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.