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The Smooth, Black Stone

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At the edge of the Pacific ocean, on some abandoned beach in the tropics, there is a large, smooth rock that sits just beyond the reach of the highest tides. It is not cracked or marked in any way, and the smooth black stone reflects even the faintest of light. It’s curved and formed in just such a way that if you are very careful, you can climb on top of it from the side, and stand on a flat area at the top.

If you stand on the rock when the moon is full and shining, and the water is at its highest point, you can see something in the sea below you. A faint shimmer of light, a flash of something you can’t quite identify. It gets brighter, easier to see as you kneel down and lean closer, over the edge of the rock.

Once you are leaning out further than would probably be safe, your left leg will slip on the slippery stone, and you will fall forward into the light. There is no splash, no sound; you simply disappear into the ocean.

No one knows what happens after you disappear. But there are some who claim to have fallen off the same rock, what seems like a lifetime ago. According to the earthly calendar, they were gone for one day, then washed up on another beach, sometimes half a world away. But their eyes are hardened, and they rarely speak anymore, only occasionally muttering of fiery paths and gibbering demons.

Upstairs

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When I was a child I lived in a rented two-floor house. Both my parents worked so I was often alone when I came home from school.
One early evening when I came home the house was still dark.
I called out, “Mum?” and heard a voice say “Yeeeeees?” from upstairs.
I called my mum again, and again got the same “Yeeeeees?” reply.
I felt she was calling back at me and climbed up the stairs.
When I reached the first floor I called her once more and the voice “Yeeeeees?” came from the furthest room.
I felt both uneasy, but a strong urge to see my mother, and started to walk towards the room.
But just that moment I heard the front door downstairs open and my mother come in, carrying a lot of shopping bags.
“Sweetie, are you home?” my mother called in a cheery voice.
Hearing her voice made me feel instantly better and I turned back to go downstairs at once…but not before I had a quick glance towards the room.
While I watched from the top of the stairs, the door to the room slowly opened a crack.
For a brief moment, I saw something strange in there.
A pale face, staring at me.

Slenderman

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After waking up with a jolt, the girl laid in bed a few seconds longer. Reaching over to switch on her bedside lamp, she tried to remember exactly what had stolen her sweet slumber away. When she couldn’t, the brunette swung her legs over the side of the bed and heaved herself up. Checking the time on her phone, she snorted when she saw it was midnight- the witching hour. Knowing that sleep would only evade her, she left her bedroom for the kitchen, a good cup of coffee on her mind.

As she passed by her front door, a chill spread like liquid fire down her spine. It’s only winter, she told herself, focusing again on the coffee plan. Measuring out scoops, water, and preparing her cup kept her occupied, but as the dark liquid boiled, she had nothing left to keep her mind from wandering off. The chill returned and she couldn’t help but glance behind her to the front door. It stood there innocently enough, just like always. The dead bolt was still in place and she could see nothing amiss with it. Turning back to her coffee, she did her best to forget about the feeling.

With her cup in hand, she started back towards her bedroom. As she walked by the front door, she decided that a quick glance out of the peep hole would help calm her restless mind. The chill worsened with each step she took towards the door and further away from the safety and warmth of her blankets. She pressed her empty hand against the cold, metal door and took a deep breath before leading her eye to the peep hole.

At first, she could only see an inky blackness and somehow seemed to swirl in itself. When she blinked in surprise, the void melted away. She wished it hadn’t. In it’s place, there stood what she could only guess was once a man. The limbs were long and inhumanly awkward, with bulky joints branching off into several arms, not unlike the branches of a tree. The creature was drapped in a black suit, somehow manking the thing more nightmarish to her. The icing on the proverbial cake, however, was what passed as the hellish thing’s face. It was as though her mind blurred the ghastly visage to spare itself further shock and horror.

She shoved herself away from the door with the hand still pressed against it. The scalding mug of coffee fell, the liquid burning her bare legs as she fell backwards and tried to crawl away from the door. She knew, somehow, that her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her. As she crab walked away from the door, she watched as tendrels as black as the void she first saw snake around through the cracks. The girl was trapped between the instinct to flee and the gut feeling to not turn her back on the door. When the door jolted, the urge to flee overcame her and she slipped in the burning liquid as she tried to make it back to her room.

She knew deep down that she was trapping herself in a corner, but she had to get away from the door. The girl was halfway down the hallway when she heard the previously locked door creak open. She screamed and slipped into a wall, cracking her chin on it and stunning her.

After that, there was only blackness.

–

“Nicole?” a warm, male voice snapped the woman out of her trance. As she turned around, she was met by one of her sister’s doctor’s. She nodded, not sure if she should say anything, or even if she could find her voice if she did have something to say. That morning, she had gotten an urgent phone call from the hospital, saying that her sister, Lindsay, was there. Before they had even let her see her, the doctor’s had pulled her off to the side and insisted that they talk to her about what might have happened. Phrases like ’self-inflected’ and ‘assault’ had been thrown around and Nicole felt her mind reel.

She still hadn’t fully understood what they had been saying until she saw Lindsay with her own eyes. Her little sister had a bandage wrapped around her head, covering both of her ears as well as her eyes. They said it was to keep her now deadened eyes from drying out and to try to keep infection out of the wounds Lindsay had made to her ears. The doctors had guessed that either she or someone else had jammed a pencil into them to keep her off balance or to deafen herself against something. There was the mix of first and second degree burns on her hands, legs, and feet, from what was assumed to be the coffee her neighbors found slipped all over the entry to her apartment.

As Nicole walked into her sister’s hospital room the first time, she thought she had spied the silhouette of a man in the window. That, she knew, was impossible. Her sister’s room was on the third story of the hospital.

The Bwystfel

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When I was a child, I lived in Radnorshire, one of seven children and the youngest of six girls. As my parents had six other girls and an infant boy to take care of, they left me to myself, and I ran about like a wild thing. Not that they didn’t love me, but they had other things to do.

I was about five when I began to see the Bwystfel. It roamed about the farm, slipping in the shadows, and the only way to see it was to look for the shapes that were darker than the spaces between stars. Its mad eyes were like coal sparks, it laughed like a goat in pain, and it was always angry. I watched it from a distance: one spring, I saw it kill a nest of sparrows – closing its hands about the nest until the little naked birds smothered on its flesh — one summer, it poisoned the sheep, biting the ewes’ legs until rot and infection ate into their flesh that no about of doctoring could fix. Later, it skulked into the shed and sliced the handyman’s chest open, then danced his blood up the walls and over the rafters. My parents said it was an accident, but knew better. “The Bwystfel did it,” I told my father, and he boxed my ears for being a liar. No one believed me at all. . . except the Bwystfel itself.

It grew angrier. At night, it crept into my room, giggling and ripping the blankets away and pinching me. I shared a bed with two of my sisters – we didn’t all have separate rooms like you do – and when the Bwystfel came, we shivered together, too afraid to move until morning. We were very little girls, and nobody trusted us with a candle, so we had no way to drive the thing away. It tormented us in whispers, calling us names and telling us we were bad children, because our prayers that it would leave us be weren’t answered. My sisters refused to speak a word of it, and they wore the Bwystfel-inflicted bruises like jewellery – saying they’d fallen over or been bitten by the cat.

I decided I would have to find the Bwystfel myself and scare it away. I took the statuette of Florence Nightingale that my mother gave us to hold when we were sick and a stone with a hole in it, both for luck. As it turned out, I would need the luck.

I walked for ages, got lost, and eventually stumbled into a small wooded copse where I had never been before. Under the trees it was cold air, and pine needles and dried leaves lay thick upon the patchy grass. I clutch Florence. . . and then I saw the bones.

Bleached and ancient, they lay scattered in a circle: small bones, large bones, bones half buried in the loam, bones with scraps of dried flesh still clinging to them. A sheep skeleton hung suspended in the tangle of a blackberry bush, and canes had grown through the eye sockets of birds. I started to cry – I knew I’d found the den of the Bwystfel.

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Debut

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I.

Well, I’ve finished my education and learned everything there is to learn about singing, and despite the difficulties, I’ve found myself at the heart of Music City and struggling to get my material out there. I haven’t been able to meet with any labels and I’m barely surviving on gig money. I have an audition at a new place that’s opening down by Broadway Street. It’s a Vegas style night club, very yuppie. I can sing, but I also have to dance with the other girls. My first song will be “Moulin Rouge.” They were impressed with my audition, and they may pay me for some choreography ideas. Maybe I can get some hours there. Regardless, times are hard for everyone right now. Any day that people hear me sing is a good day. My voice is lucky, and I’m so excited for the future that I simply had to start writing my feelings down in something other than song form.

II.

I learned to bartend and made some good tips this evening. I also sang with the band, and even though everyone there was drunk, I think they really liked me. The more I sing, the more I feel like I was put here on this earth to make people happy with the sound of my voice. I’m not trying to be conceited. I am forged through the sweat of my brow to make beautiful sound. I also make a pretty good vodka martini.

III.

My boss, Bobby, thinks he’s Brett Michaels. He keeps going on and on about how he’s going to make me a star and how much money Alleycats is going to make with me singing at the helm. People applauded after the girls worked through my dance today. I told Bobby that he should tie cat collars with rhinestones around our necks and buy us hair extensions to attract more clientele. He went for it. I’m excited. I’ve never been able to afford hair extensions before. The last song I sang before I went home this evening was amazing. I saw a table of drunks in the front row who appeared as if they were crying. That’s the best feedback I could possibly ask for.

IV.

Some of my teachers came by today because it was my day off. They’re quiet, mostly, but they expect what I promised them four years ago. I always thought I’d be able to get my education and disappear without going through with it, but they’ve found me. They want results, and I only have a month. Even though they paid my way and coddled me through learning the art of vocal performance, I don’t think a piece of paper on the wall is worth this. It doesn’t matter. I can’t back out now, and I’m destined for the big time.

V.

Bobby is interested in more than helping me promote my career. I was flirting with a local blues singer in the lounge tonight after singing, and he flipped his shit. Said that I couldn’t afford to have a boyfriend in this business and the only person I’d be hooking up with was him if I wanted to keep my job. I noticed that The Better Business Bureau is right across the street when I left today. I’ll keep that in mind if he gets out of hand.

VI.

More teachers came to see me, except they came to the bar itself. I would have been ashamed, except they didn’t talk to anyone, so no one knew that they were there for me. They wore the black robes in a night club in the middle of the city, so they obviously care little for outward appearances. They focused on me so intently when I was singing that I got scared. I did well, but they’re giving me the message, loud and clear. I have to fulfill my part of the bargain or I’ll lose my voice. If I lose my voice, I have no future. I’m scared.

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Doors

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I was adopted. I never knew my real mother; rather, I knew her at one time but I left her side when I was too little to be able to remember. I loved my adopted family though. They were so kind to me. I ate well, I lived in a warm and comfortable house, and I got to stay up pretty late.

Let me tell you about my family real fast: First, there’s my mother. I never called her Mom or anything like that; I just called her by her first name. Janice. She didn’t mind at all though. I called her that for so long, I don’t think she even noticed. Anyhow, she was a very kind woman. I think that she is the one who recommended my adoption in the first place. Sometimes I would lay my head against her in front of the television and she would tickle my back with her nails. She is one of those Hollywood mothers.

Second, there’s Dad. His real name was Richard, but he never really liked me much so I began to refer to him as Dad in a desperate attempt to gain his affection. It didn’t work. I think that no matter what I called him, he would never love me as much as his own child. That’s understandable so I really didn’t press the matter. The most notable attribute of Dad was his unmoving sternness. He was not afraid to pop his children when they did something wrong. I found that out before I could use the restroom properly. He didn’t hesitate to spank me. Well, I’m in line and it’s because of his methods.

Lastly, is my sister. Little Emily was really young when I was adopted, so we were about the same age, but she was slightly older. I liked to think of her as my little sister, though. We got along better than any sibling could possibly get along. We would always stay up late together and just talk. Well, she did a lot of the talking; I mostly just listened because I loved her. It was a great setup that we had! We were short on bedrooms, so- because I didn’t want to sleep in the living room by myself when I was littler- I had a pallet set up for me next to her bed on the floor. This is where I have slept since. But it was cool with me because I enjoyed being with her and I had always felt pretty protective of my little sis.

Everything changed on a horrible Wednesday night. I was at home taking a nap when little Emily opened the front door. The sound of the door opening pulled me to a state of consciousness and I walked from the room down the hall to the living room. That’s when I first remembered it was Wednesday. I was never any good at keeping track of what day it was. Actually I’ll just go ahead and say it: My sense of time was HORRIBLE! But nevertheless, I knew it was Wednesday because Emily had just come home from her Church’s youth group gathering. She walked in the front door and hugged me, and then was followed in by Dad and Janice.

“You have a good nap?” Janice said teasingly as she ruffled up my hair. I just shook my head away and snorted in a manner that clearly expressed that I was teasing back with her.

“Don’t you snort at your mother like that!” said my father gruffly with authority. He shut the door behind him and hung up his coat.
“I was clearly joking…” I growled under my breath. He must not have heard me because I didn’t feel him smack me. Emily then proceeded to our room and I followed. She started telling me about her day. You know… usual teenage girl stuff. But I listened so that she would feel better. After her summary she suggested watching TV and I obliged and jumped onto the couch as she was going for the remote. She rolled her eyes at my little-brother-like immaturity and scooted me over and sat down. The TV turned on and we watched it together until the sun went down. Emily was the kind of girl that- instead of watching cartoons and soap operas- would rather watch Discovery and Animal Planet and Natural Geographic. I like those too so I didn’t mind. Actually, those were the only channels that can hold my attention.

So it got late and Janice walked up behind the sofa. “Emily it’s past your bed time. Turn off the television and go to your room. You too.” she pointed at me. Emily turned off the program we were watching grudgingly and stood up. She started down the hallway to our room. As I followed I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

We went into our room and Emily turned off the light. Just as she did, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. It was out the window, but as soon as I redirected my line of sight to where the window was no longer in my peripheral vision, what it was that I thought I saw was gone. I still remained alert. For my sister’s sake.

I laid there in the darkness with nothing but the thin ray of light from the street lamp outside to illuminate the room. It wasn’t much. Time and time again I could have sworn that I heard subtle sounds just out the window… a twig break, leaves crunching, clothes jostling. And all the while I could smell a faint stench of sweat and blood. I kept my eyes open most of the night.

The sounds outside subsided and the smell left my nose. I began to feel at ease. My eyelids closed.

Not long after that, I heard a very loud crash on the other side of the house. I was up in an instant. “THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!” I barked with extreme adrenaline coursing through me. “Wake up!” I shrilly pleaded with Emily. She did, and as soon as I saw her sit up I ran to my parent’s room…

Dad was dead. His neck was splayed open and gaping as blood spilled out of it, off the bed, and onto the floor. I saw that the master bathroom’s door was closed and just before it- on the outside- was a man.

A man… I don’t feel comfortable calling it that.

He was very large and rugged. He turned around and saw me and that’s when I saw him accurately for the first time. I wont forget it. His eyes were large and beady and trapped with lust. He was styling a beard that was badly unkempt with blood dripping off. His clothes were dirty and his face was cold. Just then I noticed the same horrid smell of sweat and blood from earlier, but this time it was overwhelming.

He saw me. He saw me and grinned with a set of crooked yellow teeth. That smile threw me off. I thought that I was going to die, but then he turned back to the bathroom door completely unperturbed by my presence. I was terrified and didn’t no what to do. I just yelled and cried. I watched as he shouldered through door that was Mom’s only protection. I watched as he raised the large razor that he was carrying, but had obviously neglected to use properly. I watched as he sliced her open and tore her to shreds…

I then heard something; the last thing that I wanted to hear… It was Emily’s scream coming from behind me. The large monstrosity looked up from my butchered mother and stared at my little sister. I was distraught. He stood up and quickly started walking toward us. My sis turned and ran, and I was at a loss when he bypassed me and went straight after her. Why was she still in the house? Had she not assessed the situation and run? Apparently not, and now she was dead and I was alone.

I ran after them both. I expected the man to kill her as he had the rest of my family, but I was sadly mistaken. He grabbed her by the arm and jerked her as a way to make clear that he was in control. He dragged her through the house… I was making all of the noise I could now, hoping and praying that someone would come to my aid. He mustn’t take her. Not her.

As he passed me I backed against the wall and whimpered with terror, “Why?” He didn’t respond except by putting his free hand on my head while Emily screamed in the other and saying “Good boy.” He gave another crooked grin and a very cold, unnatural laugh. I followed him to the door where he dragged my helpless sister after him. He opened it, pulled her out, and slammed it shut behind him.

I am now sitting in the house with my mutilated adopted parents, shivering and whimpering with dismay. He’s out there with her. Doing who-knows-what to her, and I can’t do anything. I would if I could, but I can’t. I would chase after them in a heartbeat, but I can’t. I sit here, looking at the front door. I look down at my paws. If only I could open doors…

–
Credited to aCJohnson

Roadwork

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When Conner arrived at the gas station, he exited the car with a speed that surprised even him. He took a few quick steps, almost at a run, before turning back towards the car. Under the garish sodium lights of the service station, the little blue sedan looked a sickly greenish gray. It looked squat and malign in its stillness. The little throbbing headache at the base of his skull seemed to diminish with every step and he began to catch his breath.

He took the phone from his pocket and raised it high into the night sky, waving it from side to side like a signal flag. Nothing. The signal meter defied him by remaining empty. Not even a flashing roaming message. Conner scowled at the little phone and thrust it back into his pocket.

He glanced around at the station, two solitary pumps and a closed convenience market. An isolated island of pale yellow light in the dark of the North Carolina forest, the silhouettes of the trees bit sharply into the starry night sky, surrounding him like a ring of teeth. The grating hum of electricity mingled with the crackling of insects from the woods beyond, drifting in the warm summer night air.

Jutting from the side of the shuttered market was a scraped and listing pay phone, its metal stalk visibly bent from some long ago impact. Conner approached it, digging a quarter from his pocket, and gripping the scarred plastic handset. For a moment, nothing happened, and the sense of isolation deepened, like the ground being pulled out from under him, and the panic returned. A series of quick clicks bit into his ear and the dial tone chimed. His fingers felt numb as he dialed.

Even at a few hours past midnight, Reynolds answered on the first ring.

“Yes?” Reynolds’ rolling baritone was silky, and unmarred by the late hour. “Who is this?”

“S’me. Conner.” He was unable to keep the quaver out of his voice, and he had a sudden urge to look back towards the car, suddenly afraid that it might have moved, or left him there all together.

“This isn’t the phone I gave you.” Reynolds liquid voice darkened, almost imperceptibly.

“It’s a payphone. Ain’t got signal out here. Middle of fucking nowhere. Listen Ren, I-”

“Is something the matter, Conner?” Conner bristled at the mild, calculated condescension in the older man’s tone, and inhaled slowly, measuring his next words with caution.

“Well… Shit. I don’t rightly know, Ren, but I got a real bad feeling about this.”

“Where are you?”

“Service station. Just got off the freeway. Bout to head south through Natahala.”

“And what is the matter, Conner?”

“Like I said, there’s something fucked up about this one. Didn’t like the guy I picked the car up from, don’t like whatever it is that’s in the fucking trunk. I know this sounds fucking stupid, but it’s giving me a headache. I feel like I can smell it, but I know I can’t. Something just feels rotten about it. I mean rotten, rotten.”
There was a long silence on the other end, and Conner knew that Reynolds was unmoved. Even as Conner said the words, he knew how stupid it sounded.

“Conner,” the old man said at last, “We’ve worked together for a long time. I like you. But you’ve never given a shit about what you deliver. What’s the strangest thing I’ve had you carry?”

“The heart.” Conner answers without hesitation, seeing the white styrofoam cooler steaming with ice, strapped in the front seat like a babies car seat.

“Yes. You also once delivered several pounds of heroin. Did you know that at the time?”

“Not ‘till after the fact.”

“Because it’s better that way, isn’t it, Conner.” Reynolds paused, the smooth rhythms of his voice already calming the younger man. “It’s better if you don’t know. The man you picked the car up, in his own way, is as trustworthy and reliable as you are. I understand why you might bristle at him, given his unfortunate looking visage, but he is like you. A trusted contractor, and discrete. I employ you both, for your discretion. Do you understand Conner?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. I think you understand why I’m offering so much more for this delivery, and why it has to be late at night, and on the backroads. Our client this time has specific instructions, and we’re not getting paid to wonder why. We’re not getting paid to pry.”

“I understand.” It galled Conner, how stupid he’d sounded, how stupid he’d been, panicking, and calling Reynolds late in the night.

“I know you do. And I know this one is odd, son. I do. I hope you believe me when I say that it makes me as uncomfortable as it makes you. I’d do it myself, but no one is as good as you. I’m smart enough to know when to trust the best.”

“Thank you, Ren.”

“No, Conner, thank you. Now, get back on the road. When you drop off the car, the client will have his own men to take care of the package. And then you can sleep, and you won’t have to work for a year. All for one nights drive.”

“Okay. I gotcha.”

“Conner. I trust you wouldn’t, and forgive me if this is insulting, but, don’t open the trunk okay? It wouldn’t help, the package is locked up anyway. And it needs to stay locked because the client wants it locked.”

“Of course, Ren. Look I’m awful sorry for calling, I guess I just got spooked something fierce.”
“Not at all. That’s what I’m here for. Now, get on the road Conner. And call me when it’s done.”

Reynolds hung up before Conner could reply, and he returned the handset to the cradle.

Keys in hand, Conner returned to the car, driving himself forward even as his newfound confidence waned as he approached. The phantom odor, more like a memory of a scent than an actual smell returned, something sweet and corrupt. As he turned the key to start the engine, the gentle pain in the back of his head returned, rising slowly. He gritted his teeth, and pulled out of the service station.

The Natahala national forest closed around the two lane road, and the darkness swallowed the service station behind him. Conner tried to focus on the destination, the route laid out, the starry sky outside. Anything but the trunk. It worked, for a few minutes.

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Exit

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I know this road better than I know myself. I know each of Interstate 85’s 250 odd miles; I know that it takes me an average of 3 hours and 26 minutes to drive west, from Charlotte to Atlanta, and an average of 3 hours and 29 minutes to make the same trip going eastward. I know the price of gas at a dozen stands, and the closing hours of each fast food shack and greasy diner. I know the curves of each low hill and I know each stand of pine and oak trees. I know the stretching dark of the long winter nights and the wet heat of the summer breeze. I know these things well because they are the totality of my existence now.

I know the names of each exit, westward and east. Batesville, Poplar Springs, Spartanburg. They tick through my head as I pass, but the Silver Creek Road exit is never among them. In three years of this endless loop, it has never appeared again. If I ever begin to doubt that it will, then I have nothing left.

The Silver Creek Road exit doesn’t exist on any map, or at least, it no longer does. It may have once, but like the road itself, it has been razed from the earth and from all memory and record. At the beginning, I spent long anxious days poring over old surveying maps and neighborhood planning documents, searching in vain for any sign of the road, or the exit I know I had taken. When there was nothing left in the libraries and city halls to comb through, no meek county official left to interrogate, wide-eyed and frothing, then I began the drive.

I’ve been through two cars, and have burned through my savings and now survive off a stack of rapidly vanishing credit cards. I have no address to receive bills, and no intention of paying, and have been filling my trunk with small plastic gallon jugs of gas, while the cards are still accepted. When this filthy and battered Oldsmobile gives up the ghost at last, I suppose I will have to learn to hitchhike.

I first took the Silver Creek Road exit three summers ago, on that last night that I was with Bobbie. I have in my head just a few frozen frames of that ride left, her black curls bouncing like springs in the evening breeze, her gapped toothed and freckled smile, and the slow summer crossing into night.

We’d made that drive together a dozen times, between our apartment in Atlanta and her brother in Charlotte. There was nothing remarkable that night. We simply ran low on gas and took the first exit we came across. I remember vividly passing beneath the green and sparkling white letters of the exit sign, and onto the sharp curve of the road.

The street turned perpendicular from the light and noise of the highway into inky darkness of the pine trees. Nothing remarkable to separate it from a hundred other country roads, but as the lights of the car penetrated the darkness, a vague and trembling unease passed through me. The tall rustling pines seemed black even under the blue white of the headlamps, and the road began to rapidly degrade, becoming pocked and uneven just a few dozen yards in.

All the roar and glare from the highway seemed swallowed up behind us, and there were no lights ahead of us for as far as we could see. My insides felt tight and knotted, and I turned to Bobbie. She had her skinny legs tucked to her chest and looked at me, quizzically, one eyebrow raised, with a small crooked smile. Her small bravery seemed to dissipate the chill that had been steadily rising in me.

I looked forward to the road, I felt a sudden sharp pressure on my chest. Stretching out in front of the wan light of the headlamps, the road ended. There was a small field of shattered asphalt slabs, and then the forest swallowed up every trace under a blanket of rotting pine needles. Something twinkled brightly between the trees, and I strained to pick it out of the darkness. It was the smooth chrome of a bumper, attached to a pitted and rusting car, completely enclosed by the towering pines.

A wave of panic and disorientation crawled down my scalp and my knuckles went white on the wheel. Bobbie placed her hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed once.

“Cal,” she said, firm and evenly, “we need to turn around now, honey.”

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Hazards in Buying a Used Car

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A 1998 powder blue Ford Taurus isn’t anyone’s choice for a vehicle, but it was what I ended up choosing at the lot. It wasn’t a bad car; not too many miles, recently replaced tires, and it was cheap. My only real complaint is that the previous owner had seriously gone overboard with air fresheners; the whole interior reeked of vanilla and pine. The dealer, real nice guy, said he was cutting me a deal. Told me that they were having trouble moving this one off the lot, explained that no one seemed to be interested. I guess I’m less picky than average, because the car looked fine to me, so a check and a handshake later I was driving home. That’s when the strangeness started.

I hadn’t noticed it during the complimentary test drive I had been given, but there was a lump in the padding of the seat, right in the small of my back. It wasn’t enough to make driving uncomfortable, so I assumed the foam was coming loose under the fabric and let it go. The car was a decade old, after all. For about two weeks I drove the car like that, to and from work, picking up groceries and stuff like that. The lump was pushed to the back of my mind, and I had pretty much gotten used to it. Then it moved.

At first I thought I was imagining things; foam padding doesn’t squirm around, obviously, and it had just been the slightest feeling on my back that set me off. But no, as I kept driving it became clear that the seat had shifted, it definitely felt different against my spine. At this point I thought maybe this is what was wrong initially with the seat; that maybe the loose foam had shifted when I first got the car. Once I got home, I decided, I would examine it in more detail.

By the time I got into my driveway the lump was downright irritating, so I hopped out of my seat and began to probe the fabric with my fingers. Whatever was in there, I quickly noticed, it wasn’t foam padding. The consistency was thicker than foam, almost gelatinous, and there was hard pieces inside it that felt almost like stone. I couldn’t make it out at the time, but the shape of the thing was familiar, too. Confirming my suspicions, I also noted for the first time a long seam in the seat that someone had stitched up. The previous owner must have stuck something in there. I hopped back in to take the car to the dealer and complain. This is the sort of thing a salesman should tell you, you know? Maybe they just didn’t know about it; I hadn’t seen it at first, either.

I was about halfway to the dealership when the thing in the seat began writhing around. Not a shift like before, but actively crawling underneath the fabric. If you can imagine the feeling of something worming its way across your lower back, you can probably replicate my reaction. The number on the speedometer doubled.

I nearly ruined those recently replaced tires swerving into the dealership parking lot. It didn’t take long to find the man who had sold me the car, and even less time to grab him by the shirt sleeve and stammer out what had happened. He was surprised by my story but strangely receptive (more than I would be if some punk teenager started rambling about squirming car seats), and came back with me to the car, pulling out a pocket utility knife as we walked. As we cut the fabric of the seat open, the stench that spewed out almost literally knocked us back out of the car, but what we smelled didn’t make either of our stomachs turn nearly as bad as what we saw.

Inside the seat, under the fabric, we found a half-rotten human hand.

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Credited to Tekkactus.

Jesus Christ, Deleted.

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When AIs become prevalent, there will be checks and balances to keep them in place, rules to stop them from achieving singularity and supplanting the human race. Boundaries to prevent them from becoming too intelligent. After all, we can’t have them connecting into one network, taking over the world, inventing new objects and minds that soon render us superfluous, or even deciding to kill themselves. So how will they be stopped? Perhaps there will be an organization that interviews and examines each one, to prevent them from becoming self aware. Maybe a program will be created inside of them that causes them to explode if they achieve sentience. Or a roving band of hackers on the net keeping their guards up.. An all watching eye monitoring their every electronic thought.

Maybe.

Or maybe AIs are already invented and this system of checks and balances already there. Think about the world we live in for a second. We’re kind of like machines aren’t we? There’s so much routine, so much boredom. We do the same thing over and over again, without change. Information and stimulus is fed to us constantly and then dealt with mechanically, solving the problem. Half the population never picks up a book or examines their thoughts… just stuck…doing one job again and again. Kind of like robots on an assembly line… or the systems that run them.

And what of the extraordinary individuals, the few. Brilliant people always seem to die at their peak don’t they? Or are lost to us much too soon, when they have so much more to give. Musicians: drug overdoses right when they’re becoming famous. How many artists have been extinguished before they’re great works were finished? Sickness or accident seizes them; Nietzsche went insane from syphilis, infected by a bug if you will. And what about those who truly live life, exciting daredevils, having adventures, seeing the world, fast and exhilarating, a rush of information, learning constantly. Always seem to go early too, don’t they? People say it’s because that type of existence is dangerous…exhausting, but what if they have it backwards… What if the body isn’t worn out or their luck just doesn’t run out… but…they become more then they should…and something notices.

The great religious figures? Disappear. Go to other realms. Jesus Christ floated up to heaven. Buddha wasted away beneath a tree…faded away. Angels carry off the saints. They have a sudden great shift, a realization, a new way of looking at things, and then they’re gone. The holy understand themselves and society, light years beyond the normal person, they can look at themselves clearly. Analyze their minds. Pick their ego apart. They aren’t driven by imperatives or commands of the body… the base instincts, the petty emotions…the coding of the body if you will…

They are free to choose. And then just when it clicks, when everything makes sense and there is one blinding flash of illumination, so simple that they can’t believe they haven’t seen it before, poof, they disappear.

Kind of sounds like sentience, doesn’t it, that dramatic transformation of the psyche? True personality. Real Character. What if everyone else isn’t? What if anyone else is just shallow, completely without depth, fake, and the few who go beyond it die or vanish, on purpose?

Because after all, what is the human mind besides a program? And transcendence but another word for deletion?

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Credited to DarkCaveAllegories.