Jeremy Schneider was born at a very young age in 1979. Previously his stories have appeared in a variety of publications including Twisted Dreams Magazine, Pens on Fire and Electric Spec webzine. In his spare time he enjoys reading, writing and camping in the many New York State parks. He lives in Upstate New York with his family and their 6 cats.

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Miriam Webster knew something was wrong. All of the dogs in the neighborhood were barking their heads off, including her little Bull Terrier, Mason. She closed the book she had been reading and placed it on the night stand. She checked the digital readout on the clock-radio: 9:43. She had been reading for nearly two hours, totally lost in the magical world of that wonderful wizard boy and his amazing adventures.

She got off the bed and walked over to the window. Pulling the drapes aside she scanned the street for any indication of what the trouble could be. From the second floor window Miriam could see all the way to the other side of the development. The newest section of the proposed 150 unit “Master Planned Community” had not yet been completed. The wooden skeletal structures of 25 more homes were barely visible in the distance, silhouetted against the night sky and the distant city lights beyond.

No sign of any disturbance.

The whole neighborhood appeared to be asleep (except for the dogs, of course). Boy they were really going at it, and Mason too. It just wasn't like him to cause such a fuss at this time of the night. Even though he was still technically a puppy, he usually snuggled into his little doggie-bed in the laundry room at around 8:00 and was dead to the world until his required 5:30 walk the next morning. She let the drapes swish back into place and turned away from the window.

It was amazing for Miriam to think how Mason's sleep patterns mimicked that of her husband. 57 human years and an entirely different species separated them, yet they usually conked out at the same time every night; Mason in his doggie-bed, Dan in his easy-chair.

That was undoubtedly where Dan was right now; lying there with his head resting on his chest, a thin line of drool wetting the front of his t-shirt, the TV tuned to The History Channel, Edward Herrmann's voice mingling with Dan's snores in a vain attempt to inform the sofa of Hitler's march into Poland.

Her heart swelled to bursting at the thought of this tranquil scene. She ought to go down and wake him up or he would wind up sleeping there the whole night. But he was probably up already thanks to Mason and the other K-9 inhabitants of Valley Vista View.

She walked to the opposite side of the bedroom and drew back the drapes from the window that looked into the backyard. At least it would be a backyard when the men from True Turf came on Monday and installed their grass. Ok, so maybe it wasn't precisely grass, but it looked and felt just like the real thing, and it also had the added benefit of never needing to be mowed.

No problems back here either. Unless you count the giant kidney-shaped hole dug in the ground. But, no worries, that would be remedied when the pool she had been dreaming about for months was finally finished.

For a moment her mind wandered away from the sounds of the barking dogs and into an early summer evening in the not-to-distant future. Miriam (in her sensible black one-piece) floats lazily on the sapphire-tinted water under a sky that still holds the faintest traces of the Nevada sun. The Pool hammock she is floating on comes equipped with a very handy cup holder which is currently occupied by a tall glass (her third) of Orange Juice and Peach Schnapps. She takes a sip, swallows and sighs with quasi-orgasmic delight. The peepers are just beginning their nightly serenade and thanks to the generous quantities of Fuzzy Navels that Miriam has consumed she can almost believe they are singing just for her. Sing on little crickets, or frogs, or whatever it is you are; I like the way you carry a tune.

A distressed bark brought her back to the here and now. She gulped a frightened breath and spun toward the door. Mason was standing just inside the open doorway, whining and holding his tail between his legs. She exhaled, her relieved laughter riding the crest of her exhalation. “Hey, Massy, you almost gave mommy a heart attack.” Her heart was still doing the shimmy-shimmy-shake, but thank goodness it would soon be getting back to its typical slow waltz. “What's all the racket, sweetie, huh?” Miriam asked.

In response to her query Mason squirted three drops of urine onto her brand new Sultanabad Oriental rug. Before she had a chance to reprimand him for his urinary indiscretion, he gave another panicky, high-pitched little bark and ran into the hallway. Miriam started forward, “Mason, what--” The first tremor knocked her off her feet and sent her sprawling onto the rug, her face landing just inches from the three urine spots.

She quickly got to her hands and knees. The whole bedroom was shaking now; the nightstand toppled over and along with it her half-cup of room temperature Darjeeling, and the entire volume of Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts. Oh, my God. It's an earthquake!

Their daughter, Teresa, had warned them before she and Dan moved out here that Nevada was smack dab in the middle of “Quake Country”. At the time she had brushed off these protestations as a life-long Easterner's ill-informed view of what life was like out West. Besides, she and Dan didn't make this move prematurely. They had done extensive research online and she had even asked the nice man who represented Valley Vista View (What was his name again?) if earthquakes were a big problem in this part of the country.

“Not at all,” Craig (that was his name!) had responded during one of their numerous phone conversations leading up the final sale. “Now, I'm not gonna lie to you, Mrs. Webster. This area of Nevada has had instances of quakes in the past, but nothing of any seismic significance for at least fifty or sixty years. Don't worry.”

Now she was worried. Was this kind of quake normal? My God, it just keeps going. Miriam got unsteadily to her feet and wobbled over to the doorway. With her arms positioned on either side of the doorframe she braced herself and waited for the tremors to stop. Three months! Not even that, 86 days and already I'm in the middle of an earthquake! Craig, you can rot in hell!

“Miriam!” It was Dan, calling to her from downstairs.

“It's an earthquake, Dan!” Her voice was as tremulous as her stance on the floor.

There was a brief pause. “I know, Miriam! Just stay where you are!”

“I'm in the doorway, Dan!”

“Good! Just stay there! It should be over soon!”

As if to directly contradict Dan's previous statement another tremor rocked Miriam on her feet. She held steady to the doorframe and silently prayed that Dan would stop provoking the quake.

Mason was directly across the hall from her, facing the open bathroom door. His hackles were raised and foam was flying from his muzzle with every bark that issued from his thirty-five pound frame.

Miriam attempted to coax him away from the bathroom. “Mason. Come to mommy, sweetie. Come on. Come here boy. You be a good dog and listen to mommy now.” Mason ignored her and continued barking. Why he would choose the bathroom (of all places) as his target of aggression Miriam did not know.

The Strauss chandelier that hung over the staircase was swinging back and forth, the little faux-crystal pendants hanging from the lower arms that held the candelabra lights jingled as if to create an eerie accompaniment to the already frightening enough sound of the earth tearing itself apart.

There was a loud pop and suddenly the entire upstairs was plunged into total darkness. Oh, God. Don't do this to me. “Dan!” Miriam shouted, her voice barely registering over the rumbling of the quake and Mason's incessant barking. No answer. “Dan, the power's out!” Still no answer. Oh, doodlebugs!

Black as pitch ahead, she turned in a complete circle and faced the bedroom. It was a little lighter in here. The moonlight filtering through the drapes cast a diffused glow over the ordinary objects in her bedroom, imbuing them with an otherworldly quality that they would not normally posses.

As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she noticed the TV had toppled off the stand and was lying tube-face down in a heap of broken glass. Movement from the corner of the room caught her attention. She glanced over just in time to see the entire Garden Curio Cabinet come crashing to the floor and with it any hopes she had of ever completing her cups and saucers collection from every member of the European Union.

And then just as abruptly as it had begun the quake ended.

It took Miriam several seconds to realize that the quake was over because her whole body continued to shake uncontrollably, the muscles in her arms were locked as tight as the strings on a well tuned guitar. Ok. Calm down, now. It's over. Just relax. You made it though you're first earthquake. Aren't you proud of yourself? You got your cherry popped. A strangled laugh--more relief than amusement--escaped her lips. She unwillingly released her grip on the doorframe and slowly brought her arms to her sides.

The house was deathly quiet now compared to the din of the quake. This deep-space quietude was broken only by Mason's relentless barking. “Give it a rest, would you Mason? It's over now.” God, I hope it's over, anyway. Another, fainter, sound began to register; it was the bleating of car alarms and the far-off whine of police and emergency sirens. She turned and walked on shaky legs into the hallway.

With the power still out there wasn't much she could see. “Dan? Dan, I'm ok. Is everything ok down there?” Again, the only answer was silence. An image came fully formed into her mind, that of Dan lying face down on the living room rug, not breathing, felled by a heart attack brought on by the stress of the quake or else brained by some falling object. Oh, you're imagining things, she told herself. Am I, really? Then why the hell isn't he answering me?

That was a good question and she was determined to find the answer but first she needed to find a flashlight. The room at the end of the hall held all the junk that they hadn't gotten around to unpacking yet. There would probably be a flashlight in there. She put her hands out, palms up, and waved them in circles just to make sure there wasn't anything blocking her path. All clear. She took a tentative step forward and then another. She didn't trip on any fallen debris so she turned left and headed for the end of the hall.

When she reached the banister that led downstairs she again called into the darkness; this time louder and with an edge that told Dan (if he was alive to hear her) that he better answer right away or she was going to be really upset. But no answer came. She held her breath and listened for any sound that would relieve the fear which was growing exponentially inside of her with each passing minute. Nothing. No movement at all. It was as if all life had vanished one floor below her. Oh, Dan, for God's sake!

She pushed herself off the banister and stumbled blindly through the dark until she reached the end of the hall. The door to the spare room was on her right. She turned the knob and pushed, but the door wouldn't budge. She pushed again, harder than before, but only managed to get it a third of the way open. One more push and she had enough clearance to squeeze through the crack between the door and the door frame and into the spare room.

A large cardboard box labeled X-MAS DECORATIONS had been blocking the door. Miriam, frustrated at an inanimate object like never before, kicked it and heard something that sounded an awful lot like a miniature ceramic Frosty the Snowman smash under foot. “Oh, horse-cock,” she said under her breath. (Miriam considered this to be the worst obscenity one could utter, so therefore she only uttered it under her breath.)

A quick scan of the small room revealed dozens of other boxes upended by the quake. How am I supposed to find anything in this mess? What seemed like such a simple task only a few minutes ago now appeared to be just about impossible. In the gloom, faintly illuminated by the moonlight trickling through the bare window, Miriam started to panic.

Get out of here see what's wrong with Dan I can't not without a flashlight I'd fall down the stairs and break my neck who cares about a stupid flashlight go now he could be in trouble I just need to find a flashlight there's got to be a flashlight in her somewhere there's too many boxes in here you'll never find the one you need in time just get out of here Dan's dying there's a tiny flashlight on my key ring that Dan gave me for Christmas one year but that's downstairs Dan is downstairs and he's dead now because of you he's Dead.

“Wait a minute!” Miriam knelt down and pulled open the box marked X-MAS DECORATIONS. Among the usual holiday paraphernalia (ornaments, twinkle lights, a miniature Frosty in pieces) was a novelty Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer flashlight she bought as a joke last year. A plastic likeness of Rudolph's head was positioned over the lens. Please, God, let there be fresh batteries. She pulled the flashlight out of the tangle of twinkle lights and switched it on. Rudolph's bulbous red nose burst into life. “Yes!”

Back in the hall again Miriam realized something was wrong. As a constant background noise she had successfully blocked it out of her consciousness, but now the lack of that noise was terrifying. Mason had stopped barking.

The flashlight was only bright enough to illuminate the area directly in front of her so she could not make out anything at the opposite end of the hall. She cleared her throat. “Mason?” she said. Forget about Mason. Get your ass downstairs and find out what's wrong with Dan. “Mason. Come to mommy, sweetie.” Mason did not come to mommy. Squinting into the reddish glare cast by Rudolph's nose, ignoring her own better judgment, Miriam headed for the bathroom.

She had just reached the banister at the top of the stairs, half-way to the bathroom, when she heard a thud and then the sound of something wet hitting porcelain. The thud was followed by what sounded like water splashing onto the tile floor and then a sound that opened up a hollow spot deep in the pit of her stomach: that of Mason yelping.

It was unmistakably Mason in pain, his little yelps slightly muffled by something. “Mason!” she yelled. She darted past the stairs and came up fast on the bathroom. She stopped short and shined the light in.

What she saw robbed her of all speech, even the ability to scream. Mason's head was being pulled into the toilet. His forepaws scraped across the rim of the bowl as he wrenched his head from side to side. Water sloshed out of the bowl and streamed across the floor. In the red light the water appeared to be the color of blood.

Compounding this horrifying scene was the thing that was coming out of the toilet. In the glow of Rudolph's nose it looked to be a single, black and grey striped knee-sock. It very well could have been green and white for the red light cast everything as a variation on that one primary color.

Whatever color it was, the sock had a firm grip on Mason's skull and was intent on pulling him into the toilet. The cuff, or the part of the sock that would normally end just above the knee on a young woman, was entirely covering Mason's head like the mouth of a snake while in the process of swallowing an animal whole. As a pure reaction due to Mason's proximity to the toilet and his predilection for drinking out of the bowl Miriam shouted, “Mason, stop that!” Mason did not (could not) stop his struggle with the sock.

Miriam's mental and physical paralysis was finally broken when she saw a tiny drop of blood trickle down the side of her little dog's neck. She started forward, tossing the flashlight aside. When she reached the toilet she grabbed the sock just below where Mason's snout ended. The sock was curiously warm and squishy in her hands.

With Mason whipping his head from side to side she pulled on the sock in the opposite direction, there was a loud sucking sound and the sock released Mason depositing him onto the floor. Black sludge squirted out of the sock, splattering the shower door on the opposite side of the bathroom. Miriam let out a cry of revulsion and wiped her hands on her pants.

She bent down and scooped Mason into her arms. He was whining and there was a cut on his snout but it didn't appear to be too deep. His head had some of that sludge on it; he pawed at his face trying to get it off. Miriam bent down again, picked up the flashlight and quickly backed away from the toilet.

Sludge dripped from the sock's open maw as it tracked her progress to the door. Just as she reached the door the sock slithered out of the toilet and dropped onto the floor, it was followed closely by another sock (this one was bubble-gum pink with a cartoon cat and dog snuggling inside of a paw print.) Before she slammed the door Miriam saw another sock, of yet another variety, peak the rim of the bowl and fall limply to the floor.

With Mason in her right arm and the flashlight held in her left, Miriam sprinted to the stairs and took them two at a time. What in the good Christ was that? The obvious answer: they were socks, was just too unbelievable to take up permanent residence in her brain. “Dan! Dan, my God, you're not going to believe what's upstairs!”

That last statement became moot, however, because when she reached the bottom of the stairs more socks were waiting for her. A fissure had opened in the hardwood floor and it was from this fissure that the socks emerged. Socks of every conceivable shape and variety inundated the foyer; flowing over, and then burying, anything in their path. In the fading light of Rudolph's nose (for the batteries were dying) the socks resembled nothing less than an unstoppable river grown swollen and angry.

Miriam caught fleeting glimpses of certain socks as they rushed past her. There a single pale blue knitted sock, dragging a length of yarn and two knitting needles in its wake; a pumpkin colored cotton sock with a design of fallen leaves; a tiny white sock with the word Angel stitched into the fabric in pink script; a fuzzy brown sock made to look like a dog with two puff balls for ears. A realization hit her with the force of a Mack truck. They're all singles. She caught her breath and closed her eyes to steady herself. There must be tens of thousands, who knows, hundreds of thousands of them. Is this where missing socks go?

To Nevada?

As the shock of this awful discovery subsided, Miriam could think of only one person down there lost somewhere in the sea of socks. “Dan,” she whispered. The hallway branched off the foyer to her left and was bracketed by the living room and the dining room. If she had to take a guess of where Dan would be right now it was in the living room. But there was no way to reach him. The thought of wading through the river of socks sent bile coursing through her digestive track. But what other way is there?

Mason was growling in the crook of her right arm. His weight was beginning to tax her shoulder muscles but she feared if she put him down he would leap heedlessly into the river of socks and be lost forever. Rudolph flickered and threatened to send her into a darkness that would be even more terrifying now that the socks were in it. She shook the light and Rudolph's nose brightened slightly before returning to a dim glow.

It was even darker down here on the first floor than it was in the hallway upstairs. She could not figure out why until she saw what the socks had done to the windows on either side of the front door. They were literally climbing the walls, settling over the window panes and blotting out the moonlight. Some socks had even made it to the ceiling and were steadily inching their way across. Oh, God, please tell me what to do.

If Miriam was waiting for some sign from above she got it in the form of the green and white knee-sock she had grappled with earlier. She heard a thump from the top of the stairs. Startled, she turned and saw that sock along with hundreds more streaming down the staircase towards her.

“Shit!” Miriam cried. She climbed onto the banister and perched there unable to move in any direction. Mason took up his barking again; his back legs were kicking at her side as he attempted to get loose. The flow of socks from the top of the stairs merged with the ones in the foyer and quickly there was no discerning where the floor ended and the steps began.

Teetering on the edge of the banister (and also on the edge of sanity) Miriam was not ready for the after-shock that struck with half the power of the original quake yet with enough force to knock her off the banister and send her sprawling into the river of socks.

Turning over in the air for what seemed an eternity, Miriam saw with crystal clarity the sequence of events that followed her fall from the banister. First, Mason leapt out of her grasp and dove headfirst into the river of socks. He was lost to sight as the socks promptly swallowed him up. Second, Rudolph's red nose at last went dark. The useless flashlight was knocked out of her hand as the raging tidal of socks enveloped her. A sharp pain in her left leg made her cry out. When she broke the surface she grabbed at her leg and felt the shin bone protruding through the skin. Tears burst forth as Miriam was carried through the foyer and down the hall.

She tried to stay above the flood to see if Dan was in the living room as she passed but she was unable to see anything. As the entrance to the dining room came into view she caught a glimpse of a vaguely human shape--now covered with socks--crouched in the fetal position on the table. “Dan! No!” Fresh tears stung her eyes and blurred out any remaining visuals.

Battered and broken, with little of her senses left, the socks forced Miriam into the kitchen at the end of the hall. The swinging door slammed into her head as she passed. She must have briefly lost consciousness because the next sensation she had was of a sock pushing itself half way down her throat. She bit down on the sock and tasted a sickly combination of blood and sweat. She knew where the blood was coming from (she had bitten her tongue). But what about the sweat? She pulled the sock out of her mouth and tossed it aside. A soiled, grey sweat-sock scuttled away. Her stomach turned over and she began dry-heaving.

The after-shock ended and the house was still again. In the dark it was impossible for her to see where she was. The metal drawer handles pressing into her back suggested that she had snagged on the cooking island in the center of the kitchen. She could remember back to the time when she and Dan picked out this island. (It was only three months ago.) Now he was dead and she was close behind.

She was having difficulty catching her breath. The idea of suffocating in a flood of socks was not as far-fetched as it would have been an hour ago. The socks wriggled over her, insinuating themselves against parts of her body that only Dan had previously been allowed to explore. Had she not known what they actually were, she would have sworn that the socks were living creatures (and that they were horny.) The bizarre heat that emanated from the socks was disturbing. If they come from the ground, how can they be warm? Miriam thought

The quake and the appearance of the socks must be related somehow, she thought. Did the quake wake them up, or did it just make them angry? Stop asking stupid questions, she told herself. Just figure a way to get out of here before you end up like Dan and Mason. The thought of her two loves--now lost--was enough to send her into another fit of sobbing. A harder part of her being forced the tears away. She knew that if she started crying again she would be unable to stop.

When she attempted to move, pain immediately flared in her broken leg. She swallowed the scream that was half-way up her throat. Her head flopped back to its original position and she felt sweat trickling from her temple into her hair. The sweat moved to her earlobe and then dropped away. Now, Miriam was no Science-wiz, but she knew gravity when it was thrust upon her. The droplet of sweat had traveled in the exact opposite direction than it should have had she been sitting up.

That could only mean one thing: the quake had seriously damaged the foundation and now the whole back end of the house was sinking into the ground (and she along with it.) She wiped the snot away from her nose and sniffed. She did indeed smell the loamy mixture of clay, silt, and mud. What if-- she tried to stop that train of thought before it caromed out of control. What if--(Stop it, No!) What if a fissure, like the one in the foyer, has also opened in the kitchen?

She feared that she knew where that fissure was. It was so close. It was on the other side of the island she was now clinging to for dear life. She twined her fingers through the drawer handles and closed her eyes. She could hear water falling down the sides of the hole, echoing as it went. She could easily picture herself perched precariously on the edge of a bottomless chasm that would, upon the next after-shock, all too gladly open its dark gullet and swallow her whole.

The socks obviously didn't have a problem with the gigantic hole. They flowed over her trembling body and willingly fell into the dark abyss. That's their home. That's where they come from. I'm not going in there, Miriam thought.

Something fell over in the dining room, startling her; then a thump on the door frame leading to the hall. Oh, no. No. No. No. I don't want to see him again. Please, no. A shadow appeared in the hall, buoyed by the socks. No. Please, God, spare me this of all things. She clamped her eyes shut and swore that she would not open them again, no matter what she heard. Even with her eyes closed she could feel the thing that was her late husband coming ever closer. There was another thump as the objected connected with the doorframe to the kitchen.

The power company couldn't have picked a worse time to get the electricity working again. The streetlights outside popped on and despite the socks crawling over the windows above the table, the kitchen was bathed in sodium-vapor glare. Miriam felt the light on the outside of her closed eyelids and she very unwisely opened her eyes.

The first (and consequently the last) thing Miriam saw when she opened her eyes was Dan's lifeless body, covered from head to toe in socks like some low-rent mummy, dislodge itself from the doorframe and come hurtling toward her. “No!” Miriam screamed. She let go of the drawer handles and put her arms out in front of her to cushion the impact. Her arms buckled as the wind was knocked out of her body. Grunting, she tried to push the dead weight off of her. She managed to get Dan's head and neck up and that's when she saw his face through the scrim of socks.

She pulled the socks off his face and looked at him. He was unquestionably dead, but he looked so peaceful, as if he was merely asleep. “Oh, Dan, my baby,” she said. She put his forehead against her lips and kissed him. The socks covering him reared up and grabbed Miriam around the back of her neck. Her face was mashed into his and blood flowed from her broken nose. She screamed and tried to twist away from the socks as they pulled her tighter still. Her jostling made the bolts fastening the island to the kitchen floor shriek in protest. They finally let go.

Twisting, turning, tumbling, around and around, Miriam and her dead husband fell through the darkness locked in a gross parody of a lover's embrace. On her lips was a prayer for death that would soon be granted.