My Friend Benji

  

I’ve never believed in imaginary friends, but I still had one growing up. His name was Benji, and much like his existence, his name wasn’t my choice. You see, when I got to be about six years old, my mother disappeared and my father went through a real rough time. He slept a lot, cried when he thought I couldn’t hear, and lost thirty pounds from sadness and worry. Then one day, when I came inside for dinner, I saw a third plate at the table.

For one bright moment, I thought that Mama had found her way back to us after nearly a year. I asked and saw my father's face crumple slightly. No, he replied thickly. That plate was for my friend Benji. When I asked who Benji was, my father acted surprised. He explained that Benji was my invisible best friend who would always be there for me. Who would never leave my side.

I was seven by then, and while still a little kid, I was well past believing in invisible playmates. But I was also old enough to see how much my father was hurting, and that, for some strange reason, having Benji around seemed to make things a little better. Over the years, I came to understand it was probably just his warped way of reassuring himself that I’d never be alone the way that he was.

Outside of the two of us, no one knew about Benji. I didn’t bring friends home—instead I always went to their house to sleep over or hang out. When I got to college, my father would always ask how Benji was doing when I called, and I would always tell him he was doing fine. You know Benji, up to his old tricks. And I could hear the relief in my father’s reply. The peace I was giving him with this odd family ritual.

The last ritual I shared with my father was his funeral two weeks ago. I kept a seat empty next to me, the black “reserved” placard marking Benji’s place. I was filled with sad anxiety as I walked out of the graveyard an hour later. Silly as it might seem, I felt like I was losing not only my father, but Benji as well.

A middle-aged woman approached me as I neared my car. She said she was my distant cousin, and she had come all the way from Maryland for the funeral, though she’d only made it to the graveside. She said she was sorry for my loss. That my family had been so burdened with loss over the years. My father, my mother, all the way back to my brother. My brother Benji that died when I was a baby.

I tell you this because I want you to know that I know who you are even if I don’t know what you are. You’re my brother. My friend.

And you wouldn’t hurt your friend.

Right?

 

---

Credits

To Meet Such A Man

I sat with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the town-square.. The food and the company were both especially good that day.

As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There, walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his back. He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, 'I will work for food.'  My heart sank.

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him.. Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief.

We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind. We finished our meal and went our separate ways.. I had errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful, knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I drove through town and saw nothing of him I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car.

Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: 'Don't go back to the office until you've at least driven once more around the square.'

Then with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the square's third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the church, going through his sack.

I stopped and looked; feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and approached the town's newest visitor.

'Looking for the pastor?' I asked.

'Not really,' he replied, 'just resting

'Have you eaten today?'

'Oh, I ate something early this morning.'

'Would you like to have lunch with me?'

'Do you have some work I could do for you?'

'No work,' I replied. 'I commute here to work from the city, but I would like to take you to lunch.

Sure,' he replied with a smile.

As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface questions. Where you headed?'

'St. Louis'

'Where you from?'

'Oh, all over; mostly Florida '

'How long you been walking?'

'Fourteen years,' came the reply.

I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in the same restaurant I had left earlier His face was weathered slightly beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence and articulation that was startling. He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, 'Jesus is The Never Ending Story.'

Then Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in life. He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences. Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the beach in Daytona. He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a large tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought.

He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival services, and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his life over to God

'Nothing's been the same since,' he said, 'I felt the Lord telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now.'

'Ever think of stopping?' I asked.

'Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me.  But God has given me this calling. I give out Bibles.. That's what's in my sack. I work to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads.'

I sat amazed.  My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked: 'What's it like?'

'What? '

'To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show your sign?'

'Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make comments. Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that certainly didn't make me feel welcome. But then it became humbling to realize that God was using me to touch lives and change people's concepts of other folks like me.'

My concept was changing, too. We finished our dessert and gathered his things. Just outside the door, he paused. He turned to me and said, 'Come Ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I've prepared for you. For when I was hungry you gave me food , when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger and you took me in.'

I felt as if we were on holy ground. 'Could you use another Bible?' I asked.

He said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not too heavy. It was also his personal favorite. 'I've read through it 14 times,' he said.

'I'm not sure we've got one of those, but let's stop by our church and see'. I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed very grateful.

'Where are you headed from here?' I asked..

'Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon.'

'Are you hoping to hire on there for awhile?'

'No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next.'

He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission. I drove him back to the town-square where we'd met two hours earlier, and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his things.

'Would you sign my autograph book?' he asked. 'I like to keep messages from folks I meet.'

I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse of scripture from Jeremiah, 'I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you; Plans to give you a future and a hope.'

'Thanks, man,' he said. 'I know we just met and we're really just strangers, but I love you.'

'I know,' I said, 'I love you, too.' 'The Lord is good!'

'Yes, He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?' I asked.

'A long time,' he replied

And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed. He put his things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, 'See you in the New Jerusalem .'

'I'll be there!' was my reply.

He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from his bedroll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, 'When you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?'

'You bet,' I shouted back, 'God bless.'

'God bless.' And that was the last I saw of him.

Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled hard upon the town. I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached for the emergency brake, I saw them... a pair of well-worn brown work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up and thought of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night without them.

Then I remembered his words: 'If you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?'

Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me to see the world and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with my unique friend and to pray for his ministry. 'See you in the New Jerusalem,' he said. Yes, Daniel, I know I will...

There Is A Needle Hunting Me

  

Last year I finished a four-year residency as part of becoming an emergency medical specialist (aka an ER doctor). Working in a metropolitan hospital, I had seen a lot of crazy things over time—shootings, stabbings, freak accidents and mysterious illnesses, to name a few—but the patient I remember the most was Martha Jennings.

Martha had come in originally after police had been called to her home due to noise complaints from neighbors. When the officers arrived, they had found her frantically moving to and fro between a cellar door and a backed-up truck filled with sheets of metal and wood. According to one cop I spoke to later, she had been wringing with sweat as she yanked an eight-foot sheet of plywood off the truck bed and began dragging it toward the doorway that led underneath the house. She’d barely looked up at the officers’ arrival, but when they offered to help her carry it down, she accepted gratefully.

The cellar was in chaos, with power tools and cords strewn across the floor from one end to the other. It didn’t take long to figure out that Martha was in the process of adding layers to all the walls down there, and not just one layer either. Instead she was attaching sheets of wood and metal in alternating panels, and in places the layers were already five or six sheets deep. When the cop casually asked her what kind of project she was working on down there, she had blinked several times before answering, her voice quiet and wavering in between pants of exertion as she propped the latest board against a wall.

“I’m making the walls thicker. So it’s safe down here when it comes for me.”

They naturally followed up with more questions, which led to her being brought in for examination. She was brought to the ER first due to concerns that her “confusion” might be caused by either dehydration, heatstroke, or some kind of bad reaction to medicine. We pulled blood and I did an initial exam right after she arrived, but I wasn’t noting anything other than her being slightly underweight and looking exhausted. That and her being really pissed off.

“You can’t keep me here. You have no right. I haven’t committed any crime, have I?”

I had smiled at her then, both because I wanted to reassure her and because I thought it was a fair question. I knew they had brought her in because she was being “disorderly”, but I honestly figured they did it more because they were worried about her and the things she was saying. At the time, all I knew was that she had supposedly been “acting crazy” and “talking out of her head”, but looking at her now, fuming but clear-eyed, it was hard to imagine it.

“No, I don’t think you did anything wrong. But…well, I think they were scared something was wrong. That maybe you were sick or weren’t feeling yourself. Do you remember talking to the officers that brought you here?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. I’m not crazy. Or if I am, I’m not senile at least.”

I laughed. “No one said you were. But do you mind telling me what you talked to them about? It may just be some kind of misunderstanding.”

She sighed. “Look, I was having a bad day, I ran my mouth, and they took me for being serious. It…It was all just a bad joke that got out of hand.” She looked down at the wristcuffs that secured her to the bed. “Can you take these off? They are itchy and I promise, you don’t need them.”

Nodding, I unbuckled them as we talked. “So, it was a bad joke? Tell me about it. What did you tell them?”

Rubbing her freed wrists, she scowled. “I was…I am…renovating the basement of my house. My husband died a few months ago, and I’ve been trying to keep busy ever since. I guess I was making too much noise, and one of my stupid neighbors complained. I was mad because they called the cops, so I made up this silly story just to mess with them. That’s all there is to it.” She glanced around. “So can I get my clothes back? I’m ready to go now.”

I shook my head slightly. “Miss Jennings…”

“Call me Martha please. I’m not that old.”

“Martha, I...I can’t make the call to release you. When someone is brought in by the police, they have to either sign off on the release or they take you back when we’re done treating you. I understand this might have all been just a bad joke like you said, but I’m going to have to talk to them first.”

She started to argue and I raised my hand. “If you will, tell me what you told them, if you remember. It will put me in a better position to help get you released if I know what we’re talking about. Okay?”

Martha closed her eyes and pushed her head back into the pillow, her lips a thin line of resigned defeat as she began.

“I told them that there is some kind of alien or magic needle that is hunting me. That I needed to make the walls of my basement thick enough that it couldn’t get through, even though I didn’t know if it would matter.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So that was your joke? That you thought a magic needle was after you?”

Glaring at me, she nodded. “Yes, it was a bad and stupid joke. Will you please get me released now? I need to be going.”

“As I said, it will be a little while. They’re going to want to see the bloodwork before we release you, and I don’t control what the cops do after that. But I don’t mind talking to them and trying to help, like I said.”

Leaning forward, she stabbed a finger toward me. “I’ll sue. You understand me? I’m being held against my will, and I. Will. Sue.”

I shrugged. “Ma’am, you do what you need to, but I’m telling you, if they arrested you, it’s going to be at least another couple of hours before you get out of here, one way or the other.”

Her eyes widened. “No. I can’t stay here that long. You Goddamn idiots, you don’t…” She started to get up and I raised a hand to stop her.

“Please don’t. They’ll just put the restraints back on you, and it’ll make it harder for me to convince them that you’re okay to go home. Can you try to be patient?”

I was surprised when she laid back, tears in her eyes. “You’re killing me, that’s what you’re doing. You’re all killing me.”

“Miss…Martha, what do you mean? What are you afraid of? The tests? I can assure you they’re all harmless, and no one will do anything…”

“No, you fool. Not the tests.” Her voice was lower but more strident now, the angry hiss of a snake. “The needle. The fucking needle.” Her eyes darted around as she spoke. “I lied before. The needle is real and it’s coming for me. I need to keep moving or be somewhere protected, not stuck here talking to you.”

I felt new unease stirring in my belly. She wasn’t joking now, and I didn’t think she was lying either. Which meant she was crazy after all. I almost went and got help right then, but I wanted to know more. Maybe she could tell me something that could help before they took her away for the 72 hour psych observation, as I could see now that’s the direction this was all heading.

“Martha, will you tell me what you’re talking about? The truth? That’s the only way I can help.”

The woman looked at me for several moments before seeming to make a decision. Scowling, she gave a shrug. “Why not? It won’t make you think I’m any more crazy than you already do. And apparently I have at least a little bit of time to kill. But for the record, this is all a joke, I do not consent to my restraints, and if I’m not released in the next few minutes, you can expect a lawsuit.” These words lacked the same energy and conviction that had crackled off of her just moments before. In fact, as I watched, she seemed to be deflating, her fear and panic being replaced with a dull gray sheen of resignation that was somehow worse. I was going to ask if she was okay, but she had already begun.

---

My husband wasn’t a bad man. A bit boring and clueless yes, and too in love with his work to be sure, but not a mean bone in his body. He…well, he was passionate about his work. It was all molecular chemistry and metallurgy and…well, it was interesting to him and the paint on the wall. But it paid well enough, especially when he got hired by a hush-hush outfit to work on some secret project.

When he first went to work there, I tried getting some details out of him, but he wouldn’t budge. Too much work integrity, you see. They said don’t tell anything, so he didn’t. That’s how I knew how bad things were when he came home six months ago, pale and shaking.

It wasn’t his constant, nervous glances. He’d been acting more jittery for a few weeks, and I’d assumed it was either work stress or because he knew our marriage was heading toward the edge of something that might interrupt the orderly existence he’d crafted for himself over the last ten years. It wasn’t even the fact that he poured himself a drink as soon as he walked in, despite the fact that he never drank more than once or twice a year.

It was the fact that he was talking to me. Telling me things. Things I knew he wasn’t supposed to be telling. Him breaking one of their precious rules scared the shit out of me.

He said for the last three years he had been part of Project Arcadia, a long-term, multi-disciplinary study of several objects provided to the group he worked for. When I asked if it was the government, he just laughed and shook his head. Said I watched too many movies and was thinking too small. But that it didn’t matter. What mattered was what had happened two weeks earlier. What had happened two hours before he came home to me terrified and shaking.

And it all came down to the thing that his team had been working with for the past year.

They called it the Needle. Two inches long and the width of five human hairs, it was a straight line of metal that defied any kind of explanation. For one thing, the metal seemed indestructible—they couldn’t even scrape it for a sample, and the tests they could run came back with results that made little sense and gave fewer answers. Second, it appeared to be solid and made of one piece, but all attempts at internal imaging had failed, so they couldn’t say for sure. Third, and this is where I started thinking he was crazy, the needle floated. Just floated on its own like a balloon, though it never raised or lowered itself more than about four feet off the ground unless pushed. If you did push it, it would drift away like a floating bar of soap before slowly creeping back to its original spot.

I asked him then, kind of making fun if I’m honest, if it was from an alien ship or something. He hadn’t laughed, but only shook his head slowly. Said he didn’t know. They were only told to learn what they could about how it worked. But, he’d added wearily, one of his partners had said it had come from some kind of “benefactor”. That the guy had worked on other objects before, and they were all different and all strange. One had been some kind of mask, another was a tissue sample from a tree or something.

For a long time he enjoyed working with the Needle. They made very little progress, but the chance to work with something so unique was exciting. He started staying longer and longer hours in the hopes of making some kind of breakthrough. He didn’t say it, but I think he was afraid he’d be kicked off the project if they didn’t get results. Joke was on him, wasn’t it?

Fuck. That’s petty. He didn’t know. I don’t guess any of them did. But…where was I?

Two weeks before my husband told me all this, they were doing a round of what he called “behavioral tests” on the damn thing, because they had figured out it had to have some kind of computer in it or something because of how it acted. It was fine with being moved around to wherever, but it wanted to stay at the same height above the ground. They constructed big vertical mazes and it would navigate them. According to Reese…that was my husband…it was just like watching a smart rat after it had memorized a path. They had this...this fucking thing, and they were just playing with it like it was a shiny toy.

Except one day, when one of his lab buddies, Becker, was pushing the Needle into the maze opening, his hand slipped and the Needle pricked his finger. Reese said it never should have happened. They had protocols for handling the thing, but they had gotten used to it, which made them careless and sloppy. For a few seconds they were just laughing nervously as Becker sucked his bloody finger. Then they heard a terrible screeching sound as the Needle pushed its way out of the maze, shot through a nearby wall and disappeared.

They were locked down for the next twelve hours—questioned again and again while security watched the surveillance videos and tracked the trajectory of the Needle out of the facility. It had shot through dozens of walls before flying off to places unknown. Well, unknown for the time being. As far as Reese and the rest of them went, there was no signs of them doing anything to cause it other than Becker pricking his finger. The rest of them were reassigned while Becker was “asked” to remain at the facility for further testing until the investigation was complete.

Reese heard about the first of the killings a couple of days later.

Becker had a grandmother in Arizona. She suddenly dropped dead in the produce department of her local grocery store, the only visible injury a tiny well of blood on the front and back of her head as though she had been pricked by something. The next day, Becker’s high school girlfriend, who he apparently hadn’t seen for years, died in a single car accident with no apparent cause for the wreck. By that weekend, his brother and the brother’s entire family were found dead in their camper of “indeterminate causes”. Then it was Becker’s college roommate, his parents, his fucking pharmacist.

Because of the way the grandmother died, they suspected from the start it was the Needle. And while they didn’t know why it was doing what it was doing, they began to understand the pattern and the practical effect. It was killing off anyone connected to the man who had pricked his finger on it.

Two hours before he came home, Reese had been talking to one of his old lab partners. They were on different teams now, and this was the first time they’d talked in a few days. Reese said the first thing he’d noticed was that Theresa was spilling her coffee. He went to mention it when he realized she wasn’t spilling it at all. There was a small hole in the side of her mug, and as the cup fell away, he saw blood blooming on her shirt as she fell to the ground. I remember him saying she shouldn’t have died so fast…not unless it had darted around inside her before flitting away again.

Reese was killed two days after telling me about the Needle. His death was a bit more mundane, however, as he was shot to death in a “robbery” while coming back from the ice machine at the motel we had checked into that night. Apparently his employers weren’t very happy with him spilling the beans and trying to run away from the killer needle.

I’d expected to follow him soon after, but no one ever came. No assassins or black cars following me or whatever it is they might normally do. I moved around for a few days, but I realized there was no point. They could find me if they wanted, and I’d started to figure out that they didn’t want to kill me after all. No, they were content to let the Needle do that for them while they gathered the data. Another fucking “behavioral test”.

So I went back home. That’s when I got the call that Rory, the man I’d been sleeping with for the past three years, had died mysteriously in the shower. Rory, a man that Reese had never met, let alone Becker. That’s when I knew that Reese had been telling the truth, and that some time, somewhere, the Needle would be coming for me.

That’s why I have to get out of here.

---

I tried to keep my expression neutral as Martha finished her story. It was insane, of course, but letting my disbelief and pity show would have only upset her more. So instead, I thanked her and told her I needed to finish my rounds, but I would be back in shortly. She said something else as I walked away, but I pretended I didn’t hear and kept going.

I was on the other side of the ER a few minutes later when I heard Martha begin to scream.

Running over, I pushed through a throng of nurses and PAs to see what was bad enough to cause her to scream so loudly for a few seconds before falling silent. My breath caught as I saw her dead eyes staring up at the ceiling, the right one red from hemorrhage. I staggered back a step, and that’s when I noticed her bare foot hanging halfway off the bed.

On the bottom of her heel was a tiny drop of blood. When I wiped at it, I saw a small puncture wound there. I was moving back toward her upper body to more closely examine the injured eye when something on the wall behind the bed caught my attention.

It was a small hole, about the width of five human hairs. It looked to be lined up perfectly with the top of Martha’s head, and when I checked, I found a matching hole in her scalp.

I went home early that night. I couldn’t get her story out of my head, but worse was the sound of her scream—full of fear and pain as the thing she feared the most found her and pushed its way relentlessly through her body.

I checked later, and there was no autopsy. No record of who claimed the body or where it went. It didn’t matter. I suspected I knew exactly who had taken it.

The next few months were hard for me. I kept waiting for guys in black suits to pay me a visit or to wake up in a dungeon somewhere. I kept my head down, finished my residency, and moved to the other side of the country. When I started my new job, I didn’t take more than a day off for the first six months, and it was only this weekend that I actually got away with a girl I’ve been seeing. It’s the first time in a really long time that I’ve relaxed, and when I got home I realized I had gone more than twenty-four hours without feeling scared for the first time in…well, a long time.

Laying down on my bed, I felt myself getting drowsy as I stared up at my ceiling. Things were going good with Sidney, and work was fine now that…

There was a hole in my ceiling.

I sat up and looked closer. That hadn’t been there before. There hadn’t been a hole right over my bed, right over where I laid my head.

I looked around in a panic. There were no signs of anything else being disturbed, but still…I stood up and examined my bed. That’s when I noticed that there was a similar hole in my pillow, though when I picked it up, it didn’t go through the other side. As though it realized I wasn’t there…or was letting me know that it had been.

Shaking, I grabbed my suitcase again. Headed for the bus station and got on the first one that was going far with infrequent stops. Planned infrequent stops, at least.

Because as I’m writing this on my phone, the bus has pulled over in the middle of nowhere. A flat tire and engine trouble, if you can believe that coincidence. I know I can’t. There’s no service out here, so the driver is walking back to a spot in the road with a gas station that we passed a couple of miles back. I’m not waiting on that though. I’m going to start walking in the opposite direction as soon as this is finished.

Not because I think I’ll outrun it, you understand. But because people get nervous in a crisis, or even just the inconvenience of being stranded for a couple of hours. They want to talk, get to know each other, make connections so they feel more normal and less alone. I’m already terrified about what may happen to Sidney and my Uncle Mike, the people I work with or I’ve treated. I don’t want more lives on my conscience.

So I’ll walk and hope it doesn’t find me. That if it does, it will end with me. And if it’s coming for me, I hope it’s soon. Because I still remember the last thing Martha said to me as I walked away, pretending I didn’t hear.

“The worst part isn’t that it’s coming, you see. It’s not knowing when or why. That it’s out there, taking its time, maybe enjoying itself. Enjoying thinking about when it catches you. When it catches you and pushes a hole right on through.”

 

---

Credits

The Midnight Hind

 

When you approach the pub known as the Midnight Hind, you would be forgiven for thinking it is abandoned, or at the least, closed. It only operates between dusk and dawn, and the ancient leaded glass of its cross-hatched windows are so pregnant with swirling colors that, in the moonlight, they take on the dead-eyed opalescence of an oil slick.

Opening the door, most blink at the contrast between the still darkness without and the riot of light and sound within. People talking and arguing, playing cards at corner tables, and gathering around the small stage where an odd little band plays. But none of that was why I’d entered that place. I had come to play the Bar Game.

You sit at the far end of the bar facing the other player, the span of polished wood in front of you deeply etched with white lines and runes. Among these carvings, several rows of silver nails have been hammered halfway deep, and when you are bade to slide your hand in, you find that the spaces between the nails fit your fingers just perfectly. Further, regardless of the players, when both have their fingers planted between the silvery rows, their fingertips always lightly touch.

Then the game begins.

The bartender has a card he or she produces from beneath the bar. On it are three questions.

What is the best thing you have ever done?

You immediately get flooded by not only the best answer of your own heart, but that of your opponent. And it goes beyond mere telepathy. You see all the good and bad consequences of what you both did—things you could never know. This question breaks many people right away.

What is the worst thing you have ever done?

This is, almost without fail, a different answer than one expects. A buried, secret shame. It is what undid my opponent only a moment before I was going to yank my own hand free. The third question was never asked of us, but I saw it on the card.

Who are you truly?

I shuddered at the words, in part because I saw the look on my opponent’s face. I had won, so I kept the memories of my best self while my worst crimes were wiped away. Not just from my memory, but removed wholly from the world. Her penalty for losing was the truth. Not only did she keep a perfect recollection of her worst act and its effects, but she had the last question answered for her. She was irrevocably shown who she truly was, without all the self-delusions and comforting lies.

I avoided her eyes as I got up to find a cheerier corner of the pub. The bartender was gentle as he ushered her out of the bar, and while it made me uncomfortable, I understood why she couldn’t stay. After all, this was a place of light and laughter.

And the damned deserved to walk alone in the dark.

 

---

Credits

Dewclaw

  

We call it a dewclaw. It’s how you know you’re one of us.

I…ah, I see. And when you say ‘we’ call it a dewclaw…

I mean me and Mama and Daddy. And Uncle Freddy and Aunt Sandra. And, well, our whole family.

So…they all talk about that as being a dewclaw?

Yep. It’s like what my dog Roscoe has, only bigger. That’s how Mama first told it to me.

Okay. So now, who else comes around your ranch? Other than your Mama and Daddy and Uncle Freddy and Aunt Sandra.

Hmm. That’s mainly it except for Jonathan. That’s Uncle Freddy and Aunt Sandra’s son. He used to play with me when we were little, but he’s all grown up now. And he don’t come around no more anyway.

That’s Jonathan…Peterson?

Yep. That’s him.

Why doesn’t he come around any more?

I dunno…Maybe because he got mad last time. He saw me after the docking and he started crying and cursing and stuff. He said it wasn’t right. Wasn’t right what they’d done to me. He tried to talk to me, but my parents, they protected me. Daddy told me later that it wasn’t anything to worry about. Said Jonathan was just upset because his adult dewclaws hadn’t come in yet. Because he hasn’t done the Necessary.

Okay. So because I want to make sure I understand everything, let’s kind of break down some of what you’re talking about, okay?

Yes, ma’am.

So what is ‘docking’?

You don’t know that? You’re playing with me. No? Okay, if you say so. Well, docking is when you get to a certain age—with girls it’s usually when you first get your color—they have to clip off your baby dewclaws. It hurts something awful, but they have to do it so your adult dewclaws can grow in right.

Um…sorry, give me just a second.

Yes, ma’am. No need to cry about it. It hurts, but we’re made tough. We can take it.

Yes, well, that’s good. Um, you said…you said something about Jonathan’s…his adult dewclaws hadn’t come in because he hadn’t done the Necessary. What’s that?

Gosh, I thought you’d know that part for sure. Okay. Well, when one of us reaches sixteen, we have to do the Necessary. We have to kill a person and eat their heart. And it can’t be one of us. It has to be one of you. After that, our adult dewclaws grow in and we get real strong, real tough.

Okay. When you say ‘us’ and ‘one of you’, what do you mean?

Well, I mean, we’re werewolves. And you’re just a normal person, right? I don’t mean no harm, ma’am. You can’t help it. And you’re in no danger from me. I made a promise to myself a long time ago I’d only take one life, and that was for the Necessary. I just don’t feel right about it.

So the social worker, the woman who was out at your ranch yesterday. Do you know what happened to her?

I do. That lady was my Necessary. I promise, I killed her quick as I could. She didn’t scream for long, and she was dead when I took her heart…(whispering) Don’t tell, but Daddy helped me with getting it out. I had trouble holding the knife good.

So are you saying you killed that lady yourself?

Yes, ma’am.

Because she was your Necessary?

Yes, ma’am.

And your parents are the ones that…that ‘docked’ you?

Yes, ma’am.

How old were you when they did that?

Um, I was eleven going on twelve.

And they told you that you and your family are werewolves. That your…your dewclaws would grow back when you did your Necessary?

That’s right.

Okay. Have you ever been away from the ranch before today?

Sure, plenty of times. Out in the woods learning to hunt and fish and camp. I love going out there.

Well, yeah. Alright. I meant more like, have you ever been to towns or cities. Places like where you are now. Not this building, I don’t mean that. But you saw all the cars and people on the way in, right?

Yes, ma’am.

Have you ever been around anything like that? Been to school or talked to people other than your family?

No, ma’am. Mama told me it wasn’t safe for our kind to mix too much until we’re grown. They taught me themselves, and they did a real good job. But I am excited about getting to meet more people. I think I’m more excited about that than I am getting so strong and tough when my dewclaws come back in.

So, what di-

When do you think that’ll happen, ma’am?

When do I think what will happen, honey?

When do you think my dewclaws will grow back? I woke up last night because the spots were itching, and I was so excited I could hardly go back to sleep. But when I got up today, they were just the same. Do you know when they’ll come back?

I…I don’t know, baby. I guess I don’t know a lot about werewolves and dewclaws and stuff. I’m sorry.

Oh, it’s okay. I bet it’ll be soon. Hey, what do you call them?

What do I call what?

Your dewclaws. I mean, I know they’re not for-real dewclaws like mine if you’re just a regular person, but you didn’t know to call them that, so you must call them something else. So what do you call them?

Thumbs, baby. We call them thumbs.

---

Credits

 

Sin Eating

  

To many, sin is just an idea. A religious or spiritual concept meant to describe an act or the condition of one’s soul. To others, it is something more real and tangible—it has a weight and substance to it like the gravitational pull of some distant black star.

For me, it was just a word. I had been raised in a strictly religious family in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma, so it was a word I was intimately familiar with, but one which held little meaning for me other than stirring up fuzzy memories of fiery sermons and harsh admonitions when I’d done something my parents found to be “sinful”. I wasn’t religious or spiritual myself, and if I had a soul, I imagined it must be a dim and shabby thing that I was getting little use out of.

When I went to visit my best friend Melanie the summer before our senior year of college, I’d had no idea I would be attending a funeral. My first indication was the line of cars filling her family’s driveway as I pulled up. When I got out and found Melanie, she tearfully explained that her grandmother had passed away the afternoon before. She apologized for not calling and warning me, but things had been chaotic and she was glad I was here anyway.

I had some misgivings about intruding, but in the end I stayed. I kept out of the way most of the time, occasionally giving Melanie or her mother a break from the steady line of family members and well-wishers who were coming and going for the next two days leading up to the funeral. I was amazed at how many there were—I knew her grandmother was old, but I could live to be two hundred and I wouldn’t know that many people. Melanie’s family had some money, but this was like the old woman had been famous or something.

Still, while the constant stream of people got tiring, it was nice to feel like I was of some use. I helped clean a bit and got groceries while they finished making the funeral arrangements. I was dreading going to the funeral itself, but I figured after that I should be good to leave. I wasn’t trying to be selfish, but I’d had my fill of family time, even if the family wasn’t my own.

It was the night before the funeral when Melanie came and knocked on my door before opening it a crack. “You still awake?”

“Yeah, I am. There’s so many weird noises here. Hard to get used to.”

Melanie gave a little laugh as she stepped in and closed the door behind her. “That’s called crickets, and they aren’t weird. You’ve just never lived anywhere that didn’t have a sidewalk.”

I shrugged as she sat down on the bed. “I guess not, but damn, do they not get tired?” She didn’t respond, and I saw the troubled expression on her face. “Everything okay, Mel?”

She frowned as she looked down at the floor. “I…No, not really. There’s this weird family thing, and there’s a problem with it, and Mom wanted me to ask you and I’m not really comfortable with doing that but now that I’m telling you about it, it’s kind of like I’m already asking you, which makes me a hypocrite or something.” Melanie looked up at me sadly. “Ugh. Sorry. I should go. I suck.”

I grabbed her arm as she went to stand up. “No, don’t be dumb. What is it?”

Sitting back down, she rolled her eyes. “Look, my grandma was super-old, right?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“Well, apparently she was also super-crazy. She had some old custom from like old-timey England that she wanted a sin eater to perform a ceremony before her funeral.”

I stared blankly at her. “Am I supposed to know what the fuck a sin eater is?”

She gave me an exasperated sigh. “I know, right? According to Mom, there used to be these people called sin eaters that would perform a little ritual when someone died. They’d eat some food that was supposed to have the dead person’s sins in it, and that would transfer the sins onto the sin eater. What sense any of that makes, I couldn’t tell you. But I know my Mom is taking it serious, which means my grandmother took it serious. Where she got the idea in the first place, I couldn’t tell you, but it’s apparently a big deal.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, yeah, that’s sounds super weird, but what does that have to do with me?” I already had a suspicion, but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. “Are there people that still actually do that kind of thing?”

Melanie smiled weakly. “Apparently a few. And you can find just about anything these days, I guess. My mom found someone—a guy from Pennsylvania that is supposedly a “reputable soul eater”, whatever the hell that means. Problem is, he just called and canceled, and there’s not time to find someone else the night before the funeral.” She paused and swallowed. “So…well, Mom wanted me to ask if you’d be willing to do it.”

I felt goosebumps coming up on my arms. “Why me?”

She shrugged. “Well, you’re the only one here that’s not part of her family but close enough we’d be comfortable with asking. And I know you don’t believe in all that soul stuff anyway, so I guess Mom thought it was worth a shot.”

I shook my head slightly. “I…I don’t know. I never said I definitely don’t believe in a soul, I’m just not into religion and stuff. But even if I don’t, it seems like a kind of big, weird deal that I wouldn’t want to mess up. I don’t know that I want to be responsible for some ritual I haven’t ever heard of.”

Melanie nodded. “If you don’t want to, that’s cool. But the ritual is very easy. You just take bread we’ve got, place it on her chest, then pick it up and eat it. Then you take a glass of…I think it’s ale or something, sit it on her chest, then pick it up and drink it. There will be a coin on her throat, you take it off her throat and keep it. That’s literally it.”

She kept telling me details and trying to reassure me, so I knew she wanted me to say yes. I still felt uncertain, but why? It was a bunch of hocus pocus, and if it made Melanie and her family feel better, what was the harm in it?

Trying to not look uncomfortable, I gave her a smile. “Sure, why not?”

---

The funeral was being held in a large, non-descript building outside of town. I hadn’t seen any signs on the way in saying whether it was a church or a funeral home or what, and when I asked Melanie, she had shrugged. Said she thought it was just a building someone rented out for various functions. It seemed strange, but I’d never been to a funeral that wasn’t a little weird, and I already knew this one was going to get weirder once we got inside.

The main floor reminded me of some modern churches I had seen at past weddings and funerals, but we kept on going toward the back and down a flight of stairs to a large, cold basement. The space was empty except for a heavy metal table holding a cream-colored open casket. I felt the breath catch in my throat as I stepped forward and saw the woman inside.

She didn’t look especially old, or even that dead. In other circumstances, I’d have said she was in her early fifties and taking a nap. In these circumstances, I suddenly realized I wanted to be anywhere but there. Why had I agreed to this?

Melanie’s mother gave me a quick hug with one arm as she place a hunk of bread on the woman’s chest. I swallowed and looked at Melanie, who responded with a smiling nod. I had a moment where I almost rebelled, told them no, I was sorry, but this was too freaky, felt too weird.

But instead I forced myself to reach forward and take the bread. I ate it down in three fast bites, barely chewing before swallowing the tasteless, oddly greasy wads of dough.

Next was the “ale”, which Melanie’s mother poured into a metal tumbler she held steady on the woman’s chest. The clay jug she poured from looked old, with carvings that were hard to make out in the subdued lighting of the basement. I wondered if the grandmother had picked that out to be her ale jug too? Old people were so weird.

The thought distracted me for a moment, and I’d picked up the tumbler and started to drink before I had time to have more misgivings. I almost gagged as the liquid hit my tongue. It was overpoweringly sweet, and the taste and smell of it seemed to fill my head as I drained it down in a rush. Fuck that was nasty.

But almost done. What was the last part? Oh yeah, the coin.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but looking back down I saw there was an oblong coin of dark metal resting on the grandmother’s pale throat. I glanced at Melanie again, but she just stared back at me blankly. Ugh. No help from that corner. I just had to finish it, get through the funeral, and then I could get out of here.

The coin was surprisingly heavy in my hand as I picked it up, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it after I had it. Looking back at Melanie, I asked her where I should put it.

She shrugged. “It’s yours now. You can do with it as you like.”

I frowned slightly at that. What was going on? Why was she acting all weird and aloof now? Trying to lighten the mood, I held up the coin. “What kind of coin is this anyway?”

Melanie did smile slightly at this. “It’s called a tumerin. It’s very old, and it used to be very valuable. Some say it still is.” Her smile fell away as quickly as it had come. “Sorry, but we have some other ceremonial stuff we need to deal with. Private family kind of a deal. If you’ll wait upstairs, I can give you a ride back in a few minutes.”

I felt my eyes go wide in surprise. “Um, what about the funeral?” I looked from her to the mother, who was already arranging sticks in some strange pattern on the floor. “What about all the people who are coming?”

Melanie shook her head distractedly. “No, no. No funeral. We’re taking care of everything down here.” She glanced at me and then the way out. “If you can wait upstairs.”

Feeling confused and hurt, I dropped the coin into my purse and went upstairs. Twenty minutes later, Melanie came back up and took me back to their house. It wasn’t long before I was packed up and about to hit the road. I wasn’t sure if Melanie even wanted me to give her a hug goodbye, but when I started to make the gesture, she grabbed me up and squeezed tightly. For a second I felt better about things. She had just been grieving and stressed, that was all.

Then I heard what she was saying.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She pulled back from me at the threshold of the house, and before I could respond, the front door was closed. I thought about knocking, but what would I say? Whatever was going on, it was probably better just to leave it alone for the time being. So instead I got in my car and started driving home.

I had been driving for over an hour before I noticed I wasn’t alone in the car.

I saw it in the rearview mirror. Something that was more than a shadow but not fully-formed either, hovering at the edge of my view when I started to look away. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but I realized I could see the sun streaming into my backseat. Could see it stop dead when it touched that shifting, midnight skin.

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I began to feel the weight of the coin in my pocket and the burden of that old woman’s wrongs on my heart, but that wasn’t the worst part. No, the worst was how that thing sat watching me. Silently studying the new soul it had been bound to.

I could tell you about stopping the car and trying to run from it. About the weeks that followed when I tried to convince myself it wasn’t there. But by then it had started talking to me. Doing things. And it didn’t take long before I knew that any ideas of insanity were just wishful thinking on my part.

Melanie never came back to school. Never answered my calls. Three months later I went back to that family house of theirs…it was up for sale and there was no sign of any of them. When I saw that, I just sat on their lawn and wept for awhile.

Out of the corner of my vision I could see its shadow stretched long across the afternoon lawn. It told me everything would be all right. I just had to listen to it. Do what it asked. If I would do that, I’d never want for anything. Money? Sure. Power? You got it. But most of all, it added with its terrible, buzzing laugh, I never had to worry about one thing.

I’d never, ever be alone.

 

---

Credits