A while back, I posted a story called Oh, No, Zombies! that utalized my OCs Alex and Jessy from Reeling in the Years. I originally wrote it as a standalone story not connected to The Loud House beyond some character similarities. I wrote two sequels and wanted to try and publish them as original stories. I eventually decided to turn them into LH fanfics, which I'll admit, was not hard at all.

At least for the first story.

I've been wanting to post this one for a while but I haven't had the time to change the characters' last names, the name and location of the town (in the original stories, it's a place in Virginia called Pickett's Meade), and other little things. I decided fuck it, I'll post this one as is. Alex and Jessy's last names are Warner, Lincoln is, I think, Kevin, and there are some other little differences. I'm sure you guys are smart enough to figure out what's what. You're my fans, after all, and Flagg fans are the most intelligent, astute, and discriminating subset of fans in the whole LH sphere.

I hope you guys like it. I haven't had the time to post my own stuff, what with working on commissions, but I do have a lot of stuff saved up that isn't related to the LH, so if you're really jonesing for some pure, old school Flagg, I might post those at some point.

On the blustery morning of January 25, John Carver guided his 1988 Chevy Celebrity along an icy stretch of highway flanked by towering trees. It rained the night before and froze over before dawn, turning the road into a sheet of glass; the Chevy's tires tried to slide, and he had to fight the wheel to keep from skidding into a ditch.

The car was new, or new-to-him; he bought it from a fat man who swore it was only driven by a little old lady to church. Its maroon paint was rusted and flecking in spots, the power windows no longer powered, and the engine knocked. Carver didn't mind, though he wished he sprang the extra one hundred bucks for snow tires.

He hit a pothole, and the frame jumped, his head smacking roughly against the ceiling. Shoved behind the wheel like a sausage in a casing, the horn in danger of blaring if he exhaled too deeply, he felt like a babe in the womb.

Fitting, since this was the day of his rebirth. No longer would he be plain ol' John Carver, tall and gaunt with curly, sand colored hair, dull blue eyes, and a bank account 200 dollars in the negative. Oh, no. Today, he would become a king. No...no, a god. A cruel, iron-fisted god who squashed dissent the moment it arose, who threw his weight around with prejudice - the world would be his bride, and he the most abusive husband on record, shockingly abusive, so abusive people would beg for Hitler. Please, Adolf, save us! Deliver us from this incomprehensible madman who ruleth over us! He'd come into his subjects' homes and slap their wives around in front of them; punk their kids; kick their pets; wipe his ass on their clothing; rifle through their things without putting them back; he'd make internet connection infuriatingly slow; he'd even ban smart phones and make everyone go back to using flip phones.

Ahh, he could see himself now: Clad in a fur lined cape, wearing a crown, beating the shit out of people with a golden specter. Take that, and that, and that. He'd make Trump his bitch, Clinton his ho, and AOC his senorita. He'd take the Pope's ring away; stroll ass naked into Mecca and rub his groin on everything he passed like a cat marking its territory.

Sigh.

He couldn't wait.

He just needed to find that book first.

The highway graded gently to the left and then down. The trees fell away, and a small town appeared in the distance, its skyline defined by a white water tower and three church steeples jutting into the cobalt sky like pointing fingers. Narrow streets lined with old houses and trees spread out from downtown, where quaint shops kept watch over slanted parking spaces. Patches of snow melted in the warmish sun, and -

Aw, goddamn it.

A river.

Carver rolled his eyes, slowed, and pulled to the gravel shoulder. A farm truck with wooden slats enclosing the bed puttered by, and Carver tightened his grip on the wheel. "Alexa," he said with strained patience, "you didn't tell me there was a river."

"You didn't ask," the device in his dash replied. Smugly.

Technology. What a burden! "A roadmap would have told me," he grumbled.

"Then buy a roadmap if you want one so bad," Alexa snapped.

"I will."

"Good."

Waiting for another truck to pass, Carver pulled a cautious U-turn and went back the way he came. He took a left on S.R. 12, then a right on 210. Fifteen minutes later, he approached Pickett's Meade from the west. He glanced at the clock on the dash and threw his head back.

11:45 am.

He parked in front of the sign, white on green (PICKETT'S MEADE, POPULATION 4,039). How out of date was that figure? Populations fluxuate, especially in towns like this, why bother stamping a number on a sign when one birth or death would render it obsolete? And who in the name of God cared anyway? Census takers? Tax collectors? The Count from Sesame Street?

11:49.

Carver groaned in frustration and threw his head back. This is retarded, he thought. He could have sworn he left at the exact right time; in fact, he should be late because of the detour. "Alexa," he said, "play Bach."

"Playing Bachman-Turner Overdrive."

"No, I said -"

Loud rock music blared from the speakers. "Takin' care of business!"

Carver's face fell into a bitter glower. "You do this on purpose, don't you?"

The music lowered. "I'm sorry," Alexa said, "I didn't get that."

"Indeed."

Resigned to his fate, Carver listened to Bachman-Turner Overdrive and watched the clock, his impatience growing until he seethed like a common 4channer. Time was a fleeting thing, like sand slipping through his fingers, but now it seemed to drag. He drummed his fingers on the wheel, squirmed in his seat, and glared at the hateful sign guarding the town of Pickett's Meade. He had adjusted to his lot in life as well as any man could, but there were things that vexed him even now, and this was one of them.

How absurd to be governed by laws that defy logic. The world, he had come to know, was a machine composed of a million well oiled parts working in blessed syncronisity. Like any other machine, you can take it apart, study it, and learn how it works. Not this, though, nor the many unexplainable rites and customs by which he was bound. He was a man of taste and refinement, and balked at the notion of remaining ignorant of something. But he still did not know why he had to wait until noon or midnight to enter a village with a population under six thousand. He could waltz into a bigger town any time he wanted, but not hamlets like this. Odd.

When the clock struck twelve, he heaved a sigh, put the car in drive, and pulled onto the blacktop.

Up close, the town was just as quaint as it had been from afar. Most of the houses facing the streets were fifty to a hundred years old, and the storefronts on Main harkened back to a simpler time.

Carver had always perfered small towns. They were quieter than big cities, less peopled. People, he firmly believed, were a scourge and should be avoided at all costs; they were lazy, entitled, self-centered, and wore their stupidity as a badge of honor (look at me, I'm retarded!). They were also hateful and bigoted creatures who, not that long ago, burned his kinfolk at the stake while committing atrocities far, far greater. That was why he had a hard-on for abusing them once he ascended to his rightful place as king of the universe. They thought Trump was bad, oh, but they'd see. He'd deport everyone, even the Indians. You came here on a landbridge from Asia two thousand short years ago, youre not native at all, shut up.

There was a hotel downtown, between a theater with an ornate marquee and a cafe, but Carver passed it by; he checked the prices on TripAdvisor and nearly deficated; fifty dollars for a single night? That's robbery! He opted instead for...other accomidations.

Shortly, he pulled into the parking lot of Pickett's Meade's single motor court, a delapidated L-shaped corpse of a building with grimy cinderblock walls, rusting iron supports, and an open breezeway running before the rooms that was made even breezier by all the cracks in the concrete. Carver beat back a rush of disugst as he parked in front of the office. Once upon a time, he was a man of taste and wealth, but his fortune had slowly dwinded to the point that now, even his debt was up to its eyeballs in debt. He lost his home, his car, and he was forced to sell off his personal belongings for quick cash. Imagine that, a man of his refinement reduced to destitution! He was too proud to steal from his victims; every time he tried, he felt two inches tall. Him...scrounging for pocket change at the bottom of someone's purse. How demeaning!

But that was the past. By the end of the day, he would rule from a solid gold throne, and literally every piece of currency on earth would belong to him. He would grace the front of all the magazines, his face would be on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC 24 hours a day - finally, after so long existing in the shadows, all eyes would be on him.

Cutting the engine, Carver flung open the door and extracted himself from the car, hitting the horn with his elbow and stumbling on the slick pavement as he did. The sun was pleasent, but the air bitter. He pulled his coat closed at the throat and went to the office door. He reached out to open it, but an exctciating blast of pain clenched his stomach, and he hissed through his teeth.

Goddamn it.

Balling his hand, he knocked. Beyond, a counter with a plexiglass window separated the public from the inner office. A man in a turban appeared and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He motioned for Carver to enter, but that wasn't enough.

Carver nodded at the door as though it were the problem and not he, and the man came around. He pulled it open and looked down at the handle in bemusment, as though expecting it to not function properly. "I guess I did something wrong," Carver said with a strained smile, "may I come in?"

"Yes," the Indian said briskly and stepped aside.

Nodding his thanks, Carver went up to the counter and waited for the Indian to take his place at the register. "I'd like a room, please. Just for tonight."

"Single or double?"

"Single."

The Indian took his money and license plate number, then handed him a key. Carver took it, shoved it into his coat pocket, and went back outside. He moved the car to a slot in front of his room, then got out. Later, after nightfall, he would go after the book. He didn't trust himself to now - he was too weak.

Grabbing his sole bag from the back seat, he carried it up to the door, fished his key out, and unlocked it. A single bed, neatly made, faced a television set on a dresser, a nightstand to one side. A table a chair set occupied a space by the window, and a door on the left lead into the bathroom; the dank air stank of mold, mildew, and unwashed sheets.

As expected.

He tossed the bag onto the floor, locked the handle, and dropped onto the foot of the bed. Tonight, he thought.

Tonight.

Jessica Danielle Warner sat despondednly at the desk beneath her bedroom window, her chin resting in one upturned palm and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. White winter sunlight caressed her delicate features and dappled her hazel eyes, making them sparkle like crystalline mountain lakes. Her auburn hair was held back in a ponytail that hung limp aganst her neck like wilted flowers. She crossed her legs at the knee, and one foot jittered restively, beating an anxous tempo.

She'd been sitting here since she and Alex got home from school, her math book open before and notes fanned out next to it, but in that time she had worked out only three equations Three! That was a rate of roughly one every ten minutes. On a normal day, she'd be done by now and reading a book or writing a poem. This was no normal day, however.

Her chest knotted and her cheeks burned with dread. She drew a deep, shaky breath and glanced absently down at the page.

Jess was an honor roll student and had been for as long as she could remember. She was always on time (if not early) and only missed days if she had a doctor's appointment or was sick. She'd never been in trouble, had never seen the inside of the principal's office, and never skipped, goofed off, or slept in class; she followed the rules, raised her hand, was polite and respectful to everyone; she put her nose to the grindstone and did what was required of her...and then some.

Unlike a lot of her classmates at Pickett's Meade High, she liked school, and one day she was going to be a teacher herself.

There was only one aspect of school she didn't like and -

Actually, there were several.

She didn't like showering in the locker room after gym class. Being exposed and vulnerable around the other girls made her very nervous. None of them ever made fun of her body or anything, but she didn't like it anyway, and when she did it, she did her best to cover her most important parts, blushing and sure that somewhere, a horny group of boys was watching her through a hole in the wall, snickering at her, making crude comments about her breasts, judging her harshly against the prettier girls, taking pictures and posting them online for all the world to see...

Shudder.

Another thing she didn't like was gym itself. She, uh, she wasn't much of an althete, and it showed. She fell over a lot, tripped over her own feet, and could only catch balls with her face, her hands being totally useless. She couldn't run very fast, her balance wasn't the greatest, and her coordination...well, her coordination didn't really "exist" per se. She wasn't clumsy in general, but the moment you put her in a pair of gym shorts and tossed her a ball, things went kind of downhill.

The thing she hated most about school, the thing that really kept her up at night, the thing that had her twisted in knots right this very second was…

Oral presentations.

Standing in front of the class with a paper clutched in her hand, twenty sets of eyes watching her, picking her apart, seeing and examining every flaw and imperfection...ugh, she'd rather Alex wake the dead again.

Large groups of people put Jess on edge, and doing anything to draw their attention sent pangs of terror racing through her stomach. In public, she was fidgety and uncomfortable, hyperaware of every move she made and every breath she took. If she made the slightest misstep - say, knocking over her milk at lunch - her face blazed with crimson shame, and she spent the rest of the day with her head down like a scolded dog. Don't worry about it, Alex said once with a hand wave, no one cares about you.

Gee.

Thanks.

I can always count on you.

That's not how she meant it, of course, but sometimes she kind of wondered. Her uncle Kevin and aunt Maria took her in after her parents died in a car crash when she was little and treated her just like she was their natural daughter. She wasn't their daughter, though, and in her darker moments, she worried herself sick that she they didn't really love her, and that she was a burden.

Thinking that only made her feel guilty because they had never done anything to deserve her suspicion. They loved and cared for her the same way they did Alex - doubting them was wrong, ungrateful, and selfish.

But Jess couldn't help it.

She was kind of a mess.

Back to the topic at hand: Oral presentations, Today in English, Mrs. Humboldt asked each student to write a poem "from the heart" and then read it aloud in front of the class next Monday. As soon as those words filteed through Jess's brain, her heart jumped off its track and a cold, cold wind gusted in her soul. A-Aloud? In front of the CLASS?

Her chest crushed and for the first time in almost six months, she began to hyperventilate. She saw a sea of faces in her mind, critical eyes staring, hateful mouths curled in mocking delight, giggles, judging, laughing, stuttering, blushing, sweating, BOMBING, FIRE, AHHHHHHHH.

Presently, she took a calming breath and held it until her lungs bust, then let it out again, a technique the school counciler showed her in sixth grade. When things get bad, he said, deny your brain oxgyn. That struck her as dubious advice, at best, but it worked. Her chest unclinched, her stomach settled, and her ears lightly rang. Alright, you can do this, Jess, just imagine them in their underwear or something.

She called up an image of her English class, twenty plus kids arrayed in front of her, and her mind, ever the overachiever, went one step further.

And stripped them entirely.

Ahhhh, floppy bits everywhere!

Okay, that wasn't going to work. Maybe…

She sighed. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't beg off and play sick that day, she had a record to uphold.

That left her no choice but to suck it up and power through.

But how? That was the hot topic here.

She was still trying to figure out how to cope when Alex came in from the hall, footsteps heavy. She let out a belch, scratched her butt, and dropped onto her bed. "I got a good book," she said, "an awesome playlist, and a carbonated beverage. What else could a girl ask for?"

"Do you really have to narrate everything you do?" Jess asked shortly.

"Not to be interrogated by her sister, perhaps," Alex continued, "but life can't be perfect. How should she respond? With a joke? An insult? Faux hurt for being judged for being herself?"

That last remark hit Jessy like a brisk slap. Wasn't she herself just worrying about being judged? "I'm sorry," she said heavily, "I'm just...stressing out." She glanced apologetically over her shoulder; Alex sat against her headboard with her knees up and a big honking doorstopper of a book in her hands. Jessy glimpsed the name STEPHEN KING on the cover.

Figures.

Without looking away from her, Alex snapped the book closed and sat it aside. "It was at that moment that Alex realized her little sister needed her."

Jessy hung her head. Alex had been doing this - commenting on her every move, thought, and action - for almost a week; they watched a documentary and she was enraptured by Morgan Freeman's smooth and admittedly comforting delivery. Jessy liked listening to him talk too...she just wished Alex didn't try to copy him.

It got annoying.

Fast.

Alex got up, came over, and half sat on the desk, arms folding. "What's up, Jess-a-less?"

Frowning at her book, Jessy said, "I have to write a poem for Engish class."

Alex blinked in susprise. 'That's all? You write poems all the time. You're like -"

"And read it in front of the class."

Understanding dawned in Alex's eyes. "Ohhh. Yeah. I see your problem."

Being her older sister (even if they were only cousins by blood). Alex was well aware of Jessy's battles with anxiety.

Propping her elbows on the desk, Jessy held her face in her hands. "I don't know what to do."

"Easy," Alex said, "play hooky that day."

Jessy sighed. "I can't. I -"

"Then beg the teacher to let you do extra credit work to make up for it."

Jessy opened her mouth to argue, but you know? That actually wasn't a bad idea. She could avoid potentially embarrassing herself in front of the entire class and maintain her sterling academic record.

That felt kind of underhanded, though. She said as much, and Alex waved her off. "In the words of the immortal Mrs. Puff: That's how extra credit's supposed to feel."

Well...maybe. There's nothing wrong with exploiting a loophole, is there? As long as something isn't expressly against the rules, it's okay, right?

"I'll have to think on that," she said.

Alex lifted one hand, palm facing up. "There's nothing to think about. Fake sick, stay home, watch some horror movies, then at the end of the week, do a book report or something. Easy peasy Jessy squeezy."

"I'll think about it," Jessy repeated.

And think she did: While Alex lost herself in the chambers of her book (Watch out, Mother Abigail, weasels!), she gazed out the window, weighing the pros and cons of lying to get out of having to give her presentation. At dinner, she pushed her food around her plate and took sporadic bites, the meat and carrots tasteless in her mouth. "Jess?" Auntie Maria asked, and Jessy whipped her head up, startled.

"I said...how was your day?"

"Good," Jessy said with an exaggerated nod. The harder-slash-louder you do something, the more convincing it is. "Yours?"

"Long," she replied. Auntie Maria taught 12th grade math. Jessy occasionally saw her in the halls or in the cafeteria. She made it a point to go up to her and say hi if she wasn't busy. Alex, on the other hand, disappeared faster than a Democrat's commitment to the black community after election season. She cramps my style, Alex said once, so I make myself scarce when she shows up. "I broke up a fight."

Alex and Uncle Kevin both perked up. "Fight?" he asked. A tall, rail thin man with graying hair and salt-and-pepper stubble, Uncle Kevin fought in the Iraq War. Now he owned a restaurant and bemoaned the lack of "action" he saw on a daily basis.

Come to think of it, he hadn't done that since Halloween, when Alex read from a cursed spellbook and brought the dead back to life. He saw plenty of action that day.

"It wasn't as much a fight as it was two girls slapping in the general direction of each other," Auntie Maria said and stabbed a piece of potato with her fork. "I got in between them and said knock it off righ now or I'm gonna beat you both up."

Jessy seriously doubted that. Auntie Maria could be a lot like Alex at home - fun and playful, though not as annoying - but at school she was brisk and professional.

"That didn't really happen," Uncle Kevin said, "did it?"

Auntie Maria shook her head. "No, it did not," she admitted, "I just threatened to send them to the principal's office."

Across the table, Alex scrunched her lips to the side. "I'd rather take the beatdown. It's quicker."

When dinner was done, Jessy and Alex did the dishes, Jessy washing and Alex drying. Beyond the window above the sink, the last strands of the winter sun filtered out of the sky, and heavy purple twilight gathered in the backyard. A skunk waddled out from behind the shed, stopped, and sniffed the ground, its furry tail swishing dangerously back and forth. Even though she was a good fifty feet away and protected by glass, plaster, siding, and concrete, Jessy's heart twinged with fear. She had never been sprayed by a skunk, but from what she heard, the smell lingered on you forever unless you bathed in cold tomato soup, and could probably cut through any substance on earth. With spray that powerful, the house offered no protection whatsoever.

"So," Alex said, :you gonna do it?"

Jessy blinked, confused. "Huh? Do what?"

"Lie to -" she cut herself off and looked suspiciously over her shoulder for eavesdroppers. "What we talked about."

For a moment, Jessy had no idea what her sister was talking about, then it hit her. "I don't know," she sighed and dug a plate from the water. Soap suds sluced down her forearm and collected at her elbow. She shook them away and picked up the sponge. "I'm thinking yes, but I feel kind of guilty still."

Instead of blowing a raspberry and dismissing her with a wave, as Jessy expected, Alex nodded solmely. "Look, I get it, but here's the thing, Jess: You can't always go by the book. Sometimes you need to go off the beaten track in life. Every profession has, like, standards and practices, but the people on the ground don't always follow them because being in the trenches, they come up with better ways of doing things. Just like us."

Jessy sucked her lps into her mouth and considered Alex's words. She was right about workters often devising superior methods to the ones enshrined in their employee handbooks - there is more than one way to skin a cat, the saying goes. Even so, rules and laws exist for a reason and going outside of them made Jessy antsy. She prided herself on being honest, and this didn't feel honest to her.

"I don;t know," she said again, "I-I'll think about it."

She offered a resolute nod.

She would think about it.

She would think about it a lot.