Two weeks passed before Mickey contacted me again. While I was on the way to the Tunnels, an old man who looked like he hadn’t slept since he was a young man put his hand on my chest, said “We need you in Tennessee within the week,” and then shot himself in the head. Mickey’s idea of a self-destructing note, I guess.

Fuck. Is this really happening already?

We weren’t ready. Not even close. Mother Dora and the baldies were studying every day, but that took its toll on many of them. A lot of the magic required self-sacrifice, so practicing it left most of them with open wounds and broken bones. Gerald seemed to be really trying his best to heal them, but he was shit at it. Most of the time, he just administered basic first aid.

I turned around to go back home, talk to Caleb and Anita about what’s going to come next, and discuss where they should hide, but they were already in the van, coming down the road towards me. Anita drove up next to me and rolled down her window.

“Get in.”

I got in.

“We got a message from… Mickey,” she said. “We need to go to Tennessee as soon as possible.”

“No, I need to go to Tennessee as soon as possible. You guys need to get as fucking far from Tennessee as humanly possible. Sell this van and get some tickets to California, Hawaii, fucking China.”

“Like we’re just gonna let you have all the fun,” Caleb said from the passenger seat. He gave me a thumbs up.

“This isn’t a fucking movie,” I said. The smile was wiped from Caleb’s face. “If you guys come along, you’re going to die. You’ve seen what just one of these people is capable of. Imagine a hundred of them.”

“There are going to be regular people involved in this too, right?” Anita asked. “Not just superpowered freaks like you?”

“Well, yeah, but —”

“So there would be people there that we could fight?”

“No, there won’t be anyone there that an old lady and a fuckin’ ninth-grader could fight.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Guns work just as well for old ladies and ninth graders as they do for big, strong men.”

Maybe Anita did have superpowers — she could talk to someone and make them feel like their fucking head was going to explode.

“Plus,” she continued, “Caleb has been hiding something from us, haven’t you?”

The smile returned to Caleb’s face, but it was more devious this time. He stuck a hand into his pant’s pocket, and pulled out… I didn’t know what the fuck he pulled out.

It was jet black and looked like a reptile and an insect at the same time. It stood in the palm of his hand on two grasshopper-like legs and looked at me with beady little rat eyes. It had a thin, crooked tail that whipped back and forth, and a head like a snake’s that moved with an unsettling fluidity.

“Caleb, what in the fuck is that?” I asked politely.

“Can’t pronounce the name, but he’s what comes up from the ground when you kill a lizard, bury it, and chant the words on page seventy-eight of Codex Parvorum Daemonum. I call him Frederick.”

I grabbed it, hoping to crush it in my hands before it pulled any shit, but it slipped out of my hands like a buttered hot dog and sank its teeth into the top of my thigh. And holy shit — or unholy shit, I suppose — did the bite fucking burn. Everything from my kneecap to my ass cheek was on fire. The little fucker scurried back up into Caleb’s hand while I clutched my leg and yelled obscenities.

“Sorry,” Caleb said, “it should wear off soon. He wasn’t trying to kill you or anything. He’s the nicest one.” He rubbed the creature’s head with his index finger.

“The nicest one?” I said. “How many of these do you have?”

“Six.”

“Caleb, you’re fucking around with shit you don’t understand. You’re asking me to let you head into a situation you are not equipped for, that isn’t your problem. Get rid of these slippery pieces of shit and get out of here. Go smoke some bad weed and have awkward sex like a normal teenager. You don’t wanna be like me.”

“I’m not asking you anything,” he said. “I’m telling you, and Mom’s telling you — we’re gonna be there. You got a problem with that, you’re gonna have to speak to Frederick again.”

I rubbed my flaming leg again, hearing the creature’s name.

“What, you expect us to run away to California and just hope you don’t get your ass kicked? If that happens, we’re dead, and all we’ll think about while we’re being murdered is ‘why didn’t we go help while there was still a chance to beat these guys?’. So no, I’m not fucking around. I’m helping us survive.”

The creature tilted its head back and made a sound that bore a chilling resemblance to a far away child screaming for help.

“Caleb, please —”

“Sorry, that’s just how it’s gonna be,” he said. “I really don’t want you to die.”

“Yeah, I guess I don’t want you to die either,” Anita said. The words came out of her like splinters came out of your toes.

I started to cry. Seriously — I couldn’t help it.

“Thanks guys,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Alright, let’s get to the Tunnels and get this fucking show on the road, I guess.”

An old lady, a teenager, and a bum, all heading off to kill as a family. It fills the heart with joy, doesn’t it?