Chapter 25: Flusher Tales

A/N: Well here comes another F.T. won't it be interesting? Anyway in this chapter Caroline rants about her job as a back-up Flusher.

Caroline sits curled up on a bench across from the wall, glaring at the spiritual septic tank as if it were about to get up and attack. "What's wrong Caroline?" one of the voices calmly asks. The murderess glances over at the dog sized flea next to her. He is dangling his legs over the side of the bench as he looks at her with the most worried face a flea can manage.

"I'm not quite sure, the wall, feels weird...I don't know how to describe it" She says as she places her feet on the floor. "Well that's no surprise! Waste-locks aren't supposed to know what they are for a reason! They start to spend too much time lamenting about shit and not enough time maintaining the seal!" a cloaked figment shouts from a nearby bench.

"You're a fucking liar Mort! I know what I am and I always maintain that fucking seal!" she jumps up and puts her face excruciatingly close to the figment. "And besides I have memories from each of you guys about Flushers that figured out what they were after a while" she pulls away from the figment and walks down the stairs, the two figments following close behind.

They wander, almost in silence through the labyrinthine thing of a basement; they pass numerous rooms, some empty, others not so much. "Hey bitch! Why don't you come in here and face me!" Caroline turns to the door and merely slammed it on the rude persons face; the only sounds that make it through were some muffled expletives. "Hey why didn't you kill that guy?" Mort asks, frustrated that he was deprived of violence.

"I've got several coats on the wall, it can wait" she told the irate creature as she trudged down a flight of stairs. "Wait? Wait until what! Tell me!" the creature demands as he bounds after the Flusher. "Until I figure out exactly why the wall feels weird, I'm not abandoning my duties, I just want some answers" she explains as she looks at the pair suspiciously. "You know we can't tell you, you have to figure it out on your own" the flea figment explains, as they all trudge down a flight of stairs.

"I know it just seems to help if I am looking at one of my figments" she said before leaping down the last few steps. "It's been what? Eight months since I took over? It just seems a little more active than it should be" she questions air as she neatly dances around a puddle of fear-urine released by one of her captives. "Maybe there's a war going on" Mort suggests, as if trying to break this train of thought.

"No there isn't, I checked no wars, no international pissing matches" her lament continues as she walks through the hallways. "Although some of the news stories have been getting quite chaotic recently" she rests against the frame of a door way while thinking about all of the weird stories, and then a few in particular stood out all centered on one city. "That Flusher, in Vasquez City, he stopped killing…he's nowhere near his lock is he?" she turns towards her figments, the flea nods in approval, Mort then slaps the back of his comrades head.

"Okay so he was let go for some reason, but he should have been replaced immediately" she continues to ponder as she restarts her trek through her house. "Well then, that would mean that the candidate beat the first recruitment attempt…" she trails off as she leaps over the hand rail of a stairway and lands on the lower flight. "and without the other flusher there as a link to The System, there's no way the figment could garner enough strength to try again" she concluded as she looked in to a room filled with restrained people.

"I absolutely love this whole 'forbidden knowledge' thing I've got going on" she said to no one in particular as she walked through the room. The two figments followed shortly after, the occupants of the room simply stared at them, sure that they were hallucinating from hunger. "That still doesn't explain the walls weirdness" Caroline mumbled to herself after going through some head-exploding spirit-math.

"Which could only mean he was an unusually efficient flusher, right?" she asked while pointing to the two figments. "Nope! Not at all! Every flusher is exactly the same in efficiency!" Mort attempted to wave off the suggestion while the flea figment gave what could be considered a thumbs up behind his back. Mort quickly turned and found Pustulio giving this gesture. "Why you little traitor!" Mort screeched before tackling the flea and attempting to throttle him.

Satisfied with this sort of answer, Caroline ignored the two brawling figments and continued on her trek through the basement. "Hey psycho bitch!" She had wandered through several levels before the call came out from a room on her left. "Yeah you heard me!" the speaker was a drug dealer she had dragged home about a week ago. "When my posse realizes where I am they are gonna stomp yo face!" the man exclaimed as he struggled against his restraints.

"They're never going to find you" she told him as she uncoiled some extension cords and plugged them into the wall socket. "Oh please! How hard is it gonna be for them to just follow you here!" he said as he began to struggle a bit more. "Excruciatingly hard, I have been followed by cops, federal agents, P.I.'s, even a creepy ass stalker or two, they all ended up lost or dead" she explained as she messed with the oversized alligator clips at the ends of the cords, emitting a few sparks as she approached the man.

The man's horrified screams echoed through the unnatural subbasement, striking fear into those who still lived.

Words: 955

777th: on

A/N: Well here is a nice little intermission, a lot of weird stuff is happening is it not?