The Cow King

When people think of their first pet, they talk about dogs or cats. For me, however, it was a cow.

Now, Lina wasn’t my cow, of course. She was one of many my grandpa owned.

Years ago, when I was a young boy, I spent the long weeks of summer vacation at his farm.

I grew up a city boy, spending most of my young live in a concrete jungle comprising nothing but rows and rows of old apartment buildings.

When grandpa suggested that I’d spent summer at his farm, I pestered my parents about it for weeks. Eventually they relented and so I was off to stay with grandpa.

Until then, I’d only been at grandpa’s home a few times, but I’d fallen in love with it the first time I’d been there.

I loved the remote farm he called his home, the wide empty plains and the sprawling forests surrounding them.

What I loved the most, though, were the many farm animals he owned. Even in his old age, grandpa was still a strong and sturdy man who continued to work his farm.

“Well, it’s the only thing I know how to do,” he always said laughing.

While grandpa owned pigs and chickens, I was more taken by his cows.

While the pigs in their pigsty ignored me, the chickens gave into a state of panic the moment I entered the coop to pet them.

The cows, however, were friendlier, much friendlier. When I walked up the pasture on my first day, they eyed me curiously before they walked up to me.

The friendliest of them was the one I named Lina. She was as black and white as the rest of them, but had a white crescent mark on her forehead.

Now, I didn’t get to enter the pasture, of course, but even with a fence between us, I could pet her head and feed her freshly mowed grass.

I spent long hours outside, in the grass, watching the cows go about their day and petting and feeding them, above all, Lina.

During the time I spent with grandpa, I learned quite a bit about cows and animal husbandry. Grandpa’s herd comprised dairy cows. Lina and the rest were kept for milk production.

I also learned that cows only gave milk when they were pregnant or with calf.

Even now I remembered how excited I was when I heard grandpa talk about calves. I pestered him constantly, but he told me that the time of birth varied. If I was lucky, though, I might see some of the newborn calves.

When I asked grandpa how all the cows got pregnant and where the father was, he explained to me what artificial insemination was. Well, he didn’t go into detail, instead he told me that sometimes, Mother Nature needed a bit of help and that it was the easiest and safest option.

Being the child I was, I thought little about it. No, all I cared about were the calves. There were of course some younger cows in grandpa’s herd, but they’d all been born in the spring. What I wanted to see was a newborn one, a tiny one.

As luck wanted it, I should get my chance soon enough.

I’d been with grandpa for a week when he told me that a cow had just given birth. The moment I heard a calf had been born, I was out of it and raced to the barn as fast as my little legs could carry me.

My young eyes grew wide the moment I saw the tiny body next to the exhausted mother cow. Even more so when the calf got to its shaky feet.

“It’s so small,” I brought out when grandpa caught up with me.

This baby cow, this calf, was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

When I was about to step up to pet it, grandpa told me it was still too early. Everything was new for the little one, and for now it needed to get used to its environment.

I was on pins and needles all day, pestering grandpa about wanting to play with the little calf.

“Tomorrow, Mark, you can pet it tomorrow,” he eventually said.

Needless to say, I was disappointed, even a little mad. I remember sitting near the barn for hours, watching grandpa as he made sure that mother and calf were doing all right.

The next day, right after breakfast, when grandpa did another check-up, I finally got my chance of scratching the calf behind its ears. I loved the little guy and continued to visit him day in and out until he joined the rest of the herd out in the pasture.

I’d done my best to bond with the little guy, but he was too shy and scared to approach me on his own. In the end, Lina stayed my favorite.

Yet, one day, things changed at grandpa’s farm. One morning, right after breakfast, I could tell that something was different.

I rushed outside to greet Lina and the rest of the herd, but the cows were acting different. They huddled together at the far end of the pasture, their bodies pressed against one another. However much I called out to them, however much I waved a tuft of fresh grass, they didn’t come.

I raced back to grandpa.

“Grandpa, there’s something wrong with the cows, they are sick! They aren’t coming to me, not even Lina!”

When he saw the visible fear on my face, he laughed.

“Calm down, Mark. That’s just the way they are. They are beasts after all and sometimes, they just don’t care.”

I nodded, but I didn’t understand. For the rest of the day and the following one I tried again and again, but the cows never came. Their state of fear persisted.

After days, whatever had gotten into them passed, and they slowly reverted to their normal behavior. Yet, I noticed, some still strayed from the rest.

My fears, however, were forgotten the moment Lina came up to me again and happily let me pet her.

Over the course of the next two weeks, more calves were born, and I was always there when they first got to their feet. It was always a special event for me.

One day, when I heard that yet another one of grandpa’s cows was to give birth, I was quick to hurry to the barn, only to be met with Stefan, grandpa’s single farmhand.

I’d seen him around before, but he was a harsh, bitter man and I’d always avoided him. Now he stood right in front of me, staring down at me with cold eyes.

“Nothing to see here today, boy,” he said as he blocked my path.

“But, I want to see the baby cow,” I protested and was about to push myself past him.

In one swift motion, he got a hold of my arm and glared at me.

“There’s none today. Now go back to where you came from,” he pressed out and pushed me back the way I came from.

“No, but,” I tried to protest, but when he stepped up to me again, the corners of his mouth twitching in anger, I eventually left.

I sat down in the grass near the meadow, mulling over how unfair it all was. It was stupid I didn’t get to see the calf, and Stefan was even more stupid and so was grandpa!

After a while, as I sat there in the grass, I noticed smoke coming from the back of the farm.

For a moment I wondered what was going on before my childish mind realized that the farm must’ve caught on fire. As quickly as I could, I ran to where the smoke was coming from.

Behind the farm, I found grandpa and Stefan in front of a fire. They were burning something.

At first I was relieved, glad it wasn’t the farm that was burning. Then, when I got closer, my eyes glued to the fire, I saw something move between the burning logs.

At first I didn’t know what it was, but when I got closer, I saw limbs, legs, a bunch of tiny legs that were sticking out from the fire.

When I saw them twitch once more, I rushed for the fire, past grandpa, to pull what I thought was a calf from the burning pit.

The moment grandpa saw me, he got a hold of me and dragged me away from the fire.

“Mark, what’s the matter with you, get away from there! This is nothing for a little boy like you, it’s dangerous!”

As he dragged me away, my eyes were glued to the fire and the thing burning within it. From afar it had looked like a calf, but the moment I got closer I saw it was something else. The proportions had been all wrong, weird and elongated. There were legs, but far too many of them. I shivered as grandpa dragged me away.

He sat me down on a bench in front of the farmhouse. After a heavy sigh, he explained.

“Sometimes, there are… complications. Sometimes a calf can come out all wrong. It’s nature, and sometimes, nature doesn’t get things right and parts end up in the wrong place.”

“But, why? Why was it all wrong, grandpa?”

He gave me a shrug.

“That’s just how things are, nothing to be done about it.”

I gave him a slow nod, but I still felt for the thing they’d burned. For days, the strange, misshapen calf stayed on my mind.

It did even more so when Stefan joined us for breakfast one morning, whispering something into grandpa’s ear. The bright smile he usually wore vanished.

“Stay here, Mark, all right?” he said to me while I was munching on my sandwich.

I opened my mouth to ask something, but grandpa and Stefan had already left the room.

When I was about to put on my shoes and follow them, grandpa yelled at me to stay inside. It was the first time I’d ever seen him like this, and the first time he’d ever been angry with me.

The shoes dropped from my hand and with tears in my eyes I sulked back to the living room.

I never learned what happened that day. Grandpa never told me a thing, and Stefan continued to glare at me like he usually did.

It was only one day, by sheer accident, that I caught bits of a conversation between the two of them.

“So, how many this time?” I heard grandpa ask.

“At least four of them,” Stefan pressed out in a strained voice.

For a while there was nothing but silence, and all I could hear was the quiet summer breeze rustling through the nearby trees.

Eventually grandpa sighed. “Guess it’s grown angry,” he finally said.

Stefan started cursing and mumbling indistinguishable.

“Well, nothing we can do about it. Just have to take care of them like we always do,” grandpa brought out.

A moment later I heard his steps coming into my direction and I hurried away. Yet, his words stayed on my mind.

‘Guess it’s grown angry.’

For days I racked my brain, trying to understand what he was talking about.

Of course, I couldn’t, I was a little boy, but one night should change everything.

That night I’d been lying in bed for long hours, still racking my brain over the strange things going on at the farm. When I fell asleep, strange dreams plagued me. I saw the weird calf-thing in the fire again, saw it move, heard it cry out for me.

I awoke, scared and confused, before I realized it had all been a dream. At first, I lay in bed, but then I realized I had to go to the toilet.

I hated going to the toilet at grandpa’s during the night. The farmhouse was old and at night you could hear any and all sounds around the farm. For a child, even the shaking of the trees and the sound of the wind were transformed into shapeless ghosts and invisible terrors.

I raced to the toilet and as I sat there, the window cracked behind me, I heard something from outside.

As I strained my ears, I could hear the mooing of the cows outside. It didn’t sound like anything I’d heard before. They sounded afraid, terrified, as if chaos had descended upon the pasture.

I tried to pry open the bathroom window, but wasn’t able to. So instead, I tiptoed through the house and made my way to the living room. I pushed my face against the glass of the window, but I couldn’t make out a thing. All I saw was frantic movement in the pasture.

Eventually, my hand wandered to the handle. As slowly and quietly as I could, I pulled and opened the window. I leaned forward as far as I could, pushing my upper body outside.

At first, I could only see the cows racing from one end of the pasture to the other, but then I noticed something else. There was something in the pasture with them.

For a moment I thought it was one of the cows, one that hadn’t joined the frantic, crazed movements, but then I saw how big it was.

It was a towering, hulking shadow, much larger than any cow I’d ever seen before.

I leaned forward further, almost dropping out the window.

Then, the moon pushed past the clouds and its light descended upon the pasture. I saw a multitude of legs, saw a black and white hide, saw a pair of horns. The creature threw its head back, releasing a grunt, a loud distorted version of a moo before it charged after the cows.

The herd was in sheer and utter panic, dividing and forming up again as they fled from whatever this monstrosity was.

Suddenly, one cow rushed off in the wrong direction, charging towards the farm while the rest fled further down the pasture.

Another loud grunt followed, and the monstrosity threw itself at the lonely cow. And just then, as the cow crashed against the fence of the pasture, I noticed the white crescent mark on her forehead.

“No,” I brought out in a shaken voice as I saw how the creature got a hold of Lina.

I watched in horror as the abomination pushed itself on top of her.

I opened my mouth, wanted to scream, to call out, to chase the demon away, but just then a hand was pushed over my mouth.

“Don’t you dare,” I heard grandpa’s voice whisper into my ear.

He dragged me back, away from the window. Then he closed it off with his other hand before he pushed me from the room.

“We have to help Lina!” I blurted out the moment he removed his hand. “Grandpa, come on, we have to!”

With that I was about to rush to the front door, but I’d only made it two steps before he got a hold of me.

“Nothing we can do, Mark.”

“But,” I pleaded, but he shook his head.

When the tears started streaming from my eyes, he pulled me in close and put his arm around me.

“It’s all right, Mark, it’s all right,” he whispered as he hugged me.

When the tears stopped flowing, he took my hand and led me back to my little bedroom. He sat with me, whispering to me, until I’d fallen asleep again.

When I woke up the next morning, I was startled and confused about the events of last night. I threw the covers aside, thinking about what I’d seen, about Lina, and raced through the house.

“Grandpa!” I called out repeatedly, desperately trying to find him.

The moment I found him, he laughed.

“Now what’s all this ruckus about this early in the morning?”

“Last night, the cows, and Lina, and that, that thing,” I rambled.

“Now, now, what are you talking about?”

“The monster, in the pasture, the one that went after Lina! You were there in the living room and, and-“

“You had a bad dream, Mark, that’s all. Lina’s all right and so is the rest of the heard,” he said, giving me a warm smile.

“Now, how about some breakfast?”

Now, of course, I didn’t give up, but grandpa assured me he’d been fast asleep all night, there’d been no noises and there had been no monsters.

What can I say, I was a little kid after all and so, I believed him.

Before long, my stay at grandpa’s home ended, and I returned to the city and the concrete jungle that was my home.

While I had fond memories of the weeks I’d spent with grandpa, the experience was haunted by that terrible night, that terrible dream.

The school year came and went, but next summer I didn’t return to grandpa’s farm, I couldn’t. I was only ever there with my parents, on short, rare visits, but it never felt the same again.

An oppressive atmosphere hung over the old farmhouse and had transformed the place I’d loved so much into something darker, something sinister.

I’m an adult now, and for long years I’d never returned to his farm. It was a month ago that I finally went on one last trip there with my parents.

Grandpa was older now, much older. The strong, sturdy farmer of my childhood had been replaced by a tiny, shriveled old man that seemed lost in his own bed.

A stroke, the doctor had told us. At his age, recovery was out of the question.

For long hours we sat with him, watching over him. When my mother couldn’t take it anymore, my father led her from the room.

Left alone, next to his sleeping body, I took out my phone. I was browsing the web, listening to his low, rattling breath, when a bony hand suddenly gripped my arm. Grandpa’s eyes were wide open, staring right at me.

His mouth was moving, but nothing but another low rattle escaped his mouth.

“Grandpa, what is it? Are you okay? Are you in pain? Do you want me to-?”

I broke up when his nails dug into my arm and he pulled me closer.

“You’ve got to,” he pressed out, his voice as quiet as a whisper.

“I’ve got to what?”

Grandpa was panting, breathing hard, sweat glistening on his forehead.

“Make sure there’s never more than one of them!”

“More than one of what?”

“You saw,” he brought out. “That night, that thing, you saw.”

“Saw what?” I asked, but the answer came to me a moment later.

He wrinkled his brow, opened his mouth again, but it took him long seconds to bring forth the words.

His voice was as thin as a whisper, but I heard the two words he was saying.

Eventually his voice trailed off and after a second his grip loosened. He held my gaze for another long second before he closed his eyes again.

For a second I thought the worst had happened, but then I saw the small of his chest moving. He’d fallen asleep.

Yet, my fears hadn’t vanished, my terrors hadn’t evaporated. I knew what he’d said just now, what he’d told me.

That night so long ago, the night he’d told me had been nothing but a dream, had been real. What I’d seen out there had been all but real, and as an adult, I finally understood what I’d witnessed.

Some sort of creature was out there, out in the wild, and on certain nights it came here. It came for the cows to spread its seed and to create its ghastly offspring.

I don’t know what that thing is, I don’t know where it came from, but even now, even after grandpa’s funeral, I remember what grandpa had called it.

The Cow King.

Bump

I first felt it a few weeks ago. It was a bump on the back of my head.

I thought nothing of it. I’d probably bumped my head while drunk. Happens all the time.

It would go away eventually, I told myself. Yet whenever I washed my hair, it was there, and it felt… bigger? Occasionally, I could almost feel it pulsate, and a hot feeling would wash over my head. It was unlike anything I’d felt before. It wasn’t a headache, but an almost external feeling as if the warmth came from outside.

I tried my best to ignore it. Nothing but a bump that would soon be gone.

It wasn’t.

Today, I spent the evening watching a bunch of trashy movies and having a few drinks. Every once in a while, though, I could feel it again, the same warmth washing over my head.

Before long, fueled by half a dozen beers, my worries came back.

I stumbled to the bathroom and checked the back of my head. Yet with all the hair, I couldn’t see anything. All I could do was probe for it.

Scissors, I needed scissors. Driven by an almost drunk stupor, I began cutting away the hair around the bump haphazardly.

Before long, I was done, and finally got a better look at it. It was a bump, all right, and a rather big one at that. When I touched it, though, it felt strangely soft.

Where the hell did this come from?

As I stared at it, I saw it was still covered in a few hairs. When I touched them, when I pulled on them, they just came off. I could simply… pluck them out with no resistance.

What the absolute fuck…?

Then, with a shaking hand, I reached out for it again. Once more, the same warm feeling spread all over my head. I began probing it, pressing against it here and there. Then, for a split second, it felt almost as if something was pushing back against my finger.

I cringed and pulled my hand back.

I stood there, hyperventilating. Almost in a trance, I picked up the scissors again.

I poked it once, twice. Again the same hot feeling.

Then I pressed the scissors against it. At first gently, but then harder and harder. Skin stretched and finally broke. I watched as a disgusting, syrupy liquid leaked from the bump.

And then I screamed. The scissors clattered to the floor.

This time, the feeling that washed over my head was as hot as fire.

Yet I almost didn’t register it. The horror I saw pushed aside all feeling.

Slowly, ever so slowly, something pushed itself from the bump. It was a disgusting, tentacled growth. It became longer and longer, as it slithered over the back of my head, probing the outside world before it retreat into the bump on the back of my head.

The Legend of Long Legged Larry

It was my cousin Bill who first told me about the Legend of Long Legged Larry.

Bill and I used to be best friends, and I always spent the long, hot weeks of summer in his small town in the middle of nowhere. In 2002, however, things changed. I guess that’s puberty for you. While I turned into a shy, reclusive nerd, Bill wanted to be known, to be one of the cool kids.

It didn’t take me long to notice how much he’d changed. His entire demeanor was different, the way he carried himself and even how he spoke. I could also tell he wasn’t too happy to have ‘that little nerd’ around, as he referred to me to his so-called friends, the cool kids he was so desperate to impress.

Whenever we met them, he’d make fun of me, and before long, I became the butt of their collective jokes. Even worse, Bill began treating me like I was an idiot, and never lost a chance to belittle me.

It was one of these friends, I later learned, who’d told Bill about the supposed urban legend.

“What’s a Long Legged Larry?” I asked when he told me about it.

Instead of answering me, Bill scoffed and made it an effort to let me know how dumb I was for not knowing.

“How can you not know about it? God, you’re so stupid…”

“I bet you just heard it from one of your friends,” I retorted.

This landed me one of his trademark thigh knocks. I cursed in pain and hobbled over to the couch in his room. While I rubbed what I knew to become a heavy bruise, he reiterated the story he’d heard.

“Nobody knows his real name, but he’s a serial killer who escaped from a nearby mental institution,” Bill started, his voice nothing but a conspiratorial whisper.

“He’s a mutant with long, spidery legs who was abandoned at birth. They say he grew up in the woods around town, but one night he came back and hunted down his entire family. He beat them all to death with his long legs. They say he’s more a spider than a man, eight feet tall and-“

“This is so freaking dumb,” I mumbled to myself as I listened.

“Oh yeah? You’ve just got no clue, that’s all!”

Yeah, sure, I thought, but kept my mouth shut.

I’d hoped that was it, that this silly legend was nothing but another story to annoy me with and to act out the superiority he felt over me. Yet Bill was desperate to prove himself to his new friends. He probably thought he could be accepted into their little clique, if he could prove there was more to Long Legged Larry.

At first, he’d merely talk about it, but soon enough, he dragged me along and made me help him with his ‘research,’ as he called it.

Day after day I was forced to trudge after him as he went through town, asking people if they’d heard about the legend.

Most people, of course, had never heard about it, and I thought it was nothing but bullshit, an elaborate joke Bill’s friends had played on him. Occasionally, though, faces lit up in recognition, and slowly, ever so slowly, we learned more bits and pieces of the legend.

An old drunk told us that Long Legged Larry had once been the main attraction of a freak show or curiosity cabinet, but escaped and now roamed the wilderness around town. A scruffy looking young man at the town’s internet cafe told us he was the result of a failed government experiment.

There were as many takes on the story as there were people who’d heard about it. They ranged from ancient horrors to athletes having turned into serial killers.

Yet they all agreed on one thing: his legs were special; either too long, too strong, or… in one case, he had too many of them.

One day, Bill struck gold. Once again, we were at the town’s internet cafe. While I was browsing what could barely be called the internet, reading up on games, Bill was busy doing research.

“That’s it!” he suddenly exclaimed from the seat next to me.

I looked over at him, eyebrows raised, and a second later, he pulled me off my seat and in front of his screen.

It was an old news story from the late 60s or early 70s. A group of teenagers had gone out into the woods to have some fun, and only one of them returned. He was out of it when police found him and said he and his friends had been hunted down by something out in the woods.

I turned back to Bill, but he gave me an annoyed expression, urging me to read on. With a sigh, I turned back and continued reading the article, not sure what the big deal was. When they questioned the teen, he eventually admitted they’d gone out to the old steel mill. When the police checked the place, they found nothing. Not a hint of wild animals, serial killers, or whatever the young man claimed he’d seen. Yet they also found none of the bodies.

“So?” I asked, turning back to Bill.

“What do you mean, so? Did you read it? He’s got to be out there! I should’ve known he’s hiding out by the old steel mill with all the talk about it and what not!”

“What do you-?”

Oh no, don’t tell me… Bill’s expression, however, had already changed.

“We’re so going!” he brought out in an overly excited voice that made what few other patrons were at the place look up.

“Oh, come on, Bill. I’m not going to some stupid abandoned place in the middle of-“

I was cut off by another thigh knock.

“Why are you always such a pussy? This is going to be awesome! Who knows, maybe we’ll even find out what happened to those teenagers that went missing!”

“That was thirty years ago. Even if someone was out there back then, he’s probably long gone, dead, or even-“

“You know, if you don’t come along, I’ll tell everyone you’re in love with Susan Kingsley!”

“Who’s Susan Kingsley?”

I could see the anger and frustration on Bill’s face. For a moment, he opened his mouth, but then closed it again.

“You know what? Fine, whatever!”

With that, he stormed off.

Once more I’d hoped this settled the issue, but Bill wasn’t one to give up easily. No, things always went his way, even if he had to make sure they did. For days, he annoyed the hell out of me, even more so than before. He started making these strange spider noises, kicked me with his legs, and even tried to scare me in the middle of the night, pretending to be Long Legged Larry.

Eventually, I had enough.

“You know what, fine. Let’s check the damned place out.”

Only an hour later, we were on our way, riding our bikes through town and then deep into the forests around it.

We could already see the first signs of the old steel mill from afar. Its giant, derelict chimneys rose high above even the tallest trees. A testament to the town’s long forgotten, industrial origins. Once we got closer, however, we saw that the once imposing building was now nothing but an overgrown ruin that had long since been reclaimed by nature. The only thing not in sheer and utter disrepair was the huge steel fence surrounding the building, sprouting a variety of ‘Do Not Enter,’ and ‘Parents Are Liable for Their Children’ signs.

“How long you think this place’s been abandoned?” I asked as we pushed our bikes into the nearby underbrush.

“You really know nothing, do you?” he started, letting out an over-exaggerated sigh, and rolling his eyes.

“It was closed down in 1946, after the end of World War II. I heard they did experiments in there, created some sort of new weapon to fight the Nazis, but then…”

I didn’t bother to listen anymore. This was another story he’d heard from one of his friends, or it was something he’d made up on the fly, hoping to impress me.

“…still off-limits. Even animals avoid the place, and some years ago, Jerry told me a squatter went missing out here.”

I heard the familiar rustling of the trees in the wind, but all other sounds had vanished. No birds, no skittering animals, nothing. It seemed, for once, at least part of what Bill had said was the truth. For a moment, I couldn’t help but be crept out. It was a warm summer day, but I still shivered.

“What if there really is someone hiding in there?” I finally asked.

“You know, there’s one thing I’ve not told you about Long Legged Larry. He likes nothing more than to eat dumb little nerds, so-“

“Shut up, Bill. It’s not funny,” I mumbled. “I mean, don’t you think something’s wrong with the place?”

When I said this, Bill gave me a cheeky grin.

“Well, in case there is, I brought this along!”

With that, he pulled out one of his dad’s hunting knifes.

“If Larry tries to get me, I’m going to stab him with this!”

As if to prove he was serious, he waved the knife around in front of my face and even made a few swift stabbing motions in the air.

I opened my mouth to tell him how goddamn stupid he was, but Bill had already turned around and made his way towards the steel fence.

“Either way, let’s find out if someone’s in there!”

With that, he began climbing the fence, ignoring all the signs fastened to it. A few moments later, he’d made it inside.

“Come on already, you pussy!”

For a few seconds, I just stood there. Once more I listened, hoping desperately to hear any signs of life, but all was quiet. For a moment, I told myself to stay where I was. Hell, I told myself to just get out of here and leave Bill to his own devices. Then I sighed and approached the fence as well. Somehow I knew this idiot would get himself hurt if I wasn’t around. If that happened, I’d be in a lot of trouble if I’d just left.

“Dammit,” I cursed and climbed the fence.

When I’d made it, Bill had already hurried to the entrance of the old steel mill. I’d only taken a few steps before I stopped again. I watched as Bill pulled open the heavy gate. A cavernous maw opened up in front of him, one that seemed to devour all light in the area.

For a moment, I half expected a multitude of twisted arms, or even legs, to appear and snag him away right in front of me. Instead of that, however, Bill bent over and picked something up he’d found lying on the ground right behind the heavy gates.

When I reached him, I saw he was holding up a page of an old, torn newspaper.

“See! I told you someone’s in here! This place’s been closed down since forever, but look at the year, look at it!”

A quick glance at the page told me it was from the year 1999, a mere three years ago.

“Bill, I think we should leave. We don’t know…”

My voice trailed off. Bill didn’t even listen to me anymore. Instead, he tore open his backpack, rummaged through the contents for a moment before he produced a flashlight. A moment later, he ventured inside.

As I followed him, I realized once more how quiet it was. No birds, no animals, and not even the sounds of the rustling trees reached us in here. All we heard was the sound of our echoing footsteps on the old, cracked concrete floor.

The inside of the steel mill was entirely empty, and must’ve been stripped bare before it was abandoned. It made the place even bigger than it seemed from the outside. It was nothing but endless darkness, stretching on impossibly far in all directions. The only things I saw were a few lonely beams holding up the high roof above us, and the occasional heap of rubble.

As Bill walked on, the beam of his flashlight jerked around wildly, darting here and there in seemingly uncontrolled motions. At first, I thought he was scared, but then I saw his face. He was giddy with excitement.

“If we find him, it’s going to be the most amazing story ever!”

Then the flashlight’s beam hit something on the concrete floor, something that had once been very much alive.

A gasp escaped mouth, and I barely contained the scream that had tried to escape my throat.

Bill, however, was already hurrying over to the bloodied remains in front of us.

“It’s a fox, but it looks like it’s been dead for a while,” he said, poking it with his foot.

“Yeah, but how did it end up in here? There are no other animals around and look, it’s been torn apart.”

“Probably Larry,” Bill mumbled.

“Shut up! This is getting creepy. Please, Bill, let’s just leave, all right?”

“You’re such a pussy! But fine, if you want to be a baby, you can wait for me outside!”

This time, I’d had it with his stupidity. This place was creepy enough, but this fox… Something was wrong here and the last thing I wanted was to run into some deranged homeless dude or squatter, or hell, even stupid Larry himself!

As fast as my steps could lead me, I made my way towards the small spot of sunlight we’d entered from.

Suddenly, I tripped over something. I cursed, trying to kick away what I thought was nothing but rubble, but when I looked down, I saw it was a heap of clothes, torn apart, half-rotten clothes. Yet what my food had hit was a bone, a long, big bone that was clearly not from a fox or another small animal. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw something else between the torn clothes on the floor. It was the remains of a broken human skull.

This time, I could do nothing about the scream that escaped mouth.

I backed away, stumbled over my feet, and crashed to the ground. Bill was with me a few moments later, his face a mixture of annoyance and curiosity.

“What happened? What did you see? Did you get scared by-?”

The moment he saw what I was pointing at, he was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper.

“He’s a cannibal.”

Before I could tell him we had to get out of here, I heard it. Footsteps. Hard, fast footsteps that echoed towards us from somewhere inside the building.

When I turned to look at Bill, he was as scared as I was. All the excitement had left his face as the reality of the situation finally dawned on him. The beam of his flashlight darted around erratically, trying desperately to find whoever was coming for us.

Then we both saw it. A disheveled, older man came dashing right for us.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he called out to us.

We both screamed in terror. Bill was already running, and a moment later, I’d made it to my feet and was right behind him. In his senseless panic, Bill wasn’t running towards the exit, but deeper into the building, away from the creepy guy who was about to murder us.

“… come back here, dammit… going to get you…” I heard his voice from behind us.

We ran as fast as we could, but with each step, the man was closing the distance between us.

And then, just before the man reached us, Bill stared right at me. His eyes were wide, all the color had drained from his face, but then a different emotion washed over it. It was guilt, and before I understood what was happening, he tripped me.

As Bill ran on, I stumbled, desperately trying to keep my balance, but after only a few steps, I crashed to the floor. For a moment, everything stopped. I stared after Bill, who was still running, continuing on deeper into the darkness of the steel mill, his flashlight beam dancing across the floor. Then I turned around. My eyes focused on the man who was coming for me, on Larry, and I knew it was too late. He had reached me, and before I could even get back to my feet, his hands closed around my arm.

I screamed after Bill, screamed for him to come back and help me, but he just ran on. I kicked at Larry, tried to fight myself free, but it was futile. In a few swift motions, he restrained me and a moment later, he pushed a hand over my mouth, cutting off my screams forever.

“Not another damned word!” he snapped at me.

Then he dragged me back towards one of the huge beams in the empty hall.

As he held me in place, he said something else. It was nothing but a whisper.

“Quiet, it will hear you, too!”

I didn’t understand what was going on. What was he talking about? Once more, I renewed my efforts to get free, but then I heard it: sounds different from Bill’s echoing footsteps.

The sounds were unlike anything I’d ever heard before. The closest I could think of was bugs, a multitude of skittering bugs. Then Bill screamed.

This time, his scream was different. It was nothing but an unintelligible, bloodcurdling wail. It was cut short a second later, but its echo traveled endlessly and lingered in the empty halls of the steel mill. All the while, the man I’d thought to be Larry held me in place, still covering my mouth.

Then something hit the floor, something wet and made of flesh and bone, something I knew had been my cousin mere moments ago. I heard clothes being torn, flesh being ripped apart, and then a sound so disgusting, I almost vomited. It reminded me of someone sucking the juices from a fruit.

The sounds continued for almost a minute before silence returned to the steel mill. All I could hear now was beating of my heart and the labored breathing of the man holding me in place. Then, the skittering returned, and for the blink of an eye, something was illuminated by the flashlight Bill had dropped.

It was a tall, bony figure, a figure so tall it almost reached the hall’s high roof. And as it moved, I saw a multitude of thin, spidery limbs. No, not limbs, I realized. Legs, legs skittering over the floor as whatever this abomination was dragged itself back to its hiding place.

For long minutes, the man kept holding me in place, not moving. His eyes focused on the lonely flashlight beam as he listened to the deafening silence all around us. As he did, I could see the terror on his face. Eventually, though, he opened his mouth again. All he said was a single, whispered word.

“Outside.”

With that, he dragged me from the dark hall and back into daylight. Eventually, he let me go, and I’d have run if I’d had the energy left. I stumbled only a few steps before I collapsed on the ground, a trembling, crying mess.

“W-what the hell was that? Was it… Long Legged Larry?”

“Long Legged… what? Is that what they call it these days?”

“What are you…?”

My voice trailed off, not even sure what I was going to ask.

“That thing in there,” the man finally said. “Whatever it is, it’s been around forever, even before I was born. There’s always been stories about it and it’s probably the reason they shut down this damned mill all those years ago.”

“But, but what is it? Some sort of freak or serial killer?”

For a moment, the man was quiet. His eyes wandered over the old steel mill in front of us before he shook his head.

“Got no clue what it is myself. Might be something that escaped from god knows where, like some stories say, might be something much older. All I can say is that it’s not human. Knew it the moment I first saw it.”

“First saw it? What do you-?”

“Came here years ago with my friends when I was still a teenager. Got drunk and high one night with my friends, and wanted to figure out if there was more to the stories. God, how dumb we were. Not that we expected to find anything, but then, that thing…”

He was quiet again, shaking his head. For a moment, his body tensed up, and I saw the guilt on his face.

“Was the one who led us here, and the only one who made it out, the only one fast enough to get away.”

When I heard it, it hit me. The news story Bill had found about the group of teenagers who went here long ago, and who all went missing except…

“The one who got away, the one from the old newspaper article?!”

He gave me a surprised look before he nodded.

“But then, why’s that thing still here? Why didn’t they do anything about this, this… whatever this thing is?”

“You know, boy, most people in town don’t believe those dumb old stories. No one’s going to believe some teenager high on drugs, talking about some spider monster that took his friends away. No, they thought I’d snapped and did god knows what to them, or that they simple ran off. Put me in the bin for a few years, but eventually let me go. Found nothing out here, no hint of what happened, and no hint of my friends.”

“But if this thing-!”

“It’s a small town, boy. No one cares. People go missing in the woods, and that’s it.”

“But if you know it’s in there, why are you here? Why’d you come back?”

As I asked this, I saw how he balled his fists, and saw the look of frustration that came over his face.

“Been watching this place for a good ten years now and put up all those sings to make sure… When I saw your bikes, I knew you’d make the same mistake I’d made all those years ago. Then I heard you screaming and knew it would come to get you. Tried my best to get you both out, but…”

Instead of continuing, he just shook his head, cursing to himself.

After Bill’s disappearance, an investigation was started. I told them what I’d seen, what had happened, but no one believed me when I talked about Long Legged Larry. When they eventually checked out the old steel mill, it was a half-hearted effort, and, of course, they found nothing. All signs of habitation and all the remains we’d discovered were long gone. And Bill, Bills should stay missing. Just another person who’d went missing in the woods.

All this happened over three decades ago. The old man who’d saved me that day, Jonathan, is long dead.

Even now, even to this day, the rumors of Long Legged Larry, or Sneaky Spidery Steve or whatever they call it now, persists and is shared by the teenagers in town.

While most regard it as nothing but an urban legend, as bullshit, so to speak, there are always those just like Bill. The ones who think there’s more to be found out here.

They think they’ll be famous, they’ll come back as heroes and can upload their discoveries on YouTube or TikTok. And so, I’ll make sure to keep watch, just as old Jonathan did before me. Whenever I hear those rumors, those stories, I say it’s nothing but humbug, and there’s nothing to be found at the old steel mill.

Yet, I’ve got to keep watch. Not because this thing might get out. I know it doesn’t want to.

No, I’ve got to keep watch for those dumb enough to come here, dumb enough to believe in the stories such as the Legend of Long Legged Larry.

Red

Red. It’s the most vivid of colors and has always been my favorite. I loved it ever since I was a little girl, and as I grew older, these feelings only intensified. My clothes always came in shades of red, my school bags were red, and even my favorite musician was no other than Girl in Red. I guess you could say I was a little obsessed.

Red is also the perfect color to describe my relationship with Samuel. We were both students at the same university. Our first meeting was nothing but pure chance, and it could’ve been right out of a silly romantic comedy. I was hurrying over campus, carrying a stack of books, when I bumped right into him. We talked little back then, and, frankly, I thought nothing would come of it. While he was a suave and attractive man, I was nothing but a mousy and plain little thing. Yet I must’ve caught his eye, and he must’ve seen something in me. Before long, he thought me out again, and soon after, we went on our first date.

Our attraction turned to love, and then to red, burning passion. Oh, how I loved those very first nights the two of us shared in each other’s arms. It was a dream come true, and after only a few short months, he asked me to move in with him. Sharing my life with Samuel was amazing, at least for a while.

Then, one night, things changed. He revealed his ugly, true face to me; the one he’d hidden all along. It was a different face, one red with anger, and for the first time, I was afraid of my favorite color. That night, all the passion, all the love I’d ever felt for this man fizzled away, and was replaced by a different red, the red of my blood. Red, the most vivid of colors, my once favorite color, I thought, as he stood over me and I stared at my blood on his balled fists.

Eventually, after another one of his many little sessions; the ones he called our quality times, I remembered that red could also mean something else.

Red could also mean fire.

Tonight, as he sleeps next to me, his face still red from exhaustion and drink, I fight my battered body to its feet. For the first time in months, I feel love again, love for my favorite color, as I stare at the tiny, burning match between my fingers. Then I went outside, and burned it all to the ground; the house, the relationship, and most importantly, him.

And as I stare at the flames, it’s this red, the most vivid of colors that finally allows me to be free again.

Nocturnalia

“Don’t do drugs, kid, unless you want to have some fun.”

That’s the first thing my wife Janet ever said me, giving me a wink. She promptly swallowed a little pill, and without another word, held one out for me. I made a dismissive gesture and off she went, back to the dance floor.

It was at one of those hidden little back alley scene club, the type frequented by the weirder or more alternative parts of the population. You know the type: free spirits, esoterics, soul searchers, musicians, artists.

I could tell right away that the other patrons comprised a group of tightly knit regulars.

Somehow, though, I’d caught Janet’s attention and after only half an hour, she was back by my side.

We ended up talking for hours that night.

I guess it’s because of how different we were and how I clearly didn’t belong in her world. I’m a mathematician, a number cruncher so to speak, and work in controlling. Janet, on the other hand, was a free spirit, a painter, and always willing to explore new and interesting things, including substances.

Somehow, though, we hit it off and somehow we made it work. We got married six months later.

Our relationship was amazing. It felt as if all of our differences only brought us closer to one another. Sure, we had our problems, everyone does, and sure, I wasn’t the biggest fan of her little habit, but I had my own vices. Namely, costly bourbon.

Yet, we made it work, and I often took part in Janet’s ‘special little evenings.’ Janet would get high on acid or other psychedelics while painting, and I’d be with her getting drunk. Say what you want, but things never got out of hand; it was all recreational and nothing more than a bit of fun.

All that changed when Joseph came around.

Janet had her little clique of friends, a group of regulars she’d met over the years at her favorite hidden little clubs and bars. It comprised artists as weird as herself and who shared her interests. I never clicked with any of them, given how different I was, but they were all nice enough.

Joseph was different.

One of Janet’s friends had met him at a club and he’d quickly become a part of their little group. He was a suave guy who seemed to care more about appearances than anything else. I first met him when Janet held one of her group’s meetings in our living room.

I knew right away I’d never get along with that guy.

He had this grating, over-pronounced voice, and called himself a poet in prose, a writer who only bothered with topics of the highest elegance. Thus, his works would never catch on with mainstream audiences, and could only be enjoyed by a few select connoisseurs.

When I heard this type of pretentious bullshit, I almost couldn’t help but groan, and after giving the rest of the group a quick hello, I left them to their own devices.

That evening, I busied myself at the computer while hanging out with my good friend, Mr. Bourbon. Yet, a few times, driven by some strange sense of curiosity, I cracked open the door and listened in on their conversations. It was the usual artists’ talk, the stuff that went right over my head.

Occasionally, however, I caught on to Joseph’s grating voice as he disclosed the topics his art concerned. He’d talk about dreams and what was hidden behind them, things outside our universe, and what lay beyond our conventional, mundane reality. It was nothing but esoteric bullshit, most likely fueled by whatever drug he was on.

Janet and her friends, however, seemed entranced by the guy, and he soon become the center of their little group. This also meant that whenever they’d meet at our place, I’d have to tolerate the guy’s presence.

When I talked to Janet about it, she merely shrugged.

“He’s just an eccentric artist, you know. You’re married to one yourself.”

I laughed and accepted it. At least at first.

The more often I met him, however, the more I couldn’t deny something was wrong with this guy. He had this sort of… aura around him, one I couldn’t put anywhere and that I couldn’t help but be unsettled by.

I wish I’d done something by then, I truly wish, but I guess it was already too late by that point.

It was no other than Joseph who, unbeknownst to me, introduced her to this fancy new designer drug, this Nocturnalia.

I only found out about her using it by chance. One evening, I found Janet painting, while taking a hit from some strange, glistening powder. When I asked her about it, she told me it was nothing but another psychedelic.

I knew Janet was smart, I knew she was a responsible user, and I knew she always did her research.

Yet, I soon noticed the changes.

Janet’s paintings were beautiful, but also of a peculiar kind. Her works were more about colors and emotions than motifs. Yet, they all had one thing in common: they were bright and vibrant.

After she started taking Nocturnalia, her works became different. At first it were slight changes. Nothing but the minutest change in the color scheme.

Before long, however, they were nothing like her earlier paintings.

They became dark, weird, and much more surreal than anything she’d painted before. When I asked her about it, she’d laugh, and told me she was expanding her ‘artistic horizon,’ trying out new things and bringing her art to the ‘next level.’

Somehow, though, I could tell something else was going on.

In many of her new works, I could almost see the strange twisted figures hidden behind the dark swirls and spirals she painted. It seemed as if she’d been taken by Joseph’s words and her work had become nothing but an expression of the things he talked about. What had once been vibrant colors had been transformed into strange dreamscapes and dark space nebulas hiding terrible horrors.

I’d always enjoyed watching her paint, but now I could almost feel Joseph’s ghastly influences emanating from her work. Her paintings had this otherworldly aura to them, one I could feel growing stronger the longer I stared at them.

We had our first big fight when I confronted her about it and when I learned who’d actually gotten her this strange new drug.

“I told you, I’m just trying a new style. It’s not like I’m going full emo or something,” she said, laughing.

“I know, but isn’t it because of Joseph? I mean, I heard some of his talk and those paintings, they are all, I don’t know…”

“You mean because of the Nocturnalia?”

“What?”

“Yeah, Joseph brought it along, but I told you already it’s-“

“Wait, he’s the one who got you hooked on that shit? How can you just take some random drug this guy brings along? Wasn’t it your first rule to always do your research, to make sure it was safe? Or are you so taken by this guy and his stupid talk you can’t even think straight anymore?”

For a moment, she was taken aback by my outburst, but then she stared me down.

“Oh, I’m taken by him? Is that what you think? You know, maybe if you wouldn’t be drinking so much, and maybe if you’d join our meetings for once in your life, you’d know what’s actually going on! Instead, you just hide in your stupid little office and play your stupid little video games!”

“What’s actually going on? What are you-?”

“Just stop it, Stephen, all right!?”

With that, she stormed out of the room.

We made up eventually, but not a thing changed. She kept working on her weird paintings, kept hanging out with her little group, and kept doing the strange Nocturnalia Joseph had brought along.

A week ago, they met at our place again. I wish I’d have kicked the fucker out then and there, screamed at him to leave my wife alone and bring none of that shit near her ever again.

But, I didn’t. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if I’d been afraid of him even back then.

When he entered, he was as suave and charming as always, all smiles, all words and talking in his usual mixture of half-riddles and thesaurus words. While the rest of the group swooned all over him, I had to keep my balled fists in my pockets.

This time, I didn’t even bother with greetings. Instead, I stormed to my office, hit the bottle, and settled in for a night of shitty video games and early sleep. All the while, I knew my wife and her friends were most likely getting high on Joseph’s little wonder drug.

Even with the volume turned up, and even while I was getting progressively drunker, I could hear their laughter, and their high-pitched, excited voices. Most of all, Janet’s.

I know what you’re thinking. This dude’s gotten my wife hooked on some new designer drug, or he’s fucking her. But no, that wasn’t it. I wish it would’ve all been so simple, but it wasn’t.

The first thing I remembered was waking up at my desk. It was long past midnight, and I was clearly very drunk. The almost empty bottle of bourbon stood right in front of me like some accusatory monolith.

Then I felt it. I can’t describe what it was, but something had changed in the house, in the air, and for a second goosebumps came all over my body.

Something was wrong here, very wrong.

I pushed myself off my chair and stumbled towards the door, bottle of bourbon in hand.

When I pulled it open, it hit me right away. It was a sensation… an otherworldliness that seemed to have spread through the entire house. It made me feel like I didn’t belong, that this wasn’t my home anymore.

As I stumbled through the house, I could hear the sounds; strange wet sounds. It sounded like splashing and squeezing, as if flesh, no bodies, were pushing together and coming apart again. Below it all, I heard moaning, and quiet, echoing giggles.

Those sounds. Don’t tell me…

The first thing that came to my mind was sex, an orgy. Some crazed drug induced fuckfest was happening right in the center of my living room.

The next thing that hit me was the smell. It wafted through the house, a strangely sweet aroma, yet slightly spicy; a smell unlike anything I’d ever smelled before.

For a moment, my body felt strange, and I almost turned around. Then the image of Janet came to my mind, my wife Janet, being down there, being part of whatever was going on, being fucked by that asshole.

My grip around the bottle tightened. Fueled by anger and rage, I was prepared, more than prepared, to beat his stupid head in.

As I made my way through the hallway, the sounds grew louder, echoed through the house.

When I finally saw the living room door, strange lights erupted from it. It was an ocean of intermingling colors, dancing and washing in and out of one another, like some crazed kaleidoscopic rendition of the aurora borealis.

“Janet?” I called out. “What’s going on?”

Instead of an answer, all I heard were more giggles and awed voices.

I cursed, called out for other members of her small group, but no one answered.

I fought myself on, step by step, but suddenly I felt drowsy, and slowly, ever so slowly, the rage went away. It was pushed aside by a feeling of apprehension. No, not apprehension, I realized. It was instinct, some part of my lizard brain telling me to leave this alone. Whatever was happening here was not for me.

I stopped, shook my head, took a breath and then a deep sip of bourbon, pushed it all aside and half-stumbled, half-dashed into the living room.

The moment I stepped through the doorway, I froze. The bottle of bourbon slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor right between my feet. It shattered, drenching the floor and covering my feet in sharp pieces of glass.

Yet, I didn’t give it any attention, I didn’t even feel it. I just couldn’t.

What I saw in front of me was madness; a surreal fever dream that had somehow become reality.

Joseph was still on the couch, or a being I knew had once been the suave man I’d seen so many times before. He’d become bigger, had grown in size, and was now an entirely different entity.

His eyes, no, his entire face, had turned into a mad, rotating galaxy that brought forth the dazzling lights I’d seen. Every other part of his body had turned into a shapeless void. Every other part but his arms and hands. His arms seemed to have grown longer, were spread out like two long, spidery tendrils encompassing the entire room. All the while, his hands were wide open. His fingers were spread out, moving frantically like those of a puppeteer right above the other members of the group.

A group that was… not a group anymore, but something else. What had once been almost a dozen people had now become an amalgamation of bodies, and limbs, of heads, hands and feet, a single, twisted entity.

Yet, there was no terror, only awe and giggling as their bodies were being warped, spread out and pushed together by the mad movements of the once-Joseph’s hands.

And then, his body folded open, and the darkness gave way to a vision, a display. The awe and giggling went wilder, and turned into a mad cacophony. For a moment, I saw a dazzling city made of non-shapes, of organic structures growing from the sky, of other, similarly twisted beings, all surrounded by a mad, swirling galaxy.

Then everything went dark.

When I awoke, I was lying on the living room couch. All was quiet and normal.

No hint of the strange sensations, of the smells or colors, remained. I was suffering from a splitting headache and for a moment, I groaned and closed my eyes again.

Then I remembered what I’d seen and jerked upright.

“Janet? Where are you?”

This time, I got an answer, but not from her. Instead, it was from a grating, over-pronounced voice.

“She’s not here anymore.”

I turned around to find Joseph sitting in a recliner and watching me from the other end of the room, still all smiles.

“What the hell are you doing here? Where’s my wife? What the fuck did you do to her?”

As I rambled on, I fought myself to my feet. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself at this asshole and beat that damned smile off his face.

“She’s in a different place now, one you can’t reach.”

As he said this, his smile never wavered, but his eyes changed. Once more, I knew there was something wrong with this guy. And now, I realized he was terrifying me, terrifying me on a level I’d never known or felt before.

“W-what do you mean?” I asked in a trembling whisper.

“She traveled on, but where she went, you can’t go.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“You never joined our meetings, but even then, you wouldn’t have understood. There are places hidden below dreams, places only reachable by those who strive for them, who want to transcend. These places, they lay outside this mundane reality.”

I opened my mouth again, to call him out on his bullshit, but with the slightest wave of his hand, Joseph shut me up instantly.

“She was searching for them. Deep inside, she’s always been searching for them. She wanted this, always had. There are certain people who strive for more, for ways to transcend, to improve in ways that just aren’t possible… at least not here. What they want to feel, to create, to know, is something different that can only be achieved there…”

“This makes no fucking sense!”

“No, it doesn’t, not for you.”

“But where is she? How can I reach her?”

When I said this, when I screamed those words at him, Joseph slowly got to his feet. With only a handful of steps, he crossed the distance between us and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You can’t,” he said with the slightest shake of his head.

At this moment, last night’s anger, last night’s rage at this esoteric asshole returned to me. In an instant, I pushed him back.

“Don’t you give me any of that shit! I’ve had enough!”

As I did this, Joseph’s body changed. I watched as he contorted, folded open, and twisted himself into a dazzling mad galaxy right in front of me.

I screamed in mortal terror, cringed back, stumbled over my feet, and hit the floor. As I scrambled away from his dazzling life, I clawed at the floorboards for dear life, and pulled my body onward. Away, I had to get away, this was not really, it was all just-

“You understand now?” I heard a calm, grating voice from behind me.

When I jerked around, there was only Joseph, the suave, human Joseph.

“It’s not for you. Only for those who accept it, who want it. And you, you don’t. You never will.”

“But… My wife… Just give her back, just give Janet back,” I brought out with tears in my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I can’t. She made her choice, made it long ago. And I was only here to help her, to give her that last, final push.”

And with that, Joseph simply turned around, walked from the room, the house and my life, leaving me a sobbing mess on the living room floor.

It’s been a week since then. I told myself repeatedly that none of it happened, that what I thought I saw was nothing but a delirious, drunk dream, but Janet’s still gone…

For the past days, I’ve looked into every single member of Janet’s little group. I tried to contact each one of them, went to the clubs and bars they all frequent. Yet, no one’s seen them or heard from them. For all I know, they really are gone.

Sometimes, however, on rare occasions, in these dark joints, frequented by the weirder or more alternative parts of the population, I notice a certain figure. A suave one, sometimes a woman, sometimes a man, but they’d always be sharing a strange, glistening substance amongst the patrons.

The Feast

We’d all been invited by Professor Davies and flown out to his remote home in the Scottish Highlands.

The professor was a strange, eccentric man, but a renowned expert in his specific field of interest. And we, be we artists or scientists, had all become fascinated by his work on the human condition and other, more esoteric topics.

As he led us through his massive home, I couldn’t help marvel at what I saw. Yet, my eyes didn’t wander long before they came to rest on the painting that hung over the door he was leading us to.

It was a gigantic recreation of Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son.

Before I could stare at it any longer, however, he pushed open the heavy door and ushered our small group inside. With the smallest of gestures, the professor bod us to take our seats along a long table.

“Well then, honored guests, I welcome you all to my humble home. I thank you all for attending this little gathering of mine, as well as your interest in my work.”

As he spoke, two of his servants wheeled in a gigantic brass cloche and brought it to rest in the center of the table. A moment later, they vanished as quickly as they’d entered.

“Now then, today’s not about empty words, nor about introductions. It’s about one thing, and one thing alone: the feast I prepared for you all.”

As he said it, the professor smiled, a smile wider than any I’d ever seen before, one full of anticipation.

“Well then, Mr. Schneider? Would you do us the honor?” he asked in a solemn voice and pointed at the cloche.

Everyone’s eyes came to rest on me and after a moment’s hesitation, my hands closed around the heavy cloche. The moment I’d lifted it, I froze.

“What the hell,” I brought out and a moment later, the cloche slid from my hands and clattered to the floor.

Yet, no one reacted to the sound. No, all eyes came to rest on what was below.

I heard gasps, curses and chairs clattering to the floor as all of us stared at the roasted meat in front of us.

It was brownish grey, covered in fat and sauce. Here and there, the skin had burst open, revealing the rosy flesh below.

We saw arms, legs, and in the center, between it all, what looked like a human torso and head.

Garnished around it all were various herbs and fruits.

“Now then, eat your fill,” the professor said, his smile never wavering.

“Eat,” he said once more, when none of us moved, his voice now hard.

As he did, I heard the door to the hall being locked, and finally saw the gun in his hand.

“Eat, or tomorrow, this will be one of you.”

Package Delivery

“Postal service, do you mind accepting a package for Ms. Ivanovna?”

Still half asleep, I mumbled a ‘sure’ before I opened the door to the apartment building.

A few seconds later, a beaming postal worker pressed a package into my hands.

“You’re mister…?”

“Mueller.”

“Great, I’ll put a note in her mailbox.”

With that, he hurried away, and I was left with the package in my hands.

In the evening, I waited for Ms. Ivanovna to come get her package, but no one showed up. Same the next day.

After three days, I felt rather guilty. Who knows, maybe the postal worker put the note into the wrong mailbox or forgot to do it.

With a sigh, I went to have a look at what apartment she lived in. As I read through the names on the bell system, however, Ivanovna wasn’t one of them.

Not knowing what else to do, I left the package where it was, on a small table in my living room. I was sure she’d show up in time, and if not, it wasn’t my problem.

A few days later, the vilest stench greeted me when I returned home from work. At first, I didn’t know where it came from, but then I saw the damned package.

The bottom was wet and something had leaked from it.

“Fuck, the hell’s in there?”

As I tore it open, covering my mouth and trying my hardest not to throw up, I found a plastic bag filled with meat inside that must’ve torn open.

Shit, if I’d know it was food, I’d have put it in the fridge.

Nothing I can do about it now, I thought, as I dumped it into a trash bag and threw it into the dumpster outside.

Not like anyone’d show up after a week, anyway.

I was wrong and a few days later, a pair of police officers arrived at my door.

“Mr. Mueller, we’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Sure, what’s going on?”

“Have you by any chance accepted a delivery this past week?”

I didn’t know what this was about, but I answered I had indeed.

“Do you, by any chance, recall this young man?”

At first, I had no clue, but then I recognized him as the young postal worker.

“Oh yeah, that’s the delivery guy who… Excuse me, what’s this all about?”

Down at the station, I learned the truth about the ominous package, as well as the young postal worker.

The man who’d greeted me so friendly that morning had murdered his roommate and dismembered him. Then, to dispose of the body, he’d sealed the parts in plastic bags and delivered them to the people around the area.

Even now, days after, I’m still feeling sick to my stomach, knowing what sat inside my apartment for the better part of a week.

There’s No Fucking Ghosts in That House!

“There’s no fucking ghosts in that house!” my boss, John, yelled.

The victim of this newest tirade of his was Ed, my co-worker. I liked Ed. He was a good guy, if a little slow in the head.

We’d all heard the noises, of course, Ed, me and even John himself. Scratching noises from inside the walls, the sound of creaking floorboards echoing from distant rooms and hallways, and even doors opening and closing all by themselves.

Now, I don’t believe in ghosts, or anything supernatural. Those sounds? Nothing but the typical sounds of an old, run-down building comprising half-rotten beams and crumbling walls. And yet, even I had to admit that the place was kind of creepy.

What made the situation worse was our boss. John didn’t care for work ethics, work hours, or, well, his workers.

I’d started working with him a good year ago. Let’s just say, I wasn’t the smartest kid and after a few questionable life choices, my prospects of finding work were close to zero. John, however, seemed to see something in me and hired me on the spot. No questions asked.

At first, I thought he was a pretty decent guy. A hard worker who’d been running his own little renovation business for the better part of his life.

Soon enough, however, I learned what an asshole he really was. He worked me hard, which meant constant over-time and if I dared so much as to question him or, hell, complain, he’d go on a diatribe about us ‘goddamn millennials who’d never worked a day in their lives.’

Our newest contract was to refurbish an old, run-down colonial home. Some rich kid had inherited it from his late uncle and thought the place would be a perfect home for him and his family.

He wanted the job done by the end of November, which gave us little more than six weeks, but he was willing to pay a hefty sum for it. John, being the greedy bastard he was, agreed, of course, knowing fairly well that it would normally take us at least twice as long. As I said, he never cared much for work ethic, and if the pay was right, he’d not only work himself but also Ed and me to death.

I’ve got to give him credit, though. Sure, he was an asshole, but I’ve seen no one work harder than him. He was there right after sundown, and would stay until late in the evening.

Before long, however, the long, hard work days were getting to me. Those and the damned sounds.

We’d been on the job for no longer than a week when they started. At first, it was nothing but the rare sound from somewhere in the building you could easily attribute to vermin. Soon enough, however, they seemed to be ever-present, as if the house itself was alive and protested against our presence there.

John never said a word about them, and I, not wanting to get on my boss’ bad side again, tried my best to ignore them. Just the sounds of an old building, I kept telling myself.

Ed, however, was a superstitious man, and had soon convinced himself that the place was haunted. With each passing day, he grew more and more restless, fidgety even, and one day, he finally spoke up about it.

“I can’t do this no more, boss. All them noises and what not.”

John turned around, an annoyed look on his face, but said nothing, so Ed went on.

“I mean this place. Been working with you for years, now, but never heard no nothing like it. Being here after dark gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me remember my grandma’s old stories about ghosts and-“

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ed! There’s no fucking ghosts in this house!”

“But boss-“

“No, Ed. Shut your trap. Just do your job, or you’re out! No pay, no nothing, you get me?”

Ed was a big guy, but as John laid into him, I could see him grow smaller by the second, almost as if he was folding into himself. At the end of John’s tirade, Ed looked dejected, but gave him a weak nod.

I felt for Ed, I really did, and by now, even I felt uncomfortable around the place.

At this point, however, I knew little about the house or its questionable history. All that changed one afternoon when Ed and I went on one of our little secret smoking breaks.

“Now why’d they be spending all that money on a place like this?” I heard someone say.

It was an old lady with a phone in her hand, leaning over the property’s fence and staring at our efforts with a disdained look on her face.

“No, Clara, I don’t think they’re tearing it down. I think they’re renovating it.”

“Excuse me, missus,” Ed spoke and walked towards her. “What you mean by place like this?”

The moment she noticed Ed and me, she almost dropped her phone and quickly ended the call.

“Oh, it’s nothing, I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s all right, we’re part of the construction crew,” I cut in. “But the place sure is creepy, isn’t it?”

For a moment, she squinted her eyes at me before she gave me a well-measured nod. Then she stepped closer towards us.

“Did you know about the former owner?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

When both Ed and I shook our heads, she went on.

“He was a strange, reclusive man. Never talked to anyone, never left his home. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there are those rumors.”

“Rumors?” Ed blurted out.

“Well, I know nothing myself, but old Lisbeth down the road, she’s living right next door. Says she saw people at the house, people other than the old man, but saw no one entering or leaving.

I shrugged. “Probably didn’t-“

“Now here’s the thing. Old Lisbeth swears they were all children, young children at that. Sometimes she said she saw them even waving at her, as if to call out to her. Now, I’m not saying anything bad myself, or want to assume anything. But Lisbeth says it went on for weeks, months even, and then, one day, the old man just up and vanished never to be seen or heard of again.”

Ed’s face had grown paler and paler the longer he’d listened to the old woman. He’d just opened his mouth, most likely to inquire about the man’s mysterious disappearance when John’s angry voice reached our ears.

“The hell you think you’re doing? You think I’m paying you to stand around all goddamn day?”

The old lady excused herself and Ed and I had to endure another of John’s tirades about our ‘constant fucking smoking breaks.’

As he ranted on and on, I couldn’t help but wonder about the story I’d just heard. I could believe an old man living her by himself, but the rest, the stuff about those children…

No, I thought, shaking my head. It’s all bullshit. God knows what ‘Old Lisbeth’ had seen or thought she’d seen.

Yet, when night fell, a few hours later, a sudden scream reached my ears. It was Ed and a few moments later, he dashed past me as fast as he could and straight out of the front door.

I was quick to go after him, and when I made outside, he was already sitting in his truck, frantically trying to start it.

“Yo, Ed, hold on! What’s wrong?” I called out to him.

At first, he didn’t even notice, but when he finally did, I saw just how out of it he was. All the color had drained from his face and he stared at me with wide eyes.

“F-face,” he brought out. “I saw a face, a kid’s face!”

He said it with such intensity, I instinctively took a step back.

“Ain’t no way I’m going back in there!” he added.

“Hey, calm down, Ed. You sure it wasn’t just a rat or something?”

“No rat. Know damned well what a rat looks like, and that sure wasn’t one!”

“Where’d you even see it?”

Ed was still rambling on, his story barely coherent. From what I caught, he’d been tearing out some of the old, rotten floor boards in the old man’s former study when he uncovered a hole. When he went to check it out, he found someone, a child, staring up at him.

I instantly remembered the story we’d heard that afternoon and, for a moment, I couldn’t help but shiver. Then, the rational part of my brain took over and convinced me it was most likely attributed to Ed’s superstition and an overactive imagination.

“Maybe you just imagined it? Because of that story we heard and-“

“You leaving early, Ed?” John cut me off from afar. “You know what happens if you do, right? No work, no pay!”

I could see Ed’s face contorting, saw the struggle he went through. For a moment, I thought he’d just hit the gas and speed off, but then he slumped back in his seat.

“Thought so,” John spat at him in a condescending voice. “Now, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

“He thought he saw something,” I said, turning to John.

John, however, didn’t even bother with me and continued to stare Ed down.

“Saw a face,” he finally said. “A face below the floor staring up at me.”

When John heard this, he burst out laughing.

“You been drinking or something, Ed?”

“No, boss, not a sip. You know I ain’t touching none of that stuff.”

I heard John grumble something to himself before he went on.

“Either way, you get your ass back inside, and you as well, Frank! We’ve got work to do!”

“Ain’t no going back in there,” Ed said in a low voice, shaking his head vehemently.

“Well then, Ed,” John said in a now much harder voice. “If you ain’t going back in there, you might as well drive off. I need no damn slackers on my crew.”

Even after that, Ed didn’t move.

“Why don’t we just check it out? You know, in case it’s-“ I started, but John cut me off almost instantly.

“It’s bullshit, that’s all! Superstitious fucking bullshit. There’s no freaking ghosts in that house and there sure as hell is no freaking face below the floor!”

“You heard what the old missus said, didn’t you, Frank?” Ed suddenly asked, giving me a pleading look.

A moment later, John’s probing eyes came to rest on me. I couldn’t help but sigh before I told John what we’d heard this afternoon. He listened, but I could see the look on his face.

“Should’ve known it was something like this. Dammit Ed, the moment you hear some stupid story, you imagine freaking ghosts!”

“You have to admit, though, the place’s kind of creepy,” I cut in.

“For Christ’s sake! It’s an old place. Old places make noises, all right? And there are probably rodents in the wall or below the floor. Don’t tell me you’re believing this idiot’s story?”

“Ain’t no idiot. I know what I saw,” Ed protested.

“Well, if there’s really rodents below the floor,” I tried to defuse the situation, “we might as well take care of the problem now.”

John rolled his eyes at me, but nodded.

As we made our way towards the study, Ed huddled behind me like a scared little child, trying his best to hide his enormous frame behind me.

The moment we’d reached the heavy wooden door that led to the study, I had to take a deep breath before stepping inside. I didn’t want to admit it, but even I was getting scared.

John, however, was already inside, scanning the chaos that was the floor before he found the small hole Ed had been talking about.

“Well, what do you know?” he said.

“See, boss, I told you-!”

“There’s no freaking face, you idiot,” he snapped, turning towards us.

“It’s just a freaking hole, that’s what it is. It’s strange though, because there seems to be something down there. A basement, if I had to guess, but there was nothing about it on the floor plans.”

I went and walked over to him as well, to get a good look at the ominous hole myself, when I stumbled over something. At first, I thought it was a board Ed had torn out, but then I saw it was a small metal latch.

“A latch,” I said, more to myself than to either of them.

John was by my side instantly, and a second later, he went down on his knees and started toying with it, trying to pry it open.

As I watched him, I suddenly felt cold. That old lady’s story came back to me. Children that were never seen again, all those sounds around the house and now we’d discovered some sort of hidden basement.

“Oh god, don’t tell me…”

“Don’t tell you what?” John asked, looking up at me.

“That story, the one about the kids and-“

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Will you stop with that? It’s humbug, that’s all it is!”

“Look, man, I’m not saying there are ghosts down there or something, but if there’s anything to that story…”

John just rolled his eyes at me before he redoubled his efforts. A moment later, the trap door opened. Right away, a damp, musty smell hit us, but there was something else to it, something I’d smelled before but couldn’t put anywhere.

“Jesus Christ,” John cursed, covering his nose.

Then, after a few moments had passed, I watched as he took out a flash light and illuminated a set of old, wooden stairs.

In that moment, I knew what that smell reminded me off, rotten food. I cringed back.

“That smell, something rotten… John, I think we might want to call the cops, I think there-“

“And cause a fucking scene? The hell you think will happen if our contractor hears about supposed dead bodies and missing children?”

“Wait, what are you… Is that all you care about?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, getting up.

“You don’t care what happened here, do you? You just want to get paid, and that’s it, right?”

“Look, Frank,” he started. “If you want to know if there’s dead bodies, or God knows what down there, how about you take a look?”

I couldn’t help but stare at him.

“No,” I finally said. “There’s no way I’m checking out some creepy hidden basement.”

With that, I backed away from John and the trap door behind him.

“Oh, you’re not? You know what, fine. You don’t have to, you don’t have to do a fucking thing anymore because I’ve had it with your fucking attitude. Get the hell out of my sight! And that bonus I told you about? You can forget about that!”

At first I didn’t know what to say, but then I couldn’t help but shake my head.

“You know what, John? Go fuck yourself. I’m done!”

With that, I turned around and walked off, right past Ed, not even listening to the insults John screamed after me.

The moment I was outside, I jumped into my car and drove off.

I’d driven for barely five minutes when my phone rang. One glance at the screen told me it was John. I didn’t bother to answer. Instead, I couldn’t help but laugh. Guess he didn’t think I’d drive off like that. It rang on for a good half minute before he gave up.

“Not coming back, you asshole,” I said to myself.

Yet, only a few moments later, it rang again. And then once more. By the fourth time, I’d had it, and answered.

“The hell you want, asshole?” I yelled into the phone.

Instead of John’s voice, however, all I heard was rapid breathing and sobbing.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, John,” I cursed.

When I finally heard a voice, however, I knew it wasn’t John. It was Ed. His voice was raspy, and strangely high-pitched.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“Ed? Hey, you all right?”

Instead of answering, he kept sobbing, muttering to himself.

“It won’t open,” I understood, followed by a set of heavy thuds.

“Wait, Ed, what’s not opening? Shit, don’t tell me it’s that damned trap door?”

When he spoke again, I could barely make out what he was saying. I caught only bits and pieces: boss went down, didn’t come back, thought he fell, no answer, went down, door fell shut.

And then something else, something he repeated over and over again, as if he was pleading with me.

“No ghosts.”

A second later, I could hear a strange, distorted sound. A moment later, Ed began screaming.

“Ed, what the fuck’s going on over there?”

I got no answer. All I heard was Ed whimpering for a few more moments before the phone went quiet again.

I instantly tried to call him back, but the phone just rang on and on. Shit! Why’d that idiot have to go down there and why’d he have to drag Ed into this?! Fuck!

A second later, I’d turned the car around and was on my way back to the house. It took only ten minutes, but it felt much, much longer.

I hoped, prayed, that Ed was overreacting. Hell, maybe by now they’d managed to open that damned trap door and everything was okay again.

Yet, when I arrived, all was quiet. I called for both of them, but received no answer. Without wasting another second, I stormed through the building, down the long hallway, and right towards the study.

“Ed, John, you guys all right?”

Still nothing.

Finally, I’d made it and reached the trap door. This time, I heard something. It was nothing but a whimper, a quiet call for help. It was Ed!

“Hey, it’s all right, Ed. I’m here!”

With shaking, sweaty fingers, I tried to pry open the small latch, but the delicate piece of metal slipped from my grip again and again. Then, finally, I made it and threw open the door.

“Ed! Where are you?”

Then answer I received was another cry from Ed. I activated my phone’s flashlight and found him, huddled, just below the trap door. His fingers were bleeding, his eyes were wide and his mouth was open in a perpetual, toneless scream. For a second, I saw the bloody marks on the underside of the door, where he must’ve tried to open it.

“Jesus Christ, Ed, what happened to you?”

In an instant, I got a hold of him and pulled him upwards.

“It’s all right, Ed, it’s all right.

At first, he didn’t even seem to notice I was there. When he finally did, he screamed again, scrambled past me and retreated to a corner of the room. He was completely out of it.

“Ed, calm down!”

I walked over to, putting my hands on his shoulder, whispering to him that everything was fine now.

“Boss, down there, something happened, and, and those…” he couldn’t go on anymore. Instead, he put his arm around his legs and began rocking back and forth.

“Shit, Ed, what happened?”

Instead of an answer, all I heard was Ed sobbing to himself.

“Fuck!”

I turned around and stared at the trap door once more, than at the old, wooden stairs. Dammit.

“John, you down there? You all right?” I called out, but still got no answer.

Eventually, once I’d made sure the trap door was wide open, I went on my way down the stairs. Sure, John was an asshole, and sure, he shouldn’t have gone down there, but that didn’t mean I’d just leave him.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found myself in a dark, musty cellar. The only light was the small beam of my phone’s flashlight.

The first thing I noticed were the cellars walls. They were made from solid brick, but here and there, they seemed to have crumbled to reveal… tunnels.

Rats, I told myself, it had to be rats. Yet, those tunnels were huge, much too big for simple rats.

Slowly, I let the beam of the flash light wander around, not taking a single step away from the stairs.

Suddenly, the light hit something. I figure in a corner!

“John!” I called out, but then I saw it couldn’t be him. No, what I saw was nothing but bones, a skeleton with only a few pieces of rotten clothing still clinging to it.

Then, I heard something, a single sound, so quiet, it was barely audible under my rapid heartbeat and the blood rushing through my veins: a wet gurgle.

I instantly turned to my right, the phone shaking in my hand. This time, it was John. His eyes met mine. He opened his mouth, but instead of words, all that came forth was blood.

“Jesus fuck man, what happened to you!?”

I rushed forward to help him. He must’ve fallen, must’ve hurt himself, and Ed must’ve freaked out because of all the blood.

Yet, I’d barely taken a few steps when I saw something else. I froze. On the ground around him, I saw figures, small, childlike figures that crowded around him. I saw tiny hands ending in sharp claws, saw wide gaping mouths, and above them, cheap, caricature-like estimations of children’s faces.

Their hands and mouths were wet with blood, John’s blood, I realized, and the moment these, these… things noticed me, I heard the same distorted sound I’d heard over the phone. This time, however, I heard it more clearly, and it almost sounded like giggling, like a failed imitation of childish laughter.

I screamed in sheer terror, stumbled back over my feet, and crashed to the floor.

In an instant, one of the creatures dragged itself forward, towards me, and I watched as his body grew longer and longer, becoming nothing more than an elongated mass of flesh. And then, as my eyes focused on that slithering, writhing flesh, I saw it continued and vanished down one of the many tunnels in the cellar’s walls.

For a moment, time stopped, and I could do nothing but stare in fascinated horror at the surreal sight in front of me.

Then, when a tiny child-like hand closed around my ankle, the trance was broken.

I screamed in pain when I felt its claws dig into my flesh. With my free leg, and out of it, I kicked at the hand, at the thing’s face, and when it let go, scrambled for the stairs.

I’d barely reached the first one when I felt its hand close on my leg again. I stumbled, crashed onto the stairs and behind it, the giggling grew louder and I heard more of them move, heard them coming for me.

In sheer and utter terror, I dragged myself on, up one stair and then another.

“Ed!” I screamed. “Ed, help me!”

No reaction. I screamed once more when more tiny hands got a hold of me and I felt more claws all over my legs. With all the strength I could muster, I pulled myself up yet another stair, but then the creatures’ strength overwhelmed me. In sheer desperation, I clung to the stairs, dug my fingernails into the wood, and then felt them give way.

This was it, wasn’t it? Just like John, I thought, I’d end up just like John. I’d-

Right at that moment, a tear-streaked, terrified face came into view above me. And then, a moment later, strong hands reached out for me.

As Ed pulled me upwards, I frantically kicked at whatever was behind me, until the tiny hands finally let go. A few seconds later, we’d made it back up.

In an instant, I threw the trap door shut, closed the latch, and scrambled away from it. Fueled by adrenaline, I’d already rushed from the study before I remembered Ed. I turned back to find him just standing there, still not understanding what was going on, but got a hold of him and dragged the crying man after me.

As we hurried through the building, I could hear the same sounds again. The scratching from inside the walls, the creaking of floor boards all around us, but this time I knew what they were. It was those things, those things that slithered through the building’s walls and below the floor boards.

When we’d made it outside, Ed’s tears had stopped, but his expression was different. His face was entirely empty, and all he did was to mumble to himself. It was nothing more than two words, two words I’d heard before.

“No ghost.”

Once we were in the car, I took a single glance back at the house and there they were, the simple, caricature-like faces of children in the windows. I saw them beckoning me to come back, imitating their call for help. But my eyes were better than those of Old Lisbeth, and I saw those faces for what they really were: nothing but a lure.

When I finally drove off, a half-catatonic Ed sitting next to me, I could help but laugh, and laugh and laugh.

In the end, John had been right after all. There’s no fucking ghosts in that house!

How to Crack a Vending Machine

Chance encounters are common, even in the middle of the night, or especially in the middle of the night. The man who taught me and my friend Sebastian how to crack vending machines, though, was anything but common.

The two of us had gone out like usual, on a whim and with no other plan than to get drunk. We left our small hometown behind, took a train to the city and went on a bar crawl, on Thursday evening to bout. Our plan was simple: have some fun, get drunk and take the last train home at one in the morning. As so many times before, things didn’t exactly work out that way. After getting lost for a good hour, we ended up at a small, isolated station and saw we’d missed the last train by about half an hour.

“Isn’t that fucking great!?” Sebastian cursed the moment we arrived.

My eyes wandered to the display, hoping against all hope that another train would arrive shortly. Of course there wouldn’t and we’d have to wait until early morning.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked, turning to him. “You got any money for a taxi?”

“Nah, man, it’s way too far and way too expensive.”

“Great,” I mumbled. “Guess there’s nothing we can do.”

Sebastian’s eyes wandered to the display as well, and when he saw how long we’d have to wait, he groaned. A moment later, however, he sat down on the bench, opened his backpack, and produced an unopened six-pack.

“Where the hell did you get that from?”

He shrugged.

“Late night store while you were taking a leak. You took forever, so I thought I might as well stock up for the ride home.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, sat down next to him and we each opened a bottle of beer.

Half an hour later, and once I was done with my beer, I felt my eyes falling shut. Knowing that we still had a good three hours left, I didn’t even try to stay awake.

I don’t know how much time had passed when strange sounds woke me.

“Dude the hell are you-?” I started, but saw Sebastian wasn’t there.

All that was left was a couple of empty bottles and his backpack, which leaned against the bench next to me.

I listened again, now realizing what I’d heard before were echoing footsteps coming from the stairs that led up towards the station. I opened my mouth to ask Sebastian where the fuck he’d gone, but closed it when I saw a figure that was definitely not Sebastian. No, the person who’d just made their way up the stairs was way too big to be my scrawny best friend.

Fear washed over me and I was wide awake instantly. It was half-past two in the morning, on a weekday to bout. The trains weren’t running for another two hours, so why the fuck would anyone come here?

I told myself it had to be another poor schmuck who’d missed the last train like we had. Yet, the closer the figure got, and the better a look I got at the man, the more unsure I was.

He was huge. At first, I’d thought he was just fat, but below the dim station lights I could see hard, bulging muscles. His face was half-hidden by an unkempt, wild beard and surrounded by strands of long, greasy hair.

I knew right away that this guy wasn’t your average hobo. No, he was probably drunk and probably up to nothing good. Once more, my eyes darted around for Sebastian, but he was still nowhere to be seen. For a second, I wondered if that guy had done something to him and was now coming for me.

I scrambled from the bench, almost tripped over one of Sebastian’s empty bottles, and got a hold of my backpack. When I stared back at the man, our eyes met. Not drunk, I realized. His eyes were wide, sharp, and focused on me and only me.

“Well, what do we have here?” he brought out, his mouth turning into the slightest grin. “Didn’t know someone else was around.”

An almost physical sensation washed over, as if I could feel the lie he’d just told me on my skin. I was damned sure he’d seen me up here and I was damned sure he wasn’t just here for a greeting.

I felt goosebumps all over my arms, felt myself getting sweaty and had to will myself to stop from shaking. In an instant, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and was about to run, only the bump right into Sebastian.

“The hell are you doing? I just went for a leak and you’re-“

He broke off when he, too, saw the imposing figure who was walking towards us.

Yet, the moment the man saw Sebastian, he stopped. One of his hands went upward, and he began scratching his head. For a second, I thought I’d heard him mumble something to himself.

“Who’s that?” Sebastian asked me in a much too loud and much too slurred whisper.

“Let’s just get out of here, all right?” I urged him.

With that, I threw him his backpack and began pulling him after me.

When the man noticed my intentions, he lifted his arms in a defensive gesture and did his best to beam at us.

“Now, now, boys, there’s no need to be worried. I don’t mean any trouble. Just went for a little walk and decided to have a look at them vending machines up here. You know?”

“V-vending machines?” I brought out in a confused whisper.

“Yeah, that shiny beauty over there,” he said matter-of-factly, and pointed at the single vending machine that had been placed on the platform.

In a few wide strides, and much faster than I’d expected, he crossed the distance between himself and the machine. A second later, he lifted one of his giant hands and beat against the side of the machine. The loud, reverberating bang made both me and Sebastian jerk.

When the man saw it, he grinned at us.

“You boys want to know a little trick?”

Neither I nor Sebastian said anything, and after a few seconds of painful silence, the man continued on.

“Throughout the years, I’ve learned quite a few little tricks, but you know which is the best of them? It’s how to crack things.”

I couldn’t help but stare at the guy, preparing myself to run at any moment. The hell was wrong with him?

“What are you-?” Sebastian slurred, but the man cut him off.

“Cracking things like this vending machine here. If you know what you’re doing, and you do it just right, it will all work out perfectly well,” he continued to explain.

“You just go for a little twist here, a turn there, and, of course, a little bit of the good, old brute force and eventually, all the little secrets will spill out. Just got to make sure no one else is around. Security, you know? That’s why you always should check up lonely little stations like this one here.”

As he said this, he gave me a little wink that made my skin crawl. Then he turned back toward the machine and put his heavy, muscled arms around it as if to embrace it. I saw his muscles bulge and could almost hear the metal of the machine straining. Then he bumped his wide chest against the machine multiple times with such force, I thought the glass would break. When nothing happened, a curse escaped the man’s mouth, and he began beating the side and top of the machine. Eventually, he bumped it with his chest again. I watched the surreal spectacle in front of me, not understanding what he was trying to do. Yet, after another, well-measured, almost gentle hit against the side of the machine, the sound of dropping coins reached my ear.

“See, boys, took a bit of work, but I cracked it just right, didn’t I?” he said, laughing.

A moment later, he began stuffing one of his pockets with a handful of coins. As he did, though, I saw he’d dropped something n his attempt at breaking the machine. It was a small, dirty piece of clothing, but the man didn’t seem to have noticed it. Instead, he turned and stared back at us.

“You want to try it as well?”

“No, I think we’re-“

“Yeah, sure!” Sebastian cut me off.

As drunk as he was, he hadn’t noticed how wrong this entire situation was and walked up to the guy, undeterred. I was quick to follow him, but I didn’t know what I’d do if things turned bad. Hell, I didn’t know if I could do anything at all against a guy like this.

I was antsy, half expecting him to reach out for or rush Sebastian. Yet, when I stared at the guy now, he acted like an entirely different person. Nothing of the crazy, dangerous hobo I’d seen before remained. Instead, he seemed like a big, but jolly man out to get a bit of change. For a moment, I wondered if I’d just been too drunk and tired before. Those eyes, however…

“So, what do I have to do?” Sebastian asked in a half-slurred, half-excited voice.

“Well, it’s cracked good and well already, so you won’t have to do a whole lot. A bit of force should do the trick, even for someone like you,” he said, laughing.

Sebastian rose his hand and beat against the machine’s side. But, of course, nothing happened. He did it a few more times before he grew frustrated and threw himself against it instead. Once more, I could hear the dropping of coins.

“Holy shit, man, it worked! Dude, you ought to give this a try as well!”

“Nah, man, I’m good.”

“See boys, that’s how it’s done.”

While Sebastian was busy filling his pockets, the guy grinned at me once more. His eyes turned sharp again, wild, even hungry, and instantly all my fears were back. For a moment, a contemplative look washed over his face, but instead of coming for me, he simply turned and left.

“Always got to make sure there’s only one,” he mumbled, but this time more to himself than to me or even Sebastian.

My friend, however, had noticed nothing and was busy milking the machine next to us for another handful of coins.

“Why you got to make sure there’s only one?” Sebastian suddenly asked.

By then, however, the man had already made his way down the stairs and was long gone.

At that moment, I remembered the small piece of clothing he’d dropped before. When I got closer, however, his words came back to my mind, his explanations of how to ‘crack’ things.

‘You just go for a little twist here, a turn there, and, of course, a little bit of the good, old brute force.’

What I saw lying there, on the floor, next to my still oblivious friend, was a small, almost delicate human finger wrapped in a bloodied piece of cloth.

The Wailing of Willow Way

Terrance Brown had always been in love with ghost stories. He would scour our town in search of any and all rumors regarding the supernatural.

Yet, our town was small, tiny even, and its few inhabitants shared nothing resembling even the most normal rumors or urban legends. Ghost stories or hauntings were not something the people concerned themselves with.

One day, however, as I sat with my friend Mark, eating our lunch, Terrance propped himself down next to us. His face was distorted by a never-before-seen serious expression.

“Have you guys heard about the Wailing of Willow Way?” he asked with wide eyes, and almost leaning into our faces.

“The wailing of… what?” I asked, before I took another bite of my sandwich.

“The Wailing of Willow Way!” Terrance repeated in a conspiratorial whisper.

“It says that on certain nights, just past two in the morning, you can hear strange sounds, a wailing down Willow Way. They say it’s the ghost of-“

“Who are they?” Mark cut in, laughing.

By now, the two of us were pretty annoyed by Terrance and the silly stories he tried to spread every other week.

“Old Larry told me about it. He said he saw the ghost himself a few weeks ago.”

“You know that guy’s freaking crazy, right?” Mark asked, half-amused, half-annoyed.

“Look guys, I know he’s crazy, and I know it sounds stupid, but a few nights ago, I went down there and I heard it myself. I swear it!”

“Stop making up stories, Terry,” I mumbled, getting angry.

“Well, why don’t you see for yourself? Bet you guys are too scared, anyway!”

Before we could even retort, he’d jumped off his seat and raced down to another group, most likely sharing his stupid story with them as well. I knew it didn’t matter. He always tried to make his stories stick, but usually was over them in a couple of days.

Not so the Wailing of Willow Way. For whatever reason, it took root in our small school and soon I could hear others whispering about it and the ghost responsible for it.

I even heard that another boy, Steven Miller, had been dared by Terrance, just as we had. Being the dumb but curious idiot everyone knew him to be, he actually set out one night. Believing, of course, just like us, that it was nothing but a stupid story.

He said he’d waited for almost half an hour until, by the clock, at two in the morning, he could hear strange sounds from down Willow Way. At first, he said, he thought it was just the wind, but the further he went in, the louder the wailing became. Until he saw it. Down near the end of Willow Way, a headless figure, half-hidden in the shadows and draped in what he said to be, a half-rotten sheet stood. The moment Steven got closer, the wailing started tenfold, and when the ghost finally turned in his direction, he ran.

This only helped to spread Terrance’s story, and even me and Mark became enthralled with it.

The longer the rumor persisted, the more details became known about it. The ghost was supposedly that of a young woman. She’d been murdered down Willow Way half a century ago by a deranged drifter. The man had then cut off her head before he vanished, leaving her decapitated body behind. As the story goes, the woman’s still out there, wailing and searching for her missing head. How she could wail without a head, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t an expert in ghost stories.

One day, driven by curiosity, I approached my mom about the rumors.

“Hey mom, have you heard about the Wailing down Willow Way?”

She turned, giving me a curious look.

“Now, what’s that about a wailing?”

“It’s this, eh, story about a ghost. They say a woman was beheaded down there and her ghost is haunting Willow Way.”

“Wait, what’s that about a beheading? Who tells you such stories?”

“Everyone’s talking about it at school, and I thought you might know something about it.”

“Listen, Christopher, there’s no such things as ghosts, all right? Who even came up with it?”

“It was Terrance,” I admitted. “He said he’d heard it from Old Larry, but Steven Miller went down there one night and-“

“Oh, for god’s sake, you kids shouldn’t believe anything Old Larry says. Everyone knows the man’s crazy!”

I tried to protest and tell her that Steven had actually seen the headless ghost, but of course, she had none of it and said it was nothing but humbug.

To be honest, I wanted to believe her. Ghosts were humbug, after all, weren’t they? Yet, at the same time, more and more stories were told about the Wailing of Willow Way. Apparently, two more kids had seen the ghost by now and their stories spread like wildfire.

Eventfully, Mark and I couldn’t take it anymore. We’d both taunted Terrance, but after all these stories, we wondered if it might be true.

We set out a few days later. By now, both of us were pros at sneaking out in the middle of the night and had done so multiple times before.

When we met up, I saw Mark had brought his trusty baseball bat. I stared at him and pointed at the bat.

“What’d you bring that for?”

“Well, everyone says the ghost’s trying to steal your head, so if that bitch gets near me, I whack her!”

“You’re so dumb. If there’s really a ghost, then there’s no way you can hit her!”

“Why not?”

“Because… that’s how ghosts are, all right?”

When we checked the time, we saw it was already close to two in the morning and so we quickly made our way through the town’s deserted streets.

After only ten minutes, we’d arrived at the small alleyway that was known as Willow Way. Before I could so much as check the time, a quiet, almost inaudible wailing reached my ears.

I slowly turned to Mark and when our eyes met, we could both see how scared the other was.

“Probably a stray,” I mumbled.

Mark nodded vehemently, but it didn’t help one but, we were both terrified.

Step by step, we made our way down the small alley. All the while, I tried my best to listen only to the echoes of our footsteps, but with each single one, the wailing grew louder.

We’d made it to the halfway-point, when I saw something. Ahead of us, where the moonlight was hidden by the shadow of an adjacent building, something was moving.

It’s just a stray, I told myself. It’s just a stray. Those words, however, sounded empty. Nothing but lies.

And then, the wailing suddenly changed into an almost-scream, and a moment later, a figure turned into our direction.

It was nothing but a dirty, half-rotten sheet, but then a pair of ghastly thin arms and hands pushed themselves from it. Then the thing wailed again, straightened its headless body before it set out in our direction.

Mark and I both screamed in terror. I tried to back away, but stumbled over my own feet and crashed to the floor. As I tried to get up, my eyes were glued to the approaching figure, the approaching ghost-woman of Willow Way.

I shuffled on the floor, trying desperately to get up, but my body didn’t seem to listen to me. My arms were dangling helplessly at my sides, my legs were too weak to function properly. No, all there seemed to be was the ghost-woman of Willow-Way. Finally, when I saw her hands open and close, my body relented, functioned again. I pushed myself up, turned, took a few first steps, but then I remembered Mark.

“Mark, let’s get the hell out of-“

But Mark was frozen in terror. Nothing but sheer and utter panic distorted his face. And the ghost-woman was coming ever closer, step by angry step. Her hands reached out again, opening and closing, her fingers clawing through the air in apprehension, ready to tear of our heads.

And then Mark screamed, a scream that might very well have been a wail, rushed at the ghastly apparition and swung his bat. Useless, I thought, it’s useless, you can’t hurt a ghost.

Yet, the loud thump that followed told me, you can indeed hurt a ghost and you can indeed knock it square to the ground.

Still screaming and out of it, Mark continued his enraged beat down.

By this point, a neighbor had noticed the commotion. It was an angry, middle-aged woman who stormed into the alleyway, screaming and demanding what we were doing out in the middle of the night.

“What do you think you kids are doing? You ought to be-“

She broke off when she noticed Mark, the baseball bat in his hands and the figure at his feet.

Another scream cut through the air, this time the middle-aged woman’s.

Before long, more and more people flooded outside, trying to find out what was going on and eventually the police were called.

By that point, I was still out of it, still not understanding what was happening. How could Mark beat up a ghost? Why was everyone angry? What was the police doing here?

That was, until I saw what was below the sheet.

After Terrance Brown’s death, things changed in our small town. We got told about the importance of not spreading silly rumors. Curfews were enacted and strictly enforced and before long, the whole truth came out.

As it turned out, Old Larry had never heard a thing about Willow Way, and didn’t know it even existed. There had, of course, been no crazy drifter, no murder and no decapitated woman. There had been no ghost at all. In his desperation to get everyone to believe in his ghost stories, to make them just a tad bit more real, Terrance Brown had played the role of the ghost-woman of Willow Way himself.

—

The events of that night happened over three decades ago, and most people have forgotten about them. I’m an adult now, of course, and know how silly we’d all been to fall for Terrance’s story.

Yet, I’m writing this all down, because the other day, my son hurried into the house, asking if I’d heard about the boy down Willow Way.

When I asked him what he was talking about, he told me about the boy who’d supposedly been murdered down there. As the story went, his head was bashed in so badly, he was now out there looking for a new one.

I told him it was all humbug, of course, and there was no such thing as ghosts. I even told him it was most likely someone trying to play a trick on him.

After he’d left, however, and I sat there, alone in the living room, left to reminisce about the past, I couldn’t help but smile to myself.

Maybe, just maybe, there really is a ghost down there now. Maybe it’s the ghost of a little boy who was so in love with ghost stories, he became one himself.