Present-day, Astro Bowl parking lot
Stanley Skinner was tired of sleeping in the van.
At first, he’d felt lucky when the owner of the bowling alley, a former friend from high school, had agreed to let him park here overnight. However, waking with a twinge in his neck made it hard to feel grateful.
Stanley reached up, parting the thick pair of curtains installed over the windows. He winced as the light stabbed him in the face. His glasses were still in the center console up front, but the light didn’t need to be sharp to tell him he’d overslept, again.
There were several things to do today, and there was no time to doze. Of course, there was nothing he wanted more than to stay on the flimsy mattress pad for just a moment longer. But he had a duty to fulfill.
While owning his business was a point of pride, Stanley missed living in someone else’s house. No rent to pay. No apartments to lose by not paying rent. No strange things coming out of the woodwork at night to harass him. No supplies to constantly restock. No morning joggers pounding the pavement outside the thin walls of his makeshift bedroom. Being independent had its drawbacks.
He sat up, wiped sleep from his eyes. The clock hanging from the pegboard read 7:45AM. Only fifteen minutes until the hardware store opened.
Stanley stretched as much he could and swiped a handful of baby wipes from the dispenser lodged in the backseat cupholder. He certainly missed showers.
After washing up to an acceptable degree, he dressed in a tan painter’s jumpsuit, thick rubber boots, and nitrile gloves. He brushed his teeth briefly, using a canteen of water and a plastic cup to rinse and spit. The glasses would go on last.
Having finished his cramped morning routine, Stanley took a deep breath. Then, working his way around the seats, he opened each of the curtains covering his windows, letting the light fill his mobile home base.
He kept his eyes down until the last window was open, at which point he slowly took in the blurry nightmare that surrounded him. For Stanley, the gift of sight was a double-edged sword.
The sun blasted white light down on the rectangle of tarmac he was parked in. The trees swayed in the breeze, their green leaves washed out in the brutal sunlight.
There was a jogger making their way around the lot on the sidewalk, ponytail and headphone cable bouncing in time.
There was only one occupant on the bus stop bench to the left, where the road ran parallel to the bowling alley. A senior citizen.
At the doors to the bowling alley, someone fumbled with a keyring. Stanley hadn’t seen an employee with that build before, but the splash of red with a blue stripe was enough to identify the uniform.
He perched one knee on the console between the front seats and slowly turned his head around, trying to absorb it all. He let the dull shapes float around his visual field. He wasn’t technically on the clock yet, but being your own boss could blur that line.
The jogger continued to bounce around, passing the senior citizen on the bench with what might have been a wave. The old person did not wave back. The bowling alley employee finally made it inside, the glass door reverberating as it swung shut behind him.
Stanley was hoping against hope that something would reveal itself without him needing his glasses. The frames were sliding around in his hand, wet with sweat from baking in the sun. He wavered.
Stanley hated his glasses, despised the clarity that they brought.
And then, relief.
The jogger had just made it around the corner when the tree shook. It was the trunk that caught his eye; the wind might be able to shake leaves, but no American Yellowwood had a trunk that serpentined in the air, drawing curly shapes beneath its branches.
Stanley slid his glasses into his breast pocket. He could keep them off for a little longer.
He pulled away from the front windshield, careful not to move too quickly. Moving too quickly could rock the van, alerting his prey. He opened one of the tool boxes resting behind the passenger seat, pawing through the contents.
His hand passed over a thick, heavy contraption, a wooden base with metal mechanisms latched back into a storage position. He had received it from a priest he had met in the first years of his entrepreneurship. That priest had been the one to introduce Stanley to the Clergy. The holy man had been instrumental in professional development, and was kind enough to let him raid his stores in exchange for the occasional freelance assistance. Stanley’s productivity had increased several fold once he had the proper tools for the job.
The priest had called this contraption a crucible. Something about a holy container for the unholy to burn, and so on. Stanley was of a more mechanical mind.
He hefted the crucible onto a shoulder. The mental checklist was nearly complete, but he had mere moments. The tight space forced him to move at excruciating speed. It took a long time to turn around enough to reach under the driver’s seat.
Stanley pulled out a small wooden box. It was a square container, one he had built himself. There was weight to having a hand in the making of your own tools. He opened the brass clasp. Inside was a rank of nine wooden stamps, each topped with a different letter. There was guesswork to this part, but he’d gotten pretty good at discerning his needs from a glance. He was out of time, anyway, so instinct would have to do. He picked one and put it in his free breast pocket.
The box went back under the seat and Stanley hopped up onto his haunches. One hand onto the sliding door handle, he pressed his eye up to the edge of the left window curtain.
He hadn’t seen it arrive, but the bus was pulling away. The senior citizen was still on the bench. Stanley couldn’t see the wiggling shape by the tree or in the grass.
The glasses resting on his chest made themselves known again, his head compiling logic faster than he could control and alighting on them with burning awareness. No time to put it off any longer.
Balancing the crucible on his thigh, Stanley pulled out his glasses and flicked them open. With his other hand he gripped the handle to the sliding door. He pushed his glasses onto his face.
The lines inside the van went sharp and he saw his home for the briefest moment. The mattress pad, crushed into the floor space beneath the shelves. Shelves mounted on the walls, packed with a dozen or more red toolboxes. Some were full of more tools like the crucible, others journals Stanley had filled with priceless notes on his clientele. Others still had sealed books or pens that wrote on their own; artifacts above Stanley’s paygrade. Above the shelves, the van was walled with pegboards holding a variety of mundane tools. He had saws and hammers, plumbing hose and pipe wrenches, aerosol misters and paint rollers. There wasn’t a job Stanley couldn’t pretend to be doing. Hanging from the very top line of the pegboard was a line of small cages, wrapped in a blue tarp.
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Aw, heck. He knew he’d forgotten something. He hadn’t got something to put it in. Too late now.
With a single movement, he wrenched open the door, flooding his home with the fraught light of day.
The senior citizen was still sitting where he’d left them, the curls of gray hair newly textural on the other side of his glasses. He could also see the predator that had been in the tree. It squirmed and flopped in the grass behind the bench.
It made Stanley’s skin crawl to look at it in full detail, even though it was still a good sixty feet away. It was covered in an oily sheen, overlapping scales shining such a dark green that they looked black against the pale gray of the sidewalk. Stanley saw the single orange eye at the top of the snaking body, roiling with menace as it closed in on its target. Beneath the eye, a vicious mouth dripped sizzling spittle between a cornucopia of teeth. The trail it had chewed through the blades of grass was yellow and dried-out where it had passed. It was now very close to the senior citizen, lifting the front end, the end with all the teeth, towards their turned back.
When the van door slammed into its open position, the wyrm whipped its head around to face the parking lot. As the snout angled towards the sound, Stanley caught his first glimpse of the putrid pink underbelly between the chitinous plates building the creature’s back and sides.
He knew where to aim through practice and hard-learned lessons, but the crucible also had an eye of its own. The burnished iron head of the bolt in the chamber had been a dull gray before Stanley opened the door. Now it steamed with heat, burning red-hot as the monster’s soft stomach came into sight. The stored arms flexed out into position, forming a T-shape aimed at the hellish trespasser. Stanley inhaled and exhaled once, hard, and fired.
The bolt did not fly as much as explode towards the creature, thin flames washing over Stanley on exit. From his point of view, a neon orange line burst across the parking lot, drawing a connection between him and the wyrm. There was another burst of light as it hit the beast, orbs of fire blossoming where the bolt head pierced the gooey flesh of its belly. Stanley could hear meat sizzling, but before he could grimace in disgust, the machine in his hand shifted gear. The neon bar of light resolved into a thick, molten chain that jerked suddenly backwards into motion. The wyrm was yanked from the senior citizen, jaws snapping at the grass as the chain dragged it away from the street and onto the asphalt of the parking lot. The crucible wound the chain back to the van, wrenching it towards Stanley as each glowing link clanked into place.
Stanley was sweating buckets as he struggled to keep hold of the wooden handholds. The metal was so hot it steamed, and the speed with which it reeled in its catch made it shake and shudder violently. Stanley’s teeth clacked together; he almost bit through his tongue.
The wyrm was getting closer every second. Its scales kicked up sparks where they skidded over the concrete, adding to the molten fire still dripping from the chain. Stanley couldn’t hear it, but saw the jaws working angrily, clacking open and shut, trying to shift the iron bolt head from its stomach.
As the crucible neared the end of its chain, Stanley leaned forward and tipped the crossbow down. As the wyrm skittered towards the open door, the new angle brought it up to slam against the edge of the vehicle, crunching its stomach and folding it around the metal floor.
Careful to hold the crucible steady, its bolt slotted back in the slide but the head still lodged in the wyrm, Stanley pulled his left hand off the handle and clutched the thing at the nape of its scaled neck.
The wyrm, previously stunned after the impact, now bucked against Stanley’s hold. Rancid spit flicked from its maw onto his coveralls. With one hand, he gripped the monstrosity, the nitrile gloves peeling away from the heat. He released the crucible and fumbled with the wooden block wedged into his breast pocket.
The thing thrashed again, whipping its tail against his body. Stanley felt an exposed strip of skin above his ankle cut open, a mouth of pain gasping for air. He needed the stamp, now.
The wooden block finally slid free and he flipped it up to see the symbols carved in the sides. Curling waves wrapped around the bottom half of the stamp. He had no choice but to trust his instincts.
Stanley jammed the stamp into the eye of the thing and held it in place. The snake shuddered through its entire body and stiffened. Stanley held his grip and his breath, trying desperately to hold onto hope, as well. The thing in his hands spasmed once, twice more, before falling limp on top of him.
Stanley promptly followed suit, collapsing onto the floor of the van, one hand still clutching the beast’s neck. Instinct scores, yet again.
Not one to rest overlong, Stanley sat up and, after glancing about for witnesses, slid the van door closed.
He moved to pull a cage free from the clothesline overhead. He was still shaky, his muscles throbbing and his hand blistered around the monster. Despite his faith in the stamp, he would not risk letting even the slightest pressure off of his client’s neck. Carelessness had cost him enough already. He nearly brought the whole clothesline tumbling down on him as he snapped at carabiners with one hand.
Once the wyrm was safe inside, he slid the extra deadbolts he had welded on closed, and pulled a stick of blue chalk from the counter. Using the chalk, he filled in the runes needed to enchant his converted cat carrier.
Stanley was a modern man, with a mind for modality. Whenever he bought a new cage, he would carve the basic building blocks of his charms into them, leaving blank spaces for more specific portions. This way, a little thrice-blessed chalk was all he needed to connect the various sigils in whatever way best suited his client. Bespoke business.
On this cage, he filled in the empty spaces with dreams of the sea, swirls of ocean current, and beds of seaweed to keep the eel ensorcelled and docile. Once the circuits were successfully closed, Stanley slid the cage beneath one of the workbenches and drew a tarp over top of it.
Testing the metal for warmth, he lifted the crucible and released the latch that returned its arms to their storage position. Van now secured, he exited through the back door. He was careful to close the door behind him, in case his client was a light sleeper.
Regaining himself a little, Stanley strode across the tarmac towards the bus stop in his scorched jumpsuit. The senior citizen had not moved an inch during the last three minutes.
“Well managed, Dolores,” Stanley chirped as he stepped onto the sidewalk, scanning this way and that for passersby. Dolores said nothing. Satisfied with his reconnaissance, Stanley walked to the bench and wrapped his arms around her waist. He was feeling for the strips of black fabric he had affixed to the bench the night before.
“Seems like the Velcro works great!” With a swift movement, Stanly lifted the mannequin off the bench, pulling her free from her fasteners and up onto his shoulder.
As graceful as he could, Stanley ran like hell back to the van. Next time pull the van around, he thought as the dummy’s padding jostled the glasses on his face.
Stanley had seen the trails of dried-out grass on his second day sleeping in the lot. That was last week. Last night, hehad crept about laying his little trap. Now he thought he might feel a bit more at peace, knowing his neighbors were this much safer, thanks to him. He hoped it might help his sleep.
He pulled open the sliding door and threw the granny in.
Rather than step over his newly-deposited colleague, he opted for the other side of the van. He needed to store the stamp.
Stanley pulled the door only slightly ajar, the presidential mask of Dolores’ face staring at him accusingly from the floor. He reached over her lopsided wig and pulled the box from beneath the seat.
The square of Sator stamps were his most delicate charms, modest in form to offset their potency. Opening the box, he slid Leviathan’s stamp back into place among its comrades. Stanley made the sign of the cross once, twice, three times, closed the box, and set it back in its compartment. He placed it under the seat; under Dolores’s watchful eye.
As he slid the door shut again, Stanley heard the door to the bowling alley clatter open. He peeked over the hood of his van to see the same employee who opened standing at the top of the stairs. Stanley had been wrong, he had met this one before. Stanley thought his name might be Devin. He was looking around the lot, and saw Stanley almost at once.
“Hey, did you hear that?”
“Hear what, sorry?” Stanley removed his glasses and began to clean them. He had found the squint came in handy when attempting to feign ignorance. Stanley wasn’t a natural liar.
“Sounded like a gun went off,”
“I didn’t hear anything! Might’ve been a car backfiring.”
“Hell of a car…” maybe-Devin jutted his chin towards Stanley, “they got you working already this morning?”
Stanley was confused until he looked down and saw the streaks of black that slashed his jumpsuit. He put his glasses on and shrugged.
“No rest for the wicked, I guess.”