Tales from the Boer’s Head

Written by P.H. Boer

Part 1: The Grinning Gallows
May 31st | Western Pennsylvania | Gallows Hill Cemetery | 11:38 PM

The Dodge truck wheezed like a dying smoker as it coughed over gravel, headlights slicing through mist and settling on the twisted iron gate ahead. Gallows Hill, the rust-choked sign proclaimed in pitted letters nearly swallowed by bramble. Beneath it, a second sign, hammered in sideways, hand-painted in red, read:

KEEP OUT – EVEN GOD WON’T GO HERE

Jace threw the truck into park with a lurch and popped out of the driver’s side, boots crunching dead leaves and old bones of beer cans.

“I’m telling you,” he said, gesturing like he was about to narrate a documentary no one asked for, “this is the spot. Real haunted. Real off-the-books. Real deathy.”

Rachel stepped out with arms folded and an expression like she’d bitten into a lemon full of regret. The wind teased her braid, carrying the scent of moss and something older, something damp and coppery beneath the pine.

“This place feels like a knockoff set from a B-tier horror movie,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes at the gate. “Like the kind where everyone dies before the credits.”

“It’s real,” Jace said, swaggering around the truck with the confidence of someone who got a tattoo at a gas station. He pointed toward a mossy angel statue beyond the gate. “Had my first paranormal experience behind that statue.”

“Was it cold?” Caleb deadpanned, slamming the passenger door and shouldering a backpack bulging with beer, a Bluetooth speaker, and enough snack food to power a séance for a week.

“Cold?” Jace grinned. “Bro, the statue’s hand was on my shoulder the whole time.”

“Gross,” Rachel said. “On every level.”

Behind them, Kylie and Lacey climbed out of Caleb’s Civic. Kylie’s pixie-cut hair flashed scarlet in the moonlight as she laughed at something Lacey showed her on her phone. Lacey, pale and fidgeting, clutched a metal water bottle covered in doodles, stars, skulls, mismatched eyes, as if it might protect her from whatever this night might bring.

Jace clapped his hands. “Alright, weirdos. Who’s ready to chat with the damned?”

Kylie blew a bubble with her gum, popped it without flinching. “Only if they’ve got Juul pods and unresolved trauma.”

“Pretty sure that’s all ghosts have,” Jace replied.

Rachel groaned, dragging her boots after them. “We could be watching Deadpool and inhaling popcorn right now. Instead, we’re following the poor man’s Criss Angel into a tetanus factory.”

“You’ll thank me,” Jace said, reaching into the truck bed for an aged wooden box. “When the spirits rise and show you where Grandma hid the good jewelry.”

Inside the box: six squat black candles, a photocopied ritual page smeared with thumbprints and something that might’ve been wax… or blood.

They passed through the gaping iron gate like it might bite back. The hinges shrieked in protest, and the path ahead twisted beneath clawed branches and leaning stones, cracked and bleeding rust-colored moss. The air grew heavy, clinging to their skin like damp wool.

“Smells like a porta-potty full of incense,” Caleb whispered, sniffing the air.

“That’s the ritual blend,” Jace whispered back, reverent. “My own design. Sage. Bone dust. A splash of lemon zest.”

“You made it yourself?” Rachel wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah. Handmade. Artisanal haunting.”

Caleb leaned toward her and stage-whispered, “He sells it on Etsy.”

They reached the clearing a few minutes before midnight, the sky above a black bruise bruising deeper. The cemetery felt wrong here, like the trees were leaning closer. Watching.

Jace could feel it. His skin buzzed. The air pulsed, like the moment before a lightning strike. Something old was waiting beneath the soil, curled tight and listening.

It was almost time.

The clearing stretched roughly thirty feet across, ringed by crooked tombstones and whispering grass. At its center loomed the gallows tree, an enormous, blackened husk of bark with bloated roots clutching the soil like frozen tentacles. A noose still hung from the tallest branch, its rope frayed and stained, swaying faintly though no wind stirred.

Jace set the candles down with theatrical flair, pacing in a slow circle. Dirt shifted underfoot like it didn’t want to be disturbed. His attempt at symmetry was passable, teenage geometry at its finest.

Rachel sighed and knelt to fix the sloppiest placements. “If you summon a demon, at least draw a better circle. This looks like a lopsided potato.”

Jace winked. “Potatoes are sacred in some cultures. And demons love carbs.”

Kylie plopped down beside Lacey and crossed her legs. “Please let this end with a ghost showing me how I die and not Jace showing me his dick.”

“No promises,” Caleb murmured, kneeling beside Rachel with less enthusiasm and more caution. His eyes kept drifting to the tree, to the noose. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were already being watched. That something had noticed them the second the gate groaned open.

Jace stepped into the center of the circle. His hoodie fluttered slightly, though the night air had gone still.

He produced a battered black Bic lighter, covered in whiteout scribbles of arcane symbols, and lit each candle with a flick and muttered breath. They flared to life one by one, flickering not yellow, but a muted orange tinged with the blue of an overexposed flame.

Then the Bluetooth speaker let out a sudden blat of “Spooky Scary Skeletons.”

Everyone jumped.

Jace scrambled and yanked it off, muttering, “Damn shuffle settings…”

A silence fell, deeper than it should have. Even the wind had stopped. The distant hum of highway life, gone. No crickets. No leaves rustling. Just the subtle hiss of the candle flames, and beneath it, a pressure, like the graveyard had taken a breath and was holding it.

Jace cleared his throat and straightened. His voice shifted, going lower, more performative. “What you’re about to witness is a communion with the forgotten dead. Not ghosts, but echoes. Residue. The final fingerprints of lives ended in rope and silence.”

“Wow,” Kylie said. “Did you write that or steal it from a Hot Topic clearance shirt?”

“Wrote it,” Jace said, deadpan. “Also thinking of putting it on a candle label.”

Rachel leaned over to Caleb, her voice low. “He’s so committed to this crap. It’s like watching a goth theater kid try to summon Rent.”

Caleb gave her a tight, distracted smile. He didn’t answer. His eyes were on the flames. They weren’t flickering anymore.

They were… pulsing.

Breathing.

Jace began to speak. The words were jagged, guttural, Latin, maybe. Or something that had been Latin once, before time and decay rewrote it in blood and whispers.

The sound of it scraped its way out of his throat like phlegm made of razors.

Lacey flinched. She hugged her knees tighter. “What language is that?” she whispered.

“Dead,” Jace murmured, eyes still locked on the page.

The candles pulsed again. Once. Twice. With each breath of fire, the circle felt tighter. Smaller. Like the shadows outside were crowding closer.

Then, from the ground, a hum.

Not a sound, exactly. A vibration. Low and deep, like a giant heart far beneath them had just begun to beat.

The dirt grew warm.

The noose creaked.

Rachel looked up, alarmed. “Was that the rope?”

“No wind…” Caleb muttered.

Kylie sat up straighter. “Okay, this is either awesome or a really elaborate prank and I’m gonna throw hands if it’s the latter.”

Then…

Lacey began to cry.

Not from fear. Not yet.

It was deeper, older. A reflex from some marrow memory, like her bones had just recognized the scent of fire. She clutched her knees tightly, eyes wide but unfocused, tears running silent and unblinking down her cheeks.

“Something’s coming,” she whispered. “I think I’ve dreamed this before.”

Kylie tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “Same. Except in mine we were naked. And riding marshmallows shaped like Freud.”

No one laughed.

Jace didn’t hear them.

He didn’t hear anything anymore. Not the trees. Not the breathless air. Not even the candles, whose flames now stood perfectly still, unnatural, frozen like images on a paused screen.

All he could hear was his own breath.

And something breathing with him.

Deeper. Thicker. As if his lungs were echoing through a second set, larger and not entirely human, just behind him.

He read the final line.

The last word fell from his lips like a rotten fruit.

And the candles died.

Not flickered. Not sputtered.

Extinguished. As if pinched shut by invisible fingers.

A silence collapsed over the clearing. Total. Absolute.

Then came the change.

They didn’t see it at first. They smelled it.

The dirt no longer smelled like earth. It smelled like wet teeth. Like raw meat thawed too long in a sealed cooler. Like an old book soaked in milk and forgotten under a bed. Like a dentist’s glove pulled from a mouth that had screamed too long.

Then came the sound. A low, sucking drag, wet, rhythmic. Like breath drawn through a wound.

The noose rope above them twitched.

And split.

But not from the outside.

From within.

The fibers bulged. Cracked. Tore.

Something inside the rope was forcing its way out, swelling like a cyst about to burst.

Rachel took a stumbling step back. “Jace? That’s not part of the show, right? Tell me that’s not part of the damn show.”

Then a finger slipped from the bottom of the rope.

It plopped into the dirt.

Just that.

A finger.

Yellowed. Pale. The nail cracked and rimmed in black, with hair curling from the joint like burnt needles.

Then, with a sick little twitch, another finger dropped beside it.

Everyone froze.

Kylie blinked, squinting. “Is that… wait. Are those fake?”

She stepped closer, half-giggling, though the sound caught in her throat like a splinter. “Okay, seriously, Jace. Did you buy Halloween props off Wish? Because these are garbage.”

Caleb swallowed hard. “Don’t touch it.”

Rachel crouched. “It looks… real.”

Kylie reached down and picked one up.

It bent in her hand, limp and warm.

She dropped it with a strangled noise.

Then came the drip.

From the split rope, a single black droplet stretched and fell, thick as oil, but stickier. It struck the dirt and hissed, the soil fizzing like acid poured over bone.

Another drop.

Then another.

Then a steady stream, like molasses bleeding from an open wound in the sky.

The rope shuddered and spat out more pieces.

A thumb. A strip of scalp. Something like a jawbone, but wrong, jagged, split at the hinge. All of it slid free in slow motion, tumbling into the pooling black liquid below.

Lacey let out a sob.

The ground squelched as the muck expanded, swallowing roots, seeping into the tomb-dry earth. The parts… fingers, bones, hunks of meat, rolled and sank together in a stew of decay and birth.

That’s when the stench hit.

It didn’t smell like death.

It smelled like something trying to remember how to rot.

A scent with no origin, like childhood nightmares steeped in vinegar and ash, like milk turned to sludge in a grave, like honey fermented in a corpse’s throat.

They gagged.

Rachel doubled over, clutching her stomach.

Jace fell to his knees, eyes wide, retching dry.

And in the pit of that stinking, slithering mass, something began to move.

First were ribs, curling up like insect legs, jointed and too long, clicking into a spine that uncoiled with a butcher’s grace. Veins slithered into place. Muscles twitched as they knotted. Flesh surged over them like paint thrown at a canvas.

A chest rose, backwards, it’s lungs inflating not for life, but for ritual.

Then came the head.

No face yet. Just bone, raw and oozing, like something scraped together by memory and hunger. Skin slid over it like wax pulled tight across meat.

The mouth formed first.

It grinned before anything else.

Teeth. Too many.

Too small. Too sharp.

Too wet.

They clicked into place, some rotating like puzzle pieces until they locked.

And finally…

Albert Grin stood.

Hair matted in ropes. Limbs still knitting together. His eyes opened last.

Not white. Not even human.

Just darkness.

Eyes that didn’t reflect light, they ate it.

He didn’t breathe.

He just stood.

Albert Grin, though no one had spoken his name yet, was still slick with the black afterbirth of his making. Bits of soil clung to his skin like memory. Muscle twitched across his limbs in ripples, as if still learning how to hold together.

The grin never moved.

Too many teeth. Tiny razors, set in uneven rows. Some jagged, some filed flat, some still shifting, as though auditioning for a permanent place in his mouth.

His lips were split in places, and yet the smile held.

His eyes, those bottomless pits slick with oil and reflectionless shadow, swept across the circle.

Jace pissed himself.

No one noticed.

Lacey had gone quiet. Her arms hung limp at her sides, fingers twitching slightly, like puppet strings tangled in wind.

Rachel backed away, boots slipping in the slop of soil and candlewax. “Close the circle!” she screamed. “Jace, CLOSE THE…!”

Grin turned toward her.

Not with the fluid grace of a living thing.

His neck cracked halfway through the turn, bone slipping over bone like snapped branches twisting back into place. His body followed in staggered motion, lagging behind the head by a full heartbeat.

Then he opened his mouth.

And from within came a scream…

Not his.

Not even one.

Thousands.

The voices of children.

High, fractured. Some full of laughter twisted into panic, others crying in sharp, endless exhalations. They burst from his throat all at once, a chorus of stolen air, screaming not as speech, but as memory.

Kylie bolted.

She didn’t look back.

Rachel grabbed Caleb’s wrist and tried to drag him after her, but he was locked in place, eyes wide, mouth moving with silent prayer. He shook, but wouldn’t run.

Lacey stepped forward.

One slow foot after another.

Toward the thing in the circle.

“No,” Rachel gasped, her voice breaking. “Lacey… don’t…”

Lacey didn’t answer.

She smiled.

Not like herself.

Not at all.

It was a child’s smile, vacant and soft. Like a mask worn too long, now settled into her skin.

Albert Grin turned to her.

Their eyes met.

Then, in a blink, he was gone.

No puff of smoke.

No flash of fire.

Just gone.

The candles sparked to life in unison, their flames unnaturally tall, licking at the night air like serpents stretching for prey.

The rope overhead fell limp, swinging gently.

The clearing was still again.

Silent.

Lacey turned slowly. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it with the back of her hand and said, voice quiet and calm as tears poured down her cheeks, “It’s done.”

Part 2: Blood and Teeth
June 2nd | Gallows Hill Cemetery | 7:22 AM
Lead Investigator: Detective William Harrow

The early light didn’t reach the clearing.

It tried, weak beams filtering through the skeletal canopy above, but the trees seemed to reject it. The air clung damp and still, thick with morning rot and a low, copper tang that settled on the tongue like old coins.

Detective William Harrow stepped past the police tape with slow, deliberate strides. Each step crunched softly against brittle leaves and upturned soil. The uniformed deputy at his side, Morales, looked like he’d aged ten years in ten minutes.

“They found it about an hour ago,” Morales said quietly. “Hiker with a drone spotted the clearing. Thought it was an art installation until the smell hit.”

Harrow gave a grim nod, one hand resting just above his holster. “How bad is it?”

Morales didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he pulled a pair of gloves from his coat and passed them over. “Bad.”

As they neared the edge of the clearing, the stench changed. It stopped being something the brain could classify, no longer blood, or waste, or decay. It was the scent of inside things made outside, of rituals performed without consent or understanding. The kind of smell that left a film on the soul.

A uniformed officer staggered past them, retching into the trees.

Harrow paused. “Any survivors?”

Morales didn’t meet his gaze. “Sort of.”

That’s when he heard it.

A sound.

Soft. Wet.

A low, methodical rhythm, coming from somewhere deeper in the clearing.

Smack. Tear. Chew. Swallow. Repeat.

It wasn’t hurried.

It wasn’t desperate.

It was content.

Harrow’s breath caught in his throat. “Oh god…”

Morales whispered, “We haven’t approached the tree yet. Not all the way.”

The clearing opened like a stage, and Harrow took in the first layer of the scene. His breath hitched despite himself.

What remained of the teens had been arranged in a circle around a large pit.

Like offerings.

Jace’s body was missing a head entirely. His neck was a torn stump, the spine snapped like brittle chalk. His torso had been folded in on itself like origami made of meat.

Caleb knelt beside him, except his legs were gone from the knee down, and both of his arms had been forced down his own throat. A perfect, grotesque “O” had been carved into his face, as if frozen mid-scream.

Kylie was splayed open from groin to jaw.

Not ripped. Split.

Her body lay with eerie symmetry, as if someone had opened her to study the shape of her insides. Her intestines had been pulled free and wrapped like garland around the low stones at the clearings edge. Her eyes had been left intact, wide, staring upward, glassy with horror.

A fourth figure slumped near the far tree, Rachel. She was unrecognizable except for the sneakers, one still laced neatly, the other missing entirely, the foot beneath twisted backward.

Faces.

So many faces.

Dozens carved into the surrounding tree bark, each grotesquely joyful, exaggerated grins, cheeks split by jagged lines. Human skin, too pale, too fresh, had been stretched across parts of the bark, nailed in place with splinters.

The center of the clearing was something else.

A pit about six feet across and perhaps four feet deep, dug either by hand or by something with a taste for ritual. The soil was soaked black, churning with footprints and claw marks. The stink was unbearable, rot, excrement, copper, and something else.

From deep inside the sound grew louder with each step closer.

A wet, rhythmic slurp, like someone sucking marrow from a cracked-open bone. It started soft, almost innocuous, then built with a slick, bubbling undertone. There was a papery rasp of something dry brushing against something raw, followed by the pop of suction breaking as a chunk was pulled loose.

Then… chewing. But not with teeth. With pressure. A glutinous press and slide, like cartilage being flattened between molars that don’t belong in a human mouth.

And then… worse, a small, contented giggle, gurgling with fluid. Mirth through mucus.

“Hold back,” Harrow murmured, raising a hand.

But Morales was already moving, boots sinking into the blackened soil as he circled wide around the den. The stench thickened, meat, bile, scorched milk, something sweet and spoiled. It clung to the lungs. It whispered up the nose.

At the center of the pit, framed by twisted roots and discarded remains, a figure.

Squatting.

Her back to them.

Naked. Pale beneath the filth. Shoulders hunched, legs folded, elbows resting on something soft. Something pink and ruined.

At first, she made no sound, only the faint, wet motions of her jaw moving up and down. The back of her hair was stiff with blood and matted with dirt, dreadlocks of gore weaving down her spine.

And her belly… that belly… was grotesquely swollen.

Tight as a drum.

“Jesus Christ…” Morales whispered, “…is that…?”

Harrow stepped closer, ignoring the way his boots stuck in the mud.

That’s when Lacey Tompkins turned.

Not startled. Not ashamed. Not afraid.

She looked over her shoulder, slow and deliberate, chin streaked with blood so fresh it still dripped from her jaw.

In her hands…

A severed head.

Or what was left of one.

Most of the face was gone, cheek peeled back like fruit skin, lips gnawed, eyes deflated. Her fingers were buried in its hair for leverage. Strips of skin hung from her mouth like ribbons, stretching as she chewed.

She swallowed.

And smiled.

A childlike smile. Wide and unbothered.

But the teeth, too many.

Arranged wrong. Layered and twitching, like they were still trying to find their places inside her mouth.

Then her eyes met Harrow’s.

Liquid black.

Reflecting nothing.

Consuming everything.

There was no color to them, only motion. The surface of her gaze rippled like ink dropped into water.

Harrow stood at the edge of that pit. Every part of him wanted to step away, to unsee what lay before him. But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

Down in the churned black soil, the girl crouched low, arms draped over her knees, back slick with gore. Her skin glistened beneath the rising sun, pink where blood had dried and split, purple in patches of bruising. Her breath rose in shallow clouds, calm and even. She looked almost peaceful, if you ignored the severed head nestled in her lap.

Harrow had seen horrors before. Fire scenes. River floaters. Gangland ritual slayings. But nothing like this.

The girl turned again.

Her chin was glossy red, her mouth working mechanically. The muscles of her jaw moved with casual precision as she stripped the last remains of flesh from the skull in her hands. Strips of scalp clung to her teeth like wet paper. She swallowed and smiled.

Not at them. Not for them.

Just because.

“Jesus Christ,” one of the uniforms muttered behind him.

Harrow stepped full into the pit.

The soil gave beneath his boots with a sound like breathing through meat. The air here was thicker. Sweet and sour, like spoiled sugar and open wounds. He knelt near her, gloves slick with condensation and something thicker.

She didn’t flinch.

Her eyes followed him, black, reflective, endless.

“You with me?” Harrow asked, his voice steadier than he felt.

The girl blinked. Her pupils rippled. She tilted her head, almost birdlike, and whispered, “Don’t let it fall asleep. It dreams things.”

Harrow motioned for the medics.

It took three of them, and they moved like bomb techs, as if touching her wrong might set something off. She didn’t resist. She let them lift her from the pit, blood trailing down her legs in little rivers. They wrapped her in blankets, strapped her to the stretcher, and covered her face before rolling her toward the ambulance.

Harrow watched her go, jaw clenched, eyes narrowing.

The clearing felt colder without her in it.

Like something had opened and was now closing, and they’d just removed the only thing keeping it that way.

They didn’t turn on the sirens.

Harrow followed the ambulance with his lights on but no sound. The road wound through gray morning hills, mist rising off the trees like ghosts unsure of where to settle. He lit a cigarette and never smoked it. Just let it burn down between his fingers as he watched the red taillights ahead.

At Saint Walpurga Memorial, he parked crooked and walked straight through the ER doors, flashing his badge at a nurse who didn’t ask questions. They were already in surgery by the time he reached the window.

He watched through glass.

Watched them cut her open.

He expected screaming.

There was none.

She slept peacefully as they worked, scalpel, suction, clamp, repeat. The surgeon’s forehead glistened with sweat, his gloved hands trembling as they pulled pound after pound of flesh and bone from her belly. Skinless fingers. Rib fragments. One piece that might’ve been a child’s femur, gnawed clean and snapped like a wishbone.

Over thirty-seven pounds of human remains.

More than could ever fit.

More than one person could consume.

And still her stomach remained round. Swollen. The skin over it tight and veined like an overripe fruit.

Then it moved.

A ripple, just beneath the surface. A shift, like something rolling over in sleep.

The surgeon dropped his scalpel.

Harrow watched as every man and woman in that room took a step back, leaving her exposed on the table, ribs parted, belly untouched.

And she smiled again.

Even sedated.

Even splayed open.

Her mouth tugged at the corners, baring those strange, too-perfect teeth.

They stitched her closed without speaking.

By evening, she was secured in psychiatric holding, Room 3. Four-point restraints. Monitors. Guards outside the door who refused to look in too long.

Harrow stood behind the one-way glass for nearly an hour, arms folded, eyes locked on the girl who now stared silently at the ceiling.

She didn’t blink.

Her lips moved from time to time. No sound.

But the nurses swore she was mouthing names.

Part 3: The Interview
Location: Saint Walpurga Memorial Hospital – Psychiatric Holding, Room 3
Date: June 3rd, 2025
Interviewers: Detective William Harrow and Dr. Marla Hess

Audio Recording Begins

00:00:01

[Sound of fluorescent humming. Distant thunder. Metal restraints rattle against the padded chair.]

HARROW: State your name, please.

[Silence.]

HARROW: Miss Tompkins, can you tell us your name?

LACEY:
(Softly, almost amused)
You already know it.

DR. HESS:
It helps to hear you say it, Lacey. For the record.

LACEY:
(A gentle, sing-song lilt)
Lacey Marie Tompkins. Sixteen. Scorpio. Likes cats. Ate her friends.

[Chair creaks. Tape crackles softly.]

HARROW:
We’re here to talk about what happened on the night of May 31st at Gallows Hill.

LACEY:
(Voice distant, dreamy)
Oh, it was a beautiful night. The sky was stretched velvet. The moon swelled like a boil about to burst. We went to a party, of sorts. Jace’s kind, the kind with candles and Latin and very poor intentions.

DR. HESS:
Were you pressured into going?

LACEY:
No one pressures the willing. We were all moths. That place, it hummed beneath our feet. Like something sleeping too long was about to yawn.

HARROW:
Let’s start from the beginning. Who was with you?

LACEY:
Caleb. Rachel. Kylie. And Jace, of course. He was glowing that night. So proud of his little ritual box. Playing the warlock with his bootleg spellbook and his discount séance kit. He thought he was the main character.

DR. HESS:
The ritual, did Jace orchestrate it?

LACEY:
He lit the candles. But the fire didn’t obey him. He read from the page. But the words didn’t belong to him.

HARROW:
The page, was that from the so-called “tome”?

LACEY:
Bound in skin. Written in longing. It reeked of teeth and wet paper and… something else. Hunger. He didn’t know it was real. He hoped. But he didn’t believe. That’s the problem with mortals, they flirt with the abyss, and scream when it flirts back.

DR. HESS:
What happened during the ritual?

LACEY:
Something answered.

[A pause. A hum beneath her voice.]

The candles sighed. The rope cracked. And he arrived.

HARROW:
He… Albert Grin?

[Silence. Then a laugh, slow, deliberate, unfurling like rot.]

LACEY (VOICE SHIFTING):
You say it like it’s a name. Like I was ever a man. Like I was ever just flesh.
I am not Albert Grin. I am the echo that feeds. The taste that lingers after the feast. I am the gnawing at the edge of thought.

DR. HESS:
She’s dissociating, her body is entering a fugue state.

LACEY (GRIN):
Wrong.
She’s watching.
She’s learning.
She invited me.

HARROW:
What happened to the others?

LACEY (GRIN):
They offered themselves. Each in their own beautiful, broken way.
Rachel, so full of sharp edges. She tasted like defiance and cinnamon gum.
Caleb tried to pray. I showed him the holy inside his own rib cage.
Kylie screamed art. I let her bloom.
And Jace?

[Wet smacking sound, tongue presses against too many teeth.]

Jace was boring.
He begged before it got interesting. I let the tree finish him.

DR. HESS:
And you? Why were you spared?

LACEY (voice soft, blurred between personas):
I wasn’t.
I’m what’s left. He shows me things now.
Children with stitches for mouths. Doors that open into throats. Jaws that bloom like flowers.

HARROW:
Is he telling you to hurt more people?

LACEY (GRIN):
I don’t need telling.
You still don’t understand.
You think I’m a vessel. A girl carrying a curse.
No.
I am the invitation.
And more are coming.
Because you’re listening now.
And he heard your name the moment you pressed record.

[A pulse of distortion. A subtle tone shift, metal-on-metal shriek layered beneath.]

DR. HESS:
Her pulse is dropping… get the orderlies. We need sedation!

HARROW:
Lacey, stay with us… stay…!

LACEY (GRIN):
You carry her still, you know.
In your breath.
In your dreams.

HARROW:
What did you just say?

LACEY (GRIN):
She used to sing to you. That old hymn… Nearer, My God, to Thee.
But only the first verse. She never remembered the rest.
Said your father hated it.

[Chair creaks. Prolonged silence.]

LACEY (GRIN):
I was there.
On the carpet. In that little apartment above the laundromat.
She cried into the laundry basket.
You just kept playing with that red fire truck.
Wheels clicking. Over and over.

DR. HESS:
Detective…?

LACEY (GRIN):
She didn’t want to do it.
The pills were meant for both of you.
But you had such a strong little heart.

[Dr. Hess inhales sharply. Chair shifts.]

DR. HESS:
Orderlies! We need to…

[Sudden movement. Restraints rattle violently.]

LACEY:
(strangled gasp, voice layered)
Ngghhh… k… kkkkk… 

[Body convulses. Monitor beeping accelerates.]

HARROW:
She’s seizing, get in here now!

[Wet gurgling. Sudden snap of canvas restraints pulling taut.]

LACEY (GRIN):
(distorted, unnatural timbre)
Too late.
The feast begins again.

[Final distortion. An audible pop in the speaker, like tape snapping.]

Audio Recording Ends