

### The Mortal Coil Shuffle

C. W. Clark

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 C. W. Clark

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Other titles by C. W. Clark

8 Legs Up

Table of Contents

Part 1 - Definition

May 5th

August 18th

September 19th

Part 2 - Isolation

September 20th

September 30th

October 3rd

October 14th

October 15th

Part 3 - Emigration

October 16th

October 17th

October 19th

October 20th

October 21st

October 22nd

October 23rd

October 24th

Part 4 - Ghettoization

October 25th

October 27th

October 28th

October 29th

October 30th

Part 5 - Deportation

October 31st

Part 6 - Mass Murder

October 31st

November 1st

Part 7 - Rebirth

November 10th

Other Titles by Author
Part 1 - Definition

### May 5th

Garp

"Thank you, brothers and sisters. I could feel the hand of God in that song, and He was making miracles. Make no mistake, my brethren. God is present in all things. His will guides the worms in the earth and the birds in the sky and everything in between. I know it seems sometimes like He has abandoned us and the darkest hours are upon us, but He has a plan and every one of us plays a part in it. _Everyone except for my daughter, thank You very much. Not much of a plan left for the dead, is there?_

"Even when things don't make sense . . ." _Like why that adorable intern moved to Wisconsin and left me alone with my plastic surgery addict frankenwife_. ". . . and all the evils of the world are arrayed against you . . ." _Queue the IRS tax shelter eviction notices that are piled on my desk._ ". . . God is with you, and He loves you. The more people that accept this, the closer we will be to fulfilling His plan. Heaven is just around the corner.

"That's all the time we have for today. Be sure to get the word out. You can pick up some of my preachin' and teachin' materials at www.inyourfaith.com, and be sure to look for my latest book, The Word According to Garp. Thank you and God bless."

Reverend Edward Garp felt the angelic smile on his face slip a little as the audience filed out. It was hard to maintain the 'praise Jesus' persona week after week, but the bills had to be paid. It used to be that a man could believe in the things he said. It hadn't always been such a farce. In fact, early in his career, before he established his multi-million dollar televangelist network, In Your Faith, he would have gotten down on his knees and whipped himself bloody at the mere thought of using the religious beliefs of the masses for personal gain. Perhaps that had been piety or morals, but those can only work for so long against the pull of our selfish existence until they collapse. After that, we rely on the fear of a vengeful God to keep us in line. "Thou shalt not, or else" had been the motto during the last two years of seminary school. But even this wears off in the face of reason. The years and the indiscriminant nature of the universe had changed him and hardened him against such silly notions. He knew now, unequivocally, that God really didn't give a shit. There were too many examples of evil triumphing and senseless deaths, his very own daughter's for one, to support the idea of a God trying to guide His flock or mete out the just and righteous punishments. Nope. Instead, God was either very bad at this management gig, or He had simply abandoned His unruly children. So be it. Edward Garp knew how to survive in a Godless world. He just didn't know very much about the IRS and how personally they took schemes to defraud the government of their hard-earned extortion money.

He shuffled back to his office past the baptismal jacuzzi and soul-cleansing sauna and plopped down with a bone-weary sigh in his custom leather chair. He pushed a button on his phone.

"Yes, Reverend Garp?" the female voice responded.

"Get Frease on the phone. Tell him to come see me in fifteen minutes."

"Right away, Reverend."

"What's up Rev?" Johnny Frease asked as he strode into the office. He was dressed in ragged blue jeans and a Watchmen T-shirt complete with the assassinated smiley-face. His attire coupled with the tousled hair and two days of light-brown stubble made him look like just another college kid with small dreams who still lived with his parents. But Garp knew better. He hadn't hired Johnny for his fashion sense or love of authority.

"Give me some good news," the reverend said as he popped half a dozen antacids in his mouth. "When will I get these IRS bastards off my back?"

"Well, I can get into the IRS database without breaking a sweat," the younger man said nonchalantly. "The problem is that this has become personal for them. They keep hard copy records and backups of everything. There is an entire team of agents who have decided that they just don't like you very much. I can wipe the system, but they'll just put it back and then turn the screws on you."

"So you've got nothing?"

"I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that this is now a human management issue. I've got some info on a few of the team members that they might not want to get out. We're down to the blackmail, bribe, or removal options."

"Removal?"

"Yeah, you know." Johnny made the shape of a gun with his hand and shot it at a nearby plant. "I have a feeling, though, that'll just bring more attention to you."

"So, that's it? I'm doomed," he said, popping another two antacids into his mouth and grinding them to powder with practiced efficiency. "So, what do I need you for now? I should be saving every dime for the blood-sucking government parasites."

"Well, you might want to hear something before you make that decision." Reverend Garp made an impatient circular motion with his hand for Johnny to continue. "We've made an interesting breakthrough in the broadcast lab."

"Subliminal messages?"

"Better."

### August 18th

Delgado

_How did these miserable, useless creatures take over the planet when they are so incredibly stupid?_ The good doctor pulled at what was left of his hair in frustration. _Maybe I just got a bad batch. This is the result of inbreeding or some genetic rat-turnip splice gone horribly wrong._ He reviewed his journal to verify his hypothesis. Subject 159 was obsessed with running in the wheel. When the wheel was removed, it became obsessed with running against the glass in the corner. It responded only to the color blue, and the response was to run faster. Subject 163 appeared to behave like a normal rat until plaid was introduced, at which point it fainted. Subject 157 defecated whenever it saw its shadow. Subject 162, well, it lived for porn. How exactly it differentiated porn from mainstream programming--or why a rat was interested in human sexual encounters in the first place--science had yet to discover.

Dr. Jose Delgado dropped the clipboard onto the table and scratched his head. Diagrams flooded the walls of his underfunded Reno, Nevada, laboratory and dribbled their detail onto the floor. It had proven difficult to separate and map out the individual and cooperative functions of each of the fibers that made up the optic nerve of Rattus norvegicus. Every microscopic strand either performed a fraction of a task or multiple tasks with seemingly little rhyme or reason. But this was the path he'd chosen, and he'd even managed to publish a groundbreaking study no less than six months ago as a testament to his diligence and persistence. He was the foremost expert on the form and function of optic tissue and had made monumental strides in designing cybernetic prostheses for visually impaired rats.

Of course, the monetary support hadn't exactly rolled in as he'd expected--obviously the blind rat population wasn't sitting on a pile of money--but short-sighted people were just as common and defective as his latest batch of subjects. True, it would take at least ten years before the FDA approved any procedure for humanity, but you'd basically have to double that if he didn't get enough contributions to get him some help in figuring this entire thing out. Currently, he had just one donor who generously provided him with a one hundred and fifty thousand dollar yearly stipend, but that was small time for a research project of this magnitude. As it was, he was barely making ends meet, and that was with employing his two daughters. They were the loves of his life but completely useless in the laboratory as assistants.

There was a knock at the door. Dr. Delgado was expecting a new shipment of digital arrays and another batch of defective subjects to arrive any moment, so he shouted, "Just a minute," and unlocked the door to the laboratory. He was greeted by a young Hispanic man with a Don Juan grin on his face. Dr. Delgado sighed inwardly. This was yet another in a long line of tomcats looking to woo his daughters. He considered removing his shoe and throwing it at the man.

"What's up, doc?" the stranger said and laughed as if he'd made the best joke in the world. The doctor was not impressed. "Listen, I was reading this article a few months back about the work you are doing with those rats with the bad ojos. I figure that you're a man who's going places. I've got some investors here that want to make you an offer."

"And what, young man, could you possibly offer me?"

"I figure that with our help, we could cut your research time in half. Think of it, you'll be curing the blind in no time. Money and respect will be pouring out of your ears."

"And just how do you propose to do that?" Dr. Delgado asked with an exasperated sigh. This was a new approach to get into his daughters' pants, but promising the moon only worked on suckers. He was a scientist after all.

Another man stepped into view. This was a young Caucasian with about three days' worth of blonde stubble running from one cheek to the next. He wore an MIT T-shirt. "Human experimentation," he said, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

"Absolutely not," Dr. Delgado replied as he began to shut his door. There was, unfortunately, a foot blocking the way.

"I believe your refusal is premature. We had a 'talk' with your girls, and they saw the sense in our proposal. Isn't that right?" The two men moved out of the doorway to make room for the daughters Delgado to shuffle in. They walked slowly, in step with one another as they entered the lab. Both of them walked with outstretched arms, holding their smartphones out like Geiger counters as they navigated around the boxes on the floor. They appeared to be unharmed physically, but there was something missing from them. It was as if the light slid off of their features, like they were dull and empty. He called to them, touching them on their shoulders tenderly. They offered no response. Panic filled his heart, and he reached to pull the phone out of one of their hands when the voice from the doorway pulled him up short.

"I wouldn't do that," the Caucasian man said. "That might just kill her."

"What do you mean?" the doctor asked, staying his hand.

"You're not the only scientist here. Now, let's talk research."

September 19th

Delgado

The man before him shuddered and died. That was three of them now that had expired as a result of the procedure, and only three were left breathing. It was a terrible feeling for a doctor to lose fifty percent of his patients with more probably on the way. This was especially true when the patients had been young and healthy before going into the surgery and even more especially true when their survival meant his own.

These same six had shown up on his doorstep four weeks earlier and had convinced him of his obligation to perform a delicate, untested, and unsanctioned procedure on each of them. They'd made their argument by seizing his bank accounts, planting treasonous evidence against him, and turning his two daughters into vegetables. Without them, he'd have nothing, and without at least one of these psychotics surviving the procedure, well, he'd be better off putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.

Even though this entire venture went against his ethical code about human experimentation, it had been, to say the very least, productive. With their cooperation, or rather at their insistence, he'd been able to map the human optic nerves with incredible speed. They were willing subjects and could answer the complex questions that a ratty brain scan never could, and only one of them had become obsessed with porn. It had been refreshing to work with viable test subjects. In spite of himself--and as he had put the final touches on the impossibly detailed map--Dr. Delgado felt this might have just been worth all of the extortion and worry.

That was when he'd discovered that his patrons were not satisfied with simply advancing medical science ahead by half a century. No, they had an agenda of their own that not only pushed the envelope but strapped it into the passenger seat of a jet car and flung it off a cliff at two hundred and ninety miles an hour. This was far beyond what the mad doctor--as he thought of himself now--could have done in a lifetime of work. They'd replaced his digital arrays with circuit boards and processors that made his top-of-the-line gear seem like clay tablets in comparison. They even had batteries that were powered by human blood. Dr. Delgado still didn't understand it entirely. They mentioned something about genetically enhanced yeast producing energy as it consumed the glucose from the blood stream, but it was cutting edge stuff and could theoretically power a small device indefinitely. Despite the potential scientific tsunami of advancement he was riding, this had all moved much too fast for him. Proper experimentation demanded caution and safeguards, but the decisions and choices weren't his anymore. He was at the mercy of this disaster, and all he could do was try to keep his head above water.

As he switched off the monitor of the dead man, he turned and came face to face with one of the three surviving patients. This man's name was Johnny. He was the leader of the group that he'd met the first day and was a certifiable genius in his own right. He had devoured Delgado's research, pointed out several bottlenecks in the processors, and even made most of the physical modifications of the implants himself. Many of the changes were in collaboration with the good doctor himself initially, but as the project moved forward, the hardware took on a life of its own, moved out of the house, and married a sailor in LA. In short, it had left Dr. Delgado far behind. He focused on mapping the optic nerves and preparing the estranged devices to exist inside of human tissue. That and actually performing the delicate procedure in a lab full of retarded rats.

His benefactors had opted for having the device implanted in the hollow created by the left clavicle. The hundreds of hair-width fiber optic leads were run up the neck, behind the ear, and into the temple on the left side of the head. There was one that ended in a small nodule that had to be inserted directly into the ear canal, but that was child's play compared to the feverish hours of slicing and splicing the optic nerves together with the foreign fibers. The end result had left nothing but a long scar in the shape of a question mark as evidence that anything had happened.

"Doc," Johnny said, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead. "I think it worked."

_It worked? It worked,_ the doctor wondered in giddy excitement. The news muted the pain that had squatted on his conscience for the last month. Not only had a man died in front of him moments ago, but another had died on the operating table because of a miscalculation in the anesthetic–-Dr. Delgado had not anesthetized anything larger than a guinea pig in twenty years, after all--and a third had succumbed to a mania-tinged infection. An hour earlier, he would have pegged Johnny to follow them to the grave as close to death as he had been only a day before. His Hispanic friend, Raul, was still feverish, and the third survivor, Gabe, had lapsed in and out of some sort of catatonic state. Everything had been so bleak for so long and now this. It was almost a miracle.

"What do you see?" Dr. Delgado asked excitedly.

"Everything. It's just like I imagined it."

"What did you do? Will you finally tell me what that device is?"

"All in good time, doc. Everything will make sense soon enough."
Part 2 - Isolation

### September 20th

Bean

Franklin Webster Bean was a most unfortunate fourteen year old. He was in high school--which in and of itself was bad enough--and had somehow managed to carry the stigma of being an entirely unpopular child since kindergarten. The awkwardness of growing up a loser was ambrosia for some of the crueler and surprisingly creative children over the years. The bullying started early, and in a small town like Raymond, Mississippi, every child who found him or herself with a bully in elementary school was contractually bound to provide said bully with years of entertainment. The contract was unbreakable, unbendable, and extended through the end of high school and sometimes even into community college.

Franklin Bean suffered through the obligatory wedgies, Indian burns, pink bellies, purple nurples, and the occasional swirly, but the things that seemed to stick to him like an ugly wallpaper were the names. He was called Beanpole, Hill of Beans, Beanie-Weenie, Stanklin Bean, and Franks N Beans. As his classmates "matured," he earned a year of Bean-o followed by the ever popular favorite Bean Stalker after he was seen loitering near the girls' locker room one day. Toward the end of eighth grade, he was Napoleon Beanapart, and most recently--after his English teacher decided they should all read Mary Shelley--he became FranklinBean's monster. With so many alternatives out there, it was a relief when people just called him Bean. It was the best he could hope for given the cards he had been dealt. However, despite the years of relentless taunting, a rather puny physique, and a distinctly average GPA, Bean found he was unusually happy at the moment.

"This," he said, "is the coolest game ever." Bean stood in the middle of the communal park outside of Raymond High School and looked into the screen of his iPhone 4. It was an older model than what most of his classmates had, but--as his mom told him repeatedly until he felt like puking--he was lucky to have one at all. Of course, then she would launch into a long diatribe about how when she was in high school, nobody had phones, and they had to ride the bus for an hour and a half, uphill both ways without AC, blah, blah, blah. Despite his natural inclination to believe that anything she told him, no matter what it might be, was completely and utterly wrong, on this one topic, he was inclined to agree with her. Right here and now, having an old iPhone was better than not having one at all.

He and perhaps the only two of his classmates that he could actually classify as "friends" were experiencing the latest in MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Gaming) through the magic of augmented reality. In reality, it was the same park that he'd played in since he was born. It was, in fact, the only park in town and had been the mainstay playground of children for generations. As with any long term relationship, it had lost all of its magic years ago. He'd memorized every bush, every tree, and every grain of sand through countless games of hide and seek--often he was hiding while the bullies were seeking--and impromptu baseball and soccer games for which he'd always been picked last. The only thing he ever got picked for ahead of the other boys was basketball, and that was only because he was black. The park was boring and reminded Bean of unhappier times and thus had been abandoned by him for nearly a year. Until today.

Under the gaze of his three megapixel camera, all the old familiar trees, benches, swing sets, and sandboxes were transformed into a fantasy forest of spiky iron trees, rocky outcroppings, decrepit huts, and bottomless pits. He saw everything on a three and a half inch screen, but it seemed much larger and ever so much richer than it had any right to.

Bean panned to the right, keeping his phone directly in his line of view. The premise of augmented reality revolved around the phone's camera capturing an image from the real world and then the software manipulating the image by adding or altering the scene. Purgatory, the drool-worthy game he was now in love with, took that concept to an entirely new level. As he moved the camera, the world of Purgatory moved with it. His character, Werepe–-named after the infamous devil bean of Africa–-was centered at the bottom of the screen with only the back of a pair of muscular armored shoulders and helmeted head showing. This avatar turned and moved in the direction of the camera as well. After about forty degrees of turning, a large, six legged herd animal ambled into view, looked at him, and then continued on its way.

Bean looked to the side of his iPhone and saw that the herd animal was a portly man in brown slacks, white long-sleeve shirt, and a truly hideous tie. _How appropriate_ , he thought wryly. He continued panning around, noting other such creatures and their uncanny resemblance to their real-world counterparts. There were squirrely little creatures flitting around under the watchful gaze of a hungry, leathery vulture–- _mom and kids_ \--more of the bovine-esque herds-- _business men_ \--and one skulking lizard watching the squirrels-- _pedophile_. When the camera pointed at his friends, he was once again astounded. They were both large, heroic characters straight out of fantasy movie.

Brett was the epitome of a Greek hero. Brettavius Maximus, his avatar, was a mass of corded muscle lightly wrapped in blackened piecemeal armor and armed with a broadsword and a spiked buckler.

Joel sported the latest in aubran sorcerer, complete with a black frock emblazoned with the red and yellow skull of the aubran god of destruction, Be'alnor. The aubra were a race of tall, lanky humanoids of elfin royalty, pointy ears and all, and were very striking in an arrogant sort of way. Joel had named his avatar an utterly uninspired Legolass413. Glancing around the screen, Bean saw what he had seen over the last few years of knowing them--a rather stringy, pale kid with shaggy dark hair and pimples, and a shorter, pudgy kid who got teased about being a Hobbit half the time. The three of them together comprised nearly half of the town's available supply of victims and were integral parts of the thriving melvin, noogie, and pantsing commodities trade.

His two friends were in turn grinning at him, no doubt making the same comparisons between his avatar and his true form. The mutual admiration club had to adjourn early as the ground behind his friends opened up in a vomit of flames and debris. Bean shouted for them to turn as something long and black planted its hellish talons into the earth. The ground itself seemed to recoil at the incursion, and it split wider apart in an attempt to run away. And then a second limb stretched out and impaled the other edge of the rift. Together, they hauled something like the head of a mutant shark into the open air. The teeth were zippered vertically over the top of the creature's head, and obscenely huge eyes bulged from the end of stalks that swiveled around until they spotted the three heroes. With deliberate malice, it pried the rest of its bulk out of the hole and lunged toward them.

Bean glanced out past his phone to see that, in reality at least, nothing was actually attacking him. While his eyes were out there, he took a moment to look at the screen of Joel's phone, a Samsung Galaxy V, and was instantly jealous of the resolution. He could really make out the incredible detail of the creature that was upon them. Its skin was grey, wrinkled, and leathery. Beneath the epidermis, something akin to lava pulsed with an unearthly glow through veins that ran up and down the length of its wasp-like body. The image disappeared as Joel and Brett moved out of the way of the charge, leaving Bean blind and the sole target of its fury. He looked back at his screen just in time to watch one of the claws, complete with steak-knife sized talons, envelop the head of his character. He fought back, furiously tapping the screen on the bottom right over the symbol for his sword and after three swipes was able to break the creature's grasp. He staggered back a little as if he'd really just pulled free, and this caused him to lose focus on the fight for a second time. When he regained his balance and perspective, he looked back to his screen to see Brettavius Maximus being pinned down while Legolass413 assaulted the demon's head with a stream of blue flame.

"Not fire! That thing's got lava for blood," Bean shouted.

"Shit! My bad."

"Get over here, and give me a hand!" shouted Brett.

Werepe rushed in, swinging his war machete in a powerful down stroke. It bit deeply into one of the demon's legs, buckling it and causing the entire creature to list to the side. As it diverted its attention to the newest threat, four stalagmites of ice erupted from beneath the creature, impaling it and, more importantly, immobilizing it for long enough for Brettavius Maximus to get free. Then the two human Cuisinarts took turns hacking it into sushi.

The adrenaline was flowing heavily as they fought to quell their fight or flight instincts. There was lots of heavy breathing from the three boys as they remained alert for any other threat that might pop up. There hadn't been a lot of actual physical movement during the battle, but they had felt the desperation and the danger, and that was the coolest thing ever. They looked at each other from over the tops of their phones and then down at the spot where the demon had been slain. A quick glance around showed a few of the "herd" staring at them quizzically, but teenagers got those stares from adults regardless. The giggles started up in Joel and rolled out infectiously over both of his friends. This was the high everyone who was disgruntled with their lives sought. This was the escape. This was what all those other games hinted at but could never quite deliver.

When they regained their composure, they stared through their phones at the corpse, which had split open to reveal three glowing coals deep in its chest. They each hit the "use" button and saw a new item in their inventory. It was labeled Demon's Soul. A Demon's Soul was not only symbolic of their victory over a powerful foe that had invaded Purgatory from Hell below, it was also the key to enter Hell itself. Why would anyone want to plunge headlong into a pit full of demons? Well, it was cool. Also, in line with the premise of the game, one had to travel from top to bottom in order to win.

The storyline that gave the game meaning began with the death of their characters. They were in Purgatory, which was a holding pen for souls. As this was a persistent online world, one in which each character can see the changes made by the others, there were literally thousands of players working toward the same goal. It was refreshing to be in part of such a large group and to feel like they belonged. Bean and his friends had likened it to a crusade since they were forced to invade and fight their way through five layers of Hell and defeat the Lord of Darkness himself in order to win the game and get their life back. It was by no means an intricate or innovative plot, but it didn't have to be. The thing that had made this game unique was that it used real geography for both the encounters with evil and the portals to the next level down. Not only would the avatar need to collect a sufficient number of demons' souls to descend, but it would also need to physically travel across the country to a specific GPS location that housed the portal between levels. Each level had its own portal located somewhere in the good old U S of A. It was like a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and a scavenger hunt. The travelling would be the tricky part for teenagers without much money and whose parents still languished under the delusions that the pursuit of an education was actually important. In any case, the promise of endless hours of adventure and triumph drew the boys into addiction as surely as any drug could.

### September 30th

Gabriel

Gabriel Josephson did not take almost dying as well as he thought he would. Each man internally believes that he will stand up with head held high when the Reaper comes for him, and as a soldier, this went doubly so for the "ideal" Gabe. Unfortunately, the real Gabe curled up in the fetal position and begged for his life. Amazingly enough, it had worked. He'd surfaced from the feverish dreams like a breaching whale and was thankful to have done so. He was a blubbering, sniveling coward of a man, but he was alive. This would have been fine if he could have just admitted it to himself and embraced the new him, but instead, he tried to bury it. His self-doubt would rise up from the grave time and again during his recovery, clawing at the inner walls of his mind until he couldn't stand it any longer. He could feel the threads of sanity creaking under the strain as he struggled with himself and the new world into which the procedure had placed him.

_Why did I agree to do this?_ he asked himself as the hash-tags and call-outs floated by. It was a troubling way to greet the universe each morning--almost as troubling as greeting it alone. There were only two other survivors, and they were already a team. Johnny and Raul were off picking up the first few new recruits and bartering for their return. His own partner had died early on due to a staph infection, and he'd learned he was on his own as soon as he'd woken up from the fever. Of course, this meant that his duties had effectively doubled. Not only was he assigned to handle the military end of things, now he also had to spend most of his free time watching.

Watching was mind-numbingly painful. It involved nothing more exciting than staring at the faces of the pimply-skinned kids who were addicted to Purgatory. He would cycle from one to the next, adding data about each user so he wouldn't need to look at them again the next time they logged in. The theory was that eventually someone strategically useful would log in who could be "convinced" to join their team. The theory sucked. Several weeks of this had yielded nothing but average, ordinary pre-pubescent nobodies. This, of course, left way too much opportunity for his self-doubt to bang away inside his skull. The only way he could tolerate it was to multitask and run another video stream at the same time. If a man fills his brain with enough stimulation, then it won't have the processing power to crack wide open, right?

Oddly enough, the stimulation that seemed to best sooth his troubled mind was pornography. He'd picked it up from a lab rat in the Reno lab, and it just kind of stuck. Sure, he'd tried sitcoms, reality shows, the Greatest Fails collections on YouTube, and even flirted briefly with musicals, but they all made him just want to fling himself off a penthouse balcony. So, he watched porn. Constantly. He wouldn't use the word "addicted" as it made him feel weak, but he'd consumed hundreds of hours of illicit video within a couple of weeks. He was a single guy with no family, so it wasn't a big deal. The implant--which had been privately dubbed "that itchy bastard," or "Satan's eyeball"--made it easy to feed this new habit, and he consumed videos of naked people doing naughty things day and night. He exhausted three pay sites and half a dozen free sites of their content in no time. And thus, it was during a re-run of Beverly's Hills that he made his first and most important discovery. He dialed the boss right after the money-shot.

### October 3rd

Garp

Reverend Edward Garp sat on a park bench staring out the horizon. It was an idyllic scene, as far a park bench views went, complete with a winding path laid out in slate pavers and fields of well-manicured grass that looked soft enough to take a nap on. Maybe that's just what he needed, a nap. _Life sure has a funny way of turning things around on you when you least expect it,_ he thought as he bent down and plucked a few blades of grass from the earth. He stared at them in the afternoon light and sighed. Things had been going so well, too.

Despite the loss of several key people, the "advertising" project had been a smashing success. They had already collected "donations" from several high-profile individuals that amounted to nearly one and a half million dollars. That wasn't nearly enough to get him out of hock to the IRS, but at this rate, it wouldn't be too long before he was free and clear. Throw in a few "supporters" on the Senate floor and hell, he might not even have to pay them a dime. More millions for him was a beautiful thing. And then there was the oddity Gabe had found across the sea. Being a spiritualist, the reverend had to believe in certain aspects of the supernatural by default, but he really had no explanation for what they'd run across. It was, of course, imperative that they bring it in for study--the ship was already on its way to pick it up--but if it turned out to be what the research said it might be, well, that really just turned religion on its ear. The implications were staggering, and he would be on the front lines. _It had all been going so well_.

Garp had prayed to God in earnest for the first time in decades after the CT scan revealed something abnormal growing in his gut. As a VIP, the doctors had rushed all the tests through, but it had still taken two days to get the results back. Two days of intense, on his knees prayer in which he promised to stop the "advertising" campaign, to pay the IRS, to treat his wife better, to follow in Christ's footsteps, to be a better person...all of which resulted in nothing more than the diagnosis of cancer. He, Reverend Edward Garp, was going to die in the next year without treatment. With treatment, he might extend his life another six months or so but would need to be radiated and poisoned to the point that his hair fell out and he became as frail as a kitten. Neither option was terribly appealing. He'd called his wife looking for the sympathy that God had failed to deliver, and she'd glassed over it, reminding him instead that she had a banquet to attend and asked if he would he get his secretary to schedule a limo for her. Garp had just hung up the phone instead.

He sat on the park bench outside the hospital and seethed at the injustice of it all. Perhaps he would introduce his wife to the advertising department if that wouldn't draw too much attention to him. No, that was petty. He'd known she wasn't ever going to be more than just a shallow accessory that he put on like tie to please the public. The real trouble was with how things were run in this universe. The real problem was that God had abandoned them all here and walked off to let the human race fend for itself. Perhaps it was time to stop relying on divine providence and make a little of his own. He smiled for the first time in days as he dialed a number and put the phone to his ear.

### October 14th

Norma-Jeanne

When Norma-Jeanne was behind the lens, the world out there was just another movie. Her world existed between her cornea and the eyepiece, and it was a dimension of focal lengths and white balance. _To film is to live, and to live is to film_. That usually went over pretty well at the gatherings around the donut and coffee hole at the office. Some of the other camera jockeys had started parroting it, and it had become a bit of a mantra amongst her peers. This replaced "same shit, different day" and "aw, man, how come I have to do that" as the defacto response to unfavorable jobs. It was--as she pointed out to Paul Gruber, her producer, as often as she could--a stroke of motivational genius that showed what she was truly capable of.

There were, of course, greater aspirations than filming and coining inspirational mottos. Someday, she felt that she might actually be able to take a shot at being on the other side of the camera, even though she wasn't weather girl material by any means. She was gifted, thanks to her mother and her sturdy genes, with a frame designed for higher gravity atmospheres. She was a little short with some excess baggage around the hips, but she had sizeable boobs and, when the guys chose to look in that direction, a pleasant enough face. Her claim to fame, as she would say without much humility, was that she had impeccable cross-media timing. Now, timing was a pre-requisite for being a successful photographer and videographer. You have to be pointing the camera in the right place at the right time in order to get an award-winning shot. However, very few of the techno-geeks in the AV club could translate that into speech and story-telling. She could. She learned it from countless summer nights spent with her grandparents out on the edge of nowhere. All there was to do was tell stories and shoot the breeze, and her Pap-pa loved a good yarn.

Norma-Jeanne had won several awards for some of her earlier work, and if it weren't for that little thing with the hippo or that snafu with the harpoon or that unfortunate misunderstanding with the garden gnome, she'd still be working the big scene with National Geographic.

As it was, Norma-Jeanne did have a soft spot for conspiracy theories and stories that baffled the mind. This was the dark side of growing up listening to Pap-pa's stories. They were always about some spirit, monster, alien, murderer, honest lawyer, or other fictional character. These were the elements that were the most fascinating, and everyday life just paled in comparison. After her disagreement with National Geographic, she'd taken a chance and became employed with Mysteries of the Paranormal\--a cutting edge, third rate, "this far from cable-access" program. That was how far she'd sunk on the employment ladder.

It turned out to be a good decision for both her and Mysteries as her projects seemed to always rate just a little higher than expected. This nabbed the show a few new contracts with some high-profile networks, and Norma-Jeanne was dying to take the next step.

She was loaded for bear but not allowed out of the children's park. What she needed was a chance, and that was how she found herself plummeting into the Deep South at seventy miles per hour in a company van. There were rumors--some of which she had planted herself--that there was a zombie epidemic in Shreveport, Louisiana. She would have been laughed out of all the triple letter networks and a few of the quadruple letter networks to boot, but that didn't mean that it wasn't quality research. Norma-Jeanne Baker, Norm to her friends, had connected the reports, presented the project to her producer, and convinced him that zombies were marketable enough to bring in the Holy Grail of audiences--the average viewer. Normally, the Mysteries of the Paranormal only brought in the fringe viewership--nut-jobs, the Jerry Springer contingent, and paranoia junkies. To be able to manufacture an actual heartbeat on the Neilson ratings would be a major coup for her and for her show. This was going to be the one that put everyone, especially her, over the top. At least, it should have.

Instead, she was driving the company van with an obnoxious, self-centered prick who had decided the he, not Norma-Jeanne, should be the face who launched a thousand rotting corpses. The disappointment of having her hard work yanked out from under her was bad enough, but to be assigned to help this saboteur succeed at it was most certainly her idea of hell or, at the very least, a fairly nasty and undeserved purgatory. Norma-Jeanne had done nothing during her tenure with Mysteries to call into question her ability to do this job professionally and on her own. Of course, she wasn't going to count losing fifteen thousand dollars' worth of equipment while chasing the Bunyip in Australia, getting sued by a group of frolicking elderly nudists she thought was a witch's coven, and accidentally flattening a Jackelope in Arizona--nothing left but a pile of guts, a sack of fur, and two tiny stick-like antlers--as viable reasons. Those types of things were simply hazards of the business. No, this injustice was entirely because the morons who watched Mysteries of the Paranormal liked John Urban and thus proved that they were, indeed, morons.

Norma-Jeanne had her principles and could have walked off with her head held high and her dignity intact if one of her guiding principles hadn't forbade her from ever filming a wedding again. Ever. That was the old standby, the safety net for videographers who had no place else to go. Filming weddings was the homeless shelter for the AV geek. It ranked somewhere between selling your plasma for spending cash and dog food taste tester on the "what to do when you've run out of options" list. It wasn't that she had anything against weddings themselves. They were okay in her book if she was stoned or drunk or both. It just wasn't something she would like to subject herself to while lucid and sober. And besides, she was a documentary kind of girl through and through, and filming weddings paid shit.

The countryside trickled by painfully as she ferried her colleague through Mississippi to hand him her one chance at fame and notoriety. Each mile passed like the soul-sucking drip of a clogged toilet when your significant other's mother is waiting in line and the plunger is in the other room. John Urban, who was by all accounts an aging metrosexual has-been whose only purpose in life was to make hers miserable, requested updates of their progress in a continuous stream of "How much longer is this going to take?" questions. He was, of course, primping himself for the sixty-third time since the trip began. Keeping track of this seemed to be one of the few things Norma-Jeanne could to do maintain her sanity amid all the pine trees and cows that infested the landscape.

_Why are there so many damn cows around here_? she wondered. They just stood there chewing robotically at the long grass that poked through the wire fence and stared at the van with undisguised malice as it rolled by. Well, some would say she simply imagined the malice, but what did those losers know? She began to formulate hypotheses about why these creatures would bear a grudge against the human species and found that it was easier to ask why they wouldn't hold a grudge. They certainly had a right to be upset, considering the imprisonment and wholesale slaughter of their kind, but that wasn't something a cow who was born into captivity and had not yet been introduced to a Carl's Junior chain would contemplate. But the looks in their giant, bovine eyes spoke to a more personal injury, blaming her for some abuse or mistreatment they'd suffered.

"Bait for the UFOs?" she muttered to herself.

John cleared his throat before she could complete her thought. She gave her best scowl as she shelved it for later. "What was that?"

"How much longer? I'm starting to get a cramp from sitting in this death trap."

"It looks like it'll be another hour. We're coming up on Gulfport." She uttered the last word with all the menace she could muster. She brought to bear the full power of a thousand horror stories with that name. Gulfport.

It did not have quite the desired effect. John just kind of rolled toward the window and told her to wake him when they got there. She was disappointed to say the least. Either her companion was made of stouter material than she gave him credit for, or she wasn't really very intimidating. It was probably just the material. Not even Clint Eastwood could make "Gulfport" sound dangerous. She practiced saying it in different ways, testing the fear factor of each new enunciation until John told her to shut up. That little order would not go unpunished, she promised herself, but at least it bought her an hour of peace and quiet to work on the cow conspiracy.

The Roadhouse Inn was much less of a shithole than Norma-Jeanne had thought it would be and to her eternal surprise, Mysteries of the Paranormal had sprung for separate rooms, no doubt at the behest of her partner rather than out of common decency. It just wouldn't do for John Urban--star of trailer park living rooms and Internet cafes--to share a room with someone of her stature.

Whatever the force behind the decision, it all worked out for the best in her opinion. She took the opportunity to spread out and make the place livable. It looked like Best Buy had gotten sick and vomited in the room by the time she was done. She had digital SLR cameras, lenses, four different camcorders, a couple of tripods, an HP laptop with a busted hinge, three power strips, and enough batteries charging that it looked like Christmas in there. Most of the equipment belonged to Norma-Jeanne personally, and that suited her just fine. There was nothing quite as intimate to people in her profession as their gear. To use the communal cameras from the show would be tantamount to borrowing someone else's underwear.

Norma-Jeanne looked around at her setup in admiration. It wasn't quite the same as a National Geographic adventure, but at least she wasn't filming another set of nuptials or–-shudder--a bar mitzvah. She took a few moments to line the drawers with plastic wrap before emptying her unmentionables into the top one. Then she folded the edges over and pressed them together, forming a lingerie burrito. She repeated the process with the next two drawers and secured her mentionables in much the same way. It was a trick she'd learned in Africa for keeping the parasites from "smelling" the civilization on them. The little bastards had learned to recognize not only the scent of humans but also the scent of "clean" as a clear invitation to dinner. Norma-Jeanne hoped it would serve equally well to dissuade the curiosity of the rat-sized cockroaches they had down here.

With all of her gear in place and her clothes properly secured against unwanted invaders, Norma-Jeanne took a moment to check the room, paying special attention to the vents and mirrors, for hidden cameras before deciding that she needed a good primping. Not that she would have actually used the word "primp" to describe brushing out her auburn hair and checking around her eyes for new wrinkles or freckles, but the end result was the same. She would have looked just fine in front of the camera. Too bad she wasn't going to be.

The corners of her mouth turned down at the disappointment she felt. It wasn't like she hated her job. She just wanted to be part of the story for once, not always just listening to it. She looked back to her reflection, and she saw a few small creases form in all the wrong places. Shit. She clicked off the light and went to bed.

John

"Personal journal entry for October fourteenth. I am now in Shreveport, Louisiana, and it is a far cry from civilization as we know it. Things move in odd circles down here. Maybe it's ovals or perhaps even an awkward egg-like shape. In any case, the local denizens are bizarre enough that they might as well be from Mongolia. It was a long drive, and each mile took us further from civilization. Everything here is deep fried, and I was even offered a mound of rather soggy, limp weeds they called collards for dinner. Oh well, at least it's an adventure. And to think that I had to practically beg to come here. In my prime, they were the ones begging for me. They knew an investigative reporter when they saw one. If it wasn't for that damn . . . well, you know already. Suffice it to say I'm glad to be out on the job again.

"The camera girl I'm working with has done some fine work in the past and even worked for National Geographic at one point. If I could go back in time--and bring a hair stylist along with me--the mysteries of the Congo or the Amazon would unravel at my feet. For once, I could do something real and actually make a discovery. But I digress. She has the experience but seems a little unstable. She was hostile for most of the trip and kept muttering about how they were her zombies and how the cows had a plan. It was almost like she was personally offended that I came along to do the story. This is nonsense, of course. Who could be offended by me? I'll just give her a few winning smiles and the benefit of my years of experience. She'll come around. John Urban signing off."

### October 15th

Norma-Jeanne

The van smelled strongly of hairspray and talcum powder. Norma-Jeanne coughed politely as she shot eye daggers at John Urban and his perfectly manicured everything. She'd made the mistake of rolling down a window to try to actually get a breath of something other than depleted ozone and had been strongly rebuked and forced to seal herself into the modern day pharaoh's tomb known as the company van. She was, of course, one of the servants that got the honor of accompanying her god into the afterlife. Yippee. Mummification was setting in from the lungs and working its way outward.

_It's not like an open window could have disturbed his hair,_ she thought. _No force on earth could move it_. An image appeared unbidden in her head, as many such images did. She imagined a desolate post-apocalyptic world in which giant mutant cockroaches and John Urban's hair were the only survivors. The hair was used as a crown to denote the roachy monarch of the time. The reigning king happened to look quite a bit like Mick Jagger and was gyrating to a cheering throng of like-mutated groupies. This image just creeped her out, and she decided to stop using her imagination. She tried to focus on breathing, driving, and cows, in that order.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the rundown strip mall that was the first stop on the nut-job interview leg of their expedition. Most assignments had a pattern to them--interview some nut jobs, draw some outlandish conclusions, and then try to tie them all together in a nice little bundle capped off with a nighttime scamper through the woods, Blair Witch style. Norma-Jeanne had this one planned just a little different. It would start off with the nut-job interview, move on to the outlandish conclusion, and then end in a scamper. Only this time, the scamper would show actual, irrefutable footage of zombies. She had data that showed clear patterns of movement. This would be a slam dunk.

As the van came to a stop at their destination, she looked pointedly at John, silently asking permission from Mr. Narcissism to open the doors. He assented by keeping his mouth shut when she put her hand on the door handle. She left the AC blowing so John's face wouldn't melt off and then went around to the side of the van to get all the equipment ready.

She stared at the logo on the side of the van and shook her head. She still couldn't see it. Supposedly, an artistic consultant had stolen a considerable sum of money from the ownership to create something that typified the show. It was a black and white Rorschach of a werewolf crouched down in front of a full moon with a question mark trailing out of the picture behind it. This, she'd been told, signified the mystery in Mysteries of the Paranormal. To Norma-Jeanne, the logo looked like the werewolf had just scrunched down and left a curly-Q deuce on her van. She had to keep fighting the urge to wipe it off.

She slid the door and the logo out of the way and began to reverently unpack the new shoulder holster for her camcorder. It gave her an extra ten inches of lift while still giving access to all of the functions. This was a mighty leap forward for her ego since she would no longer have to drag a little step stool around everywhere she went--one of the pitfalls of filming a man a full foot taller than she was. Now, she could avoid showing the entire world his nose hairs, no matter how well-manicured they happened to be, and still keep her dignity. Norma-Jeanne, her camcorder, and her new holster sat on the floor of the van staring at Mama G's Voodoo Emporium for another hour while John primped and preened. She contemplated shoving a pencil through her eye to relieve the boredom.

Mr. Urban was quite specific in his instructions on how to film him properly. It wasn't like Norma-Jeanne hadn't been filming people for close to a decade. In fact, thanks to her mom's obsession with Marilyn Monroe, she'd been studying film practically since she was born, but the tips helped. Really.

"Focus on my face," he said.

"I will."

"It's very important to get me in the best light. I can't tell you how many times it looked like I had raccoon eyes when some monkey they hired turned the spotlight on too bright."

"No raccoons. Got it." She yearned for a banana at the mention of a monkey and then lost a little focus as he droned on about a previous camera man who cut off the top of his head repeatedly. She could only dream of how good that must have felt. As she began to enter the dangerous world of her imagination, she caught sight of a small pod of teenagers moving in precise unison across the parking lot. They stepped stiffly and purposefully in a perfectly choreographed routine, each one holding their cell phone directly in front of them. She began to wonder if this was perhaps some new fad or game that was popular out here or maybe just the tell-tale signs of a well-established zombie infection. They continued walking, and John continued talking. Norma-Jeanne clicked on the camera to get some shots of the teenagers to splice in later.

The viewport of the camera showed the asphalt of the strip mall parking lot before rising gently and panning over to center on the teenagers moving in front of the storefronts. The zoom strode smoothly forward to bring them into focus. A girl and two boys moved robotically away from the camera.

"I got it," Norma-Jeanne droned.

"It was just unbelievable. I mean, where did they dig that guy up? He must have been . . ."

"Don't worry. I'll make you look good."

". . . just so unprofessional. I spent half the time trying to bend over so my entire head could get in the frame."

"Hard to believe your head couldn't fit in the frame. I'm shocked."

"What?" John asked, startled out of his rant.

"I need to go in and get some shots of the room so I can splice in the ambience later on," Norma-Jeanne said as she swung the camera toward John and then paused it. She took the image of a rather confused John Urban on the LCD screen with her as she left him standing by the van. The perplexed look on his face was perhaps the only time she detected any sentience behind his plastic mask. As she'd moved away, she muttered the words "three seconds" to herself.

It was through careful reasoning and sound scientific theorems that she'd arrived at this number, and she counted down to herself silently as she walked-- _three, two, one_ \--and then shot a glance back at him. Sure enough, the gravitational pull of the side-view mirror had increased enough to drag his head forward and his hand up to the perfect, blonde feathers at the part in his hair. _Newton, eat your heart out._

The interior of the store was done in dimly-lit, early twentieth-century voodoo. A spattering of archaic nick-knacks adorned three of the walls of the shop. There were the obligatory bones and skulls, a stuffed rooster, a few bowls, and oodles and oodles of half-filled bottles of all shapes and sizes. Oddly enough, there was also one of those ceramic Russian nesting dolls all lined up and facing toward the fourth wall. They stared with their black little eyes at a huge, beaded curtain that caught the candlelight and returned a winking blanket of amber and brown to the room. Woven between the beads were small, white objects that resembled the femurs and skulls of small mammals. There was also a bouquet of chicken feet dangling so the claws pointed down toward the corner of the desk. They cast a ragged shadow over three shrunken heads perched on the surface. One of the heads seemed to have the back end of a pencil protruding from it.

The décor was not surprising since Mother Geraldine, or rather, Mama G, was supposed to be a voodoo princess, but it was still a strange enough collection to pique Norma-Jeanne's interest. It was time to get to work.

Norma-Jeanne's entrance did not escape the attention of the shop's owner who regally stepped out from behind the curtain with a light rattling. Mother Geraldine did cut a fine figure. She projected both wisdom and menace in the way she carried herself, despite the fact that age and fried foods had made her carry herself a little more fully around the hips over the years.

"Mother Geraldine? I'm Norma-Jeanne Baker from Mysteries of the Paranormal. I hope you were expecting us."

"Yes, my child," she said in English heavily tinged with what sounded like Jamaican. "I have been forewarned of your coming by the dark powers."

"You mean Kenny. He's a decent intern, but he does tend to be a little overdramatic."

"No, da spirits."

"Of course. I'd like to take a few shots in here, and then I'll introduce you to true evil. He's outside." Mama G raised her eyebrows and shrugged in resignation.

The camera zoomed in on the figure of a plump black lady dressed in severe island fashion. Bright colored patterns adorned the calico dress, blouse, and loosely tied head scarf as she stood uncomfortably still. She had her hands folded in front of her, and they wrung nervously under the scrutiny of the little red recording light. Funny how easily a person used to wielding the dark powers of the universe could be intimidated by a tiny LED. Beside her stood yesteryear's Hollywood heartthrob, John Urban, whose airbrushed exterior seemed to self-illuminate. In spite of herself, Norma-Jeanne had to admire the effect he had on the camera.

"Are we ready?" John asked. "I'd like to get a few common people in today before we head back."

_You can fool the camera,_ Norma-Jeanne thought, _but I know you're not really human._ "I'm sure the plebes are lining up outside."

"Huh?"

"Mother Geraldine, meet John Urban. John, meet Mama G."

The camera panned out slowly to get both of the subjects in the frame. John walked out of the picture and then back into it for his grand entrance. He clasped both of his hands around the one offered by Mama G.

"We have arrived here to speak with the renowned princess of voodoo in Shreveport, Louisiana, Mother Geraldine. Salud," John said smoothly.

Mama G cut her eyes at the camera in a bit of confusion.

"Mother Geraldine," he continued, "we have heard many stories of the power that voodoo can wield over the living and how it can change lives for the better and worse."

"Yes, de power is dere for dose who know Papa Legba. He knows what dey deserve as much as dey demselves do," Mama G replied with her thick Caribbean accent.

Norma-Jeanne attempted to send a message to John through her exceptional powers of telepathy. She sent 'look at her while she's talking, you idiot.' Alas, there must have been sunspots or a surge in the Earth's magnetic field at that moment because he was certainly not picking up anything useful. Instead, his face was riveted to the lens of the camera. _This,_ Norma-Jeanne thought, _is the Theory of Narcissism in action_.

The Theory of Narcissism is to interpersonal communications what gravity is to mass. This theory popped up only in the last ten years or so but has been applied retroactively to many historical events and leaders from Cleopatra to Hitler and is the only known theory that explains why people are so eager to believe the rest of the universe is actually interested in reading about their personal lives via Twitter or Facebook. Audio-visual scientists have theorized that the universe of interpersonal communication is a fabric upon which egos rest. The larger the person's ego, the greater the influence it has on surrounding objects. In effect, Narcissism(force)= Ego(size) x Acceptance.

In this case, John Urban's ego was the spindle on which the world around him spun. It refused to allow him to tear himself away from the camera. This level of focus sent a subliminal social cue to Mama G. Her ego was smaller by far, and she had to rotate toward John's point of strongest egocentric force, his face. Only there could her ego feel comfortable enough for continued interaction. Her movement had placed her in only one quarter profile to the viewfinder, which was entirely unacceptable. Norma-Jeanne was then forced to move slightly to the right to compensate for Mama G's new position. John's ego, of course, refused to allow him to lose the absolute direct path to the camera, and he swiveled his head left for maximum full-frontal facial exposure.

_And so it begins,_ Norma-Jeanne thought and then cursed the Theory of Narcissism and her very existence. This scenario was the one thing every good camera jockey feared and avoided like it was a plague of amorous locusts. The Death Roll had begun. The Death Roll, or the Dance of Cameraman as it was known in some circles, was both as inevitable as it was painful. Once begun, it spiraled out of control until the red light waned.

The camera panned across the room slowly as the subjects orbited one another.

"And you have witnessed the gifts or punishments of Papa Legba first hand?" John asked.

Mama G moved around John so she wasn't talking to his ear. "I have. I have rolled de bones for many of Papa Legba's children, and de bones have never lied."

"Have you ever seen a zombie created?" John pivoted to focus his presence at the camera lens.

Mama G revolved around John even further to get into his field of view. The camera revolved around the couple accordingly to bring her features into view. John's head followed the camera faithfully, thus perpetuating the entire process.

It was somewhere around this point that Norma-Jeanne checked out. Her mind began to fog over, and she had a short moment to extrapolate this phenomenon to the larger picture of the universe. Perhaps this was a localized example of the unifying theory that kept all those pieces and parts spinning about one another in the heavens. What if God had a large ego and was keeping focus on a single point, say the Earth, so that mankind could pay attention to Him? All the other planets were jealous and wanted His attention. They moved to get into His line of sight and displaced the Earth with their gravitation wells. With the Earth's movement, God had to, in turn, move His focus accordingly. And thus the spin of the planets, solar systems, galaxies, and the entire universe was explained. Of course, this might imply that the Earth was the center of the universe and that all of those physicists and astronomers were wrong, but they'd get over it.

Norma-Jeanne knew there would be hazards and cosmic retribution awaiting her if she were to present this in a documentary. Aside from the possibility that she would be struck down instantly for her heretical ideas, there would always be the naysayers and hecklers that accompanied anything that strayed too far from the norm _. God has not always seemed too keen on letting the secrets out, but who knows?_ she thought. _This concept might just spawn a new religion that brings about peace on Earth, and then how silly will everyone else look?_

The room swam by at an increasing crescendo as each of the participants played their part.

"We do not often speak of such things. It is not safe to talk about dose dat have brought de fury of Papa Legba down upon dem."

"So, they do exist, then? The dead live again and walk the Earth in punishment for something they did?"

Mama G was beginning to look a bit ill from all the motion. "Dey do walks. Papa Legba calls to dem to make amends, and dey walk. Will say no more," she said, ending the interview and staggering to a nearby chair to sit down.

John, who no longer had any reason to rotate, summed things up. "So, this supports the rumors we've heard from the heart of Louisiana. We may need to return to Mother Geraldine later on, but for now, let's go out and do some investigating." He gave the cut sign.

Norma-Jeanne left the camera on and gave John the thumbs up sign.

"I think that went well," he said.

"Oscar material."

"Let's get out there and get some of the public in this."

"Sure thing," Norma-Jeanne said. "You may want to go find a mirror. I need to take a few more shots of the inside here."

She noticed that the door was already closing before she finished speaking. At the mere mention of the word "mirror," John had remembered his biological imperative. Norma-Jeanne turned off the camera and asked Mama G for a beer. She responded with some hokey response about how beer was not accepted in voodoo, etc . . . .

"I'm sure you had a few brews while you lived in Brooklyn," Norma-Jeanne challenged. A momentary thought of denying it was discarded, and Mama G hiked a thumb toward the fridge.

"What gave me away?" she asked with a harsh and familiar northern accent. To Norma-Jeanne, it was like a being back home with her parents, only without having to shout over the irate cab drivers.

"Nothing in particular. It's just a sixth sense Brooklyners have to spot one another."

She nodded in agreement, and Norma-Jeanne gave her a little advice on how to graciously duck out of the bathroom window if she spotted another Brooklyner and wanted to remain a voodoo princess. The brew went down in a few very grateful gulps, and Norma-Jeanne bumped fists with Mama G before leaving. There were promises to come back by and talk of the old neighborhood before they finished up.

John was still putting every strand of hair in its designated parking space by the time she made it back to him. She gave the scene a quick scan and came up pretty empty for the "public" availability. There was one old lady who appeared to be talking to a mannequin in a nearby storefront. She seemed fairly annoyed with her companion and in no real mood to be interviewed. There were a couple of dirty children romping around without any noticeable parental supervision. There was a cloud of odor in the air around them that reminded Norma-Jeanne of stagnant water. She recoiled at the thought of how they'd acquired that aroma.

The equipment wasn't going to pack itself, so she opened the sliding door on the van and began to break out the lens cleaner and some alcohol wipes. A clean camera is a happy camera. Several short minutes had passed in silence before she heard John ask a question.

"What?" she asked.

"I said, what are those kids doing?"

"The stinky ones?"

"No, the ones coming at us with weapons," he said with a tinge of fear in his voice. Norma-Jeanne looked up just in time to see three teenagers walking toward them. They were the same ones she'd seen before and were still holding their phones out in front of them. The only difference was that they were also holding tools spattered with an unmistakable coating of fresh blood. The scene was captured in moments with a photographer's eye. One of them was a girl, blonde, pale, and dressed in dark blue capris and a pink, bedazzled t-shirt. She accessorized with a lovely blue and yellow mini-hatchet in her right hand. The other two were boys. The shortest one wore a skull cap over his dark hair. He had a muted middle-eastern look with a unibrow that seemed to have crawled a bit to the right of center adorning his forehead. His grey pullover was streaked with red droplets from the bottom left of it to his right shoulder. She could just imagine the claw hammer he carried trailing those spatters after colliding with someone's skull. The last teen was tall and so thin he was more skeleton than boy. Cradled gently in the crook of one arm was what looked like a plumber's snake. It jiggled menacingly as they approached.

They were close, no less than ten feet away, and Norma-Jeanne froze, like prey. There was something unnatural about their assailants--aside from the blood and murderous intentions. It was as if the light itself wanted nothing to do with them. They seemed dull and out of place compared with their surroundings. Unfortunately, contemplation was not a luxury Norma-Jeanne could afford as she sat rooted to the ground awaiting the killing strike.

All she could remember was closing her eyes and smelling that foul, rotting vegetable aroma that she recognized from the children. Only it was a hundred times stronger. Then she felt her head violently pushed forward into the sliding door of the van. There was a blinding pain in the center of her skull and then blackness. When her eyes opened again, she was on her back, staring up at the sky. She rolled her head toward where her attackers should have been. Instead of looming over her with death in their eyes, they were also sprawled out on the asphalt, and a very large, very hairy man was stomping on their phones and weapons. Trauma-induced hallucination was the most likely explanation, for after she closed her eyes and reopened them, the seven foot tall mountain of fur was gone.

"Get up, and follow me!" John shouted.

"Wha . . . ?"

"It was a Bigfoot! She went this way," John shouted as he grabbed the camcorder--her camcorder--and took off running toward the tree line. Norma-Jeanne staggered to her feet and then promptly sat right back down. _Concussion, check. Avoided wetting myself, check_. She took a moment to look at the teenagers, but they didn't seem too eager to move. _Better off than them, double check_. She stood up and grabbed a spare camera from the van and then wobbled off in occasionally the same direction as her fleeing news anchor.

Delgado

It had been more than three weeks since he'd broken every rule of research and medicine, and Dr. Jose Delgado was feeling the burden of his conscience like a stone about his neck. Once the surviving patients had recovered, he had been given the unenviable task of disposing of the subjects who had died after surgery. The three survivors had made sure his daughters were "comfortable" while giving him a two hour time frame to hide the evidence and return. When he got back, they had already left with all of the components and data surrounding the modifications they had made to the implants.

They had left, his daughters had still been comatose but safe, and he had finally become his own man again, in a way. He had known he would always be a slave to the memories of the look of realization in his patients' eyes as the death rattle climbed from their lungs and closed off the airway forever. He had also known that he could ever purge the memories of wrapping up and carting off three bodies--three people he had murdered--into the Nevada desert off Highway 395. The thoughts of them lying under the sand and struggling to break free filled his sleeping moments with terror. Only the constant vigil he'd served over his daughters had kept him from running off screaming into the night.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. Only a week ago, he'd worked up the nerve to go back to the makeshift grave. Somehow, the desperation of his situation had given him courage enough to place the tip of the spade into the sandy tomb and begin to dig. After the first shovel full, he had simply continued in an unthinking mechanical motion. One shovel full after another. It had been a scorching day and an equally freezing night. The sweat that had poured so freely from him at the start of the dig clung to him through his shirt. The cooling night air pimpled his flesh with goose bumps and threatened to set his teeth to chattering. Despite his discomfort, he had continued digging until the rank smell of rotting flesh punched him in the face. An eruption of maggots and beetles bubbled up and poured out over the desert floor. They competed for the honor of making him the queasiest. He had to move one corpse out of the way to find what he was looking for. He could hear the sounds of the death rattle again, just like back on the table in the lab. He'd stopped and listened. _There it is again,_ he'd thought. It wasn't right, though. It was too rhythmic. It was like a recording that was being played and rewound, played and rewound. It was in his head. He'd pounded the heel of his hand against his skull to clear out the demons in his memory and pushed on. He was a man on a mission.

The sounds of the dying had dogged him for the hour it took to remove the implant from the dead man at his feet. He'd ignored the phantom noise and the accusing stares from the man's lifeless eyes as he sliced into the rigid flesh. The procedure was long and delicate and would have been tricky even if it wasn't performed under the dim glow of a flashlight, and Dr. Delgado had succeeded. He later marveled at how he'd persevered long enough to cut the implant out of the cadaver and return the bodies back to their eternal rest.

The trip back to the car had been fraught with nervousness and close calls. He'd had to duck down into the sand every time a pair of headlights would stream by, and he'd kept imagining red and blue lights flashing in the distance. There would have been a lot of explaining to do if he'd been caught out in the desert having a party with a shovel and three dead people. Eventually he'd managed to retrace his steps through the sand back to where he'd parked his car and had driven the nerve-wracking hour back to the lab, obsessively checking the speedometer and all three mirrors long after he'd pulled into the parking lot.

He'd done this, or so he'd told himself at the time, to help cure his daughters of the catatonic state that they'd been left in by his "benefactors." They'd promised that the girls would recover in time. He hadn't believed them, and each sponge bath and IV bag they'd received at the hospital had only seemed to confirm his suspicions. And so he'd become a grave robber. He vowed that he would study the amazing little device and rip the secrets from it to free his girls. Barely a day later, he'd gotten the call from the hospital that they were awake and asking for him. The bastards hadn't lied to him after all. Several blissful days had been spent in a joyous celebration of life and the miracle that he'd been given. But a scientist could never leave well enough alone.

As his girls were regaining their strength, Dr. Delgado reviewed all that had happened and what options lay before him. How many sins had he racked up in the last month? How long was his list going to be when Saint Peter opened up the chapter on his life? And for what? He had gotten his girls back, and for that, he would have killed twice as many people and robbed twice as many tombs. That should be enough, but it wasn't. The intricate little device sat on a nearby workbench and called to him, tempting him like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, offering him the forbidden fruit of knowledge.

He knew that he should let it go, that he should take the knowledge gained and move to Europe where his simplistic digital arrays could be implanted into blind patients to allow them some modicum of sight. They might be able to see light and dark and even primary colors. He would be a hero. He would be wealthy. He'd no longer be second rate. Whatever it was his patients had done to themselves, it had given them something special. They could now see the world as no others had seen it, and it was--by all accounts--wonderful. And so, Dr. Jose Delgado, foremost authority on optic nerve tissue, gave in to the temptation and set out to understand.

Norma-Jeanne

The strip mall that housed Mama G's Psychic Emporium, three unconscious teenage murderers, and a minivan with the picture of a constipated werewolf on the side of it had been built on the outskirts of the Bodcau State Wildlife Management Area, which was a large patch of Louisiana wetlands. Of course, the same could be said for just about any place in this southern and drastically elevation deprived state. The placement of civilization seemed to depend solely on someone finding a large enough patch of dry land to put down a foundation. Once those were exhausted, they resorted to simply draining swamps and building on the bog--which was why New Orleans had played the part of Atlantis when something really big and nasty rolled through in 2005.

Norma-Jeanne soon found herself tromping gracelessly through tall, thin grasses that made her skin itch viciously when they didn't outright flay her open. Believe it or not, this was the best of her options. The alternatives had been trying to force her way through saw-bladed palmettos that looked evil enough to amputate her legs below the knees or stepping off into the deceptively soggy muck that had already greedily stolen one of her shoes and threatened to hold on to the entire limb next time.

She could hear the sounds of something large and uncoordinated fighting its way through the vegetation about a hundred yards in front of her and prayed it was John--as opposed to what John was chasing or, even worse, something that had eaten both John and what he was chasing. Visions of twenty-foot long alligators filled her head, some with John Urban in their mouth-- _not an entirely unpleasant idea,_ she thought with some guilt--some with a large, hairy man in their mouth, and one wearing a porcupine toupee that made it look an awful lot like a scaly Don King. She blamed the concussion for that one.

Norma-Jeanne began to feel her energy wane, and she slowed down to a walk to catch her breath and to push the sweat dampened strands of hair behind her ears. It was only then that she could hear the incessant buzzing of helicopters disguised as mosquitoes descending upon her with ravenous hunger. She knew the feeling. She'd moved with the same ferocity toward the Cupcake Paradise someone had placed right next door to her gym and knew that there was nothing on this earth that would stop them. She trudged forward out of self-defense as much as anything, flailing her arms about her head and neck in a vain attempt to retain some of her blood.

The assault on her person was all but forgotten at the sound of a blood curdling scream to her right. She'd strayed off course a bit and was on her way to getting lost in the swamps, destined to be a Happy Meal for insects and alligators, when the sound brought her up short. She pivoted and began to run again toward what she hoped was a prissy, yet alive, TV personality. What she found was just her camcorder, lying on its side in a small puddle of swamp water. She cursed her luck and plucked it off the ground. The lens had been smeared with something reddish and slimy. _It's going to take forever to clean it up,_ she thought. _This is exactly why I never let other people borrow my stuff. They just run off into the swamp after mythical creatures with no regard for the sanctity of technology._ She vowed that the next time she saw him, she was going to show Mr. Urban a hissy-fit of apocalyptic proportions. _If_ she ever saw him again, that was.

She called out his name softly at first and then with more bravado when nothing lurched out of the underbrush and devoured her. She looked at the ground for clues, but the spongy grass and earth refused to divulge anything more than liquid-filled depressions that may or may not have been large footprints. She called for another five minutes before venturing forward, stopping at the edge of a very large, very wet expanse of creepy down-south wetlands. Spanish moss hung from every branch of every tree. Roots jutted up from the water as if their masters were trying to tip-toe their way to dry land. Something small splashed nearby which triggered a much larger splash and a hasty retreat from a city girl back toward drier land.

Norma-Jeanne was not prepared for this. She was dizzy from the head injury and loss of blood--the mosquitoes weren't shy about coming back for seconds--and would undoubtedly get herself killed if she strayed any farther in. She had to go back and get help just as soon as she figured out which way back was. She turned in all directions, looking for some sign of her passage, but there was none. Suddenly, unbidden tears began to form in her eyes, and she wiped at them furiously.

"Quit being such a girl," she told herself. "You can do this." The sounds of buzzing parted slightly for a high-pitched wail of something in the distance. It rose and fell in a rhythm she was intimately familiar with, having grown up in Brooklyn. It was a police car, and it was coming from just beyond the trees to the east, or was it west? Well, it was _that_ way in any case. She and her mosquito groupies moved toward the sound, grateful for what lady luck had bestowed upon them.

Emerging from the brush, Norma-Jeanne felt ten pounds lighter as her companions said farewell to their host. She itched like mad from the dozens of bites, scrapes, and God-knows-what-else she'd picked up out there. It was destined to be a night of chigger and leech treasure hunting once she got back to the hotel. She would, however, first have to get past the flotilla of emergency response vehicles that had moored in the parking lot.

There were distinct groupings of activity hotspots from one end of the strip mall to the other. There was one man in a beige uniform talking to Mama G outside her shop. She was holding something to her head and swaying in apparent communication with the spirit world. There was a cluster of similarly clothed officers at the front door of the hardware store across the way. With them was a large older gentleman in casual dress. In front of, behind, and next to her van were the majority of men and women in uniforms denoting their affiliation to the police, the emergency medical services, or the press. You can always tell the last group by their perfect hair. Apparently, none of these people ever heard of carpooling either. They'd brought four police cruisers, two ambulances--with a third on the way judging by the sounds in the distance--and a live-broadcast news van with all the trimmings. These newcomers had her getaway van outnumbered and outmaneuvered. Sun-Tzu would've been proud.

Cycling between each of these groups were coffee laden interns, moving like worker ants delivering food to their respective hills. The organization was impressive to the trained eye. Organized chaos was an art form unto itself, and these were masters. As the options available for her next move dwindled in a fuzzy, itchy haze, she decided there was nothing for it. She'd just have to jump right in with both feet.

It took even the most observant officers several minutes to notice her presence in their inner sanctum. Apparently, moderately attractive women covered in muck and mosquito bites were common in this neck of the woods. She'd been able to walk to the open sliding door of the van, sit down, and disassemble her camcorder before a duly deputized member of Caddo Parish's finest even realized she was there.

"Ma'am," he said with that delightful Cajun accent, "You can't be here. This is a crime scene."

"I'd be happy to leave, but you've got my van blocked in," she replied without even looking up from the camcorder's hard drive. It was a bit of a mess, but if she dried it out, it should still be good.

"This is your van?"

She nodded in answer.

"Then did you see what happened here?"

"Only the part where the bloody teenagers were coming at me with hammers and axes." She was tempted to look up and spoil the nonchalant act, but she was a little embarrassed about how she looked right now, and from what she'd seen, this officer was kinda cute.

"So where've you been all this time?" he asked with a small degree of impatience.

"I was looking for my," she cringed at saying the next word, "partner. He ran out into the swamp chasing a Bigfoot."

"A Bigfoot?" he asked, running his hand under his hat and through his short, sandy hair. He looked around until his eye caught the logo on the van. "Ah, you're with that show with all those crazy alien stories."

"Among other crazy topics."

"So now you're going to tell me that Bigfoot killed two people in the hardware store and knocked three teenagers out before your partner chased it off into the woods."

She looked up finally, her annoyance easily overcoming any potential embarrassment. "Not quite. I'm going to tell you that the three teenagers killed the two people in the hardware store, had intended to kill two more out here, myself included, and decided not to because something large and hairy that my partner thought was a Bigfoot decided to intervene."

He looked like he wanted a cigarette or a stiff drink really bad. "And then your partner ran off after the Bigfoot, and you followed."

"Got it in one." She felt a little sorry for the guy. This wasn't an easy story to tell, much less believe. "Look, we're looked at as crackpots for chasing these monsters and aliens all over the place. Most of what we end up with is eyewitness accounts from people who are, for lack of a better term, just plain bat-shit crazy. John thought he saw the real thing. He had a chance to redeem years of criticism and failure. He went for it. Now he's lost, and I look like Saint Francis."

"Who?"

"The guy who liked to hug lepers," she said with a sigh and a flourish toward the swelling bumps on her arms. He seemed to get it, either that or he'd decided she was bat-shit crazy and didn't want to fuel her delusions.

"Well, Ms. Francis,"

"Baker, actually."

"Ms. Baker, I'm going to need you to come down to the station with me."

"Can I get a shower first?"

"No, ma'am."

"Shit. What about John? Are you going to send someone in there to look for him?"

"Yes ma'am. I'll get a canine unit out there shortly. Now if you'll come with me, please."

"Hold on. Let me lock everything up first," she said as she started putting all but one of the pieces of the camcorder into the case. The one remaining item, the hard drive, she snuck under the passenger's seat as she swayed in mock distress. She felt the officer's strong hands reach around from behind to support her.

"Don't worry about that. We'll take care of it."

"But that's all my stuff. It cost me a fortune." Norma-Jeanne swayed a bit more, realizing she enjoyed the feel of the young officer's arms around her.

"We'll secure it. I promise. Now let's get you looked at by the paramedic, and then we can take a little ride downtown." She struggled a little more so that he would grip her tighter and then allowed herself to be carried off toward one of the waiting ambulances.

A bandage, an icepack, and half a tube of Calamine lotion accompanied Norma-Jeanne in the back of the cruiser on the ride back into "town." The lotion didn't do anything other than make her skin nice and peach in color–-although over the bite marks it was peach and red from all the continued scratching. There was no idle chit-chat on the ride, which spoke volumes about which side of the investigation she'd landed on. She'd also drawn the short straw and ended up not riding in the car with the nice and cute officer from before. Instead, she was a passenger with a distinctly older, pudgier, and profoundly less cute officer who thought small talk was heresy. _If it wasn't for bad luck,_ she thought.

This officer had the personality of a leftover grilled cheese sandwich and had not yet proven to her that he could indeed engage in a verbal exchange. Silence, however, was sometimes even more telling than a boat load of words. For instance, this silence could have been a function of the officer's reluctance to discuss her Bigfoot defense. It could have been a polite gesture to avoid getting an injured woman upset at reliving such a horrific and traumatizing event. It could be because his tongue had been cut out in a fishing accident as a child when he'd attempted to kiss a snapping turtle to prove to Mary Sue how brave he was. Probably not, though. Norma-Jeanne discounted these theories one after another, citing the propensity for people to make cooing kiddie noises at the insane instead of ignoring them. He didn't look the least bit interested in being nice. And the jury was still out on the snapping turtle. She stuck her tongue out at him in the rear view mirror a few times to try to get him to respond in like. Sadly, he wasn't game for it. No, this silence probably meant that she was currently on the "suspect" list. Norma-Jeanne pouted and stared out the windows at the cows. They looked smug at her captivity.

"So, let me get this straight, Ms. Baker. You say that you left the scene of the crime to chase down Bigfoot. Is that correct?" Detective Savoie--the one who got stuck with interviewing her--was a large man in a sweaty, white, short-sleeve shirt. Each button put forth a heroic effort at holding the two edges of the shirt together as it fought against the immense strain of a tired, overworked, overweight, and emotionally deflated man. He had a twelve o'clock yesterday shadow of a beard and flattened his choppy hair back onto his head repeatedly in irritation. He also possessed a rather condescending smile that he presented at the end of pretty much every statement.

"No, and I hope you're taking notes because I'm getting tired of saying the same thing over and over."

"Indulge me."

"I left the parking lot in order to assist my partner, John Urban, who left the scene to chase down Bigfoot."

"What's the difference?"

"I sound less crazy in my version."

The older man nodded, considering this. "You've got a point. Okay, did you know that your 'partner' is wanted in four states for murder, kidnapping, and racketeering?"

"Holy shit! That is so cool. I didn't know the stiff had it in him."

"He doesn't. I was just trying to spice things up. In fact, the only thing on record for him is for reporting an amazing fifty-three disturbances of the peace in Greensboro, North Carolina."

"That's more like it," Norma-Jeanne said, scratching absently at the bites on her arm. She had been damned to the incessant, mind-numbing itching of the third layer of hell. She couldn't remember what she used to do with her hands when they weren't engaged in the act of removing the top two layers of her epidermis. Did she knit, or pick her nose, or make shadow puppets constantly? If idle hands were the devil's workshop, then hers had just got religion.

"Yes. So then why did he kill two people in the hardware store and then run away? Was he wound too tight?"

"He is wound too tight, but there is no way he could've done that. I'd have seen something."

"And that's why you're here. What did you see?"

Norma-Jeanne sighed and put her head in her hands and started her story for what must have been the ninetieth time. "Like I said before, we'd just finished interviewing Mother Geraldine. I was putting my camcorder back in its case when those freaky teenagers started walking toward us. They had blood all over them, and they looked like they were going to kill us."

"And that's when Bigfoot jumped in and saved the day."

"That's when my forehead connected with the side of the van. Next thing I knew, John was running into the woods with my rig, yelling about Bigfoot. That's all I know. What more do you want?" she asked in exasperation. Norma-Jeanne could hear the Brooklyn creeping back into her voice and took a deep breath to calm herself. She had worked hard to hide this "defect" and was going to be damned if this backwoods cop was going to make her fall back into the old speech patterns. "The kids were drenched in blood. They carried tools that were even more drenched in blood. If they'd signed their names in blood on the floor, you couldn't have a more solid case." She paused a moment before continuing. "They didn't, did they?"

"No, they didn't. And everything you said is true. But why does it seem to me that there is something else going on? If you and your partner had stayed put, then we'd have had some coffee, exchanged a few pleasantries, and then tied up all the loose ends. The problem now is that one of those loose ends is wandering around in the swamps chasing large, furry men."

"Well, if I hadn't heard the sirens, you'd have had two loose ends lost in the swamps." _Scratch, scratch._

The detective rubbed his hand over his eyes in frustration or stress or both. "This murder business isn't normal. I've had to tell two families that they need to come down and identify two lumps of flesh that used to be their loved ones. I've got three sets of parents shouting from the rooftops that their sweet little children couldn't possibly have done such a thing. Those same children are now catatonic according to the doctors. And then I have you, a missing celebrity, and Bigfoot. Frankly, darlin', neither you nor Mr. Urban fit, and I've got no more room in my investigation for Bigfeet."

"Bigfoot. The plural is the same as the sing . . . never mind. So the kids aren't saying anything?"

"They don't talk. They don't eat. They don't move except to piss their pants every once in a while." The big man rubbed his eyes again and sighed.

"That's weird. I wonder if the trauma was too much for them." _Scratch, scratch, scratch._

"So you can verify that they were more animated before now?"

"That's an affirmative. I saw them walking toward the hardware store before we went into Mother Geraldine's. They were all holding cell phones out in front of them as they walked. It was kind of creepy how they moved in unison. I figured it was some new app or maybe a game they were playing. The next time I saw them, they were walking toward us. They seemed calm as anything, still walking in unison with their cell phones held out. Of course, they looked a bit more sinister, what with the blood and all."

"And did they say anything? Did they threaten you?"

"No," Norma-Jeanne said as she scratched a spot on her forehead that she hadn't remembered itching before. She looked around as casually as possible to see if there were any mosquitoes in the room with her. "Unless you count dragging bloody weapons into our general vicinity. Otherwise, they just walked toward us."

Detective Savoie sighed again and closed his notebook. "I was honestly hoping that maybe you had all the answers for me. There is nothing that will keep me up at night more than something like this. Murder is bad enough, but murder that I might never know the reason for? That's an ulcer waiting to happen. I'll get someone to take you back to your van. I'd like for you to stick around for a few days in case I have some more questions while we look for your partner. Check back in with me before you leave."

"No problem. Do you think you'll find him?" _Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch._

"Hard to say. Most of us grew up in those swamps, so we know the best ways to track. The problem is that the best way to track in there is to avoid trying to do it in the first place. If he's on the outskirts, then I'd say we've got a pretty good chance. If he's gone farther . . ." at the last word he just kind of circled his hand in the air and let the absence of words fill in the rest.

Bean

Three weeks had passed. Five demons had fallen, and the three boys had drawn more than a few sideways glances from the concerned pedestrians who had watched them from afar. They'd avoided logging in to Purgatory during school hours and made a pact that they wouldn't adventure without the other two present. Two of the boys immediately regretted this decision when they found out that Brett had soccer practice three afternoons a week, but they stuck to their word nonetheless. Despite the delays, the trio was able to gather the necessary quantity of demons' souls to allow them to be admitted to the first layer of Hell.

It had been over a month, and the game had not lost any of its allure. By all accounts, it had even gained ground in the "most beloved thing in the world" category of their hearts. This was unheard of in the fickle, ADHD riddled species known as teenage boys. Before this, the only obsession that had been known to last more than a week with them had breasts and wore short shorts. Purgatory was different than the usual mind-numbing fare, though. They could accomplish great things, be great people, avoid having their underpants stolen out of their lockers and hung from the light fixtures--well, not totally. It still happened, but they had a means of escape from the world of high-flying tighty-whities. In spite of all of this, they wanted more, and the only way to get more was to find a means to escape Raymond.

A mere one hundred miles separated them from glory. It was shamefully lucky that the entrance to Hell was revealed to them to be just outside of Shreveport, which was only a couple of hours away. All they had to do was get there, find the portal, and then descend. Once they did that, they could return to Raymond, and the park and back alleys of their home town would be on a completely different world, full of new adventures and enemies. There was just one obstacle in the way.

For three teenagers without a car or good excuse, one hundred miles away might as well have been in Canada. Collectively, their parents only went on vacations every couple of years and would hardly choose Shreveport as the destination. That isn't even taking into consideration that school had just started, and it was still two solid months before Christmas break. They could beg and plead, but with gas and time at a premium, a family road trip was out of the question. This left them as edgy and desperate as any drug addict denied a fix.

"I think the key to this," Joel said as he guided Legolass413 in to finish off a small pack of small, useless, and annoying little imps, "is in Kevin Denton."

"The guy who works at the Tenplex?"

"Yeah. I saw him out here soloing last week."

"And we've seen about a dozen others, too," interrupted Brett. "What makes him so special?"

"He has a car. Duh." Joel let that sink in for a moment. He was right. Of those they'd seen playing Purgatory, Kevin was the oldest and the only one with a driver's license.

"I'll have one in a couple of years," volunteered Brett.

"And that will be great when we're playing the sequel to Purgatory. But until then, unless you want to exist in the newbie level forever, we need a way to get to Shreveport."

"Maybe we can get the school to organize a field trip out there?" Bean suggested.

"And maybe if we hung a 'For Rent' sign on your forehead, we could actually get something useful out of your thick skull for once," Joel snapped.

"Because it's big and empty," Brett added, laughing at the joke.

"Yeah, thanks for explaining that Brett. Anyway," Joel began as he decided he'd made his point. "Kevin's our best chance. Trust me."

"And how do we convince Kevin to take a bunch of freshmen halfway across the state?" Bean asked, still not convinced.

"Pay him. He's got to be ready to descend, and gas isn't cheap. This way, we all get to descend, and he doesn't have to spend all his money doing it."

"We could always just take the Greyhound out there," Brett suggested.

"Great idea. And maybe the monkeys flying out of my butt can give us a lift." Joel gave Brett a look that could only be deciphered as "Why do I even bother?" "I'm pretty sure you have to be eighteen to buy a ticket."

"I don't know. I've heard of kids riding it alone," Brett said with a sulk.

"But their parents are the ones who bought the tickets. Trust me on this. Kevin is the way to go."

A week later, the three boys were huddled around Brett's phone buying Greyhound tickets online. This had required "borrowing" the Discover card out of Brett's mother's purse and ensuring themselves of a serious beating when she found out. Kevin had left them no other choice. He'd flat-out refused to be part of anything like what they proposed, citing the potential for going to prison for kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment, child abuse, or any of a hundred things the cops in this town were just waiting to spring on him. He pointed to the fact that he didn't exactly have a stellar record with them as it was. This federal crime argument had seemed far-fetched and paranoid to Bean. He didn't argue though. He secretly felt they'd dodged a bullet by not being stuck in a car for two hours with Kevin and his creepy roaming eye. After some insightful thought, he realized they'd just decided to look down the barrel of a different gun.

"Three tickets to Shreveport leaving tomorrow at seven-thirty. Eighty-four dollars." Joel followed that up with a low whistle.

"We are going to be so dead," said Bean.

"We are so going to be in the first layer of Hell after we finish being dead, you mean," corrected Brett. The optimism and outright balls of his two friends astounded Bean and left him completely unable to wuss out.

"See you guys tomorrow," he said, bumping fists with each of them as he went home for the night.

Norma-Jeanne

The van was a disaster. Her gear had been shelled from their cases like peanuts at a restaurant and discarded on the floor of the van without any of the courtesy and professionalism the cops' motto proclaimed. _To protect and serve, my ass_. These police had no respect for quality AV gear. Norma-Jeanne took her time repacking everything and reviewed her situation. She kept hoping that John would come strolling out of the swamp with his perfect hair and present her with his giant, pompous smile. Then she would bash him over the skull as payback for the hours of interrogation and loss of skin and blood. It would be nice to know that he wasn't getting gnawed on by giant ape-men, too, just from a purely humanitarian perspective of course.

It was getting late, and she began to idly entertain the insane notion of going out and looking for John or the Bigfoot. The sun was beginning to settle down behind the tree line which did little to relieve the oppressive heat and humidity but did give the mosquitos a license to venture further out from the swamps. More importantly, it removed the whole "light" equation from the immediate universe. Taking memories of her last foray into the swamp and then superimposing night upon them squashed any ideas of a rescue mission. She would be lost before getting out of the parking lot. And it wasn't like she liked John or owed him anything. Some would call what she was feeling the "common decency inherent in the human spirit." Others would call it her "moral imperative." She called it "I'm going to get fired if I lose another host." This evolved into "How can I avoid getting fired if I lose another host?" and then into "Why would Bigfoot run into a civilized parking lot just to give a camera girl a concussion and scare the snot out of a bunch of murderous teenagers?" Her response was a resounding, "Why wouldn't he?" She'd said this last one out loud and looked around sheepishly.

"Why wouldn't she?" she corrected, remembering that John had said it was a "she" that was running into the swamp. She continued her intrapersonal conversation.

"I mean, the swamp is an awful place. I'd run out of there in a heartbeat if I had the chance." A mosquito landed on her arm and began to dig in. She swatted it with a satisfactory "thwack" and then wiped the carnage off on her pants. "But Mrs. Foot, can I call you Big? Thanks. You've lived out here for generations and have avoided humans just in case they wanted to track you down and dissect you. I mean, you've managed to avoid pretty much all of our tech . . . ." She broke off in mid-sentence and then began to furiously shove bags and boxes out of the way. She reached under the passenger's seat and pulled out the mini hard drive she'd stashed there. This might just save her ass. She felt a sting and familiar itching sensation radiate from her shoulder. One of the bloodsucking bastards had bitten her through her shirt. She cursed them and closed the side doors before climbing into the driver's seat.

All thoughts of John's rescue were buried under the almost physical need to clean up the hard drive and find out what was on it. The drive to the hotel was wobbly but not as bad as the last twenty feet from the elevator to the room. Something about the symptoms associated with a concussion went through her mind as she inserted the key card into the slot. Then she blacked out.

John

"These may possibly be my last words. I have been taken prisoner by what appears to be a tribe of large, hairy, and extremely smelly primates. These are most assuredly the fabled Skunk Apes known to live in the swamps of the southeast United States.

"I followed one of them deep into the wilds of the Louisiana swamp, but she led me into a trap. The ground suddenly ate one of my shoes, and as I was recovering it, I was waylaid from behind. I believe I have been taken to their nest. I've seen at least four of the creatures popping in and out from behind the trees all around me. I appear to be in the middle of a large expanse of wetlands. The mosquitoes are intolerable. I think I even saw an alligator a few moments ago. I am effectively a prisoner on this dry patch of land. It's my own little Alcatraz.

"Thankfully, the brutes didn't search my pockets, or they would have found this voice recorder and my emergency bottle of hair gel. I plan to try to befriend them in hopes they will not eat me or sacrifice me to their pagan gods. If I should perish, I want everyone to know that I died with dignity and the kind of class that has become synonymous with the name John Urban."

Bean

Nothing stretches out a night like fear or excitement, and Franklin Bean was feeling both as he prepared to skip school and hop the Greyhound express out of town. True sleep was out of the question, so he alternated between trying to get a handful of winks and gazing out his bedroom window through the screen of his iPhone. Purgatory continued to amaze at every turn. It even read the internal clock on his phone and altered the wildlife as darkness fell.

The nocturnal creatures of this realm moved with the purposeful stealth of predators or prey or both. None of them wanted to get eaten, but all of them had to eat. The give and take usually consisted of some baser, rat-like creatures with large, luminous eyes giving while larger multi-legged organisms did the taking. The predators in this scenario were vaguely reminiscent of centipedes that employed a combination of bait and ambush techniques to maximize their efficiency. They would hide behind a tree or a shed and launch a glowing blob out into the open spaces and wiggle it around, trying to attract the attention of one of Darwin's rejects. It worked more often than not and only occasionally attracted something large and hungry. When that happened, there would be a quick struggle, and Bean would hear shrieks and thudding over his earphones, and then all would be silent once more. That's when the sounds of crunching would begin. It was kind of unsettling, imagining the huge, dark shapes grinding their way through the shells with God-knows-what-kind of teeth. It was even more unsettling--and alternately thrilling--thinking about the makers of the game going to that level of detail. They had installed an entire ecology into the game from food source to apex predator, and it happened all around him every day and night.

He was idly wondering what Werepe did when he was logged off Purgatory when the ground split open outside his window. Something vaguely the size of an SUV pulled its gelatinous bulk free and turned itself inside out to reveal dozens of odd-sized eyeballs and drooling mouths. It took a moment to orient itself and seemed to spot Werepe cowering behind the windowsill. It advanced at a run and rammed itself into the stone arch of the digital window. Eyes and mouths bulged inward, filling the space and spilling over onto the floor as it oozed its way closer. Bean panicked and hit the single button on the phone, bringing him back to the home screen and ending the nightmare. He looked around the side of his phone at the glass panes of the window in front of him and let out a shuddering breath. Hell was going to be so freaking awesome.

John

"I've decided that I don't want to die with dignity. I'd rather live. With that objective in mind, I allowed myself to be painted with foul-smelling bog mud by one of the primitives--the same female which I chased into the swamps, I believe. Wearing alligator excrement may never come into fashion amongst my peers, but the mosquitoes seem to dislike it even more than I do. Which is to say a great deal. Besides, if it endears me to the tribe--I am now convinced that it is indeed a cohesive unit out here--then I may yet see another sunrise.

"I was given two beetles and a fat, pulsating white grub for dinner and urged to eat them. There was great expectation in the face of my chef, so I placed them in my mouth and made "yummy" noises. That seemed to please the creature, and she left me alone long enough for me to spit the still moving hors d'oeuvres out of my mouth. Odd, though, I only counted one beetle and the fat grub afterward.

"As the night has progressed, there has been a noticeable increase in the number and variety of howls, clicks, and screams that I believe might be some form of primitive language. I am reluctant to try any of these vocalizations myself just yet. I would hate to make a social faux-pas so soon after making their acquaintance. I mostly just smile and nod when one appears. Thankfully, smiling is the universal sign of friendship."
Part 3 - Emigration

### October 16th

Norma-Jeanne

Norma-Jeanne's eyes flickered open to daylight streaming into the room and an incessant knocking at the door, followed by the cry "housekeeping" which was followed by the jingle of keys. She managed to croak out something unintelligible, and the jingling stopped.

"Okay, I come back later," said the voice, and the sound of squeaking wheels receded down the hallway. Norma-Jeanne peeled herself off the floor--where she'd apparently spent the night contorted into a torturous hybrid of the Little Thunderbolt and the One Legged Pigeon yoga poses--and awkwardly staggered into the bathroom. She shucked the filthy clothes off, vowing to burn them the first chance she got, before slithering into the shower. She lay in the tub while hot droplets peppered her from above. There was a pattern to the water and how it struck her skin. She could discern something of great significance in this as if the order of droplets were some form of cosmic Morse code that she'd never quite recognized. At least, not until now. With an upswell of excitement, she began to decipher the message, this unifying thread that connected science with religion and was destined to bring humanity into a new age of reason and enlightenment.

01000111 01101111 01100100 is the sum of all things in the universe. The constant derived from the lossless conversion of matter to energy is equivalent to the gravitational pull in a vacuum. . .

"Housekeeping. Oh, such a mess."

. . _. is fundamental to the laws of astral physics. However, only by tapping the spiritual . . ._ The sound of a large-motored vacuum cleaner drowned out all else in the room. It was soon followed by a hissing and gurgling noise and then once again with the sound of suction.

_. . . The power of the soul lies with the sum of emotional and intellectual experiences which must equal . . . many think it's brujeria, how he comes and disappears, every move will hypnotize you, some will call it chuleria . . ._ Loud and obnoxious, the pop-rasta-rap abortion permeated through the walls of the bathroom and Norma-Jeanne's receptive skull as someone with the voice of a tone-deaf howler monkey belted out the words.

It was lost. There was no way she could concentrate on saving the universe with that racket going on. She reached over the side of the tub to find a shoe and chucked it at the door with a satisfying thud.

"Oh!" came a startled cry from the other side of the door. "I so sorry. I come back later. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Sorry."

"Okay." There was some thumping and then the sound of a door closing. Norma-Jeanne listened for the message again and the droplets spoke to her . _. . he's the king something something and the dj knows him well . . ._

"Shit."

Cleansed and relatively clear-headed, Norma-Jeanne had her laptop open and attached to the hard drive from her camcorder. She counted herself lucky that it hadn't been a standard hard drive--which would have invariably puked all over itself and blown a platter when it hit the ground--and had instead been one of the newer SSD models. It was a little more expensive but well worth the cost when situations involving chasing hairy myths into stagnant water were concerned. The folder in the hard drive contained multiple individual video files. These began and ended with each time the videographer, her in most cases, had pressed the record button. This was a departure from the continuous single video that used to dominate the industry, and despite the need to stitch them all together at the end, it reduced the risk of total loss due to file corruption. Everything got run through video editing software anyway, so it was really no big deal. In fact, it made it easy to insert those video transitions that viewers found so exciting.

The memories of the day before were a little fuzzy, especially when it came to the little details, and Norma-Jeanne decided to review everything in chronological order so that her mind could process things as they should be. She reviewed the teenagers and their creepy robotic motions, then relived the death spiral at Mama G's, and then finally started the last video file on the list.

The camera itself wasn't that heavy, but holding anything in front of you still and motionless was a pain. That was why she had her special shoulder mount attached and all the wonderful controls easily accessible from the handle. Whether John knew this or not was debatable, but somehow he had managed to hit the record button at the same time he grabbed the camera. _Probably just dumb luck._

The first thing she saw when the video began was the asphalt of the parking lot and her knee. She heard John's voice shouting for her to follow, and then the image bounced up and down as he chased something out into the brush. Overall, the quality of this filming was amateurish and disappointing. Granted, it was difficult to film while running, and John was at a bit of a disadvantage because of the prosthetic shoulder holster and the fact that he was, in fact, an amateur, but damn. The brief glimpses of whatever it was that John was chasing showed up as a giant, red stain on a green background. It was the Godzilla of motion blur.

Motion blur used to be the bane of videographers and photographers the world over. Whenever a perfect shot presented itself, something would move, and only streaks or blurry smudges would be left. Imaging equipment had since been almost universally outfitted with software to compensate for the minute shaking of the operator, and, with the help of the latest software, even severe motion blurring could be interpreted into a clearer image. That is, if it was only a single direction of motion blur. In this case, neither the camera itself nor post-production software was able to help. After thirty minutes of rendering, Norma-Jeanne was still left with a blurry mess. The problem was that the image was blurred not only by the motion of the target fleeing into the swamp, but also by the motion of John's arm as he waved it up and down during his sprint. The best she could do was make the smudge look a bit like Santa Claus leading a prison break. Merry Christmas.

While searching frame by frame, she found only two points where the subject was in focus. Once, John had caught a furred hand pushing a branch out of the way in the bottom right corner of the frame, and then there was also a picture of wooly legs vaulting over a clump of saw grass. It was not exactly indisputable evidence, but then nothing else captured ever had been either. There was probably enough here to do a segment.

She closed out this video clip and went backward through her file list until she landed on the one with the teenagers again. She watched carefully as they moved toward the hardware store. She kept hoping that she would see something that would make sense. There they were, walking in step and staring doggedly at their cell phones. Unfortunately, even though her camcorder was high definition, she couldn't make out anything on the screens. Then, they walked off into the distance to commit murder. Norma-Jeanne closed out the file and prepared herself to make the phone call she'd been dreading.

Bean

"Hey, Bean. Where are you?"

"Um, I'm sorry. We're all Beans at my house," a female voice rebuked sternly. It softened before continuing. "This is Franklin's mom. I had to borrow his phone for work since mine died yesterday. He's not at school yet?"

"Oh, well, uh. He could be. He was supposed to give me his notes from English yesterday. He probably just forgot. I'll see him in second period anyway."

"Okay. Well, sorry about that."

"No problem. Thanks, Mrs. Bean."

"Bye."

John

"Smiling is definitely not a universal sign of friendship in a community of large primates. I have a dislocated shoulder to prove it. Hopefully, the scientific community will be able to use this information to their benefit when handling apes and chimpanzees in the future. My life was spared by the female, the one that seems to have taken a keen interest in me, who stepped in after the third swing. It seems the standard show of domination from the resident alpha male involves grabbing the usurper by the legs and trying to chop down a tree with him. Thankfully, the trees in this swamp appear to be quite flexible.

"After regaining my senses, I noticed the female spending a good deal of time comforting me like a child. She paid special attention to my hair, which seems to have retained its shape and body quite well in this environment. I named her Matilda after a dancing bear I once saw as a child in Serbia. Or was that a movie about a child in Serbia?

"Despite my need for comfort and a good chiropractor, I was careful not to make any motions that would be misconstrued by the dominant male as putting moves on his mate. As a result, I just sat there until Matilda got bored with me and wandered off. Watching the sun come up through the strangled vegetation of a Louisiana swamp is supposed to be a thing of beauty. I only regret that I was too concussed to see much of anything of my first sunrise here. Instead, I've decided to spend a great deal of time just lying on the ground, staring at my feet."

Bean

Depression sat upon Franklin Webster Bean's chest like an obese cat, squeezing all semblance of happiness from his lungs. When he had awoken--bleary eyed and groggy from the previous evening--to find his mother commandeering his phone, Bean had panicked and threw a short tantrum before she stopped him cold with one raised eyebrow. It was a warning system they'd developed over the years. One raised eyebrow meant there was still time to back away from the ledge before she shoved him off. Two eyebrows meant the pavement was rushing up to meet him. Bean had automatically throttled down his objections as the second one had begun to lift. He'd apologized for his outburst, and she, in turn, had apologized for the inconvenience. She'd also extended the courtesy of explaining that it couldn't be helped as she needed a means to make phone calls in order to try to sell property in this crappy economy. She had already forwarded her number to his and had to be on the road in fifteen minutes. She'd promised to return it as soon as she got her phone fixed. "Besides," she'd said, "you'll be in school all day and won't need it."

She was, in a self-revisionist manner, correct about everything. Bean was indeed stuck in school and had no need of a phone at all. In fact, those most likely to communicate with him were well on their way to the Promised Land and had no reason to talk to him other than to brag. He was once more a lone outcast and would apparently always be one. When Joel and Brett got back, they would be grounded and suspended from school, but once that was over, they would be a whole world apart from him. Worse yet, there would be no way he could ever get to Shreveport to descend now. He had no money, no one to tag along with, and once the parent-net spread the word about what they'd done, it would be impossible to escape. No, he was doomed.

Norma-Jeanne

The phone was stuck to the side of Norma-Jeanne's face when she awoke. There was evidence of a small puddle of drool beneath her that she would have been embarrassed about if there was anyone else nearby. The phone's screen was dim, and when she touched it, it came to life, showing five digits on the dial feature that she did not recognize. There was a lot of daylight filtering in through the curtains, and the room had been cleaned while she was out. Her clothes were off the floor where she'd left them, and the bed was made. She checked the time on her phone and saw that she'd lost a couple of hours. _Did I pass out again?_

She reached up and felt her hair. It was suspiciously dry and had even been styled on one side. _Had somebody snuck in and tidied up my room, and me, while I was out?_ She thought she heard that Spanglish abomination she later discovered to be the Ketchup song in the distance and shook her head. The service in this joint was pretty good as long as you didn't have any illusions about privacy. There were even a pair of shorts and a t-shirt in the right places on her that she didn't remember donning. Very good service.

The phone call to her producer went about as well as could have been expected. There was a good deal of shouting with the question "How could you lose him?" repeated over and over again, followed by silence and then more shouting. It was your typical staff meeting at Mysteries of the Paranormal. Norma-Jeanne waited until her boss paused to take a breath and then casually mentioned the footage.

"Norm, my girl," he said with a truckload of sugar behind it, "why didn't you say so to begin with? It's terrible what happened to John, but this is something we need to get to the geeks right away. It's what he worked his whole life for. It's his legacy."

"What about the zombies? Those kids . . . ."

"Never mind about them. This is bigger. This is Bigger-foot!"

"The shots aren't conclusive," she reminded him.

"They're gold. Anything new and genuine will drive the ratings straight to the top."

"Shouldn't we wait for John?"

"We could, but if we run this piece now, we could actually help John. Imagine the search parties that will be formed to find the poor man. No, you need to get your ass back here ASAP."

"ASAP? But the cops told me to . . . ."

"Let me worry about the cops. Just get packed up. Call me when you're ready."

"Okay."

There was a knock on the door, and she heard the sing-song voice that would haunt her dreams call out, "Housekeeping!"

John

"I must have passed out. It is now midday, hotter than any place has the right to be, and I seem to have lost my other shoe. This development depresses me since I liked those shoes a lot. I seem to have been propped up against a tree--or a reasonable facsimile thereof--while I was unconscious and have a fresh helping of fecal matter on my face and hands. There is also a small pile of roots--just the pulp--a dead fish, and the carcass of something small and furry lying beside me. At least the Geneva Convention extends into the wilds of Louisiana.

"I just tried the food and retched. I'm not sure if it's the concussion or the taste of the food that turned my stomach more. The roots were bitter and burned my lips, and the fish had certainly outlived its sell-by date. I buried the rodent. I named it Chuck and said some nice words. It deserved better.

"More of the Skunk Apes have been gathering in this part of the swamp. They appear to be multiplying. I checked for double vision and was pleasantly surprised that all of my fingers and toes were where they should be and in the correct quantity. Unfortunately, I can see my toes, which means that not only have I lost my shoes, but someone stole my socks as well.

"I've identified at least nine individuals now. Some appear to be long lost cousins as they are greeted by sniffing, petting, and the obligatory submissive gestures to the alpha male. I named him Elvis due to his propensity to swivel his hips when he gets excited. It would have been nice to have seen these social displays yesterday before the ill-fated smile incident, but such is the life of a serious paranormal investigator.

"I get the sneaking suspicion that the Skunk Apes are gathering for something. I am still at a loss as to what the congregation is for. I just hope it's not dinner. Well, unless they get take-out. Unless, of course, I'm the take-out. Then I don't think I'll have any."

"It occurs to me that I have neglected to make the appropriate scientific observations of these majestic and possibly hungry creatures. Modern paleontology has theorized them to be ancestors of either Australopithecus or Gigantopithecus. I believe that they are of the pithecus family tree. However, they might have been the offspring of a particularly ambitious Australo and a Giganto with relatively loose morals.

"As to their physiology, they are very apelike in shape but are almost exclusively bipedal. The exception to this appears to be during defecation where they hunch over on all fours and gyrate throughout the process. I've only seen the males do this, but they seem to take great delight in the shapes they make and show them off to their friends. The tops of the beast's heads come to a near conical point and then slope down to a pronounced brow. They have a short nose with upturned nostrils and a full set of human-like teeth. Only a lot bigger and more terrifying.

"Whatever their origin, they stand at a minimum a foot taller than I do--Elvis is the largest and, judging by the reporter-shaped indentations in the tree behind me, must be at least eight feet tall. Their fur seems to be very coarse and full of split ends--I am disappointed that I only have gel and no conditioner on hand--and is reddish in color. I'm not entirely convinced it is the natural color, though. When I've had a chance for closer inspection, I noticed that the roots of Matilda's hair were a darker color, some mixture of blue-black and grey. That brings up the age-old question of whether Skunk Apes dye their hair. So far, I have seen no evidence that these creatures even know what personal hygiene is. I would say that hair coloring, aside from the medicinal benefits of alligator feces, is not an intentional aesthetic advance for their culture. Furthermore, as an expert on such matters, I know for a fact that reptile feces does not turn orange when it dries. As such, I am left to theorize on my own. I am convinced that it is in fact the same mildew that seems to cover just about everything around here. That would account for the coloration and, partially, the smell.

"There is a mob of Skunk Apes approaching me now. These might be the last words I ever speak--aside from 'don't eat me.' This is John Urban, signing off."

Gabriel

The car door thudded closed, and one of the tires got kicked in aggravation. Gabe had forgotten to open the gas hatch before getting out and stormed back in to yank on the little lever. _It's not fair,_ he thought. _I was the one that found it, and now I have to drive all the way to freakin BFE Nevada. Sure, the implant sounded like a great idea until you tried to go through airport security._ He willed the cripple porn to the background--he had found himself drawn to the darker side of the business lately--and watched the camera feed from the headless creature. It was currently huddled behind a metal building or something near the docks. He'd found this oddity and brought it to the boss's attention. Hell, he'd even captured it for them. This was his find, and he deserved to be in charge of collecting it. It was all so unfair.

He still kept an eye on his discovery whenever he could. He watched its inhuman shoulders through the webcam on the iPad and then the ridiculous avatar it insisted on using as it tromped its way through the hellish landscape of Purgatory. He switched to this view as he put the first of what would be many tank loads of gas into his Dodge Charger. Johnny was there already in his shining armor--or at least his avatar was--and was having an in-depth one-sided conversation with the thing. Johnny's avatar had been given the place of honor in the virtual world. _No surprise there, teacher's pet._ He was a king without a country but a king nonetheless. He was a beacon to all who looked upon him, and Gabe wanted to kick him in his codpiece for it.

His reverie was interrupted by a commotion out amongst the sickly shrubs that soon turned into a small horde of very large, unhappy looking bugs. They sensed prey and closed the distance fast. Johnny's kingly avatar ignored them and looked up as he saw Gabe's avatar approach.

"Sir Gabriel," he said with a lopsided grin. "So good of you to join us."

"How's it going, Johnny?" He stopped at the disapproving look he got and changed his mind. "I mean, Your Highness."

"Okay. It's hard to tell if I'm getting anywhere. He's the strong, silent type."

"I can see why. Where are we exactly?"

"He's actually in Ireland, if you can believe it. It would have taken me forever to get out here in person. Luckily our little friend," he said patting the hollow of his left shoulder "makes distance pretty academic."

"For some of us," Gabe said, thinking of hours he was doomed to spend on the road in the near future. But, at least it did offer him the necessary entertainment to while the hours away. His attention drifted toward the video with the girl in the wheelchair that he could just hear in the background. It sounded like they were using some kind of electrical winch. "I've got to drive all the way across the damn country. Have they figured out what this thing is yet?" he asked, pointing in the general direction of the avatar that called itself Stephen_McStudly.

"Yeah, the boss says this is a game-changer. With this guy, we're upping the stakes. Big time."

"Damn. Just my luck I get sent out on a search and destroy while you get to have all the fun." He wondered idly if there was a market for monster porn. There probably was. _I'd sign up_ , he thought. The idea tugged at his subconscious until he found himself drawn inexorably to the video feed he'd been running in the background.

"Plenty to go around, bro. You'll see. In no ti . . . ." Johnny's voice faded away as Gabe cut him off to focus on what was really important. The gas pump clicked off as the tank was full, and he stood there stupefied for several minutes. _They can do that with a crutch?_

Johnny

Gabe's avatar froze in place, and then he logged off abruptly. After Gabe's sudden departure, Johnny scratched his virtual head and frowned. He knew that the implant procedure had done some funny things to his friend--hell, it had done funny things to all of them in one way or another--but now he was actually worried about Gabe's sanity. In the brief meeting with the man, he had gone from angry to normal to distracted to simply gone. This was way outside of Gabe's normal personality. This was something that the boss needed to deal with. ASAP.

"Hey Marie," Johnny said when the secretary answered the call. "This is Johnny, down in R and D. I need to speak to the Reverend for a minute. Sure. I'll hold." Johnny placed his gaze firmly back on the game-changer's avatar that was standing tall against a handful of giant scorpions. The hero was quite good at combat and moved with the natural grace of a seasoned warrior despite the giant head that was perched atop his shoulders. Johnny shook the normal-sized head of his avatar and leapt into the battle to assist his newest buddy, Stephen_McStudly, in vanquishing Hell's minions.

_We really should put in some limitations on these mods,_ Johnny thought as Stephen_McStudly nearly blinded him with a toothy smile. The creature's game self was hardly any more human-looking than its real body was, and the difference between the two spoke of deep-seated psychological issues. _Apparently, riding the crazy train is in style now._

"Johnny, this is Garp." The voice cut in as Johnny's avatar feinted left and then removed a segmented leg from one of the demonic arachnids with a backhand swing.

"Boss. I'm here keeping our new friend company, but I think we might have a problem."

"What, did the boat sink? I paid a lot of money for that cargo ship to be there and bring our friend to the States. If they've dropped the ball. . . ."

"No, nothing like that. The boat should be here in a couple of hours. It's Gabe. I think we need to watch him."

"Is he threatening to go to the cops? Cause if he is, then he's just as guilty . . . ."

"No threats. He's just acting weird. He didn't take the implant very well, and this shit will mess with your mind if you're not playing with all your marbles. I'm just saying that we should take some precautions with him as we move forward." There was about fifteen seconds of dead air on the connection before the Reverend responded.

"Okay. I'll keep that in mind. Our priority is still the same right now. We need to get our new friend to the States as soon as possible. How is the recruitment drive going?"

"We've got about thirty volunteers on board. We had three more, but there were some glitches, and we had to revamp the compliance software. The test worked out great, but we had to sacrifice a couple pieces in the process. No biggie. We'll get the rest within the week."

"That's cutting it a bit close. Our friends tell us that we need sixty-six for this to work. Everything is riding on this. We won't get a second chance. It needs to come together in fifteen days. I'm counting on you, Johnny."

"Why do we need so many?"

"Some BS about the number six being 'adapted to the soul' or something. It apparently shows up everywhere in the occult. Druids did most of their stuff on the sixth day of the moon. Man was created on the sixth day, and in the sixth hour of that day, the first temptation was born. Jesus was sentenced to death on the sixth hour of the sixth day of the week. The Egyptians had a whole college devoted to the number six. It goes on and on. After what we've seen lately, I'm willing to buy just about anything. So, are you the man to get this done?"

"Sure thing, boss. No worries."

### October 17th

John

"It's been said that fortune favors the bold, and while I'm sure that nugget of wisdom applies in other areas, it seems to favor the meek and submissive right now. And fortune has indeed smiled upon me. Last night's feast, which I feared to be at my expense, turned into a rather touching moment of companionship when my female protector decided to groom rather than pluck me. This action seemed to be the catalyst for a mass festival of cleaning and preening among the creatures. Pavlov would have been proud. At the sight of my grooming, another one sat down behind Matilda and began to sift through her fur and then another followed suit. Before long, there was a winding chain of Skunk Apes all grooming each other's backsides. I suppose with the multitude of parasites in residence out here that this behavior is essential for their health, but it also seems to provide a good degree of emotional well-being. Elvis--the big male who used me as an axe earlier--sat down heavily in front of me. It was his place to be at the head of the train after all. After only a brief hesitation, I picked out what lice, ticks, and leeches I could. He seemed pleased with the job I was doing--perhaps my delicate fingers could grasp more hitchhikers and less hair--and refrained from smashing me into pulp.

"He looked back at one point and noted Matilda lovingly stroking my hair and then reached to examine his own crown. I sensed some disappointment and perhaps jealousy. This was the last thing I wanted him to feel about me, and I motioned first to my head and then his before producing the tube of hair gel and the comb from my pocket. He examined them both critically and then gave a huffed consent--at least I hoped it was consent--for me to proceed. It was touch and go for a while as I had to divest him of numerous knots, twigs, and other unknown items. I am sad to say that my comb will never be the same again, but the final result was well worth the sacrifice. The lady-friend who had been admiring my hair fawned over him excessively, and he devoured the attention. I think he even winked at me as they departed to howl at the moon or something."

### October 19th

Bean

Two miserable days. His "friends" had been gone for two whole, entirely insufferable days. What kind of friends were they anyway? They took off on the bus to advance to unprecedented virtual glory without him and then had completely neglected to come back. That left Bean stuck answering questions by police and concerned parents for forty-eight hours of Hell--and not the cool virtual kind, either. He couldn't even take a piss without finding a detective in the john waiting for him with "just one more question." They had, of course, discovered that the two boys had purchased three bus tickets to Shreveport on the Discover card and that they'd contacted Bean's phone just before they'd left. This placed him directly in the epicenter of a shit-hurricane where everyone was certain that he had all the answers, which was only half true. He knew why Brett and Joel had gone there, just not why they'd decided not to come back. The police suspected ticket number three was for him, but he denied it. When pressed about why they would be calling him before they left, he shot a jab at his mother by saying if he'd had his phone that day, he might have been able to answer the question.

Through it all, he ultimately didn't share any of his knowledge as limited as it was. Originally, when he thought they would actually show up again, he'd lied to his mom and the police to protect his friends. Now, he had to continue lying to protect himself from his mom and the police finding out he'd been lying to protect his friends. Nothing would have put him six feet under faster than his mom finding out he'd been telling untruths. Besides, there was a code he had to live by. You just don't rat out your friends even if they were backstabbing little weasels.

Secretly, Bean knew exactly why they'd missed the bus home and why they wouldn't answer any phone calls. Hell was just that awesome. They were running around with all the other Hell-bound, slaying all kinds of cool demons and leaving him in the dust. That didn't explain why the cops couldn't just find them by tracing their phones, but then these guys didn't seem as bright as the ones on CSI.

There was truly only one solution to all of this. He needed to take matters into his own hands. Sure, he'd get his ass handed to him when he got back, but when he found his two missing friends and returned them, he might even be considered a hero. Heck, he'd probably get off restriction months before they would, and then he'd flaunt his triumphs in Hell daily. Besides, he wasn't sure how much longer he could stand up under the relentless knowing stare of his mother.

Drawing on years of television and video game knowledge, Bean settled on a plan that smacked of large risk versus small reward--a perfect ratio for teenage decision making. It was late at night, and he was pretty sure his mother and siblings were all asleep by the time he squeezed out his bedroom window and stretched toward the edge of his house. He strained to grip the vertical molding that joined at the corner and pull himself over. It was only a short drop, but there were some rather unpleasant rose bushes below his window which ended at the edge of the house. Of course, he couldn't avoid them entirely, but he wanted to take his time impaling himself on the thorns. Masochism should never be rushed. Once he'd completed extricating himself from the roses, he ran down the street at a brisk pace, stopping only twice to rub smartly at his battle wounds.

The night air buffeted and energized Bean, giving him the stamina to make it three miles in just under half an hour. A record time. He was geeked out on fear and anticipation and had to remind himself to calm down. This was going to take patience, skill, and stealth. He tripped over a garbage can which rattled loudly and set the dogs to barking. He ran faster, abandoning patience, skill, and stealth for a heaping helping of get-the-hell-out-of-there.

Terrified and panting, Bean arrived at Kevin's house, and he took a moment to catch his breath and survey the area. Kevin's car was in the driveway, and there was no sign of any lights on inside. _Perfect, so far._ It was essential to the intricate plan Bean had devised that Kevin be asleep at this juncture. The rest of the plan involved sneaking in, stealing the keys, and stealing the car without getting caught. He was a criminal mastermind.

It took him more than half an hour to jimmy open a window in the living room and then twenty more minutes to climb through said window, knock over four beer bottles, slip on one, land in something sticky that smelled of old pizza, and then search the tiny hovel for the keys. There was nothing useful there. No keys, no Kevin, and no clues. He walked dejectedly out the back door and onto a small, covered porch. His foot connected with yet another glass bottle and sent it toppling onto its side. He stood there and watched the thick liquid spill onto the porch in slow, sad gurgles and tried to figure out his next move. The spilt beer fizzed and bubbled at him in contempt.

Lightning rarely struck Bean with insight, but it chose this time to do so. _The beer was bubbling because it was fresh._ He looked to his left and then right, spotting a rather short couch perched against the house. Draped across this couch with legs dangling over one end was the unconscious form of a particularly mean looking and probably entirely drunk young adult.

Bean moved slowly, passing into a patch of light from a distant streetlamp as he went. He was glad that his plan had included a dark sweatshirt and a dark complexion although the latter was more luck than planning. Nevertheless, he was a ninja prowling across the porch as he moved around the front of the couch. His bravery was rewarded with the satisfying glint of metal dangling on a chain attached to Kevin's belt.

Kevin stirred and rolled on his side, eyelids fluttering open as he moved. Bean flattened himself on the ground and held his breath for a very tense moment. When he didn't feel Kevin grabbing him by the hair or stomping on his face, he looked up. Kevin still appeared to be passed out but was facing in Bean's direction. Any second, he might open his eyes and see the intruder. Bean reached up gingerly, his fingers gently probing for the chain that held the keys in place. They encountered something else, and Bean blanched at the realization. What dreams drunken Kevin had must give one pause.

He moved his fingers northward and eventually found the clip to the chain. He released it ever so gently, and it came away from the belt loop without disturbing its sleeping owner. A long, steady pull on the chain and a sure-handed grab of the keys kept them from jingling as he sighed with relief. An exhausting belly-crawl was followed by standing, which was then followed by exiting the house by the front door. Bean started the car and backed it out of the driveway easily enough. He didn't cut the lights on until he was several blocks away, but that was only because he couldn't figure out where the switch was. Even so, he was on his way, just the way he'd planned it.

Bean

Grand theft auto turned out to be a lot easier than Franklin Bean ever thought it would. The almost universal adoption of the automatic transmission made things much easier on inexperienced, would-be thieves. Just pop it into gear, and the car does most of work for you. The brakes took a little work to get just right. They were kind of grabby, and Bean found himself lurching toward the steering wheel more than once, but otherwise, everything worked like he thought it would--gas meant go, brakes slowed you down, the wheel turned the car. He wasn't sure exactly how to adjust all the mirrors, but craning his neck around seemed to work well enough. It wasn't like anyone else on the road actually checked their mirrors before changing lanes.

In less than fifteen minutes, he'd made it out of Raymond without getting caught. This was due in part to the aforementioned ease of operating a modern motor vehicle and also in part to the fact that he'd left early enough that traffic had yet to really get flowing on the interstate when he hit the on ramp. This is not to say that it was a picture perfect driving experience. There were, of course, lessons to be learned and learned on the fly. The interstate had its own set of rules that one could only truly grasp through experience--like the fact that everybody was aiming for him.

If he was lucky, he'd see a turn-signal milliseconds before someone shot over in front of him, but mostly he didn't even get that much warning. Cars would drift over from two lanes away just to try to nudge him off the road. It was nerve wracking just how close those psychos were getting to him while travelling at seventy miles per hour. After a few close encounters with the local homicidal drivers, he figured he would just keep the car in the right lane on the highway, and he'd be fine--except, of course, when he passed an on-ramp. Those were even worse. He finally settled in the middle lane, going just over sixty-five. This drew a number of unhappy looks and noises from his fellow drivers, including a cop who stared at him for far too long like he was some kind of criminal. _It's because I'm black,_ Bean thought, _and driving a stolen car._ Nevertheless, this strategy kept him safe from most of the kamikazes on the freeway.

It took almost the full one hundred miles before Bean felt comfortable enough to peel his aching knuckles from the steering wheel, one hand at a time, and stretch out the tension in his fingers. He'd been on the road for an hour and a half and through countless near collisions. He was pretty sure that he'd learned just about all there was to learn about driving and would be able to relax a bit and enjoy the remainder of the trip. It wasn't too bad really. He was just outside of Shreveport and still had a little over half a tank of gas left, which was good since he had to make it back home and didn't have much in the way of pocket change for a refill. He'd get his two "friends" to pony up if it was necessary. They owed him.

A series of large, green signs greeted Bean in the distance with word that off ramps galore lay just ahead. He was getting pretty close--from what he remembered from Google maps--and looked down at his phone for assistance. _Get off on 371 and then left on Bellvue Road_. He looked up just in time to slam on the brakes and avoid plowing into the back of a Dodge Caravan with about forty of those little white stick figure decals on the back. He imagined all those little children packed tightly into there like sardines, and he had been this close to opening them up. The smell of burned rubber wafted up from underneath him. His heart was pounding, and his leg quivered with effort as Bean had to force himself to slowly pry his foot off the brake and gently apply it to the gas. It took him a few moments to purge the adrenaline from his system and get his brain working again. All he could think about was the back of the van hurtling toward him. He had to pull over and get a grip.

The emergency lane was a nice enough place to visit but only for a short while. He'd seen enough flashing lights behind cars in the emergency lane to know that it was prime hunting territory for the road's apex predator. He steadied himself, checked the maps again, and cursed. The map hadn't changed much aside from the little dot that represented him, which was now past the appointed exit. The rear-view mirror showed the off-ramp a couple hundred yards to the rear. Apparently, the shock of the near miss--or more appropriately, the near hit--had distracted him.

He craned his head around to look behind him at the steady stream of endless traffic flowing through the nearest lane. The morning rush was beginning to ramp up. There would be no U-turns here, and reverse seemed like a fairly terrible idea too. He checked the map again and saw another exit up ahead that looked like it connected to a road that doubled back to the missed exit. It was a bit convoluted, but that still seemed like a much better option than trying to weave through the river of cars behind him.

Bean took his foot off the brake and rolled forward, looking for just the right opportunity to merge with the high-speed traffic. He kept rolling. He rolled some more. Bean made a few experimental moves toward the interstate only to be turned back by annoyed commuters and the very real possibility of being flattened by a fast-moving eighteen wheeler. There was a universal constant that all highway drivers learned at some point in their lives. If you ever actually came to a stop on an on-ramp or emergency lane, then it was all over. You could never get back into the flow of traffic without making people slam on brakes or swerve around you with horns blaring.

Just as a psychotic breakdown was imminent, Bean found himself in sight of the next exit, and he hit the gas. The car flew along the emergency lane, and he swerved off it as he cut the corner to the off-ramp and bounced his way on to the pavement. It took a few more swerves and overcorrections to get back on the straight and narrow, but he was there and more relieved than he'd been in what seemed like ages. The off-ramp landed him on Goodwill Road, which was blessedly free of traffic. He made a lazy stop to check the map and then smoothly set his tires to rolling on a road that was all his. The sheer freedom of space around him, with nothing trying to smack into him at high velocity, was intoxicating. Any thoughts of getting back to the freeway left his mind immediately. He just needed to follow this road north for a while and then cut back onto Bellvue from the other direction to arrive at a place just west of McClanahan Park. The descent was still a go. This was a peaceful place, free of the insanity he'd just come from, and, just as importantly, it was headed in the right direction. Things were certainly looking up.

Norma-Jeanne

Despite whatever clout her producer thought he had with the local police, it was still another two days before Norma-Jeanne was given the okay to leave town. Of course, it was Paul Gruber, her producer, who had given her the okay, so Norma-Jeanne stopped in to see Detective Savoie before she left. It was bad enough that she'd run from the crime scene. She certainly didn't want to compound it with skipping town against explicit orders. Thumbing your nose at the man was all fun and games until you had a warrant issued for your arrest.

Thankfully, Detective Savoie assured her that she wasn't at any risk of being a suspect at this point and asked if she was feeling okay after her head injury. This touched her, and she was loathe to tell him that she'd passed out, attended a meaningful cosmic lecture by her shower, had passed out again, and had somehow missed the fact someone had been in her room and tidied up while she was asleep. So she didn't. Instead, she produced her laptop and showed the image she'd taken of the teens walking toward the hardware store. He watched it impassively and asked if she had any more footage. Shrugging, she told him about the interview with Mama G that was pretty useless since they were inside her shop the entire time. He asked for it anyway, and she complied, copying both video files onto a thumb drive that she handed over with a half-hearted smile. They parted ways with an exchange of cell phone numbers, and she was on the road back to Greensboro only minutes later. She could tell without asking that there was no news on finding John, and she gave the cows only a half-hearted finger as she passed them.

She took the long way back to the interstate, taking a path that would bring her back to the strip mall and Mama G's and then along the inner edge of Bodcau nature preserve. She half hoped to spot something, anything, which might lead her to finding John. Humanitarian? Possibly. Desperate to alleviate her irrational feelings of guilt? Absolutely. She scanned the trees lining the vast underbelly of Bodcau, realizing that it was merely a fraction of the available wilderness in this part of the country. Could she have done anything different? If she'd reacted sooner instead of simply lying on the ground half-unconscious, would things have turned out all right? Maybe John was out there waiting for her to come and find him . . . . Her mind grew tired of swimming against the steady stream of possibilities and simply gave up hope and resigned itself to drowning.

Even so, two facts bobbed to the surface and refused to go away. The first was that John Urban--star of screen and her professional responsibility--was gone. It wasn't just someone leaving for another job or going on a sabbatical and you would see them later at the Christmas party. This was someone who was more than likely dead. Finished. Never to show his perfect teeth in a smug grin again. She wasn't sure how she felt about it. She was numb but knew that wouldn't last very long. There would come a time where her brain finally processed the reality of the situation, and she was a little afraid of how she would react. There could be tears and some pain, but an even more frightening thought was that she would feel nothing. Just considering that possibility saddled her with guilt, and she turned her concentration to the second thing. She had video of a Sasquatch.

This was a much more exciting topic of contemplation, and she let it play in her head for a bit. There would be fame, money, and, above all, respect. She basked in her mental glory as she directed the van toward where she believed the I-20 on-ramp existed.

There was a scraping sound, and she realized that she was suddenly rolling gently over a number of saw palmettos in the middle of a clearing. She looked around and noted, with a mixture of relief and confusion, that the paved road was nearly fifty yards away and to her left. She had no recollection of how she'd gotten there and looked around frantically for something to blame it on. The clearing was suspiciously cow free. _Too cow free,_ she thought. But that was just a hollow effort. She knew well enough that she had blacked out again, and the cows were innocent. _This time._

She gradually guided herself back toward the pavement and then continued toward the interstate. Before she'd gone another mile, doubts were forming in the corners of her brain. She went through the stages of denial, pleading, and then resignation before finally giving in. The thought of what would happen if she blacked out at seventy miles per hour was too much for her in the end. She rolled forward at a sedate twenty-five miles per hour until she spotted a quaint restaurant with a lot of K's in the name. She stopped the van and called the office, scheduling a pickup. They were less than thrilled with this but grudgingly booked her a taxi and a flight. They would send an intern down to pick up the van as soon as they could spare one. As tight as they were about costs, the network also realized a couple hundred bucks was a tiny investment in something with such a potentially high return. Norma-Jeanne would have liked to think they did it for her sake, but the image on her camera's hard drive was the true VIP.

Bean

_Things were indeed looking up, but looking up really hurt,_ Bean thought. His neck popped as he moved it from side to side and then back down. All he could see through the spider web of a windshield was pine straw, pine cones, and other pine-related paraphernalia. The smoking hood of Kevin's car looked much shorter than it had just a moment earlier, and it rested securely against the trunk of a damaged, yet still erect, pine tree. His shoulder hurt from where the seatbelt had hugged it, and his nose was dripping something warm onto his chin. None of these injuries matched the fury of pain screaming from his wrists, which felt as if they'd been dropped onto a hot stove. He rotated his head down in a sluggish droop and stared at the red angry welts rising from the inside of each of his arms. It was then that he noticed the deflated bag that dangled limply from the steering wheel and had come to rest on his lap. He laid his head back against the seat and closed his eyes to try to clear the cobwebs.

When he opened them again, light was streaming in through the sunroof, throwing the shadow of a discarded branch onto the dashboard. It was noon or at least very close to it. He did the math slowly as he tried to get his brain working again. Seeing as how he had left Raymond before the sun was fully up, he'd been "clearing his head" for probably three hours. His muscles weren't going to argue against that conclusion either. Everything hurt. He reached up and pulled the visor down to look in the mirror and recoiled at the zombie staring back at him. There was dried and crusted blood from his nose to his neck and his eyes had distinct purple croissants peeking out from under them. He'd been punched in the face and hard. The deflated bag in his lap made sense now, but he couldn't quite figure out why his wrists were burned. Oh well. In any case, it was pretty clear that he'd crashed the car in the woods.

There was a hole in his memory where the "how I crashed my car" scene should have been. He remembered a white van swerving into his lane and cutting the wheel sharply. There'd been a picture of a werewolf on the side of the van, and it had looked very pleased with the curly poo sculpture it had left behind it. He was pretty sure that couldn't be right. There was obviously something wrong with his memory. Even so, it wasn't like it mattered a whole lot. The important thing was that nobody had come to his aid. This was both a blessing and a curse. It was good in that his ass wasn't in jail serving time for stealing cars. It was bad because he was now more than a hundred miles from home, felt like he'd been tackled by half the football team, and had no idea what he should do next. His body ached, and he winced as he pushed half-heartedly against the door. It didn't really want to open, and he wasn't in the mood to force it just yet. He needed several ice packs and something to kick-start his brain. He could also use some guidance, a wallet full of cash, and a busload of luck.

One out of five is pretty shitty, but sometimes you just have to roll with what you've got. He reached for guidance, finding that his phone had scooted up underneath the distended dashboard during the crash. He groaned as he bent forward and stretched for it, pincering it with two fingers in order to drag it up into the light. The screen had a giant "y" shaped crack through it. The patented glass in the iPhone sat above the actual LCD, so the projected image was still whole, although Bean saw it in three pieces. Luckily, the map was still legible and was still outlining the quickest path to McClanahan Park. This was only four miles away as the crow flies--or in this case, the teen walks--and seemed like it might be the best bet for getting out of a tough situation. If he could find Brett and Joel, they could help him figure out what to do. Besides, he came all this way to descend, and that goal had not changed. He touched the phone and moved his finger across it. The digitizer wasn't exactly healthy, but then again, neither was he. The touch feature skipped around the cracks but otherwise still seemed to work. As long as nothing else happened to it, it should still be serviceable for what he needed it for.

Bean crawled across the front passenger seat and tried that door. In the process, he ground several square fragments of safety glass under his weight, and they bit into his hip. He could hear his mom's voice yelling at him about his pants hanging down too low. "No one wants to see your nasty boxers," she would say, "even if they are, without a doubt, the cleanest boxers in town." She took pride in her laundry.

The door creaked open, and fresh air blew in on a breeze. He dragged himself out and stood up slowly, waiting for any signs of dizziness. When he determined he wasn't going to face plant just yet, he checked his reflection in the unbroken window of the rear door. He moved side to side to take in the entire picture and decided he should stop moving so much. When the world settled down again, he took inventory. His ninja shirt had a giant hole in it, exposing the white t-shirt underneath. Well, it used to be white anyway. Now it was a mixture of dark red and rust patterns with just a hint of white left on the front. He removed the black layer, which was getting pretty hot out here in the noon-day sun, and examined everything else. His shirt, jeans, boxers, and even shoes had dried blood on them. Bean wondered how he had any left as he touched his nose gingerly. It hurt.

He leaned against the car in dismay. If someone spotted a man walking around covered in blood, the police would be on the spot in a second. He would never find Joel, Brett, or the descent point and would be first boiled, then skinned alive by his mama. _All for nothing._ The only way he was going to salvage anything from this whole disaster was if he remained hidden, at least until he descended or found his friends or preferably both. He'd need to stick to the woods then. With any luck, the portal would be in the forest somewhere, and he'd make it there without any trouble. If it was within the civilized world, then maybe he'd get lucky and find a change of clothes along the way. He'd already stolen a car. How hard could it be to steal some pants and a shirt after that? At least he now had a plan, and after reaffirming that he was pointed in the right direction, he began walking. _The walk will do me good,_ he thought. It would give him a chance to clear his head and, more importantly, to figure out what he was going to tell the cops about his little joy ride.

Bean sat quietly and alone on the bench of shame in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly. The autumn night was still young, but dark and only a flickering glow from a street light kept him company. The sounds of a car engine and of tires crunching and popping over loose gravel slowly got louder, but they barely registered on his give-a-shit meter. He was lost in every way except for knowing exactly where he was, but even that was a hollow victory. The realization had finally caught up with him that he was a hundred miles from home with no car, no money, no food, no plan, no friends, and probably no future once the cops finally caught up with him. Oh, and don't forget no dignity. He was, after all, sitting in a parking lot wearing a bunny suit.

He realized now that the stroll he'd planned to take through the woods nearly eight hours earlier had been ill-conceived. In retrospect, the entire trip had been ill-conceived, but it was too late for that now. He'd forgotten the fact that one third of Louisiana was actually swamp and another third was muck that you wished was swamp. In his bid for secrecy, he had stumbled right into a good-sized patch of the stuff that had grabbed one of his shoes and ripped it off as he tried to pull away. That had resulted in an off balance plunge forward onto his knees that sank him up to his belly-button in the sticky mud. The waistband of the pants he was wearing was slightly larger than his hips, an impractical fashion choice in hindsight, and the jeans had buried themselves completely into the greedy stuff. After five minutes of struggling, he'd begun to feel hot and woozy, like he was going to pass out, which was obviously a bad thing to do in the muck. He had abandoned his pants, boxers, and remaining shoe to their gooey fate and belly-crawled and rolled his way another twenty yards to dry land. He lay there, exhausted, dizzy, and panting as he struggled to regain his senses. His situation had hardly improved.

As night had approached, so had the legions of biting insects. Living in the South, Bean was used to mosquitoes, but the civilized ones that roamed suburbs and drank blood with their pinkies extended were nothing compared to the barbarians that raped and pillaged here in the wild. He'd been driven out of the forest by them in twilight and forced to run while pulling his t-shirt down to keep from giving these bobcats with wings a clear shot at his tender vittles.

He'd spotted the blessed top of a laden clothesline inside a yard surrounded by a tall privacy fence. Bean was young and nimble and could have easily scaled such a thing if he hadn't had to take special care as he went over the splintered edge. _Note to self--always wear pants when hopping fences. Always._ As it was, this maneuver had taken entirely too long for his comfort and had left him shaking from the effort.

Despite it all, he'd still made it over, and there were clean clothes on the line, so Fortune had not turned her back on him completely. He had reached out for a large pair of coveralls, pausing only as he felt the material. It was soft and lined with some kind of fur. It had seemed out of place for the Deep South, but before he could examine it closer, the sound of a flap opening followed by a low guttural growl had caught his attention. It appeared that the only reason Fortune hadn't turned her back was because she wanted to watch the rest of the show. Somewhere between the dog unleashing a manic volley of barking and the full out race to the fence, Bean had gripped the coveralls tightly in his fist and yanked them off the line. He'd surprised himself with enough athleticism to clear a four foot tall fence in a single leap. Of course, the fence had been a little over five feet tall, and smacking his shin on the top of it had sent him sprawling face first into the rough grass on the other side. The dog was still barking furiously, and neighbors were beginning to turn on porch lights in response. Bean had mustered his reserves of adrenaline and propelled himself quickly away from the area and back into the seclusion of the trees where the mosquitoes had been waiting.

At that point, Bean could only cringe and shudder when he realized that he had stolen coveralls with ears. In the faint light of a street lamp, he could see that it was a little too well-worn and stained to have been a random costume party outfit. He'd categorically refused to think of why an adult would own a bunny costume and decided instead to focus on the fact that it could get him another mile or two down the road without having the bloodsuckers drain him dry or the neighbors call the police to pick up a pantsless black man running around in a bloody t-shirt.

Now he simply sat in front of the run-down food store, destitute and waiting for his sins to catch up with him. As if on cue, the approaching car stopped, and Bean could hear two male voices chatting as they got out. His nose still hurt from all the abuse his face had suffered. He itched everywhere, his wrists still throbbed, and he had splinters in several very tender places. The way his luck was going, these guys were most likely some tribe of toothless hillbillies that would love to hear him squeal like a pig. He found a weird kind of peace in the fact that he really couldn't give a shit. He'd been through so much and all he had to show for digging himself into this pit of despair was a busted-ass iPhone and a feeling of being cheated out of what should have been a spectacular descent into Hell. He did see some pretty amazing colors in the top right third of his screen, and there were some flickers toward the bottom left, but the screen was cracked and smeared with muck, and the whole experience probably lost a lot in translation.

"Hey, check this one out," came a voice with a slightly Hispanic accent to it. "Man, these things just keep getting weirder and weirder. You think we oughta check the code?"

"Nah, man," came another voice. "The code has nothing to do with it. This guy came here looking like that."

"Do you think he'll be all right for the big event?"

"He'll do. We just need bodies. They don't have to be normal."

"True that. It's like you got to be abnormal just to join up with us. I mean, Gabe's going off the rails of the crazy train, there was that girl from two nights ago with not one, but two lazy eyes, and of course, there's you."

"Me? I'm like Mr. Rogers compared to you. You're like the Thing from Taco Bell."

"That's racist, man. Although, I could go for a seven layer burrito right about now. So, what do we call this muchacho?"

"He's one of the four bunnies of the apocalypse."

"Oh. He rides upon a pale park bench." They laughed at their joke before stepping into the circle of light that surrounded the costumed teenager. Bean looked up as the two older guys, perhaps in their late twenties, approached and subconsciously smoothed his ears back. Both of the strangers stopped in their tracks and looked at each other and then back at him.

"Look," Bean started, hoping to try to stave off any further jests at his expense, "I got in an accident and had to change my clothes. It was either this or walk around naked." The dark-haired one looked at his companion and cleared his throat before speaking.

"And why the ears?" he asked while making little Bunny FooFoo gestures.

"The freakin mosquitoes down here are vicious," he said, smoothing the ears down again. It didn't help much.

"Ah. Yeah, they get pretty bad at night. I gotta keep dousing myself with this shit," he said, pulling a can of Off out from the front of his MIT hoodie. He tossed it to Bean nonchalantly. "So, uh, whatcha doin' out here?" he askd while Bean was removing his headpiece and showering himself with the insect repellent.

"It's part of a game."

"You mean Purgatory?"

At the name of the game, Bean looked up with interest. "Yeah. You guys play it, too?"

"No, not really." The man looked at his companion for confirmation. The sandy-haired guy with a long scraggly goatee nodded, and the dark haired one continued, "We invented it." He beamed with an engaging smile.

"No way. You guys are just fucking with me."

"Truth, brother. We been watchin' the players come out here. When we see them get close, we come out to see them descend. I'm Raul, and this is Johnny. You could check us in the game credits if you want."

"That's how we knew you were out here," said the blonde man named Johnny. "So, what'd you think of it? We put a lot of work into the first descent."

"Yeah, we wanted to make it something you'd never forget." Raul said with a grin.

"Well," Bean replied a little sheepishly, "I'm sure it was awesome, but my phone kinda got busted up on the trip over here. I couldn't see much on this," he said while holding up the offending piece of equipment. "Really, though, I just came out here to find my friends. They came out a couple of days ago . . . ." All of a sudden, the idea struck him. "Hey! You said that you come out here to greet everyone who descends, right? Maybe you saw them. One is a little taller than me and is super-white with black hair and pimples. The other is kind short and pudgy with red hair. The kids back home call him a hobbit."

"Actually, those two do sound familiar. We've been inviting everyone to join a party a couple of miles down the road. I think they were still there yesterday."

"They've been at a party for over two days?" Bean asked with a mixture of surprise and rising anger. _After all the shit that I've been through, if they're hanging out a party_ . . . clashed with _what kind of a party lasts for this long?_ in his mind. He thought about it for a moment. "Are there any girls there?"

"A few smoking hot ones we hired from the local titty-bar."

That settled it. They were still there. "Don't suppose you guys could give me a lift there?"

"No problem. We'll even replay the descent for you on another iPhone when we get there. I'd hate for you to miss out on that." The two guys spun on their heels and began walking back to a dark Chevy Trail Blazer parked around fifty feet away. Bean followed as quickly as he thought he could muster and still pull off the nonchalant look--for a guy in a bunny suit, that was.

A dimly lit sign pronouncing their entrance into the Happy Mullet RV Park slowly trundled past them on the left as they turned onto a side street made of dirt and red clay. The shocks squeaked as the SUV hit a pothole and then another as it rumbled down a gently curving road back into the woods. Bean experienced an involuntary shudder at the sight of all the trees. He'd seen enough of the woods to last him a lifetime. His trepidation turned to something different as a small pod of square, white RV whales caught his attention. The oddity of having a party out here was lost under the overpowering lure of indoor plumbing and air conditioning.

The car pulled to a stop in front of a large Thor motorhome with the letters "IYF" stenciled on the side, and his hosts exited smoothly. Bean could hear the muffled sounds of techno music coming from nearby, and he hopped out to stand next to his two new friends.

"You should totally put up the ears, man," Raul said with a straight face. "You'll be the life of the party."

"No way," Bean replied.

"Truth," affirmed Johnny. "The ladies dig a man with self-confidence. They'll be all over you."

"And think about how jealous your friends will be when you've got all the honeys pawing at you." Raul made cat claw motions in the air and kissy sounds. Johnny busted out laughing and gave Raul a playful shove.

"He is such a dork. I don't know why I even hang out with him."

"Because I am the life of the party, hermano. At least I was until, uh, what's your name?"

"Most people call me Bean."

"Right. So like I was saying, I was the party god until Bean here showed up. Come on. It's all in good fun."

These guys were probably the coolest people Franklin Bean had ever met, and he felt at ease around them. Besides, the girl argument actually seemed to make sense on some hormonal level. He decided to throw caution to the wind and pulled his hood up to complete the costume. This was the beginning of the "who gives a shit" phase of his life, and the ladies would dig it.

"Nice," Raul drew out approvingly, giving him a thumbs up sign. "The party is right over here," he said, walking toward the door of the massive RV in front of him. "Life don't get no better than this." Raul opened the door, and Bean approached it hesitantly. He was hit with the throbbing bass of a killer sound system and the smell of perfume and, oddly enough, gym class. There was something else there, too. It was sharp and acrid and oddly familiar. He poked his head in to look around and saw a mass of bodies, mostly teens around his age, standing stock still and upright, staring at various smartphones and tablets. All of these devices were tethered to a tangled mass of power strips that were perched on every available bit of counter space in the place. Each of the people was, in turn, tethered to the phones by various colored ear buds as well as being tethered to clear liquid bags that hung from the ceiling of the RV. It was as if they were hooked up to their own dripping power supplies.

"They having a good time?" Raul asked from behind him. All of a sudden, his voice seemed less playful and more sinister.

"What's going on?" was all Bean could muster as he stared deeper into the RV.

"This is a descent party. You can't really appreciate it until you've experienced Hell."

A familiar face from the back of the RV popped into view and then swayed back into the masses. _Was that Brett?_ Details that he had missed at first glance became clear as his eyes grew accustomed to the scene. All of the party goers were swaying in unison, and many of them had dark patches on the fronts of their pants. He registered the odd smell as something he'd had to deal with when his younger sister used to wet the bed. Something was definitely wrong.

Bean spun back around to face his hosts, emitting a gurgled "what" before stopping midsentence. He was staring full into the face of a smart phone that was giving off the greatest display of high-definition graphics he had ever witnessed. No, the greatest thing anyone had ever witnessed. It was a tunnel made of neon blue and gold threads composed entirely of naked writhing bodies. Angels and demons alike linked their legs, arms, and every other part a teenage boy could dream of over one another to form the path which he was greedily following with his eyes. The tunnel approached a wavering white light that could only be the very essence of the universe, and he plunged into it, feeling the icy tingle of it play across every nerve ending of his body. The whiteness resolved into two figures, angels of such immense beauty that it hurt to look directly at them, but would most certainly kill him not to.

The angel on the left spoke in a voice that could raise and destroy mankind on a whim. "Told you it was something special."

His partner, speaking in an equally melodic and powerful tone replied, "I still can't believe we got him to actually put up the ears before he descended." A big, brilliant smile creased the angel's lips, making Bean feel as if everything would be all right.

"You get the phone programmed for his login?"

"Yeah, man. I set that up in the car on the way over. Relax."

"Get him plugged up, and let's get back on the job. There's another one on the way now."

"All work and no play, Johnny. You remember what happened to Jack Nicholson." He turned back to Bean and placed the world of Hell firmly in his hand. "All right, into the bus. We've got a lot of work ahead of us." Bean turned around and joined the party.

Raul

"That was pretty freaky," Raul said as he opened the door to the RV. He sighed in relief. It hadn't been any trouble to get bunny boy in there with the others, but that didn't drop the blood pressure much.

"It could have gone bad, but it didn't," Johnny responded calmly. Raul couldn't figure if this was an act or if Johnny was just being his usual cocky self. _Sure, it's all fun and games when you're winning, but when you're this far away from getting busted, it feels like you're about to toss your churro._

"You figure out why he was still fresh?" Raul asked, trying to ramp his emotions down.

"Pretty obvious. His screen was toast. The eyes are the windows to the soul, my friend, and his windows were a bit cracked."

"I'll say. He was wearing a giant bunny after all."

"I just about lost it when you told him the ladies would be all over him if he put the ears on." Johnny cracked a rarely seen smile. He normally wore a knowing Cheshire cat grin with him everywhere, but the smile was better. It meant he was truly enjoying himself and not just plotting the next four moves. A chime in the tune of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" rang in his head. "Looks like we got another."

"Damn, we should have gotten bigger RVs, man. It's getting pretty packed in there, and I ain't even going to talk about the smell," Raul said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I mean, I knew it was going to be funky, but I never thought it would be FUNKY."

"They were the biggest ones the church owns. It's not like we could just go out and grab a couple of low-profile tour busses or anything. Don't worry, the RVs will hold 'em. I just didn't think it would take this long. Oh well, we just need a few more. They can squeeze together a little closer if they need to. As for the smell, get some Febreeze."

"I wonder if they make full-body odor eaters. Or Magic Mushrooms, man. We used to have those back home, and they were the bomb."

Johnny sighed as he strapped himself into the front seat of the SUV. "Yo, hermano," he said sharply. "I'm going to shove a Magic Mushroom up your ass if you don't get in this car. We don't need to let a stiffler just sit there drawing flies. We've already had one close call today. I don't want a second."

"Yeah, yeah. Maybe this one will be a butterfly," Raul said, getting into the passenger seat.

"Or a fairy. I'd shit myself if it was a fairy."

The engine roared to life, and the SUV pulled a three point turn before heading out toward the road. Johnny's implant pinged him again as they rounded the corner. "Looks like a twofer," Johnny said. "It must be our lucky day."

Bean

Hell was far richer and more immersive than anything Bean could have imagined. Granted, he, along with another billion or so people who subscribe to the Christian faith, imagined Hell to be a lakeside resort of torture and brimstone. But this new Hell was so much better. It didn't involve his skin melting off or demons roasting his man-mallows over an open flame. This version was a borderless expanse that seemed to stretch on forever in all directions. There would be no more living vicariously over the shoulder of his character Werepe. No, now he was Werepe. Purgatory--for it was the same game he'd spent his weekends playing and mortgaged his future over--was now in full, first-person view.

The augmented reality engine had gone into overdrive as he was now able to look down at his chest and legs and see them clad in piecemeal bronze armor. He looked to the side at his arms that were similarly clad and saw with no little delight that there was a a very large and heavy sword gripped tightly in one of his gauntlets. He gave it a preemptory slash in front of him and felt, or rather his optics nerves must have told his brain that he felt, the centrifugal force pull him to the side. It was everything a teenage boy could have dreamed of in a fantasy game, scantily clad warrior princesses falling at his feet notwithstanding, of course. The sounds of battle wafted in on the breeze and caught his attention. He scanned the hills of Hell with his eyes and noted with a little dismay, but not much surprise, that it looked a lot like the woods of Shreveport. It even came complete with mosquitoes. How kind.

As he thought about it, Bean realized that this was a rather clever transition set up by the programmers. It was almost like they hadn't left Louisiana at all. Something crawled up his leg, and he reached down to pick a thorny leech from his calf. The teeth clung tightly, and he winced at the pain. He wasn't sure how they'd managed to simulate that, but all of a sudden, things just got a good bit cooler. The sounds of battle came to him again, and he spotted something scantily clad and carrying a pole arm rushing over the top of a nearby hill. _The video game gods are good._

### October 20th

Norma-Jeanne

"It's a flip-flop," the media tech said while pointing to the blown up image on the screen in front of him.

"Are you sure?"

"Oh, yeah. You can see the treads right there."

"Sonofa . . . ." Norma-Jeanne plopped her head into her hands in frustration. How could she have missed that? She never would have been taken in under normal circumstances, but now, now, she was in trouble on so many different levels. Her peers, for what it was worth, were old ladies when it came to gossip. The fact that she'd believed some guy in a rug wearing flip-flops was a Bigfoot would be spread like wildfire. Within hours, she would begin to receive shipments of lollipops, fishhooks, and worn copies of Gullible's Travels. These would be followed by photoshopped images of Bigfoot wearing everything from sneakers to chinos, deliveries of teddy bears shod in wingtips, and then the presentation of the infamous furry clogs. The techno-savvy crowd may be composed of geeks and nerds, but they could be as ruthless to their own as a high school diva when they got the chance. It was going to be a long couple of weeks. Norma-Jeanne's only hope was that someone else would screw up worse than she had in the very near future. Although, honestly, losing your host and getting taken in by a hoax at the same time was just about as bad as it got.

Of course, in terms of severity, the disrespect of her peers was last on the list. Mysteries of the Paranormal had spent a significant amount of money getting her and her solid gold footage back from Louisiana, and they had still lost one of the most popular anchors in the swamps without getting anything in return. The lawyers were doubtlessly earning overtime "finding" release forms that would absolve Mysteries from lawsuits by John's family, but that wouldn't stop anyone from wasting thousands of dollars on both sides in civil court. Norma-Jeanne was completely screwed, and she knew her time was up when she got the call to come to Gruber's office.

"I've got a job for you, my girl," he said once she had taken a seat. That was a departure from the "You're fired" she was expecting, but she had already committed herself to making a scene. She couldn't back out now.

"Oh, you mean so I can find a way to be even more humiliated than I am right now?" Her Brooklyn accent was peeking through as she scraped the remnants of a comfort truffle from the corner of her mouth in agitation.

"Now, now. In this business, everyone gets taken. It's one of the hazards of the work."

"I didn't 'get taken.' John Urban got 'taken.' I just let him."

"By one or more fake Bigfeet."

"Bigfoot," she corrected with a verbal scowl that matched the one her entire body was displaying. Her arms were crossed, brows knitted, lips pursed, and shoulders hunched. This conversation was entering dangerous waters. Paul Gruber knew when it was time to retreat. "Like I was saying, I've got a job for you. It's more of a vacation really."

"Oh," she said without disguising the uninterest. "And where might this vacation take me? Someplace with more leeches and mosquitoes?"

"To Ireland." Norma-Jeanne's features shifted ever so slightly to betray her interest. "There is a report of a Merrow that washed up on the shore over there that I think would interest our viewers," Gruber said conspiratorially. "The person who discovered it posted a picture of it on the Internet, and it went viral in no time."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Right you are, my girl. A Merrow is like a mermaid. Human torso, fishy backside. Could be the real thing. Our subject signed an exclusive with us for pictures and an interview." He raised his eyebrows twice in question. Norma-Jeanne sighed in resignation.

"It sounds nice and all. Just an interview and some local flavor?" she asked suspiciously.

"Unless it's real. Then you have to convince the caretaker to let us put it through the scientific meat grinder, of course."

"Of course. Why me?"

"You are without a doubt one of my finest investigative journalists. I would trust this with no other."

"That and the fact that my being a journalist, photographer, and videographer all rolled into one means you only have to spring for one plane ticket and hotel room."

"Someday, Norm," Gruber said, wiping an imaginary tear from his left eye, "you will make this company a fine producer. Come here and give me a hug."

"Uh, no," she said, standing up and dodging the outstretched arms. In the same motion, she snatched the folder off the desk with her assignment in it. "But, I will take the job. You'll keep looking for John while I'm gone?"

"Of course. He's a legend. He's probably holed up in some shack out there, whooping it up with the local hoax master. We'll be able to get some mileage out of the rescue effort, and I'm sure he'll have a pretty good scoop on the 'cultural habits of the north American Bigfoot' too when he resurfaces. Don't worry about him. He's a professional."

That brought out another scowl. "I'll give the Blarney Stone a kiss for John when I get there. Do you want one, too?"

"A kiss from a beautiful reporter? How could I resist?" he asked, puckering up.

Norma-Jeanne made a conscious effort to erase the image of Gruber's puckered lips from her mind. "No. I meant kissing the Blarney Stone on your behalf."

"Ah. Well, you'd better. I can use all the luck I can get."

John

"Apparently, batteries have no tolerance for swamp muck. Chock another one up for science. I can't say that I blame them. I'm not much of a fan of it myself. Sometime during the night after the grooming session, the tide must have come in. The next morning I was covered with filth, and some of the nasty stuff had leaked into my pocket. It refused to be stopped there and doggedly pressed forward until it found its way in to the battery compartment of my recorder. It took me three days to find some replacements. Even then I had to harvest them from a calculator I found in a drawer at the salon."

"I suppose I should recap now. The day after the grooming session, after discovering the demise of my personal recorder, the entire troop of Skunk Apes was acting highly agitated. I can't say that I blamed them. I was in quite a state as well. They were all frantically moving about gathering bits of roots, twigs, and other garbage and toting them off in a singular direction. I was soon gathered as well--not terribly flattering being an afterthought to garbage, but you take what you can get out in the swamp--and led to a place several hundred yards away. That would be several hundred muck and snake and alligator filled yards. Luckily, everything, except perhaps the muck, had decided that a mob of well-muscled ape-people wasn't worth hassling, so the trek was fairly uneventful. It was only when I got to the shoe mountain that things got really interesting.

"I stood before a battalion of boots and sneakers, of flip flops and Crocs, and of some footwear abominations I'd never laid my eyes on before. Most of the shoes had the leather either blown out or flattened mercilessly against the soles. Others had sticks shoved through the material in a cross-hatch that stuck out to the sides and at either end about six to ten inches. Still there were more. There were overworked bedroom slippers, branches lashed together to make great leafy sandals, and many that looked suspiciously like tire treads with shoelaces strung through them. My friends, much to my astonishment, were putting them on their feet.

"I was so shocked that it took me a while to notice a pair of boots sailing in my direction. I caught the first one in my left hand and the second one in the forehead. There were some wide grins at that and something that even sounded like a hyena's laugh, but a sharp bark from the big guy brought everybody back to focus on their footwear. I found a relatively dry root to sit upon while I put shoes on my feet for the first time in what seemed like years. They were a little big and heavy--my general preference in outdoor wear leans more toward lightweight gortex rather than wearing half a cow on my feet--but I was grateful for the touch of civilization nonetheless.

"A profound silence crept up on me as I finished knotting my laces securely into place. I looked up sheepishly to see all fourteen pairs of eyes fixed intently on my position. Panicked thoughts ran through my mind. Had I committed some social faux pas? Was I about to get stomped into putty by huge, Frankenstein shoes? The one closest to me averted its gaze down toward its own footwear and then looked back to mine. The laces on the poor creature's "shoes" were jumbled together like some Picasso spider web. I couldn't see where they were tied, and upon further scrutiny, I saw that the ends just seemed to be tucked under the creature's massive heel. I pointed to my fancy loops and then at his shoe. He seemed to consider this for a moment, deciding whether I was mocking him or offering to help, and then he sat back and extended his foot. I moved slowly toward him and dug the laces out. The aroma of swamp foot struck me full in the face, but I persevered. My usefulness to this tribe as anything other than a Happy Meal was at stake.

"I pulled all the slack out of the rest of the string and then, with deliberate and slow motions, snugged up the laces and tied the knot in a bow. He looked at the finished product with astonishment, lifting his foot into the air and wiggling it about trying to dislodge it. It stayed in place resolutely. He grinned broadly and then presented the other one. This time I had a huge audience, both in numbers and in metric tons, and they all watched intently as I formed the loops and made the knot. What followed was at least half an hour of trial and error and very poor knots. Their fingers are strong but not quite as nimble as mine. Many of them gave in to having me do it for them, but there were a few who proudly displayed their own work for the group to admire. In all the commotion, I forgot entirely to wonder why a pack of Skunk Apes even needed shoes in the first place.

"Once properly shod, we marched. Sometimes we headed to the north and other times to the east. There were a few souths and one west in there, too, I'm sure, but the sun wasn't always visible. An entire day of slogging had taken us miles away and well into the afternoon before we emerged into a boggy expanse of grasslands. Judging by the blisters on my feet, we were probably half a dozen miles from the nest.

"As the swamp thinned out and the sweet sounds of civilization came into range, the ground went from soggy to spongy and then to sandy. It was here that, for the first time in our journey, the ground actually retained the marks of our passage. How long would it take some random person to spot the pilgrimage of a dozen Bigfeet and then cash in on the publicity? How long after that would it be before the swamps were choked with fortune seekers and scientists? It occurred to me that the Skunk Apes had asked these very same questions.

"Somehow in their dealings with the humans, they had recognized that their footprints were of great curiosity to us and brought in unwanted attention. They had also observed what we did as a species to mask our passage. We did it for our own feet, for the feet of our horses, and now the feet of our vehicles. They mimicked us. They learned from our example and are now virtually invisible. That's why it's been so bloody hard to find them all these years. We've been ignoring all the shoe prints and tire treads. I think we may have drastically underestimated the intelligence of these creatures.

"That sobering thought played on my mind while we rested at the edge of the tree line. I could see the bright fluorescent lights coming from only a few hundred yards away, but any thoughts of escape withered and died with a glance toward the long, agile limbs of my captors. I had no doubts that any of them could and would squash me to keep their tribe safe. I didn't feel particularly eager to get squashed just yet, so I sat and waited with the others.

"We traveled for another three days on the outskirts of towns and through the swamps before I could take no more. The physical exertion was immense, and my feet were blistered and sore. I ate bugs and grubs willingly, I am sorry to say. In fact, I began to catch them myself at every opportunity. It is amazing what constant exercise and lack of easily available snack foods will do to your taste buds. The mole crickets aren't half bad, actually.

"But the greatest matter of personal distress was the depletion of grooming materials. Having to share with the others in my troupe had used up the last of my gel and completely destroyed any resemblance to a comb the hair-choked plastic hedgehog in my pocket once possessed. One might assume it is a worship of vanity that has driven me to mention this, but the reality is that I had asserted myself as a member of this tribe through my unique and desirable grooming aptitude. Without being able to serve this function, I am merely the smallest, weakest, slowest member. In effect, I become a burden.

"It was with this in mind that I decided, with a little help from providence, to lead the others on a nighttime raid of a strip mall we were passing somewhere within the border of Arkansas. The others were understandably skittish and reluctant to enter such an unsecured location, but I forced their hand by running wildly into the parking lot. I was overtaken quickly enough but was able to avoid a thrashing by gesticulating at the salon directly in front of me. Matilda, the very same one who had initially protected me and then tracked me down when I broke free, stared with dumbfounded admiration at the posters in the window. They were of lovely young women with long, flowing manes of hair that were full of body and shine.

"Other Skunk Apes tentatively made their way into the parking lot to see what was going on, and they were equally captivated. Before long, the entire troupe had their faces pressed to the glass of the shop. I convinced one of the creatures that it was a good idea to rip the back door off its hinges and was surprised there wasn't a blaring alarm to accompany it. Apparently this part of the world was still fairly trusting. This changed things a bit. My initial plan had been a 'snatch and grab' of supplies before the police arrived. However, having access to an entire hair salon was an opportunity I could not pass up . . . ."

### October 21st

John

"My recorder's batteries seems to have died again last night in the middle of an especially eloquent description of events. I blame the calculator from which I stole them. Somebody had busy fingers, apparently. Alas, we are on the move again, and I have only a few minutes of rest to recount so many details. I did, of course, find a few more compatible batteries for my recorder in a momentarily unoccupied shack about four miles behind us. I fully intend to compensate the owner for the use of his batteries and, of course, the missing food from pantry when I am next able to do so. There may also be some plumbing bills involved.

"The night spent at the hair salon was a tiring one, but I feel as if we accomplished a great deal. I rinsed away the collective grime of nearly a week of swamp living and hard travel and felt, finally, like a human. The relief and lustrous shine of my newly washed hair seemed to draw the others to me like moths to a flame. Before long, Elvis was reclined over the sink, and I was working some extra strength shampoo into the fur on top of his head. The results were miraculous. The orange color drained away into the sink as the mildew came out in stringy clumps. His hair was charcoal and streaked with grey, giving him a regal and sophisticated look. We took it a step further and, thanks to a drain in the center of the floor, bathed the rest of him. The others in the troupe followed our example. I did have a little difficulty pointing out which bottles were shampoo rather than other chemicals, much to the chagrin of one of the younger males who turned out like an electrocuted French poodle. By the end of evening, the floor was six inches deep in hair, slime, and water, but the Skunk Apes looked fabulous. Well, most of them at least. Of course, they were no longer Skunk Apes at this point. Freed from their slime and stink, they were one hundred percent Sasquatch.

"We appropriated shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, gel, and brushes. Lots of brushes. The air was sweet smelling as we departed. The sky had just begun to lighten, and we were ready to take on the world. We were still a little damp--there was a disgraceful lack of full-body hair dryers available--but we were clean and happy.

"The torrid pace has not slackened now that we have pampered ourselves. If anything, it has increased in urgency. We continue to move north and east. Always north and east. It seems we are under some sort of biological imperative to get to some undisclosed location and only have a short time to do so. Does this noble creature migrate? Perhaps it's a mating cycle meant to dissuade inbreeding. I imagine that a species that lives in such small tribes would need to introduce new genetic material from time to time. Although, I wonder what that would mean for me. Am I a gift? A dowry? A status symbol? Does each tribe keep a token human, and I am meant to breed with them? Surely they do not expect me to mate with . . . . No. This is, of course, mere speculation. I suppose I will need to continue travelling with my new friends to find out."

Norma-Jeanne

Planes had always freaked Norma-Jeanne out on a molecular level. There was something unnatural about one hundred tons of metal and highly combustible fuel falling sideways in such a great hurry. Even the relatively short flight from Shreveport to Greensboro had her fighting back a panic attack, so she knew the cross-Atlantic variety would require some chemical assistance. And that was before having to run the security gauntlet.

Whatever measure of uneasiness she'd felt about the flight itself had tripled at the prospect of having a small crowd of strangers in security uniforms ogle her in her full, 3-D rendered glory. _Why do they always let the creepy looking guys sit in front of the monitors?_ It felt like she was in one of those cheap porno booths where the window block slides up at the drop of a quarter. The alternative was worse--getting groped by a bull-dyke with a badge--so she had sucked it up and walked through with her head and arms held high.

She'd passed through the checkpoint, minus her dignity, about thirty minutes before and had since consumed enough alcohol to make the Xanax she'd taken chip away at the feelings of embarrassment and violation. The only consolation was that she had avoided getting yanked out of line for an obligatory body cavity search. One poor soul three people ahead of her was not so lucky. He'd been led off to a closed door with a look of stricken terror on his face. She could still hear the latex gloves slapping into place. She shuddered. The victim of that crime had shuffle-stepped his way into the bar fifteen minutes after she had and refused to sit down while he consumed at least half a bottle of whiskey. The space around him still seethed with an aura of "no trespassing," and everyone who accidentally wandered into that zone recoiled in horror. He stood there, jealously guarding his hoard of empty glasses like some great dragon would its treasure. She considered offering consolation but instead left him there to pick up the pieces of his psyche on his own. There are some things people just have to do by themselves.

The boarding process was typical. Wait, shuffle forward, then wait some more. Business class tickets didn't merit expedited service or much more than a sliver of padded seat for the eight-hour flight to the Emerald Isle. However, when Norma-Jeanne arrived at her assigned seat, she noticed that half of it had already been spoken for by a greedy butt cheek that had leaked over from its station on the adjacent one. Its owner was perched between the window and the middle seat with an industrial-sized seatbelt straining over the mountain of front butt that was his lap. Norma-Jeanne looked at her assigned space dubiously, trying to size up the likelihood of her actually being able to squeeze in there or whether she even wanted to try. The stream of passengers behind her nudged and bumped her mercilessly as she debated. _Is Ireland worth it?_

"Oh, let me get that for you," the humongous man said. He cinched up the cargo strap of a seat belt and his overlap rose perceptibly. He smiled at her, seeking approval. Norma-Jeanne sat down in spite of herself, partially to be polite, but mostly because she'd been struck in the back of the head by someone trying to jam a ridiculously large piece of luggage into the overhead compartment beside her. She knew, without preamble, that the seating arrangements simply weren't going to work. She could feel the heat radiating out from the mound of flesh next to her. Her right hip began to sweat on its own accord. _No, Ireland isn't worth this_.

She made to rise and then felt her ears popping with the increase in altitude. There was gentle pressure pushing her back into the seat and less gentle pressure trying to force her into the aisle. They were airborne.

Norma-Jeanne reviewed flight etiquette only to agree with her previous beliefs. Planes should not take off while passengers are still in the aisle struggling with their luggage. There should have been an announcement and flight attendants checking for seatbelts. She looked around expecting to see a mob of people stumbling around and cursing profusely, but what she saw was impossible. Where there had been at least a dozen unseated people, both in front and behind her, just a few seconds ago, now there were none. Everyone was comfortably strapped into their seats--comfortable was, of course a relative term--and looked to have been so for some time. She could also feel a sweaty spot on her right leg that was much too large to have formed in just a few seconds. _A blackout? Some kind of space-time rip centered on ensuring my continued discomfort? Perhaps both?_

"Not a fan of flying, huh?" he said. His voice was high and nasally.

"Pardon me?" she asked, loosening her seat belt and trying her best to scrunch away from the mass of flesh beside her.

"Well, you kept moving your mouth like this," he pantomimed what looked like a giant guppy gasping for water, "and then you kept flipping everyone the bird and telling them they smelled like, um, horse balls."

"I did?" He nodded glumly. Norma-Jeanne looked sheepishly around the cabin at her neighbors and was met with some rather indignant looks. "I must have had a bit too much to drink at the bar. No more tequila for me."

"Yeah, luckily, that guy over there," he pointed to a familiar face about four rows behind them and to the left, "was even worse. He kept screaming about his ass. The attendants wanted to get him to leave, but I heard them say that TSA agreed to take responsibility. Anyway, that deflected some of the attention away from you."

"Wow, saved by the nutcase. My life is complete."

"There are weirdoes everywhere. Lucky for you, you get to sit by someone normal. My name is Charles Hutchins, a.k.a. the Nose Pad King," the man said as he proffered a meaty hand. Norma-Jeanne took it reluctantly in her own hand and gave it a little nod. He was living large with at least three chins, the middle one framed with dark mutton chops that descended from his unkept hair. He sported a pair of very stylish glasses that would have accented his eyes nicely if it weren't for the matching zebra-striped nose and ear pads. A rumpled polo shirt and khakis that seemed to be fastened just below his chest completed the ensemble.

"Thank God for normal people," she said with a worried smile. "I'm Norma-Jeanne. So, what exactly is a nose pad, and how did you become royalty over it? Or is it them?"

"By divine providence, my dear. The lady of the lens stretched forth her hand, and in it was Padcaliper, the tool of the ancients that allows me to find just the right fit for your glasses. That's on my website." Norma-Jeanne shrank back from the brilliance of his child-like grin.

"Wow. Awesome. Really. Oh, I just remembered I have to uh, go, well you know." She bolted up and narrowly avoided colliding with a flight attendant as she scurried toward the lavatory. This was shaping up to be a great trip.

The bathroom was tiny and cramped. It was like trying to pee in a shoe box, and Norma-Jeanne reveled in the most space she'd had since boarding this winged monstrosity. She took a moment out of her busy bathroom schedule to reflect upon the last few hours of her life. There was a lingering feeling of violation in her. It was as if she had emotionally opened herself up to another and now felt the questioning shame of that action. Yep, sounds like alcohol, all right.

It occurred to her that the oddities she'd experienced since she'd stepped foot into the terminal, although it actually been shortly after her head had become intimately associated with the side of a minivan back in Louisiana, had caused her to neglect some of the tenements she held dear and vital to her continued survival. In truth, she'd forgotten to be terrified of flying and of the potential repercussions inherent in thumbing one's nose at the laws of physics. It was much too late for that now, but it was her civic duty to avoid doing anything that might disturb their inertia. The slightest upset in the balance they had established between themselves and the air would surely send them plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean. The unbidden images of the survivors of said crash raced into her head. She saw dozens of people treading water--several were clinging to a giant floating mass of Nose Pad King--and beneath them all the dark shapes of eager garbage collectors. She was quite certain that hordes of man-eating sharks followed each and every ocean-going flight that dared to tempt fate, and these opportunistic scavengers preferred their meals fresh and thrashing wildly about. She shuddered at the image and returned to the comfort of logistical reasoning.

The single largest risk to the continued well-being of an airplane in flight was explosive decompression. She'd read that somewhere. In light of that fact, the toilet upon which she perched offered a serious a dilemma. First of all, she was quite convinced that international fights just dumped the waste over the ocean, and that action provided a weak point for internal atmosphere to try to escape, often violently. Secondly, leaving a mess in the restroom was a social faux-pas that her mother would have skinned her alive for. The battle raged on inside her as she dabbed a wad of toilet paper against the sweaty spot on her thigh. Eventually, the fear won out. She left the toilet unflushed and the integrity of the plane intact--her own lost long ago--and reentered the main cabin. Mama didn't raise no fool, just a socially inept paranoid.

Delgado

The door to the lab rocked back and forth in the frame with each knock, but Dr. Delgado was too absorbed in what he was seeing to answer it. It had taken him a week to get the power running to the strange little device--since the yeast had destroyed the battery in their haste to rise like a loaf of bread in the desert heat--and another couple of sleepless nights and days to attach all the tiny fibers to a digital input connector that his computer monitor could use. What he saw stunned him.

Displayed on the screen in all of its glory was a computer desktop or something similar enough to one to ignore the difference. The tag MyOS6.0 was stamped on the wallpaper, and a series of icons were arrayed haphazardly across the workspace. As his attention flitted from one icon to the next, a tiny cross-hair flickered in place. He leaned closer to see if it was merely a trick of his brain, and as he did so, the crosshair moved perceptibly to the right. He leaned closer and looked at a Settings icon at the top right. The crosshairs migrated in the same direction. Experimentally, he looked to the top left corner, and the cursor began to move in that direction next. He raised the device closer to his head, and the cursor became much more responsive.

"It reads beta waves," he said in awe. He knew such things existed and had given paraplegics rudimentary abilities to interact with computers, but once again, this device far outshone anything he'd ever seen.

The pounding on the door came again, followed by a sharp "pop" as the doorknob disintegrated in a shower of shrapnel. A figure strode into the lab through the haze of spent gunpowder and walked up to the good doctor. It was Gabriel, the patient who'd oscillated between an addiction to pornography and existing in a persistent vegetative state during his stay at the lab.

"Doc," he said, "you've been naughty."

"But, what is this? Why put this in your head?" he asked, his curiosity blinding him to the danger as he pointed to the image on the screen.

"Good question," Gabriel said as he plopped down in a nearby vacant seat. He let the short barreled shotgun rest on his leg, aimed lazily in Dr. Delgado's direction. He rubbed the saddlebags under his eyes absently. "You see, doc, some of my friends developed this little technique for dealing with people. It uses some combination of signals sent through the optic nerves to turn them into vegetables. Only, there were two problems with the thing. Having vegetables is nice and all, but they're a pain to have to lug around everywhere. I mean, we'd be constantly having to roll people around on dollies and tossing them into trunks. Besides, there's just not a lot of money in produce these days. Am I right? So we had to figure out how to control them. Which we did.

"The other issue was that we didn't want to turn ourselves into veggies along with them. So, to cut out all the little technical details and such, that device you stuck in us," he said tapping absently at his shoulder, "not only shields us from the effects of said process but gives us twenty-four seven commercial-free access to finding, veggifying, and moving our little chess pieces all across the board."

"But, wh . . . ."

"Geez. For a smart guy, you're pretty dense. Money and power. Why else?" Gabriel paused for a little bit before leaning in conspiratorially. "But then I found something, doc, and now the game is so much bigger. I'm going to let you in on a little secret," he said as he pulled out a smart phone and held it up for Dr. Delgado to see. There was a pattern on there that seemed to draw the doctor in and scramble his brain like so much fruit smoothie.

Gabriel pulled the phone away from the now comatose man and picked up the device the doctor had been trying so hard to understand. He placed a small USB flash drive into the doctor's PC and ran the Pac-Man script in there. Data files began disappearing immediately. He removed the flash drive and looked down at the good doctor. He could have killed him of course, but that would have just brought unwanted attention from the police. Besides, the end was just around the corner, and after that, none of this would really be of any consequence. He made his way toward the back door whistling to himself. He stopped, turned on the TV, and pressed Play on disc four of the DVD player. Subject 162 got ready to enjoy the show.

Norma-Jeanne

Time was playing hide and seek again. Norma-Jeanne realized that she'd been standing there at the front of the plane for entirely too long. She caught herself staring at the infinitely small space she would need to occupy for the next twelve hours and blanched. Judging by the pain in her feet and the looks she was getting, she'd been there for several minutes. On top of that, she was around fifteen feet away from the lavatory and feeling quite disoriented. An incessant voice to her right was chirping at her.

"Ma'am? Are you all right?" Norma-Jeanne turned her head slowly to see a woman in her twilight years that reminded her of an Angela Lansbury and Mrs. Doubtfire hybrid. She was dressed in a very conservative blue floral blouse with a grey skirt that, even while sitting down, managed to cover her knees. "The poor dear. I think she might be having a vision," the lady said to her companion. He was a man of around fifty and had a very sharp face covered in short, grey stubble. His hair appeared to have migrated toward the back of his head and stuck out in a short, curly ponytail. His red Hawaiian shirt made a nice compliment to the old lady's outfit.

"Not everybody who stands around looking constipated is having a vision. She did just come out of the toilet. Uh, no offense, ma'am," he said apologetically.

"None taken."

"I think I know a vision when I see one, and she was having a hum-dinger. Would you care to share, dear?" asked the older lady.

"I'm sorry. I can't remember. Who are you, if I might ask?"

"Oh, I am so rude. My name is Marjorie, and these are my friends, Felix and Lenore." She gestured at the man in the Hawaiian shirt and the dour young lady by the window in turn.

"As in 'forgotten lore, sainted maiden, nevermore'? That Lenore?"

"It's not her real name, dear."

"It is realer than the name I was given by my misguided mother. Lenore is the name of my soul," the young lady responded with a sharp look at Marjorie.

"She's a bit dramatic," Marjorie explained. This was met with a huff from the nearby seat and an unspoken "whatever."

"So, is it a family vacation, then?" Norma-Jeanne asked cautiously. They looked nothing alike, but one could never tell.

"We are a kind of a family, my dear," Marjorie said. "But this is a business trip."

"We're psychics," Felix said proudly.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. We've been invited to Ireland to assist with a matter," Marjorie continued.

"That's amazing." Norma-Jeanne was getting interested in spite of herself. "What is it? A murder? Or maybe a missing persons case?"

"We're not really sure yet. You see, we were going to divine the answer on the way there, but then we got to debating whether or not we might actually crash the plane by using our powers."

"You can do that?"

"Well, if using a Kindle can cause issues with takeoff and landing, what would tapping into the ethereal world around us do?" she asked with all seriousness.

"I, for one," said Felix, "don't want to have to dog-paddle across half the Atlantic if we guess wrong."

"And I," said Lenore, "think you're all full of shit. The 'government' doesn't want you accidentally intercepting their data streams while they record everything about us during takeoff and landing. That's why we can't have anything on. There is nothing outside of an EMP that could interfere with the electronics on this baby." She was young and fiery, and Norma-Jeanne thought she was probably quite adorable underneath the dark mascara and eyebrow piercings. She could also use a little sun and maybe let her hair grow out to be a little less purple.

"Pay no attention to her," Marjorie interrupted. "She's been channeling Nixon lately."

Norma-Jeanne moved to the side as the passenger to her left had had enough of listening to the conversation and rose to go to the restroom. She could just hear some words cursing "people who don't flush" before the door closed. She sat down in the now vacant seat across the aisle from Marjorie and marveled at the story that was unfolding in front of her. It didn't hurt that she got to be away from the nose pad sweat factory for a while longer either. "So, you talk to the dead?"

"They actually talk to me. Sort of," Lenore corrected, but there was a little hint of pride that she was singled out as much as she wanted to hate it.

"And you?" Norma-Jeanne asked pointing at Marjorie.

"ESP. It's a blessing and a curse."

"And I'm telekinetic. You know, bend things, move objects around, that kind of stuff," Felix said gruffly.

"Could you demonstrate? Oh, where are my manners? I'm Norma-Jeanne Baker. I'm a reporter for Mysteries of the Paranormal, and I would love to do a story on you guys."

"Like the actress?" Lenore asked. "I've always wanted to see her corpse." The other three looked at her with a mixture of concern and fear. "I've heard rumors that I want to confirm. That's all."

"My mom was a big fan of Marilyn. I think she married a Baker just so she could name me after her. Now, is anyone interested in that interview?"

"I am," Felix began, "but again, I don't want to risk the safety of all these people. I assume you'll be taking some video footage to accompany the story."

"Guilty as charged."

"The dead stewardess over there wants me to tell you to talk to Lincoln's bush." All eyes landed on the maudlin Lenore. "What?"

"You're not supposed to use your powers on the plane. What if we crash?" asked Marjorie with her eyes wide and nostrils flaring in disapproval.

"It's not my fault. I don't control when these guys show up. They just do."

"Well, close your eyes or something."

"Wait," Norma-Jeanne said, interrupting the psychic etiquette debate, "a ghost told you to tell me to talk to a bush?"

"Lincoln's bush." Lenore paused for a bit before continuing. "She didn't tell me that exactly. I'm, well, dead-deaf," she said with a little embarrassment. "She had to use charades."

"Why would a dead stewardess want me to talk to a bush?"

"There's no telling with the dead. I didn't see her until there was some commotion back there--something about an ass? Then she just appeared. She's been hanging pretty close to you ever since." There was silence for a moment before they heard the whoosh of a toilet being flushed, and the previous seat's occupant emerged from the water closet.

"Wonderful," Norma-Jeanne said dejectedly. It wasn't bad enough that she was passing out and getting jungle rot on her right thigh. Now she had a ghost groupie. "I would love to continue this a little later, but it looks like I'm being relocated. What hotel are you guys staying in?"

"The Ramada Encore, in Belfast."

"I'll try to catch up to you there," she said as she was chased away from her stolen seat by an unfriendly glare from its rightful owner. _Talk to the Lincoln bush. What the hell could that mean?_ Between the blackouts and dead stewardesses miming things about bushes, this trip had certainly gotten interesting. Bizarre, but interesting. She absently sat down before jumping back up again.

"Sorry," said the Nose Pad King, "let me get that for you." He reached over and pulled back a pail-full of flesh so that she could see the seat cover again. Had she just sat on his thigh? Or part of it? The thought made her cringe almost as much as what was going to happen when he let go of that mound. She steeled herself for the horror and squeezed into her half of the seat. She closed her eyes as she felt the damp pressure grow on the outside of her right thigh.

"So anyway," he said, picking up their conversation where it had left off so very long ago, "I sell the nose pads for glasses, which are the small, hypoallergenic shoes that serve as the feet for glasses. Many people discount them as being minor, but they provide the wearer with comfort that makes them want to wear glasses. Without the pads there is, well, nothing.

"The history of the nose pad is a long and varied one. It started back in the 1890s when the hard bridge pince-nez were all the rage. Pince-nez were the glasses without the ear pieces, so they relied completely on the fit around the bridge of the nose to remain on the face. They had to scissor the spectacles apart to allow the plaquettes, the old form of nose pads, to pinch onto the nose when the tension was released . . . ." He droned on and on without pause and without mercy. Norma-Jeanne found a new vision of personal hell and sank slowly into eternity. She may have dozed off or simply zoned out before she resurfaced to the sound of laughter. She looked over at the Nose Pad King questioningly.

"I like you. You are a very good listener," he said. "Tell you what. My convention will be over on Wednesday. We should get together for dinner. It'll be fun."

_Right. And crapping a hedgehog might be fun, too._ "Sure. I've got a pretty busy schedule, but if I get time, I'll give you a ring."

"Great. I'm staying at the Fitzwilliam, Room 502." He gave a satisfied grunt and leaned his head back. It was a blissfully brief and quiet time before the plane began its descent.

### October 22nd

Norma-Jeanne

"This is, um, interesting," Norma-Jeanne said, tapping her lips with a thoughtful finger.

"Aye, I found it nestled upon the rocks only about a mile out from Dunlace Castle after a terrible storm last week. 'Tis the legendary Merrow. She's a beauty for sure."

"She's a sheep being eaten by a shark."

"A what?"

"Yeah, that's a hairless sheep. See the hooves? And it looks like a shark got a little greedy and choked on the back half."

"But she's such a bonnie lass. It canna' be a sheep, can it?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I was wondering why she had eyeballs below her belly. I thought maybe 'twas to see amorous fish approaching."

"That would have been a great evolutionary advantage, I'm sure," Norma-Jeanne said as she began to pack up her camera. A glance toward the rough gentleman whose hopes of fame she'd just dashed upon the rocks of Dunlace Castle gave her pause. "Look," she said, "let's get a few pictures of you with it anyway. I'm sure we'll be able to use it in a special down the road."

"Ye mean I get to be on TV anyway?" he asked with hope filling his eyes.

"Absolutely. Now get close and smile." Norma-Jeanne snapped a few pictures from various angles before thanking Mr. Mullan for his time and advising him to put some dirt on top of his find in the near future. It was starting to reek. Such was the life of a paranormal investigator. Ninety-five percent of all reports that surfaced were false alarms, and eighty percent of those ended up smelling like rotten walrus barf. The five percent that weren't false alarms were usually unverifiable eye witness statements, but at least you could build something around those. As it stood now, there was just a naked sheep, a dead shark, and a week before her flight left to return her to the States.

It was still early in the day, and Norma-Jeanne was not ready to hop into a cab and return to her hotel room just yet. Instead, she left the seafood wholesaler and began to walk casually through the rustic town of Bushmills without any real purpose. She remembered passing a pub only a few blocks away--they were as plentiful in Ireland as churches were in the Bible belt--and headed in that direction. Ireland was a beautiful place, and this section of the country made her feel like she'd been transported back in time to when things moved slowly and were more in tune with the rhythm of the Earth.

There were clovers everywhere and all different shades of green and yellow. These were like tree to tree carpeting in the wooded lots and were to be found in most yards as well. Large stones jutted from the earth and were incorporated into buildings and walls as if the people had decided it was less work to build with the environment than against it. There were trees, shrubs, and flowers of all colors, shapes, and sizes. It was the perfect place for someone who wanted to get away and just relax. Norma-Jeanne was suddenly very glad that she'd come.

The pub came into sight just past a lazy intersection, and she casually entered. It was only a matter of minutes before she was settling down with a pint of bitter and taking in the ambience of the place. The bar was old and well-polished, made of real hardwood that was dented and gouged with years of character. Larger than life mugs hung from the ceiling and double-sized tumblers perched on shelves behind the bar. Norma-Jeanne spotted a corkboard littered with propaganda and advertisements by the entrance to the room marked "Lasses" and perused the literature. One of the pamphlets caught her attention. It promised a tour, leaving daily in just under an hour from outside the pub, of the greatest of Ireland's attractions. _What the hell,_ she thought. _It never hurts to get some footage. At least I'm not staring at suckers and furry clogs right now._

The tour bus pulled away from the curb outside of the Bushmills tavern and teetered off down the street. Norma-Jeanne held her camcorder up and flicked on the record button. The gears in the lens whirred softly as the auto focus kicked to life. The viewfinder showed a series of small houses and rustic businesses passing by as the open air tour bus motored down the lane. The passengers in the front had the typical American tourist look about them--big hats, loud clothes, and an abundance of disposable cameras rubber-banded to their wrists. The countryside tracked away as the guide checked the microphone for power.

The camera focused on the guide and part of a giant wicker hat worn by Granny "get in the way of every shot" in front of her as he began to speak.

"Ireland, known as the Emerald Isle, is home to many a strange and wonderful thin'. Legends tell of creatures such as Banshees, Pookas, Changelins that would steal the babes right from the crib to replace them with one of their own, Merrows, and Fairies galore. 'Tis also home to great heroes and the mysterious magic of the druids. With all of this, there's little doubt that this island is full of wonders that tantalize the imagination and feed the soul.

"Speaking of imagination, we are fast approachin' the famed Barney Stone, which spawned the imaginations of a generation." _Surely,_ Norma-Jeanne thought, _I heard that wrong._

The viewfinder rotated away from the tour guide and zoomed out in order to capture the famous Blarney Stone as the bus slowed down. It was disappointed. Instead of the ancient bluestone that bestowed the gift of gab in exchange for a kiss, the bus stopped in front of a large, purple, dinosaur-shaped rock. The wine-stained granite sported a childish grin as it rotated into sight, mocking all of those on the trip with its chubby cheeks and protruding butt.

"The Barney stone. How quaint," Norma-Jeanne said as she realized what she'd gotten herself into. This was one of those one-off tours that were born out of someone's basement and too much beer on a Saturday afternoon. "Why work when we can trick a bunch of tourists into riding around and looking at our junk?" they would say. And then they'd giggle and decide it would probably work better if it showed something else.

"This particular rock is believed to have inspired the popular children's character, Barney, who has become an icon for decades," the tour guide continued with a straight face. His seriousness was impressive. "I'm sorry, but the owners of this priceless icon have asked that we dunna stop and let ye fine folk touch or kiss the stone as it would erode it over time."

The viewfinder zoomed in to scrutinize a corner of Styrofoam peeking out from a crevice in the ground. "More like they don't want anyone to know that it's vinyl," Norma-Jeanne muttered. Well, she'd paid for the tour, so she decided she should ride it out to the end.

"Next on the tour," the guide droned on as the bus picked up speed, "is the ever frightenin' Wail of the Banshee."

The view on the camcorder zoomed back out and focused onto a covered wooded grove with something large and white in the center. As the bus got closer, a number of long, white fingers reached up from the earth only to curl back in on themselves. The closer the bus got, the easier it was to see that these white fingers were actually bones. They stretched across the open field in a straight line that was maybe thirty feet in overall length and rose to nearly ten feet above the ground at its highest.

Norma-Jeanne groaned as she realized what she was seeing. A whale skeleton. _Whale of the Banshee. Of course._

"The Whale of the Banshee is a testament to the power of one of the most feared creatures in all of Ireland. The Banshee is a spirit that draws its victims in with the sound of its voice, often to their doom. Given how far inland this whale died shows ye the irresistible power of this fearsome bein'."

"Jesus," Norma-Jeanne blurted out. "They even got that wrong. It's a siren that calls its prey." The world in the viewfinder spun quickly onto the face of a nearby and obviously annoyed tourist. "What?"

"If you don't mind, we're trying to enjoy the tour."

"Sorry, didn't mean to burst the fantasy bubble, there."

Norma-Jeanne paused the camcorder in exasperation. It was one thing for a third-rate tourist company to put up these attractions, but it was another altogether for the tourists to show their ignorance by believing them. Norma-Jeanne clicked record again as the tour guide stopped answering stupid questions and announced the next attraction.

The view focused outside the bus as it began to slow next to a small building that appeared to be merely a gateway to a large fenced-in enclosure.

"Comin' up are the last two attractions on this tour, but don't fret, there's a lot to see here. I will be passin' ye off to our resident expert on these matters once we enter. There are restrooms and refreshments inside as well."

"At least that's something worth seeing," Norma-Jeanne mumbled so as not to disturb the enjoyment of those around her. She paused the camcorder again and followed the rest of the crowd into the building. She divested herself of used beer in the proper receptacle and then chose an overpriced glass of lemonade to replace the fluid.

She clicked the camera back on and focused on the backs of some wide and tall tourists as they filed into a hallway surrounding a Plexiglas cage. Inside the cage was a rather large Irishman with curly red hair. He was dressed in an old world green and white outfit.

A new guide was speaking with a pronounced oil-tycoon Texas accent. "This, folks, is the only known specimen of the prehistoric giant Leprechaun in captivity. Many scientists believe that millions of years ago, Leprechauns were human sized and openly showed themselves to the dinosaurs and primitive mammals that existed at the time. Over history, they evolved into a smaller species designed to better hide from the influx of a dangerous new predator to the isle--man.

"This specimen was found in an iceberg in the middle of the Black Bog. Miraculously, he survived the thaw, and we have kept him here for study." The camera focused on the giant Leprechaun as he waved at the crowd.

Norma-Jeanne closed the viewfinder on the camcorder and sighed. The guide was already leading the other tourists out into the yard, proclaiming the topiary beyond as the eighth wonder of the world. Apparently, the bushes, flowers, and trees had formed their miraculous shapes naturally. Norma-Jeanne took a moment to wait for the crowd to disappear before silently offering the giant Leprechaun the remainder of her lemonade. He looked around and then opened a nearby door.

"Prehistoric Leprechaun. Dude, really?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Tis a livin," he said as he took the lemonade, tipped it toward her in thanks, and then returned to his captivity. Norma-Jeanne laughed to herself as she walked out into the sunlight. As far as cheesy tourist traps went, this one had at least ended up being somewhat entertaining.

The topiary art was mediocre in its "natural" recreation of many of the world's biggest attractions. There were leafy pyramids, viny Eiffel towers, and a sphinx made out of holly. It wasn't until she got to the Mount Rushmore of presidential hats that Norma-Jeanne stopped.

She waited for the rest of the tour group to move off toward the other awe-inspiring topiary in the Garden of Eaton. She stared at the Lincoln hat and its companion sculpture of the Wilkes-Booth revolver shrubbery. To think, she had travelled three thousand miles for this. She hung her head and almost walked away, but her curiosity kept her rooted firmly in place. How had the psychic and the dead stewardess known she was going to end up here, in front of a bush shaped like Lincoln's hat? Lincoln bushes couldn't be that common in this place. She felt a chill run up her spine and crossed her arms in front of her chest--never an easy feat--to try to keep herself warm. What was she meant to do with it again? That's right, she was supposed to talk to it. What does one say to a bush? Do you ask it about the weather? Or if its roots are healthy? She stood there for a long moment before looking around to see if she was alone. _What the hell,_ she thought. _What harm could it do?_

"Hello, bush," she said, leaning close and speaking in a conspiratorial voice. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to ask you, but . . . ." She stiffened, suddenly feeling an alien presence nearby, something foreign and unwelcome. This was creepy. She looked first at the bush and then over her shoulder only to find a portly man dressed in poofy knickers and a beret-looking hat standing a few feet away. Norma-Jeanne straightened up and turned toward him.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I just want to talk to the bush, too," he said sheepishly.

"Well, this is a private conversation, so if you could just wait over there until I'm finished, I'd appreciate it."

"Oh, okay," he grumbled as he skulked away. Norma-Jeanne shook her head at the rudeness of some people and returned her attention to the plant before her.

"So, where were we?"

"We were just about to formally introduce ourselves," came a voice from the green hat. Norma-Jeanne started at this and then looked around to make sure no one was playing a gag on her. The voice was high and lilting, coming across with a strong Irish accent that sounded like "Wewir just ahbight to formally introduce ireselves."

_This can't be serious,_ she thought. _This is some kind of messed up "prank the Yank" show or something._ "I'm not falling for it. You are not a talking bush. You can't fool me that easily."

"And yet ye are still blatherin' to a plant, ye realize." She hesitated at this, at a loss for how to proceed. Is arguing with a bush sane? The voice spoke up again with a touch of compassion. "If it makes ye feel any better, I'm not a bush. I'm behind the bush. But don't root for me yet. I want to prepare ye first."

"Prepare me for what?" she asked, peering to the side of the bush in spite of herself and the warning.

"Don't look!" the voice hissed. Norma-Jeanne pulled back to stare directly at the bushy column. "Ye'll get all shook, and then we both might be in trouble. Well, more so than we already are at any rate."

"I'll have you know that I am a professional videographer. I have had nothing but my camera between me and lions. I have almost gotten pictures of a blood thirsty Chupacabra, and I got a concussion from a rampaging fake Sasquatch. I doubt anything could make me scream at this point."

"Grand, then. Be wide and come around the hat and look under the barrel of the gun," the voice sighed with resignation.

"I'm as wide as I'd like to get, thank you very much."

"I meant, be cautious. Damn Yanks," the voice muttered.

Norma-Jeanne scooted to the backside of Lincoln's hat and then crouched down to look under the Wilkes-Booth revolver. What she saw made her want to scream. She could feel it barreling up from her gut and racing out of her mouth before she choked it back down. The impetus of the thing knocked her on her butt, which gave her a good, unobstructed view of the severed head that stared out at her from under the leaves of the plant. Its skin was the color of bread dough or old cheese or perhaps even a light mint pudding and was airbrush smooth. There was no such thing as pores or pimples for this noggin. The eyes were small and dark and very close together as they bracketed a tiny, upturned nose. These stared out, taking in the scene before it as if they were couple of nervous flies at a spider convention. The bluish lips were thin and stretched tightly over what looked like a mouth that ran from one side of the face to the other and was still overfull with teeth. It had a mop of wild black hair that sprouted from its scalp, but this seemed to actually glow a sickly green color, illuminating the shadows under the Wilkes-Booth bush.

"Howya," it said, eliciting another stifled scream from the reporter's mouth. "I know this is awkward," it said in a soft, soothing voice, "and believe you me, 'tis just as awkward for me, but I need ye to stay calm and listen." Norma-Jeanne whimpered in agreement. "As ye may have noticed, I'm just a haid."

"Are you done talking to the bush yet, lady?" came the voice from the rude man from before. "Lady?" he asked, coming closer.

"No!" shouted the head in a high-pitched voice that cracked at the end. "Not done yet. Give me another minute or two." The man could be heard muttering and backing away. "'Tis a rational explanation for everythin'," the head continued under its breath, "but I think we should discuss it somewhere more pffftt."

"More what?" Norma-Jeanne finally managed to squeak.

"Pffft. Dammit. A bloody roach crawled in me trap."

"Your trap?"

"Me mouth," it said as it listed to the side in its effort to dislodge the insect. It ended up with its right cheek on the ground and looked at Norma-Jeanne out of the side of one eye. "Oh, great. Now I've got a blade of grass up me nose. Ye have no idea how annoyin' it is to be without a body. I don't suppose ye could help me out? Tilt me a bit at least? Please?"

Norma-Jeanne was beyond creeped out and hesitated. She still had her suspicions that this "thing" was some sort of prank, but if it was, this was the most convincing special effects she'd ever seen. She reached out a hand and touched the head around the temple. The hair felt rough and coarse--like something that had sprouted out of the ground and dried in the sun--and where her fingers touched the skin, she felt an icy, biting cold. She gave it a quick shove and then retracted her hand before the mouth could get close to her wrist. The face rose from the ground with a relieved "ahhh" and then promptly rolled back until it was nose-down in the grass.

"Well, that could have gone better," came the muffled voice. Norma-Jeanne grasped it by the hair on the back of the scalp and pulled back so the head faced away from her yet was balanced upright on the stump of the neck. "Thank ye," it said gratefully. "I don't suppose ye could spin . . . oh, never mind. Look. I need yer help to get me body back. In order to do that, ye've got to get me out of here and some place private."

"What?" Norma-Jeanne started, finding it easier to talk to the head now that she couldn't see its face. "I'm just supposed to stuff you in my purse and stroll out of here? What if somebody sees me? I'll be arrested for sure."

"Ye'll just have to make sure that dunna' happen."

"And why should I? Why shouldn't I just get up and walk away?"

"For one thin', if ye scatter, ye'd be tormented with guilt at leavin' a poor defenseless haid out in the cruel world. For another, I'll curse ye for yer cruelty, and ye'll never be able to put on eyeliner without jabbin' yerself in the eye. And finally, ye're a reporter, Ms. Norma-Jeanne Baker, and I'm just about the biggest story ye could land."

"How do you know my name?"

"Ye'll never know unless ye get me out of here."

Norma-Jeanne pondered this. The freaky head was right on every point. She would feel guilty, she'd hate to poke herself in the eye a lot, this story could make her career, and she was curious about how it knew her name. This was a no-brainer. "Okay, but you're not going to fit in my purse. How do I get you out of here?"

"Lady, are you done yet? I want to talk to the bush before the tour bus leaves."

John

"We picked up speed two days ago as it seems we are behind schedule. There has been sense of urgency and agitation hanging over us recently, and I fear it's because I've slowed us down. I am simply physically unable to keep up. I take three steps for every one of theirs and have to run at a fast jog just to maintain their brutal walking pace. But that apparently isn't enough. The tribe has to go faster, and I am simply too slow.

"However, I have apparently proven myself valuable enough, either as a prisoner or an asset, to be carried by some of the stronger members. Every thirty minutes or so, I am passed to the back of a different male, none of which have seemed the least bit burdened by an extra one hundred and seventy-five pounds. These creatures have incredible strength and endurance. We have more than doubled our pace and crossed over into Georgia early this morning. That is not to say that we didn't have time to make another stop along the way for personal improvement. We managed to break into a nail salon and a dentist's office and abscond with personal care products before security could arrive. During breaks from the fast-paced travelling, I have had to once more prove my worth by providing manicures and--shudder--pedicures.

"My attempts at oral hygiene were not met with much enthusiasm. I had to demonstrate the products on myself first, and that caused quite a stir among them. I got thrown to the ground and roughed up a bit for accidentally challenging one of the males for a higher position in the pack. It occurred to me only after I had been pinned to the ground and had a set of canines poised to puncture my throat that I had made this mistake before. How am I supposed to clean my teeth without showing them?

"With the proper amount of submissive behavior akin to monkey groveling, I was allowed to live and return to my oral grooming. Making sure to only frown, I demonstrated the joy of brushing. It may sound like a bit of a paradox, but as children, we learned to do this to mollify our parents. It took some practice, but I managed to strike a decent balance between 'this is fun' and 'don't kill me.'

"After I finished, my female friend Matilda once again came to the rescue. She stuck her newly manicured and painted nails--a light summer peach color--into my mouth and pulled my lips back. She examined the fronts of my teeth and then opened my mouth wide to examine the insides. She then grasped a handheld mirror from me and held it up as she grinned. A distinctive pout formed on her lips, and she gestured from my mouth to hers and then opened wide.

"It was touching how much trust was shown at this, and I endeavored to make sure it was not misplaced. There were only a couple of moments where the brush encountered sensitive areas and, admittedly, the bleach was difficult to administer, but by the time the break was over, she had the cleanest, whitest set of teeth around. The others were awestruck as she flaunted them and were jostling for position to be next. Before I could start on the next in line, Elvis signaled the time to move forward. However, at each subsequent break, I have been performing fluoride treatments and teeth whitening.

"On a different note, I've noticed a significant amount of tree-knocking as we've moved further away from the swamps. I wonder if they are looking for food or just checking to make sure the trees aren't going to fall over. It is something to keep an eye on."

Norma-Jeanne

The head stared at her in the dim light of the hotel room. Norma-Jeanne had taken two baths and still felt dirty. It felt as if she'd slam-danced with the devil to a Marilyn Manson song. It was desperation that had driven her to tuck the severed head, the undead head as she had come to think of it, under her shirt and pretend to be pregnant all the way back to her room at the Greenmount Bed and Breakfast. The others in the tour group didn't seem to notice, nor did they comment on the sour grimace she carried on her face that said "I have just swallowed a live eel." She'd previously made herself a social pariah by claiming the tour guide was full of shit, and that had worked in her favor. Even so, animosity only gained her so much space. It was in fact the built-in self-defense mechanisms of the average Joe when it pertains to the unexplainable that saved her bacon on the ride back. A rational being would have seen through her poor disguise when her "embryo" had yelled the name "Liam" from under her shirt halfway back. Visions of men in black–-or possibly in green--hauling her and her unusual baby off to some underground bunker to be questioned, catalogued, and stored for further study ran through her brain, but after she had swatted it, and accepted the mumbled apology from her unborn child, the other passengers apparently chose to disbelieve it. The few who held onto the tenuous thread of impossibility simply averted their eyes when she met them with her own and pretended she no longer existed. It was all for the best, really.

The head itself felt cold, clammy, and unnaturally repulsive, like an alien zombie fish or at least what she thought an alien zombie fish might feel like if she were to ever encounter one. "Um," she began before shuddering again at the phantom feeling of its presence on her stomach. "I've got a load of questions for you, but first, I think we need to establish some rules about being inconspicuous."

"I'm not sure I understand," the head responded innocently.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about," she said, pointing a bitter finger at the head on the table. "I was sneaking you out so you wouldn't end up in a lab somewhere being dissected, and you just randomly yell out 'Liam' for God's sake."

"Did I?" it asked with a slight grimace.

"Yes!" Norma-Jeanne burst.

"I suppose that explains why ye belted me ear."

"Are you trying to tell me you don't remember doing it? You don't remember making the entire tour group stare at me and my talking womb?"

The head averted its eyes in embarrassment and took a moment to steel itself before responding. "I've got a problem. It's a compulsion I canna help. Whenever someone near me is goin' to die soon, I have to shout out their name." It looked at Norma-Jeanne sheepishly. She looked back at it like a shark that'd bitten off more sheep than it could chew.

"That guy was going to die?" she whispered.

"He's already dead. I could see that he was goin' to choke on a spud."

"Are you psychic too? Is everyone psychic but me? How could you possibly know a man you never saw before was even going to order potatoes, much less choke on them?" Norma-Jeanne burst out in exasperation.

"'Tis Ireland after all. Spuds are a fact a life here."

"Don't mess with me. How did you know he was going to die? How did you know my name? How are you still able to talk to me without any lungs or organs or body? What are you? Spill it," she commanded with the authority only a frustrated Brooklyn girl could wield.

"I'm different," it began and then stopped with a profound sigh. "Look, I'm old--really, really old--and me job is to help lead the souls of the dead to the world beyond. So, I've got a few talents when it comes to the dead and dyin'."

"So, you're Death," Norma-Jeanne ventured, feeling even ickier than she did before.

"No. I don't murder anyone. I help them get from here to there. I'm kind of like a spiritual travel agent."

"Ah, well, that makes a lot more sense. So, did you have a chance to get mister 'choked on a potato' to the underworld while I was in the shower?" she asked sarcastically.

"Not precisely." The head looked to the side in a bit of embarrassment. "Ye see, me body was the part that could actually open the way to the next world. I just get the souls to follow."

"So, what happens now that you are just a head?"

"The souls still follow me. Yep. I'm pretty good at that."

"Potato man is here, isn't he?"

"Yeah. I'm afraid so."

"Wow. This just keeps getting better. Not only have I had to give birth to the Grim Reaper's severed head, but now I get to share my hotel room with a ghost. What more can one woman ask for?"

"Well, this isn't exactly a picnic for me either. I'm used to actually bein' able to scratch me own nose when it itches. I used to shepherd the boundary between this realm and the Otherside. Now all I can do is keep papers from flyin' off yer desk. So, excuse me if I don't break down and weep for yer sufferin'." There was a long moment of silence while each of the combatants breathed in loud, angry bursts. In the corner of the room, the ghost of a man with a potato in his throat was occupying itself by trying to impale its finger on a ball point pen. It wasn't working very well. The damn things just kept passing through each other.

"I'm sorry," the head said, blinking first. "Ye have done me a great favor, and I'm just not very good at showin' gratitude. Ye are the first human I have truly spoken with for near a thousand years. I'm not very good at it."

"No, I'm the one that should be sorry." She sighed. "So, do you have a name? I'm getting tired of thinking of you as 'the head.'"

"I do have one, but it's not somethin' ye can pronounce."

"Is it Swedish? Those are murder on my tongue."

"No, it's Fae."

"Fae? As in Faerie?"

"'Fraid so. That was me home when the world was young."

"My God. So, you've been with us humans for at least a thousand years?"

"More like three."

"You really are old. Imagine the things you could tell me about history," Norma-Jeanne began to hyperventilate with excitement. "You could tell me about Arthur, or, or, what really happened to Tutankhamen, or . . . Jesus! You could tell me about Jesus."

"I'm afraid I'm a little lackin' in me knowledge of history. Ye see, I've only ever lived on this isle. I canna' leave here. I'm tied to Ireland."

"Oh," she said, letting the disappointment creep into her voice. "I'm sure there is something useful you can share. Regardless, I need to be able to call you something. How about a good Irish name, like Rosebud? You are a girl, right?"

"That's not an Irish name."

"Okay. Well, fine. Split hairs. I kinda like it. It was from Citizen Kane, you know. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards."

"So, it's a famous name?"

"Absolutely, you'll love it."

"Okay, if yer sure, then."

"Great. Rosebud it is." Norma-Jeanne put one hand on her chest and stretched the other out in the air as if she were trying to grab something just out of reach. "Ro-o-o-osebud," she said with as much dramatic gravitas as she could muster.

"What?"

"Nothing, just trying it out. So, Rosebud, how did you lose your body?" There was a moment of the kind of silence that only follows social transgressions. Although the topic was a necessary one, it just felt wrong and insensitive. The timing was off no doubt, but Norma-Jeanne had blundered in head first, and the emotional damage from the breach of etiquette was already done. Still, they waited, gathering thoughts and courage until a pen rolled off the desk across the room. Norma-Jeanne glanced at it briefly and completely neglected to see the ghost of a man who had choked on a potato staring in awe at his finger. She turned back to the head recently dubbed Rosebud for an answer.

With a sigh, the head began, "Me body and I have been a couple for millennia. I guess it started gettin' a bit bored with our relationship."

"Wait. You and your body are in a relationship? Like you're married or something?"

"Kind of. We're one spirit, just two different parts of it."

"So, it's the guy?"

"Things are different for Fae. 'Tis not always a matter of male and female, but, yes. 'Tis the best way to describe me body."

"Okay. Sorry to interrupt. Please go on."

"Anyway. In the past, me body would tinker with wooden toys or medical instruments. It, he, always was a bit of a wanker when it came to those things. Always had to want the latest and greatest. One day, we found an iPad on the person of the recently deceased, and me body started messin' with it. He found a game called "Angry Birds" that he played for hours until the battery died. Then we spent endless days of frustration waitin' for someone to die near a charger for the damn thing. Could ye please get me some water? I'm a bit parched."

"Sure," Norma-Jeanne said as she went to the tiny kitchen of her hotel room. She returned shortly after with a small, half-filled plastic cup. She held the edge of it to Rosebud's lips and tipped it up. The head drank greedily, and water pooled around her stump of a neck on the table.

"Thank ye kindly," Rosebud said as Norma-Jeanne went to get a towel. "Anyway, we eventually found one and charged the iPad at the outlets on porches when it was needed. You know, for two thousand years, we focused on hidin' from everyone except the dead and dyin', and then durin' this obsession, we sat out in plain sight. The homeowners were there, too. They were just too shook to come out and say anythin'.

"So, Angry Birds and Angry Birds Star Wars were beaten in turn, and after a brief flirtation with Fruit Ninja, me body found another game to obsess about. It was one where ye could hold it up and see demons popping out of the bushes and from behind buildings and such. Pergahtory, I think it was called. Me body pretended to be a warrior and slew demons, gained points, and leveled up. All at once, he just discarded me and walked away. I rolled down a hill and ended up under that bush where ye found me. I'd been there for a week before ye came along."

"He just walked away? How can he see anything? He's just a body."

"'Tis complicated, but he does have the ability to see and hear thin's around 'im. I make the decisions for the both of us. I used to, at least, but I'm not the only pair of eyes we have--errr, had."

"Can you tell where your body is? Maybe we can go get it back."

"I'm not sure I wanna'," Rosebud said petulantly.

"What do you mean? He's your body. Of course you want him back."

"He dumped me for an iPad. Do ye know how that makes me feel?" Rosebud asked, tears beginning to form in the corners of its eyes. _Her eyes,_ Norma-Jeanne thought. _Definitely a her_.

"I'm sure it's just a passing infatuation. He's probably out there looking for you right now after he realized what he lost." Norma-Jeanne had transitioned into full girlfriend mode now.

There was some sniffling and a glob of snot rolled out of Rosebud's left nostril and over her bluish lips. Norma-Jeanne grabbed the damp towel and dabbed at it tenderly. "I wish ye were right, but yer not," Rosebud blubbered. She seemed so forlorn and lost that Norma-Jeanne could almost forget that she was just a head. Almost.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because me body isn't even in Ireland anymore. He left yesterday. On a ship, I think."

"What?"

"Yeah, 'tis headin' west. I can feel 'im pullin' in that direction."

"Well, maybe he stumbled onto a ship by accident or was kidnapped and can't come back for you."

Rosebud looked at her skeptically. "Sure, I bet there are a lot of people out there just waitin' to pounce on the dismembered body of an old Fae spirit."

"You'd be surprised," Norma-Jeanne mumbled as she recalled some of the websites she'd stumbled into while researching her zombie hypothesis. "Anyway, we have to go after him."

"Why? 'Tis obvious that he doesn't want me."

"So what do you propose we do, then? Put out an ad in the paper? 'Single white head seeking animated corpse for long term relationship. Must enjoy dragging souls to the underworld'?"

"Now yer just bein' cruel."

Norma-Jeanne sighed and collected herself. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be harsh, but you and your body belong together. Something has happened to drive you apart, and I . . ." Another pen dropped on the floor in agreement. ". . . and Liam's ghost apparently," she said looking around suspiciously, "think we should get to the bottom of this."

"And just how are ye goin' to get me off this rock, then?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I met some people on the plane that might be able to help."

### October 23rd

Norma-Jeanne

The Ramada Encore was nearly thirty minutes away by taxi through some of the busiest streets in Ireland. Norma-Jeanne had found a nice, large bag for Rosebud to ride in--there was nothing on the earth that would get her to tuck the head under her shirt again--but that did little to stop the sound of the head's voice from ringing out no less than five times before they arrived. The cab driver had given Norma-Jeanne some curious looks as she sang, rather well in her own opinion, several Aerosmith songs to try to cover it up. She thought she'd killed it with "Dude Looks Like a Lady," but apparently the cabbie was not an aficionado of good rock. She glared at the bag as she got out of the cab and continued the angry vigil as often as she could spare without losing her balance as she wound her way up the stairwell.

A few raps on the hotel door were quickly followed by the muffled sounds of clomping as the young lady, Lenore, answered it. She was wearing some tragic goth dress with high, black stockings, and combat boots. Her hair was still the same shade of purple, but it was pulled up and held in place with a chicken bone barrette.

"What are all of you doing here?" she asked looking from one end of the hall to the other. Norma-Jeanne followed her gaze without spotting another soul.

"Hi. Lenore, right? Remember me from the plane? I'm Norma-Jeanne? From Mysteries of the Paranormal?"

"I can't hear you," she said, shaking her head.

"I said," Norma-Jeanne repeated, raising her voice, "do you remember me from the plane?"

"What's all the racket?" came a motherly voice from inside of the hotel room. Marjorie poked her head around Lenore's shoulder. "Norma-Jeanne!" she shouted. "Oh, my dear, do come in. Ah, forgive the mess. You know how it is." Norma-Jeanne wedged herself, bag first, past the girl who was staring out into the empty hall and entered the hotel room. It was nicer than hers by half and was decorated with doilies and tablecloths on all the flat surfaces.

She heard Lenore say, "Not all at once. I can't follow any of you when you're all flailing about at the same time."

"Don't mind her, dear. She's probably just seeing the ghosts again." It sounded like she was having the symptoms of some disease or maybe just gas, but Norma-Jeanne knew exactly what it was, and she was a good bit more ready to believe in such things these days. "Let me call Felix over before you start. He's just down the hall."

"No, we really don't need to bother him."

"Nonsense." She picked up the receiver and dialed a three digit number. "Felix, dear, that nice reporter from the plane is here to do an interview. Yes, mind the ghosts in the hallway. It looks like Lenore has quite a crowd out there."

No more than sixty seconds later, Felix came strolling through the door. He looked completely different and completely out of sorts. He had traded in the shorts and Hawaiian shirt for a smoking jacket and a pipe. "How do I look?" he asked. "I've never been on film before."

"You look fine," Marjorie said, rolling her eyes.

"I'm just a little nervous," Felix admitted as he sat down.

"Wait, umm, I think there might be a misunderstanding here. I'm not ready to interview you right now."

"Really? You brought your camera and everything."

"Um, well, this isn't my camera. It's what I came to talk to you about," Norma-Jeanne said with more than a little trepidation.

"How interesting. Well, don't keep us in suspense," Marjorie said.

"It's not exactly normal, and I don't want you guys to freak out."

"My dear girl," Felix began, "we have run the gamut of the strange and unusual. I doubt there is anything in that bag that could 'freak' us out." He and Marjorie looked at one another and chuckled knowingly.

"O-kay," Norma-Jeanne said before reaching into the bag and pulling Rosebud out by the hair. She set the head on the table, and Marjorie fainted dead away. Felix jumped back a full six feet, knocking over his chair before raising his fingers to his temples in a threatening manner.

"Assassin!" he shouted. "I'll bind you with the power of my mind." He concentrated for a moment, looking for all the world like he was trying to pass a cinderblock. "You, uh, wouldn't mind turning around or just closing your eyes would you?" he asked sheepishly. "It's only that I get nervous when people are watching."

Lenore had looked into the room at the commotion and saw Rosebud on the table looking back at her. She turned back into the hallway in exasperation. "Head? How was I supposed to get 'head' from all of that? Jesus! You guys are terrible." And with that she shut the door and walked casually over to sit down next to Norma-Jeanne.

"Careful, Lenore. She's some kind of serial killer," Felix warned.

"I doubt that. This," she said pointing toward the severed head, "is undead. A living corpse."

"I'd rather ye used the term 'livin' impaired' if ye please," Rosebud said flippantly. Felix joined Marjorie on the floor.

"Two out of three ain't bad," Norma-Jeanne said, looking at the prone figures sprawled on the hotel floor.

"So what's the deal here?" Lenore asked.

"Shouldn't we wait for the others to, uh, revive first?"

"Nah. This is more my department anyway."

"Okay. This is Rosebud. Rosebud, this is Lenore."

"A pleasure," Rosebud responded with a nodding of her eyes.

"Ro-o-o-osebud," she said in her best Orson Welles impression. "I like it."

"I know, right?" Norma-Jeanne said excitedly.

"Does everybody do that?" Rosebud looked from one to the other suspiciously.

"Sorry. I just had to." Lenore looked over at her human guest. "You've got yourself a winner here. So tell me, Rosebud, how is it that you're still alive and not exactly in one piece?"

Rosebud recounted her tale in spite the running commentary of her new partner. Norma-Jeanne felt the need to make addendums and observations, like how having Rosebud under her shirt felt like wrestling with cold eels or how the dead Tourette's forced her to suffer unbearable embarrassment in front of Ireland's public transportation personnel. Missing from the commentary was any mention of the cause of the separation of Rosebud and her body. That was one of those out-of-bounds topics between friends. Were they actually friends now? If not in the most platonic definition, they certainly were friends in the sense that they needed each other, which has been the basis for many long term friendships. At the end of the story, Lenore leaned back in her chair.

"You're the Dullahan," she said decisively.

"She is?" asked Norma-Jeanne.

"I am?" asked Rosebud.

"It all fits. Roaming around, calling out the names of the dead, leading them off to the place under the barrows. That's you in a shopping bag," she said, touching the tip of a finger to Rosebud's nose. "Damn, it's cold. You had that under your shirt for how long?"

"Little over an hour."

"Christ on a cracker. You're a lot tougher than you look."

"Thanks, I think."

"Can we get back to me for a moment?" Rosebud interrupted. "Is there anythin' in the legends or stories of the Dullahan that tells us how I can leave Ireland?"

"Hmmm. I'll need to check the occult sites for this one. It's a bit too obscure a question for me. There are some drinks in the fridge." She glanced at the sprawled figures on the floor. "You might want to get some damp cloths for our brave hero and Miss 'I see everything coming' over there."

Norma-Jeanne set about the task of trying to revive the two psychics in as kind a manner as possible. She started with Felix, bringing him around with gentle words of encouragement and a not so gentle slap to the face, all the while reassuring him that neither she nor the haunted head was going to pose a threat to someone of his obvious power. Once she had him vertical and calm, they both worked on Marjorie. All the while, Lenore hovered over her laptop like a vulture eyeing road kill. Time passed with small talk and not so small looks of astonishment at their bodiless visitor.

"It seems," Lenore said at last, "that the only way you can leave Ireland is if a member of royalty removes you. Something to do with divine providence and the bond a king has with the land."

"Huh? Who knew?" Rosebud said, eliciting another tense moment when they thought Marjorie would pass out again. "Believe it or not, there haven't been a lot of kings or queens eager ta have me travel in their entourage."

"I wonder if we can get Queen Elizabeth to come over and grant the hea . . ., I mean Rosebud, pardon to leave," Lenore suggested.

"Would Prince Charles count?" Felix ventured.

"Ooh, what about Prince harry? I hear he's into some freaky things. And," Lenore added, "I'd be happy to lend him any spiritual assistance that he needs."

Marjorie snorted. "I'll bet you would." Lenore gave her a black-gloved finger in response. "Manners dear. Besides, I rather doubt that her Majesty or any of her progeny would be willing to ferry our little zombie head to the States."

"It's not a zombie," corrected Lenore. "It is the spirit of a faerie creature that performs a specific function in this region. Without Rosebud's contribution, they're going to start calling this the Ghost Isle."

"Well, how then does the rest of the world stay relatively spirit free?" Felix asked with genuine curiosity.

"Each place on Earth has its own mechanism for ferrying the dead souls to where they belong. There's the Grim Reaper, Thanatos, Ankou, Smierc, Yamaraj, Yanluo . . . . Should I go on?"

"Regardless," Norma-Jeanne cut in, "we need to get Rosebud off this island and find the rest of her."

"Why not just go after the body without Rosebud?" asked Felix as he put his pipe to his lips and chewed on it.

"Even if I could find it without Rosebud's help, why would a headless spirit listen to me?" Norma-Jeanne countered.

"Well, if you take that stance, then it seems to me that Rosebud will just have to wait here until her body decides to come back on its own," he said as he folded his arms across his chest. "Ireland is bereft of kings." A terrible thought struck Norma-Jeanne, and her spirit diminished noticeably. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"Oh, God. There is a king in Ireland, but I can't. I won't." She shook her head and grasped it on both sides.

"What?" the four others asked as one.

"The Nosepad King."

"Well, that was interesting," Felix said with practiced nonchalance.

"What was?" Norma-Jeanne responded.

"Well, you kind of . . . ."

"Tried to use the table cloth as a stripper pole," finished Lenore. Norma-Jeanne was speechless. She looked around at the disarray that had recently served as the table settings. Only now, they adorned various parts of the room. Rosebud was lying about ten feet away next to the couch. Apparently no one had been able to muster enough courage to rescue her.

"I thought you'd give up once you were on the floor, but you showed a great deal of 'want to,'" Marjorie said. "Brava."

"You were spinning around in circles for over a minute, telling us to make it rain. It was very entertaining," Lenore added.

"Oh my God. This is so embarassing," Norma-Jeanne said, thinking that statement didn't come anywhere close to her actual feeling. "I have no idea what came over me."

"I think I might be able to help," Rosebud told the dust bunnies under the bed. She'd rolled quite some distance, apparently. Norma-Jeanne wandered over unsteadily and pulled her new friend out from under the bed and brought her back to the table. She wondered how long Rosebud had sat there waiting to be rescued. It seemed odd that in a room full of "psychics," the AV geek was the only one with the balls to help an undead sister out. Though, admittedly, she might not have been a good barometer of this sort of thing. She was a documentary videographer and was used to trying to be at home among the ickier side of nature, and she had spent an inordinate amount of time being thrown into dumpsters by the more popular kids back at good ole Public School 73. It's kind of hard to get too squeamish of anything much after having swum in pizza day leftovers. She decided to give the others in the hotel room a pass for not rushing over to pick up the severed head . . . this time.

"Much better," Rosebud said once perched upright again. "I noticed, right before ye flung me across the room, that a small hole opened up to the Otherside. It was centered somewhere by yer head, but it was definitely there."

"Is that why all your ghosts decided to come in? I thought it was just for the show," Lenore offered.

"The dead follow me to find their way to the other side. I think they felt the rift and came to see if it was their time to go. There is something odd about this."

"You think?," Norma-Jeanne said before putting her now bright red face in her hands.

"I wonder if it has anything to do with being so close to Rosebud? Maybe Norma-Jeanne's evolving to fill the void left by the body leaving Ireland," Felix said with a pointed scratching of his chin hairs.

"Oh, no way. I am not becoming the back-end of a fairy spirit. Not going to happen." She glanced over at Rosebud. "No offense."

"You may not have a choice, dear," Marjorie said consolingly. "The world is a giant organism. Each part must work for it to survive. Now an essential part is missing. It's not too far out of possibility that it would adapt."

"Some species of frogs and fish change sex spontaneously," Felix offered.

"And so did two of my friends from high school," Lenore added helpfully, "but they had to be on hormones for a few years and prove that cross-dressing wasn't just a fad."

"This is just some after effects of me getting my head shoved into the side of a van a week ago," Norma-Jeanne said in her defense. "Nothing to see here, move along."

"It may have begun with that, but I think yer friend here is right. There is a reason ye came and looked fer me under that bush."

"Yeah, the Raven over there and a dead stewardess told me to." Norma-Jeanne looked pointedly at Lenore.

"And ye don't find that a wee bit odd? A dead stewardess tells ye specifically to look under the bush that held yours truly?" There was an uncomfortable silence in the room before Rosebud continued. "Look, the world is a complicated thin'. A week ago, me body walked off, and then ye begin to tear holes in the fabric of the land of the livin'. Coincidence?"

"So the universe is conspiring to get me to make an ass of myself? Thanks, but I don't need any special powers for that."

"Ye opened a portal to the otherworld, and it looks like ye let a dead scrubber act the maggot with ye in the process."

"Wait, a minute. Who scrubbed a maggot?" Marjorie asked.

"Yanks," Rosebud said rolling her eyes. "It means that the spirit was slaggin' our young friend here." More raised eyebrows. "Okay . . . makin' sport of?" At the nods of understanding, Rosebud continued, "Anyway, nature abhors a vacuum, and if me body doesnna return, I think ye might be the chosen replacement." Rosebud looked a bit sad at this statement. Norma-Jeanne couldn't tell for certain if it was regret at getting her into this mess that had put her severed head into the dumps or if Rosebud simply didn't want to be tied to a short and stacked body for the rest of her life. Norma-Jeanne was hoping for well-deserved regret. Without the presence of the broken Fae spirit, she might have been able to escape the whole thing with some memory loss and ringing in her ears. That beat the current situation by a mile. But blame was unproductive and perhaps even a bit unfair. In any case, it didn't change the fact that she now had a biological imperative to find Rosebud's body and put things back into the correct balance--even if that meant a visit to the King.

John

"Perhaps it was not one of my finest hours, but days of being bounced around on the back of running apes had taken its toll. To add to this, there'd been a steadily growing agitation from the Sasquatch that had manifested itself in squabbles and heightened aggression toward one another. I could only assume that it stemmed from some inner sense that we still weren't making good enough time despite running full out for nearly ten hours a day. The rests had grown increasingly short and the days of running increasingly long. They are supreme physical specimens, but even they have limits. I couldn't stand it any longer as it would take only one unhappy Sasquatch to ruin my, well, everything. I saw an opportunity behind a dormant meat processing plant and took a chance.

"I convinced my companions to once again finesse our way inside. They trusted my judgment now since the previous intrusions had yielded such rewards, and I had no doubt they would be equally pleased in here. We set the door fragments out of the way and entered a universe of meat. The smoked sausages drew the full attention of my companions as I made a beeline for the office. Inside, I found several sets of keys that I pocketed and a closet full of coveralls. They were a thick cotton blend and were blessedly clean, and I relished putting one of them on. I am sad to say that I have sunk that low.

"I heard sounds of fighting and left the office only half explored, a move we would very nearly regret later on, to find two of the younger Bigfoot arguing over the last stick of pepperoni. I looked to Elvis who shrugged resignedly as he stuffed half of a summer sausage into his mouth. I gave a brief howl of displeasure, and once I had their attention, walked over to a curtain of heavy vertical plastic slats that hung from the ceiling. Cool air rushed around my feet and legs as I pushed several aside to reveal the bounty behind them.

"To say that the Sasquatch were shocked would have been an understatement. The sound of smoked meat hitting the concrete floor was only surpassed by the sound of very large, very wet gobs of drool doing the same. They walked forward as if no longer in control of their own bodies and disappeared into the refrigeration beyond. There were scenes of meat love that no civilized human could understand. They hugged the flanks of beef that hung from the ceiling. They danced with them. The looks on their faces were worth all of the pain and aggravation to this point, and for their sakes, I never wanted it to end. For my own sake, however, it couldn't end fast enough. I saw some things done to meat that no one--human or Sasquatch--should ever see. Ever. That's when security showed up.

"I vaguely remembered a flashing light inside the office, and at once, it occurred to me what it was. We'd tripped the alarm. I hurried into the forest of swinging cow and tugged at Elvis's arm. At first, he shooed me away so that he could remain embracing his one true love, but then he caught the sense that something was wrong. He gave a low warning grunt that broke the reverie of the majority of the tribe. Those that missed the signal were cuffed across the ears as the others passed them on the way to melting into the shadows. They blended in surprisingly well. I, on the other hand, did not.

"As the security officers pushed back the plastic, they found me standing just inside the room scratching my head and looking very puzzled. There were four of them. I gave a startled yelp when I saw them and then ran into the field of carcasses.

"Instinct is a very difficult thing to remove from biology. The guards were predators. They were in charge and had the supreme right to be there. I did not, and I ran, I'm ashamed to say, like a little girl. That made me the prey. This was one of those phenomenon that transcends situational and specie boundaries. This scene has played out for millions of years before this and still holds on as a biological imperative today.

"I ran, and the guards chased me. It was inevitable. They came on with an air of assurance of an easy victory as I flitted into the field of hanging meat, looking for a place to escape or hide. That's where the typical predator-prey dynamic ended. To skip all the gory details, Elvis and company intervened, and we left the guards unconscious and trussed up in the back of the storage room. I doubt they saw what hit them, and it is probably better that way in the long run. Prey one, predators zero.

"Not long after, I, fourteen Sasquatch, a very large meat truck, and all the meat we could carry departed and headed northeast. Getting the tribe to understand my plan wasn't easy. These noble forest creatures weren't terribly excited about being confined in a rolling box, but the fact that the refrigeration worked was a real bonus. I tossed a few sausages into the empty hull and then got up inside myself. I was followed by the younger, more curious ones, and then the others entered, holding tightly to the haunches of beef they'd claimed for their own. It was crowded, but they fit. I secured the door so it was partially open--a trapped Bigfoot is a very panicked and dangerous Bigfoot--and started the truck. There was a sliding window into the hold which I opened to reassure my nervous passengers. Elvis helped too as he'd insisted on riding shotgun in the cab with me along with a very large chunk of cow. He proudly wore a white hard hat with the webbing removed and, when he scrunched down at the approaching headlights, he could pass for a very large, very hairy human.

"We made around nine hundred miles before the gas ran out. I was exhausted after more than twelve hours of careful driving, but even so, I made time for proper oral hygiene. Nothing like having meat caught between your teeth to ruin a smile. The truck was holding up about as well as I was. It was simply not designed to carry four tons of meat and ape. Besides, I didn't have any money for gas. So we abandoned the vehicle in a secluded area deep inside West Virginia on the outskirts of Monongahela National Park. I was once again carried by my fellows, but the first to give me a lift was the alpha himself."

Johnny and Raul

Number sixty-six was a homely little girl who took her sweet time showing up. They'd waited an extra two days to get the last one and were beginning to go stir crazy sitting so close to the pickup point. Even the thickest cops must have had to have been getting wise to the fact children were disappearing in their area. They'd stayed dangerously long in one location, and this had been the third different descent point for that very reason.

The Happy Mullet RV Park was nice and secluded with neighbors who preferred to keep to themselves, but the air of sewage was ripe around the two Thor RVs. They'd played it off by saying the drainage hose had sprung a leak, but that would only keep people from talking for so long. Once people started talking, then the wrong kind of people ended up listening. Sneaking out at sunset was a bit of a risk, but neither Johnny nor Raul wanted to trust their luck any further here. They had the final piece to the puzzle--sixty-six was a powerful number in many arcane circles--and the time was right to move onto staging point number four. Their destination wasn't another point of descent but rather a place to detain and organize for the next phase of the plan. This move placed them farther away from the attention of the local constabulary, but it also enclosed them into a box filled with unbearable aromas. It was too much even for an industrial chemical mask to filter out completely.

Before they'd gone more than a couple of miles, both RVs pulled off onto a secluded back road, stopped, and used the onboard water tank to hose out the aisles. The floors were coated in a rubberized compound to make this task easier, and all unnecessary furniture had been removed weeks before. Nevertheless, the smell lingered. It was in the clothing worn by the stifflers, on their skin, and infused in the upholstery. Johnny and Raul simply didn't have time to unhook all the IV bags and remove the soiled garments. Besides, finding a large pile of laundry from missing kids wouldn't do much for the whole stealth thing, so they were just forced to suffer.

### October 24th

Johnny and Raul

As the sun came up to usher in a new day, two white, A-class RVs pulled into the Bluegrass RV Camp in Park City, Kentucky. Johnny had rented every space in this park for the week to ensure privacy, but a brown and yellow Winnebago sat defiantly at one of the hookups. All the doors and windows of this party crasher were open, including the hood. An overweight man in his mid-sixties was staring idly into the engine compartment and wiping the sweat off his brow. His wife, who looked a lot like him, only sweatier, was yelling into the ear of someone on the other end of her cell phone. The two newcomers parked as far away as possible, and after about half an hour, Johnny emerged smelling of Febreeze and a bucketful of hastily applied cologne.

"Howdy," he said.

"Morning," the man replied.

"You, uh, having some trouble there?"

"Damn radiator is shot. My wife's talking to the mechanic to try to get him out here this morning, but he says he's backed up."

"Well, that sucks. This whole park is rented for a convention. Any chance you guys will be out of here today?" Johnny asked, pulling out a smartphone from his front pocket.

"I wish. Unless we can get someone out here today, we're stranded. No tow trucks around that are big enough to take us to the shop either. I'm sorry." Johnny began to turn the screen of the cell phone toward the man's face, but the old timer had turned around to stare forlornly into his engine. "The kids will be driving up here in the next hour or so. They're bringing lunch and a portable generator until we get back on the road. I wish I had better news for ya."

Johnny put the cell phone back in his pocket and nodded. "I think you'll be okay if you're out of here before noon tomorrow. Any longer than that, and you'll probably be blocked in and have to stay with us for the duration. You ever consider attending a Sexpo convention? We've got a guy who paints caricatures with his wanker." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively as the fat man's eyes opened wide. "No? Hmmm. Well, good luck with the 'bago," he offered with a wave over his shoulder as he walked back to the Thor. Given the somewhat panicked look on her husband's face, the wife began to verbally abuse her phone with renewed vigor.

True to their word, a Toyota pickup truck pulled up next to the stranded RV about an hour and a half later, and a family of five disembarked. Raul was seated in a fold-out chair under the shade of a tree about twenty feet upwind from his RV. He had volunteered for guard duty as it put him in the fresh air, and he watched casually as the truck emptied of baskets and equipment. It was like watching a clown car at the circus. It was not physically possible that a truck could hold that much junk and that many people at the same time. There were lawn chairs, a generator, gas cans, coolers, a portable shade tent, a fold-up picnic table, and unidentifiable objects that required another four trips to empty out. On top of that, there seemed to be a couple of teenagers, a stocky man and woman, and one very shapely figure of a young lady. At least, he hoped it was a lady and not just another kid. It had been months since he'd been with a properly fine lady, and, while certain sacrifices he'd made meant it was most unlikely to happen again, it didn't stop him from dreaming.

Several hours passed, and the noon sun shone down lazily from its perch in the sky. Raul had begun to drift off to sleep, finding the warmth of the sun and the gentle caress of the breezes almost too much to resist. The soft sound of gravel shifting underfoot made its way to his ears and dragged him back to the world of consciousness. He cracked his eyes open to mark his visitor and opened them wider when he saw her. This was indeed a fine young lady. She was in her late teens or early twenties with fly-away strawberry blonde hair and a coquettish grin on her face.

"Hi," she said, darting her eyes to the side shyly.

"Hello yourself, hermosa," he replied.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means beautiful."

"Oh," she said, blushing. "I thought you looked thirsty out here, so I brought you some iced tea . . . and we had an extra sandwich, so I brought you one of those, too. I hope you like turkey."

"You are most kind. Gracias," Raul said, taking them from her. He brushed her fingers as he did, and she blushed again.

"Oh, well, I've gotta go. See you around."

"I hope so," he said to her retreating back. She turned enough to glance over her shoulder. "I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go," he murmured to himself before taking a long satisfying gulp of tea.

John

"Nature still holds many mysteries for us to uncover, most of which we never knew were covered to begin with. The latest of these for me is just how, precisely, the navigational ability of the Sasquatch works. We picked up nine hundred miles from our last position, and with no more than a sniff of the air and a celebratory round of beating on trees, we had once again begun to move through the forest with certainty. It was a more relaxed pace and seemed to veer in a more northerly direction than our usual path, but there was no hesitation. Perhaps they follow the mystical ley lines of energy sought by alchemists and magicians for centuries. The very life-blood of the planet drawing them forward . . . or it could just be they can sense the poles and are following lines of magnetism. In either case, we are well-fed, relaxed, and migrating."

Garp

Reverend Garp stared at his phone like it intended to bite him. He had stared at many of today's electronic marvels with that same wary look since his crew had discovered how to "zombify" people with a simple lightshow. Paranoia had soon set in, and he'd returned to the stone age of life. No smart phones, no computers, no TV. He even steadfastly refused to look directly at any of the cameras or LCDs that dominated the pulpit of In Your Faith. This caused a few awkward moments and unflattering camera angles, but there was just too much risk involved. He found himself walking sideways or backwards so as not to catch the light from even a single diode as he passed by anything electronic. It wasn't that he didn't trust his people. It was that he didn't trust _any_ people.

Perhaps the only remaining means for him to safely contact the outside world was the blocky conference phone that dominated the right corner of his desk. It was black with big buttons designed with meaty fingers in mind and a simple black LED display that only did numbers and letters. How he had grown to cherish this device over the last month. But even this beacon of peace and tranquility had betrayed him. He sat and stared at the phone, noting how it loomed like a giant vulture over his very near future. He was dreading the call from Marie that would inform him that his guest was here even though he was the one who had demanded the meeting. He put his head in his hands and tried to think rationally.

Head in hands seemed like an all too common position for Garp these days. How often had he sat like this, feeling the tumor growing in his gut? Was that even possible? He wasn't sure, but the ache would start and he'd assume the position. Then, it would feel like his stomach was being squeezed up into his ribcage until he couldn't breathe. The feeling would abate after several gasps into his cupped hands, but he knew it would come back and come back stronger the next time.

He had the same feeling sitting here waiting for Gabriel to show up. Why was he so nervous? Gabriel had worked for him and had done everything he'd been ordered to do. But the thought of betrayal, at least this close to the end, was like a second tumor. Ever since Johnny had warned him that Gabriel was sliding off the wagon, he'd felt it. When Garp had heard the notes of strings pulled too tight in the conversations since, he'd felt the dread double in size. And today, it was positively massive. This was the day that he had to put this particular worry to rest before it put him to rest for good. He had to know the truth, and he could only be sure of that when he looked a man in the eyes. After this meeting, he would move forward with one plan or another.

He breathed in deeply as his yoga instructor had taught him last year when he tried to shed fifteen unwelcome pounds from his belly. In through the nose for a count of four, hold for a count of four, then out through the mouth for a count of four, hold for a count of four. He repeated this ritual half a dozen times before he could feel the relaxing trek of oxygenated red blood cells coursing from his lungs toward the tense and knotted muscles. Relaxation was the key. He could overcome the troubles of the world if he simply relaxed and focused. The intercom buzzed, and his stomach clenched.

Gabriel

Game changer. That's what Johnny had called the headless horror. Understatement was all Gabe could say after his conversation with the reverend. Inventing the forward pass in football was a game-changer. Incorporating airplanes in war was a game-changer. This, this was more like dropping a nuke on Genghis fucking Khan. The plan was nuts. It had changed and mutated, growing wild and unchecked in the fertile soil of a megalomaniac's mind.

It was plain to see that Reverend Garp and probably Johnny too had taken a big ole leap right into the deep end of the crazy pool. He should just cut and run right now. Maybe the feds would give him a deal if he spilled his guts.

"Officer," he would say, "I'm turning myself in. I've been working with a group of people who found a mythical creature called a Dullahan and captured it using mind control technology and decided to go way the fuck overboard with the whole thing. Oh, and we kidnapped a bunch of kids, too. Why? So we can go piss on the pearly gates, of course." They'd buy that. Right....

What had he gotten himself into? This had started out to be a fairly simple scheme for making money. Ransom the minds of kids for money and political favors. That was it. True, they had to go through the whole "implant and surgery" thing to keep from being zombified when dealing with this stuff, but that made sense. It protected them, made it impossible to be tracked, and made the whole operation incredibly secure. That plan was successful. They had already strong-armed six million dollars out of obscenely wealthy parents and "sponsored" three new bills to Congress that would make them untouchable. So why the change? He just didn't understand.

Game changer. They should just take the Dullahan and make it a side-show attraction. That would bring in a lot more money. Money was good. But the boss had different ideas. Big ideas. "Why settle for money or power when we could change the world?" he'd said. Gabe would have been happy with the money and power, but he wasn't running the show. To be honest, though, he was pretty excited about the blowing up Washington part and also the deal he'd made. Getting out was going to be tricky, but Johnny was going to make some adjustments in the code to help get him past security. That should be interesting. And if it didn't work, then he'd just roll over. Who knows, he might just do that anyway. The possibilities and indecision were invigorating and exciting--unlike season eight of Avatar: The Last Girlbender. You'd think they would throw in a plot twist every once in a while.

Johnny

"Johnny, Garp."

"Hey, Rev."

"Listen, I just got done talking to Gabriel, and I think you're right."

"That he's off his rocker?"

"I don't think he's even in the same room with his rocker anymore. He doesn't look like he's slept in a month."

"So what did you tell him?"

"The truth."

"C'mon, Rev. What if he goes to the cops?"

"You think I should have lied to a half-crazed man who has been trained in hand to hand combat?"

"He's not that dangerous. Not everyone in the army is Rambo, you know."

"He blew the door off of Delgado's lab with a sawed off shotgun. Does that sound like the actions of a peaceful man?"

"But that was just business. He was trying to be scary."

"Mission accomplished."

"You still didn't have to tell him everything."

"Yeah, well, when it's your neck on the line, you can lie to him. Anyway, I didn't give him the location or anything, and if he tells the cops, they'll probably just think he's psycho."

"Except when he says he knows why nearly seventy kids have been taken and in which direction we went."

"That's why you're going to recruit some security for the big event."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"Use your imagination. We need something that would dissuade any law enforcement from interrupting our Halloween party."

"Okay, but what if he rats us out before then?"

"I gave him a little job to do to keep his mind focused."

"Okay. And you're sure he'll do it?"

"Pretty sure. He seemed pretty excited about it as long as I made one concession. He wants us to create 'monster porn' when we're in charge."

"Monster porn. Like with the Wolfman and Frankenstein?"

"I'm not real sure, but as long as he does what he's supposed to do, I really don't care."
Part 4 - Ghettoization

### October 25th

John

"Last night began with an unusually vigorous display of howling and knocking on trees. I had thought that it might have been more celebration or maybe some sort of shuffling of the ranks, but I was mistaken. Not more than an hour later, our group came into direct contact with another troupe of Sasquatch. Had we trespassed upon their territory, or were we meeting on neutral turf? It was without precedent for two large groups of primates to come into such close proximity although I suppose all interactions with this creature are without precedent. Nevertheless, the meeting of another tribe of Bigfeet caused quite a stir.

"As to be expected, the alphas, both male and female, from each tribe came together to assert dominance. The foreign tribe was larger in number, somewhere over thirty members, and looked as if it had spent a great deal of time living amongst the pine trees. Globs of sap had formed mini dreadlocks wherever they had landed in the creatures' hair, and pine straw stuck out at awkward angles. Not to mention the small, misshapen pine cones that clung to the most uncomfortably imaginable places. Their leader was equally rough around the edges. He was perhaps a little bigger than Elvis although it could have simply been the tangled fur, but that didn't shake our alpha's confidence. He'd taken to having his head-fur styled in the same great, upturned wave as the King of Rock and Roll, and he sauntered up to the opposing male checking his fingernails nonchalantly. The other alpha pulled back his lips in a display of teeth that was met with what could best be described as boredom. Elvis waited a breath and then flipped his upper lip back, blinding his opponent with his pearly whites. This so startled the opposing alpha that he backed up a step, apparently relinquishing victory to Elvis. Whether it was awe, surprise, or true acquiescence remains a mystery, but the rules for alpha encounters seem to be pretty clear. The first one to blink loses.

"The two tribes greeted one another amicably after that, and, although my presence was the subject of a couple of near skirmishes, they soon moved off in small groups to get acquainted. We had apparently travelled nearly one thousand miles to attend a swinger's club.

"I was at ease knowing that I had played such an integral part in maintaining the survival of such a noble breed of creature until I saw one staring at me. This was a young male of the new tribe who had apparently found himself without a partner. By the look in his eyes and other parts, it seemed he thought I would make an adequate substitute. Realization dawned on me, and I let out a panicked cry before shimmying up a small, nearby pine tree. Not to be daunted, the amorous youth approached and began to shake the tree vigorously, sending me sailing back and forth some twenty feet above the ground.

I made another fearful howl, and within seconds, Elvis materialized and gave the young male a sound thrashing. I slid painfully down, and from then on, I was never left without an escort from my original troupe. Whether that was to protect the interests of our tribe or to protect me from the interests of the other tribe, I don't know and quite frankly don't care. It was my interests I was concerned about."

Johnny and Raul

As promised, the old man's RV was up and running by ten o'clock the next morning, and it and its large occupants were gone by ten thirty.

"Finally," Johnny sighed. "Now we can get the stifflers out for some exercise and give the RVs a proper hosing down."

"Yeah, and we can burn their clothes too. I picked out a good spot for it right over there," Raul said, indicating an old fire pit in the middle of the park.

"Fine. Just keep it small. I don't want the fire department to come out here to put out your flaming pants."

Raul rolled his eyes and gave his best Jay Leno impersonation. "Ladies and gentlemen, the comedian, Johnny Frease."

Johnny put his hand up to silence the mock applause. "Thank you, but really, I owe it all to my fans." He paused and looked out over the deserted park. "I'm going to go into town and pick up some supplies and some coveralls for these guys. I'm not really psyched about riding around with a bunch of naked kids all day."

"Truth. So I guess that leaves me here as the cowboy. Ya! Little perros. Get along doggies," he said making a whipping motion.

"Well, Marshall Hernandez, I don't rightly care what ya call them," he said with his best Texas drawl, "but there's a pond over the hill that-a-ways, and I think your doggies could use a little soak. Just make sure . . . ."

"I know, ese. I know. Don't let them get their phones wet. This ain't my first rodeo, you know."

"It's both of our first rodeos, and I hope it's the last. We'll fix everything in a few days. This just proves how fucked up the world must really be when we're forced to live in the shit wagons for weeks on end. But it'll be worth it in the end."

"Yeah, it better be. Get your ass movin'. I'm going to feel creepy enough getting the stifflers undressed by myself. I don't need you watchin' me."

In the end, Raul decided it would be easier, not to mention more sanitary, to get the cargo down to the water first and remove the clothing where he could easily rinse off his hands. He also decided to go with trash bags and rocks instead of fire to dispose of the garments. Burning ran the risk of getting outside attention and getting poo-clothes smoke in his lungs. No one wants to inhale that kind of thing.

It was only moments after he'd gotten the last of the bags in the water and all of the stifflers sitting safely on the bank of the pond that he heard the distinctive sounds of tires rolling over gravel. It was a bit early for Johnny to be back, but one never looked a gift burro in the mouth. It had been a terrifyingly disgusting morning, and he was ready to turn everything over to his partner at the first opportunity. He climbed the grassy slope and stopped as his head crested the hill. It was not Johnny's car in the parking lot.

A blue econo car of some indistinct bubble shape was parked in front of one of the RVs. Raul approached quickly but kept the RV between himself and the line of sight of the parking lot. The Thors had been rinsed after unloading their cargo, and the doors were still wide open to allow things to dry out. He caught a glimpse of movement within one and moved silently around the side to approach the front doors. He pulled out an iPhone and powered it on, booting up the Purgatory app and initiating the descent sequence. He held it at his side like a weapon as he crept up the steps and peered around the corner. Silhouetted in the aisle was a rather shapely figure. She had her head tilted toward the ceiling as she touched one of the many IV bags that hung there like overripe fruit.

"You always wander through strange men's homes?" he asked from right behind the girl. She gave a little squeak of surprise and turned, blushing furiously in a mixture of fright and embarrassment.

"Oh my God, I am so sorry," she said clutching at her chest. "it's just that I looked for you, and then your RV was open, and . . . ." she stopped at this and looked up at Raul with the eyes a girl reserves for her father when she's in trouble. Raul held the gaze for a long moment and then smiled at her. She sighed audibly.

"I can't be angry at you, señorita. You're much too cute. So what brings you back here? Your abuelos left early this morning."

"Abuelos?"

"Grandparents."

"Oh, yeah. I know. But Grandpa told me that you guys were going to have some kind of wild convention here, and I thought I'd stop by and take a look for myself. So, where is everybody?"

"Oh, they'll be along sometime. We may be slow in getting started, but once we do, it gets loco crazy."

"Doesn't that mean the same thing?" she asked coyly.

"Exactly."

"And what are all these for?" she said, gesturing at the fluid filled bags on the ceiling.

"We party hard. Sometimes a little too hard . . . ." He left it at that. "I don't suppose you brought another sandwich? I'm starving."

"As a matter of fact, I did. Are you up for a picnic?"

"Let's see. Waiting in an empty parking lot for my hombres to show up or having a picnic with a woman with obvious good taste. Tough decision," he said as he led her out of the RV and back to her car.

Norma-Jeanne

Beware the evil foot. That's what Marjorie had said to Norma-Jeanne as she'd left their hotel room. _Why am I getting picked on by all these damn prophesies? The last one got me stuck with a disembodied head, a few ghost groupies and, apparently, the inclination to become the next "shepherd of the Irish dead." What joys will this one bring? And what on Earth could "beware the evil foot" mean, anyway? Will I get kicked or stepped on? Is there a potentially unsafe foot odor waiting for me just around the corner? That would be terrible, no doubt, but it's not something of great enough cosmic significance that it should attract the attention of a psychic._ Granted, Norma-Jeanne's new friends did not seem like the type of psychics who specialized in cosmically significant events. _Maybe it'll be just a bunion or a blister._

In any case, Norma-Jeanne spotted two potentially evil feet coming at her in a strained waddle. They were large, puffy, and tucked into a pair of black Crocs that were positively straining to hold together. Not to mention that they were supporting the massive frame of her--shudder--date for the evening to the best of their ability.

Charles Hutchins--a.k.a. the Nose Pad King--was dressed in his finest tan stretchy slacks and blue polo shirt. These were quite possibly the very same clothes he'd worn on the plane four days ago. The sweat stains around the armpits and bellybutton looked familiar, anyway. His hair was slicked back with something that looked thick and chunky--Vaseline or maybe turkey gravy--that brought out a deep and decidedly pointy widow's peak. He oozed through the restaurant like some unstoppable icebreaker in the far north. Chairs, tables, and patrons parted or were thrust out of the way of his great bulk as he plowed inevitably forward. It was only when his momentum came to rest in front of Norma-Jeanne's table that rest of the room was able to settle back into some semblance of normality.

"Madam," he said with a curt bow that shifted his center of gravity precariously over the table. Norma-Jeanne's mind calculated the trajectory of the potential impact should he fall. It seemed likely that she would probably first be smacked in the chin as the table tilted backward and then crushed by it when the supports gave way. Visions of sipping dinner through a straw as she, completely encased within a full body cast, was suspended from cables in some Irish hospital filled her mind. She swallowed her imagination as she instinctively began to curl into a fetal position.

Thumbing his nose at Sir Isaac Newton and his silly laws, the large man righted himself and then shuffled over to a stout wooden chair and plopped down. The wood gave a pained gasp, and the evil feet seemed to sigh in relief as the Nose Pad King transferred his weight from them to the chair. Norma-Jeanne really couldn't blame his feet if they were evil. After all, their job was a difficult one, and they received very little recognition for their efforts as evidenced by the lack of grooming that showed through the holes of the plastic shoes they were squeezed into.

"Charles, you're looking well. How's your conference been?" Norma-Jeanne asked with as much interest as she could muster.

"Abysmal. You would think from the speakers that this was an eyeglass frame convention. No one ever gives the proper respect to the accessories. General Temple Tips and I were talking, and we both agreed that without our contributions, glasses would simply be unbearable."

"Excuse me. Did you say General Temple Tips?"

"Yes. We've corresponded in the past, but I finally got to meet him in person. That's one of the few bright spots on this trip." His mouth closed with an audible snap and he looked like he'd swallowed a bug as he realized his dating faux pas. It took him a moment to recover and he powered through it. "Besides meeting you, of course," he amended with an audible sigh. Norma-Jeanne waved her hand for him to continue. "The General is the largest retailer of temple tips, those pads that fit on the end of glasses to keep their edges from digging holes in the tops of people's ears." He pulled off his own glasses to show her the zebra striped padded covering on the tips. With them off his face, his eyes looked deep set and hidden. When he returned them to the perch on his nose, his eyes tripled in size. "We have coordinated our products in the past. The man knows his stuff."

"Fascinating," Norma-Jeanne said with immense effort. "You said there were a few bright spots?" Rising voices from two of the wait staff leaked out from just inside the kitchen. They were huddled together on the other side of the doorway arguing over something and gesticulating wildly into the restaurant. Norma-Jeanne could make out that they were both ladies who had ripened on the vine of the service industry and then had begun to prune. Their gestures seemed to point exclusively toward her table, and she gathered that neither of them seemed particularly keen on serving them.

"Oh, I did a tour of some of the wonders of Ireland. Did you know they have a Barney Stone here? It looks like the real thing. Our guide said it was formed by the druids hundreds of years ago and was reputed to be the inspiration for the TV Barney." He looked very thoughtful at this as one of the poor waitresses, presumably the loser of the argument, approached the table. She hadn't gone down without a fight and had conscripted the help of a thickset young man in a dishwasher's apron with her. He was perhaps destined to be the true loser in all of this.

"Hello," she said. "I'm Coleen, and this is Tomas. He's in trainin'."

"I am?" asked Tomas with genuine confusion. He received a sharp elbow in the gut for his comment.

"What can we get ye?"

"I would like start off with a couple of loaves of barmbrack, a bowl of mulligatawny, sheep pie, um, a small serving of black pudding, about this much," he said holding his fingers out about two inches apart, "oh, and a boxty on the griddle. Can I keep the menu until dessert? I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for just yet."

The waitress had stopped trying to write down the Nose Pad King's order and was simply checking off items on one of the menus. "And for you?" she asked Norma-Jeanne with obvious trepidation.

"I'll just have something chicken, baked, and not covered in blood or kidneys or cabbage."

"We have some chicken we've just marinated in Bushmills whiskey," the waitress offered helpfully.

"That sounds wonderful. And could I get a large glass of stout? Scratch that, just bring me a pitcher."

"Oh, that sounds good," Charles salivated. "Bring me a pitcher of stout also and some of that whiskey chicken, too."

The platters were heavy and unwieldy as the mounds of foodstuffs made their way from the overworked cook in the kitchen to the solid oak table in front of the Nose Pad King. Both the waitress and the busboy wore haunted looks on their faces as they watched one course after another disappear down an inhumanly efficient throat. Norma-Jeanne's stomach churned at the spectacle despite the surprisingly good chicken and equally surprisingly strong beer. The wait staff rubbed their sore wrists and retreated around the corner in hopes of avoiding the call for dessert. The one blessing to the focus Charles Hutchins paid to his food was the silence that Norma-Jeanne was able to enjoy. That's not to say there wasn't a cacophony of smacking, tearing, and slurping noises, but it was a break from the incessant chatter.

All good things eventually pass, but none with the seeming alacrity of Norma-Jeanne's peace. It was only a handful of minutes before he'd cleaned his plates, finishing his meal off with a flourish as he upended the bowl of black pudding.

"The last time I had black pudding, it was in a Paddywhackers in Boston. I ended up in the hospital."

"Really?"

"I had diarrhea for a week, and the doctors put me on antibiotics. I spent two weeks in the hospital and ended up getting c-diff. They said it was the worst case they had ever seen. It was like the Mister Sinister of c-diff. It was immune to antibiotics, and it even laughed at bleach and alcohol. I think it was some kind of biological weapon unleashed by terrorists or maybe something that crawled out of Fukushima and found its way to me like some Godzilla plague."

"Uh-huh."

"Anyway, I was a goner. I mean, it was going to devour me from the inside out."

"That's one ambitious bug."

"So this one doctor, an expert on this stuff, tells me that there is one last chance. I would need to have an emergency fecal transplant."

"The humanity . . . Hold on. What?"

"A fecal transplant. The antibiotics had destroyed all my good bacteria, and the c-diff was large and in charge. So they had to bring in good bacteria from someone else's, you know, poo."

"They gave you poo." _And God so loved this man that he gave his one and only bag of poo. Just doesn't seem quite as warm and fuzzy as the original_ , Norma-Jeanne thought absently.

"Yeah. Sounds pretty bad, but they pumped it right into my intestines, so I didn't taste it or anything."

That last statement finally did it. Norma-Jeanne began to feel her whiskey chicken do a belly flop and then try to crawl its way back up. "Um, cool. So, when is your flight back?" she asked desperately trying to change the subject.

"Oh, I'm leaving October thirty-first, the seven-thirty flight."

"Really? Wow, so am I. What seat?"

"Twenty, A and B, I think."

"I'll have to check my ticket, but I think I'm pretty close to you again."

"That would be awesome. Maybe we can share a cab to the airport also."

"Sounds great." She even managed to smile a little. Charles beamed. "Oh, would you look at the time? I've got an interview in the morning, and I need to be at my best."

"Oh. Okay," he said as his emotions did a one-eighty. His bottom lip even bloomed outward a bit. "I guess I'll just eat dessert by myself."

"I'll give you a call," she told him over her shoulder as she hurried to find some fresh air. The waitress glowered at her as she left. Norma-Jeanne did feel bad for the older woman, but there was no way she could have survived watching dessert slide down. Her stomach lurched at the thought, and she took the last five steps to the door in a sprint.

Johnny and Raul

Two Wal-Marts and a Costco had given their all to fill the Chevy Trailblazer with just shy of seventy coveralls and twice that number of adult diapers. It was with the kind of weariness that only a person who has faced hours of cost-cutting yokels could carry that Johnny Frease returned to the sanctuary. Only, it wasn't the sanctuary he'd left. This one contained a blue Ford Fiesta, a half-dressed woman, and a picnic.

Of course, the half-dressed woman quickly became a fully-dressed woman, and the picnic vomited up a wild-eyed Mexican as the sound of gravel popped under approaching tires.

"Oh shit, man," Raul said as Johnny stepped out from behind the door of the SUV. "I'm sorry, hermano. Karen here just brought me some lunch, and then time kind of got away from me."

"What is Karen doing here?" Johnny asked with an icy calm.

"She was curious about the party we're going to have here."

"Speaking of the 'party,' where are they?"

After a moment, Raul's eyes widened. "Oh shit."

"What?" Karen asked, finally getting past her embarrassment.

"Since you're curious," Johnny said as he pulled something thin and metallic from behind his back, "let me show you how we throw a party back home." Karen looked up at him and then at the phone he was holding. Her eyebrows knitted together, and then her face went slack.

"Dude, did you have to?" Raul whined.

"Yes, I did. What the fuck were you're doing?" Raul pursed his lips and turned his head like a petulant child. "What did you think was going to happen once she wanted you to show her yours? You think she'd still be all hot and bothered when she saw the scars?"

"I was going to say it was from a bar fight or something."

"Dammit, man." Johnny paused to collect himself. He knew Raul had been quite the player before this and had given up having women throw themselves at his feet. It was like a drug with him and, as with any addiction, was nearly impossible resist when offered on a silver platter. "Sorry, dude. I know how hard it is for you to pass up," he waved a hand at Karen, "this."

"S'okay," he said. "It's all for the greater good. I know that."

"Cool. Now, where are the stifflers?"

"I left them by the lake." He dropped his head before speaking the rest in a low pitiful voice, "about four hours ago."

"Four hours!" Johnny shouted, letting the rage overtake him again. "Four hours? Jesus Christ! They could be anywhere by now."

"I'm sure they didn't go far. I left them relaxin'. They're probably sunning themselves on the shore of Lake Pleasant Dreams over there."

Werepe

Months had passed since the first descent, and every crusader had fought and scraped their way through the next two levels. There'd been demons aplenty along the way. There were flying skulls with bat wings; huge, gelatinous mounds made of acid; giant mutant versions of bears, cougars, wolves, wasps, ants; and even a baby that was four times the height of a man that breathed fire. There were puzzles and riddles and traps galore, and for those that survived and conquered, there were also treasures worth kingdoms and empires. Each of the crusaders had upgraded their armor and weapons along the way, and with each upgrade, they wondered how they'd ever survived without their new tools.

Despite it all--conquering three layers of hell, sporting the best equipment, and invoking vast stores of experience--things had gotten out of hand. Something had forced all the crusaders--loners by nature--onto the shores of a boiling lake. It took them much too long to realize that they'd all been lured and funneled together, but once they did, it was too late. There was an eruption of larvae--hell spawn that resembled maggots the size of a man's forearm--from the bubbling waters that drove the crusaders back.

There was no coordinated response or plan of attack to outflank the enemy, only small pockets of resistance. No one knew how to act in a unified force or anything about military theory, so their spells and attacks were largely ineffective against the overwhelming numbers of the larval swarm. As the tide rose and fell against the crusaders, they were each in turn forced further and further away. They had fought for days with no end in sight. For every larva slain, three more took its place, and another twelve waited in line. As the battle took its toll and ground was given to the swarm, the once mighty crusaders were forced toward a crater blasted into the land to make their final stand. They were beaten, and they knew it. The day was lost, and despair nestled in each of their hearts like worms.

Johnny and Raul

The stifflers were not, in fact, sunning themselves by the pond, nor were they anywhere in sight. The only clue to their whereabouts was a trampled path of grass heading into the woods. The rest of the evening progressed in a series of good news/bad news cycles. The good news was that the locators on their phones showed every one of the stifflers in the same location about two miles into the woods. Hunting down stragglers would have made for a long and arduous night. The bad news was that they were all stuck in the mud of a recently dried up creek. Some stifflers were even hundreds of feet in. It took Johnny and Raul another two hours to wade out and retrieve each and every asset. The good news was that through the entire process, none of the stifflers had lost or damaged their smart phones. Doing so would have rendered them useless and catatonic. The bad news was that across the board, the batteries were drained and a mad dash back to the RVs was required to plug them in before they died. They made it on time, but with Karen sitting outside drooling on herself, it was inevitable that her family would come looking for her sooner or later. There wasn't time to wash off the muck, so Raul and Johnny simply fitted each of the kids with their IV bags, chargers, and adult diapers and then left the park, bleary eyed and sullen.

Werepe

It was in their darkest hour, when all hope was lost, that King Samiam and his general arrived to save the crusaders. The two shining figures waded into the larval swarm with reckless abandon, and as they moved, they dredged large gaps in the larvae's ranks. They were beacons of hope that flared white-hot in the eternal dusk of the underworld. They turned the tide of the battle through their skill and tenacity, striking down demon after demon with their holy weapons. It gave the beleaguered crusaders hope, and they fought with renewed energy. Somehow, the numbers of enemies waned, and the tide began to turn. The battle raged on for hours still, but the demon slayers had won, and each of those saved from eternal damnation wanted--no, needed--to remain at the king's side.

Johnny and Raul

The two Thor RVs stopped at a gas station an hour down the road from the Blue Grass RV Camp, and their two drivers stood silently watching the sun set over the trees in the west.

"Dude, I'm sorry. I screwed up." Raul said at last.

Johnny took a deep breath. "We were going to have to leave soon anyway. I am kinda pissed that the RVs got all nasty again, but it still smells a whole lot better in there."

"The diapers are awesome by the way."

"Thanks. We should've thought of that a long time ago. You get rid of all the old clothes?"

"Yeah, they're all at the bottom of the pond feeding the fishes. All except one, that is," Raul said smiling.

"Do tell."

"I couldn't let the bunny suit go. I rinsed it out and let it dry in the shower. We'll get Bunny Boy back in it as soon as we rinse him off."

Johnny couldn't help but laugh at this, and he clapped Raul on the back. Raul opened his RV door, paused, and then turned back to his partner.

"You know," he said as shutting the door behind him, "this whole thing has got me thinking. Why don't we get them all costumes? You know, for the holiday."

"You want to get all the stifflers costumes? Am I hearing you right?"

"Yeah, think about it, man. We need to hose them off and get them a change of clothes. We get them costumes, and it looks like a bunch of kids trick-or-treating. I mean, I'm sure seeing a hundred kids walking around in dried mud and diapers or penitentiary jumpsuits won't draw any attention."

"But a bunch of kids walking around in costumes would look, believe it or not, normal on Halloween. I like it. Google a big store that's on the way. I've got an idea."

"How come I gotta do the leg work?" Raul whined.

"Because you let them wander off so you could get some play from one of the local hillbilly hos."

"Karen wasn't all that hillbilly," he said defensively. "She had most of her teeth."

"And a couple of extra toes."

"Now you're just being mean."

### October 27th

Johnny and Raul

Role Play Outfitters had been having a steadily abysmal season. The costumes of long neglected heroes collected dust on the shelves, kept company by those of angels, devils, ghosts, vampires--except, of course, for the patently metrosexual Twilight ones--wolfmen, pirates, and a horde of other traditional themes. The only things that were not joining in the party were the zombie costumes. Those were flying off the shelves or, rather, staggering down the aisles. But much to the chagrin of the owner's bank account, they were hardly a big ticket item. All you really needed was some food coloring and a little imagination, and you were well on your way to being the undead toast of the town. The zombie "costumes" were really just peripherals like rubber tendons, brains, the occasional intestine, and a variety of household items that were designed to be imbedded in the head and torso.

A store of this size really couldn't make a living off of just selling peripherals, and the owners looked back fondly on the days of Power Rangers and superheroes that required the full body treatment to make children happy. Of course, there was an adult section to the shop, but only so many women were willing to dress up as Sailor Moon, and even fewer could pull off the large breasted, cat-eared Nakuru Narumi from Mayo Chiki.

Fewer sales meant less income which meant fewer staff. Between the economy and social trends, there was only enough money left to keep one barely-out-of-high-school clerk on duty for the evening shift. Thus, it was only young Justin on duty when a disheveled Hispanic man arrived and asked to see the manager.

"Sorry, bro. The manager's not here right now," Justin said unenthusiastically.

"Man, I was told to talk to the man in charge about this." Raul looked down at a slate PC in his hands. "Look, I need a lot of costumes. My boss talked to your boss earlier and arranged it all. I thought we'd have a bunch of people here to help with fittings and everything."

"He didn't say anything to me. I'm the only one here," the clerk said in resignation.

"Damn. Well, maybe you could call him and get him down here."

"I wish, but he said he wouldn't be available until tomorrow. Something he couldn't get out of."

"That sucks, man. So it's just you until this place closes tonight."

"'Fraid so."

"Well, look, here's a list of what we need. You think you can handle it alone? I'll help out as much as I can," he said, handing over a tablet for the clerk to peruse. As Justin looked into the screen, he saw an amazing visual vortex that spun like a drill. It was a beautiful matrix of intertwined figures, all moving in opposite directions within each concentric circle. The image bored its way into his skull and made itself at home.

"All right, ese," Raul said out loud, "we've got the place to ourselves."

Johnny's voice replied through the connection in the implant. "Right. We'll be there in a sec." A familiar white RV pulled up under the lights pouring out from the front of the store. The narrow white door in the side of the vehicle popped open and one after another, the passengers disembarked in single file. The steady stream of filthy teenagers clad only in adult diapers meandered out of the vehicle and in through the open door of the costume shop with only the noise of dozens of feet shuffling across the hard floor to accompany them. When the RV had disgorged all of its occupants, Johnny shut the door and drove it off, returning a few minutes later with a second RV. This one emptied itself as well. Soon the store was flooded with children and teenagers of all shapes and sizes. The smell of muck and unwashed bodies hovered over them like protective parents.

"We've got the store until tomorrow," Raul said, grabbing a can of air freshener from behind the counter and spraying it into the air. "This hombre is the only one here tonight."

"Great. Let's get them cleaned up before we pass out."

"Johnny, man, I don't want to have to hose these bambinos off. It'll take me all night, and I don't want to see them naked again. It feels creepy. Like standing too close to Padre Julio did."

"Well, I damn sure ain't gonna to do it. Too bad we don't have someone here who is getting paid to help customers," he said, looking pointedly toward the still form of Justin, who was still engrossed with the scene on the tablet in front of him. Raul followed his eyes.

"Damn, man. I feel stupid."

"It's okay. We're just not used to thinking like that yet. We can probably get them to clean themselves off a bit, but getting rid of the Depends ain't something I'm down for. I think we can get the stifflers to line up and strip and just get your buddy here to do the toting and help with the washing." Raul nodded his head in understanding. "Getting them dressed again will be hands-on, but at least we won't have to deal with the smell anymore."

"Truth. You get the car wash going, and I'll start getting some outfits ready."

"Make sure you save some of the zombie ones for me."

"Cool. I'll get two sets."

It was close to four in the morning by the time all the stifflers had been taken behind the store, hosed off, mostly drip dried, and stuffed into random costumes. The muck and dirt was then rinsed out of the RVs, the windows rolled down, and the upholstery given a generous spritzing of Lysol. When it was time to depart, everything smelled of freshness, flowers, and freakin' clean passengers--the three F's of a pleasant journey.

Raul had dreaded returning to the driver's seat for the next leg of the journey but found the environment was actually quite pleasant now. It was a drastic departure from the last week and a half of being constantly assailed by the unpleasant side effects of human captivity. There was still just a hint of shit that wafted out of the air vents every once in a while and probably always would. Such things were nearly impossible to get out of the foam and rubber gaskets. Even so, as they began to move again, everything seemed a little cheerier, especially with all of the members of the Justice League behind him.

Werepe

Gleaming armor and weapons bristled in the diffuse light of an alien sky. They were gathered together, the heroes and heroines of the demon wars, to hear the king's speech. They were the crusaders of hell, sixty-six strong and all listening to the words of the man who now commanded them. King Samiam wore impossibly polished armor with dents and nicks that told the story of countless battles. On one side hung a wicked morningstar with a hawk-billed protrusion meant for piercing armor and the chitonous shells of some of the toughest demons. On the other side lay a long, black sickle. This man, King Samiam, had saved them all from destruction only a day before.

Each step of his tale mirrored their own. Each victory and failure was theirs as well. At last, this group of individuals had a purpose and a leader. When he'd finished his tale, things were simple, and the path was clear from this point forward.

Werepe had to admit that he liked the king and his general, Roland. They had, after all, saved his ass from becoming grub-food and put on a pretty nice spread. He'd been given time and supplies to clean his armor and sharpen his weapons, and most importantly, he'd been given respect. They were all treated as equals here, and that had to be a hard thing for a king to do. So, yeah, the king was all right in his book. The fact that this congregation gave Werepe the chance to be surrounded by some scantily clad Amazon princesses didn't hurt much either.

If what Samiam was telling them was true, then everyone would need to abandon their solo ways, at least for a while, and form an army. They would never make it alone and might end up a lot like the other men who'd gathered under the king's banner. It was a sad tale but one that was all too possible in this place--increasingly possible as they got closer to the Demon Lord.

The king's tale had begun with leading a force through Hell and reaching the entrance to the fifth and final level. It was here that a trap had been sprung, and most of his men had come under the influence of demonic possession. They, in turn, now guarded the path down. There were close to fifty men in all--trained soldiers with some demonic abilities added in for fun. Werepe figured if he was alone that he might be able to kill a few of them, but being outnumbered fifty to one was bad odds. Making it even more difficult, these were men they were talking about. They were just like him and the crusaders that were gathered together. It could have been any one of them if they'd gotten to the descent point first. Demons were one thing, but killing humans or aubran or dwarves was another thing altogether.

Samiam had voiced the same concerns and said that he had even tried to get past them before but could not bring himself to kill even a single one. The general consensus of the priests and priestesses that were gathered was that the possession could be reversed if the possessed soldiers could ingest something that had been blessed. It was decided that this was the best course of action, and a bin full of crackers--or wafers as the holy rollers insisted on calling them--was chosen as the vessel.

Werepe wasn't sure why that idea was familiar to him, but the word "communism" had rolled out of more than one mouth. _Or was that "communion"? Same difference._ In any case, the army set off with a strategy and a pocketful of crackers, two things they hadn't ever really had before, and moved toward the entrance to the fifth level of Hell.

Johnny and Raul

Two armored figures emerged from behind the rotting carcass of something that looked like a cross between a blue whale and a piranha. Smaller reptilian corpses littered the tortured and churned-up ground in a wide arc around it. A casual observer might think that there was a battle between the two species that ended in their mutual destruction, but the sounds of snapping and crunching that wafted over from a nearby hill seemed to suggest otherwise. Sir Roland and King Samiam strode confidently in that direction and crested the hill nonchalantly. Several hundred yards away in a natural depression stood a tall, misshapen figure landing a killing blow on a large cobra with bat wings.

"Damn," Sir Roland said, "I forgot how creepy that vato was."

"Yeah. We really should have done more to constrain the parameters on the character builds. It doesn't seem to affect him much, though. Dude's just ripping through everything."

"This where I think it is, Johnny?" Sir Roland asked, looking at the towering cliffs in the distance.

"Yeah. This guy doesn't sleep, doesn't stop to eat, and never seems to get tired. He's an animal."

"Is he at the place? In real life?"

"Yeah. He made it there last night. I've got a couple guys that were making sure his iPad was large and still charged across the ocean. They're not looking so good, but they should have him hooked up until we get there. I'm going to direct them to the hospital before logging them off. Kind of my 'thank you' for a job well done."

"You're such a humanitarian, bro."

"Yep. Nobel Peace Prize, here I come. Now I've just got to keep our guest busy until we get there. Problem is, I've thrown just about everything we have at him just to try to slow him down, and yet here he is."

"Maybe he needs some anger management counseling. It looks like he enjoys smashing things too much."

"He'd make one freaky hippie. Sadly, we don't have time for that. We'll just need to bend the rules a bit. Think you could come up with a decent trap?"

"Should I put him in a pit or something?"

"I was thinking something a little more creative. You know, something he couldn't just climb out of."

### October 28th

John

"We've passed into Pennsylvania and continue heading northward. This is an incredibly rugged area with very little civilization, and even what passes for civilization in these parts seems questionable. We continue to maintain a surprisingly low profile for a swarm of seven-foot tall, six-hundred-pound primates except for the time just before dawn. This is howling time. The same behavior I first saw back in the swamp and then again during the gathering has been perpetuated each morning. One Sasquatch from each troupe will move away from the rest and howl. They make a 'whoop' sound that starts out very low in pitch and then increases to what I can only guess is a high alto. This sound must carry for miles, and they repeat it until the sun creases the horizon. I surmise that they are looking for other groups as this migration may be a sort of jamboree--a Sasquatch Woodstock as it were. This would explain why we didn't simply stay where we were. Regardless, we will need to make another raid on a salon soon. Oh, and a grocery store, too. Our supplies of human food are dwindling, and grubs are starting to look appealing again."

### October 29th

Werepe

Brettavius Maximus and Legolas413 were in the same wing as Werepe, but they were almost an afterthought now. Some of his newer friends--namely a shapely gladiatrix whom he'd saved from being skewered by a bone demon on the third level and her equally hot priestess friend--seemed like much more fun to hang around with. His skill set fit right in with these two as he was stout and well-armored and could draw the brunt of the attack while Peaches99 with her cat-like grace could dart in and cripple the enemy. Their tandem would work well to keep GhettoBooty free to batter and weaken their foes with her holy arts. Werepe could quite easily imagine a love triangle forming, much the same as a number of other imaginings he'd had since puberty, if they continued to work well as a team.

Teams of three were the preferred number as it was a grouping that was strong enough to complement skills and small enough that crusaders who were used to fighting alone would not stumble over one another. King Samiam had pointed out that not only did the smaller groups make sense strategically, but the number three was a mystic number. _The warrior, the gladiator, and the smoking hot priestess,_ Werepe thought as he circled around through some scraggly obsidian trees to attack the right flank. _Sounds pretty cosmically significant to me._

Roland, the king's faithful general, was in charge of this third of the army. He was a giant of a man in plate armor and a white tabard sporting a blood red cross. He wore an open-faced helm that allowed his long, flowing mustache plenty of room to drape and carried a battle axe as tall as he was. He cut quite the figure as he waved for them to stop at the edge of a clearing up ahead. Werepe knelt, awaiting the order to move. Two trees crossed just in front of him, and in the space between, he could see the fortress. He was stunned at the size of the stone structure that loomed in the distance. There were walls that stretched up into the sky with their tops only evident by the spires that extended up from behind them. There were arrow slits too high up for a grappling hook but plenty high enough for the archers to rain down death upon them. The walls seemed to lean out from the center and then extend vertically, making them impossible to scale. This was a place that could be defended for years with enough provisions.

Guarding this behemoth structure was a small hedgerow of thorns that extended in each direction as far as the eye could see. Between the thorns and the fortress loomed a mass of dark, hunched shapes. These were the corrupted warriors. It was still too distant to see them clearly, but their movements consisted of what appeared to be painful loping followed by bursts of speed too fast to track. The army stayed silent for some minutes, watching the corrupted move in scheduled circles within their thorny enclosure. It wasn't surprising that they understood the value of patrolling the grounds. These had been well-disciplined warriors, and there were enough of them to fully cover any approach. Surprise was out of the question without a little help.

The help would come from King Samiam himself, who was to lead the charge in the center through the only opening in the thorns. With any luck, that would draw all the possessed soldiers toward the breach. At that time, Roland's group was to make their move. They would cut their way through the thorny barricade and then catch the soldiers from the side and from behind. The group on the left flank would do the same. This strategy would force the enemy to break ranks and give the king's men the opportunity to subdue individuals rather than have an all-out melee with both forces crashing against one another like Godzilla and Mothra on the rag. He wasn't exactly sure what "on the rag" meant, but it used to rile someone up something fierce. Of course, he was drawing a blank on Godzilla and Mothra too and took a moment to wonder why he had thought those names at all. His memory had been slipping away as he'd slogged through battle after battle. There were flashes and images from what he came to think of as "the before time" but never anything solid. And, to be honest, he didn't have time to try to stroll down memory lane right now. He was itching to get into a fight.

It wasn't long before the once-human creatures inside the fortress began to pour out in droves and move toward the action at the front. The king had begun his feint. They waited another thirty seconds to make sure no others were emerging and then sprinted forward to the barrier of thorns and stopped. The hedges were actually some variety of Hell-spawn vines with barbs at least an inch long that glistened with a coating of tar-like sap, no doubt as poisonous as everything else was down here. Oddly enough, no one seemed terribly eager to impale themselves on them.

Roland moved forward and drew forth a sickle that was the twin of the one that hung at King Samiam's side. It was black to the point that it reflected no light and, on more than one occasion, seemed to drink it in. He slowly dragged the blade through the vines as his muscles tensed and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead before rolling down his cheeks and disappearing under his mustache. It looked like hard work, but the vines parted and shriveled back from his efforts. Once severed, they melted like slugs sprinkled with salt, and within another minute, there was a gap big enough for them to pass through safely. Roland secured the sickle back on his belt and pulled his axe from where it hung over his shoulder. Then he stepped through.

General Roland was followed in absolute silence by the warriors and mages and priests that had come to secure the right flank. Once inside, they split off into groups of three, each with a bag of holy wafers, to cleanse the king's army.

Tobyhanna Army Depot

Corporal Benn had pulled the unenviable duty of staring at a console full of warning lights in the guardhouse at the front gate. In truth, he was sharing that duty with a fellow soldier but had lost the latest round of rock, paper, scissors. The penalty for losing was boredom. A red light on the console came to life and triggered an irritating buzzing sound as the motion sensors half a mile up the road picked up the passage of a vehicle. Benn slapped the off button and signaled the other soldiers at the sentry outpost to be on the alert. Shortly after, the light and buzzing returned, and Benn smacked the console again. He signaled everyone to stand down.

_Another false alarm._ This was the sum total of the life he'd signed on for when he joined the Army. He had envisioned training, fighting, and travelling but had gotten guard duty in an out of the way Army base on the East Coast.

The pattern of the motion sensor, one detection followed by another shortly after, had happened at least a hundred times this week. In fact, this was the twelfth time since 0700 this morning. It was one of the unforeseen pitfalls of being away from civilization and in the middle of a long, desolate road. As there was little else to do around here, there'd been plenty of time to map out the surrounding area on conditioning runs, and the checkpoint soldiers knew without a doubt that the entrance to the base was the only point to turn around for six miles. And so, every sightseer, tourist, and farmer in the area used the entrance road to pull a three point turn. One detection for them to pull in and one detection as they backed out.

They had cameras installed out there so that they could actually see what was and was not coming down the road, but the signal from those devices was spotty at best. It was just par for the course in this day and age that military oversight committees would force them to go with the lowest bidder on their uninterruptable all-weather cameras. The sentry post was more likely to receive a clear signal from a scrambled satellite feed than from one of those things.

The soldiers at the eastern checkpoint relaxed and returned to the time honored military tradition of complaining. It was the usual stuff--girlfriends, CO's, boredom--until Superman made his appearance. He walked out from the tree line and, without any hesitation, made a bee-line for the gate. He was a tall, skinny superhero, gangly in an ill-fitting costume with his cape dragging him backward every time the wind would gust. He stumbled a bit over the uneven ground as he walked methodically closer. He was a pitiful specimen and was unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of even the worst soldier.

However, when a chubby blue Power Ranger emerged a few seconds later followed by a Hello Kitty with a lopsided head, the guards began to get a little concerned. This was hardly unexpected when facing such ferocious enemies. One of the soldiers lifted his M-16 to his shoulder.

"What, are you crazy?" asked a nearby private. "They're kids."

"They might be terrorists. Al-Qaida might have strapped them with bombs or something. Those might be detonators they're carrying."

"Christ," Benn said as he opened the gatehouse door. "Just don't shoot me or anyone else until I check this out. Okay?"

"No promises, Corp."

Benn moved out into the open field in front of the gate with one hand on his rifle and another up in a crossing guard "stop" gesture. Superman stopped as instructed with the blue Power Ranger and Hello Kitty following suit. All three of them had their eyes glued to the cell phones extended out in their left hands.

"What you got there, kid?" Benn asked, gesturing at the bulging bag in the Kid of Steel's hand. Superman upended the bag slowly, and brilliantly shiny wrappers tumbled into the grass. There were Snickers and Reese's and Hershey's Kisses and gumballs and all manner of hard candies littering the ground at his feet. Superman knelt down and sifted through the candy, retrieving a second cell phone from the ground. He stood up and turned the screen toward Benn.

The soldier stepped forward carefully, trying to avoid stomping on any of the candy, and took the iPhone from Superman's hand. He took three long steps back before allowing his gaze to drift from the costumed kid back to the small, rectangular device.

He walked backward toward the shack, keeping the kids in his sight. When he was close enough, he yelled back over his shoulder, "According to this, Apple has planned a 'thank you' event for our base. They're calling it 'iGiveBack' and have a hundred kids in costumes here to deliver candy to us. It says they cleared it with General Hawthorne and have two film crews on site." Benn completed his retreat to his post with the iPhone in hand and showed it to his partner. They motioned the private over, and all three of them gave the device some intense scrutiny. As one, the soldiers set their rifles aside and opened the gate for their guests.

Werepe

One of the first things Werepe noticed as he got closer to the stronghold was that it wasn't a single structure. In fact, there were dozens of smaller parapets that clumped together around a central spire forming a staggered shield. It also made for a pretty impressive maze of alleyways into which he and his team plunged headlong.

The sounds of battle from the front lines echoed mournfully between the towering walls of the neighboring structures. The echoes magnified and lengthened every clash of steel and cry of anguish. Werepe had been starting to cross an intersection when he was stopped short with a touch from Peaches99's hand on his shoulder. He turned to look into her emerald eyes. She didn't notice the lost puppy-dog stare he was giving her but was instead focused on something to his right. He leaned around the corner and saw one of the creatures close up for the first time.

It was vaguely the size of a normal human and relatively close in shape as well, but that was where the resemblance ended. The skin was charred and covered in oozing pustules that popped and reformed like boiling tar. There were large, crooked spikes that jutted from its back, piercing what used to be a fine suit of chain mail armor that now hung limply from the holes in long strands of metal links. Its back was to them as it stared out toward the sounds of melee. It inched forward and then hesitated, seemingly reluctant to go out there itself.

Peaches99 sprang forward and ran past it, striking it on the left shoulder with a rod she was carrying. It whirled about in surprise only to find the pommel of Werepe's sword smacking it in the forehead and driving it to its knees. GhettoBooty rushed in and bound it with her will, pinning it to the ground with three words of power. Werepe took a wafer from his belt pouch and tentatively dropped it into the poor creature's unmoving mouth. A fizzy, Pepto-Bismol foam erupted from the mouth and spread over the bound form. It covered the creature from head to toe, and at every point where it touched the corrupted skin, the foam popped and bubbled with renewed fervor. The soldier writhed within the confines of its holy prison, breaking free and falling forward only at the last. They cautiously rolled it over, seeing the pink and healthy skin of a human peeking out from the gaps in foam and dirt. In unison, the three adventurers let out a relieved sigh. There was little time for celebration though, and they dragged the soldier into a sitting position, leaning him gently against the side of one of the structures before returning to the hunt.

Colonel Macklin

Colonel Paul Macklin heard the announcement from his office and looked up from the mound of paperwork he'd inherited from his commanding officer. They were tedious forms that required the commanding--or acting commanding--officer's approval before going to the bean counters at the Pentagon. The crafty old vet who held the commanding position at the Tobyhanna Army Depot had a bad habit of letting the paperwork pile up until it was two weeks short of being overdue and then taking off on leave. Macklin would then spend the next fourteen days, and more than a few nights, fighting his way through the stacks like some kind of old-world explorer. His pen would cut swaths through the paperwork, and he'd stop only for meals, calls of nature, and an occasional handful of hours of fitful sleep. Not much could've caused him to lose focus or falter in his pursuit of bureaucracy, but the sounds pouring out of the loudspeakers just outside his office had proved the exception. His conscious mind had caught only the tail end of the first run, but the repeat had given him the full, unpleasant disclosure.

"Attention, all personnel. Report to the front gate for candy. I repeat. Candy at the front gate," the intercoms blared.

_Candy? What in Uncle Sam's attic would we be doing with candy?_ Several enlisted personnel passed by the door on their way out. Macklin had decided to look out the office window instead of blindly following the flock and had been stunned by what he saw. There was a five foot tall yellow and black Pokémon rounding the corner and disappearing behind a nearby storage shed.

Macklin performed a mental inventory of everything he'd drunk or smoked that day and could not identify anything out of the ordinary and certainly nothing that would explain seeing a giant Pokémon. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to get the residual image of the bulbous creature with the lightning bolt tail out of his brain. He screwed up his courage and looked again. This time there was an emaciated Spiderman walking by. His costume was either much too big for him or the wearer was much too small. It dangled and bunched in the most inappropriate areas. _So that's the game. This is a Halloween prank put on by some of the cocky enlisted men. The General is away, and good ole Colonel Macklin will never catch on._ Well, he intended to show them that this tiger, no matter how paper he might seem, still had a few teeth.

Macklin stormed out of his office, intent on giving the first person he ran into the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. He never got the chance. The words caught in his throat as he inadvertently barreled into a giant bunny. The poor creature went down, striking its head on a rock that served as a path marker. He stared at the face peeking out from underneath the crooked ears as it struggled to keep focus on the cellphone in front of it. Its body lolled to the side, and there was a spot of blood forming on the side of the bunny's head.

Werepe

They'd just captured their third soldier--Peaches99 was tending to his communion while Werepe and GhettoBooty had moved several feet away--when they were surprised by the largest, foulest looking creature they could imagine. It was all goo and eyes and teeth. Lips and eyebrows floated randomly across its surface, and it moved on limbs that were spindly elbows. It lurched out of hiding from one of the larger structures in the courtyard and, as if its appearance weren't enough, scared the piss out of the three crusaders with its unnaturally swift movements. There were terrified squeaks from all three of them as it came shooting out, flailing its mismatched body parts in a frenzy of motion. Werepe was directly in its path and was knocked to the ground before he could raise his shield in defense. He struck his head hard on something, and the world blurred before him. The eyes on one side of the creature focused on him and then shifted to the cleansed soldier lying nearby. It opened all of its mouths and bellowed in harmony with itself.

Werepe struggled to regain his senses as the creature approached GhettoBooty--sweet GhettoBooty standing alone against the monstrosity--and pulled out its gun. It hesitated. Something about the innocence before it made it pause and consider the priestess of light and goodness. There was some gleam of recognition in its many eyes, and it shrank back a little as she offered it a wafer. There was no aggression or attack from her, merely the offer of a gift without restrictions.

Colonel Macklin

The boy in the bunny suit was no enlisted man. It was a child, probably fifteen at the most. Panic set in as he looked around for something that made sense. He saw dozens of costumed teenagers and children wandering around sharing their bags of candy with his soldiers. "Williams, report!" he shouted at one of his men not fifteen feet away. The man was currently engaged in a conspiratorial meeting with a giant green M&M. At the sound of Macklin's voice, the man straightened and then purposefully walked away, never once turning to look at his bewildered commander.

It was in this state that a little girl found the colonel and approached him, holding out a half empty bag of candy. Colonel Macklin put one hand on his sidearm, pulled it halfway out of its holster, and then stopped. The girl in front of him was dressed as an enchanted fairy, and something about her reminded him of his granddaughter. She had dark hair that framed the sides of her face and curled under her chin in the shape of a heart. She was too damn cute to shoot, but more importantly, she was just a child. She had all the delicate features that had trained countless generations of grandparents to coddle and spoil their children's children at every chance. She was thin-boned and hollow around the cheeks with large vacant eyes that kept a firm grip on the screen of the phone in her hand. She jiggled the bag at him robotically. She couldn't have been much older than ten or twelve. The officer looked down at the bag and noted with interest that it was illuminated from the inside. There was a phone or a Gameboy in there. The screen was on, and it was displaying the most wonderful . . . .

Werepe

The creature inched forward ever so slowly until it was close enough to bite off Ghettobooty's outstretched hand. She did not flinch, and her companions were too terrified or too injured to move to protect her. The slathering creature took one more look around itself and then leaned forward and took the wafer into one of its mouths. The result was instantaneous and terrible. It was like a watching a person try to fight its way out of a stomach, but fight on it did. The conversion took an eternity, and when it was complete, no mere foot soldier stood before them. This was one of the king's knights, and he was now free.

There were sighs all around, and Werepe was glad the beast had decided against shooting GhettoBooty or any of them when it had the chance. _Wait a minute, since when do they have guns here?_ This thought dissolved in his mind as he laid his head upon the ground and closed his eyes. He was so tired. Something throbbed in the back of his skull as his head lolled to the side. He saw Peaches99 and GhettoBooty running toward him looking worried and smiled as he shut his eyes. _Best date ever. Well, only date ever, but that's beside the point._

Johnny and Raul

"Oh shit, man," Raul said worriedly.

"What?"

"Bugs hit his head on a rock. The dude's got blood in his ear."

"That sucks. Let's hope we don't lose him," Johnny said without even a hint of concern.

"Yeah, I'd miss his funny ears. It still cracks me up that he came to us like that. He's my inspiration, man."

"You're a tard, Raul. Let's just get him packed up with the others."

"Man, moving this entire base is going to be brutal. Maybe we should leave a few of them behind."

"We'll have to see how many of the troop carriers are ready to go. We'll need to switch some of these guys over to the driving sim...what?"

"Dude, he just looked at me!" Raul said, grabbing Johnny's shoulder.

"No way."

"I swear, dude. This puta just looked dead at me and then back to his phone. I think he's conscious."

"I think your implant is acting up. Slap him."

"What?"

"Slap him."

"The dude has a head injury. Don't you know about concussions? I can't just slap him."

"Slap the bunny, man. Don't make me come over there."

"All right, fine." There was a pause before a sharp crack was heard. "I slapped him. You happy now?"

"What did he do?"

"He didn't do nothing, man."

"Right. He's not conscious. If he was, he'd have shown some signs at that. Get him back in the RV, and let's go."

Norma-Jeanne

When first offered the trip to the Emerald Isle by her boss, Norma-Jeanne had thought it would be a nice, relaxing trip to help her get away from the constant grind of dodging Wookies and homicidal adolescents. And, truthfully, in that respect, she was not disappointed. However, the supernatural debris she'd collected while on her escape was probably worse.

There were, of course, issues with keeping a severed head as a pet. True, it didn't make a mess on the carpet and only occasionally chewed the furniture, but it wasn't something that you could really leave alone in the hotel room for extended periods of time. Housekeeping normally came between ten and noon each morning, and they were very thorough. It simply would not do for the maids to open the closet or mini-fridge and see Rosebud staring back at them. So, rising early and taking her little head for a walk had become a ritual of necessity.

This brought with it a whole other set of hazards as passing within shouting distance of a doomed human being would bring out the worst in her new pet, and Norma-Jeanne would inevitably end up with lots of stares from passers-by and yet another of her growing collection of ghosts.

Speaking of ghosts, apparently having more than a handful of dead Irishmen in a single location was hazardous. They simply did not seem to get along with one another. Norma-Jeanne had always thought the stereotype had been born as a result of the amount of alcohol consumed at the pub by said Irishmen. Now, however, she was beginning to think that the booze actually helped things.

Her spirit followers, or rather those who trailed after Rosebud, had become quite adept at manipulating material objects in the real world. They would start out playing games of will where they struggled to push a coaster off one side of the table or another. The loser would invariably get angry, and a tussle would begin. In their anger, they would knock things off the shelves and make a mess. Of course, two ghosts fighting was never enough, and, as evidenced by the area of devastation, there were frequent all-out brawls. This was, of course, merely speculation on the part of Norma-Jeanne with supporting testimonies from Rosebud and the occasional irate note from housekeeping.

Privacy was also a thing of the past. She would often exit the shower to find a crudely drawn portrait of her boobs in the steam on the bathroom mirror or end up wrestling with the shower handle to keep from getting blasted with cold water. The ghosts also had a fascination for flushing the toilet late at night, but she never could figure out why.

There were complaints about the noise and the mess and things being jostled and knocked over in her wake. She even took to calling the front desk to complain about the noise from nearby rooms to try to confuse things and keep them from identifying her as the culprit. Her only real salvations were the occasional long walks in the forests of northern Ireland, the short breaks she took from Rosebud in the evenings when she met with the psychics for dinner, and the knowledge that she would be out of there in just a matter of days.

Werepe

Werepe opened his eyes cautiously, afraid of what might be there to greet him. He remembered scattered bits and pieces of a fortress or encampment of evil looking creatures. He remembered entering the camp and some fighting. He also remembered foam, but that didn't make a lot of sense, so he put it on the back burner. He remembered eyebrows floating in a dark liquid like some kind of human pudding, and he remembered Peaches99, GhettoBooty and Roland without his mustache slapping him. He also remembered the gun or thought he did. As he raised his head to look around, he saw the towers from his memory. They were large, sunbaked clay spires that rose into the sky. In between these were some low-slung huts with flattened roofs like some of the old hurricane houses that lined the Gulf Coast back home. Home. Now that was an interesting word. He couldn't remember it or anything from whatever life there was before demon slaying. Where had he grown up, and how did he know about houses on the Gulf Coast? He was a crusader. That much he knew. But the rest of it was simply not there anymore.

He looked up at the overcast sky and tried to get his bearings. There was a huge slab of rock further on toward the center of the camp that blotted out an entire half of the horizon. Somewhere, probably in the heart of that mountainous stronghold, was the entrance to the fifth and final layer of Hell. That was where they had to go to find the Demon Lord and end the threat that had dogged them every step of the way. And beyond him lay the portal home--wherever that might be.

Three figures approached from his left, and he turned his head to look at them. Things swam a bit with the sudden movement, but he fought off the feeling of nausea and focused on his visitors. He was half expecting it to be a squad of corrupted soldiers, but he couldn't have been more wrong. GhettoBooty walked to him and knelt down, touching his forehead in concern. Peaches99 stood by sporting a wry grin on her face.

"Can't take a punch, huh?" she said in jest.

"You should see the other guy," Werepe responded. The fact that he found it easy to talk to these two beautiful women had escaped him until now. Hadn't he always gotten tongue, well, everything-tied around girls?

"I was that other guy," said the man who stepped forward. He was a giant of a man, gray around the temples with a strong jaw and an air of nobility about him. "I am Paul, Duke of Tobyhanna. I have you and your lovely companions to thank for freeing me from the demon's influence. You have my eternal gratitude."

"I'm glad it turned out all right. You pack quite a wallop when you get going."

"Well, I was quite a handful in my younger days. I fought in all the tournaments. You will accept my apology?"

"Sure thing. I'm just glad you didn't shoot anybody."

"Excuse me?"

"With your gu . . . I saw you draw . . . and then . . ." he trailed off in confusion.

"I'm not sure he's fully recovered yet," GhettoBooty interjected to preserve some of Werepe's dignity.

"Of course. His majesty wishes to get moving soon. Will he be ready within the hour?"

"I'm sure he will," she replied and waited for the Duke to walk away. She turned to Werepe. "What were you just about to say?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head.

"No, tell us."

"I almost said that he drew his gun. But that can't be right. How would I even know what a gun is?"

"Gun," GhettoBooty repeated, tasting the word. "I remember him trying to pull something out . . . ."

"I'm not sure what either of you are talking about," interrupted Peaches99, "but we've got to get this sorry sack of crap back on his feet before everyone else runs off and leaves us here." She gave another sly grin and then gripped Werepe by the arm and pulled. He came up with a groan, wobbled for a second, and then gained his feet.

"You're right," he said. "Let's get going."

The infernally long, spiraling staircase vanished into utter darkness below. Torches, magic items, and spells were all thrown up against the blackness, and all failed to penetrate more than a few feet ahead of them. Everyone huddled within the small islands of light as they took each step carefully, linked to the person in front like some kind of geriatric conga line. There were no such things as safety rails in Hell, and one wrong move here could mean a very long and final drop. It was under one such beacon that Werepe and Peaches99 found themselves pressed close to GhettoBooty--who was the only one of the three that could manifest any light in this place. Their proximity to one another was a little exciting but more comforting as the unknown pressed in on them.

"I've been thinking," said GhettoBooty.

"Nothing good ever follows that statement," quipped Peaches99.

Ignoring her, the priestess continued, "Werepe mentioned seeing a 'gun' back there, and I kind of remember seeing something that struck me as out of place. Did you see anything odd, Peaches99?"

"Only if you call a mass of eyeballs and ankles floating in a giant mound of shit 'odd.' Besides, there is no way that Werepe saw a gun. They don't exist."

"Then how do you even know what one is?" Ghettobooty asked. The silence that followed was as thick as the darkness around them. Finally, Peaches99 spoke up.

"I don't know. Maybe it was something I picked up before I got here."

"Do you remember any of that time?" Werepe asked. "I remembered flat-roofed houses on the Gulf Coast while I was out of it, but I don't even know what the Gulf Coast is."

"That sounds familiar, but I . . . ." Peaches99 stopped as she seemed to have a convulsion. Werepe had to help guide her forward to keep her from falling over the edge or getting run over by the group behind them. "I remember something called Disney, but I can't quite get it." That caused the other two to slow down as they, too, were struck with a wall of déjà-something. This was met with angry shouts from above.

"Sorry," offered Werepe to the group that had almost run into them. "We saw something out there with big eyes and long teeth. I think it's watching us. Maybe you can see it if you look real close." He and Peaches99 nudged GhettoBooty forward as the group behind them froze in terror. The shouts from the subsequent groups could be heard up the line.

"That wasn't very nice," GhettoBooty admonished.

"But it was funny," Peaches99 said impishly. "Let's concentrate on not falling off this stupid staircase, and then we can figure out whether we're all losing our minds." Her companions nodded their silent agreement, and the trio slowly continued their descent.

The fifth level of Hell spread out before them like an empty buffet. There was a whole lot of nothing. They emerged on the edge of a massive cliff face that plunged down into the swirling mists below. Sure, the area between the bottom of the staircase and the sudden plummet into God knows what was large enough to house ten times the number of people that stood upon it now, but fat lot of good that did. No matter where they stood, it felt an awful lot like they were teetering over the edge. It was like sleeping on the top bunk. Sure, it's exciting, but once you get the thought in your head, it's impossible to keep from being terrified of waking up on your way down.

The precipice was thinnest in the middle and flared out on either side like a boomerang until it too broke away. It seemed a little too much like something had taken a giant, ragged bite out of the land here. In the horizon, they could just make out another cliff face that led up to a twin of their own rocky platform. This was--to their best estimation without any real point of scale or reference--at least a mile away. Depression belly-flopped in the middle of the road-weary mass of soldiers and loners, sending waves of them collapsing to the ground and sitting there staring at nothing. Others openly bemoaned their fate and questioned what they'd been thinking by joining such a misguided crusade. Still more theorized that if there was a similar area across the gorge that maybe they had descended on the wrong side. What if there was another entryway that would put them over there where it was easy to find their way down? It became obvious there were really only three options available: stay here, go back up the stairs, or go down, none of which was the least bit appealing.

After a brief discussion, there was a grudging agreement that the group in its entirety should press on and down. Those who wished to go back up and search for another possible descent location were not so eager to do so once they were told of the creature with the big eyes and long teeth that had been eyeing everyone hungrily from the dark. Sometimes, even an arduous, death-defying climb down into the bowels of Hell's asshole in the light was more appealing than meeting something unfriendly in the dark.

So, they descended without fanfare or pretty light shows. They found little in the way of handholds and less in the way of peace, and within the first five minutes, each and every one of them regretted the path they had chosen. There were flying demons, spitting demons, demons that popped out of the rocks like whack-a-moles, and demons who hurled rocks, fire, slime, puss, mucus and several substances that defied description. And all the while, the heroes continued trickling down the sheer rock like spilled syrup, trying to fend off the attacks as best they could without falling to their deaths. Many did indeed fall--Samiam's soldiers and mercenaries alike. Werepe was lucky, having saved both Peaches99 and GhettoBooty from suffering the fate of the fallen and in turn being saved more than once himself. It did not, however, escape his notice that invariably those who fell would land on a ledge twenty or thirty feet below and merely curl up in a fetal position until someone could bring them back from the brink of death.

Despite the hardships and near deaths, each and every one of them plunged into a swirling grey mist that smelled like old socks and snickerdoodles. There were sighs of relief at finding honest to goodness horizontal land, but these were followed shortly by coughing from those who had inhaled too deeply. The group trundled forward in exhaustion as they sought the edge of the mist and summarily collapsed when they found it. A quick head count showed that there hadn't been one fatality. Werepe made certain to point this out to his two companions as they lay on the ground panting. That thought gnawed at the back of his mind as he reviewed the last few months of his life. He couldn't think of one crusader fatality in all the hundreds of battles against the impossible odds that they'd faced here.

The signal to move out sounded, and the crusaders gathered themselves and their possessions off the ground and moved forward in groups of three or more. Only King Samiam walked alone at the tip of the spear that they formed. Werepe marched in step with the girls and voiced his most recent concerns.

"I think we're all under some kind of spell." The others were silent for a moment, so Werepe continued, "Think about it. We're in Hell. This is the most dangerous place on Earth."

"Technically below Earth," Peaches99 corrected.

"Right, whatever. How can we walk through the worst Hell has to throw at us, and no one dies? It's like this is a dream or something. I can't remember the last time I dreamed or pretty much anything before Hell. We went through Purgatory first, right?"

"I just remember bits and pieces of fighting puny demons and having a hard time with it," Peaches99 admitted.

"It's pretty much a blank for me," GhettoBooty added.

"Right, so something happened when we got to Hell to keep us from remembering anything before this. Why?" There was no response. "Also, what's the deal with me seeing a gun or all of us remembering Disney? That stuff means nothing here, but it obviously meant something to us once, or we wouldn't have remembered it."

"What exactly are you suggesting?" asked the priestess with a worried look on her face.

"I'm beginning to think that something needs us, all of us, in order to do something."

"Wow, can you get a little more vague?" Peaches99 said, wielding her sarcasm like a blade.

Werepe found himself blushing at her criticism--she was one of the hottest girls who'd ever willingly spent time with him, at lest he was pretty sure she was--but persevered anyway. "Look, I don't know if something weird is going on down here . . . ." A scathing look from Peaches99 had him hurrying to correct himself. "OK, weirder than being here in the first place, but I'm pretty sure the only reason to erase our memories is to get us to do something we wouldn't normally do. We've been tricked into believing we're on a 'holy mission' so we'll do whatever they want us to do without questioning it."

"Paranoid much?" Peaches99 countered. "Don't you think someone else would've figured this out also by now if it were true?"

"I don't think I would've if I hadn't banged my head. It was only afterwards that I saw the gun. You have to admit, something isn't right here."

"I don't have to do anything," she shot back, "but you might have a point." They both looked as GhettoBooty, and she just nodded sullenly. She began to hum a tune, and all three of them knew the name of it immediately. "Red Solo Cup."

Garp

As the black Lincoln Town Car glided over the bumps and divots of Hwy 70, Reverend Edward Garp felt relaxation wash over him. The knots of tension that had been building since his conversation with Gabe loosened a little, releasing the headache that had plagued him for nearly a week. He still had the big "C" and a wife that could scare the paint off the walls if she didn't have enough makeup on. He still had the IRS agents who were just itching to raid the headquarters of In Your Faith, and he had a demented master sergeant who seemed ready to either kill him or turn him in on charges of mass kidnapping and extortion. There was so much that could go wrong in the near future that would end him as a person that he had thought he was going to burst. And so he'd decided it was time to leave. He just couldn't be afraid anymore. He refused to do it. This was the time to put all of his chips on the table and play that one perfect game. This was the time to make it or break it, and he'd be damned if he sat on the sidelines for this.

He took the car from his modest fleet of such vehicles and told Marie that he'd be gone for a few days to commune with God. He had no phone, no onboard GPS system, and no credit cards. There was nothing that anyone could track him by other than an innocuous license plate and eyewitness sightings--which would be blissfully few thanks to a generous application of tinting on his windows. All that he had with him was a small suitcase with three changes of clothes, a plastic atlas of US highways, a paper fold-out map of Rhode Island, and ten thousand dollars in cash he had appropriated from the stash he kept behind the black velvet portrait of Garner Ted Armstrong.

All in all, it wasn't much, but it would be enough. It was his version of roughing it. Regardless of his accommodations, the trip did serve some very crucial purposes. First, it kept him out of the reach of the government and anyone with badges or guns who may come looking for him. Second, it kept him sane. And third, he would get to be there when the universe as he knew it came to an end. Who'd want to miss that?

### October 30th

John

"What is the sound of one Sasquatch knocking in the woods? It's an awful lot like a five hundred pound woodpecker off its Ritalin. Unfortunately, there are somewhere between ten and twenty of them knocking at once and at all hours of the night now. Between that, the howls, and the screams, I'm amazed they've evaded detection for so long. I'm also amazed that I can get any sleep on this trip. Luckily, physical exhaustion can work miracles. Just on a side note, I've also noticed that they've shown a strange obsession with staring at themselves in windows, mirrors, and any other surface that can provide a reflection. The majority of this behavior seems to be present in my original troupe, but they all seem to have an instinctual compulsion to vanity. It's rare that I get a turn.

"The weather has gotten progressively colder over the last week, but the Sasquatch do not seem to have noticed the change in temperature at all. In fact, they seemed perfectly happy when they were in the meat locker. This climate is pretty close to that, minus the meat, of course. I, on the other hand, had neglected to wear my parka when running through the swaps of Louisiana and had been freezing my golden globes off ever since we moved into this New England fall. By my best guess, we are somewhere in upstate New York and are still continuing northward. We've only met a few more stragglers--older loners mostly--but the calls continue throughout the night, and, more often than not, and so do we.

"We have recently encountered a fair number of out-of-the-way houses in this area. It is part of the old country dominated by a large number of massive oaks that lord over the surrounding landscape. I, for one, am glad to see these islands of civilization as they give me the opportunity to better outfit myself for the new climate. I have found long underwear, woolen caps, and snow gear of all shapes and sizes in these residences. Warmth is divine.

"On another positive note, I found a box of forgotten Twinkies in a hunting shack two days ago. I pretend that they're grubs that I find in stumps and rotten trees so I won't be forced to share. I'd forgotten how good sugar really tastes. I think I would murder for a crème horn. I hope it doesn't come to that."

Werepe

The trek across the bowl of Hell's Asshole--as Werepe so dubbed it--was brutal in its own right. The ground was riddled with small gopher holes that made footing treacherous and jagged stalagmites that eagerly awaited some poor adventurer to stumble and impale him or herself upon them. Of course, this didn't happen. Sure, there were cuts and bruises, but no one managed to actually do any mortal harm. Werepe had stopped pointing this out after the fifth time because it had earned him a reproachful look and the silent treatment from Peaches99. GhettoBooty was rather quiet as well, so he took the hint. Shut up and keep walking. The trio stewed silently in their own confusion about what was real and what wasn't. If they dwelled too long on the "what wasn't real" question, then the "what can we do about it" question would inevitably surface, and that was not a question any of them was ready to tackle.

The army of crusaders and soldiers came to a halt somewhere near the center of the bowl and gathered at the face of a large cylinder of ice. Those who'd begun to sit down or slump in exhaustion soon snapped back to attention as the unusual nature of the formation became clear. Not only was ice unusual down here, but jutting out from the face of the crystalline surface was a bony spine or at least part of it. The tail bone and its two neighboring vertebrae stuck out from within the ice and seemed to dangle in a muted warning. It said, "something died here." These were hardly the first bones they'd seen in Hell. In fact, there was even an entire cavern two levels up that was filled with the ghostly white remains of long dead humans, animals, and other creatures. However, this was the first naked spine they'd seen embedded in solid ice. It was like finding half a worm sticking out of an apple, only with a little less wiggle. In a word, it was repulsive. Something seemed off or unnatural about the scene to everyone--except for King Samiam.

Instead of giving it a wide berth or shying away as instinct demanded, he walked directly up to the column and ran his hand over the surface. The attention that he paid to examining the scene was creepy in an overzealous undertaker kind of way. After the foreplay was over, the king drew his morning star--a wicked ball of spikey steel on a stick--, reared back, and struck the wall just below the spine. The spiked surface connected with a "clunk," and bits of frozen water chipped off in a shower, pelting those who stood too closely. The pillar was still intact, but there were now cracks running vertically upward, forking around the fleshless remains and spider-webbing out for another three feet. He struck again and again, and on the fourth strike, the face of the column fell away in huge vertical sheets as something bulged from inside.

There was the sound of glacial groaning and splitting as more debris tumbled out, obscured by a billowing cloud of snow. Something very large moved from within the pillar. Every weapon was out and held at the ready, but nothing attacked the men or lobbed fireballs or mucus at them. This was a new experience, and against their better judgment, the crusaders all edged a little closer to try to get a better look as the air cleared. When things settled, the spine receded back into the hollow of the pillar, and then a man strode stiffly out. At least, it was probably a man. Maybe.

Werepe was struck dumb at the sight before him. The stranger was tall and thin and held the spine in his hand like a whip. The segmented rod flexed along the vertebrae with each movement, its white knuckles contrasting sharply against the backdrop of a dark green cloak that ran from shoulder to boot. Above the stranger's shoulder, however, was a head that was at least twice as big as it should have been. The disproportionally large noggin was chiseled with high, proud brows, high cheekbones and a chin like a Buick. Sprouting from the top was an ocean of wavy blonde locks that seemed to move of their own accord. The man with the giant head knelt before the king and waited.

"Hail, Stephen_McStudly," King Samiam began, cutting his eyes toward General Roland while trying to stifle a grin. General Roland was not quite as successful. "We seek to destroy the Demon Lord and to escape this Hell through Heaven's Gate. Can you help us?"

The man nodded his enormous head and then flashed a smile of shining white to the crowd. There was even a bit of a sparkle there before he closed his lips and began to stride off toward the far side of the chasm.

"Stephen_McStudly?" Werepe asked with incredulity.

"Oh my God," Peaches99 said, covering her mouth, "Did you see that head?"

"How could you miss it? His forehead is so big it's probably a five head."

Snickering, Peaches99 corrected him, "It's at least a seven head. I wonder what he is."

"Some kind of mutant or something. Maybe he's a giant midget."

"Isn't that like a normal person?"

"Stop being mean to him," GhettoBooty admonished. "He's kind of dreamy."

"Dreamy?" Peaches99 blurted out, letting her jaw drop open in shock. "Did you see the size of his cranium?"

"I happen to like men with big heads." Werepe and Peaches99 looked at each other for a second and then burst out laughing. "What? What's so funny?"

"He's obviously compensating for something," Peaches99 said with an evil grin. "He probably drew the short straw."

Werepe snickered at this and added, "Now, now, no need to belittle him. Mother Nature already beat you to it." Both of them burst out with a fresh round of giggles as they, along with all of the other crusaders, set off toward the sheer cliff that loomed in the distance.

A torrent of people half walked and half ran across the surface of Hell's Asshole as they hurried to keep pace with the figure that--despite the obvious wind resistance issues inherent with having such a large surface area above the shoulders--had diminished to a dark green dot in the distance. It was never a fair race to begin with. The man known as Stephen_McStudly had no fear. He would just walk with his head held high and grin at anything that seemed the least bit threatening. Oddly enough, nothing attacked him or caused him to stumble. It had become evident pretty quickly that anyone who wished to be able to follow him would need to abandon their caution and plow forward as well, risks be damned. Of course, everyone wanted to follow him since the alternative was to separate from the group that by sheer numbers was dissuading some of the nastier of Hell's predators from making their presence known.

The ground sped past in a blur of rough outcroppings and pitfalls until they came to a square entrance in the face of a sheer cliff. They'd made it to the other side of the chasm. Instead of heading up to a second entrance as some had theorized, it ran down into the earth. It hardly seemed tall enough to allow Stephen_McStudly to safely walk through, but he merely did a little limbo bend of his back and continued on without pausing. Werepe looked at the others around him and saw the same look on their faces. Nobody seemed to have a clue who or what this guy was. Unfortunately for them, it seemed they had little choice but to follow.

The king and his general followed the strange fellow into the passageway, and each of the crusaders followed them in turn. They marched down through a sloping tunnel in the rock that spit them out into a large, unremarkable cavern. The walls rose up into a thick darkness that hid the ceiling some distance above. It looked for all the world like they'd stepped into a massive bubble in the cliff that stretched off into the distance.

Something tickled the back of Werepe's brain as he entered this place. It was something that he'd just caught on the very outskirts of his peripheral vision, but it bothered him. He stopped and stepped out of the path of the incoming crusaders as he strained to identify the problem. It took him a moment, but he finally pinpointed the issue. He turned and stared at the entrance from where they had just emerged. It was just like what he would have expected from any carved stone. It was rough in shape yet worn smooth by hands and tools and the passage of many bodies. He turned back into the heart of the cave slowly and saw it again. Just a flash of a white-rimmed square with two floating steps. He turned back and looked at the now familiar rock surface.

He shook his head, sure that his eyes were just playing tricks on him. A brief image of a herd of unwashed bodies swaying rhythmically inside of a white enclosed box flickered in his mind. He saw a Latino man and his blonde companion and the pictures of angels and demons on the, on the . . . _on the what?_ His brain hurt as he tried to hold onto the threads of memory that were slipping away. In the end, he was forced to abandon them, and instead he grabbed his head in an effort to squeeze the pain into submission. Werepe turned and followed the masses further into the cavern, weaving his way through the throngs of warriors to catch up with Peaches99 and GhettoBooty. He wasn't sure if what he'd seen was real, but it did little to assuage his suspicions of this entire mission.
Part 5 – Deportation

### October 31st

Norma-Jeanne

The Belfast International Airport had quite a long and rich history of handling the nuances of terrorism. Time and again, they thwarted the Irish Republican Army in any and all attempts at blowing things up. One of the smartest organizational moves they'd made was the strictly enforced "no drive" zone. They did not allow cabs, cars, motorcycles, skateboards, bicycles, tricycles, big wheels, wheelbarrows, or any other type of personal locomotion to enter within three hundred yards of the terminal. While many of the American equivalents were eager to allow anyone to drive their car right up beside the ticket booths and TSA agents, Belfast did not. It was entirely too easy for a terrorist to simply roll the bomb up to the terminal and obliterate half of the first floor. Cars made quite the mess when they exploded.

As a precaution against such action, the airport forced all prospective passengers to suffer the indignity of an energetic crotch-sniff by a well-trained canine before being allowed onto a rather uncomfortably cramped and heavily scrutinized shuttle which would, in turn, deposit them at the terminal. _It's a rather sensible precaution,_ Norma-Jeanne thought as she waited in line to enter one such conveyance, _even if it is a pain in the ass_.

She and Charles had been standing in line for nearly fifteen minutes and had already had their persons and luggage checked for naughty substances. The dogs made several trips around Charles but pointedly avoided her carry-on camera bag. This surprised Norma-Jeanne a little as she was expecting them to drag Rosebud out and try to roll on her, but instead they seemed to be repulsed by and even scared of her improvised pet carrier.

With all of the preliminary checks completed, the waiting shuttle opened its doors, and Norma-Jeanne began to board. Her foot had no sooner left the ground to take the first step into the shuttle when she heard muffled shouts emanating from her camera bag. "Donal, Norma-Jeanne, Charles, Meredith, Christopher . . . ." The list continued through another fifteen names. Norma-Jeanne froze with the traditional deer-in-headlights expression. The driver stared at her pointedly, and the potential passengers in the queue behind her craned their necks around and stepped out of line to gawk at the commotion. She stepped back. "Not Norma-Jeanne," her luggage said.

"I think we'll just take the next one," she said loudly. She grabbed Charles's arm and led him out of the line.

"Not Charles," her luggage announced.

"Does anybody else want to wait with us?" She was greeted by silence. "I'm not sure this shuttle looks very safe," she yelled again. The driver positively scowled at her. She stepped back under the intense glare, and the line began to move forward, filling the shuttle to capacity. She pleaded with some of the passengers as they filed past her, but no one wanted to pay attention to the crazy lady with the loud luggage. The shuttle doors closed, and the vehicle quickly gained speed as it rounded the first corner. She felt guilty about what was about to happen--or at least what she thought was about to happen--but it wasn't like she could tell them that the supernatural severed head in her bag thought riding that van was a bad idea. On second thought, she probably could have told them, but they wouldn't have believed her.

"What was that all about?" Charles asked from behind her.

"The tires seemed pretty worn down. I didn't want to risk my life on poor maintenance," she lied.

"I meant, why was your luggage shouting?"

"Oh, that's part of the programming on the special effects prop I'm taking back to the station."

"Special effects, huh? Can I see?"

Swallowing hard and praying that Rosebud behaved herself, she opened the square camera bag that housed the Dullahan's head. The Nose Pad King looked into it and studied the rigid, waxy-looking face. "Excellent detail. Is it supposed to be a zombie?"

"Pretty close. It's an undead head of an ancient spirit. I think the network is going to make a movie with it."

"Way too cool," he said getting closer. "It really is an ugly cuss," he said as he hovered over it. Perhaps something about his particular aroma disagreed with Rosebud--or the comment did--because she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Charles jerked back in surprise. "What the . . . ? Did you just see it move?" he asked excitedly.

"The latest in animatronics, they told me. All kinds of gears and gizmos under the skin. The programming apparently includes random facial twitches to make it seem more lifelike."

"They did a fabulous job," he said nodding his head. Norma-Jeanne decided now was her best shot. She began to wilt dramatically. Nothing happened. She made little groaning noises and even managed a whimper. It took Charles an intolerably long time to notice her distress, but he came through in the end. "What's wrong?"

"Oh," Norma-Jeanne said with as much girly weakness as she could stomach, "I pulled something in my shoulder while packing. And these things are pretty heavy." She looked up at him, and her eyelids twitched--it was meant to be a coquettish bat, but twitch was as far as she could bring herself to go. "Would you mind terribly carrying something for me?" she asked pitifully.

"Sure," he said, holding out his free hand. She carefully zipped the camera bag and handed it to him with care. "You're letting me carry this?" he asked incredulously. "This thing must have cost a fortune."

"I doubt it has ever been in safer hands. Thank you. Really," she said with relief. He positively beamed.

The next shuttle pulled forward, and Norma-Jeanne hesitated before putting her foot on the step. There was no warning from the camera bag, so she continued up all the way. She was mashed into place by Charles's bulk when he sat down next to her. Even if Rosebud had begun to sing a ballad about the dead on board, she wouldn't have been able to move in the slightest. With relief, she saw that the shuttle filled up without a single name being uttered and then accelerated with a profound jerk before the doors were even shut completely. The profound jerks continued at every opportunity, and Norma-Jeanne wondered if she'd picked the wrong shuttle after all. She stopped wondering when they slowed down and skirted around the hull of something that used to be a large van but was now successfully pretending to be a bonfire. It was surrounded by wailing fire trucks and ambulances.

Her group--the ones that'd been disappointed to have to wait another five minutes and then ride with a nut job--exited the shuttle in a somber yet grateful mood. If any of them had been a little pushier or had left the hotel just a couple of minutes sooner, they would probably be blackened and crispy right now. Two of them had avoided it not by timing but by supernatural intervention. Norma-Jeanne felt ill--both from relief for her own life and guilt at not being able to save anyone else--and even the ever-loquacious Charles Hutchins was silent. They walked mutely through customs, declaring only the head and a rather large suitcase filled with puddings, stews, and sausages in airtight travel containers. The food was ignored, but the head was scanned, poked, prodded, shown to other agents, poked, prodded, and gesticulated at with amazement before the agents finally noticed how long the line had backed up.

The customs agents waved Norma-Jeanne, Charles, and Rosebud through without further hassle. She realized at that point that if she were ever to become a mule for a drug cartel, she would do so with a fake animatronic head. They'd never get around to searching the real bags.

Once they arrived at their gate, Norma-Jeanne parted from Rosebud and her new porter to go to the restroom. She needed to collect herself, to wash away the guilt from her face and soul, and to pee--but not necessarily in that order. She entered a stall and sat down heavily, putting her head in her hands. And then she passed into another world. It was all much less metaphysical than it sounded. It wasn't a long journey, nor by any means complete, nor was it even remotely religious in nature. It was more like putting her head up to a porthole and sticking her face through.

She saw a landscape of shadows and shades of grey, dominated by black, spindly vines that reached into the violet-tinged darkness above. There was nothing green or vibrant there, but neither was it devoid of life entirely. She saw soft neon lights of varying colors floating in the distance, and something chitonous and insectoid scurried into the ashen ground nearby. She could hear the wind--or something else--moaning as it passed between the outcroppings of rock and then barreled toward her. A pale green glow seemed to ride the wind closer, stopping just below the rip in reality.

Norma-Jeanne dropped her gaze to examine the thing before her. It was a short, transparent boy of maybe six or seven whose edges were amorphous as little embers of color leapt out and dissipated constantly. He was dressed in knickers and a little jacket with a bowl cut adorning the top of his head. The boy spirit looked up at her and stared with impassive eyes. There were ghostly freckles on his face, and his nose was upturned and smashed flat, so he looked like a little piggy. He put his finger up to it and made a couple of snorting noises. Norma-Jeanne realized this might be the proof of what all little children are told to fear . . . that if they kept making faces, it would actually get stuck that way. The spirit moved his other hand up to touch Norma-Jeanne's nose and repeated the barnyard sounds.

A pounding came on the stall door. "Lady," a voice said in a deep feminine tenor, "are you all right? Should I get the authority?"

"No, I'm fine," Norma-Jeanne said meekly, blinking away the images of the dead land and the little boy.

"Are you sure? I heard you making pig noises. Did you have a seizure or something?"

"I was practicing for a play." She was getting good at this lying thing. "I've got to play Wilbur in Charlotte's Web when I get back. It's for my son's school," she added quickly.

"Okay," the lady said as she took a nearby, but not too nearby, stall.

Norma-Jeanne took a deep breath, took care of her biological business, and staggered toward the sink. She'd forgotten to unlock the stall door on the first attempt, and it rattled violently as she walked into it. She rubbed absently at her nose and forehead where it had collided with the structure in front of her. She fiddled with the latch, and when she finally did escape her toilet prison, she almost fell right back into it. There, huddled in one end of the bathroom, was a mob of dead people. There were ten or so that were still somewhat recognizable, and another two dozen that were thoroughly blackened. She thought she recognized the shuttle driver by his accusatory gaze. _This is new,_ she thought, _and quite uncomfortable_. She gave them a little wave. A man--one of the uncooked variety--who had an incredible bulge in his throat stepped forward and with a great amount of concentration, turned on the faucet.

"Liam?" she asked weakly, but the specters began to evaporate in front of her. She could still feel their presence there like mosquitoes buzzing in the distance but could no longer see their joyless faces. That was somewhat of a relief, but she knew they were there waiting to pounce when she least expected it. She washed her hands, wet her face, and then left at a brisk walk.

After a nerve-wracking hour of listening to Charles ramble on relentlessly about his quest to use every word in the English vocabulary at least twice in a conversation and watching small objects fall off the tables around her, Norma-Jeanne came to the moment of truth. Was the Nose Pad King truly royalty? Did Ireland count the digital domain as a sovereign one, or was it going by the old rules? Although the old rules were a bit fuzzy at times as well. Many a king had declared a divine right to rule a land or the poor only to be deposed and replaced with an entirely unrelated man who claimed the exact same thing. Is royalty merely the person who fills a vacuum of power? Is it a position to be gifted or bequeathed, or is it a mindset that insists ownership and that mindset is what makes it so? Norma-Jeanne was banking on the latter. The alternative would be that she and Rosebud would become a lot closer here on the Emerald Isle and that she would spend a lot more time playing the Pied Piper to a bunch of dead people. She had a brief mental image of herself skipping down the streets of Dublin, playing a flute and leading countless ghosts to the great beyond. She squeezed her eyes closed and willed the image away. The Nose Pad King had better be the real deal, or he was quite likely to become the latest member of her undead groupies.

She kept her eyes on the floor as she shuffled up the ramp toward the cabin of the plane, each minute step bringing her closer to the threshold. She found herself doing something she had neglected since her days as a little girl. She prayed. As the Nose Pad King stretched forth his potentially evil foot to cross into the airplane, she thought she might have heard a little pop, but that was most likely her overactive imagination at work. Or maybe gas. You really couldn't be sure with his royal nose pad highness. No one was smiling that secret smile reserved for unleashing a biological weapon in a crowd, however, so Norma-Jeanne decided to blame her imagination. _Either that, or it was the sound of a pen being knocked out of someone's hand. Or maybe something is wrong with the plane. Or . . ._ . She was pushed forward by the progress of the line before she could complete her paranoid spiral into full-blown panic.

She followed Charles onto the plane and took up her customary place in the row seat--or at least her half of it. The partially transparent flickers of phantoms played over the seats and passengers as they filed onto the plane and settled down as well. "Here there be ghosts" was written indelibly on her mental map, and she hoped and prayed that they would behave themselves. She knew better, though. It was going to be a long ride. If she survived that long.

Her luggage kept silent, and Norma-Jeanne followed her bodiless friend's example. Her imagination ran through various scenarios that all seemed to involve Rosebud hitting an invisible barrier that surrounded Ireland and ripping through her feet and out the rear of the disabled and soon-to-be flaming wreckage of the plane she left behind. The problem was in not knowing. No one had detailed what happened when a Dullahan was escorted from its homeland because as far as anyone knew it had never happened before.

She'd held out a hope that the "forces that be" would simply prevent them from ever getting onto the plane if Charles didn't turn out to be a true king. If she still tried to hold onto that theory, then they'd already succeeded. However, the half-full cup was only a fairy tale in her inner mind. It refused to believe in anything save for the worst possible outcomes for these types of things. In her eagerness not to think about it, she had to think about what not to think about, which left her with a mild headache as the plane taxied down the runway and lifted off the ground.

There were probably fifteen minutes of intense worry that gnawed on her for hours. Time passed as slowly as was cosmically possible before Norma-Jeanne could allow herself to breathe just a little easier and relax to the point that she wasn't gouging holes into her single armrest. They'd made it out over the Atlantic and had left the island behind. _Unless, of course the tectonic shelf that supports the outcropping counts as part of the island, in which case . . . stop it!_ She thought violently. _Nothing to be done for it now. Just relax and enjoy the company, such as it is._

Werepe

The battle raged from dusk until dawn and through dusk again--at least to the extent from which one could tell such things in a cavern cut off from such needless conventions as day or night. Blood and ichor ran ankle deep on the floor, and each side was exhausted beyond measure. It was Hell on, well, Hell. Oh, sure, it had all started off innocently enough. The crusaders had emerged into a fantastically large cavern filled from one end to the other with demons of every size, shape, and description. The demons were less interested in settling down to a nice cup of tea and a friendly round of canasta than they were in eating the faces off of all the invading humans, but that was to be expected. In a rush of flailing limbs and spikes, weapons and bursts of flame, both sides crashed into one another like opposing tsunamis. Despite the overwhelming numbers, the crusaders had begun to push through lines when the Lord of Darkness himself made an appearance.

Words were inadequate to describe the creature as it existed in at least five dimensions of ugly at the same time. It was as if a massive Korean fish market trundled up to the front lines and began slapping the hunters aside with giant slabs of tuna. The Demon Lord's body was armored with the solid carapace of the king crab, and at least half a dozen massive pincers curled out from the edge of the shell. Huge tentacles snaked out from the back to grasp and club anything that got too close. Black spines the size of a full-grown man littered its surface, dripping a thick tar-like substance with each motion as it pulsated forward on a great, undulating mass of sticky flesh. But all of that paled in comparison to its greatest weapon. Two giant sea cucumbers peaked over its shoulders like turrets and spat their innards across the cavern in thick gouts of foul-smelling liquid. It burned the flesh where it hit and those unfortunate enough to suffer the brunt of one of these attacks stuck fast to the surface and were reeled back toward the horde of waiting demons. Even those who were lucky enough to avoid coming in contact with the sticky masses ended up gagging and puking their guts up from the obscene smell of the stuff. Terror, disgust, and loathing followed the Demon Lord like a cloud of noxious vapors. It was second helpings on convenience store sushi. In short, it was the embodiment of evil, or at the very least, the epitome of revolting.

Even in spite the awesome power of their foe, king and his men had weakened the Demon Lord's army significantly, but it was far from broken. The last great clash ended with the Lord of Darkness unleashing a thunderclap from its great pincers that struck the ceiling which, as it turned out, was only about forty feet high. Well, most of it anyway. The rest was lying on the ground as an impassible mound of rubble. Fallen rocks and stalactites buried a number of the invaders and created an effective temporary barrier between the Demon Lord and his tormentors. It was a temporary ceasefire, and each of the humans felt an overwhelming relief for the break even as they pulled at the great stones that covered their companions. Those crusaders and soldiers who were buried under the massive boulders invariably found themselves saved by pockets of space between larger rock formations or soft earth or even the strength of a shield. The rescue lasted hours, but all were accounted for and resting comfortably by campfires when they weren't part of the teams of men took turns tunneling through the debris.

Werepe had gathered a small number of warriors and mages together around his fire. It was made up of Peaches99, GhettoBooty, Legolas413, Brettavius Maximus, and a handful of others that they'd fought with before. The one defining characteristic of those gathered were that they were hard-core loners who shunned working in groups. None of these seemed particularly fond of becoming BFFs with King Samiam, his knights, or anyone else for that matter. This made gathering them in one spot long enough to listen to a speech a chore unto itself, but they came for the punch and pie when it was offered. Everyone knew that there was no such thing as punch and pie in Hell, but they came anyway out of curiosity.

Werepe cleared his throat twice, each time tugging at his collar before he could bring out the first word. He cursed his God-given awkwardness and pressed on stoically.

"Uh, guys. This is gonna sound nuts, but hear me out before telling me to fuck off. I'm going to say a few words, and I want you to think about them. Disney. Cheetos. Mom. Home. iPod. Microwave." He stopped at this point to gauge his audience. Each face held some degree of confusion and shock. That, at least, was a good start.

"I'm pretty sure you all had the same reaction I did when I heard them. You start off with 'yeah' and then end up with 'what is that?' and 'why do I know that word?' None of those things exist in this place, but we all know what they are or at least recognize them. Quick," he said to Legolas413, "don't think about it first, just say what pops into your head. What do you do with a gun?"

"Shoot people," Legolas413 said, confused at his internal betrayal.

"How many of you thought the same thing?" All but one of those around the fire raised their hands. "What did you think of?" he asked pointing at the Genghis Kahn disciple who hadn't raised his hand.

"Nothing, I guess, my da always said . . ." he trailed off lost in his thoughts.

Werepe pressed forward, "What's your favorite TV show?" he asked Brettavius Maximus.

"Jersey Sho . . ." he began.

"Oh my God, that is the worst show," one of the others blurted out before realizing he had no idea of what he was talking about. There was a short moment of quiet before Werepe continued.

"We all came from a world with guns and TVs and microwaves and cars. We had to. But now we don't remember any of it."

"Maybe we died and came here," suggested a woman in emerald robes to his left.

"Maybe, but I don't think so. When we were 'rescuing' Samiam's soldiers, I saw one of them pull out a gun, and GhettoBooty did, too. So we had to be in contact with the world we came from, and that was after the descent."

"So, what are you saying?" asked a loud voice from a bearded Viking on the other side of the fire. His name was YorgTheMalignant. He was shushed by those around him. Werepe looked anxiously out into the darkness but did not see the king or his minions bearing down on them.

"What I'm saying is that I think we're being used. King Samiam conveniently shows up, and all of a sudden, we're on his quest. We're loners. We've kicked ass by ourselves, but we run and play team ball when he comes calling? Doesn't that seem a little weird to you?" Werepe looked around, having exhausted his ammunition. It didn't seem to have fully convinced anyone. He inwardly groaned and ground his teeth in frustration. Just as he was getting up to storm off into the darkness, a familiar voice spoke up.

"And what about that guy with the big head? What's up with that?" Peaches99 contributed.

"Yeah," said a spiky-haired ninja named Gaidenson, "he's kinda freaky."

"And where does he fit in? It's not like we needed him to lead us here. He just flashed that weird smile and started leading us like he owned the place," added someone else.

"He was like straight out of a romance novel," Ghettobooty added sheepishly.

"More like a horror novel if you ask me," another person said.

Everyone sat back down at the fire to voice their opinions about Stephen_McStudly. Most of them set GhettoBooty to pouting, but it seemed to be a galvanizing topic of conversation. As the comments died down, YorgTheMalignant voiced the question that was on everyone's mind.

"Okay," he began with a voice that no longer boomed with bravado, "so what the hell is going on?"

Werepe took over again. "I think we've been hijacked. I remember seeing a bunch of people packed into a small space, a box or something, right before I descended into Hell. Then, after I hit my head, I saw the gun, and then I saw Roland without his mustache. When I got down here, I saw flashes of things from a different world. Something's not right, and I bet it's got a lot to do with the king over there."

"Where does that get us?" a gladiator in red leather asked.

"I'm not sure, but one thing I do know is that I don't trust Samiam, and I'm pretty sure us going through that portal to Heaven is a bad idea."

"That doesn't leave us a whole lot. What do you think we should do?" asked YorgTheMalignant.

"We do what comes natural. We kick his ass."

"Right," Brettavius Maximus said. "The fifteen of us taking on the king and everybody else. I think we know whose ass is getting kicked."

"So it's better to just follow along and cower in the shadows because you might get beat? We can just be good little boys and girls and do what we're told. That way we won't get into trouble. Well, fine. If you don't have the nads to give the king the finger and tell him that he's an asswipe for trying to mess with us, then take off. Just go!" Werepe shouted, realizing that he'd believed his speech a little too much. He looked around to make sure he hadn't attracted too much attention. When he focused back on the group, no one had left.

"Okay. How do we win?" Gaidenson asked.

Werepe looked around in confusion. "Why are you all looking at me?"

"Well, you're the leader, right?"

"I just...." Werepe sputtered.

"He's the leader," Peaches99 said confidently. "And he has a plan." She glanced at Werepe and winked. "We don't have to beat them all or win the fight. We just have to close the gate before the king gets there."

"But the Demon Lord is the one keeping it open." YorgTheMalignant pointed out.

"And when he dies, it'll start to close. That's when we need to strike. If we can hold them off long enough, the king loses," Peaches99 said with a flourish.

"What if something goes wrong?" Brettavius Maximus asked.

"That's what we have a leader for." Peaches99 shot Werepe a sly grin. He suddenly wished he'd decided to cower in the shadows.

Norma-Jeanne

Nearly two hours into the flight, a snooty-looking man in a tweed coat complete with suede elbow pads edged his way past Norma-Jeanne when her carry-on shouted "Nigel!" at him.

The man turned and looked at her accusingly. "Excuse me," he said with a nasally whine, "do I know you?"

"No sir, I was just talking to my friend here about someone I work with back in Greensboro. Is that your name too?"

"Luckily for me, it is," he said as he turned to continue on his trek.

"Um, where are you going?" she asked.

"If you must know, I'm going to use the lavatory."

"Can't you hold it?"

He looked at her with undisguised scorn dripping off of his expression. "No. Now if you'll excuse me."

"Okay, but just don't flush," she persisted.

"Why ever not?" he asked with an exasperated sigh.

"Well, there could be explosive decompression, and you could get sucked out of the plane."

He gave her one last glance before pressing on and locking himself in the john.

"You know, the toilets on these planes are a closed system," Charles said consolingly. "It'll be fine."

Three minutes later, the plane jerked as if hit by turbulence, and the lavatory door seemed to buckle inward and then hold fast. There was some momentary concern from the flight crew before the captain's voice came over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to have run into a little turbulence up here. Nothing to worry about. We will be reducing our altitude to try to avoid some of the bumpier stuff. Please remain calm, and enjoy the rest of your flight." A stewardess came out and hung an "Out of Order" sign on the bathroom door. The Nose Pad King was oddly silent.

Most of the passengers were oblivious to what had happened and were only mildly annoyed that they were down to only one restroom on the flight. The ones closest to the bathroom found excuses to move towards the rear of the plane and occupy empty seats and hallway spaces in staunch defiance of any friendly suggestions to the contrary from fellow passengers and flight attendants. News of the danger spread throughout the cabin, touching everyone except for Norma-Jeanne. She was well aware of what had happened but had a more immediate issue on her hands. She could clearly see the bent, soggy, and very unhappy specter of Nigel giving her the most unfriendly glare she'd ever seen.

"What?" she asked. "It's not like I didn't warn you." The ghost did not seem to appreciate her candor.

"What did you say?" Charles asked.

"Nothing," she replied, glaring back out into the aisle in a supernatural stare down.

Norma-Jeanne

Nobody followed the captain's orders to enjoy the remainder of their flight to the Piedmont Triad International Airport. In fact, they did quite the opposite. The news that all that held the plane aloft and kept them from plunging to a watery death was a flimsy bathroom door and its "Out of Order" sign had spread to every passenger on board. All eyes were glued to that tiny little door that would shake every so often with a change in pressure. The flimsy metal door seemed to delight in the occasional inward buckle and bow just to remind the passengers of the tenuous nature of their continued existence. It also did not escape their attention for long that one of their own--a man named Nigel--failed to return from the very same bathroom that now threatened them like a schoolyard bully.

Pavlov would have been proud of the passengers of Flight 9122. They perceived a negative outcome and avoided repeating that mistake above all else. Passengers brave enough to use the remaining restroom refused to flush--the crew wasn't getting paid enough to flush for them either--and those not brave enough simply soiled themselves where they sat. The smell of urine and feces started off as an unpleasant inconvenience but soon became overpowering despite the best efforts of the plane's air recycling system to filter out the smell.

Norma-Jeanne stoically refused to add to the disaster and held her water like a camel in the desert. Of course, planning ahead and intentionally dehydrating herself beforehand to reduce the urges helped a little. As for her companion, she really wouldn't have been able to tell much of a difference if the Nose Pad King soiled himself or not. Gaseous fumes seemed to escape from him regardless.

To make matters worse, the ghosts that followed Norma-Jeanne and Rosebud around were like bored little children. They'd grown ever more visible when she wasn't actively looking at them, and while many were relatively sedate--sitting in the aisles and laps of other passengers--there were a few that were born troublemakers. For the entirety of the journey, the bus driver and the ghost of Nigel sat an arm's length away and stared at her accusingly. _Like I had anything to do with your deaths. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen, and now it's my fault?_ Her thought logic didn't seem to have any impact on them whatsoever. Apparently spirits were ESP deficient. Of course, they ignored everything she said out loud also, a trick the living passengers in the adjacent seats wished they could have perfected.

The other spirits were not quite so benign in their self-entertainment. Liam and a number of the older ghosts were up to their old tricks and were all practicing flicking earrings, knocking over cups, making the oxygen masks drop down, tapping foul words in Morse code, untying laces, and just making juvenile asses out of themselves.

After suffering this nonsense for what seemed like an eternity, Norma-Jeanne heard her name yelled out in a muffled voice from between her feet. The voice kept yelling out name after name, and she looked around wildly, finally catching sight of one of the mischievous spirits tapping on the bathroom door. It shuddered with each poke, and the spirit was ramping up for a big shove.

"Stop right there, mister!" Norma-Jeanne shouted, drawing even more attention than the disembodied voice had. The spirit, a pudgy man with a smashed in face that made him look like an English bulldog, cocked his head and stuck out his tongue, turning back to the door and preparing for the grand finale. "I'm warning you." The dog-faced ghost gave her a "and what are you going to do about it" look. Norma-Jeanne blacked out.

There was a cracking sound that echoed in the fuselage of Aer Lingus Flight 9122. It was as if a tree, dead and hardened by years of icy winter, had been rent in half. It was a terrifying sound that only those in touch with the Otherside could hear, but it drew the spirits in, one by one until they surrounded the figure of a short, ample woman who was doing The Monkey in the aisle between seats eighteen and twenty-five. She was cutting a rug with gusto, ignoring all the astounded, confused and even a few appreciative stares of the fellow passengers, both alive and dead. There was a small black tear in the fabric of reality behind her head and through that, a single ghostly hand extended out and into her skull. The spirits were drawn in closer and stared longingly at the rip. The living passengers were drawn to the spectacle of someone making a complete fool of herself during the flight from Hell. Norma-Jeanne was drawn back into reality with the sounds of a muffled voice saying, "not Norma-Jeanne, not Charles, not . . ." somewhere off in the distance.

Not a single passenger or member of the flight crew spoke of the events of Flight 9122 after that day--not to the reporters, to their family, or to their friends. There were a handful of therapists that heard the entire story, but that was protected by HIPAA, and the therapists found it impossible to believe anyway. The stories were clearly the product of severe emotional distress. The only thing that outsiders could determine for sure was that a man--Nigel Godfrey of Salem, Massachusetts--had died as a result of explosive decompression of the forward lavatory and that the bravery and skill of the crew had kept them in the air and alive far longer than was humanly possible. The captain and the flight crew were given commendations, administrative leave, and placed under a gag order. The passengers were all given a free upgrade to first class on their next flight with Aer Lingus--provided that they used it within the next two months. Oddly enough, there were very few takers on that fine offer.

Norma-Jeanne had come through better than most since she'd become accustomed to the expectations of what life was like when frolicking with the supernatural. Certainly, she was a victim of fear and emotional stress as much as anyone else, but having an early warning system for death gave her a sense of calm and invulnerability that was very soothing to her soul. Even so, she was extraordinarily glad to be back in the States and on terra-firma and safely inside a structure that was not threatening to plunge into the ocean like a fiery asteroid.

Ever since touchdown--through the moments of prayer, emergency exiting, debriefing, and being fast-tracked through the terminal--Norma-Jeanne had been mentally rehearsing her lines to let Charles down easy. She'd considered and discarded some of the more common excuses like she had to wash her hair, she was gay, and her ex-boyfriend had her GPS chipped so he could stalk her incessantly. Instead, she had planned to tell him that he was an interesting guy and that she didn't know what she would have done without him, but that relationships built on surviving disasters never lasted. She would then have suggested that they take some time apart to process things and then take it from there. As the moment of truth approached, she took a deep breath and then turned to him.

"You know, Norma-Jeanne," he began, causing her to close her mouth with two cheeks full of air, "I don't think we should see each other anymore. You're just too weird." The Nose Pad King set down the bag containing Rosebud and waddled off down the terminal. A bevy of emotions washed over Norma-Jeanne as she let the breath she'd been holding out in and angry huff. _Now wait just a damn minute,_ she thought. _I've just been dumped by Shamu's ugly cousin, a man who proudly calls himself the Nose Pad King for Christ's sake, and I'm weird?_ Full of righteous indignation and more than a little depression, she headed toward the exit.

"I'm not weird," she said to her severed fairy head. "Am I, Rosebud?"

John

"We stopped for lunch and apparently to get our bearings. I must say that I enjoy the food up here much more than I did in the swamp lands. I mean, the grubs and roots were okay, but even they had a greasy, fried taste to them. Things seem much more fresh and crunchy in this colder climate.

"The Sasquatch are out sniffing the air and knocking on trees. Now that I have had time to observe them more thoroughly, they seem to be knocking for some purpose other than simply making noise or signaling others. It's like they're testing the trees for sound. A Sasquatch will knock, listen, and then knock again before moving to another tree. In a group, you can see them all spread out in a circle and knock, and then slowly, they all seem to come to the same tree and start knocking on it madly. In truth, looking back, my tribe had been doing this sort of thing all along. They were more quiet and subtle, but the dance was the same.

"Since I've become aware of this, I've watched at every opportunity and have come to a rather astounding conclusion. I have no idea what the hell they're doing. Maybe the trees are telling them something about the land, or maybe they just enjoy giving squirrels concussions. Whatever it is, they do seem exceedingly happy about it. It looks like we're gathering to leave. This is all very exciting."

Norma-Jeanne

A yellow sedan decorated conveniently like a taxicab was parked right outside the terminal, and a Hispanic man in his mid-forties got out and waved Norma-Jeanne over. He had a bristly mustache that made him look a bit like Mario from the Nintendo games.

"You need a taxi?" he asked.

"Actually, yes," she responded. The driver walked around the back, popped the trunk open, and began to load her luggage in the car. Her carry-on bag shouted out "Manuel, Norma-Jeanne." The cabbie turned at this and raised his eyebrows.

"Are you Manuel?" Norma-Jeanne asked.

"Si," he replied tentatively. Norma-Jeanne nodded, walked around to the driver's side, turned off the ignition, and removed the keys. She then hurled them as far as she could into the shrubbery on the other side of the drive-through lanes at the arrival gates. Manuel shouted profanities at her first in English, then in Spanish, and finally in Spanglish as he went to chase his keys down. She removed her luggage from the trunk.

"Not Manuel, not Norma-Jeanne," Rosebud said. She thought she could detect a bit of amusement in that voice.

"There is no way I'm going to have another one of these damn ghosts following me around everywhere," she told her luggage. Then she yelled "taxi" and got into the next one in line. The driver, who put his keys firmly in his pocket before getting out of his vehicle, assisted Norma-Jeanne with her bags and sped off as Manuel and his profanities returned.

As the cab merged into the familiar North Carolina traffic, Norma-Jeanne reviewed her options. Option number one was to call her producer and check in. This held some very desirable results including retaining her employment and getting her car back. The downside was that this would take time away from option number two. According to Rosebud--whose presence the cab driver politely ignored with the promise of a twenty dollar handshake--her body was somewhere to the north. It was much closer than it had been before the plane ride but still a ways off. There was no guarantee how long Norma-Jeanne could hold out from becoming the next Grim Reaper as each blackout seemed to bring her closer and closer to the other side. Option number three involved getting a shower, a good meal, and then a second shower.

It seemed that being trapped in a relatively small space with exposed human waste permeated a person with its unique flavor. Every once in a while, she'd get a whiff of fresh air followed up by a whiff of herself. The cab driver had politely put down all the windows and at stop lights would put his head out of the door like a Labrador. Norma-Jeanne appreciated his professionalism. She also appreciated his willingness to change destinations when she decided to switch from option number one to option number three and asked to go to her apartment. Afterwards, she intended to exercise option number two by renting a car and driving as fast as she could to get out of town, reporting in from her cell and delivering some excuse about an international illness all the while giving vague promises of exercising option number one.

This plan was all very easy to justify when it was broken down. Norma-Jeanne had accepted the plane tickets and the salary and had done so expressly to avoid having to strip or prostitute herself in order to afford a place where she could store her things and get a hot shower when she smelled like a city sewer. Mysteries of the Paranormal had faithfully paid for everything all up front and had only asked for some results in return. The only problem was she didn't have any yet. She would only get the story of a lifetime after she reunited Rosebud with her body. To stop by the office would merely delay the entire thing and possibly cost her humanity in the process. So, in her mind, she would be doing them a favor if she avoided them like the plague for a while.

It was halfway through her second shower that she heard the knock at her door. She ignored it to the best of her ability, but the knocker was excessively persistent. After the fourth round of abuse, she resigned herself to only smelling like a small town sewer and threw on a robe. Still dripping, she made her way to the front door and peered through the peephole just as a giant fist slammed down over it for round five. In between the blows, Norma-Jeanne could make out the culprit. _Shit,_ she thought. It was her boss, Paul Gruber.

Norma-Jeanne panicked for a moment, flapping her hands as if she was either drying them off or about to take to the air. She gathered her wits enough to rush at Rosebud, scoop her up like a football and deposit her in a nearby linen closet before shouting, "Just a second!" The knocking stopped abruptly.

She gave herself another moment to remember that she was supposed to breathe, did so, and then went to the door.

"Paul, what a surprise to find you attacking my door." She paused long enough to give him a shy smile. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did. It was getting so uppity lately."

"Norm, my dear, how I missed your wit," he said as he meandered into the apartment. "I got word that you had changed your ticket and were coming back a little early, and I had to come right over."

"I know you're expecting a big story, and I've got one for you. I just haven't had a chance to put it all together yet."

"Oh really? What on?"

"Um," she stammered, mentally kicking herself for even bringing it up, "Irish ghosts?"

"Do you mean that you've got proof of a ghost? Show it to me."

"I need to clean it up . . . ."

"Nonsense, let's see what it is."

"Well, I don't exactly have anything on film."

"Audio?"

"Not exactly."

Gruber scrunched his brows together. "Well, what do you have?"

"I, uh, brought one back with me," Norma-Jeanne said with feigned confidence.

"You have a ghost. Here?"

"Yeah," she squeaked. She could see Liam poised to knock over a coffee mug out of the corner of her eye. "He's right over there. Go ahead, uh, Li, uh, ghost. Show my boss what you can do." She waited, catching sight of her spirit companion flipping her the bird and then leaning back against the fridge. "He must be bashful around new people," she finished lamely.

"Yeah. Must be." Gruber began to back toward the doorway, securing his exit route. "We'll work on that later. I came to tell you that there was still no word on John." Norma-Jeanne mentally whipped herself with guilt for not having thought of him for so long, "But there has been a huge increase in Bigfeet sightings since you left. Witnesses have said that they've seen large numbers of them moving very quickly, always heading north. There are a few reports of people saying their stores had been vandalized by Bigfeet also, but it doesn't really make any sense. Two of them were beauty parlors, and a third was a dentist office. What would Bigfeet need with conditioner and toothpaste? Anyway, they found large clumps of moldy hair on the floor in one of them, but the DNA was apparently corrupted by the mold, the cleaner, or an incredibly strong perm solution. Those are probably not related at all, but I sent a couple of the interns down there to collect statements." It took Norma-Jeanne a while to process all of this. In the meantime, Gruber continued.

"So, when you got back early, I knew I had to get you out in front of all of this. I want you to go to Springfield, Connecticut, and try to head them off. If they continue on their current path, they should be passing there tonight."

"Head them off?"

"Yes, Norma-Jeanne, you have the opportunity of a lifetime. You can be the first one to get a picture of a real Bigfoot. You can redeem yourself."

"Why me?" she asked before realizing she already knew the answer. "Never mind. You already sent everyone else down south to interview the eyewitnesses before you realized the sightings might actually be true. And now, there is no one left to actually chase them."

"Norm, honey, you've got it all wrong. I want my best person on point here."

"Of course. Well, I need to get a van," she said resignedly.

"Sorry, none left. That's why I brought you your car."

"You brought my car. Here? How did you get the keys?"

"Do you remember when we took everybody's keys during last year's Christmas party?"

"Yeah," she said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Well, we had copies made." He looked only mildly ashamed. "It's a perk! It was just in case someone lost their keys, or locked them in the car, or . . . ."

"Died and you needed to take the car to a chop shop," she finished.

"Norm, baby. You're always so negative. Look, you need to get going ASAP. Those Bigfeet aren't going to film themselves."

"Bigfoot," she said as she took the keys and shoved him out the door.

"The file is in your front seat," Gruber yelled from behind the door. He strolled off whistling the tune of a familiar Spanglish song that Norma-Jeanne recognized and loathed immediately.

_01000111 01101111 01100100 is the sum of all things in the universe . . ._ .

Norma-Jeanne

"Norm, what is a Bigfeet?" Rosebud asked from the seat beside her.

"You never heard of it?"

"I canna say that I have, but yer friend back there seemed awful excited about it."

"Bigfoot is basically a really big ape."

"Seems that I mighta' seen one of those at a zoo back home."

"Not one of those apes. It is a species of ape that has never been catalogued. It might even be an early human. No one really knows for sure."

"Then why all the fuss?"

"Bigfoot is the Holy Grail for people in my line of work. Well, actually it's a toss-up between Bigfoot, aliens, and the Loch Ness Monster, but the reasons are all the same." Norma-Jeanne looked out the window as they passed some rather picturesque farmland. It was spoiled by the presence of cows, and she scowled before continuing. "Every year, from one end of the country to the other, hundreds of people see Bigfoot. Most of them are crackpots, but every once in a while, you get a sane one who has no reason to lie. When someone like that sees a big hairy man traipsing through his backyard, it gives hope that there is something more out there than just flipping burgers or balancing the books.

"The only problem is that no one takes anything on faith anymore. A hundred years ago, someone sees a Bigfoot, and then the whole town is out in the woods searching for it. Now, it's 'did you get a picture of it?' and if the answer is 'no,' then it's 'you're one of those crazies.'

"My entire job revolves around those crazies. The people who watch our show believe in the supernatural. They believe there is more out there but don't want to be ridiculed by the know-it-alls who demand scientific proof. So they watch and wait for vindication."

"So, yer producer wants to brin' people a sense of bein' right?"

"No. He wants to bring in the money from people who want to be proven right. He believes in dollars."

"Oh," Rosebud said in contemplation. "What would ye get out of it?"

Norma-Jeanne mulled this over as she weaved her way through traffic. "I suppose I'd get some fame and a little fortune, but I think mainly I'd get to validate my life. I was weird because I was a girl in the AV club. I was weird because I was a girl who wanted to run around in the middle of a jungle or the plains of Africa just to film something no one else ever had. I'm weird now because I go chasing after all the fairy tales that go bump in the night. I guess I'd get to shove it all in their faces that I was right, and they weren't."

"Very noble of you."

"I'm a humanitarian at heart. Since we're on the subject of revealing our innermost secrets to each other, I've got a question."

"Fair enough. Fire away."

"How do you know when someone is going to die? I mean, several times you've called my name but then changed your mind. Isn't there some kind of rule that states 'when it's your time to go, it's your time to go'?" The trees streamed by at seventy-five miles per hour outside the car. She thought about what she'd just said and frowned. She had, in fact, cheated death at least three times in the last week. That seemed a bit excessive since she'd managed to avoid it completely for the first twenty-six years. Although she could have avoided death frequently and just didn't know it. Without someone to help her keep a scoreboard, how would she even know?

Norma-Jeanne glanced down at the ghostly head that was nestled amongst a small stack of carefully placed rolled up socks inside an open suitcase. She had wanted the company during the long trip but also realized the reactions she might get if, say, a cop pulled her over for speeding. All she would have to do is subtly drop the top on the suitcase--and loose the top button of her blouse--and voila! Problem solved.

"I'm not sure I can truly describe how I do it. 'Tis just the way that I am. 'Tis like there are faint lines stickin' out from everythin'. I can see them all heading off into the distance. They branch and cross other lines, but every once in a while, they just stop. I can see images at the end of the lines, like a picture of their end. Those are the ones that I know are goin' to die."

"But I've been able to change that. Does that mean that it isn't preordained when we're going to go?"

"Ye changed that with prior knowledge of what's goin' to happen. It seems that if ye do somethin' the universe doesn't expect ye to do, ye can surprise it once in a while."

"So, you see things as just possibilities, then?"

"Probabilities. I was pretty accurate before ye came along."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad you're having an off-week."

"Me, too."

"Hey, Rosebud?"

"Yeah?"

"You've called my name at least three times since we met. Is death chasing me?" Norma-Jeanne was actually quite nervous about the answer and the pause that followed didn't help much.

"Ye're alive. Death chases everythin' alive."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. What will happen if it comes calling, and you're not around to warn me?"

"I canna say. Ye, me, and the universe are all pretty much fecked right now. We're just lettin' on and hopin' to get jammy."

"Jammy. You took the word right out of my mouth."

Johnny and Raul

"This is the place, bro," Johnny said as he met Raul halfway between the two RVs. "This is where the Devil himself once tread. It's a perfect place to launch our war from."

"A dump? Wow, now we're living." Raul wiped the sweat from his brow and shook his head to clear it. They had been multitasking driving the RVs, running around Hell, and helping the Army motor pool stay on the road for the last few hours, and he could feel more than just his eyes crossing at the effort. Johnny looked fresh as a daisy. _Bastard._

"You have to look past the piles of rotting food and just to the left of the recycle bins."

"You mean the Porta-John?"

"I was speaking metaphorically. Amongst all the garbage, between all the bins and waste lies a nexus for spiritual power. This is Devil's Foot Road."

"Devil's Foot Road, huh? Is it some kind of tourist trap?"

"You never were big on the research, man. There are more stories about this place than you think, and it goes back a long, long way. Best I can figure, Satan himself broke out of Hell and popped up right here. The legends say there were three footsteps left by His Unholiness, and his path started here. That means, my amigo, that he leapt out of Hell here and landed up there on Devil's Foot Rock."

"Seems sketchy if you ask me. I mean, what do a bunch of old stories prove? This could just be dullest place in the world. I mean, why would they have centered their tourism on trash? I bet these people had to make up those stories just to keep from going bat-shit loco from boredom."

"You're such a cynic. Doesn't matter much anyway. I think between our headless friend and time of year we'll be just fine. This place is just frosting on the cake."

"You got strange taste in cake, amigo. Heard from the boss man yet?"

"No. Haven't heard a peep for two days. That's not encouraging."

"You think the feds got him?"

"If they did, that means that Gabe gave us up, and we should be expecting company soon."

"Well, I guess it's time to get started then."

"You bet. Looks like everyone went home already. The place is all ours."

"The world is our oyster shell."

"Shut up."

They parked the RV's tight to the large central building, putting the line of dumpsters between them and the road. This would hopefully help to hide the massive vehicles from any casual passers-by. The armored personnel carriers (APC) followed them in and fit nicely amongst the large recycle bins that dominated the edges of the yard. The next hour was spent daisy-chaining USB hubs to each of the APCs and hooking up all of their iPhones for a final charge. Everything was on schedule and ramping up to the grand finale when Johnny noticed that they'd been infiltrated. Half of the USB hubs had disappeared.

Careful searching revealed a hole in the fence toward the rear of the complex where the rotting compost heaps towered over everything. There were signs of recent passage there, and a few glimpses of the enemy revealed what they were up against. A small strike force of elite transients had snuck in and was actively looting the recycle bins of everything they could grab. It was startling how efficient they were. They'd made off with the rest of the USB hubs and three APC tires before the troops could be organized to catch them. Every attempt at capture had failed until Raul agreed to sacrifice his lobster roll and root beer float as bait. Every foe had a weakness.

They put the comatose bums in the cardboard recycling bin and then immediately deployed the troops to guard the perimeter. They'd lost precious recharging time for the iPhones, but they should last until midnight. Besides, this was the endgame, and the integrity of the ritual site was paramount.

Werepe

Werepe was having a particularly fitful rest. He'd apparently chosen the wrong group to crash with since all he could smell was the foul odor of rotten eggs and decomposition. _Somebody in this cave has a serious chemical imbalance,_ he thought. He opened his eyes, and they turned inward on themselves for a moment before straightening back out. Spontaneous eye-crossing had happened before when he was overly tired, so it wasn't particularly worrisome. What was worrisome, however, was what he caught on the outskirts of his vision while his eyes were self-correcting. He wasn't in the cave anymore. He wasn't sure exactly where he was, but it was far too symmetrical and boxy. He focused on crossing his eyes again and found that he could just make out details in the periphery of his vision. Most of what he could see was just impressions, but it was enough to suggest that he was surrounded by close walls and a low ceiling. The world in the edges also seemed fairly jam packed with mutants. Some of them had giant heads or antennae while others sagged nearby with loose folds of skin. It was dim enough that he couldn't make out details--especially since the world of Hell filled his forward vision--but there were monsters in the edges.

He tensed, thinking the demons had crept up on them during the lull, and turned his sight slowly, ever so cautiously, toward them. He wanted to be as quiet as possible so he didn't startle them into attack until he was ready. As the world of Hell swung around, the monsters resolved into fighting men and women, crusaders with whom he had shared battles and celebrations. He cursed inwardly at how easily they'd been infiltrated by the Demon Lord's minions. He moved the world of Hell back to where he'd started, noting that everyone around him moved from fiend to friend and back again as his sight travelled over them. _Am I the only real man here? Maybe it's always been just me?_ Memories of the conversations he'd had with Peaches99 and GhettoBooty drifted back to him, and he dismissed the possibility that they weren't human. He scanned the duality of worlds until he found one of his friends.

_It can't be,_ he thought as he wavered back and forth on the edge of his perception. Peaches99 changed from a bulbous mound to her perfect self and back again. It hurt him to think of her as a ploy, a mere trick of light to distract him from his ultimate goal. The sense of betrayal and loss made him yearn to embrace his crusader role fully. He would kill the Demon Lord and every last one of his traitorous minions if he had to. It was his destiny.

That wasn't right either. That was way too easy and neat to be the answer. There were still so many questions without answers. If Peaches99 and every other crusader here was a demon in disguise, how had they recognized things from the before time? Why did they help him get this far when they could have simply killed him a hundred times over? Why would they use such a ridiculous disguise like Stephen_McStudly? Werepe's brains hurt as the pieces to the puzzle drifted further apart. He needed time to figure things out. The answer had to be there. It just had to be.

Gabriel

Master Sergeant Gabriel Josephson looked happy and oddly contented as he reported for work at McGuire Air Force Base's missile control center on All Hallow's Eve. He had been stationed here for the last two years and had taken leave to deal with a lengthy "family illness" in Nevada several months ago. As a long-term assignment to this post, he was afforded the luxury of familiar greetings, handshakes, and promises of beer at the local bar on the following Saturday. Despite this, everyone at the checkpoint knew that procedures were military gospel, and he was patted down and forced to empty his pockets of all items that could conceivably be used to sabotage or remove critical data from any of the delicate systems of the control room. Of course, it was all routine, and Gabe took it with the good humor and acceptance of a man who was well practiced at this dance.

He strolled toward the heart of the complex and decided to make a pit stop at the restroom before continuing. He emerged stiff-legged and sporting a grimace of pain as he moved one foot in front of the other. All in all, he was five minutes late to his post, but no one paid any attention. The two officers he was replacing were both grinning like idiots as they talked about their children's costumes and the night of trick or treating with them that lay ahead.

It was, of course, those without families of their own who had drawn the short straw to work Halloween. In the past, Gabe would have groused about this even though he had no better offers, but tonight he just gave a little nod to his partner for the evening. Technical Sergeant Blake grunted in acknowledgement, not even looking up from his textbook about military strategies.

Blake was studying about the use of terrain in setting up strategic choke points and ambushes when something long and white flashed down past his eyes and wrapped firmly about his neck. He made some rather inarticulate gurgling noises before he was rolled out of his chair and pinned to the floor face-down. The last thing he ever saw was a discarded Ziploc baggy with a curious brown tint to it.

Gabe rose from the prone body of his team member and went to the locked the door of the control room. He punched in the code for emergency lockdown and then further secured the handle of the door to a nearby table with his nylon garrote that he'd smuggled into the facility. The hurried footsteps of security were already pounding down the hallway outside, but it would take them several precious minutes to unlock the door and then finally open it. In the meantime, Gabe--no longer holding the rank of Master Sergeant after tonight--pulled out a mini Bluetooth connector. It was the smallest he could find, with blessedly rounded edges, and he promptly plugged into a port on one of the subsystems. He authorized the wireless connection with his passcode and went to work. Moving through the menu within the OS of his implant, he was able to trigger a series of software exploits that had the military grade system begging for mercy in less than sixty seconds. System overrides were hacked, launch codes were entered, and buttons were pushed to allow the impossible. Ninety minutes before midnight--and approximately twenty seconds before security had been able to cut the rope and open the door--four cruise missiles were launched from the deck of a ship at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and sent streaking over Chesapeake Bay. Three of these were intercepted by Patriot defense systems before they could reach their target in Washington, D.C. The fourth one took a slight detour from the others and obliterated the Internal Revenue Service Internal Security building in downtown Baltimore. Public outcry was minimal, compared to the celebrations, but the U.S. government was most displeased.

Gabe was calmly flipping through some of his favorite video clips as the MPs leveled their pistols at him. He raised his hands in surrender. He was amped to have actually fired the missiles, and he would treasure that for the rest of his life. Of course, the technical diversion that Reverend Garp had promised him had failed miserably. Couple this with a good bit of animosity toward the reverend he had developed over the last few months, and he was more than ready to spill everything. Maybe he could even claim to have been brainwashed by the reverend and his wonder boy. It would be fun watching them swing. In spite of how hard they had tried to hide it, he knew precisely where they were holding their little party, and there was still plenty of time for the authorities to get there. He opened his mouth to spill the beans, fingering the true masterminds of the plot, when something odd happened. He was forcibly ejected from his own body.

He stared at the shadowy room around him and the blocky, pseudo reality that stared back. There were hazy colors in all hues that stood out from the MPs like they were wearing fuzzy suits. Blues and purples were the dominant shade, but there was one yellow and, in a disturbing turn of events, one very solid looking pissed off Technical Sergeant Blake. A movement caught his attention, and he saw his own body, devoid of light save for a tiny blue thread, topple forward off the chair. Apparently, this was seen as a threat by one of the MPs, and it was promptly shot through the top of its skull. The tiny blue thread burst into a shower of particles and dispersed into the air, leaving the wide-eyed and dumbfounded ghost of Gabriel Josephson stranded.

Without anything else to go on and no one left to question, every federal resource in New England was brought in to find and stop the terrorists responsible for this affront. The investigation began at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and eventually headed out west toward Nevada, leaving the hostile takeover of the transfer station on Devil's Foot Road in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and the abduction of an entire military outpost lost in the ensuing chaos.

Norma-Jeanne

The sun dipped below the trees as Norma-Jeanne veered onto HWY 84, ignoring her scheduled stop at the Springfield Best Western in favor of following the trail to Rosebud's body. They did, however, make unscheduled stops at a restroom in Newark, a gas station in Edison, and a tree near Waterbury after thirty-one miles of waiting for a rest stop offered nothing but a "closed for maintenance" sign. Missing the hotel check-in time meant that her employers would be getting a call letting them know that their employee was AWOL and they wasted the hotel fee for nothing. In a normal business, she would be able to count on them finding out after coffee the next morning, but Mysteries administration kept some fairly unusual hours. There was almost always someone on call to disavow any knowledge of a wayward investigator who got in over their head. Norma-Jeanne turned off her cell phone in anticipation of the coming storm.

Rosebud was getting some strong vibes from her body and urged Norma-Jeanne to drive faster as they continued northward. She hadn't been rude when she'd been shut in the stuffy suitcase as Norma-Jeanne raced off into the trees for a bathroom break, but she didn't help things along either. Having a disembodied head cheering her on from the car was awkward to say the least. _Next time, I'm rolling up the windows_. But Norma-Jeanne could understand the enthusiasm. Rosebud was closing in on the finish line. She hadn't been this animated and excited in all the time that the two of them had been together, and it was touching to see despite the macabre circumstances.

They added another five miles per hour to the speedometer but couldn't really let it fly. It was Halloween, after all, and the cops would be out in force looking to make a few extra bucks. The next hour was spent in silent anxiety before Rosebud shouted, "Alfred!" Norma-Jeanne swerved and then regained control with both hands. She glared at Rosebud who had the decency to look a little sheepish.

"Sorry," she said.

"What was that all about?" Norma-Jeanne asked. A single light swerved from the rearview to the side view mirror as a weekend Hell's Angel decided he'd had enough of this lady and her tree-hugging Prius. The blat, blat, blat, of the environmentally unfriendly exhaust propelled him forward. He gave Norma-Jeanne the "you're number one" sign before he disappeared into the darkness ahead.

"Let me guess. Alfred?"

"Yeah. I'm afraid so."

"What did you see?"

"He's doin' close to ninety now. His infernal machine will stop before he does." They left it at that and continued on.

Garp

The Town Car had travelled thirty yards off of the main highway before coming to a stop against the opposite bank of a shallow ditch. The front wheels were still spinning with the momentum as Reverend Garp released himself from the seatbelt and staggered out onto the grass. It was dark, but he could see a row of headlights up the embankment that were stationary, with the dark silhouettes of people occasionally passing in front of them. He hiked up, slipping on the wide ruts that were cut into the grass from his attempt to stop his vehicle, before making it to the pavement. He looked down at the red taillights of his Lincoln and frowned. He would definitely need a tow to get out of there.

He felt a gentle hand grasp his forearm and looked into the eyes of a middle-aged man in greasy coveralls and a ball cap.

"Are you all right?" the man asked.

"Yeah, fine. My car's going to need a little help getting out of there, but I slowed it down a lot before it hit," Garp replied absently.

"It's your lucky day, then. I was just heading back to town," he said pointing at a large tow truck. It was one of those with enough wheels and enough power to bring the big rigs in. "Too bad I can't say the same for that guy."

Garp looked at the group of people who had gathered around a lump of garbage on the road. Most of them were on their phones, at least the ones that weren't running toward the side of the road to puke their guts up. Garp, with the tow truck driver still in tow, walked closer until he realized the garbage had legs and at least most of an arm. He felt ill.

"Any idea what happened?" the man in the trucker hat asked.

"I remember some guy on a motorcycle flying up and then swerving right in front of me to get around someone in the left lane. Then there was a bang, and the steering wheel jerked out of my hands."

"Watch for motorcycles, they say. Hell, if the guys on motorcycles watched for themselves more often, then this shit wouldn't happen. C'mon," the man said, putting an arm around Reverend Garp's shoulders and steering him back toward the truck. "You look like you could use some coffee." Garp followed him without question as the wail of sirens and flash of blue and red lights approached from the horizon.

Norma-Jeanne

A cluster of emergency vehicles winked and blinked in a myriad of reds, blues, and whites from within a hundred yards of coned off pavement. Traffic had ground down to a crawl, and at least half an hour had passed since the exodus of Alfred and his Hog when Norma-Jeanne and Rosebud got close enough to properly rubber neck. It looked like a horizontal comet had struck and left a motorcycle sized shell with a chewy, nougatty center behind. There were cop cars, an ambulance, and a tow truck hauling a large, black luxury car out of the ditch. There was also one very gnarly-looking ghost.

He was waiting for them, in all of his spiritual glory, on the side of the road with what was left of his thumb pointing north. He stuck out his tongue and waggled it in Norma-Jeanne's direction. There wasn't much left on his right side other than a chewed up shoulder and the spiky remains of a shattered ribcage. His left side looked like he'd tried to slip-n-slide on sandpaper. What little was left of Alfred, though, spoke volumes. He was a jerk. She decided she had enough jerk ghosts packed into the backseat of the car and sped up as soon as she made it past the congestion. Norma-Jeanne waved farewell to him with her middle finger as she sped off. Alfred looked quite put out and yelled at her to stop. True, it wasn't his fault he'd been called by a Dullahan's head, but it was his fault that he was pretty much a douche. Running after them might just do his soul some good.

Johnny and Raul

With less than an hour to spare until midnight, everything was in place. Soldiers guarding perimeter, check. Stifflers ready to go both in person and in Purgatory, check. Distraction in place--Johnny checked the webcasts with a smile--check.

"Looks like our boy Gabe actually came through for us," he said as he and Raul surfed through pictures of CNN reporters dramatically gesticulating in front of the ruins of the IRS building. They rehashed the videos of missile fuselage wreckage that the camera crews managed to capture before they were ejected from an area that was classified as vital to national security.

"You do good work, hermano. You think Gabe will squeal?

"Not a chance. We rigged his implant to fire off Plan Z after the launch. They won't get anything but drool out of him for a while. That should keep everyone busy until long after the big show."

"Damn. Won't he be pissed when he comes to?"

"Probably, but by then, he won't be in a position to do anything about it. I mean, we'll take care of him, but he was going off the deep end lately. It's better this way."

"Truth. I guess this means that he didn't squeal on us."

"Not necessarily, he might have been playing for both sides. I still haven't heard from the reverend. We should keep the guards ready just in case. Wouldn't want anything to disrupt the big show."

"I just wish the big show could have been in a different venue. That pile over there smells like shit."

"That, my friend, is the smell of victory."

"I used to tell myself that, too, after surviving my sister's cooking."
Part 6 – Mass Murder

### October 31st

Norma-Jeanne

The blanket of night was tucked in snugly on top of Norma-Jeanne's compact car as it coasted off of Route 403 and then along the outskirts of a chain-link fence. The tires rolled over the grass silently, cautious not to wake anything that might be sleeping in the darkness beyond. It was closing in on eleven-thirty as Norma-Jeanne pulled the emergency brake ever so gently and brought the vehicle to a halt. She peered uneasily out into the darkness as she killed the dome lights. There was something ominous about great heaps of garbage at night.

The air carried the scent of danger in its currents. It was sandwiched between the scents of rotten banana peels and old chipped beef. Norma-Jeanne trusted her instincts would steer her clear of anything too disgusting and pressed on with caution. She opened the door and then crept out with the dexterity of a drunken, legless cat burglar. She swore under her breath as her face connected with the ground, and she twisted her wrist painfully trying to keep the rest of her body from following it over. She didn't have to hear the snickering from the passenger seat to know Rosebud had watched the whole thing.

"Not a word," she hissed after she righted herself.

She peered over the hood and scanned the dump for any signs of movement, hoping desperately that her leg malfunction hadn't given her away. It really was quite taxing on a woman's ass to put in seven hours of driving after being crammed into half an airplane seat for nine. Nothing from the waist down was working very well. She tried in vain to wiggle the tingling out of her toes as she crouched. She might as well have had little sizzlers in there for all the good it did. The thought of little sizzlers made her hungry. _Dammit,_ she thought, _I knew I should have stopped for something._ The rumbling noise her stomach made agreed with her.

She ignored the numbness in her toes and the pain in her wrist, face, ass, and stomach as she surveyed the scene around her. Her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and her paranoia grew with it. Beyond the fence, she could just make out a mass of ghostly faces illuminated by small, artificial lights. They were spread out across the open spaces of the complex and sprinkled in between several of the dumpsters. There was a higher concentration of these figures gathered at the rear of the complex. It looked suspiciously like a UFO convention.

Norma-Jeanne hadn't brought her alien autopsy costume, so she decided to jump the fence next to one of the garbage bins. She picked the location strategically, noting the cover it provided, the sag in the fence that made climbing it less hazardous, and most importantly, the fact that it was only about fifteen feet away from her. Ass pain was accepted by many of the greatest military minds as a valid marker for decision making.

She grabbed a handheld camera, a well-traveled camera bag, and an extra head from the passenger seat. She placed the head in the camera bag and the camera in her hand as she stiffly made her way to the perimeter of the transfer station. The moon was only a fingernail, but it was orange red in color and cast everything in an evil glow. Norma-Jeanne's stomach growled a challenge at it, showing it what true evil was.

John

"I am currently perched in a squirrel infested backyard of a New England home, freezing my acorns off. The night has grown still, and the congregation of Bigfeet seems to have chosen this as a proper place to conduct some more tree-knocking. I am quite nervous for them as there are cars parked in the driveway and lights on inside the house. This is incredibly strange behavior for the normally shy and reclusive creatures. I hope that my presence has not adversely influenced them to think that all humans are as accepting as I am.

"This has been a disturbingly common trend as we have traveled through the sparse underbrush of the New England forests. We were making exceptionally good time until, with as much warning as a school of startled fish, we turned dead east and began running openly through inhabited territory. This was a distinct departure from the natural disposition and good sense shown by the Sasquatch since I've known them--and truthfully for as long as we have been looking for them. The area was still heavily wooded, compared to many other neighborhoods, but we have been cutting across backyards and hopping over fences with impunity. The dogs behind said fences and those indoors went nuts as they sensed us coming but chose discretion when it came to harassing a herd of giant primates even in their own territory.

"On a positive note, Sasquatch really enjoy playing in the bird baths up here."

Norma-Jeanne

The viewfinder revealed all as it panned over the mountains of compost and the figures that moved in between the recycling receptacles to the left and to the right. The low light sensors coupled with her superior perch atop the plastic toy recycling bin--they were very serious and specific about their recycling in North Kingstown--showed Norma-Jeanne a scene straight out of Oz or Wonderland. There were dozens of tin-men wandering around the dumpsters and walking the fence line. They carried rifles with odd, rectangular scopes on them that bathed their faces in an eerie glow. She wondered idly if they were some type of new, digital, low-light sensors, which would make her job all the more impossible. But they hadn't spotted her yet even when she was dangling helplessly off the side of the dumpster after the fencepost collapsed under her weight. She vowed to lay off of the comfort truffles after that. She also vowed to practice more chin-ups. As it was, she had to practically ratchet herself up, using her boobs as a fulcrum point with each little bit of real-estate gained. All in all, it had taken her almost five minutes of huffing and puffing to gain her perch, and still nobody had noticed her despite all the noise she was making.

She panned the viewfinder toward the mass of bodies behind the main building. The zoom was at its max, and all she could make out was that the creatures that were arrayed there were unnatural. They were not of this world. The reporter in her lusted to hop down in and run in there, scooping the existence of extra-terrestrials, but she reined herself in. Other than the one that clearly had a big, oblong-shaped head, the others looked too irregular to be aliens. _Wow, you don't think that every day,_ she thought. Accepting something that was simply too alien to be alien was one of those mind-bending paradoxes best saved for tequila shots, but even so, it was true. There was simply too much variety in the shapes. Even if she accepted their otherworldliness, it would be a monumental suspension of disbelief--even by her standards--to think a menagerie of alien species wanted to hold a convention in a New England dump.

Those odd-shaped beings weren't nearly as lively as the ones that patrolled the area. Instead, those poor things simply stood around swaying as if they were being pushed to and fro by an erratic wind. The show, it seemed, was at the far end of the facility and took the shape of an impossibly tall and slender being that seemed to end at the shoulders. From her current position, it was impossible to get a clear shot of it, but Rosebud assured her with a furtive whisper that it was the body of an ancient fae spirit. In other words, her body.

A plan was forming in Norma-Jeanne's mind as the path of least resistance made itself clear. The bins were much too far apart, and she was much too short and unathletic to jump from one to the other, so she would have to use her God-given and oft-demonstrated stealth to squeeze between the fences and the dumpsters as she made her way to the mountains of refuse to her left. From there, she should be able to sneak across the facility and get closer to the action. She gingerly lowered herself and Rosebud down the backside of her dumpster, promptly turned her ankle on a discarded Mr. Potato Head, and got her foot caught under the fence. She froze, praying that the noise hadn't given her away. Ten seconds passed, and she allowed herself to breathe out in relief. _That could have gone worse,_ she thought.

She was in the process of wrangling her ankle free of the metal links when a flash of something moving very fast sped past her. It was transparent, bloody, and seemed to only be moderately dressed in leather tatters. It was a true Hell's Angel, and it barreled out into the darkness, ran through the bin of plastic toys and smack into one of the passing soldiers. There was a static "wump" as Alfred and all of his balled up anger and indignation came into contact with the soldier's person and knocked him backward almost fifteen feet. From the shadows where she had rolled, Rosebud shouted "Keith!" before the soldier had hit the ground. He bounced once, coming to stop only when a sharp piece of rusty rebar penetrated the base of his skull with a sickening crunch. The soldier seemed rather displeased with the whole thing and stood up again. He swayed a little and brushed himself off, in spirit, if not in body and turned to face Norma Jeanne. _So that's what it takes to get noticed around here._

"Smooth, Rosebud. Real smooth."

"I. Can't. Help. It," the head hissed through her teeth as if the whole world hadn't just heard her. The sound of approaching feet came from all around, and within seconds, Norma-Jeanne was surrounded by soldiers with the barrels of their rifles looming at her from the darkness. Their faces were illuminated by the soft glow of electronic screens mounted to the rifles, and Norma-Jeanne recognized the empty look in their eyes. She wondered idly--as she felt rather than saw the tension in their trigger fingers increase--whether or not that vacant stare was typical for people who are about to commit murder. Or maybe it was just people who were about to murder her. The mere fact that she could wonder that and have data to compare it against was a testament to her recent run of bad luck. She closed her eyes and cringed, waiting for the final moment, but realized there was something missing--well something other than the gunshot, searing pain, blood, and eventual blackness associated with being shot in the head at close range. Rosebud hadn't called her.

She sighed audibly as she opened her eyes again, moving them from soldier to soldier until they came to rest on the approaching form of a young man holding a small lantern in one hand. It gave off enough light that she could see with little difficulty that he carried a handgun in his other hand and a meat cleaver firmly embedded in his skull. He was dressed in jeans and a grey MIT pullover sweatshirt with blood stains running down one shoulder from the head wound and a large, infected-looking wound on his neck. It looked an awful lot like it might be from a human bite. His head was cocked at a forty-five degree angle, and his dark hair almost covered one eye as he took in the situation.

"You seem to be in the wrong place, lady," he said with a distinct Hispanic accent.

"It's one of my specialties," she said, channeling her inner Charlie's Angel. That particular side of her personality seemed to be a little defective though. She struggled to find more action film comments that would get her out of this bad situation and instead settled for awkward silence. After a moment, she decided to try meek and pitiful. She was better at that anyway. The quavering in her voice betrayed her nervousness. "Are you feeling okay? You seem to have a little, um, injury there."

"Where?" he asked, looking around.

"Um, right about here," she said pointing to the left side of her head, "and here," pointing to her neck.

The man reached up and touched the cleaver, wincing when his fingers made contact. "Oh, damn," he said, and then he gripped it and pulled the cleaver and half of his scalp off. He grinned. "It's a prop. For Halloween, you know."

Norma-Jeanne let out a big sigh. "Whew! I thought you were going to die there for a minute."

"Well, I'm sorry to say, chica, you're the one who's gonna die. What we're doing here is too important to have you poking around."

"I don't think I'm going to die right now," she said shrugging her shoulders in resignation.

"And why is that?" he asked. His mouth seemed to widen in a grin that stretched across his face. He was kinda handsome when he was smiling and not actively trying to kill her.

"Because of this," she said, waving her hand toward the camera bag. The young man looked at it in confusion, and then his eyes widened.

"Holy shit. You have a Mr. Potato Head. We might as well give up, hombres," he said, looking at the soldiers around him. Norma-Jeanne looked toward her bag and saw that it was empty. Lying a few inches from it was indeed a well-used and abused round plastic toy. It still had its angry eyes stuck to the face.

"Well, yeah," she said, making it up as she went, "this is the vessel for the Dullahan's head. I've brought it all the way from Ireland."

"How do you know about the Dullahan, puta?" he asked with a sharper, more dangerous edge to his voice.

"The head told me. I found it while on vacation and thought to myself, 'Self, all you need is a body, and you can collect the whole set.'"

The man nodded and smiled broadly. "And here I was thinking that I was the only one who got short-changed on the Legos. Come with me, hermana, and bring the head."

Rosebud watched as the group departed back toward her body. She wasn't quite sure what Norma-Jeanne was going to do--the lines of potential destiny were simply a jumble around her at the moment--but her sacrifice would not be wasted. The spiritual forms of Liam, Alfred, Nigel, the crispy critters, and even the recently deceased Keith gathered around the fae spirit. "Right," she began, "here's the plan."

Werepe

The call to arms had been sounded, and the warriors of Hell gathered at the front line. Only a scant few feet of detritus stood between them and the utter destruction of the Demon Lord. There was excitement in the air and uncertainty in Werepe's heart.

"What's wrong with you today?" Peaches99 asked again. She'd been pestering him since they'd arrived. "Don't tell me you're chickening out on your plan."

"No. It's just that, well . . . ." He saw the bulbous shape of her out of the corner of his eye again. _She's a trap,_ his mind screamed. _She's here to lead me astray._ He caught a glimpse of GhettoBooty moving through the crowds, and he turned his view of Hell just slightly, so he could see her in the margins of his vision. She was a lot shorter that way, and there were some kind of transparent wings sprouting from her back. _They're all demons. They're going to attack and rip me apart,_ his brain continued. It was like he was no longer in control of his own thoughts, and panic was taking the reins. He had to get out of there. Werepe moved forward, barging through the throngs of heroes and trying hard not to think of what horrors they might truly be.

"What's wrong with him?" GhettoBooty asked as she closed the distance with Peaches99.

"I have no idea," she said before adding a perfunctory "boys" and an eye roll.

Werepe had to find some open air, some place where he didn't have his back exposed if everyone around him decided to attack. He broke out into the front of the ranks, perilously close to the king himself. He froze like a rabbit. Hearing the commotion, the king turned and stared at the line of men arrayed before him. It looked as if he was trying to puzzle out just exactly what had changed about the front line when his attention was drawn away by voices in the distance. Werepe used the distraction to hazard a sideways glance at His Majesty.

King Samiam's true shape was tall and lanky, with some kind of light grey top. Details had proven too difficult to pick out just using his peripheral vision, but the king at least looked human until you got to his head. Something grey-green sat on it, throbbing rhythmically. General Roland had arrived and had a squat toad demon in tow. The king's true form seemed to be gesticulating and talking, but his Hell mask was as still and stoic as ever.

With a slow, careful motion, Werepe put Roland and the demon into the margins of his vision and saw, to his astonishment, that the warty, slime-covered toad demon was the most normal looking human he'd seen so far. She was white, short, and well-rounded, and she was being escorted by a darker man with something sticking out of his head.

_Demons are people, and people are demons? What kind of crazy world is this?_ As if to answer his own question, he looked sidelong into the surrounding landscape and caught dark glimpses of paper where rocks had been, an old TV where a boulder sat in Hell, a king's soldier who carried a rifle. This was too much. The dichotomy of worlds layered atop one another made his brain hurt even more. It was like seeing two realities at once. It was like . . . and then something clicked into place. Things finally began to make sense. He remembered. While the king was distracted, Bean and Werepe merged back into the crowd to come up with a new plan.

Norma-Jeanne

There are few things that can rattle a woman who'd been attacked by zombie teenagers, sucker-punched by a Sasquatch, smuggled an undead head under her blouse, been followed by a pack of poltergeists for nearly a week, and done The Monkey on a plane that was in imminent danger of crashing. Unfortunately, one of those things was the sight that greeted Norma-Jeanne when she reached the outer ranks of the soldiers. The mass of misshapen mutants she spotted from afar materialized into a herd of zombie superheroes and cartoon icons. They were children and teenagers, all dressed up for Halloween and all staring blankly at the objects in their hands. Not one of them turned a head or blinked in response to her passing. She elbowed a pathetically skinny Incredible Hulk as she walked past and got no reaction at all. There must have been over fifty of them, and their eyes told the same story as those kids back in Shreveport. Nobody was home.

She also noted that the square bits of light strapped to the soldier's rifles were actually phones mounted onto the barrels. There were headphones running the length of the barrel and ending in an over-the-ear bud to hold it securely in place. But the pictures showing on the screens themselves were what held her attention. They showed the layout of the transfer station through the camera, but everything seemed twisted and warped. There was a cavern showing, replete with boulders and stalagmites where the dumpsters should have been, and legions of heroic figures brandishing swords, poleaxes, clubs, and spears all milling about and waiting for something. Drawing on her sharp mind and reporter's instincts, Norma-Jeanne realized that she still had no clue what was going on here. Before she could ponder further, a voice caught her attention from ahead.

"What the hell is this?" A figure separated itself from the throngs of caped crusaders and flipped on a high-powered flashlight, blinding them as they moved closer. "This isn't a social function. You can't bring a date to the apocalypse, Raul."

"You got it wrong, hermano," Norma-Jeanne's escort said as he covered his eyes. "The stifflers found her out there. She was watching us with this," he said, holding the palm-sized Sony camcorder high into the air. The man with the flashlight aimed the beam toward the ground as they closed to within talking distance.

"Then why even bring her in?" he asked. Through the blue and yellow after images, Norma-Jeanne could see that he was another twenty-something, blonde, with a light, scraggly beard and a giant rubber hole in his forehead. The pulsing brain was a nice touch. "You should have just ended it out there."

"I didn't because she had another surprise with her." He motioned for Norma-Jeanne to step forward and lift the bag containing the Mr. Potato Head into the light. This gave the man with the light hair a moment of contemplation before he stepped forward to get a closer look. He scratched at his beard in mock contemplation.

"It's all so clear to me now. You've finally snapped."

"She knows about the Dullahan. She said that she found the potato-dude in Ireland, and it holds the spirit of the cabeza of the headless dude over there." Norma-Jeanne looked at the rail-thin creature standing by itself. It was flanked on one side by two giant RVs and a dumpster on the other. The light from the iPad it carried didn't seem terribly necessary as it gave off its own sickly green illumination. She shuddered at the sight of it. She'd gotten used to Rosebud--as one might get used to a friend with a wandering eye--but the body was simply terrifying to look at.

"Is this real?" the blonde man asked, moving his index finger near the plastic potato. "I don't see any family resemblance."

A familiar voice rumbled out of the toy in her bag.

"Return me body or else," it said. All three of them jumped back in surprise. "I'm warnin' ye," said Mr. Potato Head in the most threatening voice possible. "If ye don't, I will curse ye so that every time ye try to talk to a fine thin', boogeys will come out of yer nose. I'll make it so ye will always get pebbles in yer shoes and splinters in yer toes. I will call down a case of manky crabs so vicious, you'll pull out yer nether fur by the handfuls." Norma-Jeanne and the Hispanic man winced at the thought of this, but the other man was unmoved. No doubt he was still in shock that a plastic spud was threatening him.

"I will feast on yer innards, and hey! Ye did that on purpose. Don't ye dare leave me here, ye dead bastards. Aw shit. Come back, fellas. I didn't mean it. Wait, is this thin' still on?"

"I'm afraid so," Norma-Jeanne replied, shaking her head.

"It's a wireless speaker, isn't it?" Raul asked as he hefted the potato toy from her bag and began to examine it thoroughly.

"No. The Dullahan's head is here and seeking revenge against those that stole its body," she said, lowering her voice an octave for emphasis. "It will curse and haunt you to the ends of the earth, rending your souls into strips of . . . ."

"Are you done?" the man with the flashlight asked.

"No. I'm just working up to the good part."

"Well, save it for later. I'm not sure how you know about my headless friend over there or who you have with you, but it doesn't matter much at this point anyway."

"It doesn't?" Norma-Jeanne asked.

"Nope. After tonight, we," he pointed the flashlight at himself and the man he'd called Raul, "will be gods."

"Don't you think that the real God might have something to say about that?"

"Like he's paying attention to anything going on down here. We're going to find God and have a little chat with him."

"I've always called that prayer. I can show you how if you . . . ."

The man sighed as if talking to a particularly stupid child. "We're going to find God and enslave Him."

"Huh?" was all she could muster.

"God has done an exceptionally shitty job of managing things. Look at everything wrong with this world. We have pollution, corruption, and reality TV popping up left and right. This world is nothing but a giant insane asylum with no one to hand out the meds."

"But you can't possibly think God is responsible for all of this, this . . . ," she gestured widely around her, ". . . crap." She tilted her head as if seeing him for the first time and gave him a confused look. "Can you?"

"That's exactly what I think. Did He say, 'hmm, things should really suck?' No. But He created us and then abandoned us to our own devices. Parents should be actively responsible for their children, and God has been MIA. With Him under our control, we can take the power of creation and destruction, and we can force Him to put things right."

Norma-Jeanne barked out a laugh. "What makes you think that you can control the most powerful being in the universe?"

Both of her captors were smiling now. "We figured out the pattern. God was lazy. He used the same operating system for everything He created--His own. He copied His software over and over. It's the same for dogs and monkeys and humans and even ancient fairy spirits. We hacked it. We created a virus that allows us to control the soul." He stopped, breathing heavily in time to the pulsing brain attached to his forehead. When his eyes caught the light just right, they gleamed with a zealot's fire. He seemed to reset a bit, and his mannerisms returned to their calm, collected state--except for the throbbing brain, that was. "The only problem we had was that God has separated Himself from this world. He used the barrier between here and there like a firewall. We had no way of getting to Him. So we set our expectations to world domination at first, but then we met our headless friend over there. It can give us access to the next world, the world where God resides."

"That is quite frankly one of the most insane things I've ever heard," she said, unable to contain her disbelief. "And believe me, I've heard some doozies."

"It's only insane if it doesn't work. Look around you. All of these are proof," he said, spreading his hands out to indicate all the zombie kids around him like an evangelist to encompass his flock.

"While this is all very impressive, how do you plan to get into the spirit world? Last time I checked, you need to be a spirit to get there."

"We're not going there personally. That's what all these souls are for. They'll cross over and then begin infecting everything they touch on the other side. Eventually, one of them will get to The Big Man Upstairs."

"There still is one problem," Norma-Jeanne said, trying one last gambit. "Have you actually seen the Dullahan open a rift to the other side?" When they just looked at each other, Norma-Jeanne pressed on. "I didn't think so. That's because it needs its head in order to open a hole big enough for a spirit to pass through." She reached out and took the Mr. Potato Head from the Hispanic man and plopped it back down in her bag. It was starting to grow on her. She wondered just where Rosebud was hiding. She could see the ghostly outlines of her entourage playing king of the hill on one of the compost heaps. _Spirits. Sheesh._

"You might be right under normal circumstances, but we did some homework. Tonight, I'm pretty sure it will be able to do the job all by itself."

"Why? Because it's Halloween?"

"Samhain," Raul interjected, looking into the night sky for inspiration as he recited text from some book. "This is the night of all souls. The night of spirits. Those who wait on the Otherside are set free to pass on to eternity. Those trapped in this world will be free to cross over to the Otherside. Between the bonfires they pass, and into the darkness they fly. It is on this day, on Samhain, that the membrane between our world and theirs is thinnest. It is a night for passing."

"Wow," Norma Jeanne said, impressed. "That was cool." Raul blushed under his zombie makeup. "Seriously, how long did it take you to get that to sound so perfect?" Raul started mumbling something, and Norma Jeanne continued with enthusiasm. "Because, you know, I know a lot of TV hosts who couldn't hold a candle to your delivery. If you wanted to ditch this whole 'take over God thing,'" she made air quotes for emphasis, "you could make some serious money as a vocal coach. You might even get your own show. I know some producers who'd. . . ."

"Anyway," the now angry blonde man cut in, "as my compatriot was saying before he was dazzled by the flashlights of public access TV. . . ." He threw a withering glare at Raul who promptly turned his head and started whistling. "The veil between worlds is at its thinnest tonight. Any idiot with a copy of the Necronomicon and a stick could open a doorway if they really wanted to, so I doubt that the Headless Irishman over there will have any trouble--whether he has his potato head or not." He gestured dismissively toward the toy by her side.

While part of her mind processed was the pulsing brain had said, Norma Jeanne was much too angry about the public access remark to pay any attention. "Now wait just a damn minute," she said, poking her finger into blondie's chest for emphasis, "I'll have you know that I work for a very reput. . . semi-reputable basic cable. . . ." The rest of her rant was cut short by the man she was beginning to think of simply as the Brain. _So that would make him_ , her thoughts moved toward the Hispanic man, _Pinky. He doesn't really look like a Pinky_. . . .

"Gee, would you look at the time." The Brain looked at his watch and grinned. "Looks like it's time to get the party started." He seemed to zone out for a moment, and before Norma-Jeanne could object, the arms of a very strong soldier were clasped around her from behind and were squishing her breasts tightly to her chest. On most nights, having a strong young man in uniform hug her that tightly would have filled Norma-Jeanne with joy, but this particular encounter left her less than satisfied. As she looked on, she could see quite clearly the ghostly projections of the costumed teenagers separate from their physical bodies. They were transparent and glowed in unearthly colors as they moved inward toward the headless form at the center of the formation.

Norma-Jeanne screamed and fought as she was dragged backward toward the outskirts of the encampment. The full impact of what Pinky and the Brain had been saying finally gained purchase in her conscious mind, and she struggled impotently under the unbreakable grip of her captor as she envisioned the lives of all those children, and perhaps the universe, come to an end. There was an inhuman howl from behind her, followed by a sharp crack to the top of her head, and then she was gone.

John

"We are currently resting under the canopy of a length of trees alongside Devil's Foot Road in Rhode Island. The Sasquatch are all staring with great interest at some nighttime commotion coming from the adjacent dump. It could be that the creatures were just caught unawares or that their path was impeded by an unexpected audience. Or it might be that they just enjoy the smell of garbage. In any case, it is intriguing that they would plan an excursion to a place with such a rich history.

"I've studied many legends and myths--as these are what ancient societies used for recording their history--and there are stories dating back to at least the mid-eighteen hundreds about this road. In fact, it is really the Devil's Foot Rock, for which the road was named, of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, that is said to contain the imprint of Satan's own cloven foot. This was the very first of Satan's three footprints, the other two landing in Chimney Hill in South Kingstown and Block Island. There are also rumors that the famed Purgatory Chasm runs directly underneath Devil's Foot Rock in its trek between the tourist sites in Newport, Rhode Island, and Sutton, Massachusetts. No one has been able to fully map the quartz and magnetite-rich caves. What lies in their depths making the hellish sounds numerous people have claimed to have heard beneath this area is still just a mystery. Even so, I find it an interesting place for these creatures to flock to.

"I've seen flashes of light and movement inside the yard of the nearby facility, and on several occasions, uniformed men carrying rifles have passed quite close. All in all, I would say there are at least a hundred lights shining in the lot. I wonder if it is some kind of military exercise or a candlelight vigil for some poor departed casualties of war. Answers seem to be at a premium lately.

"The silence is troubling, from both the soldiers inside the complex and the Sasquatch outside. I fully expected the entire group to circumvent this area and follow their secretive instincts to avoid detection at all costs, but their posture is all wrong. Past encounters with civilization caused them to straighten up to get a better view or to fit behind tree trunks, but now they are hunching forward and gripping the earth and the trees as if ready to launch themselves. Oh, f . . . ."

Norma-Jeanne

The force of the blow had knocked Norma-Jeanne forward a few steps, and she looked behind her with annoyance. Banging someone on the head was simply bad manners, no matter what kind of zombified soldier you were. She opened her mouth to give him a severe tongue lashing but stopped short. It wasn't because she had thought better of it or decided to turn the other cheek; it was because there was nobody there. In fact, there wasn't any "there" anymore as far as she could tell. There was only here, and here was not a happy place. She went down to her knees and then grasped them firmly in her arms as she rolled over on her side into a fetal position. She closed her eyes extra hard to try to make it all go away. When that failed, she decided to review her situation in clear, logical bullet-points. The fact that she had to resort to that only scared her more.

The good news was that she'd been freed from the arms of her captor. The bad news was that she was dead or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Marjorie's warning to "beware the evil foot" came back to her. Could she have been talking about the Devil's foot, as in the road? She sighed inwardly at the fickle nature of destiny and those who try to get a sneak peek at it. She couldn't find it in herself to blame Marjorie, though. It was the curse of cryptic prophesies to become clear only after it was too late.

Her body felt lighter than was humanly possible--at least using the conventional gravitational pull of the planet Earth on thirty-six double Ds--and it was suffused with a yellow glow. Impossibly small fireflies were popping from the surface of her skin, if it qualified as that anymore, and travelling off a few inches before winking out of existence. She looked quite fuzzy. It wasn't a totally bad look unless you were someone who waxed on a regular basis, which Norma-Jeanne did when she was feeling masochistic.

The world around her had changed as well and seemed to be decorated in a post-renaissance "scary as hell" motif. She recognized it easily from the brief look she'd gotten through the porthole in the airport bathroom. It was the Otherside. Only now, she was up past her eyeballs in the place.

The landscape was a tortured plain of spindly black shrubs and wicked black vines the size of trees. They spiraled up into the purple sky like giant hairs sprouting off the surface of an incredibly large and unwashed chest. The earth below was a fine ash of grey sand and charcoal particles that bulged up in long furrows as things tunneled beneath the surface. Her imagination tried to give her a glimpse of the possible things that could have made those bulges, and she shut it down quickly. Her imagination was sadistic when it came to such things, and she placed it on probation for the remainder of her time in this world. _They'd probably just turn out to be little moles or cute burrowing bunnies,_ she thought. She sat up and scanned the horizon for any sign of life.

Here and there, she caught sight of the subterranean creatures as they came up for a look or a breath or whatever it was that they wanted and then submerged again. They looked for the most part like what her imagination had just been about to suggest. _Definitely not bunnies_. The underground denizens were chunky insects with hard, shiny carapaces and more than their share of legs and pincers. They had the disturbing habit of being larger than a human hand and made scissor noises as they tasted the air with their mandibles. _These things probably use Raid as a cooking spray._

For her part, Norma-Jeanne was still dressed as she had been in the world she'd left behind. Jeans, a long-sleeve button up blouse, hiking boots, and a stylish sweater vest covered her body. The worn camera bag that contained an old Mr. Potato Head toy missing most of its parts still clung doggedly to her shoulder. And they said you can't take it with you. _If only I'd been near a Starbucks when I'd died_. She stood up to her full height and brushed off the dust from her legs. Little yellow sparks came off as she did this and fluttered toward the ground. She had a queer thought and brushed some more, checking to see if her thighs would shrink as she did. There was no noticeable difference, but that didn't stop her from absently rubbing her butt as she walked into the wasteland.

She kept her head down so she could avoid stepping on the giant bugs and noticed she was behaving very mysteriously. First of all, she wasn't leaving any footprints. That remained a puzzle only long enough for her to notice that her feet refused to touch the ground. That trick was a little more difficult to explain until she saw a thin yellow string protruding from her bellybutton. It trailed behind her loosely as she moved and put the previous mysteries into perspective. The universe finally made sense, and she sighed in relief. She was a balloon.

_Being a balloon is pretty great_ , she thought as she floated along without a care in the world. There was a gnawing sense of wrongness in her newest choice of professions, but she steadfastly ignored it and embraced her balloonness. She allowed the air currents--or whatever passed for those in the land of the dead--to toss her lightly to and fro as she rolled and floated toward infinity. Then she stopped abruptly. Looking back, her string had gotten snagged on a bush several yards back. Being a balloon lost its entertainment value quickly as she struggled to free herself from the prickly plant. How it had gotten so tangled was beyond her comprehension. The far end of the string snaked off into the distance while the near end was firmly attached to her stomach, and the middle was in some sort of sailor's knot around the obnoxious little shrub. She pulled several barrel rolls and loopty-loops to try to untie the knot, but it just seemed to make things worse.

She abandoned her blissful airborne existence and pulled herself down to the ground. She looked around for witnesses before pulling up the shrub with her hands and then pulling the branches off of it one by one. Finally free, she placed the threadbare and scraggly stem back in the ground and wandered off nonchalantly.

She tried being a balloon once more, but she knew well enough that she could never go back. Instead she started her new life as a spirit, accepting that she was dead and floating across the lifeless land to which she now belonged. She pulled another loopty-loop just for old time's sake. It was during this maneuver that she spied something odder than herself in the air nearby. It was an oval image suspended in midair, like some kind of portrait hung in the invisible parlor. She was immediately drawn to it. She'd always enjoyed parlors--back in her living days, that was--and oval was such a nice, easy-going shape without being pretentious. Not like some of those round paintings in snobby parlors with their equally snobby hosts. Square paintings were okay, but they made her feel confined, and egg-shaped ones made her think of her butt too much. She rubbed some more yellow sparks off it self-consciously.

This parlor looked as if a rather large painting had been mounted directly to the nothing. It was an odd place to put it. It depicted darkened shapes that seemed somewhat familiar to her though. Something in the back of her mind tried to place the scene, but it was being uncooperative. Instead, she simply watched as colors began to form on the canvas, and these shifted and moved with each passing moment. She approached even closer, feeling as if she could wrench the answers out if only she could touch the mirror-smooth surface. _It's the real world,_ she thought wonderingly. Just as she was within arm's reach of the object, her progress was halted by the most utterly repellent creature she'd ever set her spirit eyes upon.

It was a three foot long slug, dragging itself forward on insect-like legs that jutted out from around what she could only guess was the head. Worse yet, it was directly in front of her. She must have missed seeing it ooze up while she was busy thinking. There were no signs of eyes, noses, or ears, but it moved with slow, practiced grace--if such a thing can be ascribed to an undulating mass of quivering flesh--as it circumvented the obstacles on the ground with precision. She got the impression that this was a creature that would undoubtedly get precisely where it wanted to go. Unfortunately, it seemed quite intent on getting to her.

Through deductive reasoning, Norma-Jeanne determined that screaming and flailing her arms about wildly actually allowed her to move faster. She had a little difficulty with directions, and after a panicked bout of flapping, she found herself trapped in a spin that was terribly inconvenient to her desire to flee. She calmed down enough to move her limbs in unison and push herself around as if she was swimming through air. The slug thing changed directions to match her new trajectory.

Norma-Jeanne gave a dolphin kick with her legs that propelled her away from her pursuer and put her directly into the path of another one. She jigged back to the left, avoiding this one as well, and gave her balloon string an up and down flip to make it roll over the first creature she had dodged.

Something large burst out of the sand beside her, and she turned to stare up into the opened maw of a jumbo insect-slug. This one was probably twice as big as she was and blocked her path entirely with its bulk. The creature was toothless as far as she could tell, and the mouth rippled along its edges in a gelatinous dance. Twelve segmented legs, each ending in either a jagged pincer or an equally jagged point jutted from the flesh behind the mouth and reached toward her with exploratory caution. Norma-Jeanne glanced to either side and then behind her, noting that another six of the slug creatures had materialized and that she was effectively hemmed in. Somehow, these slow, plodding things had snuck up on her, and now there was nowhere left to run or swim. She sighed as deeply as a spirit could and then turned back to face the largest of the bunch. She decided to stare it down. She gave it her best "screw-off" look, and it promptly popped her head into its mouth and sucked on it.

Norma-Jeanne felt violated on every level she could think of and probably a few she couldn't. Never before had she had her head sucked on by a giant slug, and never again did she wish to see the light of day if it meant having to experience it again. It would be better for all involved if this thing had just ended her pitiful existence right then and there, but luck had abandoned her thoroughly. After undulating on her now thoroughly soggy head for a moment, it spit her out and retreated back into the darkness. By the time she recovered her composure, there wasn't a single slug-sect in sight. There was, however, a clear path to the portrait of the living world just ahead.

Thoughts of a second head-slurping pushed Norma-Jeanne toward escape with reckless abandon. She'd finally placed the scene in the painting as the transfer station back on Devil's Foot Road, and she flailed her arms wildly in a spiritual doggie paddle until she reached the rip. This was the way back to the real world, the world she understood. She grasped the edges of the hole and pulled herself through, bursting out with relief. Only, it didn't look as real as it once did. The places where the concrete and metal structures had once stood were dominated by lifeless, grey mist. They retained their buildingesque shapes but were no longer completely opaque and only questionably solid. Norma-Jeanne felt pretty sure she could just walk through them if she had half a mind to. As if taunting her, the lifeless objects, the trees, grass, and people were a brilliant display of neon, each one sporting its own unique glow of energy and power. Light radiated off of every living thing in a diffuse glow, but the creature that stood directly before her made the light show look childish.

The aura around the Dullahan was incredibly bright. It was a mother of pearl beacon that was both fascinating and terrifying. The colors swirled in a hypnotic dance that drew her eyes and her spirit closer. It was the Disco Inferno of lures for the dead, and Norma-Jeanne was ready to hustle. She now knew why souls would flock to this creature. She found herself standing right at its side, just inches away from the human spine it held in its right hand. Norma-Jeanne shook her head and backed away, scrutinizing the object with morbid curiosity. Was it really a human spine? What the hell did it do with that thing? Rosebud wouldn't weasel out of answering that question if she had anything to do about it. _Rosebud,_ she thought and broke away from the rhythmic beat of the Dullahan's groove. That was when she noticed the army of brightly shining souls stampeding toward her.

Bean

The deep resonance of a minotaur's horn drew them forward in an urgent dash for their very existence. The horde of warriors ran past the bodies of fallen demons and the thick ichor of their unholy passing. They skirted the boulders that rose up from the ground, causing the movement to swirl and twist like rapids. Samurai, barbarian, aubran, dwarf, and human moved shoulder to shoulder toward the slowly decreasing spotlight before them that marked their escape from this tortured world and, for once, promised ascension. A lone figure stood silhouetted against the blinding light as it struggled to resist the inevitable force of collapse. This was the passage that the Demon Lord had used to send his minions beyond this realm. He'd been a vast being of immense strength, and he, the Dark One, had been holding the gate open for all these millennia. Now that he was gone, the portal was closing, intent on keeping all the dark creatures of this punished land locked up tight. Unfortunately, that would include all the heroes and heroines if they didn't get a move on.

The Demon Lord had fallen by King Samiam's hand within an hour after his soldiers had broken through the rubble. It had been a ridiculously simple thing to do, given the trials they had gone through to get to this point, but apparently, time was now of the essence. All the demon crusaders were shocked to learn that theirs was not the destiny they thought it was, but the immediacy of the situation overruled any doubts they might have held. As soon as the Dark One had fallen, Stephen_McStudly had sauntered over and put his shoulder into the descending rock, wedging the pathway open for the king's army to pass. He grinned with his huge, shiny teeth, and his dreamy blonde locks flowed like water in the breeze between the worlds. The space beyond the portal promised peace and happiness, and King Samiam began to usher the adventurers toward it while his soldiers held the perimeter against any lingering demon attacks.

Knowing what reality was and believing it were two entirely different things. Much like the duality of worlds in which he now existed, Bean felt like he was two different people, each with their own designs and impulses. Werepe, the crusader side of him, strained to pull free from Bean's control at the call to arms. Both sides of him had watched dispassionately as the king ripped the Demon Lord apart, realizing that it was nothing more than a scripted scene, but that did little to curb the need inside him to rush forward with the rest of the warriors.

_This is just a game, this is just a game, this is just a game,_ Bean repeated over and over in his head as the fibers of his very being felt stretched out like a particularly undercooked string of taffy. The other crusaders had surged forward and were receding into the distance, but a quick check of his periphery confirmed Bean's suspicions. The crowd around him hadn't actually moved. He heard the clash of swords and roll of thunder as the fifth column, his fifth column , turned on their companions.

He watched the flashing lights from afar and tried to decide whether he should feel guilty for not being there in the fray. He had, after all, convinced twenty of his peers to rebel and fight against the King. He was their leader, and with two-to-one odds, they were heading for an old-fashioned beat down. Shame tugged at his conscience, telling him that he was betraying them. Werepe latched onto this, and the urge to leap into the fray and be the hero he had always wanted to be was nearly too great to resist.

On the other hand-- _this is just a game,_ Bean shouted inwardly- _-this is all fiction. None of this is real_. Werepe stopped struggling as Bean continued his mental dialogue. They'd all been brought together for this in the game and in real life. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to have them all kidnapped for lack of any better word--he seriously doubted that his or any other mom would have signed a field trip form that took their child away from schoolwork for days at a time to play a videogame. There had to be some reason they were going through all of this effort. What could their captors gain? He wasn't rich or smart or pretty much anything. So why him? Why any of it? It wasn't a question that Bean could answer. Not yet anyway. What he did know was that he didn't appreciate it one bit. They were playing games with him and all the others, and Bean decided it was time to even the playing field. He fully intended to win and that meant keeping the puppet masters from getting what they wanted.

Bean turned around to point his phone at the hordes of misshapen children who'd been so carefully collected by his adversaries. The screen at the center of his vision showed nothing but an empty, rocky space inside a dimly lit cavern. He reached out with his free hand and groped for what he knew had to be there, feeling it touch first rubbery flesh, an arm perhaps, and then move up to a smooth metal rectangle. He grasped this and got ready to pull.

Garp

"Reverend Garp?" the highway patrolman asked. "I watch your show every week, and I just want to say what an honor it is to meet you in person."

"No, son. I'm honored to meet you. I'm just a messenger of the word, but you do God's work every day." It was impossible to tell if the man blushed in the red and blue lights, but his body language seemed to suggest he was going into full "aw, shucks" mode. "Am I free to go? I've got a revival to get to."

"Oh, yeah. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Absolutely. My car is a little banged up, but it still runs. By the grace of God and workmanship of General Motors, I think we'll both make it just fine." He thanked the patrolmen, the paramedics, and the tow-truck driver before strapping in and heading out. He'd have to hurry and would doubtless miss the midnight hour, but infecting God might take a few minutes anyway. There was still a good chance he'd be there in time for the moment of triumph.

Norma-Jeanne

The mass of spirit energy cresting before her like a tsunami was daunting. It was all the more so as Norma-Jeanne picked out individual super heroes, vampires, ninja turtles, fairies, and an assortment of children whose costumes defied explanation. This was what that blonde guy was talking about. He'd freed all of those children's spirits from their bodies and was going to hurl them into the gate. Once they got through, they would infect everything in the afterlife until God Himself was under their control. The end of the world was at hand. She imagined how it would all end. The apocalypse would no doubt start with higher taxes--somehow it always did--and finish with more obnoxious sitcoms than you could shake a stick at. Somewhere in the middle of all of that there would be plagues of frogs and walking fish. The cows would rise up and force their former masters to be ground into humanburger or hooked to machines so they could be milked relentlessly. The future looked bleak and miserable. She looked back toward the portal to see if maybe she could find a slug to stick her head in and ride out the next few millennia.

Before she could resign herself to a slimy eternity, she noticed a number of souls--led by an M&M, a fairy, and an obnoxiously deformed Stewie Griffin--actually turn on the group and begin attacking them. While she would never normally condone weirdo on weirdo violence, she was okay with it now. She watched as supermen and pirates randomly stopped and quivered, Jedi knights and anthropomorphic crayons fell down as if they were struck by something massive, and cowboys, witches, clowns and hippies ganged up on a small group of Disney princesses and gave them the beat down they so richly deserved. There was mass confusion as soul turned on soul in a giant mosh-pit of anarchy as they struggled for control. Even with all of this, the momentum of the group continued forward, closing the distance to the rift slowly but inevitably.

Norma-Jeanne felt a prod to her left shoulder, and she turned to see Liam standing next to her with his index finger extended. He no longer needed to use his well-honed poltergeist skills as they were now on equal footing. He was a handsome spirit who'd been in his early forties before his untimely demise. His eyes were suffused with a forest green light, and a fist-sized bulge in his throat was still visible. Behind him were the others who had followed her for so long. She could see the forms more clearly now as if they were some of the only things that were actually real in this world. There were charred remains giving her the evil eye, a soggy form that was hunched over in an unnatural "v" shape, a shredded, meaty biker, and even one of the soldiers that had recently been standing watch. There were close to thirty in all, and they seemed fairly anxious to put an end to their time in the world of the living. All they had to do was to get past one very pissed off videographer.

Norma-Jeanne glared at them, drawing upon the stores of displeasure that she'd accumulated over the last few weeks and projecting it outward like a riot shield. If she'd have thought about it, she would have known that she was not a spiritual match for any of these. They were experienced and had learned how to exist in the living world. They'd learned to harness their energy and focus it to a fine edge. Most importantly, they craved the rift like a dieter craves a Twinkie. But none of them made a move forward. They could have overpowered her easily, but not a single ghost could stand under her soul-crushing gaze for long.

It was all a little too much for one dead woman to bear. The universe was going to come crashing down around her, she had a mob of very unhappy ghosts that had dogged her for days on end, she'd lost her pet head, and, to top it all off, her ass had not shrunk at all, no matter how much she rubbed it. The careful façade she'd built up over the years away from the streets of Brooklyn shattered, and she acted on instinct. She kicked Liam in the balls as hard as she could. Then she bashed him in the skull with the phantom Mr. Potato Head.

Liam's spirit staggered back into the throng of fellow Irishmen and bitter burn victims, igniting an all-out poltergeist brawl in front of the portal. These were frustrated spirits. They were angry at their early demise and felt cheated in life and from the dignified entrance through the pearly gates that they felt they so richly deserved. Spending the last half a day crammed into the backseat of a Toyota Prius hadn't helped matters either. They were grouchy and eager to find anything and anyone to take out their frustrations on.

When the front line of the costumed spirits rudely interrupted their private brawl, it was no surprise that Norma-Jeanne and the spirits that followed her for so long joined forces against the newcomers. The Irishmen took exception to a very English looking Mr. Peanut and proceeded to try to shell him. Nigel ferociously attacked any Power Ranger that came into view. Alfred chased Pocahontas around, and the crispy critters fought dirty against anything in their path. Norma-Jeanne took the opportunity to settle old scores. The spirit in the cow costume never knew what hit it.

Johnny

There was nothing worse than having a fly in one's personal ointment, except maybe having two. Johnny Frease had watched the soldiers drag one of those flies off into the darkness and well away from his carefully planned venture. Things had been going without a hitch until that woman had showed up. If there had been a little less planning on his part or a little more luck on hers, she might have reunited the two halves of the Dullahan, and then the balance of the universe would have come down to a test of wills. Luckily, it hadn't. And once he'd removed her and her little head too, things could've gotten back to the way they were supposed to be. Only they didn't.

As soon as the first wave of pests had been dealt with, another one had swept in. There were gunshots erupting from all positions around the perimeter. Muzzle flashes lit up like fireworks, and the sounds of bodies hitting the ground could be heard clearly in the lulls. They were under attack. Were the feds coming down on them? Had Gabe really gone rogue to try to stop them?

Something was clogging up the flow of souls toward the gateway, and Johnny and Raul submerged into the world of Purgatory to try to clear it up. Stephen_McStudly was in position, holding open the gateway and smiling his creepy little smile, but the ungrateful little bastards that they brought here all the way from Louisiana were screwing everything up. They looked like they were confused and fighting amongst themselves for position in the gate. Johnny tried to shout to them that everyone could go through, but then Raul caught his arm and pointed toward the front. An invisible wall seemed to sprout up at the front lines as all forward movement stopped abruptly. There was a sudden burst of violence, and the warriors were tossed around like ragdolls under the force of some unseen poltergeist.

Johnny quickly checked the code behind for any errors or bugs but didn't find anything that would cause such a phenomenon. He switched to real life and looked pointedly toward the serenely calm figure of the Dullahan. The freak was alone and unmoving. _What the fuck was going on?_

Norma-Jeanne

It was either a testament to Norma-Jeanne's focus or an indictment of her tunnel vision that it wasn't until the war in front of her was in full swing that she noticed the eerie sounds of howling, bursts of gunfire, and the gut-wrenching thump of heavy objects striking flesh coming from all around. The dark was no longer an obstacle for Norma-Jeanne, and she saw large, amorphous forms glowing with a violet hue darting quickly in between the soldiers and beating them back with astounding strength. She noted all of this from her perch on the ground where she sat nursing what felt like a bruise on her cheek. She'd caught a foot to the ribs at some point also, but that was really only troublesome when she forgot she didn't need to breathe and tried it anyway. She smiled inwardly--since outward smiling caused her cheek to throb--at how good it felt to just let go of her inhibitions. Not only had she sucker kicked Liam, but after the melee had gotten into full swing, she'd sought out Nigel and the bus driver and gave them each a few well-deserved whacks to the head. A couple of bruises were a small price to pay for that kind of satisfaction.

She heard her name called loudly and clearly. It was like a trumpet pounding through her head, and she could no more resist it than she could a pint of Ben and Jerry's Dublin Mudslide ice cream. She felt herself drawn inexorably on toward one of the great heaps of rotting compost which glowed with a mixture of neon colors and then through it until she stood before Rosebud. A sickly green light flared from underneath a banana peel as a familiar face peeked out from the pile of refuse.

"Hey you, why so down in the dumps?" she asked.

"Funny. I see bein' a spirit didn't improve yer jokes."

"So, that's what I really am, huh? I'm dead?" she asked, choking on the last word.

"Not yet," Rosebud said, softening her tone in genuine pity. "Yer body is an empty shell right now. Ye are still tethered to it I see. So ye can still live if ye make it back soon enough . . . ." She stopped short, averting her eyes.

Norma-Jeanne brightened at this. "No shit? Then why don't you seem relieved?"

"There is a wee bit of a problem with that," Rosebud said hesitantly. "Yer gunna die."

"You've seen my potential death. All I have to do now is avoid it. Do something unexpected. Right?"

"Of course. You've done it before." Her expression wasn't quite the ray of sunshine Norma-Jeanne was hoping for, but what could one expect from the head of a death spirit? "Would ye get me out of this muck already?"

"So what's the plan?" she asked as she picked Rosebud up and tried to knock an eggshell out of her hair. Her hand passed right through it. She tried a second time and a third and finally settled on turning the head upside down and letting gravity do the work for her.

"The plan is the same as before. We need to get to me body and close the gate. I'm not for certain those two wankers can do what they say, but 'tis best not to chance such a thing."

"Right, and then we can get me back to my body. I like this plan."

John

"This is terrible. I can hardly believe what's happening right now. It doesn't make any sense. Those are actual bullets that you hear whizzing past me at this very second. I can't . . . oh shit! All right, John. Get it together. Be the reporter. The world needs to hear what's going on.

"Despite being primitive creatures who have spent most of their time hollering, beating on trees, and hunting for grubs, the Sasquatch were very well coordinated in their attack. Close to a dozen Sasquatch split off from the others and moved along the shadows of the trees. Within seconds, they had begun to hurl rocks at the soldiers around the perimeter with astounding accuracy and power. The impacts sounded like someone tenderizing a side of beef. The soldiers--those that weren't unconscious or nursing broken limbs--moved in on us and began to fire wildly into the night. Bullets flew into and around the trees. I've never been in the direct line of fire before, and it is absolutely terrifying. I'll never make fun of those foreign correspondents and their girly screams when they're being shot at again. I couldn't move much more than to bury my face and pray for it to be over. Finally, there was a break in the barrage. That's when all hell broke loose.

"I was still being lugged around by one of the pack and clung to his shoulders when he moved. I can tell you with absolute certainty that the athleticism of these creatures is astounding. We easily cleared fifteen feet at a step, and in less than the space of four breaths, we had cleared the fence and were into the melee. The soldiers couldn't seem to track our progress through their scopes and fired sporadically at the ground and behind us. That was little comfort for me as I had lost my grip after clearing the fence and landed hard on the ground.

"The air had been forced from my lungs on impact, and I struggled to keep up with everything that was happening. I saw well-groomed waves of hair bobbing and weaving among the combatants followed closely by muzzle flashes that burnt themselves into my retinas. There were teeth and uniforms and gunfire and inhuman screams that all melted into a single sickening blur of motion, noise, and lights. Gunshots rang out from everywhere, and I had just managed to get to my knees when I found myself staring at the glowing face of a soldier and the incredibly massive hole at the end of his rifle. It looked like he was pointing a bazooka at me. His face was slack and emotionless in the pale light from the scope on his rifle, and I knew right then and there that I was going to die. I couldn't help but think that my last meal was going to be two grasshoppers and some kind of bitter root. I should have saved a Twinkie. I ran one hand through my hair to make sure it was in place. I refused to die looking like a vagabond.

"He took one step, slipped on a rounded chunk of plastic, and fell onto his back. I pounced on him immediately, hitting him with my fists until he was still. I'd never beaten another man unconscious before. There was a rush of victory and power followed by the crushing weight of shame at what I had done. The fact that the ground was staring at me with angry eyes didn't help me feel any better about it. I was able to run over to one of the dumpsters to get out of the line of fire. There are still howls and shots going everywhere. I don't know how lon . . . ."

### November 1st

Norma-Jeanne

"What's with the spine?" Norma-Jeanne asked as they came close enough to see the segmented leash in the Dullahan's hand.

"'Tis actually a whip," Rosebud said, glancing sidelong at her friend. "Don't look at me," she said defensively. "Me body seems to think it makes it look deadly. 'Tis kind of a macho thin'. 'Oh, I'm bad . . . I got a spine whip. Ye'd better look out' and all of that."

"Men," Norma-Jeanne said shaking her head.

"Tell me about it."

They arrived at the headless body, and Norma-Jeanne looked up at it again, feeling that inner urge to dance surfacing once more. A few of the crispy critters had already left the brawl and were doing the Penguin and the Boogaloo. It was a veritable dance party, and only at Rosebud's insistence was she able to resist.

"So, how does this work?" Norma-Jeanne asked as her hips began to swing side to side involuntarily. "I can't reach your shoulders."

"I'm usually cradled in his arms. Just put me in there." Norma-Jeanne complied, setting the head in the crook of one arm and freeing her hands to point to the ground and then up in the air in time with her hips.

"Hell and damnation!" Rosebud shouted. "Tisn't workin. We need to get rid of that blasted iPad."

Norma-Jeanne swatted ineffectually at the iPad that was gripped tightly in the creature's hand. Her own hand passed right through it and came together with her other hand to do a little barrel roll before pointing skyward.

"No good," she said. "I'm a little too insubstantial for that." More spirits had come from the fight to join the American bandstand reunion, and Norma-Jeanne glanced back to where the ocean of spirits had been a few moments before. There wasn't much to see there in the way of spiritual detritus, but the thudding sound of very large feet on pavement caught her ear. A soldier went tumbling past her, and she got a good glimpse at a small group of very hairy creatures that looked pleased with themselves and their very big feet. Their very big sandal-covered feet.

"Sonofabitch. That shot was real!" she shouted. "Rosebud, I have got to get back and tell everyone. I was right all along."

"Don't tell me, lass. Tell him," Rosebud said glancing up at her body.

"Excuse me," she said, "Hello?" He was ignoring her completely.

"Hey!" she shouted. "You have no idea what I went through to get here. I carried your head with me across the Atlantic ocean. I went on a date with Shamu's unpopular cousin. I was followed around by ghosts for weeks while blacking out and doing the most embarrassing things imaginable. I almost died, no wait, I did die getting here to see you, and you're not even going to look at me?" She was screaming by now, but nothing seemed to move the thing that stood before her. "I don't think so, mister," she said, slapping up at the iPad that was clenched in its hands. There was a static "pop" as her palm touched the surface of the machine and sent it spinning into the air under the force of her anger.

Johnny and Raul

Johnny was beginning to get the impression that perhaps God was actually paying attention to him. The stifflers' spirits were in a giant jumble of flailing limbs and torsos and the sounds of crunching and howling in reality told him that whatever it was his soldiers were fighting, they were losing.

_Whose cosmic ass did these things get pulled out of? Is this like some kind of antibody response to a potential threat? Is God actually making His presence known to protect Himself? If so, then He must be pretty freakin' scared._ Johnny brightened at that thought. _He knows that we can hurt Him. This is His last ditch effort to stop us._ A maniacal grin spread across his face. "I've got one more surprise for You!" he shouted toward the heavens. "Raul," he said turning his head towards his partner, "looks like we'll have to go to Plan Z."

"I never liked Plan Z," Raul muttered, giving up on trying to will the stifflers forward. They'd been lost in the mayhem and had begun to randomly go offline. He looked back at the crowd and caught a glimpse of a very large, very hairy ape bounding by and slamming into a nearby soldier before flying off into the dark with a howl. "But it can't be much worse than getting bitch-slapped by los monos locos. Bonzai!" he shouted. Johnny picked up the battle cry, and they surged toward the lanky figure of the Dullahan.

Everything about Plan Z was purely hypothetical, but then so were the biomechanical implants they had been using for the last several months. Not that familiarity ensured success, especially with an untested process, but at least they could pin their hopes on the knowledge that they depended on a feat of incredible technology that was installed by as skillful a surgeon as they could blackmail into assisting them. That should inspire confidence, right? Crossing over should take only a single moment and be relatively painless, or it could be a long agonizing process. Either way, the months of planning, pain, suffering, and risk would have this one chance to pay off.

As they ran toward the Dullahan, they used their bodies like pill capsules, protecting the precious cargo from the onslaught of any external force that might be used to keep them from their appointment with God. There were a couple of bumps and bruises along the way as they were struck by flying debris--including an airborne soldier and two pieces of his rifle--but there was nothing for the two hackers to drop or lose. They were not stifflers, and no one seemed to take exception to them running away.

They approached the fairy spirit and submerged into the video game once more to make sure Stephen_McStudly was still holding the gate open. It was a crude digital representation of the truth, but in the real world, it was pretty much impossible for them to see the rift. The months of practice paid off as they were able to simultaneously run in both the lowest layer of Hell and the real world.

The king and his knight burst out of the waning cloud of brawling player characters and barreled toward the open portal. At the same time, Johnny Frease and Raul Santiago flanked the Dullahan on either side and took one step past it. There was one last autoexecute script that was triggered when they hit the gate, and this sent the signals to their brains to jettison their souls, just as they had done with the stifflers, and then they were free and on the other side. Their spirits grinned at one another in triumph from a field of ash and blackened trees.

Bean

Bean stood staring through the screen of his borrowed iPhone at the aftermath of the battle he had helped to start and end. The crusaders were gone from both sides, and what looked like a bar fight at the local morgue seemed to be running out of steam as well. It had been quite a magnificent brawl, but Bean's actions had ensured that there would be no winners in the game of Purgatory. There were only two crusaders left now. Sure, the king and his general were still around somewhere, not to mention a handful of soldiers and the misshapen Stephen_McStudly, but there is only so much one teenage boy can be expected to do.

"Werepe!" Peaches99 shouted as she ran up to him. "Where the hell have you been?"

"It's Bean, actually. Franklin Bean. I remember everything now."

"What are you talking about?"

"The before time. It's a lie. There is no before time."

"I don't understand."

"We're not really in Hell. We're standing around in a dump staring at a video game. None of it's real."

Peaches99 struggled with this for a moment before speaking. "But we're dying. The others are gone. They just started disappearing after those things joined the fight."

"What things?"

"You didn't see them? They're not like the demons. They're just weird. They look like men, only dead. I'm not sure what's going on, but one of those burnt looking things kicked me in the shin, and it was seriously uncool," she said while rubbing the armor plate that should have protected her. "Why has everything gone so wrong?"

"There's a lot I still don't understand, but I'm thinking that it's finally going right. I'm the one who took out all the crusaders. I logged them out of the game."

"I still . . . ."

"Trust me on this. I saved you for last. Do you think," he began, "do you think after all of this is over, maybe we could hang out sometime?"

"Are you asking me on a date?" Peaches99 said with mock indignation. Bean began to stammer and backtrack before she smiled at him. "Because if you're asking, then I'm accepting." Relief washed over him, and he smiled widely.

"Bean, huh? I like that." A sudden moment of panic struck her like a hammer. "I don't even know my name. What if I'm ugly? What if I don't have anything to wear?"

"Calm down," Bean said. "You're beautiful. I've seen you," he lied, thinking of the large bulbous torso he'd seen so many times out of the corner of his eye.

"Really?" she asked, giddy with excitement. "Okay, then. I'm ready." She closed her eyes in anticipation. Bean reached out and ran his hand along the slender arm in front of him. It was soft and warm, and he felt a little jolt of electricity at the touch. He gently grasped her phone and gave a little tug. It came out easily and then Peaches99 collapsed in front of him.

Bean kept hold of her hand to try to keep her real self from hitting the ground too hard. He wasn't sure that he would be able to, but he pried his eyes away from the screen of his phone and looked out at the true world for the first time in ages. The world was dark and blurry as his eyes struggled to adjust. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a giant green M&M body before he collapsed next to it.

Norma-Jeanne

Norma-Jeanne watched as the Dullahan's iPad tumbled behind the headless body and clanged to the ground, denting a corner and popping the glass out. The iPad played on, showing a field of rubble in a cavern strewn with dead, misshapen bodies and a man with a massive and disturbingly chiseled head standing in front of a glowing gateway. Two regal figures clad in gleaming medieval armor approached and then disappeared into the portal as the screen faded to black.

The bodies of two young men passed beyond the rift and sprawled on the ground almost ten feet away. Norma-Jeanne was so absorbed in her anger and frustration that she hadn't seen the two ring leaders of this circus sprinting at her. Of course, they probably didn't see her either or any of the spiritual combatants that they rudely plowed through. Whatever their intention, they seemed to have died in the process. Their bodies lay in the dirt, just lifeless husks, with only two glowing strings, one red and one orange, protruding from them and snaking into the rift. She looked at her own string as realization dawned on her.

"Those are tethers," she said. "They're still alive, aren't they? Wait, so am I. What the hell am I still doing here?" she asked as she followed her own golden string back into the Otherside. She could hear Rosebud calling after her, but her words were too muffled to hear.

Johnny and Raul

The afterlife was not as cheery and upbeat a place as the two had thought it would be. Neither of them were by any means religious--that would have made the whole "let's go out and hijack God" thing a bit awkward--but having grown up among a society that was, there were certain subconscious expectations that weren't being met. Raul had been brought up Catholic and had an image of cherubs flitting through the sky like a flock of sparrows and the virgin Mary waiting for him with open arms--or at the very least a stern nun in her penguin suit snapping the end of a long wooden ruler into her palm. Johnny had unexpectedly formed an image of castle surrounded by luminescent fluffy clouds and being serenaded with bawdy medieval tavern music from that wafted out from behind a giant portcullis. The wall above would have been manned by St. Peter who would lob insults at him from beneath a shiny bullet helmet. He wasn't sure where that one had come from, but it was there nonetheless. What they saw was a disappointment.

"I think the travel agent lied," Raul said as he scanned the barren, ashy landscape before him. It was more like a post-nuclear holocaust than the promised kingdom of God. "It looks like something threw up a big pile of depressing all over the place."

"Maybe this is," Johnny paused, sounding uncertain for the first time as he watched something with a one too many heads peek up at him from the ground at his feet, "just the front lawn."

"God needs a landscaper," Raul said distractedly. "And a bug man."

"Huh?" Johhny asked before following Raul's gaze. Perhaps ten feet away from them was the most repulsive looking worm he had ever seen. It was black and shiny and had way too many things sticking out from around its head. And it was moving in their direction. "Where the hell did that thing come from?"

"One second it wasn't there, and then it was. And it looks like it invited some amigos."

Both men tried to maneuver away from the oncoming creatures, but with each step, they found themselves penned in by more and more of them. They kicked at those closest to them, but the worm-things' flesh was like tar, and it clung to their legs before continuing on its path up. The little legs on the front clicked and pulled on the clothing and sometimes even the bare skin of the hackers in the struggle between predator and prey. All the fight went out of Johnny and Raul as soon as their heads were completely engulfed by the slugsects' mouths. Their bodies stilled and what was left of their consciousness hoped in earnest that their virus would hurry up and infect these creatures because the mouth of a giant slug was straight up nasty.

Norma-Jeanne

Norma-Jeanne popped back out into the spirit world with an "oomph" as she once again found herself floating horizontally at high velocity. She hurtled aimlessly across the grey and dusty landscape until she collided with one of two figures in front of her. The one she smacked into didn't seem to mind too much. He was kind of busy wearing a giant slug over his head at the moment. She, however, did notice as the impact jarred her spiritual teeth and possibly gave her another concussion. _Great, just what I need_ , she thought. _I'll probably wander around in circles for eternity now._

She picked herself up and looked to the innocent bystander of the accident. Then she recognized him and his partner and felt better about ramming into them. Pinky and the Brain had discovered one of the more fashionable head accessories in the land of the dead. It looked like they were wearing a couple of very large wiggly knit caps. This gave her a small degree of satisfaction, quickly followed by a shudder as she remembered her own dalliance with such finery. Any pleasure she took from their discomfort was short lived, however. If they were right, then they were probably hacking the slugs God code right now and would soon be working their way to the top. It was at this point in any good story that the hero usually pulled off some impossible feat to thwart the dastardly deeds of her enemies, but Norma-Jeanne was drawing a blank. So she pantsed them.

The joyful whoops and cries of long-suffering spirits tumbled in through the rift as Liam, Nigel, Alfred, and the crispy critters all finally found whatever peace awaited them in the ever after. She watched them sailing overhead and bounding along the ground like balloons without their strings. _A woman knows no joy greater than saying goodbye to houseguests_ , she mused. And then the rift began to close.

All thoughts of saving the universe took an immediate back seat to Norma-Jeanne's thoughts of saving her own backside. The night had grown too long, and the fabric was thickening between the worlds. She had to follow her tether back to her body and get out of here while she still had a chance. She put her feet on the orange bastard who'd helped to start all of this and pushed off with all she had. Her spirit went sailing out across the desolate grey ash and over the scraggly plants and insects that dotted the ground. She spotted a second rift into the world of the living through which her tether disappeared. It must have been her very own gateway, created through the force of her time spent with Rosebud and multiple head injuries. This too was subject to the shriveling ravages of time. She flailed her arms and legs in a maddening attempt to gain speed as the string--and her life--were slowly being choked off. The second rift began knitting itself back together with maddening determination.

She pushed herself to her soul's limits to close the distance, and she reached the rift just as it had shrunk to the size of a basketball. She thrust her hands into the hole and grasped the edges firmly, straining hard to widen it just another few inches so she could squeeze through. It didn't work. The tear creaked and groaned and then closed with an audible "pop," nearly taking her fingers with it. Her tether floated down beside her before bursting into a shower of fireflies that lit up the grey world with golden yellow light before fading away. Norma-Jeanne collapsed to the ground in shock as she stared at the space where the portal had been.

Eternity stretched out before Norma-Jeanne, and even a whole bucket full of firefly tears seemed insufficient to mark the occasion. She looked up at the world before her through bleary eyes, taking in the bleakness of her new home. Even the predicament of those two idiots who got her into this mess did little to cheer her up. They seemed more like lawn gnomes at this point. They simply stood and swayed, rocking the latest in slugsect headwear. She wondered what, if anything, they were thinking in there. Would they dream slimy dreams forever? Were they being tortured and punished for their misdeeds? Was she? A large, bulbous form erupted from the sand in the distance and interrupted her thoughts. It wavered slightly before turning toward Pinky and the Brain. It undulated closer to them and reached out delicately with its forelimbs. It traced the outlines of their stationary forms as if getting their measurements, and then it yanked hard. The hackers were ripped off their feet and plunged into the gullet of the giant slugsect in a blink, and then it submerged below the sand. That was the last straw.

The tears began to fall again, and the world around Norma-Jeanne blurred with their passing. She couldn't make out the details of the person that strode up to and then sat down beside her on the ashen ground. She didn't have to. There was a thrumming in the air, a combination of disco and staccato violin that was at once beautiful and sad.

"So what now?" Norma-Jeanne asked as she wiped the spiritual snot from her nose. She didn't look at her companion as she dabbed the moistness from around her face. "Will I be next on the menu? Probably be better than just sitting here forever. It's not like there's anything left for me to do, is there?" The silence drew out long enough for her to compose herself. She scooped up a handful of ash and let it filter through her fingers.

"That, me dear girl, is an interestin' question," Rosebud said wistfully.

"My tether's gone," Norma-Jeanne said, plucking at the fading remnants of it around her naval. "I'm officially dead now. Do you think I could see my body? Maybe if it's still going I could. . . ."

"No. I can only open one rift per night, and I've already used it up. I'm sorry."

"Dammit!" she shouted. "It's not fair. I did everything right. I brought you here, I put you back together, and I helped to stop the hostile takeover of the universe . . . ." She trailed off.

"I know," Rosebud said, putting a delicate hand on her shoulder. "I'm certain God will reward ye fer it when ye meet up."

"There were so many things I wanted to do." She thought for a moment, recalling something from a shower in a Shreveport hotel. "I remember hearing at some point that the energy of the human soul is a function of its emotional and intellectual experiences." Rosebud raised her eyebrows at this. "It would seem to me that we are meant to have experiences in order to increase our value as souls. I'm not sure what God will do with all the energy, but it's better to have and not need than need and not have."

"Where precisely are ye goin' with this?"

"I would hate to short-change God when I meet Him. I mean, I'm sure He wants a good return on His investment . . . ."

"There is no arguin' yer way out of this. I've told ye already. I canna open another rift until tomorrow night. Yer body will be dead then, and I'm not about to start makin' zombies. Unnatural creatures, all smelly and rottin'."

"Oh, c'mon. Throw me a bone here. You're my only hope."

Rosebud sighed and looked remorseful. "Nothin' I can do," she muttered.

The sound of puckered air, like pulling the lid off of a vacuum sealed jar, erupted in the fabric of the space not ten feet away from where the unusual pair sat. As they watched in amazement, another dozen rifts sprang up all over the tapestry of the Otherside around them. Nearly as soon as they appeared, a steady stream of spirits began to trickle through each one. These were massive rifts, the size of subway tunnels, and there was something different about them from the one created by Rosebud. It was a different flavor . . . perhaps wet dog and compost? Norma-Jeanne rose from the ground and floated over to the nearest rift and peered out. There had to be thousands, no tens of thousands, of souls queued up and waiting in line to cross over. She looked at Rosebud whose body shrugged its shoulders in confusion.

"See, I'm an investment," she said and then--like a salmon returning to its spawning grounds--Norma-Jeanne started swimming upstream. This involved delivering a whole lot of elbows, foot stomps, and groin-shots to those who blocked her path, which was nothing she hadn't done in the subways back home a thousand times before. She broke free of the ranks of the dead several minutes later and took in the open air about her.

It was a strange air, tasteless and filled with a peculiar mixture of hoots, howls, knocking, and the banging of large metal containers. As she gazed across the transfer station, she could see dozens of large primates, um, getting it on amongst the garbage. She closed her eyes in embarrassment. Then she peeked. It had been a while after all. There was something odd about the giant creatures and their amorous liaisons in the refuse, aside from the obvious. They were positively glowing with static electricity. As the vigorous activity drew fur across fur, little sparks of energy were created. These seemed to crawl across the creatures' hides, looking for the quickest path to ground. Only they didn't simply dissolve into the earth when they met it. The sparks weaved their way across the ground to combine with and feed the rifts into the Otherside.

"Are they?" Norma-Jeanne said with incredulity.

"Apparently." Rosebud appeared at her side.

"The Sasquatch are like you, only furrier. But how do they get the spirits to follow? There are so many . . . ."

"This way," Rosebud said as an impossibly thin and strong hand grasped Norma-Jeanne's elbow. "Hurry." They raced past the throngs of waiting spirits and isolated islands of monkey business to arrive at the body of a soldier draped uncomfortably over the body of a dead female videographer.

"What do I do?" she asked.

"I'm not real sure. Normally the chord is still in place, and ye just get sucked back in. Try puttin' it on like a suit."

"What, you mean I'll just be wearing my body? What will that make me? Undead?"

"Different. Now get in there before it's too late."

"Rosebud," she said as she knelt down, feeling the static pull of her body draw her physical and spiritual feet back together with a tingling sensation. "What will happen now?"

"Ye'll stop blatherin' and put the rest of yer body on. The sooner the better."

"No, I mean with you, me, us?"

"I'd prefer it if ye kept mum about me to yer boss. I dunna need people muckin' about the Irish countryside lookin' for me."

"So you're going back home?"

"'Tis where I belong. Unless, of course, ye want to take over me job?"

"No. I think I'll stick with reporting. As far as your story," Norma-Jeanne thought about this as her stomach lurched back inside her body. The process was only slightly less nauseating than a cheap carnival ride. She hated sitting on such a big story as this--especially one that could further her career quite a bit--but then there was more than enough going on around her right now to keep her producer happy for years. "You've got a deal," she said as she returned to her head and found a throbbing blackness within. The sounds of animal passion followed her into unconsciousness.

Garp

The Lincoln hadn't been in quite as good shape as Reverend Garp had originally thought. The car had decided to shake violently once it hit fifty-five miles per hour, and it seemed to take forever to reach the garbage dump on Devil's Foot Road. He rolled up to the front gates and put the car in park. The darkness inside the compound was only betrayed by the orange light from a waning moon and a spattering of softly glowing points scattered across the ground at the far end of the complex.

Garp opened the car door and stepped out. The air smelled of rotten eggs and muskrat. He covered his nose with a handkerchief as he made his way to the chain-link gate and pulled at it. It parted almost two feet before the chain around it pulled tight. It took a little effort, but he was able to squeeze through and emerge into the transfer station beyond. He thought he could hear sobbing and the grunting of animals in the distance. This was not what he had expected from well over one hundred people, but the vast majority of those would have been zombies, so they didn't count.

He found the first iPhone on the ground nearly halfway to the main building. Being careful not to look at it directly, he lifted it off the ground and pointed it away from his face. The light it gave off served him as a pathetically weak flashlight, and he moved it around in an arc across the ground until he spotted the prone figure of a man in military fatigues. He approached for a closer examination and noted with an increasing sense of dread the odd angle at which the man's arm was bent. There had been some kind of skirmish here. Had the feds been here? Was Gabe able to get them up here before the ceremony was finished? No, there would be a ton of vehicles and helicopters and men crawling all over the place. This was something different.

More noises came from the other side of the building, and Reverend Garp moved in that direction, holding the phone in front of him like a shield. There were dozens of lights littering the ground here and an equal number of lumpy, misshapen bodies beside them. He kicked a discarded flashlight and then picked it up, clicking it on. The beam cut through a low-lying fog that had just begun to form and played over the scene before him. It was like some kind holocaust erupted at a Halloween party in the dump and wiped out every living thing within its confines. Only, it hadn't wiped out every living thing.

A pair of large, glowing red eyes shined back at him from the dark mountain of garbage on the other side of the bodies. Another four pairs lit up as he began to back away, not wanting to raise the light for fear of pissing off whatever creatures were looming over there. They all winked out in unison a second before Garp heard the wail of a siren in the distance. It was joined shortly by another, and then the air was filled with a whole platoon of the damn things.

Reverend Garp flicked the flashlight toward his car and began to do the math. He'd never make it in time. He felt something gently caress the back of his head, running rough fingers through his hair and turned ever so slightly toward the source. All he could see in the dim light was a mountain of fur. A scream built up inside of him, but before he could release it, he was snatched off his feet and unceremoniously flung over one massive shoulder. He could just make out the red and blue lights streaming toward the gates as his captors leaped over the fence and sped out into the adjoining trees.
Part 7 - Rebirth

### November 10th

Bean

Franklin Bean sat in a wheelchair beside the hospital bed in Providence, Rhode Island, watching a Mysteries of the Paranormal special about Bigfoot and the events of October thirty-first. He'd awakened two days ago in a similar white bed surrounded by the humming and beeping of instruments. He'd been the only one out of over a hundred patients in the quarantined zone to revive so far and had been grilled and tested for hours. They hadn't found any viral, bacterial, or chemical cause for what they called a catatonic vegetative state, but no one was taking any chances. Staff wore hazmat suits, and families were kept at bay by clear, plastic barriers. Even though Bean could tell them very little aside from battling demons in a videogame world and pointedly told them nothing about how he came to be wearing a plush bunny suit, his recovery had sparked a fervent hope in all those who were present, and every waiting family had requested to speak with him.

Although he was physically weak and tired, over the next two days Bean talked to everyone who asked to see him in hopes of discovering some information of his own--namely the identity of Peaches99.

That was how he came to be sitting in a wheelchair in front of the hospital bed that contained one Sandra Mullens of Jackson, Mississippi, when she awoke. She had long, red hair and a face full of freckles. Her family had said that she was fifteen years old, and despite being a little gaunt and malnourished, it was easy to tell that she would develop into a fine-figured woman someday--if she took after her mom at all. She opened her brown eyes and stared at Bean for a long moment.

"Bean?" she said tentatively.

He nodded and then extended his hand out to grasp hers. "I'm here for our date. My room or yours?" he asked grinning.

Norma-Jeanne

As sleep took her deep into the throws of her subconscious, Norma-Jeanne's essence sat up and gave a long, cat-like stretch. The yellow fireflies drifted lazily off of her arms and wafted on some unearthly breeze until they fizzled out and vanished. She looked around at her prison cell and sighed. "Prison cell" was probably a bit harsh. The room she was in was nicer than most of the hotels she'd frequented over the years. It had a mini-fridge, a separate living room, two televisions, and clean sheets. They weren't even spying on her at night as far as she could tell, and she'd looked . . . repeatedly. The only problem with the accommodations was that she couldn't leave just yet.

She hadn't been quick enough to run away after reconnecting with her body. In fact, she'd barely been able to move without injuring herself for a couple of days after the debacle at the transfer station. It was like she had to re-learn how to control her body and all of its various idiosyncrasies. There were still some lingering twitches that invariably led to embarrassing drinking problems, but at least she'd figured out the waste-disposal system fairly well. _Thank God._

But the end result of her disabilities had placed her firmly in the care of Uncle Sam, and he was pretty pissed that someone had walked up to his house and thrown rocks at his windows. They didn't blame her precisely, but she got the impression they thought she knew more than she was letting on, which she did. Hence the living arrangements and daily social calendar filled with "talking to the man."

This captivity would have been significantly worse if she hadn't been able to leave her body at night. This was probably a side effect of all that being near death, dying, and losing your psychic tether hoodoo from a couple of weeks ago. There were hazards, she reckoned, but for now the benefit of being free outweighed any that she knew of.

She willed her spirit to rise into the air and submit to the eddies and currents of the celestial winds that cycled eternally around and through existence. It carried her through the ceiling and up into the night sky. She gave a last, longing glance at her body, noting the deep breathing with relief. It seemed that her mortal vessel would continue its automatic functions without her. At least it had the last four times she'd left. She was probably technically in a coma, but hey, that's nothing compared to being dead.

The sky opened up before her in hues of dark blues and crimson where the stars peeked through the veil. The universe was alive, and she was part of it. She rolled over to look at the ground, tracking her progress to help keep from getting lost on the way back. It blossomed out into a rainbow of colors as life pulsed from every tree, leaf, animal, and human that she passed over. It would take a lot of time to sort out everything well enough to become comfortable with seeing things through these eyes, but there was no rush. Mysteries were a good thing to have around.

A knock sounded from far below in the forest. It was followed by another one soon after, and the winds upon which she drifted seemed to change. They drew her down into the foliage and left her under the canopy. Another knock sounded, much closer than before, and the winds picked up and ushered her toward the source. She wasn't alone on this trip. A dead man wafted past her, showing off the hole that went from one side of his head to the other as he passed. There was a little girl also, floating in from a nearby lake or river. She'd probably been a drowning victim, her clothes sticking to her bloated body in a tight, wet embrace. There were two men in military uniforms passing on, one of which gave her a lascivious stare as he floated past. More of these ghosts came with each successive knock as something in the forest seemed to have turned on a spiritual vacuum cleaner. It wasn't until she passed a giant oak that she could see the source of this commotion clearly.

Gabriel

Gabe had not taken to spirit life as well as he would have thought. He was invisible and could float through walls and had access to every real-life bedroom in the city. It was the ultimate voyeur experience. Only it wasn't. The urge to do these things was there, but the opportunity to do so was not. This had a lot to do with the vengeful spirit of ex-technical sergeant Blake and his campaign to ruin Gabe's afterlife. Who knew that a little thing like murder would incite such hard feelings? Each time Gabe thought he had lost his tormentor, Blake would come barreling through a wall or car on the offensive. Getting beaten, even as a ghost, hurt like hell. Gabe had fought back for a while, giving as good as he'd gotten, but the anger that filled Blake seemed to make him stronger with each confrontation. He was obviously embracing his inner poltergeist. Nearly two weeks of this had left Gabe cowering behind the bushes in a community park, waiting for his next thrashing. He could feel Blake closing in and cringed in preparation, but then everything stopped.

There was a loud knock of wood on wood that caught his attention and held it. He felt like a dog catching a scent on the wind. It was something strange and irresistible. The knock sounded again, louder, and he was dragged forward against his will. He vaguely remembered seeing Blake beside him, oblivious to the hatred and anger that had fueled him post mortem. The third knock sounded as they were entering a copse of trees on the outskirts of town. They had found other spirits and joined them in a macabre parade toward the source. He had time for one final lusty ogle of a particularly well-endowed spirit before losing all sense of himself.

Norma-Jeanne

Norma-Jeanne marveled at the architect of this performance. It was a Sasquatch. A tall, wizened old charcoal grey creature stood at the trunk of a solitary tree in the middle of a clearing. It carried a sturdy looking branch in one hand that it used to strike the tree with precise blows. The tree hummed, and small tendrils of life energy reached out from within with each strike. The foremost ghost came in contact with one of these tendrils and was drawn into the tree with a static "pop." Others followed suit, either oblivious to the danger or welcoming it. Norma-Jeanne swam against the flow and brought herself down to the ground where she could anchor her feet in the rich, life-filled soil. She watched curiously from there as the number of tendrils diminished along with the hunger of the tree. When all was said and done, it had absorbed nearly twenty souls and left another half dozen homeless and disappointed. They drifted back to where they'd come from to await the next calling.

The Bigfoot looked at her, pointed a finger, grinned a yellow, snaggle-toothed grin, and gave a "whoot!" before striding off into the deeper shadows of the forest. She wondered if it had recognized her as a fellow collector of souls. _Ex-collector of souls_ , she reminded herself. In any case, the tree was a nice touch for storing the spirits. She wasn't sure how they got them back out again, but judging by how many had crossed over at the transfer station, it probably wasn't difficult. She wished she'd had that back in Ireland.

Thinking of Ireland brought the thoughts of the friends she'd made there. She wondered how Rosebud and her body were getting along. They made such a cute couple. She spared a brief thought for the Nose Pad King and for the giant prehistoric leprechaun. She even thought of the fisherman and his bonnie merrow. But mainly she thought of the like-minded psychic friends she had met through the "I almost died" hotline. Maybe now that she had super powers too they'd invite her to share some of the adventures. Maybe she'd even start her own show with them. There was an idea that would have gotten her blood pumping if she'd brought it with her. Of course, a lot of this hinged on if the FBI would ever let her go, but then again, who said you had to show up for the interview in person . . . .

Garp

The small island surrounded by the fetid waters of some Godforsaken swamp held exactly no resemblance to the paradise Reverend Garp thought he'd have had by now. He had to admit that the gator shit facial was definitely a plus, but the cuisine left a lot to be desired. The days had slipped past him since his abduction, but his watch had kept track of them right up until its first dunking in a southern bayou. Apparently, waterproof did not mean swamp proof. By his calculations, the apocalypse started about nine days ago and was apparently as successful as his attempts to escape from this tribe of apemen had been--not at all.

After his abduction from the junkyard in Rhode Island, the Bigfeet, or whatever they are, had made astonishingly good time through the forests of New England. Hours of jostling and being tossed from one to another of the things had left him bruised and battered, but that hadn't stopped him from trying to run the first chance he'd gotten. No, it was the giant ape woman that had stopped him with her need to cuddle with him and pet his hair. There was more running and more cuddling and even two occasions in which they had stolen delivery trucks. Garp had no idea how Bigfoot had learned to drive, but the one with the giant bouffant had gotten pretty good at it--or at least as good as any other truck driver with anger management issues. He even had a vague recollection of running through row after row of hanging meat in a vain attempt to escape, but that really made no sense, so he'd attributed that to a nightmare or one of several head injuries he'd suffered along the way.

And then there was the swamp, that endless expanse of soggy nothing that stretched out before him in all directions. There was no escape from here. An hour in any direction would see him poisoned by a moccasin, drained lifeless by the mosquitos once his gator shit wore off, chewed on by a gator--either as a snack or as punishment from trying to harvest mosquito repellent--drowned in a sinkhole, or simply lost to depression. No, he was destined to stay in this little slice of paradise among his new flock until they decided he had served his time. He stared over at the small mound of cosmetics the tribe had collected and brought to his island with a shudder. Last night's grooming session had been quite vigorous, and these creatures demanded to look fabulous. It was all mani-pedis, dental hygiene, and washing and brushing hair, hair, and more hair. It had gone on for hours, and touch-ups had been expected the next morning. He sighed and turned his head in the other direction, looking over at the small grave several feet away. Someone had planted a small wooden cross with the name "Chuck" scratched onto it. He was the lucky one. Lucky Chuck. He sighed once more and stared up at the sky where God probably didn't live and thought about asking for forgiveness. "Nah," he said to nobody. "This is more than I deserve." It was, at least for the time being, peaceful here. _Beats living with my wife._

Lenore

Interviewer--So, that was your last contact with the Sasquatch? They just disappeared and left you there in the middle of the transfer station?

John--There were some "unusual" activities that followed the fight, and then they left.

Interviewer--Could you elaborate on "unusual?"

John--The scene was one of chaos. The ground was completely littered with the forms of broken and unconscious men, rifles, and oddly enough, iPhones. Approximately a hundred feet away from me was a huge mass of trick-or-treaters. They too were sprawled out on the ground and didn't seem too inclined to move. I tried to go to them once but was shouted back by some very agitated Bigfeet that were, ah . . . .

Interviewer--Yes?

John--They were busy, um, getting busy.

Interviewer--The Bigfeet were having sex?

John--Yes. They were very loud and very, very, um, energetic. They were in the dumpsters, on top of an RV, and taking a roll in the compost. The noise was deafening. There was banging and howling and screeching, and it wouldn't stop! It dragged on and on and . . . .

Interviewer--John, calm down. It's over.

John--Sorry, I've been working with my therapist. It seems I still have a ways to go.

Interviewer--No one can blame you after what you went through. After the, um, happy ending passed, what happened to all the Bigfeet?

John--They vanished. One second they were loud and ravenous, and the next they were gone. Not a trace left.

Interviewer--Just gone? So they came all that way to get in a fight and then fornicate on garbage?

John--It would seem so. I've checked with other primate experts, and no one has seen anything like that before. The best I can reason is that they were either taunting the loser of the fight, or the soldiers were simply in the way of a Sasquatch swingers club.

Interviewer--And why were the soldiers there in the first place? And what were the missing children from the Gulf Coast doing there dressed in costumes?

John--I only have theories. The government is still "investigating," and we'll probably never hear the whole truth of it. Only one of the sixty-six children has come out of the coma, and all he can remember is something about fighting off demons and a king. All the rest are still catatonic as far as I've been told. They might never wake up.

Interviewer--They were obviously traumatized.

John (showing some irritation on his face)--Obviously. We all were. But I can't help but think that some of what that kid said might be true. The location was Devil's Foot Rock, and we've already heard some of the history behind that. It has some definite cult significance. You couple that with a bunch of kidnapped teenagers who were in a trance and seeing demons, and you begin to wonder.

Interviewer--Wasn't there one more witness? Someone who might be able to give us some answers?

John (bristling)--There was a Mysteries employee there who got some footage and apparently talked to a couple of suspicious characters. She has yet to be cleared to speak.

Interviewer--You mean she's comatose, too?

John--No. She and her footage are being detained by the anti-terrorism division of our very government. They are trying to bury . . . .

\--Please Stand By--

Lenore rose to refill the giant bowl of popcorn they'd been sharing. The old fashioned popcorn popper was still half filled with warm, fluffy kernels, and she scooped them out and into the bowl with practiced ease. Normally, being in Marjorie's house was the only place she felt truly at ease. Even though she groused about the frilly pillows and paisley couches, it did feel like home, at least more of one than she had ever known. Only, there was something amiss now that tickled and nagged at her. It was almost like there was someone watching her. She sighed and raised her head, knowing what she'd find. She was wrong.

Interviewer--Sorry about that. We seemed to have had some technical difficulties. You were saying, John?

John (looking subdued)--Mysteries of the Paranormal is in a joint venture with the United States government to assist with uncovering the truth of what happened on October thirty-first. I'm sure we will get to the bottom of the matter shortly.

Interviewer--So, what will you do now?

John (perking up and looking directly into the camera)--Well, I will continue to unravel the mysteries out there. No danger is too great to keep me from walking the path of truth.

Interviewer--There you have it folks. Good night and be sure to look for John Urban's new books: Sasquatch in the Mist and Come Get Your Grubs: A Cookbook for the Rural Pallet.

"That's not something you see every day," Lenore said averting her eyes from an empty spot in the living room.

"What's that, dear?" Marjorie asked.

"Well, either Norma-Jeanne died while undressing, or she just likes to spirit walk in the nude."

"What makes you say that?"

Norma-Jeanne Baker looked down at her ghostly self and frowned. All she had worn to her job interview were a pair of ankle socks. _Shit._

###

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won't you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer?

Thanks!

Christopher Clark

Discover other titles by C. W. Clark:

Excerpt from 8 Legs Up

**Chapter One**

There are dreams of a better life, and there are dreams of children walking hand in hand together. There are dreams of fame and power and sacrifice and fancy, and then there are dreams of black pudding. That last one was mine. This particular topic may not have been truly a first for me, but I can say with a great deal of confidence that it wasn't my usual fare. I reserved that honor for more important things like heroics and seducing women with my undeniable machismo. But on this occasion, it was a rolling sea of black pudding that captured my subconscious and undulated around me in gooey swells. I was lying atop the creamy, dark ocean, kept in place by the dense substance and a raft of pudding skin that had formed beneath me. I rose and fell with the peaks and troughs, simply being, or just as likely ceasing to be. The pudding finally tired of supporting me and soon after my rubbery float disappeared beneath the surface, I was called down into its depths. It beckoned me with promises of butterscotch and banana at the bottom, but I resisted my fate. I thought buoyant thoughts and felt myself regaining my place at the surface. The ocean threw all manner of enticements at me but I refused to succumb to the temptation. I willed myself to stay on the surface and enjoy the convenience of breathing air.

Angry at my defiance the pudding yielded to eight long cylinders of scorn that pushed up past the tension in the surface to tower over me. They were long and segmented and curled around my still form with a slow certainty. The world flipped and my pudding ocean leaked down around me in long, spiny strands. I looked wildly from side to side, unable to see the entire picture, but getting enough of it to form an image in my mind. I was held fast to the underside of something huge and furry. In the distance, a pair of long, black fangs as large as mountains hung down past the horizon of fur. They seemed too curved toward me, too much like they were reaching back toward me with those hollow points glistening with a luminescent green fluid. There was a lurch, and I felt myself jerked upward, my ass and one of my feet having been absorbed into the flesh of this thing. Another lurch and then another drew me further in. I could only watch helplessly as the light from that world disappeared as I was slowly, inescapably drawn inside the body of the beast.

****

"Dude, you were dead."

"Yeah, that makes plenty of sense since I'm talking to you right now."

"Maybe you're a ghost," Marty said as he pushed his finger into my shoulder, rocking himself back with a little shove. He was built a bit like a weeble, with his center of gravity firmly ensconced around his midsection. His long, spindly appendages seemed like they were an afterthought of his construction. "Nope. Not a ghost. But you were dead. I checked with the mirror and everything."

"You were baked out of your skull, man. You were latched on that bong like a third lung."

"Nah, man. I can hold my weed. I saw you dead, and now I see you alive. You're fucking Lazarus, man!"

"Right. And for my next miracle, I'll turn Old Milwaukie into Guinness. Face it man, you just got some bad weed. Someone cut your shit with lawn clippings. Hell, last night was the first time I blacked out on that stuff. You need to find a new dealer." Marty fidgeted in place on the seat beside me like it was on casters or something. There's nothing worse than smoking ragweed when you're just looking for a good mellow. I wouldn't have been surprised if he was still riding the green wave the way he was playing solo twister over there.

"You think so? Do you remember that spider?"

"I remember a dead spider." And that was about the last thing I did remember from last night's little blowout. We were feeling pretty tuned in to Mother Nature and ran across some big brown thing all curled up under the bed. Marty launched into some long-winded discourse of how it was obviously an Homo Arachnis, "cause it's a spider that lives in the home". He had a hell of a documentary accent, so I went with it. To the best of my recollection, last night's stimulating conversation went something like:

" _Too bad it's dead. I would love to see this thing running free. I mean, eight legs, all moving at once."_

" _I know," Marty had said "I only have two hands and they're like all over the place."_

" _I bet we can bring it back to life. Too bad I don't know any insect CPR."_

" _Dude, only one thing you gotta know. Google."_

He was right. Google is the second brain we all wish we had on permanent standby. We did some searches and found this really cool website with recipes for bringing dead things back to life, as well as one for some killer peanut butter chunk brownies. The recipe, the one for raising the dead, involved drawing all these shapes around the "deceased", which we laid out reverently on the kitchen linoleum. On top of that, we had to utter a jumble of words that sounded like an Aborigine reciting the Gettysburg address backward. I remember pronouncing them in all their guttural glory and they came out easy, which is odd since I have been known to have trouble with some of the bigger words in English. Somehow these damn things just about spoke themselves. It was toward the end that I blacked out, but not before getting a cramp in my stomach that felt like someone was trying to pull an octopus out of my bellybutton. Then there was nothing.

"What did you do with it? The spider? Throw it away?"

"No, man. You don't remember? It fuckin got up and walked away. You brought it back to life, and then you were dead."

"You're such a retard," I said, stopping the truck in front of a blue dumpster that had been tastefully covered in graffiti penises. I toyed with the idea that maybe, just maybe, some punk kid was trying for a rocket ship motif, but if so, they put the airbags in the wrong place. What kind of messed up kid thinks slapping willies on a dumpster will make him cool? I flicked the lever to my right, and the lifts rolled down in front of the truck to get ready to embrace the trash box. I felt a little bad for the truck at having to touching the filthy thing at all. Maybe I should invent some lift-condoms or something for just such an occasion.

"Dead spiders don't get up and walk again, and neither do dead garbage men." I caught myself staring at a speck that slowly made its way onto the dash from the ceiling. It dangled and then thumbed its nose at gravity and floated back to the roof. "It was just bad shit last night. Bad shit." I went ahead and pushed the lift forward. Just sitting around is for suckers. If you're not doing, then you're getting done, and I'm not ready for anyone to do me. Well, not guys at least. Or ugly women. Well, really ugly women, anyway.

****

You hear stories of the old age express and all the baggage cars of memory it leaves behind as it gains speed toward the great train station in the sky. You think, that will never happen to me, and then find yourself asking "what will never happen?" Mine must have jumped the track and plowed into an oil refinery or something because my memory for the rest of the morning was moth-eaten and ragged. The afternoon was damn near completely gone. I must have been operating on autopilot because I had made it back to my apartment, but I'd be damned if I could tell you how, why, or if I ran over anyone on the way. In fact, the first thing I recalled after the dumpster of shame was standing in the kitchen of my apartment and staring at the floor. It was, at one point, such a nice floor. It was a faux white tile design that had been lovingly glued down to the subfloor just before I moved in. I liked to theorize it was to cover up the blood stains of the previous tenant, but that was all conjecture. Now, an intricate network of big sharpie figures squatted on the linoleum like bloated tattoos. Each design was drawn at one of four points around a central circle as, from what I could recall from the depths of the weedy haze, an oh-so inspiring website demanded that each one be precisely aligned with the four corners of the globe. Of course, this had led to a huge debate about how a sphere could actually have corners, so we settled on lining it up with a compass. Since we couldn't find one of those, we pretty much rock-paper-scissored our way into where east was and filled in the rest.

At the top, the defacto north, was a symbol that looked an awful lot like a robot snowflake. It was all crossing lines and right angled shapes at the tips. To the east was an ornate cross that looked like it was being scaled by a moose or reindeer. Watching this spectacle were two crude figures, one with a spikey sun for a head and another that just might have been a duck. I wasn't really clear on that one. At the bottom was a circle with black and white figures of a bear, a turtle, a buffalo and a fish all drawn with jagged arrows through them. And the west was something that looked an awful lot like a lump of crap being sprinkled on by flowers. How quaint, it even had stink lines. Between those were little dancing stick figures, performing acts I've only seen while flipping through the pages of the Kama Sutra book as a teenager and then later as an adult and probably sometime last week. I can't remember if those were from the website or something Marty and I thought would spruce the whole thing up. Geez, I've got to stop smoking that shit.

The circle itself was decorated at intervals with alternating lines and squiggles. All in all, I found myself fairly impressed with what we were able to do while baked like a loaf of French bread. The total design space took up about three square feet and completely and utterly ruined any chance I had to get my deposit back. I pinched the bridge of my nose with a thumb and middle finger and closed my eyes forcefully. I still didn't feel right. Something felt like it was missing, or I was missing something, or something was missing me, or, oh hell, I don't know. I opened my eyes again and saw this hazy after image of the design turned forty five degrees. The blue-white figures faded slowly, but not before it registered that the stick figures were all wrong. They were no longer in pairs, and there were no longer just eight of them. I mourned the death of monogamy as I counted another six figures enjoying little stick orgies before the afterimage disappeared for good. I tried squeezing in the same place again, but all I could muster from that was a bit of a headache and a sore nose. I couldn't ever get that ghostly blue porno to come back. Ah well, what do you expect for free? One thing I knew for sure is that there was no longer any dead spider in the center of the circle. Whether it got up and left on its own or Marty and I taped its legs to toothpicks and pretended it was a cross-country skier, I couldn't recall, nor did I particularly care at this point. I was tired and felt like weasel crap. I needed to find my bed.

****

I dreamt of a woman, neither old nor young. She was a mother, or at least really enjoyed hugging children that looked an awful lot like her, and was dressed in light beige animal skins with blocky bird shapes sewn in around the hem. Long tresses of golden hair hung down freely to her waist. The children she held all had dark hair, braided down the back with tanned skin drawn tight over their cheekbones. The woman's skin was the same, and they all looked completely famished, surrounded on all sides by a desolate landscape without food or game. Her children, sons, were perhaps in their late teens or early twenties, but they were small and weak from hunger. She drew them close to her, and they shared their sorrow together. A man plodded unhappily toward the group, his spear dragging the ground and burdened not by game, but by his own shame.

The woman pulled herself away from the children and embraced her husband. She then faced her sons and husband and told them what they must do to survive. Her sons were speechless, and her husband was outraged and ashamed. They knew she was far wiser then they and was powerful and special - a favored of the gods that walked the earth. And so they had to obey.

She was slain with mercy and love and stripped of her clothing. They formed a line in the field, the youngest son with a spear, the oldest with a rope tied to a large, wedge-shaped rock, and then the husband, with his wife's body. The youngest son moved forward, breaking the crust of the earth with the tip of the spear. The eldest son then followed him, dragging the rock in the groove made by the spear and churning the dirt out each side. Then the husband followed, dragging his wife's body along this trench. This continued for row after row, the family weary in heart and body, but refusing to fail their mother by not honoring her sacrifice. As her body dragged along the earth, pieces of flesh were snagged by rocks and old roots, and fell off into the grooved channels, until finally nothing was left of her at all. Even her hair, bleached white by the sun that day became one with the ground. Why I was tormented with this gruesome spectacle was beyond me. I couldn't think of any mother issues lingering in my subconscious. We were close enough, for a mother and son, but she passed away years ago, and I never once felt like spitting on her grave. Nevertheless, the dream ran its ugly course, and I continued to watch it all.

Her family abandoned the spear and rock and got down to their hands and knees on the earth. With their hands, they filled in the grooves, burying their mother and allowing their sorrow to be fully unleashed. There was wailing and sobbing and even singing as their tears dampened the earth they pressed on top of their mother's remains. When all had been done in the field, the exhausted family returned to their tiny home.

The dream showed me glimpses of the days that followed. The first morning, there were green shoots in the once barren earth. A few more days and those shoots were higher than a man and boasted long, flat, green leaves. Even more days passed, and the plants had birthed ears of corn, complete with the same pale hair as the woman. The kernels of the corn were not uniform by any means, at least not the yellow ears I was used to, but different hues of red, brown and black, ghostly reminders of their origin. But to the People, this was life, and the family rejoiced and sang praises to their mother's spirit. Time moved on, and other families moved in to share in the bounty of food during this hard time. They were taught to praise the Corn Mother, as they called her now, and to replenish the earth with her seeds. The corn brought birds that had travelled wide and far, and they in turn brought other seeds that grew grass and trees. This brought the plant-eaters, so the people could hunt and grow strong, and...

I opened my eyes with a bit of a start. That was most definitely not the dream about the bored housewife with an unhealthy fascination for the trash collector and his incredible Velcro pants. It wasn't even one of those random dreams where I found myself battling a mountain of alien cannibals for the last yellow Twinkie on earth. And don't ask me why I should fear alien cannibals or why they would want a Twinkie anyway. It's just a dream, after all.

I pulled off the covers and staggered to the kitchen. Dreaming about matricide really worked up an appetite. I was famished and set about pouring myself a bowl full of Frosted Woman Flakes as quickly as I could. Normally, I'm not too keen on eating human flesh, even if it's soaked with milk, but somehow this felt okay. I scooped a spoonful out of the bowl and lifted the golden, crunchy flakes to the sky in an offering of thanks before popping them into my mouth. They're gr-r-r-r-reat.

I turned away from the counter with the notion of sitting down at the little two by two card table, which had been unceremoniously shoved off to one side of the kitchen to make way for the magic graffiti, when something changed my mind. Directly in the center of the table sat a brown and white house spider of impressive size. Normally, the sight of a plump spider wouldn't faze me a bit. I was okay with them, they were okay with me. There was a miniscule chance that the sight of a plump spider in the middle of my table might trigger some primal instinct to give me a minor case of the creeps, but that wasn't the case. It was the sight of a plump spider in the middle of my table giving me the finger that did the trick. Okay, fine. Spiders don't have fingers. But it was certainly giving me the leg. My new friend was about the size of a half dollar, and it stared at me with every one of its eight tiny eyeballs. It stood stock-still with a single forelimb extended theatrically into the air.

I set the bowl down on one corner of the table and dragged out a chair. It made a horrible noise as it sputtered across the linoleum, but both of us kept our eyes locked in a mortal embrace. He, I was only guessing here since I didn't take the time to turn it over, refused to flinch. Could this be the dead spider from the other night? I had no way of really knowing. The last time I saw that spider, I thought it had about twenty legs, so my memory wasn't that much help. It could have been. The thought of a zombie spider was ridiculous, and unless this was an arachnid messiah, coming back from the dead was impossible as well. More than likely, it could have been just playing dead or hibernating for the winter when we found him curled up and dry on the floor.

I sat down on the chair and reached out with the back of my hand to shoo him off the table. He immediately crawled onto it without any hesitation. The tiny legs tickled my skin as he perched contentedly on his new roost.

"You'd better get off little fellow. I've got to use this hand to eat, and I don't think either of us wants you near my mouth." To my astonishment, the spider hopped off and repositioned himself in the center of the table. As shocked as I was to think it was flipping me a bird, I was double that when I embraced the idea it actually understood me. I daresay that I entered stroke territory when it followed up understanding me with its next trick. It began to pivot on its legs so its abdomen could wag freely in an excited motion. I was eating breakfast with the world's smallest puppy.

Visions of mental institutions began to dance in my head. Something was definitely either wrong with the world or wrong with me. Black-outs, crazy dreams, and dancing undead spiders all pointed to a single, unhealthy conclusion. I was nuts. I began to hyperventilate before willing myself to calm down. There was a logical explanation for everything. I was simply hallucinating. That's all. There were millions of chemicals out there that could cause these. Whatever they used to cut that weed, it was still running around in my skull. That made me feel a little better, but even so, if it didn't stop soon I was going to end up in the hospital or the psych ward. I wasn't sure which one I'd have preferred.

The green numbers on the microwave told me that without a doubt, I had to get to work. "All right Scruffy, you be a good boy today," I said, embracing the hallucination with a dismissive humor. I retrieved a grey button up shirt and pair of jeans from the half-dirty pile on the floor and put them on. I tended to save the fully dirty pile for weekend wear. Stepping into my muck-waders and dragging on a baseball cap completed the ensemble, and I looked back over my shoulder at the obedient arachnid.

"Stay put, I'll be back before too long. Oh, and if you need a fly or something, there are plenty lying around." He gave me the leg again as he watched me leave. I was beginning to get the impression that it wasn't a hateful gesture, rather an arachnid version of a wave. I looked back one last time and instantly regretted it. I imagined I could see his little black eyes quivering with sadness. I refused to feel guilty for leaving my imaginary pet spider home all day long. It wasn't rational. It wasn't sane. Guilt rode me like rodeo champ all the way to the office.

****

My main responsibility at work was to drive the truck that picked up the garbage and to make sure that we didn't miss any of our appointed rounds. Usually, this job took a CDL class A and B license, nerves of steel and a keen eye for time management. We all had the license, but the other criteria were in short supply. They picked me because I had, so far, actually managed to keep the truck on the pavement for the entire route. Not a ringing endorsement by any means, but the alternative would leave the city full of rotting trash and angry citizens. Marty tried driving the truck once before and only narrowly averted lawsuit by Waffle House. He did not keep the truck on the appropriate section of pavement and apparently the proprietors of Waffle House 451 took exception to this. Who would have thought bringing the dumpster inside the restaurant through the kitchen wall and turning the front tire into a giant onion ring would cause such a stink? There was the usual shouting and pointing of fingers as well as some looks from the patrons that seemed to say "I wonder when that will be on the special." Thanks to Marty's choice of parking spaces, it took half a day to extract ourselves from the deep fryers. It only took about half a minute to extract Marty from his driving privileges. After that I drove the trucks.

I arrived at the depot on foot after six blocks of arduous walking and removed the padlock before sliding the gates apart to the "P-U corral". There was a yard full of mint green haulers arrayed before me, all decorated with their own patterns of splattered filth. Through chemical reactions and a failure to properly wash the trucks, the refuse had eroded into the paint to form intricate markings that were as unique as fingerprints. I paid homage to the zebra truck, the melting cow, and screaming orca before stopping in front of the painted lady. This had been my ride for as long as I can remember. She was a magnificent hauler, decorated by a matching pair of purple and orange paint stains in the back shaped conspicuously like giant boobs. I was, however, brought up a step or two short by a newly installed hood ornament. I had to search back in my memory to make sure, but I was fairly certain nothing was perched in front of the driver's side of the windshield yesterday.

As thoughtful as it was for someone to decorate for me, I wasn't sure I was comfortable with the new décor. Seated on the hood was something that looked an awful lot like a pre-teen girl, dressed from head to toe in a bipolar outfit of red and black. Even her hat was split right down the center. She was reclining against the glass with her dark hair spread out in a fan behind her. Her legs weren't long enough for her feet to make it over the edge of the hood, but luckily for the sake of all that was decent, she had them crossed. She was way too young for the Basic Instinct shot. Her legs, arms, and face were all well-tanned, but her most striking feature was the two huge brown eyes that bored into me when she looked up.

"So, you are the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man I've heard of. Can't say you're entirely what I expected, but then who am I to adhere to expectations?" She had a small voice that screamed innocence, and I might even have believed it if I hadn't seen the look on her face. There was something there that could not have been formed in such a short existence, a kind of parental disapproval that only time and experience could produce.

"That's a great question. Who the hell are you?" I replied with false bravado.

"Take a guess."

"Someone who really enjoys the smell of garbage? Or maybe you're some kind of trash-man groupie, here to ask for an autograph and, if you get real lucky, a pair of my underwear."

"Wow, good guess, but no. I wanted to see the new harbinger of doom for myself." She stared at me with those oddly deep eyes for a moment. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, but made damn sure I didn't give her the satisfaction of letting it show. If there's one thing you learn in the city, it's that you need to make everyone else believe you're prepared for anything. "Didn't Grandmother tell you?"

"Look, girl, I don't know a thing about this 'harbinger of doom' thing, or who Grandma is, or who the hell you are. What I do know is that you're making me late on my rounds, and you're getting butt prints on the hood of my truck."

"It bothers you to have a clean spot on your truck?"

"No, but it should bother you. I can't even begin to describe the crap that has dribbled on there." She seemed to catch on finally and slid off gracefully. She only stood about five foot nothing and all of it contorted in a moment of sullen backside checking. She frowned at the results of her investigation. I noticed that the color of her shoes and socks was split down the middle like her hat. It struck me then, as she bent to one side and then the other, that anyone seeing her from the side might believe that she was dressed in a single color. Which color you saw depended on which side you saw her from. It's so hard to keep up with the fashion trends these days.

"I can't say you make a great first impression, but even so, I'll be keeping an eye on you. I'm not sure how this will all go down, but I'm not ready for this world to end quite yet." She walked to the back of the truck, waved over her shoulder, and then disappeared from view. I cut around to the other side, but she never appeared. It wasn't like there were a lot of places to hide, and a quick glance under the truck revealed nothing but empty space and tires. The next five minutes were spent in the corral looking under all the trucks, but she'd disappeared like a fart in a tornado. Even the clean spot on the hood was gone if it was ever there to begin with.

****

"Hey, Tim. 'Bout time you showed up. What took you so long?" Marty was dressed in the same fashionable grey shirt, jeans and muck-waders we all wore on the job. He hefted himself up by his wiry arms, planting his butt and its cargo of a full, round belly into the seat beside me. He resembled a furry basketball with limbs. At six foot three, I towered over him when we stood side by side. Even so, I felt insubstantial next to him that morning. He just seemed a lot more, well, solid than I did. I looked him in the eyes appraisingly. His eyes were oddly free from the red irritation that had taken up residence there for as long as I'd known him.

I asked him point blank. "Marty, am I nuts?"

"Yeah, probably."

"I mean more than normal."

He gave me a serious look for a moment. Even though I'd seen him almost every day since high school, I just noticed how old he was beginning to seem. His face was creased around his eyes and deeply across the center of his forehead. The three days of growth on his face was spotted with grey and he looked ever so tired. Usually a man looks this way only after hard lovin or hard livin. My money was on the latter.

"Tim, I haven't smoked so much as a joint since the weekend. I know, it's only been two days, but that's the longest I think I've gone in years. Seeing you die, or believing I saw you die, has really messed with my head. I don't know if you were right about that green being spiked, but it feels like I saw something I wasn't supposed to, like maybe a peek into the future. So, now that you know that, am I the one who should be telling you if you're crazy?"

It took me while to answer, but since Marty had gone all honest and vulnerable on me, I couldn't shortchange him. "I dreamed of corn being grown from a dead woman, I feel guilty about leaving Scruffy, my pet house spider hallucination, home alone, and I just had a conversation with a twelve year old girl who told me I was going to destroy the world."

"Dude, you're nuts. I think maybe I should drive today."

"What, do you intend on finishing off the Waffle House this time?"

"Guilty as charged. Let's get our crazy asses moving. I don't want to be stuck in this truck all day."

