penpal - 1000vultures

8/12/2019 Penpal - 1000vultures

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PENPAL

Written by reddit user 1000Vulturesonr/nosleep. This is a long read so long, in fact, that eachpart was originally posted as a standalone story (so it's really ore li!e a series of si" stories#. Thestories ha$e garnered a considerable fanbase since their original postings on r/nosleep, e$en

propting the author to adapt the into a full%length no$el, naedPenpal& what follows, though,are the original postings fro reddit.

Footsteps

This is long, so apologie for that. '$e ne$er had to tell this story with enough detail to actuallye"plain it all the way, but it is true and it happened when was about si" years old.

n a )uiet roo, if you press your ear against a pillow, you can hear your heartbeat. *s a !id, theuffled, rhythic beats sounded li!e soft footsteps on a carpeted floor, so as a !id, alost e$erynight +ust as was about to drift off to sleep would hear these footsteps and would beripped bac! to consciousness, terrified.

or y entire childhood li$ed with y other in a fairly nice neighborhood that was in atransitional phase people of lower econoic eans were gradually o$ing in, and y otherand were two of these people. We li$ed in the !ind of house you see being transported in two

pieces on the interstate, but y o too! good care of it. There were a lot of woods surrounding

the neighborhood that would play in and e"plore during the day, but at nightas things often doto a !idthey too! on a ore sinister feeling. This, coupled with the fact that, due to the nature ofour house, there was a fairly large crawlspace underneath, filled y ind with iaginary onstersand inescapable scenarios which would consue y thoughts when was awo!en by the footsteps.

told y o about the footsteps and she said that was +ust iagining things& persisted enoughthat she blasted y ears with water fro a tur!ey baster once +ust to placate e, since thought thatwould help. -f course it didn't. espite all the creepiness and footsteps, the only weird thing thate$er happened was that, e$ery now and then, would wa!e up on the botto bun! despite ha$inggone to sleep on the top, but this wasn't really weird since 'd soeties get up to piss or getsoething to drin! and could reeber +ust going bac! to sleep on the botto bun! (' an onlychild so it didn't atter#. This would happen once or twice a wee!, but wa!ing up on the botto

bun! wasn't too terrifying. ut one night didn't wa!e up on the botto bun!.

had heard the footsteps, but was too far gone to be wo!en up by the, and when was awo!en itwasn't fro the sound of footsteps or a nightare, but because was cold. eally cold. When opened y eyes saw stars. was in the woods. sat up iediately and tried to figure out whatwas going on. thought was dreaing, but that didn't see right, though neither did e being inthe woods. There was a deflated pool float right in front of e one of those ones shaped li!e ashar!. This only added to the surreal feeling, but after a while it seeed li!e +ust wasn't going towa!e up because wasn't asleep. stood up to orient yself, but didn't recognie these woods.

played in the woods by y house all the tie, so !new the really well, but if these werent thesae woods then how could get out2 too! a step and felt a shooting pain in y foot, which

!noc!ed e bac! to where had +ust been laying. had stepped on a thorn. y the light of the oon could see that they were everywhere. loo!ed at y other foot, but it was fine, and as a atter offact, so was the rest of e. didn't ha$e another scratch on e and wasn't e$en that dirty. criedfor a little bit and then stood bac! up.
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didn't !now which way to go, so +ust pic!ed a direction. resisted the urge to call out since wasn't sure wanted to be found by who or what ight be out there.

wal!ed for what seeed li!e hours.

tried to wal! in a straight line, and tried to course%correct when had to ta!e detours, but was a!id and was afraid. There weren't any howls or screas, and only once did hear any noise thatscared e. t sounded li!e a crying baby. thin! now that it was +ust a cat, but panic!ed. ran$eering in different directions to a$oid big thic!s of bushes and collapsed trees. *nd was payingclose attention to where stepped because by that point y feet were in pretty bad shape. paid toouch attention to where was stepping and not enough to where those steps were leading becausenot long after hearing the cry saw soething that filled e with a !ind of despair ha$en'te"perienced since. t was the pool float.

was only ten feet fro where had wo!en up.

This wasn't agic or soe supernatural space%bending. was lost. 3p until that oent thoughtore about getting out of the woods than how got in, but being bac! at the beginning caused yind to swi. wasn't e$ensurethat these were y woods& had only been hoping that they were.4ad run in a huge circle around that spot, or did +ust get turned around and start a!ing y way

bac!2How was I going to get out?*t the tie thought the north star was +ust the brightest star,and so loo!ed and found the brightest one and followed it.

5$entually things started to loo! ore failiar and when saw 6the ditch6 (a dirt ditch y friendsand would ha$e dirt%clod wars in# !new had ade it out. y that point was wal!ing reallyslowly because y feet hurt so uch, but was so happy to be so close to hoe that bro!e into alight +og. When actually saw the roof of y house o$er a neighboring, lower%set house let out alight sob and ran faster. +ust wanted to be hoe. had already decided that wouldnt say anything

because had no idea what could possibly say. would get bac! in the house soehow, clean up,and get in bed. 7y heart sun! as rounded the corner and y house cae fully into $iew.

5$ery light in the house was on.

!new y o was up, and !new would ha$e to e"plain (or try to e"plain# where had been,and couldn't e$en figure out where to start. 7y run becae a +og which becae a wal!. saw hersilhouette through the blinds, and although was worried about how to e"plain things to her thatdidn't atter to e at that point. wal!ed up the couple of steps to the porch and put y hand onthe door!nob and turned. ight before pushed it open two ars wrapped around e and pulled e

bac!. screaed as loud as could8 67-79 45:; 759 ;:5* 7-72 W4*T' >-3 - T- 45926

*s y throat stung fro screaing and was drawing in another breath becae aware of a soundthat had been present for longer than had percei$ed it. 64oney, please cal down. '$e got you.6 tsounded li!e y o.

The ars loosened and set e down, and as an approaching e bloc!ed out the porch light withhis head noticed his clothes. 4e was a cop. turned to face the $oice behind e and saw that itreally was y o. 5$erything was o!. began to cry, and the three of us went inside.

6' so glad you're hoe,


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6' sorry, don't !now what happened. +ust wanted to coe hoe. ' sorry.6

6t's o!ay, +ust don't e$er do that again. ' not sure e or y shins could ta!e it...6

* little laughter bro!e through y sobs and siled a bit. 6Well ' sorry for !ic!ing you, butwhy'd you ha$e to grab e li!e that296

6 was +ust afraid that you'd run away again.6

was confused. 6What do you ean26

6We found your note on your pillow,6 she said, and pointed at the piece of paper that the policeofficer was sliding across the table.

pic!ed up the note and read it. t was a 6running away6 letter. t said that was unhappy and ne$erwanted to see her or any of y friends again. The police officer e"changed a few words with yo on the porch while stared at the letter. didn't reeber writing a letter. didn't reeberanything about any of this. ut e$en if soeties went to the bathroo at night and didn'treeber, or e$en if could ha$e gone into the woods on y own, e$en if all that could ha$e beentrue, the only thing !new at that point was,

6This isn't how you spell y nae... didn't write this letter.6

Balloons

* couple days ago posted a story called 6ootsteps6 here on /nosleep. There were a nuber of)uestions that ade e curious about certain details about y childhood and so spo!e with yother. 5"acerbated by y )uestions she said 6why don't you +ust tell the about the goddan

balloons if they're so interested.6 *s soon as she said that, reebered so uch about ychildhood that had forgotten. This story will pro$ide soe greater conte"t for the pre$ious story,which thin! you should read first. Though the order isn't of $ital iportance, reading that storyfirst will put you in y place ore effecti$ely since reebered the e$ents of ootsteps first. fyou ha$e )uestions or anything, feel free to as! and 'll try to answer the. *lso, both stories arelong, so heads up on that. ' +ust hesitant to lea$e out any details that ight be iportant.

When was fi$e years old went to an eleentary school that, fro what '$e coe to understand,was really adaant about the iportance of learning through acti$ity. t was part of a new progradesigned to allow children to rise at their own pace, and to facilitate this the school encouragedteachers to coe up with really in$enti$e lesson plans. 5ach teacher was gi$en the latitude to createhis or her own thees which would run for the duration of the grade, and all the lessons in ath,reading, etc., would be designed in the spirit of the thee. These thees were called 6=roups6.There was a 6ou'$e probably heard of this acti$ity. -n one riday ( reeber it being riday because wase"cited about the pro+ect and it being the end of the wee!# toward the beginning of the year, wewal!ed into the classroo in the orning and saw that there was a fully%inflated balloon tied offwith string taped to each of our des!s.


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boundaries. 7y note was soething li!e this8 64i9 >ou found y balloon9 7y nae is ABaeC and attend DDDDDDDDDDDDDD 5leentary school. >ou can !eep the balloon, but hope you write e

bac!9 li!e 7ighty 7a", e"ploring, building forts, swiing, and friends. What do you li!e2 Writee bac! soon. 4ere's a dollar for the ail96 -n the dollar wrote 6-


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baseball batting helets that 'd get out of a $ending achine at Winn%i"ie after T%all gaes.With the school year o$er, y attention turned to other things.

7y o had gotten e a sall snow cone achine for ?hristas that year, and Eosh had reallyco$eted it so uch so that his parents bought hi a slightly nicer one for his birthday which wastoward the end of the school year. That suer we had the idea that we would set up a snow conestand to a!e oney& we thought we'd a!e a fortune selling snow cones at one dollar. Eosh li$ed

in a different neighborhood, but we e$entually decided that y neighborhood would be betterbecause there were a lot of people who cared for their lawns& the yards in y neighborhood wereslightly bigger. We did this for fi$e wee!ends in a row until y o told us that we had to stop,and '$e only recently coe to understand why she did that.

-n the fifth wee!end, Eosh and were counting our oney. ecause we both had a achine, weeach had a separate stac! of oney that we put together into one stac! and we then split it e$enly.We had ade a total of si"teen dollars that day, and as Eosh paid out y fifth dollar, a feeling of

profound surprise consued e.

The dollar said 6- ou heard it too right26 had heard it, and since it soundedechanical agreed that it was probably a robot. t's only now that understand what we heard.

When we got bac! Eosh's o was waiting for hi at the !itchen table with y o. Eosh told hiso about the robot& our os laughed and Eosh went hoe. 7y o and ate dinner, and then went to bed.

didn't stay in bed for long before crept out and decided that, due to the day's e$ents, would

re$isit the en$elopes since now the whole affair seeed uch ore interesting. too! the firsten$elope and set it on the floor and set the blurry desert ;olaroid on top. laid the second en$eloperight ne"t to it and placed the oddly angled ;olaroid of a building's top corner on top and did thiswith each picture until they fored a grid that was about fi$e by ten& was always taught to becareful with things that was collecting, e$en if wasn't sure they were $aluable.

noticed that the pictures gradually becae ore decipherable. There was a tree with a bird on it, aspeed liit sign, power line, a group of people wal!ing into soe building. *nd then sawsoething that $e"ed e so powerfully that can now, as write this, distinctly reeber feelingdiy and capable of only a single, repeating thought8

6Why a in this picture26

n this photograph of the group of people entering the building saw yself holding hands with yother in the $ery bac! of the crowd of people. We were at the $ery edge of the photo, but it wasundeniably us. *nd as y eyes swa o$er the sea of ;olaroids becae increasing an"ious. t was


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a really odd feeling it wasn't fear, it was the feeling you get when you are in trouble. ' not surewhy was flooded with that feeling, but there sat floundering in the distinct sense that had donesoething wrong. *nd this feeling only intensified as loo!ed on at the rest of the photos after thatthe one that had so powerfully struc! e.

was in everyphoto.

Bone of the were close shots. Bone of the were only of e. ut was in e$ery single one ofthe off to the side, in the bac!, botto of the frae.


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Boxes

If you haven't read "Footsteps" or "Balloons", please do so before reading what't below so you'llunderstand.

or those of you who ha$e read y other stories and as!ed if there was ore and recei$ed cryptic

answers fro e, want to apologie for being dishonest. said se$eral ties in the coents thatnothing really happened after 6ootsteps6, but that wasn't true. The e$ents of the following storyweren't loc!ed away in the recesses of y ind& '$e always reebered the. t wasn't until reebered 6alloons6 and spo!e with y other about the following e$ents that realied howintertwined this story was with e$erything else, but originally hadn't really planned on sharing thisanyway. 7y desire to withhold this eory was due ostly to the fact that don't thin! showedgood +udgent in it& also wanted consent fro another person to tell it, so as to not isrepresentwhat transpired. didn't e"pect there to be a lot of interest in y other stories, so ne$er thought 'dreally get pressed for ore details, and would ha$e been happy to !eep this to yself for the restof y life. ha$en't been able to reach the other party, but would feel disingenuous withholdingthis story fro those who wanted ore inforation now that '$e spo!en with y other andanother connecting line has been drawn. What follows is as accurate a recollection as couldanage. apologie for the length.

spent the suer before y first year of eleentary school learning how to clib trees. Therewas one particular pine tree right outside y house that seeed alost designed for e. t had

branches that were so low could easily grab the without a boost, and for the first couple daysafter first learned how to pull yself up would +ust sit on the lowest branch, dangling y feet.The tree was outside our bac! fence and was easily $isible fro the !itchen window which was +ustabo$e the sin!. efore too long y other and de$eloped a routine where would go play on thetree when she washed the dishes because she could easily see e while she did other things.

*s the suer passed, y abilities grew and before too long was clibing fairly high. *s the treegot taller, its branches not only got thinner but ore widely%spaced. e$entually reached a point

where couldnt actually clib any higher, and so the gae had to change& began to concentrateon speed, and in the end could reach y highest branch in twenty%fi$e seconds.

got too confident and one afternoon tried to step fro a branch before had firly grasped thene"t one. fell about twenty feet and bro!e y ar really badly in two places. 7y o wasrunning toward e yelling and reeber her sounding li!e she was underwater don'treeber what she said but do reeber being surprised by +ust how white y bone was.

was going to start @indergarten with a cast and wouldn't e$en ha$e any friends to sign it. 7y oust ha$e felt terrible because the day before started school she brought hoe a !itten. 4e was

+ust a baby and was striped with tan and white. *s soon as she put hi down he crawled into anepty case of soda that was sitting on the floor. naed hi o"es.

o"es was only an outside cat when he escaped. 7y o had hi declawed so he wouldn't destroythe furniture, so as a result we did our best to !eep hi inside. 4e'd get out e$ery now and then, andwe'd find hi soewhere in the bac!yard chasing soe !ind of bug or liard, though he couldhardly e$er catch one because he had no front claws. 4e was pretty e$asi$e, but we'd always catchhi and carry hi bac! inside. 4e'd scrable to loo! bac! o$er y shoulder told y o thatit was because he was planning his strategy for ne"t tie. -nce inside we'd gi$e hi soe tunafish, and he cae to learn what the sound of the can%opener ight signal& he'd coe runningwhene$er he heard it.

This conditioning cae in handy later because toward the end of our tie in that house o"eswould get out uch ore often and would run under the house into the crawlspace where neither of

us wanted to follow because it was craped and probably crawling with bugs and rodents.ngeniously, y o thought to hoo! the can%opener to an e"tension cord out bac! and run it rightoutside the hole that o"es had gone through. 5$entually he would eerge with his loud eows,loo!ing e"cited by the sound and then horrified at how we could run such a cruel ruse on hi a


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can%opener with no tuna ade no sense to o"es.

The last tie he escaped to under the house was actually our last day in it. 7y o had put thehouse on the ar!et and we had begun pac!ing our things. We didn't ha$e uch, and we stretchedthe pac!ing out a while, though had already pac!ed up all y clothes at y o's re)uest yo could tell was really sad about o$ing and wanted the transition to be sooth for e, and guess she thought that ha$ing y clothes in the bo" would reinforce the idea that we were o$ing

but things wouldn't change that uch. When o"es got out as we were loading soe things into theo$ing $an y o cursed because she had already pac!ed the can opener and wasnt sure whereit was. pretended to go loo! for it so wouldnt ha$e to go under the house, and y o(probably copletely aware of y little sca# o$ed one of the panels and crawled in.


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6Bo he won't, an. 7y o said that we couldn't e$er go bac! to that place because the newowners wouldn't wanna be bothered. ou saw was stuc! o$er there, and you were +ust laying here +o!ingaround on this float96 punctuated the sentence with a !ic! to an e"posed part of the float. *

screeching rose fro it.

Eosh's sile in$erted. 4e suddenly loo!ed terrified and was struggling to get off the float, but hecouldn't in a )uic! anner due to the aw!ward way he had been laying on it. 5ach tie he wouldfall bac! on the float the screeching would intensify. wanted to help Eosh but couldn't o$eyself any closer y legs wouldn't cooperate& hated these woods. pic!ed up the flashlightthat he had thrown in his thrashing and shined in on the float not !nowing what to e"pect. inally,Eosh got off the float and rushed ne"t to e, loo!ing at where was shining the light.


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a s!ipping in y heart as we were finally turning the corner and about to face the full $iew of yhouse, reebering last tie how incandescent it was. ut this tie all the lights were off. ro adistance could see y old clibing tree and as y ind traced the steps of causality bac!ward realied that wouldn't bac! here this night if that tree hadn't grown, and was briefly in awe ofhow all e$ents were li!e that. *s we got closer could see that the lawn loo!ed terrible& couldn'te$en guess when it had last been owed. -ne of the shutters had partially bro!en loose and was

roc!ing bac! and forth in the breee, and o$er all the house +ust loo!ed dirty. was sad to see yold hoe in such a state of disrepair. Why would y o care if we bothered the new owners ifthey cared so little about where they li$ed2 *nd then realied.

There were no new owners.

The house was abandoned, though it loo!ed siply forsa!en. Why would y o lie to e aboutour house ha$ing new people in it2 ut, thought that this was actually a good thing. t would beeasier to loo! around for o"es if we didn't ha$e to worry about being spotted by the new faily.This would a!e it uch )uic!er. Eosh interrupted y thoughts as we wal!ed through the gate andup to the house itself.

6>our old house suc!s, dude96 Eosh yelled as )uietly as he could.

6ou do it.6

6:oo!, 'll gae you for it, unless youre too scared...6 said holding y fist o$er y up%turnedpal.

6ine, but we go on 'shoot', not on three. t's 'roc!, paper, scissors,


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set down the wal!ie and o$ed the flashlight around as crawled forward. :oo!ing through thehole fro the outside you could see all the way bac! with the right lighting, but you had to be insideto see around the support bloc!s that held the house up. 'd say that there was about forty percent ofthe area that you couldn't see unless you were actually in the crawlspace, but e$en inside disco$ered that could only see directly where the flashlight was pointing& realied that this woulda!e scouting around the place uch ore difficult. *s o$ed forward, the sell intensified. The

fear was growing in e that o"es had coe here and soething had happened to hi. shined theflashlight around but couldn't see uch of anything. wrapped y fingers around a support bloc! topull yself forward and as did that, felt soething that ade y hand recoil.

ur.

7y heart san! and prepared yself eotionally for what was about to see. crawled slowly so could prolong what !new was coing and inched y eyes and the flashlight past the bloc! to seewhat was on the other side.

staggered bac! in horror. 6E5


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!aho !an, #y /0 is in your bathroo# loo$in' at your stash of #aga1ines. 2oo$s li$e you've got athing for dudes' butts. %hat3s the report on that? +ver.

could hear hi laughing without the wal!ie and started laughing too. head the footsteps fadeaway a little he was on his way to y roo.

!an, it's dar$ in here. Hey, are you sure you had bo&es of lothes in here? I don't see any.

4eah, there should be a ouple bo&es in front of the loset.There aren't any bo"es in here, lee chec! to see if you aybe put the bo"es in the closet beforeyou left.

started thin!ing that aybe y o had coe bac! and gotten the clothes and +ust gi$en theaway because had outgrown a lot of the, but reebered lea$ing the bo"es there didn'te$en ha$e tie to close the last one up before we left.

While was waiting for Eosh to tell e what he found, !ic!ed out y leg which had started fallingasleep because of the position was in and it hit soething. loo!ed bac! and saw soething reallystrange. t was a blan!et and all around it there were bowls. crawled a little closer to it. The

blan!et selled oldy and ost of the bowls were epty but one had soething that recognied

still in it.

?at food.

t was a different !ind than we ga$e to o"es, but suddenly understood. 7y o had set up alittle place for o"es to encourage hi to coe here instead of running around the neighborhood.That ade a lot of sense, and it seeed e$en ore li!ely that o"es would ha$e coe bac! to this

place. 6That's so cool, o,6 thought.

I found your lothes.

+h ool. %here were the bo&es?

2i$e I said, there are no bo&es. 4our lothes are in your loset... hey're hanging up.

felt a chill. This was ipossible. had pac!ed all y clothes. 5$en though we weren't supposed too$e for another two wee!s when we left, reeber pac!ing the and thin!ing that it was stupidfor e to ha$e to get clothes out of the bo" and put the bac! in. had pac!ed the, but soeonehad hung the bac! up. Why though2

Eosh needed to get out of there.

hat an't be right, Josh. hey're supposed to be in bo&es. 5top #essing around, and 6ust o#e ba$outside.

(o 6o$e #an. I'# loo$ing at the#. !aybe you 6ust thought that you left the#. Haha) %ow) 4ou sureli$e to loo$ at yourself, don't you?

%hat? %hat do you #ean?

4our walls, #an. Haha. 4our walls are overed in Polaroids of yourself) here are hundreds ofthe#) %hat'd you hire so#eone to7


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6-h =od... Eosh.6

4e had been found& was sure of it. This person had found hi and was hurting hi. bro!e out intears. 4e was y only friend, ne"t to o"es. *nd then realied8 What if Eosh told hi was underhere2 What could possibly do2 *s struggled to copose yself, than!fully heard Eosh's $oicethrough the wal!ie.

He's got so#ething, #an. It's a big bag. He 6ust threw it on the floor. nd... oh 8od, #an... thebag... I thin$ it 6ust #oved.

was paralyed. wanted to run hoe. wanted to sa$e Eosh. wanted to go for help. wanted soany things but +ust lay there, froen. *s lay unable to o$e y eyes focused on the corner ofthe house that was right under y roo& o$ed y flashlight. 7y breath hitched at what saw.

*nials. oens of the. *ll of the dead. They lay in piles all around the perieter of thecrawlspace. ?ould o"es be aong these corpses2 Was this what the cat food was for2


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5$ery now and then when we would swi away she would say, 6?hris and Eohn, you're welcoehere anytie96 *nd we could hear her still yelling that when we were wal!ing bac! into y house.

7rs. 7aggie, li!e any of the older hoe%owners, had a sprin!ler syste that was on a tier,though at soe point o$er the years her tier ust ha$e bro!en because the sprin!lers would coeon at $arious points during the day and often e$en at night all year. While it ne$er got cold enoughto snow $ery uch, se$eral ties each winter would go outside in the orning to see 7rs.

7aggie's yard transfored into a surreal arctic paradise by the froen water. 5$ery other yard stoodsterilied and dry by the biting frost of the winter's cold, but right there in the iddle of the blea!reinder of the sa$agery of the season was an oasis of beautiful ice hanging li!e stalactites froe$ery branch of e$ery tree and e$ery leaf of e$ery bush. *s the sun rose, it reflected off and each

piece of ice splintered the sun into a rainbow that would only be $iewed briefly before it blindedyou. 5$en as a child was struc! by how beautiful it was, and often Eosh and would go o$er thereto wal! on the iced grass and ha$e sword fights with the icicles.

once as!ed y o why she left it on li!e that. 7y o seeed to search for the e"planationbefore she said,6Well,


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together any day. We had no e)uipent needed for the +obnot e$en a copassbut we tried toa!e due. We had the idea to ipale the earth with a stic! when we had reached the end of a$enture so that if we cae upon the stic! fro the other direction the ne"t wee!end, we would!now we had +oined the aps. We ight ha$e been the world's worst cartographers. 5$entually,howe$er, the woods becae too thic! near the water coing fro the la!e and we were unable to

proceed further. We lost interest in the whole pro+ect for a bit, and reduced our e"plorations

significantlythough not copletelywhen we started selling snow cones.*fter showed y o all the pictures had ta!en hoe fro school and she too! away y snowcone achine, our interest in the aps re$italied. We had to coe up with another plan. *lthough didn't understand why, y o had placed what considered to be e"treely se$ere restrictions onwhat could do and where could go, and had to chec! in fre)uently if went outside to play withEosh. This eant that we couldn't stay in the woods for hours and continue to loo! for a new path.We thought that we could +ust swi when we got to the cutoff in the woods, but that clearlywouldn't wor! since the ap would get wet. We tried going faster when we were coing froEosh's house, but we e$entually ran into the sae proble. Then we had a brilliant idea.

We'd build a raft.

ue to the construction in the neighborhood, there was a large aount of scrap building aterialthat the copany would set in the ditch to !eep it out of the road and offsite since they no longerneeded it for building. We originally concei$ed of a foridable ship coplete with a ast and ananchor, but this )uic!ly diinished into soething ore anageable. We set aside the wood andtoo! se$eral large pieces of


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-n a


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)uic!ly die, suffocated by the water. *s we began paddling in the direction toward y house weheard a loud and unconcealed rustling in the woods. The brea!ing of branches and the trapling offallen lea$es o$erpowered the sound of our splashing.

t was running.

n our panic we +ostled the raft too $iolently and felt one of the ropes under y chest loosen.

6Eosh, be careful96ut it was too late. -ur raft was brea!ing. efore too long it had copletely fallen apart. We eachheld on to a separate piece of


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We both laughed and he as!ed e if she in$ited e in for a snac!, +o!ing that the snac!s ust beterrible since she couldn't e$en gi$e the away. told hi that she didn't and he was surprised, andnow that had tie to thin! about it so was . :iterally, e$ery tie we had seen her she had in$itedus in for snac!s, and here had, albeit sarcastically, in$ited yself, and she said no.

*s Eosh tal!ed ore about 7rs. 7aggie suddenly realied that the lighter ight still be in ypoc!et and that it would be disastrous for y o to find. grabbed the shorts off the floor and

padded y poc!ets& felt soething, but it wasn't the lighter. ro y bac! poc!et slid out afolded piece of paper and y heart leapt. 6The ap26 thought. 6ut watched it float away.6 *s unfolded the paper, y stoach turned as tried to understand what was seeing. rawn on the

paper inside of a large o$al were two stic! figures holding hands. -ne was uch bigger than theother, but neither had faces. The paper was torn so a part of it was issing, and there was a nuberwritten near the top right corner. t was either 61K6 or 61L6. ner$ously handed Eosh the paper andas!ed hi if he had put it in y poc!et at soe point, but he scoffed at the idea and as!ed why was so upset. pointed toward the saller stic! figure and what was written ne"t to it.

t was y initials.

shoo! it off and told Eosh the rest of the con$ersation between 7rs. 7aggie and . had always

attributed the odd e"change to her being sic! until re$isiting the e$ents in y ind all these yearslater. *s thin! about it now, the feeling of profound sadness for 7rs. 7aggie returns, but it isaugented by a looing feeling of despair when thin! about why she said 6aybe another tie.6 !new what she had said, but didn't understand what it eant that night. didn't understand whather words had eant wee!s later when watched en in strange, orange bio%haard suits carrywhat thought were blac! bags full of garbage out of her house, or why the whole neighborhoodselled li!e death that day. still didn't understand when they condened the house and boarded itup a little while before we o$ed. ut understand now. understand why her last words to ewere so iportant, e$en if neither she nor realied it at the tie.

7rs. 7aggie had told e that night that To had coe hoe, but !now now who had reallyo$ed in& +ust as !now now why ne$er saw her body brought out on a stretcher.

The bags weren't filled with garbage.

Screens

'$e intentionally withheld soe details fro a lot of y stories. '$e let y hopes concerning theway things ight be influence y e$aluation of the way they actually are. dont thin! theres any

point to that anyore.

*t the end of the suer between @indergarten and first grade caught the stoach flu. This hasall of the coponents of the regular flu& howe$er, with the stoach flu, you throw up in a buc!et

and not the toilet because you are sitting on it the sic!ness gets purged fro both ends. Thislasted for about ten days, but +ust before it had passed the sic!ness was granted an e"tension in thefor of pin! eye. 7y eyelids were so fused together by the dried ucus generated during the nightthat the first day awo!e with the infection thought had gone blind. When started first grade, had a !in! in y nec! fro ten days of bed%rest and two swollen, bloodshot eyes. Eosh was inanother =roup and didn't ha$e y lunch, so in a cafeteria bursting with two%hundred !ids, still hada table to yself.

started !eeping spare food in y bac!pac! that would ta!e into the bathroo to eat after lunchsince y school eals were usually confiscated by older !ids who !new wouldn't stand up tothe since no one would stand with e. This dynaic persisted e$en after y condition cleared upsince no one wants to be friends with the !id who gets bullied, lest they ha$e soe of that

aggression directed toward thesel$es. The only reason this stopped was due to the actions of a !idnaed *le".

*le" was in the third grade and was bigger than ost of the other !ids in any grade. *round the


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third wee! of school, he started sitting with e at lunch, and this put an iediate end to theshortage of y food supply. 4e was nice enough, but he seeed !ind of slow& we ne$er reallytal!ed at length e"cept for when finally decided to as! why he had been sitting with e.

4e had a crush on Eosh's sister, Veronica.

Veronica was in fourth grade and was probably the prettiest girl in the school. 5$en as a si"%year%old who fully endorsed the notion that girls were disgusting, still !new how pretty Veronica was.When she was in third grade, Eosh told e, two boys had actually gotten into a physical fight whicherupted out of an arguent concerning the significance of the essages she had written in theiryearboo!s. -ne of the boys e$entually hit the other in the forehead with the corner of the yearboo!and the wound re)uired stitches to close. While not one of those two boys, *le" wanted her to li!ehi and confessed that he !new Eosh and were best friends& gathered that he had hoped that would con$ey his ostensibly philanthropic deed to Veronica and that she would presuably be soo$ed by his selflessness that she'd ta!e an interest in hi. f told her he would continue to sitwith e for as long as needed hi to.

ecause this was during the tie when Eosh ostly stayed at y house building the raft andna$igating tributary with e, didn't ha$e the chance to bring it up to Veronica because siply

didn't see her. told Eosh about it and he ade fun of *le", but said that he would tell his sistersince wanted hi to. doubted that he would. Eosh was annoyed that people seeed to be so ta!enwith his sister. reeber hi calling her an ugly crow. ne$er said anything to Eosh, but reeber wanting to say, e$en then, that she was pretty and would one day be beautiful.

was right.

When was fifteen, was seeing a o$ie at a place y friends and had coe to call the irtTheatre. t was probably nice at soe point, but tie and neglect had weathered the place se$erely.This theatre had o$able tables and chairs on a le$el floor, so when the theatre was full, there were$ery few places you could sit and see the whole screen. The theatre was still open, iagine, forthree reasons8 1# it was cheap to see a o$ie there& M# they showed a different cult o$ie twice a

onth at idnight& and G# they sold beer to underage !ids during the idnight showings. went forthe first two, and that night they were showing 5annersby a$id ?ronenberg for N1.00.

7y friends and were sitting in the $ery bac!. wanted to sit closer to the front for a better $iew,but yan had dri$en us so relented. * couple inutes before the o$ie started, a group of girlswal!ed in. They were all pretty attracti$e, but whate$er beauty they ight ha$e had was eclipsed bythe girl with the dirty blonde hair, e$en though had only caught a glipse of her profile. *s sheturned to o$e her seat, caught a full $iew of her face which ga$e e the feeling of butterflies iny stoach it was Veronica.

hadn't seen her in a long tie. Eosh and saw progressi$ely less of one another after we snuc! outto y old house that night when we were ten, and usually when 'd $isit hi she'd be out withfriends. While e$eryone stared at the screen, stared at Veronica only loo!ing away when the

feeling that was being a creep o$ercae e, but that feeling would )uic!ly subside and y eyeswould return to her. 9 ts been so long96 she otioned to her friends that she'd be out in a second.


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6>eah, a few years at least9 Bot since the last tie stayed o$er with Eosh. 4ow is he anyway26

6-h, that's right. reeber all you guys' gaes. o you still play Bin+a Turtles with yourfriends2O


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The person told e had dialed the wrong nuber.

repeated the nuber bac! to her, and she confired.


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business. Bot wanting the night to be o$er +ust yet, continued the con$ersation while casuallywal!ing toward the old all. *s we were about to round the corner and lea$e the theatre out ofsight, loo!ed bac! and saw that her car wasn't the only one left in the par!ing lot.

The other one had a large crac! in the bac! window.

7y iediate uneasiness turned to understanding.

hat #a$es a lot of sense. he driver of that ar wor$s here and #ust have figured I was on #y wayto the #ovie.

n+ecting real horror into the life of a horror fan seeed li!e an ob$ious o$e.

We wal!ed around the all and tal!ed about the o$ie. told her that thought *ay of the *eadwas better than*awn of the *ead, but she refused to agree. told her of when called her oldnuber and about y dilea about who would answer the phone.


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had reser$ed for her. still had her phone so put it with her purse and called y o fro thehospital phone. t was about Qa. told her that was fine, but that Veronica was not.


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was filled with so any different eotions, but responded by e"pressing the ost pre$alent one. replied,

6 lo$e you, too.6

T T*@5 T457


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;4-B5296

4er crying bro!e enough to utter, 6The pictures...6

would coe to find out that her parents thought that her phone had been lost in the accident,despite the fact that had put it in her purse the night she was brought to the hospital. When theyretrie$ed her belongings the phone was not aong the. They intended to contact the phonecopany at the end of the billing cycle to deacti$ate the line, but they recei$ed a call inforingthe of a assi$e ipending charge for hundreds of pictures that had been sent fro her phone.;ictures. ;ictures that were all sent to y phone. ;ictures that ne$er got because y phonecouldn't recei$e the. They learned that they were all sent after the night she died. They deacti$atedthe phone iediately.

tried not to thin! about the contents of those pictures. ut reeber wondering for soe reasonwhether would ha$e been in any of the.

7y outh went dry and felt the painful sting of despair as thought of the last essage recei$edfro her phone...

5ee you again. 5oon.

Friends

-n the first day of @indergarten y other had elected to dri$e e to school& we were bothner$ous and she wanted to be there with e all the way up to the oent wal!ed into class. ttoo! e a bit longer to get ready in the orning due to y still%ending ar. The cast cae up acouple inches past y elbow which eant that had to co$er the entire ar with a specially%designed late" bag when showered. The bag was built to pull tight around the opening in order toseal out any water that ight otherwise destroy the cast. had gotten really adept at cinching the

bag yself& that orning, howe$er, perhaps due to y e"citeent or ner$ousness, hadn't pulledthe strap tight enough and halfway through the shower could feel water pooling inside the bagaround y fingers. +uped out and tore the late" shield away, but could feel that the pre$iouslyrigid plaster had becoe soft after absorbing the water.

ecause there is no way to effecti$ely clean the area between your body and a cast, the dead s!inthat would norally ha$e fallen away erely sits there. When stirred by oisture li!e sweat iteits an odor, and apparently this odor is proportionate to the aount of oisture introduced,

because soon after began attepting to dry it was struc! by the powerful stench of rot. *s continued to frantically rub it with the towel it began to disintegrate. was growing increasinglydistressed had put as uch effort as a child could into his $ery first day of school. had satwith y o pic!ing out y clothes the night before& had spent a great deal of tie pic!ing outy bac!pac!& and had becoe e"ceedingly e"cited to show e$eryone y lunchbo" that had the

Bin+a Turtles on it. had fallen into y o's habit of calling these children hadn't yet et y6friends6 already, but as the condition of y cast worsened, becae deeply upset at the thoughtthat surely wouldn't be able to apply that label to anyone by the tie this day was o$er.

efeated, showed y o.

t too! thirty inutes to get ost of the oisture out while wor!ing to preser$e the rest of the cast.To address the proble of the sell y o cut sli$ers off a bar of soap and slid the down intothe cast, and then rubbed the reainder of the soap on the outside in an attept to cocoon the rancidsell inside of a ore pleasant one. y the tie we arri$ed at the school y classates werealready engaged in their second acti$ity and was shoehorned into one of the groups. wasn't ade$ery clear on what the guidelines of the acti$ity were and within about fi$e inutes, had $iolatedthe rules so badly that each eber of the group coplained to the teacher and as!ed why had to

be in their group. had brought a ar!er to school in hopes that could collect soe signatures ordrawings on y cast ne"t to y other's, and suddenly felt $ery foolish for ha$ing e$en put thear!er in y poc!et that orning.


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@indergarteners had the lunchroo to thesel$es at y eleentary school, but soe of the tableswere off liits, so didn't ha$e to sit alone. was self%consciously pic!ing at the fraying ends of ycast when a !id sat across fro e.

6 li!e your lunchbo",6 he said.

could tell he was a!ing fun of e, and grew really angry& in y ind that lunchbo" was thelast good thing about y day. didn't loo! up fro y ar, and felt a burning in y eyes fro thetears that was holding bac!. loo!ed up to tell the !id to lea$e e alone, but before could get thewords out saw soething that ade e pause.

4e had the e"act sae lunchbo".

laughed. 6 li!e your lunchbo" too96

6 thin! 7ichelangelo's the coolest,6 he said while iing Bunchuc! o$es.

was in the iddle of rebutting by saying that aphael was y fa$orite when he !noc!ed his opencarton of il! off the table and onto his lap.

tried $ery hard to stifle y laughter since didn't !now hi at all, but the struggling loo! on y

face ust ha$e struc! hi as funny because he started laughing first.


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that the only way she could tell us apart soeties was by our hair he had straight, dirty%blondehair li!e his sister, while had curly, dar! brown hair li!e y other.

-ne would thin! that the thing ost li!ely to dri$e two young friends apart would be what's out oftheir control& howe$er, thin! the catalyst of our gradual disengageent was y insistence that wesnea! out to y old house to loo! for o"es. The ne"t wee!end in$ited Eosh o$er to y house, in!eeping with our tradition of alternating houses, but he said that he wasn't really feeling up to it. We

started seeing progressi$ely less of one another o$er the ne"t year or so& it had gone fro once awee!, to once a onth, to once e$ery couple onths.

or y twelfth birthday, y o threw a party for e. hadn't ade that any friends since we'do$ed, so it wasn't a surprise party since y o had no idea who to in$ite. told the handful of!ids 'd becoe ac)uainted with and called Eosh to see if he wanted to coe. -riginally, he said thathe didn't thin! he could a!e it, but the day before the party he called e to say that he'd be there. was really e"cited because hadn't seen hi in se$eral onths.

The party went pretty well. 7y biggest concern was that Eosh and the other !ids wouldn't get along,but they seeed to li!e each other well enough. Eosh was surprisingly )uiet. 4e hadn't brought e agift and apologied for that, but told hi it wasn't a big deal was +ust glad that he was able to

a!e it. tried to start se$eral con$ersations with hi, but they seeed to !eep reaching dead ends. as!ed hi what was wrong& told hi that didn't get why things had becoe so aw!ward

between us they were ne$er li!e that before. We used to hang out alost e$ery wee!end and tal!on the phone e$ery couple days. as!ed hi what happened to us. 4e loo!ed up fro staring at hisshoes and +ust said,

6>ou left.6

Eust after he said that y o yelled in fro the other roo that it was tie to open presents. forced a sile and wal!ed into the dining roo as they sang 64appy irthday6. There were acouple of wrapped bo"es and a lot of cards since ost of y e"tended faily li$ed out of state.7ost of the gifts were silly and forgettable, but reeber that rian ga$e e a 7ighty 7a" toy

shaped li!e a sna!e that !ept for years afterwards. 7y o was insistent that open all the cardsthat had been brought and than! each person who had gi$en one, because se$eral years before on?hristas, had torn through the wrapping paper and en$elopes with such fer$or that haddestroyed any possibility of discerning who had sent which gift or what aount of oney. Weseparated the ones that had been sent by ail and the ones that had been brought that day so yfriends wouldn't ha$e to sit through e opening cards fro people they had ne$er et. 7ost of thecards fro y friends had a couple dollars in the, and the ones fro y faily eberscontained larger bills.

-ne en$elope didn't ha$e y nae written on it, but it was in the pile so opened it. The card had ageneric floral pattern on its face and seeed to be a card that had been recei$ed by soeone elsewho was now recycling it for y birthday because it was actually a little dingy. actually

appreciated the idea that it was a reused card since 'd always thought that cards were silly. angledit so that the oney wouldn't fall to the floor when opened it, but the only thing inside was theessage that had coe printed in the card.

6 :o$e >ou.6

Whoe$er had gi$en e this card hadn't written anything in it, but they had circled the essage inpencil a couple ties.

chuc!led a little and said, 6=ee, than!s for the awesoe card, o.6


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transfored the group's bewilderent into hysteria. They were all laughing so it could ha$e beenany of the, but 7i!e seeed to be laughing the hardest. To becoe a participant rather than thesub+ect of the gag, said to hi that +ust because he had gi$en e that card he shouldn't thin! that'd !iss hi later. We all laughed, and as loo!ed at Eosh saw he was finally siling.

6Well, thin! that gift ight be the winner, but you ha$e a couple ore to open.6

7y o slid another present in front of e. was still feeling the treors of suppressed chuc!lesin y abdoen as tore the colorful paper away. When saw the gift had no need to suppress thelaughter anyore. 7y sile dropped as loo!ed at what 'd been gi$en.

t was a pair of wal!ie%tal!ies.

6Well go on9


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n a struggling but powerful o$eent, he lifted and pushed the corpse copletely out of theground and they both heard the sound of glass rolling against wood. t was a bottle. 4e handed it toy other.

t was ether.

6-h Eosh,6 he sobbed. 67y boy ... y baby boy. Why is there so uch blood29 W4*T 45 -T- >-3296

*s y other loo!ed at the an who now lay facing upwards, she realied she was facing theperson who had haunted our li$es for o$er a decade.


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4e inter+ected flatly, alost with no eotion at all. 6*bout a onth ago. a guy approached e as was cleaning up the site on the new de$elopent a bloc! o$er. 4e as!ed e if wanted to a!esoe e"tra oney, and because y wife's not wor!ing right now, accepted. 4e told e that soe!ids had dug a bunch of holes on his property and he offered e a hundred dollars to fill the in.4e said that he wanted to ta!e soe pictures for the insurance copany first, but if cae bac!after K800p the ne"t day, that would be fine. thought this guy was a suc!er since !new clearing

that lot was coing up so soeone would'$e had to do it anyway, but needed the oney so agreed. didn't thin! he e$en had a hundred dollars, but he put the bill in y hand, and did the +obthe ne"t day. '$e been so e"hausted that didn't e$en thin! about it after it was done. didn't thin!about it until today when pulled that sae guy off of y son.6

4e pointed at the gra$e and his eotions started to push through as he bro!e into a sob.

64e paid e a hundred dollars so that would bury hi with y boy...6

t was as if saying it aloud forced hi to accept what had happened, and he collapsed onto theground in tears. 7y other could thin! of nothing to say and stood there in silence for what felt li!ea lifetie.

penpal - 1000vultures

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