It turns out that Carol had an ER doctor on speed dial.

Skylar drove across town to a nice neighbourhood of second-storey balconies and BMWs and HOA restrictions that only dentists and lawyers could afford. I wasn’t really sure where we were, seeing as my perception was pretty much exclusively fixed upon the pain and general discomfort of having a grenade explode in my personal space.

Skylar helped me stumble my way into the front entrance of a clean, well-furnished upper-middle-class house, while Carol’s fish tank drone buzzed deeper inside, disappearing around the corner. A few moments later, she returned with a 40-somethings white guy with brown hair and a clean shave. He was wearing a bathrobe and bunny slippers. What every doctor should wear.

I’m sure there was a conversation, but at that point, I blacked out. The next few minutes? Hours? I drifted in and out of consciousness, staring up at a bright light while faces appeared during my few moments of blurry vision. Voices brushed over my ears and slipped away into the sea of the unintelligible that was my semi-conscious mind. There were other sounds as well, whirring and buzzing, tools of some kind. Once, I came to enough to see the bathrobe doctor approaching me with a very sharp scalpel.

“Don’t worry. You’re gonna be fine, alright champ,” the doctor said with a smile. I noticed he had a weird scar above his right eyebrow. It was a rectangular strip that looked almost metal. Maybe not a scar then. He picked up a rubber mask attached to a hose and gently placed it over my mouth and nose. I passed out again.

The next time I awoke, I was in a completely different place. The doctor and his bunny slippers were gone, as were Carol and Skylar. I was sprawled on a wide, comfy red couch in a lobby of sorts. A reception desk stood empty across the room flanked by two doors. Potted plastic masquerading as plants and busts of historical figures that might have been made of paper-maché dotted the room. A red rug with square designs covered the tiled floor. On one wall were two elevator doors and across from them was a large painting of a mountain landscape with a log cabin. There were a handful of other chairs matching the couch and a vending machine that had an Out of Order sign taped to the front.

Kneeling on the floor and reaching an arm up through the bottom slot of the vending machine was Freddie. He was fixated on looting snacks and didn’t notice me wake.

I was still sore, but not nearly like I had been before. I could breathe without my ribs trying to shish-kabob my lungs. My ankle ached, but not too badly. I noticed I was wearing a walking boot. Peeking under my shirt, which wasn’t mine, seeing how it didn’t have holes burnt into it, I saw a clean bandage wrapped around my chest.

“Where am I?” I asked. My voice broke the silence in the lobby.

Freddie jumped in surprise, wedging his arm in the vending machine and bonking his head against the glass. His glasses slid down his nose. “Ow!”

“Oops, sorry.”

He looked back at me awkwardly, since his arm was stuck. “You’re awake.”

“And you’re stuck,” I replied.

“No, I’m not.” Freddie wiggled and pulled but his arm remained wedged.

I grinned. “Sure seems like you are.”

Freddie yanked on his arm but only succeeded in flipping himself upside down. "Quit yer laughing and get me out of this," Freddie snapped.

"You do know I just got blown up by a grenade, right? I think you're supposed to be helping me."

Freddie groaned and thrashed about like a rabbit caught in a snare. "Oh, you're fine. Carol got Corpsman Hughes to patch you up. You coulda been in pieces and he coulda gotten ya back on yer feet by tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Maybe not quite, but he is a damn good medic. He's fixed up way worse injuries than busted ribs for the Armada." Freddie waved me over awkwardly. "Now come help me up, eh?"

I stood slowly, carefully stretching to test my newly healed ribs. Stiff and achy, but manageable. Limping mildly over to the vending machine, I knelt beside Freddie.

"How did you do this? Your arm is backward in there."

"I dunno. I twisted it around trying to get out." Freddie vainly pulled on his arm.

"Let's see." I tried to help him out, but he was jammed in there. I gave a pull and he yelped. "Sorry."

"Try and keep my arm attached to my body, will ya?" Freddie grumbled.

I scratched my head. "Hmm. Let me try this." I went at it from a different angle, but Freddie was sprawled on the floor in the way, so I ended up straddling him. "On three."

Freddie nodded.

"One. Two."

"Am I interrupting something?" A new voice asked.

"Three-ack!"

I don't even want to describe what happened after that. There was slipping and falling and somehow the glass front of the vending machine shattered and then I ended up on Freddie's lap while an avalanche of overpriced corn chips and chocolate bars buried us. Cheeks burning, I managed to untangle myself and stand to the sound of Freddie cursing like a sailor. The person who had interrupted us, a black-haired man with Middle-Eastern ancestry in I'm-about-to-go-golfing-and-then-attend-a-business-dinner attire, was trying to conceal his laughter. He had Hollywood good looks that screamed of plastic surgery and meant he was almost definitely older than the mid-thirties he looked.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to... accident. He was stuck. Is... um..." I stuttered like a motor running out of gas.

Freddie spit out a fully wrapped Mars bar.

The man managed to swallow his mirth, but the smile never left his lips. He helped Freddie out with an ease that made me look like an idiot.

"Are you alright, Freddie?" The man asked.

"Better than yer vending machine. Sorry about that, Mr. Safar."

"Don't worry about it." Mr. Safar said.

He turned to me. "And you must be Arthur. Carol called and told me you'd be arriving."

"She did?"

"Yes. I'm sorry to hear about your house. No one ever thinks it'll be their place that burns down."

"Oh, yeah, thanks. The ... fire, right."

Mr. Safar scratched the five-o’clock shadow on his chin. "Carol and I are partners, of a sort, and I agreed to offer you one of our apartments here at Pinevale Heights."

"Oh, that's great." Once again, I had no clue what was going on, but at least this seemed like it was going in my favour, unlike every other aspect of the Other Life.

Mr. Safar spread his hands apologetically. "Now, on such short notice, the best I can do is offer you the only open room with tenants willing to accept a new roommate, so I hope you can get along well."

My eyebrows shot up. I was getting stuck with some rando? What if they smelled like burnt fish? What if they only listened to Italian opera? What if they obnoxiously only ate ‘organic’ food? What if they left the TV on that channel that almost exclusively played infomercials?

Mr. Safar noticed the look of abject terror on my face and smiled apologetically. “Don’t worry, they’re nice. I’m sorry I can’t be there to help you settle in, but I am running late for an important meeting. Freddie will help you, won’t ya?”

“Against my will, yes,” Freddie said.

Mr. Safar handed me a business card. “Great. Now, Arthur, here’s my number. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anything. I’m not always around, but if I’m not, you can always talk to my daughter. Ok, I have to go now.” He glanced at his very expensive watch. “Yikes.” He set off toward the doors at that awkward walk/jog that didn’t really get you places any faster, but told everyone you were late.

As soon as he was gone, Freddie pointed at my face. “Ok, lemme set somethin’ straight. Don’t ever call his daughter.”

“What, why? Wait, she isn’t secretly some insectoid witch or anything?” I had no idea if insectoid witches were a thing, but based on my limited experiences, anything was on the table.

Freddie grunted. “No, but she might as well be. She’s rich, hot and popular. So, naturally, she’s a fake, whiny, stuck-up brat who makes life hell for anyone who gets in the way of her parties and frat house whatever she does up in the penthouse.”

“Sounds like you’ve had some problems with her.”

Freddie groaned. “I asked her one time to keep the noise down after midnight and since then, every time she throws a party, she makes sure the speaker is right above my room. Have you ever tried to sleep when your brain is vibrating in your skull? It doesn’t work!”

Freddie had led me to the elevator and we rode up to the third floor. He was still ranting about Lexa Safar as we exited. “And then she drove it onto the sidewalk where I was painting and ran over my easel! And she had the audacity to freak out at me for getting paint on her new Lambo! I’d spent a week on that painting.”

“Yikes,” I said. “Maybe you shouldn’t paint outside.”

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Freddie gave me a flinty glare. “That’s what ya took away from that story?”

I shrugged.

Freddie scoffed.

“Hey, Freddie, I, uh, I’m a little confused here. Why am I being put in an apartment instead of a safe house?”

“Why?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I nearly got assassinated in my own kitchen!”

Freddie nodded. “Oh, you’re worried about the Saints. You don’t have to be. They won’t find ya here.”

“You’re sure? Cuz they tracked me down real quick and they didn’t even know who I was before I saw them.”

“Dude, chill, bro. Carol set this up. You really think she’d go to all this trouble just to let you get blown up again? Pinevale Heights has some extra protection. The Saints won’t even know you’re here and if they find out, they’ll think twice before trying to get in.”

I glanced around the hallway. It was empty save for the doors light fixtures and a fire extinguisher. Everything was two-toned and the floor was carpeted like a hotel. It looked completely ordinary. Maybe there were hidden lasers in the walls that would slice and dice an intruder like a kitchen knife through a ripe tomato.

“You’re not gonna see anything,” Freddie said. “It’s all hidden. Trust me, I snooped around when I first got here. Most of the tenants are just livin’ normal lives. This is just a regular apartment building. Besides, the best security is the one you never see, eh?”

“That’s true.”

Freddie stopped in front of room 314. “Don’t worry. Carol chose this place cuz you’ll be out of the Saints’ reach here. This is yours.” He knocked.

As his knuckles rapped against the door, I felt a wave of nerves. Whoever was on the other side of the door would be the person I was stuck with for the foreseeable future. Please be normal, please be normal.

The door opened. Standing on the threshold, wearing sweats and a graphic tee was a young man, perhaps twenty-five. He was tall and lanky, his complexion dark and his hair woven into a dozen or so short braids atop his head, while the sides were faded.

I let out an audible sigh of relief. He’s normal.

The guy’s face lit up with a smile when he opened the door, but it dropped when I sighed. “Hi there. Uh, sorry, is something wrong?”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, not at all, I was just really hoping I wasn’t going to have to live with a crazy old cat lady or something.”

His smile returned. “Ha, well, no cat ladies here, just me. I’m Donovan.” He held out his hand.

I shook it, the motion giving my newly healed ribs a slight twinge. “Arthur, hello. I guess I’m your new roommate.”

“Yeah, guess so. It was pretty sudden, but I’m by myself here and when Mr. Safar asked, I agreed, since you know, it’ll make rent cheaper.”

“A good a reason as any, I guess,” I said.

Donovan nodded to Freddie. “Fred. Nice to see you.”

“Mm hmm.” Freddie returned the nod then faced me. “Ok, I’ve done my job now. You can do your introductions without me. I’m in Room 305 if ya need.” He held up a finger. “But only if it’s somethin’ important. Like emergency important. Don’t come knocking to hang out.”

I spread my hands as a sign of acceptance. “Got it.”

With a sigh, Freddie spun on his heel and marched down the hall toward his own place. I could hear him muttering to himself the whole way.

Behind me, Donovan chuckled. “Huh. That guy…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, come on in, make yourself at home.”

He let me into the apartment. It was rather basic, one big conjoined kitchen/dining room/living room, though a granite counter separated them. A couch and two chairs in basic black faux leather encircled a small coffee table, facing a decent-sized TV on the wall. A curtained door led out to the balcony. Across the room, in line with the door and the front closet, was a plastic folding table and a small bookshelf. They were both overflowing with textbooks and papers scribbled with numbers and notes. A corkboard hung over the table, but there were so many pages pinned to it, that it looked like a library had turned inside out. Sticky notes dotted the entire mess and at least twenty pens and pencils were scattered about the forest of paper. In the corner was a life-sized plastic skeleton on a stand. Notes were written on the bones in erasable ink and a cowboy hat sat crookedly on its skull. A short hall led deeper in, presumably to the bedrooms and washroom. It was rather neat and clean, aside from the explosion of books on the table, a far cry from my old pigsty.

Donovan bit his lip as he noticed me looking at the overflowing table. “Sorry about that. Uh, I was looking for something and I was in a hurry and well, it got messy.”

“You should have seen my old place.”

Donovan scratched his head. “Yeah, sorry to hear about the fire. Do they know how it started?”

“Gr- uh…” My stupid mouth almost said ‘grenade’. I chomped down on my tongue to stop myself from telling the truth. Not that he’d believe someone had exploded my place with military ordinance but still, I doubted that would give a good first impression. “Oh, they… are still investigating.”

I had no idea who they were or if they were investigating. Bicoe had stuck around to save what she could of my stuff, or maybe she was hiding evidence. Either way, I hoped whatever behind-the-scenes connections Carol had could keep this under wraps. I was pretty sure any official investigation would end with me framed as a delusional arsonist. Once again, I felt the padded walls of an asylum closing around me.

Donovan cleared his throat and I was a free man once more. “So, you don’t have any stuff?”

“Just what’s on me. I’m hoping they can recover something, but I don’t have my hopes up.” I emptied my pockets and took inventory. I had my phone, my wallet, a single breath mint, a receipt from a convenience store and the pen from the Eon Institute. That was it. My clothes, my TV, my laptop, all gone. Even my stuffed platypus, Derrick, whom I’d had since I was a baby. Although, it was probably for the best to put him out of his misery. Derrick had been a limp scrap of vaguely platypus-shaped material with only one eye for years now. I was sure he had welcomed the sweet release of death.

“Well, the place is yours now. Use whatever you need, as long as it isn’t in my room. As for clothes, uh…”

I scanned his body. He was at least six-four, towering over me. “Yeah, don’t bother. I don’t want to look like a kid wearing his dad’s clothes.”

Donovan laughed. “I do have one shirt that shrunk in the wash and I haven’t thrown it out yet.”

“Cool.”

A silence so awkward it itched descended upon the room. Time crawled. The two of us fidgeted almost physically aware of the weight of the awkward.

“What do you do?” I asked haltingly after thirty seconds. I could have sworn it was three days.

Donovan’s eyes lit up. Something he was comfortable talking about. “Oh, I’m in university. Med school. First year.”

I nodded my chin at the avalanche of papers. “Explains that.”

“Yeah, I really like it, but the studying is killing me. I swear it’s like learning an entirely different language.”

“I’m sure I would hate every second of it.”

Donovan pointed at the skeleton. “This is Grins. He’s there to help me study. It’s not a culty thing or anything.”

“You saying that makes it seem like a culty thing.”

“I promise its not. I need to learn all of the bones.”

I narrowed my eyes at the plastic skeleton. True to his name, Grins stared at me with empty sockets, a wide, toothy smile on his skinless face. Silently, I dared him to move. Come on, you bastard. One twitch and I’ll make sure Donovan has to learn each bone twice. It was unlikely Grins was alive, or undead, or a robot, but presently, the entire world was out to get me.

“Well, if I hear you chanting in Latin, we’re gonna have a problem,” I said.

“Of course you’re gonna hear Latin!” Donovan gestured animatedly at the papers. “Med school! All the names are Latin-based!”

I shook my head, but a smile tugged at the corner of my lips. “Not beating those cult allegations.”

Donovan saw my smile and grinned in turn. “Ok, well I promise I won’t use your blood the next time I summon a demon.”

I laughed. A little too loudly. Oh god, I’m gonna get haunted by a demon, aren’t I? Lobsters and a killer biker gang wasn’t enough? I didn’t know if the spiritual and metaphysical were part of the Other Life, but until proven otherwise, I was assuming they were.

I pulled out my phone and opened the notes.

To do:

-Get a job. Done.

-Call Mom. Let’s put that one on hold.

-Take out trash. Does the trashcan getting incinerated count?

-Buy new shoes. And an entirely new wardrobe.

My fingers danced across the keyboard as I added to the list.

-Learn martial arts.

-Learn how to perform an exorcism.

-Buy a bullet-proof vest.

-Read up on literally all folklore.

-Try not to die.

I underlined the last one.

“So what do you do?” Donovan asked me. We had moved to the chairs and sat down. They were surprisingly comfy.

I put my phone away. “Oh, pizzas. I deliver the pizzas.”

Donovan bobbed his head. “Nice.” His tone said he was being polite, but clearly, he’d been expecting something a bit more impressive. Dude was training to be a doctor. Pizza driver was about as far away on the career spectrum, at least in terms of education.

“It’s pretty new. I’m just trying to get my feet under me. Not sure how long I’ll stay there.” Because I’ll probably have died horribly at the hands (pincers?) or a giant crab or something. Wait, am I actually developing a fear of seafood? Before I could really dig into this newly forming phobia, there was a knock at the door.

I flinched and looked for any signs of a grenade or other explosive. My chest tightened and ached.

Luckily, Donovan didn’t seem to notice as he stood and answered the door. “Hello?”

A voice answered just beyond my hearing. Nobody had shot Donovan in the head, so I doubted the Saints had found me, but I was still on edge. I stood, knees flexed. My eyes darted to the balcony. I might be able to climb down from there. I’d have to jump. I don’t know how my ankle would hold up.

“Hey, Arthur, you’ve got some stuff!” Donovan said.

“What?”

He waved me over. “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

My curiosity overrode my caution and I went to the door, ignoring the idiom of the cat. Standing in the hallway with a cardboard box was Red.

He grinned when he saw me. “Good to see you still in one piece.”

“Red! Yeah, thanks, I’m glad to be in one piece.”

Red held out the box. The acrid tang of smoke clung to the box, evidence of the blaze. There wasn’t much, but the first thing I noticed was the neck of my guitar sticking out above the box.

“No way!” I pulled out my guitar, the one that had been hanging on the wall. It was intact, though the bottom edge had been blackened a bit. It actually looked really cool. “I can’t believe this survived!”

“It’s the only thing worth any money that did,” Red said. “Sorry.”

I ran my hands over the guitar. I’d always liked it, but suddenly it had become a lot more precious to me. I might need to even play it again. I set it down and looked through the box. The baseball bat Skylar had given me was there. It made sense that a special artifact wouldn’t be so easily destroyed, but I hadn’t thought about it. The only other things in the box were a pair of winter boots, my garage sale lamp that lived beside my bed and a single pair of jeans that I’d spilled jam on the day before and had left soaking in the bathroom sink.

Donovan peeked over my shoulder. “Hey, look at that, you still have some possessions. That’s awesome.”

It was great, but I couldn’t help the rising sadness over everything that wasn’t there.

Rest in peace, Derrick. You were the best stuffed platypus I guy could ask for.

“Sucks that all your stuff was incinerated in blazing inferno that engulfed your entire home, but” Red put a hand on my shoulder. I expected him to give me an encouraging word. “But sometimes life is bastard and kicks you in balls.”

“Oh… yeah I guess so.” He was right. The last few days had felt like getting repeatedly kicked in the nuts with steel-toed boots.

Donovan picked up the box. “I’ll put this inside.”

When he left, Red leaned close and whispered. “Don’t worry though. The Pineapple made sure you’re secure here. You won’t be seeing Bitter Saints at home again.”

“I’d better not,” I muttered.

“Better learn how to access that bat, huh?”

I had already decided I was gonna practice that until it was second nature. If a mosquito landed on me, I wanted to be able to smash it with my bat. I was pretty sure that would hurt way more than the mosquito bite, but that was beside the point.

Red clapped his hands and adjusted his trench coat. “Well, I should be off. Carol said to take day off tomorrow and recover. Next day we see you back at Red Pineapple. Then, your training will begin.”

“Yay.”

Red winked at me, then reached into his coat and pulled out some kind of ball. He threw it on the floor and it shattered, releasing a burst of dark smoke that billowed up into a cloud. Everything turned into swirling greys. I yelled and leapt back as I inhaled artificial smoke. Using a smoke bomb right after a grenade had nearly killed me was either a crazy troll job or extremely tone-deaf. I couldn’t tell if Red was a joker or a douchebag.

As I coughed, the smoke cleared, leaving lingering wisps in the hall. My eyes watered, but I could still see Red’s form just now reaching the fire escape at the end of the hall. He was such a good super spy that he had completely mistimed the smoke screen and I saw exactly where he went.

“Idiot.”

Donovan came barrelling out into the hall. “What happened? Are you ok? What is this?”

I coughed again and wiped my eyes. “It’s all good. Red just didn’t see the No Smoking sign.”

Donovan stared at me, mouth open.

I pushed him into the apartment and closed the door. “Never mind. Where’s your shower?”

Oh yeah, we were off to a flawless start as roommates. Me, Donovan the Med student and a probably not haunted skeleton.