You know from the news reports that she slit her wrists on the back porch and threw herself in the lake. Her body didn’t wash up until weeks later, after she was reported missing and the police came out here to look for her. The lake talked to her, too. You know that from her diary, which you found in a false-bottomed drawer in your bedroom’s nightstand. She got caught trying to abduct another woman from a gas station not too far from here, and decided that death would be better than letting the lake go unfed because of her mistake. You don’t know who owned the place before her, but [[someone must have]].\n\nYou carefully lift the utility knife out of its torn packaging, flicking the blade of the knife up and down, testing the weight of it in your hand. It might be your best idea yet. At the very least, it’ll make things quicker this time around. It’s funny how you never really stop and think that there’s a certain science to efficient, painless murder until you have to figure out [[a way to do it]].

"I could take hitchhikers. Or people whose cars are broken down," you say, mostly to yourself.\n\n"That's serial killer talk."\n\nThe voice isn't Mal's, and you look up just in time to see [[Jeremy]] drift into the kitchen.\n\n“He’s right,” Mal agrees, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “People start disappearing off the road every few months, someone’s going to notice. It won’t just be picking off your band buddies from out of town anymore.”\n\n“Someone might even notice that we’re all gone before that, and come out here to investigate,” Jeremy says pointedly.\n\nMal shrugs his skinny shoulders up to his ears, making a non-committal “eh” sort of noise. “I mean, we didn’t have that many fans.”\n\n“Both of you shut up.” You massage the side of your neck with the heel of one hand, squeezing your eyes shut and feeling the muscle flare up in pain as you twist your head down towards your left shoulder. You took your two painkillers in the car, but they haven't kicked in yet. “[[Let me think]].”

His hands are crammed into the pockets of his jacket, and he won’t make eye contact with you, a nimbus of blond hair drifting around his head like he’s moving underwater. He’s the most recently dead, and sometimes you think he’s still angry about it, because he doesn’t say much at all. Jeremy pretends to lean up against the fridge, but you know that he’s probably straining to keep himself from falling through it. Even though he’s shorter and stockier than Mal and Danton, they all drift through solid things [[just the same|a way to do it]].

"I wanted to watch TV. You never turn on the TV when you're by yourself." Danton frowns at you. You shrug.\n\n"So, get a hobby. Not my problem."\n\n"Yeah, hobbies are real easy to come by when you're incorporeal." He pulls a face, unsticking himself all the way from Wes's body and hovering briefly above the recliner before touching down on the floor in front of you. Like Mal, Danton is taller than you by at least half a foot, but he wears the inches in a less gangly way. He looks down his beaky nose at the utility knife. "Aren't you gonna feel crappy when all your friends are dead, Lan?"\n\n"What are you, my conscience?" You try your very best to smile.\n\n"I'm serious." Danton glances from you to Wes and back again. "Do you really want to be some weird hobo who lives in the middle of nowhere and talks to ghosts and murders people every once in a while?"\n\n"That's not my choice to make."\n\n[["Then whose choice is it?"|choice]]

//It's time to...sleep...freezing...feeling...cold...//\n\n"What do you want?" you snap at the radio. It's done this before - the lake, of course. This is how it communicates, through bastardizing other peoples' words. It likes music, usually, but it's stooped to diner menus and billboards before to get your attention.\n\n//He is dying...dying...dying...dying...for...me...//\n\n"I know. I'm running late."\n\n//Drowning...drowning...drowning...drowning...drowning...slowly...//\n\n"Yeah, I got it."\n\nYou almost change the track again, but you really don't feel like finding out what the lake will do to "Wonderwall", so you turn off the radio. You can live with fifteen minutes of silence before you get [[home]].

It's nothing fancy. You'd think that having been in a [[fairly popular band]] would let you afford nicer things, but really all it did was help pay the rent and buy meals.\n\n[[You keep searching your pocket for your keys|exit store]].

You figured you might as well try to be a completionist and finish off the last surviving remnant of Paper Museum before moving on to bigger and better things. Wes should be asleep in the den right now, even though you can hear the TV blaring at full volume from [[where you stand|Malcolm]].

//Why don't you kill...kill...kill...kill...[[kill...|...]]//

You figured you might as well buy them while you're in town. You don't drive out here very often, if you can help it. There's too many lights, too many sounds, and the people are too nosy for their own good. You didn't move all the way to Colorado to get quizzed on your life every time you introduce yourself to a neighbor.\n\n[[The cashier looks at you expectantly.|shopping bags]]

[[Murder's a real trial-and-error thing.]]

[[Malcolm]] is waiting for you in the foyer when you come inside.

You don't remember when you started seeing ghosts. It could have been before this whole business with the lake, but you doubt it. You were normal before the lake. You were a film major. You liked playing the bass guitar. You weren't scared to listen to the radio or read a newspaper in case the words rearranged themselves to warn you of a coming doom. You didn't kill people. You weren't so cold all the time, and your body didn't ache so much.\n\n[[You wonder if the woman who owned the lake house before you saw ghosts too.|killed you]]

You don’t wait for Wes to stop moving before you steer his body towards the lake. It’s easier to start before he goes limp – you won’t have to lug his whole body weight that way, just push and pull a little. You picked that up last time, [[when you killed Jeremy|murder]].\n

“Landis.” Wes sounds a little more sober, and a lot scared. “What’s going on? [[What are those things?]]”

For your neck. You don't know what you did, but the damn thing has been sore all week. You'll dry swallow a couple of the pills in the car on your way back to the lake.\n\n[[The cashier looks at you expectantly.|shopping bags]]

Mal’s right. It wasn’t like this even on the night that you killed him. Almost as bad, maybe, but not quite. Just bad enough for you to realize things were serious, and that you hadn’t been hallucinating the weatherman on the news telling you that the depths hungered for blood, the car insurance commercial lady saying that a sacrifice had to be made. You wonder if the woman who owned the house before you ever got to see the lake like this. You wonder if it was like this the night she slit her wrists.\n\nYou flick the blade of the utility knife up. Something’s breaking the surface of the lake between the waves, rows of long, spindly things waving like cattails in the late-autumn wind. You watch as the moonlight catches one and realize that it’s a hand, lolling at the end of an emaciated, rotting arm. Reaching towards the porch. Towards you.\n\n[[“Shit,” Danton breathes.|shit]]

It must be the gray hair that has her calling you that. You used to dye it, but stopped a few months back. People aren't so used to seeing anyone who's in their mid twenties and already going gray.\n\nIt doesn't bother you. You think it's funny, that people treat you like you're older than you are.\n\nYou should make sure you have [[everything you need.|shopping bags]]

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END

It's not a bad question. You glance over at the clock on top of the TV and grit your teeth. Almost midnight. You have to be quick or you'll miss your time window. Were the others trying to stall you, or did you just take too long getting back from the store?\n\n"No idea," you say. You need to take Wes outside before you run out of time to do this. Or before you lose your nerve - but you haven't yet, not even with Mal, who was the first. You rub your neck. "You look like you could [[use some air]], Wes."\n\nWes blinks. "I do?"\n\n"We should go outside. [[On the porch.]]"\n\n"Sure, I guess," he mumbles. The words are slurring together behind his teeth, which means he's still decently drugged up.

and [[slit his throat from ear to ear with the utility knife.|slit]]

The drive back to the lake is almost calming. It's late enough that the roads are mostly unpopulated, and you only pass a couple of other cars the whole way, their headlights drifting through the darkness in front of you like will-o'-the-wisps. The full moon hangs in your rearview mirror, a backseat driver peeping over your shoulder.\n\nYou [[punch the radio on]].

It takes everything in your power, short of clapping your hands over your mouth, not to shout. You take a step backwards, reeling, and almost drop the utility knife on the floor. Danton struggles not to laugh at you - you can see it in the way the corners of his mouth are twitching.\n\n"What the hell are you doing?" You force your voice to come out in a hiss so that you don't run the risk of Wes waking up and seeing you talk to yourself.\n\n"Hanging out with Wes," Danton says, his eyes wide and earnest beneath a thick mop of dark, shaggy hair.\n\nYou're almost beyond words, but you manage to choke them from your throat. "Well, stop it."\n\n"Why should I?" His expression sours. "It's not like I could wake him up if I tried."\n\n[["Then what's the point?"|point]]

Don’t-” Danton starts loudly, before presumably realizing Wes can’t hear him. He follows the two of you into the kitchen, where Mal and Jeremy are waiting in silence like shadows. They join him in drifting out to the back porch with you and Wes. You wish they wouldn’t all breathe down your neck so much. It was hard when it was just Mal, watching you strangle Danton with [[your bare hands and a bit of rope|what time is it?]].

[["I wonder why," Danton says dryly.|get rid of them]]

In case things get messy. This is your first time using anything other than your hands, or a rope.\n\n[[The cashier looks at you expectantly.|shopping bags]]

Mal doesn’t have an answer for you. \n\nNone of them do. \n\nYou think about going back inside, where it’s warmer, but you stay where you are instead, feet rooted to the rotting wood of the porch. \n\n[[Wes should be coming back anytime now.|end]]

lacrimosa

The lake is vast and roiling and silver in the light of the moon. The normally glassy surface of the water ripples almost violently, a private earthquake, waves noisily lapping against the bank closest to you. Wes teeters for balance and catches himself, leaning heavily on the porch railing.\n\n“What’s wrong with the water?” he asks, his words all slurring together.\n\n"I've never seen it that bad," Mal says, the five of you all stopping to [[stare]].

“Do you think he’ll come back, too?” you ask without looking behind you.\n\n“He’s just as stubborn as the rest of us,” Jeremy answers, choosing his words slowly, like he’s afraid that it’s not what you want to hear.\n\n“Hey, if you go nuts and kill yourself, we could do a reunion tour,” Mal says. You can hear the tiny smirk in his voice. “Séances across the country.”\n\nYou prop my elbows on your knees, letting your head hang down and lacing your hands behind your neck. “I’m not killing myself. What do you think happens when no one’s here to [[take care of this place|caretaker]]?”\n

You brace your free arm on his back so that he [[can’t turn around|turn]],

"Jesus," you mutter, pressing the button to play the next track. Pain lances through your neck muscles. Ben Folds's soft, high voice gibbers non sequiturs through the speakers, bits and pieces ripped from "Brick" and reformed as [[pidgin sentences]].

Wes is asleep in the recliner in front of the television, his feet propped up, the bottle of hard lemonade he was drinking when you left still miraculously in his hand and not on the floor. It must not have taken long for the pills you put in it to take effect, even with the TV still flashing the evening news. Wes's head is tilted back, exposing the long, pale strip of his throat and its jutting Adam's apple. You flick the knife blade up and down. You could have him drowning in his own blood before he even woke up. Then again, you'd have to drag him all the way out to the lake, and it would make a huge mess for you to have to clean up.\n\n"Hey!" [[Danton]] exclaims, levering himself through Wes's torso like a swimmer suddenly emerging from the still waters of a pool. "You're home!"

You scoop up two bags in each hand and emerge victorious on the other side of the sliding glass doors. [[Your car]] is one of the only few remaining in the convenience store lot, and you fumble your keys out of your pocket to unlock it. \n\nIt shouldn't take too long to [[get back]]. Maybe you can cut the trip down to twenty minutes if there's no speed traps on the road.

"Yeah, [[ghosts]] are never part of the plan." Mal is dripping with sarcasm. "That's our bad for coming back to constantly remind you that you're a murderer."\n\n"Murderer is a strong term." You match his tone. You can feel him and Jeremy glaring at you, so you take your utility knife into the [[living room]].

You were called Paper Museum and you played on daytime TV a couple times, that kind of thing. Then everyone went off on their own, and you moved into the lake house.\n\nNone of you talked for years after that. That was your in for getting them to come visit when you needed them. Now Wes is the only one left, and soon you won't even have him as a last resort.\n\nAll your reliable resources, [[gone|Your car]].

The bags are bloated with [[cleaning supplies]], [[painkillers]], [[batteries]], a single [[utility knife]]. You hope it's everything. You don't want to have to drive half an hour back to the lake only to realize you're missing something important.\n\n[["That's it,"|exit store]] you tell the cashier.

The real reason you came out on this little shopping excursion. The cheapest you can find, so you'll feel less guilty about disposing of it afterwards if you decide never to use it again. It has a little switch on it that slides the blade up and down.\n\n[[The cashier looks at you expectantly.|shopping bags]]\n\n

Danton's voice is too loud, louder than the echoing monotones of the newscasters on the TV screen, and the question hangs in the air between the two of you. He cocks his head like you owe him an answer. You don't. Everyone here thinks you //owe// them something because you killed them and gave their bodies up to the lake. Maybe it would be news to them, but that's not how murder works under any normal circumstances, and it's still not how it works even though they're all hanging around to bother you postmortem. Although maybe it is a little bit your fault for assuming you could [[get rid of them]] so easily.

You don’t just leave a place like this alone. There has to be a [[caretaker|lie]].

“You’ve had six months to think about this.” Mal’s voice is steely.\n\n“Yeah, well, in a house where I can barely hear myself think-”\n\n“Oh, yeah, whose fault is that?” Mal raises his voice enough to make you open your eyes and look at him. His hands are balled into fists, held up in front of his chest like he’s anticipating an attack. “Maybe you should have considered that before you started killing all your friends!”\n\nHe slams his fists down on the table. At first you think they’re just going to go through the wood, as intangible as the rest of him. And they do, eventually. But before they pass through, everything on the tabletop jumps – just the same as if you’d hit the table yourself. You jump, too, and so do Mal and Jeremy. You guess none of you were expecting that.\n\nMal lifts his hands again, opening them and scanning his palms as if his heart line or his life line can tell him anything about what just happened. You look over at Jeremy, whose eye you manage to catch for a split second before he looks down at the floor. [[You sigh]].\n

"Whose responsibility was the lake before? What happened to them?" Mal folds his arms over his chest. "Did they murder people too, or is that just you?"\n\n"I don't know," you say. It's a [[lie]].

"You can't keep doing this, Landis," he says over your shoulder. "It's not sustainable."\n\nYou pick at the blister pack around your new utility knife, trying to wedge your thumbnail between the clear plastic and cardboard backing. "I //know// that."\n\n"Wes is the only one of us left. What are you going to do when you're done with him? Start luring strangers here? Toss yourself in the lake?"\n\n"I won't throw myself in." You finally get a hold on the plastic and peel it away, freeing the knife. "The lake's [[my responsibility]]."

“I don’t know, Wes.” Your voice sounds hoarse and tired, even to your own ears. You [[step up behind him]] without taking your eyes off the lake.\n

"Is that everything, [[sir]]?"\n\nYou glance over the [[shopping bags]] at the cashier's elbow.

You elbow through Danton and jostle Wes by his shoulder. Wes smacks his lips, grunts, and rolls his head ever so slightly, but doesn't open his eyes. You nudge his cheek with the butt of the utility knife, and his eyelids crack half-open.\n\n"S'cold in here."\n\nHe brushes a few strands of hair from his face. It's the longest you've ever seen it get, pulled back into a little ponytail at the nape of his neck.\n\n"I had a weird dream...about Danton, I think?" Wes scratches his cheek, peppered with stubble. "Have you heard from him? He hasn't been [[returning my calls]]."\n\n"No, that's weird," you say.\n\n"Right?" Wes is still groggy, and struggles to his feet from the recliner, wobbling in place. He clutches at your shoulder for balance. "Hey, [[what time is it?]]"

He watches you as you strip off your flannel jacket and gloves, and kick off your boots into a corner. He looks a little like a mad scientist, bony hands dangling down at his sides and his hair sticking out at unruly, haphazard angles. The only light inside the lake house is the full moon streaming through the windows, and it glints off of his glasses, hiding his eyes.\n\n"I'm home," you say to him. "Did you talk to [[Wes]]?"\n\n"Danton's trying," Mal says flatly.\n\n"Yeah, but did //you//-"\n\n"What's the point?" he snaps, but doesn't move from the rug. "He can't hear us. As far as we know, only you can."\n\n"Danton seems to think it's worth a shot."\n\nYou pick your bags up from the doorway where you left them. Mal follows you into the [[kitchen]], where you set to work unpacking, laying everything out on the table in elaborate order.

His blood washes over your hand, spraying on the knife and the railing and everything. This is the first time you’ve ever tried killing with a knife. The gurgling noises coming out of Wes and the bubbles of blood inflating and popping at the corners of his mouth make you wonder if it’s really more humane after all. Maybe you should have strangled him like you did the others. It's sad to watch him [[twitching around|hook]] like a fish impaled on a hook.

[[“I didn’t exactly plan on having to talk to you after I killed you.” |killed you]]

The droning guitar lick of "Loser" blares out of your speakers nigh instantaneously - this must be the mix CD Danton gave you when you invited him here half a year ago. You forgot it was still in your car. You reach over to twist the volume up, but the CD [[skips]].

Mal is right, though. You'll have to come up with a new strategy once you're done with Wes, but you knew that all along. You'll //have// to start picking up strangers - it's the only way. But maybe only people that no one would miss, or people who would be better off dead. It'll be almost like you're doing them a favor by throwing them into the lake.\n\nAt the very least, they'll be serving a larger purpose.\n\nMal sidesteps you and passes through the table, standing so it bisects him. You're still not used to seeing that. You know if you turned the lights on you could watch the dust particles floating through him like he's an image projected on a screen, but it's easier to trick yourself into thinking he's still flesh and bone. He's just the same as he was before you killed him, anyway. [[They all are]].

marn

You tip Wes into the water front-first, so that you won’t have to stare him in the face while the hands jutting out of the lake drag his body under. Almost as soon as they do, the lake calms again. Deceptively, eerily smooth for another six months out of the year. Another job well done.\n\nYour legs are shaking, so you sit down on the single, dusty lawn chair on the back porch. There are dirty red flecks on the arms that could be blood, or rust. [[It’s hard to tell.|tell]]\n