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On December 13th, 1964, James Braxton stole his father's snowmobile from outside the Braxton-Grey Hunting Lodge in Quebec, Canada. He proceeded to drive it north for thirty miles, in a snowstorm, to the mouth of the woods then dismounted at the tree line. After walking east for two miles, he presumably collapsed from hypothermia. His remains were subsequently, allegedly, devoured.

James Braxton was eaten by wolves.

That's what the police report decided.

So then, why did we try to drive up to the Braxton-Grey Lodge years and years later to disprove that theory?

Because it would make great television.

I'm your host, Cassandra Connors, and this episode of All in the Red Tape, as so many of you have requested…

Is not about James Braxton.

It's about Mikey.

It's all about me and Mikey. And if you want to understand our story, then you need to keep something in mind.

This is all James' fault.

Everything you're about to hear, and everything we do next…

All started with a young man I never met, who should've died a long, long time ago.

TAPE 1 - [PLAY]

Okay. First recording. Hope this thing still works. My old journalism professor said to keep a pocket recorder on you at all times. You never know when you'll find a new story. Or, when you find yourself in one. And I hate to say it, because his class totally sucked, but he was right.

We've walked into the eye of the storm.

Does that sound cliché? Maybe edit that out later.

The two of us hit the road outside of Burlington around noon. I thought we could beat the blizzard. No luck. By the time we crossed the border into Quebec, frost was gnawing at the corners of our windshield, and hailstones kept trying to tear through the middle. All I could do was crank up the heater.

“When are you gonna let me drive for once?" As usual, I had to shout over the Zeppelin in the background .

Mikey's trademark smirk wormed its way through his stubble. “You're great at a lot of things, Cass. Shifting stick ain't one of them."

“I can pull on a stick."

“No, I'd find you flipped upside down in a ditch with Mr. Braxton. Eaten by bears."

“Don't even joke about that," I said, removing the crinkled map from my purple parka's pocket. “And it was wolves. Allegedly."

“Allegedly."

My gloved-yet-frozen finger followed the red scribble up from the providence's border. We were about halfway to the lodge. At least, I thought so. “Would be nice if got signal out here. I can't tell where the 133 starts."

“The 223 is faster, y'know?"

Before I could argue how both roads went north so it didn't make a lick of difference which we took, the blaring rock n' roll finally died out. I hoped that the old tape player he retrofitted into the dash had finally kicked the bucket, but Mikey just hit rewind and let the cassette resume its endless circle of life. He wouldn't even flip it over.

“Seriously, how many times can you play Whole Lotta Love on the same drive?"

“Till I run out of love, Cass. Till I run out of love."

That would be the day he let me make the playlist. Which was also never.

I shoved the map back into my pocket and reached into the duffle behind my seat. The rear of the van was stuffed with equipment, which we double-checked, no, triple-checked that morning. The lights. The cameras. The big box of books written about this case and the rest of the absurdly wealthy Braxtons.

And obviously when I say, “we checked" I was referring to Mikey.

With literally nothing else to do, I grabbed some granola bars out of the bag and offered him one. He shook his head, brow furrowing. “I'm getting tired of oat bars."

“We'll stock up on oatmeal at the next gas station."

“What an upgrade," he said as he brushed stray snowflakes from his brown mop of hair. “Y'know where we had the best food? Costa Rica. When are we going back there?"

“When someone pays us to film again."

“Maybe James faked his death and ran off to the Caymans."

“Well, one of those things might be true." I fidgeted with the wrapper. “Look, if the show gets picked up, maybe we can go after the next shoot. Get NBC to foot the bill."

“Yeah, sure. After the next one."

I bit into the wholegrain bar and let the conversation fizzle out. We'd had this weird, non-argument on and off for the past month, and even when I told Mikey to take a week off while I did the editing, he never would. I assumed he was being a control freak and didn't want me touching the filmstrips.

In hindsight, I guess his reasons made sense, but I couldn't see it through my blinders -- and of course, the blizzard. We couldn't see anything on that long drive through the Great White North, chasing a presumed dead man. Not three feet ahead or behind us. Definitely not ahead of us.

When a deer jumped into the road, Mikey's arm pressed back against my chest.

He spun the wheel. Brakes skid. The van twisted left in a way that vans aren't meant to twist. The rear whirled around and probably hit an ice patch. Everything spun counter-clock. A tornado in the snow.

The front half of the vehicle fell off the shoulder and down the hill as the spin became a roll. Gravity inverted.

We struck ground and glass shattered and I screamed until my head walloped the side window. Everything blurred as the Chevy's tumbling carcass came to a drastic halt.

Muddy colors colluded upside down. Grey steel bent out of shape. Olive green bags ruffled and scattered.

A red river seeping up into the pitch-white sky.

The trail ran back to Mikey. Drops like tears fell down onto the roof. His arms hung overhead. Still and silent.

I thought I called his name, but there was no reply. Just wind slipping through cracks and an old cassette sputtering over every third word.

Lotta love…gotta…love…

Then all the white turned black.

TAPE 1 - [STOP]

TAPE 2 - [PLAY]

Sorry, I had to stop recording for dinner. There's a meat freezer stocked full in the shed, but we literally have to chisel the slabs of venison apart. At least there's plenty of tools to work with. Ice picks. Handsaws. A lot of rope.

Anyway, I woke up last night three feet from a fire -- raging strong beneath a brick mantle. There I was, stretched out on a leather couch inside the cabin. A fleece blanket swaddled me up to my neck, and sewn into the fabric was the face of that glaring deer in the road.

“Mikey!" I shot up, ready to run from a burning engine.

“Hey, hey, you're fine. I'm right here." My dizzy head spun left to find him slumped over the back of a kitchen chair, chin resting on his forearms. All in one piece.

I yanked the quilt off my legs, and there I was. Also in one piece. No tears in my coat or my jeans. Even the recorder in my back pocket was intact.

Needless to say, I was impressed by how alive we were. Especially when everything came back to me. The bent metal. The shattered glass.

“Are you alright?"

He nodded. “Not a scratch."

“There was a lot of blood, dude."

“Uh…" He paused. “No, you're fine. I checked you out for lacerations. Best I could with your clothes on, I mean."

He smiled, and I would've knuckled him in the shoulder if he were in firing range. I'm glad he was okay, obviously, but that doesn't match up with what I saw. Unless I mistook some leaking oil for, y'know, rivers of blood.

Shaking the image from my mind, my eyes darted around the room, from one bonafide log wall to another. From the furnished kitchen back behind Mikey to the bay window on my right, with its oak frame hanging behind the couch. Even at night, I could make out the white hailstones pummeling the glass.

“It's kinda small for a lodge."

“Yeah. I don't think this is the Braxton place."

He was referring to the functioning lamps on the wall, and the beautiful baby chandelier shimmering above the kitchen table. Hints of fresh pine and cinders tinted the air. This couldn't have been the old Braxton-Grey Lodge. It felt too, well, alive.

“Then…" I felt my voice start to rise. “Where the hell are we?"

“A cabin."

“Mikey."

“Somewhere along the mouth of the woods."

“Jesus, did you carry me out here?"

“I don't know if it was Jesus, but somebody did. I woke up like twenty minutes ago, and the fire was already going."

“Ok. Then whose cabin is this?"

He shrugged and scratched lazily at his chest. Great answer, dude. Really. I assumed we weren't on the 105 anymore, if we ever were. My eyes drifted up from the burning fireplace and spotted two occupied brackets on the wall. Oh, shit. “Does that mean we're trespassing?"

“I'd call it seeking asylum . Like in San Salvador, remember?"

I didn't want to remember San Salvador. And I didn't feel all that comfortable playing Goldilocks in a stranger's house.

Not when they had a bolt-action rifle hanging over the mantle.

“So, what's the plan?" I asked as I swung my legs off the couch. “Just wait out the storm until we can grab the bags and get back on the road?"

Mikey looked at me cross-eyed. “Cass, the van flipped and we almost died. Again. I doubt the camera made it."

“Well, maybe tomorrow we can hike back after it clears up. Or if the owner comes back with a car, we can ask them to drive us."

“Yeah. Sure thing." He reached up under his hoodie and scratched at his chest again, clearly not invested in my production plan. Doubt me all you want, dude. We're still gonna get a story out of this.

In the meantime, there wasn't much we could do besides make dinner and call it a night. Mikey took the mountain of blankets out of the closet and improvised a sleeping bag by the fire. He insisted I keep my spot on the couch.

Hopefully, our personal Jesus won't mind that we raided their icebox. It'd be weird if they saved our lives just to let us starve to death, right? We'll compensate them as soon as we get a budget for the show.

Maybe they want to be on TV…

TAPE 2 - [STOP]

TAPE 3 - [PLAY]

There's a six-point buck mounted over the front door, threatening to spit on you every time you walk in. We joked that whenever Mikey brings in meat from the shed, he'll be covered in snow and a couple globs of dead deer saliva.

It's pretty common to find some kind of trophy hung up in a cabin like this. The things I found in the kitchen were, well, less so.

Last night, we were frying up some thawed-out venison. Again. It's our only option since the blizzard's still going strong and, apparently, the homeowner never heard of Campbell's soup. On the upside, Mikey let me cook for once because his shoulders hurt from working the icebox. I'll take what I can get.

After tossing the flanks into the pan, I set two plates, a chardonnay from the standing cabinet, and some hand towels I found in a drawer. Guess the owner never heard of napkins, either.

That's when I noticed a few of the towels were monogrammed. Hotel logos. Random initials. Surnames I've never heard before. In the end, I went with the blank ones. I would've felt weird otherwise.

I also found a bunch of unopened spice bottles in the cabinet, each label written in, I think, Hindi. It was hard to tell them apart based on the smell, so I took an educated guess. Mikey would've had a more discerning nose, but he wasn't the one cooking. I was.

After dumping on the seasoning, I looked for wine glasses in the overhead cupboard. That's where I found the coffee maker. You're probably picturing a glass pot or a Keurig or something, but no. It was a moka pot. They're these big, metal watering cans that sit right on top of the stove burner.

I've only ever seen them abroad. In Europe.

This whole place screams “eccentric millionaire turned reclusive woodsman." God, I wish we had the camera to capture the vibe. Or even just our phones, which were also “mysteriously missing" when we woke up. Maybe our estranged host has a no-photo policy like Ripley's. Seems like the type with their cabin full of oddities. The stolen hotel towels and that dangling deer head. I swear the eyes follow you at night.

To be fair, we've been getting drunk after every meal, but it still feels like we're being watched.

I wanted to snoop around some more, but the meat, and the pan, started to burn. Mikey had to come put out the fire. I offered to fry up another cutlet, but in the name of conserving food, he insisted on taking the charred one. Hope he likes his meat well-well-done. And lathered in cinnamon.

TAPE 3 - [STOP]

TAPE 4 - [PLAY]

After two plates and four glasses of wine, we were both splayed out in front of the fireplace, warming up like it was Christmas Eve.

“Remember that lady in Santa Fe who was hoarding opossums?" Mikey asked as he popped another bottle.

“Cause she thought her husband turned into one, but couldn't tell which out of the litter?"

“I wonder if she ever figured it out."

“Maybe she married them all," I said with a wistful smile and a boozy flush on my face. My hand raised high, partly beyond my control, and showed off the ring on my middle finger. Its etched, silver face could use a good cleaning. “That dude in Peru probably still thinks we're a couple."

Mikey lifted his arm and compared his own matching band, shining brightly on the finger you put wedding rings on. “Not the best choice of souvenirs. I think he thought he officiated us."

I snickered. “Sorry to disappoint, whatever your name was."

“Here's to you, Peru guy."

We toasted. After he set down his glass, Mikey stretched and yawned then pulled off his black hoodie for the night. Tangles of brown hair poked up past the low collar of his tank top. I didn't think much of it at the time. We'd worked together for nearly a decade, so I've seen him in all kinds of clothes -- or lack thereof.

So I knew that, despite his size and muscle, Mikey never had much in the way of body hair.

But now there were these odd strands curled in haphazard angles, almost matted, and darker than the brown on his head. I almost made a joke about it, but I was too hopped up on Zinfandel to connect the dots. He just sat there, scratching under his shirt and wriggling like a baby in wool.

“So…" Mikey said, glancing at me slumped over on my side. “Has it registered that we almost died again?"

“This was a surprisingly normal near-death experience given our track record."

“And does it worry you? That we're normalizing this?"

“It's all part of the job, man."

“I don't think it's a requirement to meet James Braxton in the grave."

“Now that would be a fun interview."

“Cass, seriously."

“It's fine, Mikey!" I laughed. “We'll get out of here, shoot the pilot, sell it to Discovery Channel or wherever, and then you can go on your little adventure to Costa Rica. Sound good?"

He sighed. “Only if you come with."

“Yeah, yeah. We can do a story on sea turtles or something." I abandoned my wine and dragged myself onto the couch. “I'm gonna turn in. We're still recording…voice over…tomorrow, right?"

My eyes fluttered shut as Mikey collected our glasses.

“Sure. G'night, Cass."

The wind howled outside the window, tossing ice haphazardly in the darkness. I was too drunk to pay it any mind.

TAPE 4 - [STOP]

TAPE 5 - [PLAY]

I had a dream about Mikey.

There I was, lying on the couch, and he was still wrapped in his blankets. I was half awake when he started groaning. He tried to stifle himself, but it was too loud not to notice.

Then this strange crackling cut through the air. I thought it was just firewood breaking down, but the sound was playing on top of the flames. It grew louder. Wet and sharp. Punctuated by Mikey's grunts.

In a swift arc, he sat up and tore off his tank top. I couldn't see everything, but the firelight was enough to illuminate his figure in a haze.

Dark brown patches of hair blotched the skin on his back. The same tufts of messy wire from earlier were springing up along his shoulder blades and down past his ribs. His nails scratched anxiously at the bristles, but that wasn't the only problem going on.

Now, I've filmed nearly a hundred snakes in my life. Vipers, cobras, rattlers. On mountains and in swamps. So, when I say that Mikey's spine was slithering like a snake, I know what I'm talking about. How they'd serpentine and bend at angles? His vertebrae moved the same way -- fluid but violent, ready to lash out. Bony ridges started pushing up and forcing dents in the skin.

The whole process was slow, one disk at a time exploding in his back and forcing his spinal column to bulge under the skin. Sharp pops went off like corks from our long-finished wine. Mikey curled in on himself, trembling.

The sight of his twinging bones and rippling skin made my own skin crawl. I shut my eyes again. All I could hear were terrible sounds and the whimpers that followed, each muffled by the blanket shoved into his mouth.

Eventually, the brutal noise died down. His harsh breathing settled. It was over, I thought.

But then I heard the floor creak.

Hinges squealed. A howling wind crept inside as footsteps rustled out into the snow. The latch clicked.

When the room was silent again, I opened my eyes and peeked up through the window. Mikey was standing in the storm, in the darkness, about seven feet away from the cabin. His shimmering silhouette weathered sleet and hail. He stood there for a long while.

I was about to run out and grab him, but then he turned around and stared at me. Or, I guess, stared past me. I ducked down and buried myself back under the blanket. Not sure why.

The door wheezed. Wet footfalls. The latch clicked.

Rustling fabric. Then nothing but a steady breath.

I poked my head out, and Mikey was back by the fire, undershirt on, his shivering body curled up on its side. I doubt that he could've lain flat on his back anyway.

…

So, yeah. That was the dream, brought on by way too much wine and the subconsciously buried stress of cheating death again.

Maybe Mikey was right. We shouldn't make it a habit.

TAPE 5 - [STOP]

TAPE 6 - [PLAY]

“Sound speeding. Hit it, Cass."

Ok. Opening voiceover. Episode one, take one. Ahem. The tragedy began with a gun. But unlike most stories, this rifle was never fired. Both spectators and close relations alike wonder why sixteen-year-old James Braxton left his family's lodge that fateful night in 1963.

“I still think onlookers sounds better."

Spectators is more loaded, alright? Like people are enjoying it? Eh, the prevailing theory stems from a feud with his father, Phillip, who owned and officiated the lodge. James was a regular volunteer at the Paw Patch rescue shelter and frowned heartily upon hunting as a sport.

“Did you say heartily?"

I meant to say that. It's hard to understand the motives of a teenager, let alone one long since passed. But tonight, we're looking for answers. We're retracing the Braxtons' steps on that terrible evening so long ago. I'm your host, Cassie Pryce, and this is Wrapped in Red Tape.

“Cut. Print. Give her the Oscar."

When I said you could give notes, I didn't mean in the middle of takes, Mikey.

“I'm gonna cut around it anyway."

Of course. And I'll just sit around for six months, thumbs up my ass.

“Where are you going?"

I need coffee.

“Good call. We got five more pages to do. You might want to perk up."

Oh, now I'm not perky enough?

"I didn't say that."

Sure.

“Can you pour me a cup? And throw some ice in, it's getting toasty."

Okay, Kubrick.

“Hey uh, Cass…"

Give me a second. I freaking hate moka pots.

“Forget it, can you just grab me some water?"

Uh, okay.

“Shit…"

You alright?

“Yeah, I…itchy…"

Mikey?

“Ah! Argh!"

Mikey!

TAPE 6 - [STOP]

TAPE 7 - [PLAY]

What the fuck? Jesus. I know I was quick to jump on fucking kitchen conspiracies, but something is very wrong here. Not just with the cabin. Everything.

We were recording narration for B-Roll footage, and I needed to take five. But when I came back, Mikey tossed off his hoodie and started scratching at his arms like he was tripping acid. Apparently, he'd been hiding a whole mess of those scraggly-ass hairs, which I definitely didn't imagine, and they started racing down his elbows like a forest fire. The huge patches on his shoulders looked thicker than before, and at some point, they'd shifted from brown to a weird sandstone shade.

I handed him the water, glaring more than once at his brand-new body hair. Maybe he started on supplements I didn't know about? Did he always shave his chest before and just never told me? The left side of my brain tried to find a decent explanation, but it failed miserably.

“You alright?"

“Yeah, I…itchy…" He stopped talking and chugged half the glass.

“Mikey?" I was about to grab him another.

But the crack was loud.

Like lightning breaking out of a bottle. I heard it for sure this time, not in some dream or a half-drunk stupor. That sharp violent snap burned itself into my memory. It made Mikey gasp. It made my stomach turn.

And then it happened again, twice, as each of Mikey's shoulders shot out of their sockets.

“Ah! Argh!" He tried to swallow the pain but ended up choking on his water. The cup slipped from his hand and spilled the rest of its guts on the floor. I almost did the same.

The air was poisoned with noise. Squelching. Creaking. Grinding like a ship collapsing at sea. Mikey hunched forward with an arch in his back. I could only imagine what was happening under his shirt, more serpents wriggling beneath the skin. He huffed again and tried to work through the sudden spastic cramps. Another crunch. Another lurch as his neck bobbed forward, thrusting his head towards me at a strenuous angle.

“Mikey!"

“Hnggg…" Mikey's fists clenched, shaking, vibrating. Vines of veins started throbbing along his neck, blood forcing its way to his bones. The harsh sound of fireworks came in a barrage as his shoulders started to broaden. Their vacant joints burst and expanded, and the surrounding skin pulsated from their reformation. Tendons tore. Muscle pulled past its limit. Sweat beaded down his forehead and collected in pools within his expanding clavicle.

He stood alone, helpless. I froze up with him.

“My shoulders….are…locked up…I can't…" His head twisted side to side as he wriggled in desperation, trying in vain to move his arms like normal. With every slow ticking second, Mikey's shoulders jutted out farther and wider than I knew they could. His pecs stretched too, growing sideways even as they seemed to flatten out in the process. The dwindling muscles in his chest visibly twitched and sputtered, their bulk melting away like ice in a fire.

One last snap fixed the problem, and a strangled scream tore through him as both arms wrenched themselves back into place.

Mikey leaned forward, barely hanging onto his breath. The curve of his back was worse now. It made his neck crane unnaturally, pitching his head forward if only by a few awkward degrees. His chest and wingspan had clearly widened, at least four inches on both sides. That doesn't seem like much, but a grown man's shoulders generally don't expand that far in less than a minute.

It all sounds insane, right? That I just witnessed Mikey's skeleton twist in on itself, locking his masculine trunk into a distorted trapezoid? Even I thought I was hallucinating.

Then, he tipped over like a tree. I rushed forward on reflex and braced his fall as best I could. There was no way I could lift him, but I could at least move him back onto his makeshift bed.

Once I got him under his blankets, I had an appropriately timed panic attack, ran in here, and started recording again. Because what the fuck else can I do? At least if I throw up, I'm close to a toilet.

I don't know what just happened. Really, I don't. If I was stupider, I would've thought he just had a stroke or went into cardiac arrest.

God, I wish he had a stroke.

TAPE 7 - [STOP]

TAPE 8 - [PLAY]

Mikey was out cold for half a day. Instead of waiting for him to grow more hair -- or anything else, God forbid -- I started digging around for painkillers. Figured he'd need some when woke up. Maybe I'd pop a few just to deal with everything.

Turns out, we had plenty in the bathroom cabinet. Different bottles, different brands, all sealed tight. Our absent host might have a bit of a problem. Maybe it's the same problem we're having at the moment.

There wasn't much else in way of medical supplies. I ended up putting a wet rag on Mikey's forehead and calling it. So useful, I know.

The last place I thought to look was the closet on the far side of the cabin. Mikey had pulled all the blankets out of there, but I didn't explore beyond that.

Unfortunately, there was no magic portal home. Just some suitcases, a duffle bag, and of course, a wardrobe on wire hangers. Men's and women's clothing. Perfectly clean…but in all different sizes. Even kids' clothes. I haven't opened that door since.

If it wasn't obvious by now, we've stumbled into a murder cabin. I had my suspicions, but now I have proof. I know whose duffle bag that is in the closet.

There's a name on the tag, and shoved inside was a wallet with thirty-five Canadian dollars and a junior driver's license, shining bright as the day it was printed.

The name matched the face…of our dear missing friend, James Braxton.

TAPE 8 - [STOP]

TAPE 9 - [PLAY]

Right around sunset, Mikey woke up and pulled the latest washcloth off his forehead. I'd spent the last two hours lying on the couch, watching over him and fiddling with James' magically reappearing ID.

“Hey," he said as he rose from his spot on the floor. “You couldn't let me have the couch, huh?"

“If you think I can lift your ass up here, dude…" Before I could spit out a joke about his broader shoulders, I made myself swallow it.

He rolled his neck and winced. “How long was I out?"

“It's dinner time."

“Great, I could use a drink."

As he lumbered over to the wine cabinet and dug around for a red, I caught a fresh glimpse of his back. His bulging spine, the way his shoulder blades had swollen and forced their way up against his skin. Even through his shirt, I could make out lines and ridges I shouldn't have been able to see.

“So," I started. “Are we gonna talk about what just happened?"

“I got overheated, might've pulled a muscle."

“Mikey…"

“What do you want me to say, Cass? That my arms just exploded and my back looks like the Andes? I'd really like to focus on literally anything else if we could."

“Anything besides the weird hair growing on your chest?"

“More than just my chest…" he said, scratching at the back of his thigh.

“Gross."

“Sure is. Now help me empty this bottle, will ya?"

Once again, Mikey dismissed my concerns and found peace in a 1969 Bordeaux. I didn't feel like arguing, so I went along with his plan. Our rote routine continued as he flipped on the oven and pulled more deer out of the shed. I offered to cook again, but laboring over a stove helps him clear his head. He's better than me anyway, at least in the kitchen.

While we ate, I could tell he was still bogged down by everything. His focus locked in on his plate, and he was practically shoveling food down without a word. Quiet Mikey is never a good sign. If I wanted to pull him out of that funk, I knew I had to light a fire under his ass. So, I took James' license out of my pocket and slid it across the table. “Looks like we have a guest for dinner."

Mikey glanced down at the card for a moment. Then his brow flew into orbit.

“Holy shit!" he hollered in-between bites. “Where the hell did you find that?"

“The wolves must've dug it up. He's got a duffle bag in the closet."

“Damn. I had a feeling this was a murder cabin."

“Or, what if this is his cabin?"

“Or, or…what if he's the murderer?" Mikey sat back pondering, lost in thought as he swallowed half of a whole flank. He already had another one on his plate.

I was glad to see his gears turning in synch with my own. That's why we work so well together. You might think it's a bad time for us to theorize about the maybe-dead star of our show, but it made things feel normal again. Normal for us, at least.

“So he ran away from home, and he's been living out here this whole time!" he rambled unapologetically with food in his mouth. I reached for another cutlet, but he swiped it out from under me. “Maybe he's communing with nature…and killing anyone who tries to hunt in the forest!"

“Dude, slow down. You really want to choke yourself to death in the murder house?" I appreciated his enthusiasm, but I wasn't in any position to give him the Heimlich.

Of course, he didn't listen and tore off another bite. His fork fell and clattered.

“Ah!"

“What'd I tell you?" I tried not to laugh, thinking he'd bit his tongue or his lip. His hand clasped over his mouth and stared down at the meat like it was still alive. By the looks of things, that could've been true.

That would explain the blood, right?

And the wet sinewy strands that hung like red ropes from his mouth before descending onto his plate? Was the meat that undercooked? No, it was completely brown. But something tall and white had lodged itself in the top side.

A tooth. One of Mikey's canines. Which meant the blood was Mikey's too.

“Jesus, dude," I muttered as he grabbed at the tethers and pulled, snapping the raw tissue off his gum line with a grunt of pain. Mikey wiped his hands on a rag then pressed it to his bleeding mouth. He was almost panting.

I was about to grab a fresh towel, but then he started groaning like before. “Goddamnit…it's like someone's stabbing me in the face…" His eyes slammed shut while his jaw hung agape, lips pulled back in a forced snarl. When the white cotton turned red, he tossed it aside. No towel in the universe could help him now as a slog of sick squelching sounds boiled up inside his mouth.

They came out together. Four new teeth. Their larger, sharper needle tips plowed through his dental roots.

“Ahhhh!" He couldn't hold back anymore as spit and blood and parts of his gums splattered onto the plate, along with three old canines that had broken into pieces. If we were filming a horror movie, this would've been the key shot. Crimson rushing down his chin. Thick ivory fangs crunching their way between his flatter teeth. In a sick way, I wish we had the footage. This would sound less insane on camera.

He huffed and puffed as his elbows dug into the table for support. Once I shook off the shellshock, I finally got a clean rag from the drawer.

“Holy fuck, Mikey…" I cursed as I dabbed away the mess on his chin.

“I'm…I'm alright."

“No, you're not! What the hell is happening to you?"

“Is that rhetorical?"

“We need to get you help."

“Look outside, Cass. We're stuck here unless James Fucking Braxton comes riding in on a snowplow."

“I'll hike back to the road and post an SOS. Make a smoke signal. I don't know, do anything besides sit here and watch you bleed to death!"

“I'm not letting you run off in the middle of nowhere."

“You never let me do anything, Mikey! That's the problem."

“What's that supposed to mean?"

“It means you shouldn't be here!" Regret instantly whipped at my back. I know that one stung. But I kind of meant it. “You just…you didn't have come with me…."

Mouth pursed around his new canines, he stood up and emptied his plate into the trash, rotten teeth and all. “If I wasn't here, then this could be happening to you. And I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

The saucer rattled in the sink as Mikey stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door. Muffled water rushed out as he spit into the drain.

I pushed my plate aside, appetite dead and gone.

Hell, my head's still reeling now. Here I am thinking through every possible explanation, while Mikey's digging his head into the snow. He isn't even trying. And I'm just…

…

Maybe he's right. Maybe it's pointless. It's just the two of us stuck here.

Trapped together in a stupid wooden box, buried in the blizzard.

Like a goddamn coffin.

TAPE 9 - [STOP]

TAPE 10 - [PLAY]

I think we're in hell.

That might sound obvious from yesterday's impromptu dental surgery, but there's more going on than Mikey's late-blooming growth spurt. Someone is fucking with us.

We woke up around the same time, not saying a word to each other until lunch. That's how we always move on from disagreements. Shut the fuck up, then go eat.

While Mikey chopped ice in the freezer, I spent the morning trying to find our location on the map. I was smart enough to keep it shoved in my jacket, at least. Just wish I put some granola bars in there too. Turns out there are only so many ways to cook a deer, even with Mikey's talents.

I splayed the foldout on the kitchen table and traced our path up from Vermont. We were headed west on Route 123, following the red marker trail we drew the night before. Then we would've merged onto the 223 or 133. Regardless of what Mikey thought, they both went to the same place.

I found the 123 easily. But our red line was gone. The map didn't have any stray marks, period. In fact, even though we'd scrunched it up however many times on the trip, there wasn't a single crease in the paper that wasn't made through manufacturing. It looked brand new.

Either someone swapped the map that's been buried in my pocket…or somehow, in a display of terrifying power, they managed to erase a red Sharpie.

It pissed me off either way. I wanted to scream, but…

“Shit!" Mikey cursed as he kicked down the door and hobbled over to the couch, hands clutching his head like it was about to fly off. After last night's insanity, I already feared the worst.

“Let me see."

Cloth at the ready, I plopped down next to him and tried to pull his arms out of the way. His jaw clenched. He didn't want to move his hands, but I forced my way in.

I'd hoped he just smacked his head or, honestly, that he was attacked by a wolf. That would've been less of a problem. Instead, there was something jagged lodged in the top of his scalp. Two things, actually.

“How do you feel?" I asked before realizing how dumb a question it was. His fingers were copper colored and sopping wet. Mine were too as I pulled apart his crimson-stained hair.

“Like my skull's fucking...splitting."

That was a weirdly accurate description. As I wiped away some of the caked-up blood, I saw cracks forming in his skin, weaving between the roots of his hair. Fissures that grew longer and tore wider as the two strange, sharp shapes forced their way up from his skull. The two tips convened into singular points just as sharp as his new canines. But these weren't as white.

They were pitch black. Beneath the red mess, I mean. Thick and edged like two shards of coal cut out of a mine. I got the bright idea to pinch one between my fingers and pull it like a loose tooth.

“Stop, Cass! Jesus Christ!"

Sorry, that was a dumb of me. I couldn't remove them. I shouldn't have tried. They were sliding out on their own anyway. Two glistening shards, nearly an inch long and climbing. Scarlet streams trailed down their lengths, as if their obsidian surface was too smooth to cling to. Mikey's quiet whimpers followed every step of the way.

I dabbed the beads off his forehead before they could drip down into his eyes. That's all I could do.

After a few agonizing minutes, the new additions to Mikey's crown settled into place. Their tips curled back at a crude angle, suspended about two inches over his scalp. However long that is in metric, you do the math.

We both took a deep breath and fell back into the couch. There was still a pile of frayed skin and loose hairs on his head, but I wasn't going to poke around there again. I just grabbed some pain pills and water before anything else could shoot out of him.

“Did it just, like, start suddenly?"

“Pretty much," he said as he popped the Aspirin. “I carved half a pound out of meat off when my head just exploded."

That's when I thought about the meat. The mountain of frozen venison taking up space out in the shed. That's all we've been eating. That's all we could eat. We were going to make stew for lunch. Or, at least try to. It made me wonder…

“Did you…uh…eat any of it?"

“It's frozen solid."

“I know, I just…" I didn't want to say it. “Are you sure it's all…deer meat?"

“We had a saying in Scouts, Cass. Too small for bear, too big for hare."

“Then what about…uh…"

Mikey blinked for a second. Two seconds. Three. Then his eyes rolled. He knew exactly where my mind was at. “Oh my God, do you think I'd let you eat human meat? You think that's James Braxton sealed up in the freezer bags?"

“Not him, but --“

He laughed. Hard. Like he didn't just grow, let's be honest, fucking horns. I almost laughed too, but I couldn't purge the paranoia from my mind.

“If it makes you feel better, the rib counts are off. It looks like deer, and it tastes like deer. I actually wish we had more variety." Mikey gripped the arm of the couch and pushed himself up. “Speaking of, it's past lunchtime and I left the cuts out in the shed."

“Just take it easy for a minute. They're not going anywhere."

“I'm fine. My head's getting numb already."

“That's probably from the blood loss."

He ignored me and walked off to the bathroom. Obviously, I didn't think he was licking frozen meat like a snow cone. But something had to be causing all this, right? Like a virus, or a parasite? What was it in Resident Evil?

The sink started running, and he let out a few grunts while washing off his scalp. “What are these supposed to be, deer horns?"

“I don't know. Antlers aren't usually black, are they?" There were only so many animals with horns that dark and glossy. I glanced up at the buck mounted by the door. For sure, brown antlers. Was it always missing an eye, though?

Mikey came back out, hair wet and tussled more than usual. Clearly, he was trying to hide the nubs. “I know I shouldn't mix Aspirin and wine but…"

“I guess I'll grab a bottle."

“Make it two?"

We drank through three with lunch, watching the dreadful snowfall and speculating about the many ways James Braxton may kill us in our sleep. Even as we laughed drunkenly and pitched ideas for the show's season arc, I felt anxious just sitting around, waiting for the next moment Mikey would cramp up and spit blood into the sink. Wondering how long he could endure it all.

The weather's not letting up anytime soon, which means we're trapped.

Sitting ducks.

And what do deer and ducks have in common?

Bang. Bang.

TAPE 10 - [STOP]

TAPE 11 - [PLAY]

I still think it's the meat. Whatever's inside it, it's causing something insane to happen to Mikey. That's the only lead I have. The only thing that might make sense.

We were eating dinner, and Mikey started shifting around in his seat again.

“You alright?" I asked, looking up from my plate.

“Yeah, think it's just more hair sprouting on my ass."

“More?"

“It's already like a cornfield." He shrugged and wiggled around like a snake. It was odd how casually we were talking about this, but that's what Mikey wanted. Fake normal. “Alright, when are you gonna help me cut off these horns?"

“Aren't they, like, attached to your skull?"

“For deer they are. But I'm not a deer yet so…"

“What? You think you're becoming a deer?"

“I'd rather take a buck than a moose. Moose are assholes."

“Nobody gets how big they are in real life."

“We didn't even see one this trip. Kind of a letdown."

“Yeah, you could've made some friends finally."

Mikey pointed at me with his fork. “Let me know if you start growing a rack."

I looked down at my chest, then back to him, and crossed my arms.

He started blushing. “Horns. You know I meant horns!"

I busted up laughing. He followed suit. It felt normal. Almost genuine. I know that, at the very least, we'll have always something to talk about while we wither away in an abandoned murder shack.

Then his fists slammed down on the table, fork in a death grip. He arched forward in his chair. His whole face tensed up.

“Hnngh…"

“What, Mikey? What's happening?" I moved to his side of the table. His shoulder shuddered in my hand.

“My ass…above my hips…."

Nerves shook my hands like an earthquake, but I tried to steady them as I reached through the open back of the chair and lifted his shirt. The area above his waistband was hot pink and swollen. Sweat dripped down his back, forming a river out of his spine. Each vertebra had bulged up under the skin, but it was the lowest ones that were throbbing. Growing.

I could only imagine what was happening in there, where bone was somehow stretching, pushing its way through muscle and blood. Eventually, something pushed too far.

A hot wet crunch shot off through the cabin. It could've torn another hole through Mikey's skin, but it didn't. The pain just left him screaming. Like I thought, another set of bones was rising up beneath the skin. They kept growing and expanding and lengthening and it wasn't long before there was a bump of flesh jutting out from his lower back. Like an extra finger peeking out over his waistband.

A couple more hard snaps made the bump bigger. Not really thicker, but longer. I pulled his shorts down a bit to help.

“Shit…" he moaned, flexing his back and twisting about to relieve the pressure. As he wriggled more and more, the stump started moving too. It looked kind of like a worm now. “It's like I'm being stretched out or something."

Same as before, his feeling was almost too accurate. A fleshy, bony strand had latched onto him, and it had no intention of letting go. The brown hairs around his hips were already sprouting at the base of this thing. And it wasn't just skin and bone plumping up. There was fat, and muscle tissue, and nerve endings, everything needed for a movable…

Well, I didn't want to say the T-word. It would've freaked him out worse. God knows I was already nauseous. But there's no point in denying it when the thing's inches away from your face.

When his tail finished thickening and growing, for now, it was only half a foot long and covered in a bushel of chocolate brown. Kind of amazing how something so short could cause a guy so much pain. Then, it started twitching. That was terrifying.

Mikey shot up and hoofed it to the bathroom. The door whipped shut.

Minutes passed. Maybe he fell in, I wondered. I was hoping we could joke about his new…growth. Laugh it off like earlier. But I guess that was asking too much, too soon.

Without a word, he came back out with the thing shoved down beneath his waistband and finished his dinner. I didn't know what to say either.

This is the second time it's happened while we were eating. I don't know why. And I don't know why it's not happening to me. Maybe it works faster on men, who knows? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

But it's not like we have access to a vegetable garden in the middle of a blizzard. A weeks-long blizzard, at this point. So, unless we can get by on wine and spice powder, we don't have room to be picky.

Guess that means we're fucked.

TAPE 11 - [STOP]

TAPE 14 - [PLAY]

I already take back what I said about the meat. It's been a few days since the whole “tail fiasco," and despite several hearty meals, Mikey hadn't changed at all. Until today.

We were in the middle of Texas Hold 'em, waiting for a pot to boil. Whoever lost had to do the dishes that night. If I didn't know better, I'd say he threw the first two hands.

In between rounds, Mikey went to the bathroom and changed into some loose-fitting shorts stolen from the closet. We've been raiding the landlord's wardrobe for a while now. They're apparently a big fan of sweats and the Denver Broncos. Now, I was too. When my opponent came back to the table, I noticed that he finally pulled the waistband down below his new appendage. It was probably too painful to keep stuffed in his clothes.

“So," I steeled myself and picked up a fresh hand. “What's it like having a tail?"

“For real?" He cocked a brow at me. I knew he didn't want to discuss his “problem," but I still think normalizing it works better than ignoring it. His tail is literally too big to ignore.

“Dude, you know you'd ask me the same thing."

He huffed. I was right, of course. “It's annoying. My pants keep falling down."

“If it grows any longer, you're gonna get it caught in doors."

“Heh. Any longer, and I'm cutting it off."

“You're on your own for that one." I've learned to stomach a lot of gruesome stuff over the years, but I draw the line at self-mutilation. And no, I don't consider his condition self-inflicted. Mikey isn't to blame for what's happening. No more than I am.

Just when I was about to fold, a sharp chucking sound broke the flow of our game. It was fast, like a scythe cutting through a cornfield, and a little wet too. Why did it always sound wet?

Something warm lathered my fingers.

I set my cards facedown and saw the red spatter covering their backs, dripping onto my skin. My hands turned over. Did something happen to them? Was I…

Then I looked at Mikey. His cards were stained too. Worse than mine. His trembling hands clenched them for dear life as blood dribbled down his wrists. In a rather sudden change, five of his fingertips capped off half an inch of black bone. Just like the nubby horns hiding under his hair.

His eyes shut tight, his sharpest teeth bared. He was trying to hold it in again.

Another shucking noise. Another stifled groan. The sharp matter shot out from his other hand like a switchblade. He dropped his cards as each digit twitched and spasmed, velvet drops falling like rain.

I got up and brought him a washrag. That's my new job. Towel girl.

Mikey pressed his palms into the table as the cold shrapnel forced its way out of his thumbs next. It must've been torturous. The feeling of thorns shoving their way out of your cuticles and tearing away at the nail.

Still, he refused to yell. To cry. He was fighting it as best he could.

The last of the ebony bones came to a head about half an inch from his fingertips. Two of his old nails still clung to the skin by little threads. Out of frustration, he tore them off entirely.

Our table looked like a crime scene. A poker game ending in bloodshed. Nobody wins.

Mikey curled his fingers, staring blankly at the claws that now scarred his hands. I didn't know what to say either. His changes were always so violent, they were becoming routine. Almost mind-numbing. Except this time, they couldn't even wait until dinner.

The stove timer dinged, but the pot had already boiled over.

TAPE 14 - [STOP]

TAPE 15 - [PLAY]

Mikey wasn't in a great mood this morning, probably on account of his hands starting to change. I could tell because when I woke up, he was already drinking out of the bottle. Usually, he only did that when we got notes back from a studio. When some film exec was going to massacre one of our kids again.

I knew he was hell-bent on ignoring this at first, but if he's just planning to drink himself to death, I'm pretty sure that's worse. The least I could do was try to keep his spirits up.

“Hey chef," I said as I rolled off the couch. “What's for breakfast?"

His claws clinked against the bottle of Port. “Grab a glass…"

“Man, how many bottles are left in there?"

“Enough."

“Ok, well…not sure that's a proper meal. We gotta keep our strength up, right? You're starting to --"

Mikey squinted, waiting for me to finish that thought. I shut my mouth, though. Maybe he didn't realize how thin he was getting. Why the hell should I bring that up?

He sighed. “Unless you want venison three times a day, it's probably best if we hold off till lunch."

“Yeah, you're right…so what is on the lunch menu?"

“Cass…"

“I bet you could dice up the meat real easy with those claws of yours."

His head tilted like a confused dog at a vet exam. But eventually, he put the bottle down. “My claws, huh?" he muttered, inspecting his fingers. Without all the gore, they had a certain shine to them. Like fresh knives on a cutting board.

“And you said there's plenty of wine in the cabinet, so…"

“You know there's a difference between cooking wine and the drinking kind, right?"

I totally did. Totally.

“Yeah, but I'm sure you could make it work."

“Uh huh…"

He saw right through me. But whenever I pull the “please cook for Cass" card, he just can't resist the call.

Mikey forced a smile and got to his feet. It could've been all wine that made him agreeable, but I'll take every win I can get. “Alright, but if this tastes like ass, it's on you this time."

Spoiler alert: It was amazing. But either way, I gladly accept the responsibility.

I set the table and took a seat, eagerly awaiting our special lunch. Once in a while, I'd walk over and admire his process. I was right. He could cut through meat like water.

The best part was, even after dinner, nothing else changed on him. At least, not physically. While he chopped away on the counter, his tail was wagging the whole time. I don't think he realized.

It was kind of cute. In a fucked up, sort of way.

TAPE 15 - [STOP]

TAPE 16 - [PLAY]

You're really gonna make me record this?

“I want it on record, Cass."

I only have so much storage on this thing.

“It's important."

Fine.

“Okay. I, Michael Page, of sound mind and kind of sound body…hereby declare…that cryptids are real! And I bet you, Cassandra Pryce, fifty American dollars that we will see one before we get home. Do you agree to these terms?"

I hate when you call me “Cassandra." It's like a slur.

“Do you agree, Cassandra?"

I do, oh my God.

“Then let us toast! To the hunt!"

Dude, I'm cutting you off.

“You're scared of losing."

No, I just think it's stupid. All I said was that we need to get you to a doctor.

“And what's a doctor gonna do about the horns, put a Band-Aid on them? We gotta find a

crypto --"

You're not a cryptid! And every time we interview a “cryptozoologist," they show us blurry photos of a chipmunk and tell us that the Earth's flat. They have no idea what they're talking about because cryptids aren't real. There's no proof for any of it.

“That's what makes them cryptids. You gotta believe in them."

Then anything can be a cryptid. Santa Clause. The Toothfairy. Want to know what I read? The “British big cat" is registered as a cryptid, and it's a fucking puma.

“Hey, we can't all be Mothman."

I'm sorry, we? I thought you were a deer. We settled on “deer."

“Deer don't have claws and fangs."

Some of them have fangs.

“I don't know, Cass. I think I feel another head growing…"

Oh, okay! Fine then. You're a cryptid. I'm a cryptid. This whole place is a cryptid. And I'm going to take a shot every time I say --

“Well, that would mean I win the bet so..."

No, no! I was being sarcastic.

“Ah, yes. I'll be remembered forever in the anals of history!"

It's annals.

“Like Loch Nessie, Big Foot, and the Blue Yeti. I'm honored!"

Jesus Christ.

“And to commemorate my glorious initiation, I'm grabbing another bottle. Sauvignon blanc, the drink of cryptid kings!"

…

Well, I'm glad he's in a better mood. Freaking cryptids, though? C'mon. Even if they were real -- which they're not, I won't give the chemtrail crowd any slack -- is this seriously how they're made? Little Nessie just falls in a lake one day and, whoops, she's got a neck like a brontosaurus? Please. You don't turn into a monster for no reason.

And even if you did, then cryptids aren't very special, are they? There are hundreds of urban legends around the world, which means it could probably happen to anyone. To me.

To James...Mikey…

“What was that? I can't hear you over the sound of my wallet getting fatter."

It's nothing! Get me a clean glass, champ.

TAPE 16 - [STOP]

TAPE 18 - [PLAY]

There was this scratching in the middle of the night. Like rustling. Shaking. Back in the kitchen, in the darkness.

I held my breath listening. Crackling. Not like bone this time. But crunching nonetheless.

I looked down at Mikey. But he was gone, his blanket cot unfurled.

My stomach turned. I held my breath. Ready to grab a fire poker or…

I glanced up at the mantle. Then the rifle hanging above it. Who knows if it was loaded or not.

Slowly, I sat up and reached for the light switch by the door. If I needed the gun, it was just three feet away. I could make it before a bear mauled me, right?

I flicked on the wall lamp.

“Mikey?"

There he was, alone in the kitchen, bent over the trashcan in the corner.

“Oh, hey."

“What are you doing?"

“I dropped my ring in the bag. I was trying to take the trash out." He pulled his hand out of the garbage, and it was unusually naked. I thought I was dreaming again.

“You had to do that now?"

“It's pretty rank. Don't you smell it?"

Not from the living room, but sure, I guess if you were shoving your face inside it.

“Ok. Can you keep it down?"

“Yeah. Sorry, Cass."

I killed the light and pulled the blanket back up to my chin. All I could smell was the wood burning in the fireplace. Either Mikey's sense of smell had increased tenfold, or he was lying.

Hate to say it, but I hope it's the first option.

TAPE 18 - [STOP]

TAPE 20 - [PLAY]

There was a dead deer outside our window this morning. I say “our window" like we own the place, but we might as well since the cabin owner, or James, or the serial killer, is still MIA. Are squatter's rights a thing in Canada?

I asked Mikey about the fresh cadaver, and he said it was probably left by a bear or some wolves. I guess that's possible, even if we haven't seen any wildlife since that goddamn deer in the road.

The thought slipped my mind until Mikey made steaks again for dinner. Only this time, he prepared two separate stacks. One for each of us. He knows I like mine medium-well, and he usually goes for medium rare.

Except his weren't rare. They were barely cooked. A little pool of juices sat at the bottom of the platter. I mean there's tartar, and then there's tapeworm city. But I guess that didn't matter since he was tearing through them so fast.

“Guess you're not tired of venison, after all?" This new appetite of his was going to run our deer supply into the ground. “How are we doing on food, anyway?"

“Good," he answered mid-bite. “And we can always get more so..."

“What happened to not going out in the storm?"

“In the forest, back behind the shed. I heard deer running by. They can't be far."

“Did you hear anything else out there? Like an ambulance or…" I was joking, but Mikey paused for a moment. He even stopped shoveling food off his plate, which was honestly a miracle. His mouth opened, but he hesitated. “Mikey, what?"

I didn't get an answer. All I heard was the shucking sound again. Slick and tense. This time it was muffled and came from under the table. His face contorted.

I could guess what was happening. Unfortunately, it's a song-and-dance that we've really over-rehearsed. Send in the rags, where are the rags?

Sweat on his brow already, Mikey pushed his chair back and desperately tried to steady his shaking hands. I took a knee next to him as he brought a socked foot into his lap. The jagged grey toe was turning crimson fast.

“Not again…" he muttered, pulling off the fabric.

It was like tearing open a pack of raw meat and dropping it into a frying pan. A ground-up mess of skin and nails spilled out of his ruined sock and onto the floorboards. Jet-black talons had shot out of his flesh just as violently as the last batch, but with one big difference. There were only three blades jutting out from his foot. His third and fifth toes had been spared for whatever reason, even though their nails peeled off too. The claws he did grow were bigger this time. Sharper too.

Mikey pulled off his other sock just in time as another set burst forth, exploding his toenails into shrapnel. The few remaining fragments clung to the cuticles with dying threads of skin. In total, six dark knives dangled from his feet. Claws, talons, whatever you want to call them, they were dangerous and designed for tearing shit apart. Mikey's own flesh was no exception.

When the signature crackling started, I squeezed Mikey's hand in support. He nearly broke my fingers in his grip. That's not an exaggeration, but I could endure it. The pain he felt couldn't compare. A pair of violent snaps sang out, almost in synch, as I watched his big toes jerk themselves out to the side and break free from their sockets. His yelp was shrill like a kicked coyote.

“Ah! Fuck!" Mikey yipped as he grabbed his foot in desperation. “They're broken! I think they're broken."

Broken or dislocated, it didn't matter. Their new, twisted angles were gut-wrenching to see. The rebelling digits and savage claws started pulling inward, migrating up and around to the sides of his feet. Both toes twitched along the way until they got stuck at a weird spot halfway along his instep. Almost like a monkey's paw, but without the dexterity.

When his feet stopped destroying themselves, he sat in silence, breathing through his teeth. I took a moment to clean up the pile of viscera beneath him.

“What the fuck…it feels so different…." He winced as he ran his fingers along his big toe, which didn't look quite as big as it used to. The joint bulged up in an ugly way, its skin swollen and cherry red. It seemed like his toe didn't quite belong there. Obviously, it didn't, but I got the feeling that it wouldn't stay there forever.

I kept those thoughts to myself as I handed him a fresh rag.

With both feet back on the floor, Mikey stood up and tried to walk. Two steps sent him stumbling, and I barely caught him in time. His balance was shot. Turns out, you don't realize how much your toes do until you're missing two of them. We hobbled over to the couch together, since putting pressure on the ball of his foot also hurt too much. I begrudgingly ignored the clicks of his claws on the hardwood floor.

Stunned into silence, he swung his legs up on the couch and stared out at the perpetual storm. He wouldn't look at me the rest of the night. I guess he was embarrassed.

So I'm sleeping in his spot on the floor, at least until he can walk again. Like I said, it probably won't be a long wait.

TAPE 20 - [STOP]

TAPE 22 - [PLAY]

Mikey was muttering in his sleep again. I thought he was about to go sleepwalking like before, but I guess his subconscious knew not to since his feet were still messed up.

“Mikey?" I whispered.

No reply. Just more grumbling.

I crawled over and watched his chest shudder with each breath. As much as I hoped nothing was subtly changing in his sleep, that probably wasn't the case. Not that I could tell just by looking at him.

The horns on his head looked a little bigger than when they first grew in, but they've been growing for a while now. Now they were starting to curve around in a U-shape, kind of like a ram or a buffalo's.

The claws on his hands were longer now too. I guess the growth was subtle enough to go unnoticed. Or he did notice and didn't say anything.

“Your turn."

That was the first time I made out the words. He repeated them, slurred and quiet.

“Your turn…Your turn…Your turn."

I crawled to the bathroom with the recorder. I'm going to keep it running tonight.

I don't think I can sleep anyway.

…

Fuck, man.

TAPE 22 - [STOP]

TAPE 23 - [PLAY]

I awoke to Mikey calling my name. Apparently, I could fall asleep in the tub after all.

He tried standing up, but I rushed over before his claws could touch the ground and helped him back to the bathroom.

“Did you sleep in here?"

“Um, yeah. Girl stuff…"

“Oh. Okay."

That always shut him up.

After he was propped up on the couch again, I tossed a fresh log on the fire and got to work making breakfast. And although I didn't love it, I cooked Mikey's well below the recommended temperature. Call me an enabler.

Mikey was quiet for a long while, just poking his fork at his plate. His mood's been up and down lately, but I guess that's to be expected. I'd be stressed too if I started going Teen Wolf at thirty-two. And he is more wolf-like than deer at this point. Minus the horns.

It took a glass of pinot noir for him to finally open his mouth.

“I'm sorry, Cass."

“Nah, it's cool. I don't mind the floor." That was a lie. The bathtub made a better bed. How has he been sleeping on the ground for so long?

“No, I mean…for everything. This whole fucking nightmare."

“Dude," I said, looking him dead in the eye. “I'm the one who brought us out here trying to beat a storm."

“But I should've stopped you. I wanted to."

“C'mon, that is the worst thing you could've done. I wouldn't have listened, and then I'd just be stuck out here with some random dude who won't put up with all my bullshit."

“Yeah, I guess someone has to," he laughed as he finally took a bit of his bloody breakfast. “You're worth it though."

My face flushed a little. “Well, hey, we've been through worse shit, right? Remember San Antonio on New Year's?"

“New Year's…"

“San Antonio. You fell in the sewer and broke your arm."

“…I did?"

“The camera crew called you the Ninja Turtle for the rest of the season."

“Ninja Turtle?"

“Mikey? Cowabunga, dude?"

“Oh. Right. That was…on New Year's."

It didn't seem like a big deal, but I know Mikey. He'd never forget that night. He never forgets any of our shitty old documentaries or the weird hostels we shack up in or the widows and their husband-opossums. My stomach started to twist, and every worst-case scenario flew through my head. Was it the stress making him forgetful? Maybe he got a brainworm from the undercooked meat? Or worse…

I was about to give him a full-blown memory test.

Then the air split with the sounds of breaking branches. Mikey dropped his plate, and the half-chewed breakfast scattered across the floor.

“Fuck, my hands!" He held up his arms, begging them to stay human. No luck. A few nasty cracks and his little black claws weren't so little anymore. Thicker, rounder, visibly longer. But no blood this time. Like his hands were used to them by now, even if Mikey wasn't.

At first, I thought it was just the enlarged claws that made his fingers look thinner, but the fat was practically melting off the bone. Each fingertip snapped forward at a crippling pace. His knuckles gnarled, their tendons bulging up until bristles of bronze smothered them entirely. Chestnut waves drenched his arms, and that sandier shade of hair, or fur or whatever, wrapped around his wrists like sweatbands.

While Mikey's fingers seized and shriveled into twigs, his arms stretched like poison roots. He couldn't stop them shaking. Their biceps and triceps fired off with no direction other than to grow.

“Help, Cass…help…"

He begged for relief any way he could get it. Should I grab the pills, I thought. Maybe the wine? More stupid rags to throw on his head? It all seemed useless. How could I stop his arms from growing? They reached well past his knees now. Gangly was the word for it. The muscles he'd built from years of lugging equipment seemed to squash and stretch out of existence. All the crackling roared like fire beneath his skin.

“What do I do, Mikey? I don't know what to do!"

“God, help me!"

He screamed along with the pounding wind outside, his limbs flailing in their own vortex of agony. With an accidental flick of the wrist, Mikey sent his commemorative ring flying. I watched it land with a heavy plunk on the floor, the band too big now to fit even his thumb.

“No more…stop…" he whimpered as his mangled hands gripped the couch, tearing holes into the cushion. Then like an avalanche, the violent soundscape migrated down to his feet, which were still stuck in a half-human purgatory. His toes curled in defiance. He dug his heels into the floor.

Stretching was the name of the game today, and Mikey's feet grew more shoe sizes than a basketball star. The forest of little bones that made up his feet began to grind together, growing longer and stronger with each audible break. What were once bundles of sprigs twisted themselves into tall, solid planks. Each muscle tore, each tendon snapped, until his soles were double, no triple, their original length.

“Shit…my feet feel broken again. They're all…crunched up…damn it…" The pain seemed worse than last time, and Mikey couldn't hold back the tears anymore. He kicked out wildly as the balls of his feet widened and splayed, creating this weird gap between the third and fourth toes. I suddenly learned why he only had three claws on each foot.

Like wax on a candelabra, his third and fifth toes started melting with their neighbors. Flesh squeezed together, closing the gaps, as the skin and fat congealed in a gross syrupy blend. If you've ever glued your fingers together with Elmer's, you get what I mean.

While half of his toes vanished, both of his arches flattened out of existence. Skin curdled and constricted along the bottoms of his feet until they looked more like forelegs than anything else. It didn't help that his shriveling big toes resumed their climb up the mountain of his feet. Eventually, the wandering claws found their homes, soldering themselves to Mikey's ankles.

“I can't move them…I can't…" he whimpered, glaring down at his freshly made dewclaws. They couldn't even twitch anymore. The joints simply didn't exist.

Flat on the floor, Mikey's feet looked totally alien. Long and unwieldy, wide at the front, each with two big pronged claws and a huge gap between them. His heels had rounded and thinned like the hock of a horse, the Achilles tendons swelling to support the additional weight. If the cumbersome length of his arches made it hard to walk flat, the curve of his heels made it impossible.

“Fuck, Mikey…"

Suddenly, his heels were off the ground again. Mikey's shins -- I guess to compensate for the size of his feet -- started to shrink, even as his thigh muscles were swelling up. His legs spread wide, and his hamstrings and quads bulked up into thick, sweltering logs. I helped pull off his gym shorts before he could burst through them Hulk-style. Getting the elastic over his huge feet was the hardest part.

“Stupid…fucking…shorts!" he shouted through the pain.

I tossed the fabric aside, but a deafening crunch made him yelp again. His disfigured legs shot up and rocked him forward, pelvis snapping like a broken rope. Mikey braced for the fall, but on instinct, he caught himself on all fours.

His elongated feet trembled as he stood up on his tiptoes for the first time. Both heels towered over the floor, never to touch it again. At that moment, Mikey really started to look like an animal. Tufts of fur were already sprouting around his ankles and soles. But whatever he was becoming…it wasn't a deer.

I pushed my chair out of the way and let him crawl back to the quilt pile, where he fell onto his side, defeated. His legs twitched a few more times before they finally came to rest.

While Mikey recovered, I cleaned up the food and the wine and the blood, and I pocketed our rings for safekeeping. Then I started crying too. For the first time since all this began.

I want to help him. I always have. But we can't delay the inevitable, can we? This thing comes in waves and bulldozes us. We can endure it, sure. Put up a brave face and joke about his back hair and his weird little goat horns. But we can't stop it. We can't escape it. We can't do anything.

This cabin is cursed.

It doesn't have an owner. Because it can't be controlled.

It'll swallow us both in one way, shape, or form.

Just like it swallowed James Braxton. And everyone else.

TAPE 23 - [STOP]

TAPE 24 - [PLAY]

A violent thump jolted me up at dawn. I whipped my head over to the kitchen, and there was Mikey slumped over on the floor. His slender fingers gripped the table as he tried to pull himself back up. The claws on his toes scraped desperately for traction. He wasn't used to walking on his new legs yet.

“Mikey, stop," I urged, swinging my legs off the couch as I watched him struggle. He'd removed his tank top, revealing a wave of cream-colored stripes that had formed on his back. All he had on were the boxers hanging loosely from his hips. They would've fallen off completely if not for his swollen thighs.

“I gotta…make breakfast."

“I'll take care of it, just wait!"

“Let me do this, Cass!"

Mikey wasn't much of a shouter. And when he did, his voice didn't sound that rough. Guttural. Echoing through the cabin like a phantom's call. I sank back into the couch as he threw down a pot and crossed over to the front door. Every footfall was stubborn and pounding now, his taloned feet hanging heavy off his legs like guillotines ready to drop.

He vanished into the snow.

I sat in silence. It's that awkward anticipation, like when your parents yell at you and you're anxiously waiting on punishment. My eyes drifted to Mikey's discarded shirt by the fireplace. Claw marks split the side and shoulder straps. Now it was just another rag for me to wipe up blood with.

Minutes passed. Outside, the storm continued as usual. I realized it was the crack of dawn. Why was Mikey up so early? I turned back to the doorway, but my attention was drawn to the buck looming overhead. It's still missing an eye. And now its nose is gone. There's a black hole in the bone where taxidermy flesh once sat.

Maybe Mikey broke it for some reason? His limbs were long enough to reach now.

I didn't bother asking when he returned with bricks of frozen meat -- because he immediately slammed them against the floor. Guess that's one way to break them up.

Without explanation, he collected the jagged chunks and lumbered back to the oven. But the range dials were giving him trouble. Mikey's long fingers and claws had ruined his dexterity. He couldn't even ignite the burners.

“Fuck!" His fist crashed down on the stovetop before he stumbled back and tripped over his feet. A frustrated bray bounced off the walls. He landed on his tail.

“Goddamnit!" Mikey reached back to untwist his extra limb. And when he felt just how much fur had grown on it, he pulled in his massive legs and curled up into a ball.

He was crying.

I went over and wrapped my arms around his wide, lanky frame. It was the first time I felt his fur. I couldn't believe how soft it was. Smooth too, like it was just groomed.

“I'm sorry, Cass. I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm…I don't…"

“Mikey, for once, please let me take care of things." Take care of you. That's what I wanted to say, but I didn't.

While I flicked on the burner, Mikey trudged back to the blanket mound and lay down again with a resigned sigh. I don't think he realized, but he was walking on all fours again.

TAPE 24 - [STOP]

TAPE 26 - [PLAY]

I'm not a praying girl, but for once, I am holding out hope. The sky will clear any day now, we'll walk out in the sun, find the nearest road, and Mikey will suddenly be back to normal. Flat on his heels, not an inch of fur in sight. That's my hope. Unfortunately, we're so far away from that hope, that it's on another goddamn planet.

As of this morning, the scruff around Mikey's neck and shoulders has bloomed into thick, ashen puffs. It looks like he's sporting a grey mink coat, but the bottom half got chopped off. So, it's a mink scarf, I guess. Either way, Mikey had to pull scraps out of it during breakfast. I didn't say anything when he ate them after.

Honestly, I wasn't sure how he'd react. His mood's been swinging like a pendulum lately. The kind that hangs over you and gets lower and lower until it splits you open.

There's a lot of things I don't mention out loud. For example, he's really struggling with silverware nowadays. No matter which way he holds the handle, his fork keeps slipping through his fingers. I can tell he wants to eat with his hands, or maybe lap at the plate like a dog, but he's resisting the urge for me. For himself too, hopefully.

But seeing him fumble with his food did spark an idea. Call it a new lead. Maybe it wasn't the meal, but how he ate it. Like, it was his animal behavior that was triggering things. His changes. His temperament. His forgetfulness.

And so, in a brilliant, two-bird-killing move, I fished out a pen and paper from one of the drawers and sat Mikey down at the table. Not sat, really. He just stood there and kind of hunched over. Given how his legs bent now, he wasn't much for sitting.

“Do we really have to do this?"

“It's fine, just start with your name."

His lips pursed into a pout. Even if he wasn't impaired, Mikey hated writing about himself. So naturally, I asked him to draft his bio for the show pitch. I thought it'd be a great way to get him used to his hands and to keep his brain active. And we actually do need the bio for studio calls.

That's right. We came here to film a TV pilot, remember? I nearly forgot too.

Despite his reservations and dropping the pen multiple times, he finally got something scribbled on the page. Even if it was one word. Even if…

“You forgot the C."

We both cocked our heads. I blinked to make sure I wasn't crazy.

M-I-H-A-E-L

Mikey leaned down more.

“Wait, I did?"

“Uh, yeah."

I had him write it again. And again. Eventually, the letters started jumbling.

M I H E A L

I M H E A L

I H M E A L

I decided not to deduct points for spelling, and we moved on to basic information. Things went downhill from there.

He could recall where he was born and where the two of us met, at least. But he was struggling with when he was born. When we went to Peru. Even what year it is now. Maybe we should've tried math?

One massive thud ruined our lesson plan.

Before I could look out the window, Mikey's head spun to the doorway and he was halfway through it.

“Mikey!"

I had to follow him. Considering his memory problems, he might just run off into the woods and never come back.

Fortunately, he didn't go far.

Unfortunately, there was another corpse outside the house.

This time, it wasn't a deer. I think. I don't know what it was. It was missing its head. And its limbs. And there was a gaping hole in its chest cavity.

All the organs were removed.

The only thing I could make it was its matted fur. Chocolate brown strands twisted in scarlet knots, with sandstone fluff draped around what would've been its neck.

Just like Mikey had grown.

This was the first time I heard him growl. Truly growly, like a wild animal. He was down on all fours, not caring about how bestial it made him look. His fangs flared as he peered out into the mist.

Whatever he saw out there, I couldn't tell.

I only knew that it was staring back.

TAPE 26 - [STOP]

TAPE 30 - [PLAY]

He's pulling away from me…whether he realizes it or not.

In the past week, we've exchanged maybe half a dozen words. I'd ask him something or crack a joke, and I'd get a nod or half a smile on a good day. I understand why, though. The handful of words I can pull out of him are tinged with this throaty, rattling rasp.

I don't think he wants to hear his own voice. What it's becoming.

Still, I keep on trying. Even if I'm talking to a big, furry wall. Mostly I'm just worried that if we don't shoot the shit, he'll pull back entirely. Maybe sleepwalk into the woods and never come back. I've had more than a few nightmares like that.

Today's meal was quieter than usual. Fewer forks scratching at plates. He's given up on silverware entirely. Now, he just won't eat in front of me. I would fill up both our plates, and he'd just sit there on the floor, watching me or the fire or the snow or everything that wasn't his food. It's hard to stomach, honestly, since he's looking thinner every day.

Whenever I'm half-done, I go to the bathroom for a minute, and by the time I come back, his plate's on the counter, licked clean. I always make sure to go to the bathroom.

Otherwise, we've been managing for the most part. We're still stocked up on food…somehow. Not sure I've even seen the bottom of the freezer yet. The only other weird thing is that, for whatever reason, Mikey's started pacing by the window a lot. Sometimes on two legs. Sometime on four. When I asked him what he sees out there, the best answer I got was…

“…The storm."

The snowstorm. Sure. Great observation, dude. I honestly thought he was being smart with me, which gave me hope. I haven't lost him yet.

We came close though.

Last night, Mikey's guts started gurgling in a nasty way. I thought all the undercooked meat was finally catching up to him. Then, he started gagging like a sick dog. Getting him into the bathroom's a struggle, so he rushed over to the front door. He didn't quite make it in time.

A glob of acidic bile landed in the corner of the room. More than a few shreds of meat stuck out in the puddle. Without the strength to stay up on two legs, Mikey pressed his shoulder up against the wall, coughing and retching on repeat.

His abdomen quivered as he exhaled. Although it's covered in patchy fur, there were a few bald spots left exposed. That's how I could tell the skin was throbbing. His diaphragm writhed, and with a sudden burst, it bounced up toward his spine, permanently sucking in his stomach like a deflating balloon.

He spit up again.

The skin above his navel pulled taut, outlining the rungs of his ribs and the throbbing bulge that contained his organs. I'll never forget how his guts wormed their way around, another pit of snakes beneath the surface.

It wasn't just his belly warbling. His spine and pelvis, barely visible under his cedar pelt, started rocking back and forth. One clawed foot scraped the floor, stretching out like I've seen dogs do. Then, without warning, his backside cracked like a chiropractor's dream.

Mikey reared up on his hind legs, one hand braced against the wall and the other clawing at his chest. He huffed and wheezed and cut gashes into his skin, like he couldn't breathe and had to carve a new hole through to his lungs. Before he could dig too deep, a round of wet shockwaves fired off in his torso, and its proportions started to warp in gross, absurd ways.

It sounded like stretching rubber when his ribcage rocketed away from his pelvis. Every new inch strained his skin, pulling his furry hide tighter than before. As fat and muscle dissolved, his ribs compacted until they left weird bumpy slopes down his sides. Mikey's once masculine silhouette had warped into a wasp-waisted hourglass. Angular. Jagged. Bones on the verge of exposure. He would've looked worse if not for all the fur.

As sickly as he looked on the outside, it was the shock to his inner organs that made him spit up blood. No saliva. Just pure blood. I got scared thinking something might have hemorrhaged, but Mikey didn't seem to care once his changes settled down. He even walked back to bed on two legs, though his top-heaviness made him stagger a few times.

When he plopped down on his bed, his eyes flickered shut. There was nothing he could do but sleep off the lingering body aches.

But that was the breaking point for me.

I could still hear the gurgle of his innards anchoring into their new homes. My legs started twitching. How could I just sit there and watch him suffer, like some sadistic spectator? I let it slide when his bones were breaking. When he grew horns and claws and fangs. When he couldn't even walk on his own. But now, he's coughing up blood.

I panicked. I thought he was going to die. I threw caution to the wind and stepped outside.

The blizzard hadn't waned at all since our prison life began. That sounds impossible, right? Unnatural, I'd say. No sun or sky to follow, just an icy fog of white. Sleet spinning like ash in an inferno.

As much as I wanted to run, I knew it'd just get me killed faster. I had to conserve my energy and go step by step, moving away from a tree line that seemed to stretch for eternity. I walked and walked and at some point I lost track of time.

I only knew that I failed.

Despite moving in a straight line for what felt like an hour…

I was back at the cabin.

I spun around to find my footprints, but they were already gone.

Part of me wanted to try again, to try a different direction and run for my life. But something stopped me. It wasn't just a hunch this time. Or a paranoid feeling.

I saw something out there. Buried behind the winter mist and deluge. Two eyes. Or, what looked like eyes. They could've been headlights with how bright they were. Red halos in the distance. Watching me.

Watching us this whole time.

My shivering legs started to backpedal, slowly, toward the cabin. Even as I moved farther away, the blaring lights never dimmed.

I turned and bolted back inside, slamming the door shut and locking it tight.

Mikey was still asleep. Still breathing. Still alive.

We're still alive.

Forget hope.

This is about survival.

TAPE 30 - [STOP]

TAPE 31 - [PLAY]

“Can you tell me what happened?"

…

I…uh…we spent that day doing more of our “lessons." By that point, my only goal was keeping Mikey's mind intact since most of his body had been erased. Woodsy fur smothered him, save for his face and the giant mane of sandy fluff around his shoulders. His ears had lengthened to animalistic points covered in the same auburn hair. They flickered from time to time.

The changes in his appearance were almost commonplace, as fucked up as that is. What really scared me was his voice. Or lack thereof.

“Montana."

“…Mon…tana…"

His words were buried in gravel, and sometimes he had to cough between sentences. Even when his speech was clear, he would take these long pauses just to sound things out. I didn't know if it was psychological or something wrong with his larynx. It made me nervous either way.

“Costa Rica."

“…Coast…to…Rica."

Costa Rica looked more like Atlantis or El Dorado. A pipe dream. What's funny is that Mikey always talked about going on vacations and traveling -- as if we didn't spend the better part of ten years seeing the world or whatever. For the longest time, I didn't get the obsession.

But I think maybe what he was saying…was that I didn't see it. The mountains. The skyscrapers. The wide range of folks who lived between them. He'd witnessed so much from behind the camera while I was just staring back at the lens. Obsessed with the future, never taking in the moment until it was too late.

“C'mon, dude. You got this." I pointed to the words I'd scribbled on the page. “Hi, my name is Michael Page from North Dakota. I listen to Led Zeppelin on loop, and I cook a mean chicken cordon bleu."

“…Hi…my…"

Mikey's ears started twitching, and his concentration was gone. My heart sank.

“You gotta focus, Mikey. Please?"

I was being ignored. He rose up onto two legs with a better balance than before, but then he started pacing again, his horned head swiveling like a surveillance camera. When he stopped turning about, Mikey perched his hands on the back of the couch and leaned forward, staring out into the infinite storm.

“…Cass," he muttered in a low rumble. “…It's…out there…"

I couldn't see anything this time. Just the snow and fog. But I trusted his instincts.

Thud.

Thud.

Mikey bared his fangs, growling as a strange golden haze rippled in his eyes. I put my hand on his arm, scared that he was going to smash right through the glass.

THUD. A heavy slam, thundering in the distance, like an explosion under water.

He bolted out the door. It closed so hard that the frame shook and knocked the buck head off the wall. Most of its skin had molted away. Both eyes were long gone.

“Mikey!" I kicked the bust aside, then thrust on my boots and coat before chasing after him. I wouldn't have lasted long without them.

He didn't go far from the cabin, same as before. It's like he was guarding the place. I stayed by his side and ran my fingers through his fur. Best thing I could do was keep him calm. His focus was locked onto something, even if it all looked the same to me. Hail in a white void. Hell frozen over.

A black speck shimmering in the dust.

The air tore open with a crashing thump. The speck was bigger now.

Sharp red dots came into view.

More thuds, more frequently. Rhythmic. The shadow grew, taking form as it passed through the falling snow.

Once I saw it, I knew what Mikey was so afraid of.

Twisted ebony fur that seemed to swallow light. A warbling, round body that serpentined with each step. Four canine-like paws, each armed with five razor talons, bigger and sharper than what Mikey had grown. A blunt, hairy snout that couldn't contain all of its teeth. And a sea of obsidian tendrils skittering along its backside.

Two crimson eyes like sniper sights. Aimed at me.

I ran.

I tried to run.

My legs burned. Weeks of isolation had left them atrophied. I thought I was getting close to the door, but with every step, I could feel myself falling back toward the black beast.

My entire body was drifting. The snow under my feet wasn't immune either. We were running in reverse.

My legs gave out and I went flying. I whipped past Mikey. He tried to grab me out of the air, but even with his long limbs, we couldn't connect in time.

I crashed into the ground, my chest aching as it hit the ice layer below -- but I was still being dragged away. The shadowy form ahead pulsated like a black hole. The distance closed against my will. My numb fingers scraped at the ground till they bled.

It jumped on me and flipped me over. I screamed when its claws tore off my jacket with ease. I threw my arms up. It shoved them out of the way. I cried out again when it slashed apart my cheeks, poking fresh wet holes into my mouth.

The demon, that's what it was, kept batting me around like a yarn ball. It was toying with me. I don't think it had any interest in eating me until I was in pieces.

Before it got the chance, Mikey slammed into its side, and the two of them went tumbling.

Adrenaline got me to my feet and catapulted me back to the cabin. My jaw ached as blood and spit leaked out from my wounds.

I flew through the door and slammed it shut. My breath shuddered. Inhaling felt like knives in my chest.

The carnage continued outside, beyond the view of the window. Howls, yelping, whining, thumps and tearing flesh. Mikey's guttural roars dipped under the shrill banshee screams of the monster. I worried for his safety, but I knew to keep my distance. One of us had claws and fangs, and the other didn't. All I had were a bunch of holes in my cheek.

Staying inside was a smart move, apparently. The demon tossed Mikey aside and charged the window, its claws splitting through the glass like paper. It pawed and gnawed at the pane, but for whatever reason, it couldn't shatter the frame entirely. Only its claw marks sawed through.

It didn't want Mikey. It wanted me.

My eyes darted to the fireplace. I didn't even think as I tore the rifle off the wall -- the dusty murder weapon we thought some psycho would unload into our skulls. Well, there was a chance it was loaded. And there was a chance it wasn't.

I tested my luck.

And pulled the trigger.

Glass burst apart. Large angular shards divided into shrapnel against the beast's underbelly. It screeched and recoiled. The bullet had hit its mark. Not enough to kill the thing, but the knockback was all I needed.

It gave Mikey enough time to tackle the demon and pull it away.

The fight kept going, but I couldn't look anymore. I just knew Mikey was winning. The demon's death rattle was etching itself into my brain.

Eventually, the room was quiet again. Silent save for the wind. I peered out through the jagged hole as hailstones collected on the floor.

There was Mikey, perched over the corpse like a lion. The ground beneath them turned black with cold blood.

His chest heaved with each breath, and five deep gashes ran down the side of his face. Way worse than my own. The demon had clawed away at his chin, exposing torn muscle. Even so, he didn't seem bothered by the pain.

A slab of pitch-black pelt hung in between Mikey's teeth.

And he swallowed it.

Maybe it was instinctual, maybe it was hunger, but it was definitely a mistake.

Mikey bellowed, backing off from the body as his rear talons bucked and cut deep into the earth. He bowed down and pressed his forehead into the snow, screaming while his crooked horns took their final shape. Branches in a cursed forest, black bone digging down into the white. Skin tore like film, scalping him in the process, and scarlet rain dribbled down his face once again. This time, I couldn't wipe it away.

The terrible things reached six inches off his head, curled and perfectly sharpened to a point. Weapons of a wild nature. He reached up once, just once, to try to pull them off. No luck. I think I used up the last of it.

Resigned to his fate, Mikey looked at me through the broken window, praying I was safe in all the chaos. His irises glowed like golden halos. My guardian angel, in some sad way. He smiled softly in the distance. I actually thought it was over.

But his smile grew too wide. And he started to scream.

It was something between a whinny and a howl, building into a full-fledged roar. I couldn't believe how loud it was, like Mikey's vocal cords had twisted themselves up in razor wire and screeched as they rubbed together in his throat. Any closer, and I would've had to cover my ears. It was in my best interest to stay away.

So I ran right to his side. He held out a hand to stop me, but I got close enough to see what was happening. And to hear all the noise that came with it. The crunches and creaks, everything we'd grown so familiar with, now turned up to eleven.

It started with his teeth protruding past his lips. Sharpening. Thickening. Drool seeped through the gaps and slobbered down his chin. Before long, his gums were bleeding again, turning his saliva salmon pink. Mikey's mouth twitched as he desperately tried to close it, to hold everything inside, but that wasn't possible now. His grimace stretched so wide that it couldn't even hold itself together. The corners started to tear.

I thought something new was growing out of him. More horns. More fangs. It was hard to tell through the crimson river on his face, but once I caught sight of it, I thought I was going to faint.

It was bone, white and bloodied, with stray strands of muscle still wrapped around the front. Mikey's skull was expanding. Not his head. Not his face. Just his skull. And nothing was going to stand in its way.

The split on his lip was more like a fissure, and that fissure spread under his nose and sliced open his left nostril. When his fangs jerked forward, so did the newly severed flesh. The weeping wound widened with each cruel second, cleaving his face like an axe chopping through bark.

Mikey lifted his head and roared into the sky, begging with all his strength for the torture to end. I couldn't make out his words anymore. My mind went blank. All I saw were bits of butchered gore falling down with the snow. The gaping hole in his face became an exit wound as bone swelled and stretched for the first time in open air. I never knew what bone looked like when it grew. I wish I was still so ignorant.

The trench inevitably reached his forehead and flayed his eyebrows off the bone. Now free to grow, the ridge of his brow jutted forward, skewing crudely like an animal's. Mikey clenched his temples, struggling in vain with another war cry. Teardrops fell from both of us. This was the scene I thought I'd imagined when we flipped over the van. Evisceration bordering death. There we were again, fighting for our lives.

After all this time, Mikey was finally growing a snout. Could you even call it a snout? There wasn't any flesh left. Just slick bone carved into strange new angles. We both knew it was coming eventually, we just never had the heart to say it. Though neither of us imagined it would be so…gruesome.

Both lips peeled back as Mikey's upper jaw cut effortlessly through the remains of his face. His lower mandible followed, then snapped down and ruptured the skin, severing his chin entirely. Fibers of small muscles tore apart like a collapsing spider web. Capillaries burst, expelling the blood from their tunnels.

Nothing could stop his fangs from marching forward, not even his own hands as he pressed them into the hardened bone matter. Every inevitable inch brought another explosion of flesh and carrion. Each detonation killing the man I once knew.

Our shared nightmare came to an end when his exposed skull reached its final length. Caught somewhere between a deer and an elk, Mikey's head had lost all resemblance to its human shape. Strips of maroon were smeared along the front of its bony muzzle. Specks and strands of flesh hung loosely from the hinge of his jaw.

With no tears left to cry and no ducts to produce them, his jaundiced eyes sank back into his head, deeper than should have been possible. The whites were eagerly swallowed up by the shadow of his cavernous skull. All that remained were the flickering halos. Sick and yellow. The last lights in the darkness.

Even with his face in tatters, mutilated beyond repair, Mikey turned his attention back to the mangled remains of his opponent. He skulked over, fresh drool splattering down onto the matted black fur. His hands scratched at the carcass like a vulture ready to feast.

I couldn't stop him. I knew what it would mean, but I couldn't stop him.

And so he ate. And ate. Raw muscle. Tendons torn from bones. Organs pulled from the abdomen.

My feet backpedaled. I couldn't hold my dinner after that.

When the body was picked dry, he sniffed at the ground with a nose he didn't have and trampled back to his own lingering viscera. The severed skin that once covered his skull still lay discarded just a few feet away. It was the face of someone I'd known for over a decade. Someone who encouraged and jibbed me from behind the camera, who smiled whenever I tried his new recipes, who looked at me in a sweet, gut-wrenching way that I could always recognize but just couldn't reciprocate.

He took that face in between his bloodied fangs and swallowed it too.

When every feasible inch of flesh was devoured, the brown beast sat in silence, ears flickering as its simmering yellow eyes faded into oblivion. Its weathered hand reached up and grabbed at its own muzzle like a child playing with their first toy. Leftover blood stained its fingertips -- some from the demon, some from its own veins.

Then, almost delicately, it palmed a handful of snow and wiped its head clean. Every trace of carnage melted away until the monster's face glistened like the frozen field it had conquered. The only remaining marks were a scarlet strip stretching from one side of its skull to the other, like war paint, and three teardrops dotting its forehead, like a crown. The king of the white. It was almost regal.

But that didn't distract from the truth.

Mikey was dead. The black beast didn't kill him. The brown one did. And when it spotted me, I thought I'd be next.

Step by step, it stalked towards me, ready for new prey. Steam slipped past the nose hole in the skull. Proof it was still a living being. Still hungry.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't blink. My legs froze to the ground, and no amount of adrenaline could pull them up anymore.

When we stood face-to-face, pain flooded my chest. The beast was taller than me even on four legs. Its empty eye sockets stared through at me, their hollow gaze piercing my heart.

Then it rose back up on two legs, towering over me like a glacier. I wish it stayed on all fours.

I couldn't outrun it, even if I wasn't woozy from blood loss.

The beast tilted its head. Horns taking aim.

Its cold jawbone lowered. Fangs flourishing from an iron vice.

“…Kah….ah….see…"

I didn't mean to raise the rifle. I forgot I even had it. It was just on instinct.

But the beast's elven ears flipped back anyway.

It hesitated…then dropped down and bolted off into the distance. Gone forever.

Left alone with my own pounding heart, I realized my mistake.

“Mikey! Mikey!" I tossed the gun and ran.

Lost in a well of sleet and hail, I could barely see the ground or hear his pounding footsteps. I kept shouting as I followed his mismatched set of prints. The trail was already fading.

“Mikey!"

I kept running. I don't know for how long.

“Mikey, please!"

Forever, it felt like.

“Mikey!"

Until I collapsed.

And as my eyes shuttered, vision blurring into white, the endless snowfall finally disappeared.

…

“That's quite a story, Miss Pryce. But we have some questions that --"

TAPE 31 - [STOP]

For those of you still listening, I recorded the last tape from the hospital where I woke up. The staff found me abandoned on their doorstep, wrapped in a blanket like Baby Jesus. At first, they thought I was a fawn that crawled out of the road, on account of the quilt I was bleeding through. The one with a deer's face stitched into the fabric.

Either the cabin whisked me away like a fairy godmother, or Mikey saved my ass once again. Guess we'll never know for sure, but…well…one of those makes me feel like a worse piece of shit.

Regardless, the ER tossed it out with my fucked up jeans, so these scratchy sound bites are the only evidence I have left of our trip. If you can call any of them “evidence."

The judge didn't, so that's why you haven't heard them until now.

I'll mention this since it's public record from the trial. When Canadian authorities found our van, it really did flip over in a snowbank. Everything inside was smashed to bits. The cameras. The film. The granola bars. But there wasn't any blood. No messy trails, as if all the broken glass and steel missed us entirely. I think that's what hung up the jury.

That and, well, nobody could find the cabin. Not me. Not an entire fleet of Mounties.

In fact, in all the books written on the Braxton case, you won't find any mention of a cabin located in the remote woods of Southern Quebec. There's also no mention of James' lost driver's license. I left it on the kitchen counter, which means it's gone with the wind.

If you look at the modern literature on Cryptozoology, whether shelved among fiction or not, you still won't find the cabin. Or that horrible black beast. Or whatever became of Mikey. Trust me, I've read them all. Begrudgingly. The closest thing I found was some footnote about forest sprites preserving the natural order. I can't say I agree with that job description.

And finally, if you read the sole biography written about me -- the key suspect in a missing person's case, who narrowly dodged a homicide conviction across international lines, then was utterly blackballed from the entertainment industry -- you probably think I'm insane. At worst, I'm a murderer. At best...I'm a negligent filmmaker who got her cameraman killed. You can believe what you want. It doesn't matter now.

This case, this history, has been an albatross for most of my life. I've received countless requests to cover it since this show began, but I think you can understand why I've dodged the subject on air and in all my interviews.

What hurt the most, aside from being barred from Mikey's memorial service, was that I didn't have anything to remember him by. Not his cassettes. Not even our silver rings from Peru. They got left behind with my jacket while I was, allegedly, being mauled .

Sorry, Peru guy_._

For years, I thought the cabin took everything from us and vanished into oblivion. I was so angry for so long. Then I wondered if I imagined the whole thing. Maybe I really did go crazy and kill my best friend. As irrational as that fear was, it gave me nightmares for months. I think I just wanted an explanation. Any reason for why it happened. I've dedicated my entire career to finding answers like that.

And in the twenty-five years since our fateful drive, I've finally come to a conclusion.

The cabin was real.

And it probably saved my life.

I lied at the beginning of the show. Well, more like I changed my mind after hearing those tapes again. I can blame James Braxton all I want -- may he rest in peace -- but it was my dumb decision to drive out in the storm. My young, dumb overconfidence. We all go through it eventually. I just wish Mikey didn't have to pay the price.

I've lived with that guilt for a long time.

But, to the ire of the internet and the tabloids, it didn't stop me from living. Mikey would've kicked my ass for that.

So, now that the kids are grown and my contract with this station is up, I think it's time to go back to being an indie darling.

And head up north.

I may not find the cabin again.

But I might find him.

And tell him that I finally took that trip to Costa Rica.

And that I met someone there, and we had a son named Robert Michael.

And I can apologize for all the lost time.

…

For the final episode of All in the Red Tape on 123 FM, this is Cassandra Connors, signing off.

[FIN]