Theo woke to the glaring orange light of a dancing fire breaking the stark darkness of a Vermont evening. It didn’t surprise him to recognize the massive stone fireplace and green Adirondak chairs gathered there. He was at the Last Stop Orchard. As he tried to wipe his face with his left hand, he realized his wrists were bound behind him. His shoulder’s ached and his ankles were on fire. A dull thrumming spiked the back of his skull too, something must have knocked him out. Then he remembered the antler’d skull bursting from a man’s head. And then there was Jack, covered and heralded by alien moonlight.

The same Jack who sat next to Theo while drinking a bottle of cider. The old man was wearing denim coveralls stained by the daily effort of farm labor. “Y’know,” he said, mulling over his own words as he smacked on the sour cider, “Ain’t many people bring one uh them down.” He let his words sit in front of the fire while he leaned forward, grasping the cider like a beer bottle, his pointer finger and thumb forming a lazy grip at the rim of the container. Jack’s eyes glittered in the fire as he crooked his neck to look at the night sky. “I ain’t plannin’ on explainin’ nothin’ to yuh, but I am disappointed in ya.”

Slapping his knees, Jack stood up and crouched in front of Theo, his ice blue eyes shadowed by a distinct cowl of bizarre light. Like the fire and the night sky and the stars held within met at a single point, mingling with his iris’s to create an eldritch, unknown hue of cosmic proportions. “Ya could have joined us, boy. Yuh could have held him in yer arms. Yuh could have let him in to yer soul. But yuh chose to ignore ‘im. Like he was just another God.” Jack sighed and stroked his beard with his free hand, sucking in his fat lips like he was contemplating a meal. “And he ain’t just another God.” He growled.

Jack flashed a pocket knife at Theo, who had decided he best just shut his mouth. When Theo didn’t react Jack gave a vicious smile, “Yuh see, yuh know when ta listen, yuh just don’t know how to. When you know he’s there,” Jack shook a single fat sausage finger next to his own ear, pointing to the night sky, “Yuh can listen. Without knowin’ yuh can’t hear. And yuh knew, yuh could see him, yuh jes refused to hear him.” He moved around behind Theo, where Theo felt the cold edge of the knife press against the base of his palm. Relief flooded through his body when he realized that Jack was sawing away at the bonds holding him there.

“Now don’ go thinkin’ yer free ta go. Cuz you ain’t.” His breath was quick and heavy with effort, “I got one more thing ya gotta do.” He settled one of those fat hands on Theo’s shoulder and Theo felt his own breath catch. Jack leaned in and whispered with sour breath into Theo’s ear as his free hand pointed straight ahead, just past the fireplace. “Yuh see that road that leads down into the orchard.” Theo squinted. Two faint tire tracks led deep into the orchard. The fire blinded him to the small details, but the purple dark of night seemed to hedge close to the road, small lanterns hung from the trees, lighting the path with a sinister glow. Theo nodded.

“Imma need yuh to fucking say something on this next one.” For the first time Theo realized Tom was nowhere to be seen and risked interrupting Jack.

“W-w-where’s Tom?” Theo managed to ask as he rubbed his sore wrists. The dark was closing all around him. Even the roaring fire in front of him seemed cowed and subdued. A brief, chilled breeze swayed the leaves laying on the ground and tickled the back of his neck. Behind him he could hear Jack take in a deep breath through his nose.

“Tom’s waitin’ fer ya. He’s got somefin ta show yuh. Ya see, down that path lay redemption and vindication and knowledge.” Jack’s chuckle was grating, smug. “An’ we know yuh ain’t worf it, but we’re thinkin’ Tom might be.” Jack moved in front Theo and shut the fireplace with an iron clank. The fire snuffed out, the sudden darkness intimate and oppressive. Theo could only make out the dimly lit path and the dull reflection of light in Jack’s glowing eyes. “Yuh follow the path, yuh find yer friend. You can save him. At the end, You’ll know. We’ll all know.” Jack quieted for a second before craning his eyes toward the night sky, “Tell me yuh understand.”

                Fighting the creeping shivers Theo nodded and said, “I understand.” Jack’s wolfish grin and deep chuckle made Theo afraid he might not.

                “Well then, yuh best get goin’.” Jack gestured theatrically with his right hand, as if he was a gentleman beckoning a lady to his bedroom. It was the movement of a predator.

                Something moved Theo’s limbs of his own accord, but he couldn’t help but glance behind him where he knew the parking lot to the orchard was. “If yuh leave, Tom’s dead.” Jack said, his eyes piercing through Theo’s soul.

                Theo swallowed the saliva building in his mouth. The wind blew at his back, shifting the trees around in a sinister whisper. His shirt wasn’t thick enough to hold the breeze at bay, so a small shiver shook through his skin and into his neck.

                His first step was tentative, a careful and ginger motion intended to rally the courage he hoped lay in his heart. Everything thumped around him in cadence with his heart. The black night sky shifted just enough to show the stars hiding behind the sheet of clouds. A massive moon, silver and luminescent shone upon the lake just below the orchard. Rippling waves molested an inaccurate reflection and the bouncing light was almost too bright in Theo’s eyes. Something was wrong.

                The mist settling just above the trees was wrong. The dim light, now visible and recognizable as electric lanterns, fought with the encroaching mist. The house next to him, massive and white with paint peeling along the concrete foundation, was dead and pitch black. It was wrong. The massive moon was wrong. The building buzz pressing up against his fear wrought brain was wrong.

                As he took another step, the dark intensified. His path forward became a tunnel and he could only see the exit. A hush of sound covered his ears, like he was listening to the wind through a flesh packed wall.

                Somewhere in the distance something screeched. The limbs of the apple trees began to shuffle in a bizarre, eldritch dance. Though muffled and alien, Theo could hear flesh-like snaps and pops as the trees came to life. Their branches became whipping cilia, latching onto one another to leave a trail of pitch black slime that twinkled an oil-slick purple opalescence. They rippled with unearthly movement just beneath the bark as they attempted to consume one another.

                Theo’s legs were moving faster now, he trotted down the steep hill toward the hunger incensed pathway, the screech fresh in his mind. If Tom was in danger, Theo owed it to his friend to at least try. To at least witness him.

                As he approached the first tree, he noticed rickety scaffolding built across the threshold. On top a man with rounded mountains of fat and pockmarked skin sat heaving his lungs. Patches of hair crossed his chest and held moles and skin tags and other twisted blemishes. Only a loin cloth prevented Theo from the clod of fat hiding his dick. The man stood up and Theo recognized him as one of those he’d first seen with Jack that first day. “To the sky we beg for the Horizon’s blessing!” He intonated in an off-pitch prayer. The voice warbled with sonic disruption, a deep and textured rumbling underlaying and overwhelming his words.

                A screech echoed again somewhere deep within the orchard. This time Theo thought it sounded like a person, like someone in agonizing pain. He tried to ignore the whipping trees slobbering all over one another. The bark of those trees now radiated a peculiar black light that butted up against the thick mist that settled over the trees. Theo’s first breath inside the orchard smelled like apples, like he expected. But then other scents overwhelmed his senses. The second stunk of rotten apples piled over a decayed corpse, the third a mixture of charred meat and an overfilled septic, and the fourth like his living room piled over with pizza boxes and burnt spoons.

                Theo told himself he had to ignore the path, that he had to get to his friend. But deep between the trees he saw people moving with him. Some had their hands clasped in prayer, others sauntered with an insane religious ecstasy plastered over their faces. He saw the girl who worked at the register at the nearby convenient store. Then there was the old sheriff’s deputy, the guy who just transported prisoners. Several members of the selectboard of the town locked hands as they wove through the orchard. Theo ignored them.

                As the orchard path turned and twisted the murmuring voices around him rose and swelled. A graveyard slowly appeared as Theo moved forward. The mist had settled along the edges, capturing the distant light of the stars and moon to irradiate the tombstones in a silvered aura.

                Tom sat on a tombstone, shaking with his hands over his face. He was crying. Before Theo stepped into the perimeter of the graveyard, he took a moment to make sure the spectators weren’t going to follow him in. They settled against the wrought iron fence. Some of them stood a ways back, but others lounged, setting their arms in between the iron spikes as if they were having a casual conversation. The screech echoed again. It threatened to break Theo’s eardrums and he screamed with it, though it felt like he was screaming into a dense pillow, his breath pressing against his face in a sticky blanket.

                “Tom, I’m here buddy, I’m here.” Theo said weakly, his voice seeming to die in the mist.

                “Theo…” Tom sobbed into his hands, “You… you…” Theo could hear the snot and the mucus in his voice. That made him move closer.

                “I’m here buddy, I know I fucked up earlier.” Theo said. He should have seen the trap. He should have known Jack was fucked in the head. He could have killed that fucking beast and gotten them the both out of there.

                “You fucked me.” Tom said, finally lifting his hands from his face. Theo recoiled but suppressed the urge to run. His eyes were running with blood and the crown of his skull pulsed and wriggled with an unseen denizen. Thick streams of purple liquid leaked from his nose and his lips were peeled back, ripped from their home and streaking ripe, red bits of exposed flesh. The top lip crested against the bridge of his nose, the inky purple liquid burning holes through his skin. His bottom lip hung like a loose earlobe past his chin, his gums rankled and pustuled by a bizarre rot.

                “Oh Jesus fucking christ.” Theo muttered, paralyzed by fear. His words were caged by the rising chorus around him. The hymn was both guttural and ethereal. Strange pitches and notes rung through the air and chilled his bones. The mist settled heavier and the moon began to hide itself behind the earth, eschewing the reflective light of the sun. Lights behind him dimmed and Tom’s visage was rendered to two shining eyes and slick, reflective teeth.

                “I was supposed to know him.” Tom’s mutated voice said, “I could have known him and he would have taken me.”

                Theo’s throat caught on the tears building in his eyes, “Buddy, we can get you fixed up man, we just gotta leave.”

                “Why would I leave my home?” Tom asked, those two glowing eyes sauntering closer. “I can know him still. I can do it. I can become a part of the Horizon.”

                Theo reflexively put his hands up as Tom moved closer. Something told Theo he wasn’t going to live. That he couldn’t fight back. That he was mulch for the infinite expansion of the universe.

                The fleshy explosion splattered Theo’s face as he saw the outline of a deer skull erupt from Tom’s head. His face burned and flamed and stung. As he fell to the ground, scratching and clawing at his own steaming, melting skin, Theo managed to look up at his friend, now an abomination unknown. Theo thought of all that time he spent around Tom and couldn’t help but chuckle in between his screams of pain.

                Tom placed one hand on Theo’s forehead and pushed gently. Theo crashed to the ground, dizzy and numb with pain. Tom then stomped on Theo’s leg, buckling his knee and snapping it two. Theo could only watch, too much pain had stopped up his brain.

                Leaning over, Tom grabbed the broken limb with both hands and wrenched Theo’s limb in two. A funny pooping sound rung through his head. Theo had locked himself in his own brain, becoming an apathetic participant.

                Watching with the funny bemusement of a man watching someone he loves succeed, Theo tried to pretend that he didn’t see Tom chomp down on his leg like a piece of fried turkey. That the slurping and sucking of his friend wasn’t framed by moans of ecstasy.

                The rising swell of the chorus stopped and Theo had died, but he died happy. Somehow, it seemed poetic he would ascend with his friend.