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Jane wakes upon the cushy pink couch between the end tables like a story laying in a book. Her eyes slip open and she stares transfixing into the dark, popcorn ceiling, knowing implicitly that the tiny bumps create a sound deadening trait. Jane imagines them as an endless snow world of upside down mountains and valleys existing on the dark side of a plafond moon. She could situate herself like this all night, relaxingly pretending to be dead, watching a world that "never was" take place. The sense in her ear is an issue for such a dream to bare its truth. She's pulled away and back to her situation by a loud banging noise. Outside. Another deep booming bending barrel clangour jolts her up and to her feet before the front of the couch. Someone else begins pounding another potential aluminum baseball bat against the sidewalk a few houses away. Genres of words are echoing in the street made by tumultuous voices bouncing back and forth between harsh pavement and plastic siding and roof overhang and olden wooden frame. The reckoning's from a close distance. And she hears what could be mistaken for exhilarating nervous laughter within the woods behind the house. Jane also notices all of the lights in the house are turned off and the only illumination is coming from the dim street lamp in front of their two story home. It's a certain slant of light that bares no virtue on the coming and going of the Ghosts outside or the three ghosts waiting to be ghosts inside. It's so dim that one has to wonder if the light isn't just more darkness.

And what is she wearing? Ghost sewn combat pants that look like rolls of black wax-less cerement and a black tank top of the same nature under a black patchwork Ghost jacket with a nice big grim reaper hood and mission worn black boots creating a cavern for her feet. Jane wiggles her cold toes within the crevasse. The boots are indeed a bit big but they seem laced tight enough to stay on. Directly in front of her is a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum and its holster leans against the frayed backrest of Rhie's green armchair.

"Hey, guys. What's going on? Why haven't we left yet?"

Rist stands at the living room window, peering out at the darkness and the street lamp like a shadow in the shadows. She's watching and listening to what's ensuing around the house's bay.

Hidden in the fog of darkness, Rist motions for Jane to come to her. Jane can clearly see her hand movement with her night time eyes and immediately creeps toward Rist. She sneaks up and Rist wraps an arm around Jane's waist and pulls her close. Rist's lips touch Jane's ear for a moment before she whispers.

"They've been around here all day. There was no way to leave. They've been very cautious but in the last half hour they've become reckless. I'm pretty sure the assholes don't think we're here. There's been hundreds of them around."

"Oh, shit. Did they try to get in?"

"They did. We hid in the crawl space. We also made sure all of the pictures in the house were with us. Rhie carried you down. They never came back in."

"Where's Rhie?"

"At the back door, keeping watch."

"Want me to handle them?"

Rist looks Jane in the eyes and her stare says, "not a chance."

"I'm not putting you through that again, Jane. I'm sickened that it happened at all. No. We'll find a way out of here without you being beaten and shot again. We kinda have a plan."

"I can handle it, Rist. It's not like..."

"But I can't, Jane! I can't! I can't watch that again! I can't watch you go through that! You're not sacrificial, Jane! You're my best friend...I love you. I care about you. It's not healthy to want to go out there and die again and again. I don't want you to turn into the monster! I'm afraid that you might not come back. You've said that your body is trying to eat your soul? What if it does? No, Jane. We'll find a way out that doesn't include you losing your soul."

Jane thinks to herself obliquely.

That may be inevitable.

Jane watches Rist's eyes and she's on the verge of tears, so Jane nods in acceptance of what Rist has said.

"Ok. I'll be a team player. What's the plan? Is it still the big, mean, dark forest?"

"Yup. But how to get there? I think we go out the back and into the wooded valley. We can follow the stream to the destroyed rolling hills and then to the beginning of Glanton street. From there, the forest. We have extra masks now, too. You'll have to wear one. I put you in my Ghost clothes for a reason. We'll try to blend in."

"Ok. There's Ghosts in the forest. I'll pretend to be one of them. I may have to kill some of them if we get caught, though. And Rist? I'll become the monster if it means I can save you and Rhie out there. No. Don't shake your head. I love you too and I won't let anything happen to you. So let's make sure this plan of your's goes well."

Rist hugs Jane and kisses her forehead. It's a long kiss and Jane notices Rist take the time to smell Jane's hair at the same time as her lips slowly, almost caressingly depart. Jane's stomach flutters a little and she wonders what just happened.

Rist slides her hand into Jane's and they slowly head for the kitchen and the back door. She collects the gun and holster along the way. The floorboards squeak as carpenter nails in the top of the old shiplap move up and down in the joists with each softly attempted step. The look Rhie gives them for such foot falls indicate that he thinks they have a choice in the making of noise while walking through the old house.

Rist shrugs at Rhie. Jane smiles. Rhie sighs and hands them two skull masks. He turns to face the window in the back door.

"I killed three of those bastards earlier today and took their masks. It's probably why they're still haunting us. I shouldn't have done that but I'm furious. I hate them and I need this to work. I was thinking about how we achieve our goal, not what could happen if I kill some of them. I think I fucked up."

Rist lets go of Jane and puts her hand on Rhie's back. She rubs the tension from his neck into the space between his shoulder blades, up and down.

"We'll be fine. We needed the masks. They probably would've come here in mass, anyway. Pete probably figured that strength in numbers would overpower us. It's a good thing they don't know exactly where we live."

Jane smells something sickly. Something's burning out there. It's the smell of a household structure melting and blazing. It dawns on Jane that the Ghosts are going to burn the whole bay down.

"If we're going, now's the time. I can smell that they've lit a house on fire. Let's get out of here before they get to this one."

Rhie turns to look at them both and Rist gasps.

"They're gonna burn our home down. My parents house. My family's sanctuary. Oh, fuck."

Now Jane rubs Rist's back from the neck to between her shoulder blades. Rhie takes Rist's hand and shakes his head.

"I'm so sorry. But Jane's right, we need to leave and we need to leave now."

Rist's crying. "I fucking hate them."

Jane turns her around so that she can witness her overcast eyes in the dark and speak face to face.

"Give yourself to the count of six and then focus on what we have to do. You can mourn when we are out of danger. I need you, Rist. I need you alive. We can't carry you out there."

Rist looks at her feet and her lips move like numbers. When she's finished, her eyes meet Jane's and they both nod at the same time. Rist quickly puts the gun holster on her belt.

Jane puts on her skull face mask and says, "ready when you are Rhie."

Speech reverts back into thought.

Time to be a Ghost. Since I feel like a ghost already, this should come as naturally as the notion of a concept.

They all have their masks on. Rhie opens the back door, which thankfully doesn't creak like the front entrance, and they quietly fly down the uneven stairs and casually walk through the backyard, which is barren except for little archipelago's of Bermuda grass and the makings of a shed that Rist and Rhie had been working on with old, weather worn wood.

Jane can hear a big crowd of Ghosts across the street from the house as they leave. She looks back like a pillar of salt and can see a bungalow burning. She knows Rist's ignoring the sights and smells to get through tonight's horror.

As they reach the wood and the beginning of the decline into the valley, Jane's stunned by witnessing many green eyes opening all at once and staring brightly and directly at her. They blind her for a long moment. And at the same time, numerous glowing white masks hover out of the forest toward the three friends. They're streamers of skulls flying out of a mass of green dots and the thin tenebrous impalement trees. Jane woozily startles in the capture of the whole situation. She's seldom caught off guard but this time she's jump scared by the amount of movement exploding from slow to fast all at once.

One ghost floats in front of her and grabs Jane by the hair. She kicks him in the groin and then bends his upper body over and toward her forcefully lifting knee. She breaks his face, dropping him like a stiff.

The other Ghosts witness Jane and decide not to fuck around. They pull out guns and begin blasting at the three friends. The Ghosts are terrible shots in the dark. Rist and Rhie unpack side arms and fire several bullets in the direction of the enemy, killing at least one Ghost. Jane watches a face explode under its mask with the force of the .357 magnum.

The shoot out alerts all of the other Ghosts, so Jane grabs Rist and hurls her into the woods while the skull mask lady shoots her big gun, killing numerous assailants. Out of the corner of Jane's eye, she witnesses Rhie firing while following them backward into the trees. Jane feels a striking pain. A stray bullet penetrates her lower back and she stumbles for a moment. She can feel the burning shrapnel in her body as her spine begins to push the bullet out of her skin and begin healing.

That should have paralyzed me.

The two run through the thin, spear tree forest, allowing the momentum of the decent to lift them off their feet and then tumble. They roll and trip and somersault into tangly branches and brittle bushes and mounds of dirt and rotting bark. They both crash parts of their bodies into the cold pebbly stream with splashing thuds and become partially soaked in the slightly moving water. They look up toward the top of the valley which is hidden by the wall of a thousand tall thin trees and brutish cord claw bushes. But no one's following. Rist touches herself in places to make sure that she wasn't hit by a bullet or injured in the fall. They hear more gun fire and then silence and then Rhie's horrific scream!

"Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuun!"

Jane quickly gets up to go back but Rist holds her shoulder and shakes her head. "We can't. There's too many of them, Jane."

Then they hear more gun fire. Rhie's swearing at them.

"You fucking animals! You murderers! You traitors."

The loud crack of a baseball bat crushing a skull penetrates the air. A few voices laugh like it's funny and someone says, "this is for the Grand Ghost and for all of my friends." It's Pete's voice. There's a very loud shotgun pellet blast that silences everything everywhere.

Jane is absolutely incensed. Rist holds her down.

"They'll kill us. They'll turn you to ash. I want to kill them all but I can't think about it now. Count to six, Jane. Have the rage until the count of six and then let it go. Let him go in this moment for now! Please."

Jane counts in her mind, wanting nothing more than to do what she did last night.

One.

She wants her body drenched in their blood. She wants to be soaked to her bones in the crimson of such deserving enemies.

Two.

Rhie was her friend. Her protector. Rist's lover. They'll now be far more helpless during the day.

Three.

Jane can picture ripping every Ghosts face off and turning them all into masks of truth.

Four.

She thinks about the man who isn't with them. The boy that held her in the picture. Her smile. Where is he?

Five.

She'll miss Rhie. He was a part of her little group that knew her when she was herself. She wants a bloodbath but she's becoming more sad than angry.

Six.

She'll mourn. But for now, she must protect the friend who she has left. This situation needs to be solved before daylight.

"Ok, let's get out of here."

Rist nods and disappears behind the giant single piece of a holy boulder that may have tumbled down in the making of the trough during the ancient tardy glacial melting of millenniums to be positioned now in the middle of a waterless meander of the thin stream. She returns quickly carrying a framed rucksack that she had hidden in a dry alcove of the dark wet trickling valley rock for just such a plight and she straps the trekking pack upon her back and they both begin running as fast as they can pace along the bank of the crushed dolomite and rotten stone, avoiding any slippery sliding splashing. The two friends remove their masks but won't discard the faces, they don't want to leave any easy indication of their direction but neither friend wishes to wear such abomination again. They both pocket the ugly countenance. And then Jane notices an orange glow behind them. It's the light of more houses being eaten by fire; the heat of more ancient memories becoming ash. Rist's house is probably one of the great logs upon the Ghosts angry fire.

The two friends are like the essence of the dying modern escaping into the pre-modern, escaping from history, back past categories and still further back, past similitude. Maybe they would prefer a pre-agricultural existence to where what follows ended up. Maybe they'd have been the warlords burning away the Fertile Crescent like the Ghosts who are burning Rist's home. Maybe that's who they were in another life. In another death.

The ground' soft and muddy in places but most of the embankment's fossil dry and fair to stumble and easy to manoeuvre in the darkness of Jane's bright malachite eyes. She's careful to warn Rist of obstacles and hazarding drops that could bang a heel or cause a fall into the stream. The stream itself seems to expand wider and wider while the listen of the opposite embankment shouts further and further. The water could be getting deeper. If they had to, they could hide in the cold depths of the leaden murk.

Jane' sick of running and thinks of hiding in wait for the inevitable confrontation. Her instincts are sharply clawing through her reason. She wants to go back and slaughter all of them, over and over again. She wants to make masks out of their faces. Jane realizes her body wants vengeance but other emotions within her are scream to protect Rist. The sounds of the dead of night and the death of this night collide with her images of Rhie and the memory of his screams. She must protect her friends at all costs no matter what happens. She's thoroughly failed him. She'll not fail her best friend. She'd rather be ashes than watch Rist die or witness her dead body.

And they continue to run for hours. Jane's a dripping mess of sweat. So's Rist and eventually they stop for a break. Jane' satisfied that no one's following them. There're no human foot falls or breathing anywhere behind or in front.

Rist unlatches the rucksack and drops it on the rocks and digs out a water bottle and a packet of animal jerky. When the bottle's empty, she fills it with stream water and drops a purifying tablet into. Then all the tears come.

Jane takes off her jacket and sits beside the skull mask lady. Wraps tank top arms around her friend as Rist sobs into her own knees. Tears and drool coat the dry chalky rocks under her legs. Rist grabs Jane's arm and holds and squeezes her tightly. The mire girl breathes in the skull mask lady's hair and kisses the top of her head then rests her cheek on the back of Rist's shoulder. They both cry for Rhie. For what happened. For what he didn't deserve. Their friend is gone and he was murdered for what Jane did. But if it hadn't been Pete, it would've been the Grand Ghost. Rhie and Rist were betrayed by the Ghosts and probably would've been hunted down regardless of what Jane did. All of this leads Jane back to thinking that Rist and Rhie should've been more doubtful of the Ghosts in general.

Were you trying to buy us time or were you just unlucky? Ah, Rhie....I'm so sorry...if only I had killed Pete when I killed the Grand Ghost...I failed you, my friend...I'll take care of Rist for you...nothing's going to happen to her...I promise, Rhie...I swear it.

Rist and Jane hug for a while, sobbing in the sweat through their clothes. When Rist begins breathing normally, Jane follows. There're no words between the two, only touching and comforting fingers combing through hair and wiping tears softly from flushed cheeks.

Eventually the hour becomes late. They rise and Jane ties her reaper jacket in a knot around her waist. Most of the jacket covers her butt. Rist collects her rucksack. It's full of bottles of water and the animal jerky that won't rot. She stores the purification tablets and also medication and bandages and bug repellent. Two Beretta pistols, a load of 129 grain JSP and 9mm NATO round ammunition, fire starter and an old butane lighter. She keeps the third gun holstered at her side. The .357 Smith and Wesson Magnum. And she straps an enormous hunting knife to the side of her right calf that was in a surprisingly well hidden pocket on the underside of the rucksack.

The two friends continue running along the stream until they come upon a train track bridge. The stream goes underneath the hulking mass of concrete and steel. This bridge has been well maintained, due to the modern use of the train and the safety of passengers.

They climb the embankment and the hill around the grassy, gravely side of the bridge to set boots upon train tracks. They run along the hot-rolled steel, passing street crossing after street crossing. The friends travel past burnt, overturn vehicles and old crumbling schools that have playgrounds littered with tiny blackened skeletons. They witness the charred remains of suburban life. The conurbations are desolate and look like they're old square singed sea vessels sinking back into the depths of the earth. There's a completely untouched white mansion in the middle of all of the blackened, bomb struck aftermath. It glares from the distance like a monster of the deep, without a care for any other petty monster that might be chasing it. It sits like a god of Heaven living in Hell, smiling at all the damned, mocking everything, every lesser god. The Ghosts are monsters but they know who the real monster is.

And Glanton street is still a few miles away. Rist's breathing hard and points to an underpass that's a drop off into a large, big bluestem grass field. An old dinner jacket hangs like a torn body from a piece of rebar protruding through a balustrade; a friesian horse defending nettles and tires and warped plastic. It's a similar vicinity to the place that Jane lingered beside a few days ago, with the barricades and the writing. Proctor. Jane. I am the island.

They climb down into the bottom and find an old passenger van existing beside chunks of concrete and boulders like archipelagos in a sea of tall grass. Its only window's the windshield and it looks almost untouched by the devastation above. Jane opens the double side door and has a look at its innards. The belly's empty except for a few naked tires. They both climb around the hollow of its womb and Rist closes the double side door with a rusty screech.

Jane rolls the rubber doughnut tires by the front seats and sits down, crisscross applesauce. Rist places the rucksack on one side between them and oppositely mimics Jane's seating arrangement. She looks at the mire girl and nods.

"We'll stay here for the day. This place is fairly well hidden."

"I agree. You need rest and in an hour, I'll be useless. I think this's the best that we're going to find."

Rist takes a glow stick from her back pocket and bends it. The illumination's a calming blue. And yet the primary colour, just as it is, causes a very anxious feeling within Jane's gut. She notices she doesn't like the colour of blue. She should, she knows that she should and she knows why she should, but the emotion of a memory cuts her and she can't help but hate the little glow stick. But she doesn't want to waste by asking Rist to get rid of it. So Jane eats the emotion that her memory provides her. She absolutely hates the taste of it.

"Are you ok, Jane?"

Jane exits her mind and looks to meet Rist's eyes. She frowns and looks away.

"Sorry, stupid question. This was a terrible night. I know that you're not ok. Neither am I. I don't have..."

"I'm uneasy talking about it right now, Rist. My mind's going to 'what if's' and 'what now?' I could've done more for Rhie. I could've chased Pete after I killed the Grand Ghost. I could've chased him down and killed him and maybe Rhie would still be alive..."

"Oh, Jane. No. They would have come for us anyway. If it hadn't been Pete, it would have been someone else. Please don't blame yourself. I put you in this mess in the first place. I trusted them. I took you to them. It's my fault."

"That's something that I love about you, Rist. You trust. You went all in on me when you found me, no questions, no judgments. You trusted me, whoever I was to you and whoever I am to you now. You're for real, it's painted in your eyes. Your soul's painted in your eyes. You're not trying to swindle anyone. You're authentic. People take advantage of your inner beauty."

"I'd cry but I'm all out of tears."

"Me too, Rist. Me, too."

Jane crawls over to Rist's lap and rests her head on Rist's chest. They hold each other by the hated light of a calming blue.

"Did you see the green lights, Rist? The lights that look like eyes?"

Rist sits straight and Jane looks up at her.

"You can see them? I thought I was the only one. When I asked Rhie about them he said he couldn't see anything. He thought I was just imagining them. But you can see them?"

Jane nods.

"I've watched them watch me since I crawled out of the mire. They were present when I killed the Ghosts. They were there last night, when the Ghosts attacked us."

"I saw them, too. They blinded me from seeing the Ghost masks when I needed to. Do you know what they are?"

"No. Maybe they're ghosts."

Rist sighs and lays down while holding Jane, who curls up next to her. "Maybe Rhie is with them, now."

"I'd like to think so, but I'm not sure. Maybe they're what was. But maybe they're what's yet to come. I don't know. I say this because they watch us. I wonder if they learn from us, or are learning about us."

"I wonder why Rhie couldn't see them."

They hear tiny taps upon the roof of the van and exit the conversation. They look at the windshield and see that it's raining. Jane looks up at Rist and they both smile at each other.

They sit and begin unzipping and untying clothes. The two friends strip until they're naked and open the side door to the van. They both jump out and run their separate ways in the rain, washing themselves, cleaning off the sweat and dust and tears and for a few moments, the horrors of the night's long hours.

Jane finds a big, smooth boulder and spreads herself upon it, letting the soft rain and the downpour that it becomes soak her flesh in its millions of relieving touches. Rist's on top of the van doing the same thing.

This is nice. Finally, something nice. I wish I could bottle this sensation so I could drink it later. Every part of me feels aware and absolutely free. I'm the wild animal for this moment. Not the monster. Not Jane. I'm the girl from the mire.

She feels a different sensation and sits up. Her emotions can feel something about to change around her and she crouches her feet under her and stands upon the rock. The green eyes open everywhere. She watches Rist stand on top of the van in the darkness of the downpour. Her friend can witness them, too. She looks back at Jane.

Rist slides down the windshield and off of the hood of the van. She walks over to Jane and climbs upon the rock and presses herself against the mire girl's body. Jane looks deeply into Rist's eyes and knows the truth. Butterflies take flight in her belly. The darkness turns bright green as Rist softly kisses Jane on the lips.