become. And now, he is leading me to the end.
Matthew Mills
Ms. Brands has stopped after walking more than a block past the school. She’s kind of swaying, in front of a house that has a yard sign saying: Everyone Welcome! (except cats)
She is walking toward it, with her keys out and ready to enter.
“Come in, Matthew.” it creaks out of her as she approaches the door. “Everybody is welcome.”
I shake off the shiver I feel from the thought of everyone and follow her toward the door.
Don’t go in. The small voice says. Go home.
I shake off the voice too. Her front door is open. I can see into her living room. It is much cozier than I expected. A small sofa is against the far wall, and a wooden rocker is in front of what is probably a TV.
She is inside now, taking off her black low heels and placing them in the entryway. Every time her eyes meet mine, a chill shoots down my spine. I know there is something demonic in her. But, I also know I am covered in the Blood.
I am up the three stairs and stepping into her house. Another chill. The biggest yet. I close my eyes and shake it away. The door is already closed as I open them again. Her house is lit dimly. The curtains block out most of the natural light. The house has one floor. I can see nearly every room from where I am standing. All doors are open wide. Her kitchen is straight ahead, nuzzled into a small corner.
“Can you find Gizmo and Dizzy for me, Matthew?” she asks, now sitting in her rocker. She is staring at a blank television screen.
“Who’s that?”
“My little stinkers.” a reply that has some sense of life to it. “They are brother and sister yorkie terriers. Gizmo gets a little pink bow in her hair; Dizzy barks his head off if I try and give him one.” a smile has crawled onto her lips.
“Okay.”
“They were last in the bathroom, drying off from the bath I gave them when I got home.”
I walk toward the bathroom. It is the opposite corner from the kitchen. “What did the man look like, Ms. Brands?”
“Did you find them?” she asks.
I am nearly at the bathroom. I can’t explain why it feels so dark even with the sunlight spilling through.
“Dizzy. Gizmo.” I call quietly. “You are wanted.” I step into the bathroom. The shower curtain is closed. Out of my periphery, I see the mirror reflecting my movements. I look back toward Ms. Brands. She continues to call for them.
I pull back the shower curtain. Dizzy and Gizmo are dead, floating face down in dirty bathwater.
“Did you find them?” she calls again.
“No.” it’s the only thing I can say. Out of my periphery, I see the mirror reflecting something that’s moving beside me. When I close my eyes, I hear splashes. I hear the sound of twin terriers being drowned.
I can walk enough that my feet drag toward the living room. The bathroom door slams closed behind me. I can hear the curtain draw back and the water splashing. Something is not just in Ms. Brands. It is here, in her house. Maybe it killed Dizzy and Gizmo while Ms. Brands was out. Or maybe, Ms. Brands killed them in the state she has been in.
“Matthew?” her call is a quiet growl.
I glance. Her eyes are like burnished stone.
“Minea.” her smile seems too big for her face. When I look again, she is just sitting and staring.
I’m at the door, scared to look back. I feel watched, from Ms. Brands, from the open rooms, from the ceiling above. I open the door. The day is bright. I enter it, and walk back toward home, but to me it still feels like I’m in a dark room.
John Doe
What does it mean to fear death? I never have before. Maybe there was a time before Teddy where I dreaded closing my eyes for the last time, but I don’t remember it. I wanted Teddy to kill me earlier today. When he didn’t, the fear of death appeared. And now I am unable to move.
I’ve been parked in this spot many times, only in a car different from the one I’m in, but that’s the only detail that has changed. Like the rest of the town, nothing is alive. The grass is thin brown patches; the trees are as bare as the sides of the house. The shed is barely peeking out from behind the house’s wraparound deck. This is how so many of my nightmares begin.
I dream like everyone else. When my eyes close, I’m somewhere different. Usually, I’m right at this very spot, looking at what I’m now seeing. Until today, it hasn’t mattered. I would dream of the shed and dad’s piece. I would dream of mom dying, leaving me alone with him. And then I would wake to Teddy’s instruction. And I would feel nothing. Fear requires will. I had none. I didn’t care what happened to me. I was biding my time, completely aware that someday it would end. Death hasn’t scared me…
Now it does. I know punishment is coming. If not from Teddy, from the parents I have broken, once I give them back their children. It is a fight in me I don’t understand. The freedom will be short lived: lonely but light. And then I will be seen as the monster Teddy always said I was. It doesn’t matter if I would take it all back. I can’t. Fifteen children are dead because of these hands. Maybe I never touched M. But, she’s dead because of me. I’m fighting to get free from this so that I can finally be seen.
Why do I want to be seen? That’s the question I can’t answer. Something inside me is fueling this, something I can’t describe. I understand what is going to happen if I get free. I’ll be hated by everyone. Death threats will be the only letters I receive. But, something is telling me that is freedom compared to this.
Matthew Mills
When darkness and I shared a room, I pretended it wasn’t there, despite the many times I knew it was watching. It feels like I’m approaching the same set of mind. More and more I want to reason away what is happening. No matter how many years I have followed The Lord, my mind never completely stops trying to convince me that everything I believe is fake.
Marcy is my mission. Finding her is all that matters. If that means losing myself, and what I believe— my mind is lying to me right now. I’m not going to pretend that this can be reasoned away by what the world says is logic. It can’t. I’m poking a monster, stepping into places that I should avoid. That little voice I ignored is not my conscience, it’s my Guide. I disobeyed. And now the darkness Ms. Brands has given a home, is trying to take up residence in me.
It has already started. From the anger that feels deep enough to be in my marrow, to the sickening thoughts that now circle in my head, darkness wants me back. The Lord has brought me from very dark places, but this is the darkest I’ve ever been. Not even dad’s death compares. The weights are much heavier this time. I’m not a son anymore. I’m a husband, a father—I keep forgetting that’s not a title I can carry anymore. I’m a man who knows exactly where this road heads, a man who can no longer stop himself from going down it.
John Doe
The longer I sit, the more fear consumes me. I’m trying to convince my hand to open the door, but it doesn’t move, as if separated from the rest of my body. Every time I look up, my eyes catch M’s reflection in the rearview. The peace I see in her becomes dread as it reaches me. I don’t just fear death, I fear the last moment before it. What will I feel? What will I see? Peace filled M. Peace filled Thomas. But, I don’t see any chance of that being my end.
If I get free, my last moment will be filled with eyes, the eyes of the people who need to see me die. If I don’t, it will be the conclusion to a nightmare I entered over twenty six years ago. Neither will be peaceful. But, I know that I fear death because it is much closer than it has ever been.
The door is open. A crease of outside is slipping in. I didn’t even realize my fingers were wrapped around the handle. My other hand is moving senselessly. Just like the rest of me, it doesn’t know what to do next.
The air is crisp. The smallest exposure confuses my senses. Nothing is alive here. How is there a smell of fallen leaves? How is there a sense of cleanliness in the air? The last time I came, it smelled as dead as it app
ears.
The small crease of outside has become a wide open door. I didn’t expect to feel this way, but the more exposure I have, the cleaner I feel. I am not the man I was the last time I came here. Light wrapped me. I was reminded of love that I thought was long gone. Since then, things have become more and more clear. I can be free.
My feet are outside of the car—now my whole body. In my periphery, I see my childhood home, tall and thick, towering above me. The beginning of the wraparound deck is only a few steps to my right. The shed where this all began is peeking out from where it was hiding. I’m still terrified of it.
As I walk away from it, I relive the steps where I ran toward it. Dad called me with these words: I need help with a little project, kiddo. Now, I hear them again. As loud as when he said them. I’m avoiding it, but I remember coming to his call. I remember the dim lighting, the dusty cement floor, the tools hanging on their little hooks, watching as it happened.
And I remember what followed. I left the shed, numb. He closed the door. As soon as I entered the house, I heard mom’s cries. I ignored them. By then they were disconnected from me anyway, talking about crossing over to the other side. The feeling of dirty crawled all over me.
I walked up the stairs, and entered my room. Teddy began as a quiet voice in my head long before I saw red eyes in place of what had been brown.
He