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mochegato · 4 years ago

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Capturing a Dream

Chapter 1 - Meeting the Team

This was it. She was excited. No excited wasn’t the word. Terrified? Yeah, that was closer. Marinette was about to step into the Young Justice base for the first time and meet her new teammates. What if they don’t like her? What if they don’t let her join the team? What if they let her join the team but they exclude her? What if they get mad at her because she won’t expose her identity and they think she doesn’t trust them? What if she messes up and she ends up getting someone killed? What if she gets one of her teammates killed? What if she gets someone else killed? What if… No!

She wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t the same 14 year old girl who spiraled into anxiety-induced, worst-case-scenario, death spirals. She was 17 now. She was in her final year of school before college, nearly an adult, legally, she was an adult. She was the Guardian. She was a hero. She was already in a prestigious internship with one of the biggest names in fashion. She was working with the Justice League, well Young Justice, but that was better because there wasn’t as much of a time commitment, which was really good because she didn’t have much to spare… where was she going with this? Right! She was smart. She was competent. She was confident(ish). She was… standing outside the zeta tube opening staring at it like an idiot, and she was going to be late.

She took a deep breath and ran her free hand over the costume she wasn’t quite used to yet, trying to find comfort in the feeling and focus her mind. She could do this. She may no longer be able to be Ladybug for secrecy reasons, but Ladybug wasn’t her only option. She was Chimera now and Chimera was not linked back to the miraculous. So this new and completely un-miraculous affiliated hero definitely wasn’t unifying the fox and horse miraculous. Chimera was a separate and unmiraculous hero. She was a new heroic entity; a powerful amalgamation of divergent parts; an illusion, who uses illusions; a dream that can never be captured. Chimera was just another magical hero working in the background.

Gone was the flashy, bright suit of a central hero. She was a shadow now and her suit reflected her new role. The base of the suit was a brown so dark, it almost looked black. Her knee-high boots and gloves that reached to midway up her bicep were both black, meeting with the brown core of the suit with a strip of deep orange. Her mask was the same dark brown color with deep orange at the corners. She no longer had her yoyo, but in its place was a rope that responded to her like her yoyo did. Her flute across her back completed her weaponry.

She was still a hero, just not a miraculous one, as far as anyone else knew. She was still protecting people for now, she just wasn’t on the front lines anymore. She was still protecting the miraculous and would for the rest of her life. And she was still… standing outside the Zeta tube opening, staring.

She closed her eyes, and walked through the portal. Before she let out her breath, she could feel a difference in the air around her. She heard a digital voice say “Recognize Chimera B12.” She opened one eye tentatively and jumped back with a quiet squeak when she saw Batman standing on the other side giving her an amused smile next to Black Canary and a red figure.

Black Canary stepped forward, “Welcome to Mount Justice, Chimera. You’ve already met Batman. This is Red Tornado. He supervises the cave here.” Chimera nodded to him but before she could say anything Black Canary continued speaking. “We are very excited to have you here. While you are training and on missions, this will be your home. I know you have an apartment near your internship, but if you ever want to get away, you are always welcome to stay here whenever and however long you want to.” Her voice was warm and welcoming. She leaned over and lowered her voice, “lead lined walls and no bugs or cameras allowed in the personal rooms in case you want to drop your transformation while you are here.” She gave her a nod and started walking, motioning to Chimera to follow her.

“As discussed before, your team knows nothing about you. What you choose to disclose is your decision. Only Batman and I know anything more. The team is used to people hiding their identities so there is no pressure to give your personal identity. I mean, there might be teasing, but you are under absolutely no obligation to divulge and they will respect that. Especially since Robin is under the same requirement.”

They entered into a small sitting area that appeared to be their common room. The first thing she noticed was a kitchen that was almost as nice as her parents’ kitchen in the bakery and significantly bigger. She let out a quiet “Wow” without even noticing she had done it. She would have to try that out as soon as she was able to get back to it.

“Pretty nice, huh?” She heard from behind her. She whirled around and finally noticed the other half of the room were a few couches and chairs were clustered in front of a television. More significantly, there was a red headed boy talking to her, standing in front of four other teens. They were looking at her with uncertainty and a slight bit of curiosity except the red headed boy who looked excited to meet her, and the larger black haired boy who looked a bit hostile.

“Uh, yeah. It’s… um, a really nice kitchen. It looks… really professional.” She stammered, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.

The red head smiled brightly at her. “Only the best for the Justice League.”

“Alright team, it’s nice to see your smiling faces.” Black Canary started with more than a hint of sarcasm. “I would like to introduce you to your new team member. This is Chimera.” Chimera gave an awkward wave to the Young Justice members. “She was recruited by the Justice League. Her identity is secret and will stay that way, am I clear?” She stared at each of the team members one at a time. “Good. She is here under an outside deal so she may not always be available for missions, but she will be here whenever she can be.”

The red head raised his hand. “Wally, you don’t have to raise your hand.” Batman said tiredly.

“What is the outside deal? What does that even mean?”

“It means something else brought her to our vicinity and she is only available to us because of that. The details of the deal are not important. Only that she is a hero on your team and every bit as dedicated to the team as the rest of you.”

“How is she as dedicated if she can’t commit to being here?” Artemis snarked quietly to Superboy.

“We all have outside lives that demand our attention. There are times I can’t go out with the Justice League. One of the others cover for me. Are you suggesting I am not committed to the Justice League?” Batman stared harshly at her.

“No, sir.” Artemis shrunk back.

“I’m sorry, I have school and… other obligations, but I promise I will give you as much time and attention as I can spare without going insane. Learned that the hard way.” She looked down as she muttered the last part under her breath. She quickly looked back up hoping nobody heard her. Everyone seemed to have the same expressions on their faces except Superboy who was giving her a quizzical look. “I am committed to the team. I want to be here, I promise. Um… here, I brought macarons!” She said with forced cheeriness, attempting to placate their suspicions and hostility. She opened the lid to the box of macarons she had brought with her.

Chimera’s hair blew back as Wally rushed forward. He had already grabbed three macarons before she even saw him move. “These are delicious! Where did you get them?”

“Thank you. I made them. I like to bake.” She smiled broadly at him.

Wally stared at her with his jaw open, the macaron close to falling out of his mouth. “Marry me.” He said dreamily.

Chimera giggled at him. “How about I use the only-the-best kitchen to make something else for you a bit later instead?”

Wally gave her a bright grin. “That will work.” He looked at the rest of the macarons longingly then back at his teammates. “Uh…. These are absolutely terrible and you shouldn’t have to be subjected to them. I’ll just finish these off so you don’t have to.” He reached back toward the box but Chimera closed the lid and raised an amused brow at him.

“Move over,” Robin pushed Wally to the side. “Thank you Chimera. That was sweet of you.” He took a bite and looked back up at her with a smile. “Hey, Wally was right. These are delicious. Artemis, Kaldur, Superboy, get over here and try these.”

Kaldur and Artemis came over, Artemis shoving Wally again for no apparent reason. Superboy stayed where he had been and continued to eye her suspiciously. Wally looked at them with a pout. “Hey! Leave some for me.”

“You’ve already had a bunch. The rest of us get some too.” Artemis rolled her eyes.

“Hey, I have a fast metabolism. I need to eat.” Wally whined.

“Thank you… I’m sorry, I didn’t get any of your names.” Chimera said apologetically.

“Tall, blonde, and hostile is Artemis. Tall, blonde, and aloof is Kaldur. Tall, dark, and broody back there is Superboy. You already met Wally, aka Kid Flash. And I’m Robin.” Robin gave her a charming smile and shook her hand.

She gave them all a brilliant smile. “It is nice to meet you all. I’m really excited to work with you.” Wally smiled broadly at her and gave a lovesick sigh. Artemis groaned and turned away.

Kaldur moved forward and extended his hand to her, “Welcome to the team.”

She shook his hand and gave him a warm smile. “Thank you.”

“Okay, now that everyone has introduced themselves, let’s get to the training area. I’m interested to see how Chimera’s powers work with the rest of yours.” Black Canary announced.

“The training area is just this way,” Robin said with a suave smile, sweeping his arm out toward the direction they were supposed to move.

“Thanks,” Chimera smiled anxiously at him.

Wally came up on the other side of her and bumped his shoulder gently into hers. “Don’t worry, we’ll take it easy on you.” He said with a wink.

Chimera looked at him blank faced for a few seconds before throwing him a sassy grin. “It’s not me I’m worried about, speedy.”

“Oh no, Speedy was someone else.” Artemis threw in, moving past the group.

“You’re kidding.” Chimera stared at her.

“Nope.” Artemis responded popping the p. “A whole different hero. Not even fast either. Makes no sense.”

“Good to know.” Chimera nodded absentmindedly.

“Oh, she can never meet Speedy.” Wally looked at the other heroes with wide eyes.

“Is he that bad?” Chimera asked, concern seeping into her eyes.

Artemis turned back to her and grinned wickedly, “No, he’s afraid you’ll start dating him.”

“Ahh. I don’t date teammates so, don’t worry.” Chimera reassured Wally with a clap on his back. Artemis barely contained the chuckles that were fighting to spill out.

Wally gave her a distressed look, “But, teammates are great. They are supportive and understand you… They’re… They’re the ideal dating material.”

“You make some interesting points.” She nodded as though contemplating his words. “Luckily, you have very pretty and interesting teammates, four at least from what I can see. So you have a wealth of dating material at your disposal.” Chimera gave him a wink and walked ahead of him. Artemis cackled loudly and threw her arm over Chimera’s shoulders, walking along with her. “I think I’m going to like having you here.”

Chimera smiled at her. “Good. I hope so.”

Black Canary gave them a serious look and stood in the middle of the sparring area as the team lined up around the edges. “Let’s get started. This is an exhibition sparring match. We want to see what you can do and what your teammates can do and see how you can mesh.”

“You don’t know what she can do?” Kaldur asked.

“I know. It’s you I’m concerned about. You’re going to be working with her and leading her. You need to know what she can do. So, Chimera? Go full force. We want to know what to plan for in the field.” Black Canary commanded.

Chimera looked at her unsure. “Full force? Are you sure? I don’t want to… That can be really dangerous.”

Black Canary nodded in understanding. “I get that, but I assure you it will be fine. We just need to see where you are in your skills, so we need you to give it your all.”

Chimera eyes got even bigger, “I’m not going to kill someone to prove a point. I can do a demonstration instead.”

The rest of the team looked at her insulted. Robin finally spoke up to scoff at her. “We can take it. We’ve dealt with worse. Don’t worry.”

Ladybug looked back at him with wide eyes. “It isn’t… I don’t think I’m a better fighter than you. I’m positive you all have better training than I do, especially since I don’t have any, it’s just… I’ve brought down the Eiffel Tower with one hit before. Thank god for miraculous ladybugs. But you all look a bit more…” she struggled for an appropriate word to finish her thought, “…vulnerable. I really don’t want to hurt any of you.” She shot him a pleading look.

Superboy stepped forward with a determined look on his face. “Then try me. I’m less…” he paused as if thinking, “what was that word you used… Vulnerable.”

She looked at him uncertain then looked over to Black Canary, taking note of her stern expression. She nodded and stepped onto the mat. “I’ll make it work.” Chimera offered uncertainly.

They faced each other for a few moments before settling into a fighting stance. When she was ready, Chimera nodded to Superboy. He rushed at her and extended his arm at the last second to deliver a haymaker punch. Chimera bent backwards and twirled in a semi-circle so she was standing behind him and kicked him in the butt, sending him sprawling on the floor. He got up and glared at her. He rushed her again, this time aiming for her waist so she couldn’t duck under him. She stared at him coming at her like a deer in headlights. Superboy got a smug glint in his eye as he closed in on her. At the last second, Chimera jumped up and rolled down his back, landing on her feet behind him, the wide eyed expression long gone.

“We need you to try, Chimera. We need you to actually fight, not just dodge.” Batman stated sternly.

Chimera looked over to him to nod at the instruction. The momentary distraction was enough for Superboy to land a hard hit to her stomach. The force of the impact sent her flying across the mat. The team winced and groaned in sympathy as she hit a wall with a hard thump. Superboy moved over to her to check on her but stopped half way to her. Chimera stood up and cocked her head to the side, examining Superboy. She raised her brow and asked calmly, “So… super strength. Invulnerability?”

He nodded at her. “Okay then.” She smirked at him, walking back to the central area of the room. “Let’s do this.” He smiled slightly and nodded. She immediately launched herself at him, catching him by surprise. She punched him hard enough to send him across the room in the opposite direction. He slid toward the wall but was able to regain enough control to use the wall as a springboard to launch himself back at her. She saw him coming and twisted at the last second, using his momentum against him to push him off balance. He recovered quicker than she expected and swept her legs out from under her. She used her momentum to turn the fall into a flip, leading to a series of flips and twists taking her away from him, giving her some space to think.

They circled around each other trying to plan their next move. Suddenly Chimera stopped and looked like she just realized something. “Oh I forgot. I’m supposed to be showing my skills…” she started innocently. Superboy took advantage of her apparent distraction to jump at her again but that was the moment she had been waiting for. “Voyage” she whispered and created a portal behind her. She stepped out of the way at the last possible second, sending Superboy through the portal at full speed. The portal ended close to the rock wall on the other side of the room. Superboy almost slammed into the wall with his full force but she had left him enough room to bounce back off the wall and launch himself back through the portal and back in front of her, throwing a punch toward her sternum that she was just barely able to twist away from, rolling along his arm until she was in the perfect position to elbow him in the back of his head. He grunted and turned back toward her, circling around her again.

“Full force, Chimera,” Black Canary chastised her.

“Not going to make him bleed on purpose for a game, Ms. Canary.” Chimera responded, still focused on Superboy. “Besides, we’re not done yet.” She turned to Superboy, “Right?” He nodded at her, an amused glint in his eyes. “I haven’t even showed off all my skills yet.”

“Well, let’s see those skills you keep talking about.” Superboy taunted her.

“If you say so Superboy.” She smirked at him then frowned. “I don’t appreciate that your actual name is the name I would have called you to taunt you. You’re making my job harder.”

He frowned at her, the amused look that had been in his eyes dropping. “So sorry my name is an inconvenience. You can call me The Weapon like my makers did if you prefer.”

Chimera stood up straight, fidgeting and frowning at him. “That’s… really?” She looked around to the other heroes. They all nodded solemnly.

She looked back at him with softer eyes. “What do you want to be called?” She asked in a kind tone.

“I… Superboy.” He said stiffly, not exactly sure how to respond to the shift in atmosphere.

Chimera nodded and gave him a warm smile. “Superboy it is. No nicknames unless you approve of them.”

“As heartwarming as this is, you are supposed to be sparring.” Black Canary reminded them.

“Right,” Chimera said shook her head to refocus herself. “Sorry.” She whispered “Mirage,” bringing her flute up to her lips. As soon as the notes were heard, a dozen replicas of her appeared and began running around the circle. Superboy tried to scan them but they all looked identical even with his infrared vision. He stilled to listen for a heartbeat or breathing, but he couldn’t detect it in any of them. He looked around wildly. It was a sea of dark brown and bright orange. He nodded to himself calculating the possibilities. Most likely she managed to split herself. So either they are all fully sentient or there is a central figure controlling them. He’d have to hope for the latter.

His eyes flicked to one of the figures running at him. The figure jumped into a flying kick. He dodged out of the way and rolled to his feet, looking around again for the next attack. He didn’t wait long. Another figure ducked low to sweep his feet. He jumped over her but felt a sharp pain in his side as one of the replicas body checked him with enough force to knock him into the far wall.

Superboy shook his head to clear it. When he took more than a few seconds to recover, the replicas looked at him concerned. One of them finally moved forward and asked “Are you okay to continue?”

He stared at the replica for a few moments before nodding. “We’re not done yet.” All the replicas smiled at him and moved into new positions, waiting for him to indicate he was ready. As soon as he nodded two replicas moved to attack him, one went high, one went for his legs. He lunged for the one going high, jumping over the one going for his legs. As soon as he reached her, she disappeared. Not meeting the resistance he had expected, the force of the lunge caused him to lay out flat on the floor. He grunted and jumped up before any of the replicas could attack again.

As soon as he was up he looked around with a grin. “Mirage,” he repeated. They were all an illusion. He just had to find the real one. Two attacked him again. He hit one causing it to disappear but the other one hit him with her flute, knocking him to the side. He shook his head again and turned back to them and backed away, giving himself space. He just had to find the one. There had to be an indication of which one was the real one. He couldn’t use his infrared vision or hearing. Maybe there was something about them. He stared at them as they circled around each other. There! There was one with a different shade of orange, the shade Chimera had before the match. All the replicas had bright orange but the real Chimera had deep orange accents.

He kept his eyes moving so she wouldn’t know he’d made her. He moved forward toward one of the replicas moving to punch her. Chimera attacked from the side again, coming at him before he could touch the replica and make it disappear. He grinned to himself. At the last second, he changed his trajectory and sent another haymaker toward her. He jerked back in pain as the replica he had been moving toward originally made contact, knocking the air out of his lungs. He grunted in anger and confusion as a rope was tied around him, pinning down his arms. His legs were swept out from under him causing him to land hard. He trashed with all his strength as he felt her tying his legs too. He kept thrashing against the rope, but no matter how hard he pushed and pulled, the rope showed no indication of weakening.

After a few moments of him pointlessly struggling, Black Canary walked over and declared Chimera the winner. She smiled excitedly at Chimera. “Now we know what we’re working with and we can plan how to incorporate your skills into missions and approaches to your training.”

Chimera nodded in understanding and looked over to the team who were still watching her in various degrees of surprise. Kaldur nodded in approval. Wally and Artemis stared at her in shock. Robin was pointing and laughing at Superboy. Chimera glowered at him and turned back to Superboy, releasing the rope so he could get up.

As soon as he was freed, Superboy jumped up and rubbed his arms, glaring at the floor. Chimera smiled nervously in his direction, but he refused to look at her and had turned his body away from her. She sighed and looked down too, shifting nervously. After a few moments, she started gathering up the rope to tie it back around her waist. She furrowed her brows at the sound of Robin still laughing, which seemed to upset Superboy even more. She narrowed her eyes at him and whipped the rope out in his direction. It snapped a few inches away from his face with a crack so loud it reverberated throughout the cave. Robin jumped away awkwardly and fell backwards, landing on his butt.

Superboy looked from Robin to her. He let out a small laugh and gave her a smile. Chimera took it as a good sign and smiled back at him. “That was a lot of fun. You are really good at picking up on details, otherwise that color trick wouldn’t have worked.” Her voice was soft, like she was addressing a scared child.

He nodded at her and quietly said, “Thanks. It was fun.”

“Does that mean we can do it again sometime? I need practice sparring and I’m usually afraid I’ll hurt someone when I’m in the suit and when I’m not, it isn’t as effective. I mean, helpful still, but not as effective.” He stared at her for a few seconds but finally nodded at her.

“That was a pretty good introduction but it’s getting late now. I think it’s time to call it a night. Red Tornado, can you take Chimera to the room she will be using so she can recharge?” Black Canary asked.

When Chimera returned a few minutes later, the group smiled at her and gave their goodbyes. They made plans for everyone to return the next day for more training. One by one, they all left through the Zeta tubes except for Superboy. Chimera looked at him confused. “Are you not leaving too?”

“No.” He stated coldly.

“Why not? I mean… if you don’t mind me asking.” She stammered out.

“Because I live here.” He grumbled back at her.

“Alone?” She gasped.

“With Red Tornado.” He corrected defiantly.

“But no other… people? In this big, empty, cold place?” She looked out over the cave, the empty, cold, inhospitable place he was going to call home.

“I like being alone.” He stated in an annoyed voice.

Something that looked like anger flashed across her face transforming into a determined look before she smoothed it out and gave him a cheeky grin. “That’s a shame.”

He narrowed his eyes looking at her suspiciously, “Why is that?”

“I’m moving in.” Her smile grew bigger.

He furrowed his brow and frowned, “What?”

“I’m moving in. I have school and, uh… stuff during the day, but I’ll be here in the mornings and at night, most weekends.” She nodded at him. “It will be like a sleepover every night… except we’ll be sleeping in separate rooms.”

He stared at her for a few seconds, unsure how to react. “Whatever,” he grunted walking back toward the residence area. “Dinner is usually in like 30 minutes.” He called over his shoulder. She smiled in his direction. It wasn’t a warm welcome but it was better than nothing.

“Are you sure about this? It isn’t required for you to live here. Most of the members don’t.” Black Canary reassured her.

“That’s why I’m doing it. I’ve already had one teammate who had to live essentially alone and isolated in a big, empty space. He hated it. It messes with your self-worth and your ability to interact with other people, no matter how badly you want to. It scrapes away at your humanity. I couldn’t really do anything for his living situation, but I can do something for Superboy.”

“It will make keeping your identity more difficult.” Batman warned her softly.

“I know, but he’s my teammate. I won’t abandon him. And I need a friend here too. I’ll be all alone otherwise, so… it will be mutually beneficial… I hope.” She added tentatively.

Batman and Black Canary shared an approving look with each other and turned back to her. “Okay. Let us or Red Tornado know if you need anything. We really think you are going to fit in amazingly with this team.”

Chimera smiled at them and shifted slightly to look out over the rest of the cave. “I think so, too.”

Chapter 2

#connette #connerette #konmari #maribat #Marinette x Conner #marikon #capturing a dream #conner x marinette

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angelhummel · 5 years ago

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I am not a woman of my word, I tell ya what

So I started watching s6 after all. Well, parts of it...

Anyway I thought I’d just post my thoughts like I normally do for the rewatches. Although there are not many thoughts at all.

When I started watching, I was like wow. It’s good to not really feel invested in this at all because s6 is so pointless and also didn’t happen. But then Darren’s acting in That Scene blew me away, and Kurt’s breakdown in the bathroom- tears. Well not tears but something. ...A little something.

I’m sure someone’s already made this meta connection but Kurt telling Rachel about how he was the only one who showed up to their spot reminded me of s3 when Kurt’s the one who convinces Blaine to go to glee practice and they meet up with Artcedes and everyone comes in after that and they’re all together.

But also Artie is just... in film school, still. So he’s there. Ah well guess he didn’t feel like going out in the rain

At one point Sue refers to Kurt as “Middlesex” which is, surprise, another jab at his gender presentation and sexuality. Oh and she says he smells like a nursing home. Just a fun little taste of the oh so hilarious insults to come :)

Although even Jane sounded tired of what she was saying. Her voice was just so calm and chill. Not the usual crazy rage of a Sue insult tornado

Let It Go is actually a really good song for Rachel to sing at this point in her life. It’s very fitting. I mean I left the episode playing while I went to the bathroom, but it sounded really good from down the hall.

Wow that’s it for Loser Like Me. Moving on!

Yay Jane and Roderick are finally here. Happy days are here agaaain

I love Mercedes’s verbal smack down of the Tea Party people. And Tina’s one line outburst. But the funniest part is still Sam running into Quinn and her laughing like that. Unscripted moments > scripted moments on this show any day

Speaking of which. You know how someone edited the cartoon Hunchback of Notre Dame movie to completely remove the gargoyles to make it less wAcKy? Anyway someone make an edit like that for Glee where you just take out all Brittany lines

Anyway more importantly, Unholy Trinity hot. Me gay

All of the songs in this one are so fun, and I love the new characters, and the fact that Kitty is back. Am I actually warming up to s6?? Weird...

I love when Blaine gets angry. I mean people already demonize him for having any emotions or feelings in the first place so he might as well be angry. No one can do anything about it

Homecoming has great new characters, amazing songs, even made me laugh a few times. Normally when I think s6, I think Santana’s awful rant, the crazy Klaine locker, Myron, Dalton fucking burning down for no reason??? But hey parts of it aren’t so bad. I’m making progress

Anyway that’s Homecoming. On to Jagged Little Tapestry

Klaine duet. Not my one of my favorites but it’s still Klaine so... one of my favorites. I love how soft Kurt looks in the flashback. Little Dalton bbs

I love how you can tell that some of those pictures on Blaine’s phone are Chris and not Kurt. Probably some bts pics, which I love, because one of my pet peeves is when they use promo pics/stills for actual photos lol

“We all left glee club with a better understanding and appreciation of all kinds of music” me @ everyone about Glee

Okay I highkey hate Becky but the “Shut up I know!” delivery to Tina made me laugh

Oh great, more scissoring jokes. That’s totally what I was missing

They even say “I would hate us if I didn’t know us” well yep. I hate them. But I do know them lol. Ah well. Their duet mash up is probably one of my most played Glee songs. So there’s that

Santana proposes in the choir room and says it’s going to make all the single people upset lmao. Also she loves Brittany because they... don’t improve one another. Yeah it shows. God I fucking hate Brittana sorry not sorry

God Santana literally reads as psychotic here. Kurt barely even said anything bad and she looks like the fucking Kill Bill sirens are going off ffs. I reeeally hate her this episode oh my god. It makes me hate all of s6

Also can we please stop pretending like Brittany is a math genius. I’m over it. I’m tired. I’m tired of Brittany full stop. She’s the worst

Tv writers have a straight guy and girl know each other for one minute and like make eye contact and expect viewers to be falling over themselves invested in this couple (Finchel) and I’m like ...yawn. But also Jane and Mason have one duet together and I’m like 💖💜💕💞💝🥰💖💜💕💞💝🥰💖

“I think because we’re so close” Rachel shut up I’m still not buying it

“Did they really say that? That I helped them?” God Kurt I love you. You help everyone

“This isn’t about who I want to go to bed with. It’s about who I want to go to bed as” al;fklsdafjds nice line. I’m also making my peace with Coach Beiste being trans. They actually did a good job I think? The storyline just started and the rest I haven’t watched in 4 years so idk

Sooo all in all of 6x01 I watched maybe... 15 minutes of it. Basically any scene with Kurt or Blaine in it (except them watching Rachel’s pilot, or the Warblers number) and also watched the Sam/Rachel stuff. Everything else? Fast the hell forward.

6x02 I watched almost all of. Just skipped some Sue stuff.

I was ready to only skip through That Scene in 6x03 but I remembered all that Becky crap so I skipped most of that. Probably ended up watching about half an hour all together, so the majority of the episode. I consider that a win.

Overall, Homecoming is the only one I actually really loved. Gotta move it waaay up on my Glee ranking list lol

#glee #tdb rewatch #tdb rewatch loser like me #tdb rewatch homecoming #tdb rewatch jagged little tapestry #long post #my thoughts #anti brittana #anti brittany #lol brittana #lol brittany

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vernonfielding · 5 years ago

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Life Writes Its Own Stories

Chapter 11. (AO3!)

Jake walked home in a daze. As he unlocked his front door, he couldn’t recall quite how he’d gotten there, as though his brain had shut off for a while, and his feet had just carried him somewhere safe and familiar.

He shrugged off his coat and kicked off his shoes. He sat hard on the end of his bed and brought his hands to his face, digging his palms into his eyes to keep himself from crying. He could feel the tears in his throat and burning behind his eyes and he knew it was only a matter of time, but he was afraid that once he started he wouldn’t know how to stop.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and Jake yanked it out, didn’t even bother to look before turning it off. It could be Amy, or it could be Rosa or Scully or fucking Pembroke telling him he was fired. He didn’t want to talk to any of them – or anyone at all. He tossed the phone onto his couch, then pulled out his keys and threw them hard across the room. They left a satisfying dent in the wall beneath his Die Hard poster.

“Fuck,” he said, under his breath, then yelled out, “Fuck!” He fell back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

It seemed impossible that he’d been in perhaps the best mood of his life just that morning – less than an hour ago, maybe. He had just bought them breakfast, was thinking about where to stop for coffee on the way back, when he spotted the Bulletin in a newsrack near the bodega entrance. He couldn’t have said what caught his eye first, except that he’d gotten in the habit of glancing at the front page to look for Amy’s name. But the word “vulture” had made him stop in his tracks, right in the doorway. A woman had jostled him and muttered a “fuck you” as she pushed by. He’d barely noticed.

He’d picked up the paper and looked back at the man behind the counter, who knew Jake was a regular. The man had nodded and waved him out, and Jake had left without paying. He’d stopped just outside and read Gina’s column, his heart in his throat the whole way through.

The column had Amy all over it. Everything in there had come from him, had been shared with her over late-night dinners as they pored over documents, or later, while they lay in bed together or cuddled on her sofa or took walks around Fort Greene.

He’d stalked back to her apartment, angrier than he could recently recall. Righteous fury had carried him all the way to her building, but as he’d climbed the stairs to her door it burned down to embers, replaced by something far worse: hurt.

Then seeing her, wide-eyed with worry, still so beautiful to him, he’d deflated. And he’d wanted so badly to believe her when she said she’d done nothing wrong, when she said she would never hurt him like that. Maybe she hadn’t meant to, he reasoned. Maybe she’d said some things she shouldn’t have weeks ago, before they were even dating, and Gina had somehow come up with the rest herself. Or maybe Amy had been drunk and didn’t remember talking. Or maybe she had handed it all to Gina knowingly and regretted it only later, when faced with the consequences. Maybe Jake hadn’t known her at all.

He didn’t really think that, even now. But he didn’t know what to think or who to believe. He just had facts: Gina had written a column that had the potential to destroy his career, and the only person who could have given her that column was Amy. And he’d trusted her. She’d made the short list. She’d maybe even been at the top.

Alone in his apartment, Jake stared at the ceiling until the spidery cracks in the paint began to blur. He didn’t fight the tears when they finally came.

+++

Despite everything, Amy still managed to get to work 10 minutes early. She knew she was looking rough as she flashed the press pass that doubled as her Bulletin ID at Doug behind the security desk. But she was still caught off guard when he said, “Ms. Santiago, are you okay?” Which of course made her immediately tear up again, so after she brushed him off with a quivery “Mondays, am I right?” she spent a good 20 minutes in the ladies’ room getting herself under control.

That was how she actually ended up 10 minutes late, feeling off-balance and shaky and annoyed with herself and angry with everyone else. She took her seat across from Gina, and Gina looked up and did a double-take.

“Damn, girl.”

An image flashed in Amy’s mind, of her launching herself over their two desks and tackling Gina to the floor and strangling her, just a little.

Instead she stood up again and slapped her palms on her desk, hard enough to rattle her keyboard. “What the hell, Gina?”

“Whoa, I was just going to say you looked like you had the best and/or worst night of your life but if you’re going to get all murdery about it-”

“We need to talk.” Amy leaned over their desks and practically growled. “Now.”

She stalked to the break room and didn’t look to make sure Gina was following. (She didn’t honestly think she had intimidated Gina, but she knew Gina would come if only for the drama.)

The day before – and all last night, when she should have been sleeping – Amy’s thoughts had spiraled, twisting and throttling around her brain like a tornado she was powerless to control, much less stop. The confrontation with Jake had played on an endless loop, and sometimes she got to keep talking, keep trying to explain, but it always ended the same – with him walking out. She’d cried off and on all day, until she felt wilted from it, her body and mind spent. A dozen times she’d picked up her phone to call or text him, but she didn’t know what she could, or wanted to, say. She couldn’t apologize, she couldn’t ask forgiveness – she’d done nothing wrong. But what else was there?

In her saner moments, she’d imagined this: talking to Gina. Eventually she’d crafted a speech, in which she firmly but delicately inquired as to how Gina got that column. Technically it was on Amy’s beat after all – she had every right to ask. In a calm, work-appropriate way.

When they got into the breakroom Amy closed the door and yelled, “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but I can tell you what I’m thinking right now, which is that you are cray-cray.”

Gina planted her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. Amy took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then she did it three more times. Gina just watched.

“Fine,” Amy said coolly. “I’m talking about your column yesterday. About the 99th Precinct.”

“You’re mad about that?” Gina frowned. “I mean, I know it’s a cop thing and that’s your turf, but it was such a throwaway. I thought that gossipy crap was beneath you.”

“It is,” Amy said, “but you had to know this wasn’t going to look good for Jake. Did you even think about him? About his career?”

“Jake who?”

“Peralta.”

Amy’s slip-up hit her the moment Gina’s face lit up.

“Jake Peralta. Oh my god – Jake is your source?”

“Was my source,” Amy said. She bit her lip, unsure what else she could say – what she was allowed to say. Gina was Jake’s friend first, but he wasn’t here now. And Amy realized suddenly that she needed someone to know what had happened – and Gina was responsible, after all.

She took a deep breath. “We were dating. But I think we’re maybe broken up now.”

“Okay, wow. Did not see that coming.” Gina sat on the breakroom couch. She stared up at Amy, her brows turned down in bemusement. “We’re talking about the same Jake Peralta, right? Plaid shirts, basically lives off gummy worms and pizza pockets, has maybe only ever seen one movie in his life?”

“Well, technically it’s a franchise, so, like, five movies-” Amy closed her eyes and stopped herself. Then she nodded morosely, and dropped onto the couch beside Gina.

Gina tucked one leg under herself and turned to face her. “How did you even meet?”

“You just said it yourself,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “He was my source. He works in the Nine-Nine?”

“Oh right – is it weird that I can never remember he’s a cop?”

“It’s very weird,” Amy said. She slumped into the couch, tipping her head back on the cushions and staring up at the ceiling tiles. “Do you have any idea what you did with that column?”

“Yeah, I’m still not following why this is an issue,” Gina said.

“The Vulture is Jake’s boss.”

“And,” Gina said, gesturing for her to go on.

Amy sighed. “And Jake talks to me about him all the time. And the Vulture’s already suspicious about Jake being my source.”

“So, you’re afraid this Vulture dude is going to think that Jake was my source for the column,” Gina said.

Amy hummed a yes, and then added, “And Jake thinks I was your source.”

“He- what?” Gina sat up and gaped at Amy. “He actually said that?”

“He did,” Amy said, the grief hitting her all over again. She blinked hard against the familiar pinpricks in the corners of her eyes.

“God, he’s such an idiot,” Gina said. “Look, I can’t tell you who my source is, because- okay, actually because I don’t know his name.”

“Gina!” Amy stared at her, appalled. It was one thing to use anonymous sources for a story, but reporters at least had to know who they were talking to, even if they never revealed the name publicly. It was too easy to be lied to and misled otherwise.

“It was just gossip,” Gina said, throwing her hands up. “I ran it by a couple of my own sources and they said it was legit, so I went with it.”

“And now Jake thinks I blew his cover all for some dumb gossip column and we’re basically broken up.” Amy groaned and slid onto her side, curling up in a corner of the couch.

There was a brief silence and then Gina said, “Not that I would do it, because I don’t think I care that much – but do you want me to call Jake and explain it wasn’t you?”

Amy thought over the offer for a moment before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. He either trusts me or he doesn’t. And I guess he doesn’t.”

She felt Gina patting her ankle. It was hesitant and awkward and Amy was deeply moved, and she felt the tears run fresh down her cheeks. They sat quietly for a few minutes, Amy crying into the disgusting couch while Gina almost certainly played on her phone.

Amy was just about ready to get up, wipe her face, and make another attempt at facing the world when Gina said, “Are you sure Jake’s a cop in the Nine-Nine? I feel like I would remember that.”

Amy rolled onto her back and stared at Gina in wonder. “Jake has the weirdest friends.”

+++

Jake realized he was clutching at the arms of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and he let go and rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants legs. On the wall across from him was a framed poster of Officer Pepper O’Pigeon, hanging behind the commissioner’s secretary’s desk. For such a goofy mascot it was oddly threatening – Jake thought it had something to do with the shirt sleeves being cut off to accommodate the bird’s arms, or wings. Like it was too buff to be constrained by a normal police uniform. But the long pink legs were also upsetting.

He tore his gaze away and straightened his tie, again, and avoided looking at the man sitting in the chair next to his. Jake couldn’t ignore the staccato of snips, though, as the Vulture trimmed his nails while they waited. The man was truly the most disgusting person Jake knew.

“A tie’s not gonna save your ass, Peralta,” Pembroke said with a cheerful snicker.

Jake just barely stopped himself from telling Pembroke to go fuck himself.

Jake had honestly been surprised when he’d gotten the call that morning to come to the commissioner’s office for a meeting – he’d expected Pembroke to handle the punishment himself, or at worst take it a step or two up the chain of command. That Jake was being hauled down to One Police Plaza meant that the brass were taking Gina’s column more seriously than he’d expected, and also that he could be in seriously deep trouble.

Sure, in his lowest moments the day and night before he had imagined losing his job and ending up homeless and alone and living off of dog food and cheese puffs for the rest of his life, but he hadn’t really believed that would happen. Now his gut churned with real fear. They could take away his detective badge. He could lose everything.

The secretary’s phone rang and Jake’s anxiety spiked. The secretary picked up the call, hung up without saying a word, and announced, “The commissioner’s ready for you.”

Pembroke brushed off his pants and stood, gesturing for Jake to go before him. When Jake got up and moved toward the office, Pembroke nudged him aside and jumped in front, smirking over his shoulder. The guy was seriously the worst.

Jake hadn’t been in the commissioner’s office since Wuntch won the job a couple of years before. It looked basically the same as the previous commissioner’s office had, with framed commendations hanging on the walls and a few photos of Wuntch with random politicians and celebrities lined up on the bookcase adjacent to the desk. He paused on a shot of Wuntch with an irritated-looking Michelle Obama; both of their hair was slightly mussed up in the photo.

“Have a seat,” Wuntch said. She was already behind her desk, hands folded on top of a copy of the Bulletin.

Jake put a hand to his chest to keep his badge in place as he sat, feeling suddenly self-conscious in his cargo pants and plaid shirt and leather jacket. Even with the tie he felt sloppy and unprofessional next to two high-ranking cops in full uniform. He wished for a moment that he’d at least picked out a clean shirt for his funeral, but then, he’d had a lot on his mind when he’d gotten dressed that morning.

“Peralta should be fired,” Pembroke said without preamble. Jake felt his heart clench.

“Now, let’s not be hasty,” Wuntch said. She looked between them, narrowing her eyes. “Captain Pembroke – or should I call you Captain Vulture?”

Pembroke sneered at Jake.

“Captain,” Wuntch went on, “you asked for this meeting. It’s my understanding that you believe Detective Peralta is responsible for this rather enlightening article in the Bulletin?”

She pushed the newspaper across her desk, and Pembroke jabbed a finger at the top of the page. Jake was reminded uncomfortably of his own reaction the day before.

“He was Santiago’s source and now he’s obviously started leaking to Linetti,” Pembroke said. “If that’s not cause for dismissal-”

Wuntch held up a hand. “Do you know he was their source?”

“Yeah, I know,” Pembroke said. “Santiago wrote several stories that obviously came from Peralta.”

“But do you have proof?” Wuntch said.

Pembroke bristled. “He was the only person who could have talked to her.”

“That’s circumstantial, Captain. Do you have proof?”

Pembroke opened his mouth, closed it, and finally scowled at the commissioner.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Wuntch said. She turned to Jake. “Did you leak the material in this column to the Bulletin?”

Jake shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

“And did you leak any other stories to Ms. Santiago?”

Jake swallowed, and shook his head again. “I don’t even know her.”

“Very well.”

“You’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me,” Pembroke said. “He’s lying.”

“You have no proof that Detective Peralta had anything to do with this,” Wuntch said, tapping the newspaper. “Peralta, thank you for your time. Dismissed.”

Jake sat dazed for a second, then stood and nodded sharply at her. “Thank you, commissioner.”

Pembroke groaned and rose with him, but as they turned to walk out, Wuntch said, “Captain Pembroke, you’ll stay. We need to talk about this Vulture thing…”

If Jake hadn’t been so miserable, he would have been struggling to keep himself from grinning and high-fiving the commissioner’s secretary as he walked out, letting the door swing shut behind him.

As it was, he simply pulled out his cell phone and texted Rosa: “Shaw’s in 30. We’re day drinking. No talking.”

Rosa texted back a thumbs up immediately.

+++

They couldn’t actually drink while they were on duty, so Jake bought them Shirley Temples. They grabbed a table at the back of the bar and he told Rosa what had gone down with the commissioner, and she tapped her glass against his.

“That’s great, man.” She eyed him as he stared into the pink depths of his drink. “Or, it’s not great.”

“Amy and I broke up. I think.”

Rosa blew out a breath, and Jake prepared for the told-you-so. He figured he deserved it. He was even sort of looking forward to it, in a masochistic but weirdly reassuring way. He’d been cycling through so many emotions over the past 24 hours, shifting from anger to grief to fear to guilt, to feelings he couldn’t even identify but made his skin crawl and his stomach hurt.

In the center of them all was Amy, and the question he somehow couldn’t stop asking himself: Did he trust her? Every time he tried to answer it head on, it was like the spin cycle picked up speed, everything a blur until his mind sort of shut down and moved on.

Rosa, though – she knew the answer. She’d warned him.

Rosa was twirling her plastic straw around her drink, creating a small cyclone of her own. “You broke up with her because you think she leaked the Vulture stuff to Gina Linetti.”

Jake nodded, then shrugged. “I guess I left before we broke up, so we’re technically still together? I’m not sure.”

Rosa took a sip of her drink through the straw and scowled. She pushed the glass away, and she looked Jake straight in the eye. Jake braced himself.

“Are you sure she did it? Because it doesn’t really sound like something Amy would do.”

Jake’s stomach dropped to his feet, and he stared at her in disbelief. “You said it was a mistake to trust her. You said she only wanted to sell newspapers and that I’d regret dating her.”

“I did not say that last thing,” Rosa said, pointing a finger at him.

“But the trust part! You said that, like, so many times.”

Rosa leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, but I meant over something important. Like, the mayor is shot and you know who the prime suspect is and you tell Amy after you guys have really great sex, and she’s like, do I betray Jake and write about the guy who tried to kill the mayor? And she decides she has to because she believes people have a right to know or some bullshit. I didn’t mean, like, some dumb gossip column about the fucking Vulture.”

Jake threw his arms up and tried very hard not to yell. “Rosa! You were never that specific!”

“I didn’t think I had to be.” Rosa cocked her head to the side, studying him. “My thoughts on Amy’s trustworthiness had nothing to do with you assuming she betrayed you. That’s not on me, Jake.”

Jake groaned and folded himself over the table, knocking his forehead against the hard surface. He picked his head up and hit it again, with a little more force. The table top was sticky. He felt Rosa awkwardly pat his shoulder a couple of times and then they said nothing for a while.

“I’m just saying, maybe you should call her,” Rosa said.

Jake moaned into the table. “I liked you better when we went for drinks and didn’t talk.”

“Same.” Rosa rapped him on the back of the head with her knuckles. “Now sit up and drink your Shirley Temple in silence like a woman.”

+++

Pembroke was still gone when they got back to the precinct an hour later. Jake sat at his desk and tugged off his tie, preparing to embrace an afternoon of apathy-slash-despondency, perhaps first by putting his head down and just ignoring the world for a while.

He frowned when three post-it notes stuck to his computer monitor caught his attention. They were all phone messages taken by the admin assistant (because Jake had never set up his office voicemail, because voicemail was annoying and people shouldn’t be encouraged to use it).

The first message was from his CI.

“Fuck,” Jake said under his breath, as he tore off the note. He’d completely forgotten that Leo had arranged for a meet that morning. Jake pulled out his cell phone and yes – there was a text too, from over an hour ago.

The second post-it note was another message from his CI. The third was from Kings County Hospital. Jake plucked off that note and stared at the neatly printed letters for a beat, then picked up his desk phone and called.

He was on hold for a while, which gave him plenty of time to beat himself up for flaking on Leo. He’d never skipped out on a CI, not once since becoming a detective and building up a loose network of informants. What if Leo had been calling for help, and was now in the morgue?

And as he kept waiting, Jake wondered if maybe the call from the hospital wasn’t about his CI at all. What if it was Amy? She could have been hit by a bus or fallen through a rusted manhole cover or been mauled by a pack of aggressive pigeons or rats. Would anyone even think to call him? What if he never saw her again?

“Hello, Detective Peralta?”

“Yes!” Jake’s voice was about three pitches higher than usual. He closed his eyes briefly and coughed. “Yes, speaking.”

“Okay, um- I’m Officer Robbins.” There was a flapping sound, of papers being flipped around. “Right, here we go. We picked up a Leo James about an hour ago.”

Jake breathed out slowly, hating himself a little for the weight that lifted off his shoulders. “Is he okay?”

“He’s going to be. He got beat up pretty bad, and he was overdosing when we found him.”

Jake frowned. Leo was a fringe associate with one of the rougher drug rings in Brooklyn, but he wasn’t really a user himself. Or he hadn’t been. “But you got him in time?”

“Yeah, gave him two hits of Narcan and he came around,” Robbins said. “We followed him over to the hospital, thought we’d see if we could get anything out of him about the beating. But he said he’d only talk to you.”

“Right, okay. Thanks.” Jake sank back in his chair and ran a hand over his face, hit by a new wave of fatigue.

“It’s actually pretty lucky we were able to revive him,” Robbins was going on. “I’ve heard Narcan doesn’t always work well with that new drug, what’s it called-?”

“Jazzy Pants?” Jake sat up straight, on instinct reaching for a notepad and a pen.

“Yeah, dumbass name for a fucked-up drug.”

“Are you sure it was Jazzy Pants?” Jake said.

“That’s what your guy told us when we got him back.”

Jake thanked Robbins again and hung up, frowning to himself. That was two of his CIs overdosing on the new drug in a couple of months. It could be entirely coincidental – overdoses were hardly uncommon among informants – but something felt off, and he’d learned to not ignore certain instincts.

He picked up the phone again to call the Seven-Eight. He didn’t actually have many good contacts over there, so when the admin picked up he asked for the first person who came to mind.

“Peralta,” said Manny Santiago. The cheer in his voice was not exactly unexpected, but it still caught Jake off guard.

“Hey, Manny, look-”

“We missed you at Thanksgiving, man.” Manny rolled right over him. “Dad had a binder on you, you know. He was not impressed with your credit score but your closure rates are fantastic. His words, not mine.”

“I- that’s weird but good?” Jake shook his head, tried to focus on why he had called and not the highs and lows of having pleased and disappointed the father of his maybe-ex-girlfriend. “Manny-”

“Oh man, what was up with that column in Amy’s paper yesterday? I’ve heard stories about Pembroke – or Captain Vul-”

“Manny!” Jake interrupted sharply. “As much as I’d love to rehash the column, and trust me, I would not, I’m actually working a case.”

“Oh sure, sorry,” Manny said. “What can I do for you?”

“I just needed to talk to someone on your Jazzy Pants task force,” Jake said. “One of my CIs OD’d today and I want to know how the investigation’s playing out, maybe there’s something we can do out of the Nine-Nine-”

“Jazzy Pants task force?” Manny said.

“Yeah, Pembroke said you guys are running it.”

“Hold on.” Jake heard muffled voices, the thump of the phone headset being set down, then finally Manny came back on. “Yeah, we don’t have a task force.”

Jake felt a weird chill, and he pressed the phone a little harder to his ear.

“Peralta?”

“I’ve gotta go,” Jake said. “Thanks, Manny.”

He hung up without waiting for a reply. Jake got up and crossed to Rosa’s desk. She was typing, but her fingers stopped when she glanced up and saw his face.

“We need to go talk to someone at Kings County,” he said.

Rosa grabbed her gun and her badge. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 12

#b99 fic #peraltiago #jake and amy au #newspaper au #life writes its own stories

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luckyspike · 5 years ago

Text

Adventures in America, Ch. 7 - The Mix-Up Kid

In which the storm chasers enjoy the delights of a Waffle House

Adam learns Warlock’s birthday

And a storm brews ahead

Yes, figuratively, but also literally. This is a tornado-chasing fanfiction, honestly. Did you think I wouldn’t actually put a tornado in the damn thing?

Start from the beginning: ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 | ch. 5 | ch. 6

or follow this link to my fanfiction tag

Adam could have whooped when Noel informed him and Lucky that they wouldn’t be meeting in the lobby until eight the next morning. “There’s gonna be storms, probably to the northeast, but it’ll be afternoon by the looks of it. Get some sleep tonight, boys, an’ we can meet up for a late breakfast and decide where we’re headed.”

They didn’t unpack much - pajamas, toothbrushes, and that was about it. Adam took a hot shower, quick as he could, and when he got out, he found Lucky laying on top of his covers, earbuds in, face-timing with a friend. Adam gave him a thumbs-up - his turn for the shower if he wanted it - and settled onto his own bed, pulling his phone out and making sure he was connected to the wifi before he texted his parents to see if they were awake - they hadn’t been, but they were so eager to hear from him that they took his call, voices thick with sleep but happy nonetheless. He could hear Dog snoring on their bed in the background.

They were happy to talk to him. They were glad to hear he was having fun, and reminded him to be careful and stay safe. He told them about Lucky, and Noel and Rachael, and everything he’d learned so far. “It sounds like a good experience,” Arthur Young said. “Just ah … you do know when the tornadoes are coming, don’t you?”

“I mean, largely. They can be unpredictable.” He heard his mother make a worried noise. “No, mum, but like, they have this program called Baron, it’s running all the time, and it shows radar and gives warnings, and Rachael and Noel have been doing this for ages, so they’re really good at it too. And careful.” He considered telling them about the safety precautions Noel had reviewed earlier, but considered that the things he had warned them against might actually be more alarming than the safety instructions that followed, and he decided to leave it out. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry, promise. How’s things at home?”

“All well and good,” his mother replied. “We miss you of course, and Dog misses you - he was sniffing around in your room the day you left - but Anathema said she’d have a word with him and he’s settled down since then.” He heard the dog’s collar jingle as his mother, or father maybe, presumably gave him a scritch behind the ears. “He’s a very good boy.”

Adam grinned at the unmistakable sound of a small dog’s tail wagging so hard it was beating against the bed cover. “Aw, yeah. Give him a hug for me, yeah?”

“Of course, love. Arthur, hug Dog, would you? He’s closer to you.” Adam’s mother yawned, drowning out some of the grumbles in the background and the sounds of more happy tail-wagging. “Have you spoken to your friends? Oh, and Anathema and Newt asked about you this afternoon.”

“Not yet, figured it’s kind of late. I’ll send an email.” He yawned as well, prompted by his mother. “Maybe in the morning. You can tell them I’m good though, if you see anybody.” He yawned again. “Sorry, I’m kind of beat.”

“Jet lag,” his father answered sagely. “You ought to get some rest then, Adam.”

“You guys too,” the boy added earnestly. “Sorry to call so early - I’m all messed up with the time zones -”

“No, Adam, we’ve been waiting to hear from you.” He smiled, and the slight ache of homesickness that had settled in his chest as soon as he’d boarded the plane lifted a little at the warmth in her voice. “Text anytime, love, and we’ll talk if we can.” She blew a kiss into the phone. “But get some rest for now, alright? Sleep well, and let us know how tomorrow goes!”

“Will do, Mum, Dad. Talk to you guys later. Lots of love.” He ended the call, and sat back against the pillows, continuing to tap on his phone, sending the video of the hail storm off to the group and his sister. To his surprise, Pep texted back almost immediately, sending a message of ‘Dude what!’. He paused. Then he called.

“Hey storm rider!” she answered. “What’s up, Adam? Cool video!”

He couldn’t help but grin. “Hah. What are you doing up?”

“Driving in to London with the girls later today, and I couldn’t sleep. Hopefully Addie is willing to drive because I’m going to be napping.” She yawned. “So how’s America?”

“Crazy.” He laughed. “I went to Dunkin Donuts this morning.”

“Mm. America runs on Dunkin, I’m told. You meet anyone cool?”

“Well, the people I’m with are really cool.” She made a curious little noise. “So there’s Noel and Rachael, the guides - I told you about them. They’re super nice. And I think between the two of them they might know everything about weather. We drove for like, 11 hours today, and you know we only went through two entire states?”

“Wow.”

“And I napped for part of it but a lot of it they were teaching us stuff … Man, Pep, there’s so much.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “I know you guys always made fun of me for how much I talk about weather sometimes, but honestly I don’t know like … anything.”

“Well, maybe not compared to the experts,” she teased. “But compared to me and Brian and Wensley you know way more than any of us.” She coughed. “So who’s ‘us’ on your trip? There’s another student?”

“Oh! Yeah. He’s cool.” Adam heard the shower shut off, and wondered how much he should really say. “He’s American, but he lived in London for a while, he said. You know, I think his dad might have even worked at the air base?”

“No,” Pepper laughed. “No way. Only you, Adam, would find the one American in the entire world who even knows about Tadfield and grew up in London. And of course he’s obsessed with weather. You should find out if he lived in Tadfield at any point, like when he was a baby or something.”

Adam considered it. “Nah,” he said at length.”What’re the odds?” He yawned, as Lucky stepped out of the bathroom, dressed only in boxers, scrubbing his hair dry with a towel. “I’m sure we’ll talk about it at some point.”

“You’d better. Tired?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, me too.” He heard the sound of sheets and pillows being pushed around. “Might try to get a couple hours before I have to go.”

“‘M gonna go to sleep too.” He let his eyes drift closed. “Jet lag’s brutal.”

“I bet. And all that time in the car probably didn’t help.” She yawned again. “Can you send us more videos tomorrow?”

“If I see anything, yeah.”

“You think you might?”

“Dunno. Everything’s supposed to happen in the afternoon, so we’re gonna wait to see what the morning looks like.”

“Well. Send us stuff even if you don’t see anything. Send us videos of weird Americans.”

“Yeah, okay. Talk to you later, Pep.” He hung up the phone, laughing while he did so.

Lucky flopped into his own bed, yanking the covers up over himself. “Friends?”

“Yeah, back home. Pepper.”

“Isn’t England like … six hours ahead of us?”

“Yeah.” Adam shrugged. “I dunno, she said she was up. Figured I’d give her a call.” He grinned at his phone, before locking the screen and plugging it in to charge. “I sent the gang a video of the hail. Most of them prob’ly never seen hail that big before.”

“Yeah, that was wild.” He folded his hands behind his head. “Hope we get a tornado tomorrow.”

“That’d be cool.” He sighed. “Pep told me to send more videos. Said if there wasn’t anything interesting in the weather I could send her videos of crazy Americans.”

Lucky laughed. “I’ll act extra crazy tomorrow if we don’t get any weather. You can send her a video.”

“I’m not sure she’d count you since you grew up in London.”

“Nah, only until I was eleven, and even then other than the like … the housekeepers and the gardner, everyone was American. Well, except Nanny. But she was Scottish.” He shrugged. “Then my dad got reassigned back to the States and I’ve lived stateside ever since. So I’m pretty American.”

“Eleven?” Adam asked, pointedly not opening his eyes. “Huh.”

“Yeah it was weird.” Lucky yawned. “There was this whole thing in the middle east and then boom, back to America, no more England. Honestly, I think my mom was just sick of random diplomatic trips. I’ll tell you about it some time, that whole trip to the middle east was so weird.”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, faintly, feigning fatigue. “Yeah, gotta remember to tell me about it. Never been to the middle east.”

“You’re not missing anything. Avocado farms and weird professors and that’s about it, far as I remember.” He shut the light off, and rolled over, away from Adam. “G’night, dude.”

“Night,” said Adam, on autopilot. Minutes later, he heard quiet snoring, and all the better, because his mind was racing.

Most eighteen-year-old boys are, by nature, not particularly introspective. They may be bright, the may be clever, they may be well-educated and top of their class and very high-achieving, but it’s the rare boy who is capable of reflecting on all of the information presented to him, reconciling it with what he already knows, and then reaching accurate, logical conclusions that may be distressing to him. Often, denial worms its way in early, and until the correct answer knocks the boy in question directly on the head, the powerful lure of denial will always draw him away, convince him that another conclusion is more likely, or more desirable.

Adam Young, though, was not most eighteen-year-old boys. To start, he was the Antichrist, even if he’d turned his back on that years ago and preferred not to think of himself in those terms. Further, he was quietly introspective, a trait he’d developed due to, well, being the Antichrist, and always, in spite of himself, watching his own thoughts for hints of Not Being Adam. Messing About. Antichristly things, essentially.

That could be to his advantage even now, though. And right now, his mind was cranking into overdrive, combing through what he knew. Warlock Dowling - father might have worked in Tadfield, was working in England when Warlock - Lucky - was born, Lucky was raised in England. Satanist nanny and monk gardner. Random trip to the middle east when he was eleven, followed by a sudden departure from London, never to return to the UK again. Or the middle east, come to think of it.

Adam wondered if he had stayed in touch with anybody from London. Particularly, the nanny and the gardner.

It all sounded very suspicious.

“We would have been with you from the beginning, you know, but there was a mix-up,” Aziraphale had told him once, years ago. Adam remembered that he’d gone to Aziraphale crying - it happened sometimes, more then but still these days, blessedly rarely - about what he’d done in the few brief hours when he really was the Antichrist. The things he might have brought about. The fate he and the world had so narrowly avoided. “We would have loved to be with you.” Adam remembered how the angel had hugged him, stroked his hair, dried his tears. “It was an unfair burden to lay at your feet, Adam, and Crowley and I always wanted to help but … there was a mistake. Best laid plans, and all that. It doesn’t undo what was done, and I am frightfully sorry about the lead-up, the way we treated - or didn’t treat - you, but know that had we known, we would have been there. But Adam, even then, you were brilliant. You are brilliant.”

There was a mix-up.

Warlock Dowling snored gently.

The next morning dawned hot and humid. Lucky and Adam woke with the alarm around nine, and lazily set about getting ready for the day. Adam checked his phone to find messages from his friends about the hail storm (“don’t let those brain you,” from his sister and, “dude what if it hits you,” from Brian), replied when he felt it was indicated, and pulled on a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt. Lucky was ready to go shortly after, and they stepped out of the motel room and into the air. Lucky made a noise of disgust.

“Talk about humid.”

“Ugh, yeah,” Adam agreed, trying to ignore how his t-shirt was already sticking to his skin, even though he’d only just come outside. “Good storm weather though, yeah?”

“Should be. I’m sure we’ll get a look at the radar over breakfast.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get us a tornado today, huh?”

“Or some serious hail,” Adam agreed. A part of him - a large part of him - wanted to say sod it to the weather and have a serious talk with Lucky about his upbringing, his birth, his life to that point. How old was Lucky? They were roughly the same age, Adam knew that, but they could easily be a year or so apart, and all of the stuff that sounded suspiciously occult might have just been a coincidence. After all, it was all relatively easy to explain, in the harsh light and oppressive humidity of the Oklahoma day: American diplomat posted at a British airbase, family moved to the nearest metropolitan area, lived there for years, made a brief foray to the middle east - and America was so involved there around that time, Adam remembered, that that was hardly unusual - and then returned to America. Unusual, certainly, but not … occult. And having a diplomat for a father wasn’t exactly commonplace, so even then a bit of unusual-ness could be forgiven.

The Scottish Satanist nanny, though, reared her presence in his mind. The monk gardner. Good and evil.

Adam shook his head, when he realized that Lucky was speaking to him. They’d walked to the truck together while Adam thought and, on autopilot, he had set his stuff in the bed of the truck and closed the gate. Noel and Rachael were nowhere to be seen, not yet, but Adam thought he heard them talking on the other side of the motel. “Huh?” he said, looking to Lucky.

“Nothing,” the other boy shrugged. “Just talking about the radar. All this moisture and warmth - if we have any cold air from the northwest at all, we run a really good chance of catching a storm today.”

“Yup.” Adam leaned back against the truck and looked around the parking lot idly, arms crossed over his chest in spite of the heat. He met eyes with a stranger - a businessman, by the looks of him, dressed all in brown, with neatly-combed salt-and-pepper hair - that was sitting on the trunk of his rental car, reading a book. The two exchanged taut smiles, and the stranger returned to his book. “Hopefully out in the middle of nowhere, where we can get a good luck without too much people an’ stuff being around.”

“Yeah, that’d be ideal.” Lucky waved to Noel and Rachael as they approached. “Hey guys!”

Rachael raised her thermos in greeting. “Morning morning! You guys ready to hit it? The radar looks pretty good.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yep.” Adam opened the back gate of the truck for her, and she tossed her bag in. “You hungry? I’m starving. Hop in, we’re gonna hit the Waffle House and go over the game plan.”

“No Dunkin?” Lucky looked surprised.

“Gonna mix it up today, get exciting.” Noel snickered. “And also she has her own bag that she used to brew a pot in the room earlier this morning, so she’s already fueled-up.” He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “She’s an addict, guys, I’m telling you.”

The boys laughed, while Rachael pointed out, “There’s worse things. Alright, load up, we have a storm to talk about, and I want some waffles!”

The Waffle House was such a uniquely American experience that Adam started taking video almost as soon as they entered. From the way the entire restaurant greeted them as they walked in, to the waiter’s accent, to the menu itself, he sent all of the snaps to his friends. There was no reply, not when it was so early in England, but he looked forward to the messages that would probably come through later, after everyone was up.

He tucked into a truly massive waffle and two eggs for breakfast, topped with a few strips of crispy bacon. It tasted exactly like he’d imagined it would, and he devoured it with gusto, finishing before Rachael even got through her second cup of coffee. Noel, still working at his omelet, pulled his laptop out of his bag and handed it over the table to Adam. “Check out the radar, Adam, and see what you think. There’s some really interesting stuff shaping up; let me know where you think it might be.”

Adam cracked the computer open. Next to him, Lucky studied the screen intently with dark eyes while Adam poked the cursor around the radar screen, randomly at first, and then slowly in a more organized fashion, tracing fronts and pressure systems, gradually hovering more consistently over a spot in mid-Kansas. Lucky nodded, never speaking, when he agreed, pointing at times. Across the table, Noel and Rachael shared companionable silence, Rachael with her coffee cradled in her hands and Noel slowly working at his omelet.

“Ready to show your work?” Rachael gestured to Adam to turn the laptop around, after he and Lucky had exchanged a few words and seemed to settle on a location. “Let’s see it.”

“I think,” Adam said slowly, pointing to the screen, “the best shot of anything happening is going to be right around here.”

“Hey!” Rachael grinned broadly. “Nice job, guys!”

“Yeah?” They exchanged a high-five. “Yeah!”

“Maybe a little more east,” Noel added, after he’d swallowed his last bite of omelet. “But really good for day two! What made you settle on that area?”

Adam and Warlock traded off explanation duties as Rachael settled up with the waiter, she and Noel adding information and correcting them as needed. In the truck, they settled in, Rachael in the driver’s seat for the first leg, and set course for Kansas. There wouldn’t be as much lecturing today, Noel assured them, and although Adam was eager to learn, he was truthfully a little grateful for the break. As they drove across the plains, he and Lucky put their headphones in, Adam listening to his downloaded playlist of tried-and-true favorites while he took video of the blue skies and white clouds, saving them to send later, when he could get to wi-fi. Around nine, he did get a text from Aziraphale - Crowley’s phone, of course, but the grammar and punctuation gave the angel away - bidding him to stay safe and out of trouble. He smiled, faintly, and settled back in the seat to watch the landscape drift by.

Lunch was sandwiches from a little deli they passed on their way through a town for gas. Adam savored the turkey and cheese in the back of the truck, Noel informing them that the time would be tight for the afternoon storms and they couldn’t afford a proper stop. He must have drifted off after he ate, because the next time he woke it was because Rachael had nudged his knee. She pointed to the screen of her laptop, excited. Adam leaned in. “Look at this,” she said, excited. Adam nudged Lucky, who had likewise drifted asleep with his headphones in, and ignored the muzzy noises the other boy made as he woke. “See the body of it there? It’s been holding steady for the last hour.”

Adam squinted. “Is that a hook echo?” He pointed to a part of the screen. Rachael, thoughtful, turned the screen to look. “Ah, no! But it might be an elephant trunk-type signature …” She studied it for a few seconds. “We’ll keep an eye on it. You awake, Lucky?”

“Mm yeah.” Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, Lucky unbuckled his belt, the better to lean forward and study the computer.

“Check out the base velocity data.” She changed views, and both boys blinked. “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

“Not … really.” Adam cocked his head. “Something about the wind speed in relation to the radar site?”

“I think I’ve seen it before,” Lucky chimed in. “Is it … wait. Green away and red toward? Or red away? Or is it speed …”

Rachael shook her head. “Not quite, but you guys are already ahead of the game - a lot of chasers your age don’t know anything about base velocity until after their first chase. So Lucky, it’s red away, and green toward.” She pointed to the screen. “Doesn’t really have anything to do with the speed of the winds, just how they’re moving in relation to the weather station. So when we’re looking for rotation, obviously, we want to see red and green really close to each other, right?”

“Makes sense,” Lucky agreed.

“So look here.” She pointed. “Now this stuff up here -” she twitched her hand to gesture vaguely at a scattering of red amongst green, “- I think is just artefact but this, this looks concentrated. See that?”

Adam and Lucky exchanged a look. “Like, it’s the dot, right?” Adam guessed.

“More or less.” Rachael flipped back to the regular radar view. “But you see how it correlates to a high-precipitation area? Means there’s probably a mesocyclone in there.” She clenched and unclenched her fingers, excited. “We might get a tornado today, guys. Definitely a lot of lightning, if the precipitation holds together.”

“How far out are we?” Lucky asked, shifting anxiously in his seat.

Noel answered this time. “Probably an hour or two. We should start seeing some more interesting clouds soon. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Adam and Lucky settled back, each looking out of their own window, while Rachael and Noel talked about something else - photography, something with Rachael’s lightning set-up - in the front seat.

“Have you ever seen a tornado?” Adam asked Lucky, as he craned his neck to see more to the front of the truck.

“Oh, yeah! Not up close, but one time in Virginia there was a little one and I could see it from the back yard. It didn’t last very long, but it was really cool. You?”

Adam thought about the tornado in Tadfield, when he was eleven. “Nah,” he said, stuffing the memory away. “Been in a few bigger storms, but you know … England.”

“Yeah, really severe weather isn’t really a big thing over there, huh? They get tornados though sometimes. I think.”

“Really little ones usually, yeah,” Adam agreed. “They don’t last long, normally, or do much damage.”

“I know another chaser from England,” Noel chimed in as he drove. “He comes over for the season every year. We were talking about it one time, he said that England has the second-most tornadoes per land area in the world.”

“Seriously?” Adam blinked.

“Yeah, but it’s a small area.” Lucky frowned. “And they’re not big?”

“No,” Noel agreed. “Not usually. He lives right in what he calls England’s tornado alley.” He laughed. “A little southwest from London I think he said? I can’t remember the name of the town. Most of the twisters there are around 95MPH wind speed, so they’re not really that powerful, but he told me he chases over there sometimes, if he’s home when they’re around. He showed me a few photos.”

“It was pretty cool - you don’t really think about tornadoes in England,” Rachael chipped in, absently. “Where in England is Tadfield, Adam?”

“Northwest of London,” he answered, using the city as a reference point. “About, oh, two hour drive I think, usually.” He did not add that most of the recent times he traveled to and from London by car, the car was being driven by a demon, and travel time was therefore significantly reduced. “It’s not a big village at all. Biggest thing there is the air base, and even that’s pretty small now. Population-wise, anyway. It’s mostly computers.”

“I think that’s why my dad got reassigned to London,” Lucky said thoughtfully. “Plus, you know, diplomat. London made more sense I guess.”

“Yeah it would do.” Adam looked sidelong at the other boy. Lucky didn’t notice, staring out of the window. “So you were born in London?”

“No, actually. It’s kind of a crazy story - my parents were supposed to fly in to the air base together, but my mom ended up having to go alone for a few days because there was something with the president? I dunno, Dad never actually said what it was. But anyway Mom flew in and then like, went into labor while she was staying at the air base waiting for him, so I ended up being born there.” He shook his head.

“Oh.” Born at the air base. Adam could have laughed with the relief of it. Another thought occurred to him. “Aren’t pregnant women not supposed to fly, though?”

“I dunno, probably.” He shrugged. “I guess when the president says go, you go.” He snorted. “And then, so like, she’s at the air base, but then she said they didn’t have a doctor that knew how to deliver babies? So she had to go to this weird hospital with nuns to have me. Worked out in the end, Dad got there after I was born and we went to the place in London like they’d planned.”

Weird hospital with nuns. The words echoed in Adam’s ears, in between the pounding rush of his own heartbeat. Weird nuns. Satanic nuns, maybe? How do you ask if someone was born in a hospital full of Satanic nuns?

“Wild story,” said Rachael from the front seat, but as far as Adam was concerned, she might have been a thousand miles away. “See the clouds up ahead?”

“Supercell!” he heard Lucky say, distantly, and the other boy - the other boy who was born in a weird hospital with nuns, to a politically-connected family, and then raised by a satanic nanny and had a monk for a gardener, and then went to the middle east when he was eleven - leaned forward to start chattering on with Rachael and Noel. About storms.

Adam loved weather, but at the moment, nothing could be further from his mind.

“When’s your birthday?” he blurted out, stopping the other three mid-conversation. And then he blinked, realizing what he’d done, as Rachael and Lucky looked to him, puzzled. “Sorry, never mind, wasn’t paying attention.” He forced a weak smile.

“August 23. You okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam lied, immediately turning to look out the window. “Wow, check out that cell!”

“... Yeah. It’s big.” Lucky looked over to Rachael, who had raised her eyebrows questioningly. Even Noel was glancing curiously between the two students in the rearview mirror. Lucky shrugged at Rachael, the universal ‘I have no idea’ gesture. “You alright, Adam? Really?”

“Fine.” We have the same birthday, born in a weird hospital with nuns, we’re probably the same age, they thought I was him, they thought he was it, it was him, it was this guy …

“Nerves are totally normal,” Noel said a little more quietly, not taking his eyes off the road, or the storm cell ahead. “Don’t worry - we’re gonna get plenty of videos if anything happens, but we’ll keep our distance. It’s early still - by the time we’re five weeks in you’re gonna wanna drive the truck yourself.”

It was him, he was the mix-up, it was - And then Adam stopped himself, because some part of him realized that this wasn’t productive, he wouldn’t change or alter anything with this line of thinking, and furthermore, he was in the back of a truck which was headed straight for what looked, on radar, to be a supercell with significant tornadic potential. “No, it’s fine,” he insisted, with a shake of his head. “No, I’m sorry. Sorry, really, I think I’m just still a little messed up from the time change, but I’m fine. Seriously,” he added, when Rachael and Lucky looked to him, radiating concern and curiosity. “Let’s do it - I’m so ready.”

Rachael watched his face for another minute and then made a decision, apparently, because she nodded ever-so-slightly, and turned back to her laptop, maneuvering it so the two in the back seat could have a better view of the screen. “Good, because you see that on radar?”

“Hook artefact,” Lucky breathed, as Adam watched the picture twist on the screen, the red blob at the center of the storm leaving a trail to the southwest that was just so slightly starting to curve north-easterly.

“I think so. Let’s take a look at the base velocity.” As she switched views she grinned, and Adam saw what she was moving to point toward right away. “See it?”

“Mesocyclone?” Adam asked, eyes wide, insisting his brain focus on the task at hand. There would be plenty of time to really process the fact that he was sitting with the other Antichrist - the not-Antichrist, the mix-up kid - and hunting tornadoes with him later.

“I think so.” Rachael looked up, out of the windshield, and the students followed her gaze. Ahead, the clouds towered, gray and ominous and piled on top of one another, all the way up to the stratosphere. “Looks good for a tornado, guys.” A bolt of lightning shot through the clouds, illuminating pockets and curves. “Let’s get it.”

Now with Chapter 8!

#good omens #good omens fanfic #good omens fanfiction #adam young #warlock dowling #aziraphale #crowley #the one where they go to america #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much #the love song to storm chasing via fanfic that no one ever asked for

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bluebellhairpin · 6 years ago

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Ghost Girl and The Face-Less Boy

Slenderman X Fem!Reader

A/N: Wow. Sonfics seem to be my thing. Ouch. The song used was ‘Such Horrible Things’ by Creature Feature. Enjoy you crazy phycos! - Nemo

Summary: You were the town’s resident Horror Child, and rather proud of it. Your parents wanted you to be normal. Your siblings just wanted you to stop trying to kill them. Your neighbours wondered if you were the child of the devil instead of humans. Long story short; One day, your parents decided to finally send you to school. There you’re met with whispers, odd looks, and a group of bullies. Oh, and the strange face-less boy that those kids were bullying before they got to you.

WARNING: Mentions of gore and murder. Please don’t go around killing people. It’s not healthy for them, and it’s not good for you if you want to get a job or probably a dog either.

Masterlist

When you were about four or five, you’d already been dubbed the ‘horror child’ of your town.

You’d pour glue in peoples hair, you stood at the end of hallways with a knife in hand, you’d trick your neighbour into running into the woods (three times this happened when it took the adults an excess of four hours to find her again), one time you even tried to set you house on fire (you hated the colour scheme anyway).

When you turned seven or eight, you had doubled your reputation.

You had pushed your younger sister down a well, and set your brother on fire. Your mother, being ever hopeful, bought you a drawing pad to try to get you to act more lady-like by learning how to sketch; you instead used the pad to draw up your schemes and to write up all your plans (Your mother saw it, and she told her friends that she couldn’t sleep for a solid week).

Once you reached the age of twelve, your parents decided to send you to a proper school.

They’d previously had you home-schooled in fear that your all-round horribleness would rub off on others - or get worse. But now they must’ve decided that it couldn’t get much worse than what it already was, so by that point in time, they’d basically given up trying to turn you into a ‘normal’ human; the decided to leave you as the devil spawn you seemed to be.

You slightly dreaded going to school, even though you hardly felt a thing, at this point in time you were worried that no one would fear you as much as you wished them to.

When you arrived at the front gate, the old rusted thing swinging slightly on its hinges, it seemed a small if the whole school went dead silent. Your darkened (e/c) eyes narrowed as you tightened your grip on the straps of your book bag; the large town clock could be heard chiming from across the road, and your fellow students all held their beady gazes on you.

You wandered slowly straight from the gate towards the wooden doors of the school, never once moving your gaze from your intended location, effectively avoiding the hushed whispers and the strange looks from your new peers. But a yell from your right made you move your eyes lazily towards the commotion; the children in your way moved so you could see what was happening.

A group of four or five tall kids - maybe about fifteen years old - were pushing around another kid. But this in itself didn’t gain your attention; it was that the person that were bullying wasn’t really a person.

He (at least you guessed it was a boy since ‘it’ wore the usual clothes of a boy in the year 1906) had no facial features - no eyes, mouth or nose - he also had no hair, was as lanky, pale, and skinny as could humanly be possible.

You guessed he was a bit scary-looking to the other kids, and for that he seemed to be getting teased for it.

“Hey.” You said, not having to raise your voice since most of the school had gone silent just by seeing you. “What is this?” You asked, the group, now ignoring the boy and started paying attention to you, had also gone silent and most of them looked between you and the tallest of the group.

“What does it matter to you? Ghost girl.” The tall boy replied, stalking over to you, seeming to square you up as he leaned down to your height; an eruption of murmurs came from the large gathering of kids that had shown up to watch the bully try and pick a fight with the resident ‘Girl of Horrors’.

“Don’t call me that.” You muttered, closing your eyes and taking in a deep breath.

“Don’t call you what? Ghost girl?” The tall boy laughed, shoving you in your shoulder. “What’re you gonna do about it?” He shoved you again. You did nothing. “Call on your ancestors?” He pushed you over, you landed on your knees and scraped your palms in the process. “Set me on fire?” He hissed and kicked your leg. You glared up at him, a skill you’d learnt and learnt well over the past years, many quivered under your stare, but this boy seemed to not care.

The face-less boy had now stood up straight so now you could see he was actually rather tall, and he had his head tilted in your direction; seemingly interested in what you were going to do.

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” You started, standing and brushing off the white fabric of your dress, wiping a couple lines of crimson blood into the once-pure material. “In fact, I think you don’t deserve to be set on fire.” You said as a matter-of-factuality, staring into his eyes with noting but an odd look of wonder. “I could cut you open from the top of your throat to your navel instead. Take a peek at your insides.” You said softly, the boy looked at you in slight horror, but soon sneered at you.

“You’re nothing but a little girl! What could you possibly-”

“Or I could try impaling you from whatever side I can poke a stick into.” You cut him off, making sure to keep your voice soft and dull.

The next thing you knew, a fist was flying at your face and your vision blurred to black as screams faded from your hearing.

You woke, inhaling a deep breath, the smell of steriliser hitting your nose making you crinkle your eyebrows together. You opened your eyes and saw that you seemed to be in the school’s infirmary.

You reached your hand up to your head, feeling a bandage right where the pain hurt most. You moved to sit up, two gangly hands grabbing a hold of your arm and back to help you. You looked over at your helper, seeing no other than the face-less boy from before.

“Who are you?” You asked, glancing up where his eyes would - should be.

“A ‘Thank You’ would be nice.” A disembodied voice echoed through your brain-hole, leaving you a little nauseous and with a minor headache.

“Yeah, but what for?” You said, peering up at him (also where you guessed the voice came from) and rolled your eyes.

“Look out the window.” The voice spoke again as he helped you stand to wander over to the barred-up window across the room. “I did not know I could do that before. When Jim hit you, it must of triggered something inside me.” The voice continued as you looked out the window to the yard below. The place was covered in sticky-looking black liquid, it looked like a tornado came around and blew the entire yard upside-down, there was even a couple patches of red here and there; blood, no doubt. “I’m sorry. I should not of gotten so... Upset.”

“Did you kill anyone?” You asked, gently pushing away the thin fingers of the boy next to you.

“Um, no. I did not mean to do it, so of course not.” He replied, now fidgeting with his hands as he moved to stand in your line of sight. “Thank you. For helping me. No one has done that before.” He told you once you moved you gaze over to him.

“You’re weird-looking. And you talk funny. And you almost killed, what, five - six people just then.” You spoke slowly, watching the boy as he seemed to deflate with each word; surely worried that he’d lost his chance at gaining a friend. “What’s your name?” You finished, tilting your head at him as he perked up at your words.

“My-my name? I-It is Subject Tango Whisky Delta.” He said, stuttering in shock that you weren’t really worried about him. You smiled lightly, he was making you feel something you didn’t think you knew you could feel.

“Okay. Strange name. But okay.”

“However, My brothers call me Slender.” He quickly added once he felt you were finished speaking.

“Well, I think this should come off, and then, how about we go for some pizza? Or candy?” You asked and began to take off your head bandage.

“Public places and I do not really mix.” Slender said, his ‘voice’ sounding a little softer as if he didn’t want to disappoint you.

“That’s okay. I don’t really know anywhere that sells pizza anyway.” You stated, placing the bandage down on the bed. “We can just go back to my place and make some Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches.” You said, offering an alternative to the previous suggestion. “My name’s (y/n), by the way.” You said, realisation that you hadn’t introduced yourself yet.

“(y/n).” He tried, testing how your name sounded. “(y/n), can I - Could I call you my friend?” He asked. You simply nodded, not really knowing how to react to the question since you couldn’t really say you’d ever had a friend before. You grabbed your book bag - of which was placed neatly at the end of the bed - and started wandering towards the exit.

“You coming Slender?” You asked, turning and seeing him slightly unsure of whether to follow you. You guessed he got bullied a lot, which would make anyone scared to go out in public. You held out your hand to him, hoping that he’d take it so you could go and start making your sandwiches. “It’s okay. You wont be alone anymore.” You said softly and smiled gently at him.

“Thank you (y/n).” He said once his long fingers curled around your own.

You both started down the school hallway, turning heads again, but neither of you cared.

You were the Ghost Girl and the Face-Less Boy.

Nothing could stop you now.

#slenderman #the slenderman #slenderman x reader #slenderman imagine #the slenderman x reader #the slenderman imagine #creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta imagines

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littlewanderer1998 · 3 years ago

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Lucas and Cole’s Pink Sky

The sky is upset and its cries about to pour down soon. Lucas looked up and the thunders began to roar than usual. It was not like this when they first discovered this spot in their neighborhood. His friend Cole, an adventure lover who would want to be a ranger someday introduced him to it. Every afternoon, when the sun is about to kiss the hills and the sky turned in a cotton candy pink, they would climb up the only narra tree on the field filled with makahiyas. With their own expedition journal, drawing different adventures they would like to encounter someday.

“Someday, I would like to be a storm chaser. When everyone is fearing destruction, I will be the one to study it!” Lucas looked at his friend’s big brown eyes who can’t believe with what he just said. He drew himself on their journal, facing a humungous tornado.

“Wow! I never knew you had it in you Lucas! Okay, while you are chasing storms, then I will be the protector of the forest from bad and greedy people!” Cole stood up on the branch they are sitting and put both of his hands on his waist beaming with smile. The light from the pink sky and peering sun illuminated Cole’s face. Focusing on it, Lucas thought he was beautiful, full of ambition, and dreams in life. It was just another normal day for him and his friend, dreaming about the future they are about to hold.

Cole left a note in his notebook the other day in class. He was supposed to meet him on their spot for today. 5:30 passed and Lucas watched as the clouds began to look heavy. There is still no sign of his friend which is very unusual because he was never late. Especially, if he was the one who tells them to meet up on the dot.

“Rain, rain go away. Come again another day. We like to climb the tree today. Rain, rain go away.” Lucas looks up as he began to shake his foot on the ground while clenching the sidewalk he was sitting. He glanced from left to right looking from afar. Not even a shadow of the one he was waiting for showed up.

The thunders let out a loud scream and the raindrops fell hard. Lucas zoomed straight ahead on their tree while he puts his bag on top of his head shielding himself from the cold. He checked his watch and it was pass 6 o��clock, he is sure his mom would scold him for staying out this late. Still hoping to see his friend, he waited. How would he call himself a storm chaser someday if with this only little rain he would give up right? The rain stopped and the sky turned into pitch dark but there is still no Cole who would greet him with his usual “Ahoy friend!”

There are no stars that night, only the lamp posts guided Lucas on his way home. Disappointed, he went straight to his room not even hearing the lecture of his mom about coming home late. He hugged his pillow and lay on his bed. His mom slowly opened the door and she saw her small Lucas on his bed then heaved a huge sigh as she enters the room.

“What happened dear? Did you fight with Cole?” she puts her hand on top of his head and stroke his hair. He heard his mom’s gentle voice and began to peek at her from his pillow.

“Cole did not come to our spot today. He promised he would be there.” Tears are now rolling on his cheeks, and he is having a hard time breathing out the words, so they all tumbled down to one another and escaped between his cries.

“Oh honey, maybe he did not mean to upset you like this. Maybe something came up for him to not meet you as he promised to.” She hugged him tightly and gently rub his back trying to calm him down.

“But you said promises are not meant to be broken right?” breaking from the hug, he looked at his mom with disbelief. He cannot imagine that she is allowing someone to break his promise even though she told him a hundred times to never break his to someone.

“Even though we do not want them to, sometimes they do honey. But that doesn’t mean they don’t love us. Maybe there might be a reason why they broke it.” His mom explained in a calm and nurturing voice.

Lucas did not reply. All he can think of is how his best friend forgot about him. He is lonely, angry, and worried at the same time. This is his first time experiencing a bunch of emotions all at once and he cannot seem to handle it. Everything is too much.

“I’ll wait for you on our dining room. Let’s eat dinner now honey. I cooked your favorite Adobo.” The door closes. Adobo does not seem to be the answer to his problem right now. How will he find his best friend? Is he hiding somewhere?

Later that night with those heavy thoughts in his mind, he keeps on changing positions to have a peaceful sleep, but his body betrayed him. His senses heightened as he feels the cold breeze coming from his electric fan. He hears the ticking of the clock, the paper flipping from left to right, the rustling of leaves from his window, and the chasing cats on his house’s roof. He can feel the wind that night blew harsher than usual, and the trees seem to knock on his window. Inviting him to look outside. His electric fan is not helping either because it was also competing with the other noises. The papers on his desk are dancing through the air of it. It became intense until he heard a whooshing sound and the next thing he knew; his papers were scattered on the floor.

He does not want to open his eyes. For all he knew there is a white lady standing over his window looking at him. But curiosity overflowed in his brain, so he decided to carefully stand. As he looked around, he saw nothing but the papers on the floor. Lucas picked up the papers and found Cole’s note about the meet up that was supposed to happen hours ago. He felt veins popping on his temples when he saw it, but something was on that note that he did not get to see before. There is an arrow pointing for him to peek at the back.

At the back of the paper, there was a poem that says:

If I’m not on our spot,

I’m in a place where the cross is red,

And the beds are white.

Now a journey for you to plot,

Where a dog barks with dread,

And a street was flooded wiped,

White capped people will not let you in,

But my room is close when your birthday begins.

Suddenly, an imaginary glowing light bulb appeared in his mind, and it was then that he knew what his friend means. He was challenged on a journey. A quest he needs to accomplish on his own. Ready to face it with his game face on, he grabs his backpack and removed everything inside it in one drop. He gathered everything he will need: a bottled water, Boy Bawang, Cheeze Curls, and an egg sandwich, journal and a pen for recording his adventure, a stress ball to play with, wallet, extra shirt, handkerchief, some mints put in a Ziplock bag, phone in case of emergency, and the improvised map he drew after reading his best friend’s poem.

Everything is set and the only thing he needs is to write a note for his mom. He placed it in a scented envelope and carefully slip it in his parent’s bedroom door. Lucas only uses his scented envelopes in special occasions, and he can say that this one by far is the most important event ever happened within his 11 years of existence here on earth.

Before he opened the door, he let out a huge sigh and convinced himself, “I can do this!”. He turned the knob and a dark street welcomed him. It is only 5 o’ clock in the morning when he looked at his watch. The lamp in front of his house kept turning on and off. His heart is thumping like crazy as if it wants to separate from his body. Lucas knew this challenge is going to be tough especially for a boy like him. But with his heart on his sleeves, he tightened his grip on his backpack and took his first step outside.

He walked, and walked, and walked. The street is like a never-ending line. He calculated the time he will be in his friend’s location; it will take 8 hours if he will walk this slow. So, he picked up his pace and began to jog. Everything was going smoothly except for the fact that he is growing tired, and he is covered with sweat. The hard rock heavy bag almost dragged him from walking, and he is losing his balance. He passed by Cole’s house, the playground near it, the field, and their spot. Looking at it appeared to be melancholic around this time.

Hours have passed and he can feel himself slowing down on walking. He needs to take a break so he decided he will run one full blast and rest once he reaches the corner street. However, he did not know that there was an uninvited guest waiting for him in that corner. The big white stray dog growled louder than a motor and showed its pointy sharp teeth. Ready to attack any minute and tear Lucas into pieces.

“What should I do?” He muttered to himself. He immediately scanned the street for protection. Nothing! There is nothing to protect him! He began to panic as the dog continued to bark furiously at him. It was backing away while walking around him as if examining him. Then, he noticed something odd. The dog was poorly hurt. He can see the red slashed wound near its right foot, and it looks painful. Then his eyes wandered next to the dog’s tail. It was tucked between its hind legs while its both feet were shaking. The dog was obviously just scared. A wave of empathy filled Lucas and he cannot help but wipe a tear that escaped from his left eye.

“Oh, poor boy. Who’s this cruel to hurt you? Don’t worry I won’t harm you.” He bended on his knee the same as the dog’s level and did not look straight into its eye. He remembered reading it before online. Slowly, inch by inch, he walked with cautious attempting to be near the dog. The dog is now shaking, and it has a pair of sad eyes. He waited for a minute before the dog walked warily towards him. It started sniffing him and began to wag its tail when he saw Lucas taking his egg sandwich out from his bag. “Here, you can have this. You need this more.” Lucas said, while feeding his favorite sandwich to his new friend.

“Why are you here alone? Where are your friends?” He whispered softly to the dog, but it only looked up at him with confusion in its eyes while it was trying to process what he just said.

“You know what? I’m traveling on my own too. Because I’m looking for my friend.” Lucas then started telling the whole story to the dog from the beginning up until the current part of his journey. Not minding whether the dog understands it or not, he was very eager in telling his story. As he looked at his watch for the time, he knew he needed to leave.

“It was nice to meet you! I need to go now my friend. Goodluck with your own journey.” He was sad on parting with the dog, but he is already behind his target time to reach his friend. So, he stood up and walk without looking back at the dog. He knew that once he looks back, he will be tempted to stay with it for a long time, so he continued on his journey. Little did he knew that his newly gained four feet friend was following him from behind.

It was at 12 o clock when Lucas decided he will take a break for a while. Unlike yesterday, he can see the sun highly up and brighter. He was sweating like crazy, and his mouth is all dried up. So, he got his bottled water from his bag and raised it up on his mouth. However, someone snatched it away from him before he could get the taste of the cold thirst-quenching drink.

“Hey! That’s mine!” Lucas hurriedly tried to catch up with the boy who just stole his bottled water. And as if it were a miracle, he heard a loud bark. It was the stray dog he befriended earlier. It was like a cheetah zooming towards its prey from behind. The next thing he knew, the dog was on top of the back of the boy holding his water in its mouth.

“How come you’re here?! Did you follow me? Oh, thank you!” The dog walked towards him and handed him the bottle. It was panting hard, and he can see how much energy got drained from it. Lucas shared the water in the bottle with the dog. The dog happily obliged itself and hungrily drank the water. It perked its ears and tail with excitement of the cold drink refreshing it.

“Hmm… now that you are following me, I should give you a name! Oh, I know! Narra! You are going to be called Narra like the tree with its strong branches and trunk!” Narra liked his name right away and licked Lucas’ face with full of adoration.

Together, they continued the journey. They saw tall buildings standing side by side to each other, stores that offer colorful things and delicious food, and busy people walking as if they are running out of time. He wanted to share about the new world he witnessed that day with his best friend. Lucas can’t wait to see Cole’s reaction about the things he is about to tell him.

Suddenly, as they began to get closer to Cole’s location, the clouds covered the sun, and everything went dark. Thunders started roaring and birds flew around seeking for shelter. As he looks up, the rain is signaling Lucas that it is going to fall hard.

“Oh no! Let’s go Narra!” but as soon as he said this, the rain started falling. Every drop seemed to echo, and Lucas’ clothes are now dripping wet. Narra barked at him and pointed at a small shed near the Seven-Eleven store. They waited but it looks too impossible for it to stop soon.

“You’re wet son. Do you have an exchange of clothes?” An old fat lady asked him. Her hair was neatly tied in a bun and he can see her one and only tooth with her huge smile. She was wearing a yellow dress while holding a large woven tray filled with candies.

“It’s okay. I brought an extra t-shirt.” Lucas proudly took his shirt out of his bag and show it to the old lady in front of her.

“Wow! What a responsible boy you are! How come you are here all alone in a big old rainy city? Where is your mom?” She motioned her hand on an empty stool next to her asking Lucas to sit with her.

“I am looking for my friend. He is in that tall white building over there.” Lucas sat next to the lady while pointing at the direction he was talking about.

“You’re at the near end of your journey then! That’s so close from here. However, you have to wait for the rain to stop first. What happened to your friend by the way?” she curiously asked.

“I’m not really sure. All I know is he left me a note asking me to go to where he is. By the way what’s your name? I’m Lucas.” For a minute, Lucas became a bit worried about what the lady said to his best friend.

“Oh! My name is Martha. I’m a street vendor here selling candies for five years.” She offered a candy to Lucas, but he politely declined it. Instead, he grabbed his Boy Bawang in his bag and opened it.

“Five years?! That is so long! Do you want one?” He then offered his Boy Bawang to the lady.

“Of course! I wouldn’t say no to food.” She gave her palm to Lucas. He observed the variety of lines in her palms as if telling different stories, she encountered. He then shared the Boy bawang with her.

“Martha do you have a best friend?” Lucas looked at her in the eyes. Martha gazed at the two innocent eyes who is looking up at her hoping for an encouraging answer.

“I once did. But the thing is, as you grow old there are times that you may lost them, and you just have to move on with your life.” She gave a real answer. No more and not less than what she has been through. She knew Lucas is a smart kid and smart kids do not want to be treated as such.

“What’s the name of your ex-best friend then? How come grown-ups always say about moving on stuff? Aren’t you supposed to fight for what’s making you happy?”

“Sometimes Lucas, life has hidden monsters along the way and sometimes these monsters may also be the person you are walking with. In an adult world, you have to take care of yourself first or else you’ll lose that.” She pointed at Lucas’ heart.

“Then I will just not grow up! Even though I can’t be a storm chaser anymore I’ll just stay with my best friend forever.”

“Oh honey, you still have a lot of things to learn in life. I know that you know you cannot not grow up just like that. One way or another, you will. You just have to be prepared for that.”

“I will! Cole and I have a strong bond and not even growing up can tear us apart. You’ll see it! Every year we will visit you to prove it.”

“Promise?” Martha offered her pinky finger to Lucas amused about what he just said.

“Promise” Lucas sealed the promise smiling and just like that, the rain stopped, and the sun began to peek at the clouds again. Narra barked at him and he then knew he needed to go to his final destination.

“Martha, I need to go now! Thank you for accompanying us!” He stood up and waved his hand.

“Don’t forget to go to a comfort room and change your shirt!”

“I will! Bye!” Lucas said as he was running without looking back. Rushing towards the place where his best friend is. Where his happiness is.

A few minutes of running and walking, a tall white building greeted him. It was humungous just as what he thought. Lucas wondered how he will be able to find his friend while avoiding all the people in a white cap and uniform. He then saw a sign “NO PETS ALLOWED.” With a drawing of a dog and a red cross sign over it.

“Narra, I’m so sorry. Even if I want you to meet Cole you must stay here. Just wait for me okay?” As if Narra understood, he backed away and sat on a corner. Lucas then hurriedly went inside the building before a guard notices him.

Cole said that his room is near his birth date and Lucas’ birthday is on June 30. So, it is either Cole is on the 3rd or 6th floor of this building. He narrowed down the rooms he is going to look for. He then learned that these specific rooms are 305, 307, 629, and 631. Elevators are dangerous to use right now because once he saw it there is an employee inside who is assisting everyone who goes in it. He is more likely to get caught there so he had no other choice but to rush on the stairs and go to the 3rd floor first.

As busy like it was on the first floor, the third floor was no different. Everyone was running around and rushing. There are people on benches waiting for their numbers to be called. He began looking for the rooms and as soon as he saw it, he was disappointed for the thought that none of it was the room he expected it to be. The first room, room 305 was an optometrist’s office while the second room, room 307 was just a storage room for medical supplies. As he was about to go out, a nurse called him out.

“Hello there little boy. Where’s your mommy? Are you lost?” He can’t think of anything that moment, so he just nodded.

“Don’t worry. Come here let’s find her.” The nurse took his hand and as they were about to walk, he lets go and run the other way around faster than he could ever run. As he went around the corner to go to the stairs, he noticed a janitor’s cleaning trolley and hid inside it for a while. He then heard the nurse’s heels coming.

“Where did that boy go?” Lucas heard the nurse went upstairs calling for him many times but after her voice fade, the trolley began moving. The janitor is now moving him on an unfamiliar place, and he does not see it because the cover is blocking his view.

Then he tried to think and listen to his surroundings. The busy like noise turned down and all he can hear now is the music from the janitor’s earphones. He remembered the song. It was one of Cole’s favorites, “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen. He remembered how fun it was blasting the song on his room while they are dancing like no one exists in the world other than them. The moment when the bridge of the song came, the trolley stopped. He heard the janitor opening a door and closing it and as soon as he was comfortable enough that the janitor was no longer there, he went out.

He saw that he was in front of the men’s comfort room. So, he walked away and look at the sign where he is already. But there are no signs, instead there are only doors on the corridor but even the doors do not have a room number on them.

It is now past 6:00 pm, he can see from the windows that sky is turning into yellow orange now. If Cole were here, he would be delighted to see such view. Knowing that he was this high up, he is sure he is near on the 6th floor now, so he continued up until the last door and saw that he was on the fifth floor. Two more flight of stairs and he will be able to see his friend!

So, Lucas wasted no time and ran his way on the 6th floor. It was this time now. His heart is pounding like crazy while he is now in front of room 629. He slowly turned the knob and peeked inside. Instead of Cole, an old man welcomed him. He was holding a picture and looking at it intently.

Lucas was about to close again the door when he heard the old man started talking without looking at him.

“You know kid, it is rude to open someone’s room without planning on visiting them.” The old man smiled but still not looking at Lucas. He is now watching outside the window; the yellow orange light covered his face.

“I’m sorry, I was just looking for my best friend.” Lucas closed the door behind him and began to walk towards the old man’s bed. He was thin and very wrinkly. If a tornado is close to them, Lucas thinks the old man would be taken away right away because he looks like he weights the same as a paper.

“Oh, lucky! You have a best friend? You know, I once had a best friend too, but I lost her.” He said while looking at the picture. Lucas grab a chair nearest to him and sat on it.

“How come?” He tried to take a peek on the picture but on it there was only a faded black and white playground.

“We used to play here as kids. Never knew one day, life can be harsh when you are an adult to the point where you can lose someone so important to you.” He now looked at the old man’s face. He may not be crying but his eyes were sad looking at the picture.

“You lose someone important just because you are an adult?” Lucas curiously asked. Because if it is like that, then just like what he told to the old lady, he really does not want to be an adult anymore. Even if it is meant not being a storm chaser.

“It’s not like that kid. Sometimes there are hidden monsters along the way in life. It can be the person you are walking with but most of the time it can also be this.” The old man pointed at Lucas’ heart.

Then everything that the old lady said on the waiting shed near convenience store flashbacked on him. Being an adult is a lot to handle. The other said I might lose my heart along the way now the other one is saying my it can be a monster too once I become an adult. Lucas did not respond to what the old man said because of everything that is going on his mind.

“Well, have the best of luck on finding your best friend!” the old man touched Lucas shoulder and smiled. He saw the yellow orange sky behind the man turning into pink. It is Cole’s and his favorite sky. He then smiled to the old man and bid goodbye. This time he knew where his friend was and as he opened the door on room 631, the room seemed to be bursting in pink color from the sky. Cole is looking out the window and his back is facing Lucas. It was beautiful. Lucas did not notice the big hospital equipment around Cole, neither did he noticed Cole’s new shaved head. The only thing he is looking right now is his best friend. The Cole he was too afraid to lose, his buddy.

He slowly walked to Cole but before he took his first step, his best friend turned around and saw him. His smile glowed the room.

“I knew you’d make it.” Cole looked directly into Lucas’ eyes amazed and full of delight. Lucas then walked straight to his friend’s bed.

“What happened? Why are you here?” Tears are starting to form on his eyes, but he did not let it happen. He wanted to show Cole how strong he was to handle this surprise. It was then he noticed how tiny Cole looked in his hospital gown and the hair that used to be as black as a coal was now gone.

“It’s fine. I’m alright Lucas. You’re here! You cracked my poem and found my room congrats!” He hugged his friend tightly. Lucas looked at their expedition journal. There is a new entry which what Cole drew. Cole and Lucas sitting on a branch at their favorite narra tree; the cotton candy pink sky, their favorite sky was beautifully painted as the background.

“I drew that while I was waiting for you.” For Lucas it looked pretty. He can see the weak strokes his friend’s fragile hands made and touch it. He sat on Cole’s bed and told him his adventure from the beginning where he met Narra, the promise with the old lady, up until the old man in room 629.

It feels like the first time they went up on that narra tree together. Two friends sharing stories of their different adventure; one with independence and the other with bravery. Their laughter and giggles filled the room and together they sighed and smiled as they look at the pink sky from Cole’s hospital window. It was still majestically beautiful.

“Do you think our friendship will last for eternity?” Lucas asked without taking his eyes off from the pink sky.

“Do you really have to ask that?” Cole looked at Lucas. Together they smiled and they both knew the answer. That day, the pink sky witnessed Cole’s and Lucas’ promise to a never-ending friendship.

#friendship shortstory

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago

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Nightcrawlers

Robert McCammon (1984)

“Hard rain coming down,” Cheryl said, and I nodded in agreement.

Through the diner’s plate-glass windows, a dense curtain of rain flapped across the Gulf gas pumps and continued across the parking lot. It hit Big Bob’s with a force that made the glass rattle like uneasy bones. The red neon sign that said BIG BOB’S! DIESEL FUEL! EATS! sat on top of a high steel pole above the diner so the truckers on the interstate could see it. Out in the night, the red-tinted rain thrashed in torrents across my old pickup truck and Cheryl’s baby-blue Volkswagen.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose that storm’ll either wash some folks in off the interstate or we can just about hang it up.” The curtain of rain parted for an instant, and I could see the treetops whipping back and forth in the woods on the other side of Highway 47. Wind whined around the front door like an animal trying to claw its way in. I glanced at the electric clock on the wall behind the counter. Twenty minutes before nine. We usually closed up at ten, but tonight—with tornado warnings in the weather forecast—I was tempted to turn the lock a little early. “Tell you what,” I said. “If we’re empty at nine, we skedaddle. ’Kay?”

“No argument here,” she said. She watched the storm for a moment longer, then continued putting newly washed coffee cups, saucers, and plates away on the stainless-steel shelves.

Lightning flared from west to east like the strike of a burning bullwhip. The diner’s lights flickered, then came back to normal. A shudder of thunder seemed to come right up through my shoes. Late March is the beginning of tornado season in south Alabama, and we’ve had some whoppers spin past here in the last few years. I knew that Alma was at home, and she understood to get into the root cellar right quick if she spotted a twister, like that one we saw in ’82 dancing through the woods about two miles from our farm.

“You got any love-ins planned this weekend, hippie?” I asked Cheryl, mostly to get my mind off the storm and to rib her too.

She was in her late thirties, but I swear that when she grinned she could’ve passed for a kid. “Wouldn’t you like to know, redneck?” she answered; she replied the same way to all my digs at her. Cheryl Lovesong—and I know that couldn’t have been her real name—was a mighty able waitress, and she had hands that were no strangers to hard work. But I didn’t care that she wore her long silvery-blond hair in Indian braids with hippie headbands, or came to work in tie-dyed overalls. She was the best waitress who’d ever worked for me, and she got along with everybody just fine—even us rednecks. That’s what I am, and proud of it: I drink Rebel Yell whiskey straight, and my favorite songs are about good women gone bad and trains on the long track to nowhere. I keep my wife happy. I’ve raised my two boys to pray to God and to salute the flag, and if anybody don’t like it he can go a few rounds with Big Bob Clayton.

Cheryl would come right out and tell you she used to live in San Francisco in the late sixties, and that she went to love-ins and peace marches and all that stuff. When I reminded her it was 1984 and Ronnie Reagan was president, she’d look at me like I was walking cow-flop. I always figured she’d start thinking straight when all that hippie-dust blew out of her head.

Alma said my tail was going to get burnt if I ever took a shine to Cheryl, but I’m a fifty-five-year-old redneck who stopped sowing his wild seed when he met the woman he married, more than thirty years ago.

Lightning crisscrossed the turbulent sky, followed by a boom of thunder. Cheryl said, “Wow! Look at that light show!”

“Light show, my ass,” I muttered. The diner was as solid as the Good Book, so I wasn’t too worried about the storm. But on a wild night like this, stuck out in the countryside like Big Bob’s was, you had a feeling of being a long way off from civilization—though Mobile was only twenty-seven miles south. On a wild night like this, you had a feeling that anything could happen, as quick as a streak of lightning out of the darkness. I picked up a copy of the Mobile Press-Register that the last customer—a trucker on his way to Texas—had left on the counter a half-hour before, and I started plowing through the news, most of it bad: those A-rab countries were still squabbling like Hatfields and McCoys in white robes; two men had robbed a Qwik-Mart in Mobile and been killed by the police in a shoot-out; cops were investigating a massacre at a motel near Daytona Beach; an infant had been stolen from a maternity ward in Birmingham. The only good things on the front page were stories that said the economy was up and that Reagan swore we’d show the Commies who was boss in El Salvador and Lebanon.

The diner shook under a blast of thunder, and I looked up from the paper as a pair of headlights emerged from the rain into my parking lot.

The headlights were attached to an Alabama state-trooper car.

“Half-alive, hold the onion, extra brown the buns.” Cheryl was already writing on her pad in expectation of the order. I pushed the paper aside and went to the fridge for the hamburger meat.

When the door opened, a windblown spray of rain swept in and stung like buckshot. “Howdy, folks!” Dennis Wells peeled off his gray rain slicker and hung it on the rack next to the door. Over his Smokey the Bear trooper hat was a protective plastic covering, beaded with raindrops. He took off his hat, exposing the thinning blond hair on his pale scalp, as he approached the counter and sat on his usual stool, right next to the cash register. “Cup of black coffee and a rare—” Cheryl was already sliding the coffee in front of him, and the burger sizzled on the griddle. “Ya’ll are on the ball tonight!” Dennis said; he said the same thing when he came in, which was almost every night. Funny the kind of habits you fall into, without realizing it.

“Kinda wild out there, ain’t it?” I asked as I flipped the burger over.

“Lordy, yes! Wind just about flipped my car over three, four miles down the interstate. Thought I was gonna be eatin’ a little pavement tonight.” Dennis was a husky young man in his early thirties, with thick blond brows over deep-set light brown eyes. He had a wife and three kids, and he was fast to flash a walletful of their pictures. “Don’t reckon I’ll be chasin’ any speeders tonight, but there’ll probably be a load of accidents. Cheryl, you sure look pretty this evenin’.”

“Still the same old me.” Cheryl never wore a speck of makeup, though one day she’d come to work with glitter on her cheeks. She had a place a few miles away, and I guessed she was farming that funny weed up there. “Any trucks moving?”

“Seen a few, but not many. Truckers ain’t fools. Gonna get worse before it gets better, the radio says.” He sipped at his coffee and grimaced. “Lordy, that’s strong enough to jump out of the cup and dance a jig, darlin’!”

I fixed the burger the way Dennis liked it, put it on a platter with some fries, and served it. “Bobby, how’s the wife treatin’ you?” he asked.

“No complaints.”

“Good to hear. I’ll tell you, a fine woman is worth her weight in gold. Hey, Cheryl! How’d you like a handsome young man for a husband?”

Cheryl smiled, knowing what was coming. “The man I’m looking for hasn’t been made yet.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t met Cecil yet, either! He asks me about you every time I see him, and I keep tellin’ him I’m doin’ everything I can to get you two together.” Cecil was Dennis’ brother-in-law and owned a Chevy dealership in Bay Minette. Dennis had been ribbing Cheryl about going on a date with Cecil for the past four months. “You’d like him,” Dennis promised. “He’s got a lot of my qualities.”

“Well, that’s different. In that case, I’m certain I don’t want to meet him.”

Dennis winced. “Oh, you’re a cruel woman! That’s what smokin’ banana peels does to you—turns you mean. Anybody readin’ this rag?” He reached over for the newspaper.

“Waitin’ here just for you,” I said. Thunder rumbled, closer to the diner. The lights flickered briefly once … then again before they returned to normal. Cheryl busied herself by fixing a fresh pot of coffee, and I watched the rain whipping against the windows. When the lightning flashed, I could see the trees swaying so hard they looked about to snap.

Dennis read and ate his hamburger. “Boy,” he said after a few minutes, “the world’s in some shape, huh? Those A-rab pig-stickers are itchin’ for war. Mobile metro boys had a little gunplay last night. Good for them.” He paused and frowned, then tapped the paper with one thick finger. “This I can’t figure.”

“What’s that?”

“Thing in Florida couple of nights ago. Six people killed at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, near Daytona Beach. Motel was set off in the woods. Only a couple of cinder-block houses in the area, and nobody heard any gunshots. Says here one old man saw what he thought was a bright white star falling over the motel, and that was it. Funny, huh?”

“A UFO,” Cheryl offered. “Maybe he saw a UFO.”

“Yeah, and I’m a little green man from Mars,” Dennis scoffed. “I’m serious. This is weird. The motel was so blown full of holes it looked like a war had been going on. Everybody was dead—even a dog and a canary that belonged to the manager. The cars out in front of the rooms were blasted to pieces. The sound of one of them explodin’ was what woke up the people in those houses, I reckon.” He skimmed the story again. “Two bodies were out in the parkin’ lot, one was holed up in a bathroom, one had crawled under a bed, and two had dragged every piece of furniture in the room over to block the door. Didn’t seem to help ’em any, though.”

I grunted. “Guess not.”

“No motive, no witnesses. You better believe those Florida cops are shakin’ the bushes for some kind of dangerous maniac—or maybe more than one, it says here.” He shoved the paper away and patted the service revolver holstered at his hip. “If I ever got hold of him—or them—he’d find out not to mess with a ’Bama trooper.” He glanced quickly over at Cheryl and smiled mischievously. “Probably some crazy hippie who’d been smokin’ his tennis shoes.”

“Don’t knock it,” she said sweetly, “until you’ve tried it.” She looked past him, out the window into the storm. “Car’s pullin’ in, Bobby.”

Headlights glared briefly off the wet windows. It was a station wagon with wood-grained panels on the sides; it veered around the gas pumps and parked next to Dennis’ trooper car. On the front bumper was a personalized license plate that said: Ray & Lindy. The headlights died, and all the doors opened at once. Out of the wagon came a whole family: a man and woman, a little girl and boy about eight or nine. Dennis got up and opened the diner door as they hurried inside from the rain.

All of them had gotten pretty well soaked between the station wagon and the diner, and they wore the dazed expressions of people who’d been on the road a long time. The man wore glasses and had curly gray hair, the woman was slim and dark-haired and pretty. The kids were sleepy-eyed. All of them were well-dressed, the man in a yellow sweater with one of those alligators on the chest. They had vacation tans, and I figured they were tourists heading north from the beach after spring break.

“Come on in and take a seat,” I said.

“Thank you,” the man said. They squeezed into one of the booths near the windows. “We saw your sign from the interstate.”

“Bad night to be on the highway,” Dennis told them. “Tornado warnings are out all over the place.”

“We heard it on the radio,” the woman—Lindy, if the license was right—said. “We’re on our way to Birmingham, and we thought we could drive right through the storm. We should’ve stopped at that Holiday Inn we passed about fifteen miles ago.”

“That would’ve been smart,” Dennis agreed. “No sense in pushin’ your luck.” He returned to his stool.

The new arrivals ordered hamburgers, fries, and Cokes. Cheryl and I went to work. Lightning made the diner’s lights flicker again, and the sound of thunder caused the kids to jump. When the food was ready and Cheryl served them, Dennis said, “Tell you what. You folks finish your dinners and I’ll escort you back to the Holiday Inn. Then you can head out in the morning. How about that?”

“Fine,” Ray said gratefully. “I don’t think we could’ve gotten very much further, anyway.” He turned his attention to his food.

“Well,” Cheryl said quietly, standing beside me, “I don’t guess we get home early, do we?”

“I guess not. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Goes with the job, right? Anyway, I can think of worse places to be stuck.”

I figured that Alma might be worried about me, so I went over to the pay phone to call her. I dropped a quarter in—and the dial tone sounded like a cat being stepped on. I hung up and tried again. The cat scream continued. “Damn!” I muttered. “Lines must be screwed up.”

“Ought to get yourself a place closer to town, Bobby,” Dennis said. “Never could figure out why you wanted a joint in the sticks. At least you’d get better phone service and good lights if you were nearer to Mo—”

He was interrupted by the sound of wet and shrieking brakes, and he swiveled around on his stool.

I looked up as a car hurtled into the parking lot, the tires swerving, throwing up plumes of water. For a few seconds I thought it was going to keep coming, right through the window into the diner—but then the brakes caught and the car almost grazed the side of my pickup as it jerked to a stop. In the neon’s red glow I could tell it was a beat-up old Ford Fairlane, either gray or a dingy beige. Steam was rising off the crumpled hood. The headlights stayed on for perhaps a minute before they winked off. A figure got out of the car and walked slowly—with a limp—toward the diner.

We watched the figure approach. Dennis’ body looked like a coiled spring ready to be triggered. “We got us a live one, Bobby boy,” he said.

The door opened, and in a stinging gust of wind and rain a man who looked like walking death stepped into my diner.

He was so wet he might well have been driving with his windows down. He was a skinny guy, maybe weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds, even soaking wet. His unruly dark hair was plastered to his head, and he had gone a week or more without a shave. In his gaunt, pallid face his eyes were startlingly blue; his gaze flicked around the diner, lingered for a few seconds on Dennis. Then he limped on down to the far end of the counter and took a seat. He wiped the rain out of his eyes as Cheryl took a menu to him.

Dennis stared at the man. When he spoke, his voice bristled with authority. “Hey, fella.” The man didn’t look up from the menu. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.”

The man pushed the menu away and pulled a damp packet of Kools out of the breast pocket of his patched Army fatigue jacket. “I can hear you,” he said; his voice was deep and husky, and didn’t go with his less-than-robust physical appearance.

“Drivin’ kinda fast in this weather, don’t you think?”

The man flicked a cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame, then lit one of his smokes and inhaled deeply. “Yeah,” he replied. “I was. Sorry. I saw the sign, and I was in a hurry to get here. Miss? I’d just like a cup of coffee, please. Hot and real strong, okay?”

Cheryl nodded and turned away from him, almost bumping into me as I strolled down behind the counter to check him out.

“That kind of hurry’ll get you killed,” Dennis cautioned.

“Right. Sorry.” He shivered and pushed the tangled hair back from his forehead with one hand. Up close, I could see deep cracks around his mouth and the corners of his eyes and I figured him to be in his late thirties or early forties. His wrists were as thin as a woman’s; he looked like he hadn’t eaten a good meal for more than a month. He stared at his hands through bloodshot eyes. Probably on drugs, I thought. The fella gave me the creeps. Then he looked at me with those eyes—so pale blue they were almost white—and I felt like I’d been nailed to the floor. “Something wrong?” he asked—not rudely, just curiously.

“Nope.” I shook my head. Cheryl gave him his coffee and then went over to give Ray and Lindy their check.

The man didn’t use either cream or sugar. The coffee was steaming, but he drank half of it down like mother’s milk. “That’s good,” he said. “Keep me awake, won’t it?”

“More than likely.” Over the breast pocket of his jacket was the faint outline of the name that had been sewn there once. I think it was Price, but I could’ve been wrong.

“That’s what I want. To stay awake as long as I can.” He finished the coffee. “Can I have another cup, please?”

I poured it for him. He drank that one down just as fast,” then rubbed his eyes wearily.

“Been on the road a long time, huh?”

Price nodded. “Day and night. I don’t know which is more tired, my mind or my butt.” He lifted his gaze to me again. “Have you got anything else to drink? How about beer?”

“No, sorry. Couldn’t get a liquor license.”

He sighed. “Just as well. It might make me sleepy. But I sure could go for a beer right now. One sip, to clean my mouth out.”

He picked up his coffee cup, and I smiled and started to turn away.

But then he wasn’t holding a cup. He was holding a Budweiser can, and for an instant I could smell the tang of a newly popped beer.

The mirage was there for only maybe two seconds. I blinked, and Price was holding a cup again. “Just as well,” he said, and put it down.

I glanced over at Cheryl, then at Dennis. Neither one was paying attention. Damn! I thought. I’m too young to be losin’ either my eyesight or my senses! “Uh …” I said, or some other stupid noise.

“One more cup?” Price asked. “Then I’d better hit the road again.”

My hand was shaking as I picked it up, but if Price noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“Want anything to eat?” Cheryl asked him. “How about a bowl of beef stew?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. The sooner I get back on the road, the better it’ll be.”

Suddenly Dennis swiveled toward him, giving him a cold stare that only cops and drill sergeants can muster. “Back on the road?” He snorted. “Fella, you ever been in a tornado before? I’m gonna escort those nice people to the Holiday Inn about fifteen miles back. If you’re smart, that’s where you’ll spend the night too. No use in tryin’ to—”

“No.” Price’s voice was rock-steady. “I’ll be spending the night behind the wheel.”

Dennis’ eyes narrowed. “How come you’re in such a hurry? Not runnin’ from anybody, are you?”

“Nightcrawlers,” Cheryl said.

Price turned toward her like he’d been slapped across the face, and I saw what might’ve been a spark of fear in his eyes.

Cheryl motioned toward the lighter Price had laid on the counter, beside the pack of Kools. It was a beat-up silver Zippo, and inscribed across it was NIGHTCRAWLERS with the symbol of two crossed rifles beneath it. “Sorry,” she said. “I just noticed that, and I wondered what it was.”

Price put the lighter away. “I was in ’Nam,” he told her. “Everybody in my unit got one.”

“Hey.” There was suddenly new respect in Dennis’ voice. “You a vet?”

Price paused so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. In the quiet, I heard the little girl tell her mother that the fries were “ucky.” Price said, “Yes.”

“How about that! Hey, I wanted to go myself, but I got a high number and things were windin’ down about that time anyway. Did you see any action?”

A faint, bitter smile passed over Price’s mouth. “Too much.”

“What? Infantry? Marines? Rangers?”

Price picked up his third cup of coffee, swallowed some, and put it down. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when they opened they were vacant and fixed on nothing. “Nightcrawlers,” he said quietly. “Special unit. Deployed to recon Charlie positions in questionable villages.” He said it like he was reciting from a manual. “We did a lot of crawling through rice paddies and jungles in the dark.”

“Bet you laid a few of them Vietcong out, didn’t you?” Dennis got up and came over to sit a few places away from the man. “Man, I was behind you guys all the way. I wanted you to stay in there and fight it out!”

Price was silent. Thunder echoed over the diner. The lights weakened for a few seconds; when they came back on, they seemed to have lost some of their wattage. The place was dimmer than before. Price’s head slowly turned toward Dennis, with the inexorable motion of a machine. I was thankful I didn’t have to take the full force of Price’s dead blue eyes, and I saw Dennis wince. “I should’ve stayed,” he said. “I should be there right now, buried in the mud of a rice paddy with the eight other men in my patrol.”

“Oh.” Dennis blinked. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I came home,” Price continued calmly, “by stepping on the bodies of my friends. Do you want to know what that’s like, Mr. Trooper?”

“The war’s over,” I told him. “No need to bring it back.” Price smiled grimly, but his gaze remained fixed on Dennis. “Some say it’s over. I say it came back with the men who were there. Like me. Especially like me.” Price paused. The wind howled around the door, and the lightning illuminated for an instant the thrashing woods across the highway. “The mud was up to our knees, Mr. Trooper,” he said. “We were moving across a rice paddy in the dark, being real careful not to step on the bamboo stakes we figured were planted there. Then the first shots started: pop pop pop—like firecrackers going off. One of the Nightcrawlers fired off a flare, and we saw the Cong ringing us. We’d walked right into hell, Mr. Trooper. Somebody shouted, ‘Charlie’s in the light!’ and we started firing, trying to punch a hole through them. But they were everywhere. As soon as one went down, three more took his place. Grenades were going off, and more flares, and people were screaming as they got hit. I took a bullet in the thigh and another through the hand. I lost my rifle, and somebody fell on top of me with half his head missing.”

“Uh … listen,” I said. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to, friend.” He glanced quickly at me, then back to Dennis. I think I cringed when his gaze pierced me. “I want to tell it all. They were fighting and screaming and dying all around me, and I felt the bullets tug at my clothes as they passed through. I know I was screaming too, but what was coming out of my mouth sounded bestial. I ran. The only way I could save my own life was to step on their bodies and drive them down into the mud. I heard some of them choke and blubber as I put my boot on their faces. I knew all those guys like brothers … but at that moment they were only pieces of meat. I ran. A gunship chopper came over the paddy and laid down some fire, and that’s how I got out. Alone.” He bent his face closer toward the other man’s. “And you’d better believe I’m in that rice paddy in ’Nam every time I close my eyes. You’d better believe the men I left back there don’t rest easy. So you keep your opinions about ’Nam and being ‘behind you guys’ to yourself, Mr. Trooper. I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Got it?”

Dennis sat very still. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that, not even from a ’Nam vet, and I saw the shadow of anger pass over his face.

Price’s hands were trembling as he brought a little bottle out of his jeans pocket. He shook two blue-and-orange capsules out onto the counter, took them both with a swallow of coffee, and then recapped the bottle and put it away. The flesh of his face looked almost ashen in the dim light.

“I know you boys had a rough time,” Dennis said, “but that’s no call to show disrespect to the law.”

“The law,” Price repeated. “Yeah. Right. Bullshit.”

“There are women and children present,” I reminded him. “Watch your language.”

Price rose from his seat. He looked like a skeleton with just a little extra skin on the bones. “Mister, I haven’t slept for more than thirty-six hours. My nerves are shot. I don’t mean to cause trouble, but when some fool says he understands, I feel like kicking his teeth down his throat—because no one who wasn’t there can pretend to understand.” He glanced at Ray, Lindy, and the kids. “Sorry, folks. Don’t mean to disturb you. Friend, how much do I owe?” He started digging for his wallet.

Dennis slid slowly from his seat and stood with his hands on his hips. “Hold it.” He used his trooper’s voice again. “If you think I’m lettin’ you walk out of here high on pills and needin’ sleep, you’re crazy. I don’t want to be scrapin’ you off the highway.”

Price paid him no attention. He took a couple of dollars from his wallet and put them on the counter. I didn’t touch them. “Those pills will help keep me awake,” Price said. “Once I get on the road, I’ll be fine.”

“Fella, I wouldn’t let you go if it was high noon and not a cloud in the sky. I sure as hell don’t want to clean up after the accident you’re gonna have. Now, why don’t you come along to the Holiday Inn and—”

Price laughed grimly. “Mr. Trooper, the last place you want me staying is at a motel.” He cocked his head to one side. “I was in a motel in Florida a couple of nights ago, and I think I left my room a little untidy. Step aside and let me pass.”

“A motel in Florida?” Dennis nervously licked his lower lip. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

“Nightmares and reality, Mr. Trooper. The point where they cross. A couple of nights ago, they crossed at a motel. I wasn’t going to let myself sleep. I was just going to rest for a little while, but I didn’t know they’d come so fast.” A mocking smile played at the edges of his mouth, but his eyes were tortured. “You don’t want me staying at that Holiday Inn, Mr. Trooper. You really don’t. Now, step aside.”

I saw Dennis’ hand settle on the butt of his revolver. His fingers unsnapped the fold of leather that secured the gun in the holster. I stared at him numbly. My God, I thought. What’s goin’ on? My heart had started pounding so hard I was sure everybody could hear it. Ray and Lindy were watching, and Cheryl was backing away behind the counter.

Price and Dennis faced each other for a moment, as the rain whipped against the windows and thunder boomed like shellfire. Then Price sighed, as if resigning himself to something. He said, “I think I want a T-bone steak. Extra rare. How ’bout it?” He looked at me.

“A steak?” My voice was shaking. “We don’t have any T-bone—”

Price’s gaze shifted to the counter right in front of me. I heard a sizzle. The aroma of cooking meat drifted up to me.

“Oh … wow,” Cheryl whispered.

A large T-bone steak lay on the countertop, pink and oozing blood. You could’ve fanned a menu in my face and I would’ve keeled over. Wisps of smoke were rising from the steak.

The steak began to fade, until it was only an outline on the counter. The lines of oozing blood vanished. After the mirage was gone, I could still smell the meat—and that’s how I knew I wasn’t crazy.

Dennis’ mouth hung open. Ray had stood up from the booth to look, and his wife’s face was the color of spoiled milk. The whole world seemed to be balanced on a point of silence—until the wail of the wind jarred me back to my senses.

“I’m getting good at it,” Price said softly. “I’m getting very, very good. Didn’t start happening to me until about a year ago. I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing. What’s in your head comes true—as simple as that. Of course, the images only last for a few seconds—as long as I’m awake, I mean. I’ve found out that those other men were drenched by a chemical spray we called Howdy Doody—because it made you stiffen up and jerk like you were hanging on strings. I got hit with it near Khe Sahn. That shit almost suffocated me. It felt like black tar, and it burned the land down to a paved parking lot.” He stared at Dennis. “You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper. Not with the body count I’ve still got in my head.”

“You … were at … that motel, near Daytona Beach?”

Price closed his eyes. A vein had begun beating at his right temple, royal blue against the pallor of his flesh. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered. “I fell asleep, and I couldn’t wake myself up. I was having the nightmare. The same one. I was locked in it, and I was trying to scream myself awake.” He shuddered, and two tears ran slowly down his cheeks. “Oh,” he said, and flinched as if remembering something horrible. “They … they were coming through the door when I woke up. Tearing the door right off its hinges. I woke up … just as one of them was pointing his rifle at me. And I saw his face. I saw his muddy, misshapen face.” His eyes suddenly jerked open. “I didn’t know they’d come so fast.”

“Who?” I asked him. “Who came so fast?”

“The Nightcrawlers,” Price said, his face devoid of expression, masklike. “Dear God … maybe if I’d stayed asleep a second more. But I ran again, and I left those people dead in that motel.”

“You’re gonna come with me.” Dennis started pulling his gun from the holster. Price’s head snapped toward him. “I don’t know what kinda fool game you’re—”

He stopped, staring at the gun he held.

It wasn’t a gun anymore. It was an oozing mass of hot rubber. Dennis cried out and slung the thing from his hand. The molten mess hit the floor with a pulpy splat.

“I’m leaving now.” Price’s voice was calm. “Thank you for the coffee.” He walked past Dennis, toward the door.

Dennis grasped a bottle of ketchup from the counter. Cheryl cried out, “Don’t!” but it was too late. Dennis was already swinging the bottle. It hit the back of Price’s skull and burst open, spewing ketchup everywhere. Price staggered forward, his knees buckling. When he went down, his skull hit the floor with a noise like a watermelon being dropped. His body began jerking involuntarily.

“Got him!” Dennis shouted triumphantly. “Got that crazy bastard, didn’t I?”

Lindy was holding the little girl in her arms. The boy craned his neck to see. Ray said nervously, “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“He’s not dead,” I told him. I looked over at the gun; it was solid again. Dennis scooped it up and aimed it at Price, whose body continued to jerk. Just like Howdy Doody, I thought. Then Price stopped moving.

“He’s dead!” Cheryl’s voice was near-frantic. “Oh God, you killed him, Dennis!”

Dennis prodded the body with the toe of his boot, then bent down. “Naw. His eyes are movin’ back and forth behind the lids.” Dennis touched his wrist to check the pulse, then abruptly pulled his own hand away. “Jesus Christ! He’s as cold as a meat locker!” He took Price’s pulse and whistled. “Goin’ like a racehorse at the Derby.”

I touched the place on the counter where the mirage steak had been. My fingers came away slightly greasy, and I could smell the cooked meat on them. At that instant Price twitched. Dennis scuttled away from him like a crab. Price made a gasping, choking noise.

“What’d he say?” Cheryl asked. “He said something!”

“No he didn’t.” Dennis stuck him in the ribs with his pistol. “Come on. Get up.”

“Get him out of here,” I said. “I don’t want him—”

Cheryl shushed me. “Listen. Can you hear that?”

I heard only the roar and crash of the storm.

“Don’t you hear it?” she asked me. Her eyes were getting scared and glassy.

“Yes!” Ray said. “Yes! Listen!”

Then I did hear something, over the noise of the keening wind. It was a distant chuk-chuk-chuk, steadily growing louder and closer. The wind covered the noise for a minute, then it came back: CHUK-CHUK-CHUK, almost overhead.

“It’s a helicopter!” Ray peered through the window. “Somebody’s got a helicopter out there!”

“Ain’t nobody can fly a chopper in a storm!” Dennis told him. The noise of rotors swelled and faded, swelled and faded … and stopped.

On the floor, Price shivered and began to contort into a fetal position. His mouth opened; his face twisted in what appeared to be agony.

Thunder spoke. A red fireball rose up from the woods across the road and hung lazily in the sky for a few seconds before it descended toward the diner. As it fell, the fireball exploded soundlessly into a white, glaring eye of light that almost blinded me.

Price said something in a garbled, panicked voice. His eyes were tightly closed, and he had squeezed up with his arms around his knees.

Dennis rose to his feet; he squinted as the eye of light fell toward the parking lot and winked out in a puddle of water. Another fireball floated up from the woods, and again blossomed into painful glare.

Dennis turned toward me. “I heard him.” His voice was raspy. “He said . . . ‘Charlie’s in the light.’”

As the second flare fell to the ground and illuminated the parking lot, I thought I saw figures crossing the road. They walked stiff-legged, in an eerie cadence. The flare went out.

“Wake him up,” I heard myself whisper. “Dennis … dear God … wake him up.”

Dennis stared stupidly at me, and I started to jump across the counter to get to Price myself.

A gout of flame leapt in the parking lot. Sparks marched across the concrete. I shouted, “Get down!” and twisted around to push Cheryl back behind the shelter of the counter.

“What the hell—” Dennis said.

He didn’t finish. There was the metallic thumping of bullets hitting the gas pumps and the cars. I knew if that gas blew we were all dead. My truck shuddered with the impact of slugs, and I saw the whole thing explode as I ducked behind the counter. Then the windows blew inward with a god-awful crash, and the diner was full of flying glass, swirling wind, and sheets of rain. I heard Lindy scream, and both the kids were crying, and I think I was shouting something myself.

The lights had gone out, and the only illumination was the reflection of red neon off the concrete and the glow of the fluorescents over the gas pumps. Bullets whacked into the wall, and crockery shattered as if it had been hit with a hammer. Napkins and sugar packets were flying everywhere.

Cheryl was holding on to me as if her fingers were nails sunk to my bones. Her eyes were wide and dazed, and she kept trying to speak. Her mouth was working, but nothing came out.

There was another explosion as one of the other cars blew. The whole place shook, and I almost puked with fear.

Another hail of bullets hit the wall. They were tracers, and they jumped and ricocheted like white-hot cigarette butts. One of them sang off the edge of a shelf and fell to the floor about three feet away from me. The glowing slug began to fade, like the beer can and the mirage steak. I put my hand out to find it, but all I felt was splinters of glass and crockery. A phantom bullet, I thought. Real enough to cause damage and death—and then gone.

You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper, Price had warned. Not with the body count I’ve got in my head.

The firing stopped. I got free of Cheryl and said, “You stay right here.” Then I looked up over the counter and saw my truck and the station wagon on fire, the flames being whipped by the wind. Rain slapped me across the face as it swept in where the window glass used to be. I saw Price lying still huddled on the floor, with pieces of glass all around him. His hands were clawing the air, and in the flickering red neon his face was contorted, his eyes still closed. The pool of ketchup around his head made him look like his skull had been split open. He was peering into hell, and I averted my eyes before I lost my own mind.

Ray and Lindy and the two children had huddled under the table of their booth. The woman was sobbing brokenly. I looked at Dennis, lying a few feet from Price: he was sprawled on his face, and there were four holes punched through his back. It was not ketchup that ran in rivulets around Dennis’ body. His right arm was outflung, and the fingers twitched around the gun he gripped.

Another flare sailed up from the woods like a Fourth of July sparkler.

When the light brightened, I saw them: at least five figures, maybe more. They were crouched over, coming across the parking lot—but slowly, the speed of nightmares. Their clothes flapped and hung around them, and the flare’s light glanced off their helmets. They were carrying weapons—rifles, I guessed. I couldn’t see their faces, and that was for the best.

On the floor, Price moaned. I heard him say “light … in the light …”

The flare hung right over the diner. And then I knew what was going on. We were in the light. We were all caught in Price’s nightmare, and the Nightcrawlers that Price had left in the mud were fighting the battle again—the same way it had been fought at the Pines Haven Motor Inn. The Nightcrawlers had come back to life, powered by Price’s guilt and whatever that Howdy Doody shit had done to him.

And we were in the light, where Charlie had been out in that rice paddy.

There was a noise like castanets clicking. Dots of fire arced through the broken windows and thudded into the counter. The stools squealed as they were hit and spun. The cash register rang and the drawer popped open, and then the entire register blew apart and bills and coins scattered. I ducked my head, but a wasp of fire—I don’t, know what, a bit of metal or glass maybe—sliced my left cheek open from ear to upper lip. I fell to the floor behind the counter with blood running down my face.

A blast shook the rest of the cups, saucers, plates, and glasses off the shelves. The whole roof buckled inward, throwing loose ceiling tiles, light fixtures, and pieces of metal framework.

We were all going to die. I knew it, right then. Those things were going to destroy us. But I thought of the pistol in Dennis’ hand, and of Price lying near the door. If we were caught in Price’s nightmare and the blow from the ketchup bottle had broken something in his skull, then the only way to stop his dream was to kill him.

I’m no hero. I was about to piss in my pants, but I knew I was the only one who could move. I jumped up and scrambled over the counter, falling beside Dennis and wrenching at that pistol. Even in death, Dennis had a strong grip. Another blast came, along the wall to my right. The heat of it scorched me, and the shock wave skidded me across the floor through glass and rain and blood.

But I had that pistol in my hand.

I heard Ray shout, “Look out!”

In the doorway, silhouetted by flames, was a skeletal thing wearing muddy green rags. It wore a dented-in helmet and carried a corroded, slime-covered rifle. Its face was gaunt and shadowy, the features hidden behind a scum of rice-paddy muck. It began to lift the rifle to fire at me—slowly, slowly …

I got the safety off the pistol and fired twice, without aiming. A spark leapt off the helmet as one of the bullets was deflected, but the figure staggered backward and into the conflagration of the station wagon, where it seemed to melt into ooze before it vanished.

More tracers were coming in. Cheryl’s Volkswagen shuddered, the tires blowing out almost in unison. The state-trooper car was already bullet-riddled and sitting on flats.

Another Nightcrawler, this one without a helmet and with slime covering the skull where the hair had been, rose up beyond the window and fired its rifle. I heard the bullet whine past my ear, and as I took aim I saw its bony finger tightening on the trigger again.

A skillet flew over my head and hit the thing’s shoulder, spoiling its aim. For an instant the skillet stuck in the Nightcrawler’s body, as if the figure itself was made out of mud. I fired once … twice … and saw pieces of matter fly from the thing’s chest. What might’ve been a mouth opened in a soundless scream, and the thing slithered out of sight.

I looked around. Cheryl was standing behind the counter, weaving on her feet, her face white with shock. “Get down!” I shouted, and she ducked for cover.

I crawled to Price, shook him hard. His eyes would not open. “Wake up!” I begged him. “Wake up, damn you!” And then I pressed the barrel of the pistol against Price’s head. Dear God, I didn’t want to kill anybody, but I knew I was going to have to blow the Nightcrawlers right out of his brain. I hesitated—too long.

Something smashed into my left collarbone. I heard the bone snap like a broomstick being broken. The force of the shot slid me back against the counter and jammed me between two bullet-pocked stools. I lost the gun, and there was a roaring in my head that deafened me.

I don’t know how long I was out. My left arm felt like dead meat. All the cars in the lot were burning, and there was a hole in the diner’s roof that a tractor-trailer truck could’ve dropped through. Rain was sweeping into my face, and when I wiped my eyes clear I saw them, standing over Price.

There were eight of them. The two I thought I’d killed were back. They trailed weeds, and their boots and ragged clothes were covered with mud. They stood in silence, staring down at their living comrade.

I was too tired to scream. I couldn’t even whimper. I just watched.

Price’s hands lifted into the air. He reached for the Nightcrawlers, and then his eyes opened. His pupils were dead white, surrounded by scarlet.

“End it,” he whispered. “End it …”

One of the Nightcrawlers aimed its rifle and fired. Price jerked. Another Nightcrawler fired, and then they were all firing point-blank into Price’s body. Price thrashed and clutched at his head, but there was no blood; the phantom bullets weren’t hitting him.

The Nightcrawlers began to ripple and fade. I saw the flames of the burning cars through their bodies. The figures became transparent, floating in vague outlines. Price had awakened too fast at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, I realized; if he had remained asleep, the creatures of his nightmares would’ve ended it there, at that Florida motel. They were killing him in front of me—or he was allowing them to end it, and I think that’s what he must’ve wanted for a long, long time.

He shuddered, his mouth releasing a half-moan, half-sigh.

It sounded almost like relief.

The Nightcrawlers vanished. Price didn’t move anymore.

I saw his face. His eyes were closed, and I think he must’ve found peace at last.

A trucker hauling lumber from Mobile to Birmingham saw the burning cars. I don’t even remember what he looked like.

Ray was cut up by glass, but his wife and the kids were okay. Physically, I mean. Mentally, I couldn’t say.

Cheryl went into the hospital for a while. I got a postcard from her with the Golden Gate Bridge on the front. She promised she’d write and let me know how she was doing, but I doubt if I’ll ever hear from her. She was the best waitress I ever had, and I wish her luck.

The police asked me a thousand questions, and I told the story the same way every time. I found out later that no bullets or shrapnel were ever dug out of the walls or the cars or Dennis’ body—just like in the case of that motel massacre. There was no bullet in me, though my collarbone was snapped clean in two.

Price had died of a massive brain hemorrhage. It looked, the police told me, as if it had exploded in his skull.

I closed the diner. Farm life is fine. Alma understands, and we don’t talk about it.

But I never showed the police what I found, and I don’t know exactly why not.

I picked up Price’s wallet in the mess. Behind a picture of a smiling young woman holding a baby there was a folded piece of paper. On that paper were the names of four men.

Beside one name, Price had written “Dangerous.”

I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing, Price had said.

I sit up at night a lot, thinking about that and looking at those names. Those men had gotten a dose of that Howdy Doody shit in a foreign place they hadn’t wanted to be, fighting a war that turned out to be one of those crossroads of nightmare and reality. I’ve changed my mind about ’Nam because I understand now that the worst of the fighting is still going on, in the battlefields of memory.

A Yankee who called himself Tompkins came to my house one May morning and flashed me an ID that said he worked for a veterans’ association. He was very soft-spoken and polite, but he had deep-set eyes that were almost black, and he never blinked. He asked me all about Price, seemed real interested in picking my brain of every detail. I told him the police had the story, and I couldn’t add any more to it. Then I turned the tables and asked him about Howdy Doody. He smiled in a puzzled kind of way and said he’d never heard of any chemical defoliant called that. No such thing, he said. Like I say, he was very polite.

But I know the shape of a gun tucked into a shoulder holster. Tompkins was wearing one under his seersucker coat. I never could find any veterans’ association that knew anything about him, either.

Maybe I should give that list of names to the police. Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll try to find those four men myself, and try to make some sense out of what’s being hidden.

I don’t think Price was evil. No. He was just scared, and who can blame a man for running from his own nightmares? I like to believe that, in the end, Price had the courage to face the Nightcrawlers, and in committing suicide he saved our lives.

The newspapers, of course, never got the real story. They called Price a ’Nam vet who’d gone crazy, killed six people in a Florida motel, and then killed a state trooper in a shoot-out at Big Bob’s diner and gas stop.

But I know where Price is buried. They sell little American flags at the five-and-dime in Mobile. I’m alive, and I can spare the change.

And then I’ve got to find out how much courage I have.

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such-a-common-girl · 8 years ago

Text

“Family” Part Two

Words: 1,581

Norman Reedus x Daughter Reader

Warnings: Swearing

Link to part one

“You have got to be kidding me.” Anna showed up at my doorstep. It had been a few days since my encounter with my dad. I haven’t seen him since, he had to fly to San Diego for Comic Con, but he’d be back next week.

“Anna? What are you doing here? We don’t usually meet until seven.” I say, looking at the clock. It was barely six in the morning- the sun wasn’t even up yet.

“I told you to watch The Walking Dead, not have coffee with Norman fucking Reedus!” Her eyes are wide.

“How do you know about that?” I questioned her, letting her come inside. She obviously wasn’t leaving.

“Have you been online lately?”

“No, I’ve been busy trying to finish my homework. AP Calculus is kicking my ass. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Search up Norman on Google. Look at the recent media posts about him.” She looks at me weirdly. I pull out my phone, typing in his name. I gasp at the results- there were pictures of the two of us drinking coffee together, being swamped by fans, and getting into the taxi together. The headlines were worse. ‘Norman’s new woman?’ ‘Hot young girl getting coffee with Norman Reedus- See the pics!’ ‘Norman is dating a mystery girl!’

“Oh my god.” I want to scream.

“I just want to know how the fuck you managed to score him! I’ve been trying to get his attention through Twitter forever.” She seemed frustrated.

“Ew, listen, I did not ‘score him.’ We’re not, like, together.” I try to say calmly.

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, if I tell you something, you can’t tell a soul.” I tell her.

“Swear.”

“He’s my dad.”

“No way.” She shakes her head. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I just found out.”

“Wow.” She seems like she can’t figure out what to say. “Okay.”

“It’s a lot to process, I know. Trust me.” I grab some water from the kitchen.

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to tell people.”

“People are going to treat me differently. I don’t want people to want to be my friend just because I have a famous dad.” I admit.

“Oh, hun.” Anna laughs. “People are going to treat you differently regardless. They think you two are, like, dating.”

I underestimated his fame.

People stopped me on the streets while I walked to school, asking me questions about my “relationship” with my father. I ignored them and just kept walking, but people still looked at me funny. The whole day throughout school, everyone looked at me weird. Some girls looked jealous, other disgusted. Most of the guys just smiled at me.

“So, dating a big shot, huh?” One of my soccer teammates came up to me in the locker room after practice. “I’m jealous. He’s like a sex god.”

I looked at her in disgust before slamming my locker door, walking away.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m sorry, that wasn’t supposed to make you mad.” She followed me.

“We’re not dating. Not even close. So please leave me alone.” I say with attitude, opening the door and walking outside. “And feel free to tell everyone else that. I’m tired of being stared at.”

I get in bed as soon as I get home, exhausted. All I want to do is talk to my mom, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I grab my phone, going through my twitter feed. It’s filled with people talking about me. Shocker. I don’t even read them. They’re probably just more bullshit rumors.

I was about to shut it off when a new post pops up- a video from the San Diego Comic Con. I click on it, seeing that it was the Walking Dead’s con. It starts off with the announcer talking to my dad, who is not paying attention to him at all. My dad was too busy messing around with the guy who’s name tag says “Andrew Lincoln.” I frown, realizing that this was the guy who I’ve been telling Anna is hot for ages, and he’s seemingly my dad’s friend. Crush gone.

“Norman, we’ve got a question from a fan.” The announcer says, and my dad starts paying attention.

“Hi, Norman! We’ve been all wondering- who was that girl you were with a few days ago?” This blonde lately asks.

“She’s my daughter.”

The crowd goes crazy. I guess they didn’t know I existed.

“You have another kid besides Mingus? What’s her name?” A fan yells from the crowd.

“I don’t know if she’s comfortable with me telling the world that.”

Then the screen cuts black, and the video is over. Half of me is glad he told everyone, so people will stop looking at me like I’m some huge seventeen year old slut dating an older guy. But another half of me is upset. My life is about to change dramatically. Suddenly, I’m not just Y/N anymore. People are going to look at me and just see Norman’s daughter.

I pull out my phone and call my dad.

“What’s going on?” He answered. There was talking in the background, like he was out with friends or something.

“I can call you later if you’re busy.”

“Give me a minute.” He says to someone in the background, and then the noise stops. “Sorry, all the cast members and I are together in the hotel room. Celebrating for the last night of being here.”

“Don’t apologize. I just needed to talk to someone. My mom’s not here, and I’m just super stressed out. People are stopping me on the streets and taking pictures of me. Everyone at my school are treating me weird. I don’t know what to do.” I sigh.

“Hey, look, I go through this all the time. So did Mingus. It’ll die down eventually.”

“Mingus?” I question.

“Yeah, I uh, I have another kid.”

“You’re a busy man.” I joke.

“Shut up.” He laughs. “You know, I fly back into New York tomorrow morning. Why don’t you come stay with me for a few days? I don’t have much to do, but I got a cat and a bunch of South Park recorded on TV if you’re into that thing.”

“I have school.”

“I live in a different borough, not a different state. You can still get to school. Hell, it’s only for a few days, you could skip school if you wanted and we could actually hang out. I don’t have long until I have to fly back to Atlanta to film.” He drove a hard bargain.

“Fine.” I finally say. “Can you just pick me up after school tomorrow? I don’t want to have to walk all the way home just to have to leave again.”

“I’ll be there. See you tomorrow, Y/N.”

“See ya.”

The next day was worse. People literally stopped me on the streets to take a picture with me, which was the weirdest thing. They all knew my name, so I guess someone spilled information to the tabloids.

School was about the same. People stared at me all day, but at least not in disgust this time. A few people tried asking me if they could meet my dad but I just ignored them. Finally the bell rang, indicating that school was over. Thank god.

“You coming to practice?” Anna asked me as we took our stuff out of the lockers.

“Nah.” I shut my locker door. “Got shit to do.”

“Coach is going to be mad.”

“No offense, but I don’t really give a flying fuck what coach thinks. I go to every single practice. I have never missed one, and I participate in every single game. Now, if you’d excuse me, I still have shit to do.”

Yeah, she is a little annoying sometimes, but I didn’t mean to be that rude to her. “I’m sorry. I just have a lot going on.”

“It’s fine. Go. I’ll tell her you got sick.” She smiles weakly at me.

I hug her before I go outside. I see a car sitting in front of the school with dark tinted windows. The window to the backseat rolls down, and my dad smiles at me.

“You ready?” He asks. The people outside gasp, but thankfully don’t freak out. I nod and get inside the car.

“Upper East Side, please.” He tells the driver.

“A driver, huh?” I raise my eyebrows at him once I get settled in the car.

“I’m not a pretentious douchebag, if that’s what you’re hinting at.” He laughs.

“Jesus, I feel like I’m in Gossip Girl. Serena, where at you?” I joke.

“What?” He asks.

“Nevermind.”

We get to his apartment building a while later. It’s nice-definitely the Upper East Side. The driver let both of us out, and we walked up to his apartment.

“This is where you live?” I gaped. It was huge, at least for New York standards. It was also really messy, but the nice furniture and the cute cat meeting us at the door made up for it.

“Yeah, sorry it looks like a tornado blew through here. I’ve been sleeping all day and didn’t clean.” He admits.

“I don’t mind. You saw where I lived.”

“Want some food? There’s leftover Chinese in the fridge from lunch.”

“Starving.”

I reheat the food, and then take a seat on his couch while I turn on the TV.

Maybe being his daughter isn’t so bad after all.

#norman reedus #norman reedus x reader #daryl dixon #daryl dixon imagine #daryl x reader #twd #twdfamily #imagine #the walking dead #the walking dead imagine #andrew lincoln

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sfgooglebooks · 6 years ago

Text

Gabriel Stone and the Divinity of Valta by Shannon Duffy, page 182

Brent raised his hands and threw a fireball at Lamia. She cackled and held out her hand, pinching her thumb and pointer finger together. The fire squelched into nothing with a pfft. Brent froze.

"You go nowhere. I shall delight in the pain you'll feel from the gruock's bite." Lamia tugged a handful of sand from her pocket and blew it toward them. It floated on the air, multiplying until it filled the room, and soon they could barely see.

Brent waved his arms through the air, trying to brush it away.

Piper sneezed again and again. Every time she sneezed, large gusts of wind blew out, shifting the sand. "Wow, look. I'm supposed to be able to control wind with my breath, remember? It's working!"

"Keep doing it, Piper. I- I don't feel so good," moaned Brent.

Through the sandy haze, Lamia advanced on them. Gabriel's head spun, and his eyelids began to droop.

It's a sleeping spell. A shrill, ringing sound pierced Gabriel's ears as Lamia pulled a short sword from a sheath behind her back.

"I'm certain Duke Malgor won't mind if I kill just one of you before he arrives," she snickered, glaring at Piper.

Brent fell to his knees in a coughing fit.

Lamia raised her sword high into the air, and lunged at Piper. But Piper kept sneezing, one right after another. Lamia flew backward by the great blast of air created by Piper's breath.

The cloud of sand dispersed. Lamia scrambled to her feet and leaned into the wind, her blade high in the air. With only a few short steps left between them, Lamia pressed forward, her smile flickering, then fading. Glaring at Piper, she screamed, "Prepare to die!"

Lamia gritted her teeth and gripped both hands around the sword, bringing it down toward Piper's head. As the sword swung toward her, Piper inhaled a huge breath, and blew out vigorously. Lamia flew high into the air, like a feather caught in a tornado. She plummeted into the spying globe, shattering it into a million pieces.

#dust #well sand #female #irritation #mess free

0 notes

andya-j · 6 years ago

Text

“Hard rain coming down,” Cheryl said, and I nodded in agreement. Through the diner’s plate-glass windows, a dense curtain of rain flapped across the Gulf gas pumps and continued across the parking lot. It hit Big Bob’s with a force that made the glass rattle like uneasy bones. The red neon sign that said BIG BOB’S! DIESEL FUEL! EATS! sat on top of a high steel pole above the diner so the truckers on the interstate could see it. Out in the night, the red-tinted rain thrashed in torrents across my old pickup truck and Cheryl’s baby-blue Volkswagen. “Well,” I said, “I suppose that storm’ll either wash some folks in off the interstate or we can just about hang it up.” The curtain of rain parted for an instant, and I could see the treetops whipping back and forth in the woods on the other side of Highway 47. Wind whined around the front door like an animal trying to claw its way in. I glanced at the electric clock on the wall behind the counter. Twenty minutes before nine. We usually closed up at ten, but tonight—with tornado warnings in the weather forecast—I was tempted to turn the lock a little early. “Tell you what,” I said. “If we’re empty at nine, we skedaddle. ’Kay?” “No argument here,” she said. She watched the storm for a moment longer, then continued putting newly washed coffee cups, saucers, and plates away on the stainless-steel shelves. Lightning flared from west to east like the strike of a burning bullwhip. The diner’s lights flickered, then came back to normal. A shudder of thunder seemed to come right up through my shoes. Late March is the beginning of tornado season in south Alabama, and we’ve had some whoppers spin past here in the last few years. I knew that Alma was at home, and she understood to get into the root cellar right quick if she spotted a twister, like that one we saw in ’82 dancing through the woods about two miles from our farm. “You got any love-ins planned this weekend, hippie?” I asked Cheryl, mostly to get my mind off the storm and to rib her too. She was in her late thirties, but I swear that when she grinned she could’ve passed for a kid. “Wouldn’t you like to know, redneck?” she answered; she replied the same way to all my digs at her. Cheryl Lovesong—and I know that couldn’t have been her real name—was a mighty able waitress, and she had hands that were no strangers to hard work. But I didn’t care that she wore her long silvery-blond hair in Indian braids with hippie headbands, or came to work in tie-dyed overalls. She was the best waitress who’d ever worked for me, and she got along with everybody just fine—even us rednecks. That’s what I am, and proud of it: I drink Rebel Yell whiskey straight, and my favorite songs are about good women gone bad and trains on the long track to nowhere. I keep my wife happy. I’ve raised my two boys to pray to God and to salute the flag, and if anybody don’t like it he can go a few rounds with Big Bob Clayton. Cheryl would come right out and tell you she used to live in San Francisco in the late sixties, and that she went to love-ins and peace marches and all that stuff. When I reminded her it was 1984 and Ronnie Reagan was president, she’d look at me like I was walking cow-flop. I always figured she’d start thinking straight when all that hippie-dust blew out of her head. Alma said my tail was going to get burnt if I ever took a shine to Cheryl, but I’m a fifty-five-year-old redneck who stopped sowing his wild seed when he met the woman he married, more than thirty years ago. Lightning crisscrossed the turbulent sky, followed by a boom of thunder. Cheryl said, “Wow! Look at that light show!” “Light show, my ass,” I muttered. The diner was as solid as the Good Book, so I wasn’t too worried about the storm. But on a wild night like this, stuck out in the countryside like Big Bob’s was, you had a feeling of being a long way off from civilization—though Mobile was only twenty-seven miles south. On a wild night like this, you had a feeling that anything could happen, as quick as a streak of lightning out of the darkness. I picked up a copy of the Mobile Press-Register that the last customer—a trucker on his way to Texas—had left on the counter a half-hour before, and I started plowing through the news, most of it bad: those A-rab countries were still squabbling like Hatfields and McCoys in white robes; two men had robbed a Qwik-Mart in Mobile and been killed by the police in a shoot-out; cops were investigating a massacre at a motel near Daytona Beach; an infant had been stolen from a maternity ward in Birmingham. The only good things on the front page were stories that said the economy was up and that Reagan swore we’d show the Commies who was boss in El Salvador and Lebanon. The diner shook under a blast of thunder, and I looked up from the paper as a pair of headlights emerged from the rain into my parking lot. 2 The headlights were attached to an Alabama state-trooper car. “Half-alive, hold the onion, extra brown the buns.” Cheryl was already writing on her pad in expectation of the order. I pushed the paper aside and went to the fridge for the hamburger meat. When the door opened, a windblown spray of rain swept in and stung like buckshot. “Howdy, folks!” Dennis Wells peeled off his gray rain slicker and hung it on the rack next to the door. Over his Smokey the Bear trooper hat was a protective plastic covering, beaded with raindrops. He took off his hat, exposing the thinning blond hair on his pale scalp, as he approached the counter and sat on his usual stool, right next to the cash register. “Cup of black coffee and a rare—” Cheryl was already sliding the coffee in front of him, and the burger sizzled on the griddle. “Ya’ll are on the ball tonight!” Dennis said; he said the same thing when he came in, which was almost every night. Funny the kind of habits you fall into, without realizing it. “Kinda wild out there, ain’t it?” I asked as I flipped the burger over. “Lordy, yes! Wind just about flipped my car over three, four miles down the interstate. Thought I was gonna be eatin’ a little pavement tonight.” Dennis was a husky young man in his early thirties, with thick blond brows over deep-set light brown eyes. He had a wife and three kids, and he was fast to flash a walletful of their pictures. “Don’t reckon I’ll be chasin’ any speeders tonight, but there’ll probably be a load of accidents. Cheryl, you sure look pretty this evenin’.” “Still the same old me.” Cheryl never wore a speck of makeup, though one day she’d come to work with glitter on her cheeks. She had a place a few miles away, and I guessed she was farming that funny weed up there. “Any trucks moving?” “Seen a few, but not many. Truckers ain’t fools. Gonna get worse before it gets better, the radio says.” He sipped at his coffee and grimaced. “Lordy, that’s strong enough to jump out of the cup and dance a jig, darlin’!” I fixed the burger the way Dennis liked it, put it on a platter with some fries, and served it. “Bobby, how’s the wife treatin’ you?” he asked. “No complaints.” “Good to hear. I’ll tell you, a fine woman is worth her weight in gold. Hey, Cheryl! How’d you like a handsome young man for a husband?” Cheryl smiled, knowing what was coming. “The man I’m looking for hasn’t been made yet.” “Yeah, but you ain’t met Cecil yet, either! He asks me about you every time I see him, and I keep tellin’ him I’m doin’ everything I can to get you two together.” Cecil was Dennis’ brother-in-law and owned a Chevy dealership in Bay Minette. Dennis had been ribbing Cheryl about going on a date with Cecil for the past four months. “You’d like him,” Dennis promised. “He’s got a lot of my qualities.” “Well, that’s different. In that case, I’m certain I don’t want to meet him.” Dennis winced. “Oh, you’re a cruel woman! That’s what smokin’ banana peels does to you—turns you mean. Anybody readin’ this rag?” He reached over for the newspaper. “Waitin’ here just for you,” I said. Thunder rumbled, closer to the diner. The lights flickered briefly once … then again before they returned to normal. Cheryl busied herself by fixing a fresh pot of coffee, and I watched the rain whipping against the windows. When the lightning flashed, I could see the trees swaying so hard they looked about to snap. Dennis read and ate his hamburger. “Boy,” he said after a few minutes, “the world’s in some shape, huh? Those A-rab pig-stickers are itchin’ for war. Mobile metro boys had a little gunplay last night. Good for them.” He paused and frowned, then tapped the paper with one thick finger. “This I can’t figure.” “What’s that?” “Thing in Florida couple of nights ago. Six people killed at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, near Daytona Beach. Motel was set off in the woods. Only a couple of cinder-block houses in the area, and nobody heard any gunshots. Says here one old man saw what he thought was a bright white star falling over the motel, and that was it. Funny, huh?” “A UFO,” Cheryl offered. “Maybe he saw a UFO.” “Yeah, and I’m a little green man from Mars,” Dennis scoffed. “I’m serious. This is weird. The motel was so blown full of holes it looked like a war had been going on. Everybody was dead—even a dog and a canary that belonged to the manager. The cars out in front of the rooms were blasted to pieces. The sound of one of them explodin’ was what woke up the people in those houses, I reckon.” He skimmed the story again. “Two bodies were out in the parkin’ lot, one was holed up in a bathroom, one had crawled under a bed, and two had dragged every piece of furniture in the room over to block the door. Didn’t seem to help ’em any, though.” I grunted. “Guess not.” “No motive, no witnesses. You better believe those Florida cops are shakin’ the bushes for some kind of dangerous maniac—or maybe more than one, it says here.” He shoved the paper away and patted the service revolver holstered at his hip. “If I ever got hold of him—or them—he’d find out not to mess with a ’Bama trooper.” He glanced quickly over at Cheryl and smiled mischievously. “Probably some crazy hippie who’d been smokin’ his tennis shoes.” “Don’t knock it,” she said sweetly, “until you’ve tried it.” She looked past him, out the window into the storm. “Car’s pullin’ in, Bobby.” Headlights glared briefly off the wet windows. It was a station wagon with wood-grained panels on the sides; it veered around the gas pumps and parked next to Dennis’ trooper car. On the front bumper was a personalized license plate that said: Ray & Lindy. The headlights died, and all the doors opened at once. Out of the wagon came a whole family: a man and woman, a little girl and boy about eight or nine. Dennis got up and opened the diner door as they hurried inside from the rain. All of them had gotten pretty well soaked between the station wagon and the diner, and they wore the dazed expressions of people who’d been on the road a long time. The man wore glasses and had curly gray hair, the woman was slim and dark-haired and pretty. The kids were sleepy-eyed. All of them were well-dressed, the man in a yellow sweater with one of those alligators on the chest. They had vacation tans, and I figured they were tourists heading north from the beach after spring break. “Come on in and take a seat,” I said. “Thank you,” the man said. They squeezed into one of the booths near the windows. “We saw your sign from the interstate.” “Bad night to be on the highway,” Dennis told them. “Tornado warnings are out all over the place.” “We heard it on the radio,” the woman—Lindy, if the license was right—said. “We’re on our way to Birmingham, and we thought we could drive right through the storm. We should’ve stopped at that Holiday Inn we passed about fifteen miles ago.” “That would’ve been smart,” Dennis agreed. “No sense in pushin’ your luck.” He returned to his stool. The new arrivals ordered hamburgers, fries, and Cokes. Cheryl and I went to work. Lightning made the diner’s lights flicker again, and the sound of thunder caused the kids to jump. When the food was ready and Cheryl served them, Dennis said, “Tell you what. You folks finish your dinners and I’ll escort you back to the Holiday Inn. Then you can head out in the morning. How about that?” “Fine,” Ray said gratefully. “I don’t think we could’ve gotten very much further, anyway.” He turned his attention to his food. “Well,” Cheryl said quietly, standing beside me, “I don’t guess we get home early, do we?” “I guess not. Sorry.” She shrugged. “Goes with the job, right? Anyway, I can think of worse places to be stuck.” I figured that Alma might be worried about me, so I went over to the pay phone to call her. I dropped a quarter in—and the dial tone sounded like a cat being stepped on. I hung up and tried again. The cat scream continued. “Damn!” I muttered. “Lines must be screwed up.” “Ought to get yourself a place closer to town, Bobby,” Dennis said. “Never could figure out why you wanted a joint in the sticks. At least you’d get better phone service and good lights if you were nearer to Mo—” He was interrupted by the sound of wet and shrieking brakes, and he swiveled around on his stool. I looked up as a car hurtled into the parking lot, the tires swerving, throwing up plumes of water. For a few seconds I thought it was going to keep coming, right through the window into the diner—but then the brakes caught and the car almost grazed the side of my pickup as it jerked to a stop. In the neon’s red glow I could tell it was a beat-up old Ford Fairlane, either gray or a dingy beige. Steam was rising off the crumpled hood. The headlights stayed on for perhaps a minute before they winked off. A figure got out of the car and walked slowly—with a limp—toward the diner. We watched the figure approach. Dennis’ body looked like a coiled spring ready to be triggered. “We got us a live one, Bobby boy,” he said. The door opened, and in a stinging gust of wind and rain a man who looked like walking death stepped into my diner. 3 He was so wet he might well have been driving with his windows down. He was a skinny guy, maybe weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds, even soaking wet. His unruly dark hair was plastered to his head, and he had gone a week or more without a shave. In his gaunt, pallid face his eyes were startlingly blue; his gaze flicked around the diner, lingered for a few seconds on Dennis. Then he limped on down to the far end of the counter and took a seat. He wiped the rain out of his eyes as Cheryl took a menu to him. Dennis stared at the man. When he spoke, his voice bristled with authority. “Hey, fella.” The man didn’t look up from the menu. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.” The man pushed the menu away and pulled a damp packet of Kools out of the breast pocket of his patched Army fatigue jacket. “I can hear you,” he said; his voice was deep and husky, and didn’t go with his less-than-robust physical appearance. “Drivin’ kinda fast in this weather, don’t you think?” The man flicked a cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame, then lit one of his smokes and inhaled deeply. “Yeah,” he replied. “I was. Sorry. I saw the sign, and I was in a hurry to get here. Miss? I’d just like a cup of coffee, please. Hot and real strong, okay?” Cheryl nodded and turned away from him, almost bumping into me as I strolled down behind the counter to check him out. “That kind of hurry’ll get you killed,” Dennis cautioned. “Right. Sorry.” He shivered and pushed the tangled hair back from his forehead with one hand. Up close, I could see deep cracks around his mouth and the corners of his eyes and I figured him to be in his late thirties or early forties. His wrists were as thin as a woman’s; he looked like he hadn’t eaten a good meal for more than a month. He stared at his hands through bloodshot eyes. Probably on drugs, I thought. The fella gave me the creeps. Then he looked at me with those eyes—so pale blue they were almost white—and I felt like I’d been nailed to the floor. “Something wrong?” he asked—not rudely, just curiously. “Nope.” I shook my head. Cheryl gave him his coffee and then went over to give Ray and Lindy their check. The man didn’t use either cream or sugar. The coffee was steaming, but he drank half of it down like mother’s milk. “That’s good,” he said. “Keep me awake, won’t it?” “More than likely.” Over the breast pocket of his jacket was the faint outline of the name that had been sewn there once. I think it was Price, but I could’ve been wrong. “That’s what I want. To stay awake as long as I can.” He finished the coffee. “Can I have another cup, please?” I poured it for him. He drank that one down just as fast,” then rubbed his eyes wearily. “Been on the road a long time, huh?” Price nodded. “Day and night. I don’t know which is more tired, my mind or my butt.” He lifted his gaze to me again. “Have you got anything else to drink? How about beer?” “No, sorry. Couldn’t get a liquor license.” He sighed. “Just as well. It might make me sleepy. But I sure could go for a beer right now. One sip, to clean my mouth out.” He picked up his coffee cup, and I smiled and started to turn away. But then he wasn’t holding a cup. He was holding a Budweiser can, and for an instant I could smell the tang of a newly popped beer. The mirage was there for only maybe two seconds. I blinked, and Price was holding a cup again. “Just as well,” he said, and put it down. I glanced over at Cheryl, then at Dennis. Neither one was paying attention. Damn! I thought. I’m too young to be losin’ either my eyesight or my senses! “Uh …” I said, or some other stupid noise. “One more cup?” Price asked. “Then I’d better hit the road again.” My hand was shaking as I picked it up, but if Price noticed, he didn’t say anything. “Want anything to eat?” Cheryl asked him. “How about a bowl of beef stew?” He shook his head. “No, thanks. The sooner I get back on the road, the better it’ll be.” Suddenly Dennis swiveled toward him, giving him a cold stare that only cops and drill sergeants can muster. “Back on the road?” He snorted. “Fella, you ever been in a tornado before? I’m gonna escort those nice people to the Holiday Inn about fifteen miles back. If you’re smart, that’s where you’ll spend the night too. No use in tryin’ to—” “No.” Price’s voice was rock-steady. “I’ll be spending the night behind the wheel.” Dennis’ eyes narrowed. “How come you’re in such a hurry? Not runnin’ from anybody, are you?” “Nightcrawlers,” Cheryl said. Price turned toward her like he’d been slapped across the face, and I saw what might’ve been a spark of fear in his eyes. Cheryl motioned toward the lighter Price had laid on the counter, beside the pack of Kools. It was a beat-up silver Zippo, and inscribed across it was NIGHTCRAWLERS with the symbol of two crossed rifles beneath it. “Sorry,” she said. “I just noticed that, and I wondered what it was.” Price put the lighter away. “I was in ’Nam,” he told her. “Everybody in my unit got one.” “Hey.” There was suddenly new respect in Dennis’ voice. “You a vet?” Price paused so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. In the quiet, I heard the little girl tell her mother that the fries were “ucky.” Price said, “Yes.” “How about that! Hey, I wanted to go myself, but I got a high number and things were windin’ down about that time anyway. Did you see any action?” A faint, bitter smile passed over Price’s mouth. “Too much.” “What? Infantry? Marines? Rangers?” Price picked up his third cup of coffee, swallowed some, and put it down. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when they opened they were vacant and fixed on nothing. “Nightcrawlers,” he said quietly. “Special unit. Deployed to recon Charlie positions in questionable villages.” He said it like he was reciting from a manual. “We did a lot of crawling through rice paddies and jungles in the dark.” “Bet you laid a few of them Vietcong out, didn’t you?” Dennis got up and came over to sit a few places away from the man. “Man, I was behind you guys all the way. I wanted you to stay in there and fight it out!” Price was silent. Thunder echoed over the diner. The lights weakened for a few seconds; when they came back on, they seemed to have lost some of their wattage. The place was dimmer than before. Price’s head slowly turned toward Dennis, with the inexorable motion of a machine. I was thankful I didn’t have to take the full force of Price’s dead blue eyes, and I saw Dennis wince. “I should’ve stayed,” he said. “I should be there right now, buried in the mud of a rice paddy with the eight other men in my patrol.” “Oh.” Dennis blinked. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—” “I came home,” Price continued calmly, “by stepping on the bodies of my friends. Do you want to know what that’s like, Mr. Trooper?” “The war’s over,” I told him. “No need to bring it back.” Price smiled grimly, but his gaze remained fixed on Dennis. “Some say it’s over. I say it came back with the men who were there. Like me. Especially like me.” Price paused. The wind howled around the door, and the lightning illuminated for an instant the thrashing woods across the highway. “The mud was up to our knees, Mr. Trooper,” he said. “We were moving across a rice paddy in the dark, being real careful not to step on the bamboo stakes we figured were planted there. Then the first shots started: pop pop pop—like firecrackers going off. One of the Nightcrawlers fired off a flare, and we saw the Cong ringing us. We’d walked right into hell, Mr. Trooper. Somebody shouted, ‘Charlie’s in the light!’ and we started firing, trying to punch a hole through them. But they were everywhere. As soon as one went down, three more took his place. Grenades were going off, and more flares, and people were screaming as they got hit. I took a bullet in the thigh and another through the hand. I lost my rifle, and somebody fell on top of me with half his head missing.” “Uh … listen,” I said. “You don’t have to—” “I want to, friend.” He glanced quickly at me, then back to Dennis. I think I cringed when his gaze pierced me. “I want to tell it all. They were fighting and screaming and dying all around me, and I felt the bullets tug at my clothes as they passed through. I know I was screaming too, but what was coming out of my mouth sounded bestial. I ran. The only way I could save my own life was to step on their bodies and drive them down into the mud. I heard some of them choke and blubber as I put my boot on their faces. I knew all those guys like brothers … but at that moment they were only pieces of meat. I ran. A gunship chopper came over the paddy and laid down some fire, and that’s how I got out. Alone.” He bent his face closer toward the other man’s. “And you’d better believe I’m in that rice paddy in ’Nam every time I close my eyes. You’d better believe the men I left back there don’t rest easy. So you keep your opinions about ’Nam and being ‘behind you guys’ to yourself, Mr. Trooper. I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Got it?” Dennis sat very still. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that, not even from a ’Nam vet, and I saw the shadow of anger pass over his face. Price’s hands were trembling as he brought a little bottle out of his jeans pocket. He shook two blue-and-orange capsules out onto the counter, took them both with a swallow of coffee, and then recapped the bottle and put it away. The flesh of his face looked almost ashen in the dim light. “I know you boys had a rough time,” Dennis said, “but that’s no call to show disrespect to the law.” “The law,” Price repeated. “Yeah. Right. Bullshit.” “There are women and children present,” I reminded him. “Watch your language.” Price rose from his seat. He looked like a skeleton with just a little extra skin on the bones. “Mister, I haven’t slept for more than thirty-six hours. My nerves are shot. I don’t mean to cause trouble, but when some fool says he understands, I feel like kicking his teeth down his throat—because no one who wasn’t there can pretend to understand.” He glanced at Ray, Lindy, and the kids. “Sorry, folks. Don’t mean to disturb you. Friend, how much do I owe?” He started digging for his wallet. Dennis slid slowly from his seat and stood with his hands on his hips. “Hold it.” He used his trooper’s voice again. “If you think I’m lettin’ you walk out of here high on pills and needin’ sleep, you’re crazy. I don’t want to be scrapin’ you off the highway.” Price paid him no attention. He took a couple of dollars from his wallet and put them on the counter. I didn’t touch them. “Those pills will help keep me awake,” Price said. “Once I get on the road, I’ll be fine.” “Fella, I wouldn’t let you go if it was high noon and not a cloud in the sky. I sure as hell don’t want to clean up after the accident you’re gonna have. Now, why don’t you come along to the Holiday Inn and—” Price laughed grimly. “Mr. Trooper, the last place you want me staying is at a motel.” He cocked his head to one side. “I was in a motel in Florida a couple of nights ago, and I think I left my room a little untidy. Step aside and let me pass.” “A motel in Florida?” Dennis nervously licked his lower lip. “What the hell you talkin’ about?” “Nightmares and reality, Mr. Trooper. The point where they cross. A couple of nights ago, they crossed at a motel. I wasn’t going to let myself sleep. I was just going to rest for a little while, but I didn’t know they’d come so fast.” A mocking smile played at the edges of his mouth, but his eyes were tortured. “You don’t want me staying at that Holiday Inn, Mr. Trooper. You really don’t. Now, step aside.” I saw Dennis’ hand settle on the butt of his revolver. His fingers unsnapped the fold of leather that secured the gun in the holster. I stared at him numbly. My God, I thought. What’s goin’ on? My heart had started pounding so hard I was sure everybody could hear it. Ray and Lindy were watching, and Cheryl was backing away behind the counter. Price and Dennis faced each other for a moment, as the rain whipped against the windows and thunder boomed like shellfire. Then Price sighed, as if resigning himself to something. He said, “I think I want a T-bone steak. Extra rare. How ’bout it?” He looked at me. “A steak?” My voice was shaking. “We don’t have any T-bone—” Price’s gaze shifted to the counter right in front of me. I heard a sizzle. The aroma of cooking meat drifted up to me. “Oh … wow,” Cheryl whispered. A large T-bone steak lay on the countertop, pink and oozing blood. You could’ve fanned a menu in my face and I would’ve keeled over. Wisps of smoke were rising from the steak. The steak began to fade, until it was only an outline on the counter. The lines of oozing blood vanished. After the mirage was gone, I could still smell the meat—and that’s how I knew I wasn’t crazy. Dennis’ mouth hung open. Ray had stood up from the booth to look, and his wife’s face was the color of spoiled milk. The whole world seemed to be balanced on a point of silence—until the wail of the wind jarred me back to my senses. “I’m getting good at it,” Price said softly. “I’m getting very, very good. Didn’t start happening to me until about a year ago. I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing. What’s in your head comes true—as simple as that. Of course, the images only last for a few seconds—as long as I’m awake, I mean. I’ve found out that those other men were drenched by a chemical spray we called Howdy Doody—because it made you stiffen up and jerk like you were hanging on strings. I got hit with it near Khe Sahn. That shit almost suffocated me. It felt like black tar, and it burned the land down to a paved parking lot.” He stared at Dennis. “You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper. Not with the body count I’ve still got in my head.” “You … were at … that motel, near Daytona Beach?” Price closed his eyes. A vein had begun beating at his right temple, royal blue against the pallor of his flesh. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered. “I fell asleep, and I couldn’t wake myself up. I was having the nightmare. The same one. I was locked in it, and I was trying to scream myself awake.” He shuddered, and two tears ran slowly down his cheeks. “Oh,” he said, and flinched as if remembering something horrible. “They … they were coming through the door when I woke up. Tearing the door right off its hinges. I woke up … just as one of them was pointing his rifle at me. And I saw his face. I saw his muddy, misshapen face.” His eyes suddenly jerked open. “I didn’t know they’d come so fast.” “Who?” I asked him. “Who came so fast?” “The Nightcrawlers,” Price said, his face devoid of expression, masklike. “Dear God … maybe if I’d stayed asleep a second more. But I ran again, and I left those people dead in that motel.” “You’re gonna come with me.” Dennis started pulling his gun from the holster. Price’s head snapped toward him. “I don’t know what kinda fool game you’re—” He stopped, staring at the gun he held. It wasn’t a gun anymore. It was an oozing mass of hot rubber. Dennis cried out and slung the thing from his hand. The molten mess hit the floor with a pulpy splat. “I’m leaving now.” Price’s voice was calm. “Thank you for the coffee.” He walked past Dennis, toward the door. Dennis grasped a bottle of ketchup from the counter. Cheryl cried out, “Don’t!” but it was too late. Dennis was already swinging the bottle. It hit the back of Price’s skull and burst open, spewing ketchup everywhere. Price staggered forward, his knees buckling. When he went down, his skull hit the floor with a noise like a watermelon being dropped. His body began jerking involuntarily. “Got him!” Dennis shouted triumphantly. “Got that crazy bastard, didn’t I?” Lindy was holding the little girl in her arms. The boy craned his neck to see. Ray said nervously, “You didn’t kill him, did you?” “He’s not dead,” I told him. I looked over at the gun; it was solid again. Dennis scooped it up and aimed it at Price, whose body continued to jerk. Just like Howdy Doody, I thought. Then Price stopped moving. “He’s dead!” Cheryl’s voice was near-frantic. “Oh God, you killed him, Dennis!” Dennis prodded the body with the toe of his boot, then bent down. “Naw. His eyes are movin’ back and forth behind the lids.” Dennis touched his wrist to check the pulse, then abruptly pulled his own hand away. “Jesus Christ! He’s as cold as a meat locker!” He took Price’s pulse and whistled. “Goin’ like a racehorse at the Derby.” I touched the place on the counter where the mirage steak had been. My fingers came away slightly greasy, and I could smell the cooked meat on them. At that instant Price twitched. Dennis scuttled away from him like a crab. Price made a gasping, choking noise. “What’d he say?” Cheryl asked. “He said something!” “No he didn’t.” Dennis stuck him in the ribs with his pistol. “Come on. Get up.” “Get him out of here,” I said. “I don’t want him—” Cheryl shushed me. “Listen. Can you hear that?” I heard only the roar and crash of the storm. “Don’t you hear it?” she asked me. Her eyes were getting scared and glassy. “Yes!” Ray said. “Yes! Listen!” Then I did hear something, over the noise of the keening wind. It was a distant chuk-chuk-chuk, steadily growing louder and closer. The wind covered the noise for a minute, then it came back: CHUK-CHUK-CHUK, almost overhead. “It’s a helicopter!” Ray peered through the window. “Somebody’s got a helicopter out there!” “Ain’t nobody can fly a chopper in a storm!” Dennis told him. The noise of rotors swelled and faded, swelled and faded … and stopped. On the floor, Price shivered and began to contort into a fetal position. His mouth opened; his face twisted in what appeared to be agony. Thunder spoke. A red fireball rose up from the woods across the road and hung lazily in the sky for a few seconds before it descended toward the diner. As it fell, the fireball exploded soundlessly into a white, glaring eye of light that almost blinded me. Price said something in a garbled, panicked voice. His eyes were tightly closed, and he had squeezed up with his arms around his knees. Dennis rose to his feet; he squinted as the eye of light fell toward the parking lot and winked out in a puddle of water. Another fireball floated up from the woods, and again blossomed into painful glare. Dennis turned toward me. “I heard him.” His voice was raspy. “He said . . . ‘Charlie’s in the light.’” As the second flare fell to the ground and illuminated the parking lot, I thought I saw figures crossing the road. They walked stiff-legged, in an eerie cadence. The flare went out. “Wake him up,” I heard myself whisper. “Dennis … dear God … wake him up.” 4 Dennis stared stupidly at me, and I started to jump across the counter to get to Price myself. A gout of flame leapt in the parking lot. Sparks marched across the concrete. I shouted, “Get down!” and twisted around to push Cheryl back behind the shelter of the counter. “What the hell—” Dennis said. He didn’t finish. There was the metallic thumping of bullets hitting the gas pumps and the cars. I knew if that gas blew we were all dead. My truck shuddered with the impact of slugs, and I saw the whole thing explode as I ducked behind the counter. Then the windows blew inward with a god-awful crash, and the diner was full of flying glass, swirling wind, and sheets of rain. I heard Lindy scream, and both the kids were crying, and I think I was shouting something myself. The lights had gone out, and the only illumination was the reflection of red neon off the concrete and the glow of the fluorescents over the gas pumps. Bullets whacked into the wall, and crockery shattered as if it had been hit with a hammer. Napkins and sugar packets were flying everywhere. Cheryl was holding on to me as if her fingers were nails sunk to my bones. Her eyes were wide and dazed, and she kept trying to speak. Her mouth was working, but nothing came out. There was another explosion as one of the other cars blew. The whole place shook, and I almost puked with fear. Another hail of bullets hit the wall. They were tracers, and they jumped and ricocheted like white-hot cigarette butts. One of them sang off the edge of a shelf and fell to the floor about three feet away from me. The glowing slug began to fade, like the beer can and the mirage steak. I put my hand out to find it, but all I felt was splinters of glass and crockery. A phantom bullet, I thought. Real enough to cause damage and death—and then gone. You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper, Price had warned. Not with the body count I’ve got in my head. The firing stopped. I got free of Cheryl and said, “You stay right here.” Then I looked up over the counter and saw my truck and the station wagon on fire, the flames being whipped by the wind. Rain slapped me across the face as it swept in where the window glass used to be. I saw Price lying still huddled on the floor, with pieces of glass all around him. His hands were clawing the air, and in the flickering red neon his face was contorted, his eyes still closed. The pool of ketchup around his head made him look like his skull had been split open. He was peering into hell, and I averted my eyes before I lost my own mind. Ray and Lindy and the two children had huddled under the table of their booth. The woman was sobbing brokenly. I looked at Dennis, lying a few feet from Price: he was sprawled on his face, and there were four holes punched through his back. It was not ketchup that ran in rivulets around Dennis’ body. His right arm was outflung, and the fingers twitched around the gun he gripped. Another flare sailed up from the woods like a Fourth of July sparkler. When the light brightened, I saw them: at least five figures, maybe more. They were crouched over, coming across the parking lot—but slowly, the speed of nightmares. Their clothes flapped and hung around them, and the flare’s light glanced off their helmets. They were carrying weapons—rifles, I guessed. I couldn’t see their faces, and that was for the best. On the floor, Price moaned. I heard him say “light … in the light …” The flare hung right over the diner. And then I knew what was going on. We were in the light. We were all caught in Price’s nightmare, and the Nightcrawlers that Price had left in the mud were fighting the battle again—the same way it had been fought at the Pines Haven Motor Inn. The Nightcrawlers had come back to life, powered by Price’s guilt and whatever that Howdy Doody shit had done to him. And we were in the light, where Charlie had been out in that rice paddy. There was a noise like castanets clicking. Dots of fire arced through the broken windows and thudded into the counter. The stools squealed as they were hit and spun. The cash register rang and the drawer popped open, and then the entire register blew apart and bills and coins scattered. I ducked my head, but a wasp of fire—I don’t, know what, a bit of metal or glass maybe—sliced my left cheek open from ear to upper lip. I fell to the floor behind the counter with blood running down my face. A blast shook the rest of the cups, saucers, plates, and glasses off the shelves. The whole roof buckled inward, throwing loose ceiling tiles, light fixtures, and pieces of metal framework. We were all going to die. I knew it, right then. Those things were going to destroy us. But I thought of the pistol in Dennis’ hand, and of Price lying near the door. If we were caught in Price’s nightmare and the blow from the ketchup bottle had broken something in his skull, then the only way to stop his dream was to kill him. I’m no hero. I was about to piss in my pants, but I knew I was the only one who could move. I jumped up and scrambled over the counter, falling beside Dennis and wrenching at that pistol. Even in death, Dennis had a strong grip. Another blast came, along the wall to my right. The heat of it scorched me, and the shock wave skidded me across the floor through glass and rain and blood. But I had that pistol in my hand. I heard Ray shout, “Look out!” In the doorway, silhouetted by flames, was a skeletal thing wearing muddy green rags. It wore a dented-in helmet and carried a corroded, slime-covered rifle. Its face was gaunt and shadowy, the features hidden behind a scum of rice-paddy muck. It began to lift the rifle to fire at me—slowly, slowly … I got the safety off the pistol and fired twice, without aiming. A spark leapt off the helmet as one of the bullets was deflected, but the figure staggered backward and into the conflagration of the station wagon, where it seemed to melt into ooze before it vanished. More tracers were coming in. Cheryl’s Volkswagen shuddered, the tires blowing out almost in unison. The state-trooper car was already bullet-riddled and sitting on flats. Another Nightcrawler, this one without a helmet and with slime covering the skull where the hair had been, rose up beyond the window and fired its rifle. I heard the bullet whine past my ear, and as I took aim I saw its bony finger tightening on the trigger again. A skillet flew over my head and hit the thing’s shoulder, spoiling its aim. For an instant the skillet stuck in the Nightcrawler’s body, as if the figure itself was made out of mud. I fired once … twice … and saw pieces of matter fly from the thing’s chest. What might’ve been a mouth opened in a soundless scream, and the thing slithered out of sight. I looked around. Cheryl was standing behind the counter, weaving on her feet, her face white with shock. “Get down!” I shouted, and she ducked for cover. I crawled to Price, shook him hard. His eyes would not open. “Wake up!” I begged him. “Wake up, damn you!” And then I pressed the barrel of the pistol against Price’s head. Dear God, I didn’t want to kill anybody, but I knew I was going to have to blow the Nightcrawlers right out of his brain. I hesitated—too long. Something smashed into my left collarbone. I heard the bone snap like a broomstick being broken. The force of the shot slid me back against the counter and jammed me between two bullet-pocked stools. I lost the gun, and there was a roaring in my head that deafened me. I don’t know how long I was out. My left arm felt like dead meat. All the cars in the lot were burning, and there was a hole in the diner’s roof that a tractor-trailer truck could’ve dropped through. Rain was sweeping into my face, and when I wiped my eyes clear I saw them, standing over Price. There were eight of them. The two I thought I’d killed were back. They trailed weeds, and their boots and ragged clothes were covered with mud. They stood in silence, staring down at their living comrade. I was too tired to scream. I couldn’t even whimper. I just watched. Price’s hands lifted into the air. He reached for the Nightcrawlers, and then his eyes opened. His pupils were dead white, surrounded by scarlet. “End it,” he whispered. “End it …” One of the Nightcrawlers aimed its rifle and fired. Price jerked. Another Nightcrawler fired, and then they were all firing point-blank into Price’s body. Price thrashed and clutched at his head, but there was no blood; the phantom bullets weren’t hitting him. The Nightcrawlers began to ripple and fade. I saw the flames of the burning cars through their bodies. The figures became transparent, floating in vague outlines. Price had awakened too fast at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, I realized; if he had remained asleep, the creatures of his nightmares would’ve ended it there, at that Florida motel. They were killing him in front of me—or he was allowing them to end it, and I think that’s what he must’ve wanted for a long, long time. He shuddered, his mouth releasing a half-moan, half-sigh. It sounded almost like relief. The Nightcrawlers vanished. Price didn’t move anymore. I saw his face. His eyes were closed, and I think he must’ve found peace at last. 5 A trucker hauling lumber from Mobile to Birmingham saw the burning cars. I don’t even remember what he looked like. Ray was cut up by glass, but his wife and the kids were okay. Physically, I mean. Mentally, I couldn’t say. Cheryl went into the hospital for a while. I got a postcard from her with the Golden Gate Bridge on the front. She promised she’d write and let me know how she was doing, but I doubt if I’ll ever hear from her. She was the best waitress I ever had, and I wish her luck. The police asked me a thousand questions, and I told the story the same way every time. I found out later that no bullets or shrapnel were ever dug out of the walls or the cars or Dennis’ body—just like in the case of that motel massacre. There was no bullet in me, though my collarbone was snapped clean in two. Price had died of a massive brain hemorrhage. It looked, the police told me, as if it had exploded in his skull. I closed the diner. Farm life is fine. Alma understands, and we don’t talk about it. But I never showed the police what I found, and I don’t know exactly why not. I picked up Price’s wallet in the mess. Behind a picture of a smiling young woman holding a baby there was a folded piece of paper. On that paper were the names of four men. Beside one name, Price had written “Dangerous.” I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing, Price had said. I sit up at night a lot, thinking about that and looking at those names. Those men had gotten a dose of that Howdy Doody shit in a foreign place they hadn’t wanted to be, fighting a war that turned out to be one of those crossroads of nightmare and reality. I’ve changed my mind about ’Nam because I understand now that the worst of the fighting is still going on, in the battlefields of memory. A Yankee who called himself Tompkins came to my house one May morning and flashed me an ID that said he worked for a veterans’ association. He was very soft-spoken and polite, but he had deep-set eyes that were almost black, and he never blinked. He asked me all about Price, seemed real interested in picking my brain of every detail. I told him the police had the story, and I couldn’t add any more to it. Then I turned the tables and asked him about Howdy Doody. He smiled in a puzzled kind of way and said he’d never heard of any chemical defoliant called that. No such thing, he said. Like I say, he was very polite. But I know the shape of a gun tucked into a shoulder holster. Tompkins was wearing one under his seersucker coat. I never could find any veterans’ association that knew anything about him, either. Maybe I should give that list of names to the police. Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll try to find those four men myself, and try to make some sense out of what’s being hidden. I don’t think Price was evil. No. He was just scared, and who can blame a man for running from his own nightmares? I like to believe that, in the end, Price had the courage to face the Nightcrawlers, and in committing suicide he saved our lives. The newspapers, of course, never got the real story. They called Price a ’Nam vet who’d gone crazy, killed six people in a Florida motel, and then killed a state trooper in a shoot-out at Big Bob’s diner and gas stop. But I know where Price is buried. They sell little American flags at the five-and-dime in Mobile. I’m alive, and I can spare the change. And then I’ve got to find out how much courage I have.

From Horror photos & videos June 23, 2018 at 08:00PM

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