"Someone who thinks death is the scariest thing doesn't know a thing about life."

Chapter Four

The boardwalk was spectacular, every bit the perfect place to start her new life. Welcoming committee aside, it was exactly what Missy had hoped it would be when she first decided she was going to go. She wasn't going to let a few bad apples like skunk hair and his friends turn her off Santa Carla's unique charms. Of the others, like the boys in front of the store, she wasn't sure what to think. Something about them had tripped her danger detector, and she was sure something about them was off. But what in Santa Carla wasn't? Everything about the seaside town was strange. At least compared to Seattle it was. Seattle was a large city in its own right, but the Santa Carla boardwalk was a thousand times busier than anything she'd ever seen before. She watched a woman with green hair walk by and felt like she must seem alien to these people, though she could have said the same about any of the Santa Carlans if they were to walk down a street in Seattle.

She pulled her watch out of her pocket again and frowned at the dial. Twelve thirty. Time wasn't showing any signs of slowing for her, and if she wanted to avoid sleeping on a bench, she needed to find a place to stay before the boardwalk closed. She had no idea when that would be, so she mustered her dwindling vestiges of courage and yanked on the handle of the door of the first store that looked like it was still open.

The woman behind the counter was older, a brunette with sun damaged skin that spoke of how long she'd been living by the beach. She looked up at the bell hanging above the door the same time that Missy did, though where Missy's face was curious, hers was scowling. "I hate that thing." She said of the bell before her eyes dropped to Missy and she spoke again. "Need some help, sweetheart?"

Missy took a step or two toward the counter, away from the door, and smiled tentatively. "Loads," she replied, and the woman cracked a small smile. "though I thought I'd start with finding a place to stay. Do you know where I could find a motel? Moderately priced?" She didn't want to blow all the money she had on somewhere swanky and overpriced. She didn't need the luxury, just a bed.

"Motel? Yeah, there's a couple down the road from here. Not far, if you're planning on hoofing it. But if you're looking for something a little closer, I hear the people who own the comic store are looking to rent out the room above their shop."

"Really?" Missy's spirits did that thing that usually happened right before something crushed them, and she continued cautiously. "Do you know how much they're charging?"

The woman shrugged. "That's something you're gonna have to ask them, but if you want to find out tonight, I'd hurry. The boardwalk is closing in a hour, and most of the shops will be closing before then." She said and Missy's eyes shot to clock on the wall behind the woman's head.

"Can you tell me where the comic store is from here?"

"Do you know where the arcade is?" The woman asked, and Missy shook her head.

"No, but I can find it." The woman nodded and pointed at the door.

"Go out and turn left from here. Keep walking until you see the sign for the Giant Dipper."

"Giant Dipper." Missy echoed, and the woman nodded.

"It's the big one, so keep walking until you come to the end of it and on your right you should see the arcade." The woman paused and Missy took the time to create a short, undetailed map in her head. "The comic store is right across from there. Got it?"

"Thank you." Missy crossed the last few feet between them and stuck her hand over the counter. "Thank you so much." There was a lot to be said about how few good people there were in the world, but they were there.

"Be careful out there." The woman let go of her hand and Missy left the store. She glanced to the left and realized, happily, that she could see the Giant Dipper sign from where she was standing. She followed it like north star, and let it lead her to the promised land. The crowd was thinning as the seconds ticked by, and she could see the lights going out in the distance. Her feet moved faster, and her eyes flitted around like a bee trapped in a jar, memorizing the fronts of the shops in case she needed to find her way back. The bright lights reading 'arcade' fizzed out in front of her eyes and she spun, laughing as she read the next sign.

Frog's Comics. The racks of comics were being rolled inside the door by two teenage boys. They couldn't have been more than a few years younger than Missy. They must work in the shop for their parents, she figured. She slipped past one of the boys, the one with the darker hair, and gave the shop a once over. It was empty except for the boys, her, and an older couple in dark glasses sleeping against a rack of comics. They must be the boys parents, she thought, and she took a step toward them. "Excuse me."

"They won't hear you." She turned, startled, to find that the boy with the dark hair was standing beside her.

"I'm sorry, but I-"

"We're closed." The one in the headband growled as he pushed past her carrying a cardboard box filled with comics.

"I can see that, but I wanted to-"

"We're closed." The dark haired one grabbed her elbow and started to pull her toward the door. "Come back tomorrow if you want a comic, don't expect us to stay after hours so you can browse."

"Well, wait just a minute!" She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and backed away from him, into the store. "I don't want a comic! What I want is to ask about the room I was told you're renting out."

The boy with the dark hair stopped trying to force her out and the one with the headband grunted at her. "Well why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"I tried." Missy glared at him, and he glared right back.

"Fine. What's your name?" He walked by the counter and crouched down, disappearing from her line of sight.

"Missy." She replied, watching the dark haired one, who was watching her like he thought she might try to steal something.

"Your name is Missy?" The headband wearing one's face appeared over the countertop and his expression was as incredulous as his voice.

"Do you have a problem with that?" There was nothing wrong with the nickname that her parents had given her, not that she could see, and she wasn't about to let a preteen boy who dressed like Rambo mock her. But Rambo just grunted at her, and disappeared again. "What are your names?" She directed the question at the dark haired one, who raised one corner of his lip and snarled at her.

"Edgar." The one behind the counter said. His hand came up into sight and a finger was jabbed in the direction of the dark haired one. "Alan."

"Edgar and Alan…Frog?" Missy asked, and they grunted in unison. She snorted. "And you don't like my name?"

Edgar popped up from behind the counter with a clipboard in his hands. He pointed to the door. "If you don't want the room, you can go."

"No, I want the room." She insisted, though she shot an uncertain glance at the sleeping couple and back at the boys. "But maybe I should be speaking to your parents instead?"

Edgar glanced at the sleeping adults and grunted. "They're not the ones renting the room, so if you want the room, you need to talk to us. Do you want the room or not?"

"I already told you I do." Missy had trouble for a minute, believing what was happening to her. She was standing in a comic book store, eight hundred miles from her childhood home, renting a room from a couple of teenagers.

"We have to ask you a couple of questions first." Edgar told her. "See if you're the type of person we want to be renting a room to."

"Alright." Missy was becoming less confident by the second, but she accepted the chair Alan dragged out from the back of the store for her, and sat down.

"Question number one, how old are you?" Missy hesitated. It was an easy enough question, but did she really think that these boys would want to rent a room to someone who hadn't even graduated high school yet? Even more worrisome, if they suspected she was a runaway, would they call the police? "Nineteen." She lied, and the Frog brothers glanced at each other, and back at her.

"You don't look nineteen." Alan said, and Missy stared sharply at him.

"Yes, well, I can stand on my head and say the alphabet backwards too, but I bet you can't tell that just by looking at me."

"Whatever, next question." Edgar wrote something down on his clipboard, and when he lifted his eyes to look at her again, his expression was grave. "Are you now or have you ever been a vampire?" For a moment, Missy wasn't sure whether to laugh because she thought it was a joke, or laugh because she thought Edgar was being serious. Seconds passed and when neither Edgar or Alan's stony expressions wavered, she worried it was the latter.

"You're serious?" She asked, and they grunted.

"You think we'd joke about something like that? Answer the question." Missy wasn't sure how she felt about renting a room from people who might break in while she was sleeping and try to stick a stake through her. If her situation hadn't been so desperate, she might have told the Frog brothers that they were crazy and left to go find a bench to sleep on. The fact remained that her situation was desperate and getting more desperate by the second. Edgar and Alan might have been a little off, but how dangerous could a couple of preteens possibly be?

"…no." She said at last, and saw their bodies relax simultaneously. They glanced at each other, and back at her.

"Are you now or have you ever been a werewolf?" The brothers leaned in for her answer, and a little voice in her head told her that these boys had to be out of their minds. That or they'd read way, way too many comic books.

"No." She said, and again the brothers relaxed. "Are all the questions like this?"

"No." Edgar scribbled something down on his clipboard, and his eyes flickered back to her face. "Are you now or have you ever been a witch?" Missy had a sudden vision of what living with the Frogs might be like. It wasn't a pleasant one.

She answered them nonetheless, though she was beginning to find the questions less amusing and more annoying with every new one."No." What would be next, she wondered. Was she now or had she ever been involved with the swamp thing? Did she know Dr. Frankenstein personally? Did she by any chance happen to spend her evenings sacrificing goats and/or young virgins?

Edgar stopped writing and looked up at her again. From his expression, she might have thought he was interrogating a murderer, not interviewing a possible tenant. "Are you a smoker?"

Missy couldn't help herself. She laughed, and once she'd started, she found that it had become impossible to stop. She knew how hysterical she must have sounded, she could certainly see it in Edgar and Alan's faces. She hadn't slept properly in a day, she'd been too afraid the entire ride from Seattle to shut her eyes for long. She was being interviewed by a couple of teenage monster hunters, and they wanted to know if she smoked. The Frog brothers ran around the back of the counter and came back with a big wooden cross. She took one look at it, and lost all ability to breathe. She hid her face in her hands and doubled over, gasping as tears forced out by her laughter streamed down her face. "I'm sorry." She wiped her face with her hands, in turn spreading the moisture on her jeans and trying to compose her expression before the Frog brothers tried to throw holy water on her. "I didn't mean to laugh, I've had a really weird day, and it all just sort of hit me at once." Edgar nodded, but he didn't put the cross away. "And no, I'm not a smoker." Alan reached out for the clipboard that Edgar had dropped and conferred with his brother.

"Do you want to see the room?"

Missy leaned against the counter and watched Edgar and Alan slide the front doors closed and lock them. She helped them put the boxes of comics that they hadn't gotten the chance to put out on the floor yet in the back room, and when they were done, they led her to the side of the store, to a set of stairs she hadn't noticed before. "What about your parents?" She asked, stopping to look back at the couple who hadn't yet realized the sixties were dead…or that the store had closed around them while they were sleeping.

Edgar and Alan looked back at their parents and frowned. "We'll wake them up and chase them upstairs later. Come on." Edgar grabbed her elbow and pulled her behind him. The stairs led them to a short hallway with two doors on the right, and two on the left.

"Bathroom." Alan said, thumping his hand on the first closed doorway on the left. "Keep your girly crap in your room or it'll just get tossed. Don't put anything in the medicine cabinet, and don't touch our toothbrushes." Edgar tugged on her arm again, and Missy pulled it away from him, glaring.

"I can walk by myself, thank you." He glared back at her, but didn't say anything. He walked to the next door and put his hand on it.

"Our parents' room." Missy could almost hear the quotations around the word, she wondered how the boys managed to take care of themselves and the shop without somebody calling the police because their parents were MIA, mentally speaking. She figured it must be for the same reason that there were so many missing persons on the bulletin board. "This is our room." Edgar's voice brought her out of her mind again, and she realized that he had backpedaled, and was standing in front of the first door on the right hand side.

"You're not allowed in here." Alan said. "Ever."

"Under any circumstances, are we clear?" Edgar moved to stand beside his brother, and they glared at her in tandem.

Missy glanced at their doorway, and back at them. Like she wanted to barge in and catch them looking at nudie magazines, anyway. Though it was probably more likely that she'd catch them carving stakes than looking at porn. "Crystal."

The last door was hers, then. Well, if the Frogs weren't too suspicious of her, and as long as they weren't planning on charging her a fortune for it. Edgar turned the knob and pushed the door in, gesturing with one hand for her to walk past him. He flipped a switch on the wall by the door as they followed her in, bathing the insides in artificial light.

The room was small, smaller than hers in Seattle had been. The bed too, was small, and the coverlet that looked like a teenage boy had made it, was covered in a thin layer of dust. No one had touched the room in a long time, she realized. She smacked the bedspread with her hand and a cloud of dust rose into the air. As she coughed, she decided that she wouldn't be sleeping on it until she'd had a chance to beat the dust bunnies out of it. There was a wooden armoire, empty, against one wall. A small table beside the bed with a lamp on it, and against the right wall was a tiny bookshelf, also empty. The last thing in the room was a closed door, a couple of feet from the bookshelf. "Closet?" She asked, nodding at the door.

"No, leads to our room." Edgar explained, though she couldn't see the reason behind the door. "It's locked on our side, so don't try sneaking into our room that way, got it?"

"Got it." She set her bag down on the bed and swiveled to face the Frogs. "So, how much?"

The brothers did their huddling thing again, turning their backs to her and leaning their heads together. Every now and then they would glance in her direction. It was beginning to make her nervous. When at last they seemed to reach a decision, they turned to face her again. "One hundred."

"A month?" She asked, her eyes wide. They nodded. "You're serious?" She asked, though she had a feeling the Frog brothers were always serious.

"You want us to charge you more?" Edgar grunted, and she shook her head fast.

"No, no, no, it's just. I was expecting a lot more, this is my first time renting anything from someone."

"Yeah, well, this is our first time renting anything to anybody. One hundred dollars covers your share of the bills, and so long as you agree to help us out down in the shop when we need you, the place is yours." She knew there had to be a catch, but working in a comic book store in exchange for a cheap place to live didn't sound so bad. Even if Edgar and Alan were a little crazy.

"It's a deal." She held out her hand and Edgar took it first, shook it hard, and let her go.

"We'll let you get settled in." Edgar tapped his brother on the shoulder, and the two of them left, closing the door behind them.

Missy took a careful look around the room after they'd gone, and found that it was hard to see the dusty bed and empty dresser as her home, even if the tiny room was it now. She unbuckled her book bag and upended it, thinking that if she got her things put away, it might help the reality of things sink in. She carried her map over to the bookshelf with her frayed and worn copy of Wilde's Dorian Gray and set them both down on the top shelf. She wouldn't need the map anymore, she realized, but she was reluctant to part with it nonetheless. She supposed she was being silly and sentimental.

Her clothes followed, folded or hung in the dresser, and she lamented the fact that she'd chosen such a sunny place for her new home, and brought nothing suitable. A pair of scissors would remedy that, no problem, at least when it came to her jean pants. She'd figure something out for the rest of her wardrobe.

Her money she hid between the pages of Gray, though she doubted the Frog brothers would bother trying to steal it.

The last thing to leave her bag was a silver framed picture of her parents. The same picture, albeit a smaller print, as the one she wore around her neck. It had been the only picture of her father together with her mother than Renee had allowed in the house, partly because of the fit Missy had pitched when she tried to get rid of it. She had an irrational attachment to the picture, her parents on their wedding day. Mostly, she realized, because beneath her mother's white gown, in her belly, was a baby. A baby Missy. It was too early in her mother's pregnancy for her to be showing, but knowing that she was there on that day with them, that she might be the reason her parents were looking at each other the way they were when the picture was taken, it made all the bad years seem worth it. She didn't realize she was crying until moisture blossomed on the glass in her hands. There was a quiet knock on her door, and she made sure her eyes were dry before she tried speaking. She was surprised when her voice didn't shake. "Come in." The door opened a crack, and Edgar stuck his head in.

"All unpacked?" She nodded. "We got something for you." He came a little farther into the room, and she noticed that Alan was with him. The darker haired Frog brother pulled something from behind his back. It was a stake. One end was sharpened into a point, the other looked like it had once been the leg of a table.

"Here." He dropped the stake into her lap, and she felt the bed shift beneath her as Edgar crawled onto it behind her. A loud, sharp sound made her turn her head, and she discovered that Edgar was standing, hammering a nail through a cross into her wall. "You can't be too careful in Santa Carla." Alan was explaining, and she was sure her jaw must have been brushing the floor. "Keep that under your pillow." He took the stake from her limp hands and slid it behind her, underneath where her head would lay at night. Alan was talking, still, but she wasn't hearing him. She was staring at the picture on the bed beside her. Her parents' smiling faces stared back, and it was hard not to miss them. She wished things were different, but no amount of wishing was going to change things, she knew that. All she could do was change how she looked at things. Her mother was gone, her father was gone, and she was alone in a strange town, more alone than she'd ever been in her life, with a strange boy nailing a cross to the wall above her bed.

Edgar finished with the cross and jumped down from the bed to join his brother. "There, that should make the bloodsuckers think twice." Missy's eyes strayed from the ominous symbol on her wall, to Edgar's stern face.

"Thank you." She said, and Edgar just shrugged.

"We just don't want you coming home one night and slaughtering us in our sleep."

"I'll try to control myself." Missy said, only half as serious as Edgar and Alan looked.

"The store closes at twelve thirty every night, be in before one or you'll get locked out, okay?" She nodded and they walked to the door again. "Oh, and Missy?"

"Yes?" She said, the weariness that she had been fighting off beginning to set in. Edgar had one hand on her door, the other on the frame. They were watching her again, and as the door creaked shut, Edgar and Alan's voices floated across the room, the last thing she heard before the door closing.

"Welcome to Santa Carla."

Thank you for reading.