Chapter 2: Loss

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun, Twin Peaks, or the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. I just read and watch too much.

Meryl's POV

October 29 - 8:03 AM

All I wanted was to have a nice, quiet Sunday; first go to the store, then get a new key for the jeep, then come home and have a lot of quality time with my husband.

Was that so much to ask?

Instead, said husband got hypnotized, I almost got devoured and my house got nearly destroyed - all by a refugee from an H.R Giger painting.

And to top it all off, there's a smirking, pasty, bearded man who knows who we really are standing in the doorway to what used to be our kitchen.

Lucky me.

"I must say, Mr. Stampede," the mystery man says, "your reputation is well-earned. Truly, only a Humanoid Typhoon can be attacked by a cthonian and survive."

"A what-ian?"

"Cthonian. Native of the planet, very fast digger, proficient in mental abilities, and forebears of your pedestrian sandworms."

Pedestr-?

All right. That tears it.

 "Listen, buddy, who the hell are you and WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!!!"

He chuckles. "Just call me Mike, Ms. Stryfe. As for the reasons behind my presence…let's just say, your husband and I have much in common."

"Prove it."

"Very well."

He steps out of the doorway, and for the first time I see him fully.

He's missing his right arm.

O-kay, so that's kind of creepy…but it still doesn't prove anything.

"I suppose next you're going to tell me that a psychopath with mental powers and weird hair took it."

"As a matter of fact, that is exactly what happened."

 "Bullshit!"

"Meryl, yeesh," Vash meekly interjects, "calm down. You don't have to shout."

"I'M NOT SHOUTING!!!"

"Okayhoneywhateveryousay."

Grrr….

"Listen, 'Mike', I don't know who you are or where you came from but unless you tell us what the HELL you're doing here or WHY - "

"EEEEYYYYYAAAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!"

"VASH!"

Almost instantly he stops screaming and lays crumpled on the floor, still clutching his head, gasping.

"Knives…" he whispers.

"What?"

 His head snaps up and faces me, and his eyes are wild and terrified.

"Meryl, we have to get to Knives! He just contacted me! We have to get there before it's too late!"

"Too late for what? Vash, what's going on?! What about Milly?!"

"I don't know! Load your gun! We gotta go!"

I grab my derringer, run back to the closet, reload, and join Vash, who's already running towards the jeep. Just as we drive off I turn around and look at our house. From the outside it looks normal, like nothing happened.

Mike is standing there too.

He's smiling.

8: 12 AM

Vash had no lasting side-effects of his and his brother's gunfight, but then again, he didn't get shot in any vital places. Knives, on the other hand, apparently got a bullet somewhere in his spinal area. About a month after he woke up, Knives discovered he had become an epileptic. He would have seizures almost on a regular basis, but his damn pride kept him from letting any of us help. Somehow, Milly grew on him and he allowed her to take care of him. Now, I don't know what Ms. Optimism did, but after only four days in her care, his seizures all but stopped.

Apparently her endlessly sunny disposition had an even bigger effect on him: his rage and fury and bloodlust faded down to mild annoyance - or so he let on. I still didn't trust him, but Vash had determined his bother mentally fit and bought him a small house outside of LR. Milly went with him, saying she'd stay with him for a year or so and see if he had any more episodes.

It's been about six months, and things have been quiet. His seizures are just twitches, and he hasn't gone on any genocidal rampages.

I still don't trust him.

…wait. Why did I just go over that? I know it all, and it's not like I'm telling anybody.

…am I?

It's weird, it feels like there's something in my head, creeping silently through my memory…but there isn't. There can't be, can there. No. No, there isn't. I'm just nervous is all. Yeah, that's it. Just nerves.

The feeling of the jeep braking snaps me out of my reverie and I look at my watch. We've been traveling for…ten minutes? Felt a lot shorter.

"That's strange. Doesn't look like anything happened, Meryl."

"Don't let that fool you."

He nods.

We get out of the jeep and move towards the house. Vash is right. Nothing looks out of place. Not even the little garden Knives was cultivating. Everything seems A-OK.

But I know better than that.

Very slowly and cautiously we walk up to the door. Vash takes out his spare key, puts it in the lock, and turns it, the takes it out with a puzzled expression.

"It's already unlocked."

Something's amiss, all right: Knives always locks the door. Even if he's just going out to check the mail.

We look at each other, nod, and very slowly open the door and peek in.

Too dark to see anything. Lights are off and the curtains are drawn. Even the light from the door is too thin to leave a mark.

We push the door open, walk in, turn on the lights, and freeze.

The place is torn up more than ours, but not in the same way. Granted, ours looked like someone had taken a cannon to the walls, but this is…I don't know…scorched. Everything looks like it's been napalmed. All the walls have charred holes in them, like giant cigarette burns. The furniture is razed to cinders, and the reek of burning wood and molten steel hangs in the air. There's another scent, though, underlying it. A phantom scent, just strong enough to be noticed but not enough to stand out. It's vaguely familiar, but what it is, exactly, I can't quite…

"Something's wrong, Meryl. I can't sense Knives."

"You can't?"

"Not even a bit. Not even his spectral trail. He only does that when he's hiding."

"Hiding? Do you think…do you think he did this?"

"No, he sent me a distress call. If he had done this, he wouldn't have even thought about me."

            "That is probably tr-"

            It happens so fast I can't even think, much less react. All I can do is stand there as it burns itself in my eyes like a series of photographs.

Click…

Something runs past me.

Click…

It grabs Vash.

Click…

It pins him to the wall.

Click…

I finally move.

Click…

Something hard and fast hits me in the face.

Click…

I hit the wall on the other side of the room.

Click…

I see the figure.

It's Knives.

I get up and prepare to leap at a moment's notice, but Knives isn't doing anything.

He's just staring at Vash. At his eyes.

Then he pulls Vash off the wall, dusts him off, and uncocks his gun.

An awkward hush hangs over the scorched room like a leaden blanket.

Finally Vash breaks the silence.

"Is there something you'd like to share with the class, Knives?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know?" I yell. "Don't know?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?! That doesn't mean anythi- Where's Milly?! And what the fuck happened to your house?!"

"Again, I'm not sure."

"Answer my questions!!"

"Meryl, for the love of God, if he doesn't know then he doesn't know."

"STOP DEFENDING HIM!"

"He hasn't done anything!"

"No," Knives mutters, turning to Vash, "but you have."

"What?!"

"Well, it wasn't you, but it looked like you."

"What did?"

"Whatever did all this."

"Wait a minute," I say, "All this was done by one person?"

"Yes, but I don't think it was a person."

"Goddamit, stop being so fucking elliptical!"

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS!!" he roars. "All I know is that it looked like Vash, but its eyes were white!"

"I believe a doppelganger paid you a visit, sir."

We wheel around and see Mike standing in the living room.

"How'd you get here so fast? You were still at our house half an hour ago."

"True. And as matter of fact, I'm there right now."

"That's not possible."

"Oh, I think you will find anything is possible, Mr. Stampede."

Knives cocks his gun.

"Vash, who the hell is this?"

"He says his name is Mike, but truth be told I have no idea who he is."

"Don't worry. You'll find out when the time is right."

"Alright," I growl, "enough of your metaphysical bullshit. What did you say did this?"

"A doppelganger. A double of a person, perfect in nearly every way. Save for the eyes, which are always blank. At any rate, why don't you tell us just what happened, Mr. Knives?"

"Think I will. I was eating breakfast when the doorbell rang. Milly went and got it, and Vash was standing there. He comes in, and acts like everything's normal. Only I couldn't sense him, so I know something is wrong. I get up, walk over to him, ask if something's the matter. He looks at me, says, 'If you haven't figured that one out yet, you're stupider than I thought!' He whips off his sunglasses, and I see his eyes. Milly screams, he grabs her, turns around, says 'time to begin the lesson' and generates a blast of flame that sends me flying across the room and into the bookshelf. I pass out, come to a minute later, see everything's burnt, and scour the house for Milly or the thing. About that time, I hear your jeep pull up, grab my gun, and hide in the hall closet. The rest you know."

"You're lying!" I shout. "That story makes no sense! How can ONE blast from the middle of the living room burn every room in the house an equal amount, but leave you unscathed?"

"Because it wasn't fire, Ms. Stryfe. It was acid. A special type, used by the cthonians to burn through the mantle of planets. Your brother-in law's plant physiology is immune to it, however."

Knives' head whips around, and for the first time ever, I see actual surprise in his eyes.

"How did you know I'm a -"

"Oh, I know much about you and your brother. Much more than either of you know."

All right, I have now officially Had Enough of This.

"Look, cut the All-Knowing Mr. Wizard bullshit and tell us what the hell is going on!"

"No."

…

Wha-

"Excuse me?!"

"No. If I told you, you would not believe me. You must first see for yourself."

"Okay," Vash says, "that sounds reasonable. How?"

"Go back to your house. Follow the tunnel to the end. You'll see what I'm talking about."

"How do we know you're not with those…things?"

"You don't. But frankly, if you want to see your friend Milly again, you have no choice but to trust me."

Damn. He's right.

Knives glances up suddenly.

"Wait…your house got attacked, too?"

"Yeah, but nowhere near as bad as this."

"Why do you get special treatment?"

Mike smiles, and heads for the door. He gets to the threshold and turns around.

"Favoritism," he says.

He leaves. I look out the door, but he's gone.

8:48 AM

Looking into the yawning chasm, an old poem I read in high school springs to mind:

We stand upon the brink of hell

The glut'nous maw of Death

And from out the fuming well

It's rotting, sulf'rous breath

Who wrote that? Eliot? Lovecraft? No, maybe it was - oh fuck all that, we gotta get on with this!

We all look at each other nervously. Don't know why. We're just going to go to the end of this tunnel, then come right back. Besides, it's only ten feet or so down, the a straight shot forward, so far as we can see. And even if we run into trouble, we're all armed to the teeth and we have the chainsaw.

Vash looks to Knives.

"After you."

"Why do I have to go first?"

"You're older."

"By three seconds!"

"The principle's the same!"

"How 'bout you go first, and I'll follow?"

"How do I know you won't just turn around and run?"

"You know me better than that. And even if I do, your woman would shoot me!"

"We're all going together at once!" I say.

"Fine by me," they say in unison.

Christ, but they creep me out sometimes.

We get in a line, one next to the other, and start down the tunnel.