Femgore Review

Photo by Catalin Pop on Unsplash

I can’t understand females despite being one myself. Sure, you’ve got a kid to take care of and all that, but why endure being beaten black and blue when you can just… feed your abusive partner some pills?

I can’t understand how somebody can be so stupid when ending the misery is so easy. So easy that I can’t phantom why anybody would rather endure the pain and agony than fight back in the most perfect way there is?

Or when you’re raped and lying next to your rapist, why not just take a knife and stab them when they least expect it? It’s so easy that I can’t understand why no female ever does it, why they choose to endure rather than to end it.

I’m no sexist, yet sometimes the very stupidity of my sex gets me worked up in ways no words can truly capture. At the same time, I perceive myself as a feminist at heart, for I’d rather see my sex fight the oppression and the abuse by giving right back to their abusers than stay idle, yet they rarely do.

That lack of action actually made me distance myself from my peers. Like, seriously, you’re just going to get raped and do nothing about it? Your kids? Your poor, poor kids? Well, aren’t they better off at some random orphanage than learning how to treat other people from that partner of yours?

But those kinds of things aren’t even the tip of my disturbing opinions about females and the growing trend of embracing masculinity, which is all about showing similar and violent tendencies as the very sex that puts them in so much misery.

Like, seriously? You think you have what it takes to take on an average man with that build of yours? Sure, steroids will help you get those muscles to look way larger than they are, but are they actually making you strong enough to fight back a man with natural levels of testosterone?

I’m not a man, but I think the answer to this question is pretty obvious, and yet… Nowadays, female authors seem to give my sex the false hope that we can take on an average man with ease, abuse them, and show just as much brutality towards them, as they have shown to us for ages. But just how detached from reality must someone be to actually believe this crap?

I’m not talking about transgenders but cis-people, by the way, even though when the transition has begun plays a subtle part here, like the density of the bone, the levels of testosterone before it was suppressed, and so on. Anyway, so what I am trying to say is that… I’m going to prove them all wrong.

Getting raped? Easy! As long as you have a hole somewhere, there will be dogs barking up across the country. What is hard, the hardest part in fact, is to turn the dog into a bitch and make it howl while you, as the female in this situation, make it immobile, cut off its testicles, and then grind the flesh with a proud smile.

Really, the only realistic way to do all that is to, well, knock out your rapist with a blunt object when they’ve finished their thing or, surprise, feed them some pills. But that would be too easy and wouldn’t prove the theory of how women are capable of doing exactly the same things to their abusers as they have done to them.

So, what do you do in that scenario? Well, the best outcome would be to physically fight off the rapist and then go from there. So… that’s what I decided to do.

Did it work? It did not. But I’m here, writing this, so something must’ve gone right… right? The thing is, I just did what any sensible female would in such a predicament: I tore my abuser’s ear off and then chewed on his nose. A tad too salty and metallic in taste, not to mention the acidic aftertaste of the byproducts produced by bacteria on the skin tissue. Yikes! Why do men never shower?

Overall, this method was a very unfortunate 3/10 – would not recommend. For my next attempt, if I ever should decide to push the limits, I’d definitely prepare more beforehand in case something goes astray during the review itself. And, well, I’d also practise my cutting skills so that the body parts are grounded to perfection before dumping them down the drain.

Also, for my next article, I’m open to new recommendations. So try your worst, and I’ll see you next time in another abysmal review!

Important notice: the procedures outlined in this article were performed under controlled settings and should never be replicated.

Under the Radar

Photo by Andy Li on Unsplash

“The law of supply and demand is crucial for our understanding of the free market. If the price is too high, supply will exceed demand. But if it’s too low, demand will exceed supply. Remember, the market always seeks equilibrium. Any other questions?”

A female student Professor Ismael recognises from a previous class shoots her hands up in the air. She is one of three female students who wear the symbol of submission, the hijab, and proudly show their religious upbringing.

He waits for a few seconds before addressing her. He knows from his vast experience as a senior professor that students sometimes ask a question they already know the answer to and want to give her a few seconds to come to her own conclusion.

“Yes, you over there.”

“Isn’t the law of supply and demand too simplistic to explain real-world markets, sir? What about markets with monopolies or oligopolies?”

“Good question! The law, of course, helps us understand general trends, but it’s not meant to explain every nuance in every market. In monopolistic or oligopolistic markets, where there is one dominant seller or few sellers, the law of supply and demand can still apply, but it behaves differently. You’ll learn more about how these kinds of markets work in greater detail in your next class. Anything else?”

Silence. This is a good sign. The clock reads 3:57 p.m., and not only is he drained from having classes back-to-back, but so are the students at the University of Baghdad, who have had classes since early in the morning.

“All right, then, that’s all for today’s lecture. Please make sure to pack up your stuff and I’ll see you next time.”

A former fighter pilot for the Iraqi military during the Cold War and an honorary member of the Chair of the Board of Trustees, he is one of the most respected professors at the university. Adhering strictly to the rules, he is described as both “book smart” and “well-rounded” by his colleagues in the Faculty of Microeconomics.

After answering the remaining students’ questions about today’s lecture, he waits five more minutes until the last student finally exits the auditorium.

According to the schedule, however, he still has one more lecture left for the day in the same auditorium, so he briefly leaves his belongings and goes out to grab a cup of coffee before the start of the next class.

It is during this time that the fire alarm goes off.

Given the large size of the Microeconomics department and with no fire or smoke in immediate sight, he decides to return to the auditorium and take his stuff with him. Theft has been a huge issue over the past couple of years, and he can’t afford to lose his lecture notes and slides due to, what he assumes, is a prank at that point in time.

The alarm keeps ringing as he puts his laptop computer into his leather bag and sets off towards the emergency exit staircase, which leads to the faculty emergency exit grounds. But as he descends the emergency exit staircase, he notices a smell he recognises as sulphur from his time as a fighter pilot.

Now this isn’t a smell he’d pay any attention to on any normal day, but the unusual circumstances, coupled with the nostalgic inputs from his subconscious, make him follow the foul and sharp odour as he continues to descend towards the lab floor.

The first thought taking over his mind is a malfunction of the air conditioning system (HVAC) located in the utility room. But when he fails to unlock the room, he decides to return to the main floor and give maintenance a call.

As he inches closer to the emergency exit door, however, he realises that the temperature has risen too abruptly. This prompts him to return to the utility room and follow the sharp odour for a second time. It is also at this point that he notices something he missed the first time. The student lounge room, located farthest back in the corridor, is cracked open.

The student lounge room, as well as all other non-staff rooms, is part of a new system the university has employed over the last few years to ensure the safety of the students after a particular incident occurred back in 2003.

The previous safety system employed a one-way access protocol, where students had to physically bring a staff member, often the administrator or receptionist, to the student lounge to physically unlock the door. The staff were, however, required to register this in the safety log to prevent the system from setting off an “unauthorised access” alarm.

But they weren’t the only ones with a working access card – the professors, as well as all other staff members, also had similar access cards for obvious reasons. These, however, did not trigger the said alarms.

The safety protocols at the time of the accident did not consider these entries as safety hazards. But to err on the side of caution, the professors, as well as other staff members, were instructed to refer the students to the reception in case they requested entrance to the student lounge rooms or other kinds of group study rooms.

The new system, of course, now works vastly differently. Each staff member now has limited access to certain floors, rooms, and areas. A staff member with access to floor 1 thus has no access to floor 2 and needs access to that floor through another staff member’s access card.

What set off this new system, however, is a case that Professor Ismael only heard about through the grapevine in the professors’ office over the years. Although it is an incident that should never have happened or been allowed to happen, the aftermath of the entire ordeal now ensures that better and safer protocols are employed. As they say in the aviation industry, “every protocol and safety measure is written in blood.”

It is the 26th of October 2003, approximately eight years ago from today’s date.

Over the course of a few weeks, the weather has deteriorated severely, and it is the first day of the holy Ramadan. Due to these external factors, the university is unusually empty, and only a third of the students and staff members are present.

An undisclosed female student, referred to as victim K in the official police records, enters the Faculty of Microeconomics around 1:15 p.m.

This timestamp, as well as all others following this, is undisputedly correct. The investigators know this because the student used her student ID card extensively on the day of the incident.

Investigators also later discovered that the victim planned to enter the main auditorium, H134, via section B, after texting a friend that she’d lost her keys, possibly in the auditorium where she’d had a lecture the previous day.

This female friend becomes a huge lead later on and helps the investigators timestamp the victim’s last moments more accurately. But at the time all this happens, of course, neither the investigators nor the said friend knew this.

At around 1:29, the security camera in the emergency exit staircase captures victim K, shaken, as she descends the staircase and keeps going until she reaches the lab floor. Seconds later, the entire faculty goes into a blackout and all subsequent records perish.

The first message that establishes the victim’s whereabouts comes around 1:34. From this message, the investigators know that the victim is now hiding in the student lounge room and urgently asks her friend to call the police.

Half a minute later, at around 1:35, the female friend replies with something along the lines of, “Why?” and shortly afterwards, “You okay?”

To this, the victim does not respond for about five minutes. The time now shows 1:41. But the tone of the subsequent messages after this makes the investigators suspect the victim is no longer the one responding.

“I’m okay” is the victim’s second-to-last message, followed shortly by “Don’t call the police.” Investigators link this to the fact that, at that point, the perpetrator or perpetrators had gone through what the victim had sent to her friend and were beginning to panic.

At timestamp 2:56, power returns to the faculty. All working security cameras show no anomalies. The few people who have been trapped inside the building at this time, both staff members and students, now exit the faculty.

When the timestamp shows 3:18, another blackout occurs and is later noted by the security system as an “induced blackout,” disclosing to the investigators that someone has manually shut down the entire building. This second blackout lasts no more than two hours.

At this point, the victim’s parents contact the police and a missing person search is initiated – but only after seven more hours pass. Due to the faulty policies employed by the Baghdad police force at the time, a 24-hour policy is strictly followed, and no missing person report is accepted.

That’s when the victim’s exchange with her friend reaches the police officers, and a formal missing person report is filed. But it’s too late – by about three hours. The victim’s half-naked body, with her underwear stuffed into her mouth, is found by the dispatched team led by lead investigator, Detective Achmad.

A junior investigator is later reported to have said in subsequent interviews with the press that “the body had deteriorated way more than what it should have” considering the time of death and the time of discovery.

This discrepancy in the rate of deterioration, which the autopsy report describes as “non-normal swelling of the internal organs due to external factors,” leads the investigative team, particularly Detective Achmad, to consider one possible scenario.

The HVAC is now a major lead, and the investigative team sends the output and input data recorded in the system log to Forensics for further analysis. This takes approximately two weeks. The system log records abnormally high temperatures and manipulation of oxygen levels, which aligns with the reported hypoxia symptoms recorded by the dispatched team upon entering the lab floor.

The profile of the suspect or suspects is now clear to the investigative team. They are dealing with someone with vast technical knowledge, who can manipulate both the HVAC and blackout systems, while also having greater-than-average knowledge of pathology and the degree to which the body deteriorates in different scenarios and extreme external configurations.

A thorough background check of the entire staff and attending students available to the investigators at the time, however, does not yield the kind of niche profile they are looking for. The criminal profiler in the US, to whom the investigators sent the translated documents, states that none of the listed individuals could be the perpetrator or perpetrators.

As this lead goes cold, Detective Achmad now decides to focus on the staff and students who were inside the faculty building before and during the two induced blackouts.

They focus their investigation on suspect A, an employee who had been kicked out due to undisclosed reasons, and suspect C, a male student who is the last and only person the victim engaged with before the first blackout.

The investigators know this due to secured footage from the hallway of section B by the main auditorium, which shows the victim trying to unlock the door but fails repeatedly before suspect C appears on screen for approximately half a minute.

During his witness statement, suspect C is recorded saying he had had no interaction with the victim and that he wasn’t aware she was in the building at the time of the first blackout. But the footage shows suspect C engaging in small talk with the victim, which the suspect initially denies during the subsequent hearing – now as a prime suspect – before he finally confesses.

When asked by the lead detective why he denied interacting with the victim during the witness hearing, suspect C does not give an immediate reply and requests a lawyer instead.

This event prompts the press to announce in the local newspaper that the prime suspect is the perpetrator of the case and that the police are trying to secure more evidence to bring forth to the attorney in charge.

This is not an outcome the police expect, and as the public demands the prime suspect’s arrest and trial, this puts immense pressure on the investigative team, who are not wholly convinced suspect C is the one they are looking for.

But why do they think that? As mentioned earlier, the profile they are looking for is someone with an above-average IQ, a vast knowledge of different technological and mechanical systems, as well as an interest in pathology.

Suspect C, however, during his initial health check-up, is reported to have an IQ just below 90 and no other reported hobbies but football and video games, according to his two roommates and family members.

Things, however, are out of the investigative team’s control, and the authorities disregard Detective Achmad’s complaints about the lack of evidence. They now force the attorney in charge to issue a formal arrest warrant. The evidence required for such a procedure is manipulated, resulting in the arrest of suspect C on the evening of 18 November 2003.

Now, this is a time of massive public unrest, and only a few months after the invasion of the US troops to secure oil for Uncle Sam under the code name “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has come to a belated end.

It is in the ruling authorities’ interest to put down any public outrage, arrest the suspected perpetrator, and focus all leads on the capture of The Butcher of Baghdad who’s still on the run.

The investigative team, due to these circumstances, is now pressed to obey orders from their higher-ups, and suspect C is officially recognised as the prime suspect.

Detective Achmad, however, continues the investigation behind closed doors and through his own means. His close-knit team members, consisting of two junior detectives and one investigator-in-training, now focus on suspect A, who has not been interrogated formally as a suspect up until this point.

Suspect A’s witness statement and recorded hearing show high stress levels in his voice and body language, especially when the lead investigator asks about his relationship with the victim, to which he firmly denies having any relationship.

After sketching a timeline of suspect A’s proposed alibi and securing evidence of his whereabouts, they note something the first team of investigators missed – most likely due to the public’s ongoing outrage and demand for the death penalty, as well as the pressure from their higher-ups to conclude the investigation as soon as possible.

At around 1:27, two minutes before the first blackout is recorded on the security log, suspect A is caught heading towards the malfunctioning CAM03, near another emergency exit staircase that is not commonly used by students but is frequented by staff members.

This staircase is therefore not an uncommon route for the suspect in question to use. But the circumstances are abnormal.

Suspect A has been formally discharged from his service as a janitor due to undisclosed reasons by HR and is not supposed to have access to this part of the faculty at any time at this point.

But the system records show that he has used his ID card extensively, a whopping 15 times in the course of half an hour. This unauthorised use later causes the HR department to investigate their failed adherence to the safety protocols. This interim investigation later reveals that the Head of HR at the time of the crime is a friend of suspect A.

These findings prompt Detective Achmad to formally request an arrest warrant from the attorney in charge, but his requests are dismissed and the reasons recorded as “insufficient evidence provided.”

The lead detective, after complaining about this unfounded dismissal, is let go from his position as lead detective and demoted. His untimely transfer and demotion raise eyebrows within the police force, but no one comes forwards to defend the detective.

The case closes.

Until now.

As Professor Ismael enters the ajar student lounge room, holding his breath from the increasingly foul odour taking over, a horrific sight unfolds. A young woman, naked from the abdomen down and her hands bound together with duct tape, lies on the lino floor with her back turned to him.

That’s around the same time he experiences the first signs of low oxygen and the increased temperature that keeps surging. Startled, he storms out and ascends the emergency exit staircase close to the student lounge room. As he fumbles to pull his phone out and dial the emergency services, he forgets all about the fire alarm still blaring in the backdrop.

The entire faculty has been evacuated by the time he reaches the main floor. That’s when the power shuts off and he loses his grip on the phone. He runs towards the nearest exit, but due to the blackout, the automatic doors do not open.

He realises soon, as the sirens blare in the background, that he’s not only in a full-blown lockdown, but that the building is on fire and the smoke is now visible to the naked eye.

He knows from previous experience that it takes the firefighters ten minutes to get to the faculty, but this is not any normal day. It’s the last day of Ramadan and time moves slowly when it’s 33 degrees Celsius outside and with unusually high humidity levels from the Persian Gulf.

He figures soon that it’ll take somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes before the firefighters arrive. But with the heightened levels of smoke he sees, coupled with the low level of oxygen he just experienced, he figures that it’ll take no less than fifteen minutes for the concentrated Carbon Monoxide levels to knock him out.

And from what he observes, the fire originates from the second floor, which means the colourless smoke is more concentrated on the second and third floors of the building but will quickly spread uniformly throughout all four floors as it cools down.

This observation leaves him with two options. He either has to break the bullet-proof glass and flee in no less than fifteen minutes, or he must navigate to the lab floor where the oxygen level is manipulated and hope the firefighters arrive before whoever configured the oxygen levels returns it to a normal level and feeds the fire.

He chooses the latter option.

While this is an unorthodox choice by any means and one that is very much reckless by any normal standard, he knows from his time as a fighter pilot that Carbon Monoxide poisoning is more lethal and immediate than hypoxia.

The lab floor is just as vacant as earlier, only this time he sees that the utility room is cracked open. By then, however, he’s halfway down the corridor and closer to the student lounge room than the emergency exit staircase on the other side of the corridor.

But he doesn’t want to take any chances and decides to take the other emergency exit staircase when he notices that someone’s on the move in the utility room.

This prompts him to quickly enter the student lounge room rather than get caught by whoever is hiding in the utility room, which he now believes could be no one but the perpetrator himself.

After sneaking back into the student lounge room, now re-experiencing the returning symptoms of hypoxia, he studies the victim, whom he recognises as the female student who challenged the law of supply and demand earlier in his class.

But his surprise doesn’t end there.

The victim snaps her eyes open and screams.

He sits on her and covers her mouth, in a state of panic, as she slowly stops moving. Only when she’s completely incapacitated does he realise that he has smothered her to death in the chaos that broke out.

While this unfortunate outcome could’ve been prevented, he acknowledges that his lack of situational awareness is due to the low levels of oxygen as well as the fight-or-flight response of his body, but also due to what he now suspects is Carbon Monoxide poisoning coming in through the vents.

Covering the victim with his blazer, afraid of what his body is now capable of, he recognises that whoever did this to the victim in the first place is probably now approaching to check on her. With this still fresh on his mind, he sprints out of the student lounge room and into the restroom across from it.

But this relief is short-lived.

The blazer.

With his heart in his mouth, he returns to the student lounge room and takes his blazer with him, storming out of the lounge room without once looking back and locking himself into one of the stalls.

The first thing he hears seconds after this quick manoeuvre is footsteps. What he doesn’t expect at this point, however, is how abruptly they stop. He calculates that the perpetrator has stopped in the doorway of the student lounge room, not fully going in to check on the victim.

The footsteps move away soon afterwards and grow fainter with each passing second, until he recognises the thud of the nearest emergency exit staircase opening and closing.

This unexpected event sets off a lot of questions in his mind, and while trying to figure out what’s going on outside, he hears the emergency exit staircase door opening and closing for the second time. All these sequences of events take no less than three minutes in total.

Then, the emergency exit staircase door opens and closes for a third time.

A subtle click reverberates through the empty corridor, telling him that someone has locked the emergency exit door and trapped him in there.

But he has stopped feeling panic at this point.

His sanity deteriorates, and so do his erratic body movements. He recognises that he’ll soon lose all control of his body and needs to act fast.

As the first signs of outside help reach him from the vents, sending blares of sirens all over the vacant lab floor, he takes off his belt and secures it on the tap. It’ll take the Carbon Monoxide to off him somewhere between seven and ten minutes, and the hypoxia will render him unable to control his body in less than three minutes, but keep him alive much longer.

He feels his body stiffen and his lower extremities harden with the surge of blood increasing to his lower half.

After making sure the belt is fast and won’t break on him, he ties a knot around his throat and, after a moment of hesitation, lowers himself.

As the saliva drips down the side of his mouth, the first crack from his thyroid reaches his ears, the only organ now picking up signals. By the three-minute mark, he’s on a full-blown erection, and his body now fully reacts to the effects of the hypoxia before he loses all vital parameters that have kept him alive up until this point.

When the firefighters, the first to arrive at the crime scene, find the victim and Professor Ismael, they soon relay to the investigators in charge the nature of their findings and the semen they’ve found on the tiled floor.

However, due to the rapid and extreme deterioration of the victim’s body, no semen can be secured on her body, although signs of forceful penetration are noticed by the pathologist in the initial autopsy report. The cause of death is recorded as “loss of oxygen to vital organs leading to heart failure.”

When the identity of Professor Ismael as the prime suspect reaches the press, a witness soon comes forwards and recounts the events leading up to what the local press refers to as a “copycat of the sexually motivated rape and murder case of 2003.”

The witness is a reinstated janitor and former military officer who played a key role in leading the democratisation process under the U.S. administration during the 2003 invasion. He had unfairly lost his job that same year following accusations of improper conduct made by a female student.

The key witness tells the interviewing journalist during a TV appearance that he’s witnessed the crime in person and recounts his horrific encounter with Professor Ismael as “bone-chilling” and one which he does not want to “repeat ever again.”

He concludes the interview by saying he hopes “a day will come when the women of Baghdad can live without fearing for their lives at the hands of savage men,” – a statement that gains nationwide recognition and applause, prompting the international media to label the now 66-year-old as “the Guardian of Children and Women’s Rights for Liberation and Equality.”

Meanwhile, mass applause breaks out in a municipal police station outside of Baghdad, cheering as the 66-year-old receives a joint award from two of the most internationally renowned charity organizations.

Detective Achmad looks at the milling crowd of officers applauding all around him with a hardened look on his face before exiting.

This imposed democracy has once again failed to protect women, and instead of holding the perpetrators accountable, those entrusted with upholding the democratic system now celebrate them.

Pulling up a pack of cigarettes, he inhales the poisonous smoke before drawing a last drag and putting it out with his foot. As the cheers continue in the background, he pulls out his Glock 19 and puts the barrel under his chin.

Uber Driving Gone Wrong

Photo by Strange Happenings on Unsplash

I sank into the leather seat and looked up at the car roof after dropping off my last customer for the night.

A sigh escaped from my lips as I sank further into the driver’s seat.

Too drained from working night shifts three times a week the last couple of months, my eyelids gave in and were as heavy as lead.

But the silence did not last for long. A notification popped up on my phone and stirred me up. A customer wanted to be picked up at a quarter to three in the witching hour.

As I was about to call the customer and refer them to a colleague of mine, another notification popped up.

I sat up straight upon seeing the numbers on the screen. $1,000?

I punched in the address on the in-built GPS. $1,000 for a ride twenty-five miles from the pickup location? What were the chances?

Levi, my friend and another Uber driver working night shifts, said, quote, if something’s too good to be true, it is, end quote.

From what he told me, these kinds of customers were almost all exclusively either influencers doing social experiments or teenagers with nothing better to do but prank hard-working people like us for a hard laugh.

As if I hadn’t enough on my hands and mind already, a phone call I did not expect hit me up just moments later and disturbed my train of thought.

Swearing through gritted teeth and vexed more than words could capture, I slowed down and unwillingly answered the phone. How long was she going to keep this up?

“Hello? Joseph?”

“I’m working right now, can you—”

“Don’t do you hang up on me!”

I drew a deep breath, deliberately pausing to calm my nerves and think straight.

“It’s my last shift. I told you that already.”

“You said that two months ago!”

“Just… just give me some more time, all right! I’m working my fingers to the bone to provide for you and the kids, for crying out loud!”

“No…” Annie said, my partner of ten years, adding before I could come to my defence. “If you were truly thinking of us, you’d start getting a proper job!”

I shut my eyes briefly, trying to control the anger soaring through every fibre of my being. ‘Get a proper job’? A smirk crossed my face. What had I been doing all these years?

Had I the energy to snap back at her, I would. But I hadn’t slept properly for too many nights to do that.

“Listen, I’m not in the mood for this, okay? I’ll hit you up when I come home.”

“Joseph—”

I ended the call and tossed the phone on the passenger’s seat. Rubbing my face to the point the dead cells came off, I slouched forwards and rested my head on the steering wheel.

Annie and I were high school sweethearts. I was part of an alternative rock band called ‘The Puppet Master’, a silly name, I know, but it sounded cool back then.

We drew inspiration from Japanese Visual kei bands like the GazettE and DIR EN GREY. We even had an entire friend group, which was all about Visual kei bands and anime.

Annie was a transfer student and joined our close-knit group during the second semester before graduation. The only daughter of an ambassador, she’d been raised in Japan and was a mangaka in her own right.

Our love story, however, did not last as long as either of us thought it would. When her dad got deployed to another country four years later, we lost contact with each other and moved on.

When we met up years later in our mid-twenties, the sparkle between us I thought had long since faded, rekindled.

We moved in together right away and got pregnant two years later. Annie became with a child just six months after giving birth to our firstborn.

It was a tough time for both of us. My dreams of getting discovered, going on tours, and becoming successful never died.

Between working as an Uber driver at night and a cashier during the day, I frequented clubs with my bandmates and tried to get some exposure.

We weren’t big in the night scene, definitely not, but we still had a small following that was loyal to us.

It wasn’t that Annie was wrong. She was right. I barely slept at home and she was left to take care of both kids, two mischievous boys, and the house chores all by herself.

Not to mention, we barely made the ends meet. Had it not been for Annie’s parents, we’d probably be homeless right now.

I was sorry towards her. She was studying medicine when we met and had her whole life before her. When this whole pregnancy thing happened, she quit her studies to take care of our firstborn.

There wasn’t a day where I didn’t feel a pang of ache in my heart for her, but putting all this pressure on me and deriding me for not being enough wasn’t exactly what I needed to hear.

Beep, beep.

It was that customer again. $1,000, huh? How many diapers did that translate to?

Levi’s voice replayed in my mind on repeat. But if this was nothing but a silly prank, then why was this person so persistent? Surely, a prankster wouldn’t go to such lengths to reach out?

I hit them up. Just to make sure someone wasn’t trying to pull my legs.

A young woman spoke up on the other end of the line. Her soft voice was pleasant to listen to. She sounded young, like someone in their early twenties or an eloquent teenager.

“Hello?”

“Hi, uhm, this is Joseph,” I said, adding as the woman did not reply. “The Uber driver?”

“Oh, hi. Are you here yet?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You… accepted my request ten minutes ago?”

I peeked at the app as the woman carried on in the background. When did I press accept? When was I talking with Annie or afterwards? I couldn’t even tell.

“Sorry ‘bout that. It seems like there’s some kind of mistake on my part.”

“You’re not backing off, are you? I really need this ride. Please.”

I scratched the side of my brow and took another look at the address on the GPS. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, the place this person wanted to be dropped off.

Moreover, I was the only active Uber driver nearby, and this person sounded too young for my liking. What was she even doing at this peculiar hour at such a delicate age?

“How old are you?”

There was a slight pause after I asked this.

“Hello? Are you still there—”

“Please, I [unintelligible]…”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

A low tone replaced the airy whisper I just heard. It was as if I was speaking to two different people – that was how different the tone came off to me.

Was Levi right, after all? Were these some bored-to-death teenagers trying to waste their own as well as my time?

“I’m sorry, I already decided to call it quits for tonight. I’ll refer you to my colleague—”

“NO!”

“What…?”

“NO! NO! NO!”

“Hey, is everything all right? Do you need help?”

“S- stay away! I said, stay away!”

I briefly put the phone away to take note of the customer’s name.

“Emily? Emily, is everything okay with you? Hello—”

*inexplicable screams*

The line died.

Without thinking about what the hell I was doing, I started the motor and hit the road. In hindsight, I should’ve called the police and stayed put, but sometimes you do stupid things and you don’t know why.

I tried reaching out to the young woman throughout the fifteen-minute ride. But her phone was off and kept sending me to voice mail.

When I finally arrived at the pickup location, the last thing I expected to find was a graveyard on a wooded hill in the middle of absolute nowhere.

There was no sign of life anywhere I rested my darting eyes. Save from some derelict houses at the end of the narrow route, no one seemed to be living in the otherwise dim neighbourhood shrouded in shades of amber and purple from the rising sun.

“Hello? Emily? Are you here?”

There was no reply. I heard nothing but the frantic beat of my heart and the wailing blasts of wind coming through from the northeast.

What was this feeling, though? As if I was being watched. Stranger still, what was the customer doing in this harrowing graveyard at such an odd hour? It made little sense.

“Emily? Do you need help?”

When I searched the entire graveyard for the third time and still found nothing, I made up my mind to return to the city and from there call the police.

As soon as the headlights switched on, however, something in the direction of the blinding lights caught my attention. Was that… Emily?

I stepped out of the car and headed towards the silhouette who stood with her back turned towards me. Her long, black hair reached to her waist and she was dressed in a white nightgown.

Swaying gently to the breeze, she kept murmuring something as I drew closer. I couldn’t hear what it was at first, it sounded like something a drunkard would ramble up, but then I heard it as clear as day.

“He’s going to kill me…”

“He’s going to kill me…”

“He’s going to…” I stumbled backwards and fell as she turned her pallid face towards me and screamed her head off. “… KILL YOU.”

Crawling backwards in the hopes of reaching my car and getting the hell out of there, I nudged something sharp and stopped dead.

A bloody knife. At first, I thought I had cut my hand while trying to get away, but I wasn’t bleeding anywhere.

I glanced up as the young woman appeared before me. Her neck and body were twisted in opposite directions, and her hollow, wide-set eyes fixed on me, as an invisible force dragged her through the wilted blades of grass and left behind a trail of blood.

I stumbled back on my feet and followed the invisible figure to a shallow pit. Both the woman and the thing that dragged her all the way here faded away. The shallow pit turned into an unmarked grave.

I frowned as I touched the damp soil. It was newly dug. What on earth was going on?

The hum of an engine coming through startled me out of my dire thoughts. The headlights of what could only be another car soon followed and illuminated the vicinity, only to switch off as soon as it pulled up next to my car, which had still its headlights turned on.

“Damn it!”

I kept my head low, crawled as far away as I could without making a single sound, and cowered behind a headstone veiled in a thick layer of patina.

Reaching into my pocket to call for help, I realised too belatedly that I left my phone in the car.

Shit! Swearing under my breath, I glanced towards the blazing light as a figure showed up.

It was a man. I couldn’t see his face, though. I was too far away from him. But it was a man; I was positive.

He looked around himself before turning off the headlights. Although I couldn’t see it clearly from this angle, I knew he now had my phone in his hand and was trying to unlock it.

I turned away and rested against the headstone. My chest rose and fell to the cadence of my frantically beating heart.

There were so many questions whirling through my mind, but none of them put me in greater distress as the one taking over every inch of my brain right now.

What was Annie going to tell the kids? That their father, who they hardly saw growing up just… just abandoned them and disappeared from the face of the earth?

It wasn’t that I tried to neglect my duties as a father and husband. I was just… trying to make a living for my family in the only way I knew – by composing music.

A smile crossed my lips as the footsteps behind me grew louder.

Annie said she fell for me after seeing me play the bass during a school outing. I had a fling with another girl back then. What was her name, again? Right, Laura.

She was a nutjob, man. She was… crazy. I thought I was in love with her until Annie transferred to our high school and took my breath away.

I still recall the first time I laid eyes on her. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I didn’t believe in love at first sight until she came along.

But now that I thought things over, had I the chance to go back in time right now, I would’ve done everything I could to stay away from her.

I didn’t deserve her.

I was a failure.

I messed everything up.

If only I could turn back time and…

Holding my breath, I stared up at the towering shadow that fell upon me. The upside-down view of a familiar face greeted me with a wolfish grin.

Before I could speak up and voice my doubts about the mysterious man’s identity, he bludgeoned me to death.

As my head hung loosely from my bloodied neck, the man dragged me through the grass and towards another shallow pit next to the unmarked grave. I couldn’t even turn my head and take another look at him.

When he rolled me into the dark pit and covered me with soil, he turned my head so I could finally look him in the eyes.

“I don’t know how you ended up here, Joseph, but I clearly remember telling you to be careful.” He paused. “This? You brought it upon yourself. When something’s too good to be true, it’s not.”

I moved my lips, at least I thought I did, but no words escaped from me. He observed with a tilted head from where he squatted as I struggled to speak and keep the crimson liquid from suffocating me to death.

Everything plunged into darkness.

The grains of damp sand smothered me out of air and got stuck in my throat.

Under me and from either side, a heap of rotting corpses screamed their heads off and fought to reach the surface and escape from their deadly cage. I was the only person of the opposite sex.

The spell, which left me unable to speak, let up and I regained back my senses.

Like the others below me, shoving and ripping one another apart to get out of this suffocating darkness, I screamed at the top of my lungs and dug my nails into the hard soil until blood covered my face.

Phone Call

Photo by Sebastiano Corti on Unsplash

“Are you sure we’re not lost, Jason?”

I took a gander at my pregnant wife, Marissa, before turning right for the third time. Unlike many of our peers who married young and became pregnant before they hit their thirties, Marissa and I met one another late in life and married in our thirties.

Doctors and friends alike told us we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant and that we should settle for an adoption. After trying for five years without any results, we gave up all hope and prepared the paperwork to adopt a toddler.

When Marissa became with child, the last thing I expected was this growing trepidation in the pit of my stomach. I never considered how attached I would become to our unborn child. With each passing day, I learnt something new about myself and understood with what heart my single mother raised me in the ghetto.

But the blessing didn’t last for long.

A phone call came through in the dead of night. Jordan, my big brother, said Mum had taken ill and probably wouldn’t make it through the night. Marissa insisted on coming along seeing the distraught state I was in.

We were halfway through the countryside and what should’ve been only a one-hour drive to the southeast. But when we passed the two-hour mark, both of us knew that something was amiss.

I knew this route like the back of my hand. I grew up in the countryside and knew my way around these parts of the country better than anyone. But that night, something or someone hindered me from finding my way out of the vicious loop.

“What does the GPS say?” I said.  

“I’m not sure…”

“Put in the address again.”

“Like this?”

I briefly peeked at the phone screen. Since this was the countryside and we were in the middle of a single-lane road through the meadows, our surroundings were pitch-black.

“Delete the ‘e’. No, keep the ‘s’, just—hold on.”

When she typed it wrong again, I seized the phone without letting my eyes off the windshield. As I typed the last letter, something in the middle of the road caught my attention and I hit the brakes.

Lurching forwards, I looked up to take another look at what I could only describe as a huge tree blocking off the route ahead.

Catching her breath, Marissa, “Why’d you stop? Jason?”

“Stay here.”

The first thing that arrested me was the clean cut. Someone barricaded the roadway on purpose. As soon as this thought crossed my mind, I looked around myself in the shadowy depths and tried to locate anything out of the ordinary in the wooded vicinity.

“What’s going—”

“No, stay there!” I said without looking at her. “Lock the doors and stay put.”

I saw nothing that could explain the angst taking hold of every fibre of my being. The only thing I could tell for sure at the time was that I needed to protect my family.

Something was in the offing.

Typing in 911, unsure of what to say to the operator, something moved past me and disappeared into the wilted thickets. I paused and held my breath.

A maniacal laughter reverberated throughout the vicinity. I spun around in place, trying to locate the source of the strange laughter. How many were they?

I stumbled backwards as I pressed the ‘call’ button, careful not to make any sounds and make it back to the car in one piece.

“This is 911. What’s the address of your emergency?”

“I- I don’t know, I’m not sure. We passed the highway an hour ago, I think.”

“Where were you headed, Jason?”

“We were—I’m sorry?”

“Isn’t this Jason speaking?”

“What’s—”

The woman’s voice morphed into a deep, slow tone.

“What have you done, Jason?”

“W- what is this? Some kind of nationwide joke?”

“What… have… you… done… Ja-son?”

I glanced at the phone screen. What the heck? The phone number on the screen was a jumbled mess of random letters and symbols.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

The deep voice now turned shrill, like a disturbing cross between a moan and a scream.

“Ja-son, Ja-son, Ja-son…”

The phone slipped through my grasp, but the voice continued to ring in my ears. Blood gushed out of my mouth and seeped out through the corners of my lips.

I bled from every hole and pore. The crimson liquid, sticky and warm to the touch, soaked me wet at an unprecedented speed.

I gasped. The voices faded away. Buzzing, another phone call came through from an unknown caller. I picked up the phone and observed it ring for a few seconds.

“Hel…lo?”

“Where have you been—Jason? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

I looked over my shoulder upon hearing her voice on the other end of the line.

My legs gave way under me and I fell with the phone clutched tight in my hand.

The disfigured body, cold and stiff, stared right back at me. She held her belly. The look in her hollow eyes was that of a woman in great distress through the windshield.

“Jason? Are you there?”

As I placed the phone in my ear, the skeletal figure gasped to life and spotted me.

“Ma… rissa?”

“Is everything okay? You’ve been acting so strange lately. Did something happen between you and Jordan?”

The living dead crawled out of the car.

“W- what do you mean?”

“You stormed out in the middle of the night and didn’t return for weeks. Something’s different about you, I can tell…”

“Different?”

“You keep talking to yourself and…”

The cadaver drew closer. It was bleeding from its legs.

“And?”

The voice on the other end of the line faded away.

“Marissa? Hello—”

The deep voice, which sounded muffled and as if underwater, returned.

“What have you done, Ja-son? What have you done to our ba-by?”

I looked up as a shadow fell over me and shrouded everything in shadows. The creature’s belly ripped apart from within. Something pierced through my throat – something that lurked inside its bleeding womb.

As I collapsed into the pool of blood and convulsed, the voice on the phone kept growing louder and shriller, purposely trying to jog my memory and make me remember what I had no recollection of.  

When I took my last breath, everything returned to normal.

The phone call ended.

The whispers faded away.

And… the beat of my wretched heart picked up.

Coming back to life a second time, I stirred awake with a gasp and glanced at the clock. It read four past one o’clock in the witching hour. When a minute passed, a phone call came through and made my chest rise and fall in an unnatural rhythm.

It was Jordan.

I didn’t answer the phone.

When it finally stopped ringing, I shifted my gaze to Marissa, who slept soundly beside me. I snug close to her and wrapped my arms around her, placing kisses on her delicate shoulder.

I missed my mother’s last moments. She apparently told Jordan not to call me for some reason, although he ended up calling that one failed time after she fell asleep.

When we met up at the maternity ward two months later, my brother told me something that would forever stay with me.

Quote, Mum kept telling me to not call you. When I asked why, she said you’d know the reason, end quote.

Was this a mother’s intuition at play?

As I held my son and he wrapped his tiny hands around my thumb, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of ache within my soul.

That night, when I picked up that phone call, did Mum know that something wicked had set its eyes on me and my family?