top pan ever

There was no moon and no movement in the underbrush but our own, and yet somehow I knew just when to raise my flashlight and just where to aim it, and for an instant in that narrow cut of light I saw a face that seemed to have been transplanted directly from the nightmares of my childhood. It stared back with eyes that swam in dark liquid, furrowed trenches of carbonblack flesh loose on its hunched frame, its mouth hinged open grotesquely so that a mass of long eellike tongues could wriggle out. I shouted something and then it twisted and was gone, shaking the brush and drawing Rickys attention. He raised his .22 and fired, pappappappap, saying, What was that What the hell was that But he hadnt seen it and I couldnt speak to tell him, frozen in place as I was, my dying flashlight flickering over the blank woods. And then I mustve blacked out because he was saying Jacob, Jake, hey Ed areyouokayorwhat, and thats the last thing I remember. I spent the months following my grandfathers death cycling through a purgatory of beige waiting rooms and anonymous offices, analyzed and interviewed, talked about just out of earshot, nodding when spoken to, repeating myself, the object of a thousand pitying glances and knitted brows. My parents treated me like a breakable heirloom, afraid to fight or fret in front of me lest I shatter. I was plagued by wakeupscreaming nightmares so bad that I had to wear a mouth guard to keep from grinding my teeth into nubs as I slept. I couldnt close my eyes without seeing itthat tentaclemouth horror in the woods. I was convinced it had killed my grandfather and that it would soon return for me. Sometimes that sick panicky feeling would flood over me like it did that night and Id be sure that nearby, lurking in a stand of dark trees, beyond the next car in a parking lot, behind the garage where I kept my bike, it was waiting. My solution was to stop leaving the house. For weeks I refused even to venture into the driveway to collect the morning paper. I slept in a tangle of blankets on the laundry room floor, the only part of the house with no windows and also a door that locked from the inside. Thats where I spent the day of my grandfathers funeral, sitting on the dryer with my laptop, trying to lose myself in online games.

Told me what I said, choking back tears. Theres no time, he whispered. Then he raised his head off the ground, trembling with the effort, and breathed into my ear: Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old mans grave. September third, 1940. I nodded, but he could see that I didnt understand. With his last bit of strength, he added, Emersonthe letter. Tell them what happened, Yakob. I blamed myself for what happened. If only Id believed him was my endless refrain. But I hadnt believed him, and neither had anyone else, and now I knew how he mustve felt because no one believed me, either. My version of events sounded perfectly rational until I was forced to say the words aloud, and then it sounded insane, particularly on the day I had to say them to the police officer who came to our house. I told him everything that had happened, even about the creature, as he sat nodding across the kitchen table, writing nothing in his spiral notebook. When I finished all he said was, Great, thanks, and then turned to my parents and asked if Id been to see anyone. As if I wouldnt know what that meant. I told him I had another statement to make and then held up my middle finger and walked out. My parents yelled at me for the first time in weeks. It was kind of a relief, actuallythat old sweet sound. I yelled some ugly things back. That they were glad Grandpa Portman was dead. That I was the only one whod really loved him.

The cop and my parents talked in the driveway for a while, and then the cop drove off only to come back an hour later with a man who introduced himself as a sketch artist. Hed brought a big drawing pad and asked me to describe the creature again, and as I did he sketched it, stopping occasionally to ask for clarifications. How many eyes did it have

Red Copper-Square Pan Is Best Yet

You will never need to scrub this pan or worry about splatter