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JOSHUA STOLL

In memory of Jody

Copyright © Joshua Stoll 2015-2018

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Joshua Stoll

www.joshuastoll.wordpress.com
Contents

Acknowledgements

Break

Harvester

Shed

Contraband

Farmers

Anomaly

Stowaways

Mind Games

Rehabilitation

Random Number Hotline

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my friends and family for your kind feedback and words of encouragement during the writing of these stories, despite the grim subject matter. You are the reason I kept at it for all these months. These are for you.

Break

I never dreamed I would break an object as beautiful or valuable as my parents' bird sculpture. Glowing rivulets of opals, rubies and other precious stones followed its curves. It was only about the size of my closed fist. The craftsmanship involved in its creation was beyond anything I could have imagined. The thing must have taken someone years to make, at least.

The bird sat alone in my parents' house, dusty and forgotten, much like the house itself. Until the day I stumbled upon the damned thing. After I found it, events transpired which I couldn't hope to ever explain. Now, as I lay in a hospital bed on the brink of death, I tried to piece together the memories which remained. Everything began when I arrived at my parents' house to collect the last of their furniture. Since their disappearance several months ago, they left me everything in their will. I ended up selling most of their possessions to pay the bills. Their souvenirs were the first to go. Tiny bottles of liquor from Mexico, a Japanese logic puzzle, a tribal mask from South Africa, and many other oddities. Although it hurt to get rid of them, I had no choice. The memories they held were too painful. And the money helped too.

Their furniture went next, to clean out the house for resale. I removed it all by myself, room by room, and returned another day when I worked up the nerve to set foot into the house again. It took weeks, but during my last visit to the old place, I headed upstairs to my parents' bedroom, the last room which needed clearing. The hinges creaked as I pushed the door open and flicked on the light switch. It looked like someone had already emptied the room out at some point. Little remained inside, no beds, no seats, nothing. Confused, I stepped inside. Even when my parents were still around, I never went into their room. To stand here for the first time felt surreal, like I just trespassed on sacred ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something strange.

A lone cabinet, about my height, built from dark oak and covered with dust sat in the far corner. A lone wooden guardian in the dimly lit room. I moved over for a closer look. When I opened it, I saw the cabinet held nothing apart from a single object sitting alone on the middle shelf. A tiny ceramic bird, coated in a thin layer of dust, much like the shelf itself. The lines of jewels embedded in its form seemed to glow even through the grime and lack of light. Its eyes were two of the most beautiful rubies I had ever seen, shimmering like red water. Intrigued, I plucked the bird from the shelf and wiped it clean. Why wasn't this with the rest of their souvenirs? My parents never showed me this one. They must have bought it on a more recent trip, perhaps before they disappeared. But that didn't explain why it got its own shelf in their empty bedroom. I inspected the bird, turning it over in my hands and gazed at the jewels. The rubies, diamonds and the rest of the jewels were all real, one hundred percent. I could only imagine how much this must have cost my parents, and how much I could resell it for. This thing alone had to be worth more than my car.

On further examination, I noticed the bottom of the sculpture seemed scratched up. Random lines of ceramic were carved out by a sharp, thin tool. I realized the scratches formed a single word, crude, but legible. At first I thought it may have been the signature of its creator, maybe a country of origin. But when I read the word it only served to confuse me further.

BREAK

_What is that supposed to mean?_ I had scarcely finished the thought before I lifted the bird high above my head with both hands and threw it to the floor as hard as I could.

The sculpture disintegrated before my eyes, shattered into nothing. Its ruby eyes bounced away across the floorboards, the light in them fading to black. Even the other jewels in the bird seemed to lose their luminance the moment the bird exploded. I didn't even realize what had happened until after I threw it. _What the hell have I done?_ I stood there, dumbfounded. It wasn't like me to just destroy property, especially something as beautiful as this.

I heard a strange rustling sound in my ears, like leaves on a sidewalk, but I shook my head and the sound disappeared. Among the powder and fragments lay a small slip of paper, rolled tight. I dropped to my knees, brushed the ceramic dust off and picked it up. The paper looked ancient, like it would fall apart in my hands at the slightest touch. But it held together as I unrolled it with care and found another message, written in neat and methodical handwriting.

GARDEN

Were these directions? They must have been, because before I knew it I stood outside before my parents' old flower bed, filled with foliage of every color I could imagine. I dropped to the grass and scooped out handful after handful of dirt and tossed it away. I stared through the mud and continued my task. Another odd sound invaded my thoughts, but I waved a hand around my head and it stopped. Must have been a bee or something. I plunged my hand up to the elbow into the garden and rummaged around until I pulled up a small metal box. It was about the size of a Rubik's Cube. The box had been blue in a previous life, now brown with the old paint peeling off in strips. I moved fast with little input from my brain, flung open the box and extracted its contents. Yet another rolled slip of paper and a pencil, sharpened to a fine point. Now more than a little frightened, I unrolled the paper and read its contents.

GO TO THE STREET

This time, I thought about my actions before my body chose to carry them out on their own, as they seemed to earlier. Something was inside my head, an unwelcome guest, altering my thoughts. So I threw the note back into the box. _No, I'm not going to do this anymore. This isn't right._ As soon as the defiant thought crossed my mind, the intruder knew my intentions and decided to fight back. The pencil in my other hand lashed out, stabbing my other arm twice in the blink of an eye. I screamed and dropped the bloody pencil. The two holes it left leaked blood through my fingers despite my efforts to stem the flow. But the intruder wasn't finished. It forced my hand to the ground, away from my injury, and picked up the pencil again. My other hand reached back into the box and scooped the paper back out. I watched in shock as I wrote a message to myself on the blank side of the paper, with no way to stop myself. When the pencil dropped to the ground again, I read the new message and whimpered.

YOU ARE MINE. GO TO THE STREET NOW

My mind said no, but the other voice ignored my pleas. It forced me to my feet and along the lawn towards the road running alongside the house. My wounds left a trail of red droplets behind me as I ran. I continued over the gutter and out into the middle of the street, coming to a stop on the center line. My new master gave me another message, this time whispering a horrible static syllable right into my ear. I sobbed when I heard the order.

DIG

I stretched out my fingers and started to scratch away at the surface of the road, the same way I had with the flower bed. Except this time the pain was unimaginable. Little progress was made through the bitumen as I scraped the skin off my fingers, right down to the bone. Soon enough, my hands were gone, worn away. I screamed the entire time, but nobody would hear me, no matter how loud I cried. My parents' house stood alone on this street, with no neighbors to speak of, in an isolated part of town. I continued to claw at the road, becoming weaker and weaker with every passing second. A single, final thought crossed my mind before I passed out, the insistent static scream filling my senses.

KEEP DIGGING

I woke up in hospital hours later, on heavy painkillers with my arms wrapped up in thick layers of gauze. They were gone. Both arms, the flesh and bone, right up to my elbows. Paramedics and police officers filed into my room, demanding answers. Apparently someone had found me digging at the road with my bare hands like a kid in a sandbox. They had to restrain me until an ambulance arrived. I had continued trying to dig even while I passed out, they told me.

One of the paramedics reached into his pocket and produced a bloody scrap of paper, the words obscured by red splotches, but still legible. "We found this in the hole you were digging when we picked you up," he explained. "There's a message written on it, we were hoping you could tell us what it means." I craned my neck up to read the note, which he unrolled and held it for me to see. My eyes widened as I read it.

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BROKEN THE BIRD

"We also found this in your pocket," the paramedic continued. He reached into his uniform and placed an object on my bedside table. I screamed in terror at the sight of it and backed into the far corner of my bed, trying to get as far away from it as possible. He stared at the object, confused and concerned with my reaction.

On the table sat a small ceramic bird, covered in jewels, the rubies in its eyes shining brighter than ever.

Harvester

Keith Harrison had fucked up. The one chance to get a decent job in this hellhole of a town and he had blown it. He wasn't ready for the interview at all. When he showed up at the firm's offices in the morning, he wore a rented suit which looked like he had crumpled it into a ball before he put it on. Keith had arrived drunk and unwashed, and the interview only went further downhill from there. His eyes wandered as the interviewer tried to talk to him, his eyes bloodshot and half closed. Sitting still had been a challenge, with all kinds of illegal substances coursing through his veins. The entire ordeal had lasted little more than ten minutes, although it felt more like ten hours.

He should never have gone out to that bar last night. Not with the most important interview of his life the next morning. But Keith knew of no other way to deal with the nerves. _How could I be so stupid?_ He stood motionless in the middle of his apartment staring at the floor in a daze, still wearing his godawful suit. Food wrappers, bottles and other filth littered the floor. It all served as a reminder of his joke of a life. Unbridled rage bubbled deep from deep within the pit of his stomach, anger which he had contained since the police car took him home.

" _Fuck!_ " Keith yelled. He kicked a nearby scotch bottle clear across the room. The glass shattered on impact with his shoe, the fragments flying into the wall as fast as a shotgun blast. He couldn't get that train wreck of an interview out of his head. Keith glanced around the room, rubbing his long crop of dark hair, filthy from days without showering.

He had been late with the rent for weeks, and had broken every promise he had made to the miserable bastard of a landlord. Without a job or any cash to his name, Keith would be out on the street within a week. There was no other way to get the money he needed to keep the apartment. Unless...

_No,_ Keith told himself. _I won't go back to that life_. He stared down at the shattered bottles and unknown stains covering his grimy carpet and sighed. _But what choice do I have?_ Keith turned and stepped over to an out of the way corner of the apartment near the kitchen, coming to a small set of drawers. He slid one open and peered inside, checking to see if it was still there.

It lay inside, untouched, along with a few full boxes of ammo and a single spent casing. Keith forced himself to look away and slammed the drawer shut. The pistol and ammo rattled around inside, as if trying to escape. This drawer held many memories for him, all of which he would rather forget.

A loud knock on his front door startled him. Could it be a representative from the firm, someone willing to give him another chance? Unlikely. Not after what he said to them before they summoned security. Keith moved around the trash and peeked through the peephole at his visitor. A middle aged man stood there, waiting with his arms behind his back. The guy wore a pressed dark crimson suit which looked smooth and professional. Keith felt self-conscious in his own lesser suit, still covered in unknown stains and grime from the previous night. The man leaned towards the peephole, revealing short black hair and a kind, but stern face.

"Mr. Harrison I presume? Could I trouble you for a moment of your time?" he addressed Keith through the peephole. The man sounded rather friendly and familiar, as if Keith and he had known each other for years. But Keith had never seen him before in his life.

"Are you from GarretCo? Because I'm more than willing for a second chance at that job if the position is still available."

The crimson man chuckled. "I wish I was. I just so happened to be passing by the offices right before they escorted you out. Judging from the state you were in—tattered suit, slurred speech, abusing the building's security—I take it your interview wasn't too successful?" Keith opened his mouth to reply but the man got another word in first.

"I know exactly how you feel right now," he said. "I've been there before, believe me. Helpless, pathetic, feeling you have no purpose in life other than drinking yourself into an early grave. But I recently found my purpose. I wish to help you find yours. May I come in? I have an offer which you may find appealing in your current situation."

The guy felt a bit strange, but Keith didn't think about it as he unlocked the door and welcomed the stranger inside. He smiled as he entered, making his way to Keith's table. _Whatever he has to offer, I'll take it_ , Keith thought. _Surely it can't be worse than armed robbery_. Keith pulled over two chairs and swept the table clear of bottles and food scraps for his guest.

"Have a seat Mr..."

"Bailey. Sean Bailey. I hope you don't mind me asking, but do you have any coffee? I would love a cup, it's been a hell of a day." Sean Bailey sure looked exhausted, almost a mirror image of Keith with his tired eyes and five o'clock shadow. He also seemed rather restless, fidgeting with his suit every few moments. Keith nodded.

"Sure, Mr. Bailey, won't be a second."

"Please, just Sean. I would prefer if we got to know each other on a first name basis. It will make our conversation far more pleasant."

Keith smiled nervously. _He seems nice enough._ "Okay, Sean it is then. Be back in a moment with that coffee." He disappeared into the kitchen, just around the corner from the table behind a thin divider wall. He flicked the kettle on and rummaged around for two clean mugs, difficult with the kitchen in such a disorganized state. Empty bottles and illegal looking substances covered the counter, souvenirs from the previous night. When he found the mugs, Keith brought them to the kettle, scooped some coffee into each and filled them with steaming water. After stirring them he went back around to the table where Sean sat, looking around the apartment.

He sat back down and placed one of the mugs in front of Sean. "I don't have any milk at the moment, is black okay?" Keith felt self-conscious in the presence of his guest, a rarity in his apartment apart from the occasional dealer or prostitute.

"Not a problem, I prefer black." Sean smiled and took a sip of the fresh coffee. He put the mug down though and cleared his throat. "You wouldn't happen to have any sugar though? I should have asked you earlier, I'm sorry."

"No no, I should have asked you before. Just a second..." Keith returned to the kitchen, almost slipping over on a fallen beer bottle in the process. He sat back down with a small pot of sugar and a spoon. Sean held his cup forward for Keith, who spooned some into the coffee and stirred. He nodded in thanks. The two men sat in silence for a few moments as they sipped their coffee. Soon enough, they sat the empty mugs down.

"I appreciate the coffee Keith, I hope that's not all I get for my troubles today," Sean said. "I'm looking for someone to help me with my work. You look like a man in the market for work, so I would like to offer you a job." Keith's eyes lit up. So far, talking to Sean seemed to be the smartest decision he had made in a long time.

"Brilliant, I can't thank you enough for the opportunity. What's the job involve?"

Sean rubbed his suit as he spoke, brushing some lint off of the fabric. "The exact nature of this job is...difficult to explain, but bear with me, give it a chance."

Intrigued, Keith leaned closer. "Okay. Why do you want _me_ for this job exactly?" Sean paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to word his answer.

"How can I best put this...I'm after pretty much what you're offering. Yourself. Well, to be a bit more specific, your body."

_Huh_? Keith's face sank, his neutral expression transformed into a look of disgust and rage. The chair scraped across the ground as he stood and approached Sean, fists clenched,

"What the fuck! You think I'm a piece of meat you can sell on the street or something? Get the fuck out of my place you goddamn psycho! Christ!" Sean held his hands up in defense the moment Keith made his aggressive approach.

"Woah woah woah woah! No! You misunderstand me! I assure you, whatever you think this job is, it is _not_ what you are thinking of. It's a purely medical line of work. The pay is considerable, I beg you, just hear me out."

Sean looked about ready to retreat the moment Keith took another step closer. But Keith stopped, teeth gritted and thought about it for a moment. Soon, he lowered his fists and exhaled. He sauntered back to his seat and sat back down, arms crossed.

"Okay then, enlighten me. What _exactly_ does this job involve? A straight answer this time."

Sean relaxed, thankful Keith chose not to strangle him then and there. The guy looked like he handled this kind of aggression every day, which for all Keith knew, he did. Especially with the strange manner in which he had pitched this job so far.

"I work for a medical contractor who is willing to pay top dollar for _you_. Tests, exams, lab work, anything you can do to help us out. All voluntary, of course. You choose what you wish to opt in and out of when we arrive at the labs. It's easy work, and you will be providing an immensely helpful service to the scientific and medical community as a result."

Keith stared at Sean, stunned. _Why didn't he just say that in the first place_? "I barely graduated high school. How do you expect me to help you with this?"

"Believe me," Sean said, "it's nowhere as difficult as you would think. The technicians and the, uh, lab workers all know exactly what they're doing. If at any time you need help with anything, you need only ask. It's all safe and above board. In the long run, we will be saving lives with the work we do."

What did he have to lose? Keith stared up at the ceiling, pondering Sean's proposal. It wasn't as if any other employers were willing to take him on board. Especially with what little education he had. And if these guys were willing to pay him just for taking a few tests and saving some lives, why not accept?

"Okay. I'll do it."

Sean grinned, ecstatic. The wide smile startled Keith. It seemed almost maternal in a way, as if the guy had just acquired some irreplaceable asset for his company. Keith pushed the thought from his mind. He was probably just glad to have someone new on his team, for one reason or another.

"Well, I'm glad you're still willing to take the job, even with our little misunderstanding earlier. I'm sorry if that affected your decision in any way.

Keith shook his head. "No, forget about it, it's my fault for not giving you a chance to...to explain." He stood up and rubbed his eyes. "How long have we been talking? I'm exhausted."

"Not long. You're probably still a little hungover from last night, if I had to guess," Sean suggested with a chuckle.

"No, seriously, I feel really tired. What is...?"

Keith trailed off, hit with an unexpected wave of nausea. He slumped back down into his chair, losing energy with every passing second. When he tried to stand again, he didn't make it an inch off the seat before he fell off onto the floor, taking the contents of the table with him. The mugs fell to the ground and shattered around him. Sean watched the events unfold with unblinking eyes.

"What's...happening?" Keith looked up at Sean, eyes wide as he grabbed at the air in front of him. "Help...me..."

Sean stared down at the pathetic Keith, who shivered as his condition deteriorated. He reached into a pocket in his crimson suit, pulled out a small, clear object from within and flicked it down onto the floor. It bounced once and came to a halt in front of Keith's eyes.

It was a small empty glass vial. A few drops of some unknown chemical lay in the bottom. Keith knew without a doubt Sean had slipped whatever this shit was into his coffee while he wasn't looking. _But when_? They had been at the table the whole—

_The sugar_ , Keith realized. _The bastard spiked my coffee when I went to get the goddamn sugar_.

"The fuck...are you doing?" With his last ounce of energy, he clawed his way across the filthy carpet towards the drawers in the corner. He reached up and pulled the drawer out onto the ground. The loaded gun clattered out onto the floor. He scooped it up and aimed at Sean, who still sat in his seat coolly observing Keith from a distance.

He didn't even flinch at the sight of the gun. Instead, he walked over to Keith and knelt down beside him. Keith tried to pull the trigger, but his hands shook, making it nigh on impossible to get a good grip on the weapon. Whatever this sick fuck had slipped him, it was some powerful shit. Keith's motor functions and muscles had started to shut down. The gun jumped from his hands after a fierce tremor, clattering away as he continued to shudder.

"Welcome aboard," Sean whispered into Keith's ear, as he gave one more violent thrash, and then saw nothing but black.

When he woke hours later, Keith's arms and legs were bound with tough cords to an old hospital bed frame. He lay on its filthy mattress covered in stains of every size and color. He couldn't see a thing, thanks to the darkness which devoured the room. His stomach ached as well; probably a side effect of whatever drug Sean had slipped him earlier.

_Sean_ , Keith remembered. _Where is he_? _What is he going to do to me_?

"Help!" he yelled as he yanked and shook the cords holding him to the bed. "Is anyone there? Help me!"

He received no reply apart from his hollow echo.

"Shit." Keith gave one final tug at the cords before he gave up. No good. Sean didn't want him going anywhere in a hurry.

Who the hell was this guy? Some kind of predator? A rapist? The whole job offer story had obviously been bullshit. But the way Sean had pitched it to him, it all sounded rehearsed, as if he had done all this before. Keith closed his eyes. God only knew what would happen now. Maybe tying Keith up like a hog in some basement was the limit of his insanity. There could still be a chance.

"Ah, you're awake."

Keith's blood turned to ice at the sound of his voice. Sean had been behind him the whole time. Keith tried to turn to get a look at him, but he couldn't see a thing. The only thing he could see nearby: a small table, with various surgical tools spread across a metal tray. Scalpels, syringes, bone saws, every sort of instrument imaginable.

_What have I got myself into_?

"I was hoping the drugs wouldn't kick in that fast," Sean said. "Must have misjudged your dosage. I was going to give you a quick death while you were out, but something came up which required my attention. So I fear that's no longer an option."

Keith heard a shrill noise behind him, which sounded like a zipper being pulled up, followed by movement. Sean's face appeared above Keith's, his sallow face a mask, holding no expression or emotion at all. His crimson suit's buttons were undone, with Sean's bare chest visible underneath. The skin was riddled with scars, some healed over, other very, very fresh. Something else lay underneath his suit, but in this light, Keith couldn't see it.

"You know," Sean said, sitting on the bed next to Keith, "not everything I told you back in the apartment was a lie. You _will_ be participating in work of a medical nature, but I'm afraid it will be anything but voluntary."

Keith's eyes widened. "Let me go, please, I swear to Christ I won't tell anyone about this, just let me go. You don't have to do this man."

Sean smirked. "Oh, you have no idea. I also wasn't lying when I said you would be saving lives. You'll definitely save at least one."

"Please! You don't have to—"

"I've been doing this for almost three years now, believe me, I need to do this. Have you ever heard of a condition called Kalaren Syndrome? I don't believe you would have; only four cases have been documented in the last century. It causes irreversible organ failure over a long period of time. For exactly how long, I'm not sure. Three patients died after several transplants. Heart, kidneys, liver, the list goes on. The transplants help, but the new organs still eventually succumb to the disorder."

A deep dread began to form in the pit of Keith's stomach. This wasn't going to end well for him.

"Sure," Sean continued, "the condition is manageable, but the patient requires _regular transplants_ in order to survive, a procedure far too complicated and expensive to maintain. So, I've learned to manage my condition independently."

Keith stared at him in disbelief. "You're taking people's organs?"

Sean smiled and nodded, his same maternal smile from earlier. "Your sacrifice will ensure I continue to live a long and prosperous life. It's nothing personal, I just need enough to get me through the week."

"You need help, man. Serious help," Keith said. "You can't do this to yourself, to other people. How many have to die to keep you alive? It's not worth it." Sean's face darkened as he leaned close to Keith, their faces now barely an inch from one another.

"I will harvest as many fucking organs as it takes to survive. I am _not_ going to die like that. I deserve to live."

Keith returned Sean's stare with bitter contempt. "You don't have the right to live after this. Hell would be too good for you." Sean narrowed his eyes and stood up from the bed, flicking on a small bedside lamp. He grabbed both sides of his suit and yanked them apart, his chest bared for Keith to see. What he saw almost made him want to pass out.

The psycho had surgically attached some kind of zipper onto his skin. The surrounding flesh looked inflamed, red and scarred from the procedure. When the zipper reached his waist, Sean parted the skin, much like he had with his suit and pointed inside.

"Like it? It makes accessing everything so much easier. The stinging takes some getting used to though." He pointed lower into the dark cavity. "Right here...I think this is where I'll put your liver. And here...your kidneys will feel right at home here as well."

"Help me! _Help_!" Keith screamed and tugged at his restraints. It only seemed to amuse Sean.

"Nobody can hear you. There's no point. Now sit still, I don't want to damage anything." He reached over to the little table next to the bed and picked up one of the razor sharp scalpels. Sean held the blade above Keith's chest and began to lower it.

"No!" Keith yelped. He thrashed around as Sean's scalpel loomed inches from his skin. As he shook, he heard the bed groan underneath him, the sound of rending metal getting louder and more apparent by the second.

A moment later, two of the bed's steel legs buckled. Keith and the other half of the bed dropped to the cold concrete floor, the impact mangling the frame. Most importantly, it freed Keith's hands from their restraints, the cords sliding loose from the broken metal. Sean had no time to react as Keith lashed out at the table holding the surgical tools. As they fell onto the floor, Sean lunged at Keith once again with his scalpel, but Keith moved faster. He seized the first tool his fingers touched, a bone saw, and slashed at Sean's exposed legs.

Sean screamed as the steel saw cut into his flesh through his trousers, felling him in an instant. He dropped the scalpel in surprise, leaving him totally defenseless. Although Keith's legs were still attached to the undamaged part of the bed, he had the upper hand. With the saw clenched in one fist, he swung it at Sean's chest, over and over again, every slash spraying blood up Keith's arm. The maniac's suit turned a much darker shade of crimson, and after what seemed like forever, the screams stopped. But Keith continued his assault, the saw nearly severing the man in two.

Keith released the saw. The surgical steel shimmered red with blood. He trembled in horror, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. Even as he lay next to the deceased Sean in an awkward tangle of cables and steel, he couldn't get rid of the horrible feeling in his gut. It wasn't the first time he had killed someone, but the first time had been an accident. His gun had fired for no reason, taking the head off of some poor bastard who happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But Sean had to die. There was no telling how many people he had killed just to prolong his own sick existence.

When he looked at the bed he lay on, Keith realized he wasn't the first person who Sean had attempted to dissect on it. He reached for the saw again and cut the cords from his legs and jumped to his feet the moment they were free.

_I have to get out of here_.

A brief look around in the now lit room revealed little more which he hadn't already seen. The room was empty apart from the bed and Sean. On the opposite side of the room, however...a door. Keith took a careful step forward towards it, when a sound caused his heart to drop.

" _You think that's gonna do the job? I don't think you know the extent to which I've improved myself_."

A hand grabbed Keith's leg, as if he was in some kind of zombie movie. He looked down to see Sean, all but cut in half, but somehow still alive. His face was the picture of calm, his hollow features emphasized by skin pale from blood loss. Keith froze on the spot, not sure how to react to Sean's reanimation.

" _I have enough organs to live for a thousand lifetimes. You wouldn't believe where some_ of them _fit, even if I told you_." Sean cackled like a madman, choking on the blood welling in his throat. How was he still alive? The guy had definitely lost it.

"You're gonna die in here Keith, it's only a matter of time before all your organs will belong to me! ME!"

Keith yanked his leg from Sean's grasp and bolted to the door. As Keith disappeared into the next room he still couldn't escape the insane laughter. He did his best to shut it out as he moved along. As soon as Keith saw its contents, he wished he had stayed with Sean.

An operating table sat in the middle of the room, illuminated by bright artificial white light from above. To Keith's horror, blood splattered the surface of the table. _Fresh_ blood. Someone had been on this table, not long ago. Mirrors on adjustable swivels watched over the table. More spotless surgical tools sat on a bench just next to the entrance door. Keith stared at the table while he worked his way around it. _Did Sean operate on himself in here_? In the corner of the room sat a wardrobe, cracked open to reveal a huge selection of suits and uniforms. Probably the disguises used to lull his victims into a false state of security. _Or their leftover clothes_.

Keith felt ill. He clutched his stomach, trying his best not to vomit just thinking about what went on in here. An unexpected sharp pain almost brought him to his knees. He looked down at his shirt, and to his shock, a red flower of blood blossomed out from underneath the fabric. _When did that happen_? Must have fallen on a scalpel or something. When he rolled up his shirt to see the damage, Keith almost fainted.

A hideous red scar ran up the side of his torso, the stitches twisted and rough, as if rushed. Blood seeped from the wound, the stitches only just tight enough to hold it closed, barely. Sean had already opened him up. Rage flooded through Keith as he rolled his shirt back down, ignoring the blood and stinging pain. He had to finish the job. Sean had to die. Keith steeled himself as he turned back towards the door and flung it open.

"Sean you bastard, I'm gonna fucking _kill_ you!" he bellowed as he slammed the door shut behind him. When he looked to the spot on the floor where he had left him to bleed, Keith choked. He was gone. Sean had been all but cut in half, cackling like an asylum patient, and now Keith couldn't see him anywhere.

Heart pounding in his chest, Keith hobbled over to the pool of blood where Sean had lay not two minutes ago. A thick red trail led away from the collapsed bed to another corner of the basement. Keith stared wide eyed at a small hatch installed on the wall, its metal grate covered in bloody hand prints and smears. He yelled in frustration and kicked the grate as hard as he could. It refused to budge. He pushed his face right up against the metal bars and yelled down into the concealed tunnel. Where it led, he had no idea.

"You better run you fuck, you're gonna regret this!" Keith struck the grate once more and backed off, grunting with exhaustion. He yelped, his wound once again screaming in pain. With one hand, he pulled up his shirt to look at the wound.

The crude stitches had unraveled, his now open wound leaking blood like a garden hose. He groaned and dropped to the floor as he clutched his injury in a feeble attempt to stem the flow. His shirt was now a mirror image of Sean's suit, the red stain spreading out onto the floor around him.

As his consciousness started to fade, he knew he wouldn't be making it out of this place alive. It was now a race to see who would bleed out first: him or Sean. Before he blacked out, he could have sworn he heard the grate behind him open back up again. Keith quickly forgot about it as he slipped into the never-ending darkness.

Shed

My father once told me never to enter the old shed on the outskirts of our land. I don't remember how long ago he told me, but even after I had explored every other square inch of the land, uncovered every unique stone, every beautiful flower and even plotted out entire areas onto hand-drawn maps, the shed remained unexplored. Its murky glass windows always stared at me, gloomy grey eyes no matter the time of day, begging for me to head inside and explore the secrets within.

As the sun set behind me, I stood before the building and admired how well it had held up after being exposed to the elements for all these years. The ancient wooden shed was rundown and falling apart, cracks in the wood branching out like spider webs. A crude door covered its entrance, little more than a few planks of wood nailed together and placed on hinges. Its rusted metal roof was invisible underneath a veil of dead leaves on top, identical in color to the roof itself. The neighboring tree's branches scraped the wooden flank of the building, an ominous tune in the otherwise silent dusk.

I approached the door and opened it, almost removing it from its hinges in the process. The door's chords combined with the singing tree sent a shiver down my spine. I took a quick look back at the house through the trees which concealed the shed. There was no sign of my parents. Good. I didn't want them to put an end to my little adventure before it had even begun.

Satisfied I was alone, I pulled out a long flashlight from my jacket pocket, stepped into the shed and closed the door behind me. The flashlight illuminated the interior of the shed with ease and gave me a perfect view of the mysterious shack.

To be honest, it looked far bigger from the outside. A table sat in the center of the room, an assortment of clutter littered over the top. Rusted tools, sealed jars willed with thick unknown liquids and a few empty paint cans. A few shelves lay in disarray, coated with dust, the majority of them bare.

I had hoped for something more, some floor plans for the house, hundred year old antiques, anything. So far my search had turned up nothing but trash. This place had probably been cleared out years ago, maybe before we even moved in. No wonder Dad didn't want me to go in here. I could have been doing something much more worthwhile. What a waste of time.

As I sighed and turned around to head out, my clumsiness got the better of me. A gnarled floorboard in the middle of the shed caught my foot and threw me down with a loud crunch. My flashlight clattered to the floor and rolled away underneath the table, the beam shining right into my face.

Smooth.

I held the side of my face as I rose, dizzy from the impact and angry at myself for once again not looking where I walked. I kicked the leg of the table, only serving to rattle some jars and cans on top.

"Goddammit..." I muttered as I knelt down to grab the flashlight. It better not be damaged. Mom would kill me if anything happened to it. The thing wasn't exactly cheap, but it sure could light up a room, and then some.

It seemed intact. I grabbed it and was about to get back up when I noticed what it had stopped on under the table. A small trapdoor, open just a crack. It mustn't have been properly closed; any further and I would have missed it. The hatch camouflaged well against the other floorboards, and the strange lock on it almost looked a like a knot in the wood. But here it was, unlocked and ready to be explored.

With new hope in my heart, I grabbed hold of the table and started to pull it aside. The heavy wood made it difficult, but I persisted, hoping my efforts would be worth it. I opened the hatch all the way and shone my flashlight down into the opening. Even with a flashlight as powerful as this, it wasn't able to illuminate the entire shaft. I was now officially intrigued. Was this some sort of mine or tunnel network? I decided to find out.

A rickety wooden ladder attached to the side of the shaft would be my way down. The way they had been laid reminded me of human ribs, pieces of scrap wood set into the dirt. I hoped they were secure enough to support my weight. Without further hesitation, I lowered my legs into the hole and took hold of the rungs. I had no idea how deep this thing went, so I just held on tight and descended into the unknown depths below.

The claustrophobic tunnel was only a few feet wide and difficult to breathe in as I headed further and further down. It smelled awful down here, the strong musk of loose earth and rotten wood. I tried my best to ignore it and pushed on. After what felt like forever, I saw the bottom. In the bright flashlight beam it appeared to open up into a larger tunnel. The dirt looked strange, but from here I couldn't tell why.

I released the ladder and landed on my feet, the dirt squelching beneath my feet. Only then did the smell really hit me. It wasn't just the dirt, something down here smelled much worse, like rotting meat. I shone the light down to see what I had landed in, and almost cried out in horror. A thick river of blood stretched across the tunnel floor, disappearing into the darkness. It wasn't a light smear of blood, no, not even close. The blood appeared to _flow_ around my shoes down towards a lower point in the tunnel somewhere to my right.

I fought back the vomit welling in the back of my throat and headed left, the flashlight illuminating my path. After too long I hit a corner in the tunnel, which I followed it around, trembling with fear. _What happened down here?_

The stench of meat only got worse the farther I ventured into the tunnel. The tunnel opened up into a wider chamber, which seemed to be the source of the odor. I considered turning back, but I had come too far. My mind would never be at ease until I knew what was down here.

Piles and piles of corpses littered the chamber, all in different states of decomposition. Animals and people. Some looked like they had been here for months, others even longer. But some of them looked recent, maybe a week old at the most. To my dismay I _recognized_ some of them.

Our old mail man, Drew Peterson. Dad told me he retired when I noticed another man had delivered our mail one day instead of the usual Drew.

Janet Campe. An elderly neighbor who lived only a few minutes away from our place. According to Dad she died of a heart attack almost a year ago.

Kellie and Ronan, our two dogs. Both had supposedly run away months ago. _Dad had also told me that._

It all started to make sense to me. This was almost too insane to even consider. Had my father killed all these animals, all these people? Right under our noses on our own property? My body felt numb. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would ever think of doing something like this. Dad had always been a kind, loving man. He and Mom didn't always see eye to eye, but they always sorted it out in the end.

I had to get out of here, had to call the police. Had to find Mom and somehow break the horrific news to her. How couldn't she have known about this? I came to my senses and returned to reality, the stench even stronger. Getting around the bodies was difficult, as they left no room for movement. I didn't want to get anywhere near them, but I would have to if I wanted to push on. It took some time, but I managed to get to the other side, where another tunnel snaked off into the darkness.

If Dad had dug these tunnels himself, it must have taken a long time. How couldn't we have noticed it? I hoped this would all be over soon, I hoped I would wake up and realize this had all been a dream. But my hopes rapidly diminished with every step I took down into those tunnels.

The next room appeared to be the final stop. A line of dim white lights hung from the ceiling, illuminating the room in an artificial glow. There didn't appear to be any other way in or out here other than the way I entered. Filthy bed sheets hung from cords stretched across the width of the room, veils for the horror which lay within. All the sheets, once white, were stained a dark red. I didn't need to guess what occurred in here.

This was where they all died. This is where he killed them.

I could hear sounds from the end of the chamber, from behind one of the sheets. Voices. A man and a woman. Their voices were barely audible from here, but I could tell they were in the middle of an argument. Taking care not to make my presence known, I inched closer to the sheet. Beds lay behind each sheet I passed, all splattered with dried blood and gore. Some bore holes which looked to be the result of vigorous, repeated stabbing. I held my breath and continued forward. My heart sank further and further into my feet the closer to the voices I got. A theory which only became more horrifying the more I thought about it began to take shape in my mind.

I hoped I was wrong. With the sheet now only a few feet in front of me, I listened in on the conversation.

"No, we can't. I _won't_ do it," the male voice said.

"Don't be stupid. We need to prepare for the worst case scenario. If he finds this place, we need to be ready for the fallout. I don't know how he'll react to all this. We'll need to be ready to deal with him if it comes to that."

"I can't believe we're discussing this! We can't _kill_ him, it would only raise more questions!"

"What else would you have me do? I don't think he'll believe me if I told him the voices told me to do it."

_Were they talking about me?_ I inched closer. The voices, hushed whispers seconds ago started to escalate into heated shouts.

"I'm not going to prison on account of _your_ illness! I've tried to help you, I've kept him away from this place for your sake, I've covered up what you've done as best I could, but there's just nothing else I can do! I'm calling the police, it's the only way. Don't try to stop me, this is for your own good." The male voice sounded desperate now. I heard a rushed movement behind the sheets as I stood right in front of it, reaching out to pull it aside.

"You're not going anywhere," the female voice said, in a disturbing low octave, far beyond what should have been possible for her.

"What are you—?"

I flung the sheet aside just in time to see it happen. My father, standing before me with a massive knife plunged through the bottom of his throat, the tip visible through the top of his head. His eyes were wide with shock, much like my own. His killer, the woman, yanked the knife free, causing him to drop like a sack of meat, dead before he hit the ground. The woman looked up to meet my gaze, her eyes crazy with bloodlust. Her face, once pretty and kind, was now covered with flecks of blood from her recent kill and locked into a murderous stare of pure hatred. I had never seen her like this in my entire life. She had always been such a kind and loving person.

"Mom?" I whispered, taking a careful step away from her. "What have you done?"

Contraband

He darted around the garage with a purpose and scooped up everything he could lay his little hands on. Toys, books, photo albums; it all went into the black garbage bag he held.

It had to go. All the plush animals, wooden building blocks and metal toy cars, everything. They were coming for him. According to the older kids in town, all of this stuff was a big word Glennie Mills couldn't pronounce. Contraband. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew if they caught him with it, especially with this much, there would be no mercy. They would do to him what they did with the other kids, and the adults. And Glennie didn't want to end up like them.

A loud knock on the closed garage door made him jump in fright. Someone outside shouted in through the metal door at him. "We have a warrant to search the house Glennie! Stop whatever you're doing, come out here and lie on the grass with your arms out. You have my word you will not be hurt!"

Glennie closed his eyes. It was Karl. This wouldn't end well for him.

Outside, Karl knocked on the garage door again, harder this time. As one of the eldest kids left in town at ten years old, he had naturally been given the job of enforcing the law. Every kid knew his methods and what he was capable of, and usually obeyed his orders without question. If Karl knocked on your door, you'd better open the door if you knew what was good for you.

"You have five seconds Glennie, then we're coming in!" Karl shouted. He turned to face his backup, a group of other enforcers along to help serve the warrant. Each kid carried a modified water gun, each with a coil of wire holding a birthday candle dangling out in front of the weapon. Karl hadn't given the order to light them yet, which would essentially arm the weapons. But if things went how Karl though they would, he wouldn't hesitate.

"Three of you go round the back, I don't want him getting out that way," Karl ordered. The boys split off from the main group of twelve and moved round the corner to cover the door in the backyard. Karl signaled for a few others to stack up on the front door.

Inside the garage, Glennie scooped up the last item, a tattered old copy of _The Three Little Pigs_. A present to him on his second birthday from his mother. He remembered when she used to read to him every night before bed, before all this happened. It still gave Glennie nightmares, what the kids in town did to the adults. Their own parents. It wasn't right. Not at all.

Karl continued to negotiate with Glennie through the garage door. "If you come out now, on my honor as town enforcer, I'll try to get you off with a warning. I can't do that if you don't cooperate with me. Come on out."

He waited there, arms crossed, hoping it had been enough to scare the kid into surrendering. But after a few minutes of silence and no word of an escape attempt from the watchers round back, he could wait no longer. Karl reached behind him and pulled out his water gun and a box of matches. He nodded to the rest of his posse who all pulled matches and lighters from their pockets and lit the candles on their weapons. Each kid now held a fully functional—and extremely unstable—flamethrower in their hands.

"We go in on three!" Karl bellowed, loud enough for both Glennie and the boys at the back of the house to hear. "One! Two! _Three!_ " The moment the countdown expired, both groups made their entry into the house, guns up and ready for action.

"Find where he's hiding and flush him out," Karl instructed his team. They nodded and spread out through the ground floor of the house, the kitchen, living room and garage. "Watch your guns, I don't want any exploding in my face today!"

Accompanied by two other boys as the rest searched the floor, Karl headed straight for the garage, on the off chance Glennie could still be there. When they arrived, they saw he had bolted, but left some pretty damning evidence.

A bulging black garbage bag sat in the middle of the concrete floor. The area looked spotless, as if cleared out in a hurry. One of the boys bent down and pulled the bag open. Its contents spilled out onto the ground. Karl whistled, surprised at the sheer volume of contraband he had just uncovered.

"I've got books, toys, photographs, the lot in here," the boy reported as he rummaged through the pile and looked deeper into the bag. "Looks like our friend here was moving it. Someone must have blabbed, told him we knew about his little stash."

Karl nodded slowly. "Well that settles it. Glennie Mills is officially wanted by the enforcers of Endale for interrogation and punishment for the possession of contraband items. Let's go get 'em."

Just above the garage in his room upstairs, Glennie heard every word they said from inside his wardrobe. Sound always traveled well in this house. They would be here any second, and he knew what they would do to him if he got caught. If he stayed here, they would definitely find him, sooner or later. But if he made a run for it, there was a slight chance he could evade them for long enough to get out of this town. Something all the smarter kids had done when they got the chance.

Glennie made his choice.

He burst out of the wardrobe, right in front of two of Karl's boys. The sudden appearance of Glennie caught them off guard. As he slipped by them, one of the boys took aim with their flamethrower water gun and pulled the trigger. A stream of fire poured out and licked the wall just behind Glennie as he disappeared out of the bedroom. The boys gave chase as the flames spread, swallowing the room up in moments.

It wouldn't take much effort from one of the boys to knock the eight year old Glennie off his feet, so he had to steer clear. He bolted downstairs and slipped outside as the fire on the top floor continued to spread across the house, the wooden flooring and carpet providing little challenge for the blaze. Still in the garage, Karl smelled the smoke and looked out into the house just in time to see Glennie sprint by in a blur.

"He's down here you idiots, _get him_!" he screeched, joining the pursuit along with a few others who heard the call. He raised his weapon with both hands, a modified Super Soaker with several lethal attachments in addition to the flammable payload it already carried, such as a long kitchen knife bayonette and several broken glass fragments repurposed as throwing knives.

Glennie burst round the last corner, now with a clear view of the front door. His heart stopped when he noticed one of Karl's thugs at the door, watching for any passers-by outside the house. With Karl and the rest hot on his trail, Glennie had to get past him. He braced himself and charged as hard as he could into the unaware boy. The hapless thug flipped head-first onto the concrete steps at the foot of the front door with a horrific crack. He slid down the rest of the steps and stopped on the pavement, not moving. His water gun hit the ground and shattered. Lighter fluid sprayed all over the place, the downed boy doused liberally with the stuff.

The lit candle on the barrel of the gun did the rest. Within seconds the boy was an inferno, and Glennie could only watch as the flames consumed the body. Part of him felt sorry for him, probably only along today to keep Karl happy. But then Glennie remembered the things he had probably done to his parents, to the other adults in town. He had got what he deserved.

Before Glennie could take another step down the stairs, a powerful back-handed slap caught him in the side of his face. The impact threw him to the ground, a massive bruise already forming across his face. He tried his best to hold back the tears.

"I got him! I got him! Get over here!" the unseen boy yelled as he stood over Glennie, triumphantly pointing his flamethrower at him. The rest of the posse emerged from the house. Some reeled at the sight of the flaming body of one of their friends, but others, including Glennie's attacker were just plain furious. Anger blossomed over everyone's faces when they began to make sense of the scene before them.

Karl arrived, not even giving the flaming body a second glance. He stepped between Glennie and his captor. "What happened here?" Karl asked.

"This little _cunt_ pushed Mark down the stairs, he's dead, look at him!" the boy raved. "We can't let that slide, we have to punish him, send a message to everyone that if you burn one of us, we burn _you_!" Without warning, Karl grabbed the boy by the collar and yanked him aside. He pushed him up against the side of the house and stared at him with a distorted look of rage.

"Hey! Are you in charge here?" he said, their faces almost touching. The boy said nothing, shocked at Karl's sudden outburst.

"You saw what he did to Mark, we should—"

"I am in charge! _Me_! And only me! If I want your input I will fucking ask for it! Understand?" The boy nodded meekly and lowered his head in defeat. Karl shoved him away.

"I'm glad we've come to an understanding," Karl said, calm as he had been only moments ago. He turned his gaze to Glennie, still sprawled out on the ground on the verge of tears. The bruise almost covered half his cheek now. Karl knelt beside him, now eye level with the young boy.

"Glennie, Glennie, Glennie. What are we going to do with you?" Karl mused to himself. "This isn't the first time we've caught you trying to conceal contraband from us, isn't it?"

Glennie said nothing, only groaned in pain as he lay on the ground. The blackened body lay next to him, a pillar of smoke rising into the air above them.

"You know toys and books are the gateway back to the old ways, and we can't afford to let any of it back into our lives. It makes you a problem for everyone else, who are all willing to do what must be done to make this work. Now, I'm going to ask you a question, and you're gonna answer it for me like a good boy, okay? No lies. Now, do you have any other toys or books hidden anywhere else? Any at all? Think hard Glennie, we really need to know."

He looked up at Karl, a deep stare filled with pure hate and sorrow. "Why did you burn Mom and Dad?" he asked.

Karl seemed taken aback by the unexpected question. Despite being put on the spot by his naïve little brother, he answered. He couldn't afford to show weakness in front of the others. Karl knew all too well the punishment for acting like children in the new world.

"I cleansed them because they were a threat to us, simple as that. Ask any other kid who did what I did and they'll tell you the same thing. You just don't get it Glennie. No more parents, no more demands, no more chores, no more slavery. Now we are free to do what we want, when we want, and nobody can stop us. Think about it. You'll understand one day.

Glennie wiped away the tears in the corners of his eyes. "I miss them. Don't you miss them?" Karl ignored the question. Behind them, the flames swallowed the top floor of the house, the small fire in the bedroom spreading out to the rest of the house. It would be a charred ruin within the hour. Ashes fluttered down onto the boys like confetti. They were used to it. With their weapons of choice, burning buildings were a common sight around town nowadays.

"I'll ask you one last time Glennie. Brother to brother. Are there _any_ more toys or books stashed here, or anywhere else in town? If you tell me now, I'll try to convince the Leaders to let you keep one, since you seem so damn attached to the old ways. We'll still have to punish you for the crime of possession, but we'll allow you to have one toy with you during the sentencing. Will you work with me on this?"

Karl offered a hand down to Glennie, a bizarre gesture of kindness, especially from him. The other boys watched in confusion as their leader helped his little brother up onto his feet. Many were curious to see where he was going with this. Glennie turned to face his older brother, a defeated look on his face. If he told him about the other stash he had, at least they would let him keep one. It was better than nothing at all.

"There's another bag in the school, in Miss Jenkins' old classroom," Glennie whispered, more to himself than his brother. "It's all that's left, I swear. That's it." Karl nodded and put a hand on Glennie's shoulder. He stood and turned to face his crew.

"Go to the school, take him with you. Burn everything, the school, the bags, everything." Karl shoved Glennie over to his boys, any resemblance of compassion once again gone in an instant. And then, in a low voice he added "Glennie doesn't leave the school, understand?"

Before he could react, a vicious punch knocked him to the ground once more, the same boy from before. The friend of the dead and burned Mark. "With pleasure," he said right before Glennie closed his eyes and slipped into the darkness.

Glennie's eyes flew open. He lay in a small room, walls invisible underneath the layers of spray paint and graffiti. Stacks of chairs lined one side of the room with several large wooden desks, also covered with graffiti. As Glennie came to, he realized he _did_ know this place after all. It was a classroom. His old classroom in Endale Elementary.

Next to where he woke sat a black garbage bag, its contents spilled out onto the carpet. The toys and books he had tried to hide from the enforcers. He rummaged through it and pulled out a small stuffed bear. Another present from his parents on his second birthday. Holding it close, he headed for the door out into the hallway. When he tried to push it open, the door opened about half an inch before it jammed. Confused, he pushed harder against it. The door opened perhaps another half inch before it refused to move any further. Glennie kicked the door in frustration and pushed again with all his strength, but this time the door refused to open any further.

"Karl!" he called out through the crack in the door. "Let me out! Please!" Glennie gripped his bear even tighter when he received no response. He tried to peer outside through the tiny gap, but saw only more messy graffiti and debris. But he did smell something he knew all too well.

_Smoke_. He backed away from the door and whirled around to face the other side of the classroom. There had to be a way out of here. And then he saw it, hidden behind the stacks of chairs. The outline of a window. Glennie moved away from the door and toppled over the chairs to get closer. His eyes widened when he saw the window had been boarded up.

Behind him, smoke poured into the room at an alarming pace. Flames licked around the gap in the door, just visible from where Glennie stood. He turned his attention to the boards. They were nailed onto the window from the outside. _It's worth a shot_.

Glennie pulled one of the intact tables towards the window and climbed on top. Now high enough, he braced himself and gave the boards a kick. It hurt his foot, but it was far better than the alternative. The fire enveloped the door and started to spread to the carpet and ruined furniture. Glennie kicked the window again. And again. Still the inferno approached, fueled by the debris in the room, spreading with ease. It would be on top of him in under a minute at this rate.

The boards still refused to move. Glennie could feel the heat of the fire on his back. Over and over he kicked the boards, the blaze now only a few feet away. On what seemed like the hundredth kick, he felt movement under his foot as one of the boards shifted. Eyes wide with hope, he sat up, grabbed the loose plank and gave it a push. It fell outside onto the grass of the school grounds. It was just enough. As the fire crawled up the legs of the table, Glennie dived out through the narrow gap and tumbled outside, accompanied by a billowing cloud of thick black smoke. He coughed, his clothes battered, bloody and dark with soot. Without a second glance back at the school, he ran across the empty grounds back to the main road.

Karl and the others were nowhere to be seen. Glennie figured they would be watching the school burn from the front of the building. Miss Jenkins' old classroom sat at the southern end of the building, near the bus stops. He had finally caught a break.

Now under the assumption he had been killed in the fire, Glennie was safe, at least for now. It was the perfect time to leave this place, forever. As much as he wanted to take his brother along with him, away from the evil Leaders who had corrupted all the good left in this town, he doubted Karl would agree. Especially after he had just tried to burn his own brother alive. He was in too deep with the Leaders now to just up and leave.

Glennie could only save himself. As he ran down the winding street and watched over his back for witnesses, he couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness for the other kids who remained here, too scared of being caught and punished by the ruthless enforcers for attempting an escape. Glennie stared forward as he ran as hard as his little legs could carry him, past the vandalized _Welcome to Endale_ sign and towards the lights on the horizon. The moment he passed the city limits, he dropped his bear into the dust and kept on running, towards the faint glow of lights off in the distance.

Everyone else could stay here and live in fear, but not Glennie. For he could no longer be afraid.

Farmers

"I don't think I've seen a building for over two hours now. You can't say we're not lost, look at this place!"

Jon Hart glanced at his wife in the seat next to him, one eye still on the road ahead. Penny hadn't stopped with this talk for miles now, although he had to admit she _did_ have a point. The road they drove down had no distinguishing features whatsoever. No trees, no buildings, no signs of life at all. The desolate landscape continued for as far as Jon could see.

Penny sighed, the drawn-out, exaggerated sigh she always did whenever something bothered her. Jon remained silent. "Are you gonna turn around? This isn't the right way."

"Honey, I'm telling you this _is_ the right way," Jon said, exasperated. Penny reached forward and opened the glove box. She pulled out the old travel map they had been using to guide them across this unfamiliar corner of the countryside. Its edges were tattered and the color had long since faded, but the general layout of the roads and towns could still be seen, if you looked hard enough.

She spread the map out on her lap and ran a finger along the last road she knew for a fact they had been down. "You see? We were on the Stanley bypass, then we turned off at Bismarch and now we're...where exactly? I can't see a single road on this map which matches this one at all. This road is dead straight, and has been for miles. Every other road twists and turns all over the damn place, but not this one. I don't think we're even on this map anymore."

Jon took a brief glance at the map as the car began a slow climb up a hill. Although he hated to admit it, she was right, as usual. There wasn't a straight road on the map anywhere which could be this one. The map covered a large area too. Maybe the road hadn't existed when this map was made, or it had somehow faded away more than the rest of the map had.

Penny stared at Jon, waiting for a reply. The car reached the crest of the hill and started its smooth descent down the opposite side. Jon sighed.

"Alright, fine, I'll pull over at—"

The car shuddered from the sixty mile an hour impact and sent the vehicle into a wild spin. Penny screamed as Jon swore and wrestled with the wheel as the car lurched down the hill. The tires shrieked as the car slid across the road, throwing up a cloud of dust in its wake, following it down to the bottom of the hill where it came to an eventual grinding halt. The ordeal was over as fast as it had started, the vehicle's occupants shaken but uninjured.

"Oh my God, you hit something Jon, you hit something!"

"No, really? I couldn't tell, I was too busy trying to keep the damn car on the road!" Jon snapped. He exhaled and took his shaky hands off the wheel. They undid their seat belts, but Jon placed a hand on his wife's leg. "You stay here. I'm gonna go see what the hell that was."

Penny nodded, still nervous and jumpy from their near-death experience. She knew if Jon hadn't maintained control during their tumble downhill and the car had rolled, they would have been dead by the time they hit the bottom.

Jon opened the door and stepped outside, the dust still settling from the car's abrupt stop. He moved around to the front of the car and peered underneath, relieved and irritated at what lay underneath.

"It's okay honey, it's not alive!"

"What?" Penny's eyed widened. "That's horrible! Why would you be happy about that? It used to be alive before you went and hit it!"

"Huh? No, I don't mean it's dead, just...come out and take a look," Jon said, rubbing his temple. She joined him in front of the car, which lay perpendicular to the road. Jon pointed at the wheels.

"Look under there," he said. "Don't worry, it's not an animal or anything. Think it would've been better if it was though." Penny peered underneath the bonnet and exhaled when she saw it, relieved. It definitely wasn't an animal, far from it. The car's wheels appeared to be wrapped up in what looked like a bundle of wire. On closer inspection she noticed it was barbed wire, the needle-like prongs sticking out of the tires at hundreds of awkward angles.

"What kind of fucking idiot would leave something like this lying out in the middle of the road?" Jon muttered, the venom in his tone evident. "Jesus Christ." He took another look at the mess underneath the car while Penny watched. He wiped the sweat dribbling down his forehead off onto his sleeve. It was hot and humid out here, despite almost being dusk. The situation wasn't looking good.

"Can you pull it out?" Penny asked. Jon knelt down and reached around the barbed wire before giving it a careful tug.

"Ow!" He jerked away from the wire, clutching his hand in pain. Lesson learned, he inspected both front tires for a moment, poking his head underneath the car to get a better look at the damage. He stood up again, a grim look on his face. "That's not coming off any time soon. It's right up in the axles, and even if I managed to get it all out, the tires are gonna be full of holes. I'll only end up shredding them if I try to get the wire out."

"So we're just stuck here then?" Penny reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulled out her phone and tried to make a call. A moment later she stuffed the phone back into her pocket and kicked the front tire in disgust.

"No signal...of course there's no signal."

Jon tried his phone too, but got the same result.

"What the hell do we do now?"

"Well, I guess we better start walking," Jon said. "This road has to have someone living on it, why else would there be one way the hell out here in the first place?"

"You do know not every road in the world has to have someone living on it, right?"

Jon ignored her. He reached into the rear car window and pulled out their backpacks, both still loaded with food and water left over from their trip. It wouldn't last forever, but it had to do. Penny took her bag and hoisted it over her shoulders, as Jon did the same. They hadn't taken two steps when Jon stopped mid-stride, causing Penny to crash into his back.

"Hey! What the hell—" Penny cut herself off when she noticed what Jon had seen. It sat there on the edge of the horizon, far away but still well within walking distance. A farmstead, complete with a barn, fenced off fields and most importantly, a house.

"How didn't we see that before?" Jon murmured. He squinted through the sun and tried to get a better look at the distant farm. There didn't appear to be any activity visible from here, but it was their only hope. Penny breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"Oh thank God, there's actually someone living out here."

"What were you saying just now, about not every road having someone living on it?" Jon grinned at his wife, who returned his sarcasm with an icy glare. Penny checked her watch and looked up at the sun.

"We better start walking, it's getting late. I don't like the idea of spending the night out here." With that, they started towards the farmstead. It wouldn't be a short trip, but if it meant people, or at least tools to cut the car free of its barbed wire snare, Jon didn't care.

A short, waist high fence surrounded the property, the wood cracked and the paint faded. If people still lived here, they mustn't have been too concerned with maintaining the place. It was a mess.

Penny glanced over the fence, inspecting the place as she and Jon stood before the gate, or what remained of it. The hinges had long since rusted off and the door sat propped up against the fence, sitting in a pile of coarse sand.

"This place looks terrible," Jon said. "It doesn't look like anyone's lived here for a while. Could still be tools or something left though." Penny followed Jon into the property, hanging a few steps behind him.

"I don't like this place. It smells awful. And where are the animals?"

"It's a farm, honey. You expect it to smell like flowers and perfume?"

Jon had to agree with her though. Even for a farm, especially one with no animals, it smelled musty, rotten and decayed. If anyone still lived here, they would have noticed the two strangers on their front door by now. The place was abandoned, without a doubt. Penny groaned.

"Great. What now?"

Jon thought for a moment. "I'm sure whoever used to live here wouldn't mind if we borrowed any tools they've left behind. I'm sure they'd understand. And look." He pointed at something near the farm house, next to the left wall. "A car. Hasn't been used for ages, but we might be able to get it up and running if we can't fix ours. We'll just have a quick look around at least, then leave. How's that sound?"

Penny didn't acknowledge Jon's plan, just nervously peered behind them. Her expression said it all; she didn't want to stay here for another second.

"Okay. Sure. Whatever. But I'm not splitting up to go look for them on my own, and don't even try to convince me that's a good idea."

Jon smiled. "That's my girl. The barn should have tools somewhere, let's go check it out." They headed over to the closed twin doors, which Jon pushed open. Complete darkness greeted them, the interior of the building masked from view. Penny took one look inside and backed away. Jon pulled out his keys and flicked on a tiny keychain flashlight. It wasn't much, but any light would be an improvement.

"Yeah, I am _not_ going in there," Penny said defiantly. "I'll just wait out here. Don't be long." Jon shook his head and disappeared into the barn. Despite the flashlight, Jon couldn't see a damn thing. He could already have passed the tools he was after and not known it. The darkness in here consumed everything. Jon changed tactics and put a hand to the wall, now feeling his way through the barn. As he reached the far ends of the barn, he jerked his hand away from the wall, shaking his hand.

"Ow! Shit!" He fumbled with his flashlight, trying to see what the hell he had touched.

"You okay?" Penny's voice echoed from outside the barn. Jon glanced up from his finger.

"Yeah! I'm fine! Just pricked my goddamn finger again." He lifted the flashlight up to the wall to see what had done it this time. "Huh?"

A bundle of barbed wire sat on a low shelf before him. It looked identical to the wire tangled up underneath his car. Jon followed the shelf along with the light and found several more rolls. They didn't look like normal rolls of wire. Each one appeared modified, with a section attached to the start of the roll consisting of much larger barbs than the rest. Jon's eyes narrowed. The entire shelf was packed with the things. Why did they have so many?

Out of curiosity, Jon carefully picked up one of the rolls and lay it out onto the ground like a carpet, the wire spreading out before him with ease. As he saw it set out like this, the wire's true purpose began to dawn on him.

The long barbs at the front of the roll looked handmade, cobbled together from several smaller ones. They had been crudely affixed to the top of the roll. Each one was long, and made in a way which would make them difficult to remove from something they managed to get stuck into.

Like car tires.

Jon's eyes widened. They were _snares_. Designed to get caught up in a car's wheels and immobilize the vehicle, almost like police spike strips. For what purpose, he didn't know, or want to know. Getting the hell out of here was the only thing that mattered to him now.

A loud crash behind Jon startled him. He spun around and pointed his flashlight ahead. Another shelf, also full of the barbed wire snares had collapsed, spilling them all over the ground.

"Penny?"

Jon narrowed his eyes and sauntered over to the shelf. He had taken all of two steps when the barn echoed with the loud clanging of metal on metal again, somewhere else this time.

"Who's there?" Jon called. He stepped towards the source of the second sound, holding his breath. As he stepped around the fallen snares, hurried footsteps in the dirt just behind him caught his attention.

"Penny—?"

The sound of the metal baseball bat striking Jon across the face echoed through the barn. It felled him in a single blow. Just what the attacker had hoped. The woman outside the barn had taken two blows to drop. Lucky she slipped into unconsciousness before she could call for help.

With the help of another unseen figure in the darkness of the barn, Jon's hands and feet were bound tight with barbed wire, handled by his attackers with gloved hands. Together they dragged him back towards the barn doors, his keychain and flashlight left behind in the dirt.

A shrill scream roused Jon from his daze. His eyes fluttered open. For a split second he thought it was Penny, but it didn't sound like her at all. Too high, childlike almost.

Someone dragged him along the ground, their footsteps clattering along the wooden floorboards. Both his wrists and feet throbbed in vicious, stinging pain. It was impossible to see, still stunned thanks to whoever had hit him back in the farm. He couldn't see the person dragging him, out of Jon's field of view from his position on the floor. But slowly, things around him began to come into focus. Jon's eyes widened.

He had entered an absolute slaughterhouse. The stench overwhelmed Jon, a horrible mix of death and rotting flesh. Dried blood covered everything in sight, the floor he lay on, the walls, it was like nothing he could have ever imagined.

Jon groaned and wriggled weakly in an attempt to break free of his captors, but he knew it was useless. He craned his neck and tried to get a better view of the place.

Then he saw the kids.

A group of about ten or twelve children, all between eight and fifteen years old. All sorts of stains and dirt covered their clothing. Their faces were all but invisible underneath all the blood which splattered every inch of their bodies. Some of them looked as if their skin had been stripped off of several different sections of arms, leaving horrific red raw scars on their arms and legs.

Jon turned his head to one side, his head screaming in pain the entire time. Dragged alongside him by three of the older kids, her wrists and legs secured with barbed wire, was Penny. She was out cold.

Jon's heart sank. He couldn't even muster up the energy to call out to her. If anything, he wanted to pass out again.

He stared at the ground, his eyes half closed. He still couldn't believe the amount of blood in here. A vision of the barbed wire snares flashed into his mind. The ones inside the barn, and the one still tangled up underneath their car.

_We aren't the first ones here,_ he realized. The snares in the barn had to be for catching the unwary traveler who happened to drive down this road. If they weren't killed in the resulting accident, they would find their way here, the only hint of civilization around for miles, seeking help and instead find _this_.

Jon knew now coming here was the biggest mistake of their lives.

His captors dragged them past the lounge room, where they heard loud cries and yells from even more kids, playing and fighting on the ruined furniture. Jon saw several small bodies splayed across the ground, the children who had lost whatever vicious games were being played.

They passed the kitchen next, where Jon experienced the single most intense stench of his life. Corpses lay piled up in the corners of the room, with kids of all ages clambering over them. Some tore strips of flesh off the rotting bodies with ease and threw them into pans. They carried the pieces over to open fires built on the murky tiles and began to _cook_ them. Jon caught a glimpse of an older kid with an old rusted knife, carving a portion off a small body retrieved fresh from the lounge room and handing it to another kid to prepare on the fire. It was absolute chaos.

Jon and Penny arrived at the final stop of their brief macabre tour of the house, a room which used to be a master bedroom. The mattresses had long since been torn apart and removed, with only the metal frames left in the room, rusted and covered with blood. A red toolbox lay on the ground, inside which Jon saw knives, screwdrivers, pliers, saws and all other manner of tools and instruments. Jon started to hyperventilate.

In the corner of the bedroom sat two skeletons, the bones picked clean. They sat there as if watching the horror unfold around them. Around them lay faded photos and a stack of wallets. It almost looked like a shrine of some kind. Jon looked at the scene in horror. _Could these be the parents?_

"No, please..." Jon pleaded as his captors dragged him up onto the bed frame and secured him in place with sheets tied around his already bound wrists and legs. Penny was slumped against the wall next to the skeletons, still unconscious.

One of Jon's attackers stepped around in front of him, blocking out his view of Penny. She was a fifteen year old girl whose frayed brown hair hung down over the front of her face. In one thick, gloved hand she held a metal baseball bat, filthy from frequent use. She lay it down against the wall and reached into the toolbox on the floor, pulling out a long kitchen knife, the blade sharp and well maintained.

The girl stood by the bed next to Jon, staring at him through her wild hair. Jon struggled against his restraints, but they were tied tight. The wire only cut even further into his flesh. He wouldn't be going anywhere soon. The girl took the knife in both hands and raised it high above her head in an almost sacrificial manner, and brought it down in a violent slashing—

"Wait! Stop! Please!" a shrill voice called from somewhere next to Jon, out of his view. For a second he thought it had been Penny, but he quickly saw this wasn't the case. A tiny little girl, maybe six or seven years old appeared next to the older girl, who had to be her sister. Jon prayed as the little girl whispered into the older one's ear. Part of him hoped maybe this girl didn't want to see these two innocent people killed before her eyes. But when the older girl nodded and _handed her the knife_ , all hope disappeared in an instant.

"No, no, no! What the fuck are you doing?" Jon said. The older girl stepped aside and allowed the little girl to stand in her place. She raised the knife above her head, almost in imitation of her older sister. The little girl smiled.

"Look!" she said in the most innocent squeak Jon had ever heard in his life. "My hands don't shake anymore! They aren't shaking! Aren't you proud of me?"

The older sister smiled in approval. "Very good Eliza! Now stick him right here, just like I taught you." She pointed at a spot on Jon's chest, while Penny lay motionless against the wall with blood pouring out of a wound on her head, unable to do anything to get them out of this nightmare. As the knife pierced Jon's heart, he felt thankful Penny hadn't been conscious. She didn't need to see any of this.

Anomaly

They had never seen anything like it before in their lives. The object consisted of an abnormal black stone which seemed to absorb the morning sunlight. Even while illuminated, the strange stone monolith appeared to be in permanent darkness. It appeared out of nowhere overnight right in the middle of the narrow street, flanked by the apartment blocks of the sleepy little town of Sareen. When morning came, everyone woke to find the anomalous structure just _there_ , sticking out of the road like a spear. Calls were made to friends, relatives and law enforcement personnel for hours after the bizarre discovery. Among the hundreds of calls was one made by Terry Ronan.

Those who knew Ronan were well aware of his hobbies. Rock climbing. Hiking. Urban exploration. He had taken many friends and family members with him on many adventures over the years. He and all his associates enjoyed every second. Nobody ever refused a call from Terry Ronan. He had seen it all, abandoned train stations, derelict factories, unexplored forests.

So when he woke to find an immense black stone tower looming in the middle of town, he snatched up his phone, called up the usual people and asked them somewhat cryptically if they wanted to climb the _anomaly of Sareen_ with him. It got their attention easy enough, just as Ronan hoped. So there they stood, Ronan and three of his closest friends, the sun barely halfway over the horizon yet. Ronan quivered with excitement as he stared at the anomaly, and after fifteen minutes, he couldn't wait another second.

"Come on, we better get up there before the cops cordon the thing off," he said. Ronan and his group broke off from the crowd and entered the adjacent apartment building, the closest structure to the black stone tower. With early attempts to scale the anomaly all failing, their climbing pitons unable to make a dent in the strange black stone, jumping onto the tower from the nearby apartments was the only other option.

"Slow down, this thing isn't going anywhere...I think," Karen Lartey said as they scaled the stairs in the apartment block two at a time. "You know how slow the police are to respond to calls out here, we have plenty of time." She smiled knowingly at Ronan.

Slender and fit, Karen had accompanied Ronan on almost every one of his expeditions since they had met in high school. The two had become fast friends, and had been close for almost ten years now. Those who knew her and Ronan often joked the two were made for each other, both sharing identical traits, such as their commitment to the task at hand and the dogged determination to finish what they started. She had never turned down one of Ronan's invitations, and wasn't about to start now, especially with the unusual way he had pitched this one. It wasn't every day you got to climb an anomaly.

Bringing up the rear were the other two members of their group: Harrison Drenter and Timothy James. While Ronan was short and surprisingly tough for his size, Harrison and Timothy were powerhouses by comparison. Both stood a full head taller than Ronan. They also carried bulging backpacks over their shoulders with ease, holding all the gear and supplies they would need for their climb. Ronan referred to the two as the _pack mules_ , a nickname they accepted with open arms. No matter how much they had to carry, they would carry it all, and then some, with ease. For today their packs held cameras, batteries, medical supplies, food and water. The usual gear for these kinds of outings.

The group reached the top of the stairs soon enough. Ronan opened the door out onto the rooftop, where they would make the jump over to the anomaly. Not an easy jump by any means, especially for Harrison and Timothy with their heavy packs, but doable. Harrison pulled a camera out of his backpack and started to film. Being the budding film maker of their group, he was always looking for content to edit together at home later into a video. This trip would surely provide him with a bounty of intriguing footage.

"So here we are, about to make the jump down onto the anomaly of Sareen," he said to the camera lens. "Since we can't climb it from street level, we've had to improvise. I don't know whether we're gonna all jump down at once or one at a time, but either way it's gonna be a hell of a show!"

Timothy stuck his face between Harrison and the camera. "I swear if that camera is still rolling when we jump I'm gonna throw the damn thing off the edge myself."

Harrison turned the camera around in his hands and stared into the lens, deadpan. "If I don't make the jump, I want it on record that Timothy is a hard-ass." He paused the recording and stuffed the camera back into his bag. Karen giggled at their exchange.

"Okay, you all know the drill," Ronan said as he stretched his legs, limbering up for the difficult jump. "Get a good run up, I don't think anyone wants a repeat of Preaere Forest." Timothy's eyes narrowed. He still had a bit of a limp from when he fell down a narrow crevasse and had to be carried back to camp by Karen and Ronan. They'd never let him live that one down.

Below them on the street, a lot fewer townspeople remained gathered around the anomaly. Ronan wasn't surprised. Nobody knew what the hell this thing was, for all they knew it could have been radioactive, so they understandably kept their distance. But this was the kind of thing Ronan and his friends lived for. One by one, with Karen first, they braced themselves and sprinted hard towards the edge of the rooftop. Karen flew through the air, almost appearing to hover in the air for a few moments before she dropped and landed on the top of the anomaly. She stuck her landing and rolled to a complete stop, uninjured.

Timothy and Harrison jumped next. The two managed the jump easily enough, considering the extra weight they both carried with them. Ronan jumped last, landing hard on the black stone next to Karen. He rose and brushed himself off. "Nice! See? Wasn't too bad of a jump now was it?" Ronan said. He looked to Karen for a response, but she ignored him, her attention focused on something else. Timothy and Harrison stared ahead too, not listening to him. Ronan looked up and saw an impossible sight.

"What the...?"

In front of them lay a veritable _field_ of stone. It was as if they weren't even in Sareen anymore. They had not landed on the same thing they had jumped onto, that was for sure. The top of the stone tower hadn't been any larger than a car, but now the area they stood on appeared to be the size of an airfield.

Harrison pulled out his camera again and switched it on. "You guys are _not_ gonna believe this shit, for real," he told the lens. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."

Karen broke her long silence. "This is impossible...what _is_ this thing?" Ronan and Timothy just stared in awe at the black plains. Ronan's mind boggled with the possibilities. _Another planet? Another dimension? It has to be._ He turned around to look back at the apartment building behind them. But somehow, the building had disappeared, vanished into a dark mist.

"Where the hell did it go? Where's the building?" Ronan said. He ran to the edge of the stone field and peered down below. Sareen was gone. No streets, no people, only an unnatural black mist shrouding the endless black abyss. Timothy took one look over the edge and reeled away in a panic.

"What the hell man, buildings don't just disappear like that! Where are we?" He crossed his arms and stepped back, glancing around with fearful eyes. The field felt as if it grew larger by the second. Had to be a trick of the light. Other tiny movements flickered around in the corners of his eyes, only making him freak out even more.

In stark contrast to Timothy, Harrison documented everything his camera could, narrating over it all in a giddy, excited tone. He walked towards the middle of the field, pointing the camera all over the place, until he came to a stop.

"Woah! Hey you guys! There's a cave over here! This shit is _awesome_!" he chuckled. Ronan jogged over to him, while Karen put a hand behind Timothy's back and escorted him over.

"It's okay buddy, we'll leave soon, don't worry," she told him. Even with her velvety, soothing voice, it didn't help Timothy's nerves. If anything, it only made him feel worse. This trip had already gone on long enough.

"Terry!" she called over to Ronan, who stared down into the cave with a hungry look in his eyes. "We shouldn't stay here! Tim is pretty freaked out, can we find a way off of this thing? Soon?"

"But...just _look_ at this place! Look at this cave!" Ronan gestured towards the chasm before him. "You can't say you don't wanna have a look down there! In and out, Tim can wait outside, just until Harry gets some decent footage...whaddya say?"

Karen clearly wasn't comfortable staying here any longer than they had to, but she still had the glint of adventure still in her eyes. She sighed.

"Okay. A few minutes. But that's _it_. We try to find a way back after. Got it?"

Ronan knew not to push his luck with Karen. He nodded. "Okay. Harry, turn that off for a second, I need a hand with the gear."

"Dude...there's something glowing down there." Harrison aimed his camera down into the chasm. Ronan looked down and saw he was right. A faint yellow glow, obscured by stone platforms lay far inside. To get a better look though, they would have to head inside.

"What is it?" Karen said as she and Timothy joined the other two at the entrance. She sniffed the air above the chasm. "Weird. It smells like honey down there." Timothy avoided looking down into the mouth-like crevasse, but Harrison remained entranced by it all, staring deep into the twisted dreamscape beneath them through his camera.

"This has to be some sort of, I dunno, like another dimension or something. What do you think—?"

The rock beneath their feet crumbled away into dust, without warning. No cracks or shifting of stone underneath them, no sound at all to warn them of the imminent disaster. The solid rock under all four of them just evaporated, throwing the entire party into the depths of the cave.

Timothy screamed all the way down. He hit several of the stone plateaus with horrific muffled thumps. The hapless guy landed into a massive yellow pool at the bottom of the cave and disappeared under the surface, silencing his screams in seconds. He surfaced moments later, his body rigid with complete and total paralysis. Timothy vanished again when the current washed him away into an unseen part of the cave. The whole ordeal was over in seconds.

Harrison landed hard on one of the platforms near the bottom, close to the steaming yellow river. He toppled over and screamed, both his legs broken from the fall, injured, but alive.

Ronan and Karen reacted the moment they felt the ground disappear. Years of climbing compelled them to lunge out for something, anything to arrest their fall. They both caught a ledge not too far from the top of the cave, almost yanking their arms from their sockets, but a move which saved their lives. Rocky debris rained down into the cavern into the paralyzing river below.

Karen and Ronan hoisted themselves up onto their narrow plateau, both shaking from their near death experiences. Ronan looked down at the river and cursed. "Oh _shit_ , Tim! No no no no!" He slumped onto his back and looked up where they had fallen in. His terror only escalated as a result. "Where's the hole? The fucking hole is gone! _Fuck!"_ Above him, it was as if the rock hadn't even collapsed. Their only way in had disappeared. They were trapped down here.

Harrison rolled around in agony down on his ledge, clutching his broken legs. "Oh God, Terry! Karen! Help!" Karen shuffled to the edge of her and Ronan's platform and peeked down at their injured friend.

"Harry! Jesus, are you alright?" she called.

"No, I'm not _alright_. My legs are fucked!" Harrison glanced next to him and saw the camera on the stone, intact and undamaged. "How the hell did the camera get less fucked up than I did?" He forced a painful laugh, which degenerated into a coughing fit. "Man, I can hardly breathe down here. Air's so sweet."

"We're gonna try to climb down to you, okay?" Karen said. She inspected the walls of the cavern, searching for a safe way down to Harrison. The walls were sheer stone, the same stuff the exterior of the anomaly consisted of. Climbing to him wasn't an option. Karen considered jumping down to Harrison's platform, but decided against it. It was possible, but dangerous. She would just end up lying next to Harrison if she didn't stick the landing, or like Timothy if she missed the narrow platform.

Ronan snapped out of his panic, a thought coming to him. "You still have rope in your pack?" he called, eyeing the backpack Harrison still carried with him. He could almost see the glint in the guy's eyes as he realized he had a chance. Harrison lifted the bag off and pawed through it. He pulled out a long spool of rope and grinned. "Yeah, it's still here!"

"Throw it up to me!"

As Karen watched the exchange between the two, she heard a strange sound from somewhere underneath them. It sounded almost like a swarm of bees. It was barely a whisper at the moment but it escalated and grew louder and louder with each passing second.

Harrison heard it as well. He stepped up his efforts with the rope, unrolling it before he did his best to throw it up to Ronan. Throwing rope had never been a huge challenge for him. But with two broken legs and in unbearable pain, the stress was starting to get to him. The rope hovered in space about five feet out of Ronan's grasp before it sailed back down to him.

"It's too fucking short!" he cried. The relentless droning only continued to escalate, drowning out his calls. He glanced around, looking for any other way he could get up to Ronan. A closer platform, a connecting bridge, anything. But as the buzzing became a horrific, deafening roar, he realized it was too late.

" _My God..."_ Ronan breathed as he watched, helpless from his vantage point. Karen covered her mouth and looked away. She tried not to vomit as the most horrific thing she had ever seen in her life unfolded before her.

What could only be described as a _wall_ of insects swept across the width of the cavern where Harrison lay. They were grotesque, fist-sized chitin plated monsters. Ronan and Karen couldn't see them well from where they knelt, but Harrison had a front seat view of the approaching wall of insects.

Every one flew with their fangs bared, dripping with the same yellow fluid they had seen underneath their feet. Harrison screamed as the cloud engulfed him. For a full ten seconds he was invisible underneath the bugs. Ronan heard the screams stop after three.

The swarm continued on and disappeared somewhere on the opposite side of the cavern, leaving Harrison in their wake. Karen choked back a cry when she saw what remained.

He was unrecognizable. His face, arms and every other area of exposed flesh had been shredded. Flaps of skin hung off him like tattered paper. Splashes of the horrific yellow substance lay everywhere. His clothes were all but torn apart. It had all happened so fast.

Ronan and Karen stared at each other in stunned silence. The buzz of the swarm had faded to a whisper once again. Now Ronan knew what they shared this place with, he wasn't eager to stay here for another second.

_Was this some kind of nest, or a hive? It had to be,_ Ronan thought. Those creatures were not normal; he hadn't seen anything like them in his life. He slumped down next to Karen, the silence unnatural.

Karen started to cry deep, muffled sobs into her open palms. Ronan almost felt like doing the same. The way they had fallen in was still nowhere to be seen. _How do we get out of here?_

"We're trapped!" Karen wailed. "Harry and Tim had all our gear, and look what happened to them! Oh God, what are we going to do?" She broke down into tears again.

"Hey, just...take a breath. Calm down." Ronan grabbed her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes, their noses an inch from one another. "We are getting out of here, you understand me? We're gonna find a way out of this place, I _promise_ you."

Karen sniffed and didn't reply for a moment, but soon nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. It hurt to see her like this; Karen had never broken down like this before. Even in the most stressful and life-threatening situations, she remained composed and calm. But not today.

Ronan stood, giving Karen a helping hand on his way up. "Okay, I'm thinking we should—"

He choked mid-sentence when he heard the familiar buzz once again, now louder than ever, and only getting louder. He looked over the edge of the platform and immediately regret it. The entire lower half of the cavern was invisible underneath the river of insects flowing through the place. The swarm looked even thicker than before, perhaps only leaving earlier to collect the rest of the colony. Karen went to look over the edge with fearful eyes, but Ronan pulled her back.

"No. You don't want to see that."

The two embraced, Karen burrowing her face into Ronan's shoulder as the swarm swept up over the platform, the drone of their wings deafening. "It'll be over soon," Ronan whispered before the wall engulfed the two of them.

When the bugs moved on almost a full minute later, nothing remained apart from puddles and splashes of yellow goo. It was as if Ronan and Karen had never been there.

Stowaways

There wasn't a single pair of eyes on Willow Beach not fixated on the incredible sight just offshore. Everyone had seen a cruise ship before, but nobody appreciated just how enormous one of these ships were in person.

Beach-goers had spotted the ship off in the distance a few hours ago, and soon noticed it was heading straight towards the beach. Some thought it would change course, but it only glided closer and closer, soon coming to a halt just off the sandy shore.

As Clive Warner watched the motionless ship, he sighed. Perfect, just what I need on my damn vacation. He grabbed his phone and dialed a number. Warner brushed his sandy golden hair from his eyes and held the phone to his ear.

"Dispatch, Warner here. I'm gonna need some uniforms down at Willow Beach, got a cruise ship sitting just off shore, hasn't moved in some time now. Might be stuck on a sand bar or something," he said. The people down on the sand with him stared at the ship, some with snapping photos with their phones. "Yep, an honest to God cruise ship."

"Copy that, sending everyone we can spare. Should we notify medical services as well?"

Warner looked the ship up and down, trying to get a good look at the deck. There wasn't a single person in sight. Something didn't feel right. The ship sat in an unnatural silence, its engines still. Strange, especially since it had been in perfect working condition minutes ago.

"Wouldn't hurt, let 'em know. Thanks Dispatch." Warner hung up and headed back up the beach to the main road to wait for backup. He made a quick stop at his car and put his uniform on over his surfing gear, long black pants and his jacket. The gun wouldn't be necessary, so he left it in his glove compartment. He was off duty, after all.

The police cars and ambulances arrived soon after, a force of eighty men and women. They poured out onto the beach; paramedics, rescue teams and uniformed officers. Warner followed them at a distance, not exactly thrilled to be back on the job like this. After close to a year of non-stop, stressful work at the station, and a particularly nasty investigation in recent days, he had needed this vacation. But now with this cruise ship popping up on the first day of his vacation, he might as well have stayed at work.

"Hey Clive, what're you doing here? I thought you were on leave!" someone called from behind him. Warner turned to see Laura Kline, a paramedic from Willow General, a long-time friend and colleague. She looked alert and ready to work, as usual, in stark contrast to Warner who looked like he had just woken up with his dark eyes and pock-marked face.

"I thought so too," Warner said, slowing his pace to walk alongside Kline down to the beach. "But here I am, ready and unwilling."

Kline playfully punched Warner in his side. "Aw come on, surely you want to spend your day helping people? It's not too bad once you get used to it, trust me."

"That's all I've been doing for the past year. I need a break from everything, but I guess someone up there doesn't want me to have one. It's just grand."

Kline smirked. "You'll get over it when we board that ship, see what's up. Maybe something up there'll convince you to postpone your vacation, get back to work because you miss it so much?"

"Uh huh. I doubt it. Let's get this over with. It's probably nothing. Captain fell asleep at the helm, equipment or engine malfunction, who knows."

Kline flashed her best smile at Warner. "See? You live for this stuff, there's no getting away from it. Just roll with the punches, let this play out. It'll be fun!"

"I think my definition of fun is a bit different to yours, Laura."

The group reached the shoreline, where a perimeter was quickly established. Officers escorted onlookers away from the ship. Some people had tried to climb up on board, with little success. After too long, they closed the beach and sent the patrons away to let the team do their work. The situation on the ship still wasn't known. Nobody on board had shown up yet, a fact which worried Warner.

Rescue teams brought small boats down onto the beach to get them closer to the ship. Groups of five or six floated out, equipped with ropes and climbing gear to get on board. It wasn't elegant, but there were no other ways to get up there, so this would have to do. The calm waters made the entire boarding process quick and painless, with everyone aboard the ship in about fifteen minutes.

Warner and Kline were the last people to board. Kline reached into her bag of medical gear and pulled out a long flashlight. She flicked it on and off, testing the batteries.

"So you called this in?" Kline asked as they walked across the deck, passing fallen chairs, flipped tables and a dusty rundown bar. Many bottles remained unopened on their shelves. Nobody in sight.

"Yep, lucky me I guess. Just happened to wash up right where I was trying to have a break from all this and ruin my vacation."

They passed the bar and joined up with the rest of the group, who gathered around the stairs into the shop. A few had already headed inside. Quiet conversations between the cops and paramedics were all discussing the same thing: where were the passengers?

The thought had crossed Warner's mind. Nobody aboard had even tried to call down from the ship for help or otherwise. A cruise ship of this size should be teeming with people, if not passengers then at least the crew. To have seen nobody at all troubled Warner, and he knew it worried the others too. He prayed they wouldn't be needing the paramedics' help today. But with each passing second, his hope diminished.

Warner and Kline stood before the steps down into the ship. No lights were on inside as far as they could see. Good thing Kline had brought a flashlight with her. Few others had brought their own.

"Sweet Jesus..." a voice from somewhere down the steps gasped." Medic! Medic! I need help down here, right fucking now! Oh my God..."

Warner frowned. Cops and paramedics rushed down the stairs and disappeared into the ship. Kline flicked on her flashlight as she entered, with Warner sticking close by. The cops who brought their own switched them on as well. Within moments they were inside, plunged into total darkness, save for the flashlight beams. And then the smell hit them.

It was amazing how nobody had noticed it on the upper deck. The moment Warner entered the ship the smell became clear. Rotting flesh. The smell of a decomposing corpse wasn't a stench you easily forgot. Warner had seen plenty of them in his thirty years of law enforcement.

The cop who had shouted for help reeled backwards, wide eyed in shock. He raised a quivering finger and pointed into the darkness. The poor bastard was a nervous wreck. Warner inched forward, borrowing Kline's flashlight and shone it into the corridor before them.

Kline put a hand over her mouth and looked away. Warner too was speechless. Nobody said a word as they took it all in.

The hallway before them was lined with bodies, all slumped up against the walls in varying states of decay and mutilation. Men, women and children, at least forty they could see from where they stood. Some were missing body parts; legs, arms, even a few heads. Warner had seen some horrific shit in his career: countless murders, domestic violence cases, even the aftermath of a particularly twisted individual cutting up bodies for their organs up north. But nothing compared to the slaughterhouse which lay before them.

It was some time before anybody said something. "Fuck me..." Warner breathed, holding the flashlight still on the scene. Few people stayed inside the ship after they saw what lay inside. Many scrambled back up the stairs towards fresh air. Some vomited all over the deck. The discovery chilled Warner to the core. But he took a step forward towards the bodies, the only person yet to do so. He moved around a body lying spread-eagled across the corridor, almost torn in two. The blood beneath the body had dried a long time ago, he noted. The corpse itself hadn't aged well either, its skin as wrinkled and dry as the blood it lay upon. Somebody had a field day with these people. Someone incredibly sadistic and vicious in nature.

"What the hell happened here?" Kline whispered into Warner's ear, making him jump. He sighed, thinking about what he had seen so far. The ship, the bodies, the blood. So much blood.

"I don't know what to make of this," he murmured before stepping away from the body. "Need more information. Not gonna get what I need here. We need to go further into the ship. Maybe there's still someone alive down there." Warner never noticed he and Kline were the only people still at the base of the stairs inside the ship. Everyone else had evacuated back up to the deck to escape the stench of death.

"Wait wait wait, you want to go further inside? Are you insane? What if the person who did this is still down there, did you think about that?" Kline said. She eyed the bodies before her, looking away again when she saw one whose head had been viciously torn from the rest of the corpse.

"Of course I want to go further down. And you're coming with me." Warner stared into Kline's eyes. "If there are more bodies anywhere else on the ship, we need to find them. I want to see how long they've been in here and exactly how they died. You might see something I miss. Look, I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks."

Kline wasn't comfortable with the task at hand, but in the end, defeated, she just nodded.

Warner clapped his hands together. "Okay, let's get this over with." He strode down the hallway, navigating around the bodies as he went. Kline hesitated, but soon trailed behind Warner, the flashlight beam guiding them through the pitch black halls.

The journey deeper into the ship wasn't pleasant. Bodies only increased in number as they progressed, as did the horrific injuries and dismemberment. Warner stopped by a corpse slumped against the left wall, next to a locked door. The guy's face was lowered, and only looked as if he was in a deep sleep. But the coils of intestines splattered across his bloody stomach suggested otherwise. Warner guessed this had been one of the ship's crew members. Nothing here helped shed any light on the situation, so they moved on.

Eerie sounds echoed throughout the ship corridors, sending shivers down Warner's spine. He glanced at Kline and figured she felt the same way. It's almost like a horror film, he thought. Warner never did appreciate those kinds of movies; his job often offered up far more horrifying sights than any movie ever could.

With each area of the ship Warner led Kline through, only more bodies lay to greet them. A cafe they stumbled across on one of the lower decks only served to disturb them even more. The bodies inside had been posed, with each chair in the cafe seating a body, all rotted and falling apart. Whoever did this had even placed plates of food and glasses of wine on each table, Warner noted. Other bodies littered the floor, not posed as the rest had been, tossed aside like useless trash. They had to have been killed elsewhere and dragged around the ship. The two left the grisly scene and continued deeper into the dark halls.

They soon ended up at two double doors, all closed and covered with bloody hand prints. Kline stared at them, horrified. Warner flung the doors wide open. The flashlight beam only lit up a fraction of the huge room before them, but even that was more than enough.

Inside the hall, which appeared to be some sort of ballroom, stood hundreds of people, shoulder to shoulder, wearing fancy dresses, tuxedos and other smart attire. But something wasn't right. Warner saw it in the dim light, only just noticeable, but definitely there.

Each person had been strung up with thin wires, and hung there like puppets, engaged in a silent, still show. Some had been arranged to look as if they were dancing with another person in an eerie embrace. The hall echoed with Warner's footsteps as he approached the nearest body to take a look. This guy had been dead for quite a while, with his face hollow and skin peeling off. Warner touched the wires implanted in the body's hands and feet, and ran a finger up as far as he could reach. They all led up to somewhere high above them, a spot on the roof which the flashlight couldn't illuminate from here.

Was this all some sort of sick show, or a display? The manner each body had been meticulously posed and dressed chilled Warner to the core. There had to be hundreds of bodies in here. Who could have done this, and why?

"I don't think we should stay here," Kline said. "This place is bad news. We're in way above our heads, we should just go back up to the others and wait for backup. Did it occur to you the guy who did this might still be in here?"

Warner shook his head. "No. We can handle this. I want to know what happened on this ship." And kill the bastard responsible.

"Listen to me Clive," Kline said, grabbing Warner's shoulder. "We shouldn't be here. There has to be two hundred bodies down here, and those are just the ones we've seen so far. This is something for the FBI or something to look into, not us. Let's just get the hell out of here, secure the area with the others and wait for backup."

The fearful quavering of Kline's voice made Warner pause. He had never heard her this shaken up before, and she had seen some pretty terrible things in her career. Maybe she was right. This was way too big for a single paramedic and a vacationing cop.

"Okay," Warner said with a slight hint of disappointment. "Let's get the hell out of here." They left the ballroom and closed the door behind them, leaving the poor victims inside to hang. Backtracking to the stairs was slow, they had to move carefully to avoid contaminating the crime scene.

As they inched their way back, Warner considered everything he had seen so far and tried to make sense of it all. This place was being used to collect and hold bodies, and had been for some time. Some sort of personal graveyard, of sorts. Had to be the passengers, although some wore unusual clothes to see on a cruise ship. Maybe some of them had stumbled aboard the ship, like Warner had.

The last thought chilled him to the core. He wasn't sure why he had even considered it. Warner pushed the thought from his mind.

They had almost reached the stairs back up to the ship's deck. Warner shot another glance at the bodies one last time as he passed them, before stopping at the crew member who he had seen earlier.

"Wait, hold on," he said, coming to a halt as soon as he noticed it. Kline looked too, just as confused as Warner. An empty space remained instead of the body which had lay there only minutes ago. The coil of intestines sat there in its place, as well as the hat he had been wearing. The body itself though was gone.

Has someone moved the body? Warner didn't believe the other cops or paramedics had the nerve to get this far into the ship, so the possibility of one of them moving the body was low. They wouldn't want to disturb the crime scene. There was only one other possibility: they were not alone.

"We need to get out of here, right now. This is not good," Warner urged.

"What? Where's the dead crew member?" Kline asked. Warner shone the flashlight behind him, catching a brief glimpse of movement behind them.

"I don't think he's dead," Warner whispered. He ushered Kline along through the corridor towards the stairs. "And I don't think he's a crew member either."

As if on cue, a sinister chuckle echoed through the corridor. It bounced off the walls, sounding as if it were coming from everywhere at once. But each echo sounded different, some deeper and others quieter, further away. Warner cursed. They weren't alone in here at all. Far from it. Loud footsteps thundered towards them, the cackles getting clearer by the second.

"Run! Fucking run! Get the hell out of here!" Warner bellowed as he shoved the petrified Kline ahead. She didn't seem to have realized yet how much shit they were both in. There wasn't just one killer on this ship. They had been laying among their victims in an effort to snare even more prey. How many had they passed on their way down here?

Warner and Kline darted ahead, the preservation of the crime scene now the last thing on their minds. Each step they took could be their last. A single lapse in concentration, and one of them could be on the ground and at the mercy of their pursuers. They rounded the corner, and met daylight, the stairs leading back up to the deck. None of the other cops were in sight. Must still be up on the deck.

Warner stomped up the steps with Kline close by. When they burst outside, his heart sank.

No cops or paramedics remained on the deck. None who were still alive. There were, however, at least thirty strangers, covered from head to toe in blood, all wielding rusted knives, improvised clubs and other makeshift weapons. Some knelt over the dead cops and paramedics, stripped them of their uniforms and gear and put it all on.

Warner thought back to the crew member. It had been a disguise, he realized. And now they had brand new ones in the form of police and paramedic uniforms, some of the most trusted professions around. If they got off the ship with those, who knew what they would use them for. They had to warn someone in town otherwise there would be no end to the bloodshed.

As every single person on the deck turned to face them, Warner instinctively reached for his pistol, only to grab at empty space. He had left it in his car. Shit, shit, shit. A stupid rookie mistake. And a mistake which could mean the end of his life, and countless others.

The crazed men and women roared and charged, weapons raised high above their heads, thirsty for blood. Warner grabbed Kline's arm and ran with her towards the only possible way off this ship: the edge. The drop looked long, and would land them in shallow water, but anything would be better than the certain death they faced up here.

"We need to jump! Now!" Warner said as they clambered up onto the railing. Kline looked at him as if he were insane.

"What? That water's nowhere near deep enough, we'll break our goddamn necks!"

"They'll tear us apart if we stay up here any longer! We jump now!"

Warner and Kline plummeted together down into the water below, bracing for impact. They landed uninjured, the beach at high tide this time of day. The two crawled to shore, adrenaline rushing through their veins, not looking back. Nobody remained on the beach, the area cordoned off until the ship situation was resolved. The people on the ship mustn't have gone ashore yet.

All the empty cop cars and emergency vehicles remained on the road just next to the beach, up the hill. They both made a sprint towards Warner's vehicle, which he flung open and pulled his fully loaded pistol out.

"Get behind me Laura," he ordered. Kline ducked behind the car as Warner took aim down his sights towards the beach, covering the entire area. Any movement at all, he would pull the trigger. The beach was easily defendable from here, with sheer cliffs flanking each other side of the beach, this hill the only way in and out of the area.

He stood there, gun aimed down at the beach and watched the ship with unblinking eyes. Kline sat against the car and sobbed softly. Warner waited in anticipation, waited for just one of those bastards to show their face. He wouldn't lose a wink of sleep putting down one of the people responsible for the horror show in the ship.

"Grab my radio, get some backup down there. If they come ashore, there's no way I can hold them all back by myself." She nodded and reached into the car and spoke into the mouthpiece, her voice shaking with fear. Warner didn't hear a word she said. He concentrated on the beach, still waiting for someone to appear.

As more and more time passed though, he didn't see a thing on the beach. Nobody left the ship either as far as he could see. But Warner didn't dare lower his weapon. It would only take a second's lapse in concentration to let someone escape. After nearly ten minutes of no activity, Warner frowned. What the hell were they doing up there?

Movement caught his eye. It took Warner completely by surprise, and for a second he could only watch in total shock.

"What the...no. No, no, NO!" he yelled. Warner vaulted over the bonnet and began a mad dash back down to the beach. Kline glanced up from the radio and watched the surreal scene play out before her. Warner made it halfway down to the ship, which then started to sluggishly back out of the Willow Beach inlet. The entire crime scene, close to eighty dead cops and paramedics, and the people responsible, just drifting back out to sea.

"Stop!" Warner shouted, his voice hoarse with anger. He splashed into the water and tried his best to catch up to the ship, but he knew it was useless. The ship had already cleared the inlet, its engines roaring once again. It headed out to the horizon, unable to be stopped. Warner continued to pursue the ship as far as he could swim, even though he knew it was pointless. The ship was gone in the space of a minute, disappearing behind a rocky outcrop. God knew where the hell it would go now. He closed his eyes and cursed to himself.

Kline ran down the sand back on the beach, accompanied by a squad of SWAT forces and armed police. They must have arrived moments ago, responding swiftly to her call for backup. The squad stopped on the shoreline when they saw Warner crawl back onto the beach. He was drenched, and shook with anger as he trudged back up to the car, a dead stare in his eyes.

Warner ignored the barrage of questions the responders asked him as he pushed his way past them. He could only think about the floating hellhole he had just let back into the world with even more bodies than it had started with.

He made a silent vow as he reached his car and shut himself inside, a vow to all the men and women who had lost their lives on the ship, both today and in the past. Warner would be there when the stowaways and their ship washed up on the next beach somewhere.

And he would be ready for them.

Mind Games

Vicki Hermanson pushed her trolley across the supermarket floor, weaving around the other shoppers she shared the aisles with. It wasn't usually this busy here at the Alville Market. It felt far busier than normal to Vicki, with the store packed in comparison to their usual meagre number of customers.

Alville had been Vicki's home for several months, ever since moving out west after some rather grim events came to light in her old home town. She hoped to put it all behind her, and so far coming to Alville seemed to have worked. Sure, she had left everything and everyone she had known back there, but she _needed_ a new start. And Alville had fit the bill perfectly. New friends had been easy enough to make, after getting involved in the community and various events. And the town itself wasn't too bad either. Nice and quiet, just what she was looking for

Despite being a bit older than some of her friends, they treated Vicki all the same. She was in her mid-forties, with shoulder-length auburn hair which she kept tied behind her head in a small bun. She could be kind when she wanted to, which was most of the time, but if something irritated her, she wouldn't let it bottle up. It was one of the qualities her new friends appreciated. She was honest and would stand up for herself and others when necessary.

She moved up the alley and took crackers and bread and other groceries off the packed shelves and stashed them into her trolley. If she wrapped up her shopping fast today, she would have enough time for a quick rest before her outing with co-workers later in the evening. Today had been a long day.

It took a bit longer than Vicki thought, but she placed the last item in her cart and headed for the registers. She stopped at register four after she noticed its queue shrinking fast in comparison to the rest.

Vicki actually knew the cashier at this register, a quiet, mousy girl named Kim Frawler. The two had never really talked much, but Vicki knew she was one of the nicer people who worked here. She would go out of her way to solve problems, and despite being under pressure to serve her customers quickly, she kept her cool and never lost her head. Vicki admired that.

She was also a pretty little thing, about half Vicki's age with a short crop of brown hair and radiant green eyes. But as far as Vicki knew, Kim had never been a social person. Most advances from other men were politely declined, and Vicki rarely saw her around town other than here at work. She guessed Kim didn't have many friends here, which surprised her.

"Next please," Kim said, smiling at the customer, who said their goodbyes and left. Including herself, there were three people left in the queue, with about five or six in the queues of the other seven registers. Vicki didn't know the first person, but unfortunately, she knew the second.

Chris Haggerty's mere presence made Vicki feel uneasy. She had heard stories from her friends of just how much of a prick the guy could be, but had the good fortune to not have seen it with her own eyes yet. The man was in his late thirties, with a rough unshaven beard covering most of his lower jaw and dark brown eyes which seemed to stare right through you. Every story Vicki had heard about him usually involved extreme overreactions for trivial reasons. Such as the time he knocked his coffee onto the ground at the local cafe after the waitress used the wrong kind of milk in it. Or when he tried to return a new phone but was refused due to the store's policy. Haggerty threw the phone at the sales assistant's head, almost taking his eye out. Vicki made a point of avoiding the guy whenever possible, an easy task considering the meager size of Alville.

Haggerty's turn in line came, and he dumped the few item he had onto the conveyor. Vicki watched curiously, wondering how Kim would handle him. She guessed Kim would try to get him served and out of the store as fast as she could. But no, she treated him the same as every other customer who had preceded him today.

"Hi sir, how are you today?" Kim said, flashing her best smile at Haggerty. He didn't return the gesture, only grunted and threw one more last-second item onto the conveyor. Kim wasn't fazed though, and continued to make friendly conversation. _She's good_ , Vicki thought as she watched and waited her turn. Kim scanned each of Haggerty's items and loaded them into plastic bags. The whole exchange was over as soon as it began.

"Okay, that'll be forty three seventy five," Kim said as she totaled the order on her register. Haggerty's eyes narrowed.

"Excuse me, what?" he said, frowning at Kim. "That's not right. I bought these exact items two days ago and there's no way they were forty three dollars."

Undaunted, Kim picked up a small notebook next to her register and flicked through it. After a moment she closed it and turned back to Haggerty. "There's been a slight price increase on some of these items, the price tags mustn't have been changed yet, I'm sorry."

She remained pleasant throughout the conversation, but Haggerty's mood darkened by the second. "I'm not paying that. Change the price back, I can't afford it."

"I'm sorry you feel that way sir," Kim said. "I can get my manager over here if you wish to talk with him instead."

Haggerty shook his head. "I'm already talking with you, this is easily fixed."

"Sorry, sir, I'm going to have to get the manager."

Kim reached over to the intercom next to her register, but to Vicki's surprise, Haggerty reached over the counter and seized Kim's arm.

"You sort this out right now or I'm taking this stuff and leaving."

Kim looked down at her arm and the back up at Haggerty, still calm and polite as ever. "Sir, let me go or I'm going to call security." Haggerty ignored her, instead leaning over the counter and groping blindly for the notebook Kim had been looking at earlier. Vicki watched aghast, shocked at how fast the situation had escalated. Just like the stories.

"Gimme a look at that book! I know this place has it out for me, I know they've told you to charge me more than everyone else!" Haggerty ranted, still keeping a tight grip on Kim. Kim started to struggle, trying to free herself.

"Let me go, you-you're...hurting me!" she begged as she tried to yank her arm away, but failed to escape from Haggerty.

The other shopper in the queue backed off and ran back into the store. "I'm getting security!" she said before she vanished into the aisles. Shoppers and staff at the other registers stopped what they were doing and watched as Haggerty grew more and more infuriated. Kim was a lot stronger than she looked. She managed to hold Haggerty away pretty well considering the size of the guy, but Vicki was worried. She had heard enough stories about Haggerty to know how he would react to resistance. But she continued to watch for now, frightened of what he would do if she interfered.

"I'm not gonna ask again bitch! Give me the goddamn book!" Haggerty gave Kim a powerful yank, almost pulling her clear over the counter towards him.

"Stop it!" Kim shrieked. She opened her palm and slapped Haggerty hard across his face. He stopped, stunned someone had actually dared to resist him rather than let him have his way. Kim's slap left a large red hand print on the side of Haggerty's face, but otherwise it had little effect on him, only infuriating him more. He growled, gripping Kim's arm like a vice and yanked her towards him. With his other hand, he curled it into a fist and unleashed a powerful punch at her head simultaneously. Vicki knew when enough was enough.

"Hey!" Vicki yelled. She stepped forward and tried to pull Haggerty away from Kim. "The fuck is the matter with you? Leave the poor girl along, she's just doing her job, she doesn't deserve this shit!"

"Stay out of this, whore!" Haggerty bellowed. He turned his attention away from Kim, who leaned against the counter on one hand as she held her face with the other, barely conscious. Her nose had broken, and blood dripped through her fingers onto the counter. A massive bruise had already started to form where Haggerty had struck her.

He approached Vicki as a few of the other workers on the other registers leaped into action. Some ran to fetch security and others tried to reach Kim to see if she was okay.

Neither the cashiers nor Haggerty reached their destination. A second later the area around Kim's register exploded. Kim, Haggerty and Vicki were all caught in the middle of it. Haggerty and Vicki sailed through the air and crashed to the ground away from the register. Kim dropped out of sight behind her counter. The explosion blew registers, stands and people all over the front of the store. The glass windows and automatic doors shattered, raining shards everywhere.

Vicki groaned and sat up. She rubbed her head where she had hit it on the shelves opposite the registers. Other people started to come to their senses as well, also only suffering minor injuries. _What the hell was that?_ Vicki hobbled over to the counter to check on Kim. She ignored Haggerty who lay motionless fifteen feet away from where he had stood. She reached Kim, breathless.

"Kim! Oh my God, are you alright?" she asked. Vicki leaned over the counter to get a look at her, but she had hardly laid a hand on the counter when she froze. It was the most unnerving sensation she had ever felt in her life. She tried to move away, but her legs failed her. Something was _holding_ her there.

A terrible screech, like a faulty intercom burst over the silence of the supermarket floor. It hurt to listen; Vicki tried to cover her ears to drown out the noise, but her arms refused to move as well. She stood there, a human statue posed over Kim's counter. The screech transformed from white noise into words and yelled at Vicki from inside her skull. Even though it addressed Vicki, other people nearby could still hear it. Some cried out in pain and clutched their ears, but it didn't seem to do them any good.

_No, I'm not okay. I'm not okay at all,_ the sound screamed.

Kim stood up from behind the counter and turned to face Vicki. The poor girl was a mess. Her nose hadn't stopped bleeding since Haggerty had hit her. A horrific red smear covered the entire lower half of her face. She stared right at Vicki, her face blank and her eyes filled with hatred.

"What's happening to me?" Vicki tried to say as she glanced around looking for help, but finding none. Everyone was either unconscious from the strange explosion or on the ground writhing in pain thanks to the screeches. Haggerty started to wake, but he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.

You people brought this upon yourselves.

Vicki flew through the air again, crashing into the shelves even harder than before. The shelves toppled like dominoes, the chain reaction continuing right through to the back of the store. Vicki yelped in pain. She still couldn't move, the invisible force holding her not releasing its grip on her. _Was Kim doing all this?_

Kim climbed onto the counter, her eyes dead as she stared right through the blood. She advanced towards Haggerty who had got to his feet and looked around in a daze, his legs wobbly and unstable. He didn't even see Kim as she approached, fists clenched. Vicki could do nothing but watch from where she lay.

You first.

Before Haggerty could even react he flew high into the air, hung there for a moment and then plummeted back down to the ground like a ragdoll. Kim watched as Haggerty flew all over the place, bones breaking with each impact. His wails failed to drown out the voice which spoke to everyone from within.

Like how that feels, you monster?

After what felt like hours, Haggerty froze in mid-air. His body looked twisted and mangled, limbs bent far beyond their natural range of movement. Kim followed him with her eyes as he rose towards an intact ceiling fan. As he drew closer, Vicki watched as the fan began to accelerate. It was slow at first, but within seconds it became a blur, the blades almost invisible they spun so fast. Haggerty continued to rise, and soon stopped inches from the whirlwind of blades.

"No! Stop!" Vicki yelled. By the time the words left her mouth, Haggerty flew head-first into the supercharged fan. The result was horrific. Vicki averted her eyes as the blades sliced Haggerty apart with ease. He continued up through the fan like meat through a grinder until nothing remained. Blood rained onto the floor below, followed by what remained of Haggerty, released by the force which held him in its grasp.

I tried to be nice. I tried to be your friend. But you all threw it in my face.

Vicki and the others rose into the air and flew high above the registers. One by one, they floated into a row, dangling in the air like puppets. Some were still unconscious, others struggled at their invisible restraints and begged for help. Thirty shoppers floated above in formation, Vicki hovering third last in the line.

Kim glided over to the first person and looked deep into their eyes, as if trying to catch a glimpse of their mind. It was a man Vicki had talked to on many occasions, Reggie Gress. Poor Reggie tried to avoid Kim's gaze, whimpering the entire time.

Look at me!

Reggie disappeared in a violent explosion of gore. One second he was there, the next he was gone, transformed into a cloud of blood. Vicki winced at the horrific sight, holding back tears. Reggie had always been a nice guy, he didn't deserve to die like that. Kim moved onto the next person, like an executioner towards a condemned convict.

"Kim! You don't have to do this!" Vicki pleaded. "You're killing them! They haven't done anything to you!"

Either Kim was too distraught to listen or she chose to ignore her. She stared at the next person in line and in the blink of an eye, the unconscious woman zipped across the entire length of the supermarket. The shopper hit the wall on the far end of the building with a horrific thud. Kim continued along the line.

Vicki began to hyperventilate. Kim didn't look like she was going to stop any time soon, and there was no escape from whatever force she used to hold them there.

I didn't ask to be like this, it's not my fault!

The next unfortunate victim in Kim's path disappeared before Vicki's eyes, only to reappear moments later fused _into_ the ground below, as if the floor itself had swallowed him up. Another man melted into a bubbling, fatty pulp within seconds. Vicki started to sob. She knew she was going to die. There was so much she wanted to do with her life, and now she wouldn't get to do any of it.

She tried not to dwell on it. Hopefully the death itself would be quick. Waiting was by far the worst part. Her turn came next. The previous man had been unconscious when he had burst into a fireball and fallen, crumbling into ashes on impact. Vicki closed her eyes.

"Please don't do this," she begged, all hope of survival gone. Kim stood in front of her as she floated in the air. As she looked up at her, Vicki shut her eyes, sobbing between breaths, and wait for the end to come.

It never did.

Vicki opened her eyes after a few moments, confused. She became even more perplexed when she saw Kim on her knees, sobbing into her palms. The piercing shriek in everyone's mind died down to a whisper, and soon vanished altogether. After a moment, Vicki and the last two shoppers dropped down to the ground, released by Kim. They bolted away from the registers and out the battered and broken front doors of the building. Both were gone in seconds.

Even though this woman had been moments away from killing her, Vicki didn't run. A moment ago Kim had looked like something from a horror movie, her face red with blood and eyes black and dead as the night. Now as she lay on the ground crying, Vicki couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

"Kim...what have you done?" Vicki carefully approached her, palms up, trying to show she wasn't a threat. There was no way to know how Kim would react. She didn't seem to acknowledge Vicki's presence at all, and only looked around her in shock. The remains of the people she killed, the destroyed supermarket shelves and displays, the blood. There was no escaping it.

"Oh God..." Kim said, blinking away her tears. "Not again. I can't do this again!" She turned around and jumped when she saw Vicki right in front of her. "No! Get away from me! I can't control it, you aren't safe here!"

"Kim, calm down," Vicki said, motionless. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you."

Despite her kind words, Kim wasn't getting any calmer. "You have to get out of here, before it happens again! When I get mad...I can't control it! Run! Now!"

Vicki felt a pang of sadness for Kim. As much as she wanted to stay and help her through this, the things she had seen today convinced her otherwise. Without another word, she backed away and ran out the shattered front doors. She dared not look back.

A group of other people had gathered outside, onlookers who seemed to have just woken up. They seemed clueless to what had just happened inside the supermarket. Vicki looked like she had just emerged from a war zone, her clothes covered in blood, debris and bone matter. Even though she was out of the building, she kept on walking.

Loud screams from behind her made Vicki turn around. Kim's screams. She looked at the building, when the ground beneath them started to quake. Others around her made a run for it, but Vicki watched the building in awe as it wobbled and warped before her eyes. And then, faster than she could blink, the entire Alville Supermarket vanished.

One second it was there, the next it just crumpled in on itself like a piece of paper. Tons of bricks and concrete turned into powder in an instant and disappeared in the wind. And along with it, all the dead. Haggerty and the rest, anyone who was unfortunate enough to be inside when he struck Kim.

When the dust cleared, nothing remained but a clear, empty lot. Kim had disappeared along with the rest of the building. A quick static voice whispered into everyone's mind as they watched the scene. Sirens wailed in the distance as they approached.

I'm sorry.

Rehabilitation

His eyes fluttered open as the bright halogen lights flickered and turned on. Their white glow lit the chamber from top to bottom. It took a moment to readapt to the new environment. The grey walls, scratched and marked by hundreds of desperate hands weren't familiar. Anton Terrey would know if he had been in here before. He wasn't frightened. This was his routine now.

They were still at it. These people would never give up. Not until he talked. But he would never break. A few more weeks in this place wouldn't matter anyway. They were going to kill him. Maybe now, maybe later. He didn't know exactly what these people did to those who refused to cooperate. Judging from what he had seen them do so far though, it would be prolonged and excessive. The past month he had spent here had been an inescapable nightmare. Anton had no doubts in his mind the next month would be just as unbearable. It was only a question of when.

An unseen speaker screeched and crackled to life somewhere above him. The interrogator. His best friend since this whole things started, or so they told him between beatings. The lights continued to sputter to life right up towards the top of Anton's cell. It stretched up as far as he could see, with no end to it visible from where he sat. His cell was wide enough to hold him as he lay against the rounded wall, and even then it was still a tight fit.

"Anton," the interrogator said. "Where are they?" The voice bounced around the narrow cell like a tennis ball. Anton shielded his eyes from the harsh light as he tried to find the source of the voice. He had never seen the guy in person. He always did his talking from behind a wall or a speaker, or the other men under his employ. Today though, he sounded different. Like he was in a rush. He needed results soon. If his prisoner refused to cooperate, drastic measures would have to be taken. Anton aimed to make the process as drawn out as he could, as a kind of 'fuck you' for their late night snatching of him all those weeks ago.

"Where are they?" the interrogator repeated. Anton said nothing. He knew the routine by now. An hour of questions, then pain. Then more questions. More pain. It would go on until he passed out, and he would soon find himself in a new cell, a new torture chamber, ready for another round. But he didn't care in the slightest. He would never talk to these people. Anton Terrey would rather die than tell these white knight assholes what they wanted to know.

"We know you did it. Open and shut. You left evidence everywhere. Sloppy. Tell us where they are." Anton stared up at the roof, only a distant spot far above from where he sat. The interrogator waited for a response. He received none.

Anton chuckled softly. They didn't have a thing on him. He had disposed of everything well enough. Nobody would ever see them again. These were scare tactics, nothing more. He would be out of this cell soon, and during the march towards his next interrogation session, he would make his move. Anton smiled at the thought of finally getting out of this place, and inflicting the same pain on his captors as they had to him. And then some.

"This will not end well for you," the interrogator continued. "You're only making this worse for yourself the longer you refuse to talk. Tell us where they are now. Or you will suffer."

_Oh no, not more suffering,_ Anton thought sarcastically. The entire month had already been nothing _but_ suffering. Did the interrogator enjoy doing this to him? He couldn't tell. Either way, he kept his mouth shut. _Just wait it out. He'll give up and order the transfer soon. And then he'll know true suffering when I catch up with him._

"Last chance Anton. Tell us what we want to know. Or you will not leave this cell alive."

Still, Anton said nothing. Just continued to stare up towards the roof. It wasn't bad in here. This place was nothing like the other interrogation rooms he had been in over the past month. No elaborate torture devices. No violent assholes trying to beat answers from him. A regular cell, nothing more. These guys must be running out of options if they had him in here.

If they wanted answers, they weren't going to get any by demanding them from behind a speaker. Anton didn't care if they beat him again, or removed various body parts or whatever. He had won, and he knew it. The pain didn't even feel real anymore. Death would be welcomed with open arms, and the satisfaction of success. He leaned forward off the wall and faced the speaker up on the wall.

"Do your worst." Anton slumped back, a smug grin spreading across his face. _This was too easy._ He waited for the interrogator's response to that. Minutes quickly turned into hours, and the speaker remained silent. Anton frowned. _Strange._

Almost three hours later, a distant sound far above him caught Anton's attention. He looked up through the harsh white light above. Something was up there. And it was moving. Fast. He couldn't make out what it was from here, but it grew larger by the second as it approached.

Moments later, something landed in the cell, almost hitting him. It struck the concrete floor of the cell with a fleshy smack. Anton saw it and yelped, startled. It was a body. Human. Female. Well and truly dead. The impact had twisted the body's limbs around to unnatural angles, and as she came to an awkward rest on the ground, her head lolled over and faced Anton. His eyes widened. _How did they..._

"Ready to cooperate Anton?" the interrogator said, a hint of amusement in his tone. Anton gritted his teeth. He got to his feet, keeping his distance from the body.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he said, trying to keep a straight face. "Who is this? Another one of your torture victims?"

"Don't bother lying to us Anton. Like I said, you were sloppy. Evidence everywhere. We found your shovel, the one you tried to dispose of at the city dump. Soil analysis traced it back to _your_ farm, where we found her." Anton glanced at the body again. She was covered in dirt. Fresh. _Did these guys dig up a dead woman?_

"You've killed a lot of people Anton," the interrogator continued. "You're sick. We can't have people like you roaming free now, can't we? If you don't answer our question, well..."

Anton looked up just in time to see the second body falling almost right on top of him. He scrambled out of the way just as the corpse hit the ground. Rotten limbs flew off from the impact. Anton didn't let the anger show on his face. He decided to try something different.

"Okay, okay! Please stop! I killed them, alright? There. But it was an accident! I didn't mean to! They didn't give me a choice! They hurt me for Christ sake!"

He paused, letting it sink in. He hoped they would buy it. For a moment it looked like it was going to work. In some ways it was the truth. He hadn't meant for them to die so fast. How they had treated him over the years, the things his adoptive parents did to him in that farm...they all deserved what they had got. Every single one of them. They all had a part in it. _They_ let it happen.

"Nice try Anton. But we all know you wanted to kill these people. It was no accident. We are well aware of the abuse you suffered at the hands of your foster parents after your adoption. We know you wanted to kill them right from the beginning. And we know you _enjoyed_ it. No matter what they did though, they didn't deserve to be slaughtered like that. What about the others Anton? Did _they_ deserve to die? What did _they_ do to hurt you?"

Another limp corpse plummeted into the cell. Anton stuck to the wall, nervously looking around like a frightened deer. The smell started to get to the point of overwhelming. Almost as soon as the body had landed, another dropped in. Then another. And another. Anton found it difficult to dodge them now, and had to use one as an umbrella to avoid injury.

"Stop it! Stop!" Anton yelled, but his plead fell upon deaf ears. Body after body poured into the cell. He started to panic. They weren't going to stop. Not until this entire damn cell was full, or he told them what they wanted to know.

" _Where are the rest?_ " the interrogator screeched over the speaker. " _WHERE?"_

The bodies kept on coming. There had to be at least twenty in the cell now, the cell only made for one. Anton groaned pathetically. Breathing now was nigh on impossible. The stench, oh God the stench...

"This can all stop if you tell us what we want to know. It's up to you. Or we can show you just how much evidence we have against you." Another body dropped. Anton craned his neck above the corpses like a swimmer in water, trying to stay afloat. He couldn't keep this up. Soon enough, he cracked.

" _Okay!_ I'll tell you where they are!" Anton shouted at the speaker. "Just stop! Stop! Jesus Christ, please! You've made your fucking point!"

For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought the interrogator hadn't heard him as bodies continued to rain down into the cell. But after a few more seconds, they stopped. It was impossible to breathe in here without gagging. Anton tried to use his shirt as a filter, but even that failed to smother the overwhelming smell of death.

"You've made the right choice Anton," the interrogator said. "Where?"

Anton coughed, struggling to find the words. He didn't want to do this. But the interrogator had bested him. They would have kept dropping corpses into the cell until the sheer weight crushed him. Or they would have just taken him away and found some other, more horrific method to extract the information from him. Enough was enough. He just wanted it to be over now.

"They're...they're gone. Buried. Somewhere nobody would ever look for them.

A pause. "Where?" the interrogator repeated.

"Oh God...the Davis Mine. One of the unused shafts, number six. They're all in there."

"Are you sure, Anton? Every last one? You're not holding out on us are you? Because we still have plenty of evidence we can show you."

Anton could practically hear them preparing to drop another body into his cell. " _No!_ I swear, every single one of them are down there! Please let me go. I've told you want you wanted to know. Please..."

More silence. Much longer than the previous. Anton lay there, quivering in fear, almost identical in appearance to the corpses who accompanied him. They _had_ to let him go now. It's all they wanted to know. They had to.

"We're done here. Thank you for your cooperation Anton. We hope your rehabilitation goes well." And with that, loud pops echoed throughout the cell as each of the halogen lights on the walls began to shut down. From top to bottom, the entire cell started to fall back into total darkness. Anton was mortified.

" _What?_ No, what the fuck are you doing? I told you what you wanted! Let me go! I don't deserve to be down here! _No!_ " Anton tried to climb the walls, using one of the closer lights as a foothold. He made it, but with no other light nearby to grab onto, he unceremoniously fell backwards onto the mountain of corpses beneath him.

"Like we said, we can't allow you to leave. You're a danger to everyone around you, and we can't have that. We specialize in the rehabilitation of disturbed, violent and the otherwise damaged individuals of the world. In time, you'll realize the errors of your ways. It's a long process, but you'll be a better person for it. If not, well...you'll understand in time. Goodbye Anton. Enjoy your rehabilitation."

As the last light flickered off, leaving Anton alone with his thoughts—and his victims—he began to sob.

Random Number Hotline

When Nikolas Bryant woke, the first thing he noticed were his surroundings. They were completely unfamiliar. The bed he lay on, the room and everything else inside, he had never seen any of it before in his life. _What the hell happened last night?_ He sat up and rubbed his eyes and face, trying to wake up. The entirety of the previous twenty-four hours were gone, like they had never happened. The memories were just...empty. Whether he had drunk too much or if someone had slipped something into his drink at the bar, he didn't know. He wasn't sure if there had even _been_ a bar. All he knew was he felt like shit.

It wasn't the first time he had woken up in some stranger's house after a night out on the town. But even if that were the case, he should have been able to remember _something_ ; who owned the place, where it was, anything. The more Nikolas thought about it, the farther he felt from an answer. He looked around the room again. There wasn't a lot to see. A steel bed, a small wooden desk and matching chair, an old telephone sitting on the desk and a painting hanging on the wall next to a closed steel door. Other than those, the room had nothing else of note. Nikolas groaned and rose from the bed.

The door was only a few steps away, but walking there proved far more difficult than Nikolas had thought. Every step caused his head to pound in pain, to the point where he thought he would pass out if he took one more. He brushed past the painting, which swung on its fixture before coming to a halt a moment later. Nikolas reached out and tried to pull down on the door handle, but it refused to move. Unperturbed, he tried again, wiggling the handle up and down this time. Still nothing. He gripped the handle with both hands and put all his weight onto it, but no matter how hard Nikolas tried, the door wouldn't budge.

"Hey!" Nikolas yelled, knocking on the door with his fist. "Is anyone out there? Unlock the damn door, someone's in here!" He put his ear to the cold metal and listened for activity on the other side. For a moment he thought he heard footsteps, maybe even a muffled voice, but after a second he heard nothing more.

"Hello?" Nikolas tried the handle again, but he already knew it was pointless. There wasn't anyone out there. A chilling thought came to him as he backed away from the door and slumped back down on the bed again. Here he was, in an unfamiliar place, with no memory of the previous night whatsoever. _Have I been abducted?_

It made sense. How else would he wake up in a place like this with no clue about how he got there? Even though he was still half asleep and groggy from the booze or whatever he had taken last night, Nikolas knew there had to be another explanation. Or at least he hoped. Maybe there was some other trick to opening the door. Finding out what it was though would take forever in his current state.

The painting caught his eye again. Birds covered the canvas, an entire flock which appeared to fly right out of the paint towards Nikolas. As he moved by it, he bumped the painting again, this time knocking it off the fixture and onto the ground. The glass frame shattered in an instant.

"Shit..." Nikolas grumbled. With one foot he swept the broken painting under the bed. He glanced back up at the space where the painting had been and noticed something interesting. A hole in the wall, exactly the size the picture had been, cut right out of the wall's brickwork. It looked like a safe, but with no door. And inside...

Nikolas reached in and pulled out the wall's contents, a small scrap of paper and a metal strongbox. The box felt heavy for its size, and boasted a ten digit combination lock on the top, built right into the unit itself. He inspected the paper and found someone had scrawled a ten digit number in the same untidy writing which had been in the notebook: 2025550119. Curious, Nikolas sat down on the bed with the box in his lap and input the combination into the lock. When he tried to open it, the box remained shut. He checked the number on the paper and the numbers he had put into the lock. Everything was correct. This number mustn't be the combination for the box. _What was it for?_

He placed the box and paper on the desk and sighed. Why was he here? What the hell was going on? This whole situation didn't feel right at all. Nikolas stared at the box for some time, before his eyes moved over to the phone still sitting in the corner of the desk. It took a bit longer for the penny to drop. _The phone._ He could call someone for help, to get him out of this place. Nikolas picked up the phone, punched in 911 and held the phone to his ear. After a full minute though, it became clear to him nobody was going to answer. _Is it even working?_ There was a dial tone, so the phone had to have the ability to be able to reach emergency services. Unless it wasn't connected to the network.

Perhaps the number wasn't for the strongbox. Maybe it was a phone number? Nikolas picked up the phone and dialed the number, ensuring it was exactly as it appeared on the paper. When all the digits were in, he hit CALL and held the phone up to his ear. Static flooded through the speaker, screaming into his ear. He wanted to pull away from the phone, but for some strange reason he felt obliged to continue to listen.

The static soon parted way to a continuous sequence of numbers. A female voice read them out. She sounded somehow computerized and human at the same time, Nikolas couldn't tell which. He listened, entranced by the strangeness of it all. His eyes drooped, almost falling asleep again. But he fought to stay awake, and kept listening to the static numbers. _"...Twenty-four, seven, thirty-six, twelve, one, fifty-five..."_ the phone recited, void of emotion. It continued for what felt like an hour to Nikolas. But soon enough, the sequence concluded. _"...sixty-eight, eighteen, four, ACTIVATE."_ Then the line cut to silence.

As soon as the call went dead, Nikolas felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He wanted to vomit, but a strange sensation told him he didn't need to. The numbers rattled around in his mind, filling every vacant thought and space in his brain. Before he knew what was happening, Nikolas held the strongbox in his hands once again. The scrap of paper fluttered to the ground and vanished from his sight. His fingers were a blur as he entered a new combination of numbers into the lock, as if he had known the correct numbers all along. As soon as he punched in the last digit, the box's mechanisms clicked and the lock deactivated. Nikolas opened the box and pulled out something he never would have expected to find.

_Why is there a gun in here?_ He gripped the gun professionally in his hands, despite never having held one before in his life. Something strange was happening here. In one quick movement, Nikolas pulled the magazine out of the pistol and inspected it. Fully loaded. He jammed it back into the receiver and pulled back on the slide, chambering a round. _What's going on?_

Nikolas wanted nothing more but to drop the gun back into the strongbox and get out of here. But something told him to ignore the urge. With the gun in hand, he stood next to the door and pounded on it once, for all the good that would do.

But to his surprise, the door swung open with zero resistance. Part of Nikolas felt shocked at the strangeness of this entire ordeal, but the other half didn't seem to care. He strode out of the room, gun raised and ready to fire. The hallway he found himself in looked nothing like the room he had awoken in. While the bedroom looked more or less like a cheap apartment, the hallway looked as if it should have been in a submarine. It consisted of steel walls and floors and looked difficult to navigate, thanks to the stacks of crates and other obstacles filling the hall.

Nikolas felt bothered by all this, but his face didn't show it. Before he could question anything he broke into a run, vaulting over every obstruction in his path with ease. To his shock, as he made his sprint through the stretching corridor, _targets_ started to pop out of nowhere. The instant each appeared, Nikolas pointed the gun as he run and fired, nailing every single one until the pistol ran dry. He reached the end of the corridor, tossed the empty gun aside and burst out the next door into blinding light. People surrounded him from every angle. With the sudden explosion of sunlight, he shielded his eyes and stopped in his tracks. As soon as he emerged, Nikolas heard a single phrase out of one of the strangers' mouths.

"Six, two seven, deactivate."

He collapsed the second he heard the words, eyes wide and unblinking. Every ounce of energy evaporated from his body in an instant. Nikolas could hear and see, but no matter how much he willed himself to, he couldn't move. Silhouettes glided over to him, their faces obscured by the sun high above them. They stared down at him, motives uncertain, and as they observed, the strangers began to talk. Their sentences sounded distant, but he could hear every word they said.

"...and as you can see gentlemen, the test subject remains completely obedient, efficient and precise with its actions, maintaining traits such as accuracy and muscle memory for the duration of the exercise. As you saw with the lock box provided in the apartment enclosure, our procedure allows the permanent retention of information programmed into the subject's memory many months prior, and lets us instruct them when we wish for him to draw from that knowledge."

_What the hell were they talking about?_ Nikolas focused what little of his strength remained and tried to make sense of their conversation. Some of the men appeared to be wearing white uniforms. _Lab coats, maybe?_ The others wore dark green suits, their chests covered with shining medals and badges. _Soldiers?_ Nikolas felt even more confused now, and far more terrified. What were these men doing to him?

One of the military men, who seemed to be the higher ranking officer in charge, spoke up. "So what exactly have you accomplished with this technology, Doctor? Because from what I've seen so far you have made a man who can follow instructions, and I don't have any shortage of them at my disposal."

"If you'll forgive my frankness, General Cooke, you would have to be blind to not see the future potential of this procedure. The data we collected from the recovered artifact up north has allowed us to convert the malicious resonant frequency emitted from the bird statue into a simpler signal consisting of numbers. The numbers by themselves are completely useless, but when heard in a specific sequence, we are capable of controlling individuals who are...how can I say this...programmed to recognize the sequence."

General Cooke's thick eyebrows rose. The scientist continued. "Just imagine the ability to remove fear from your men, remove the ability to question orders, alter pain thresholds. The applications are virtually limitless." A couple of the other military personnel murmured among themselves. The rest of the scientists struggled to hide the satisfied grins on their faces. Nikolas couldn't move, talk or respond in any way, but he continued to listen. _Test subject? Reprogrammed? Who the hell were these people?_

The lead scientist stood over Nikolas' motionless body and stared down at him. Nikolas stared back with dead eyes. "As you can see," the scientist continued, "when reprogrammed, the subject becomes completely unable to contest the orders we give him. If told to shoot, he'll shoot, accurately and without hesitation, as you saw. If we tell him to climb a mountain, he'll climb the whole damn thing twice without breaking a sweat. If we tell him to shut down every muscle in his body, he'll do it with a smile. There are no workarounds. Observe."

Nikolas watched as the lead scientist stepped back and held his arms behind his back. He cleared his throat and issued a command. _"Four, nine, nine, activate."_ In an instant, Nikolas felt a wash of energy flood back through him, like a computer rebooting. He stood, and although he wanted to run at the scientist and strangle the life out him, part of him refused to comply.

"Run to that post and back," the scientist ordered. While Nikolas himself refused, his legs said otherwise, and carried him over to the nearby post and back again in seconds. He stood before the scientist, awaiting his next order like a dog. "Salute General Cooke." Nikolas did, straightening his back and performing a quick salute to the amused general as he watched the show. On and on it went, the scientist issuing orders, Nikolas obeying. It all felt so degrading, but he had no way to express his white hot anger towards his captors. All he could do was obey.

"Alright Doctor, I get the point. It works. Tell the man to stand down, or deactivate, whatever the hell you call it. I've seen enough," General Cooke said. The scientist actually looked disappointed to stop. _Bastard._ Nikolas listened for his next command, feeling worse by the second. One of the other military personnel stared at Nikolas with a glare which could have frozen water. He didn't give a shit about Nikolas at all, which only made him angrier. But he still couldn't do anything about it.

"This is all very interesting Doctor Wilkes, but I'm still not convinced this technology can be utilized safely," another military man said. "I'm sure this subject didn't exactly _volunteer_ to be a part of your tests. What's to stop him from breaking free of his programming and refusing orders? I don't know about you, but I don't feel confident in a man who can't think for himself having my back in a fight, especially when he could decide he doesn't want to be a slave anymore."

Doctor Wilkes chuckled. "You still don't get it, do you? The programming _cannot be broken_. When a subject undergoes the initial programming procedure, we jam thoughts originating from their own mind with our signal. He is incapable of deviating from any orders. If you'll hand me your gun, I'll demonstrate." Wilkes held his hand out towards a nearby soldier.

The soldier hesitated for a moment, but General Cooke nodded. "It's okay son, give it to him. I want to see where this goes." He pulled the nickel-plated service pistol out of its holster and handed it to Doctor Wilkes. He levelled the barrel at Nikolas' expressionless face and held it there for a moment. But then he lowered and, to Nikolas' surprise, held it out for him.

"One, nine, zero, terminate."

Nikolas flicked off the weapon's safety and held it to his head in the blink of an eye, his finger on the trigger. Doctor Wilkes didn't react at all. General Cooke watched with shining eyes, captivated. Nikolas' mind screamed at him not to follow the order, but the numbers which echoed around in his head superseded the thought. He could hear the numbers demand he pull the trigger, but the other half of his brain buzzed with activity, doing its best to ensure survival. _Do it now,_ the numbers repeated to him over and over and over. Finally, Nikolas couldn't take it anymore.

" _NO!"_ he bellowed. Nikolas yanked the pistol away from his temple and instead aimed it at a new target, the chest of Doctor Wilkes. Before the shocked scientist could even react to the unforeseen outcome, Nikolas pulled the trigger over and over again, until the gun clicked empty. All seven rounds hit their mark, and Doctor Wilkes dropped to the concrete, his torso a bloody mess of bullet holes. The scientists gasped and scattered, while the military personnel drew _their_ weapons as all hell broke loose.

Nikolas threw the empty pistol at the nearest man, which hit him in the face, stunning him. It gave Nikolas the perfect window of opportunity. He lunged forward and yanked the pistol out of the dazed soldier's hand. With one arm around the man's neck and the other arm pointing the gun at his head, he now felt in control. Even though he could still hear the numbers in his head struggling to regain their grasp on him, Nikolas knew he could fight them now. The surrounding soldiers pointed their weapons at him and yelled all at once. Nikolas tightened his grip on his hostage.

"Release me right _fucking_ now! I swear to Christ I'll kill him! Back up! _Back up!_ " Nikolas screamed as he moved away with his human shield. The scientists nearby froze and watched in horror as the future of their project went up in smoke before their eyes. The soldiers, led by a furious General Cooke, didn't falter for one second.

"Son, you let him go right now or you won't leave this place alive, that I guarantee you."

Nikolas stood there, finger on the trigger, the numbers still fighting him with all their strength. The soldiers ignored him and continued to advance, ready to fire the instant the opportunity presented itself. Nikolas closed his eyes for a second, the numbers still insisting he follow Doctor Wilkes' instructions. In one split second, part of the order managed to force its way into his mind, and the result was absolute chaos.

He received the order while his mind continued to clash with the numbers, a battle invisible to both him and the soldiers. The message ended up being received broken and incomplete. His gun went off, seemingly on its own and the hostage fell to the ground, half his face gone. The soldiers open fired. And Nikolas welcomed his end.

General Cooke lowered his weapon, the barrel still smoking, having fired the killing shot right into Nikolas' brain. He turned to face the scientists still nearby. They all appeared sheepish and nervous, for a good reason. This project was supposed to be their ticket into military and scientific history, and now...

One of the senior scientists, the man with the highest clearance since Doctor Wilkes met his end, sauntered over to the General and his surviving men. He stared at his feet.

"Uhh...so obviously the programming procedure still has some...minor bugs to iron out. I'm sure they'll be resolved in time for your next visit...sir." The General turned to meet the scientist's gaze. He looked about ready to strangle him. This visit was a disaster. Whoever had overlooked the effect of rage on the integrity of the programming had a lot to answer for. General Cooke grabbed the scientist by his collar and brought him close.

"Get it done," he said, before he shoved the man away. "And clean this shit up." Without another word, he turned and left, stepping over the blood-slicked corpses of his man and Nikolas without even a second glance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joshua Stoll is the author of over a dozen short stories, including the self-published horror anthology Random Number Hotline and the short post-apocalyptic story What Remains for TL;DR Press. He lives in New South Wales, Australia.

He spends the majority of his time staring blankly at a word processor, waiting for words to appear on their own. They never do.

When he is not writing, he enjoys board games with friends and walking on the beach.

He can be contacted via Twitter at @stollrofl or email at stollrofl@gmail.com.

www.joshuastoll.wordpress.com

