u/Saturdead

My daughter Cleo turned 12 not too long ago. She has lived in this house her entire life, and now we’re moving out. It’s not anything dramatic; we’re just moving into a bigger place. She’s growing up and deserves a better space, and Molly and I are in a position where we can afford it. But as we’re packing up our things and looking to the future, I want to acknowledge something that happened in this house when we first moved in.

Cleo was closing in on her first birthday. Molly and I were working around the clock juggling a child, two full-time jobs, and a remote part-time job on the weekends. It was rough, but that’s to be expected. We had planned for this family, and we were ready to pay the price. Doesn’t mean we weren’t acknowledging the hardships.

We’d just moved to this house on the northern edge of Tornado Alley. While it did get the occasional storm, the place itself was safe enough that the house had never needed any serious repairs. Not from the weather, at least.

 

We got the place a little cheaper than expected. It was an 80’s style brick-and-mortar kind of building with a solid concrete storm cellar. One floor, separate garage. Solid outer walls; cheap interior. You can feel the heat from the kitchen while standing in the hallway, all the way through the paper-thin faux wooden wall panels.

That first month, as we moved in, we ran into our first problem. The storm cellar was having some trouble with cracks in the northernmost wall. Nothing serious, but just enough for there to be a sort of bulge. We had a guy check it out, and he acknowledged that it needed to be reinforced if we wanted to utilize the space safely. Luckily, we caught it early.

The neighborhood was great though. We lived at the end of the street near five other houses. Identical style, different colors. Ours was the green one.

 

While fixing up our storm cellar, we had our first reminder of just how close to Tornado Alley we were. While those across the state line to the south were bunkering down for a possible tornado, we only had to prep for a nasty storm. Perfect start to the summer.

On the day of the storm, we had a neighbor come by. Clyde. Salt-of-the-earth kinda guy, had lived there his entire life. Just a couple of years short of retirement, Clyde had the proportions of a walking meatball sporting a baseball cap. And yet, he always seemed to be out and about, mucking around in the garden and carrying things in and out of his garage.

Clyde stopped by our place and handed me a walkie-talkie.

“Everyone on the street has one,” he explained. “Just so we can stay in touch if things get bad.”

“You guys thought of everything,” I smiled.

“Stay prepared, you don’t gotta get prepared.”

“Boy scouts?”

“YouTube.”

He winked, gave me a pat on the shoulder, and lumbered away. Now I had a fancy new walkie-talkie. Nothing expensive, and the channel was a preset, but it carried a bit of weight. Solid stuff.

 

Molly called out when she noticed the first drops of water on the kitchen window. I was already downstairs, doing my best to prepare us for a long night ahead. There were three rooms; one of which we were later going to turn into a laundry room. That’d have to wait until we fixed the wall though. For now, I had to make sure Cleo would be comfortable, and that we had all the supplies we needed.

I tested the walkie-talkie a couple of times and got a response not just from Clyde, but a couple of other neighbors too. An older woman jokingly telling us she’d come by with a casserole once the storm was over, and a grumpy middle-aged man that firmly reminded us that the channel was for emergency use only.

Once everything was prepped I waited upstairs. Cleo was having the mid-day fussies. Molly was firmly fixated on the kitchen window, looking out. She had this cat-like feature, like she was seeing something I wasn’t. I half-expected her to tap at the window.

“You alright there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I just don’t like how it looks.”

The dark clouds were closing in. We were at the birth of the storm, but that didn’t mean we’d have a walk in the park. Things could get bad, and we couldn’t take any chances. Not with Cleo.

 

The wind picked up. I changed Cleo and got her things all packed up. I pulled Molly away from the window as we hurried out back. The storm cellar had this thick tilted metal door. We hurried downstairs, and I locked the door from the inside. Not that there was a reason to; it’s just what you do.

Cleo settled down. I’d brought down an air mattress, and there was a cooler with a couple of drinks, baby food, and snacks to keep us going. We were gonna fix the place up later, but this would have to do for now. Cleo had a cozy little cot in the corner; a plastic thing that we usually brought when we traveled. Not that we had a lot of time for that kind of thing.

I did a double-check on all the lights and our chargers. There was this large locker in the far-off room with the bulging wall. I presumed that locker held the fuse box. The thing was old as hell, and the warning stickers had long since faded, so I didn’t want to touch anything. Still, I figured it was good to know where to go if the power cut out. We didn’t get very good reception down there, but Molly had a couple of shows preloaded on her iPad so we could watch some reruns later in the night.

The wind kept going. I could hear it cut along the corner of the house, rattling the gutters. The raindrops had gone from tapping on the door to passing us by, as the rain turned sideways. Staying down there was just a precaution, but by the way things were going, we had the right idea.

 

It got pretty bad, pretty fast. People started talking over the walkie-talkie. Even the grumpy middle-aged guy.

“Looks like the tree in the yard is going down,” someone said.

“Fence is shaking something awful,” another one said.

Clyde, on the other hand, just kept checking in with people. We had an hourly roll call, and when he noticed one of us weren’t responding, he decided to go do something about it. There was this older man living down the street that hadn’t picked up, and Clyde was getting worried.

“Old guy lives on his own, surrounded by floppy disks and TV dinners. I’ll head over to check on him in a bit.”

A couple of people protested, but Clyde wasn’t having it. Apparently, he used to be an army medic.

 

Molly was sitting in the other room, rocking Cleo back and forth. She had this song about a blue sunflower that her parents taught her, and it always put Cleo to sleep. A couple of tunes from that lullaby was all it took. It was like a magic trick, or an off switch. I sat down next to them as the wind raged outside. Molly turned her attention to me.

“Did they say anything?” she whispered.

“About what?”

“About what’s going on up there.”

“It’s pretty rough,” I admitted. “Clyde is heading out to check on someone.”

“Did something happen?”

“Not sure. Maybe. They’re not responding.”

Molly nodded, looking up, as if staring out an invisible window.

“I dunno,” she whispered. “I got this bad feeling. Like today is special.”

As if responding, the electronics locker in the other room made an uncomfortable noise. A stark reminder that this was just the beginning.

 

The sun was setting, but the storm raged on. It wasn’t speeding up or slowing down, but there was this constant pressure on the side of our house. You could hear the way it was blowing, pulling at the roof tiles. Every now and then you’d hear something heavy fell over or scrape against the façade.

Molly was taking a well-deserved nap with Cleo while I was sitting in the other room waiting by the walkie-talkie. I wasn’t exactly expecting anything, but someone had to stay prepared if something happened. So far, we were doing pretty good.

There were a couple of alarming sounds coming from the locker, but I chalked that up as protests of an old house, or cheap wiring. As long as the light stayed on, I wasn’t touching it. Breaker boxes and I don’t get along.

The others were chatting a little back and forth, checking in on each other and waiting for Clyde to return. When he finally did, I could tell something was wrong. He was winded.

 

“Someone broke in,” he wheezed. “Front door’s busted, the whole place has been turned upside down.”

“Holy shit, you sure?”

The middle-aged grumpy guy quickly changed his tone.

“There’s blood on the floor, but there’s no one there. I don’t know what’s going on. I called the police, but they can’t do anything until the storm passes.”

The old woman chimed in.

“Everyone make sure your doors and windows are locked tight!”

As we reassured one another, I could hear one voice disappear into the background. I wasn’t sure about who they were, but I could tell I’d heard them a couple of times prior. They were a neighbor, but I couldn’t pinpoint their house.

“Someone’s knocking,” they said, trying to speak over the buzz of voices. “Someone’s knocking on my door.”

“Don’t open,” Clyde said. “You stay right where you are. Storm’s getting bad, I barely made it back. Ain’t no way no sane person is running around out there at this hour.”

“You sure it’s someone knocking?” the older woman asked. “It’s not just a branch?”

“I’m sure,” the man repeated. “They did the tap taptaptap-tap thing.“

“Just making sure you heard me,” Clyde repeated. “You don’t open that door.”

“I hear you.”

 

A storm can easily play tricks on you. If you listen long enough, you can start hearing things. It’s like watching static on a TV; after a while, you start imagining one side gaining strength, or conscious movement. The same goes for a storm. It can almost seem alive.

Cleo woke up for a little while. I made sure she was fed and cared for, giving Molly some well-earned rest. Baby in hand, I wandered back and forth, listening. There were these little creaks and cracks everywhere. The bulge in the wall. The metal door. The roof tiles. Anything could be a knock, or hide a careful step. What had happened to the old man down the street? Had Clyde really walked in on the aftermath of a murder?

Cleo wasn’t happy about being carried, so I turned to get her back to her mother. As I walked past the stairs leading up to the cellar door, I stopped. Looking up, I perked my ears.

Was that a knock?

 

Strange things were being talked about on the walkie-talkie. Someone else had heard a knock. The old woman wasn’t sure, she might have heard one too. And most recently; one of them stopped responding entirely. They tried to discuss the disappearance rationally, but Clyde wasn’t having it.

“There ain’t nothing wrong with my walkies,” he stated. “If someone ain’t responding, something’s wrong. He’s been here all day, I can’t see why he’d go away now.”

“Didn’t he say he heard a knock too?” the old woman added.

“That don’t mean anything,” the middle-aged man sighed. “Be prepared.”

“I’m calling the police again,” Clyde said. “Soon as the weather clears, I want cars lining the street.”

I didn’t know what to think. It could be nothing. There could be a hundred reasons why you stop responding. The button could be broken, or the battery ran out. Maybe he fell asleep, or left it in the other room. But then again, why would he? It was a tense situation, and we all knew it. No one was taking this lightly.

As I checked in on Molly, I noticed her mumbling in her sleep. Nothing big, but it was unusual for her. She was a heavy sleeper. As I backed away to give her some space, I noticed the pattern of what she was saying. She wasn’t just mumbling nonsense. She was talking.

“Come in,” she mumbled. “Come in.”

 

As the hours passed there were less voices on the walkie-talkie. A couple might have fallen asleep, but I got the feeling that there was something more to it. Clyde was having the same idea, but couldn’t bring himself to go back out. It’s one thing to be out in the storm, but another thing entirely to be out in the dark.

“I’m telling you, there’s something out there,” Clyde said. “There were tears in the wallpaper. The kitchen door was pulled straight off the hinges. Someone went berserk in there.”

I’d been quiet for some time. I didn’t want to wake Cleo, but she was out cold.

“You sure it wasn’t the storm?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Clyde responded. “A storm don’t break down the front door and leave the living room, you know.”

I was about to respond when I heard something. I turned my head and took my thumb off the receiver.

That was definitely a knock on the cellar door.

Tap taptaptap-tap.

 

I sat there, listening. After a couple of seconds, the knock came back. Twice, this time. Harder. Then I noticed something in the other room; Molly was getting up. She held Cleo tight and walked towards the stairs. She must have heard the knocking. There was no way she’d miss it.

“Honey? What are you doing?” I asked.

It took me a moment to realize she had her eyes closed. She was heading for the door, still mumbling to herself.

“…come in.”

 

I put my hand on her shoulder and saw the white in her eyes light up. She turned my way, blinking away the sleep.

“What are you doing?” I asked again.

“What?”

She looked around, just as confused as I was. Once she realized she was on her feet, she turned back towards the mattress without a word.

“Were you going upstairs?” I asked.

“It felt like the right thing to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I’m tired. Don’t listen to me.”

The moment she sat down, the knock came back. Louder this time. Insistent.

 

I walked up the stairs and made sure the door was locked. I could hear the wind outside, threatening to grab hold of the door and break it open. But there was another sound, too. Something just on the other side.

I’m not sure if it was some kind of breathing, but it was something heavy. Something that didn’t have the same rhythm as the storm. Then again, I could just have been listening for too long. It’s like when you say a word too many times and it starts to sound like a noise.

Going back down, I peeked in on Molly. She was out like a light.

“Clyde, you there?” I said, whispering into the walkie-talkie.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“There’s someone out there,” I said. “There was a knock.”

“Who the hell is outside in this weather?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’d come over, but it’s too risky.”

“What do I do?”

 

Clyde came up with a couple ideas. He suggested I make sure I knew where the flashlights were in case the power cut out. I wasn’t too worried about that, seeing as I had the locker with the electric stuff in the other room (presumably). He also suggested keeping a low profile, but only up until the point where someone is clearly trying to break in. If it was a burglar, making your presence known would probably scare them off.

I didn’t tell him about Molly, and her unusual behavior. I didn’t know what to make of it, and just talking about it out loud would make me sound paranoid. Maybe storms make people behave strangely. They say crime goes up during full moons, who’s to say sleepwalking doesn’t go up during storms?

“If it’s you they’re after, and not your things, be prepared,” Clyde said. “They’ll try to trick you. They’ll probably pull the power, or do something to grab your attention. Don’t fall for it.”

“Grab my attention? Like what?”

The moment I said it, a new noise cut through the wind; my car alarm.

 

I asked Clyde if he could see it from his house. Turns out, he could. My car was in the driveway, flipped over. No other car on our street had flipped over. I could hear the wind scraping against the walkie-talkie as he called back to me.

“It’s on the side!” he gasped. “Driver’s side!”

The storm wasn’t strong enough to do that. But then again, neither was a person.

“You see anyone? Anyone at all?”

“It’s hard to tell. There’s just this big clothesline.”

“Clothesline?”

“Yeah, there are these gray metal poles sticking out, I think it’s-“

There was a short pause. We didn’t have a clothesline. That’s what our upcoming laundry room was for. Clyde’s voice came back.

“Nevermind, must’ve been debris. It’s gone. I can’t see shit.”

 

Over the next hour, things started getting weird. I heard glass shatter upstairs, and what sounded like someone climbing in through a window. There were footsteps, and the sound of furniture falling over. Someone slammed a door. Molly and Cleo slept through the whole thing. I wanted to wake her, just to make sure she was prepared, but something didn’t seem right. She wasn’t herself. None of this was normal.

I was trying to hear Clyde, but I could barely make out what he was saying. I had to hold the walkie-talkie up to my ear as the noises grew louder. He was telling me to keep quiet, to listen, and to wait. If they were ransacking the house, they most probably wouldn’t be looking for me or my family. Hopefully, it was just some opportunist trying to make a quick buck.

Then the power cut out.

 

“Molly?” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. I fumbled for my flashlight as I held down the button on the walkie-talkie.

“Power outage,” I said. “Is it just me, or did you-“

“No, it’s just you,” Clyde interrupted. “You know where the breaker is?”

“Yeah, it’s right here. I’m in the cellar.”

There was a pause. I turned my flashlight to the big locker.

“No it ain’t,” Clyde said. “It’s near the back door.”

“You sure?”

“Our houses are built the same. The breaker is by the back door.”

I would have to go upstairs if I wanted to turn the power back on. That made sense. I’d mixed up the breaker box with some kind of storage locker. I’d imagined hearing all kinds of weird electrical noise coming from it, but that’s just the kind of tricks the storm plays on you. I figured I might check it anyway just to be sure.

I placed my hand on the locker. As I did; another knock.

Tap taptaptap-tap. An echo from the cellar door, right upstairs.

 

The wind suddenly intensified as a gust rushed down the stairs. Hurrying out to see what was going on, I realized the cellar door was wide open. Sweeping the rooms with my flashlight, I couldn’t see Molly. I called out to her and Cleo, but there was no response. I checked every corner to make sure, but there was no doubt about it; she was gone. My mouth went dry as I ran up the stairs.

Poking my head out into the storm, I noticed a small silhouette walking away in the distance. It was holding something. It had to be Molly. I called out to her again, but still, no response. I followed her into the storm, feeling the water rush through my shoes. The wind almost overwhelmed me, but I managed to keep my balance by leaning into it.

There was no way she could hear me. I could barely hear my own breathing. I tried to hold on to that phantom image of Molly and Cleo, but they were getting further and further away.

 

Now, I didn’t know the area that well, but I knew there was a wheat field straight ahead. There was also a storage shed. I couldn’t imagine what compelled her to head that way, but it was the only structure out there. In the moments where I lost sight of her, I headed for the shed. That would get me a glimpse of her again and again, making me think that’s where she’s headed.

My feet were going numb from the cold, and my teeth kept chattering. I didn’t know if it was just the cold, or the stress. I couldn’t think straight. There was no world where my Molly would take our daughter into a raging storm.

The walkie-talkie crackled and complained. I crossed a knee-high fence swaying in the wind, raindrops peltering the left side of my face, as I saw the shed further down a trail. And right next to it; Molly.

 

I hurried up to the shed, dashing through the wheat, letting it soak straight through me. I got to the door, slammed it open, and hurried inside.

Molly was right there, curled up on the floor right next to boxes of farming equipment and old iron tools. She was sleeping soundly, and Cleo was too. They were both soaked right through, but neither seemed bothered. I got down on my knees and wrapped them up in a hug, trying to whisper through my panting breaths.

“What were you thinking?!”

Molly didn’t wake up. She just adjusted herself, sound asleep, muttering.

“Mothers know.”

 

The door swung wide open; I must not have closed it enough. Something snagged on it and the wind grabbed hold. I looked back at Molly, but she didn’t seem bothered.

Turning around, I could’ve sworn I heard something through the rush of the wind. The windows were shaking in their frames, and the wheat swayed back and forth, but there was something else. Something rhythmic. Footsteps?

There was movement in the corner of my eye. Someone outside the window. I got up, grabbed a spade from one of the shelves, and readied myself. My blood ran cold as my teeth kept chattering. The adrenaline was getting to me. My fingers cramped around the handle of the spade.

Another thump. Something was on top of the shed.

 

I saw a hand. A big, gray, hand.

It reached down from the roof, down the front of the shed. I could see it in the open door. The arm was impossibly long, and single-jointed. Thin, like a broom handle.

I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Slowly but surely, it grabbed a hold of the door and gently closed it with a firm click.

Seconds later, it climbed down. As it did, I heard Molly stir. She mumbled again.

“…thank you.”

A noise in response. A knock.

Tap taptaptap-tap.

 

I sat next to Molly and Cleo for hours as the storm died down. We spent the entire night in that shed. It wasn’t a bad idea to take shelter there; this thing had been built to last. If something can survive 40 to 50 years of bad weather without toppling over, it has to be doing something right.

Clyde’s voice came through somewhere around 4 am. The police were coming; they just had to clear the roads. Apparently, there’d been other people calling about disturbances. Home invasions. No one seemed to be hurt though, they were all counted for. The middle-aged grumpy guy and old lady included.

When Molly finally woke up, she seemed just as confused as I was. As the wind died down, she looked up at me with half-closed eyes.

“I had the strangest dream,” she yawned. “Where are we?”

 

Going back to the house, I got a clear view of the damage. Something had torn through our back door and ransacked our house, just like Clyde described. Molly didn’t want to go inside, thinking it probably wasn’t safe for Cleo to be around a bunch of broken furniture and glass, so she decided to wait in the car. Turns out she hadn’t heard the part about it being flipped on the side. She settled on waiting at Clyde’s place for the time being.

Meanwhile, I went into the storm cellar to check the extent of the damage, and to get Cleo’s things. But just a couple of steps down the stairs, I noticed something.

Blood.

Turning on my flashlight, I went downstairs, being careful not to touch the red trail. At the bottom of the stairs, it took a sharp turn to the right. It lead straight to the storage locker. The one I thought had been the breaker box.

There was a dead man in it.

When I say dead man, I don’t know for certain. The body was completely destroyed. A couple of limbs lay strewn across the floor, and most of the skin around the face had been peeled back like a ripe orange. And there, by what I guess had once been his feet, was a gun. A loaded handgun. I could barely see it for all the viscera.

 

I ran out of there as fast as I could. When I saw the squad cars, I pointed and screamed. When I got to Molly, I held her close and stroked her hair; more so to calm myself than anything else. She was safe. Cleo was safe. That’s all I cared about. As I held her close and watched the flashing lights descend on our house, she whispered to me.

“I dreamt there was someone coming to warn us,” she said. “Someone who lived with an old man, and was terribly, terribly, sad.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell her what I’d seen. Not yet. There’d be plenty of time to look into it later, but for now, I just held her. The future could wait a little longer.

 

In the days that followed, a lot of details emerged. The old man Clyde went to check on had been found shot. It seemed to be a failed home invasion. The perpetrator had fled, as if chased by something. He had hidden in our basement. He must have slipped in while I was going up and down, moving Cleo’s things. Bad timing, I suppose. He probably just saw an open door and rushed inside. He must’ve been desperate.

He’d hidden in the storage locker, waiting for the night to pass. He’d been a couple of feet away all night, with a loaded weapon, ready to take me down if I so much as touched the handle on that locker. He probably would’ve done it, too. He had plenty of ammo to spare, and he was known to be a decent shot.

But there was something else. Something I can’t quite explain.

There had been something out in the storm. Something he was fleeing from. Something that had come to warn us, knocking on that door, trying to find a way to get to us. It had been looking for him all down the street, tearing through every house to find him. Even flipping a car, like he was checking under a carpet.

Not to hurt us. Not to tear us apart, but to stop him. And for one reason or another, Molly heard that warning. I suppose, in some ways, mothers just know.

The strangest detail is his death though. Despite all that gore, the man in our storm cellar didn’t die from having his arms torn off. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

 

Now that Cleo has turned 12, we’ve decided to leave that house. The storm cellar looks very different today than it did all those years ago. The storage locker is gone, and the laundry room is all set up. The wall is fixed; haven’t had a problem with it for a long time. Whoever buys the place will have a very different first impression of it.

Clyde is still around. Our old neighborhood is pretty close-knit, and I’m sad to leave them all behind, but sometimes you have to trust your gut. Even when it tells you to move. Or more importantly, when it tells you to walk into the storm.

Cleo is almost a teenager now. It’s impossible that she would ever remember something from that night, but I still get the impression that it left something with her. Whenever she knocks on a door, she uses that same pattern. Tap taptaptap-tap. And sometimes, in her sleep, I hear her mumbling like her mother did that night. Just little things.

“I’m okay.”

“Sleep tight.”

“See you tomorrow.”

 

Looking back, there are so many things that scare me about that night. The thought of losing my family. An armed man waiting for an opportunity. A long gray arm, opening a door.

…and what it did to a man it despised.

One of my earliest memories are from a funeral. At the time, I didn’t understand that it was a funeral. It’s a confusing thought; I wasn’t scared or sad. It was just a lot of people that I knew, gathered in one room. A lot of them were upset; that much I remember.

But there was something else. There was a man in the room, resting on a big table. There was an older woman in a robe talking to us in a soft tone. At some point, my mother picked me up and we walked to the man on the table. He was being wrapped in plastic. I cried, and my mother rocked me in her arms. I didn’t understand that the man was dead, but how could I? I’d never seen anything die.

A couple of the older kids were given blow dryers to help shrink the plastic. My mother put me down while she helped turn the body to get the wrapping right. I retreated to the end of the table, where I played with my favorite Ninja Turtle toy.

 

When no one was looking, I pricked a hole in the plastic, just between the man’s toes. It was an accident; I was playing, and the toy had a sharp edge. I was a bit embarrassed, so I didn’t say anything.

We all sat there for hours, singing songs and talking in hushed voices. The old woman in the robe was so kind and careful. I remember her stroking my hair and kissing me on the cheek. All the children of the town were there. Both the infants and the teenagers.

They didn’t want us to sleep, but we couldn’t help it. They gave us candy to keep us motivated, but I still nodded off. I was barely awake when I heard the noise. I remember the plastic turning this thick, ink-like black. Then, something slipped out; right there, in that hole I poked between his toes. Something moved.

I remember drawing in a cold breath that made me choke. It was so cold that I could feel something crystallizing down my throat. My voice burned, and my heart kept beating louder and louder. I didn’t understand what was happening. The last thing I remember from that day was the kind old woman screaming at two men to hold me down, as she hurried to me with a bone saw and an apologetic expression.

 

Next thing I remember, I was in the hospital. It wasn’t that bad. Getting fed through a tube in your arm is weird, but I got so many toys and comics from that day that it felt like Christmas all over. I had aches and pains, but they passed. Once I was okay, my parents sent me to live with my aunt in a neighboring town. I didn’t like it, but they painted it as this great opportunity and a chance to meet new friends. They said it was temporary, and I believed them. I hadn’t met enough liars to know the signs.

That “temporary solution” lasted all through my childhood. My aunt is a wonderful woman, and how she managed to care for not only me, but my two cousins, is beyond me. My parents would send her money, but they would never come to visit. We never talked about them. And when they passed in the winter of 2016, I wasn’t told until long after their funeral.

I can’t say I miss them. I wish I could, but I can’t.

 

After high school, I decided to pursue a degree in anthropology. I don’t want to attribute all my interests to that first memory, but I can’t say it didn’t have an impact on me. I had no idea why our burial ritual had been so strange compared to anything I’ve read. We bury our dead in coffins, in the ground, or cremate them. We don’t shrink-wrap them in front of an audience.

For the longest time, I thought it was something I made up. A bad dream brought on by a nasty fever. But the more I thought about it, the more I had to know for sure. While studying for my master’s degree, I decided I was going to write a paper about this custom. That is, if it was real to begin with. I had a couple other topics lined up just in case.

 

I asked my aunt about it. She wasn’t too happy talking about the topic, as it brought up bad memories of my parents. She asked me to consider other ideas. However, I took note of something interesting; she never disputed the fact that the shrink-wrapping was real. She would mention how that town wasn’t a big deal, and how it wasn’t noteworthy. But she never said I was wrong.

That village is in rural South Dakota. If you follow the Runalong river, past the town of Hilltop and the wheat farms, and far enough to the northwest, there is a hillside community with about 550 people. Not a lot of folks choose to settle there, as the place has spotty wireless and the roads have barely been maintained since the 70’s. You’d be excused for not knowing it existed. Most people just notice their wi-fi going bad as they drive past.

Those who live up there are mostly retirees, but there’s a couple who make their living doing seasonal jobs for the surrounding farms and ranchers. There is a grocery shop, a couple of truck drivers, and a church. If you follow the main road you get to a bus stop. There’s a preschool, but not a lot of children.

 

Despite my aunt’s disinterest, I decided to pursue this topic. I called up the village priest. The one I remembered was already an old woman, so I figured there’d be someone else attending the flock. Turns out I was right. I got in touch with a man named pastor Oswald. He picked up before the second dial tone. I was sitting in my car at the time, holding my phone with my cheek as I scribbled in my notebook.

“Pastor Oswald?” I asked. “Hope I got the right number.”

“Sorry, I don’t get a lot of calls,” he laughed. “Who am I speaking to?”

I introduced myself as a master’s student in anthropology and explained my interest in their burial rites. I didn’t bring up the details of my past, thinking this person probably didn’t know about me either way. I explained how I was there to interview and observe, for academic purposes. Pastor Oswald waved it off.

“No problem at all,” he assured me. “We have a ceremony scheduled two days from now that you’re welcome to attend. Respectfully, of course.”

How could I say no?

 

I drove out there on the day of the ceremony. I was told it would be held later in the evening, so I had plenty of time to make myself reacquainted with the town. I took a detour off the highway and noticed my internet connection going spotty, so I knew it wasn’t far. There was something familiar about the smell. It’s strange how well something that small sticks with us. Just from taking a deep breath, I could tell I’d been there before. Springtime never really changes.

It was just that time of year when it’s still uncomfortably cold, but the sun shines so brightly it stings your eyes. Where a warm jacket is too much but leaving it at home is too little. That in-between space where nature stays by the door like a cat, meowing at you to open, but not knowing if it wants to leave.

I found the bus stop, and subsequently, the road leading into town. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beaten-up patch of asphalt; there had to be some other way for trucks to get up there that I didn’t know about. I could hear my insurance premiums cry as the shock absorbers struggled to keep pace.

 

The town church was a classic white with a small turn-of-the century midwestern bell tower. I couldn’t see the bell though. There were a couple of cars parked outside, but no one seemed to be around. I knocked a couple of times on the big double doors, but no one answered. I figured I’d give pastor Oswald a call, but I couldn’t get a signal through.

It was the middle of the day, but there were a couple of people milling about. Mostly older folks walking their dogs or buying groceries. Out of all the people that passed by, three of them were under the age of 60; and they might just have appeared younger than they really were.

The grocery store had a bit of a café corner where you could sit down to have a sandwich. It wasn’t so much a coffee place as it was a collection of chairs scattered around a handful of wobbly tables, with a couple of hand-written signs showing the price of drinks. It looked way too cheap, but that’s probably because they hadn’t adjusted for the past 6 years of inflation.

I grabbed a seat by the window, looking out over an abandoned street. A couple of crows had made their way into a trash can and threw garbage out like there was no tomorrow. They looked like they knew what they were doing. More young birds than there were young people.

 

As I sat down for lunch, a peculiar man walked in. He was in his early 50’s, with a shaved head and a 5 ‘o clock shade lining his jaw. Bit of a beer belly, but he had these really clear green eyes. He gave me a long look, stopped, and circled back. He pointed a finger at me and cocked his head.

“I know you,” he stated. “How do I know you?”

“I don’t think you know me,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Now hold on.”

He sat down across from me, still thinking out loud. Then, pointing again, he started listing names. My mother, my father, my aunt, a couple of my cousins. Then something clicked. He snapped his fingers.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re Henry’s kid.”

“Got me there,” I admitted. “You see the family resemblance?”

“Don’t you?”

I raised an eyebrow at that. He looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Gerry. Uncle Gerry. Dad’s brother?”

“I never heard of an Uncle Gerry.”

“Figures.”

He reached out a hand. I was hesitant at first, but he had a genuine smile. That, and he had managed to list a whole bunch of names from my family; some of which I barely remembered myself. He was the real deal, in one way or another. I shook his hand as he started firing off a bunch of questions. We had a lot of catching up to do.

 

We spoke for hours. He was pleasant to talk to, and the more I looked, the more of myself I could see in him. We had the same ears, for example, and the same space between our front teeth. I told him about my studies and the peculiar memory of the shrink-wrapping. He perked up at that.

“They still do that,” he said. “It’s the strangest thing.”

“You know what it’s about?”

“Yeah, I’m surprised you don’t. Given the circumstance, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

I sipped my coffee as he gave me a curious look. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.

“They call it Good Friday Lung. You had it as a kid. Don’t you remember?”

 

Good Friday Lung was a condition brought on by something in the soil. They didn’t have an explanation for it, but it was something that occurred at about 3-5 days of decomposition. A person who died would exude this black smoke that made people sick. Apparently, that’s something I got when I was younger. That would explain my memory.

“Burying them just makes it spread through the soil. Gets sucked up into the ground water and the crops. Dangerous stuff.”

“What about cremation?”

“Burning them spreads it faster. It gets in the air, like a cloud. A whole bunch of people died from that at the turn of the century, according to the church records.”

“What about acid? Liquidation?”

“Might work, but that’d be expensive as hell.  You can’t just get industrial-grade body-burning acids at a moment’s notice. So yeah, we shrink-wrap. Simple.”

“I got to see it for myself.”

“Well, you’ll get to. Old Harland passed a couple days ago. Sad to see the stuttering old fool go, but…”

Gerry shrugged.

“That’s life.”

 

I’d never heard of Good Friday Lung. It sounded ridiculous. Apparently, it was some kind of aerial infection that affected people who’d lived in that town too long. They’d tried several techniques over the years, but shrink-wrapping was the simplest and most cost-effective way to prevent any harm from spreading.

It didn’t quite explain everything. For example, why did they gather all the children at the ceremony? It seemed ill-advised to bring all the young to witness something so macabre. What Gerry had shared was a start, but it didn’t quite paint the full picture. I’d never heard of anything like this, and yet, they all accepted it like it was part of everyday life.

My estranged uncle was supportive of my research into the subject, albeit a bit less helpful than he might’ve wanted to be. For example, he had no idea where the condition originated. Apparently, it was just “part of living by the river”.

 

Later that evening, people gathered at the church. Gerry was supposed to meet up with me a little later, so this was my chance to talk to pastor Oswald and get a bit of history. The double doors were wide open, and a group of two dozen people had already gathered. And there on a stone altar at the very front was an old, dead, man. As naked as the day he was born.

Pastor Oswald spotted me across the room. Compared to most people living there, he was relatively young; only 40 or so years old. He had these big glasses and an “aw shucks” kinda demeanor to him. I could easily see him as someone willing to geek out at some kind of convention. He shook my hand and invited me in.

“Glad to see a new face,” he said. “These are trying times, but it’s important to… challenge perspectives.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Just don’t touch anything, and you’ll be fine.”

He showed me around the room and introduced me. There were two men by the back that were supposed to transport the body after the ceremony, locking it in a crypt. There were a couple of volunteers helping with the plastic wrapping and turning the body. Then there were the children.

 

As part of the ceremony, about a dozen children were there to help out. Most of them were given blow dryers to help the plastic shrink into this vacuum-tight seal. I had a couple of questions about that.

“Is there a particular reason why you’re involving the children?” I asked.

“They’re most susceptible to the condition,” he explained. “If someone gets sick, we need to know right away. That’s why it’s best to keep everyone around until we know the seal will hold. Involving them in the ceremony keeps them close and occupied.”

“Then why not keep them in the back, or the other room?”

“Then we can’t immediately see if they get affected. They also get impatient from the waiting.”

“Then why are there no paramedics around, or doctors? Maybe gas masks, or…”

“It’s not that kind of condition.”

While pastor Oswald still smiled, I could tell there was something in my line of questioning that poked a nerve. I slowed down, brought out my notebook, and took it one question at a time.

“Then what kind of condition is it?”

 

Pastor Oswald mulled the question over as he double-checked his equipment. There was a veil that was supposed to go over the body once the ceremony was complete. There was a wheeled gurney to roll the body out, to be sealed in a communal crypt. Those things I expected; what bothered me was the table with instruments and songs. Flutes and tambourines. Child sized.

“We’ve had a lot of people trying to fix it over the years,” he explained. “They can’t find a source. They can’t even tell if you have it or not. It’s not until the moment you lay dead, and the decay sets in, that the condition reveals itself.”

“And by then you want them contained.”

“Exactly,” he nodded. “But as far as prevention goes, or the source of the contamination… your guess is as good as mine. I just know that it’s been here a long time, and it will probably be here long after you and I are gone.”

“Then why not just move?”

“Well, if you have it, you’ll just be bringing it somewhere else. A lot of folks don’t want to take that chance, so they’ve decided to stick around. But as you might have noticed, there’s a lot less people living here than there used to be. So, in a generation or two… who knows?”

He handed me a small bowl full of wrapped chocolate mints. I took one and smiled as he hurried off to help an older man with a walker.

 

The ceremony started at about 9pm. Most people sat down in the pews, but the children were sat up front by the altar. Pastor Oswald spoke in a very calm and reassuring tone. He explained it as a blessing; a challenge of faith, to be overcome.

“In these trying modern times, we often forget about the imperceptible things that shape our lives. Things like the way the wind carries our breath. How the moon shines through our window when the power goes out. How faith lifts us out of bed, to carry our burdens. But men like Harland know of these things. They know them well.”

It was a beautiful speech. I remembered to take notes, but I was a bit distracted. I didn’t even notice Uncle Gerry sneaking in to sit at my side. I was about to say something to him when he raised a finger to his lips, showing me I ought to stay quiet.

Pastor Oswald painted this ceremony as a reassurance of faith. That we are willing to do what we must in order to retain the natural order of things. That we must not let Harland be remembered as something harmful to the community. The ceremony was explained as tying a final ribbon on a life well-lived.

 

There were a lot of songs and hymns. Some which I’d heard before, some not. Gerry seemed to know all of them by heart. Some kids helped out by playing simple instruments or tapping their feet. There was an older woman playing the church organ. Pastor Oswald had a surprisingly strong voice.

Harland’s widow described her husband’s love for the outdoors, and how he loved to take moonlight walks by the wheat fields. She urged everyone to take the scenic route home that night, as it was a full moon, to maybe get a sense of what he appreciated so much about the open sky. It was a nice thought, and I could see more than a few tears among the audience. Her jab about his chain-smoking got a couple laughs, too.

As the ceremony neared midnight, the children were asked to come up to the plastic-wrapped body with their blow dryers. As the machines began to whirr, I could hear the plastic creak as the wrap tightened. It didn’t take long. All of a sudden, the man on the altar had gone from a person to a package; anonymous and generic.

 

As the songs continued, I noticed a shift in the room. The plastic was slowly turning gray, and the two men who were charged with moving the body was on high alert. But not towards the body. They were looking at the congregation. The children, in particular. The parents were too. It’s like no one was really watching the dead body in the room. Something was changing.

As the plastic turned completely black, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. The plastic seal seemed to hold. Pastor Oswald cheered, and the congregation cheered with him, as they celebrated and gave thanks. The body was carefully moved to the wheeled gurney and covered in a thin veil. The two men wheeled the body out, and I got up to follow them. Pastor Oswald stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t come with them. It’s a safety measure.”

“Not even from a distance?”

He rolled his eyes a little and looked around the room. One of the kids was pulling on his sleeve, demanding his attention.

“Alright, from a distance,” he agreed. “Just don’t touch anything, you understand?”

“I’ll keep my distance.”

He mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ as he diverted his attention to a young boy wanting to show off his tambourine skills. Most of the children were being taken home. The ritual was over.

 

I followed the two men outside. There were no graves, only mausoleums. The men stopped as they realized I was following, but I assured them I’d keep my distance. They nodded at that and continued rolling the body down a path. The wheels on the gurney struggled against the gravel.

They were in the middle of a casual conversation, not really related to anything. Perhaps this was a bit of a routine for them. Given the average age of those who lived there, that wouldn’t surprise me. They were discussing one of them buying a new car from a less than reputable dealer, and the pros and cons of such an investment.

Halfway down the line of mausoleums, they stopped. Turns out they’d messed up the number and taken a wrong turn. They had to backtrack and go around. It was a bit of a hassle, so before they did, they decided to go on a smoke break. As promised, I kept my distance, as they left the body on the table. There was no wind, and the gurney was steady, so there was no harm in it.

 

I joined them in their discussion, trying not to impose. I asked a couple of practical questions about the ceremony and the history of their role. I made a couple of notes about how they were called ‘ferrymen’, before they returned to their topic of second-hand cars. As they did, my ears perked up. I was hearing something, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

I looked around for Gerry, but he was still inside with the others. It was something else. Not a breeze rustling the leaves. Not a single drop of rain. No smell coming from the dry old blue sunflowers resting by the mausoleum door. No, it was something much more mundane.

A crow.

The ‘ferrymen’ hadn’t noticed it. It had landed on the edge of the gurney, thinking the plastic wrap held some kind of trash-like delicacy. These birds were hard coded to tear through wrapping to find the goodies inside, and it didn’t take long to act on those impulses.

By the time the ferrymen noticed, it was too late. The crow poked its beak straight through the plastic as a black gas seeped out.

 

It’s hard to explain exactly what it looked like. It was a gas, but it moved like a liquid. But that’s just the thing; it moved. Not just poured out, it moved with purpose. It swayed from side to side before dissolving into the ground. The ferrymen freaked out as a confused crow took flight.

“God damnit! God fucking damnit, he got out!”

One of them sprinted for the church. The other hurried up to the gurney and brought out three sets of straps from underneath. He positioned them over the legs, chest, and head of the body in a trained routine. Seconds later, the body moved.

It wasn’t a conscious movement as much as a spasm. Some dying mechanism triggering at full power, causing the whole body to flex. If he hadn’t tightened the straps, more of the plastic would’ve ripped. There was still some black inside. Using duct tape, he secured the hole the crow had poked.

“Get inside!” he screamed. “Get inside, now!”

 

It was full panic inside the church. The children who hadn’t left yet were being held to the floor by their parents. The other ferryman was sprinting to his car to get the others. Pastor Oswald held a walkie-talkie in his left hand, and a bone saw in his right. I walked up to him, watching his demeanor change from calm and collected to borderline frantic.

“What is the bone saw for?” I asked.

He looked up at me, but didn’t answer. He kept his eyes trained on the children.

“What is the bone saw for?” I repeated.

He swallowed hard, regaining his composure.

“Safety measures.”

 

Pastor Oswald got regular updates through his walkie-talkie. They were going house by house, checking all the children in town. What exactly they were checking for wasn’t apparent. They were doing a sort of headcount, listing off the family names of those cleared. The kids who were held down were being let up as suspicions faded. Things seemed to be okay for now.

“Check the wheat fields,” pastor Oswald demanded. “Harland liked the wheat fields.”

I noted it in my book and looked for Uncle Gerry. He was off in the corner, staying well out of everyone’s way. I hurried up to him. I barely got the question out of my mouth before he answered it.

“It’s not just a lung disease,” he whispered. “It’s… unnatural. Defiant.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some things don’t work as they’re supposed to,” he explained. “When explanation fails to account for impossible things, sometimes, we just have to make do with what works.”

“Then explain it. Explain what you think happens.”

He looked at me, then back at the congregation. The tension was starting to subside.

“Old Harland didn’t want to go yet,” he said. “So he clawed his way back for one more go. He just needs to find someone willing to carry on for him.”

“Like a possession?”

Gerry looked around the room, and gave me the tiniest nod.

 

As the congregation’s tolerance to outsiders waned, pastor Oswald hurriedly asked me to leave. He wasn’t harsh about it, but rather matter-of-factly. This was a time of crisis in his community, and he couldn’t take the time to be a good host. He insisted I come back in a couple of days when things calmed down, and he’d be happy to explain exactly what happened. But for now, I had to leave. I got in my car, waved goodbye to Uncle Gerry, and slowly made my way out of town. Not exactly the way I’d expected the day to go, but I wasn’t about to intrude. Not on a night like this.

I carefully bumped my way down the shitty road leading out of town and took a left. My car kept complaining about the wi-fi connection. I followed the road curling back and forth. There were no streetlights, but the moon was as large as ever. That, and I wasn’t really expecting to see a lot of people on these roads.

That is, until I noticed something up ahead. There was a car in the middle of the road. The motor was still running; I could see the exhaust. The driver’s side door was wide open and covered in blood.

 

I stayed in my car, trying to get a signal on my phone. It didn’t work. I shuffled my way out the door. I had to check if someone was injured. I mean, it sure looked like someone was injured, but there was no damage to the car. They hadn’t hit anything. There was just a lot of open doors and blood. Especially in the driver’s seat.

I called out to see if there was anyone there, but no one responded. The keys were still in the ignition. There was a comic book in the back seat. It was torn in half.

I turned back towards my car and stopped. There was someone standing next to it, looking in through the window. The silhouette was barely covered by the moonlight, showing a figure with one arm much bigger than the other. A tilted torso shaped like a lowercase ‘b’. I could see the gleam of white in their eyes, but there was too much of it. Too many.

It turned to me, still holding something in its left hand. It left a bloody handprint on my car.

It tried to speak, but all that came out was a painful, drawn-out, wailing.

 

It was fast. Much faster than me, for sure. The moment it started running, I was only about six steps ahead. I threw myself into the parked car and slammed the driver’s side door shut. I crawled over to the passenger side as the door was torn straight off and thrown down the road. I crawled out the other side and shut the passenger door behind me, trapping whatever was coming for me in the car. At least for a couple of seconds. It didn’t take long for it to break through.

I couldn’t just run down the road in a straight line, it would catch me. I had to try and lose it. There was a wheat field on the left side of the road, and I figured I could lose it in there. I ran straight into it, keeping my head down and slowing only to hide my sound. I could hear something following me. Something frustrated, with a deep, wheezing breath. Like a man slowly choking to death.

I managed to find a spot in the middle of the field where I could duck down. It was right by the edge, in the shade of a tree. There was no way that thing would accidentally find me there.

I listened to it shuffling about. It was nowhere near me, but I could tell there was something wrong with it. The proportions were wrong. The sounds were wrong. It tried to speak, but it turned into either screams or a strangely coherent stutter. It sounded like words, but I couldn’t make them out.

 

Then, I looked up. A family of crows tilted their heads down at me. One of them hopped along a branch, inspected me, and cawed. The others followed suit. I don’t think they meant anything bad, but they drew attention to me. Soon, that thing was coming my way.

I tried to get away, but even at a sprint, I was nowhere near as fast. I remember something knocking me to the ground, and putting a foot on my back. At least I think it was a foot. It was big enough to be a car tire. Something wrapped around my ankle and twisted. Twisted, pulled, and twisted again.

I’m not going to try and explain the pain of several compound fractures to someone who has never broken a bone, but it’s a terrifying violation. Your body is being willfully and forcefully disfigured in a way it never has. That thing was tearing off my leg at the knee.

And it did.

 

I’ve experienced pain and fear before, but the mortality of imminent death is something that’s hard to explain. It’s a category of its own. There’s a searing pain in your nerves. An intense, scalding heat. And as that heat grows ever worse, the rest of your body grows cold. You start to focus on such pinprick, minute, details. The exact shape of a leaf on the ground. The texture of a grain of sand. Your mouth turns dry as you realize you can’t force your eyes into focus.

I was lying there on my stomach, my head to the side, bleeding out. The big thing lumbered away, as someone joined me at my side. A man sat down in the grass, leaning against a tree. The crows didn’t seem to react to him like they did with me.

It was Uncle Gerry.

 

“They don’t mean to do it,” he said. “They’re not even scared, it’s just like clawing your way to the surface for air. It’s what comes naturally.”

I couldn’t answer. I was trying to conserve my breath.

“This happened to you too,” he continued. “Back when I went.”

My eyes rolled, looking for him. I saw his shape, but it was diffuse. Transparent.

“They got most of me out before I caught hold. Cut the extra arms off and all. But… part of me is still in there. Just a bit distant.”

I could hear something shuffling around in the field. Whatever did this to me was still out there.

“I’m not here to gloat,” Gerry explained. “I’ve had time to calm down. To come to terms with things. Your life is yours, I accept that. Honestly? I’m just glad we had a chance to talk.”

He leaned in close, stroking my hair. I remember back when I was small, crying in my mother’s arms. He was the man on the table, all those years ago.

“If you let me in, I’ll make this work. Just this once. What do you say?”

I couldn’t say anything, but I didn’t have to. He knew my answer. I would do anything for a couple more breaths.

I felt my pulse slow. I could focus. Not just on a single straw of grass, but the whole field. I could wet my tongue and wipe the sweat from my brow. I scooched a little, expecting a fountain of pain from my missing leg.

But nothing came of it.

Looking down, I was fine. I had a new leg. The skin and hair of it looked a little darker, but it was a leg. It just wasn’t mine.

 

It took some time to get used to. By the time I got up off the ground, the thing was still running through the fields, tearing up swathes of wheat and wailing at the top of its lungs. It would stop at times to cough and wheeze, looking up at the moon. It seemed fascinated by it. Like it really enjoyed the outdoors, while simultaneously letting out a terrified scream. Two wills, one body.

I made my way back to the main road. There were more cars there. The ferrymen, along with a couple of volunteers. They were armed. The headlights from their cars cast these long shadows, stretching down the road, highlighting the blood. Some of which was mine, dripping from the torn edge of my pant legs.

“It’s in the fields,” I said, pointing. “It’s big.”

“Just the one?”

“Just one.”

They fanned out and readied their weapons. The last thing I heard before they entered the wheat field was a silent ‘sorry, Harland’. Seconds later, they were shooting.

I sat down in my car, adjusting the seat to the new length of my leg. I heard the shooting; then the shooting stopped. They burned something in the field and dragged the abandoned car off the road.

 

A couple of days later, I talked to my aunt. She confirmed that I’d had an Uncle Gerry, and that I went to his funeral as a kid. That was the time I caught Good Friday Lung. Apparently, I was one of the first kids to survive it. She didn’t want to get into specifics, but it’d been violent. You have to do something terrible to stop it from expanding in a host.

Researching it further, the best explanation of the condition is that a newly dead body sort of finds its way into a younger one. Like a person desperate for air. Except two people can’t inhabit the same space. It collides, creating something twisted and in-between. It can be stopped if noticed immediately, but even then, chances are slim.

I wrote a paper about it, but it was rejected. I had to go to one of my backup subjects.

 

This was a couple of years ago, and I’ve tried to gain some legitimacy. I’ve had my leg tested, but they haven’t found a reason why it looks so different, or is of a different length. Yes, at a glance, it looks like something just slap-grafted onto my knee, but that explanation has been denied several times. There’s no scar tissue, no mending marks on the bone. Nothing. It’s like it was supposed to be there.

And of course, I wonder if this is going to happen to me someday. I was born there, but I haven’t lived there. How can you know whether you’re part of this chain or not? You won’t know for sure until you’re gone, and by then, you’re not experiencing anything. Or maybe, in the case of Harland, you are. Do I want to? What’s the alternative?

I have plenty of years left to consider this, and I don’t think I’ll ever have a clear answer. Just to be sure, I think I’ll have a final request upon my passing.

Make sure my body is properly shrink-wrapped.