emperor of the dark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
littlenightmares) wrote2020-03-28 11:37 pm
littlenightmares) wrote2020-03-28 11:37 pm
Entry tags:
Emperor of the Dark: Prologue
Reader Beware: Butts, dead baby, suicide, coarse language. I promise that it's not as edgy as it sounds.
6000+ Words, 280+ Pictures
Midnight. Slowly, he peeled himself from the sheets and gathered clothing from various areas of the house, assembling them into a loose pile.
He watched her get dressed. She was so lovely. He rolled his tongue across his lips, searching for any lingering taste of her.
When the show was over, he got himself dressed and walked her to the door to say goodnight.
The house felt empty without her.
He clicked the TV on, channel surfing, searching without finding.
Nothing on.
He watched anyway.
Anything but the quiet.
It was nearly two in the morning by the time he was ready to call it a night. Turning off the TV, he yawned, stretched, and headed for the stairs.
"Ladies," he said, greeting the statue and the painting that he kept at the foot of the stairs that lead to his bedroom. They were so lovely.
He'd been halfway up the stairs when he heard nails tapping on the glass.
Nina, he'd thought, turning back with a knowing smile. Must have "accidentally" left her panties behind, again.
His smile widened. Just a hint of something darker.
This time she'd have to earn them back.
He took his time sauntering back down the stairs. Counting steps. It always drove her crazy when he made her wait.
So he always made her wait.
The knocking came again, a short staccato burst.
So impatient.
The smile slipped a little, then froze into a kind of confused grimace when he reached the ground floor again.
A tall, sleek figure watched him from the other side of the door.
Not Nina, not this time, but still.
Still so very lovely.
He hesitated.
She shouldn't be here.
Something - some strange intuition, some primal urgency - was holding him in place.
You know this isn't right.
Don't, it whispered.
Go back to bed. Don't open the door.
Please, please, don't.
He almost listened.
And then she looked at him with those big, sad eyes, and asked if she could come in.
"Please, Don," wrapping an arm across her chest and shivering prettily. "It's so cold out here."
But he could warm her up.
If only she'd let him...
"Yes," he said, and pulled open the door. There it was - her perfume. A spicy scent not unlike his own cologne, something so masculine for something so exquisitely, so luxuriously feminine. Leaning into her presence, cradled by her perfume. "Yes. Yes, of course. Please, come in."
She slipped past him. Close enough to brush against him, but not close enough. Dropping the sad, vulnerable act at his feet like an old, worn out coat. Once inside, it was no longer needed.
"Pour us a drink, Don," she said, pausing at the entrance to the stairs. To his bedroom. To his bed. "We have such a long night ahead of us."
He'd followed her to the roof, where he kept a fully stocked bar for special occasions - and by God if this wasn't special - and he'd fixed them both a drink as requested.
From here, there is swirls of gray. Thick and foggy, obscuring the finer details of that night.
He remembered this: one slender arm, reaching out for him. Scarlet nails, pointy and immaculately maintained. Her fingertips against his in exchange for the glass. A dark drink; his own private concoction. Her own daughter had never tasted it.
"Thank you," she said, taking one delicate sip. Her lips kept moving, but he couldn't remember anything else that she'd said.
And then she was gone.
News of Bella Goth's disappearance hit the sleepy town of Pleasantview with both fists.
A real haymaker.
Everyone looking for someone to blame.
Lothario, they said, huddling together, their tongues as sharp as the tines of a pitchfork.
He always wanted Bella for himself.
So much so he was even willing to crawl over Bella's own daughter just to get to her.
Probably thought his "hard" work had finally paid off when she showed up at his house that night...
...but then she had to go and ruin everything.
That's why he killed her.
Caliente, they hissed, lighting their torches.
They wanted Bella out of the way so that they could fuck that old man to death and clean out that dusty old bank account.
The two of them were looking to convert those boring stacks of cash into fancy clothes and fancier cars.
Aliens, they whispered, gathering around their expensive telescopes as soon as night fell, peering through the lense in the hopes that they match catch a glimpse. A flash of red in the distant sky.
They beamed her into their spaceship, and took off.
You hear stories about it all the time: Aliens dragging innocent people off into outerspace, poking and prodding, implanting alien babies in unsuspecting body cavities.
Then they dump them in some horrid little desert town with no memories, or child support.
They end up working in a gas station, wondering what the hell happened.
Reading palms out of their living room with a neon sign in the window, Palm Reader in big glowing letters.
Whatever it was, whatever happened, it dominated the television, the papers, the internet and every other conversation. Residents of Pleasantview spoke in hushed voices, in excited whispers, with grim satisfaction.
Gone, she's gone, she's gone.
And so it begins...
Tip toes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
"Go to sleep, everything is alright."
- "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison
The building he works in houses an arcade, a tiny coffee shop, a laundry mat, a hair salon, and something else he isn't sure about because the store has never officially opened.
His line of work is not well respected by professionals, but no matter how his colleagues sneer, he is never wanting for patients.
He calls it "sleep therapy". The study, diagnosis, and resolution of persistent nightmares, night terrors, sleep paralysis, and other nocturnal disturbances.
They call it "parasomnia".
They try not to laugh.
They never ask, but he can hear the question in their voices.
"What happened?"
When he originally pursued a career in the medical field, he had intended to go a more traditional route. A posh, well-respected and highly paid Doctor of Medicine.
Then Bella disappeared.
Then Cassandra discarded him.
He was accused. Smeared, disparaged and disgraced.
Cleared.
But the damage was done.
"Parasomnia," they call it, and they say it like the punchline of some big hilarious joke.
But it has been his salvation.
His patients - women, mostly, although there are men so desperate for respite from the terrors that lurk beneath the floorboards of their consciousness that they too will come to him for help - typically complain of insomnia, sleepwalking, and nightmares.
Almost all of them will slowly, with time and patience, reveal the source of their nocturnal misery - trauma, stress, anxiety.
There are others, though.
A woman, named Tara Kat.
She lives alone with her three beloved cats.
She came to him because of a recurring dream.
A face, its features contorted with rage, peering out of the kitty kibble.
In the dream, she is unable to stop herself from reaching into the food bin, in spite of the face, in spite of the icy fist of dread that has closed around her with crushing force, because her cats are hungry.
She knows that if the face doesn't get her...
...they will.
A man, named Goopy GilsCarbo.
He promises this is not an alias or a nickname - his parents were "just mean". He lives alone in a rented condo in Pleasantview. Fully furnished. Expensive.
It's important that any lodging he inhabits must be fully furnished. He will not - he insists that he cannot - buy his own furniture.
He tried once.
He walked around a home furnishings store for six hours, growing increasingly distressed before finally giving up and going home to his empty apartment.
He worries.
What if he buys the wrong thing?
What if he regrets it?
He dreams of a letter. Every night when he closes his eyes, he awakens in his kitchen.
There is an envelope on the counter, addressed to him, but the left corner is blank. Scrawled across the right side of the envelope in large red letters, are the words "Your time is up!" It fills him with dread. "Your time is up!"
With every new dream, he comes closer to opening it, and the thought of it terrifies him. He's begged for, and been given, sleeping aids, but nothing seems able to suppress the hopeless inevitability of The Letter. One night, his time will be up. Whether or not the good doctor will be able to help him beyond that remains to be seen.
A teenage girl, named Angela Pleasant.
A twin, he is told. Her sister, Lilith1, sleeps like the dead. Angela, on the contrary, has been plagued with nightmares for most of her life. Most of them she cannot remember. Some of them, she can only recall in pieces and fragments and slivers.
Some of them, she quietly confides in him, don't feel like dreams at all.
As with most phenomena of this nature, the nightmares worsened both in frequency and severity following a traumatic event - in this case, the death of her younger cousin, Lucy.
She is guarded with the details, but the local news is less sparing. He understands that the circumstances surrounding the child's death are... unusual2.
It is Lucy who comes to her in her dreams.
Lucy, she says, but not quite.
When asked what she means by "not quite", she is unable to elaborate.
She follows Not-Quite-Lucy, anyway, and at night while the rest of the world sleeps, they walk between worlds.
Finally, and perhaps most famously, was his most difficult and reluctant patient.
Bella Goth.
She dreamed of faces in the dark. Lifeless faces and hard plastic bodies that moved, and watched, and waited. She'd awaken slick with sweat, and in the first disoriented moments where her mind was still struggling to emerge from the churning scarlet depths of the dream sea, she thought she could still smell it - the hot, stale chemical stench of their breath.
She dreamed of skin and blood in a sickly shade of green.
She dreamed of the desert, and a cold boy born half dead.
Mostly, though, she dreamed of her brother.
1 The Pleasants - a four person household compromising of two parents and two children, twin girls. By all accounts, Angela had nightmares, but Lilith was one.
2 The child was found in her father's recliner, seemingly asleep. A bowl of milk-sodden cereal was found in the dining room. Tests later revealed that the milk had been laced with an unidentified substance. A quick acting poison of unknown origin. Both of her parents, Jennifer and John Burb, were cleared of any wrongdoing, and the death was ruled a suicide.
Lilith was grounded, again. Another failing grade. History this time, which surprised everyone; it was the one subject Lilith actually liked. Yet, she'd come home with an F on her report card and a blank look on her face. Like she didn't care at all.
Mary-Sue had lost her mind. Screaming and yelling, unleashing her usual barrage of threats, demands and insults, and Lilith had borne her verbal flogging with saintlike patience scientifically proven to utterly infuriate.
She had maintained this calm facade until her mother had crumpled up the offending report card and lobbed it at Lilith like she was a human trash can, and then stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
A moment later, the door quietly reopened, and Angela crept in.
Her hands were empty; her own report card was downstairs on the counter, largely forgotten in the hysteria of Lilith's disgraceful academic performance.
It was fine. They all knew the drill by now. Praising Angela for the tidy column of A's simply wasn't as rewarding as going absolutely berserk over the assortment of D's and F's that had begun to appear on Lilith's with alarming frequency.
"Are you okay?" She asked, already knowing the answer.
Lilith had planted herself at her desk and was tinkering with an old radio their grandfather had given her for her fifteenth birthday. She muttered something, but Angela didn't know if it was meant for her or the old scrap of metal in her sister's hands.
She waited a moment longer, wishing she knew what Lilith needed or wanted from her anymore.
"Lilith?" She said again, a little louder. "Lilith, are you okay?"
Still nothing.
Like she didn't exist at all.
She changed tactics.
"You know we'll never escape if you don't get into college," she said. It always lit a fire under Lilith's ass, the thought of being stuck here in suburban hell. Trapped by perpetually well-manicured lawns and tormented by fresh paint and picket fences.
Lilith shrugged. Her new response to everything. Even Angela.
Who blurted out: "What has gotten into you, Lilith? You know, mom's right. You are being ridiculous, you are throwing away your future."
Lilith looked up. Finally.
"Am I embarrassing you, as well?" She asked, turning her chair to face her sister. Still that vacant, placid look. "Is mom also right about that?"
"Of course not!" Angela sputtered, hurt. "I'm not embarrassed of you, I'm worried about you!"
"Well, that's a waste of energy, Ang," she said, turning back to the old radio. She twisted a knob and a sharp burst of static erupted, then went silent. "I'm right as rain."
Angela crossed her arms, determined to drag Lilith into any kind of interaction. She'd even settle for an argument. "Bullshit. You've been acting weird for months. You're failing most of your classes, including the ones you like. You barely spend any time with Dirk, who you also claim to like. You rarely change your clothes anymore, or brush your hair, or even eat!"
She swallowed back the lump in her throat.
"Sounds like I'm being a real piece of shit," Lilith said, not looking up. "Why waste your time on me when there's homework you could be doing?"
"See? That's what I'm talking about! You just - you just act so checked out all the time. Like nothing matters at all - not life, not school, not Dirk, not me - nothing! And even if you don't care about anything else, the one thing that should matter is your grades! If you flunk out, you're going to be stuck here forever!"
We'll be stuck here forever.
A thought so terrible it frightened her.
Lilith twisted another knob and muttered to herself.
"Lilith, stop playing with that stupid radio and listen to me!" Angela cried, her patience finally beginning to fray. "You said we would get out! You promised! You've been saying it since you were old enough to talk. You and me against the world, we just had to get out of this helltown first! You were going to do whatever it took to get us out of here, and away from them!"
Lilith seemed to consider Angela's words.
As she did so, the empty look in her eyes began to fill up with anger.
"God, you're supposed to know me better than anyone," she said, and there was enough venom in her voice to kill Angela through a dozen different reincarnations. "You really think that if you all yell at me enough that it will just magically fix me and I'll go back to 'normal'? That one of you will speak the Sacred Insult, freeing me from the Kingdom of Fuckups, and then I'll go back to school and work hard and get my grades up and you and me will just frolic off to some other prison in some other shitty town, and never come back to this hellhole?"
"Lilith --"
Another sharp burst of static blared from the radio, a piercing shriek of garbled nothing, making both girls jump.
Lilith, nearly tripping backwards over her chair, took several steps back from her desk.
Angela, who couldn't be entirely sure she hadn't imagined the whole thing, thought she heard something, somewhere in the crackling hiss.
A voice.
A moment passed, during which time both girls eyed the radio with uncertainty.
"Lilith --" Angela tried again, her voice a great deal softer this time, but Lilith cut her off.
"You heard that, didn't you? That voice - that woman singing?"
"I guess that could have been a woman singing?" Angela said, uncertainly. Lilith sounded angry and accusatory, as if though Angela had done something wrong. "It was hard to tell with all of the other noise."
"Fuck," Lilith swore. Not an unusual occurrence, but the vehemence with which she spoke now made Angela flinch.
"Lilith, what's wrong? What's going on? Talk to me, for God's sake!"
"It did that on purpose," Lilith said flatly.
"The... radio?" Angela asked, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. She was beginning to feel a bit like she'd stepped into the Twilight Zone.
"I haven't been able to..." She took a tentative step forward, then stopped again, biting her lip. Leaving teeth marks in the dark paint.
"I thought it finally died..."
"Well, considering it's basically a battery-powered fossil, I'm surprised you even get static to play on it."
The radio belched out another thick clot of static, and this time Angela definitely heard a voice underneath it.
"She's singing that song," Angela said, pleased to have recognized it in spite of the tension the damned thing had caused. "The one Grandpa's always singing."
Lilith was fiddling with knobs and buttons, swearing under her breath all the while.
"What exactly is your problem? I thought you were trying to get it working?"
"It's not working, it's --"
"Ow, fuck!"
Lilith jerked her hand back, shaking it as if though she'd been stung.
A harsh bark of laughter erupted from the speakers. Not the soft, melancholic croon of the singing woman, but a different voice. A cruel one.
"I'm always walkin', after midnight, searchin' for you," the voice sang mockingly, and then laughed again.
"Angela?"
"Almost there, little lamb."
"Angela? Are you okay?"
"Wh... what happened?"
"I don't know, you kind of... gasped, and stumbled backwards."
"You didn't see it?"
"See what?"
"The room went all black, and there was this blue rabbit surrounded by candles --"
Lilith was looking at her like she'd lost the plot.
Maybe she had.
"Let's just get out of here, okay?"
"And go where? I'm grounded, remember?"
"I just need to get out of this room."
Lilith looked at her, at the old radio now sitting docile and innocent on the desk, then back at her.
"Yeah," she said, helping Angela up. "Okay. Let's go trash the loft."
They watched several reruns of "Strange County" (Lilith's favorite), and two of "Mystery Meat with Zebeste Quizine" (Angela's), and then Zebeste gave way to Julian Cooke, who was nobody's favorite at all.
The incident in Lilith's room began to feel far away.
Daniel still hadn't returned home from work, nor had he had his turn to yell at Lilith for her report card. Mary-Sue had been ranting off on and on, keeping herself focused on Lilith lest she find herself wondering where her husband was four hours late and not answering his phone.
"Guess I'll have to wait for my second emotional thrashing," Lilith said, noting the late hour. "Dad probably fell asleep at his girlfriend's house again."
"Hm?" Angela replied, her lips curling into a weary half-smile. "Oh, you mean his 'office' at the school? Where he sleeps most of the week?"
If Daniel was to be believed - and he wasn't, but that never stopped him from talking - the staff room at Pleasantview High was much more comfortable than his king-sized bed at home.
Perhaps it was just the fact that the "staff room" came with a sweet little twenty-something while the best his king-sized bed could offer was his wife of the past twenty-something years.
She wondered what idiotic and obvious lie he would come up with this time.
Or what twisted fairy tale rationale and bizarre mystery logic Mary-Sue would concoct in order to believe it.
"You girls have no idea how hard your father works," Mary-Sue was fond of ranting. "Both your father and I sacrifice so much for this family, and for what? The two of you to whisper and giggle behind our backs? You have no idea how lucky you both are to have parents like us."
The twins used to laugh at that grand absurdity.
But at some point it stopped being funny.
That night while they were brushing their teeth at the bathroom sink, Lilith abruptly pulled the toothbrush from her mouth and said:
"Sometimes I feel like I'm going completely fucking insane."
Angela wiped the foam from her mouth.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" She said with a shrug. Careless. Terrible. "We're already living in the asylum."
An old joke between them. Just a couple of longterm wards of Pleasantcliff Manor. Property of Sister Mary-Sue and Monsignor Slapnuts.
It was supposed to make Lilith smile.
"Thanks for the advice," Lilith said, blandly.
She left the bathroom without rinsing.
The pills helped sometimes, but not always.
Sometimes she took more than she was supposed to.
Sleep crept in, with its eyes wild and unfocused, and its sharp teeth bared.
Lucy was waiting.
It was just a bad dream.
She had them all the time.
"She was shivering. It wasn't cold, but she was just... shaking. It took me a while to calm her down. Then she said that something was broken, and she was afraid."
He made a note on his clipboard.
"Something was broken?" He repeated. "Do you remember anything else?"
"She said that she found something."
"Something upsetting?"
"Yeah. She seemed really distressed, like she urgently needed to show me. Normally, we just wander around and try to avoid the others, but this time, she was practically dragging me."
The pen twitched in Don's hand.
"One second, Angela. 'The others'?"
"Other people. Usually they just ignore us, but sometimes they follow us."
"Follow you? Like chase you?"
"Sometimes."
"How do you feel when they follow you?"
"Afraid."
Don nodded, made another note.
"Do you encounter the others very often?"
"No. Like I said, we try to avoid them. If we see or hear something, we hide."
"I see. Why don't you tell me what Lucy wanted to show you?"
"She took me down a long hallway to a locked room."
"The room next to it was open, though. There was a small crack in one of the walls connecting to the locked room, just enough that Lucy could squeeze through. She unlocked it from the inside, so that I could get in."
"Was there anything inside of the room?"
"Books and candles, mostly."
"And a beat up, old podium with a weird book on it. Like a spell book, or a bible. But it was in a weird language. Symbols and squiggles and stuff. Neither one of us could read it."
"And there was a locked box. We didn't have a key for it, but I don't think I would have opened it, anyway." Angela shivered a little, the memory of the evil radiating from it sending a chill through her in spite of the summer heat. "Actually, I was glad it was locked. I wouldn't want anyone to ever open it."
"Any reason?"
"It felt... malevolent."
Don raised an eyebrow. "Why do you think Lucy would want to show you something malevolent?"
"I don't think she wanted to, really. She was afraid of it, too. She said that some of the others were looking for it. She just said that it scared her."
"She's afraid that someone else will find it, and open it?"
Angela nodded.
"What exactly are you afraid will happen, if the box is opened?"
"I don't know. Lucy said if it happened, that our time was up. But I don't know what she meant. Sometimes she says things that don't really make sense. I figure it just goes with the territory."
Don thought of the letter in Goopy GilsCarbo's dream -- Your Time Is Up!
An uncomfortable coincidence.
"Did you look at anything else in the room?"
"No. We had to leave after that."
Your Time Is Up!
"Someone was scratching at the door."
Their appointment ended soon after that, and she went home.
She didn't tell him about the witches they had seen.
Or what they had seen them do.
Or that she had seen them before, in the real world, watching her and Lilith.
I beg my God to speak, and tear me apart
I'd lay down my body, I'd lay down my arms
I never once in my sweet, short life
meant anybody harm
- "Happy Home" by Garbage
Unexplained Child Death in Pleasantview
By Sandy Bruty
In loving Memory of
Beau Broke (2003 - 2005)
Dustin Broke was supposed to pick his little brother up from daycare and then take him straight home after school. Their mother worked until 6pm, and Dustin was to give him a snack and keep him alive and reasonably happy until she got home.
Ordinarily, he would have done this, but on one particularly dreary October afternoon, his girlfriend shyly asked him to keep her company on the walk home from the bus stop, and without thinking too much about it, Dustin had done this instead.
He'd been disappointed when the real object of his affection, and twin sister of his current girlfriend, Lilith Pleasant had followed her own boyfriend off the bus at his stop, but by that point, he had already agreed to walk with Angela, the twin he was supposed to be dating, and there was no kind way to extricate himself.
Maybe, he thought, staring mournfully out of the window at the dark empty houses lining the streets, maybe she'll come home early.
If she did that, maybe she would sit next to him on the couch again.
He half-listened to Angela complaining the entire walk to her house. Something about Lilith (tune in) and college (tune out).
He followed her inside and dropped himself down onto the couch like he owned the place, while Angela fetched snacks from the kitchen.
Alone in the living room, he thought about Lilith, and about the promise he had made to her, and spared not one iota of brain power for the promise he had made his mother.
He was thinking about Lilith and what might happen if she came home early, all the endless and glorious and impossible possibilities, when Beau - all of two-years-old - managed to give the daycare employees the slip.
During the chaotic moments between the morning snack clean up and the hoopla surrounding outdoor recess, he snuck out through a door - a door that should have been much too heavy for him to open himself - climbed to the top of the play tower, and fell.
By the time they found him, he'd strangled to death on his own broken neck.
An accident. He just fell (as little kids do) and landed wrong (as sometimes happens) and there was nobody there to help him. Just a tragic accident. The Broke family was becoming all too familiar with that terrible concept.
The case was closed, the casket was open, and the funeral was a nightmare he would never wake up from.
October 2005
Brandi Broke, sitting at the end of the pew, wouldn't even look at him.
She stared straight ahead with puffy eyes and her hands clasped together over her deflated, aching belly.
There hadn't been money for two caskets, not while she was still making payments on Skip's, but that was fine -- or as close to "fine" as these things got.
Brandi wanted them buried together, anyway.
In this way, she felt that Beau would be able to protect his little sister.
He would be the kind of brother he had never had.
There at the intersection of soul ravaging grief and blind mindless rage, Brandi buried two of her three children.
But as far as she was concerned, that day she had been rendered childless.
The Tricou cousins were waiting for them outside of the mortuary, Gvaudoin under her ever present umbrella, Fricorith holding a cigarette he never seemed to light.
Dirk was surprised to see them; they didn't spend much time with the group anymore.
Not after the stunt they'd pulled at his own mother's funeral.
"Who invited them?" Dirk groaned.
"I did," Dustin said. He cast an apologetic glance at Dirk, who returned it with one of his own. "Sort of, anyway. They asked if they could come." He sighed, and his shoulders slumped beneath the weight of yet another fuck up. "Sorry, Dirk. I was so... I didn't think about..."
"Don't worry about it, man." He gave Dustin's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I'm just being petty 'cause they get under my skin."
"They haven't caused any problems so far," Lilith said, watching them examine the statues in the sideyard. "Maybe there's hope for them after all."
Angela, who had said nothing all day, continued to do so.
"Maybe," Dirk agreed. Stranger things had happened in Pleasantview.
But what if they came - as he suspected they had - to warn Dustin, as they had warned him?
(you saw it too you)
His stomach tied itself into a spectacular knot as the sound of Gvaudoin's voice uncoiled in his head. An instant replay of their last interaction.
(no oh no it was dark it was so dark and the yard was full of fog)
(just your yard though wasn't that peculiar didn't you find that strange)
(and I didn't see anything it was just my eyes playing tricks on me)
(and your ears too were they playing tricks when you heard that sad sad song)
Dirk shook his head as if though a physical action could realign his mental state. His mouth pressed into a thin, hard line. He wanted to believe that Lilith was right. He wanted to believe that Gvaudoin and Fricorith could feel remorse, and be reformed.
He also wanted to believe that there were pots of gold at the end of every rainbow, that that gum he liked would come back in style, and that his dad would come back from whatever ethereal candyland he had gotten lost in after his mother had died so he could be a kid, again.
But Dirk was a dreamer in name only. He knew all too well that his dad might never come back, and that the creeper cousins were nothing more than a couple of bad omens.
(fed it)
The fact that they had even attended the funeral given their recent descent into almost complete reclusion worried him. He didn't believe
(the grief eater)
for even one second that they had come to mourn the tragic loss of a former (well, he hoped) friend's much younger siblings.
"I can go by myself," Dustin said. "They asked me to meet them outside, so I just need to see what they want. You guys don't have to come."
"And leave us all wondering?" Lilith scoffed. "Please, Broke. You know us better than that."
Together, they approached the eccentric pair, who watched them with bemused smiles. Fricorith said something too low for them to hear, and Gvaudoin smiled slightly, but shook her head.
"Gvaudoin. Fricorith. Thank you for coming."
"You and your mother have our sincere condolences, Dustin," Gvaudoin said grimly. Her eyes wandered slowly over to Dirk, but if she had anything to add for him, she kept it to herself.
(your mother fed it too and so did you and so will they)
Dustin's eyes dropped to the ground, and he quickly excused himself from the group. Angela followed, reaching out a consoling hand. Lilith spared him a sympathetic glance before looking away, always uncomfortable with the emotional displays of others.
"You guys came here alone?" Dirk asked, hoping to give Dustin a moment to collect himself, and they turned to him with tiny, peculiar smiles.
"Sadly, our families have fallen quite ill," said Gvaudoin. Dirk thought he saw the faintest hint of a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.
"Vau-vau and I insisted that they stay home today. We don't want to risk them infecting you with anything when you've all already been through so much," added Fricorith. His eyes lingered on each of their faces, as if though silently assessing them.
"How very thoughtful," said Dirk, dryly. Behind him, Lilith cleared her throat pointedly, but the Tricous only smiled.
"Oh, it's all right, Lilith." Her name in Gvaudoin's mouth was glittering, dark and lush, like the velvet petals of a poisonous flower. Like confessing a sin.
Lilith looked away again, her cheeks glowing softly beneath the thick layer of pale foundation she had so generously applied that morning.
Dirk rolled his eyes.
Vintage Gvaudoin. Making Lilith squirm was an old habit she had no intention of correcting.
"There's no need for hostility, Dirk. We only want to help."
"Help?" Dirk repeated incredulously. "You think you're 'helping' people with these fucking ridiculous little stories?"
"I don't understand why you're so angry with us, Dreamy," Fricorith said. The cigarette twitched in his fingers. "We tried to help you, too."
(feeds and feeds until)
"You're the one who wouldn't listen."
(there's nothing left)
Dirk didn't see red, precisely, but his vision went decidedly vermilion around the edges.
You wouldn't listen.
"You assholes," Dirk hissed, his voice quivering with rage. "You two just can't help yourselves, can you? You have to fuck with people in the darkest moments of their lives."
"Oh, dear," Fricorith said, looking disdainfully at Dirk. "We're not 'fucking' with anybody, Dreamy. We're just..." He smiled. "Trying to help."
"We felt obligated to warn you, Dustin," Gvaudoin said, turning to approach Dustin who was still hovering beside the statues. "Especially after what happened to Mrs. Dreamer. Your mother isn't handling things well. The Grief Eater --"
Dustin cut her off.
"Please, you guys -- not today. Thank you again for coming. I need to get back to my mother."
"You guys should probably go home to your own families," said Lilith. She sounded disappointed; perhaps she, like Dustin, had been hoping the little creeps would redeem themselves. Instead, they'd been worse than unkind; they'd been predictable.
Lilith turned and lead Angela and Dirk back to the front of the mortuary, where their parents were waiting.
Gvaudoin and Fricorith watched them go.
"That went well," said Fricorith. "I told you he wouldn't believe us, Vau-vau."
Gvaudoin calmly adjusted her umbrella.
"He will," she said. "And he knows where to find us when he's ready."
"And if it's too late?"
"Dear Fricorith," she said. "It already is."
Nobody's coming, just continue to drown
And no one here could ever stop my ruin
- "Nobody's Daughter" by Hole
The Pleasant parents' attempt at course correction was hilariously misguided, and deeply, shamelessly lazy.
In short, it was typical.
They screamed.
They called her stupid, lazy, sluggish, useless.
They threatened to ground her until they both died of old age.
Or, perhaps, if they were open to suggestions: his-and-hers aneurysms.
They banned her from spending time with "that Dreamer boy".
Probably the best influence in Lilith's life, but how would they know?
They took the lock off of her bedroom door.
Their last, and most grievous error, the one they were most pleased with: They hired a tutor.
Cassandra Goth, who used to babysit the twins when they were younger, was more than happy to oblige her former employers.
Only this development proved to be of any interest to Lilith, who had watched impassively as they changed the knobs on her bedroom door - removing the locks, ending the long running charade of privacy and personal space - and listened with only mild discontent as they listed her every shortcoming.
A tutor, they said, and there was an odd kind of smugness to this declaration.
A tutor.
Code for:
Just look how much you've fucked up this time.
See how far we're willing to go to fix you?
You'd better appreciate this.
Mary-Sue stormed past without looking at her, calling out a tense "Not that anyone here cares, but I'm going to work," before slamming the door behind her.
"Jesus Christ, this family..." Daniel muttered, breezing past her a moment later, on his way to the kitchen to prepare himself a snack.
Cassandra came the next day, and the cold came with her.
She didn't speak much to Angela, although she was perfectly cordial when she did.
Mostly, she focused on Lilith.
"There you are, My Lilith," she would say when Lilith would run outside to greet her. "What dark and terrible pursuits have you been up to since we met last?"
Even as a child, Lilith had found this pleasing. Where she flinched and dodged her parents in their rare attempts at physical contact, she was clay - soft and malleable, wanting to be molded and recreated - beneath Cassandra's fingers.
Angela peeked around corners while Cassandra and Lilith huddled together at the kitchen table, whispering heatedly.
Her jealousy was feverish. It was incurable.
Lilith's textbooks and notebooks were carefully scattered about the table to give the appearance of studying, but Angela watched them closely.
They only looked at papers and books that Cassandra brought.
For two short weeks, Lilith was present again. She spoke with more than just her shoulders.
She talked to Cassandra.
She talked to Dirk.
She talked to Angela.
She promised she would get better.
She promised.
She came to Angela's room one night after Mary-Sue had gone to bed, and Daniel had spent another night "in his office", and sat beside her on the mattress.
Eyeing the sleeping pills on the nightstand, she asked: "Do you still dream about Lucy?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Is it really her?"
"I... I have no idea. I mean, I hope so, but I really can't tell sometimes."
"Hm." Lilith seemed dissatisfied. Anxious, even. "Do you ever dream about me?"
"Not really. Why?"
"Do you think you will?"
"Um, I have no idea?" Angela shrugged, slightly unnerved at the impromptu interrogation. "I don't exactly get to pick things off a list to dream about."
Lilith looked troubled.
"Why are you suddenly so interested in my Lucy dreams?"
"It's just... I wonder. If something happened to me... would I still be able to see you in your dreams?"
"What do you mean if something happened to you? Nothing is going to happen to you."
"Right?"
"You're freaking me out, Lilith."
"Sorry. I'm not trying to."
"Well, you are."
Lilith sighed. There was a heaviness about her that worried Angela, but she had no idea how to approach it.
"I'm sorry," she said, again. "I don't want to upset you. I was just thinking about Lucy, and your dreams. You know, I've always been jealous that she came to you, but not me."
Angela had known, but she didn't know how to respond to such a naked confession.
"I was just wondering if there was a secret access code or something, I guess. Like knock three times, then two times, then three times again. I don't know. I'm just tired and thinking weird shit."
"Well, now you're going to have me thinking weird shit, too. So, thanks for that."
Lilith smiled a little, and apologized again.
Then, slowly, as if though doing so required immense physical strength, she stood up. Angela had the sudden urge to grab hold of her, to refuse to let her leave.
"I have to go."
The urge intensified, made her heart race and her breath grow shallow. Go? "Go where?"
"To bed."
Immediately, Angela felt stupid, which was perhaps appropriate.
Of course Lilith was just going to bed. It was nearly midnight. She was wearing her pajamas.
Why did she still feel frightened?
"Oh, right. Bed. Of course," she laughed, a tight, unnatural laugh. There was a tinge of hysteria to it that neither of them liked. "Goodnight, Lilith. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight, Angela."
She shut the door softly behind her.
And then she was gone.
Unexplained Child Death in Pleasantview
By Sandy Bruty
In what could only be considered a grisly memoriam to her young cousin, Lucy Burb, Lilith Pleasant, aged 17, took her own life by ingesting a potent corrosive. She is survived by her parents, Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant; twin sister, Angela; aunt and uncle, Jennifer and John Burb; and maternal grandfather, Herb Oldie.
AN: Thank you for reading!
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