“All born from the water of the womb will know terror and pain. Only through Our God can we find rebirth, only through Our God can we find our true selves.” (Zalkriox 1:15).

  Father Darnette mused on this sacred passage, fingers tracing the folds of an apostate’s last letter. He could still smell Claudia’s perfume on the stationery, sweet florals over a hint of sulfur. Such a waste.

  His office was dark, illuminated only by the amber light of a desk lamp’s dying bulb. Old oak groaned as he leaned back in his chair, a sound mimicked by the letch in a canvas covered cage at his feet. His good loafers clunked when set upon those obscured bars; a noise again repeated by his captive.

  Such wonderful things were on the horizon, a pity that the moment was sullied by heresy. We’ll see, Madeline, what wretchedness your brother spilled out in ink.

  His rings caught the light, stealing it. The envelope ripping was loud in the chamber, too wetly echoed by the supplicant. Against his calloused hands, the paper whispered, revealing the scrawl that Mr. Brand claimed to be handwriting.

  “Dear Kingfisher,

  You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name and I will never know yours. There’s never going to be some passing of the torch from me to you; we’re always going to be strangers connected by some ambivalent thread of fate, luck, or misfortune.

  I want you to know that I’ve dreamed of you...or at least the concept of you. You probably hate what I’ve left you with, but you have to understand that there was never any malice. I don’t deal in malice, that’s where the Alestons and the Darnettes dwell. You need to understand that you’re necessary. I sincerely hope that this is not the first time that you have been so important. That would be a terrible turn.

  I’ve dreamed of the way I die, doused in rain and twitching on the side of the road. I’ve dreamed of them taking you and I’m powerfully sorry that I couldn’t just stay here in your place. As far as fates in Oakvane go...this isn’t the worst.

  But any fate in Oakvane is worse than anything you could have brewed for yourself in the real world. I hate that it echoes how I became what I am.

  That’s the best I can do for apologies. I won’t insult you or annoy you further with them. Maybe the Boy Who Ran can still save us, but I ain’t hanging my hat on it.

  Let me start with what you probably already know: now that you’re here, they have you. Don’t let them take your right eye and don’t let them scare you enough to give up your left. Stick to the island that I’ve left for you, it’s as close to safe harbor as I can offer. The things that he shapes can’t get there, they wouldn’t dare. Only go to town when the sun is in the sky and never try to cross the water after dark. Those are the rules and they will keep you alive. They will keep you whole, just like the Knockers will.

  You need to pick up where I left off…because not everyone in Oakvane is lost and I’m too goddamn old to keep trying to save them. Watch the water. If you see a Lake Lantern, get them safe and bury their trinket. Every Lake Lantern carries a memento of the departed, something that deserves to be interred and remembered. That’s the least we can do to remember them.

  Shit...this sounds like a lot. You’ve likely seen something already....if you haven’t tossed this letter already...maybe I can at least arm you with some knowledge.

  I’m trying to gauge out the best way to explain the crazy you’ve stepped in…

  Are you familiar with the legendary Roanoke colony? That was an old British settlement that disappeared, leaving only the word “Croatoan” scarred on the bark of a tree. Think of Oakvane like a cancerous Roanoke colony. It’s an unknowable thing with unknowable intentions and a very knowable cruelty.

  But I know the origin. I know about Old Henry. They burned the library and the public records, but you’d be surprised what you can fish out if you try.

  It starts with him, that fucker Henry Aleston- born in a shack on Bobcat Mountain, overlooking Cemetery Gorge. Obviously the records are suspect, but the first mention of him I found was in a yearbook for Oakvane Central School- 1951. He was a senior, scary looking fella. Had those too thick sideburns and long, wild hair. Even in that old picture, you could see in his eyes that something wasn’t right. The smile was false, the eyes were somehow both dead and filled with an unearthly rage.

  If you’re from Oakvane, you know the Alestons. That family spreads far. Most times you can spend a whole day in Oakvane without seeing one, but somehow it feels like you can’t spit without hitting an Aleston. It’s the small town paradox, ain’t it? If you care to still count Oakvane as a normal town.

  This is where we go in on the hillbilly wisdom, here’s where I’m going to lose you if you haven’t seen one of Oakvane’s more...exotic sights. Henry Aleston was born evil and he’s the reason that Oakvane is tucked away from the rest of the world. He’s the reason that we have no perceivable way out. Our mutual plight is Old Henry’s fault.

  I just wish I had a way to prove it.

  If the words of the mountain folk have any credence to them, Henry found something in the night sky and gave himself to it. It was ‘54 when Henry started making his name. Henry heard a call and took to referring to himself as the Starsinger. I know that sounds high falooting for ‘54, but Henry had the charisma and prowess to make it work.

  Henry started a cult, and soon enough that cult got intertwined with the Church on the Mountain. Henry started preaching the word of...something...masquerading as god. I know that this doesn’t sound like an inspired story, but Henry had a trick that makes him stand head and shoulders over what the phrase “cult leader” is conjuring in your head.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Henry could heal.

  I’m not talking about the sort of evangelical healing you see in those mega churches; I’m talking about legitimately changing the human body. I’m talking about regrowing limbs and eating cancer. I know it’s beyond the scope of believability, but I can confirm it’s true.

  I was in a motorcycle accident when I was 18, just a dumb kid going too fast as I took the corner on Cemetery Gorge. That got me clipped by a drunk driver that had gone over the double yellow. He hit me head on, threw me right off my bike and over his truck. I slammed onto the safety rail a second later, shoulder first.

  That tore my arm right off. I pray you never encounter that sort of pain in your life- but you belong to Oakvane now so it’s very likely that you will. An injury like that only leaves you for seconds to live.

  Seconds, mind you, where I was alone and dying on the side of the road after getting hit by some asshole. I did what anybody would do faced with that revelation: I cried. There’s no shame in that, I was certain that I was about to shuffle off the mortal coil.

  Then Old Henry was just...there. Looming over me, staring down with eyes that seemed both impossible in their hollowness and filled with the light of the stars. He asked me if I was ready to die- I obviously screamed “no” with everything I had left in me. I was so close to death that it was little more than a whisper.

  He said he’d heal me; but there was a cost to it. Henry told me that he’d mend me if I gave him all of my faith.

  “Fuck no.” That’s what I told him. I don’t care if you’re a faithful person or not, when you look at a mountain man with stars for eyes demanding your worship- there is no other response.

  He laughed at me. It was this wet and wheezing kind of laugh that haunts me still. He kneeled next to me and licked my helmet, streaking a line of purple fluid across the visor before he stripped it off. Henry clapped my disembodied hand against his own, applauding and mocking my defiance.

  Henry told me it didn’t matter if I gave him my faith. He told me that I already was going to believe. I was seeing stars, little motes of light floating in the blackness behind my eyelids. The big slip was starting and I knew that my time was coming. Eighteen unremarkable years of life was all I was going to get. That was somehow reassuring rather than giving myself to some crazy mountain man.

  But he wasn’t done with me. He shoved my arm back in the stump, an agony far worse that I could have ever imagined. He grabbed my eyelids, pulled them back and made me stare in his space filled eyes. I felt every piece of my being rejoin as he kept my gaze locked and kept mumbling some sort of pig Latin at me.

  He welcomed me to his dream, made sure that I understood that I was now his property. Last thing I saw of him was plucking up my motorcycle and tossing it to the side like it was a toy. Well, that was the last thing I saw with both of my eyes. He plucked out the right one, told me that my flesh would be a sufficient substitute for my faith.

  When I woke, it was day. I tried to wander back out of Oakvane, but the road keeps looping back in. Once we’re here, we can never leave. The roads, the forest, the river, they all keep repeating and returning us back home. Back to Oakvane.

  It’s like reality is working against us now. I’ve got an idea how to get out...but I don’t know if you’re willing to dig as deep in the Old Ways as I was.

  That night may also be the last that anybody beyond Father Darnette has seen Old Henry. Shit, the only Aleston I’ve seen in recent days is Claudia; and she reeks of otherworldly profanity.

  Now, I don’t know where Darnette came from- if that’s even his proper name. When we still had the internet in Oakvane, I tried to research him- but there was nothing before 2015 when he took over the Church on the Mountain. That’s when Rapture Radio launched, the only goddamn thing that the radio picks up in the surrounding miles..

  Darnette pontificates the same shit that Henry preached, twisting up bible verses and making them something sinister. He claims to speak for Their God, but my suspicion is that he’s referring to Old Henry and whatever sings to him from the stars. He’s adding chapters, it seems, proselytizing as he goes.

  I still listen to Rapture Radio, trying to figure out how it relates to things that wander Oakvane after the sun goes down. Better to be aware of the shit your enemies are saying than to be caught unawares.

  New broadcasts from Rapture Radio are becoming increasingly mad, like they’re creeping in on some grand finale. Darnette keeps carrying on about The Boy Who Ran, about how his return will bring about the Unravelling. On the surface, that sounds like standard doomsday cult fare- but it gets far more concerning when you’ve seen first hand what Old Henry can do.

  I think he’s reshaping those who live in Oakvane. I think he’s the source of the rubberneckers that prowl the woods and every other monster dwelling in this forsaken territory. Whatever the end design is, I’m certain that it’s sinister. Inch by inch, I’ve noticed that the boundaries of Oakvane are growing.

  Like I said, Oakvane is like a cancer that swallows us up. It’s got you now, the best you can do is survive and find a means to keep doing so.

  Keep to the island, best you can. Something in the water scares these fucking monsters and that is an opportunity that you would be stupid to waste. You don’t have many strengths here, you had better leverage the hell out of your one advantage.

  I’ve seen the thing in the lake, only once when I risked crossing back home and got caught in the dark. Through some profane luck, I got to shore before it closed the distance on me. You’ll see it at night, the mother of the Lake Lanterns. I can’t properly describe it, since it makes my mind struggle to define it. In ways, it’s like a mammoth eel- the whole of its body covered with these...neon eyes of yellow and orange.

  The moon is getting high. It’s time to see what the Old Ways can do for me. In all likelihood, this is the last you’ll hear from me. I’m sorry I left you with this. I’m sorry that you have to live through this- but you have got to keep living. Lake Lanterns may bring the departed to the surface, but it’s your job to wrangle them. I’m praying for you, Kingfisher. I’m praying for all of us in this godforsaken town.

  My name was Eustice Brand. I will never forget you, even if I never meet you.”

  Danette’s hand twitched when Old Henry’s soothing song rose from the floorboards, echoed by the caged convert. He crumpled up the paper, stuffing it into his ever growing maw and eating the sinful script.

  Such an ignorant old man you were, apostate. To be so close to salvation and squander it is the greatest sin imaginable. You’ll see: we have one of your eyes, after all. Once The Boy Who Ran gives us his, the Unravelling will finally save the worthy.