Maria has been pestering me non-stop about what happened in the library. I told her I had some theories and I admit that I stole a few from the comments. I left out anything about Grayson or the laundry lady. I’ve come to terms with Maria knowing about the administration but there’s a few things I feel like I shouldn’t share with her. It’s not my place to tell her that Grayson is the son of the university president and as for my bargain with the laundry lady… well, to be honest, I’m starting to second-guess myself on that one and don’t want to share my mistakes with anyone else.
Other than the whole entire internet that is.
(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)
Astute readers (and there’s a lot of you) will notice that I left the flickering man out of the list earlier. I did tell Maria about him. I felt that if she knew about the administration, it was only fair if she also knew about the administration’s enforcer. As soon as I mentioned how he jumps between raindrops, she got really excited.
“I’ve heard about this one!” she said. “The flickering man!”
I might forget a lot of things, but I at least remembered that the Rain Chasers were aware of this creature. She’s the one that told me about what they called him.
“How did you all find out about him, anyway?” I asked.
She said that he’s just one of the stories that have been passed down in the group. No one that she’s aware of has seen him, though. He shows up infrequently in campus lore. Sometimes a student will realize they’re being followed by him and after that, they’ll start to notice him tailing them every time it rains.
I’m not the only person he’s stalked. Interesting… and concerning.
“It’s not a bad thing though,” she said. “He doesn’t do anything to the students. Just follows them around. Though… I guess we wouldn’t know if there were bad outcomes, considering people forget students that vanish.”
She saw the look on my face and immediately apologized for saying something so upsetting. I was, after all, being followed by the flickering man.
“It’s okay,” I said miserably. “I knew he was dangerous already. But if some of the students didn’t have an issue with him, what’s different with me?”
“Maybe it’s the same thing the library ghost took issue with! We could do an experiment. Now that I’m aware of the administration’s involvement, he might decide he’s not going to trust me anymore either. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll know it’s something else.”
“Maria,” I said as calmly as I could, “he was going to THROW ME OUT A WINDOW.”
Okay I didn’t stay calm.
“I’ll stay on the ground floor,” she replied.
“NO.”
She agreed but she also kind of had that look where someone is agreeing only because they don’t want to argue about it and plan to go do whatever it is they wanted to anyway. I see that look a lot on my younger siblings.
I can’t control other people’s actions. I’m going to keep telling myself that.
There’s been an unfortunate development with the Folklore Society. The folklore professor, the one that sponsors it, has started doing her own recruitment pitch. It’s not much, just a little ‘by the way if you think this material is interesting there’s a club dedicated to it that meets on this date’ spiel at the end of her class. I’m still not going to the club meetings, but Maria is still slipping in and hiding out in the back to see what they’re up to, and she says there’ve been a few new members. Their names match people in my class, so unfortunately my professor’s recruiting pitch is working.
I talked the problem over with Cassie to see if she had any ideas. I had to fill her in on the specifics. She knew that something bad had happened to the Rain Chasers, it was all set to disband, and then the professor intervened. She did not know about how a bunch of them died last year in a misguided ritual that I suspect the administration had a hand in orchestrating.
“Yeah that tracks,” she said when I finished. “I could see them doing that. School sponsored death cult seems on brand.”
Cassie’s opinion of the administration hit rock bottom last year. I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but she had that super shitty professor that was basically holding everyone’s grade hostage to stop people from dropping out over his horrific teaching ability and inappropriate rants during class. He’s still teaching this year. And a certain professor review website that shall not be named removed Cassie’s civil but honest review of him.
So she’s convinced the administration is the devil incarnate. Hahah jokes on her, I’m the one palling around with the devil. (no, I haven’t seen him lately, he’ll probably pop up around finals again)
“The professor seems pretty genuine though,” I said. “I really think she’s just a person who’s really into this topic and likes sharing it with others.”
“Could you tell her that something bad happened to the last club and that’s why it was going to disband? Maybe not tell her that people died, she’s not going to believe that, but maybe say a group broke into somewhere they weren’t supposed to be and got suspended and that’s why the club was opting to disband.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough to convince her to stop sponsoring it. She’ll probably just… keep a tighter control on it…”
We stared at each other for a moment, a satisfied half-smirk on Cassie’s face.
“Yep, that could do it,” I said. “Unless she winds up as a human sacrifice herself, but at that point we’ll have at least tried to warn her.”
I headed over to her office hours as soon as they were next open. Surprisingly, she wasn’t alone, but after a minute I realized it was just another professor in the popular culture department talking about comic books and so I knocked on the doorframe to interrupt. I think she actually appreciated the rescue, for she quickly told him that she had a student now and they’d have to finish their conversation later and ushered him out the door.
“He just talks and talks and talks,” she sighed after I shut the door to her office behind me. “And it’s not that I don’t find the politics of Superman interesting, it’s just I don’t want to have a two hour one sided conversation about it.”
I didn’t want to break it to her that all the professors I’d met so far were kind of like this. I mean, they’re really into their area of study and they really want to share it with others.
“I’m not here to talk about class,” I said nervously. “It’s about the Folklore Society.”
She smiled at me and folded her hands on the desk. I genuinely felt bad about what I was going to do. She was so obviously pleased with the revival of the club.
“I was in it last year,” I continued. “Did… anyone tell you why it was disbanded?”
“No, I just assumed someone forgot to do the paperwork.”
That wasn’t it, I told her. The club got reckless last year. The president wasn’t involved, but there was a subgroup within the club that was getting aggressive in their efforts to locate the locations and objects involved in the stories circulating campus. They finally went too far, trespassed where they weren’t supposed to, and half the club got expelled. The administration kept it quiet, but… I knew because I was friends with some of the kids that were kicked out.
That’s the lie I told her. She grew increasingly more upset as I talked, but it didn’t seem to be directed at me. That gave me the courage to continue on.
“I’m just afraid something like that will happen again this year,” I said. “I hear they’ve been trying to get into the graveyard. They’ve been talking about jumping the fence.”
This much was true. Maria managed to stall them initially by pointing out that they could get in big trouble for trespassing, but she feared that only drove the conversation underground. For all we knew, they’d already tried.
“I should start sitting in on their meetings then,” she said grimly.
“But it’s not part of the meetings! They’ve got backchannels in Discord that you’re not going to be able to monitor!”
I was growing anxious. She had to understand the importance of this. Simply monitoring the club wasn’t going to be enough.
There came the soft pattering of raindrops from the window. A light rain. Nothing to be concerned about… yet. The professor didn’t seem to notice. She had to know the stories about the rain, but to her it was merely academic. An interesting piece of lore to be collected and retained, but nothing more. I wanted to scream.
“I understand why you’re worried,” she said sympathetically. “It must have been very upsetting to see something bad happen to people you cared about.”
Yeah, it was certainly upsetting. Like ‘probably have trauma’ levels of upsetting.
“But I don’t think we can just shut the club down entirely, that’s a little extreme,” she continued. “Besides. Preservation of the local history is important to the university. They reached out to me when they realized the paperwork hadn’t been submitted and asked that I find a new president and take a stronger role in leading it.”
It felt like the room was spinning. I found it hard to breathe all of a sudden. Practicing what I’m going to say in front of the mirror appears to be paying off, however, as I managed to find my voice and politely thank her for her time and for listening to my concerns.
I was breathing very fast as I left her office. I walked quickly, hoping to make it back to the dorm before the rain picked up. The exercise helped. How could I be calm after I’d been told that the administration orchestrated the revival of the Rain Chasers? Cassie’s joke about a campus-sponsored death cult might not be a joke.
I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know if I can fix this.
I’m going to focus on what I can handle for now. Laundry lady. Flickering man.
“Great timing,” a voice said from behind me. “Do you mind waiting a moment?”
I turned. Nothing behind me. Of course not. The voice was the flickering man’s and it was raining, so he would be in the raindrops. I hastily glanced about to see if there were convenient witnesses. I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t conclude our truce at the worst possible moment. We were at the intersection of two major walkways through campus. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t anyone around, as most students would be heading inside with the rain.
“Is the truce still valid?” I asked uneasily.
“It is!” This time, his voice came from my left. “I just think it’d be nice if you saw this. I’ve been planning it for a while now and it’s great fortune that you came along when you did.”
Fortune, huh? I doubted luck was actually involved. Like it or not, I was connected in that ethereal, symbolic way that matters to the inhuman and sometimes that means people wind up where they need to be when they need to be there.
Whose needs are being met is entirely up for debate, however.
“Look to your right,” he said..
I turned and my stomach twisted. I wasn’t surprised to see the worm - after all, the flickering man is watching over it - but it was still an unpleasant sight. It was thinner than I remembered, its clothing baggy on its withered frame. The smug confidence was gone, replaced by a lean, hungry look. The flickering man’s efforts were paying off. The worm had not fed in a while.
“Go stall it,” he said.
“How!?” I hissed.
“I don’t know, ask it about the weather or something.”
I could have turned and walked away. I started to. But as I did, I saw the reason why the flickering man was wanting me to stall the worm.
Daniel was walking our way.
This was planned. It had to be planned. It would take a while, but the flickering man was perfectly capable of learning the schedules of both Daniel and the worm. He could hop between raindrops faster than sight, after all. If it was raining, he could canvass most of campus before the worm knew he was gone. Given enough rainy days… he’d know what classes Daniel attended and when. He’d know the worm’s schedule.
Then all he had to do was orchestrate a way for them to meet. And apparently, all that took was a slight delay here, at this intersection, right now.
The inhumans that look like us are always the most dangerous. They can reason. They can plan.
I stepped forward. The worm raised its head as I did. Our eyes locked. I smiled awkwardly and walked towards it. My heart pounded in my chest. There was no guarantee that the flickering man would save me, should the worm try anything. The time it took to eat me might be the delay he needed to get Daniel into position.
“Hey,” I said nervously, stopping what I hoped was a safe distance away. “Do you remember me?”
“I do.”
It sounded bored. Bored and tired.
“I was just thinking,” I said. “You looked better back in the hallway. Not like in terms of appearance - I mean you’re kind of a giant tube of flesh-”
“Make your point,” it hissed.
“Fuller! You looked full in the hallway.”
A moment of silence stretched between us. I resisted the urge to look where Daniel was approaching. The flickering man could handle that.
“I am not going back into the hallway,” it said flatly.
It started to brush past me.
“Wait!” I yelled. “Uh - nice weather we’re having, right?”
It stopped. Turned to stare at me incredulously. I glanced over its shoulder and saw that Daniel had broken into a run. He was glancing back behind him so I could only assume the flickering man was spurring him on. He was clearly running from something, his eyes wide with fear.
“What are you trying to do?” the worm asked, tearing my attention back to it.
“Honestly,” I said, “I have no idea.”
There. Daniel was close. Close enough that he could reach out and grab the worm with one good lunge if he needed to. The worm sighed in annoyance and resolutely turned to go, ignoring my last attempts to keep its attention.
It turned and saw Daniel. Daniel saw it and stopped cold, his fear of the worm in front of him beating his fear of the flickering man behind him.
“You have to!” I screamed at him. “This is your task!”
Daniel faltered. I cursed him in my head. I think I might have yelled ‘coward’ at him. He was going to run and the flicking man could only hop from raindrop to raindrop, threatening him uselessly.
But then the rain broke. It stopped in a perfect circle, just in the space where we three stood.
And without the rain, the flickering man took on a corporeal form.
Right next to the worm.
“There are RULES!” he bellowed. “You stay in the damn hallway!”
And he kicked the knee of the worm. I expected to hear the crunch of bone, but instead there was a soft, squishing noise, just shoving a spoon into a cup of jello. Its leg bent instead of broke and it went down, hitting the ground with more of a wet splat than a thump. It groaned in pain a moment, then turned its face upwards towards the flickering man.
“You don’t make them,” the creature sneered, its face twisted with defiance.
“No,” he replied grimly. “But I get to enforce them.”
His arm shot out and he grabbed Daniel by the hair. He dragged the student towards the prone worm. Then he dropped to his knees, pulling Daniel down with him. His hands were on the student’s wrists. He straddled the worm’s body, pinning it to the ground, giving him time to force a length of wire into Daniel’s hands, wrapping it around his palms so it wouldn’t slip free.
The flickering man’s fingers closed over Daniel’s and remained there, holding his fists closed.
Daniel looked up at me. His mouth moved but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Then the flickering man jerked at Daniel’s hands, flipping the wire around the worm’s neck, and pulled them back until it was taut.
Daniel had to be the one to kill it. The flickering man was going to help with that.
I couldn’t watch. Daniel was no longer looking at me, but I couldn’t stand the scared, sick look on his face, watching helplessly as the worm struggled and gagged and died beneath him. I stared at the ground instead, my breathing coming in thin gasps that did nothing to drown out the noises of the worm suffocating.
Slowly, the noises grew quieter. Finally, they stopped. I looked up only when I heard someone loudly throwing up. Daniel was off to the side, on his hands and knees, vomiting into the grass. The worm lay face-down on the ground, its body dissolving like an earthworm after too much rain.
“Was that really so hard?” the flickering man asked Daniel.
He stepped to stand over the student. Stared down at him in quiet consideration. Then he reached down and ripped Daniel’s ear off.
I guess Daniel didn’t listen to my advice after all.
Daniel screamed and collapsed. He might have thrown up again, I don’t know, because I suddenly had my own problem to deal with.
The flickering man was abruptly all up in my face, a wide grin on his face. He didn’t have to say anything. I knew exactly what he was thinking.
The worm was dead. Our truce was concluded.
I was fair game again and he was ready to hunt.
I don’t react well to a crisis. We’ve established this. I fall firmly in the ‘freeze’ category of threat reactions. I’m not particularly strong, I don’t have good reflexes, I don’t even have the tenacity to keep fighting even when the odds are stacked against me.
Except.
Except humanity hasn’t survived this long off brute strength alone. Far from it. When the wolves hunted us in the dark of night, we brought fire and weapons. When the monsters crept out of the forest, we pushed them back and banished their power with charms and rituals. Our strongest asset is our intelligence.
I think the fact I didn’t flunk out my first semester and have not only caught up, but am doing quite well, is evidence that I can figure things out when I put my mind to it.
So that’s what I did. I thought about the situation. I realized that the flickering man would go right back to trying to kill me as soon as the worm was dead. Then I came up with a strategy to ensure I had a chance at surviving.
The creature with the fingers that is stalking Cassie has only shown up at night. I asked if I could borrow the petrified wood while there was daylight and then return it in the evening. Cassie agreed. This was a risk she was willing to take, if I felt I needed the extra protection during the day.
I kept it in my pocket. It’s not a great fit (women’s jeans, amirite?) but at least I could get to it quickly in the event of an emergency.
My fingers were already half closed around the stone when the flickering man turned his malice towards me. But simply having it on me wasn’t enough to protect me and it certainly wasn’t enough to ensure that I would do anything other than stand there like a stupid cow waiting for the butcher to slit its throat.
I was still scared. My stomach was all twisted up and it felt like my heart had simply stopped beating in the moment the flickering man reached for me. And with that came the deadness of my muscles, that strange sensation of merely watching a body that I could no longer access.
That’s why I’d applied the devil’s advice in a new way and practiced.
Specifically, I’d practiced whenever I had the dorm to myself, when I could repeat the movements of pulling the stone free and swinging it as hard as I could towards the general direction of someone’s face.
Repetition sufficed where reaction could not.
The petrified wood slammed into the side of the flickering man’s face.
It wasn’t as hard as I’d hoped. The fear robbed my blow of strength, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The creature screamed. Screamed, actually screamed, in pain and terror and I stumbled backwards, shocked by the noise. The stone remained clutched in my hands, my knuckles white across its edges.
I stared in horror and disbelief at the flickering man’s cheek. It was shriveled. Like a prune. The flesh etched deep furrows, pulling at the flesh around his eyes and lips, twisting one side of his mouth up into a sneer. It had a cracked, papery appearance, and as I watched thin fissures split open in its surface. There was no blood. It just split and then flaked and drifted off like ash.
He raised a hand in disbelief. Touched his cheek.
He looked afraid.
The rain slammed back into place. It poured down across my face and shoulders and with it came the flickering man’s escape. He vanished instantly and I did not see him darting around us, nor did I hear his hateful whispering.
He’d fled. It was only me and Daniel there in the rain.
I took a couple breaths. Shallow, hysterical, and then I took one long, deep one that filled my lungs and brought with it an edge of clarity.
“THAT’S how it’s done,” I snapped at Daniel.
The adrenaline was making me a little lightheaded. After a half second I realized that Daniel wasn’t even listening, he was staring at a little bit of flesh he held in one hand. His ear. He was holding his ear.
“Let’s get you to the clinic,” I said hastily, running over and grabbing his arm. “If we hurry, maybe they can reattach it.”
He stood and swayed and I let him lean against me. He didn’t talk for the short walk to the school clinic. He was focused entirely on staying upright and not throwing up again, which suited me just fine.
“I think I’m going to transfer schools,” he said weakly as we reached the doors.
“I don’t give a shit what you do,” I said, and I wrenched the door open and shoved him inside.
Then I left him there.
Daniel is out of my life. The worm is dead. And I have a weapon against the flickering man.
Not bad at all.[x]