Volume 9: Eclosion

Issue 1: Monster of the Week

Florian Reyes Honeywell

By Roach

“Hive, can’t you move your swarm any faster?” Spindle hissed at me.

“It’s not that easy to target something I can’t see,” I snapped back.

“It’s over there now!”

I glanced at Spindle. She stood behind me, blocking the classroom door. Outside, from the hallway, a few vaguely familiar faces peered over her shoulders. While Camilo had evacuated the classroom mid-history lesson—using an auditory illusion of a fire alarm—a handful of students started to gather in the hallway outside, trying to see what the commotion was for. They were mostly seniors I didn’t really know, although I recognized Daniel among them.

Now, using her bright pink baseball bat, Spindle pointed to a corner of the room. “You’re not getting away this time,” she said—perhaps a bit more theatrically than necessary. I had the feeling she was trying to show off for our small audience in the hall. I held back a groan. I’d much rather they left us alone, so I could focus on the task at hand without worrying about anyone getting in harm’s way.

Although I couldn’t see through his veil of invisibility, I heard Stagehand’s voice coming from somewhere to my left. “If it’s not getting away, maybe you can show us the bond?” he said, and edge of irritation in his voice.

“And hurt Lew…” She cleared her throat. “Uh, hurt the students of this school?”

The only reason Spindle could see this thing was because of the bonds it shared with its victims—like Jazmine’s newest admirer, Lewis. But, even then, she couldn’t really see what it looked like. As far as we knew, it was entirely invisible.

And, she had a point. Even if she activated the bond between Lewis and… this thing, we wouldn’t be able to hurt it without inflicting the same pain onto him.

I hoped he had been smart enough to leave with Mr. Whetter and the evacuating students, and wasn’t lingering somewhere in the hallway with our audience…

“Just until we’ve cornered it?” Stagehand’s disembodied voice suggested.

That could work, although—as we had no clue what we were dealing with, or what kind of force it would take for us to corner it—it could end badly. “I have an idea,” I muttered. The swarm’s buzz intensified around me. “Just get that door closed,” I said, tired of the eyes watching us.

“Over there,” Spindle said. My gaze traced where her bat was pointing—toward a bookshelf in the back—and I redirected the swarm accordingly. I spread them out, scattering them like a wide net. Although our opponent was invisible, all I needed was for one of them to find it, then they would all descend upon it…

Just then, my swarm found something. They crawled over an invisible surface—and, as more of them clustered together, whatever it was started to take the form of an arm underneath the mass of bees. I readied them to attack, when—

“No! No! No!” Stagehand shouted. He blinked into existence, standing on top of an empty desk. It was his arm that my bees now crawled all over. “Bad idea, bad idea,” he chanted as he flailed his arms wildly.

“Sorry.” I dismissed my bees, dispersing them around him.

“Christ,” he hissed under his breath before vanishing into thin air once more.

“Come on, it’s literally standing by the globe,” Spindle said.

Now, she waved the baseball bat toward a globe in the corner of the room, moving her hand as the creature seemingly shuffled past another row of desks. Then, it must have changed direction, because Spindle yelled a warning at me:

“Wait, it’s coming for you now!”

“Good,” I muttered. A buzz ripped through my body as a new wave of bees welled up my throat.

Although I couldn’t see the thing, I could hear its rush of steps now. However, it didn’t quite sound like the thuds I would expect from normal footsteps; something like a clacking against the linoleum flooring, more like hooves than feet…

Is this what Lewis and Jessica had heard as it stalked them for days on end? Or had it moved quietly, never letting them as much as second-guess its presence?

As the sound rushed closer to me, I flipped over the desk in front of me. And, before it could complete its fall, the desk hit something mid-air. A series of inhuman growls sounded just a few feet in front of me—whatever I had hit, it didn’t seem happy with me.

I didn’t hesitate to send my swarm after it. Some I released from my mouth while others shot across the room, when—finally—they found it.

And, this time, I was sure it wasn’t Camilo.

Slowly, the mass of bees sculpted out the invisible form. I hadn’t known exactly what I expected the thing to look like, but it certainly wasn’t what now appeared in front of me.

My bees revealed a shape like a skeleton, but not one that resembled anything I knew. While humanoid in its shape, it looked deformed somehow: broader, more hulking, with a head that seemed larger than what its body should be able to carry.

I commanded my bees to sting. But, when they did, the creature didn’t appear to react. It remained still, standing behind the desk I had just flipped over. It was like my bees’ stingers were ineffective…

It didn’t just look the part of a walking skeleton… It really was all bone.

My bees rendered more or less useless, the skeletal creature now lunged for me. Its unnaturally long fingers—which looked more like claws than anything else—dug into my forearms. As I tore myself away, it ripped into my suit—scratching my skin. A rush of adrenalin overpowered the searing pain running down my arm, and I tried to wrestle myself free as the thing pushed itself up against me.

For something that lacked any muscle, I was surprised by its strength. I pushed frantically back against it. But, when I tried to wrench away, my hand only slipped through the gaps of its ribs—clumsily flailing through its ribcage.

Standing on top of one of the desks behind it, Stagehand blinked into existence. He swung a chair over his head and leaped toward us. As he did, he smashed the chair into the invisible creature’s skull.

I scrambled back as the thing collapsed to the floor, its shape distorted when my bees scattered around it. They quickly collected themselves again, swarming the creature to reveal its hulking shape once more.

Before I could react, Spindle rushed past me. She raised her baseball bat against it. Then, joining Stagehand, she started hitting the creature. Bone shattered and splintered, turning visible as her bat detached them from the body.

Astonished gasps mixed with a tentative cheering sounded from our audience in the hallway. Had no one closed the door yet? I gritted my teeth. Maybe Spindle preferred having an audience over ensuring the safety of our classmates. Phone screens lit up behind us, now pointed our way—undoubtedly recording the scene as it unfolded.

I sent a chunk of the swarm toward the open classroom door. Behind it, I glimpsed a few students who backed away as I effectively blocked their view. I turned my attention back to the creature.

In front of me, Stagehand and Spindle continued to hit the invisible skeleton—with the chair and bat, respectively—while my swarm frantically buzzed all around them. As my bees enveloped the creature’s skeletal frame, I could make out how each bone warped and cracked underneath their blows.

My teammates quickly reduced the thick-boned, hulking skeleton to a splintered, armless figure. As ribs and limbs snapped, the creature became increasingly visible. Spindle and Stagehand’s continued strikes revealed dense, yellowing bones, collapsing to the floor.

Then, finally, Spindle swung her bat into its skull—divorcing it from its shoulders. The skull rolled across the classroom floor.

Both Spindle and Stagehand froze. I hushed the swarm, which now hovered apathetically above them. At the same time, I maintained the other half by the classroom door—still blocking the way.

“Is it… Is it dead?” Spindle said, poking one of the bones with her baseball bat.

“After that, I would hope so,” Stagehand replied.

I approached the skull, which had come to rest by the leg of a desk.

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Huge, hollow eye sockets stared back at me, and—inside them—I glimpsed a faint, blue shimmer. I leaned down to take a closer look.

While I wasn’t quite sure what it was, it resembled… Maybe some kind of lichen or moss?

“What’s up?” Stagehand said, now standing beside me.

“Not sure,” I mumbled back. I singled out one of the bees hovering about, and sent her crawling through the eye socket.

What do you see? I asked the scout.

Darkness, her pheromones communicated back to me.

Finding her answer a little bit too literal, I pressed, Can you sense a plant? Maybe moss?

There was a brief pause before she continued. Unknown.

Anything living?

As I waited for my bees’ final report, Spindle came over to join us. Before I had the chance to react, she raised her legs and stomped on the skull—crushing it underneath her boot.

“I think we won,” she grinned.

“Holy shit,” Stagehand exclaimed, pulling back.

I searched for my bees signal, but it was gone. Dead.

“Thanks,” I muttered under my breath. “Now I’ll never kno…”

“You’re welcome,” Spindle interrupted, before marching over to the door. My bees parted around her as she went to close it. Now, speaking to our classmates outside, she said, “Sorry, no time for autographs! Ciao.” She offered a quick salute before promptly slamming the door shut. I thought I could hear Daniel’s voice from the other side just when she turned the lock.

“Let’s get out of here.” Stagehand walked over to the window. “Before anyone else shows up.”

I nodded. We should discuss what had just happened, what this new monster could mean—preferably, somewhere else than the history classroom.

But, when we arrived, we had come through the door. Where would we go now? I looked around, glancing up at the vent, wondering whether or not we could fit through it…

Stagehand seemed to have a different idea, as he now climbed through the window. Although we were on the third floor, a ridge extended from just below the window—creating a small platform for him to step onto. Spindle and I followed suit.

The ridge ran along the side of the building, extending from one end of the west wall to the other. It was just wide enough for us to walk in a line, and we started to tiptoe along it. I cast my gaze out across the campus. It was fairly quiet—presumably, most people were still in class. However, by the parking lot mustering site, I could make out a small group of people. I looked like the history teacher, Mr. Whetter, hold a phone up to his ear. Presumably, it wouldn’t take long now before they realized that something weird was going on…

At least, they didn’t seem to have seen us—yet. I looked ahead to Stagehand. Had he concealed us?

“I hope you know where we’re going, because I need to get to volleyball practice,” Spindle said. She ran her fingers along the school’s white, exterior wall as we continued onwards.

For each window we passed by, I peeked inside its respective classroom. Although students occupied the desks and teachers lectured at their podiums, no one seemed to notice us—thanks to Stagehand, I assumed.

“Don’t worry about it.” Stagehand’s smiling mask briefly turned to face us. “I know a way.” He pointed to the bell tower. It rose far above us—from between the school’s main building and left wing—topped in blue and yellow mosaic.

Although the tower was an iconic part of the school’s structure, I had never actually been inside it. Was there a point of entry from the rooftop? Maybe we could sneak through one of the several, arched windows adorning its sides… But where would it even take us? I needed to change out of costume, away from prying eyes—and make it back to English class. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for Mr. Schron to figure out that my ‘bathroom break’ was taking longer than it should…

“Good,” Spindle replied. “What was that thing, anyway?”

Even though we had tracked it for days at this point, I felt no closer to an answer. At the beginning of the week, it had started stalking one of the freshmen, Jessica. Maybe it had been doing so for even longer, but—since it was entirely invisible—Amber had only noticed it when it started forming a bond with Jessica. And, this bond, leading from her into thin air, kept trailing after her—through the hallways, from class to class, day after day…

We had been keeping watch over the two walking down the hallway, when the thing suddenly lunged at Jessica. It dragged her to the ground by her ponytail, and started pulling the screaming freshman across the floor. Camilo had been able to cloak Amber in invisibility, and she moved in to trigger the bond between Jessica and her stalker. After transferring the pain from Jessica to the creature, it had scurried off—disappearing before we were able to catch it.

That is, until just a day later, it started stalking Lewis—and, consequently, we intercepted it.

“You know, Jessica was one of the doppelgänger victims…” Stagehand said. “Maybe this thing is related to that somehow?”

“Like a…” I trailed off. Whatever I had been about to say slipped from my mind as I felt a buzz from my pocket. I leaned one hand against the wall, steadying myself as i reached for my phone with the other.

One new message. It read,

> | Hannah: do you remember what mrs. porter said to read for the quiz tomorrow?

In the midst of the Lewis situation, I hadn’t had time to study for the quiz yet. Still, I knew what I was supposed to be doing—namely, read the chapter 9 section on Mendalian genetics.

“Like a… what?” Stagehand prompted me, interrupting my thoughts.

“Huh?” I looked up from my phone, before I remembered that we were talking about the doppelgängers. “Oh. I meant, like… Maybe it could be a residual effect? I mean, the thing was probably something more before it became a skeleton… At least, that’s usually how skeletons work.”

“So you’re suggesting that the doppelgängers… left behind their skeletons or something? After turning to goo?”

“That doesn’t really make sense though,” Spindle said. “If it stalked Jessica because she was taken by the doppelgängers… Why would it go after Lewis, when he never had anything to do with that?”

It was a good question. And I didn’t have any good answers.

But, Hannah’s question—lighting up the screen of my phone—was much simpler. Something I could answer. I removed one glove, and let my fingertips hover over the touchscreen…

But how was I supposed to answer? Did I skip the formalities, and just give Hannah the page numbers? Or should I say something more? Like…

“Invisible skeletons don’t make much sense in the first place, do they?” Stagehand said.

“Yes, but…” Spindle’s voice momentarily faltered. She paused, composing herself again. “Those things took me.” If I thought I had detected weakness in her tone before, I now only heard hostility. “I don’t know how to explain it, but this… felt different.”

“Alright.” Stagehand sighed. “Florian, any other ideas? Or are you just gonna keep staring at your phone?”

I had barely typed in ‘hello’ when Stagehand’s comment made me look up. I erased my message again. “I’m listening,” I muttered, “just answering something.”

“Oh my God,” Spindle said with a sharp inhale. “Either help us save this fucking school, or just ask her out already.”

I stopped in my tracks, coming to a standstill on the narrow ridge. Had I heard that right? Ask her out? “What… What are you talking about?” While I knew this was just part of Amber’s usual teasing, there was a huge leap from homework questions to… ‘going out.’ Nevertheless, I was thankful for the veil hiding my dumbfounded expression.

Spindle—who had also stopped—leaned closer to me, peering at my phone screen. “H?” she said, inspecting my half-erased message; a ‘hello’ now reduced to just ‘h.’

“I’m not done.”

“Gimme that,” she muttered, grabbing the phone from my hands before I had a chance to react.

“Wait!” I exclaimed, reaching for the phone as she held it away from me. “Give it back!”

As I stretched my arm after hers, I glimpsed the screen; a single new message had appeared. From me.

> | Hannah: do you remember what pages mrs. porter said to read for the quiz tomorrow?

> | Me: H

“What did you do?” I hissed at Spindle, although the answer had already occurred to me: one of us must have hit send as she grabbed the phone out of my hand.

“Guys,” Stagehand intercepted, “can we please wait to fight each other until we’re back inside… and not standing on a rooftop where someone can fall to their death?” His eyes, darkened by his mask, darted between us.

I gritted my teeth, but restrained myself from lunging after my phone—or Spindle.

While barely visible underneath the fringes of her mask, I could see Spindle stick her tongue out at me before tip-toeing toward the bell tower.

“Wait,” I hissed, and crept after her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll salvage this,” she said, typing something I couldn’t see into my phone.

Just ahead, Stagehand slipped through a window—leading us inside the tower. We found ourselves on the creaky, wooden steps of a staircase, spiraling several floors down. I glanced up toward the golden bell, which hung another couple of floors above us. Upon our arrival, a few pigeons stirred from their nests on the beams connecting the walls around us.

“Don’t worry. Hardly anyone comes here, so we should be able to get out easy,” Stagehand said. He started down the stairs with a familiar stride—one that made me think he had been here before.

But, at the moment, I wasn’t worried about running into anyone. My main concern was whatever Spindle was doing with my phone.

“That’s enough,” I said, catching up to her. “Give it back.”

“Alright.” For a few moments, she playfully dangled my phone from her fingertips. “Here you go,” Spindle said, before tossing it my way.

I clapped my hands together, clumsily catching the phone between my palms. With a sense of sinking horror, I inspected the screen. Amber had written one new message to Hannah:

> | Me: Yeah, wanna meet up and study later?

A numb dread ran through me as I stared at the screen. “Why… Why would you say that?” I managed, while my grip continued to clench around the phone—as if somehow I could take the message back; pluck it right out from the radio waves.

“Because you won’t,” Spindle said with a roll of her eyes. “What’s she saying?”

“Nothing,” I muttered. At this point, Stagehand had also joined my side, and we all clustered together to get a look at my phone. “Maybe she won’t say anything. She probably thinks it’s weird…” I finished.

“Nah,” Stagehand said, “That’s, like, a really normal message. Especially coming from Amber.”

I wasn’t so sure. Even since we returned from our excursion to the Extinction Refuge, Hannah and I only really spent time together in class. She probably thought my question was strange, off-putting, out of bounds… But, as much as I wanted to shake some sense into Spindle, I couldn’t help but stare at the screen with a note of hope.

After a small eternity had passed between us, my phone buzzed with a new notification:

> | Hannah: sure. library after school?

A ripple moved faintly through the swarm.

“Piece of cake.” Spindle lightly placed a hand on my shoulder. “You need to trust me more.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, despite the smile playing with my lips.

Just then, the bell rang above us, signaling the end of class. Shit, was it already over? A sudden panic replaced my smile as the bell’s deep note reached me, reverberating throughout the hollowed-out wax chambers inside my body. At least, Mr. Schron barely remembered my name, so hopefully he hadn’t missed me—or, as he seemed to frequently think, ‘Fabian’—too much… “Let’s move, shall we?” Spindle grinned when she let go of my shoulder. “You have a date to get ready for.”