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Picture, if you will, a quiet day in the Neverglades.
The morning sun floats behind a thick cover of clouds, barely visible as a disc of glowing white. What little light it spreads washes over mountains, forests, roads that cut through stretches of country broken by wandering animals and the occasional rundown house. Follow the roads, and no matter the direction, you’ll find yourself winding back into town. Folks with beat-up Jeeps journey to the supermarket, mothers push strollers down overgrown sidewalks, policemen sit in windowless offices and imagine the world outside. A single siren might cut through the air, under the distant crashing of a waterfall. Everything smells of pine and the dampness that follows each rainfall.
On this day, like so many others, the Glade is defined by absence. Empty desks at work, empty chairs at home, empty tables in diners. Some of the missing are at the hospital just outside of town. They suffered injuries in the great quake, but they’ll be back to the grind before long. The others are never coming back.
Swoop down from your bird’s eye view, down into the center of town, and peer into the window of the Hanscomb house. Vera Hanscomb stands at the kitchen table in a faded apron, trying to dole out oatmeal to a pair of whining children. Her hair falls loose in sweaty strands across her forehead. There are two empty chairs at her table. One for a grown man, another for a small infant. Neither will sit there anymore. In a matter of months Vera has gone from a bustling housewife to a single mother of two.
She sits through a breakfast of complaints and arguments, then excuses herself to wash the dishes. The suds are hot and they scald her hands as she works. She stares out the window at the pale morning sun and waits for the children to leave for the school bus. Then she dries her hands on a dishrag and heads upstairs.
Her house survived the quake unscathed, but there is one room on the second floor that might as well be quarantined; nobody dares to go inside. Some days Vera can’t help herself though. Today is one of those days. She opens the door, slips inside, and closes it quietly behind her, as if afraid to wake whoever sleeps here. But no one sleeps here anymore.
There is a rickety wooden crib in the corner, surrounded by blocks and toys and an assortment of stuffed animals that Vera can’t bring herself to pack away. She approaches the crib and rocks it gently. There is still a small dent in the blankets, as if as ghostly child lies there, asleep and dreaming.
Vera doesn’t speak, or sing, or do anything but rock the crib. She wishes she had never hit that poor old man with her car. Her life, already hard enough, has been nothing but misery since then. She closes her eyes and kisses the headboard and wishes to go back to before everything changed. In that regard, she is not alone.
Enough. Let’s leave her some privacy. Turn away from her window and continue down the streets of town, past the collapsed remains of Vivian Tracy’s house, past the shuttered repair shop of the late Mike Schneider, past a cottage on the forest’s edge where a forgotten woman used to live. There is life on these streets, yes, but everywhere you go, there are also vacancies. Little holes in the bustle that you feel more than you see.
The rebuilding has begun in earnest, and in many places life has returned to the normalcy of before the quake. In others it struggles to regain its standing. Families have been displaced; homes have been reduced to a few standing walls and a pile of rubble. Many find refuge with friends and family in town. Others leave town entirely. Pacific Glade is home, but it is a home in ruins, and for many it now holds scars and painful memories. The loyal will stay. But when winter comes, the Glade will be smaller than it’s ever been.
For now, the air is cool with the crisp wind of a North Pacific summer. Follow the breeze along those winding roads until you reach the edge of Locklear Cemetery. There is a slow procession moving through the gravestones today: two rows of mourners, clad in black, carrying a pair of coffins. One is empty. The other is barely weighted down by the small body inside it.
Ruth Hannigan stands at the edge of the pit as the coffin bearers lower each casket into the ground. She rests her hand on her son Stephen’s shoulder. Neither of them moves as the preacher recites the eulogy and describes what wonderful lives the deceased had lived. There are tears and sniffles from the crowd, but Ruth’s eyes are dry. They have been dry since the day of the quake.
When the ceremony is over and the gravediggers have started filling in the holes, Stephen comes forward and places a small object in the dirt around Rory’s headstone. It’s a collectible action figure, a character from the games they used to enjoy. A drop of water splats on the figure’s colored uniform from above. Stephen wipes his eyes and leaves the toy beside his brother’s grave.
The crowd of mourners has dispersed, wandering back to their cars. Olivia Marconi leaves the cluster and approaches Ruth at the graveside. The sheriff has dressed her best for this somber occasion: crisp blue uniform, neatly pressed, with a distinctive curved-brim hat. She tips this hat at Ruth as she grows near.
“How are you doing?” the sheriff asks quietly.
Ruth twists the wedding ring on her finger, says nothing for a good minute.
“I’m alive,” she says at last. “Which is more than I can say for them.”
“He was a hero, you know,” Marconi says. “He was the one who saved us all in the end. Things would have been much, much worse if he hadn’t done what he did.”
Ruth tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. “I know. I know. And I’m grateful that Stephen and I are still here. It’s just...” She lets her hand fall. “You worry. As a wife, and a mother, you worry about your family’s safety. And I know I’m not to blame for any of this, but I keep thinking... if only I could have done something... if only I could have protected them...”
“It was out of your control,” Marconi reassures her. “It was out of everyone’s control.”
Ruth shivers. “I keep waiting for him to show up. Like he’s going to stride in and tell us everything’s okay, that he’s got Mark hidden under that enormous coat of his. But I haven’t seen him since the quake.”
Marconi says nothing. She glances around the cemetery, as if Ruth's words are an invocation and this cloaked figure will magically appear among the tombstones. But no figure does. There are only the retreating backs of the mourners as they disappear back into the misty morning.
“Take as long as you need,” Marconi says. “Janine's preparing lunch at the house when you get back. Chopped salad with raspberry dressing.”
“I won't be long,” Ruth says. Her voice is distant. She doesn't look at the sheriff as Marconi walks away; she doesn't look at Stephen when he mutters that he's going back to sit in the car. She only nods and tugs at the sleeves of her black dress and stares down at Rory’s small casket, at her husband’s empty grave.
Rain plunks on her skin, first one drop, then another. Then the clouds open up and begin to pour. She clutches her arms and shivers, but doesn’t seek shelter from the storm. The ground turns to muck beneath her feet and the gravediggers abandon their project for the day, grumbling under their breath. Ruth stands alone above a pair of rain-soaked coffins.
She has held in her pain for so, so long. But there is no one around, and streams of water are already running down her face, and she can't escape how much this moment feels like the last goodbye. So her veneer breaks. And under this cold summer rain, damp and alone, Ruth Hannigan finally lets herself cry.
* * * * *
LET'S LINGER IN THIS place for a just a bit longer. The road is a-rumble with passing cars and bicycles, but Locklear Cemetery has its own sort of quiet, as if the wind itself knows to whisper here. The hours pass and the graves remain silent and solid. A bird nesting in the shadows of the mausoleum emerges to grab worms after the fresh rainfall.
Look: the clouds are parting, and the setting sun is visible, resting on the crest of Mount Palmer in that curious way it has. It casts a long shadow. Look closer, and you’ll see a single figure walking through that shadow, striding down the path between the gravestones. She leaves the path and approaches a pair of graves, swollen with freshly turned earth. A lighter clicks in the dark, and the flame illuminates the face of Olivia Marconi.
The sheriff had curbed her urge to smoke for almost a year, but the quake had brought that craving back in full force, and she’d finally swapped her chewing gum for a pack of cigarettes. She touches the flame to her cigarette tip and takes a long drag. Then she blows a thin cloud of smoke toward the gravestones.
“I don't care what happened at the end,” she says. “You were a damn good cop, Hannigan.”
The smoke swirls and grows, takes on a light purple tinge, and Marconi realizes that most of it is coming from behind her. She turns to see an impossibly tall figure in a trench coat and gray fedora. The smoke billows from the softly burning cigar clenched between his teeth.
“Inspector,” Marconi says.
The Inspector tips his hat toward her. “I came to pay my respects.”
He steps up to join her by the side of the grave. Neither speaks for a very long time. Then Marconi makes a small noise, almost like a sigh. She plucks the cigarette from her mouth and stares into the burning tip.
“You can’t... I don’t know. Bring him back to life?” She peers at the Inspector through the setting sunlight. “Do you have that kind of mojo?”
“If there was a body, maybe,” he says. “But it would just be a walking shell. No memories, no thoughts, no motivations. It wouldn’t be the Mark you knew.” He looks off toward the mountains. “This way is better.”
Marconi places the cigarette between her lips, her teeth gnawing on the end. “This isn’t over, is it?”
“No,” the Inspector says. “Mark closed the larger rift, but reality is still thin in Pacific Glade, and more entities will get through. And that’s not even taking CAPRA into account. I doubt it died with Valentina Koeppel. These sorts of corporations always have someone higher pulling the strings, and they’re not going to stop just because of one setback.”
Marconi blows out another funnel of smoke. “So we’ve got all the eldritch monsters in the multiverse on one side, and a shadowy government organization on the other.” She lets out a forced laugh. “Sounds like a real fucking walk in the park.”
“It won’t be easy,” the Inspector says, staring down at the bumps in the soil. “You’ve seen where this road can end up. I know I may be asking too much, but... will you fight with me, Sheriff?”
Marconi lowers her cigarette and taps some ash onto the grass. “Of course I will.”
If only they could see what we do: this unusual pair, two dots of defiant brightness among the darkness of the dead. The sun frames them from behind in brilliant orange. In a short while they will leave this place, back to the bustle of town, but for now they stand in the quiet and mourn their fallen friend.
A bright blue bird flutters down and rests on the top of Mark’s headstone. It tilts its head and studies the strange duo. Then the smoke drifts toward it, and it flies off with a chirp, wings fluttering as it disappears into the orange sky.
* * * * *
HERE’S HOW IT IS: DESPITE the absence, despite the empty chairs, Pacific Glade is still brimming with life. It is a place that glistens with invisible connections, those threads that connect person to person in the web of community. Teenagers sneak out of their houses for secret trysts with their sweethearts; neighbors share gossip with each other at the supermarket; drivers turn up the radio and listen to Joe and Alan croon their dirty jokes. The threads stretch and sparkle across town. Everything - everybody - is connected, and on some level, they know this. Gladers look out for their own, after all.
See for yourself. On the edge of town, in that yawning dusk, Nico Sanchez pulls up to Abigail Shannon’s house and helps her hobble down the front steps. Despite the bulky cast on her leg - and against her doctor’s orders - Abigail has already returned to work at the station, spending her whole day working the front desk. She doesn’t mind. The night shift tends to be on the quiet side, and besides, she spends most of it chatting with Nico. They’re on a first name basis now, and their conversation is easy, natural. She likes him. Maybe not on a workplace romance level, but enough to be friends. And sometimes friendship is perfect.
Their cruiser passes Marconi’s on the way to work, and they wave through the steam-frosted windows. The setting sun glares in such a way that they miss the shadowy figure in the passenger seat. Slip out of that crack in the window, why don’t you, and follow Marconi home. The radio is on and nature sounds burble through the car’s ancient speakers. She likes the white noise. It soothes her, like a warm bath, or a cigarette after a twelve-hour shift. Her passenger sits silently beside her and stares out at the twilit streets.
Janine is already setting the table when Marconi opens the front door. Ruth and Stephen, the last of the Hannigans, emerge from upstairs and take their places at the table. This house has become their makeshift residence during the month following the quake. And even though it’s not quite the same, even though the bathroom soap is all wrong and there are too many empty beds, they are welcome here. They have a home. In the aftermath of a crisis like theirs, sometimes that’s all you can ask for.
Marconi places her keys on the hook, then fishes her wedding ring out of the dish on the counter. She slips it on her finger and gives Janine a kiss. Marconi’s wife beams, frizz bouncing around her flushed cheeks.
“I brought a friend,” Marconi says. “I hope that’s okay.”
There is no objection from anyone in the kitchen, so she approaches the front door and lets her visitor in. The Inspector ducks through the doorway and rises to his full seven feet, casting a thin shadow across the tiles. He looks sheepish - out of his element for once. But Ruth invites him to take a seat, and Janine doles out a handful of green beans, and Marconi smiles. She hangs up her coat and joins her family at the table.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, that stubborn sun finally sinks below the mountains. Night brings a closing of doors, as the Jeeps pull into driveways and the mothers tuck their children under the covers. A few stragglers wander through the darkness to the Hanging Rock, now rebuilt, and proceed to get spectacularly drunk. Otherwise the night belongs to the chattering of unknown animals, the rustle of the pines, the ever-present rush of distant water. Follow the river, no matter the direction, and eventually you’ll spill back out into Lake Lucid. Water skimmers dart across lily pads, fish swim in slow circles under the surface, wind whistles by and sends ripples through the reflection of the moon. Now look up. Up past the trees, up past the lurking mountains, up to the circle of bright whiteness hovering in the night sky. It isn’t hard to imagine the moon as a wide, gleaming eye in the face of some massive being – an eye staring down at the town, at the forest, at the Neverglades, and marveling at the strange wonders of this quiet little world.
* * * * *
LAST YEAR, MY GOOD friend Mark Hannigan gave up his own life to save the lives of his friends, family, and neighbors – indeed, the entire world as he knew it. Mark was perhaps the bravest and humblest man I ever met. He knew every case could be his last, and yet he never wavered, pressing on with that selfless, headstrong attitude I eventually came to admire. Even in that last moment, as I watched him ascend into the rift, he didn’t hesitate. He was a fighter to the very end.
It’s been a year since he left us, and I confess, I wasn’t handling the anniversary well. I kept wondering if Olivia had been right. If it would be better to bring Mark back: empty, blank, utterly hollowed out, but alive. I knew it would devastate his family. I knew it would open old wounds and set them bleeding afresh. But I was in pain. I was wounded too. And in my pain, I made a hasty decision. I opened the rift and began searching for my lost partner.
I’ll spare you the details of the journey. “I am large, I contain multitudes,” as one of your eminent poets once said; but even in my vastness, I couldn’t find a trace of Mark in all that empty space. The explosion had vaporized his body. If there was anything left of him to find, it was atoms on the breeze, molecular specks too small to reassemble. My long search ended in vain, with me returning, head in hands, to the rift between our worlds.
That was where I found it. The parasitic being who calls itself the Ender, who feeds on humans beyond the veil, who snuffs out light and brings death in the world next door. And suddenly I was overwhelmed with a thought: that if the Ender had taken Mark in his death throes, a spark of my friend might still exist. Not his entire essence, no; I could never be so lucky. But a spark.
To make a long story short, I managed to extract what remained of Mark from within the Ender (it’s a stubborn beast, but at the end of the day, it knows who it obeys). It looked like a tiny sphere of pulsing light, dripping with black tendrils, and when I gripped it, I could hear his voice. I could see flashes of his memories, glistening and vibrant. And I knew – this little orb couldn’t bring his body back to life. But it could keep my friend alive, in the way only the truest of words can.
I held that orb, and I recorded his story, word for word, exactly as his voice described to me. These are the stories I’ve shared with you. You never knew Mark Hannigan, but I hope that through his words, you understand what a remarkable man he was. He wouldn’t have wanted me to call him a hero. Maybe he would have found the title “corny”; maybe it would have just embarrassed him. But you’ve read his tale now. You can decide for yourself.
There isn’t much left of Mark. Taking him from the Ender was like unplugging a machine from a socket, and now he’s running out of charge. The orb is smaller than it’s ever been. Shreds of light tear from it every so often and disappear. I know that eventually even this much will be gone. From here on, he lives through these words, and through all of you reading here. Whatever you do – don’t forget him. Don’t let that spark go out.
I think he’s earned that much.
- The Inspector
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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IT TAKES A VILLAGE to raise a child, as they say, and the world of the Neverglades would never have grown into what it is today without a whole community of readers, writers, listeners, and mentors. I owe an immense thanks to a number of people for helping this story come into being.
To Richard Ring and the staff of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College, for giving me the resources and financial support I needed to realize the early stages of this project. I set out to write a series of stories inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe; what I found was a world entirely of my own. The Watkinson Fellowship provided me with the door I needed to get there.
To Sara Rivera and all the participants in her Science Fiction & Fantasy workshop at Grub Street. They saw the early stages of this collection and gave me tons of valuable feedback that shaped it into the book you’re reading now. If you ever get the chance to take a class with this fantastic organization, please do so; I’ve never been surrounded by so many talented and genuinely helpful writers.
To the ever-supportive community of NoSleep, for providing a home for these stories. It still blows my mind that anyone can post their original horror fiction to a potential audience of over 13 million people. I was lucky that The Neverglades got the warm reception it did, and the reader response was truly humbling. I just wanted to share some stories with the world. You all convinced me that they were stories worth sharing.
To Lance Buckley, for creating such an eye-catching cover for this collection. Despite the old adage, we do judge a book by its cover, and this one oozes such an eerie, noir atmosphere that captures the Neverglades to a T. I couldn’t have asked for a better first impression.
To Chris Bodily, for taking the characters in my brain and bringing them to glorious life on the page. They look so much like I imagined that it’s almost like you reached right in there and plucked them out, fully formed. No one else could have captured them quite the way you did, and I can’t thank you enough for that.
To MrCreepyPasta, for giving these characters a voice, and for sharing the Neverglades with an audience I never could have dreamed of. At the time of me writing this, his narration of “Lost Time” has over sixty-five thousand views. We’ve come a long way since the Neverglades was a half-dreamed story I shared with only a few close friends.
And speaking of close friends: I would never have gotten to this point today without feedback and constant support of my writing group. Curtis Sarkin, Marla Krauss, Ben Pannell, Alla Hoffman, Alex Cottrill, Andy Cahill, Von Beckford, Shawnna Thomas – you guys are the best, and I’m grateful every day for having you in my life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID FARROW is the author of the Neverglades series and the Inspector Investigations on r/NoSleep, where he writes under the username -TheInspector-. When he isn’t writing, you can find him infiltrating enemy headquarters or fighting off giant squids. He lives in Massachusetts.