Dearest Penguin People.
Thank you for dropping by. Last week we delved into Leonard and Max’s complicated past. Today’s chapter will follow Eve and her new partner as they have an unexpected visit from the weird…
If you are new to Max and Sebastian, please start here…
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21
A special thank you to P.Q. Rubin for tipsy penguin up top…
from a previous chapter…long, long ago…
Chapter 12
The dog edged forward onto Eve’s lap and perched on her knees like a baby vulture, ghost flames leaking from her eyes. “I think the better question is… what are you?”
“I’m nothing,” Max said.
“Oh, don’t say that,” Eve said, unaware that serpents were crawling across her face, painting trails of dark slime across her mouth and cheeks.
“Um, you’ve got something on your face,” Max said.
“I do?” Eve rubbed her chin with the back of her hand, smearing it worse. “Did I get it?”
Chapter 13
She walked away, rubbing her chin with the back of her hand. It felt like something was crawling on her face, its tiny cold legs whispering across her skin.
Part III - Chapter 22
Eve drove the downtown streets, windshield wipers on slow. Her new partner, Chloe, lounged in the passenger seat, boots on the dash. Between them lay a ziplock bag of homemade brownies.
Eve wiped crumbs from the corner of her mouth. “I want this recipe.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“I’m not asking for the special one.”
“Like I’d give it to you.”
The rain picked up in a steady thrum of pits and pats. In the distance a lone thunder clap split the air.
Eve turned down a side street, and parked the ambulance under a streetlamp. She rubbed her eyes.
Chloe glanced at her. “You okay? Your hands are shaking.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“And you’re pale, even for you.”
“I’m tired, is all.” She scratched her chin. “And itchy. I hope I didn’t catch something from a patient.”
She leaned in to look at Chloe’s arm. A pair of menacing eyes peered from beneath her sleeve. “New tattoo?”
Chloe grinned and pushed the sleeve up further to reveal The Grim Reaper; its black robe draped across her shoulder in whispered tatters.
“What do your patients think of this one?”
“Like I care.” Chloe settled back in her seat. “I’m running out of room, though.”
“Have you considered getting something less creepy, like an elf?”
“The others wouldn’t like it.” Chloe peeked down her shirt at the menagerie of creatures that lurked beneath her uniform. “Isn’t that right, my pretties?”
“Mm-hmm.” Eve reached for another brownie, then froze. “Chloe?”
“What?
“There’s something on your window.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “Well, looky here.” She rolled the window down and flicked her finger across the window ledge. Something small and crawly went flying out.
“Was that a cockroach?”
“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.”
“Why do you keep this truck in service?”
“They’ve bombed it twice and the babies keep coming back. Squatters’ rights, you know?”
“That’s disgusting.” Eve turned on the overhead light. She didn’t see any roaches but that meant nothing at all. There were so many places for them to hide.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“No, I’m not.” Eve peered under her seat with a flashlight.
“They’re natural, like rain or dandelions.”
“Or herpes,” Eve muttered.
“I heard that.”
Eve paused. Chloe’s voice had changed. “Are you chewing on marbles?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?” Click, clink, slurp.
Eve glanced up and dropped her flashlight.
Long, spiky feelers had sprouted from Chloe’s head. Along her back, amber wings curved, hiding a dark exoskeleton. She rubbed her thorax with a thin tapered leg, mandibles working up and down as if chewing cud. She shook her head. “Seriously, herpes? Sometimes, you’re pretty gross.”
Eve gurgled.
“Geesh. What’s your problem?”
“You’re a cockroach.”
A hesitation, then a slight flutter of wings. “Not cool, Eve.”
“No, really.”
Chloe’s mandibles clicked in unison with the steady patter of rain, dark round eyes clicking open and shut like the shutter of a camera.
Eve’s fingers crept toward the door handle. “You’re sure those were normal brownies?”
“It was one time. Let it go.” A spray of pheromones coated the ambulance radio and dash as Chloe spoke.
“But.”
A sudden tremor rocked the ambulance.
Chloe’s antennas jerked forward like divining rods. “There’s something out there.” She scuttled onto the dash, pressing her eyes flat against the windshield. “I can’t tell what it is. It’s big, though.”
Eve peered at the dimly lit street. “There’s nothing there.”
Except, maybe there was. A part of the darkness shivered, took form. She clamped a trembling hand over her mouth.
The little girl from the ER sat cross-legged on the ambulance hood. She shook, cowering like a small animal caught in the open. In her arms she cradled a white tarantula, its legs curling and uncurling like a jellyfish.
“Max?” Eve whispered.
Max lifted her head, looking cautiously at her surroundings.
Eve scootched back in her seat. “What the hell?”
Max followed her voice, her eyes gleaming in the rain. She reached through the windshield and brushed chill fingers across Eve’s cheek. “Aw Peanut,” she said, “there’s something on your face.”
Then she melted in the rain, the coolness of her fingertips lingering on Eve’s skin.
Chloe glanced at the hood, seeing nothing. She placed a tentative leg around Eve’s shoulders. “What are you looking at?”
Eve couldn’t answer. Spider silk had glued her mouth shut. Slowly it spread to her eyes, turning the world gray.
Once again, the ground shook.
Chloe gazed out across the rain swept street, antennas quivering with each new tremor. Something appeared beneath the trees. It was…
“Are you freaking kidding me?” She looked back at Eve, mandibles clicking. “Please tell me you see it too.”
Eve remained motionless, staring vacantly into space.
“Well, that’s helpful.”
An elephant lumbered up to the ambulance. Kind eyes peered in at them, cavernous ears perked at the ready. Its gaze rested on Eve, its ears drooping in dismay. With a shudder, it placed its trunk against the windshield and inhaled. Then it grimaced before taking a step back, rolling something on its tongue. It spat a quivering mass of ectoplasmic jelly onto the asphalt. Immediately, it began crawling back toward the ambulance. The elephant brought down a massive foot and scattered it into a thousand screaming shadows.
Chloe watched from the window; hands splayed on the glass.
The elephant sighed.
“Hey, Dumbo,” Chloe said.
The elephant looked up, its eyes gleaming pools of rosy gold.
“What are you?”
The elephant winked and disappeared in the rain.
“Who you calling Dumbo?”
Chloe turned around. Eve was sitting upright, rubbing her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” asked Chloe.
Eve looked out at the night, relieved to see nothing but the normal gloom. And Chloe was Chloe again, cranky and belligerent, but totally human. “I think so.”
For a moment, both were silent.
“What did you see?” Eve asked.
“You first.”
Eve keyed the ignition. “I don’t know what I saw.” She glanced down at the brownies and then glared at Chloe. “But maybe I know why I saw it.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and tossed the brownies out the window. “Happy now?”
*****
Ghost dust billowed beneath Bitsy’s huge feet as she ambled down the road, untouched by the rain. A chalky taste of hubris and despair filled her trunk. Nothing worse than ghost dust. She sneezed, sending flurries of the dead down the sidewalk. These were the truly dead, the crumbs of souls who had refused to move on.
The ambulance troubled her. Normally, she would have let it pass, but the scent of spectral funk had been so strong that it curled her tail.
Sometimes, it sucked to be right. Right away she saw the animus bleeding from the driver’s eyes and the shadows spinning glistening webs of ectoplasm in her hair. Bitsy’s ears dropped. Spiders. Always spiders. Hopefully, they hadn’t burrowed under her skin.
The EMT’s partner seemed untouched. But the way she had stared at Bitsy was a bit rude. Though, to be fair, most creatures who saw her wish they hadn’t.
In hindsight, perhaps she could have been more discreet. But there hadn’t been time for niceties. Once the spiders acquired a taste for their host, it’s over. So, she had inhaled the dark glimmer and spectral threads, then stomped them back to the shadows where they belonged.
Job done; Bitsy lurched off into the sea of ghost dust with a horrible aftertaste in her mouth. She had an excellent palate, and one thing was for sure, Buttercup, the Queen of all Putrescence had her sticky little paws all over this. But there was also the reek of someone else, a familiar bittersweet she couldn’t quite place. Bitsy stopped and rubbed her forehead with her trunk. The glimmer she had inhaled had a familiar undercurrent, a hint of ice and brimstone and… oh no. A trace of cherry blossoms.
Bitsy’s considerable behind hit the ground. Of course it was familiar. The flowers were hers, a parting gift from long ago. And she remembered full well who she had given them to.
She collected souls. Not like those poor scavengers getting their fix. Rather, she guided them to The Gray and at times to the darkness beyond if its collector was busy, and he always was. She told herself she would give this job to anyone else if she could, but that was a lie. And on occasion she did bend the rules. If she had sent a soul with the taint of darkness into The Gray with perhaps just the tiniest bit of her own essence, just enough to get the soul in with the hope that it would change her path, was that so bad? Didn’t every soul deserve that chance?
She swung her trunk listlessly from side to side. If Bidwell found out, she would probably be going back to The Gray herself, or worse.
In fairness, she had told him she wasn’t suited for the job.
Time was meaningless, the way it flipped and folded. But the image of Bidwell closing off The Gray remained clear. She had entered the hallways to find them empty and the doors locked. In a panic, she began to run, only to find each hallway bleaker than the one before, until finally she ran into a wall.
She spun around and saw a man with rainbow eyes walking toward her, a trail of gleaming feathers swirling behind him.
“Hello Bitsy.”
She stared at him. He was a celestial civil servant of the frump du jour type, a little pudgy with scruffy silver hair. Maybe he was here for someone else. She tried to edge around him.
He sighed and spread his wings, blocking the way.
“What do you want?” she asked.
His eyes flicked from blue to green. “Call me Bidwell. Let’s talk.”
The hallway disappeared. She stood in a small white room filled with clocks of every variety, from grandfathers to cuckoos on the wall.
“I don’t talk to angels,” she said.
“That’s hurtful.”
“You guys are always smiting something.”
“Be assured, these are not my smiting clothes.”
“Then, what do you want?”
Bidwell gestured back to the room which had grown to the size of a warehouse, the air buzzing with ticks and hums. “It’s simple. Choose one.”
She gazed up into the expanding rafters. “Oh, this isn’t fair.” She took a faltering step forward and then looked back over her shoulder. “Will the doors to The Gray open if I choose the right one?”
Bidwell’s eyes gleamed a soft yellow. “Only if you fail.”
“So, I want to fail.”
“Do you?”
She turned away and began walking the aisles. “There’s so many.”
“There’s really only one.”
Bitsy wandered further in, amid muffled chimes and a distant gong. She tripped over a low table. It was filled with alarm clocks, some brass, some square plastic with flashing 12:00s that annoyed her to no end.
Then a soft glint. She hesitated and picked up a silver watch with faint scratches across the crystal face. She held it up to the light and frowned. “This one.”
“That’s not a clock.”
She wrapped it around her wrist. It fit perfectly. “What good is time if I can’t take it with me?”
Bidwell’s eyes blazed. The warehouse disappeared and they were back in The Gray’s hallways.
“So, can I go back now?”
“I’m afraid not.” The doors melted and an empty vessel appeared, a blank sheet flapping in the windless corridor.
“What the hell is that?”
Bidwell’s eyes subsided to a neutral gray. “It’s whatever you want it to be.”
“Are you messing with me?”
“I am not.”
She approached the vessel. She had always been small, and fought with an eye looking over her shoulder. No more. She pictured the one creature no one would ever mess with. She raised her trunk and let the trumpets blare.
“Subtle.” Bidwell patted her head. “Off with you, then.”
With no further ado, he sent her back into the world with a vague directive to collect those who were lost. She quickly found that most were not lost but hidden, afraid of what comes after The Gray. But she guided them there anyway, as kindly as an elephant can without stomping them to oblivion. And when compassion didn’t serve, she smacked them on their ghostly behinds and sent them anyway.
So, now she sat on this sad little street, looking for souls to take home, and worrying about one that had returned.
A man with a mop of unkempt hair and ragged clothes stumbled past. He weaved down the middle of the road, singing in a slow, slurred voice, occasionally spreading his arms as if on a tightrope. She lumbered up to him and nudged him gently to the sidewalk. He looked around. Nothing to see. Then he hiccuped, and continued down the sidewalk.
Bitsy watched him for a moment, and then went on her way. He would be hers soon enough.
As a side note…none of this was written with AI and I kindly ask that no one use it for training purposes. Thank you :)
Were the brownies laced? 😁
Nice escapism here—absurd humour and gross-surreal chaos, woven together by a magical world that unfolds as you go. Never read anything quite like it, but it gave me Fear and Loathing/Pratchett feelings.