O nly the minimal off-hour lights were on in the hallway the next morning, casting WNCR into a weird sci-fi glow that made everything from the “coffee” stain on the wall by the bathroom to the dusty plastic ficus look sinister.
I gave both the stain and the fake plant an early morning nod in greeting.
Nothing could sour my mood today. After work, I’d get to go to dinner with my family. It was almost too good to be true, which was exactly why I needed to brainstorm strategies on how not to screw it up.
It was too early to call Daisy before coming to the office, but I definitely needed to talk to her before tonight.
She’d know what I was going through. Sorta.
Specifically, she’d understand what it was like to have a family who turned into animals.
She also knew me well enough to recognize my self-sabotaging tendencies. She’d have ideas.
I entered the editing room with an extra bounce in my step, and a hope in my heart that Albert would show up early, too. I needed to talk to him, and I needed to make sure he didn’t edit the adoption fair footage without me.
Of course the easiest way to ensure we had time together in the morning would be to show up on his doorstep. He lived right upstairs from me. I could also take him up on his offer to commute together.
But we spent enough time together already. I needed to maintain my space, or at least the pretense of it.
The door creaked like a horror movie sound effect, and the haunted office chair was back by the copier again. No one ever saw it move. It just…migrated on its own. Or maybe we had a secret, benign prankster in the building with a thing for chairs.
Either way, I flipped on the lights and set my bag on one of the tables.
I dug through the input box for Albert’s and my flash drive. It wasn’t there. That meant the footage had already been uploaded. Thank you, Albert.
Even if he wasn’t here yet to talk to, he’d put me in a good position to get started while I waited for him to show up.
It was hard to believe what had happened lately. I wanted to, with every fiber of my being. But there was this annoying little voice of reason nagging in the background. It was the same voice of reason that had spurred me into a news career in the first place, so I couldn’t be too mad at her.
But, watching the footage from the pet adoption fair would at least offer concrete proof of what had or hadn’t happened that day.
I plopped into my chair, which let out a cry like I’d mortally wounded it, and booted up the machine. While I waited for the PC to groan to life, I took a long drag of my coffee—lukewarm, and bitterly delicious.
My phone lit up—a text from Tess.
Tess: Checking in
Me: Hanging in there
Tess: No sign of witches?
Me: No
She hearted my text.
Me: You okay?
Tess: Bleh. Yes. Doomface.
I sent her a heart back and waited to see if she wanted to share more. She didn’t. Dreadlord Doomface was definitely keeping her busy.
The computer screen spurred to life faster than expected. It was decided—today was my lucky day.
I opened the folder marked June 2nd and scanned the thumbnails for a still frame of myself. Bingo. That was easy enough.
I double clicked the file and watched in full screen.
There I was, talking to Wendy Ariti, walking around capturing the day, doing my job in blissful ignorance of the horrors to come. I told myself I didn’t care what happened in the footage and steeled myself for the possibility that I’d imagined the entire event.
Then, I steeled myself for the possibility that all of it was real.
I fast forwarded until the sky darkened, then hit play. With every second that passed, my chest grew tighter.
I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink.
My on-screen smile faded.
A scream echoed out.
Dogs barked. One darted across the frame.
Albert’s unshakable hands began to tremble, the camera fluttering across the landscape before dropping down toward the ground like he’d lost his grip. Maybe we all had lost our grip, not just on what we’d been holding, but on reality itself.
Between blades of grass, the dirt erupted. A tiny cursed skull rose from the underworld, with a shimmy of its half-attached shoulders, a casual stretch in the daylight.
The screen went black.
I stared, unblinking, even though the video had ended. My brain struggled to process the pieces, to believe the frenzy of stimuli that had just flashed before my eyes.
Loose dogs.
Zombie rodents.
Chaos.
It happened. All of it really happened.
My throat tight, my heart racing, I forced myself to take in a slow, steady breath. Then I watched it all again from the beginning. I watched it a third time and focused not on the animals, but on the people. I scanned their reactions—surprise, horror, all around.
Until the goth woman and her unflinching non-response.
Her name was Marnie, and she worked at the shelter.
She was only on screen for a moment. As the adoption fair went up in proverbial flames, she remained focused on a small dog baring its teeth. Maybe she was too busy trying not to get bitten to notice anything else.
Or maybe her unnatural calm meant something more.
She was around the same age as the blond woman who had told me to forget what I’d seen, the rainbow witch, and Wendy.
Had one of them caused the zombie uprising? Could a person cause something like that? Did all four women know each other? Were they the coven the rainbow witch had warned me not to cross?
Neither the blond woman or the rainbow witch appeared in the footage. Maybe that meant something. Maybe it didn’t.
Being a woman in her forties wasn’t a crime. It didn’t make a person a witch. If it did, Tess, Daisy, and I would be witches too.
Maybe it didn’t matter who these women were or what they were capable of, so long as I minded my own business.
As long as I hid the truth instead of reporting it.
An uncomfortable feeling swirled in my chest—uncertainty. I’d felt a lot of uncertainty lately, and I wasn’t a fan.
Reporters report. It was literally in the job title.
A creak rippled across the otherwise silent room.
My muscles seized at the sound. I felt like I was falling without moving—like the floor dropped out beneath my nerves but not my feet. I jumped, clutched my chest, and twisted my head toward the door. I half expected the coven to be there, ready to silence me. Permanently.
It was only Albert.
Albert jumped at my jump, spilling the coffee from the cup in his hand onto his wrist. He hissed in pain. His thick eyebrows fist-bumped each other.
A jumble of relief, embarrassment, guilt, and concern bounced through my veins. Being startled left a jittery edge behind, like my body hadn’t gotten the “false alarm” memo yet.
Concern triumphed over the other emotions. I shot to my feet, grabbed some paper towels, and handed them over. “You okay?”
Albert set down his coffee, wiped his arm, and winced as he nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
A red blotch was already forming on his skin. He needed ice or….
I spotted the aloe plant on the file cabinet in the corner. Jasmine, the station’s resident homeopath and owner of all the office’s greenery, would be so proud. For the record, the dusty ficus in the hall predated Jasmine, and didn’t count.
“I didn’t expect anyone to be here yet.” Albert grabbed the haunted chair and pulled it next to mine.
I snapped a piece off the plant and handed it over before reclaiming my seat beside him. “Well, I’m glad we’re both here now.”
Just the two of us. No prying eyes or ears while we discussed what had happened in the park.
Albert squeezed the soothing gel onto his arm and tossed the deflated leaf at the trashcan. It hit the side of the can and fell to the floor. He sighed. “What are you getting into this morning?”
“I’m looking over the adoption fair footage.”
With a groan, he got up. With another groan, he bent down and deposited the aloe leaf into the can. “I haven’t had the chance to edit it yet.”
“I know.” I rubbed my hands together. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for.”
“Why?”
“So I could watch every single thing that happened.”
He’d been weird after the fair, after that blond-haired woman had told us to forget. Her words seemed to have affected him at the time. Now that we had some distance since the event, would he acknowledge the truth he’d caught on film?
I waited for Albert to rejoin me at the computer. He stepped over, but he didn’t sit back down. I pressed play.
Albert leaned in over my shoulder and watched it all happen. His fingers flexed into the headrest. His knuckles turned white.
When the clip ended, he stood straighter and rolled his shoulders. “Compelling footage.”
His voice was flat, like he was being sarcastic.
“It is compelling footage.” I tapped the screen. “Look. You see this, right? This dog running right here.”
He blinked at the screen with a blank expression on his face. His mouth went lax, but he didn’t speak.
I pointed to the next, and clearly more horrifying bit. “And this half-dead monstrosity crawling out of the dirt?”
His eye twitched. Brand new lines formed on his already-lined forehead.
“Tell me what you see, Albert.” I took a breath, looked over the tension on his face, and added, “Please.”
His eye twitched again and again, each time faster than the last. “I….”
A small pang of worry squeezed in my stomach. Either he was on his third cup of coffee this morning, or something was seriously wrong. “Albert, are you all right?”
“I….” He loosened his grip on the headrest, then flexed his fingers into the chair once more.
Was this the first sign of a stroke? Was this the result of some sort of magical programming? Worry snowballed in my stomach. This had to be how Carson felt when I whited out.
“You’re scaring me,” I said. “Say something so I know you’re okay.”
His whole body slowly deflated. He blinked slowly, deliberately, as if re-entering reality one eyelid at a time, until his eyes resumed normal, non-twitching function in unison.
“Albert?”