Day 2,275

The road was clear and that's about as positive as they could be in their current circumstances. Snow fell like a waterfall of white on either side and a thousand voices called out to them, begging them to let go and drift away into the blissful nothingness with them.

These voices were ignored, the driver had been gripping the steering wheel so tightly he felt like his hands would stay clenched for the rest of his life. The sides of his fingers were already the same shade of gray as the wheel and he knew his feet, legs and back were all slowly sinking into the car. He would be the driver now and forever if they weren't able to find shelter from the storm and all the curses it had been sending to steal their warmth and lives.

According to the dashboard's clock they'd been driving in the unending snow and unchanging sky for nine days. None of them had felt even the slightest pangs of hunger or thirst and the tank hadn't decreased. They tried not to think about what heated liquid was now fueling the car and how pale the driver was becoming.

Somewhere around day fourteen the storm stopped following them, the skies cleared and a kaleidoscope of colours flooded their exhausted eyes as the road finally began to curve towards civilisation. The passengers discussed their next move in excited whispers while the driver continued to stare at the road ahead, smiling serenely as the last patch of his skin faded to grey and his eyes clouded over.

He would take them wherever they needed to go, wherever the storm couldn't find them.

They were his passengers.

He was their driver.

Day 2,274

If you go down to the lake early enough you'll see a young woman barely floating, pale as death and reaching for you with painfully fragile hands. Much like a fisherman uses brightly coloured feathers and wood to mimic a tasty little morsel of food for unsuspecting fish, what lies at the bottom of the lake uses her.

Some people say she speaks if you wait for a while. When she thinks you aren't immediately coming to rescue her she starts begging for help, sobbing and chugging water like there's no tomorrow. When she realises you haven't been fooled she drops the act completely.

I've seen it myself - it's like a switch gets flipped and all human pretense is gone. There's just you and what waits at the bottom of the lake having a conversation about what gave it away and how it can better improve its performance. I tried to give it neutral advice like trying new faces out maybe leaving something lying around to act as a reason for the lure being there.

I didn't think it would work so well. Nine people have gone missing, last seen going for early morning runs down by the beautiful lakeside grounds. Some were even witnessed speaking to a young woman right as the lake's edge - a different woman every time.

Day 2,273

We don't ask where the water drains away to, we just keep using it to dispose of the things that shouldn't see the light of day. I remember one winter when my aunt told me that she sent her baby down there and worse still - my mother was there with her, a baby in her own arms that my aunt refused to say if it was hers or anothers.

Little secrets like that, whispered after a few too many drinks, tend to fall upon a quiet listener like myself like snow on the hilltops. Sure nobody minds it at first and it becomes expected after a number of years of the same but eventually summer will come and the snow will melt.

The valley below will become flooded with everything they thought they drowned and they will have nobody to blame but their drunken selves for telling me everything I never wanted to know. A part of me wants to scream their murders for the whole town to hear but I know they're all just as guilty as each other.

What I need to do - what I will do - is find where the water goes and bring their secrets back to them. All those unplanned infants, all those bloodstained knives and poisoned dinners will fall right at their feet and they'll know that there's nowhere left for them to hide.

The truth will set them free - I'm going to make sure of it.

Day 2,272

The older spirits are getting smarter while the newer ones flail about trying to process their untimely demises and return to their former lives. Quite frankly both annoy the hell out of me but I'd rather put a new soul to rest then tear an experienced one away from something it has no business inhabiting.

Lately they've taken to possessing older machines, ones we don't use as much or pay all that much attention to. The less aware we are, the easier it is for them to sneak in and get real close to the living. From there it's just a matter of waiting until the person can be injured enough to loosen their soul and then they just slip inside, force the original soul out and carry on as they used to.

The career change from priest to IT support is a tricky one to explain and one that only exists on paper. People often joke about calling for an exorcism when everything else they've tried doesn't work and when I take their equipment away to repair it I do just that.

Force the old spirits back out and bind them to something holy, or at least perceived to be holy. Most of them aren't too inclined to mess with religious icons - even in after death. I like to keep a stack of crucifixes in my work van for just such an occasion and they've yet to let me down.

The latest case I dealt with used to be a noble in the 17th century, real sly one that decided to hide in the photocopier of a local library. Staff complained about how it always misprinted, how it never scanned right but they weren't able to see how the copied images showed a man's grinning face.

Soon as I began to open it up I saw him warped around the internal machinations, ectoplasm short-circuiting and rewiring as it pleased. Given a few more days and he probably would have gone for the in-house technician, wandered off with his life quite happily and left the poor man's own spirit to writhe about in his place.

The only good thing about the older souls in this region is how fervently they still believe in god. One quick flash of the crucifix and a few sufficiently pronounced Latin phrases and they're out. The real challenge lies in convincing the dead to leave for good and hope they don't use the split-second of freedom between the trap and the air to try and shatter your own soul.

Day 2,271

Maybe it had been an alligator once, if the light caught its swollen face at certain angles you could catch glimpses of scales beneath all the blood and overlapping teeth that were currently working their way through the local postman. He'd soon join the squirming mass of limbs and weeping eyes like so many others before him.

It's hard to say where it originally came from - one day it wasn't there and next thing we knew it was halfway through a school bus. There are still patches of blue on its skin from the uniforms and when it cries out its voice is laced with thirty-odd children crying out for their parents.

That's how it gets to you, a little whisper here and a little sobbing there and suddenly you're joining the postman half in the stomach and half writhing about the body of some ungodly behemoth of a creature. The worst of it is that the county can't decide if we should kill it or not.

On the one hand we'd all be safer but on the other hand the grieving wouldn't be able to hear their loved ones any more. It's as tragic as it is disrespectful to the memories of their loved ones who could be enduring unfathomable suffering or lost entirely to the inner workings of the nameless beast.

I hope it's the latter to be honest with you, that postman was a nice lad and I'd hate to think he was hurting.

Day 2,270

We've all managed to schedule our patrols so that we cover our stations without running into any of the things that start to appear around this time of night. That's the problem with these old prisons -sure they make for great tourist traps but violent people and violent deaths are guaranteed to leave something behind, something far worse than bad memories. Something physical.

My area is one of the quieter ones and I only have to watch our for Mr Hector when I check the bathrooms. He was found hanging from a shower-head back in '73 but the look in his eyes says he didn't do it himself. My predecessor was a soft hearted oldie who wanted to speak to Mr Hector and wound up with a half-crushed trachea for his troubles.

Still, I'm lucky to only be dealing with one identifiable guy who keeps to one room all night. Some of the other security folks aren't half as lucky and they make sure I know it every single shift. Especially Jessie whose section includes the old chapel and inner courtyard.

He doesn't go into much detail but he's been looking worse and worse every day. I know they lost several preacher's here so maybe they're still walking and weeping all over the place but I reckon it's the courtyard that has him clutching his cigs in trembling hands every chance he can get to sneak out front for a break. If he goes out more than he's scheduled for, we can hardly blame him.

We've all heard things about the old courtyard and even caught a glimpse or two of the multitude of things that wake up there most nights. Of course we're just peering through the windows out the corners of our eyes and Jessie has to get right in the thick of it to check all the fences are still secure.

They may all be dead but they don't necessarily know that and we don't want them getting out just in case.

Day 2,269

Nobody really paid attention to the new tree she planted the day her husband went missing. It was her alibi and nothing more. If scent hounds ended up sniffing around it then it must have been squirrels or a cat up in the branches, even if they pawed at the freshly overturned earth and ignored the rest of the tree entirely.

Local children claimed they saw the missing man standing underneath the tree, staring at the ground as blood ran down his face. Nobody in their right mind would listen to playground superstition and call it a hunch. He was allegedly sighted in a town just south of the Mexican border and that was enough to close a case in those days.

Eventually the widow died, having lived a long and happy life, never remarrying and seemingly never knowing where her missing husband went. By this time, he was all but forgotten in name and little more than a vague urban legend.

Her house was purchased by a local man, someone who had grown up seeing the missing husband staring at the ground and saw him still there every night. He claimed he wanted the tree gone so he could build a summer house but everybody wanted a glimpse beneath it in case the rumours were true.

Sure enough, after hours of prying at the tree came free and tangled deep in its roots was the missing man.

Day 2,268

The broken, tangled mess of limbs and cables formerly known as Lauren tried to speak through a mouth full of blood and oil. Unsurprisingly I couldn't understand a word she was trying to say, nor did I want to understand her. As far as I was concerned she hadn't been Lauren for years - just another stack of forgotten warehouse crud that had taken over her body when she'd died/been killed.

I hope she died of natural causes but that never seemed to happen any more.

She looked exactly the same as she did when we went to school together which damn near broke my heart to think that a child had been consumed and puppeted by semi-sentient trash yet here we were. It hurt to kill her but it hurt more to think of her wandering the world, never ageing and probably being killed in a far more brutal way by someone who never knew what her laughter sounded like.

Her hands moved in the same way they did when she was about to pass me a note in class. I found myself offering her a pencil and the scraped-together collection of paper I used as a notepad. Honestly I didn't think she could write like she was, thought it was some dying reflex but she managed to write two words before the server melded to her spinal cord finally gave out.

YellOw sKittleS

It was a code our school taught us to warn each other that there was danger nearby, usually a car slowing down beside us or somebody following us. I barely ducked in time, narrowly missing the swinging augmented arm that had tried to decapitate me.

The only good thing about the techs is how heavy and slow the can be - our only saving grace in this time. And without my dying childhood friend's warning, I'd be as good as dead. Inside's soon to be scooped out and merged with whatever had taken Lauren mixed with whatever had killed me.

Even though she'd been dead for years, even though I killed her - she still saved me.

Day 2,267

She's still staring at me. I've tried not to look at her but I can feel a tug on my eyes - I need to look to make sure she's still there even though I can see her in the corner of my eye and she's been dead for twenty years now so it's not like she can go anywhere.

But still.

I wouldn't be in this mess if winter hadn't come so early, if I hadn't run out of firewood, if I had the guts to bury her right away and not spend my best years desperately trying to preserve the woman I love. There are so many 'what if's and 'if only's it'd drive her crazy if she were alive again.

I made her coffin myself, you know. I used her favourite tree on the outskirts of our property. Couldn't bear to see if without her smiling up and telling me to come hear all the baby birds sing. It made a decent enough box for her, something I could easily open when I started to miss her face.

Now I can't close it. Ran out of firewood so I had to start making do with what I had to hand.

I hope she forgives me when we meet in the afterlife and I hope she understands that I had no choice.

I can't join her yet, not until I find a way to preserve her forever.

Day 2,266

I know I'm looking up at the sky, I'm sure I'm looking up at the sky but I can't help feeling I'm looking down into a chasm instead. It's pitch black, has been for weeks now and the whole world can't stop talking about where the sun went, why we aren't frozen and when the final day will come.

It's like we're all waiting for the proverbial ball to drop and put an end to all the tension that's been building. Nobody's even looting anymore, nobody's going outside either. They're all just waiting by their windows for something. Anything.

I can't stand being inside any more, I boarded up the windows and doors from the outside and set myself upon the street. I used to hear my family yelling for me, begging me to come back in but now there's just silence. Silence and staring til I feel like I'm falling down the chasmic sky and into the void that's always been there, calling for us.

It feels closer with every passing minute and my gut tells me we won't be waiting for much longer.

Day 2,265

The maw was choking and we just stood by, watching it and waiting for the struggling to stop. It didn't deserve anything quick or quiet, that much we all agreed on though the more hurt among us wished we'd been crueller and I don't begrudge them that feeling at all.

This was the mouth that the scavengers had torn the world apart to feed. This was what used to be the answer to all the trash in the world - swarms of insectoid droids to collect everything we discarded and a gaping maw to reduce everything down to fuel and perfectly stacked base components ready for reuse.

This had gone very wrong somewhere along the line around the time the scavengers figured out that meat was compostable and all organic life was reclassified as materials to be consumed and repurposed. Hundreds were gone in a single night - reduced to fertiliser by morning.

By the time anyone realised what the scavengers were doing, the maw had been upgraded to have the sense of taste. It was supposed to help when sorting mixed deposits but instead the damned thing developed a preference for richer tasting meats and we were its favourite kind.

Five months. It took the scavengers five months to clear out most of the mainland and follow us out to sea. We'll never be grateful enough for the blessed marine biologists who decided tagging whales was a good idea - it saved humanity and led us to the maw's end.

A blue whale can't swallow anything larger than about the size of a grapefruit, so too was the maw designed to chew and compress to a size it could swallow. It didn't expect an army of scavengers to come bearing the greatest mass of organic material they'd ever found.

The choking is starting to slow, thick plumes of black smoke are pouring out from the corners that aren't completely clogged with dead whale. It'll be a hero, you know, that poor whale we let them feed to our greatest achievement-turned-weapon.

Blood and coolant are spilling out wherever they can.

The maw's down to grinding spasms and the backlog is beginning to rise.

It asphyxiates on its own equivalent of vomit and we celebrate.

Day 2,264

The only light on the platform came from a broken vending machine, the fluorescent bulbs all along the ceiling probably ruptured during one of the surges. At least the subways weren't as much of a bloodbath as their surface counterparts and there weren't any undead trapped inside at this stop.

It was the first thing she checked for before she considered setting foot in one of the carriages -fresh blood. Old blood just meant that whatever died/killed/existed there had moved on since and the undead don't have enough brain left in them to become attached to a particular place.

If there wasn't any fresh blood she checked for the sickly-sweet stench of decay, again the fresher it was the closer the undead were and when the air's as stale as the subways had become since the last surge caved in a ton of the vent shafts, scent lingers far longer than it does on the surface.

Plain, stale air was fast becoming one of her favourite scents, one that made her feel as safe and welcome as the sight of dried blood and scraps of something red and meaty. It meant she'd arrived long after everything else had departed and though there may not be much left, there was no competition.

Enough for three months, that's all she needed to make her journey to the cabin her cousins purchased down near the marshlands. The undead tended to stick to drier air to slow down the inevitable rot that consumed them almost as fast as they consumed the living.

All she needed was enough food to last her, nobody trusted the crops around major dead zones. Too much blood sprayed across them, too many undead hunting around their prey's food source. Packaged goods were the safest until she could reach the marshlands and begin fixing and repairing whatever was left of the cabin.

Even if nothing was left but a bare wooden frame, it was better than crouching under subway seats, holding her breath and hoping that the shuffling she was hearing was rats and not the undead. Either way she was unarmed, overburdened with supplies and about to find the source of the sound very, very soon.

Day 2,263

The statue was outside again, clutching a dead pidgeon so tightly that there was no way to mistake how the poor thing had died. Three days in a row she'd woken up to find it waiting for her, a new bird in its hands and more blood staining the cheerful blue flowers on her welcome mat.

By now she knew what she had to do to make it go away. She moved without really thinking about what she was doing or why she wasn't trying to do anything else, the sooner she acted, the sooner it left and she had better things to do than try to push it or break it again.

No, the only thing she'd found that worked was to gently tap the statue's fingers, hold back the shudder as they curled up like pencil shavings instead of simply lowering. When the fingers were fully curled she took the dead pidgeon and smeared some of its blood on her chin.

The statue tilted its head as usual, dropped its arms as usual and began to walk away as usual.

Unfortunately she hadn't paid enough attention this time, not realising how little blood she'd used. The statue moved so fast she didn't even have time to blink before it had darted forwards and crushed her neck to the point where her body just gently slipped to the floor.

It walked away, carefully turning her head around to face its own as it contemplated the neighbouring doors.

Day 2,262

We called them the Pretenders, fungus attempting to be a person and falling so very short. Society was very much of the opinion that they did not belong but disguised their disgust using phrases like "they should just be themselves" and "they could choose to be anything so why don't they make their own unique look" with 'leave ours alone' remaining in subtext and a million forums.

She called herself their mother. Word is that she was one of, if not the first to try and take human shape. They looked up to her like a goddess and I suppose, in a way, she was. Anything a 'regular' Pretender could do, she had already mastered. Any shape, any voice, any language - she seemed omnipotent for quite a while.

Our governments tolerated her existence as long as she didn't seem like a threat, though if you ask anyone she wasn't ever trying to be a threat. She wanted to break down the barriers we put between us and the Pretenders, to remove the term Pretender by giving us a little of her spores to bring us all together.

It was taken as a biological attack and she was murdered within a week of her announcement, but not before she had shared her gift with several dozen people. The elder Pretenders carried on her dying wish in secret, only ever gifting the willing and bringing us all closer to understanding what they wanted.

The only thing they ever wanted - unity.

Fungus without a colony is a mere spore and we're proud to be a part of the largest colony the world has ever known. We thrive in every continent, every country, every state and county and city and town. Our every exhale is a flurry of her blessed spores and our eyes are filled with thin tendrils of her true vision for the whole world and all its wonderful creatures.

The rest of the world will soon see as well, when we finish the rockets that will share her spores to all the sky.

Just as Mother wanted.

Day 2,261

 It's been slowly opening the door for weeks and no matter how hard I try I can't close it any more. I can open it fully without any problem but it refuses to move any further than about eight inches from shut. I could live with a weird door, no worries, but the door isn't really the problem here.

It's what I can see waiting just behind the door that's the problem.

Not that I can see too much of it but the glimpse that I get is more than enough to convince me to break the lease and move out asap. Nothing should have that many teeth in that many mouths and mouths have no right to move about like that whatsoever, all smiling like it's having the time of its life.

I'm sure my absolute terror is hilarious to something like that.

The worst of it is the fact that it's the bathroom door and my flat is so small there's just the one bathroom so I've got no choice but to make awkward eye contact and watch the door open just that tiny little bit further every single day.

Every. Single. Day.

It's recently started to breath as well. Each mouth inhales and exhales and has the worst breath I've ever smelled. It's like it eats shit and rotting meat and doesn't digest any of it, just lets it ferment and spews out a goddamned miasma that makes me want to vomit every time I have to shower.

I'm starting to get to the point where I want to confront it, wrench the door open and face it.

Give it a few more months and I know the door won't close any more. By then I'll either be dead or long gone and it'll be someone else's problem. I wonder if it resets when a new tenant arrives or if they'll go to close the bathroom door and see it waiting there for them, all grinning mouths and putrid breath.

Either way, it won't be my problem for much longer - that much I'm certain of.

Day 2,260

 Almost all lifeforms erupt into cascading showers of spores when they're within a two mile radius of the wandering scarecrow and only within two miles. Anything slightly closer or further away remains completely unaffected by it and we have no idea how to stop it.

We know where it came from at least - a series of tunnels beneath Skegleen Hall Farm that appear to have been carved by hand. Inhumanly long, nine-fingered hands, but hands nonetheless. The wandering scarecrow does not have these hands and we have yet to find exactly what does but the motion sensors we placed by the entrance were triggered three days aso so I reckon we'll find out soon enough.

Either there's another scarecrow come to rupture the world into spores and carnage or something much, much worse. I'm honestly hoping for a scarecrow at this point, I don't think I have the stomach or the nerves to face anything worse than that.

Day 2,259

The oxygen meters had been screaming at us for the last half hour but that was the least of our worries. We were more concerned with the fact that we were being followed and had been followed since I accidentally dislodged a boulder that had been blocking a flooded tunnel when we swam through the underground river a few hours back.

I knew I hadn't been imagining something swimming just out of our torchlight, hadn't imagined hearing a fourth splash after the three of us made it to the entrance cave, hadn't imagined someone breathing like they were drowning in air.

It struck when AJ 's light stopped working and in that split-second of confusion he was gone. He didn't even have time to scream, there was just a loud crack, wet tearing and nothing left behind but blood and his broken helmet. I feel awful for thinking this but I don't know why it's still following us when it already took and probably ate AJ.

We headed for the closest exit - a small chute that was apparently still open at the top and not blocked by debris or collapsed somewhere like most of the old mining chutes were. We sure as hell couldn't go back, neither of us wanted to risk facing something that only attacked in the dark and was well adapted to the underground river we'd have to swim back through.

When we finally got to the chute we decided to drop our oxygen tanks, even though the meters were blaring and the air was making our heads feel cloudy. All we wanted was to get back to the surface and come back with enough people to recover AJ's body, if any of him was left.

As soon as Mo dropped his tank it rolled away into the dark. We didn't think much of that, too busy preparing our ropes for the climb when the tank came flying back from the darkness and caught Mo clean on the side of his head. He collapsed, head completely caved in on one side and blood began to pool all around him.

I've never climbed so fast in my life. I've never abandoned someone so quickly - I never even checked to see if he was still alive, I just left and by the time I got to the surface I felt like I was still being followed. When I was safely back in sunlight I turned around and looked back down the chute.

It had been so close behind me the whole time.

Day 2,258

Something metallic glinted among the undergrowth, a trail of snapped branches and crushed leaves led them further away from the already isolated cabin but they couldn't stay put any more. Not when one of their own was missing and the path was still fresh, not when there were enough hours in the day to try and find her, not when they all swore they heard someone scream last night.

They all claimed different times and different pitches to the scream but they all agreed it must have come from their missing friend. Nevermind why she decided to leave the cabin so late at night or if she was kidnapped or if she'd been protecting them. She was their friend and they had to try to get her back.

Four hours into following the trail and one of them finally thought to look back, seeing that there was no trail behind them any more. There were no snapped branches or crushed undergrowth - just a sea of green and hazy movements between the trees in the distance that were hopefully, probably, almost certainly birds.

Instead of mentioning it to their friends they began to covertly leave a trail of their own in the form of pieces of jewellery, beads from a bracelet left one-by-one until they ran out and they were still following the damned trail. They raised the alarm and told the group to look back and see that nothing was there now.

As they looked back, something in the forest looked towards them and the trail they'd been so desperately following dissolved. They turned back and found themselves surrounded by utter silence as the very air itself seemed to hold its breath.

Something metallic glinted on the ground to their left - their friend's braces... teeth still attached.

Day 2,257

It sat on the iceberg, staring at the boat full of tourists that slowly moved past it. From a fair distance it could easily be mistaken for an orca devouring a polar bear - it was certainly bloodied enough to look like the aftermath of such a brutal death.

Only when the boat was a few metres away they saw how the dead polar bear was more of an angler fishes' lure- a smaller part of something much bigger that was precariously draped over the iceberg rather than sat atop. Its flesh was a perfect snow white that seemed to blur where it met the sky while one of its limbs had the dark markings of an adult orca - perhaps their preferred prey?

Regardless of what it was and was not supposed to eat, it was still staring at them. It tilted its head this way and that, trying to gauge what they were and what they were in. Both parties were so entranced by each other than the tourists didn't notice a shadow slip away from behind the creature and glide towards them.

They barely noticed that their boat was slowing down so when it came to a complete halt they simply kept on staring and hesitantly taking pictures. It was hard to estimate how big the faux bear part of the creature was but it turned out to be big enough to clamp down on either side of the boat and drag it down into the deathly cold ocean.

Day 2,256

I thought it was dead.

I thought it was dead.

That was all he said, muttered under his breath like a deathbed confession... which it was. By the time we realised this he was too far gone to save and we were already on the precipice of discovering exactly what killed him. It had been so close by all this time that our eyes had tuned it out, blurring it into the foliage we found him crawling out of.

We thought he was suffering from nerve damage caused by head trauma and, judging by the amount of blood he'd already lost when we arrived, hallucinations as well. There were tyre tracks leading off to the opposite side of the road, smoke coming from further in which led us to think he'd swerved to avoid a deer, gotten out to check and it hadn't been as dead as he assumed.

Deer are surprisingly difficult to kill with a car.

He seemed to be recovering as we were loading him into our ambulance, vitals stabilising and generally in much better condition than we initially assumed. It's so easy to forget that the human body often peaks before it dives, a terminal patient will perk up and chatter away, the comatose will blink and smile and then they just... go.

When he went, it wasn't peaceful. He managed to break free from the gurney and leap out into the foliage, clawing at the ground and screaming at us to run while we still can and then - snap - he dropped like a puppet without strings.

Something in me refused to move, something in the back of my mind was desperate to run and in all my years as a paramedic I've never felt anything like it before or since. Seeing his lifeless body shoot away deeper into the undergrowth followed by all those guttural chewing sounds forced me to move, barely remembering to snag my partner's arm before slamming all the doors shut and flooring it out of there.

In the end we said we couldn't find the driver. It felt like a safer, saner thing to say than whatever we'd witnessed. The police searched for days and lost one of their own along the way. Neither were found and no more have been lost since.

I know it's just a matter of time before we get called out there again.

Another empty car, another dying driver.

Maybe one of us for good measure.

Day 2,255

 They are attracted to anything that breathes. That simple exchange of oxygen draws them in like sirensong and before you can so much as hold your breath their claws are at your throat and tearing it straight from the source with all the fervour of a zealot.

The length of time one can hold their breath for is finite and the creatures are so very patient. Once they know you are there, know that you breathe, they follow at a distance. Humans may have once been pursuit predator but these things still are and they make sure we know it.

The moment you makes even the slightest gasp they leap out, ready to free the next from your fragile little throat so the first thing your panicked mind can think to do is to hold your breath and run. These actions do not go hand-in-hand. These actions lead to a quick and brutal death for those who are thoughtless and quick to act.

They can be fooled for a few brief moments. The use of a gas mask and dispersion filters to scatter your breathing and make you appear to be several people at once is enough to delay the inevitable and allow you to flee outside, hoping the wind is strong enough to hide you further.

The wind seems to be somewhat of a rarity since the creatures came.

Day 2,254

Something drove the sanitation protocols into overdrive and led to the eradication of every last lifeform within sector thirty eight. Whole families were reduced to sterile dust overnight and packed away into neatly labelled vacuum-sealed packages which sat where the living once were.

If it moved - it was declared a contagion and treated as such. We couldn't get anywhere near the entry points without triggering the parameter droids who were set at the highest alert level possible for a domestic sector and programmed to take all invasive contagions to be disposed of.

That meant us.

We weren't entirely without a plan, our forebears had left a dozen or so manuals in the main body of the generation ship that brought us to the new planet several hundred years ago. They mentioned a reset pattern that could be initiated remotely, a pattern to bring everything back to day one.

On the one hand it would fix the AI error in sector thirty eight and stop it from spreading to the surrounding sectors - it would save our lives. On the other hand it would erase every last little piece of data we'd accumulated over the centuries and all our history on our new home would be gone forever.

It took us far longer to act than it should have and by the time the reset sequence had been put into motion a further five sectors were sanitised and seven more were beginning the lethal process. We lost more than we'll ever be able to get back but we shouldn't lose any more.

Not unless someone tries to restore the previous versions in order to access our historical logs and copy all of that precious information over. It could potentially re-trigger the error in the sanitisation protocol and lead to a second massacre which no amount of information is worth.

But if I'm careful enough...

Day 2,253

There's talk of building a road beneath the forest in the hope that the lingering spirits won't interfere with the traffic as they currently do. Dozens go missing each year only to be seen wandering by the roadside with wooden horns sprouting from gaping wounds in their heads.

Of course there are countless different kinds of wandering spirit but those are the most common - hernesmen we call them, nasty if you get too close and fatal to the touch if they're in spore. I'd rather face a hernesman than half of the other creatures the forest births that don't offer the courtesy or kindness of a quick death.

No matter how close to the forest outskirts the new roads are built, no matter if they're dozens of miles away or right beside the sea -the forest knows someone is trying to pass from south to north and isn't inclined to make their journey safe nor easy.

An underground road sounds like it might cut back on the annual attacks in theory but the reality could be opening us up to entirely new forms of spirits and the deaths they will undoubtedly cause. Perhaps the roots of the forest will tear the thick concrete walls apart and crush any car it finds, perhaps it will raise the road back to the surface or flood it with or open a gaping chasm to its very heart.

But we won't know for certain, not just yet.

They say it'll be open in the spring.

Just in time for the hunt.

Day 2,252

The old city was drowned but lights still shine from their windows at night. A natural, bioluminescent glow for the unnatural beings that walk along the lakebed as if they were walking on dry land. They don't look up and we don't look down, at least that's what we agreed on.

The youth keep breaking the rules, you see. They stare and wait to be stared at, they tie letters to rocks and hope they get a response, there's even rumours that some of them swim there. It's arrogance and ignorance - flaunting their air-breathing lungs and long life expectancy right over the heads of the probably dead.

We knew a few names, a few of the little fools who thought the things beneath the water were still human enough to speak with and reason with. We weren't at all surprised when the rest of their gang came screaming through the town, all soaking wet and begging for help.

I don't mean to sound cruel but I hope this teaches them a lesson. There'll always be a couple drowned every generation, always keeping the old city fed and occupied while we slowly move further and further away until there's nothing in the valley but them in the lake.

Perhaps if they're left to be forgotten then they'll start to rest for good.

Day 2,251

My parents never believed me about the children I kept hearing in the attic or the crying in the basement. They refused to let me go near either, said they were both full of insulation or junk and were dangerous. I was told there was nothing down there and any sounds I heard were purely my imagination.

I learnt to ignore them, even when they were crying my name and telling me my parents were evil.

I've never been able to sleep well under their roof and as soon as I was old enough I moved out and refused to sleep another night there ever again. I tried not to think about the crying children I always heard and how bruised my parent's knuckles were most days.

When they died, I wasn't told for several months. It was a stipulation in their will. They left me the house and all its contents on the condition that I demolish it to make way for a place of my own. Of course the first thing I did was head into the basement before even remotely considering destroying the answers I wanted and dreaded.

The floor was barely visible for all the neatly piled boxes full of tiny bones and in the furthest corner were several saws and a vat of something that stank to high heavens. Each box was labelled with a name,age and date of death - the police were grateful that so much of their work was done for them.

I never had the heart to tell them about the attic as well, figured I was infamous enough being known as the son of two serial child killers - nobody needed to know about all the other bodies. I figured I'd dispose of them somehow, change my name and move on with my life.

The police already formed their opinions of me in the basement and had no leniency when they caught me down in the old quarry with a trunk full of bones and sacks full of hair. They just said that the apple didn't fall far from the tree and let the evidence speak for me.

Now I'll be spending the rest of my days inside a small concrete room, just like all those children.

I still hear them at night, crying and telling me my parents are evil.

Sometimes they tell me that I'm evil too.

Day 2,250

Dozens of thin hands clutched the tree trunk so hard their little knuckles turned white - a stark contrast to the blood and filth they were covered in. It's been said that if one manages to catch them unawares one can see the bodies hiding behind the trees but I know this is false.

I was hidden up in a hunting nest, still and silent for so long that the forest forgot I was even there. It was where I used to go to find a moment of peace, not any more of course... not since I saw what all those little hands connected to and what they do to people who aren't careful enough.

His name was Martín, a friend of mine from university who decided to spend the semester break with me in my hometown. I told him the usual courtesies and mannerisms to remember and avoid but the forest called to him as soon as he set foot in the town.

It does that from time-to-time. It summons someone to enter the forest and never return but my aunt said it took someone just the week before we arrived so by all accounts we should have been safe. He should have been safe but the forest hadn't taken its fill yet.

He was a pianist, hands delicate and thin like a spider's web - perfect to join the others. I saw it all from my hunting nest. Saw him come out to find me and saw the forest find him instead. It had been waiting just below me, those dozens of perfect and filthy hands desperately - eagerly - holding the tree til they saw him.

One thing the stories get all wrong is what hides behind the tree, what the hands are attached to. It's nothing. Absolutely nothing. They stop existing just beyond the wrist and whatever wasn't there slammed its non-existent body into Martín and consumed him til only his hands were left.

They were covered in blood - his blood.

All the other little hands gently held his and brought them to their new positions within the cluster of others. As they drifted deeper into the forest I felt like I could finally breathe again, which is more than could be said for Martín and certainly not something I could explain to his family.

In the end we settled with telling them we went camping and became lost and separated. I was found unconscious many miles away from a path and we were still searching for Martín. It was something easier to explain and easier to understand but all the while we searched with his family he was there.

In the distance with the other delicate little hands - easier to spot as his blood still shone fresh in the sun.

Day 2,249

 There is Something in the sky and it consumes us when we die.

They are taken to the empty bay and carried out to a small platform just at the entrance to the sea. Great tendrils emerge from that perfect cloudless sky and descend onto the body, leaving nothing behind - not even the memories of their peaceful resting face.

Sometimes loved ones will volunteer to carry the body out, to forget their pain and move forward as if their dearly departed had never existed. If none of them volunteer we pick at random from the rest of the town, considering it our duty to attend at least one consummation.

Apparently I've attended twelve.

Day 2,248

The wires are singing - they are close by, too close for us to run but far enough away for us to hide. They have been following us for years now, trailing behind some dozen or so miles but always within hearing range. They do this on purpose to incite fear and make us too cautious to rest.

A sleepless enemy is a careless enemy and we are so very tired. We do not dig as deeply as we should, our trench is more or less a ditch that we attempt to make safer by burying ourselves like the blessed dead while the wire's song becomes a riotous screeching akin to the infernal choirs of hell itself and we are the damned.

They have never been so close before and we do not doubt that we will die if they overtake us.

We hold our breaths, clutch the dirt beneath and pray it is enough for one more day.

The screeching begins to fade to singing, to whispering, to silence.

We are left to contemplate what has passed us by.

We are left to wonder if we should follow it.

We are left to become the hunter.

Day 2,247

 Hands presses against the thin plastic covering the metal fence, clawing and tearing and trying to climb out. They wouldn't succeed - they've been trapped in the former construction site for twelve years now and this is as far as they've ever been able to get.

They can't break the plastic yet they broke down the old bunker doors and ripped the builders to shreds. Boggles the mind a bit. Makes you wonder if it's the builders trying to break free while the things from the bunker have gone back down there to sleep or bide their time for a second attack.

We won't give them the opportunity you know. Whole site's getting a concrete bath in month or two and I dare say there's very few things in this world that can survive that. Burying the problem doesn't solve it, everyone knows that, but it means we have several solid feet between us and the problem.

Fear makes for a great motivator but I think we'll all concentrate better when we can't hear them howling.