My former boss (I really wish I’d thought of a better nickname for her but now it’s kind of too late and also I’m only coming up with stupid stuff like “Barista Boss” so maybe I shouldn’t be allowed to name things) said she’d handle the situation with Mr. Antacids (see? bad at naming things) In the meantime, I could keep working there if I liked. She’d talk to him soon so that I wouldn’t have to pretend I hadn’t seen the creature eating all the food for long.
“But what if he’s mad at me?” I asked.
She stared at me incredulously for a moment.
“Mad at you for what?” she finally asked.
“For… seeing him eat raw bacon,” I said miserably.
“Listen,” she said sternly, “he’ll just be happy to have someone who shows up on time and wearing something other than pajamas, much less someone that can multi-task and keep cool in a difficult situation. And if he does get pissy because you know he’s, uh, changing, you let me know and I’ll handle it.”
If by “keep cool” she means “freeze in terror”, then sure, I am certainly quite good at that.
But jokes aside, I guess I am getting better at thinking through these situations. Maybe it only took practice. Exposure to the inhuman isn’t exactly something I wanted for myself, but perhaps it was inevitable. I was cursed when my dad vanished and we all knew something unnatural had happened to him. That sort of knowledge can’t be given away. I carry it like a stone in my belly.
Or perhaps I was cursed at birth, simply because of where I was born. Perhaps no one leaves my hometown because we can’t. It’s not safe for us out here in the wilderness.
I curled my hands into fists beneath the level of the desk, where she couldn’t see, and I told her I’d keep the job. I’m not going to make this my problem to solve. My former boss has made that clear and I think she’s more than capable of handling it herself. But I’m not going to run from it, either, because I can keep a quiet eye on things while I’m there and make sure none of the other student employees get caught up in something bad.
Also, mooooneeeeeeeyyyyyyy. 👀👀👀
Then she made me promise. In exact words, that I would tell her if he gave me any grief and I wouldn’t bottle it up and try to fix everything myself. I would say she knows me too well, but I kind of get the feeling it’s more she’s used to dealing with anxiety-ridden college students.
The scrutiny kind of felt like I was making a deal with the devil, except I already know she isn’t the devil and she also seems to have my best interest in mind.
I don’t know what the heck the devil wants anymore, other than keeping me alive so I can graduate and for his own personal amusement.
So that’s an update on that situation. I’m sure everyone is desperate to know about Grayson as well, but let’s do things in order here.
Professor Monotone is now my absolute favorite professor. I mean he still has the classroom presence of a wet sock, but there’s more important things in life than being able to stay awake during a lecture.
Like saving me from yet another hard-to-explain visit to the campus medical center.
It was raining and I was at the geology building. Sorry, when I say ‘it was raining’, I should elaborate. It’s something I’ve said a lot because, well, it rains a lot around here and interesting things tend to happen when it rains. But this was a storm. A big one. I haven’t been out in a lot of storms, because after my first year I learned to be careful and stay home if it was going to be a bad one. I’ve gotten surprised a few times, but I’ve mostly managed to avoid being out when there’s lightning and thunder.
Unfortunately, it seemed I’d failed this time and now found myself in the staff office hallway, staring at the rain through the thin pane of glass along one side of the hallway. It was as dark as night outside, the clouds overhead plunging the campus into an artificial twilight. My eyes were unable to adjust to the gloom, as the lightning overhead threw everything in stark relief every few seconds. The thunder was a continuous rumble, punctuated by cracks loud enough to make me flinch. Campus was in the heart of the storm and it didn’t show any sign of moving on. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been here, waiting it out, but it felt like hours.
I probably shouldn’t have been waiting in the deserted hallway. Well - it wasn’t wholly deserted. There were lights coming out from under some of the closed office doors. But I should have been in the hallway where the classrooms were and where bunches of other students were just around a corner. I realized this belatedly, when a particularly loud burst of thunder rattled the windows and I instinctively stepped back and discovered I wasn’t alone.
The stabbed student was standing just a few feet away. He leaned heavily on one leg and his head and shoulders were bowed. Today, he was impaled with countless toothpicks, like an obscene sort of hedgehog. He didn’t move and didn’t react as I stared at him.
Briefly, I considered just walking away. Finding someplace safer to wait out the storm. But I’d interacted with the stabbed student before and it honestly wasn’t bad. He was terrifying to look at, certainly, but I didn’t think he was trying to harm anyone. It took a couple tries and I had to clear my throat, but I finally found my voice and addressed him.
“James,” I said, my voice shaking. “Your name is James. We’ve met before. You remember me, right?”
The toothpicks in his throat moved up and down. I stared at them, transfixed, and then a thought slowly broke free and floated to the front of my brain. He was trying to speak. And maybe, since he wasn’t hostile, maybe I could help him.
“I-I’m going to try something,” I said. “Just… don’t freak out and kill me, okay?”
Hah. Look at me, trying to reason with something inhuman. Maybe this thing used to be a student, but it wasn’t a student anymore, and couldn’t be treated like it understood the world in the same way we did. It was instinct and anger and suffering and all those things that humans hated and feared all rolled up together in one messy package. And then all of that was distilled down to a handful of rules, like squeezing toothpaste from a tube, into something that was more formula than emotion. I couldn’t reason with it anymore than I could reason a computer into doing what I wanted.
Okay, yeah, harsh. But I have to remember that. I can’t make the mistake of thinking of these things as human, no matter where they come from or how they act.
I tentatively crept closer to him, until I was within reach. My hand shook as I reached out and gingerly gripped one of the toothpicks in his throat between thumb and forefinger. Then I pulled. It came out with no resistance, leaving behind a dark pinhole in the creature’s clay-like flesh. There was no blood. I was both relieved and deeply unnerved by that. I’m not great with blood, but maybe it would have been better than just that… hole… in his throat, opening to an empty darkness.
I held the toothpicks carefully in one hand. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but generally it was best to treat anything given - or taken - from an inhuman with utmost respect. It was all too easy to insult one of these things.
He didn’t move a muscle as I removed the first toothpick. Emboldened, I continued removing them, all in a line up the middle of his neck and along the underside of his chin. His skin was like lace, more holes than tissue. I pulled the toothpicks out of his lips and just when I thought I’d done enough, he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue.
I removed the toothpicks from that as well. They weren’t wet. I felt my skin crawl as I placed them in my palm and folded my fingers around the bundle to keep them from slipping free of my hand.
“Is that better?” I asked. “I do want to help you.”
He was trying to speak. I felt my heart speed up with excitement. Maybe I was about to make some real progress here. I waited breathlessly as he struggled to form words, his cheeks tugging at the toothpicks still covering his face. Did I need to remove more?
“…..next….” he finally rasped.
“What’s next?” I asked.
He tried to say something else, but the air escaped through the multitude of tiny holes in his throat and the words came out more like a balloon deflating than any semblance of language. I leaned closer, straining to make out something intelligible through the breathy croaking coming out of his mouth.
Yes, stupid, I know.
“You’re…. next….” he said.
Then he screeched and jerked his head back.
I jerked back too, but not fast enough. James slammed his head forward and there was a bright flash of pain in the middle of my forehead. I stumbled backwards and raised my hands, clutching at my forehead, and watched in astonishment as a single toothpick tumbled through my fingers and clattered onto the floor. Bright drops of blood quickly fell after it.
I was bleeding. The thought swam slowly through my head. He’d headbutted me. He’d hurt me with the toothpicks embedded in his face. My chest seized up with a sob.
Then I flinched, as James was lurched toward me again, but this time he wasn’t trying to attack. He was diving to his knees, his joints creaking painfully, and he stretched out toothpick studded fingers, awkwardly trying to pick up the one he’d lost.
The one that had gotten stuck in my own skin.
I sucked in a breath, let it out in a sob, and stumbled away from him. I had to get away. I had to run. I could let myself freak out about the blood and the pain later. For now, I had to get away.
Before I became the next stabbed student.
He was between me and the exit. However, I’d helped a professor carry things out to their car after a lab session recently and now knew where the back door was. It opened to the faculty parking lot. So I turned and ran the opposite way, stumbling down the hallway, half-crying half-panting as I went, my hand clutching my forehead as if that could stop the blood running down my face. It was fine, I told myself. Head wounds bleed a lot. I was fine.
Outside, the rain pounded on the windows as lightning flashed overhead. In a brief lull between the thunder, I heard the sound of rapid footsteps behind me.
James was coming. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I felt sick, dizzy, like I was going to faint.
I had a moment of lucidity. The toothpicks. They were still clutched in my hand.
I may not be an expert on fairytales, but I do know a few things. And while adhering to the patterns doesn’t always work on campus, it was my best option other than running away at the moment.
Also it was something I could also do while running away, so pretty much a win-win there.
Though it’s probably a stretch to call any situation that involves getting chased by a murderous inhuman monstrosity a “win-win.”
I threw the toothpicks over my shoulder.
They clattered across the floor and for some reason the sound seemed much louder than it had any right to be. Like the storm was holding its wrath for just a moment, the rain pausing in its descent to soften the blow against the windows. I turned my head, risking a backward glance.
James had stopped by the fallen toothpicks and was stooped over them. He was gathering them up with both hands and holding them up to his mouth, his throat, his chin.
Putting them back where they belonged.
And his body shook as he did this, his shoulders trembling, his chest heaving. Like he was crying.
But what could I do? I’d tried to help him. I’d tried. And now I had a hole in my own skin for my troubles. I was crying openly now and I kept running, down the hallway and through an unmarked door to the landing that led out to the staff parking lot. And in my haste, I didn’t register that the exterior door was already open and that there was someone standing there, not until it was too late to stop.
I ran straight into Professor Monotone.
Literally.
Fortunately, he had just opened the door and hadn’t quite stepped inside, so he was able to grab hold of the doorframe and brace himself on that to keep from falling. I bounced backwards, stumbled, and slammed against the wall, which was painful and I have a nasty bruise on my shoulder, but I stayed on my feet as well.
“James,” I gibbered. “He’s - I - I need to leave.”
I stepped forward, meaning to edge past him through the doorway, but he didn’t take the hint and remained put. I kind of danced around awkwardly in front of him instead, casting desperate glances at the parking lot and the rain beyond him.
“You’re uh, bleeding.”
He gestured vaguely at my forehead.
“JAMES,” I said meaningfully.
He finally peered past me, down the long corridor, his gaze sharpening as he searched for the source of my panic. I’m not sure if he could actually see James. I think there was a turn in between us and where the toothpicks had landed. Panic was making it hard to remember what happened where. But regardless, all the important pieces had seemed to have connected in his head. Panicked, bleeding student bleating about James. The resident ghost was finally turning violent against someone. He nodded and placed a firm hand on my shoulder.
“Alright,” he said. “But let me drive you home.”
“Uh, is that… allowed?”
“I can be late to my own office hours,” he said gruffly. “It’s not like anyone ever shows up for them, anyway.”
That wasn’t what I meant, but I guess this is college and I guess things are different here.
He had an umbrella and held it over me as we hurried to his car. He opened the passenger door for me and let me get in, then went over to the driver’s side. I sat there, both hands on my forehead, my legs pressed together so that the blood would at least drip on my shirt and jeans and not on his car seat. He paused after he got in, looking over to where I sat miserably, afraid to move my hands to put my seatbelt on.
“There’s some napkins in the glove box,” he said.
I pulled one hand away and found it covered with blood. So he reached over, opened it, and got them out for me. I mopped at the wound and he finally took a napkin and folded it over into a compress and got it pressed against the hole in my forehead.
“Pressure,” he instructed. “You have a first aid kit?”
“Y-yeah.”
“It’s a tiny cut, so that should be enough. Where do you live?”
I gave him the address. He pulled out of the parking lot and started driving towards the nearest main road that would take us around the edge of campus. I leaned back in the seat, breathing shallowly, trying to focus on something other than my nausea.
“Who do you have class with?” he asked. “I can let them know you have a valid reason to miss it today.”
“I-”
And there I stopped. I didn’t have class. And like entering a room and forgetting the reason, I couldn’t remember what I was doing in the geology building to begin with. Probably going to talk to Professor Monotone, but I didn’t remember what I was going to ask him anymore. I… I think I did have questions. I just don’t know what they are.
I’d be much less alarmed by this if I wasn’t being stalked by a tree-frog-fingered monster that slurped up memories like spaghetti.
“I shouldn’t have come out when it’s raining like this,” I whimpered. “This is my fault.”
“Being stabbed in the forehead by a ghost is not one of those situations you can exactly be prepared for,” he said sternly. “Especially when the ghost seeks people out. This isn’t like someone trying to pet the bison at the nature preserve.”
“Does he… often stab people?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“No,” he said. “This is new.”
He didn’t say anything else for a bit. Then, once we were on the main road through town that would take us to the apartment, he said something more.
“When the rain gets like this,” he said quietly, “I always feel like it’s going to war with something.”
Hahahaha I’m sure he’s talking about erosion, right?
He didn’t elaborate on that. He was pulling into the handful of parking spots in front of our house and asking if he could at least walk me to the front door with the umbrella and make sure someone else was home to help with the first aid. I allowed that. He stood there, holding the umbrella over me while I fumbled with the lock. The door swung open and I immediately noticed that Cassie’s house key was on the hanger by the door, which meant that she was home.
Grayson was also there, asleep on the sofa.
I was surprised, to say the least. He was certainly welcome to come over, but I hadn’t realized we’d reached the ‘fall asleep on the sofa while I’m not here’ level of familiarity. Titanosaur watched him from over the lip of the devil box. Grayson was lucky that the cat wasn’t on his chest.
Professor Monotone was quiet for a moment, surveying the room over my shoulder, and I wasn’t sure why he looked so grim all of a sudden. Did he disapprove of mixed company, maybe? He is kind of older, maybe he’s a bit old-fashioned. But then he said to make sure to wash the cut really well and see the medical center if it starts looking infected. Then he left and I shut the door behind me.
I edged through the living room to find Cassie in her room. She freaked out a little when she saw my face. That woke Grayson up. What followed was a bunch of supposed adults flailing their way through first aid. After a bit of yelling at each other over how to handle it (Cassie was convinced we needed to go to the ER) we finally settled for Grayson doing the actual first aid while Cassie looked up instructions for “bandaging bleeding wounds” on the internet.
It hasn’t gotten infected, so I think we did it right. Honestly I’m kind of surprised how small the cut is. It’s literally a hole the size of a toothpick. It’s amazing it bled so much.
Then I got settled down on the sofa to rest after my ordeal and Grayson brought me tea while Cassie vanished into her room to make herself scarce. I told him what happened and he seemed troubled by it. He gingerly suggested that maybe I shouldn’t go to office hours by myself. He’d go with me, he offered.
I stared moodily at my tea, trying to think about what I wanted to say to him now that it was just the two of us. I’d spent time with Grayson since talking to the laundry lady, but it was always on campus when there were other people around and I didn’t feel comfortable talking about anything important.
What would I say? Oh hey by the way the evil incarnation of laundry day thinks you’re dangerous for me to be around? Can you explain that?
And really, if he is tied to the inhuman, is he any more dangerous than me? Okay, yes, Maria and Cassie both swear up and down that they’d chosen to get involved, but I still think that without knowing me they’d be safer.
Or they might be dead. Maria was poking her nose in dangerous corners before I came around and Cassie was trying to ignore everything after her roommate died, even though ignorance can’t save anyone.
I’m just so confused on what I should do anymore.
So I chose a less dangerous topic.
That’s right. I asked him what was going to happen to our relationship after he graduated.
“Long distance relationships aren’t that bad,” he said, “Right? Isn’t Cassie managing one?”
She actually is. It seems like it’s going well.
“Listen,” he said, grabbing my hands urgently. “We don’t know how things are going to turn out. I’ve got my dad to worry about for a bit longer. Maybe I could stick around for another year and then decide what we’re going to do. I could use a year off, honestly.”
He smiled and I saw the strain in it. He looked so tired.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“I am… really overstretched,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. Just hold on for me a little longer, okay? I promise you things will get better.”
It didn’t feel like he was trying to reassure me. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself. I didn’t know what else to say, so I told him okay, that I’d hold on for a little bit longer and wait for things to get better. I know what it’s like to lose a father, after all. There’s very little that can make it better. It hurts and hurts and there’s no relief from it. You just wait it out, keep walking forwards because that’s the only direction you can go, and eventually the world around you falls into place and you wake up one day and realize that this is how your life is from here on.
Some things you just have to endure.
But I think it’s time Grayson knows he doesn’t have to go through this alone. Next time we talk, I’m going to ask him what, exactly, is going on with his dad.