• Midnight, it’s cold, damp, the winds blow in fog so thick, visibility is reduced to zero. Doors are locked, bolted, barred. Windows are given much the same treatment. Not a single chimney is active, lights are all extinguished. No one dares to step outside. Why? Why is this usually bustling city so silent, so...dead?

    A solitary man, late 30s, tall, broad shoulders, lean, almost sickly in complexion. His bloodshot eyes flicker back and forth as he nears the steel door in the back alley. His rancid breath causes little clouds of steam with each exhale.
    The knife in his hand drips with fresh blood, the steaming corpse of his female victim lying at the mouth of the alley. Scraped and bruised hands cover frostbitten ears as he realizes the sharp, ringing sounds are not those of the spoils he pillaged from the middle-class girl. He pounds the steel door, doing everything he can not to speak.

    His heart races, sweat beads on his brow and upper lip. He chokes back a whimper when he registers the heavy clanks of bolts being slid into place on the other side of the door.

    He hears a strange shifting sound and turns around, just in time to see the girl he had beaten, raped, mugged, and killed get dragged around the corner, a trail of blood left behind.

    He turns back to the door, ramming it with his shoulder, praying for it to open. He kicks and shoves and even tried cutting it open. He is about to try again when a hand grabs his wrist with a crushing grip, causing him to scream. He turns around, shock causing him to drop his knife.

    It’s the girl.


    Her bright blonde hair is stained with dirt, grease, and her own blood. Her skin is almost an opaque white, her wounds now oozing a black, tar-like liquid. Her eyes were spilling bloody tears and her mouth...demonic, pointed teeth had ripped through her gums, and her lips were stretched thin in a grin identical to that of the Cheshire Cat.
    The man trembles, his heart pounding, he loses control of his bowels as the girl leans closer to him.

    “Suffer.”


    The girl’s voice is exactly like her normal voice, but there is a second voice echoing just below her own. It is demonic, almost growling in quality, it leaves a buzzing tone in the man’s ears.

    He cries.

    That night, the people of that town hunker down in their homes, the children are sent to their beds with the usual military grade earplugs, kissed goodnight, and left to sleep. The adults, however, are aware of the agony the man suffers. Those who choose not to wear the earplugs, always know.

    “There is always one, that is how we survive.”

    Words whispered in the dark of night, over steaming cups of coffee and the sounds of a man in the throes of anguish.