Editor’s Note: Thank you for all of the wonderfully spooky story submissions this year. It’s always a difficult choice to make, but we appreciate your time and effort. In addition to the honorable mentions listed here, contest winners can be found here.
The Shadow over Tallassee
By Cameron Lee Winter
We live within a placid loop of highway in the midst of hinterlands of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. I write to tell you why I can no longer be seen. You’ve probably noticed the changes. Forgive me.
I have a friend who moved out off Tallassee Road into the north of Athens a few years ago. We lost touch until recently when he invited me to visit. I didn’t recall the address, so I supposed he had moved in the meantime. As one does at work, I shared weekend plans and my colleague warned, “Watch out for the deer.” I laughed, but his countenance darkened. He glanced over his shoulder alertly, and said, “No, I mean it. There’s something about that part of town. The deer aren’t right. It’s the eyes… Really, your friend out there. I … Forget it. Just be careful.”
That night, I drove to visit and, leaving the loop, plunged down the exit to head north on Tallassee. Going under the overpass, I saw on the outer side six deer unblinking—their glowing eyes locked onto me. I had driven by deer many times, but something struck me: The eyes lacked that dim sheen. Instead, the pale gold was luminous, round, peculiarly—I couldn’t shake this impression—human.
Strange, I thought, but they faded into the darkness of my rearview mirror. I continued to the gas station to retrieve beverages and fuel the car. Thinking about the deer, I wondered also, do human eyes glow? I set the pump up and went inside, smelling sharp, stale Pine-sol and headed to the back fridge.
Feeling eyes on me, I looked around my shoulder, and saw mounted on the wall a buck’s head staring with its square marble pupils under 12 proud points. I grabbed a local libation and, turning the other way to leave, nearly collided with a tall, bearded man. His overalls hung oversized on his lean frame, and a Bulldogs jersey draped on gamey shoulders. His eyes locked, hazel and ovular, with mine and he said, “I killed that deer there.”
“Oh,” I said, “you must have been proud of that.”
“I was. No. Not no more.” He looked away toward the deer and went silent, so I passed quickly and paid. The clerk, wearing sunglasses, looked at me and, as she handed back the card, said, “We’re taking that blasphemy down soon.” Hard, gray nails clacked as she put the card down.
I thanked her, left and started the car. As the headlamps came on, the forest flanking the gas station lit up with the eyes of deer. Dim antlers froze in the light. Through the window the hunter looked back with glowing oval eyes. Behind him, the antlers of the dead buck seemed to be his own. I drove off, fast, for my friend’s. Do human eyes glow?
I arrived without issue but shaken. The house was surrounded by scruffy, bare-bones bushes that scratched black against the dim evening horizon. All the lights were out save the front foyer. No green pinpricks danced in the light. I approached and without knocking he opened the door, turning from me and let out a scratchy, “Welcome.”
The air was close and stale. My friend gestured I sit in the dark of the room with him. He seated himself across from me and said, “I’ve called you here for a reason. For many years we have been seeking one who may bring us into the loop. Its rumblings keep us from our kin inside.” At this he turned to look to me, invoking, “Join us, and become one with the spirits of the wild.”
A strange countenance shattered his face. I felt frozen like a deer in … it was terrible and beautiful. His eyes, blue-green irises set with a squared pupil, locked me in. His ears elongated. Fractal antlers spun hypnotically around his head, obscuring all. I broke from his will and through the window met the eyes of hundreds of green pinpricks. The bush branches like antlers reached toward the moon. All went black.
I don’t know how I awoke, at home, the next morning. His number and messages were deleted. Each night I’ve felt a change. An urge to bring the deer-sodden wilds of Tallassee into the cycles of our lives, bounding in the kudzu, rumpusing the city, never-ending, ever alert, ever glaring. Never let me free.
Bloodmobile
By Ben Credle
The Bloodmobile rocked slightly as two young men climbed down the fold-out steps, each brandishing their Bulldog-red gift cards like golden tickets. Nobody liked needles, but 70 bucks was 70 bucks. They high-fived each other, “We’re going to drink like kings tonight!”
An older man in a lab coat stuck his head out the front door of the bus and called after them, “Don’t forget you can donate again in 90 days. We’ll be here.” The man drew back into the bus. “Bradley, how many is that now?”
“Forty-six so far,” answered a younger man in a lab coat. “This place is a gold mine. Why haven’t we come here before?”
UGA was the only place they had to pre-screen for blood-alcohol level, but the haul was worth the extra hurdle.
The Bloodmobile was set up near Stegeman Coliseum, right off Carlton Street, and got a lot of foot traffic during the day. But as twilight approached, the street was almost deserted. Reed and Bradley were thinking of closing up and heading home when their last customer opened the door.
She was skinny and pale, her dark hair shrouding her slumped shoulders. “Am I too late?”
“Never,” Reed answered, handing her a clipboard and getting the needles, tubing and stretchy bandages ready for the forty-seventh time today. The girl answered the few questions about bloodborne diseases and handed the clipboard back.
“Lay back right here, and we’ll get started,” Reed said, indicating one of the cold vinyl donation couches. “You can close your eyes if you want.”
The needle punctured the skin, and dark red blood snaked through the tubing. Bradley peered over Reed’s shoulder, “So what do you have going on tonight? Meeting anyone?” Bradley looked out the tiny window, surveying the empty street.
The girl looked up shyly through her bangs, “I’m going to meet up with some friends later on.”
“That sounds great,” Bradley said, pulling Reed down the narrow central aisle between couches. When they were out of the girl’s earshot he whispered, “We’ve already got 46 units. But think how impressed the boss will be if we bring him back a live one. Nobody’s gonna miss this store-brand Wednesday Addams. Look at her: black nails and black lipstick. She’ll probably actually enjoy it. At first.”
“Or, what if, hear me out,” Reed whispered back, “we keep her to ourselves and the boss never has to know?” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Bradley looked unconvinced so Reed continued, “Look, either way, we can drain her until she passes out, and then decide.”
Bradley shrugged and handed Reed thick velcro straps, before going to lock the doors.
“We’re just going to put this on to hold your arm still so the needle doesn’t get jostled,” Reed said while he strapped the girl’s wrists down. The plastic pouch was nearly full.
Her eyes opened slightly and she slurred, “Then what… why are you putting them on both arms?”
“Just relax, we know what we’re doing.”
The girl’s eyes shot open, black as her hair, and she sat up, tearing off the restraints as if they were crepe paper. “Do you? Do you know what you’re doing?” Her long canine teeth glistened as she ripped the needle out of her arm, spattering blood across the window.
She leapt off the couch like a panther and lifted Reed by the throat, then threw him into the tiny office at the back of the bus. She turned and unlocked the rear door. Two dark shapes rushed in the door, their movements a blur. Bradley backed away as the two men jumped on Reed. He heard sounds of bones breaking. The girl leered, “I’m meeting my friends right here.”
Bradley scrambled to the front door by the driver’s seat, struggling with the stupid bolt that he’d just locked. You had to pull up on the door to get the bolt free. The girl’s bootheels thumped deliberately down the aisle toward him.
“Run, Bradley. Run back to your master and tell him he doesn’t collect blood in Athens anymore!” Bradley got the bolt open and fell out the door onto the sidewalk. The girl watched as he struggled to his feet and ran. “Take your ass back to Augusta like it says in the agreement!”
She turned back inside, grabbed two of the blood-filled pouches and tossed them to her friends like Capri Suns. “We’re going to drink like kings tonight.”
Center for Hard to Recycle Monsters
By Rhys Lindquist
Content of advertising flyer sent directly to approx. 10,500 residents of Athens-Clarke County, postmarked October XX, 20XX:
“Hello, neighbor! We know you’re committed to helping the environment, and we are, too. That’s why we’re so proud to announce the opening of Athens’ newest recycling facility, CHaRM!
What does CHaRM stand for? It stands for Center for Hard to Recycle Monsters! We are a one-stop shop for county residents who have monster, ghoul or spirit-related materials that are difficult to get rid of. We accept many materials for no fee at all, including:
Gillman scales (up to 100)
Plastic vampire fangs
Dracula capes
Bigfoot pictures that didn’t make as much of a splash on Facebook as you hoped they would (film negatives, prints and flash drives accepted)
Nessie pictures, same as above
Clothes ripped post-werewolf transformation
Materials that we do charge a fee for include:
Mothra eggs (fee determined per ton)
Ectoplasm
Non-operational ghostbusting equipment (MUST BE EMPTY)
Wimples, habits, rosary beads and crucifixes formerly in possession of evil nuns
Haunted dolls (ghost must be reasonably friendly)
Computers and/or smartphones inhabited by rogue A.I. (must not be connected to the internet)
Materials that we DO NOT ACCEPT include:
Cenobite artifacts
Statues of Old Ones, regardless of provenance
Any material inscribed with the Yellow Sign
Used or unused Necronomicons
Chupacabra victims
Cursed talismans/amulets
Please visit us at [redacted].org to find our full list of accepted/not accepted materials and more, or call us at [redacted]! Our hours are [redacted] to [redacted], Monday through Friday. We look forward to seeing you soon!”
Note: Webpage inactive as of October 2024. Attempts to call phone number result in heavy breathing on the other line for exactly sixty (60) seconds before being disconnected. No return address given.
Time for the Sacrifice
By Jessica Pezold
The electric bus cruised forward through the gloom, rumbling over neglected streets crushed by years of unprecedented madness. Dilapidated billboards depicting faded red and black images punched above low hills into a dismal sky.
“Wow… I can’t believe we’re actually here,” raved a heavyset man in a nearby seat. “You know this is only the second one of these tours, right?”
“Yeah,” I murmured in response, attempting to mask my escalating anxiety.
We both peered out the thick glass window and saw a domed tower come into view. Faded turquoise and stained with ancient grime, it loomed upon the pinnacle of a once-stately building. It neighbored rows of tired, ruined brick and stucco facades that gaped mournfully back at us.
I can’t believe people used to come here to learn… to shop… to watch sports… to play music.
Just then, the synthetic voice of the A.I. tour guide rang out, “We are now approaching the former heart of—”
Suddenly, a large Whap! slammed the thick panel of the tour bus’s right side.
I let out a minor yelp, and another tour member leapt up and cried, “Is it one of them?”
The bus paused its forward motion, and the synthetic voice again rang, “Presenting the mutated white-tailed deer.” We scurried to the windows but quickly drew back, appalled. The deer’s eyes were the color of newly dried blood, its fur matted with layers of unspeakable filth, and its once graceful body showed a rib cage that seemed eager to punch through its fearfully thin flesh. Antlers protruded unevenly from its grotesque head as if sawed off by a maniac keen on torturing its prey.
The “mutation” did not immediately scurry away like most would-be roadkill. “Feed it!” A teenage boy’s voice broke me from my stupor. “Scan your wristband and feed it!” He ordered excitedly, “See what it does!”
I glanced at the thin, plastic wristband that all tour group members had received at the start of the tour. Losing patience, the boy snatched my arm and pressed it against an illuminated square located underneath the A.I. speaker.
“Ten credits deducted,” the voice chirped, and instantly, a tube drew forth from the bus and dropped a plop of something edible onto the worn street. The morbid deer devoured the blob in five seconds. Emboldened, another tour member pressed his wristband to the screen, and out popped another edible blob that the wretched creature snatched.
Its glee was short-lived.
A rock the size of a cannon ball tumbled to the ground, and the deer bleated a sudden wail, reeled and collapsed, its neck clearly broken. What had thrown that rock, and with such accuracy?
The tour group collectively gasped, and blood drained from my face as we all observed an odd sight. Stooped, scraggly forms drew forth from under a black arched entryway and descended upon the fallen creature they had apparently just killed.
A rush of static made everyone jump. “The Campus Dwellers frequently dine on a deer snack, when they can get it,” chirped the A.I. voice. The bus walls, seemingly protective, couldn’t conceal the sickening sounds of gnarled hands and dull knives cutting into the flesh of the starved deer.
“Campus Dwellers,” a man next to me scoffed. “That’s a soft way to put it. These people… well, I hesitate to call them people. These… beings… only exist to breathe and feed off of whatever carnage they can find. They know nothing else. They were left behind when—”
A thump interrupted, and a woman who had been voraciously filming the destruction of the deer shrieked, “Ew, it’s LOOKING at me!”
Indeed, one of the beings peered beadily up through the glass that was evidently not tinted for privacy. A fellow “Dweller” followed the gaze of the first, and one by one, they abandoned the empty deer carcass and fixated on us, mere inches away.
Beyond the beings stood gallant buildings and fluted columns, architecture of a by-gone era that had been consumed by harsh weather and time. But wait, there was something more. Lumpy forms hung upon these columns… forms that did not resemble the mutated white-tailed deer, but something humanoid.
“Campus Dwellers live in this Georgia compound in complete isolation. So much isolation, in fact, that once a year—” the disembodied voice of the A.I. speaker was drowned out by a startling clonk! One of the Dwellers had pulled a dull knife from the body of the dead deer and slammed it onto the bus window. One by one, each Dweller procured their own knives and followed suit- first, a single slam, then multiple, then a sickly, harrowing cry of, “Time-time-time-time!”
The woman who’d filmed the dwellers in fascinated delight turned toward the A.I. speaker with an accusing bellow, “What is this?!”
As if on cue, the speaker called out, high and clear, “Congratulations! Today is your day to contribute. It is time for the sacrifice.”
Perplexed, our focus flitted between the knife-wielding beings and the A.I. speaker. But the speaker gave no further detail, other than, “It is time for the sacrifice. Time for the sacrifice. Time for the sacrifice. TIME…FOR…THE…SACRIFICE.” And with a nearly silent whir, the door of the tour bus slid open.
Shadows of Hot Corner
By Morgan Swank
Jesse had always felt drawn to Hot Corner, a historic part of Athens that had once thrived as the heart of Black Athens. His great-grandfather, Samuel “Doc” Rivers, had owned a barbershop there in the 1920s, where the Black community gathered to share stories and resist the oppression of Jim Crow. Now a history major at the University of Georgia, Jesse was working on a project to document the history of Black-owned businesses in Athens, hoping to revive the forgotten stories of the past.
Hot Corner wasn’t the same anymore. The old businesses had disappeared, replaced by modern shops, but Jesse felt something lingering in the air. The place still held its secrets, especially around the Morton building, a once-grand symbol of Black pride.
One evening, Jesse stood outside the Morton building as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting deep purple shadows across the street. The air was thick with humidity, and the breeze was eerily still. As he gazed up at the building’s empty, dark windows, he thought he saw a flicker of light on the top floor. He brushed it off as a trick of the streetlights but couldn’t shake the feeling that something… someone… was watching him.
His grandmother had always warned him, “Don’t go nosin’ around Hot Corner after dark. They ain’t all at peace there.” He never knew exactly what she meant, but the warning echoed in his mind as he approached the locked doors of the Morton building.
Leaning closer to peer through the grimy windows, Jesse heard something faint—like the distant hum of conversation or soft laughter. The sound grew clearer, transforming into ragtime music, as if it were seeping through the walls from another time. His heart raced as he pressed his ear against the door. Over the music, he could hear a deep, rhythmic chant, a sound that seemed to rise from the depths of history itself.
Suddenly, everything stopped. The music, the hum—it all vanished into silence.
Jesse, now trembling, pulled out his phone and shined its light through the window. Inside, the lobby was frozen in time, covered in dust and littered with overturned chairs. Then, in the far corner, the light caught something—a shadow, moving.
There stood a man in an old-fashioned suit, the kind worn by Black businessmen in the early 1900s. His face was hidden in shadow, but his posture was unmistakable—he was staring straight at Jesse.
Jesse’s heart pounded as he stepped back, his feet feeling heavy, as if the concrete beneath him was dragging him down. The man in the suit began to move toward him, slowly but deliberately, his hollow eyes burning with an ancient rage. As the figure approached, Jesse felt the weight of history pressing on him, a cold fear rooting him to the spot.
“Who are you?” Jesse managed to whisper, his voice barely audible.
The figure stopped, and when he spoke, his voice was deep and broken, like it hadn’t been used in decades. “They took my name.”
The words hit Jesse like a punch, reminding him of stories his great-grandfather had told—men whose lives were stolen, their names erased by violence and buried beneath the polite veneer of Southern history.
“They took my life,” the figure continued, its face contorting in anger.
Jesse could hardly breathe as the man drew closer, his presence suffocating. The figure flickered in the dim light, like a flame dancing in the wind. Jesse’s instinct screamed at him to run, but his feet wouldn’t move. He was trapped, bound by the weight of the past.
“They’ll take yours, too,” the figure hissed, its voice filled with a chilling certainty.
And then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, the man vanished. The lobby was empty once more, and the only sound that remained was the faint echo of chains dragging across the floor.
Jesse stumbled backward, gasping for breath. His phone buzzed in his hand, the screen lighting up with a new message. With shaking hands, he opened it—a photo.
It was of him, standing in front of the Morton building. But in the reflection of the window behind him, the shadow was still there, watching, waiting.
The Wages of Sin
By Paul Butchart
In the early morning hours
A young woman dies
________
Once a Virginia Girl
_________
At an early age Stolen by a Man
And carried to New York
In the early hours of yesterday morning all alone in her misery a young woman lay dying in one room of a house on Meigs Street. She had been beautiful and fair in days that had gone and had been beloved by relatives and friends.
The scene had changed, the tempter had come and completed his work and with her eyes set on the shores of eternity she was dying, a woman of the world.
Around her bedside no friend lingered to watch the fleeting breath leave the body, and the single attendant upon her in her last hours was a little Black girl.
With the strength left in her feeble frame and between the violent attacks of asthma that were carrying her to the grave. She uttered words of prayer for forgiveness for her deeds of sin, and partially besought pardon before the great throne and then she died.
The story of the woman’s life is a sad one. It said that her maiden name was Carrie Gust, and that she came of a good family of the Old Dominion, and being of more than ordinary intelligence she must have been at one time in good circumstance.
When about 15 years old she was stolen from her home and carried to New York by a man who became her paramour and taught her the way to ruin.
Once started the descent was easy, and step by step she came down to infamy, living in many places and finally drifting to Athens, where her life had been one of sin and shame.
Doubtless she found the truth of the divine saying the “way of the transgressor is hard,” for in her last hours she was forsaken by all save one little Black girl who stood by her to the end.
About 36 years old, in Athens she went by the name of Mamie Howard, having been married to a party named W. T. Howard, of Pennsylvania. The county administrator took charge of her affairs and prepared her for burial.
Just about nightfall over in Oconee cemetery they buried her in the potters field, Rev. D. Stone reading a psalm and offering a prayer in the presence of three white men who were working the grave.
MOVED FROM POTTER FIELD
The Remains of Mamie Howard Carried to the Cemetery.
Some months ago Mamie Howard, a woman of ill fame, died at a house on Meigs Street, and her remains were carried to the Potter field for burial. She had no friends in the city and no lot in the cemetery.
Yesterday a nice looking gentleman arrived in the city, and at once went to work to have her remains moved from the Potter field to Oconee cemetery.
The gentleman bought a lot in the cemetery for which he paid 23 dollars, and with the assistance of a few had the grave in Potter Field opened and the remains of Mamie Howard carried to a decent place of burial.
The gentleman stated that he once loved and wooed Mamie Howard in her better days. It turns out that her real name was Irene Anderson. He remarked that she belonged to one of the best families in Virginia who were terribly grieved at her life and the manner of her death. Her father occupied a high position in that state.
After the remains were deposited in the cemetery he hunted up the little Black girl who waited on Mamie Howard and gave her a 10 dollar bill, also promising to send a box of clothes.
So it is now proposed to seal forever the last chapter of this life by the erection of a simple and plain monument over her grave, pure as the life from which she fell and for which in her dying moments she prayed. (1893)
This is a true story quoted and paraphrased from the newspapers of the day. I moved into the house I live in on Meigs Street knowing that it is haunted. Lights zipping up the stairwell, the sensation that someone sat in the bed, that spot in the steps where many people stumble… Could it be Mamie Howard? There weren’t many houses on Meigs Street in 1893, but this one was there. Could your house be haunted? Most Likely.
September, 1984
By Andrew Benzinger
The wind… the wind, my son, oh the sweet Athens nightwind…
The fall fair on the edge of Athens always arrived with the first fall wind, never a night sooner or later.
You’re too young to remember, but it was a fair without peer—like Zombie Farms long before Zombie Farms, or the old Puritan Cordage Mill haunted house, except… the fair’d tumble into town fully formed, tents ‘n all. No one ever set it up. The fair set itself in motion.
Didn’t believe it myself until one night in September, nineteen and eighty-four…
The fair fairly had a mind all its own. Didn’t matter none what the weatherman said; no matter if the forecast preached hellfire all September long—lo and behold, the temperatures’d chill overnight, a reverent mist’d fall among the pines, and the fair’d rise out of the patchwork of fields ‘n thickets just north of Normaltown.
Away from the town, away from the lights… it’d appear glimmering in that outer dark.
I can still remember it as if 40 years were so many nights. Over the years, Athens both changed and stayed the same—that is, its rel’tively selfsame change stayed the same radically strange afterimage. And I’ll say one thing, if ev’ry change was as fussed over as that damned trestle, everything’d stay paralyzed in place, and the most mysterious and profound transformation all these years—Michael Stipe’s hairline—would’ve gotten three op-eds in the press.
But still, there remains the enigma of that night in September of nineteen and eighty-four…
I remember stumbling past the fairgrounds that night, and I wasn’t sure whether the fair was in season. My brain fuzzed like a suppurating sock—I can still feel the thrum of my brain beating moist against my skull—my roomy and I were bumbling home dripping wet from a house show. Some punk-ass B-52’s guitarist’d taken a water hose and showered the living room, kitchen, foyer.
House parties were something then. Not sure if it was fun per se, but they were something. Can’t attest to today. Maybe they’re wilder now.
My roomy and I took off after the fourth or fifth round—and the second round getting sprayed—and maybe that was a mistake cause our drunken shadows found ourselves good ‘n lost in the nightwoods of outer Athens.
And I dreamed I knew where we were and tried to convince roomy our house was just past this narrow neck of woods. He was having none of it, but somehow I convinced us both, and we went tromping into the blithering dark arm in arm.
Unshockingly, the narrow neck of woods turned into a hike void of reference or destination. But before long we’d stumbled on a riverbank too far to cross even in our half-minds.
The sound of a guitar strumming and a shout, PAINT SACRED ART, SON! darted our attention to the far bank where an old man sat behind a slipshod easel and a kid no older than us fiddled on a decaying acoustic. We asked how to cross, and the old man called back that we had to turn back, cut through the fair.
What fair? we asked.
The fair! You’ll see!
So we doubled back. And as we trudged our blind, irritated way, roomy grabbed my shirt and yanked my eyes from my feet.
Dead ahead, tents and tarps, sheds and pens, string lights and haybales rose from the woods in a spontaneous half-glade. Not a soul in sight. In the distance, a reedy stream of calliope drifted across the dried canopy.
Roomy and I balked. But our feet pushed us forward into the labyrinth of sheet plastic. Curious… I don’t think it was liquid courage that pushed us ahead, something like… impulse, morbid attraction.
A light babel of voices susurrated from the darkness between tents. But whenever I glanced left or right, I caught nothing more than a flicker of movement. I turned to roomy, whispering, I don’t think we should be here, and found a bug-eyed mirror of terror. Fear sobered our steps; we no longer stumbled, we stepped like astronauts on an alien world.
Here the tents parted, and we stepped into a clearing of bowled earth. A half-built house rotted into itself some distance away, two ghoul-costumed carnies rocking back and forth, back and forth on porch rocking chairs, twin shadows pivoting on insensate axes, like dolls.
Through there… there…
One of the carnies beckoned to the house’s threshold. Roomie backed away. I stayed put.
Jim… roomy hissed, Jim—
The carny kept beckoning toward the doorframe of the half-house, the terminal world beyond the thresh all doorless sightless dark.
Through there…
Jim… JIM!
Roomy grabbed my collar, and we were running, and the tents were behind us, and we were racing through watercolor woods. I don’t know how long we ran. Not because of time or PBR-pastel memories. I surely don’t know if we ran ten steps or miles. But suddenly we were home, walking through our front door, silent, shell shocked.
The next morning I found roomy shakily smoking a cig on the back porch, smoke trail shivering like a tremulous snake tongue. I started to say something, and he said, I don’t wanna talk about it.
But what—
I don’t wanna talk about it.
And we never went a mile north of Normaltown again.
Never heard one way or another about the fair, and nobody seemed to remember it after a handful o’ years. And September temps rarely dipped below 80 degrees after.
Every Athenian knows Finster, B-52’s, Jittery Joe’s. Nobody remembers the fair. But I still wonder… and I grow older, and older still…
Finster, Flat Duo Jets, the fall fair. All gone.
But there remains the old wind, my son…
Ohh, the sweet Athens nightwind…
The Homicide Tree
By John Gaither
I went to see Andrew and Sophie at their new place, an old farmhouse out beyond the Tallassee Road. I wanted them to show me the Murder Tree.
“It’s perfect for Halloween,” Andrew said. “It’s a local legend. My neighbor told me there was a murder here about 10 years ago. And somebody killed himself here about a dozen years before that. I think it’s connected to the sunspot cycle.”
“And that’s not all,” Sophie said. “The old log cabin that was here burnt down to the ground and killed everybody inside. Burnt them up to charcoal logs.”
“Sounds scary,” I said.
Andrew said, “Is it more scary than a hurricane killing hundreds of people, or thousands of people starving or getting killed in wars?”
“How about messing up the atmosphere and killing all life on the planet, like we’re doing now? That’s more scary,” Sophie said.
That kind of set the emotional tone. We walked uphill, toward some trees and an old family cemetery.
“This is it,” he said. We stopped under an old oak with three trunks reaching up like fingers. Nearby was a big white rock sunk halfway in the ground, and an althea with a single late bloom. A squirrel jumped down from the bush and ran up the tree.
Far up I saw a deadfall, a heavy limb that had broken free but was hanging in the branches, pointing down.
“You got a snag up there waiting to kill somebody,” I said.
“So don’t stand under it. It’s been there a couple of years. It’ll fall when it wants to,” Andrew gave me a look. “People always want to hurry Nature along. Nature can take care of itself.”
He pointed at the cemetery. “You see all that quartzite over there?”
White rocks made a low wall around the cemetery.
“The first settlers probably got those from an Indian petroglyph that was here, like the Rock Eagle. Quartzite has electromagnetic properties. This is a power spot, like a bio-energy whirlpool, and the Indians knew it.
“Emotions stick to a place, and people can feel it. An old church with nobody in it still has a friendly feeling, and a sense of the sacred. Go to an empty jail, and it still feels like hell. This place feels like sudden death.
“Every place and every part of Nature works in its own way to keep the big biosphere satisfied. We’ve killed all the animals, and cut all the trees. If the animals are gone, our lives have to take the place of theirs.”
“Well, we aren’t going to be killing each other,” I said. The wind stirred, and it got kind of cold and strange for a second. We looked at each other.
I wanted to lighten the mood. Sophie was wearing a flat quartz crystal around her neck. The facets were silvered, reflecting light like a prismatic mirror.
“So, what’s that pendant?” I asked.
She smiled. “It’s like a mood ring,” she said. “Different people see different colors in it. It reflects their emotions and life-energy.”
What a crock, I thought. And who interprets the colors, I wondered. You? Isn’t it more a reflection of your emotions and life-energy?
“What colors do you see?” she asked.
I saw her red hair and the white rock. “Red and white,” I said.
She stopped. She looked paler and thinner. The squirrel started barking at us from up in the tree.
“That means violence and death,” she said.
Andrew laughed and held up his hands. “Whoa, watch out for you,” he said, stepping back away from me.
There was a rustling above him and he looked up just in time to see the jagged end of the falling branch punch into his face.
Sophie ran toward him but slipped on the wet grass. She fell sideways, and her head struck the rock with a crunch.
I rolled her over and checked, but there was no pulse and she wasn’t breathing. Andrew’s head was all mashed up. I didn’t need to check his pulse.
Murder, suicide and unintentional killing—the Homicide Tree. Maybe it’s not vibrations from the past that lead to death, but the demands of the present. Maybe something needs to be fed, and one way is as good as another—in Athens, Asheville or Gaza.
The blood made red streaks down the white rock. The last bloom of the althea dropped to the ground. The squirrel jumped to another tree—his work here was done.
Night at the Cinema
By Tom Unsworth
Until my early teens, trick-or-treating was my preferred activity on Halloween night.
From my teenage years to my early 20s, I’d usually find a house party to go to, something with a good mix of wild costumes and the strongest punch mixed with the cheapest ingredients.
But for the past few years, Ciné has been my favorite destination for Halloween. If I can spend the scariest night of the year taking in a classic horror film on a big screen while also supporting Athens’ only independent cinema, I call that an absolute win.
Last year, I shelled out $30 for a ticket to a classic silent horror movie with a live pianist in the theater. I was amazed by how the pianist played throughout the entire thing, creating a terrifying ambience without so much as stopping to take a break—I had been expecting there to be an intermission, as was common in many movies of that era, to give him a few minutes to rest his hands, but he had apparently not needed one. At first the audience seemed to find the film’s special effects laughable—the scene where the vampire moves at “inhuman speeds” by way of sped up footage looked more Buster Keaton than Count Dracula—but near the end, during the scene where the same vampire slowly picks off the crew of a cargo ship, no one was laughing.
A few years before that, I took in Ciné’s showing of that cult-classic mock-horror musical, the one where the audience enjoys shouting at iconic happenstances on the screen; the staff went all out with the ambience of that one as well, having additions such as an overhead sprinkler for the rain scene, and playing cards being tossed out into the audience towards the climax (if you know, you know!). I even broke out of my shell a bit to procure a costume similar to those worn by the film’s cast, which gained me a lot of praise from my fellow cinema-goers.
This year, the cinema is showing one of those classic ‘80s slasher films. I take my seat with my bag of popcorn and a large drink; I’m there early, as I tend to be, but soon more people pour in, various groups ranging from excited gangs of costumed students to plainly dressed married couples who seem to just be grateful to be going out of the house. I do see one person standing alone; their presence is almost sad to me. I can see them positioned by the exit in their costume, a very detailed replica of the one worn by the film’s antagonist, with the mask completely covering their face and the blood-stained jacket and pants to match. I give them a nod of recognition, as if I’m trying to convey validation, letting them know that at least one person here appreciates the effort they went to. The lone cosplayer seemed not to acknowledge me, though I decided to chalk it up to shyness rather than rudeness.
The movie initially starts with nothing to offer but the cinematic experience of a big screen and a big sound system; I was a little disappointed that this one wouldn’t have the effort of ambience that I was used to on their Halloween showings. But 15 minutes in, things start to happen that make me rethink my assumption; a little smoke begins to pour down the aisles, originating from the doors, and I start to hear panicked noises that aren’t coming from the usual speakers. I smirk a little, thinking how the staff managed to deceive me into assuming this would be an ordinary night at the movies. I continue watching the film, enjoying the extra effects, the sounds of distant screams, the banging on the theater doors as if someone is trying to get away from the unstoppable killer on screen, and then I feel something spatter onto the back of my neck, a warm liquid that certainly doesn’t feel like the usual ketchup-and-Kool-Aid fake blood mix.
I turn around, expecting to see a staff-member holding a squirt gun, or some kind of special-effects machine like the one I assume is creating the smoke.
Instead I see the standing form of the lone cosplayer from earlier, who has since acquired an unsettlingly realistic machete. I also see the couple behind me having apparently changed from their standard clothes into costumes resembling bloodied stab victims.
I only realize what is actually happening after the lone cosplayer’s blade has already been impaled into my chest.
The Disappearance of Mary Anderson
By Burak Inel
“You tell me you met god,” a voice coldly utters.
I’m not quite sure how to respond to that. When he utters his name it feels so foreign, so abstract. I try to collect my thoughts, to at least present some type of coherent sentence.
“What…?” I ask, not making any eye contact.
“You said you met god, is that right Mister…” there’s a pause, almost a moment of hesitation, before he finishes his words, “…Anderson?”
I match his pause, wanting him to know how he made me feel, that eerie silence. He was going to pay. “Yes, that is correct,” I say calmly and collectively.
“Do you know why we have you in custody today?” he says, leaning a bit closer. I now pay closer attention to the table between us, somehow that detail had escaped my mind. I was too busy fixating on him. Oh, how I wish I could get out of here.
I shake my head, “No…officer…” I pause, and look at him, putting a slight unnerving smile on my face, his eyes fixate, until I see a slight glimmer of discomfort before he firmly retorts, “Kennedy.” The lights slightly flicker, but when they come back they feel brighter and more intense. Lifeless industrial lights in this lifeless industrial room. Like a factory, the walls are void of any color or charm, and like a factory, I sit in this cold, metal chair, chained to it like the cattle I am. I study Officer Kennedy, looking deeply at his details. Slight wrinkle on his forehead and cheek, a few greys here and there, and a slight stubble. Why waste his time with me when he could be at home with his family? Family. That’s funny.
“You’re here at the Athens-Clarke Police East Precinct because you’re a key suspect to the disappearance and possible homicide of your wife, Mary Anderson,” he says, before continuing, “Now what alarms us most is that you said that you met god when we took you in for questioning.”
Inel 2
Those words. Those stupid words. They make no sense, I just need to say anything to get out of here. What is this stupid man talking about? Just deny everything. This is a stupid situation. I need out. “I have no clue what you are talking about, I was never married sir,” I respond.
“Records show that you and Mary Anderson have been married for 12 years, yet you deny this?” he confusingly responds.
Just keep denying it. They’ll let you off the hook.
“Yes,” I firmly retort.
“Do you have any history of mental health issues, Mister Anderson?” Officer Kennedy asks, half-concerningly and half-triumphantly. Expecting to catch me in a Catch-22.
Issues? I have no issues. I am of sound mind. Who does this fool think he is? Christ showed me the right way, and he just cannot see that. I saved her.
“No sir,” I mutter.
He nods his head, seemingly pleased with my response. It’s working. “Now tell me about meeting god, I have too met him,” he nonchalantly says.
Finally, someone who understands. I have to let Officer Kennedy know about him. I begin my story, “A year ago, god gave me a vision, a vision of a future where everything was set ablaze. It began right here in Athens and spread until the entire continent was poisoned. Almost as if I were John, in the Book of Revelations.”
He audibly exhales, his eyebrows furrowing. “And after this vision what happened?” Kennedy asks. “Well, I ignored it, understandably I simply thought of it as a bad dream or night terror. But the thought kept lingering. In the following months, I could see the image of Christ in my hallway. I could hear the trumpets play their happy sounds. Surely, this was god speaking to me, warning me of what was to come. A few months ago, one of the lord’s angels spoke to me. To prevent the book of Revelations from occurring, I needed to bring my wife to salvation—” I immediately stop. Oh no. “Mister Anderson, I thought you denied ever being married?” he rhetorically asks, unphased, but he knows he got me, “Be honest, what really happened?” he asks.
Inel 3
The room remains silent for several minutes. A tear hits the floor, “I saved her. That’s what happened. God told me to save her and I did,” I say.
“Where’s the body?” Kennedy asks.
She’s safe now, safe with him.
Die Anyway
By Jerry Rogers
The autumnal beauty spreading out before Russell Higgins made him angry at himself for never having jogged at the Georgia Botanical Garden before. And worse, he was here now on Halloween only because his ex-wife, Marie, who would rather die than exercise, had suggested it. Russell shook his head as he jogged on the fallen tawny leaves, marveling at how misnamed the five-mile White Trail appeared now. Fall had robed the trees and shrubs in bright red and only slightly less resplendent oranges and yellows. Though the many fallen leaves heralded the beginning demise of his favorite season, Russell focused on how much he felt alive inside his new body.
He chuckled as he remembered his lazy, obese ex-wife ridiculing his efforts to lose weight with her usual cliché and his rejoinder the last time she said it: “Well, even though I’m older and male, we’ll see who dies first.” Sneering, he talked to her about their kids’ costumes and their arriving for the traditional family trick-or-treating still headquartered at what was their house—his house now, thanks to his lawyer. He couldn’t contain his sarcasm when he popped his head into her car and saw the McDonald’s heart-attack-in-a-sack sitting in her lap and the large milkshake in the console. “Sure you don’t want to join me, Marie?”
Marie scowled at him. “Like I say, ‘Eat right, exercise, die anyway—sooner or later.”
“You’re right.” Russell turned and sauntered to his car, muttering to himself, “Sooner, not later, for you, you fat bitch—and much later for me.”
Russell smiled, thinking of the new body he had built since July. Thirty-eight pounds lost, three over his goal, and a waist shrunk from a size 42 to 36. He recalled the other benefits with sardonic glee. What luck to find a life insurance policy that considered weight as well as age and gender. I can drop my old policy covering my ex and get twice as much insurance for half the premium for the kids—with the added benefit for myself of living longer. My pending policy didn’t make Marie very happy, but she knows how I’ve suffered to get it. He chuckled, remembering what she always said: “Dieting is die spelled with a t.”
When he had jogged nearly half the trail, Russell rubbed his shrunken stomach, wishing he had eaten something more than a granola bar for both breakfast and lunch, but was glad he had devoured the mushrooms he saw before jogging. Quite a few of them, in fact. He wondered how hungry he would have been if Marie hadn’t told him about them. A botanist surely knows what’s healthy and what’s harmful, he thought, then laughed when he uttered, “Too bad she wasn’t a nutritionist.”
As twilight fell, Russell knew the kids would begin trick-or-treating without him, but he could find them easily in the neighborhood. When they got home with their bulging bags of candy, Marie would spread a sheet on the family room floor, and Tommy and Susie would put their loot into piles of each person’s favorites, just like every Halloween. Except this year Russell would dive into his daddy pile without the slightest guilt in a veritable candy orgy, maybe even letting himself this one night get as sugar sick as he did as a kid one Halloween and threw up all night.
Suddenly, Russell felt queasy. His throat tightened, and he swallowed and spat rapidly, actions triggered by the memory he had just recalled, Russell thought—briefly. Sharp pains coursed all through his stomach… his chest… his throat… brain. After he vomited the first time, spattering himself as well as the golden path, Russell hoped he had purged himself, a hope soon fleeting along with the clarity of mind producing it. He staggered along the shadowy trail, stopping to vomit every few minutes until he sensed his lower body tighten into paralysis and he could only inch ahead. Darkness fell and Russell grew delirious but knew he was far from his car and his cell phone he had stupidly left under the seat. He forced himself to run, pumping the poison faster through his bloodstream. His will power mocked him as his brain screamed to push on to get help before his heart raced out of control… before it stopped… before he, like the children’s candy, would be spread out on a sheet.
Library After Hours
By Leara Rhodes
The year was 1972. I walked to the UGA main library after class in Park Hall and headed upstairs to find a cubby place to study. A place where I would feel safe and could even stretch out a little. I was sleeping in my car because I could not afford an apartment. Studying at the library made sense. Up on the third floor it was quiet. Occasionally someone went past looking for a book or two on the shelves, but there was quiet.
Times had been hard. I needed to work several jobs to pay for room and board, and then there were books. I took in sewing when someone needed a skirt hemmed. I got tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So, I rounded up several apartments full of guys and I cooked Southern food for them and me. Family did not help. They did not have the means to help. I was on my own and in a constant fear of something bad happening that would make my already overloaded life even worse.
As I studied, I heard my stomach rumble. Tonight was Friday night, and I did not cook on Fridays. Most of the guys I cooked for left Athens early on Fridays to go home to somewhere in Georgia to eat their mama’s cooking. I got up and went to the water fountain and drank to fill my stomach. There was a shadow the next aisle over. I noticed the movement but returned to my books. I heard a shuffling and looked up. I could not see any one and the noise had stopped. I was tired and needed to get to my 65 Plymouth and drive over to the small strip of shops on Lumpkin Street to park under the streetlamps and get some sleep, it was a spot where I was left alone. I worked on Saturday as a receptionist for one of the dorms and needed to get there early to shower and change.
I packed up my books and papers but stopped. I could hear someone breathing. How could someone breathe so loudly? I glanced about and saw another shadow. The shadow moved and so did I. Quickly I shoveled the remaining items into my bag and instead of getting on the elevator, I went down the stairs. Three flights of stairs and I was dashing as quickly as I could. I heard a sliding foot fall on the stairs behind me. I kept going. At the door leading outside, I checked the time, 10 p.m. It was late. I saw someone move in close behind me.
Outside, I had to decide which way to go. I chose to go to the left and pass by Park Hall. My car was in the lot behind the Baptist Center. I picked up my pace but so did the steps behind me. I felt the inner need to breathe deeply to calm my racing heart. In and out I breathed and kept my steps constant and determined. At the street, I crossed even as traffic was moving along. On the other side, I steadfastly walked as quickly as I could to my car, got in, locked the doors and glanced about, I did not see anyone. I backed out and went to park in my normal place on Lumpkin. It was several hours before I calmed down enough to fall asleep.
The next day at the dorm, a friend of mine passed through the reception area and greeted me. She said she saw me walking down the street in front of Park Hall the night before, but she was across the street and at the corner, so she did not call out to me. Then she asked the most curious thing: “Who was walking next to you?”
“I was alone,” I said.
“No,” she said, “a woman was walking next to you. I could see her walking comfortably with you all the way down the street. She even crossed the street with you. I lost sight of the two of you when you went behind the building.”
What Hides in the Dark
By Mel Hawks
A loud and raspy snore woke me.
It was dark, completely dark. I opened and closed my eyes, but there was nothing, not even a sliver of light.
The space was damp and cool.
A headache and nausea rose as I did. I reached for my phone, normally within arms reach, but it wasn’t there.
My mind raced with possibilities.
What day is it?
Where am I?
Ok, I am wearing my pink sparkly dress, but the heels are gone.
My last memory was of a party off of Milledge Avenue. The frat house was pouring champagne and prosecco, a rarity. The drinks were light and fruity and went down easy. It was a reward after my CHEM 1312H exam. I deserved this.
Then Kenzi, Bella and I headed downtown. We wanted to end our night by dancing at Sister Louisa’s. Our Lyft took longer than expected, and Bella took off down one of the side roads. We ran after her ruining my Lyft rating. That’s where my shoes came off.
Thankfully Bella’s dress was white leather, so we could see light reflecting off the material as she sprinted down the street. Too bad neither Kenzie nor I were track stars like Bella.
I felt around for my white clutch.
As I placed my right hand down, I felt something soft, pliable and fleshy. My body snapped back like a fishing line.
There was whimpering across from me.
“Bella? Kenzie?” I whisper screamed.
There was another small cry, and I moved toward the noise. Whatever I was lying next to was strikingly still. I was dizzy so crawling felt like the next best option.
My hands were now on cool, dry and solid dirt. The space smelt moldy.
Were we in a basement?
I raised my voice, “What happened to us?”
I was getting closer to the whimper and slowly started standing up, with one hand to the floor and the other above my head.
I could reach the ceiling, it was frayed wood with exposed nails, without trying. It couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall.
I got back on my knees, lured by the sound of my friends.
“Bella? Kenzie?”
The childlike feminine voice just kept whimpering. I arrived to the sound gently using my hands to help me see. They had some sort of sneaker on and damp jeans.
We all were wearing dresses last night. This wasn’t my friend. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching. Their arms were thin and small. I moved toward their face. It was cool and damp. Their hair was thick and curly. They were leaning up against what felt like bricks.
“Are you okay?”
I felt her nod in the affirmative, as she cried.
“Where are we? How long have you been down here?” I peppered her with questions, none of which she answered.
It was comforting to talk, but her silence was disconcerting.
“I’m gonna go around the edge of the wall to see if I can find anything. Okay?”
There wasn’t a shred of light. My hand grazed over sharp spots in the brick. I moved forward slowly with one hand on the wall, the other sifting through the dirt in front of me.
There were loose nails and pieces of glass. Thankfully I felt them before I got cut. I could feel the ground slowly descend. I hit a right angle and continued.
I heard the crinkle of some kind of tarp. Picking up the edge, I timidly felt underneath. It was just dirt.
The movement calmed me, somehow. I came to another corner and could feel the slight incline back up.
My hand gripped the earth tighter.
I felt something. I knew what it was in an instant.
A shoe. A slick dress shoe.
I considered pulling my hand back, but I didn’t.
Was this the snorer?
“Hello?” My voice was dry and raspy.
“Hmmm,” the deep masculine voice said.
“Oh good. Thank God.” I let out the deep breath that I had been holding. “Are you okay?” “Hmmm,” he said again.
The initial relief I felt with his response turned into terror.
“Where are we?” My voice quivered.
Through a laborious inhale he said, “Hell.”
Me? In Hell?
Screams filled the space.
Sunset Clause
By Wylly Jordan
“Hey Cory. Got a sec?”
Cory was about to eat lunch.
“What’s up.”
“Well,” Will shifted on his feet. “Thing is…”
The Petersons had won the Flagpole Cruise Down Spooky Street for two years running. Once it got closer to Halloween, Cory and his family would take the whole tour, but the Peterson house was their favorite. It wasn’t his beat, and the neighborhood didn’t have any “active” addresses, so he hadn’t seen it yet. As he angled his cruiser into the driveway, he was kind of looking forward to it.
Well, he was. Jesus. So much for lunch.
Will worked for the ACC Planning Department, and Cory would normally have referred him to the detectives, because Cory didn’t handle crackpots. That said, Will was assistant director and told it like he knew how it sounded. Which helped.
“Nothing in the emails was crazy,” Will said, “and Peterson’s a lawyer, so I don’t want to forward anything if it’s nothing.”
“I get it.”
“Airbnbs face the back of his house, and he wanted to make sure the owners made the legal non-conforming short-term rental list. He followed up a few times, we let him know when the list was out, and we did make sure the Wrights were on it. Might have missed them, honestly.” Will shifted again. “Not that it matters now.”
“Anything off? Angry, or it ring funny?”
“No. Pain in the ass. You could tell he’d keep following up, ‘replying all’ until he got a response, but truth is he’s not the only one. You know how Airbnbs are.”
“Yeah.” He waited. “That it?”
“That’s it.”
Cory sat in the Peterson’s driveway for a moment. He avoided looking at the display, but he could still see it out of the corner of his eye.
The current “narrative” was that the border was the boogeyman again, which seemed to work pretty well for both sides this election year; it’s the border, the border, we tried to fix it, no we did, you broke it, no you did, but what about this and that and blah blah blah and the truth was nobody knew where the Wrights were whether they hired day laborers or not. God knows the ACCPD had wasted enough time questioning Hispanics in front of the Home Depot. No sé nada.
The Wrights moved here for work, bought a house, had a baby, fixed up a couple of short-term rentals and poof! They were gone. No trace. Didn’t make any sense, and it was scaring the shit out of everybody.
Not Cory, though. He was more boots on the ground for Athens’ run-of-the-mill menaces. He didn’t have time to be chasing ghosts.
“Mr. Peterson?”
Running shorts and a black T-shirt, but didn’t look like he did much running. Rottweiler beside him was quiet as night.
“I’m Officer Phillips.” He motioned towards the Rott, now a low rumble. “You mind?”
Peterson, wary but a little amused, pulled the door closed behind him. Ten miles any direction his beard and long hair would look out of place, but this was Athens.
Cory explained why he was there. He and Mr. Peterson talked.
Backing out of the driveway, he called Will.
“I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“You need those emails?” The voice hoped for no.
“Nah. Everything’s copacetic.”
He glanced at the display again as he pulled out.
Maybe not everything.
I watch him pull away and then step back outside. I figured someone might complain this year. Lot of churches.
But it wasn’t that, we’re neighborhood favorites. He and I end up talking about the sunset clause, and the nonconformance list, (and, of course, I hope the Wrights are okay, I just know they are, blah, blah, blabbity blah) and then I go through the minute details of the ordinance, and the this and that and maybe this and Officer Phillip’s eyes glaze over and I do love the law sometimes.
I left out that it’s not just getting them on the list. The short-term rental ordinance is pretty straightforward for new buyers, but for current owners, ehhh, it’s tricky. The county attorneys advised against a sunset clause, enforcement would be a problem, it’ll probably be struck down…
This year’s theme is “Halloween Nativity.” The Unholy Family, flayed and glistening, with polished bone faces and shiny enamel, the family rictus. It’s my best work.
You see, the potential inefficacy of the nonconformance list is scaring the shit out of everybody.
Not me, though.
There’s always a sunset clause.
We’re In Your Walls: A Welcome Letter To New Tenants
By Alex Music
Dear friend,
We hope this message finds you well. We are the current residents of your new home in Athens, and we are in your walls.
Of course, this is true in any town. We are everywhere. We are inside, outside, within you and without you. Humans like to think of themselves as separate from the environment. You like to skirt around the fact that, at the end of the day, you are just as much of a creature as any of us. You follow the cycles of the sun. You breathe in and breathe out. You fill your niches. We fill ours.
Like you, we love these historic Boulevard houses. People seem to enjoy them for aesthetic reasons. We enjoy their yummy wood frames, their ample entry points for winter shelter, and their crumbling eaves. The more inspections they might fail, the more litigious emails to your landlord that are called for, the better. Likewise, we love a townhouse off Milledge Avenue where no one mops the Tropicalia-covered floors. Or an apartment beside the Oconee that floods when the river swells. Or a house on the Eastside where… well, we’re not exactly sure what happens on the Eastside, but we are certainly there.
You can hire a pest control company. You can threaten the property manager. They sold you a lemon painted robin’s egg blue, for God’s sake! But whatever. They’ll shrug their shoulders. We’re your problem now. And the laws are certainly not in your favor. If you annoy them enough, maybe you can break the lease, but good luck finding somewhere in this town where we are not.
Our resilience is non-Newtonian—scoop us up and we’ll slip like water through your fingers, stomp us out and we will stiffen to preserve our shape. You depend on us as much as we depend on you. If you exclude the bats living in your bathroom exhaust fan, who will keep the baby cockroaches at bay? If you poison the mice, you might kill your neighbor’s curious cat, and that would be horrific, because we know you love cats. Indeed, the cats are on our side. We advise you to play your cards wisely.
The previous tenant kept nothing from us. To be fair, they had no choice. The walls are thin. But know that we are more than creatures: We are the past, the present and the future. You can never truly get rid of us. We were here before you, and we will be here long after you are gone. If that scares you, try biking down Broad Street. And stop thinking so highly of yourself. Get a hobby or something. Read a Flagpole.
We love you, and you will learn to love us back.
Sincerely,
The creatures living in your walls
P.S: You might as well paint the kitchen. You’re not getting your security deposit back.
The Scariest Morning in Athens I Can Imagine
By Anne Marcotte
Monday, February 3, 2025. A sunny winter morning. I am on Boulevard, walking my kids to Johnnie Lay Burks Elementary School (Tree Frogs Forever!).
Mr. Sells is finally pulling up his Trump yard sign from the election. He catches my eye.
I select Fake Friendly.
“Hi, Robert,” I say. “Pretty morning, isn’t it?”
“Should be a great day,” he answers, apparently having settled on Fake Friendly himself.
Beat.
We keep walking.
He leans his sign against a tree and falls in step with us.
“So when did you get here?” he asks.
“We moved in last summer,” I tell him. “We had a nice apartment near South Milledge for a couple years, but we’d been hoping to find a good house here or in Cobbham for the kids.”
“But when did you get here?” he repeats. I know what he means.
“I was born in Tennessee and moved to Athens in 2012. My parents were both from Knoxville.”
“Do you have your birth certificate with you?”
I’m clinging desperately to Fake Friendly.
“Not this morning,” I try a smile and a little laugh. “We’re just headed for the school.”
“You have to carry it now,” he says flatly.
We wait at the Chase Street traffic light, and he calls to another man I don’t recognize.
“Rich! This one doesn’t have her papers with her!”
Rich joins us, gun drawn. He reads from the card in his hand.
“As of February 1, 2025, federal law requires all persons whose physical appearance may reasonably be interpreted to reflect any heritage other than 100% Northern European to carry identification and proof of citizenship at all times. All citizens are entitled to question any such non-Northern-European-appearing person at any time. Citizen’s arrests, including physical restraint by force, may be used at the questioner’s discretion in the event that the person being questioned has failed to carry the required documentation or fails to produce it when asked. Are you carrying your required identification and proof of citizenship, or are you refusing to provide those documents to me?”
My children are wide-eyed. The WALK light has cycled back to red.
“We’re just going to the school,” I tell him, as calmly as I can manage.
“No way we’re letting you and your little brats poison our new school,” Rich says.
Robert has zip-tied my hands before I have a chance to realize what he’s doing or what “new” could possibly mean.
Rich and his gun and his card push me to the ground. “Sit down.”
“Run to the school,” I manage to tell the kids. “Go tell your teachers. Tell them to call the police for you. I’ll be fine, your teachers and the police will help you. Just go to the school.”
The light turns green. The kids run across, and I watch them approach their school. It takes me a moment to understand what I am seeing.
The Johnnie Lay Burks sign has been taken down. In its place is a new one, large enough to be easily visible from the corner: Chevron Amazon White Elementary. The cheery yellow school buses idle in front of the school as usual, but they do not seem to be dropping off children. I realize that I am watching more men with more guns and more cards ushering selected teachers and selected children onto the waiting buses, under the attentive supervision of several police officers.
I begin to scream at my kids, but they are too far down the block to hear me. “Come back! Adam! Faith! Wait! Come here! Come back here with me!”
I watch as my children reach their school, are stopped by two men, look toward the building, look toward me, and climb up onto a cheery yellow school bus in the winter sunshine.
Furever Home
By Nina K. Guzmán
Elsie and her husband Graydon had just bought a house in an up-and-coming neighborhood equally known for the vibrant creative community that lived there some 30 years ago as the hoard of stray cats lounging on the porches of the current day modern farmhouse style Airbnbs that sit empty for most of the year. Their house was part of a wave of affordable housing that went on the market during the pandemic before prices skyrocketed and made homeownership go the way of milkmen and the Boulevard Trolley.
The house was dilapidated but historically appealing and in an enviable location. They couldn’t believe previous owners had allowed such a valuable asset to deteriorate, so they saw it as an opportunity to be proper stewards of this home. They were doing a service to the community to beautify this home and bring it back to its full Reconstruction Era glory.
They were living the American dream of owning a house, renting it out to football fans, and then using those earnings to acquire their forever dream home in a better school district.
They had just never considered that this was someone else’s forever home.
Elsie decided to stay in the house to oversee renovations while Graydon was on a work trip. The ring camera at this moment felt more like a formality. It was the peak of summer and while the newly renovated houses on the street sat empty, there were still a few strongholds, with their overgrown front lawns and rusting cars, that worried the couple. Of course they would never say out loud their concerns, they just saw it as something to deal with, like pest control.
And how would they deal with this potential threat to their dream? A ring camera. They would often see undesirables walking down their street, and they didn’t want to take a chance they’d feel too welcomed on their porch. That is not the kind of curb appeal they were wanting to attract.
That first night, Elsie could not fall asleep. She knew old houses had strange sounds of their own to get used to, but the meowing was not a sound she expected to wake up to. But it wasn’t just a regular meow, this sounded very low and prolonged. Almost like a wail. She was using the front facing room as her bedroom that night and it felt like the noise was coming from the porch. Maybe there was a dying cat out there? Ugghh how annoying, she thought.
She remembered the ring camera came with an app to watch the surveillance footage right from her phone. She pulled up the app and watched the grainy live stream from just outside her window.
For the most part the porch looked undisturbed, and she was about to let out a small sigh of relief until she saw it. It was sitting so still she didn’t notice it until it started to rock back and forth. A dark figure sitting on their rocking chair. It was facing away from the camera so she couldn’t make out much, but the streetlight outlined a large wide brim hat, and whatever it was wearing seemed to overflow the chair like fog . And there it was rocking back and forth… meowing.
Elsie did what any concerned homeowning citizen would do and called the police. The person on the phone said they would send a dispatch over. When she hung up she sent the video to Graydon.
Time seemed to expand and the cops had still not arrived, and the thing continued their low meowing. Maybe if she switched the porch light on and off they’ll leave. She tiptoed to the light switch next to the front door. Jiggled the switch and held her breath. The meowing stopped. Then footsteps.
Oh great, they’re leaving! What was I so scared about?
She checked the livestream. The chair was empty and shockingly still.
A text bubble popped up on the top of her phone screen, giving her a slight jolt.
Babe, whats going on? Why did you send me a blank video?
Then from the corner of the screen, slowly coming into frame, right up against the lens, a wide brim hat that gave way to a face the texture of bark, enormous neon yellow slit eyes and the widest mouth of sharp teeth smiling back at her.
“GET OUT OF MEOW HOUSE!”
They’ll Put You in the Creek
By Em Cheney
I shrug my shoulders when she asks me if it is true, “Is your house a castle?” What she really wants to know, I realize later, is whether my house is haunted. “It doesn’t feel like a castle, but then I have never been in a castle, so what do I know?” I tell her. Later I think, “Perhaps it is. But haunted? What makes a castle haunted?”
Soon after my neighbor’s visit I replace the porch light bulb, but it works only for a couple of weeks. Then at the end of the month, a handyman and next an electrician fix it, but their expertise lasts only a couple of days a piece. Sometimes I find the porch light on when I am going downstairs at night, and the attic light on when I am going in late, but I know I hadn’t turned them on. It is an old house, I conclude, which needs rewiring, though nagging at the back of my mind is that neighbor’s question. So, I ask myself, “Is this what makes a castle haunted?” Well, “they” have my attention. What do “they” want?
That was September. When October comes, I notice, as I walk back from getting the mail, that the turret, sitting over the bay window situated to the right of and above the front door, giving my castle-house a kind of elegance, today was giving it an unsettling, eerie ambience. Why had I not noticed ‘til now that the bay window is the only window on the front side of my castle-house, except for the attic window? Inside, the bay window on the landing that divides the stairs, which go up from the first floor to the second floor, allows me such a panoramic look into the front yard with its walkway that I hadn’t noticed that I can’t see the doorsteps. When neighbors stand there and knock on the screenless front door, I can see them by looking through its “magic eye,” but at night it doesn’t work since the porch light doesn’t work.
One afternoon that same neighbor is walking by as I am getting my mail. She asks, “So are you enjoying your castle?”
“Yes, though it needs some rewiring.”
“Oh. Mm. Well, just don’t go into the attic.” She looks at me intently, “I see. You already have. Well, don’t give them candy.” And as she goes, she says over her shoulder, “They’ll put you in the creek.”
I look around the yard. “Creek? What creek? Who in the attic, don’t give candy to?” I shout after her, but she’s gone, no view of her, nothing.
The attic is empty, strangely so. Except for shield knots and drawings of human figures with hooves. Then I see something crinkled up in one corner, and a note, “If you leave us candy, we will leave your lights alone.”
“Sure. A great solution for faulty wiring. Candy.” I chuckle to myself, “Probably a great treat for squirrels foraging in the attic.”
But who wrote that note? Was that note for someone else? Why should I assume it’s for me? Candy to fix faulty wiring! How silly!
With Halloween only a day away, I get ready. I buy bags of chocolate bars, the best brands, to give my trick-or-treaters enjoyment and to discourage pranks. I hang my jack-’o-lanterns under the porch lights, with grins on their faces. When I notice the porch lights flickering on and off, I turn them off and change their bulbs. Turn them on. No flickering. Voila! They work. As I am about to go back inside, immediately, the lights flicker again.
I guess I do need to leave some candy in the attic.
So I do. After all, it is now Halloween, and it is time to share the treats, even with squirrels.
Amazingly, there’s no more flickering.
I smile, “Why was I so afraid of leaving candy in the attic? It’s just the solution I’ve needed.”
Then I notice that I’m lying in a ditch, in the dark, and people are shining their flashlights at me. One says, “Call 911! I think she’s dead, though. I don’t feel a pulse.”
I see the neighbor looking down at me, saying, “I told you not to feed them. I told you they would put you in the creek.”
Lecturer’s Liquor Lounge
By Kimba Wisotsky
Disclaimer: The following story is entirely fiction, and does not reflect actual names, activities or beliefs of any UGA faculty.
None of the local haunted houses are scary enough for you? You want to get some real thrills and spooks this October? Listen! I know a place where you’ll see sights that’ll boggle your mind, horrify your sensibilities, and can even get a drink while you’re there.
You gotta keep this discreet, because we don’t want too many students showing up, but right near the Founder’s Garden, there’s a certain brick near the time capsule that isn’t as mortared as the rest of them. Give it a turn, and a door unlatches that leads into Athens’ best-kept secret, a speakeasy for professors, faculty and all the UGA staff. It’s called the Lecturer’s Liquor Lounge, and there are some shenanigans there that’ll make your eyes bug out and your ears tingle!
My first time visiting the Lounge, I was nearly sick watching all my lecturers in graphic T-shirts, tennis shoes and (I can barely say it) unbuttoned polos. What was worse, they were all laughing and chatting together about their personal lives! Dr. Indigo and Professor Argyle are dating? It was news to me—news that should not have been broken by watching them get physical on the dance floor. I had nightmares for days.
But now I kind of like going to the Lounge when I need a thrill to get the adrenaline pumping. There’s nothing like hearing a tenured professor drunkenly demand more lemon drop shots and watching your dean gleefully pour them out. My TA, Annika, an angel in dark academic clothing, is the bouncer, and one time denied her advisor from entering because of some grades that hadn’t been submitted yet. I was shaking in the corner watching it all go down, knowing my own paper had been in limbo for a month!
The time I got a real scare was when my major professor saw through my disguise as I was sipping on a mint mojito. Apparently, she had seen me earlier at Creature Comforts and recognized my shoes. Anyway, she threatened to ask me impossible questions during my defense if I ever told anyone about… well, actually, I think I’ll keep that to myself. Comps season is almost up, after all.
I think you, a UGA student or alum, should make the trip at least once. It’s really eye-opening, I heard a table of professors once laughing over how they collaborated to give one particular student the hardest semester ever by not reading any of their papers and grading them just on how color-coordinated their outfits were!
If you’ve taken any PE course, you may resent your instructor for making you run laps or whatever, and it could be cathartic to watch them slouched over the bar. But you’ll see a lot more of them than you want if you come for drag shows on Tuesday. I’m not sure what it is about those Ramsey folks, but they always have the best wigs! I got a real shock when I saw my walking instructor in fishnets and thigh-high boots, I can tell you.
Dr. Zayleheart, now you may know him for his worship of Beowulf and Tolkien, but I know him for his rock band, the Wardens of Love! On Thursday nights, he’s singing up a storm at karaoke, and once he’s got a few drinks in him, he’ll even do some Journey in Old English! Talk about alarming!
I saw my future (and it was terrifying) one Saturday when poor Dr. Mercury was frantically preparing their PowerPoint slides while plaintively sipping a Guinness that had gone warm. I had always hoped that after another degree, people got to take a break and finally find some work-life balance. But I saw a text from their partner that they were missing the birth of their daughter, and it shook me a little, I won’t lie.So, if you think you can handle the horrors, I’m telling you, the easiest way to be sleepless for a week is to find out what your professors do in their time off. Maybe you aren’t up for brain-bending horrors; there are other watering holes for the old hats that can send shivers down your spine. The Globe, Royal Peasant, Little King’s, Normal Bar, Marker 7… these are for the amateur thrill-seekers. But if you want a real scare, they’ve always got a barstool for you at the Lecturer’s Liquor Lounge.
Superstition
By Zack Bergman
I watch the students walk around the Arch. If you walk through the Arch, you won’t graduate. Smart ones, these. Always best to follow superstition, especially on Halloween.
I move on. Usually, I don’t hang around smart people. The “smart” ones that do well on tests? Sometimes. But real intelligence? That I try to stay away from.
This town seems like a fun place to be on Halloween. Plenty of people out and about. Perhaps too many for my purposes, though. At one point, I think I hear someone say my name, and I stop dead in my tracks. But they don’t say anything more, so I keep going.
It’s still early in the evening, so I stay away from the more crowded areas. Instead, I drive around the edge of town. Not the loop, but the back roads crossing it. I’m looking for something with a little less Halloween cheer and a little more genuine fear.
I’m thoroughly lost by the time I find what I’m looking for. Eerie silence, deserted road, a vaguely sinister factory looming nearby. I take a deep breath. What if someone else is out here?
As I drive, I consider coming back to Athens once spring rolls around. I have places to be this winter, so I’m only planning to stay for a few days this time. Still, maybe I can make a second visit if I don’t find what I’m looking for.
Then something catches my eye. Poor guy is stranded on the side of the road, wrestling with his old car, trying to get it to start. Quickly, I pull over and offer to help.
He stiffens, apprehension creeping into his posture. “I got it,” he tells me, with a gesture that indicates I’m not wanted here. “Should only take a moment to fix.” I oblige, getting back into my car and leaving him alone for the moment. The man seems particularly skittish. If that’s because it’s Halloween and he’s a little superstitious, then good for him. That superstition will serve him well.
I still circle back to see if he’s fixed his car. As I approach, he finally gets it started and drives off. Remember the two kinds of smart I mentioned earlier? This one is the legitimately clever type.
I follow him back into Athens, but his car doesn’t have any more troubles. I decide to pass the time by wandering cemeteries for a few hours. At some point around midnight, people are going home, leaving the streets deserted at last, and so I switch to driving around town.
Then I hit the jackpot. Among all the lively fraternity and sorority houses on Milledge Avenue, one is abandoned, and slowly rotting. And now a few boys from the neighboring frat have gotten brave (or drunk) enough to check out the inside. Remember the two kinds of smart I mentioned earlier? These are neither. These are the “smart enough to be born rich” type. One of them is trying to exceed my low expectations by arguing with the others, trying to back out. Eventually they shame him into following along, and then all five of them go inside.
After a moment of waiting, I creep out of the car and go up to the door. This could get interesting.
I can’t hear them from the door, so I slip inside to see what they’re up to. They’ve gone upstairs, into one of the dilapidated rooms that fill this place. I can hear them nervously mocking some decaying painting to cover up the fact that yes, they are creeped out by some old house.
These boys could really use a good dose of superstition. Good thing I’m in town. I lock the front door, then climb the stairs one by one. They cannot hear me.
It is at this moment that I hear one of them say my name. I freeze in place. Then he says it again. And again. I grin. Now they might not get to learn their lesson, but at least others can learn from their mistakes! This night is about to get a lot better. And bloodier. Same thing, really.
I sprint the rest of the way up the stairs. Maybe Athens is worth an extended stay after all.
Snaggletooth
By Philip Weinrich
Reece stumbled home from the _____________ Bar in a foul mood (as if he had any others).
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