INTESTINAL 5.03

Welp. It sure did take a while. I said on the patreon that I had a chapter coming today, and I am a woman of my word. So, here we stand- back in the town of Hollow Springs. It's been a while. Bear with me as I remember the right way to carve.

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‘Once upon a time there was a piece of wood. It was not an expensive piece of wood. Far from it. Just a common block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are put on the fire in winter to make cold rooms cosy and warm.’

-Old story about lying and parenthood.

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“Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting.”

Leisha snorts, the cigarette on her lips bobbing up and down with the action. “Always expect the unexpected, that’s what Dani always says.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean that of course this is someplace that has a goddamn horror movie monster in it. Because why the fuck not.”

I stare at the suburban hellscape before me, stretching out for miles in every direction like a teratoma oozing out into the organs of an otherwise healthy creature. Each house is identical, the variations in their gardens the only real differences between one building and the next. Two stories, six windows at the front, a living room that’s too exposed for my tastes, bedrooms for the kids and the parents, fences that would be white picket material if they hadn’t elected for the cheaper wire barriers between each other. Grass cropped to ¾ of an inch, bushes neat and tidy, trees low and polite, adding barely anything to the shells of egg-white and blue and brick behind them. 

It looks like a vision straight out of a goddamn nightmare. 

And apparently, it’s the source of whatever the fuck Dani’s sent me out here to meet. 

I climb out of my old jalopy, feeling the door latch poorly behind me as I step out. The door on the other side squeals a bit as Leisha steps out to match me, struggling with the unexpectedly poor hinges on my poor old car, her cigarette still lit and bright against the shadows of the sidewalks to either side of us. 

There are lights up above, street lamps turned up too bright to see anything of the sky, but they feel… wrong. Not just my biases, this time- they seem too pale, too round, too good at illuminating a perfect circle around them and leaving the shadows all around untouched. Some of the houses compensate with their own illumination, pushing back the sunset-dusk darkness with electric beacons of LED and fluorescents- but not the house I’ve parked in front of. 

Across the street is a building identical to each and every one of the others up and down this street, up and down every street for miles around. 

A lot of the houses in this hellish suburbia are empty. Built by some company on all the land it could get its hands on and then left to go fallow, with only the districts right around the town and the school having properly filled up- but filled up they have. There are parts of the suburbian sprawl here that are as dark as this house, but none surrounded by so many lights. None surrounded by so many people. 

The grass is cut. The lawn is properly tailored to HOA specifications. There’s a car in the driveway, a welcome mat in front of the bright red door that glimmers in its darkness- to all appearances, someone is home.

But the lights are off. And it sits perfectly still. Like it’s waiting.

Or hiding.

“Alright,” I sigh. “I don’t have long before night proper. You’re sure that-”

Leisha waves a hand at me, dismissing the concern. “If Dani says they can hide you, then they can. We need this done fast, and they won’t let me anywhere near this place. You keep the necklace on, you should be safe from the big monkey for tonight.”

I look down at the pendant hanging from my neck, just visible against my chest. I decide not to ask Leisha about where the eyes came from, or who sewed their lids all shut, or how they have lids at all without sockets to rest in. I don’t think she sees what I see, or what Dani says. Apparently, this whole mess is individualized, which can’t make it easy to talk to others about it. 

“...ok. Betting a lot on this.”

“So are we,” she replies, leaning over top of my car. “I know Dani comes off callous, but I wouldn’t send you in there if I didn’t think this was no biggie. They’re overprotective of me is all. This is important, and they think you can do it, or they wouldn’t have sent you.”

“Yeah, cause that’s definitely not what someone trying to convince me to walk to my death would say.”

She laughs, taking a drag of her cigarette as the sound echoes through the empty neighborhood. “Honey, if we wanted you dead, you would be. Probably. Even if Dani couldn’t pop you, I know where you live, and fertilizer bombs are super easy to make. You asked for help, I want to help you, and Dani wants to help you too, even if they’re not good at showing it.”

“If you’re so fucking dangerous and knowledgable and shit, why don’t you do this? Dani that overprotective?”

She shrugs. “Maybe. But you’ve gone face-to-face with more entities in three weeks than I have in three years, and you’ve made it out every time. Not usually intact, but you did make it out. And say what you will about my partner, but they are mad talented at finding opportunities. You should see the way they devour a list of coupons if you ever get the chance, it’s a sight.”

I let my head roll back to disguise (and accentuate) the roll of my eyes. It’s a little undercut when I wince at a crick in my neck, though. Haven’t been sleeping well.

“Fine. Whatever. What am I looking for, anyways?”

Leisha remains spread out over the roof of my car, fully leaning on my poor baby as a chin-rest, but her eyes sharpen a bit and focus in on the house. “We’re not sure. But right before you showed up and our resident gargoyle-yeti started getting proper active, some guy moved in here. Looked him up later, goes by the name of Michael Bansnick, but I don’t know much else. No family in town, only leaves for groceries, doesn’t seem to do anything other than stay in that house. Dani did some looking around the way they do and noticed this was one of the weirder sports- not as big as the others, but definitely proper weird. We were gonna try and set something up to check it out, but that takes time and it doesn’t always work- then you came along and volunteered. So… go knock on the door and say hi.”

I scowl at the explanation, which tells me nothing except that there’s “some weirdness” in a place that’s “not as big” as the other messes I’ve been in. “And how much can I rely on these nuggets of wisdom?”

She shrugs again. “Not much. World’s a crazy place, and it’s not like we saw you or anything else of what’s going on coming before it happened.”

“And you don’t have anything else?”

One more shrug. “Usually better to run than fight, if it comes down to that. Be polite if you can be. Don’t puke in his house. Try not to die.”

“Very helpful.”

She raises her hands up helplessly, before bringing one back down to take a further drag of her cigarette, getting ash on the roof of my poor bedraggled baby. I elect not to comment, for now. I don’t know how binding those promises I made back in the bar were, but one can assume “enough to be a problem”- my chances improve the longer I go without antagonizing them, at least until I can figure out a way through this.

So I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, turn around, and walk across the street. 

It’s the dead of night, in spite of the early hour. The sun’s barely gone down, but winter in the american north-east is a bitch and a half at the best of times, and the habits of the people who grew up here are ingrained pretty quick in newcomers. I walk out of the shadows, into the edges of the lights from the street lamps all around, and then back into shadow again as I start to walk up the concrete walkway to the door.

1124 Grove Lane, Hollow Springs, stares back at me in a fashion I find to be disconcertingly… toad-like. If that’s the right word for it. It might not be. It doesn’t give the impression of something slimy and mossy and perched on a toadstool, something plump that can be picked up and makes funky noises when it’s startled or horny or bored. It feels like what a bug might feel to notice a toad. A shape, obscured in the muck, suspicious and yet utterly still, utterly right in its placement. Brown-green skin on a brown-green background, static and unmoving and large, larger than me- and if it decides to, I might see only an instant of movement before it springs to life and swallows me whole.

Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

Yeah. Right.

As I walk past the manicured shell of a garden the houses here all wear, I take inventory.

Kitchen knife? Check. Glove? Functional and active, albeit still a bit numb. Weird pendant thing? Check. Extra layers of padding under my jackets, in case of stabbing? Check. Bug spray? Check. 

Deep and abiding fear of the unknown? Everpresent and easy to check off the list. 

It’s really not much. I used most of my shit up with the slithering thing I left in the doctor’s vents, and I haven’t had time to even try making any more pipe bombs since I’ve been back. I’m underequipped as hell- but they insisted that I had to do this tonight. Something about this being the moment with the highest likelihood of success. I get the impression that Dani’s weird mysticism is a lot less an affectation and a lot more a product of how their powers actually work, just like mine seem to work off of a game-like system. 

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I take a deep breath as I climb the last of the porch steps, and knock on the door.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Heavier than I needed to, but it feels good. Like the fact that I can bang my fist against the wood without it snapping open and biting into me is a relief, like the sound pushes back the anxiety of the darkness a bit. The porch is pitch dark. No lights here. The lights from the street don’t reach past the first few feet of grass on the lawn, and the neighbor’s houses, all well lit as families sit at dinner or in front of the tv, aren’t bright enough to stretch this far out. 

I am standing on a porch in the dark. 

I’m tempted to pull out my phone camera. Tempted to get a flashlight going, something bright enough to push away some of the shadows. 

I don’t, though. It would ruin what little night vision I possess, and worse, betray weakness. Leisha didn’t know what I was capable of when we first met, and while the Mill seemed too mindless to truly care what my abilities are, it was only by tricking it that I was able to escape. It stands to reason that the other unknown powers of this sleepy town will be in the same boat, unable to properly determine who I am and what I can do. Better to play up that angle, especially considering how little power I have to actually do anything at all right now.

The silence drags on for a while. Dead quiet of the night. I idly notice that I can’t hear the families to either side of the house, or any distant sounds from the town. It’s just… quiet. 

My breath fogs the air as I raise my hand and knock a second time.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Still nothing. I wonder what happens if no one answers the door. Are Leisha and Dani going to force me to break in? What’s-

Light.

It cuts through my thoughts like an artillery shell, leaving me blinking and disoriented. It’s so bright it feels like it’s left afterimages in my retinas, loud enough to tell me that I’m not welcome, that-

Oh. It’s the porch light.

Cool.

I stop blinking and leaning back and let my hood fall forward, one of the layered jackets and sweaters I’m wearing acting as an impromptu disguise. Not much of one, but maybe enough to convince a passing stranger, or someone looking out through a peephole. 

I’m standing in a circle of bright amber light, listening to the hum of the bulb, for what feels like a full minute.

Then, a voice.

“What do you want?”

It’s gruff, but not in a deep and buff sort of way, more like someone who’s had a sore throat recently and has just woken up. There’s an edge to it, I think, but not more than one might expect from having one’s sleep interrupted by a stranger in the middle of the night. 

“Michale Bansnick?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Someone who wants to talk.”

Silence for a while. I see shadows in the corner of my vision, fluttering moths drifting in from the night towards the sole bit of brightness on the property. 

“You a cop?”

I almost laugh at that. “Nah. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t insult me like that again. Plenty of more creative things to call someone than a pig.”

Silence from the other side of the door. Tough crowd. 

First rule of customer service- get people to smile. Even if it’s only a tiny one, even if it’s only on the inside, get them to smile at you and all of a sudden the chances of things going belly-up goes down exponentially. Won’t necessarily stop someone from hurting you, but it’ll take them a little longer to get there. 

First rule of customer service is pretty fucking useful negotiation tactic in general, honestly. Convincing people to like me, or at least delay the more aggressive sides of social behavior, is an important skill for people like me to have.

“I have a gun.”

Yeah. Because of course he does.

Outwardly, I just shrug. “That’s fine. Makes you more at ease, then it’s no problem for me. I just want to talk.”

Another prolonged pause. I feel like I could read a fucking novel, the time he’s taking to come up with his responses. Then again… hooded stranger shows up at your house when you’re already either the cause of or experiencing supernatural fuckery, I’d be wary too. Might even say I have a gun when I very much don’t. A gal can hope. 

“You one of them?” he asks.

“I’m one of me. At least so far.”

“How do I know you’re not going to just-

“Look, Michael. It’s fucking cold out here. I’m not looking to hurt you, I’m just trying to figure some shit out. Maybe figure out some of what’s been going on recently, here in town. Some of the weirder stuff. Maybe you’ve noticed something like that since you’ve moved in? Maybe you’d like to talk to someone about it?”

Another few seconds of absolute quiet. I think that I can see a shadow moving through the peephole, a glimpse of an unknown figure looking at me from where I cannot see. The idea of that kind of… itches. Like I’ve forgotten something. Like maybe-

A click. The sound of a bolt sliding free, of a lock being turned open in its frame.

Slowly, the door swings open, revealing-

Yeah. Ok. Gal shouldn’t have hoped. That is very much an old but well-shined revolver in his hand.

Pointing down at the ground. Not limp, not entirely, but visibly not pointing at me, at least.

Michael Bansnick looks fucking haggard. Like a man who hasn’t slept in a long time, and hasn’t slept well in even longer. A tall man, taller than me, with sunken eyes of dark hazel and a five o’clock shadow that’s grown a bit past six or seven. He’s wearing the most sweat-stained button-up I’ve ever seen over a pair of black jeans that look almost as worn down as he is, and he stares at me like he’s trying to glare but doesn’t quite remember how.

And he has strings.

Long, thin things, so thin I can barely make them out. It’s a glint of nothing, a little shimmer in the air, and then I turn my eyes to actually look and I see them. Like nylon strings. At first I think they just disappear into him, but then I notice their entry points, at his wrist, his elbow, every joint or point of articulation I can see- hair-like strands that grow from slightly raised bumps, pulling up up up into-

Into nowhere. Into the ceiling of the house- but when I flick my eyes up to look at the ceiling, they’re not there. They’re going… somewhere else.

The man just watches me for a little bit as I just… sort of react to him. Then he lets out a quiet little sound that I recognize as a sigh.

“Alright. Come in, then. Just… watch the mess.”