 
## The October King

### Zachary T. Owen

—2015—

_The October King_ copyright © 2015 Zachary T. Owen

Cover image and design copyright © 2015 Jessica Dawn and Trisha Swindell

The author retains the rights to his works. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, physical or electronic, without prior written permission from the publisher or author. However, small passages of this publication may be quoted for use in book reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and situations are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, as well as events and locales, is purely coincidental.

eBook layout by Zachary T. Owen

thewordvirus@gmail.com

First Digital Edition: October 2015

If you enjoy _The October King_ , please check out Zachary T. Owen's other works, _Burn Down the House and Everyone In It_ and _Beauties in the Deep_.

For Jon P.

Please don't fuck up our novel.

I'm going to tell you about the night my friends died. But first, let me tell you about what came before that. The stories. The chokehold of anxiety.

The October King.

When I walked through the passage in the trees behind my apartment I saw the first story. It was hastily written on a slab of stone. I skimmed the story. But I didn't really read it. Not yet.

I was too consumed with myself at the moment. Or maybe I wasn't ready. Are we ever really ready for the things that change us?

I nibbled at my lips and then licked them—a nervous tic. I brushed a hand over my short hair. It's easier not to keep up on hygiene when you keep your hair and nails short, wear dark clothes, slather yourself with pleasant scents. People don't notice as much. My arms itched from layers of old deodorant. In spite of the stinging wind I was sweating. I headed for class, though I don't know why I bothered.

You see, every October I start to slip into a seasonal depression. This has always cut me in a deep way that other bouts of dread or depression do not. I really love October. The crunch of the leaves, the chill in the air, the ominous realization that winter's tendrils are slithering slowly into our existence, the taste of bitter coffee during late nights filled with old horror movies. And I can't forget the unending Halloween decorations. Have you ever walked through a small town on a late October night? A college town, especially. There's nothing quite like it: all those ghoulish faces plastered on storeroom fronts, the orange glow of Halloween lights, the tacky inflatable witches juxtaposed with gruesome murder scene re-creations on front lawns. It's too bad I'm usually stuffed into a pit of my own sadness and can't enjoy it more.

This year was no different. Just a week until Halloween and I was feeling restless.

The closer I got to campus, the more my heart beat against my chest in a fury. My face was damp with sweat. Right when I was towing the edge, preparing myself to bolt through the cross walk, I stopped cold. I clutched my jacket and clenched my teeth. And I thought: _She would blaze a trail of blood so long and wide it would paint towns, coat cities._

What the fuck was that from? I focused. My lips sealed shut and I squinted, forming my concentration face.

It was a line I'd skimmed from the story. For some reason it unnerved me deeply. This was unusual. I have seen every horror movie. I pound through those cheap horror paperbacks like middle-aged women shoot through Harlequin romances. But something in the words affected me. Not the words themselves—literally something _inside_ of them, as if they contained a disease or a hidden message that triggered something broken and horrible and disfigured in me.

After five minutes of standing there, immobile, lethargic, slightly sick, I collected myself. There weren't many students out. They were probably already in class. The chance I would run into somebody I knew seemed low, so I didn't have to lose face when I left the crosswalk and went downtown. When I got to the bar I took a hard breath. It was usual for me to be feeling upset, but the anxiety was new.

_No reason to feel anxious_. _Nothing is wrong with you. Just the typical October blues. Just step inside, get a drink, and enjoy yourself. Enjoy being away from class. Don't think about the story._

Once inside I felt reasonably better. The lights were dim and the windows tinted so it was dark inside, dark enough you couldn't quite make out the dirt on the floor, the dust on motionless fan blades, the delicate spider webs stretched out in every corner. I sighed slowly, approached the bar and propped myself onto a stool.

The bartender immediately put down the glass he was washing and walked over to me. "What are we having today?"

"Whatever. Something on tap."

He filled a glass and put it in front of me. The foam was heavy. I could see through the beer, knew it was probably piss, but it looked good. It looked _great_. I took a big sip and felt the cool foam against my lips. I thumbed through my wallet and then paid for the drink.

I started thinking about the class I'd skipped. It was called The American Dream on Film and it filled my history requirement. The truth was, I picked it because it seemed easy. All I had to do was write papers in response to the films we watched. Mostly my academic schedule centered on how easy I could make the load I had to bare. If I could spread my classes far apart, manage to have a day of the week off, take a slack-off class that also managed to fill a major requirement, I would.

You're probably wondering what I studied. Does it matter? No, I don't think it does. It adds nothing to my story. I was never cut out to be a student.

Other things which are ultimately irrelevant: my name, my location, my age (though, if you pay attention, you can make a good educated guess). If you really have to know, I'm from San Antonio, California, originally. The college is in Pennsylvania. But it's not much different than a million other colleges, the town like a million other towns. My story is absurd. But in many ways, it could be yours.

I'd finally stopped chewing on my lips. I fidgeted in my stool and took a sip of my beer. I watched the silent television vacantly. The scene that played out on the smudged screen was familiar but I couldn't place it. It looked like somebody—Christopher Lee, probably—was battling a giant tarantula. This was a nice change of pace from the usual soap opera, _Invitation to Love_ , which I couldn't stand.

Somebody spoke.

"What?" I said. My heart pounded. Somebody recognized me. I wanted to be left alone to cope with my depression. It was difficult to get comfortable and I felt a burst of annoyance travel up my chest and on its way it swallowed my comfort.

"That'll cure what ails you."

"Oh?" I turned. It was Jim. Don't get me wrong—he's a nice guy. A _really_ nice guy. In fact, he's one of my few friends around here. On a better night I would have loved running into him. I usually attended his annual Halloween party, despite my depression. And I usually managed to have a good time. But today, this moment, I didn't want human contact. I wanted to bury my head in the dirt. Something more than restlessness was at work.

"Don't you have class?" Jim was incapable of speaking without smiling. Right then it looked like a leer. An ugly, soul-eating little smile. A faint mustache did its best to compliment his face but struggled greatly. His eyes were pinched in their ever-smiley stare.

"Excuse me," I said. I left him there at the bar and entered the bathroom. Typical bar bathroom. Dingy. A faint smell of soap and cleaning solution mingled with urine. The phrase 'Sweets to the Sweet' was written on the stall door.

Then the guilt came. Why was I being silly? Jim was a friend. We lived on the same co-ed floor my freshman year. We got high together. He drove me home when I was too plastered. My seasonal depression sometimes made me withdrawn. But why the anxiety? This was more than being withdrawn—it was flight.

She would blaze a trail of blood so long and wide it would paint towns, coat cities.

That line again.

When I was done I approached the mirror and examined my pallid features. Chewed on my lips. _Go back out there. You're fine._

So I did.

I went back out and I let Jim buy me a drink. Something good—a nice mixed drink. The anxiety washed away with each gulp. I drank my way to freedom. It was just a matter of control. Remain calm. Push the flighty feeling down and ignore the creeping fixation on the line from the story, and other, more rational things: money, the future, insecurity.

"You'll be at my Halloween party?"

"Of course." I managed a smile. "Wouldn't miss it."

Jim swallowed the last of his beer. "You can be honest with me. What's bugging you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You look like shit. And you cut class."

"Oh. Seasonal blues." I felt better saying it. Better than I would have thought.

"I get those too." Jim clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Every year when December hits I just lose it. I know exactly what that's like."

"Not my favorite."

"Mine either." He offered a smile warmer than his constant façade. "I guess we'll just have to keep drinking to melt away these blues."

I casually glanced out the window. Alexa was about to enter the bar. Her hair was pulled back but threatened to spill out in a curly mess. Her bright blue eyes could pierce marble. The thought of talking to her exhausted me. She was a real Brainiac, the kind of person you'd want on your side in an argument. She was an Anthropology major. Her work focused on folklore and Urban Legends. She also, somehow, had a good grasp of Philosophy. She'd come all the way from Cape Vale, Florida to this tiny shit-school. We went back a few years—she introduced me to some pretty intense urban legends. But right then I couldn't deal with the thought of talking to her _and_ Jim.

One person at a time, that's all I could handle.

"Listen Jim, I'm going to get out of here. Sorry. Thanks for the drink. I owe you."

"No sweat," Jim said, fumbling in his pocket for his wallet. He ordered another. On my way out I heard him say hello to Alexa.

I didn't bother looking back.

***

I was drawn, inexplicably, back to the story I had glimpsed. _She would blaze a trail of blood so long and wide it would paint towns, coat cities._ That line had me by the gut. It reeled me back through town, past campus, up the road, up the hill and into the slice of space in the trees that closed off my apartment from prying eyes.

The slab was just big enough to contain the story. Toward its conclusion the writing became more frantic, more miniscule in its dying space. It didn't take long to read.

And, as you know, it was only the first.

## Titans of Pain

Morgan sat atop her throne of skulls, counting in her hands the teeth she had wrenched from a pack of feral wolves. She climbed down the rotted bones and tossed the teeth into an ever-growing pile. The moon shone dimly through the castle windows, illuminating only traces of her pallid skin. She stretched and adjusted her fur robes.

Sometimes it was hard being the Queen of Pain. Sometimes the wretched creatures she sought and destroyed fought back. And while she felt no pain herself, she knew her time was quite limited, for with every wound she bled, with every blow a muscle or bone grew tender under the touch of her enemy. Even as a semi-goddess, she knew she could not last.

That is why, on the morrow, she would blaze a trail of blood so long and wide it would paint towns, coat cities. She would eviscerate children, pluck the heads off peasants, cut out the tongues of weeping mothers. It would be her last great gift to the world.

She smiled and ran her hand along the cool wall. She gently made her way down the winding steps, into the heart of her castle.

And in that heart stood _him_ —the God of Gore. "I cannot let you do this," he said. His voice was like a martyr's shriek. "I cannot let you outdo me. What will become of my reputation?"

"You are lazy and fat. You send others to do your pain. I became queen of my own volition, with my own effort. I bled for this. What have you done? You were born into it."

"It is true," he replied. "Still, I cannot let this go on. Things have their rightful place. You've upset the balance. Now I must undo you."

Morgan launched at him, in that moment, clawed fingers pouring into his eyes, scratching them out. He screamed. It was an agony that soothed her to the core. She did not think the God of Gore could feel pain.

But his blood boiled and burned, sliding down her arms, dancing around her slender frame. It ate away her fur robes, consumed her flesh. "You have undone yourself!" he cried.

"So I have," Morgan said, her voice weary. She watched as her innards slipped from inside her growing wound, pooled on the floor in a soupy mess. It was beautiful.

And as she fell into her own insides, the castle trembled, for it could not stand without its queen. The God of Gore made for the exit but mortar and stone rained down upon him until he was buried, deep, so deep he could not be found by human hands, and perhaps not by those of the other gods.

And so two titans of pain were lost, though pain itself laughed and danced and carried on forever, not the least bit troubled—students were plenty and it would make gods and queens of them all.

I felt a little better after reading the story. My anxiety was brought down to a simmer, though I still felt mildly depressed. But the story was just a story. I wondered who took the time to write it on stone. I wondered why they had chosen to put it here, of all places. It was October—that had to be the reason. Somebody was trying their hand at horror (though, really, the story was more of a dark fantasy). Maybe it was a sort of game for them. Maybe they had left a series of stories in different places, hoping people would read them.

The harsh wind was still blowing and my hands and face began to hurt. It wasn't even November and the winds were brutal. I considered going to my next class but, despite feeling better, was simply too tired.

On the stoop, just outside the entrance to the apartment, there was an empty beer bottle. Well, not quite. A piece of paper was wedged inside. I picked it up, suspecting the thing inside was another story. Turning the bottle upside down did not dislodge the paper from within. I was forced to smash it against the concrete. I had to see what was inside.

Folded up neatly in the scattered glass, the paper seemed to beg for retrieval. I picked it up and felt the strange texture in my hands. Something like parchment but not as heavy.

I went back into my apartment. As I passed rows of doors I felt oddly out of place. More restless than ever. At least I could lay down in relative quiet—there never seemed to anybody here in the apartment. It was serene compared to the campus. Not all of the tenants were students, and the students that did live here were rarely home.

Unfolding the paper, I approached my door. I reached for the doorknob but didn't let my eyes wander from the paper. Another story.

If there was some kind of renegade writer on the loose, it was sensible to think she or he might actually live in this apartment. Two stories outside in close proximity to each other. I scanned the words on the paper but the grip of fatigue left me feeling unconcerned about them. Pocketing the story, I unlocked my door and stepped into my apartment.

My flat wasn't particularly messy, if only because I didn't own much. There was just enough furniture, just enough dishes and appliances to get by. Living in the dorms had left me feeling overwhelmed by my possessions. Though this living space was bigger I hadn't been able to shake the vague feeling of claustrophobia. I got rid of a lot of things and what I wanted to keep, but didn't need, I sent home to my parents.

I eyed my couch and debated on sleeping there but its proximity to the large living room window was discomforting. It was absurd, but I didn't like the idea of sleeping just out of sight of any passerby.

My bedroom was virtually empty. A mattress on the floor. Sparse closet. Desk. Dresser. I lay down on my mattress and nestled my head into my childhood pillow and waited for sleep.

***

I dreamt my mother stabbed out her eyes with a fork and fed them to me.

***

I woke, groggy and disoriented. If anything, I felt worse. My head ached and my throat was raw. I pulled myself out of bed. The light that came through the bedroom window was very faint. Clouds which looked like grotesque blotches of dust covered portions of the sky. Evening fell ever closer.

The delicate weight of paper in my pocket drew me from my haze. I pulled out the story and unfolded it. Yawning, scrubbing sleep from my eyes, I trudged into the living room and sat on the couch and stared at the paper without concentrating on the words, without reading them at all for several minutes. Pieces of the last story still hung in my mind. What would this one be like?

I read.

Six Shots

Steve stood outside the bar, moonlight on his lenses and a cigarette between his lips. He drew out his lighter (the one with the bear on it) and lit the cigarette and felt the instant surge of nicotine take hold of him. He brushed an alcohol-sticky hand through his hair and watched a car go by. Across the street he saw a white Buick with a cracked passenger window. It shuddered.

A woman in a black dress skirted Steve's periphery but he chose instead to focus on the car. How did it move the way it had? A painful moan squeezed out of the car. It came from the tail-pipe. Steve took a drag of his cigarette, removed it from his mouth, and dropped it in a puddle of rainwater. "Oh shit _,_ " he said.

Somehow he'd managed to get ashes in his beard. He wiped them away and continued to stare at the car, perplexed. "Somebody in there? You need help?" _Maybe they're just fucking,_ he thought. Steve adjusted his glasses.

The car shook again and another moan slipped from inside. A stringy, steaming effluent discharged from the tail pipe. Something solid and egg-like rolled out of the carbon steel and plopped into the mess that had pooled on the ground moments before. Steve took a step back, closer to the bar. He could hear the syrupy chug of heavy metal from inside. He thought maybe he better go in. _It's been the king of weird days_ _._

The egg split open. Steve looked at it from across the street. Tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Inside the egg was a tiny, glimmering Buick. _No. Fucking. Way._ He laughed nervously as the little car moved forward a few inches, its wheels trailing slime.

And then the mini-Buick gave a phlegm-filled cry. Steve looked around himself to see if anybody was seeing what he was. The woman in the black dress was gone and the street was empty. He closed his eyes and held them shut, wondering what he would see when they opened again. Would the white Buick and its _child_ still be there? Had they ever been?

When he opened his eyes his heart and stomach nearly switched places. An anxiety-driven sweat began to make waves on his forehead. He stared at the place across the street where previously he had seen a car give birth and now it made sense, but not in a way he could accept. Not in a way he could explain.

" _Shapeshifters_ ," he said. He meant to merely think the words, but they came out of his mouth in a microscopic voice.

Where the white Buick and its offspring had stood was an eight-foot-tall, pale, hairless being with one putrid, membrane-covered black eye in the center of its face. Below the eye was a non-descript slit, and all along its body were pulsating gills. Each hand on the thing seemed to contain fingers which contained fingers, all of them extending and twitching like angry worms. A smaller version of the same creature stood by the pale legs of its mother. It was scooped up by a flock of jerking digits.

Steve watched as the mother stretched its arm toward him.

"Me?" he managed, his legs trembling.

The white being brought its hand to its face and a single, elongated finger rose to its line of a mouth. " _Shh_ ," it said, so quietly a drop of water from the gutter almost blanketed the sound.

And then the thing and its child morphed into crows. They took wing and disappeared in an ocean of clouds.

***

Mark stood behind the bar, cleaning a tall glass. He saw Steve come barreling in the front door, his face bloodless. He weaseled his way through a crowd of drunken frat boys and leaned against a stool. "Give me six shots. I don't care what. Just strong."

"You got it," Mark said.

Interesting. I wondered where else I could find these stories, if there were more to be found. Was it possible this was some kind of game? I laid the story on my couch. Already I was fascinated by the author of these stories. What reaction did they intend for? How old were they? I left my apartment.

The trees rustled in the wind and the brown and orange leaves swirled along the grass and parking lot. I passed by the stone slab, glanced at 'Titans of Pain' once more, and headed to the crosswalk I had avoided earlier.

The real decision: go downtown or to campus?

I found myself stepping toward campus. It was now late enough in the day that most classes were over. Students milled about, some of them huddled in circles and engaged in post-class talk. I could smell cinnamon coffee, sweet perfume. The wind began to let up as I walked ghostlike past several buildings which housed art classes, math and history. So rarely did I really open my eyes and take everything in. I concentrated on details I hadn't noticed, things I had ignored for years. For the first time I realized there was an oval pattern of brick protruding from the side of the main art building. It resembled something like a scab. The finer details of outdoor art pieces became infinitely more seeable–the fingerprints on a clay sculpture of a woman holding a pitchfork, the hues of color on the giant metal fan.

The sad thing was I wasn't taking in detail to enjoy it, but because I hoped to find more stories. Why I was doing so here on campus instead of inside or around my apartment was something I hadn't quite grasped—I just had a feeling, a sort of intuition that I would find more of them here.

And while I did this, while I scoured and surveyed the buildings, the pieces of art, I realized that nobody paid any attention to me. They were absorbed in each other. I wondered how much had passed before me that I had never noticed. I started to think about all the things I may have taken for granted.

And what if these stories I searched for, if there really were more to find, what if they went on forever? How did I know I was looking in the right place?

After about an hour of finding nothing I started to think I'd either found all that had been meant to be seen or was on the wrong trail. My stomach moaned. Luckily, I was very close to the student center. I decided to go inside and eat.

The scent of greasy food was overpowering and my stomach howled. I ordered a burger and then found my way to a solitary table in the corner.

Taking a big bite of my hamburger, I looked around. The dining room was relatively empty. What day was it? Friday. A lot of the students would be out by now or holed up in their dorm rooms. Some of the freshman went home every weekend. I leaned back into the heavily cushioned seat and stared at my food.

I had the feeling I was being watched.

I looked up. Nobody was paying attention to me. As I turned my head, scrambling to locate who or what it was that was making me feel suddenly uncomfortable, I thought I saw something edge away from one of the dining room windows.

The burger was no longer appetizing. I put it down. I couldn't bring myself to pick up my tray and throw it away. Something was wrong. I felt wrong.

I left the student center, building up another nervous sweat. The flighty feeling came back again. Twice I stopped to check if somebody was following me. I made my way back across campus the way I came.

Fewer students were here this time. The sky, already dark, began to go black. I found myself standing in front of the library. It was the tallest building on campus—a full eight floors and an immense catalog, easily the most impressive part of our otherwise underwhelming college. I stared at its grey exterior and felt something tug me forward slightly. Checking in all directions for followers and finding none, I entered.

The library would be closing soon. I went to the second floor and rummaged through paperback horror novels. This was an old nervous habit—I used to take refuge in the library when I was feeling unsociable. I'd read for a few hours until I felt calm.

I picked _Hobb's End_ off the shelf and flipped through it. I put it back and moved several rows over. It was here that I found a series of very old, antique books, including _Naturom Demonto, Demons and Dwellers of the Netherworld,_ and _The Book of Eibon_. As I explored this section of strange tomes about the occult, witchcraft, and bloody history, I found a book whose spine was barely legible. I lifted the book and turned the cover toward me. _The History of Torture._ I paged through it. Various drawings accompanied each method of torture.

A piece of paper fell from the pages. My throat tightened and my heart thumped. I picked it up. Opened it. It was another story.

The story itself didn't necessarily make me nervous—I worried that it was planted here for me to find. What were the chances I would find it otherwise? This was as very specific place. Not a bottle at the entrance of an apartment. Not a slab of rock sitting in a place people walked by every day. Maybe a friend was pulling an elaborate sort of prank on me. As I opened the paper and read the story, somebody _knew_ I was reading it. They knew, that instant, that my eyes were connecting with the words and I was processing what was in them. I could feel it.

My sweaty hands trembled as I held the paper. This story was considerably longer than the first two.

Sudden Departure

#

The ravenous, coal-black things that resembled eels with legs scurried up Dwight's body, their slippery, heavy forms full of heat and wetness. They went for his throat, curled around it, suffocated him. His eyes bulged and he fell to his knees and realized the room he was in was darkness and only darkness, a blackness more ominous and absolute than the space behind his eyelids. And yet he could see the things on his naked body.

And he could see his wife sprawled out in front of him, her liver spots and wrinkles an unfortunate roadmap of age and wear. She, too, was naked. She, too, was covered in the scurrying eels. They tightened around her arms and wrists, her legs and ankles, slithered into her mouth with a dull but potent sucking sound, whirled themselves into her anus and eye sockets.

The things fell away from him in dead heaps. With sudden freedom he found himself stooping down to try and brush the creatures from his wife's still-warm corpse. They were relentless. "Diane, oh god, Diane!" he cried.

He knocked the eels aside. And still they came.

Dwight began crying and his tears were like acid, scalding his face, dropping onto the solid darkness below his knees and burning holes of light into it.

"Diane!"

***

He woke with a start. Sitting up violently, Dwight took a moment to catch his breath. Apparently, his late night screaming hadn't woke Diane. She had a habit of waking him from bad dreams, of bringing him back to a world he understood, though this habit was less and less frequent as of late as she slipped further from him and into the ugly arms of something more abstract than slippery beasts.

Dwight looked at the bedside clock. It was nearing midnight and his wife wasn't sleeping beside him. He reached over and ran his hand across the sheets, feeling for her warm imprint. Every night she slept soundly beside him, her greying curls, wrinkled face, and dry lips always serene in the slivers of the faint nightlight. But tonight no sleeping, aging face rested there. The warmth of her presence was gone. The indentation on her pillow was the only trace of Diane. Whenever she had risen from the bed, she had slid so carefully out of it that the comforter and sheets had remained where they were.

The thought that something could be wrong, that she might not be in the house, was far more disturbing than the nightmares which frequently plagued him.

Dwight pulled himself from the bed, naked, and rubbed sleep from his eyes. The bathroom door was open. The bathroom was still and undisturbed. The faucet dripped and the rust at the toilet's base looked like a thin snake—or an eel—wrapped sleepily around the porcelain. Besides the momentary reminder of his nightmare, these quirks gave the comforting illusion that nothing had changed, that the house held no secrets, the night no surprises. But Diane was gone.

"Where did you go, Diane?" He meant for these words to be audible, but his voice emerged pitiful and nervous. He stepped away from the bed and pulled himself through the bedroom doorway and into the dim hallway. "Diane?"

As Dwight walked through the hall his nape grew wet. His feet ached and his gait took on a slight tremor. Lately, Diane had been confusing the names of various friends. More troublingly, she sometimes forgot the names of household objects or got lost in public. Dwight didn't know much about dementia or Alzheimer's, but he knew enough to become wary of his wife's recent behavior.

The hallway was empty. The spare bathroom was empty. It smelled vaguely of mildew and Dwight made a mental note to deal with that later. With each room he passed through, his senses attuned to minor decay, little blossoms of death. It would add up, wear on the house. And eventually it would have to be taken care of.

The kitchen was the last place he found himself in. He stared at the sink, examining it for rust. He couldn't see very well. The moon was partly clouded over, the neighbor's porch lights off for once. He resisted the urge to turn on the lights, for fear of seeing more decay.

A light banging sound brought Dwight's attention away from the sink. The back door was ajar. He went upstairs and dressed himself in snug night clothes, old hunting boots, and a tattered robe.

When Dwight left the house, he did so with a strange feeling of relief. As if he had left something ugly behind, something unsettling.

He couldn't help but think of the time a rabid raccoon had somehow found its way into the house and taken residence under the kitchen table. The poor animal had scared the daylights out of Diane, clawing at her feet as she made her way through the kitchen for a late night glass of milk—a ritual she practiced very seldom since. The eyes of the thing had glittered coldly and it made a sound that unsettled Diane and Dwight, too, once she alerted him to its presence.

It had taken three shots to kill the raccoon. Dwight had felt so guilty about killing the animal that he promptly got rid of his gun. He'd meant to replace it with another, one not linked to the killing of a troubled beast, but never had. As he made his way through the yard he wondered if this was a mistake. What if somebody had abducted Diane?

At the edge the backyard stood a line of trees, looking almost symmetrical in the dark. In this way the forest was unreal. He touched one of the trees to assure himself he wasn't dreaming, wasn't in the beginning stages of yet another nightmare. The rough texture of aged wood and the feeling of sticky sap assured him he was not.

The clouds parted ever so slightly and a strand of moonlight illuminated a patch of woods. Dwight lowered his gaze and saw something among the twigs and foliage at his feet. He bent down, gripped the white object and tore it away from the branches which had greedily snagged it. The fabric, examined up close, was familiar. Its flower pattern caused an atom bomb urgency to explode in Dwight's head.

"Diane, please, don't have wandered far..."

He took a long, heavy breath and held it. He thought of his wife's warm hands on his shoulders, her lips against his cheek. Dwight breathed out and then plunged into the woods.

***

The trees all looked alike to Dwight, the strangled moonlight offering no assistance. If he could barely distinguish where he was going, how could Diane? When he came across another shredded piece of nightgown, part of his brain—an imaginative part he hadn't catered to much in the last ten years—came alive. It wasn't until he came across another shredded piece of night gown he felt some reassurance of finding Diane. What if the further he made it through the trees, the more he found of Diane's night gown, the more he found of Diane? What if he found pieces of skin, shards of bone, teeth?

He tried to ease himself away from these thoughts. Surely it was only a paranoia fueled by watching too much television. A vague face flickered in his head, the face of a murder victim found dismembered in a car parked along the highway. The man was said to have been taken apart beyond repair.

Snapping twigs jolted Dwight out of his wild musings. His eyes searched fanatically for some sign of Diane or a large animal which had consumed her. His vision, not great to begin with, was troubled further by the darkness. Squinting, scanning the trees, he found it hard to be sure whether or not he could discern moving shapes.

But something began to come into focus. Something agile and strong and quick. It couldn't be Diane. She was slow, cumbersome, lost. Shreds of moonlight caught in their hold a tan flank, strong legs, a face with curious eyes. A buck. It had massive antlers which comically exaggerated the smallness of its head. Dwight watched the buck. He had never been so close to a deer in his life. This deer, a fine creature, was no more than five feet away, studying him. He did his best to study it. And, just as suddenly as it had snapped into Dwight's world, it went bolting out of it.

Pressing on, he felt tiredness begin to take hold. Mud suctioned his boots into the ground. The moon was periodically drowned in clouds. He found his throat had gone raw.

It was only the thought of Diane, waking from a fugue to find herself in an unfamiliar place, waking from a wandering state into one of panic that kept him going forward. He followed her breadcrumb trail. At last he found a slipper dipping into a pool of stagnant rainwater. Dew had formed on his clothes, his face.

He thought of her recent struggle to open a can of soup. She didn't understand the can opener anymore. He thought of her calling the microwave a toaster, calling the neighbor the wrong name. He thought of the dismembered man in the car along the highway, the curling black things of his nightmare going at his throat and invading Diane's carcass.

Emerging from the woods into a barren field, his anxiety peaked. And then he saw her.

Diane stood alongside the dirt road, one naked foot caked in mud, her nightgown torn and slashed, her hair flat from wetness. She was still for only a moment, then began walking forward with her arms slightly bowed, her head stooped forward from the awkward posture of old age.

"Diane!" Dwight called. "Where are you going?"

She kept walking and he followed. He broke into a jog. As soon as he was close enough to touch her he threw his arms around her, spun her around, and looked into her eyes. They were remarkably empty, as if her consciousness had retreated into her head. He thought of the empty glare of the sick raccoon. "Where were you going?"

She didn't look up, didn't register any facial change. But she answered all the same. Her mouth opened and a monotone voice came out. "I'm going home, Dwight," she said.

"Home? Our home is back that way." He pointed. "You should come back with me now. It's cold and rainy out here. You'll get sick. Come back with me."

"That's not our home," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't belong to us."

"Of course it does. We've lived there for the last five years. Don't you remember? You helped me pick it out yourself. You said it had charm. You said it reminded you of the house you grew up in."

"It's not our home."

"I think you're confused."

She didn't say anything. Dwight put his hand on her chin and lifted her face, tried to make eye contact. Her eyes remained pointed downward. He kissed her cheek. "Come with me." He hooked an arm in hers and led her away. "You scared me. I couldn't think straight."

Diane didn't say anything but followed him without hesitation. They stayed on the dirt road. When they reached the backyard he sensed a very small change in her. She slowed upon seeing the house, like a part of her—a weak, nearly imperceptible part—tugged away from him.

Upon entering the house this change seemed to subside. For some reason he thought of it as a surrender. He managed to get Diane to lie back down. He locked the bedroom door and pulled the dresser in front of it. "I won't lose you, Diane," he told her. She nodded, mechanically, and laid her head on her pillow. He kissed her and pulled the comforter over her.

Sleep was something which now seemed impossible after Diane's wandering episode, but after an hour of watching her and studying her face, Dwight felt his lids grow heavy and weak.

Diane's eyes came to life again. Her face became afraid. She put her hand on Dwight and shook him gently. "We have to go. This isn't our house," she said. "I'm scared."

"You don't have to be frightened," Dwight whispered. "I'm here. We will get you some help, very soon. I promise you that much."

***

Three more nights that week he found her outside. Once she made it as far as the highway. She spoke infrequently, was impassioned by very little. He had to take her to see psychologists. Various specialists. She was getting worse and they were both getting older, weaker. Dwight didn't want to be separated from Diane, but he couldn't reconcile himself with her wandering.

Finally, he had to face the cold, depressing reality of the situation.

The White Haven Home for the Elderly was full of friendly nurses. The admissions director assured him his wife was in good hands, the staff understood dementia and Alzheimer's very well. Dr. Martinez, Dwight and Diane's doctor of twenty years, had personally recommended White Haven.

On the day they moved Diane into her room she was very complacent. She made no complaints. She didn't seem to recognize this day as a significant one. She did not appear further altered by disease or a new environment.

Weeks went by. Dwight visited every day. The nurses told him Diane was a very good resident. Sure, she wandered into other people's rooms. She had a tendency to ceaselessly walk up and down the halls, only stopping for a few minutes to rest. But she seemed content. As content as a person who barely registered any emotion could be.

_Will I end up like that_? Dwight thought. The true Diane, the one who loved him and showed him great warmth and had excited, life-lusting eyes, was barely present.

A year came and went.

***

The hand was massive and disembodied, its flesh scaly and scalding red. It gripped Dwight's hand and led him through the darkness into a world of light which was even more disquieting. He tried to close his eyes but they wouldn't move, they glued themselves forward, pinned themselves on a ball of crimson light which hurled itself from a great distance and grew steadily larger as it approached.

His face went slack, his body numb. When the ball of burning red light stopped before him he gazed into it and saw his wife's lifeless face, then a reflection of his own.

"I never meant for this," he said, though he wasn't sure why he said it.

The fury of bright red went black. The ball hardened like lava and began to crumble. Looking at his aging body, Dwight saw that he too was crumbling, hunks of dried pinkish flesh peeling away from muscle.

The disembodied hand wagged a finger at him and he screamed in protest as he fell apart.

***

The bedroom was sauna-hot. Dwight tried to remain still, to ignore the nightmare he woke from and let sleep take over again. It wouldn't come. He kept seeing Diane's face as she told him the house wasn't theirs anymore, as her eyes came alive for the last time. Spliced with this were visions from various nightmares, the eel-things, burning beds, wolves with human faces, chasms made of skin, the disembodied hand. It felt as if the nightmares were growing worse all the time, like they had a consciousness. Like they were trying to tell him something. A message.

_Leave_.

What had Diane been talking about? What had happened, what broken part of her mind created the delusion that this home wasn't good enough, that it was not hers to live in? At first Dwight assumed it was a compulsive need in Diane to return to the old farmhouse they lived in. Now he was troubled at the idea of it being something more complex and perhaps the source of his worsening bad dreams.

He turned on his side and stared at the closet. The doors were open, as they always were. It was habitual for Diane to leave all the doors in the house, excepting those that led outside, open. Dwight honored this habit. The closet was black and empty looking. The moonlight which flooded through the bedroom window stopped short of the closet—a stubborn refusal which somehow bothered Dwight. He tried to perceive what might be in his dark closet. He couldn't remember. Were there stacks of shoeboxes with old photos? Certainly there were articles of clothing.

No, that was wrong. Dwight remembered now that Diane had removed all the clothes from the bedroom closet and stored them in a large cabinet downstairs—something he'd assumed she did out of boredom, out of a restless agitation to feel purposeful, something which had loomed over her as she slowly became more distant. It had never occurred to him as an odd thing to do, until this moment.

As he gawked at his closet, his eyes narrowing, his breathing more rhythmic with the pull of sudden oncoming sleep, his ears registered an unusual sound. His eyes widened, sleep chased away by curiosity and something much, much deeper. Dwight lifted his head from his pillow ever so slightly and pulled himself inches closer to the end of the bed, inches closer to the closet. He focused on listening.

Yes, there was a sound.

A strained, whistling breath.

He felt himself freeze. His heart began to palpitate. _A frenzy_ was how Doctor Martinez had referred to these quick, thundering beats. The breath from the closet grew hoarse. The whistle which followed each of the breaths turned into an insidious groan.

A stark white face emerged from the blackened closet, pushing itself into the moonlight which refused to enter its domain. The eyes on the face were unnervingly wide and accusing. Beneath a thin nose a mouth was forming words. The tips of red, scaly fingers surfaced from somewhere else in the closet.

" _This is not your home_ ," the face said.

The scream which was stuck in Dwight's throat was the loudest, longest scream of his life, even despite its inability to leave his mouth.

***

Nick Hadley, the neighbor, was disturbed when he saw Dwight weaving through the trees on the edge of his property, the morning sunlight highlighting his nakedness. Equipped with a large blanket to drape over the nude Dwight, Nick prepared to walk him home and lecture him about drinking so heavily.

But as he approached Dwight he saw the man was in a stupor which was perhaps more internal than alcohol-fueled. The man looked docile and empty: a vegetable wandering in the trees. He placed the blanket around him without difficulty. "What's going on?" Nick asked. He felt his heart sink as the man spoke. He sounded just like his wife who had been put away in a nursing home, though his voice still carried something which hers had lacked. Where Diane had become slow and lost, Dwight had become lost and panicked.

Staring at the ground, refusing to look up, Dwight kept repeating, "It's not my house, the face told me, it's not my house, the face told me..."

I crumpled the paper in my shaking hands and looked for the nearest trash bin. When I found one I hesitated. Was somebody watching?

No. Nobody could be watching. I threw away the story. But I felt changed somehow. Like something inside of me had begun to die. My lips were getting sore from my incessant chewing. I didn't want to think about the story. About the wandering woman. Her husband's visions. The white face. Something about all of it troubled me deeply. Something behind the words.

The lights began to blink out.

The Librarian always announces closing time over the sound system and gives the students ten or fifteen minutes to clear out. I must have been too wrapped up in the story to hear her.

At this point it was dark enough outside that with the lights off that my vision was severely hampered. I started to panic.

Stay calm. Collect yourself. The staff is here.

I looked at the elevator. I wouldn't get inside...it was too small. What if I got trapped in there and everybody left? The thought was unbearable and enough to make me take the stairs.

Just stay focused. Tell them you didn't hear the announcement. Walk out. No big deal.

The lights were out on the first floor. I didn't see a soul. Nobody was behind the information desk. Nobody was in the library. Fidgeting, I took some unsure steps toward the Library entrance _No reason to be upset. You can still walk out._

Again, that feeling of being watched.

Then came the voice. The uncanny whisper which gave me a crawly feeling in my stomach. Only about eight feet from the Library doors, all I had to do was keep going forward and not look back, but the voice was magnetic, it was powerful, it was a driven—determined to give me a message. Something in the way it sounded, in the way it _felt_ , made me stop, made me stay where I was.

"Precious little child, sweetling, why would you leave me so soon?"

I attempted to mutter a reply. My mouth was mush.

Whatever was speaking to me, I could feel it hovering just behind my back. A tickling sensation swept across my arms, something passed softly through my hair. My lips bled and my teeth ached as they grinded furiously.

"You have seen the stories."

I closed my eyes. "Yes," I stammered.

"I want you to keep finding them, child. You must read every story that you find."

"And w-what if I don't?"

"Turn around. Face me," it said.

"Why?"

" _Face me_."

I did what I was told. The speaker hung from the ceiling by a serpent of brambles and vines which plugged into the back of his head like a cable. His arms were short but his hands were massive, each finger a gnarled branch. Dead leaves fell from his slender, long plant body which dangled slack almost as if the he was paralyzed. His legs tapered toward the bottom, chunks of dirt hanging from each appendage. And his face...Jesus, his face. It was a rotted, disfigured Jack-O'-Lantern. And visible behind the pumpkin head was a pair of wide, lifeless eyes with dilated pupils and a crooked, emotionless set of lips blue as death.

And this was when I began to notice the leaves which fluttered down from the ceiling, from the floors above, the scent of fresh sap, the damp air and fall chill. Fat black spiders scuttled across the floor. I thought I heard something scurrying behind the main desk.

The thing sighed. "Few are able to see the tales I pen, child. You are susceptible. October is my time—my only time—to share with the world what I have to offer, the essence of the horror story. The fantastic, the morbid, the darkly humorous, I find value in them all...and I pen them. But most are not fully aware of their surroundings, have not truly opened their eyes..."

"But...but what's the point?" My tongue felt like a dead slug in my mouth. I could feel my heart begin to pump with fury. When I was not speaking I could do nothing but clench my teeth (and do my best not to grind them to dust).

"October is a time of horror. A time it is celebrated and revered. It becomes acceptable. This is the only time the channels are right, the only time the magic really works. A time pitiful few are open to my bits of dread, my slices of terror. And above all, little one, October is the only environment I can thrive in, for I am the October King."

Sweat rolled down my face. The October King picked me up, hugged me close. The lifeless eyes were inches from my own. We ascended.

"It amuses me a great deal, child, to share the stories. It is my function, my purpose. Like many children, my conception was an accident. I am misplaced fear—the horror and revulsion which should be felt and is not. When Poe's stories ceased to scare, when the urban legends began to fade, the films of terror to lose their hold on young minds, all the fear that was meant to be, but never was, flowed outward and I was born."

I swallowed but my throat had become dry. The motion of my Adam's apple was like a razor bouncing in my neck. My salvation, I was sure, was to let the October King prattle on. After all, he only had one month out of every year to give his monologues and speeches and abstract meanderings. I wasn't entirely following the things he spoke. But, if I listened, or appeared to listen, maybe he would let me go. My fate, then, would only be to read more stories. Not a severe conclusion to the situation I found myself in. I licked my lips and pushed down my fear. "Go on," I said.

He tilted his head forward, clutching me harder, and put a lifeless eye against one of my own. I felt I was staring into a void of depravity. "No more talking. You must do as I say and read the stories I have left for you."

The stupid part of me couldn't accept this. "Why not tell me the stories? Why do you hide them? How do you know I will find them?"

" _Brainless_! There are rules. In magic, there are always rules. I leave the stories for the pitiful few to find. If they cannot find them I give a little _push_ in the right direction."

The October King loosened his grip on me. We slowly began descending to ground level. My heart slowed some and I took a deep breath. He let me go.

"You will find the stories. The only decision you have is whether or not to read them. And you must."

"And if I...don't?"

The October King curled his long fingers into his palms and floated forward, again tilting his dead-eyed gaze at me. "I will gut your friend Jim and make Alexa wear him like a suit. I will eat your father's hands."

I shivered. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes.

"I will do it, child, if you do not read my tales. Be warned. I have traveled the world, moving from place to place to disperse my stories. From the obscure to the famous, from the dull to the exotic, from Potters Bluff to New York. I have haunted the Vatican, the Congo, Hong Kong, and even the world's secret libraries peopled with its secret readers. My ultimate purpose is to be read. Do not deny me an audience. Many have died in my name."

I turned away from the October King and pressed through the doors. When I turned back he was gone, of course. Part of me hoped I wasn't the only one who could see the fucking thing.

As I walked uneasily away from the library I found not one, but two stories. One was posted on the side of the library—it hadn't been there before. The other was further away, drawn neatly with chalk on a sidewalk. The chalk glowed furiously. The October King was terribly eager tonight. Tomorrow I would ask Jim or Alexa to take a look at them. I wanted to know if I was crazy or not. For the moment I chose not to think much about it.

It troubled me that I had no idea how many of these stories there were. They could go on until the end of October.

I read the story written in chalk.

When I got back to my apartment I read the other without much thought. I didn't want to risk the lives of my friends and family, despite my uncertainty about what was real and what wasn't.

A Party for the Birthday Girl

The bridge was slick with ice. Carmen smashed her foot on the brake and let out a hollow, soundless scream. "Mommy, are we going _over?_ " Her daughter clutched Teddy like a life jacket.

"I love you, Audrey," Carmen told the little girl. She reached over and put her hand on Audrey's and held it tight. "If Heaven can't wait ... then Heaven can't–"

"There's a party down there! Don't you hear the music?"

The car ran over the side of the massive bridge. It was a pebble dropping uselessly into a puddle, splashing noisily and leaving the grandiose structure behind, forever unchanging, forever defiant to the torsions of nature.

With a lifeless plunk, the automobile sank into the water, which began to flood slowly inward. As it rose and churned, an angry formless thing, its icy touch began to numb Carmen's flesh. But her daughter only wondered about the party. "Do they know about my birthday, Mommy? Only two days from now, you said. Are they celebrating just for me _?"_

Carmen let out a wretched, wailing sob. She tried to wrench her daughter out of the seat. "There is no party, honey, but soon we'll see Gran–"

The passenger door came off and sank away, the water coming in faster now. A small man with a large, black mustache and chalky-yellow eyes swam into the car. He wore an old bowler cap and a pinstriped suit with tails. He grabbed Audrey.

" _Audrey!"_ But Mother was too late. The water filled her mouth, then her nostrils, then her lungs. Her vision wavered and danced, her throat burning. She saw Teddy grow faint as he was tugged away, Audrey guiding him from view. The darkness came.

***

They traveled the water only briefly, passing through a cloud of thick, jelly-like substance. Teddy and Audrey were suddenly in a dry, dark room, resting in large oak chairs.

The table before them was massive and lined with smiling little girls, their faces petrified and their bodies stiff. Balloons came down from the ceiling. "Welcome," they all cried out simultaneously. A delicate music box sat at the center of the table, producing cheerful notes.

The mustached man sat at the opposite end of the table. He offered a Cheshire grin. "Welcome to the party," he said to Audrey. "Only the loveliest ladies are allowed to come to Gibberton's party!" He threw his hands up and motioned toward the little girls.

Audrey noticed the strings this time, as they lifted their arms and laughed. "Gibberton throws the _best_ parties," they tittered, all at once. She gripped Teddy harder.

"I want to go home," she said.

Gibberton eyed her closely. The music box played louder, the notes becoming more aggressive.

***

It was a long process, getting the car out of the lake. The temperature had dropped substantially in the time it took for the Sheriff to arrive at the bridge. Already the water had begun to freeze over.

Carmen was inside the car, her skin pale and her eyes milky. But Audrey was nowhere to be found. After several hours they had to call it quits.

"It's a real shame," the Sheriff said.

"What's that?" the Deputy asked.

"Her birthday was only two days from now." As he said this, a teddy bear floated to the surface of the lake, a memento of the dead.

A faint echo of music, somehow, drifted up from deep within the lake.

## Frankenstein's Monster in Body Armor, Fighting Zombies

Imagine: it's the zombie apocalypse in an alternate reality. One much like ours. Intestines and other slippery innards festoon the roofs and windows of high-rise apartments, blood coats storefronts, and the subway is a massive grave site, corpse upon corpse in filthy, smelly heaps. Some of them are getting up to join the stalking, shambling zombies. Everybody was scared. Everybody _is_ scared. What's the perfect weapon for fighting zombies, they want to know? Think about it. Another zombie, a big one, coated in Teflon body armor and armed with heavy artillery. Only this one, he doesn't eat anybody. That's not his thing, you got me?

So the fat-cats approach Doctor Frankenstein, give him that "grant" he's always wanted and he builds his monster. The fat-cats didn't expect it would be built, part-by-part, from their own bodies. The Monster is big and hideous-sexy and trigger happy. His face is just stitches and flesh and teeth and two big, fat, greasy eyeballs. "Go, have your fun," Doctor Frankenstein tells his monster, his eight-foot-tall son with the heart of a dead millionaire.

The Monster walks through the streets, blowing zombies apart with his shotgun, watching fragments of their skulls fall through the air like teeth in the wind. He tosses grenades into huge crowds and watches as a fireballs eat them up in angry bursts. Chests cave in and shower maggots as the Monster riddles the living-dead with machine-gun fire. He laughs.

When the zombies try to bite the Monster, their teeth clunks against the Teflon and they keep gnawing and gnawing, stupidly. The Monster crushes their heads like dough between his hands. And then, get this, he actually picks up one of the zombies and hurls it at the others and they begin eating him. They are so hungry, now. The humans are all dead or safely hidden in bomb shelters and expensive hideouts. The Monster almost feels bad for the zombies as they suck giblets out of their buddy.

Time passes. The Monster grows bored. He doesn't have so many grenades and he doesn't have too many bullets left. And killing the zombies is getting boring. He swears he can hear them beginning to talk. At first he thinks he's just losing his cool, drowning in a delirium of deathly boredom. But, no, he still has his cool. "We're like you," they tell him. "We're dead. Love Dead. Hate Living." The dialogue feels familiar. The Monster sits down and listens to the zombies. They explain their viral history, their passion for human meat, their sameness to him. One of them even tries to cry, to make the story more tragic, but the tears don't' fall, the decayed face does not find a way to show sadness.

The Monster smiles and stands. He's not like _them_. He's civilized. So, ya dig, he begins gunning down the zombies again, then using his hands. And when they're all dead, all of them, he has nothing left to kill. Except the humans. The Monster spends some time pondering on this. He can't remember really interacting with humans besides the few who spied him in the street and fled from him, screaming, usually into a horde of zombies, promptly torn apart and devoured. The only human to offer him a smile was Doctor Frankenstein, who didn't like other humans too much, seemed to think they were all pretty much squares. The Monster picks a cigar out of the shirt of a motionless zombie. It tastes good. He finds a lighter.

"Well...why not?" He says, making his decision. It's not like he has anything else to do. He doesn't get hungry. He doesn't get aroused. He doesn't like TV. The sounds of human voices annoy him just as much as the sound of zombie voices. They look all equally ugly to him, dead and living alike.

"So much for civilized," he says, laughing. He doesn't need bullets.

Sleep is a dangerous thing when filled with disturbing images. I dreamt my childhood dog was chewing on my intestines. I tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn't budge. His teeth gnashed my innards together and they turned into a grey paste. I dug my fingers into the gore coming out of my stomach and howled.

This dream dissolved into another in which I was tumbling down a hill for eternity. My father floated beside me the entire time. "You're an awful disappointment," he kept insisting. His head was on fire and he was made of ants.

And this dream dissolved into me cutting my mother open while my first grade teacher, Mr. Krunkle, watched and licked his lips. With each knife thrust, each jagged slice which parted the skin like it was taught rubber, Mr. Krunkle moaned. "Kill the bitch," he said. "She never believed in you. If you know what's good for you you'll kill the bitch and kill her good."

I woke up screaming.

Worse yet: I pissed my bed. This sent me into an immediate sobbing fit. I sat there in my own urine for a full half hour, just crying. I was certain I was having a breakdown. There was no October King.

There were ways to know for sure that my sudden stalker wasn't real. For starters, Alexa. If anything was written about the October King, she was likely to know. I could also show her the stories.

I decided to call her up in the afternoon and get lunch with her. It was Saturday so classes wouldn't get in the way.

After a long shower I did my best to pull myself together and face the day. My typical October blues were giving way to a crushing depression. There was no way out. I washed my bedding, feeling humiliated.

_If the October King is real you only have to keep reading his stories_.

I resolved, God help me, to do more "searching" for these stories. Not because I wanted to read them, but because I didn't want to risk anybody's lives. Those words rung in my head. _Do not deny me an audience. Many have died in my name._

Campus was quiet. The story in chalk, 'A Party for the Birthday Girl', was gone. Of course. I still had the two stories written on paper with me, snug in my pocket. Several times I pulled them out, unfolded them, and poured over them. The words were real, at least to me. I was afraid what other people might see if I asked them what was on the paper.

As I walked my mind was filled with the fading images of my nightmares. My mashed intestines, my scolding father, my split mother.

There seemed to be no direction. I could not find any hints of hidden narratives on the campus. If there truly was an intuition in me, something that made me susceptible to these tales, it wasn't strong here. So I went downtown. Milled about. Still nothing. _Maybe I have to go even further_ , I thought.

I found myself along a main road which fed into the highway. A tinge of something woke inside of me. I don't know how to explain it other than the feeling of coal growing hot inside the pit of your skull, the bottom of your belly. But not in a painful way. A kind of internal heat which drives you forward.

An awful stench became more apparent as I continued on. The scent of decay—that stinging, slightly sweet smell of disintegrating matter—a scent of rotten, stinking death. Sure enough there was a dog carcass along the highway, flies buzzing with insanity about it. I got about three feet from it and then hurled.

Something told me to keep going. I wiped puke from my chin and pressed on. The dog made me think of my nightmare. My knees started to lock up. _Keep going_.

Something glinted vaguely in the sunlight, slightly obscured. It was inside the dog.

The dog was eviscerated. And the next story was inside. This was not an easy revelation. I choked back another stream of vomit.

My eyes clamped shut on instinct and I kneeled before the dog and reached inward. The insides were warm. They felt good against my skin, removed the chill that the October air had put on me. This fact made me even sicker. Puke. Again.

I was sure I looked strung out. Several cars passed me. I didn't look up. I didn't want to know the expressions of the drivers. The thought I was being judged, that people would go home and tell their families about this, their roommates, their friends, was hard to bear.

My fingers found purchase of the object. I tugged it gently to remove it from the tangle of warm dog guts. In my right hand I held a cassette. It was a lucky thing I had a stereo in my apartment.

An audiobook. How modern of the October King. I rushed home to play the tape.

The stereo was in the corner of the living room. I blew a layer of dust off of it and pressed the button for the cassette compartment. It snapped open.

I inserted the tape.

First, static. Then a slight rustling sound. Voices. A voice. The October King began to speak. There was no introduction, no hello. The story simply began and his voice plunged forward until it was over.

I made a mental note to show the tape to Alexa, along with the written stories. As the story progressed I got the distinct feeling its hiding place in the dog was supposed to be sickly ironic.

I felt sure that, somewhere, the October King was laughing.

## Growth

Nancy lived alone in the solitary, removed hills somewhere behind an Ohio town, her house nothing more than a cottage, though she owned a barn big enough to hold many duplicates of the cottage. She wasn't old. She was thirty-four and tired.

It was mid-afternoon on a Tuesday when she saw the cat. There had been many cats that slinked out of the woods and meowed at the front door for a handful of food or a saucer of milk. This cat was not an exception, and he was very friendly.

The cat was all white, besides a black patch around his left eye. His fur was short and thick and his tail very long. "Hello, Captain," Nancy said to him. She opened the door as the cat paced on the rotten welcome mat, his tail raised. He poked his head into the house and had a look at the kitchen before darting over to a chair and making his way onto the kitchen table.

Nancy ran her hands over his short hair and the Captain began to purr and do a little cat dance. She went to the small back room and filled an old measuring cup a fourth full of cat food. "I'm sorry it isn't fresh," she told him. He didn't seem to mind and ate the food quickly. Nancy went to the fridge and got the milk, fetched him a saucer and poured the milk all the way to the top. The Captain was very happy about this.

His tongue lapped rapidly and his purring became louder. Nancy continued to pet him and his tail began to flick back and forth with a will of its own. She found a sore on his right side, about the size of a quarter—deep, red, and gleaming. "You better stay inside," she told the Captain. She didn't have much money these days (she needed to find a way of income soon) and paying for the Captain's good health might not be feasible.

As if her new guest was capable of opening the door himself, but not smart enough to figure out a lock, Nancy went to the front door and locked it. She looked out the pane of glass that made up most of the door and watched the trees as they rustled slightly in the wind, their leaves beginning to change. "How the seasons pass," she said.

***

That night the Captain nestled beside Nancy and his warmth reminded her that a man had not been in her bed for almost five years. For a moment she felt sad. It was a short moment—the strays that came and went kept her company and were much nicer than men. She kept it simple here, mostly took to reading during the day and writing at night. She didn't own a television anymore. The last one had gone out in the middle of a soap opera re-run and she'd tossed it into the garbage.

She got up around one a.m. to use the restroom and took a long look at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was pallid, thin, and kept her hair short. She smiled at herself and somehow it caught her off guard. When she finished up in the restroom she opened the door and saw the Captain waiting on the other side. He meowed incredulously.

"Oh don't be mad," Nancy said to him. "Nature calls sometimes."

She picked him up and returned to her bedroom, which was slim and warm and darkened by large draperies over the windows and a lack of all the electric blinking found in many bedrooms—digital clocks, old VCRs and stereos that could never _really_ be shut off. The room was an encasing for a snug bed and a closet big enough to hold two weeks' worth of clothes. She didn't like doing laundry.

***

Nancy woke early, rising from the bed at six a.m. and traipsing naked into the kitchen. She pulled out a kitchen chair and turned on the coffee, pulled a plate from a cabinet and went to the fridge and got some eggs. She began to prepare her usual breakfast of eggs and toast.

The Captain came in looking haggard and hungry. Nancy fed him and watched him scarf down the food. The sore on his left side looked marginally bigger. "Your boo-boo isn't looking so hot," she said. "Let me get something for it."

She left and came back with some Neosporin and gauze, which seemed like a sad-sap way of helping the cat, but it was all she had. The Captain did not get irritated or frightened when Nancy applied the Neosporin to his wound, nor did he seem to mind when she put the gauze on him. He finished his food and went to the front door, his meows sounding a little restrained but needy.

"No, no, Captain. I don't think you should be going outside." She picked him up and found the living room she rarely used, a litter box sitting in the corner. Nancy put the Captain in the litter box hoping this would be the answer he needed to keep him from wanting to go outside where he might somehow make his wound worse.

He spun around in the litter box for a minute before finally resting his butt in it and beginning his business. Nancy left him to have his privacy and began to finish preparing her breakfast.

She ate the eggs slowly, her mind wandering. She thought of her mother and father who she never saw. She had a phone once, for a while, but she stopped paying the bill. Her parents, not able to call her, drifted away. They weren't going to show up on her doorstep. She was going to have to go to them.

Nancy left the kitchen and got dressed.

***

That evening she left the house and went for a walk in the woods, looking again at the changing leaves. She wore a scarf and heavy boots, trying to keep the oncoming chill away from her bones. She went down the path she normally took but strayed from it when she remembered her sister had not sent her a birthday card on her last birthday.

Nancy walked absently and thought of all the people she knew who didn't really seem to know her. She cleared some branches away and walked further into the woods and stopped at a creek where she skipped some stones. She tried to catch a frog but he was too fast.

***

When Nancy got back to her house the sore on the Captain's side had begun to bleed through the gauze. It was a restrained, subtle bleeding, but she saw it. The red trickled softly through the fibers and Nancy decided to change the Captain's bandages and apply more Neosporin. Before she did this she decided to take it a step further. She picked up the cat and took him to the sink, where she washed the edges of his sore, careful not to get any soap into the center, until she was sure it was much cleaner. The Captain did not complain or fidget. He was merely complacent.

And so Nancy fixed him up again and watched him explore the house.

He returned to the front door that night and wanted out again. "Okay, okay," she said. "But please don't go far and come back soon."

She let the cat out and as he left, jumping over a stump and darting into the woods, she felt her eyes grow heavy and her heart shudder.

***

The Captain did not return for three days, and during those days Nancy spent most of her time in bed. She ate sparingly and could not find it in herself to read another word of Plath or bother picking up her copy of _What Dreams May Come_.

She dreamt very little and felt old and used.

***

When the Captain came back his bandages were missing and he was winded. He sat in front of the door and meowed angrily until Nancy let him in. She patted his head and had a look at his sore. It had grown viciously.

She sighed and fed him, hoping the growing sore would stop consuming him. She did not want to silence his misery in her own way. She thought of the revolver under her bed, the one her brother swore she needed to keep in case somebody invaded her home. It hadn't happened yet.

When the Captain was done eating she held him for a long time and began to cry. She spent the whole day watching him. She dressed his sore again and found an old dog leash and collar she had kept for god knows what reason and put them on the Captain. "Now we can go outside and you can't wander off and harm yourself," she said.

The two of them walked down Nancy's preferred path, looking up at the tall oaks and elms. Some of the leaves had prematurely fallen loose, and the wind was gaining strength. Even with her scarf on Nancy could feel it creep into the flesh of her neck, pull deep into her breasts. The Captain was strangely compliant during the walk.

She saw, for the first time, movement beneath the Captain's gauze. It was a subtle shuddering, almost a twitch, but somehow more deliberate. She tried to shrug this off, to ignore it, but as the night went on the twitches became more noticeable. It came to the point where it looked more like something was _crawling_ under those bandages.

***

The Captain periodically stopped walking and stood looking at the ground. As he stood frozen he would burst into bouts of shivering. Nancy took him inside and laid him on her bed. He seemed uncomfortable but not in pain.

She did not sleep well. Her dreams were mostly full of wounded cats and disrespectful men. Four times she awoke with a gasp, her forehead dotted in sweat, and went to the kitchen to down a glass of water. During all of these episodes the Captain remained asleep. His strange movements, his shivering, had stopped. He looked peaceful in his sleep. He lay with his sore against the bed and looked healthy. Nancy knew, if she turned him over, that portrait would dissolve.

After her fourth awakening, Nancy sat on the edge of the bed and petted the cat in his sleep until he began purring. She scratched behind his ears and under his chin and in the pit of his belly. Finally she leaned back into the comfort of her bed and accepted sleep. As she fell away she was vaguely aware of a sound that was something between a birdcall and a dying mouse's futile shriek.

***

Six a.m. came and went and Nancy did not rise. A descending heat took hold of her and she awoke in wetness, uncomfortable and fatigued. It was exactly noon.

The Captain was on the floor. He stood still but a small hunk of meat hung out of his sore. "Oh god," Nancy said. She bolted out of the bed and lost her vision and nearly fell on the floor from the wave of dizziness that struck her.

When her eyes adjusted and the sick feeling in her stomach settled, she watched the wound of the Captain. The meat spun around like a playful finger. The Captain took two awkward, uncoordinated steps forward and the meat finger continued moving, but at a different pace. It tried to reach for the floor and failed. The sound Nancy had heard in the night came again, only louder, booming through the cat's side like he was a not a cat, but a loudspeaker dressed as a cat.

Nancy watched and felt her sickness return. She almost fainted but pulled in all her strength at the last moment. Her body was jittery as she went to the bathroom and found the scissors. She did not know if what she was about to do was the right thing, but it was the only thing her mind was telling her to do.

The scissors were dull and it was hard to snip at the digit-like tendril. It flailed about as she tried to cut it. The sound grew louder. Nancy screamed and squeezed the scissors with forefinger and thumb, hoping the damn thing would cut off.

Though he looked uncomfortable and confused, the Captain did not show any sign of pain. He stared at the scissors as they did their work. Nancy pressed the blades together hard and with some twisting the meat finger came off and landed on the floor with a _pud_.

Nancy took the Captain into the kitchen and tried to think of what to do with him. The gun came into her head again and she could almost feel it between her ears. She shook her head and said "No" and went to the liquor cabinet to find her only friend besides the strays. Vodka never let her down.

***

The days passed by in a drunken blur. Nancy watched as at first one new meat finger sprouted from the Captain's sore, then two, then three, then six and on and on. The red, glistening tendrils wiggled and flailed. It looked like the Captain had eaten a squid and it was fighting to get out.

The sore got bigger, too. Eventually it took up nearly all of the Captain's side. He began to walk less and less frequently. Nancy had to leave him by the litter box so he didn't piss or shit on her floor. He spent more time staring at the floor than anything, but on occasion he would look up at Nancy with an expression that said _I don't understand what is happening_ before releasing a long, tapering meow. "I don't understand either," Nancy would sometimes answer back.

She was eating less now and drinking more. She fell into a continual stupor, sometimes staying in bed all day as she sipped on her vodka. Vomiting became frequent late at night and in the early hours of the day.

The meat finger, the one Nancy had cut from the Captain, had gone missing. She hadn't thought much about it at first, she was so worried about her precious cat and his worsening condition, but when she came upon a red smear on her bedroom carpet where the finger had been, she wondered what had happened to it. Surely it hadn't crawled away? If she wasn't so drunk she might have been more puzzled.

Sometimes Nancy tried to cut off more of the things sticking out of the Captain's sore, but they always came back. They were changing now. Some of them were thicker. Some of them bent like elbows and others were growing long strands of hair. There was an eyeball on at least one of them.

The Captain still used the litter box and still ate his food and drank his milk. Nancy couldn't bear to look at him. He would be dead soon, she was sure.

But he wasn't. He kept on going. Eventually his wound took up almost half his body and the limbs pouring out of it spent almost every minute moving rapidly, but the Captain was not dead and did not seem to be dying.

And maybe he should have been dead, especially when the infected side of his body began to swell outward, as if the red, shiny limbs on it were the limbs of a giant caught and compressed in the cat. If there really was a giant thing folded in on itself inside the Captain, it was done living in such small quarters.

Nancy found herself staring at the cat and puking, not from alcohol, but from the abnormality that grew from him. She wiped her mouth and then gagged again. The Captain was lying in his litter box, his eyes closed. Nancy hoped he was finally dead. She took a step forward and the limbs began to go berserk.

The Captain opened his eyes. He meowed.

Nancy screamed—it wasn't out of fear. She was angry. The Captain did not deserve his suffering. His meow, this time, was one of pain.

In the kitchen was a bottle of vodka with one last swig in it. Nancy grabbed it from the kitchen counter and took the final gulp. She went to her room and found the revolver her brother had given her to keep safe from the home invader she never thought would come. He'd finally arrived, after all.

***

She couldn't do it. Nancy pointed the gun at the Captain and meant to squeeze the trigger but he just kept _looking_ at her.

Even with her eyes closed she could feel that penetrating stare. Her trigger finger trembled and she could feel a coat of sweat beginning on her face, though the alcohol may have been as much a factor.

And if she couldn't shoot the cat while drunk, when could she? His meow came to her and she opened her eyes. One of the meat fingers was petting the Captain.

Nancy found the burlap sack she kept in her bedroom, inside one of her dresser drawers. She slid the gun into the waist of her pants and grabbed the sack. She returned to the Captain and felt her legs go weak as she bent down to put him into the burlap sack.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "I don't know what I can do for you." But she did know, and yet she failed. The thing growing out of the side of the Captain began to move with aggression as she tried to put him in the sack. One of the meat fingers touched her arm as she pushed the Captain in. The cat was silent once more. He had accepted his fate in a casual manner.

Nancy took the burlap sack outside and went straight for the old barn she never used and dumped the Captain into it. She left and came back with water and food that would last him at least a few days and then shut the barn door and went inside and began to drink away the rest of her friend vodka.

***

And she kept on drinking.

***

A week went by and Nancy could take no more. She dumped the remainder of her vast supply of alcohol (she had moved on to brandy and whiskey after running out of vodka) down the kitchen sink and tried to ignore the impulse to hoard a few remaining bottles.

She went outside and looked at the barn, the looming symbol of what she had done, or what she had failed to do. No noise came from inside, no meow or sound of moving limbs. Her ears remained untainted by subtle traces of the monster.

Nancy turned away from the barn and went back inside. It was almost midnight and she was tired. From her kitchen window she looked at her car and considered driving home to her parents and begging them to help her. What they could do to help was an unanswerable puzzle. The situation was beyond that now. She had missed her chance, and even if she had brought the Captain to her parents and said she needed the money to get him an operation, they would have said no, they would have told her to quit taking in strays ("They spread disease," her mother said). Her brother was much the same. Her family was not compassionate toward animals. Or poetry. Or art. Or people.

And was there even gas in the car? It had been so long since Nancy went anywhere, since she had needed to get any kind of supplies. Her money was running low and she would have to return to the normal world soon but what then?

The memory of the Captain would not be eclipsed by a nine-to-five job. His suffering would not be erased by a daily routine. She had to face it soon. Something had to be done for the poor feline.

Nancy slept soundly that night, the relapse into sobriety allowed all her wasted wakeful hours to come crashing down on her in the form of equivalent sleep. She would have slept all night if she hadn't been disturbed.

She dreamt of driving her car through clouds that looked like cats when something closed around her throat. In the dream she looked down and saw nothing. When she awoke she clutched at her neck and felt the slimy hold of the wandering meat finger.

It twisted itself around her like a snake, tightening. Nancy stood, her face burning red, and fled to the mirror in the bathroom. The pulsating limb had grown. Nancy's forehead was turning red, her mouth open and gasping for air. She frantically searched for the scissors behind the mirror as the thing kept squeezing her.

She came across a Bic razor, a pair of tweezers, a nail file, but no scissors. Her vision dulled as she abandoned the mirror and dropped to her knees to throw open the cabinet beneath the sink. The scissors were in plain sight.

A quick slash across the slimy meat of her enemy caused it to loosen and fall on the floor. The thing tried to slither away but she stepped on it and kept on stepping until it was a custard of brown and red mush. Yellow pus boiled up from the mush and the custard quivered and molded over like old food.

Nancy laid her hands on her throat and began to massage where the beast had tightened. She felt nervous tears coat her cheeks. She was dizzy and out of breath but alive. The thought of the Captain being choked to death by the thing growing from inside of him made her cringe.

It was time to see what had become of him.

***

Every step toward the barn brought Nancy a feeling of imaginary pain. She expected every footfall to be ended by a tentacle erupting from the ground to snatch her. The moonlight did not dispel her fear. She walked carefully, even with complete vision of her path.

The barn door came open with a jolt. Nancy inched her face into the opening, not daring to open the door any further than she needed to. She saw nothing in the darkness and knew she probably never would. This was why she had brought a flashlight, now hanging in her nervous hand like the hilt of a sword. The revolver was tucked into her waistband, snug and cold against her skin. She pushed the flashlight into the opening. Before turning it on she heard a creaking, as if the rafters of the barn were about to give way.

The beam from the flashlight was strong. It was like casting daylight into the barn, as if the door was wide open and the sun was burning bright. Nancy attempted to take in the scene, to digest the apparition snaking around the rafters of the barn with its uppermost half, resting some of its many limbs in the dirt. Its head, which seemed to float independently from the body, was thick and gristle-like, the face covered in red patches that looked like raw meat. It was shaped like a dog, but the tongue swaying out of its snout was forked into a multitude of sharp looking prongs.

It took everything in her not to shriek.

The body of the beast swirled and contorted in several directions, like a series of skinned animals sewn together irregularly. One of its many limbs, a small fetal hand, held in its red palm a dead baby bird.

As the beam of light moved across the beast it did not stir or fidget. Nancy found the Captain, still attached to the thing that had grown from him, hanging in the air. He looked about himself, his sides still rising and falling. Whether or not the beast was a parasite that needed to feed off the Captain to survive or merely needed him for its growth and hadn't separated from him yet, Nancy was not sure. The Captain looked miserable as he hung in the air and released a long howl that was far removed from any sound a cat should make. He stared down at the ground, looking in the direction Nancy had last left food for him. Then he stared at Nancy. His tiny eyes glowed in the beam and the Captain released another howl.

"Oh Captain, look what I've done to you," Nancy whispered. "I am the only guilty one here."

Something above her released a rodent-like titter and she raised her flashlight to see an appendage with fat, malformed fingers. It latched onto her head and suddenly she was being carried into the air toward the dog-headed beast that had seen her from the start, but was clever enough to pretend it hadn't.

***

Innumerable limbs, talons, and slimy tentacles groped at Nancy as she was pushed through the rafters, moved through the air. She could feel them on her breasts, around her thighs, curling around her forearm. She held her mouth shut, keeping her screams inside. It was not an easy task, but she was afraid if she was loud or visibly afraid the head of the monster would tear into her. The network of body parts beneath and around her enjoyed the slowness of the journey, the raw dog, screaming in guttural bursts, seemed to be in no hurry to eat Nancy, or whatever it planned to do. She felt her veins throb as the slimy appendage around her thigh continued to tighten.

The flashlight had become heavy in her grasp, her arm tired and weak from the pulsating hands and tendrils prodding her flesh. She hung onto it, afraid of how this community of the Limb King might act if the light vanished. A six-fingered hand squeezed her wrist, jolting the beam around the barn rafters.

The gun was still tucked in her waistband. If her body wasn't completely restrained by the Raw Dog, the Limb King, Nancy would have already fired at the thing's snout, into its dim black eyes, its army of forked tongues, until she erased these features and left only a smoldering wound.

She stopped being carried. The grip on Nancy relented just enough for her to point the flashlight straight ahead. The face looked at her, tongues flicking out like pink flames. The black eyes widened in recognition of—a _snack,_ a _mate,_ a _plaything_?

The raw spots blotting the face looked red and irritated. Tiny hands began to poke their way through the tender meat. The King of Limbs, the Raw Dog, was never going to stop growing. Nancy understood. And the Captain, somehow alive, would remain a prisoner of this community of red limbs and groping hands.

Nancy wasn't scared anymore. Just angry. The face opened and the tongues went for her throat but she had already bitten into the hand on her left arm and yanked the gun from her pants and soon the bullets were taking the tongues right out of the mouth of the beast and shooting through the back of its head and shaving the gristle away from its bloated face.

All of the pieces of the monster which held Nancy let her go and before she could collect herself she was on the barn floor, the wind knocked out of her and the monster looking down at her with what was left of its face and snarling, making an expression she recognized, the same kind of look Nancy's father had given her when she proved she was smarter than him, the same look people on the street gave her when she sang loudly to herself, the same look her grandmother had given her for saying _fuck_ in public—a look of disgust.

The Raw Dog, the King of Limbs, came swooping down in all its mass to take Nancy and crush the life out of her, but she was already up and running and the door was inches away. She tried to look for the Captain over her shoulder as she escaped, but she dropped the flashlight and everything was lost in darkness and so she kept running toward the moonlight and left the Captain behind without glimpsing him one last time.

She felt warm flesh brush her ankle but after that the barn door was shut behind her and the thing didn't come out, didn't burst through the wood. She understood maybe it wasn't going to. Maybe the barn was some kind of nest. It was perfect. It was what she wanted. She was going to fix it all, to make it right. She remembered now that she did have some gasoline for the car, stowed away, though not enough to go very far. She remembered, too, that she had matches in the kitchen.

She still held the gun tightly but she threw it in the grass. She didn't need it anymore. She had fire.

***

And so Nancy found the gas and the matches and then was outside again, throwing gas on the barn in little splashes and leaving a circular trail around it and then lighting the gas and watching the flames burst into life and scuttle up the wood like glowing bugs.

As the fire traveled upward, eating at the upper half of the barn, and then the roof, Nancy watched it and felt its heat. She stepped back a safe distance and watched the old dry wood get lost in a storm of flame.

"Goodbye, sweet Captain," she whispered. She said a little prayer for him and remained still until the barn began to quiver—then she stepped back further, watching the black fog ascend to the cloudless sky.

There was a noise from inside the barn, finally. A pitiful, frightened howling which at its crescendo became a cacophony of pain, a wall of sound no ear but Nancy's would ever be able to identify as the cry of the Limb King who had been birthed into the world only to die days later. She almost felt cruel for smiling at the sound, but it was a relief she had never felt before.

And yet still she found herself crying a moment later for the lost Captain, who she hoped, sailed somewhere far off, though she had never had any great religious convictions. She walked away from the barn as it collapsed into itself and found a place in the woods where she could create a grave for him, a place to mark his existence so he wouldn't be stamped out of the world.

This place, of course, was in the trail she loved and where she had walked with the Captain and she could almost feel his weight in her arms, his body vibrating with purrs. She bent down and stared at the soft spot in the ground where she would make his grave. She let her knees fall to the earth and put her hands in the dirt, feeling the familiar texture of nature in her palms. She had no more tears now and simply sat and meditated and remembered what it was to know happiness and promised herself she would find it again.

Nancy stood up and collected some stones, putting them together until they made a small mound. She struck a stick into the earth and stepped back and looked at the grave. She smiled and then turned to face the world, all too aware there were angry dogs out there, dying cats, and unwelcoming faces. It was her against them. And she would win. She had fire. Hope swam in her veins. She breathed in deep and turned away from the woods.

Alexa stared tiredly at her sad looking chicken tenders and stifled a yawn. "What is it you wanted to see me about? I get the feeling this isn't a social call."

I couldn't get comfortable in the booth. Being on campus had begun to feel suffocating. We really should have gone elsewhere. "Well, I..."

_I'm being forced by a demon to collect a series of short horror stories_.

"I'm not sure that..."

How could I talk about this? How could I tell Alexa what was going on and expect to be taken seriously? _Play it safe, stupid. Relax. Just ask her about the October King. Don't mention seeing him. Don't mention the dead dog._

She looked me dead on. "How's class?" She was trying to change the subject. The discomfort in my face must have been evident.

"Fine. I skipped out on them on Friday. Look, I need to know if you've ever heard about folklore or legends regarding a figure called the October King."

"The October King?"

"Yes."

Alexa took a bite of her food and chewed lethargically. She gulped and gestured toward me with her hand, the nub of greasy meat pointing at me. "Is this some kind of bait to prove I don't know much about my field of study?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you testing me?"

"No. Why would I do that?"

"Beats me. I've never heard of anything called the October King. I've heard of the Sorrow King, but nothing about October. I suppose I could hit the books and get back to you." She took another jagged bite of the chicken. "Where did you hear about it?"

Reflexively, I shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure. Maybe in one of those old B movies. Something like that."

"You don't look very good. Everything alright?"

"Just keen."

"You going to Jim's party?"

I shrugged again. At this point I wasn't sure about anything in the near future.

Alexa put her hand on mine and gave me a grave look. "Listen, you know I love you. Jim too, even though you don't see him so much anymore. If there's something..."

"I'm peachy, I swear."

" _Peachy_? Coming from you, that sounds like a sarcastic answer. You look like hell. Is it anxiety?"

"Something like that."

"I know you get kind of depressed around this time of year."

"Anxiety and depression aren't the same thing," I corrected.

"Whatever. All I mean is...if you need somebody to talk to, you can talk to me. The campus counselor also gives three free sessions. You could always go there."

"Maybe."

She finally took her hand from mine. "Christ, this chicken is dry."

"Let me know about the October King," I said.

"Of course. Listen, I got to bolt. But you know how to get a hold of me."

I nodded. As Alexa went to stand I shot out of my seat and grabbed her by the arm. I'd almost forgotten about the stories.

"Woah. What's going on?"

"I'm not done yet," I said. My voice was racked with tremors. "Take a look at this story and tell me what you think." I handed her the paper.

"What is this?" She stared at the paper for a full minute. "I can't make sense of it. It's just symbols and scribblings."

"You don't see a story on there? How about this one?" I handed her the other paper.

"More of the same. Is this some kind of code? I don't understand how to decipher it."

"Never mind," I told her. "But do me another favor. Take this tape with you and listen to it some time. Tell me what you hear." I had a feeling she wouldn't hear anything. If she couldn't read the stories then I doubted she could hear what was on the tape.

Alexa nodded mechanically and grabbed the tape from my upturned palm. She stepped away from me and darted underneath the unflattering, yellowish lights and headed for the exit.

After she left I felt oddly detached from myself, like I wasn't really a part of everything happening to me. Like I wasn't really the lead character in my own narrative. This detachment went on for several minutes and then I seemed to float back into myself, to feel in control again.

***

I lost myself to a fog. The next several days passed by and I couldn't really tell them apart. Sunday was a fever dream that bled into Monday that bled into Tuesday. I didn't go to any of my classes. I slept hard and frequently and dreamt of terrible things. Bats with human faces. Eating bowls of steaming shit. Murder. And yet I couldn't keep myself away from sleep. When I managed even the briefest nap without nightmares it was an escape from the growing anxiety and dread which formed a choking hold on me.

It was just a matter of energy and time before I was once again digging around for the next story. I willed myself to doubt the October King was a real entity but the dread and anxiety did not let go, despite this. The result was me retreating even further into my own isolation. I didn't leave the apartment. It seemed to me if I could stall before the next story maybe I could somehow change the outcome...whatever it was...of my future. But this was a selfish and faulty plan. The October King had threatened murder. And yet, if he wasn't real, nobody would die.

_I give a little push in the right direction,_ he had said about finding the stories.

Late Tuesday I felt an incredible urge to leave my apartment. I fought myself. Tried to remain in my fugue. Sleep brought consistent nightmares. Everything else was dull. My apartment had become a lifeless version of itself. Where colors had been vibrant they were now muted. Food lost its taste. My books and movies no longer seemed appealing.

What if it's him? Is he trying to drive me out? Is one of his stories calling for me?

Alexa called. Her voice sounded vaguely nervous over the phone. "Listen," she said, the pause too long for comfort, "There was nothing on that tape but lots of hissing and some strange noises."

No surprise.

"If you're about to, uh, have a breakdown or something...well, I really think you should do something sooner rather than later."

"I guess so." My voice was pathetic.

"Are you going to any of your classes?"

"I haven't, no."

"You're just holed up in that ratty apartment?"

"Yes."

"Well get the hell out of there."

She was right. I stopped theorizing that the October King was trying to force me out and I left the apartment. The cool air did me some good. I took the long way to my first class, dragging my feet through fallen leaves, listening to their satisfying crunches. I inhaled deeply and felt a sort of calm come over me.

I decided to walk through town briefly before committing to class. I stopped at the pharmacy and thumbed through the magazines, thought about buying cheap candy. The Halloween masks were on sale today.

Several of them were cheap knock-offs of popular bogeyman like Frankenstein's Monster and Dracula. These had no appeal to me, but I found some of the original creations interesting. I'd always admired the detail and effort that went into some masks. The artists behind these masks could take common, relatively boring subjects and give them new life. I picked up a witch mask and held it in my hands, feeling its rubbery texture under my fingertips. I liked the smell of the latex. Next to it on the rack was a skull.

And next to that, a Jack-O'-Lantern.

"Don't fucking do this," I said to myself. But I had to scratch that itch. I picked up the mask, stared intently into the empty, triangular eyes, and then, without really wanting to, I put it on.

Sweat poured down my face. I felt itchy. I chewed on my lips and looked around the store. My teeth clenched tightly together. I could feel them scraping fiercely against each other.

I put the mask back and headed to class. The feeling of being followed had returned.

***

I was so disoriented that, despite finding the correct building and room for my class, I wasn't sure exactly what subject it was. The Professor spoke in an aggravating monotone. I drifted and returned several times. A full twenty minutes went by before I remembered this was British Literature and my professor had the unfortunate name of Dr. Tillinghast—a name so awkward it was inevitably butchered by nontraditional and international students.

As he blabbered I tried to take in every word but couldn't do it. If going to class was supposed to make me feel better, make me feel a part of the world again, it wasn't working. While I struggled I noticed a dainty white spider swaying in the air on a web so thin it was as invisible as a fishing line. I leaned back and made room for it to land, then watched in amazement as it crawled across my desk, excreting a dark silk now and again. It was putting words together.

It was writing a story.

The October King was truly creative. I threw my eyes about the room and was unsurprised that nobody noticed the spider.

It worked diligently until class was over. By the time Tillinghast dismissed us there was a whole story, written in tiny black letters, spread across my desk. It was just short enough I would be able to read it quickly. I wouldn't have to worry my lingering would be perceived by Tillinghast as an invitation to conversation.

The spider, of course, made a hasty exit after delivering the October King's message. I gritted my teeth and pushed myself to read the story. When I finished, the silk disappeared.

The Peril of Potential

She never thought it would happen like this. No. Her students, she knew, had jokingly plotted her demise innumerable times, thrown her into oceans, tossed her into active volcanoes, shot her out of countless cannons, into the heart of the sun—all in fantasy, all in harmless daydreams. But their thoughts, however unserious, had potency.

Leslie Smith's students were afraid of her. She was militant. She was powerful and intelligent and she demanded much from them. They respected her, sometimes unwittingly. They wanted to do badly, to slide through English without ruffling their tail-feathers, but she wanted more from them. And slowly, steadily, they delivered.

This new potential brought new fear. The fear of failure grew vast. Something inside of them, boy and girl alike, grew and grew until it started to take shape. Fears tumbled into fears, anxieties collided, nervous energy snowballed,

The students, unknowingly, had created a monster. It was a Fear Beast.

At first she hadn't really noticed how empty her classroom was today. But as class went on, sweat poured down her brow, she felt ill-at-ease. The students looked sick. Many were not present. What was going on? _Just a bug,_ she thought. _Hope I don't get it._

At the end of the day she watched everybody file out of the building, then returned to her classroom, threw her feet on her desk, and let out a yawn. She pulled a stack of papers out of her desk and prepared to grade them. Better to get them out of the way now. She didn't want to take work home with her.

That's when she felt _it_. A presence. She put her papers down and scanned the classroom, her eyes traveling from empty desk to empty desk in search of the source of the disturbing feeling she was being watched. Leslie closed her eyes tight and counted to ten, inexplicably hoping when she opened her eyes again, all would feel normal.

But the Fear Beast had merely wished to taunt her, to be invisible long enough to set her on edge. Now it slowly materialized, piece by malformed piece, until it was towering above the student-less desks, its head titled against the ceiling.

When she opened her eyes she saw it, a gargantuan thing which looked like it had been born from cancer, pulled from the innards of the sick and the dying and given growth hormones.

It howled.

Leslie cowered. "What are you?" she screamed.

It took a single step forward and clutched her between its many-fingered hands. Its smile looked like a wound opening across mottled flesh.

Leslie started going slack in its terrible grasp. Her last thought: _I hope my replacement can keep my students in line._

Then it bit off her head.

As I passed by students I felt ill-at-ease. They didn't take notice of me but I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. My anxious stare had me stumbling awkwardly as I tried to look for strange faces. Not that the October King could show himself in broad daylight but perhaps he was more clever than that.

Though the distinct possibility that I was insane still remained.

I stopped when the Library was in sight. I took a hard, quavering breath. The grey, lifeless walls looked grimmer than ever, but the bustling students coming in and out of the doors and loitering around the benches offset this grimness.

"Over here."

My heart flung itself against my ribcage. "Who said that?" I spun around, looking for somebody, anybody I knew.

"The one and only—the October King," the voice said. An in-human laugh followed.

"I don't see anything."

"Around the back of the library, little one. Come find me."

"What do you want?"

" _You_."

I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

"Stop that. I want to see you. To touch you with my own two hands."

I willed the voice away. Still it came.

"Come now or have blood on your hands. I see many young visitors about this library. So, so many."

Frustrated, I took a single, solitary step toward the direction of the voice, then stopped and said, "What could you want? I've done what you've asked me to do. I'm reading all the stories, I..."

"Shut up now or find your mouth filled with blood. And it will not be yours."

I surrendered and walked to the side of the library, then began cautiously working my way toward the back. An amalgam of branches and vines dangled from the top of the library and stopped a few feet from the ground.

"Hold on tight. Scream and I'll drop you on your ugly little head."

I clamped my hand onto the thick rope of plant and winced. Thorns cut deeply into my palm. The rope began to move slowly upward and I watched the ground hesitantly. It was my hope that somebody would see me sliding up the side of the library wall. Because of the height, it'd be a long journey.

Nobody noticed. There were no students on this side of the building. They were consumed with their own lives. What kind of sheer, dumb luck did the October King have in his favor?

When I was finally on the top of the library I ripped my hand off of the rope. My doubts were gone now. I had traveled to the top of the library. You couldn't access it from inside the building—it was locked off at all times. The October King sat in a pile of books he must have pilfered from inside. Vines, branches, brambles, twisted and wound around the books, into the books, and formed a sort of nest. His rotted, eternally grinning face turned toward me and somehow the eyes and mouth behind the pumpkin looked even more decayed than before.

Something about seeing him in the light made my stomach turn. My palms were sweating profusely and, during these moments of brief silence, I realized I could hear my own breathing. Then he spoke again.

"You are ready for my seed."

My throat constricted and I stepped away, back toward the edge of the library, toward a falling death. The October King gestured at me with a finger. "Come, open your mouth. Be a good protagonist."

Part of me was ready to fall back and crack my head open, but that part was weak.

"If you jump, who will protect sweet Jim and Alexa? Who will protect them from the October King?"

I gulped. Clenched my fists.

"Come."

As always, I did what I was told. I approached the October King and kneeled before him. I felt my stomach roil uncomfortably and my knees ache. I placed my palms on the books and put my mouth inches from the October King.

He lifted a hand and something white and slimy dangled from the gnarled fingers. A large pumpkin seed. "For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Boredom. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it with good things."

I opened my mouth.

The seed felt hot and heavy and I gagged back a tide of vomit.

"Swallow."

I choked down the seed and swore I could feel it land like a cannonball in my stomach. My head began to spin.

"The stories have changed you. They have readied you for my seed. My work is nearly done, the stories all nearly told. Now go home and sleep, child. Dream of me, your new messiah."

"I...what..." My words were tortured. They left my mouth with the gentleness of daggers. I flopped on my side and clutched my groaning stomach. But I could not vomit. The seed held fast.

I could barely stand, let alone climb back down the library and go home. My vision ceased and my hearing followed.

Blackness.

***

I dreamt I walked through a field of outhouses and the sky was filled with blood moons. A dancing demon led me through the rows of porta-johns.

As I trudged ever-forward, my feet sank deeper and deeper into the earth. My lips were now nothing but scabs and my teeth worn down to painful shards of their former selves. "Please, I'm tired," I said to the demon.

The air was stale with the smell of sweat and old vomit. I felt like my body was beginning to rot. Finally, we arrived at a large outhouse, the door wide open. Thick, buzzing flies dove at the toilet within, which spilled forth waterfalls of maggots.

"The final story is in there," the demon spoke.

I reached my hand into the maggots and felt my fingers close on a monumental turd. Sickened, I pulled it out of the wriggling mass and flung it against the outhouse wall. The turd broke apart and slid down the interior and with it came a crumpled piece of paper. I picked it up, got down on my haunches, and tried to flatten it out against the floor. Tiny words littered the page.

"I don't want to read it," I said.

The demon faced me. A sad look overcame its features. "I'm sorry, but you must."

I shook my head and slammed a fist on the page. "I won't."

"Do it," a trembling voice said. I looked up to see Alexa's face sliding down the wall behind the toilet. "Please..."

The maggots parted and Jim's head popped out of the toilet and fell in front of me. The mouth opened and a hollow voice found its way out. "He'll have us. He'll never stop."

I started to cry. "It's just a nightmare," I said.

"All nightmares must come to an end," the demon said forlornly. "You have a choice. It ends now or much later."

Alexa's face withered as it slid nearer to the toilet. "Are you heartless?"

I picked up Jim's head and my fingers slid through the skin. The head slipped out of my hands and I held the face in my palms.

Against my will, my hands began shoveling the face into my mouth. "Oh god," I moaned. I chewed the skin languidly. Dying tissue collected in the corners of my mouth. I gagged.

Jim's discarded skull clacked its mouth open and closed.

I stood and backed away from the outhouse, from the clacking skull, from Alexa's sliding face. I bumped into the demon and turned around. He bore my own face. "Read the story," he begged.

My body hurled itself back toward the outhouse. It seemed the only thing I had control over was whether or not I would read the story. Otherwise, my body was a puppet for the October King.

I started breaking my own fingers.

"I'll do it," I screamed. "Stop. I'll do it."

Incredible pain collected itself in my hand, which was now gnarled like the October King's. I reached through the open door with my functioning hand and grabbed the page off the floor.

I read it aloud. "The moon sat low in the sky..." I began.

Shithouse Rat

The moon sat low in the sky like a glazed-over eyeball, looking down on the tree-littered path crawling up a little hill in the backyard of the Johnsons' house—if a shack nestled beside a rust-eaten trailer could be called a house. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson slept in the trailer with the baby, while Little Timmy Johnson stayed with his sister and two brothers in the shed. Mr. Johnson said it was just the natural order of things, as devised by Darwin. He said Little Timmy and his siblings weren't evolved enough to live in the trailer, that they wouldn't be allowed in until they stopped being monkeys and at least made it to the stage of Cro-Magnon man.

But Timmy Johnson, he didn't mind. His two brothers weren't so bad and his sister spent most of her time reading what she called the 'Gothic greats.' Her copies of _Frankenstein_ , _Dracula_ , _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ , _The House of Seven Gables_ , and _The Jewel of Seven Stars_ were worn and moth-eaten, but she kept them under her pillow and paged through them every night. They had come from a well-off Aunt who lived in Rhode Island.

Every night at approximately eleven fifty-five, Timmy woke up with a cramp in his stomach and rushed off to the outhouse to squeeze a few out. This ritual was not one he much liked, considering the thick clouds of mosquitoes along the path to the outhouse, not to mention the occasional wandering moccasin snake. Timmy carried a flashlight with him for the very purpose of avoiding the nasty little suckers, should they slither across his path.

But of all the things that bothered him on his quick trips to the john, it was his mind that bothered him the most. Sometimes he swore the hill quivered before him, thought he heard the howling of some beast, or felt the vibrations of a man-eating worm wriggling under the ground. The last part was his father's fault—on nights when the Johnson's had a fire, he often sat Timmy on his knee (though he was getting much too old for this at the age of ten) and told him terrible stories of a half-mile long grub-monster lurking underneath the very soil Timmy and his kin walked on, waiting for them to fall into some burrowed hole so he could spit all over them and then slurp them down like a flesh milkshake.

The thought gave Timmy the willies and he henceforth avoided even the smallest worms, which became a real task on the rare chance it rained and they came seeping up from the earth.

Tonight it had not rained. When Little Timmy woke up his face was damp with sweat but he was not soaked, as he had expected to be. His sister was still awake, shining a flashlight over _Dracula,_ and his two brothers snored back and forth to each other, communicating in some secret sleep code about the mysteries of the universe. Timmy headed for the shoddy door and flung it aside, but stopped to adjust the lining at the bottom of the shed (to keep any snakes from getting in).

"Out for your nightly dump?" his sister, Mo, said.

"Yeah. Just like a clock."

"You mean 'just like clockwork'," Mo corrected.

"Whatever. You know what I meant." Timmy was about to leave the door when Mo reminded him to grab his flashlight. "Thanks, sis," he told her. He grabbed the flashlight, which was becoming dimmer with every use, and headed out.

***

The trail was empty tonight—no venomous prowlers, and surprisingly few clouds of mosquitoes. Timmy kept his beam to the ground, in case he might be proven wrong about moccasins. He was quick, sprinting through the trail and up the hill toward the outhouse.

The door opened after he fumbled with the lever. He hopped in, shut it, and put down his grungy pants, resting his cheeks on the uncomfortable wooden commode. The demons would not leave his body so easily. Timmy turned his flashlight back on and searched for the small radio, found it to his left, pressed on the loose batteries to make sure they got the juice going, and fiddled with the dials and antenna, trying to get a station to come in. Music helped him crap.

The signal was poor so he adjusted the dials relentlessly. It was clear there would be no radio tonight. Timmy surprised himself when his eyes began to get watery—he was on the verge of tears. Something about the music made him feel safe. And then, suddenly, the tiniest voice snaked out of the right speaker. Timmy was careful not to mess with the antenna or dials again. " _I'm back in baby's arms_ ," sang the voice on the radio, soothing Timmy and allowing his first missile to drop out of the deployment area and go hurtling into its destination with a slapping, watery plop.

Leaning back and yawning, Timmy grabbed at his flashlight and absently turned it on. The beam moved around the outhouse as he swung the flashlight. He stopped it suddenly when he spotted a long, plump rat in the corner of the outhouse. It squeaked as the lights invaded its bright eyes, but remained in the corner, nibbling on a piece of corn Timmy sincerely hoped it did not find in the outhouse.

"Hi, little feller," he said to the rat. It stared blankly at him, unthreatened. It walked a few paces closer to Timmy, sat the corn down for a moment, and stared up at him. "It's okay, varmint. I'm not going to hurt you."

Rats had never frightened Timmy. Though he had heard in the big cities they were quite aggressive and known to bite people, chew through steel, and spread disease, the rats around these parts were fairly harmless. He had fed many of them and all the hostility seemed to leave them upon receiving food. They weren't as plentiful in the country as city folk might guess, and they certainly didn't bite anybody. At least as long as you didn't put a hand in front of their face and wave your finger around.

The rat picked the corn back up and began eating again, then skittered back to the corner. Timmy heard a knock on the door and nearly launched the rest of his missiles. He turned down the radio.

"L.T., I have to go," Mo cried.

"Well, I'm leaving a dump," he told her. "You're going to have to wait, or go in the woods. And don't give me no crap about the Count being out there ready to suck your blood. And no Frankenstein's monster, either."

There was a long silence. And then, "Course I won't say nothing about no gothic monsters. It's the snakes that scare me."

"Well, take a flashlight and be careful. I'll be back directly in a little while."

Footsteps could be heard. Timmy knew his sister was walking back down the path. She was quiet, but he had keen ears. He figured the rat and the radio had distracted him from hearing his sister's footsteps the first time around. With his sweaty hand, Timmy found the flashlight again and searched for the rat. He couldn't find it.

When he was finished at the john he found some of the sad tissue his family called toilet paper and cleaned himself. Roy Orbison called out to Timmy from the radio and he smiled to himself. Roy had a peculiar effect on Timmy's ears, and it always resulted in a smile. He turned the volume up and as he did so another sound snuck into his ears and reminded him of how nasty his mind could be. He thought of the Wolf Man slinking through the woods outside, mouth foaming.

"Nah, ain't nothing out there," Timmy said to himself.

He finished cleaning himself and stood up quickly, snagging the flashlight. He lost his balance and fell backward, his free hand shooting out so he could steady himself. In that quick moment he felt the furry presence of the rat brush against his fingers and, suddenly, tiny incisors pierced through his skin and he was howling, his arm no longer supporting him. There was a feeling of the world giving out from under him, and the next thing Timmy knew, wood rubbed harshly against him and splinters lined his sides and rump. He did a somersault in the air, much to his surprise, before realizing he was falling.

He had fallen, somehow, through the john hole, and was now on his way to what lay in the depths of the pit beneath the shithouse. It was a very deep and wide pit his father had taken especially long to dig out so "enough turds to damn well fill two semi-trucks could fit down there without a problem."

Timmy splashed into the slimy, watery sludge and instantly began to puke his guts clean out. When he escaped, he decided, he was going to smash that rat with the flashlight, roast it over a fire, and then feed it to his father.

The flashlight still worked. It had plunged below the shit-line only briefly. Timmy held it in the air to keep it from becoming waterlogged. He continued to throw up, gagging violently.

The stench was like all the defecation the world over had been piled into one place. A fart to the face was really no preview for something like this, and Timmy's brothers had farted in his face many times.

He shined the light up at the john hole and could make out the distant ceiling of the outhouse. It looked miles away. Timmy tried not to think about the nuggets pressing against his back. They still had shape, meaning they were his. The rest of the mess was a shapeless, putrid mass, belonging to his entire family. He could deal with his own mess touching him, if he had to, but to be surrounded by the accumulated ass-matter of his entire family, well, that was too much.

Timmy started to scream at the top of his petite lungs, his voice cracking as it built to a crescendo. He screamed for Mo.

"Mo! Sis, please! I've fallen down the shitter!"

Wherever she was, in the bushes or back in the shed, she couldn't hear him. "Mo!" he cried. "Mo, come help me!" When she did not, in fact, come to help him, he moved on to screaming for the others.

He tried his brothers, his mother and father, and eventually his calls became vague—anybody at all who could hear them ought to come help him, whether they knew him or not. But it seemed his voice was caught in the pit and slung around the inside of the hill where it kept finding an early death.

At least he had the radio. The Beatles' "She Loves You" sounded far away from where Timmy stood, or where he thought he stood. Was he standing? He pressed his legs down and felt goop shoot through the spaces in his toes. He could, in fact, make out some kind of solid footing. Drowning was no longer a fear. Timmy felt like he'd been in a mud-filled stream, sitting on his knees, afraid of being engulfed, only to stand and find the stream only came to his waist. But in a way, the fact that he could not drown or choke became not a comfort, but a great annoyance. "I'm going to be here all night," Timmy said. He felt a sob working itself up in him.

Already his arm was getting tired. He tried to keep the flashlight from dipping into the mess, but it was hard. He turned the flashlight off, switched it to his other hand, and tried to focus on The Beatles.

And his mind began to get nasty again. Instead of the Wolf Man, he imagined The Mummy creeping up to the outhouse and staring down the john hole at him with two fiery circles for eyes, a trail of bandages unraveling from him and making their way into the pit to choke the life out of Timmy.

He stopped worrying as soon as he tried to figure out which mummy it would be. Would it be Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., or Christopher Lee? Timmy started to compare their performances in his head, trying to figure out who for sure was the most threatening. He settled on Christopher Lee.

Why stop there? He began to think of all the great monsters played by different actors—mostly the Universal villains who, eventually, became the Hammer villains. Bela Lugosi was the best Dracula, in his mind. And this line of thinking drew him to wonder about all the great B-rated movies he had seen as well. His mind brought forth images of carpet wearing dogs that were supposed to be giant shrews, goofy looking evil brains, and ghosts that were just people who were slightly transparent.

On occasion, Timmy's mother would take him and his sister to the drive-in while his brothers and the baby stayed home with his father. His father wasn't much of a fan of movies, and neither were his brothers. They preferred fun of the outdoors sort, of hiking and campfires and a beer or two, though his brothers were much too young to be drinking.

The last time Timmy had been to the drive-in he had seen his crush, Madeline Swinehart, sitting only a few feet away. She sat on the hood of her father's car, munching on popcorn and staring at Vincent Price as he hammed it up on screen. She looked over at Timmy and said, "L.T., what do you think of the movie?"

It was the first time she ever talked to him. "I love it," he told her. It was true. Vincent Price always stole the show in every movie he was in. Timmy became so electrified, at one point, he forgot his darling Madeline was nearby.

His mother had bought them a giant tub of popcorn and they all sat out on a quilt Grandma had made, chewing on popcorn and feeling the cool air on their skin.

Timmy wished he was there now. Even a boring film would be good right now. Any movie at all, so long as he could feel the breeze against him, know that Madeline was near, and eat popcorn with his sister and mother.

But he was stuck here in a swamp of shit and piss, staring at the john hole and listening to distant music.

***

As the night went on, Timmy became acutely aware of scratching from above. At first he grew nervous and thought again of movie monsters. When a piece of corn fell through the hole and landed on his head, he realized the rat was still up there and he cursed it.

"Listen here, you little shit heel, if I ever catch you I'm going to flatten you out under a cinder block and use you to wipe my ass." He turned the flashlight on and shined it at the rat. It stared down at him for a few moments, then disappeared.

Timmy began to think about what he was standing in and grew sick again, but he'd thrown up enough already and there was no sense in letting any more fluid escape his body. It was about this time that his head began to hurt.

***

Once in a while Timmy would scream again, for his family, for anybody. Nobody ever answered, but sometimes the rat would jump back on the wooden seat up above and peer down at him with its M&M-sized eyes. It was a big rat.

It was hard to tell, but he was half-convinced he could see its nose twitching, its mouth opening now and again. Was the little bastard hungry for him? He watched it, turning on his flashlight now and again to see if it would move. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn't. He felt it was taunting him.

***

Timmy's head pounded and he had a growing, undeniable thirst, his throat aching. He felt desperate for a jug of water from the shed. His spit was drying up and, even worse, he was coated brown from head-to-foot. It was as if the excrement was alive, finding its way into his ears, under his fingernails, on his shoulder blades, on his eyelids. Every section of him somehow got covered and the longer he stood, feeling more tired, the more shit there seemed to be on him. He couldn't make up his mind about it—either he had been this filthy to begin with and never noticed it, the shit was actually advancing on him.

He switched the flashlight to his other hand and let out a tortured sigh. The need to sit down was becoming a very great one. The sense in him said, "Timmy, this is crap you're wallowing in, no need to sit in it." But what sense was that? He had to sit down, sooner or later.

"It doesn't make any difference," Timmy said. "I'm already all mucked up to the point where Daddy'd beat me if I came home like this. I may as well sit down."

He plopped down. The radio blurbled and twacked with fuzz, the songs warping and mingling with another signal. Still, the sound of soothing jazz was something from the real world, and that's what Timmy needed: something from the real world. He didn't want his mind to surrender to this new world, this enclosed space filled with rank gunk and no hope.

Beyond gagging now, Timmy sank back a little and closed his eyes. He let the jazz carry him away for a while.

***

When Timmy woke up, his head felt hollow. It was still night, judging by the hole above. There was no way he could be dehydrated, not yet. If he felt that way, it was surely his mind.

Sooner or later, somebody would have to come out and use the outhouse. This would be his chance. Maybe Mo hadn't gone in the bushes and she would come stumbling up the hill, ready to chew him out, then hear his cries.

"Nah," he said. "She'd already have been here, it's been so long. She isn't coming back."

He began to cry softly. The rat above him squeaked and he flung a fistful of crap at it. He had no idea if his projectile made contact. "You get out of here," he scolded.

He began to take pity on himself. Once he had been the proud owner of an old dog. The dog had lived with him and his siblings in the shed (much to their chagrin—it had a great many fleas) for three weeks. But this didn't last, not when his father found it in the woods one day. The dog had stumbled down into a big hole and broken one of its legs. It was panting very hard. "We ought to put him out of his misery," Timmy's father told him. "But I don't have any shells left for my shotgun, the stores are all closed, being it's a Sunday, and our neighbors don't carry guns."

So they let the dog suffer, panting away for hours, confused and hungry. It took a very long time for the dog to die. Timmy covered his ears when it started howling that night, howling for him to come and help it. He couldn't. He had tried to look for a rock big enough to drop on its head and kill it, but had no luck. He cried and buried his head in his pillow. Right now, he felt a lot like that dog. He'd never even given it a name.

Suddenly it seemed very sad to him that he had never given the dog a name. It had died nameless and without a glimmer of hope. It seemed like things, people, animals that had names, they were special, but anything without a name was just a member of a wild club that didn't much care for the survival of its members. "I'm sorry," Timmy said. "I guess I'm getting what I deserve for not helping you."

The rat squeaked again and he shut his eyes.

***

Thoughts of miraculously growing, man-eating rats stormed into Timmy's head as he stood up and stretched to keep wary and alert. He did paces through the soup, trying to keep his blood going, his brain from shutting down. There was a fear in him that somebody would be nearby and he would not hear them because he would be too busy dreaming. Even as he moved he could not train his mind to focus. One of the man-eating rats was about to snap at his feet when he was stirred from his vision by a small stream of water pouring in through the john hole. Somebody had come in! He hadn't even heard the door.

Timmy listened intently and heard a fly go up. "Wait!" he cried. "Help me! I fell in. I fell in! Daddy?"

He turned on the flashlight and shot the beam up at the john hole. There was somebody looking down at him, squinting. He stared hard but the face did not register as anybody he knew. It was not his father, not Mo, not his mother or Billy or Bradley.

No, the face looking down at him carried two gleaming eyes, a fat, flattened nose, and cracked, worn skin. It was like a dried piece of meat had been stretched over the man's large skull. Hair grew out the top of the head in patches and the mouth of the man looked as if it had been slapped on his face carelessly.

"Excuse me, mister," Timmy said, his words low, his voice frightened. "But I need your help. If you could alert the authorities or just get my folks I'd be more than a little thankful."

The man opened his mouth but he did not speak. A drizzle of slobber fell from his lips and he continued staring down at Timmy. He smiled, licked his lips, and brought his hand into view. He held a shiny hook. The man winked at Timmy and then left, the outhouse door slamming and his footsteps growing faint. He did not come back.

***

When the rat returned, Timmy almost wished the man with the hook would come back. It squeaked and ran around the edges of the john, peering down at Timmy and taunting him.

"Go away," he told it. "Shoo. Get!" He flung more shit at it, but the rat was persistent. The flashlight beam grew dimmer than ever and Timmy shut it off. The batteries would not last much longer, and then he would be in total darkness.

The radio cut out. He wailed and made a fist, but he had nobody to hit, nothing to destroy. The sound of singing human voices was lost now and he was one step closer to the dark ages. The flashlight was his only consolation and he couldn't use it much longer. "Damn it all to hell. Damn it all, god damn it, to god-damn-mother-fucking hell," he said.

His thoughts turned to the hook-wielding man. He'd given Timmy the willies—he didn't seem like he would be the friendly type. He wasn't sure, but he may have wet himself when he saw the man. Not that it mattered, down here in the shit.

The rat kept circling the toilet and Timmy did his best to ignore the little pest. He tried to think of something pleasant. The flashlight felt heavy so he switched hands again and began to wonder if it even mattered. What good was a flashlight anyhow? It was nice to be able to see out of the pit, even if that rat was up there, or to have any light at all, but it didn't _really_ help him. He had nowhere to go, nowhere dark that the flashlight would aid him through. There was only eternity in this festering, rancid dung heap.

***

Once, there _hadn't_ been eternal imprisonment in the shit-trap, deep in the bowels of the hill. These last few hours certainly made it seem like all there had ever been was the outhouse, but that was Timmy's mind being a real son of a bitch again.

So he eased his mind into submission by letting a memory spark. He recalled as vividly as he could the time his mother took him to the traveling circus. It was the only time he had ever been to something like that—and it was pivotal in showing him the weirdness of life.

The trouble was the vividness in his head had faded, swept away by lack of stimulation. He had barely been away from the house in years, besides school, which he didn't regularly attend anyway, and so he had no avenue in which to keep his mind sharp. He tried to read Mo's Gothic greats, but they puzzled him. At least the horror films did all the thinking for him. Maybe it was why he liked them so much.

As he tried to picture the circus, bits and pieces came to him. Glimpses of color. Snatches of scenes. His father had not been present, or his brothers. Funny how they were never present in most of his memories, besides farting in his face, tossing around a pigskin, and swigging beer around a fire. There wasn't much to Timmy's brothers or father, and though he liked them okay, they hadn't done much to keep his attention.

Finally a clown swam into Timmy's head, his big nose and goofy hair accentuated and the rest blurry. He remembered holding onto his mother's skirt—he had been very young, and very frightened, but she made him feel safe.

His sister, always the courageous one, marched up to the clown and he leaned down and smiled at her. She bopped him right on the nose.

Then more blurriness, more colors, and bits of the freak show, the alligator man with rippling, scaly abs, a bearded woman, and funny little men who were smaller than him.

It was in the middle of these muddy thoughts he had the urge to turn the flashlight back on. Nothing happened. Without music, without light, there was nothing but urine and feces. The sobs began again and he screamed until his throat was raw, wishing, hoping somebody, god damn it, would hear him and get him the hell out of here. He began to feel very lonely and then the rat squeaked. Suddenly it seemed not to be taunting him, but talking to him. He listened to it scurry around the toilet and realized it was the only friend he had.

***

As he waited, for what he didn't know, Timmy began to talk to the rat. "You got a family or anything?" he asked it. The rat let out a half-squeak, but he couldn't make out the answer. "What was that?"

He went on questioning the rat, then telling it about snippets of his life, about his brothers and his sister and her books and his mother who had once taken him to a circus where he saw a clown and a freak show. The rat listened intently or at least it seemed to. "I'm sorry I chewed you out," Timmy said. "I guess I wasn't rightly adjusted after falling down in here. But why did you bite me, anyway?"

There was no answer. The rat stopped scurrying. Timmy felt its presence, knew it hadn't left. "Do you have babies around here?" he asked. "I bet that's it. I bet you got some kin and you was afraid I'd hurt them. Well I wouldn't have done a thing like that. I didn't know you was a momma rat."

The rat must have felt better, because it began scurrying again and released a hearty squeak. Timmy felt his muscles loosen and he leaned back.

It was a miracle he had the ability to go to sleep, but he had done it once already. It was not his intention, however, to sleep again. But with the comfort of a friend, sleep snuck right up on him and blacked out the world.

***

Timmy was awakened by three greasy slaps to the head and then splashing. He opened his eyes and swerved away from the fresh deposits to the shit-bank, not that it mattered after they had already hit him in the head. "Hey, motherfucker, I'm down here!" he cried.

"Timmy? That you?"

"Daddy?"

"Oh Jeez, Timmy. I'm sorry I crapped on you."

"It's okay, Daddy, it weren't the first time."

"How'd you get down there?"

"Rat bit me and I fell in."

"You mean this rat?" His father banged his fist and Timmy heard a squeal.

The wet plunk that followed was loud and though he couldn't see the rat he felt sorry for it—but not too sorry, because he would rather get home than keep company with a shithouse rat while he waded around in crap all night.

"Listen Timmy, I'm going to get me a rope and flashlight and come back and get you out of there."

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, son?"

"Be careful. I saw a deformed feller a while ago and he had a hook."

"I'll bet it's one of them crazies escaped the institute again. Wouldn't worry about it too much, all the crazies in that place just _look_ threatening. They're docile as pups. Anyhow, I'll be back directly."

His father sauntered off and Timmy thought he felt a vibration in the ground. The dead rat brushed into him. He picked it up and hurled it across the pit.

***

Every moment that passed while Timmy's father was gone stretched itself across the horizon of minutes like a black cloud. Time stuck like flies in glue. He tried to hold back sobs so his father didn't berate him when he returned. He also tried to keep his mind from fooling with him, but the vibrations in the earth were still present.

***

When his father returned he shined the big daddy of all flashlights down upon Timmy and said, "Boy, you look like shit."

"Thanks," Timmy said, annoyed.

"I'm only going to shine the flashlight so you can see to grab the rope. I'll need both hands to pull you up, so I won't be able to hold the light after that."

Timmy nodded at his father and watched as the rope fell through the john hole. He grasped it and said, "Okay." The light turned off and Timmy heard his father set the flashlight down on the floor. He began to tug the rope.

As Timmy began to be lifted he heard a noise like earth shifting. Something touched his legs. "Hurry up, Daddy!"

"You're sure a lot heavier than I remembered," his father said.

"Could you save the comments until after I'm rescued?"

"Alright, little man."

It came to the point where Timmy was through the john hole and his father refused to grab him, so he put his arms on the seat and lifted himself into the outhouse. His legs trembled and where something had touched him he felt warm and his skin tingled.

"When you go in the trailer to hose off, remember to take off your shoes first," his father said.

***

Timmy walked down the hill very slowly, despite having just been trapped in an outhouse for more time than he could guess. He wanted to cherish the fresh air. As he came to the bottom of the hill he turned and looked back at his father, who was still inside the outhouse. "What you doing in there, Daddy?"

"Huh?"

"I said, what are you doing in there?"

"Just checking to see if there's any more rats, that's all. I suppose I'll have to start laying traps."

Timmy waited for his old man to emerge from the outhouse. He felt vulnerable after being trapped for so long, and that wasn't to his liking. His father stepped out of the outhouse, flashlight in hand, and started walking toward him. "Wooo-ee, you stink!" he said.

"I know Daddy, I—"

"Quiet."

"What for?"

"Did you hear it?"

There was a low rumble in the ground.

"What is it?" Timmy asked.

"Well, I don't know, I think maybe—"

The hill behind Timmy's father quaked and erupted, coming apart in clods of dirt. Shit frothed out of the opening hole, the dead rat sluicing through it like a furry boat. A mucus-covered pillar of white flesh threw itself from the hole and thudded on the ground, bits of slime flying off the great worm. It was still and rotten with all the charm of a dead fish.

"I thought I killed that motherfucker!" Timmy's father roared.

Timmy watched as the pillar pulled itself from the ground and revealed a pink, hard belly. It slapped itself down upon his stunned father who hadn't moved an inch, flattening him below its wriggling weight.

"Daddy!"

"Go son! Go 'fore he drinks you up like a milkshake!"

Timmy watched as his father began to wail, his skin growing bloated and waterlogged, pink foam spraying out of his ears and nose. His voice rang out to warn his son again but was lost in a cacophonous howl of phlegm and slime.

The worm began to suck up Timmy's father like a spilled milkshake. Timmy didn't stay to see it through—he bolted for home.

***

Looking over his shoulder, Timmy kept expecting the worm to come wriggling for him, but it never came. He ran down the path and to his shack, throwing the door open so he could wake his sister and brothers.

Mo lay quietly, her head in the middle of one of her books, the pages fanning out beneath her face. "Sis, wake up, it's all true, the big worm is ..." Timmy stopped talking. He knelt down beside his sister and lifted her head. Blood oozed from a wound in her throat. Her left eye was gone. The scarlet drops invaded the pages of _Dracula_ and spread like ink. He let go of her and watched her head slam lifelessly into the pages.

In the corner he found Billy, his intestines hanging out of his stomach like dead eels. He shook him, though it was pointless. A trickle of blood came out of Billy's mouth and he fell sideways.

Timmy left the shack and hurried to the trailer. Just in front of the door, sitting on the steps, was Bradley. He had one hand on the doorknob, frozen. He was covered in stab wounds. He smiled at Timmy and let out a long fart. "Would've been in your face if I had the energy to get up," he said.

A choking laugh leapt from Timmy's throat. "What happened?" he asked. "Who did this to you?"

"It was a man with a hook. Funny looking. Why are you covered in—"

"Fell into the outhouse. Where did the man go?"

"Hell, I'm not sure where he went and I'm not sure where he came from. He got Momma and Baby Lou. I wouldn't go in there, Timmy."

Timmy started crying, but even now, with his brother dying, he tried to pretend like he wasn't. He spoke quickly and only when he could collect his breath and get out a whole sentence. "I'm sorry Bradley. Maybe if I hadn't fell into the outhouse I could have helped you and everybody."

"It's okay, Timmy. I guess you ain't so little anymore. This is the kind of thing that makes you grow up real fast." Bradley clutched at one of his wounds and released a broken howl. "I tried to stop him, Timmy. I did. He was fast. There wasn't even any screams. I think he got Mo and Billy in their sleep. He would have got Daddy, too, if he hadn't headed off to the outhouse."

"I'm sure you did your best, Bradley." Timmy put an arm around his brother.

"It's okay that you're crying, Tim. I was crying a little while ago. Jesus, you smell awful."

"I'm sorry. Like I said, I fell into the outhouse ..."

"I don't even want to know how you managed that. Where's Daddy?"

"Big man-eating worm got him. Turns out its real and that wasn't just a story Daddy used to tell us by the fire."

Bradley's eyes went wide with surprise. "Well I'll be damned," he said. Then he let go of the doorknob and fell forward onto the ground, dead.

Timmy went inside. Part of him thought maybe his mother or the baby had somehow survived. He was wrong, of course—his mother was blue, a sheet wrapped tightly around her neck, and the baby didn't have a head anymore.

Timmy puked and wiped his mouth, left the trailer, and found himself unsure of what to do next. The Sheriff wasn't very close and the Johnson household didn't currently have a phone. He would have to walk.

Rather than take a shortcut through the woods, he decided to take the road, where at least somebody might see him and he could get a lift. The woods weren't safe, not with that worm out there, or the man with a hook. Timmy felt dizzy. His headache, which had vanished in the excitement, came back full force and he began cursing to himself. How could all this happen in one night? A worm and a killer on the loose? He would have preferred that the worm was made out of rubber and the killer just Boris Karloff in make-up, but his wishes never came to fruition, it seemed. It was a repeating pattern in his life.

His eyes were itchy and he didn't think he could do anymore crying. He tried not to think about his mother or the baby, but that didn't do much good, because when he didn't think about them he thought about his siblings and then his father.

The rat had saved him, he figured. He would have been murdered instead of being pulled out of the shithouse by his father. Timmy wanted to believe if he had been there he could have saved his family, but he wasn't so sure. And besides, his father had still been killed. Maybe the Johnson family had been doomed from the start.

Timmy walked along the road, still filthy, still thirsty. He kicked pebbles now and again, his head feeling tight with pain. He almost wished a snake would bite him in the ankle and end everything. As he walked he looked up and tried to count the stars to distract himself, but it was no use.

He was the only one left in his immediate family, leaving nobody to look up to, and consequently, nobody to look down on. He was _everything_ , all there was. This was something that would not leave him whether he stared at the stars or the dirt road. Timmy tried to quicken his pace but his body was worn down, his legs stiff. Though his fear had dulled some, he found his movement uncoordinated and anxious.

He marched on to the Sheriff's place, feeling hardened but still uncertain. The feeling of loss was still there, but it couldn't deepen. He had lost all he had known and now he was his own man and the protector of nobody but himself. It would take some getting used to.

Something darted across Timmy's path. He jumped back and fell onto his rump, kicking up rocks. When he realized it was a rat, he started laughing and couldn't stop. "Will you be a friend of mine, or a foe?" he asked, in between bursts of laughter. And when he got up, brushed himself off, and continued in the direction of the Sherriff's office, he pretended the rat was his protector, following and watching over him like a spirit animal. He had to take solace in something, now that he had no mother or family to look up to. Timmy could almost feel the beady rat eyes watch him as he sluggishly carried on to meet the sheriff and piece the rest of his life together. He worked hard not to cry again.

As I finished 'Shithouse Rat' the world around me unraveled and gave way. I clamped my mouth tightly shut, my teeth shards grinding into one another, my torn up lips gushing blood. The demon had left, Alexa and Jim had left. There was only me and this dying world. A blustering wind blew dirt and debris about me as the outhouses crumbled and fell.

And then, from the sky, the voice of the October King. "When you wake, child, it will be Halloween—my final day of being until the next October, when I rise again. These will be your final hours. Now you will know the fear that is time. You will know what it is to see your very existence ticking quickly away. Come to me in the final hour of Halloween so that I may save you. Arrive too soon and be silenced. Arrive too late and be silenced. Come to me, child, in your hour of need. This is your only salvation."

***

I woke violently and rolled out of bed, panting, crying. I scrambled to my feet in a daze. _How did I get back here? How long have I been here?_ I thought.

If this was Halloween, my life was almost over, assuming what the October King said was true. My skin was itchy and glistened. I felt incredibly ill—dizzy, drained. Dying. A knock on my door gave me pause. I shambled out of my bedroom and into the living room. I was still in my clothes from before. The knocking intensified. I peeped through the peephole and saw Alexa standing on the other side. She was dressed like Charlie Chaplin.

"I know you're in there! Open up!" she shouted.

My anxiety was edging toward an explosion. I felt my lips to make sure they weren't scabbed and bleeding like in my dream. I opened the door and Alexa launched herself at me and wrapped her arms around me. Nervously, I hugged her in return.

"We've been trying to call you. Jim was worried about you. Are you coming to the party or not?"

I stared dumbly.

No. Never. No. No. No.

"Well?"

"Yes," I said. "But I don't have a costume."

"Who cares? We can pick one up from the pharmacy on the way."

"Okay, I—"

"Let's get out of here!" She grabbed me by the arm and led me down the hallway. I was silently glad she hadn't said anything about my appearance. There was no way I didn't look like hell.

***

"How about this one?" Alexa held up a princess outfit.

My mind was anywhere but there in the pharmacy. I didn't give a shit what she picked out. I kept glancing at the clock, wondering what was in store for me. It was already six pm. Hopefully, when the time came, I could make it to the library.

But what if it was all lies? How was I to know the October King would really save me? Conversely, how did I know I was going to die if I didn't go? There had to be some way to talk about this to Alexa or Jim or someone. Maybe I could ask somebody to come with me to the library, to see the thing that had been plaguing me for days. _It's no use. He'll kill them._

"No, wait, we can do better," she said. "There aren't many here, hmm..."

A massive heat was making me squirm uncomfortably. I looked around the pharmacy, wondering just how strung-out I looked. The cashier paged through a paperback, _The Haunting of Hill House_. She looked too engrossed to have much concern for me or Alexa. I looked around the store and saw we were the only ones there.

"This one. This will have to do." Alexa held the Jack-O'-Lantern mask I'd looked at a few days earlier.

My pulse became erratic. It took everything not to chew on my lips. "I don't think I like it..."

"Nonsense. It'll look great on you," she said. Alexa steadied me by grabbing my shoulders. "Hold still." She put the mask over my head. "Perfect."

A pain began in my stomach and headed for my chest. My jaw felt tight.

"Now let's get to Jim's." She tugged me along, nonchalantly. "You ever figure out where you heard of that October King thing?"

I shook my head.

***

Jim's driveway seemed to weave forever. Alexa still had a hold of my arm, which was for the best. I couldn't see very well in the mask. Every time I attempted to take it off she scolded me. "Wear it for a little while," she said. "Then you can take it off. What's Halloween without costumes? Show some effort."

I nodded grimly. _It's just a mask. It's not the thing you should be afraid of right now._

The only real option was to wait around until it was time to leave. The danger was not immediate. The only threat was the passing of time. A quarter to eleven, I decided, I would leave the party abruptly and run as quickly as was manageable to the Library. It wasn't a long journey, there was no reason to think it couldn't be done. But panic and anxiety still surged inside of me. This, mixed with my mounting feelings of sickness, was getting unendurable, downright oppressive.

***

The party-goers were crammed inside Jim's apartment, slick with sweat. Face paint was already running down faces. A disco ball hanging from the ceiling reflected the orange and green lights that were haphazardly placed around the living room. This created a ghastly effect—the party goers, damp with sweat, costumes falling apart, looked oddly distorted.

A keg stood just slightly off-center in the middle of the kitchen, the kitchen table and chairs shoved into the corner. People surged in and out of the kitchen door, constantly refilling their red cups with frothing beer.

The costumes were your typical plethora of Halloween garb. Universal monsters, celebrities, disfigured faces and ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and grim-reapers. Music blared from Jim's expensive sound system, the bass throbbing, drums exploding like shrapnel. NWA pounded away and then faded into Johnny Steele which eventually collapsed into Nine Inch Nails. Jim's taste was eclectic. He was known to listen to Bob Dylan for hours and then suddenly declare, "Fuckin' Dylan man, he's always going on about the same shit," and put on No Doubt.

Besides the keg there were six packs of Coors Light making rounds, as well as gargantuan shot glasses of various chemical cocktails that reeked of alcohol.

It was easy to blend in with this crowd. All I had to do was pick up a drink and stand in the corner with a posse of costumed party-goers. My panic ebbed as I did my best to focus on something else—the throb of the music, guessing the faces behind masks, fixating on the ridiculous Halloween decorations. The walls were lined with paper-skeletons and the bathroom door framed by tendrils of sticky red cords that were supposed to look like dripping blood (but really, they looked more like red snot hanging down in gobs).

Several times I feared a random party-goer was going to make an attempt to converse with me. This was too much and put me back into an increasingly anxious state of mind. My heart palpitated at full speed without end. The fear just kept building. But every time somebody approached me, they would catch the eye of somebody else or go for another drink.

At one point three tall figures in skin-tight, black suits surrounded me. They were all wearing masks with similar features.

One of them, its face more masculine, had a hard time shouting over the noise. "Gertrude, this place is a bore. Let's go burn something down," he said.

The other, Gertrude apparently, nodded her head. She turned to the third. "What do you say, Rhoda?"

"Yes. There's no time like the present."

The three of them squeezed through the crowd and disappeared.

I exhaled in relief.

***

"Hey," Jim said. It had taken him exceptionally long to find me in the crowd. "Nice Jack-O'-Lantern mask."

"Thanks."

"How's it going? Can I get you a beer, maybe a mixed drink?"

I shook my head.

"Take that off. You must be sweaty as fuck. Let's get you a drink."

I hesitated. "That's really okay." While I said this my stomach felt tight. Something was squirming inside.

Alexa bumped a few people aside. "Killjoy. Do a shot." She punched Jim in the shoulder and he looked at me with wide, drunken eyes.

"Yeah, do a shot," he agreed.

"I think..."

Jim laughed. "That's your problem. You do too much thinking." Alexa leaned against him. She howled.

"Do a shot, coward! You sniveling twat-rocket," she screamed. I knew she was drunk. The word twat never came out of her mouth unless she'd had more than a few. Her academic façade always cracked under alcohol.

Suddenly a troupe of mimes, a cat and dog, and two Richard Nixons were around me in a circle. They started pumping their fists in the air. "Shot! Shot! Shot!" they cried. Somebody ripped off my mask.

Alexa and Jim started wrestling.

Someone shoved a drink in my hand. "Okay," I said. I put the glass to my lips, threw my head back, and downed the shot.

The feeling of squirming in my stomach instantly became more intense. I grabbed my belly and doubled over. I gagged.

Alexa dropped Jim on the floor. "You alright?" Jim picked himself up of the floor and echoed her words.

"I...feel sick," I said.

They grabbed me by the armpits and dragged me into the bathroom. "Christ, you've only had a shot. Were you pre-gaming?"

I stuttered a no.

"Maybe you should go home."

The thought of leaving, much as I hated being surrounded by people right now, could not be entertained. Suddenly my mortality hit me. _What the fuck am I doing? These are my friends. I need to tell them goodbye, in case I don't make it._

Alexa drunkenly petted my head while Jim held me before the toilet as if I couldn't remain upright on my own. I vomited but nothing came out but water. "Jim..." I spat, trying to clear my mouth of the bitter taste. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"I mean thanks for being a friend."

Alexa perked up. "Are we getting sentimental? I think we're getting sentimental!" She gave a tight hug. "Remember that time we went canoeing?" she said.

I chewed my lips and then hurled again. Recounting memories wasn't exactly what I had in mind but I let her go on. Jim occasionally punctuated her story with a laugh or a sarcastic comment.

Alexa's words began to run together. The pain in my stomach increased. I was certain I was going to come apart. I clutched at my skin and cringed, folding into myself.

I felt myself being lifted. The disco ball passed over my head. Gently, I was set down on a mattress and turned on my side. "We've got a garbage can right here if you need to chuck," Jim told me. "Really, you should go home, but I don't think anybody's sober enough to drive you and you sure aren't walking."

"Do you want us to call the hospital?" Alexa said.

_You sure aren't walking._ Those words got a hold of me and wouldn't let go. I tried to stand but my stomach burned with pain.

"Woah, woah. Just take it easy," Jim said.

"Ambulance?" Alexa grabbed my hand. I stared at her concerned face and tried to shake my head.

"I think it's the stomach flu," I lied. "These last few days I've been feeling like a wreck."

"You didn't look great when I showed up at your apartment," she said.

Sleep began to scratch at my brain. I wanted to fight it but felt my muscles relaxing, my eyes growing weak.

"We'll check up on you," Jim said. "Rest now."

"Please, whatever you do, wake me up before midnight," I said.

I didn't hear the answer. My senses dulled and I drifted into an unwanted unconsciousness.

***

I came in and out wakefulness. I caught bits of conversation. Sometimes it was Jim or Alexa, sometimes voices I didn't recognize.

"....from Cape Vale? Well, Ms. Urban Legend, tell me...is it true that a gang of mutants once attacked some people there?"

"...exactly do you think? I'm not sure where you..."

"...didn't hear about that rash of childbirths where the babies were real fucked up? Deformed and stuff? Happened quite a while back, probably about..."

"...think that's weird, I'm from Morningside. Could tell you a few things..."

"...a big tall guy? Never heard that one. Say..."

"...I'll tell you an odd one....remember that show a while back, Independent thinkers...heard it got canceled because the host was an alien..."

"...complete horseshit...I'm sure that..."

"...speaking of weird stuff, you ever spot a ghost? Once, Billy told me he..."

"...maybe we could do a séance or break out the Ouija board...I heard one time somebody took a...."

I slipped away again.

***

When I came to I was rejuvenated. My skin glowed with color. My emotional state, of course, was in shambles. The first thing I did was stumble out of bed and look for the nearest clock. I couldn't find one. I pushed Jim's bedroom door open. As my eyes adjusted something in me shifted, changed.

In place of my anxiety was an unshakable sense of horror. The partygoers had thinned out. Those who remained, maybe a dozen, were sitting in a circle around a Ouija board. Three people, including Alexa, were guiding the viewfinder across the board while the rest watched.

"Are you doing that?" Alexa said.

"No," a man with cat-ears and whiskers said.

"What's it spelling?"

"It says we're going to die." Alexa laughed. "Now I _know_ you're doing it."

I tensed. A hand fell on my shoulder. Turning, I saw Jim standing halfway out of the kitchen door, a beer in his hand. "You feeling better?"

I have never been so sure that everything is absolutely wrong.

"Yes."

Jim clapped and then threw his hand back, pointing his thumb into the kitchen.

I absently followed him, brushed him out of my way, and laid my hand on a kitchen knife which jutted out of a sad looking watermelon.

"Oh, you want some watermelon?" Jim said. "It's not too good. I think it's going bad."

I drew the knife out, my eyes filling with tears as I did so, and faced him.

A confused smile was on Jim's face. "What are you going to do with that?"

I shoved it into his gut and he grabbed at it, blood shooting all over his hands. He grunted. "Ahh, Christ, what... _why did you_ _fucking_ _stab_ _me_?"

"I'm sorry," I told him.

"Jesus, it hurts." He pulled the knife out and drool dribbled down his chin. He looked at me with fear-stricken eyes. "You stay away from me."

I kneed him the balls and he dropped the knife, crumpled down onto the linoleum. He looked up at me, his eyes going vacant. "You're my friend..." he said. It was his sobbing that really did me in, really made me feel crazy. Before long his crying tapered and he stopped making noise.

My fingers itched and burned. I watched them, focused, and saw the skin on each fingertip begin to stretch, shift, and break. A gagging sob leapt from my lips.

Are we ever ready for the things that change us?

I launched at Jim, in that moment, clawed fingers pouring into his eyes, scratching them out. As they plunged inward, deeper, deeper yet, the blood came bubbling up.

I got on my knees and started sucking on Jim's eye-sockets. A giddy sensation swept over me as the blood trickled, flowed, danced down my throat. I felt a slippery orb shoot down my gullet and I choked and coughed, knowing I had swallowed an eyeball. I pressed my fingers in the blood puddles on the kitchen floor and then stuck them in my mouth. Desperately, I wished to stop. But it was automatic, out of my control.

The October King had changed me. His seed had taken root in my belly.

Leaving the kitchen, blood on my hands and arms, seeping from my mouth, I entered the living room. Alexa looked up at me and laughed. Nobody thought anything of the blood on me. It was Halloween, after all.

"Where did you find that?" one of them said.

I tackled Alexa and started choking her. She yelped as I tried to find her wind pipe. "What are you doing?"

One of my thorns pierced her neck, briefly, and she squealed and kicked me in the belly. I grunted as the wind whooshed out of me.

A lamp shattered against my head. I fell on my side, stunned. The cat-man stared down at me, mouth agape, eyes a flurry of confusion and terror, remnants of the broken lamp in his hand. I picked up a shard of glass, stood, and grabbed the cat-man by his shirt, pulled him close, and punctured his cheek. He yowled. My thorny hand clamped over his mouth and I started to lick the hole in his cheek, my tongue poking through into his mouth and gingerly mopping the blood off of his teeth. I forced the cat-man to the floor. Shocked, he complied.

Alexa was up against the wall now, screaming bloody murder, backing toward the door. The remaining partygoers started to panic, knocking into each other, practically boxing each other for space to get out the front door.

I laid myself on top of the cat-man, picked up the glass and drove it deep into his throat. When he shivered and went still I pulled out the shard and sucked at the drops of blood.

Some of the remaining few were bold. Fists pounded me. Feet slammed into my ribs. I could feel hands trying to wrench out my hair, but it was too short. Focusing all my energy, all my strength, I thrust myself upward and threw aside my assailants.

"What happened? Who are you? This isn't you... _who are you now?_ " Alexa said, confused, her voice unsteady. She pushed herself through the doorway.

The leftovers of the party pulled me back, tossed me on the floor. Somebody went for the phone, tried to dial 911.

A snake-like weed erupted from my right arm, shredding the skin and tearing through sinew and muscle, slick with red, spindly and strong. It caught Alexa by the ankle dragged her back.

I stared at the door and it slammed shut so hard it splintered. My stomach quivered and I felt my navel ripping wide, things gushing out of it, cutting through my shirt.

I was the source of awestruck gazes as my body became a springboard for brambles, vines, roots.

Alexa dangled in the air, her ankle bloody and discolored. She stared at me, the blood rushing to her face, a scream dying on her lips.

"Who are you?" she repeated.

***

When I began this story I said I would tell you about the night my friends died. As if that was the ending. Now you know that is untrue. You will continue, like a good reader, to move forward, to see the tale through to the end. I beg you.

***

When I emerged from Jim's apartment, sticky with blood and entrails, disgusted with myself, another change came over me. The plant appendages retreated back into my body, my will was returned to me. I could feel the blood sloshing around my stomach with every movement. Now that my body answered to me instead of the October King, I rushed back into Jim's apartment and grabbed the knife I'd used to kill Jim. I was going to use it again. I tucked it into the back of my pants.

According to the kitchen clock, it was five minutes until midnight. My panic eclipsed all else.

***

Time closed around me—a tightening noose. I could feel the nearing of the final hour, the last hour of October. In the distance, sirens. Would they find me? I charged through the street, mad with adrenaline and anxiety. A man carrying an enormous wicker basket turned the corner as I made my way through a small residential area—he blindsided me. I crashed into him and he fell face forward, his basket clunking on the ground and nearly toppling over. I didn't stop. "Watch where you're going," I heard him shout.

My brow was wet with perspiration, my terrible itches taunting me with every footfall.

Have to make it before midnight. Have to make it before midnight. Have. To. Make. It. Before. Midnight.

***

The library doors catapulted open before my fingers even touched them. I tore into the library, soaked to the bone with heat, my muscles in anguish. The October King swooped down from the ceiling, the cord firm in his head, keeping him forever suspended so that his feet never touched the ground. The gnarled fingers reached out to me, clasped my face. Miraculously, the dead mouth behind the Jack-O'-Lantern formed a slight smile. The lips quivered in a disturbing fashion—it looked like it had taken every ounce of energy the October King possessed to force that little smile. The effort to make a facial movement that most make countless times in one day, thousands, even millions of times over the course of a single life, disturbed me to the very core. And when the smile ceased, when the lips returned to their natural deadness, my heart dropped into hell and I knew I wasn't going to be saved, that the October King's smile was a celebration of something terrible, and that smile's death was his exit from celebration to execution.

"You have returned to me, child, and now you will be rewarded."

I trembled.

"Though stubborn, you ultimately listened to my rules, did what I asked, and now you will be given your prize." He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me, we did a sort of waltz in the air. I was carried around the library while the October King went on.

"There were others, of course. I cannot afford to rely on only one. But they were not worthy, not like you. They arrived here too early, one after another, hoping to hide out until it was time, thinking I would not notice. Each of them had a final story to read. And some of them only pretended to read it, to please me. I do not like being lied to."

Corpses dropped from the ceiling, thudding grimly on the carpet. Three men, two women. They were hard to make out from a distance, but one of them looked like Walter Paisley, a janitor on campus. I wondered what they endured, how many people they had been forced to kill...or if they overcome the urge, did better than me. "You must have an inkling, by now, that the seed within you is growing, that it is fed with blood."

My voice snagged in my throat. I had to push the words out. "Why not. Use the losers. For blood?"

"What fun is that, child? I have an ego to feed. The more, the better. True horror comes from suffering. That is why I had to make you kill."

I unsuccessfully held back tears. "You made me kill my friends," I told the October King. "You destroyed my life."

"I saved you," he said. He perched us on top of a shelf. "You were nothing. Now you will become something great."

The feeling of the knife against my skin was undeniable. My hand fidgeted. It seemed to unreasonable not to pull it out right then and stab the October King, but I needed to hear more, to know more. Something inside of me begged.

"The stories changed your biology, their magic readied you for the seed, allowed it to live inside you where it could be watered and grow and bind to you, child. You are a host."

"To what?" Acid scorched my throat. Sweat trailed down my face, my arms.

"To me." He laughed, grabbed me, and carried me through the air toward the staircase that led up the library. We moved swiftly, gliding round and round up the stairs. The doors to the roof blew open like tissue as the October King glared at them, pressing forward, a pumpkin-headed bullet. The starless sky was no comfort, the fresh air meaningless.

I attempted to speak. The words didn't come.

"We will be one. United for a singular purpose. This vessel, the one I have now, is almost used up. The seed in you will blossom and we will coalesce into a single being. Your thoughts and imagination will be hijacked and you will become the October King.

"I must apologize, but I lied to you before. You see, I am a storyteller, lying comes naturally to me. I was not born of misplaced fear. I was born of fiction, one fiction, written through the ages by a cult of authors who practiced black arts. Each October an author had a turn at taking the story further. By Halloween his successor would murder him, then take his place the following October. Exquisite corpse in the most literal sense. And so it went, for decades. The story grew in power, grew until its main subject—me—could no longer be contained. I left the pages, bound myself to an author, and then continued my own story. I became a self-propelling narrative. All I really am is a story stalling its ending. Someday, when thousands have died, when I have written uncountable tales-within-tales, I will allow myself a conclusion. And then I will be read. I will be the horror story to end all horror stories. Spanning decades, traveling the earth, jumping from reality to reality, even fiction to fiction. There will be nothing else like me.

"I am too abstract, not real enough, to exist on my own. I require a host. I use up the host, sap them of energy. I pilfer the images from their nightmares, their imagination, to help me write my little tales. Oh, child, your nightmares are beauty. Bliss. I could not resist you, though the others were nothing to scoff at. But as much as I drive myself forward, it is also the host driving me forward. I will be you and you will be me. We will be the same—your thoughts will be mine and mine yours. No separation at all. By next Halloween you will be used up. Then I will find another. This is the cycle of the October King."

We were on the nest of books, now. The sick feeling in me was back. I wanted to retch. The vines and brambles were snaking in and out of my skin—I was transforming again. "I refuse to be you," I said. Screaming, I pulled out my knife and sunk it into the Jack-O'-Lantern, heard it slip anticlimactically into the rotted vegetable matter.

The October King laughed. His pumpkin face deteriorated, the orange chunks falling quickly away from the face that lay behind it. The plant body went to pieces in unison with the Jack-O'-Lantern. When the exterior of the October King was nothing but debris scattered among the nest of books, what remained was the previous host.

It was a child—a young girl—her body contorted and withered, her face almost skeletal. She couldn't have been more than seven years old. I wondered where she came from, if she had any siblings, what she wanted to be when she grew up. The tears came hard. Strings of snot hurried out of my nose. I was sure I had killed the October King and, in a way, I had killed the child.

_She was already dead_ , I told myself.

The October King's voice came back. This time it was in my head. "It is too late. I am already inside you. We are already becoming one. When they find those left dead in my wake, we will be at rest. Nobody will find us. When we wake again we will travel somewhere else, some new setting for us. In this new place we will search for another host. We will write new stories. Cause more terror."

I stared at my changing hands. My clothes were coming apart at the seams. I approached the edge of the library roof, ready to throw myself over. With one quick breath I prepared myself and then jumped. As the ground below neared I watched it open up and reveal a chasm filled with fluttering pages. The voice in my head, _my_ _voice_ , said, "Sleep, child. And when you wake, rise up and speak, say..."

***

I am the October King.

***

Now you know who I am. Beware the stories I have left for you, beginning with this one. So tell me...

How much do you love your friends?

**Zachary T. Owen** is an arsonist. He also writes fiction. You can find him on twitter.

Publication History:

"Titans of Pain" and "The Peril of Potential" previously published in _Remarkable Doorways_. "Six Shots", "A Party for the Birthday Girl", and "Frankenstein's Monster in Body Armor, Fighting Zombies" previously published in _Micro Horror_. "Shithouse Rat" previously published in _Easy Reading for Difficult Devils_. "Growth" previously published in _Burn Down The House and Everyone In It_. "Sudden Departure" original to this collection.

