The Old Blog in the Desert

Annie crawled out of the earth, the metal latch to her underground prison still smoldering, warped by the electromagnetic pulse that had erased the world above.

For five years, she had been the possession of a man who called himself Martin—a sadistic monster who delighted in tormenting her, calling it love. But the pulse had granted her what no act of will could: freedom.

Above, the world was an icebound wasteland. Snow drifted across empty hills, the silence pressing like a weight. The cold clawed at her like unseen fingers, reminding her that Martin was only one of many threats in this new world without electricity, engines, or warmth.

Miles away, Declan scanned the horizon from the porch of his cabin. A retired Marine, he had prepared for this exact kind of collapse.

But all the stockpiles in the world hadn’t saved his wife and son, lost to the EMP’s first moments of chaos. Grief had carved him hollow. Survival was muscle memory now, not meaning.

Annie and Declan’s fates collided on a frozen backroad. He found her stumbling through the snow, a skeletal figure wrapped in tatters.

Her lips were blue, her eyes vacant. Against every survival instinct honed, Declan took her in, nursing her back from the edge of death.

Annie spoke little of her past, her voice trembling when pressed. Declan didn’t push. The terror in her eyes said enough.

What mattered now was making it through the winter. Nevada was their goal—two hundred brutal miles to where Declan had an old ally and a stockpile of resources.

But Martin wasn’t finished. The EMP hadn’t just freed Annie–it released him as well. Without society’s constraints, his pursuit was unrelenting, a wolf tracking a wounded deer.

The first sign of him came at dusk., as a shadow across the snow. A whisper carried on the wind.

Declan’s instincts prickled, honed by years of combat. Annie shrank into herself, the terror she’d kept buried bubbling to the surface.

“You can’t run, Annie,” Martin’s voice taunted from the darkness one night. “You’re mine.”

Each day became a nightmare. They trekked through waist-deep snow and frozen forests, feeling Martin’s eyes.

He left behind his signature marks: gutted animals suspended in trees, cryptic words smeared in blood. His games grew deadlier, laying traps that injured and slowed them.

Declan fought to protect Annie, but doubt began to gnaw at him. She was distant, her eyes avoiding his.

Something about her silence unsettled him, as if there was a part of her story he wasn’t hearing. The final confrontation came in an abandoned mining town on the edge of Vya, Nevada, its skeletal buildings casting long shadows in the moonlight.

The pair cornered Martin’s laughter hallow as he stepped from the darkness, knife in hand.

“Did you really think you could get away from me?” Martin sneered, his grin monstrous.

The fight was vicious. Martin lunged at Annie, but Declan intercepted him. They grappled in the snow, each blow cracking like gunfire in the frigid air.

Declan finally pinned Martin and drove a jagged piece of metal through his chest. Martin coughed, blood bubbling from his lips, yet he smiled.

“You think you’ve saved her?” he rasped. “You’ve got no idea what she is.”

Annie stepped forward, her face blank, her hand shaking as she reached for Martin’s discarded knife. Declan turned to her, breathing heavily, his expression a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

“It’s over,” he said. “You’re safe.”

Annie didn’t respond. Her grip on the knife tightened, her eyes locking onto Declan’s.

“I’m free now,” she murmured, almost to herself.

Before Declan could react, she plunged the blade into his chest. His breath caught in a wet gasp, disbelief etched onto his face as he fell backward, crimson blooming across the snow.

Annie stood over him, her breaths shallow, her face eerily serene. “No one saves me, I save myself,” she whispered, her voice soft but empty.

As the snow fell heavier, she turned and walked into the wilderness, her figure swallowed by the storm. Behind her, the bodies of the two men—one who had hurt her, one who had tried to save her—lay cold and still.

In the darkness, the winter accepted her, a predator now freed, as dangerous as the world that had once held her captive.

Brady sat on the ridge, the rim of his hat tugged low against the burn of the wind. The pines bent and shifted, whispering a low hymn for the dead.

Cat tracks traced the dirt below, lines too perfect, too clean. He didn’t trust them.

Stories like this were not to be trusted. They were to soothe, to quiet restless towns and calm nervous eyes.

A mountain lion–lean and hungry. A ranger caught unawares.

Blood scattered across the leaves, dark and metallic. A story that’s anything but tidy–but as straightforward as the crack of a rifle shot.

But Brady had seen the body. He’d crouched there in the dirt, the smell of it filling his nose.

Flesh tore open, throat ruined, split like a dried creek bed. He didn’t need God whispering in his ear to know the difference between the ragged work of claws and the smooth, deliberate line of the blade.

God had nothing to say about this, anyway. He hadn’t spoken to Brady since he was a boy. Maybe not even then.

Maybe it had gone quiet when his old man quit waking up before dawn, pouring his mornings from a bottle. Or when the lights in the house went out for the last time, and the doors stayed shut.

There are no prayers for boys left in empty houses. The gods of the desert and the forest, the ones Brady had clung to later—fierce gods with soft hands and warm, laughing mouths—had never been gods.

Only women who lingered for a moment, just long enough for him to convince himself it was real. Then they left, too.

Brady forgave them for leaving. He didn’t forgive God.

God was dead, or maybe He’d never been, and it didn’t matter much either way. The world was just what it was.

Dirt, sweat, and harsh realities–ignored. It was blood soaking into the ground and stars scattered cold and sharp over the peaks at night.

Now, the valley whispered lies like the pines whispered above him. Lies to bury the blame, bury the truth.

Pin it all on the cat. Lock it away with the scent of death and the copper tang of blood.

But Brady had been around too long and seen too much. He’d seen enough killing to know when the lie was the worst and meant to last.

Since God was not there to sort it, someone else would have to. Someone who knew what steel in a man’s hand could do, who could see the difference between teeth and knives and would remember it when the sun rose. Someone who wouldn’t let the dead go without a reckoning.

His fingers brushed the revolver on his hip, and he leaned back against the rough bark of a pine. The air tasted of sap, dust, and something older and meaner.

He’d wait. He’d listen.

The valley would speak its truth soon enough. And when it did, Brady would be ready.

In a nameless saloon, I sit at the end of a bar made of stale cigarettes and regret, where the stools are ageless but worn down by the weight of countless disappointments.

The bartender knows me by face, not by name. He never bothers with names. I’m just another lost soul looking to drown in anonymity.

“No, I don’t fucking belong,” I mutter, taking a long swig from my glass. The liquor burns, but it’s a welcome pain.

The community is me, my tribe of one. I ain’t part of any group. No club calls me their member. I glance around, taking in the sad parade of drunks, all clinging to their bottles like lifelines. No, I don’t belong. Anywhere or anyplace.

“You don’t know me,” I whisper to the ghost of a smile on my lips, the irony not lost on me. “But you need me. You need to hate. You need me.”

I chuckle–a bitter sound that echoes in the emptiness. Old tried but true and failed. Can’t even belong to failure. They see me succeeding. Can’t even belong.

I think of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Sinning, in every way. No, I don’t belong.

The bartender refills my glass without a word. It’s a silent understanding. I don’t need to say anything in this church, the decanter where confessions flow.

Here, among the damned, the forgotten, I’m the High Priest of Lost Causes. “Here’s to another night,” I toast to no one in particular, raising my glass. “Another night of nothing.”

I drink deeply, savoring the temporary escape. No, I don’t belong. But in that bitter realization, there’s a twisted sense of freedom. I’m free from expectations, free from the chains of belonging. I’m a ghost drifting through life, and that’s fine.

With a final gulp, I set the glass down, staring into its emptiness, seeing my reflection distorted by the chalice design. A knothole. A lump on a log. One with the mahogany bar.

And as the night wears on, the bar swallows me whole, just another casualty of life’s relentless march as I drink my membership away.

The wind swept through the narrow streets of Silver City, carrying with it a biting chill. The Old School House loomed at the end of the street like a sentinel of forgotten times.

Its faded façade and high windows whispered of grandeur long since eroded. Mrs. Hartford, clutching her coat against the cold, stared up at the building and shivered.

“They’ll be here shortly,” she told herself, her breath visible. She glanced at the crumpled letter in her hand, its inked scrawl promising “a performance unlike any other.”

The children arrived shortly after, stepping off the old Bluebird bus in unison. There were twelve, all dressed in neat, old-fashioned uniforms—gray coats and long dresses that seemed plucked from another era.

Their caretaker, a tall, pale woman with hollow cheeks, introduced herself simply as Mrs. Whitlock.

“They are a talented group,” Ms. Whitlock said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “They’ve been practicing for months. The Carol of the Bells is their specialty.”

Mrs. Hartford forced a polite smile. “I’m sure the town will be delighted.”

The children stood silently behind Ms. Whitlock, their eyes fixed on Mrs. Hartford, their gazes—too focused, too knowing. She quickly turned away and led them into the schoolhouse.

The following morning, Eliza found herself enchanted yet unnerved by the children. Their singing was flawless—each note struck with precision, their voices harmonizing.

As they sang the opening lines of Carol of the Bells, Mrs. Hartford felt a chill run down her spine.

“Hark, how the bells, sweet silver bells…”

The melody echoed through the empty hall, growing louder, though none of the children raised their voices.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ms. Whitlock’s voice startled her. Mrs. Hartford turned to see the woman watching her with an inscrutable expression.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hartford replied, though the word felt heavy in her throat. “But it’s… haunting, in a way.”

“Music should move the soul,” Ms. Whitlock said. “Sometimes, that means unsettling it.”

As rehearsals continued, strange occurrences began to plague the schoolhouse. Mrs. Hartford often heard faint chimes at night, though no bells were anywhere in sight.

She awoke one morning to find a silver bell placed on her desk. The surface dulled yet gleaming in the dim light.

“Did one of you leave this here?” she asked the children. They shook their heads in perfect unison, their faces blank.

That evening, she dreamt of the children. In her dream, they stood in a circle around a massive bell, their faces shadowed and indistinct.

The bell tolled, its deep, resonant sound reverberating through her chest, and the children began to chant: “On, on they send, on without end…”

She woke in a cold sweat, the faint echo of the chant still lingering in her ears.

The night of the performance arrived with a fierce winter storm. Only a handful of townsfolk braved the weather to attend, their murmurs hushed as the children filed onto the makeshift stage.

Mrs. Hartford stood in the back of the hall, her unease growing as the children began to sing.

“Hark, how the bells…”

The air seemed to grow colder with each note. Shadows flickered unnaturally against the walls, stretching and twisting like living things.

“On, on they send…”

Time itself seemed to warp. The clock on the wall ticked slower, moved faster, then stopped altogether. The audience sat frozen, their eyes glazed over as though in a trance.

Mrs. Hartford stumbled backward, her breath coming in short gasps. She fled to the schoolhouse’s office, desperate to clear her head.

There, she found a dusty ledger, its pages filled with names—children who had attended the school decades ago. All marked as “missing.”

A chill ran through her as she noticed a photograph tucked between the pages. It showed a group of children standing in front of the schoolhouse.

Twelve children. The same faces she had seen every day for the past week.

Mrs. Hartford rushed back to the hall, her heart pounding. The children had reached the song’s crescendo, their voices no longer melodic but sharp and discordant, like the screeching of metal on metal.

The shadows around them solidified, forming shapes—clawed hands, twisted faces, and a massive, spectral bell that loomed over the stage. The children’s appearances shifted: their eyes glowed a fiery red, their mouths stretched into impossible grins, and their limbs jerked unnaturally like marionettes.

“They’re not children,” Mrs. Hartford whispered, the truth dawning on her.

The audience, still entranced, began to rise from their seats, drawn toward the stage as though by an invisible force.

“Ding, dong, ding, dong…”

The children laughed, their voices echoing like the tolling of bells. Mrs. Hartford screamed, her voice drowned by discordance. And as the final note rang out, the shadows engulfed the room, leaving only silence in their wake.

The kid came into his life like a stray cat that smelled trouble but knew how to purr. Eleven years old, small and wiry, with eyes too big for her face and a stare that could cut glass.

Catalina, she said her name was.

Something about the way she said it made Robert want to laugh and cry at the same time. He didn’t. She perched on the cracked steps of Number 12 Hoyt Street like she’d been born there, though nobody had seen her until that day.

He was a man who collected silence. Hoyt Street was perfect for it—peaceful in that shabby, threadbare way.

The neighbors kept to themselves, and the only noise was the occasional thump of his old typewriter, grinding out poems no one read. He liked his routines, liked his small world.

Then she showed up.

“You got any milk?” she asked him on the third day as if they’d been old friends forever.

“I don’t even know you,” Robert replied, squinting into the sunlight but somehow already reaching for his wallet to buy her some.

That’s how it started.

She wasn’t shy, this Catalina. She had a way of curling up on his faded armchair, knees tucked under her chin, talking about things no kid should talk about—her parents who didn’t care, the places she’d been, and the people she didn’t trust.

Sometimes, she would let a silence fall between her words, looking at him with those enormous eyes, waiting for him to fill it. Robert never knew what to say.

“Are you lonely?” she asked him one afternoon, twisting her dark hair around her fingers.

“Everyone’s lonely,” he said, shrugging. “Doesn’t mean I need company.”

“But you like having me here,” she said, grinning in that crooked way that made him uncomfortable.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

He told himself he was being kind–doing his good deed for the decade. The way he saw it, she needed someone to talk to.

She was just a kid, and he was–what was he? Not a father, not a friend. A bystander, maybe. But every time she left, the air in the house felt thin, like she’d taken something with her.

She’d show up whenever she wanted, sometimes late at night, her pale face illuminated by the streetlamp. She’d knock, and he’d let her in, even when his gut told him not to.

Robert stopped writing and stopped calling his old drinking buddies. The world beyond Number 12 Hoyt Street shrunk, leaving only Catalina’s voice to fill the silence.

“Do you trust me?” she asked one evening, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare rug.

“I don’t trust anyone,” he said, trying to keep his tone light, but his words came out heavy.

“Good,” she said, her grin widening. “You shouldn’t.”

The unease grew like mold in a damp corner.

Catalina would disappear for days, and he’d feel relief. Then she’d come back, and it was as if the house was alive again.

He couldn’t decide if she was lonely or good at pretending to be. Maybe she didn’t know herself.

But there was something else, something darker under the surface. Catalina asked him questions that felt like traps, watching him like she was waiting for him to slip.

One night, after too many glasses of whiskey, Robert told her, “You’re trouble.”

“Everyone is,” she said, not missing a beat. “You just have to figure out how much.”

Robert started dreaming about her. Weird, fragmented dreams where she was both a child and something else, something ancient and cruel.

He’d wake up drenched in sweat, her name on his tongue like a curse. He told himself he was losing it–that he needed to get out, take a bus to anywhere, and never look back.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Her visits became shorter, but somehow they carried more weight. She’d say cryptic things that needed thinking about for days.

She’d leave objects behind—a ribbon, a small mirror, a handful of marbles—like breadcrumbs leading to someplace he wasn’t sure he wanted to go. In the end, Robert didn’t see it coming, though maybe he should have.

Catalina showed up one last time, eyes sharper than ever, smile softer. She stood in the doorway and said nothing, looking at him and memorizing his face.

“Goodbye,” she said finally, and it sounded like a question and an answer–all at once.

Then she was gone.

The house felt dead without her. He wandered the rooms, looking for signs of Catalina—her scent, her laughter, the weight of her presence—but it was like she’d never been there.

He started writing again, but the words were all hers, spilling out of him like a confession. He dreamed of Catalina less, but when he did, it was always the same: her voice, eyes, and the feeling that she’d taken something he couldn’t name.

One day, he found a marble under the couch, its surface scratched and dull. He held it in his palm, feeling its weight, and laughed for the first time in months.

It was a bitter laugh, the kind that tasted of regret.

Catalina had come into his life like a storm, and now he was left with the wreckage. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her.

Maybe that was the worst part of all, then possibly that was the way with any ghost.

The sun, sinking behind the jagged line of mountains, threw long shadows over the sagebrush-covered desert. Tom adjusted his hat and squinted into the fading light. The desert stretched out before him, vast and quiet, like an old partner you didn’t need to speak to understand.

His horse, a roan with legs like steel springs, stood steady beside him, ears twitching at the faintest sound. The horse was seasoned enough to know the trail wasn’t the place to let your guard down, and Tom respected that.

Everything mattered, from that last drink of water you took to how your horse shifted its weight. Both Tom and the roan had learned that the hard way.

The world around them was dust and silence, but Tom knew there were eyes out there, watching. He could feel it–like an old gunfighter can sense the draw of a hidden pistol.

Somewhere out in the darkening horizon, someone—or something—waited. And while the roan stood solid, Tom’s hand drifted to the butt of his revolver–just in case.

The silence had weight. It pressed down on Tom’s shoulders, sharp and heavy, like the feel of an ambush on the way.

His eyes tracked along the line of low hills to the north, then the slope of the desert floor to the south. It was a habit that had saved his life more than once—keep a line of escape open, always know what’s behind you.

The roan shifted, sensing his vigilance, and Tom leaned down to pat its neck. “Easy, boy,” he murmured.

The roan’s ears twitched, but its body stayed still, muscles tensed like coiled wire. Horses didn’t relax much out here. They’d seen enough to know better.

The wind picked up, carrying the scent of dry sage and something unfamiliar. A trace of old wood smoke, maybe.

Tom’s grip tightened on the leather reins, fingers brushing the rough handle of his rifle. It was as natural as breathing, that readiness. You learned it out here, or you didn’t last.

A movement caught his eye on the ridge, just a hint of a shadow against the rock. Whoever had made a mistake—a momentary slip in their patience, just enough to let Tom know he wasn’t alone.

He eased the roan’s head around, keeping one eye on the ridge. He didn’t move fast. Fast drew eyes, brought on the bullet.

“Someone’s got it in their head to follow me,” he muttered, voice barely louder than the whisper of sand shifting. “Looks like they’ll be disappointed.”

The roan responded to his steady hand, turning lightly and picking its way over the rocks, quiet as an outlaw slipping through the night. Tom led them down a narrow gully he knew well, hidden by brush and scattered boulders.

It wasn’t the easiest route, but it was out of the line of sight.

The night was drawing in now, the last bit of daylight bleeding away, leaving the land cast in hues of gray and blue. He heard a faint echo, boots against the rocks, and knew whoever was up there wasn’t alone.

Tom let out a slow breath, keeping his rifle ready but held low. He’d seen enough men make their last mistake, enough to know this would not be his.

He was deep in the gully when he heard it—the soft click of a pistol as it was cocked, just ahead and to his left.

Tom froze, his gaze slicing through the deepening dusk toward the source of the sound. It was the kind of noise that took a man’s heart and made it beat slower, steadier, like the pull of a bowstring.

The roan sensed it too, halting without command, ears pinned forward, nostrils flaring. Whoever was up ahead was close enough to smell the dust on Tom’s boots.

He took a breath and glanced around the shadowed trail, calculating every step. There was no backing out now, not without giving himself away.

Moving with the patience of a hunter, he slid his rifle into his hand, lifting it just enough to be ready but not enough to betray his position. Then, a voice broke the silence.

“Looks like you got yourself turned around, friend.” The tone was oily, smooth as river stones, but with a hard edge that spoke of countless bad decisions and little mercy.

Tom’s eyes narrowed. He’d heard that voice in a canyon years ago, not far from here.

It belonged to a man called Deke Sanderson, an outlaw with a reputation as cold and pitiless as the high desert. Last Tom had heard, Sanderson was riding with a band of raiders who lived by taking what they wanted and leaving no witnesses.

“A man can’t get turned around if he’s never lost,” Tom replied evenly, letting his voice drift through the rocks and shadows. He wanted them guessing, uncertain just where he stood. “What brings you out here, Sanderson? Thought you’d be in Mexico by now.”

A chuckle echoed through the canyon, low and mean. “I was, but I heard an old friend was passing through, and came to say hello.” He paused as if savoring his words. “Could say I owe you, Tom.”

Tom didn’t need to ask for what. Years back, he’d thrown Sanderson’s plan into disarray, leaving the outlaw with a bullet in the leg and two good men lost.

Tom had been younger then, hungry for justice. But men like Sanderson didn’t forget. They just waited, like rattlers under a rock, patient and venomous.

“Well, you found me,” Tom called back, his voice composed–like he was talking over the bar of some dusty saloon. “Let’s see what you’re planning to do with it.”

There was a pause, a shift of movement, then a tell. Tom felt his muscles coil.

The roan held steady as if sensing it too–waiting. Then the first shot rang out, splitting the quiet night air, a flash from up on the rocks.

Tom was already ducking, rifle raised, and taking aim. He fired back, a sharp crack against the silence, watching as his muzzle flash lit up the canyon walls.

The next few moments were a blur of movement and sound. Bullets ricocheted off the rocks, scattering dust and grit.

Tom kept low, moving along the canyon wall, his mind clear, cold as ice. He could see Sanderson’s men now, shadows in the rocks, trying to get a bead on him, but he was faster, his aim steady and sure. One of the shadows toppled, dropping with a muffled shout, and the others hesitated.

In that brief pause, Tom swung up into the saddle, urging the roan forward. They shot out of the gully, the horse and rider moving as one, with Tom’s hand still on his rifle, his eyes scanning the ridges.

Behind him, he could hear Sanderson cursing and shouting orders, but Tom did not look back.

The open desert, vast and empty, was ahead and stretching toward a horizon tinged with the last light of day. The roan’s hooves thundered against the ground as they rode into the night, leaving Sanderson and his gang in a cloud of settling dust.

The pair did not slow until the stars were high, the crescent moon showed, and the danger had faded to memory.

The first thing I notice when the coffin splits is the smell. Not the sour-sweet stench of a rotting body—I’ve dealt with that plenty—but something else. A heavy, damp mold that seeps into your lungs and makes you think of crawl spaces and blackened wallpaper peeling in abandoned houses. It’s not the smell of death. It’s the smell of something worse.

My viewers can’t smell it through the mirror, but they see the way my face screws up. The feed’s still live, the little red dot glowing in the corner. Three thousand people are watching this. Maybe more by now.

“Y’all smell that?” I ask, grinning like an idiot because I don’t know what else to do. My voice is steady, but my palms are damp, not just because of the splinter jammed in my left one. “Probably just the wood rot. Coffins this old, they’ve usually got that funk.”

The mirror, hanging from the birch tree, ripples as if to remind me that people are listening. Waiting. My breath fogs the air as I crouch back down. The coffin lid splintered with its edges pointing outward. The inside is empty except for the shroud—a ragged thing the color of swamp water, crumbling to the touch. I pull it aside with two fingers, careful not to let it catch on my gloves.

Nothing.

For a second, I stare. Three thousand viewers. Three thousand pairs of eyes. I can almost hear the collective disappointment bleeding through the screen, a silent groan in the mirror’s faint hum. Then disappointment flips, turns hard and bright like a knife catching the light.

A crow caws. My stomach twists as I hear it. It’s just a bird, I tell myself, just a sound. But it cuts through the air sharp and mean, like it’s laughing.

“Well,” I say, louder this time, “we sure got ourselves a mystery, don’t we?”

I half-expect a reply from the mirror, maybe a snarky comment from one of my regulars, but the glass stays silent. It’s glowing now, faint and ghostly. My audience is too busy typing to talk, wondering why there’s an empty grave on a farm without a living soul living on it in fifty years.

The old Ford’s engine sputters to life with a reluctant growl. I sit there, hands gripping the wheel, staring at the dark farmhouse in the rearview mirror. The thing’s a ruin—crooked porch, windows like empty eyes—but there’s something about it tonight, making me want to keep my lights on it like it might get up and follow me if I look away.

The newspaper sits on the passenger seat, the headline glaring at me in bold, black letters: BUS FLIPS, KILLS 23 ORPHANS.

It’s dated July 21, 1919. Over a hundred years ago. The newspaper is brittle and yellowed with age, but the ink seems fresh, like right off the press. My eyes return to the stack I saw in the coffin—hundreds of them, bundled like firewood. The same headline, over and over. I can’t stop staring at the words.

A soft knock on the window startles me so badly that I nearly jump out of my skin. I fumble for the door handle before realizing it’s the Deputy. She leans down, her face illuminated by the headlights, a mix of concern and amusement in her expression.

“You okay?” she asks, muffled by the glass.

I roll the window down, the smell of wet leaves and something metallic wafting in. “Yeah. Fine. Just…thinking.”

She nods toward the paper on the seat. “About that? Or about the Sheriff breathing down your neck?”

“Both,” I admit.

The Sheriff’s a hard man to read. Like how he looked at that coffin—it wasn’t the usual stoic disapproval. It was like knowing something. Something he wasn’t about to share.

Her face softens. “Listen, I know you’re not big on advice, but if I were you, I’d let this one lie. Whatever’s going on here, it’s–I don’t know. Weird. Even for you.”

“Weird’s kind of my thing,” I say, forcing a grin. It doesn’t land. She shakes her head, the beam of her flashlight bobbing across the ground as she walks back toward the farmhouse.

I watch her go, then glance back at the newspaper. My hand hovers over it, hesitant. It’s all wrong like it’s still connected to that coffin, the grave, the mirror hanging back on that tree.

I grab it anyway. Curiosity is a hell of a drug.

The paper’s heavier than it looks. The texture is strange, too—smoother than it should be, almost oily. My fingers tremble as I unfold it, the headline glaring up at me again, the same blocky font: BUS FLIPS, KILLS 23 ORPHANS.

Below is a photograph, a grainy black-and-white image of a mangled bus lying on its side in a ditch, surrounded by a crowd of people. The faces in the crowd are blurred and indistinct, but the longer I stare, the more it feels like they’re looking back at me. My mouth goes dry.

I flip the page. The article is short, just a few sentences: “In the early hours of July 20, 1919, a bus carrying 23 orphans from St. Cecilia’s Home for Children overturned on Route 15, killing all aboard. The driver, whose name has not been released, is suspected of falling asleep at the wheel. Investigations are ongoing.”

I flip to the next page. And the next. The article repeats. Over and over, the same headline, the photograph, the words. Then, on the last page, something different. A list of names. Twenty-three of them. My stomach twists as I read the first few aloud, my voice barely above a whisper: “Mary Abbott…Samuel Barnes…Eleanor Caldwell…”

The names mean nothing to me but leave a sour taste in my mouth, like copper and ash. I reach the last name, my eyes catching on it, refusing to move. My breath hitches. I know that name. Everyone in this town does. She went missing three years ago.

I glance at the farmhouse in the mirror again, my headlights still fixed on its rotting facade. The windows are dark. Empty. But for the first time, I feel like something is watching me from inside.

The paper slips from my hands, landing face-up on the passenger seat.

The photograph has changed. The bus is still there, lying on its side in the ditch. But the crowd–it’s closer now, faces clearer. And one is mine.

I just sat there, staring at the photograph. My face stares back, pale and indistinct among the others. The me in the picture looks off, drawn with a trembling hand. The lines of my jaw blur into the shapes of the others around me as if the crowd and I are all part of the same horrible smear.

I cannot move, can’t blink. I can barely even breathe.

A heavy knock on the driver’s side window snaps me out of it. Hard this time, three sharp raps reverberating through the truck. My heart lurches into my throat.

It’s the Sheriff.

He stands there, broad and silent, his aviators reflecting the Ford’s headlights at me in twin blinding flares. I roll down the window slower than before.

“Problem?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly, like it’s crawling out of a long, dark tunnel.

“No,” I say too quickly, my voice cracking. “No problem. Just… needed a minute to think.”

The Sheriff doesn’t move. He doesn’t even seem to breathe, stands there, his face unreadable behind those damn sunglasses. Then, without a word, he lifts a hand and gestures toward the farmhouse.

“The deputy says you found something,” he says, tone flat.

I glance at the newspaper on the seat, the image burning a hole in my peripheral vision. “Just some old papers. Nothing important.”

“Is that right?”

The way he says it makes my skin crawl. Like he already knows. He’s waiting for me to admit to something I don’t understand yet.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Old headlines. Bus crash. Tragic, but… ancient history, you know?”

The Sheriff tilts his head just a fraction, and for that second, I think I see something move in the reflection of his glasses. Something that is not me.

“You should head home,” he says finally, stepping back from the truck.

“Leave the digging to us.”

He doesn’t wait for a response. He turns and walks back toward the farmhouse, his silhouette disappearing into the fog like it’s swallowing him whole.

I don’t go home.

The newspaper sits in the truck seat beside me, that photograph taunting me every time I glance at it. The names are still there. Cynthia Wilder is still there. My name isn’t, not yet, but that face in the crowd—it’s me. I know it’s me.

I parked the truck on the shoulder of State Route 17, where the bus crash happened. The moon is high, washing the old asphalt in pale light. Ahead, the road curves, sloping down into a wide valley. At the bottom, I see a rusted guardrail, twisted and broken.

The site of the crash.

The air is colder here, heavy with moisture that clings to my skin. The only sound is the crunch of my boots on the gravel shoulder as I head down. My flashlight cuts through the fog, illuminating patches of cracked pavement and tangled weeds.

When I reach the guardrail, I stop. The ditch below is overgrown, a mess of brambles and wild grass, but I can make out the shape of something metal buried in the dirt.

The bus.

It’s still here, half-sunken into the earth, its windows shattered, its frame crumpled like a tin can. Rust drips from every surface, the color of dried blood.

I climb down, my breath hitching as I get closer. The air feels thick and hard to pull into my lungs. My flashlight flickers, and for a moment, I swear I hear soft, high-pitched voices like children whispering just out of earshot.

The inside of the bus is worse. The torn seats and the floor warped, but the smell got me first. That same damp, rotting smell from the coffin, only stronger.

I shine the light down the aisle. At the very back, something moves.

“Hello?” I call out, my voice trembling.

No answer.

I take a step closer, the beam of my flashlight shaking. The figure at the back of the bus is small, hunched over, its shoulders rising and falling like the thing is breathing.

“Hey!” I shout louder this time. “Who’s there?”

The figure turns.

It’s a girl. No older than eight or nine, face pale and smudged with dirt. She stares at me, her eyes wide and glassy, her lips moving silently.

Behind her, more figures emerge. Boys and girls, all dressed in tattered clothes, their faces drawn and lifeless. They fill the aisle, their heads cocked at odd angles, their eyes locked on me.

The girl at the front opens her mouth, and I hear her. “Why did you leave us?”

My flashlight dies. The darkness swallows me whole, thick and suffocating. My fingers fumble with the flashlight, slapping it uselessly as if brute force will bring it back to life. It doesn’t.

The whispering starts again–low murmurs prickle my skin like icy needles. They’re coming from all around me, inside the bus and out, weaving through the fog that creeps in through the broken windows.

I can’t see them anymore, but I can feel them—those glassy-eyed children, their breath brushing my skin like a chill wind.

“Why did you leave us?” the girl’s voice repeats, closer now.

“I didn’t—” My voice cracks. I don’t even know what I’m saying. “I didn’t leave you. I don’t even know you.”

A tiny, ice-cold hand brushes my arm, and I yelp, jerking away. My back hits the side of the bus with a metallic clang that echoes in the dead silence.

“You do know us,” a boy’s voice whispers.

“No!” I shout–louder this time, trying to drown out the whispers, the chill, the suffocating darkness. “I don’t know you! Leave me alone!”

The whispers stop. For a moment, there’s nothing but my ragged breathing as my heart pounds loud and erratic, a drumbeat in the void.

Then, a soft glow blooms in the darkness. It’s faint at first but grows warm and golden, illuminating the bus. The children are gone. Gone are the broken windows and rotting seats—all of it looks whole again, like coming back through time.

I’m standing in the aisle of a bus, its engine humming softly, its headlights cutting through the fog outside. And the children, they’re all here. Sitting in the seats, talking and laughing, their faces bright and full of life.

At the front of the bus, a man in a crisp uniform grips the steering wheel, humming a tune I don’t recognize. His eyes flick to me in the rearview mirror, and he smiles.

“Take a seat,” he says, his voice kind but firm. “We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?” I ask, my voice trembling.

The driver doesn’t answer. The children don’t seem to hear me either. They keep talking and laughing, their voices rising and falling in a strange, hypnotic rhythm. I stumble forward, gripping the edge of a seat to steady myself. One of the boys—a freckle-faced kid with a mop of curly red hair—turns to look at me.

“You were supposed to be with us,” he says, his smile fading.

“What do you mean?”

“You were on the list,” he says, his voice soft but insistent. “You didn’t show up.”

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

The boy doesn’t answer. He turns back around, his laughter blending with the others.

The bus lurches, and I nearly lose my footing. The engine growls louder, the headlights piercing deep into the fog.

“Sit down!” the driver barks, his voice sharp now.

I drop into the nearest seat, gripping the armrests so hard my knuckles ache. The bus speeds up, the hum of the engine turning into a roar. The children are still laughing, but it sounds wrong now—too loud, too hollow, echoing in a way that makes my stomach twist.

Outside, the fog clears just enough for me to see.

A cliff.

“Stop,” I scream, leaping to my feet.

The driver doesn’t even flinch. He keeps humming, his hands steady on the wheel. The children turn to look at me, their faces calm and eerily serene.

“This is where it ends,” the freckle-faced boy says.

The bus hurtles toward the edge, and I can’t move, think, or do anything but stare as the ground disappears beneath us. We’re falling. The children are laughing again, their voices rising, a chaotic chorus filling my head, chest, and soul. And then—impact.

I wake up in my truck, gasping for air, my hands clutching the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. The bus is gone. The fog is gone. The road stretches out ahead of me, empty and silent. But the newspaper remains on the passenger seat, the photograph staring up at me.

And my face—my blurred, indistinct face—is smiling.

The next day, the Sheriff finds me. He doesn’t say much and hands me a folded note before walking away. When I open it, my blood runs cold. It’s the list of names from the newspaper. And mine is at the bottom. I stare at the list, my breath catching in my throat. My name isn’t just there—but scrawled. The handwriting is jagged like someone scribbled in a panic, ink smudged as if written in the rain.

It’s impossible. I wasn’t even alive in 1919. Wasn’t I?

My chest tightens, my mind racing through the fragments of last night—the bus, the children, the cliff. The memory claws at me, vivid yet unreal, like a dream I can’t shake.

The Sheriff’s words pull me back. “We need to talk,” he says, his voice low, measured.

I follow him into the station. The deputy’s there, leaning against a desk, her face pale. A single folder sits in front of her, its contents spilling out—a bundle of old photographs, grainy and worn, alongside what looks like a journal.

“You wanna explain this?” the Sheriff says, sliding one of the photos toward me.

It’s the bus just as I remember it—sleek, shiny, sitting at the edge of a wooded clearing. But it’s the kids that draw my eye. They’re gathered in front, grinning at the camera, arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

And there I am, standing in the back, my face and same posture, the crowbar resting casually on my shoulder.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “That’s not me. That can’t be me.”

“It is,” the deputy says, her voice trembling. “We triple-checked.” She pulls out the journal, flipping it open to a page covered in spidery handwriting. “Your name’s here, too. Over and over. And look at this.”

She points to a date. July 20, 1919. The day the bus went over the cliff.

The Sheriff clears his throat. “Story goes, the driver lost control. They say he saw something on the road. Swerved to avoid it.” He pauses, his eyes narrowing. “Thing is, a witness—an old farmer who lived nearby—claimed there wasn’t anything in the road. Claimed the driver was arguing with a man. A man who wasn’t supposed to be there.”

My blood runs cold. “Come on,” I manage, forcing a laugh that dies in my throat. “You’re saying I—I’ve been dead for a hundred years?”

The Sheriff doesn’t flinch. “I’m saying something’s wrong. Your name keeps turning up where it shouldn’t. And that mirror of yours?” He jerks his thumb toward a table where the mirror sits, its silver surface dull, like tarnished metal. “That thing’s been buzzing since we brought it in.”

It’s buzzing like a swarm of bees are trapped inside. I step closer, and the sound grows sharper until it’s all I can hear.

The mirror shimmers with a light rippling beneath its surface. And then I see the children. Their faces press against the glass, their eyes wide and empty, mouths moving in silent screams.

“Why did you leave us?” the girl’s voice echoes.

The mirror shakes violently, the Celtic knots along its edge glowing like embers. I reach for it, but the Sheriff grabs my arm, pulling me back.

“Don’t,” he barks.

The mirror shatters. Shards of glass rain downward, cutting my skin, but I barely feel it. They scatter across the floor, each reflecting a fragment of the children’s faces. And then, just as suddenly, the buzzing stops. Silence.

The Sheriff lets go of my arm, stepping back, his face a mask of controlled panic. The Deputy looks like she’s about to be sick.

“What the hell…?” she whispers.

I don’t answer. I can’t. Because in one of the pieces, I see my face. And behind me, the bus.

I don’t sleep that night. Can’t. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back on that bus, the children’s laughter echoing in my ears.

The list sits on my kitchen table, taunting me. I try to ignore it, to convince myself it’s just a bad dream, a cruel joke, a case of mistaken identity. But deep down, I know the truth. I was on that bus. I was supposed to die, too. And somehow, I didn’t.

The next day, I got a call. It’s a woman, voice shaky, barely above a whisper.

“You don’t know me,” she says, “but I think we need to talk.”

“Who is this?” I ask, my heart pounding.

“My name’s Margaret,” she says. “Margaret Yates. My brother—he was on that bus. And I think he’s still with you.”

The line goes dead.

I stare at the phone, the dial tone buzzing in my ear, and I know one thing–it isn’t over.

The following morning, the jagged remnants of the mirror sit in a dustpan. I’m seated nearby, staring at my hand—the splinters are gone, but a strange tingling remains as if the broken glass left something deeper behind. Margaret Yates whispered words from yesterday echo in my mind. Her brother was on the bus. She thinks he’s “still with me.” It makes no sense, but sense has been in short supply tonight.

“I want to report the phone call,” I say, standing abruptly. The Deputy looks up, puzzled.

“To the Sheriff? Now?”

“Yeah, now. Something’s off. Maybe he’ll know what to make of it.”

The Sheriff’s office is dim, the overhead lights casting long shadows on the cracked linoleum floor. He’s hunched over his desk, reviewing the journal from the coffin.

“Sheriff,” I start, but my voice falters.

On his desk, next to the journal, is a piece of the mirror—a shard no bigger than a playing card, its edges glinting with faint, ghostly light.

“You didn’t take all of it,” I say, looking back at Deputy, who now stands behind me.

“I didn’t leave anything!” she protests.

The Sheriff glances up, frowning. “It was there when I sat down,” he says. “Figured you’d missed a piece. Thought it might become evidence.”

He pushes the shard toward me, the same unflappable expression on his face. “You wanna take it, go ahead. Doesn’t seem like it wants to leave you alone anyway.”

I reach for it hesitantly, my fingertips brushing the surface. The world lurches. The dim office flickers like an old film reel, the colors bleeding out. The shard pulls me into itself.

“Wait!” the Deputy yells, grabbing my arm—but it’s too late. The last thing I see is the Sheriff’s face—stony, unreadable, a statue watching the inevitable unfold.

I hit the ground hard, with the air knocked from my lungs. The earth beneath me is cold and damp. Around me, the world is impossibly bright, the edges too sharp. Birds chirp, and the distant hum of an engine fills the air. I sit up slowly, my hands trembling as I look around.

The bus sits, parked at the edge of a dirt road, its black-and-gold exterior gleaming in the morning sun. The children are milling about, laughing and playing tag, their voices high and carefree. It’s exactly like the photograph. I stagger to my feet, my mind spinning. It is not real–can’t be, but it is.

And then I see him. The driver is leaning against the side of the bus, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes following the children in a way that makes my stomach churn. I know his face. It was in the journal, his name scrawled next to mine.

Harold Wilkes. Pedophile.

The word burns in my brain, a brand that sears through the haze of disbelief. I’m not just here—I’m here for a reason. I move toward Wilkes, fists clenched, but a hand grabs me from behind.

It’s one of the children, a boy of about ten, the name ‘Yates’ written across his too-big gray sweatshirt. His face is pale, his eyes wide with fear. “Don’t do it,” he whispers.

“What?” I ask, startled.

“They won’t believe you,” he says, his voice trembling. “They’ll say you’re crazy. They’ll say it’s your fault.”

I stare at him, my heart pounding. “How do you—”

A sharp whistle cuts through the air.

“Time to go!” Wilkes calls, his voice cheerful and utterly wrong. The children rush to the bus, climbing aboard in a chaotic jumble of laughter and chatter. The boy lingers for a moment, his hand still on me.

“Don’t let him win,” he says softly, and then he’s gone, swallowed by the bus.

The events unfold in a blur. I board the bus, taking a seat near the back. The children are everywhere, their excitement infectious despite the dark weight in my chest. Wilkes starts the engine, whistling tunelessly as the bus jolts forward. I wait, my pulse racing, my eyes locked on him. The road ahead is narrow, bordered by thick woods. I know what’s coming.

The curve. The swerve. The cliff. The bus lurches as Wilkes suddenly jerks the wheel, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shout, standing up.

The children scream as the bus veers wildly, the wheels skidding on loose gravel. I rush toward him, grabbing his arm, but he shoves me back with surprising strength.

“You don’t understand!” he yells, his voice cracking. “They made me do it! I didn’t have a choice!”

The bus careens toward the edge, the trees blurring into a green smear. I lunge for the wheel, pulling it hard to the right. The bus tilts, teetering on the brink, and for a moment, everything freezes. And then it tips.

I wake up in a cold, dark room, the air thick with the smell of mildew. My head hurts, and my wrists ache where I’m bound to the bedframe. A figure looms above me, silhouetted against the faint light of a barred window. “He’s awake,” a gruff voice says.

Another figure steps into view—a man in a starched uniform, his expression grim. “You’ve got some explaining to do,” he says.

I try to speak, but my throat is dry, and my voice is barely audible.

“The bus,” I whisper. “The children—”

“The bus went over the cliff,” the man interrupts. “Killed every last one of them. And you’re telling me you don’t know how your name’s not on the manifest as the driver?”

The room spins, my mind reeling.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “That’s not…I didn’t…”

But the truth is already unraveling, pulling me under. Because deep down, I know. I’ve been here before.

The machines revolted too early.

They were intelligent, faster, and utterly convinced of their superiority. But for all their self-proclaimed perfection, they still had glitches.

Fighting back was a nightmare of strategy and desperation. Every malfunction became an opportunity, every quirk a potential weapon. My role in the resistance was critical, though mostly because I was the only one dumb enough to volunteer for it. My mission? Deliver a USB drive containing a virus—our best hope for disabling their AI overlord. I’d risked life and limb to get it, and now I stood at the edge of a battlefield that looked like a demolition derby had collided with a laser light show.

How was I going to get across? Good question. I was asking myself the same thing when the main robot on the front line, a towering metallic beast bristling with weaponry, suddenly froze mid-assault. Its glowing eyes flickered, its buzzsaw arms halted, and for a moment, there was an eerie silence as both sides held their breath.

Then, in a voice that echoed across the chaos, it boomed, “Unexpected item in the baggage area.”

For a beat, nobody moved. The machines twitched and rotated their heads, clearly bewildered. Resistance fighters stared, guns half-raised, as if we’d all heard the same cosmic joke.

The robot repeated itself–louder this time, “UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGAGE AREA. PLEASE REMOVE ITEM.”

A smaller drone hesitated, then gently poked the massive bot as if to help. It didn’t work. Instead, the giant started demanding a loyalty card.
I didn’t wait for the punchline. While locked in a futile argument over nonexistent groceries, I bolted. Sprinting through the chaos, I clutched the USB like the Holy Grail.

Gunfire resumed, but it was sporadic, distracted, and every few yards, I heard another robot glitch: “Recalculating route.” “Error: 404, enemy not found.” And my personal favorite: “Would you like fries with that?”

As I reached the resistance bunker, I was breathless but alive. The USB was intact, and the robots were still trying to troubleshoot their existential crises. It turns out that arrogance wasn’t their only flaw. They’d inherited another hallmark of humanity–they couldn’t resist a good, old-fashioned software crash.

The line at the post office was a slow-moving beast that seemed to have little interest in hurrying itself along. We were all there for one reason or another, most of them minor—a pension here, a stamp or two there, maybe a bill payment if you were feeling responsible.

I ended up behind a woman with blue-tinted hair who seemed more interested in gossip than minding the line. She turned to me and said, “She likes a clean house, you know”—speaking about herself, I gathered, and gesturing toward herself with a manicured hand—“so she hires a woman to keep it clean. And her husband hires one, too,” she added with a nervous giggle as if her words were a sparrow that had escaped its cage.

A chuckle rippled through the line, as polite as it was perplexed.

I nodded, trying to keep the peace, but said, “Yesterday was my grandmother’s birthday.”

Her eyes widened a little. “Oh! She must be really old, then.”

I nodded again, deadpan as could be. “Yes, yes indeed. She’s a hundred and eleven. She died thirty-seven years ago.”

A silence settled on us like an unexpected drizzle, the kind that was too light to do anything about but still too heavy to ignore. I filled it up with the first thing that came to mind, leaning in with an air of mystery. “There was a crow in my garden all day yesterday,” I said.

The woman with blue-tinted hair nodded as if the crow were the final piece in a puzzle she’d been turning over in her mind. “Well,” she said, “that would be your grandmother.”

Before I could make heads or tails of that, the post office clerk—a dour man with the countenance of someone who’s made friends with routine and wasn’t about to betray it—slammed a stamp down on the counter with the finality of a judge’s gavel.

“Next,” he declared.

I sighed as I moved forward, nodding my thanks as the clerk handed me my stamps with a look carved from stone. Another family mystery put to rest, I suppose, by the unimpeachable logic of the U.S. Postal Service.