jmweaverauthor

[jmweaverauthor]

White Orchid Exchange

(Oh hai look, another short story. This is a horror short story about a man who wakes up in an unfamiliar cabin during a snowstorm, and things are definitely not normal.

I am fast approaching the self-publication of my first novel. Book cover is almost done, will be posted soon. I'm very thrilled about what's to come. It's an Isekai story about a trans girl in high school. More details happening soon!)

White Orchid Exchange

Daniel awoke with a sharp gasp, writhing momentarily, eyes alert and full of trepidation. He tried to calm himself, still breathing shallowly as he surveyed his surroundings from the floor. Not his bedroom, not even close. No sign of any of his belongings, nor Cassidy, his fiancée. He’d never seen this place. Standing up, trying to clear his head through the fog of confusion and anxiety, he sought to gather information. Some kind of cabin? Walls like stacked logs, bricks and stonework by the fireplace. No modern accommodations, no electronics, not so much as a phone—phone?

Daniel patted himself down, astonished to find his phone right away, in his pocket. He dialed Cassidy’s number; the phone emitted an unpleasantly shrill ring. He hung up, tried 911. Same shrill ring. No bars. No internet. He tucked his phone away, swallowing, knowing things were rapidly heading from bad to catastrophic. He folded his arms, shivering, breaths puffing out his mouth. No wood in the fireplace, only soot and decay. To make matters worse, he had on no shoes. No coat or jacket, only a T-shirt and sweatpants. The windows were frosted over, letting in a dull gray mask of daylight.

Devoid of any better ideas, Daniel opened the front door. Snow and a harsh wind blew inside, rather loudly. Shielding his face using one arm, Daniel studied the cabin’s surroundings. Cattails jutted from the snow, blowing in the wind. He could hardly make out much, only pure whiteness blanketing the vast bog ahead. He tapped his foot on the snow before him, only to find it gave way, straight into the murky swamp covering the area. If there was a proper trail out of here that didn’t involve wading through waist-high freezing water, he couldn’t begin to make it out. Pulling his foot out, shaking it off, Daniel saw . . . something on the horizon. He tensed up. His mind tried to make sense of it, yet somewhere in the very pit of his being, he knew his first guess was somehow, unfortunately correct.

A face. Roughly a half-mile ahead, sticking out as the only visible landmark amid the blizzard. This face, shaded slate-gray, bore a haunting resemblance to the tragedy mask, suspended in midair. Its eyes and mouth were endless shadows. Its expression was pure torment, ugly and disparaging. Even from Daniel’s limited point of view, he guessed it must be taller than a lifeguard’s chair (a job he’d worked one summer, best damn summer of his life. Funny how little, presumably innocuous things alter how we see the world forever. Lifeguard chair: a unit of measurement for Daniel).

Assumptions flew in his wild, tangled imagination. It had to be a rock—something he mistakenly read a face into.

No.

His eyes weren’t that rotten.

He shut the door, locking it, racing to the opposite side of the cabin, rubbing his sleeve on one of the frost-covered windows. “Oh shit!” he blurted, in pure dread. Somehow, it followed him. Same distance, but now the head loomed outside the back of the cabin, not the front. He ran to the next window, quicker on his feet, and saw it. Unmistakably, this time. As if on a rail, the hovering face snapped into place from behind the cabin to watch him, moving into view with alarming speed.

Daniel backed up, falling to his knees. A seemingly endless barrage of possibilities hit his mind. Was he dead? Was he abducted? Is the head real, is it some awful, elaborate prank? Who did he piss off? Did he owe somebody money? Who goes through lengths this terrifying to shake some random Lowe’s employee down? Made no sense. Nothing added up.

As if penitent, in confession, his brain rattled off his every misdeed, scrambling to find an answer. Put that Emily girl in the hospital when he was ten, playing street hockey with his buddies, shouldn’t’ve been standing so close. Who even remembers that? He hit some poor person’s car in a parking lot and left a note that said ‘I'm so sorry’, but not his information. Not his fault the economy’s a mess. Wages aren’t keeping up. Who can afford anything, let alone that? He got into a fistfight in college, over this girl named Hannah. Didn’t really even like her, he was just terrified to be alone so he settled. For a while.

Daniel examined his shaking hands. There was something else, yet every pathway in his mind skipped it. The way we get through life is by evading certain memories, compartmentalizing. Something burned away in his head, like security doors lifting, allowing him to press further into his own disgracefulness. He set his neighbor’s lawn on fire, playing with matches. He was six. Screamed at an old lady for cutting him off, calling her the R-word. He was . . . late for work? Not his fault. Never was—out of sight, out of mind. He lied to Cassidy the day they met, said he could play guitar like a pro, never got around to showing her, miraculously. But that’s no big deal, people lie about stuff like that all the time!

Daniel got up, pacing furiously. Anger was the defiant mask shame wore. He rushed to one of the windows, telling himself he must’ve been seeing things. Overreacting. “Oh my God!” Daniel gasped. The face loomed significantly closer. Snow sitting on its stony grooves, watching him from out there in the howling blizzard, which grew louder and louder. His pace quickened as he circled the cabin. “Think, think!” he growled under her breath, both hands on his head, clenching.

That thing moved in the corner of his eye, waiting. Daniel reopened the cabin door, letting in a far worse gust of snow than before, winds crooning. “What do you want? Huh? Answer me!” Daniel screamed at the face hovering now but mere yards away. He stepped out of the cabin, partially into the mire, trying to find rocks or mud to get his footing. He tested its movement outside. Circling the cabin, the stone face followed his every movement, mimicking him. Waiting in the cold, his feet going numb in the snow and wet soil, he noticed it slide toward the cabin, zeroing in at a speed both gruelingly slow and undeniably threatening.

“Can’t you say anything? If I have something to answer for, tell me! Stop whatever this is—where am I? What the fuck is happening!?” The wind suddenly picked up, screeching so vociferously Daniel held his ears, wincing, snow gathering upon his clothes, face, and hair.

It laughed.

Somehow, unmistakably, above the wind, his throbbing ears and heart, he heard the most unsettling, depraved laughter emit from the face’s direction. Daniel ran back inside, attempting to shut the door, only to find the snow had gathered too much, becoming wedged under the frame, piling inside. Climbing past it, Daniel hid near the fireplace, whimpering as the storm closed in faster, and with it, the face.

“I don’t know what you want,” Daniel sulked, back against the stone fireplace, forehead to his arms, holding his knees. “It’s not fair.”

He knew this had to be the afterlife. Hell. Purgatory. Something else. Hardly mattered what it was or which God oversaw it, only thing that stayed wedged in his mind is that somehow his actions brought him here. The layers of security his mind put up disintegrated. More and more, the honesty of his past became uncensored for his thoughts to exhume. Slashed a guy’s tires that ticked him off in the grocery store, never got caught. Serves him right, he cut me off in line! Cursed out his mother, months before she passed away abruptly. They say she drank herself to death. He said he never wanted to see her stupid face ever again. That was that. She should’ve . . . been nicer to him. Saved up for his college fund. Maybe he wouldn’t be working these dead-end jobs!

Never him.

Never Daniel.

Everybody else was to blame.

Never, ever Daniel Herman.

Saint.

Philanthrope.

Hero.

It wasn’t him, couldn’t be. Not now, not ever. The worst of his choices paraded before him, like ghosts haunting the corners of his skull. He saw it. Something buried so wholly, so utterly, he never let himself think about it again.

“It wasn’t me. I wasn’t even supposed to be out that night. You can’t do this to me!” he sobbed, breaths practically wheezing. “I don’t deserve this. Please! Help me!” He got up, but fell straight back down. It was at the door, inches away, about to enter the cabin. Daniel did what he did best: shut his eyes, curl up. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

The winds picked up yet again, violent for but a moment, until all went quiet. Daniel opened his eyes, checking himself. The fireplace crackled and roared. Heat, at last. The daylight had vanished, leaving behind dark. Pure black out the windows, the same black within the mouth and eyes of that awful face. He heard breathing inside the walls, it inhaled, sounding like the blizzard raging outside seconds ago. Inhaling more. The fire went out, pitch dark. And Daniel reached for his throat as the cabin was rapidly evacuated of all oxygen. Nowhere to claw his way to. No exit. No escape. No help. He writhed on the floor, gasping for air, like a fish stuck ashore. Left with nobody in pure black, hearing that awful thing breathe in using the voice of the howling wind.

Daniel Herman yielded to his fate.

Daniel Herman suffocated.

* * *

Leslie Baker pressed her head to her hands, holding a cross, whispering prayers as tears streamed down her face. The news had been going for some time before finally:

“Breaking News outside of East Orange this morning, where thirty-three-year-old Cassidy Powell discovered her fiancée, Daniel Herman, lifeless and not breathing. Herman was indicted back in 2021 for reckless driving and aggravated manslaughter of a runaway Hoboken resident, Dana Baker. The charges were later dropped after a jury found insufficient evidence placing Herman behind the wheel that night. Though emotions ran very high for the family of the victim. At this time there’s no reason to suspect foul play but police are investigating if Mr. Herman’s death—”

Leslie turned off the TV, a hand over her mouth, tears finally going dry after so very, very long. She placed her cross on the coffee table, having said forgiveness over and over for days now. She got up, her entire body shaking, navigating her disheveled apartment, reflecting Leslie’s own tattered, neglected appearance. She folded her arms, shivering from how upset she was, yet relieved. Finally, she can have her life back. And yet . . .

It whimpered, crying out in that metallic twisted voice that overtook her dreams and every waking thought.

“No. No-no-no, why do you want more? It’s over, right?” Leslie rushed over to the dining room table, piled high with newspapers wrapped in twine, coffee-stained journals, and a few weathered old books about magic and the occult. Nothing you might find at a local bookstore. The kind of uncanny tomes that have a way of finding you.

Nestled amid the books and newspapers sat an old oak box, and in it—Leslie could hardly bare to see it. The face. Made of muscular string and obsidian bones, its shape was stretched uncannily. Almost the length of her arm, eyes misaligned, but empty. Only sockets harboring a vast darkness within. Same as its toothless maw. The entity wriggled in the box, crying like a wounded animal in a voice that didn’t seem like any organism of this Earth ought to be making it.

“OK! OK! Please stop!” Leslie held her ears in a slightly deranged way, rushing to the kitchen. There was a pile of dishes in the sink beset by roaches. She wiped a few silverfish off the counter, saying somewhere deep in her mind that now, since he’s finally dead, she can get some cleaning done. An inner whispered-nothing with no intend to follow up. Alcoholics who say ‘maybe tomorrow’ every day.

She pulled a basket from the cupboard, rifling through it. She took out a mortar and pestle, sifting through the cluttered contents. She retrieved an old volcanic rock, tiny gemstones, dried old bones, a few fish fins out of an envelope. She headed to the fridge, which had nothing but leftovers in snap containers, wine, a stray bottle of ketchup, and a large mason jar. She opened the jar, carefully removing a fish eye, and a small animal’s heart. She grabbed a razor and cut her finger, a cut situated between dozens of scarred razor cuts on her fingers and arm. She dripped her blood over the objects as they lay in the mortar. A second later she sucked her bloody finger, grinding the ingredients using the pestle.

The thing in the other room cried.

“I know, I know! I’m coming! Please just stop!” she called out to it.

It laughed in a deep, unsettling way, as did the face outside of Daniel Herman’s cabin. Leslie swallowed apprehensively, taking the concoction to the writhing, twisted head. She poured the mixture into its vacant, open mouth, shaped like a gourd. The face let out a few tinny, frail noises of excitement as it ‘ate’.

Leslie shut the box, locking it, setting down the mortar. She picked up her phone, searching for the name, ‘WOE’.

“Hello? Oh, thank God, it’s Leslie. Leslie Baker. Um, it’s over. It worked, I can’t believe it worked. But—um, wh-why is it still here? I don’t know, I thought it might go away. How do I make it go away?” She nodded, tears in her eyes, listening as the locked oak box leapt a foot into the air on its own, startling Leslie as it thumped back on the table. “I-I thought I could just mail it . . . No. It’s OK. I can bring it to you. I-I want you to know, it’s still hungry. Is that normal?” She swallowed again, breaths trembling as she put the phone down. She grabbed her coat, car keys, and the box.

* * *

Leslie sat on the train leading into Manhattan, protectively hugging the old box to her, surrounded by commuters from Secaucus and Newark. Several people eyed her suspiciously, especially as the box shook in her grasp. One man sitting next to her asked if she was transporting an animal, that keeping it in such a box might be cruel. She turned to him, eyes drooping with bags, cuts on her fingers and wrists, clothes stinking of sweat and rain and mildew. She scowled at him, heart pounding against her ribs, throbbing across her veins as they descended into the tunnel underneath the Hudson River. No service.

Ever so briefly, she unlatched the box and showed the man criticizing her. He got up with great alarm. “What the Hell is that?” he asked.

Leslie stared a hole into him. “Not an animal. What do you think it is?”

“Some kind of performance piece? Who’s filming?” He looked all around. “Why was it moving? What is it?”

Several commuters backed away at the scene unfolding.

Leslie chuckled. “It’s nothing. Unless you believe it’s more than that. Then . . . I can’t help you.”

The man moved to a different car. Leslie sat alone the rest of the way to 33rd Street. Keeping her head down, moving, moving. Past the many colorful stores and droves of pedestrians, Leslie strode with great purpose, clenching the oak box as tightly as can be, even as it periodically rattled in her arms. Off of 52nd. Deeper, into an innocuous office building with a rotating door and two men in suits guarding the entrance. No name outside the building nor one anywhere to be seen inside. The lobby reminded Leslie of a bank, only with a three-story-high ceiling, stairs on either side of the receptionist’s bulky desk. The woman smiled as Leslie walked in, dressed sharp, golden hoop earrings dangling.

“Hello there. Ms. Baker, was it?”

“O-Oh, you remember me?”

The woman beamed, white and pearly. “Yes. I’m quite good with faces. It’s why I have this job.”

“I guess that makes sense? Um, White Orchid Exchange?” Leslie held up the box, looking from side to side, paranoid. “I-I’m returning this.”

“Were you satisfied with the service we provided?”

Leslie nodded, not making eye contact. “I-I just want it gone now. Please.”

“Of course,” she said, like this was all procedural. “Floor thirty-six. Second door to the left.”

“Thank you.” Leslie hurried, keeping her head down, only to stop just past the receptionist’s desk. “What other businesses operate here, on the other floors?”

Smiling. “You would know that, if you needed their services.”

Leslie glanced up at the woman, who smiled back at her, wordlessly. The two guards watched her, smiling. Silent. . . . Leslie left, rushing to the elevator. Inside, she hit the button for ‘thirty-six’, waiting as the elevator made its ascent. Sterile, clean. Smooth jazz played on the speakers. The elevator made its way to her floor, though Leslie couldn’t help but wonder, if this one business existed on one floor out of fifty, how many others peddled things she once believed impossible, and to what end? She had not the energy nor bravery to explore that curiosity. Maybe somebody, someday, would feel compelled to follow through.

Floor thirty-six. Nothing out of the ordinary. Polished linoleum floors, windows letting in daylight, signs depicting evacuation routes, a janitor’s cart off to the side near one restroom. Nobody would have the slightest clue where they were. Clutching the box, still keeping her head down, Leslie made her way to a door with a white flower on it. White Orchid Exchange. The ‘G’ in ‘Exchange’ curled downward into a root, while the ‘H’ stretched upward into a blooming sprout. Looked like they sold herbal supplements for an MLM company or something.

Leslie entered, reaching a waiting area with rows of seats, a television playing ‘The View’, and a variety of paintings. A few paintings depicted yet more flowers, one showed a scenic vista of a waterfall, but a couple of them were rather concerning. Dark, unsettling landscapes with pillars rising from marble ruins, bizarre pterodactyl-like entities were perched on the ruins, a few others were in the sky, having long jaws full of teeth and mammalian eyes, withered torsos with sagging breasts, wings tattered. Nobody waited behind the counter, so Leslie found herself drawn to the paintings, studying them, until a voice emerged:

“Hello,” a husky-voiced woman said.

Leslie turned. It was her. “It’s done. Th-Thank you.”

“Come,” the woman ushered Leslie into the next room, a room Leslie hadn’t seen last time. Past another couple doors, they came to a room that Leslie thought resembled a fancy penthouse. Sparse furnishings one could only hope to deign ‘modern’, a few fur rugs that came from a variety of animals lay strewn across the wooden floor. A fireplace crackled, with two statues at either side. Nagas holding spears. There with very large paintings on a few of the walls, stretching a story in height, bleak landscapes and more twisted, nightmarish creatures, some with human and animal characteristics blended in ways that made the creatures seem in constant agony.

“I think I did everything right,” Leslie quietly told the woman.

“My name is Veronica Gula,” the woman said, smiling pleasantly. Her hair was graying, tied back in a ponytail, she wore an expensive pantsuit, heels, and held a glass of red wine, nails an inch long and pointed. Ruby red.

“Veronica Gula? OK. Well, I followed the spell and . . . I don’t know. This thing you gave me. It won’t stop feeding. I’m worried if I give it to you. Will it find its way back to me?”

“No. Your end of the bargain is complete. By continuing to feed Nergal, you might think of it this way: You pay a carpenter to build you a new deck. He finishes. And you pay him more on top of what was agreed to for him to complete the job.”

“I’m . . . tipping that thing?”

“To put it in layman’s terms. Truth is, Nergal is voracious and never satisfied. Not completely. He’d eat the Earth if we weren’t careful.”

Leslie chuckled in discomfort. “So, um, this is it? I did it right?”

“Did you get what you wanted?”

“Y-Yeah. Maybe? I kind of feel empty. He’s dead, just like you told me. But why don’t I feel better?”

“You need rest, Ms. Baker. Why not go home and sleep? I’m sure you’ll feel at peace after some much-deserved rest.”

“Are you sure? I don’t feel right. I just keep wishing this was all over.”

Veronica hugged Leslie. “There, there. You needn’t worry. What’s done is done. The exchange is already complete.”

“Sure. . . . . You’re right. Thank you.” She set down the box, giving it back for good.

Leslie walked away, uneasy, turning back to ask, “What goes on in these others rooms?”

“You don’t need to know that. There are many, many powerful beings. Some can do extraordinary things if the right ritual is performed. All you need to know is that thanks to you, Nergal is satiated, for the time being. So, we’re all safe again.”

“Oh . . . I . . . Does that scare you?”

Veronica smiled like the receptionist. “No. Why would it? I serve a wonderful God.”

Leslie didn’t pry any further. She exited the White Orchid Exchange, heading down the elevator. The receptionist bade her farewell as Leslie silently made her way outside. Onto the train, back to her apartment in Hoboken. All seemed right, yet nothing inside her felt that way. The guilt ate at her, making her heart’s every pump feel heavy and difficult. She stared at her filthy apartment with indifference, telling herself for months and months that once this is over and Daniel Herman is finally brought to justice, she’ll tidy up, get her life together. Everything will be better.

Yet nothing was.

Drawing the blinds, shutting the curtains, Leslie snuffed out the sunlight and curled up on her couch, watching her own reflection in the powered-off television before drifting to sleep, not feeling any better, not dreaming any better. When she finally awoke, her entire body felt stiff. She reached for the throw pillow she often slept on as she fell to sleep watching TV, only to find nothing but hardwood floor beneath her. Had she fallen off the couch? Her eyes jolted open. Leslie didn’t understand what she saw. This wasn’t right.

Couldn’t be.

Leslie awoke in an unfamiliar cabin with windows frosted over, and the faint howl of a winter storm outside.

2025 © J.M. Weaver

[jmweaverauthor]

Hey you. Yes, you. Write the wildest idea you have. I don't care how badly you're worried people won't like it. I don't care if you think it's too experimental. Too dark. Too weird. Too lengthy or involved. Start drafting it, have fun with it, pour yourself into it and take it chapter by chapter. You'll be glad you did. Nothing's more rewarding than seeing 'that project' you've had in your head for years finally take shape.

[jmweaverauthor]

Have you ever revisited work you wrote a long time ago and you get the same vibe you do when you load up old save files for a game you haven't played in forever? Like, "Ah yes, this is my creation. I did this. Probably while sober. These characters are doing this or that and equipped this way because of undoubtedly great decisions that make sense if you squint your eyes. I'm sure all of this seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, I'm just missing context. Why is my basement filled with cheese?" I legit reread a short story this week I wrote in 2012 that I have no recollection of making. So I rewrote it, as one does, now with 90% more coherence. Will post in a few days when editing is done.

[jmweaverauthor]

You ever flip through your backlog of writing notes to yourself (I'm partial to having a disconcerting Hell-pile of Post-it notes on my desk), and realize you have absolutely no idea what you were even trying to get at with your own notes, to yourself? Because I sure do.

[jmweaverauthor]

Now, more than ever, it's important you don't let current events dissuade you from writing. We have to be bold, and loud, and authentic to who we are. Your story matters. Your voice matters. Don't be afraid. Don't curtail your vision to comply with anyone or any other source of creative oppression. We can't afford to concede ground or be complacent. Artistic integrity is our duty to who we are as people.

[jmweaverauthor]

The cycle never ends. I even dream about writing/not writing enough.

This is a picture for those who think being a writer is easy: WE FEELING STRESSED ALL THE TIME!!!!!

[jmweaverauthor]

Every writer has a tug-of-war going on in their head between somebody levelheaded and business-oriented who wants to create a work of art that will resonate with lots of people/be successful, and a raving, shower-averse lunatic who wants to make the project as niche, abstract, and unwelcoming as possible.

Or gory.

Or horny.

Or both.

[jmweaverauthor]

Me, on my day off today: "I'm going to edit and get tons of work done on the book I'm about to finally self-publish."

My partner at 11am today: "Oblivion Remastered just got released out of nowhere."

Me, to my book and all earthly responsibilities for the day:

[jmweaverauthor]

Favorite OC you've ever made?

This is legit a tough question for me. I love my characters, and I've made a lot. I'm going to go full-bias mode and list three, though it's hardly comprehensive. Let's see . . .

Hailey Stewart - Lead character of my novel, Savage as You, which I wrote a few years back. I'm commissioning a cover for it right now and should be self-publishing it very soon! She is a very sensitive, self-conscious transgender girl in high school, who is quite naive but pretty adaptable to the screwed up situations she finds herself in, up to and including being gifted a method to visit a dream-like realm outside of our universe.

I love writing her humor, the way she means well but often makes characters around her groan from her bad jokes or questionable observations. I like that she's flawed, yet very brave. She's a bit envious, impatient, and certainly not a genius, but very scrappy and practical. Her struggles with anxiety and depression very much mirror my own, and I think I definitely added some personal touches to her that make her very special to me.

Chloé Priscilla Nightingale - One of my oldest characters. I made her original incarnation when I was about eight or nine. She appears in the book I just finished, The List of Ash and Bone, which I still need to commission a cover for. But I plan to release it not terribly long after Savage as You, because it's done. Chloé is from a realm outside of our universe known as Fah-Drael, where people live almost forever. She's a Goddess, whose aristocratic family ritualistically killed their children as sacrifices until one was born a Goddess, which happens by pure coincidence, like a 1 in a trillion lottery.

Her family had her whole life planned out for her, how to use her power to shape their kingdom, how they'd wield her power to oppress and overthrow any kingdom that doesn't bow to their whims. At a young age, something similar to our teen years, she realized what her life would be, and that it included having an exact amount of children, and with whom, in what kingdoms, once she matured into womanhood. She turned on her family, slaughtering them, overthrowing her own kingdom from within.

She created her own royal crest and flag, adopting the surname 'Nightingale' in honor of a peasant family who helped her rebuild, becoming a true family to her at last. She went on to wage wars, piss off pretty much all of her family's former allies, and rule with a questionable taste for wrath. But she ended up fighting alongside the main cast of these Fah-Drael stories I wrote a long time ago with my brother (the stories are mere legends in The List of Ash and Bone, and these old heroes I used to write are now washed up). Chloé eventually married a female Knight named Luna, who became Luna Kaverie Nightingale.

The lore of these stories is as dense as concrete. Suffice to say, Chloé is very important to me. She's a badass who's unimaginably powerful but careful when to use it. She has a very strong-willed personality, fiercely independent, yet also a loving mother, who treats her soldiers like family. Like Hailey, she possesses a very distinct sense of humor, able to find something to joke about in the direst of circumstances.

Lep-Shièn - A running character of an ambiguous good/evil alignment. He's supposedly the God of the Moon, of Hunting, and of Celebration/Booze, from the dream-like realm Hailey visits in Savage as You, known as S'Arr Eike Vohl. But there are doubts surrounding his stories, due to certain discrepancies between him and the Lep-Shièn many Gods knew from long ago.

His true role in the stories as well as what's going on with him are spoilers, so I can't elaborate much more. He always seems to be at the right place at the right time, holding a strange, ornate dagger and flask containing infinite liquor. He can shapeshift into almost anything, has a carefree attitude and doesn't take virtually anything seriously. He loves to mingle with mortals in more ways than one, and pose as one, when the mood strikes him. His pension for games and manipulating outcomes in his favor are running themes of my stories, and even if a book seems like it doesn't include him. . . . He does enjoy shapeshifting, so maybe he's always lurking somewhere in plain sight in my books.

Writing him is always fun. He says whatever he wants, he's cunning, rude, vicious, and doesn't have a single fuck to give. Everything is a game to him, and winning is all that matters. But having fun along the way seems equally important to him.

So yeah! Just a few of my favorites. I have many, many more but these characters are probably a fairly honest Top Three for me. Thank you for the question!

[jmweaverauthor]

Having a creative mind is both a blessing and a cloying sense that you're babysitting 24/7. I'll just be going about my day, doing the dishes or watching TV, and my brain will start churning. I'm grateful for it, and love coming up with new material, but I won't be actively trying to make anything. My brain just taps my shoulder periodically and goes, "Hey, wouldn't it be crazy if there was a town where people get progressively more ill to the point of death, but only if they have the knowledge that being on the land that town was built on has that effect, so they have to create propaganda to prevent anybody from having intrusive thoughts that the town is actively trying to kill them?"

And I just have to go, "That's really great, sweetheart, Mommy will write that down as soon as we finish driving to work. You go play in the corner and stop thinking about cursed murder towns for a few minutes."

[jmweaverauthor]

Write the wildest ideas you have. Life is way too short to play it safe and write stuff you think will have 'mass appeal'. Nobody remembers stories like that. The people who break out and experiment, take risks, and don't let themselves be bogged down by fear or doubt, create the most memorable, most authentic art. In an age where so many people are tripping over themselves to neuter their ideas and cut corners with AI hellbent on generating the most derivative 'art' imaginable, it's become more important than ever to show people why humanity and soul are vital ingredients to creative expression.

[jmweaverauthor]

Be careful not to use the same words too often, especially if they're uncommon. Always try to spice up your vocab but be extra sure you're using words correctly and not blindly substituting synonyms. If you find yourself running into comfortable or familiar sentence structures that continuously lead you to use specific words, mayhaps mix up your flow and try out some new ways of crafting your prose? If you notice certain words pop up waaaaay too much, your readers will, too! Trust me—I don't know who needs to hear this—but your novel only needs the word 'bifurcate' in it once, maybe twice, tops.

[jmweaverauthor]

If you keep talking yourself out of writing a certain chapter or scene and procrastinate around it, maybe you're setting your heart on the wrong direction for your story? Be bold with your writing, always. You never have to write something you feel lukewarm about. Readers will feel the same way. Shatter expectations: Don't fall in line with safe ideas or ones you wouldn't be excited about yourself. That weak chapter might cause people to read something else. You never, ever have to commit to a bad or bland section of a story you've planned out. Be passionate about every single word.

[jmweaverauthor]

Eleven Unnamed Graves

(This is a 7450-word short story I wrote a couple months ago. I've had the idea for a long time and finally got around to it. A man wakes up in the hospital, having experienced a miraculous rebound from a life-threatening car accident. The answers the medical staff get might redefine their notion of a miracle. Content warning: dark themes, violence, gore, medical horror.)

Eleven Unnamed Graves

Kayden

Darkness finally lifted, thinning, thinning, at last giving way to light. Kayden’s green eyes opened, a disorienting thrum in his mind. It took him a few seconds to realize he must be in a hospital room. Daylight, sunny, a lovely blue sky, though the freedom it represented quickly deteriorated as Kayden realized his right leg was being suspended. Countless rods held it together, some kind of bracket device he didn’t really recognize. He knew it posed one singular possibility: his leg was broken. Dread welled up inside of Kayden—he had bills to pay, a job, where was his car? His mind raced toward a progressively worsening string of thoughts, spelling Doomsday.

He reached out for the call-nurse button, pressing it repeatedly. Above all else, Kayden needed answers, and he needed them now. “Nurse!” Kayden shouted, before anyone even opened the door.

A nurse in her mid-thirties wearing Snoopy scrubs entered, her expression rather shocked. “Mr. Hanford! I-I—oh my God! You’re awake!” She smiled, tears filling her eyes that she tried not to wipe, so as to maintain her mascara’s integrity.

“Yes. Hi, hello. What the Hell is all this?” He pointed to his leg.

“Gosh. You probably don’t even remember! You were in a very nasty car accident. You got T-boned on Monmouth Ave. You’re really lucky to be alive.”

“OK. Great. Is my Chevy all right?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I think firefighters had to pull you out of the wreckage. They wanted to cut your leg off but—oh! I’m so sorry. You do not need to be hearing that right now.”

“Nurse, look, I—”

“Nurse Mathis! I’ve been looking after you during the day.”

“Wait, wait, wait, during the day? How long have I been out?”

The nurse got the sense that Kayden might be close to shouting at her, so she tried not to give him the whole truth. “Oh, um, just a couple days.”

“A couple? So, what the hell day is it, then?”

“Wednesday, the fifth,” she said, wincing.

“Oh, thank God. Thank you, thank you, thank YOU!” Relief washed over Kayden out of nowhere. He was actually smiling.

“What, did you have plans or something?”

“Yeah. On, uh, Monday the tenth! I absolutely have to be home by then.”

The nurse gulped anxiously. “O-Oh, why is that?”

Kayden got a bit cross again. “What’s it to you? Ah, um, sorry. Yeah, I have a big business meeting. I can’t be here. I can leave now, honestly, let me call my friend, Corbin, and I’ll feel so much better.”

“Oh, I’m sorry but I can’t let you leave just yet. You’ve got quite a bit of equipment in that leg. We need to keep you overnight for observation, in case waking up so abruptly causes any complications.”

“Oh. Uh, sure? That should be OK. As long as I can leave by Monday. I can come back after that if need be, it’s just extremely important that I can go home that day.”

“I understand. We’ll do everything in our power to make sure you get home safe and sound as soon as possible.”

“Phew, screw my Chevy. I’m just so, so relieved you have no idea.” He leaned back, putting his head in his arms. “Woo! I’m starving. Got some Jello cups down in that cafeteria. Maybe a Snickers or something?”

“I . . . you sure you feel up to eating?” She eyed his IV bag, a bit confused.

“Yeah. I’m hungry as a horse.”

“OK. Sure—yeah, I’ll get you some food. Hang tight.”

He held out his hand, emphasizing the medical brace and rods in his leg. “I’m not exactly about to get up and do the damn Macarena.”

The nurse laughed. “Good, at least you’ve got your sense of humor.” She went to the door, rechecking his chart almost frantically.

“Anything wrong?”

“No. Apparently not.” She left in a hurry.

“OK . . . ?” Kayden rolled his head in his arms toward the window, smiling in a way that seemed to indicate he was quite thankful to be alive. The broken leg didn’t bother him one bit. He glanced at the sky, its pure blueness, only a few clouds drifting by, perfect beach weather. He smiled, feeling quite content, watching for a few minutes before he heard whispering outside his door. He thought he heard Nurse Mathis, quite frantically giving a hushed explanation, before an older doctor with glasses entered. A bit of a beer belly and a receding hairline. He wandered over to Kayden, holding his chart. The nurse appeared to be occupying the doorway.

“Hello there, Mr. Hanford,” the doctor greeted him. “You seem like you’re doing well.”

“Yeah. Uh, that my nurse over there? Yo, where’s my Snickers?” he hollered. She went back into the hallway. “What the . . . ? Hey, doc, am I in some sort of trouble?”

“Trouble? No. We’re a bit amazed, is all.”

“Amazed, how so?”

The doctor sat on a stool, placing the chart upside down on his lap. He smiled a bit like Kayden as he watched the sky. “You had us very worried.”

“OK? The nurse said I was out for a day or so.”

“We spoke, yes. Your injuries were very severe, Mr. Hanford. We almost pronounced you dead after the accident. You weren’t breathing for a while. So, we induced breathing but . . . it’s complicated. We ran into problems again and again. You were in very rough shape. And now you’re up and spry as can be. It’s a miracle.”

“I can drink to that!”

“Like Nurse Mathis said, we need to observe you overnight. In cases like this where patients abruptly wake from what seem like lethal injuries . . . Unfortunately, sometimes things slip backwards. But you’re showing no signs so far of cognitive decline. In fact, your leg.” The doctor got up, examining Kayden’s leg held together by rods. “It’s . . . the swelling is gone and it’s looking great. The blood and . . . the markings we made are gone.” He tilted his head, confused. “It’s like a real miracle. The dried blood even . . . You have no bruising. I don’t fully understand what’s happening but rest assured it looks like you’ll make a full recovery.”

“That’s great news. I was telling the nurse I need to be home soon, though. Got a really important business meeting on Monday.”

“Nurse Mathis told me. I think . . . .” He seemed a bit hesitant.

“What is it? Am I good or not?”

“No. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about the tenth of anything, just get some rest.”

“I will be getting out by then, though, right? The nurse said it’d be no big deal. That I’d be going home soon. I can come back for a follow up, my friend, Corbin, can take me home tomorrow. I need to call him.”

“Let’s not worry about that. Focus on rest and don’t overexert yourself. You’re a trooper, Mr. Hanford.” The doctor patted his shoulder, getting up to leave.

“OK . . . ? I guess I can do that.”

Time passed on by, Kayden felt somewhat restless. He hit the call button and Nurse Mathis emerged. “Hello again, Mr. Hanford.”

“What gives? Where’s my candy?”

“I’m so sorry. Gosh. I’ll go get—”

“Where’s the remote? I wanna watch TV.”

“I’ll put something on when I get back. OK?” The nurse tried to leave.

“Whoa, is something the matter?”

“N-Not at all, Mr. Hanford.”

“You’re acting fishy, you know?”

“I’ll be right back, and I’ll put on the TV for you.”

Kayden waited, and waited. Another twenty minutes. He hit the call button, and soon enough Nurse Mathis came back with a few items from the cafeteria, setting up Kayden’s swivel tray over his lap. “Got you some candy, a soda, and a Jello cup. Anything else?”

“The TV?”

“Right. Um, OK.” She headed over to the TV, manually turning it on, pressing buttons, blocking his view. “What do you want to watch?”

“I dunno. Movies? Anything but sports or the news.”

“That’s a relief. A lot of patients put on really political stuff and it’s kinda awkward to sit through sometimes . . . Oh! Is this good?” She left it on the movie Terminator 2.

“Ah shit, they’re still at the mall, this’s like the beginning of the flick! Oh, hell yeah! All I need’s a beer and some Cheetos and I’m golden. Say, uh, how do I . . . ?” He looked down, noticing dark yellow, almost brown urine move through a catheter. “Well, that answers half of my question.”

“Call me if you need to go. Better get used to needing help with that leg.”

Kayden waved his hand. “I’ll be good on Monday. No sweat.”

“What . . . ? Your leg is severely injured, Mr. Hanford.”

“Oh! Damn, yeah, you’re right. Sorry, one-track mind. If you know, you know, am I right?”

She tilted her head, smiling uncomfortably. “I guess so. Um, I can get you some Cheetos and, just between you and me, there’s a liquor store not far from here. I go on break at four.”

“Well, well, well, now this is what I call healthcare. Arnold Schwarzenegger and booze! Get me a Natty Ice.”

“Sure thing, just, uh, hide it. Our shifts change at ten.”

“Damn, that blows. Who’s gonna be looking after me, then?”

Maggie

“You have got to be kidding me,” Maggie groaned, her hair in a messy bun, standing in her unlit driveway, dressed in her purple scrubs featuring the Hello Kitty character, Kuromi. She stared blankly at her flat tire, checking her phone. 9:16. “You cannot be fucking serious. This night can’t get any worse,” she said, to herself, rubbing her forehead, opening her Lyft app.

“Oh, come on!” she complained, as the app assured her somebody would accept her request at an unspecified date and time, possibly outside the extinction of mankind itself. She glanced over at the mountain bike in the garage, eyes bloodshot and fed up. “Goddammit.”

Maggie arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes late, sweat pooling on her armpits and back, through her scrubs. “Where on Earth were you?” Nurse Mathis hissed.

“Sorry, Angela. Ugh, I had a flat tire and apparently nobody’s doing Lyft and my stupid cat peed on the damn sofa.”

“Call next time. OK? I really needed you here on time.”

“Why? Mr. Gallagher show up again or something trying to get morphine?”

“No. It’s . . . you know the guy in room twelve? Kayden Hanford?”

“The vegetable with the leg they wanted to amputate?”

“He’s awake. Lucid as can be. And his leg . . . it’s like totally normal looking, just with the external fixator attached.”

“What!? No way. That’s impossible. He was toast. So, he’s breathing on his own, no ventilator?”

“He started gagging last night. They took it off. He suddenly breathed like normal.”

“I don’t get it. He was totally gone. Didn’t his head get smashed?”

Angela shrugged, eyes averted. “Apparently not. His face looks fine, too.”

“But he was all bruised and swollen. No—no, no, no, his head was legit caved in. They had to put a drain in to reduce swelling.”

“See for yourself. It’s like he’s fine.”

“Anything else I should know?”

Angela seemed slightly embarrassed. “I lied to him. He thinks it’s still last week.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know! I panicked. I didn’t want him flipping out. He seemed agitated when I brought up the date. So, maybe don’t tell him what day it is?”

“What day does he think it is?”

“Wednesday, the fifth. He has some kind of meeting he was supposed to go to today. I felt so bad. I don’t want him to know yet.”

“Wow. That’s seriously messed up. OK, fine. Whatever. He better not get pissed off at me if he figures out what day it is.”

“Just tell him I’m the one who lied.”

“I feel so much better now,” she dryly said.

“Please . . . try to make him feel comfortable. I have no idea what’s going on with him but his condition could swing back without much warning. Dr. Bransgrove and I have literally no idea why it looks like he’s improving.”

“So, we think it’s a false positive? His brain’s putting on a puppet show before the curtain falls again?”

“Grim way of putting it. But yeah. I think whatever this is, is temporary. He’s probably on borrowed time.”

“Well, what about his leg and head? How can any of that be temporary?”

“I don’t know, Maggie. I really don’t.” Angela took off her gloves, throwing them in the trash, heading to the restroom in the nurses’ station. Maggie’s curiosity got the better of her. Instead of doing her rounds in order, she decided to pay Kayden a visit first, to verify what Angela had told her.

She softly pressed on his door, only to see him reaching over, scratching the fixator on his leg. “Whoa! Hey—uh, sorry. You the new nurse?”

“Nurse Reed. Call me Maggie, and you definitely should not be scratching that leg, Mr. Hanford.”

“Oh, sorry. I—well, it’s really starting to hurt. The nurse gave me something for the pain but it’s throbbing.” He lay back, sweating a bit, eyes darting all around. “You guys aren’t lying to me about anything, are you?”

“About what?”

“It’s really important . . . that I get home by the tenth.”

Maggie found this to be an extremely bizarre thing to say. Damning, but in a context she did not have the tools to comprehend. “Why’s that?”

“Never mind. It’s for business. I can’t miss it.”

Maggie approached him, examining his head. She gulped nervously. “You’re all healed,” she muttered, confusedly.

“Yeah, apparently. I’ve never gotten hurt like this so I never knew I could . . . Maggie.”

“Yes? What is it, Mr. Hanford?”

“I’m not in any trouble, am I?”

“No. You aren’t. Why do you think you are?”

“I have paranoid thoughts. Sometimes. My therapist tells me not to worry. I’m on, uh, Xanax and stuff. I get really bad anxiety.”

“You and me both.” Maggie smiled, feeling a spark of a connection to her patient. She opened her phone. The brightness of it drew Kayden’s eyes. “Oh, you’re gonna love this.” She unlocked her phone with a Z-pattern on the home screen, but Kayden gasped.

“Whoa, hold on—”

“There!” She showed him a picture of her flat tire. “Welcome to my nightmare. I never had anything like this happen to me and, well, I about had a panic attack. I rode up here on my bike and that’s why I smell like a gym rag. I, uh—Mr. Hanford?”

Kayden breathed in and breathed out in quick succession. “Can you show me your home screen again?”

“My home screen? Sure, but why?”

“I saw something odd.”

Maggie shut her eyes, knowing the simple mistake she made. No going back. She showed it to him and all the color left his face. “I’m sorry, Kayden. We didn’t want—”

“Oh no. No-no-no-no-no. This isn’t fucking happening.” Kayden held the sides of his head, eyes wide, in clear distress.

“Hey, listen! Whatever this was, we didn’t want you to worry. OK? All we were trying to do was keep you calm so we could monitor—”

“You don’t understand. Everybody in this hospital is in terrible danger.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You need to evacuate the hospital, now.”

Maggie’s mind drifted to what he said a moment ago about paranoid thoughts, seeing a therapist, needing medication. “Listen, Mr. Hanford. What you’re going through, I can sympathize. Tell me what meds you need and I’ll see what we can do.”

“Nurse Reed.”

“Maggie.”

“Right, Maggie. What I’m about to say, is going to sound insane. It will make you think I’m schizophrenic or something. But you have to trust me.”

Maggie’s eyes began searching the room instinctively, if she needed to defend herself, only to notice something hidden on the corner of the table by his bed. She picked up a beer can. “Ugh, Angela got this for you?”

“That’s been out of my system for hours.”

“Mr. Hanford. Kayden. I know your thoughts feel very real. But I—”

He grabbed the IV stand next to him with one hand, reaching over with his other, he effortlessly bent the whole thing in half. Her mind likened it to a Superman movie. A prop, bent by fictional power. “Maggie.” He tossed the IV stand aside, exerting almost no effort, flinging it against the far wall with a loud series of clangs. “I need you to pay attention to what I’m about to say.”

Maggie nodded, confused. Unsure what to think or how to act. “Are you . . . like, do you have powers . . . ? Like a—”

“Superhero? No. Unfortunately I don’t have super powers. Well, kind of. I’m not an alien from another planet. I didn’t get exposed to radiation. There is something very wrong with my DNA, though. I’m not human. Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a lycanthrope. A werewolf.” He paused. “I’m a monster.”

Maggie looked back at the IV stand, then Kayden. In the darkness of the room, city lights shining from the window at his back, she saw his eyes . . . gleaming like chartreuse jewels. “I want to not believe you. But I think I do.”

“I get that. But in an hour, I’ll begin to transform. By midnight I’ll barely have control of my body. Where is my phone?”

“In the back. We didn’t keep your belongings in your room because, well . . . .”

“I was pretty much dead?”

“Yeah. You healed so fast.”

“It’s the moon. It’s almost full so I’m, um, less human. I need you to get my phone and call my contact named Tax Man. My lockscreen code is ‘137958’; my fingerprint won’t work until tomorrow. Tell him Kayden is here, give him the address, he can subdue me. But you have to move fast, or . . . I don’t know.”

“What will happen?”

Kayden seemed despondent, hopeless. “I’ll probably kill everyone on this floor, and that’s if I don’t figure out how to move between floors. I might be too preoccupied feasting to try door handles or buttons. It’s kind of hit or miss if my real form knows how to use technology.”

“I don’t think it’s your real form. I think you’re the real you, Kayden.”

“Thanks. You won’t think that in an hour. Now go. Please evacuate the floor.”

Maggie rushed out of the room, flustered. She didn’t know if she fully believed him, her brain trying its hardest to hold on to her sense of normality, to compartmentalize and reframe what she saw. She had to believe it was a trick or some bout of psychosis. Anything. She returned to the nurses’ station.

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you? Need to sit down?” a nurse in pink scrubs said.

“No. Um. OK, so something really weird just happened. That Kayden guy.”

“Oh, the miracle man himself? Angela said he was in really good spirits.”

It dawned on Maggie that there was no earthly way to explain why the floor needed to be evacuated whatsoever. “He was acting strange. He wanted me to . . . oh God.”

“To what?”

“Tamilla, evacuate the floor.”

“Wait, wait, wait, you need to back all the way up. What did he say?”

“He threatened to kill everybody on the floor at midnight.”

“He can’t walk. Are you high or something?”

“No. I wish.”

“Girl, same. But you know we do NOT joke about this sort of thing. What exactly did our miracle man say?”

Maggie felt sick to her stomach, nervous beyond belief. “Never mind. But in, like, twenty minutes can you check on him?”

“Yeah. Whatever. If he’s making you uncomfortable, I’ll fuck him up.”

Maggie smiled. “Thanks. Uh, I’m gonna . . . leave.”

“Leave? You really aren’t feeling good. Need to use some PTO?”

She nodded repeatedly. “I . . . you’ll check on him, won’t you?”

“Dude. You’re starting to freak me out.”

Maggie grabbed a stack of Post-It notes on the desk and wrote down Kayden’s lockscreen password. “Find his phone. You need to call . . . ,” Maggie’s mind drifted, checking over her shoulder back at Kayden’s room. “Call his contact. Um, it should be Tax Man, he said.”

“You’re seriously acting weird. What—”

“Just do it, OK!?” Maggie shouted, then covered her mouth, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“About what?”

Tamilla

Tamilla fumbled with Kayden’s locker, pulling out a zipped plastic bag full of his belongings. She took out his phone, her posture deflating. “What am I doing?” She put it back, shutting the locker. “Get a grip.” She hooked his phone up to a charger, setting it on a desk nearby. Something didn’t sit right with her; she knew deep down that this wasn’t normal. Things felt wrong, the very air felt unnaturally still, listless. For a moment, she considered not doing what Maggie asked, then she saw the terror in her eyes. Her request made no sense, the man’s leg is held together by a fixator, his skull is half caved in. He was a goner. Anything weird he’s saying is likely the result of brain damage. She understood this, and yet . . .

Tamilla opened Kayden’s phone, trying to remember what contact she was supposed to call, when the answer found her. There were several texts from a contact known as Tax Man asking if he was OK. She scrolled up. Her eyes widened, full of disbelief and dread. “ ‘Big day's coming up, are the chains in that dump still secure?’ . . . ‘Where are you?’ . . . ‘Call me, now. Where've you been?’ . . . ‘What is going on!? You know I don't watch the news. Call me.’ . . . ‘You're freaking me out, buddy. Full moon's tomorrow. I can't help you if you don't talk to me.’ . . . ‘God help us all.’ . . . What in the name of God?” she muttered, hearing a scream from the direction of Kayden’s room, a cry of dire agony. Tamilla nervously inched her way out of the storage area. A code sounded on the floor. She looked back at Kayden’s phone; it didn’t have enough charge to make a call without keeping it hooked to the wall.

A nurse ran up to Tamilla, shaking, eyes big and alert. “Something’s wrong with the patient in room twelve! Please come as fast as you can.”

Tamilla looked at the phone once again. “I-I—”

“Tamilla, what are you waiting for. This is really, really bad. The patient—I don’t know. He’s bleeding like crazy.”

“From where?”

A stunned paleness washed over the nurse. “All over his body, his skin . . . it’s cracking apart.”

The cries from Kayden’s room reverberated down the hallway, excruciating, the kind you’d expect of a man set on fire. They were unbearable to listen to, even for a seasoned nurse. Tamilla followed her coworker as she came to his room, pointing inside, ushering her over. Sheepishly, Tamilla got closer to the room, as the screams sounded less and less human, more guttural. Primal.

“Mr. Hanford, please hang on. Mr. Han—OH MY GOD!” the nurse shouted as she turned toward him, eyes off Tamilla, who froze in place as a metallic object coated in blood shot out of room twelve, moving unbelievably fast. The object collided with the nurse’s head, smashing straight through it, hitting the opposite room’s door with a raucous series of clangs. The nurse’s head blew apart in a stomach-flipping shower of blood and cranial matter. A splat of her blood painted itself across Tamilla’s now-stony face, at a total loss of words. The nurse’s mostly headless body, with only a lower jaw intact, fell to the floor with a heavy, unsettling thud. The honesty of mortality rephrased itself for Tammila, a person all too aware of it, but ever incapable of predicting its cruelest manifestations.

The door across from Kayden’s room opened, a shaking elderly woman finally checked the commotion, since the howls of agony mostly ceased. Her shallow breaths quivered as she saw the blood. The body, and at last, a massive figure Tamilla could not comprehend. It sprinted out of Kayden’s room on all fours, the size of a mini-van, its shoulders busted effortlessly through both door frames as it tackled the elderly woman into the room. The door to room twelve flung off its hinges as the figure charged through. Tamilla heard the sound in the elderly woman’s room. Clicking teeth, wet noises of rearranging flesh, of snapping bone, grunts of a thing both animal and man, all as the woman pleaded at the top of her lungs, howling in agony, sonorous and heartbreaking, quickly weakening into tiny whimpers, soon snuffed out. Tamilla, splashed by blood, looked down at the metal object that decapitated her coworker: Kayden’s fixator, the whole thing, covered in blood, with chunks of bone stuck in it. As if he kicked it off his leg, at the nurse, and the rest of his leg grew back a moment later.

For a full twenty seconds, Tamilla could not move, death itself divinated her fate. A patient ran up to Tamilla, tugging on her scrubs, yelling in her ear to run; all she heard was a shrill ringing, as if a shotgun went off next to her head. Soon, the thing’s jaws sniffed their way out of the elderly woman’s room. The fiction was so much prettier. A hairy man with fangs, maybe a doglike snout. No, this thing had a human head stretched to the size of a crocodile’s, with jagged rows of pointy fangs, already coated in blood with big chunks of flesh and organs between them. Its lips hung loose like a hound, jiggling like flaps that hung past its mighty jaw. Its yellow eyes sat wide and lidless in their oversized sockets, surrounded by exposed musculature. Hairs like barbs or quills lined its bald head, its shoulders, and its elongated, orangutan-like forearms. The creature walked on its hind legs and knuckles, only scraps of clothes clung to its gigantic, stretched-out body. If it were to stand on its wolf-like hindlegs, it might peak at almost two stories tall. Tamilla noticed its hands bore knifelike claws, and its feet had talons, less wolf or mammalian than bird-like, reminding her of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. The thing’s tail whipped about, longer than Kayden once was tall, resembling a spine with a barbed point, covered in a thin layer of ashen skin. Since Kayden’s skin color shifted from bronze to a slate gray.

The patient tugged more on Tamilla’s scrubs, before finally smacking her across the face. She looked at the patient, a young woman struggling with substance abuse, needing her appendix out. Her bandages were bleeding. The sight of that brought Tamilla’s soul back to the surface, in time for the monster’s jaws to open, letting out an awful roar, the heat and air coming out of its mouth blew back her braided hair, feeling like a blow dryer on the highest heat and fullest blast, smelling of rot and iron.

Tamilla turned around, running, holding onto the patient, as the lycanthropic incarnation of Kayden ran on all fours, knocking over chairs, supply carts, skidding as they turned sharply into the nurse’s station; with its mighty hindlegs it leapt at them, only to smack into the ceiling, breaking several lighting fixtures with a jarring boom of sparks, barreling straight through the counter in a flurry of shattered cement and wood. The thing did not even need to consider its wounds or if it was hurt, under the full moon, it regenerated constantly, grotesquely enlarging and fixing itself as it continuously snapped its own bones, tore its own ligaments and muscles, unable to stop its own transformation, which rapidly played damage control to keep the new entity in one piece, lest it fall apart.

Tamilla ran back toward the storage area, holding the patient’s hand, despite her slowing down, trying to get her to safety, when the weight of helping her along stopped. She still held her hand. The beast jumped again, ripping the patient away, its razor-sharp claws slicing her bones as it dismembered her, tackling her delimbed body to the floor, chewing at her back, trying to get to her spine for some reason. Tamilla still ran for a short distance, holding onto her patient’s severed arm. She let go. Her senses became faint, almost dreamlike as her mind disassociated. She ran to the storage area as Kayden’s Other Self ate the patient, feasting ravenously. At this point the floor erupted into a full-blown panic, countless patients in different states of surgical recovery tried to evacuate. The other nurses scrambled. The monster jumped from person to person, smashing through walls and doors and observatory glass as it devoured everybody it could, slowing its path to Tamilla, who got back to Kayden’s phone, picking it up, calling ‘Tax Man’ in an automatic haze of adrenaline.

“Hello? Kayden—how are you calling me?”

“This isn’t Kayden. My name is Tamilla Greenwood, I’m a nurse at Brook Ridge Hospital, floor two. Kayden . . . he’s the Giant eating everybody, isn’t he?”

She heard a very deep, very crestfallen sigh on the other end. “Are you safe?”

“For now. I locked the door but—”

“That won’t help. You can’t really run from him, if he smells you.”

“What? I don’t—”

“Ms. Greenwood. You cannot run far enough on this Earth to escape him. He will rip open the gates to heaven or hell to reach you. I’ve seen him shred open a tank. . . . That was a long time ago. Is he feeding?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Get out. Now. Leave the hospital, your patients, coworkers, you can’t save anybody but yourself, you hear?”

“I don’t understand. What the hell is he?”

“Lady, I’ve been helping him not kill for forty years, and I don’t have an answer to that question. Do you have access to salt?”

“Not really?”

“He isn’t completely physical. Salt . . . can banish him, for a minute or two. You need iron or silver to take him out. Iron can paralyze him; silver can damage his organs and prevent regeneration.”

“I don’t have any of that.”

The man breathed a deep sigh. “You have to run, through all the carnage, or he will rip that door off its hinges to eat you. But if he smells me. Well, he’ll really come running. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Get out while you can.”

“What else? Can you please tell me anything else?”

“Praying won’t help. Crosses won’t help. Fire won’t help. Acid won’t help. Bullets won’t help. He regenerates too fast for any of that to matter. He’s not like other beings of our physical world. He has . . . a particular set of rules. Do you have a genuine moonstone?”

“I’m not sure.”

“A moonstone cannot be digested by his kind. He will get a stomach flu that lasts until morning. He is powered by the sun, reflected off the moon. Our moon is his bane. His enemy, spiritually. It is hard to describe. You must prioritize safety.”

“OK. What do I do?”

“Run through the carnage. Your patients, colleagues, shut it all out, and don’t stop. He won’t. It’s your only chance.”

“I’ll try. Who are you?”

The man hung up.

Corbin

Maggie fought with the key to her bike lock, dropping it, shaking too much. She wept, instead of trying again, her fight left her as the screams got louder. As people started leaping out of the windows. A nightmare played itself out, one that would never leave her eyes, no matter how hard she shut them. A simple flat tire seemed like less than a stubbed toe in that moment. The minutest inconvenience imaginable. All too swiftly she remembered the face of genuine misfortune.

People were jumping from the next floor down, pounding on the windows. Maggie saw one woman’s back to the window, and then a sheet of crimson splashed across the glass. Kayden found a way downstairs. If he made his way outside . . . the death toll could become incalculable. People poured steadily from the hospital, one after another. Maggie unlocked her bike, yet did not leave, frozen as she watched the people rush out.

Police were slow to respond, every 911 call at the hospital described a monster. Dispatchers were reluctant to take it seriously until the calls were too plentiful to ignore. Three cop cars arrived. Then six. Soon the street was blocked off on both sides with firetrucks and squad cars. The cherry and blue lights whipped across the street, creating an almost strobing effect that made Maggie dizzy. Cops were trying to take statements and figure out what was happening upstairs, as two more patients leapt from the windows. Not long after that a patient fell to the floor in front of a window facing them, giving everybody present an all-too-sobering look at the monster witnesses described. The police glared with alarm at one another, as if to say, ‘Are you going up there? ’Cause I'm sure as shit not’.

Soon a few of them found their spines, entering, guiding workers and patients to safety as they headed up to the floor Kayden beset. They opened the door in the stairwell, only to find an arm still holding onto the handle, severed, the rest of the body it belonged to resembled a pile of wet, bloodied hamburger meat speckled by scraps of clothes, flung several meters away. Blood painted the hallway, limbs and entrails and bones littered the recently waxed floor. They heard screams, crying, banging. A few people barricaded themselves in one of the patient rooms. The police were describing what they saw on their walkie talkies, only to stop with a dagger-sharp gasp as Kayden skulked into view, hunched over, monumental. The thing-once-known-as-Kayden dripped with blood, its maw salivating, it watched the officers, who opened fire.

Just as soon as the bullets pierced the monster, its flesh mended. If they damaged its head, it acted on such basic instincts that even if a large portion of its brain got shot away, its regenerative aptitude would create enough of a brain in seconds to pick right back up. Kayden ripped the men to shreds through a hail of gunfire. Maggie and the others watched from below, praying the gunfire would end this. It ceased, and their answer found them, as the monster heaved one of the officers straight through a window. Yet, it was only half of the officer, merely their upper torso. Their remains splattered across the pavement, lifeless. Kayden stared out of the window, roaring vehemently. The beast eyed the concrete below. Everyone began to scatter, thinking the creature might jump.

A man pulled up, weaving between firetrucks and cop cars on an old Harley. He set down his kickstand, putting his helmet on his seat. Maggie saw him, frantically glancing up to Kayden, trying to get the biker’s attention. “Are you—did Tamilla call you?”

Corbin stepped forward, grabbing a suitcase off the back of his bike. The man was covered in tattoos, with a bushy gray beard, boots, blue jeans, and a Johnny Cash tank top that desperately needed a wash, a camouflage bandana held back his long head of hair. “Yeah. He’s not at full strength,” the man growled.

“What!?”

A police officer stepped in nervously. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to back—”

Corbin turned to the officer, chewing tobacco, spitting it off to the side. “With all due respect, Sir Oinks-A-Lot, fuck off. I’ve gotta subdue him. You know how to subdue a creature like that? Because that’s my whole goddamn life. Capisce?”

The man put up his hands. “Be my guest, expert. That thing just killed three of my men.”

“I’ll be sure to ignore their funerals.” He turned around, walking by Maggie. “Get out of here,” he reminded her, walking toward the hospital.

“He looks like he’s about to jump. Where are you going?”

“He’s afraid of heights. Like a cat that can’t get down from a tree. He won’t jump.” He entered the hospital without another word. Corbin opened his suitcase on the hospital reception counter, inside were a few grenades, a revolver with six bullets nestled into the custom foam of the case, separate. There was also a very old dirk with a bone handle and a jagged blade of iron. Lastly, a strange syringe made of iron and glass.

Corbin hooked one of the grenades to his belt, taking the gun, loading it with all six bullets, and tucking the dirk into his belt. He reached for the syringe, hesitant at first, before grabbing it and shoving it into his jacket pocket. He shut the case, heading to the stairwell with an austere expression. He continued up, eventually making it to the open door with the arm clinging to it. Corbin crossed himself, carefully approaching the floor, trying to envision the room where Kayden might be considering jumping from based on his current position and the shape of the building from the outside.

He slowly tried to approach the room, stepping a bit too forcefully upon a pool of blood emanating from a nurse’s mangled body, alerting Kayden to his presence. The beast turned toward Corbin, its stretched, humanoid face in very apparent agony, its body and bones twisted and unnaturally lengthened, nerves pulled and forced to grow temporary extensions to facilitate the entity’s new shape. It panted, its meter-long jaws snapping and thrashing together, drooling endlessly. Kayden backed up, spreading his forearms and shoulders, trying to appear larger than his already mammoth proportions. He seemed to still recognize Corbin, or his scent, identify him as the only ‘human’ among the other common prey.

“Kayden, kneel,” Corbin commanded.

Kayden lunged a pace forward, biting the air in front of Corbin, its teeth harshly colliding with an awful blunt noise.

“Kayden. I need you to remember who you are, we can get through this,” he tried to soothe him, knowing the hospital and everybody else outside knew what he was. Corbin knew, though, he had the power to fix this.

“NOTHING,” an otherworldly voice crowed deep within the throat of the beast. “AWAY.”

“No. You can lie down. You’ve feasted enough. Lie down, revert. Like we practiced.”

“OVER,” the voice punched out of its maw, distorted with no lips.

“Kayden. Please. Just—”

The beast ran at Corbin, who sidestepped back out of the doorway, causing Kayden to rush through and collide with the opposite wall, leaving a vertical crater in it.

Stepping back, Corbin unlatched the grenade from his belt, hesitating visibly for but a second before pulling the pin and throwing it straight into Kayden’s mouth. The beast’s jaws blew apart with a sharp wail of silver shrapnel perforating every bit of the monster’s exposed maw. Kayden writhed in pain, whimpering, rolling on the ground, clawing at his own face, hurting himself, as his body tried to regenerate, build new jaws, but the silver prevented it. Failed strips of new flesh poured out of the wounds, trying to combine with fresh bone, only for the new jaw structures to fall right off.

Corbin aimed his revolver, watching Kayden try to scratch the silver shards out of his face, only managing to violently tear pieces of himself off. Corbin saw this, his opening, sighing frigidly as he fired all six rounds, one after the other. One in each arm, one in each leg, one in the chest, one in the head. The silver bullets prevented regeneration and corroded his existing flesh. Kayden’s arms and legs fell off of his torso. His head caved in, trying to purge its own brain to push out the silver in order to promote regeneration. The bullet in his chest exposed his heart, ribs spreading open. Corbin pulled the dirk from his belt loop.

“I remember when we met. When you showed me what you were. I . . . lost my faith, for a long time.” He stood over the mostly inert creature as various parts of its body fought to reconstitute. He knelt near the beast’s exposed chest, its heart larger than a man’s head, beating away. “I always used to say to you, I’d go to the ends of the Earth to protect you. To keep you safe. That we could outrun anything you did, we just had to get far away. As far as we can get.” His eyes seemed to ice over, full of regret. “One time, we were drinking after a full moon, and you remember what you told me?” He licked his lips, tears gently forming in his eyes. “What if there’s no such place as far enough?”

He plunged the blade into Kayden’s heart at long last. Ending it for good. Every piece of Kayden, at once, rapidly began to petrify, every hair, every inch of skin. All of it. The petrified fragments of Kayden soon broke up, as if beset by the most heinous virus imaginable. Piece by piece, he turned to ashen dust, leaving only the silver bits of shrapnel glistening in the ritualistically cremated remains of Kayden Hanford. And . . . his bones. Corbin’s heart pounded in an odious way. He took out the syringe, his hand shaking. Maybe . . . a victim was still intact. He knelt and extracted a vibrant blue liquid out of Kayden’s spine, holding the syringe close, knowing he’d need to come back for the bones.

Corbin got up and walked to the upper floors, to assess the extent of Kayden’s warpath. In the nurse’s lounge on the floor above, he found Tamilla, struggling to breathe, a massive bite wound to her neck and shoulder, blood escaping but not ending, not completely. Her body kept going, incapable of healing completely, but also incapable of dying. Stuck. Lucky, again.

Corbin saw this, as she gasped for air, holding her wound with towels, soaked crimson all the way through. Her eyes pled, and Corbin knew what he had to do. Wait for morning. Her wounds would stop regenerating. It would be over, truly. And yet, like an addict who can’t help themselves, he looked at the old syringe. Its presence danced mockingly in the forefront of his mind, speaking evil into his ears. Maybe he can do better. Maybe she will be even more careful than this Kayden? What would he even do now, after all these years, without him? Did he even want peace?

Corbin observed the syringe, then Tamilla’s pleading eyes. Every rational fiber of his being said to drain it out. End it. Rest. Free yourself. Break the cycle. Destroy Kayden’s curse. And yet, he saw the way her flesh fought to regenerate, not entirely able to read the brilliance of Kayden’s genetic code. His gift. Here he was, alive in her, yet again, trying to bring her flesh back to life. To make it his.

Corbin rolled Tamilla onto her side, injecting her spine. He held her mouth shut, shushing her almost parentally. “There, there. You’ll be OK. Before you know it, you’ll look just like him. You just need a few full moons, and you won’t remember ever being you. Kayden, maybe . . . your twelfth incarnation will understand. I’ll pray to the bones of your former selves, that you may one day appreciate all it is I do for you.”

(©2025 J.M. Weaver)

[jmweaverauthor]

Writing sometimes feels like a strange disorder you just kind of cope with by being creative. Like your brain randomly decides to dump a million-piece puzzle in front of you and says, 'Solve this or we will never think of anything else, ever.' You toil away for years and by some miracle you solve it, and it's the most fulfilling, exhilarating feeling in the world. It's perfect. You did it. And your brain is like, 'OK, here's my idea for three sequels and a spinoff.'

[jmweaverauthor]

When describing the setting of your scene, don't neglect any senses. The visuals and sounds are important, but the smell of a setting can be equally significant. How does the air feel on your characters' skin? Maybe the humidity is quite oppressive? These sorts of descriptors can segue beautifully into moments that contribute to your characters and flesh them out. They walk into a bakery and the scent reminds them of visiting their grandmother's home growing up. Or a bitter cold night can bring back bad memories of a character's frigid homeland. Your settings don't have to just be there to set the scene and help the reader visualize, think of ways to harmonize their inclusion with the story itself and your characters. I think narrative flow really clicks in a big way when every element of a story plays off and compliments everything around it. Like Jazz. Or a good meal.

[jmweaverauthor]

Don't ever let anybody talk you out of writing or pursuing your passions. Every time you write, you're improving your craft. Every time you read, you're also improving your knowledge of the craft you love. Keep at it, give yourself and your art some grace, and some room to breathe. The only person who can ever stop you from writing is you, and wouldn't that be a shame? You'll never know who might be touched by your work if you give up on it now.