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jgmartin · 1 year

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SNIPPITY SNAP [short horror]

It's just the two of us here. Myself and Ryan Halflow, a seventeen year-old kid from Elktorch High.

He’s typical as far as teenagers go. Impulsive. Disinterested. He and I are sitting in his parent’s garage, in a couple of fold-up camping chairs, with cheap cups of coffee on our laps.

We’re talking.

I’m here because I believe he’s witnessed an Event. A supernatural encounter of grave significance, and one which I believe could explain a series of grisly murders— murders which have gone unsolved, and plagued this sleepy town for close to a decade.

_________________

“It’s just a stupid nursery rhyme," Ryan says, bookending his words with a smirk. "Something to keep the kids inside after dark. Militant parental shit, y’know?”

I adjust my tie and clear my throat. It’s my first interview and I don’t want to come across as an amateur. “I’m well aware of its origins,” I say. “We’re here to discuss your Event.”

“My Event?”

I nod.

He stares at me for a few seconds, a smirk hovering on his lips. Eventually he huffs and folds his arms. “You're serious, aren't you? I was seeing shit, man. There isn't a mystery to be solved here. I was just high as a kite.”

“High as a kite,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “What kind of drugs were you taking then? LSD? DMT?”

“What? No.”

“Psilocybin?”

He shakes his head, incredulous. “No man, I’m not fucking… I wasn’t taking any of that.”

“Then, what? Weed?”

He gives me a measured look. “Yeah. Just weed. Nothing crazy.”

“Weed,” I say, and it’s my turn to smile. “Doesn’t typically come packaged with vivid hallucinations, does it?”

His face falters. The cool demeanor, the dismissive aloofness — it fades and for a moment I see a twinge of anxiety, and that’s when I know that I have him. I know that he doesn't believe in his own excuse.

“Yeah, well I was drunk too,” he argues. “I wasn’t exactly in my right mind.”

It’s my turn to fold my arms. I appraise him like my Orientation taught me to do: by maintaining eye contact, adopting a neutral expression, and above all else, not speaking a word. If you want to make people talk, my Mentor once said, then be silent.

So I am. I'm as quiet as death.

Moments pass. There’s nothing but the low hum of the light above us and my pencil, tap-tap-tapping on my clipboard. Ryan shifts in his chair. He mumbles. There’s words on his tongue. I can tell. There’s a whole world of questions he wants to ask, and I don’t blame him. When a mysterious figure knocks on your door in the middle of the night, says he works for the government and just needs to talk, maybe you let him in. Maybe you don’t. Either way, you’ve got questions.

Lots of them.

Ryan heaves a breath. “You said you worked for the government?”

I smile. He’s testing the waters. It’s not a slam dunk, but it’s good enough for now.

“I work for the Facility,” I say. “It’s a fresh enterprise, one that most of the government, let alone the country, isn't aware of. My job is to investigate Events that my superiors deem noteworthy.” I do my best to keep my voice level. Professional. But the job is so new, so exciting, that I can hardly contain myself. “Your Event has been selected.”

Ryan eyes me. “Facility, huh? No offense, but that sounds fucking ridiculous.”

He’s right to be skeptical of me. Smart, even. I reach my hand into my jacket and pull out my leather-clad identification badge. “I showed this to you earlier when you answered the door, but perhaps you’d like a better look at it?”

I toss it to him. He catches it, looking from the badge, back to me, trying to match the facial features. He runs his hand along the plastic, over the ridges of the raised employee number and then squints at the holographic security imprint.

“Looks real,” he concludes. He hands it back to me, and I pocket it. “How come I’ve never seen the Facility on the news?”

“Like I said, it’s a recent enterprise. The Facility is much more Area 51 than it is FBI. The work that we do, the Events that we deal with, they aren’t the sort of thing that the public needs to know about.”

“Why?”

“Think social tension, widespread panic.”

His eyes widen. “Oh,” he says. There’s a gentle change to his facial features, a sort of relaxed acceptance. He may not like this meeting we’re having, may not feel comfortable here, but the idea of being a part of something so clandestine is intoxicating to a teenage boy. I know this because I’ve been there before.

“What makes my Event noteworthy?” he asks.

“You made a post to social media three days ago showcasing a figure that I believe I recognize. That same night, a classmate of yours goes missing. A young man by the name of Benjamin Keen, and I’m wondering if the circumstances are possibly connected.”

Ryan nods, taking a nervous sip from his styrofoam cup. “Yeah. I heard about Ben. He was around that night— at the party I mean, but I never saw him. I hope he’s alright.”

“As do I.” I appraise Ryan for several moments, monitoring his expression, his body language. It appears sincere. “The figure in the photo. Can you describe it in your own words?”

“The shadow you mean? Yeah. It looked like a demon or something straight out of a nightmare.” He pauses, lowering the cup and looking at me seriously. “Are you in league with demons?”

“No, demons aren’t within my purview.”

He laughs, awkwardly. Like he’s waiting for the punchline to a joke that never comes.

“My field of work is urban legends. Monsters. Myths. That sort of thing.” I click my pen and bring it to the form on my clipboard. “It’s getting late. If it’s alright with you, Ryan, I’d like to start at the beginning. The night you took the photo, what led to that moment?”

He stares at me for a couple seconds, and then he realizes I’m not joking. He runs a nervous hand through curly brown hair. “It’s a long story.”

“Lucky you, my schedule’s clear.”

He frowns, then glances behind me. I turn, following his gaze, and in the small window of the garage door, I see a girl’s face. It’s only there for a moment before she ducks away.

“Who was that?” I ask. “Your sister?”

He nods, somewhat shaken. “You sure this isn't a prank? This seems like something she would get a real kick out of, screwing with me like this.”

More disbelief. More skepticism. I sigh, resting my pen on my clipboard and leaning back in my chair. “I’ve seen things too, Ryan,” I say. The words come out quietly, with a gravity befitting their meaning. This time, I’m not acting. “Plenty of things. I’ve seen monsters, and spirits, but worst of all, I’ve seen people die.”

He swallows.

“I watched somebody close to me lose themselves when I was very young. They became a monster, both figuratively and literally. The things they did to me— to my family and my life, were unspeakable.” There’s an emotion brewing inside of me, a sort of sadness mingled with pity and self-hatred. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. They’re the sort of tears that are against regulation, the sort of tears that indicate a lowering-of-the-guard, and a dangerous vulnerability.

But I let them.

“That’s how the Facility found me,” I explain, locking eyes with him. “They swept up the broken pieces of a scared little boy and glued them back together. Now I’m not claiming to know your situation. What you’ve been through. All that I want to do is talk to you— because I know how hard these Events can be on a person, and what they can do to a developing mind.”

It’s a stupid line, maybe. Overdramatic and obnoxious even, but it’s the truth, and on some level I think that Ryan senses that. He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t blow me off. Instead he sighs, leans forward and nods. “How does this work?” he asks, eying my clipboard. “Do I just start talking, or should I go slower so you can write?”

“Feel free to speak as fast as you like. I've had some practice with this.”

“Alright,” he mutters. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. It’s his turn to lower his guard, his turn to let go of the armor. “It was three days ago,” he says. “At Shannon Gilmor’s house party. Her dad was out of town for work and Shannon decided she wasn’t popular enough already, so she invited half the school to this thing.”

“How many people attended the party?”

Ryan squints, furrowing his brows. “I’d say… maybe a hundred?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know the exact number, but there were enough people that you couldn’t keep track of everyone. People would come and go all the time. The front door was swinging on its hinges.”

I make a note of it beneath the heading that reads WITNESSES. “Thank you. Go on.”

“We’re drinking, partying, just having a good time. Some people are playing beer pong upstairs, some people are getting stoned in the pool. The place is a fuckin’ sprawl. I’m downstairs in the living room, all alone hanging with this goth chick from my Theater class named Becca.” His cheeks go a deep red. “She’s pretty hot. Her and I… we’re getting kinda… you know. Heavy. Making out. Hands down my—”

“Try to focus on the details most relevant to the Event.”

“Right. Yeah. So after we fool around a bit, she starts messing with me.”

“Messing with you?”

He nods. “Talking about things like spirits and ghosts. That kind of crap. She told me she’s attuned to them, that she could feel them and talk to them. It’s totally ridiculous. So I started teasing her, calling her the ghost whisper. Just to be playful, you know? I asked her if she could get me Elvis’ autograph next time she took a trip to the great beyond.” Ryan takes another sip of coffee, and his hands are trembling. It’s the first time I notice one of his index fingers is wrapped in gauze. “Becca told me she couldn’t do Elvis, but she could show me another ghost.”

“Another ghost?” According to my research, the urban legend I’m chasing isn’t listed as a ghost. It’s a physical entity. “You’re positive that she used that terminology?”

“Yeah… pretty sure.”

“Hm.” I check a box on my clipboard labeled DIVERGENT. Nine times out of ten, a divergent Event is a dead end and nothing but a waste of paperwork.

Disappointing.

Ryan continues. “I asked her what ghost she was gonna introduce me to, since she couldn’t get a hold of Elvis, and Becca got this twisted smile on her face. It was terrifying but… sexy too. Mischievous. She said it was a ghost I’d be really familiar with. One I’d know even better than Elvis.”

“A family member of yours?”

He smiles, laughing a little. “That’s what I thought too. But no, I told her I wouldn’t go down there until she gave me a hint, and then she just came right out and said it. She said she was going to show me a local legend. A creature called Snippity Snap.”

There it is. “Snippity Snap…”

I write the name down onto my clipboard, my eyes growing wider with every letter. My hands are shaking so much that the words Snippity Snap come out crooked and uneven, but I don’t care. It’s the legend I’m chasing. The legend I’ve been chasing since I joined the Facility.

Elktorch’s big bad myth.

“Snippity’s a local celebrity,” Ryan says. “She’s the nursery rhyme you were asking about earlier. That little song folks hum to and from work. She’s the monster that lives under our beds and watches us from the window at night. The reason kids come home after dark.” He leans back, eyes glazing over, falling into a memory. “And Becca? She told me that Snippity Snap was real. She asked me if I wanted to meet her.”

I take a breath, remind myself that the name alone isn’t proof of the creature. The fact of the matter is everybody in this town already knows about Snippity Snap, so for the legend to be mentioned in this context isn’t out of the ordinary. It’s expected. I circle a box on my clipboard labeled INFLUENCED. It’s not uncommon for people who believe they’ve encountered an urban legend to have just been heavily influenced by external sources— in this case, an attractive girl.

“And Becca,” I say. “Had she had previous encounters with Snippity Snap?”

Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe? She was fucking… weird. Total nutcase. She led me down into the basement and said we needed to perform a ritual.”

“A ritual?”

“To make Snippity appear.” He takes another sip of coffee, and I catch another glance at his gauzed index finger. “Only reason I ever followed her down there was because I thought she was just playing around, being flirty and trying to get us some privacy so we could— well, you know, but once we started going down the steps I started getting a really uneasy feeling.”

“Uneasy how?”

“Like she wasn’t right in the head. She closed the door behind us and we walked down the steps in the dark. I tried turning on the lights cause it’s not like I needed a broken leg, but she snapped at me. Called me a pussy and grabbed my wrist. Next thing you know, she started pulling me down the steps two at a time, asking me if I was scared yet. I told her I came to party, not fuck around with ouija boards in the basement.”

Ryan sighs, puts his head in his hands. Composes himself. “I nearly turned around, shrugged her off and went back upstairs but all of a sudden she got real sweet. She put her lips against my ear and whispered that the two of us could fuck around all we wanted once she proved to me that Snippity was real. I was drunk enough that I agreed. I mean, shit, there was an implication there, right?

“Anyway, she dragged me over to this sink in the basement. I didn’t even realize where we were until she turned on the faucet and pulled my hand under it. Then…” His face suddenly pales, and he pulls his sweater sleeve over his hand— the hand with the gauzed finger. He looks like he’s about to be sick. “Then she unzipped her purse and pulled out a pair of scissors.”

“Scissors?” A smile flickers on my lips.

“Yeah,” Ryan says slowly, noticing my smile. “Scissors.” He looks at me like I’m crazy, and I realize I’m probably looking the part. The truth is, I know the ritual full-well. I’ve even attempted it myself— unsuccessfully, on several occasions. It requires four things: absolute darkness, a spoken incantation, a pair of scissors. and perhaps most importantly, a human finger.

If Becca went to that party with scissors in her purse, then it speaks volumes about her intentions. It’s like she was specifically looking for a victim. “The scissors,” I say, already knowing the answer. “What did she do with them?”

Ryan takes a deep breath. “She cut my finger,” he says, making a scissor motion in the air. “And she said a sort of chant.”

“A chant?”

“The first line of that old nursery rhyme, the one you brought up earlier. Snip, Snap. Needle and thread.”

“May I see your finger?” I ask.

He stares at me, and for a moment I think he might refuse, but then he slides his hand out of his sleeve, and there it is. His index finger, covered in gauze. He slowly unravels it. As he does, I see stitching across maybe ten or fifteen different cuts. It's badly mutilated. His eyes only look at it for a moment, before quickly wrapping it up again. “She was nuts.”

I record the details on my clipboard.

Subject suffered multiple lacerations that likely resulted in significant blood loss. Strong possibility that the subject was light-headed, and perhaps delirious at the time of the Event.

“If you thought she was nuts,” I say. “Then why would you let her do that to you?”

He opens his mouth as though to speak, but exhales instead. He shakes his head. His expression is guilt-ridden, painted in shades of shame and regret.

“I just mean to say that you’re fairly large for your age, Ryan, and appear to be in decent shape. If you wanted to break free of this girl and her ritual, it shouldn’t have been much of an issue.” I gesture to him with my hand. “And yet you sit here before me, with so many cuts on your finger that it’s hard to tell where one stitching ends and another begins. Such a phenomena leads me to believe that something else happened. Something kept you there, and in pain.”

He glares at me. Once again his eyes dart to the little window in the garage door, as though to make sure his sister isn’t eavesdropping again. Eventually he drops his head, defeated. “I… I’m seventeen years-old and I haven’t actually…”

“Haven’t what?”

“You know,” he says, his face getting red. “Done it.”

“You’re a virgin, is what you’re saying?”

His eyes glance back to the window, and he sighs, nodding his head. “I was drunk and horny and willing to do just about anything if it meant…”

I fight the urge to criticize the kid. It’s been years since I’ve crossed the river of puberty, but the idea of enduring a mutilated finger for a night in the sack seems frankly insane to me. Still, I’m not about to derail him while he’s on a roll. “I get it. So what happened next?”

“She did it three times,” he says, and his voice is hoarse. Choked-up. “She cut me with the scissors, and then she said that line, ‘Snip, Snap. Needle and thread.’’ When nothing happened though, I pulled my hand away and told her I was finished. She told me I couldn’t be. Not yet. She said it’d only take two more cuts, and then Snippity would appear. She promised, and she pulled me down into a kiss and I sort of forgot about the pain and… and how fucked all of it was.”

My pencil moves across the page, recording his story. The kiss isn’t a part of the ritual, but it’s a part of the coercion. For that reason, it’s important. Whoever this Becca girl is, she’s familiar enough with the legend to know exactly what it requires to be summoned and she’s willing to do what it takes to see that through.

“She cut me again,” Ryan says, and his expression falls and his lips quiver. “Blood wasn’t just dripping off of me then, it was flowing. Almost faster than the faucet could wash it down the drain. It was just the two of us there. I know that for a fact because there weren’t any lights on when we’d come down, and nobody just hangs out in a pitch-black basement.”

He swallows. “But I got this sense that we weren’t alone. Like something was watching us, waiting somewhere in the shadows. Becca just kept chanting, though. She just kept chanting that stupid nursey rhyme, except at this point her voice had changed.”

“Changed how?”

“It lost its flirtiness. There wasn’t any teasing anymore. It was all raw, and serious, and when she cut me it was deeper than before, almost to the bone.” Ryan takes a shuddering breath, and his hand curls inside of his sleeve. “So I pulled away. I don’t know why, but I started to think with a clearer head again. Maybe the pain started to outweigh the hormones. I started shouting at her, telling her she was fucking nuts. We got into a big argument. She seemed totally deranged, so I decided to get the hell out of there. I turned to leave, head back upstairs and tell everybody to steer clear of that psycho, but she grabbed my hand and cut me again.”

He takes a moment. His teeth gnaw at his bottom lip while his eyes look detached and remorseful. “I… I’m not proud of it,” Ryan says, “But I swung at her. Hit her in the face— hard as I could. She fell down, but I didn’t care. I mean she was crazy, right? Nuts. Cutting me after I told her I was finished, what the fuck was that?”

“An understandable reaction.” I place my pencil down on the page, centering my clipboard on my lap. “Before you continue, Ryan, I want to impress upon you the importance of absolute honesty. I need to know the process of events exactly as they played out. It could save lives. Now, what happened after you knocked her down?”

“She screamed.”

“Screamed?”

“Yeah. Screamed that I was a pussy and a coward. She screamed I was such a scared little bitch and that she hoped Snippity Snap would cut my head off.”

I pick up my pencil and get back to work. Becca’s aggressive attempts to perform the ritual are alarming to say the least, but they aren’t unheard of. Entities like Snippity Snap have been known to have profound effects on those who follow them. Usually to tragic ends.

“Your finger,” I say. “Is incredibly mutilated. You described three cuts, but there were clearly more. Did she manage to get a hold of you again?”

“Sort of. She grabbed my wrist, but this time I was ready. I turned around and I was going to— I was going to fucking clock her, man. I wasn’t putting up with it anymore, but then…” His voice dies on his lips.

“And then what?”

His lips move, but the words don’t come easily. He pushes them out. “And then I saw her,” he says. “Just like Becca promised.”

“You saw Snippity Snap?” My heart skips a beat.

He nods, face draining of color. Ryan Halflow is the size of a quarterback, but in that moment he looks no bigger than a boy of five, cowering in the shadow of a memory. “It was big,” he says slowly. “Twisted looking, like the thing had crawled straight out of hell. It had these giant scissors for arms that started at its elbows, and its face was wrinkled flesh, with no eyes, just these dark, sunken sockets.” He sucks in a breath. “Its mouth was sewn shut with its own skin. And in between the threads of flesh…”

“Eyes,” I mutter, smirking. “There were eyes in its mouth, weren’t there?”

He gazes up at me, shaken. “That’s right. A hundred of them. Milky white and swimming around. It was the sound of the scissors, though, that really got to me. Those two gigantic blades opening and closing. Snip. Snap. Snip. Snap.”

He shivers, taking a sip of coffee. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. I knew if I got out of there and told somebody, they’d call me insane. Crazy. So I did the stupid thing everybody hates about my generation.”

“You took a photo.”

“Yeah. It was impulsive and stupid, but I needed to know that I wasn’t just imagining it. That it was real. So I snapped the picture and made a run for it, but Becca grabbed me by the ankle. I hit the ground hard.” Ryan’s eyes glisten as his voice begins to tremble. His uninjured hand finds the back of his neck, rubbing it anxiously. “The next thing I know, the scissor sounds stop. No snipping. No snapping. Just silence. And then Becca starts laughing.”

“Laughing?” I frown, hoping I didn’t come all this way for some twisted practical joke.

“Yeah. She’s laughing. Howling. I don’t get it, but when I kick my leg free, I feel it. The scissor blades are against my neck. That fucking creature is standing over me, getting ready to cut my head off.”

My heart skips a beat. This is it. The real deal. To have a legitimate case this quickly is almost unheard of within the Facility. Most new agents take months to come across something real, with some having worked there for years without success.

Yet here I am, achieving it in my first week.

“Did you give it an offering?” I ask, eagerly.

Ryan gives me a look. It’s an uncomfortable look, the sort of look that makes me realize that I’m losing my cool, that I’m letting pieces of me peek through that shouldn’t be seen. So I straighten up. Flatten my expression. When I speak, my voice is level, professional. “What I mean to say is, did you allow yourself to be cut again?”

“I mean, I couldn’t stop her. Becca just grabbed my finger and started cutting. Snip. Snip. I felt paralyzed, like I couldn’t do anything. So I just stayed there on my hands and knees with this fucking monster standing above me, ready to cut my head off at a moment’s notice.”

Ryan chokes back a sob. “I remember feeling light-headed from the blood loss, and right when my finger started feeling numb to the pain, Becca stopped. I don’t know if it was because she’d had enough, or because I was crying, or... ” He swallows. “... because I pissed myself.”

“But after that,” I say. “It was over? Becca stopped and the creature let you leave?”

“I guess.” Ryan exhales. “Once Becca stopped cutting, I realized the creature was gone. Before she could do anything else, I booked it up the stairs and didn’t bother waiting for a ride. I ran all the way home.”

“You didn’t report it to the authorities?”

“Report what? That some girl half my size held me down with a monster in a basement and cut up my finger?” He snorts, wiping his eyes. “No, I didn’t report shit to the authorities. I just wanted to forget about it, pretend it never happened.”

“Why did you post that photo then?” I look down at my notes. "Particularly with the hashtag #SnippitySnap?"

He shrugs, looking out the window. “I don’t know. I guess I just hoped that maybe somebody would tell me I wasn’t insane. Maybe that they’d seen it too.”

“You’re not insane,” I say. “For what it’s worth, I believe you Ryan. I also believe that you did the right thing taking that photograph, because without that there’s a good chance I would have never come knocking at your door tonight. Thank you for talking to me.”

“No problem,” Ryan says, wiping his runny nose with a coffee napkin.

“Before I go though, would you mind if I took another look at that photo? The uncompressed version on your phone, preferably.”

He blinks. Once again, his eyes dart over to the little window in the garage door, and I wonder if he’s back to thinking his sister is playing a joke on him. It doesn’t matter now, though. I have more than enough information to work with— but I’d like just a little more.

“Ryan?”

He nods. “Yeah, sure. Just a second.”

He pulls out his phone and navigates to the image of Snippity Snap, then hands it to me.

I study the picture. It’s similar to what I viewed on his social media, but given the poor lighting, the compression algorithm wreaked havoc on it. This version is much cleaner. For instance, whereas his Instagram showed only a shadow with a faint outline, this one provides additional details.

The shadow is there still, but now it’s cleaner. The creature’s scissor arms glint faintly with the light from the camera flash. There's a reflection in the steel. A face maybe, but it doesn't look like Ryan's — probably a consequence of the dim lighting.

I move my eyes over the photo, analyzing the creature in more detail. It’s humanoid, mostly, but distinct in important ways. For one, it's taller. It’s bow-legged and slouched, with a sort of zigzag to its posture, like a person suffering from severe scoliosis but it still stands over six feet. A hundred eyes gleam in its flesh-sewn mouth. In the bottom corner of the picture I spot something I didn’t notice in the compressed version. It appears to be another human face. A girl’s. It’s Becca, no doubt, on the ground after Ryan had knocked her down, looking wild-eyed with a gleeful smile across her face.

Her expression unnerves me.

“Thank you,” I say, passing the phone back. I make a final notation on my clipboard labeled SURVIVOR. “If it’s alright with you, Ryan, I’d like to know Becca’s last name.”

“Her last name?” He blinks.

“Yes.” I say, clicking my pen and placing it into my shirt pocket. “I think she and I need to have a discussion.”

_____________________

The front door swings open and a young girl is standing there. Her eyes are framed with dark mascara and darker bags. “Who the fuck are you?” she says.

I stand up straight, reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my badge. “My name is [REDACTED]. I’m here to speak with you about an Event.”

She narrows her eyes. Her name is Becca Galdun, and I believe she’s been in contact with an urban legend known as Snippity Snap. She too is a seventeen year old attending Elktorch High. A classmate of one Ryan Halflow. Presently, she’s wearing a green turtle neck with blue jeans, and a scowl the length of her face.

“An Event?” she says. Her eyes look me over, and then she glances back inside her single-story house, as though making sure the coast is clear. “Are you with the Facility?”

“I— wait, what?” The question catches me off-guard.

“The Facility,” she hisses. “Are you one of their Men in Black?”

“Men in Black?”

“Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean. I’m asking you if you’re a Ghostbuster, or Hunter or whatever. You work there, don’t you?”

I was cautioned that due to recent Events, knowledge of the Facility’s existence may have grown more widespread. “I do,” I say hesitantly. “You’ll forgive me for asking, but how did you hear about us?”

Her face turns shades of anxious as she ushers me inside. Before she closes the door, she scans the front yard and the rest of the street. Then she bolts the door shut. “I spend a lot of time on [REDACTED DARKWEB ADDRESS]. You guys are pretty infamous there.”

“Oh,” I say, making a mental note to mention it to my superiors. “I’m actually here to speak with you about—”

“Snippity Snap?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Good.” She leads me into her kitchen. The house isn’t particularly modern or renovated, but it’s clean. There’s barely a hair out of place. She rummages through a wooden cupboard and a moment later pulls out a kettle and a couple of tea bags. “Hope you like English Breakfast,” she says, filling the kettle with water. “That's all I’ve got left.”

“I’m not that picky.” I pull out a chair at the kitchen table, then open my briefcase and retrieve my clipboard and forms. The kitchen is small. Cramped, really. The round table seats four, but there's only two chairs. “Are your parents available? Strictly speaking, I should be requesting their permission before interviewing a minor.”

“My mom doesn’t live here, and my dad’s at work — don’t worry though," she adds, "Neither of them care. They don’t really give a fuck about anything.”

“I see.” I attach the forms to the clipboard and pull my pen from my pocket. I notate that Becca Galdun is a child of separated parents. It's a minor detail, but one potentially important in determining her motivations and impulses.

My eyes scan down the form, and read the heading labeled INTERVIEW ENVIRONMENT. I glance around, taking in the kitchen and make notes as I go. The fridge is old, its white surface stained an off-yellow color and peppered with magnets. A short distance away is the stove, and between the two is a dull, metal sink. Above the sink is a small window. Its blinds closed, blocking the glare of the setting sun.

“It's quiet," I remark, checking my watch. Its display reads five p.m. " I figured by this time the entire household would be home."

“Well, this entire household is just my dad and I. He works late. Doesn’t make much money and needs to pick up shifts where he can.” She pulls a couple of teaspoons from a drawer, and a carton of creamer from the fridge.

“In that case, are you comfortable if we proceed without him?”

“I’m making us tea,” she says sarcastically. “What do you think?”

“Right.” I flip a page on my clipboard, returning to the first form. "Just so I have the proper details, your name is Becca Galdun, correct?"

"Gal-dune, not Gal-done."

"Ah." I make a note of the proper pronunciation. "Thank you. Am I correct in saying that you attended a house party on 321 Hendra Ave with one Ryan Halflow?”

She shuts off the tap, closes the kettle and plugs it in. “I didn't go there with him, no. But I did meet him there.”

I check a box on my clipboard labeled IN ALIGNMENT. The second question I asked was a small lie, one used to determine the validity of a potential informant. It ensures multiple stories can be corroborated. So far, her story matches Ryan’s. “When you met Ryan there, what did the two of you do?”

She turns around, placing both of her hands on the edge of the counter. I notice one of her fingers is badly scarred. “Why don’t we skip the bullshit? I took Ryan into the basement to kill him.”

My mouth goes dry. It was a suspicion I’d had, but to hear it announced so brazenly throws me off. “Excuse me?”

“You and I both know it.” She gestures to me incredulously. “You assholes are the whole fucking reason the world’s been going to shit. Don’t think I haven’t heard about the experiments you did to make the Man with the Red Notepad a reality.”

“That…” I begin, unsure how to phrase it without giving away pertinent intelligence. “...was not my department.”

She smiles, but it’s scornful. There’s pain inside of it. “No, of course not. You’re one of the Interviewers. The field agents. You talk to people like me who have met the monsters you want to subdue. To weaponize.”

I pause, considering my words. “You’re awfully knowledgeable about my line of work.”

“More than you know.”

“What else do you know?”

She looks me over, her eyes flicking from my clipboard, to my face. “I know that you’re new. Your badge number begins with the letter A. That means you’re as fresh as fresh can be, just barely out of Orientation. I also know that you were hired after an agent investigated an encounter with an entity known as Jagged Janice. That agent hasn’t been heard from since. He’s probably dead, and now you’re his replacement.” The kettle starts to scream. “Follow his lead, and you’ll be dead too.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No,” she says, turning back to the counter and dropping a couple of teabags into two mugs. “I’m just a little girl, who am I to threaten a massive proto-military shadow organization?” She smiles, unplugging the kettle and pouring the boiling water into the cups. “Honey in your tea?”

I frown. “Please.”

“I’m just telling you what I’ve read, you know. Fresh operatives at the Facility don’t appear to have great track records.” She sets my mug down in front of me, then sits down at the table. “I want to be rid of this curse. I really do. But look at you— the perfectly pressed shirt, pants and probably socks. The meticulously organized briefcase. The cookie-cutter hairstyle. You look more interested in landing a promotion than putting a stop to my nightmare.”

The words sting, but they're not far from the truth. On some level — on many levels, I felt excited about discovering a real case this soon. Ecstatic at what it implied for my career. A successful capture of an entity like Snippity Snap would bring serious accolades within the Facility. “Understandable," I say. "I’m here to help, if I can.”

She appraises me, leaning forward and resting her chin on steepled fingers. “Fine. It's not like I have any other options.”

I bring my pen back to the clipboard. “Why did you intend to kill Ryan in that basement?”

"Honestly? It was him or me.”

“Him or you?” I’m well versed in the lore of Snippity Snap, and there’s nothing in there about ultimatums. “Can you expand on that?”

“The first time I saw Snippity Snap,” she says. “I was just a girl. Seven going on eight. It was the nursery rhyme that did it— that old urban legend, except back then it was more recent. My mom used to sing it in the car, and I think it was because of that woman’s funeral.”

“Hope Delvine,” I mutter. It’s a name I’ve seen come up again and again in my study of the legend. A potential identity for Snippity.

Becca nods. “Yeah, I think that was it. She was murdered by her husband. The asshole stabbed her six times with a sewing needle, then cut her throat with a pair of scissors.”

"That’s right. Gruesome stuff.”

“That’s putting it lightly.” Becca picks up her tea, gives it a gentle blow, and then takes a sip. “Anyway, I guess she used to write poetry in her free time and one of those poems was read at her funeral. The local paper published it.”

“So that’s the origin of the rhyme?”

“I think so. Since the events surrounding her death were so horrible, local kids picked the rhyme up and started trying to scare each other with it. Pretty soon the poem became a sort of song, or a chant. Next thing you know, it’s a full-blown urban legend. People are sharing it at sleepovers, campfires. All over the place.”

A fascinating discovery. I remember getting chainmail when I was in highschool about an entity known as Snippity Snap. The text contained an old nursery rhyme, but I had always assumed the origin of it would be much older than ten years.

I hum to myself, and the tune comes back.

Snip Snap,

Needle and thread, run through my head!

Snip, Snap

All that you’ve said, rather be dead!

Snip Snap,

Just leave me be, all that I need!

Snip Snap,

Please!

Snip Snap,

Please!

“Some friends and I were chanting it one night,” Becca says, squeezing her scarred finger. “And I got this stupid idea in my head. I thought that maybe since Hope was killed by a pair of scissors, and the refrain was Snip Snap, then maybe the scissors had something to do with the urban legend. Maybe scissors could make the fabled monster appear.”

Her voice fades to silence, and her mouth hangs there for a moment. When she speaks again, it’s slow, and full of regret. “So we tried saying the rhyme again, this time cutting at the air with scissors.”

“You were actually trying to summon Snippity Snap?”

“We were eight,” she says defensively. “It sounded scary, but deep down even we knew it was ridiculous. I don’t think a single one of us thought anything would actually happen. Back then we didn’t have all the wonders of the iPhone to entertain us, so we had to get creative.”

“Did it work?”

She shakes her head. “Not that time.”

I flip through my clipboard to the form entitled ORIGIN. I check a box labeled ATTEMPTS and then place a single tally beside it. Knowing the rough number of failures before a summoning succeeds is important, particularly if the intention is to capture the entity in question.

“After that,” Becca continues. “We tried cutting something with the scissors. Not air, but something tangible. Paper, at first, and then cloth— since the whole rhyme was about sewing. Still, we got nothing. Then I had a thought. I figured since Hope was murdered, maybe there needed to be some kind of mutilation involved. A sort of blood for blood kinda deal. So I cut my finger, and then I said the rhyme. My friends were obviously grossed out but... it didn’t take them long to become believers.”

In spite of myself, I lean forward. I feel for this girl, for Ryan, for this whole town that’s suffered under the shadow of this nightmare but I can’t pretend I’m not excited. It’s only day two of my investigation and the discoveries are already proving massive. “Did she appear?” I ask. “Snippity?”

Becca glares at me. “Are you recording this? Word for word?”

“I’m only taking some notes.”

She raises an eyebrow, and I recognize the hesitancy in her features, her body language. “Becca,” I say. “Before we continue, I think it’s important that I impress upon you that I’m not law enforcement. The legality of your actions doesn’t concern me. Not particularly. I’m strictly here for the details on the Event.”

She snorts. “Yeah, sure. Then you can turn right around and hand those details to the FBI as soon as I’m finished talking.” Her fingers grip her coffee mug, and they dance along its circumference. “I know how this goes.”

“That’s not the case at all. Your details, and those of the Event will be kept in secured, encrypted storage. These paper copies will be incinerated. It’s bad for business if we run around getting our informants arrested.”

She studies me for a few moments, and then her expression softens. “Makes sense, I guess. Of all the criticism I see for the Facility on [REDACTED DARKWEB ADDRESS] there’s nothing about you guys being rats.”

“At least they’re right about that.”

Becca leans back in her seat with a sigh. “After I mutilated my finger, Snippity Snap appeared.”

A lump forms in my throat. I hastily flip through several sheets on my clipboard before I find one labeled INITIAL ENCOUNTER. “Can you tell me where exactly it appeared? Was it in this house?”

"Yes." Becca points down a hallway to the right of me. “We did the ritual down there, in the bathroom. It's the only room in the house that doesn’t have any windows, so it was ideal for the summoning."

My pen scratches across my form. “When Snippity Snap appeared, where was it standing relative to you and your friends?"

“In front of the bathroom door, about, I don’t know, six feet away from us? It was dark though. So dark. None of us noticed it was there until we heard that awful sound. The shears opening and closing. Snip. Snap.”

Becca grimaces. "When I saw it, I froze. To see that monster, with its two giant scissors for arms and that horrible, sewed face with its loose flesh and all of those eyes...." She shudders. "I lost whatever nerve I had. I shouted at it to leave us alone. To go away.”

“It sounds like you were quite brave.”

Becca glances toward the hallway. It’s a brief look. Just a half-second at most, but there’s a nervousness in her expression, a deep panic. Then it’s gone.

“Is somebody here?” I ask, shifting in my seat to look down the hallway.

It’s empty.

She shakes her head. “No. Sorry, I just thought I heard my dad come home, but it’s only six. He won’t be back until seven or eight.”

“Is that right… ” Part of me feels off, like something isn’t quite right, but I do my best to ignore it. I’m a professional now. A field agent. Snippity Snap is a creature that requires a summoning to appear, and such parameters haven’t been met. Becca on her own isn’t any threat.

“What did you do?” I ask, returning my pen to the clipboard.

“I—” Becca looks suddenly flustered. Distracted. Her previous calmness is lost, and something has replaced it. Fear, maybe? It’s difficult to say. Traumatic memories can have severe effects on a person’s mental state, particularly if they’ve been largely repressed.

“Miss Galdun?”

“I didn’t do anything,” she says quietly. “None of us did, except for Heather. Snippity got her first. It caught her arm when she tried to make a break for it— when she tried to run past the thing.” Becca shivers. "Snippity cut her arm off. I remember it hanging there, dangling from her elbow. The only thing keeping it attached was a few strings of flesh, and they tore one by one, until her arm fell on the tile floor."

Becca's face screws up with the onset of tears. “I'll never forget the smell of Heather's blood, or the sound of her screaming. Her arm was spurting like a fountain, warm and wet. It was everywhere. All over us." She chokes back a sob. "The whole thing was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. I was so fucking afraid.”

I open my mouth to speak, but there are no words to express how sorry I am for her. For her friend. To have suffered through an experience like that at such a young age is almost unimaginable. But unfortunately, it’s something I can relate to.

“I’m sorry, Becca,” I say. “But I have to ask you some questions about that.”

She nods, reaching for a napkin on the table. She brings it to her nose and blows into it, dabbing at her eyes with a sweater sleeve. “Go ahead.”

“At the time all this occurred, there were no adults in the home to hear it?”

“No,” she says, taking a deep, shaking breath. “My mom was at work, and my dad was outside on the street tuning up his Camaro, which just happens to have an engine loud enough to pass for a jumbo jet." She sniffles. "It was just me and my two friends trapped in that bathroom. Nobody heard us.”

I circle the word WITNESSES on the form, and as I do, I hear a faint sound in the distance — like metal scraping on metal. My pencil stops on the page. “Do you hear that?” I ask.

“Hear what?”

“That metallic sound.” It’s barely there, almost imperceptible. It doesn’t stop a sensation from growing in my chest, though. Something’s triggering my fight or flight response.

“I’m sorry," she says. "I don’t hear anything.”

For a moment I feel foolish. The sound is so faint, so quiet, that I’m wondering if maybe I’ve allowed myself to become too invested in Becca’s story. I wonder if I’m frightening myself. My hand brushes over the side of my jacket, where I can feel my service weapon holstered.

“Are you okay?” Becca asks.

“It’s nothing,” I say, returning my hand to my pencil. “I’m just hearing things. I didn’t get much sleep these past couple of nights, and I think the consequences are coming home to roost. Jet lag, and all that." I plaster a smile on my face. "Please, continue.”

"... Right." She eyes me for a moment, and then nods. "Okay. Where was I? There was blood everywhere. I couldn’t see much, but I could feel it all over me, in my hair, my eyes, my mouth. Heather bawled her eyes out, and I could just barely see the creature standing over her, its shears reflecting what little light was in the room. I watched its mouth open and close, with all of its glowing, swimming eyes, and this… sound escaped it.”

“Sound?”

“Yeah, like it was speaking.”

“What did its voice sound like? Was it masculine, or feminine?”

“Neither,” Becca says. “It sounded mechanical. It was sharp and grating, almost like a sewing machine.”

“Curious.” I make a notation on my clipboard. Deviation. In the legend, the voice is typically non-existent. The creature is silent, save for the sound of its shears. “So it wasn't speaking words?”

“No, but somehow I understood it anyway. I don’t know if I just saw the writing on the wall because of what it did to Heather, or if I was attuned to it or something but… somehow I knew what it wanted. I knew it wanted an offering. Someone to suffer like it had.”

“Suffer like it had? So you believe this creature is Hope Delvine?”

Becca shrugs, reaching for her mug, but her hands are trembling. They're shaking like a pair of maracas and the tea splashes over the rim, scalding her. “Fuck!” she shrieks, dropping the mug.

I jump to my feet. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” she roars, and her eyes are wild. There’s venom in her voice.

I freeze. The sudden intensity of the moment feels wrong and out of place. “I’m trained in first aid,” I explain. “It’s probably best if you let me have a look at that burn.”

“It’s fine,” she says, this time more calmly. “I’ll deal with it.” She walks to the sink, running her hand under cold water for a minute before returning wordlessly to the table, picking up a rag and dabbing up the spilled tea.

“Yes,” she mutters. “I do believe that Snippity Snap is Hope Delvine. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Hope’s rhyme summoned the creature, didn't it?”

"Fair point.” I record the theory on my clipboard. It’s certainly possible that Snippity Snap is a vengeful spirit, the pieces do add up. Still, it leaves another lingering and uncomfortable question. “What did you offer?”

Becca looks up at me. “Sorry?”

“You said it knew it wanted an offering. Someone to suffer like it had.”

“Oh.” She looks away.

"So what did you offer?"

“I offered it the only thing that I could.” Becca takes a breath, puts her face in her hands. “I offered it Heather.”

“You offered your friend to that monster?”

“Give me a break!” Becca snaps. “She was dead anyway! I mean, half her fucking arm was amputated. There was more of her goddamn blood on the floor than inside her!” She looks up from her hands, glowering at me. “Besides, it wasn’t like any of us were escaping while that... thing was standing in front of the door.”

I write the details down, but each word digs a pit in my stomach. A sickening sadness grows inside of me for that poor girl. It’s difficult to imagine the horror she must have felt. “How did you offer her?” I ask, quietly. “Was there a ritual involved in that too?”

Becca blinks, and tears slip down her cheeks. “No… God. There wasn’t any ritual. I just told it to take her, to take Heather and leave me alone, and then it did.”

“Leave you alone…” I stare at her, wondering if her terminology was an accident, intentional, or a psychological slip. She asked it to leave her alone. Becca. Not both of them. Not her and Fran. I reach for my mug and take a sip, reminding myself not to judge too harshly. Becca was just a young girl herself, after all. To be confronted by a nightmare at that age would drive anybody to act in strange ways.

“After you offered it Heather,” I say, placing my mug back on the table. “What did Snippity Snap do to her?” I’m not sure I want to hear the answer, but I know that it’s important.

Becca shrugs. Her eyes are red and puffy, and a trail of snot winds its way from her nose to her lip. She lifts a hand into the air, and raises two fingers. She makes a cutting motion. “Snip,” she says.

"Snip?"

“The monster took her head off. It was over quick, thankfully, but there was so much blood. Both of us — Fran and I, were drenched in it.” She smiles, but it’s a broken and twisted sort of smile. “On the bright side, we didn’t have to listen to Heather screaming anymore. Just each other.”

“After Heather was killed, did Snippity Snap leave?”

“Vanished. Like it was never even there.”

I lean back in my chair, frowning as I look over my notes. From this interview alone I’ve accumulated a small textbook on Snippity Snap, much more than the Facility’s managed since its inception.

Still, I suspect I’m only scratching the surface.

“I heard about that, you know. Heather’s death.”

Becca squirms in her seat. “Not surprised. It was pretty big news around here.”

“They attributed the murder to a local man, didn’t they?” I fold my arms, studying Becca’s expression. “The newspapers called him the Elktorch Slasher. He was arrested not far from here.”

“Yeah,” Becca says, bitterness in her voice. “They threw my dad in prison for three months. The cops were convinced it had to have been him. I mean, who else was at the house, right? It’s not like we have serial killers in sleepy Elktorch.”

“He was exonerated though,” I say. “After two more murders occured.”

Becca’s quiet. She glances back down the hallway and swallows. “Yeah. After two other people were killed, the police finally realized my dad was innocent. Dumb fucks. They decided there was a serial killer on the loose, after all.”

Pieces begin to connect in my mind, and I’m not certain I like the look of the puzzle. “The people who were killed,” I say darkly. “Did that have something to do with you?”

She stares at me. There’s a look on her face somewhere between annoyance and impatience. Her hands ball into small fists. “No shit. Of course it did. My dad was in prison for murdering a little girl, and I knew the only way he was getting out of there was if—”

“—Snippity Snap killed again.”

“Bingo,” she says with false cheer.

“You committed identical murders to prove your father’s innocence.”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you here to present me with my Daughter of the Year Award?”

Outside, the sun’s nearly set. Its last rays cast shadows across the room, filtering in through the narrow openings in the blinds. The way they play across Becca's face, it's difficult to discern her expression.

“You traded people’s lives for your father’s freedom,” I say. “They didn’t die peaceful deaths, you know.”

She slams a hand on the table, shooting up out of her chair. “You really think I don't know just how horrible each and every one of their deaths were? You really think that shit doesn’t keep me up at night, hating myself and wishing I had the courage to just let Snippity Snap take me instead?”

“Take you instead?” I say quietly. I speak my next words with a measured calmness, though my heart’s beginning to race in my chest. “Miss Galdun, did you make some kind of deal with that creature?”

Becca glares at me, one side of her face draped in shadow, the other in shrinking sunlight. We sit in a tense silence. The corners of her mouth twitch with unsaid words.

“Becca,” I say, this time more forcefully. “Did you make a deal with Snippity Snap?”

“I did what I had to do.”

“What does that mean?”

She closes her eyes, runs both hands through her dark hair, and groans. She doesn’t want to speak. She doesn’t want to tell me this next part, but then her mouth opens, her voice cracks, and it all spills out. “I summoned it,” she mutters. “When I mutilated my finger. When I said the rhyme and brought it through the veil and into our world. I created it, and it wanted me. Never Heather. Always me.”

I study her, my eyes straining in the waning light. I never took Becca for an especially empathetic girl, but perhaps one who had been thrust into a situation she didn’t understand, or one she existed in against her will. I’m beginning to believe, however, that I was mistaken. There’s a cunning to her I didn’t account for.

I assumed she was like so many other children who’d encountered entities or spirits. Enamoured. Perhaps believing themselves special for having had the experience, pulled into their orbit like a macabre cultist. But Becca wasn’t manipulated. She wasn’t. She chose to commit the murders. She chose to massacre innocent people, multiple times, all to save herself.

“Would you mind if we turn on a light?” I ask. “It’s getting difficult to write.”

“Sure.” Becca reaches up and tugs at the chain of the ceiling fan. A light flickers to life. “That better?”

“Much.”

She settles herself back into her chair. There’s a look on her face that doesn’t sit right with me. It’s too eager, too enthusiastic. It’s making me think that I should probably finish this up and get on my way, but there’s still one more question I need to ask. One of incredible importance.

“How does it work, then? Your deal?”

Becca’s lips split into a joyless smirk. “I give Snippity Snap life, in the form of blood and pain. I help it satiate its hunger. In exchange, it lets me live a little longer.”

“Why does it want you? I understand that you summoned it, but that doesn’t explain—”

“Are you deaf? Or were you just not listening? I didn’t just summon the thing, I fucking created it. I pulled Hope Delvine’s twisted soul out of the ether, and ripped it six ways to Sunday.” Becca reaches a hand up and grips a clump of her air, pulling at it with a pained, manic glint in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize it would create that monster. But it did. It gave birth to that thing, and now Snippity Snap wants me to pay. Blood for blood, she says. Agony for agony.”

My skin prickles with goosebumps. There’s a new sound in the house, and it’s coming from the hallway. It’s sharp. Discordant.

Scissors. Opening and closing.

Snip. Snap.

My heart thunders in my chest. A primal part of me screams that it’s time to bolt— that it was time to bolt ten minutes ago, but now my palms feel clammy, and my head feels clouded with adrenaline. I clear my throat, rising from the table. “That should do for now. I’ll take this information and do some research at my hotel.” I speak more quickly than I should. More anxiously. I’ve broken a cardinal rule and allowed unease and fear to slip into my voice. “Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have outlined a solution for your predicament.”

“I’m not finished telling you my story though,” Becca says, and this time the tears are gone. Her expression is cold. Calculated. She stands up from the table and there's a hunger in her eyes. “Stay awhile longer. We’re just getting to the good part.”

I bring a hand to my jacket, hovering over my service weapon. “I think the good part can wait until tomorrow." I give her a curt nod and a false smile. I turn around to leave.

Something presses against my throat.

Ryan Halflow towers in front of me, a pair of scissors in his hand. He presses the cold steel blades against my neck. “Don’t move,” he says. “And I won’t kill you.”

There’s the squeal of a chair sliding on linoleum, and a moment later Becca strides in front of me. “I honestly didn’t expect it to be this simple,” she laughs. “But it was. You actually walked right in here after hearing Ryan’s sob story. Now I’ve got a perfect offering that nobody’s gonna bother looking for.” She claps her hands gleefully.

“My employer knows where I am,” I say, and it’s the truth. “Down to the square foot. We’re GPS tracked at all times.”

“Sure you are,” she says in a singsong voice. “But the Facility isn’t going to risk revealing itself to the public. Not in the name of avenging some stupid intern. In the meantime though, you’ll keep Snippity Snap satisfied for a few months.”

She smirks, her tongue sliding across her teeth. “Think of it this way, your death will save another life. Isn’t that what you wanted? To help people suffering from these mean old legends?”

“Listen,” I say. “I can help you. I wasn’t kidding about that. I have enormous resources, more than you can possibly know and—”

“I know all about your resources,” Becca snaps, grabbing me by my hair and pulling my throat against the edge of the shears. I feel a thin trail of warmth trickle down my neck. “All you’ve managed to do at the Facility is fuck things up. You think I’m going to risk you pissing Snippity Snap off, all on the off chance some fresh out of Orientation dimwit can solve a nightmare I’ve suffered with for a decade?”

She lets go with a violent jerk. I wince as the blade slides across my flesh, drawing more blood. Her face contorts in a mixture of revulsion and glee at the sight of it, and I realize this is the real Becca. Everything before this had been an act.

“I’m better off doing what I’ve been doing all along,” she says. “Keeping Snippity Snap satisfied one life at a time. Offering it people that nobody’s going to look for. People nobody gives a fuck about.” She steps away, and a moment later the dim, flickering kitchen light goes out.

Then, from somewhere in the darkness I hear her voice. “Do it, Ryan.”

Ryan grabs my hand in a flash, pulling the scissors down from my throat and closing them on my index finger.

"Snip Snap,” Becca chants beside me. “Needle and thread, run through my head!”

The pain of the shears slashing my fingers is dull, faded against the backdrop of my boiling adrenaline. Ryan has one of my hands, and I’m quite certain he could overpower me even without Becca’s help, but I still have my service weapon. It’s on the side of my torso, inside my jacket. With my free hand, it’d be an awkward reach, but if I could get to it before they realized what I was doing…

“It’s not working,” Ryan says, and I faintly see blood running down my finger. My eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness. “I did what you said, Becca. I cut up my finger in the bathroom earlier to get her to cross over and—”

“Did she?” Becca barks.

“I don’t know,” he says, panicking. “Maybe. I mean, I thought so but—”

“But what?”

“I didn’t want her to get me.”

“For fucks sake!” Becca shrieks. “If you want to be a part of this, then you need to grow a pair, Ryan! Snippity Snap listens to me. She’ll take whoever I offer!"

“I’m sorry, Bec.”

I faintly see Becca grab Ryan’s wrist, and the next second I feel her smaller hand grab my own. “Hold him still!” she commands. "Can you at least do that right?"

Ryan shuffles around me, and I realize that my window to draw my weapon and get out of this situation is quickly deteriorating.

Time to act.

I take a sharp breath and lunge sideways, reaching for my sidearm, but Ryan’s quicker. He tackles me to the ground and grabs both of my arms, wrestling them behind my back and holding them there.

“Fucking christ…” I mutter, my face pressed against the cold linoleum. I’m beginning to wonder if Becca’s father even lives here. If he’s even still alive.

A shoe rests on my face, and I hear Becca’s shrill laughter. “You strutted in here thinking you were hot shit, didn’t you? You thought that just because big daddy gubbermint handed you a job working at their spooky old monster factory, that you were beyond the reach of real monsters.” Her sneaker kicks me in the cheek, and I feel pain blossom across my face.

“Let me tell you a secret,” she says, and I realize her voice is closer now, nearly against my ear. “You’re not beyond the reach of real monsters. In fact, you’re going to meet one very shortly.”

I hear her reposition herself. She grabs my finger while Ryan holds my arms behind my back. “Let’s try this again,” she says, closing the scissors on my finger in a river of blood. “Snip, Snap! Needle and thread!”

I grimace, my mind reeling. I curse myself for getting pulled in by a couple of teenagers, and if I ever manage to get myself out of this mess, I swear to never underestimate an informant again. “Becca,” I mumble, my mouth pressed against the floor. “There’s another way to deal with Snippity Snap. Let me help you.”

Another cut. This one deeper. Much deeper.

I slam my eyes shut, roaring in agony. Maybe a neighbor will hear me, I pray, or maybe somebody on the street will investigate. I holler again, shouting my lungs raw.

“Aw, he thinks somebody’s going to hear him,” Becca says in a doting voice. “Unlike you, I actually came here with a plan though, dipshit. You probably noticed the 'For Sale' sign on the house next door? That means nobody’s home. And as for my other neighbor? They’re on vacation upsate, not due back for another week.”

She crouches down in front of me and jams the wet tea rag into my mouth. “I’m just putting this here to shut you up. I can't stand the sound of your whimpering.”

I struggle, doing my best to keep shouting but my voice is muffled. Barely audible.

“As for your earlier statement,” Becca says, rising to her feet. “There’s no other way to deal with Snippity Snap. Hear me? All you have are theories, but one botched theory means I’m dead.” She steps around me and reaches down, grabbing my finger again. The scissors close. Another cut. Another muffled roar of pain. “Personally, I’d prefer it if you died instead.”

Ryan howls with laughter. “This is going to be so amazing, Beccs. I can’t wait to see Snippity!”

“You already have,” she growls, cutting me again. “Snip, Snap! Needle and thread!”

“No!” he says, and his voice sounds panicked, insulted. “I’ve only seen the photo! I wish I could’ve been there with you guys when you killed Ben in the basement. You looked like you were having so much fun!”

“Well if you didn’t bitch out earlier, Snippity Snap would already be here!” Three more cuts in rapid succession. Becca’s chants are growing angrier, more frustrated. “Where the fuck is she? Get over here, Delvine, you stupid cunt! Take this offering!”

I spit out the rag, coughing. I’m beginning to feel lightheaded from the bloodloss. “That whole story you fed me about the house party and not knowing what happened to Ben—”

“All bullshit,” Ryan says gleefully. “I sold it pretty good though, didn’t I? You can thank our Theater teacher Miss Dill for that! I wasn’t lying when I said it was a real picture of Snippity Snap, though. It really was. It just wasn’t me who took it.”

I feel the blood soaking through the back of my jacket. How much have I lost? Too much. Time’s running out. I kick and thrash, but Ryan tightens his hold.

“So what,” I grunt. “You grabbed Ben’s phone, then played it off like you took the picture?”

“That’s right,” Ryan says, and Becca keeps cutting. “We figured we might attract some weirdos interested in the paranormal — some awkward kids with no friends. The sorta kid that nobody would bat an eye about dying in some fucked ritual, because they probably did it to themselves.

“Instead,” Becca says, her voice thick with disbelief. “You contacted him. The fucking Facility. It was honestly dumbfounding. I really didn’t think we’d sold it that well, but apparently it was good enough to fool you dimwits.”

Damnit. I had it all backwards. Snippity Snap wasn’t the monster. It was these two, and if I didn’t get out of here somehow, they were going to cause the deaths of more innocent people. I wrack my mind, trying to formulate a plan. If I could just reach my pistol…

It’s no use. Ryan’s too strong. I need to think of a way around him, a way to remove his strength from the equation. I clench my eyes, trying to focus through the pain, trying to focus on a strategy that doesn’t end up with me dead, cut up into neat little pieces.

I know Becca can’t be reasoned with. If she didn’t already prove that before, then she’s certainly proven it now. Ryan, on the other hand, seems different. It’s almost like he’s being manipulated, like he’s just along for the ride in Becca’s master plan.

If I can get through to him, then I might have a chance.

“Ryan,” I say in a measured voice. “I can get you the support you need. If you stop this now we can put it behind us, and that means no prison and no charges. You only need to let me go and—”

I scream.

I scream so hard that my throat becomes raw and my body writhes in anguish, my eyes stinging as they let loose a torrent of tears as my adrenaline spikes, causing my legs to kick out and my torso to twist violently.

“Snip,” Becca says. She grabs my face, stuffing my amputated finger into my mouth. “That’s enough talking from you.” I choke on it for a moment before spitting it out, bawling in pain. All I taste is blood and flesh.

“Snip Snap,” Becca calls. “Needle and thread!”

There’s a sound in the hallway. Metallic. Sharp.

It arrives over the sound of my whimpering agony. It’s the sound of two giant shears opening and closing. Snip. Snap. Snip. Snap. My pain dulls, overshadowed by my racing heart and mounting panic.

“Becca,” Ryan breathes. “Look—”

“I see it, dumbass.” Becca steps in front of me, the blue of her jeans just barely visible in the inky blackness. “Snippity Snap,” she loudly proclaims. “I offer you this life in exchange for my own!”

The scissors open and close. Snip. Snap. Then, it speaks. It speaks in that terrible, sharp and jagged sewing machine voice Becca described. I have no idea what it says, but Becca steps back.

“Good girl, Snippity,” she says, then “hold him still, Ryan.”

I crane my neck, and I can see it. The shadow in the dark. The local nightmare, with its two gleaming, steel shears, and its many swimming eyes, all buzzing inside of a flesh-sewn mouth. It speaks again. That whirring, sewing machine ramble.

“Hope,” I choke, desperate to try anything. “Hope Delvine, right? I know it’s you in there. I know you think it’s worth it, these blood offerings, but Becca Galdun’s the one who’s chained you here. She’s the one who ripped you out of your after life, and brought you here to make people suffer. Just—”

Becca’s foot connects with my face, and I hear a sharp crack. The pain tells me my cheekbone just fractured, badly enough that I can feel blood trailing down my jaw, but it’s hardly a consideration. I keep talking. I have to, because it's all I have left. “Please, Hope! You are not an evil person. You were an innocent woman who was murdered by her husband!”

Snip. Snap. The shears open and close.

“Ryan,” Becca shouts. “Shut him up for fuck sakes!”

I feel Ryan lift his hand from my wrist, clambering toward my face and that’s when I move. It’s the only moment I’ll ever have. I roll over, my hand darting inside my jacket and even as Ryan grabs me by my hair and smashes my skull against the linoleum floor, it’s already too late.

Because I feel cold steel in my grip.

There’s a loud bang and a blinding flash, and Ryan stumbles off of me with a look of confusion on his face.

I pull the trigger again, and he drops.

Becca rushes at me, but I swing my hand back and bash her across the face with the pistol grip. She crumples to the floor. I only look at her for a moment, my breath heaving in my chest, before my attention is pulled toward the real danger. The creature moving closer.

I study it, wrestling against my fight or flight response and trying to determine a game plan. I could run, I think to myself. The creature’s not moving that quickly, with its crooked legs and twisted spine. I have little doubt that I could physically escape it, but to what end?

What happens once I leave? Does it follow me?

No. Too many variables. I raise my firearm, pointing it at the monster. My finger trembles on the trigger. I could dump a clip of bullets into Snippity Snap and blow the creature away. I’d fire them straight down its throat, into that flesh-sewn mouth, and its hundred white eyes.

No. That won’t work either. The truth is Snippity Snap isn’t the real monster here.

My eyes drift to Becca, and she's groaning on the ground, a hand cupped against her battered jaw. She lurches up to her hands and knees. Her expression is difficult to make out in the darkness, but I don’t need to. Her growls paint a pretty picture all on their own.

She’s angry. She hates me right now.

Good.

“Kill him!” Becca screams at Snippity Snap. “I summoned you to present my offering! Now accept it, you ungrateful bitch!”

Snip. Snap.

A thought occurs to me between the snap of the shears and Becca’s shrill demands for blood. It’s true that Becca did summon Snippity here. In fact, she’d summoned it here the same way she’d summoned it the first time she tore Hope’s soul from the ether and chained it to this world.

She’d made this creature a reality by uttering the first lines of Hope’s poem; the old nursery rhyme she’d written before being murdered by her husband. So what if…

It’s a long shot, but it’s all I’ve got left.

I step toward Becca, my pistol pointing at her while my other hand gestures to the scissors in her hand. “Give them to me,” I order.

“Fuck you!”

I pull back on the cocking hammer. “Give them to me, or I blow your brains all over the kitchen floor.” I glance at Ryan’s corpse, jerking my head toward it. “You can join him. I've got plenty of bullets left, and you did seem like good friends."

There’s a glint of defiance in her eyes, but I think she’s realizing Snippity Snap isn’t moving fast enough. She doesn’t have me cornered, and she’s lost her enforcer. Most importantly though, she knows that I’ve got nothing to lose.

If I die here, so does she.

She slides the scissors across the floor. I keep my pistol steadied on her as I reach down to pick them up. In my peripheral, I track the creature Hope Delvine’s become. It shambles toward me slowly, it’s voice speaking in that mechanical whir. I wonder if it’s begging me to put it out of its misery.

I strafe away from it, into the black hallway it emerged from. As I do, I sling my fingers through the scissor grips. I bring the blades to my hand, still holding the pistol, and extend my undamaged index finger.

"Here goes nothing.” I close the scissors on my flesh, cutting across my finger and announcing loudly, “Snip Snap. Please!”

The creature takes another step.

Snip. Snap. The shears speak promises of violence.

Damnit.

Becca rolls her head back, laughing. “You think I haven’t tried that? You dipshit, this is exactly why I didn’t want your help. You’d just end up getting me killed.”

It was a hail mary, I confess. I thought maybe if the first lines had summoned the creature, then the last ones could send it back. Oh well. I’m still not out of ideas.

Not entirely.

I spit out a mouthful of blood. Shooting Hope feels wrong, given her tortured existence, and beyond that it’s probably pointless. She's not living, after all. My only real move is to run. To get away, return to the Facility and come back with some reinforcements to deal with this creature.

Yeah. That could work. I take another step back, fading into the darkness of the hallway.

“You don’t get it do you?” Becca sneers. “There’s no escaping Snippity once you’ve been offered. You think you’re the first person to run away? It always comes back. Always. It’ll Snap you the moment you rest those tired eyes.”

I snarl, my finger twitching on the trigger and desperate to put six rounds into Becca’s head. She deserves to die for everything she’s done — for the willing horror she’s inflicted on so many, and the gleeful torment she put me through. Still, there’s a dilemma in that. If she was the one who created this monster, then perhaps she needs to be one to end it. She needs to offer herself to Snippity Snap. If she dies without Hope taking her toll, then who knows if there’s even a way to put that genie back in the bottle.

The creature could roam the world forever, snapping people until the end of time.

Snip. Snap.

Its feet plod forward, slapping against the floor with each step while its scissors drag behind it, squealing as they carve up the linoleum. But as it passes the kitchen table, the creature suddenly jerks to a stop.

I blink, not sure what’s going on. Evidently, neither is Becca. She stares at Snippity Snap, only six or seven feet away from her, with a slack-jawed look on her face.

Snippity's head tilts downward. Its hundred eyes begin vibrating in horrid excitement. Again, the mechanical whir of its voice starts up, except this time it gets louder and louder, like it's screaming in anticipation.

It’s standing above Ryan Halflow’s corpse.

No.

Not a corpse. Ryan's arm twitches, and he tries to raise himself onto his hands and knees, but he's lost too much blood. He doesn't have the strength. He collapses into a heap upon the floor.

"Beccs," Ryan coughs weakly. A pool of blood lies beneath him. “Call an ambulance... and tell Snippity to get away—”

Snip.

There’s a thud. Ryan’s messy head of hair rolls across the kitchen floor. Becca shrieks, crawling away from the creature and toward me in the hallway.

I point the gun at her and fire.

Once.

Twice.

She drops, blood leaking from her arm. Tears escape her face, and this time I know they’re genuine. “Please,” she begs me. “Please help me!”

I gaze at her, and a piece me wants to reach out, to help her up and get her out of there. It wants to save this young girl. But then I remember everything she’s done. I remember the manipulation she put Ryan through, manipulation that resulted in two bullets in his chest and his head rolling on the kitchen floor. I remember her cutting off my finger. Laughing. Gleefully laughing.

Becca stumbles to her feet, and Snippity Snap plods toward her.

The kitchen becomes bright. There’s a flash, and a bang, and then a gentle stream of smoke drifts from my handgun. Becca drops, her knees bleeding and voice screaming. She squirms on the ground, whimpering as each movement of her arms and legs proves too agonizing to complete. Crippled and broken, she starts crawling toward me like a worm.

“Please…” she groans.

But my sympathy’s run out. The truth is, Becca’s right. There’s only ever been one surefire way of ending this horror, and now I intend to see it through.

Snip Snap.

Behind Becca, Snippity’s shears open and close. Its feet slap the linoleum with each laboured step.

“You fucking asshole!” Becca shrieks. “Your job was to help me, not murder me!”

Her body slides toward me, inch by inch. But not fast enough. A few feet away from her, Snippity Snap takes the first steps into Becca’s trail of blood. It speaks again in that strange, sewing-machine voice, and somehow I sense a level of joy in it.

It’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.

“You murdered me!” Becca screams. “You hear me? You fucking child killer!”

Snippity’s feet step over her, its scissor blades pressing Becca’s neck to the floor.

“Don’t you dare think you’re safe!” Becca snarls. “It’ll kill you too! It’ll kill you unless you let me keep it away from you!” Her eyes are wild again, desperate. “I can help you! I can give it other offerings and keep it away from you!”

“All you have are theories,” I say, coldly. “And one botched theory means that I’m dead.” I don’t mean to, but a grin slips across my face. “Personally, I’d prefer it if you died instead.”

Snippity's eyes vibrate, and its crooked body trembles as its voice spins louder and louder.

"Please!" Becca shrieks. "What the fuck are you waiting fo—"

Becca’s head rolls toward my feet. It bumps against my leather shoe, coming to a rest. Her tongue lolls from her mouth, and her messy eyeshadow runs down her cheeks, still wet from the tears staining her face. For a moment, I see her eyes move. They’re full of terror, and rage, and hatred.

And then they’re still.

When I look up, Snippity Snap is gone.

I heave a sigh and stumble along the wall before flicking on the dim light. My hand throbs in agony. I step over the two corpses on the floor, each of them riddled with bullets from my service weapon.

For a job that started out so promising, it really went to shit.

I pass by the table. As I do, I reach out and take a sip of my tea. It’s cold. Bitter. But I don’t care, I just need something to quench my thirst. Something to get my head in order. I pull a rag from the oven handle and wrap it around my still-bleeding wound. My finger is still right where I left it, on the floor lying next to Ryan’s corpse. It’s pale and pruned and a reminder of how arrogant I was to underestimate them both. To let my ground down.

I pick up the finger and pocket it.

It takes me a few minutes to track down a plastic bag, but once I do I fill it with ice from Becca’s freezer and drop my amputated finger inside. Hopefully that’ll keep it fresh for a few hours.

Then I sit back down in my chair.

My eyes look around, taking in the carnage. Two school kids shot dead, both of their corpses riddled with bullets from my service weapon, and both of them beheaded. Oh, and I also happen to be covered in plenty of their blood.

I groan. I’m beginning to see why so few new agents manage to make any successful captures. The truth is, this shit is hard. I reach into my jacket pocket and pop a piece of spearmint gum. I’m not exactly certain what the protocol for this is. The Facility isn’t going to be happy that I let an entity like Snippity Snap slip through my fingers, especially not after they’ve seen just how potent of a weapon it can be, but they’re not going to burn me either. Keeping this hush-hush is far better than the alternative, which is admitting to the world at large that there really are monsters under their beds.

That things really do go bump in the night.

Worst of all, it would mean others like Ryan and Becca; people seeking to wield these entities, people seeking to follow them. In a word, it would mean competition. And the Facility does not want competition.

I take a deep breath, steel myself and pull out my cell phone. I dial my Handler.

Boy, have I got a story for them.

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