Adriana raced up the stairs of the apartment after the sounds of screaming trailing down from the top floor. "Victor!" she shouted in despair, rounding the hallways towards their bedroom as the screams tapered off. When she opened the door, she was astounded and horrified by what she saw. A great beast sat perched atop her husbands groaning head, his entrails dangling from her ghastly teeth.
"Grooosssss!" Pence bellowed, throwing popcorn at the TV as Hayner fell out of his chair laughing. "This is a good one!" he whispered, picking up the popcorn pieces off the floor and popping them into his mouth one by one. Olette wrinkled her nose as he did so, shaking her head. "You're the gross one." Her insult was interrupted by Hayner, who threw the remaining piece of popcorn on the floor at her head, making her screamed and throw her own popcorn at him. When the battle got out of hand Hayner stopped it with a single shout, commencing picking up the popcorn from around the TV room. "My mom is going to kill me if this mashes into the carpet," he complained, picking a piece from under the TV. "Where is Roxas?" he added, poking his head up from the floor. Pence and Olette shrugged together, gaping as the beast on the television flew at the protagonist, engaging her in a battle for her husband's remains. As Adriana popped out the beast woman's eye, Olette decided that she'd had enough. "I'm going upstairs to paint," she sang, but Hayner stopped her. "The last time you painted in my room you got ink all over the floor," he hissed, and Olette pouted, but sat down with reluctance.
There was a knock on the door and Pence jumped up to get it, setting his popcorn under his arm with gentle care as he trudged towards the door. He peeked through the keyhole, but his eyebrows furrowed as he turned to face his friends. "It's Peter," he muttered. Hayner stared at him in shock, before clapping his hand to his forehead and closing his eyes. "I'll get it," he muttered. Olette and Pence glanced at each other, before charging behind the couch to hide. "What are you doing?" Hayner snapped, and the two grinned and giggled. "We don't want to ruin your reputation," whispered Pence, beaming. Hayner rolled his eyes and left the two of them, unlocking the door and opening it. Peter Pan stood in front of him with wide, excited eyes before pushing past him and looking around his house. His eyes settled on Olette and Pence and he wrinkled his nose, pointing at them in distaste. "Why are the pariahs hiding behind your couch?" He asked, to which Hayner scowled, shooing Olette and Pence away. "They're my friends," he muttered, setting the pillows aright on the couch. Peter snorted and shook his head, continuing to stare around Hayner's place.
"Nice abode," Peter announced, grinning wide and glancing at Hayner with eyes that gleamed mischief. When he couldn't contain the secret he had been holding in, he clapped his hands together and set them on his hips, whispering, "Hercules and Shang are totally checking my profile," tapping his feet as if ready to lift off. Then he scowled. "If you didn't hang with the pariahs, you'd totally be in the elite's friend group. You're ruining it for me too!" he added, pointing at his chest with his forefinger. Hayner's face became red, and he gritted his teeth, banging his hands on the back of the couch. "How is it my fault?" he hollered, making Peter set his hands on his hips in defiance. "Because you and I are friends!"
Hayner stared at him for a moment, before rolling his eyes and beckoning for him to sit at the kitchen table. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Olette and Pence sneaking up the stairs and towards his bedroom, but he did not stop them. Instead he redirected his attention to the boy in front of him. "Why are you really here?" he asked, making Peter chuckle. "Your house is free," explained Peter, indicating with his hands. "Herc said I should totally host a ballin' party, but my place is off limits," he scowled. Then he brightened, pointing around Hayner's kitchen. "Major nice bar area, man."
"No," Hayner replied flatly. There was a stare down between the two boys, until a scratching at the front door and a whining noise caught them off guard, scaring Hayner. He hid behind the kitchen island table in fright while Peter rolled his eyes and opened the front door. A little dog sat tied up to the stair railing at the side of the door, pawing at the side of the house to get in. Its eyes were wide and frightened, and its hind legs shivered. Peter furrowed his brows at the dog, looked to either side of the street, and shrugged, untying it and letting it run inside the house. The terrier whizzed behind the television and hid there while Peter shut the front door and returned to Hayner. "That was the weirdest thing ever," he mumbled, "he's usually so brave!" Then, the color drained from the boy's face and he flashed a sheepish grin at the blond boy. "Can I hang with you cool kids for the night?" he asked. Hayner rolled his eyes but nodded, beckoning for him to come upstairs. "But first, you meet my friends," explained Hayner, knocking on his bedroom door and calling for Olette and Pence. The two peeked their heads out of the room and waved at Peter, who waved back with reluctance. "This is Olette, the artist," introduced Hayner. Olette gave a shy smile, but Pence beamed and introduced himself, holding his hand out for Peter to shake. "I'm Pence!" he announced as he grasped the red headed boy's hand, shaking it with vigor. Peter ignored him and turned to Hayner.
"So, party at your house Friday night?" he chirped. Hayner snorted and shook his head. "Over my dead body," he warned, eliciting a round of applause from his friends. Peter stared at him with an unforgiving expression and shrugged, folding his arms in front of him. "Maybe I'll risk going home," drawled Peter, narrowing his eyes at the three teenagers. "It stinks in here," he added, wrinkling his nose and descending the staircase. "Come on, Tink," he called to the puppy behind the TV, but the terrier would not budge. Its tail was wrapped tightly between its legs, and it began to whimper louder, as if it was crying. Peter shuffled in discomfort, curling his fingers into fists. "Dammit, dog, come on!" he muttered, though he was losing heart. When the dog would not budge further, Peter picked it up by the scruff of the neck and carried it in his arms out the door. He stood on the doorstep for a moment, pondering on whether he would actually take the next step. But, he did not want to be caught hanging out with the pariahs. So, he let his foot fall on the second step down towards the sidewalk, and scrambled forward, whizzing down the side of the road towards his house in sudden fright.
Hayner watched him from his bedroom window, leaning out of it with his hand rested on his cheek. He sighed, shaking his head, and turned to Olette and Pence, who were despondent. "What's with the long faces?" Hayner boomed, grinning as widely as he could, but Pence just shrugged, fiddling with the disposable camera that lived on his neck, and Olette stared at Hayner with sad eyes. Then she smiled and gave him a hug. "Thank you for being our friend," she whispered, patting him on the back. Hayner hugged her back, feeling unbelievable guilt on behalf of Peter. "I'm sorry I know jerks like that," he muttered, smiling at Olette and Pence. "I'll never act that way to you guys, I promise." Olette paused for a moment before grinning, and Pence resumed his usual brightness, clapping his hands and taking a picture of the other two hugging. "I'll develop this and we can frame it," he sighed with happiness, caressing the little purple camera in his arms. "Another wonderful memory of our friendship."
Hayner did not say it, but he knew in his heart that every time Pence did a quirky thing like that, caressing the camera, and saying that weird stuff about friendship, that was when he revealed himself to be a dork. Olette and Pence didn't mean to be uncool, they just were. Everyday Hayner thanked his lucky stars that he was a great baseball player. The whole team looked up to him, and the coolest senior, Hercules and Shang, were always asking him if he wanted to sit with them at lunch. But Olette and Pence had been Hayner's friends since they were all in diapers. And ever since his dad left, he'd resolved never to leave the people he loved behind. And there were few people Hayner loved in the world. First came his mother. And then came his best friends. He couldn't for one second bring himself to imagine a world without them.
...
Sally sat up by flashlight sewing shut the hole on the backside of the only skirt she owned. It was red corduroy with little pleats at the hips, and she wore it every day to school because it matched her hair. She liked to think it drew attention away from the scars on her face. She hummed as she worked, examining her progress as she sewed, holding it up to the flashlight and peered at it with one eye. Then she would return the thing to her lap and continued, pricking her finger every once in a while. Downstairs her father was taking medicine for the hacking cough that had been following him for the past month. She could hear the screech of his wheelchair as it traveled across the old wooden boards of their home.
The pair inhabited a little hut at the edge of town, near the forest that lay behind their house. It stretched on for a few miles, rising up into the hills to their rear. The sun set behind those hills. Every day as Sally caught the train home from school, she would watch it, until it was a sliver in the sky, painting the world in pink light. That was Sally's favorite moment. The final debacle of the heavens, the onset of night, when evil things scurried about, and the shadows grew and engulfed all in their path. But then, Sally thought, perhaps the final debacle of the heavens would be when the sun exploded, or even further than that, when the whole universe stretched its arms so far that it could not keep itself warm. It would utter its last breath, like everything else, shiver, and die. A tear escaped Sally's eye as she thought about it, and she squeezed her hands together. Then she sighed. "I wish I was an adult," Sally murmured, running her fingers around the side of her corduroy skirt. She hissed as she ran her finger against the needle she was holding, and put the broken skin to her lip, sucking on it.
A pattering sounded from beside the bed, like the gentle tap of a set of long, spindly fingers. Sally glanced towards the left wall window, turning herself so that she could see out of it, and gasped. Five little fingers with sharp black ends tip tapped against the window pane, beckoning for her to open it. There was a moment of silent inner communication as Sally pondered on whether she was dreaming or not. Then, she screeched as loudly as she could and bolted out from her room, charging down the stairs towards her father's study, where he conducted his experiments. "Father!" she called, her voice reverberating on the walls. Responding was her father's signature grunt, echoing towards her from where he was hunched over against the floor; examining a rat as it flailed in a trap he had set for it. "We shall cook this one," he chuckled, pocking at its little legs as it gasped for breath.
"Father, there's a person at my window!" croaked Sally, trembling with fear. Her father ignored her, crushing the rat's head with a book he was meaning to throw away. "Put this in the trash, darling," he sang, flinging the bloodied book at her. She caught it with a yelp, scurrying into the kitchen and throwing it in the trashcan near the backdoor. As she washed the rat brains from her fingers at the kitchen sink, a strange sound entered her ears. It was such a sweet sound that she could not recognize it for a moment, and her head pricked up with curiosity. She tiptoed towards the backdoor and touched her heart. The voice outside was one of fear. Then little paws clicked against the grass of the backyard, running towards the hut. There was manic scratching on the back of the door, and whining. "What is that?" Sally's father growled from his study, and Sally opened the door and caught the animal, a little blond dog, in her arms, shutting the door tight behind her and locking it twice for good measure. The little dog flailed and kicked in her arms, biting at her wrists, but she was able to calm it by singing it a lullaby.
"Oh say, do you know
That a long time ago,
There were two little children,
Whose names I don't know.
They were stolen away
On a bright summer's day,
And left in the woods
In a place far away.
And when it was night
So sad was their plight
The stars were not out
And the moon gave no light
They sobbed and they sighed
And they bitterly cried.
Poor babes in the woods!
Poor babes in the woods!"
The puppy stopped crying and Sally noticed that it had a large piece of skin torn away from its neck and side. She gasped as she looked at it, and began crying, but she was able to rush the dog into her father with shaking hands before she fell into a complete puddle of tears. "Father, could you please help this creature?" asked Sally, holding out the dog for her father, who snarled at it and wheeled away from her towards a different table. "Why don't you sew the thing up?" he barked at her, putting the dead rat in a jar with vinegar. "Since you're such a good seamstress it should be easy for you."
"But I want it to live!" Sally cried, cradling the puppy against her chest. The old man glared at her and sighed, rubbing his face. Then, he wheeled into the kitchen and searched around in the freezer for skin samples he had collected from other creatures. "I will create a allogeneic skin graft for it," he explained, looking for a terrier sample. When he found it, he beamed and removed it from the fridge, wheeling it back into his study. "Give me the pup," he added, holding out his hands to Sally. The girl stared at him in discomfort, holding the dog tightly, but her father beckoned for it and she reluctantly agreed. As he examined the creature, the old man muttered, "He is bleeding profusely. We need yarrow," clicking his fingers. Sally walked into the kitchen and hunted in the pantry, trembling when she found that there was no fresh yarrow left. "There's nothing!" she called. "It's just on the edge of the forest!" her father replied, making Sally's shoulder's sink. She glanced outside the backdoor towards the woods with deep dissatisfaction, but as she heard the whimper of the pup she picked up her courage, extracted a sharp knife from the cupboard, and fled out the back door. Her feet were silent as she padded across the back yard, searching in their little garden to see if they had planted any yarrow, but there was nothing. Then, her eyes fell on the forest ahead and she sighed.
She closed the little white garden gate behind her and padded towards the mouth of the great forest, searching its edges for any patch of yarrow plant. She scowled when she could not locate them, but as she peered further inside the forest's depths the clouds moved from the sky overhead and the moon bathed the forest floor with soft light. Its rays fell over a small patch of leaves about twenty feet in from the first line of pines, covered with misty dew. Sally's fingers trembled as she closed them around the knife set inside the pocket of her dress, and she pursed her lips before clearing her throat and continuing the lullaby she had sang to the puppy.
"And when it was night
So sad was their plight
The stars were not out
And the moon gave no light
They sobbed and they sighed
And they bitterly cried.
Poor babes in the woods!
Poor babes in the woods,"
Sally reached her right hand out for the cluster of yarrow ten feet in front of her, ignoring the sound of snapping twigs at her back.
"And when they were dead
The robins so red
Took mulberry branches
And over them spread
And all the day long
They sang their poor song
Poor babes in the woods!
Poor babes in the woods."
"Yes!" she whispered, ripping up several pieces of yarrow by the roots. The soot that clung to their spindly bottoms disconnected and rained over her feet as she shook them out.
There was a crunching sound about five feet away from Sally, and she whipped around and stepped towards it, gripping the knife in her dress with tight determination. "Is someone there?" she called in a gentle voice, counting in her head as she walked forward. Her house came into view ahead of her as the trees about her thinned, but her fingers trembled with terrible jolts. "Are you the one who hurt the dog?" Sally added, stopping and listening. The wind moaned as the clouds overtook the moon once more, and the light that had shone over the forest's depths disappeared. Sally's eyes adjusted to the darkness and she moved again, listening once more. "Did you hurt the dog?" inquired Sally.
There was a pondering silence, and then the sound of tapping on skin. "Yes," a soft, rich voice sang from the shadows to Sally's right, tapping its skin again. Then, the sound stopped, and a black tipped hand slid around the side of the tree the creature was hiding behind. Sally's hands gripped into fists and she stepped towards the tree with quiet footsteps, careful not to break any leaves under her feet. There was shuffling behind the tree, as the creature decided whether it would come out or not. "Where have you gone?" it added in concern, its hand gripping the bough of the tree it held tightly. "You are so quiet I cannot hear you," murmured the creature. A pale foot stepped out from behind the tree, then a clothed leg, and then a torso. Sally crept towards it until she was three steps distance from its foot. Then she slipped the knife from her pocket and whispered, "I'm right here," ducking and digging the blade into the pale thing's belly as it sprang towards her with outstretched arms.
The howls of the creature grew faint as Sally ran towards her house as fast as she could, but to her dismay the sound of running feet padded ever closer to her. She gripped her long red hair in her hand so that the creature could not take hold of it, and as she cleared the forest she hopped over the back of her garden fence and charged for the back door, glancing behind her to see where the creature was. She gasped as she saw it climbing over the garden fence, but as she reached her hand around the knob of the back door, she screeched for it to stop, throwing her outstretched palm in front of her. The creature halted, concealing itself behind the little bushes on the far side of the garden, and hissed in confusion. "You are not invited," Sally murmured, opening her back door. The creature snickered, and she noted its shape move over the fence and scuttle towards her on all fours. But before it could come near her, she flung open the back door to the kitchen and shut it behind her, locking it and barring it with one of the table chairs. The creature thudded against it and tapped its fingers on the screen to get Sally's attention, but she ignored it and set the knife into the sink, running the yarrow into her father.
"You were fast," he blurted out as she trudged in and set the plant in front of him. He sifted through the leaves and pressed them over the dog's wound, humming as he worked. The skin graft was bathing in a type of saline solution the father had discovered during one of his experiments. Sally watched as he gloved his hands and removed the graft from the solution with a pair of tongs and set it over the wound, which he bathed with care. "Give me the needle and thread," he murmured, holding his hand out to Sally, who nodded and set the supplies gently in his palms. He nodded and brought them towards the unconscious dog, singing with glee as the needle punctured the skin of the graft, then the skin of the dog. The area around the dog's gash had been shaved and the dog's collar removed, and the graft was sewn on in a matter of ten minutes. More yarrow was set over it, mixed with a strange orange paste that was also patted onto the wound. The dog's neck was bandaged, and her father set the dog into Sally's arms again, watching with a sigh as she cradled it.
"You know it is not yours," announced the scientist, and Sally nodded, ignoring him. "I know," she whispered, rocking the dog back and forth as she left the room. "And you know you will have to return him to his owner soon!" the old man added, and Sally nodded again, whispering, "I know," as she shut her father's study door and climbed towards her bedroom. She hummed to the dog as she set it at the top of her bed, shutting the blinds of her window. She tucked the dog in and kissed its cheek before returning to her red corduroy skirt with a satisfied yawn. "I will wear this tomorrow," she sighed, finishing the last few stiches and setting the skirt back in her bedside drawer. "But first I will finish my homework," she added, taking her pile of treasured school books and working well into the morning, falling asleep at her desk as the sun peeked out from the eastern sky.