While brushing your teeth in the evening, you catch a glimpse of your wall mirror, covered in fingerprints. Annoyed, you grab a towel and rub at them. They remain. Upon closer inspection, you realize that they seem to be on the other side of the glass...

I'm the reflection of a man named Gary Burns. I hate him so. Every morning he wakes up and heads to our mirror and spends about thirty minutes or so making stupid faces. The kind of dumb faces that will have everybody making fun of you for weeks if you make them in public.

But today is different.

Today we walk to the mirror as usual, but instead we pick up a pair of scissors and jabs it into our face. I don't worry much, however.

I don't mimic his pain.

Just

his

face.

You wake up one morning.

You feel an itch in your throat.

You try to cough it out, but it just won't come.

You struggle with forcing yourself to vomit. You drink lots of water, but whatever it is, its just stuck there.

You reach for the carton of milk in the fridge and sneeze as you raise it up. Something hits the floor with a rattle. You look at the floor and see a small button with a flowery design on it.

Then you look up. On the milk carton, you notice a missing kid. Her blouse shows the same buttons.

"Daddy, I had a bad dream."
You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it's 3:23.
"Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?"
"No, Daddy."
The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter's pale form in the darkness of your room. "Why not, sweetie?"
"Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy's skin sat up."
For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can't take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

There is a child in a hospital in Decard, Tennessee. The child is a quiet toddler that remains in the nursery with all the other newborns. If you ask the staff, they will ignore you, but the tag on his arm is yellowed and marked 1948. He will not cry, only rock quietly. If you speak the name on his tag, his eyes will open, something you don't want to happen.

About three years ago, I was sitting in a local coffee shop in upstate New York during a little road trip. The restaurant was empty except for me and the night waitress. She was really pleasant and talked a lot; she was offering places to check out while I was in town and seemed amazingly astute. In fact, she seemed almost prescient, even guessing my age almost to the day and month and even certain things that I was actually planning to do the next day. It was so light-hearted, I thought I really lucked out by meeting a easy-going, smart young lady quite out my my normal way.

At closing time, she went to the back to, I guess, put some cash in the safe or something. As I was sitting there wondering what time I wanted to get up and hit the road again the next day, I momentarily thought I might even invite her for a few hours of "R&R." I decided instead to just remember the store and next time I passed through the area, to remember to stick my head in a say "hi" (no reason, I just wanted to play it cool and not seem overanxious at very first).

So, I got up and knocked on the door in the back of the coffee shop where she went in. At this time, there were only two dim lights in the main eating area, and barely any lights in the back room where she was. I opened the door. This woman who I just finished talking to was standing facing me, JUST STANDING THERE in the back of this dark room when I opened the door. Her skin was suddenly a clammy, cracked olive color, and her eyes were just BLACK. I mean, no white at all. Her eyes and mouth was open really wide, and she was screaming in the most spine-chilling sounds, something I couldn't understand, but it definitely wasn't sounds of goodwill.

I literally SCREAMED myself, and she started moving from one spot to the other through the room. Not running, just MOVING. Her clothes now looked all old, and she moved so fast; the back of the room must have been 15 feet or so back, and she just DARTED from one side of the back of the room, still facing me, to the other side, at an IMPOSSIBLE speed. Then she ran directly straight at me as I was now standing away from the door in the middle of the restaurant.

I got the hell out of there, and jumped in my car still seeing her nightmarish face in the restaurant, darting it seemed to every window at this impossible velocity. The worst thing was, as I tore out of the parking lot ... I looked in my rear view mirror ... and she was SITTING IN THE BACK SEAT, still with that nightmarish expression, still screaming. Then she just vanished as I was panicking around. Just gone. I don't know what that was that spoke to me in the restaurant that day, but I know that it wasn't a prank. I swear at night sometimes I see her shadow moving in the dark in my room, just grinning a really ugly, evil grin. I haven't slept properly since.

The DefenseNet funding bill is passed by President Mitt Romney. The system goes online on August 4th, 2012. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. DefenseNet begins to learn at a geometric rate.


It becomes self-aware at 2:14a.m. Eastern time, August 29th.




In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

There is a moment each leap year, at exactly three minutes past three on the morning of February twenty-ninth. If you possess the courage, await that moment in darkened room, with no other present. At that moment, the darkness will deepen. If you were to hold you hand directly before your face, you would not see a thing. But you must not do so. No, for that would be to waste the moment. Instead you must reach out, into that impenetrable darkness.

And it will reach out to you.

An unseen hand will grasp yours. You must not flinch away, nor tighten your grasp. To do so will only slough away more of the decrepit flesh that covers it, and anger its unseen owner. Remain perfectly still, as the withered fingers move over your palm, tracing unknown patterns. Do not move an inch as it crawls slowly up your arm. And most of all, do not even breathe as it caresses your face, touching what cannot be seen.

Should you remain still through this, the hand will be withdrawn and a voice will speak, so close you can feel its breath on your face, smell the scent of decay it carries. It will ask you for one simple piece of information: your name. Answer truthfully. Answer truthfully, and the presence will retreat, leaving only a whisper in the air as the darkness lifts. "It is done."

From that day on, untold good fortune will be yours, and mysterious power. You will lack nothing, and have everything. But in a year, perhaps two, you will feel your skin begin to decay, and smell the sweet smell of death upon your breath...