Julia Legare

A few years ago I was spending some time with friends exploring old, supposedly haunted, places. We were at the Edisto First Presbyterian Church, where a girl named Julia Legare was buried in her family mausoleum in 1852.

People reported hearing unearthly screams time and time again, but never investigating the cause of it. Fifteen years later, when they opened the door to the mausoleum to inter the next family member who had died, finding her corpse huddled in the corner next to the door, arms outstretched as if still trying to find the exit.

Well, my friends thought it would be a funny idea to shut the giant stone door (which was originally open) behind me and pick me up in the morning. The bastards left me there… I tried and tried, using all of my strength, but I couldn’t budge it, it had taken four people to put it in place. In the dark, I resigned myself to the night ahead of me.

Now, I normally don’t frighten easily, but sitting there in the relatively small place, surrounded by a looming pressure that I couldn’t begin to explain, the darkness itself seemed to try to consume me. From all around it felt like weight was pressing against my skin, making even breathing hard. I sat in the dark for what must have been hours.

Then I heard the scratches. They were faint at first, I was sure it was my imagination, but soon they became more and more frantic as time passed. I huddled up in one of the corners farthest from the door and tried to cover my ears but nothing could stop the growing cacophony. This all may have lasted for a few minutes, but each second was an unbearable eternity.

Then, a loud scream echoed through the darkness, it was a wail of unrestrained pain and fear. The scratching stopped. For the first time I could distinctly make out the sound of a girl sobbing to herself, the pitiful gasping of one without a shred of hope left.

I felt such sorrow at the moment, such pain, that I think I forgot how to be afraid. In my heart all her suffering seemed to resonate. Inexplicably, I found myself apologizing aloud for everything that had happened to her. Hell, a part of me wanted to reach out and feel for a body to hug, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it for fear that I truly would find one.

I don’t know whether or not she heard me or was even aware of my presence, the sobbing continued and I could again hear fingers against the stone slab that was the tomb door.

I fell asleep at some point, which I felt was a merciful gift from the fates. I’m not sure how long I was out, but I was woken by a loud and powerful thud as the door slammed against the ground outside. I could tell from the light gray outside that daybreak was near, so I must have slept for at least a few hours.

I stumbled outside and went to a small unlocked prayer house. I think previously it was a segregated mini-church, but regardless, I leaned against the door and waited nervously until my ‘friends’ arrived. I approached them as they clustered around the fallen door, two of them were kneeling next to it with faces of shock.

There were bloody streaks covering the interior of the door, some with light scratches from fingernails, many without. I think now that she must have shrieked when they broke away from her hands, but I can’t be sure.

At first, they looked to me, then checked my hands, then nervously glanced at one another. I was rightfully pissed with them and told them every detail of what I remembered, wanting them to know what I had been put through.

Finally, after I grudgingly got into the car and we started to head back, someone spoke up. My friend said to me “We were afraid to say anything, but look at your face.”

I later found out that many times people had tried to permanently seal the entrance to the mausoleum, including enough heavy locks and chains that it would require heavy equipment to remove it, only to have it found torn open with the door lying on the ground once more. This was in the 1980s, the last attempt of many through the decades. It seemed like some force was ensuring that it was impossible to ever repeat the mistakes of the past. This is something I am understandably quite grateful for, but to this very day I am chilled to the bone when I think of what happened that night.

When I reached from the back seat and adjusted the rear-view mirror, I saw that there was blood caked on my face. Just like the streaks upon the stone slab, there were dark red lines on either side, as if someone had gently cradled my face with torn fingers as I slept that night, feeling the warmth of another for the first time in over a hundred years.

Exit

I know this road better than I know myself. I know each of Interstate 85’s 250 odd miles; I know that it takes me an average of 3 hours and 26 minutes to drive west, from Charlotte to Atlanta, and an average of 3 hours and 29 minutes to make the same trip going eastward. I know the price of gas at a dozen stands, and the closing hours of each fast food shack and greasy diner. I know the curves of each low hill and I know each stand of pine and oak trees. I know the stretching dark of the long winter nights and the wet heat of the summer breeze. I know these things well because they are the totality of my existence now.

I know the names of each exit, westward and east. Batesville, Poplar Springs, Spartanburg. They tick through my head as I pass, but the Silver Creek Road exit is never among them. In three years of this endless loop, it has never appeared again. If I ever begin to doubt that it will, then I have nothing left.
The Silver Creek Road exit doesn’t exist on any map, or at least, it no longer does. It may have once, but like the road itself, it has been razed from the earth and from all memory and record. At the beginning, I spent long anxious days poring over old surveying maps and neighborhood planning documents, searching in vain for any sign of the road, or the exit I know I had taken. When there was nothing left in the libraries and city halls to comb through, no meek county official left to interrogate, wide-eyed and frothing, then I began the drive.

I’ve been through two cars, and have burned through my savings and now survive off a stack of rapidly vanishing credit cards. I have no address to receive bills, and no intention of paying, and have been filling my trunk with small plastic gallon jugs of gas, while the cards are still accepted. When this filthy and battered Oldsmobile gives up the ghost at last, I suppose I will have to learn to hitchhike.

I first took the Silver Creek Road exit three summers ago, on that last night that I was with Bobbie. I have in my head just a few frozen frames of that ride left, her black curls bouncing like springs in the evening breeze, her gapped toothed and freckled smile, and the slow summer crossing into night.
We’d made that drive together a dozen times, between our apartment in Atlanta and her brother in Charlotte. There was nothing remarkable that night. We simply ran low on gas and took the first exit we came across. I remember vividly passing beneath the green and sparkling white letters of the exit sign, and onto the sharp curve of the road.

The street turned perpendicular from the light and noise of the highway into inky darkness of the pine trees. Nothing remarkable to separate it from a hundred other country roads, but as the lights of the car penetrated the darkness, a vague and trembling unease passed through me. The tall rustling pines seemed black even under the blue white of the headlamps, and the road began to rapidly degrade, becoming pocked and uneven just a few dozen yards in.

All the roar and glare from the highway seemed swallowed up behind us, and there were no lights ahead of us for as far as we could see. My insides felt tight and knotted, and I turned to Bobbie. She had her skinny legs tucked to her chest and looked at me, quizzically, one eyebrow raised, with a small crooked smile. Her small bravery seemed to dissipate the chill that had been steadily rising in me.

I looked forward to the road, I felt a sudden sharp pressure on my chest. Stretching out in front of the wan light of the headlamps, the road ended. There was a small field of shattered asphalt slabs, and then the forest swallowed up every trace under a blanket of rotting pine needles. Something twinkled brightly between the trees, and I strained to pick it out of the darkness. It was the smooth chrome of a bumper, attached to a pitted and rusting car, completely enclosed by the towering pines.

A wave of panic and disorientation crawled down my scalp and my knuckles went white on the wheel. Bobbie placed her hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed once.

“Cal,” she said, firm and evenly, “we need to turn around now, honey.”

There was a tremulous quality to the last word, as the surreal darkness seemed to further constrict around us. I heard her take a little gasp of air. I began to turn the wheel when I realized how narrow the road had become. It had been two lanes when we started, I was sure of this, but the forest seemed to be pressing against both sides of the car, far to narrow to turn around. Blood pounded in my temples, and I threw the car into reverse. The boughs of the trees scraped against both sides, soft whispering scratches from the needles and the soft thuds of thicker branches.

Bobbie held her hand on my knee, calming and reassuring even as panic threatened to overwhelm me. I could see the highway moments later, a thin cloud of hazy illumination over the rise behind us, and the forest seemed to part like curtain. Bobbie released her held breath and giggled softly, and I felt a wave of elation wash over me. I turned to her to share relieved smiles, and I locked with her dark eyes when the siren sounded, once and sharp in the silence, and bright blue and red strobes flashed through window.

The police cruiser was parked in the center of the road, crouched low and silent like a predator. The familiar red and blue flicker bathed the street in weird crooked shadows. As I turned off the engine, there was the slam of a car door and I could hear the heavy thud of boots on the road, pacing towards us.

The comforting normalcy of the sight of a police officer began to drain away as he approached in the dark. He carried no flashlight, and I saw his gloved hands hanging straight at his sides in the side mirror as he walked towards me. He was dressed in thick winter wear, with his high collar turned up, and his hat pulled low. He approached the window, and as he leaned straight from the waist to fix his black and beady eyes on mine, I realized just how thin and tall he was.

“License and Registration.” His voice was muffled and thick with a strange and choked drawl, almost unintelligible, and his lips seemed to move in manner counter to the shape of his words. The summer night air around him seemed to grow even warmer. There were no sounds, no wind in the pines, no chirp of insects.

I was mesmerized by the strangeness of what seemed, for all the world, to be an absurd imitation of a man. For the second time in as many minutes, I wondered fleetingly if I was dreaming. I could see now that he had no badge, and was simply dressed in unremarkable black clothes.

The overwhelming fog of dread and panic seemed to condense all at once around me, and singular animal command to flee, at once, drove my hands forward towards the keys.

He was quicker. One black gloved fist slammed into my temple, and a shower of stars exploded over my left eye, and the world tipped sideways.

I remember him dragging me from the car, the shocking heat in his grasp seeming almost to burn. I remember hearing Bobbie’s screams and seeing in dizzy glimpses her brief flight, before being swept into those inhumanly long and slender arms. One glove came off in the struggle and I saw the pale white hand, like an immense knobby spider, each leg tipped with a black and curved talon. The world swam around me, wild and burning, and I struggled to move my limbs.

Bobbie was limp in his arms as he approached me again, and I struggled weakly to my feet. Our eyes met in the red and blue strobe; he looked nothing like a man now, his once pale mockery of humanity was stretching and distending away into some unthinkable shape. He did a very human thing then, and smiled, lips peeling back to reveal rows of thin white needles.

I was running before I knew it, bolting dizzy and weaving down the road. I was vaulting across the shoulder of the highway when my rational mind clawed it’s way to the surface. Coward! it screeched at me. My legs shuddered to stop, and sudden painful guilt flooded my lungs like fluid and stole my breath. Bobbie’s face loomed in my vision and I felt a profound and clear shame pressing down on me.

That’s when the car struck me, sliding on locked and screeching tires. I was tossed into the concrete median, striking the back of my skull. I woke up three days later, wrapped in plaster and flooded with morphine.

Gaffney, Blacksburg, Kings Mountain. The exits pass by, each one decreasing the chance of seeing Silver Creek Road exit on this go around. It was impossible to accept in those first few days of maddening research that Silver Creek Road had simply vanished, and so I made the drive myself, carefully reading each sign. When it failed to manifest itself, I made the drive again, this time at night. And then again.

Sometimes there’s a zen-like quality to the repetition, the familiar patterns of predictability and order. The immutable order of the land, the locked procession of towns and trees is comforting as it continues to grind my hope away like a millstone. Most days, I can believe and accept that Bobbie is gone. There is always that shadow of doubt, that crystalline thread of hope, but it feels hollow in my hands now.

There is one thing I must believe: if it appeared to us once, it will to me again. And if I can find it, that pale horror in a man’s skin, I will kill it. If the bullets fail, I need only a few moments to ignite the trunk’s cargo, and to lure murdering thing to the me.
I swear to the stars, I will never stop looking.

By: Josef K.

When The Rain Comes

It begins gently at first, softly falling like a child’s tears. It is a sad thing, but not so unusual and wholesome in its way. And the wind lightly blows, almost tenderly caressing your face. This will not last, but it’s nice isn’t it?

In the beginning there were two and they knew love of a kind.

The rain comes down harder now, no longer a child’s gentle weeping, and not quite an adult’s passionate cries for a lost love. It is somewhere in between. Then too, the wind picks up, catching your hair, causing it to fall across your face. It speaks, in the way that wind speaks, a soft moan, nothing more yet.

Time passed, and the two brought forth children. The children built and bred and grew. Thousands, then millions.

The rain has not changed, it does not fall with greater intensity, but in the distance the faint sound of rolling thunder and the flash of a great light. The voice of the wind calls out to it, the clouds gather more strongly.

The two were not man and woman, but that is close. In the full distance of time, they grew apart and so their children suffered. She was not happy with Him, but She would not leave Him.

The rain falls strongly now, if you were not wet before, you are now. The wind’s moan has changed to a howl and the lightning grows closer. The air is charged with possibility.

She loved them, but to Him they were a barrier, something that caused the coldness that had grown between them. Perhaps that is why She said nothing when they drove Him out.

The storm is a storm in truth now, the rain stings a little as it falls, water dripping from your hair. The wind’s howling pierces your clothing, finding any gap and driving itself through it, perhaps seeking your warmth. You should find shelter, but something is about to happen.

Generation upon generation grew, lived, and died. They forgot Her name and His. She was still with them though and they still loved Her, in their way, but He, they lost entirely. He watched from beyond, unable to touch Her. Sometimes He lashed out at the skies.

The lightning is close now, illuminating the entire night sky, the thunder crackling within a minute or so of the lightning. It should feel cold, shouldn’t it? The wind is strong and the rain is fierce, but you are not cold. There is an energy building.

A crack has formed in his millennia old prison. He feels it and rages against it, throwing His might towards it. The crack widens.

You stand there, silently staring at the raging heavens as lightning cracks open the vault of the sky. The lines of light hang suspended in the air, after they should have ended. Something is coming.

He feels freedom. He goes to it; soon He will be with His bride once more.

He is coming.

He is angry.

By: Jimmy Reinstatler

God's Mouth

I huffed and puffed under my breath as I stared into God’s Mouth. I felt like the Big Bad Wolf ready to interrupt the innocent little pigs as they hurriedly fortified their makeshift homes. I grinned at this thought and then turned my head to look for Margaret. She was a couple of feet down the hill from the entrance of the cave, holding a walking stick close to her petite breasts. “Hurry up!” I called down to her. I turned back to the cave, still grinning. An old, rotted sign outside read ‘God’s Mouth Cave: Keep Out!’ What a tired cliché.

Margaret finally made it to the entrance and stood beside me, almost doubled over and out of breath. I looked down and smiled. “Check it out!” I laughed. “God’s mouth. Wonder where Jesus’ anus is?” I chuckled to myself. Margaret was less amused.

“Give me the damn water bottle,” she said, exasperated. The open bottle met her lips, and for a moment I felt peaceful in a way, watching her drink the water. Actually I take that back. The ‘peaceful’ comment, I mean. It was more of a feeling that was sort of hard to put my finger on or give a name, but I could settle for a nice ‘content’. Content seemed to be one of those words that manifest itself when natural, human words seemed to fail. Again, an utter cliché, but it felt good to feel a strange, mixed-up sort of happy for once.

I sighed and turned my flashlight on. I pointed it into the cave. Black. God’s Mouth. This seemed like the antithesis of a Holy Spirit. I turned again to Margaret. “You ready?” I asked. She was finally standing straight up. She nodded. I clapped a friendly hand to her back and we walked into God’s Mouth.

The inside was not unlike the preview I had glimpsed outside with my flashlight. Dark, dismal, and endlessly black. It seemed to stretch endlessly, no matter how I positioned my flashlight. The rocky terrain was damp and imposing. The last natural light slowly disappeared behind Margaret and I as we made our way deeper and deeper. I found it strange how soft and compelling the world around me now appeared, despite the stalactites, stalagmites, and other various rocky formations being so jagged. It seemed that even amongst the pointed teeth of God I could lay down and rest there forever. It was comfortable.

Apparently Margaret didn’t agree. She shivered uncomfortably under my arm. I raised my eyebrows. “Need your coat?” I asked. I tried to look at her and make non-verbal communication as explicit as possible until I realized that we were lost inky blackness of the Mouth. I bit my lip and waited, but she didn’t respond. For a couple minutes we walked in silence. She stopped and stood motionless. I stopped, too.

“Why the hell are we even in here?” she said. She sounded irritated. I shrugged – more to appease myself than her – and shoved my flashlight under my face. Bladed shadows obscured half my face, the other half illuminated in a wretched mask. “Spooky!” I cried, chuckling. She didn’t move.

I sighed. “I thought you wanted to go,” I said. I noticed how my voice echoed against the cave walls at any volume. “I mean,” I began again, scratching at my chin, “You did say you wanted to go see some nature for our vacation. And you did sound impressed when I told you about my visit to Mammoth Caves a couple years back. So…” My voice trailed off. I could still sense her irritation.

“No,” she said. I frowned. “No, you wanted to go here. I wanted to go to a beach or something. But no, a cave. A cave, Nathan!” She sounded more like the Big Bad Wolf now. “I know that you have this weird fetish for spelunking or something, but I don’t really want to be dragged in to it. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go on a trip and get into nature and fresh air, but this,” I could hear her arms flail and gesture about in the thick air. “This is cave air, not fresh air. This air is practically fermenting! Plus, isn’t this illegal? Can we please just leave?”

We both stood there. The only sound that could be heard was the electricity in the air being stifled and smothered by the damp atmosphere. Finally, I began to walk. I didn’t hear Margaret follow me, but I kept moving forward. Then, “Nathan,” she said, “Stop. Please stop.” So I stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. I could hear her moving closer to me. “I’m tired and I’m not used to running and climbing around and the like. I’m just tired.”

“It’s okay,” I said. She gripped my arm. “Really. It’s fine.” I shook my head. “Which way is out? I don’t remember.” I could feel Margaret physically pause. Neither of us could remember. Somehow, in the confusion of our argument, I’d forgotten which way we had been moving. Idiot, I thought to myself, I should have brought a goddamn rope or something to trail from the entrance of the cave. I had to take action, so without much thought, I turned 180 degrees and said, “This way.”

We walked for what seemed to be hours. My feet were tired and sore, and I could hear Margaret’s groans from behind me. She held my hand tightly. I felt terrible. This was my fault.

Then, I froze. “Hey. Hey,” I said, “Put your hand out. Feel this rock.” I could hear Margaret’s bare palm press against the stone. “Isn’t this, like…abnormally warm?” I said. She didn’t say anything. I began to work my way along the wall, feeling it as I went, shining the flashlight in front of me. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on my head as the ceiling of God’s Mouth met with my scalp.

“Ow! Shit!” I shouted.

“Oh, Nick, are you okay?” Margaret asked. She seemed on the verge of panic now.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Please, calm down. We’ll get out of here soon, I promise.”

I started again, pointing my flashlight upwards now to see the ceiling above me. It seemed to be getting narrower. That was strange. “Listen, uh, Margaret, babe,” I said through clenched teeth, “I think we gotta turn around.” Margaret sighed next to me.

Again, we walked for a decent length. I kept my flashlight pointed upwards this time. Sure enough, the space in the cave seemed to become smaller and smaller. If there was any resonating light left in God’s Mouth aside from my flashlight, I’m sure Margaret would have been able to see the whites of my eyes, spreading in panic. We were completely lost.

I let go of Margaret’s hand and began to feverishly feel my way along the walls. “No, Nathan!” I heard her shout. I kept going. We had to get out. If we were lost, nobody would be able to find us.

I kept feeling along the wall until I abruptly hit a corner. “Fuck,” I said aloud. “Margaret, this seems to be a dead end.” I spun around on my heel. “Margaret?” No answer. Shit.

I began to repeat my process again, almost running as I felt the wall run past my fingertips. Cool, damp rocks and jagged spears. Suddenly, I found myself at a corner again. “Fuck fuck fuck,” I shouted. “Margaret!” I was belting her name out now. In the corner of the cave’s maw where I had been thwarted so many times already, I heard a noise. It sounded like muffled static from a television. I pressed my ear against the rock. It seemed to be getting even warmer now. I heard the faint sounds of Margaret on the other side of the rock. She was screaming.

“No no no,” I said. “No no no no no.” I began running haphazardly into the walls around me. With dawning realization came a wave of sheer horror. There was no entrance. There was no exit. Only these four corners and me.

I could feel blood begin to trickle from the cut I managed to get by bashing my body into the cave’s walls. They were closing in on me. They were coming in for the kill, and soon they would be pressing in on my skull and crushing my rib cage.

I sat there for hours, waiting for death. My flashlight was becoming dim and blinking. Finally, I felt the soft touch of these rocky walls press against my back. I began to cry as I lay down on the ground. I let my flashlight roll on the small hills of stone. As I quietly stayed prone, tears dripping down my face, I turned and looked at the flashlight. Its last, fading beams of light pointed at something not far away from my face. I squinted in the darkness. My eyes widened and I felt tears fall even harder from my face. The rocks were piercing my skin now and blood dripped from all sides.

There, in the last light of my flashlight, was the appetizer. The spotlight shone on a hand whose nails were painted red, and I screamed in agony as I watched God’s Mouth chew its latest meal.

By: The Abracadaver

Imperfect Transition

I was sitting in the upstairs office of the Museum with a cup of coffee when it happened. It had been a long day, and I’d set the work experience kid the seemingly unfuckupable task of dusting the exhibits- after repeating my warning, of course, that some of them must not be touched or opened. A terrified scream, quickly strangled by a building-shaking thump and an awful rending sound, brought me rushing downstairs.

The mirror room- I knew it. In there, there hung an ancient mirror, about a foot around, made of polished obsidian. Behind the glass walls of its display case, it was harmless- although people amusingly reported seeing the face of an evil hag in it on occasion. Looking at it unprotected was madness, though- certainly for those without my knowledge of the old ways.

I arrived in the mirror room, and a horrible smell hung in the air. On the floor lay half a body- the lower half, still in the clothes I recognised from earlier. The skin had been stretched purple and torn away, and the organs inside that hadn’t been torn free leaked their contents onto the floor. The legs were at the bottom of a maroon spray that started below the wooden case of the mirror, and the hipbone lay almost against the wall.

The case was broken- the wooden sides pushed outwards. Clumps of hair, matted with skin and blood, stuck to the frame of the mirror. Concentrating now, I stepped in front of the black disc, my sandals carefully placed either side of the bile-sprayed limbs and pool of blood on the floor. Looking into the dark reflection of the room, I saw my double once more. In her hand was a pale arm that led down to a broken form, and a trail of darkness. Sure enough, when she lifted the half-corpse into the air, I recognised the shattered and stretched face.

By: Ultra

Freak

The freak meandered through a group of the undead. It was nearing nightfall, and he began to head back home. His pack had plenty of food in it, and he shouldn’t have to leave his house again for another week or so. Unless one of the zombie bastards punched its way in again. He didn’t carry a gun anymore. He had figured out a while ago that they couldn’t see him. It wasn’t necessary for him to carry a gun, because if they did realize he was there he would be dead long before he could pull out any kind of weapon whatsoever.

He did have to carry a weapon, in the earlier days, back when he was normal. Back before he became a freak. The people back then would try to steal food from him, attack him in delirious, starving rages. He killed quite a few people, in self-defense, but managed to detach himself from emotions. If he hadn’t, he would be dead right now. Or insane. He was free of the burden of emotions now, and all he ever felt was contentment. He used to be afraid, he used to hate himself, but now there was no reason for either. He hated himself for not being normal. He used to be normal, but now he was just a freak, a freak in a sea of normalcy. He was only content, not feeling too strongly towards positive or negative emotions.

In the early days, the infected, the zombies, the monster, the ghouls, the beasts, were the minority. They were the freaks. They were the repulsive ones. Now it was him. He was the freak. He was one of the last of his kind. He was the last of his kind he had seen in some time now. When the virus first hit, it wasn’t that big of a deal, just a few hurriedly covered stories in the local news, stuff like that. It wasn’t close to home at all, it was in little jungle villages in Africa. But it spread quickly. This sickness was spread through the air. Coughs, sneezes, bodily contact. It all spread the disease. The symptoms were subtle. And by the time you died and returned, it was too late, far too late.

When they first started to attack, when he first became a freak, he was with a few more like him. Hunted. They all stowed themselves away in a child’s treehouse. They had pulled the ladder up behind them, but they knew where the freaks were. They always knew. They were sitting, waiting. There were seven freaks in the treehouse total. Cramped, moist, afraid. A few of them had guns, and were firing wildly at the remade below. The freaks with guns were panicked, didn’t know how to shoot, and didn’t know to shoot for the brain. They were out of ammo and they had only destroyed one.

The reanimated shuffling men couldn’t see. Their eyes were either closed, filmed over, or missing. They smelled, felt vibrations through the air, heard, or maybe some unknown new sense. Nobody knew. It didn’t matter. You were dead if you weren’t immune. If you were immune, they couldn’t sense you in whatever way it was they used. But if you touched them, they would feel you. They would feel your warmth. And they would take it away. One of the monsters in the treehouse wasn’t immune. The rest were. The one who wasn’t immune was showing symptoms already, and they all knew it. They planned to push him down sometimes soon, but he was too overactive right now.

They had watched as he shot up on heroin a few minutes ago. He was too violent and unpredictable now. His rifle was now firing dry. He kept pulling back the bolt and firing anyways. Crazy bastard. The plan was to push him down when the opportunity was there, distract the re-living enough for the rest of them to get away. They didn’t know how smart the undead were yet, though. About twenty minutes later, he had finally begun to crash. Three of them exchanged a glance, and shoved him down. He hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and the undead closest to him stood up, walked over, broke his neck, delivered a swift blow to his skull and left him there.

That was when the monsters realized how smart the undead were. Maybe not completely genius, but they knew. They had killed the addict, and destroyed his brain to make sure he wouldn’t come back. They needed the food, after all. They had heard two rifles firing at once, and knew from experience a man could only fire one at once. They knew there was at least one other up there, probably more. They were surrounding the tree, waiting. The survivors were at a loss. “I…I think I know what to do,” a small, fortyish balding man piped. He was still wearing a button-up shirt and khaki pants, but he had ditched his dress shoes long ago. They only slowed him down. Everybody turned to him as one. “I think…since they can’t see us…since they can’t see us we could maybe go down and try to sneak through. A few of us will…won’t make it. But it’s a better chance then we would have.” They had all died but the freak. Now he was alone, and was glad. If he saw another survivor, he would probably kill it in disgust. And he had done it before. A few months ago, he had found one more survivor, dying of dehydration. He slit his throat. They couldn’t be spared to live. And now this. He had just mounted a crest, to see about twenty immune people hiking down the highway. He grimaced. The freak reached into his pocket.

Do not suffer a monster to live. He pulled forth a well-made pipe-bomb. He had made it over the course of a week. Why hurry when he had all the time in the world? He pulled a lighter out of the other pocket, and then stuffed the pipe bomb into his belt, covering it with his “Welcome to Margaritaville” shirt. He held the lighter in his left hand, hidden, then began to tromp down the hill, holding his hands high in a gesture of peace. They were all overjoyed to meet another like them. There was a child with them, but the rest were either middle-aged or in their early twenties. He awaited an opportunity to use his weapon, but none arose until later that night. And he didn’t even need the lighter. There was a fire in the middle of the camp, and they were all sleeping.

They had rigged up an alarm system consisting of soda cans on a string. They all slept soundly. He stepped outside the limits of the camp, and pitched the pipe bomb towards the fire. It detonated almost immediately. He ran from the blast of heat and smiled. He had stopped them from trying to overturn the world, how the world worked. They were re-organizing. That was not allowed. He had ended them all. He giggled, and headed back home.

By: Coby I.

The Doll

I gave her the doll on her birthday.

She loved it at first, told me it was so beautiful. That it’s hair was so soft and the dress was so pretty. She wouldn’t let it out of her sight for days. During the day she set it on the table, so she could see it while cleaning the house. During the night it sat next to the bed, looking at us sleep with big blue unmoving eyes.

But my wife’s love for the doll soon changed. Soon I noticed something was bothering here. I asked of course, but she wouldn’t tell me at first, said she was just being silly. But day after day she closed herself more and more for me. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I pressed her, told her she would tell me what was going on right now or I would drag her to a doctor.

She finally broke and crying words came spilling out.

She then told me it was the doll. It scared her. She told me she had the feeling it was constantly watching her. Sometimes it even seemed like it moved.

This worried me and I went to take a look at the doll.

It sat motionless on the little table in the bedroom. The big blue eyes unchanged. I couldn’t help but sigh from relief a bit. Of course she’s not moving, she couldn’t have been.

I went to turn away, but then saw a tiny movement from the corner of my eye.

I turned back to the doll, picking it up from the table. I held my face close to the doll’s, staring into the eyes.
Something was moving.

I tried to concentrate, tried to look closer.

Yes, there it definately was, movement. But not from the eye itself, it was behind the eye.

Before I could register this the eye burst and out of it spilled at least ten wriggling maggots.

I dropped the doll in shock, backing away instinctively.

My wife yelled from the other room, asking me what was going on. I yelled back at her not to worry. I picked up the doll again, using a tissue to wipe away the maggots. Inside I saw more, pressing against the skin and the plastic outer layer.

So soon already. I had hoped she would have lasted longer.

I will have to get a new one for her, maybe keep it alive at first. That way it’ll last longer for sure.

While I throw away the old doll, I think about how my wife always says she loves the thick blonde curls of little Katie down the block.

Doesn’t she also have blue eyes?

By: Boudica.

The Man Who Lives Above You

The man who lives above you is the quiet type. How lucky you are to live in an apartment underneath someone so courteous! It seems he never drops anything, seeing as how you never hear any loud thumps coming from the rooms above yours. He is even kind enough to keep the volume on his radio and TV too low to disrupt you. Come to think of it, had you not seen and spoken to him, you would think no one lived up there. Quite a big change from living below a batch of rowdy teens.

He is terribly kind as well. Within the first week of you living there, he invites you up to dinner and offers his services as a plumber in case you have any leaky faucets. The maintenance crew at this complex is awfully incompetent. You can’t have it all, I suppose.

He didn’t even get offended when you told him you were far too busy and didn’t know him well enough to dine with him. He simply smiled, gave you his number, and let you know the offer stood as long as you lived below him.

One night, you decide to take him up on his offer, seeing as how you’re tired of the Hot Pockets your busy schedule allows. You call, uncertain about whether or not he is home due to the utter silence from above, and he answers and invites you to join him upstairs; he has made far too much chicken piccata to eat himself.

You climb the stairs and enter his apartment. It’s impeccable. You’ve already managed to spill some Coke Zero on your carpet. In his six years living there, he has left no stains. Dinner smells delightful. He already has a place set for you, almost as if he was expecting you sooner. Astounded by his kindness, you seat yourself and begin eating.

Almost immediately, you feel a bit drowsy. Overworked, perhaps? He smiles and watches your muscles slowly fail you, the sauce dribbling out of the mouth you can’t hold closed. You start to slide from your chair, you can almost feel the floor meeting your body, but no. He catches you. No sound is made. He carries you down the hall, ever so quietly. You’re growing too unconscious to worry, so rest assured, no one will hear a thing; you won’t even hit the floor.

Credited to Clarissa.

The Thing That Stalks the Field

It was a few weeks ago that the hay bales started creeping slowly away from the house. Every morning when I woke up, each had moved a few hundred feet from where it was before. I assumed it was pranksters with nothing better to do, and I so I ignored it. Within a few days, though, the bales began to approach the boundaries of the farm. I was tired of the whole game by then, and decided to move them back. It took a tedious hour to bring them all from where they were to over near the house again, and by the time I was done I was ready to snap the neck of whatever little pissant was deciding to screw with me.

The next morning, I found each and every one of my horses messily decapitated. The smell was what woke me up. Each one was slumped over against the side of its stall. There were no signs of the heads. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess and burying the remains. It was only when I was done that I noticed the bales of hay had all returned to their positions from the day before, scattered far out into the fields. This time I left them where they were.

That night I sat on my porch with my shotgun in hand and a pot of coffee on the table beside me. I sat for hours, straining my eyes into the fields to catch a glimpse of who was moving my hay bales. Finally, I was beginning to nod off. I would have, but just as my eyes began to close I heard a clamor and a rustling of trees from the nearby woods. I leaned forward, my heart racing with excitement; I was going to catch the bastard. I fumbled with my gun and fidgeted in my seat, waiting anxiously for whoever it was to get close enough to ambush.

It was only when the thing got close enough for me to make out its silhouette in the dark that I was frozen still. The thing that crept into my fields from the nearby woods didn’t seem to notice me sitting there. It stalked, hunched and deliberate, through the field with the posture of a tiptoeing thief. If not for the fact that it must have towered to over ten feet tall even in its crouched position, it might have seemed almost frail. The thinness of its arms and legs and the emaciated, caved-in quality of its chest reminded me of a starving animal. Still, this thing was undeniably strong, and I watched it hoist each bale up into its arms with ease, and set it down carefully a while away, taking only a few strides to cover the distance. I watched it work, moving each bale thoughtfully. Every once in a while it would straighten up to look around at the other bales’ positions in the field, before adjusting the one it was working on ever so slightly.

Before it left, it looked towards the house. I felt its eyes sweep over me in the dark, but whether it saw me or not I couldn’t tell. Then, it turned silently and crept back the way it came, disappearing into the dark of the woods. It took me an hour before I had the courage to move at all. I went inside after a while, but didn’t sleep that night. It was only when the sun rose that I dared step off my porch into the fields. The hay bales were where it left them. Strangely, it didn’t move them as far as it had in the previous days. They were approaching something invisible in the fields, and as I looked at them I realized that they seemed to be marking some line. Indeed, as I walked around the house, I saw the distinct circle that they formed with me at the center. At first I thought the bales were just being haphazardly moved away from the house, but now I could see that they were instead being moved towards some boundary. The thing was sending me a message. I slept uneasily that night, and only because I was exhausted.

The next morning the bales hadn’t moved at all. They didn’t move at all for the rest of that week, in fact. They were finally where the thing wanted them. I made myself sick trying to interpret them. Why would this thing expend so much energy moving my hay bales, and threaten me with such violence should I try to interfere? Killing my horses was just that – a threat. An intelligent threat, at that. It knew what would scare me, and it knew that I would understand the implications.

The sound of an automobile working its way along the road to my farm one morning gave me a little rush of excitement. I’d been planning to abandon the farm since I saw the thing, but I couldn’t hope to leave on foot without risking it treating me like it treated my horses. But, if I could get in the car with whoever was coming my way, I might be able to escape before it could stop me. I didn’t know or care who it was. I decided that the moment they stopped the car, I would jump in the passenger’s seat and tell them to get the hell out of here. I didn’t get the chance.

The car worked its way slowly along the road, trundling across the uneven ground. I urged it silently to hurry. It was when it passed between the two bales placed on either side of the road that I began to hear a booming clatter from the woods. The thing burst suddenly from between the trees, sprinting on all four of its terrible, gangly limbs towards the car. Within a few seconds it was there, pouncing on the automobile like a predatory cat. Within moments it was picking and peeling the vehicle’s steel frame apart, working to get at the driver. The man, whoever he was, screamed all the while and I could hear him even over the crunching of metal and the shattering of glass. It was only when the thing crushed him carelessly in its hand that the screaming stopped. It tossed him away, and straightened up to look at me once again. In the sunlight, I could see the inhumanity of it. It was composed entirely of something awful and alive which was lashed together in a messy semblance of a human form. Whatever it was made of looked so polished and hard, that if it weren’t for the minute writhing of the stuff, I’d think it was made of granite.

The thing retreated back into the woods, and I was left to my shock. My eyes wandered to where the car sat, the engine still sputtering, between two of the hay bales. Suddenly, I understood. The message was clear. I am this thing’s captive, and I am not allowed visitors. Nothing may cross the borders it has set. I’m trapped here, by the thing that stalks the fields, and it demands nothing except that I never leave. Still, I don’t know if I can handle being that thing’s canary. I’ve been thinking hard for the last few days since I saw it crush that man’s chest, and silence him before he could finish his scream. If I crossed the hay bale border, it’d probably do the same. It’d smash my skull before I could put my hands up to protect myself. It’d go and find a new pet, and probably keep looking until it found someone who could stand knowing that it was waiting just outside, watching it at all hours with its shiny, insect eyes.

I’ve been thinking hard for the last few days, and I might just make a run for it.

By: David Feuling

Come Follow Me

During the first few days of the release of Pokemon Red and Green in Japan, back in February 27, 1996, a peak of deaths appeared in the age group of 10-15.

The children were usually found dead through suicide, usually by hanging or jumping from heights. However, some were more odd. A few cases recorded children who had began sawing off their limbs, others sticking their faces inside the oven, and chocked themselves on their own fist, shoving their own arms down their throat.

The few children who were saved before killing themselves showed sporadic behavior. When asked why they were going to hurt themselves they only answered in chaotic screams and scratched at their own eyes. When showed what seemed to be the connection to this attitude, the gameboy, they had no response, but when combined with either Pokemon Red or Green, the screams would continue, and they would do their best to leave the room it was located in.

This confirmed the authorities suspicion that the games, somehow, had a connection to these children and the deaths. It was a strange case, because many children who had the same games did not show this behavior, but only a few. The police had no choice but to pursue this, since they had no other leads.

Collecting all the cartridges these children had purchased, they kept them sealed away as strong evidence to look over later. They decided the first thing to do was to talk to the programmers themselves. The first person they met was the director of the original games, Satoshi Tajiri. When told about the deaths surrounding his games, he seemed slightly uneasy, but admitted nothing. He lead them to the main programmers of the game, the people responsible for the actual content.

The detectives met Takenori Oota, one of the main programmers of the game. Unlike Satoshi, he did not seem uneasy, but very kept. Explaining that it was impossible to use something like a game to cause such deaths, and also bringing up the point that not all the children were affected, he brushed it off as some kind of odd coincidence or mass hysteria. It seemed like he was hiding something, but he wasn't giving way. Finally, he did say something interesting.

Takenori had heard a rumor going around that the music for Lavender Town, one of the locations in the game, had caused some children to go ill. It was only a rumor, and had no real definite back up, but it was still something to look into.

He directed the detectives to Junichi Masuda, the music composer of the series. Masuda had also heard of these rumors, but again said they had no evidence that his music was the cause. Even to prove a point he played the exact song from the game completely through with no effects to anyone, the detectives nor Masuda himself, feeling anything different or odd. Although they still had their suspicions of Masuda and the music of Lavender town, it seemed they had reached another dead end.

Going back to the cartridges they had seized from the homes of the children, they decided to take a slightly more direct look at the games. They knew that it was these games that gave the children the ill effects, so they took extreme caution. Popping in the cartridge and turning the console on, the game screen booted. The title screen appeared, and the option to continue or create a new game appeared.

When they chose to continue the game, stats of that game appeared. They saw the names of the children who had played, usually "Red" or another simple name. However, the interesting thing was the time played and the number of Pokemon they owned. On every game, the time was very low, and all of them had only a single Pokemon in their inventory. They came to the stunning reality that it could not have been the music from Lavender town that had caused such ill effects in the children, since it was impossible to reach that part of the game in such small amount of time and with only one Pokemon in their inventory. This brought them to the conclusion that something early on in the game had to be the cause.

If it wasn't the music, nor the title screen, it had to be something within the first few minutes of the game itself. They had no choice but to turn off the game now and go back to the programmers. Asking for a list of all the programmers from Takenori, they found, surprisingly, that one of the programmers had committed suicide shortly after the game was released. His name was Chiro Miura, a very obscure programmer who had provided very little for the game. Even more interestingly, he had requested his name did not appear in the credits of the game, and so it was not.

Looking over the evidence found at Chiro's apartment, they found many notes written in bold marker. Most of it was crumbled, or marked out, making it very difficult to read. They few words they could find in the mess was "Do not enter", "Watch out" and "COME FOLLOW ME" in bold. The detectives were unsure what these meant, but knew they had to have a connection. Further searching, they discovered Chiro was good friends with one of the map designers, Kohji Nisino, and this was probably the only reason Chiro had given a part in making the game.

Kohji Nisino, since the release of the game, had locked himself in his apartment, barely leaving in the dark of night to fetch anything he might need. He told his friends and family he was mourning for his dear friend Chiro, but they didn't believe this, since Nisino had locked himself up the day the game was put in stores, a few days before Chiro had killed himself.

It was troubling, but the authorities finally persuaded Nisnino to sit down and speak with them. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days, dark rings under his eyes. He stunk, his nails had grown black and his hair was greasy, sticking to his forehead and neck. He spoke in stutters and murmurs, but at least he had something to say.

When asked if he knew anything about the children who had died after exposure of the game and if it had any connection to the game, he answered them seemingly carefully, choosing his words thoughtfully before answering. He told them that his friend Chiro had an interesting idea with the game, something he had wanted to try since he heard the project was starting. Nisino himself knew Takenori, the director and main programmer, for a long time, so he could easily get a mediocre programmer in on the project with a little persuasion. It seemed Chiro had convinced Nisino to get him in on the project, and it had worked.

The detectives knew they were on to something. This unknown obscure programmer, Chiro, had to have something to do with it, something... They asked what Chiro's idea was, why he wanted so badly to have a part in making this children's game. Nisino told them that Chiro never told him much about it, other than a few details every now and then. He wanted to insert a special Pokemon in the game, one completely different from all the others. It would serve as an extra, a kind of out of place thrill for the player. It wasn't, however, Missing No. It couldn't be. With the gameplay time recorded on the cartridges, it was impossible for the children to have time to meet that Pokemon.

Nisino, throughout the entire conversation, seemed to break down even more with every question. The detectives pushed him more and more, searching through his mind for any and every scrap of knowledge this man had no game and Chiro... and Chiro's intentions...

It was when they asked about the notes found in Chiro's home that he snapped. From under the couch Nisino was sitting on he whipped out a pistol, pointing it straight at the police while backing away a few steps. Then, just as quickly, he brought the pistol to his face.

"Don't follow me..." muttered Nisino as he stuck the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It was too quick for the police to react. It was done. Nisino had killed himself, repeating slightly differently what was written on one of Chiro's papers...

It seemed all leads had finally died. The team who had created this original game were splitting up, becoming harder to find. It was as if they were keeping a secret. When the police finally managed to talk with anyone who had parts in the game, even the obscure character designers or monster designers, it seemed they had nothing of interest to say. Most of them didn't even know Chiro, and the few who did only seen him once or twice working on the game itself. Throughout all of this the only confirmation they had was that Chiro was indeed the one who had worked on the very early parts of the game.

It had been a couple of months after the original children suicides and the death rate had dropped dramatically. It seemed that the game was no longer giving any ill effects to any children. The call back of the games that was planned was canceled, since it seemed the game was no longer harming any children. They had began to think that maybe Takenori was right and it was all just a very odd coincidence or mass hysteria... Until they received the letter.

It was given to one of the detectives himself, quite directly out on the street. It was a woman who gave him the note, a very frail, thin, sick looking thing. She gave him the letter quickly, telling him it was something he needed to see, and without waiting for a response or another word, she disappeared into the crowd. The detective brought it to his office, and calling the others in, he brought it out and read it aloud.

It was a letter written by Chiro himself, but it wasn't one found at his apartment. They had throughly searched and cleared out the place, so wherever this letter had come from, it wasn't kept at his home. It was signed to be given to Nisino. It started off quite formal, a hello, how are you, regards to the family, and such. After one or two of these normal paragraphs, they reached a section that requested Nisino to get him into the game team, to get him a programming position in Pokemon Red and Green.

As the letter continued, the handwriting seemed to grow more jittery. He talked about a glorious idea he had, a way to program something unseen in any game before. He said it would certainly revolutionize not only the gaming industry, but everyone. He went on to say that it was a very simple procedure to program this idea into the game. He did not even have to add any foreign programming, but could use what was already given in the game itself. This would, the detectives agreed, make it impossible to notice any obscurities in the programming itself. It was a perfect way to hide whatever this was.

The letter ended abruptly. There was no goodbye, no say hi to the family, no write back, or thank you. Nothing like that. It was just his name, written hard in the letter where the paper almost broke through. It was only his name. "Chiro Miura."

This was the nail in the coffin for the detectives. They had no more suspicion about the cause. Chiro had programmed something into the early parts of the game, something maddening. To further increase this streak of success, they discovered that the programming team had worked in pairs, even Chiro himself. He had worked with another programmer, Sousuke Tamada.

If anyone knew what the secret in this game was, Sousuke Tamada would be the man. This was their final hope of unraveling this mystery once and for all.

They learned Sousuke had provided a lot of programming to the game, and seemed to be an average, good guy and worker. They were easily allowed into his home, a fair place, and they entered his living room where they sat. Sousuke did not sit, however. He stood by the window of the second story floor, looking out onto the busy street. He was smiling a little.

There is no direct witnesses to the events that followed. The only thing from this conversation that remained was found on a voice recorder sitting on the table in front of the two detectives assigned to talk to Sousuke. What follows is the unedited recording:

"Sousuke Tamada, what part did you have in the games Pokemon Red and Green?" asked the first detective.

"I was a programmer." His voice was light, friendly, almost too friendly. "That's all."

"Am I right in knowing that the programmers working on the game worked in teams?" asked the detective.

One could hear the voice of feet moving on the floor slightly. "You would be right," said Sousuke after a moment of silence.

"And your partner, his name was--" The detective was quickly cut off by Sousuke's eerie voice.

"Chiro Miura... That was his name. Chiro Miura."

Another silence. It seemed the detectives were a little uneasy about this man. "Could you tell us if Muira ever acted strange at all? Any particular behaviors you observed while working with him at all?"

Sousuke answered them. "I don't know him that well, really. We didn't meet up frequently, only every once in a while to trade data, or when the entire group was called up for a meeting... That's the only times I really ever saw him. He acted normal, as far as I could tell. He was a short man, and I think this affected his consciousness.. He acted weaker than any other man I met. He was willing to do a lot of work to gain recognition, this I do know. I think..."

Silence. "Yes?" asked the detective, pushing for him to continue. "You think what?"

"I think he was a very weak man. I think he wanted to prove himself regardless of this point... I think he wanted to make himself known for something special, something that would make people forget about the way he looked and pay attention to the powerful mind that lay inside his skull.. Unfortunately for him, however.. heheh.. He didn't have much of a mind to back up that reasoning."

"Why do you say that?" asked the second detective.

"Well it's the simple truth," answered Sousuke quickly. His feet could be heard moving across the tiled floor. "He was nothing special, even if he wanted to believe so. You can't become greatness, even if you believe it. It's impossible... Somehow, I think Chiro knew this himself, somewhere deep in there, he knew it."

The detectives were silent again, not sure how to steer the conversation. After a moment, they continued. "Can you tell us what Chiro's part of the game was? What did he work on exactly?"

Sousuke answered more quickly than before. "Nothing... I mean, nothing important. He worked on some obscure parts of the beginning of the game." A pause, then a little more information. "It was Oak's part to be exact. He worked on some of Oak's parts... When he's seen first, you see.."

"What else?" pushed the police. They could hear it in Sousuke's voice. He knew something. "We know you know about the children and the deaths. We know it was Chiro who did it. He programmed something in the game."

"What are you implying?" asked Sousuke. It sounded like he was trying to maintain his voice.

"We're implying that since your his partner, if you're hiding something from us then you could just as much be responsible for those children's deaths as Chiro is himself!"

"You can't prove anything!" Sousuke shouted.

"Tell us what Chiro did to the game!" they shouted back.

"WHAT I TOLD HIM TO."

Silence. Complete silence.

"You want to know, huh?" asked Sousuke finally, breaking the eerie silence, but replacing it with his voice. "You want to know what is this all about? Chiro was an idiot. He'd do anything for a bit of attention, anything at all. He couldn't program worth a shit either. The one thing he could do, however, was be manipulated. You could tell him what to do, and he'd do it. He wouldn't even question it, he'd do it. Just to hear that 'thank you' when you received the finish product, that was his reasons. That's all he wanted."

Two clicks from the detective's guns could heard.

"I could control his flawlessly. He's a lot like Takenori... Of course none of you knew this, but I was the one who brought up the idea of the game, the idea of the entire operation. I just told the fellow what to do, and he followed me without doubt. He knows nothing, just like Chiro."

A sound of a window opening could be heard, follow by the detectives.

"Don't move or we'll shoot!"

"Let me tell you about a mechanic in the game," continued Sousuke. His voice was more rushed, but it still held that slyness. "Consider it a hint, alright? If you walk around in grassy areas enough a Pokemon will appear, and you'll have the chance to go into battle with it. It's a necessary part of the game overall, you see?"

"Step away from the window! We won't warn you again!"

"At the start of the game you have to walk into the grassy area before Oak appears and you receive your first Pokemon, understand me? Under normal circumstances, it was programmed that even though you're in a grassy area, no Pokemon will spawn... I made it different. I manipulated that Chiro, told him what to put in the program, gave him all the instructions on how to do it, and he did it flawlessly. It's rare, but it can happen.. Stepping into that grass, one can spawn..."

"Sousuke, we don't want to shoot!"

"Shoot me?" asked Souske, laughing at the same time. "Shoot ME? You're as dumb as Chiro was! Once he found out the truth, he had to end it! It was his fault after all! He shot himself because of it! If you're so determined to finish that case of yours, if you want to know, play the damn game for yourself! Roll the wheel, and who knows? Maybe you'll learn the secret for yourself!"

A shot could be heard, loud enough to distort the audio. Sounds of screaming, murmuring could be heard. The table the recorder was on crashed. Ear shattering distortions. Silence. Then laughing. Sousuke was laughing, and then words. "Come follow me... Come follow me..." And then nothing.
The recorder continued to record until the tape ran out. There was nothing else on it. The police arrived on the scene quickly, and to their horror they discovered Sousuke and the two detectives dead. They had all been shot, but not after struggling. The detectives had been shot multiple times, at least ten each, before dying after being shot in between their eyes. Sousuke himself had clearly died of two shots to his chest, straight through the heart.

This game was causing a massacre. At least a hundred children were dead. Nisino, the unexpecting friend, dead. Chiro, the manipulated toy, dead. The two detectives, dead. And now, even the creator, the cause of this atrocity, Sousuke, dead. This game was stretching far over it's original intentions. It was killing anyone and everyone who got involved.

The lead detective had decided to put this case away. The man who committed the crime was dead, so there was no longer any reason to continue the case. All evidence, all the cartridges, all the notes, all the letters, they were locked away, kept in the darkness where they belonged. There were talks about the entire thing, small conversations every now and then, but over the years even these began to fade away. Eventually, the case was only a memory in the minds of those who experienced it first hand.

Ten years passed. February 27, 2006 was the date. The lead detective, the man who locked away the original evidence ten years previous, was reminded of the awful event that occurred. Although he was no longer in the force, he still had access to files and was helped when he could. The reminder of the event caused him to look back, to open the sealed container that held all the evidence collected.

He read through the letters and the notes. He remembered the woman who had appeared to him on the street that one day and handed him that letter that lead to the change of the entire case. He wondered who she was, and where she had come from. Perhaps she was Chiro's mother... or maybe Sousuke's. It was far too late to pursue any of this. Far too late..

Sealing the container again, he saw a second one directly behind it. Pulling it out, he read the note on top of it. "Evidence #2104A" He opened it up, and looked inside. Filling the container were exactly 104 Pokemon Red and Green cartridges, each one in perfect condition, untouched since the day they had last checked them ten years ago.

He reached in and pulled one out, Pokemon Red. He hadn't seen one in a long time. He didn't know what he thought next, but he reached in his desk and pulled out an old Gameboy. He received it a long time ago, but it still worked. It was his son's, but he had died a few years ago. His wife was gone too. That was then though. Popping in the cartridge in the back of the Gameboy he turned on the system.

The title screen. Then the option to continue or start a new game. "Tanaka." That was the child's name, the one who played it first. He was probably dead, along with all the others. He pressed New Game, and started a new game. It was normal, average. He walked around, talked to his mother, went outside. He started walking towards the grass.

In his head, he could still hear Sousuke's words. Even though he was not there, even though he had never seen the man in his life, he could still see him, hear him. "Come follow me."

He was getting closer and closer, only a step or two away.

"Roll the wheel, and who knows? Maybe you'll learn the secret for yourself!"

He entered the grass. The screen did nothing at first. Nothing at all. It just sat there, and so did the detective, completely frozen, as if time had stopped just for them. The screen went black. and then lit up again, the iconic green background with black text appearing.

The lead detectives weary eyes grew wide. He couldn't help but read out what was there in front of him.

"Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me. I miss you dad, I miss you my husband, I miss you so much."

Tears formed in his eyes, falling down his cheeks. Screens and screens of text appeared and he rapidly clicked the A button to continue it. It was his wife and his child. They were speaking to him, calling to him, crying with him. They wanted to see him, they loved him, he loved them.

"I love you too," muttered the man in a hoarse, scratching voice.

"Come follow me, become new again. We want to see you and hold you, and be with you forever and ever and ever and ever."

"AND EVER AND EVER..."

"Don't stay away. You can see us too.. We miss you.. Come follow me. We love yo--"

A black screen. The detectives eyes grew wide, his jaw dropping. The screen lit back up, and Oak was leading him out of the grass. "Come follow me," said Oak.

"NO!" shouted the man, dropping the game onto the floor. He quickly fell forward, reaching for it, bringing the screen back to his face. "Bring them back, bring them back to me!" The game continued on as usual, not responding to the detective at all. "My wife, my child, listen to me! Bring them back to me, I said!"

Voices... He heard voices, hundreds of voices. He turned around from his seat, looking behind him, and standing in his small room were children, many children. Some had no eyes, some had rings around their throats, some were burned all across their body. They were screaming, reaching towards him.

"Bring back my mommy, bring back my daddy, bring back my pet!" they all screamed out, reaching for the game, their mouths agape with horror and pain. "I don't want them to go away, bring them back to me, bring them back to me!"

"No!" shouted the detective. "It's mine! My family is here, don't touch it!" Horror was across his face.

"Come follow me..." said a voice. The lead detective looked over, and in the corner of his room, next to an old desk, was Sousuke. He stood in the corner, tall, handsome, clean. A smile was on his face, stretching across his face. "Come follow me..."

The lead detective jumped up, stepping back, trying to force away the children crawling towards him, reaching out for the game held tightly within his hands. "Wh-what's going on here!? What's going on!? Where is my family!?"

Sousuke smiled generously. "I'll show you. I'll help you get away from them, you see? Just follow me." Sousuke reached down, and opened a drawer on the old desk. The lead detective, pushing through the crowd of children, trying to get away, looked inside.

Siting there, covered with dust, was his old gun from when he was on the force. He had not used that gun in many years and had put it away, not wanting to remember the things he had to do with it. But right now he didn't see it as something that caused pain or that killed. It was shining, it was light. It was something that could set him free.

"Just follow me," said Sousuke, picking up the gun and putting it in the lead detectives hand. He formed his hand to hold the gun, then brought it up to his temple. "Just pull the trigger. That's all."
The lead detective turned around. The children were crawling at him, grabbing his legs and pulling at him. They reached for the game. He turned back towards Sousuke, and smiled.

"My family... I'll follow you." He pulled the trigger. Bang. His brains spread the wall as he fell to the ground, dead.

It was a few days before the body was discovered. It lay on the floor, blood everywhere. In one hand held an empty gun, and in the other was a classic Gameboy with Pokemon Red on the back. The battery had long died, and only an empty, black screen was left.

This was the final murder that the remaining authorities would allow. The last detective who was ever a part of this case personally carried all 104 cartridges away, and burned them all, making sure not a single one survived. There would taunt no more.

However, this is not the end of the story. The code was said to have survived, and was even passed on to other language versions of the games. If you have an old Pokemon game, you can place the cartridge in the back of the classic Gameboy, turn on the system, and roll the wheel who knows? Maybe you'll learn the secret for yourself.

Fallout 2

In Fallout 2, after you beat the game you can continue playing. Remember that defunct vault near the beginning? The one with the toxic sludge on the ground and the elevator where you kill golden geckos. It's called "toxic caves" on the world map, but it is clearly a very smal vault with 3 levels (including the first cave level, where you take a ladder down t the actual vault structure).

Well, if you have one of the original pressings of the game and you have not patched it, you can return to the toxic caves after the game is over and if you have the item "heart pills" from the Westin murder quest, you can kill yourself in the elevator.

After the usual death scene plays, the screen will stay black without the menu screen opening up. Adter several minutes, you will begin to hear a hollow echoey white noise cave sort of sound. The screen will slowly fade back in to find your character in a pile of that nasty biomass goo that was all around The Master from the first game. Your character will stand up and the usual ambient soundtrack will start playing, but the white noise will still be there.

Explore this new level, but DO NOT pick any locks. Those areas are extremely off limits and the developers put some very nasty programming tricks into the code to protect their secrets.

As you continue further into the level, you will hear the white noise continue to increase in volume and the ambient soundtrack you are so used to will exhibit strange artifacts. This may be because of the difficulty of playing two music tracks simultaneously in the Fallout engine which wasn't designed to be able to do this.

Passing locked door after locked door, you will come upon many of the characters you met earlier in the game. Oddly, you only find characters that died, or that would reasonably be expected to die after you last saw them. Like the official endings, the characters found vary depending on how you played the game...If you were teh good guy and tried to solve problems without violence, you will only find a few bad guys and other unfortunate victims here. If you slaughtered every town, you will see several hundred characters.

Regardless of what you did earlier, none of the characters will speak to you or react to any action in any way. They can't be pickpocketed, killed, pushed aside or healed. If you try to use First Aid, Doctor or any healing items on them, the game will tell you in the text box "It's much too late for that, Chosen."

It would appear that this area is purgatory, or possibly hell, based on being populated entirely by dead characters. The final character, standing just before the final door is always a Player Character model from the first Fallout. This is the only character you can interact with and as you approach, the white noise reaches a crescendo and the ambient music abruptly cuts out. If you simply bypass him and open the final door, the game will play the end credits once again, only with pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasake victims in the background. This is in extreme poor taste and many have wondered why the creators would be so insensitive. When asked, they deny the sequence exists and call it a hack that was never in the game at all. After it ends, you are greeted with a typical game over screen and are booted to the desktop.

If you talk to the final character, he will explain that he is in fact the Vault Dweller from the original game, your ancestor. He will tell you that he is disappointed in the way you turned out and he will then turn his back on you and your character will collapse into a pile of bones in a death animation that I have never seen in the game itself. Afterwards, the game will fade to white and lock up the computer, forcing a hard reset.

There is a third option. Those locked doors I mentioned earlier. There is one door, it's always random as to which door, but if you get lucky in picking you can use any heavy explosive to blow it open. Inside, you will find a single footlocker holding a 10mm pistol with no clip in the picture and no ammo in it. None of your normal 10mm ammo can be used. You can "load" the gun with the "easter egg" found in the basement of New Reno Arms. Fire this into the head of the final character and the game will cut to a over-the-shoulder video showing a young man playing an unidentified Fallout-like game. Some people claim that this is an early version of either Fallout Tactics or Van Buren, but nothing on the screen seems to fit either of those games. Also neither of those games had started development at the time of the original pressing of Fallout 2. The video itself is poorly lit, with the apparent intention of being a creepy cipher, but nothing spooky actually happens in the video. The man simply plays the unknown game and the video slowly fades to your desktop (a cool trick, I'm not really sure how they managed a gradually translucing screen back then).

Another strange trick is that according to many players, the final character always matches the character they most recently played in Fallout 1. Both gender and their apparel at the end of the previous game are represented. At first this would appear to be a savegame hack, much like Psycho mantis in Metal Gear Solid, but the trick works even if the original Fallout was played on a different computer withouot transferring any data to the new PC.

It's recommended that you do not turn on any televisions in your house for several hours after experiencing this extra ending. You will quickly realize that the white noise in the game is identical to the white noise now coming from your television. Cable, Satellite and even Antenna, if you still have that, are all somehow incapable of picking up a signal for some time after the secret ending. All internet connections, however seem to still work. That's how I'm writing this to you now. The funny thing is, I turned my television back off nearly an hour ago, as well as my computer speakers...but I still hear the static getting louder

There's Room for One More

A young woman on her way to town broke her journey by staying with friends at an old manor house. Her bedroom looked out to the carriage sweep at the front door. It was a moonlit night, and she found it difficult to sleep. As the clock outside her bedroom door struck 12, she heard the noise of horses’ hooves on the gravel outside, and the sound of wheels.

She got up and went over to the window to see who could be arriving at that time of night. The moonlight was very bright, and she saw a hearse drive up to the door. It hadn’t a coffin in it; instead it was crowded with people. The coachman sat high up on the box: as he came opposite the window he drew up and turned his head. His face terrified her, and he said in a distinct voice, “There’s room for one more.”

She drew the curtain, ran back to bed, and covered her head with the bedclothes. In the morning she was not quite sure whether it had been a dream, or whether she had really got out of bed and seen the hearse, but she was glad to go up to town and leave the old house behind her.

She was shopping in a big store which had an elevator in it — an up-to-date thing at that time. She was on the top floor, and went to the elevator to go down. It was rather crowded, but as she came up to it, the elevator operator turned his head and said, “There’s room for one more.”

It was the face of the coachman of the hearse. “No, thank you,” said the girl. “I’ll walk down.” She turned away, the elevator doors clanged, there was a terrible rush and screaming and shouting, and then a great clatter and thud. The elevator had fallen and every soul in it was killed.

Bottle

My damnation came in the form of a bottle.

No, not like that.

When I was a child my best friend lived next to a little junkyard. Great place for a kid to hang out, a junkyard. Full of mystery and exciting discoveries, and if you find anything nice nobody minds if you take it, except your parents, obviously. Well, not my friend’s mom. Most of their bowls and plates came from that junkyard. But anyway.

One day a bunch of us were hanging out, dismantling a car. Some of us might have been interested in the parts, I just thought breaking stuff was great. When we’d got the engine strewn everywhere we set to work on the interior. Under one of the seats was a little glass bottle, full of some green, bubbly liquid.

Curiosity trumped hygiene in those days. I uncorked it and sniffed it. The smell was pleasant, minty, a little floral. One kid, Jackie, dared me to drink it. It was a double-dog dare. I had to.

The taste was also pleasant, and it warmed me on the way down. My body was filled with a strange, pleasant tingling. Nothing else happened, not until that night.

First effect, I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t needed sleep since. It’s all right. I get a lot done.

Second effect, a month later. I started to cough things up. I was playing alone in the woods and I hacked up blood. Then there were chunks in the blood. Then I was puking. The entirety of my coiled long intestine came snaking up as I sat there quivering, tears on my cheeks, struggling to breathe, literally puking my guts up. My mouth seemed to unhinge like a snake’s to accommodate my lungs. My heart was on my sleeve. The bloodstain would never have come out if I hadn’t abandoned the clothes I was wearing. The police searched frantically for a missing person, but never found a thing.

I wasn’t empty when I finished, though. New organs built up inside me. I could feel them, I could see them when I closed my eyes, nameless lumps and spirals springing out of nothing.

Third effect. Two months later. I began to crave the water. I can’t possibly describe the feeling of thirsty skin, but it was a desperate thirst. I left my parents’ house one night and walked and walked until I came to a swamp. I moved in. The murky, bug-filled waters feel like home now, as they did all those years ago. I sit under the water, watching the fish and salamanders get eaten by herons, looking at the surface waiting for my prey.

I’m sure you know what the fourth effect was. I’m typing this on the cell-phone of my latest victim. She was delicious. She smelled like fresh melons.

By: mngamojemo.

The Prophecy of Zarah

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the early part of the 20th century is one of the most important episodes in the field of Bible scholarship. They have been studied and transcribed for decades, so it was quite a shock when an unnoticed Hebrew text was found in the collection. The theology of this text, apart from references to Sheol (the abode of the dead) and the primordial chaos monster Leviathan, is quite unlike anything found in the Qu’mran community, the Bible or the Ancient Near East as a whole. Here is the entirety of the text, as translated so far:

This is the vision of prophetess Zarah
revealed to her in the dark of a dead land
and written in the dust of a blind moon.

There are Things that were tamed in the beginning of the cosmos
and chained by the stars
which were placed in a sigil of five dimensions
in the tongue of a formless race which was ancient
before the elements.

Their servants were condemned to the mirrors,
to serve as reflections until the sigil of stars
comes undone.
At that time their Masters will return
and the one called Leviathan will drown the stars
in his ichorous waters.

The Gods of man will be as mortals
and those who knew life after death will suffer
as the living.
Blessed are the godless.
Blessed are those for whom death is extinction.
All the host of Heaven and Hell will alike
be tormented by the returned Ones,
whose hatred has festered for millions of years
as the burning stars chained them
beyond the attainable World.

The Reflections will creep from the mirrors and waters
to cackle and sizzle in a tongue without reason:
and they will catch mortals and drive them to madness
and those will be lucky:
for their Masters will come and they will not allow
the salvation of Madness.

Time will die before them and their reign will be timeless.
Reason will be slaughtered and space will be senseless.
Black stars will hang in the sky choked in ichorous waters.
The Gods of the mortals will be feeble before them
and no law will be left but the whim of the hateful,
the Things that were chained when the cosmos were formed.
Blessed are the dead who know nothing.
Blessed are those who did not trust Salvation
but had faith in extinction at the dust of the body.
These are the only ones who are spared.

All of this I, Zarah, have seen in the dead land,
and inscribed in the dust of a blind moon.
It has been revealed to me in Sheol,
and been made known to me in the Pit.
And it has been shown to me that writings from Sheol
will be seen in the land of the living
as the chain of the stars become weaker.
As the sigil comes closer to breaking, the

It should be noted that the translators make the ridiculous assertion that more writing appeared from the start to the completion of their reconstruction of this text, and indeed that vague impressions of letters have already formed below the last sentence, which now ends at “the”. This should be taken as a highly unprofessional attempt at explaining away the slow process of translation. The grisly suicides of, as of this writing, two of the original translation team, should likewise be ignored.

By: mngamojemo