Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20180718070434

Yes, this is a very long draft... novella length, actually. Which really sucks for me because it has to be rewritten. But I would IMMENSELY appreciate it if anybody took the time to sit down, give this rough draft a whirl, and give me any thoughts because I've put a lot of work into this and to my dismay, it is incredibly underwhelming compared to the vision I had in mind. I already have a terrifyingly extensive list of changes to add, big and small, and to put things simply, I think the biggest issues with it are pacing, character depth, lack of rising action, and central conflict. And pacing and character depth I can fix, but even though I know where to strengthen the plot points that I intended to be apparent (that aren't), I still am unsure how it would still read. Does it seem pointless? Does the plot structure work? Or does it need some kind of additional external conflict before the climax of the story? Again, any help is immensely appreciated, because I know I wouldn't even want to waste my time reading this mammoth.

=Monday=

“Goddamnit James, you just spilled your mayonnaise all over my fucking pants, dude!”

“Sorry, Mike,” James smirked, his bright red hair catching in the sunlight.

“Yeah, James. Quit getting your white hot dog stuff everywhere.”

I snickered heavily at Clay’s remark, while James was laughing so hard that a piece of his hot dog shot out of his nose.

“Ew!” I cried, backing away from the hot dog chunk as much as I could, which was a bit difficult what with being in the middle seat.

“Dude, that’s disgusting,” Clay remarked with a slight grin on his face as he leaned his head against the window.

“Hey, Uncle Max,” I called to the front of the car, “you got anything to clean this up with?”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching into the empty Dingle Burger bag and whipping out a greasy wad of napkins. “And quit it with the swearing, Mike.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered politely, wiping the mess off my shirt and handing James some as well to clean up his own.

The year was 1994. I was fourteen at the time, and we were taking advantage of the fall break by going camping over the weekend as an early celebration of my fifteenth birthday. We’d packed everything up that afternoon after school, and my friends and I piled up in the back of the car as we headed to my grandad’s house, as he lived in some fairly expansive woods. But of course, we’d had to stop by Dingle Burger to get the greasiest fix in town. And for some reason, James liked his hot dogs with mayonnaise on them. It truly was a time of innocence for us, though at the time we would’ve given you a million reasons why it wasn’t, a million hardships that made us more mature than the rest of our peers. And perhaps we were, and we certainly did have a lot of hardships inflicted upon us. But we were still innocent.

“Yeah, Mike, stop cussing,” Clay teased with a smirk.

“Shut the fuck up,” I replied, jabbing him in the shoulder.

“Fuck, that hurt!”

“Hey!” Uncle Max yelled from the front. “I literally just said to stop swearing!”

“Sorry, Mr. Jewell. Won’t happen again.”

“If you say so.”

For a long time after I met him, probably two years prior, I didn’t know how to see through his cool exterior. It was only after we became close that I began to pick up on those little cues that slipped his notice.

“Hey Mike, so what’s your grandad like?” Clay asked after a moment.

“Dude, he’s like the best,” I answered, still trying to scrub out the white stains on my crotch. “Kind of weird, but he’s like the nicest guy in the world. Super smart, too. But he farts a lot. Especially in his sleep. So you might have to step outside every now and then when we’re in the tent with him.”

“So… so is he, you know, cool with me?” I looked up from what I was doing in confusion. Why would he think my grandad wouldn’t like Clay? “I know how old people around here can be kind of racist.”

His eyes glinted with pain, but his face was cool and relaxed, just like it always was. He always did that, try to hide his emotions. It wasn’t for months until I started to pick up on the little cues that slipped his notice. I couldn’t blame him, though. He’d had to adapt. Being the only black kid in an almost all-white school in rural Tennessee hadn’t been easy for him. Middle school hadn’t been easy for any of us, really, and the outlook so far for high school wasn’t much better. I was picked on for being that kid who actually tried to do well in school. A nerd, I guess. And I’d adapted in a similar fashion to Clay: I knew that I had to hide my emotions. That’s what predators fed off of, after all.

But James never adapted. For some reason he never learned to hide, and he wasn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. I think that was probably the only reasoning behind James’ bullying, was that he was vulnerable. At the time, though, none of us understood that. None of us could figure it out, as the main thing that the other kids had to go on was simply for him being a red-head. And the kid who made fun of his hair the most, Mickey White, was a red-head himself. Though if anybody mentioned that to him, they would get a knee to the privates for their insolence, a trick he learned from their previous leader, Guy Johns, who had been found dead back in January the year before. He’d been brutally cannibalized, and the whole town was in shock, even his victims.

“Oh, no, man,” I answered to Clay. “He’s not racist. He was a hippy back in the day and was in all that civil rights stuff.”

Clay sighed and nodded his head.

We all fell silent for a bit, not really talking until we arrived about forty minutes later.

We all got out, Uncle Max grabbed the presents, and we headed up to the front door, not even having the chance to knock before it came bursting open.

“Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour!” my grandad exclaimed, dirty grey beard bristling with excitement as he gripped me in a monstrous hug, during which a blast of air exploded from his behind.

“Hey, grandad,” I greeted, trying not to breathe in any fumes.

“You boys ready for the weekend?” he thundered after releasing me from his stink-hug.

“Yes, Dad,” Max wheezed, carrying not only the presents, but also a considerable amount of the camping gear. “You mind letting us inside? This stuff’s really heavy.”

“Of course, of course!” he said, stepping back so that we could all come inside. “Uh, I guess put all that in the kitchen.”

The house was old, and smelled strongly of cigarettes and cat pee, as my grandad was a chain-smoker who had about eight cats, for which he never seemed to feel the obligation to buy any litter boxes. The house had gone under some minor renovation during the seventies, which really only included putting up wood paneling and a shag carpet the color of sickly piss in the living room.

“Mrow!” I heard from below.

“Hello, there,” I greeted painfully as a small kitten began to climb ferociously up my leg.

“Ah, he does that,” my grandad dismissed as I gently picked the kitten up and held him as he purred and patted my face ecstatically. “Missy had a litter a couple of months ago. I kept him, he’s the friendliest. Also the runt of the litter, and I felt bad for him ‘cause the others kept beatin’ up on him. Call him Jumbo.”

He glanced over at my two friends, who were both just standing there awkwardly.

“So, you boys got names?” he laughed. “Mine’s Uriah. And no, you don’t gotta call me Mr. Jewell or whatever.”

“Uh, James.”

“Clay.”

They shook hands and briefly hugged (courtesy of my grandad). He turned towards me, and a furrow emerged between his brows.

“NASA, eh?”

“What? Oh,” I said dryly, looking down at my shirt. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, Mike started reading a bunch of books about physics and stuff,” Uncle Max explained as he came back into the living room.

“That’s neat. I just don’t trust ‘em because they faked the moon landing.”

“No they didn’t,” I argued. “They couldn’t have. None of the evidence saying that we didn’t go to the moon holds up.”

“Oh, really? Then why is the flag waving? There ain’t no wind up there.”

“That’s because while they were setting the flag up, the fabric would’ve moved. And with much less gravity and no atmosphere to act as air resistance, it makes perfect sense that the momentum could make the flag wave.”

“But what about the stars? If it wasn’t in a studio, then there should’ve been stars, right?”

“No, that was just light pollution. The moon is really bright because of how reflective it is.”

“W-well,” my grandad stammered, struggling to still think of a way to argue that the moon landing was faked.

“Plus,” I interrupted, irritated by my grandad’s ignorance, “you know, even Russia acknowledged that we landed on the moon. So I’m not really sure why if it was faked, that our enemy would stay silent. Plus having to have thousands of people involved in the project be quiet about it would have been immensely difficult.”

“Well, I’m impressed Mike,” he complemented with a smile. “Hell, maybe you should work for NASA.”

“Yeah, Mike’s a nerd,” James chimed. “Half the stuff he talks about is just about what we learn in class.”

“Yeah, well, nerds run the world. Who knows, maybe Mikey here will run the world too, someday.”

“Nah. I just wanna build cool shit.”

“Michael Erikson! For the last time, enough with the swearing!”

“Ah, let him be, Max,” my grandad said. “We’re celebrating his birthday, let him cut loose a little bit.”

“Yeah, Max. Let me fucking cut loose a bit,” I joked.

“Don’t push it. I know your mom didn’t have a problem with it, but—”

The room fell silent as I felt a pit drop in my stomach. I felt nauseous as everyone stared cautiously in my direction.

That summer, my mom had met some business executive who had been in Nashville for the weekend, which was where my mom worked, even though our hometown of Maysburg was about an hour’s drive away. She’d fallen in love or something like that and decided that she would go back to Vancouver with him and get married, leaving me behind. As my dad had run off with a hooker before I was born, the only one who could really take me in was my Uncle Max. Unfortunately for me (though at the time I saw it as a blessing), he was a bit of an alcoholic. He mostly drank whiskey, so I would steal some and get drunk every night in my room to deal with the depression that I’d been sent spiraling into.

“I-I’m sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

“It’s fine,” I assured, trying to bring my mind back to the moment.

“So,” my grandad coughed awkwardly, “Uh, how’s business with the store?”

“It’s going good. Lots of people breaking their instruments. You mind if I bum one of those?” my uncle asked, nodding at the pack of Newports on the coffee table, face still red from embarrassment.

“Hey, let’s go out back,” I mumbled to James and Clay. They nodded and followed me out the back door, which screeched violently.

“So, why’d you bring us back here, exactly?” James asked a minute later, kicking over a moldy tire.

“To talk about the stuff, right?” Clay replied, looking at me expectantly.

“Yeah,” I answered, a little disappointed. Really, I’d just wanted to talk about my parents and how depressed I was, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that.

“Well, I’ve got the weed,” James whispered, shooting a glance towards the house. “I was pretty surprised. Usually my brother gets really weird about it, but he didn’t really care. What about you, man? You got the liquor?”

“Yeah. Grabbed a whole unopened bottle,” I said. “How much weed did he give you?”

“Oh, uh, I dunno. He just gave it to me. I really hope it’s not just the shitty stuff. Man, oh man do I wanna see you high, Mike!”

Clay’s eyes shot wide open.

“Wait, what?” Clay cried, lowering his voice after James gestured for him to do so. “You haven’t been high? I thought you smoked with James and his brother once?”

“I did, I just didn’t really feel anything,” I explained.

“Oh, man! Dude, it’s sooo fun! It’s like… it’s like, uh….”

“Like you’re in another world, man,” James finished. “And don’t worry, I brought some extra snacks in case we get, you know, the munchies.”

“That’s cool. What’d you bring?” I asked.

“A bunch of chips and shit. Some snack cakes. And water, too. We’ll be wanting that, for sure.”

“Hey, boys!” my grandad called from the house. “I heard you guys already had dinner, so let’s go ahead and do cake and shit so we can head out soon.”

“Yes, sir!” I cried back. I turned back around to James and Clay.

“Hey, your stuff is hidden, right? I mean, I don’t want my grandad or Uncle Max to pick up one of your bags and see a pipe rolling out onto the floor.”

“Yeah, dude. Got that shit tucked away,” Clay confirmed as James nodded his head.

“And I got a bong, not a pipe,” James added with a look of triumph.

“What?” I hissed. “Aren’t bongs supposed to be big?” “Nah, man, this is just a little one. Could stick it in my pocket if I wanted to. Would be a tight fit, but it could!”

I shook my head and motioned for them to follow me back into the house before somebody came back out to holler at us again.

“—ever figure out who killed those kids last year?” I heard my grandad ask Uncle Max as we came inside, the door screeching like a banshee.

“Nah, they never did. Whoever it was, though, was a real psycho. I remember they said on the news that one kid, I think his last name was Johns, had his organs all chewed up. Looked like the bite marks were human, possibly even a kid.”

“Jesus, I never knew that,” my grandad exclaimed, leaning on the kitchen table. “So the killer could’ve been a student with you fellas?”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking back to the previous year when pretty much everyone in Maysburg was gripped in fear over the killings. It was all anyone could talk about for months, even after they stopped. “And pretty much all of the corpses were cannibalized.”

“But was it a kid doin’ all them killings?”

“That’s what it said on the news,” Clay said. “Some of the kids at school had a theory that it was this kid named Sullivan because he killed himself not long afterwards, but he was the most mutilated of all, so that theory didn’t really hold up.”

“Yeah, that was seriously pissing me off,” I said. “Like, some of the kids were saying that he did it to himself, but that’s just insulting. I mean, the kid killed himself.”

“Well, sounds like a fucked up situation,” my grandad said. “But we’re here to have a good time. Let’s have some cake before we lose our appetites.”

I already had.

“Uh, there should be a cake in the fridge. Red velvet. Got some ice cream in the fridge, too.”

“Ooh, what flavor?” Max asked excitedly.

“Just the birthday flavor.”

“Uh, is this it under the beer case?” James asked.

“Yup. Mike, you wanna grab some plates and silverware?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered politely, trying to find the least-filthy ones I could.

Finally, after having everything set up, my grandad pulled out a giant wad of candles from his pocket, lit them with his cigarette lighter, and turned off the lights. They then sang Happy Birthday, complete with my grandfather letting out a big greasy fart as the finale. Holding my nose and trying to not think about his fart fumes getting in my mouth, I leaned forward and blew out the candles, wishing for my mom to come back from Vancouver.

Uncle Max then brought out the presents, and everyone made a big deal out of them, making me feel even more awkward about being the center of attention.

“Holy shit, it’s a bass!” I exclaimed after opening Uncle Max’s gift.

“Yeah, and there’s an amp somewhere, too.”

“You’re not supposed to tell him, Max,” my grandad scolded.

“My bad.”

“So now you have a guitar and a bass,” Clay admired. “Lucky!”

Max shrugged and said, “Eh, the shop helps. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

My Uncle Max owned a repair shop for broken instruments called Miracle Max’s. He got the name because that’s what people had started to call him when he first started picking up the trade, as he’d soon proved himself to be a bit of a natural at it. So when he opened up his own shop, he just kept the name. He also sold new and used instruments as well to help pay the bills.

I opened the rest of my presents, said my thank-you’s, and then we prepared to head out into the night.

“So how far out are we going?” James asked my Uncle Max as we were getting the rest of the gear out of the car.

“Oh, pretty far. Probably about five miles.”

“Five miles? At night?”

“Yup. We’re going a bit farther than our usual camping spot, but not much. Mike can tell you all about it, he’s been out there a couple of times. Oh, and it gets pretty dark out there, so remember your flashlights. We’ve only got just enough to go around.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s pretty cool out there. There’s creeks and stuff. There’ a pretty big pond, too. It’s just really nice out there. No trash or buildings or anything, just nature. Well, except the path, but it’s nothing special. Just a small dirt track.”

“That sounds pretty cool,” Clay responded. When my Uncle Max’s back was turned, he displayed his only real interest by making an exaggerated impression of someone smoking a joint. I gave him the finger, which seemed to confuse him.

“Alright, boys,” my grandad proclaimed half an hour later after everything was packed. “You got everything you need?”

“Yes, sir,” we all answered.

“Got your flashlights?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then. Don’t go away from the path, I wanna try to get there as quick as we can. I’ve been up since five this morning, so I’m pretty tired. Oh, and watch out for spider webs. Snakes, too.”

James looked a bit uncomfortable at the mention of snakes in the woods.

“S-snakes?” he gulped.

My grandad smiled at him mischievously.

“Yep. So watch your step.”

The hike into the woods was long, but relatively uneventful. The only interesting points were when somebody accidentally traipsed into a web and freaked out, or if somebody decided to break the silence with some brief small-talk. The moon had been bright that night, but after about a mile or so the overhead trees had become so dense that there might as well have been no moon. The wind was still, and every twig and leaf that crunched under our feet was loud and crisp. But it was nice. The air was warm, the terrain wasn’t too bad, and despite our silence, we all seemed to be in a good mood. I think that we were all just simply in a reflective state of mind, probably a symptom of the dark, still night.

We finally arrived after about two and a half hours, maybe three. We knew we had arrived because my grandfather, without saying a word, had simply flung his stuff aside and threw himself onto the ground.

“We here?” Max asked, a bit winded. James was still behind us a bit.

“Yeah. Can tell by that big ole oak right there. See it? Dead as a door nail.”

He pointed up at a gigantic oak tree that stood on a sort of shelf that ran above a flat area, which itself was next to a creek on our left which ran somewhat parallel to the upper shelf. The tree was very much dead, not to mention slightly unnerving.

“That creek wasn’t so dry before, either,” my grandad added, motioning behind him.

“Yeah, it’s usually pretty full. It goes back towards where we usually camp,” I explained to my friends as I flopped onto the stiff grass.

I heard a clatter of rocks behind me and turned around to see a flashlight waving around in the creek a ways back.

“Damn, this creek’s dry as a bone!” yelled Clay from afar.

My uncle reared his head up and yelled, “Clay, get the hell back over here!”

“Yes, sir!”

After Clay and James managed to catch up, we all rested for a bit, taking in the stillness of the night, the only sound being that of the crickets. Nobody spoke, and I had begun to wonder if my granddad and uncle had fallen asleep, but after about half an hour, this was proven false as my grandad yawned and announced that we needed to set up the tent. To my surprise, both James and Clay, who had never been camping before, seemed to struggle immensely with the concept of pitching a tent. They also didn’t seem to understand how to hold a flashlight steady so that people could see what they were doing.

Eventually (not to mention miraculously due to James and Clay’s apparent ineptitude), we finally managed to set up our camp site, complete with fire-pit, tent, and garbage/bathroom area.

“Alright, guys,” my uncle said, “we’re gonna go to bed, but if you wanna stay up and sit around the fire for a bit, that’s fine. Just don’t be too loud.”

“Thanks.”

As he was opening the tent, he turned back around towards us. “Goodnight.”

“’Night, Uncle Max.”

“Good night, Mr. Jewell,” Clay and James mumbled politely.

“Don’t let Ol’ Green Eyes getcha,” my grandad hollered from inside the tent.

Clay looked at me in mild confusion. “Old Green Eyes?”

“Yeah,” I answered, getting the fire ready. “It’s an old ghost story he likes to mention whenever we go camping.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Uh, he always tells it like a monster with glowing green eyes that runs around eating people,” I explained nonchalantly a moment later as I lit up the kindling.

James snorted and said, “That was probably the least scary way you could have put it. Man, I’m really trembling now.”

“Well, damn,” I shot back, “didn’t realize you wanted a fucking ghost story. What are you, nine? Was just trying to explain to Clay what the hell my kooky-ass grandad was talking about.”

“Well sorry,” James retorted with his hands thrown up in mock apology, “was just trying to make a fucking joke. You don’t have to get a goddamn stick up your ass about it.”

“Whatever, man. I’m tired, I’m going to bed, I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

“Wait, you’re going to bed?” James asked. “Well fuck it, I’m going to bed too.”

“Yeah, me too man,” Clay agreed.

I looked back at them in annoyance. “I thought you guys would be staying up, that’s why I lit the fire.”

“Well I thought you and James would be staying up.”

“Hell, I’m tired, man.”

“Then why the fuck did I light the fire if you guys are going to bed, too? Waste of fucking fluid,” I snapped.

“Not my fault you lit the damn thing.”

“Well if you two are going to bed, then put that shit out.”

“Quit it with the arguing,” Max mumbled from inside the tent.

“Yes, sir,” we all said, James turning his back to us so that he could piss on the fire to put it out.

“Make sure it’s all the way out,” I reminded him. “It’s dry as Satan’s shit out here.”

“Yup. Whatever you say, asshole.”

“The fuck you say, bitch?” I screamed, whirling around to face James’s pudgy back.

“Dude, Mike!” Clay cried, soon followed by my grandad and Uncle Max yelling at us to cut the shit and go to sleep. Begrudgingly, James and I complied, sleeping on either side of Clay after brushing our teeth and changing clothes. After a couple of hours of trying to ignore my grandad’s farts, I finally managed to delve into a restless sleep, during which I dreamed about a well that for some reason filled me with terror and dread.

*     *     *

I was sharply awakened by the sound of what could only be best be described as the tortured ghost of an old woman screeching for her forsaken soul, screeching not too far away from the tent.

“What the fuck was that?” I heard Max exclaim from across the tent as he fumbled with something and rushed out of the tent, followed by my grandfather. Hesitantly opening my eyes, I could see Clay and James’s pale faces in the dark, wide eyes staring at me in terror. The heat of the tent had become stifling, though goosebumps had run across my body.

Outside of the tent, two flashlights could be seen waving around in the dark, both racing in the direction of the ungodly noise.

Clay leaned up on his elbow and mouthed, “What?”

I simply shrugged and shook my head, sweat trickling down my nose and tickling my face. I looked back towards the open tent flap.

“See anything?” Clay asked.

“No,” I answered, scooting up next to the opening and peering out in the direction they had gone.

“I just see their flashlights,” I whispered.

None of us spoke. We simply sat in the watchful darkness, surrounded by the malevolent forest that had just earlier seemed so welcoming.

“What do you thi—” Clay started, but I held up my hand, as right then I could hear them stomping back towards the tent, flashlights off. I brought my head back inside of the tent, and all of us put our ears against the tent wall in order to hear whatever they might say.

“I’m telling you, that was the Witch,” my grandad hissed from several yards away. I could hear them stop in their tracks before my uncle spoke.

“Goddamnit, Dad, I’m telling you, it was just a fucking bobcat.”

“And I’m telling you, that was the Witch. We’re not far from Adams, you know.”

“Dad, it’s not no fucking Bell Witch. Shit, next you’ll be saying it’s Ol’ Green Eyes. It was a fucking bobcat.”

“Max, don’t be an idiot. I just talk about Ol’ Green Eyes to scare the kids, but that Witch business is serious. And don’t say its name, show some respect. I’ve lived here almost all my life, except for that stretch in California back in the sixties, and trust me, I’ve heard a lot of stories and I’ve seen a lot of things. A lot of things in these woods. Hell, I’ve probably spent half my damn life in these woods. We have bobcats. And that wasn’t no fucking bobcat.”

I felt a chill rush down my spine as I heard Max shuffle his feet nervously.

“Dad, the Bell Witch is just a story. The only rational explanation is that it was just an animal, and the closest thing it sounded like was a bobcat. Could’ve been a fox, I guess, but like I said, it sounded closest to a bobcat. So what? You suggest we put Mike’s birthday trip to an end after less than a night because we heard a bobcat?”

“No. But Max, would you say that sounded like any damn bobcat you’ve heard? Sure, it was closest to a bobcat, but it didn’t really sound like one to me.”

“Shit, Dad. No, it did sound different than what I’ve heard before.”

“Exactly. And I still say it’s the Witch. And I don’t say that in jest. Best thing I think to do would be to just ignore whatever it is. If it is a bobcat, which I hope it is, then it’ll leave us alone. If it’s the Witch, then we won’t give it what it wants, and it might just leave us alone. The more you give it attention, the worse it gets.”

“Alright, whatever. But I still think it’s a bobcat.” That was when I noticed that my uncle had been talking with a suppressed tone of fear in his voice. “Well, let’s get to bed. Hope that didn’t wake up the boys.”

All three of us flung ourselves into our sleeping bags as quickly as we could, just barely managing to look asleep right before my grandad came back into the tent.

“Ah, hell, Max. You left the tent open,” my grandad whispered in annoyance.

“You were the last one out, Dad.”

“Oh. Whoops. Hope no spiders got in.”

“Spiders get in anyways.”

“I’m talking about bigger spiders.”

Mind racing, I wasn’t able to fall asleep for a few more hours after that. About an hour after he and Max went to bed, he got up and grabbed his rifle.

“Where’re you going?” Max inquired groggily.

“Feelin’ a bit restless. Just gonna sit outside for a bit.”

“Okay. Have fun,” he slurred, falling back into a low snore.

My grandad restarted the fire that James had pissed out earlier, and for as long as I was awake, he just sat by the fire, rifle in his lap.

=Tuesday=

When I awoke later that morning, the sun just barely peeking out over the horizon, everybody was still asleep, including my grandfather, who had passed out in the folding chair by the fire, which had burned itself out in the night.

I’ve always been the kind of person who enjoys having time to themselves, especially in the morning, so with none of the fear from the previous night being present, I simply wandered around the area. I followed the creek for a bit, delving deeper into unknown territory, enjoying the peace that early morning always brings. Eventually, I came into an area that I’d been before, though from several years prior. I knew it to be close to where the pond was, but before I could find it I heard my name being called in the distance.

“Coming!” I yelled to what sounded like my uncle, though I couldn’t be sure. Checking my watch, I was surprised to find that I’d been up for almost two hours. It hadn’t felt more than maybe half an hour.

Once back, which was surprisingly only about a mile’s walk, I eagerly ate breakfast, hunger springing up from out of the depths of my stomach.

“Mornin’,” my uncle greeted as he came strolling back over from where we’d set up the garbage bags, zipping up his pants. “Have a nice little morning stroll?”

“Yup,” I replied through a mouthful of Pop-Tart.

“Yeah, well, tell somebody next time you wander off like that. Almost gave your grandad a heart attack.”

“Grandad’s asleep.”

“Uh, he was up earlier, but he fell back asleep.”

“He’s in the same exact position as when I left two hours ago, and so is the gun.”

“Look, Mike,” he huffed in exasperation, “just let somebody know you’re leaving, okay?”

“Alright. And how about you let me know when it’s you who nearly had a heart attack instead of trying to preserve some weird sense of manliness by saying that it was grandad?”

“Well how about you quit being a fucking smart-ass and just say ‘Yes, sir’ when I tell you to do something?”

“Oh, that’s a great way to parent,” I scoffed, “to just have me blindly say ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, sir,’ for everything like a robot, and not encourage critical analysis of people’s behavior, or encourage questions about why certain rules are in place.”

“Mike, you’re on thin ice here. And if you wanted to know why, then you could’ve just asked.”

“Well, I think that it’s because for some reason you associate manliness with not being overly concerned about things, even your nephew, and so you had to deflect your real feelings of concern. And the reason you want me to tell somebody first is because you’re secretly still scared from last night, and you don’t want to take any chances. I think it’s fueled even further by your own doubts about whether or not that noise was a bobcat or some otherworldly presence.”

“Okay, Mike, you’ve just earned yourself a--"

“Leave ‘im alone,” my grandad grumbled from the chair, eyes still closed. “His mom just ran away over the summer and he never met his dad. He’s got a lot going on, so let him be. Plus, we’re celebrating his birthday. And Mike,” he added, opening the eye closest to me, “I think you’ve got Max figured out. That’s a good skill. Faster than I could figure anybody out, even myself. Smart kid. Now suck on my dusty old farts, Max.” As promised, he expelled a series of very dusty sounding farts. Max just scowled and retreated into the tent for a bit.

After that, my grandad fell back asleep for a bit longer, snoring lightly and occasionally letting out an explosive poot. I didn’t really do much during that time except sit against a tree and think about my mother. In all honesty, I wasn’t really sure why I cared so much about her leaving me. She hadn’t ever exactly been there for me emotionally, and always had talked down to me and neglected me. But still, I felt like her elopement was a direct reflection upon my own character, like somehow I had failed as a human being. Like my life didn’t matter or have any significance. As I sat there, I wished for nothing more than to go into my tent and sneak out the bottle of Jack to help ease the pain, but I knew that there was no way I could sneak it past my uncle. So instead I walked over a few yards and pulled out a cigarette that I’d hawked from my grandad and smoked it behind a cluster of bushes. It made me feel a little sick, as I wasn’t quite used to them yet, but it helped me feel better nonetheless. As I sat there, taking shallow drags, I thought I heard what sounded like faint whispering. Almost immediately, I felt as though there was some dark presence behind me, easing closer. I wasn’t normally one for getting scared, but something about this set me off. I could almost hear it creeping up on me, waiting for the right moment to attack.

Crack!

I whirled around against every instinct in my body, but to my relief it was just a raccoon. Chuckling quietly to myself and shooing the raccoon away, I finished the cigarette and headed back to the tent, to find my grandad awake and grumbling about how Pop-Tarts always made his mouth dry. Not long afterwards, James and Clay came stumbling out, who were soon followed by my surly-faced uncle.

“What we doin’ today?” James yawned groggily.

“Tho’ we ‘oo a bi’ o’ hun’,” my grandad muffled through a Pop-Tart that he’d crammed into his mouth.

“What?” asked James.

My grandad winced and swallowed painfully. “Sorry. Said I thought we’d do a bit o’ huntin’ today.”

“Oh, okay. Like deer?”

“Nah, just small game.”

“Sounds like fun,” Clay added, opening a bottle of water.

“You boys ever been huntin’? Know I’ve taken Mike a couple of times.”

“Nah,” Clay answered, followed by a concurrent nod from James.

“Think you’ll like it. Mike don’t like it so much, though. Cried his eyes out every damn time we killed somethin’.”

“Well, not every time”, I retorted. “I was also seven.”

“So, you’ll be cool this time?” James asked with narrowed eyes.

“Uh,” I said awkwardly, my face going hot, “I think I’ll pass. I don’t really enjoy killing things.”

“Pussy,” James shot.

“Mike’s one of them hardcore animal lovers. Surprised he ain’t one of them vegetarians,” my grandad taunted.

“I’m sorry if it’s wrong to care about animals.”

“Nothin’ wrong with it. Just like James said, it just means you’re a bit of a pussy.”

I didn’t say anything else, afraid that I might egg them on even further. I was honestly a little surprised by my grandfather, as he’d never made fun of me about it before. And it didn’t seem like the normal teasing that he usually did, it felt as though there was a bit of legitimate malice in his voice.

“Well, while we’re out having some real fun, I guess Mike can just stay here and fart around if he wants,” he added, standing up and heading into the tent. “Now get ready, I wanna get heading out fairly soon.”

Like my grandad said, while they set out and shot rabbits, I pretty much just stayed by the tent, reading out of some physics books. Every now and then I’d have a cigarette or sip on my bottle of Jack, though I was careful to not have too much, as James and Clay would be needing some later. Occasionally a gunshot would ring throughout the area, catching me by surprise. After a while, I ended up dozing off to sleep.

*     *     *

I was walking through the forest in which we were camped, though everything seemed to be bright and washed of color. Eventually, I found myself nearing the campsite, only things were different. It seemed to be about the same time of year, only except the creek was running swiftly and the foliage was a bit different. As I neared where the tent should be, I heard loud whisperings from up ahead, and I felt a sense of anger and hatred in the air. When I came near the campsite, I saw that none of our camping gear was present, but in its place was a large mass of flickering shadows grouped around the oak tree. I heard what sounded like a rope creaking and looked up to see something dangling from it.

*     *     *

I awoke to the sounds of crickets in the dark. My sweat clung to my skin in cold defiance, and my face felt puffy and my mind was disoriented. How long I had napped, I had no idea, though my body was telling me that I needed to go back to sleep. Yet, something about the dream had put me off. Still not completely awake, the fear that I had felt was still present within me, even though I knew rationally that it had only been a dream.

I stumbled towards the tent to grab a flashlight in order to look at my watch, as all I knew was that I was alone, and it was dark. Grabbing the flashlight, I saw that it was only about 8:30. Where were they? Grandad didn’t usually like to hunt after dark.

It was then that I noticed a faint whispering from outside the tent.

“Hello?” I asked, both a little scared and slightly annoyed that one of them was out there messing with me.

“Which one of you is it?”

Nothing.

“You guys suck,” I said, forcing myself to go outside and not give them what they wanted.

However, upon going outside and waving the flashlight out, I saw nothing. It struck me a bit odd that I hadn’t heard any footsteps or snapping twigs as they ran and hid.

“Alright where are you—”

I stopped short. I had just so happened to point my flashlight up towards the oak tree behind the tent and dangling from it was a black noose.

I backed away slowly, blood ringing in my ears and skin crawling. It appeared to be moving, but not as though from the wind. Rather, it appeared to be swaying ever so slightly back and forth, occasionally giving a subtle sporadic jerk. Yet the most unusual thing was that I couldn’t tell if it was actually moving, or if it was in my mind.

“Max,” I murmured, jumping at the sound of a twig snapping under my foot.

“Max!” I repeated, turning my head away. I froze as I saw dark figures approaching me from the forest.

“Yeah, Mike?” I heard Max’s voice answer from the tallest figure.

I turned back around to point my flashlight back at where the noose was, though to my confusion I saw only a shadow that had the vague shape of a noose, cast by a broken branch that was dangling in front of it.

“What is it, buddy?” Max asked after I didn’t give a response. I could hear my grandad groan as he flung down several rabbits, as well as my two friends greeting me tiredly.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied. “I was just seeing if it was you guys, I couldn’t really tell from here.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “We just ran a bit late.”

“Because somebody thought they saw somebody in the trees and started whimpering about the Bell Witch,” Clay chided, looking at James.

“I saw a woman following us!” James cried. “I’m serious!”

“Hey!” my grandfather scolded, stopping whatever he was doing. “Enough about that! I don’t wanna hear another word about the Bell Witch, or any other ghosts. There’s nothing but us and some animals out here. So just drop it.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, during which my grandad lit the fire and threw the rabbits into a cooler. Not wanting to invoke the wrath of my grandfather, I said nothing about the whispering I heard, or the noose that I thought I had seen until he and Uncle Max had gone to bed.

“So where were you when it happened?” I asked after I heard a loud snore issue from the tent, which presumably belonged to my grandfather.

“When what happened?” James asked, roasting his third hot dog over the fire.

“When you saw the woman.”

“The one that wasn’t there?” Clay retorted, though both James and I ignored him.

“Over by the pond,” said James. “Though it was completely dried up. Looked like it had some old house foundation that was exposed.”

“Really? I’ve never seen it dried up before. I mean, the thing’s about as big as a small lake. And we’re not in a drought or anything. That’s weird.”

“Yeah, though we didn’t go in it. But while we were over there, I swear I saw a woman in a black dress following us. Her face was really pale, too, with black holes where her eyes should have been. She looked like a corpse. I think she was wearing a bonnet, too. Like she was from the eighteen-hundreds or something.”

A chill slithered down my spine as I heard this. Something about his description of her made me uneasy. I could also tell that Clay was looking a bit disturbed, despite his show of dismay only a minute earlier.

“I-I think that your grandad’s right,” James added. “I think that noise we heard last night was the Bell Witch. And I think that was her following us. She was scary, Mike. I don’t know how to explain it. She didn’t look human.”

I stared into the fire for a few minutes, debating on whether or not I should mention what had happened before they arrived.

“You okay, Mike?” Clay asked with concerned in his voice. “You’re not scared, are you?”

I looked up and was somewhat surprised to see that he didn’t appear to be mocking me.

“It’s just…. Before you guys showed up, I had fallen asleep. I was dreaming that I was walking down the side of the creek to where we are now, only except the creek was full and the trees were different. In the dream, I finally made it here, but I saw a bunch of shadows standing around, and they seemed angry about something. I looked up at the oak tree, and I just remember that I saw something dangling from it, though I can’t remember exactly what it was.”

“Oh, that’s just a dream.”

“Yeah, but when I woke up and went in the tent to grab a flashlight, I heard whispering right outside the tent. And it definitely wasn’t my ears playing tricks on me because it was so audible that I thought one of you guys had snuck over and started messing with me. So I went outside to catch you, but all I saw was an old black noose hanging from the tree. Then you guys showed up, and when I looked back, it wasn’t there, though I saw a shadow from a broken branch that looked like a noose, so I suppose that the noose could have been my imagination. But I was looking directly at it, and it looked like a damn noose to me before that.”

James’s face had turned an ashy color by the time I’d finished recounting what had happened, though Clay looked dubious.

“Well, it’s like you said,” he began, “when you looked back it was just a shadow. And you’d just woken up, so it could have easily been a trick of the eye, especially if you were already scared to begin with. And maybe the whispering was just the wind blowing on a leaf or something.”

“I… I don’t think so.”

“Could you make out what the words were?”

“No, but… it really didn’t sound like a leaf to me. And I could see that noose clear as day up there.”

“Well, shit. I don’t know,” Clay sighed. “It’s definitely weird, but I’m still a bit skeptical about all this. I personally think it’s just us getting creeped out in the woods.”

“Well, what the fuck could that woman I saw have been?”

“I dunno, a deer, maybe?”

“I was looking directly at her.”

“But you pointed out where she was, and she was over in the pond. We were quite a bit away, it would’ve been hard to tell in the dark.”

James shrugged his shoulders and whipped out another hot dog. Clay just kind of stared into the woods, and I didn’t really know what to say. It stayed like that for a while, all of us trapped within our thoughts, unsure of what to say aloud or keep in our own heads. Eventually, an idea occurred to me.

“Hey, guys,” I whispered, throwing anxious glances towards the tent, “maybe we should whip out the stuff? Might take our minds off of things.”

“I’m down,” Clay said.

James looked up with hesitation.

“I don’t know, I’m not sure that I really feel like wandering off into the woods and getting drunk after all that.”

“Oh, my god, James” Clay exclaimed. “Are you fucking serious? Are you—”

“Fine,” I interrupted. “We’ll just have fun without you. Just means more for us.”

I shot Clay a quick glance before he could say anything.

“Yeah. Let Pussy McNo-Balls stay.”

“Wait, you guys aren’t serious, right?” he exclaimed.

“Dead serious.”

“I’d swear on the Bible.”

James looked around nervously, struggling to get over his fears of the Bell Witch. I gave him a few moments to say something, but when I felt that he might still say no, I got up and headed to the tent, motioning for Clay to follow me. Right as I opened the tent, I could hear James mutter what sounded like “Shit,” under his breath and come trotting up behind us.

“Finally decide to grow a pair?” Clay teased in a hushed whisper. James punched him smartly in the shoulder, both snickering.

I peered into the tent, checking to be sure that both Max and my grandad were asleep, the smell of ass burning my nose. Leaning over my sleeping back to get into my backpack, I slowly unzipped the pocket with the Jack in it, every noise being amplified by a million.

“What are you doin’, Mike?” I heard a voice grumble groggily from my right.

My stomach dropped.

“Just… just grabbing a flashlight, Uncle Max.”

“What the hell for?”

“Uh, I gotta take a leak,” I lied quickly, my heart pounding in my ears.

He looked over at the open flap, where both James and Clay were standing as still as statues, eyes like saucers.

“And you need those two knuckleheads to help you?”

“They had to pee, too.”

He mumbled something not quite discernible and rolled over, snoring lightly after a moment. Just to be safe, I grabbed only a flashlight and left the tent.

“What do you wanna do?” I mouthed to James and Clay.

“I don’t fucking know!” Clay mouthed back, in a state of panic.

“I say fuck it and wait until tomorrow night,” Clay whispered as we made it over to the spot we’d all been using as a bathroom.

“Yeah, but that means we gotta be extra careful because tomorrow is our last night,” I pointed out.

“Shit, yeah,” Clay sighed. “But hey, if we don’t get to do it, it’s not a big deal, we can always get fucked up some other time.”

“Yeah. I agree, I don’t really wanna risk it tonight,” I added. “I guess we should probably just go to sleep, I don’t wanna make Max suspicious.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired anyways. Let’s just go to bed.”

*  *    *    *  *

That night, I dreamt again of the well. The well that somehow seemed to scream to me that I needed to get away as soon as possible, that my life depended on it. In the dream, I could feel a low rumbling issuing from the earth, and the cries of children rang in my skull. I could hear something splashing around in the bottom of it, so I pointed my flashlight down it. However, it was too deep for me to see the bottom.

The noises stopped.

=Wednesday=

I woke up later than anybody else. The tent was hot—unusually so. It felt like August, or early September.

“Hey,” Clay greeted as I flung open the tent flap, grappling for my shoes.

“What’s up,” I greeted back. Things were awfully quiet. “Where is everyone?”

“Uh, James’s up the creek a bit, I think. Said he needed a minute to himself. Max and Uriah left earlier, don’t know why.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. I’ve just been hangin’ out here for a bit. Want a Pop-Tart?”

“Sure,” I replied, wondering what exactly was going on. Something didn’t seem right.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” I stated as I opened up a can of Sprite.

Clay looked at me in subtle confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” I began, taking a swig Sprite, “first of all, why would James go out by himself? He was practically shitting himself last night.”

“I dunno. Maybe he’s not so scared anymore? Or maybe he’s just trying to show himself that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I don’t think so. Usually he cowers under the blankets any chance he gets. But also, what exactly are Max and my grandad doing?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it’s anything to be worried about. I mean, Jesus, it’s not like we have lions or some shit stalking us. Everything’s gonna be fine. Let’s just hang out and have a good time.”

We did. For probably an hour, we just goofed around, having the kind of time that I’d wished to have for my birthday, rather than sitting around reading in the forest by myself and getting spooked by weird noises and unsettling dreams.

Then, out of nowhere, James came charging back out from a thicket of bushes.

“Damn, dude, what’s the hurry?”

“No time, Clay. I’ve gotta shit!”

“Like I said. Practically shitting himself.”

“Where’s the fucking toilet paper?” James screeched frantically.

Clay marched over to the tent, reaching in and snagging a roll.

“Damn, dude, it’s right here.”

“Thanks. Don’t come over here for a while.”

“Will do,” I called, munching on a chocolate chip Pop-Tart.

“What the fuck did he do, drink creek water?” Clay asked, plopping down in the chair beside me.

“I don’t fucking know. Maybe he heard a squirrel and thought it was the Bell Witch.”

“I can here you, assholes!”

I snickered. “Well, focus on your own asshole!”

“Piss off!”

Clay and I both chuckled between ourselves until James finally came stomping out of the bushes, reaching for the water.

“Hey!” I cried. “Germ-X, dude!”

“Whoops. Sorry.”

“You better be, you nasty-ass motherfucker. So what the hell were you up to?”

“Hold on,” he said, looking around nervously. “Alright. You guys aren’t gonna believe this, but—”

“I ran all the way home!” Clay and I sang together in one of those moments when two people inexplicably manage to cue into each other’s methods of annoyance.

“What?” he asked, his brows furrowed in befuddlement.

“Oh, you’re fucking lame!” I cried.

“It’s from Stand by Me, dipshit. You’re the one who showed it to us!”

“But I’m not even fat,” he defended.

Clay rolled his eyes.

“Whatever just get on with it.”

“Okay, so—”

“I ran all the way home!”

“You guys suck!”

“Alright, we’ll stop it, we’ll stop it,” Clay promised with a devilish grin on his face.

“Okay, so—”

“I—Ooh, gotcha there!” Clay teased.

James playfully threw his water bottle at Clay, who caught it and swiftly whirled it back.

“Ah, shit! That fuckin’ hurt, you asshole!”

It probably did. Clay played baseball.

“Alright, Clay, let him get on with it.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said ‘no.’ If you guys don’t wanna hear it, then I’m not gonna tell it.”

“James, just fucking tell us.”

“Alright, fine. But you guys gotta be serious about this.”

“Yeah, we’ll be serious, I swear,” I said, shooting a harsh glance at Clay.

Before he began, James took a deep breath, and I could see the fear mounting behind his eyes, the goosebumps rising on his arms.

“So… this morning I woke up to what sounded like people whispering outside our tent. Like, no doubt about. And before you fucking say anything, Clay, no, it wasn’t the wind. It was fucking people. All around us. I could hear their footsteps, too. And then a weird rustling in the tree above us. I think that’s what woke Max up, because he went outside, shined the flashlight on the tree, and grabbed your grandad. I heard him say something about a noose being up in the tree.”

The air was oddly heavy now, the rustling trees somehow louder than usual. I swallowed.

“They didn’t know I was awake yet,” he continued after staring at me for a few seconds, “so I pretended to be asleep, hoping that maybe I’d hear more of what they saw. I don’t know how you guys didn’t wake up, but while Max was crawling back into the tent, Uriah told him to grab the gun, because he could see something in the woods. So then they ran off into the woods. And then I put on my clothes and followed them. Grabbed a flashlight, just in case.”

“What happened then?”

“Uh, well at first they kept following something, Uriah said he saw shadows. Max was skeptical, but he was worried it might be coyotes or something. They ended up going into the pond, but I just stayed behind. They came back maybe five minutes later. Uriah was talking about leaving immediately, but Max insisted that he was getting worked up over nothing. They argued for probably an hour. Eventually Uriah agreed to stay just one more night like planned. Then I had to take a really bad dump.”

“So are they coming back right now?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

I rushed into the tent, scouring through our backpacks frantically.

“What are you doing?” I heard Clay ask in confusion behind me.

“I’m getting the shit! We won’t have another chance like this after they get back. Here, take your fucking weed. And your bong—holy shit, this thing is filthy.”

“Well, what do you expect? All my brother does is smoke weed, play video games, watch anime, and eat week-old pizza.”

“Good point. Clay, here’s your cigarettes. I’ve only got one left.”

“Okay, here’s the Jack. Alright, let’s go.”

We tucked our contraband under our jackets to the best of our ability and booked it—chortling loudly the whole time. Probably not the best idea to have been so loud in retrospect. But we eventually made it about a mile away unimpeded before we rested by a rotten tree trunk. After much discussion and reluctance, we decided that we should probably wait before doing anything, just to be safe. So then we spent a good hour or two wandering aimlessly around the forest, having no idea where we were, which gladdened Clay and I, but worried James a bit. Eventually we found ourselves in an out-of-place cluster of Dogwoods, their autumn leaves blazing red.

“This seems like a decent spot,” I suggested.

Clay shrugged. “I’m down.”

“James?”

He looked a little uneasy, but nodded in agreement nonetheless.

“Sweet. Whip that shit out!”

“Yeah, hold on…. Fuck, I forgot a lighter.”

“Here, use mine,” I said, handing him my own.

“Thanks. Alright, hold tight while I prep it. Gonna try to remember how my brother does it.”

“Okay. You want some Jack, Clay?”

“Fuck yeah, man. Wait, I thought it was unopened?”

“Uh, I had a couple of sips while you guys were hunting yesterday.

“Huntin’ wabbits,” James joked dryly, his nose practically touching the pot that he was messily trying to grind.

A few minutes later, while Clay and I were taking turns with the whiskey, I heard a distinct bubbling noise from James’s direction.

“D’you get it going?” I asked.

He held up a finger, brows furrowed in concentration.

“Hold on, I’m trying to get the cherry going.”

He bent his head back down and took another hit. After several moments, he finally took his mouth off and started coughing profusely.

“Holy fuck, that shit’s dry as hell.”

“Here, gimme dat shit,” I slurred, standing up and stumbling over to him, pretending to be drunker than I actually was.

“You remember how to do it, right?” James asked, still coughing.

“Yeah, I think so.”

I put my lighter up to it, but James hollered, “No, man, just take the last of that smoke, and then light it. No, dumbass, you’re supposed to put you’re finger over the hole. There ya go.”

I pulled the bong away, coughing like I’d just crawled out of a coal mine.

“You feel it?” Clay asked as I handed passed it off to him, doubled over from the smoke.

“Just in my fucking lungs. Jesus, it feels like they’re on fire. Fuck!”

“Ha-ha, just give it a few minutes. We probably should’ve brought some water.”

“Fuck off,” I hacked, giving Clay as angry of a middle finger as I could muster.

“What? I’m being serious. We’re gonna be out here for a while.”

“Here, want another hit?” James asked a moment later. “Think there’s still some in there.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, trying to give the impression that I was already high, even though I was still just buzzed from the Jack.

“You high already?” he asked. “Damn, dude.”

I snatched the bong away from him. “Fuck off.”

It was after about my fourth hit that I finally did start to feel it. Standing up to try to catch my breath, my blood rushed to my head, and I suddenly had almost no idea where I was.

“Heh-heh-heh. Up chunk hunky butt,” I chortled, smiling goofily.

“Ha-ha, what?” Clay asked as I fell flat on my ass.

“Holy fuck, Mike’s high,” James noticed, putting the bong back up to his lips.

“Chunky hunk is the best butt.”

“Damn straight it is,” James remarked, handing me the bong again while Clay was silently dying of laughter.

We spent a long time doing this—passing around the weed and Jack, Clay and I competing to be the goofiest of the group while James enjoyed watching us make fools of ourselves. Before we knew it, dusk had come upon us.

“Uh, hey, guys?” he said with worried confusion in his voice, laying on the fallen tree.

“What?” I asked.

“What do your watches say what time it is?”

“I don’t have one because I’m a dumbass,” Clay hollered.

“Hold on,” I said, squinting my eyes in an effort to focus them. “Wait, what the shit. What does yours say?”

“Mine says that it’s two o’clock.”

My heart jumped.

“Mine too.”

We looked at each other in disbelief.

Clay sat up.

“Wait, it’s two o’ clock?”

“Yeah,” we said.

“But the sun’s going down. How can it be two?”

“I don’t fucking know. But the sun’s almost down, and both of our watches say it’s two o’clock.”

We stared at each other in silence, not saying a word. The world seemed to be pulsing in and out of existence.

From above us, an owl hooted, making us jump. I looked up to see the same owl from before take off, seeming to leave behind it a trail of light.

“I really don’t want that owl to leave,” I mumbled, terrified of what might happen if the owl left.

Almost as if in answer, a vulture took its place in the same spot, its great wings clapping like thunder in the sky. I looked up to see the full moon hanging ominously overhead, swollen and bleeding, with a distorted version of the vulture’s face etched across it.

“Get the fuck out of here!” James shrieked, breaking a branch off of the trunk and hurling it at the vulture. The leaves of the Dogwoods began to tremble and ooze black liquid that smelled of rot. As I looked, grotesque black slugs with strange hairs emerged from the trunks and began to devour the leaves.

“Are you guys seeing this shit?” I whispered.

James whipped his head around to face me, the blur from the motion momentarily distorting his face to resemble a skull.

“The fucking slugs? The fucking moon? Yeah, I see this shit. We need to leave. We need to leave right fucking now.”

We ran—ran back the way we came. The Earth seemed to be shifting out from under my feet, the trees whipping by and seeming to reach out for me, trying to strangle me. I have no idea how long we ran, time seemed to blend and distort within myself, at once seeming to crawl along at a snail’s pace, but also seeming to roar past like a river.

Wham!

Out of nowhere, I found myself slamming face-first into the ground, having tripped over something that came up to my knee. I quickly felt the hands of Clay and James picking me back up, and when I looked to see what it had been that I’d tripped over, I saw that it appeared to be the crumbled remains of the foundation to a house.

“House,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“House in the forest.” I looked around. “Lots of houses.”

“Oh, shit, we’re in the pond,” James whispered, voice shrill with terror.

“Where’s the water?” I asked. “Where’s the lotuses?”

“Remember?” Clay prodded gently. “The pond dried up.”

“Oh, yeah…. What’s so bad about the pond?”

Before he had a chance to answer, we heard a hollering from the woods.

“What the fuck is that?” Clay whimpered.

“Shh!”

We all paused to listen.

“''Clay…! James…! Mike…! MIKE!''”

            It was Max and my grandad.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit….”

“Mike, shut the fuck up! They’ll hear us!”

“Mike!”

“Shit, they’re getting closer.”

“We need to hide!”

I whipped around and bolted further into the dry pond, scouring to the best of my ability for a place to find cover, eventually finding myself crawling under a rotten old plow.

“Mike, where’d you go?” I heard somebody hiss from my left.

I stuck my head out from the plow and whispered back, “Under here! Quick!”

The two of them hastily scrambled underneath it with me, and together we all remained silent, barely breathing, listening for my relatives’ calls, my head seeming to grow and shrink, and my vision blurred by grey static as I scanned the red landscape.

“I think they’re gone,” James said after what seemed to be several excruciating minutes.

“Yeah, I think – I think so, too,” Clay responded.

“S-so what’s so bad about the pond again?” I asked after a moment.

“Remember? This is where I saw her.”

“Who?”

“The… the….”

“The what?”

“The Bell Witch,” he hissed.

A shiver ran down my spine as he told me this. I nervously scanned the forest around us.

Clay huffed in annoyance. “James, I don’t think—”

“Clay, we all saw that shit back there, do you really think that this is the time to be….”

I tuned the two out as I saw a figure creep out of the shadows.

“Guys….”

“Yeah, but that’s not just ghost tales and shit. This was….”

The figure slowly glided forward in the light, and I could feel my blood turn to ice. The figure seemed to be wearing a long black dress and a black bonnet that seemed to be made of the night itself.

“Guys….”

            “…you always so skeptical about everything? What….”

It glided forward, creeping slowly towards us, a ghostly white face with two black hollows where the eyes should be and a narrow black slit for a mouth.

“Guys!”

            “What?”

“Shut the fuck up, she’s right there – she’s right fucking there!”

They both looked, and I could hear Clay let out an involuntary whimper. James seemed to be frozen like a corpse.

The figure kept gliding slowly towards us, seeming to blend into the shadows and then remerge. She kept coming, not making a single sound, her bone white face a grotesque relief in the reddish-black dark. Closer… closer… until she was maybe about twenty feet away. I could feel my body trying to hyperventilate, but I somehow managed to stay silent, each empty heave of my lungs feeling as though they might rupture.

She crept ever closer, and I could feel the air begin to turn to ice around me, my hairs standing on end. When she was about ten feet away, from the distance came an ungodly shriek, and with a blink, the woman was gone.

None of us said a word. None of us dared to move a muscle. The air was still at Antarctic temperatures, threatening to chip off our skin.

Another shriek, closer this time. It sounded like a man’s.

“Max?” I mouthed, blazing hot tears crawling down my face and into my mouth.

Then, the plow was flipped violently over, and I instinctively flipped over to see the woman hovering over us, her hateful, blank eyes boring into my own. She leaned down, and I reached out to feel for something – anything – to use to defend myself, and my fingers found themselves clamped around the broken handle of something. Without thinking, I waved my hand up, the blade of a small scythe reaching out from my hand. My arm seemed to be moving through sludge, the scythe only becoming heavier and heavier. Her arm reached out towards my face, pale rotting fingers stretching out to wrap themselves around my skull. The scythe finally appeared to be hitting her arm, yet there didn’t feel to be any physical material there. And despite this, the scythe became stuck in the air, an intense cold pain traveling down my arm. Her fingers locked around my face, which erupted into a blinding flash of burning cold pain. I could hear the screams of my two friends, and then realized that I myself was screaming. I was lifted up into the air and slammed into the ground, where other icy hands grabbed me by my feet and began to drag me further into the labyrinth of ruined houses, my body raking against every sharp object that the cold earth had to offer. I could hear Clay and James being dragged along behind me, screams muffled by some unknown means. I think I was too terrified to make any noise.

As I was dragged away by the black figures, I could make out an increasing density of the crumbled old ruins of what appeared to have once been an entire town. At one point I think I passed a cemetery, the graves all seeming to have the crude faces of children on them. And as we went, I could see more and more shadowy figures emerge from the dark, their otherworldly whispers scratching against my ears. Eventually, we made it to what I can only presume was at one point a town square of sorts. This was where the most figures seemed to be grouped, and an ambient grey glow from nowhere filled the area. Looking beyond my captor’s legs, I could see a familiar sight.

It was the well from my dreams.

“Mike!” I heard my grandad shriek.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I was kicked in the jaw, cold pain shooting up my face.

“Clay! James!” he continued to shriek. Looking in the direction of his voice, I could see him and Max tied up to stakes, both of their faces bruised almost beyond recognition. Behind me I could hear my friends being dragged towards me as well.

“Quiet that tongue!” the white-faced woman screeched from ahead, now standing by the well.

My grandad clamped his mouth shut, eyes red and wide like the moon. All of the figures were silent, and not a sound was to be heard save a flock of vultures that circled overhead. The woman crept over to the well, peering down into its depths.

“Bring over the men,” she whispered.

“What do you want with us?” my grandad wailed, flailing against the rotten black ropes as the black shadows moved towards them, leaving behind trails of smoke.

“Shut… the fuck… up,” Max grunted through clenched teeth, sweat beading on his forehead and glinting blood-red under the moon.

The figures grabbed them, causing both of them to wince from their frosty grips. I could feel their grips on my own body, though none of the figures touched me. My grandfather looked towards the well and seemed to be overtaken with an absolute terror of what may become of him.

“No! No!” he screamed, his voice cracking like a child, “Don’t take me! Please, don’t take me! Take anyone else! Take Mike! Take the ginger! No, take the nigger! Take the nigger!”

I locked eyes with him, every conceived notion I had of him crumbling around me. I felt the ground fall away from my body, and I was left floating in a sea of emptiness, with only the eyes of what once was my hero, my idol, left, staring unapologetically into my own, almost commanding me to take him off of the golden platform that I had set him upon. The only real role model that I’d had in my life.

The white-faced woman lurched over to him and, with the sickle, sawed out his tongue, my grandfather’s shrieks ripping apart the air around me, making my legs tremble and my hands clamp. She then hastily undid his binds and dragged him over to the well, allowing the blood to cascade out of his mouth as he sputtered, trying to form words. Max was also taken out of his binds and brought over to the well, tears now streaming down his pale face. I noticed that my grandfather’s cheeks had been hacked open in the process.

The white-faced woman stood between them, seeming to lengthen grotesquely in height like a towering beacon of terror as she held aloft the tongue and the still-dripping sickle, and cried out in her piercing tone, “I, the Maggot, give to you – Unholy Disease, Bringer of Darkness and Despair, Vehement Lord – the blood of the family of the larvae! I give it you, the Wyrm!”

She then wrenched Max’s arm into the air and sliced open his forearm with the sickle, allowing the blood to flow down his arm, down his fingers, and down into the depths below. Max’s struggles seemed to have no effect upon her grip.

“Let the smell of the life-force awaken you from your slumber, let it entice you into this realm so that you may feast upon the world!”

From deep below the earth, I perceived a low rumbling… a rumbling that echoed in my skull and made my bones vibrate against my flesh. I couldn’t imagine what terrible monstrosity stirred below us; every form that my mind procured seemed to pale in comparison to the terror I felt, to the power that seeped through the dirt below.

“And now,” she screeched, her voice echoing mechanically in my ears, “I give to you the flesh of the forefather of the larvae and cast it into your path so that your appetite may be stirred!”

Reality seemed to be phasing in and out of existence, a grey haze blocking my perception and discernment of time. I would go into a state of unknowing, and then find myself watching the woman sawing off his face and gouging out his eyes and casting them into the pit below, with no recollection of the time between. I tried to look behind me towards James and Clay, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to do it. Something in my mind would only let me stare unwillingly at the grotesque scene before me. I had thought that it was my grandfather who was screaming, but I suddenly realized that for the past few minutes, it had been myself screaming, and suddenly my whole being became immersed into my own voice, and I was nothing but my voice.

“No!” I heard Max cry, snapping me out of my trance.

I looked over, my vision pulsing, to see that the woman was ripping out the tendons from my grandfather’s corpse. She set them aside and dumped his body over as well, saying something about the Wyrm using his dead flesh to gain strength. I didn’t hear his body hit the bottom.

She then hissed something undecipherable, after which Max was tied back up to the stake and set up, so that he was directly facing the well. Turning towards me, she slowly glided over, my body cringing inwards upon itself instinctually, whiskey-tainted acid rising in my throat. She leaned over me, her hollowed out eyes boring into my own, commanding the kind of attention that I would never desire, yet at the same time desire seemed to fill me, the kind of desire that filled me with shame, calling me towards this grotesque phantom of a woman, calling me to obey her every command. But I knew that she was a monster. That every willing fiber in my being wanted to escape her presence with all my might. But I couldn’t. I could only stare, hypnotized into lust and terror, as she picked my limp body up with her cold clutches sending shivers down my spine, gently grabbing my hands, her frozen fingers burning my skin and yet sending a hypnotic euphoria across my mind as I felt a hot sweaty hand touch my own, and out of my peripheral vision I could see Clay’s body to my right. My fingers were made to interlock with his, and with a fluidity of motion that was at once both haunting and beautiful, the woman, the Maggot, held up my grandfather’s bloody tendons to my face, waving them under my nose and against my mouth, his metallic blood entering into my mouth staining my teeth and tainting my tongue… sliding down my burning throat.

Her bone-white face edged closer, her blurred features fuzzing even more, her black slit of a mouth creasing into a smile. She began to open her mouth, and the smell of fetid rot sliced into my nostrils, the fear of death becoming overwhelmingly more prominent. I could feel my heart exploding against my chest and my head felt as though it were splitting open like an axe splits a log, yet as her black sockets crept closer and closer, my adoration for this creature seemed to grow exponentially, and I forgot the blood of my grandfather sizzling in my stomach. I forgot that I was being held hostage by phantoms of the blackest night with my friends and family, that just next to me was Clay Shingle and that somewhere was James Green. I forgot that I had just witnessed my grandfather’s gruesome demise, and that my alcoholic uncle watched from afar. I forgot momentarily that my mother had abandoned me just that summer and that my father had done the same before I was even born. I forgot that I was bullied for being smart, that Clay was tormented for being one of two black kids in the school, and that James was harassed for simply existing. All I knew was the Maggot and that my devotion belonged to the Wyrm, and that in order to appease the Wyrm, I must obey the Maggot’s every command, that I must adore and lust after her, be her thrall for all eternity, death not doing us part.

Her smile widened, and within it I could see only black-red blood and small, sharp teeth that seemed to stand out like crags in a gory ocean. The smile widened, and my vision tunneled into that black abyss, welcoming me yet screaming at me to get away, that whatever horrors lied ahead dared not be imagined. I felt yet another sweaty hand, cold this time, be forcibly interlocked with my left, and suddenly the Maggot closed her mouth, which had been large enough to fit half my body into, and the Maggot smiled the most gorgeous smile that my eyes could ever behold. And she leaned down and grabbed my hand with the delicacy of a swan and tied my hand to James’s with the rope of my grandfather’s flesh and did so again on my right, binding me to Clay’s side. She leaned back up and whispered something in my ear, something breathtaking and exciting, embracing me in her cold, warm shadow, and my mind was coaxed into a state of aroused euphoria, and I felt as though I had become one with the Maggot, one with the Wyrm. My life would have been complete to only be in that embrace for eternity, never to leave this state. I tried to call out to her, to express my devotion, but found my throat to be clamped shut and my lips to never part.

And then she pulled away, the object of my adoration sliding away behind me. My mind began to feel the pain of the separation, and all my old feelings of abandonment came roaring back, though I remembered nothing but the Maggot, and that hypnotically majestic gaze that needed no flesh to have beauty. The only truth I knew was that I needed to be devoted to her and, more importantly, the Wyrm. Hot fresh tears began to roll down my cheeks. I dipped my head and cried out in lament, a sharp ringing in my ears obliterating any other noise except my own fresh abandonment.

An eternity seemed to last before I saw the Maggot emerge once again, and I felt the eager pull of a strange tension on my hands towards her, a tension that also seemed to be attached to my hands. I knew not what pulled me, but I soon became jealous of it, and began to lash blindly towards my left and my right, gnashing my teeth and foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. And though my eyes were open, they saw only blackness everywhere but the graceful Maggot. I reached down with my head towards my right and sank my fangs into something soft and warm. Hot, delicious liquid seemed to come from the strange object, and I hungered for more. I tore away a chunk and ravenously swallowed it, and the taste I had never before beheld.

I needed more.

My stomach seemed to suddenly become empty, and the only thing that could satisfy that hunger was to devour more of the strange new sustenance, and so I did, thrashing against some unknown restraint and ripping away piece after piece, on both my left and right side, the hot metallic liquid wetting my parched mouth.

A hot blinding pain exploded in my arms, and though I could not see them, I knew that my devotion to the Maggot and the Wyrm was not unchallenged. I smashed my skull into whatever was ripping apart my flesh, which hurt, but only worked to fuel my fire. I fell onto the ground in a great thrashing heap of rabid anger and lust, ripping and chewing and clashing with whatever I was bound to. A soft red light eased into my vision, and from that red light I saw the Maggot beaming down at me, her smile holding the beauty of a thousand moons. My fervor eased, and I sat up, wishing to get closer to her. She leaned forward and licked the blood away from the holes in my flesh, her tongue long and pointed. I could feel her love wash over me, and the pain from my wounds began to numb. I cried out to her, and she eased me up, two extra sets of black smoky arms extending out from her back as she also eased up the two other entities that were bound to me. I became jealous at this, and lowered my head, snarling at them, though I could still only see the Maggot and nothing more. I had become a mindless beast, competing for the love of my master. I had no thoughts, only instinct and emotion. My master was all, and I existed simply to be her servant, her companion, her plaything. Whatever she wanted of me, I would execute.

And what she wanted was me.

I lurched forward, keeping in pace with the other two, wanting only to feel her warm embrace, to feel her love. I did not like having competition, but I suffered through it, as that was her desire. And to my immense pleasure, my master did not back away; she simply smiled at me with her perfect smile, her red aura emanating from her being. As I neared, her arms, all three sets of them, reached out to me and pulled me forward. I could feel her hot breath on my face, and my only emotion was that of pure love. She lowered her head, curling her lips back in a smile of great anticipation, her jagged black teeth elongating and stretching out towards me. She rested the top of her head upon my shoulder as the side of my head rested upon her bosom. She lifted her head once, staring me in the eyes with that even more perfect smile, her mouth a black cavern of gnarled teeth, and thrust them into my shoulder, ripping out a great chunk of flesh where the meat of my right shoulder had been, and she delicately lifted a hand to her mouth and pulled it from her teeth, the bloody meat catching on the rough edges and held it before her eyes, taking in the succulent nature of the flesh, and put part of it into my hungry mouth. Without thinking, simply knowing, I ripped the piece in half and ate it, a fog creeping over my mind as my master ate the other half. As she swallowed it, I became one with the Wyrm, and one with my master. I was no longer an entity, I was simply an observer. No more had I any concept of self. No more did I lust after that which I feared was unattainable, and no more had I any fear of being beaten by the competition. I was pure love. I existed in a realm where my master and I could finally be together at last, for all eternity, with the all-powerful Wyrm watching over us, blessing our every move, always wrapped in her tight embrace.

I vaguely in the back of my mind, if I had one, had the notion of moving forward, though I had no active contemplation about this notion. For how long this notion was present, I have no idea, as I had no active concept of time. But eventually, I found my masters face coming into view, infinite hands stroking what must have been my face, tenderly telling me that I must climb atop the well with my back to the center, allowing for myself and the other larvae to form a circle atop the wall. I had no idea what this meant, but at the same time I had no idea what it didn’t mean. Her voice solely existed to soothe my being. She then told me that I was being a good larva, and that my reward would be beyond my imagination. I again had no knowledge of her meaning, or any idea what words were, but her voice brought an excitement to me, an anticipation. My master then hugged me tighter, the fog having unnoticeably been thinned for a moment now thickening to a blinding density, where I once again returned to a state of being pure adoration, existing in a state of the most numbing bliss.

I felt her warmth become greater, greater than before, and I felt my master grow with excitement, which transformed my being into one of love and excitement, twice the being I was. My master grew even greater.

“Hold still,” she said, her words meaning nothing to me.

I felt a slicing motion across my arm, and I came careening down out from the heavens, down into my own flesh and blood. Down into the intoxicated nightmare that was around me. Numb from the shock of this, I took in my surroundings, and found myself atop the wall of the well facing outwards, my hands bound to that of Clay’s on my right and James’s on my left, bound by the tendons of my grandfather. All around me were the shadowy figures of phantoms that had surely come from the realm of Hades. Leaning down to my right, with spidery arms extended from her back was the white-faced woman, slicing open my wrist with the sickle and letting the blood cascade down into the depths that fell less than an inch behind my foot. Her arms were wrapped around me, at least six of them, with more arms also wrapped around Clay and James, who I noticed turning my head were also tied together, making the three of us form a circle along the wall of the well. I looked down at their arms and saw great holes in their flesh, and I saw those same holes within my own. Yet… it was difficult to turn my head, and I was aware of a numb sensation on my right shoulder. I looked and saw where the white-faced woman had bitten the meat of it off. My mouth opened in horror at the realization that my mind had been ensnared by this monster. And right in that moment, she turned her great ugly head towards me, her face both angry and frightened…. Frightened that I had somehow broken free from her trance.

She backed away, her grip never loosening, only her arms growing longer, and flashed those horrible teeth at me, which seemed to be elongating and becoming entangled between themselves. She smiled a grotesque smile, her teeth pointing at my face. But… was it simply to deflect her own fear? She hesitated and closed her mouth, her face returning to it’s former self, one of carved-out eyes, no nose, and a black feminine slit for a mouth, with blood trailing down from it.

And in that moment the Maggot became beautiful once more, and my anxiety seemed to ease.

No, no this was a trick, a trick to help her in summoning this even greater monstrosity, the Wyrm, whatever it was. The mere thought of seeing this creature in person filled me with a terror to be unmatched, and I somehow snapped myself back into reality, all symptoms of intoxication from the alcohol and marijuana speeding away. She lowered her head in anger and lashed out at me, her fangs sinking into the meat of leg and tore away a fresh hole. I cried out in pain, and in the distance, just out of view, I could hear Max screaming as well. Trying my best to blink the tears out of my eyes, I turned my head towards him, and saw that his eyes were puffy and red, tears streaming down his pale face as he strained against the ropes with all his might, screaming himself hoarse.

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed, not able to use to my voice.

The woman lashed her teeth against my leg again, and I cried out again. She raised her face to me, holding the flesh of my leg in my face, sending those black hypnotic tendrils into my mind once more, but I somehow resisted it. While still trying to enthrall me, she put the meat into my mouth, and commanded me to swallow it, her voice like a tireless car screeching against a sidewalk. My throat worked against me, and I swallowed it nonetheless.

“''Max! Help me, please!''” I cried in childish terror as I felt the black fog threaten to swallow my mind once more. I looked towards the moon, red and bleeding, to only see a distortion of her face look down upon me.

“She’s in my head, Max. Please!”

I looked back towards him, my vision clouded, but I could only see a look of pain upon his face as tears streamed silently down. His body became limp and I could hear his sorrow.

The woman then grabbed my face and pointed it to her own, the frost of her fingers burning the skin they touched. She opened her mouth to speak, but then a great rumble emerged from the ground, and a ghastly shriek in a tongue I did not know rattled within the Earth and my bones, sending a fear so intense to my head that my body immediately screamed to run away, to get away from the voice, but at the same time, my legs were set in stone.

The voice stopped, and she lowered her fingers, disappointment etched across her face, though fear was even greater. She crept over to Clay, keeping a weary eye upon me, and grabbed his wrist and slit it with the sickle, the blood following the path that my own had taken. She did the same with James, but I was disheartened to see that their faces were still in a state of blissful adoration, still under the trance of the Maggot. The blood flowed freely, sending red showers down to the beast below.

I was suddenly aware of a ringing in my ears, building gradually. Pain began to emerge in my eardrums, gaining in intensity. I could feel it ringing in my skull, I could feel the blood trickling down the side of my head, hot and sticky. I instinctively tried to double over, to clasp my hands to my ears, but the tendons kept my hands in place, and the Maggot’s spidery arms held me upright, facing outward. The ringing kept growing in intensity, and just when I thought it couldn’t possibly become more unbearable, a great explosion of sound erupted from the depths of the well, the pain causing me to scream. I clamped my eyelids shut, sure that I was deaf, and I was, but all the air that seemed to have been ejected from the well came violently rushing back in, somehow causing yet more pain as my body was being pulled into the depths, though the Maggot held me tight. I opened my eyes momentarily, turning my head to the side, only to see that both Clay and James seemed to be in as much pain as myself, and that they also seemed to have been suddenly snatched out of the Maggot’s trance, terrified of what they were realizing had happened.

The air kept sucking inward, pulling us at greater and greater strengths. Trying to keep an eye on the white-faced woman while also being increasingly agonized by the vacuum the well behind me had become, I saw her pull out the sickle once more, strutting over to James in determination. I tried to cry out to him, but the noise of the wind completely drowned it out, and I watched in horror as she grabbed James by the face and, like she had done to my grandfather, sawed open his mouth and cut out his tongue with the sickle, James writhing and squirming like an animal being tortured. But nothing could be done in face of the Maggot. Looking to my right, I could see that Clay, too, was watching… sobbing and screaming inaudibly.

She pulled out his tongue, blood spewing everywhere, and held it aloft, raising herself into the air with yet another set of arms, hovering over the depths of the well, waggling my friend’s disembodied tongue, almost as if taunting the thing below, enticing its hunger. The rushing of air seemed to be easing, though it was being equally replaced by what I can best describe as the noise a train makes when going off the rails and crashing into another train, the metal grinding together, ripping the air around us apart.

“I OFFER THE FLESH OF THE LARVAE, TO YOU, THE UNHOLY DISEASE, THE VILE OF THE WORLD, THE WYRM! ''COME, NOW, GRACE US IN YOUR MOST DETESTABLE PRESENCE! COME, AND BRING TO THIS WORLD THE END THAT IT TRULY NEEDS! PLANT YOUR SEEDS AND BRING UPON A NEW ERA, ONE IN WHICH THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLANE ALL BOW TO YOUR SUPERIORITY!''”

I could feel the stones of the well begin to crumble as the Earth shook, the Maggot holding us tight in order to keep us from plummeting to our premature demises. The stones kept crumbling, cracking, and disintegrating, falling into the black below. When the stones fell away, the dirt around us began to crumble away as well, leaving the three of us suspended in the air, helpless, all of us bleeding profusely, all of us unimaginably terrified of what may come, what unspeakable horror of what was emerging from the abyss that threatened to ravenously swallow us all like mere insects.

I felt something bite my ankle, and I looked down to see that out from the well were spewing thousands—no, millions of yellowish maggots with red teeth, rushing forth like a tsunami of rabid hunger, all eager to devour sweet, tasty flesh. They began to chew at my leg, gnashing their unnatural teeth through skin and muscle. The white-faced woman must have noticed this, because she yanked us all even higher, wrists screaming against the tight tendons that held us all together, bound by the flesh and blood of my grandfather.

The maggots kept coming, hissing and squealing like tiny pigs, their teeth clashing violently as they blindly sought to fill their endless hunger, writhing and squirming and oozing, endlessly exploding forth from the depths of the well. They just kept coming, wave after wave of them, never seeming to end in quantity.

“''YES! YES! ''YES!” the Maggot shrieked extatically. “''I CAN FEEL YOUR PRESENCE GROWING CLOSER, FATHER! I CAN FEEL YOU! COME, ''COME!”

I suddenly felt a presence below me, and looking directly below, could see a mound in the spewing maggots, a massive one, as if something was slowly working its way up. The Maggot grew even more excited, chanting something, screeching indiscernibly in that horrid tongue. A great stench grew into the air, one so putrid, one so vile, so nauseating that it escapes words. One could stick their face into a liquifying corpse, take a deep breath, and I’m certain that the smell from it would wither and pale in comparison to the stench that this abomination emanated. I began to cough, bloody, stale alcoholic vomit bursting out of my stomach. I vomited again and again, eyes watering and insides burning. I couldn’t seem to stop, the smell that this thing emitted revolting my stomach, seeming to turn it inside out. My vomiting paused just long enough to blink the tears out of my eyes, and looking down, I saw a monstrous ring of gnashing and pulsating yellow teeth rising out of the mound of maggots, reaching towards my feet, growing closer and closer, and then—

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I was in a void, floating in a black vastness so overwhelming, so overwhelming that I screamed and curled into a fetal position, yet no sound escaped my lips. I held my hand in front of my face, still heaving, but no shape presented itself before my eyes. I curled inwards even tighter, to the point of almost being painful, trying to childishly shy away from the oppressive void. There was no sound. There was no scent. There was no sight, and there was no escape. Had I died? Had that beast brought me to the end? Where was Clay? Max? James? Oh, god, James…. What had become of him? One of my only two friends, mutilated beyond recognition…. Would he suffer the same fate as my grandfather? Would he simply be food for that… that thing?

I twitched involuntarily, cold snot sliding down my lip and into my mouth. I wiped it off with my hand, and I twitched again… and again… tears now flowing down my face as my stomach still tried to empty contents that were no longer there. Time had no place here.

A word sprung itself into my mind, seemingly not entirely of its own, a word that ran a cold, skeletal finger down my vulnerable spine, digging into my flesh. A word that made my breath stop short and my heart jump. A word that no living creature should know the meaning of. A word to drive terror into the heart of the most valiant warrior. And that word was—

Wyrm.

I screamed in mental agony as this word permeated my mind, digging into the flesh of my brain and sinking its teeth into the fiber of my being, tearing apart my skin and replacing it with its own rotten essence.

Wyrm.

 

I writhed in pain, the essence of this word driving me into madness.

Wyrm.

I was foaming at the mouth, my measly sense of self festering away before it.

Wyrm.

 

Please… just make it stop.

Wyrm.

 

The void itself seemed to be crumbling away into even greater nothingness.

WYRM.

 

The word seemed to flow out from my body and into the nothingness around me, trying to manifest itself as more than an idea… more than an idea and into a reality.

WYRM.

As this final repetition of the word crashed in my skull, my nose detected a faint trace of the smell from before… before this…. It grew and grew, tainting my skin, making it become soft and decayed, infiltrating my flesh and turning it into that of a corpse…. Rotting alive….

Michael.

I opened my eyes, not sure if the soft voice had spoken from within my own head or not.

Michael, do you know who I am?

 

How could I not? Its name had been strangling me, forcing me to know the terror that it withheld.

''Oh, but of course you do, Michael. That is your name, is it not? Michael Uriah Erikson?''

 

I nervously nodded my head, wiping salty sweat out of my eyes with a trembling, clammy hand.

''I know, Michael. I know everything there is to know about you. Like how your father ran off with a prostitute the second your mother found out she was carrying you. Or how she herself just recently eloped with a rich man, leaving you behind as they went back to his home in Vancouver. And about how your mother’s brother, the one you now live with, is an alcoholic, and does not even notice the missing bottles as you attempt to drown out your sorrows every night, only to end up swimming in your own self misery. I know about how at school the children torment you because you have potential, how they bully you and the only two friends you have in this life. Clay Shingle, the subject of racist bigotry, and James Greene, a victim for no reason. I also know about your grandfather, James. Uriah Jewell. The man with whom you share a name, built up as a false idol, only to come crashing down before your eyes, destroying what little you were still sure of in this world.''

''Yet, I know your future, Michael. Every single possible road you could take. And though there are infinite possibilities, I know the ones which are most likely to happen. About two of them, both of which involve you doing great things, Michael. Great and terrible things, the vastness of which you have no conceivable possibility of knowing.''

 

Was that—no. Wait, was it? A hint of fear? Of desperation?

Do you know where you are, Michael?

 

Slowly, I nodded my head, though the word “death” crossed my mind, wondering why it couldn’t hear me notice the tone in its voice, though I tried to shield this thought from it.

''No, not dead. You are within your own head, Michael. I have taken hold of it. As long as I choose to hold you here, there is no escape.''

 

Why did it need to tell me that? Was the desperation getting louder? Did it need to tell me that to frighten me into compliance. Again, I tried to hold these thoughts within myself, though how I was doing it, I did not know. All I let this thing have was my very real fear—it didn’t need to tell me why I needed to be afraid. It was then that I noticed that the stench had gone away—was it also trying to entice me forward? What did it want?

I want you'', Michael. You have an energy, a potential, that is unmatched. Do you really believe that you are here by coincidence, Michael? By some unfortunate circumstance? I’ve waited a long time for somebody like you to come into this world. I’ve been waiting… bidding my time. I have plans, Michael. Plans that you can not possibly begin to understand. A world where everybody bows down before me, a world where everybody will do my bidding. Think about it, Michael. It would be the end of human conflict… they would all be united under a single purpose: to serve me. And do you know who the face of the world’s admiration would belong to?''

I could feel it trying to probe its tendrils deeper into my mind, to mold it into compliance, to see the way of the Wyrm. I tried to fight it off, to push them back.

''Do not resist, Michael. You know that what I speak is the truth.''

 

            The tendrils pushed harder, obscuring my mind. There was no fighting. There was only defeat.

''Good. That is good. Do you understand?''

Yes.

Tell me, where are you?

 

            Within you.

And who am I?

 

            The Wyrm, the Defiler, the Disease…. Death.

And who are you?

 

            The Vessel… the Body of the Wyrm.

What is your purpose?

 

            To carry the will of the Wyrm, to make the world embrace the vileness within.

I can see you, Mike.

 

            This voice was new, one that seemed to bring a comfort to my petrified mind.

'''Do not worry. You are safe with me, Mike. It cannot hear us here.'''

 

            What do you mean? Who are you?

I’ve placed a shield around you, a shield that not even the Wyrm can penetrate.

 

But won’t it notice that I’m no longer responding?

'''I have it taken care of, Mike. I can sense your fear, your terror in the face of this abomination against myself. And though the Wyrm is much greater than you, greater than most other beings in this realm, even it is no threat to you as long as I am here. It will not notice your absence, I’ll make sure of it. Don’t try to pretend to that it has you.'''

 

            But who are you?

'''Like the Wyrm, I too have many names, all of which given by the whims of my children. But you could know me as the Mother, the Guardian.'''

 

But why have you waited until now? Why couldn’t you have come sooner? Why are you helping in the first place?

'''Not everything may be told, but I cannot allow this monstrosity to use you as a host for its plague. Now, Mike, I need you to listen very carefully. Are you listening?'''

 

            Yes.

'''Do not move. But barely—just barely—open your eyes. What do you see?'''

 

            I did as the Mother said, and without using any other muscles besides those in my eyelids, I opened my eyes just enough to be able to see that I was lying on my back, staring up at the black-red sky, silver clouds passing over the bloodied moon.

What do you see, my child?

 

            I see the sky and the moon, though somehow the clouds are silver, even though the moon is red. I also still possess no physical sensation other than in my eyes.

'''Close your eyes again. In just a moment, I will need you to follow some very important instructions. But despite what you see or what happens, if you want to escape with your mind, or even your life, you must continue onwards without any delay. Do you understand, Michael?'''

 

Yes.

'''Good. Now when I tell you to, I need you to slowly stand up as quietly as you can, and you must say not a single word. Do you understand?'''

 

            Yes.

Now be still, my child.

 

            I did as she told, obediently staying completely still, which proved to be extremely difficult, as my physical sensations were slowly creeping back, similar to how it feels when your leg falls asleep for an extended amount of time and slowly begins to regain feeling. It felt like every muscle in my body was being stabbed with hot pins and filled with acid, screaming to be flexed and stretched in order to properly acclimate. Just when I thought I could no longer willingly resist the urge to move, I felt the warm presence of the Mother in my mind once more.

'''Now slowly, Michael, slowly open your eyes and stand up. And remember, you must make as little noise as you possibly can.'''

 

I almost sighed with relief as I gently flexed my muscles and prepared to follow the Mother’s instructions. However, this relief was quickly replaced by horror when I sat up and gazed out at the scene before my very eyes. Just a couple of yards away from me was perhaps the vilest creature that my eyes have ever beheld, one so disgusting and putrid that I had to use all of my effort not to scream and faint simultaneously. It was what appeared to be a colossal, corpulent, oozing black slug that was at least the size of a school bus, if not larger. It pulsed and heaved, viscous pus seeping out of every fold of fat and out of every pore in its twitching, slimy skin. It didn’t appear to have any eyes, either, but its mouth was more than made up for, with a terrifying ring of thick, rotten teeth that curved inwards into a putrescent yawning mouth that was easily big enough to fit the entirety of a horse into, with blood, pus, and mucus-filled saliva dripping out and pooling onto the ground in a puddle of sickly sludge, filling the area with the same hot, moist stench that only worked to further nauseate my stomach. Who knows how long I would have stood there, entrapped by its sheer size and repugnancy, had it not been for the Mother’s kind but stern voice jolting me back into action.

'''Now you must go, Michael, to where your uncle is held captive and free him. And do not heed the apparitions you see, for those are the very distractions that will save you.'''

 

            I hadn’t even noticed the silver phantom that stood with its back to me, easing towards the Wyrm. I noticed that the silvery phantoms, which seemed to be made of some kind of ethereal mist, bore the same image as myself. Making sure to ease my way silently towards the stake in which Max had been tied to, I asked her what exactly the phantom was for.

'''While you see only a ghostly specter of yourselves, these creatures see them as you, and as long as you are quiet and do not alert them, you will remain hidden. Now quickly, Michael, there isn’t much time.'''

 

But why was mine approaching the Wyrm? What exactly did the Wyrm think it was doing to me? I couldn’t help but take another look as my phantom scooped up a long tube of raw pink flesh that was protruding from the Wyrm’s maw, twitching like a dead animal.

'''The Wyrm believes itself to have full control over your body and mind, and is completing the ritual, using you to make sure that you are truly no more alive than the corpses that lay at the bottom of that abysmal well. But make haste, Michael! Time is of the absolute essence.'''

 

            I shook my head and stealthily continued onwards, easing around the frigid shadowy mobs that filled those ruins of a village, being wary of every stone or pebble that might have caused even the slightest disruption. Eventually, I made myself over to Max, where luckily the figures were all turned away from him, facing the Wyrm. As I approached, I noticed that a silvery shadow appeared in the same space that Max occupied. Putting my finger to my lips and locking eyes with my uncle, who’s face was swollen and glistening from sweat and tears, I slowly and silently began to free him. I didn’t make any time to acknowledge the look of confusion in his eyes, but he seemed to understand well enough not to make any noise. Finally, having untied the rope and eased him down (the noise his back made against the stake was heart-stopping in its quiet severity), I took his hand, which felt raw and hot to the touch, I turned around and to my horror I saw that my apparition was holding the tube of flesh down James’s throat. The Wyrm’s appendage seemed to be slowly and rhythmically pumping something into his stomach, which was grotesquely distended beyond any normal measures.

'''            I know what you’re thinking, Michael. But you can only save two, tonight. You were too late. Now quickly, while the Wyrm is distracted, and grab your friend Clayton. As you approach, I will wake him and create for him a phantom like I have for you and your uncle.'''

 

 

I was confused for a moment. What did she mean that I could only save two tonight? There were four of us that were still alive, so shouldn’t I be saving three?

I froze.

I froze in place, as if the ice of the shadows had pierced through the cracks of the dirt below me, locking my muscles into place, my own body becoming a rusty iron cage, clattering in my head and freezing my thoughts. I could feel the frostbite of realization bite the tips of my tortured and beaten body. My mouth opened, and cotton grew from the pores, spreading like a bacteria-ridden disease, growing sharp fuzzy ice crystals that spread to my eyes and made them burn. Burn with the memories of James, my friend, my best friend.

I remembered when we met, how he had been sitting alone in the cafeteria before school started for the day, headphones in his ears and eyes staring sadly at the table. In a spontaneous display of charisma that I usually didn’t have, I sat next to him and asked what he was listening to. He nervously looked up to me, his face as red as his hair, and he sheepishly pulled out the CD from his bag—it was Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. I had only ever heard their hits, like “Iron Man” and “War Pigs” because of the radio, so I asked if I could take a listen. I remembered putting the headphones over my ears and being blasted with the harsh rhythmical riffs of “Children of the Grave.

I also had other memories of him, too… seemingly everything we had experienced together flashed in my mind. Him crying on my shoulder, him being beat up by bullies, us watching TV, bored out of our minds. And then my mind, in a seemingly unrelated course of thought went to my mother, and how she used to hold me when I was younger, and sing “No Woman No Cry” to me before bed. I thought of how over the years she slowly started to retract from me, as though I were nothing more than some broken lamp in the attic, wishing she could buy a new one even though I could easily be fixed, until eventually I would simply come home to find her gone, not deserving any more than a note on the table left in an unlit room.

No, I couldn’t do it. I could either leave with everybody, or I could die for all I cared. Blocking these thoughts from the Mother—though how, I do not know, even to this day—I motioned for my uncle to leave. He shook his head adamantly, but I gave him a stern look, and—perhaps he saw the stone-set look of pure terror and determination on my face—he begrudgingly crept away, silent as the night that should have been.

I turned back, and began to ease my way over, each step bringing me closer and closer to my death. My foot grew heavier and heavier, and my stomach felt as though it had shriveled up like a snail sprinkled with salt. I stopped and turned my head back to where my uncle had been previously tied up and saw that there still was a silvery shadow tied to it, parodying his image. I sighed and turned back towards the well, easing my way forward, the ghostly chills from the shadows around me causing my skin to tremble as the mob thickened.

As I finally approached Clay, I felt a tugging in the back of my mind, and Clay’s expression, which had previously been blank and unliving, suddenly changed to one of confusion and shock as he in an instant witnessed the Wyrm, as well as James having only God knew what pumped into his stomach, and he gasped. I hurled myself onto him, clasping my hand tightly around his mouth and with the other holding a finger over my lips. Our feet must have scraped against the dirt, as I saw the head of a nearby figure turn towards us, immediately following which a silver shroud in Clay’s image manifested, taking his spot and wearing the same lifeless expression that Clay had been wearing just moments before.

We stood there in silence for a moment, looking towards the black figure as it looked intently at Clay’s ethereal counterpart. It started to ease forward a moment, and I glanced back towards Clay. He apparently had not noticed the figure near us, as his gaze was fixed upon James, whose stomach appeared fit to burst at any moment.

Clay shook his head, tears rolling down his cheeks. I looked down and saw that his feet were pointed away, in the direction we had come from. He shook his head again, more vigorously this time, squinting his eyes shut, as if against some truth that he didn’t dare face, something other than what he saw with his eyes. He nodded. In the distance I could hear an owl cry.

'''Now, take your hand from him, Michael. He knows what to do. Go, silently, and leave with your uncle. He is waiting at the edge of the pond. But wait until Clayton is out of sight.'''

 

            Obediently, I slowly took my hand away from him, looked him in the eyes, which shone red like a burning desert sun, and nodded. He blinked and nodded back. I eased away from him, and, without looking back, he crept away, making a wide arc around the mob around us. I waited until he was long out of sight before turning back towards the well. With nausea clawing back up my throat and my legs numb, I gulped and took a tentative step forward.

Michael, you need to leave.

 

            I paused for a second and considered following her advice. I considered leaving my friend to die. But I remembered my mother, and I took a step forward, a quiet cry of terror escaping my lips, audible enough to fuel my fright even more.

You can’t save him, Michael.

 

            I clamped my eyes shut, trying to keep the tears at bay. My body screamed at me to follow her command, to not take one step closer to the horror that was a mere twenty feet away.

I took another step. And another. And yet another, my body swaying and shaking like a ship tossing in a tempest, threatening to crash into the ground, my eyes still closed from the nightmare around me.

Michael, you need to leave NOW.

 

            I cracked my left eyelid open and froze, as I was standing a mere arm’s length away from James. I tensed my abdomen, trying to quell the queasiness, and took a deep breath, one of hot rancid stench.

            MICHAEL.

 

            Ignoring her, I yanked open my eyes and grabbed James’s shoulders and pulled, the tube of flesh catching inside his body. James’s stomach then burst, and I yanked harder, pulling the tube of flesh out, blood and squirming maggots flying into the air. James screamed, and so did the Wyrm, though the reasons were particularly different. I saw for a moment a silvery shroud appear in James’s place, though it soon dissipated. The roar of the Wyrm rattled in my head and the ground trembled beneath me. I heard a faint popping sound and looked down at James’s stomach and saw that it had burst, and underneath the purple, blood-soaked skin I could see thousands of maggots squirming and chewing, chewing through his abdomen and plopping onto the ground, with intestines and chunks of meat soon following suit. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the outcry of the Maggot and the shuffling of the phantom mob, but all I could focus on was saving my friend, even though I already knew it was too late.

I again grabbed his shoulder but was knocked back by a branching mass of tentacles that had sprouted from the Wyrm’s back that resembled veins and arties. I heard the cry of the owl again, but much closer this time, as cold dead hands grabbed me and dragged me away. I looked up and saw the face of the Maggot, a face more distorted and terrifying in its wrath than ever before. I cried out, I tugged and thrashed, but I could not shake the grip of death.

The Wyrm had taken hold of James’s body once more, though this time through physical means rather than mental. Its tentacles, thousands of tentacles intertwining in a mass of veins and capillaries that I now know to resemble that of the tamer basket star, and was pulling James’s screaming, flailing corpse into its great, gaping maw, the teeth now extended outwards towards James, greedily anticipating the fresh hot meal, the resounding noise still rattling the earth.

The tendrils pulled him closer and closer to the nightmare colossus, eventually pulling my friend into the ring of grinding fangs, and I watched in agony as they ground into his flesh and slowly ripped his young body apart, seeming to savor every last moment of it.

The owl screeched again, loud this time, and angry. I looked up and glowing in a silver shroud like a great lighthouse of hope was the great-horned owl that I had seen before, but enormous now, and beaming in a silver shroud of mist, descending from the dark bloody heavens above.

It was the Mother.

She swept towards me, hurtling along like an arrow of silver light, and struck the Maggot. I fell free from her clutches and scrambled to regain my footing. It was then that I noticed the shadows rushing in to grab me. I leaped backwards and fell on my back, in frozen silence as their chilly claws reached for me. The Mother then flew through them, thrashing them with her talons, and screeching, screeching louder than the Wyrm. I got back to my feet again as I saw her ambush the Wyrm, flaying its hide and cutting the tendrils as they tried to grab her. Knowing better than to waste a minute longer, I ran. I ran faster than I knew was humanly possible, my body numb from the abuse it had suffered. I didn’t even bother trying to go around the shadows, I simply barreled through them with all of my instinctual might, screaming as I felt the frozen air bite at my flesh, threatening to snap it right off the bone.

But I ran. I kept running. I had become, once again, pure animal, with no thought or logical constraint. Fear had taken over everything, it had devoured my mind. I vaguely remember seeing Clay and Max by the pond’s edge, but I whirled past, giving them no second thought, or even any first thoughts for that matter. Even when I slammed face first into the creek by the campsite and gashed my face open n the rocks, I kept going, ignoring the blood pouring into my eyes, nose and mouth.

I only stopped when I saw the back of my grandfather’s house beyond the trees, miles away from the pond, from the well, from the Maggot, and from the Wyrm. I didn’t even recognize the place at first. It seemed… different somehow. Less like a home and more like a grave. I stared at it for a few minutes, my mind refusing to go beyond its appearance. I couldn’t think about what had happened, or what would potentially come in the future. I didn’t even notice at first that it was no longer night and that the sun was still hanging in the afternoon sky.

I wept.

I wept for the grandfather I had lost, the one I had lost before he had even died. I wept for James. I wept for my mother. I wept for my father. And I wept for my uncle. I wept for myself. I wept until it had no meaning.

It wasn’t for a couple of more hours until Max and Clay came back, bloodied and silent. Even when they did come, we all sat in silence. Whether we were all thinking, I do not know. But eventually, when the sun began to set, Max went inside, and a little while later, from behind the house where Clay and I mutely mourned, three police cars arrived, followed by an ambulance and fire truck.

I wept.

=Three Weeks Later=

“Hey, buddy, you have some visitors,” the orderly said, a gentle man in his early twenties by the name of Bryer.

I nervously set down my book, Call of the Wild, I think it was—simply one that happened to be available—and sat up, my stomach giving that familiar twinge that I had grown so accustomed to whenever I had was forced to give in to human contact.

“Ah, Call of the Wild,” Bryer observed as I walked past him, clutching to the book as a means to ground myself. “It’s a good book. I think you’ll enjoy it a lot.”

He hadn’t noticed that my bookmark was squeezed between the pages at the very end.

As we walked, my mind began to approach that night—the night—that had been plaguing it for three long weeks. I quickly shoved it aside and focused my attention instead on the large, gold letters that stretched across the wall behind the front desk in the waiting lobby: Lunar Skies Psychiatric Hospital: Children’s Unit. Below them was an expensive-looking engraving of an old white man who had given them a large sum of money sometime in the 70’s.

I turned my head to see my uncle Max and Clay sitting next to each other on some stiff chairs in silence, Max reading an outdated issue of Rolling Stone. Both of them still had clearly visible scabs that were far from being fully healed.

“Hey, buddy!” Bryer exclaimed when he laid eyes on Clay. “Couldn’t get enough of us, eh?”

“Sure couldn’t,” Clay responded quietly, giving a polite smile.

“Hey, maybe try to get Mike-O here to talk a little bit.”

Clay’s nodded as his eyes scanned the floor awkwardly.

Ever since I had first stumbled out of the woods and back into the safety of sunlight, I had not uttered a single word, not even within my own solemn company. For a week, I stayed shut up in my room, and every night Max would have to yank a bottle from my hands, and every night he would lock it away somewhere new. But every afternoon once I got back from school while he was at work or to go help the search effort, I would find it and swim in my own misery and self-hatred.

It was about a week later that Clay’s parents found a suicide note in his backpack. He had been planning on running away to Nashville and jumping off of the Sparkman Street Bridge into the Cumberland River and was admitted into the Lunar Skies children’s ward that night, though he had only stayed for a little less than a week, whereas I was now into my second.

When I heard about this the next day from Uncle Max, I waited until after he had already taken the bottle of alcohol from me and gone to bed to hang myself with some black paracord that I’d found in the garage. In my drunken state, I must have awoken Max, because as I was struggling to get the rope off of my neck Max came rushing in and quickly cut me down with his pocket knife and drove me to the E.R. Late that night, I, too, was a patient at Lunar Skies. I hadn’t even written a note.

Bryer led us back to a small room where we could all sit down and talk, with a window that looked out upon the courtyard, a peaceful sanctuary with clean little holly trees and a great myrtle in the center, though all the rose bushes appeared to be dead—one of the nurses told me that in the spring they used to shine a dark crimson red.

“So, how are you doing, Mike?” Max asked after Bryer had left.

I shrugged my shoulders, though barely so. My eyes stayed fixed to the legs of his chair, which was opposite mine, facing the door.

“I see. Your doctor says that you’re still not talking in therapy.”

I continued to stare at the chair legs.

He sighed. “How do you expect to get better if you don’t work through these things? What, are you just never going to talk for your whole life?”

He waited a moment for my response, during which I shifted my gaze towards the window, my eyes passing over his.

“Hey, man,” Clay said softly, leaning forward slightly, “you know you can’t get out of here if you don’t try. Hell, I know it’s no fun. Food sure as hell isn’t. Come on man, you gotta—”

“Well maybe I don’t want to talk,” I snapped, my eyes still fixed on the courtyard outside. “Maybe I don’t want to get better. Maybe I’d rather just sit here and rot. Or maybe I’m too fucking scared to go outside. Maybe I’m too fucking crazy to know what r-really happened. Or maybe—maybe I… I can’t talk because it’s my fault that H-James is d-dead right now.” The last word caught in my throat, making it barely audible as I tried to hold the tears back and keep my chin from trembling too much. “M-m… maybe I just want to…. Maybe I just want to be left here so th-that I can j-just b-be abandoned again l-like I d-deserve. My father left me for a hooker. My mother l-left me for money. Uriah w-wasn’t even the man I-I thought he w-was. He was m-my hero. Why… why sh-should I-I e-even have y-you guys when my own p-parents didn’t even wa-ant me? W-when my own grandfather w-wasn’t even r-real?” Tears were now flowing freely down my cheeks and my eyes burned, but I held my gaze into that courtyard.

“Mike,” Max said with a kind sternness, “I’m sorry about my sister and that coward she had you with, you know I am. But what they did has no reflection on you, only on them. And as far as I’m concerned, you’re my son now, and you can’t do anything to change my mind.”

I looked down at the chair legs again for a moment before looking into his face, with his jaw locked in determination but his eyes saddened beyond repair. My vision became completely obscured, and I leaned forward into his arms and I felt Clay hug me from my right.

I cried for the first time since I’d wept three weeks prior, though I’d come close many times between. I felt like the weight of the world was at once crushing me but also lifted with the love that Max and Clay were giving. That dark stone wall that I’d built up around myself was finally beginning to chip, and the thick vines that clung to the cracks were beginning to wilt.

I told them everything that I knew happened, from being possessed by the Maggot and the Wyrm to being instructed by the Mother, to taking too long and foolishly trying to save James. And I told Max about the drugs and the alcohol, and he simply patted my back. I’d been afraid that the whole ordeal had been in my head, that it had simply been a sick combination of drugs, alcohol, and some innate insanity. But everything I said both Clay and James could attest to, every last detail that they too had experienced in my memory. This both terrified me and soothed me.

By the end of the visit, I had resolved, mostly for the sake of Max, Clay, and the memory of James. I never mentioned what actually happened, though. If I did, I probably would have had a much longer stay than I did, which ended up being about an extra month, with frequent therapy visits to follow. Instead, I stuck with the story Max had told the police, which was that Uriah had been attacked by a mountain lion and that James had disappeared in the effort to save Uriah, and simply found ways around it to still deal with the same issues I had.

I continued life as normal, though I never did quite heal. I found new addictions to replace alcohol with and learned through trial and error to somewhat function. I don’t suppose that I’ll ever heal fully, and I’m sure that I’ll always have an innate level of distrust and self-hatred. But then again, I don’t think that I could fix myself anyways. 