The stranger knocked upon the door,

A creaking, wooden throb,

And someone on the other side

Unlatched and turned the knob.

Uncertainty, a soft, "Hello,"

And, "May I use your phone?"

The person on the other side

Appeared to be alone.

An observation taken in,

No pictures on the wall.

He pointed somewhere down the way-

"Go on and make a call."

The thunder boomed; the stranger stalled

As wires were cut instead.

The gentleman began to sense

A subtle hint of dread.

A conversation thus ensued-

"So what has brought you out?

The rain has flooded everything,

And wiped away the drought.

Say, did you walk, or did you drive?

Why don't I take your coat?"

The stranger slowly moved his arms,

A sentimental gloat.

The water from the pouring skies

Enveloped cloth and shoe.

"Say, would you like a place to sleep?

I'll leave it up to you."

The person on the other side

Discarded his mistrust.

The stranger said his tire was flat,

And shed the muddy crust.

"The phone won't work," he also said.

"It could just be the storm.

Perhaps I will stay here tonight,

To keep me safe and warm."

The patron of the house agreed.

He hadn't seen the wire.

The chilly dampness prompted him

To quickly build a fire.

"You have a name? They call me Ed.

My wife was Verna Dean.

She passed away five years ago

And left me here as seen.

I guess it's really not so bad.

We never had a child.

I loved that Verna awful much,"

He said and sadly smiled.

"No property to divvy up.

The bank will get it all.

Say, do you want to try again

To go and make that call?"

The stranger grinned and left the flame

As to the phone he strode.

Within his pocket, knives and twine

In hiding seemed to goad.

A plan was formed- he'd kill the man;

Eviscerate him whole.

The twine would keep him firmly held;

The knife would steal his soul.

A lusty surge erupted hence;

A wicked bit of sin.

The stranger hadn't noticed yet

That someone else came in.

About the time a shadow fell,

He spun to meet a pan.

The room around him faded out

As eyes looked on a man.

A day or two it seemed had passed,

And when he woke all tied,

The stranger gazed upon old Ed

Who simply said, "You lied."

Reversing thoughts, the moment fled

And Ed said in a lean,

"No worries, stranger. None at all.

Hey, look, here's Verna Dean!"

He looked upon a wraith in rage;

It seemed his little lie

Combusted in a burning fit-

He didn't want to die.

So many victims in his life,

Some fifty bodies strewn.

And now he was the victim; now

The pain to him was known.

The stranger fought against the twine,

And noticed by his bed

The knife once in his pocket left

A trail of something red.

A bowl filled full of organs sat

As Verna poured some salt.

She exited with all of them.

"You know, this is your fault.

We demons wait for just the day

The guilty take the bait

And play with matches one last time-

I simply cannot wait

To taste the death within your flesh;

The venom in your gut.

So now you know the way they felt-

Hey, you've got quite a cut!"

The person on the other side

Removed his human skin-

Before his wife came back for more,

He offered with a grin:

"Say, stranger, is there anything

You'd like to say at all?"

I looked at all the blood and said,

"I'd like to make that call ... "

"Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear." 

Whoever came up with this has obviously never gotten drunk before. I can imagine some talentless airhead trying to become famous by coming up with this bullshit. Because this night started off with the usual hard stuff, vodka, tequila, a little whisky here and there, slowly moving on to the cheap beers and I could already feel the hangover and nausea coming. Or maybe it's just Jenny Michealson's shitty alcohol at her crappy house party. Though I guess it's not so crappy with me in it. Arrogant, I know. But drunk me is arrogant, so deal with it. Because I am way too hammered to have a care in the world. While I'm not staggering around the rooms and slurring my words, I'm not in entire control of my body or words either. 

So maybe that's how I ended up against the wall making out with some guy I didn't know. His name? Who knows. What he looks like? Who. The. Fuck. Cares. Right now all I could think about was the fact that his lips were on my neck and my hands were in his hair. And then he picks me up, his hands around my thighs as we continue what we are doing, down the hall, up the stairs and through the door to the attic. What was this Guy #3? #7? At this point I'm so wasted I can't even remember which guy I was about to fuck. Because that was what I did. Guy after guy I end up in the same position. Me, pressed up against a wall with some boy with his lips crashing into mine, him carrying me up the stairs, careful not to stop what we were doing, ending up in the attic where the deed was done. And then, farewell. 

I never really remembered these guys. Even if I wasn't drunk, the sight of their faces escaped my memory as soon as they started to lean in. And if by some off chance I did remember them, it was irrelevant. Because I don't do seconds, I don't want a relationship right now and even if I could have gotten a friend out of it, I'm just not a sociable person. And so it continued. The mindless sex minus the mind games. It wasn't perfect, because perfection is unattainable, but it was crazy and it worked. 

As soon as I get my t-shirt back on, I'm out the door and down the stairs. I'm going to take a break. The better part of the night has started now, with the right kind of music and the not so crappy, not so expensive drinks. I grab a beer and head towards Ace, a familiar acquaintance of mine whom I often hang out with at these parties when I'm in need of a breather. He was on the dance floor with a bunch of guys I didn't recognize, right in the center of the mosh pit. One of the guys navigated his way out and started heading towards the backyard, cigarette box in his hand. Damn, I'm in need of a smoke. So what did I do? I followed.

He was leaning agains the side of the house, cigarette in one hand, his other playing with a lighter. I stretch out my hand and he wordlessly places another cancer stick in it. I light it with my own lighter. We stand there, side by side, smoking our lives away. And then he looks towards me. And his eyes stare at mine. They're intriguing, his eyes. One grey and one a dark, dark blue. I've seen heterochromia before but there's something about the contrast of his light grey and dark blue that's drawing me in and pushing me away at the same time. He drops his cigarette and crushes it with his shoe. I copy his movements, my eyes settling on the ocean in the distance, but his eyes don't move. I look back at him, my eyes drinking in the sight of his multicolored eyes. Then he leans in. And this time I don't forget. 

We do the usual, the hallway, the stairs, the attic. Tumbling down onto the bed, falling into a sweaty mess of arms and legs and lips running wild against each others necks. And then it's over and we redress ourselves. We go down, one after the other, him rejoining his friends on the dance floor and me heading towards my truck. It's parked in a clearing in the woods near Michealson's house. I get into the back, curl myself into a thick blanket and let the scent of the trees and distant sound of music rock me to sleep. 

And then suddenly I wake up. It's 5:30 am, the sun just rising. I sit up and watch the sunrise, trying to remember the previous night. Just like every other time, my mind is blank, from the type of beer I drank to the number of guys I slept with to the songs that were playing. But then at the back of my mind a flash of grey and blue come into focus. They're eyes I think. Whose eyes I don't know but I do know that they're the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. And that I better hold onto it because I don't see many beautiful things in life. My life is just a mix of make-outs, mindlessness and muchness. Make of that what you will. 

Older brother.

Do you know my name?

Has your memory lapsed

to block out the pain?

I write letters to you,

you know.

In hidden pages of notebooks

that you will never hold.

Letters you will never read.

Letter I can't send

Because I don't know 

where you live,

or where you are, even.

Our father cries for you sometimes.

And you don't know that, either.

You might have guessed,

or even hoped,

but I've proof you can believe in.

My eyes have seen him,

bent with grief,

distracting himself with work

while you are somewhere 

living your life

and sending us no word.

Teach me the bass,

older brother.

Let our love of music 

be the no-man's land.

A place where we can talk freely

and I can hold your hand.

This year I finished high school.

There was a special dinner

for all the grads and their families

to celebrate together.

You, of course, weren't there.

I'm just your little sister;

why would you come and dine with those

you hadn't seen forever?

But your mother was there, 

helping out.

I couldn't look at her.

Across from me sat 'the other woman':

my own beloved mother.

You don't write.

No phone calls either.

Except the time 

you called our dad;

you'd been told to 

by your teacher.

It saddens me to

think of it:

the only reason you called

was to get that 

passing grade you needed,

after which,

you ignored us all.

I want you in our family.

We all do, actually.

Your mother 

and your girlfriend, too,

if that is what you need.

Give me a piece 

of your heart;

I've given you more than that

already.

Give me a part

in your life;

I'll welcome you into mine

easily.

Are the hedges 

growing between us

a wall that keeps you safe?

Or will you deign to

cut them down

and see me, face to face?

Older brother.

Do you know my name?

Hold me,

Like you hold your breath

Underwater—

Knowing that the moment

You let me go,

You'll drown

Old Brandburry was something of a local legend. It was a decrepit mansion, though no one was entirely sure what year it’d been built and the general consensus was a vague “oh, sometime in the 1800s or other.” No one was entirely sure how many levels were in it, so they went with precisely that: many. It stretched skywards with faux-turrents that mimicked a medieval castle, yet sprawled in the middle flatly and boasted large, ominous windows that peered outwards like the eyes of a cumbersome beast.

Rather than be loved and tended like a historical sight, Brandburry had become the thing teenagers dared their delinquent cohorts to vandalize. It sagged sorrowfully as though waiting for the day when the foundations would finally crack, letting its center topple down.

When the wind blew, one could almost hear it sigh.

The myths and ghost stories that went with such a site were wide and wonderful. Some claimed that it was the place where a widower had hung himself after the loss of his wife, and that he still roamed the halls calling for his precious Delilah. Others told tale of a woman who, after numerous miscarriages, took to stealing children from other mothers and leaving them in rooms about the house, tending to them until she grew bored and left them to die. Yet others said that a crazed Shaman lived there, working black magic by night and hexing the home in strange and terrible ways. The stories stretched hither and yon, predictably, none really having any bearing on the truth.

The fiction seemed far more entertaining, but it was only that. Fiction.

And so it was that Stephanie found no issue running to the home when the storm broke. The tattered coat she held over her head did not hold back the rain. Her shoes, stuffed with newspaper, slammed over the rotted deck and she rested beneath the eave to catch her breath. She shivered. Such weather was no good on her old bones.

The door hung ajar. She gave it a push and it creaked open. Dust motes formed a gritty greeting as she stepped inside, wringing some of the water from her layers of clothing. She knew she’d have to strip later. It would do no good to have so much dampness pressed up to her skin.

Stephanie looked up and whistled. “Ooooh. You got a creepy way about ya, I’ll give ya that.”

The entryway yawned upwards to a domed ceiling, bleeding into a staircase that curved elegantly away both left and right. An old, dusty chandelier clung valiantly, trailing countless cobwebs so that it looked like the crystal itself was unraveling. The carpet was in need of a good beating, but the pictures woven into it showed countless faces and figures, all of them staring outwards silently.

“Brrr,” Stephanie mumbled. The homeless woman crept further in, swiveling her head around, looking for a light source. She did not look down again. She did not see the silent eyes following her.

“S’a pity they let it go t’ waste. Lovely digs, this, with a bit o’ spit n’ polish. Bet I could make it shine.” Approaching one of the carved balustrades, she hawked and unceremoniously gifted it with saliva, using her grimy sleeve to rub it in. The wood shimmered. “Ah, see? There we are now.”

The eyes narrowed. Noses wrinkled in disgust.

Stephanie moved. She found a set of matches and struck one, pulling some of the newspaper insulation out to form a short-living torch. Some of the ashes fell instantly down, burning on the images, and their faces took on looks of pain and horror. As the fire spread further, others stepped forward and batted it out, glaring upwards at the intruder.

“Bet they got a bed upstairs,” she murmured. “A real bed, now that’s somethin’ I’ve not had in quite some time. Be good for this old coot.”

The carpeting traveled upwards along the curving stairs. Wealthy feet shouldn’t have to contend with the coldness of wood in winter. Said wood creaked in protest at her passing, and she looked down again. She thought she saw movement, but the torch had worked down to her hand and it scorched her fingers.

“Yowch!” She screeched, dropping it. She immediately set to stomping out the embers with her foot, leaving a black scar behind. Around the new void, the faces took on the look of piteous wailing.

Still upwards she went, step by step, her joints creaking as much as the stairs themselves. She huffed and dropped another torch, left another scar. As she lit the third, she perched herself precariously on the last step at the top, turning back to admire the climb she’d made.

The carpet jerked violently.

Stephanie tumbled. She screamed. First her arm snapped, then her leg. Her back gave way with a sickening crunch as she thumped back down, down, down. At the bottom she rolled, nothing but a heap that made breathless sounds, her face pale, her mouth working over the words ‘help me’ without any voice.

Lightning tore through the windows and lit up the room. The folds of the carpet curled and began to roll her, her agonized face disappearing beneath the fabric as she flailed what limbs she could still move in futile protest. She could see their angry visages pressed against hers, mouths open in cries of vengeful rage. Further and further she was wound, tighter and tighter, and the carpet pressed itself flat.

When it unrolled again, Stephanie was gone