Thursdays United, Part 3: Myths do come true! (Let’s pretend for a second he’s not imaginary)

                Quincy entered the university’s dining area and promptly slammed his hands on the table where Aster sat, multiple books open, studying for something or other- Quincy didn’t much care. What he had to discuss was way more important, and, quite frankly, more entertaining.

                “Long-handled spoon,” was all he said.

                “What?” Aster, looking rather flustered, was apparently caught off guard and, in a rare moment akin to spotting (insert something rare here), she had no witty retort. This did not please Quincy in the slightest. She came off as apparently having no idea what this meant to him, and as a best friend this was a travesty of travesties.

                “Aster, I found the most amazing long-handled spoon at Gruffy Mart down the street.”

                “I highly doubt it was that good of quality if you found it at Gruffy Mart, Quincy.” Aster finally understood what was going on and with that response, Aster assumed the discussion was over and went back to the books that lay in front of her, and the partially written paper that was taunting her, calling her name like the shadows the other night. She had procrastinated, once again, to the last second.

                “I didn’t say it was good quality,” Quincy persisted stubbornly, “I said it was amazing.”

                Aster looked back up at Quincy, wishing with every fiber of her being, nay, every fiber that made up the university, that Quincy would find something shiny to play with until she was done with her essay, when she would be more than willing to spend time with her BFF, and even bother him with some of her own pointless jibber jabber. But she just did not have time to feed his obsession with long-handled spoons.

                She took a deep breath and gently folded her hands in front of her. If she would humor him, then maybe he would pay for lunch. “Was there a bear on it,” She started. “Was it amazing because there was a bear on it?”

                Quincy scoffed as though a majorly important belief of his had been insulted. “Aster Archer, you know that bears don’t exist!”

                Aster was now entertained. She loved having this conversation with Quincy. “What’s the reasoning behind that again?” She asked.

                Quincy looked as though he were putting quite a bit of thought into the answer. If only he had put that much thought into his schoolwork, he would have had a better GPA. “Because- well, because. It’s like, in all the times we went camping, we never saw one. Not once. They’re a myth.”

                “Quincy, we went to the zoo in Asheboro on the mainland last week. Didn’t you go to the bear house?” Aster had no idea what the bear habitat was actually called, probably just the bear habitat in fact, but it just felt right calling it a bear house as opposed to a bear tavern, habitat, shack, or, heaven forbid, cage.

                With a deathly serious demeanor, Quincy responded, “Why would I go somewhere that was obviously a joke?”

                “Right. Can we go again next week? I think we’ll do that. It’s a plan.” After finishing her paper, Aster would need a ridiculous trip to prove to Quincy that bears existed. Those kinds of trips were what she lived for- she chose her best friend well.

                “I think Wakeman was going to go with Lucky. So no, no we’re not going.”

                “Quincy, he borrowed your Nutella once without your permission while he was your roommate freshman year. Now I know Nutella is a sacred thing- I refuse to share it even with you, that’s why I make you buy your own- but I think it’s time you let it go.” She patted Quincy’s hand as though she were consoling a person who had recently lost their great-aunt Edna.

                “I mean, I think he’ll solve the shadow-thingy case first if we go to the zoo.”

                “You mean the Gloomies?” Aster responded rather nonchalantly, going back to her books with an ‘oh, is that all’ note to her voice.

                Quincy started stuttering out of shock, horror, and resentment. “You named them without me!? Why would you do that? You know I come up with way better names for things than you do!”

                “Sebastian Doegh wrote all about them in the latest issue of The Horrorscope. I’ve got it in my bag if you want to take a gander. There’s even pictures. You know how much I like pictures.”

                Aster was rather fond of pictures, and it wasn’t because of her art minor. No, she believed that any sketch or doodle done in any notebook or canvas was a peek into a person’s truest soul, a piece of them that they couldn’t hide behind cheap masks reserved for Halloween and making good first impressions.

                It didn’t take long at all for Quincy to flip through the dreadfully short article, and in his opinion it didn’t really give any new information- nothing that Quincy felt he couldn’t have figured out on his own. Apparently they hated light, being creatures of shadow and all, and the only way to avoid them in the streets was to stand underneath a streetlamp. But even that didn’t always work, according to the article. The real deadly nature of the Gloomies was how they drew out their victims. The entire pack would surround the person and start calling out their name, luring them out from the safety of the light. The brief article on the next page seemed a lot more interesting; it had a picture of a black-haired boy with headphones smiling, and underneath it the caption read ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? DREAMWALKER.’ Quincy didn’t have the patience to keep on reading.

                “Well, now that disappointment decided to take up shelter in my soul, how is your day going? Is there any way I can crush it for you?” Quincy tossed the magazine on top of one of Aster’s medical books she was getting information from.

                “I think I’d be pretty crushed if you told me I didn’t have to write this paper anymore. Hand to God. I’m not just saying that! I’ve put so much toil, elbow grease, hard work, witch doctor wisdom, poison, and happiness into this thing that if I got anything less than a mega A- yes, that mythical grade whispered about among academic nerds such as myself, a one-hundred-and-fifty-percent- I would draw and bring to life the grim reaper and have him threaten to take the souls of every professor here.” Aster took breath, pausing for the briefest moment so she could lean over the table and grab Quincy’s face and shake. “Happiness, Quincy. I somehow managed to put happiness into a paper about the Ebola virus. Do you know how hard it is to do that? Do you?”

                “I, um. I think you need my happy long-handled spoon to hold and to sing some happy kid songs. No, scratch that, you’d make them sound creepy the way you are now. I don’t need that extra creepy. And you should let go of my face. Please?” Quincy wasn’t sure what to do; the longer they stayed in school, the scarier Aster tended to get with each big project. Why she wanted to be a doctor Quincy didn’t know; she had some silly notion of using her abilities to draw new limbs and organs for people, and Quincy always had to point out that the government would then abduct her and do intrusive studies on her person, but she was determined.

                After staring intently at Quincy’s face, Aster finally let go. “Try the sandwiches,” Aster said, “they’re exceptionally delightful today.”

                “Is there bacon in them?”

                “Plenty of man candy, yes.”

                “Perfect.” Quincy moved to stand up, and ran into what he would call a freakishly tall individual, the momentum of said encounter propelling him back into his seat.

                “Sorry, are you okay?” The freakishly tall individual asked, his voice crooning with the sweet melody that was a British accent.

                Quincy stared at freakishly tall British guy with wide green and blue eyes, mesmerized by his voice. His next words were not chosen very carefully at all.

                “Will you be my new best friend?” Quincy asked in his stupor of wonder.

                Aster choked back her shock rather visibly. “Quincy!” She scolded.

                “What? You’re my lady best friend. I have room for a guy one, too.”

                “This is how the whole Lucky fiasco happened.”

                “But she was the love of my life, Aster!”

                “For three days!” Aster leaned toward the British student to speak with him. “Please don’t mind my dear friend, I’m seventy-eight percent sure he has developmental issues which is more or less my fault.”

                “No problem,” the British gentleman replied with a laugh. He held out a hand. “I’m Basil, by the way. You’d be surprised how often I get asked things like that as a foreigner. I’m just painfully mediocre back home.”

                “Aster Archer. This fellow here is Quincy Tate.” Aster took his hand in hers and gave it a quick, firm shake; she hated limp handshakes and was pleased to see that he had a firm hand as well. Basil next went to shake Quincy’s hand, but Quincy kept on staring, but with noticeably less awe than before.

                “Don’t mind him, he gets like this. Probably my fault, too.” Aster patted Quincy’s hand.

                “Well, I hope I don’t keep him transfixed for the rest of the day. I don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t pay attention in classes.” Basil smiled, running a hand through his short blond hair. Quincy coughed. “Well, I’ll see you both around. It was nice to meet you both.”

                With basil’s departure, Aster went back to her work. She didn’t give the encounter another thought for another five minutes when she glanced back up and noticed Quincy hadn’t moved in the slightest. She picked up a cold French fry from a tiny plate she had pushed off to the side and tossed it at his head.

                “Quincy?”

                Quincy perked his ears. “Smog was coming from his mouth. It was gross.”

                “Doesn’t sound very attractive,” Aster responded, leaning out to catch a glimpse of Basil walking away, but she was too late; he had already vanished.

                “I know, right? I bet kissing him would be like making out with a smoker.” Quincy stood up. “I’m getting a sandwich. Want anything?”

                “Only the undying affection of a rich bachelor with all his own teeth and no more than three ex-wives. Oh, and a lemonade.”

                “I’ll see what I can do.”

                As Quincy walked off, Aster thought about what it would be like to see things nobody else could. And she also couldn’t help but wonder, would seeing those things eventually drive the young man mad?

                Basil seemed to appear more often than Quincy would have liked and he covered his mouth every time the British man spoke. Aster would always give some excuse; like Basil had terrible breath or Quincy was learning how to control what he said. And every time Basil laughed, or said something funny in reply, and every time Quincy would see plumes of smoke pour out of his mouth. It went on like this for a week, and Quincy couldn’t quite handle it.

                “Aster, can we go to the zoo already? I’m tired of running into that guy,” Quincy whined before class one day. He sank into the seat of his desk.

                “Day after tomorrow. I’ve got an art project due soon,” Aster replied, doodling on some paper. She was doing a basic outline of what she wanted to draw; a man in brown carrying flowers but whose face was never shown. She had drawn this man many times, a strange figure the two both remembered meeting once during their childhood, and often in the paintings or drawings his face was obscured by a black bar across his eyes, a balloon, or some other such thing.

                Quincy sighed, and when Aster didn’t look up he sighed again, approximately five times as loud. She kept on sketching, only stopping to smudge something here or there and then to switch to a pencil with softer led. Quincy, exasperated, got up and left the class to get some water from the fountain down the hall.

                On his way, Quincy said hello to Lucky and narrowly avoided falling head over heels for her again when she replied with her sweet Scottish tone of voice, completely ignored Blake Wakeman who, in all honesty probably wouldn’t have said hello to him in the first place, and finally arrived at the water fountain. And at the water fountain was Basil, chugging away until his thirst was quenched.

                Swears nearly escaped Quincy’s lips. He turned to walk, but a hand on his shoulder prevented him from leaving.

                “Quincy, how are you?”

                Heavy smoke floated past Quincy’s shoulder. Accidentally inhaling some, Quincy began to cough violently.

                “Careful now. I don’t want you to die before I can get a chance to talk to you.” Basil laughed politely, which struck Quincy as impolite. Large puffs burst out of Basil’s mouth with every chuckle. “I’d really like to get to know you better. You’re an interesting fellow, Quincy Tate.”

                The more Basil spoke, the heavier the cloud that surrounded Quincy got until it eventually enveloped him. He hacked and coughed louder, harder; through teary eyes he spotted specks of blood on the hand he used to cover his mouth.

                “Stop,” Quincy choked out, “stop talking, you freaking jerk.” Quincy couldn’t see anything. He didn’t even know where Basil was until an outline came through the smoke. Basil knelt down, bringing his face uncomfortably close to Quincy’s.

                “You’re so blunt, that’s one of the things I like about you. You’re really wonderful prey. Too bad you don’t have more fight.”

                Quincy lost consciousness.

                Dreams had never been something Quincy was entirely comfortable with. They were ever-changing, and the most peculiar things happened in them. The current dream he was having involved floating geometric shapes, a few telephone poles, a brick wall with Aster’s doodle of the man in brown on it and a duck pond with no ducks. This greatly bothered Quincy as he adored ducks and saw no reason why his subconscious would want to torment him like so by not including them in his dream. He was, after all, just knocked out by a British man with smoke that came out of his mouth every time he spoke so Quincy really could have used the comfort.

Quincy sat on top of a picnic table next to a turkey dinner. With a quick turn to his right, he saw a young man around his age gently holding one of geometric shapes that glowed softly much like a firefly. The young man had short, nicely styled white hair and white clothing. It was a little blinding in Quincy’s opinion, but entertaining nonetheless.

“What in my subconscious brought you to life?” Quincy said aloud. He was expecting to at least startle the white-haired boy, but instead he rather calmly turned to look at Quincy with a solemn look on his face. His warm magenta eyes locked with Quincy’s blue and green ones. Quincy couldn’t help but feel the boy looked familiar.

“My name is Isaiah, and I’m afraid I’m not part of your subconscious.”

Quincy felt a strange warmth in his chest. It worried him.

“That’s cool, I guess. If you don’t mind, though I should probably wake up now.”

“If you’ve got something better to do then by all means, wake up. I’ll move on to someone else’s dream,” Isaiah responded, letting the geometric figure, a rhombus, float away. It exploded with an underwhelming popping sound.

“Well, Aster tells me if I start dreaming to wake up as soon as possible because whatever happens to me in dreams affects my body. It really sucks.” Quincy picked at the turkey next to him, but every time he touched it, that spot on the turkey began to rot. “I’m kind of in a sticky situation right now anyway, some British guy named Basil thought it’d be totally awesome to suffocate me with this weird smoke that comes out of his mouth whenever he talks. I really want to wake up before he tries dumping my body in the ocean. I don’t really like the water much.”

Isaiah, as if floating, made his way in very few steps to Quincy and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Trust and be not afraid,” he began in his soft voice, “the Lord will hear your prayers.”

The world starting stretching, making Quincy feel sick. He covered his mouth with his hand and began hacking once more. Isaiah lifted a glowing finger to Quincy’s forehead, and then he blacked out again.

Quincy Tate awoke with a start in one of the dorm rooms on campus; well, he assumed it was a dorm room anyway. The room, sparsely decorated, looked larger and nicer than the one he had shared with Wakeman his freshman year in Taffner Hall. Quincy tried sitting up, but he was tied to the bed with some rope.

“You woke quicker than I thought. Do you know how light you are? You need to put on some more weight.”

Basil came in through the door, closing it gently behind him. He walked over to a desk on the other side of the room and opened a drawer.

“If you’re saying I’m scrawny, then you’re wrong. I’ve got plenty of muscle, barely any fat on me. And if you untie me I can show you how much weight I pack behind my punches.” Quincy tried breaking through the ropes, but he wasn’t nearly strong enough.

“That’s kind of adorable right there. Better luck next time, eh?” Basil ruffled Quincy’s already fairly unkempt hair. Quincy tried biting him, to which Basil could only laugh. “Come on, now. Where was that fight earlier? I already caught you. This isn’t any fun.”

“What do you even want? I’ve got places to be, people named Wakeman whose lives I need to make unbearable, the usual stuff that I can’t do tied to a bed. Did I mention how creepy this is?”

“I want your eyes,” Basil responded coolly. This answer did not please Quincy in the slightest.

“They’re mine. Well, the left one is anyway. The right one belongs to Lucky. Or maybe it’s the left one. Listen, the point of the story is that they’re mine.” Quincy continued his struggle against the bindings, but was only giving himself rope burn.

“Only one is yours? How does that work?” Basil frowned. It was the first time Quincy had witnessed this. “Does that half your power?”

“Well, we fell in love. And when you fall madly, forehead-touchingly in love sometimes you switch an eye with that person. I think she was already sensitive to ghosts and psychic impressions so my eye just opened up my ability to her. I’m pretty sure my body took the eye I got from her and filled full of the same power, ‘cause I haven’t noticed any difference except sometimes I see what she sees.”

Basil quickly hit Quincy and covered both his eyes. Quincy swore loudy.

“What was that for?”

“I need to kill you and get out of here before anyone notices you’re missing. I can’t have that girl see where you are.”

“Idiot, someone has to notice that I’m gone by now,” Quincy shot at his captor.

“So I need to be quicker about this.”

“Why do you need to kill me?” Quincy hated not being able to see.

“If I’m going to gain your vision I have to kill you and eat your soul.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work. My soul’s artificial.”

Slowly, Basil removed his hand from Quincy’s eyes. His frown had only grown larger and the sight was so troubling to Quincy, being the first thing he saw after having been blinded for the better part of two minutes, that he let out a small yelp.

“Artificial?”

“Yeah.”

“Artificial soul and eye switching. Who are you?”

“Quincy Tate. I thought you knew that?”

Pulling out a knife from Quincy wasn’t sure where, Basil slowly caressed the blade with his fingers, looking like he was making a hard decision. Quincy assumed that’s what he was doing, anyone, because of the strange, almost sickly look on Basil’s face that wasn’t much better than the frown.

“Really, who or what are you? I need to know if I can risk eating your soul.”

“Well if you put it like that…” Quincy laid his head back, unsure of what to do next. Obviously he hadn’t been able to break free from the ropes, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Basil. He hoped he was still fooling the kidnapper into thinking he had the strength to break the bindings.

“Answer me.” Basil drew the blade along Quincy’s cheek, drawing some blood.

“This feels really cliché,” Quincy said bitterly. “What’re you going to do? Kill me? What’s the point? If you don’t eat my soul and find out later that you could’ve, you’ll kick yourself for not getting a straight answer.”

“Or I’ll go after Lucky.”

“Touché.” Quincy furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, when Aster was five she created me and I came to life and stuff.”

Basil leaned in, curiosity plastered all over his face. “Created you? She can do that?”

Quincy rolled his eyes in a ‘well duh’ sort of way that teenaged girls were expert at. “Yeah, it’s kind of sort of awesome. Get over it. It’s not like she could do it again, making a person with a soul drained her.”

Here was no response for a few minutes as Basil soaked all of the information in, tapping the bed frame with his finger. Quincy mulled the situation over in his head for the umpteenth time. It all felt pretty hopeless, but he Quincy was never very good at knowing when it was time to give up.

“Are you done thinking yet? ‘Cause if you’re going to kill me, get it out of the way so you have some time to creep on others and I can see what heaven’s like.”

“If I eat your soul you won’t get to see heaven.”

“Well, I’m not sure they would’ve let me in anyway.”

“I’ll take a chance on you,” Basil said with a cheery tune in his voice. “Throw caution to the wind, you know?”

“Oh, sure. You’ll have an easier time, but will it really be worth it?”

“Yes.”

Quincy banged his head on the bed. He was stuck.

The murderous Basil lifted his knife in an arc, the blade slicing through the heavy air. His eyes met with Quincy’s. Basil licked his lips. There was a knock on the door.

“What?” Basil looked confused, which made Quincy feel a tad better as he had in fact not invited more creeps in on the ritual sacrifice to feast on his man-made soul. Basil placed a rag in Quincy’s mouth and went to the door, placing the knife in his back pocket. Slowly, he opened the door so as not to allow Quincy to be seen. He put on his best nice voice. “Yes? Hello?”

“Hi, hey, how’s it going? How are you?” Came the voice on the other end of the door. Quincy exhaled slowly; it wasn’t Aster. The voice belonged to a boy.

“Um, fine. May I ask why you’ve knocked on my door?” Quincy could see the smog piling out of Basil’s mouth.

“I’m dandy, not unlike a lion, thanks for asking. My name’s Bradshaw, Isaac Samson but just Sam is fine. I think you have a friend of mine in there. I’d be pretty dang happy if you’d let him out.”

Quincy had no Idea who Sam was but he wasn’t going to complain. A rescue was a rescue.

“I’m sorry, you must have the…”

Sam didn’t let Basil finish. He slammed his hand on the door and pushed Basil inside. Basil retaliated with his knife, cutting Sam on the cheek. Quincy watched as Sam dropped a piece of paper on the floor. Basil stepped closer to Sam, his eyes filled with an angry passion. He threw the knife and it stuck in the wall next to Quincy’s would be rescuer’s head. Basil leaned in close to Sam.

“I will kill you and eat your soul,” Basil said coldly, prying out the knife and sticking it to Sam’s throat. Blood started trickling down in little pellets that hit the ground in a melodic beat. Quincy knew Basil wasn’t kidding.

“Step a little closer. I couldn’t hear your empty threat.”

Apparently Sam had no idea that Basil wasn’t kidding.

Basil took a step closer, his foot landing right on the paper that Sam had dropped. Strange and obscure letterings and words, some of which Quincy recognized as French, crawled up Basil’s leg. He reeled back, grasping at his leg and trying in a desperate fervor to scrape off the words as they grew and spread along his body. Smog flowed out of his mouth, slowly at first, but the stream steadily grew larger and came out faster until it finally stopped and Basil collapsed.

“I’m wearing my favorite shirt today. I can’t die violently while wearing it. I’ve specifically told people I want to be buried in it, so it can’t be covered in blood.” Sam was out of breath, visibly shaking. He looked strangely familiar to Quincy, like a darker-haired version of the man in his dreams. Quincy also took notice of the man’s shirt; it was a light blue with a tiny, cartoon lion on it with a flowery mane. Underneath it said “Dandy Lion.” It slightly disgusted Quincy, and if Aster ever drew something like that and brought it to life he vowed to either never talk to her again or to kick the dandy lion into oblivion. Why anyone would want to be buried in that was beyond him.

“Hey, can you untie me?”

Neither Sam nor Quincy knew quite what to do with Basil once Quincy had been freed, so they locked him in the closet and left. Sam had said he had never used that spell before and didn’t know how long Basil would be out but assumed he wouldn’t try going after Quincy again based on the fact that Sam planned on telling campus police right after they found Aster, which was Quincy’s idea. Sam had wanted to go to the campus police first.

“Campus police don’t do squat. I’ll have Aster make a cage to stick Basil in,” Quincy said, sounding disgusted when he came to Basil’s name.

“Is she a metal smith or something? That’s kind of hot,” Sam responded, rounding the corner to the library with his rescued male damsel. “Would you hurt me if I suggested going to campus security first again?”

Rather than respond with words, Quincy put Sam in a headlock right in front of the entrance of the library.

“Hey, what’re you-? Stop!” Sam tried pulling Quincy off, but he kept a tight grip.

“What, didn’t you ever roughhouse with your older brother?”

 “Wellington and I didn’t really wrestle,” Sam choked out.

“Older brother Alexander and I did this all the time.”

“Older brother always won, too.” Aster leaned on the door frame of the library, hugging her text books loosely against her stomach. She had that reserved smile on her face. “You make a new friend? Is he British, too?”

“Not especially, no.” Sam slipped out of Quincy’s grasp and held up a hand of greeting to Aster. “Sam. Nice to meet you.”

“Aster Archer. Nice to meet you, too.” Aster ran a hand through her tawny hair. “Quincy, you up for the zoo tomorrow?”

“Am I ever! Basil knocked me out and tried to kill me for my eyes, and Sam saved me. Basil’s locked in a closet right now.” Quincy added the last part as an afterthought.

“Hey, zoo. That sounds like fun.” Sam sounded a tad bit envious. Quincy knew he should be.

Aster stared at the two boys, unsure if they were joking or not. Quincy put Sam in another headlock, and that one nonchalant act convinced her that they were telling the truth. She heaved a little sigh and shook her head.

“You know what this means, right? Now I can’t marry a British guy. Basil ruined it for me.” She bit her lip, slowly shaking her head. “Sam, you’re not going to do the same thing to us, are you?”

“I’m not British. Or evil. So no.” Sam managed to slip out again and began dodging Quincy, who tried to catch him again. He feigned to the left and hid behind a pillar. Quincy squinted, trying to figure out the best way to attack.

“Good. We really like meeting new people, but things like this happen a lot.” Aster thought for a moment, and pushed herself off the doorway. “Quincy, head into the library for me. I think I forgot a notebook. The one with the daisies.”

“That was my birthday present to you! You can’t lose that!” Quincy rushed into the building without a second thought, leaving Aster and Sam quite alone.

“So,” Sam began. He drew out the so, which bothered Aster because it made the word sound awkward while signaling at the same time that Sam had something on his mind.

“I know, you’ve probably got some questions, and I do too. How did you find Quincy?”

“Quincy was knocked out and having a dream. I’m a dream walker. And stuff.” Sam scratched his head, then checked his fingernails. The conversation was a bit slow. “Quincy said that if he got hurt in the dream world it would affect his body. I’ve never met anyone like that.”

“That’s because I made him,” Aster replied.

“Like a batch of cookies?”

“I created him,” Aster said, hoping the rewording and new emphasis she placed on the words would help Sam get the idea.

Sam uncomfortably looked from the pillar, to the door, to the doorway then at Aster. “Like a recipe for a batch of cookies?”

“When I was five my older brother Alexander told me my imaginary friends weren’t real. So to prove him wrong I created Quincy. All I did was draw him on some paper and he came to life- but it took so much of my power at a young age, so now I can only bring small things to life. Nothing else with a soul.”

An ‘oh’ was all Sam could muster up.

“He’s got a few defects to him, but most people don’t notice. I should go find him, but let’s keep in touch. If a less cool guy girl group calling themselves the raincoats happen to find out that you’re a dream walker, ignore them and say you’re with us. They’ll get really jealous,” Aster said with a wicked grin.

“Ghost hunters, like Kristjan.” Sam smiled weakly. Aster wasn’t sure how to respond, only hoping that a third group of specially talented people wasn’t forming up on campus as well. It was bad enough having to deal with the raincoats and scary enough realizing with the introductions of Basil and Sam that there were a lot more people like her on the tiny island and any one of them posed a threat to her and Quincy.

Thursdays United, Part 2: He Saw A Sight He Could Not Un-See

              It was three past midnight and like most college students their age, Quincy and Aster were awake. Unlike most college students their age, they were not partying. In fact most people at Plumfield University didn’t really “party”. The best friends attended a small university on an island town in the east of the United States known as Plumfield; not so tiny that there was nothing to do, but not large enough to be particularly well known. It was also prestigious enough to where Quincy had no idea how he got accepted. Maybe it was an act of fate, happenstance, or just the inevitable, but he and Aster could not be separated.

                The two walked casually along the streets of the town passing by old house after old house, making small talk about things they liked and enjoyed; baby otters, irrational fear of penguins, the school café’s lack of skill when it came to making a fine grilled cheese sandwich, and red balloons- Aster was especially fond of red balloons after going through a German music phase. They talked like this until they reached their destination, a cramped-looking palm-reader’s shop.

                “Do you think the Raincoats are already here?” Quincy sounded antsy and his fingers were a little twitchy. He had a hard time focusing on the creaky little magic shop in front of him where he had heard a séance was soon to begin.

                “Wakeman probably just left the library. He and I have a test in the Abnormal Psychology of Television Characters in the 80s. They’ll catch us here right as we finish up.”

                A wicked smile crept along the boy’s face. “Good.” Aster rolled her eyes and boldly took the first step towards the shop, opening the door for a gracious Quincy. Most days she felt like the gentleman in the relationship.

                Inside the shop the ceremonies had already begun. A black-haired woman in loose, earthy garb sat in front of a crystal ball, holding the hands of students Quincy and Aster had seen around the school - in total there were five victims holding each other for the spell, in the clutches of the scam artist death speaker. Except Lady Barkhurst really wasn’t a scam artist. She had talent, and Quincy could see it; She had caused plenty of trouble since Quincy and Aster had been at school, and they never quite knew how to deal with her.

As Lady Barkhurst spilled out word after word of her incantation, and as people failed to notice the presence of either of the newcomers, Quincy could see smog spewing from her velvet lips. It continued to flow, being trapped by the circle created by the hand-holding humans.

                “Speak to us!” Lady Barkhurst’s voice was smooth and enticing. It was her special gift, like Quincy’s eyes and Aster’s hands.

 Quincy had the unique, albeit disturbingly creepy ability to see things that did not belong. As vague as that sounded it basically meant he could see the supernatural tendencies of the world; every time a ghost vanished he saw the trail of where it went. Every time a ghost spoke, he saw the sounds and energy emanating, seeping through the air slowly and chaotically like a blood droplet falling into water, contaminating the world. Anything supernatural, he saw its essence. Both he and Aster found this quite useful for their hobby of ghost hunting, though not very effective as a party trick to impress large groups of people.

He inhaled sharply and at the same moment Lady Barkhurst threw her head back, her eyes turning white. Her mouth became grotesquely large to accommodate the large amount of smog that escaped from her pale figure, and it seemed too much for the poor woman to handle. When Quincy thought she was about to break, she suddenly stopped. The smoke gathered, condensed, and took shape. Quincy heaved out a tiny gasp of surprise.

“What is it?” Aster squinted her eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that was going on. She didn’t need to see with her eyes, however- right then she only needed her ears. An Earth-shattering scream, similar to a child in pain, filled the room quicker than the smog ever could. Aster covered her ears and looked up to shout a warning to those holding together the circle of arms containing the ghost, but her call was drowned out and never came. The circle broke as people covered their ears and Aster caught a brief glimpse of what Quincy had seen: A little girl in pigtails with blood red eyes and veiny skin. The next thing she saw was the ceiling, and she felt Quincy on top of her. The table everyone else was gathered around only a few brief seconds earlier flew overhead.

“Poltergeist.” Quincy pushed himself off his best friend, launching into the air and looking around the room for the noisy spirit that was causing furniture and papers to go airborne.

“Where is it?” Aster covered her head with her thin arms. She shouted again, “Where is it?”

“To your left!” Aster turned to her left and swatted the air in frustration. “I didn’t say it was right behind you!”

“Quincy, I can’t get to this thing unless you’re specific!” A chair flew past Aster. “And don’t get knocked out, or else we’re all dead.”

He gave a thumbs up, and the crystal ball Lady Barkhurst was using smashed him in the face. Blood rose gracefully up from his plummeting body. He met the ground’s not so warm embrace with a thankful thump that was his unconscious way of saying “Why thank you floor, I do feel welcome here. I will in fact stay for a quick snooze.” Aster swore loudly.

“Have fun,” Lady Barkhurst cooed gently, vanishing behind a door near the back of her shop. Aster felt the need to find and strangle that sly smile of hers off of her face.

With only a basic idea of where the poltergeist was, Aster couldn’t find a good solution of how to beat it. To take out her frustrations, she grabbed Quincy’s limp body by the shoulders and shook it violently and once she felt satisfied she dropped the boy, and turned back around to meet a short long-eared creature with nubby limbs grabbing a chair that was about to smack Aster. She narrowed her eyes.

“You’re sickeningly cute and macabre. You belong to Wakeman, don’t you?” The creature turned to Aster, gave an abnormally large sharp-toothed smile, and leapt away as quickly as it had come, leaving Aster a little flustered. She looked around trying to figure out where the creature’s controller was and after very little effort she spotted Blake Wakeman by the door, eating a candy bar. Oh how she hated the way he was constantly eating sweets. “Pig.”

Blake took a small bite of his candy bar and looked as though he was going to be sick. Tiny beads of sweat trickled down his forehead and across his receding hairline. Wherever he moved his gaze, his creature, which he called a Gimme Gimme, followed like a cat chasing a laser pointer. Aster was curious as to how Wakeman knew where to send his Gimme Gimme, but she caught a glance of a slender, short-haired young woman slightly taller than Wakeman standing off to the side, pulling down on her hat and smiling sweetly like a southern bell damsel in a cool summer breeze. One of her eyes was glowing; the one she had switched with Quincy. It was Lucky Avery, the other half of the Raincoats.

“Lucky, where is it?” Wakeman sounded rushed and not completely focused. Almost painfully he took another bite of his candy bar and forced the small chunk down his throat. Aster shifted her head from side to side trying to catch where the Gimme Gimme had gone but it kept on moving from point A to B, to C, D, E, F, G- Lucky couldn’t see as well as Quincy and was having a harder time tracking the spirit. She hadn’t realized it was in the ‘eye of the storm’. Aster’s hand made its way back to Quincy’s face and she plugged his nose and mouth- she ignored the blood that was coating her fingers. With her other hand she searched for a pencil.

Lucky pointed a finger at the veiny child poltergeist, a blurry white splotch on the canvas of the bleak black world that Lady Barkhurst had created inside the domain of her shop. For a moment the spirit flickered into focus and Wakeman took another bite of his chocolate bar, covering his mouth like he was about to vomit. The Gimme Gimme raced to it, easily ducking tossed furniture, making it to the eye of the vortex, jumping on top of the spirit’s shoulder and bearing large teeth, taking a bite of ectoplasm. The girl let out a shrill scream.

“You’ve got it!” Lucky exclaimed in a sweet Scottish accent. She jumped up excitedly, clutching her hat with both hands. Wakeman’s cheeks puffed out a little; his face was a bit green and he staggered for a minute. The girl thrashed around, trying to get the little creature latched on to her by its creamy white teeth off. She inhaled, and at that moment Quincy violently shot up, eyes dilating, inhaling large amounts of air. He looked at the crystal ball next to him then rolled his throbbing head to the girl and the Gimme Gimme. His special eyes witnessed the air moving into the little girl’s mouth, changing it into something ferocious.

“Move.” Quincy grabbed Aster, then rolled away from the crystal ball where moments earlier he saw something darker than black with six crimson eyes. The poltergeist girl let out the air in a shrill burst, the glass ball belonging to lady Barkhurst exploding and releasing a black mist that floated out in chunks almost as disgustingly as the smog that had been released from Lady Barkhurst’s mouth. It took the outline of a shadow man wearing a hat, the six beady eyes focusing on the girl. Quincy wasn’t sure if everyone else could see its ragged smile. “Aster.  Aster, I think it’d be a really awesome idea if you got the hat man first.” He spat out blood with every syllable.

Aster pushed Quincy off, grabbed a sheet of blank paper, and swiftly drew four rough, cartoony arms on it. The hat man made of shadows took no real steps, slowly gliding across the floor. It may have moved a good distance, but Aster didn’t go running after it, instead setting down the sheet of paper she drew on and letting those same four arms burst out of the page and grasp the hat man. With a great deal of force the arms started dragging the shadow towards the page. Its tiny dot eye shot to the size of apples, engrossing its face only to be pushed back by a menacing pointed smile that revealed a vast grayness inside. It tried to ooze out but the hands wouldn’t let it. They dragged the monster into the paper, and the paper went up in flames that faded into fireflies.

Aster Archer’s hands were blessed. Anything she drew would come to life, and anything she captured on paper would stay there, trapped. She was both a creator and a destroyer; she could draw Quincy a flower or trap a disgruntled soul in the pages of her binder, and then hang them up in her room for decoration if she so chose. Some would call her a whimsical witch with great power, but she referred to herself as an artist.

During this time the Gimme Gimme had grown larger from feeding on the spirit’s negativity. The effect the spirit child had on everything soon diminished. Objects fell back to the ground, the heaviness in the air drifted away- and so did the little girl. She drifted away in a flurry of small lights and not even Quincy could see her vanish into an afterlife. Wakeman dropped his candy bar, allowing the Gimme Gimme to gradually fade away. The four of them went around to the people who were in the circle, helping them get up and sending them out the door.

Aster and Quincy ignored Lucky and Wakeman. They had ended in a draw, defeating one ghost each. That’s what a lot of the ghost hunting and chasing around was to them, a competition to see who’s group was better- Aster and Quincy’s, or Lucky and Wakeman’s, the Raincoats as Lucky so lovingly called them as they protected the island from the rain of the supernatural. All Aster could remember about the rivalry was that it had started during their freshman year when they, as the campus supernatural investigation club, had split down the middle and dissolved into two separate groups over some ridiculous argument no one was willing to admit they couldn’t remember. The only thing Quincy was willing to admit was that he was jealous the other group had a name and they didn’t. He could only take solace in the fact that he thought he and Aster were much cooler and more fun to be around and that both groups had only two people; he’d die if someone else joined the Raincoats, assuming the two of them were more likeable than he and Aster.

“Did Lady Barkhurst get away again?” Lucky asked.

“Yeah. Next time I see her, I’m gonna…” A regular color had come back to Wakeman’s thin face. He ran his hands through his short, thinning chestnut hair.

“Gonna what? You can’t legally do anything about her. At least she has to clean up this mess herself.” Aster threw herself into the conversation, professionally moving towards the Raincoats with Quincy right behind her, his strong but kid-like face still caked with dry blood.

“Let’s start taking her grimoires,” Lucky said wistfully, gazing wide-eyed at the different artifacts Lady Barkhurst kept around the store.

“She could call the cops on us,” Aster responded.

“Oh…” Lucky looked down at the ground, fidgeting with her hands.

“Try not to worry too much about her. I’m more curious about how The Horrorscope knew this was going to happen.” Aster thought back to the newsmagazine she and the Raincoats received monthly, a queer little thing that had all the latest information about the supernatural things that went on in the US and UK. He favorite writer was one Sebastian Doegh, who had the most wonderfully written, witty articles. “Lately Plumfield has been in there a lot, but I haven’t seen anyone that could be a writer for the Horrorscope.”

“What, you think they have a certain aura about them?” Wakeman pointed out, almost delightfully. Almost. Quincy didn’t believe he could actually show any real emotion because he was so painfully bland.

“Bite me.”

Aster made her way outside, and the others followed her slowly keeping up boorish conversations that had stemmed from their discussion of Lady Barkhurst. They made their way out the door into the blackness of the night.

The unnatural blackness.

“Dude, did the moon take a smoke break?” Quincy said, trying to figure out what was going on with the lack light. It was times like these he wished he carried a portable nightlight. In response came a chilling cackle, almost human. But not quite.

Quincy stepped back, his eyes adjusting to the dark. Lucky was trying to do the same, but long before she could Quincy saw the round, glowing red eyes. Some of the shadows began to move apart, circling the entrance like a pack of wild animals. There was another unnatural cackle, a demonic shriek, and then words.

“Aster.”

“Blake.”

More cackling, then more unnatural voices.

“Aster Archer.”

“Lucky Avery.”

“Blake Wakeman.”

It became a taunt, a jeer, the voices sneering the names. Lucky clutched Wakeman’s arm and began shivering. Wakeman used his free hand to locate another chocolate bar but couldn’t find one- he wouldn’t be able to summon his Gimme Gimme. Aster had no paper on her, but even then she wouldn’t know what to aim at to trap. All Quincy and Lucky could do was look, stare at the red eyes until the shadow that hid them slowly moved away, leaving dismembered body parts of two of the people who had been I n the circle. Lucky covered her eyes. Aster thought she heard her stifle a yelp.

“Well, I feel a little left out.” Quincy looked at Aster, disappointed his name had not been called.

Clay Tuesday: Arrest the Children

The Case of the Black-Eyed Children, First Instance

“Let me in.”

He wanted in. The man, with dirty blond hair, wanted in. He wasn’t overly charming, graceful, or particularly extraordinary in his looks. Sure he was handsome, but he was generically so. But he was new. So Miranda Fawson, slim and tall, let him in.

The young man, dripping wet from rain water, white tee shirt clinging to his skin, came in and closed the door. Thunder clapped outside. The young man tried to hide his shivering.

“You shouldn’t let strangers in so easily,” he pointed out. The way he said it wasn’t threatening, just matter of fact. Boring. Miranda would have preferred he been dangerous. But she shrugged it off. She would make him more interesting.

“Mr. Let-Me-In, you should be happy you have a dry place to stay.” Miranda leaned against the hallway wall, decorated with photo frames, smiling coyly.

“Adam.”

“Pardon?”

“My name’s Adam. Look, if I’ve pissed you off I’ll give you chocolate when Sebastian comes around.”

“I hate chocolate.”

This response made Adam, who was trying to hide his shivering, scrunch his face in utter confusion.

“What, are you serious? That can’t be right.” He mumbled. He pinched the bridge of his nose, pausing for a moment before going on. “I hate it when he does this to me.”

Miranda was starting to get curious. “I’ve always hated chocolate,” she noted. “But who’s Sebastian? Your boyfriend?”

Gallons, it looked like, of blood rushed to his pale cheeks. Miranda had been joking, but now she thought maybe she had struck a nerve. Adam looked like he might become a fun new plaything; she liked this.

“No,” he stuttered, his voice slipping into a southern drawl, “He’s my bro. Broseidon. Broseph. Sherlock Bromes. That kind of thing. He’s the one who told me where you live.”

Miranda moved from her spot on the wall and chose to shuffle through a basket of random belongings near her front door. She only listened half-heartedly, and was at this point more worried about finding her Polaroid camera and pushing the bits of her bleached hair that escaped her bandanna headband out of her face. “Why did you need to know where I live?”

“I had a dream about you and this place. Sebastian looked it up for me to make sure you existed, that this was a case we could take on. He’s supposed to be here, too.”

Miranda began paying attention more sincerely now. “You had a dream about me? I’m flattered.” She turned her head around briefly to look at how serious Adam was before going back to her searching.

“Yeah, it happens.”

“Why exactly are you here?”

“Because they’re coming.”

“Who?”

“The black-eyed children.”

“Say cheese!” Miranda had found her camera and whipped around to take a quick snapshot of Adam. He was caught off guard and rubbed his eyes for several seconds after the flash had gone off. Miranda shook the photograph that came out of the camera, knowing full well it would probably warp the image. “The what now? Sorry, you looked vaguely unique while you were trying to defend your heterosexuality. I had to capture the moment.”

Adam gave Miranda a frown, or at least she imagined he did. It was difficult to tell since his face had a continual countenance of unhappiness surrounding it.

“The black-eyed children. Sometimes they’re called black-eyed kids. The name itself is self-explanatory.”

“Well that’s nice. Do they at least do party tricks?”

“They make you feel miserable and stuff.”

“Oh, so that explains your personality. You must’ve run into one.”

Miranda assumed that he frowned again. She clapped her hands together, bending the polaroid photo.

“They ask to come inside, and if you say yes they’ll kill you, maybe turn you into one of them. But they have to be invited inside, sort of like vampires.” Adam rubbed his upper arms. He looked like he was shivering. Miranda didn’t much feel like offering him a towel.

“How do you know they’re coming here again? A dream?”

Adam picked up an old-looking letter on a stand by the door that Miranda had received earlier in the week. He took out the dated paper from the envelope; the note inside was blank.

“You got this,” Adam replied. “That’s how I know.”

Before Miranda could respond there came a soft knocking at the door. “Let me get that,” she said, reaching for the door. Adam grabbed her arm, which instantly pissed Miranda off. She held her tongue.

“Let me do it.” Letting go of Miranda’s arm, Adam went for the handle and opened the door slowly. With each inch that the door opened, Miranda could feel any sort of hope or good feeling seep out of her personage like helium escaping out of a balloon, deflating her soul. Standing there on the doorstep were two average looking teenagers, one boy and one girl, with eyes that looked like they were glazed over with midnight black nail polish.

“Can we come in? Our car broke down and we need to call a tow truck,” said the boy. His breath smelled like scum and Miranda could tell he was lying but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

“Please? It’s so cold outside,” the girl added almost as an afterthought.

Tilting his head, Adam looked like he was actually contemplating it. The hair on the back of Miranda’s neck was standing on end; she knew it was a bad idea, and she wanted to shout at the children to leave, yet she could feel her lips beginning to form the word yes. Before she could say anything, Adam responded to the request.

“No.” He slammed the door.

Snapping out of her daze, Miranda choked out a weak “What was that?”

“They’ll knock again. I just like it when they get pissy. It makes this more fun.”

Like a prophecy come true, there came another knock, rougher this time. Adam opened the door quickly. He asked them what they could possibly want.

“Let us in,” the girl said more forcefully, incessantly. “Our car broke.”

“Use your cell phone.” Adam slammed the door a second time, and once more there came a rapping at the door. He flung it open. This time the two teens propped themselves heavily against the door frame, leaning as far in as they could without actually being inside the house. To Miranda, it came off as looking like some force field prevented them from entering.

“Let us in.”

“I said no.” The southern twang in his voice was still present, but less so the more he spoke. “I don’t see your car anywhere.”

“It’s a few blocks over,” the boy replied. Good lord, Miranda thought, his breath stunk like spoiled eggs.

“Then you should’ve tried another house,” Adam expressed coldly.

“Let us in.” The girl tried leaning in farther. This seemed to upset Adam because in a sort of retaliation to her movement he grabbed her face. The black-eyed girl shrieked violently, inhumanly, forget-me-nots sprouting from her nostrils and eye sockets underneath Adam’s palm. The boy turned to run.

“What’s the matter? Don’t run.” Adam grabbed the back of the black-eyed boy’s shirt, pulling the demon into his chest and putting him in a head lock. Flowers instantly began growing from the points of contact between him and Adam, covering his body like they did the girl’s. “You two aren’t even wet. Really, try harder the next time you lie.”

The black-eyed kids were consumed by the forget-me-nots, vanishing underneath their blanket of white. The flowers, just as quickly as they had cropped up, shriveled and died away, leaving behind only a few petals and an eerie silence as evidence that anything had happened in the first place.

Miranda broke the silence. “Do you do this on a regular basis?” Something akin to joy began returning to her system with the absence of the demons.

“Maybe,” was all Adam responded with. He walked out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Miranda laughed, awkwardly, wishing she had some sort of evidence that what had just happened wasn’t a dream. She looked down at the snapshot of Adam she had in her hand. Grinning mischievously, she walked to a drawer, rummaging through and pulling out a pen and a thumbtack. Using the tip of the thumbtack, she scratched out Adam’s eyes and roughly filled in the scratchings with the black ink from the pen. She hung the photo on the wall between some of the fancier, framed ones.



“Where were you?” Adam asked Sebastian. He leaned against a wall outside a coffee house named Teal Justice. He had no idea what the name had to do with anything. It wasn’t practical, unless the name had to do with the bold colors inside. Either way it kind of made Adam sick to look at.

Sebastian lit a match, and let burn until the flames licked his fingertips like the tongue of a hellhound before letting the crumbled matchstick fall to the ground. All the while Adam gazed in admiration at the light and shadows cast on Sebastian’s form from the tiny fire. Sebastian drew in a large gulp of air infused with the smell of smoke, taking his sweet time in answering.

“Sorry, I got new orders from the Horrorscope last-second. They wanted me to check out a sighting of shadow people at Teal Justice, but it turns out they meant the location in Plumfield, North Carolina.” As Sebastian answered, he kept an eye on Adam, watching carefully as he flinched at the mention of the town.

“Don’t mention that place,” Adam mumbled bitterly. He ruffled his wet hair and stared out at the rain coming down in a light sprinkle now over the town. A silent prayer was had in Adam’s heart for being under a canopy at that moment, as he had yet to grab a jacket.

Sebastian took a small box with a bow on it out of his inner suit pocket and tossed it in Adam’s general direction. With the swiftness and grace of a former jock, Adam skillfully caught the gift.

“What’s this?”

“Chocolate. For pissing you off and all.”

Adam was slack-jawed at the comment. It took him what seemed a full minute before he was able to pull himself together, opening the box to see five tiny assorted truffles.

“Thanks, I guess.” Adam stared at the chocolates a moment longer before placing the lid back on the box.

The Man Who Was Fire; or, the Story of Averett Emberhart

Flames savagely licked up and down Averett’s large, imposing frame; he was the son of rage and fire and all he wanted to do, more than any other thing, was hug her. He wanted to embrace her, kiss her, dance with her, be with her, his unreachable goal—but all he could do was burn and uncomfortably laugh at his misfortune. He was a man who had become the very sin that consumed and raged in his insides, and he couldn’t hide it with fancy words reserved for fancy occasions, used to conceal the most troubling of secrets in the most polite of societies. His pain and anguish was visible to all as he lived on in a state few could understand, a state so misunderstood that others mocked and scorned out of a primal fear of the burning light and pure unpredictable emotion he produced.

        His body betrayed his desire, unable to succumb to his wants, only regret and temptation. So instead he stood afar off, not daring to reach for the woman he wanted to adore until finally the rage and flames devoured him, leaving only gray ash floating in the breeze that came from the breath of his scorners, a breath that had previously fed him. The tiny bits of gray ash danced in circles round and round, fell on her with a soft kiss, and embraced her in a way she could not appreciate, because she had only seen the man who was fire as something to fear.

Clay Tuesday: Harmonious Tantrum

Clay Tuesday

Harmonious Tantrum



Part 01: Allow No Evil



Lawrence Caldwell had lived in five-thirty-two West End Road in Massachusetts for well over two hundred years. In the year 1801 he had suffered a fracture in his hip that he received from a terrible fall down a flight of stairs in his house and, unable to call for help, he died on the steps. Nobody found his body for weeks, and his spirit simply decided not to leave. His house, which he had built himself, was four stories tall and overshadowed many other residences that had once stood alongside his. Over the years, however, those other houses were torn down and new ones built up; new residents moved in to Lawrence’s house as well, and did all sorts of nonsensical things to it that Lawrence did not approve of. So he tried to put a stop to it.

There wasn’t much he could do at first; he could make the windows shake, and cause smaller objects to move a couple of inches any which way he desired. But as the years grew longer, his anger towards new residents, and thusly his powers as a ghost, grew much stronger. He made loud noises, caused objects disappear, shattered glass, and even gave residents a brief viewing of his rotting spiritual body. And, once, in 1986, he killed a mother of two because she had wanted to put up wallpaper in his house. Wallpaper. Lawrence was disgusted with the changes people made to his home over the years, and that, for some peculiar reason, was the last straw. The house remained abandoned for decades after that.

Until two young men moved in.

In the months prior to those two young men taking up residence, crews and come and gone tidying up the place, something that made Lawrence uneasy after having his house to himself again. A priest came and blessed the house, too, which made Lawrence scoff. By the time the two young men came around, he had built up more than enough rage to, he hoped, exile them from his house and prevent anyone from ever wanting to return.

The first day, he made the windows shake. The two men ignored it. The second day, Lawrence smashed windows. They covered them with bags and had the glass cleaned up and replaced that day. On the third day, deciding to go further, Lawrence made himself visible to the shorter of the two men; the brown-haired one who always wore sweats and a white tee. Lawrence’s spirit, by then, bore very little resemblance to the man when he had first died. His face was gaunter, chunks of what would have been skin peeling away to show bits of skull and large chunks of hair had vanished as well. His left eye even hung limply along his cheek stretching down to his chin. The young man, not surprised in the least by the vision of the spirit, actually smiled a little and walked closer to Lawrence, holding out his hand. He stepped forward once. Twice. Three times. Lawrence felt uneasy, stunned by the young man’s boldness, and vanished in a wisp of smoke.

For the next week Lawrence took to observing the two new residents of the house. They were very much an odd couple; Lawrence learned that Adam, the boy he had tried to frighten, was very cleanly and made sure everything in the house was in its proper place. When he wasn’t picking up after Sebastian, the taller man, he was watching sports and soap operas on the television.

Sebastian always wore three-piece suits, even while lounging around the house. He would explore every room thoroughly; taking notes every time Lawrence made any sort of noise- even the noises Lawrence didn’t make he took note of. Whenever Sebastian would undress, Lawrence would take note of the medallion he kept close to himself at all times and the bizarre tattoo on his forearm. Both made Lawrence feel uneasy, which in turn made him angrier. He had to get the men out of there. The house was Lawrence’s, and he would not share with anyone else. He would channel his anger and do something amazing.

One evening at three A.M. Lawrence made the walls bleed.

Full of two hundred years’ worth of bitter emotion, Lawrence cause each wall in the house to ooze out blood. He moaned and howled, shaking his house’s foundation. Sebastian the open the door to his room and stepped out. It was then that Lawrence made himself manifest once more, his eyes glowing a vile green. He started at the end of the hallway, cutting out and reappearing closer Sebastian over and over. Sebastian backed into a corner, afraid to touch the walls covered in blood. He shook violently and tried grabbing for the medallion around his neck, but he had taken it off before bed and forgotten to grab it when he left the room. He shrank down to the ground. Lawrence, now only a few feet from Sebastian, lowered his rotting face. He was about to open his mouth when from the corner of his good eye he saw little flowers, live flowers, covering the wall, his wall. Taking his time, Lawrence turned and focused on Adam at the end of the hallway, the flowers starting from where his hand was placed on the wall. Lawrence cut out and phased to stand in front of Adam, towering over him.

“I think Sebastian and I are going to have to leave,” he started. “Your hospitality has been lacking.”

With both hands Adam grabbed the aged jacket of the apparition’s form, spider lilies consuming Lawrence. Lawrence saw several lights, and he started following them, quickly, because they were getting away. In his mind he followed, and followed, and then, but misfortune or happenstance, the lights were gone and all Lawrence saw was a cracked ivory mask with a single eye painted on it. It belonged to a reddish man-looking creature with black spines erupting from its back and feathers in his hair. He, or it, stood a good two yards from Lawrence, a spear in its hand, the point piercing Lawrence. On the spear hung an antique metal, the tiny door of which creaked open, sucking Lawrence inside. The next thing he knew, they were gone.



Part 02: Think No Evil



“Have you heard about the Cult of No One, Wellington?”

Wellington Bradshaw, by nature always a little tense and withdrawn, visibly grew even tenser at the question. Rachel had no idea this was even possible, and was somewhat amused.

Smoothing down his unkempt bedhead hair, he replied “yes,” and continued placing tests on the desks in the empty room for Rachel’s next class. He felt the air grow colder, but thought nothing of it; he probably only had the chills thinking about the entity that had once possessed his body.

“Then you probably know why I took the job at this school.” Rachel looked up at Wellington, but he kept his back turned. She smiled warmly, and looked down at the notes she was shuffling through.

Roughly a year ago the residents of the creepy little house had helped Wellington, his cousin Isaac Bradshaw, Renee Engleking and Charles Taffner Yonts. They were dream walkers, able to enter the dreamscape, the world of dreams, every Wednesday at 11:11. However, they ran into rare demons that lived in and ate dreams- The Empties, former dreamers who had sold their souls to No One, king of The Empties. That was how they lost Charles.

“It’s, well, it’s not like, well, you know. I mean it’s a cult. I don’t see how I can be found. I hate large crowds, I teach piano, and I just barely started college at the age of twenty-two.” Wellington stood near the entrance of the room now, placing the last paper on the desk. He exhaled, and for a brief second he felt as though he could see his breath. Softly, he added, “I don’t even go into the dreamscape anymore.”

“Do you know where Isaac is?” Rachel waited for a reply, but all she got was silence. “Wellington, we’re here to make sure nothing happens to you.”

Wellington couldn’t deal with the stress. His whole life he couldn’t deal with it- he loathed being around large groups of people and could barely handle the dynamic of having Isaac, Renee and Charles around. He had finally gotten used to that, and then everything went to hell- Charles, in a moment of weakness, considered selling his soul and got killed. Wellington himself became possessed by an evil entity who only wished to devour and used Wellington’s body to strangle and nearly kill Isaac, who then became a new person altogether in the dreamscape. Renee had to deal with it all and save the day with the help of Kristjan, Rachel and Adam. Wellington still struggled with the thoughts of everything that happened, everything haunted him. Had he been able to dream the entire fiasco with No One and the Empties would have given him nightmares for life, but instead the thoughts alone kept him awake late into the night. He didn’t want help now; he just wanted to be left alone, to not have any of it brought up ever again. He wanted to move on, like he had promised the comatose Isaac before he had woken up and vanished.

Wellington focused his clear blue eyes on Rachel, his eyes that had changed to green then gray before his possession a year earlier. He opened his mouth to say, well, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say but he knew he wanted to say something. Before he got the chance he visibly saw his breath before his eyes, and the lights flickered. He winced. “I wasn’t the only reason you came, was I?”

A shriek reverberated through the now low-lit room, accompanied by a desk that was thrown too close to Wellington’s head for comfort but he stood his ground. This didn’t scare him a bit, he had been in truly terrifying situations in the dreamscape, inside of literal nightmares.

“This was the prize in the crackerjack box. I’m teaching folklore at a haunted school. A haunted school, Wellington. A lot of students plan on taking my class this semester.”

“I wouldn’t bother taking this prize to Tiffany’s and having it engraved.” Wellington walked towards Rachel, and the screaming stopped. As soon as it did, however, a pale, sunken-eyed young woman in black stood in Wellington’s path.

“She’s been trying to break me these past few days, scare me off, you know. I keep on saying that I can’t be broken. She can tell how negative you are, so she’s going to try and break you next.” Rachel sat down in her swivel chair, continuing to flip through papers.

“You haven’t gotten rid of her yet?” Wellington said with a twinge of sulphurousness to his tone.

“Why? She makes a great visual aid.”

“Now you’re just messing with me.”

“Is it working?”

Wellington’s fingers twitched at his side. He may have been special like Rachel, but she dealt with magic, the supernatural. All he could do was invade people’s dreams. He couldn’t even dream for himself.

Rachel finally looked up at Wellington and noticed his frown. “Alright, I’ll take care of it.”

She never got a chance to take care of it. Wellington saw her tense up, her eyes growing large like dollar coins. She pointed behind Wellington. He turned, a spear, wielded by a red-colored man in a mask, shot past his ear. Wellington’s head turned, he felt so dizzy now. The spear pierced the poltergeist girl, who hung from the ceiling. The birdcage attached to the spear opened up, and a thin mist rose from it, entangling the spirit and drawing her into the cage itself.

“Wellington, back!”

Wellington knew Rachel well enough to figure out that when her voice was that commanding, she was serious and he should obey. He fell back onto a desk, while a knife zoomed past where he had been, making its mark, sinking into the white mask that covered the red man’s face. It cracked, and the red man ripped out the blade, tossing it aside and vanishing.

“Wellington, are you-” Rachel started. Wellington interrupted.

“No. No. Don’t want to deal with this right now. This is why I hate being around people, crap like this happens. I’m going home.” Wellington walked out the door and came back in a few minutes later, grumbling. “You’re my ride.”



Part 03: Foretell No Evil



The first rule of any good stakeout was to always bring junk food. Kristjan Callier and Renee Engleking were not on a stakeout per-se, but Renee still craved something delicious and all around bad for her like a pizza or a burger. Renee felt she knew the enigmatic Kristjan well enough to assume he would even do something silly like try to coerce Renee into buying snacks for their outing once they had gotten there, and as such had even brought a little extra money with her just so they could get something good. But it was just not meant to be.

Renee crossed her ankles elegantly and smoothed out her white, layered skirt that went a little past her knees. She was sure the island of Plumfield had some wonderful places to eat or grab snacks; she honestly would have settled for a nice, healthy meal before they went out, or even requested Adam to make them a sack lunch. Instead, she was ultimately famished and bored just sitting on the bench across from Lady Barkhurst’s palm reading salon.

“You good?” Kristjan asked, not really bothering to look over at Renee. He sat leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and chewing on a toothpick. Renee thought they looked so shady, she and him, just sitting there, loitering. She, of course, was wearing light colors, mostly whites and crèmes, while Kristjan wore his signature black that brought out his bright, styled hair.

“Dandy like a lion,” she replied, brushing a hand through her wavy rust-colored hair. She laughed a little on the inside; she had used Isaac’s favorite phrase. “I’d be dandier with some stakeout food.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. You have to eat. Crazy kid.” Kristjan sat up and stretched out his arms. “I should’ve had Adam make us something to go.”

“So you can’t eat, either? That’s horrible.” Renee ignored the fact that Kristjan hadn’t thought of asking Adam. She’d save that for later and guilt him out of a much larger, fancier meal than they could have had waiting for Lady Barkhurst to open her shop. She figured she could even get a snack out of him right now as well if she played her cards right.

“Nah, I can still eat. I just don’t need to in order to survive. I thoroughly enjoy making Adam cook fancy meals for me.” He slouched back against the bench and moved his mouth back and forth along his face while shaking his knee. It looked like he was getting antsy. “Most people would call me lucky, you know. I have some aunts who would kill to never have to eat. They wouldn’t have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for personal trainers and for fancy diet plans. It’s not like they even need any of that. People in my family are just too focused on looks.”

Renee wondered how true that was for Kristjan, too. He always dressed very nicely and he was naturally handsome, objectively speaking of course. “No, definitely not lucky. You can’t sleep either. It’s not like you’re King Midas, but still.”

“Hey now, Midas had an awesome ability.” Kristjan and Renee both laughed, but she wondered how he kept from going crazy. Then she realized the answer was easy; he put all of his time into this job. He knew five languages, two of which he had learned since living in the creepy little house. He read grimoires, studied them really, and made sure he was rarely idle. This was probably the most idle he had been in a long while.

“I think I’d be dandier if I had a snack.”

“I’ll go grab us something tasty.” As soon as Kristjan stood up, the lights went on in Lady Barkhurst’s shop. Renee cursed her luck. “Rain check. Stakeout’s over.”

They crossed the street and entered the shop, the door chiming eerily and echoing in the empty room. Everything felt drab, soulless- it felt like a nightmare to Renee.

From behind a curtain emerged Lady Barkhurst, robed in a rouge gown that clung to her frame and jewels adorned her neck and fingers. Her raven hair full of curls was done up neatly, and her lips shone the same color as her dress. Renee thought it a bit much.

“Come, sit. You must want your fortune read, no? Would you like the tarot, a Ouija, or perhaps you would like me to tell your future through automatic writing?” Lady Barkhurst’s Eastern European accent came off as comically thick, Renee tried not to laugh. Lady Barkhurst signaled Kristjan and Renee to sit down before doing so herself.

“You’re playing the accent a little thick. It’s unprofessional, and a little insulting if you ask me. Thoughts, Renee?” Kristjan took his seat and rolled his shoulders back, loosening up.

“Honest to goodness I had to keep myself from giggling the moment you opened your mouth.” Renee remained standing, choosing instead to move around the room and examine all of the trinkets.

Lady Barkhurst paused, staring coldly at Kristjan. Slowly, she opened a drawer and brought out a deck of Tarot cards.

“Oh, I see. You plan on bringing out The Death without actually knowing what it means and saying something creepy about my upcoming demise,” Kristjan teased, folding his arms.

“No no, these are special cards, Kristjan Callier.” Lady Barkhurst’s accent became a natural French one as she shuffled the deck, dealing out five cards on the table. “You don’t even need to touch the cards- one of the gifts of being psychic, you see, much like Phillip Darwin Yeates. Now, let us see what we have here.”

Kristjan sat upright in a flash, grabbing Lady Barkhurst’s hand before she could flip over the first card.

“Kristjan, that’s rude.” Renee walked over to her blond-haired companion, placing a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “I don’t believe we’ll have anything to worry about.”

“Thank you, Renee,” Lady Barkhurst replied softly, smoothly, slyly. She gave off an aura that made Renee feel insecure. Kristjan let go of her hand, and she flipped over the first card. It was a scarecrow; Renee wondered if it had anything to do with Kristjan’s nickname. She flipped over a second, and on it was a picture of a moon insignia, the card reading ‘The Dream Walker.’ Renee recognized it instantly as the symbol she saw every time she entered a dream; the symbol she would have to return to in order to exit from most dreams. Her grip tightened on Kristjan’s shoulder.

“Who are you, Madame Sosostris? These aren’t normal tarot cards,” Kristjan said, eyeing Lady Barkhurst carefully.

“I do not come from Ectabana, dear Scarecrow, but one day I shall reside in Astoria. Now let us continue.” She flipped over with a white crow on it, then another with a crude drawing of a man in brown on it. It read ‘The Listener.’ “Ah, yes. The Listener, your man in brown. It all makes sense, yes, I know who you are looking for, how you came to be.”

Kristjan grabbed Lady Barkhurst’s arm. “Who are you?”

“Kristjan, that’s not polite,” Renee grabbed Kristjan’s arm and tried forcing him to let go. She had never seen him so angry. He eventually did, allowing Lady Barkhurst to continue.

“You shouldn’t have let me finish.” Lady Barkhurst flipped over the final card; it was inversed, containing a crude drawing of a man in glasses with a scythe. It read ‘The Reaper.’

Gusts of wind picked up in the store, forcing Renee and Kristjan to brace themselves. The wind gathered itself in a small whirlwind next to Lady Barkhurst, culminating into the form of a large red man in a white mask carrying a spear. Two feathers were strung to his ragged black hair, and a birdcage hung from his weapon. On his chest was a small black heart.

Renee stared at the single eye drawn on the mask, mesmerized by it. It reminded her of the masks the Empties wore in the Dreamscape.

“This is my pet, Grimshaw. He was a Reaper once in the Afterlife, he may have even known your man in brown,” Lady Barkhurst explained coyly, her voice seeping into the air around them like smoke. It felt so omnipotent to Renee, it reminded her of the first time she had met Kristjan.

“So you do belong to the cult of No One,” Kristjan accused, standing up and pushing back his chair. Grimshaw’s wasted no time in thrusting his spear at Kristjan, cutting his arm. Kristjan shrunk back, holding his arm. Renee was curious to see if he could actually bleed, but before she could catch a real glance Kristjan had already grabbed her wrist and spun her around. “We’ve got to get out of here. I wasn’t prepared for a demon and a French harlot.”

Renee was sure Lady Barkhurst had allowed them to escape because Grimshaw did not chase after them as they went through the door a final time, down the street, around a corner and down yet another street. Before they had stopped they were near the campus of Plumfield University.

“I liked your T.S. Eliot reference,” Renee said after an awkward silence between her and Kristjan. She was in good enough shape to where the escape handed winded her, but Kristjan was still panting. This surprised her, and she inhaled sharply when she saw the bleeding wound on his arm.

“It ruined my favorite shirt,” Kristjan said through his light, hurried breathing.

“Didn’t you say that about the shirt you wore yesterday?” Renee tried touching Kristjan’s arm, but he only withdrew.

“That was new favorite, this is good ol’ favorite.” Kristjan finally allowed Renee to touch his injured arm. Blood got on her white clothes, but she barely noticed. “You know, when I was a kid I went to a palm reader with my aunt- The French Canadian one, of course- and I don’t remember her having a familiar spirit, or whatever that thing was. Ah-h-h, maybe you shouldn’t touch that. Why isn’t it healing?”

“Do you heal quickly?” Renee asked, tearing off a piece of her blood-stained skirt and wrapping it around the wound. Kristjan nodded in response.

“Very quickly. Almost instantly. I forgot I could bleed.” Kristjan slumped down on the curb of the sidewalk, underneath a street lamp, controlling his breathing so it would return to normal.

Renee joined him on the curb. “Sitting on the curb is a lost art,” She said. Kristjan laughed, and Renee slid her arm through his. “Well, before we head back to the house I think you should be a gentleman and escort me to a pizzeria, then we can discuss what happened. One should never discuss important things on an empty stomach.”

“As a Canadian gentleman king, I insist that my personal chef, dear Adam, cook you a homemade pizza instead.” Kristjan stood up, lifting Renee with him, and tried to look as dignified as he could.

“You had me at Canadian,” Renee said teasingly. Before they turned the corner she thought she heard someone call her name, and, turning around she caught a brief glimpse of a dog’s shadow receding from the glow of the old street lamp. She shrugged it off and walked with Kristjan down the street into the night.



Part 04: Fears That Come in Three



The creepy little house on the hill stared longingly at the blue-roofed duplex down the way. It had the perfect view of the building that looked like it had been crafted with such love and the creepy house wanted ever so terribly to meet it, for it got lonely from time to time while its residents were away. But the creepy little house knew better; the duplex could not love it back, for as far as the creepy house new, it was the only house in the world with a soul.

The house laughed silently at the thought; it, a creepy little house, had a soul that it had gained through a spell Joel Moomaw had cast when the house turned one hundred. It had heard Rachel talk of this before, how some cultures believed objects gained souls after a hundred years, but it made little sense to the creepy little house. The house wasn’t even sure Rachel, or anyone else for that matter, knew it had a soul. The things the house chose to pay attention to were the tender moments where the residents thought they were alone.

Some days the house would catch Rachel sitting on the porch playing guitar, just like Joel had taught her, pretending she was Holly Golightly. She sang the most beautiful songs, but they always left the house feeling sad; it was only when Adam joined in singing the harmony that Rachel seemed happy, and it made the house happy, too, reminding it of when they were children and their mother, Esther, would play guitar for them, teaching them how to harmonize. When she died Rachel didn’t touch the guitar for years, but Adam, usually in his underwear, would practice in secret in his room. When he got good enough he would sit in his windowsill and play for Rachel whenever she was down. It was his way of thanking her for always leading him by the hand when he was a child, keeping him safe from the crumbling world.

The house witnessed Adam knitting, cooking, cleaning, gardening, and recently the house even saw him studying grimoires so he could help Kristjan and Rachel. Adam took such good care of the house, and the house thought that if it could, it would do something kind for the boy. But, alas, all the house could do was to give him a place to live. It wanted to do so much more. The house was so happy when Adam had met Sebastian; Adam had gradually become stronger, less depressed. Sebastian was an answer to the house’s prayers for Adam.

When Kristjan arrived at the house, during those first few weeks, the house would hear him cry, and see him hugging his knees. He was so insecure, and still was, but would never let on how terrible his trials were to the Rachel and Adam, no matter how close he got to them. As time went on he cried less and less, but the house would still catch him swinging, deep in thought, looking rather melancholy. He would always lighten up when he saw Rachel.

The house chuckled silently, breaking away from its flirty glances to the duplex with its swimming pool and neatly trimmed garden. The house didn’t need the love of another building. No, the house was happy with what it had, and rest assured with the thought that it would never be lonely so long as it was blessed with its residents.

But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt if at least once the house could meet another building with a soul. It would have very much appreciated being able to talk to something- the squirrels that lived in the tree made terrible company while everyone was away.

Monday Night Chinese: Part 5 (FINAL)

Part 05: An Afterthought

It had been quite some time since the incident with Raphael, and every now and again Levi, Alice and Blue would discuss those events. They would talk of how No One escaped from Astoria, where his other minions might be and when, if ever, they would show up once again in the Afterlife. Blue was of the opinion that No One would focus on the two planes of existence that weren’t filled with able bodied spirits who knew what to look for now (the Dreamscape and the living world), but Alice was uneasy all the same. She spent more time after that out in the living world fighting and tracking down demons to better her combat skills and from time to time Levi and other Listeners such as Uriel would accompany her or Laura to track down the missing Afterlife workers. A few had been found, but many, such as Grimshaw, were still missing.

The black hearts had vanished, and for a brief while only the ordinary, easy to work with demons were all Levi received. He worked as peacefully as he could, now that he had grown slightly more paranoid of his own surroundings. He began spending more and more time cooped up in his restaurant, thinking.

On one particular occasion that Levi found perfectly appropriate to stay in his favorite booth (third from the front on the left side, it had the best feng shui), Blue had decided to pop in for a chat. He slid into the booth opposite Levi rather cheerfully. Levi said nothing for a while; he only stared at his zodiac calendar placemat. Blue took the initiative and spoke first.

“You still haven’t told me who cooks for the restaurant,” He said playfully, resting his arms on the sturdy table and leaning forward. Levi didn’t respond. Instead, he folded his arms and began stroking his chin. Blue didn’t stop smiling, not even once. “You know, I heard Alice say she’d be by later. I think there’s someone else looking for you, too.”

Alice’s previously frequent visits had occurred less and less in the year and a half since the event, due to her increasing trips into the living world. Levi wouldn’t admit it, but it affected him not having her around and he never enjoyed the few and far between trips he would take with her into the living world to search for the still missing employees. He had tried filling the void of her friendship with his love of the idea of Laura, but after two dates their relationship hadn’t taken off, but they remained friendlier than they had been before. She, along with Blue, would stop by the Chinese restaurant to check up on the ever withdrawing Levi and make sure he got out at least once in a while.

“Are you thinking about Kristjan?” Blue’s voice cracked through Levi’s thoughts, and he finally glanced up at the young man.

“Yes. What happened to him was… something that should have been prevented. Had he simply died and become a black heart, I wouldn’t feel so bad. But I couldn’t fix him. I wonder if Merrill was really able to stop his pain.” Levi set the hand he had been stroking his chin with on the table. Blue leaned further in, apparently trying very hard to invade Levi’s bubble.

“I really dig your British accent, you know that? You should never have hid it,” Blue said, backing off a bit.

“I sort of forgot it had even existed to begin with. Once you’ve been dead as long as I have, you start to forget who you were in your past life.” Levi tapped on the table. Blue had a peculiar look of confusion and disturbance that caused his face to wrinkle, creating aged lines of experience his features were too young to have. He may have been dead, but mentally he was still growing and maturing.

The door to the restaurant opened and LeRose, the model thin female Reaper with the most delightfully disturbing ruby hair stepped in. Everything about her demanded the attention of the boys in the room, from her snarling face to her clothing choice of Daisy Dukes and a dark tank top. Behind her in the hallway was a giant black blob with four spindly legs popping out. It was covered with hundreds of beady green eyes that were looking at everything around it. It secreted a noxious steam every time one of the eyes would blink. There was a chain wrapped around it and Charles, tall and thin with nicely parted sandy hair and clothes equally as nice, held on to one of many chains that secured the demon, preventing it from running amok. He looked bitterly uncomfortable.

“What is that?” Blue asked intently. Levi could see the ‘this is so totally awesome’ look on Blue’s face take over.

“Order up! Got another one for you. Friggin’ Charlie didn’t want to go near the thing like usual, but at least he’s still a better partner than Grimshaw. I just wish he’d man the hell up.” LeRose said with her typical scowl, holding on to another chain that wrapped around the demon. Levi was convinced her face was frozen that way as he had never once seen her smile. Oh how it pained Levi to hear her speak with her crude tone as well. He was at least somewhat thankful that he rarely saw her as she spent much of her time with her new partner, Charlie, who had recently come to the Afterlife. They were just similar enough that they got along. And when they did bicker, it was over such petty, trivial things that they often forgot what they had been arguing over five minutes after they had started fighting.

“Just another face in the crowd.” Levi stood up and walked towards the creature that dwarfed him; it strained against the chains to greet the Listener, every single one of its eyes shifting at once to focus on the man. Levi noticed a few black hearts that replaced the black blob’s pupils.

Levi allowed the L noise to wash over him. “If you felt you were justified, then you were. Ignore what anyone else says. If they deserved to die, then they did.”

The demon exploded in a flurry of steam, revealing a strong young man with a shaved head. He held a wicked grin, and a broken heart was tattooed on his forehead. He made a lunge at Levi, but LeRose kneed the man in the gut.

“LeRose, always the delicate flower.” Levi ran his hand through his wavy hair.

“Shove it,” she said as indelicately as Levi imagined she could.

“I think you deserve to die, too.” The man coughed out. Levi touched the cracked heart on the man’s forehead.

“I’m already dead. The people you killed didn’t deserve it. And you don’t deserve reincarnation.” Levi rapped the knuckle of his index finger on the heart. “Sometimes Listeners have to lie to get the job done.”

“Little boy Blue, follow me up to the river. He’s your business now.”

“Guess we have to trap him in the river. Later, Levi.” Blue stood up and ran out the door, shoving past Charles. “Race you there, LeRose!”

“You can take all the head start you want, you know you’ll get winded after fifty feet!” LeRose shouted after Blue, taking her sweet time walking out of the restaurant while dragging along both Charles and the bald man.

Levi sighed heavily, leaning against the doorframe of the restaurant entrance. He peered out into the hallways of the Afterlife, gazing at his coworkers as they passed by. With great effort, he separated himself from his little area, and set out to see something. Maybe, if he were lucky, he’d run into Alice.

That was not the case. Levi had gone quite a ways away from his little nook, wandering ever closer to the shores of Acheron, the place where the halls shifted into caverns, following the others who had left his restaurant. He had rarely gone this way; the last time he had seen the shores was probably fifty years prior, yet he felt drawn there.

As he arrived he noted how not much had changed, boats came and went frequently and Levi waved to the people he recognized, and stopped when he found Blue walking into the water, followed by LeRose and Charles, who held the tattooed man on either side. He thrashed violently, kicking up a spray of water.

Blue grabbed the man’s face and began chanting. Levi couldn’t understand the spell, and soon enough it was drowned out by a haunting scream that everyone seemed to ignore until suddenly it stopped. It stopped, and slowly the man sank in to the waters, Charles and LeRose letting go of him so he could be eaten by the river. There was a faint glow, and then nothing; his soul had become one with Acheron, trapped by the sins he committed before becoming a demon. Levi would have continued to ponder the man’s fate had he not heard the word Monday shouted at full force. Levi looked around.

It was Friday. Friday? Friday!

Certainly spotting Friday was the last thing that Levi had expected, but nonetheless he was surprisingly excited to see the Guardian. He walked briskly towards Friday, who waved in broad strokes with his arm.

“Monday, my dear, dear long lost friend!” Friday embraced Levi. “I have news!”

“Good Friday, Black Friday, what brings you to the Afterlife?” Levi felt his speech shifting in tone to match at least part of the ridiculousness of Friday’s.

“Well if you’d let me explain instead of asking silly… no, now it’s gone. Like a bubble. It just popped. Maybe if bubbles were made of paper they’d last longer?”

Levi laughed. He wasn’t even irritated, just strangely calm. He felt peaceful, and started to daze.

“Oh, now I remember. We’ve had a hit on No One!”

Just like that, Levi was snapped out of his daze. “What?”

“No One temporarily found a body and was invading the Dreamscape, but HR says he was stopped. Funny place to invade, it’s always changing, it would give me a headache.”

Levi stroked his chin, frowning. He chewed on his lip, not wanting to let on to the grotesque feeling that was churning in his gut at the news. “Well then, the game is afoot. Let’s make a plan.”




END MONDAY.

See you on Tuesday :)