Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20181208094813

Not really sure about the pacing. And while I like the dream sequence, I'm not really sure if it fits in this chapter. I might take it and put it somewhere later in the story, not sure.

Chapter XVI

The front doors to my father’s house were as they had always been, warm and inviting. Yet a coldness seemed to be in them, as if they opened into the halls of a morgue. A little over a week had passed since I’d read the contents of Mike’s journal and I’d seen the message on the wall, and in that week, I’d been avoiding Jan like the plague, though it was difficult to accomplish without completely turning a cold shoulder. My brother Vinnie, a long-haired teenager just a year out of high-school with an attitude problem he’d inherited from my younger days, gave me a hesitant look before I knocked on the door. There was a shuffling in the living room, after which the door was eased open to reveal the face of a bald, doe-eyed man.

“Oh! Dan and Vinnie!” he cried in a thick accent, pulling open the door more, revealing the inside of the house, as pristine and spacious as it had always been.

“Sengdao!” I greeted, taking a step back, instinctually switching away from my predominant language, as I always did whenever I came home. “Wasn’t expecting you here.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, his smile wide and toothy. “I’ve been helping out Phon ever since he started the treatment.”

“That’s good,” Vinnie replied, followed by a chuckle. “Hey, you still like watermelon?”

Sengdao reared his head back and gave a hearty laugh and waved for us to come in.

“Oh, yes,” he laughed. “I should be asking you the same.”

I said, “It’s been a while, but I still enjoy a slice or two.”

“Well, come on in the kitchen. I’ve got some tea brewing for Phon, and plenty of watermelon in the fridge.”

“Where’s Dad?” Vinnie asked, eying the notably new furnishings.

“Oh, he’s up in his office. Think he’s going over the will one last time before he talks to you two about it.” He stopped by the stove and took down a box of tea packets. “Tea?”

We nodded our heads politely.

“But first, let me fix you some watermelon. Oh, it’s been too long. Hard to believe you’re both out of high school. I hear you got your bachelor’s?”

I nodded as Sengdao took out the watermelon and began to slice it, the sun from the open windows gleaming off of his shiny head.

“Oh, yes, that’s good to hear. Psychology?”

“Yes, sir.”

He grinned as he handed Vinnie his watermelon slice and began to prepare my own.

“I hear you’re working at that hospital? For the crazies?”

“Yup. Sometimes I wonder if maybe they should stick me in there, haha.”

He looked at Vinnie and twirled his finger by his head and laughed. He handed me the plate.

“So, what are you doing, Vinnie, now that you’re out of school?”

He shrugged and took a bite from the watermelon.

“Just working at the moment. I’m renting out an apartment with some friends.”

“Oh, where do you work?”

“Over at the Nissan plant in Smyrna.”

“You live there?” he asked as he began to prepare our tea.

“Yeah.”

“I see. You plan on going to college?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Heh, maybe you should take a lesson from Dan. You’re a smart kid.”

Vinnie frowned and said, “Yeah, that’s what Dad says.”

“Well, he’s a smart man, Vinnie. You should listen to him from time to time.”

Vinnie threw down his fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Can we go upstairs?” he asked curtly.

“Yes. I’ll bring up the tea when it’s done.”

Sengdao eyed my brother from the corners of his eyes as Vinnie stomped upstairs, the Dr. Martens I’d given him thudding loudly against the floor. I finished my watermelon and gave Sengdao an apologetic look before following suit. As we climbed the stairs, my mind went back to the previous day.

Jan had been missing from Lunar Skies, and even though I told myself not to worry about it, I couldn’t help but ask Joe where she had been. He told me that he’d heard that she’d been allowed to leave overnight, though he didn’t know where she had gone or why. I tried to erase the unusual circumstances from my mind, but I couldn’t help but to worry about her, a kind of protective feeling clinging to the corners of my mind.

Vinnie interrupted my thoughts by banging loudly on the door. Dad opened it and grimaced at Vinnie, his head just as bald as Sengdao’s.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” he asked.

“Sorry,” Vinnie responded before shoving past my father and plopping himself into the seat against the wall.

“Hey, Dad,” I greeted with a hug.

“Hey, son. Sengdao get Dan worked up?”

Vinnie huffed and bounced his leg, hands shoved firmly in his pockets.

“Eh, he was just telling him he should go to college like me.”

Dad chuckled, and I could see Vinnie’s face relax a little. Dad just had that kind of laugh. Like a warm trickle of sunlight entering any room it found itself in, no matter how hot the room was.

“Sengdao’s a nice guy, but sometimes he pries a bit. But he means well.”

Vinnie forced a smile and eyed the stack of papers on Dad’s desk.

“Can we just get this over with? I’ve gotta get to work in an hour and a half, and I still need to shower.”

Dad huffed and nodded his head, flipping through the papers one last time, coughing violently.

“Alright, Vinnie, since I guess you’re not here to visit, I’ll just get straight to it, then. Dan, I know you’ve said before that you couldn’t afford to pay bills for the house and such, so I’m gonna sell it and leave the money to you. You’ll also be getting two-thirds of the inheritance, though for reasons I don’t think I need to explain, I’m not going to say exactly how much that is. You’ll also get the Volkswagen as well as your mother’s china set.”

I nodded my head, not really sure what I was supposed to say. My mind was back at Lunar Skies, where money seemed to have no importance. A world secluded from the problems of normal people. Problems like wills and lung cancer. Where problems circled around making sure nobody acted crazy. Because then the craziness might spread out away from the bubble. Except it did. In reality, there was no bubble, only walls. And though I’d felt this realization before, I began to have the first inklings of knowing it when Darius first walked into the staff room the day before.

“Hey Dan,” he’d rumbled after sauntering in with a clipboard, “you got a Clay Shingle wanting to speak with you.”

When I heard that, my shoulders tightened, and I spilled the sugar packet around my coffee.

“Tell him I’m busy,” I said.

Darius ambled over to the vending machine and put in a dollar. A Coke thundered down and made me wince.

“Said it was important,” he continued. “Somethin’ about a friend of yours.”

I grunted and stirred the coffee violently, responding with a reluctant “Fine.”

I was brought back to the present by Sengdao coming in with our tea. My dad thanked him and Sengdao left, smiling widely at us as he shut the door. Dad took a sip of the tea and smacked his lips. I did the same and nearly spat it back out, the flavor stabbing at the gums of my mouth.

“What the hell kind of tea is this?” I asked. “It tastes like cat piss!”

Vinnie took a sip as well and grimaced. Dad gave me a puzzled look and replied, “It’s just green tea. Same kind I’ve always drank. Tastes fine to me.”

I shook my head and Vinnie set down the tea.

“So, what do I get?” he demanded.

Dad coughed and said, “Well, you’ll be getting the Nissan, the grandfather clock, any of the furniture you want, and a third of the inheritance money.”

Vinnie stared at him with eyes that screamed for a punchline. Eyes that demanded more lest someone be murdered.

“A third?” he scoffed. “Really? I just get a third? And Dan gets the money from the house and the extra two-thirds?”

“Well, you’re also going to be getting the Nissan and your picking of the furniture. It’s nice furniture, you know. Your mother picked out most of it. The grandfather clock, too.”

“Where the hell am I going to put all this damn furniture? I live in a two-bedroom apartment with furniture already in it. And I don’t want that piece of shit Nissan, the damn thing is almost as old as I am. And I make them all goddamn day long, you think I want to drive one?”

Dad rolled his eyes and hung his head in his hand.

“Vinnie, would you not be a such a smartass for once?”

“You just don’t get it, do you Dad? You always play favorites. Dan was always the good one, the responsible one—”

“Oh, don’t give me that. Before he moved out, he was the troublemaker and you were the good one. And Dan used to say I played favorites with you, didn’t you, Dan?”

“I really don’t—"

Vinnie stood up, his eyes beginning to water up.

“Well, maybe that’s just your damn problem. You play favorites. And now you’re doing it when… when you’re gonna….”

Vinnie covered his mouth and stomped out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him. From outside could be heard the roaring of an engine and the screeching of tires. I looked back to my father, who suddenly seemed to look scarcely more than a skeleton in his leather chair. We said nothing to each other for a minute or so while the air-conditioner whirred in the background.

“I had a feeling he would do that,” he whispered, eyes cast to the ground. He looked up at me. “You know, originally I was going to split everything evenly. But Sengdao convinced me otherwise. He made me realize that if Vinnie got any significant amount of money, it’d be gone in a week.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking financial advice from Sengdao?”

He waved his hand and said, “No, no. I was just blinded by fatherly love. Vinnie’s always calling up asking if I can help him out with rent and food money. He blows half his money on cigarettes, and the other half on those damn video games. Probably smoking pot, too, but I don’t know that.”

I readjusted myself in my seat. Even though the air was cool, I felt uncomfortably hot.

“Dad, if you just gave him a chance or something—”

“No, no, Dan, don’t feel guilty. He has a lot of growing up to do. But I’m not going to see my life’s savings be flushed down the toilet. If he thought about it, he’d realize the antique furniture sets are worth a small fortune each, and that he could just fix up that Nissan and sell it. Or keep it and sell the car he has now. But he just wants to see everyone on his back. Just like you were after Lele passed away. Guess it’s because I’m next.”

I smiled softly.

“Guess I taught it to him, huh?”

“Guess so. But if you still feel bad about it after you get the money, nothing’s stopping you from sharing. Just keep in mind it might not be there for long.”

We sat in silence for a moment, the air heavy with the weight of the past. Something about that last sentence made my mind be yanked back to the phone call with Clay, as though I couldn’t keep myself away from it.

“Clay?” I’d asked after picking up the phone in the front lobby.

“Dan?”

“This is he.”

A sigh from the other end.

“Did anybody tell you why Jan’s not there today?”

“I heard she has an overnight pass. But that’s it. Why?”

“Okay, um, well uh…. Okay, I’m just going to explain what’s going on first.”

“Okay….”

“Jan’s parents passed away a few days ago in a car wreck, some giant red semi-truck ran into them on the interstate. The car landed in the ditch, but they couldn’t find the truck. But anyways, she’s with me at their funeral today. She asked her doctor if she could come, and I’m her trusted contact, so I’m with her to make sure she’s okay. She’ll be staying with me tonight and coming back tomorrow.”

I hesitated.

“But… what does this have to do with me?”

“Listen, I don’t know if you still have any doubts about what happened nine years ago, but—”

“I’ve really been trying to just get all of that out of my mind since I read that journal you gave me. I really, really don’t want any part of this.”

The receptionist gave me an odd look, but I ignored it.

“Dan, nothing happened for nine years, aside from a dream or two from Jan. And when you started interviewing her, things have started to get…. Listen, I don’t know what this thing wants—”

“Seems pretty obvious to me,” I interrupted. “It wants me to leave Jan alone, to just forget about the whole situation, and I am personally more than happy to oblige. I’ve got enough things to worry about.”

“Dan, she saw the Nameless again. And not in a dream.”

My mouth went dry.

“She saw him in her room the night before her parents were killed.”

“You don’t think—”

“I don’t know if it has anything to do with the accident, if that’s what you’re asking. But from what Jan told me, I think it’s done playing games with you. I think it’s pissed off.”

“But I stopped talking to Jan!” I yelled. “What the hell does it want?”

“I don’t know. But she said he was… crazier than usual.”

“What did it say?”

“You’d have to talk to Jan about that. But I wouldn’t ask her, she was bawling her eyes out when she called me the next morning. But Dan, I’ve seen what this thing is capable of, and quite frankly, I’m fucking goddamn tired of having to be there to pick up the pieces nine years later. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life worrying about this.”

“What… what are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know. But I want to know what’s going on here. I want to have a normal fucking life. I’ve already lost Mike. And Jan… you know how she turned out. And I dunno, maybe I should have just left like Rosa did. Just run away to New Orleans. but I just couldn’t let Jan rot in there without any friends or family to visit her. I still can’t.”

“Clay, what are you trying to tell me?”

A sigh. “Dan, I want to figure out what it wants. Because after what just happened, I don’t think this is something we can ignore. Like I said, I don’t know if Jan seeing it and the wreck are related, but my intuition is making me really worried. I want to find out what this thing wants and try to find out how to stop it. And I’d like you to help me.”

I hung my head and rubbed my temple.

“Well, from what I know, and after reading Mike’s journal, I would say it wants… people?”

“Then why did it leave Jan alone for nine years after taking Mike?”

“I don’t know. But how the hell do you expect to… to…. You know what? This is insane. You can go call up a priest, rabbi, exorcist, whatever, but it won’t do a damn. You can keep digging at this and making it worse for yourself, but I’m done.”

“You started this, Dan,” he snapped. “It wasn’t until you started sticking your nose into this that weird shit started to happen again, so I think it’s the least you can goddamn do. And you know what? Fuck you. You were the only friend Jan has had in that place since the moment she set foot in there. She doesn’t have a lot. And for you to just turn your back like that is fucked up. I’d do some serious thinking, if I were you.”

He hung up. I turned to the receptionist, who quickly averted my gaze.

“You okay, son?” Dad asked. I realized that I had been staring at the same spot on the floor for the past couple of minutes.

“Yeah,” I coughed. The word seemed to hang in my throat like a bloody rag.

“You sure?” His eyes penetrated mine, and I could tell that he could sense something off about me. Of course, I wasn’t okay. But I wasn’t sure how I could possibly tell him there was a mysterious entity that had killed before and was possibly murdering people now, and that I was expected to help somehow. But… he was dying. I could tell in his cough, in his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. I didn’t want to spend the last few months I had left with my father pushing him away, making us strangers to each other.

“Well,” I began, “I suppose not.”

He leaned forward, his forehead wrinkled into deep crevices. “What is it?”

“It’s just…. You see, I have this friend, and she uh…. She’s going through a tough time. She had a friend from a long time ago that went missing.”

“Murdered?” he asked.

“Er, I don’t know. But the person that abducted them… they’re really bad. Crazy. Insane. And… they’ve come back after I met this friend. They’ve been following me, they’ve been following my friend. Possibly killed her parents.”

His eyes were grim, and his shoulders were stiff.

“Have you gone to the police about this?”

I thought about when Jan mentioned that the cops hadn’t been able to find any sign of Mike after he disappeared.

“No. They’ve tried to look for him before, but they never can. They’re useless.”

He looked at the door for a moment before his eyes met mine again.

“Is this why you’re thinking about getting a gun?”

“Yeah. But the thing is… I’ve tried to do what he wants. I’ve tried to distance myself away from my friend. But I got a call yesterday. This… person is still after my friend, and possibly me.”

“You need to go to the police, Dan,” he urged, eyes wide and hands trembling. “You need to go to them straight away, on your way home. Can you promise me that?”

I swallowed and nodded my head, though I had no intention of doing so. There was nothing they could do.

“I’m conflicted, though,” I continued, my leg bouncing uncontrollably. “Because… on one hand, I don’t want to involve myself with a murderer. I don’t want any part of that. But at the same time, I don’t want to abandon my friend. I… I just don’t know what to do.”

He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he rose from his chair and went over to the window and raised the blinds, sparkling sunshine piercing the stuffy room. Outside birds chirped and sang while the trees swayed in the breeze. Dad stared out of the window.

“You know I love you, Dan,” he said after a minute. “I love you and your brother more than anything in the world. I would hate to lose either of you. And for that, I would tell you to stay as far away from this as possible. However…” he turned around and gave me a baleful look, “I do value honor and integrity. You’re not a child anymore. You’re a man, now. I can’t protect you. And I would feel like a failure if I never taught you how to be a man. Dan, I can tell you’re scared. That means you aren’t stupid. But that is where you have either the choice to be a man or a coward.”

He sat back down in his chair, dust floating in the sunlight. He gave into a fit of coughing before continuing.

“A coward always gives in to fear. He will ignore the needs of his family, friends, and strangers to ensure his own survival. But a man will acknowledge the fear and push through it, if the need arises. You say your friend is in danger?”

I nodded my head. He rubbed his head briefly.

“Then you should help her, Dan. As much as I hate the implications, you need to help those you care about. You should be afraid of dangers, but do not let them rule your life. Do not be a coward. If I had a choice between leaving you money or that piece of advice, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter. Because you and Vinnie are my legacies. You two are my gifts to the world. And I wouldn’t be able to call myself a decent parent if I didn’t turn out sons better than myself. Does that help at all?”

I gave a nervous laugh and smiled at him.

“Come here, son.” He stretched out his arms, and we hugged each other hard. It was a long, heartfelt hug.

“I love you, son,” he said. “I know you’ll get through all of this okay. And when I’m gone, I know you’ll be able to make the right decisions.”

He squeezed me tighter, but I dared not return this, for his body felt frail and skeletal in my arms, like his bones were made of glass. It was then that I noticed it. My eyes began to feel hot. The smell was gone, the smell I’d grown accustomed to ever since he’d begun his treatment.

I pulled my head back, and he released his arms.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Are… are you still…. Are you still in chemo?”

His eyes grew heavy, and he sat back down in the leather chair.

“No, son.”

“Wh… why not?”

“Money. I was hoping you wouldn’t have to know. But… I can’t afford the copays anymore. Not without going into a lot of debt. A lot of debt that would fall on you and Vinnie. My life’s savings is almost gone, and even though the doctors said not to lose hope… I know it’s hopeless. I’m going to die. No point in drawing it out and putting a burden on you for it.”

I was lost for words. For five, miserable minutes we sat in cold silence, the sunlight now feeling alien and monstrous. He stood up and closed the blinds.

“Just…. Just don’t tell your brother, Daniel. He doesn’t need to know.”

I nodded and stood up to leave, not knowing what else to do. I felt less at home and more like I was in a tomb, the air dusty and smelling of bone.

He made me promise again to stop by the police station on my way home, and though it pained me to lie to him, I did so to ease his mind despite having no intention to do so. We hugged again in the front door, while Sengdao lurked in the kitchen, making my father more tea.

After I left, dark clouds began to hover in the sky, and soon lightning and rain began to roll heavily down like an airstrike, dousing the countryside in napalm. I stopped at a gas station to refill my tank and buy a pack of cigarettes, cursing myself for still having the same vice that had given my father his cancer. When I stepped outside under the overhang, I went over to the icebox and lit a cigarette, admiring the way the rain seemed to scream at the pedestrians and myself. I pulled out my phone and found Clay’s number, which I had gotten from the receptionist after he’d called, just in case I ever needed it. I was about to call the number when my phone began to ring.

It was Kurt.

“Hello?”

“Hey Daniel. I was just wondering how those interviews are coming along.”

“Oh, uh, they’re going good. Lot of uh, lot of interesting stuff.”

His voice peaked. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

I thought back to our last conversation, back before I’d ever had my first interview with Jan. I thought about the money. The shady business.

“Uh, well, first I was wanting to ask if you ever found out why they’re giving you guys so much money.”

I could almost hear him begin to sweat.

“Well… uh… it… you see….”

“What? What is it?”

“Uh, well, it turns out that um… one of the department heads kind of uh… raped one of the girls we’re working with. And uh, he offered her to give us a large sum of pocket money in return for her to not press charges.”

“So… this money… is from a rapist?”

He laughed evasively. “Yeah, but hey, money’s money, right?”

I thought back to what Jan had told me. About how she had been raped. I thought back to her reliving the experience, telling me about how it had made her feel so ugly, so monstrous inside. And then I thought back to what my father had told me not twenty minutes prior.

“I don’t want it.”

“W-what?”

“You heard me. I don’t want the money.”

“You aren’t serious? You are Daniel Chanthavong, right? The same guy who streaked for ten bucks?”

“Kurt, I’m not going to take your rape money. And furthermore, I don’t think I’ll be giving you those recordings from the interviews, either.”

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You’re supposed to be my friend, and you’re just gonna leave me hanging like that?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, you son of a bitch. My ass is on the line, over here! I’m way behind schedule, and I’ve got—”

I hung up before he could finish.

*  *     *     *  *

Jan was not enjoying her day at Dingle Burger. The entire town of Maysburg seemed to have decided to drop in for their dosage of grease, and she was absolutely swamped. Even their manager, Jim Bobshed, who was normally the anchor on the ship, had become dizzied and irritable. During the lunchtime rush, he’d taken it upon himself to scream at one girl for making a Big Bubba Burger instead of a Chicken Dingle Supreme—something nobody had even known him to be capable of doing.

And Jan felt bad for the regulars, too, as Jim had always made customer service an important quality in the restaurant, especially for the familiar faces. One man by the name of Howie, who was morbidly obese and barely in his thirties that ate there at least once a day, seemed to be on the verge of tears when Jan had to quite bluntly explain to him that she had no time to chit-chat and that she really did not care how his mail-man had accidentally put his social security check in the neighbor’s mailbox. She felt awful for it, like a monster. But an approving eye from Jim slightly eased the guilt.

“Excuse me,” a middle-aged blonde woman with three pampered-looking children behind her snapped.

“Hi, welcome to Dingle Burger, home of the Dingle Burger, may I take your order?” Jan recited—Jim, though vexed as he was, had been adamant that they still say the customary Dingle Burger greeting.

The woman squinted at the menu and scowled.

“What’s the secret ingredient?” she demanded. “And are the cattle grass-fed? Is the food organic or processed? My kids all want the Dingle Burger, but I want to know what they’re eating.

“I’m sorry, but we’re not allowed to give out the secret ingredient,” Jan rushed, blushing and smiling politely. There was a very long line behind the mother. “And I don’t know if the cattle were grass-fed or not. But there are vegetarian options if you want something organic.”

The woman’s face seemed to boil to the point of explosion.

“How do you expect me to order something if I don’t know what’s in it?”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but even if I did know the secret ingredient, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you.”

“I’d like to speak to your manager, please.”

“Jim!” Jan yelled to the back area, where Jim was working one of the fryers. He looked up and Jan jerked her head towards the scarlet-faced woman, while her kids ogled the display case showing off the different toys they could get. Jim threw down the basket and stomped over to the counter, and Jan busied herself with the other customers while Jim took the woman’s tirade like a champ, calmly explaining that it was corporate policy not to give out the secret ingredient.

While she took the orders, Jan could feel a set of predatory eyes upon her, though she could not find out where they came from. It wasn’t until the woman had finally stormed out with the promise of going to Burger King instead that Jan spied the man in the parking lot on the other side of the street in front of a Ford dealership. The sight of him made her heart smash like a war hammer against her chest and her lungs work violently. She would recognize that mane of brown hair and slight potbelly anywhere.

“Hey, uh, Jan?” Howie asked, sweating profusely and eyeing the swath of people around him nervously. “May I get a, uh, refill, please?”

Normally, Jan would have refilled his Diet Mountain Dew for him, because she knew that it was really just a way for him to be able to make idle chit-chat with someone, but she did not have the time nor the patience for it.

“Howie, you know there’s a drink machine right there you can use yourself.”

The large man blushed and bustled over to the drink machine and quickly left. But Jan was more worried about the ghost across the street—or rather, the fact that he was no longer across the street, but standing in the middle of the road, the cars zipping by him without notice. His hair hung over a sickly face and he grinned. She turned her head down to the register and grabbed a wad of cash and a handful of change.

“Excuse me!” the dark-haired man in front of her cried. “But I’m short two bucks and thirty-seven cents!”

Jan quickly counted out the rest of the change, ignoring the man carefully glaring at her hands.

“Keep up, Jan,” Jim murmured from next to her ear. His tone was stern but not unkind.

She handed the dark-haired man his correct change and nearly bit her tongue. The ghost was strolling over from next door, across the front windows, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Hey!” the blonde-woman spat, having returned despite her promise to never return.

“What?” Jan snapped at her in a tone she didn’t very much like.

“Where’s my son? He was in here, and when I went out to my car, he was gone. Have you seen him?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen him,” Jan said. She got the sense that Jim was inwardly grinning as he offered to help her. But she gave it no heed, for Michael Erikson had just appeared in front of the register, giving her a wolfish grin that stretched the sallow skin of his face, grimmer than she remembered. She gave a shriek and could feel tears well up in her eyes as her heart began to beat harder and faster than before as sweat trickled down her back and her legs began to go numb.

“Hey, there, Janice,” he said, his voice slippery and oiled, yet somehow still Mike’s. “I’ve got an order I’d like to make.”

Jan glanced to the back door briefly and then scanned the faces of everyone else there. Nobody was paying her any attention.

“W-what would you like?” she asked, putting a trembling finger to the register.

He grinned and tilted his head up at the menu.

“I think I’ll take the Big Bubba Burger and a large Coke. You should have an extra in the back, shouldn’t you? Just put extra ketchup on it. Lots of it. You know, red is my favorite color, after all. Used to be green, but red is much more dangerous. Like blood. Ooey-gooey, icky blood.”

Jan didn’t say anything but nodded her head and tried to focus on the motion her hands made as they put in the order and as she gave Mike his change. But she couldn’t ignore the smell of blood on his breath as he spoke, and she couldn’t ignore the way he stared at her like a piece of meat from the back of the restaurant after he’d been given his food, puffing away in the smoking area while he meticulously nibbled at his meal. He didn’t leave for another hour, and for the whole time he was there, Jan never saw him take his eyes away from her, nor did she see him blink.

When four o’clock rolled around and Jan was finally able to escape, she quickly punched out before Jim could have a chance to request overtime. She needed to get away from there. She needed to be somewhere safe, someplace where she wasn’t exposed to the eyes and ire of false ghosts.

When she walked through her front door twenty minutes later, she glimpsed the black leather book lying on the coffee table while Dibby spat and snarled at it, but she didn’t hesitate for a moment before throwing it immediately in the trashcan, which she subsequently took out to the bin outside. She thought about calling Rosa, but then thought better of it. She had been so reliant on her friend as of late. It made her feel guilty. Like she was weak. She decided she needed to relax, so she drew the bath and put on quiet music, reading Lord of the Flies, forgetting her troubles as she became enveloped in the war between Ralph and Jack, the war between civility and savagery.

*  *     *     *  *

Perhaps an hour had gone by before she found herself slipping into a doze. She found herself in an empty room lit by fluorescent lights. Behind her was an open doorway that led into a flickering hallway, while the windows before her showed a sea of red, with monstrous creatures swimming and squirming past. She saw a shark with a gaping maw and twisted flesh approach the window, rows upon rows of endless teeth that led into a black abyss within the beast’s belly. It slammed against the window, reverberating throughout the room. She shrieked and closed her eyes, only to open them and find that the room had become furnished with a filthy mattress and a rotten dresser, upon which was a burnt picture.

Making sure the window was clear of monsters, she approached the picture to see that it was the picture a stranger had taken of her and her friends at the zoo, which though it had not been long before, felt like an eternity away from her present. The edges were crumpled and crisp, while Mike’s face had been singed away. A halo seemed to encircle Clay and Rosa, but she saw that her eyes had been blackened by some kind of goo. She threw down the picture and stuck her fingers in her mouth, tearing away at the nails. There was a ringing in her ears.

She heard the squeal of a pig and turned to the bed, where the decapitated head of a hog lied atop a yellowed and stained copy of Lord of the Flies. Gnats swam around the rotten head, which was bloated, splotched, and pale, as though it had been festering at the bottom of the sea.

“Kill the pig!” a voice screeched from her right. She turned to see Mike, rotten and emaciated, standing in the doorway. ''“Cut her throat! Spill her blood!”''

The man standing in the doorway reached out a hand, dripping in blood and holding a buck knife.

“Kill the pig!” the corpse bellowed.

She backed away while her heart hammered in her chest like a funeral toll. The small of her back exploded in pain, and she turned to see that she had backed into the corner of the desk, a large splinter lodged in her flesh, sawing at her open, sizzling nerves. Mike’s visage shambled a step closer, lips curled unnaturally.

“''Piggy! Piggy! Piggy! Piggy! Piggy!”'' he goaded, clouded eyes crazed with the buck knife reflected clearly within them.

The scent of the rotting pig’s head crept into her nostrils and made her queasy. She tried to scream but found that she had no mouth, only a stretched parchment of veiny skin. She gave a muffled gasp and clawed at her face, tearing open the skin over her mouth, and bloody teeth tumbled onto the dirty floor. Mike was growing steadily closer, skin pale and covered in peeling sores. She took the pig head and flung it at the mockery of her friend, who stumbled backwards for a moment. She took this brief lapse in time to bolt past him, her feet refusing to move as fast as she’d like, but quick enough, nonetheless.

The hallways were covered in black mold and the sickly green lights cast an eerie glow across the walls. She looked to her right to see that the hallway seemed to expand forever into blackness, while to the left she could see it sprawling away into branching corridors. She heard a grunt from behind her and turned around to find Mike cackling hoarsely and forcing the bloated pig head over his own, rank fluids dripping down his neck and down his body. He then unzipped his pants, out of which tumbled a scabbed, pulsating penis that was red and dragged along the floor. It twitched, and the head raised itself into the air, as though it were a snake sniffing for its prey.

Mike giggled to himself again from under the pig head and sang in a croaky voice, as though gravel were rattling in his throat, ''“Oh, don’t you want somebody to love? Don’t you need somebody to love?”''

The penis jerked its head to Jan, and yellow pus sprayed out of the tip across Jan’s front. She tried again to scream, but the pus had found its way into her mouth and down her throat, causing it to swell. Instead, she ran down the hall, but to her frustration she found that she was in her socks, which slid across the tiled floor. Through the cracks the yellow pus oozed, with clumped, black, snotty chunks trapped inside.

Janice took the first right, and the hallway here was burnt like the photograph, while blood sizzled down the walls and the sent of singed iron made her noise sting and itch. The swelling in her throat was making it harder to breathe, and she had to stop to catch her breath. She heard a rhythmical thumping behind her and turned around to see the leprotic penis inching its way around the corner, spitting pus and semen as lubrication. Mike emerged close behind her, now naked, his body burnt and rotted with deep throbbing scars in a v-shape down his chest and converging just below the sternum, continuing down his abdomen, as though he’d recently had an autopsy.

“Jan,” he hacked, the pig head now lopsided and drooping, the flickering lights making it all the more terrible, “What are we? Humans? Or Animals? Or savages?”

Jan found her feet again and took another turn, flames leaping out from the open doors, licking her skin. She felt something brush against her ankle, followed by a warm sensation on her leg. She looked down to see that the elongated phallus was trying to wind its way around her ankle, but she kicked it away, and tried to run faster. Yet, her legs seemed to become lead, and she began to slow.

“I am the window to your soul, Jan! Who would’ve ever known you to be a killer? ‘She’s a killer queen!’ Haha!”

Jan rounded another corner to see a burning crucifix in front of her, with the screaming body of an Asian man she did not recognize nailed to it. Behind the cross were the words Lunar Skies Psychiatric Hospital. A dead end.

Jan turned to see that Mike had become a shamble of dusty sinew with splintered bones poking through, the pig head more bloated than ever. Jan tried to scream, but the penis shot into her toothless mouth and squirted pus and semen that slid down her throat like rotten milk. She cast her eyes down and could see her throat swelling into her field of vision, the blood ready to burst from the skin. She wanted to scream, but the skin of the penis fused with her ballooning lips, and she could not scream.

“I am the Adaptive Manipulator!” Mike snarled, jerking towards her, knife outstretched. “I am the Aggressive Menace!”

The stink from the pig’s head slashed at her nose and fermented in the soft matter of her brain. “Do you know what I am, Jan? I AM! I AM!”

The blade slashed across her throat, hot and jagged, with viscous pus and blood exploding from her swollen gullet, splashing across the pig head like the canvas of a madman. She fell to the ground, the burning Asian man screaming like a stuck pig while the wire of flesh and bone hovered above her, rotten liquids dribbling down onto her face.

“Your world,” the pig coaxed, “your understandable and lawful world, is slipping away.”

The cuts that ran down his torso split open, and though his skin was dusty and taught, his bloody organs were moist and slippery. The mouth of the pig opened, and inside, it was the mouth of the shark: a gaping hole of gnarled fangs itching to gnash on her succulent flesh. The mouth wrapped itself around her head, and her world became that of darkness and teeth. 