In the weed-laden backyard of a ramshackle house, two ill-tempered dogs snapped and growled at each other. Moments earlier a man had stepped onto the back porch and tossed several chunks of meat to them, which led to aggressive displays as they quickly choked down what they could before fighting over the last.

Nestled in a grove of trees on a hill overlooking the hovel, sat Isaac. Through an old-fashioned telescoping spyglass, he watched until they had eaten every scrap. Then he scanned the windows. Nothing new to see with the ratty curtains pulled on each. For the umpteenth time, he surveyed the rest of the property; a pair of utility sheds and a backyard littered with junk of all sizes, from abandoned cars to old refrigerators.

He set the spyglass aside, went back to his previous project—etching simple fire runes into charcoal briquettes. When he had enough for a small pyramid, he stacked them up, whispered “burn” and waved his hand over them. Almost immediately they glowed, going from red to white-hot in seconds. The campfire burned smokeless, with no heavy plume to give away his position. Minutes later he had hot dogs and marshmallows cooking.

A rustle in the undergrowth paused his chewing and his hand hovered over Wilma Wagon-fixer. Testiculies emerged from the bushes, sat next to the warmth of the coals, and affixed him with that never-approving eye. Isaac sighed, tore a piece of hot dog, and tossed it to the cat. Testiculies gobbled it up, but never lifted his permanent snarl. He shared his hot dog until the feline had his fill and lay down. Just for laughs, Isaac bounced one more piece of frankfurter off the cat’s forehead, which elicited a nasty hiss and probably meant the magician would have to sleep facedown for the night.

“So, cat, did you scope out the house for me? Encounter any hostiles and smash their balls?” He picked up the spyglass to check in on any activity on the run-down property. Still nothing.

Arrangement had sent him here. Somewhere in the dilapidated homestead below was a magical artifact. The soulless Voice of Arrangement had described it as a wooden totem, carved with crude screaming faces. Isaac hadn’t received any information on what it actually did, which he found annoying, but one could never clarify with the Voice. Every word was final. Judging from the state of the house, whatever this totem bestowed, it certainly didn’t include good fortune.

Morning turned to afternoon, but Isaac was patient. Every magician had to be. A few long hours sitting in the bushes were nothing. If anything, he relished the quiet.

Just past noon something finally happened at the house. The back door banged open and two young, unkempt men strode out. The dogs moved from their path, backs bristling with no love for their masters. The men clambered into an unwashed van and, after several chugging attempts, managed to get it started. A honk of the horn brought out two more people, an older man with an impressive beard and a large woman in a flower print muumuu. Both walked slow, either due to poor physical condition or age, or maybe both. The group clambered into the van and drove away. The dogs paced in agitated circles for several minutes, whining, before they lay down.

Isaac waited long after the van disappeared to make sure that they didn’t return right away because someone forgot to put on their fancy muumuu or dressy overalls. Finally, satisfied that they were gone, he moved on to the house. An unfinished barbwire fence proved easy to bypass. He jogged from junked car to junked car, pausing behind each for a few seconds to make sure he hadn’t been spotted by anyone left behind.

The dogs had yet to get wind of him. He had Wilma at the ready, but he really considered the weapon a last resort. He had no stomach for killing animals. People, sure, but not animals. But this weakness also left him bereft of any good ideas of how to get by them.

As he brainstormed, Testiculies casually walked by him into the center of the yard, sat down, and licked a paw. Both canines lifted their heads. Testiculies hissed. Isaac thumbed the safety off, certain that he would have to kill the dogs to save the stupid cat. Both dogs were then up and charging, barking furiously. Testiculies took off across the yard, the dogs on his heels.

While the burly cat wasn’t particularly fast, he possessed a sixth sense that allowed him to make a sharp turn every time a set of jaws were about to clamp down. Eventually, the cat made it to the trees and all three animals disappeared, the barking fading into the distance.

Unsure if Testiculies had done this to help him or just out of general feline arrogance, he knew to take quick advantage and moved to the first shed. It held nothing but rusty tools and unused lawnmowers. The contents of the second shed were a bit more disturbing. A variety of nets, ropes, lengths of chains, tarps and rolls of plastic, spools of duct tape, and several sizes of steel animal traps lay strewn about its interior. All the equipment a group of kidnappers would need.

He entered the backyard where the dogs had been lying. Only because he searched to avoid stepping in dog shit did he notice the bones. Large gnawed bones. He’d studied enough necromancy to know human femurs, tibias, and fibulas when he saw them. The meat that had been tossed to the dogs had been human. Apparently, a lot of different humans, he assumed from the state of the yard.

After collecting one intact femur and dropping it into his Everbag, he climbed the steps to the back porch. The old wood, rotten in spots, creaked and groaned in protest. He swapped Wilma for his pistol and then tried the back door. Unlocked, it swung open easily. Why bother locking up when you have two big man-eating canines right outside.

The smell of the house immediately wrinkled his nose. Rancid and foul and poorly disguised by a layer of mothballs. It wasn’t hard to guess what the source would be.

Then he heard the whispering—a low, unintelligible slurry of voices that seemed to emanate from the very air. It continued unabated, like a man’s dying words made with an unceasing breath. The whispering had a grating effect, similar to loud volume on a static screen television despite being barely audible. It proved both hard to hear and impossible to ignore.

Leading the way with the barrel of his pistol, Isaac passed through the kitchen and its stacks of dirty dishes and then into the living room with its ripped furniture and cracked-screen antique TV. A further search found three bedrooms, each with only bare mattresses on the floor and piles of unwashed clothing. The house was disgusting, and the inhabitants were obviously slobs, but Isaac had yet to see anything like the artifact he’d been sent for. Then he found the basement door.

The stairs creaked loudly as he descended. The odor of decay grew stronger, as did the ghostly whispering. The combination started to make his head hurt. A light switch turned on several dim-watt bulbs that hung from the ceiling, revealing a hoarding nightmare. Boxes stacked on boxes. Milk crates piled high. Towers of newspapers and hunting magazines. Mounds of garbage bags with who-knows-what inside.

There were two doors, one in the northern wall and one in the western. He got a lay of the land and then clicked the lights back off before pulling a flashlight from his Everbag.

The walkway through the junk twisted almost maze-like. Isaac opened the northern door to a small storage room. Rows of jars lined shelves from the ceiling to floor. In the dim light, he assumed they were fruits, vegetables, and whatnot. But one caught his attention. He pulled the string to the storage room light to investigate and then let out a disgusted sigh.

Many of the jars were labeled. Strawberry jam. Blackberry jam. Many weren’t labeled but were obvious. Pickled eggs. Pickled beets. But then there were the rest. Human eyes. Fingers. Toes. Larger containers on the lower shelves contained complete hands and feet. Trophies or ingredients, he couldn’t say. He reached to turn out the light.

“Hiding from the cannibals?” a voice suddenly spoke.

Isaac spun, trained his light on the shelves. Nothing. Just row upon row of ghoulish pantry supplies. “Who said that?”

“I did. You can’t see me.”

“Invisible?” Isaac’s mind raced defensively. Fairy? Ghost? Poltergeist? Shade?

“No, there’s a jar of toes in front of me.”

Curiously confused, Isaac scanned the shelves until he located a large jar of severed toes. Fearful of a trap he refrained from touching it. Instead, he concentrated and telekinetically slid it aside. His flashlight illuminated a small demonic face directly behind it. Startled, he took a step away and bumped the shelves behind him, setting the jars to rattling.

“Boo,” the voice said. “How you doing?”

Isaac leaned forward and studied it. It had clearly just talked to him but nothing on the face had moved.

“Yeah, I’m a possessed jug. What of it?”

Intrigued more than wary, Isaac moved several more jars aside to get a better view. It was indeed a jug—sculpted and fired clay, painted garish orange and green. The side facing him had a carved face—devilish, two small horns on the forehead, tongue sticking out childishly between two fangs, one eye small and beady, the other popped in permanent surprise. A cork stopper topped its head like a top hat.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Seriously. My spirit has been bound to this vessel, shit, longer than I can remember.” The voice emanated sans movement of the face.

“If I pull the cork you’ll be released?” That certainly seemed too simple, but Isaac felt the urge to inquire.

“Hell no. I’d have been free long ago if that were the case.”

“So, what’s inside you?”

“My owner’s choice of unlimited libations. Wine, whiskey, mead. Whatever they fancy. Just pour something in and I become like a bottomless well.”

A grin broke across Isaac’s face. “An ever-full flagon,” he said aloud. This was a find to be stoked about. Even if he didn’t find the totem, it made this venture into the cannibal basement completely worthwhile.

“Yes, I’m an ever-full flagon. It’s my lot in life. For now anyway.” It paused. Isaac assumed it was thinking. “The smile on your face says you’re a drinking man. Take me out of this stinking cellar and I’m all yours. Deal?”

Despite the elation from finding a never-ending source of free scotch or bourbon or whiskey, or some taste test-worthy combination of the three, he knew better than to blindly trust a random spirit. Someone had probably bound it to the vessel as punishment for something. He’d have to be cautious. Yes. Very cautious as he drank and drank and drank.

“I’m not committing to any deal, but I’ll take you out of here. We can discuss long-term partnerships later.”

Isaac thought he heard it sigh, but he couldn't really tell as it had no shoulders to slump. “Fine,” it agreed. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I’m looking for an artifact. Some kind of totem.”

“I figured. It drove the people who live here bat-shit crazy. Also, the reason I’m locked in here.”

“The totem caused this?” he tapped a finger against the pickled toes.

“Yup. Don’t get me wrong, this family didn’t need much help to go full-on psycho, but that stupid totem pushed them right over the edge. Don’t you hear it?”

The whispering static. Of course. It made sense now. His ability to use magic also provided a measure of resistance to it. He also wore several protective amulets around his neck. Without them, he bet that the whispers would be much more influential. Instead of a headache, he’d be brainwashed into murderously poor dietary choices. “So, tell me from the beginning what’s going down here. Quick version.”

“To sum it up, the patriarch of this family found me at the scene of a highway traffic accident and brought me home. I explained how I work. He used me to make domestic beer, so I knew he was stupid right off the bat. Things were going as well as I could hope. I don’t aim high because I’m a jug.

"Then one day, one of his sons comes home with this wooden statue. Not sure how he came to possess it, but I knew right away it was bad news. It spoke to them, but not out loud, with impeccable clarity, witty banter, and astute advice like I do. It whispered. They really couldn’t even hear it on a conscious level. But it mumbled constantly, droning on and on, like a goddamn moron, telling them to do the most deplorable things that didn’t even involve copious amounts of liquor. I kept telling it to shut the fuck up, but I don’t think it understood because it’s a stupid cursed wooden totem and not a fully functioning flagon like me.

“Before too long, the whole family started to change. More prone to non-alcoholic related anger, violence, and depression. And less likely to drink, which irritated me to no end. As its influence on them grew, mine waned. I tried warning them that this thing was leading them down a far darker path than me, and one that’s a lot less fun. But they didn’t listen. After a while, they didn’t even hear me. They’d just go out and hunt down people and then eat them while staring vacantly at their broken television, with blood all over themselves, and I’d say ‘hey, wash that person you just ate down with a few beers’, but they couldn’t care less about me. Eventually, they stuck me in here behind the jar o’ toes. So disrespectful. Now they’re ravenous, but for human flesh and not the cheap beer they put in me.”

Isaac held up a hand. That was enough. “Where is it?”

“It’s in the next room. That’s why you’re here?”

“Yeah. I’ve been sent to collect it.”

“Well, I hope wherever it ends up, it’s worse than being behind a toe jar. What are you waiting for? Scoop me up and let’s go kick its ass.”

Isaac hooked a finger through the jug's handle. “So, what should I call you?”

“I have many names. When I roamed the Syrian steppes, I was known as Hundrid the Undying. In Europe during the plague, I went by Crastor of the Black Cloth. But you may call me...” a dramatic pause, “Jughead.”

Isaac stifled a laugh. “Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t give a shit anymore. Being a jug is humbling. Now let’s go. We got some sissy totem butt to kick.”