The bell shrieks and every ear in the room perks up at the sound. "Alright, class, remember to study for the test tomorrow!" The teacher cheerfully announces after stopping herself mid-sentence to listen to the ringing. She knows that, as far as the students are concerned, the shrill alarm keeps the schedule, and that any teacher who disagrees is inconveniencing her students with her own pretentiousness. This class is the most significant. It's the final class of the day. Trying to usurp the bell here would result in a fistfight.
I stand up from my desk, grab my things, and walk to the windows, looking outside at the gentle hills through the steel bars. Supposedly, these can only be opened from the inside. I've never tested it. The metal guards interrupt my gazing. I turn and the inevitable traffic jam at the exit has slowly worked itself out. I leave the room without having to jostle and fight. My locker is just up the hall.
As I'm packing my bag and getting ready to go home, Shrage pulls up alongside me. She's a MULE deer, unimaginative, intellectually lazy, and a little stupid, but she's good for a laugh. That's what keeps me from telling her to stop bothering me. "What do you think, Isa? Is this test THE BIG ONE? Are we all going to get wiped out?"
I sling my backpack over my shoulders. "No, Mrs. Drang isn't cruel enough for that." As I walk to the newly-installed sally port, I remember something she mentioned earlier. She pulled me aside as class was starting and told me that my parents wouldn't be picking me up today, that instead I should look out for a friend of theirs who had just come from a play and would be wearing a Skull Season costume. He's there on behalf of my grandfather. Unfortunately, I have a sleepover planned this weekend, and my grandfather is annoying.
The sally port, known to most students as "the airlock", is an exit to a covered area in the front of the building where custodians pick up their teenage children. It used to just be two glass doors but, in line with the other renovations, it's been replaced with two sets of the heaviest steel doors in the building with a security guard on permanent watch. When the serial killer started stalking the woods and got a cool nickname and the whole county was briefly put under lockdown two months ago, I'm sure some construction engineer felt a pang of guilty excitement that his newest alteration would be put to the test. Finally, the post-9/11 reforms could show their worth. Then the terrible 'Killer Green' vanished, and without evidence of his continued existence, the lockdown was lifted, and the great expense of protecting our kids from future terrorist attacks went unjustified once again.
I'd been to South Citico High a few times when I was a little younger and it was so bizarre to see how much it had changed in only four or five years. Was it good or bad? I don't know that there's any way to coop up children in a fortress and not have it seem just as much like a prison.
"What'ya thinking about, Isa?" Shrage asks, leaning in front of me.
"Just wondering if it'll rain this weekend," I tell her. Trying to explain my thoughts to her has always been a waste of time.
Outside, the sky is deep blue and marked by wisps of clouds. The birds sing distantly, barely audible over the chatter of students excited to spend a whole two days doing whatever they want before they get back to the tedious work of education, something most of them don't even see the value of. They sit or stand around, talking to friends and looking out for their ride. In the distance, I see mine. A friend of mine, a RED DEER named Carmin, has her parents pull in. She waves us in and we pile into the back of the minivan.
"God, did you see the Trilos game last night? I had fifty dollars riding on that and they play like that?" Carmine complains as she buckles up.
"You're too young to be gambling." I say.
"Nah, that's something you gotta get started early." Shrage interjects from my other side.
"You're still doing that?" Carmine's mother complains from the front seat as we navigate out of the parking lot and onto the open road.
"It's charity. She's giving to gambling addicts." Shrage laughs.
"So what's so special that we just had to be here?" I ask.
Carmine grins and reaches over the seat into the trunk. She grabs a box set of CD's and shows it to us. It's still in the plastic wrap. It's the complete Kremina's Undead Trilogy, all director's cut versions. Me and Shrage grin right back. Yeah, this is worth it.
My eyes flit open, sandy and bleary. I look around the room. Shrage was the first to fall asleep. I guess I was second. The lights are off inside and out, except for the menu for Legion of the Damned playing the opening theme on a loop after reaching the end of the credits some hours ago. I rub my eyes and try to go back to sleep while my brain is still sluggish. The red flashing that woke me up strikes again and I sit up from the couch.
Staring at me from the window is a demon in the pitch-black night. I freeze, but then it bends down and I get a better look at it. It's someone in a trench coat wearing a deer's skull mask. It opens the window and leans in, motioning me to get close. I tiptoe over, careful to not wake up my friends. He has a rifle slung over his shoulders. This is who was supposed to pick me up from school, right? Why does he have a gun?
I'm less than a meter away before he says anything. "Your grandfather wants to see you, Isalode." He whispers.
"Is... is that why you're outside the window of my friends house watching me sleep?" I grumble thoughtlessly.
"Yes." He says. "Your grandfather thinks this is very important. Since I am currently living off of his good will, I ain't in the mood to tell him no. Are you coming or not?"
"Uh..." My brainfog is keeping me from being able to do anything more than autopilot through this conversation and I can't come up with an answer. The chauffeur raises his laser pointer and blasts it into my eyes again. "Agh! Fuck off, bitch!" I cry a bit too loudly.
Shrage stirs from her seat. "Isa? Who are you talking to?"
"It's, uh, someone my grandfather sent to check on me. I kind of brushed him off to stay here."
"In the middle of the night?" Shrage complains.
"I brushed him off for a reason." I say honestly.
"That's creepy."
"Yes."
I look back at the open window. The man is gone. He said he wasn't in the mood to take 'no' for an answer and he was very obviously carrying a gun. I look back at Shrage, who's eyes are barely open. "Listen, turns out it was actually for something important. I'll explain later. When Carmine wakes up, tell her not to worry."
"This better be a good story." Shrage mumbles.
"Yeah, it better be."
I grab my backpack of sleepover supplies and step outside, my shoes and socks still in my hands instead of on my feet. The chauffeur has parked his sedan in the road under a streetlight and he watches me as I approach.
"Call me Tops. Your creepy grandfather has a proposition for you." He opens the passenger-side door for me.
"He's not the only creepy one." I feign whining as I sit down. I don't want to be a complainer but that man is weird and always smells like pollen and this guy stalked me to my friend's house.
He sits behind the wheel of the car and says, "Yup."
He starts driving. It's a coin flip whether this guy knows what I'm going to be asked. Grandfather likes his theatrics. There's something else, though. "You gone through a Firefly Dinner yet?"
Tops rubs his forehead. "No. That's going to be some wacky bullshit, isn't it?"
My grandfather runs a hostel out of his manor, taking in drug addicts and miscreants and helping them to get their lives back on track. Really, he has a host of bizarre religious-political views and the public charity is how he finds vulnerable youths to induct into his ceremonies. Which makes me wonder something else. "It is, and you'll experience it at some point if you hang around him long enough. But I must ask, Tops, what's your deal?"
"My deal how?"
"You ain't one of his converts, are you?"
"'Course I ain't, he's fucking weird." Tops gestures with his hands as he keeps his eyes on the barely-lit backroad.
"I know. But he would only send someone he trusts to pick up his granddaughter if it's really that important. So why does he have so much faith in an outsider?"
Tops doesn't respond. He's reevaluating me. "Let me answer that question with a question. What race... sorry, what species are you?"
"Savini."
"Guess that's why you don't look quite like any Fallow I've seen so far. Never heard of a Savini, though."
"They're extinct."
He looks directly at me. "What the fuck?" He yells, giving my still-drowsy mind a small headache. In spite of it, I grin.
"My grandfather is weirder than you could ever know."
"How the... it's magic, isn't it?"
"Yes, Tops." He was very willing to accept that explanation. It's true, but most deer, like everyone else, have forgotten that magic exists. He knows the reality. Yet he's still not one of grandfather's favored faith-children. What is it that grandfather has over this man that his loyalty is so assured? Did he commit a crime of unimaginable monstrosity?
Was he the Killer Green? Slaughtering eleven people in a multi-day binge would certainly do it. But why would grandfather care about an unstable lunatic like that?
Twenty years ago, he took an interest in the Appalachian Horror, didn't he?
Is this... another one of them?
About time.
When we get to my grandfather's estate, it's just like how I remember it, except now I'm much larger, although the oppressive architecture is kept eerie by the darkness.
Waiting for me in the entryway is another guy, fuller and more broad-chested than my escort, and wearing normal casual clothes save for a gas mask with sticks tied to it. "Hey, Isalode!" He calls out to me as he comes in for a hug. I don't figure out who it is in time and get wrapped up.
"Hey, there! Good to see you again!" I say frantically searching my mind.
The stranger gestures with wild energy towards me. "Man, you're so old now! You've got curves and everything. I remember you before you were in high school, bless your heart."
"You two know each other?" Tops asks. "Didn't realize you were such a player, Sticks."
"Yeah, she stayed here for a few years a while back. We were like two peas in a pod, weren't we?"
Wait. Is this guy... "Yeah, Ken. Nice to see you, too. You've, uh, developed in ways I certainly didn't expect."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Ken looks down at her... his own body. "Yeah I don't fuckin' get it either. Hey, glad to have you back, though."
"Your name's Ken?" Tops asks.
"Yeah, dude." Ken replies.
"Tops, how long has it been since you met Ken?" I question.
"Two months." He replies. This guy is totally the fucking Killer Green. Also, that is such a male thing to do.
"Ken Tayatani, at your service." Ken holds his hands out and Tops shakes it.
"Oskoriae Tohopka." He says back.
"I'm going to go talk to my grandfather now." I suggest.
"Good luck. If he's awake." Tops offers sarcastically.
"Come on, he's not that bad," Ken is saying as I tromp up the great stairs.
My grandfather shuffles the halls and meets me before I find his office. He's an ancient deer, shaggy and wrinkly. "Ah, my dear Isalode! It is so good to see you again! How are things? I keep meaning to get used to these newfangled phones but I can never manage it, and you move so much I never remember where to send letters."
"I've been doing well, grandfather. Thank you for asking. Meeting so many different people has been interesting." Considering that all those moves were his idea, I would hope he at least bothered to remember where I was being sent. I changed schools so frequently growing up and I figured out long ago that it had nothing to do with the given excuse of "work" that my parents would give me when I asked about it.
"Come, let us find a place to sit and you can tell me all about it." He offers.
We start walking. The main thing I noticed about all the people I've met so far is how little changes. In religious schools, private schools, public schools, concept schools, charter schools, everyone is driven by the same things, it's just that they have different ideas of getting it. Status. Comfort. Ego. The poorer the school, the more likely they are to meet their needs with the fist, but everyone has underhanded ways of getting what they want without asking whoever has it. The only reason it's not always the same shit with a different story is that you can emotionally detach yourself and be immune to the gossip and social games of the wealthy and civilized, while everybody has to notice a brick to the head.
That's not what I want to know about, though.
"Grandfather, that man in the skull mask is the Killer Green, isn't he?" I interrogate.
"Attentive as always, my dear Isa." He compliments me with a warm smile. "It is. He will be a great boon in our fight against the lies and the vanity that plagues this world. It's up to us to see how. That is related to what I want to talk to you about. But that can wait, and I would so love to catch up with one of my grandchildren."
"I'm sorry, but I would like to hear what you want from me before the pleasantries." We pass a grand painting. The artist isn't famous, but it was made by hand, and depicts one General Mycuze of the Chimerican Civil War in his full field uniform standing amongst the weapons he helped to develop to serve his campaigns. There are many paintings like this throughout the house, depicting historical figures and great events. This is one of my favorites, though. Father has almost as many stories about Mycuze as he does about Rob Lee.
"You won't even let me soften you up first?" Grandfather suggests half-jokingly. I nod my head. "Oh, if only I had been so cautious when I was your age." He stops and turns to face me dead-on. "That young lad, Tops, he is like so many of his kind. He has many problems and doesn't know the answers. The life he must live with us is harsh. He gets along with Ken, but, well, Ken has changed less than you might think since you last met him. Tops must learn to be a normal citizen of Chimerica, and he must have reliable help from someone who knows what that means. I do believe, however, that this one has the potential to burn down this rotten society. Unless you have truly become a stranger to me, you can at least see the value in that. So I ask, do you think you could help him? If not be his friend, then be his ally?"
"What would happen if I refuse?"
"Isa, you are too clever, and for you my heart is too soft. I would be disappointed, but if you were to decline, I couldn't stop you."
I wonder. Much is unsaid that doesn't need to be said. Life with him would be extraordinarily dangerous. Time-consuming, too. And stressful. And yes, exciting. And worst of all, I can now see the story of my life being plotted at my birth, and how they thought my personality would develop by keeping me unbalanced yet constantly meeting new people. I am sad to admit to myself that it worked. There are multitudes of waste-things, drones really, who ought not to be missed and are barely even "people". I can at least understand hypocrisy when there are ends to justify the means, but what about when it's simply easier to follow orders than to think for even ten seconds about what you are doing? I despise that this society is built upon the shoulders of these meat-engines, and worse, gives them political power. This is why I've always admired the unhinged and the senseless. When tragedy becomes common, people either learn to change or they die.
"I'll consider it." I say.
"That is understandable. Now, I insist you tell me about your travels, grandchild."
Grandfather was nothing if not a romantic, and decided that my return to his household demanded a party, regardless of whether or not I joined his scheme. Tops and Sticks spent most of the weekends people-watching. Tops had had to relearn how to read, but that was easy for him. The hard part was figuring out how to tell each species of deer apart. For a long time, Chimerica was a land where it was easier to cut society into ever-smaller enclaves than to stop the patterns of behavior that make the pogroms come. Being unable to see species quickly and accurately was unusual, and sure to invite attention. So he would go out and Sticks would help him tell deer apart for hours at a time. I spent the day explaining to Carmin and Shrage that no, I truly hadn't been kidnapped.
Saturday evening came with the promised feast, and when I went to the great dining hall to see it, I saw the lights floating through the air around a suspended candle and heard the buzzing of the insects. So it was a Firefly Dinner. Maybe he was motivated by some obscure arcana as much as he was by a desire to spend money on his granddaughter.
Grandfather stood up from his chair at the head of the table. "Everyone, I would like you all to meet my great friend, Isalode, for whom this feast is dedicated." Everyone politely smiled and waved me down to a seat besides my new friend. The green dots danced overhead. While we were at the table, relatives were friends and friends were relatives. I sat down and smiled back and shook hands with my new brothers and sisters and uncles. To my side was someone else's daughter, who was to be my niece for the night. Across from me were two new best friends, formerly a couple.
"I hear you've been to every school in the area, sister," The father spoke up.
"Yes, but they're more similar than you might think. Those who try always succeed and those who don't always fail. The difference is where the line is." I reply.
The child was about eight and tugging at my sleeve. "I heard that at the schools for the poor people they have drug dealers who try to sell you crack rocks hiding in the bathroom and you have to run away or else they get you add- addi- addictered to crack."
"Is that any way to talk to your auntie?" The mother speaks up.
"A child should ask whatever they want." I state. I turn to the child. "That's not quite it, they're far less aggressive. You can just say no." I inform her.
In the distance, there's a slight commotion. The two boys are back and they're hurriedly cleaning up and dressing nicer. "And with our final guests, I declare this feast... begun!" Grandfather exclaims with what strength his moth-eaten voice can muster. Servants flood into the room and plates of fruits and vegetables and other things are laid out. Older folks bark orders at their juniors while children openly disrespect their parents since, under these lights, that's not really who they all are to each other anymore. I pile on moss and mushrooms because I know that those will be among the first to go once the plates start getting passed to the kids. Then I'd have to wait for more to be brought out.
Tops and Ken hurry down, both still in their masks, and sit in the last two empty seats. Ken noticed the lights. Tops did, but I could tell he didn't know what it meant.
"What do you think was the most interesting thing you saw during the past few years?" Grandfather asks.
"Hold on, I believe that our sibling hasn't been informed of the circumstances he's in." I put a hand out. "I would like to see how he reacts."
One of the young boys offers a pre-made plate of vegetation to the interloper. "Would you like this, father?"
"Huh?" Tops mutters.
"For you, father. I thought you might not want to have to put it together yourself." The boy offers it across the table again.
Tops stares and reaches an arm out and picks up the plate hesitantly.
"No need to be so tense, child. You're among family." The girl to his side coos. The creature does not calm down. He awkwardly stuffs the leafy greens under his mask, turning his head this way and that, trying to figure out what's happening.
I turn to my grandfather. He's watching the scene even more intently. He wonders aloud. "Oh, dear. Why didn't Ken tell him how this was going to go?"
"Because Ken thought it would be funny to see him like this." I say. "It's not complicated, it would only take a few seconds to explain."
"I'm not worried about explaining it. I'm worried that, if someone doesn't commit a minor faux pas on my behalf, Tops will become confused and make a scene."
"That's what makes it funny." I inform him annoyedly.
"I don't miss everything about youth, my friend." Grandfather admits.
Ken leans over to Tops and points a finger at a small pile of sugar cubes. Even through his mask I can sense the coup de grace coming. "Give me some sugar... daddy."
Tops glares at him, then frantically looks around the table. Everyone heard it, but besides a few covered chuckles, no one reacts strongly. Wordlessly, he picks up his plate, stands up, and walks out of the room.
"Oh dear, oh dear." Grandfather mumbles. "I should talk to him."
"No, you talk to Ken. I'll talk to him." I offer.
He pauses. "Yes, that is better."
"Excuse me," I say to the table around me. They permit my slight impudence. Did the Killer Green, spree killer extraordinaire, really just get defeated by a crass comment? I follow Tops. I don't see him anymore, but my grandfather mentioned where he was staying in the manor, and I know where that is. I navigate the corridors with a skill that's coming back to me after years away from here. The last few rooms are easy, I just have to follow the strange music that the being is playing.
I crack the door open and see the creature, his mask laying on his desk and his back to me, reading a book as he eats. He's comparing the deer species against a list he has that's written in his kind's strange text. The music is coming from a small black object sitting beside him. A lot of humans come to this world with these 'smartphones'. This isn't the first one I've seen, just the first one that still worked. I sit and listen for a moment to the music. It's like hip-hop, but it combines a dark piano with spastic alarm noises for a backing track. And the lyrics...
Knife you up and gore your throat
You should really try it
'Cause it's nice to hear them moan and choke
Dying isn't fun when silent, I've been overdosing slow
Violent tonight, I'm slicing, dicing, make an open hole
He turns to me suddenly and I realize that I let a word slip out in shock. I catch a glimpse of one eye staring from behind a mop of hair, and a total lack of fur on a chiseled and pale face. He hurriedly touches the black thing a few times and puts his mask on when he realizes I'm watching. "Sorry about the party, that was just... so uncomfortable."
"Yeah... yeah, I imagine." The single image of his form has wedged itself into my mind. "It's not as bad as it looks. There's a method to it. But yeah, if you don't know, it can be pretty weird."
"Does Father want me back?" He asks.
"He would like it. What were you listening to?"
"Oh, this?" He grabs the black object. "It's a smartphone. It's a computer with more power than your PC, if you can believe it. Technology from my world. A girl named 'Mittani' figured out how to convert the charging cable for Chimerican electrical sockets. It's my little piece of home."
"Yeah, but I was asking about the music itself."
"...Oh. That. Uh, listen, it's not supposed to be taken seriously. The song is actually really funny, and the joke is how over-the-top it is."
I'm not sure that's how it was meant to be taken and it's concerning that he backed off so easily. I won't argue with him, though. "No, that makes sense. So, uh, if you're going back, that's a Firefly Dinner. The whole thing is that it's an inversion of social standing. Parents and children are just normal friends for the night, and friends are all part of one big family. Once you get used to it, it all makes sense and it's a nice break from normal social formalities."
He looks down at the ground. "...Okay, I see it. Mind giving me a few more minutes to myself, though? No offense, but you're all so weird and gross to me, and, I think I'm still a bit rattled from being talked to like that by some of you."
"We can't be that bad." I argue.
"The first time I saw one of you I freaked out and beat her to death because I thought she was a monster." He explains.
I look at him. "Can you take your mask off?"
"Why?"
"I want to see if you look the same to us."
"I do."
"I want to know firsthand."
He stares at me, then shrugs and reaches a hand around. The imitation skull (well, it might not be an imitation) falls from his head. The creature is small-eyed and the lines of its face radiate aggression and malice. It hates. That is all it does, hate and kill. I was such a fucking idiot for wanting to be in the same room as it. I bang my head against a shelf and realize I am literally pressing against the back wall. Damnit, Isa, keep it together! He's not going to hurt you! Yes, he is a demon from another dimension that's just salivating at the thought of disemboweling you and hearing you scream, but you are crumpling up into the corner and being glad you didn't flee in a blind panic from the room rather than standing up straight against your fears! Come on! Get up! Get the fuck up! GET UP!
"Are you happy?" He asks, his mouth moving in ways it shouldn't. He puts his mask back on and my heart slowly goes back to a normal BPM.
My body is freezing and my muscles twitch under my skin. It takes seconds before I can move, and more seconds before I can stand up shakily. "Yeah... yeah... uh... see you downstairs..." A wave of icy sweat passes over me and I barely keep from collapsing on the carpet as I clumsily stagger back the way I came.