The Tall Dog of Barrow Heights | Part 1

Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible, all-day-gum v-grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. "Maybe it's Mavily." In today's story, a monster hunter takes a case at Barrow Heights, a routing apartment building where children have been vanishing for almost a hundred years. The only witness is a 10-year-old boy who says something called the tall dog whistles to him at night from somewhere below the building. But according to the floor plans, there is nothing below Barrow Heights, no lower level, no sealed-off rooms, no basement. And as the hunter starts asking the boy what happened down there, every light in the building goes out. But before we get into it, if you'd like early access to all four parts today, start your seven-day free trial of Dr. No Sleep Premium by going to patreon.com/drno sleep. That's patreon.com/drno sleep. The link is in the description below. Part 1 The bad ending. The apartment building eats children. It has been for almost a century now, ever since the first girl vanished in 1936. I fish inside my black suit, pulling out a notebook, inside our newspaper clippings, photos. It's a record of this case, the Barrow Heights anomaly. I've been tracking it peripherally for the last six years, waiting for the cycle to start again. And now the nightmare is returned. The sun said climbs up the apartment's crumbling red brickwork. The rotting behemoth is ten stories tall, and looks as poor as its residents. The sounds of the inner city howl at my back, sirens honking, and everything else that reminds me of my past, that reminds me of her. Jesus, Vincent. I claw hand through my hair. She's dead. Let her be dead. I shake the memory, punch the unit number into the buzzer and it rings twice. A woman's exhausted voice crackles through. Hello. Evening Mrs. Copeland, this is Inquisitor June, I clear my throat. Inquisitor June, with the orders of Alice, we spoke over the phone regarding your son, Tyler. Oh. A sharp inhale. You actually came, thank God. Click. The line goes dead. After a harsh buzz, the lock disengages. And I push through the doors and into the lobby. A chill runs through me. The place sets my teeth on edge. Maybe it's the peeling wallpaper or the black mold, or maybe it's the graffiti, or the paint splashed over it like scabs on a wound, or maybe it's what's underneath it all. Feeling like this building has been waiting for me. Overlapping layers of duct tape and a hand-scrawling sign, out of service, block the elevator doors. Shit. I take the stairs. My mind churning through the case details distracting itself from how much the building reminds me of my old apartment. It's the same claustrophobic air. The same. Tyler Copeland. I murmur to the empty stairwell, forcing my attention back to the case. I'm going through them like a mantra, saving me from my own memories. Mail. Ten years old. Two months of recurring hallucinations. Medication ineffective. Desperate enough to bring in a priest for an exorcism, which failed naturally, because real monsters don't leave when you tell them to. I trail off. The kid claims he found a basement beneath Barrow Heights that there's a monster down there. Trouble is, this tower doesn't have a basement. I should know. I checked, phoned ahead, and got the landlady to pull up the original floor plans, and the documents confirmed that Barrow Heights has always been strictly above ground. Which means Tyler Copeland's either lying, delusional, or know something I don't. I slip my pocket watch for my suit as I reach the apartment. There's no alerts. Just a pair of antique hands, ticking lazily behind scuffed glass. Delusional then. Or lying. I knock twice. A stampede of footsteps answers. The door swings open to reveal a stout woman with frazzled hair, and kind eyes darkened from sleepless nights. "Ah, Mr. June." She seizes my hand, shaking it with the desperate grip of someone who's been drowning, and just spotted a lifeboat. "Come in, come in. I'll show you to Tyler." I follow her into an apartment that assaults my senses in the best possible way. It's cluttered. Carpets overlap carpets and clashing patterns. Capes and jewel tones frame every window. Antiques, teeter on the edge of every surface. But it feels lived in. Loved. It's the opposite of my own apartment, asparse, functional, series of cube-shaped rooms devoid of anything that might remind me I once cared about something outside my job. She leads me to a door with a Superman poster taped crooked to the front. "Oh, a small request if you'd be so kind. His action figures. He's got them arranged to protect the bedroom, so I'd appreciate if you avoided moving them." Action figures. She lowers her voice, almost embarrassed. "Dr. Kinsley says it's a sign he's developing his own coping mechanisms that if I make him feel safe with his rituals now, he might be more willing to try healthier ones I suggest later." "Oh," I say. "Right. No problem. Bless you." Her knuckles wrap the door. "Tiler dear, there's a man here to see you." A muffled groan comes from the other side. "Another doctor?" "No." I clear my throat. "My name is Vincent. I'm an inquisitor, and I just like to talk for a bit." Silence. "Just talk?" "Just talk." I affirm. The door swings inward to reveal a room that looks like a comic book store exploded. Every inch is covered in superhero paraphernalia, and there, arranged across his desk in careful formation. His an army of action figures, standing shoulder to shoulder like soldiers, manning a barricade, led by Superman himself. "Cool suit," I look down. A small boy stands performing with mousey brown hair that sticks up in the back. His bloodshot eyes tell me he hasn't slept for weeks. "You look like you worked for shield," he says casually. "Cool gun, dude." "Not dude," Mrs. Copeland says gently, glancing uneasily at my revolver. "This is Mr. June, and guns aren't cool. They're a big responsibility. You should know that after." Her voice catches before she forces a smile. "Right. I'll let you two get acquainted then. Supper will be another hour, so no rush, Mr. June. Hope you enjoy roast beef." My cheeks burn. I appreciate it, ma'am, but I really shouldn't. She sweeps past me. "Nonsense. You're a guest. If you're under my roof, then you're eating my food, and I won't hear otherwise." She levels a finger at Tyler, ruffling his hair, and you, my littlest Gremlin, had best behave. I always behave." She snorts and closes the door behind her, clearly not buying it. Her footsteps fade down the hallway, accompanied by the distant clatter of pots and pans. Tyler and I size each other up. "Inquisitor, huh?" he folds his arm suspicious. "You don't look very Spanish to me." It takes me a second before I click. "Ah, Spanish Inquisition." I shake my head. "Very funny. I'm old, but not bad old. What kind of inquisitor are you then?" The kind that likes stories. "I'm told you've got a good one." He slumps back onto his bed, pulling his knees up. "Yeah, right. Mom and Dr. Kinsley both hate my story. Why's that? Because it's scary." He picks out a loose thread on his blanket. "They don't think kids should tell scary stories, or whatever. I'm hearing them again. Screams, hers. Maybe I disagree." I pull out his desk and chair, take a seat, burying my daughter's memory. "Maybe I think scary stories are the only ones worth telling." Tyler gets smaller, pulling the blanket around his shoulders like a shield, and bunching the fabric in his fists. "You want to hear about the tall dog then?" I pull out my red book, put my pen. The tall dog, he swallows hard. "That's its name, or at least, that's what I call it. I see." My pen scratches across the page. "What else can you tell me about it?" His eyes swivel, fixing themselves on the rusty pipes running down the wall. "It whistles, at night. After everybody's gone to sleep. Whistles?" He nods, pulling the blanket tighter. "From down in the basement, that's where it lives." And there it is, the structural flaw of this twisted narrative. "I've had a look downstairs," I say slowly. "There's a janitor's closet, but not much else. No basement, Tyler." "There is. Would you have to know how to find it?" And who showed you? His grip tightens around the blankets. "The landlady." A frown creases my face. "You're talking about Agnes Miller. 96-year-old woman. that runs this place. He nods. She caught me on the phone. The old one out there in the hallway that spins. When? Few days ago, after mom fell asleep, the landlady said she used to hear the whistling too, back when she was a kid like me, that she knew a secret to make it stop. A secret that could make me happy again. His voice cracks. A secret that could bring back. That could bring my dad back. My chest tightens. Constable Frank Copeland was killed in the line of duty two years ago. I read the file on the way over, and undercover op, gone wrong, caught in the crossfire of a human trafficking bust. The kind of grief of predator could smell a mile away. So you followed the landlady downstairs. Toathernods, cheeks red. And I got to the bottom of the stairs. Miss Miller seemed to change. What do you mean? She didn't look right. She was all slouched and fat. Like, way, way bigger than I remembered. Her hair went past her shoulders, and her face looked stretched out like silly buddy. He shivers. There was this hole in the wall behind her, and she told me it led to the basement, and that only she could make the entrance appear. Then she told me my dad was on the other side. If I crawled through, we could be together again. But first, I'd have to make a hard choice. Tyler's voice cracks. His eyes crinkle shut. I crawled through the hole like she said, and it was dark inside. But I could hear the whistling up ahead, getting louder. She told me to follow it. I came out into this room full of old laundry machines. Everything was rusty, brown, and orange, and his voice snags. I shouldn't have listened. His hands twist the blanket tighter. I should have known better. You didn't know. I say firmly, you couldn't have. His hands shoot up to his hair, fingers tangling in the mousey strands. It was obvious. I should have run away, but I was too scared of the landlady, and I just- I just- my hand closes over his wrist. Tyler, he looks up at me, shaking. Let go of your hair. I say gently. His lower lip trembles. Tears spill over, tracking down his cheeks. It's gonna kill me. He whispers. It's gonna kill me, and- No, it isn't. You don't know that. The panic breaks through. His voice climbing. You're just saying it to make me feel better. Like Mom does. Like Dr. Kinsley does. Everyone keeps telling me it's not real, but I know it is, and it's gonna- Listen to me. I grab hold of Tyler's wrists, holding them, and looking him in the eye. I hunt monsters. That's what being an inquisitor means, so I won't let anything happen to you. I tap the red book, lying open on my lap. Monsters are like puzzles, and every puzzle has a solution. All you need to do is tell me everything that happened, and I'll put the pieces together, okay? The tall dog won't hurt you, or anyone else ever again. Tyler sucks in a shaky breath and wipes his eyes. Oh, okay. I settle back into the chair. You said you saw old laundry machines in the basement. Yeah. He whispers, "I do shadow." "Shadow?" He nods. It had these long, floppy ears, like a dog's, but too big, hanging down past where its shoulder should have been, and patches of fur all over, but not like- not like a real animals fur, more patchy. His hands move as he talks, sketching this shape in the air. Its arms were really long, too. Longer than roostics, even, and it was just sitting there, lunched over, drawing a picture with a crayon and whistling to itself. His voice catches. Then the whistling stopped. It dropped the crayon and held up two drawings in either hand, just holding them in the air without even turning around. His breath quickens, and it spoke to me. I lean forward, heart pounding. What did it say? His lips pressed together. He opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. It takes three attempts before the words finally come out, broken and small. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. Try new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Maybe it's Mabelie. If you're into horror with a heavy dose of sci-fi, classified experiments, and things humanity was never meant to understand, check out my other podcast, The SCP Experience. Each episode pulls you into the hidden world of the SCP foundation, where dangerous anomalies are studied, contained, and sometimes unleashed. These aren't just scary stories. They're classified nightmares. Click here to listen now, or search for the SCP Experience wherever you get your podcasts. The tone, the unnerving cheer, it's enough to make my stomach twist. It wanted you to take its drugs. I croak, but he shakes his head. No, it wanted me to choose between them. Choose between what? What did it draw? Tyler rubs at his arm, and goose bumps rise on his skin. Barrow heights. All of us, everyone who lives here, we were stick figures, but labeled like Tyler, Mom, Mr. Andrews, and 4E. It looked like a kid drew the pictures. The first one showed me, his voice catches. He showed me being eaten by the tall dog. All the other stick figures were watching, cheering. Like they were happy I was being chewed up, and the second drawing, I cut him off before he spirals. Tell me about that one. His voice cracks. It showed me running away, escaping. But then everyone else in Barrow Heights, all the stick figure neighbors, were all killing each other. Bloody scribbles everywhere. Body's hanging out the windows. I cut my voice to an urgent whisper. Tyler, this is critical. Did you take one? Did you accept a drawing? Touch one. Agreed to anything, even in the Vegas terms. He shakes his head so hard, his hair flies. No, no, I just, I ran. I turned around and ran back through the basement as fast as I could, dove into that hole in the wall and crawled until I was back at the stairs. Then I ran past the landlady, right back to my apartment, and told Mom there was a monster in the basement. And I showed her right now, but his shoulder slung, all the air going out of him. But when we got there, the landlady was gone. So was the basement entrance. It was just bricks again. I squinted down at my notes, searching for patterns, for weaknesses, for anything that might tell me how to kill this thing. The sun's fully set now, so I reach for the desk lamp and click it. Nothing. I frown, getting to my feet, head for the light switch on the wall. It doesn't work either. Tyler says quietly. None of the lights do. Not while it's whistling. I stop and halfway to the switch. "You hear it right now?" he nods. "My hand drifts toward my jacket, feeling the revolver beneath. And the voice is the tall dog speaking to you again too?" Tyler swallows, doesn't answer. Then his eyes shift past my shoulder toward the pipes. "No," he croaks, then more softly. "Not to me." "Then who is it?" the question dies in my throat. There, threading through the groaning pipes, a voice emerges, like torn velvet dragged over broken glass. Each word oozes into my ears like hot wax, burning as it settles. "Here, it whizzes, here, it whizzes, the sound warming between syllables, coming with it." My blood goes cold. "You hear it now, don't you?" Tyler asks. "I exhale slowly, forcing my heartbeat to steady. Stay here. I'm going to find this basement. But he grabs me. Small fingers closing around my forearm. You can't go out there. It's not safe." "Not until the whistling stops." "I appreciate the concern." I pry his fingers free. "But I'll be fine." I pull the door open. Darkness swallows me whole. "It's the kind that presses against your eyeballs that makes you question whether you've gone blind." "Shit. Mrs. Copeland?" I call out. Voice echoing strangely. "Are you alright?" No answer, but wood creaking. I draw my revolver and pull my flashlight with my left, clicking it on. The beam cuts through the dark, revealing an apartment that looks like a carnival mirror. The dimensions are off, walls, slanting at angles that shouldn't be possible. The hallway stretches longer than it did when I walked in. Doorways sagging like open mouths. I move forward, boots creaking against warped floorboards, sweeping the light left and right as I make for the kitchen. Please let the kids mother be okay. Please let her just be in bed. A sleep. Unaware. My breath stops. Hanging from the ceiling fan is a woman in a white apron. Her stout frame swang slightly in a draft. I can't feel. Frazzled hair. Plasters across a face. Frozen and bulging-eyed terror. Tongue protruding from slack lips. Below her. On the linoleum floor. A knife lies in a spreading pool of red. Jesus, no! I'm already scrambling onto the kitchen counter. Knife in hand. Reaching up to cut the rope went. To blade slips from my fingers. Cladders to the linoleum. Because there, on the floor behind the counter, is another body. Tilers. I staggered Back, my mind reeling, when, how? He's lying on his back and his spreading pool of blood, arms splaid, eyes staring sightless at the ceiling. His superman pajamas are shredded across the chest, so many stab wounds that the fabric has turned from white to crimson. The blood still wet enough to gleam in my flashlight beam. See what I mean? The voice comes from behind me, my spin, and there's another Tyler. This one very much alive, standing in the kitchen doorway with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He walks past me, crouches down beside his corpse, studying it with the detached familiarity of someone who's seen this exact scene a hundred times before. The apartment changes when the tall dog's whistling, he explains. It shows you what happens if you don't choose one of the drawings, it shows you the bad ending. He doesn't look up from the body as he rises to his feet. That's what the land lady told me. I look up at Mrs. Copeland hanging from the ceiling, so none of this is real. No. Tyler swallows hard, not yet. But now you know why I stay in my room. The action figures keep me safe. They keep the bad ending out. I press my palms against my ears, heart racing as I try to fit the pieces together. An entire alternate dimension, a prophetic one that shows potential futures based on choices not yet made. That's reality manipulation on a scale that requires immense power. The tall dog would need to be a class five threat at minimum, more likely a class six. That puts it squarely in cosmic horror territory. Fuck. I flip open my pocket watch with shaking hands, twist the crown three times counterclockwise and bring it close to my lips. And quesit or tune, my whisper, investigating marijuana anomaly, requesting protocol five. I say again, protocol five. The watch throbs once in my palm. The vibration travels up through my hand into my jaw directly into my inner ear where I only can perceive the response. Request received, pale's deploying, calculating ETA, 58 minutes, 34 seconds. Tyler blinks up at me. What are you doing? Falling in the cavalry, I snap the watch shut and slip it back into my vest. You said the landlady showed you how to access the basement, I'd like her to show me too. He scrunches his face, thinking hard. She's on the 10th floor. Good enough. I draw my revolver, crack it open, six chambers, six rounds, each one glowing faintly with arcane sigils etched into the brass, standard issue for inquisitors. Unbullet per threat class, assuming perfect accuracy, just barely enough. I snap the cylinder closed, holster the weapon, move toward the exit. Your landlady knows how to gain access to the basement. Once my friends arrive, we'll need that access point to breach the tall dog's lair and put it down for good. Tyler darts forward, small and vulnerable in his too big pajamas and blocks my path. "Promise you'll come back." My voice stalls, the question punching me in the gut, I, I know Abby, my throat's tight, and the phone cord is curled around my hand. My squad got an emergency call last minute, I've got to do this." She sighs. "It's always an emergency." Unpressed into the phone booth, gray concrete walls boxing me in, a bile of bedrock separates me from the surface. This deep in the order of Alice's headquarters, everything smells like gun oil, recycled air, and slow, rotting nightmares. "You said you wouldn't work late, you promised you'd be home for my birthday." A squad marches past information, five soldiers encased in living white armor, shifting, breathing with each step. Pales. Their suits are scratched and gouged, white carapace stained forever by blood. The leader's armor is the most scarred by far. "June," Bishop Stevenson's voice cuts like a whip crack. "That better be your mother on the phone, and she better be fucking dying. You should've been suited up at the Hearst ten minutes ago." I press the receiver against my chest, muffling it. "It's my daughter, ma'am. It's her birthday and I. But Stevenson's already turning away. Her scarred armor rippling with irritation. "Hang it up," she barks. "We deploy in ten. If you're not in the Hearst by then, I'll make sure you're in the dirt." My heart sinks. "Yes, ma'am. I'm the newest addition to the Order of Valus' shot troopers. The pay is nearly twice what I made as an analyst, and the abuse is almost worth it." "Dad." Abigail's voice pulls me back. "Sorry," I force the words out. "I've got to go." "You promised, dad." Her voice cracks. "Mom's gone. And now you're not even going to be here for my birthday." Abigail. "What?" "The tears are audible now, thick and earth-road." "You can't tell me I don't understand, that it'll make sense when I'm older, that you're doing this for me." The PA system crackles to life overhead. "Pride the June." Bishop Stevenson's voice echoes to the complex. Patience, warned to nothing. "Report to the Hearst immediately, file warning." I close my eyes. I have to go, Abby. But I'll be home before midnight. I promise. I'm not missing this birthday, not this one. A long, tired sigh, man. "Unever, dad. Click." Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Try new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. "Maybe it's Mavily." If you're into horror with a heavy dose of sci-fi, classified experiments, and things humanity was never meant to understand, check out my other podcast, "The SCP Experience." Each episode pulls you into the hidden world of the SCP Foundation, where dangerous anomalies are studied, contained, and sometimes unleashed. In alarm shrieks overhead, around the corner, an engine roars to life. Tire squeal against concrete as something massive barrels toward me. The hers. It screeches to a halt, three feet from the phone booth, a black, angular monstrosity the size of a garbage truck, panels shifting and realigning as if alive. Steam hisses from hydraulic joints. The rear door splits open with a metallic scream, revealing the cargo hold. He rows of vertical chambers lining the walls, each one shaped like an upright coffin. My squad stands inside, already locked into their positions, waiting. The empty coffin waits for me, third from the left, still stained dark around the edges. Beside it stands Alvarez, my assigned fire team partner, already half encased in his armor. He grins at me, under his mustache, entirely too relaxed for a member of Stevenson's crew. We delight up some boogey men, Hermano, I nod and step into the coffin. Good. Alvarez says, still grinning, 'cause this is a protocol 13, a real spankin' shake. You make it out alive, and I'll buy your beers for the rest of the year. I give a nervous chuckle. That's generous. Nah. Just playing the odds. He laughs, low and cold as the coffin door swings shut. See? No rookie has ever survived a protocol 13. Wait. The door closes. Darkness smothers me. I'm clawing at my neck, sucking back air that won't come. My mind is reeling, disoriented. My fists bashing against a lid that won't budge, and through all of it, I'll let him think about his hurt. How I'll miss her birthday again. How I'll miss all of them. My mind dims. My limbs go limp. Somewhere in the void, a child's voice reaches me. A voice. I promise. My eyes snap open. I'm in a demented version of apartment 8H, staring at a 10-year-old waiting for an answer I don't know how to give. Tyler looks down, picking at his sleeve. My dad didn't come back. He said he would, but he didn't. So promise you will, okay? My chest tightens. Sure kid. It's a promise. I swallow hard, but only if you stay in your room until I get back. Deal? He studies me, the nuts. He turns for his room, pausing at the threshold to look back one last time. It's a look I've seen before, a look that says he doesn't believe me, than the door closes, and I'm alone. I make for the exit. The phone. It's ringing with the mechanical trill trill of an ancient rotary. I cross the hallway and lift the receiver, bringing it slowly to my ear. Hello? Silence answers, then, cutting through the static, comes a voice to crep it in paper. My jaw clenches. Agnes Miller. I've been listening to you through the vives, such a precocious lab that co-planned boy is. A gravelly chuckle raps through the line, "It's such a perceptive young man you are." It's true, then. The kid's story has to be true. He tried to kill Tyler. "Kill is such a terribly loaded word. That's your entire the dramatic, shall we?" My voice shakes with rage. You've been feeding children to that monster for years. On the contrary, I'm not. All that's standing between the tall dog and Barrow Heights, becoming a slaughterhouse. Her tone hardens. "I have protected the residents for nearly a century, and now you want to risk their lives by angering something you don't understand." "No, I don't plan to anger it. I plan to murder it. Where are you?" I ask, coldly. "I think this conversation will be better served in person." "Apartment in our." There's a wet, labored sound of her struggling to breathe. "On your way up, feel free to enjoy my sister's artwork. I had them hung in her memory." Click. The line goes dead. I make for the front door. Pull it open. The outside corridor is even more twisted than the Copeland apartment. It stretches long, too long. Doors line both sides at irregular intervals. Some close together, others separated by vast sobbing. The wet thud of fists on flesh. This is the bad ending. Broadcasting its distorted prophecies at full volume. "It's not real." I mutter, forcing my legs forward. "None of this is real Vincent." And thus I fail. At the end of the hallway, I shove open the doors and my breath goes out for me. The stairs. They've become something out of a nish or nightmare. Each flight a different length, some compressing into only three or four steps. Others stretching upward for what looks like 30, 40, climbing at angles that make me want to hurl. The walls tilt inward than outward. Geometry refusing to behave. And the wallpaper. It hangs in long, defeated strips, peeling away from the plaster like skin sloughing off a corpse. But where I expect to find black mold or water damage beneath, there's color. Faded pastels. The crayon strokes and pinks, blues and yellows pinned to the bear wall. Children's drawings. I slow. Angling my flashlight to get a better look. Stick figures. Crude in wobbly. The proportions all wrong in that way only a young child's artwork can be. And at the bottom of each one, printed in careful block letters. Florence Marie Hollis. The name hits me like ice water. Florence Marie Hollis was the first. The first child to vanish from Barrow Heights, all the way back in 1936. Subject zero of this nightmare. How did I miss this? I'd researched the building, combed through census records, property transfers, newspaper archives. Agnes Miller had been listed as landlady for more than 70 years, since 1952. I'd noted her age, her contact information. The fact that she'd been managing Barrow Heights since she was in her 20s. But I'd never looked deeper, never traced her maiden name, never connected her to Florence Hollis. The six-year-old girl who disappeared without a trace nearly a century ago. Sloppy Vincent. Dangerously sloppy. Maybe I should have stayed a pale. That job didn't require thinking. Just following orders, pulling triggers. But I'd wanted more. Wanted to prove I could do more than murder things that went bump in the night. Wanted to prove I could save people. That's how I got to be an inquisitor. And I was the first pale in history to make the jump. And I'm doing about as well as it as I did it being a father. I grit my teeth, refocusing. Tyler and his mother are on the eighth floor. Agnes, the tenth. Under normal circumstances, that's two flights of stairs. Maybe 90 seconds of climbing. But in the bad ending dimension, nothing follows normal rules. The stairs shift, treads rotating like puzzle pieces, railings bending at impossible angles. It could take me 10 minutes to reach the top floor. It could take me an hour. Move Vincent. The clock's ticking. I take the steps two at a time, ignoring the way they seem to multiply beneath my feet. As I climb, I study Florence's drawings, a chronological gallery pinned to the stairwell walls. The first few are innocent. Happy. Two stick figure girls holding hands and matching triangle dresses. A mother and father standing behind them. Then the pictures change. And the next, the father stands apart from the family, separated by a wide gap of white space. And the one after that, a shape appears behind scribbled green bushes, something dark, something with ears. I stop on the landing between floors, pulling the drawing free from the wall for a closer look. The shape is rendered into thick black crayon, with heavy strokes that tore the paper in places. It's got long drooping ears, a hunched silhouette that's too tall, too crooked and the floor drops out from under me, a balling, not down, but sideways. Reality tilting 90 degrees, as the drawing in my hand expands, swallows, consumes me. Dimensions collapse, the world flattens, and suddenly, I'm not in the stairwell anymore. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. If you're into horror with a heavy dose of sci-fi, classified experiments and things humanity was never meant to understand, check out my other podcast, The SCP Experience. Pastel lines shimmer into existence all around me, two-dimensional and stuttering like animation frames. There's a field of jagged grass, each blade a stroke of green. The shuddering brown outline of barrow heights rises in the distance. It's windows empty black squares. There's a pulsing scribble of bushes in the foreground, vibrating with childish imperfection. I can't move. My body is locked to the edge of the frame, like a thumbtack pins me to the margin. I can turn my head barely, but my feet won't obey. The drawing has borders apparently, a white void where the crayon stops, and I'm outside the scene, pressed against the boundary like a face to glass. The image holds. It's nighttime. The brown rectangle of barrow heights is dark, except for one window on the ground floor, where a yellow scribble of light flickers. Below it, a stick figure man descends the front steps. He's drawn larger than the building's entrance, his proportions childishly wrong. Head too big, arms too short, legs only too straight l-shaped lines. Behind him, almost hidden by the oversized front door, a small figure watches. Pink, triangle dress, circle eyes wide with curiosity. Florence, she follows him down the crayon street, past rectangles that are parked cars, past a smudge of orange that might be a street lamp. Into an alley where a woman waits, her cigarette a single hot dot. Green rectangles change hands. Money. Florence stops at the alley's mouth. Her thought bubble appears and shaky misspelled letters. Why do you go? It holds there. The animation freezes. Father, daughter, and the woman between them all locked in a single panel that a six-year-old drew because she didn't have the words for what she saw. And I know whatever happens next can't be good. I try to reach for her on instinct. My arm doesn't respond. I'm a passenger here. All I can do is watch. The drawing holds. And holds. Then, in the scribbled shadows beyond the street light, something moves. A shape. It rises, tall, hunched, and scarecrow thin. Ears hanging past its patchy shoulders. It wasn't in this drawing before. It's in it now. A word scrolls itself above the shape, letter by letter, in handwriting that isn't Florence's. Then the word multiplies until it stamped across the sky, across the buildings, across Florence herself. Until the alley is gone and the panel is nothing but black crayon and letters echoing into the dark. Mine. The stairwell hits me like a slap. I'm on my knees. One hand whitenuckling the railing. The other crushing Florence is drawing against my chest. My lungs heave. Deep, ragged pulls of air that taste like mold and old paint. And the real three-dimensional rot of barrel heights. The paper crumbles in my fist. Just a drawing. Just crayon on paper. But my hands won't stop shaking. You don't understand. The voice drifts down from above. I look up, still gripping the railing. And there she is, leaning over the banister from several floors up. Agnes Miller. She looks like death. Her ration hair hangs in thin, riddle strands. Her face is sunken. Skin pulled tight over jagged cheekbones. An IV stand rattles beside her. Two clear tubes snaking into her nostrils, feeding her oxygen and soft gasps while her legs tremble with the effort of standing. It's his fault I lost to my sister. She rasps. Voice wet and labored. My worthless father. He took her. But I'll get her back. I'm close, you see. Closer than I've ever been. I let the drawing flutter to the stairs. What are you talking about? The deal I made. This is the last cycle. The tall dog gets the Copeland boy. And Barrow Heights is freed. Florence finally comes home, and Your sister's dead Agnes, she's been dead for a century. "No!" Agnes' nostrils flare. "I spoke with her not two days ago, and besides, I've given the monster too many lives, paid too much in my attendance blood for it to deny me now." And if it still does, if it still asks for more? Agnes' face twists with grief and rage and something worse than madness. Her hands shake on the railing, i.e. tombs swaying, her mouth opens, then shuts. "How do I access the basement? I'll get your sister back. I'll kill the tall dog. It's what I do." She laughs, but it's a weak, wheezing affair. "You can't kill it." She pushes off the railing, shuffling backward into the shadows of the 10th floor. "Nothing can." "All we can do is barter with it. Buy a little more time." "Bear a few more lives." Before the next child comes due. Her voice echoes down the stairwell as she retreats. I surge after her, taking the steps three at a time, boot slamming against warped treads. But the geometry works against me. "You've seen the boy's bad ending, I'm sure." She calls, "Distantly. Don't you wonder about yours, Mr. June?" I pause on the next landing, catching my breath. I'm not as young as I used to be. That's when it catches my eye, movement outside the vertical slash of a window. "There's a man outside. He's kneeling in the alley below, head bowed, shoulders slumped in the moonlight. A hiss cuts through the air. His shoulder jerks backward, once, twice. He's being shot, over and over. Silence drowns, punching through him with clinical precision." "Twip, twip, twip." He crumples, blood running between his fingers, then falls backward into the spreading pool of red. Motionless, his face gazing blankly at the sky. "That face? It belongs to me. I shake my head, pulling back from the window. If this is my bad ending, it doesn't make a lick of sense. I've never met a cosmic horror that needed a gun to kill. Something isn't adding. But I don't have time to connect the dots. I've got a landlady to catch. I throw myself up the remaining flights, lungs burning, legs screaming. By the time I hit the tenth floor, I'm drenched in sweat and gasping for air. To hallway stretches like a fever dream. It extends a kilometer, maybe more. Perspective warping at the far end, where the rusted steel jaws of the elevator shaft gap open like a waiting mouth. To my left, the woman screams in apartment 10A. "It's your fault. You may need to do this if you just listen." The hallway throbs as I charge forward. Dores rippling past me. Ten B. Ten C. Ten D. Each one leaking sounds of domestic horror. Then I reach it. Apartment 10R. The door sits a jar. Smoke curling into the corridor in long, lazy tendrils. I kick it open. The space inside is a hoarder's wet dream. Newspapers are stacked to the ceiling. Boxes overflow with yellowed photographs and moth eaten clothing. Narrow pathways have been carved through the debris like game trails through a jungle. And there, at the center of it all, seated behind a desk buried in medical equipment. Agnes, I say coldly. She's surrounded by machines that beep and hiss and click, tethering her to life through sheer mechanical stubbornness, IV drips, an oxygen concentrator. She doesn't look up at me. Just sits there, staring at something on the desk I can't see. "You're persistent," she croaks. "I'll give you that, Mr. June." My pocket watch throbs against my ribs. My fist closes around it. The message vibrating directly into my skull. Entity detected. Class 1, Whisper. A smirk tugs at my lips. That's barely more than a mean ghost. "It's checkmate, Agnes." I step into the apartment and resting on my revolver. "One way or another. You'll tell me to access that basement." She reaches for something on the desk. A cigarette. Ember glowing in the dimness. She brings it to her throat. Sucks in through the tracheostomy scar with a weak wheeze. Smoke pours from her mouth. "So arrogant," she whispers. "Just like a father was." My watch convulses. Alert. Entity evolution detected. My heart skips a beat. "Agnes, please, I'm trying to help you here." He loved threatening people till you now. Another drag. "My mother mostly. But when she'd put up a fight, he'd take it out on the horse instead." The cigarette's ember flares brighter, turning deep crimson, like a coal pulled fresh from Hell's furnace. "You remind me of him. Athetic. Annoying." Error. Entity promoted to class 2. No. Error. Entity promoted to. I'm backing away. My watch screaming. I've got 6 rounds. Rule of thumb states 1 round per threat class, meaning a full barrel should take down an entity up to class 6. But inquisitors never use all 6 rounds. It's a secret I've known ever since my days as a pale. That inquisitors always save one. Just in case. "My father died before I could punish him for his sins." Agnes raps. Agony tracing her every word. "But you. Your scream should seek me just as well." My hands shake. It's a tremor I haven't felt in 15 years. Not since I first stepped out of a coffin and into this hellish life. Not since.