We had a pre-meeting before our talk with Daniel. Or rather, everyone showed up when I was getting off my shift at the coffee shop for the day. My job is… getting better, actually. Like I was convinced I was going to get fired and was all anxious about it for like two days and then nothing happened and all that anxiety just kinda went away. Also my manager started saying things like ‘good job today’ and ‘you’re doing great’ just out of the blue and I kind of feel it’s a little forced - like she doesn’t bother doing that with anyone else - but you know, it’s reassuring, so I’ll take it. My self-esteem needs all the help it can get.

Also I chased off a possum all on my own the other day so I’m feeling pretty good about that.

Actually it wasn’t on my own, she was standing in the doorway to make sure it all went okay but she didn’t have to step in to save me so I’m going to take that as a win.

Hitting someone in the face with a broom is really cathartic, btw.

(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)

Grayson showed up first. It was only about ten minutes before the end of my shift and he ordered coffee while he waited. He looked tired, but my manager is pretty strict about not chatting with friends while we’re on shift, so I couldn’t ask him about it. And then after I clocked out, Maria showed up. She greeted Grayson with more familiarity than I expected, considering the three of us haven’t really hung out in a group that much. There was the steam tunnel incident and they’d run into each other a couple times since then, but not enough that I’d expect them to fall in together like old friends. And Maria isn’t like Cassie, who is friends with about half of campus, somehow.

“I have a plan for what we’re going to say to Daniel,” she said. “But first - how did your counseling session go?”

Grayson looked first at her and then at me. I felt my cheeks go red. Just blurt all my secrets out into the open, thanks Maria.

“It’s fine,” Maria said quickly. “Grayson knows all about the Daniel situation. He’s been attending the Rain - sorry - Folklore Society - meetings too.”

“Since one of the professors intervened to keep it going I was worried it might have something to do with the administration and I, well, that’s important to me,” he admitted sheepishly. “I recognized Maria so I sat with her and then Daniel came barging in all freaked out and she caught me up on what’s going on.”

“Oh,” I said.

Which really translated to ‘my feelings are hurt that no one told me this and I feel like I’m being left out - or worse - excluded because you don’t actually like me and are just tolerating my presence.’ But I couldn’t say that outloud yet, because the counselor I met with on Tuesday said that I should acknowledge how I feel and that I have a right to be upset with how other people treat me but also a lot of this anxiety might be self-inflicted and she didn’t give me any helpful tips on how to fix anything yet.

“We, uh, mostly talked about my boyfriend,” I said uncomfortably. “My very ex-boyfriend. I told her he died in a car accident the night he, uh, he hit me.”

There was a very long silence.

“Finally,” Maria sighed. “I’ve been hoping you’d talk to someone about that for like half a year now.”

Then she went digging in her purse for a pack of tissues and handed it to me.

“Did she tell you that wasn’t your fault?” Maria asked.

“Yes,” I replied miserably.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not.”

She took a big step and spun around so that we were face to face. I stopped walking and she clapped her hands together authoritatively.

“So it’s not your fault,” she said, “and neither is Daniel. I get that he’s bullying you right now - yes it is bullying - and I think we should deal with that, but maybe after he’s no longer literally about to die horribly.”

“Yes, that does seem like the more pressing problem,” Grayson commented dryly. “Everything else about him will probably be a lot easier to confront once that’s dealt with.”

Honestly, from Grayson’s tone… I don’t think he likes Daniel that much either. I guess he’s only seen the worst of him though - the panicked asshole side of him. If that was my only impression, I’d probably not be feeling very charitable either. I’ve at least seen the egotistical but mostly harmless side of him, how he makes people feel included just because he wants to be the center of their attention.

Yanno now that I say that, there’s not that much to like about Daniel, is there?

Maria’s plan was kind of brilliant. Honestly, as morbid as this sounds, I think what happened to Patricia was a bit of a wake-up call for her. She seems to be taking the time to think things through now. Meanwhile, I’m off making bargains with the laundry lady and the devil.

Please don’t scold me in the comments.

We’d meet up with Daniel in a few days, right before the weekend. Maria thought it best to tell him about the idea of transferring the target, but not with the intention of actually going through with it. She was hoping to shame him into dealing with the problem himself and would tell him that she had some weapons all ready to go. If he was still scared, we’d go with him. And if he wasn’t able to do it, then we’d get its attention and switch its target and then deal with it ourselves.

“We’ll be useless in there,” I hissed. “If he doesn’t get his shit together, we won’t be able to do anything to help him.”

“I know,” Maria replied uncomfortably. “But maybe him realizing that will be the push he needs to act. I don’t think we can wait much longer.”

I had to agree with that.

“And if it does work?” Grayson asked. “If you become the target?”

“Then I’ll kill it,” I said grimly.

“You think you can?”

He sounded skeptical. Can’t say I blame him. I took a breath and thought of the eyeball, how I was scared and confused but how I killed it anyway.

“Yeah. I think I can.”

“Okay so that’s the backup plan,” Maria said hastily. “We just need to convince Daniel to go along with it now.”

He wasn’t going to like this. He didn’t want to put himself in danger. He wanted an easy answer, one where he stayed safe and as far from harm as possible. We’d tried telling him we’d help with his task already and it didn’t go over well. This was essentially the same solution, only repackaged so that it’d sound like he had a way out if he couldn’t do it in the end.

Except we didn’t think the way out would work. We just needed to get him moving.

“I think I know how to convince him,” I said.

There was one moment where Daniel was willing to act. It was after Patricia and all the others died. He had a spark of righteous indignation, an instinctive recoiling from something so horrific, and he’d demanded that we do something. There was a moment where he seemed bigger than all of his flaws.

So we just needed to remind him of that and convince him he could be that person again.

But in the meantime I was going to go find a backup plan. In case we couldn’t convince Daniel to deal with this problem himself, like he should. In case we couldn’t transfer the target of the creature. In case everything else fell through and he still blamed me for not being able to save him, because I’m not sure if I can deal with that. Look, I know you all tell me it's not my fault and I can’t hold myself responsible except…

Like. My dad vanished out there and everyone just looked the other way and maybe it wasn’t their fault as well but I just wonder… did they try?

So I’m trying.

I went to find the devil. It wasn’t hard. I saw him leaning against the doors of the chapel as I approached.

“You knew I was looking for you?” I demanded.

“Course I did.”

He shoved off the doors and came over to walk alongside me. The sidewalk went in a long loop around this particular patch of greenery so we had plenty of room for a leisurely stroll.

“Seems kind of weird that I find you outside the chapel,” I commented.

“You’ve lived a sheltered life. I won’t shock you with details, but I am hardly the only unholy thing that’s graced those grounds.”

Well that’s something I didn’t need to know. But I didn’t seek out the devil to have my naivete ruined, so I told him about my problem with Daniel and what we were planning to do about it.

“So?” he asked when I was done. “Why are you bothering me about this?”

“I thought - maybe you’d have something I could use…?”

“First off, that bargain was a one time thing,” he said curtly. “Secondly, even if there was wiggle room in it for me to assist you again, I wouldn’t. Because it’s not my problem. However, I’m apparently in a charitable mood, so I’m going to give you some advice. It’s not your problem either.”

“I need to help him!” I cried.

“No,” he said coldly. “You need to do nothing. Didn’t I tell you already? This isn’t about you.”

Okay, so I can’t fix it for Daniel. I get that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help, right? There’s people that help the hero in their journey, right? I said something along those lines to the devil, hoping he’d get what I was saying and, I don’t know, give me another pencil or something.

“Fine,” he sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll help if it makes you shut up. Come here.”

He stopped walking and I turned to face him. He took a deep breath in and stared down at me, his face pinched critically. I stood a little straighter under his inspection until he nodded in satisfaction.

“I’m going to teach you what to do,” he instructed. “Do this in front of a mirror. Now give me your best serious and determined face. C’mon. Don’t be embarrassed.”

I composed myself as best as I could. Tightened my jaw and stared straight ahead as the devil mused for a moment before nodding in reluctant satisfaction. He walked around behind me and placed both hands on my shoulders.

“Okay, now this is going to be the hard part,” he said into my ear. “Repeat after me. ‘No.’”

“Uh-”

“C’mon, you can do it.”

“No…?”

“Yes!” I winced at his triumphant cry. “Just like that! Try it again, but with conviction.”

“No?”

“Close enough for now. Try some variations, like ‘no, I don’t want to do that’ or ‘no, and I’d like you to leave.”

I pulled away and turned around to face him.

“I’m sorry, but how is this helping?” I asked.

“Well, if you can’t stand up for yourself, then you need to practice. Every night, stand in front of a mirror and rehearse all the things you can say when you’re being asked to do something that makes you uncomfortable until it feels natural. It’ll make it easier to tell your little friend here to go fuck himself in the future.”

“This isn’t the kind of help I want!”

He rolled his eyes at me. Yep. The literal devil rolled his eyes at me like he was my tweenage sister.

“Oh I’m sorry, do I look like a fucking fairy godmother? I’m the devil! I’m not here to fix all your problems.”

“You’re a trickster,” I spat back. “You love meddling.”

“That I am.” He sobered quickly. “You forget why the tricksters often get recast into my role, however. Are you sure you want to continue asking me for help?”

There was a sharp edge to his voice. I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff and if I didn’t watch where I stepped, I’d tumble over. This was the devil I was dealing with. He’d been cordial and helpful even, but even if he was acting in the trickster trope… well, tricksters still get people killed. And stories involving the devil might start out as humorous pranks but at the end he took what he was due. Someone got hurt.

I didn’t reply. My instincts were screaming at me to be quiet and to not push it any further. I’d gone as far as I could. The devil waited a moment more, his expression hard, then he finally shook his head and walked away, his thumbs stuck in his pockets.

“I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit,” he muttered. “Call me when it’s something I actually care about.”

Well, it wasn’t a great plan, but I had to try, right? I was pretty despondent the rest of the day. Our talk with Daniel was only a day away. Maria planned to do it right before the weekend so we could use Saturday to prepare and execute our plan. Give him as little time to back out as possible. It was looking like our tight timeline was going to mean I wouldn’t have any solutions ready to go in case this didn’t work, though. It made me feel sick to my stomach.

I know how he’s going to die. And I keep thinking about it and how horrible it is and… I just want to throw up from the stress of it all.

Anyway that’s why I wound up at the only place on campus that’s open until midnight, stress eating. Nothing like making a stress induced stomach ache worse with a couple slices of greasy pizza, right?

Cassie was asleep when I returned to the dorm. She has an early class and tries to get to bed at a reasonable time so she’s not falling asleep during it. And that’s something I don’t want to interfere with at all, not after my own encounter with the millipedes, so I try to be very careful and not wake her up. I crept into the room as quietly as I could and then took my toothbrush down to the bathroom.

So far there haven’t been any monsters showing up there, but I still try not to shower late at night just in case. Having to run naked down the hallway while being pursued by the evil embodiment of shampoo is pretty high on my list of things I never want to experience.

I wasn’t alone in the hallway when I exited the bathroom. Someone else was leaning into the open doorway of one of the rooms, his hand on the frame. I didn’t think much of it at first, until I drew closer and realized that it was leaning into my dorm room.

The one Cassie was currently asleep in.

I quickened my pace, trying to call out and demand to know what he was doing. The words just kind of squeaked out at first and I took a breath to try again. I was silently panicking - I’d shut the door! I remembered shutting the door - right? Cassie was going to be furious with me.

Then I froze and my words died before they escaped my lips.

The fingers were too long. The fingertips were flattened into round blobs of flesh. It reminded me of a tree frog. And at first I thought it was wearing clothing, albeit in shades of beige. There was something amiss about that, though. There were no folds. No hems. The pattern on what I thought was a graphic t-shirt made no sense and I could see the ridge of its spine protruding from one of the dark blots on its back. The collar of the shirt was uneven, following the ridge of its collarbones.

It wasn’t clothing. It was the patterning of its skin.

Camouflage. Like a tiger’s stripes. So it could blend in with us.

It slowly turned its head to look at me. I was expecting… all sorts of things, honestly. Sharp teeth. No face at all. I got… a fairly ordinary face. There was a nose. Lips. But its eyes were where the resemblance to a human face broke down.

There were no eyelids. No deposits of fat padding the sockets. Just round, staring eyes like golf balls.

I screamed.

Okay, it took a couple tries, I’m not going to lie. The first attempt I filled my lungs and all that came out was a strangled squeak. The creature continued to stare at me with those peeled eyes, motionless, its elongated fingers resting on the doorframe of our room. It didn’t seem inclined to do anything but stare and some part of my mind was screaming that so long as it wasn’t hostile, as long as it wasn’t approaching me, I should just shut up and not do anything.

That it was bad enough that it had noticed me and I had noticed it.

I shouldn’t cause trouble. I should just be happy I was alive because that’s more than what most people get when they run into the inhuman.

But slowly, after another hoarse attempt at yelling, it turned its head away from me. It took a step into our room.

Cassie. It was going after Cassie. It didn’t care about me at all.

It was halfway through the doorway when I screamed at it to stop. That’s all I said - STOP. As loud as I could.

These things don’t like an audience so I was going to bring one down on its ugly head.

And doors banged open. It wasn’t so late that everyone was asleep yet. The creature jerked back out of our room and then sprinted down the hallway. It hit the doors leading to the stairwell and was then gone.

Cassie woke up in all the commotion. Our RA got involved. (I don’t like our RA) I cried a lot and told them I saw someone trying to break into one of the dorm rooms. Some of the doors can be forced with a credit card and that’s what he was doing to our door.

So then our RA got campus security involved and I had to repeat the story to them - which was awful because we all know there’s something weird going on with them - and an hour later I was finally able to go back to my room. Campus security promised to increase the patrols around our dorm for a little while and see if they could scare off whoever it was from coming back. Which won’t do shit.

Cassie was still awake. She’d talked to them as well, just asking dumb questions like if she had a boyfriend or if she had valuables in her room that people knew about. When I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I found her standing by the window. She was staring at the car for campus security parked outside our dorm.

“Was it really a person trying to break in?” she asked, not looking at me.

I guess Cassie knows by now that nothing is ordinary with me. I told her about the creature. How it didn’t seem interested in me. She didn’t seem surprised by this. Her shoulders tensed, but that was all. And when she spoke, I didn’t feel like she was talking to me.

“I guess that’s what got her, then.”

That’s all she said. Then she crawled into bed and I didn’t try to talk to her about it anymore, because she had the covers under her head and was trying to stifle her crying.

Besides, I can put the pieces together well enough on my own.

That creature might be what killed her previous roommate. And now it’s after her.[x]

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