Grey, cold light; some of the time. Other times it's black. Always cold. I can't get used to it. Disrupts my sleep. I don't even know how long I sleep for; minutes, hours, days. It all blurs, after a while. Day, night, day. All seems the same. Doesn't matter, anyway. Don't know how long I've been here. Need to eat. Need to drink. They won't let me. I can't understand it, but I'm confused a lot of the time. It's the light that does it, that and the lack of sleep. Need to sleep. I'm cold. I'm hungry.

There have been others here before me. I can tell from the walls. Scratched and scrawled onto the surface. Names, dates, obscenities, drawings. Rough concrete walls - what did they use to carve into the concrete? What did they use as ink? Fingernails worn down to the quick. Bloody hands scrabbling. Were they like me, stripped and beaten before being thrown in here? Think. Remember. The only thing I can do but it is a torment. The light makes thinking difficult. The cold makes thinking difficult. It shouldn't bother me, but it does. It does. Light, dark. Cold.

I count my teeth. Some are missing. I run my tongue over holes in my gums. I'm naked. Pale flesh. Bruised. Blood on skin looks black in this sick, ugly light. Who took my teeth? Try to remember. My mouth forced open. Someone holding pliers. Others hold my head steady. Hideous sound of metal scraping on enamel. A single bulb casts ferocious shadows. My throat raw from screaming. No more. Stop.

They put me here. The room is big enough to lie down in but little more. There is no furniture, no toilet. Damp, unlit. There is a small, barred window in the door. Sometimes there are voices from outside. Faces at the bars. Taunting. I ignore them, as the grey light fades to black and the chill seeps into my bones. Someone screams crude insults. Someone spits in my bloodied face. Others just look.

I will never face a trial. The only jury I will ever see were the ones that captured me. Circumstance does not matter to them. I am guilty, because of what I am. Condemned. There can be only one sentence. No reprieve. No mercy. Soon they will take me into that filthy grey light, and put an end to me.

I was careless, confident and lazy after decades of safety; and they were careful. Their pursuit took years and crossed continents without my noticing. I was sleeping when they took me. No chance, outnumbered, leather across my face. Blindfolded. Gagged. Trussed. Fists and boots jarring my body, digging into my bones. Brought to this cell. How long ago? I don't know. It is dark now and I cannot sleep. I must sleep, I must eat. I am so cold, I am so weak. I am so afraid.

White flesh in the cold dark. Gaps where teeth should sit. Bloodied and bruised. I wait. I remember.

A locked room. Brilliant light, painted in blood; decorated with ribboned flesh. Dead children. Unheard. No mercy, no reprieve. Incisors piercing flesh, a glut of hot red in my throat. Feeding. Sleeping in a torpor when they came for me. Drunk on the blood of innocents. Undead, they called me; Monster. Vampire. Across centuries, they followed. I became a legend; a rumour. A story to frighten children. Thought myself safe, hidden by time, forgotten. Bound like a common felon and delivered to this cell.

They pulled my teeth and nails, and left me here. I wish they would hurry. Thirst is agony beyond endurance. Hunger forces me to the wet floor. Light does not harm me, but muddles my thoughts. Must feed. Sleep becomes fitful and broken. Skin is almost translucent. I am sure days pass, but have no way of knowing. I am so cold.

Now: another voice from behind the bars. For my crimes, it whispers, I will not face the stake, or the blade, or the pyre. For my crimes I will not be permitted the release of a swift end. It tells me all I will ever know is this cell. They will watch me rot. I will endure the remainder of my time on earth as an exhibit, starving and broken. My suffering will be legendary. How long, without blood? Without sleep?

Monster. Vampire. There is a mocking laugh. Then silence.

And although my throat is raw, and my lips glued with dried blood, I find the strength to scream.

The blade felt cool against Sean’s palm. His elbows were at his sides, his hands level with the bottom of his ribcage. His wrists rested on the edge of the oak dining table and he slid the steak knife back and forth across his palm. He did not break the skin.

He imagined his veins, blood dancing through them, traveling endlessly throughout his body.
He imagined how her blood would feel,
Running through his fingertips,
Cold and dark and real.

His lips curved slowly into cruel, secret smile. He ran his tongue across his teeth, feeling the enamel on his bones and wondering how in the world he could bury her body. He wanted her grave to be beautiful, just as she had been, just as how he wanted to remember her. He wanted to walk by and remember what it felt to touch her skin, and how it felt to break it.

“Sean!”

His head snapped up. Across the table, Natalie furrowed her brows, as she always did when he worried her.

He was the real Sean once more.

“Sean, are you okay?” Her voice quavered just a bit, but she worked hard to pretend that it hadn’t.

Sean swallowed. He set the knife onto his dinner plate, his food left untouched. He habitually blinked, squeezing his eyes together much longer than necessary, opening them, squeezing once more. He leaned forward, setting his left elbow on the table and his face in his hand and smiled an entirely different smile. This one took up his whole face, and his eyes wrinkled as they’re supposed to.

Natalie looked stunning, sitting with her knife and fork poised mid-cut, the soft light making her face glow. Her eyes were concerned, but this concern fled from them as soon as Sean said, “Yeah. Just a little tired is all.”

He rose, stretching.

“Aren’t you going to eat? You could use some meat on your bones, Scrawny,” Natalie teased quietly, still unsure of which Sean would reply to her.

Sean turned and glared at her, as if she’d asked of him the impossible. His eyes darkened, he inhaled deeply. He felt the same hatred flare inside of him, much the way he’d felt when Delilah was with him.

She bit her lip.

He blinked again, and when he exhaled he relaxed, and his eyes returned to their cool blue.

“I know, I know. I could use some fattening up. But maybe you could save it for later? I’ll eat it for lunch or something,” he said and walked into the hallway, rubbing her shoulder as he passed. She forced a smile, and upheld herself until she heard the soft click of their bedroom door closing. Then her strength dissolved.

She slammed her elbows into the table and rested her face in her hands, fighting back tears. Breathe in, breathe out. Her ring felt heavy, a constant truth. She couldn’t remember if she’d seen the “other Sean” for the first time before or after they’d married. She liked forgetting. She busied herself, no longer hungry. She picked up their plates, bringing them into their small kitchen and sliding the meat into little blue Tupperware boxes. Little blue prisons.

She filled one sink with water and dish soap, and collected the remaining dishes and silverware from the table. She stared into the swirling soap, bits of food floating like planets in some twisted universe where bubbles were stars. The water turned slowly, an unseen current twirling it, the Milky Way in her sink. She wanted to fall into it, to breathe air from a separate world.

The grandfather clock in the living room bellowed out 9 o’clock, and she jumped. Only a couple dishes were done, the water had become cold. She was in the middle of cleaning the same butcher knife that she’d been cleaning for an hour now. When the last clang died away, she snuck into bed. Sean was asleep. She climbed into bed next to him, pressing her face into his back. When she moved to wrap her arms around him, she realized with a shock that the knife was still in her hand. She quickly held her hand behind her back as he rolled over, kissed her forehead and whispered, “I love you”. Then he turned over and fell asleep. She knew what he had done. She’d heard on the news about a blond young girl coming up missing and last being seen with a man fitting his description. She’d found her bloodstained clothing two days later, shoved into the trunk of his car. She fumbled in the dark, wrapping her fingers around the knife.

“I love you too,” she said honestly to his shoulders. Then she drove the knife into his back, tears waterfalling down her cheeks and a sob rising in her chest. He groaned, tensed, and slipped away.

She was finally free.

Her bare little feet padded along the sunlit squares on the floor to the bay window. She peeked through the slit of the curtains, gazing at the world outside.

A clatter coming from the kitchen made her turn her head. She bit her lip and shuddered; sounds from another kitchen flashed in her mind.

Now it's broken. In many little pieces. I'll pick them up for you, mommy. Look, here's one.

Mommy was always mad at me.

She rubbed the tears off her face. Mrs. Dee was scolding herself in the kitchen. "Butterfingers! Now my gravy is spoiled." The girl tiptoed along the corridor and leaned on the door, watching Mrs. Dee slicing apples.

"Evelyn!"

The woman paused, and smiled at her. This lovely ten-year-old in jeans and a pink shirt was not the same child she had nursed the year before. No welts on her body, no bleeding. Doctor Merrick welcomed the idea of her staying with Mrs. Denver for the weekends, away from the clinic; it would be a step forward on her therapy. Evelyn enjoyed being there as much as Mrs. Denver delighted in having a child around the house again. But the girl never smiled.

"Have you had your bath? Of course you have, your hair is wet."

"What is it?"

"John's favorite," the woman replied, stirring the slow-boiling gravy. "JP, he calls himself now. My youngest is all grown up. He's coming for dinner, remember? And I'm late as it is."

"I can help."

"Thank you, dear! You can set the table for me. The embroidered tablecloth is in the closet. "

The girl gripped her shoulders as she walked away.

Not in there, I can't breathe!

He saved me from the closet once. He was fond of me. He said he was. My new stepfather. Then why did he follow me around?

A key turned in the door lock, and a tall young man burst in.

"Mrs. Denver?" he shouted. "I'm home!"

Evelyn tried to blend with the shadows. The young man strode to the kitchen, glancing at the table with an appreciative murmur: "Nicely done, mom!"

Excited voices filled the house. Evelyn went to her room, and rummaged the backpack for the blue bunny she always carried with her. She hugged her treasure tightly.

I'm safe with Mrs. Dee. I know I am.

"You're staying for just two weeks?" Mrs. Dee was saying as they passed with the serving dishes. "Oh well, I can't expect much more now. Evelyn, dinner is ready!"

The girl shuffled along behind them, and sat at the table with Mr. Bunny on her lap. JP was facing her, grinning.

"So, you're Evelyn", he said. "Nice to meet you. Can I call you Lyn? For short."

The girl turned pale, her eyes fixed on her plate.

Lyn, he said. His pretty Lyn. And he grinned at me in a strange way. Even at table.

Mrs. Dee thought it was better to change the subject. "Well, how do you find my gravy?"

"It's your best, mom! What do you say, Evelyn?"

"Great," she whispered, pushing her plate slowly away.

How can you sit there, Mrs. Dee, when he's looking at me that way?

You're pretty. You're asking for it.

"May I be excused?" she gasped.

"Yes, dear. I'll bring you your dinner later."

Evelyn darted away.

"Poor girl," JP said to his mother.

"She's very troubled. She'll be in her room, I expect. Your sister's old room. Eat your dinner."

I don't want to be pretty. Never.

In the bathroom, washing her face, she forced herself to look at the mirror.

Never. My heart is running so fast now. Scissors. Where?

She opened a drawer, then another, and the scissors glinted. She grasped them with an unsteady hand and feverishly started cutting her hair. She cropped it as much as she could.

A man's startled eyes materialized in the mirror behind her.

Oh, no! I forgot to close the door!

"What the— You look a mess!"

Now he's here to pry. He's going to touch me.

"Calm down. Come to think of it, you could still be pretty with a boy's haircut. Give me the scissors."

JP held out his hand. The girl was sobbing, quivering, looking at the mirror with fright and anger.

"I know how to do it. My big sister taught me," he said in a soft, tender voice. "It will be our secret."

He had his heart over his shirt, and it was thumping.

I wanted to run, but I was asleep, so I couldn't. I called out, but I had no voice. He—

Evelyn turned around. JP was still smiling when she thrusted the scissors into his stomach.

He looked down at the blood as if it were not his own.

Annie Smith stared down the barrel of a revolver. She reached into her pockets and pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and blew a puff of smoke into the gunman’s face.
‘What ya waiting fa?” She asked “Just go ‘head and do it already”.
The finger holding the trigger twitched.
“Christmas is comin and I aint done no shopping yet”.
The trespasser gave her a smirk and pulled the trigger. The gun and lights went off simultaneously.
He listened, waiting to hear the thump of a dead body or the sound of breaking bones and ripping flesh.
Silence.

The lights flickered back on for a moment, casting the room in a reddish haze. In front of him, there was nothing. He could feel hot air on the back of his neck, pulsing, breathing. He turned around, the lights flickered on again but there was nothing there except a blank wall. A low growl sounded behind him. A wet prickly object ran up the back of his neck to his ear. It moved inside, twisted and twirled slowly, seductively. The lights turned on. There was nothing there but a new shape had appeared in the room’s lower-left corner, a box of some sort. Lights off.
The sweat began to trickle down his neck as a soft voice broke the silence.
“What ya waiting fa?”
The box was back, now floating. He blinked his eyes to be sure. There it was, two feet above the tiled floor. It seemed to be gray and made of stone. A coffin. He squinted to read the name engraved into its stony exterior.
“Adam Lang” The voice answered.
The coffin, his coffin, disappeared with the rest of the room.
Silence and darkness.

A small speck of light appeared. It flickered in the wind. Candlelight. The candle moved from side to side before making its way towards him. He tried to run but found he couldn’t. As it approached him, the light flickered, revealing a set of eyes behind them. No pupils. No irides. Nothing but white. The candlelight disappeared and Adam shuddered. Suddenly the room got immensely hot and he found himself gasping for air. The lights came on. The room was ablaze.
He screamed for only the second time in his career as an assassin.
The lights flickered off and Adam felt the heat die down. Two smaller flames were all that were left, more candlelight, but this time the light was coming from opposite sides of the room.
They moved around, keeping to the walls. Adam could tell because every time they floated past a wall a picture was lit up. These pictures were torture-themed, a man with half his face being torn off, a woman slowly being impaled from the bottom-half up. To add to the horror they were melting. The mans half torn features were dripping down the wall onto the floor below, his mouth distorted into a terrible scream. Adam knew he had to get out of there. He had to get back to his employer and demand to know why they labelled Annie an ‘Easy Target’. But where was the door? As if to answer his question it was suddenly light again. The small wooden door was on his right. He ran towards it but as he got closer, the door moved further away. He quickened his pace, desperately trying to reach the place he knew he could never get to. He stopped when he saw the walls were changing. Lines were appearing on every side, letters, words. In blood-red writing surrounding him, was the phrase.
“What ya waiting fa?”

Adam began to cry.
“Hush darling it will all be over soon”.
He span around and found himself facing a large mirror. He did not recognize the man before him. His left cheek was lower than his right. A long tear ran from his eye to his chin, except it wasn’t a tear it was his eye. His nose looked like it had been smashed in and blood was trickling down from the right nostril, half his left ear was missing.
A shadowy figure materialised in the mirror behind him.
Lights off.
Adam ran a hand over his head and face. Smooth. Ear still intact.
He remembered the gun in his right hand. Had it been there the whole time?
He span it once round his finger and put pressure on the trigger.
It was time for battle.

The lights came on and Annie was nowhere to be found. A noise from the roof drew Adam’s eyes up. There, hands and legs gripping the corner of the walls was Annie. Her mouth was open revealing sets of sharp, pointed teeth. She had pure white eyes and two slits for nostrils.
They stared at each for a moment.
Annie leapt. Adam aimed.

Lights out.

Sarah sighed when she opened the door to the tiny desert café. It was the exactly the same as yesterday, the day before, and all of the days before that. Ace was sitting in his usual seat, the first table facing the door. He looked at her with faked surprise and said, “Sarah! I thought you were off today.” Resisting the temptation to roll her eyes, Sarah said, “It’s Tuesday, I work the lunch shift every Tuesday, maybe next week you won’t be surprised to see me.”

Sarah saw Joe at the lunch counter, like always. Joe was a fixture at the café. He was a man of few words and became fiercely annoyed if his beer started to reach empty. She looked towards the back of the cafe and spotted Martin and Leo, the terrible twosome, leaning over one of the tables carving who knows what into the tabletop. Sarah ran them off with a sharp call in their direction threatening to call the police, again. With another deep sigh, she pulled on her apron and started toward the lunch counter. She abruptly changed paths when she saw the café’s cook, Bo. Bo was a strange little man and sent warning shivers straight down Sarah’s spine.

She had just filled Joe’s mug when the café door swung open and Leo heaved in a blood covered, unconscious Martin. She watched, frozen and horrified, as Ace ran to help Leo. When Ace reached the door, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared out the door. He finally snapped out of it when Martin inhaled deeply and started screaming. Ace hissed at Martin to shut up and then he looked at Sarah and said, “I’m going to get my shotgun. Pull the tables to the door to block it.”

As Sarah struggled with moving the furniture, Bo glided from behind the lunch counter with a hungry, almost excited gleam in his eyes and asked Leo, “What happened boy?” Through tears and sobs, Leo recounted the story, "We saw an old man, out in the parking lot. He was walking slow and looked hurt. We thought it would be easy peasy to pick off his wallet. When we got close, he grabbed Martin and by the shoulder. I thought the old goat was falling so I pushed him, but.” Leo paused and his faced twisted with fearful confusion before he finished the story. “The old man, he fell towards Leo and he, he, well, he bit Leo. I stabbed the old man with my blade, but he kept reaching for us. He was mumbling something." Leo’s story broke off and stared into the distance lost in his memory. After a moment, he snapped back into the real word, “Sarah, the old man, he’s out there, he’s still out there!”

The café became desperately silent and still, like a long forgotten crypt. Sarah jumped when Joe slammed his empty glass on the bar and proclaimed his beer was empty. “Get it yourself Joe, there are more important things going on, like surviving” she screamed impatiently. This was not going to be an ordinary day, not at all.

Ace barreled into the café, stood at the open door and fired three shots to the outside. He slammed the door shut, twisted the hand lock and hurriedly started pulling the tables in front of the door, demanding Bo help him. Bo didn’t budge then licked his lips almost seductively and asked Ace, “What it is, what’s out there?”

Ace shook his head in denial and said in a hushed, defeated tone, “Zombies Bo, its like right out of a movie. The walking dead out there and there are hundreds of them.” Bo’s eyes widened with interest and said, “Dead? Are you sure? Maybe they can be killed? Maybe I can kill them?” Before Ace had a chance to respond, Bo was tearing away at the make shift barricade, hungry for his first kill.

The melee that ensued is a broken memory for Sarah. There was screaming, shotgun blasts and blood, lots of blood. Sarah remembers waking up confused and disoriented. She felt disembodied and disgusted by new craving. She wouldn’t say out loud, but she knew she had an impulsive need to taste the flesh of the living.

She looked around the café for something, er, someone, to eat and realized they had all become a member of the same flesh eating guild. Under the miscellany of carnage, the café was quite familiar. Ace was seated in his usual Tuesday seat. Bo was cooking something that at least resembled food. The terrible twosome were sitting at the back table snickering at an untold joke. Joe was sitting on the same barstool at the lunch counter, his hand on his empty beer glass. Sarah sighed, straightened her apron and started her daily rounds, beginning with Joe’s beer, just like always.

Stephen laid in the white hospital room. His side hurt a bit, but he was being well taken care of. He couldn't imagine what he must have done to get his pancreas in that shape. It had literally exploded- and had to be removed. The young daredevil was not the smartest kid out there. He knew the basic laws of gravity, not from anything he heard in school, and he knew how to spin on his head more consecutive times than anyone else. The blond boy called for his nurse yet again. They would tell him, yet again, that he couldn't have his medicine upped anymore and that he was to go home later that evening. He could still bug them though. There was some other patient in the room, but no one had come for him.

Instead of a nurse though. Someone else walked in. This person was strange, and pale. Like Death himself. He had red lips- which looked like they had been bitten- and white eyes. Stephen almost freaked out. He couldn't though. It was dark. He suddenly felt really cold... and sore. He was more sore than he ever had been. He opened his eyes. Some old lady, with pin curled white hair, was holding his hand and kissing it- as she hovered over him and weeped. His wrinkled hand, with an IV in it and huge veins. He was confused. He couldn't move, not by his own will. The man from beside his bed appeared, sliding in unnoticed behind the old woman.

He saw his eyes, or whoever's eyes they were, closing again. No they were open, but he had gone blind. They were painful, prickling.

His breath left him, only leaving him with the feeling of his lungs stuck together, unable to expand as though a large rubber band had wrapped around his chest.

Suddenly there was a loud beeping. His chest convulsed and he spasmed- his body doing it without his consent.

He heard the lady who was hovered over him give a strangled howl of agony, though she surely wasn't in any pain- and the sound of the flat lining machine. “Mark. Mark no. They are on their way.” she said.

The often rude young man almost wished to tell her it would be alright, though he didn't know why. “Joseph and the kids, they are on their way. Please. Mark.” He hear nurses come in, but they didn't come close.

“Ma'am... He signed a DNR. There is nothing we can do now. A doctor will come in and call time of death.” Once more the old woman called out for her Mark.

The body of this dead person was getting colder, not at it's core, but at the toes- and the fingers. He had no muscle control. That meant a great many things were happening. It was good to go numb now, so he didn't have to feel the slight dampness in his sheets.

He couldn't feel his mouth, or taste his own putrid breath now- probably because he wasn't breathing.

He couldn't smell the feces that were in his bed- or feel them.

He could still hear though. Moments passed and the woman continued screaming, crying for her love. He could hear her, horror overtook him. He was panicked, but he couldn't move, or scream- he was trapped. Trapped in a dying body.

Stephen was staring at the man still. He was shaken from his staring by a sound. It was that horrible sound. The flat line. That sound had never bothered him in movies... Not even when rooms over had belted out the same sound. But now, it was bone chilling. Had it been a dream? Hallucination?

The man standing beside his bed smiled, and walked from the room. But he didn't miss the quiet “You're hearing is the last thing to go.” Stephen understood. He had been trapped within a dying body- a body not his own. The body of the man in the bed next to him. Why? To scare him?

One thing was certain. He would never forget what dying felt like. The feel of 'his' body losing each of 'his' five senses in time, 'his' mind becoming slightly more muddled every second, but not so much he could understand the word flying through the air.... The sound of 'his' loved one, crying out for 'him'. And his inability to do anything... anything at all to help them.

Just then, a doctor walked in.

“That man is still alive” he wanted to say to the doctor about to call time of death. “He can hear you.” He wanted to shout. “He is horrified, and dying- but not gone”

He wanted to, but didn't.

“Time of death” The doctor's calm, experienced voice came “Twelve forty-eight PM.”

“Chelsea! Downstairs! Come with Mommy. Come on.”

Chelsea, my seven-year-old golden retriever, obediently, if somewhat reluctantly, padded down the rickety stairs after me.

“Good girl,” I praised as we reached our destination: the only semi-finished part of the dirt cellar-turned-laundry room. The floor under my feet was ancient hard-packed earth; the washer and dryer the only things in the windowless space that stood upon a concrete slab. When I’d first bought my house I’d often wondered why the previous owners had never finished their home improvement project.

Lately I’d stopped wondering.

I hoisted my basket of dirty laundry onto the washing machine in the artificial light and pitched the clothes in as swiftly as I could, adding detergent without bothering to measure it and trying very hard to ignore the crawling sensation between my shoulder blades. As soon as I closed the lid, Chelsea–thinking that my task was finished–bolted to the bottom of the steps, tail tucked between her legs, and gave me a pleading look.

“No, honey, not yet,” I tried to soothe her...as well as myself. Since I was already down there, I quickly opened the empty dryer and tossed in a fabric sheet, circumventing the need to come back down and add fabric softener mid-cycle. This extra, anticipatory step was something I did by habit now, since my box of fabric sheets had picked up the weird knack of disappearing as soon as I was ready to dry the clothes. Next week an electrician was scheduled to install 220V outlets in the only empty corner of my kitchen. Soon I could boycott the cellar entirely by doing laundry upstairs, even as awkward as a washer-dryer set would look in the kitchen of my small country house.

Chelsea suddenly whined, her nose pointed towards a darkened corner of the room that the overly-bright, bare fluorescent bulb was inexplicably refusing to shine upon that day. Other days it was sometimes a different corner left shrouded in shadows. “I’m coming, baby,” I said calmly, approaching the stairs. If I hurry, I’ll panic...then I’ll lose my mind. I reached the bottom of the staircase, lifted my foot to take the first step up, and then Chelsea, completely losing her nerve, shot through my legs, up the steps and out of sight. I raced after her.

Up in the safety of my kitchen I flipped off the cellar light and slammed the door shut behind me, breathing a deep sigh of relief. No creepy noises today at least, thank God. Chelsea, apologetic that she’d wimped out on me, came to rest her head against my still-trembling thighs. She herself was shaking, so I ran my hand down the shiny length of her body, reassuring her by touch that she was still my best girl. In the bright morning light upstairs, our fears of what lay below us should have seemed foolish by contrast...but they didn’t, because they were real.

Two weeks prior, something–not someone but something–had taken up residence in my cellar. And I didn't think it liked me very much.

***

Three hours later, having put it off for as long as I could, I stood before the basement door again. It was time to dry the clothes.

I opened the door, reached a hand out to flip up the light switch, and froze.

The switch was still down, but the cellar light was on. I heard the slither-thump of something unseen shuffling across the dirt below, right before the light winked out again, pitching the stairwell into a black void beneath my feet.

Chelsea was next to me, waiting to begin the descent into the cellar–by now already knowing that I’d ask it of her–and slowly all of her hair stood up on end. She looked like a giant bottle brush. She didn’t growl, she didn’t bark, but it was the sight of her, more than even the unknown horror below, that was enough to convince me to slam the door shut, thoroughly forsaking the wet laundry.

I’d seen Chelsea raise the fur on her neck before in response to strange animals or people that she wasn’t entirely sure about, yet even at her angriest, or her most fearful, I’d never seen every single hair on her body stand straight up in apprehension as it did just then.

Chelsea is faithful, she’s obediant, I love her unconditionally and consider her my family...but I can’t help but to be grateful that whatever she saw was reserved for canine eyes only. I doubt my sanity would have been able to handle it.

That was a year ago. I never found out what was living in the cellar, because I put the house on the market the very next day and moved into a one floor apartment, happy to take my clothes to the Laundromat.

Chelsea, I think, is even happier than I am.

You say you need some space, within a week I’m replaced. You’ve fallen for a girl so deep. You say a distance I must keep but in my mind together we remain. They all tell me I’m insane. A court order separates us by a mile. Keeping boundaries was never my style. Wherever you go there’s a way to trace. Even the in most diminutive town you’ll see my face. All my pain and effort won’t be in vain. My love for you is simply too much to contain. I’ll find and save everything you touch and make a shrine. I’ll take your lock of hair and braid it into mine. I’ll keep calling day and night until the blisters on my dialing finger start to bleed. I’ll fallow you on foot, by car or ten speed. I’ll watch you for hours and you won’t even know it. If incase by now you haven’t guessed, I'm the one who put my panties under the couch cushion where your girlfriend usually sits. Oh, and I'm resending you the last present I sent you, again. There must have been some mistake; I found it when I was going through your trash bin. It’s no trouble really; I have to go to the post office anyway to mail your girlfriend a love letter “you” sent me last week, shell believe it too, I'm getting really good at forging your handwriting. Listen, I know what’s best for you but I have to save you from an immoral life; you’re in a bad situation. I heard you were trying to tell a friend of mine I'm crazy, don’t bother I've already told everyone that you’re a liar and that your perception of reality is a little hazy. You may as well give in because beating your car with a baseball bat was just a warning. If you don’t come back I’ll take your life or mine or both, I don’t feel like mourning. Then we’ll be together forever. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before, man I'm clever! You still love me one day this you’ll realize. Right now you can’t see past that temptress’s lies! What about this girl you like so much? What ever it is I’ll give it to you, just tell me what they are. I’ll send it to you in a pickle jar. I’ll keep her in the basement until I get sick of hearing her scream. The neighbors won’t even suspect that I'm any more than I seem. Oh I’m sorry did you really like that girl? Don’t cry just because her blood has been spilled. I took care of the obstacle, its all okay now. It’s only temporary before you get over her anyhow. Did the judge really think that simple ink on paper would keep our love from ending? Our relationship will be just fine it only needs some mending. It was a tough test our hearts went through I have to say, lets just hope there aren’t any more girls I’ll have to slay. Lets just stop all of this foolishness you know I hate to see you hurt, I know we can make this work. I'm loosing my patience dear, there’s no reason you need to live in fear. No longer from a distance shall I admire. With that evil female out of the way we are free to actualize our true desire. In the darkness I watch you sleep. As I think I start to weep. Suddenly I realize this is entirely your fault! You played us both, that girl died by default. Its finally time you reap what you have sewn. Suddenly I hear something moan. Wait, what’s this? That sound is coming from my own vocal cords. I feel the room spinning, the walls are closing in and when my composure is restored, the whole place looks different what have you added what has changed? The walls are white and padded, I’m in a straight jacket and chained. I hear laughter echoing down the halls. This must be where the angels fall. Everywhere I go the demons are always watching, watching, brain washing. They used to talk all day and night, now they’re nearly out of sight. A year has past; they say I’m much better now I promised to take my pills everyday, to my doctor I made this a vow. Finally after many shocks to the brain they send me out on my own. I have to go now my new boyfriend is on the phone! I don’t need these drugs now I’m all better. Anytime I feel bad I’ll just read my sweethearts love letters! I talked to my lover today, he must have misspoken or maybe it’s a joke, you see, He says he needs space…