#did more driving and hung out at a friends it was fun :333

[last-answer]

hi guys 👍

[yourmoonmomma]

Happy birthday bby! Hope you enjoyed your day, you totally deserve it!✨️🩷🩷

What have you been doing as of late? Update us👀👀

Thank you so much lovebug!! <333

OKAY OKAY get ready for a lot of short stories about what I've been up to LOL:

Last night Jayson & I got into a fight when I got home after work, because we were supposed to go to the speedway today since they have a monster truck event, and he said not to bother buying him a ticket, since he doesn't want to go even though he knows how excited I am for it. So after our fight about it, I reach out to my friends that are going, and asked where they are sitting, so I can try and get a solo ticket near them. BUT by the time my friends answered, all the tickets were sold out, so I can't go :( Which made me yell at Jayson more lol. I went to the casino to watch Tyler's band play, and hung out with his step-son, Gage, for a while. My friends invited me over to play on their bouncy castle, which I might do tonight after Jayson & I get back from seeing Barbie.

The day before that, so my bday, I didn't do much lol. I napped for most of the day, and only worked like 3 hours max haha. After work, I went to my parents and had dinner with them, and then we went out for ice cream & tried a new ice cream place. It was very yummy. The ice cream place also sells banana milkshakes, which is rare, so I texted Collin to tell him (since he loves banana milkshakes), and then texted Tyler to let him know they have tiger tail ice cream (as that is also somewhat difficult to find). My parents bought me The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Oathbringer, which are two books I very much wanted :3 I immediately started Oathbringer lol. Then I came home & fought with Jayson and then felt sad for the rest of the night.

The day before that, so Wednesday, after work I went to Dan & Ally's, as Ally & Mik had a "surprise" planned for me for my birthday. The surprise was decorating the house, as you can see (at least a bit) in my pinned photos. We drank all night long, and did some shrooms, and I got way too drunk lol. I guess Isaac wanted to tattoo "23" on me (which given his 19 tattoo... makes sense), but didn't, for whatever reason. I do not remember any of that though LOL. I didn't fall asleep until like 4am.

Tuesday was a peaceful night. Bought some joints, and went for a walk at sunset to have a smoke. Ended up swinging on a swing set for way too long, it was so much fun omg. I highly recommend!

Monday night I went over to Tyler's after work, and we hung out in his "man cave", trying to find one of those silly hotdog/weiner cooker things to buy. We watched some food show too that he likes, and he was telling me about how he wants to open up a place that only sells philly cheesesteaks (and was quite shocked to hear that I had never tried one). When I got back, I was mad at Jayson again, because he didn't bother asking where I was or why i was out for so long or who I was with.

Last Sunday, Jayson & I went to the beach for the day, and I got very very drunk - I did not realize how much drunker you get in the sun lol. We have a beach tent, so I laid in that for most of the day, as the beach was semi-flooded so the sand was more mud than anything & the water was very cold. I also burnt half of my body (the half that was not quite in the tent). Jayson & I picked up chinese food on the way back in, and then I drunkenly (or exhausted from the heat) passed out on his bed for a couple hours LOL.

And Last Saturday, I impulsively drove almost 2 hours away to go to a bar that Tyler was playing at, and stayed until he left (so like 3am). Drove back in an awful storm, the highway was flooded, and the lightning was literally blinding. Very scary drive, but made it home safe (and so did he). And I had fun! Some boys hit on me at the bar, which was really funny to me. The one was like "come here often?" and i was like "I cannot believe you are trying that line on me". I told him no, through laughter, and that I came to support the band, as I work with the drummer. And his whole attitude changed, which was equally funny to me. He was like "Omg you know the band?! Can you ask them to play more Tragically Hip next time?! Please please please!?! I'll owe you my life!!!" Very funny!

And yea! That's been my week! Tonight we have to start watching Cleo, Jayson's step mom's cat, for the week while his parents are at their cottage. And we are going out for dinner & to see Barbie, like I think I already said.

ANYWAY THATS YOUR UPDATE HAHAHA SORRY IT IS SO LONG what have you been up to?!

[undiscoveredstory]

Howdy kiddos! Well, it’s sure been a while since I posted a lil fic here, but the time has finally come again! This one goes out to @schuylergirls! Happy, happy birthday, kiddo! I hope it’s been fantastic :) 

The prompt was what happens to Martha in Heathers with the note from Ram, but with Eliza. This is inspired by that, but I changed a few things... Even the Angst Queen can’t be as dark as Heathers. “Read more” after the first few paragraphs just because this is so long. 

Enjoy, and happy birthday, kiddo!!! <333

Eliza Schuyler was on cloud nine. She could not believe that Alexander Hamilton–– the Alexander Hamilton–– had actually written her a love note.

It was weird how it’d all happened, really. Kitty Livingston, Eliza’s cousin, had tracked her down in the hallway between second and third period to thrust the note in her hands. At first, Eliza thought something was wrong because Kitty looked distraught, but Kitty raced off before Eliza could question it. Eliza didn’t have time to race after her cousin, and, besides, her cousin had been spending more and more time around the popular girls lately. Eliza was surprised Kitty had risked being in her presence long enough to give her the note.

Without questioning it further, Eliza dashed off to class, sliding into her seat, practically letting her backpack slam against the floor so she could open the note before the teacher walked in. She unfolded the loose leaf page to reveal a spidery script written in black gel pen:

Dear Eliza,

I've been thinking about you. I miss the simpler times when we were still friends. I'd like you to come to my homecoming party this weekend.

Love, Ham

Eliza had to reread the letter two more times before it hit her: Alexander Hamilton, the boy who had kissed her in kindergarten, still had feelings for her. Alexander Hamilton, the boy she’d had a crush on for the past eleven years, had a crush on her.

Eliza could not believe it. She could not believe it.

She could barely focus for the rest of her classes. All she could think about was lunch period, when she would see Alexander sitting with his friends. Normally, she sat with her sisters and their friends, far away from Alexander, but today–– today things would change.

The morning slowly passed. Eliza swore she could feel each tick of the second hand in the pit of her stomach. When lunch time finally came, she waltzed into the cafeteria with more confidence than she had possessed in the past two and a half years of high school. Angelica noticed the change in her sister right away.

“Someone’s happy today! You do well on that math test?”

Eliza shook her head. “No–– I mean, yeah, I did, but that’s not why I’m so…” she giggled.

“Giddy?” Angelica supplied, an amused eyebrow cocked.

“Yeah,” Eliza said with another laugh. She held the note out to Angelica.

Angelica read it, her brow furrowing in what looked like concern. “Where’d this come from?” she asked, her voice unusually strained.

“Kitty gave it to me!” Eliza said, beaming.

“Um, Eliza, you know Kitty’s been––”

“She’s our cousin, Angelica.” Eliza wasn’t sure what Angelica was going to say, and she didn’t want to know. She dismissed her older sister’s concern with the wave of her hand. “I’m going to go talk to him now.”

Just as Eliza was about to leave, Peggy joined the table.

“What’s up?” Peggy asked. She studied Eliza, her face breaking out into a grin. “Why do you look so––”

“Giddy,” Angelica said flatly.

Eliza passed Peggy the note. Peggy started jumping up and down as she read.

“Oh my gosh! ELIZA! Alexander Hamilton likes you!”

“I know!” Eliza said, jumping up and down with her sister. She glared at Angelica. “I’m glad at least you’re happy for me.”

Peggy smirked as she took in Angelica’s look of disapproval. “She’s just jealous.”

“Am not!” Angelica said.

“Okay, I’m really going now,” Eliza said. She pushed her shoulders back and flipped her dark hair over her shoulder. She wanted to appear confident. She felt like Alexander would like a girl with confidence.

Across the cafeteria sat Alexander with his friends, John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, and Lafayette. They were laughing over something Alexander had said. John was laughing so hard that milk spurted from his nose, which only made the group laugh even harder.

Eliza would normally be far too intimidated to walk within a ten foot radius of their table, but the note had emboldened her. Alexander wanted her to talk to him.

She was almost there, she was so close––

Someone grabbed her arm. She spun around to see Kitty.

“Oh, hey, Kitty,” she said. “Did you know what the note was about? It turns out that Alex––”

“I didn’t read it, nope,” Kitty said, a nervous tinge to her voice. “Uh, but, uh, I need your advice on something. It’s important.”

Eliza studied her cousin for a moment. Even before Kitty had fallen in with the popular crowd, she’d never exactly asked Eliza for advice. Angelica was typically the advice-giver.

“Oh, uh, sure. What’s up?” Eliza asked.

Kitty led her away from Alexander, back toward the table the Schuyler sisters normally occupied. She sat Eliza down and began talking about how her mom was all up in her business lately and she just didn’t know what to do and…

Eliza sighed. She had really wanted to talk to Alexander, but she didn’t want to be a bad cousin. So she sat there and listened to Kitty babble on and gave some half-hearted advice. She would just have to wait until later that night.

She would just have to wait until Alexander’s homecoming party.

***

“Eliza, are you sure about this?” Angelica asked, anxiety obvious in her voice.

Eliza rolled her eyes as she held up different necklaces in the mirror. “Yes, mom.” She selected the gold necklace with a blue pendant on it. It went perfectly with her navy blue dress. “Stop worrying so much. I don’t know what there is to worry about!”

Angelica was silent for a beat too long. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“What if Kitty… Is tricking you?”

Eliza gasped. “Angie! How could you even think Kitty would do something like that?”

Angie looked down and shrugged. “She’s just been… She’s been hanging out with the wrong crowd. I’m worried they’ve influenced her.”

“She hung out with us for all of lunch today,” Eliza pointed out. “She rarely even did that before, so maybe she’s seeing through them and knows where the true friendship is at?”

Angelica shrugged again. “Yeah, maybe,” she said with a sigh.

Eliza could tell her sister still wasn’t convinced, but she tried not to let it bother her. Maybe Peggy was right, and Angelica was jealous. The thought of Angelica being jealous of her was new to Eliza. All her life, she’d admired and envied Angelica. Was this what it felt like to be the person someone else envied?

Eliza wasn’t sure she liked the feeling. She would much rather Angelica just be happy for her, like Peggy was.

Peggy popped out of the closet, where she’d been going through the girls’ collection of purses. Between the three of them, they had at least twenty.

“I think I found the perfect one!” She held out a gold clutch to Eliza. It matched her necklace perfectly. Peggy was good at making small details come together like that.

“I love it!” Eliza exclaimed. She stared at herself in the mirror.

Behind her, off to one side, Peggy’s face came into view. She beamed at Eliza. Angelica rested her chin on Eliza’s other shoulder. She looked skeptical, but her scowl lightened up a bit when she took in Eliza’s outfit and the smile on her face.

“You look beautiful, Eliza,” Angelica said. “Are you sure you don’t want me or Pegs to go with you?”

“Nah, I’m good! But thanks.” She hugged both her sisters. “Kitty will be there, but I bet once I get to Alexander we’ll have a lot to catch up on…”

Eliza and Alexander had been such good friends when they were five. Of course, everything is easier when you’re five. All they had to have in common back then was the fact that they both liked to play with Hot Wheels and enjoyed building sand castles in the sandbox on the playground.

Eliza knew Alexander liked to write, and that he was a talented debtor, but everyone knew this. He was a journalist for the school newspaper and he had won awards for his debating skills. He probably knew nothing about her. She mostly kept to herself and her sisters.

All the more to talk about, she thought with a smile.

Eliza waltzed down the stairs and into the living room where her parents sat, the younger kids playing with Legos on the floor.

“Well, look at you!” her father declared.

“You look beautiful, sweetie.”

“You ready to go?” Her father stood up.

Eliza wished she didn’t have to rely on her parents to drive her, but she hadn’t exactly wanted to ask Angelica, who she knew disapproved of her going to the party in the first place––

“Actually, I’ll take her.” Angelica stood in the doorway, car keys twirling around her pointer finger.

Eliza wanted to squeal and hug Angelica. Being driven by your cool older sister was infinitely better than being driven by your loving but awkward father.

Philip sank back down into his armchair. “Perfect. You girls have fun!”

“Thanks, Angie,” Eliza whispered as they headed out the door.

“Don’t mention it,” she said. She was clearly trying to be light, but she was failing. Angelica seemed like she was on the lookout for a predator. Like she was just waiting for something catastrophic to happen.

The drive to Alexander’s house was silent, save for the rock music playing on the radio. When they pulled up in front of the house, Eliza couldn’t help but gasp. It wasn’t like Eliza’s family didn’t have money–– they were very wealthy. But Alexander was a level above her.

Alexander was the adoptive son of George and Martha Washington. George was a US senator, and Martha also held some important position in a government agency. What, exactly, she did, Eliza wasn’t sure. Either way, the Washingtons were loaded, and it showed. Their house was huge. They owned land as far as the eye could see. It would be intimidating if there wasn’t bad pop music blasting from somewhere in the dark, and a bunch of high school students gathered on the porch.

“You sure you’re good?” Angelica asked. “I’ll come in if you want…”

Eliza did want her sister to come with her now that she saw how big the party was. But she didn’t want to appear weak. It was weird, she’d never worried about that with her sisters before. But she felt like she had something to prove, and she was going to prove it.

“I’m good,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster up.

“Okay, well, give a call when you’re ready to be picked up.”

Eliza nodded and hopped out of the car. She waved to Angie as she slowly pulled away, exiting the Washingtons’ circular driveway.

Eliza turned to face the Washingtons’ home. She squared her soldiers and marched forward, her flats crunching against the gravel of the driveway. As she approached the porch, she realized it was Kitty who was out there with her popular friends.

A look of horror passed over Kitty’s face when their eyes met. Eliza couldn’t help but feel offended–– how could Kitty spend all of lunch with them, then be disgusted by Eliza’s face just a few hours later?

“Wow, she came,” one of Kitty’s friends snickered.

Before Eliza could comprehend what that meant, Kitty stepped forward.

“Eliza, wow, you came.” Kitty looked paler than usual, which was saying a lot, since Kitty came from the white side of the family and normally looked quite pale.

“Yeah!” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’m here to see Alexander. He invited me.”

“Oh… Did he?” Kitty said, her voice quivering.

“Are you looking for our lovely host?” one of Kitty’s friends asked. “He’s in there.” She pointed to the front door.

“Okay, thanks,” Eliza said. “See you in a bit, Kitty!”

“See you, Eliza…”

Eliza pushed the heavy red door open and the music became louder. It didn’t seem to be in English, but in French. The Washingtons’ other adoptive son, Lafayette, was French, so Eliza figured that he was the deejay currently.

She looked around the dimly lit hallway. Girls laughed too loudly at boys’ jokes. One couple was making out against the wall, nearly knocking a portrait that hung there off the wall. Then she heard his laugh. She heard Alexander Hamilton’s laugh.

She turned, and there he was, talking to John Laurens, who was clutching a can of soda and laughing too hard at Alexander’s jokes.

I’ll just say hello…

Eliza crossed the floor until she was standing in front of the two boys.

Alexander looked surprised to see her. “Eliza,” he said.

Her name had never sounded so beautiful.

“I wasn’t going to come, but then I got your sweet note, and I just had to.” She smiled at Alexander.

“What? I didn’t write you a note…”

“What?” Eliza felt something shatter inside of her. She wanted to run, but she was cemented in place.

“Why would he write you a note?” One of the popular girls Kitty was friends with said from behind Eliza. “You’re a nobody!”

Eliza wanted to melt into a puddle. She wanted to seep through the floorboards. She wanted to be anywhere but there.

“Eliza––” Alexander said, reaching out to grab her arm, but Eliza flinched away.

Before she knew what was happening, she’d raced out of the house and down the Washingtons’ driveway. She’d also pulled out her phone and speed dialed Angie on the way.

“Hello?”

“Come get me. Please.”

“Eliza? You just got there––”

“Angie, please,” she said with a sob. “You were right. You were right.”

“Oh, Eliza. I’m coming right now. Stay where you are.” Angie hung up.

Eliza wrapped her arms around her torso, suddenly so cold. She prayed the darkness of night obscured her from the view of anyone still on the porch.

Suddenly, there was the sound of someone running across the gravel. The sound stopped behind her.

“Eliza?”

Alexander.

“Eliza, I’m so sorry.”

Alexander appeared in front of her. He looked distraught, and quite disheveled. She loved his disheveled brown hair. He usually wore it in a ponytail or bun, but tonight it was down and messed up from running. It was adorable.

“I didn’t know,” he said quickly. “I had no idea those girls had… Been so cruel.”

Eliza looked down at her flats and pushed around a piece of gravel with the toe of her shoe. “It’s fine. It was stupid, anyway. I don’t know why I believed it.”

“Kitty told me what it said. She said the other girls had put her up to it.”

Kitty did it. She really betrayed me like this.

“Let’s just forget it.” Eliza waved a hand dismissively and went to turn away from Alexander, but his hand landed on her shoulder, freezing her in place.

“I may not have written it, but the sentiment is true.”

Eliza was really frozen now.

“I do miss us being friends. And I’m really happy you came tonight. I don’t want you to go.”

Eliza had no idea what to say, so the first thing she thought of just tumbled out of her mouth. “I already called my sister.”

“Angelica?”

Eliza turned to face Alexander again, his hand falling away from her shoulder in the process. She missed the contact already.

“Yeah.”

“Well, tell her she can stay. I’d love to hang out with you both.” The smile on his face seemed genuine…

Before Eliza could respond, a car pulled up beside her. Angie rolled down the window.

“Leave my sister alone, Hamilton,” she practically growled.  

The back window rolled down and Peggy’s face appeared. “Yeah, or you’ll face our wrath!”

“It’s all be a huge misunderstanding,” Alexander said, holding his hands up. “I was just telling Eliza I really want her to stay, and that I would love it if both of you could stay, as well.”

Angie and Peggy turned to Eliza. They were going to let her make the decision.

Eliza shrugged. “Why not?”

Alexander pumped his fist in the air. “Sweet! Come on in, I’ll introduce you to my friends.”

Eliza smiled. “Okay,” she said softly.

Angie parked the car. She and Peggy walked on either side of Eliza as they headed back toward the house. Eliza felt like she had her own security detail.

“Oh, and Kitty and those girls are gone,” Alexander said. “I kicked ‘em out.”

“But they’re popular!” Peggy said, her eyes wide.

Alexander shrugged, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Yeah, but they messed with one of my friends.” He looked directly at Eliza. “Nobody does that.”

Eliza couldn’t help the smile that overtook her face. Maybe the night wasn’t ruined, after all…  

[mamepwrites]

Ebb and Flow

Below is a short story I wrote for a creative writing class last year. Inspired in part by southern gothic/film noir.

(This has since been rewritten and expanded.)

Ebb and Flow, by Mesba Bhuiya

The sun was too goddamn hot today. I could’ve sworn the surface of the bayou was boiling with the way it steamed, or something like that. I’m no weatherman.

“You there yet?” buzzed the radio.

“Just about, chief,” I said back. “I’ll be done soon enough.”

“Way out there in the middle of hicksville nowhere. Watch out for the river.”

The worst had passed, but would come again: the fens upriver kept reaching for the road, like tendrils. Every glance I got of them made the hair on my neck stand on end. Along with that, the drive was a good forty minutes already. I couldn’t take the 333 here, not on this side of the river. And the dirt roads down here were nameless. No signs, no nothing. I should have been used to this by now.

I saw a man in the distance, wearing a red cap and a plaid shirt which bursted open from his pot belly as he ran out of his house, flagging me down.

“You came, sheriff,” he said, breathless.

“I’m not the sheriff, just Deputy Serrafib. Are you Mr. Fora–Foret, was it?”

“Foret. Bill Foret.” The T wasn’t silent, I thought, making the correction on my index card. We went inside his home.

“I was told you called about a missing child. Is that right?”

“Missing? He might as well be...My boy, yeah. Mason’s been gone since yesterday, around the afternoon. Shit, he took my car too.” He lowered to a mumble. “I’mma beat his ass when I find him.”

“Now, Mr. Foret, why’d you call us directly? 911 is fine for missing persons.”

“I did. Twice. Something must have been wrong with the line, or they hung up. I went to Beth Dufrene down the road to try again, but she said I should call you, that the folks up in Esther don’t do jack for us.”

Someone down the road, in this phantom town. I shifted slightly, peeking behind Bill’s head. The heat of the zenith covered the rest of the “town” in a highway mirage, but I knew what those huts were. Drug dens. A dark mist began to cover my eyes and the huts. I shook it out.

“Did you see which way he took the car, sir?”

“He went thataway,” he said, pointing behind me. Figured the dens could be ruled out. Thank God.

“Well, it’s a hell of the trip from Abbeville to here, Mr. Foret. Can you tell me about your son?”

Bill gestured to the stairs, and we walked. “It’s not the first time he’s taken off in my car, I can tell you that. But he’d always come back by midnight.”

“I mean physical details, sir.”

“Oh. Well he’s tall for his age, over six feet now. What was he again, seventeen, nineteen?”

I gave him a blank stare at the turn of the staircase.

“Nineteen,” he said. “His hair’s like sand, and on his arm he’s got a tattoo of...Sky—of...well...”

“A tattoo of what, Mr. Foret?”

“A tattoo of a woman, deputy. Curly blonde with a small nose, head in the clouds.”

***

“Come on, you can go—un—slower, sha. I wanna enjoy this too.”

“Shut your mouth.” I pushed. I wasn’t here to enjoy things, though her bouncing curls were fun to watch. But I thought of the tendrils again. So I closed my eyes and pushed.

I threw the rubber in the trash, where the others were. Lying back on the bed, I lit a joe while she grabbed me with a bit of spit, pulling up and down.

“How come we never talk no more, Tony? You always had so many things to say to me about your cases, Mr. Poe Leese.”

I glanced at her from the side of my eye.

“You ain’t ploughing me no more, least you can do is speak.” She pulled harder.

“Alright, alright.” I gave her a few cigs. The place already smelled like rot and cancer anyway. “You know anything about a Mason Foret? Tall, sandy hair. He come to you?”

“Oh, he comes to me every weekend,” she said, chuckling. “He’s a big guy.” She squeezed at the top.

“Cut the shit, Skylar.”

“I’m serious! Every Saturday at nine o’clock.” She giggled. “Oh, the whispers he gives in my ear...Say, what’s your time this week? Six minutes? You could learn a thing or two from him about technique. He tips well, too. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he loves me.”

“That don’t sound like love, Skylar. I’m here every Sunday and you don’t hear me whispering jack to you.”

“Well you should. A lady like me wants more...worthwhile friends. Ones who can reciprocate.” She moved my hand over her breast and made me squeeze and play with the nipple.

“Skylar.”

“Fine then.” She dropped my hand, but kept pulling with her other. I felt like I was going to burst.

“What can you tell me about Mason?”

“Well, he came here last night with his boys. He’s been bringing his camera a lot lately. It’s the instant kind, he’s a bit old fashioned. Sometimes I don’t know whether he’s paying more attention to me or the viewfinder.”

“Do you study photography or something? Whatever, Skylar, his room’s covered in your pictures.”

“As a matter of fact, I majored in pho—hold on, did you say covered?”

“The kid’s dad went batshit when he first saw it. So he said.”

“For real, Tony? I was just joking, I didn’t think he was that obsessed…”

“That, and missing. We’ve got patrols going around for him, posters  and all. Have you any idea where he is?”

“Hmm...before his boys left him last night, he said something about some junkyard...in New Iberia, I think. They were gonna shoot up or smoke. I don’t know.”

I swung my legs off the bed and pulled my pants up. There was difficulty in buckling the belt, so I let her finish me off and clean up.

“You stay safe, now,” she said. “He’s a rowdy one.”

“It’s not like I’m mowing his lawn.” I scoffed. “Before I go, how much was it for the Percocet?”

“For you? Ten a pop.”

***

Now, New Iberia was out of the Vermilion Parish, and so it was outside of my jurisdiction, but I checked it anyway. Going plainclothes saved me trouble, since sheriffs around here had a nasty tendency to get pissy about their territory, and my boss up in Abbeville was no exception. Yet here at the junkyard, it felt like no man’s land. By the time I came closer to the bonfires, already I saw three people tussling, with rusted knives, brass knuckles, and whatever else they scrounge up from the trash heaps. A tire was thrown somewhere. The only law enforcement here was whoever was still standing by the end of it.

The shadow of the bonfire crawled along the ground, entangling those teens laying limp on the ground with vomit crusting at their cheeks. For a moment the fire went dim and damp like a shrouded sun, and all I saw were the kids floating on the surface of the junkyard. All I could think to do was finger my gun, but step by step I made it out. Mason Foret was not here.

It’d been a few days since the kid’s dad called, and with all of my other leads snapped from the strings they hung from, I made the drive back the next day, and in uniform again. I still hated these goddamn fens. I should never have come to Louisiana.

The Forets’ front door was wide open, creaking in the wind. The house was otherwise quiet. Rain was about to fall soon. I drew my M1911 and went in. The house was dead as a dodo, and so was Bill Foret. Body at least two days old, leaking everywhere. Bled out from his gut and groin, long dried. Weapon missing. The kid’s room was now devoid of all features except for one.

COME FIND ME

It didn’t smell like paint. The red was dry on the wall, mostly covering up the spots where Skylar’s pictures once were, but you could still see some of the dust lines. The window was wide open, and through it I saw the huts in the distance, stealing my eyes. I radioed the chief for backup and drove off, deeper into the shades of this once-town. Deeper into the mist’s maw.

Ruins of old homes hit by years of storms dotted this edge of land, and in them were the dregs of the parish. I should have checked here sooner. The gun quavered in my hand just as the the black mist’s writhing fingertips probed my skull. Trigger control, trigger control. Behind the door was a wide room where the air felt...cracked, disjointed. Teenagers lay on one side of the room with crusted vomit on their mouths and eyes wobbling, trying to lock onto me. Middle-aged men lay on the other side, sprawled out wide, clothes stained black. Some even had skin falling off. They were all floating on the surface like a mass fish death. There was another room to the side, its wood splitting and salt-worn. I heard bated laughing.

“Hands behind your head!” Finger off the trigger.

He splashed in the depth of his polaroids, faded blue.

“I said hands behind your head, now!”

“Oh, Tony...Tony!” You’re the cop that’s been haunting me?” He shook his sandy hair back into the pile of photos. “Well I’ve been hunting you, but honest to God am I surprised it’s you. All I could get from Skylar was that it was a cop. She wouldn’t tell me your name.” He grasped the knife at his side, bloodied back.

“Mason, let go of the knife.”

“Alright. Alright. You just answer me one thing, Tony. One thing.”

I said nothing.

“Why’d you dirty her like that, Tony?” His voice scratched. “She’s my woman!” He started crawling, clawing at the floor with his cracking fingernails to pull himself forward. The black tendrils came slithering behind him.

“You stay the fuck back, boy!” I heard sirens in the distance.

“I’ll gut you and paint the walls with you, Tony. All the others did it with her once, maybe a few times. You and me, though?” He shook his head. “No way I’m letting you leave.” He grasped his knife again. I heard rumbling in the other room, but the bodies were still. My vision became muddled. Mason reached across the waters made up of the woman, pulling himself closer and closer to my feet. His eyes looked bulging and bulbous, and his skin scaly and pasty.  He grabbed the knife again, sticking it in the floorboards to pull on. The rusty thing broke and cut his face.

“You won’t take me from my Sky, nor my Sky from me.”

He kept screaming that as we dragged him out, handcuffed and wriggling.

“You doing okay there, Serrafib?” the sheriff said, arriving shortly after. I was on the threshold of the deep, with its dark arms reaching and pulling for me.

Ebb and flow.

Thousands of fish lay dead on the water.