We Made Up A Ghost. And Now It's Killing Us (Part 1)

  

I just got off the phone. One of the Stonebrook Six, one of my best friends in the world, was killed last night. His husband Anthony called me, voice raw with fatigue and emotion. He said that the police didn’t know the details of what had happened yet, but last night Ellis’ remains were found in the parking garage of the building where he works. Where he worked.

They told Anthony that they would have thought it was an explosion, but there were no signs of any fire or damage to anything other than Ellis himself. They would have said it was an obvious murder, but they don’t know how someone could crush and dismember a human being that thoroughly without heavy machinery, much less spread him across the twelve foot ceiling of Floor 3B in that monolithic parking structure like a thick layer of chunky peanut butter.

Anthony was crying again by that point, so I assumed I had just heard him wrong. Then he repeated it, his voice coming in hitching gasps. A co-worker had come out just a few minutes after Ellis to find my friend dripping and plopping back onto the relatively clean concrete below where he had been pressed into the ceiling.

Anthony said that the only way they even knew it was him initially was due to the security footage of him going out toward his car. The video cut out as he approached the area, and when it returned the time stamp showed thirty seconds had passed without footage. The girl who found him was out less that five minutes later, and no one else had entered or left the garage in that time so far as they could tell. Crushed personal effects and initial blood work confirmed it was him.

I could feel myself teetering between arguing with Anthony that he must be wrong and breaking into tears myself. I had just seen Ellis two days ago when we were all together mourning the first of our circle of friends to die. Those of us that were flying back out of Chicago had ridden together to the airport, and after Mills had caught her flight back to Austin, me and Ellis had just hung out at an airport restaurant until my flight came up. Our mood had been sad because of Cassidy’s funeral and everything that followed, but we were trying to make the most of the time we had left. Ellis was telling me about his wedding and showing me pictures. I still felt guilty for not making it in person, but I had just started my new job at the time. Ellis, like always, understood and worked to make me feel better about it.

I told him some about the girl I’ve been dating—the relationship was still improving after six months, which was a record for me. Ellis said that very thing, but then quirked an eyebrow at me. He asked if I had realized how I was looking at Mills the past couple of days, and I tried to play it off like he was joking, but I knew he wasn’t. In that subtle way he had, he was trying to nudge me to consider if I was still in love with Millicent like I had been when we were growing up. But my head was too full already from everything else, so I pushed the question away, gave him a hug, and headed to my flight.

That was the last time I talked to Ellis before something tore him apart.

I hung up with Anthony after an hour, my throat raw and a feeling of exhaustion weighing down my every step as I went to the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. I wanted to cry but couldn’t, as though the engine of my heart was too busy burning through gallons of fear and guilt to allow even a drop of sadness into its chambers. I tried to sleep, but after awhile I gave up on that as well and began to write this account. I need to get it all out and away from me.

I realize that I’ve jumped in at the middle of all this rather than the start—I’m tired and not thinking straight. Let me provide a bit of background and then I’ll talk about Cassidy’s funeral and everything that happened after it.

---

I had four best friends growing up—Ellis Mackery, Millicent Davis, Thomas Wall, and Cassidy Friel. I think we were unique among many groups of childhood friends in that we had all come together at the same time (Mrs. Webber’s third grade classroom) and were all equally close to each other. Aside from occasional childish arguments, we never fought with each other, and as we got older, we somehow managed to safely navigate the choppy hormonal seas of two pairs of hetero guys and girls and a third guy that was gravitating towards bi-curiosity.

This is important because as I start to question my memories about so many things, I keep returning to my idea of my friendships with the people closest to me. Ellis, who was always the kindest of us. Mills, who was the smartest and kept the rest of us out of trouble on several occasions. Thomas, who was always so moody around others but so light and happy when it was just the five of us. And Cassidy, who was shy and sweet and I now think died terrified.

I don’t have any close family left—my father died when I was fifteen and my mother doesn’t like talking to me anymore. My old friends fall into two categories: College friends that I rarely keep in touch with beyond social media, and my best friends from my days at Stonebrook. It sounds strange because we didn’t meet at Stonebrook, which was our middle and high school before it was closed. We had spent three years together at Jackson Elementary across town, and were just as close then as we were later, but it was almost like our group identity wasn’t fully cemented until we got to Stonebrook.

Fifth grade rumor was that the place had been a small college fifty years earlier, and I do think that was true. It was certainly an old building, and the shape and layout of the rooms retained faint traces its earlier life. The building was shaped roughly like a hash mark, with two long, wide corridors intersected perpendicularly by two other long, wide corridors. The center square of those crisscrossed lines was filled by a small gymnasium that actually had a pool underneath its motorized floor, though the floor was kept locked and the pool had supposedly long been drained dry.

But the age and uniqueness of the school, its quiet sense of history and mild creepiness, it had an effect on us. We stuck together even more than usual, making few outside friends. We worked to get into the same classes, and the few times when one of us was by ourselves, the wait until the bell rang was interminable.

It was during one of these isolated classes when I first thought about the school being haunted, and even now, having talked about everything this past weekend with the others, that’s still one of my few clear memories of our time at Stonebrook. Some small idea, an idle daydream, a simple what-if. What if the school was haunted by a ghost?

---

I got the news about Cassidy’s death last Wednesday. It was Thomas that called me, just as he had called the others. After I had moved away at fifteen, after Stonebrook was closed, the group had drifted apart. Thomas and Cassidy had stayed the closest, and sophomore year of college they had gotten married. In the ten years since, they had generally seemed happy the few times we talked or got together, but I knew they had ups and downs. Thomas told me on the phone that they had been legally separated for the past three months but were trying to work things out for themselves and their little girl. And then Cassidy had gone missing one morning and was found five hours later in the groundskeeper’s shed of the park across the street from their apartment.

The police were investigating it as a potential homicide due to the strangeness of the death, but there were no leads. Thomas had been on duty at the hospital where he worked as a physician’s assistant, so his alibi was solid. Worse was that she seemed to have been drowned, despite being in a dry room with no clues as to how she got there.

I couldn’t get into Chicago until the morning of the funeral, but afterward we all went back to Thomas’ house. They had been living together during the separation, and as the four of us sat around his living room, I found myself looking out the window at the park across the street, wondering where the shed was where my friend had been found.

We had been talking about Cassidy for the last three hours, telling funny stories and listening to Thomas go on emotional monologues about how much he loved her and how he had failed her, which was always followed by us reassuring him that she had loved him too and that none of this was his fault. He would always glance at me at this point, and I would try to give him a comforting smile while hoping it was enough, because I didn’t know what else to say.

But as the evening wore on, you could feel the conversational momentum grinding to a halt. It was just past eight, but our tiredness and sadness were palpable. Still, I looked at Thomas, and I knew that his daughter was staying at his parents’ house overnight and I hated the thought of him being alone. So at the next lull, I suggested some or all of us spend the night with him. He looked like he was going to argue, but then he nodded with a weary look in his eyes.

“Yeah, I think I’d like that. For any of you that want to, though I know some of you have rooms already paid for.”

Millicent grinned. “My hotel looked like shit anyway.” Ellis murmured agreement, and I felt a slight buoyancy that I had found a small way to help. That’s when I ruined everything.

“The Stonebrook Six are back together again!”

As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. I had meant it as a joking, overly dramatic and silly proclamation to get a cheap laugh out of the others. But as soon as I said it I realized that Cassidy was barely in the ground and I was talking about us being all together. Thomas glared at me while Mills started shaking her head, her eyes wide.

“Why would you say that?” Ellis tone was more hurt than accusatory. “Why the fuck would you say that, Alex?”

I felt like I could hardly breathe, my eyes roving between the three of them. “Fuck…I’m so sorry. That was so stupid. I’m just not used to Cassidy being gone, and…”

Thomas stood up, his expression hard. “This isn’t about Cassidy. Why would you call us the Stonebrook Six again? Is that some kind of fucking joke to you?”

Mills was on her feet now, putting herself between me and him. “Tom, chill out. He doesn’t remember. You know that.”

Thomas glanced down at her, his face reddening. “Then how the fuck does he remember the Stonebrook Six?”

I was growing more confused and alarmed by the second. “What…that’s what we called ourselves. I remember we called ourselves that. The Stonebrook Six. It was a joke.”

Ellis had stood up now too, moving closer to me. “Okay, Alex. That’s right, sorta. But do you remember why it was a joke?”

I could feel tears stinging my eyes now. I didn’t understand why everyone was so mad at me, especially if they weren’t mad about me saying it with Cassidy gone. “It…well…It was because there were only five of us. We were talking about nicknames one day and about how our group should have one, as a joke. We talked about calling ourselves the Stonebrook Five for some reason, but ended up all agreeing that the Stonebrook Six sounded cooler. Like an old outlaw gang. So we called ourselves the Stonebrook Six even though there were only five of us.”

Thomas took a step closer. “Bullshit! Such bullshit. You know, I’ve never fully believed your convenient ‘I don’t remember’ shit, but how the fuck are you pulling out shit like that and not remembering what it really was?” Mills gave him a shove that didn’t move him but got his attention.

“Fucking back off him. He’s not lying. He lost more than we did, so try to remember that.” Mills’ glare melted away as she turned back to look at me. “Alex, it’s not exactly like you think. A lot happened, and…well, you blocked out most of the bad I think. We don’t understand how or why you don’t remember, but you need to know that we believe you and love you.”

Thomas snorted. “Typical. Alex makes Cassidy’s funeral day about him.”

Ellis shot him a dark look. “Button it. We all loved Cassidy. You don’t have the market cornered on missing her.” Looking back down, he gave me a sad smile. “Alex, what you were saying, about how we started calling ourselves the Stonebrook Six… that never happened. We started calling ourselves the Stonebrook Six because of the Professor.”

I felt a rush of fear running through my body at the name. My mouth went dry and I shot up like the room was on fire. “No…what…no.”

Mills looked at Ellis. “You shouldn’t have said anything. You should have left it alone.”

Ellis shrugged. “I didn’t bring it up, but he has a right to know. Alex, do you remember the Professor?”

I shook my head violently and started trying to move past them out of the room. “No, I don’t want to talk about this.”

Thomas caught me in a strong grip and pulled me into a bear hug that was equal parts angry and loving. “We’re going to talk about it, bro. I think it’s time.” Mills was yelling at him but he went on. “The Professor was the sixth in the Stonebrook Six. It was the…” I shoved him hard enough that he lost his grip and went staggering back into a low coffee table, his arms pinwheeling as he tried to regain his balance before sitting down hard enough on the small table that one of the legs gave way and sent him sprawling on the floor. For my part, I imagined I looked like a trapped animal. But that was okay, because that’s exactly what I felt like.

Mills had her hands raised as she stepped forward and touched my cheeks. “Sweetie, it’s okay. We should probably go ahead and talk a little about it now, just so you’re not confused any more. Is that okay?”

I still wanted to run, but her cool, smooth hands on my face were like a soothing balm. I nodded reluctantly, looking down at Thomas. “Are you okay, man?”

He stood up slowly and gave me a slight smile. “Yeah. I’m sorry, I was being an asshole. Are we cool?”

I nodded. “Sure man. I’ll replace the table. I’m just…really freaked out at the moment.”

Mills stepped back and nodded. “I know. So let’s try talking it out, and if you reach a point you get too scared, we’ll stop, okay?”

“Okay.” I paused and then pushed on, my eyes going between Millicent and Ellis. “So who was the Professor?”

Ellis is the one who answered. “It was the ghost. The one we made up. The one that hurt all those people.” 

---

Credits

 

Come See What's in the Tunnel (Part 2/2)

 

After I put my stuff down in the guest room, I asked if we should stick around for a bit so I could say hey to his parents. Mike seemed to ponder it momentarily and then shrugged. “Nah, let’s just catch up with them tonight. We can grab lunch out and then go goof off for awhile. I think Mom’s planning on fixing a big dinner for us anyway.”

I nodded and followed him back out, stealing a glance back into the kitchen as we passed. There was no one there now, and we saw no signs of his parents as we went outside and got in his SUV. I was still uneasy about how strangely they had been standing in the kitchen and how Mike was acting, but I tried to set it aside, deciding that I would chalk it up to an overactive imagination unless something else strange popped up.

The afternoon was actually good. Mike took me by his high school and showed me his classroom. School was out for the summer and all of the rooms were in disarray from the custodians re-waxing all the floors, but it was nice to see a part of Mike’s life that was relatively normal. It was weird to think of him as a grown-up with a grown-up job, but he seemed to like it despite all his complaining, and I had no doubt he was a good teacher.

We then went to get something to eat, but the first two restaurants were closed despite it being early in the afternoon. We ultimately settled for a fast food drive-thru before heading to the bowling alley. The bowling alley wasn’t in as good of shape as I had expected based on what Mike had said, but then the same could be said for much of Coventry.

It was strange—portions of town would be in relatively good repair while others seemed to be entering a sharp decline. This can happen in any town, of course, but what was odd was how it was happening here. There was no rhyme or reason to it, with a well-kept building side by side with those headed towards ruination. There was no “nice” or “not nice” part of town, so far as I could see. There were still smaller houses in poorer neighborhoods and larger ones in wealthier areas, but the neglect and air of disuse was spread equally among everyone. When I mentioned it to Mike as we were getting out at the bowling alley, he just shrugged and laughed.

“Yeah, property values and stuff have been all over the place lately. I think it’ll get better with time though. I think that new tunnel is going to help things a lot in the long run.”

I almost stopped walking and forced him to tell me more about the tunnel. I should have. But I was enjoying being back around him, and it seemed like it was doing him a lot of good too. So I just smiled and nodded, pushing my worry down as we entered the bowling alley.

The place was relatively clean inside, though it was dimly lit in spots due to overhead lights that had gone out and not been replaced. Mike led me up to the counter where a young woman stood staring at us.

The girl probably was of college age, but it was hard to say for sure due to her appearance. Her curly brown hair hung in damp, tangled strings down the sides of her long, pale face. Her skin had an unhealthy, waxy quality to it, and the glazed look in her eyes made me think she was either high or suffering from a substantial fever. The worst thing was that she had these clusters of pus-filled sores festooning the skin around both nostrils. I had to fight from reacting as we approached, and when Mike asked for shoes, I echoed him dimly with my own size while trying to avoid looking at her further without being obvious. It didn’t stop me from noticing that one of the sores was starting to drip down onto her lips as she handed me my pair.

When we were away from her and at lane 12 putting on our shoes, I whispered to him, “What is wrong with her? That’s not acne.”

Mike glanced toward the front counter and then at me. “Yeah, she’s sick with something, I don’t know. That kind of thing has been going around lately. Luckily my stomach problems didn’t include killer pimples.” He tried to smile but it faltered. “I do feel bad for her though. Poor kid.” Glancing around at the empty lanes he let out a sigh. “I guess Friday afternoon is not the beehive of activity I was hoping for. Still, when’s the last time you had a nice quiet bowling alley all to yourself?”

---

Dinner was surprisingly normal until the end. Mike’s parents were older and a little odd, but more in the normal way you expect people to get in the last third of their life. They would talk over each other, repeat themselves occasionally, and take turns pelting me with questions about my life. It was kind of sweet, and it filled me with a sense of profound relief to just laugh and talk with these people that used to be a big part of my life without any of the disquieting strangeness I’d been seeing lately.

The meal itself was not great, but it certainly seemed healthy. Grilled artichokes and steamed kale along with a small cold salad that seemed to be a mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers, and some odd vegetable I couldn’t identify. I took a bite of it and my mouth filled with a pungent, smoky-tasting liquid that I assumed came from the inside of the vegetable. Grimacing, I caught myself before I swallowed and spat it out into my napkin. I didn’t know what that was, but I didn’t want any. I could even feel a light tingling numbness on my tongue and lips from it.

After we had finished eating and the conversation was starting to die down, Mike’s dad asked what we were going to do the next day. I shrugged and said I was up for whatever, with Mike adding in that he was thinking about taking me to the old state park west of town to go hiking in the morning. I remembered us camping out there with Mike’s dad when we were twelve or so, and I was already nodding enthusiastically at the idea of visiting it again.

Mike’s father smiled thinly as he looked at Mike. “That sounds just fine. Just make sure you take him to see the tunnel. It’s really something.” His gaze shifted to me. “You really won’t believe it.”

At this point I’d had enough. “Okay, what is it about this tunnel? Mike keeps talking about it, now you are too. Is it some kind of practical joke, or is there really a tunnel north of town?

Mike was looking nervous—possibly even scared—as he responded, his eyes going between me and his father. “No, it’s there. And it is very interesting, but we can talk more about it later.” Looking back at me, he added. “It’s not a big deal and we don’t have to see it if you don’t want to.” I saw his father staring at Mike out of the corner of my eye. I turned to face him while talking to Mike, catching the older man’s gaze again.

“No, Mike. I’m fine to see it. But what is it? Why do we have a tunnel around here anyway? Most of the land around here is flat. Did we suddenly grow a mountain I’m not aware of?” Mike’s father just stared back at me silently, his expression stony. When Mike didn’t respond, I addressed his father. “What about you, Mr. Mattis? Can you tell me why there’s a tunnel here and what’s so great about it?”

The man’s lips stretched tight across his face, slowly slipping back to reveal his gray, receding gums and his long, yellowed teeth. It looked less like a smile and more like a rabid dog bearing his teeth. He looked at me steadily, and I could see a trace of yellow around his irises that matched his mouth. He clicked his teeth together once, twice, and then turned his poached egg eyes back to Mike. “He’ll understand better when he sees it, son. You make sure he sees it tomorrow.”

With that, he stood up and tapped Mike’s mother on the shoulder where she was standing at the sink. Without another word, they both left the kitchen and moved out of sight down the hall. When I felt they were likely out of earshot, I looked back at Mike.

“What the fuck was all that?”

He looked uncomfortable. “You know how it is. People get weird when they get older. The tunnel is just something that got made a few months back and it was a big deal at the time. Part of some new road development or something maybe? But everyone thought it was great at the time, and some people still do. Small towns fixate on anything new, I guess.”

What he was saying made no sense, but he looked so desperate for me to believe him, for the conversation to be over, I just nodded. “Okay, man. Well, I think I’m going to get some rest if that’s okay with you. Kinda beat.”

He nodded, and I stood up to leave the kitchen when he caught my arm. “If you don’t feel right about things, if you aren’t comfortable here, it’s okay for you to go. I mean, I would understand if you wanted to go. Right now even.” His expression was sad and he was having trouble meeting my eyes, but as he said the last he looked at me clearly. “If you want to go, right now is a good time.”

I considered it seriously. I didn’t know what was going on, and I was feeling more and more like I was in the first act of a horror movie. But that was stupid. Things like that didn’t happen in real life. There was nothing sinister going on in this town. It was just a rundown little community whose best days were probably behind it. It was just my best friend who had been sick, was lonely, and who felt trapped in the place he had never really left. My best friend who had finally worked up the courage to reach out to me. I wasn’t going to abandon him just because I was a little uncomfortable and weirded out.

Shaking my head, I patted his shoulder. “No man, I’m cool. Just really tired. Let me get a good night’s sleep and I’ll be raring to go tomorrow, promise.”

He nodded, the sad look still on his face. “Okay, Park. I…okay.”

I gave his shoulder another pat and headed back to the guest room. I heard movement from one of the other rooms that I assumed was his parents’ bedroom, but I quickly ducked into my room out of fear that one or both of them were coming back out. I wanted to avoid another run-in for a bit.

Laying down on the bed, I realized I really was exhausted. Without even changing my clothes or turning out the light, I soon found myself fast asleep.

---

I woke up to rough hands carrying me by my shoulders and legs through the still-warm night air. I was disoriented at first, in part because when I looked up, I saw Mike’s parents and two other people I didn’t recognize were carrying me somewhere. Beyond them and between passing street lights I could see the blackness of the summer sky, and looking around I saw I was being carried up a street in a part of town I didn’t recognize. I wanted to struggle, but I was coming to realize that I had somehow been drugged. Every attempt to move my limbs felt like I was fighting against quickly drying cement.

I heard Mike’s voice a few feet back from the direction we were going. “Fuck, he’s waking up! You said he wouldn’t wake up before it was over.”

One of the men I didn’t recognize glared back in Mike’s direction. “He has to be awake to appreciate it, doesn’t he? He has to look to truly see it and understand.” That’s when we began to cross the threshold into the tunnel. We were moving at a distinctly downward angle now, and the air was growing cooler as they walked. Looking at the walls of the tunnel in the fading light, I saw no signs of concrete or wood. Instead, every angle of the tunnel seemed to be made of a packed earth held together by clusters of ebony nodules and gray tendons rippling and twisting through the earth and connecting one group of black barnacle-like protrusions to the next. I redoubled my efforts to move, and while I managed to pull my arm free from Mike’s mother’s grip for a moment, she quickly regained control. I cast my eyes around for any other avenue of escape.

That’s when I saw the stomach of the man who had yelled at Mike. His shirt had ridden up in toting me, and I could see what looked kind of like a handprint on his lower stomach. Except the handprint was abnormally long and narrow, with what seemed to be six distinct and spindly fingers. And the print wasn’t just some stain or even a burn. It was made up of the same fetid, blossoming sores that had been clustered around that poor girl’s nose.

I began to scream then, and a moment later I was on the ground. At first I thought I was being dropped intentionally, but then I saw Mike had shoved down handprint man and then done the same to his father. I understood he was trying to help me, but there was only one of him and I couldn’t fight. The thunder of gunfire echoed in the tunnel, and the muzzle flash lit up the darkness enough for me to see something moving towards us from further within the void.

I don’t remember what it looked like now, or how we got out of that tunnel. All I remember is Mike helping me into the driver’s seat of his SUV and pressing the keys into my hand. He was sobbing, and his left arm flopped uselessly by his side. He told me I had to go, I had to drive as best I could and get away. Drive back down away from the tunnel, keep going south until I hit the state highway and then pick a direction. Keep going until I got to a bus station or an airport.

I was more lucid now and interrupted him. “No, you need to come with me. I’m not leaving you here.”

His shook his head. “I told you, I can’t leave here.” He reached out and grabbed the sides of my face. “Park, you listen to me. You need to get away now and never come back. I may call or text you, but you never answer, and you never come back.”

I didn’t fully understand, but I’m ashamed to say I didn’t argue further. Whatever shadowy recollection I had of what was in that tunnel was more powerful that my love for my best friend. I drove away and made it to a bus station, then an airport. Mike must have been at least considering this plan for awhile, because I found my wallet in the glove compartment of his car, a new photograph tucked in with my cash.

I made it home eventually, and after some time just holding Stacy and our little girl, I told her what happened. Warned her that we could never go near that place or those people again, including Mike. I don’t know that she fully believed me, but she agreed. Then we heard my phone buzz.

She picked it up off the counter and I saw her face pale. When she showed it to me, I saw it was a new text from Mike.

Up for coming back to Coventry for a long weekend?

I took the phone out to the garage and hammered it apart. Changed the number and got a new phone the next day. Less than a week later it buzzed with a new message from Mike.

Up for coming back to Coventry for a long weekend?

We’ve decided to move now. I’m writing this from a hotel room we’re staying in until our new house is ready. The third phone, a burner, hasn’t been tracked down yet, so hopefully we’re in the clear. Still, I wanted there to be some record of all of this.

I’m holding the photo Mike had put in my wallet, and I’m trying not to wake Stacy with my crying. The picture is one Mike’s mother took of us when we were fourteen. We were getting ready to go trick-or-treating despite Mike’s father subtly hinting we were too old for it. I think we both knew he was right, but we also knew this was one of the few childhood things we had left. Besides, a week or two earlier my father had gotten notice that the local plant he worked at was closing the following year, which meant we were likely moving to another state in the next few months. So we were going to make the most out of the time we had left.

I look at that picture, reminded of all the memories and emotions I still have from my childhood and my friendship with Mike, and then I think about the last time I saw him in the rearview of his car. Standing on a lonely road, broken and terrified and so hopeless as he watches me go. Watches me leave him one last time. As I started to round the corner that took him out of view, I think he was turning to limp back to the tunnel.

I loved you, Mike. I’m so sorry. 

---

Credits

 

Come See What's in the Tunnel (Part 1/2)

 

When I was growing up, I lived in a small town called Coventry. We moved away when I was fifteen, but I always considered Coventry to be my hometown, and Mike Mattis was always my best friend. We moved to another state, so I only saw Mike a couple of times between the move and college, but we always stayed in touch and even wound up going to the same college the last two years when Mike transferred in from a junior college near Coventry.

After college, I went on to graduate school at Texas A&M for Architectural Design and Mike went back to Coventry where he started teaching at the local high school. Life went on, and we drifted apart some over the years, but when I got married, he was my best man. When we had our first child two years later, he was in the waiting room with me. We were best friends for life, regardless of how often we talked.

Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem strange when I stopped hearing from him for several months. Our communications had never been very regular—a text every few weeks, a phone call every couple of months, that kind of thing. And we tried to get together when we could, but in the two years since having our little girl, travel plans had slid to the backburner.

One day I was sitting in a meeting with a potential client, listening to him try to convince us that it should be possible for us to design his shopping center to be both a palatial shrine to wealth and comfort while still being buildable on a dismally low budget. I was about to tell him for the tenth time that he needed to get with his contractor to talk about the build costs when I heard my phone buzz. I picked it up and saw it was a text from Mike.

Up for coming back to Coventry for a long weekend?

I didn’t respond right away, but the more I thought about it throughout the day and on the way home, the more appealing the idea became. It occurred to me that I hadn’t actually been back to Coventry since we moved away over 14 years ago. More importantly, looking back through my call and text logs, I realized it had been nearly four months since I had talked to Mike. Feeling a stab of guilt and nostalgia, I talked to my wife Stacy about it and she was all for it. She’d stay back and take care of our little girl, and I’d talk to Mike about going and staying two or three days when it was good for him.

When I called Mike’s phone, no one answered and it said that the voicemail box had not been set up yet. I was going to wait and call again later in the evening, but then my phone lit up with a return phone call from Mike.

“Hey, Parker. Sorry I missed your call, man.”

“No problem. Just wanted to call after getting your text. How’ve you been doing?”

“Good, real good. Things have been real good here. Hey, you up for coming back to Coventry for a long weekend?” Mike’s voice was slightly strange, almost like he was distracted or stressed out about something. And his question struck me as oddly awkward, mimicking the text message word for word and sounding almost as though he was reading from a telemarketer script and was new at the job. It was the opposite of the way he normally was—if anything Mike normally took things too easy, and I had never known him to be awkward talking to anyone, let alone me.

Still, it had been a few months, and maybe he had something going on. I suddenly worried I’d caught him at a bad time. “Hey…yeah I am, but we can do it later if things are too busy right now. It’s up to you.” I was barely done with the last word before he was talking again, his tone more strident.

“No. You should come right away.” He paused and let out an uneven laugh. When he started back, he sounded like he was forcing himself to be slower and calmer, more laidback sounding. “It’s all good, man. Miss seeing you. I’d like to show you around the town some too. A lot has changed since you were here.”

Deciding I was overthinking it, I pushed on. “Cool, man. How’s next weekend sound? I could fly in Friday morning and fly out Sunday night. If you want to pick me up at the Glenville airport, that’s cool, if not I can rent a car. What do you think?”

“Sounds great. Just send me the flight information and I’ll pick you up.”

When I got off the phone, I told Stacy about the weirdness of the conversation, but she agreed that he was probably just preoccupied or just woke up or something else innocuous. He was my best friend, and I should go see him, and it would be cool to see how the town had changed. She had never seen my hometown, so she made me promise to take lots of pictures. An hour later I had booked a flight for the following Friday morning.

---

The Glenville airport was tiny and dingy, consisting of a single brown brick hallway with a rental car kiosk and metal detectors on one end and the waiting area for the single terminal on the other. The small connecting flight had consisted of me and only a handful of other travelers, so there weren’t but a couple of people waiting for the plane’s arrival when I entered the building. Still, it took me a few seconds to recognize Mike.

As I said, I hadn’t seen him since my daughter’s birth two years earlier, but in that time he must have lost close to a hundred pounds, about seventy of which he didn’t have to spare. He looked gaunt and sickly, and while I tried to not let it show in my expression, as I hugged his bony frame I felt a caustic mixture of fear and guilt curdling in my chest. My first thought was cancer or some immune disease. Clearly something was wrong. I had intended on waiting and broaching the topic more tactfully, but when I pulled back and saw his pale blue eyes in their dark and sunken sockets, watched his thin, cracked lips stretched over teeth that seemed too big in his now gaunt face, it just spilled out.

“Fuck man, are you sick? You’ve lost a ton of weight.” I could hear the worry in my voice, but there was some accusation and anger too. Why hadn’t he told me he was going through all this? I could have helped, or at least talked to him more. He was already shaking his head though, a deep laugh in his too pale throat.

“No, Park. Nothing like that. I have lost a lot of weight, that’s true. At first I was doing it on purpose. I was running a lot, trying to build up to do marathons. Then I got hit with this weird gastro thing for awhile. It fucked me up for about six weeks, and I only got over it last month. I had already lost about thirty pounds before I got sick, and I dropped another forty eating broth and crackers for so long.” He grinned. “I know I still look like shit, but I’m on the mend. Just got checked last week and the doc said I’ve gained back 12 pounds so far. Trying to do it slow and steady. The healthy way.”

I frowned, not sure I believed him, but desperately hoping that it was true. And I worried I’d hurt his feelings. “Look, you don’t look like shit. You’re just really skinny and it scared me for a second. If you say you’re over it though, that’s great. I just was worried.”

Mike laughed again and gave me a light shove. “I appreciate it. I’m so glad you’re here.”

We headed out to his car—the same beat-up SUV he’d had since he crashed his old car the last year of college—and headed out of town toward Coventry. He asked a few questions about Stacy and the baby, and there were times during the drive that he almost seemed like his old self. But then he would suddenly trail off and go silent in the middle of asking a question or telling a story like a weak radio signal fading out as you drive along. Then right when I’d be on the edge of asking if something was wrong, he’d pick back up with something else, talking about the little shits in the classes he taught or how he was so ready to be living on his own again.

He warned me that we were going to his parents’ house to stay, as he had been staying there since he was so sick and all his stuff was still there. He looked slightly embarrassed, but I told him I remembered that his mom was a great cook and I knew he couldn’t cook for shit, so it was an upgrade. He laughed and shrugged.

“We’ll see what you think of her cooking now. We’re all on kind of a health food kick since I got so sick—all organic stuff, no meat, no gluten. You get used to it, but it might be a bit of a shock to your system.”

I grinned, looking out at the countryside as we rode along. It really was good to be back. The country out here was beautiful, and I had a lot of good memories from growing up around here. “I’m sure I’ll manage. So what do you want to do while I’m out here? I’m up for whatever, or just hanging out with you eating kale.”

Mike snickered and glanced at me. Suddenly his face grew inexplicably sad. “You really are a good guy, Parker. A good friend. My best friend.”

I frowned. “Yeah man, of course. You’re my best friend too. Are you sure you’re okay? You can tell me if something else is going on.”

He just looked at me for several moments, his expression still stricken, his lips moving wordlessly as though caught between a whisper and a sigh. Then his eyes cut away and back to the road, and when he spoke, his voice sounded strange again like it had been on the phone. “No, everything is fine. Just glad you could come.”

We drove on in silence for several minutes, and I could see Mike’s hands flexing as he clenched the steering wheel. Finally, his grip relaxed, and when he spoke next it was in a more conversational tone. “So, about things to do. I can show you around the town, of course. A lot has changed since you were last here. It’s grown some, though its still small compared to something like Glenville. We can go bowling at the new alley that opened up a few years ago. It’s a nice place and they have a tendency to hire hot college girls to work the counters.”

I snorted. “Aren’t you getting a bit old for trolling for college girls at a bowling alley?”

He shrugged. “Coventry doesn’t have the largest dating pool, and while I admit this is a bit hypocritical since I live there myself, I find that women my age around here—that aren’t already married at least—tend to not be awesome. At least with the college girls, there’s a hope I can find a girl who is intelligent and ambitious enough to still get out while the getting’s good.”

Laughing, I shoved him in the arm. “Oh, so you’re going to find some hard-working girl with a bright future and ride her coattails out of town?”

He started to respond, and then stopped, his expression darkening. “No, though that’s a nice idea. But no, man. I’ll never go anywhere else. I’m going to die right here in Coventry.” I didn’t know what to say. I was still trying to come up with something that could be encouraging without sounding patronizing when his expression smoothed and he glanced at me again. “One thing you have to do while you’re here is go see the new tunnel.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The new tunnel? What new tunnel?”

His lips stretched back in a strange smile. “Oh, its really something. Out on the north side of town where they used to have the big horse ranch? It’s grown up out there a lot more now—they’re even putting in a new Wal-Mart close by. But that tunnel…well, you just have to wait and see.”

I was going to ask more questions but I realized we were slowing to a stop. Looking up, I saw why. We were at his parents’ house.

---

Mike’s parents lived in an older ranch-style house. They’d lived there since I was twelve, and I remember always being amazed at how clean and well-kept up it always was. Not that my family’s houses growing up were terrible, but between Mr. Mattis keeping up the yard and the exterior and Mrs. Mattis keeping the inside immaculate, I always felt a little like I was walking into an idealized version of what a family home should be.

This extended to Mike’s parents’ themselves. His father was a kind-hearted man who ran a local hunting supply store and was always quick with a funny story or joke. His mother had been like a second mom to me growing up. She ran her own accounting firm and was always running around, but she was also one of the few adults that seemed to actually care what was going on in Mike’s life and my own beyond the normal cursory check that we weren’t being abducted or hooked on drugs.

Seeing the house now was almost as big of a shock as seeing Mike himself. More than one shutter was partially fallen down, and a ragged blue tarp was draped like a sash around the chimney, presumably to try and stop a leak. The yard was a thick mess of weeds, and as we entered the house, the sense of clutter and disuse only multiplied. It wasn’t filthy, and I understood that people sometimes let their housekeeping slide as they get older, but it was such a sharp contrast from what I remembered.

Mike led me down the hall to the guest bedroom so I could put my stuff down, and as we passed the kitchen I saw his parents from behind. They were standing side by side, still and silent as statues, staring at the faded floral wallpaper on the far kitchen wall. I was going to say something, but there was something so unnatural about what I was seeing that an inner voice or instinct warned against it, and I wound up just moving on down the hall to where Mike was waiting. 

---

Credits

 

Your Flesh is the Door. Our Blood is the Key (Part 4) [FINALE]

  

It’s been two months since I first wore the Heart Mask, and I’ve made so much progress. After gazing into the Nightlands for the first time and being whisked away by Janie and Martin, I had fallen into a deep sleep fueled by physical and mental exhaustion. I awoke close to two hours later as we were coming to a stop at the Twins’ private home. It was a modern mansion—all sharp angles and stone, it had large windows that showed nothing of the interior due to some form of glass treatment. I would learn that from the inside the windows offered a clear and bright view of the woods that surrounded the gated home. But as I woke up in the glare of security lights at our approach, my first thought was that it looked like Frank Lloyd Wright had built a house for the NSA.

But if the outside seemed austere and intimidating, the inside was the opposite. It was warm and inviting, with cozy rooms filled with comfortable furniture. In the weeks that followed, I found that Janie and Martin were much the same. They always stood apart because of their strange beauty and the sheer charisma and presence that seemed to flow from them without any discernable effort, but after getting to know them, it became clear that they were also very nice, very real people.

They invited us to stay with them, though it was clear that Darcy’s invitation was contingent on me agreeing to stay. There was no danger of a refusal of the offer from either of us. I was desperate to learn more and get back to the Nightlands, and Darcy was just desperate. That might seem uncharitable, but my view of her, of everything, was so different now than it had been before. She seemed little more than a hungry-eyed groupie now, and with every passing day it seemed clearer that I belonged with the Twins and not her.

For one thing, apparently my experience in the Nightlands had been rare. Everyone who did the Heart Mask ritual properly saw something, but only a handful had seen as much as I had and even fewer had ever heard anything. When I talked to Darcy about her experience, she described floating across some kind of manicured lawn toward what looked like an estate house made of dark red marble. She said at first she was really excited, but then she saw what looked like a body laying on the steps of the red house like a discarded doll.

It was a young woman, or what was left of her. The left side of her body was largely gone, as though it had been ripped away like tearing a paper towel in two. Darcy said that it was strange, because on the one hand she was scared and grossed out, but she felt like she had no body to experience the physical effects of those feelings. It made her feel even more disconnected and dissatisfied, but it also allowed her to tolerate studying the body in greater detail.

She didn’t see moonlight when she went, but she was able to see even though she could tell the sky was dark. Floating closer to the body, she couldn’t tell for sure how long it had been there, but its skin looked strange and cracked. It was wearing the scraps of a shirt, and on the remnants of cloth she saw what looked like a small brass pin. It was a lightning bolt with three stars around it, and in the center it said, “Johnny Quick, Master Magician.” She tried to reach out towards the body, but then she was being pulled back to the third floor of that abandoned office building.

I found her story very interesting, but after a couple of times questioning her for further details, I was done with her. We traveled with the Twins to several more Heart Mask rituals, and I saw more wonderous things. Every time it was some new part of the Nightlands, and each time I was able to see and hear more, to stay in that world for longer.

Except that was the problem. I wasn’t really in that world. Not yet.

Doing the Heart Mask ritual reminded me of going on a tourist submarine ride once as a kid. The “submarine” was really just a glass-bottomed boat that had side windows on its lowest deck. You were sitting maybe fifteen feet under the water, catching far off glimpses of fish as you passed by a few patches of coral and rock. Many of the children and adults on the ship seemed delighted by this, but I never really understood why. It was more of a tease than anything else. Here’s this beautiful and mysterious world that you can peek at, but not really be a part of.

Just like the “submarine”, the Heart Mask lets you see a few things, but only for short periods of time. And you’re never really over there. You can’t feel the winds cutting through the strange forest I saw on a dimly lit orange afternoon. You can’t smell the grass of the plains that were punctuated by several large columns of yellow stone that wound impossibly together and up out of sight. You can’t touch the deep red wood of the enormous tree that rose out of the hard rock of a green mountain, stretching its branches to the sky like a defiant king proclaiming the subjugation of all it surveyed.

As for me, I have no interest in subjugating or controlling anything except myself. I want to be master of my existence, and I want that existence to continue in the Nightlands, not in this drab world I’m forced back into after every Heart Mask. Martin and Janie have tried to console me, saying they understand my frustration, but that there is much that can be gleaned from just observing, and it is far safer. But I don’t want to be consoled. I want to find a way through, and I think I know what that way is.

If I’m honest, the idea has been in the back of my mind for some time. That’s why I haven’t completely ignored Darcy for the last three weeks. I string her along by showing her some level of affection, and far more importantly, giving her some level of access to myself and the Twins. I don’t know if Martin and Janie would have the heart to send her packing regardless, but I could get Darcy to leave if I wanted to. She’s of much greater use here with me.

---

I don’t like Josh. I don’t trust him. I admit, just like Janie, I was initially blinded by finding someone else with such a talent for viewing through the Heart Mask. And her and Josh have become close, which was even more valuable. I think Janie loves our life, and our status in these occult circles gives us a great many benefits, but it is also a very lonely life. It’s hard to maintain friendships or relationships when everyone you meet is either a sycophant or a usurper. I try to be a good brother and friend for her, but she needs more than just me.

And at first, Josh made her laugh. She seemed happier than I had seen her in years, and taking on the role of guiding another talented viewer really suited her. But Josh…he is never satisfied. I know that hungry look. Me and Janie had it a lot in those early years after the funeral home and the first kill. We had a new instinct within us, and it was strong.

Between the two of us, we developed the Heart Mask technique, and we also figured out that human bodies worked best for a variety of reasons. We made contacts with people in various parts of the world that could supply us regularly with fresh cadavers that wouldn’t be missed. And over the years since, we have seen and learned a great deal. But for a short time after we perfected the Heart Mask, we struggled with the drive to do more. To go to the Nightlands physically, to do the terrible things required to make that happen. We learned to control and suppress that urge, and that’s what I wanted for Josh too.

But I’m losing hope that it’s possible. He is getting more obsessed and strange. He keeps to himself much of the time, and I can tell Janie’s mood has taken a downturn as she is neglected by her newfound friend. Worse, I fear he may be abusing or at least warping that poor girl Darcy. I barely see her at all anymore, and when I do, she’s like a ghost passing through the house. Her face is pale and gaunt, and her eyes look haunted. When I try to ask what’s wrong, she just smiles politely and says everything is just fine. She thanks me again for our hospitality and drifts on by. Poor girl.

I’ve grown paranoid about Josh’s intentions, and that had led me to take certain precautions. I’ve begun checking our refrigerated blood supply on a daily basis. We periodically ship some out to trusted colleagues and replenish the supply from our bodies as needed, but there is always an accurate log kept. That log has always matched the contents of the refrigerator until today.

Heart Mask rituals in this house are strictly forbidden without mine or Janie’s supervision. And I know we have no cadavers on the property at the moment. I strongly suspect Josh stole the blood, and I fear I know what he intends to use it for. I pray that I’m wrong.

---

I can feel the membrane between the two worlds responding to my presence. It is not parting for me, but as I push against it, it does give. The viewing glass has become a plastic film, and if I can find the right spot and push hard enough, I may be able to poke a hole big enough to crawl through.

I’m back on the beach for the first time since my first time, and while I don’t see that wonderfully familiar creature yet, I can hear its song. It’s calling to me, asking me to join it. I will find a way through.

But then I’m being pulled away. I’m back in the bright lights and stale air of my room at the Twins’ house, Martin’s face a mask of rage and disgust as he shoves me away from Darcy’s body. I say body, because as I turn to look at her, I see that the last stages of shock have set in and she’s finally dying. I let out a scream of despair, but then Martin is on me again, shoving me back into the wall.

“Why did you do it? Why did you have to go and do it?”

Martin’s questions confused me. It was obvious why I did it. I know that wearing the Heart Mask with a corpse is enough to see and hear, but not to go through. If I want to actually go to the Nightlands, the skin of my face needs to feel the feathertouch of a still-beating heart. I ask him, genuinely curious, if he didn’t understand that. That if him and Janie hadn’t figured that out, I could help show them the way.

His expression is still angry, but his eyes are sad when he replies. ”Oh, we know. And we don’t do it. We’re not murderers. Aside from a few animals when we were kids, before we knew how to control the urges, we haven’t ever hurt anyone.”

I frowned at him. “Bullshit. I don’t believe you. And anyway, what does it matter? The Nightlands is what matters, not this shit hole. Not these stupid people living their drab, stupid lives. What’re we’re doing is important.”

His gaze grew hot again and I took a step back. “What we’re doing? No. What Janie and I are doing is exploring the Nightlands in a safe and responsible manner with no one being hurt. What you’re doing,” he pointed back at the gaping hole in Darcy’s chest, “is brutal and sick. It’s murder.” He sighed. “And I get it. These urges, they are a part of you now. It doesn’t happen with most people, but those of us that are more sensitive, that can hear the songs of that place…well, it changes you.”

He reached out a hand and put it on my shoulder. “We’ve learned to control how it affects us, and we were trying to do that for you too. Why couldn’t you just…” His words turned to a sharp gasp of pain as I stuck the knife deep into his stomach. He fell backwards onto the floor, and I took a moment to lock the door before returning to him.

I’m taking a risk in writing this note, as I don’t want Martin to die before I can use him to cross over. I don’t want to have to find you and use you instead. You have been kind to me, Janie, and I felt like you deserved to know what happened and why. I care for you and Martin, but I have to go to the Nightlands, and I can’t imagine a better chance than through the still-living body of one of the famous Twins.

Try to understand, and join me if you can find a way.

---

When I came home that afternoon, the house seemed empty. I guess in a way it was. When I couldn’t get anyone to come to Josh’s door, I unlocked it and went in. Part of me died at what I saw. Darcy’s body lay still and bloody across the bed. And Martin, my sweet Martin, was laying tied to the legs of a large wardrobe in the corner, his body having been opened up from the top of his chest down to his navel. I could tell by the blood smears on the floor that he had been hurt somewhere else in the room and had crawled around before being dragged and tied to the wardrobe. I collapsed next to his body, somehow unable to produce a tear or even a sound at first. I took his large bloody hand in both of mine and kissed it.

“I’m sorry,” I finally managed. “I’m so so sorry. I shouldn’t have let him stay. I know you were worried about it…about him. You tried not to let on because having him around made me happy, but I knew. Oh God, I knew and I ignored it because I was selfish and I thought I could control him. Keep him from going too far.” My vision of Martin was wavering with tears now, and I hugged his neck tightly, careful not to get too near the chest cavity itself.

I knew where Josh had gone, and I wasn’t sure that there was any way back, much less through Martin’s now dead body. But I wasn’t taking any chances. Standing up and wiping my face, I found my phone and called our special cleaning service to retrieve and cremate both bodies. I would make sure they both had fitting burials and tributes, but that would come in the days ahead. For now, there was another call I needed to make.

I went to my bedroom and looked through the top drawer of my dresser until I found the card. It was a plain card with no graphics or flashy catchphrase. Instead, it simply read “Jager Solutions, Inc.” and gave a phone number. I found myself vacillating on whether to actually call or not. I had no idea if I would just be making things worse.

But no, I needed to do the responsible thing, the right thing, not the easy thing. That’s what Martin had always said, and it was true. I didn’t know what Josh going to the Nightlands meant, but I could feel that it was very important and bigger than just me or the Heart Mask ritual. Wiping my eyes again, I dialed the number.

“Hello? Um, Jager Solutions. How can I help you?”

I felt unease at the uncertainty I heard in whoever I was talking to. I’d have wondered if I even had the right number if he hadn’t said the name. Still, I needed to give them a chance.

“I need to speak to Dr. Barron, please. It’s an emergency.”

A pause, and then. “He’s not in right now. I’m his grandson, Jason. What’s the problem?”

I stared out of my window into the deepening twilight, and I could see a ghost of my own reflection looking back at me. It reminded me of when we were young, Martin and I would spend hours playing with mirrors and trying to make each other laugh. My best reflection, my sweet brother and friend, was gone. And I felt so terribly alone.

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I forced myself to respond. “It’s better if we talk in person. Tell your grandfather that it’s the girl he met in Seattle a few years back. At the old tire plant. He’ll remember. And tell him that I’m ready to tell him what I know about the Nightlands. ” 

---

Credits

 

Your Flesh is the Door. Our Blood is the Key (Part 3)

  

I stood watching as people lined up for their turn at wearing the Heart Mask. “Wearing the Heart Mask”, as I quickly learned, entailed the person putting on a large apron like you would wear getting your hair cut, bending down in front of the corpse with the excavated chest, and sticking your face into the wound. I was in such shock the first couple of times I saw it, all I could do was stare. A few people held their breath, but most came prepared with a long plastic or metal bendable straw that they would use as a snorkel of sorts during their macabre dive into that dark, wet cave. Everyone, to a person, came out with a bloody face that was smiling from ear to ear.

I looked over at Darcy, speaking in a low whisper. “What in the fuck have you brought me to?”

She winced slightly. “Sorry, I would have told you more but it was against the rules and you probably wouldn’t have come. And this is something I wanted you to experience. That I wanted us to experience together.” She paused and then added, “This is only my second time. The first time was in Topeka and it was not nearly as cool of a crowd….I mean, it worked, but I have high hopes for tonight.” I could tell she was excited, but I was past caring.

“What does ‘worked’ even mean? What’s the point? What’re the nightlands?”

She gave me a nudge to keep the line we were apparently in moving forward. “The Twins…they figured out a way to use a dead body to see into another world. I guess another dimension? I don’t know. But basically what you do is you open up the chest cavity like they did, then you pour some blood over the organs…usually they use a small bit of the Twins’ blood, though I have heard of other blood working, just not as well.” A look of irritation passed over her face. “They must have prepped the body with blood as soon as the opening was done, which is why we missed it. That’s how they did it before at least.” She waved her hand as though wiping a thought away. “Anyhow, they put the blood in, then you stick your face into the hole. Eyes open or closed, I don’t think it matters. After a few seconds you will realize you can see something. Another place. They call it the Nightlands.”

The line was moving up again. “So you understand how insane this is? Are they putting LSD in the corpse or something?” I was whispering, but as I got more angry and afraid it was becoming harder to keep my voice low. “What you’re saying isn’t possible, and either way, I’m not sticking my face into a fucking dead body.”

Darcy’s mouth grew into a thin line. “Look, I get it. You’re not used to this kind of shit. You’re freaked out. But I’m telling you it’s okay. The bodies are always clean and disease-free, and all you have to do is wear the Mask for a few seconds. Then you can go if you want. But I hope…”

“Uh, no. I’m leaving right now. And if anyone tries to stop me I’ll call the cops.”

Darcy suddenly stepped forward, grabbing my shirt tightly. Her eyes were fierce as she spoke. “Look, you need to wake up here. If they want to, they can kill you and leave your body parts strewn across three blocks before a cop gets here. But they won’t do that. They’ll ask you to stay. When you refuse, they’ll step aside and let you go. Then a month from now you’ll just fucking disappear.” She rolled her eyes. “And since I brought you, I’ll probably get the same or worse. Is that what you want?”

“No…I just…”

She nodded, releasing my shirt and handing me a plastic straw. “Good. Then sack up and let’s get through this. If you don’t want to see me any more after tonight, I get it. But for the next thirty minutes I need you to still be my boyfriend and act like you give a fuck.”

I wanted to respond, but I didn’t see the point. I knew she was being manipulative, playing on my feelings for her and any sense of chivalry I possessed to get me to go along with it. But at the same time, I didn’t think she was lying. She had gotten us in with a very dangerous crowd, and I was going to have to see it through.

Ten minutes later and it was Darcy’s turn. The grey-haired woman that had greeted us earlier had rushed ahead and was already in a corner wiping off her face with a wet nap. We were at the end of the line, with only one thin, sullen-eyed teenage boy behind me. I felt like I could barely breathe, torn between dreading what was coming and just wanting it over with. Looking around, most of the people were in small clusters, talking excitedly or wiping themselves off. The Twins stood apart from the rest, watching silently, small smiles on their pale, perfect lips.

Then Darcy was turning to me, her face dotted in spots with gore. I realized that much of the blood had already been blotted away by the preceding nutjobs, and this led to me thinking about putting my face in the same spot as all those people, clean corpse or not. I inwardly cringed, but it was too late to worry about that. Darcy was looking at me expectantly, so I clinched the straw between my teeth, making sure the other end was pointed out behind my head, and I bend down. Even now I could feel and smell the cold radiating off the body, and at this distance I saw the internal organs inside far too clearly. I felt my gorge rise and fought it back down. Time to get it done. Count to ten and you’re out of here.

I put my head inside, my eyes closed and my breath held tight in my lungs. I had no intention of being inside long enough to need to actually use the straw. I felt slick softness press against my face as I leaned in, the rough edges of the sawed ribcage lightly scraping my right ear as my head sunk down. I began counting in the dark behind my eyelids.

One. Two. Three.

Something…I saw something. At first I thought it was just the weird flashes and afterimages you see when your eyes are closed and pressed against something, and I kept counting.

Four. Five.

No, I was actually seeing something. It was a wide swath of beach bathed in pale moonlight. The sand looked like green powder, but it was hard to tell for sure. I wanted to turn my head, and I found that at the mere thought my vision rotated to look out at the black ocean. The water was calm at first, with no sign of waves or tides, but then further out I saw a stirring. Something large was coming out of the water.

Its head and long craning neck were above the black mirror of the ocean as it surged toward the shore, its anvil-shaped head covered with glowing spikes of amber that I somehow understood were its eyes. I knew that it could see me, that it was looking at me. And I had a sense that it was feeling the same thing I was. Familiarity.

As it drew nearer, I could hear a strange song coming from it. It was singing to me. And I could feel my heart swelling and thrumming in-tune with an answering rhythm. I had never felt more joy or rightness in my entire life, and when I was suddenly pulled away from that slowly decaying corpse, I let out a wail like a child being ripped from the warm comfort of the womb. I struggled with unknown hands to go back in, but a voice cut through my frenzied need and caused me to turn and look for its source.

It was the woman known as Janie. She was smiling at me and placed a hand on my filthy cheek as I looked at her.

“There, now. Come back to us. You did so well.” I felt a small stir of pride as I tried to get my bearings back in the old, lesser world. “Your friend, she said this is your first time?” I nodded dumbly, the sound of her voice filling me with a sense of profound comfort and pleasure. It somehow reminded me of the music I had heard in the Nightlands. I said as much, my words coming out slow and mumbled. Janie’s eyes widened, and I saw her brother stirring in my peripheral view as well. “Music? So you heard music when you were there?”

I nodded again. “It was wonderful. It came from…I don’t know what it was…but I knew it somehow.”

Janie’s smile had widened, and she had tears in the corners of her eyes. Martin had stepped forward and was slapping me on the back, congratulating me about something. I still was unclear what exactly was going on, but I supposed it was good. I just wanted her to keep talking, and I wanted them to help me get back to that wonderful place again.

A man wearing some kind of tactical vest and sporting what looked like a submachine gun suddenly stepped up and whispered in Martin’s ear. Before I would have been terrified at the idea of armed men hiding in the shadows, but now it was more a curiosity. I did want to hear what he was telling Martin that caused his good mood to sour so quickly, but all I could make out was a couple of words that sounded like “mouse” and “claw”. It made no sense, but it provoked a strong reaction nonetheless.

Martin glanced meaningfully at Janie and then turned to me. “We’ve just learned we’re about to have some uninvited guests in about five minutes, so we’re about to go. We would love for you to come with us if you’re willing.”

I glanced at Janie and then back to him. “Yeah, sure. I want to. I want to understand.” Janie beamed and gave me a quick hug. As she pulled away, she glanced past me.

“You can bring your friend too, if you want.”

I turned to follow her gaze and saw Darcy standing a few feet away, her face only partially clean and her mouth hanging open. I had forgotten about her completely, but I didn’t really see how she mattered now anyway. “I guess she can come if she wants.”

Darcy’s expression grew hurt, but she bounced back quick enough to say she would love to join us, stepping forward to take my arm. I fought down a wave of irritation and looked back to the Twins. Martin handed me a towel and beckoned for us to follow.

Two minutes later we were down some back steps and getting into a black SUV that was ready and waiting just outside the building. As we drove off, I saw the angry, orange glow of the fires being set on the third floor. Journeying through the dark, I soon grew drowsy in the companionable silence of my new friends, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep. 

---

Credits

 

Your Flesh is the Door. Our Blood is the Key (Part 2)

  

Months before that first cat, me and Janie got our first real look at death. We were staying with our Aunt Paula during one of our mother’s “hard times”, and out of nowhere, Uncle Jack’s father died at the local power plant where he had worked for close to thirty years. Not by electrocution, either. He just slipped and fell, hitting his head on the way down.

But this sent Aunt Paula and Uncle Jack into several days of crying and planning, talking and shuffling from place to place. Me and Janie, albatrosses that we were with nowhere else to go, got drug along to the funeral home, the probate court, the cemetery, the newspaper. We tried to stay quiet and out of the way, and I think that was part of the problem. When we got to the night of the wake, we were tucked away in the corner, me telling Janie stories and jokes to try and keep her mind off the crush of strangers that surrounded us. We were used to making our own fun, and it wasn’t long before we had largely blocked out the outside world.

As the night progressed, there were fewer and fewer people in the room with us. Then there was no one at all, but we could still hear the distant burble of voices in the other rooms of the funeral home that were open for the wake. Then there was nothing but silence. I told Janie I needed to go check on something, trying to keep my voice calm even though I already suspected what had happened. But she wanted to go with me, so we headed out from the room we had been sitting in to a larger room filled with flowers and pictures of Uncle Jack’s father. From there you went into another large room filled with more chairs that led out into a large hallway to the left. The hallway and the rooms beyond were all dark.

Janie started twisting the sleeve of my shirt, her breaths coming in panicked gasps. “They…left…they left us….here alone…”

I turned and grabbed her arms gently, looking into her face. “It’s okay. It is totally okay. They just forgot. They aren’t used to having kids with them. They’ll come back in a few minutes when they remember.”

Janie nodded, and she seemed somewhat calmer for a moment, but then her eyes widened again. “What’s that noise?”

I was about to say I didn’t hear anything, but I realized that wasn’t true. There was music playing from somewhere. So softly it was easy to miss or mistake for just random noise, but it was there. And it sounded like some kind of song. It took a moment, but I realized it was coming from the other door in that room. The one they had called the viewing room. Where the body was.

I wanted to go and see what it was, but I was reluctant because of Janie. To my surprise, she was already walking forward though, pulling me along. Much like in the rest of this area of the building, the soft recessed lighting in the viewing room was still on. It was a small room with strange velvety curtains draped on the walls and a fake stained glass window with some kind of light bulb behind it giving everything a slight, multi-colored glow. Underneath the window was the casket, thankfully closed now.

Looking around and listening for the source of the music, it didn’t take long for me to realize it wasn’t coming from some funeral home speaker or forgotten cell phone. It was coming from inside the casket. I exchanged a look with Janie and knew she had figured it out too. Giving her hand a squeeze, we crept up closer.

The music had a sweetly sad quality, like something you would hear in a movie when they’re trying to make you cry, but it was different than that too. As I got closer, I realized it was different than anything I had ever heard. It was somehow truer, more real, and I could feel it to my core. I didn’t know the word at the time, but it made me ache inside. I pressed my ear against the casket and after a moment Janie did the same. As we stood listening and looking at each other, I felt myself slowly sinking into that music. Questions of how or why the music was playing became irrelevant as I found myself traveling through some internal darkness, Janie by my side.

It was Aunt Paula’s wail of relief that brought me out of it. “Jack! Jack! They’re in here!” She ran forward to sweep us up in a hug, pulling us away from the casket. My first urge was to fight back, to try to get back to the music, but then I realized the music had stopped. So instead I suffered through our aunt’s kisses and apologies as they lead us outside and to the car. The funeral director, out of his black suit at this point and into some sweatpants and a t-shirt, was busy apologizing to Uncle Jack while Aunt Paula was apologizing to us and to him. Everyone was so fucking sorry.

Not that I was really mad about it at all. I knew we had found something really important—something secret. I told Aunt Paula we had just walked around a bit, and that it was okay, that we weren’t too scared. She looked back at me, tears in her eyes.

“That’s sweet of you to say, honey, but I know you had to be after,” she sniffed hard and continued, “we left you there for four hours. I’m so so sorry.”

I blinked and felt Janie’s grip on my hand tighten. “What time is it?”, she asked.

Aunt Paula looked at her. “It’s nearly 2:30 in the morning, baby. But don’t you worry. After the funeral tomorrow you can sleep as late as you want to as long as you stay with us. And I’ll have a tasty breakfast waiting for you when you wake up.”

We weren’t really listening to her any more. 2:30? That was impossible. I would have guessed that from the time I last heard people to when they came back was an hour at the most. But when I looked up at the car clock, I saw she was right. 2:27. Had we spent over three hours listening to that corpse?

Exhausted, we fell asleep as soon as we got to bed, but the next day me and Janie discussed it more. Her memory was the same as mine, and we had no way of explaining where the music had come from or where the time had went. So eventually, as children do, we just accepted it and moved on.

Except I started to have strange thoughts. Odd dreams. And that lead to the day with the cat, when I realized that Janie had been going through the same thing and that something about that music had changed us both forever.

---

I pulled back against Darcy’s hand. “Wait, what is this? Should we be going up there?” She looked at me with an irritated, questioning look and I went on in a hushed tone. “There are people screaming up there!”

She pulled her hand free and frowned at me. “Yeah, which means we missed the opening.” Her expression softened and she went on. “Look, I didn’t tell you more about this because I didn’t want you to freak out. It’s perfectly safe. Well, not perfectly safe, but safe enough. I wouldn’t have brought you otherwise. But I need you to trust me and be cool. You’re going to see some shit tonight, and you’re going to have to participate. That’s the rule. But you won’t be hurting anybody and no one will hurt you. I promise.” She reached out and rubbed my arm. “You cool? Can you trust me?”

I swallowed and nodded. She gave me a quick hug and took my hand again, leading me up to the third floor where we could see electric lights had been set up running off a gas generator. The screams had died down now, and as we headed into what had once been the cubicle-laden central bullpen of a company, I saw a small group of people clustered around some kind of table or apparatus. The ruined desks and cubicle walls had been shoved away towards the edges of the large room, and as we stepped past that outer ring of office detritus and into the sullen light of the work lamps that had been set up, I could see what appeared to be a man’s naked body laying on an adjustable metal table tilted so that his feet were close to the floor. The angle was such he would have slid off if not for the raised platform at the end where his feet rested and the thick leather straps that were around his waist and neck. I was about to ask Darcy what they were doing to that guy when someone stepped to the left, revealing his torso.

There was a wet, red hole where his chest should be. It reminded me of cars I had seen that were missing a hood. A large rectangle of skin, muscle and bone had been cut out of his chest around a foot wide and a foot and a half long. Inside, you could see glimpses of organs in the bloody darkness.

I turned to Darcy, barely able to breathe. “What…did they kill that guy?” I was whispering, but we were close enough now to the others that I was terrified they’d overhear me.

She shook her head. “No, no. It’s ok. They get cadavers. They’re bodies from the nearby med school that were donated and John Does from the county morgue. All stolen, yes, but no family is missing them.” She went to say something else when a gray-haired woman wearing a long dress and carrying a short, black walking stick came up and gave Darcy a hug.

“Darcy! You made it! So glad you could come.” The woman’s dark eyes shifted to me. “And who is your friend?” Her tone wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t warm either. I felt like an uninvited guest at a dinner party.

Darcy looked unruffled as she smiled at the woman. “It’s good to see you too. This is Josh. He’s…” she shot me a glance, “Well, I guess you’d say he’s my boyfriend.”

I felt my heart race a little at her calling me her boyfriend, even in these circumstances. We had been very slow to label our dating up to this point, and while I had called her my girlfriend to others a few times, this was the first time I had ever heard her use the term. I was chiding myself for having fucked up priorities when the woman began talking again excitedly.

“The Twins are here! Can you believe it?”

Whatever that meant, Darcy clearly was excited too. She looked at me and grinned, her eyes bright. “This is so awesome! The Twins are the ones that started all this a few years ago. I’ve heard they have a few different groups around the world, but only occasionally show up in person to oversee them. We are so fucking lucky!”

I glanced at the corpse again, finding it hard to tear my gaze away from that ragged, red void in its chest. “So what does this have to do with the dead body?” People were starting to clap and cheer, and Darcy hushed me to silence before pulling me along behind her friend as we made our way up to the inner circle.

Entering the circle from the other side was a young couple that appeared to be in their early thirties, although both of them had hair of bright white. It was a strange and discordant frame for their smooth skin and striking features, and the hair itself seemed far too healthy to have been whitened by chemicals or age.

Between their physical appearance and their expensive-looking clothes, I found myself wondering what they were possibly doing here. At first glance, they looked more out of place in that derelict building than I did. But then I noticed how they carried themselves, how everyone else deferred to them. They were extremely comfortable here, and they were in control.

The woman stepped forward, her voice soft but strong as she introduced herself. “My name is Jacquelin Forrester, but you can call me Janie.” There was an excited titter through the crowd at what seemed to be a familiar joke to many. “This, as many of you are aware, is my brother Martin.”

“Tonight, we are going to take a journey together. A journey unlike any other you have ever experienced…well, unless you’ve done this before.” Another pause and round of soft laughter. “But for you newcomers, here are the rules.” She stepped back and Martin stepped forward, nodding to his sister before turning to the crowd.

“Rule one: You must participate. No exceptions. Rule two: You can never tell another person about what we do here or what you see and hear unless you bring them along with you in the future. Then you can only tell them after they have crossed the threshold and are bound by our rules as well.” I shot Darcy a look and she shrugged apologetically.

“Rule three: You will wait your turn. There is no arguing, no fighting, and no rudeness tolerated here.” He shrugged. “And that’s it. Oh, yes, one more thing. If you think you might want to break one of the rules, just remember.” He pointed to the corpse with a grin. “We always need a fresh body.” He chuckled as he stepped back and there was another ripple of laughter, though this one seemed to carry a note of unease.

Janie raised her arms, and I could tell from the palpable excitement thrumming through the crowd that this was a part of some beginning ceremony or ritual. Smiling, she looked around at us as she spoke. “Welcome to all of you. May you wear the Heart Mask well and gaze deep into the Nightlands! " 

---

Credits

 

Your Flesh is the Door. Our Blood is the Key (Part 1)

  

I always took care of Janie. I always called her my little sister even though she was born just a few minutes after I was, and while it was a joke between us, I always felt responsible for her. Part of that was due to our mother. By the time we were five, we were accustomed to periodically packing a bag to spend a few days with this relative or that. At the time, they just told us that our mother was sick or “going through a rough time”. Later we figured out that she was a barely functioning schizophrenic with severe alcoholism issues. But it was okay, because through all that, I would always be there for Janie.

The other reason I took care of her so much was because she wanted me to. As we got a bit older, I developed a few friends and, if not popular, I was at least not socially reviled at school. But Janie always had trouble with other people. At school she stayed with me when she could and by herself at other times. Around strangers or even at a family member’s house, she would cling to me like a frightened tree frog, all big eyes and breathing that bordered on hyperventilation.

But all of that was okay. I loved Janie, and I pretty much hated everyone else, including the supposed friends I had at school. But mostly I hated our mother. Even when I began to understand she was supposed to have mental problems, I saw her lack of self-control and apathy towards her own children as signs of disgusting weakness. Here we were, brought into this world against our will, and she couldn’t even be bothered to check on us or feed us half the time. When I was seven, I wished her dead for the first time. By the time I was eight, it had become a daily prayer to some unknown thing.

The summer we turned eight was a big turning point for me and Janie. We were still children, of course, but we had reached a point of self-sufficiency that even our most well-meaning family would only call and check in once or twice a week. We were a burden to them, you see. A hassle. They had their own lives and their own perfect little worlds, and our mother being a piece of shit brought them unwanted concerns and guilt. So as soon as they could assuage those thoughts and feelings by telling themselves we “were like little adults” and “so mature for our age” (both of which are lines we actually got when someone was ready to vamoose), they usually turned away and never looked back. And that was okay, because one, fuck them, and two, we had each other.

We could have done pretty much anything we wanted by our eighth summer. Next to no supervision, a house far enough out that there were no nosy neighbors to see what we were up to, and a desperate need to find something to care about. I’m convinced that most profound and remarkable things, be they good or bad, are discovered because someone is bored out of their mind.

The first time I killed an animal, I don’t even remember doing it. I just remember standing over the cat, a bloody pocket knife in my hand, staring at Janie as she looked back at me with an expression she had never sent my way before. It was fear. Looking into her wide eyes, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I never wanted to be the cause of her being hurt or afraid.

But then something miraculous happened. She walked over and took my hand. I stood still, unsure of what to do or what this meant. Then she smiled and asked me to show her how to do it. Relief surged through me so hard I began to cry. I had been hiding these growing impulses from her, afraid that she wouldn’t understand. But just like I was always there for her, she was always there for me too, and I needed to do a better job of understanding and appreciating that.

So I showed her how I had caught the cat and stuck the knife into its neck—even then my idea was never to torture or be cruel. It was only the death and the flesh that mattered. Something in me understood that from the beginning, but it wasn’t until I was explaining it all to Janie that I really recognized it.

Somehow, we had stumbled onto a kind of truth. Guiding Janie’s hand under my own, the poor cat’s blood making it hard for her to hold onto the knife as I told her how to cut, I knew was that I wasn’t sick. I didn’t want to hurt animals or people. Not at all. I just wanted to know the truth that had been vibrating inside my soul for months now, and I could see in Janie’s eyes that the same desperate disquiet resided in her as well.

It would be some time before we realized the source of that terrible need, and by that time, we had progressed so far. We were children that were wandering alone in the wilderness. Sometimes literally, as we played games, explored new places, and developed the intricacies of our beliefs. But beyond that, and more importantly, we were walking hand in hand in our own dimly lit journey through the shadowed halls of our shared soul. Traveling toward something real and magical that lay just out of reach.

But that would all come later, not that day. On that day, I was just a proud brother, holding the hand of his little sister, teaching her how to get a clean kill.

---

“So this is the place, huh?” I tried to keep the uncertainty out of my voice, mostly because I didn’t want it to betray the fear and doubt I was feeling.

Darcy looked back at me as she continued to tug me forward with a grin. “This is the place, slowpoke. It doesn’t look like much because…well, that’s kind of the point.” She slowed to a stop and looked at me closely, her eyes narrowed. “You aren’t pussing out are you?”

I felt my stomach twisting into a tighter knot. I had only been dating Darcy for two months, but I already felt like I was in love with her. She was wonderful, but she was also so different than anyone I had ever known before. I knew she used drugs some of the time, which I didn’t particularly like, but she never pushed it on me, so I tried to ignore it. But her fascination with the occult…at first I had taken it more as a joke, and then I just assumed she was a part of some religion I was less familiar with. And that was all cool. I have an open mind, right? So I asked her some about it.

---

She was very open in talking to me about it, and I quickly realized that this wasn’t about faith or ritual for her. She described herself as a “drive-by occultist”, and at first I didn’t understand what she meant. When I told her so, she rolled her eyes and laughed.

“Can’t have you not appreciating my clever turns-of-phrase. A drive-by occultist is somebody that is up for whatever. They know there are things out there that can give you power and knowledge, but they don’t confine themselves to one set of beliefs or practices. I’ve met a few people like myself over the last few years, and most of them aren’t religious at all. It’s almost like a science nerd watching different experiments to see which ones work and can be replicated.” She cocked her head and frowned. “Is that making sense?”

“So…you go to different occult rituals and stuff and see what you can pick up?”

She leaned forward and gave me a quick kiss. “Exactly!” She looked to the ceiling and continued. “In faaaact, I’m actually planning on going to a pretty special underground occult event in a few days. I wasn’t going to invite you because I don’t want you getting freaked out, but if you think you’re up for it, I’d love for you to go.”

I felt nervous, but I didn’t like the idea of her going to some weird thing alone, and I wanted to be supportive. “Uh, sure. Where is it?”

“Detroit.”

---

Darcy told me that in the past few years Detroit had become one of the biggest gathering spots for serious occult activity (or as she put it, “the real hardcore shit”) in the United States. She vaguely alluded that there were several reasons for this, but one of the most important and practical ones was that there were entire blocks of buildings that were abandoned in portions of the city where no one gave the slightest shit what you did. Getting in and out could be a bit risky, but as long as you were smart, on any given night you would have access to at least a couple of different gatherings or rituals.

This all sounded very strange to me, and I felt my doubts only growing as we approached the hulking shadow of what appeared to be an abandoned office building. Two blocks back we had seen a large pack of what looked to be wild dogs running down the street, but since then I hadn’t seen the first sign of life. This building was empty, the broken panes of its windows staring out of a dead face made of faded brick and crumbling mortar. So either she had the wrong address or…

“Names and IDs?”

I jumped and barely stifled a yelp as a large man in a golf shirt and jeans stepped out of the shadows holding a clip board.

“Fuck! What?”

Darcy was already reaching into her purse and shooting me an embarrassed look, but the man just gave me a heavily-lidded glance and repeated himself.

“They take your name and ID when you enter one of these. You get them back when you leave. It’s pretty standard, and it cuts down on people being assholes in there. They’re held accountable if they do something they shouldn’t. Come on, Josh. We don’t want to miss the start.” She was waving her hand at me to give her my driver’s license, and after a moment of hesitation I did so. I was about to start walking in when the man raised his hand to stop me.

“Are you prepared to wear the Heart Mask and accept what it shows you?”

I glanced at Darcy and she nodded. Turning back to the man, I told him yes I was.

He nodded and lowered his hand, letting us pass. We walked across what had once been the lobby of some kind of insurance company based on the signage, and at first I was heading toward the elevator before Darcy steered me to the stairs.

“No power, remember?” Her arm was linked with mine and she gave me a squeeze. “Thank you for coming with me to this. It means a lot to me.”

I felt myself blushing a little and was glad it was so dark on the stairs. “Thank you for bringing me. I want to know about the things that are important to you.” We were on the second floor now, which was as barren and lifeless as the first, and were heading on up to the third. I was going to try to say something else, something clever or endearing maybe, but then I noticed a new sound in the distance.

It was the sound of people screaming. 

---

Credits