The Killer Mime

The grocery store parking lot breathed heat. The blacktop shimmered with a thin, oily haze, and the smell of baking asphalt mixed with the faint metallic tang of shopping carts scraping against their corrals. Harland was sliding his cart into place when she stepped in front of him. The movement was sudden but deliberate, the…

CONFIDENTIAL CASE FILE Transcript of Flight 409 DebriefFAA and Air Marshal Joint Investigation Interview Subject: Harland Edward BixbyDate: April 16, 2025Location: O’Hare International, Interview Room CInterviewer: Marshal D. Reyes, FAA Investigator K. Dalton —BEGIN TRANSCRIPT— DALTON: Please state your name for the record. BIXBY: Harland Edward Bixby. REYES: You were on Flight 409, Chicago to…

Harland Bixby did not mean to attend a furry convention. He meant to attend a cybersecurity seminar titled “FURSEC: Keeping the Wild Internet Tamed.” In retrospect, the flyer was ambiguous, especially the part where it promised “costumed demos.” By the time he realized his mistake, he had been issued a lanyard, a paw-shaped name badge,…

In the prison, time did not pass. It folded. That was what Harland Bixby told himself each morning as he passed through the final checkpoint. His shoes squeaked across the waxed linoleum, and his ID badge hung just slightly crooked, no matter how carefully he clipped it. His job title was vague: “Compliance Observation Specialist.”…

Harland Bixby boarded the city bus at exactly 6:14 p.m., as he did every Wednesday evening without deviation. The ritual had become part of the scaffolding of his life, not because it offered any particular joy, but because the predictability was a comfort. Route 47 was usually quiet at that hour, filled with people too…

The saloon was too bright for how tired Harland felt. Fluorescent strips lit the country-western bar like a dentist’s office pretending to have a sense of rhythm. The floorboards gleamed from too much polish and too many boots, and the scent in the air was an assertive blend of stale beer, fried food, and synthetic…

They sealed the doors at 6:00 p.m. sharp, the ceremonial chains sliding into place with the weight of centuries behind them. Harland Bixby stood among the cardinals, each robed in crimson and heavy with history, the air thick with incense and anticipation. He wore borrowed vestments, tailored for someone else, and held himself with the…

It was raining, but it was not dramatic about it. The sky was gray in that noncommittal way cities tend to do. It felt more like a long exhale than a storm. The chapel had been small, tucked between a shuttered bakery and a liquor store that only sold things people regretted. Harland Bixby stood…

Harland Bixby did not like beaches. He especially did not like cold beaches, the kind with wet sand that clung to your shoes like regret and wind that smelled faintly of something metallic and ancient, like the sea had rusted along with everything else in town. But here he was, alone on the shore of…

The train station was old enough to have ghosts, though none ever made a formal appearance. It sat at the edge of town, past where the pavement forgot itself and the weeds rose in quiet rebellion. A place people passed through, never to. Harland Bixby stood on the platform, clutching a paper ticket that felt…

Harland Bixby did not dislike theme parks; he simply did not trust them. Cheerful places had to be compensating for something. But here he was, seated in a gently drifting boat on It’s a Small World, surrounded by singing dolls and pastel panoramas. His niece, Madison, sat beside him, pointing excitedly at every new set…

The Build-A-Bear Workshop was mostly empty this late in the evening. The mall had that strange, artificial hush that came after closing, when the echoes of daytime foot traffic still lingered but the stores stood eerily still. The air carried the lingering scent of cinnamon from the food court, mixing oddly with the synthetic, almost…

Harland Bixby was not cursed. That would imply something grand and supernatural, a fate woven into the fabric of his existence by unseen forces. No, Harland was something worse. He was just unlucky. Not in any way that made a good story, not in a way people pitied. He was simply the kind of person…

The office was at its most tolerable in the early morning when the hum of fluorescent lights filled the silence and nobody was around to ask him for things. Harland Bixby valued this time. No meetings. No passive-aggressive Slack messages. No one microwaving fish. Just him, his inbox at zero, and the singular joy of…

The corn maze had seemed harmless enough when Harland Bixby first stepped inside, a little tourist trap nestled on the edge of the county fairgrounds. From the outside, it had been all cheerful signage and neatly trimmed paths, a fun diversion before his next performance. Now, deep in its twisting corridors, it felt less like…

The man walks toward the rusted gate, his bag dragging at his shoulder like a sack full of regret. The path before him is choked with weeds and whispers, the kind of place that makes animals turn back without explanation. He pulls at his collar, though the air is neither warm nor cold; it simply…

In the deep shadows of forgotten history, whispers persist of a being so enigmatic and malevolent that his name chills the blood of those who dare speak it aloud. Known only as Nom, a humble farmer turned nightmare, he is now the infamous The Killer Mime, a cursed figure whose origins remain shrouded in mystery…