It’s embarrassing to admit that it took me until 2017 to sever ties with my family. After I cut that cord; I was alone, navigating an unsympathetic world with thirty years of damage to unlearn.

  You see, my whole family fell hard for a political cult. I dumped all of my money into guns, survival food, and this plot of undesirable land on the border of Sapphire Falls and Oakvane. It was atop this steep hill, guaranteed to be a nightmare in the brutal winters that the area was known for. The woods of Oakvane crawled up the south end of my property and it had a wonderful view of Sapphire Falls. The cornfield at the base of the hill was pretty as a painting, especially when dusk or dawn came calling.

  I dropped a double wide on my property, one with gray vinyl siding and a red door. Pa raised me to be real handy and my intention was to build down, not up. The truth is that the trailer was just a facade, something to keep the normies from asking questions.

  The reality of my home was down deep. Shielded by concrete and with an obscured door out back, I rigged a few shipping containers into a bunker with all the amenities. It’s hooked to the water and power grids, it’s comfortable so long as you don’t miss the sun.

  That was well before the contracts fell through, before I lost it all in COVID and had to live off of my savings, taking odd jobs where I could. When my well was dry as my prospects, I had to sell my equipment at a huge loss.

  All you really need to know about me is that I was lost. Yeh, I even voted for that clown. Can’t even say that I am eating crow on that. I still think he had some points at the core of it, just got wrapped up in the theater of politics.

  The letter Q was all it took to absolutely leave my family in wreckage- they bought in big. My dad had instilled survivalist beliefs in myself and my brothers, it’s a slippery slope to conspiracy from there. My parents believed it all, drifting further and further away from reality. Blood drinking liberals, satanic Hollywood cabals, pizzagate- all of it.

  I had started seeing this woman and it was getting pretty serious, but I won’t say her name out of respect. Even then, I tried to keep politics out of the relationship. In short, I was starting to question things- but not the things my family wanted questioned. I was ashamed by the choices I had made in 2016, especially when I was around her.

  She was Jewish, I think the term is orthodox. My family is unflinchingly Catholic and thought I started dating her just to hurt them. If we wanted to get hitched, one of us was going to have to make a compromise.

  In the end, neither of us would. She tried to say that I was only in love with the idea of dating her, that I was looking for some “gold star.” I still owe her for opening my eyes to a truth that allowed me to amputate away the rot of my family.

  She pointed out that a lot of my old beliefs had echoes of antisemitism. She shared with me interesting facets of history that basically had all the same tenets- that was eye opening. Reading through it shook me. I brought that information to my family and confronted them, the argument that followed was one neither side would come back from. If you ask them, they disowned me and vice versa.

  When you pull yourself up from the depths of that sort of entrenchment, you lose people. Pushing 40 years, I had to restart my life. My name was bile in the mouth of my family and friends. That’s a trauma that I’ll never heal, even after I burned the Q flag and the stars and bars. I sold off my guns, thinking the act would bring me catharsis- it didn’t. It left me feeling empty, like I had thrown my whole life away. I filled the void with drinking and video games. Sometimes I ventured out to the bars in the village to chase some female attention. I was coming close to becoming another village cliche- living just to work and drink; denied a promising future.

  Two weeks after that was when I started losing time, that’s a real beast of a thing to face alone. It probably started smaller- a minute here and there, but then it escalated to hours, days, and then weeks. My doctors couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me, they told me to get a shrink. I never actually made it to that appointment; I wound up losing the time instead.

  It was nearing harvest when that stopped.

  The sun was bright that morning. I had slept in the double wide, mostly due to a depressing amount of beer imbibed. Surprisingly; I was bright eyed and ready to face the day. I took my coffee out on the trailer’s porch and intended to look over Sapphire Falls for a bit. I reckoned that a sky this joyful would give a wonderful view of the cornfield.

  There was a view, sure, but it was more weird than wonderful. I had seen pictures of crop circles before, but it’s different when you see them with your own eyes. Those images always had circles in them, sometimes with connective lines. Sure, they looked crazy- but not as crazy as what I was looking at. It looked like script, but written in hard angles and short lines. It made me think of how I used to draw lighting bolts when I was younger.

  The pork patrol rolled up on my property as I was tossing my lunchbox in the cab of my truck, asked me if I knew anything about the disruption to my neighbor’s corn last night.

  “Nah, I’m too old for that sort of mischief,” I told him.

  He looked at me weird, doing that small town cop thing where they “level with you.” He said that I had a reputation for being an “odd duck” and that he’d need me to account for my whereabouts. I wasn’t interested in feeding the village rumor mill, so I just simply asked if I was being detained or if I was free to go. I had a job in Sapphire Falls and decks don’t exactly build themselves. The Esponda’s already had it hard enough getting a fair price for their work up here, I was not about to let them down. He let me leave, but told me not to go anywhere “weird.”

  I live between Sapphire Falls and Oakvane. It doesn't get much weirder. Obviously, I didn’t say that to him, but it was heavily implied.

  Pulling out my driveway with the cop following directly, I noticed the second strangeness of the day. When you pull off my property, you’ll see the Oakvane sign on one side and the Sapphire Falls sign on the other. Looking in my rearview, the placement of the Oakvane sign seemed off- but the cruiser blocked it before I could really orient.

  Better not to dwell on it, Alvin. You just gotta keep moving forward, the pig can’t follow you for that long.

  —

  It was a good day deckbuilding; not too hot, but warm enough to make you feel alive. I apologized to Carlos for my tardiness, but he laughed it off. That fella; I don’t know how he does it- but he faces everything with a smile. I knew damn well that it must be hard on him; being an outsider in Sapphire Falls.

  Work went well, with me and the other fellas making some solid progress. Come lunch time, the rest of the guys went off to the burger joint, leaving me and my bologna sandwich behind. I was sitting in the bed of my truck when Marla Esponda popped out with a plate of these golden, pastry looking things. She made a couple cracks about my lunch and offered me the plate, telling me a hard worker should get a more substantial meal. She had eyes that were gold like honey; the kind that somehow always make you feel seen and vulnerable at the same time. Women like her, they’ll steal your heart before you know what’s what. I swear in Our God’s name that I felt a spark jump between our fingers, like our energies intermingled and became one.

  She called the food “empanadas” and I’d never eaten something like them before. She even sent me home with a bunch of them, her palm lingering on the back of my hand when she told me to “keep doing the best I can.” Had anybody else said that to me, I would have thought they were talking down- not an Esponda, though. They’re salt of the Earth folk, regardless of our differences. Sapphire Falls had better treat them well. I do not say this lightly, but I would kill for that family. Kind folk deserve nothing but kindness in return. I ain’t saying that they’re soft, but having blood on their hands would probably change them. That was a thought I couldn’t stomach; Marla’s soft, delicate hands sullied by violence.

  Maybe that’s why me and her connected so well. Lost gotta look out for the lost.

  It would be awfully nice if Marla found herself with me one day. A fine woman like that can’t possibly be satisfied with someone as sloppy as Carlos.

  —

  The dark was settling in when I got home.

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  I swore the sign for Oakvane was out of place, like it had waddled closer to my driveway. It was an ugly shade of brown, the kind you always find on clearance. The yellow lettering read “Welcome to Oakvane” as the sign swung back and forth on its chains against the modest breeze.

  After stowing the empanadas in the fridge, I did my best that night- just like I promised Marla. I had a beer or three, but strayed away from my usual excess. I even stayed in the double wide like a normal person and fell asleep on the couch with very little chemical assistance. Give me a gold star for that.

  The lights came in the night. Glowing alien shades of violet and green, they were bright enough to wake me. That illumination danced and shimmied, burning away the black of night with a breathtaking radiance. What first looked like curtains of light rising from the cornfield looked real different up close. Standing in the cornfield, close to the light, I could see that they were these weird snakes. I guess maybe they were more like eels? They had long snouts and mouths filled with glowing white fangs. They were so mesmerizing that I didn’t even bother to question when I got to the cornfield. I reached out to touch one of the violet ones. The thing wasn’t slippery in my hand; it really just seemed impossible to the touch- like I had wrangled writhing and solidified light.

  That eel didn’t try to slip out my grasp. It remained there, staring at me with its three eyes of black. Back and forth it swayed, like its head was a wind sock on the whim of an indecisive breeze. I remember feeling like it was judging me. Sometimes the face of the creature grew very close, then darted back to work its mouth into a soundless hiss. It brought that maw close again, then darted out a tongue of blackness and stars to lick across my cheek. I must taste pretty repugnant, because it shuddered as it reeled back and stared at me.

  Probably not surprising that I taste terrible. I got all this hate. I got all this envy and that lust for a married woman. Shit like that probably seeps out our pores.

  You know how it’s really hard for us to understand animals because they don’t have the same facial muscles as we do? It’s the reason that we kind of assign emotions to a cat’s face. I thought I read something on that neon space eel’s face at that moment. At first I thought I was reading disappointment, but then I kind of registered it as sorrow.

  The third eye of the thing popped way farther out from its brow; like this huge, black cherry. An image began to shimmer into sight across the gloss of it, like a mirage. An image of a cross ablaze in front of a familiar home with an unfinished deck. That vision was followed by a thought, a series of words in my own head with my own voice.

  “What will you do?”

  The space eel was gone after that thought faded. I was alone in the cornfield, looking up at a night sky filled with multicolored stars. There was no more radiant display, just me standing upon cornstalks rendered into ash. My mind started to drift to all of the promise and potential I wasted; to all the different choices that I could have made to make my life something worth remembering. That all stopped short when I crystallized what the thing had told me.

  The Espondas were in danger; I was certain of it.

  It had to be that Proud Heritage Club; the resident racists had finally set their sights on Sapphire Falls’ only hispanic family.

  I ran through the field, so fast that the stalks of corn lashed across my torso. Sure, I couldn’t imagine the phrase “space eels warned me you were in danger” would go over great with Carlos or Marla, but maybe being nearby if something went down would be enough. I sped off my property, clipping the “Welcome of Oakvane” sign that sat right on the edge of my driveway with my driver side mirror. Damn thing was even closer now and I didn’t have the wherewithal to think about that.

  I raced down that steep hill, my nearly bald tires struggling to keep purchase on the road. Old faithful’s engine was not responding very well, but I still cut the usual time to the Esponda’s in half. I played it much cooler as I approached the house, slowing to the speed limit.

  What I saw made my heart drop.

  They parked in the Esponda’s cars, those ghouls. The hate they inked on their pasty skin was exposed to the chill of night as they raised a wooden cross in the front yard. As I passed by, I could see Carlos in the window, clutching a baseball bat with Marla shadowing him. I swear she made eye contact with me as I passed by- pleading for my help. She needed a man that could keep her safe, not that chuckle fuck she settled for.

  I passed by, feeling my fear petrify in my gut. Ducking down a side street, I pulled back around. There were a dozen of them haunting that front yard: what was I actually going to do? If Carlos and Marla were smart, they would have already called the police.

  Shit, the pork patrol was likely among the racists littering the front yard.

  As the house came back to view, I saw the cross light up. Catholic or not; that is a sight that will be seared permanently in your mind. White supremacists say that it’s a statement of their burning conviction; but I see it for what it is- defilement of something sacred.

  The steering wheel groaned against the tightness of my grip, my knuckles had gone a deathly white. I heard the first shot go off as I grew closer, then saw the second shotgun blast bite into the deck. I couldn’t hear it, but I could imagine the horror being vocalized by the Espondas.

  Fuck it, Alvin. Time to put your money where your mouth is. It’s time to kill some racists.

  Eight cylinders pushing 7500 pounds of steel is a great equalizer and I pushed that engine to the limit. It felt like an extension of me, lashing out at bigots with all of my rage. I tore through the front lawn, throwing clods of dirt in my wake. The first one I hit was dead on, blasting some asshole with the steel of my grill. He was slung up on my hood, a ragged pile of white and red that slid off when I arced the truck to the side and caught more of them with my tail. I whooped in that moment, like I was mudding in this field of bigots.

  Shotguns and pistols were popping off at me, I could hear the steel cry as it yielded to lead. I was hit, I could feel the blood starting to pour out my left side. I didn’t feel the pain, though- which was no small blessing. I knew that I was too stubborn to die there, gouging a semi circle through the yard before slamming my truck into reverse.

  I ruined that deck, hollering through the back window for the Espondas to get in the bed. Neither Esponda is a small person, but they were faster than bad news getting aboard. Bullets and buckshot screamed past us as I tore forward, shattering my window and burning a streak through my cheek.

  In my rearview, I saw Carlos stand. The bat wasn’t in his hands anymore; he had one of the sledgehammers I used to drive posts. It was beauty, no- it was violent poetry when he brought that beast to bear. He arced it from the side, throwing his whole body into the swing and hit that burning cross with a fury that caused the earth to spit it out with a shower of embers and flame.

  Maybe the tubby bastard had some balls after all.

  We tore through Sapphire Falls, a parade of racists tailing us. I couldn’t see Marla or Carlos and I prayed to Our God that they were hanging on to something in the bed of the truck. Maybe that wound I had on my side was worse than I thought; there was darkness creeping in from the outer ridges of my sight. I was losing time again, but this time I reckoned it was from blood loss.

  Well hell, better to die doing something worthwhile than live like I was. Better to live, though. Surely Marla knew what she owed me now. My ribs ached, like a growing pain.

  I passed the “Welcome to Oakvane” sign about three quarters of the way up the hill. The air felt wrong now, like I had passed through some sort of spiritual membrane. That was the first time I heard those cries- it sounded like a wolf howling and a whalesong wrapped into one.

  About a hundred feet from my driveway is when my tires all popped, dropping my rims directly on the blacktop in a shower of sparks. I fought the wheel and slammed the brakes to keep my truck from flipping, one second in reality and another in the dark.

  Then I was out of the truck, looking at the mess I made on my seat. I was fountaining blood from my side, slicking my clothes and puddling on the lawn. I was taking my hammer from Carlos and telling Marla where I hid my bunker. There was a catastrophic sound down the road as a dozen cars crashed and piled up. Now those flames- those flames were made of conviction.

  Those cries would haunt me for the rest of my days and I wished it ended with the fire and trauma. These things galloped out, two big ones and two little ones, emerging from the woods of Oakvane. They reminded me of those long necked dinosaurs.

  Yeh, like a brontosaurus without the tail and with stupid long legs. Blood loss was making it really hard to think straight. Their heads bobbed up and down in time with their gait, as if they were humming a tune to the terror left behind me. One of them leered down at Marla, head coming down from on high and drifting within a foot of her face. To her credit, she was taking no more guff that night. I saw that woman swing at a face that looked like Hutch, a tow trucker whose friendship I lost back in 2018. It certainly had a gut to match.

  Apparently Marla made it clear we were not to be meddled with. All four monsters swarmed the wreck and the slaughter really started. They were like cottonmouth vipers striking down on the men from above, burying their faces in those hateful guts with a speed that I had never seen before. At my distance, it was all shadows against flame- but the imagination of my fading mind certainly filled in the blanks.

  There was so much screaming that I couldn‘t wrap my head around it, my knees hit the bloodied black top and the sledge clattered against it. I looked down at the tool, getting steadily more stained by my blood. There was so much blood, I could feel the way my ribs pushed against my insides.

  I remember thinking that I must be nearing death. I drifted into the comforting black of lost time. The last thing I remember feeling was soft, but strong arms slipping under mine and lifting me up. I was floating backwards and I felt light as a feather, a profound coldness infesting my skin and shaking my bones.

  “Try your best, Alvin. We lost gotta watch out for the lost.” It was Marla’s voice. I couldn’t imagine anything more soothing to be the last thing I heard. She was my angel, and mine alone.