Inspector Brandt and Officer Ziegler were out on a routine night patrol through town. Both of them knew that these patrols were a waste of time. Nothing ever happened in their small town. The worst they’d ever ran into was a few drunk teenagers making a ruckus.

This night it was different.

As the two of them drove down the main street, they suddenly saw a figure standing in the middle of the street. It was a partly naked, long-haired young man. He looked scruffy, dirty and covered in something dark. When the headlight of the car illuminated him entirely, it was clear in an instant that it must be dried blood.

The moment the man noticed the police car he started running. Brandt and Ziegler gave chase, and within a couple of minutes, they caught the man.

As Brandt handcuffed him, he demanded to know where the blood was from. It was evident that it couldn’t be the man’s own. There was way too much of it.

At first, the man stayed quiet. The moment Brandt shoved him in the back of the police car, he gave a simple statement:

“The girls,” he murmured without any noticeable emotion.

The inspector kept asking more questions as they drove back to the station, but the man stayed quiet.

While Ziegler sat down to write a report, Brandt led the man to a cell and soon after decided to question him.

The man was sitting on the bench in the cell when the inspector returned with a chair and sat down in front of him. Before Brandt could even say a word, the man asked him a single question:

“Do you believe in dreameaters?”

“The hell are you talking about? I am not in the mood for any of this crazy shit.”

The man smiled a bit before he continued talking.

“So? Do you believe in them?”

Brandt sighed. Got another crazy one, he thought.

“What did you mean when you said ‘the girls’?”

The man was quiet for a moment as if thinking about something.

“They are evil spirits,” he rambled on, “they enter your dreams, give you nightmares and make you do things while you are asleep. They are small, slimy things, got no arms, no legs, just tentacles. And one, single eye. They use it to stare directly into your dreams… and your soul.”

Brandt couldn’t help but be crept out by what the guy was saying. It took a special kind of crazy to come up with stuff like that.

“What did you do to the girls? Is it their blood?”

The man looked at Brandt with those, empty, emotionless eyes. For a moment his mind seemed to drift off to whatever crazy reality he was living in. Then he spoke again.

“It is theirs?”

It was more a question than a statement. Brandt took a deep breath. This way he’d not get anywhere.

“Okay, asshole,” Brandt started and got up from his chair, “we found you covered in blood, we know it’s not your own, and you were mumbling about ‘the girls’. So how about you fess up?”

The man lifted his head and looked at Brandt’s face.

“I, myself did do nothing. I did lots of shit, but I didn’t kill them, no.”

Kill? Jesus, what had he stumbled upon here, Brand thought. He’d left the city behind to get rid of those types of cases and now that? Freaking hell, he cursed to himself.

“If you didn’t do anything, why are you covered in blood?”

At that moment the man looked down at his own body and seemed to be puzzled. Then he looked up at Brandt again.

“How about I tell you a bit about myself mister inspector? I am sure you’ll understand what I mean afterward.”

Brandt was about to yell at the guy again, but then he yielded and nodded. Might be the only way to get anything out of that guy, he thought and sat down on his chair again.

“Well, as you can guess, I am not from around here. No, I grew up in eastern Germany. Our city was stricken by the reunion. My parents lost their jobs, and we ended up in poverty. Life wasn’t too bad though, we have been poor, but we were happy enough. All that changed during the burglary. Dad was stabbed and mom, well, she got it worse. All the while I was hiding and saw everything.”

“I’m not interested in your damned life story,” Brandt couldn’t help but murmur.

Right as he said this the guys head jerked forward. His eyes were wide open, and he was staring straight at him. Brandt couldn’t help but inch back as far as his chair allowed.

“But this is important, inspector,” the man said with a penetrating voice.

Crazy, Brandt thought, the guy’s a total nutcase. The way he spoke, the way he moved, everything about this guy was unnatural. It was almost as if he wasn’t a real person, but an overdrawn caricature of a man.

“Make it quick, then,” Brandt spat out.

For a moment he thought he saw a grin wash over the man’s face.

“They never found the guys, you know? Put me into an orphanage, but soon enough I ran off. I was driven out into the streets, you could say.”

At that moment the guy paused and looked at Brandt again. It felt to the inspector as if the guy was probing him for… something. Then the guy shook his head and continued talking.

“The shit I saw, you have no idea. The streets can be a terrible place. Had to resort to quite a few fucked up things to get by. Worst was when I joined this one local group or gang. That was a real shit fest. The things I was forced to do during that time. I really don’t wanna think back to it. If I wasn’t insane after my parents were killed in front of me, I was after those years on the street, you know?”

“So you are saying it wasn’t you who ‘killed the girls’, but what your time on the streets made of you? That its societies fault? That all those things you had to go through turned you into a monster? Don’t give me that shit, asshole.”

At this point, Brandt started to laugh. This guy was too much. This story was so cliched, there was no way it could be real.

“You still don’t get it, do you, inspector?”

“What’s there to get?” Brandt asked, now serious again.

“Well, whatever. Things got better though. Did my time, got into the social program and soon enough I had a shitty job, a shitty place and even met a girl. Can’t say it was heaven, but life wasn’t too bad. There was just one thing, the memories and worst of all, the dreams. Every night I was back out there, doing the same thing again, hurting people and cutting them up. Guess that’s what drove me to the bottle eventually.”

“Heh, can’t blame you for that one,” Brandt said with a chuckle.

“Needless to say, things with the girl didn’t work out. I got drunk quite a lot, and she didn’t have any of it. Bitch ranted at me, I got angry. One night, when I was out of it, I beat her half to death without even knowing. I left after that, both for her and my own sake.”

At that Brandt looked up. For a moment this part of the story hit a bit too close to home, and he thought back to his marriage with Sarah. As he looked up at the guy, he thought he noticed a hint of a smile yet again.

“Cut the crap,” Brandt yelled at him, “enough with all that backstory shit. What did you do, tell me!”

“Oh my, getting a bit antsy inspector? Did I say something you didn’t like?”

That was enough for Brandt. He jumped off his chair and swung his fist right at the man’s face. The man’s head jerked back, and when he looked up at the inspector again, his nose was bleeding heavily.

He didn’t make a sound. Instead, he turned and looked at Brandt again, while the blood was dripping from his nose and running down his face.

Brandt slumped down in his chair again. Man, he thought, felt good to hit this bastard.

“Clean yourself up,” he finally said and threw a dirty rag at the guy.

While the man pressed the rag against his nose, Brandt kept questioning him.

“What did you do?”

“Well,” the man started, “I think it’s about time I told you. You know about the dreams, right? Can’t sleep most nights. Today, it was different. The dream was different.”

“So what did you dream about? Did you dream about those girls next door? That what it was?”

The man burst out laughing, and for a moment Brandt had to calm himself down to not hit him again.

“How’d you know inspector?”

For a moment Brandt took the man seriously until he saw his face. The moment he got up, the man rose his hands.

“Now, now, inspector, I am talking, alright? I stayed in a hostel. Real shitty place, real cheap, but after a few nights of hitchhiking and sleeping under the sky a bed is a bed, you know? Fell asleep the moment I entered the room, must have been early evening. In my dream I wasn’t on the street again, this time it was about the night my parents died. There were no burglars though, it was just me and them, no one else.”

Brandt said nothing.

“It was me who was holding the knife and me who did everything. Couldn’t do anything but watch every last, bloody detail. I woke up screaming, but wasn’t in my room anymore. I stood in the middle of a bloodbath. There were two women on the floor, laying in their own blood, mutilated. I didn’t understand what was going on, but then I saw the blood on my hands, on my body, and I felt something else.”

“Was it remorse, was it shock?” Brandt asked with sarcasm.

“No, it was something on my shoulder. I was still stunned, in shock, but when I looked over, I saw it. It was nothing but tentacles and one huge, giant eye that stared straight at me. I screamed and threw the thing aside. For a moment I stood there looking at it in disbelief. Then I remembered a story that an old homeless dude had told me. There are evil spirits out there that influence your sleep and feed on your dreams. What was lying there was what the old man had described as a dreameater. I couldn’t believe that something like this was existing. Soon enough, the thing was gone and had vanished into thin air. At that point, I heard a commotion outside and before the door to the room burst open I jumped out the window and ran.”

Brandt shook his head in utter disbelief. Was this what he’d been waiting for all that time? That’s why he’d listened to the ramblings of this man for half an hour? Demons? Evil spirits? The inspector looked at the guy in front of him and wasn’t sure if he was truly insane or just plain stupid. He couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Man, you must be a goddamn idiot if you think I’ll believe something like that. Evil spirits, you got to be kidding me.”

The man shook his head and smiled once more.

“You still don’t get it, do you, inspector?”

“Nothing to ‘get’ here,” Brandt cursed and got up.

The guy was out of his mind, Brandt thought, as he stepped towards the cell door.

“Not so fast inspector, there’s one thing I’ve been burning to ask you.”

When Brandt turned around, the man sat there, a big grin on his face, leaning forward in anticipation.

“You shivered when I talked about certain things. The one about the girl I bet up and when I talked about murdering my parents. Why?”

Brandt didn’t say anything, he couldn’t.

“Did I hit a soft spot? I did, didn’t I? Could it be you are like me? Could it be you beat your wife, too? Did you kill someone as well? That’s all true, isn’t it? We are exactly the same, aren’t we?”

With that, the guy burst into loud laughter. Brandt stood there, shivering. What the hell was going on?

“Was it your parents, too? A relative maybe?”

“Shut the hell up!” Brandt yelled.

The man didn’t react. Instead, he looked away, pretending to think hard.

“No, that’s not it. You killed someone in the line of duty, right? Out ‘in the streets’? An innocent bystander maybe? Now we are getting somewhere, aren’t we? Was it fun to press the trigger? Did you enjoy it, inspector? Did-”

The man didn’t get to finish his sentence, because Brandt hit the guy once again. How did this guy know all that? It had to be random guesses, it had to be.

“Admit it already, you enjoyed it, right?”

And then he kept laughing. Right at that moment, Brandt made his mistake. He lost it and stormed forward, precisely as the man had wanted. He dodged Brandt’s attack and jumped him. Moments later the inspector was out cold.

It was an hour later that he came to. He was outside the station. There were firefighters and police all around him.

When he came to, he heard what had happened. Ziegler had been shot as had been officer Meier, who’d been sorting through papers in the archive. After that, someone had set fire to the station.

Brandt screamed at them and told them it must have been the bloody man. The one he’d questioned, but no one knew anything about that. He was out of it and had to be handcuffed and taken to the police headquarters in the city.

It was there that he told Officer Schneider about the bloody man and what had happened at the station.

—

It was the next day that Officer Schneider was approached by his colleague, Officer Kuhn.

“Listen to this David,” he said and handed him the recording of Brandt’s questioning.

Once Kuhn had done so, Schneider talked to him again.

“What do you think about it, David?”

“Well, you heard what Brandt said, right?”

“Yeah, but none of it adds up.”

“What do you mean? It’s obvious that the suspect, the bloody man, must have gotten a hold of his gun and-”

“Well, that’s what I thought too,” Schneider cut him off, “but that’s the problem with this whole thing.”

“What do you mean Martin? Come on, talk to me?”

Schneider took a deep breath before he answered.

“There was no bloody man.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“There’s no proof of anyone like this existing, nothing, nada. No one else saw the man. There are no fingerprints, no reports, no sign of anyone having been in the back of the police car.”

“Yeah, but-”

“No, listen, that’s not all. The thing about the girls the bloody man talked about? I looked into it right away. There are no reports of anything like that. Also, Brandt’s gun was found at the station. Only his fingerprints are on it.”

“So you’re telling me Brandt’s story is bullshit?”

“You tell me, I’ve got no clue what was going on there. There’s one more thing though. Brandt’s a drinker, a heavy one. Talked to his other colleagues and friends. All told me the same thing. Brandt’s never sober. Drinks at home, drinks on the job and often falls asleep during work. So why not yesterday? Why was he suddenly sober and out with Ziegler? How was he able to catch and question that guy?”

“That’s all great, but what are-” Right at that moment it hit Kuhn.

“You’re saying Brandt is responsible for this whole thing himself? You’re saying he was the one that killed Ziegler and Meier and set fire to the station?”

Schneider shrugged.

“As I said, no clue. Just telling you the facts. All I know is that this whole thing doesn’t add up, not at all.”

Kuhn had no clue what else to say. In the end, he told Schneider he still had some reports to finish and made his way back to his desk.

Later that day, once he was done with all the paperwork, his thoughts drifted back to Brandt’s case.

If Brandt was the perpetrator, then why this convoluted story?

He kept racking his brain for the next couple of minutes, before opening up Brandt’s profile in the police database.

There were quite a few things in there about the inspector. He’d joined the force more than three decades ago, right after he’d finished school.

When Kuhn checked his family information, he found that his father had already been dead at the time. There was a notice that mentioned that the man had been killed by a burglar.

For the longest time, Brandt had worked in the city. A couple of years ago, he relocated to the smaller town where he ended up working with Officer Ziegler.

As he read on, he found out more things about Brandt. The man had a history of violence, and the file talked about him drinking on the job from time to time. There had been multiple charges of domestic violence against Brandt. Worst of all though, was an investigation of a killed teenager.

As Kuhn opened the file, he read that there were rumors that Brandt had it out for the boy. There were some who thought the inspector was involved in something shady. In the end, though, the investigation never came to anything and was closed. It was a couple of months later that the man relocated.

Kuhn thought back to the recording of Brandt’s questioning. He played it once more and listened more carefully now.

Why did Brandt include all those details in his story? There was no reason for it. Why talk about domestic violence, and why bring up the teenager he’d shot? Why not say that the bloody man overpowered him and Ziegler?

Then Kuhn came to the part about the evil spirit again. Those dreameaters that gave you bad dreams and controlled you while you were asleep.

For a moment Kuhn started to wonder. Schneider had said that Brandt was a heavy drinker and often passed out in the office.

What if… He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and quickly shook his head. There’s no way.

Finally, he got up, but before he went home, he decided to pay Brandt a visit.

The moment he arrived the old inspector looked up at him. Before Kuhn could say anything or even open up the cell door Brandt asked him one, single question:

“Do you believe in dreameaters?”

Did you ever fall asleep on the last subway or tram?

If you did, you know what happens. At the last station an attendant or in some cases the driver will wake you up and tell you to get out. Then you’re left to figure out how to get home on your own.

At times things can get a bit more unlucky, and people are missed.

In my city, those people will end up in one of the three large depots that the trams are returned to.

These are large maintenance halls with enough room for more than a hundred trams.

During the day these depots are buzzing with employees. There are tram drivers who arrive and start on their daily shift. There is the maintenance staff who do regular check-ups on the tram cars and take care of repairs. And then there’s the office staff who takes care of all sorts of logistics.

At night though, when the last trams for the day arrive, there is only one person left at the depot: me.

I am the lucky bastard who has to go through the trams that arrive at the depot in the evening and during the night.

My job consists of checking them for lost items, cleaning up any serious mess and report damages done to the interior.

Occasionally though, I also have to handle those poor people who are forgotten at the last station. It’s by no means a common thing.

As I said, it’s the driver’s job to send everyone out before the trams are returned to the depots. There are some though who are lazy and can’t be bothered to do the checkups, others are plain assholes.

My reaction to these occurrences is a mixture of pity and anger. Pity for the person who ends up at the depot and anger for the driver who didn’t do his damned job. I am especially pissed because I have to walk whoever ended up here to the end of the premise and send them off.

It’s only mildly annoying if it’s some guy who fell asleep after a long day at work.

The real shit fest starts if it’s a drunk or worse a bum.

I once found a guy in a tram who was so drunk, he couldn’t walk anymore. After trying to lead him out of the depot for half an hour, I gave up and put him to rest in one of the trams. I sent him off in the morning with one of the first lines leaving.

The thing about the bum was entirely different. He was the crazy type. The moment I tried to enter the tram, he woke up and threatened to attack me or stab me. For some time I tried to calm him down. Finally though, when he started a ruckus in the tram car itself, I was forced to call the cops. I ended up staying almost two hours longer than I should have that night.

The truth is, the tram depot can be quite creepy at night. Sure, the whole thing is ablaze with lights, but it doesn’t help. The place is absolutely gigantic, the size of many soccer fields.

Try to imagine yourself in a giant hall, consisting of nothing but a small office area and dozens of tracks, on which trams are parked one after another for hundreds of meters.

At night when I am there alone the whole place is in utter solitude. Even the smallest of sounds not coming from yourself can cause a feeling of dread.

“What if?” is a common thing on my mind. I don’t know what I am terrified of though.

In the end, it’s rare that anyone is trapped in the trams and there is no reason for anyone to break in. I mean you can’t steal a tram or a maintenance bay.

And of course, security cameras are surrounding the premise.

What I’m trying to say is that there is no reason to be anxious. None at all. I guess I just can’t help it at times. I blame my obsession with horror movies for this.

Now here’s the thing, on a typical weekday, there aren’t many trams running at night. From around midnight till five in the morning the stations are only served once every hour, if at all. So there’s not much going on at the depots.

On the weekend you’ve trams coming and going at all time during the night, and you’re almost never alone.

On weekdays though, things are different. The last tram of the day arrives at around one in the morning and that’s about it. I often have a short chat or smoke with the driver before he makes his way home. After that I am pretty much on my own, having to handle lights out and all that.

Last Tuesday was one of those nights. That day though I couldn’t help but feel unsettled. After the driver of the last tram had left, I was again all by myself. I don’t know why or where it came from, but I had this strange feeling that someone was watching me. It was the weirdest of sensations.

I looked around and let my gaze slide over all the trams, but of course, there was no one there. A bit apprehensive I entered the last tram and walked through it.

There was an empty beer bottle here, some McDonald’s packaging over there and someone had forgotten a handbag. Thankfully, there was nothing damaged or broken.

I threw away the trash and took the handbag to our small lost-and-found room.

The moment I returned I saw something. Down the line of trams, I saw a figure inside one of the cars. It looked almost as if someone was sitting inside.

It was a tram further down the line, which meant it must’ve arrived a couple hours ago, in the early evening. How could someone be still inside? Had I forgotten to check the tram? This made no sense.

As I made my way towards it, the figure didn’t move at all, almost as if it was frozen up.

“Must be asleep,” I told myself.

I cursed and started walking down the line of trams. I really didn’t want to deal with someone right now. I stepped past the locked doors of the dark tram cars, only for that crawling sense of dread to come back to me. For a moment I stopped as I felt goosebumps on the back of my neck. I jerked around and looked back at where I’d come from. Nothing.

I breathed a sigh of relief and was about to continue on my way when I saw that the figure ahead was gone.

“What in the…” I whispered to myself.

I hastened my pace and the moment I reached the tram I peered inside. There was no one there. I took out my keys, unlocked the door and entered it.

“Anyone in here? Hello?”

I walked through the thing from front to back but found nothing. I started to get a bit unnerved. I’d been strangely on edge all night, so had I imagined things? I’d seen it so clearly though.

In the end, I shook my head and told myself I was getting tired. I should finish things up for tonight and make my way home.

Once I was back at the front of the depot, I heard something again. At first, I told myself my mind must be playing tricks on me still. The more I listened though, the clearer I heard it.

It sounded like shuffling feet. Suddenly I felt very cold.

I told myself again to just finish things up and ignore whatever was going on here. Somehow though I couldn’t do that. I started to walk past the tracks and had a look down the corridors between the lines of trams. Where was it coming from?

I’d only walked past half of the tracks when I could make out something. It was a person. As I stopped, I saw a tiny, old lady. She was wearing a dress and holding a handbag that was swinging back and forth with each of her steps.

What was she doing here at a time like this? Was she the one I’d seen before? Did she leave the tram and made her way over here?

“Ma’am? Excuse me, is everything alright?” I called out to her.

She didn’t react at all. Instead, I could see that she continued to shuffle into my direction. One step at a time, almost dragging herself forward.

I took a few steps in her direction when I heard her speak.

“Oh my, can you help me out? Would you please come over here?”

I stopped right in my tracks. The voice sounded… wrong, almost like a garbled up recording.

“Would you please come over here?” the voice repeated.

It sounded exactly the same as before. The same weird garbled up vocals, the same drawn out words. I felt a shiver running down my spine, and my arms were covered in goosebumps. Something was wrong here.

As I stood there and looked on, she stared at me and did repeat it a third time. I am not sure if I even saw her mouth move at all.

Then, for a moment the whole depot seemed to turn darker as if all the lights above were dimmed out. There was a sort of lurking shadow behind the old lady.

It was a strange, twisted thing, as gigantic as the lady was small. I saw it move forward and stretch into my direction. It reminded me of a bird of prey. It looked almost as if it was reaching out towards me with ghastly dark wings and talons. I inched back a few steps, and the vision was gone again.

I stood there, shaking and sweaty. I shook my head in confusion. This wasn’t real. It was just in my mind. There couldn’t be something like this.

At that moment I saw something else that made me forget the strange vision from before. There was a sticky, dark liquid all below her and down the corridor. It was as if it was running down from her body. What the hell was that? Was she bleeding?

“Wait, hold on a moment, what is-“

But I broke up when she did repeat the sentence once more.

Without being able to think clearly, I ran back to the office area. What was the matter with her? Was she hurt or something? I picked up the emergency phone to dial for an ambulance or help when something else hit me.

Once I’ve finished the checkup of a tram, it is locked. It’s common procedure. Sure, with enough strength you can probably push the doors open and get out. They’re hydraulic after all. You’d need a whole lot of strength to do that though. Not even I’m able to do it, and I am no lightweight. So how would this old lady be able to get out on her own?

If she’d been in one of the trams and I’d missed her before, she’d still be locked in. If she came into the depot to get help, why was she in the back? There’s no back entrance. The only way in is via the front. I’d have seen her before!

This whole thing didn’t add up.

“Would you please come over here?” I heard her voice again.

It was right outside the office now. I froze up when I heard the shuffling feet and when the office door creaked.

She was repeating the same sentence again and again. With each time it was more distorted than before. There was something else resonating within it. It was almost as if a sinister laugh was underlying in it. Some sort of barely hidden anticipation.

Then the door was pushed open, and I saw it again. The lurking, shadowy, vulture-like shade. It forced itself through the office door into my direction, dimming out all the light in the room.

Before I could even think, my flight-response was triggered. I rushed towards the front door of the office area and got out of there.

I didn’t look back, I didn’t lock up or turn off the lights, nothing. I ran from the place for dear life.

—

Of course, my boss tore me a new one when I came to work the next day. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I lock up? What if something happened?

I didn’t tell him what I’d seen. I mean who’d believe a story like that. Everything was normal, and the place was busy with maintenance staff and drivers as usual.

I finally asked him about the old lady and the trail of blood that I’d seen next to track six.

He told me there was nothing there. No liquid or anything. What was I even talking about?

When I asked him if he’d checked the security footage, he shook his head.

“Didn’t get the time to do that yet,” with that he got up and walked over to his laptop, “hold on.”

He clicked around a few times and then I saw him focus on the screen.

I stood there and watched him. I saw his face go blank and then after a while, all the color vanished from it.

“What is-” I started to ask, but before I could finish, he closed the laptop.

“There’s nothing at all,” he said, the fear audible in his voice.

After that, he told me to go home, have a few days off and come back next week.

I’d hoped that there was nothing and that I’d just imagined the whole thing. As I type this out though, I know that something was there that night.

And even though he said nothing, I know my boss saw it on the tapes as well.

If there is one thing I hate in the summer, it is insects. I don’t know why, but when it is hot our small town is flooded by all sorts of creepy crawlies.

It could be because of the various lakes nearby or that our town is nestled between thick forests.

Every summer things are bad, but this year’s heatwave made it even worse. Flies and mosquitoes were swarming my house almost since the beginning of July. Every time I’d open a window, you could bet that half a dozen of them made their way inside. Don’t even get me started on the spiders.

Worst of all were the bees. I don’t know where they all came from, but for a month now they are plaguing our town.

During the first week no one was worried about it. Most people guessed that the heat had sped up the breeding process but soon enough their numbers would thin out. Instead, more of them started appearing. It wasn’t long before bee stings became a common occurrence when going outside.

Stranger even was that a second, different type of bee appeared. They had bigger bodies that were a bit too long, and were much more aggressive than regular bees.

At first, people thought they were hornets or wasps, but that wasn’t the case. They were some type of local mutation.

Things got especially dangerous at the local nursing home or kindergarten. The elderly and the little kids were too slow to notice the bees and many of them got stung.

Insect spray became as common as bread and water in our town due to those aggressive bees. Even I got a can.

Two weeks ago, this epidemic claimed its first victim. It was a middle-aged woman, who went out running. When her husband protested she disregarded the warning and said she’d be fine.

Her body was found on the same day. A local farmer found it in a ditch near a hiking trail early in the evening. No one knew what had happened. When the man approached the body, it was teeming with bees. Her face and arms were covered in bee stings and almost swollen beyond recognition.

When my friend Robert went missing I was worried instantly. He was precisely the type who’d ignore the warnings and the danger.

His girlfriend Sue called me Saturday morning. She’d not heard from him since Friday afternoon. This wasn’t like him at all, she said. With all those bees around only God knew what had happened. I calmed her down and told her was most likely busy playing some new game.

Once I hang up, I tried to call Robert. No one answered. I dropped him a message on WhatsApp and saw that he’d not been online since yesterday. That really wasn’t like him, he was the type who was online constantly.

I drove to his place right away. I rang the doorbell a few times but got no answer. His neighbor soon called out to me and told me he’d not seen my friend all day. The last he’d seen him was yesterday.

I felt a lump in my throat. I asked the old man if he could have a look out and call me if he saw my friend come home. He was friendly enough and said he’d give me a call.

Back at home I had no idea what to do. I was about to call the cops, but what should I tell them? Robert had been out drinking with friends all night for all I knew. He’d probably drop me a WhatsApp message soon enough asking what I was so worried about.

Two hours later I got a call from his neighbor. The old man told Robert had come home. His clothes were dirty though and he looked scruffy and exhausted. Robert didn’t even react when the old man called out to him. He went inside without saying a word.

I was so glad to hear he was alright. I tried calling him, but again I couldn’t reach him. My messages stayed unread too.

Shit, what if something had happened and he’d passed out?

When I arrived, it took Robert a little while, but he opened the door. He didn’t say a word and stood there, staring at me.

“Hey man, you alright? I was worried about you.”

He just kept staring at me. For a moment he opened his mouth as if to say something, only to quickly close it again. Finally, he stepped aside to let me in. As I walked past him I noticed how bad he smelled.

“Dude, what the hell did you do last night? You should take a shower or something!”

No reaction. Robert quietly closed the front door and walked straight towards the living room.

Something was off about the way he moved. He seemed to take a short pause before each step as if to think about it. His feet shuffled over the floor and looked as if he dragged his body forward. Why was he so exhausted?

“Dude, are you sure you’re alright?” I asked as I followed him.

Instead of answering he sat down on his couch and kept staring at me.

I was about to call him out on his behavior when I heard the buzzing of bees. I couldn’t say where it was coming from and started scanning the room. I was sick and tired of the damned bees by now. I’d gotten so many bee stings that I killed them on sight. I couldn’t see any though.

I suddenly felt a stinging pain on my arm and noticed that one of the weirder, bigger bees had stung me. There was already another one coming towards me. Where the hell were they coming from?

It sat down on my arm and for a moment it seemed as if it was looking straight into my eyes.

That was it. I got out the can from my backpack and started to spray it. Wouldn’t let it sting me too!

At this moment Robert started to squeak. It was this weird high-pitched sound, and in surprise I turned towards him. He’d gotten up from his seat.

“Dude, what’s-?”

I broke off because he came tumbling towards me and crashed his body into mine with full force.

“What the fuck is going on with you? Calm down, man!”

His answer was more of the angry squeaking. He started to push me to the ground and in that instant I heard the buzzing of the bees again. It was even louder this time, but I still couldn’t see them. Where the hell was it coming from?

“Dude, stop, enough with this,” I said as I pushed him off me. Before I could get up he came at me again. By now I had enough of this and pushed him back hard with both hands.

There was the sickening, wet sound of something breaking. Then Robert fell backward to the ground.

“Oh shit, man, you alright? I didn’t mean to-“

There was the buzzing sound again, this time loud enough to drown out my voice. This time I knew where it was coming from. It was from inside my friend. I watched in horror as a swarm of bees burst from his open mouth and flew straight at me.

I screamed and started to spray them, but there were too many. It was must have been dozens of them. They were all around me. I felt countless bee stings all over my arms and on the back of my neck. In my fury I used the spray almost at random, spraying everywhere.

The air in Robert’s small living room became heavy with insecticides in a matter of minutes. As I fought the bees I saw Robert’s body shake and tremble as if he was suffering a stroke. He was squeaking again, tried to run from the room, but crashed straight against the wall.

I saw more and more of the bees crawl from his collapsed body only to die right on the spot.

I tore myself from the sight and ran outside. I collapsed on the grass, coughing and swaying at the last bees that still stuck to my body.

Soon the police arrived. Robert’s neighbor must have heard our fight and got worried.

I told them what had happened, but they didn’t believe me.

While they interrogated me an ambulance was called. As they treated my many bee stings, one of the police officers approached me. He was clearly disturbed by what he’d seen.

He told me my friend was dead. When I started freaking out, he assured me it wasn’t due to our fight or the insect spray. No, he said, my friend must have been dead for a while.

This made no sense. I told the man again that my friend had come home only an hour or two ago.

The man nodded, but the paramedics had said that Robert’s body was in a state of advanced decay. There was no doubt that he’d been dead for almost a day.

—

When I gave my testimony at the station the next day, I learned more about the whole thing.

The police officer opposite me frowned once I’d finished my story. He said he’d typically stay quiet about these things, but what they’d found during the autopsy was just too weird.

My friend’s head, as well as his body, was covered in holes and tunnels. It looked almost like the honeycombs in a beehive.

It was clear that Robert had died on Friday afternoon near the forest the man said. The strange bees must have then started to convert his body into a hive.

No one could explain how he made his way home though.

It is now a week later, but there is one thing I can’t stop thinking about. What if it was those bees?

What if they dug into his body to control him and move their new hive here, right into the middle of our small town?

When I was a little boy, I was terribly afraid of monsters. I don’t know anymore where this fear came from. It might have been one of those old tales my grandma told me or it was because of a movie or show on TV.

To this day I have vivid memories of sitting in my wardrobe at night, huddled between stacks of clothes and forgotten toys. I remember peeking outside every once in a while to see if there actually was a monster under my bed. On other nights I’d watch the room’s single window, convinced that it was not just tree branches brushing against the glass.

I spent countless nights in the old wardrobe. Many times I sat in there till morning and only crawled back into bed once the sun started to dawn. At other times, my mom found me still inside, deep asleep.

My parents told me again and again that there were no such things as monsters and nothing bad would happen to me. For an eight-year-old talk like this meant nothing. They are adults. They didn’t understand a thing!

One night I found myself in the wardrobe again. I sat in there, shaking and shivering, telling myself that I was safe and nothing was out there.

All of a sudden I heard a voice I jumped up in fear and was barely able to cover my mouth before I screamed. At the sound of my reaction, the voice started to giggle. It was a female voice, who told me not be such a scaredy-cat.

I soon learned that the voice belonged to a little girl living next door. She told me she was scared too and was hiding out from a monster in her own wardrobe. She’d heard me come in here countless times but never dared to actually say anything.

We ended up talking almost the entire night. I learned that her name was Sandra and that she was about my age. We talked about school, about our friends, pets, hobbies, our dreams, and wishes.

Only when I saw the first ray of sunshine did I tell her I had to go. I crawled back into bed and pretended to be asleep until my mom came into the room to wake me up.

I spent many nights in the wardrobe. Whenever I talked to my new friend, I completely forgot about how scary the night was. Instead, I found myself laughing and giggling, whispering secrets back and forth with her.

While I was hiding from the monsters in my imagination, my parents were plagued by their very own demons. As a little kid, I didn’t notice my mom’s puffy eyes or my dad’s taciturn behavior.

Only when mom told me that she and I would stay at grandma’s for a bit did I realize that something was wrong.

It was a few months later that my parents divorced. After that mom and I moved to a new apartment in a different city.

I never found out who the little girl was and as time passed, I started to forget about her.

It was a week ago that the memories of those nights with her came back to me.

That day was the first time I’d returned to my dad’s apartment. It was not on a happy occasion. During the past years, my dad’s life had taken a turn for the worse. He’d started drinking heavily and one night his body couldn’t take it anymore. He collapsed in the middle of his living room.

Mom and I were his only relatives so we’d inherit what few belongings he still owned. While mom refused to take anything, I said I wanted to at least have a look at the old apartment.

Two days after we’d heard out about his death, I found myself in the middle of the shabby and rundown place the apartment had become.

I remembered it as a happy, tidy place, but it had turned into a dump. Empty bottles were everywhere. The carpet was so stained, it had turned from its original color to an undefined brownish-gray.

There wasn’t much furniture. Only the bare minimum was left, everything else was gone. The only thing of interest I found was a picture of a little boy and girl. I found it in a drawer in the living room. Who were those two, I wondered?

As I trudged through the shambles of my dad’s life, I soon found myself in front of my old room.

I smiled as I opened the door. To my surprise, it was still furnished. Sure my things were gone, but my old bed and bookshelf were still there. And so was the old wardrobe. The room was so much smaller now that I was an adult. I almost laughed at how scared I’d been about monsters under the bed or the branches in front of the window.

At this moment I remembered my nightly talks in the wardrobe.

I couldn’t help but open the old door and get inside. As an adult, there was only barely enough room to sit down in there. I leaned back and peaked out through the crack in the door, same as I’d done as a kid.

I wondered what had happened to that little girl and where she was now.

“I am right here, dummy,” I heard a high voice.

When I jumped this time, I bumped my head against the top of the wardrobe. I cursed in pain.

“How the-” I started but was sure I’d imagined things.

Then I heard her voice again.

“You said it out loud!”

“W-what?”

“Where I was and what I was doing now.”

“No, that’s not it. I mean, you are still living here? Even now?”

“Yep!” came an enthusiastic answer. “What about you? Where have you been? I missed you!”

“You remember me? Even now? After all those years?”

“Of course! How’d I ever forget you? Remember how you told me about the red bike you wanted? Or how much you liked Jenny Meier?”

I started to laugh as she told me more and more things from those talks we had so long ago.

Right at this point though I realized something. It had been almost two decades that I’d last talked to her. Her voice was still the same as back then. Still the same high-pitched childish voice. How was this possible? Shouldn’t she be a young woman by now?

“Why is your voice still the same? Shouldn’t you be in your mid-twenties by now?”

As I said this, she started to sob. When she spoke again, her voice was heavy with sadness.

“I wish I could leave and grow up like you, but it’s not possible for me anymore.”

“What are you-” I’d started, but then something else hit me.

As a kid, I’d always assumed she was living in an apartment next door. Why else would someone talk to me, right? I’d forgotten one thing though, there was nothing on the other side. The wardrobe stood against the outer wall of the building.

When this realization hit me, I ran from the room, with her sobs echoing behind me.

Once I was outside, I shivered in fear. I couldn’t explain what had happened just now. Neither could I explain, what must have happened all those years ago.

It was only now that I realized I was still holding the picture of the little boy and girl in my hand.

Back home I asked mom about it. At first, she said she didn’t want to talk about anything related to dad. When I kept pressuring her though, she told me what she knew.

The picture was of dad and his sister. I looked up. I’d never heard that dad had a sister. Mom shrugged, but then she said in a sad voice that she went missing long ago. Dad had still been a little boy back then. Dad’s childhood hadn’t been a happy one she said.

He had grown up in the same apartment we’d lived in back then. His father, my grandfather, had been a terrible man, a drunk with a violent temper.

First, it had only been insults, but as the years passed, those were replaced by punches.

It was not seldom that he’d beat his wife, my grandma and went for dad and his sister afterward. It had always been his sister though, mom said, who got the brunt of it.

One day though, she was gone. The window of the room was wide open and there was no sign of the child. They’d searched for weeks, but no sign of her was ever found.

When I heard this, I started shivering. I remembered the little girl I’d been talking too. The little girl who I’d thought had lived on the other side of the wall. The little girl who said she could never leave this place and could never grow up anymore. With tears in my eyes, I asked my mom what her name had been.

Before she even said it, I knew what the answer was: Sandra.

Urban exploring has its very own appeal.

My best friend Thomas and I have been doing it for a couple of years now. We don’t do it all that often. It is a thing we do once every few weeks, to provide our mundane lives with a little bit of thrill.

There is something about old, abandoned places. It is this eerie, creepy atmosphere. The idea that what once was filled with life is now stripped bare and empty. It is unsettling and somehow you feel like you don’t belong and that you are in a wrong place.

I often can’t help to wonder about the history of the places we visit. Had people once celebrated Christmas in this old, ruined residential building? Had this rubble been witness to such happiness?

When were those empty school hallways last filled with the laughter of kids and the talk of teachers? There is always something special about those places.

And then there is what happened last night.

Thomas and I met up like we usually do. We were lucky enough to both have today off. That’s the reason why we decided to visit an old industrial site in the next town over.

It used to be one of those booming industrial towns of the Democratic German Republic. The reunion brought not only a new currency. It also brought new technologies and methods of production. It made many of the machines and production facilities in Eastern Germany obsolete. Needless to say, many companies went bankrupt during the time.

In the bigger cities, newer complexes or different buildings replaced those areas. In small towns, on the other hand, they were abandoned.

Getting rid of them would cost too much money. So they are often left to rot until someone is interested in the property. It is rarely the case.

The complex we were going to now had most likely not seen any visitors in at least two decades.

I can’t say what we were hoping to find. Guess we wanted to see how unsettling old factory halls and warehouses could be.

As we arrived, there was not even a hint of a name anymore. What once could have been a billboard was now nothing but a metal frame. We could see some Russian lettering on one of the buildings, but half of the letters were missing. What remained made no sense.

There were some streetlights at the edge of the complex. The rest was hidden in darkness.

Getting in proved easy. A high fence surrounded the entire complex but scaling it wasn’t hard. We moved away from the main street and the streetlights and made our way inside.

The complex was quite a bit larger then I’d assumed. Back in the day, this whole area must have been teeming with dozens of people if not hundreds.

It was a quiet night. The echo of our footsteps was incredibly loud as we walked over the empty concrete floor. I couldn’t help but look around if anyone or anything noticed them.

We first made our way to a group of buildings that turned out to be the old production facilities. I had expected it, yet I was still disappointed to find them stripped bare. We turned our flashlights on as we stepped inside, but there was nothing of value left. The only things we saw were endless lines of pipes on the walls and a few rusty metal contraptions.

Our footsteps seemed to be even louder in these empty, dark halls. The beam of our flashlights brought the pipes on the walls to life. It transformed them into winding shadows. The whole area, with its rust-covered floors, reminded me of the old Silent Hill games. A few times I thought I heard a metal clang behind us. Every time though, I convinced myself it was nothing but my imagination.

I was relieved as we stepped outside again.

After checking out a few of the smaller buildings, we made our way to the old office building.

It was an unimpressive, two-storied block of concrete.

As we entered the empty hall, we guessed that we weren’t the first visitors here. The door had been unhinged and the remaining furniture of the entry hall had been demolished.

Taking a closer look revealed a thick layer of dust on the rubble and proved that it must have happened a long time ago. As we made our way through the building, we found barely anything else. A few old shipping documents caught our interest, but they weren’t readable anymore.

Whoever had been here before had also broken many of the windows. As we walked through the hallways, I heard the occasional whistle of the wind behind us.

In the end, we didn’t spend a lot of time searching through the office building. The inside was as unimpressive as the exterior. Anything interesting, we decided, must have been taken already.

At last, we made our way to the old warehouse. The big steel gate at the end was closed and locked by some heavy iron chains.

It was pure dumb luck when Thomas tried one of the doors on the side and it sprang open.

The inside was like the rest of the complex, almost entirely empty.

The only sound was once again the echo of our footsteps. To our left and right, unending rows of old, rusty metal shelves lined the walls. The darkness made them look like ancient, metal skeletons.

At the end of the warehouse, we found another small office area. It was nothing but a few chairs and tables. It might have been used for packaging the goods or preparing them for shipping.

By now, my phone showed me that it was almost midnight. We’d seen pretty much every part of the complex. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. I thought we’d at least find something exciting or morbid here.

I didn’t feel like making my way back home already. Instead, I convinced Thomas to move two of the old chairs into the center area of the warehouse and chill there for a bit.

“We might as well stay for a bit longer, man.”

“Sure, not like we get many chances like that anymore, with the baby around and all that.” Thomas agreed.

By now our eyes had adjusted to the darkness around us, so we turned the flashlights off. The moonlight came in through the giant upper story windows of the warehouse. It provided more than enough light.

As usual, I’d brought a few drinks. It was a sort of ritual for us. We had said goodbye to the partying lifestyle years ago, but whenever we get the chance to hang out, we have a few drinks.

I knew Thomas also brought some weed. Ever since his girlfriend got pregnant, she hated it. Guess it’s because of the baby. So he only smoked whenever the two of us were out.

For half an hour we sat there in the dark on old, hard chairs and exchanged urban legends. Every once in a while a sound made us look up, but we’d seen enough signs of small animals and rodents in the warehouse.

While Thomas finished the tale off a particularly deranged serial killer, I got myself another beer. I opened it, took a sip, and leaned back.

“What the fuck…?” Thomas whispered next to me.

His voice had changed. It sounded agitated, almost afraid. I was about to take a sip of my beer when he reached out for my arm. He almost spilled my beer.

“What the hell man? You tripping or something?”

Without answering, or saying anything, he pointed at one of the upper windows of the warehouse. I could see that his arm was shaking.

At first, I had no idea what he was pointing at. I wanted to make a snarky comment like ‘yes dude, it’s a window.’ Then I saw it too.

There was a figure, no just a face outside, behind the window. I hadn’t noticed it at first, because it was only its side profile. It was much too big though and filled up almost all of the enormous window. It seemed as if some sort of giant was passing by outside.

Then the face came to a halt. I saw how its pupil moved to the corner of its eye, focusing on the inside of the warehouse. Then the whole, giant face turned into our direction, staring inside.

“The fuck is this man?” I asked with a voice that I couldn’t keep from shaking.

As I looked up at the window, I felt how the eyes of this apparition focused right on me. They grew wide and the face’s expression became angry. The mouth turned from a smile to a hard line.

With an angry shriek, the face vanished. Only moments later we heard the grinding of the massive warehouse gate on the concrete. Soon the heavy iron chains that kept it closed started rattling.

For a second we looked at the gate in fear, but as it rattled again, we both jumped up and ran.

Once outside, we both saw something huge and dark move at the back of the warehouse. In an instant, we ran to the edge of the complex and climbed back over the fence.

Only once we were a bit further away from the complex, did we turn back around.

I cringed back a step as I saw the dark, empty faces staring at us from every building of the complex. I could not see their bodies, or who they were. All I could see where glowing eyes and open mouths.

And then, I saw the giant head once more. It was right above the warehouse. It stared straight at me again, with its wide eyes and its same angry expression.

When both of us saw, that there was no neck or body it belonged to, the two of us ran. We ran all the way to the local train station. The whole way I could feel the angry stare of this giant, ghastly head in my back.

I don’t know what happened last night or what I saw. I don’t try to think about it, but I can’t help it anymore.

The whole day I convinced myself it was the weed Thomas had brought. Maybe it had just caused us to hallucinate, right?

I can’t do it anymore. Whatever happened last night, can’t explain the giant, lurking shadow outside my window.

Growing up in rural areas is nothing like growing up in a city.

I can’t say what it is. Maybe it is the remoteness of small villages, perhaps the low population or the closeness to nature. There is something that makes strange things more likely to happen.

By now I am living in an urban area, near the center of a big city. Things are different here. There are always other people around, and the buzzing noise of the city is a constant companion.

Not so in rural areas. The nights there are dominated by only one thing, silence. The only things you hear are the occasional rustling of a tree in the wind or the sounds of small animals. More often though, there is no sound at all. No cars, no people, not a thing.

The same is true for light. In a city, there are various light sources. There are street lights, cars, billboards and even neon lights. Wherever you are, you’ll seldom end up in pure darkness.

In the village I grew up in, nights are genuinely dark. There is no light around. The only thing illuminated at night is the small village church. If it were one of those rare starless nights, you’d be in almost pure darkness.

As a kid, I was never bothered by it. When night fell, I was either inside or already in bed. The few times I was out late, I was with family or other adults around.

When I got older though, that changed. I’d often hang out with friends long past midnight. It was during this time that I learned just how creepy going home at night can be.

I had to walk along a dark, empty road in complete darkness. Often no one was awake anymore. Only dark, old buildings surrounded me. There was no light and the only sound was my own reverberating steps. It was eerie.

Every sound I heard would make me twitch and wonder what it was. Often it was the wind or a cat. There were a few times though when I didn’t know what it was. Breaking twigs or shuffling steps nearby almost always send me home racing.

What was even worse though, was seeing something strange. I once saw a shade standing in a neighbor’s garden, not moving at all. On another night I was sure I saw a figure watching me from atop a tree not too far away. I always ignored those things. I told myself, it was my imagination, fueled by alcohol and too many horror movies.

There was one time though when I didn’t ignore it.

The lower part of my village is older than the rest. It is nothing but a handful of buildings nested into a small forest.

I knew that it used to be a beautiful area, but even when I was a kid, not all the buildings were inhabited anymore. By the time I was a teenager it was only a single old lady that still lived in the area.

The only reason that ever brought me there was the trail that led past those houses. It was a shortcut to a neighboring village, where my best friend at the time lived.

At daytime, it was no big deal to go there, especially since I had a moped by then. At night, it was a whole other story.

As so often, I stayed at my friend’s way too long. We had few beers with friends and long past midnight I made my way home. Being tired already, I told myself I’d take the shortcut. I’d save more than a quarter of an hour that way!

As I approached the lower area of the village, I saw lights ahead. I wondered why the old lady would be awake at a time like this. Then the thought that her house might be on fire came to my mind.

As I got closer though, those fears changed to confusion. The lights weren’t coming from her building. It was a building on the other side of the small trail.

For a moment I wondered if someone had moved back in. Or someone had bought one of the buildings to renovate it?

When I saw the building though, none of this made any sense. It was one of the more run-down buildings and almost in a ruined state. Only a few lonely places on the wall were still covered by plaster. The front door was rotten, hanging open and barely clinging to the frame.

The windows too were empty, bare of any curtains and even glass for that matter.

As I stood on the trail, everything else around me was nothing but dark forms. The only thing I could make out in the darkness was the building ablaze in front of me.

No that wasn’t right, I thought, it was only the upper floor that was alight. Inside I could see shadows dancing on the walls.

Could it be some local kids? There was a group a few years younger than me, who were often up to some sort of shenanigans.

If it was them though, where were their bikes? If they’d come all the way down here, I doubt they had walked.

What made the whole thing even stranger was the absence of any sounds. I was listening to music, but as I took my headphones off, I realized that the night was tranquil. The only thing I could hear was the low humming of my moped below.

I watched the weird shadows and shades that were still moving around. I was almost in a trance when they stopped all of a sudden. When they had all vanished, I felt fear rising inside of me. What the hell was even going on here?

Soon I saw someone or something move by one of the empty windows. Then I saw a face looking down at me from one of its upper corners.

The face was weird, unsettling. The moment I saw it, I knew something was wrong. It was a young man’s face. It had all the parts a face had: two eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, and so on. They were all unremarkable. It was as if the man’s face was empty. There was no change in his expression as he watched me. It showed no emotions. His eyes were a little too wide, his mouth hung open a bit, but other than that it was completely neutral.

I felt my skin crawl. Then I wondered how tall the man must be if his face was that high up. And how did I not see his body?

For a moment, in my confusion, I rose an awkward hand and waved to the man. It was nonsensical, but I hoped, that whoever it was, would return the greeting. To show it was a normal person, like me. Nothing at all happened. The face stayed the way it was. The lights behind it remained the same.

Then a second face appeared at the next window. Then two more popped up, at other, similarly strange places as the first one. Soon it was almost a dozen of them. They all stared at me. None of them said a word.

Within a second of seeing them all, I started the moped and drove home as fast as I could in a state of utter fear. It was not the absence of sound, neither was it the weird blazing lights, nor the odd position of these faces.

It was the fact that every single one of them was exactly the same.

Most old lighthouses have turned into useless remnants of the past. New technology, modern ships, and GPS have made them almost obsolete.

Not in my town though. Our old lighthouse is still very much operative and watched over by an old lighthouse keeper. Each night, the light beam is moving over the surface of the ocean till the sun comes up.

My town is a small, remote coastal town in northern Germany. Only a few thousand people live here and we scarcely get visitors. It also isn’t too farfetched to say we are a bit behind.

I graduated school with barely average grades. For the first two years, I worked here and there to earn some money, but it was never anything substantial.

It was earlier this year that I found out that the old lighthouse keeper was retiring. Of course, someone was needed to replace him.

It wasn’t exactly my dream job, but at least it would be a permanent position. I visited the old man, Mister Wallace, right away and told him about my interest in the job.

I somehow must have made an impression on the old man. During the interviews he singled me out between the candidates and told me, he’d give me a chance.

On my first official day, the old man and I met up in front of the lighthouse. I was first to arrive and noticed the old man from afar. He was walking in my direction, dragging one of his legs behind. A limp, I thought. Once he reached me handed me a cup of steaming liquid.

“For you,” he said with a bright smile. “The wind today must be gettin’ to ye, boy.”

“Thanks,” I answered taken a bit by surprise.

The old man took a deep sip from his cup, took out an old keyring and stepped towards the entrance door.

“This thing is a bitch to open!”

He started to turn the key around, but the door didn’t budge.

“Come on you bloody, ugh!”

Finally, there was a loud clang as the door sprang open.

“You comin’?”

As I followed him inside, I noticed how dirty and narrow the lighthouse was. When I was a kid, it had been this imposing, grand building. Now I saw that it was pretty unimpressive.

There was another door opposite the entrance door. The old man didn’t address it at all and instead began his ascent up the stairs.

Before I followed, I took a sip from the cup he had given me. I almost spat it out again. This wasn’t coffee as I’d expected.

“The hell’s that stuff?”

“Grog! Warms ye right up, doesn’t it?”

I frowned, at which the old man started laughing.

“You’ll get used to it!”

The old man had quite a hard time with the stairs. He had to almost drag himself upwards.

“Must be the leg. No wonder he is retiring,” I thought.

I heard him wheeze and groan as he clung to the railing. A few times he had to stop to catch his breath.

“You ok there, Mister Wallace? Need a hand?”

“I’ve been making my way up those damned stairs for half a century, boy. I’ll be fine doing it a few more times.”

Once we’d made it upstairs, the old man showed me around.

“Better get comfortable around here. You’ll be spending a lot of time in this room.”

As I looked around, I saw an old radio system. Other than that, there was a table, a few chairs, a telescope, two cupboards and a small oil stove. The rest of the room was empty.

There was a metal ladder that led up from here to the lantern room above.

“Ain’t much need to get up there,” the old man said, “except to give the thing a checkup before it turns dark.”

With that, he motioned for me to follow him upstairs and showed me how to make sure the lamp was working. It didn’t take long and we soon went down again.

“There ain’t much to do up here. Keep watch till mornin’ and make sure everything goes well.”

“So, do you get many calls up here? There aren’t many ships coming to town anymore, aren’t there?”

With that, I motioned to the old radio system behind him.

“Haven’t gottan a call in years. There ain’t no one coming here. And if they ever do, it’s in those new, modern ships. They don’t need no old lighthouse anymore.”

“Then why are we even here? Doesn’t it mean this place is useless? I mean, not like I am complaining or anything, I can-“

“This place ain’t useless, boy. Now you listen and you listen close. You don’t know what is out there, do ye? It ain’t those ships that need us. It’s the town.”

For a moment I looked at him before I burst out laughing.

“Ok, you almost got me,” I said.

The old man frowned. “Ain’t joking around, boy.”

Yeah sure, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. Now here is the thing about my town. You could say it has a history. Over the decades a number of strange things have happened.

One such story is about a fishing boat that went out one morning with a crew of eight. That same evening the boat returned, but without any sign of the crew. The men stayed missing.

Another tale is about an artist who decided to paint the moonlit sea. The next morning they found the man babbling nonsense. He had gone mad overnight.

By now natural explanations have been found for almost all these stories. The artist had a history of mental illness. The fisher boat most likely got caught up in a storm. Back in the day though these stories fed into people’s superstition. With the years they became local legends.

There are many people in this town, even today, who believe in the supernatural.

From the way the old man had talked, I could tell he was one of them. Who was I to blame him though? After half a century up here, I’d most likely tell myself similar things to give meaning to what I was doing.

“There’s one more thing I gotta show ye.”

With that, he made his way down the spiral staircase again. Once we reached the bottom he opened the door I’d seen before.

“This is the generator room,” he said as he led me inside.

“This lighthouse is old. The cables and power lines are too. When it storms a little too much, the power can cut out. If that happens, you turn on this baby here.”

With that, he pointed at the generator.

“The light has to stay on, at all times.”

Then he showed me in every minute detail how to handle the generator. Turn this here and that there. If this happens, you need to add some oil. If that happens, the fuel is empty. If the light doesn’t turn on once you start it, check the cables. This went on for almost half an hour and multiple times he asked me if I understood him.

Once he finished his explanations, the old man told me he’d stick around for the first couple of nights. He’d show me the ropes, he said.

The three nights he stayed at the lighthouse with me were quite alright. I had expected the old man to be somewhat uptight and boring, but he wasn’t at all. He cursed like a sailor, knew an endless amount of dirty jokes and had quite a few stories to tell. He even brought some booze. It was to keep the mood as merry as possible, he said.

One of the things he did first thing after arriving was to give the old generator a checkup. After that, he made his way up to the lantern room to do the same to the lamp. His diligence surprised me.

On the last day, I told him I’d be sure to pay him a visit in time. He said, that, instead of making empty promises, I’d do well to remember what he’d told me on the first day.

“Whatever happens, always make sure the light is on, boy.”

---

On my first day alone I made sure to follow the old man’s routine to the point. First the generator, then the lamp and then everything else. ‘Everything else’ pretty much meant the radio system.

To be honest, I’d no idea why we even kept bothering with the damned radio. There’d been nothing but static on it and I doubted it would change any time soon, if ever.

The first night alone was terribly boring. For a while, I rearranged the room to my liking and then cleaned it out a bit. Unfortunately, this could only fill so much time.

The rest of the night I was sitting in one of the chairs, staring out at the dark sea. I played around on my phone for a bit, but without any reception, there wasn’t much to do. I cursed at myself for not bringing anything else. I’d not make that mistake twice.

For the first two weeks, I was serious about everything. I was new on the job after all. Once routine settled in, things changed.

Nothing had happened so far and I was sure it would stay that way. Quite a few times I turned the radio’s volume up in the unlikely case of an emergency and settled in for a nap. At other times I brought my laptop and spend the night watching movies or a TV show. To be honest, I felt a little bad about it.

I’d been on the job for a good month when the first power outage occurred. A terrible storm was raging and when the power turned off, I went down to the emergency generator. In the room, I could hear the raging of the storm, the shrieking of the wind and the waves crashing against the beach. That’s one hell of a storm, I thought.

The power outage lasted till early morning, long after the worst of the storm was over.

The second power outage came out of nowhere. The lights flickered and soon went out completely. Again I made my way down to the generator. Again I heard sounds from outside and wondered if a new storm was coming up. Soon the rattling of the generator replaced the sounds. This time the power outage didn’t last for long. After not even half an hour I was on my way back down to turn the damned thing back off.

“What a complete waste of time,” I cursed to myself.

I turned the thing back off, locked the generator room behind me and made my way back up. Once I was up again I slumped down in my chair. “Why did I even go to all that trouble? Not like it mattered anyway. Wasn’t like any ships would crash.”

For the next couple of weeks, nothing happened. Then, one night, the power went off again.

“Oh come on, really?”

I was watching a movie on my laptop. I wasn’t in the mood for getting up and making my way down to the generator yet again. The power would most likely be back in an hour anyway. Not like there was a storm or something.

I had one look out at sea and saw that it was completely calm.

I turned the movie back on, but after a while, I started to hear something. At first, I thought it as part of the movie, but when I paused it, the sound was still there. It was a low melody or a type of wordless singing.

I looked around the room for the source of the sound but found nothing.

It couldn’t be the radio, could it? Wasn’t it off due to the power outage? I went forward, but before I could reach it, the weird singing got louder.

It must be coming from outside I realized. As I turned to the window, I saw that the calm sea had turned into raging waves.

“What the hell? How did the sea change so quickly?”

Then I saw something emerge from between the waves. I stepped to the telescope and used it to see what was going on.

As I focused the telescope the first thing I saw was dark hair. What followed was white skin that shimmered in the moonlight. I gasped as I finally saw a face. It was the face of absolute beauty. Soon I could see the naked, upper body of a young woman above the waves. I stumbled back from the telescope, shook my head, opened and closed my eyes and looked again. She was still there.

“Is this a… mermaid?”

It couldn’t be. Mermaids weren’t real. But then what was I seeing?

As I watched on, more started emerging from the sea. They all were swimming together towards the beach. All the while the sea was raging around them. I wondered how these frail beings were able to move so swiftly and carelessly in this choppy sea.

Suddenly a flare was fired into the sky. It illuminated the sea into glaring, red light.

The beings in the water recoiled from it. They were screaming and shrieking, throwing themselves backward.

Before I could wonder who had fired the flare, I saw something horrific. Now their beautiful faces and perfect bodies were replaced by a nightmarish reality. Where I had seen beautiful mermaids before, I now saw bloated, fishy monstrosities.

There was no hair or skin anymore, just scales. There were no beautiful faces, just empty, staring eyes. Where I had seen smiles before, there were now giant jaws that opened to rows of fangs.

I watched in utter fear as those gigantic creatures burst through waves and water alike.

I was glued to the telescope, watching in utter horror. Then the light of the flare died away. The monstrous beings transformed back into beautiful mermaids. Yet again they were frolicking in the water.

This time though, the illusion wasn’t perfect anymore. My brain had seen reality, so it refused to discard it altogether. The beautiful faces of the mermaids were disfigured by maws filled with fangs. Their bodies were still shimmering in the moonlight. Now though they were bloated and disgusting.

For a few seconds, I stood there, dumbfounded. From where was I could see more and more of them appearing in the water.

Then my grip on reality returned and I remembered the words of the old man.

“You don’t know what is out there, do ye? It ain’t those ships that need us. It’s the town.”

It finally dawned on me. It must be those things he’d been talking about. They’d recoiled at the flare. The light was to… keep them out?

As this thought crossed my mind, I realized the terrible mistake I’d made. If not for the flare I’d never…

I rushed to the stairs. Taking multiple steps at a time, I made way to the generator room.

I tried to open the door, but it was locked as always. I reached into my pocket and tried to find the right key. The noise outside grew louder as well as nearer. I couldn’t concentrate. All I had on my mind was the image of the monsters out there.

Any moment now they could reach the beach and with it this lighthouse. There was no singing anymore, now I only heard loud roaring.

As the door sprang open, I hurried inside and tried to turn the generator on. Nothing happened.

“What the fuck? Why aren’t you working?”

I kicked it and tried again, but still nothing. I was starting to panic. I tried again. Then I remembered the oil. Since the last power outage, I’d not checked the thing at all.

“Why the fuck now? Why the hell-“

I was cut off by a noise coming from outside.

“It is just your imagination, it is just your imagination, there is noth-“

Something hard and sharp scratched alongside the outside of the sturdy, metal door of the lighthouse. I froze up. I held my breath. Each second turned into an eternity.

Once I was sure that everything was quiet I dared to breathe again.

Right at this moment, something heavy hit the door and I could hear one of the things roaring from outside. It was only a few meters away from me! I rummaged through the shelf to find the oil.

“Where the fuck is it? It must be here somewhere!”

Fear had overtaken me completely. I looked at the shelf but wasn’t seeing anything. My eyes wandered from left to right and then to the left again. There was nothing there.

My eyes grew wide and I winced, as another bang hit the door. Something was trying to tear its way through the metal. At that moment I saw the bottle of oil, but as I picked it up, it slipped right through my fingers. I cursed again, then picked it up once more. Then I started to purr the oil into the generator. Sweat dripped from my forehead. My body was shaking. I spilled more than half of the oil.

Would the light even do something? The flare worked but if those things are already out of the water? What if…

I didn’t get to finish the thought. The banging and tearing at the lighthouse door stopped. Moments later I saw the doorknob turn.

The image of the old man locking the door each morning appeared in my mind. He held the keys in his hand, put it into the keyhole and turned it twice, giving me a nod. “You never know who shows up out here.”

I hadn’t locked the door. I hadn’t locked it in weeks.

I stood there, but couldn’t move as I heard the door open. For a moment slim, feminine fingers pushed themselves between doorframe and door. Then reality replaced them and a claw-like hand ripped the door open.

Right at that moment, the bloated body of one of the fishy abominations appeared outside the door. In the dark of the night, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. There were too many appendages. It looked to me as if it was a grown together mess of various creatures. I saw legs and arms, but also fins and gills. The body itself was long and much more muscular than I’d thought.

I tried to start the generator again, but nothing happened. The monstrosity roared at me, this time so loud that my ears were ringing. I saw its dead eyes focus on me. The jaws started to open and close in anticipation before it slithered forward. Then it started to squeeze its body through the door.

As the massive body came closer and closer, I tried the generator again and again. Long scaly appendages shot forward, clinging to the door of the generator room. As it dragged itself forward, inch by inch, the generator finally rattled to life.

With it, the lights of the room and in the stairway flashed to life. The abomination roared and screamed up in pain. It raged and yanked itself backward to escape the light.

The stare of the empty, fishy eyes rested on me the whole time. They promised that the thing would return one day and it would drag me down into the dark depths it had come from.

Then the creature had vanished.

I threw the door shut and locked it. Then, for the remainder of the night, I sat shivering in the room at the top of the lighthouse. I sat there, covered in a blanket, shaking and scanning the sea. Thankfully I saw nothing.

Even at dawn, I didn’t move. After more than an hour, I started to go through the old man’s routine. It wasn’t my sense of duty, neither was it diligence. It was fear. I pushed the moment when I’d leave the lighthouse off as far as possible. In my mind, the thing was still out there, waiting for me.

For a long time, I contemplated if I should stay inside.

After I had checked the outside from the top more than half a dozen times, I decided to leave. By now it was past eight in the morning and the sun had been up for more than three hours.

Everything was normal outside. Nothing reminded me of the abomination I had seen.

On my way home, I noticed a commotion near the beach. As I got closer, I saw that the police was there as well.

I pushed myself through the crowd to see what had happened. The sand in front of me was splattered with blood. In the middle of it was a covered up body.

“He must’ve been torn to pieces,” I heard one of the police officers say.

Then I noticed a flare gun lying next to the corpse.

“Who?! Who is it?” I yelled towards the police.

At first they ignored me, but finally, one of them came towards me. He recognized me as the new lighthouse keeper and took me aside. The name he told me made my heart drop. It was Jeremy Wallace, the old man.

I later found out that, even though he had retired as the lighthouse keeper, he still went out to the beach each night. After he gave up his job, he had still continued to keep watch.

He must have been concerned when the lamp of the lighthouse turned off and didn’t come back on. Once he saw the beasts closing in on the beach, he must have used the flare gun to ward them off.

Once the light of the flare died, and the light of the lamp didn’t return, those beasts must have come after him.

I remembered the limp. There was no way he could have gotten away. If I’d only turned on the light earlier.

I thought back to the flare. Without it, I’d never even recognized what danger I was in. These beasts might have very well entered the lighthouse and torn me to pieces. Not only that, they might have gone for the town as well.

Tears of frustration came to my eyes. While I had ignored my duty, it had been this old man who had saved us all. And he had done it at the cost of his life.

After that day I often catch myself thinking of the old man. Now I know what is out there. I never sleep or take my job lightly anymore. I don’t bring anything to read. Instead, I am busy making sure the lighthouse is in prime condition.

I often use the stove to heat up grog. At first, I drank it only to keep the memory of those days with the old man alive. But in the end, he was right. I’d get used to it.

“Come on, admit it!”

“Shut up, Steve! No, nothing happened that night.”

“Oh really? That’s not what Jay told me!”

“Well, too bad he isn’t here.”

Steve sighed audibly.

“Yeah, things would be much more fun with him around,” he pressed out in overplayed outrage.

As he took the lead and walked ahead of me, I rechecked my phone. It was already long past eleven in the evening.

“Yo, Steve, you sure that stupid cabin is up here?”

“Should be pretty close by now,” he called out from ahead.

“Dude, that’s what you said half an hour ago. Can you at least check Google Maps or something?”

Steve rummaged through his pockets for a while before he found his phone. He squinted at the screen for a while before he turned it off again.

“Well?”

“Got no signal out here.”

“You kidding me, right? We’re in the middle of the freaking forest and we’ve been walking for god knows-“

“Yo, Paul, look at that,” he suddenly called out.

I frowned and walked over to him. He was holding up his phone and illuminated a wooden signpost. I looked at the thing and then back at him.

“What’s so special about it?”

“Did you read it?”

I looked at the thing again, hoping against all odds to find it pointing towards the cabin we were trying to find. The first sign pointed towards the resting area where we’d parked the car. The second to some village off to our East. The third one pointed up ahead and showed that we were close to a place called ‘The Thirsty Boar’. The little beer mug next to it suggested that the place was a bar or tavern.

I looked back at Steve, frowning. He couldn’t be serious.

“Come on, it’s only about half a kilometer away. We could get a beer or two and ask someone where the cabin is.”

“How d’you know if the place is still around? I bet it’s closed by now, anyway.”

“Yeah, but the cabin’s in the same direction. We might as well try.”

“How do you even know? What if we went in the wrong direction? Shit man, let’s go back and sleep in my car for tonight.”

“What? We’ve been walking for more than an hour. I’m not walking back to the car!” Steve laid into me.

Finally, I sighed, mumbled a curse, and nodded. Maybe we could get directions and I wouldn’t mind having a beer.

As I followed him I got out my phone once more, but of course, there was no signal.

We trudged onwards, and I was more and more sure that we were completely and utterly lost. Then I heard something from ahead that sounded like faint music. The moment Steve noticed it he hurried onward and I could soon make out signs of light from between the trees. A short while later we arrived at an old tavern. The giant metal boar over the entrance told us we’d made it.

The Thirsty Boar was right in front of us.

“Man, this place looks old,” I pressed out as I looked at it.

Here and there the plaster was flaking off and the wood paneling’s color had almost completely faded.

Regardless of how bad the place looked, the lights were on and music and muffled laughter reached us.

“Might as well have a look,” Steve said and gave me a wink.

As he pulled open the heavy entrance door, the smell of cigarette smoke, sweat, and stale booze hit us.

“Jesus,” I cursed and instinctively covered my nose.

Steve didn’t seem to mind at all and had already stepped inside. I followed him and frowned when I heard the music.

“What’s with the music?”

“Sounds like the stuff my grandpa used to listen to,” Steve answered. “You know, that old folk stuff.”

“Oh god, I hate that stuff.”

Without even bothering with my remark, Steve made his way towards the bar. When I looked around that everything in here was as old as the exterior. Was this the place’s gig? Trying to emulate old times?

As I followed Steve, I noticed that the place wasn’t just old. It was run down, shady, and dirty, as if it hadn’t been renovated in decades. The low-dangling lamp in the center of the room was so yellowed by cigarette smoke it could barely illuminate it.

The room was filled with half a dozen tables haphazardly placed against the walls. Here and there people were sitting together. Some more visible, others shrouded in darkness. Only a handful looked up at us, their faces haggard, their regard indifferent. They soon returned to their drinks and conversations.

The barkeeper was a sturdy man. When we reached the bar, he finished pouring another patron a beer.

Before we could even ask for a drink, he squinted at us and gave us a quick once-over.

“You boys sure you want to spend the night at a place like this?” he asked in a thick, local dialect.

“Now that we’re here, we might as well have a drink,” Steve said. I shrugged and nodded in agreement.

“Make it two beers then,” Steve said, grinning at the barkeeper.

The man nodded, but his face didn’t light up at all and he still regarded us with visible disdain.

Once we’d gotten our beer, Steve and I found ourselves an empty table and set down.

“Man, this place’s shady,” I pressed out in an inaudible voice. For a moment I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder to make sure no one else had heard me.

“Hey, it’s not so bad! At least we got beer.”

With that, Steve raised his glass for a cheer. I halfheartedly toasted with him before I took another look around.

“Can’t say I like the place. Let’s finish our beer and get out of here.”

Steve shrugged and took a big sip of his beer.

After a few more minutes, a patron on the next table turned to us.

“You young gentlemen don’t seem too fond of this place here. The Boar might not look like much, but I assure you, this place has quite the history.”

I said nothing. The man’s voice was sleazy, and his overly friendly expression didn’t feel real at all. It felt like nothing but a facade to me.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“What’s so interesting about the place?” Steve cut me off.

Now the man’s face changed to a sly grin. I watched as he picked up his beer mug and got up from his seat. He almost stumbled to our table in a hunched over way. The black suit he was wearing and the goatee that accentuated his face made him appear more than comical.

“Well, my friend, this place is old, very old. One could say it has always been around in one way or another. But let’s not be rude, my name’s Curt.”

Steve and I introduced ourselves as well.

“You want to know more about the Boar’s history then?” he asked once more, turning towards Steve.

When he nodded vehemently to answer the question, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

The place had never been popular, Curt began. Even worse, the cliental was always of a special sort. As I looked around the room once more, I knew what he was talking about. There was a time, though, Curt said, when the place was notorious. As the stories go, the tavern was known for housing a local black market. It was during the times of World War One and the inflation following it. Quite a few people came here to exchange their last belongings for something to eat.

“Others,” Curt said with a grin on his face, “came to bet.”

Steve looked up. “To bet?”

“You could say, my friend, this place was also a gambling den. Instead of trading your belongings, you could also stake them in a game. Some won, others,” and at that he leaned forward, closer towards Steve, “lost everything.”

“Lost everything?” I asked Curt, but the man only continued to smile at me. Then, after a while, he talked again.

“Well, there’s the story of farmer Heinrich. A rich man, prone to certain habits. You could say he liked the bottle a little more than his wife. It caused trouble at home and drove him right here to this very place. Then, one night, in another drunk stupor, he lost everything. His money, his livestock, and even the farm. Of course, Heinrich was also an arrogant man. When the last gamble was done, he didn’t want to pay and tried to leave. And that was that.”

“That was what? What happened to him?” Steve asked.

Curt’s smile changed to a toothy grin.

“He was never seen or heard of again.”

I chuckled. This had to be an urban legend. This guy, Curt, was trying to give us a little scare. Too bad it hadn’t worked. By now, though, my beer was empty.

“Well, that’s it. Come on, Steve, we got to go-“

“No way, Paul, let’s stay for at least another beer!”

With that, he held up his empty beer mug and put on a jokingly sad expression.

“All right, fine. Guess I go get the second round then?”

Steve game me a nod before he turned back to Curt.

“So about that story,” I heard Steve start.

I cursed as I made my way to the bar. For a moment I looked over my shoulder and saw how far Curt leaned over the table. He was pushing almost his entire upper body into Steve’s direction. What a weird guy, I thought to myself.

“Hey there, could we get another pair of beers?”

The barkeeper looked from me over to our table and frowned.

“You shouldn’t talk to that fellow.”

“Curt? Yeah, he’s weird, isn’t he?”

“I’ll say it again, keep your distance from him. I’ll bring over your beer in a minute.”

As I made my way back my eyes focused on Curt again. The way he sat there, the way he crooked his back if the guy straightened he had to be two meters tall.

As I sat down, Steve’s head jerked to me.

“No beer?”

“The barkeeper brings it over soon. What did I miss?”

I looked over at Curt, who’d taken out a pack of Skat cards. As he shuffled the deck, I saw how old and worn the cards were. The white of the card s had taken on a dark yellow stain and the edges were rounded up and dirty.

“You in, Paul, right? It’s Skat!”

When Curt’s eyes focused on me, I couldn’t help but be crept out. There was an unsettling, almost malignant glow in his eyes. For a moment his smile seemed to grow even further as he waited for my answer.

“Nah, I’m good. I haven’t played in years and don’t even remember the rules,” I finally answered, shaking my head.

“Oh, come on! Why are you always so lame! It’s just a game!”

“Indeed, nothing but a game,” Curt agreed, grinning at me.

It was at this point that the barkeeper arrived with our beer. He put the two mugs down before he put a heavy hand on Curt’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you go back to your table, Curt? I don’t think these boys would be interested in your games. And you,” he turned to me and Steve, “you better get out of here.”

“Oh, but Wolfram, this young man here agreed to play,” Curt said beaming and pointed at Steve.

The barkeeper’s eyes rested on Steve for a long moment, before he turned away and made his way back to the counter.

As I sat there, I thought I’d missed something about that encounter, something important.

“Need one more?” a man from another table called out.

“Oh, indeed, we do! Join us, friend, join us!” a still beaming Curt called out.

Soon after, the man joined as at our table, placing himself on a chair between me and Steve. When I looked at him, I felt the same strange feeling. Something was wrong here. This guy was grinning too, but that was all I could say about him. The rest of his face was almost entirely empty. There was no defining feature to him, nothing at all.

“I assume you know the rules?” Curt asked, turning to Steve.

“Played a few times, so I guess I’m good,” Steve answered upbeat.

“Guess that will have to do. First to reach two hundred points wins. First to reach negative two hundred loses. Whichever happens first.”

Now Skat is a complicated game. If you don’t know the rules, you’re bound to lose.

As I watched though, I realized that Steve hadn’t only played a few times. He had a solid grasp of the game and was quite good at it.

Steve won his first hand and started with a solid lead.

“Well what do you know,” Curt said, laughing a little as he gathered up the cards and shuffled them for the next round.

From how hollow his laugh was and how he squinted his eyes, I could tell that Curt wasn’t happy at all about his loss. As the second round started, I could tell that the man was now much more serious.

It was almost as if luck had turned on Steve. His hand was even better than during the first round, but this time he lost and with it all his initial points.

As I sat there and watched round after round, it seemed almost as if Curt was cheating. Whenever Steve played a hand, the man seemed to have exactly what he needed to counter it.

Curt, on the other hand, won his hands with ease. They seemed almost too good to be beaten.

The newcomer didn’t do much and acted more like a third wheel. During the entire game he didn’t play a single hand, and most of the time he played in an absent-minded manner.

The game was finished in only half an hour and it was Steve who’d lost. The moment the last round was over, Curt announced the result of the game in a bellowing voice.

Steve scowled at Curt for making such an enormous deal out of it, and I could see his face turn angry. What Steve didn’t notice was how everyone in the entire place had turned into our direction. I felt watched, no, almost cornered.

“Hey, Steve, I think we,” I started but Steve didn’t listen to me, instead he spoke up to Curt again.

“How d’you do it?” Steve asked. “There’s no way this was skill or luck.”

“What are you trying to say, friend? You lost fair and square.”

Steve didn’t even bother to answer Curt. Instead, he got up and turned to me.

“Let’s go, Paul, no reason to stay any longer.”

As I was about to get up, Curt’s face still focused on Steve, showed a sly smile.

“Not so fast, friend. There’s one rule above all else in the Boar. Each game here’s a gamble. You lose, you’ve got to pay.”

“We said nothing about gambling,” Steve started. “I don’t give a shit about your rules. I won’t pay a damn thing, especially since you-“

“But you agreed to play a game, which means you agreed to the rules.”

“Okay, fuck this, we’re out of here,” I said and got up.

The situation had changed, and I didn’t like where this was going at all. I didn’t feel safe anymore, and all I wanted was to get out of this place.

“I wouldn’t think of leaving just yet. The Boar is indeed a very thirsty place,” Curt said from behind us. There was now a hard edge to his voice, and all the jolly nature from before was gone.

We’d barely taken the first step when the other patrons got up and positioned themselves between us and the door. Their faces seemed to comprise nothing but glowing eyes and wide grins. Steve next to me stopped, and we both shared an anxious glare before we turned back to Curt.

“How much do you want?” Steve asked and took out his wallet.

“Oh, you misunderstood,” Curt started laughing and finally got up.

This time he straightened his back. As he did, I gasped and instinctively took a step back. I’d know the man had to be tall, but he was almost gigantic. What little light the old, stained lamp had provided grew even darker.

The smile on Curt’s face was now nothing but malignant. His eyes were almost bulging and had changed to a darker, reddish tone.

“Money’s got no value here. No, you must pay with something else.”

“Then what the hell do you want?” Steve shrieked in a loud, scared voice.

“Shouldn’t have joined his game, boy,” the barkeeper said, shaking his head. “Nothing I can do now.”

I watched as Curt’s grin grew wider and wider, almost dividing his face.

Curt’s entire body seemed to grow taller. His head almost pushed against the ceiling above us. His eyes had turned into bulging red orbs and his hands opened and closed in anticipation. Steve turned, was about to run, but two of the other patrons restrained him.

“Hey what the hell are you doing?” I screamed, but I was restrained as well, my screams drowned out by a hand closing over my mouth.

In front of me, I saw how the abomination that had once been a man named Curt, opened his giant, wide mouth.

“It’s your soul I want.”

With that, his hands shot forward and closed around Steve’s shoulders. The two men who’d held Steve in place backed away.

I tried to move, tried to free myself, but the more I struggled, the harder they held me down.

Steve started screaming for me, but there was nothing I could do. I could only watch as Curt’s monstrous head jerked forward, and he brought his face right in front of Steve’s.

Then Curt’s eyes changed to a mesmerizing, iridescent glow. Steve’s screams and his struggling died down. His muscles went limp, his mouth fell open and his expression grew empty. Then his skin sagged, melted before he withered away.

After only ten seconds, it was all over. Steve was nothing more than an empty, withered husk that was held up by two monstrous hands. As Steve’s remains hit the ground, the wallet he’d been holding crashed to the floor next to him.

For a moment I stared at the wallet, then at what had once been my best friend. My brain didn’t comprehend what had happened. Reality itself had become a thing of impossibility, had warped into insanity itself.

By that point, Curt had already returned to his human form. He was smiling again and turned to me.

“Now then, friend, would you be interested in a game as well?” he asked in the same sleazy voice as before.

It was at this point that I could shake off the two men still holding on to me. In sheer and utter terror I pushed myself through the many ominous figures in the room and out towards the front door. Only moments later I was outside, running through the dark of the night.

—

When I woke up, it was morning and I found myself in my car. I didn’t understand how I’d even made it back there. I remembered bits and pieces of my desperate run through the forest, but it all felt distant and surreal.

Then I remembered Steve and jerked up, but I was all alone in the car. Moments later I was out on the tiny resting place and called out for him, but I got no answer.

I didn’t know what had happened last night. There was no way the things I remembered could’ve been real. Maybe they’d drugged our beer, or hell, maybe it all been nothing but a vivid dream. Who knows, maybe we went back and slept in the car. If so, where was Steve?

When I couldn’t find him after hours of searching, I made my way back into the forest. As I followed the path, I called out his name again and again, but there was still no answer.

Eventually, I arrived at the old signpost. From there, I continued on the same path as the night before.

It wasn’t long before I arrived at the old tavern, or better what remained of it. Instead of the building I’d seen last night, all I found was a ruin. Only bits and pieces of the ground floor remained, but I recognized the same metal boar head I’d seen last night. Only now it was old and rusted.

“There’s no way,” I mumbled to myself.

As if in a trance, I stepped forward. There was no front door anymore. The inside of the place comprised nothing but overgrown rubble.

Then I saw something between the grass and the small bushes.

It was a skeleton.

The last fibers of old rotten clothes still clung to the bones. Then I noticed a dirty, old leather purse right beside it.

With shaking hands, I picked it up. And as I scanned the contents, there was no doubt anymore about what had taken place at The Thirsty Boar.

It had all started with an obsession for talk shows in my teenage years. Back then, I couldn’t get enough of them. The audience, the mundane topics, the drama that unfolded in each show, it was terrific.

It was years later, during a studio tour, that I learned about audience extras. I signed up for the program instantly.

Being an audience extra means that you’re invited to shows with a live audience to fill up empty seats. It’s a common practice. There are quite a few shows that invite audience extras, to give the impression that they are packed.

Back in 2008, I was part of a talk show audience for the first time. Being there and seeing everything first hand was an exhilarating experience. Needless to say, it was enough to rekindle my teenage obsession.

I often tried to get a seat in the bigger and more famous shows. There were two problems, though. First, there weren’t always empty seats available. Second, if there were empty seats, it was never enough for everyone who’d signed up for the program. Instead, they relied on a complicated system of rotation.

In time, though, I found out about other, smaller productions. They were recorded for pay-per-view channels, niche programs, or online distribution.

The biggest difference was the number of free seats available. Many of these shows had a hard time pulling in people, and often half their seats were empty.

It wasn’t rare for them to invite participants of studio tours to their shows. If that didn’t do the trick, they’d sent out a member of the production crew to ask pedestrians passing by the studio if they were interested.

That’s how I became a regular in these types of shows. When I learned how often they needed to fill up empty seats, I started to hang out in front of the production studios. If I played it right, I was almost always invited.

While many of these shows weren’t as exciting as the popular ones, they had their very own charm.

I sat in quite a few test runs or pilot runs for upcoming shows. They were pretty hit or miss, but either way, they could be fun, if only for how terrible or ridiculous they were.

What happened in one of those shows haunts me to this day.

The day began like so many others before. By then I knew when production for the day would start and when ‘audience acquisition’ as I called it, took place.

I’d been there for five minutes when some poor devil was sent outside. He went around asking me and many other people if they were interested to be in the audience of their new and upcoming talk show.

I could tell this show wasn’t upcoming in the slightest by the number of people he’d gathered. It was most likely a niche program.

The man ushered us inside and placed us in strategic positions in the audience. It was to give the impression that the studio was packed while it remained half-empty, even with all of us audience extras.

It wasn’t long before the host stepped in and introduced himself. He was a self-proclaimed self-help guru and influencer that no one had ever heard about. The show would be the pilot for his new self-improvement talk show.

Fabulous, I thought, sounds like he’s trying to cash in on the current self-improvement hype. I groaned as I readied myself for what would be few hours of utter boredom.

After he was done talking about himself, the host introduced us to the first guest, Amy. She was an Instagram model and yoga trainer. Her entire demeanor and way of talking clarified that this girl thought she was way more important than she really was. I half drifted off when she ruminated facts about fitness, vegan diets, and the importance of a positive mindset.

The second guest was Tyler. He was all about spirituality and entrepreneurship. He went on about how meditation, finding inner peace, and Feng Shui had changed his life. It had helped him to not only improve his general productivity, but also his business mindset. Apparently, he also worked out a lot.

Discussion started with dieting and exercise, shifted to spirituality versus creativity, only to return to dieting. It was mind-numbingly boring.

There were some questions from the audience. Anyone could tell the people asking were either part of the production team or paid to do so.

‘This one’s for Amy, how are you able to find the time to work out, look so amazing, but also run a yoga business?’

‘Tyler, how is finding inner peace related to the successful launch of a product?’

I couldn’t wait for this show to be over. Once you’ve taken your seat in the audience though, you can’t walk out, at least not as an extra. The worst part? You have to smile and seem enthusiastic about being there. That means applauding when needed and uhhhing and ahhhing when necessary.

Finally, the host introduced guest number three. That’s when things got a bit more interesting.

Quinn stood in stark contrast to Amy and Tyler. The two of them were well-groomed and fit. Quinn, on the other hand, was scrawny, unkempt, and at least a decade older than them. What little hair he’d left on his head was long and greasy, barely able to hide the many bald spots. He wore a pair of old, worn denim pants at least two sizes too big for him. A button-down shirt that seemed as greasy as his hair completed the outfit. His skin was pale and unhealthy, suggesting he didn’t go outside a lot. Even from where I was I could almost smell the guy and knew he hadn’t showered in days.

I could see Amy smile in disbelief as Quinn made his way towards her. When he sunk in the seat right next to her, she inched away as far as possible from the newcomer.

The host smiled awkwardly, confused about Quinn’s appearance, but kept to the protocol. He turned to Quinn and asked him, too, what he thought about self-improvement.

“Well, these people here are full of shit,” he exclaimed and pointed at Amy and Tyler.

“Dieting, exercise spirituality? Give me a freaking break!”

So they brought in the counter. It was a typical thing in talk shows and other, similar productions. At one point you introduced someone with a differing opinion to steer conflict and spice things up a little. Maybe this guy could create enough trouble to make the rest of this show bearable.

The first who lay into Quinn was Amy.

“You know, one can tell right away you aren’t into exercise and fitness,” she said cackling.

Tyler regarded the newcomer with a smug smile but said nothing yet. Still, one could tell what he was thinking.

As Amy continued to belittle him, Quinn just sat there, listening to her. Finally, when Amy’s little rant was over, Quinn talked again, this time right at her.

“If a little stretching, some bending and an Instagram account dedicated to your fat ass are what you call an improvement than I don’t want to know what you were like before.”

While Amy’s face reddened in a mixture of surprise and outrage, Quinn continued.

“None of you know anything about true human potential… or how to unlock it.”

By now even Tyler couldn’t keep from making a snarky remark.

“And someone like you knows all about it, right? That what you learned in your mom’s basement?”

After Tyler’s comment, the host tried his best to intervene. He made a quick little joke before he tried to move the discussion to a new topic.

Everyone went with it, except for Quinn.

“All of this is so useless. You all talk so high and mighty. You’re so sophisticated with your social media accounts, your blogs, and all that other bullshit. It’s all worth-“

“Worth two hundred grand, my friend,” Tyler interjected.

“All worth nothing. Just empty talk,” Quinn finished without even looking at Tyler.

“Then what’s the real way to improve? Aren’t you full of it yourself? You’re here to get a rise out of us because you’ve got nothing to show for yourself, right?” Amy asked with a triumphant smile.

I knew she expected the guy to either back paddle or to keep to his rants and continue to make a fool of himself. Instead, Quinn smiled. He now turned from her towards the audience.

“Do you want to see what true improvement is? Do you want to see the potential hidden deep within man?”

At this, many people in the audience roared with laughter before they called out they wanted to know.

I looked at the host who stood there, uncomfortable. This wasn’t going the way he’d expected it would at all.

“Now, now, shouldn’t we,” he tried to intervene again but gave up when no one gave him any attention.

By now Quinn had jumped off his chair and taken a few steps towards the center of the stage. I noticed the host giving a brief nod to someone off-camera. Was this the cue for security, I wondered? As it looked though, he seemed intent on letting this play out, given the audience’s excitement.

I could see a ‘What the hell’s going on?’ expression on Amy’s face.

“You truly want to see it?” Quinn asked again.

Of course, the audience agreed again. Someone went on, telling him to stop wasting time while others were still laughing at the crazy guy on stage. I could tell that everyone found this new development much more interesting than the rest of the show.

I watched as Quinn raised his arms high into the air and murmured to himself. As he became louder, I first thought it was Latin, but then realized it was something entirely different. It was guttural, more a mixture of sounds than actual words.

The entire audience was laughing now, and soon even the guests couldn’t help but join in.

Had the production team planned this entire thing to garner publicity, or was this guy insane?

“The hell’s going on?” I heard Amy, who looked first at the host and then at Tyler.

I could see that security was already on standby at the edge of the stage. Guess I had my answer, I thought. This wasn’t planned at all.

“Come on now, I think we saw enough of your little act,” the host called out to Quinn and took a few steps towards the man.

“Careful there, he might show you his true potential,” Tyler joked.

Then Quinn’s performance came to an abrupt end. He fell to his knees, his arms dangling at his sides, his head resting on his chest. Heavy beads of sweat fell from his face to the floor.

The host had almost reached him when Quinn’s hand vanished in his pocket. When it returned, he was holding a small knife. Before anyone could react, he moved the knife down the length of his arm. It left a deep, long cut behind and moments later blood gushed from the wound.

“Oh my god!” Amy screamed.

The noise and laughter of the audience had died down. In a second, the entire scenario had changed. This was not wacky or funny anymore. This had become very real and very dangerous.

I saw security rush towards Quinn. They were only a few steps away from him when everything went dark with a loud bang.

Only seconds later, light returned to the stage. It wasn’t from the floodlights, though. No, this light had a different source and now every pair of eyes in the studio rested on it.

Where Quinn had been mere moments ago, stood now a different figure.

It was a glowing and muscular naked man whose body looked as if cast from gold. Blood, organic matter, and lengthy pieces of skin covered the ground all around him. It reminded me of the skin shed by a snake. What had just-?

“This is true human potential,” I heard a deep, raspy voice echo through the entire studio. As the figure in front of me said these words, I could only stare at it. I felt drawn to it almost at an instinctive level and thirsted for more of its voice.

As the power came back on, I saw that security was still there. They, too, couldn’t help but stare at the imposing figure with no idea what to do or what was happening.

Then Amy screamed. She was out of it, clutching on to her knees and rocking. Without saying a word, the figure stepped up to her. It was towering over the woman, almost twice her size. Before it had seemed the size of an average person, but now it seemed much, much taller. As I stared at the figure, I couldn’t tell how tall it was anymore. It was almost as if reality was shifting and changing in its vicinity.

In a swift motion, the golden giant grabbed Amy by the neck and lifted her from the seat. Amy’s eyes grew wide. Her hand shot forward, trying to free herself. I could see how she clawed, scratched, and finally bit at the hand holding her. The figure showed no reaction at all.

There was only one guttural word it said:

“Dâku.”

As soon as the word had passed the figure’s lips, Amy’s face distorted. Her eyes popped from her face and blood gushed from every orifice in her body. Only moments later, she fell apart, the flesh melting from her bones. All that remained of her was a heap of organic matter.

I was in sheer and utter shock and sat there not able to move a muscle in my body. Around me, people screamed and dashed for the exit. I saw them crash into each other and topple over one another as they fought for the door.

Tyler, too, had retreated from the stage and joined the fray. Security was still there, but they still didn’t rush forward. Instead, they backed away from the stage, the fear visible on their faces.

I heard the figure say something else, and the entire studio reverberated from these few words.

Then, with only a few steps, the golden abomination crossed the space between itself and the host.

The man wasn’t able to do anything as the figure picked him up. When I heard the word ‘Dâku’ again, I could finally tear myself from my seat.

I was prepared for a golden hand to close around my neck, to be killed, but somehow I made it to the exit door. Only seconds later I was out of the studio and rushing down the corridors of the complex. In my panic, they had transformed into a sprawling labyrinth. I dashed here and there, from one dead end to the next, without knowing where I was even going.

I don’t know for how long I’d been running when I made it outside.

As I fell to the ground, panting and shaking, more and more people streamed from the building. Minutes later, the police and multiple ambulances arrived.

Security soon escorted everyone from the premise to a nearby open area. Most people didn’t understand what was going on, but I heard the entire studio complex was being evacuated.

Once things had calmed down, I tried to leave. A sturdy security guard stopped me and informed me in a few brief sentences I had to stay a bit longer.

In the end, I got the entire show. The production company regretted what had happened today. They would reimburse any damage I’d suffered because of the incident. After that, they told me what had happened in their eyes.

A man had come to the production studio pretending to be a guest for the show I’d been seated in. Once they realized he didn’t belong, it was already too late. They made the mistake to run with it. Around the time of the general power outage, the man snapped and got out a concealed weapon. After harming himself, he’d then attacked the other guests and the host. Thankfully, though, the police were quick to restrain and apprehend the man.

They didn’t say a thing about the golden abomination or that people had been killed.

When I raised my voice in protest, they informed me it would be better for me to not spread any silly rumors. It would be best if I kept my mouth shut and signed the statement they’d prepared for me. The production company would handle the rest.

I knew it was a thread and so I signed it right away.

There was nothing about the incident on the news. It was by sheer luck that I even saw the brief article about it in the local paper. All it talked about was a fire in the studio complex and the subsequent evacuation. The entire incident was quickly and quietly swept under the carpet.

To this day, I still can’t make any sense of what happened that day. What had Quinn done? What had he become? Had this weird man found a way to evolve to a higher form of being?

And if so, what had he become? Had the police been able to stop him? Had they killed him?

I try to tell myself that this is what happened, but part of me can’t believe it. Somehow I doubt that guns would’ve been able to stop a being that could kill with a single word.

I doubt it can be stopped at all.

Many people wonder what it would be like to be famous, to be a star.

I guess it’s the reason casting and talent shows became so popular in the early 2000s. It was a sort of wish fulfillment, plain and simple.

By that time, I’d worked in the television industry for quite a while and knew it was a harsh place. There was no actual job security. Once a show, project, or series was over, you were on your own.

When I was offered to be part of a production team in this new and upcoming category, I took the chance right away.

It should pay off and for years I worked on my countries equivalent of Popstars, Got Talent, Top Models, The Voice, and other similar productions. I was not a juror, moderator, or writer. No, I was part of the production team.

Being behind the curtains taught me quite a bit about the ins and outs of this industry.

It won’t be news to anyone if I tell you that all those shows are fake and scripted.

We, as the producers, had a clear idea about the show beforehand. We knew exactly what types of people we needed for a season to be a success. While talent is necessary other criteria are much more important.

The most important thing was that each of the finalists filled a particular image, a stereotype, so to say. A few of those are the hottie or hunk, the wallflower, the hatchling or little genius, the unattractive one, the old guy, and the freak.

Most of those should be self-explanatory.

The most interesting one is the freak. He’s a total wildcard. He’s not there for people to identify with, but for them to cringe and laugh at, to love or hate, but also to impress. It can be a social-awkward nerd with an unbelievable set of dance moves or a cross-dressing furry with a fantastic voice. The weirder they are, the better.

It was a general rule that most people would watch the first couple of shows of a season. The reason was simple. Those were the initial castings and general the most humorous of the entire season. What can I say, people tuned in to laugh at all the weirdos that showed up. What sold them on the rest was the finalists.

During the castings, our prime goal wasn’t to find talented people. Our top priority was to fill as many of the different stereotypes as possible. One of the hardest to find was the freak, but they were also the most rewarding ones. Whether or not we could fill the spot could make or break an entire season of the show.

Think about any of the talents shows you watched. Which people do you remember? Who did you talk about with your coworkers? It’s always the weirdos.

On a casting day back in 2014, I met one such person. Because of that encounter, I should never work in that industry again.

Casting days are tough. Sure the castings last only eight hours, but because of all the organization, it can easily become double that.

The worst thing about it is that a considerable number of candidates just plain suck. It’s funny for an hour or two, but after that, it drags you down.

During the preceding weeks, our roster of finalists had filled up one by one. Only a few spots remained open. One of those was the freak. We had made it a priority in this week’s castings to find someone that could fill the spot.

There’s no shortage of weird candidates. The tricky part however is to find one that’s talented enough to be a finalist.

That day one person stuck out the moment he set foot into the building. It was the violinist Stephan de Preaulx.

He chose each of his steps wisely and held his head high in the air. An air of grandeur surrounded the man and not just a bit of arrogance. His outfit stood in clear contrast to his entrance. He wore a plain black suit with a bow tie and a pair of old worn-out leather shoes.

Stephan was an older man, most likely in his mid-fifties. He was tall, lanky, with arms that seemed a tad bit too long. His hair was a long, greasy mess and a scrubby goatee accentuated his face. His most remarkable feature was his eyes. They were of a hazel color and showed a radiant, almost feverish glow.

In short, he was so weird you couldn’t help but stare at him.

Weirder still than his appearance was his behavior. It was both eccentric and over-dramatic. That wasn’t all though. His way of speaking was strange too, old fashioned, and almost antiquated. He’d pronounce certain words and vowels almost formally while slurring others. His accent didn’t fit his name at all. It wasn’t French, but a mixture of provincial German with a hint of Russian. No one could tell if it was genuine or faked.

“Stephan de Preaulx, violinist extraordinaire, here to test his music,” he announced in a booming voice when he was asked what brought him here. It resulted in a lot of stares from the other people in the room.

When we asked him how long he’d been playing his instrument all we got as an answer was a smile. During the brief interview, he didn’t say a lot. Occasionally he even spaced out. He didn’t react to us anymore and instead whispered to the instrument he was holding in his arms.

The instrument was as weird as he was. It was a slightly warped and distorted version of a violin. The best way to describe it is to imagine a violin made by someone who’d only heard about them but never saw a real one. It came close enough, but it was still distinctly different.

If this guy was any good with his instrument, I thought, he’d be sure to become a finalist.

We scheduled his act for later in the afternoon. After the initial interview, we pretty much left him to himself in the waiting area.

Most people spend this time preparing for their act or socializing with the other candidates. Stephan did neither. He just sat down and waited. Again he seemed to space out completely and ignored everyone who tried talking to him.

He only came back to life when we informed him it was time for his act. In a moment his expression changed to one of intense focus and his eyes showed the same feverish glow I’d seen before.

“Well then,” he said in his weird voice and got up.

Again, he did it in an over-dramatic way and almost jumped off the chair. The few other candidates that remained in the waiting area couldn’t help but giggle.

Without listening to our instructions or waiting for his cue, he made his way to the stage. It forced us to play his entrance music, Pachelbel’s Canon in D almost half a minute early.

The procedure for every act is the same. The most important part is that it’s the judges who set the tone. You’re the guest in their show after all. The protocol is simple. They welcome you, ask you a few questions and pull a joke or two before you’re asked to perform your act.

Not so with Stephan. The moment he’d made it to the stage he spread out his arms and introduced himself in his loud, booming voice.

“I am Stephan de Preaulx, violinist extraordinaire, here to test his music!”

The judges laughed.

“Well, he might not know how things work here, but he sure knows how to make an impression,” one of them said jokingly.

It was a blatant plea for this guy to stick to the protocol. Stephen, however, fucked things up further.

He completely ignored the judges, raised his violin, and began to play.

A long, terrible screech came from the instrument.

“Oh god, this can’t be happening,” I cursed to myself and frowned.

As the man kept moving the bow over the violin hectically, the screeching continued to fill the studio. This guy didn’t know the first thing about playing the instrument.

The audience broke into loud laughter and soon booed the man. The face of the judges changed from complete surprise to utter disbelief. Their faces said the same thing I was thinking.

“Is this guy for real?”

After only ten seconds of the unbearable sounds, the first of the judges rose her hand. She was about to hit the buzzer to vote the man out, but then her arm stopped in midair.

Her expression changed, she gasped audibly before she lowered her hand again. The laughter and the booing of the audience subsided.

Everyone became quiet and only the terrible screeching of the ghastly violin remained. Almost the only one because right then I heard it too.

There was a second, much different melody below the screeching. It was a harmonic, droning melody, one that was almost hypnotic. As quiet as it was, the longer you listened, the more you ignored any other sound. You were drawn in by it more and more.

An ordinary violin shouldn’t be able to produce such a melody, I thought. Was this the reason for the strange shape of the instrument?

For a while I just stood there, at the side of the stage, watching Stephan’s hectic playing, and listened to his music.

Then I noticed something.

It was almost invisible and at first, I thought it was nothing but an optical illusion. It was a translucent strand that spread out from the violin. I watched dumbfounded as it twisted and then extended towards the audience. Was this weird man somehow able to visualize his music?

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I closed my eyes, then opened them again, but the strand was still there. By now though, it wasn’t just one, it was hundreds of them. They were all growing further and further, the faster the man played.

Most of the people in the audience sat there, wide-eyed with an empty expression on their faces. It was as if they were hypnotized. None of them seemed to notice the strands and none of them reacted as they entwined people.

I stared at the other members of the production crew and many were as confused as I was.

When I looked back at the audience, I saw a middle-aged woman jump from her seat. Her face was a mask of terror as she raised her hands, clutching at something invisible to her eyes.

It wasn’t to mine though. The translucent strands had closed around her throat. Mere moments later her eyes grew wide, her body went limp, and she fell to the floor.

The strands let go and I could see that they were now faintly glowing. A moment later they receded to the instrument, taking the small, glowing light with them.

As I watched, I saw the same thing happening all over the audience to at least a dozen more people.

“What the hell’s going on?” I pressed out .

The voice of an old lady brought me back to reality. She’d noticed that the person next to her had fallen to the ground and she’d called for help.

Other people seemed to wake up from their hypnotism, but no one understood what was going on.

As more and more people were passing out and clutching at their throats, panic spread. Some people tried to help the victims while others tried to flee from the studio.

All the while, the frantic music of Stephan de Preaulx continued. The man wasn’t fazed in the slightest by the chaos erupting around him.

As people ran for the exits, I finally gave the cue for security. Then I took a step towards the stage and the violinist myself, only to stop right in my tracks.

There was something other than the translucent strands. It was several shades that surrounded the violinist. They were almost invisible, like the strands, yet I could make out their faces. One was boasting with laughter, his face a mask of infinite jest. It played the violin with Stephan, creating this second, hypnotic melody. The faces of the others were nothing but impish grins and glowing eyes.

They were the ones who controlled the strands. I saw them sending out more and more of them, twisting them and entangling people. Then, once a person had passed out, they pulled them back and devoured the small light they’d stolen.

My body froze the moment one of them laid eyes on me. It must’ve realized I could see it.

I stumbled back one step, then another and then I could not move. As security rushed Stephan, I felt something close around my throat. My fingers clutched at the translucent strands. I tried to rip them away, tried to stop them from suffocating me, but I was unable too. All the while the ghastly shade grinned at me.

I fought for air, tore at my throat, and told myself repeatedly to stay conscious. For a second I slipped off into the darkness, but then I could suddenly breathe again.

Security had finally made it to the stage and ripped the instrument from the man’s hands.

I sat there on the floor, taking in breath after breath greedily. The shades, as well as the strands, were gone.

After the music had stopped, people calmed down and soon normalcy returned to the studio.

By now the emergency personnel had entered. Most of the people who’d fallen turned out to be fine. Nothing had happened to them apart from passing out and suffering a few slight bruises. It was quickly concluded that the strange violin music was to blame for what had happened.

I could see the relief on many people’s faces when they heard that their friends and relatives were unharmed.

Unharmed, I thought. It was true enough, at least in a physical sense.

Those shades though, they’d been after something else. Whatever they’d taken from people wasn’t physical though. I knew because for a moment I’d felt those strands probing inside of me, searching for something. The only thing that saved me was the sudden end of the music. It had banished those terrible shades back to wherever they’d come from.

When I turned to the stage, I saw how the strange violinist took his instrument and bow from security. Then he turned around and walked backstage. As he passed me, he gave me the shortest of grins which sent me back cringing in horror.

I wanted to call out to people to stop him, to restrain him, and ask him what he’d done. But somehow I could only watch as he walked away.

Only a few minutes after his act had been put to an end, Stephan de Preaulx had vanished from the studio.

Afterward, higher-ups proclaimed it had all been a social experiment. They wanted to see how an audience would react to this type of performance. People’s tickets were refunded and everyone present would be awarded tickets for the rest of the season. The crazed violinist was revealed to be an actor. The strange things that some people had seen were state-of-the-art visual effects.

We members of the production team got our very own version of the story. It was essentially the same bullshit they’d told the audience. I didn’t believe a single word, but I still signed the form they held in my face, regardless.

For the day all castings were discontinued, but the next day it was back to business as usual.

That morning I showed up like I’d done on so many others throughout the years. When I reached the stage, however, something inside of me made me recoil instinctively. It was almost as if my body was afraid to find Stephan de Preaulx out there once more.

In the end, I couldn’t do anything about it. I tried entering again and again, but after I’d suffered a terrible panic attack, I could do nothing but resign from my position. Even when the studio told me I’d never get a job in the industry again if I left now, in the middle of the season, I still did it. There was no way that I could ever work in a studio or near a stage ever again.

To this day, years after the incident, I still wake up in the middle of the night. I’m still suffering from terrible nightmares.

And every single time, there’s this cold pain in my chest and I’m filled with a sad yearning for something I’ve lost.