Day 2,759

While he couldn't be explicitly certain that he wasn't being followed, the way his footsteps reverberated off of the slightly mouldy tiles sure made it sound like he was being followed. It was at least partially his own fault for accepting the job to begin with - they called it "roaming security" which sounded nicer than simply telling him he was meant to do the work of four regular night guards in the space of about eight hours.

At least the routine was consistent enough - a one hour circuit per stop and an hour to travel between each. His locations varied from time-to-time but for this week at least he was set to go between two golf courses, a mid-sized warehouse and a water park. The latter was the worst one of them all.

Sure it felt creepy to drive around the empty greens and the overstocked shelves but something about walking between the black pools and silent slides set off some primal fear in him and made his mind scream that there were things in the water that were following him.

The indoor pools were the peak of all his fears for the night and with every echoed step he'd swing his flashlight around as if he'd catch whatever might be following him mid-step. As if he'd know what to do if he actually saw even half the things his mind conjured up.

He felt the blood freeze in his veins when a distinct splash came from somewhere closely behind him.

Day 2,758

It's always been my habit to do check that every light and switch in the house is off before I can go to sleep. Call it a leftover from a childhood full of shouted arguments between my parents, always about money and somehow always caused by me forgetting to switch off a light and over the years it's just stuck in my head.

Yesterday had been a normal night of me going round the house from top to bottom, switching everything off and checking the doors were locked as usual. I only saw it after I'd turned off the last light, backlit by the orange haze of the streetlight outside the kitchen.

It was enormous, squatting like some kind of gargoyle and staring right at me with a smirk on its torso-sized face like it knew something I didn't. When it eventually backed into the darkness of the field beyond the streetlight and I backed up to the farthest kitchen wall, I caught a glimpse of a clock showing we'd been locked in that staring contest for well over two hours.

I couldn't sleep for most of the night, constantly checking my front door and garden cameras in case it had showed back up and eventually managing to catch a couple of hours rest at dawn. When I checked the kitchen window in the morning I saw inhumanly large footprints leading from my window back to the fields and from my window down the street.

A quick look outside, disguised as gathering my mail from the post box, showed that every house before mine had been broken into. There was glass everywhere but no blood nor bodies. I still called the police and ambulances just in case and now I'm waiting for them to show up.

Some part of me knows that if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't be writing this right now.

Thank god for little routines.

Day 2,747

The smile hung in the air, suspended in perfect stillness about five feet above the ground, teeth bared and slightly upturned as if in joyous rapture. The child curled up tighter, pulled the blanket up further and tried to cry quieter as if any of this would help.

Slowly the smile tilted to the right, then the left before the lips closed and it began to sing.

Slowly the child stopped crying, stopped trying to hide.

Stopped breathing.

They'd be found in the morning, stone cold dead and smooth skin where their mouth should have been.

Day 2,756

Outside the train there was nothing but fog and the vaguest outlines of bodies falling to the ground. Occasionally one would hit the train and begin scrabbling at the roof til a cable or sharp corner made it lose its grip, falling to the ground below or the tracks beneath.

Most of the passengers left at the last station, assuming it was out of the way enough that they'd be able to get to safety but a handful of us remain, silent in our carriages and praying nobody hits the powerlines. By some higher power or coincidence it hadn't happened yet but these were strange and brutal times so if a god appeared then I doubt we'd bat an eyelid.

I used to look out of the windows and daydream til my stop approached but now I do the same as everyone else and huddle beneath tables, crawling as quietly as I can towards the conductor's cabin so we can plan for the next stop.

Hopefully we'll find enough supplies to last us for another few loops, or at least enough for a comfortable end.

Day 2,755

For just a split second I saw his eyes recede and the flesh melt from his head in a sharp burst of fire, I smelled burnt meat and heard maggots writhing in what little of him would remain.

And then I let him go to face that future.

I always let them go - I have to. If they try to avoid their future then it only gets worse and a simple heart attack becomes a 9 car pileup followed by eighteen months in a hospital, unable to make a single sound or move an inch while every organ gradually shuts down as death crawls ever closer.

Just a random example.

This one hurt worse then the usual though, this one hit close to home because I knew it'd be the last time I'd ever get walk him to the school bus. They aren't going to find him for months and I can't see where he'll go or try to interfere because it'll only become so much worse - it always becomes so much worse and he deserves a quicker death than that.

They all do but for once I didn't argue with him and let him sit at the front of the bus.

It's more than I should have done but hopefully not enough to alter his future too much.

Just to quicken it a little, that's all.

Day 2,754

He'd been missing for almost fifty years when we found him again. My family were never the sort to let something stay shut when there were answers to be found and his poor mum - my great grandmother - dedicated the rest of her life to finding him or whatever was left of him. Any answer would have eased her pain.

We stumbled across him purely by accident, trying to find a lost sheep only to find that it fell into a cavern that wasn't showing on any map. We could hear something eating it and ran back home to grab our parents, torches and a heavy walking stick each - we prepared for the worst.

None of us ever expected to come face-to-face with our lost uncle, or what was left of him. 

His body was now mostly fused with the cave wall yet somehow his torso moved like it was still made of flesh. Where his face should have been, there was only a maw that shuddered and clicked together whenever we made any noise.

Whether he wanted feeding or company, I wouldn't know. We were dragged out of the cavern before we'd any hope of answers and nobody, save for the parish council, has been allowed back since. Officially at least. Unofficially we've been rappelling down the same hold that the sheep fell into, making sure our uncle has a warm blanket and a hot meal at least once a day.

Sometimes he almost seems to be forming words but mostly he just snaps his maw at us. But we have hope that he'll start speaking again soon or maybe using the pens we leave beside him to write to us instead of eating them like everything else we give him.

We've been patient enough in finding him and we'll be patient enough to hear him speak again.

Day 2,753

I fell asleep in class three years ago and ever since I woke up, everything's been slightly... wrong. Well, not quite wrong I guess but different to how I remember it being before I fell asleep. Like my friend's hair, for example, she never wore it up - said it made her neck too cold - but every time I've seen her in the three years since, she's always worn it up and claims she never wears it down because it irritates her neck.

If it was just these small differences I think I could live but from little snippets of what other people have said to me, the me that used to be here before we slept is so much crueller than I could ever hope to be. Just the other day someone referred to me as the "dead cat girl" and asked if I had another dead cat in my bag.

I've tried to fall asleep again but I keep waking up here, I think the me that's from this place needs to sleep at the same time in order for us to switch places again and from what little I know if her, she's a contrary bitch who's probably having a wonderful time ruining my life while I'm just trying to survive in hers.

Day 2,752

We don't speak aloud about the old God sleeping beneath our valley nor do we speak aloud about what happened to the miners who dug deep enough to touch Its skin. May any Lord have mercy on them and us, for what they've since become is fearsome and wretched enough to make us all dread finding out exactly what It is a God of.

It's not mercy, that's for damned sure. It If had any mercy in Its mountainous form then our folks would have come back with nothing but stories instead of half the limbs they went out with and a whole cluster of new stone-like growths upon whichever part of them had been closest when they touched the Unholy flesh.

The town's been torn up ever since - half wanting to bury the mine beneath rubble and move out, letting the God take Its land back while we attempt to have normal lives again elsewhere. The other half want to to disturb It further - to speak to It and see what wisdom they can attain from its presumably ancient and omniscient self.

I stopped caring about the thoughts of the many when my brother came home so torn up we could scarcely blink in the last few hours of his life. I'm not about to linger and let this happen again and again and again as the town falls to zealous hysteria.

I'm leaving in the morning, if the mountains allow it and if they don't, I've a few bullets saved.

Day 2,751

It's fractal eyes multiplied with each blink as it tried to hone in on his hiding place, vision dividing and dividing again and again and again as if that would help it see through the pile of rubble he'd buried himself beneath. He hoped it would not but began to suspect otherwise as its divisional talons gently lifted the scrappy tarp that covered his head and he found himself trying to meet its gaze and failing.

The bright spark of his life would be cut off with a single sharp slice as its talons tore through the top half of his head before rapidly duplicating, rupturing him amidst gentle arcs of blood as arteries met with open air in a graceful, rapturous, visceral chorus.

His warm hazel eyes appeared somewhere near its jawline, right by the dimples his husband had loved to poke whenever he - and now it - smiled. A faint patch of his home-dyed blue hair sprouted and settled among the thousand other shades of humanity it had killed and collected that week.

Their eyes scanned the rest of the ruins as it began to set off in search of new features to collate.

Day 2,750

His skull didn't break like they do in the movies - it just dented and his body fell for a few agonisingly slow minutes before he groaned and staggered to his feet, blood dripping down his snarling face. Her hands ached from the force of the it as she staggered herself, reeling as much as the monster she'd called husband til a few minutes ago.

The Undeath struck harder and faster than any hit she was capable of and running would only get her so far before her dear spouse tore after her and inevitably tore into her jugular. She wanted to hit him again and again and again, take out her rage at the stupidity of his actions - hiding the infection cut he got when they'd hopped that barbed wire fence a few miles back.

She wanted to put him down for good but the Undeath took away your ability to feel pain and in return it gave you greater strength than a living person could ever hope to achieve. After all, you don't tend to care much about torn muscles or broken bones when you're already a corpse.

There wasn't anywhere else for either of them to go. Their shelter, their perfect hideaway, would now be a his-and-hers tomb and a trap for anyone else who thought they'd found a great place to keep safe from the gore and chaos of the undying world outside.

With a one final breath she drew back her hand and punched him square in the mouth, cutting her hand on his teeth and sealing her own fate in a matter of minutes. Funnily enough, though she couldn't feel the infection at first, it seemed her dear husband could sense it in her and he calmed down immediately.

With the last few minutes of comprehension she grabbed a cable tie so they'd still be able to hold hands.

Day 2,749

She supposed it was technically a person - it had all the right parts in the right order but it didn't seem to know what to do with them or how to act. Even the way it walked looked more like a simulation than an actual human moving the limbs they were in possession of.

In all honesty she thought it might have been part of a prank and she kept glancing around to try and spot where their friends with their hidden cameras might be. the last thing she wanted was to end up blasted online for being scared by a couple of idiots with too much free time on their hands.

She wasn't expecting it to be anything other than a man in a suit. A very detailed, very organic looking suit... a suit that looked just a little bit too real. Real enough to make her feel more paranoid as her breath and pace sped up ready to get passed it as soon as possible.

So when it turned to face her and she saw that those humanly inhuman features couldn't possibly be fake, she chose to turn and run for the closest occupied building. She never anticipated its speed, nor did she anticipate that its baggy hoodie contained several decidedly inhuman limbs that lashed out at her ankles as she fled.

She fell as fast as she'd run.

She didn't suffer for long though.

Small mercies and all.

Day 2,748

It was mostly hidden in the old sandpit underneath the treehouse save for its hand which was about the size of her torso with jagged claws a foot long each, gently tapping out a lullaby on the grass as its lone eye peered out from under the tarpaulin sheet.

If she were any older of any younger, she would have screamed and cried til a grownup arrived. Fortunately for the creature, she was at that age where demons and monsters were only interesting and the thought that one might live so close to her house was nothing but thrilling to her.

So she sat there, careful to be just out of arm's reach, and hummed along to the creature's lullaby while it grew more and more frustrated that she wasn't afraid nor coming any closer. The pupil in its visible eye constricted to scarcely a pinprick of black among the vibrant amber iris while the child started to grow bored.

As she huffed and decided to head inside to watch TV, it decided on a new plan of action.

The split-second her back was turned, it struck.

She didn't even have time to draw a breath to scream - she was simply gone.

Day 2,747

The red humanoid shapes starkly stood out against winter's last snow, bleakly reminding us of how bitter it had been. It was all they left when they accepted a family's sacrifice - a red outline that sunk deep into the earth below the snow and fed the ground that would in turn feed us enough to last trough the next winter.

I suppose in a way losing a loved one every other year is better than losing dozens every winter to sickness or starvation. The sacrifices keep us in good health and if we say this enough times then maybe it'll start to feel less hollow.

Until then we plan who'll be left out the following year and make sure what little time they have left is worth it.

Day 2,746

I remember it being the first clear day of the whole week and the ground was still recovering with deep puddles all over the place - plenty for us to jump in. We promised each other that we'd wait until after school so we wouldn't have to sit in class all damp and cold. It was supposed to be a normal, fun little childhood moment that we'd fondly remember every now and then when we were old and had kids of our own who'd jump in the puddles just like we did.

There was no way we could have known just how deep some of them really were.

It was the one by the huge oak tree near the old mill house that caught us all out. It must have been a good five by eight feet - big enough for all of us to jump in at once - and we did. We held hands and jumped as high as we could, falling faster and deeper than we'd even dared to imagine.

Drowning before we realised what had happened.

Waking up in front of the puddle and seeing parts of ourselves floating on the surface while frantic adults came and whisked them away. Seeing our friends and families leave flowers by the police tape. Seeing a giant metal grate put over the puddle and seeing the world around us age and change while we remained exactly the same as the day we jumped into our last puddle.

Day 2,745

Every night it seemed that more and more of them were drawn to the house across the road until there were so many of them that they blocked the road altogether from sunset to sunrise. There was scarcely a speck of tarmac between all their leathery wings and snarling beaks, not that any of us dared to get close enough to be certain.

We tried to be rid of them ourselves by covering the road in barbed wire or burning oil but neither deterred them - in fact the oil fire seemed to help them settle down faster. They were so relaxed that we were able to cross to our neighbour's house and watch from the safety of their enclosed porch til the fire grew low and their tempers picked up.

It went on like this for about seven weeks until the owners finally showed up and all hell seemed to break loose. The flock arrived with them, carrying all manner of mutilated livestock among them that they tried to drop in the neighbour's heads.

It took us a hot minute to realise - they were trying to feed them.

Day 2,744

The world around me changed with every flash of lightning as the storm brought about an end and a beginning all at once. Trees sprouted from seedlings and died before my eyes, houses were built and fell in minutes, people withered to dust all while I stood still and witnessed it all.

The sky between the storm clouds rippled in between the lightning, flickering from day to night as creatures I could barely comprehend circled overhead, occasionally swooping down to drag a rapidly aging animal away, leaving nothing but scattered viscera that soon turned to ash where it once had stood.

My uncle was always the paranoid sort and for the first time in my life I was truly grateful for it as our family stood within the confines of an iron circle he'd spent the last three years carving strange glyphs into. It kept us safe as the rest of the world was brutalised by the storm.

In the back of my mind I thought he was cruel for finding a way for us to witness and survive this madness.

It would have been kinder to let us all perish with the rest of creation.

It would have been swifter than living in what little remained.

Day 2,743

I never told my parents why I suddenly stopped begging to go to the giant playcentre near granddad's old place. Somehow I didn't think they'd believe me if I told them about the grey man who lived both there and the place where all the missing children in our area had been taken to.

Still, every trip to Grandad's was a brief detour to the playcentre to "get all your energy out" no matter how many times I said I was fine and I'd behave. They never listened to me so I'd make sure that I never went in there alone, always finding a random child to befriend for the brief time we were there.

It worked for both me and the new friend I'd make - I'd tell them about the grey man but nine times out of then they'd already had an encounter. Tenth time they wouldn't believe me and I'd see them on the back of a milk carton a week later. But the nine times before that, I'd have an alliance - someone to watch my back as I'd watch theirs while we fought for our lives within the brightly coloured hell our parents left us in for two or three hours.

He'd lurk at the bottom of the ball pit most of the time or around the rollers, ready to grab at your legs when you couldn't see him before dragging you away for good. If it was busier though, if you had a friend to drag you back, he'd just leave a grey bruise-like mark that you had to wash off in under five minutes or it'd stain you for good and he'd use it to find you at home.

I've lost a great many friends to the grey man 's mark, not that anybody would believe me.

Day 2,742

Several clusters of hands peeled away from the huddled, writhing mass, each uncurling to shakily point somewhere just to the right of where he stood, begging him to turn around and face the slow, shuffling sounds that had been following him since he first entered the woods.

He scarcely knew what to make of the creature before him, seemingly composed of hands and meat with small dark dots that indicated it had some form of rudimentary vision. The fact that it seemed to be afraid f what was following him was somehow worse than if either creature had attacked him outright.

After taking several deep breaths and trying to calm his jackrabbit heart, he nodded to the huddled mass whose trembling hands proceeded to give him a thumbs up as he turned slightly to the right and headed diagonally away. He pretended not to hear the huddled creature slap at the ground around it to get his attention.

Behind him the slow, shuffling sounds were closer than they'd been all afternoon and he prayed he was heading towards the campsite again. At best someone would see the creature behind him and either shoot them or scare them away. At worst he be dead before it could become anyone else's problem.

Taking slow deep breaths, he walked towards the smell of smoke and burning meat with all the confidence of a dead man.

Day 2,741

Dive team seven had been standing tightly huddled together in the half flooded airlock for five days now. They weren't responding to any comms and most of them hadn't so much as twitched since they'd been discovered. Their helmets were too fogged-up to make out any of their features but the suits were showing normal enough vitals.

Occasionally diver Gwen will start to lift her head like she's about to pull herself out of whatever trance they're all in but she drops back down again within minutes.  If I didn't know any better, I'd have said they were all asleep. The only flaw in this otherwise valid assumption would be that their oxygen tanks had been empty for just over two days so unless they'd all spontaneously grown gills, they must be dead.

It's hard to say what would be worse - a dead team who are fully human or whatever this still-alive team had become in the very short span of time between their last check-in and their discovery in the airlock of dive team four's base of operations.

--Update--

We still haven't found dive team seven's base.

--Update--

Dive team seven have been declared dead after two weeks without oxygen or further movement. A probe has been sent into the airlock via the oceanic access port to perform an initial autopsy on diver Kalim as he's closest to the port and hasn't shown any signs of movement at all within the two weeks.

--Update--

As soon as the probe punctured his suit he just collapsed and the water around them filled with these eel-like things that had been hiding in Kalim's suit. His body is completely gone, the suite is just floating while the water is thrashing about with all the creatures that the probe let out.

Headquarters are debating between evacuating the site or isolating the airlock for better analysis of these newfound creatures. It's a safe enough bet that they'd been incubating in the corpses of dive team seven, moving the suits as they started to outgrow them.

Our next step will likely be the latter, there's too many unanswered questions right now.

Say 2,740

They left me behind, they said I was too slow and I'd just drag them all down. They were right of course, but it still hurt when I woke up and found myself alone without so much as a note to tell me when they'd left or that they'd ever cared. It's not like the hoard had attacked us yet, they seemed to prefer to just watch us from the shadows just beyond the narrow streetlights instead... very unusual for them.

Since I was now alone, I had a much better opportunity to study the hoard that had been stalking us for weeks. After all of three days I found that most of the hoard were human and believed that someone in my group was carrying a newer, deadlier strain of the infection that created the hoards to begin with. They hoped to isolate the suspect but seeing our solidarity weaken gave them hope that he'd venture out solo sooner or later.

I've been with them ever since, a faux hoard using an actual hoard as cover. The outermost layer acted as a cellular membrane, allowing humans to pass through and snapping at any other hoard that dared to approach. I've never felt safer than I am now, slowly moving within the hoard, hidden away like a virus.

Waiting to find my old group and snuff them out before they can unleash a new hell upon us all.

Day 2,739

Nobody believed me about someone living in the space between the ceiling of our English classroom and third storey floor until it got cocky and grabbed a student right at the start of class. I was sat two seats back and one to the right - the perfect spot to notice it gently lift one polystyrene tile away before grabbing Jay by his head and dragging him away in a split-second.

The whole class moved as one, hurling ourselves to the sides of the room while Jay's screams filled the ceiling above us. When he started to move, we all followed as if we'd be able to do anything more than call out his name and ask the useless question of "Are you okay?" like he'd be able to answer.

We ended up in the northern stairwell watching silently, stomachs turning with fear, dread and pure nausea as Jay's screaming cut off into quiet wet choked whimpers. Red began to seep through the ceiling tiles in the furthest corner as it finally quietened Jay for good.

I'll never forget the sight of one single tile lifting and his broken body being tossed out like an old candy wrapper.

I sure as hell won't forget the creature itself poking its head and hand out to beckon us closer.

If it hadn't been for the teacher pulling the fire alarm, we'd have lost more than just Jay.

Day 2,738

With a series of sickening cracks and a few seconds that felt like a lifetime, her small mouth had split into a perfect line across the width of her face and as her lower jaw dropped to her chest he finally realised that his daughter was long gone. All those months of caring for a vaguely child-shaped creature in the hope that it would somehow fill the void where she had been, now laid bare before him as an utter and agonising failure.

Still, he'd taken the child-creature from its home (well, presumed home out by the old tram depot where he'd been... recreationally freeing himself from his grief) and taken her into his own home so the burden of raising her right was now his until her own flesh and blood found her and took her away. But that was a bridge he'd likely not live to cross.

Now as the reality of his actions glared balefully at him from within the blanket fort they'd spent the afternoon creating, as he felt hysteria bubble in the back of his throat, he asked himself what else fatherhood could possibly be at its simplest other than raising a child to be the best person they could possibly be.

Even if that person just ate the hamster they'd spent two months begging you to buy.

Day 2,737

It used to just whisper in the back of his mind and now it was able to move his right hand. He could deal with its voice telling him to do this, that and the other, but if it was growing able to do these things for itself then what would happen to him if, or when, it took over completely?

He didn't like to think about that, instead choosing to plot its amputation in such a way that if it was able to survive without him, it would die before it could escape and live out its strange little life. Fire was a good option but highly painful. A factory accident would also work and his next shift would put him on the main floor for standard maintenance.

When his right hand clawed down his left forearm and left him with several stitches, he decided to put an end to it. There were plenty of machines where he could risk a limb, he just had to make it look natural enough that he could play it off as either no-fault or mild negligence so he'd be able to keep his job with a nice cash settlement while he recovered from losing the wretched thing in his hand.

He chose the press towards the final stages of production, where hot rubber was compressed before being rolled into large coils that were sent to another factory. If he timed it just right he'd be able to crush his hand and stop the machine before it took the rest of him in.

If he timed it wrong, he wouldn't have to worry about his hand or his job again.

As he clocked in for what might be his final shift, he took a deep breath and headed straight to the press.

Day 2,736

I thought she was only alive when my bedroom lights were out. She'd sit in her chair in the corner of my room and watch over me as I slept and I always thought so fondly of her. Then one night I saw her outside in the middle of the street crouching over a dessicated cat, mouth full and chewing slowly, thoughtfully as she glanced around like a wild animal guarding its prey. 

Up until that moment I'd called her my guardian angel for the way she'd whisper such nice things to me in such a sweet little voice. The same voice she'd used to whisper to the half-eaten cat beneath her through a mouth dripping with fresh meat.

I'd cried for the rest of that night, kept the lights on too in case she tried to come back. Every night after I'd kept the main light on and learned to sleep through the harsh glare rather than risk facing her again, not knowing if she'd be whispering through a mouth full of my flesh next and not wanting to find out.

Last night was the first time since that night that I slept with the lights off, half waking up to a hand running through my hair and a sweet voice whispering to me. She'd missed me all these years, she told me she'd never harm me and left a small jar of sharp teeth beside my bed as a gift.

Tonight I have to ask myself if I want to risk angering her by keeping the lights on or risk my life in the dark.

2,735

It might have been the concussion or blood loss but I swear I wasn't alone the day of the crash. Technically there were other people around but most of them were dead by the time I woke up and the living, unhurt people were too busy calling for help to notice I was awake.

So I spent a good while drifting in and out of consciousness, looking around where I could and trying to remain awake. I started noticing it running between the damaged cars quite early on but I only caught a proper glimpse of it the third time it peered out from behind the closest overturned car.

At first I thought it might be shy, might even be a friend, and so I smiled at it as best I could with half of my face stuck to the chair with drying blood. It smiled back and I really wish it hadn't, not with so many teeth in its mouth and hands, clutched tightly and spilling like a broken pearl necklace.

As it started to crawl towards me, the faint sound of a fleet of ambulances curled through the air and startled us both. It fled, leaving blood and teeth in its wake and I assumed it had all been some brain damage-induced nightmare until this morning.

When I found dozens of fresh teeth lining the windowsill.

Day 2,734

I almost mistook her insectoid eyelashes for Halloween makeup - one of those new viral creepy influencer looks that never looked right when anyone else tried them. I thought she'd just joined in on a fad until her eyelashes began to twitch and follow me as I walked across the room.

The more I looked at her, the less alive she seemed. The sleepy slope of her neck suddenly seemed too harshly angled for her to have been able to breathe, her white contact lenses looked to realistic and the blood trailing down the side of her face filled the air with a faint metallic tang.

The blood seemed to have come from her ears, the autopsy revealing both eardrums had been perforated as the parasites chose the quickest route to her brain. Likely while she slept - while we all slept not even realising she'd died or that these parasites had been able to pilot her into getting dressed and sitting downstairs to wait for the rest of us.

Her hands were too stiff to turn the doorknobs, something which saved the rest of us.

Day 2,733

I tell everyone that I don't really remember much about the night my parents went missing because they'd never believe me if I told them what I actually saw. It's taken me years to find the right words for it and I've lost track of all the nights I've spent paralysed at my keyboard trying to type it all out so here it is for everyone or noone to believe or disbelieve.

We lost the house earlier in the year, a few months after my parents lost their jobs. A relative, I forget which one but they were distant enough that we'd never met in person, let us stay in their caravan up north for free so that we'd stand a better chance of getting on our feet again.

I hated it there.

Always cold, always cramped, no running water and so out of season that nobody else was staying there. I'd get left there all day while my parents went out to look for work or take up trial shifts that never seemed to lead anywhere. By the end of the first month I'd memorised every patch of mold and weird stain in the whole caravan and the nearby washroom.

I hated the washroom most of all.

There was something living in the broken stall opposite the showers and my parents never believed me. I started showering with the flimsy curtain wide open and tried to blink as little as possible so it wouldn't try and sneak up on me again. I'll never forget how its bloated, blistered hands curled round the curtain.

I managed to scream loud enough for my parents to come running and for it to dive back into its cubicle with a startled chuckle. I told my parents I'd seen a huge spider and made enough of a fuss that they decided to accompany me to the washroom until I felt settled again.

During those few days I still made sure to keep an eye out for it, knowing my parents never would.

Of course the one time I decide to skip a shower and my parents go alone would be the time it chose to strike.

I heard my mom screaming first, followed by my dad crying "Oh god, what the hell is that?!" and I tried to get to them before it was too late. I don't know what I would have done, if I could have done anything but I know I would have tried.

When I got there all I found was their clothing stuffed in the toilet the creature had been living in and the creature itself was nowhere to be found. I had to run to the nearest payphone and try explain what had happened. Ended up crying to hard I puked but they sent someone out anyway.

They never saw my parent's clothes in the toilet, they said it was locked and broken. They never found a trace of my parents anywhere around and assumed they'd abandoned me. They never noticed the creature crawling into the trunk of a patrol car. I kept quiet, knowing they'd never believe me and knowing the creature had been doing this for so long it'd never be caught.

Day 2,732

I couldn't see their bodies at first, I just thought the road was blocked by a bunch of fallen scaffolding or something. It was so dark I didn't even notice them moving til I startled one when I stopped the car. A dozen or so poles jolted in place and lurched into the woods the other side of the road while the others moved closer to investigate.

I'll admit I might not have been as sober as you're average driver but I was sober enough to panic, not sober enough to do anything about it but I was terrified. I barely managed to roll the windows up and lock the doors before the first limb got close enough to tap across the glass and curl underneath the handles, testing their resistance.

I moved to open the sunroof as slowly as I could, not knowing if I'd even see anything in the pure darkness of the country road but wanting to try anyway. Drunken stupidity at its finest right there, shortly followed by more drunken stupidity when I got bored of peering up at a black sky and fumbled to turn myphones torch on instead.

They were definitely living things, that much I do remember. I also remember slamming the accelerator down and slaloming through their legs to empty roads. I don't remember checking to see if they were following but judging by the smallish indents all over my front yard - they've found me.

Day 2,731

He was just standing there in the centre of the garden, bleeding and screaming at me, but the camera feed showed nothing. The neighbours hadn't turned any lights on or even sent me a text to complain about the noise so I assumed he wasn't real.

I mean he couldn't have been real if the autopsy says he died five days ago, right?

He sure sounded real though, and if sure felt real enough when he came racing for the back door and started slamming his whole body against it. I don't think he ever drew a breath the entire time, it was just this never-ending scream pouring out of him while he tried to break in.

I don't want to think about what would have happened if the door hadn't been locked.

Day 2,730

I first saw him when I was seven, this long and fluttering shape half-lit by the dim orange streetlight in the neighbour's garden. I thought it was a flag at first until he lifted his head, looked around and spotted me. He smiled, at least I thought he was smiling at the time.

I remember watching him uncurl his limbs from the old flagpole and scuttle across the street, climb up the side of our house and peer into my bedroom window. I was thrilled, thinking I had a new secret best friend when any rational adult or child would have seen a smile that stretched across an otherwise featureless face, jagged teeth stained a worryingly rusty brown.

Back then I thought he was wearing a mask, in hindsight it was the neighbour's son's skin pulled taut over its own face and ripping in places from the strain. I reckon that's why he never killed me - I was far too small to be worn. Perhaps I was just an interesting little thing that kept it occupied between killings.

He only came to mind when I saw him outside my current neighbour's house, peering into their children's bedroom window just like he'd done for me all those years ago. Now I think I should be afraid, now I'm much bigger than him but something about his lithe body screamed "coiled, dangerous and ready to strike you down".

I haven't gone out near dark for weeks now, just in case I'm next in line to be worn.

I know my skin will fit him nicely.

Day 2,729

It rode in on the last freight train, abandoning its trail of carcasses in favour of a head start and fresh hunting grounds. We were none the wiser for the first few weeks as it crept around each night, surveying the land and planning its victims one by one.

Just dog-like enough to pass for a rather large fox at a distance, it patrolled the route it would soon litter with blood and viscera and smiled in an unsettlingly human way. As it finally circled back to the station it began to hum something it heard drifting out of an open window some few hundred years ago.

It didn't remember what she'd looked like, only that she liked to hum to her children every night. Maybe that's why it left her and slaughtered the rest of the village to compensate for its moment of weakness. Maybe it would find another and learn a new song to keep it company while it planned its next feast.

For now, a large fox would be reported lingering around the station and tomorrow the bloodbath would begin.