Northern lights anchorage tonight

Here's the situation:
A few months ago our 3 year old starting calling for us after we left her room (more of a groan really). We'd come back in and she'd want one more hug and kiss, or a back rub. We'd oblige. She's do this 3-4 times then finally go to sleep on her own.
Recently we switched from a crib to a bed. She was totally fine with it for 3 days. Doing the same groaning thing then would go to sleep after 3-4 visits in.
Then all of a sudden 3 nights into the new bed, she wouldn't go to sleep on her own. She'd call for us immediately when the door shut. Kept asking for more back rubs and hugs and kisses. This also happened when she woke up 1-2 times at night.
Here's what we tried:
- We have a usual bedtime routine that's been consistent forever. It's always worked in the past.
- Talked about ways to make her room her own. She added stickers to the bed post, etc.
- Added a night light she was interested in.
- Talked to her a lot about going to sleep. Why it's important, what we'll do in the morning, being very upbeat and excited. (We've been doing this for months).
- Tried to tell her we'd come check on her in 3 minutes if she rested quietly. She called for us immediately after we left, so there was no resting quietly.
Basically we've tried to follow the advice of 1) keeping our promises (we won't come in until morning), 2) being upbeat, 3) checking in about her feelings and concerns, 4) trying to keep the parting ceremonies to a minimum.
It didn't work. So we decided to let her call for us until she went to sleep on her own. She called for us and cried 75 minutes the first night. Then wouldn't nap the next day - just cried for 30 minutes before we called it quits and said naptime was over. Second night she was exhausted and cried 15 minutes then fell asleep. Tonight she was less tired and has been crying and calling for us 30 minutes.
What are our options here? We want her to feel safe by herself in her room. Being there the entire time she goes to sleep wasn't working - she was needing us to feel safe.
My wife and I are miserable and stressed and feel guilty. We also know friends who have stayed in the room til their kids fall asleep and are still doing it years later. We are not game for that.
Help.

As the title says: [H] Gamelist [W] Yakuza Like A Dragon, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Path of The Midnight Sun, Octopath Traveler II, Project Zomboid, It Takes Two, The Forgotten City, Edge of Eternity, The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki
Contact for trades.
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Your Mama Took You Away
I don't know how I could pretend To be someone else, a different friend I don't know how I could ask For just a little love, so sad I'm gonna start to let you go I'm gonna dance, find my flow I'm gonna stop searching for you I'm gonna dance, start anew
Your Mama took you away And I cried, I had to say She burned you with her skin Now you're gone, it's such a sin This is not the dream of God She said, trembling, it's so odd Turn on all the lights for me The sun is going down, you see
In love and in crime, it's the same things move, and it's not a game You always said this can't end But now you're gone, it's hard to comprehend Me, with a knife, ready to fight I'm gonna take you dancing tonight
Your Mama took you away And I cried, I had to say She burned you with her skin Now you're gone, it's such a sin This is not the dream of God She said, trembling, it's so odd Turn on all the lights for me The sun is going down, you see
Your Mama took you away And I cried, I had to say She burned you with her skin Now you're gone, it's such a sin This is not the dream of God She said, trembling, it's so odd Turn on all the lights for me The sun is going down, you see.

My son died shortly after we moved into our dream house. It shattered us, and we will never be the same.
Losing a child is like losing a limb, and being haunted by your dead child is a living hell.
I think he enjoys being dead. It gives him the freedom to do everything he’s ever wanted. He’s always loved to play tricks, and in death, he is a magician.
It started pretty innocuously at first. He moved objects and hid our belongings. He turned the lights on before his mother walked into a room. He made shadow puppets on the walls for his baby sister.
In our grief, her giggles coming from her bedroom brought us comfort.
We wanted him to move on and find peace, but I would be lying if I said we didn’t want him to stay.
I feel we cursed ourselves because now I wish my son had left us and gone to hell, where he belongs.
I’ve learned since his death that change is not gradual. It’s sudden and often devastating.
Everything happened so quickly.
His pranks weren’t harmless anymore. He hid my medication until I would cry and beg in desperation.
He terrorized his mom.
He didn’t turn the lights on for her anymore; instead, he extinguished them, plunging her into darkness. More than once, she fell down the stairs, and she swore that he had pushed her.
The worst, though, were the shadow puppets. He didn’t delight his sister; instead, he punished her.
He crept into her mind and stole her nightmares. He recreated them to envelop her in shadow and fear.
My daughter grew terrified of day and night. She hated being alone and glued herself to her mother and me.
Tonight was the catalyst.
Yesterday, my wife told me she had seen him. He frequently visited her, she admitted. He loved to tear at her skin and scar her. He loved to hurt her.
When I came home from work, I found her at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes were filmed over with blood, and her neck was broken.
My daughter stood at the top of the stairs, and next to her was my son. He looked just as he had in life. His expression didn’t change as he threw his sister down the stairs. He laughed.
I have never been more afraid in my life. I forgot to breathe. She fell in a heap beside her mother, and when she screamed, I screamed too.
Instead, I grabbed her and raced to the car. As I pulled away, my son stood in the doorway. He smiled at us and waved.
We’re at the hospital now. My daughter has a concussion, and her leg is broken.
The cops are also here. I told them everything that had happened. Of course, they don’t believe me.
They think I hurt my daughter and accuse me of killing my wife.
“It’s my son,” I told them. “It was our son. I would never hurt them.”
My son’s death didn’t just break us. It destroyed everything.
They took my daughter away, and they will bury my wife without me.
I’m still at the hospital but I know that soon, the cops are going to take me in for questioning.
I am not alone though.
My son is here, and he’s smiling at me. He says he loves me, and he tells me he has a plan.
He tells me about the shadows, the sounds, and the endless night. He shows me the most beautiful colors, some I have never seen before.
He conjures his mother, and she is beautifully broken. She stiffly smiles at me.
And he promises me we will find Dena, my daughter, the baby of the family. She will join us.
I cannot lie; I am terrified, but I am also relieved.
I want to see my family again, and I want us to be together.
If that means we will live as ghosts in a world far from heaven and too close to hell, then fine.
At least I know it is for eternity, and forever is all I have ever wanted.

My son died shortly after we moved into our dream house. It shattered us, and we will never be the same.
Losing a child is like losing a limb, and being haunted by your dead child is a living hell.
I think he enjoys being dead. It gives him the freedom to do everything he’s ever wanted. He’s always loved to play tricks, and in death, he is a magician.
It started pretty innocuously at first. He moved objects and hid our belongings. He turned the lights on before his mother walked into a room. He made shadow puppets on the walls for his baby sister.
In our grief, her giggles coming from her bedroom brought us comfort.
We wanted him to move on and find peace, but I would be lying if I said we didn’t want him to stay.
I feel we cursed ourselves because now I wish my son had left us and gone to hell, where he belongs.
I’ve learned since his death that change is not gradual. It’s sudden and often devastating.
Everything happened so quickly.
His pranks weren’t harmless anymore. He hid my medication until I would cry and beg in desperation.
He terrorized his mom.
He didn’t turn the lights on for her anymore; instead, he extinguished them, plunging her into darkness. More than once, she fell down the stairs, and she swore that he had pushed her.
The worst, though, were the shadow puppets. He didn’t delight his sister; instead, he punished her.
He crept into her mind and stole her nightmares. He recreated them to envelop her in shadow and fear.
My daughter grew terrified of day and night. She hated being alone and glued herself to her mother and me.
Tonight was the catalyst.
Yesterday, my wife told me she had seen him. He frequently visited her, she admitted. He loved to tear at her skin and scar her. He loved to hurt her.
When I came home from work, I found her at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes were filmed over with blood, and her neck was broken.
My daughter stood at the top of the stairs, and next to her was my son. He looked just as he had in life. His expression didn’t change as he threw his sister down the stairs. He laughed.
I have never been more afraid in my life. I forgot to breathe. She fell in a heap beside her mother, and when she screamed, I screamed too.
Instead, I grabbed her and raced to the car. As I pulled away, my son stood in the doorway. He smiled at us and waved.
We’re at the hospital now. My daughter has a concussion, and her leg is broken.
The cops are also here. I told them everything that had happened. Of course, they don’t believe me.
They think I hurt my daughter and accuse me of killing my wife.
“It’s my son,” I told them. “It was our son. I would never hurt them.”
My son’s death didn’t just break us. It destroyed everything.
They took my daughter away, and they will bury my wife without me.
I’m still at the hospital but I know that soon, the cops are going to take me in for questioning.
I am not alone though.
My son is here, and he’s smiling at me. He says he loves me, and he tells me he has a plan.
He tells me about the shadows, the sounds, and the endless night. He shows me the most beautiful colors, some I have never seen before.
He conjures his mother, and she is beautifully broken. She stiffly smiles at me.
And he promises me we will find Dena, my daughter, the baby of the family. She will join us.
I cannot lie; I am terrified, but I am also relieved.
I want to see my family again, and I want us to be together.
If that means we will live as ghosts in a world far from heaven and too close to hell, then fine.
At least I know it is for eternity, and forever is all I have ever wanted.

I wrote the letter yesterday. Poured out all my feelings. Maybe that’s why I feel so empty tonight. Like there’s not even a fragment of my heart left. I gave it all to you. I was freaking out this afternoon, but I took medicine. Now here I am, laying here, staring at the bottle it came in. I googled overdose measurements for the first time in longer than I can remember. Turns out it won’t kill me, no matter how much I take. That’s good. If it would’ve I might’ve downed the rest of it. But a light coma doesn’t sound too bad. It’s a shame I have work tomorrow. So I guess I’ll just lie here. Empty

A cool summer breeze blows around you and your friends gathered around the campfire in the dead of night, forest all around the clearing you’ve set up camp in, and you can hear coyotes yapping in the distance
The perfect night for ghost stories…
”It was a full moon on a night like tonight” the buddy to your left starts to tell his tale “the cool breeze whispered its summer tune as I walked the forests edge, when out of nowhere, I started to feel the ground rumble. Now I thought this was only a minor quake, and in hindsight I wish it was, because what happened next gives me nightmares to this day…”
a strong gust of wind throws embers into the sky as they get further into their story
”now, as you would assume, I was nowhere’s close to a train yard or even train tracks, but I could’ve sworn that I heard the whistle of a train, but not an ordinary one, this one sounded… different… closer to screaming than a whistle has any right to be, and as I looked to where the sound came from, I beheld a dense fog with a single, bright white light coming from inside of it”
a couple of the others around the fire start laughing at the story, making sarcastic comments and snide remarks about how impossible the story sounds, however, you feel like there’s more truth to the tale than the others believe
”laugh all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that it happened, anyways, as I was saying, the combined sight and noise was enough to make me turn around and start running, I had gotten about twenty strides in when the ground started rumbling more fiercely than before, and I decided to spare a glance over my shoulder, and before my eyes was a locomotive the likes of which you’d only ever see in nightmares, the train itself painted black with spikes going around the lowest points on every car, a thick cloud of black smoke and fire billowing out of the smokestack, and a blood spattered cow catcher, and the worst part of it all, was that it wasn’t running on tracks!”
a ghostly howl echos through the midnight sky
”with only about twelve feet between me and the nightmare on wheels, I dove behind the nearest tree, praying that it wouldn’t run through the tree and over me, thankfully, it kept going and left me alone, exhausted, I ended up falling asleep in my hiding place and woke up to a cloudless morning sky and birds chirping in the trees”
almost everyone was laughing at the tall tale until a long, loud, and low, train whistle-like scream silenced any previous noises, and laughter changed to fear almost instantly
How do you proceed?

I want to just write and write about my life. I just need to write out my reason for staying away from the green doldrums.
This semester I had been smoking heavily. This was the normal day in my life before the mysterious forces of sobriety offered me a rope to guide myself out of this blizzard of confusion:
I wake up in the mornings in a cold bed, in an oppressively dark room, usually to my roommates alarm which he rudely takes several minutes to shut off. My head felt thick. The skin around my eyes squishy and sore. My face bloated from the salty foods and my stomach turning from the sugary candy I gorged on from the munchies. My lower back feels tight from the awkward position I was sitting in watching movies the night before. My mouth is dry as cotton from sleeping with it open. I can smell the disgusting semen odor wafting from the rag on the floor, and suddenly I remember the dehumanizing porn I was watching last night.
The alarm stopped bleating but now my obnoxious roommate takes up that role, starting a loud voice call with his friends at 9:30am. I just needed one more hour.
I am suffering. I tell myself this is the day I'm going to end it. This is the day I cut this cruel joke of a life short. I cant keep falling into this cycle.
Eventually my mind regains a fraction of its lucidity and I crawl to my desk to pour up an unhealthy amount of caffeine. Usually 320-480mg in one cup. I turn on my headphones to almost the max just to drown out the incessant laughter and screaming of my discord bound roommate.
I sit hunched over at my desk lazily scrolling through Instagram, taking a sip of the earthy brown brew every now and again. I hate these people. The brightly colored out of touch ads. The plastic fakeness of media influencers shamelessly clawing to the top. I hate the violence being glorified and the weak and stupid being worshipped. But I cant stop the endless swipe of my thumb.
After about 30 minutes, the music starts sounding better and its as if a mop scrubs my brain clean of the filth of last night. But this isn't real either. Its an artificial mania to numb the reality of my life. It gives me the motivation where nihilism would sit atop the perch of my brain. Its just another drug to cut the withdrawals of the last. I beg my body to stop this cruel joke.
Usually at this point I will either go to the gym in an anxious rage or wait around a bit before my classes start.
After the gym I feel drained and somewhat guilty of having to get so hyped up just to move iron around.
After my classes I feel stupid, unworthy even, compared to the smart bright lights around me in my engineering courses. I feel like a reject, slower than the others, less ready to talk. I hate them because they are what I should be. I love them because they remind me of who I should be.
Drained, exhausted, and even more depressed by the day I trudged through, I rush home. My roommate has burned his dinner again, filling the dingy apartment with a sickening charred chess odor. I. Hate. Him.
I make a sad attempt at homework and studying. I give up about halfway through and chegg my way to an early end of my assignments. Once again I must turn up my headset to an uncomfortably loud level to drown out his laughter, screaming, and the mind numbing
BUM BUM...BUM BUM BUM....BUMMMMMM
Of his new speaker's bass. I feel a cold sweat run down my back as I take out the little glass container of THC oil. This cart is probably fake. No it's definitely fake. I should maybe just toss it aside tonight, I can do this.
I take off my headset and hear another roar of laughter rip through the apartment. I crank the music in my headset up again, put the cart's mouthpiece to my lips and take a deep drag.
I exhale and its instant. Suddenly the constant talking and laughter is just a part of life, man. My life's not that bad. (is it weird that now that I write this out my palms are starting to sweat and I want to go buy another cart?).
I'll then spend the rest of the night eating an exorbitant amount of food delivery and playing mindless video games. Before I know it, its 1am and the apartment is quiet. I usually stimulate myself to more dehumanizing and frankly disgusting pornography while in a haze of green apathy.
This is sometimes the worst part. After the deed is done the high comes down some. The crushing, stifling, nauseating, maddening, cruel loneliness sets its claws to my stomach again. I wish I could just have a woman to see the world with. I want to leave all this behind. I just want to feel love, not frantic pleasure, for once.
I then lay on my bed as a flurry of dark thoughts fly by. Ill smoke some more, and then drift off into a dreamless, but not deep, sleep.
I wake up and the joke is played on me again.
​
As of today I'm 15 days clean. I just came back from a very emotional yet beautiful spring break in Florida with my family where I made an effort to reconnect with my parents. It was quite possibly the best time in my life of the past 3 years. I had no desire to get high at all. The sun works magic on the ailments of the mind.
I broke down crying often while in withdrawal. It was a surprisingly brutal process. The withdrawals for weed are shrugged off by too many. I felt manic for the first week, some days just going cold turkey on coffee because I was so artificially wired out of my mind that I didn't need it.
I ranted for almost an hour straight sometimes to parents and friends about topics I didn't really even care about.
But with the mania came the anger. I sometimes felt so brutally red hot enraged that it genuinely scared me. I felt out of control, completely out of control to the point where I would have to take a cold shower and meditate just to reduce the mysterious rage. A rapid, almost murderous, fury would set upon me at the slightest remark from a friend or even a harmless glance from a stranger walking toward me on the street. I hated feeling like that. Thank god I managed to ride it out like a sane human being.
​
But here I am. Back in this grey and depressing graveyard of a campus. I can hear the bass of my roommates speakers and his shrill laughter. I'm starting to crave it again. I think I might just live at home for the remaining few weeks of the semester and drive up to this place to show up for in person exams. I can watch lectures and study from my childhood home just fine. I no longer wish to prove myself as some independent loner grinding out his degree. I need family and socialization and that's ok.
Anyways, I think now I realize I'm writing all of this out just to let someone out there in a similar situation know that they are at least not totally alone in these types of problems.
Maybe it would even help to know that at one point I was a popular and happy human being with a tight network of friends and outstanding highschool grades. Its not just the "losers" of society who fall into the trap of isolation and drugs.
I'm going to go cook or maybe go shop for food. Then afterwards study a few physics problems and read my favorite book to sleep. That's nice. I like making comfortable schedules.
​
Keep clinging to the rope of sobriety in this madness.

First of you don’t have to belobe anything I say but I think this place is probably the best to go with it?
So I’m like a very spiritual person, I’m a pagan and actively practice the art of witchcraft. I do not see things but I talked many times to so called „ghosts“ (I do find this disrespectful lots of people in the afterlife don’t really want to realise it).
I will now just go on about a couple of experiences and I guess you can judge.
-The first time I remember feeling something was actually on a unclaimed Land full of grass it was just instant sadness I do know now that there were a lot of animals shot because a farmer in my village couldn’t afford it all anymore.
-the second time i was sitting in my room doing my Friday ritual for the goddess I worship. I light a specific candle where no wind was or anything I also was sitting on my bed and was like far away from it. It just slowly turned itself out. multiple times. I just said something like „I’m not doing this right now please stop and mess with someone else“ because I was already stressed that day. The next time I light it it was okay and my evening just continued normal. When I wanted to sleep I felt Someone or idk „something“ sit on my bed. I do have a dog but he was laying in my arm. I just assumed „it“ was trying to calm me down a bit from earlier. It also did not feel bad or anything just nice. I said sorry after and went to sleep.
-Another time my friend told me that she has a „ghost“ in her room and she is freaked out by it. So I offered a seance. I didn’t do anything like that before so it was kinda freaky for me too. We did it the classic way with just one candle. (For those who don’t know you can talk with „spirits“ through flames and this one really wanted to talk to us) We figured out it just was an old man that came to her through the mirror portal she had. He was friendly and sad. We asked him just not to show him to us and then ended it.
-this is the most recent one. The reason why I actually started writing this. I watch a lot of horror videos and with that I watch Sam and colby. Their videos are very entertaining and I only feel bad vibes with a few. But tonight I watched this one video with the real conjuring house. The first one. And in the moment they walked in the basement alone I just felt my heart racing not in a scary way but in a way it would just explode. My whole body stated heating up and my breathing got heavier. I thought I would have a panic attack but these feel different from this. It was really really strong bad energy and I just couldn’t handle that. Don’t know how Amanda (the woman’s in the video that is also spiritual) could stay there so long when I basically collapsed just by watching.
Well that was all. Maybe I will post more if anyone is interested but for now that really was it I mean I have a lot of small other things but these are not worth mentioning. Bless you all. Stay safe . And have the universe on you side<3
(Sorry if anything is miss typed English is not my first language)

For sale, for Steam gift cards (or gifted Steam Wallet balance):
​

• Dark Souls™: Prepare To Die™ Edition (removed from Steam Store; $350 $400 or best offer)
• Fall Guys (removed from Steam Store)
• Fall Guys - Dragon Hugger Pack (removed from Steam Store)
• Fall Guys - Fast Food Costume Pack (removed from Steam Store)
• Fall Guys - Icy Adventure Pack (removed from Steam Store)

​

• Humble Hunie Sakura Bundle (can also trade for a full "charity" bundle (Australia Fire Relief Bundle or similar))
• Humble Sekai Project Bundle (can also trade for a full "charity" bundle (Stand with Ukraine Bundle or similar))

​
For trade:
*tentatively up for trade, assuming I buy the bundle
​

• *BIOMUTANT
• *Edge Of Eternity
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• *Call of the Sea
• *Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

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• 112 Operator
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• Armello
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• Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
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• The Last Campfire

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• The Long Dark: Survival Edition

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• Styx: Shards of Darkness

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• The Reject Demon: Toko Chapter 0 — Prelude

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• Gal*Gun: Double Peace
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• Cook, Serve, Delicious!
• Tower of Time
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• Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition
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• 112 Operator
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• ENDLESS™ Space 2
• Surviving the Aftermath
• The Long Dark

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• Fallout 76
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• ScourgeBringer
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• HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™
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• Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter
• The Mean Greens - Plastic Warfare
• Crusaders of the Lost Idols Legendary Starter Pack
• Project CARS (removed from Steam Store)

​
WANT:
​

• 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel
• A Hat in Time
• Avernum: Escape from the Pit
• CODE VEIN
• CrossCode
• Dead Rising 4
• Dungreed
• Mega Man 11
• Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition
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• NECROPOLIS: BRUTAL EDITION
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• Submerged
• Tower Unite
• Visage
• Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

​
IGS Rep Page: https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ti26nz/mizznos_igs_rep_page/

Chapter 1:
Jerry Brenson was having a hard time not getting pissed off at the way the car kept jerking around, making it damn near impossible to roll his tightly held cigarette. What a piece of shit it was anyways, it looked like the cross between an impregnated white pill and a scarecrow with all its frayed edges of tobacco poking out like straw.
"Would you stop driving like a goddamn animal!" he bellowed at the driver. Then he resumed his work on unraveling the piece of shit and evening everything out. The tip of Brenson's tongue stuck out of his mouth as he worked at it. Within a few seconds the passenger side front tire plunged into a half-foot pothole and Brenson's jaw clenched shut on that tender red meat sticking out of his face. In an instant it resembled a tiny pink balloon swelling up and getting ready to pop.
"FUCK!" Brenson screamed after a long second of seething white pain, which was now commencing to roll like waves through the bottom of his jaw, and somehow up into his fucking forehead! Before he had time to return from the moments that threw his whole being into a chaos of agony, he knew with dreadful certainty that he had bit off a chunk of his tongue. He would see it there if he opened his eyes and looked down. And with that, an image of a huge bulging red thing on the floor that was flopping around like a decapitated fish came to him. With wide eyes that seemed to burst open like fireworks, both hands flew to his mouth so that Brenson suddenly looked like a little girl getting the best birthday present of her life.
And then, hallelujah, he thinks, praise Jesus, God, the Buddha, anyone and anything that saved his precious tongue. It was still there. Hurt like hell but it was still there. He looked around on the floor in a sudden surge of paranoia (maybe a part of it really was down there) and to his blessed relief the only thing he saw were a pair of work boots stuffed onto his oafishly large feet.
All of this occurred in about 3 seconds, after which Brenson's brow contorted into a fierce angle of rage, and a powerful sense of the injustice and incompetence and of all the damned stupid negligent habits of this buffoon of a partner settled on him. He turned to the driver and smacked Dale Enrsten upside the head.
"Ouch!" Dale wailed in his deep Mississippi drawl. The car swerved to the left when Dale's arm instinctively went up to protect his face. "What the hell was that for?" He asked stupidly.
"For nearly getting my tongue bit off asshole. Now drive."
Dale returned a frown towards Brenson, and tried as he may to appear the least bit intimidating, Dale looked more comical than anything. There was something about his fat head and thin brown hair on a receded hairline that gave the air of an overly large boy preparing for boarding school.
Dale turned back to the road and decided that what would cheer him up would be a couple of chili dogs, add the cheese please, with a bud light and a pack of skittles. There ought to be a gas station in the next mile or so, god knows when the last time they saw one passing through this shit hole was. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a smoke, no two smokes, then handed one over to Brenson.
"My apologies captain. This road's covered in more potholes than your mom's vagina."
Dale cackled out a wheezing laugh and then lit up his smoke. He puffed out a large plume of white smoke that was torn away by the passing air out Dale's open window. He looked out that window, and glanced nervously at all the red stone. Their surfaces were inundated with marbled cracks. Every so often he'd see a pale bush growing between a couple of rocks. They looked more like skeletons than plants. Yes it was true, Dale Ernsted hated the desert. He hated all deserts. They made him feel like a clock was always ticking, and when it went to zero baby, oh my oh my, Dale baby if you’re out here, you gonna be fish food. Well not out here I wont, he retorts back to his own morbid fantasy, more liable to be lizard food, or coyote. Yeah, that's right, Dale thinks there probably are coyotes out here, and if the car broke down, well not a lot to eat out here but a couple of dehydrated dying men. What would be a better treat for a pack of hungry canines?
And following this train of thought Dale wonders what it would be like if Brenson and he really were surrounded by a pack of coyotes, how many would it take, maybe five? Six? Would Dale watch Brenson go first, or would it be Dale who Brenson catches a glimpse of getting his arm torn off from the shoulders down when the wolves begin demanding his own full attention. Look at that, now they turned into wolves. He didn’t think there were wolves out here. His expression changes into a frown of contemplation.
"Are you listening to me?" Dale hears Brenson angrily ask. The wolves go away. He realizes Brenson had asked him something.
"What's that?"
"Find a place to pull over I need to take a leak"
Dale's small eyes dart around at the escarpment and mesas and the fine layer of brown dirt swirling over the two-lane highway.
"No, I think there's a gas station up a bit. Not too much farther now."
Dale doesn't say anything else. He turns the knob on the radio until Bon Jovi is playing We’re Not Gonna Take It, and guns the Camry down the long stretch of desolate waste before them.
The desert sun was lowering in the west, making the car’s long shadow race ahead of them. By the time they see the dusty gas station with a white roof and big red letters painted on a discolored sign reading QuikStop, the sun was almost touching the horizon and Brenson had to pee like a mad horse. One or two stars could be seen faintly wavering in the turbulent purple sky fading into black.
Dale pulled up to a gas pump and he and Brenson got out of the car.
“Well” Brenson stretched out the word just as he was stretching out his back, leaning heavily into it with his arms on his hips, “Give me the money and I’ll get some food and beer. You get the gas”.
Dale reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty.
“Two cheese chili dogs and skittles” he said miserably. Brenson did a quick nod and walked off.
Dale found that he wasn’t doing anything but standing there watching Brenson walk closer to the gas station when the thought popped into his head: you know I think might kill that fuck, yeah I might. And then he turned around as if it was just a cloud passing by.
He was listening to the gulping sounds of gasoline filling up his tank when he saw a white toyota pull up and park on the side of the gas station near the ice chest and propane tanks. There were two people in the car. They looked like Mexicans to Dale. A man and woman. They got out of the car, shut the doors, walked around the corner, and entered the gas station. Dale wasn’t particularly interested in them but then something caught his eye. He thought he saw movement in the backseat of the toyota.
There it was again.
He realized it was a child.
It was a girl with long brown hair tied up in a ponytail. A little Mexican girl. Kids shouldn't be left in a hot car all alone he thinks righteously. But what should he expect from these people? Look at that piece of shit rig. He realized again that he was in a trance, staring angrily at the back of the Toyota.
Dale's eyes surveyed from the Toyota to the gas station entrance. The glare of the sun reflected everything outside so it was impossible to see in through the windows. Then something inside him went on autopilot. He had something to do he realized, and he had to do it fast.
He fastened the nozzle back onto the pump and briskly walked over to the white Toyota. His heart began racing. He peered in at the girl in the backseat. No one else was in there. She was wearing a blue tank top and black shorts. There was a doll, something from a disney cartoon in her hands, Dale insanely thinks, but is barely aware of any of these thoughts as the door of the Toyota slowly opens up and the girl turns her head away from her doll, up towards her mama with a smile, and sees Dale’s huge head lurching in like a troll plucking a princess from a tower.
Her face shrivels into a scream but before she can let out the breath, Dale’s meaty hands are over her mouth, and without any effort he pulls her out of the car and clutches her entire body in a bear hug. There's a heart pounding moment when she sounds like a grunting dog struggling in a trap and he knows her scream will escape from his sweaty armpit. Then there's an instant of pure lucid absurdity where he seemed to see himself from the outside. What would the girl's parents do if they walked around the corner right now? He couldn’t just put her back in there and go about pumping gas again could he? Oh I'm just ole friendly Dale giving your girl here a nice good hug cuz I could hear her cryin' for mommy.
Then he kicks the Toyotas door shut for god knows why and scrambles to his car. He hustles to the trunk, realizes the switch is up front, and skids to his knees at the driver's side door. He’s pressing the girl so hard against his chest he can almost feel her head bouncing off his beating heart.
Then he hears the satisfying click of the trunk unlocking, and with surprising speed he places the girl in the bed of the trunk, takes a bandana out from his back pocket and ties it like a rope around her mouth. The girl’s eyes, shaking with terror, watch grimly as the troll closes out the darkening sky with a metallic clink.
Then Dale jumps into the driver's seat, turns on the engine, and cranks up the radio. Another song by dear old Bon Jovi by god! Dale feel’s exhilarated. He doesn't even know it yet. All he knows is this music sounds better than anything he’s ever heard before, and why wouldn’t you look at that, he’s not even sore with Brenson anymore for slapping him in the face earlier. He can’t wait to have a beer! And there's ole Bren heading back towards the Camry now.
But then Dale realizes with a jolt of panic, the parents! The girl’s parents are going to be out any minute! With the mother of all anxiety attacks Dale’s car speeds towards Brenson as he walks out of the gas station at a magnitude that probably made Brenson think oh fuck I’m going to die by the look on his face, but Dale’s car screeched to a halt just a few feet away.
“What the fuck’s that about” Brenson sneered. The sneer was more one of habit than anything else as Brenson was so surprised that there wasn’t really room for anything else. His arms were full of supplies and he almost dropped them all over the ground.
“Get in now!” Dale yelled. He reached his arm over and threw open the passenger door. Brenson sat down and before he could shut the door, Dale shut it himself by accelerating in a curve out the gas station parking lot, and wouldn’t you know it, he didn’t even use his turning signals when he brought the Camry onto the highway and raced into the black eastern sky.
Chapter 2:
“Jesus man, you think I robbed the place?”. Brenson was unsure what had gotten into him. “Shut up for a minute. Give me a beer”.
Brenson had never seen Dale so serious. The man’s face looked like a machine. His thin lips were pressed so tightly you could barely see them. And he was scowling at the road. His eyes kept bouncing to the rearview mirror. Brenson could see beads of sweat rolling over Dale's pockmarked forehead. And the odometer was reading 95 mph. He sure as hell hoped he wouldn’t suddenly get another dose of Dale’s special potholes. He made sure his tongue was planted firmly on the roof of his mouth and his seat was buckled.
“Uh Dale..are you alright there partner?” Brenson asked.
“You seem like somethin just bit you in the ass.”
Dale guzzled down his bud light, burped and wiped his mouth, then reached for another one. After he cracked it open and took a good long gulp, he bellowed “Wooo! Lordy..oh yeah” He was heaving deep breaths between each word. Then his gaze turned away from the road and locked with Brenson's eyes.
“Pal, when you were over in that gas station there..” he paused and glanced towards the backseat of the car as if someone were sitting back there. He couldn’t keep it hidden from Brenson now could he? They had 100 miles left to drive.
Brenson looked back and then over at Dale again.
“ain't quite sure how to say this", the look on Dale's screwed up face as he thought about what to say next made Brenson think of a large boy again, one that was trying to work out a hard math problem like how much his groceries would cost.
"I may have picked up a passenger,” Dale finally said.
“What?” That came out of left field and Brenson didn't know what it meant.
“I just kind of..took her” he said this last as if Dale himself was surprised at what he was saying.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Brenson was getting a sick feeling. What fuckup did Dale just get him into now? He knew Dale liked cats and sometimes he would take them off the streets or out of people's yards if he liked how they looked. And he knew Dale had about 9 cats stuffed away in his trailer, but Brenson wasn't hearing any meows coming out of the back seat now was he? And Dale's eyes were looking at something far away, unfocused on something so far away like Venus.
And then Brenson noticed a muffled sound like there was a load of groceries rolling to the side in the trunk as Dale took them around a tight bend. For just a moment he was worried that maybe he had put the beer back there and it was gonna get all fizzy, but then he remembered the beer in his hand and the rest on the floor by his feet near that imaginary chunk of meat flapping around down there. He felt the tip of his tongue and took a swig.
"What the fuck did you do" Brenson remembered the two Mexicans that walked into that gas station. He had eyes on them the whole time.
“Dale?” Brenson asked with a looming understanding that sped towards him like a Mack truck. Dale had done something magnanimously fucked up.
“What the fuck did you do!”
“She was boiling back there!” Dale pleaded. He was an eight year old child again, explaining to an angry stepmom why she had found a drowned cat in the bathtub. He didn’t have any choice, it had bit him and that was not okay, that was not okay by any standards of civilized man. What else could he do?
“Dale!”
“I saved her Bren!”
They were both yelling now.
“She was gonna be dead back there! You saw those mexis didn’t you?”
“Pull over!” Brenson demanded.
“No.”
“Pull over now!”
Dale kept on speeding. The odometer read 105. To Brenson it felt like the flimsy car could at any moment flip over a hundred times if the slightest gust of wind brushed against them.
“Pull over right fucking now or I’ll beat the shit out you right here!”
Brenson’s fists were clenched into a barb of hairy knuckles. He was really going to do it Dale observed, and then they’d both be piles of scrap strewn all over the road.
Dale gave a defeated sigh and took his foot off the accelerator. He was going to have to show Bren one way or another. They were already miles past that shit hole station anyways. What the hell. The Camry disengaged from warp speed and soon Brenson could hear the crinkle of gravel under the tires as the Camry pulled off onto the shoulder.
Outside the night was as silent as the land was empty. A brilliant splash of stars painted the canopy of the sky in a way that gave Dale a cosmic sense of his own importance. He shuffled over to the back with Bren, a disappointed look of guilt was likewise splashed across his face, why no mah, I’m not the one that drowned Muffin, but ya know, she wouldn’t stop biting. But Dale remembered the feeling of her slick fur bunched up between his fingers and the way her intricately delicate neck felt like so many scrawny bones. A jolt of disgust seemed to roll through him like a shockwave and he tried to shake off the memory of that limp cat as fast as possible.
Then that cave of darkness opened up and it was nighttime outside, and the girl saw with a cold panic that made her cry that there were two trolls looming over her now. They were both huge and disgusting. The one on the left looked like a giant baby with patches of wiry fur in tufts up and down its neck and chin. Its teeth were yellowed and it was smoking a cigarette. She didn't like how it was eyeing her, like she was some kind of precious crystal that it wanted badly.
The other was just as big, not as fat though, more muscular. He had a mop of scraggly black hair and a full beard covering the mouth. He looked like a biker. And he looked like he was really mad at her. She heard herself crying.
"Mamá" She tried squeaking through the rope. "Donde mi mamá"
And then, no, no please, everything was getting dark again. She howled and squirmed but the lid of the trunk did not care.
Brenson was biting his bottom lip. He was supremely pissed off now. What the fuck was this lunatic thinking! He looked at Dale and was about to begin a royal case of pummeling his fat ass into the ground for getting Bren caught up in this bullshit, lord knows he's had a clean record apart from a mild six months in Kentucky State Penitentiary when he was twenty two years old. And this asshole, this stupid fat asshole made him an accomplice to whatever crazy bullshit was flying around in that fat fucking head of his!
But Bren noticed that far away in the direction they had come were a pair of tiny headlights. They were heading this way.
Instead of beating Dale into a mess worthy of the crime of getting Bren caught up in kidnapping charges, he said "Lets get the fuck out of here". And then jumped back into his seat, slamming the door.
"Come on!" He yelled out when he saw that Dale was still standing on the side of the road like an idiot. Dale hurried up, revved on the engine, and the Camry was back on the highway doing 92 mph. Bren cracked open another beer and drank the whole thing in one go. He didn’t complain about the speed.
Chapter 3:
It was about two in the morning when they pulled up to Bren’s trailer. Bren got out and walked around to Dale’s side. He was mildly drunk. Bren put his hands on his knees and bent down as if he was going to say something to Dale, but in the end he turned around and left without saying anything. He was too pissed off.
“See you in the morning.” Dale called out after him in an annoyingly loud voice, but Bren didn’t turn around. His thin white door shut loudly and Dale pulled away and drove off to his own trailer at the end of the gravel road.
At this point he had a conundrum on his hands. He had to get the girl inside without her making a lot of noise. And then once inside..what? Tie her up? Keep her in his bathroom? It’s not like he had a basement to put her in. And what the fuck was he doing anyways? His hand reached for his forehead. He was thinking. Then he unlocked the trunk and when the dim light in the trunk came on he saw with stabbing horror that the girl was dead.
“NO!” He shouted at her as if it were her fault.
"Oh dear Jesus no!”
He felt like he was about to cry. It was the cat all over again. He really didn’t want to kill it. But then he saw the rhythm of her small diaphragm. She was sleeping. Dale oh dale oh dale, what are you doing?
He wiped the sweat off his brow, then reached in and picked her up. She weighed about as much as a pillow, and when Dale opened the door of his trailer, a cat seemed to catapult itself outside making him trip over his own feet. "Shit! Henry!" He gave an involuntary yell over his shoulder when he saw which one did it. Then, understanding that he totally did not have anything under control, he stopped in his doorway and simply stood there with the little girl cradled in his arms. She felt warm. His girl. Yeah, that sounded right. It was his girl now. His little Mexican girl.
A few more hungry cats came out of the shadows begging for food. He shushed them and kicked his leg around without putting any real effort into it just to make them go away.
He had to secure his girl.
But how was he going to get any sleep tonight? He had to be absolutely sure that she could not get away. Then as he was walking in, thinking about how he would tie her up (he did have some duct tape, rope, maybe some wire ties..oh but he didn't want to hurt her wrists), he felt a sudden uneasiness about Brenson. Did Dale think he'd go to the cops? Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut and the music loud. He should have slowed down when Bren asked and he should have… Wait, just wait one cotton pickin minute Dale, he says to himself. The girl. The girl first, then Bren. Maybe Bren was still awake and he'd pay him a little visit, have a little chat just to make sure they were square, just to see if everything was cool, but only after he was sure the girl could not escape.
But should he actually leave her alone?
"Get moving!" he said to himself. And then walked into the back of the trailer where he kept a tool shed. The girl was still sleeping in his arms. Whatever nightmares she could possibly be having, would she really want to wake up?
He chose duct tape, the principle reason being it was easiest to reach while clutching a small human being. And although she felt like a feather before, the longer Dale held her in that death grip, the heavier she seemed to get.
He laid her gently down on a Layzee Boy and found himself holding his breath and needing air when he was certain she was still sleeping. Dale unfolded the leg rest, and then very delicately began unwinding the duct tape around her legs. This turned out to be a bitch because the duct tape was prone to making offensive scratching sounds as it was unpeeled from its spool.
About an hour later the girl was strapped in the chair in an extended position. Mounds of duct tape secured her arms, legs, torso, hands and feet. He took special care to untie the bandana from her face, knowing that she could suffocate in her sleep if it stayed on there. That special feat gave him a sense of pride for remembering. He already got one point in the game of taking care of her by damn. Though he'd have to figure out how to keep her quiet. Lastly, he strapped down her head using a generous supply of tape.
Now he surveyed his work like a skilled practitioner, his mouth closed, eyes narrowed, and giving short nods of satisfaction. Yes he did do a good job. Both on the tape job, and on the girl. She was adorable. He was imagining what it would be like three years from now, when she had forgotten all about that old shit hole family she had, a fact that Dale would NEVER bring up, and how happy they would look playing in a park, eating hotdogs. He's pushing her on a swing and look at that! At the very end of the pendulum's arc she leaps through the air, legs pointing like arrows in perfect form! She glides through the air and lands on her feet. Both arms reach up into the sky, she beams at Dale saying look what I just did daddy! Then she's running, his little girl is running right at him! She leaps into his arms and oh god how he hugs her, squeezes her, suddenly he notices that her skin is so soft, there's a gleam in her eye, he looks at her mouth
Somebody knocked twice on his front door.
The force of that sound coming from that door made Dale almost scream. The cloudy glaze over his eyes burned away as fast as if Jesus Christ had just now ripped open a hole in the sky and let all of heaven's mighty armies come march on through.
His head jerked up and banged against the corner of a kitchen cabinet that he had been standing near but he barely felt it because panic and paranoia were through the fucking roof ladies and gentlemen. That's right, Dale Ernsted was about to melt into a puddle and seep into the floor.
But he had to do something about the door. He crept slowly, as if the slower he moved the more invisible he would become. At this point he was trying to make himself as flat against the wall as possible so he could peek out the curtains without the intruder noticing. He quickly poked his face into the curtains and looked out the window. There was a man still standing at Dale's door. And the man instantly turned towards Dale and looked him in the eyes.
Dale screamed and put a hand over his mouth.
It was Bren. It was just fucking Bren. He pulled away from the window and noticed he was breathing like he had run a half marathon.
Dale opened the door and there was Bren pissed off as ever before. He didn't ask to come inside but came inside he did, brushing past Dale without saying a word. He stood in Dale's living room, hands on hips, something like concern on his face, and was just standing there gaping at that girl stuck in all that mound of duct tape. He was shaking his head in disbelief. Then Bren turned around and said in whispered tones, "What in fucking Christ is going on here Dale?"
They both walked outside and Dale shut the door.
Inside the trailer the girl remained taped to the Lazee Boy, breathing those deep occasional breaths that are only ever seen in people deep in REM sleep. Then she opened her eyes. If Dale could see those eyes now he would say they looked evil. To Bren, who had a larger vocabulary than Dale, he would say cunning.
In truth she had never been asleep. And although she heard only a little of the conversation between the two ogres that captured her, she knew that Baby Face, as she thought of Dale, believed she was asleep. And for this she thought he must be the dumbest person imaginable. What moron would think anything but a tranquilized rhinoceros was asleep after all that had happened to her.
She played through the sequence of events that led her to this terrible situation. It was an unreal situation. How could this happen to her? But that's not useful, she thinks, it isn't useful to wonder about why, only how and what to do about it.
She took the opportunity while the two trolls were outside to scan as much of the room as possible. Looking for doors, windows, anything that could be used as a weapon. Although she knew she had little chance of using anything but a gun against either of those two guys. They were big and mean looking. But she thought Baby Face probably had a gun, either on him or by his bed, maybe in a closet.
She would have to escape. She knew there was a door in the back, though she couldn't see it, because Baby Face had brought her back there and she could feel the outside air coming in. It seemed to be some kind of extension to the trailer. And when Baby Face had stood on his toes reaching high up to get something off a shelf, she stole a glance and saw that it was some kind of shed that led outside. There were at least two doors. It was going to hurt so bad to take this tape off. She didn't know what to do about that yet. She could barely move any part of her body.
Then she heard one of the men approach the door and the hinge began to squeak open.
Dale poked his head in and stared at her for a good ten seconds. She was still sleeping. Good. Then the door closed.
Her name was Mariana and her eyes were now looking up at the ceiling, lips quivering, trying to hold back the tears from escaping. One did though and it traced a small trail down her cheekbone before it finally fell to the floor. She hoped her cheek would dry before the trolls came back inside.
Chapter 4:
That same morning Bren woke up to a pounding headache that felt like a vein was about to burst from the left side of his head. His bones creaked as he got out of bed and he walked to his refrigerator and pulled out a beer.
He wasn't trying to get drunk, those days were long past him. It was just to get rid of the headache. He had work today. And it was Bren's turn to drive so he was gonna have to waltz over to dumb fuck Dale's house and drag his ass out of bed. Although he wasn't so sure how much stock he put in folk traditions and rules of the game, so to speak, now that his relationship with Dale has been, shall we say, tested.
Although he wasn't as angry as he was just a few hours before while he chewed out Dale for being the stupidest motherfucker he ever laid eyes on, he still felt he should give him an ass pounding after he, Bren, resolved this entire state of affairs. Because it would be Bren, not Dale, who would have to do that. As much as he wished he could abandon Dale and just say fuck it, he was deeply concerned about his own involvement in what transpired the night before, and he was gravely imagining getting fifty years behind bars because of some lunatic he decided to take up a business deal with. Who was the real retard here, Bren thinks in a self deprecating way, who would get into business with someone like Dale?
Never mind all that, he would have to do something about this. He could not allow Dale to go off on his wild fantasies. Bren's chief concern was that Dale would fuck up somehow and land Bren in prison. He was slowly shaking his head back and forth as he sipped his beer, realizing just how deep the sinking sand really went in this case, all the anger he felt the night before came rushing back tenfold as he realized what he would have to do. What he would make Dale do. As punishment.
Meanwhile Baby Face was still sleeping. Mariana heard him snoring. She decided to let herself sleep after he had passed out on the floor near this duct tape prison. She would need her strength and people need to sleep as much as they need to eat was what she convinced herself with to even allow her to try to sleep. It wasn't even a guaranteed deal. Who could sleep during something like this?
But she found that when she closed her eyes and knew that Baby Face was drunk out of his mind, and that meant he would probably be asleep for awhile, then she could sleep. And oh how she drifted down, pulled down just as she was pulled out of that car, with a monster waiting for her at the bottom. A monster that looked like some huge grotesque baby thing that had snot pouring out of its nose like a fire hose held her, its decaying fingernails scraped at her, and it cackled at how amazing she was, licking her back and purring like a cat.
She screamed and then she was back in her car with all her things! Not in a dream, she was actually back in the car and her parents had told her they would pick her up a snickers.
She knew Baby Face was out there. Scrambling up on her elbows she looked for him out the window. He was pumping gas and smoking a cigarette at the same time. What a stupid freak! Yuck! But he was going to come over here. She watched him looking at something over at the entrance, and then his head was turning towards her. She ducked. And then slowly peeked her head up and saw that he was walking over here. He looked like some kind of rodent, like a rat that was sniffing out cheese.
She needed to leave. Mariana grabbed the door handle and shaked at it but it wouldn't open. None of them worked. She was trying to remain calm, kept finding her right hand reaching up and twirling her hair and then stopping herself. She licked her chapped lips. She had an idea.
The door opened and before Baby Face stuffed his stinking head in through the open door, Mariana turned around and asserted herself. She loudly and very clearly said "Dale! Where is your gun?"
The monster stumbled backwards as if shot, and fell slightly to its knee. The way its knees popped back and forth and the way its elbows gesticulated in erratic ways made Mariana think it wasn't even alive. It was some kind of zombie. And when its head rolled back up, and it looked at her, its teeth clacking together like a puppet being pulled up by the strings too quickly, she saw that Baby Face, Rat Baby Face, had long white whiskers and huge front teeth. They were stained with cigarette smoke but they still looked sharp.
It said in a gravelly voice choked with beer and chili, "under my bathroom sink, where I always keep it.", driblets of chili dripped down its white gums, which also held a healthy portion of gooey chewing tobacco. Beer froth dripped out its eyes as it jumped into the car with Mariana and began stroking its long bony fingers through her hair saying all the while in the voice of a corpse "How pretty..how pretty..how pretty". She wanted to puke and get away from it but - then Rat Baby Face opened its mouth and bit into her neck.
Mariana woke up blinking away tears. She swallowed and took in a deep breath through her nose, somewhat rocking back and forth, but otherwise totally immobilized.
That's when she heard Baby Face snoring. That's also when she noticed the bathroom out of the very furthest edge of her peripheral vision.
Mariana knew what she had to do.

“She’s a witch.”
“I think you said bitch wrong.”
It’s hard to laugh when you’re exhausted, but Marti was never not able to get one out of us. Between panted breaths we laughed. Tommy’s face growing red with anger and embarrassment at the joke at his expense.
“I’m serious!” He managed to blurt when the laughter finally died down enough to get a word in.
“So am I!”
Again, laughter erupted from the bottom of our thirteen year old hearts once more breaking the silence of the forest we were supposed to be hiding in if by chance the cops were actually called as a result of our impromptu prank just a few minutes prior.
Living in a small town meant a lot of boredom. Some kids had big problems like gang violence and drive-by shootings, drugs, and crippling poverty, and even though those problems existed for your typical small town Ohio kids, at least to some extent. Our biggest problem was always boredom.
As a matter of fact, every problem that every small town had ever had could probably be traced back to boredom in one way or another. Why is that guy doing heroin behind a Walmart? Because once upon a time he was sixteen and bored, so he stole some of grandmas pills. Why did the schools football teams locker building get burned down? Because some kid was bored and decided to ruin the football team’s stuff. Why are there a bunch of kids laughing in the middle of the forest just outside of town? Same reason, they were bored and decided to ding dong ditch the senile old lady down the street.
If I’d had known for half a second . . . If I’d even had a hint of foresight about how everything would’ve turned out for us then I’d have suggested something else. Anything else, but hindsight’s 20/20. Especially for young kids.
“Guys, I’m freakin serious. Okay?” Tommy doubled down. His fists now balled up. His voice breaking a little bit with the overwhelming irritability at the laughter. “Anyone who’s ever messed with Ms. Abernanthy has been cursed.”
“Come on man.” I said trying to diffuse Tommy’s anger a little bit. “There’s a lot of places in this world, beautiful places! Jamacia, Hawaii, Switzerland. All sorts of places a powerful witch could have a good ass life, and you think there’s one living in that little brown double wide on Sycamore street? In London Ohio?”
A few more chuckles amongst the group of friends before Tommy finally resigned his argument with an exasperated sigh. As we came around from our fits of laughter and jokes we began to realize that the sun was setting.
“Wow, what a surprise.” Charlie spoke up. “No one cares that their doorbell got rang! Looks like our outlaw days are done y’alls. Just in time for dinner too. Convenient full pardons are convenient!”
“No doubt.” I responded as the group made their way out of the forest and began to cut across the large meadow towards town. “Marti, you eating with us tonight? Dad says it’s fine.”
“Appreciate it dude, but mom says we’ve got plans tonight. We’ll steal your dads Marlboros some other time okay?”
More laughter as the friend group split ways and headed home . . .
Ding
Dong
Diiing Doong
At first when I heard the doorbell ring, I just sort of brushed it off. I’d thought that maybe it was just some part of a dream I’d been having or something. Even in my almost full sleep state I knew that no one in their right mind would be ringing our doorbell at three in the morning. As I adjusted my pillow and threw my head back down on it though I heard it again. Resonating throughout the otherwise silent house in a way that was almost maliciously haunting given the time of night.
Ding
Dong
Diing Doong
It hadn’t been my imagination. There was someone at the door. Before I could even get up however, I heard the gruff and commanding voice of my father as his heavy footsteps stammered groggily past my room.
“I swear to Christ if that’s one of your goofy friends.” He mumbled to himself as he staggered past my room in his barely lucid state.
Several moments later I heard the front door open. Followed by my father shouting in surprise as several loud bangs and clashes filled the house with a chaotic cacophony of sound.
I ran out as quickly as I could towards the front room of the house to see my fathers silhouette fumbling for the light switch. As he turned it on, and my eyes adjusted to the sudden flash of light. I could see that he was intently scanning the front room. His bright green eyes bouncing back and forth like a radar scanner. Laying on the ground around him was a broken ash tray and several books that must’ve gotten knocked off of the shelf they’d previously been resting on.
“What happened dad?”
Quickly he put his finger out in a sort of ‘stop talking’ gesture as his eyes remained transfixed on the room around him. After a few moments of nerve wracking silence, he finally responded.
“There’s a bat somewhere. Flew in when I opened the door.”
“Who rang the doorbell?”
As if remembering what it was the led us to the front room in the middle of the night in the first place my dad looked back over his shoulder to the wide open front door, and the dimly lit street beyond it. He peaked his head over the threshold and looked around for a moment before closing it.
“No one . . . Some kids ding dong ditching maybe. Crazy ass teenagers, when do you guys even sleep nowadays?”
I laughed quietly at dad’s remark before looking around the front room to try and spot the bat.
“You’d think it’d be freaking out or something you know? Like, fluttering around and trying to find a way out?”
“Yeah . . . You’d think.”
A thorough search of the front room gradually turned into a thorough search of the entire house, but aside from the fallen books and ash tray in the front room there was nothing amiss. Just another normal small-town house in its small town neighborhood. Finally after about an hour and a half of searching my dad threw his arms up in defeat.
“Screw it, guess he’s staying. I gotta get ready for work anyways. Go back to bed kid, we’ll find it tomorrow. No one ever got killed by a stray bat.”
Although I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the idea of sharing a house with a wild animal for the night. I knew he was right. It was almost four thirty in the morning now, and I was tired. Besides, if it’s afraid then it’ll probably just hide, and they sleep during the day so it shouldn’t be a huge issue . . . Hopefully.
“Alright, night dad. Have a good day at work.”
“Yeah. . . .”
Ding
Dong
Diing
Donng
I had just slipped into that sort of half realm between awake and asleep when I was abruptly brought back to consciousness by the doorbell ringing again. The red digital illumination of my alarm clock read 6:33am. I sighed to myself in annoyance and frustration as I turned over on my back to prepare to pull myself out of bed once again to try and discover who was ringing our doorbell again, and that’s when I saw her.
Suspended from the ceiling upside down was the darkened shadow of a person. Long tangled hair draped low and messy, almost touching the floor. From within the tangled mess of hair were two bright yellow eyes that burned through me like fire. As I screamed and clambered my way to the headboard of my bed to try and pathetically create some distance between myself and this horrible thing in my room the figure reached its arms out in a sort of ‘crucifix’ posture. From the aurora of its terrible yellow eyes I could see a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. I screamed again at the top of my lungs as the room filled itself with the mind numbing sound of the doorbell coming from the figures wide open mouth.
DIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG
DOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG
DDIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGG
DDDOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
DIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG
DOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
As the deafening noise trembled every ounce of my being the figure contorted its way off of the ceiling and plopped onto my bed in an awful and grotesque fashion. Even in my panicked state I couldn’t understand how it could’ve moved the way it did without breaking its neck and spine.
I tried to make a jump from my bed to the door, but I wasn’t quick enough. I got to the edge of the bed before I felt a tremendous weight pin me back on to the mattress and hold me down. Sitting on my chest was the figure. Those horrible eyes burrowing into my soul. That wicked mouth hanging open as if it were going to swallow me whole.
She’s a witch.
The memory of Tommy’s voice echoed in my head.
I don’t know what came over me. I don’t know if it was just the fear, and Tommy being the only name on my mind in that moment. I don’t know if I’m just a selfish coward. I just . . . Don’t know, but as that god awful thing sat on top of me. As her mouth and those evil yellow eyes drew closer and closer to my face I shouted at the top of my fear fueled lungs.
“IT WAS TOMMY! IT WAS TOMMY! HE RANG YOUR DOORBELL! IT WAS TOMMY! PLEASE!”
Suddenly, with no warning, and no possible way of occurring. The weight was off of my chest, and the figure was gone.
I don’t know how I managed to fall back asleep, maybe it was just the adrenaline dump that knocked me out, but before I knew it I was waking up to the image of my sun filled room.
After a lot of talking to myself. I had barely managed to convince myself that last nights events were just the result of a horrible dream. I had read somewhere that waking up in the middle of the night and then going back to sleep could result in very lucid dreams. That, I decided. Was what caused that awful dream.
Ding
Dong
Diiing
Doong.
I felt an anchor drop into my stomach as the doorbell rang. Slowly I made my way to the front door and with a lot of hesitation finally managed to open it.
Standing at the other side of the door was Tommy’s mom. A look of obvious concern on her face.
“Did . . . Uhm, Did Tommy by chance come to your house last night? I’ve been to everyone’s house that he knows, and no one’s seen him. I don’t understand why he would just leave the house like that. Please. If you know something, please just tell me.”
They never found Tommy. Not even the faintest glimpse of a clue. Everyone eventually stopped looking for him after about a year. Everyone but his mom, she never stopped looking. She died last year. I heard she was staring expectantly at the hospital door the entire time. Waiting for her son to come walking through . . . The police say he either ran away, or was kidnapped and killed by some vagabond who had seen us in town the day prior.
I’m the only one who truly knows what happened to him, and I’ve never been able to tell anyone that It was all my fault.
Tommy was right.

Fear...
I think it would be safe to say that it is the one universal emotion across the galaxy. For most of us, fear is a means to an end: a simple mode of survival, but for humans... Well fear is something more. For us fear comes in situations where we might die, and that's it. The only thing we fear is the loss of life before our time is up.
Humanity... Humanity fears implication.
Sure humans experience fear in life or death situations, but sometimes they don't. Humans will jump from planes, play with fire, and swim deep under the crushing weight of water well over three to four times the pressure of their own gravity. They will tie ropes to their ankles and then jump off of high places.
I don't think I have ever seen a human that was truly afraid, or at least not overtly... Not until today anyway.
Sure, humans fear death, but they fear implications more. Life or death situations are hardly an issue when you have your own imagination to fear.
Humans are a strange species that can leap from the sky for a thrill, but alone in the darkness and safety of their own homes, they conjure up things to fear in the dark.
They see shadows out of the corners of their eyes and reflections in mirrors at their backs.
They fear the implication of things that are unseen.
Believe me, the human mind is a horror house of personal torture.
Just watch their movies, and I promise you that some of the scariest ones to humans, do not involve natural disaster, life or death, or even dangerous killers, but they do involve the unexplainable, the uncontrollable. Those things that hide unseen in the dark and infect the mind like an insidious disease.
Man does not fear life or death, he fears his own mind and what might hide in it's dark recesses.
[…]
"Get everything locked up, we do not want to be out here after dark."
The commander ordered, pushing through a thick strand of deep purple foliage, and out into a large-circular clearing where three of their shuttles stood, surrounded by that day's camping supplies, and a group of waiting marines.
They stood as the second team of marines trudged their way from the bushes covered in dirt, slime, and sweat from their day's work.
"Break it all down and get it back inside."
The commander ordered.
Krill, who had been waiting in camp with the marines, floated over to absently eye the marines as if for scratches scrapes and bruises.
Sunny, having problems to navigate the dense foliage with her height and her carapace, was the last to break through the trees, hauling her bulk over a mossy stone and onto the strange purple moss of the clearing.
She opened her four-pronged mouth and snorted a leaf from her face,
"Why in such a hurry, commander? Afraid of the dark?"
Her voice was playful, but the expression he shot her was serious.
She stopped,
"No, not the dark, but what might be hiding in it."
He began, locking their food away into the climate-controlled lock boxes,
"Plus, the last group of colonizers that tried to settle on this place ran screaming after just one night. According to the Galactic Assembly science teams, there was nothing particularly dangerous about this planet. On the first scans they found no big animals, be it herbivore or carnivore, just some smaller species. So, they have no clue what could have scared the settlers off. The UNSC wants to know what's up. The report had something to do with a “mimic”… Now I'm not sure what that means, the civilians were to shaken up to talk, but they seemed adamant that it was important NOT to go outside after dark, and I am not in the habit of ignoring warnings."
Sunny nodded a tiny bit apprehensive.
Whatever could have made a human run screaming was not something she particularly wanted to deal with.
Krill was as skeptical as ever,
"Probably just some strange planetary creature, no big deal. They probably saw it, assumed it was some sort of folk monster and worked themselves up enough to run away."
Commander Vir didn't say anything, but didn't look like he agreed.
Then again, he was known heavily as the kind of man that liked to give people the benefit of the doubt.
They got the camp packed up, just as the star was beginning to set in the north (the planet had a strange rotation, relative to its magnetic field), and Commander Vir made sure his marines had entered the shuttles and closed the door, remaining the last one before coming into the third shuttle and closing the door behind him.
Two other marines were watching the monitors in the cockpit, so he took a seat on his bedroll next to where Sunny sat by the wall, idly tracing one of her four claws through the striations on the floor.
Krill floated not too distantly, listening to the sound of idle conversation.
Sunset came and went, and nothing on the camera peaked the marine's interest.
They left one person on watch for that night while the other came back to select a bedroll and get some sleep.
Commander Vir and Sunny were out like lights, back-to-back with each other in the tropical warmth of the planet's midnight atmosphere.
It hardly seemed like a bad place to settle down.
Even Krill had dropped into his half-meditative trance, still partially aware of what was going on around him.
[…]
”…”
”Adaaaaaaam…”
”…”
”I’m all alone. Lost in the dark…”
”Mommy, I hear crows!”
”Is someone there?”
”There is something in the bushes…”
"Adam!"
”ADAM!!!”
Commander Vir jolted away in a cold sweat, looking around for where the voice had originated.
OH NO!
Everyone else was still asleep.
He shook himself a little.
No, it can’t be… That was strange, for a second he thought that maybe the infected starborn, the mindreading aliens he had to deal with some months before had returned to take over his mind, but... starborn couldn't survive on the face of a planet...
And he would have sworn that voice was the voice of a child.
He rubbed his eyes, stood and moved into the cockpit where one of the marines was still watching the cameras,
"Anything?"
He muttered, but the marine shook his head.
He was just opening his mouth to say something when…
”Something is out there… it knows what we are afraid of…”
*Silence*
Adam and the Marine looked at each other, both keenly aware that none of them had said something.
”…”
”…”
But they both knew they heard someone talk…
The voice they had heard came from the outside.
And then another sound came, this time not stopping, but going on, able to be heard through the walls of the shuttle…
A baby began to cry just outside the shuttle door.
The marine leaped to his feet eyes wide,
"What the hell!?
”HOLY FUCK!”
His startled voice caused everyone else in the compartment to wake up.
"Adam."
Commander Vir turned in a wild circle to face the wall behind him.
Of course, he couldn't see anything, because the voice had been just on the other side, like a small child pressing their mouth to the metal, whispering.
A few more of the marines had stood up, eyes turned to the hatch with the sound of the crying baby still echoing through the metal, slightly muffled by the door.
One of the marines got to his feet and reached for the handle, but commander Vir caught him,
"NO... that's not a baby marine. We are the only people on this planet."
The marine turned to look at him eyes wide with concern,
"But, sir maybe it's one of the settlers?”
"They may not have been coherent, but they would have told us if they were missing a baby."
"Adam, Adam, Adam..."
As the voice repeated it plunged from the high chirp of a child deeper and deeper into a demonic growl.
”I’ll help you. Follow my voice!”
"Adam!"
Something slammed against the side of the shuttle.
”I’m coming to help, where are you? I can’t see you. I…can’t… see… YOU!”
The marines yelled out in alarm.
Commander Vir jumped back.
Something skittered and clawed at the metal outside.
More voices joined in whispering pleading.
Voices rose and fell, more often than not, mimicking the sound of children.
Sunny was up now and found herself at the center of a group of humans, who had backed themselves into a circle in the middle of the shuttle eyes wide.
The sounds died away for a few moments, leaving them in the deep silence of the forest.
Then there was a knock on the door…
"Daddy... Daddy, let me in, I'm scared... Help me."
One of the marines turned his wide-eyed face to the commander and then back to the door,
"Jamie."
A hand clamped around his shoulder,
"No, marine, that isn't who you think it is."
"Daddy... Daddy please help me."
The knocking turned to a frantic banging then a thudding,
"Daddy please, something is coming!"
The sound of a small body throwing itself against the door repeated over and over and over again.
The marine's face was streaked with tears, but he held his ground.
However, as they listened, the sound of thudding grew louder and louder.
The shuttle rocked violently.
A child could not have had the strength to do that.
The marines cowered back against each other, weapons pointed towards the hatch.
The voices faded, turning themselves back into gibbering whispers.
Whispering died away, replaced by the sound of something rushing through the trees.
*Thud thud thud*
On the pad of feet.
It's movements were unholy.
It's feet or hands, whatever they were, were soft, and something dragged behind it.
Pad, pad scrape, pad pad, scrape.
"Let me in."
The voice was loud and sudden, emanating from about knee height and right behind them.
A girl's voice, throat torn and ragged, from fire...
…
Or from screaming.
The marines yelped and turned to the corner, where something now scratched against the metal.
Commander Vir was the first to voice what all the humans were thinking,
"Fuck this, let's get out of here."
With that, he rushed into the cockpit, giving a cursory glance to the cameras, but seeing nothing.
Engaging the coms system he opened a line to the other shuttles,
"Bravo, Charlie, this is Alpha leader ordering an immediate launch, do you copy?”
*Static*
*Silence*
”…”
For a horrifying moment, it seemed as if they wouldn't answer, but then two voices crackled over the line, breathless and hopeful, filled with their agreement.
Commander Vir engaged the launch sequence as the other marines strapped themselves in.
Krill and Sunny looked around the cockpit in confusion, hardly understanding what was going on.
Sure, there was something creepy outside, but it was outside and obviously couldn’t get in…
They had never seen the human's cut and run so fast before.
And they Cut and run as fast as they possibly could, making it out of atmosphere in record time.
[…]
Back aboard the ship, only the graveyard skeleton crew was there to meet them, surprised and worried to find three teams of frightened, bedraggled marines, and their more than paranoid commander eyeing the shadows in newfound paranoia.
Krill watched from the side confused.
Sunny looked on in worry.
What was wrong with their humans?
The skeleton crew got to work, packing up the gear, allowing the marines to return to the crew quarters for a rest. Commander Vir followed, but paused in the long hallway up to the captain's quarters, glancing back at Sunny.
She was about ready to head down the hall to her room when he spoke,
"You know... Um maybe it is best if... If maybe, we set up a watch for-for tonight. I mean just to make sure nothing ended up hitching a ride or... Or something."
Sunny looked at him in surprise,
"But captain, space..."
"Yeah yeah... I know, I mean... Just in case, but like in the rec room... Where we have light, and space to fight... If we have to."
She tilted her head at him, but finally nodded in agreement.
She had never seen such a look of relief on anyone's face before, and together they made their way to the rec room, set up one of the couches and began their "watch.".
A watch that simply turned into Adam leaning against her arm and promptly falling asleep.
She rolled her eyes a little, and was about to do the same when…
*THUD*
A thud echoed to her from down the hallway.
She opened her eyes, suddenly awake and alert, ready for some creature to come around the corner, but instead one of the marines poked his head in,
"Er... do you guys, you know... need help?”
Sunny looked down at the sleeping commander and sighed,
"The more the merrier I suppose."
"Oh... ok... I guess I can help."
He walked over, selected a beanbag, pulled it up to her feet, and immediately followed his commander's lead.
Sunny sighed and closed her eyes, not even bothering to open them when the next set of footsteps moved up the hall,
"Yes... we are on watch, and yes, obviously we need your help."
This marine took the other side of the couch.
By the end of a half hour span Sunny sat lording over a room full of uneasily sleeping humans, and she idly wondered if this is what it would have been like to have a brood of her own.
However, since she wasn't likely to ever experience that, she would happily protect these ones from the dark.
[…]
Other species don't mind the mimics so much. However, for some reason they have a profound impact on humans. My theory is that, like the starborn they have some ability in telepathy, and because of this, they have complete access to the one thing that humans fear most: Their own imagination
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Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author

“She’s a witch.”
“I think you said bitch wrong.”
It’s hard to laugh when you’re exhausted, but Marti was never not able to get one out of us. Between panted breaths we laughed. Tommy’s face growing red with anger and embarrassment at the joke at his expense.
“I’m serious!” He managed to blurt when the laughter finally died down enough to get a word in.
“So am I!”
Again, laughter erupted from the bottom of our thirteen year old hearts once more breaking the silence of the forest we were supposed to be hiding in if by chance the cops were actually called as a result of our impromptu prank just a few minutes prior.
Living in a small town meant a lot of boredom. Some kids had big problems like gang violence and drive-by shootings, drugs, and crippling poverty, and even though those problems existed for your typical small town Ohio kids, at least to some extent. Our biggest problem was always boredom.
As a matter of fact, every problem that every small town had ever had could probably be traced back to boredom in one way or another. Why is that guy doing heroin behind a Walmart? Because once upon a time he was sixteen and bored, so he stole some of grandmas pills. Why did the schools football teams locker building get burned down? Because some kid was bored and decided to ruin the football team’s stuff. Why are there a bunch of kids laughing in the middle of the forest just outside of town? Same reason, they were bored and decided to ding dong ditch the senile old lady down the street.
If I’d had known for half a second . . . If I’d even had a hint of foresight about how everything would’ve turned out for us then I’d have suggested something else. Anything else, but hindsight’s 20/20. Especially for young kids.
“Guys, I’m freakin serious. Okay?” Tommy doubled down. His fists now balled up. His voice breaking a little bit with the overwhelming irritability at the laughter. “Anyone who’s ever messed with Ms. Abernanthy has been cursed.”
“Come on man.” I said trying to diffuse Tommy’s anger a little bit. “There’s a lot of places in this world, beautiful places! Jamacia, Hawaii, Switzerland. All sorts of places a powerful witch could have a good ass life, and you think there’s one living in that little brown double wide on Sycamore street? In London Ohio?”
A few more chuckles amongst the group of friends before Tommy finally resigned his argument with an exasperated sigh. As we came around from our fits of laughter and jokes we began to realize that the sun was setting.
“Wow, what a surprise.” Charlie spoke up. “No one cares that their doorbell got rang! Looks like our outlaw days are done y’alls. Just in time for dinner too. Convenient full pardons are convenient!”
“No doubt.” I responded as the group made their way out of the forest and began to cut across the large meadow towards town. “Marti, you eating with us tonight? Dad says it’s fine.”
“Appreciate it dude, but mom says we’ve got plans tonight. We’ll steal your dads Marlboros some other time okay?”
More laughter as the friend group split ways and headed home . . .
Ding
Dong
Diiing Doong
At first when I heard the doorbell ring, I just sort of brushed it off. I’d thought that maybe it was just some part of a dream I’d been having or something. Even in my almost full sleep state I knew that no one in their right mind would be ringing our doorbell at three in the morning. As I adjusted my pillow and threw my head back down on it though I heard it again. Resonating throughout the otherwise silent house in a way that was almost maliciously haunting given the time of night.
Ding
Dong
Diing Doong
It hadn’t been my imagination. There was someone at the door. Before I could even get up however, I heard the gruff and commanding voice of my father as his heavy footsteps stammered groggily past my room.
“I swear to Christ if that’s one of your goofy friends.” He mumbled to himself as he staggered past my room in his barely lucid state.
Several moments later I heard the front door open. Followed by my father shouting in surprise as several loud bangs and clashes filled the house with a chaotic cacophony of sound.
I ran out as quickly as I could towards the front room of the house to see my fathers silhouette fumbling for the light switch. As he turned it on, and my eyes adjusted to the sudden flash of light. I could see that he was intently scanning the front room. His bright green eyes bouncing back and forth like a radar scanner. Laying on the ground around him was a broken ash tray and several books that must’ve gotten knocked off of the shelf they’d previously been resting on.
“What happened dad?”
Quickly he put his finger out in a sort of ‘stop talking’ gesture as his eyes remained transfixed on the room around him. After a few moments of nerve wracking silence, he finally responded.
“There’s a bat somewhere. Flew in when I opened the door.”
“Who rang the doorbell?”
As if remembering what it was the led us to the front room in the middle of the night in the first place my dad looked back over his shoulder to the wide open front door, and the dimly lit street beyond it. He peaked his head over the threshold and looked around for a moment before closing it.
“No one . . . Some kids ding dong ditching maybe. Crazy ass teenagers, when do you guys even sleep nowadays?”
I laughed quietly at dad’s remark before looking around the front room to try and spot the bat.
“You’d think it’d be freaking out or something you know? Like, fluttering around and trying to find a way out?”
“Yeah . . . You’d think.”
A thorough search of the front room gradually turned into a thorough search of the entire house, but aside from the fallen books and ash tray in the front room there was nothing amiss. Just another normal small-town house in its small town neighborhood. Finally after about an hour and a half of searching my dad threw his arms up in defeat.
“Screw it, guess he’s staying. I gotta get ready for work anyways. Go back to bed kid, we’ll find it tomorrow. No one ever got killed by a stray bat.”
Although I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the idea of sharing a house with a wild animal for the night. I knew he was right. It was almost four thirty in the morning now, and I was tired. Besides, if it’s afraid then it’ll probably just hide, and they sleep during the day so it shouldn’t be a huge issue . . . Hopefully.
“Alright, night dad. Have a good day at work.”
“Yeah. . . .”
Ding
Dong
Diing
Donng
I had just slipped into that sort of half realm between awake and asleep when I was abruptly brought back to consciousness by the doorbell ringing again. The red digital illumination of my alarm clock read 6:33am. I sighed to myself in annoyance and frustration as I turned over on my back to prepare to pull myself out of bed once again to try and discover who was ringing our doorbell again, and that’s when I saw her.
Suspended from the ceiling upside down was the darkened shadow of a person. Long tangled hair draped low and messy, almost touching the floor. From within the tangled mess of hair were two bright yellow eyes that burned through me like fire. As I screamed and clambered my way to the headboard of my bed to try and pathetically create some distance between myself and this horrible thing in my room the figure reached its arms out in a sort of ‘crucifix’ posture. From the aurora of its terrible yellow eyes I could see a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. I screamed again at the top of my lungs as the room filled itself with the mind numbing sound of the doorbell coming from the figures wide open mouth.
DIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG
DOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG
DDIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGG
DDDOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
DIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG
DOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG
As the deafening noise trembled every ounce of my being the figure contorted its way off of the ceiling and plopped onto my bed in an awful and grotesque fashion. Even in my panicked state I couldn’t understand how it could’ve moved the way it did without breaking its neck and spine.
I tried to make a jump from my bed to the door, but I wasn’t quick enough. I got to the edge of the bed before I felt a tremendous weight pin me back on to the mattress and hold me down. Sitting on my chest was the figure. Those horrible eyes burrowing into my soul. That wicked mouth hanging open as if it were going to swallow me whole.
She’s a witch.
The memory of Tommy’s voice echoed in my head.
I don’t know what came over me. I don’t know if it was just the fear, and Tommy being the only name on my mind in that moment. I don’t know if I’m just a selfish coward. I just . . . Don’t know, but as that god awful thing sat on top of me. As her mouth and those evil yellow eyes drew closer and closer to my face I shouted at the top of my fear fueled lungs.
“IT WAS TOMMY! IT WAS TOMMY! HE RANG YOUR DOORBELL! IT WAS TOMMY! PLEASE!”
Suddenly, with no warning, and no possible way of occurring. The weight was off of my chest, and the figure was gone.
I don’t know how I managed to fall back asleep, maybe it was just the adrenaline dump that knocked me out, but before I knew it I was waking up to the image of my sun filled room.
After a lot of talking to myself. I had barely managed to convince myself that last nights events were just the result of a horrible dream. I had read somewhere that waking up in the middle of the night and then going back to sleep could result in very lucid dreams. That, I decided. Was what caused that awful dream.
Ding
Dong
Diiing
Doong.
I felt an anchor drop into my stomach as the doorbell rang. Slowly I made my way to the front door and with a lot of hesitation finally managed to open it.
Standing at the other side of the door was Tommy’s mom. A look of obvious concern on her face.
“Did . . . Uhm, Did Tommy by chance come to your house last night? I’ve been to everyone’s house that he knows, and no one’s seen him. I don’t understand why he would just leave the house like that. Please. If you know something, please just tell me.”
They never found Tommy. Not even the faintest glimpse of a clue. Everyone eventually stopped looking for him after about a year. Everyone but his mom, she never stopped looking. She died last year. I heard she was staring expectantly at the hospital door the entire time. Waiting for her son to come walking through . . . The police say he either ran away, or was kidnapped and killed by some vagabond who had seen us in town the day prior.
I’m the only one who truly knows what happened to him, and I’ve never been able to tell anyone that It was all my fault.
Tommy was right.

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 75%. (I'm a bot)

An Israeli man was shot and badly wounded in a terror attack while driving through the northern West Bank town of Huwara on Sunday, the military and medics said.
The attack came exactly three weeks after two Israeli brothers were shot dead in a terror attack while driving through Huwara.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was praying for the "Wounded hero" who succeeded in shooting the terrorist attacker, adding: "Whoever tries to harm Israeli citizens - will bear the responsibility."
In another suspected attack on Sunday, medics said they were treating a 64-year-old Israeli man who was lightly hurt after his car came under gunfire and stone-throwing in the West Bank.
Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have been high for the past year, with the IDF conducting near-nightly raids in the West Bank amid a series of deadly Palestinian terror attacks.
Palestinian terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank in recent months have left 14 Israelis dead and several more seriously hurt.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: attack^#1 Palestinian^#2 Israeli^#3 West^#4 Bank^#5
Post found in /Israel, /worldnews, /worldnews and /AskMiddleEast.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.

Hello Everyone,
I have 2 issues with my TT mk1 from ‘99 that i can’t figure out. So i’m looking for some help.

1. My Airbag light stays on So a few weeks ago my gf started moving the chair and suddenly my airbag light came on. So tonight i tried to check the connector and everything was allright. No errors on my OBD scanner but i even tried to wipe all errors although there were no errors but it’s still on.
   
2. Randomly refusing to start. So sometimes on random occasions the car refuses to start for a minute. I have to try multiple times and after a while it starts to slowly fire up like an old diesel. No errors or anything and it always start eventually. Any ideas? The weather doesn’t seem the problem.
   

Please let me know if you have the answer or have had a similar experience. Thanks you!

Any news on Northern Lights Lounge opening back up?