Growing up in Ohio and seeing almost all of the batshit things this state has to offer, I guess it's understandable that I've grown numb to the weirdness going on around me. I mean, when you go to a gas station and the little screen thingie on the pump gives you messages like 'you're a trespasser in god's lands' almost every day you just learn to take the weird with the mundane. Hell, sometimes they even intermingle.

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There are late nights at the college bookstore where I sometimes can't tell our normal student customers from their black eyed doppelgangers who come in looking for books I can never find on the shelves, or I forget if I've already turned off a computer that has eyes on the monitors following my movements or trying to print out a list of weird instructions which of course I throw away. I listen to my shitty boss, not some stupid anonymous paper from our old as fuck, barely chugging along computers and their sticky, smelly keyboards. Sometimes I even think I see this strange, somewhat attractive man pop in every now and then just to see what new editions we have only for him to vanish seconds later.

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And I guess recently I also haven't noticed when said shitty boss leads pretty young women into his back office, and I also never notice when they leave. The office is on the other side of the bookstore, directly in my line of sight, and there's no back door out of it or even a window so it's not like they could leave any other way, but we can get pretty slow after the start of each semester and you'll usually find me behind my desk reading a book of my own and not really paying much attention to anything around me. Today though, that changed. Something, or rather someone, caught my attention.

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I was sitting down, reading a new book. Today it was House of Leaves, an absolute fucking beast of a book I bought recently after doing a deep dive into some of those old Slenderman youtube series. Everymanhybrid, if anyone is curious. The book is almost like an art experiment as much as it is a story, some pages only holding a single sentence or word, some chapters written out in spirals across their pages. It was one of these spiral chapters that lead to me noticing the man in the back corner of the bookstore. I was holding the book up and turning it in my hands in an attempt to read when I saw him, rather large, a mixture between a dad bod and lumberjack, shuffling around while wearing this tattered and stained brown trench coat and fedora. Great, I thought, a homeless guy snuck in again. And Pete the shitty boss is no where to be found, leaving tiny Liberty Rings to deal with this big lug. Setting my book down I slid off my seat, dragging my feet across the store's stale beige carpet as I made my way to him. Amongst the usual hum and flickering of the yellow tinted overhead lights and the chatter from the library the bookstore was attached to, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in this moment. My only concern was if this guy was going to prove to be a problem or not.

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"Oi," I called to him as I got closer, "Can I help you with something, sir?" He didn't seem to hear me, just continued what he was doing, which was staring holes into my boss' office door. Rolling my eyes I tried again, "Sir? Hello? If you aren't here to buy anything I'm going to have to ask you to leave." This wasn't really a rule we had in the store, but it often worked to get people out when they were causing trouble. This guy though, still didn't even acknowledge me. Maybe he was drunk or on drugs, either way it spelt for little old me. Why couldn't he be out begging on the tree lawn instead of bugging me here. Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with the homeless, I was there once for a short period of time, but I do not want to deal with some druggie or drunk or drugged out drunk. I hesitantly reached out to poke his big arm when a voice called out, like a whisper directly in my ear but somehow far away at the same time, making the goosebumps on my arms start up. "Excuse me, Miss." By now I know this routine, though they were here earlier than usual. Craning my neck to look behind me, I recognized a girl from my world history class, Alexis Bigsby.

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Her pretty white smile reached a pair of inky black eyes. It was the same with the other two girls behind her, though I didn't know their names.

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Alexis, or rather her doppleganger, had been coming around a lot lately, always asking for the same book. To mock a mocking bird. "Sorry," I said, trying to hide the edge of annoyance in my voice, "We still don't have that one." The doppleganger gave a high pitched, teetering giggle, one her friends mimicked almost perfectly. These things always gave me the creeps, but today they felt even more off than usual. I couldn't tell you why, maybe it was the higher volume in which they made appearances lately, earlier and earlier than usual, or maybe just that giggle. It was giving me hard uncanny valley. Then abruptly, the giggling stopped and they were silent as the grave. With her eyes pitch black as they were, I could never really tell just where the Alexis doppleganger was looking but at that moment I got the intents feeling that she wasn't looking at me, but rather behind me. At the man.

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Something was wrong.

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I turned to look back at the homeless man, only for him to reach one of his massive hands out and tightly grip my arm, jerking me back and shoving me behind him with such force that I nearly slammed into the nearby wall. I was so close to the guy now I could smell the mixture of cigarette smoke and cheap cologne that wafted off him. I don't know if it was that or the current situation that made my stomach churn. Probably both. "Hey!" I cried out once I overcame the shock of being manhandled, "What the hell is your problem?!" "Stay away from the kid." He barked at the Alexis doppelganger and her friends, his voice croaky, sounding like he gargled gravel every morning, "This is the only time I'm warning you shits." More teetering giggles was the only response he got and I once again found myself reiterating that something was wrong.

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The other two girls swerved around the man, and I don't then they actually walked but more like glided. Like ice skaters. I realized they were going for me and I pushed off the wall, ready to make a run for it, but the man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out something in his closed fist. When he opened it I saw purple sand inside. He blew it into the air, in the direction of the girls, and they both froze, their postures rigid. Alexis' doppelganger let out that fucking giggle again and she lunged for him. I don't even remember seeing him move, his hand suddenly gripped her face, smearing that weird dust on her, and she screamed. Just like every sound she made it sounded like a whisper directly into my ears while at the same time sounding distant. It was awful. One by one the girls, or whatever the hell they actually were, dropped to their knees and I saw just what the dust had done to them. Their faces were covered in large, pulsing boils and blisters, almost ready to burst. I was definitely doing to puke if they did.

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"Come on." I was pulled away from the awful sight, this man gripping my arm again and pulling me back to my desk at the front of the book store. I kept looking back at the...things, and as I feared, one of those boils popped. I don't want to go into detail, I'll just say that whatever it was that came out, melted that black eyed girls face, like some sort of acid. I jerked away from the man and ran behind my desk, immediately bending over the small plastic trash can I had back there and promptly losing my lunch. Some of it even got in my hair.

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I fucking hate Ohio.

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When I straightened, the man was still there, but the dopplegangers were no where to be seen. He reached an arm out, offering me some crumpled napkins and a flask. I didn't think, I just took them. Stupid, I know. Luckily, the only thing in that flask was something alcoholic, it burned a little. I'm not much of a drinker and I admit I gagged, which he seemed to find funny. This man was twice, maybe three times my size, pale, with a messy five o' clock shadow that desperately needed trimming, and black hair poked out from under his fedora. "You okay kid?" He asked me, and I almost expected gravel to tumble out of his mouth, "You been seeing those things a lot?" "..They come around." I handed him back the flask with a shaky hand and he took a swig of it himself before shoving it back into his pocket. "They've never done that before, what did they want with me? What are they? And who the hell are you?" He held up his free hand, pulling a coffee stained business card out of his pocket with the other and placing it on the table. Wrinkling my nose I picked it up, reading it over. It was a business card for "Boston's Best', a detective agency stationed out of a hotel with the same name. I knew of it, I passed it from time to time when I was out running errands. And this guy was, ironically, named Boston. As I looked up, this man, Boston, was using more napkins to try and get the puke from my hair, and I honestly kind of appreciated it. "Okay, that still doesn't answer my other questions." "I'm here to investigate a series of missing persons reports."

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He was avoiding the questions.

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It seemed like those pockets were bottomless as he pulled out about three polaroid photos from them. Each was of a different, very attractive woman around my age, and each had a name under them. Stephanie Reynolds, Jamie Neils, and Sasha Sanatos. All posed like they were taking school photos, all smiling wide. They'd light up a room, unlike me. It was like looking at missing posters, or images of dead girls you'd see on the news. Both, I am far too used to seeing by now. For a moment my mind flashed to Heather, my best friend in high school, who I had the luck of finding dead and dried out in some broken wall in the school's basement.

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She shouldn't that dry, almost like a mummy. She hadn't been missing more than a few days.

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"These young ladies were last seen talking to Pete Ness, the manager here. I'm assuming you work here, kid?" Boston took me from my thoughts and I gave a slight nod. He returned it, stuffing the photos back into his coat. "Meet me at the Denny's up the road after you close up, I have some questions, but I don't want to ask them here. And look out for those black eyed freaks."

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He turned on his heels and strolled out of the store before I could accept or deny his orders, coat tail fluttering behind him as he went.

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I'm now sitting in the back booth of the Denny's, drinking my third pop. So far he hasn't shown. I'm thinking I was stood up.

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