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Where the fuck did this come from? I don't know. I've never done a story quite like it, and I suppose I wanted to experiment. Forgive me if it's rough, but I at least had a lot of fun making it. There's a great feeling of accomplishment when you try something new.

I should be getting the book back from the editor come tomorrow. Let's hope it's full of great things.


"Clarissa? Clarissa? For the love of God, answer me!"

Silence. His eyes creeped up to the clock, its thin arms stretched to one and thirty, exactly. He had called out her name for that last half hour, only to have deafening silence be his answer. He felt a cold sweat run down his back. She knew how important this was. If they were just a minute off...

Where could she be?

The old man's bones creaked as he finally rose from his plush chair. Every step was pain, but desperation made it bearable. He would have to suffer it if he was to survive the night. He stumbled across the creaking floorboards, leaving the safety of the firelight.

The big house swallowed him up. The groan of the floor echoed through the home, twisting the whines into something worse. A shudder ran up his spine, and his steps quickened. That sort of reflection would only drive him mad. He moved from room to room, inspecting the curtains that concealed the windows, a single candle providing a sad little glow in the middle of each. Every room was blissfully the same.

Until he reached the kitchen. It was there that everything was all wrong. The curtains were drawn and the candle snuffed, covering the room in the full moon's ghostly light. The floor and countertops shone, strange, ethereal, making his heart hurt with their eerie beauty. The old man rushed to the window, clasping the cloth. He knew that he shouldn't look outside, that whatever he saw would only haunt him. Yet curiosity overcame the man before he could close the curtains, and he raised his eyes out on the yard. It was there that he finally found Clarissa, bathed in the moonlight.

She had died screaming, that much was obvious. Who wouldn't have, with their limbs plucked away one by one, like a child might the wings of a fly? It hadn't been merciful enough to stop at her limbs, though, no, such mercy didn't exist in such a creature. A wicked cut rose from her navel and settled between her breasts, a vivisection worthy of Mandela. She was allowed to bleed out as she leaned against the oak, beside the swing she played on as a child. He remembered her laughter. Now all he could imagine were her whimpers. A moan rose from the old man's lips, but no tears followed. Sights like these had dried up all his tears years ago.

"Clarissa," he whispered. "Why didn't you come and get me? You of all people knew...!" But there was no use. No amount of chiding could change the present. There was nothing he could do for her now. The light had long since faded from her brown eyes. She was his last grandchild, and now she was dead.

The old man pulled the curtains shut.

Then he sped to his office. In it was the safe, and in that, was the key to his survival. All he had to do was open it, and he would survive another night. Everyone was gone, and it hurt, but at least he could continue. Throughout the years the old man had seen people come and people go; it was the rhythm of life. It was only in the last thirteen that they began to exit with alarming frequency. They first was his wife, Elaine, taken by a merciful God as part of some great plan, the priest had reassured him.

The Lord's attention quickly grew to be less than kind. Tragic drownings, sudden car crashes, raging house fires, they all began to consume friend and family, one by one. He had watched old associates perish, children pass, and even his beloved grandchildren die. With each death, the next became worse, until it had escalated to the violence beside the old oak tree. It didn't take long for the old man to see the deaths for what they really were.

Revenge. The old man had done things best left unmentioned, dealt with things that he shouldn't have, and he was paying the ultimate price. It was not his soul that he had sacrificed, but his happiness. The thing out there had kept him alive all of these years not out of kindness, or foolishness, but a fiendish understanding of loneliness. They died, the old man lived, and he came to regret every year increasingly. Surprisingly, he still wanted to live. As much as he might hate life, the old man couldn't part from it. He knew misery was on this side of life, but the unknown scared him even more. He clung to life like a child clings to their mother, uncomprehendingly but fiercely. It had spared him until now. But that was when Clarissa was alive. He was now all alone.

He would be next.

The old man froze in his flight. The floorboards creaked, but not by his feet; those groans came from behind. They whined and winced, the slow, methodical steps of the victor. It had gotten into the house. All the precautions, the wards, his painstaking efforts, they had been for naught. It was in, and he was old, and he would die.

"No! Not yet! You won't get me yet, you bastard!" he screamed. He cursed his legs, and he cursed his age, and he cursed the arthritis that had plagued him for years. He cursed them all, and drew power from the curses. His pace quickened, and his body flung for the office. The creature was far behind when he twisted the office door open.

Here, too, a candle flickered, the faint light suggesting terrible things. Faces grimaced from the walls, and strange shapes occupied his desk. All seemed to twist with every flicker of the flame. He didn't fear them for they were familiar, trophies and treasures of an inglorious past. They had served him well and others ill, but he found no succor in them that night. Only the glint of the metal safe provided any hope. Only its contents promised safety.

The old man bent, his knees shuddering and his back aching. His fingers shook wildly as they settled on the combination lock, the insidious child of age and fear. As the house groaned, his hand only shook harder. He twisted and turned, a little too far here, a little too short there, the mind willing, but the body rebellious. The steps only grew closer, and his mind only screamed louder.

"Damn you, work!" he screamed. For once, his body listened. 23 clicked without a problem. 5 snapped shortly thereafter. 18 followed, with the safe letting out its characteristic groan. The old man's heart leapt. He was safe. He had made it in time. All he had to do was reach into the safe, and everything would be fine.

Except the footsteps had stopped. In his haste, he hadn't realized they had ceased long before he had opened the safe. Only now did he realize his blunder. Only now did he realize his fate. Only now could he feel the cold breath blowing down his neck and the large form hovering over his back. A hand, long, thin, and terrible settled on his shoulder. Its touch was light, but its weight heavy. It carried with it the weight of a life.

"You were the first," he whispered, his voice trembling.

"And you're next," it replied.

It was right.