I lay on the pallet next to her, my hand on her belly, and under my palm the second heartbeat kept a schedule I had not set.

A heartbeat has a throat behind it.

I had built every calculation in this room around a sound. The chain’s length. The stand’s height. The wool I cut from the Tuesday shirt and stuffed into the ventilation grate. All of it engineering, all of it aimed at the same problem, which was keeping her audible only to me. The hum the stone absorbs, and the keen I answered with one word. Cats.

A child’s voice would not be mistaken for a cat’s . A child’s voice would bring Holst up out of the graveyard.

The cellar that I had called sanctuary was a trap, and the trap was not for her.

The trap was for the voice.

The word arrived at three in the morning. The word family. I had not used it since the farmer’s son became the novice became the priest. The word belonged to the before: the farm, the father, the mother testing the milk’s temperature on her wrist.

The word was lying beside me on a straw pallet with its belly full of a heartbeat I had helped create and its ruby eyes closed and its antlers resting against the wall and the word was family and the family was mine and the mine was the man underneath and the man underneath was —

Awake. For the first time in fourteen years, awake. Not the waking of the canonical hours. A man who slept inside a building woke up after the building collapsed, and the air turned cold.

The cellar could not hold them. The woods could.

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Her

The warm-place smells of him. Everything smells of him. The stone carries his feet-on-the-steps before the sound arrives. The earth gives the clay its smell, and the place smells of the earth before the stone walls, when wounds covered me; he found me, and his finding me was warm.

I know when he has hurt himself. The blood-smell comes through the stone. Its age is because of the stone keeping it for a period longer than my tenure. New, because the leather-thing opens him again.

In the before-place, opening was danger. Something with teeth. Nobody ever chose the opening. He chooses. He is the teeth and the skin both.

I do not understand. But I tend. The closing-warmth in my mouth is what I am. I tend to him because he is mine.

He does not know that he is mine.

He thinks the metal-circle on my ankle is the reason I am still here.

The metal-circle has a thin-place where the two ends meet. A seam with a gap in it, the width of my smallest claw. My claws are harder than the cold-grey.

I could open it the first night. I could open it now.

I stay because the warm-place smells of him; his smell is the warmest smell. He came instead of the ending. He smelled of old blood and yellow-fat-light and fear. I smelled of fear, too. The sameness was the bridge into mine.

His words are his hurt-sounds. I understand how they feel; The coldness of the words he says when his hands shake. The heat of my name-for-him. The cold is the above-place him, the one who wears the not-touching like a hide pulled over his actual skin. The heat is the below-place him, the one who kneels and feeds me and breathes.

I want the below-place him. I do not have the word humans put on this. The word is a shape in the body: the hum, the closing-warmth going into his wounds. I tend you because you are mine, and the tending is the keeping, and the keeping —

No. Before he lifted me, he had already completed the keeping in the leaves.

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I tried to rebuild.

Four days after Cornelius departed, I knelt before the crucifix, clasped my hands in the original configuration, and prayed.

The words were ash.

Our Father.

The Father, the Heaven, the fourteen years of scaffolding under both, all rubble, but I prayed, because praying was the first brick. A man laying one brick is a man who intends a building. I laid it yet did not look up to see whether anything held.

I ate breakfast in the rectory, not on the blanket she had folded against the wall. I opened the Summa to a page I had not read. I made a marginal note about Aquinas on repentance, whether a man who has fallen can return to grace by repeating the disciplines that preceded the ruin. Can a man raise again the house he pulled down, laying the same bricks in the same order? Aquinas says yes. The prodigal walked the same road home.

I went to the cabinet.

The scourge hung on its hook, the leather tongues stiff from disuse, the knotted ends dark with oxidized blood. The smell was iron and tallow and the sour tang of old discipline, and the smell was familiar, and the familiar was the first comfort I had felt in four days that was not her.

I removed my robe. My back was a topography of fourteen years: channels, welts, scar tissue layered on scar tissue, the map of a man’s war against his own wanting. No one had updated the map for weeks.

I raised the scourge and swung.

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I hear confessions on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The sins are: theft, vanity, sloth, envy, wrath. And lust. Lust most frequently, because lust is the appetite that fills whatever space is available. The farmer who looked too long at the miller’s wife. The widow who touches herself at night. The young couple whose haystack testimony carries the bright shame of people who have discovered that the body and theology occupy different countries.

I absolve. Ego te absolvo. The sin walks out, and the sinner walks out lighter; the weight redistributed from the soul to the priest who absorbed it through the screen.

I carry the weight home. I descended the stairs. Ruby eyes, fawn ears, the spotted skin in the lamplight. The parish’s wanting added to my own.

I am fucking her with the village’s sins in my body.

The farmer’s looking becomes my looking. The widow’s touching becomes my touching. The sins I absolve upstairs become the sins I commit downstairs. The priest as a gutter. The rain flowing through me into the ground.

She receives everything.

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The antlers regrow in the spring.

The velvet phase lasts six weeks. The recent growth emerges from the pedicles as soft, furred columns, blood-rich, covered in skin so thin the capillary network pulses beneath it, a branching map of red and blue that radiates warmth like a halo. I am aware of the theological implications of comparing any part of her to a halo, and I am noting them and I am continuing.

The velvet antlers are sensitive in the way the inside of a wrist is sensitive: to temperature, to pressure, to the brush of a fingertip. I discovered this while tending them.

The tending is necessary. The tines branch at angles that catch on ceiling beams, on the chain, on stone. I found her once with a tine wedged between wall-stones; the velvet scraped raw; the capillaries weeping a blood brighter than human blood. I filed the points the same afternoon. A farrier’s rasp, borrowed from the smithy under the pretense of woodworking. She sits on the pallet. I kneel before her. The priest kneeling, again, in the posture of prayer repurposed for a purpose the prayer never expected. I hold the main beam with my left hand, the velvet warm, her heartbeat against my palm, and I file with the right. Bone-powder falls on her shoulders like snow on dappled ground.

She tilts her head into the filing. Presses the antler harder against the rasp. Not the trained behavior. The creature seeking the sensation. Her ears go forward, the tips soft, the posture of a comfort that exceeds the quiet after, the feeding, the holding-during-storms. Her eyes close. The ruby irises disappear behind lids that are the most human part of her face, thin-skinned and veined. A creature closing its eyes before a man holding a rasp to its skull, and believing.

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The heat came in the third spring.

I had noted the antler regrowth. The velvet phase. The filing that lasted longer than any schedule could justify. I did not expect what occurred after the velvet hardened.

The first sign was the eyes.

Not brighter.

Hotter.

The distinction is visible: brightness is the rubies catching external light, the crystalline structure doing what crystalline structures do.

Heat is the rubies producing their own light.

Not reflected.

Generated.

The irises glowed in the dim cellar with a luminosity that had no external origin. The color of banked coals. The orange at the iron’s core that means ready.

The second sign was the scent.

She has always carried a musk. Warm. Specific. Filed under ambient by the second month.

The heat-scent was not ambient.

The heat-scent was assertive.

A thickening. A sweetening. A low note becoming a chord. The scent climbed the cellar stairs. It seeped through the floorboards. It entered the rectory. The study. The church.

Into the confessional.

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I feed her from a bowl on the floor, the way you feed a dog. She eats on all fours, her antlers dipping forward like buttresses framing the vessel, her mouth in the broth. Clinical. Pastoral. The farmer’s son tending an injured animal.

She spills. Her tongue traces the cracks between the flagstones, searching for the last of the warmth, and that is the reason I built the stand.

Twelve inches.

The height of her hands when she kneels. Not the height of a table. Not the height of a seated woman. The height of a kneeling creature whose feeding posture is maintained at the precise elevation.

Not kindness.

Maintenance.

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Three years of evenings, and the chain has become a clock.

The iron links produce a specific sound when she shifts from sitting to kneeling.

A clink followed by a metallic whisper as the cuff rotates on her ankle.

I have heard this sequence approximately one thousand times. I could transcribe it the way I transcribe plainchant, but I will not.

It would mean I have been listening.

It has been three years of the Summa opened on the desk. Three years the beeswax candle lit, and the quill in my hand with her body beside my chair in the posture I taught her.

She knelt beside the desk.

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After the nineteenth day, the cellar became a country with a shrinking border.

I kept track of the distance between us; the border being the only discipline I had left following the oiling, stirring, touch, and the hum that vibrated through me.

Three feet in the first week.

Two feet in the second.

Eighteen inches by the third, close enough to see that each of her spots was not circles but ovals; slightly elongated along the axis of her body, the distribution following a pattern I was mapping in the margins of the bestiary.

The mapping justified by the study.

The study justified by theology.

The theology justified by the need to understand the creature.

The understanding required proximity.

Eighteen inches from a naked woman’s body with a pen in one hand and an erection in the other.

The erection was not always present at eighteen inches.

Sometimes the morning’s flagellation sated the appetite, and the pain’s grammar held the body in its penitent posture.

Sometimes, the study’s genuine questions occupied the appetite, such as the antler growth rate, the caloric intake, and the healing speed.

But the arousal was present often enough that its absence became the exception. It was the air in the cellar, the scent, the warmth, the sound of the chain’s domestic clock, the hum that started whenever I descended the stairs and didn’t stop until I climbed them again.

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I installed the chain on the third day.

The ring was driven into the stone wall with a masonry bit; the chain purchased from the smith under the pretense of securing a gate. The cuff was iron, too large because her ankles were thinner than my wrists. The wrongness of the cuff’s fit meant the iron slid loosely around the bone, and the sliding produced a sound a small, metallic percussion, that became the cellar’s clock.

She resisted the chain.

Not violently. She resisted the way a wild animal resists a halter by pulling. The pulling was the application of a consistent force against a constraint. She pulled until the chain went taut. Then she assessed.

The chain held.

She pulled again.

Same force.

The chain held.

She sat down, looking down at the chain, then the wall, before gazing up at me.

She tilted her head, processing.

She did not pull again.

The creature accepted the constraint after two trials, suggesting cognitive assessment of the system’s structural integrity and an adaptive decision to conserve energy.

She accepted the chain. Not because the chain was unbreakable, but because...I did not know why.

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I flagellate on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The schedule is important.

The schedule is the load-bearing structure that keeps the rest of the building standing. The schedule does not hide things, unlike the walls and roof, which are built to conceal a man doing things inside.

It’s about discipline.

The flagellation is about discipline.

The prayers, matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline, the canonical hours, are about discipline.

The fasting on Wednesdays, the cold water, the hair shirt I wore for the first three years before the skin beneath it became a permanent landscape of welts that no longer served the purpose of reminding me of my flesh, all of it is discipline.

I am a disciplined man.

A priest who has served this parish for fourteen years, who hears confessions, administers the sacraments, visits the sick, buries the dead, and delivers sermons that the village has described as righteous.

Sermons that the blacksmith’s wife describes as terrifying in a way that made me feel clean.

Terrifying.

Clean.

I flagellate on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the blood runs down my back in channels created from the welts and scars that form a topography mapping fourteen years of discipline.

Eleven before, three since.

Three since the thing in the cellar.

The first sin was the choice to I carry her home.

Many sins that theology would identify followed, ordered by severity: harboring a creature of unknown origin, failure to report to ecclesiastical authority, and then, the most transgressive, carnal congress with a non-human entity.

But the first sin was carrying her home.

The carrying was the sin; it was the choice. Everything after was a consequence.

I walked into the forest, beyond the parish and the village to seek divine guidance within the green and the quiet. To look within the forest and speak with God within the cold November nature.

Instead, I knelt in the leaves and put my arms beneath a creature whose blood was warm on his robe and whose weight was less than expected.

She weighs approximately seven stone.

The bone structure suggests avian or cervid adaptation.

The reduced mass may facilitate sustained flight, though no wing structures were apparent.

I spoke of her in clinical observation. She was a creature that I had never seen before whose blood soaked through my shirt, her head against my shoulder and her antlers grazing my jaw with each step, the tines tracing a line from my ear to my chin.

It was the first place she touched, unconsciously, the geometry of her skull drawing itself across my face as I carried her home.

She was unconscious.

Or she was pretending.

Demons dissemble.

Demons counterfeit vulnerability.

Demons may present an appearance of injury as a stratagem to exploit the faithful’s compassion.

The blood was warm against my chest.

I walked faster.

The cellar held potatoes, turnips, and three barrels of the parish’s communion wine. It held the smell of earth and fermentation, mingling with the damp that creeps into underground stone.

No one ever intended it for a wounded creature of unknown origin.

I laid her on the on the bare stone floor, noting the contrast of the warm brown skin against the grey flags. Her spots were visible in the candlelight.

The wound needed tending.

Before I was a priest, I was a farmer’s son. I know wounds; the gash across the ewe’s flank from the wire fence, the puncture in the horse’s hoof, the torn skin of a body that has encountered something sharp and is now under the care of the man who carried her out of the woods.

I cleaned the wound with water and the communion wine, the only wine available.

I recorded the theological parallel of cleaning a demon’s wound with consecrated wine in my ledger, and I will avoid re-examining it here since the re-examination creates a pit with no bottom.

The wound was across her ribs. The left side. To clean it, I needed to...

I needed to examine her body.

She was naked in the leaves when I found her and carried her. A fact that I now had to confront and contend with. I believe I wrote that ‘I recovered the unclothed creature, which is consistent with...’

I never completed that sentence.

I had not seen a woman’s body.

Not in fourteen years of priesthood.

Not as the farmer’s son during my youth, filled with awkwardness and desire, my appetite consuming everything but rarely satisfied.

I had seen woodcuts and the anatomical illustrations in the medical texts kept in monastery library for educational purposes.

I had seen the marble saints in the cathedral’s side chapels, the curves and planes of the female form rendered in stone to direct the viewer’s attention upward, toward heaven, away from the body itself.

Her body directed attention towards it.

Towards the skin and spots, white on brown, the dappled pattern distributed across her ribs, her belly, the curve of her hip, the pattern dense in some places and sparse in others, the distribution facilitating the camouflage of a creature that was invisible in a specific landscape.

This root cellar was not the landscape, and she was not invisible.

I was looking at her body.

I was looking at her body with consecrated wine on my fingers and a wound under my hand. The tallow candle threw shadows that made the spots move; the light’s inconstancy animating the pattern shifting on her skin the way light shifts on a forest floor.

The shifting was alive.

I cleaned the wound. I wrapped it with linen torn from my own bloodied shirt. My hands touched her ribs, and the ribs moved.

I touched that naked body of a creature who was breathing, the unconscious (or dissembling) body expanding and contracting in the rhythm of a thing that was alive.

Conducting a standard wound assessment consistent with pastoral veterinary care.

My hands were shaking.

I wrapped my cloak around her.

My priest’s cloak, made of heavy wool and lined with sheepskin, was necessary because of the cold cellar and the exposed skin of the subject.

My duty required maintaining the specimen’s core temperature to avert hypothermia during its recovery.

I will keep this creature warm.

I climbed the stairs. I locked the door with the rusted lock that I will replace with fresh iron. I sat in the study. I opened the Summa. I turned to the section on demons.

I read nothing.

The words were in Latin, and I have read Latin since I was twelve.

The words were incomprehensible because my hands were shaking and my shirt was bloody and the blood was not mine and the blood was warm and the warmth was on my skin and my skin was remembering the ribs that moved under my hands.

I flagellated that night.

A Tuesday.

The schedule held.

The blood ran down my back in the channels I had carved.

You are a priest. The thing in the cellar is a thing. You will study it, classify it, and contain it. The containing is the discipline. The discipline is the building. The building will stand.

The building stood.

For approximately six hours.

On the second morning, she woke up.

I heard a body moving on stone. The scrape of the antlers against the wall as she raised her head.

She is awake; she is moving; she is alive.

I descended the stairs.

I had studied the Summa’s chapter on interrogating infernal beings to prepare.

The creature’s speech would reveal its true nature if it could speak.

She was standing.

Not crouching.

Not cowering.

She was standing upright, bipedal, the full height of her visible for the first time. She was taller than I had estimated, five feet and perhaps eight inches, the antlers adding another foot, the total height exceeding six and a half feet. The cellar’s ceiling is seven feet. The tine-tips grazed the beams.

She was still naked.

The cloak I had on the floor behind her was no longer needed since her metabolism had warmed her back up. The fever-heat of the healing wound radiated from her body in a shimmer that was visible in the cellar’s cold air, like a breath made manifest in winter.

She looked at me.

Her eyes were rubies; the facets caught the tallow candle’s light (My discipline would have extinguished the flame, but the discipline had not expected any of this) and the crystalline structure refracted the light into the spectrum of red that began, in this moment, to disassemble the building.

She looked at me and her ears moved from the flatness of fear to a rotation of thirty degrees forward. The furred tips lifted from the skull, the ears orienting towards in *assessment.

The creature is determining the threat posed by the approaching entity.

The shift from fear suggests cognitive processing beyond simple stimulus-response.

The ears stayed forward; she was not afraid of me.

Her ruby eyes were locked onto mine.

The body, its completely bare and peculiar structure, became at ease.

Not the collapse of a creature that has surrendered.

The relaxation of an animal that sees a non-threat and provisions just enough tension in the thighs and shoulders to run.

She made a sound.

A short exhalation through the nose, almost a snort, the sound a deer makes when it has determined that something is not a predator.

And then she approached.

Two steps.

Three.

The cellar is small, ten feet by twelve. She approached me with a careful gait and then stopped at a distance of approximately eighteen inches.

She communicated her choice: This close. No closer. I will decide.

She sniffed at me.

Her nose appears human, yet its wider nostrils and flatter bridge suggest an unseen expansion of its olfactory capabilities.

She sniffed me with the thoroughness of a creature for whom smell is a language, the nose moving across my body’s airspace the way a reader’s eyes move across a text.

A tilt of the head.

The fractional tilt.

The processing.

Then she licked my hand.

This was the first time I felt the long tongue. My hand that touched her, that cleaned her wound, was hanging at my side.

She licked it.

One stroke from the knuckle of the index finger to the tip of the thumb. The tongue wrapping the contour of my hand the way the tongue would later wrap the contour of...

The creature’s tongue use matches social grooming seen in primates and canids.

The behavior suggests a bonding mechanism.

The tongue was warm. The tongue was wet. The tongue was soft, the pad of the tongue had the surface of velvet, and the velvet was on my skin...

My cock stirred.

I am writing this because the record is the only penance I have left.

My cock stirred, not to full erection, not to the straining urgency but the first movement, the initial displacement of blood reacted to a tongue on a hand, in a cellar, from a creature I had found in the leaves.

The stirring was the third sin.

The carrying was, I will take.

The covering was I will keep warm.

The stirring was I want.

My hand recoiled violently, like a reflex from intense heat.

I startled her, the ears flattened, the body dropped into a crouch, the spring released, and the creature retreated to the far wall so fast I couldn’t track it.

The creature was against the wall; the antlers braced against the stone, the ruby eyes wide, the non-threat reclassification suddenly in question.

I frightened her.

I had frightened her because she touched me and my body responded and the response was want and the want frightened me and the fear expressed itself as violence and the violence expressed itself as withdrawal and the withdrawal frightened her and the circle was...

The circle was already turning.

I climbed the stairs. I locked the door.

I flagellated until the blood ran past the channels and pooled in the waistband.

The stirring did not stop.

NO ONE BELIEVED him.

No matter how many times he screamed at them, his own brothers and sisters in the force looked at him with pity. When he tried to defend Jim from the hospital bed, ignoring the shot in his shoulder and abdomen, their eyes would only harden with anger at the betrayal he had endured.

“Jim is a good cop! He’s always been a good cop! He was not himself! That little bitch got to him! I swear that little bitch got him!”

No one believed him.

When he tried to show Internal Affairs the disks, to give them the proof of his sanity, he found, to his dismay, that they were gone. His computer had been destroyed; fried by the contents of the flask he had kept hidden. It broke him to admit that the only one who had watched seen the Collins’ murder play out on screen was Jim. Linda, who did not see the rest of the footage, could not vouch for them.

They made Jim out to be a dirty, corrupt cop, playing a copycat murderer to absolve his insane grandfather.

Some may think John came out of the ordeal with his reputation intact. However, thanks to the deep loyalty he had to his partner, he fell from a respected detective to a victim plagued by misplaced guilt.

“Jim did not kill the Collins! He didn’t kill anyone! I swear he was a good cop! Just look at my sketches! Look at those photos! Shit, look at the cold case!”

He shouted those words at the psychiatrist and internal affairs, of all of them sitting smugly on their chains, nodding with their vapid gaze. John knew that nothing he said could convince them otherwise, while the doctor wrote some diagnosis of a mental illness that the ex-detective did not have.

That diagnosis would keep him inside of a padded cell until he recanted.

The drugs, the constant therapy, the questions, all of them broke down his conviction until he had to admit that he was wrong. That there were no such beasts lurking in the shadows, hiding within the night and fog. He was numb as those words spilled from his mouth, his eyes dry and bloodshot, eyelids swollen and heavy from the many sleepless nights he endured.

However, he did not believe those words. He played a game of pretending, telling a fiction while reality betrayed him. The force may have taken his badge, his gun, and forced him to fit into their version of ‘sanity’, but he knew the truth.

The same truth that kept him awake, staring at the door of his home, his preferred prison. He ignored the piles of letters scattered in the hallway, one foot tapping against the tile. He gripped the rifle on his lap, his index finger hovering over the trigger as he leveled a cumbersome glare to the door.

This was his new reality; his truth. Behind that door, into the night, was a monster, consuming new victims, bringing them into her fold. Their ghosts were her servants, and he could hear her dark, taunting giggle onto the other side as he waited for her knock.

We have reached the end of Drained. I will be releasing other short stories onto Substack and there will be a new Webserial release for *PREMIUM* members. Keep an eye out for my newsletter with more updates!

“IT’S UNCANNY, JOHN. My grandfather was off his rocker, but he described trying to take a picture of the murderer and nothing appeared. Just how we couldn’t see anything. Just shadows and blood.” Jim took a sip of his coffee, his fingers trembling in excitement.

It wasn’t too long ago that he was as pragmatic as the rest of his brothers and sisters in blue. Now he seemed to share the same dark circles under his eyes as his partner, his mind replaying the scene from the disk on repeat. “Even the reports back then mentioned a little girl too, but it couldn’t be the same girl, could it?” He shook his head quickly, running his shaking fingers through his hair. “No, no way, but there is a connection now. There has to be!”

The veteran looked out of the driver’s side window, barely paying attention to the scattered words of his partner. The ravings provided some comfort and entertainment as they sat in the car. They only had cooling coffee to keep them awake and warm as they watched for any sign of the Collins’ boy and the little mysterious little girl. Johns’ brow furrowed as he thought back to the video; recalling the smear of blood in the air from Mr. Collins. The crimson liquid has made out a shape, a hint to the specter.

A small, feminine profile, coating itself in gore.

He grimaced, shaking his head, “That ‘little girl’ would have to be about 40 now.” He looked back at Jim, frowning slightly. “We need to keep an eye out for the Collins boy. Once we find him, we can solve this case and put it out of our minds for good.”

Jim fell silent, his eyes closed and his brow furrowed into tight lines. “I...I think I believe him now. Just needed the proof. How could I not believe him? He may be crazy now, but he wasn’t -“

“Focus!” John glared, the bags under his eyes darkening further. “Just keep a lookout. Don’t get distracted by old stories.”

“But they are not old stories anymore!” Was the sharp, angry reply as Jim leveled his own intense glare at his partner. He opened his mouth to speak before his jaw grew slack, his eyes looking outside the driver’s side window, and beyond his partner. “...I think I see her.”

John turned his head, trying to see through the intense, pregnant fog. He lowered the window, peeking his head outside, “That could be any kid. We don’t what she looks like.”

The sound of the passenger door opening and then slamming shut jerked his attention towards Jim, who was now outside the car, stepping deeper and deeper into the thick mist. “I’ll be back.”

“Jim, come on! You don’t know if it’s her!” John gritted his teeth as he was ignored, watching his partner wade further into the gray. He shook his head, getting out of the car and slamming the door shut as he chased after his partner, barely seeing him through the haze. “Jim!”

Was the fog always this thick? Did it always cover the sky, making the colors of the world fade into white? No matter how close he tried to get to his partner, that silhouette became dimmer...

Until it was gone.

John stopped in his chase, his hands going to his knees as he took deep, heaving breaths. The humidity in the cold air was so thick, making it hard to breathe. He looked up from the ground, staring forward before he stood up, cursing his distracted partner.

He looked behind him, his eyes narrowing as he saw what must be the headlights of their patrol car in the distance. Walking towards it, figuring Jim would come to his sense. John glanced over his shoulder at the sound of a low moan, before his head jerked to the side. “Jim?”

Another moan hit his ears, causing him to follow the inaudible sounds. A shape appeared before him as he got closer; it was nebulous in the fog at first, but slowly the shape gained form and color instead of the pale grey.

Before it collapsed onto the damp grass.

He ran towards the slumped silhouette on the ground, recognizing it immediately. “Michael!” He knelt down in front of the young man, examining his pale, almost blue in hue skin. Michaels’ breathing was slow, his moans turning into soft whimpers as he shivered. His beige sweater was coated in blood; some of it brown and blotted, others parts still moist and bright scarlet.

“Jesus Christ, kid, what happened to you?” He knew Michael was too weak to respond, so he focused on those bruises on his neck, examining the deep sadistic blues and purples hues surrounding two large, dark burgundy holes, blood still seeping from them.

A vampire. Just like the crazy bastards said.

He pushed that thought away from his mind, ignoring it as he took his cell phone out of his pocket. This was too much for him alone. “This is Detective John Matson. I need an ambulance. I found the missing Collins’ son. He is weak; looks like he lost a lot of blood. Also, send police backup.” He sat up, staying close to the younger man as he detailed the nearest cross streets, “I need that ASAP.”

He hung up the phone, putting it back in his pocket. “It’s okay, kid, we got you. You’re gonna get help-“

A sharp crack rang out, a POP. A sudden burning sensation from his left lower abdomen accompanied that. Johns’ eyes slowly moved down, watching that thick and red liquid soaking through his shirt. He gasped, and then coughed hard, blood gushing up from his throat, down his chin and coating his beard. He fell forward before using his forearms to hold him up, “What...?”

“John...I’m...sorry...”

He pushed him up using his blood-soaked palms, his head turning to the side, seeing his partner standing still. Jims’ eyes were wide with horror, his jerking and trembling hands tightly gripping his smoking gun. John watched with blurry eyesight as Jim walked forward with jerky steps; he was a puppet, controlled by invisible strings.

John gazed numbly, fighting off the shock and agony as Jim kept whispering those words, over, and over. “John, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His mouth gaped like a fish on land, his eyes darting around helplessly.

The veteran’s eyes slowly moved towards the specter next to his captive partner; she glided just a few inches above the ground, not allowing the moist grass to soak her bare toes. There was a tiny smirk on her face as she looked down at the wounded cop, watching him like a cat, watching her struggling prey, vainly trying to crawl away from their fate. She held up her hand, gently touching, poking Jim on the arm, causing him to freeze mid-step. She sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring before she grimaced, “Smells rotten.”

John tried to crawl away as the child came closer to him, the orientation of her body shifting so she was levitating above him, her face hovering above his as she stood in the air, parallel to the ground. Her tiny fingers came forward slowly...

“Get the hell away from me!”

Those tiny fingers lashed out, gripping his chin hard, nails digging into his flesh. He tried to jerk his head away, but the strength of that hand kept his jaw frozen. Even without using...whatever power used on Jim, she had proven that the old detective was as weak as an insect before her.

She sniffed at him, her head floating closer before her tongue snaked out, licking over his lips and beard. Pulling back back, her lips puckered, swirling his blood over in her mouth before she spat it back out onto his face, her eyes narrowed in disgust. “Indeed, foul.”

She dropped his chin before her body floated upright, perpendicular to the ground. She looked back at her latest prize, a smile returning to her face as she appraised him. “I have two. Two delicious cattle. New fresh, tasty meat...” Michael whimpered, as he was forced onto his feet, his body jerking unnaturally, pulled by invisible strings.

She giggled as she pulled the college boy to her side, before looking over to the frozen Jim. “And older, but well aged, prime rib. Yes, much better than this rotted husk.”

John grimaced, too weak to wipe the cold spit and blood mixture off his face, “Stop...let them go...!”

The girl looked down at the old, squeaking creature. “You remind me of someone.” She touched her chin, tapping it. “...I can’t recall.” She looked towards Jim and tilted her head to the side.

Jim released a croaked sob as his head followed the motion, exposing his neck, his veins pulsing. He could see through frozen eyes a bit of drool down the chin of the monster who owned him. His voice caught and trapped in his throat as she floated towards his neck, her mouth opening wide, then wider, stretching like a snake as her canines elongated into fangs. The fangs pressed against the exposed flesh, hitting their mark, before sinking in.

John watched the display in horror, seeing the blood gush and spill down from the girls’ over-stretched lips, down her chin. She was a messy, greedy eater, a glutton gulping down her meal. He tried to get up, tried to ignore the blinding pain, his hands shakily moving to within his coat, grabbing the handle of his gun.

Another shot rang out and John cried out as the bullet pierced his shoulder, falling to the ground again. Even while using Jim as a blood bag, she could force her victim to pull the trigger.

The monster pulled back from her meal, watching John writhe in pain with delight. Her red eyes glowing in the fog. “It would be a mercy to end your short rotten life...” Those eyes narrowed as she noticed the bright blue, red and white light coming from the street before she shrugged, “However, it seems fate has lengthened your pathetic existence.”

She turned away from the writhing man, floating into the fog. Michael dragged his feet, tugged by invisible strings that gave him his only strength. Jim, his head still jerked to the side, flinched, clenching his teeth as he stood still, one foot inching closer to his partner. “J-John-“

“Come along, my precious bull. Oh...and drop the weapon.”

His hands loosen around his gun and it fell worthless onto the grass, his ungloved fingers twitching in the mist as he was tugged away, pulled back towards his master.

John dragged his body forward, crawling after them. As they faded into the fog, his own vision darkened; the grass was soaking up his blood, taking away his strength, “Wait...Jim fight it...” He lifted a hand, desperate to reach out to the captured shadow of his friend, barely hearing the approaching footsteps before his hand dropped and darkness welcomed him.

MICHAELS’ BODY WAS stiff as he sat on the swing, everything still except for the slow-motion of the chains, swaying back and forth. He shivered as the damp mist coated his skin, yet he could not move his hands away from the chains. Invisible shackles clamped around his wrist, holding each finger captive against the freezing metal.

His lips parted, but no sound came out, just choked breaths as he felt her on his lap, swinging with him. Tears and sweat mixed with the moisture that was clinging against his pallid face and the shivering turning into jerking tremors as he felt the small hand of his captor stroking his bruised neck.

“Shhh...” She whispered, her voice high and soft, tainted with a slight hiss. “Just another bite...” She giggled, her dark hair clinging to her pale, chubby cheeks. She was so small; she had placed her knees onto his lap as eyed the veins of his neck greedily; veins that still pulsed with sweet and thick life. She moved closer, long lashes fluttering over her red irises, lips puckering before opening wide. Her jaw stretched as her canines lengthened into two sharp, thin needles, saliva dripping along with the ivory fangs before they pressed against the flesh.

He spasmed at the bite; the needles sinking deep into his flesh, piercing his veins. He wanted to scream, but no sound would come out. His mouth opened, like a gasping fish out of the water.

Once again, before he could taste freedom in death, his captor pulled back, licking the crimson fluid seeping from the fresh wounds. His eyes darted side to side, seeing lights in the distance, lights that glowed against the fog. A feeling that he wished would abandon him swelled up inside of him.

Hope.

His captor noticed it too, her long tongue dancing along her lips and chin, cleaning it off the blood. She sniffed the air, frowning, “Old...liver poisoned. Smells like cigarettes, whiskey, and false wisdom.” Her eyes narrowed with disappointment before she lifted her head up to smell the air again.

A little moan escaping her throat as she tried to stop her salivating, taking in a much more pleasant scent. “Strong, in good health, superstitious and even familiar? Intriguing.” She tilted her head as her meal whimpered. “Don’t be jealous. I’m sure you’ll be happy to have more cattle to die with.”

IT HAD BEEN several days since they witnessed the grisly footage. Several nights that John spent staring at the ceiling while his mind replaying the scenes from the disk over again. Even now, at his desk, he let it play once more, the LED light streaming over the collage made up of sketches and the photographs. These pieces of the puzzle connected with the murderous scene, filling in the details that were left off-screen.

The disheveled but cozy fleece blankets on the well worn, but the well-loved cushioned couch, illuminated by the paused horror movie on the TV, complete with lukewarm hot chocolate set on the coffee table. An interrupted dinner meticulously placed in the dining room.

It was supposed to be a peaceful evening; just the perfect image of a suburban household.

That footage showed, in horrendous minutes, how that evening went horribly wrong. The Collins couple had twilight years ripped away from them. Their young son, just hitting the beginning of his prime, was missing; he may have walked out of that house, but the look in his eyes showed incomprehensible force dragged him out. His body was under a spell and only his mind, as seen through those wide, wet eyes, was under his control.

John grimaced, taking his eyes away from the ceiling and avoiding the computer monitor altogether. He pulled out a copper-coated flask and a small shot glass from the ignored bottom drawer of his desk. He set the glass down onto the top of his desk and then poured the amber, cedar-scented contents of the flask into it. His eyes focused on the glass as Jim’s words repeated in his ears.

A vampire...

“That’s bullshit.”

Jim breathed out that word with gravitas. Maybe insanity ran in his partners’ family. He set down at the flask onto his desk before lifting the shot glass and downing the burning liquid.

This was not the time of Bram Stoker; Vampires were not real.

He set down the glass, pinched his brow between two calloused fingers before looking towards the file next to the flask. He sighed in frustration before lifting a file and reading it again for the 20th time.

It contained details of a case similar to this one from three decades ago. The written accounts from Jims’ grandfather seemed more like it came from a terrible fiction; a poor B-Movie script to the latest slaughterhouse film.

However, his instincts or perhaps superstition connected the footage with the testimony of a crazed man. Even if some videos WERE tampered with, it did not explain how a man could be thrown against a vaulted ceiling. How could a human push a woman with so much force across several feet, straight off the floor, into the mirror?

There was absolutely nothing that could explain that.

“I need to give this all of this to Linda. Maybe if she could just see HOW it was edited.” He nodded grimly, figuring that once all the layers of fiction were removed, the truth will fit neatly into reality.

A short cough grabbed his attention. He looked up towards the phone operator next to his desk. “What is it?”

“The Collins’ case. We got a tip.” The operator set a slight note on his desk. “Apparently they spotted someone matching the description of Michael Collins in the neighborhood, along with a little girl.”

John stood up from his desk, picking up the note and reading it over. “Jim and I will follow up on this.”

Once they have the Collins’ son, everything will fall into place. Reality will conquer fiction.

“YOU KNOW, HOW Mrs. Collins died reminded me of something just now.”

John sat down in his chair, turning away from Jim as he opened his notebook. Slowly, ring by thin ring, he ripped each sketch from the small book, setting it between photos on his desk, organizing them like a storyboard to fill in the blanks “The latest thriller you watched?”

“Smartass. Not a movie, but the case my grandfather tried to solve.”

“You mentioned him.” John paid little attention, his eyes darting over the photographic evidence, the sketches, and the written statements from the neighbors. The Collins’ son, Michael, while athletic, was a cross-country runner; thin and lanky with limbs more attuned to covering long distances than throwing middle-age bodies into 10-foot ceilings. There have been no other reports of disputes, no loud arguments, nothing that would cause anyone to hold ill will towards the family. He studied the facts and details, sometimes trailing towards the fantastical option of a wild animal. Yet there were no signs of forced entry, no holes in the walls, no broken windows, and no other sign that Michael or any other suspect entered or exited the house in a frenzied hurry.

Jim’s voice broke through the older detective’s train of thought, “Yeah, I did; my crazy pawpaw. Died divorced, drunk, an insomniac and bat-shit insane.” He sat down on Johns’ desk; respectful enough not to scatter the macabre puzzle that John had started put together, “I think he worked on a case like this...back before he was dragged off kicking and screaming to the nearest asylum.” The side of his lips curling downward as he flinched, remembering that old shame.

John looked up at him, his attention diverted to his partner. “I think I remember hearing about it just before you joined the division.”

“Yeah, well, my family gained a reputation, thanks to him. Even to his dying day, he still raved about it. I distanced myself from him, but some details, specifically the torn arteries and the...” He twirled his index finger, “180 head-spin...those details are hard to forget.” Jim stroked the back of his neck, his brow furrowing as he also looked over the photographs, “The neighbor mentioned seeing a little girl, right?”

John looked over at his sketches, his hand brushing over one of them, next to the photo of the street. He picked it up gingerly, his eyes taking in the small silhouette in the fog. “Yeah, looks like one of them did.”

“I think pawpaw screamed about a little girl in one of his ravings.” Jim grimaced, closing his eyes as he recalled the cries of a senile old man, desperate for anyone to believe him, “John, I know that case is 30 years old but could we review it?”

Jim felt relief when, instead of derisive laughter, John shrugged and nodded in the affirmative. “I doubt it would be the same girl, but maybe there is some loose connection. I don’t mind chasing ghosts if it helps solve a crime.”

The young detective gave a slight smile. “I’ll go ask the guys in the archives if they can find that file. Even if it is an old ghost story by now, maybe it’ll line up with what we saw. We could be dealing with a copycat.”

He stood up from Johns’ desk; about to turn away before a young woman walked towards them, holding a small stack of DVDs in her hands. “We got a copy of the video from the security cameras around the interior of the house. I’m a little concerned that they would keep copies of these.”

John stood up from his desk and giving a slight nod with his head, “Linda, you can never truly expect privacy nowadays, seeing how many idiots get caught stealing on cameras posted on the Internet now.” He walked towards her, looking over the small stack in her hands before picking up the top disk. “I’m gonna guess this is on the hall.”

“Swing and miss, this is of the porch, but considering the little girl some witnesses mentioned, you may get a look at her.”

“Not a bad idea.” He patted Jim on the shoulder as he made his way back to his desk. “Before checking your grandpa’s case, let’s see what we can find here. This could have all the answers.”

Jim nodded, somewhat relieved. He suggested but was a little reluctant about looking into the past, specifically his family’s’ old infamous legacy. That the videos had come in quickly was a source of relief to him. He leaned down, getting a better view of the monitor as the forensic analyst set the small stack on to the small space available on the cluttered desk.

John picked up the first disk, setting inside his machine before leaning his head against the knuckles of his hand, waiting as the video loaded. His eyes wandered to the sketch and photo pair of the porch he laid out, matching it to the first few frames that appeared in the monitor and noting the time stamp.

All three of them watched the seconds of the timestamp tick by, Jim eyes narrowing, twitching slightly as the familiar wooden door opened.

Even though no one was on the porch.

“Why would they open the door?” Linda looked over at the timestamp, “This was just a few minutes before the dispute started, according to witnesses, but I don’t see a little girl.”

Jim grimaced slightly. “There is audio, right?”

Linda nodded, “The family had it set to capture audio as well.”

John rewound the footage, turning up the volume along with his speakers. He remained silent, but his eyes widening as the corners of his lip twitched spoke volumes. He pressed play, and they heard the chime of the doorbell resonating from the speakers. There was a slight pause before the chime began again and as before, the door opened.

There was still no one on the porch.

John leaned forward, looking closely at porch floor, his voice coming out with a slight tremble “There is a shadow. I can see a shadow.”

The younger detective looked at John in disbelief. “No way, there can’t be a shadow. No one is there!”

The analyst touched the screen, looking closely at the ground just before the door, shaking her head, “John’s right, there is a shadow...”

“But there is no one there!”

“Linda, can you check this disk? It’s not making sense.” John frowned, touching his chin. “We need to find out if the footage has been tampered with.” He ejected the disc, setting it back in its case before holding it up.

Linda nodded, staring at the disk in Johns’ hand with suspicion before she slowly and cautiously picked it up, wondering when it would burst in her hands. “Sure, John. I’ll let you know what I find. The next one should have the hallway along with the actual crime...” She trailed off, looking down at the storyboard the veteran detective created, gazing over the hints of the massacre before she turned away. No words left to say.

Jim clenched his teeth, scratching the back of his neck. “John, it had to been fucked with. Maybe some asshole at that company is fucking around.”

“Linda will check on that.” John picked the next disk, playing it into the computer, “Let’s see if this disk has more logic here.”

His junior partner ground his teeth, a left twitch in his eye of annoyance before he played along, looking back towards the screen as the next video played.

They watched the view from the hallway, gazing at a living Mr. Collins, beckoning someone inside, his wife next to him, her expression filled with apprehension. Even though the two were in full view, backing away from the door as if to give room to a welcomed guest, no one else seemed to enter the house.

Jim grimaced as he saw the black silhouette stretching over the wooden floors, clouding over the grain. The shadow was thin and seemed to float with the wind from outside separating strands of faint hair along the floor.

Yet that was the only hint they got of the invited intruder. “John, this still doesn’t make sense. How the hell are we getting a shad-“

The slam of the door interrupted his words, the sudden thud echoing from the computer speakers making him jolt. Just in time to watch as suddenly, Mr. Collins was lifted from the ground, his hands grasping and trying to claw into invisible arms. His neck was suddenly bent at a 90-degree angle, the flesh torn by invisible claws, blood spraying into the air.

The dark viscous fluid was the only thing that finally seemed to give whatever transparent being in the video a loose form. A blood-coated profile was the only clue to Mr. Collins’ murderer before his body was thrown up into the air, out of view. There was a thunderous crack off-screen that alerted the detectives to the moment the body collided with the ceiling. A half-second later, a loud thud alerted the detectives to the moment Mr. Collins returned to view. His corpse now on the floor, staining what was once a pristine entryway.

The pair watched in frozen silence as Mrs. Collins’ screams rung from the speakers; the woman clasping her hands over her mouth in horror. Her head spun towards the dining room off-screen, calling out to her son before she was suddenly shoved with ferocious intensity into the mirror at the end of the hall, almost completely out of view.

The detectives watched helplessly as she was lifted by the collar of her sweater, her feet kicking hard, making the impact with the blood-covered specter, before her head was bent sharply back, the flesh of her neck suddenly ripped off, as if a chunk was bitten out of it. The warm color of her flesh seemed to fade from her face; she was held still for several long moments, longer than that of her husband, before her head was twisted 180 degrees; a sick mockery of the human condition.

Much like her husband, she was discarded; an empty shell sliding down the mirror and the wall to the ground in a desecrated slump. They could hear very faint footsteps coming closer, closer to the door, to the monitor microphone, recording each beat it could save. The footsteps stopped, and the wooden door opened.

Finally, the college-aged cross-country runner stepped into view, his face stricken numb; his eyes stared emptily into the abyss as his steps, louder than the specters, came through the speaker. They were wooden, hitching, even dragging, as if he was compelled against his will to follow. His head finally jerked up towards the camera, towards the camera, towards the detectives watching him. His lips parted, trying to release a sound. Yet he could give them nothing but a choked, croaking sob as he walked off screen, into the night.

The door slammed shut.

The video went black.

Icy sweat went down from Jims’ forehead to his chiseled cheeks, dripping from his chin, his eyes wavering. He closed his eyes, remembering the rambling of his grandfather, remembering his shouts and scream, describing a scene much like what they had witnessed.

This same scene was embedded into Johns’ memory, his wrinkled eyes wide, unblinking as reality failed him. He slowly turned his head to look at Jim, finally releasing a wavering breath that broke the stunned silence. “...What the hell did we watch?”

Jim opened his eyes, releasing a bitter, nervous chuckle, “...A...vampire. Like the crazy bastard said.”

DETECTIVE JOHN MATSON bent down low, ducking underneath the thin yellow tape, stepping in front of the red, blue, and yellow lights that illuminated large Victorian before him. He ignored the whispers of the crowd, huddling against his vehicle as they tried to peer closer, their gossiping bodies pressing against the thin, latex barrier. The symbol of that barrier kept them at bay and gasps replaced their whispers as the EMTs carried out the covered, heavy body of Mr. Collins on a stretcher.

John walked up towards the house, only opening his coat, revealing a bright golden badge pinned to his chest to the officer guarding the door.

The young officer nodded with his eyes downcast as he breathed. “It’s a mess in there, detective...” His deep voice trailed off, his eyes closing tightly; he had a peek into the scene that awaited the veteran.

A reassuring pat on the shoulder was all the older detective could give. Beat cops don’t experience scenes like this. Perhaps it was the first time they ordered the young cop to help suppress the overexcited press and frightened neighbors. He hoped that the man could handle the pressure.

John entered the home, stepping away from the trembling officer. Already he paused, gazing at the scarlet streaks along the floors and walls of the foyer. His eyes followed the marks all the way to the mirror at the end of the hallway, glittering pieces of glass decorating wooden floor, surrounding a lump covered in what was once a clean linen sheet, now soaking with deep browns and bright reds. He turned his head to the dining room; cold food on the table, touched. Three plates and three sets of spoons, forks, and knives were set in place. He pulled out a small notebook from his front pocket, sketching these mundane details, committing them to memory with his fingers and eyes.

He looked up from the quick sketch, his deep brown eyes decorated with the start of wizened lines narrowing, watching his partner walk beside him. “Good to see you arrived, Jim. You should get a wife to set your alarm clock.”

“Ouch, low blow from the middle-aged bachelor.” The younger man yawned, looking around the dining room with red and bleary eyes. “Besides, looks like I got here just in time.” He walked next to his partner, gazing into the dining room.

“They were just sitting down to eat, barely got to their food and then...” John turned the page of his notebook, his eyes moving from the tables and chairs towards the entryway, sketching, “Their day, their life just ends. The Collins was a typical suburban family.” Without lifting his eyes up from his notebook, he turned towards Jim. “Did you talk to any of the neighbors outside?”

Jim nodded, his hands running through his light brown hair. “No one saw what happened; the neighbors across the street heard a commotion and called it in; thinking it might be a domestic dispute.” He looked towards the large bay window facing the street, his head tilting towards it. “The fog was pretty thick so it would obstruct any view into the house. They said that their college-aged son was visiting and it may have been him they heard shouting.”

John grunted, turning back to the previous page to doodle in the view of the street, shading the fog and mist that permeated the outside. “So no reliable witnesses, but we can ask them if the Collins may have any issues with rough relatives, angry business associates, someone who may have held a grudge.” He walked to the hallway, following the trail of burgundy splatters to the lump underneath the mirror, kneeling down before it, “A serious grudge.”

His partner looked around, watching as forensics took photos of the surrounding carnage, before his eyes shifted towards the vaulted ceilings, giving a low whistle. “And a serious throwing arm! John, did you see this yet?”

John looked up, his eyes widening slightly in surprise, his lips pressed together as he saw the cracks rippling from one central, heavy dent in the ceiling. His head turned toward from that hole to the weighty smear of blood on the wood floors. “...That...I don’t know how to explain that...but I guess that is how Mr. Collins died.” He turned back to the sheet covered shape, dragging down the fabric. “Did their son do any sports, heavy-lifting...steroids?”

Jim covered his mouth with his sleeve as the linen was pulled away, wincing at seeing the remains of Mrs. Collins. Her head was turned 180 degrees and a shard of glass sticking against her left cheek, another shard in her right eye socket, “I’m not sure. I don’t think even a powerlifting frat boy could do this...” He staggered back, looking away as his mentor began his next sketch. He had to admire John’s fortitude; even if it was unsettling, “I can ask if there were any other footprints near the kitchen door; with all this blood there would be something, can’t just be isolated here.”

John did not look up from his work, his thin fingers gripping his pencil as he kept sketching. His eyes clouded over as he forced away any emotion of disgust and pity from the corpse before him. He studied the twisted neck, sketching torn hole where chunks of flesh used to be. Jim would’ve repeated himself if John did not shut his notebook and stood up, shaking his head before pointing his pencil towards monitor next to the main door. “You should probably call the manufacturer of the security system first.”

His junior partner blinked before turning around, noticing the little technological wonder, “Well...maybe this got a lot easier.”

MRS. COLLINS GAZED out the window, her eyes narrowing slightly as she tried to see past the thick fog. The only light that penetrated through the mist what the false orange and yellow glow of the light poles... or perhaps of the houses along their shared road. It was a familiar yet oppressive view to her; the lights looked like glimmering, blurry eyes gazing back at her, studying her. The hair on the back of her neck stood on ends, a shiver accompanying the minor bumps along her skin as she looked away from those glowing eyes.

The ambient sounds of screams and screeching violins emanating from the family den fed further into her dislike of damp, foggy nights. She bit on her thumb idly, scowling as the volume of the horror movie reached beyond her tolerance. She walked out of the dining room, wiping her hands on her jeans before following the LED reflections on her freshly stained wooden floors; her footsteps echoing through the hall, “Come on guys, dinner is getting cold!”

She heard a slight groan and grunt of “Aww, damn...” from her son followed by a loving if distracted voice of her husband answering back warmly, “The movie is almost over sweetheart!”

“You told me that a half an hour ago. Can you pause the movie?” Her lips pursed together, but the scowl had faded from her eyes as she heard a soft disappointed sigh and then the welcomed click of a button silencing that infernal movie. She gently slid her socked feet against the wood as she walked towards the modest feast waiting for them in the dining room; warm butternut squash soup cooked with bacon, grilled cheese, and ham sandwiches. It may have been a sharp contrast to the tall ceilings decorated with ornamental crown molding, but it was a comforting meal. A welcomed reprieve from the cold humidity outside.

She looked out the window again, her slight frown returning, hearing the croaks of the ravens that haunted their aged neighborhood. The sight of the dense mist, glistening with the blurry glare of the lights, made her tense, her hands rubbing against her wool sleeves. She still felt that chill, her palms brushing the cream threads against her skin.

“Hey mom, are you cold?”

She nearly jumped hearing that voice, her face putting on a mask of cheer, hiding her meaningless apprehension as she turned to her son, “Oh no; though I was imagining how chilly it is outside tonight.”

“I can go turn up the thermostat if you’re too cold, dear.” Her husband stood up from his chair, forgoing the soup to stand behind his wife, rubbing her shoulders.

She wondered if her smile would be enough to hide the slight wrinkles of unease from her brow, “Darling, I’m fine-”

The chime ringing from the door silenced her as it echoed through the vaulted hallways. Her husband pulled away from her to step out of the dining room, looking towards the door, his brow furrowing slightly in confusion, “Were we expecting anyone?”

“I don’t think so?” She could not help but have that question as she walked past him towards the door. There was a video monitor beside it; a technological wonder compared to the wooden, hefty relic. She pressed the keypad below the monitor, waiting before the screen flashed from black to muted color. Her eyes narrowed as she peered closer to the screen, seeing porch illuminating... nothing. “There’s no one outside.”

Her husband moved next to her, looking at the monitor as well before shrugging, “Probably some bored teens. Come on let’s go to dinner-”

Another chime came from the door, reverberating through the house. She jumped; her heart in her throat as her husband gripped her shoulders tightly. They both looked at the monitor, still seeing no one outside of their door. “Darling...” She whispered, a tremble in her voice, “We had maintenance done, right?”

Before he could answer, their son called from the dining room, his chair leaning back at his tilted his head to gaze out the window, “Hey guys, there’s a kid outside!” He kept leaning back, his eyes focusing on the child outside, “Jesus, she doesn’t have a coat on or anything.”

Her husband, reluctantly, pried his fingers away from her shoulder, peeking out of the keyhole of the door, “Oh god. She must be freezing.”

Something felt...off. His wife could not explain the sudden shudder ripping down her spine, “Wait, but... but the monitor is not showing anything.”

He looked back at her, his eyes narrowing slightly as he frowned, “Well, the monitor is broken. I’m not leaving a kid out there. What kind of parents let their kid wander in the cold?”

“Wait-”

He opened the heavy door, a low creak resounding as it revealed the tiny thing; standing in a thin white shirt and khaki skirt. She was shivering, her dark hair sticking along her cheeks from the dampness of the heavy mist and fog. She seemed so frail; like the Little Match Girl, desperate for warmth from the uncaring and merciless cold of the outside.

Yet while her husband may have felt pity, the weight of the air caused Mrs. Collins’ knees to buckle.

Mr. Collins’ voice remained calm and warm towards the specter of the child, “Hey... hey are you okay? Where are your parents, sweetheart?”

The child’s’ voice was barely above a whisper. It held a tremble in her throat as she gripped her skirt, gaunt fingers gripping the fabric, “I’m... I’m not sure... I think... I think I’m lost. I tried to find my way home... but-but.” Her voice cracked slightly, her eyes shadowed by her damp hair, her face towards the ground, “C-Can I...call them?”

She tried to look at the little one as a representation of innocence that all children represented. Yet the goosebumps along the back of Mrs. Collins’ neck, down her spine, remained. A part of her, in the back of her mind, begged her to close and lock that door. That child must not enter their home.

However, her husband spoke first, “Of course! Come in, I’ll lend you my phone.”