Published — 7/6/26
Abe sat there clacking away at his old typewriter as the sun set through the hazy window of the small, dusty cabin. A yellowing oak tapped against the glass. He stopped typing only to take a sip of whiskey or coffee or relight his cigar or look suspiciously at the front door which had a heavy wooden table awkwardly placed in front of it.
Though he had rarely used the old typewriter, Abe was known as a storyteller in town. Stories like how he’d killed a whole platoon of Vietcong on a Navy Seal mission (even though he was actually in the National Guard and was only 15 years old during the Tet Offensive). Or stories like how he’d caught a river pike the size of a 50-pound sack of flour.
The story he was writing today was different. Unlike the tales he’d told a hundred times to anyone that would listen, this story was one he knew he had to tell now or he may never get to finish. A story that, unfortunately, had no happy endings.
Abe took another puff of his cigar and the typewriter sang:
The day the trees started changing was the first day of the festival—the day that The Stranger walked into town. It was a small town called Chattenowah Springs—the same town I was born in. It was named after the hot springs that for 100 years visitors used to come far and wide just to dip their toes in.
But 32 years ago, those hot springs ran dry.
No one knows why. Some people say it must’ve been an earthquake. Others say it was Coca Cola stealing the water. But most people around here think it was retribution.
When The Stranger got to town, the first thing he did was go to The Old Saloon. Which wasn’t a saloon—but a swanky hotel. At least it was 32 years ago. In its heyday, The Old Saloon was where rich businessmen took their wives (and sometimes mistresses) to vacation. And where wellness freaks would stay so they could swim naked in the so-called healing waters of the springs.
But when the hot springs dried up, so did the hippies and the businessmen. So the hotel mostly functioned as a watering hole for locals and nearby loggers to shoot cask strength whiskey and argue over sports.
By the time The Stranger stepped foot in there the wallpaper was cigarette-stained and peeling. But the beds were comfy and the drinks were cheap. Not that The Stranger cared about either of those things.
He walked up to the bar which doubled as the front desk.
“Hello.”
“Hey sweetie,” the bartender, Patricia replied. “You need a drink?”
“Drink?”
“Yeah, a drink? Or are you here to rent a room.”
“Room.” He said and put a $100 bill on the counter.
Looking back, I feel Patricia must’ve known he was off. But Chattenowah Springs doesn’t get a lot of visitors. And the ones that do come to this part of the world are often off. So if the hotel said no to every weirdo that walked in the door, it wouldn’t have much business at all.
Besides, The Stranger didn’t look all that extraordinary. Red flannel. Beige basebal cap. The one thing that stood out about him is that he didn’t have any luggage. Just a strange looking black box that he held against his chest. But again, that’s not something that you call the sheriff over—not in a place like Chattenowah Springs.
Abe stopped his typing to grab the whiskey glass and saw it was empty. So he stood up and walked to the cupboard to grab his bottle of Jim Beam. When he did he could’ve sworn something scurried outside his window up the oak trunk. But it was the sort of thing that you saw just out of the corner of your eye—but when you look, there’s nothing there. All he saw now was rough, mottled bark.
He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. And made sure the table was still firmly in its place in front of the door before pouring himself a double. He went to sit down but felt like the tree trunk was grinning at him. He closed the blinds and settled back in.
The typewriter continued:
It was hot and humid that day. The type of day where it feels like even the weather itself is sick of the heat. The type of day the insects seem to squirm and ooze out of the dirt. It’s also the day things started getting weird at The Old Saloon.
By the afternoon, the heat had worked up in me quite a thirst. So I drove my truck down to The Old Saloon to sip a Coors Banquet Beer and talk to whoever would listen.
I sat next to Pastor Dave and started telling him about the 180-inch buck I shot last New Years. When he asked to see the picture of the buck, I heard a hissing down the hall. Then some banging. Then a quick shout. Then a door open and close and out walked The Stranger with his eyes straight forward and his baseball cap pulled low. He had the black box held tightly against his chest.
Weird thing was, Dave didn’t seem to hear the commotion at all. He just kept talking about hunting and how the biggest buck he’d ever seen around here was 130 inches.
Without looking at us, The Stranger sat down at the bar and put the black box on the counter in front of him.
“Drink?”
“Sure honey, what type of drink do you want?” The Stranger just started back. “We got iced tea, beer, whiskey, you name it.”
“Iced tea.”
Patricia poured the iced tea and sat it down in front of The Stranger. And then idly polished a glass as he sat there. I dont’ know how she stood so close to him. He gave me the real heebie jeebies.
I figured if Patricia thought he was ok, then maybe it was just my brain up to tricks again. So I tried to spark up a conversation.
“Hey fella,” I said, “you in town for the festival?” We were sitting a few seats to his left. He turned his head to look at us, his body staying firmly in place.
“Yes.” He said. “The festival.” And then turned his head back around his body never moving an inch.
I shrugged then started talking with Pastor Dave about the festival. I told him this year I was entering my Chili Verde into the Great Chili Cookoff.
“You hear that fella,” I said to The Stranger, “you like chili? Cuz I make the best in town.”
“Chili?”
“Yeah, chili, hot spiced, no beans, the old fashioned way, a recipe my grandma used to make.
The stranger took out a small notepad and pen from his flannel pocket and scribbled something down. From where I sat I couldn’t see what he wrote. But it didn’t look like no language I ever saw.
“He’s friendly,” Dave said to me. I wasn’t sure if Dave was being ironic or not. Because he didn’t seem friendly to me.
Dave and I went back to talking about the festival, my secret cornbread recipe, how the church was doing, and I got around to finishing my beer. A few minutes later, The Stranger announced “Thank you” to no one in specific, put a $5 bill on the counter, grabbed his black box and slithered back down the hall. I shrugged to Dave, put my own money on the counter, drained the last sip of my beer and got up to leave.
Before I did, I noticed something. The Stranger’s iced tea sat on the counter without a sip missing. Beads of condensation ran down it and mixed with some sort of goo that was on the counter where the black box had sat just moments ago.
At the time, I figured it was just a mess Patricia hadn’t had a chance to clean up from the night before. I almost felt bad for the stranger that he’d sat his box in it. If only I’d taken a closer look, maybe things would be different. I said “Bye Pat,” and walked out into the bright humid air.
The next time I saw The Stranger he was at the festival. He had a cotton candy in his hands but no bites were taken out of it. I was there with—
For a moment, the typewriter grew silent. Abe looked up from the page and suddenly noticed the dustmotes drifting through the cabin air. He saw the woodgrain on the table. The coffee and whiskey stains and cigar butts in the ash tray. He turned around to look at the door. The table hadn’t bunched an inch.
But just then the tapping on the window grew louder. Abe didn’t want to look. But he had to. He tore the curtains back—and there was nothing there. Nothing except for the tree grinning at him. The sun was setting in the distance and the forest was no longer bathed in gold light as the darkness began to creep in. The oak continued to tap on the glass. So Abe took the typewriter off the desk and turned the desk up on its side in blocking the window.
He grabbed the whiskey bottle from the cupboard and walked to the bedroom with his typewriter under his arm. And on his way, he took down the gun that was hanging above the fireplace. He locked the bedroom door. “No windows in here, he thought to himself.”
He double checked the rifle was loaded and set it on the bed next to him. He swigged the whiskey and forced himself to start typing again. The page growing blurry from a single tear in his eye.
I was there with my grandaughter, Faith. She also had a cotton candy that night. But she ate almost all of it in a few big bites. The rest ended up as a sticky mess around her face.
We were at the ring toss when we saw The Stranger. Faith had wanted to win the big stuffed teddy bear, but she was barely big enough to see over the booth. So after a few tries, I stepped in, put down my beer, and won it for her. She gave me a big hug and a smile.
“Thanks Papa.”
That’s when The Stranger showed up with his black box. Faith was hugging her bear and The Stranger stood there awkwardly with the black box pressed against his chest. I wanted to break the ice. To feel like he was normal. I wanted to believe it was just in my head. Like the time I thought the mailman was spying on me, but it turned out it was just in my head. So I sparked up a conversation.
“Hey fella, I never did get your name. I’m abe.” I put out my hand to shake it. He looked at it but didn’t move. “Uhh, what’s your name?”
“Greg.” He slowly reached out his hand and touched mine. It was wet and sticky. We didn’t finish the shake, because just then, the ring toss operator said:
“Hey there stranger, wanna play a game?”
Greg took back his hand.
“A game?”
“Yeah, a game, get 3 rings for a buck, 10 for 3, and no matter what you win a prize.” His hands motioned over to the stuffed teddy bears and bouncy balls piled behind him.
The Stranger, or Greg, reached in his pocket and grabbed a wad of crumpled, wet bills. He put them on the counter right next to where he place his strange black box.
He threw 10 rings and missed every time. It almost seemed like he couldn’t see right. Like he was looking above the bottles he was trying to hit. The operator handed him a bouncy ball and Greg picked up his box and left. That’s when I noticed the goo. The same goo I had seen on the counter at The Old Saloon. Only this time, it seemed to be moving—almost squirming. I drained the last of my beer and when no one was looking, I scooped up the goo into the plastic cup.
“Faith, honey, go get mama. I gotta go see someone about something.”
“Ok Papa,” she said and gave me a hug before running away the bear in her arms almost bigger than she was. If I had known that was the last time I’d see her
Tears clouded Abe’s eyes. He couldn’t see the pages anymore. He took another swig straight from the bottle of his Jim Beam. Looking back, he wished he hadn’t taken that goo, that he’d never touched it. But it probably wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. By then it was too late.
The cabin bedroom felt small. The cabin had been in his family for decades. He remembered visiting it as a kid. That was before his dad started thinking the CIA was wire tapping his phone and had to move into a home. Back then, the room had felt so big. So full of opportunities and potential. But now it felt like it was suffocating him. Like the walls themselves were alive and mocking him.
As the typewriter grew silent, he head something else too. Not just the tapping on the window now. But he could hear slithering on the roof. He was running out of time so he kept typing:
I didn’t know what to do with the goo. So I quickly stopped by the bar stand to grab a drink—this time a whiskey. I felt I needed it.
The whole time the goo kept trying to climb out of the damn cup. The person behind the bar stand looked at me like I was crazy. But I was used to that. Sometimes I felt this whole damn town thought I was crazy.
And here I was trying to save it. Save it from what? I wasn’t sure but I was going to find out. The goo kept moving so I kept moving the cup to stop it from climbing out. After a while it seemed to know what I was doing. It almost seemed like it was learning.
I sat it on the edge of a picnic table away from the festival. I could hear the game operators calling out and children laughing. But I blocked it out. My world was that goo. It seemed to know I was watching. It stopped moving.
I almost grew bored. I almost said screw it and went back to the festival. I almost wish I did.
Abe stopped as the slithering sounds on the roof quieted and began to come from the main room in the cabin. “It’s here,” he thought. “They’re here.” He grabbed his rifle and shoved a thick rug in the crack at the bottom of the door. “That should stop them,” he thought, “at least for a little. At least enough for me to finish the story. Someone has to know what happened.”
I looked over my shoulder for a second. Maybe I should head back and just throw the damn thing away.
But then the goo started moving again. It jumped up out of the cup, slid over the table, and down the other side, leaving a slick trail where it went. I ran after it, turning on my phone as a flashlight, following its every move.
It was fast for a goo. But I kept up. My years of hunting these woods paid off. The sounds from the fair faded into the night as we crossed over rocks and fallen logs and the trees grew thicker.
I almost lost it once or twice. But whenever I did I got back on the trail by following the slick it left in its wake. It wasn’t until we hit a small brook I knew where it was going.
“The lake,” I said out loud to myself. Somehow I knew that’s where it was headed. I kept following it, the sounds of the fair long lost in the distance. When the trees finally thinned and we hit the sands of the beach, I could see the moon glinting off the waves. I wanted to stop. To give up. To tell myself this was all in my head, go home, and get a good night’s sleep.
But then I heard it. The slithering. The buzzing.
So I kept following the ooze, the sound growing louder, my flashlight and the moon competing across the waves.
When I saw it, I almost didn’t believe my eyes. It looked like a meteorite had landed. Black and jagged and grotesque. But it wasn’t a rock. It was moving. Pulsing. Oozing. It was making that damn buzzing noise. I got closer. I picked up a stick and poked it.
In the main room of the cabin Abe could hear the sounds grow louder. It was like a hive of bees had descended on the room. He knew they could get in—they could squeeze through any crack. The table in front of the door would always be useless he knew. But he had placed it there anyway out of some last shred of hope. He went back to the page.
The stick sank into the fleshy thing and was pulled straight out of my hand. I knew I should’ve ran right then. But I was spellbound. I was praying my eyes were playing tricks. Or that it was some mutant plant that had transformed from runoff in the water. Anything but what happened next.
Because that’s when they started coming out. First they slithered out slowly in ones and twos. I backed up. Then they started coming out faster. By the time I turned around and started running I saw dozens of them. Squirming this way and that, eyeless, their mouths open like piranhas with empty stomachs.
I ran as fast as I could. My flashlight bounced up and down over the trees. I tripped over a log and my phone went flying through the air. I got up and tried to grab it. But I heard them behind me. Slithering, buzzing, oozing, crawling, flying through the air.
So I got up and ran. In the dark I lost my way. I must’ve made a wrong turn. I must’ve gone the long way. Because by the time I hit the picnic table with its track of slick, I knew they had beaten me there. I heard the sounds. Human sounds. Screaming, crying, yelling out. But these weren’t game operators crying out attracting new prey. These were desperate cries. Mixed with other sounds—much worse sounds. Sounds no man should ever have to hear.
I ran up and saw Pastor Dave. He was on the ground tearing at his skin. His entire body was squirming with them. They were burrowing in. I heard his bones pop as he distorted on the ground and grew lifeless. That’s not the only thing I saw that night. Things too evil and grotesque to even put on this page.
But the one thing that sticks out from all the chaos was seeing The Stranger in the middle of it all.
The sounds outside got louder. The bees were multiplying. Abe could almost hear them think. He felt like they were drilling into his brain already. Compelling him to open the door. He almost did. He knew the nightmare would be over more quickly if he did. But he had to finish. People had to know what happened. They had to be able to escape the same fate of Chattenowah Springs.
There the Stranger Stood, his skin squirming like the rest of them, the black box pressed firmly against his chest. Almost like he was hugging a tedy bear. Only now the black box was dripping. Glowing. I swear I could smell it. The Stranger turned his head towards me, his body staying firmly in place.
That’s when I snapped. A generator was running to my left running the bounce house all the kids loved. A 5 gallon jug of gas sat next to it, ready to refill the generator. I picked it up and began pouring it around me.
The Stranger still stared. He slowly lifted his arm and pointed at me. The goo dripping from the box condensed and came in my direction.
I poured more gasoline all around me. On the bodies. On the booths. The goo got closer and as it did, I took out my lighter and with a flick—
Abe saw the rug move. He got up and stomped at it. Hit it with the butt of the rifle. The movement stopped for now. He took the safety off the rifle and quickly went back to writing. He had to finish it. It was the only thing that mattered now.
I began screaming for Faith. I began screaming for anyone that was still alive. But all I saw were bodies. All I saw was their skin moving, their bodies contorted on the ground.
The fire blazed and grew around me. Moving from booth to booth. And in the middle of it all, The Stranger stood there pointing at me. The goo trying to find a way around the fire. I flung the can of gas at it and it exploded.
This was my chance. I ran. I passed the ring toss already in flame. The operator like a ragdoll slumped over the bottles. Somehow his head moved. he looked up at me. But his mouth was missing. In the hole was a face that looked like a giant spider with a thousand eyes. The face smiled.
I kept running, past the bodies, past the cotton candy booth, past the screams and the goo and the cries for help. Past the flames. I got to my truck. Other people had gotten in their cars but hadn’t made it any farther. I could see them slumped over their steering wheels, the cloth of their seats squirming. I dropped my keys and bent down to get them. I saw one of those things under my car.
It leapt at me and landed on the back of my hand. It stung. It felt like being bit by a hundred thousand teeth with acid on the fangs. I slammed my fist against my truck door but it didn’t come off. I slammed it again and this time it dislodged. It landed on the ground and I stomped it again and again and again until it was nothing but black goo. My hand was bleeding. I got in my car turned my keys and drove to the cabin.
That was two nights ago. I know they tracked me here. I’ve seen them through the windows. I see them in the trees smiling at me. I’ve only written this as a warning for anyone that finds it. There are no happy endings to this tale. If you find this, kill them. Kill them all with flame. For me. For Faith. For Chattenowah Springs.
The End.
Abe finished the manuscript. He was satisfied. At least someone would know what happened to Chattenowa Springs. At least someone would know he wasn’t just going insane after all.
He placed the manuscript in the small safe he kept in the closet. He locked it and put the safe on the bed so it would be easier for someone to find. He took a final swig of the Jim Beam. He saw them begin to come under the door.
He took a swig of the Jim Beam, closed his eyes, and put his finger on the trigger. But before he pulled it, one final memory popped into his head. It was Faith, standing in the middle of the fair, flames all around her, hugging her teddy bear to her chest. She raised her hands to him, not pointing, but asking for help. Asking why.
Abe couldn’t believe the memory. It couldn’t be ture. The Stranger was there. The Stranger was the one that pointed. But still in his brain, the image of Faith burned. Her outstretched hand. The flames getting closer.
That was the last thing he saw before the rifle went off.
The End.