“Whud’da ya want fromme?” John yells in a drunken, slur throwing his, now, almost drained bottle of Jack into the dark, abandoned alleyway. “You’re dead! All’ive ya, dead!” he says. With a tear in his throat, John cries, “You’re dead so just lemme alone. I jus’ wanna forget you, forget me, forget everythin---.” He falls to the hard, wet ground, not quite passed out but the surrounding area becomes a giant storm of blurry darkness with a hint of light scattered throughout it.

“Daddy” a sweet, gentle and innocent voice calls. “Get up Dad. You need to come with me. I want to help you.”

Lifting his head -a nearly impossible task at the moment- to see who it is that beckons him, a shadowy figure that seems to silhouette a little girl wearing a dress. “Is’aid lemme alone! You’re dead! You can’t save me ‘cause I couldn’t save you.. B’sides, I don’eed your help. I jus’ need more booze.”

“No amount of liquor will be able to rid you of your past. But if you follow me, I can make you forget the things you hate; forget the things you fear; forget the pain and sorrow.” Turning around while gesturing him to follow her, the figure says “Come. Let’s find your path together.”

John is intrigued enough to begin the struggle that is getting up while in a drunken stupor; his legs about as stable as a gambling addicts bank account. His legs are unreliable, wanting to give way causing him to bounce from side to side of the buildings making up the alley like a cruel game of Pong. At times, he has to use the brick walls as a makeshift crutch; one shoulder leaning the majority of his weight on the wall and he uses his free hand as a guide feeling in circular motions to aid him move forward.

Only after a few moments of slowly chasing after the mysterious being, the alleyway itself begins to become unsteady as if it had been drinking with John that night. The buildings John desperately depended on for stability begin to fade in and out of existence; the night sky seemed to flicker with static like an old television set fashion. Soon, the fading buildings completely dissipate, leaving John helpless as he plunges to the, now, very familiar turf. He musters the strength to find himself back to his less-than-functioning feet.

Once up, John notices that a single maple wood door now stares him in the face; daring him to open it, welcoming him to come inside. On it somewhere near the top of the frame someone, or something, etched the words “In the beginning”. John reaches forward for the doorknob and with a slight pause, turns it cautiously, releasing the door from the frames grasp. He takes a brief moment to scan what lies within but all that awaits is a chasm of infinite darkness. Without even thinking, he says “God created the heavens and the earth…” He lunges forward, aimlessly falling into the formless, empty nothingness.

Gasping for air as if he’d been shoved in a pool by surprise and finally broke the surface, John finds himself right where he last remembered: having a close encounter –borderline making out and groping- with the bare, soggy concrete behind some desolate alleyway. But something is wrong. There is a blanket of fog over his mind, making it difficult recollecting the events that happened after the infuriated pitching of alcohol bottles and the drunken tango to the alley itself; clear symptoms of what medical professionals would call a “blackout”.

How long have I been out for?

He looks intently at the wall just mere feet in front of him as if it would have the answer he’s looking for. However long it has been, it cannot have been that long considering the sky is just as jet black, starless, and dismal as he’d remembered it being when his mid-night, one-man drinking games began.

Placing both hands flat against scattered pieces of rock and tiny clumps of mud, John exhales a loud, unpleasant grunt as he barely manages to push himself up off the ground with his arms trembling like two frightened puppies enduring their first thunderstorm. Gently, he transfers the excess grim on his hands to his already stain-spotted pair of blue jeans. “You’d think by now I’d know my own limit,” speaking to himself softly while simultaneously cracking every bone in his body that would allow itself to be cracked. The stiffness he suffers from comes mostly due to 1.His age (39); 2. What he’d spent six years of his youth doing (Marine Corps Rifleman with two combat tours to Iraq); and 3. The place his motionless body remained (concrete) for who knows how long (unknown).

His legs, still a little weak and shaky, start to move the rest of his body forward. The pounding in his head is relentlessly sharp. As he exits the abyss that was the alley, John quickly guards his eyes from the beams of streetlights now attacking his over-sensitive eyes. “Damn it,” he says in a calm, but annoyed manner. “I need some coffee to get rid of this damned hangover.” Not even half a second after speaking, a resounding clanging of metal bins getting knocked over came echoing from the alleyway.

Probably raccoons scavenging for some food.

He keeps steady, paying no mind to the ominous, mischievous dumpster divers, moving onward to find a store or a coffee shop or a store with a coffee shop.

Now it doesn’t catch his attention until just recently, considering he’s been nearly blinded from the streetlights and all, but John starts to look around him in a circular motion.

“Where are all the buildings?”

The entire scene that encompasses him is a canvas of drooling, misty black and specks of yellow. It is as if everything that exists lies from sidewalk to sidewalk; anything beyond fades into nothingness.

What’s going on? Where’s the town? Where’s the bar I was just drinking at earlier? Where am I?

He falls straight to the ground, this time in shear disbelief, ass-first with both legs crossing one another.

Moments pass as John sits there in his bewilderment trying to fathom his current situation.

Am I still passed out? Maybe this is just some messed up dream of a drunkard. No, you can’t dream while blacked out…can you?

Suddenly while still pondering possible answers, a moist sensation begins to grasp his attention. “Great,” sarcastically, “Rain. At least I have an answer now.” He says this assuredly, almost matter-of-factly, because the drops feel real; more so of the reason that he can feel them at all.

You can’t feel such things in dreams.

He convinces himself now that he definitely is not passed out; he is not hallucinating; he is not dreaming. But still, one thing eludes him.

“What in the hell is going on?”

A streetlight hangs directly over John acting as a guardian angel, rejecting any darkness within a five meter diameter. He looks at his hands both trembling; both stained with trails of dark red.

“Fucking Christ!”

In a state of panic, his hands bolt to his plain, white cotton t-shirt to cleanse them of this obscenity. But just as skin meets cloth, John’s eyes see that it isn’t just his hands caked with this stain. No, etched in the very fabric that latches to his torso is the same image of red wine-looking trails. Short, fast breaths being emitted from his mouth; his hands steadily shaking uncontrollably like a hypothermia patient; John is on the verge of hyperventilation.

“G-g-got. T-ta. C-c-c-calm-m-m. D-down.”

Trying his best to take his own advice, John breathes in slowly.

The rain seems to be gradually picking up speed but it still lacks any ferocity; a slight mist accompanied by the occasional droplet. Off in the distance, some ten feet maybe, a shimmering of light reflecting from the street summons John’s eyes toward its direction.

“A puddle,” hinting excitement, “I can use it to wash this…this…these stains.”

John refrains from saying “blood” because he isn’t positive that it is and he truly wants to believe that it isn’t.

Picking himself up, heavier from being soaked, John makes his way to the puddle. In between him and salvation from his stains is about twenty feet of pure black. He walks into the darkness placidly and unafraid, willing to do anything to be saved from the blood on his hands.

An eternity of labored steps pass as John finally collapses before his saving grace. Almost immediately after his knees hit the deck, he begins baptizing his hands in the puddle; giant ripples and microscopic waves form with each plunge.

“What have you done got yourself into now, John,” he mutters as if mimicking someone playfully bickering at him.

He lets out a long sigh as he just kneels beside the puddle, motionlessly staring at his swelling reflection.

“You sure have changed. Grey hairs, wrinkles, soulless eyes. Where has the time gone? Where has the old, younger you went? You’re just a miserable old man with a bottle for a friend.”

His reflection copies every movement, just as one expects a reflection to do; but then after he stops his depressing monologue, it suddenly becomes independent from John; mouthing words that are inaudible.

“What in the world,” flinching slightly, rubbing his eyes thinking them just hazy. He stares now at the reflection but once again, it seems to be mouthing something; though this time it’s pointing with the motion that comes with yelling.

“B-Be,” John says trying to make out what his doppelganger is forewarning, “Hind?” He gasps. BEHIND YOU!

Out from behind John’s reflection emerges a vulgar, atrocious looking fiend that once could have been human. It has the same basic anatomy, but lacks the comfort of actually being of the human race. John doesn’t take the time to have the exact details of the monster imprinted in his mind. He swiftly turns to face it, losing his balance in the process and ending up perched in the puddle. “There’s nothing there,” he whispers with trouble trying to catch his breath before he catches his death. The hideous fiend that had appeared in the puddle was nowhere to be seen. “Have I gone completely mad,” John stammers.

“Nooooooo,” replies the fiend in a prolonged wispy voice now physically behind John.

John bellows out the loudest scream he can muster, jumping to his feet and darting as fast as possible in the opposite direction of this thing, now quite acquainted and very familiarized with a description of what the monster looks like.

The body is that of a man but it has been long corroded by the sands of time, leaving behind an exterior shell of rotting flesh. The other more notable features were its mouth and eyes both sewn shut like some horrible macabre, mad scientist experiment gone devastatingly wrong. But what is quite peculiar - well more peculiar than being attacked by a rotting corpse that sprang to life from a puddle just recently- was that where his eyes should be sewn shut was two darkened sockets; hollow like a jack-o-lantern without the candle breathing life to the holes. If given the time, one would say you could see its soul creeping within those sockets. Its mouth was only half sewn due to the right bottom half of the jaw being completely decayed, exposing the canine and molars along with the rest of the jaw extending nearly to the non-existent ear. On top of the head, the skull is mostly bare and gone, leaving just brain matter and few remnants of dried-out brunette hair. Down toward its diaphragm are its arms, also sewn together and attached to the body, resembling that of a patient in a straight-jacket. But out of all the gruesome, grotesque distinctions, the most horrid had to be the hundreds of syringes and needles piercing the beast in all regions of its decaying body. The needles range in all sizes and seem to have a pattern: smaller needles near the chest, then gradually increasing in size to the arms and shoulders and lastly, massive baseball bat-sized needles penetrating the back.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” John chants, swearing as he tries to catch his breath, hoping he still has enough of his youth in him to outsprint the menacing demon.

What the hell is this thing? Why is it after me?

He dares not to look back in fear that it’ll be right on his tail ready to strike at the opportune moment like in cliché horror films with ghouls and ghosts. But this isn’t a horror movie, this isn’t a ghost, and he really can’t tell if this was a typical cliché situation or not. All John cares about at this point in time is escaping the horrible death that seems imminent if he doesn’t keep running.

I don’t know where I’m going but I sure hell am not letting THAT thing catch me.

And just like any light at the end of a gruesomely long tunnel, there is a structure illuminating with shrouding around it that seems the size of an apple in a tree.

That building! I must make it in that building and pray that nothing else can get through.

A task easily thought rather than actually being done it appears. John has been sprinting for his life for, well, a lifetime and the building is no closer to him now than when it first shown in the horizon.

Shit! I’m not gonna make it! I’m can’t make it!

John’s beginning to breakdown- his legs taking shorter strides, his chest on fire, and worst of all his state of mind deteriorates with ever agonizing push forward. To make matters worse, the rain went from a calm mist to violent downpour. On the other hand, the monster seems unfazed from human characteristics such as fatigue or broken morale caused from the endless chase or the unforgiving rain. It is relentlessly set on John and closing in with each passing second.

With his spirit fading like a man with Alzheimer’s, John shuts his eyes, takes in a deep breath and prepares himself to exert the last remains of his energy and hopes for the best. And as soon as he opened his eyes back up, the glorious sight of the building standing all of a hundred feet greeted him. Never feeling more exuberant than right now, John’s motivation and spirit shoots up ten-fold.

I can do this. I can do this! Almost there!

The door mere feet before him, John looks up for some unknown reason to see a sign on top on the building that read “The Path of Able”.

Reaching out his hand now for the door in what looks like a twisted version of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel masterpiece where John depicted Adam and the door is God. Fully grasping the door, John opens it and enters the building nearly falling over from the exhaustion. He slams the door using his bodyweight as an anchor; putting an end to his torturous nightmare. He turns his body to glance beyond the glass to the world he left behind: the monster had vanished.

“Thank God,” John says exhaling all the air in his lungs. Pressing his back against the glass door, he gently slides downward- causing that awful squeaking associated with squeegeeing a window- to the floor to take a moment to recollect his thoughts and checks himself over.

The blood. The stains. They’re gone.

It isn’t too long, though, before a distant call breaks him from his daze.

“Can I help you sir,” asks the man from behind a counter drying off what looks to be the last of his dishes.

“Please tell me you have coffee.”

The guy just chuckles and retorts, “Well if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be much of a coffee house, now would we sir?”

While getting to his feet, John grunts, “No need to be a smartass, kid. Just make me a cup before my head explodes.”

Now the “kid” he has been referring is more of a man probably in his early to mid-twenties still making his way through college. But John calls everyone that age “Kid” because to him, “You’re not a man until you see the world or see a person die.” And John has both seen much of the world and seen more people die than he’d care to remember.

John takes a moment to survey the establishment that served him with the hospitable act of shelter from the things that lurked outside. But as his vision adjusts to the dimness, it becomes quite apparent to John that things aren’t much different in here than the hellish street he nearly had a heart-attack on.

The shop in whole feels like an ancient ruin that’s been hidden from civilization for centuries, keeping with it secrets from a time long forgotten. The walls caked in a green, slimy ooze that splatter across like a gruesome murder scene; the lights, most of them either shattered or stopped working ages ago, hang from the ceiling for dear life as if they were falling off a cliff and the ceilings hands were about to give way; the furniture, well past its time, lie strewn across the perimeter of the shop –tables, chairs, lamps, couches, bookshelves- are molding and decaying corpses that have been dead long enough to have muscle and organs exposed but not quite long enough to have fully withered to the bone.

The only thing that projects a peaceful ambiance to this chaos was the only suitable seat for sitting, staged in front of the counter, which sits serenely beneath one of the few working lights shining on it as if God had specifically chosen it.

“Rough night, old man,” the man playfully mimics John’s “kid” nicknaming game.

“You have no idea,” John replies, easing himself into the seat not fully confident it will hold his weight. “Say, you didn’t happen to see anythin-,” John catches himself. He doesn’t want to come off as crazy, even though he himself thought he was. “Anyone behind me when I ran in here did you?”

“No. Can’t say that I did. To be frank, I wasn’t really paying any attention. We don’t get many customers these days, day or night, and when you barged in here, it scared the living shit out of me,” he lets out a chuckle.

If he didn’t see the hideous creature, then could I have just been imagining everything? But it was too surreal to not be real. I felt its steamy breath on the back of my neck. I looked into the depths of its abysmal shadowed eyes. How could he not have seen it? Maybe…

“Sir, is something wrong?”

“What? Oh, sorry. Just thinking to myself. Could I get that coffee now please?”

“Certainly. It’ll be a moment. Like I said, we don’t get much service nowadays so I don’t have a pot ready.”

John places his elbows on the counter and rests his head in the palm of one hand as he lays the other flat against the surface. “That’s fine.”

While the coffee was brewing, a question weighed heavy on John’s mind. He thinks for moment on how to ask it without sounding like a complete asshole.

“I hope you don’t mind in me asking, but why is the store so rundown? I can kinda see why no one comes here. Does the owner just not care?”

John probably should have thought longer. He’s never been one to tread lightly on broken glass though.

“I’m the owner actually,” the man says in a not-too-serious-but-still-serious tone, back facing John as he gathers the sugar and creamer for the coffee. “And the place hasn’t always been so gloomy.” A deep, isolate sigh rumored the room, followed by the sound of the coffee filling the cup. “No, there was a time this place thrived with people young and old. Kids finishing their high school senior projects, college students in groups studying advanced philosophy, and just regular people enjoying their day off to relax and continue the adventures of the book they’ve been reading. But one day, everything changed”

Setting the coffee down in front of John, the man turns quickly but not before John catches a glimpse of something odd.

What’s with the dimness covering his eyes? Probably just the lack of lighting in here.

“What happened,” John asks as he takes a sip of the very bitter coffee, making his face grimace.

There was a desert of silence between the two and the air felt, for a brief second, sour.

“You left me, John. You left when I needed you most.”

John sets his cup down.

“What the hell did you say,” he replies dumbfounded and flustered.

The light that once served as the stores source of illumination now spasms uncontrollably. The ground beneath vibrates as to reenact an earthquake that once devastated a small country.

“How easily did that blood from your hands wash off?” asks the man, blending in with the dark twitches of light.

Blood?

Intoxicated with infuriating anger, John jumps down from the seat, knocking to the ground, and slams his balled up hands against the countertop.

“You bastard! You did see what was behind me! You saw that monster, didn’t you?”

Stepping forth from the darkness, the man begins a metamorphosis with each flicker of light, molting the appearance of the young, upstanding and ambitious man into a figure with stitched, shadowy hollow eyes, half a jaw missing its flesh, arms bound to chest and the repulsive porcupine-like sight of the syringes and needles.

“No,” it says wheezing and rasping, “I am that monster!”

John scrambles back, horrified of what he is witnessing in front of him.

“What the hell do you want from me?”

Then, with the sound of skin being torn apart and bones cracking- splsssh crrcck, rrshht- from the abomination that was the monster’s sewn extremities, it completely rips them apart making two independent arms, exposing ribs and leaving decaying skin hanging like Spanish moss from a Florida Cypress tree.

“Don’t you recognize me John? It’s me, Ben”, the fiend recites as it holds both of its arms out straight, crossing legs in a sick realistic visual of Jesus on the cross.

“No! That can’t be! Ben’s”

“DEAD! I KNOW!” shouts the fiend, cutting off John.

“I want you,” in the repeated raspy voice, “To feel what I felt. I want you to feel the pain of abandonment. The torture of being shattered and having no one to help pick up the pieces.”

The fiend, with a swift motion of his newly emancipated arms, totally demolishes the countertop with ease; spraying fragments of wooden shrapnel.

A loud thud resounds from John hitting the floor. He shuffles his legs trying to push his numb body back away from reach of the fiend.

“You can’t escape me this time, John. I won’t let you go.”

Seeking refuge behind a lone coffee table, John searches his mind for answers.

Come on old guy. Get it together. He’s lying. That THING is not Ben. You need to kill it. You’ve been through the gruesome hell that was war, you know how to kill. You know how to survive. So find a weapon and kill this son of a bitch!

After a brief moment of his eyes being shut, two items appeared in front of John: a knife, and a gun.

Bingo!

John immediately snatches the gun, taking the mag out to see how many rounds were in it (20) and checks the chamber (1).

“Those weapons won’t be able to harm him,” echoes a soft, unrecognized voice.

In the corner of the shop, shrouded by the dimness, stands a not even five feet tall outline of a girl wearing a dress. “They didn’t kill him while he was living, nor can they while he’s dead.”

“Yeah, well this,” flaunting the pistol, “Gives me more peace of mind,” John exclaims as he props on the table and unloads round after round into the fiend, knocking it back away from him; but just as the mysterious outline said, the bullets were having no effect whatsoever.

“You have to give him what he wants. Only then can you face him and put him to rest. ”

But what does he want besides killing me?

John goes to post up once more, trying not to ponder to long on a probability given to him from a phantom hiding in shadows. But soon as he breaks the plane of the wooden edge of the table, John finds himself face to half-face with the physical manifestation of fear. It seizes both of John’s wrists; the cold sensation of dead, half corroded hands encircling them. Overpowered, John is pinned down between the tiled floor and the fiend itself, saliva excreting from its half-jaw. Freeing one hand, it reaches towards one of the massive syringes piercing its back and pulls it out slowly.

“This is your penance for breaking our pact.”

With a powerful swing, the fiend lunges its decayed arm forward; forcefully inserting the needle through John’s left eye.