Blondie
Charles Prat spent his mornings thirty-one floors above the city inside an office made almost entirely of glass.
Glass walls.
Glass desk.
Glass awards lined neatly across smoked shelves behind him like trophies handed out for surviving capitalism with enough charm to make people thank you afterward.
Every morning at 8:05, Charles entered the building carrying the same black thermos of coffee. Every morning at 8:07, Denise from reception smiled and told him he smelled nice. Every morning at 8:10, Martin Keller from accounting loosened his tie too early and stared at the elevator doors like a man realizing in real time he would die in that building someday.
Routine mattered to Charles.
Routine kept people blind.
Nobody looked too closely at a man with routines.
By noon, he was shaking hands with investors while storm clouds rolled across the skyline beyond the windows. By evening, he sat beneath dim restaurant lighting discussing market trends with men who measured morality through annual income brackets and golf memberships.
And every Friday night, shortly after dark, Charles drove south toward Mercer Avenue with murder sitting quietly in the back of his mind like an old friend tagging along for cigarettes.
The city changed once you crossed the railway district.
Downtown gave way to rusted fencing, dead storefronts, flooded lots, and buildings tagged so heavily with graffiti they looked diseased. Streetlights failed more often there. Sidewalks buckled upward through years of neglect. Rainwater gathered inside potholes black enough to resemble open graves after heavy storms.
Near the corner of Mercer and Boyd sat a fried fish shack called Del’s that never closed. The grease-stained neon sign outside had been missing the E for almost eleven years, leaving only D L’S glowing weakly through the fog. Truckers, addicts, cops, drunks, and graveyard-shift workers all passed through Del’s eventually.
The owner once got shot in the parking lot over seventeen dollars and reopened three hours later.
Most people avoided Mercer Avenue after midnight.
Charles preferred it that way.
His silver Lexus rolled beneath the old railway bridge at exactly 10:14. The bridge hadn’t seen a train in almost fifteen years, though people living in the district still complained about hearing phantom horns drifting through the fog late at night.
Charles never believed ghost stories.
At least not back then.
He parked beside a collapsing brick building squeezed between an abandoned pawn shop and what used to be a meat distribution warehouse. Rusted hooks still hung inside the warehouse beyond shattered windows, rocking gently whenever wind moved through the hollow structure.
The nightclub itself had no visible sign.
No advertisements.
No online presence.
If you knew about The Devil’s Playground, somebody had brought you there personally.
Or you’d gone looking for it.
Music hammered through the walls hard enough to vibrate puddles gathered near the curb. Cigarette smoke drifted from the entrance every time the steel door opened, carrying traces of sweat, liquor, narcotics, cheap perfume, mildew, and old cigarettes into the alley.
Charles killed the engine and sat quietly for a moment.
A woman laughed somewhere nearby.
A bottle shattered farther down the block.
Somebody screamed profanity from an apartment window overhead.
The city always sounded hungry after midnight.
Charles checked his reflection inside the rearview mirror.
Perfect tie.
Perfect hair.
The faint gray spreading near his temples annoyed him more than it should have.
He’d started noticing younger men at the office lately. Men with brighter teeth. Better skin. Men who didn’t need antacids after bourbon.
That bothered him too.
Charles stepped from the car and adjusted the cuffs of his coat.
Inside, The Devil’s Playground looked exactly the way a preacher might describe Hell to children.
Red lighting crawled across cracked walls. Bodies collided beneath slow rotating lights while industrial music pounded hard enough to vibrate the floorboards beneath Charles’ shoes. Smoke hung low beneath exposed pipes dripping condensation into stained buckets positioned around the club.
A woman danced barefoot on top of the bar while strangers threw crumpled bills toward her feet.
Near the bathrooms, two men argued nose-to-nose over a spilled drink.
A girl barely old enough to drink sat inside a corner booth staring blankly into space while mascara ran down her cheeks in thin black streaks.
Charles loved this place.
Not because it was evil.
Because it was honest.
The Devil’s Playground never pretended people were good.
He handed his coat to the pierced brunette working the front counter.
“You’re late tonight,” she said.
“Traffic.”
“You always say traffic.”
“And you always ask.”
She smirked without looking up from her phone.
People trusted handsome men who remembered small details. Charles learned that years ago.
He moved deeper into the nightclub, letting his eyes drift naturally through the crowd.
Predators rarely looked like predators.
Television got that wrong.
Real hunters didn’t twitch in corners wearing gloves. They didn’t grin at inappropriate moments or mutter to themselves beneath flickering lights.
Most of them looked normal.
That was the problem.
Charles noticed things automatically.
The brunette near the dance floor was too alert.
The tattooed woman by the speakers had friends watching her constantly.
A redhead near the back hallway already looked heavily intoxicated, but her boyfriend kept circling protectively nearby every few minutes.
Too complicated.
Too visible.
His attention shifted again.
And stopped.
The blonde woman sat alone inside the farthest booth beneath a dead overhead light near the private hallway.
Still.
Watching.
Unlike everyone else inside the nightclub, she barely moved at all. No bouncing knee. No scrolling through her phone. No casual glances toward exits or bartenders.
She simply sat there with both hands folded neatly in her lap while the nightclub churned around her.
Charles felt a strange tightening beneath his ribs.
Not attraction.
Recognition.
Though he could not have explained why.
Her black dress looked old-fashioned compared to the rest of the club. Not vintage in a trendy way. Older than that. Timeless almost. Damp fabric clung softly against her shoulders as though she had recently walked through fog.
A half-full drink rested untouched near her elbow.
Charles approached slowly.
The closer he got, the more wrong things became.
The temperature around the booth felt colder.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to notice.
And beneath the sweat, smoke, liquor, mildew, and cigarettes filling the nightclub lingered another scent entirely.
Mud.
River water.
Something green turning soft beneath summer heat.
Charles slid into the booth across from her.
“You mind?”
Her eyes lifted toward him.
Blue.
Very blue.
The kind of eyes capable of convincing a man he was younger than he really was.
“You already decided you were sitting down,” she replied.
Her voice barely rose above the music, yet Charles heard every word clearly.
Up close, she looked younger than he first thought.
Mid twenties maybe.
But something deep inside her expression looked worn thin beyond repair. Not ordinary exhaustion. Not heartbreak. Not work stress.
The look of somebody who had already suffered the worst thing that could happen to them.
Charles smiled politely.
“I’m Charles.”
“I know.”
The answer settled between them softly.
Charles ignored the small pressure beginning behind his eyes.
“You waiting for somebody?”
“Aren’t we all?”
A waitress appeared beside the table before Charles could answer.
“Bourbon,” he said. “Double.”
The waitress turned toward the girl.
“She’ll have whatever pink nightmare’s strongest tonight.”
The waitress laughed.
The young girl didn’t.
After the drinks arrived, Charles lifted his bourbon while the girl stared at hers untouched.
“You don’t drink?” he asked.
“Not anymore.”
Again that strange phrasing.
Not anymore.
Charles swallowed bourbon.
It tasted harsher tonight.
“You from around here?”
“I was.”
There it was again.
Was.
Not am.
A small droplet of water slid from the end of her blonde hair onto her shoulder.
Charles frowned slightly.
It hadn’t rained all week.
“You okay?” he asked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
A faint smile touched her lips.
“What part of me you’re asking about.”
The pressure behind Charles’ eyes sharpened.
For one brief moment, sound inside the nightclub dulled strangely. The music warped. The lights dimmed.
And somewhere far away—
he heard swamp insects.
Tree frogs.
The distant drone of cicadas rising beneath humid summer dark.
Charles blinked hard.
The sounds vanished immediately.
“You alright?” She asked softly.
Charles straightened.
“Yeah. Long week.”
“That’s not what’s bothering you.”
Her eyes never left his.
Charles forced another smile.
“You always this intense?”
“You always this broken?”
The question irritated him more than it should have.
Charles leaned back casually.
“Lemme guess,” he said. “You’re one of those girls that likes getting inside people’s thoughts.”
“No,” The girl replied quietly.
“I just remember yours.”
The pressure behind Charles’ eyes twisted sharply.
A flicker.
Mud.
Pale fingers clawing desperately through swamp water.
A girl choking on blood.
Charles swallowed hard.
Gone.
Just like that.
“You got a name?” he asked carefully.
The faint smile returned.
“You used to call me Blondie.”
Something cold moved slowly through Charles’ chest.
Not fear.
Not yet.
But close enough to touch it.
Around them, the nightclub carried on obliviously.
Bodies grinding together.
Liquor spilling.
Music pounding.
Yet Charles suddenly felt disconnected from all of it, as though the booth existed somewhere separate from the rest of the building.
Blondie tilted her head slightly.
“You still dump them in the swamp?” she asked.
Charles froze.
The music continued roaring around them.
Nobody looked over.
Nobody noticed.
Beneath the table, muddy water dripped steadily from the hem of Blondie’s dress onto the floor between them.
Charles stared at the muddy water dripping from the hem of Blondie’s dress.
One drop.
Another.
Dark stains spread slowly across the floorboards beneath the booth.
His first instinct took hold.
Not fear.
Irritation.
Because some detached part of his brain still wanted the moment to behave logically.
Maybe she stepped through standing water outside. Maybe one of the club pipes burst again. Maybe—
“You look pale,” Blondie said softly.
Charles realized he had stopped breathing normally.
He forced a smile onto his face and leaned back against the booth.
“Cute trick.”
Blondie tilted her head slightly.
“Is that what you thought I was?”
Charles reached for his bourbon again, mostly to keep his hands occupied. The glass felt colder now. Acid burned faintly beneath his ribs, climbing toward his throat the same way it always did after his second drink.
He swallowed anyway.
The music around them seemed farther away now. Muffled somehow. Like the nightclub had drifted several rooms farther down the building.
Charles studied her carefully.
The damp fabric clinging to her shoulders.
The pale strands of blonde hair stuck softly against her neck.
The untouched drink sitting in front of her.
And her eyes.
Not seductive anymore.
Not even angry.
Certain.
“You know,” Charles said casually, “there are easier ways to flirt with somebody.”
“Is that how you cope?”
His jaw tightened slightly.
Blondie leaned forward just enough for him to smell swamp water drifting from her skin beneath the nightclub smoke.
“You always tend to make ugly actions sound harmless.”
Charles laughed quietly through his nose.
“Alright. Enough mysterious fortune-cookie crap. Have we met before or not?”
“You really don’t remember me.”
It wasn’t a question.
Charles opened his mouth to answer.
Stopped.
For one brief instant, he saw her differently.
Not sitting calmly inside the nightclub booth—
but screaming.
Mud smeared across her face.
One eye swollen nearly shut.
Hands clawing weakly at wet earth while black swamp water soaked through her blonde hair.
Charles blinked hard.
The image vanished immediately.
His pulse jumped unevenly inside his chest.
“You okay?” Blondie asked.
Charles rubbed the corner of one eye.
“Probably need food.”
“No,” she replied quietly.
“I think something’s finally starting to crawl back up from the recesses of your conscience.”
The pressure behind Charles’ eyes sharpened violently.
A dull ringing filled his ears.
And suddenly—
another face surfaced.
Brunette.
Young.
Crying in the passenger seat of his car while rain hammered the windshield.
Another.
Tattooed girl from somewhere near Blackwater Parish.
Another.
Another.
Faces.
Hands.
Blood beneath fingernails.
The swamp swallowing secrets one body at a time.
Charles gripped the edge of the table hard enough for his knuckles to pale.
Blondie watched him patiently.
Like somebody waiting for a confession already carved in stone years ago.
“You drugged me,” Charles muttered.
Blondie smiled faintly.
“You drank your own poison.”
Cold moved slowly through his stomach.
Charles suddenly remembered crushing pills into a pink cocktail while music pounded through this exact nightclub.
Not tonight.
Years ago.
A blonde girl laughing nervously near the dance floor.
His hand against the small of her back steering her toward the parking lot.
“You were different back then,” Blondie said.
Charles stared at her silently.
“You talked more.”
The nightclub lights flickered overhead.
Several people glanced upward irritably before returning to their conversations.
Nobody else seemed to notice the smell growing thicker around the booth.
Rotting vegetation.
River mud.
Stagnant water baking beneath summer heat.
Charles looked downward.
More muddy water pooled beneath the table now.
Far too much.
The hem of Blondie’s dress hung soaked black against her legs.
And beneath the table—
her bare feet rested silently in the growing puddle.
Pale.
Waterlogged.
Skin separating softly around the toes.
Charles felt genuine fear for the first time that night.
Small.
Sharp.
Real.
“You’re not real,” he whispered.
Blondie’s expression never changed.
“You said I was as beautiful as an angel.”
Charles shoved himself abruptly from the booth.
The movement nearly overturned the table.
A few people glanced over briefly before returning to their drinks and conversations. The Devil’s Playground absorbed disturbances the way old carpet absorbed cigarette burns.
Charles wiped sweat from his forehead.
His heartbeat slammed unevenly against his ribs now.
“Listen to me,” he said, lowering his voice. “I don’t know what kinda game you’re playin’, but you need to stay the hell away from me.”
Slowly, Blondie rose from the booth.
Water dripped steadily from her dress onto the floorboards.
“You drowned me, Charles.”
The sentence struck him harder than a fist.
Not because he remembered doing it.
Because deep down—
he remembered exactly how she sounded while begging him not to.
Charles stumbled backward a step.
The nightclub suddenly felt too hot.
Not physically.
Wrong.
Like the building itself had started breathing against his skin.
“You’re dead,” he muttered.
Blondie stood motionless beside the booth.
“Yes,” she replied softly.
“You just tried to forget me… to forget all of us.”
Mud-stained water dripped steadily from the hem of her dress onto the warped floorboards.
Charles looked around the nightclub again.
Nobody cared.
Nobody noticed the soaked blonde woman standing beside the booth.
A man laughed loudly near the bar.
Somebody fed crumpled bills into the jukebox against the far wall.
The barefoot dancer climbed onto a table while people shouted drunken encouragement toward her.
Normal life continued inches away from absolute madness.
That frightened Charles more than Blondie did.
His pulse hammered unevenly beneath his ribs.
“I need help,” he whispered.
Blondie smiled faintly.
“I needed help too.”
The sentence hollowed something inside him.
Another flicker ripped through his mind.
Rain hammering tree branches overhead.
Headlights cutting through swamp fog.
Blonde hair soaked dark with mud.
A girl crying so hard she could barely breathe.
Please.
Please don’t do this.
Charles squeezed his eyes shut hard enough to hurt.
Gone again.
Only fragments.
But growing stronger.
“You should sit down,” Blondie said quietly.
Charles realized his knees felt weak.
“No.”
“You don’t look well.”
“I said no.”
Several people glanced briefly toward the sharpness in his voice before immediately losing interest.
The Devil’s Playground had seen worse.
Charles grabbed his bourbon from the table and swallowed the rest in one burning gulp. Acid rolled violently through his stomach afterward.
Blondie watched him carefully.
“You always drank the pain away.”
Charles wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Shut up.”
“It helped you sleep.”
“I said shut the hell up!”
The lights overhead flickered again.
This time they dimmed long enough for parts of the nightclub to vanish into darkness before buzzing weakly back to life.
A few irritated groans rose from the crowd.
Near the dance floor, a woman complained about the music skipping again.
Charles stared at Blondie.
For one horrible second—
her throat looked crushed inward beneath her pale skin.
Not cut.
Collapsed.
Like somebody had forced both hands against her neck and kept clutching.
The lights steadied.
Normal again.
Charles stepped backward another pace.
His heel splashed softly through muddy water.
Too much water.
There shouldn’t have been this much water.
The puddle had spread several feet beyond the booth now, creeping slowly across the warped floorboards.
Still nobody noticed.
“How are you doing this?” Charles asked.
Blondie’s expression barely changed.
“I’d tell you… but then I’ll have to kill you.”
Charles shook his head rapidly.
“No.”
“You brought me there.”
“No.”
“You held me down.”
His breathing quickened.
“No.”
“You listened while I drowned in mud.”
The memory struck harder this time.
Her hands.
Human hands.
Nails packed with dirt while she clawed desperately against the swamp bank.
Her voice shredded from screaming.
His own hands forcing her downward while black water filled her mouth.
Charles staggered backward hard enough to collide with a passing waitress carrying drinks.
The tray crashed against the floor.
Glass exploded everywhere.
The waitress shouted as liquor splashed across her clothes.
Every nearby face turned toward Charles now.
Finally.
Reality.
Charles latched onto it desperately.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“You alright, man?” somebody near the bar asked.
Charles looked back toward Blondie.
Still standing there.
Still dripping.
Still watching him.
But the puddle beneath her feet had vanished completely.
Dry floorboards.
Dry booth.
No water anywhere.
Charles felt his stomach turn cold.
The waitress glared while kneeling to gather broken glass.
“You drunk fuck!”
A heavyset bouncer near the hallway narrowed his eyes toward Charles.
“You good?”
Charles opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Blondie finally moved.
Slowly.
She stepped around the table and began walking toward the private hallway near the back of the nightclub.
One wet footprint appeared behind her.
Then another.
Then another.
Visible only to him.
Charles’ eyes locked in on her.
Every instinct screamed at him to leave.
Get inside the Lexus.
Drive north until sunrise.
Forget this entire night.
But another feeling pulled harder.
Recognition.
The awful certainty that if he let her disappear again—
she would follow me home anyway.
Blondie stopped near the hallway entrance and looked back toward him.
Not smiling.
Not threatening.
Waiting.
And Charles realized something cold and terrible in that moment.
He had spent years feeding women to darkness.
Now something from that darkness had finally returned to feast on him instead.
Blondie disappeared into the hallway.
Charles stood frozen beside the shattered glass for another moment while nightclub noise swelled around him again in uneven waves.
The waitress muttered under her breath while scooping broken pieces into a black plastic bin.
“You either need water or Jesus,” she grumbled.
Charles barely heard her.
His eyes remained fixed on the hallway.
The wet footprints still lingered there.
Dark.
Fresh.
Impossible.
Leading deeper into the club.
The heavyset bouncer near the entrance folded his arms across his chest.
“You goin’ back there or what?”
Charles looked toward him sharply.
“You saw her?”
The bouncer frowned.
“Saw who?”
Charles opened his mouth.
Stopped.
The hallway behind Blondie now looked strangely darker than before. The weak yellow bulbs lining the walls barely reached halfway down the corridor before dissolving into shadow.
And beneath the nightclub music—
he heard swamp insects again.
Closer now.
Charles swallowed hard.
“Never mind.”
The bouncer shrugged dismissively and returned his attention toward the crowd.
Charles looked back toward the hallway.
Every instinct told him to leave.
Convince himself this entire night was stress and alcohol and buried guilt finally clawing loose from whatever corner of his brain he’d nailed it into years ago.
But another thought settled heavier than fear.
If Blondie could find him here—
she could find him anywhere.
He had to take care of her… again.
Charles stepped toward the hallway.
The nightclub felt warmer behind him with every step forward. Human. Loud. Alive.
The corridor ahead felt dead by comparison.
Water stains spread across peeling wallpaper in long brown veins. Several old framed photographs hung crooked along the walls, their glass fogged with age and moisture. Mold gathered near the ceiling corners in dark blooms.
The smell worsened immediately.
River mud.
Wet wood.
Rotting vegetation.
Charles heard the steel door leading back into the nightclub slam shut behind him.
The sudden muffling of music made his stomach tighten.
Now the swamp sounds came through clearly.
Tree frogs.
Cicadas.
The slow ripple of water moving somewhere nearby.
This makes no fucking sense.
The hallway wasn’t long enough for those sounds.
Charles looked behind him.
The nightclub door remained there.
But farther away now.
Much farther.
His pulse quickened.
“No,” he muttered quietly.
The corridor stretched onward beneath flickering yellow lights that buzzed weakly overhead. Water dripped somewhere farther down the hall in slow, hollow taps.
Charles kept walking.
One wet footprint appeared ahead.
Another…
Another..
Leading him deeper.
Several doors lined the hallway. Most stood slightly open, revealing old private rooms with stained couches and cheap red lighting inside. One room contained overturned furniture. Another smelled heavily of bleach.
Charles avoided looking too closely.
Halfway down the corridor, he came to a stop.
A necklace rested on the floorboards ahead.
Thin silver chain.
Tiny gold cross attached.
Charles stared at it.
Recognition hit immediately.
Not because he remembered where he’d seen it.
Because some hidden part of him had spent years trying not to.
Rain.
A girl crying in the passenger seat.
The gold cross bouncing softly against her throat while she begged him to let her out of the car.
Charles stepped over the necklace quickly.
His breathing had become shallow now.
The hallway continued stretching ahead impossibly far.
The nightclub should have ended by now.
The entire building should have ended by now.
Instead the corridor twisted onward beneath dim lights while swamp sounds grew louder with every step.
Charles passed another open doorway.
Inside sat a pair of muddy high heels beside the bed.
Another room contained a torn purse lying open on the floor.
Another.
A cracked cellphone.
Another.
Blood beneath dirty fingernails scraped into the wallpaper beside the doorframe.
Charles stopped walking.
“No,” he whispered again.
The pressure behind his eyes had become unbearable now.
Faces surfaced faster.
Crying.
Begging.
Bleeding.
One after another.
Not all blonde.
Not all young.
But all terrified.
The hallway lights flickered violently overhead.
And for one brief instant—
Charles saw women standing silently inside every room lining the corridor.
Waterlogged.
Broken.
Watching him.
The lights steadied.
The rooms stood empty again.
Charles nearly stumbled.
A soft voice drifted toward him from farther down the hallway.
“Almost there.”
Blondie.
Charles looked ahead.
She stood at the very end of the corridor now beneath a weak yellow light.
Still.
Waiting.
Only now the black dress hung soaked tightly against her body, and muddy water spread outward around her bare feet in slow ripples.
Behind her sat an old wooden door Charles did not remember seeing before.
Dark wood swollen from moisture.
Rust spreading across the handle.
And carved faintly into the surface—
a single word.
BLACKWATER.
Charles stopped breathing.
Because suddenly—
he remembered exactly where he ditched her corpse.
Charles stared at the word carved into the swollen wood.
BLACKWATER.
The letters looked hand-cut.
Not professionally carved.
Dug into the surface hard enough to splinter the grain around them.
His mouth had gone dry.
Rain slammed through his memory again.
The swamp road.
Headlights reflecting across standing water.
Blondie crying beside him while her wrists twisted uselessly in his grip.
“You promised,” she had sobbed.
Charles staggered slightly.
The memory sharpened further this time.
Not fragments anymore.
Pieces connecting.
“You told me you were gonna take me home.”
Blondie stood silently beneath the flickering hallway light.
Water dripped from the ends of her hair.
Charles looked at her.
Really looked at her.
The bruising around her throat no longer came and went with the lights.
Now it remained.
Dark fingerprints pressed deep beneath pale skin.
One side of her face looked slightly swollen inward near the jaw.
And her eyes—
those impossible blue eyes—
looked more dead now than disappointed.
That frightened him worse.
“You were supposed to stay unconscious,” Charles whispered before realizing he had spoken out loud.
Blondie’s expression never changed.
“I woke up.”
Charles felt his stomach twist violently.
The hallway suddenly smelled stronger.
Mud.
Blood.
Wet roots torn from the earth.
“You clawed my face,” he muttered distantly.
Another piece returned immediately.
Her nails ripping across his cheek while he dragged her through swamp water.
His rage afterward.
The panic.
The screaming.
“You made me hurt you.”
The second the words left his mouth, Charles realized how monstrous they sounded.
Not because they were untrue.
Because some part of him still believed them.
Blondie stared at him quietly.
“That’s the part of you I came back for.”
The hallway lights dimmed again.
This time they did not fully recover.
Everything beyond Blondie darkened into heavy shadow.
Charles heard movement inside the rooms lining the corridor now.
Not footsteps.
Breathing.
Soft at first.
Then more.
Women breathing in the darkness.
Dozens of them.
Charles turned sharply toward one of the open doorways.
Inside sat a woman on the edge of the bed staring downward at her lap.
Long dark hair covered most of her face.
Mud coated her bare legs to the knees.
Water dripped steadily from the mattress onto the floor.
Charles stepped backward immediately.
Another room.
Another woman.
Older.
Gray streaks through soaked hair.
One side of her skull caved inward.
Another room.
Young.
College-aged maybe.
Mascara running down waterlogged cheeks.
All of them silent.
All of them facing downward.
Waiting.
Charles’ heartbeat hammered so violently now he thought he might collapse.
“This isn’t real,” he whispered.
Blondie tilted her head slightly.
“You said that already.”
Charles looked behind him.
The hallway back toward the nightclub had changed.
The corridor no longer ended at the steel door.
Now it stretched endlessly into darkness behind him too.
The weak yellow lights overhead buzzed softly like dying insects.
“You’re dead… you can’t be here,” Charles said.
“We’ve come back for you.”
The honesty of the answer hollowed him.
“No,” he said quickly. “You’re dead, I checked.”
Another memory surfaced.
Charles kneeling beside the swamp water breathing hard while checking her pulse with shaking fingers.
Mud coating both knees of his slacks.
Blondie barely moving beneath the reeds.
“You checked because you were scared,” Blondie replied softly.
Charles’ eyes widened.
“How do you know that?”
Blondie almost smiled.
“Because I watched you… from this side. You panicked.”
The wooden door behind her creaked softly open by itself.
Blackness waited on the other side.
Not darkness.
Something deeper.
Wet.
Endless.
Charles heard swamp water moving beyond the doorway.
Slow current.
Insects.
Tree frogs.
And beneath all of it—
faint crying.
His legs weakened again.
“What is that?” he whispered.
Blondie looked back toward the open doorway.
“Where you left us.”
Us.
Not me.
Us.
Charles suddenly understood the true shape of the hallway.
The rooms.
The objects.
The women.
Not a haunting.
A procession.
Every woman he buried.
Every woman the swamp kept.
Every woman waiting for him to finally remember them.
Tears unexpectedly burned at the corners of Charles’ eyes.
Not grief.
Terror.
Pure animal terror.
“I didn’t mean—”
Blondie looked back at him sharply.
And for the first time all night—
anger entered her face.
The hallway lights shattered simultaneously.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Charles heard himself breathing.
Fast.
Wet.
Uneven.
The hallway had vanished completely.
No yellow lights.
No doors.
No nightclub.
Only blackness and the sound of swamp water shifting somewhere nearby.
His pulse hammered violently inside his skull.
“Blondie?”
No answer.
Charles held both hands out blindly in front of himself and took one cautious step forward.
His shoe sank into cold mud.
He froze instantly.
Not carpet.
Not floorboards.
Mud.
A terrible realization crawled slowly through him.
The smell had changed too.
The nightclub mildew and cigarette smoke were long gone.
Now there was only swamp rot.
Wet roots.
Standing water.
Decay ripening beneath summer heat.
Charles’ breathing quickened.
“No…”
A low ripple moved somewhere ahead of him.
Water shifting.
Something dragging slowly through it.
Charles spun toward the sound.
“Blondie?”
Still nothing.
From a distance—
a flashlight beam exploded across his eyes.
Charles recoiled violently, raising one arm.
“Jesus Christ!”
Two figures stood several yards away knee-deep in swamp water.
Men.
Flashlights.
Rain jackets.
One of them lowered the beam slightly.
“You alright there, buddy?”
Charles stared at them in confusion.
Rain hammered through the trees overhead now.
Real rain.
Cold rain.
Not memory.
Not fragments.
Reality.
The older man stepped carefully through the swamp toward him.
“You hurt?”
Charles looked down at himself.
Mud coated his shoes and pant legs nearly to the knees.
His expensive coat hung soaked and filthy around his body.
“What…” Charles muttered. “What the hell…”
The second man glanced around uneasily.
“You must have hit your head somethin’ fierce.”
The older man nodded slowly without taking his eyes off Charles.
“Yeah.”
Charles frowned.
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
Neither man answered immediately.
Rain hammered harder through the trees.
Charles looked around wildly.
The nightclub was gone.
No hallway.
No building.
Only swamp.
Tall reeds shifted in the darkness around them while black water rippled gently between patches of mud.
And several feet away—
half submerged near the roots of a dead cypress tree—
sat his silver Lexus.
Driver-side door hanging open.
Headlights dead.
Charles stared at it.
Confusion turned slowly into fear.
“How did I get here?”
The older man exchanged a glance with the other.
“You don’t remember driving’?”
Charles looked back toward them.
“I was in the club.”
Neither man spoke.
“The Devil’s Playground,” Charles continued quickly. “There was a woman—”
The younger man shifted uncomfortably.
“Frank…”
The older man ignored him.
“You been drinkin’?”
Charles laughed once.
A short broken sound.
“Yes.”
Rainwater streamed down his face.
“That’s what happened… I was drunk.”
His voice faltered.
The older man stepped closer.
“You’re gonna have to get a tow truck out here.”
Charles stared blankly.
“Yeah.”
“You’re lucky you got stuck there. Another twenty feet deeper and this thing woulda sunk clean into the marsh.”
Charles shook his head slowly.
“That’s one bright spot I guess.”
The younger man looked pale now.
“Frank,” he said again quietly. “Maybe we oughta just wait for the police.”
Frank kept staring at Charles.
“You remember your name?”
Charles nodded immediately.
“Charles Prat.”
“You remember where you are?”
“Blackwater.”
The answer slipped out automatically.
Charles suddenly became dazed.
Not because he remembered the swamp.
Because he remembered bringing people there.
The rain around him seemed to soften briefly.
And through the reeds—
he saw Blondie standing several yards away.
Barefoot.
Soaked dress hanging motionless against her body.
Watching him silently through the rain.
Charles’ face drained of color.
“Her,” he whispered. “She shouldn’t be here!”
Both men turned.
Saw nothing.
When they looked back toward Charles, something had changed in their expressions.
Not confusion anymore.
Recognition.
Frank spoke carefully now.
“You hit your head real hard.”
Charles backed away from them slowly.
“No, she’s right there.”
Mud sucked loudly beneath his shoes.
“She brought me here.”
Frank’s face tightened.
“You need to calm down.”
“No,” Charles snapped. “You don’t understand.”
Another flicker tore through his memory.
Blondie screaming.
Rain pouring through the trees.
Charles forcing her down into the mud while she clawed helplessly at his wrists.
Frank stepped closer carefully.
“Charles, you need to calm down.”
“No,” Charles whispered.
Louder now.
“No, no, no, I know this place.”
His voice cracked apart.
“I buried her here.”
The swamp suddenly went silent.
Not quieter.
Silent.
No frogs.
No insects.
No rain against leaves.
Nothing.
Frank’s expression changed immediately.
The younger man looked at him sharply.
“Jesus Christ…”
Charles covered his face with both trembling hands.
“She woke up,” he muttered.
The words spilled out before he could stop them.
“She wasn’t supposed to wake up.”
Rainwater streamed through his fingers.
Frank spoke carefully now, every word measured.
“Charles… who woke up?”
Charles looked toward Blondie again.
Only now she was closer.
Not walking.
Just closer.
Water dripped steadily from her hair.
Mud coated the side of her face.
And those blue eyes remained locked onto him with terrible patience.
“She… she kept screaming,” Charles whispered.
Without warning, he doubled over and vomited into the mud.
The younger man backed away instinctively.
Frank stared at Charles in stunned silence.
“I didn’t… mean for it to happen… like that,” Charles gasped.
The swamp answered with movement.
All throughout the reeds surrounding them—
figures slowly began rising from the black water.
Women.
Dozens.
Waterlogged dresses drifting around pale bodies.
Mud-covered hands hanging at their sides.
Some young.
Some old.
One still clutching a broken cellphone.
Another missing part of her jaw.
Another with mascara smeared down corpse-white cheeks.
Frank staggered backward in horror.
Now he saw them too.
“Oh my God…”
The younger man raised his flashlight wildly.
“What the fuck?!”
The beams shook violently across the swamp.
The women never reacted.
They simply stood there surrounding the marsh in silent rows beneath the rain.
Watching Charles.
Waiting.
Charles dropped to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” he cried.
The words sounded pathetic even to him.
Small.
Cowardly.
Too late.
Blondie stepped closer through the swamp water.
“You were always sorry after… endless self-pity.”
Charles looked up at her, trembling.
“I’m sick.”
“No,” Blondie replied softly.
“You’re hungry.”
The truth of it crushed him.
Not rage.
Not insanity.
Hunger.
The need to dominate.
To silence.
To feel powerful over terrified people.
Charles began sobbing openly now.
“I try to stop.”
Blondie stared at him for several long seconds.
Rain streamed down her ruined face.
“You only started getting sloppy.”
Charles shut his eyes hard.
Every woman.
Every face.
Every buried scream.
All of it waiting beneath the swamp for years.
And now the swamp had opened itself to return everything he pushed into it.
Frank slowly backed away through the mud.
“We need to leave,” he whispered to the younger man.
Neither of them took their eyes off the women.
The younger man shook uncontrollably.
“They’re… dead…”
Blondie looked toward the two men briefly.
And for the first time—
her expression softened.
“Go… home,” she said quietly.
Neither man hesitated.
They turned and fled through the swamp immediately, flashlight beams bouncing wildly through the rain and trees until darkness swallowed them whole.
Charles remained kneeling alone in the mud.
Surrounded.
Blondie stepped directly in front of him now.
Close enough for him to smell swamp water and decay rising from her skin.
“You remember all of us now,” she said.
Charles nodded weakly.
Blondie slowly crouched in front of him.
And suddenly Charles understood the most horrible thing of all.
Before she could have her revenge… she dragged him back and forced him to remember.
The swamp water around Charles’ knees began rising.
Slowly.
Thick black mud pulling downward around his legs.
Charles looked down in panic.
“No…”
Mud tightened around him like wet concrete.
He tried to stand.
Couldn’t.
The women surrounding the swamp finally began moving closer.
Not aggressively.
Almost gently.
Water rippled around their bodies as they approached.
Charles started screaming.
“I SAID I WAS SORRY!”
Blondie’s face remained calm.
“Yes Charles, you are sorry.”
The mud reached Charles’ waist…
His chest..
Higher now.
He clawed desperately at the swamp while rain hammered his face.
Exactly like she once had.
Exactly like all of them had.
And as the black water finally closed over Charles Prat’s screaming mouth—
the women simply watched him sink.
One by one.
Patiently.
The swamp accepted him the same way it had accepted the others.
Without mercy.
Without haste.
And by morning, Blackwater Marsh looked exactly as it always had.
Still.
Silent.
Hungry.
