Oh Father Who Art Thou?

Chapter 1

The Beginning of the End

Rhythmic slapping of flesh on flesh reverbed throughout the living room. A couch with a large sweat stain supported two naked bodies. She bounced hard, reminded him of cowgirls riding horses. Filled and empty back and forth with a chorus of sloppy wet noises was their heaven. The lights were on, aside from the lovers little was out of typical place. Four candles still in their plastic were next to a lighter, two full plates, dinner touched, cold, nibbled more than eaten. All arraigned on a coffee table next to two partly filled wine glasses. Red, barley drank, tasted.

She said the wine had gotten her in the mood. Feigning a loose, desperate gal who had too much to drink; her favorite way to tempt. He always leapt at the chance. Man was desperate for it, for her. Made her feel sexy, him so powerful and animalistic. For added kink. She bit him on the ass when he turned around to light the candles and was returned with teeth against her ear. From then on missionary began, until transferring into sitting cowgirl as they mauled each other.

She was going faster then. Pulling him into her breasts to suckle like a starved babe. He rooted around to cover her entire chest in saliva and teeth marks and hickies. She pulled him tight against her, raised slightly to check the baby monitor across the room mid thrust. Quiet, dead, baby was still asleep, she thanked God. They both hadn’t slept since the boy was born and preferred it that way. She went harder. Today was for both of them but to her this was about her husband. He’d been away for a month on work, came back a few hours ago. Wanted him to know how much he meant to her, the fun way a wife should.

Harder and harder, faster and faster, she felt herself catch up to him. He was close, shaking now. Breathing hot over on her breasts, her entire body convulsed under him as her legs shook. Both groaned into a steady panting that reached the pinnacle simultaneously and turned to kisses and smiles after a moment of rest. She climbed off him on shaky legs and cuddled up. Nesting under his arm, buried like a badger, smelling his sweaty musk that made her want more.

“God you’re good,” he said.

“Oh really, how good?” she asked, looking up at him.

“The best baby, the best.” He leaned in close, nuzzled with his nose. Making her giggle.

“What do you think about turning in?” He asked, happy to be here with her but very tired.

“Don’t be an old man, let’s watch a movie!” She hopped to her feet. Walking to the VCR collection under the cabinet where the TV stood, she bent over. Unintentionally giving a show worth a 12-hour shift. He watched gleefully, scanning every curve of every crevice as if he’d be tested on it later. From the perfect heart shape of her ass to the middle, where her crack parted slightly. Showing the tightest puckered little brown asshole right above the precious slit that made him think of a macaroon. Glazed with his little swimmers like a donut. Down to those legs which ran for days. God he was lucky to have her, he thought. As she came back up holding two tapes; Caddy Shack and the Godfather. Turning to show the rest of everything he loved. They stared back at him just as hard he did.

“Okay, mobster or comedy?” she smiled.

“You pick babe,” he said.

“I don’t know, this is your first night back home, so you pick!”

He thought carefully, seen enough of murder and mayhem for two lifetimes. What he did was hard and took its toll. Most of his coworkers couldn’t handle the family life. Making them a rare breed in an already rare field. It was how they met, in the thick of it. In the blood. Things went bad after she went on maternity leave. It was a more dangerous time now, might be forever; he was glad she wasn’t a part of it. Made him queasy thinking about her possibly going back. If one or the other died who would take care of the baby? Maybe she could stay home? Would she have it? Maybe work at base as compromise? A conversation for tomorrow he decided. All he could do was live for now, so it would be a funny movie tonight.

“Caddy Shack, I wanna laugh,” she smiled and put in the tape, rewinding it before prancing back over to her spot under his arm. Loveing the stink of man.

A commercial for something called Pulp Fiction played, starring John Travolta and Samuel Jackson. Something about a magic glowing briefcase she thought, before finding herself distracted. White noise which only came from inside her head. A growing ring of tendinitis. It was getting to her, unnoticeable at first, before suddenly hindering all sense of the world. Things became strange, fuzzy, reality harder to fully grasp, except for the constant ringing pain. She looked up to her husband who felt the same. His eyes were glossy, his stomach churned. In a brief moment his short hair seemed to move in the breeze of an invisible wind. Like miles of African plains grass just barely moving.

She found herself feeling, almost light. As if she were at the bottom of the ocean. Just floating, unable to drown or die, peaceful even. Merely existing in this strange alien place. Something began to penetrate. A small scratching, like a cat scratch the bathroom door, growing into a quiet whine. She turned back, and the monitor was glowing an angry red. The water disappeared, she was back on earth and the baby was squalling in a pained cry.

Both stood to run upstairs. Vaguely beginning to grasp their problem from distant memories. Something was here, inside the house, maybe in the room with the baby, something they only faintly knew the concept of. More words than real facts they could explain. She heard him fall behind her, the buckle of his belt clinking as he tripped on his pants. She ran ahead bull rushing, upstairs, down the hall, the baby was crying louder now. The pain cry every parent knows perfectly. The shriek of terror that comes from doctor shots or banging their head against a coffee table. Something was hurting him, drawing them in like a honey pot.

She hooked an arm around his doorway and sprinted past the toys and over a Winnie the pooh rug to lean over the crib. Realizing how dark it was. He wasn’t there! The cry became louder coming from nowhere and everywhere all around her. Shaking her skull like an earthquake.

“Max! He’s not here!” She turned, facing dead silence. Max stood in the hallway. Holding little Joseph. Max’s look was one of pure paralyzed horror. His face began to melt, as did the child, collapsing into chunky blood and bones which splattered on the floor. The room buckled, cracked around her. Winnie the pooh themed wallpaper broke like sun-bleached skin, displaying pulsing red flesh and bone under the surface, contracting, pushing from all sides it clenched around her body. Trapping her in place. She felt her organs rupturing. Her eyes which stared terrified ahead, one bursting from its socket. Suddenly crushing her into a bloody splat.

Heather blinked and was alive, standing in the middle of the room, it was so real. Behind her eye shown death, and pain, endless cycles of all impossible horror and death which felt as real as her husband’s cold seed going down her leg. The tendinitis came louder than ever with a skull breaking migraine; she gripped the sides of her head. Preparing to do what she’d been trained to do all those years ago, for this exact horror, of which no one had seen in a hundred years. Of which there was no way to fight back. All she could do was warn Max to run away with Joseph, screaming, as loud as her strained lungs would:

“Madness! Madness! Madness!”

Max stood from the couch and fixed his pants as he ran up the stairs, hearing the warning and their baby crying. He knew what she was doing. It had been so many years since that training, yet he knew instantly. There was no way to fight what was up there. Only to warn others to flee. He couldn’t leave his family. Tripping halfway up, the screams of both his wife and child crying suddenly stopped into dead silence. Max’s stomach dropped like a lead ball into a bottomless pit; inside his head, “please be okay” repeated with the rhythm of his terrified heart.

He ran, entering the dark nursery, light switch didn’t work. Heather was nowhere, he turned fully around, couldn’t see a thing in the dark. Only the moonlight from the window partially illuminating the room. Until he spotted it. Above, high, perched over a corner. A giant golden spider with hairy legs sprawled along the walls. Holding Heather, naked by the neck in its fangs. Imbedded inside her flesh like swords, her nack body hanging by a few bloody tendons. She stares ahead, lifeless.

“God…” Max’s lip quivered.

Paralyzed with grief and shock. Between the pain in his skull and the reality ahead, he could die now and never be able to accept it. The spider tossed her to him. Max caught just barely, feeling her limp dead corpse in his arms. She was so warm, alive just a minute ago. Loving. His hands felt clammy on her skin, covered in sweat from their lovemaking, she was still grotesquely warm. He looked into her eyes, nothing, no light, no soul, no hope; Heather was dead. Max felt his legs give way. Turning to jelly they bucked to kneel with her in his arms. Watching everything he loved crumble into dust around him. The spider scurried over the ceiling to drop. Turning into the one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

The woman’s skin was smooth without blemish, mole, or freckle. Her hair, a bushel of tightly bound curls the color of orange fire. Her body, barely clothed, was perfect in every way. Not purely in a man’s eyes, anatomically. The image of Eve, the perfect woman. Strong, feminine. Healthy by all angles, she radiated pure perfection. Her belly taunt, her legs smooth and muscled, her arms dainty, princess-like. And her breasts were fair and regal. Only her eyes were unnatural, bright, artificially unnatural looking, glowing the color of electric pond scum, of seaweed, of her home that Max studied long ago. Where the mighty priest of R’lyeh lies dreaming at the bottom of the ocean. Max could have never grasped the full horror of a Harbinger, if given ten lifetimes of devout study.

“Don’t be sad, her suffering is over, a gift for you little father,” it spoke, so soothingly horrible, a vague accent Max didn’t recognized. It was leaning over him as he cradled Heather’s body and head. Max desperately tried to ignore her presence. Trying to keep the head attached for his fleeting sanity which trickled down to its final few grains. Amongst the horrible tendinitis which made it impossible to focus completely on any one thing.

“This won’t even be the worst thing to happen to you tonight,” it reached around, touching on his groin. Rubbing in circles where his cock’s head was. It felt good which made the whole torture unbearably worse. Delusional thoughts of incomprehensible grief roamed his mind, pinning him into place. There is no known way to fight one, not with what he had which was nothing. Max remembered, from years ago, a Harbinger of madness. He let his mind fog, allowed the madness that the Harbinger brought everywhere it went to take him away from the pain. Better to lose his mind than to endure what awaited him. Max let go and began to drown in his own insanity, until Joseph started to cry again. Somewhere, Heather spoke to him.

“Save our boy! Save him!”

Then his eyes flickered, Max dropped her body with tears and ran to Joseph’s crib. Only for the harbinger to grasp his head from behind. Holding him with the strength of 50 men in five dainty, delicate looking fingers.

“The gates of R’lyeh have not opened for over 2 million years; Master has sent me to put you on a new path. You will have a part to play; this torment will set you right. You will raise a great city and bring war across the cosmos again. No longer a bacteria, as you say. You are declared purposeful. You will see now, see what future awaits your actions. Bear witness and fall into madness; a 1000 lifetimes of torture and agony.”

Max found himself in a great endless black void, where he’d been for years. Floating, naked. His fingernails began to bend backwards again, curling, as did his penis, his skin peeled in horribly thin strips, his teeth twisted from their roots and shattered, his appendix ruptured as did his testicles, his tendons severed slowly. And his body began to turn inside out from his asshole, brimming with infection, disease and insects which feasted greedily. His mind forced to stay focused, sane by unnatural means, strengthened by cosmic powers to remain unshattered. Chained in the moment to experience it all, over and over again without breaking.

As the pain endlessly endured, smoke cleared. A figure came into view, quaking the earth. A walking mountain, miles high, sluggishly stomping through burning cities with wriggling unnatural tentacles to snuff the last of pitiful bacteria and disgusting symmetry from the earth. Harbingers fill the sky in swarms of billions. A figure in a long yellow robe glistening like shattered glass points to a collapsing red sun, which will eclipse them all. The earth cracks, fire and magna burst like bloated corpses. Hell is empty. The very heavens appear to being falling, distant stars flickering out of existence; a hundred thousand every moment.

Max dropped to his knees and screamed so hard no sound came out, his eyes bled and rolled into their sockets. His mouth gapped, unhinged, muttering nonsensical alien tongue quietly. The power which held him let go. Now there was nothing to keep him from shattering, it had all taken but a moment in this world. Inside the crib was empty, but for a massive blood splatter. The window above it was open; a draft flew into the room. Behind him, his wife lay dead. Max, neither living nor dead himself, kneeled dreaming.

#

20 years later

Carlissa sat smoking on a park bench. She had nothing but contempt for herself. From the way she dressed. Feelings of an aching heart. It was why she sat here, under a full moon, closest she could get to nature. Chasing the feeling of truly being by yourself where the mind can scream and no one would be there to tell you to shut up and embarrass you. Everything natural was beautiful, or so she wanted to believe. Birds, grass, chipmunks, trees. Sanctuary in the modern world. The sounds of crickets and frogs with distant cars soothed her somewhat. But inner chaos kept her disheveled.

As much as she wanted to avoid it. Her reflection caught in the small pond before her, illuminated by a lone light above. To big, fat, she slouched, her legs laid sprawled, sitting too wide like a boy, unladylike, she thought as she pulled them together. Her hair needed dyed because it was naturally off shade. Mom wouldn’t have it. Carlissa never thought it fit her face. The blonde she had was too close to yellow. Making her head the same color as a rotten toenail. Her clothes, she had no taste, she knew that. They weren’t good enough. Acne scars impossible to ignore. Even her eyes betrayed her. Turd brown. And then there was who she was. A loser trying to be a winner and constantly failing.

In this moment, to Carlissa, all she really had were her brains and even that failed her. Tonight was the tryouts for varsity academic team. Her specialty was mathematics. She’d always been good with numbers. So why would they ask her trivia? It was some cruel joke, she was sure. The judges, the school, all of them had to be working against her. Taking what little she had to be proud of and stomping it into mud. And then there was him.

“Fuck you Andrew Germin!” she shouted into the dark and began crying. Reliving the humiliation she just experienced all over again.

The stage was set. The judges were old and bookish. Two bald men with bow ties and a woman, mean as a bulldog, more ruthless than a nazi general. Told her to repeat herself every question no matter how loud she was, docked her points for it too. Lights on, stage lights, the kind that burns your eyes out of their sockets if you stare too long. Everyone had their go, till it was just the two of them. It was neck and neck. Her and Andrew Germin. Mathematics, geometry, it was her specialty, she had this in the bag or so she thought. As both of them blazed through one problem after the other with no clear advantage.

“Idiot must’ve studied just to screw with me,” she gruffed, pulling on the cigarette. Taking nearly half out of anger.

Carlissa felt like a whore in church under those lights. Everything about her soaked in damp, freezing sweat, the smell held back by something expensive and pink called scentless, which she lathered over herself to prepare. God those lights were torment, had to be hotter on purpose to throw her off. She felt like a sponge drying out under a lamp.

Carlissa knew they were against her, maybe, no the judges planned it out. Because Andrew didn’t so much as sweat. There was no other logical explanation. Damn you Andrew Germin, she thought. But what if it wasn’t rigged? What if he was just… resistant? To the heat. There was no way, she thought. It was unnatural. He barely even blinked. Everyone has to blink more than that, especially under those lights. While she suffered in silence. It was sexist, someone had to be working against her. The whole world was laughing under their breath. Gawking, watching her sweat and admiring him being so composed, it was injustice. A cruel joke. Then they asked the very question. A lowball trivia that had no place in proper mathematics.

“What prominent scientist put forth the famous equation E=mc2?”

Whether it was the lights, the nerves, the stage, Andrew or the evil judges. In one moment of weakness Clarissa’s mind went blank. She saw her entire high school career in jeopardy. Unknowingly blank and thoughtless, stuck in the mud, the wheels turned in place but refused to go anywhere but deeper. And then her throat caught, even if the answer came during that crucial deciding millisecond, she couldn’t have given it. Mute, she had to cough and did, quietly and quickly. Then Andrew took it all away. Stole it from her like the bastard he is. Her moment of weakness enabled him to buzz.

“Albert Einstein,” he said in that deep awful hell voice.

And so it was over, ruined. She ran out before the handshake. Everything she could’ve had. Carlissa sat crying heavily now. Hearing some faint footsteps coming towards her, she flicked her cigarette into a trash can in case it was her mom.

“Hey hey, what’s the matter pretty girl, what’s going on?”

It was uncle Max. Father Max to most. Still in his clerical outfit he sat by his niece and hugged her. Stroking her platinum blonde hair and smelling a mix of soft deodorant and fruity perfume as he tucked her head under his neck. Max was always gentil when he hugged Carlissa, she was always so frail looking, he thought, thin. Just how she was made. Like a little bird he was afraid to see fly away. He tucked a finger under her chin to guide her gaze upwards. Covered in tears, poor thing, he smiled at her. Beautiful hazel eyes like her grandmother, she was growing up so fast.

“Talk to me, what’s the matter?” He smiled, clasping his hands in a priestly manner, as he does often.

“Andrew Germin just ruined my life! He mopped the floor with me!” she sobbed.

Father max stifled a laugh and kept serious, nodding, waiting for more. He almost looked forward to hearing her vent. No one had such a flair for the dramatic as his beloved niece. A mountain is a mole hill. A fart is an atomic bomb.

“I needed this… this, I don’t know what I’m going to do now!” she sniffled.

“Honey these are just try outs for varsity, it’s okay. You’re still on the team and you’re just a Junior anyway and he’s a Senior. You’re not supposed to be over him.”

“They made an exception for me, this was my chance to show I can do it!” Her lip quivered pathetically.

Father Max pulled her close again, hugging and stroking her hair while shushing her whimpers.

“Carl baby,” he smiled. “You need to slow down some. You’re on the basketball team, soccer, most of the clubs in school and your gpa is perfect. I didn’t even know you could get more than 4. In a year or two you’re probably going to Harvard, you know that? Why worry so much? You’re doing fine you little ball of nerves.”

“It’s him Uncle Max, I hate him! I hate him so much I wish he was dead!”

“Hey! Now we don’t hate anyone in our family and we don’t wish for them to die. I thought you two were friends anyway?”

“I would never be friends Andrew Germin!” she glared.

“What? You two grew up together?”

Carlissa recalled it. Every little league game, basketball, foot race, science fair. Her and Andrew have been at each other’s throats their entire lives. A rivalry, the bane of her existence.

“I hate him Uncle Max, I hate him and I wish he was dead!”

“Hey,” Father max pointed a chubby finger in her face, his look one of condemnation.

“It’s the truth,” Carlissa grumbled.

Father Max sighed. He loved her, just like her grandmother, she was a ball of nerves.

“Alright, no more of this nonsense, let’s go get some pizza, you’ve earned it kid.”

Carlissa felt her stomach growl and had no way to disagree, nodding. The two stood with Father max brushing some leaves off her coat which had stuck from the bench. He knew she’d cry if anyone from her school saw her with dirt on her. She was always so prissy, his little cry baby blue bird of a niece. Using a flickering light he hadn’t noticed to help find the hidden dirt Carlissa tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. The trash can by them was on fire.

“Oh Lord!” he yelped stepping between Carlissa and the can.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“Run!” and they both disappeared into the night. A burning trash can all that’s left of the talk.

#

The Next Day

She called in school, couldn’t stop crying all night. Went to a friend’s house. The room is black. All black with black curtains, a fur rug, silk bed sheets, a weighted blanket. Leather backed books of strange esoteric design arraigned on three shelves coming waist high. Above them, a chalk pentagram, drawn over a goat, illuminated with electric candles. Carlissa sobs into a pillow on the floor as she had been for awhile. Her friend reads HP Lovecraft on his bed while eating Chinese food, smoking a bummed cigarette by a cracked window.

He dressed in a silk, black robe which reflected the stream of light that escaped through the window. Skinny as a rail, with long silver dyed hair, ghost white makeup, and husky eye colored contact lenses with black lipstick. Pouting gave him the appearance of a little spider on his mouth. He expertly avoided smudging the delicate look as he finished his own Lo Mein and put the cigarette out on a brick of his window

“Hey Carl, I don’t want to be fat but are you going to eat that?” He pointed with his chopsticks, the untouched noodles, left on the floor for the past hour. Long cold it didn’t matter to him.

“Yea,” Carlissa whined into the pillow.

“Oh my Satan, you’re being crazy!” He put down the empty box and went to the floor with her. Staring up at the ceiling; a detailed depiction of Baphomet above.

“Girl can you… like… stop? You’re being crazy over a guy of all things.”

“He’s not some guy! I am not being crazy!” Carlissa raised up instantly, scowling.

“Girl, I haven’t seen anybody this thirsty since our water went out last summer.”

“You are the worst friend ever and I hope you die B,” Carlissa scoffed.

“Satan be praised maybe I’ll get lucky, little miss popular invoked gods wrath on my mortal soul!” B laid back and Carlissa did as well. Both on the floor staring upwards.

“You want some weed?” B asked, bored.

“No, I’ve got an English test tomorrow, I need to have my A game”

“Such a good girl,” B smirked, standing and walking over to his bong while cracking the window more. Still eyeing the untapped potential hidden within the little white box by his homegirl.

“I am not!”

“You are the goodest of the good, best, in fact sweetest gal there ever was!” B laughed like a valley girl, cupping his gloved hands and whisking his hair around before ripping the bong and blowing smoke out of the window. Letting in sounds from the distant road with birds tweeting and faint honking cars.

“Oh really? J-“ she started but B cut her off, shushing and waggling his gloved finger.

“Don’t you dead name me!” He barked.

“You’re not trans, you can’t say that… Jimmy.” Carlissa grinned like a villain.

B was so angry his blush almost poked through the thick layer of goth white foundation. He put the bong down and gripped the edge of the bed. Perching like a cat.

“My name is Black Heart damn it!”

“Okay… Jimmy,” Carlissa flicked her tongue at him, before opening the box of noodles he wanted so badly for spite. His reflective eyes flickered between the sweet golden flavor and his bitch of a friend. She watched his little black lips quiver in anger. Like an angry black butthole.

“Carl you rotten bitch”

“Jimmy or should I say…”

“Don’t! Don’t you dare! They’ll be consequences!”

Clarissa leaned in, twirling the noodles in her chop sticks.

“James”

B leapt from the bed onto Carlissa like a cat. Grapsing her shoulders they tugged over the ground until she kicked him off, sending him rolling into the bookshelf and knocking half his shrine over.

“Hey B, you okay?” Carlissa asked, examining a small red mark on her hand wondering if he may have bit her during the tussle. B was such a frail little guy, bad temper, if he were bigger he’d be dangerous but luck would have it he was about as capable in a fight as starved cat.

“I’m gonna curse you, gonna curse you with forever diarrhea!” he threatened.

“Already got IBS bruh,” she ate more noodles, not for spite but hunger, realizing she hadn’t eaten all day.

“Well, you know what they say,” B smirked, sitting back up.

“Only the baddest bitches have stomach problems,” they said in unison.

“Yea, I guess so… hey, B?” Carlissa asked.

“Yea bitch?”

“Thanks for letting me come over, it means a lot,” she played with the noodles, debating whether to give them as a peace offering before eating more.

B scarfed down his pride and scooted close to her.

“Well, my home girl deserves a little time to cry it out, you were there for me with Brad”

“Oh, that’s just what friends do”

“Bitch… please, I let him walk me like a dog and then he acted like he didn’t know who I was. I had like, no self-esteem, none. And you lil miss popular girl was right there for me so it’s only right I’m here for you. Especially for a guy like Ape.”

The word rang a little hellish bell inside of her head. Andrew Germin was center for the high school football team. A head taller than the seniors by freshman year he took them to state ever since he got to high school. He was unstoppable on the field. You’d think his strength alone would garner a name as animalistic and brutal as Ape, but it didn’t. It was his hands. Big lugs of meat, like something a caveman would wallop a mammoth with to break its skull.

Carlissa remembered them now, while chewing. She touched them once, an awful time, years ago back in middle school. It was the last time she could play him with a chance in hell of winning a one on one in basketball, the other girls quit years before, even the boys wouldn’t try alone, except for the very best. Which wasn’t a guaranteed win. He was just too much. Just too damn big and quicker than you’d think for someone his size. Reaching those arms out he could block almost anything. And God forbid; the off chance he got mad at you. Of coarse Ape was good guy, he would never just hurt someone, but what if you caught him on the wrong day? This was a thought no one could fully put away when going against him.

Only Carlissa stood up to the challenge. Game went hard. Both reached for a basketball at the same time. She got it first, then he grasped it. It was like touching a wild boar’s snout, leathery skin, rough wiry black hair that reflected the light, sharp enough to cut you. It was a miracle she lasted any time at all before a random fire alarm saved her pride. She demanded a rematch but never went farther. He was just too strong by then, his hands too big. Touching those clubs would make anyone think Andrew really was an Ape.

“That is an insult to primates everywhere, and I didn’t lose anything except my dignity. He mopped the floor with me, right in front of everyone. That son of a bitch is pure scum.”

“Oh yea, I bet he is… you want him bad don’t you?”

Carlissa spat out her noodles and wiped her mouth. B felt hurt at seeing the bite of precious food go to waste.

“No! What the hell B?”

“I’m just saying you’d make a cute couple! Everybody’s thinking it.”

“The hell you mean everybody?” Clarissa spat, slamming the box of noodles down, taking everything inside of B not to reach for the promised land of Chinese food.

“Come on bitch, wake and smell the friken coffee!” He laid an arm over her shoulder. “You and him have been will they won’t they you’re entire lives. I was there man. When we were kids you were always racing each other, class grades, selling donuts n’ shit. Every time you do something, he throws in his hat. Every time he farts you have to crack big thunder no matter what! Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Ew god B, I forgot you were a boy, what’s the matter with you?”

“Listen, I tried to stay on the sidelines but I have a feeling, things are gonna work out between you two. So feel free to chill out here while you work things out with your guy. And please don’t spare any details when something happens. Me and my discord are dying to know how much of an Ape Andrew Germin really is.”

“He’s not my guy,” Carlissa said, suspicious.

“And Brad didn’t nut in me, you may not know it but I know you bitch and the stars know it too.” B pointed towards the astrology poster on his wall.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carlissa asked, now more sure something more than creepy shipping was going on.

“Well…”

“Don’t you dare tell me you did magic on me!” Carlissa’s eye twitched with fury and B giggled like a school girl at her.

“I did some magic,” B smirked.

Carlissa stood, her fists clenched. B cowered a bit.

“I didn’t put you two together! I’m not that… powerful anyway, I just peeked ahead. A minor little crumb of tea for the starving, I just looked at what was already there!” Carlissa grasped his robes and pulled him up to stand effortlessly.

“What did you see?” She gritted through a clenched jaw.

“Big house, a few kids, a happy lil life? He’ll also like how short you are and call you his little bird?”

Carlissa dropped him with a thud and began hyperventilating.

“No! No NO NO! NO way! I am not getting with that piece of shit Andrew Germin!”

“It’s out of your hands! Stars said so!” B groaned as he stood uneasily.

“I have to stop it… how do I stop it! Don’t lie to me I know you know a way!” Carlissa grasped B by the robe again. Making him quiver in fear.

“It’s not that simple, the stars said-“

“Fuck the stars! Help home girl!” She shook him like a mobster owed money.

“It’s already written! Like Bella and Edward! Superman and Louis Lane! Joker and Batman! The only way to rewrite fate would be to…” B stopped himself, worried for what was about to come out of his mouth.

“What! Spilled it B or I swear to God I will shove my entire foot up your-“

“The old ones! You’d have to involve the old ones!” B stuttered. Carlissa calmed a bit, despite not understanding fully, she knew it was a real answer and gently sat him to stand.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Well… have you ever read HP Lovecraft?”

“No, I’m too busy going outside. Who the fuck reads HP Lovecraft?”

“Well… okay damn Jesus, ouch! Oh shit I mean okay, damn Satan. Fuck okay got to make this short and sweet. HP is a famous author of weird fiction. Only he wasn’t, he actually just wrote down his and other peoples real experiences, shit you don’t know who he is so why am I even bothering to explain… you know how there’s like angels and gods and demons and everything?”

“Yea”

“We’ll they all work towards a line of fate, an agreed upon plan for everything by everyone, good, evil, mainstream and not. There is a beginning, middle, and end to everything and all time. One line from genesis to the apocalypse, all agreed to this. Well… there are others so to speak, the old ones, like older than time and light and heaven and hell and even space. I guess you could call them gods but really, they’re not the same. Cosmic beings, older than everything; they were here before and live in the furthest reaches of reality. If they live in reality as we know it at all. Their influence is mostly limited, like drops of dye in the ocean but some of them are actually here on earth and will talk to people.”

“What are you getting at?” Carlissa asked.

“Carl, the old ones never agreed to live by the line of fate or obey the rules, they’re outside of that, above or below or anywhere but. If you really want to completely alter fate, you’d need an old one to meddle in for you.”

“Is that… an option?” Carlissa asked.

“Fuck no it isn’t! You threatened to kick my ass just now, I confessed under duress! Let me tell you something, you think making deals with demons is bad? Trust me, demons have codes, they pay up. I’ve been through it. This for that, all you have to do is be specific and know who to talk to and who to avoid. Most of the old ones don’t even know we exist, can’t even contact them they’re so beyond everything. And the ones that do notice that we happen to exist, at best see us like crickets or worse, germs to be smudged. You don’t deal with them, they deal with you. You’ll wake up and realize nothing was ever in your power to begin with.”

Carlissa heard but also imagined. Seeing her future with the worst person on earth. A petty full of himself brute of a man whose been trying to show her up for her entire life. It would be his final win over her… conquest, it would destroy everything. B wasn’t lying, anyone would think he was crazy, most did, but he was legit, she’s seen it, knew he wasn’t full of it. Seen miracles, impossible things, magic. Despite it all, Carlissa could not be with Andrew. It will not happen, she decided.

“I want to do it, now how do I?”

B threw his arms up and scoffed.

“Carl there’s not even a guarantee they’ll hear you”

“But they might… please this is my thing, you remember, you said if I ever need anything, just ask. This is my favor B, please. I’m asking you to try, please B. I can’t be with him, no matter what. It can’t happen.”

B sighed and held the bridge of his nose between his fingers, smudging some of the foundation on his gloves.

“Okay… okay fine, I’ll put your request out there for one to accept, if they choose but don’t be surprised if they leave you on read.”

“Thank you, really thank you B!”

“Don’t mention it,” B walked around her and began rearraigning his shrine. Removing the pentagram and drawing strange symbols in chalk that Carlissa didn’t recognize. She knew basic astrology but this was an entirely new zodiac with shapes and things that didn’t have names. B finished with a sigh and suddenly produced a small statue of a crouched creature with claws, a squid head and dragon wings to place before a queer looking zodiac.

“Man the stories you could tell,” B whispered to it. Placing the object with fear and reverence at it’s significance. Respecting the queer horror it carried.

“So, I like… offer my soul or something?” Carlissa asked.

“Like I’d ever let you offer your soul,” B scoffed. “The old ones don’t care about that stuff. They do what they want. However, they uhm, do need to know who you are to bind the agreement. So, the ritual does require blood.”

Carlissa felt her body clench. Pins and needles inside her chest like waves of waking nerves. B took hold of her hand and was suddenly holding a small ritual knife. A curve blade which slithered like a snake; tenacles designed into the handle with a green jewel at it’s base, it looked like something you could buy from a pawnshop for 10 dollars. A fantasy knife worth little to anyone who wasn’t a big fat nerd. But this knife was different. It held an aura which seemed hungry for blood. Almost alive, at very least sinister. Carlissa pulled back suddenly. B saw a chance to talk her out of this.

“Carl… in the current future, you’re happy. You look happy. I shouldn’t have teased you about it. Are you sure you want to risk this? Madness and ruin? These things don’t end well for people.”

Carlissa thought and then gave her hand freely with a disgusted look. Picturing Andrew’s smug grin. Having reduced her to a sexual conquest, after all the years, winning in his own disgusting way. B sighed and cut her hand with a smearing streak of pain, then pressing it against the small idol’s cephalopod head. Letting the blood soak and run down its stone body. B watched the blood flow solemnly.

He felt fearful in the following moments. Angels, so distant, unwilling to stoop to man’s level outside of a mighty will. Demons, evil, hungry to cause harm. So willing to deal with desperate mortals like himself. Orderly evil, which he was accustomed too. Then there was them. The old ones, whose chaotic nature was something B only just comprehended. Enough to know to avoid them. He didn’t want to know more. No one comes out ahead of them, ever. He watched the blood flow slowly over the stone fetish. Feeling, even now, the fickle, alien power already presenting. B wondered if Lovecraft felt the same power when he held this same object himself a hundred years ago.

“So… what now?” Carlissa asked.

“Now we wait, if things go your way, you’ll be plagued with nightmares, but luckily magics come a lot farther since the days of Lovecraft and we have ways around it,” B began digging through parts of his room until he found a small purple bottle. Handing it to Carlissa who clenched her hand together to keep from bleeding. Before noticing that her large cut was now seemingly healed, with only dried blood remaining.

“If you’re going to get an answer, it’ll be tonight in the form of a terrible nightmare. Worst you’ll ever have by far. Drink this before bed, you’ll wake up feeling like shit either way but with this you won’t remember what happened, if something happens.”

“How will I know if I have a nightmare?”

“You’ll probably piss yourself, flu-like symptoms, and wake up feeling like nothing will ever be right again and that nothing matters. Basically, just Imagin a dementors kiss, but with tongue and it sticks a boney finger up your ass.”

“Ew”

“Ew is right, no telling what’s going to happen if they contact you, glad it’s not me”

Carlissa scrunched her face crudely at B, then to the bottle, realizing she didn’t know what was in it, and recalling the time B used rat droppings in his alchemy for better breath mints.

“What am I drinking?” she asked.

“Do you really want to know Carl?”

“Yea, I think I do”

“Little bit of this and that, hemlock, dandelions, a few other things”

“Hemlock? That’s poisonous!”

“Not the way I made it, hemlock has amnesiac properties and it pretty diluted, you’ll be fine, since you’re not taking much.”

Clarissa looked at the bottle and something told her not to drink it.

“How bad are the nightmares really? She asked, seeing if the cure was worse than the sickness.

“Carl don’t even think about it. Half the people in Lovecraft’s stories die by suicide and the man himself was a shriveled up shell of a human being. You’re a boss bitch, but you don’t want the old ones to have a place in your head. You promise me you’ll drink that tonight, or may your mother die with cancer of the eyes!” B pointed.

“Okay okay! Jesus Christ I’ll drink it, I promise”

“Thank you, now let’s go outside, it’s my turn to walk Moony”

“Your sisters dog?”

“Family dog according to dad now, everyone has to pitch in”

B guided Carlissa out, as she left he stopped, peering towards the half box of Chinese food still sitting. Once she was down the stairs he dived for it. Scooping up the Lo Mein by the chop stick full and swallowing huge gulps.

“Satan be praised!”

#

Morning

An unassuming cafeteria. A hundred students balanced in various stages of orderly chaos. Some just arriving others well past finished. Speaking in groups of friends with the occasional loner enjoying time on their phone. The popular table lacked one prominent member today. Not that anyone could tell since the seat was filled, but not by its usual person. Towards the far end of the cafeteria, where the cameras don’t quite catch. The best place for trades, a quick vape or cigarette between classes, rare weed dealing, and the rarer loss of virginity. At the end of farthest table. Carlissa had pulled a trash can by her side, which held several heaves worth of clear vomit. Her lack of breakfast being the best choice she could have made.

“Oh god, help, help me,” she moaned like a torture spirit.

It was just as B said. Carlissa had the worst headache of her life, it felt like someone had stuck an ice pick through her ear and raddled it around for five hours and kicked her in the stomach until their boots wore out. She barely slept. Didn’t piss herself but woke up feeling awful. Carlissa slumped forward into her arms. Light made her more sick. B approached, guessing right where she’d be to hide from her public friends he grabbed an extra chicken biscuit for her, adding to his collection of 4. Sitting it down in front of her he smiled with the biggest shit eating grin he could afford without compromising his makeup.

“Not feeling too good home girl?” he asked.

“Go to hell and die B,” she groaned.

“Satan be praised I might just; you look like hammered shit”

“You are hammered shit,” Carlissa groaned again, feeling she may puke again.

“I knew you’d come but why?” He asked.

“Math test asshole,” she growled. B smirked and scooted the chicken biscuit over.

“Eat something, you’ll probably feel better,” B started digging into his pile. Having eaten one biscuit on the way over.

Carlissa nibbled pathetically, unable to stand the biscuit part she went for the crispy meat which went down better in small strips that she pulled off with her teeth.

“There you go, atta girl,” B cheered her on patting her back.

“So… did it work?” she asked, haggard.

“I don’t know, we’ll see,” he shrugged.

“How can you not know?”

“Bitch how am I supposed to know? if you wanted confirmation you should’ve just had the nightmare without forgetting. Hemlock poisoning and mind shattering horror are surprisingly similar from what I’ve read”

“You told me not too!” She gritted angrily.

“And you did what you were told like good girl,” B reached out to pet her, only to have a wad of his hair snatched in sudden, fiery grip.

“I will rip this out and kick your boney friken ass! I feel so awful, I want to puke. Everything hurts and you think you’re so damn funny. I will kill you where you stand Jimmy Mcgucket.” Carlissa let go with a grumble in her belly and went back to whimpering into her arms on the table. As she did, a shadow rose over her.

“Carl, you have a visitor,” B said, rubbing his head.

Carlissa raised to cuss him out, only to see Andrew Germin standing over her. Of coarse it would be him, she thought. Why wouldn’t it. Here to make her day even worse. His height 6 10, broad shoulders casted a square shadow over her entire being, like standing under a tank. His brown eyes smoothed under a thick brown, a square jaw and wavey black hair. A walking mountain grinned over her.

“Not feeling too well Carl?” He smirked.

“You…” she dragged, distastefully.

“I’m sorry you don’t feel good. I won’t go so low as to remind you how I mopped the floor with you back at the tryouts. Oh wait, looks like I just did.” He laughed and she glared back up at him. So much hate he could see the fire in her little hazel eyes. Raising a dainty, quaking finger pointing at him rebelliously. She never quit and it made their spates all the more enjoyable for him.

“You…bastard!” she groaned, too sick to properly tell him off.

“Rest well Carl, you’ll need all your strength for our rematch at practice tomorrow.” He giggled, watching her little eyes fill with so much hate. Raising a carton to drink, his nose caught a whiff of something putrid. Tossing the soured milk into the trash expertly.

“God this is not my morning, at least I got to see you at your best though, chow.” He smirked triumphantly and walked away.

“You… asshole,” Carlissa groaned and gaged at the end. Puking bits of chicken into the trash.

B watched him walk away with flirtatious amazement, focusing on Andrew’s figure until it entered the crowd. Still, he was too tall to disappear, towering over everyone those shoulders gave B goosebumps until he got to the football table.

“Bitch if you don’t want him I do, did you hear that voice? My god it’s deeper than the ocean. I’d suck the chrome off his trailer hitch. I could make him forget all about you nasty girls.”

Carlissa slowly turned her head and scrunched disgustedly.

“What the fuck B, shut up, don’t ever say anything like that ever again”

“Bitch please, I’m your favorite kind of nasty,” B pet her head and Carlissa groaned. Still feeling terrible.

“Play with my hair,” she grumbled in her arms. B rolled his eyes and moved to sit by her. Catching a whiff of something absolutely deadly. Enough to stop him in place.

“Play with my air,” Carlissa shook her body like a toddler. While B sniffed for the culprit.

“B what the fuck come back please play with my hair!”

B trailed over to the garbage can.

“Homegirl needs help!” she whined.

B carefully rummaged until he found the same milk carton Andrew threw away. Putting it close to his face he gagged.

“Ew Jesus, ugh damn it, ew Satan,” he corrected. Looking over at Carlissa who reached for him like a dying man for water in the desert.

“Hey Carl smell this,” he said, putting it to her face before he could get an answer.

Carlissa sniffed.

“It’s just milk, now play with my hair”

B sniffed it again and gagged.

“You really don’t smell anything?” He asked.

“No, why are you going through the trash, don’t you have enough food?”

“Seriously Carl, something’s up, if Andrew would have drank this, he would have died.” B studied the carton looking for any signs of anything out of the ordinary. Carlissa’s ears perked and she raised up the best she could.

“What?”

B ignored her and kept looking, occasionally smelling, trying to figure out what this was.

“Defiantly not poison, not chemically structured enough,” he kept sniffing, finding more details every inhale.

“B can you stop being so cryptic?” Carlissa asked and B blew his lips like a horse at her.

“I’m trying to find out what this is. Whatever’s in this is deadly as hell and can’t be detected by human noses apparently”

“B goths are really more of a subculture than a separate species,” Carlissa said.

“Smartass, demon nose remember?” Be tapped his nose.

Carlissa thought back. B did blood magic that sent him to the hospital a year ago in exchange for a heightened sense of his choice. He picked smell, they hadn’t talked about it for awhile.

“Oh yea, by the way how’s my, you know what, gonna be this month?”

“Thought you didn’t want to know,” B said.

“I want to know on my terms”

B shook his head and gave her a quick sniff.

“Don’t freak out, you’ll be two days late and it’s going to be heavy”

“Fuck”

B went back to sniffing the Carton. His head running through different possibilities until one came back to him.

“This has botulism in it,” B finally declared.

“You can’t smell botulism, I read about it in biology,” Carlissa said.

“You can if your me,” B replied.

“Oh my god is the whole school infected?” Carlissa asked, looking around nervously.

B thought for a moment. He considered taking it to a teacher or call the CDC or doing anything but nothing. However, something told him this wasn’t an outbreak. He couldn’t smell anything when he walked by the kitchen. If there were more of this he would’ve known. Taking another sniff to confirm, the place was clean of anything. They were surrounded by people and food, one more would have it. Rest of the cafeteria’s clean. It’s only Andrew’s carton.

“B you’ve got that look in your eye, talk to me bro, what’s up?” Carlissa held her stomach, keeping the need to vomit in check as she sat still.

“No, the school is fine I think… it was only Andrews…”

“Well, he probably deserves it, karma’s a bitch just like him,” Clarissa shrugged.

“Carl botulism kills people…” B said. Trying to remember exactly what he saw when he peeked ahead to Andrew and Carlissa’s future. He couldn’t quite remember how set their place in fate was.

“Carl, I need you to really focus for me,” B threw the carton back into the trash and sat beside her, getting in her personnel space.

“Are you sure you can’t love Andrew Germin?” he asked.

“No! God no he’s a complete tool man, you saw him earlier, gloating over my deathbed”

“Are you sure Carl? Is there no part of you what’s so ever that would even consider it a little? What if your mom or dad or Uncle Max or me would die if you didn’t marry him, would you do it then?” B looked a little frantic now.

“You’re all dead then, it can’t happen B”

“Not even hypothetically?” He asked.

“Not a chance”

“Okay the world explodes if you don’t kiss him! Would you do it then?”

“Hell no!” Carlissa griped.

B was nearly floored. Not even in hypothetical. She could be lying but something told him she wasn’t.

“Okay… well I need figure this out. Carl, how much do you hate Andrew? And be for real, this isn’t a joke.” B looked serious and Carlissa knew he was.

“As much as I could hate anyone,” she said, honest.

“Do you hate Andrew enough for him to die?” B asked. Which created a long pause between them.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

B clasped his gloved hands together and got close to her.

“Carl, I have a responsibility for this kind of thing. Otherworldly forces, I’m the guy who knows all about them. I can’t tell you what I know until I know for sure, but right now, we might have a big fucking problem.”

“What are you talking about, be for real!” Carlissa whispered. They were practically invisible where they were, but being surrounded by people still put the two of them on edge.

“I can’t tell you till I know, but right now. I need you to follow Andrew and just keep tabs on him, just for today.”

Carlissa looked disgusted.

“I’m not following him!”

B snatched her hand like a viper. His grip stronger than normal.

“I know you two have your differences, but this is serious Carl. He could die, Andrew could die if we don’t help him. I think that carton was meant for him. Now I need to go home and figure this out on my end. Please will you just follow him and text me if anything weird happens?”

Carlissa sighed and felt her stomach pinch.

“I’m sick as a dog I can barely stand B”

“Satan damn it,” B suddenly pulled a bright vial from his pocket and placed it on the table. Carlissa knew what it was instantly and gave the worst look she could come up with.

“I was going to give it to you after riding your ass for a bit. Serves you right for strong arming me yesterday!”

Carlissa shook her head and drank, feeling better the second it touched her tongue.

“Now, will you keep tabs on Andrew?”

“Why should I?” Carlissa said. “Jackass wouldn’t piss on my head if I was on fire”

“Fine, do it for me, I don’t want some innocent person’s blood on my hands Carl, do it for me.”

“Fine, but he ain’t innocent,” Carlissa scoffed.

“You know what I mean,” B said gathering his backpack.

“Seriously Carl, watch him like a hawk, come to my house after school,” he patted her shoulder and left. Carlissa scanned the room for him. Seeing the big ape sitting with the football players. Carlissa decided that after today, she’d flush her eyes out with bleach.