Day 2,638

They say the sky bled for days after the church fell. I was lucky enough to be out of the country for the worst of it, returning last week to a light shower of blood and a town stained as ruby red as the pews where the congregation met their end.

Nobody can say for certain how they were killed, though the official cause of death came when the church collapsed in on itself and buried them all beneath. It's been nearly three months since that day and there's not one person willing to try and dig them out for a proper funeral.

I know I haven't been around for a couple of years but I thought I was still townie enough that they wouldn't treat me like a total stranger when I came back. Apparently I thought wrong and now I won't know how my uncle and his family died unless I head out there to dig them up myself.

Given how there isn't a single shovel for sale in the entire county, I'd say it'll take a fair bit of planning.

Say 2,637

The courtyard was still and silent, the last remaining gentry had finally met their visceral end and the village below tried to breathe their sighs of relief and say how glad they were that it was all over at last. But there was doubt deep in their minds and in the same way a beaten dog will flinch even in a safe home, they flinched at the shadows, at the fluttering curtains and prayed the dead would stay still and silent.

They decided that every day someone would be chosen to go and check to help settle their minds until the bodies had rotted away to nothing that could come back and hurt them again. They would be well-armed and carry a horn to warn the village if they found something unnatural or were attacked.

The first day came and went with no trouble - the bodies were dead and silence remained.

The second, third and fourth days came and went much the same.

On the fifth day they realised that nobody ever mentioned if the bodies had moved, only that they were dead.

On the sixth day there was nobody left to realise that death doesn't mean the end for some creatures.

Day 2,636

The highway is lined with dead animals like a ward against the towns that seem to sprout up overnight. Nobody ever seems to enter or leave them but the towns themselves never seem to stay put for too long either. One day the highway's lined with bustling infrastructure and the next it's back to untouched crop fields.

I know others guys in my high school have dared each other to go to one of the towns and bring back souvenirs but only one person has so far and he only talks about it to his therapist. The rest of us are left wondering what the hell happened there and why he still carries the bag of billiard balls he brought back from there.

All we know for sure is that something isn't right about those places, the way all the windows feel like tiger eyes waiting for your back to show so they can break your spine and drag your body away. The way the roadkill lining the highway is always so fresh it still bleeds but nobody's ever hit a live animal heading down there.

Half the animals aren't even native to our state.

Day 2,635

We have a 2 storey house but we only ever use the ground floor, the upstairs has been occupied since the forties and nobody wants to try and get rid of it after the carnage of the last attempt. I swear the damp patches on our ceiling from all the blood they spilled still haven't quite cleared up and at this rate I reckon they never will.

The worst of it is that we're effectively trapped here. We can't sell the place to anybody in town and after the damned news spilled about the 'massacre' as they're calling it (as if five bodies counts as a massacre to begin with) nobody out of town wants the place either.

So we're left either dropping the house and starting from scratch, trying to bribe someone to demolish it and damn the fuckers living upstairs or just accept that we're always a few feet from murderers who are seemingly unkillable to the point where the police won't even try again.

I've never even been able to see who lives up there save for a few curtain twitches when I'm leaving or in the back yard so lord only knows if they're human at all or how many there are. I know there's at least three from the way their footsteps sound as they move about upstairs.

I guess as long as they stay put, we're staying put.

Day 2,634

Strange things kept happening in the new house and none of us could figure out why. Things would go missing all the time from a shirt to food to car keys to petrol in the car itself. We spend the longest time blaming each other and buying new carbon monoxide detectors - anything to find a reason for everything that had been going on since we moved in.

I think the final straw was when we were all watching a comedy special in the lounge, something we rarely did after several tense weeks of things vanishing and reappearing all over the place. It got towards the end of the show and we were a little tipsy, finally relaxed and generally not paying attention to the faint noises behind us.

As the sound of heavy footsteps and staggered breathing grew closer, we realised the last owners never left.

Day 2,633

It told me it was an angel as it continued to eat what little was left of my granddad. I vaguely remembered a classmate saying how biblical angels were all kinds of fucked up so I assumed it was right and asked if this is how god takes you to heaven.

I don't think I'll ever be able to forget that smile.

The way its face went from mostly human to two perfectly split halves of a human head, the corners of its mouth gently touching the holes in the side of its head where people have ears. And the teeth, the absolute clusterfuck of teeth rammed in tighter than the gravestones in the city's old churchyard, all red and glistening in the flickering light.

After a few minutes of it smiling and me trying to remember how to breathe, it disappeared.

One second it was there, then the light flickered and it was gone leaving just me and grandad's shredded remains in his living room, waiting for the air to stop feeling like something worse was about to happen. Whether we were waiting for the angel to come back or waiting for grandad to come back or waiting for the angel to bring me to heaven as well - I can't rightly say. We were just waiting.

Before I could start to cry, the phone rang.

Day 2,632

The swarm pulled loosely together to mimic the body they'd just finished attacking. I peered out from behind the old car I hid behind as soon as I heard their telltale wheezing buzz, knowing they'd be too distracted by the child who wouldn't stop crying to notice there were more of us.

If the circumstances had been slightly different, if he hadn't insisted on leading and using my gun, if he'd stopped talking long enough to hear them coming, if the kid hadn't pulled away to run for her dad, if, if, if - I could go on til all the swarms in the world died.

But she died instead.

At least they were quicker with her than they were with her dad. I suppose that's the upside of being so small that they could just cut through her like a hot knife through butter and quiet the world again to their wheezing buzz while the rest of us held our breath and waited for them to find a new target.

A crow broke the stillness, cawing overheard, and the swarm began a new chase.

Day 2,631

In my dreams I'm always in this endless series of half-flooded hallways, always walking forwards with the unsettling feeling that something was following me. Over the years the hallways have changed from the bright turquoise of the swimming pool we visited once a year at school to deep grey with slick green algae running down and obscuring the water.

Last night was the first time I'd ever seen another living being in my dreams. It almost looked human from a decent distance but the closer I got, the more warped its feature became til all I was looking at was a writhing distortion where a person once was.

I don't want to fall asleep again, not if it means meeting that thing.

Day 2,630

It had her face.

It knew I killed her and it had her face.

It also had the body of a deer so I was confident that nobody would want to go near the cursed thing until it led a couple of kids to the riverbed where she'd somehow lodged herself after I pushed her off the bridge where she broke my heart.

Now it's only a matter of time before they find something to tie her death to me and drag me to the station where I'll never see sunlight again. For all I know every time the damned deer with her face shows up, it's brought company with it and they're all watching me... waiting for me to do something that'll give it all away.

Only a matter of time til I'll have to confront her in front of the pearly gates.

Only a matter of time.

Day 2,629

We put iron bars over the well to keep them trapped down there but it doesn't stop them from screaming. Doesn't stop them from trying to get out either but it's bought us enough time to figure out something to cover the long-term aspects of keeping your undead family alive.

It may be a bad idea - in fact it's probably the worst thing we could have done, especially since all other undead are either dead again or locked up where they don't stand a chance at breaking out and reinfecting the recovering world. Love's stupid like that.

I wish I could bring myself to kill them.

Day 2,628

It crouched at the far end of the tunnel, down one of the larger water grates. Its limbs - velvet soft, each hair delicately coated in neurotoxin-rich saliva - stretched out like a spider testing its web and blended in with the trash along the ground. It was ready to greet the day.

Prey had been scarce the past few years, since the bypass had been built and the general public dissuaded from using the underpass to pass between the central and lower towns in favour of the new public transportation system. It had grown lean but it reminded itself that there had been worse times before and there will be worse times to come.

Patience - always patience.

Patience enough to not snap at every subtle vibration that carried throughout the underpass, tempting as it may be to snag every rodent or bird foolish enough to trespass, there was a greater need to converse its energy for prey that was more... substantial and more befitting of a creature its size.

Moments after it resigned itself to another day of waiting in the cold, somewhat putrid waters, something came wandering awfully close to the underpass. Several somethings on two limbs, all sharp sounds and weak bodies that could sustain it for months.

It send shivers down its limbs, warming them up and extending its claws in anticipation.

Tonight there would be a feast, tomorrow there would be grieving families come to search for the lost ones.

The cycle was about to begin again and for the first time in years, it felt happy.

Day 2,627

Smoke began to rise from the cold furnace, curling and snarling towards him as he realised the old bastard had been waiting all these years. Fire's meant to kill them for good, that or a stake through their hearts but old Mallaidh was never one to die easily - deliberately seeking out vampirism in her eighties proved that for sure.

For the last thousandish years, give or take a few decades, she'd been an absolute plague on the area to the point where three entire towns packed up and moved out in one day just to be rid of her. Still, she lingered around and took out the odd traveller or tourist - enough to keep herself moving but nowhere near as much as she needed to thrive.

He'd eventually been tasked with doing what his great, great grandfather had failed to do - kill her and free their homeland from her tyranny so they could all return in safety. And he'd done his best - fought her on and off for a good few decades, eventually weakening her enough to throw her into an old furnace and light her up for good.

When he went back and shared the good news - showing her prized necklace as proof that she was dead and the video of her shrieking from inside the roaring flames - the other families agreed to visit for the first time in several centuries with the aim of resettlement.

Everything had been going so well, plans were being drawn for new housing and infrastructures to not only rebuild but modernise the old towns into new, thriving communities. Then they made the mistake of visiting her deathsite and as the dark smoke slowly crept towards them, they found their feet unwilling to move as she enveloped them all - selecting her new host.

She was thoroughly spoilt for choice.

Day 2,626

In the end I was more scared of my parents than the monster who killed them.

In fact, for most of my life I thought of it as some kind of super-powered hero - someone who had saved me when social services failed and the rest of the world seemed to have turned a blind eye to all my bruises. I even drew pictures of it, scrawling out thank you letters that I'd leave under my bed in case it came out from there like it had at my childhood home.

I never thought I'd see it again until it slowly crawled out from my dorm bed and snapped my roommate's neck before he could scream another drunken slur at me. It lingered this time, long enough for me to thank it through my tears and ask why it ever helped me.

As it tore a strip of my roommate's skin off, it paused and tilted its head.

Then its face gradually split into a grin that bisected its entire jawline.

And it called me Sister.

Day 2,625

I remember being told that the portrait of the old man above my Nan's fireplace was her great grandad. I remember that nobody else saw his face as a pair of bloodshot eyes and a too-wide smile peering through a thick cloud of cigar smoke. I don't remember anyone mentioning that he was still very much alive.

He really shouldn't be, not with how old he is and sure as hell not with how many cigars he goes through in how little time. By all reasonable accounts he should be bones in a suit but this family's never been too good at being reasonable... or staying dead...

It's hard to understand him through the smoke but he said something about an old family curse or he just saw a hearse. More likely the former. Apparently some thirty years after we die, we get brought back to live eternally as inhuman beings to forever haunt our descendents.

The old man reckons he knows how I'll look when the curse takes me but the smug bastard refuses to give me anything else - not even so much as a subtle hint. Thankfully me and at least two of my cousins don't plan on having kids so the likelihood of the curse dying with this generation is pretty good.

Day 2,624

It swayed back and forth out among the wheat, quietly chanting "What am I doing here?" as it slowly finished squeezing the life from my brother's neck. I kept quiet, muffling my tears with my sleeve and praying it hadn't noticed me chasing after the limp little boy in its arms.

He only wanted to play tag. If I'd only run faster or called out for our parents when I saw it stand up or agreed to watch a movie instead then maybe he'd still be alive. Maybe I wouldn't have spent the night violently crying into my sleeves and shuffling around the fields following the creature that didn't let go of my brother til the next evening.

We weren't found til morning, me crammed under a hedge and my brother impaled on a telephone pole just above. There was nothing I could say that would have convinced anyone that it was a monster - they all assumed I was just a traumatised child making monsters out of the presumed men who killed him.

I think they arrested a couple of people eventually but it was all a blur for me and I'd almost managed to suppress the whole thing until I heard a familiar voice in the back yard. It drifted from left to right as the creature paced about, all the while it muttered the same thing.

"What am I doing here?"

Day 2,623

When the world outside became overrun with the featureless flesh that fell from the sky, anyone who could still move headed for wherever winter was harshest and prayed they'd outlast it. They couldn't stand the cold, you see. The flesh needed warmth to move and didn't have the limbs to wrap itself in protective layers like we did...they didn't have limbs at all. Not for a good while.

By the time they figured out that they could carve a shelter from the carcasses of the living, we were too comfortable to pay attention to the odd deer or wolf that was acting weirdly. We just chalked it down to chronic wasting disease and carried on as normal.

That is, until the flesh found it could carve out a person, control them like a drunken puppet and lure us out into the flesh's starving embrace. We lost thousands to that sneaky little tactic of theirs. Who could resist the urge to run after a loved one and protect them from the very thing that was using them?

The answer to that is very, very few.

Day 2,622

 As the sound of wet footsteps staggered closer to her hiding place, she cursed herself for not aiming better. It was injured though, and surely that had to count for something even in a place as damned as this, even after years of perfect kills and well-protected hideouts. Surely she'd live through this.

Surely she wouldn't be so amateurish as to fixate on a single sound and forget to pay attention to her surroundings in case her angry not-so-dead friend had attracted company. Surely she'd realise that the prickly feeling on the back of her neck meant she was being watched from behind and should run while there was still time.

Surely she'd live through this, right?

All this and more passed through her head as did several sets of teeth.

By the time the injured one had found what little of her was left, she was practically stone cold.

Day 2,621

She tried not to flinch at all the bones strewn across the floor and hoped they weren't anyone she knew which was easier said than done as she caught glimpses of familiarity among the carnage. A necklace that belonged to someone whose nose crinkled when she smiled, a t-shirt she gave him for his birthday, glasses that always slid down her face when she was caught up in a book.

The bones should have been the least of her worries but she couldn't help crying at the scraps of home she saw, splattered with dried blood and whatever chunks of viscera the swarms hadn't bothered to eat. They were probably nearby - she should probably have been more concerned about joining the bones.

Instead she quietly sank to the floor beside a large ribcage tangled up with a tiny ribcage and wept.

Day 2,620

It was about four in the afternoon when I found that the police had closed off the underpass again. Had to turn around and backtrack an extra mile to get home. I know I should be more sympathetic to the family of whichever poor soul they found down there but it's just such a bloody nuisance, especially when it gets dark so quickly this time of year.

Honestly I'd feel safer facing the underpass than walking another mile through all those twisting streets and stranger's homes. It's not even that dangerous of a place down there, not if you read the writing on the walls your first time and keep it in mind for the rest of your life.

I only know a little bit about what's down there but I do know it has an excellent memory for faces, lets you go through once for free - no hassle, no snarling or trying to trick you into breaking its rules so it can eat you. Rather nice of it really, giving everyone an equal chance to take their time once and then hunting them down any time they came back.

I remembered to take pictures when I first went - I'd spent years hearing about the varying trials and tribulations it forced the people around me through and I made sure to be prepared. I think this level of respect and dedication to playing by its rules is why it's never given me any grief - not even one tiny hurdle to hop over.

Shame about this latest one though. I tripped over his foot as I was heading back so I dread to think about the mess he's left behind in the underpass, if there's enough of him left that is. If the rest of him's anything like the severed foot though, he's been burnt worse than the last burger at a boozy summer barbeque.

Day 2,619

As he finally finished breathing, the blood in his punctured lungs having done its work, I felt relief for the first time in years. I'd finally be able to sleep and not have to worry about him finding where I'd hidden the kitchen knives or where the lighter was or what the combination for the medicine cabinet was.

I thought I was finally safe until I saw a faint outline rise up from his body and rush towards me, knocking me into the bedside table. I woke up a few hours later, dazed and bleeding from somewhere on my head. It was hard to tell exactly where when the pain seemed to radiate with every pulse.

I staggered to my feet, fumbling about for my phone to report that we'd definitely just been attacked or it was a robbery gone wrong. If I got detail muddled then that was because of the head injury they gave me and the vague description of an average height man with brown eyes and brown hair would lead then nowhere, much to my obvious dismay - my attacker and his murderer might never be found!

Just when I thought it was all settled, as I laid in the hospital bed I felt like I was being watched, turned my head and saw that the faint outline was crouched next to me. I felt my blood run cold when I realised he wasn't ever going to leave, not til I was dead and even then the bastard would find a way to follow me. 

He was right all along - I'll never be alone.

He won't allow it.

Day 2,618

The warehouse doors slowly creaked open and as the woman's weeping grew louder I realised that it was now behind me. There was no time to run, only scant seconds to rush inside and pray there'd be somewhere to hide instead of another bloodthirsty creature. I would have settled for a dark corner, old crates or even a pile of rags - I couldn't afford to be picky.

Though the door behind me was trying to quietly close, I still felt like luck was on my side for once. I finally had a barrier between me and the thing pretending to be a crying woman. I had a few minutes to catch my breath and think about my next course of action.

I was abruptly pulled from my thoughts as she began hammering against the warehouse door, realising that her prey was now cornered but not quite realising what I was in. She hadn't found out that the walls thrummed with a soft, melodic heartbeat and the light filtering through holes in the ceiling was the first warmth I'd felt in a long time.

It was another bloodthirsty creature, but one with patience. One that liked its food to be restful and calm when its floor began to slope towards large pits on either side of its centre that were about half full of dissolving bodies. I kept slapping myself to stay awake as I tried not to count the skulls and melted clothes along the way.

By the time I reached the far end, she'd broken the door down and sent the warehouse into an aggressive, defensive state. The pits began to move towards her as I continued to creep through the other door, which was swinging open in a half-forgotten kind of way. Like it knew its prey was escaping but the new prey was bigger and would fill it better.

I gently closed the door, flinching when the silence hit and the air began to smell like burnt meat.

Day 2,617

I didn't know I was dead til my mother held a mirror up and I saw the maggots crawling across what was left of my face. The strangeness of the last month began to make sense - from the way that everyone tried to avoid me to the way the air had been smelling to the way my family couldn't look at me without tearing up.

I thought it was because Grandad died but I'm starting to remember that we died together. We were in the same car that he always drove like it was a damned tank instead of a tiny hatchback. Neither of us saw that lorry coming and even if we had I don't think there was anything we could have done to avoid it.

Grandad was already on his fourth cancer battle so maybe that's why he went to rest while I didn't want to give it all up. I made myself get up out of the wreckage, scared the shit out of the paramedics on my way, and went home like it never happened.

I made myself forget so I could keep on living when all this time I've been tormenting my family by rotting away right in front of them. I'm just glad they love me enough that they let me have a while longer before reminding me that I should have been buried months ago.

That's where we're going in the morning - out to my burial plot where I'll climb into my coffin and go to sleep.

At least, I hope I'll sleep.

Day 2,616

I'm used to my sleep paralysis creatures. There's been a few that have stuck with me over the last eight years and at this point they don't even scare me, they're a comfort. I'm even starting to figure out what they represent and what it means when they appear.

Like the doll that cries blood and slaps it's face, splattering blood all over the place. She means that my depression is about to kick up a notch, gives me a little head's up to cancel any stressful events and call a couple friends to sit with me for the day to make sure I take care of myself.

There's also the goat with my first maths teacher's face. He sits on my chest until I 'wake' up coughing and gasping for air. His appearance means that there's a change in the air pressure, usually a storm, and that I should keep my inhaler close for the next few hours.

Last night, for the first time in eight years, a new creature arrived. At least, I thought it was just the sleep paralysis at the time. She looked like an old lady made of wax and left out in the sun. She sat next to me knitting something out of soaking wet wool, I remember hearing the needles slide against some kind of viscous fluid.

All of a sudden she bolted out of place, rushed towards me and grabbed my arm so hard she fractured the bone and I was awake and she was still there. She was there gripping my arm to the point where I began to scream and she still didn't move.

She just stood there until my roommate came rushing town the hallway to my room, startling her enough for me to rip my arm free. Then she leapt out of my open window, my roommate called the cops and now we're here wondering who the hell she was.

I know she was real though - not just from the fractures in my arm, the fact that someone else saw her means she was here. It means that I'm still not safe, not til she's found. She could show up again tonight or next week or even next year but I know she'll be back.

Someone like that doesn't like to leave witnesses for too long.

Day 2,615

We were all so busy focusing on the floating hat in the middle of the stairwell that we didn't look down til it was almost too late, til its jaws had nearly closed around our ankles. We'd been seconds away from death, likely for a good few minutes, and been to caught up in finding a corpse to even care.

In all honesty, I don't even know what we would have done if we'd actually found anything. I mean, the closest any of us have come to seeing a corpse in real life is driving past road kill. I just felt like I had to see what was at the end of the stairs, you know?

I felt like someone was pulling me towards it.

In hindsight the need to follow the blood, the weird floating hat, the isolated stairwell and the creature that nearly had us by the achilles are probably all connected, if not part of the same mechanism to draw and catch unsuspecting and very distracted meatbags like us idiots.

I'm glad we snapped out of it before we got snapped up, you know.

Wherever it would have dragged us away to, it'd be one hell of a way to go.

Day 2,614

The rhythmic thudding of the ancient dryers always used to make me feel so tired. Probably because my mom would leave me at the laundromat near our old apartment when she had a night shift at the bar next door. In her mind it was safer to keep me close by in a shop with CCTV than an apartment with a lock you could pick with a knife.

So my childhood memories are mostly the smell of detergents and the sound of the dryers - my lullaby.

It made me feel safe to be surrounded by warm clothes and soft scents until last week. I was there at 10pm as always to get a quick load of washing done before work the next day and apart from the owner's cousin at the desk there was only me and a few machines running other last minute loads.

I remember it was 10:30pm exactly when the air suddenly turned cold enough to see your breath and the world outside seemed to freeze. The guy behind the desk ducked down and whispered for me to hide, which I did without question. Luckily I've always been scrawny so I opened one of the broken dryers and curled up inside, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Whatever was happening, I still wanted to see it... definitely wishing I hadn't but hindsight's just like that. 

The first thing I heard after a couple of tense minutes waiting in the dark was the door opening and something wet shuffling towards the desk. I only caught a glimpse of it but it looked human at that point, human enough that I almost came out and carried on but the way the owner's cousin spoke stopped me.

His voice sounded tinny and far away, like there was a wall between us. He asked the new guy to please put his washing in a specific machine and said it was already paid for. Sur enough the guy turned and headed for it and god I wish he'd turned the other way so I hadn't seen the front of him.

He looked like he'd been cut clean in half and was only held together by his half-buttoned coat. His intestines were spilling out and trailing behind him and it was these that the guy wanted to wash apparently. Only found that out after he left of course, but at that moment I assumed he had a bag or something.

Turns out he comes three times a year to wash up, leaves behind a solid bar of gold and never says a word. The family's terrified of saying no and the gold keeps them afloat enough that they can afford to send their kids to good schools, good enough to let the shop go when they pass away.

As for me, I got an ounce of gold for my troubles and a story to tell.

Day 2,613

She was in there somewhere, buried beneath flesh and wires and I could only try and dig her out. She screamed in every voice she'd stolen, begging me to stop while she was still alive but I knew she wouldn't truly be alive until she'd been freed from her metal containment.

The wires grew hotter the further down a clawed, scalding my hands at first then burning the skin blacker than the charcoal she used to dig out from the old mine to save us from buying any. The pain was worth it if it meant I'd have her back, if it meant we'd be a family again.

I only started to worry about her when she fell quiet.

When the wires grew colder and colder.

When I realised she was now safe.

Day 2,612

As everything started to fade he finally knelt down and cradled my body, whispering "You weren't supposed to be here. Nobody was supposed to be here." as if that changed the fact that he shot me not even five minutes ago. I've found that dying makes every second feel like hours, makes you feel calm enough to understand what's going on.

At least it did for me.

While he was starting to sob his heart out, mine was stopping and I could feel myself detaching from my body like slipping out of a too-tight sweater. At that moment I knew I had three choices - float away and dissipate into the peaceful sky, linger and observe the world til I forget who I am and fade into confusion or slip into one of the empty corpses nearby and take him with me.

It'd be the only time I'd ever be able to get away with murder but I'd be stuck in the corpse til it rotted.

I've never been a fan of split-second decisions but I stand by what I did. I dropped into the closest corpse and strangled him out of his body, dragging him into the corpse with me and sealing both our fates for at least a couple years. If it kept him from killing anyone else then it was worth it.

This self-made prison is worth it.

Day 2,611

My son was in tears this morning - apparently the grey child has come back which means it's either immune to exorcisms or the priest we used wasn't a true enough believer for the damned words to stick. I thought we dealt with it months ago and now we're back to square one again.

At least we already know what will and won't work, which rooms it favours and how to remove mammalian viscera from the new carpet. These are lessons we learnt the hard way during the early days of its visits, back when our son thought they were just playing games and that the little animals weren't real.

Now he knows better and the fact that he's told us so quickly means we can act quickly and minimise the initial damage - salt on the windowsills and in the corners of every room, iron nails in our pockets and phones in aeroplane mode in case the little brat calls the police again.

It's unbelievably difficult to convince them that the call was made from your phone but the child who called has been dead for potentially well over a century. It's hard to say for certain when it refuses to give us its name and is dressed in a long white nightgown that could be from anywhere in the last few hundred years.

Tonight  will be quite the test of our memory, seeing whether we've got it all back to how it was when we cornered the grey child and had it trapped in one room. Seeing whether it's managed to learn something new while it was away wherever spirits tend to go.

See if it's angry with us and how deadly that might end up being.

Day 2,610

As their blood fell around him in a visceral shower, he smiled and thanked them for their gift. Among the dying heartbeats he'd be practically invisible, able to just walk out of the auditorium and onto the main deck while the creatures stalking the lower decks went into a feeding frenzy behind him.

He'd be able to reach the lifeboats with all the supplies they'd been risking their lives to gather over the past few days and he'd be able to sail to the port, warn the town and be a hero. All he had to do was make it past the first wave of bloodthirsty creatures and he'd be home free.

Sure he'd have to live with the knowledge that he'd successfully manipulated thirty people into tying themselves up and then allowing themselves to be slowly raised up while he turned off the lights and slit their all throats, but at least he'd be alive.

The only survivor of a tragic oceanic murder mystery.

He might even write a book.

Day 2,609

I hadn't been to the local theatre since I was a child going to the annual panto with my class as our Christma treat. I remember how excited we always were, how bright and beautiful the stage always looked and how hopeful the world seemed afterwards.

When I received a letter inviting me to a class reunion in that same theatre, naturally I said yes. I figured that while a great deal of time has passed since those idyllic days, I might still be able to recapture it for one night and relive a few preciou memories with people I've long since fallen out of touch with.

I tried to arrive fashionably late so as to not be left awkwardly mingling with two or three people for an uncomfortable amount of time but when I got there, around an hour late, I couldn't find anyone. The doors were open, the lights were on and everything was set up for the event but I was the only one there.

I must have spent a good half hour scouring the place for another living soul, only finding heaps of what I assumed were costumes. I've since been told by the police that these were the last known clothes of all my classmates, none of whom have been seen since.

There was no sign of foul play, no actual bodies found and if I hadn't been so bloody late I might be more help in finding where they were all taken away to. At present I'm still a suspect, one who's just as confused as the police - if not more so.

I keep getting invitations advising that the reunion has been rescheduled, hard to say who's sending these on behalf of someone who's been missing for three months but it's safe to say I'll be passing the messages along to the police and wondering where everyone else went.