Let it never be said that the great Enemy does not have wiles of its own. Our greatest strength lies not in our minds, but in our faith, but the mind, gift from God above and which places man above animal, is a close second. It is easy to believe the Enemy mad, that they are stark lunatics deluded and beyond all sense. Nothing could be more and less true at once. Each soldier of the Enemy is a beast of madness, tis true, but their madness is born as much from their human minds as by the perversions of such gift brought on by their consort with Satan. They will hide as trained hunters, speak as orators or innocents in turn, and will often appear as plain to the common eye as any God-fearing citizen of our nation.

  The trick, then, is not to simply assume one is smarter than the Enemy. Intellect is as freely given by God as any other human trait, and just as easily used against his chosen agents. Instead, we must turn to what no tempted, fallen evil can stomach, and which the God-fearing ever hold in their hearts as natural and true.

  If they can look like us, and think like us, and lie as ably as any devil, we must turn to the last and greatest recourse of the good. We must work harder than they do. We must try more than they do. We must sleep less, think more, speak more, and work more- for to do any less is to fall to slothful arrogance. And there is little easier to catch unawares than the arrogant.

  -A Guide ‘Gainst The Enemy, 1745, by William Hunt

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  I take a sip of tea.

  Jay takes a sip of tea.

  We take a sip of tea.

  I fight the impulse to pull out my phone or fill the silence.

  The tea, at this point, is a little past lukewarm, and Jay takes the opportunity to walk back to the kitchen and refresh us both.

  He comes back, and lets out the longest, loudest sigh I’ve ever heard.

  “Ok. So… you’re saying that there’s invisible blood from an invisible cut on my head. And on your hand, it’s visible.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Alright. Sure. Why not. Unless this is the most elaborate fucked up gaslighting anyone’s ever experienced, I have no way to say that isn’t real blood, because I have no fucking clue how it got there. But I still can’t see or feel it. But… I’m assuming that means that the rest of town is the same?”

  I nod. “Probably. I’m pretty sure it’ll still be able to affect you, just not as much the other way around. Some, but not as much. That’s why I need your help here, not out there. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  The statement doesn’t quite have the effect I intended on him. He frowns at me, like he’s about to protest, and then lets out a grumble instead, drinking from his mug… and then firmly putting it down on the table, the thud of impact seeming to shake him out of something.

  “Appreciated, but… we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I’ve got this phantom cut, right? I’m already affected somehow. And I said I’d help, so I’m helping.”

  I nod. Not a lot more I can say to that. Not without scaring him more, maybe, or hurting him, or… mmh.

  “So! What do you have so far?”

  I take a deep breath, using it to center myself, and then mirror the way he put down his mug, turning instead to the map, newspaper clippings, and journals spread throughout the living room.

  “Hollow Springs is pretty mundane overall, and I think if I wasn’t looking, I wouldn’t bat an eye. I mean, everywhere has myths and monsters and stuff, but if this town has any, they’re word of mouth only, not big enough to make it into any local events or news stories or even online references. There aren’t any stories of hauntings I could find, or weird creatures in the woods, at least none in public record or easy access- but that doesn’t mean this place doesn’t have some quirks.

  “When the lumber mill shut down, the town should have shut down with it, turned into one of those dying places you see all over the continental US. Instead, it got put basically on life support. They pivoted to tourism, but the closest “touristy” location is almost twenty minutes away by car, that being Lake Sufford, so they also had to switch over to hunting. That’s seasonal, and it kept the town alive for another decade, but almost half the businesses in town started shutting down not long after.”

  Pause. Sip of tea. Don’t let the energy get away from you again, me.

  “That’s where things get weird. All of a sudden, there’s a bunch of nobody, mid-lister companies that decided to start moving in. I figured they would be buying up land, turning it to ranching like other towns in the county, but no, they start buying up areas around town and then start building. But never for long.

  “Hollow Springs has three housing developments connected to it that never finished, not even counting the condo construction. We’ve got a good seven different failed businesses downtown that got replaced, rebuilt, and then never actually got anything put up in them, and a few more buildings that ended up as just perpetual construction lots, the kind that just sit half-finished with a fence around them. Half the companies I found in charge of it don’t exist anymore, and most of the rest of them just kind of vanish after a while. I’m not a private investigator, most of this is just search-engine results, but it’s weird, right?

  “But! It kept the town alive just long enough for the world to change. Between seasonal tourism, hunting, and the construction projects, enough money kept coming in to justify (apparently) more construction, which then died, in a cycle, all the way up until the 90s. The town’s half-decrepit, half unused lots, half again a mess of construction sites, and then Amazin is born. They’re not all that big, not back then, when the internet was brand new, but someone figured out that all their buying and selling needed warehouses, and apparently, all those construction projects meant people had sunk enough money into this place to prompt one. So Hollow Springs got a new construction site, again, and this one takes years to finish, but by the early 2000s, the town gets a warehouse. It’s one of the smaller ones, not like the big distribution centers, but it is very much there, and it’s maybe the town’s main employment including a lot of the construction workers, since a lot of the construction kinda slowed down after the warehouse went up. Now, we got this… franken-town.

  “Tons of empty houses and unfinished construction, but also more housing than we can even use. Tiny population, very few kids, but modern businesses here and there that followed the warehouse. Woods and ranching all around, plenty of hunting, but no real focus on it.”

  It’s only when Jay puts his hand on my shoulder that I stop, pause, and recognize that the sip of tea didn’t help as much as I’d like.

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  “Deeeeeep breaths, hun.”

  My first instinct is to grumble. My second, smarter instinct is to shut up and take some deep breaths. Haven’t been this anxious in a while- maybe Jay has a point about the manic state.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. A lot of that went over my head, but it’s nice to have you rambling. Haven’t had a good infodump from my friend in a while.”

  I snort. “You always whine when I go on tangents!”

  He just shrugs. “It’s endearing and annoying. Stuff can be two things at once.”

  I roll my eyes- but I take the advice.

  Slow. Deep breaths.

  “The point is the town’s very, very, very boring. But also boring in a way that’s sort of off. Now I think, and this is just a guess, but I think the meat-cracks in the wall? Those are mine. They happened because I started seeing weird stuff, not before. Leisha, the woman who came to the bar? She mentioned that they felt something happen, some sort of… I don’t know, pulse? And I think that’s what cracked the walls here. Since I know there are other people who’ve got other abilities of some kind, I’m assuming that some of them may have made cracks of their own. And I think these changes have an effect on reality, too. I’ve heard the house creak and groan if I touch the wall-meat. If I can find the right places to look, I think I can find more examples of this weirdness, and then use them to figure out more of what’s going on.”

  “That… doesn’t actually sound like a terrible plan. It’s a lot of leaps, but I can see where you’re coming from with it.”

  I let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a shout- just a long, messy exhale full of noise.

  “Ok! Thank you! Already knew it was a good plan, I just wanted confirmation.”

  “You called me over just for confirmation?”

  “Well, no. That’s sort of just the basics of it. I actually wanted your advice on where to actually look.”

  I pull out the map, gesturing to the half-drawn portion of it and pointing out my house, there in the bottom-left middle of it.

  “Here’s the condo. I can’t be sure, but I think I’ve seen all the “major” cracks around here, those being the ones at my house. If there are any more, or anything else, it’s small enough that I can miss it.”

  My finger trails northwest, closer to the center of town and away from the heavy woodlands I’ve started drawing to mark the “unknown frontiers”.

  “I’m close-ish to downtown, and so are the Golden Roast and the pub. It’s got some empty offices I want to check out, and it’s not too far from the shops to the library and town hall, I figure a quick drive past them wouldn’t hurt. From there, I can head southwest, past the clinic, get to the suburban areas and the schools, out a bit towards the construction out there, and head back. We can pass by the sheriff’s station and the fire department pretty easy, they’re like, two minutes from each other, and then we can work our way northwest again for the trails, the park, and the pool. After that, we can start looking at stuff like the water tower, maybe.”

  “That’s a lot of ground to cover, hun. You got a plan?”

  “Yeah; you. You’ve been here longer than I have, and you actually listen when people yap at you. I could tell you where most of the best deer trails are, and whose foreman is more of an asshole, but that’s all I get around True Blue’s. I need you to point out places that people tend to avoid, places that people will complain or seem weird about.”

  He actually pauses at that.

  “Are you asking me to breach barista-customer privilege and speak of secrets mine ears have overheard?”

  “...yeah?”

  “Ilia, I have waited years to gossip about these people. You’ve come to the right place.”

  He stands up, clearing his throat and setting down his tea, before turning on his heel and bowing deeply. “Jay Clark, nosy bitch extraordinaire, at your service, milady.”

  I chuck a paintbrush at his head (a dry one, I’m not a monster), which he artfully takes right between the brows.

  “Wha- Ilia!”

  “Sorry! I thought you would dodge it! I was teasing!”

  “I’ll have you know my reflexes are finely honed exclusively for spinning in place and juggling beverages! I am otherwise capable of literally tripping over my own feet!”

  I can’t help it- I laugh.

  It comes out like air bursting from a bubble, like a breath trapped in my lungs. It just sort of happens, a cackle and a giggle and an exhale all wrapped up together in just how goofy the exchange has become. An hour ago, I was trying to finagle my nightmare moodboard of potential haunted houses that could kill me, and now… now my friend is here.

  I don’t think I’m going to say it, and I don’t think he needs me to, but this is why I called him here, why I would have called even if he was completely ignorant of the town. It’s needy of me, messy, I know, but the loneliness hasn’t gone away just because I’m fighting for my life. It just got easier to push aside. It’s been, what, four days(?) since I talked to someone outside of work and my roommates, and longer than that since I’ve laughed for real.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  I really would shatter the limbs of any bitch that threatens him.

  Jay’s better than me. He’s too good for me, too. But I’m glad that he’s here.

  Almost as much as I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be miserable. And I am- but he helps.

  The laughs wind down, and to my immense relief, I manage to get the outburst under control before she dissolves into tears. I needed that little outlet, and Jay could likely tell- he’s funny, and witty, but silly is reserved for when it’s required.

  By the time I’m back under control, he’s sat back down, and has started pulling up google maps on my laptop, bringing up the town.

  “Ok. I think it’s a good idea to do the clinic, right? You mentioned this is all meat and biology related, and that’s a place that’s literally about that. I’m not really a fan of driving past schools and suburbia without a good reason, though- book it for the construction site, check it out, come back. It’ll definitely look weird anyways, your nightmare of a car is hella recognizable, but if you’re not going way under the speed limit and staring at everything, that’ll probably go a lot better.

  “As for the rest- there’s this one building downtown I’ve heard about. Sometimes people say they heard someone say they wanted to open a shop there, or someone tried to open a shop there, but it always fails, like clockwork. The other buildings usually just stay vacant or have only had, like, one or two chains move through them, rather than a whole bunch.

  “Last but not least- the lumber mill. People definitely say that shit’s haunted. Nobody goes near there after dark unless they’re on a dare, and I heard that even the rowdy kids don’t push it, it’s a big deal for the moms when they do. There’s probably more, and none of these read like a medium’s shop- that one’s probably downtown somewhere, if I had to guess, but I haven’t heard of it, so maybe not. But if we’re talking about meat-stuff and places that are weird? Suburban empty construction site, lumber mill, and clinic. That’s what comes to mind for me.”

  I inhale, exhale, and move my neck around, eliciting enough popping noises that Jay flinches.

  “Ok. I have work tomorrow, but after that comes the weekend. I just have to make it there, and then we can do a scouting mission.”

  “Alright. I can call off for a shift on saturday, if that’s alright?”

  Ah. Fuck. I forgot- I’m free on weekends, but he’s not.

  “Shit, Jay, I didn’t… that’s my bad. You don’t have to, I can call off no problem-”

  “Gurl, I make way more in tips than you do, relax. I’ll be fine, they can’t live without me over there. I might not be able to see all this weird shit, but I can still be backup. Ooh, or your getaway driver!”

  I laugh, but it’s quieter this time.

  “Sure. I could use a getaway driver.”

  Fuck.

  I can only hope that I’m not dragging him further into this. It’s just a quick trip around town. We both drive around town literally every day.

  It’ll be fine.

  It’ll be fine.

  And if it isn’t… that’s what the meat is for.

  “Oh. Right, also, I made grenades.”

  “You what?”

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