Close Encounters of the Bus Kind
[35]
Of course, she didn’t know how she was going to do that. She couldn’t even see the blasted thing. She had to rely on Erin to update her on what she was seeing. Thessaly flexed her arms and tensed her face like she was the last stand against an army, and she would die before she fell. She once told Paul that that warrior spirit was in her blood while giggling about over-the-top stylized movies with shirtless caped Spartans.
The energy and goofiness that Gina displayed earlier had largely evaporated as she took a long sip from the drink in front of her, clenched her jaw, and stared towards the Cantina where her mother was having her luncheon. The sounds filtering out suggested that it was pretty busy at this hour. Plenty of people. Plenty of victims depending on what the creature wanted to do and could do. Erin had no idea if these entities had some sort of lifecycle where they were more venomous like baby vipers or they were not dangerous at all. Nothing they learned from the other encounter seemed useful.
That version of the creature seemed like it was well-fed or at least had collected quite a few meals. It had all those tortured figures and faces seemingly being slowly digested. Were those all ghosts in its immense stomach or were some of them urban explorers who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and didn’t even see what got them? She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know.
Elsa did her best to distract herself with some of the dessert in front of her as she shook her head and asked, “Is this normal? Are those things out there all the time? I got a text from the group that said one of them ate an actual ghost. All those things are going to eat people who have died and… Who knows what else.” She coughed into her hand and turned away from the table.
Audrey took a long drink of her own and speculated, “Maybe that’s why the world isn’t flooded with ghosts and why you don’t see them that often or that well?” It was an interesting thought, but Eva brought up almost as an afterthought, that it seemed like “the ghost we saw“ had been around a while.
Erin gave a tense hiss and dipped her head. “Back,” was all she whispered. That monstrous entity, which Nadia could clearly see in her mind’s eye, had returned and was likely stalking around the area within sight of them. It felt awful, like she feared from leering human predators. Whenever the girls were moving from the drop-off point to competition, Paul would shadow them at a distance because there was one instance recounted by Erin of a tall man lingering right behind them who didn’t even seem intimidated when she and Thessaly asked him his business. He had no illusions at the time that he was a tough guy who could take on someone with ill intent.
But these were the people he was responsible for, these were his girls, this was his team, and this was the woman he had always had a crush on. At the time, he had no expectations that anything would ever happen between him and Erin, the same as when they were in high school. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to do everything in his power to make sure they were safe. Nadia still believed that, and she wished with every fiber of her being that she could smash this creature into a slimy smear across the wall. Her language recognition didn’t extend to whatever these things were, otherwise, she would’ve long ago screamed at it to leave in whatever terms it understood.
She mentally flipped through the powers of the others, trying to think of something. Illusions could work temporarily. She imagined perhaps distracting it with an intangible version of itself that Odessa conjured up. But that would likely be asking too much of her. She had briefly seen these creatures. Making a replica from those memories would be much more difficult than just popping a chair into existence.
Elsa definitely had a skill with a lot of potential, depending on how much sound force she could apply. But they were in her father’s restaurant with a lot of stuff on the walls and a fancy classic look like something out of Istanbul crossed with tropical influences and island cheer. The glass in all directions seemed relatively dangerous in a normal situation, let alone one with a slimy mass of evil.
Another question remained as well, as to whether they needed to see this beastie to be able to act upon it. Even if Elsa was able to blast it with sound waves, the likely collateral damage would be impossible to explain, especially if the creature didn’t leave a visible body. She considered the idea that it could be explained away as a low-flying jet from the Air Force Base, but it still felt like an immense risk to try. What Eva did yesterday had absolutely worked but getting her consent to do that again, never mind setting her in the right headspace, seemed desperately unlikely.
Thessaly likely had the strength to overwhelm such a creature, but its teeth and clear ferocity would put her in danger. That left it to Erin. As much as Nadia hated putting their hopes on the shoulders of others, even Thessaly‘s large muscular ones, she especially despised that the responsibility and strain fell on the one she loved.
Where Erin’s gaze darted toward and where it avoided gave them hints about where the creature was moving and lingering when she couldn’t find the words to update them about its progress. Erin tensed up when Duman returned with a wide smile and his arms spread to ask them how they liked the desserts, and which were their favorites. He even added that one of the creations was experimental and had not yet been made available, so he was especially interested in that one and whether they enjoyed it and whether they thought other people might enjoy it as well.
Nadia could appreciate the feeling of a teenager whose life has gone through a myriad of things that their parents don’t know and can’t even imagine the depths of while that parent just blatantly stands around as though nothing is happening. She deeply cared for her father, but she also wished that he would be somewhere else right then. The responses he got were monosyllabic or one word at best with some restrained head nods and quick approving sentiments. He got a wary sort of look that Nadia could appreciate on that side of the proceedings, but she really didn’t want to invite a prolonged conversation.
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She couldn’t see the monster, but she had the tension in her head focused to a point that felt wrong right behind Duman. It wasn’t anything as obvious as a Predator shimmer, which she did remember some podcasts alluding to that people could see and thought were the presence of beings from other dimensions. But it pressed like a spike in her forehead. It was pain and discomfort that existed for no earthly reason. It was a phantom smell of garbage and rot mixed with the nastiest, most penetrating aroma of feral, malicious dust trying to sap your thoughts and make you suffer. Pure evil that had no name she could proclaim and didn’t deserve one. Shapeless hunger and torment. If only her hands had true flames and she could burn it to nothingness.
But she pushed all that back down inside of her and did her best to be the attentive daughter and make sure she gave thoughtful and constructive answers to her father. It felt like a torturous eternity, but eventually Duman was satisfied that he had provided for them, and they had to given him a nice amount of feedback. He still lingered though in the hopes that he might be able to bring them out something else. Maybe even a full lamb to eat on, Nadia jokingly imagined to deflate some of her tension.
When he finally truly left to return to the kitchen and deal with a party getting ready in the Champagne room, Nadia relaxed her muscles and checked on Erin.
She was staring right behind her, unblinking, with the most horrified expression. Nadia didn’t need to be told what that meant. If she focused hard enough, she swore she could almost feel and smell its rancid breath right on her neck. All the happy thoughts and precious warm memories inside her felt like dismal ash. All her fears collected in one place as a wall against hope.
She would never be good enough. The church would find out and do bad things. None of it mattered anyway. She would die. Horrible things would happen. People would find out all the wrongness in her. Unfeeling, black slabs of humanity would turn against her one by one. There was no reason to hope. There was nothing to be done. The world would swallow her up. Light would vanish and darkness would fill her soul. It was inevitable, like breath. In, out. Try your hardest to struggle and it only wraps around tighter. There’s nothing you can do. Submit and die.
Nadia could feel tears like acid rain burning her cheeks. She felt sick and hopeless and tangled up in a thousand worries that she could not solve. Nothing she could do, nothing to be done. She felt like falling deep into an endless gullet, hungry for her.
Then she heard the scream. It sounded like an animal, a person, some great mechanical apparatus seizing up, and an unearthly crash. Swinging her head around, she saw that Erin stood with her hand outstretched. The monster was visible as a tangled sheet of oily rot smashed to pieces against the wall. Erin‘s arm trembled as it seemed like she was heaving a psychic, constant scream with immense, stony weight.
Everyone else was standing up too and people were about to spill out of the kitchen. Her father would see everything. Everyone would see everything. Maybe they could still get out of this. They didn’t know that anything weird happened with them. It was just some sort of…giant exotic black panther… which got liquefied.
“Panther? You think panther works as an explanation? You’re all such children messing with things you can’t possibly understand!”
That familiar voice. Nadia looked around and found everyone was frozen in place, as though pretending to be mannequins. Everyone but one person: the old woman from Beyond. She stood next to the door with a hand pressed to her forehead.
“They’ll be fine. For now. And you didn’t listen to a single word I said. You have shown no caution about the dangers you face. She is getting stronger in a way that’ll only cause suffering. Now I have to clean up this mess. I thought you were smarter. I thought you cared about these girls and about your world.”
Nadia glared back at the older woman as she scowled at and scolded her. She tensed her mouth and responded, “What does it matter? It’s a simulation. This entire world is fake. It’s all some glitch in the matrix crap. You’re programmers and I’m just information. Is this how you entertain yourself? Mess around with certain people?”
The old woman put her hands together into a collective fist and pressed it against her forehead. “Why do I always wind up with the weirdos? This is not a simulation! Your world is not some nihilistic nonsense. Sorry to break it to your emo-hungry brain. All of this is real and there’s a lot more going on than you could ever imagine! There are no programmers. You think some crazy secret conspiracy is steering this whole thing? Some alien god programmers? Don’t exist. No Illuminati. No Lake Tahoe hollow earth kingdom. No airport full of Reptilians that secretly rule the planet and make humans sterile. It’s just a mess and we are the custodians trying to keep you from shitting in the toilet while we clean it! So, stuff your stupid theories and stop trying to screw it all up! At least your self Xerox friend has a modicum of sense by comparison.” The sharp red color on the old woman’s face made Nadia take a step back.
After a breath, she cleared her throat and added, “It’s been a busy day for a long, long time. We each ultimately want the same thing, Nadia. I don’t want you and your girlfriend to have a bad time. I want you to have your pleasant little happily ever after. But I have bigger responsibilities. Consider this your second warning. I don’t want to make things difficult, and the choice is still yours. But the longer you’re around them, the worse things are going to get. Just look outside.”
Nadia trembled. “Am I responsible for that thing and for what’s happening?”
The old woman sighed. “You are rocking the boat and the sharks are getting curious. I told you what you need to do. It’s on you now. Don’t expect me just fix this when things get worse. I’m done with warnings.”
With a rush of air, the old woman was gone.