FORWARD

This is my first attempt a horror story, and it was a lot harder to write than I expected.

Unless your only goal is camp, jump-scare, or gore porn, there’s an important balance that must be maintained in horror between logic and absurdity. Veer to close to logic, and you lose the element of fantasy that underscores our fears, particularly of the unknown. Indulge in too much absurdity, and you lose all the stakes that ground your worldbuilding and underpin tension.

It’s a difficult balance because fear, the bedrock of horror, comes from logic but expresses itself in absurdity only to feedback on itself over and over again until you’re not sure whether a character’s motivation comes from reason or madness. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that balance was achieved here.

All I can say is that I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I’d be glad to write more.

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Or listen chapter by chapter below.

CHAPTER ONE

The creature in my basement appeared when I was 13 years old, long after most kids stop believing in that kind of thing.

I thought I was done believing in it too.

The novelty of simple terror wears off once you’ve seen a few scary movies and taken a few science courses, and slowly but surely, the imagination that once brought your deepest fears into such sharp relief dulls. You stop bothering to look in the dark corners of your life except to have a little fun every now and then.

But that’s just part of the trick.

I didn’t tell anyone about the monster, of course. Not voluntarily. Nobody would’ve believed me anyway. For one thing, the creature only appeared at night, which was a little on-the-nose. You rarely hear about creepy monsters appearing in the daytime. Zombies and aliens can be around during the day, sure. But ghosts and vampires and monsters? They have to wait for night.

If my monster had appeared during the day, people might’ve said, “Well, now that’s something,” but since it appeared at night, they’d only have said, “Way to be original, champ.” They wouldn’t have been too thrilled about the monster appearing in the basement either. I guess what I’m saying is people crave too much novelty these days. That’s a shame because evil is so boring. It’s one of the reasons it’s able to get away with so much.

 So, anyway, this boring, tragically unoriginal monster waited until around 2:45 a.m. to reveal itself to me. You’re going to roll your eyes when I describe the encounter to you. I had just finished playing videogames on my desktop PC, which was setup on a desk tucked away in the little nook under the staircase. Maybe if I’d been allowed to have my computer in my room, none of this would’ve happened, but my parents knew I would stay up all night gaming so it was forbidden.

This was a Friday night, however (technically Saturday morning), so my parents’ logic flipped — on weekends, if I stayed up all night gaming, it meant I wasn’t out drinking and having sex (although, I think if they had seen some of the degenerate things my GPU had rendered in the small hours of the night, they’d have preferred alcoholism and teen pregnancy). I’d just shut down the computer and the desk lamp, and was about to hit the overhead light switch when I heard a rustle down the hall.

The basement was partially finished, with a large den and a bedroom off to the right, and a bathroom to the left but at the end of the hall was the unfinished storage room where we kept the washer and dryer, the furnace, and a cluttered mess of boxes and old furniture my parents had inherited from my grandmother when she died. That’s where the rustling came from. Usually, the door was kept shut but when I flipped the switch for the hall light, I saw it was slightly ajar, with about a foot’s worth of darkness peering back at me.

A gray hand gripped the door just beneath the knob, its fingers larger than a grown man’s, with jagged, broken nails encrusted in some dark, dried filth. I froze and felt my pulse quicken. The hand tensed and relaxed its grip several time, as if riddled with anticipation, and then threw the door all the way open. I didn’t get a good look at the creature as I turned to run up the stairs but I made out that it was tall, lanky, and humanoid in construction, bounding towards me on all four limbs, which were each an unsettlingly long length. Also, I was pretty certain it was naked, but I’m not sure if that made it more or less frightening. Probably more.

In my haste, I reflexively hit the light switch like I always did when I left the basement, darkening the hall as I scrambled up the stairs. I swear I felt the creature’s cold hand graze my bare foot. When I reached the landing I turned and saw that the monster had halted its pursuit at the bottom of the stairs and stood halfway in the darkness peering up at me. Its smiling, toothy grin was too big for its face and it leered up at me with gaping eye cavities that seemed deeper than the thing’s head could accommodate. A few strands of wet black hair fell over its face, and it didn’t seem to have a nose.

This depiction sounds disturbing but if I’m being honest, just looking at the creature made me slightly less afraid of it. So much of fear is uncertainty. Now I knew what the thing looked like so my imagination didn’t have to get involved.

I was still uncertain about what it wanted, though.

A moment ago, it seemed like it wanted to kill me but now it just stood there, panting and watching, clutching the side wall, tensing and relaxing its hands. My instincts screamed for me to run — run to my room for my old baseball bat, to the knife block in the kitchen, to the closet where Dad kept the pistol I wasn’t supposed to know about — but the rest of me was overcome by curiosity and doubt.

This couldn’t possibly be happening. A monster from the basement that chased me up the stairs? Come on. It had to be a dream.

“You’re not real,” I said, remembering something I’d read about lucid dreaming. All I had to do was acknowledge this was a dream and I could bend it to my will. “I could turn you into a cat or a hot anime chick or something.”

“Kill…Brother,” it said, its voice a raspy, barely audible whisper that seemed to require great effort to generate. “Kill. Bro..uh..the..her,” it managed to say again.

“You want me to kill my brother?”

It made a noise I interpreted as laughter and pointed at itself with its long, gray finger.

“You want to kill my brother?”

Its smile grew a little wider.

“Why?” I asked.  

It gasped a few inaudible syllables and then held up four fingers.

“Four?”

Then it pointed its index finger towards me.

“Me?” I asked. “You want to kill my brother for me?”

 “Youuuuu.”

The word trailed off into a raspy breath, and then, without hurry, it slinked back into the darkness out of my sight. A few moments later, I heard the storage room door shut down the hall. I’m not sure how long I stood there on the landing, listening for the creature to return, wondering if I’d really seen it at all, but eventually I took a timid step away from the staircase and another. It took all my courage to look back around the corner again and down the stairs but all that looked back at me was the darkness.

My head hurt and my eyes ached and fatigue rushed through my body, which was the way I often felt after a long night behind the computer. I’m just more tired than I expected, I thought to myself. I’m hallucinating. I just need to go to bed.

I walked backwards down the hall to the living room, keeping an eye on the entrance to the basement until I reached the staircase leading to the second floor where my room was. The second floor was dark, so I turned on my phone’s flashlight and tip-toed to my door. Once there, I turned on the light, shut the door, and searched my closet and the space beneath my bed to make sure nothing was there.

Already the image of the monster was beginning to blur in my mind. Head still pounding, I sat upon my bed and replayed my interaction with the creature, trying to piece together which influences my imagination had used to conjure it up. Which games or movies were the likeliest culprit? As I browsed my mental catalogue, my thoughts became harder to hold together and fatigue finally got the better of me.

The morning sunlight was only a few hours away but I spent them shivering atop my bed, fully clothed, with the lights on.

CHAPTER TWO

“That will be lovely!” I heard Mom saying to no one as I crept down the stairs the next day. “We’ll meet you at Arrivals. Which airline?”

I say next day and not next morning because it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. I’d slept almost eleven hours. Most parents would’ve woken their kids up by noon and scolded them for being lazy bums but my mom was a pediatrician and knew that sleep was one of the most important things for my adolescent development. As long as I got my homework done, I could sleep in as long as I wanted on the weekends. Usually, this was something I appreciated but today I felt a great sense of loss at the sight of the low golden sun and its long, dark shadows. In two hours, it’d be night again.

“Guess who’s coming to town for the week,” Mom said when I walked into the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. She didn’t wait for my groggy answer. “Michel!”

My older brother, Michel, away at college. The pride of the family. My parents had actually named him Michelangelo, if that was any indicator. He, however, told everyone his name was just Mike. Mom settled for Michel as a compromise because she couldn’t bear such a pedestrian truncation. Nor should she have. Michel was anything but pedestrian. He was only twenty-one but already he’d finished his degree in biology and been accepted to Duke’s medical program.

His shadow was even longer than the rapidly lengthening ones outside but I never minded living in it. Michel was one of the kindest, humblest young men on the planet and even though we were nearly seven years apart, I felt a strong kinship with him, almost as though we’d been twins. He never made me feel like the accident I obviously was.

To be fair, neither did my parents. Not on purpose. They loved me with all their hearts. It’s just that they didn’t seem to know what to do with me. Everything about Michel was going to plan. He’d be a prestigious doctor in no time, just as he’d been groomed, and I…well… Maybe computer science? That was respectable enough. Good pay. I didn’t yet have the heart to tell them I wanted to build videogames for a living.

“Michel’s in town for a conference on memory and neuroplasticity,” Mom said, “and he’ll be here all week.”

“Kind of last-minute notice, huh?” I said.

“Oh, you know how busy he is,” she said.

“Is he staying here?” I asked and began making myself some eggs and toast.

“Well, of course, sweetie,” Mom said. “Your father’s straightening up his room and then we’re going to pick him up at the airport later this evening.” She diced an onion and shoved it into the slow cooker. “So, you better eat up now because dinner will be late.”

“Dad’s downstairs?” I asked, and dropped an egg.

I didn’t wait for Mom to answer. I rushed over to the basement’s entrance and looked down the stairs. All the lights were on and I could hear a familiar rustling. Heart pounding, I crept down the stairs and into the den. The door to Michel’s room was wide open but so was the door to the storage room. That was where the rustling was coming from. I stood still a moment listening, trying to determine whether the sounds indicated any violence but as far as I could tell, it was just boxes scraping against each other and an occasional grunt.

Slowly, I started down the hall, stopping at my brother’s room to peek inside. It was a spacious room with its own bathroom and adorned with tasteful furniture from Crate & Barrel, which I later learned was an expensive designer store even though the name made it seem like it was just stuff somebody found on an old boat. Michel liked expensive stuff and Mom and Dad liked to buy it for him.

Aside from a few boxes my parents had stored in there, all my brother’s leftover belongings were arranged neatly where he’d left them years ago, covered in a thin layer of dust. However, the bed looked slightly amess, as if someone had lain atop it recently. There were indentations in the pillow and comforter of a roughly humanoid shape. Maybe Dad just took a rest on it, I thought.

I continued down the hall towards the storage room and could hear the faint sound of music. Dad had his headphones on but I could still tell it was Soundgarden. It was amazing he could hear anything these days. He certainly didn’t hear me come into the storage room.

He was picking through a plastic bin amidst a stack of boxes of Christmas decorations, old clothes, and toys my parents were saving for when one of us — probably Michel — had children of their own. The bin he was looking in was full of CD jewel cases. He’d taken a few out to look through the liners, tossing the bin’s plastic lid aside. I noticed a large, streaked handprint on the dusty lid, far too big to have been Dad’s. I wondered if he'd noticed.

“Jesus Christ, son, you scared the shit out of me,” he said when he finally turned around and yelped at the sight of my presence. He took off his earphones and stepped away from the bin, chuckling at his fright. “Have you been poking around in here?” he asked. It wasn’t so much accusatory as it was hopeful. Dad was forever holding out that I’d give up on drum-and-bass and come over to the side of “real” music, the best of which just so happened to be conveniently located in this bin of his old CDs.

“No, I only come in here to do laundry,” I said.

“Oh, well, maybe your mom was scrounging around down here,” he said. “Everything’s out of place. Can’t seem to find anything.”

I looked at the stack of boxes again and noticed a slight but unmistakable pattern to the disarray, as though someone or something had pushed a pathway through the clutter. To where, though? The path led only to a bare concrete wall.

“Oh well,” Dad said. “I’m supposed to be putting stuff away, not taking it out.” He put the jewel cases back in the bin and placed it haphazardly atop a cardboard box full of Michel’s old textbooks. “Come and help me clear out the rest of the stuff in your brother’s room. Mom told you he’s coming tonight, right?”

I mumbled an affirmation, still looking at the subtle path through the stack of boxes. Dad went back to Michel’s room, still talking to me, but I wasn’t listening. Trembling, I pushed my way through the boxes towards the wall to see where the path led. I noticed faint streaks of a sickly black liquid streaked across many of the boxes, as if by long fingers, which got darker as I got closer to the wall.

Leaned up against the wall was an old rucksack for Michel’s paraglider that Dad had bought him but which Mom had forced him to give up for fear his life would end early in the rather pointless pursuit of fun. To be fair, Michel did seem to become a daredevil with a death wish when using it. Dad agreed to keep it around and give it back when Michel moved out but his studies left little room for recreation. There was an unmistakable large, black handprint on the rucksack.

I moved the bag aside and saw that it was covering a small drain, no bigger than 10” in diameter. Its grate was sealed by a thick layer of grime and corrosion and looked as though it hadn’t been opened since the house was built in the 60s. As I bent down to look into the drain, a carboard box began to rustle next to me. I jumped with fright and backed away but the box continued to rustle, as if something inside was shifting its weight back and forth. It’s probably just a mouse, I thought to myself, trying to sum up the courage to look inside. When I finally got up the nerve, I lunged at the box and tore it open and discovered I was more correct than I thought. The box was full of old action figures but also a big, brown rat. I shrieked and dropped the box, which spilled over on the side, dumping its contents, including the rat, which scampered away into the maze of boxes.

“Everything all right in here?” Dad poked his head back into the room.

“Rats,” was all I could manage over my heavy breathing. “I saw…a rat.”

“Goddammit,” Dad said with a grimace. “I’ll have to get some traps tomorrow. Where’d he go?”

I pointed in the direction where the rat scurried off and Dad began picking his way through the boxes looking for it. Meanwhile, I started putting the action figures back in the box. Then I saw something hidden among the Luke Skywalkers and Captain Americas and Batmen: The creature, but in plastic form.

It looked like any other action figure, its plastic limbs frozen in a single gesture, moveable only at the shoulders and hips. My heart pounded as I tried to decide whether this was a good discovery or evidence of my madness. It’s just a toy, I thought to myself. I must’ve resurfaced the memory of it. Except I couldn’t remember ever seeing this toy before or what franchise it was from. Maybe that was explainable too, though. This was a box of Michel’s old toys, not mine.

“Dad, do you know what this action figure is supposed to be?” I asked.

“How the hell should I know?” he said without looking.

“I just don’t remember it.”

Dad turned to look, clearly annoyed, but when he saw the toy his face became somber. He took it from me, looked it over, and handed it back.

“Sorry, son, I don’t remember every toy you and your brother played with,” he said, and turned back to his rat hunt. “Sure is ugly, though.”

He began picking through the boxes at a quicker rate, and I thought it was odd he didn’t mention all the black smudges all over the place. I pocketed the toy so I could ask Michel about it when he got home and was about to go back upstairs to finish making my very late breakfast when Dad said, “You know, I was thinking…” He stood up and looked at me.

“You spend a lot of time down here on your computer, and Michel is probably never going to live at home again.” He frowned, having made himself sad with that thought but then pushed through. “So it doesn’t really make sense for Michel’s room to be down here and yours to be upstairs. I know your mom doesn’t want you spending all your time playing videogames but you’re a young man now. You can be responsible, right? So, when Michel goes back to school, let’s get you set up in his room. You can have the whole run of the place.” He gestured to indicate the entire basement. “What do you say?”

“Uh…well…,” I stammered.

This had been my goal ever since Michel went off to school — his room was so much bigger and nicer and more private — but now the last thing I wanted was to be in the basement after dark. I wondered why Dad was bringing it up now and he seemed puzzled that I didn’t immediately accept. “Maybe Mom’s right,” I said. “I can get a little carried away with the gaming if left to my own devices.”

Dad grinned. “Well, you’re more responsible than I was,” he said. “When I was your age, I was hooked on Quake. You ever play? It’s a classic. I’d blow up monsters for hours and hours but…” He shook his head. “I have to admit, I’d let my imagination get away with me afterwards thinking about what it’d be like if the monsters were real.” He chuckled. “But Quake’s tame compared to the shit you kids play today. I’m sure you’re desensitized to everything.” He turned back to the boxes. “Anyway, if you want to move, let me know and I’ll help you.”

“Thanks,” I said, and excused myself back upstairs.

Mom was just finishing cleaning up the egg I’d dropped on the floor and she wasn’t happy about it.

“I’m not your maid, you know,” she said. “What’s the matter with you anyway?” I fumbled for an answer but couldn’t create any actual words before mom noticed the lump in my pajama pants pocket. “What’s that?” I took the monster figure out and showed it to her. She feigned revulsion and surprise but not fast enough to hide the brief flicker of recognition I saw in her eyes. “You had some strange toys,” she said, her demeanor colder but less hostile.

“It wasn’t mine,” I said. “I think it was Mike’s.”

“Michel wouldn’t play with something like that,” Mom said and changed the subject to things she wanted to do with Michel while he was in town.

I finished making my breakfast, scarfed it, and hurried upstairs to take a shower before it got dark. For some reason, I thought it would be safer to shower in daylight. I guess it’s just a human thing to think nonsensical thoughts like that.

Most of our scary stories happen at night but most of our actual atrocities happen during the day. Even morning isn’t safe. There’s a passage in Man’s Search for Meaning where Viktor Frankl talks about observing a beautiful sunrise at Auschwitz. So you see? Any time can be terrifying.

Luckily for me, I got through the shower without incident. The monster toy was still sitting on the sink where I left it and I stared at it with curiosity while I toweled off.

“We’re on our way out,” I heard Mom yell from downstairs.

“Now?” I yelled back with alarm.

 “Your father and I are going to pick up a few things at the store and then head to the airport to get Michel,” she said.

“Hold up, I’ll come with. I’m almost dressed,” I said, and barreled out of the shower.

“I don’t think so, mister,” Mom said. “I know someone who stayed up all night gaming and slept in all day. There’s no way your homework is done.”

“But —” I said.

“Just do it now and you’ll be done by the time Michel gets home,” Mom said.

“But I don’t —” I said again.

“It’s not a discussion,” Mom said in a pleasant, singsong voice as she opened the door.

“Bye son,” Dad helpfully yelled up, and then shut the door behind him.

And then I was alone in the house, watching the sunset through my bedroom window.

CHAPTER THREE

A big problem with my homework was that I had to do it at all. There are a few studies that show it doesn’t help students learn better. Unfortunately, since I’d already done my statistics homework for the week, I knew those studies weren’t very good. What a bullshit elective.

The other problem with my homework was that it often required my computer, which, as already discussed, was in the basement. If only I wasn’t such a fucking nerd I could’ve gotten a laptop like all the other kids and done my homework anywhere, but you couldn’t put the kind of graphics card I needed in a laptop. In fairness, I wasn’t expecting creepy basement monsters to be part of the calculus. (I might’ve still gone with the desktop, anyway.)

I still wasn’t sure whether what I’d seen last night was real or not but I didn’t want to find out alone. My solution was to wait for Michel to get home. He’d be down in his room, so at least I’d have company. Maybe he’d know what to do. They had to be teaching him something at college.

I spent the next couple hours in my upstairs bedroom messing with the figure of the creature and trying to do research on my phone. The weird thing was that the figure seemed to fluctuate in size every time I looked away. Not by much, but enough to notice. Also, once, when I stepped out to use the bathroom, I came back to find it standing upright on my desk, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t left it that way.

I took a photo of the figure and did a reverse image search but it only returned irrelevant results — or so I thought. I was about to stop scrolling through the pictures when a small, low-resolution image caught my eye. It looked like the picture hadn’t quite loaded all the way but there was something familiar about the pattern of the pixelated colors that caused a sinking sensation in my stomach.

I tapped to enlarge and a few more pixels loaded in, enough for me to realize it was an image of the creature standing at the bottom of my staircase last night, as if I’d snapped a photograph from my exact perspective at the main floor landing. That got the old heart racing. It didn’t help that the image continued loading to higher and higher resolutions. After a few seconds, I could zoom all the way into the creature’s hideous face, and I nearly jumped out of my clothes when its toothy smile suddenly grew wider. Must have been a GIF.

I regained my composure and tapped the associated link to see where the image came from. It took me to an unformatted webpage that contained only a few lines of text.

He who goes first was first, is first, will be first.

He who follows falls hollow.

Click here to kill Michel.

I wasn’t in the habit of clicking strange links on strange websites but since everything else about my life was diverting from convention, I figured what the hell. When I tapped the link, it took me to another unformatted page featuring only the image of Michelangelo’s David, but instead of David’s face, it was my brother’s, and there was a knife stuck in his heart. Bright red blood trickled down the white marble.

Then, without warning, the website crashed and a notification popped up to tell me I no longer had a Wi-Fi connection. The music I’d been playing for comfort cut out as well, leaving me in the cold quiet of the fading dusk.

A split second later, there was a clang of metal on the hardwood downstairs in the kitchen, the sound of a knife falling on the floor, which seemed a little cliched to me but was nonetheless frightening. Slowly, I reached over to my desk to pick up Dad’s pistol, which I’d taken from the closet shortly after my parents left, and sat silently with it pointed at my bedroom door, cracked open a couple inches. The figurine of the creature was still on my desk, and I put it in my pocket just to be sure it didn’t try any bullshit.

Then I heard uneven but heavy footsteps on the hardwood below. Whatever was making the footsteps ambled around the kitchen and living room, stopping every few moments, and then renewing its pacing with slightly more urgency. This went on for several minutes until I heard the creak of the basement door opening, and then the footsteps got quieter and quieter until I couldn’t hear them anymore.

Then the power went out.

Our house was situated in one of the more forested areas of the city, a small suburb for middle-class strivers like my parents, out of the way and isolated but not so secluded that we didn’t have neighbors. We weren’t doing that well. And good thing too, because it meant I could see that the lights were still on in the other houses. The creature must’ve done something to our house exclusively. I was pretty sure the breaker box was in the basement but there was no way I was going to go find it.  

I didn’t even want to turn on my phone’s flashlight because the creature might see it and know I was still in the house. But then I heard something pushing at the metal heating grate in the corner of my room so I turned on the flashlight and pointed it in that direction. The grate popped up out of its housing in the floor and the creature’s gray hand reached up out of it. I aimed the pistol and squeezed the trigger but nothing happened. I hadn’t chambered a round yet.

You’d think with all the shooters I played I’d have had some idea how to operate a firearm but it turns out clicking a mouse button isn’t a translatable skill. I wished Dad had taken me to the range like he’d taken Michel so many times and a flash of resentful anger shot through me.

“Maybe when you’re a little older,” Dad had said, “when your hand-eye coordination gets a little better.”

He hadn’t actually said that last part but I knew he was thinking it. I’d been a disappointment on the physical front, a fact I was reminded of as I struggled to pull back the pistol’s slide. I’d seen James Bond do it, so I knew it had something to do with making the pistol work, but it was heavy and resistant, and I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right.

My hands were shaking pretty bad and by the time I actually managed to rack a round, the creature had spaghettied half its body out of the vent, like an extrusion of fucked up Play-Doh. It stretched its arm out to swat the gun away.

Well, at least I know it’s afraid of guns now, I thought as I watched the pistol clatter across the floor a few feet away.

As the creature pulled the rest of its body out of the great, I attempted to make a dash for the door, but it caught me by the arm and held me fast. Its skin was so cold I could feel it through my hooded sweatshirt, and the gaping holes of its eyes were mesmerizing to look into because I kept expecting to see some glint of bone or flesh at the back of the empty cavities but there was only endless darkness. Its teeth on the other hand were recognizable as human, only larger to match its size, crooked, and rotting.

Once the thing was all the way out of the vent it stood a good eight feet upright. The strange thing was that, like the previous night, I felt less afraid now that it was out in the open despite its hideousness. I even felt bad for it in a small way because of how terrible it smelled. It can’t have had much luck on the apps. Not that I knew anything about that either.

“Please don’t kill me,” I said as I shrunk away from it.

Its blue-black lips pulled into a wide smile.

“To…morrow” it croaked, with slightly more definition in its tone than when we’d last spoke.

“I’d really prefer not to die any day,” I said.

“Kill…bro…ther,” it said.

“No!” I shouted.

“For you…”

Outside, I saw the headlights of my parents car swing into the lane. So did the creature. It wheezed what might have been a chuckle and pulled me out of the room by the arm. I tried to resist but the creature was too strong and eventually my feet gave out. The creature dragged me down to the living room and then towards the basement. I flailed impotently, hitting and kicking at it.

When it dragged me past the end table at the foot of the living room staircase, I was able to grab a heavy decorative candlestick holder, which I then used to beat it with. Bruises and cuts opened up on the creature’s skin with each hit of the candlestick holder and dark liquid trickled from the wounds but the creature didn’t seem to mind.

Down we went into the basement. I’d run out of stamina and all I could do now was shout for help and hope my family would get to the door in time to hear but my hope diminished the farther I was dragged into the basement. It was completely dark but it seemed like we were going in the direction of the storage room. All I could hear besides my own resistance was the creature’s labored breathing, a raspy wheeze that came in irregular intervals, until at last, when I felt the cold concrete of the storage room beneath me, the creature spoke again.

“Light…on,” it said and let go of me.

I heard the metal creak of the breaker box being opened across the room and the heavy clunk of the breakers being flipped back into position. In an instant, the lights came back on and the electric furnace in the corner of the storage room rumbled back to life. When I looked over to the breaker box, the creature was not there. I jumped up off the floor and attempted to escape back upstairs but when I turned to run, I saw the creature waiting in the hallway just outside Michel’s room, blocking my way, smiling. There was something nonaggressive about its posture, which put me strangely at ease. It didn’t seem to want to kill me — not right now, anyway. It wanted something. But what?

“If you were just going to turn the lights back on, why’d you turn them off in the first place?” I asked.

“Show…you.”

“Show me what?”

“Here…rest.”

“What are you?”

“Sleeeeeepy…” it said and went into Michel’s room.

I followed but when I entered, I saw the monster had shrunk to normal human size, about six feet tall, and laid itself down on Michel’s bed. Patches of its dark blood stained the comforter, as well as the carpet all the way down the hallway. I was still clutching the candlestick holder, which also dripped with its blood. I thought now might be a good time to attack it again, since it was lying down and not as big as before, but something about the way it seemed so comfortably at peace made me hesitate.

Its raspy, irregular breathing pattern had evened out into a slow, smooth rhythm and it lay on its side, with one hand under the pillow and the other on its chest, expanding and deflating with each breath. Despite the strength I’d witnessed just moments ago, I now saw the creature as defenseless and I was having trouble summoning the courage to attack it. This was as infuriating as it was confusing.

Upstairs, the garage door opened, the shock of which nearly sent me into cardiac arrest.

I reflexively turned towards the staircase and when I looked back into the bedroom the creature was gone. So too were the dark bloody patches on the comforter, although I could still see a vaguely humanoid-shaped indentation where it had lain. I frantically looked all around me but saw no other sign of the creature. Upstairs, however, I heard two sets of footsteps, one from where my family was entering in the garage, and another on the opposite side of the house, walking quickly to intercept.

I broke into a sprint and ran up the stairs, hoping to beat the second set of footsteps before it reached my family but when I emerged from the basement, I only saw Mom, Dad, and Michel coming through the garage door. Michel seemed to have shrunk a bit since I’d last seen him, and he seemed exhausted, but he still managed to hold himself with athletic poise. When he saw me running up the stairs, he broke out into a huge smile and put down his suitcase to give me a hug. I looked into his face, a handsomer, more refined version of my own, beaming its kindness at me, and all the fear and confusion and sadness inside me became a wellspring of tears that I tried to dam up behind my eyes. A few got away and trickled down my cheeks as I embraced him.

“Geez, son, if I’d known you were that excited to see Michel, we’d have let you come with us,” Dad said, but Mom told him to shut up. Her eyes were tearing up too.

“Never mind all that,” Michel said as he let go of me. “It’s so good to see all of you. Let me just go put my bags in my room and we can talk.”

“No!” I shouted. They all gave me a bewildered look. “I mean…” I stammered, trying to think of a reason to prevent Michel from going downstairs that wouldn’t seem absolutely insane. “I…uh…”

Then I remembered the figurine of the creature still up in my bedroom. If Michel could tell me what it really was it might convince me that there was nothing to worry about and that I was simply going insane. What a relief that would be!

“I need to show you something first,” I said. “Up in my room. Please, it’s important.”

 Michel’s warm smile cooled and a knowing look came into his tired eyes. “I know,” he said.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I think it might be some sort of Wendigo,” Michel said as he examined the figurine of the creature.

“Is that, like, from a movie or something?” I asked.

“Folklore,” Michel said. “Wendigos are found in a few native cultures. They usually have something to do with cannibalism or possession, although this one doesn’t quite fit the typical description. But then again, our records of native knowledge are…shall we say…incomplete.”

 “So, did you get this thing on a field trip or…?” I asked, still unsure whether Michel was talking about the figurine or the actual monster it represented.

“I’ve never seen this toy before today,” Michel said, “but I have seen George in real life.”

“George?”

“That’s what I named him,” Michel said. “It made him less scary. Instead of an unknowable monster, he’s just George.” Michel chuckled. “It’s actually kind of funny how not scary he is sometimes.”

“So it…George…is real?” I asked.

“Apparently,” Michel said.

“Mike, you’re not making any sense.”

“I used to think he was just a really powerful hallucination that my brain made up a long time ago in order to explain…” Michel trailed off.

 “Explain what?” I said, but he didn’t answer.

“George wants you to kill me, right?” he asked instead.

“How did you know?”

Michel sat at the foot of my bed and put his head in his hands. He let out a long, labored sigh and stared at the floor for a few moments until finally looking back up at me. The circles of fatigue around his eyes seemed to grow deeper and darker.

“I need to show you something,” he said, and stood up. “Downstairs.”

“But…”

“We’ll be okay,” he said, “as long as you keep your head on straight.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means if you see George, don’t agree to anything,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

I insisted on going down the basement stairs first but Michel wouldn’t let me. He wasn’t scared for some reason I couldn’t comprehend. I, on the other hand, was shaking. I had Dad’s gun with me even though Michel said it wouldn’t be necessary. Neither of us were sure if it would do anything to George but it made me feel better to have it.

Michel had only his suitcase with him and we made a stop off at his room so he could toss it on the bed. When I pointed out the indentation on the comforter, he nodded and made a joke about having to wash the sheets. Then, we went into the storage room.

Michel picked his way through the boxes and furniture to the storm drain and bent down towards it. He pressed his fingers through the grate and felt around in the black gunk until he found something — an old key. Not a super old key like you’d see in a pirate movie. Just a normal key for a padlock or deadbolt. It was fastened to the drain’s grate by a small jewelry chain so it wouldn’t get washed into the sewer. Michel undid the clasp on the chain, cleaned the gunk off the key, and told me to follow him back to his room.

Once there, he took a small screwdriver out of his desk drawer and went into the bathroom, where he unscrewed the cover of the bathroom fan. He also removed the fan blade so he could reach up into the vent and take something out that was hidden there. It was a small metal box covered in dust, sealed with a padlock.

“Haven’t you ever noticed we don’t have a lot of pictures of the family from before you were born?” he asked.

“I never really thought about it,” I said.

Now, however, the fact seemed rather odd. I was born in 2010, well into the smartphone and digital camera era, so there should’ve been hundreds if not thousands of photos of my family. I guess I just assumed they were tucked away on some old hard drive or memory stick and that most of them weren’t good enough to print out and hang up around the house. God knows I wouldn’t frame 99% of the photos on my phone. But when I thought about the few photos that did make it up on the wall, they only showed one or two family members at a time, never everyone all together, and none of the photos were staged like a typical family portrait. They were all candid shots. It wasn’t until well after I was born that the family portraits started to appear, and in much greater numbers.

“Now take a look at this,” Michel said, and handed me the box and key. “Open it.”

I put the gun on the sink and opened the lock. It was stiff from years of disuse but after a few jiggles I was able to release the lock arm. Inside the box was a plastic sandwich baggy full of 4x6” photos, a manilla envelope, and a USB memory stick. I looked at the photos first. They’d been taken with a disposable camera and the orange numbers in the corner of each shot showed a date range between 1996 and 2003. They were family photos. My family’s photos. There was Mom and Dad and a strange boy who looked familiar, with Mom’s nose and Dad’s jawline.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“You don’t remember David, do you,” Michel said. “Our brother.”

“We don’t have a brother,” I said.

“I forgot about him too until I found these pictures.” Michel smiled. “You want to know what the most frightening thing in the world is?” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “Memory.”

“Memory?”

“It never matches reality,” Michel said. “There’s always a distortion or omission at the heart of every memory and we base our entire existences off of the lie.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t, like, misremembering a line in a TV show or getting someone’s name wrong,” I said. “This is a whole-ass person! A sibling.”

“Sometimes it’s just easier to forget,” he said. “Sometimes you’re not supposed to remember.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Mike?” I asked. “You’re scaring me.”

“You know how in a video game, if you’re doing poorly you can just load an earlier save file and make different choices?”

“Yeah. I do it all the time.”

“But the record of the original playthrough is still there, even though you’re not playing it anymore.”

“Sure, unless you overwrite it.”

“It’s something like that.”

“You’re saying our brother, David, is from an old save file of our lives?”

“In a way.” He pointed to the manilla envelope. “Look in there.”

The envelope was old and smelled musty. Inside was a stack of folded up papers, which I opened and skimmed. There were medical documents that said things like:

Date: 9/8/1999

Patient: David Whitman

Age: 30 months

Notes: Patient exhibits markers for epilepsy and schizophrenia. Disorganized speech. Potential hallucinations. Very behind in emotional and cognitive development.

And letters from school authorities that read:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Whitman,

While I can certainly appreciate the difficulties of raising a child with psychological challenges, I’m afraid David has become too disruptive to the learning of other students. He requires educational alternatives that our faculty is not equipped to provide. I’ve attached a list of potential options along with resources for financial aid, should you need it.

Sincerely,

Principal Meghan Dunham, M.Ed.

One of the papers was a torn-out page from a school yearbook. There was a portrait of David, when he was about my age, looking glum and despondent while all the other kids’ were the smiling images of hopeful youth. It shocked me how much he looked like both Michel and me.

“I wish I had more,” Michel said, “but by the time I thought to start saving his memories there weren’t many left.”  

“What happened to him?” I asked.

Michel grabbed one of the photos and gazed at it.

“I killed him,” he said, “Well, sort of. I got George to do it.”   

My head was spinning at that point. You can only take so much damage to your personal reality before things start to get a little difficult to process. In the span of a few minutes I’d learned that monsters were real, I had another brother, and that Michel wasn’t the angel I’d thought he was. It was a lot to believe. Too much, really. That’s why I decided not to.

“You’re lying,” I said. “This is some kind of prank. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really well done, but you could’ve photoshopped all this stuff — and it would take an AI like five seconds to invent a brother for us. All you’d have to do is feed it a few reference images. It did a pretty good job, I’ll admit. You even got it to show David wearing some of the hand-me-downs you and I both had. Nice touch. Haha, you got me.” I forced a laugh. “So, now that I’m in on the joke, tell me what’s really going on here.”

Michel wasn’t listening. He just stared into one of the photos of David.

“I was only seven,” he said, “but I’d known David wasn’t right since before I could talk. I felt bad for him — and I felt bad for Mom and Dad too. It was costing them so much to take care of him. They were so young back then. Just a little older than I am now. Who knows what little money they were making? I remember sneaking out of my room at night to listen to them argue about finances in the kitchen when they thought we were asleep. I didn’t really understand what the problem was, aside from the fact that we didn’t have enough, but I kept hearing one word over and over. ‘David…David…David.’ I noticed David kept going to new schools and getting new tutors and special computer programs but my toys stayed the same and Mom always wore her jacket with the holes in the sleeves and Dad was always getting stuck somewhere because the car broke down. I remember them telling me I couldn’t go to the fancy school for smart kids with my friends from kindergarten.” Michel gestured to the house. “This place was a lot more rundown back then too. You never got to see it. When you were born, things got even worse,” he said. “Dad was mad all the time. Mom was too tired to have any emotions. David could tell they were upset with him, even though they didn’t want to be. ‘They can’t help it,’ he used to tell me. ‘Someday you’ll hate me too.’” Michel frowned. “Then one night, George started coming to visit.”

The mention of the creature made the hair on my arms tingle and I glanced towards the doorway to make sure he wasn’t out in the hall eavesdropping.

“I first saw him in the storage room,” Michel said. “Scared the shit out of me.”

“That’s where I first saw him too!” I said.

“I thought I was dreaming but he kept visiting me night after night. He’d come up to my room — your room now — and wake me up. I’d tell Mom and Dad the next day but they just thought I was having little kid nightmares. Can’t really blame them, I guess. Eventually, I realized George wasn’t trying to kill me, so I stopped telling them about his visits — I think they were starting to worry I had mental problems too — but he was still scary so I decided to call him George because I thought it was a funny name for a monster. I’d say, ‘Oh, hi George,’ when he’d show up. That’s when he started talking to me.”

“He talks to me a little,” I said, “but I can barely understand him.”

“Does he tell you to kill me?”

“He says he wants to do it for me.”

“That’s what he told me too.” Michel sighed and trudged out of the bathroom to go sit on his bed, holding his head in his hands. “I was just a kid, okay?” he said, and I could see tears in his eyes. “I didn’t understand consequences. I just thought if David was gone then we’d all be better. Even him. He was so miserable all the time.” Michel looked back at the photo in his hand. “I didn’t think I’d forget him.”

“Did Mom and Dad forget too?” I asked.

“Not at first,” he said. “At first everything was about how you’d expect. They were the ones who found his mangled corpse. George told me where it would be so I wouldn’t stumble upon it. Out in the woods behind the yard. Everyone was so confused. They thought it was an animal attack or something. The police were here for days. Mom cried a lot. Dad just stopped talking altogether. I felt terrible and I was scared someone would find out what I did.”

Michel shook his head. “But then the police stopped showing up. And the local reporters moved on to other stories.” He looked over to me with his tired eyes. “We didn’t even have a funeral. The police took David’s body for examination and we never saw it again. I asked Mom and Dad if we were going to bury him in the backyard but they said he’d been cremated, and when I asked for the ashes they said I was too young to worry about that kind of thing. Mom stopped crying. Dad started talking again. The neighbors smiled and waved whenever we drove by. I got enrolled in the fancy school.”

Michel laid down on the bed, right in the indentation George had left. “Everything was getting better, just like George said it would but I didn’t feel better. I just wanted to see David again and tell him I was sorry. But pictures of him kept going missing and the stuff in his room started disappearing. Then one day, I looked out my bedroom window and saw Mom standing behind the house where David had been found. She was just staring into the woods. I watched her for a long time. She kept setting something on fire with a cigarette lighter, and when I finally went down to her, I saw that it was photos of David. She didn’t even realize she was doing it.”

Michel gestured to the metal box of David’s memories. “That’s when I started collecting whatever evidence was left of him — photos and documents and that kind of stuff.”

I picked up the memory stick from the box. “What’s on here?”

“Some pictures from the digital camera, mostly of me and David playing together,” he said, and then sighed. “It still wasn’t enough to keep me from forgetting too, eventually.”

Before I could ask him anymore questions, Mom called down to see what we were doing and ask if we were ready for dinner. We could hear her coming down the stairs. Michel quickly shoved the photos and documents back in the box and I put the memory stick in my pocket, even though I wasn’t sure why we were hiding this stuff from Mom. Surely, she’d want to know about the son she forgot.

“The gun!” Michel whispered.

I grabbed it off the bathroom counter and shoved it underneath one of Michel’s pillows just as Mom entered the room.

“What are you boys doing in here?” she asked, aware that we were up to something.

“Nothing,” I said but Mom looked to Michel for the truth.

“It’s really nothing, Mom,” he said.

“Listen, Michel, you don’t raise two boys without learning how to tell when they’re up to something,” Mom said. “You two have been acting strange ever since you got home.”

“You’re going to be sad,” Michel said, with a sheepish grin.

“Why?” Mom asked, concern creeping onto her face.

“We were talking about me giving up my room,” he lied. “Since…since I don’t live here anymore.”

Michel was right. That did make Mom sad. Her eyes got all watery and she threw her arms around him.

“It does make me sad to have you gone,” she said, “but every mother has to give up her child eventually.” She let go of him and put on a smile. “But I’m so proud of the man you’ve become.” Then she looked at me. “Besides, I’ve still got this one for a few more years, so I’m only down half a set.”

“I love you, Mom,” Michel said.

“Oh, you’re going to make me cry!” Mom said. “Now, get your butts upstairs for dinner before I really lose it.”

“Okay, we’re coming,” Michel said. He started out the door after Mom and nodded for me to follow. “We’ll talk more after dinner,” he mumbled when Mom was far enough up the stairs.

“What about George?” I asked.

“I’m looking forward to seeing George again,” Michel said, raising his voice, as if he thought the creature might be nearby listening.

We went up the stairs, and just as I hit the landing, I thought I heard the sound of the storage room door opening.  

CHAPTER FIVE

All throughout dinner, Michel acted strangely, which in and of itself was not strange considering the situation we were dealing with — it’s just that Michel was usually pretty good at acting like he was in perfect control even when he wasn’t. It was one of the things I admired most about him.

That night, however, he was unable to focus. Mom and Dad would ask him questions about the conference he was in town for and it would take him a while to come up with specific details. He also excused himself to the bathroom a couple times, which I thought was risky. There was no way I was going to be alone anywhere in the house that night. But my parents just chalked it up to fatigue.

“I wasn’t even supposed to go to the conference,” Michel said, “but my professor had to cancel at the last minute and gave his ticket to me, so it’s just been rush, rush, rush ever since.”

Mom and Dad seemed to buy that.

After dinner, we went up to my room instead of back down to the basement, even though my room was not safe from George either (as I’d learned earlier). It still felt like the better option. Maybe because there were more escape routes. I wished I’d been able to sneak the gun upstairs. All I had for protection was my baseball bat. It was better than nothing but I kept the door open so Mom and Dad could hear us if George showed up, not that I thought they could do anything to help.

“I’m so tired,” Michel said as he collapsed on my bed. He smelled funny, a scent I couldn’t quite place, but then realized was booze when he took a nearly-empty flask of vodka from his pocket and took a swig. “I don’t know how much more I can take of all this.”

“You’re drinking?” I asked, a little heartbroken. Michel was my idol. He wasn’t supposed to succumb to anything, especially not something as boring as booze.

“Ever since I started remembering David,” he said. “I just needed something to cope.”

“When was that?”

“A few months ago,” he said. “I was trying to find a file on an old memory stick and I came across a picture of him. It all came flooding back. Suddenly everything made sense.” Michel took another swig. “You want to know why I work so hard? Why I’m such a great student? Why I never take a single second to stop and look around? It’s guilt. I’ve always had this terrible sense that everything about me is wrong and the only way I’ve been able to ignore it is by working and studying. I never knew why. Then I saw the picture and remembered what I’d done. For a while, I wasn’t sure what to do. It was all I could think about and I just felt so sad and ashamed. I wanted to kill myself. I stopped seeing friends and going to class. I let my projects fall apart and failed a bunch of tests. It’s only a matter of time before they kick me out.”

“But what about the conference?” I asked. “Your professor liked you enough to give you his ticket.”

Michel smiled and took another swig. “There is no conference,” he said. “It was just a story I told Mom and Dad. I couldn’t exactly say I was coming back to deal with a monster in the basement, could I?” He put the bottle back in his pocket. “They’ll find out soon enough. It’s all part of the plan.”

“Well, whatever your plan is, we’d better do it quick because George could show up any minute,” I said.

Michel nodded and brought out the metal lockbox, which he’d taken up from the basement before dinner. He opened it, spread the photos on the bed, and began taking pictures of them with his phone camera.

“I think I know how we can try to fix all this,” he said as he snapped the photos. “The key is memory — our memories. We’ve all forgotten David, right? So we just need to remember, and then David will exist in our minds again. Hand me those documents, will you?” I handed him the papers from the lockbox and he began capturing those too. “We’ll start with you and me and Mom and Dad but we’ll need other people’s help too. The more that remember, the stronger the memory. So we post everything on the internet where everyone can see it. We tell his story. We spread the word on a true crime podcast or something. We don’t stop talking until someone listens.”

“How’s that going to help?” I asked. “And what about George?”

“We can’t be the only family George has done this to,” Michel said. “Somebody out there has to know something. Maybe David’s story will jog their memory. We have to try.” Tears began welling up in his eyes again. “I can’t live with myself if I don’t try.” His tears turned to anger as he tapped furiously on his phone. “Why can’t I upload these? The internet’s not working.”

“Oh, no,” I said.

And then the power went out again.

We waited in silence to see what would happen next but there was nothing except the sound of conversation between Mom and Dad, who were downstairs in the living room.

“I’ll go see if the neighbors still have power,” Mom said, and walked out the front door.

“I’ll check the circuit breaker,” Dad said.

“We’ve got to stop him!” Michel said, and then yelled “Dad, wait!” before taking off down the stairs.

I grabbed the baseball bat and rushed after Michel to the main floor over to the basement stairs but Dad had already gone down by the time we got to the landing. Michel took the bat from me in one hand and held his phone flashlight in the other, and rushed down the stairs. “Dad, are you okay?” he yelled but there was no response.

I followed with my own phone flashlight lit but I was in such a hurry that I tripped and went tumbling down the staircase. My world spun into darkness and I lost my grip on the phone. When I came to a stop at the bottom of the staircase, I saw it lying a few feet away, flashlight pointing upwards so that it illuminated the room with its ghostly white glow. Michel was too far ahead of me and by the time I regained my footing, he was gone too.

But where?

I picked up my phone and swept the flashlight beam across the basement looking for Dad and Michel but they were nowhere to be seen. Or heard. The only sound was my own heavy breathing, which I could barely hear over my pounding heart.

“Mike? Dad?” I called but there was no response.

When I shone my light down the basement hallway, I saw that the door to Michel’s room and the bathroom were closed. The storage room door, however, was wide open. It was too dark to see anything other than the gaping black chasm that lie beyond but I could sense that something awful lay in wait. I froze, unable to go farther down the hall but unwilling to run and leave Dad and Michel behind.

Then, behind me to the right, my computer turned itself on in its nook under the stairs. The fan whirred to life and the screen blinked on, although it was facing away from me so I couldn’t see what it displayed. I half-expected George to be sitting at it but the chair was empty, which was actually more unnerving than if he’d just been there. At least we could’ve gotten it over with. It also didn’t help my nerves that the rest of the house was still without power and that there was no reason my computer should’ve been able to boot up.

Cautiously, I went around to the nook, alternating the sweep of my flashlight beam between it and the open storage room door. When I got to the computer, I saw that it had loaded up a video game menu screen. The game was called Michelangelo’s House and the menu screen was an exterior shot of my house at night, as if rendered by an old graphics engine from the early 00s. Only it was how my house had looked seven years ago. There was still the large dying oak tree in the front yard, looming precariously over the house, and my dad’s old pickup truck was still in the driveway, which he’d tearfully sold years ago when its frequent maintenance became too expensive.

The words “Start Your Only Playthrough” blinked at the bottom of the screen, and I could see silhouettes of people moving around in the illuminated windows. I moved the mouse curser over the blinking text and hovered there for a moment while I checked the storage room door again. There was still nothing but darkness so I sat down in the chair and started the game.

I’ve always been borderline addicted to games, so the feeling of getting absorbed by one was not unusual. This game, however, felt like it became my reality. My peripheral vision didn’t register anything outside the screen and I could almost feel and smell the environment when the game loaded up. For all intents and purposes, I was no longer a member of the real world.

The game was played from a first-person perspective and began in my bedroom, which looked as it did when I was a little kid. Star Wars, Marvel, and Lego toys were all over the place, and my old Minecraft poster was still on the wall. Clothes and colorful drawings littered the floor but when I took a closer look, the colors seemed to fade into dull shades of red, as if the whole world was illuminated by some dying, rusty sun. The game let me look around the room for a moment before giving me my first instruction.

Sneak downstairs without getting caught.

A stealth meter appeared in the corner of the screen to indicate how much my presence had been detected by entities in the game.

Slowly, I crept out of the room. The lights were out except for a nightlight plugged into the wall to illuminate the hallway, and as I moved closer to the staircase, I could see that the lights in the living room below were also off. Just as I was about to reach the staircase, I began to hear the murmur of conversation downstairs. It sounded like Mom and Dad but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

As I tiptoed towards the staircase, the conversation got louder, and even though I couldn’t understand what was being said, I could tell that it was coming from the kitchen. I risked a little extra speed as I walked down the stairs, and my stealth meter diminished a little bit. Mom and Dad’s conversation stopped for a moment and I froze until it started back up again. I supposed I’d have to take it slower. I always hated stealth games.

Once I made it to the first floor, more text appeared on the screen.

Spy on the conversation. Don’t get seen. Your future depends on it.

I was now in the living room, which faced the open kitchen and dining area. The kitchen was the most shockingly different aspect of the game. In real life, we’d remodeled it during the Covid pandemic because my parents went crazy with cabin fever and needed something to do. In the game, however, the kitchen was how it had been just a few years back, with the dated cabinets and beat up dining table. It made it look like a completely different house. Amazing what difference a few years makes to the mind’s perception of its world.

Anyway, my parents were sitting at that huge table, which was covered in paper bills and bank notices, hunched over a laptop. I crept very slowly around the living room couch and over to the wall that separated the two rooms. Once there, I pressed myself up against the wall and leaned towards the dining area’s threshold so that I could make out the conversation.

“Boy, he’s really done it this time,” Dad said.

“It’s not his fault,” Mom said. “He was just a kid.”

“Yeah, well, he was a grown-ass adult when he decided to tell everyone about it,” Dad said.

“He’s not well,” Mom said, in a defensive tone.

“He seemed fine to me before he stared boozing,” Dad said. “I mean, what was he doing at that school anyway? Taking shrooms with his buddies and scrambling his fucking brains? Who has an epiphany like this out of the blue?”

“Sometimes mental illness doesn’t present itself until later,” Mom said.

“I wish it’d waited until after graduation,” Dad said. “We refinanced the goddamn house to get him in. All down the toilet now. And it’s not like we’re swimming in cash either, since you got ‘laid off.’” Dad put air quotes around those last words.

“We can’t know whether that was his fault or not,” Mom said.

“Come on,” Dad said. “Rumors start swirling that we murdered our firstborn and covered it up, and you just happen to lose your job as a pediatrician. Huge coincidence.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Mom said, sternly. “Michelangelo needs our help and support.”

“And what about our other son?” Dad asked, in reference to me, I assumed. “His future’s kind of fucked now too, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know…”

“We should never have pushed Mike to go that Ivy League,” Dad said. “If he’d gone to State he could’ve peddled his little fantasy to some dope at the college radio station where five people would’ve heard it. But no! We had to send him to rich kid school with his well-connected friends and their access to mommy and daddy’s media company.”

“This is pointless,” Mom said. “We have to face reality as it is.”

“Reality?” Dad pounded the table and shouted. “Reality is that we don’t have a third fucking son, and he wasn’t murdered by a fucking monster from a fucking ghost story. I don’t care how realistic Michel’s bullshit fake evidence looks.”

“But where did he get it from?” Mom asked.

“Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe this shit,” Dad said. “How could we forget our own child?”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either,” Mom said, getting more defensive, “but I just feel…so terrible…” Mom started to cry. “Oh, Michel.”

“Michel…”

“Michel…”

Suddenly, I heard noises down in the basement, the staircase to which was right across from where I stood hidden in the living room. Footsteps started up the stairs and more text popped up on the screen.

Hide from Michelangelo.

As quickly as I could without making noise, I backed away from the dining area’s threshold and went to crouch behind the recliner in the corner of the living room. It didn’t provide full cover, so I just had to hope it was dark enough. When Michel emerged from the basement, his face was sickly pale and gaunt, and his sunken eyes were tear streaked. He seemed to look directly at me but my stealth meter only dropped a few percentage points, so he must not have seen me clearly. Maybe it was because he was drunk. In his hand was an empty bottle of vodka. Then Mom and Dad started talking to him and he turned and ran for the door to the outside.

“Michel,” Dad said, “where are you going?”

“What’s wrong, Michelangelo?” Mom asked.

“I can’t be here,” Michel said when he reached the door. “Just let me go.”

“Michel, please!” Mom said.  

I stayed crouched behind the chair as Michel ran outside. Mom and Dad chased after him, slamming the door behind them, and I could hear them calling after him in the night. Their voices got farther and farther away until I couldn’t hear them anymore. I was now alone in the house.

Go to your computer, the game instructed me.

This was a confusing objective. If this game was supposed to take place when I was seven-years-old, then I wouldn’t have had a computer yet. I didn’t get my souped-up PC until I turned twelve. My parents and Michel mostly used laptops, but there was an old family desktop in Dad’s office on the other side of the first floor staircase, so I figured I’d try that. I definitely didn’t want to go look downstairs. Unfortunately for me, Dad’s office was locked. Not surprising, really. It wouldn’t be a good game if things were too easy.

I walked over to the basement stairs and looked down. There was some light emitting from the main room but it was coming from the floor lamps we had down there, not the bright overhead lights, so most of the room was in shadow. I was afraid to go down but then I realized that I had no health meter in the game, which either meant that I was invincible or that I would die instantly if something happened. I chose to believe the former and started down the stairs.

When I reached the bottom, I went over to the nook where my computer was in real life but there was only a bookcase full of photo albums. I found that if I clicked on an album, my avatar in the game would pick it up and look through it. Every photo was the same picture of my parents pushing me on a swing when I was two or three-years-old, and all three of us were smiling brightly. I actually remembered that day because shortly after that photo was taken we had to rush over to the middle school to pick up Michel, who’d gotten in trouble for starting a fight.

Except, now that I thought about it, Michel would’ve been too young to be in middle school at the time.

Down the basement hallway, I heard a door open up. The door to the storage room. I put down the album and went over to the hall to investigate. The storage room was pitch black but in the middle of the room was my computer, its screen glowing blue. As I approached, I could see an error message written in white text. The Blue Screen of Death. When I reached the threshold, I tried to peer around into the room but it was too dark to see anything, so I took a deep breath and went over to the computer to read the error message.

Your reality ran into a problem and needs to restart.

ERROR CODE: 06182003

Six. Eighteen. Two-thousand-and-three.

Michel’s birthday.

All of a sudden, my stealth meter began to go down, slow at first, then faster and faster until it was completely empty. Somebody — or something — could see me. My heart raced and I turned to see what was behind me but then the whole game blinked out of existence and I found myself back in real life, staring at my computer monitor, which displayed the login screen.

A cold, foul-smelling breeze began to caress the back of my neck in regular intervals. Breaths. The hair on my neck stood up and I froze in the chair, praying that it was Michel or Dad standing behind me. But I knew it wasn’t.

“Hello,” George said from behind me. His voice was still scratchy and garbled but it was the clearest I’d heard yet.  

“Oh, hi, George,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant even though I was shaking with fear. “What do you want?”

“Decision.”

“Decide what?” I asked, even though I knew. “To kill my brother?”

George said nothing.

Finally, I swiveled in my chair to face him. He was as tall and ugly as when I’d seen him earlier that evening and the night before, towering over me, bent over so that his elongated arms almost touched the floor. However, as I looked at him, my fear evaporated and all I was left with was a deep sense of sorrow.

“Is it really going to happen like the game said?” I asked.

“Decision.”

“If you kill him, will I forget?” I asked. “Will we forget?”

“Memories…hide.”

“But I don’t want to forget Michel,” I said as the urge to cry began to overcome me. I didn’t want him to suffer either, though. Or the rest of the family. Did it even matter what I wanted? Was George, this terrible, otherworldly monster really going to take orders from a 13-year-old boy?

I didn’t have time to find out. There was a loud “clunk” from the storage room and all the lights came back on. I heard Dad cheer, and a moment later, he came back down the hall.

“Not sure what happened there,” he said, “but looks like everything’s back on.”

“Where’s Michel?” I asked.

“I don’t know, upstairs?”

“We ran after you. Didn’t you hear us?”

“No,” Dad said, and gave me a quizzical look. “You feeling okay, bud?”

I mumbled some kind of non-answer and ran past Dad to Michel’s room to see if he was in there, my heart pounding at the thought of Michel being gone. I hadn’t asked George to do it. What if he had anyway?

To my relief, Michel was in his room lying face down on the bed. The baseball bat was a few inches away on the floor where it’d dropped out of his hand, and the flask of vodka was in his other hand. I paused to make sure he was actually breathing and then shook him awake. He awoke with a heavy gasp.  

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said when he regained focus and calmed his breathing. “I dreamed I was running as fast as I could but I didn’t know where I was going and my legs kept giving out. It feels like I’ve been out for a while.” According to the clock on his bedside table, only a few minutes had passed since we came downstairs, even though the strange game I’d played had taken much longer. At that point in the madness, I wasn’t surprised by things like that. I just kind of assumed I’d gone into a weird time warp or something while I was playing the game. That explained why my feeling of time’s passing didn’t match with reality but not why Michel felt the same. Why did my memories affect his?

“I just had the weirdest thing happen to me,” I said, and was about to tell him about the game when I brushed my hand past my pocket and felt a plastic, rectangular shape. I reached my hand in to see what it was and came up with the memory stick that contained digital photos of Michel and David. I’d shoved it in there earlier when Mom came down to check on us and forgotten it was there. For some reason, my mind immediately thought about what would’ve happened if I’d forgotten it was there and put it through the washing machine on laundry day like I had so many other random knickknacks left in my pockets. Imagine if it was destroyed.

Imagine…

Imagine…

“Oh my God,” I said as the idea churned through my mind. “I know what we have to do!”

Michel sat up in the bed, and rubbed his eyes.

“You started going mad when you found that picture of David, right?” I asked. Michel nodded. “But if you hadn’t found it, you’d never have remembered. You’d have just gone on with life as normal.”

“I guess so,” Michel said.

 I showed him the memory stick. “Then all we have to do is destroy the remaining evidence of David’s life.”

“What?” Michel said, angrily. “We’re trying to do the opposite of that.”

“Why, though?” I asked. “He’s already dead. We can’t bring him back. Remembering him will only make us all miserable.”

“I’ve been miserable ever since I killed him,” Michel said. “I just didn’t know why until I saw that picture of him.”

“But maybe that’s only because there was still all that evidence you saved in the lockbox. What if you couldn’t completely forget unless you destroyed it all? Maybe you saved just enough to keep David’s memory alive in your feelings but not enough to remember the details.”  

 “I guess that makes sense — as much as any of this makes sense,” Michel said, “but it doesn’t matter. I’ve remembered and I never want to forget again. David’s existence deserves to be recognized, no matter the pain it causes me.”

“But it’s not just you,” I said. “This is going to affect all of us, especially Mom and Dad.”

I then told him about what I’d experienced playing the game, how the truth would ruin the family and create problems we could never escape from.

Michel thought about this, growing wearier with each passing moment. “I don’t care what the game said,” he finally said. “It was just one of George’s tricks to get us to do what he wants. You can’t trust anything he shows you. Shit like that worked on me when I was a little kid but not now.” Michel finished off the bottle of vodka and jumped up off the bed, wavering a little as he attempted to stand upright. “He just wants us to suffer. That must be the reason. It’s a sick joke to him. He wants us to suffer without remembering why. Except it only takes one person to remember, and when I’m through, the whole world’s going to know.” He swiped the memory stick from my hand. “Starting with this.”

Michel ran out of the room and down the hall to my computer. “What’s your password?” he yelled back. “I’m going to upload these photos right now, and then I’m going to email them to the whole family, and then I’m going to post them on...” Michel raved like a madman about all the things he was going to do with the photos but I wasn’t listening anymore.

I was still in his room, staring at the floor, and thinking about how hopeless all of our lives had become — how despair was now going to be a part of our existence from now on. And why? So my brother could make good on a moral thought experiment? So that I could become forever entangled in something I never had a say in? He was going to do it just on principle, just because it was the “right” thing to do.

My brother Michelangelo.

Too good.

Too perfect.

Too late.

Finally the tears broke from behind my eyes and streamed down my face as I went to sit on Michel’s bed. I laid down on my side and wept as quietly as I could, feeling the hopeless inevitability of what was to come. Then a large, cold hand rested gently on my shoulder and gave a few soft, consoling squeezes. The weight of a large creature pressed on the bed beside me.

“There, there,” the creaky voice said.

I won’t say I was completely desensitized to George’s presence but at that point I’d lost the will to be frightened. Why bother? There didn’t seem to be anything I could do to stop him. Or so I thought.

I slid my hand under the pillow and felt the cold metal of the pistol I’d hidden there. I knew it was loaded, with a round chambered, ready to go. I knew George bled. I knew he hadn’t liked it when I pointed the gun at him earlier. So, all I had to do was grab it, roll off the bed, and start pumping lead. Then we’d be rid of him, and Michel could finish his mission of remembrance. Then we could all walk unhindered into the arms of misery. Then we could lie awake at night fearing not monsters in the basement but our own fickle and callous souls.

All I had to do was take the shot.

“Okay, George, you win,” I said between sobs as I moved my hand away from the gun.

“You,” was all he said in response.

 “Do it quick,” I said.

“No pain.”

“And promise me I’ll forget.”

“You…feel…better.”

George’s cold hand lifted off my shoulder and I felt his weight leave the bed. I squeezed my eyes closed and buried my head in the pillow, crying so hard I couldn’t even make sound. The last thing I remembered was the click of the bedroom door closing.

CHAPTER SIX

I was never able to recall what exactly happened to Michel. I had to trust that George made it painless like he said he would. Who wouldn’t trust a basement dwelling murder demon to keep its word?

Not that I would’ve remembered if he hadn’t.

I started forgetting Michel almost immediately — and David too. It felt like a compulsion, like something urgent that needed to be done as soon as possible. I burned all the photos and documents Michel had saved in the lockbox, and I melted it down for good measure too. Then I burned everything that had once been Michel’s, his old toys and books and clothes. Mom and Dad helped too. It was a family event, except none of us acknowledged or spoke to each other while we were doing it, as if none of us really existed in the other’s eyes. Honestly, that probably made it more efficient than if we’d been all Family Circus about it.

We weren’t the only ones working hard to forget. Photos of Michel began disappearing off of social media, and people deleted posts mentioning him. A few months later, Mom and Dad got a huge check in the mail from Duke apologizing for an administrative mishap that had them paying tuition for a student who never showed up. They barely remembered they were missing the money by the time it arrived.

We got in a big fight over what to do with it. They wanted to put it in my college fund but I finally broke down and told them I wanted to make video games for a living and that I could teach myself. I just needed an even more powerful computer. I won that battle a few years later when an indie game I made on my old computer sold a few thousand copies. It was a game where you play as a kid trying to get out of the basement before a monster gets you, but you never know when it’s going to appear. Simple, but effective. I called it Michelangelo’s House.

The problem was I spent so much time building it that I nearly failed high school, which caused a lot more tension between me and my folks. Still, that game got me an internship at a major developer, which led to a full time job, and eventually a lead role. My parents always seemed to harbor an unspoken resentment towards me anyway, though. I tried to ignore it and maintain a friendly, cordial relationship with them, which seemed like the right thing to do, what with me being their only son and all.  

But maybe I should’ve just let them go.

I came back home to visit for Thanksgiving one year and we had a nice, quiet dinner. However, after my parents went to sleep for the night, I was bored and went poking around my old room in the basement for something to do. In my closet was my old computer. A real blast from the past. I wondered if my old game was on there, so I set it up on the desk in the nook under the staircase where it used to be so long ago. Sure enough, there it was. My game! It still ran too.

That computer was old as shit, though, and I was afraid it wouldn’t boot up again. I didn’t want to lose the original file of the first game I built, so I decided to make a copy to take back to my apartment when I left. I shuffled around in the desk drawer for an old memory stick and found one shoved way in the back. When I plugged it into the computer, I found it didn’t have enough free memory for my game file, so I opened up the memory stick’s folder to see if there was anything I could delete.

There was one folder labeled “Photos” and when I clicked on it, there were a few hundred image files dated from several years ago. I figured they couldn’t be that important since they’d been living in the back  of the drawer for so long but I checked anyway just to make sure.

The first photo I opened was a picture of two boys posing under a tree, one a bright-smiling lad of about seven-years-old and the other a somber, brooding teenager. It shocked me how much the older boy looked like I did when I was a teenager. The younger boy also looked like me at his age, although I didn’t really have many childhood photos to compare.

I clicked through a few more shots of the two boys and nearly blacked out when I saw a picture of them together in the basement of a house. My parents’ house. This house. I stared at the image, heart pounding, trying to figure out who these boys were, standing so close to the very spot where I was sitting. I zoomed into the photo in search of clues, and just as I was about to give up, I noticed something strange. The boys were standing in the basement hallway but just behind them was the door to the storage room, open only a crack.

There, just above the knob, a large, gray, human-like hand was gripping the door.

Suddenly, my computer shut itself off.

And the power went out.

And a door opened down the hallway behind me.

THE END

Story Description (no spoilers)

It’s the year 2073 and Rowan Greenbaum is condemned to die of an easily cured form of cancer. The reason? His zip code is over its maximum population capacity — at least, according to recent legislation enshrined into law at the behest of the country’s largest health insurance company. This population cap disqualifies Rowan from lifesaving treatment but he discovers a loophole that allows him to trade another life for his own.

With the cancerous clock ticking, he sets off in search of his sacrificial savior, beginning a downward spiral of desperation and manipulation that will ensnare everyone around him, even those he loves most.

It's Catch-22 meets Black Mirror, a darkly funny and deeply depressing story about love, life, and death set against the cold, unfeeling machinery of corporate-captured bureaucracy.

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NOTE TO NEW READERS: Much of my writing will appear on this website (and for FREE) but this is a special experiment in audio and ebook making, so it’s hosted offsite, and the price ranges are dictated by those platforms.

Chapter 1

So you’ve got a little cancer, big deal, Rowan Greenbaum thought to himself in the bathroom mirror of the Midtown Municipal Health Clinic. He instinctively picked at the misshapen mole on the back of his right hand, the subject of his recent diagnosis. It’s just a silly little melanoma. Hell, they cured pancreatic cancer back in 2032, so this should be no trouble at all.

He gave his reflection a reassuring grin, and noted the smile lines, barely visible on his still-youthful face, and the tiny wisps of gray hair streaked across his otherwise dark temples — the image of a man with many decades still ahead of him. Before exiting the bathroom, he washed his hands twice on the off chance the antiseptic soap might offer some small but crucial defense against the skin cancer, and then, after a deep exhale, walked out into the clinic’s drab, fluorescent-lit hallway, back to the little cubicle where Dr. Parkin was waiting with information about his treatment options.

His spirits were low but not so low he couldn’t fool himself into thinking they were high, as people often do when backed into a corner. He beamed a confident smile at Dr. Parkin as he took his seat opposite her. She responded with a toothy grin of her own and slid a tablet across the desk towards him. On the screen the words “Ending Life with Dignity” appeared in big yellow type overtop an image of an elderly man and woman on a beach in a vaguely tropical location.

“What’s this?” Rowan asked as he scrolled through the digital brochure. More photos of the elderly couple smiled back at him from sterile medical settings that were very unlike the tropical locale featured in the first image. “I think you pulled up the wrong brochure.”

“This details our most popular euthanasia program,” Dr. Parkin said with a cheerful sparkle in her voice, “but I do have some other options, if you’d like to see them.”

Rowan had never been treated by Dr. Parkin before today and was beginning to question her qualifications. She couldn’t have been more than thirty — thirty-five at most — but she carried herself with the weightless enthusiasm of someone who had all the answers and was delighted to supply them before you even knew to ask. Her jet-black hair was streaked with highlights and immaculately straightened, and her clear-rimmed augmented-reality glasses were technically still on-trend, since the new autumn styles had only just dropped a few days ago. A small calendar reminder appeared at the corner of her vision, reminding her to visit the optometrist later that day to obtain new frames. She dismissed it with a blink and smiled at Rowan. “End of life care is, of course, a matter of personal taste.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Rowan said, shoving the tablet back across the desk. “I thought I just had skin cancer.”

“Correct.”

“But skin cancer’s not a big deal, right?”

“Every cancer is a big deal, Mr. Greenbaum,” Dr. Parkin said with a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah, but it’s skin cancer,” he said with a dismissive snort. “It’s like cancer isn’t even trying. They had it beat back in the 1900s.”

Dr. Parkin nodded, still with that sad smile plastered to her face. “Yes, Mr. Greenbaum, we’ve brought many cancers to heel. In fact, that’s the whole problem.”

“Problem?”

“Too many people are surviving these days.”

“That’s a problem?”

She nodded again. “It really puts a strain on the population cap.”

“The what?” An icy trickle of fear began to seep into Rowan’s stomach as he realized this wasn’t simply a misunderstanding. “This is the first I’m hearing of a population cap.”

Dr. Parkin smiled knowingly. “We’ve been getting that a lot recently.” She picked up the tablet and tapped a query into its search bar. An instant later, a map of Midtown appeared on the screen, divided up by colored sectors. With her perfectly painted fingernail, she pointed to a sector overlayed in bright red. “This is your zip code, and as you can see, it’s at maximum population capacity.” The red overlay flashed to amplify her point. “Therefore, I’m not authorized to issue treatment to you at this time.”

Rowan grabbed the tablet from her and scanned it frantically. “How come I’ve never seen this before?” he asked. “Are you sure you’ve got the right map?” He pointed to the title of the map, located just above the graphic. “This says it’s something called the ‘Climate Sustainability Zones.’”

“Yes, that’s the official name,” Dr. Parkin said, “but we’ve found it’s easier to just call them population caps. People seem to get the idea quicker.” She chuckled. “Besides, ‘Climate Sustainability Zones’ is a pretty boring name, don’t you think?” She took his lack of laughter to mean that he was still confused. “So, basically, you live in an area that can’t sustain its current population.”

“Says who?” Rowan asked with indignity. “Surely, we would’ve voted on something so…so…insane.”

“Oh, there was no need for a vote,” Dr. Parkin said, as though this fact represented some kind of thoughtful courtesy. “It was simply added to the Healthcare and Human Rights Charter by the State Legislature last year. Can you imagine if the public was expected to vote on science-y stuff like that?” She chuckled again but noticed that instead of laughing along, Rowan was glaring at her with searing animosity. “But don’t worry,” she said, maintaining the pep in her voice, “it was all subjected to a very thorough review by ShieldCare’s Professional Oversight Committee.”

“ShieldCare, the health insurance company?” Rowan asked.

“Yes!” Dr. Parkin said, happy that he was still following. “Your insurance company. So you can rest easy knowing this was all handled by experts you trust.”

Rowan’s eyes crossed. “Sorry, I’m not sure I understand what ShieldCare has to do with the climate or sustainability or the number of people that are allowed to be alive.”

Some of the luster in Dr. Parkin’s smile faded. Clearly, she wasn’t getting through to him. “Maybe Randall Moore can explain it better than me.” She took the tablet back from Rowan and navigated to ShieldCare’s website. Once there, a hologram projection of ShieldCare CEO, Randall Moore, began playing in the middle of her desk. The chyron at the bottom of the projection indicated that it was a recording of a joint press conference he’d done with members of the State Legislature, and Rowan recognized two of the most popular representatives flanking him at the podium.

“As CEO of America’s largest health insurance company, it’s my job to prioritize the health of every citizen of this great nation,” said Moore, dressed like a rich person’s idea of a cowboy and reading from a teleprompter that had also been rendered into the hologram. “That means not turning a blind eye to the perils of climate instability, which affects all of us — particularly folks from communities who have currently or historically experienced conditions of underempowered systemic disprivilegement. Recent studies have shown that population regulation is one of the best ways we, as responsible stewards of the environment, can mitigate the devastating effects of climate instability and bring us more in harmony with Parent Nature. It will also allow us to provide a higher and more equitable standard of care to everyone. The establishment of these Climate Sustainability Zones is a great first step towards a new era of public/private partnership designed to ensure a healthier future for everyone, and we at ShieldCare are proud to take it with our good friends in the Legislature.” Mild applause followed, and then the hologram was replaced with ShieldCare’s logo, shimmering in the air above the desk along with an up-to-date readout of the company’s stock performance. A green arrow pointed upwards, and in small type, the words “a subsidiary of Drexel Energy Co.” could be read.

“How convenient for them,” Rowan said as he slumped in his chair. “I still have to pay my premiums, but they don’t have to do jack shit because it’s illegal to save my life.”

“Oh, it’s not illegal,” Dr. Parkin said, perking up again with pertinent information. “If your plan included an ayek, we would be obligated to treat you regardless.”

“An ayek?”

“A – E – C.”

“A – what?”

“Authorized Extension of Continuity. It’s available to Platinum Plus members. Maybe we can upgrade your plan!” Rowan sat up in his chair with interest as Dr. Parkin tapped on her tablet for more information. Once again, her bright smile dimmed a few shades. “Hmm. It looks like your credit score isn’t high enough.” She shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“So there’s nothing that can be done, huh?” Rowan said sardonically, trying to maintain a sort of calm infuriation in his demeanor, as one might during an actual negotiation where one had actual leverage, which, of course, he did not. In truth, most of his efforts were spent clamping down the trembles as awful thoughts began bombarding his mind. Of all the terrible images and ideas, what haunted him most was a question, How will I explain this to her? followed by images of his wife. His beautiful, wonderful wife. For a moment his own mortality faded and all he saw was her face, smiling and tranquil with a serene happiness that he would soon have to demolish. He saw her as he did that very first time, in a fit of glorious rapture with the urgent sensation that he must never, ever be without her, and then saw her again, cold and alone, after the inevitable moment when he would be the one to leave. How will I tell her how stupid this is? he wondered, and how stupid I am? Because he would have to be pretty stupid to die like this, right? Of a minor disease that could be cured in an afternoon? No, he couldn’t go home with that. He couldn’t do that to her — or himself for that matter. There had to be something else to try.

Across the desk, Dr. Parkin sat with her customer service smile waiting for him to come to grips with his fate, as she had with so many others recently. Her training insisted the friendly act was the most effective approach to such sensitive matters but a number of violent outbursts from patients had begun to shake her faith in this conclusion. She sized up Rowan and tried to determine what flavor of primal brutality he might try to inflict upon her, hiding the fear behind her sparkling eyes. As it happened, Rowan was looking at the mole on his hand and feeling the sudden urge to rip it off with his fingernails and stuff it down her throat. Luckily for both of them, inspiration diverted his rage. As he pondered the sight of his fist dilating her esophagus, blood pouring from the torn flesh of his hand, an idea struck him. “Wait! Mole removal can’t be too hard. It’s just a little bump, right?”

“Yes, the procedure would have been very quick,” she said, “if you’d been authorized.”

“You think I could DIY the surgery with…like…a kitchen knife or something?”

“I really couldn’t say,” Dr. Parkin said with a helpless shrug, her fear not exactly alleviated by thoughts of knives and carved-up flesh.

“But there’s a possibility it could work, right? Assuming the cancer hasn’t spread?” 

“That’s not really my area of expertise.”

“You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

“I’m your doctor,” she said, risking a hint of disapproval into her tone.

“Well, they must have taught you something about how skin cancer works in medical school.”

“My PhD is in Public Policy.”

Rowan’s eyes bulged. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m your doctor.”

“I need a medical doctor!”

“How about we leave it to the experts to decide what kind of doctor you need,” Dr. Parkin said in a chipper but firm tone to indicate that this particular discussion was over. “Now, I really must insist that we move on. We’ve got so much to go over, and we haven’t even started on your TIP —” She stopped herself, remembering that Rowan didn’t know all these acronyms that had become so mundane to her. “Termination Intake Procedure.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on now, wait a minute,” Rowan said. “Isn’t there, like, some kind of appeals process or something?”

“ShieldCare had a generative chatbot anticipate every argument you might make, so there wouldn’t be much point,” Dr. Parkin said. “It’s actually quite convenient, when you think about it.”

Rowan seethed. “You know what would be even more convenient? Not dying!”

“Everybody dies, Mr. Greenbaum,” she said. “It’s the responsible thing to do.”

Rowan was about to have an aneurysm when suddenly her words took on a different meaning. “You know what, Doc? You’re right! Everybody does die. People do it all the time. I bet there’s someone out there right now just waiting to keel over. Tomorrow. Next week. All we have to do is wait them out, and then, when they die, I can take their spot in the population cap!”

“I’m afraid the algorithm already accounts for natural terminations.”

A smile began to creep across Rowan’s face as a new idea crept into his mind. “I guess that depends on what counts as a natural termination.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” Dr. Parkin said with a raised eyebrow as she slowly moved her hand towards the panic button just beneath her desk.

“A terminated pregnancy,” he shouted with a smile. “An abortion!” He laughed. “It’s perfect. My neighbor’s daughter got knocked up by a boy at her church not too long ago. Esther is her name. Esther Norton. She’s only 18. I just know I could convince her to get an abortion. Who wants a kid at 18? Or at all?” Dr. Parkin chuckled at that, which Rowan took as a sign to continue. “If she gets an abortion, that would up free a spot in the population cap for me, right?”

“Hmmm,” Dr. Parkin said, intrigued. “It depends on if her pregnancy has been registered in the population database yet.” She tapped around on her tablet some more and skimmed the information. “Ah, here it is,” she said with a smile. “13 weeks. Still well within the acceptable range.” She thought for a moment, nodding every now and then. “Yes…yes. Teen pregnancies are especially troublesome, particularly nearing adulthood. 18 is prime workforce age, after all, but we can expect to lose her for at least a month after the birth — if we’re lucky — and then her productivity will be stunted for at least a decade after that, even with state-mandated childcare.” Dr. Parkin exhaled as if existentially labored by such thoughts. “And, of course, with every new child, the state has to allocate an average of 72 years of resources. 74 if it’s a girl. It's a nightmare. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the authority to order terminations,” Dr. Parkin looked up at Rowan with a smile, “but if you can convince your neighbor to end her pregnancy under her own volition, I’m confident the Board will be very grateful — grateful enough to approve your treatment.”

“That baby’s as good as dead!” Rowan said and sprung out of his seat before Dr. Parkin could change her mind or ask him to fill out any more ominous-sounding forms. “I’ll go see her today.”

Fresh with excitement, he yanked his gray jacket from the hook, nearly tearing it off the wall, and flung himself out of Dr. Parkin’s cubicle and down the hall, past dozens of identical cubicles filled with glum-looking citizens in various states of resigned defeat. But not Rowan. His future was once again in his grasp, and all he had to do was manipulate a frightened teenager into doing his bidding.

It would be a cinch.

Find out what happens next by downloading the ebook or audiobook. The story is six chapters in total and the audio version is 1 hour and 16 minutes long.