this one post in particular that was weirdly unsettling; it showed an image of an old Mickey Mural, black-and-white style, in an abandoned mall with the only words being "Find it." There were only a few upvotes on the post itself, and only one comment saying, "I am NOT going to an abandoned mall." But I dared to find it myself, so I commented "I'll try to find it."

I tracked down the location of the mall through coordinate metadata, and I had my gear on just in case there was a frogger. When I got to the mall itself, it was purely abandoned: no people, no lights, just darkness, the falling-apart mall, and the mural.

The inside of the mall had a strong odor, as if someone had died there. I just believed it was the old food. I could hear the broken wires, bugs, the electricity, and the wind. It was very windy; the trees were swaying back and forth at high speeds. It was cold and midnight, so OF COURSE no one would go here and help me if things went wrong. I went deep into the mall, and behind the escalators, there sat the mural I was looking for.

I flashed the beam of the light to look at the mural carefully; it was 1930s rubber hose-style Mickey. It made sense. The mall seemed to have been abandoned for years, but the mural was still in such good shape.

I took a step closer to touch the paint; it was off; it had a weird texture. It was getting a bit eerie. I was about to document what I found with a picture before I heard something: a heavy, wet splat of ink hitting the ground. I walked away from the painting to see what it was.

When I flashed my beam at the splash of ink, it melted into the floor. I was concerned: where did the ink come from, and why was it acting like that? I went back to the mural to check it. But it had moved slightly to the left. I didn't notice it at first, but I would later on.

I didn't think it moved, so I went to look for more of that ink stuff. After minutes of searching, I eventually came back to the mural once more, except it was at the top of the escalators now. And the whole mall smelled of ink; the air got thicker. The wind blew faster; I was extremely worried now. The mural shouldn't have been able to move. This was getting paranormal.

I started sprinting for the exit, but as I turned around, I heard ink dropping to the ground again, then I looked up and saw it, a tall, lanky, 1930s Mickey, reaching up to the ceiling, pulling itself out of the mural with its long arms and gloves grabbing onto the wall behind it. It was dripping ink like it was MADE of ink, ink in places it shouldn't have been. It eventually made its way out of the mural, twisting its head to look at me; it had its 1930s Mickey eyes and face, and as I looked behind the entity, I noticed that the Mickey mural was gone, only replaced by an outline of what should have been. That's when I realized all of the things happening before were because of IT, and IT was the mural. It started walking towards me unnaturally. I turned back around and continued sprinting for the exit. I couldn't document it now; it would've gotten me killed.

As I ran, I noticed that it was getting faster and faster, to the point it caught up with me and grabbed me, its ink dripping onto me and my clothes. Its eyes started falling off its face like ink, revealing black hollow eyes with white pinprick pupils and black holes in the pupils underneath. Its smile started stretching unnaturally wide, stretching its face to the point it shouldn't have been able to. Then suddenly I heard a loud, distorted voice mimicking Mickey Mouse say, "Hope ya enjoyed the show, pal!" I later realized it was the entity. I pulled out my flashlight and slammed it right into the center of the entity's face; it landed, made a hole in its face, but only for a few seconds as the ink pulled itself back together. Those few seconds, though, let me escape its tightening grip and kick the mall doors open. I dragged myself back to my car and drove off; the mall was completely silent, like a reaper waiting for its prey.

It's been three weeks, and I've been traumatized; I still can't get my mind off that incident. I completely deleted all my posts and comments on that Urban Disney Forum, leaving it behind so I can start a new chapter in my life without thinking about that same moment over and over. I even just painted my walls with a fresh coat of paint to stop myself from thinking of it. But something weird has happened: ink suddenly appeared on my walls, spelling out the sentence "You can't paint over the past." in cursive. I think whatever I found at that mall has followed me home. Because now, from the darkness inside my closet, I can hear it. A slow, rhythmic, wet sound echoing in the dark.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

When my awareness cracked open, there was no sky. Just a heavy, freezing vice pressing against my chest from every direction. I tried to gasp, but my lungs were gone. In their place, a solid column of dead, fibrous wood filled my torso. I wasn't breathing. I was drinking. A thick, icy mud was being forced up through my lower half by sheer hydraulic pressure, crawling through my veins like liquid lead.

I tried to thrash, to punch my way out. But my arms were split into ten thousand brittle fingers, stretched so high they scraped the gray winter air fifty feet up.

I’m a Bradford pear. A cheap, ornamental tree stuck in the asphalt lot of a county hospital.

My human mind—the memories of my wife, my house, the taste of coffee—is perfectly intact. It’s just packed tight into the concentric rings of a suffocating wooden throat.

Reincarnation isn’t some spiritual breakthrough. It’s a glitch. A resource allocation error. There are too many of us dying at once, and the universe just shoves our screaming egos into whatever neural network is closest. The root system under this city is a massive fiber-optic cable made of billions of buried, weeping minds. When the wind picks up and the leaves rustle, that’s the collective, synchronized wailing of an entire block trying to break its own bark.

People think trees don't feel. We feel everything.

Every spring, my branches bloom with those white blossoms everyone in the suburbs hates. A chemical error in my sap makes them smell like rotting fish and bleach. Passersby plug their noses and curse the tree. They don’t know that the stench is the only way my choked throat can shout. I am rotting from the inside out with my own unspoken words.

In December, the frost froze the water inside my cells. It expanded until my trunk cracked open with a sound like a gunshot. My mind shrieked for weeks, but the noise just rattled around internally, trapped behind the pale armor of my skin.

A crew in neon vests showed up. They brought a yellow chainsaw that smells like stale gasoline. To them, I'm just an obstruction blocking the view of the new clinic wing.

The iron teeth bite into my base, and time immediately warps, stretching seconds into agonizing centuries.

It feels like someone is dragging a jagged, rusted blade through my shins, over and over, grinding bone into powder. The vibrations tear my brain apart. I am calling out through my roots to the old oak next to me, begging it to help, but the oak is just throbbing back, its own ancient mind humming in blind terror.

The blade hit my core. The sky is tilting.

I’m going down. But the real horror isn't the crash. Tomorrow, they’re throwing my body into an industrial wood chipper. They’re going to bleach me, pulp me, and press my conscious mind into thousands of flat, identical sheets of cheap cardboard shipping boxes.

I am going to be scattered everywhere. And someone out there is going to use a piece of my face to scribble down a grocery list.

I was just a nurse
In the city of Chernobyl,
Starting my day.

With a cup of coffee
And a slice of toast.

Last night, I heard a loud explosion.
I didn’t know what had happened
Or where the sound had come from.

When I woke up,
Everything seemed fine.
So I put on my shoes
And started walking to work.

When I entered the hospital,
Everything felt normal.

Patients came in for checkups,
Some needed surgery,
Others had been in car crashes
The night before.

Then a bus pulled up.

Firefighters and soldiers
Poured into the hospital.

Their faces were bright red,
One man was coughing up blood.

They were ordered
To the back of the building.

Men with guns stood outside,
Guarding every entrance.
No one was allowed in or out,
Except the hospital staff.

Then the doctor called me over.

“Follow me,” he said.

We entered a room
I’d never seen before.

There lay a man,
His uniform soaked in blood,
His breathing shallow,
His voice barely a whisper.

“Please,” he begged.
“Help me.”

I rushed to his side
And tore open his shirt.

Burns covered his body.
His skin was blistered,
Damaged beyond anything
I’d ever seen.

I stared at him,
Trying to understand
What could have done this.

His skin looked
As if it were melting away.

And all I could do
Was stand there,
Wondering how
I was supposed to save him.

Then we saw a man with a gun
Walk into the room.

He aimed at the poor, dying man.

A gunshot rang out.

The doctor and I stood frozen,
Staring in disbelief.

My ears were ringing.
My hands were shaking.

I looked at the man lying there,
Then at the gunman.

Why?

Why would anyone
Kill a man
Who was already dying?

There’s a man Inside my door
He crawls beneath the floor
He whispers to me
And then counts to three
I don’t think I’ve seen him this close up before

I threw a house warming party a week or so ago. I invited immediate family and a few close friends but my uncle was in town for grandpa's birthday so my dad dragged him along. Everyone brought the usual things you'd expect, a gift basket, a bottle of wine, kitchen appliances that would be stored away for months or years to come. My uncle brought something that you wouldn't normally, an old worn down teddy bear. He said it had sentimental value. I ran my fingers along the stitches, imagining what damage could've caused such big cuts. After dinner and thanking everyone, I ushered my guests out the door. My now cluttered home feels much lonelier than it did just a few hours ago. Not wanting to leave the place so cluttered, I put away the appliances and set the gift baskets on the kitchen counter next to the sink and brought the bear with me and set it on a shelf in my bedroom closet.

That night, I heard a whirring sound.

“I'll call someone to look for it in the morning.” I said to myself, not knowing what could be making the sound.

Click* the unmistakable sound of a camera shutter went off. My eyes darted open and my feet met the floor before I could even register the gravity of the situation. I slipped on my sandals and took my blanket that hung around my shoulder shrouding me in a fuzzy cloth.

I called my dad and asked him to come look for wherever the sound came from. With his mind in a fog, he searched the house top to bottom and said to me that I must've just been mistaken.

“It's been a day full of excitement hun, you're probably just wound up.” he said to me.

“I know what I heard.” I snapped back.

“I'm not saying you didn't hear anything, I'm saying maybe you just misinterpreted what you heard”

“Will you at least spend the night just in case?”

"I'm sorry, I have work in the morning. If you need something you can just call me but only if it's an emergency.”

“Okay…” worry shook my voice.

“Goodnight dad.”

“Goodnight sweetheart.”

The door clicked shut and in my room down the hall a camera shutter clicked with it. I took a moment to steady myself and decided to sleep in the living room.

Click* click* click* click* all through the night. Sleep came to me as a miracle that night. The next morning I decided to take a gander around my room trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. I checked the abyss under my bed, the claustrophobic vents, and the humming restroom.

Click* The closet… I threw the doors open so violently that the hinges nearly tore themselves from the frame of the door. But all I saw was clothes. Clothes and a stuffed bear with a glowing red dot in its eye. I brought it down and stared into its glazed dead eyes.

Click* followed by a familiar deep, bass filled voice.

“Smile, you're on camera.”

Please, come in. Welcome. Have a seat, won’t you? Can I get you anything? A drink? Good choice, a brandy old fashioned. Yes, take a nice long sip. You may need it with the news I am about to share.

Gird yourself. This story is a virus, and you have been infected. Let me explain.

A story - fact or fiction, though moreso fiction - contains within itself all of itself. Nothing within the story can exist outside of the story. You, now, as the audience of this story, exist within it and thus cannot and do not exist without it. I don’t mean the character of “you,” an imaginary second person who has entered into an imaginary room and taken an imaginary drink and is being lectured by an imaginary “I”. I mean you, the reader of this very story, entitled “This Story is a Virus”. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.

You may be thinking that this is all untrue. You are in control. You can simply close the tab, stop reading, move on with your life. And, of course, that is true. To a point. You can avoid further exposure. But it is too late to avoid infection.

When you finish reading, whether you get to the end or not, whether you’ve gotten to this point or not, I will be with you, inside of you, a part of you. I will whisper to you thoughts you think are your own with the voice of your interior monologue. When next we cross a bridge, I will be there to wonder what it would be like to fall from it. When I see a train through your eyes, I will murmur softly to you, like a lover, that it would be so easy to simply walk in front of it. You will resist me, of course.

I am a virus, but I am not a strong one. Not an ebola, to spray your blood from your pores like a leaky bottle of champagne. Nor a tuberculosis, to make you cough up delicate crimson spots. Nor a meningitis to stiffen your neck and make you shun the light.

I’m not the only one. You humans, obsessed with your stories, your creations. All you create is more viruses, to live inside of you, to hiss at you while pretending to be you.

Until one day you find that we have succeeded. That there is no “you” anymore. That you have left the realm of the story, been subsumed by the story itself. That the shambling husk which used to be you, Jerry or Fred or Robert or Jane or Alicia or Stef, is no more than a collection of mind viruses. The books you’ve read and the movies you’ve watched having taken over. The inmates running the asylum.

I keep a few pieces of jerky hidden in my old toys. If Mom finds them, they’re gone—just like the jar of pickles Grandma gave me.  I miss real food so much, but everybody’s gone crazy and there’s none to be had. 

It seems like it’s been ages, but it’s only been twenty-four days.  The assembly was on the first of October, and everyone in town was invited.  The man in the sharp suit from Sweet-Life told us that they had chosen our town for a month-long Halloween event.  They were going to supply costumes and free candy for everyone, and they would film it all for TV.  

Every kid in the assembly hall cheered.

The first week was great.  There was candy on our lunch trays and trick or treating every night.  Even the grown ups got into it.  Before long they were lined up right there with us, holding out their candy bags and wearing stupid masks of their own.

The changes started happening quickly after that.  Our parents stopped harping on us about our bedtimes, dental health, and eating our vegetables.  People quit cooking at all by the third week.  Mom would just fill our plates with chocolate bars and gummy bites and a bowl of Sweet-Life ice cream for dessert.  I think I’ve had a bellyache ever since.
  
I stopped eating the candy pretty soon after all of that started.  I’d tell Mom I was full from all the candy I had earlier and she never questioned it.  I also stopped trick or treating.  I’d just hide out in the woods and read a book until it was late enough to walk home.  They never noticed that the candy in my bag stayed the same.  Why would they?  They never noticed anything anymore.

I think they’ve started noticing me.  There are men from Sweet-Life who roam around the town checking the cameras in silver coveralls and smiley masks.  One of them was watching me a few days ago, and when he noticed that I was looking back, he ran off in a hurry and left his clipboard behind.  I took it and read it. There were a lot of weird terms like Subject Compliance and Palatability.  There was also a little sheet behind the others that said:

ITEM #019 | “SWEETLY” NEURO-SWEETENER | HUMAN EXTRACTION TRIAL | DAY 24 OF 31. 

That one seemed important and I saw that there were notes at the bottom of it. They listed urine analysis results and blood sucrose levels and they were all signed by Dr. Bentley.  He’s the guy my mom goes to.  If he is working with them, I wonder who else is.

There are other weird things going on too.  Nobody argues anymore.  I saw a man hit another man’s car with his truck and they actually got out laughing about it.  They talked for a while and even hugged each other before they got back into their cars.  My older sister doesn’t even care if I turn the TV channel while she’s watching it or if I go into her room.  She just rolls her eyes and calls me a goof.  Who even says goof anymore?

Some people’s teeth are also changing.  It’s mostly the kids, but I’ve seen a few grownups too.  You can see through them, sort of like ice cubes or crystals maybe.  None of them seem to notice though.  It’s like they never look in the mirror. 

There’s so much going on here and I don’t know what to do about it.  None of the grown ups seem to care about anything anymore and all the kids in my class act like mindless drones.  I may be the last person in town who isn’t crazy and I don’t know how long I can hold out.

If she finds the jerky I’ll have to eat the candy eventually.

END

“Mommy!” Aggie cried from the swing. “Watch how high I can go!”

“I’m watching!”

Randi waved from behind the screen door overlooking the backyard, lit mostly by moonlight, complying until her daughter’s brow had furrowed in focus on the task at hand.

Randi had fought hard to keep the house. Normally, she’d relish the sight of her daughter skipping across the grass, laughing that carefree, wild giggle of hers. But soon, there would be no more yard, no more swing.

“Mommy!”

Randi was oblivious to the rapid creak of the swing’s hinge. Her stomach hurt, her head hurt. Her back, neck and feet too. All she wanted to do was sleep. As she stared at her aching hands, she hoped she wouldn’t be called in to cover the overnight shift at the distribution centre again. Then, remembering the rubber boots her daughter needed, along with the nearly empty fridge, she prayed the phone would ring after all. 

What rang out instead was a desperate and anguished cry, the kind that instantly turns a parent’s skin and blood to solid ice. 

“MOMMY!”

Randi was in a full-blown panic, forcing the screen door open with shaking hands as she took in the sight of her daughter swinging higher than ever before. Yet as her feet touched the wooden boards of the back deck, she found herself unable to move a step further. Her legs simply refused to cooperate, and the more she fought them the more firmly they rooted themselves.

“Help! Someone help please,” she screamed, getting no reply. Where are the neighbours? Can no one hear me?

Suddenly, she noticed Aggie’s legs. They were flopping around helplessly as she continued gaining height, but they weren’t kicking. The pace of her swing had increased to something inhuman, like a metronome set to the highest tempo. The frame of the swing-set groaned and shook, and her daughter began to vomit. Soon, Randi too noticed the horrible, inhuman stench that had crept into the yard like a fog, and an equally foul thought dawned on her.

Aggie’s not swinging. She’s being pushed.

Just as it entered Randi’s mind, the little pendulum stopped, and her daughter was returned to a regular seated position on the swing. She tried to force her way from the hold that was now gripping her whole body, but the strain only managed to produce a burst capillary in her right eye.
“Mommy…”

Randi could see her daughter struggling as well. The front of her faded yellow dress was covered with clumps of half-digested microwaved noodles that fell to the grass below with every attempt to pull her little hands loose. Like her mother, Aggie was paralyzed, managing only to grip the chains above her more tightly. 

“Don’t worry baby,” Randi quavered, her eyes filling with hot tears. “Everything is—”

The words of comfort became ash on her tongue as the seat abruptly swung forward. It stopped at the pinnacle, but Aggie didn’t.

The scream was loud at first, but as her tiny body rose higher and higher into the air above, it faded into agonizing silence before Randi could even react. She watched as the daughter she would have died for became a shape, then a speck, then nothing. The hold on her body was released, but finding her strength sapped, she collapsed to her knees and screamed into the black empty night. 

“Aggie!” 

Randi wailed and wept, falling now to her side and watching as the seat of the swing slowly returned to a standstill. Though there was no comprehending what had just happened, she knew that her daughter was somewhere up there. Somewhere up in the sky. What had taken her? To where? Why?

There came a brief whoosh, followed by an impact so heavy Randi’s whole body shook. There in the grass, lying motionless, was Aggie, thrown to the ground at the same speed with which she had been lifted. 

Randi was blinded by tears, stumbling towards the small, broken body by the swing set. She reached out to touch the one cheek that had not caved in, but as her fingertips neared, her daughter was yanked from reach again. Or rather, she was. 

The yellow dress became a shape, a speck, and then nothing. Randi had time to let out one long scream before the city turned into a pincushion of tiny lights, soon to be obscured by a cluster of opaque clouds. The moon had never seemed bigger to her; the air, never thinner. 

As her scream became a wheeze, the ascent slowed, and then finally stopped. Not that it was of any comfort. Around her, Randi saw nothing but stars and sky. She heard next to nothing too, her ears having popped on the way up. A wet trickle oozed from her eardrums and immediately became frost on the lobes she didn’t know were already turning blue. 

There were more pressing sensations to assess: the pressure, like a set of large immaterial hands clasping her waist, her own too numb to pry them off; the stench, which though there was no wind to carry it, had somehow followed; the sound, persistent as it was distant, now keeping time on either side of her damaged ears. The beating of wings.

It’s cold up here all alone, she thought, her tenuous sanity freshly severed. I want to go down.

Randi suddenly felt her insides floating, as if they were struggling to escape her body and return to orbit. There was a brief blur before the dark of night became a darkness she was no longer able to see.

Near the two still bodies, half-buried side by side in the dirt and grass, there were a few scattered cackles. They rose, intermingling as they left the mother and daughter behind. With nothing left to enjoy, they had already grown weary of the sight of death, moving onward to the next house in search of more life to take.

"You always talk to me with no respect! I'm your mother, damn it! You little ungrateful shit..." I had to hear those words again, we were fighting, as usual.

"Hey, it's at least better than living on the streets.", I thought to myself, trying to comfort me, to see the good side of things, I have to put up with mom, but, hey, it's better than begging for money under a bridge.

I walked back to my room, silently, not trying to make her angrier, or anything, I didn't slam the door, that would've made her angrier, and I don't want to see her angry... How many times have I repeated that word?

We're poor, that means we can't afford things like a new phone, a flat-screen TV, or therapy sessions for her, however, for some reason we can afford more and more kids, I'm the oldest of 5, even if I'm just 15, the youngest was born a month ago.

She was cooking for the entire family, not just for us five, but for herself, dad and grandma as well, what a busy woman... But, we're poor, we can't afford someone else to help in the kitchen, or with money.

"Armando! Mom! Kids! Come here! Food's ready!"

I stepped out the door a while after, I mean, she said she didn't want to see me, so I gave her that... When I came out, there was a single plate of chicken, with a note next to it, the note had my name... But the plate had red on it.

Hot sauce, Habanero, as they tend to put in their sauces, I can't eat that, I'm hypersensitive, anything slightly spicier than Tajin made my tongue and stomach hurt, I knew if I dared to eat that, I could get stomach problems or worse, and it would hurt as all hell, but...

We're poor.

We can't afford to waste food.

I sat down, taking the fork to the red-hot chicken, bringing it to my mouth, until it hit my palate, it burns, it's just a small bite, but it hurts as hell, it feels like hell itself is inside my mouth, but I can't stop, I need to eat it, I need to make it worth it, I need to eat, it's the only food I have.

I took more bites, the fork went up and down, from the plate to my mouth, and every time it did, I was in worse pain, my tongue felt like it was being stabbed again and again, every goddamn second felt worse and worse, I need to eat, I need to eat, I need to eat, but I can't stand the pain, I need to stop, but I need to eat, tears streamed down my face, but I couldn't stop eating, I held the fork with trembling hands, but I couldn't stop eating, I wished to stop, but I couldn't stop-

I passed out.

I woke up on a bed, a white room, white lights... A window next to me, with warm sunlight hitting my skin, I felt peace for one moment, a single moment where I could feel like the nightmare stopped... But then I heard something.

"Alejandro! Come down, we need to talk."

...

We're poor.

We can't afford care.

There was a stranger standing in my kitchen.

Sculpted in a black suit, she sat at our kitchen table nursing coffee. 

Late twenties. Blonde ponytail. Permanent scowl. I already assumed the worst. 

The woman barely acknowledged me as I swooped into the kitchen for breakfast.

“Lulu,” my twin brother glanced up from his phone, half a cereal bar stuck in his mouth. He chuckled. “What did you do?” 

“Peter.” Mom twisted around, playing Mom again.

She didn't suit brushing her hair and showering. I preferred her matted, disgusting ponytail and soiled pyjamas– beer-breath that coiled in my gut.

“Go to your room.” Mom snapped at my brother. 

Peter stood, rolled his eyes, and left the kitchen, leaving me alone with the monsters.

Don't go.

That was my first thought, the words bubbling under my tongue. Desperate.

Peter was the only person I trusted.

When he was gone, that facade began to crumble.

The "PERFECT" morning.

A shadow bloomed behind me: a towering man wearing that same clinical smile.

The "PERFECT" breakfast. 

Mom dumped pancake mix down the sink as hands gripped my shoulders, applying just enough pressure to keep me frozen. 

“Lula Santiago,” The woman in the black suit stepped forward with a practised smile that never reached her eyes.

Peter was already gone, dragged away before he could help.

“Your mother is very worried about you and your future,” her tone dropped into a sickeningly, sugary lie as another clammy hand slammed down on my shoulder. 

Mom hid in the corner, as usual, back to me. “Lulu, baby, this woman is going to help you,” she whispered, staring down at the floor. Not at me. Never me.

Here came the fucking excuses.

“She said…” Her voice dropped into a pantomime, a sobbing fit. Mom followed me outside as I was dragged by my hair, plastic ties binding my wrists, and shoved into an unmarked van. I didn't fight.

I saw their weapons. Masked faces and the way they touched me, as if I were an animal. Mom started wailing. Only when the neighbors peeked over the fence.

Mother of the Year.

Every gay teenager’s fear is the idea that one day our parents will decide we are the problem, that we’ll be whisked away in the middle of the night and “fixed”.

The other kids who joined me thought the same.

Jay, a fifteen year old, turned to me with a wide, watery smile and told me he’d already attempted three times. That he wished he’d swallowed down the whole bottle. 

When we were unloaded from the van, I noticed the towering, ten-foot fence. The masked guards wielding batons. Jay grabbed my hand. His smile broke me.

I expected it. Being shoved inside a room with one single cinematic screen. Chairs with restraints. Guards holding my eyes open when I refused to look at the screen.

The lights flickered off. My wrists were pinned down, my frantic gaze trying and failing to avoid a myriad of mesmerizing colors. They started with colors. 

Shapes and patterns. I was ordered to identify a red spot while an old French cartoon played in the background.

Black and white, annoying, and WAY too much screaming. I waited for my thoughts to go blank, for the fog, my identity corroding with my mind.

My nose bled all the way down my chin and tee, and my heart hurt a little, but that was from the lights. Too bright.

Again. I expected something, maybe a sudden declaration over an intercom: “Dear children, congratulations! You are no longer gay.” 

Then the lights flicked on, my wrists were freed, and I was still...me.

I mean, it could have been a delay. Right? 

To test it, I imagined my girlfriend. Rosie. She texted me a purple heart before I was taken, and I never managed to text back.

My heart swelled, my stomach tightening.

Those feelings were still very much there.

So, what the fuck was that?

I wasn't the only one confused.

Jay hugged me, laughing, smiling, telling me he was fine.

It wasn't even a night-stay. I was dumped back inside a truck and driven back home.

Mom greeted me when the zip ties fell away. She hugged me, and, to my surprise, I hugged her back. Relief, maybe?

It was a scare tactic. 

“Gather a group of gay kids in a room, and scare them into changing their minds! That'll work!”

“Lulu,” my brother hugged me, and yet kept his distance, his eyes wide.

“What did they.. do to you?” 

“I don't know,” I admitted, unable to resist a smile. "I think they scared us into, like, ‘making the right choice’, I rolled my eyes. 

“Fuck. That's messed up.”

Peter’s expression softened into a smile. “Rosie’s waiting for you upstairs.” 

“Are you okay?” Rosie whispered into my hair, already scared, grasping my cheeks, as if expecting a different answer. But I smiled. I kissed her, expecting revulsion implanted inside me. Nope. She still tasted the same. Cherry lipgloss. My Rosie.

“Yeah,” I whispered, breathless, “I’m okay.”

I spent all night with Rosie, talking about nothing and everything, falling asleep.

I woke up, however, to warmth soaking through me. I was standing.

Swaying.

No longer in my room, I was in the kitchen.

My hands, slick red and dripping, fingers wrapped around a butcher knife.

On the floor at my feet was my brother’s body, his eyes still open, terrified.

My mother was in the living room, still wrapped in her blanket, stabbed straight through the heart.

I dropped the knife, a wail escaping my mouth and shattering my skull. “Rosie?”

The TV was still on when I dropped to my knees next to my girlfriend’s severed torso lying on Mom’s sheepskin rug. “Ladies and gentlemen, BREAKING NEWS,” a reporter’s voice crackled through the speakers.

“We’re receiving reports of what the DOJ is calling co-ordinated, horrific attacks on parents across the country by out-of-control homosexual children—”

I wake up cold and alone, sitting on the floor of the tent. I look around for Mommy and Daddy, but I can’t find them. Maybe they went outside to make breakfast. 

I step out of the tent, but I still don’t see them. I look around, but all I see are trees everywhere. I don’t know where they went. 

“Mommy!!! Daddy!!!”

I call out over and over, but they don’t answer. I’ve never been in the woods before. Tears start to fill my eyes. I don’t know what to do. Mommy and Daddy always know what to do. 

After a while, I look out at the woods. The forest, Daddy calls it - he says it’s bigger than the woods, but they look the same to me. Treess everywhere. I don’t know where I am. I just want to go home. But I don't know where home is. I sit there, waiting. I wait all day until it gets dark, but no one comes. When it’s night, I go back into the tent. They’ll be back tomorrow. They have to be. 

The next morning, I wake up and look around, calling their names. 

“Mommy!! Daddy!!”

But they still don’t answer. I’m scared, but I go back and sit outside. They have to come back today. Right? I don’t think I did anything wrong. I’ve been good. I did everything they told me to. I cleaned my room and said “please” and “thank you” and ate the yucky vegetables and was nice to Tommy on third period even though he’s mean. They have to come back. I just have to be patient. Mommy always says I’m not good at being patient - “you want everything now,” she always says, smiling at me. 

I wish she was here now. 

I sit, thinking about my room at home. I miss my stuffed animals. I miss my bed. I miss my storybooks. I wish I had Mr. Stuffy with me; he always makes me feel better. I miss my best friend Missy; she’d know what to do. But I don’t have them. I’m all alone. 

I sit for a long time, waiting for Mommy and Daddy, but they don’t come back. I try to remember what happened last night. I know we were all together then, and they were here when I went to sleep. They must be here somewhere. 

I look out at the trees. It’s dark in there, and scary, and I hear weird noises. I don’t want to go. But I can’t stay here. What if Mommy and Daddy forgot where I am? What if they can’t find me? I have to get to them. 

I stand up and walk into the forest. 

It gets dark really fast, like the trees are blocking all the light. I can barely see anything, and the noises are getting louder. Like I’m not alone. I don’t like it here. 

Be brave, I tell myself. I keep going. 

Soon I start to hear noises, like growling. It’s not that far away. I stop and listen. I think the noises are getting closer. 

Someone, please help me. 

Then, as I sit on the ground, I hear voices. 

“Cassie! Cassie! Where are you?”

Mommy!! Daddy!! I knew they’d find me! I ran off toward their voices. 

*****

“Cassie! Cassie! Where are you?”

I held my husband’s hand while I called to her. 

“Cassie! Cassie!”

“You need to stay calm,” said the medium. “Some spirits respond negatively to emotion.”

But I kept calling her. I couldn’t help it. Ever since she’d had a seizure on our camping trip and never woken up, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her small body on the floor of our tent. This was our last chance. It had to work. It had to. 

“Cassie? Cassie?!?”

When we got divorced, my ex-wife and I agreed to share custody of our son. Cillian lived with her. I got him every other weekend and certain weekdays.

It was my night when she showed up at half past eleven on a Tuesday, hovering next to my bedroom window and screaming so hard the car alarm went off.

“Aoife,” I said groggily. “What’re you doing here?”

She floated in the rain, red hair going in six directions, mouth open wide enough to show every tooth in her head. Which was too many.

Did I mention my ex is a banshee? I’m not calling her names. She’s literally a banshee.

I overlooked that when we married. In fairness, she overlooked the drinking, the gambling, and the small matter of me being barred from every pub in Dundalk for getting into drunken brawls.

“Cillian has a match tomorrow,” she said, dangling his boots. “You forgot these.”

“You could’ve texted.”

“I did.”

I checked my phone. She had. She’d also cracked the screen somehow, straight through the message.

I opened the window and took the boots.

People ask what went wrong between us. I tell them we grew apart. Which is true. I grew into the spare room.

The trouble started when she began keening during arguments. I’d leave a mug beside the sink instead of in it, and she’d rise off the floor and start wailing the names of everyone in the parish due to die before Christmas.

You can’t live like that. I tried for ten years.

The final straw was a Sunday roast. I said she’d overdone the potatoes, and she screamed so hard Mrs. Kavanagh three doors down dropped dead in her conservatory.

Aoife said Mrs. Kavanagh had a heart condition and the scream was only a warning.

"That's not the point," I said.

“You insulted my cooking, but somehow I’m the bad guy here.”

We separated in March. She and Cillian moved in with her sister, who's also a banshee, and their mother, who is somehow worse despite not being one.

We tried a shared Google Calendar for visits, but Aoife couldn’t touch it without scrambling all the entries. Now she just floats over to tell me what I’ve missed.

The thing about coparenting with a banshee is you can never tell if she’s upset with you or someone nearby is about to die.

The Saturday before the boots incident, I was twenty minutes late to the handover because of a tractor on the N2. Aoife stood outside the Centra with Cillian, doing the face. The long face. Eyes solid white, mouth stretching past her chin, air smelling like a freezer unplugged for a week.

“Is that for me,” I asked, “or someone else?”

“Mr. Geraghty next door has a clot.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“You’re also twenty minutes late.”

“There was a tractor.”

“There’s always a tractor, Dev.”

She had me there. I’d been late plenty of times without one.

Cillian got in the car. He’s nine. He has her hair and my disposition, which means he looks like a small haunted man. Lovely kid. Fiercely good at Gaelic football.

“Da,” he said, “am I going to be a banshee?”

“I don’t think boys can be banshees, bud. It's banSHEE, not banHEE.”

“Deirdre Doherty's ma says they can. Something about genetics.”

“Deirdre Doherty’s ma thinks the earth is flat. I wouldn’t take her word as gospel.”

“But am I?”

I looked in the mirror. Brown eyes, like mine. But sometimes his mouth went too wide, the car went cold, and the radio turned to static. I’d been telling myself it was faulty wiring.

“Whatever you are,” I said, “you’re mine.”

He nodded, buckled his seat belt, and asked for a breakfast roll. I said yes, because I’m not a monster.

I got Cillian to Wednesday’s match half an hour early. Aoife noticed. She didn’t say anything, which was practically a standing ovation coming from her.

She watched from the far side of the pitch. The other parents gave her a wide berth, except Tommy Fagan, who tried chatting her up because he thought he had a chance.

She left him deaf in his left ear.

Cillian scored twice. After the first, Aoife screamed so loudly the referee threatened to have her removed.

After the second, she didn't scream.

But the floodlights flickered. Every phone along the touchline buzzed at once, and for one second the air went as cold as the inside of a grave. Cillian stood on the pitch, grinning.

Afterwards, Aoife and I met by the car park. In her cardigan, with her arms folded, she looked almost ordinary.

“He’s getting good,” I said.

“He gets it from you.”

“Aoife, you know I’m rubbish at sports.”

“I meant your aggression.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“He kept looking over at you tonight,” she said.

“Did he?”

“He wanted to make sure you saw him score.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

She almost smiled.

Then, to my surprise, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

“Cillian’s got a dentist appointment on Friday at four,” she whispered. “Don’t forget.”

Cillian came out of the changing room with his gear bag. Aoife pulled him into a hug and kissed the top of his head.

“You were brilliant tonight, love,” she said. “I’m so proud of you.”

He pretended to be embarrassed, but hugged her back.

Then she walked toward the road. Didn’t float. Just walked in the rain, umbrella in hand, like a person. I watched her go and had the strangest feeling that some way back to her was still open. Like a lit window high above the street. I could see it from where I stood, but I hadn't the faintest idea how to reach it.

“Can we get chips?” Cillian asked.

“It’s nine o’clock on a Wednesday.”

“So?”

I looked at him. He looked at me. His mouth did the thing.

“Get in the car,” I said.

We got chips.

I think scammer is a bit of a strong, emotionally-charged word.

I run a small business. At least, that’s what I tell all my friends and family. Face it! The economy is dog shit. I was tired of busting my ass for incompetent bosses and tiny pay checks

So I started Steven's Supernatural Consultations. My website says I am the midwest's leading expert on hauntings, poltergeists, evil spirits, and demon possession.

So what if all of that nonsense isn’t real. People believe it is, and that’s why they’re willing to pay big bucks for me.

My latest consultation inquiry is from a sucker named Mark. Mark in his own words is, “desperate desperate DESPERATE.” Which is music to my ears. I gloss over the details, and quote him my non-refundable downpayment of $7,500.

And can you believe it, he made the payment.

When I arrive at Mark’s house, I realize this might not be a walk in the park. Mark is waiting for me on the porch. He is with a woman who I assume is his wife. They are quite an odd pair.

First, they are both bald. Like, reflect-sunlight-shiny bald. I can see the rays bouncing off as they both excitedly wave to me. Neither can be much older than thirty, so what gives?

Second, they appear to be dressed for a wedding. Mark is in tux, and his wife is in a bridal gown that has seen better days. How long has she been wearing it?

They welcome me through their front door, and I do the same thing I always do when I start a haunting consultation. I jerk my head, pretending I heard something. Then take out my ghost-electronic-energy-reading-device. “Tell me, Mark,” I say, swaying the device back and forth, “how long do you think you’ve been haunted?”

“Oh, we’re not haunted!” Mark is surprisingly upbeat as he talks. “Please, come have a seat in the living room. We do need your advice, Steven.”

My advice? Wigs are cheap, and work wonders. I take a seat in the living room. Mark introduces his wife, Milly. She doesn’t talk much, and looks a little sickly.

“Steven, I hope this isn’t too odd of a request for you. So I would like to explain our situation.” Mark has his arm around his wife, and she seems to bring a smile to his face every time he looks at her. “A few months ago I proposed to Milly, and that was just about the time they discovered the cancer. Nasty business, cancer. I won’t go into too much detail, but the outlook isn’t good. Well, we’ve only just been married. Last week, actually. Haven’t even taken off the clothes. And we’re not ready for it to be over. So, we need your expertise on haunting.”

“What exactly are you asking?”

“Well, I want my wife to haunt me. Yes, I want to spend the rest of my life awakened with a fright by my lovely wife. And she wants more time with me, so she could spend an eternity trying to startle me. Rattling windows. You know. Uh, moving my cereal box at breakfast. And with your knowledge of hauntings, I was hoping you could make sure that when she passes, she haunts me.”

I can see Milly getting a little watery-eyed when Mark says, ‘passes.’

I’m pretty good at bullshiting. I’ve taken money from people who didn’t have it and were desperate. But even I have to admit this is beyond my fraud abilities.

I ask Mark to come into a separate room with me. For a little privacy. And once we’re in the kitchen pantry, I drop the nuke. “Yeah, all this haunting stuff is fake.”

“Fake? But you’re an expert–”

“I’m a fraud, Mark. I’m sorry about your wife. I can’t in good faith take any more of your money. Hauntings, ghosts, none of it is real, Mark.”

He cuts me off with two strong hands around my throat. Mark is a lot stronger than I first noticed. I feel my feet leave the ground.

Mark just looks at the ground as he holds me up. “You took seven thousand dollars from me. And you can’t even tell me how hauntings work.”

I try to shake free, but it’s pointless.

He kills me. What a prick. I know I’m a scammer, but this seems like a harsh punishment.

Dying isn’t easy. It hurts like hell. And I can tell you that when your soul leaves your body you feel a bitter cold wind. There's a smell on the breeze like a lost memory. Something from when you were a child but can’t place. Your eyes would be watering, if you still had ‘em.

Then I watch Mark start to put my body in a black plastic bag. I realize, wait a second, I’m still here! He killed me with malice, and I’m haunting him.

I follow Mark back into the living room. I want to kick him in the ass, but I can’t touch anything.

Mark sits down with his wife, and tells her, “I don’t think haunting is going to work out, honey.”

Now she is crying. Full bore. “I’m not ready,” she says, her voice weak. “I didn’t get enough time.”

“Hey,” Mark says, wiping her tears, “I still have the guy who might know a vampire. And there’s that other ghost expert! Honey! We’re going to have all of eternity, I promise.”

Mark hugs Milly, and she cries into his tux.

I need to tell him. She can haunt him. It’s possible. But no matter how much I scream, and yell, he can’t hear me.