“Just let me in.”
When I hear the rasp of the thing’s words, I have to fight the urge to run back out of the church, to keep running until I find help. It looks somewhat like an old man, though something is off about him. His skin doesn’t fit right, and he looks more like a younger man that has been somehow worn out or used up than a man who has just gotten old.
I hold my ground for the moment, and my brief courage seems to amuse it, a rattling laugh hitching out of his chest. He can’t move much because of the silver chains that bind him to the altar, woven thrice-thick, blessed thrice-strong. There are seven chains and seven locks, each line of restraint terminating at two opposite points of the floor of the sanctuary. Those points are punctuated by iron circles bolted to the floor and serving as anchors for running the chain through on one side and locking the ends together on the other, so that all told, he has fourteen lines of holy encumbrance bearing down on him at all times.
I know all of this just like every child of Emberton knows this. We are taught the nature of the demon, of our duties to confine it, and the tools we have to maintain its imprisonment, from our earliest days. Before a young boy or girl learns to read, he or she can perfectly recite the sunrise and twilight prayers. Before I ever had a bike or went camping, I knew how to check the chains for weakness, how to replace and repair corrupted links, how to care for the locks and ensure their inner workings never fail.
Even at a distance, I can see the chains all appear to be intact. I need to go closer and inspect the locks, but I don’t want to. I was taught to fear the demon, but not to let that fear control me. I was told to cling to the rules and the safeguards and I would remain safe in my holy duty.
But that was before today. Today I woke up, and my parents and little sister were gone. The neighbors were gone. Cars are running idle in the street, which is doubly odd, because I’d think they would have crashed if the drivers suddenly disappeared. I explored the town and the woods surrounding it for over four hours, and I haven’t seen a single soul or any sign as to where they went.
From the start, my assumption was that the demon was somehow behind it. I kept hoping it was some kind of mistake or practical joke, but that made no sense, and the last few hours had proven the pointlessness of that hope.
No, the truth was that the rules and safeguards had somehow failed. Somehow the thing that was snickering at me, its lips stretched tight against its clenched yellow teeth as it ticked its head back and forth like one of those piano things…a metronome, I think…it had…
“Just let me in.”
I want to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make great documentaries that would move people and change the world, but a year after graduating film school, the only thing I had accomplished was recording hours of boring footage and developing a profound sense of self-loathing. So I set that aside and tried to become an internet personality. I’ve been making videos and posting them online for the past two years, but nothing has really gained traction yet. I tried video game lets plays, movie reviews, and even a prank channel, but my subscriber base has never gone above 12. My parents keep gently suggesting I should try and find a way to put my film degree to some other, more lucrative use, or in the alternative, just get a steady job that pays more than minimum wage. I’m starting to agree.
So this is my last attempt at this. I’m going to try and make a semi-professional video about something potentially creepy and hope people give a fuck. Doubtful. After trying to find some angle for several days, I was at the local library in Ash’s Hollow. I had come back to my hometown and moved back in with my parents when my small documentary grant had petered out, and it was excruciating. They were sweet people and tried to be supportive, but I could feel them judging me every day, and every day I could feel myself getting closer to giving up on any semblance of the life I wanted just so I didn’t feel like an embarrassing burden any more.
The library was small and depressing, and after a couple of hours of looking for any books on local myths or legends, I had started staring morosely at an old map of the area, more out of boredom than any hope of finding any inspiration in hundred year-old roads and land borders. But then I saw it. A small town forty miles away I had never heard of. Emberton.
I felt a small thrill of excitement, but I figured it was just a gap in my knowledge rather than an actual forgotten town. Pulling out my phone, I googled the town, but found nothing aside from an Emberton in Colorado and Maine. When I pulled up a current map, no matter how I zoomed, I found no sign of it either.
Now I was really excited. It wasn’t unheard of for towns to die off, and after a few decades, most people wouldn’t even remember it. But to find one this close…it was clearly destiny, or at least really good luck. And if I was super lucky, there would be enough of the old town left behind to make for some really good footage. Urban decay and abandoned streets…people eat that shit up. And I was from a town with Ash in the name, searching for a town called Emberton…there had to be some kind of fancy artistic throughline there I could use. Something about the town burning out early or something. Fuck, I really suck at this. But got to try and stay optimistic.
The next day I was heading out. I took off from the yogurt shop I had been working at lately, not telling them or anyone else where I was going. If it wound up being a wild goose-chase, I would save some embarrassment. And if it was badass…well, that would make for a great story when I returned.
I traveled by interstate for ten miles, then a state highway briefly before turning onto a barely maintained county road. This stretched on for nearly fifteen miles before just ending. I sat staring glumly at the stand of pine trees pressing in all around me, wondering if I had somehow missed a turn-off along the way. I turned around and started back down the road, going much slower this time.
I slammed on the brakes as I saw the remanents of a dirt road on the left less than a mile from the dead end. Trees and bushes had overtaken it almost entirely, so there was no chance of getting the car through there, but I hadn’t come this far to just give up. I got out my camera, locked the car, and headed out.
I had only walked for a few minutes when I saw something bright white through the trees. I started the camera rolling, and as I moved closer my heart sped up as I saw it was the Emberton town limits sign. Just sitting in the middle of these woods, bright and perfectly preserved like it had been painted the week before. And behind it, a well-paved road stretched up and over a hill.
“Holy fucking shit.”
I woke up to see that my hands were raw and bleeding a little. I was sitting on one of the few pews we kept in this church. There were never any services here unless you wanted to count the morning and evening prayers, and it was rare that anyone wanted to sit near that thing for longer than necessary. At the thought, I raised my eyes and saw with horror that the chains were laying discarded on the floor. Still sitting on the altar, the demon sat staring at me with a small smile on his face.
“Just let me in.”
It said it almost casually, its gaze shifting from me as it looked down at its clothes. They looked old and faded, but still in good condition considering how long he must have been wearing them. The demon’s hair was long and fell into his face as he looked himself over with an expression that looked like mild irritation, and as the fan of black hair swept down, I caught a glimpse of the large scar on the thing’s neck. I had seen it before, but never well, and I still didn’t know what it was from. When I asked my mother once, she had just given a nervous look to my father and told me to keep my thoughts from the wicked thing unless I was doing one of my duties.
Its eyes cut back to me and narrowed. “Just let me in.”
This place was a fucking gold mine.
I didn’t know how this place was even possible, wasn’t even sure it was possible, but I was walking through it and recording just the same.
It was a fully preserved, fully functional small town. Not some ancient, grown up ruin. Not even a slowly eroding spot in the road that had a handful of houses that no longer qualified it for town status or a dot on the map. No, it was a decent-sized small town with working street lights. Cars on the streets. Dogs in the yard. And that, I shit you fucking not, was not the best part.
There were no people. None.
I don’t mean that I was catching the sleepy town at its sleepiest. It was eleven in the morning, and there was not a soul in sight. Even better, everywhere there were signs that people had been around until very recently. Cars were left running in the street. Televisions were on in a nearby store window. I saw food on tables in a diner, and when I went in, while the food wasn’t warm, it wasn’t dried up and gross either.
I already had over two hours of footage, and I just kept finding more weird shit. Yet the weirdest part was what I didn’t find. No signs of violence or disturbance. No indication of people being sick or part of some weird townwide cult. Still, the longer I stayed, the more uneasy I was becoming. It was great that I was getting legitimately creepy footage, but I was just about ready to call it and start heading back before I wound up getting abducted and fed to a corn god or something.
Then I saw the church.
I sat paralyzed on the bench. I was eleven, almost twelve, and I was strong and fast. But I knew I was no match for that thing. I didn’t understand why it hadn’t killed me or taken me over already, but I guessed it was just playing with me. It could have left at any time, and it clearly had the ability to mesmerize me or something, as I had every idea I had hurt my hand taking those chains off of it.
But it just sat there, smiling its smile and staring at me.
Deciding I had to try something, I started saying the evening prayer. Immediately, the demon started clutching its head, a sour hiss escaping its lips. Then it turned back to me, openly laughing now as though it had been told a good joke. Wiping tears from its eyes, it eased off the altar and came to stand in front of me in one fluid motion that was impossibly fast.
Crouching down, it held its face just inches from my own, and I gagged at the hot, rotten smell that emanated from it. Its eyes were almost human--a deep blue and still shining from its tears of laughter. It raised a yellowed nail in between us and tapped my nose with each word as it spoke, its voice jolly and low.
“Just. Let. Me. In.”
I was ashamed, but I started crying then. I was shaking my head, my lips trembling and my hands growing cold. I knew I was about to die or something worse. As if reading my mind, the demon suddenly shot out its hands and gripped me, and in the span of two terrified heartbeats it had lifted up my shirt and bit down into the meat just below my armpit.
Just then, I heard the doors to the church opening.
I felt my heart thudding as I approached the church, my eyes constantly scanning in every direction for some sign of danger. My fear was approaching real dread, and that only increased when I thought I heard something move inside the building. I almost broke and ran right then, but it was my parents’ faces that stopped me.
This was my chance. I had so much great footage, but the church would be a great ending even if it was empty. I just had to not be a coward. For fucking once in my life, I had to see things through.
So I threw open the doors, and at first I didn’t know what I was looking at. There was a boy, maybe twelve, chained down to the altar at the other end of the sanctuary. He watched me silently as I entered, a strange smile on his face. I looked around for anyone else, but there was no one.
“Kid? Are you okay? What happened?”
He said nothing, and considering his condition, it wasn’t surprising. As I got closer, I saw that he was far from well. His skin looked thin like yellowed crepe paper, simultaneously too tight and too loose in the wrong places. He almost looked like a little old man. And his clothes seemed worn out and dirty, an old dried reddish stain blossoming out from under one arm of his t-shirt. Deciding my best bet was to try talking to him again after he was free and he knew he was safe, I started inspecting the chains.
They looked like they were made out of silver, and at first I thought they were all locked to eyebolts embedded in the floor, but then to my relief I saw the locks were all sprung. After a few moments I had the boy free and I pulled him off the altar gently.
“Is that better?” The boy had continued looking at me silently as I had freed him, but now he finally spoke, his voice deeper and rougher than I expected.
“Just let me in.”
He opened his mouth wide, and what I saw inside started me screaming. His mouth was full of black worms, each of them writhing and fighting for the opening, their own mouths open with hunger and yearning, the black needles within each clicking together with a musical tinkling sound as they reached the edge of his lips. Then he was burying all those terrible mouths into the side of my neck.
The demon was falling away as the people approached, its body limp as it tumbled to the floor. I looked up and saw with confusion that I knew these men and women, that my parents were among them. My head was swimming, and I was trying to form some kind of question, but my tongue was somehow too thick. Then my father was thrusting a pen and pad of paper into my hands, telling me to write what happened and do it quickly.
I wanted to complain, but I felt a strange urge to do as he asked. I started writing this slumped down on that same pew, my mother propping me up and crying, her tears and my father’s worried looks seeming farther and farther away as I tried to remember everything. I think I’m done now. I’m feeling different now. Better, but different. I can see my sister helping the adults to ready the chains around the altar again.
Report Cycle: 47B
From: Town Council of Emberton
To: Town Council of Ash’s Hollow
Summary: The cycle was completed within normal parameters. Elder Steven took the seat while Younger Steven was returned to his home with his “parents” and was exhibiting no physical or mental signs of past occurrences by the following morning. Alternate memories of his past appear to have fully reasserted themselves, although he now says he had a dog. A dog matching his rough description of the pet will be arriving this afternoon.
Elder Steven is tolerating captivity per usual, having reverted back to the expected docile primary behavior of the Entity within minutes of Elder Steven completing his written account.
Written accounts are attached per protocol. Based on my review of past accounts, they are growing more detailed and fanciful over recent cycles, but nothing else of note.
”All is well in the two towns, and as go the towns, so goes the world."
Addendum to the report re: Cycle 47B
I understand this goes against protocol, and I have been warned by my own Town Council to not step outside the normal chain of command or communication, but I feel like I have no choice.
I understand all of the history and tradition that have led us to this point. When the Entity first appeared in 1923 in Emberton, it possessed and consumed nearly two dozen people before the Divide occurred. Even now, I know that when they are being honest, our own historians aren’t in agreement on whether the Divide was caused by some holy ritual of ours finally taking effect, some kind of Divine intervention, or if it was the intention and design of the Entity itself. I suspect you have these same concerns.
But what is known for certain is that on August 27, 1923, eleven year-old Steven Pemberton was the current host for the Entity. During a feverish battle outside of Sacred River Baptist Church on Burch Street, that little boy was in the process of killing two grown men when he suddenly stopped. He began to levitate, rising as high as five feet by some accounts, and then there was a terrible flash of light and sound. The poor souls that were observing from nearby were instantly and permanently blinded and deafened.
Those that approached from a distance found the little boy laying on the ground, apparently unconscious. Laying nearby, was a naked man in his mid-twenties. A stranger at first glance. As we all know, subsequent investigations showed that this was somehow an adult version of Steven. While it was now strangely docile, it became evident that the Entity was still in Younger Steven. It also became clear that while Elder Steven should not exist, he seemed largely normal and was confused by how he got to Emberton at all, as he remembered growing up and living his life as a type-setter in a nearby town called Ash’s Hollow.
This was found to be especially odd because Ash’s Hollow did not exist at that time. Given the circumstances, the Town Counsel decided that both must be confined in the sanctuary of the church until some more permanent solution could be found. But Elder Steven escaped, and for two long years the town of Emberton kept watch over the monster residing in the little boy they all loved, hoping for a miracle and praying that their lapse in letting the older anomaly escape would not bring ruin to them or others.
And then one day, Elder Steven returned. He went to his younger self, but was stopped by guards at the church. They began dragging him in, intending on finally binding him as well, but then the child was free of his bonds and on them, ripping them in half before they could even cry for help. Instead of going on a further killing spree, the child bit his older self and then bound Elder Steven to the altar himself. He then went home, knocking on his parents door with tears in his eyes, wounds healed, and no apparent memory of what had occurred.
This cycle continued every two years for the next decade until Joseph Mire, head of the Emberton Town Council at the time, declared that something must be done. While efforts had been made to keep Elder Steven in town when he would somehow free himself, it only led to needless death and he would still disappear, only to come back after two years had passed. Mire determined that if they gave him a place to go, a place that was controlled and provided a fabricated life that matched his recollection, it would give at least some degree of knowledge of his whereabouts during both phases of the cycle.
Others argued against it, saying that the Entity would not be controlled or fooled by setting up some fake town Elder Steven claimed to be from. Mire pointed out that Elder Steven’s memories were largely consistent, but they also always remained current. He would always seem confused when he was done biting his younger self in the side, but he would always be from Ash’s Hollow and have the same parents and live at the same address. Yet smaller details would change. He always knew the current year, was roughly aware of recent events, and even his supposed life would include new elements like different jobs and new hobbies. What purpose would any of that serve if the Entity was just making it all up? What logic was there in trying to fool people that it clearly could eradicate at any moment?
”Of course, the rest of the Council didn’t care for discussion of that point. It was an unspoken reality among the council itself and some of the townspeople that very little, if anything, that they had tried actually had any effect on the Entity. Even its supposed incarceration was largely a farce based on past events.
So in the end, they relented and agreed with Mire that they needed to found Ash’s Hollow and attempt to make it a place that Elder Steven could stay during his times away. And as we all know, it actually worked. It has seemed to work for over 80 years.
And that’s the problem. It’s seemed to work, and people are satisfied with appearances. On the day of the Divide, Emberton was somehow wiped from the collective memory of the rest of the world. People could leave town of course, but if they went to Memphis or wherever else and said where they were from, they would typically just get a confused smile, and the people they met wouldn’t remember the name of the town even ten minutes later. It was disturbing at the time, but it was the least of the town’s worries during the aftermath of all that slaughter, and in the years since it’s been decided it’s actually a blessing designed to keep Emberton safe from the world and vice versa. We get everything through Ash’s Hollow, which isn’t afflicted by the same strangeness, and everything is just fine.
Except it’s not. We are not in control of any of this. We now have generations of people in this town that honestly believe that the thing we have here can be contained by silver chains and prayers made up by Mire in the late 30s. They devote their lives with a religious fervor that borders on fanaticism to the rituals and rules that have been set up for them. I know, because I was much the same before I was appointed to the Council last year.
But the truth is, they are in a zoo with a tiger. They think there are bars between them and the tiger, but they are mistaken. They think they are keeping the tiger, but it’s the tiger that is keeping them.
We don’t know what the Entity is. It may be that it is a demon, or an alien, or something else entirely. But what is clear is that it has all the power. It has all the control. It is allowing us to live, letting us put on this little stage play day after day, year after year, because it finds it funny.
No, that’s wrong. How do I know what a tiger finds funny? That’s the mistake we’ve all been making. We think we can know that thing’s mind. What’s to say that it thinks and feels as we do, that it uses human logic to guide its course?
I have read the accounts of what that thing did before the Divide, and it was truly terrible. I understand why you are all afraid. But the people here are prisoners and don’t know it. They are in far more danger than they can appreciate, and the world at large is and has been in grave danger ever since we first decided to keep this all a secret.
I hope and pray you see the sense in what I’m saying. We have to find another way or warn the world. Just because the Entity has gone along with all of this for so long is meaningless. Maybe it finds it entertaining.
What happens when it gets bored?
---
Credits
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