theatari

[theatari]

Good Company

He came whistling into town, smile on his face, that’s the first thing I noticed. With a second glance then you could see that he was dressed in a black suit no tie, hands in the pockets of his jacket. It’s unknown to me why I looked up at him but he was something else, he gave off a weird vibe.

I went back to working on my car, it had dropped a gallon of oil and needed to likely have the gaskets replaced but you don’t just get rid of something because it needs a repair. Nothing this classic anyways, so I wiped the sweat from my brow and continued on.

A usual around noon I walked down the street to the core of buildings that made up our bustling metropolis. The bank on the corner, across sat the small grocery store, followed by 5 abandoned storefronts peppering each side of the gravel street, occasionally broken up by an empty lot, then Sam’s Cafe then the bar.

I went into Sam’s Cafe, though it should have been called Cheryl's. Sam had been dead and buried 15 years at this point, but she wanted to keep the name. I guess because he was her father she had some kind of weird attachment to him but she didn’t owe that asshole anything.

Cheryl greeted me on my left behind the counter as I opened the door. She already had my coffee set out on my table by the wall towards the back. Oddly enough the fellow who had been whistling was sitting in the corner across from me watching the television up on the small rack. TV was probably 20 years old, and I wasn’t sure if Cheryl knew how to change the channel as it was always on something strange. Horror movies in a family establishment was a little odd, but that was what was playing today, and I had seen stranger. Some guy with a chainsaw for an arm was revving up and yelling I tuned it out.

Smiley sat back with his eyes half closed feet up on the seat across the table from him. I keep to myself so I sat back and had my coffee, and read the local coffee mill while Cheryl brought me my lunch. She knew what I liked, burger with fries and a side of gravy. She brought it to me, but wasn’t all too chatty. Which was odd. I’m not a big talker but I do love to listen and I come here mostly just to hear her ramble about all the local gossip. Kevin at the bar breaking a window and getting thrown out(which has happened more than once), Carol sleeping with the Magintry boy. The regular small town stuff people spout off about..

I was about to dump some ketchup into my gravy like my grandma had shown me, so many years ago in this very cafe, when the chair across scraped across the floor. I looked up and noticed Smiles looking at me wide eyed.

“Can I do something for you?” I asked, I truly was curious but there was also annoyed he would disrupt a 40 year running tradition. I relaxed when I realized how silly it was to expect a stranger to know such a thing.

When he didn’t respond I figured it was best not to poke the bear and continued on. 20 minutes it took me to finish my meal, drink my coffee and pull out the money for lunch. Cheryl typically keeps a tab for me, but that’s when I’m in on my lonesome. I can’t bare to have someone judge me for not paying so I payed and gave that day's tip. I tipped my hat to the fellow and said “thanks for the date” and started to the door.

I think his eye twinkled a bit and his smile got marginally longer. It was an odd sight, and I felt a bit weird again, and wondered if I should ask Cheryl if she wanted me to do any work around the cafe. Just then Big Ends working crew came clamoring in the door. I wasn’t sure what they were doing in town during harvest, they should be out in the fields, but as I obliged them on my way past, it turned out that the belt on the Combine so a run into town for the part was required. Everyone decided to tag along and relax.

feeling a bit more comfortable leaving Cheryl with Smiley, I bid her, Ends and his crew a good afternoon and walked out and back home.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch my car was turning over again at least, but the black cloud it was producing wasn’t much of an improvement. I was putting my tools away for the night when there was a sound off in the distance, It was a peculiar buzzing sound. I looked around for it then when I could find it, went to put my tool box in the garage. When I turned back around to walk out of the garage to lock up there he was. That fucker Smiley was standing right at the door to the garage, the evening sun casting his long shadow towards me, face now obscured by the glare of the sun behind him and the shadows of the garage. Even though I couldn’t see it I was sure he was as wide mouthed as ever.

I didn’t know what he was doing here, but that was three times today. Twice that he took notice of me. Twice that he had come into my personal space, one too many times on my home turf. I was going to wipe that hidden smile off his face.

I played it casual, no need to tip him off until I was properly situated. He had caught me off guard but there was a large space between him and I and I knew the layout in there better than I knew my own face in a mirror.

“Howdy again, I’m sorry I’m afraid I already have a dinner date. Perhaps we can do lunch again sometime instead.”

There was a kind of hissing laugh that seeped up from his face. He was slowly moving towards me. Like me though he wasn’t moving fast. It was a bit more of a dance, me moving to one side while he adjusted slowly to casually cut off my exit while slowly closing the gap between us. Over on my bench I had the tire iron, I had used to jack up the car earlier to do the tire rotation. I just needed a couple more moves in order to obtain it. As I slid casually I tried brokering a new conversation. Why was he here? I couldn’t figure out what the deal was with him.

He broke the barrier of sunlight so the shadow that obstructed him no longer hindered my view. His deep dark smile was almost from ear to ear dried blood on his chin, on his shirt. Way too much. I was having a hard time staying calm but I had my tire iron, heavy and in hand.

“Seriously asshole take a hint and get out of here”, Smiley just kept walking closer not saying a word, “I will end you if you take one more step in my direction”

The laugh, I hadn’t heard anything like it before, and not since. Guttural, wet though not really menacing. Oddly enough it was just like the whistling I head in the morning. I was no longer looking at him though I imagine he was still smiling, slicing a line from lobe to lobe. Instead I was searching for something more dangerous to hit him with, perhaps with more reach. This thing didn’t seem human anymore, not that he wasn’t, my brain was running away on me.

I felt something cold paw at my hand, dragging me, digging into my hand. It felt like blades cutting into my bones. I heard a small crack of one of the bones and something grab my shirt before my other hand took notice. It was the oddest thing, I’m getting old, really old, but my reaction time was never that long. Hell my dead grandma could move quicker, but as she would say, no one could hit harder. One stroke with the end lined up to his skull and I had done my own cracking.

Smiley reeled back in pain, falling onto it’s knees, only momentarily though. It was clawing towards me, and when I say that I mean Smiley dug his fingers in the cemented floor of my garage and started dragging himself towards me. I was shocked again, though my reaction time didn’t wain like it had before. I moved and just as Smiley was about to stand I gave him a nice kick with the lip of my boot. Red oozed out of his face. I guess my first hit had been more true than I could have guessed, but it wasn’t enough to take out Smiley. This time he was up quicker, his animal instinct taking over.

I’m not proud of this next bit but you do what you do when you are faced with an impossible situation. He moved fast. All day I had seen Smiley move with calm and a cold precision. His initial attack on me was a good example. He knew I was cornered and I had nowhere to go so why chance a mistake by running at me. Now, he was all blood rage, anger and hate. Smiley’s smile was gone, lips broken apart by a wild yell instead. I kicked him in the balls.

Smiley slackened his grip and I used all my strength to bring the tire iron into him one more time. This time I couldn’t just hear the crack you could see it. He dropped, and I sank down, my right hand throbbing where Smiley had smashed one of the bones.

I didn’t waste too much time. I grabbed the ratchet straps from a bin behind my tool box and made sure there was no way he was getting up again. I didn’t know if he was dead or not but he was a killer with insane strength and speed I wasn’t checking.

I recalled the blood on his shirt before we fought. With my head cleared I quickly figured there was no way it was his own and panic set in. I sprinted out the garage and down the road until I was at Sam’s Diner. The door was closed. The lights off. There was no closed or open sign, no need in a small town. You knew the hours, it was when Cheryl was in. I peeked in through the blinds best I could and noticed something on the floor.

I realizing I was still holding the tire iron, I took one quick swipe and the glass was gone from the door. Inside was a show befitting what I saw on the tv earlier that day. Blood everywhere. Ends whole crew looked eviscerated. I couldn’t find Cheryl though, and we never did.

[theatari]

[theatari]

The Knocking

“Thump, Thump, Thump”, there was a knocking at the door. Soft at first but when I checked there was no one there. Just a dark street, light from the moon and street lights trying to pierce the canopy of trees.

“Kids”, is what I thought. They don’t do it so much anymore but they did once. Before their phones took over their time. You would get them in the spring, summer and that short period in the fall, like they were trying to get one last breath of cheap hooliganism in before they went back to school.

I was halfway from the door to my chair when it came again. A shuddering “Thump”, more like a bang. I ran this time, but instead of opening the door I peered out the window. Black, dark night, but no one there. I stood there for a moment. I expected the kids to come back in short order. They did that sometimes. I would be waiting though, that was usually enough.

As I sat there slyly peering out the window, I noticed something. I couldn’t perceive it at first, but slowly I realized that it was getting darker. Someone was slowly turning down the light outside. I thought I must be going crazy but by the time I finished the thought I couldn’t see much of anything.

“BANG, BANG, BANG”, it thundered through the house, the walls shook, and was on my arse. I just stayed there, sitting no longer crouched staring at the now lit up street. Then I started to notice it again. The lights growing dimmer and dimmer, until they were gone.

I didn’t wait for what I assumed was going to be an earthquake. Some bang that tore the door frame off the door. No I was closing the basement door before the next thundering bang came from upstairs.

Dust shook off the walls and anything that had a surface. Some boxes stacked up shook from the banging. Then silence. I couldn’t tell from the basement if night had re-appeared but I had guessed that it was.

I pulled myself out from behind the christmas lights and a box of garden decorations. I was shaking, I hadn’t actually locked the door. I slunk up the stairs slowly and latched it, wrapped some cord around the handle and tied it to the railing. I was sliding boxes across the floor to block the stairway as best I could when the single overhead light started to flicker. It dimmed lower and lower. I found a hiding spot.

It wasn’t in view of the door, it was under the stairs. A little alcove that you could seal shut. The kids when they lived at home, wanted to make it into a play house, they had gotten as far as cleaning it out. I never had the heart to put stuff back in.

I got the door closed when I heard one solid thump from above me, this one was followed by the sound of splintering wood. Then soft nimble footsteps down the stairs followed by sliding boxes. Then, as I held the knob shut on my shelter I felt it start to shake. I could barely hold on. Then there was a kind of scratching at the door, like a cat dragging it’s claws across carpet. Long pointed fingers making a cacophony from each imperfection in the door, slowly drawing it out.

This went on for awhile, I don’t know how long. There was a voice. I can hear it in my sleep, I can hear it in my head, I’ll hear the voice for as long as I have left. It brings tears to my eyes and sends shivers down my spine. The voice of a small girl, starting with a sweet giggle, a little “hehehe”, a short pause and a whisper, like they had their face right to the door, “I found you”.

[theatari]

Time to Leave

As I start my day with the sun beating down on me I sing my regular tune. "if I only had a brain", of course skipping over the Heart and Nerve parts. They wouldn't apply quite enough to my situation. I don't know why I'm still here. Surely they must have decided a winner by now? How much could the shows production costs be loosing by having multiple people stuck on islands still after what I figure must be a year?

As I finish washing up from my tree trunk bowl and head down to the water with my home made fishing tackle i look at the blue box. I honestly had forgotten about it long ago, but today I looked at it as my new calendar marked day 365. I had lost my other calendar between a bad storm and a sickness that thinking back should have sent the producers to me, but never did. I had been here at least a year and a few months.

I made my path down to the water front, tapping the pole of my rod on every tree as i went. When I got there I sat back and fished until the sun hit high point in the sky. Then I went to my cook house. There didn't seem to be any natural predators on this island but I still had one incase something came along and wanted my food. I didn't want them in my house. In the year I had been here I hadn't seen a thing, but it was habit at this point.

As I got back into my hut and sat down at my table I took a sip of water and looked around. It was a good place and I was content. I smiled as I pulled out the box with the blue button on top and gently tapped it. There was audible click as red lights flashed on the top. Dave the producer I spoke to directly about details said that they would have someone out within a few hours of hitting the button. Then a tech assistant gave me the run down on how it worked. Flashing lights were a go, no lights meant I needed to change the batteries. They should last long enough that they would come get me regardless. Though that time frame wasn't announced to me.

I went about the rest of my day on a full stomach contently packing a few of my things awaiting a pickup. As night fell I looked out over the vast water trying to catch a glimpse of anything over the horizon.

I gave a small sigh, smiled, put out my fire and went to bed.

[theatari]

[theatari]

[theatari]

[theatari]

Warm up quick sketch

[theatari]

The Island

I woke up in a haze my lips were chapped. I had had been on this island for 2 days. The first day I had spent looking for help. The second day had been spent building a shelter. Today would be me trying to gather more resources like fresh water and food. Last night in desperation I had taken one of the large tree leaves and used charcoal from my fire to write a short help me message. I had used one of my bottles from the emergency kit I managed to swim to shore with and threw it in the ocean. I regretted it now, I could have used that bottle for something more productive I'm sure.

I got up out of the shelter and checked out the fire, it still was smoldering so I threw some wood on it and got it going again, then once it was at a large flame I threw a couple of green leaves on it to get some smoke going. "Signal fires, messages in bottles I'm screwed" I said to myself with a sad smile. I stretched out and took a short walk down to the beach to see if I could see any ships. Mine was long gone. caught on some rocks about half a mile out. I'm not a strong swimmer but I guess the thought of dying will motivate you. The plan was to spend some time on the beach waiting for help and figuring out how to get some more water. The two bottles I had were gone and I was going to be in trouble if i didn't get the remaining one filled with something fresh soon.

As I made my way down to the beachfront I was confronted with the strangest thing. There were about 10 bottles sitting on the beach and a couple more out in the water. I ran down, hoping for I guess human contact. I'm a pretty social person and even though I was sailing alone on a short trip I do prefer company. The last couple days had been lonely no contact with my family or friends. I got down to the shore and gathered up all the bottles they looked to be notes inside but I wanted to get them up to my camp before I read them. I was overly worried I would lose them for what ever reason. I collected as much as I could carry and ran them back to my camp I would have to make two trips. Once I got back to the beach though the number of bottles seemed to have doubled. There were about 12 more bottles in addition to the remaining ones. I gathered them up and took them back. I got my emergency blanket from the shelter and gathered up the rest, there were more of them. I gathered more and went down and the whole beach was blanketed in bottles.

I was dumbfounded, I pinched myself a few times so I knew I wasn't dreaming. Things like this didn't just happen. If it was a current bringing things in there would be garbage along with them. After a short while of staring, I decided it was silly to grab them all and grabbed what I needed and went back to camp. Maybe it would make some more sense if I read a few of the messages. The first one was a nice glass bottle it was sealed with a bit of bees wax, what a great idea. I had seen some bees floating around the island on my first day I wish I had thought of it. It took some work to pull the stopper out of the bottle but it finally came. The message was written on a leaf just like mine but it read.

Dear Mark,

I know you are reading this because I was reading this on my first day. Welcome to hell. I'm not sure if I'm being figurative or not but there is no way off this island. For some reason all of my messages come back to me, before I write them. Crazy I know, the strange thing is, is that I've never found the first message in all my years. Anyways down to the nitty gritty, you are fucked. There is supplies I found or one of us found I think. They were located on the far side about half a mile west of the dead bird. You will find the bird sometime today don't worry. it'll just happen. There some canned food and as much water as you will need in these fucking bottles. No booze though, you're on your own on that one. Sorry bud. As always I hope this is my last message that I write but I have no idea. Most of these notes came back the first week. Open them they will be helpful as much as you are going to hate it or refute it. I know you are about done so, good luck

I threw the note into the fire and walked away in a huff, I yelled at the sky and the surrounding bush. I yelled so hard my throat hurt. Someone was playing a sick joke on me, but on my way back to camp I found the birld. It looked like it had fallen out of the sky. While wings spread at weird angles head in the ground. I stared at it until I realized how strange I must look. I went back to camp and sat there for awhile. Debating. Do I go or not. I sat a bit longer. I wasn't sure if there were any other animals out here besides fish and birds that might take the bird. I did need water and I needed to know if that note was true. So I grabbed blanket to use as a sack and headed out. I found the bird checked the sun to make sure I knew where west was and was off.

I found the pile of bottles, exactly the same as the ones that had come onto shore. There was so many of them. A few had cracked and let out their water but that was it. thousands of water bottles and some food. There were a few other crates there as well. I loaded up my blanket sack and checked the other crates. It looked like they had, had something inside but were empty. I kicked the box they were too big to use to carry supplies. I was close to the beach so I walked down. Another bunch of notes haunting me. I grabbed one and opened it.

Mark!

I see you found the bird... and the supplies, yes these bottles are all over the island. No I don't know why if I find out I'll send you a note... sorry but that's the only way I can let you know. Talk soon

I opened another bottle it was the same message. I opened another one, and another one. I screamed "I WILL NOT BE DOOMED TO SPEND MY LIFE ON THIS FUCKING ROCK IN SOME NIGHTMARE" The bottles were tormenting me. I ran up the beach to the bottles. I grabbed the first one smashed it's contents out on a few more. I grabbed the first ragged piece I could find and dug it in as deep as I could into my wrist. I tried to do the same to the other but my hand didn't work I had cut the tendon. Blood pooled out and I triend to think of somewhere else to dig it in. The sky got cloudy, my thoughts got cloudy. I blinked.

I woke up in a haze my lips were chapped.

[theatari]

Rapid Hills(thriller)

I grew up in a small town, it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. People were just regular people and the town was well small like I said. There wasn’t much for shops and there wasn’t much to do. We were a long ways from a city, so there wasn’t cable TV we barely had a video store, which was  just a section in the local gas station with two racks of VHS movies and shows. The internet wasn’t anything besides a toy used in universities with expensive computers. So I was stuck outside doing crazy kid things like trying to catch gophers and riding my bike with my friends. Well, what I thought were friends at the time.

In a small town, you were probably either bussed to a bigger town with a school or stuck in a small class. My class had 10 students give or take a couple depending on the year. By graduation, I think we had 6.

One summer, when the it got quite hot, too hot to stay in our houses(god bless the abundance of air conditioners in the future), we all headed out to the local pond to hit some shade, catch some fish and go swimming. We had set up a bike jump that went into the water so you could ride it as fast as possible hit the jump and fly a few feet into the air and land about 10-20 feet into the deep area.

The pond was down this gravel road and backed up onto a cemetery, and late at night we would start a fire and tell ghost stories. It was a good time, and would have been one of the best summers of our lives if we hadn’t found that cave.

You see the land around our little hamlet was full of a lot of rolling hills and trees one summer day while we were out fishing we got a bit bored. So we decided to head into the trees and play an old game of hide and seek. The person who was it would count to 100 then the rest of us would go and hide, well you know how to play.

So we did that for awhile until it was my turn to find people. It went well, I found Gerald and Kyle in a couple minutes, Gerald always hid in the same spot dumb ass. Then I found Tyler, but I couldn’t find Andrew. I finally gave up and called out for Andrew but he didn’t respond.

Tyler piped up and said he saw him heading out  but the old flower mill. I’m not sure if it really was a flour mill but it was a tall building that was in the trees, so we all headed out that way calling his name calling him a “shit head” for not responding.

Eventually, we could hear Andrew yelling, apparently he had been running looking for a place to hide when he had fallen down a small hole at the base of a tree. The hole went straight down about 7 feet, preventing him from getting up, after which it dug into the rock bed and moved down at a small decline. He couldn’t see how far it went but we were all intrigued. No one wanted to play hide and seek in the first place, we were going cave exploring.

Gerald ran to his grandpa’s to get a flashlight, down the road and within 20 minutes we had the rope around the large tree, and the four of us had joined Andrew down below. Gerald had brought a few flashlights. His grandpa's larger one he used for checking on cattle at night and 3 smaller ones he had managed to find. Gerald flashed the larger light down the tunnel, and dying only when the curvature of the tunnel cut down so much we couldn’t see further. The tunnel was cut into of stone and it was pretty solid. So after a short debate on if we should go ahead, we went ahead leaving our rope to climb back up.

Gerald went first because he had the larger light, and he didn’t want to part with it, it was the compromise. He got down on his hands and knees and went slowly. The tunnel was only about 4 feet in diameter and ragged. I recall bits of stone on the floor cutting into my leg, it was hot so I hadn’t worn jeans down there. Kyle was second in line with a flashlight, then me without one(I don’t know how I got the short straw) then Andrew and Tyler in the back.

I’m not sure how long we had gone and we were trying to decide if we should head back and come back another day. The tunnel had tapered down to about 3ft in diameter and was slowly getting smaller. Much smaller and we figured it would be hard to turn around and we would have to butt check each other's faces to get out of there. We kept going down the tunnel, testing once in awhile if we could turn around. Taking a break by sitting down, slouched. We were doing one of these breaks when we heard a low growling noise from behind us.

We all looked at each other getting a little tense.

“Holy shit are we in a badgers layer?” Tyler said. I didn’t find that information very helpful.

“Badgers don’t make sounds like that,” Andrew said in a matter of fact tone. “Besides, they don’t eat people”

“Well whatever that is, it sounds like it eats people,” Gerald said as he moved on ahead as fast as he could.

We didn’t hear the sound for a while and we had calmed down but we were in but face territory and couldn’t really sit to chat. So I sprawled out on the ground and lay there to relax while a bunch of rocks poked me in the back. At least I had given my knees a rest. The others decided to join me.

“Well do we go back and see if whatever that was is gone, or do we keep going and see if there’s a way out,” Tyler said

“Well I doubt we are going to find a way out of here, we have been ascending down for the last hour or so, there’s no way we are going to find our way out this way,” Kyle said deflated. “We can keep going but, eventually, this tunnel will end and we will be stuck with whatever that is coming from behind us.”

I thought I heard a whimper from one of my friends, I thought at the time it came from Andrew or Tyler, but I couldn’t be sure. It was soft and hardly audible.

“Well we need to do something,” I said, “why don’t we go on a bit more and if we find nothing we’ll see if whatever is down here followed us. Maybe it can't’ come this far down the tunnel.”

I can’t recall who said it but someone mentioned sarcastically “oh yeah our biggest problem is that whatever animal is down here is too large to follow us.”

Gerald got up at that and proceeded ahead, Kyle just lay there so we all just laid there as we couldn’t comfortably get passed him. Gerald was gone awhile when we finally heard him say something from the distance. He sounded a bit excited. So Kyle eventually got up and we followed him down.

The tunnel tapered down a bit further but before the walls got too small to feel uncomfortable, then we hit the cavern. It was massive. The ceiling was probably 15 feet high and went further than I could see. It was amazing.

We wondered around until Andrews flashlight died. We didn’t know how much power we had left and if we got stuck down here without light we would be trapped by a wall of darkness that would never let us past. That’s when things went a little strange.

There was a loud rumble from the far end of the cavern, we had no idea what it was but it was an ear-shattering howl, from the far end of the cave where Gerald's large flashlight couldn’t penetrate. The strange thing wasn’t the howl but the human-like tone it had. It made sounds as it shifted around like it was dragging something. Then it howled again. We backed up slowly until we heard another howl coming from another direction. We were genuinely scared at this point.

We had moved about 10 feet back at which point Kyle pointed out that whatever was doing the howling was directing us into a corner away from the exit. We stopped and waited for a solution. Kyle shone his flashlight in the direction of the second howl, and I thought I saw something, something hairy that looked like human leg but was too skinny. Then Kyle's light went out too. With only two lights left we instinctively gave chase to the cavern entrance. And hopped in, the running had instituted whatever was down there to follow us. But it never caught up. We could hear a dragging sound and footsteps behind us as we crawled down the tunnel. No longer worried that we would find something at the other end. Though we never did.

After a while we paused and didn’t hear anything. We crawled the rest of the way out to the old tree where the rope was supposed to be, but the rope had been chewed through. We couldn’t get out that way. Andrew propped Gerald up on his shoulders and was able to get him up over the lip of the hole. He did the same with Kyle, and then Kyle and Gerald pulled the rest of us out.

It was getting late, we had a fire with the idea of talking about it but we stayed silent until we all went home. We wouldn’t get into it more until the next day.

The next day we all got together and sat there silent and looked at each other. Andrew pulled out his 22 long barrel and suggested we go back down there.

“We need to know what the hell that was and kill it,”

“You can’t kill a demon with a gun jackass,” Tyler said trying to joke but coming out far too serious.

The group's consensus was that we needed to leave it well enough alone. So we did.

We didn’t even go to the water by the cemetery for a long while. It felt too creepy, and there were plenty of other ones around, they just didn’t have fish. We didn’t care, we never caught anything larger than our hands anyways. It wasn’t worth hanging out there.

A few weeks went by and the summer was starting to cool off into August as the fall was coming around the bend. We all got together at Smiths Hill, which wasn’t really a hill but a valley that had its peaks named by someone who thought it was funny. We all were supposed to meet up by about 9, but by 10 Andrew hadn’t appeared yet.

We headed back to town to see if he had slept in at his house, but his mom(who was a stay at home mom and looked after Andrews baby sister) told us that he had gone out sometime around 7 or 8 in the morning and she thought that he should be with us. We were all a little worried, but it wasn’t until after we left his house that Tyler reminded us of Andrew having the gun and wanting to go back in the cave.

We all looked at each other. It made perfect sense, he was the only one who brought it up more than once and had wanted to continue to hang out by the water. We decided to go find out for ourselves. We headed out to the hole under the large tree by the mill and there was a fresh rope dangling there. Andrew had gone down after whatever it was that we saw down there. We hadn’t really talked about it up until this point but all at once we started chatting.

“I’m not going down there,” Kyle said, “Fuck Andrew he laid himself his own grave, that thing down there wasn’t human.”

I quickly responded, “Well if it wasn’t human, what the hell was it then?” I truly wanted to know, but there was no answer but a long pause.

“Well we can leave him alone down there with that thing, what he’s hurt or it hurt him or he ran out of batteries and he can’t find his way out,” Tyler said had been meeting our eyes but then looked down at his shoes. He had been pretty quiet all morning since Andrew hadn’t shown up. The thought of the lights going out down there was more than frightening, it spelled doom under most circumstances if he made it to the cavern first. In the end, it was decided, we would go after him after we got some supplies. Gerald had an old single shot 22 that he kept out at his grandparents’ acreage so he went and got that, the rest of us went and got some rope, water and flashlights. I think Kyle came back with half his bag full of batteries, which seemed silly and smart at the same time.

We filled Kyle's bag up with the extra flashlights, water and a few rounds of 22 shells and climbed down into the tunnel. We had yelled down before we went for the supplies but like before we got no response. Gerald went first again, this time though I followed, Tyler and Kyle taking up the back. We made time much faster than the first time and started to notice the tapering off much sooner. At last we hit the end and hopped down. I grabbed a couple of the crappy flashlights we had brought and turned them on pointing them at the exit. Kyle was pissed that I was wasting flashlights and batteries, but the others agreed it was a good idea.

We shouted around for Andrew but we couldn’t hear anything. So without any further leads, we made a plan. We would stay to the left side of the wall and follow it all the way around the cavern. If we went too far we would go back to the entrance and circle around on the right side. If we found nothing we would check back in with his Andrew's mom and tell the sheriff.

Gerald held his loaded gun pointed at the ground about 5 feet in front of him ready to draw as we walked along the cave wall. It was at this point I had wished one of us had thought to bring a trail marker, I knew following the wall would keep us safe but I wanted something anyways. Some spray paint or string or something so we could track where we had been. I settled on the pen knife in my pants pocket, gouged out a symbol on the wall as we moved ahead, nothing fancy it’s hard to cut into stone with a kids pocket knife.

We searched on, the cavern was incredibly dark and we seemed to be constantly pulling back a black curtain. After about 30 minutes, according to my watch, I noticed that the cavern had started to get colder and there was a musty smell in the air that I couldn’t quite place. I asked the others about it and they just nodded and we kept moving on. Then the walls started getting smoother and closer together. It was gradual but it didn’t hit me right away, but I could drag my hand across the stone without getting cut. It wasn’t sculpted or something man made but looked like it had worn down, maybe by the aquifer. This made me look at our surroundings a bit more, and something else had changed. The room was getting smaller, well not smaller but the walls in this part of the cave were coming in closer.

Neither of these things were abnormal but it was something of note at the time, and when we came to the door it made me think about it a lot more. That’s right in the middle of a cave system that no one in town had told us about there was a large door. It wasn’t stone it was a big old wooden door. The top was arched and the handle was a big leather strap. There were two bolt locks on it with some artistic carving into the wood that framed it. It really was artistic, some drawings of flowers passing through the seasons. On the left, by the floor, it was nothing but blank wood but as you went around the door the flowers grew leaves, buds, and flowered, before wilting dying and floating away the last petals. I couldn’t tell you what kind of flower it was exactly but it did look something like the daisy’s my dad got for my mom on special occasions.

Gerald walked straight up to it and was about to grab the handle when Tyler leapt forward and grabbed his hand. “What the fuck do you think you are doing,” he looked at Gerald face pale hands shaking. Gerald looked at him pulled his hand away with a huff and turned to the door again.

“You do realize it’s fucking strange to have a door in the middle of a cave no one in town seems to know about right?” Tyler was almost yelling but trying to keep his voice down. “Look at it, it’s old, a leather handle? Why is the door locked? Why have a locked door in the middle of a fucking cave where there’s nothing?” Gerald stopped his hands from moving, his hand already on the handle and the other heading to the first latch. “Two latches? In the middle of the dark in the cave who knows how far down?” Gerald released the handle the colour going out of his skin as the realization hit him. He turned around and saw all of our wide eyes looking through him to the door.

“What do we do then?” it was an honest question no one responded right away. Kyle sat down on the hard stone cross legged and put his head into his hands elbows on his knees. Somewhat scared, somewhat frustrated.

“We keep go back and get help, we go to the cave until we get back to the start.” I was talking before I had even thought about it. I must have been in shock but some part of me wanted to take control of the situation before I lost it. “ or we go through that door. It’s a door there are four of us, and we all want to find Andrew”

We all sat down and sat for awhile before Kyle pulled out some beef jerky he had stashed in his bag, he handed it around without a word. No one was saying a thing, the deafness of the cave being drowned out by the sound of our chewing.

Once the jerky was done, I walked over to the door and looked at it a bit more closely. The hinges at first had looked hidden but they were just recessed into the wood on the right side. It looked like the door opened towards us. The possibilities bothered me. Usually if you wanted to keep something out you would have the lock on the inside, so was someone trying to keep something in? Was Andrew trapped inside somehow? That didn’t seem logical, but it crossed my mind I was a kid after all.

Gerald and Tyler walked up beside me, Kyle stayed back sitting on the floor just looking at it. I put my hand on the door and felt the wood grain, it was greasy from the oil used to preserve it, like a railway tie. As I touched it I could have sworn I heard or felt (I’m not quite sure which) through  my body. Gerald was much more hesitant this time, but I was curious. I could tell Tyler and Gerald were as well, though when I reached for the handle, Tyler clasped my arm to stop me.

I looked at him with some doubt, “Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?” I really didn’t, but I didn’t know if Andrew was behind the door or not and I wasn’t leaving him.

Without responding to Tyler I turned back to the door, Gerald pulled his rifle up to his shoulder but still kept it pointed down and away while heand Tyler took a step back to let me open the door.

I grabbed the leather strap handle on the door, it was soft and felt fresh. It was strange how old and new everything looked at the same time. Like someone had just put in the door but that the door was from ancient time. I grabbed the first bolt cold metal stinging my hand, I pulled it open with a loud thunk. Then I reached up and grabbed the second one, realizing I had put some weight onto the handle of the door pressing it so that if something was back there pushing out it would hold some resistance.

My mind raced back to when we were with Andrew coming to explore the howel the chased us further into the cave the first time. I took a deep breath and pulled back the second and last cold metal latch. It made a thunk sound as well.

I hesitated, slowly, Gerald raised the gun so it was pointed at the door, and I slowly backed the door open. The musty smell hit harder than it had we all gave a cough as the smell hit us. I pointed my light, it seemed to not cut through the black.

Once I opened the door all the way I stepped forward to see if I could see in there better. Kyle decided he would stay on the other side which was fine by me. I don’t like the idea of a door in a cave that can be closed and locked from the other side. Gerald and Tyler came in behind me and we pressed forward trying to make out what this room was.

There was nothing on the floor but there were slots carved into the walls and while I didn’t know the name at the time I’m pretty sure the place was a crypt. Though the slots looked like they fit humans none of them were occupied. We broke our first rule and spread out. Kyle stayed behind keeping his distance from the door, afraid of something coming out. Tyler went over to the right side of the room to look around, Gerald went to the left and I headed to the back.

It’s kind of hard to explain the room or rooms. On the far end of the initial room, there is a plain looking archway that opens to another room that looks exactly the same, and it has an archway at the end of that room as well. Each room was the same, looked like a crypt with slots carved into the walls with nothing inside them. As we kept walking through room after room stopping to note any changes, we were getting very freaked out.  Gerald was having a hard time not pointing his gun up as we walked through arches.

After walking for awhile, we yelled back out to Kyle but he didn’t respond. There was a debate if we should go back and see if he was OK but we settled on we were too far away for him to hear us. So we kept trekking down until we came to another door. This one was the same style as the same as the one we came in through but the etching looked different. I couldn’t tell exactly how, like a puzzle with a piece missing.

We tried the door but it wouldn’t open, there were no latches to lock the door on this side so we figured it must be locked on the other side.  So without anything to open a solid wood door we left back through the way we came.

I figure about half way back to the opening we saw Kyle running for us. He was pale as a ghost and didn’t stop to talk he just shot past us.

Tyler and I looked at each other and Gerald was already on Kyles tail. We yelled at Kyle asking what the hell was going on as we picked up and followed. He wouldn’t answer, just some jabbering between heaving breathing as he kept going.  It wasn’t long before he ran out of steam and stopped to look around, shot into the room we were in, another empty crypt. We asked him what the hell was going on.

“It’s coming for us, me I don’t know but fuck!” he said in a quick sentence barely before taking a deep breath.

“What the hell is coming for us? Is someone back there?” Tyler was grilling Kyle, Gerald hadn’t even bothered to listen and had his gun up pointed in the direction where we had come from.

Kyle looked down into the shadows and couldn’t see anything. Then there was a large growl sound again. The same we had heard the last time we entered the cave system. Gerald looked like he was going to relieve his bowels. Kyle started running but Tyler caught him by the collar.

“Kyle there’s nothing down there but a locked door we are cornered” Kyle’s eyes bulged as Tyler nodded and I confirmed this for him.

Whatever it was, was coming closer and closer. I finally got myself together and silently signaled for everyone to follow me. Tyler and Kyle followed me as I climbed into one of the slots in the wall and killed my flashlight Tyler did the same. Kyle made a bit of a whimper but did the same. We were all cloaked in darkness except Gerald. He looked over at us with a little more resolve and squinted towards the dark with his light on. We sat covered in the dark trying not to move, making myself as flat as possible.

The growling got closer and closer and we could see that Gerald was no longer holding the gun straight. He was shaking and not pointing straight. Then the grinding started. It was an odd sound like someone chewing large rocks, chomping away at large stones. The sound was deafening. The last thing I saw was Gerald standing there both hands on his gun as the light in his support hand all of the sudden clicked out.

We could hear Gerald scream and start to run to the crypt slots but the grinding and growling was in our room and must have grabbed him. A shot rang out, it was his only shot he couldn’t reload the single shot 22 in the dark. It was useless and I think back to how stupid it was to even bring it.

Gerald's screams went on for awhile, we could hear him screaming but we sat still not daring to move as his screams started to fade down the row of rooms, we couldn’t tell which direction, none of us dared to get out.

When the sound stopped and we couldn’t hear him any longer I popped on my flashlight and shone it around. There was his gun and some blood. That was about the time that Kyle puked. This wasn’t some fun kids adventure one of our friends had just been dragged away but something in the dark. We had no idea what. We looked at each other with blank stares, and saw that the blood went the way we had come in, so we decided to follow it. We didn’t really have a choice, it was that or wait and see if the thing came back. The back door was still locked.

We left Gerald's gun, none of us wanted to be associated with what had most likely got him killed. Whatever the hell that was, a gun didn’t seem like a reasonable response.

We quickly made a plan, we were going to head to the exit and get help. This was no longer about finding Andrew who went down here on his own to do whatever the hell he was doing, it was now about something lurking in the dark who takes off with kids.

As we headed out our banter was at a zero, not because we had nothing to talk about, we had a bunch to talk about, we just no longer wanted to make a noise. We stopped a few times because we thought we had heard something but then continued on. I checked my watch it was almost suppertime, we weren’t going to be out of here before our parents started looking for us.

Then panic hit me. No one was watching the door from the other side, no one knew we were down here. If the thing that took Gerald closed and locked the door we were stuck, with it.

We got to the door, the first thing we noticed was that it was open. After a brief sigh of relief, Tyler pointed out that there was a bit of blood on the floor. Not much just a small trail leading out the door then drops every few feet. We all looked at each other, we knew whose it was and while it was good that it wasn’t much blood, it was still blood.

We decided we needed help, we couldn’t attack this thing on our own, we had no desire to go after it. It had been one thing when we thought that it was an animal but the cave was turning out to be more than a cave. We ran for the exit, we followed the wall we came in on and made time as fast as we could. Heading back it seemed to take forever, but it was probably only 30 minutes with a couple of breaks to catch our breath.

We ran until our lights went out. All of them, at about the same time. We were in mid-run when the lights went out and I ended up tripping over something on the floor of the cave with a thud. I hit the ground hard and whacked my nose pretty good. Some fresh blood pooled out of it and I tried to pinch it shut while finding my bearings. Which is incredibly hard in a cave with zero lighting. After my head stopped spinning and ringing I heard it. A slow growl from deep in the cave. Then my eyes adjust to the low light and it wasn’t pitch black. In the distance, I could see the faint light of our flashlights that I had dropped by the exit.

I got up to my feet with a groan and Kyle slapped a hand roughly over my mouth which made me give a quiet yelp. The growling got louder. We started to hear the grinding from our left, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do. So I did what I thought was best. I grabbed Kyle's backpack fished out fresh batteries. I dumped mine straight on the ground and loaded it back up and shone it towards the sound.

I couldn’t see anything at first it was still lurking in the dark. Tyler yelped and said look at the ground. It was Gerald. I had tripped over Gerald. We weren’t sure what state he was in, if he had been bitten beaten or was dead. Kyle and Tyler grabbed him as I pointed the light back up at the shadows. It was dark and I could just make out shifting shadows as if something was sliding across them towards us. My light started to flicker again.

Kyle and Tyler were already heading to the exit, the shadow shifted more into view and the light went out again. There was a huge screech as it hit the light and the light went out. This was enough for me to join Tyler and Kyle and we dragged/ran the hell out of there as fast as possible.

As we approached the flashlights they started to flicker, but we were almost to the tunnel so we kept going. Kyle got in first then Tyler. I got in and grabbed Gerald and started shimming backwards and dragging Gerald along. It was slow, too slow, there wasn’t enough room to get leverage, but we started moving and so far we were ok. Behind Gerald, I could see the lights flickering madly like candles. Then the winked out.

There was silence, no one moved, no one made a sound. There was a scraping sound, like nails on a chalk board. Slow scraping overly dramatic. It pulled closer and closer, I started backing away with Gerald again bumping into Tyler. Then the scraping stopped and there was a growl, something grabbed Gerald's leg and started dragging him the other way. I latched onto his arms with mine and held him tight. I started to slide with him, I was digging my feet as much into the stone as I could but it wasn’t working. My knees and arms were getting ripped to shreds as I used whatever I could to slow it down.

Tyler yelled at Kyle for light. “LIGHT! GET THE LIGHT!” I could hear him fumbling around as I held onto Gerald tears rolling down my face. The fumbling stopped and Kyle got a flashlight working. There was a bright flash as the light cut through the dark and a high pitched scream. I didn’t get a good look at it, all I saw were long dangly arms. It could have been human. I’m not sure today, but in that moment, it was a terrible terrible thing. I screamed, no one else saw it. Saw it pull its arms out of the tunnel, lurching back like a slug hit by salt.

I started moving back again kicking Tyler's feet as we moved setting the pace a little too fast from behind.

Once we got to the part of the tunnel where we could crouch we checked over Gerald, he was breathing but it was shallow. The three of us took turns carrying him out, and once we got outside it was dark. It was like we couldn’t escape the black. It was following us. When we were halfway home and the moon peeked out from behind a dark cloud, it was so beautiful. I never wanted to be stuck in the dark again.

We ended up at Tylers house, it was much closer and Gerald needed help now. Tylers mom was the only one home, her dad had gone out looking for us. Apparently Andrew came looking for us soon after we left his house. He had stopped over at his grandparents. He hadn’t thought to look in the caves, everyone had been worried about us.

Gerald had a bad concussion and was in a coma for 3 days. When he got out of it, he recalled what had happened up until the lights went out but he just couldn’t recall what happened next. We had told the police at the hospital about the caves, and Tyler showed them where the entrance was, but refused to go down. They said outer door to the crypt was locked from the inside this time. They couldn’t get it open not even after trying to pry it out. There was talk about cutting it out but then the flooding happened. We have a major flood ever 10-15 years. This one hit particularly hard, and afterwards, they couldn’t find the entrance. The ground had covered it up, at least for now. I figure it was for the best.

[theatari]

A Model Small Town

It was a dark night, cold and rainy the clouds blotting out the sun as I pulled up the gravel road to my great aunt's house. Carol had lived a long eccentric life, though if times had been different she would never have been allowed to live on her own. Especially so late into life. Her eccentricities were chalked up by the younger generation in our family as some sort of disorder that went misdiagnosed just because of the times.

When she was a kid though, you were either sick, eccentric or normal. I recall reading a story about autistic individuals dancing the sad dance between eccentric and sick. Some ending up in hospitals or care facilities where they would do things to you. Not the more happy modern live on your own as much as possible places we have now. My family couldn’t bear the idea of putting her in a facility then the way they were, so she stayed and lived with my great grandmother until she passed away. By them she had a healthy routine, so it was decided she would live in the family home without much contact from the outside world. She was quite happy there.

When I was old enough I would travel out to the countryside to visit occasionally staying with her for a week or so at a time. She was pleasant with me, to the point that I would forget that she wasn’t quite right. My mother, whom Carol was her Aunt, said she only was ever like that with my Grandma(Aunt Carol’s sister) and to a smaller their mother. We had lovely teas and listened to some of her old records. Not my kind of music, operas and such but the company was nice and I never stayed more than a week at a time.

Her house was huge, especially way too large for her, so every Sunday using money the family had invested for her from land sold after my grandma and great grandma passed, she would have a cleaning staff come in, tidy up, bring groceries and by the time she was back everything was in order. Not that it needed much cleaning, just a light dusting and perhaps a scrub of the outside porch and windows.

I don’t know if she was autistic it’s just something my family mentioned, she was a neat freak and was very particular. She didn’t like most company, and would get quite hostile at people she didn’t know coming into her space. If it was really tragic in her mind, she would curl up in ball on her rocking chair and hum to herself until the world was right again. If she wasn’t home she would find a quiet corner repeating the humming and rocking. This led to several strange encounters while taking her out for dinner. That sounds like a lot but really we went out frequently so I thought the infrequent trouble was worth it.

So here I was in front of this beautiful house that needed to be cleaned of her stuff and moved. It really was beautiful even at night. A light sky blue with white accents and veranda. The porch jutting out on the side of the house with a door from the veranda. It was one of those houses people stopped to look at and admire. There were two floors plus the attic, most of the bedrooms had been cleaned out ages ago as her siblings had moved out, and used for storage of odds and ends that didn’t matter. Grandma’s and Aunt Carol's room though were both in perfect order, as if either could walk in at a moments notice and not miss a beat. It bothered me that I had been left as executor. I wasn’t that old at the time, 24 just finishing my degree, I did have the time. I just didn’t think should be responsible for all the assets.

Great Grandma though had made it clear in her will though, that when my Great Aunt passed away what would go to whome and I was was to sort out what was left. I would have been 15 when she passed away though, I don’t know what made her thing I wouldn’t turn out to be a meth head selling everything for my next fix. It didn’t matter I was stuck with it and I would have to deal with it.

I walked into the house using my old key. Then as the lawyer had said on the table in the kitchen were some documents I needed to go through and sign, mostly to pay her fees and authorize the auction at the end of next month after everything had been cleared out. Then there was an envelope, it was somewhat heavy and had my name handwritten on it. “To Harold handel with care”

I opened it up and found an old skeleton key. Not the kind you see in movies with the long cylinder with funky designs on the end. A regular old key with the edges filed down so that it would open almost any door. I held the key in my hand as I opened the note. It had been from my Grandma:

Dear Kyle,

I know this is a hard time for you as you are tasked with the estate, but you know most of anyone what was precious to Carol's heart. Keep them safe and sound. This key will let you into rooms that only Carol has likely been in for years.

She has private spaces and while I have the master key, I don’t tend to go there. The key opens two doors upstairs one leading to the attic as well as a shed outside where she kept her gardening tools.

Lots of Love,

Grandma Ellis

I attached the key to my keyring and went about briefly looking over the rest of the papers. There was a note from the lawyer, she still had a key for the lockbox at the bank. I would have to swing by there with the signed papers and pick it up. A nice tactic to make sure you dropped off all the paperwork on time. Then i went to fridge hoping everything hadn’t spoiled, but found it fully stocked. I was such an idiot, I hadn’t canceled the grocery and cleaning services, I would have to do that before closing her accounts, but it was a nice surprise. I made a light bedtime snack and went to the living room.

Carol didn’t have a TV, she had no need for it she would say. So I walked over to her book collection and grabbed a book off the shelf and started to leaf through it. I can’t recall what it was now, but it was some boring book about a man from Belfast.

Once I was done my snack I cleaned up the way she would have liked it and went about the house to do inventory. The livingroom and kitchen took up most of the main floor with the master bedroom situated between the door and the stairs. I looked in briefly, this was one of the few rooms that went untouched since my great grandmother passed away. I recall a story that Grandma Ellis wanted to move in when she was not feeling as well, but Carol wouldn’t allow it. So she had moved back to her old room upstairs and dealt with the stairs as best she could. Before she died she mostly lived in the living room. Which for some reason was more acceptable than Great Grans room.

I went up stairs found myself at a door. I hadn’t ever gone into it as I had thought that it was always a closet, with cleaning supplies or storage. Now I was wondering if I was right about it or not. It had always been locked.

I pulled out the skeleton key and tried it. The lock popped and I was able to open the door. It wasn’t the broom closet but it wasn’t much bigger. It had a table with a sewing machine, a bunch of embroidery some finished most not, some crocheting and a few different paintings. Later a conversation with my mom would reveal that Carol had indeed dabbled briefly with painting. I was surprised though as I had no recollection of it. My mom said it was a short lived flight of fancy.

The room was rather disinteresting filled mostly with expended hobbies, most dealing with sewing or knitting. This would be an easy room to clean out. Next I ignored the hall down to two rooms on the right and went left. I checked the first one, which had been my grandmother's, she was older and had the biggest room on the floor. Her stuff was neatly setup inside as well. My mother while being her executor had left the room to Carol, which technically made it my business but my mom was going to come up in a week or so to clean it out herself all the same.

Then I went down to the end of the hall Here was a small room that had been my great uncles. He had moved out and never came back leaving very little besides his bed and dresser. He had passed away some years before I was born and so I don’t think if things had been left in there I would have been troubled with having to deal with it anyways. The dresser was empty except a few pairs of old pants that smelt like dust. I left the room and was back in the hall. When exciting the room the attic door was on the right.

I slipped my key in unlocked it and went up the stairs. It was dark, too dark to see. So I carefully backed down the steps and closed the door. I left the room unlocked. I proceeded down to Carol’s room and found everything as it should be, her bed made with the pink flower quilt she had made, the white dresser with a large mirror and nicnacs taking up just the right amount of space so as to not look cluttered. The armchair in the corner and the night stand with the lamp and stack of books.

I had almost knocked coming in, I recall thinking to myself at the time this would likely be the most difficult room to disassemble. It was all placed in such a way each item calculated on how it would look. Even the books on the nightstand likely took contemplation to some extent. Then there was the personal matter of it, no one went in here. This had to have been the second or third time in all my years I had come in. The others were when she was gone to the store with Grandma and I stayed back playing gameboy or reading.

I left the room and went down the hall to the final bedroom, this was the one I stayed in and besides my great uncles it was the most bland. it had a few paintings on the wall to brighten it up, but it caught the least light out of the rest. Likely why no one lived in it. It had a small chest of drawers a small double bed and a night stand with a digital clock on it. That was my addition from years ago. I put my suitcase down turned off the lights and went to bed. It was my first restless sleep I had, had in the house but it wasn’t my last.

The next morning I popped down made myself some breakfast and then headed around to do some inventory. Some of the family members had made requests for things they thought were sentimental to them. I had lucked out and there was no overlap besides my parents and I both wanting a vinyl that Aunt Carol listened to frequently when we visited. Making a verbal contract that I would get it when my mother passed, which was slightly depressing I relented and all my troubles with sorting that mess out were finished.

I went around trying to figure out what would be worth keeping for the auction, getting appraised and what would need to just be tossed. Tomorrow I was having a large dumping bin brought in, though I was starting to question if I would need it. Most of the stuff was in very good order. I would toss the bed mattresses but the bedframes were antiques. I would toss the couch because you couldn’t really set it to the curb and while it was nice people don’t typically buy couches from the 60’s.

Finally I made my way back up the stairs and found myself at the attic door again. I tried the door but it wouldn’t open. I was sure that I had unlocked it so I tried the key again, but it appeared to already be unlocked. It was just sealed to the frame, the house must have shifted in the night swelling from the morning heat, something like that. So proceeded to pulled hard on the handle and bang on the frame hoping it would knock it loose. Just when i was about to get the crowbar from my car the door finally pulled free of the frame. I lost my footing and fell back, gathered myself and went in. The whole upstairs was beautifully lit with lots of natural light coming in from the windows. Besides last night this room likely never saw darkness. Which was probably why no one had bothered to replace the lightbulb that I was now clicking the switch to.

I made my way up the stairs to the top of the house, and peered around. The first thing I noticed was the huge model of the town and surrounding area. It was magnificent! The grass looked real the houses accurate, I could even see small graffiti on the different buildings that had been painted. It was really and truly a marvel.

After looking at the model for some time I finally decided to explore the rest of the room. Besides the floor which was finished, and likely insulated, the rest of the room wasn’t finished. I don’t think you would want to, it had a unique style and I could see why Aunt Carol had claimed it as her own. In the back corner there was another book shelf, and beside it under one of the larger windows there was a beat up arm chair. It wasn’t the normal type of chair Aunt Carol would tolerate but in this space it fit magnificently and that always mattered more to her.

At that moment I wanted to cancel the auction and keep the place to myself, but I had other plans. I had a job offer in the city, while not so far away it was far enough that commuting would be laughable. So I went back downstairs and went along with the rest of my day.

It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed something off. I was reading the paper in the morning, it was some local this and that when I noticed a story about a house burning down on Brook street and Clinton. I went up the attic again to read a bit, there was no use in sorting things until the crunch bin came, and it had been delayed by 3 days. So as I walked past the model I noticed the oddest thing. There was a scorched house, that I hadn’t noticed before. It was very strange as it seemed to stick out like a sore thumb and I hadn’t noticed it the day before. I looked and sure enough it was Brook and Clinton, the house that was in the paper. It was an odd coincidence so I looked at it ever closer. There were odd things about the whole model, it was a bit too accurate. The day's newspaper, while the articles were unreadable on peoples doorsteps did reflect the days date at the top. There were cars with license plates and on closer inspection up on the hillside outside of town I could see my car at Aunt Carol's house.

I took a step back, then ran downstairs. When you are scared your first reaction people say is fight or flight. I believe that meeting something that warps your reality leads you to a run and ignore, or assume you’re crazy and call a friend. I chose the former. I went about my day trying to push it to the back of my mind. I popped headphones in my ears and put on some music. My brain kept running back to the model upstairs. Why had it been so accurate? Was I losing it, was it my Aunt's ghost making things perfect? Or was it something else entirely. I decided around dinner time that I needed to check on it again. So after I had a microwave meal I proceeded up the stairs and looked in on the model again, it was still overly accurate. There had to have been an explanation for it, but I couldn’t think of one.

So I started looking in more detail at the model. There were no people in it but there were cars, toys, signs and what not. Out in the woods I noticed something largely disturbing. There was a fresh mound of dirt and a hole. Perhaps it was the mood I was in but it looked to scale about the size of a grave. There was no graveyard here, I could see clearly on the model town where the graveyard was. This was about 4 miles north of town at the very edge of the model. There was no mistaking it though it was fresh.

I wasn’t sure what to do, I didn’t want to call the police and tell them there was a grave being dug on the north side of town because my crazy aunt's scale replica said so. So I did what I thought was sensible, I grabbed my phone and went for a drive to the north side of town.

Once I was about  3 miles north of town I got out of my car and using a picture of the model on my phone as a map, trekked to where the mound of dirt was and sure enough there it was, and yes it was the size of a grave. I really wasn’t sure what to do, I mean it was a freshly dug hole the size of a grave but that was about it. I drove back to my Aunts and sat there for awhile thinking. I didn’t know what to do I didn’t want to become the town loony. So I made another trip into town and at a payphone made a call to crime stoppers. Feeling silly about using a pay phone to put in anonymous tip about a hole in the ground that could be perfectly fine I went home. I had absolved myself of the guilt and treated myself to a hot bath and one of Aunt Carol's books.

Later that day, after a good dinner by myself and made my way home and back to the attic. I was curious about the model, I wanted to see the hole again. I got to the door and it had jammed shut again so I gave it some elbow grease and got it open with a loud thud as I fell back again. Then I found the light switch which was easier to find under the moons glow through the window and went up the stairs.

Looking over the town, I marveled at how each of the cars had seemed to move through the day as I scanned up to my hole. It was still empty no changes. Then I noticed something odd. My aunt's house had two cars at it. One in the front which was mine, and another in the back which I did not recognize.

As I looked at the model I noticed something, lights flickering in different rooms. I hadn’t noticed lights before but the detail didn’t bother me in it’s self, it was that they were turning on and off. I crouched down and looked. It was methodical like someone was going around looking for something.

Panic set it, I was either crazy or someone was in the house with me. A quick run to the window confirmed my suspicions. In the back of the house was a car. I ran down the stairs to the upper floor and looked around someone was coming up the stairs. Quickly I pulled the door shut but it was difficult to get closed. It was hard to pull shut into the door frame. As the figure approached the top of the stairs and I grunted and pulled as hard as possible finally earning a closed door. I think flip the latch, turned off the lights and proceeded to hide under the model of Aunt Carol’s house.

I then fumbled in my pocket for my phone dialing quickly 911, they answered just as there was a thumping at the attic door. I quietly told the receptionist that someone was in the house and banging on my door. She asked me to stay on the phone, I told her not to say anything as I turned the screen off and slid the phone onto the model and huddled under the table.

The noise stopped for a moment, my guess was to check the other rooms, but soon they were back hammering harder at the door. I started to hear scraping on the door, later I found out it was a crow bar. I let out a small yelp confirming to the intruder that I was indeed there. Bang Bang Bang, he hammered on the door until I heard a small crack as the frame of the door started to give way. I held my breath then there was the sound of the police declaring themselves. I heard some yelling and then a gunshot.

Someone was at the door again saying it was the police. I wasn’t sure if I should believe them so I shakily grabbed the phone from on top of the model and asked the person on the line if they could confirm. After a shaky response I went down the stairs and tried to open the door, but even after using my key on the lock it was still jammed shut. The officer was eventually able to get out of the room and take me down the stairs.

The next day a detective met me at the hotel in town where I was staying. The man at my house, George Grivas was a businessman and had the body of his business partner in his trunk. They apparently had a fight and he had murdered him. We had put it together that when I had found the location of his partners future grave he must have saw me, followed me. After getting the nerves and waiting until dark he planned to come in and kill the only witness, not knowing I had called in a tip already about the location of the hole.

I finished cleaning up Aunt Carol’s house, and decided to keep the model. I put it in storage and while I don’t keep track of it I do notice the occasional change to the color of a house or a new building.

[theatari]

Farming

[theatari]

Night Detective Jones

I got out of the car and walked up the fight of stairs. This was the ritual get out of the car go up the stairs collect the tape pop it in the STR, review it then send out a disable signal to the suspect and send out a patrol man to pick them up. I yawned as I hit the top of the stairs. Two flights blah I need to cut back on my greasy food, increase my exercise or something.

The duty officer was Sgt. Miller. With so few crimes it was easy to get to know everyone who might end up at major crime scenes. Miller was a good kid, well I guess I shouldn't say kid. He's been on the force going on 10 years now, but with attrition almost at zero he was still one of the youngest. I keep hearing about the problems we will have when everyone decided to retire at the same time. HR has been talking about doing staggered severance to those who will accept it so that we have more of an age range going forward. If this job keeps going I might just take the first one offered to me.

This job is not what I went to school for. I spent years learning criminology and then becoming an officer. To eventually end up spending my days sitting around drinking coffee eating bad food and running tapes.

Ever since the Corp instituted the STR system in everyone it was pointless to have someone in my position. Someone to grab the digital recorder off of a corpse and play it back to gather the evidence needed. It had everything, it detected who was in proximity to the victim, recorded ocular video from the person as well as audio. Just how the victim would hear it. It was all stored on a data chip in the user. All stored on a chip that could only be removed at the time of death, or copied before hand by the user if it pleased them to share something.

I was just a lackey now, with a STR admin console strapped to his forearm. Mine was only one of two assigned to the department in the city by the Corp. A prize for being the best at my job, almost 20 years ago. What a waste.

The room was filled with a stench I hadn't smelt in years. The victim must have had their transponder switched off when they passed. Not uncommon but it was uncommon enough with antisocial people that this rarely happened anymore. Which was good, this was enough to make a veteran 20 years ago lose their lunch. This was the future as they say and two of the current vets, Sgt. Copeland and Sgt. Nicolas had both lost their lunch. One in a bag thankfully, the other on the floor destroying evidence. This bugged me, but more of an old habit of the game. No evidence was going to be needed.

I pulled out an old chap stick with a strong citrus flavour and swiped it under my nose. It wouldn't help much but I didn't carry Vicks or anything really strong these days, it just wasn't needed. I had never gotten used to the smell.

It might sound morbid but having to do something on this job that I hadn't had to do in years brought a small smile to my face. Not something others might have noticed I'm a professional, just a little spring to my step as I moved past Nicholas and Copeland. The two looked at me, Copeland a little more green around the rim, he looked like he was going to say something then just kind of slouched down and tried not to lose more of his lunch. Nicolas never moved a muscle, obviously knowing better than to chance any movement. They must not have been in there that long before hand. I got to the door pulled out my handkerchief that was used for mostly cleaning a pair of glasses I no longer needed, and opened the door. It kind of creaked a bit and a large smell wafted to me stronger than before. I could hear both men behind me gage and stumble down the stairs heading for the door. They could keep the scene clear from down stairs.

The room wasn't that big and it looked like it had been decorated by a women in the mid 1960's it was all bright colours and flowers everywhere, with a dull wall colour to contrast all the decorations. In the middle lay a man in his late 40s not old by any means just staring up at the ceiling. Not very recognizable, but it looked like part of his skull had been pushed in by something and it wasn't anywhere near where he lay. Obviously it was a murder. I slipped into the room and looked around, it was necessary, and some old habits just don’t die. Nothing was really out of place no sign of a murder besides the dead body, no weapon or surface that could have been used to do the damage to the skull. That was alright, the STR system is suppose to solve all of these problems.

I walked over to the body and even after 20 years of this had to fight the alarm bell that told me not to move the body. I grabbed his wrist and pulled it up, it was a little harder as the body was still a bit stiff which was odd with someone so... decomposed. there wasn't much left the proteins should have broken down more by now. Very odd. I rotated the wrist so that the palm was face up, this took a bit of work. I poked at the wrist a bit but couldn't find the right spot. This was beginning to get more and more odd. I went into my jacket and got my supplied tool, I think the guys at Corp called it some fancy name like an AMoL Degenerator or some shit, I called it the trusty ol' arm scope. It basically let me find the freaking chip. Some of the earlier people who were implanted before it became Corp. mandatory had the option to put it somewhere besides the wrist. This device was like a metal detector, it could pick up different types of STR systems, I could set it to filter out ones assigned to different people and set it to locate within a range. It worked every freaking time, and it was cool it looked like some futuristic scanning device. Small, fit in your hand and gave you a readout of the people in the area and with pinpointing could point down to the mm where the chip was in relation. It even had a nifty laser pointer that would aim at a particular individual, which is the function I used most often and right now it was set to that function. All it did was pickup someone outside the room.

I ran through the process five times then sat there for a second. I know a smile came across my face just before I looked around more closely. All the protocols that had been broken, everything that needed to be logged. I softly, quickly, eagerly hopped up taking careful attention to put the hand back as close to where I had found it. I turned around and swiftly made my way to the door and poked my head out.

"CLEAR OUT WE NEED CONTAINMENT" I yelled, apparently Sgt. Miller had the stomach to replace the other two and was the only one in earshot. He looked up at me confused. I smiled and looked at him dead in the eyes, "Miller we have a tracer" This is the word we used for someone who didn't have a chip. Someone who had gotten past the procedure. It was impossible, since it was made mandatory, body scans were the norm for everything. Watch lists were in effect at all points, we didn't notice them much but even at the store, we used our chips to purchase items. It was the most secure system on the planet. This guy had been able to get by without one. This was going to be a shit show and I was stuck right in the middle.

"Miller get me my kit it's in the car, let the others know what's going on and for god sake don't touch a damn this more and don't let anyone into this house." I turned pulling out an old pair of gloves from my breast pocket that I couldn't resist leaving in there all these years.

Hot damn this was going to be a good day.

[theatari]

Survival

Claire walked out of the bunker quickly pulling her arm over her eyes as the light blasted her wide open pupils. The sky was a blackish grey and the ground covered in brown dirt mixed with a wet moisture. She scanned the area but all she saw was trees grass, and her bunker. Her boots thick with mud sloshing through the ground she headed out west.

As her eyes adjusted to the cloud covered natural light she pulled her arm away from her eyes slipping them into the pockets of her cloak, occasionally reaching up to adjust her mask and check its toxicity levels on her arm bracelet. It was a good day to be out and about, if Claire could have tilted her head back and smelt fresh air it would have been euphoric. The toxicity levels had been too high the last 3 weeks since that wind storm brought in higher levels out of the East Coast.

Ducking past trees looking around for any signs of life as she followed her campus to the next way point she found the bones of some animals on a path. She slid far to the side of them fearing they might have increased levels, and moved on down the path.

Beep beep beep

“Shit”

Claire looked down at her bracelet. There was a storm coming in about 5KM out and she was about 3KM from the nearest shelter. If she went back to her other one that was 2KM but she would be heading back the way she came. She decided to boot it through the woods to the next shelter.

Was it all worth it heading west? To the new world where things were clean and you could get outside without a mask and have to wear a bracelet to warn you of impending doom? To Claire and many others it was. The stress of living in the void of a bunker bouncing back and forth for supplies and hoping that the gruel that was served from god knows what would hold out would last. It wasn’t a life she wanted to live, so she ran forward.

She ducked under branches and over tree stumps avoiding holes. The heavy breathing was pulling in more toxic air and she hoped that her mask would hold out until the next checkpoint. As she ran through the thick she could hear a howling coming from behind her. It was the oncoming storm. She didn’t bother to turn and look, that would waste time. He heard a beeping from her bracelet. It was either that her mask filter was almost used up or that the storm was nipping at her back and her bracelet was picking up higher toxicity levels.

“Fuck” she screamed as she tripped over a branch and just about fell onto her head, she put her hands down to catch herself and kept running. Glancing at the bracelet she could see the toxic levels in her mask were increasing at a high rate. The increase in the airs toxic levels and her heavy breathing were playing hell on her Masks filtering systems.

Dirt and debris started licking at her face so she pulled down her goggles and pulled her cloak in tight around her arms as she ran for the bunker. It was in sight, the next checkpoint. When she got there she would scan her bracelet and it would open the doors to the detox chamber and she would be safe.

The beeping on her bracelet had turned to a dull hum, then to a loud blasting sound. She tried to not panic. She was a few seconds from the door. She could tell her mask was failing and tried to hold her breath, but it’s near impossible to do that and run. She hit the door and franticly swiped her bracelet around the scanner. It wasn’t picking it up though, it was covered in dirt. This station must have not been cleaned since the last storm. Either unoccupied or occupied by those that had given up. Her mask was cutting off air circulation, she didn’t mind it was better than the toxic air.

The light was going dark and cloudy either from the lack of oxygen or the storm. Claire swiped hard at the control pad trying to clean it so that her bracelet would scan. As the world went dark she heard the blessed “beep beep” of an accepted scan and tried to find the door. The world was black though. She fumbled around and fell hitting the ground, hoping that it was the detox chamber. She heard the door close as she fell, she hoped she was on the other side of it as she ripped off her mask and fell into a sleep.

[theatari]

Unstoppable Mortal

Paul stood firm while everyone else ran away. The lower rank Hero's were the first to go, jogging past. Soon after the top tier Heroes followed suit. Paul pursed his lips and made an annoyed face as the greatest of them all past him in a flurry. Paul stood firm, redoubling his resolve.

Paul took two steps forward, using his arms to shield his face from the heat, letting his brown leather jacket flap in the winds. Pulling down his classic aviator glasses that his great great grandfather had worn. “Now that was a hero”, Paul would say on occasion. He had fought in the first world war as a fighter pilot, no powers, no advantage just him in his cockpit fear bearing down on him keeping him alert. The goggles reminded Paul of that, as he slid them down over his eyes to help with the flaming gusting winds that were drying out his eyes.

Paul took one more step forward, having to hunch down, pushing against the mighty gusts. Heat licked at his arms as he pushed forward. The "Heroes" all stood a safe distance away, looking on in awe as this simple man, someone below the lowest of ranks, dug in his heels and went on to certain doom. The mightiest tried to keep a bravado but as Paul moved forward they hung their heads in shame.

Paul thought back to a story his great great grandfather Eric had told him. He had been in the pacific combat training exercises with some new recruits. They had live rounds but never expected to encounter anyone, it was a just in case. Eric had taken them miles from the shore, when one of the guns fired. A new recruit had accidentally fired a round while doing some checks. The gunfire cut holes through his engines and tail fin during the trip back to land. "The plane went into a tail spin" he had told him, "all was lost". Even if he survived the crash there was no way to get to him before the waves carried him of. They didn't have transponders, GPS or any fancy equipment. Yet he lived.

The memory of that story brushed on Paul like a fine stroke from a painter, keeping him clear as he pushed further ahead. Realizing that the world's greatest heroes were behind him he turned and shouted. "hit me with some water!" There was a slow pause as a young woman in a velvet white dress steadied herself and then blasted water towards Paul. It didn't make it to him before it evaporated. "Crystal King, shoot some freeze on that water stream" He did as he was asked and the water made it to Paul just barely, freezing, melting, evaporating, all in a quick cycle until what got to him was a steady stream like that which comes from a garden hose. With this he was able to move again, the burning no longer crackled against his hands and face quite so hard.

He pushed forward, those with powers watched on in awe, each giving their strength when asked. For that moment he was the unstoppable mortal.

[theatari]

I posted this on facebook first, turns out the only person who likes it is my mother.  It was me experimenting with colour for the first time in ~15 years.

[theatari]

Up next muffin boy and his saltry evil twin the scone killer.