by Lissa Kasey
I nodded, though only vaguely remembered the schedule Alex and I had discussed. Too much on my mind. My gaze met Freya’s and she didn’t seem upset or worried, just sad.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“I’ve had better mornings, but I’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Go. Have fun. I’ll see you at the convention later. My first class isn’t until eleven.”
I ran back to the cabin to grab the costume bags, and dropped them off before making my way to the car. I was seated and nibbling on fruit before realizing that I was in the passenger seat and Alex was driving.
“Um, you don’t have a valid license,” I said.
“I don’t plan on getting pulled over,” he told me, eating a banana while he steered us out of the B&B lot. “You’re a little out of it. That means I drive or we get another rideshare.”
“We could carpool with one of the other.”
“No,” Alex said. “Someone in that group is shady.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” But I didn’t stop him to take over. Alex actually drove with exceptional care. Full stops, signals, brakes, yielding to others when I would have pushed through with impatience. He followed the GPS on his phone, using the longer highway route. His phone rang about halfway there. Alex used a button on the steering wheel to click answer. I hadn’t even known that was an option.
“Brother mine, tell me what you know,” Alex said into the sudden lack of the radio as the phone connected. The GPS still showed on the screen on the car, but the phone said ‘Lukas’.
“You do know police information isn’t public information, right?” Lukas asked drolly over the line.
“Hi, Lukas,” I said.
“Hello, Micah. I thought you were supposed to be keeping this jerk in line? Not chasing monsters or anything?”
“We aren’t chasing anything,” Alex said. “I just want to make sure nothing is chasing us. I didn’t get much from Manning this morning, but enough to make me worry.”
“Manning has a good reputation. Smart, resourceful, good solve rate, and often ends up with bigger, more complicated cases. I know he called the department here to ask about both of you. And there are whispers about the FBI getting involved, which means a big body count. I can’t pull case details without risking my job,” Lukas said.
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“I can say what has been released to multiple media outlets is limited, but I know there are more than three bodies.”
“More than three,” Alex echoed.
The words sank in slowly. Byrony, Sarah, and Amanda. Who else? Why?
“Word is they were looking for some military type drones to scan wooded areas for the possibilities of others. I know there’s a big request out for cadaver dogs. Some people are talking about a new serial killer. I think you guys should come home,” Lukas said.
“We don’t know if this is related to us or the group at all,” I said.
“Three members of the group dead, that’s what Alex confirmed for me already,” Lukas said. “Sounds like more than a coincidence to me.”
“In a group that has thousands,” I protested.
“Yet these three were part of the small group that actually meets up for costume stuff, right?” Alex asked.
“Manning did not confirm that they found Sarah or Amanda,” I said.
“Not in so many words,” Alex agreed. I really hoped neither of us gave away that Alex was driving instead of me. Lukas would freak. “I plan to keep us separate from the group as much as possible. Claiming we are doing lots of classes, and if I see anything as a threat we’ll leave.”
“The whole running into a guy in the middle of the road wasn’t bad enough?” Lukas said.
“At least we found him, got him help,” Alex pointed out.
“And led the cops to the car and the missing girls by accident,” I added.
“Right, and tell me exactly how that happened? You stop to help a guy and end up running into the woods, which leads to cops and a trip to the ER?” Lukas demanded. Alex and I exchanged a look and must have been silent for far too long because Lukas cursed. How much had Manning told him? “I know you’re both fucking weird so just tell me.”
I heard Sky in the background trying to soothe him, but it didn’t seem to help. Telling Lukas we suspected we’d seen the incarnation of Death, or whatever, would hardly calm him down. “I saw a shadow,” I said. “Not a person shadow. Something moving where there shouldn’t have been. It’s why I stopped. It’s why I ran. I don’t normally see stuff.”
It was Lukas’s turn to be silent. Finally, he said. “Ghosts?”
I sighed, readying myself for another debate on the American view of dead people. But Alex interrupted. “Not exactly. They were mostly shadows. I didn’t see any people-like things either. They didn’t look like ghosts to me.” He paused and gulped. “That first night that Byrony went missing, I saw her ghost like she was standing right in front of me. She was that clear. Joe’s too, but he’s still alive.”
“Physically,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Alex agreed softly. “There were shadows in those woods too. The ones behind Freya’s house. Undefined, mostly. I guess I’d begun to think of the shadows like that as the really old dead, or maybe just not human at all.”
Lukas growled. “Come home. No messing with more supernatural shit. We just got you back.”
“I don’t think most of this is supernatural related,” Alex said, surprising me. We’d seen a lot since arriving. The ghost cat that morphed into something dark, the mass of shadows, and the Death thing. “I’m not getting that vibe.”
“You’re not getting that vibe…” Lukas sounded like he wanted to reach through the phone and strangle his brother. But it was then that I realized I wasn’t really either. I’d felt a bit of it in the woods that first night when something touched me, but it hadn’t stayed. More passed through me. Then on the road, the silence, created by the panic attack which had me dashing into the woods, it hadn’t been the same.
I remembered the feeling of wriggling flesh, like I’d been dropped into a pit of fire ants, totally unbearable, every single time I stood in front of the LaLaurie Mansion. The weird bird chitter that echoed into the darkness until all other noise was snuffed out hadn’t happened either. More a tuning into my own heartbeat pounding and ears flooded with the sound of blood pumping. Not that vacuum of all sound. Did it mean all we had encountered was less terrifying? No. But perhaps not the demons we normally dealt with. Whatever these supernatural things were, they weren’t directed at us.
“Maybe the killer is the target of the activity?” I asked Alex. “Instead of us. Which is why it’s less intense.”
“A sort of karma perhaps?” Alex said. “Maybe. Or a signal that whatever they are chasing is the true darkness in all this. But whoever is killing these people is human.”
“That’s usually how homicide works,” Lukas said dryly.
“You guys have Marc’s death as unknown,” I pointed out. Marc had been another tour guide. He’d been murdered by some sort of ritual gone wrong. The darkness had killed him, I was pretty sure, though didn’t know how exactly the police could ever pin that down.
“Can’t put it on the dead woman. Have no proof, though everyone thinks it was her and her niece,” Lukas said. “Coroner said his death couldn’t be determined exactly, since he was cut into pieces. Internal explosion is not a thing.”
“Gross,” Alex said. “We’re eating breakfast.”
“In the car? You shouldn’t eat and drive.”
“I’m not eating,” I said, my stomach still a little queasy from the news this morning. The few pieces of fruit I’d had weren’t sitting all that peaceably. He didn’t need to know I wasn’t driving either.
“Whatever,” Lukas griped. “Finish your convention thing and come home in one piece. I don’t want to have to travel to fucking Texas to bring you both home in body bags.”
“Will you continue to poke around
?” Alex asked.
“As much as I can without getting into trouble. I’d rather you both come home now.”
“All the victims have been women so far,” Alex pointed out. “Not that it’s a good thing, that they are women, just that we probably aren’t the victim of choice.”
“That we know of. As I said, there are more bodies and I don’t have details. We have no idea if that is a common denominator or a coincidence. I’ll see if I can find pictures of the missing girls. Maybe they looked alike,” Lukas said.
“Byrony was a redhead,” Alex offered.
“Amanda was African-American,” I said. “I think Sarah was blonde.”
“Not helping, Micah,” Lukas said. “Common traits, not different.”
“I barely knew any of them. Sorry.” I said, again feeling a little broken for the constant need to push people away before they hurt me too.
Alex reached over and patted my leg. “We’ll see if Micah can find anything from the group once we’re back at the cabin for the day. We’ll send you pictures and any info we find.”
“You are not detectives.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “We are cosplayers shopping for fabric in T-minus ten.” I pointed Alex toward the bus lot and he slowed to follow the orange vest people waving flags.
“Nerds.”
“Happy nerds,” Alex said. “Wait until I show you our new sewing machine when we get home. It was like super expensive. Later, brother.” He clicked the dash button again and hung up the phone, steering us into the next available spot. He parked and turned off the car, then looked at me.
“What?”
He let out a sigh. “I have to fight the instinct too.”
“What instinct?”
“To protect you. To be an asshole caveman and take us both home. It would be the smart thing to do.”
“We don’t know that anyone is out to hurt us. Or that it’s related to the group at all. We tend to run into crazy things without trying.”
“And we just randomly stumbled across Texas’s latest serial killer? Who just so happened to have killed three girls related to an online cosplay group that all of you are in? Sounds like a lot of coincidences.”
I sighed. He was right. He reached across the seat to touch my face. He was gentle, but it still hurt as he reminded me of my bruises. “You’ve already been hurt. Let’s try to see as many of the booths as we can today and maybe head home early?”
“I thought you had a bunch of classes you want to go to?”
“None of that matters. Not to me. I can find tutorials on line. I can’t replace you.”
I let out a long breath because Alex had a way of saying things that hit hard, without trying. “Same,” I said lamely. “Stay close to me, okay? Don’t follow any black-eyed kids into the woods.”
He frowned at me.
“What?”
“I don’t remember ever telling you that. The night I disappeared, my demon showed up as a black-eyed kid. Offered me help in getting you back.”
I blinked at him, thinking back to his description of his abduction by the djinn or whatever it had been. But it wasn’t his description I was thinking of. It was the video of his disappearance. Something that niggled in the back of my brain the dozens of times I’d watched it. Like there was a face there in the brush.
A black-eyed child.
Pareidolia, I’d convinced myself, as much of what the paranormal Facebook group found could be attributed to the human brain latching onto the idea of a face or a shape. I’d read plenty of stories about black-eyed children. The rule was not to let them in. The always cried for help and if you followed them you vanished. If they knocked on your door and you let them in, you died. More myths, or at least I had thought so.
“Micah?” Alex prodded.
“I think I saw something in the video of your disappearance.”
“A black-eyed child?”
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “I don’t normally see things.”
“Or maybe you do and just brush it off like I did for so many years.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Alex squeezed my hand, making me look at him again.
“I like your weird,” he promised. “Even if it scares you, it’s okay. Our weird fits together just fine.”
I felt tears burn my eyes. No. I was not going to cry while sitting in a public parking lot. I’d always been a little weird, right? First dreaming of cosplay and crafts in a very scattered way which had bothered my father a lot. Then becoming a porn star fem boy, and finally as this lightning rod for the supernatural. “I don’t want spooky to be drawn to us.”
“I’m not sure it is. Seeing it doesn’t mean it’s drawn to us. Just means we are less likely to walk through the ghost of grandma Jane, right?” Alex gave me a stunning grin, kissed me on the lips and turned to get out of the car. “Now we have fabrics to browse. Think of all those smooth cottons beneath your hands.”
“Lots of stiff metallics too,” I added as I got out and followed him toward the bus. He let me take his hand and we swung them like we were little kids.
“Stiff…” Alex chuckled.
“Perv.”
“Only for you, babe.” Alex pulled me into a hug and kissed the side of my head before we got on the bus and found an empty seat away from all the grandmas.
Chapter 25
The day actually went pretty smoothly. We got through most of the rest of the booths, spending enough time browsing to buy another heap of fabric and even meet a few more budding designers. Alex hopped around a handful of classes, standing on the edges, listening to the overview of what they had to share.
He’d spent more time interested in fabric than the machines this time since he had chosen the one he wanted. As the time neared for us to do the costume thing, my anxiety grew. Normally I didn’t mind dressing up. I liked being someone else. But the crowd in front of the booth began to extend out into the aisles, and there was a lot of murmur about seeing some cosplay stars. I was not a star by any means. Not anymore. Three years ago, maybe. A baby at twenty, I’d done my share of conventions, with people waiting to see me, snap my picture, and get a signature. A lot of the female cosplayers started as young as fourteen. I’d been sixteen when I made my debut, then spent almost four years in the spotlight, being small and cute, attracting a lot of unwanted attention as well as adoring fans. I didn’t feel like that person anymore.
And I had a growing unease with my hardcore porn past. At the time, I’d thought it empowering. Only looking back now, realizing I’d let Tim treat me like a sex doll, did it feel demeaning. It was why I ultimately gave it up. Not my disappearance or even the end of my relationship with Tim. Other guys messaged me all the time, volunteering to be my ‘daddy’ or to ‘use me’ or a million other things. In general, I’d thought sex on screen wasn’t a big deal. If I ever did it again, it would be much different, with me in control. I wasn’t a kid desperate for affection anymore. Okay, so I was an adult desperate for affection, but I had boundaries too.
Would people recognize me? It was one of the reasons I had no desire to dress in any sort of girlish costume. No school girl. No dresses. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and think of the little boy I’d been. It wasn’t me anymore. I wasn’t even physically the same guy. Not as thin or delicate, since time filled out my face and my body. Could I still pull off looking like a girl? Probably. With the right clothes, wig, and covering part of my face, but I didn’t want to hide like that anymore.
Alex squeezed my hand. “What’s up?”
“Regretting this cosplay thing,” I said.
“You love dressing up.”
“Not for crowds like this. Not anymore.”
We headed toward the booth, trying to find someone in charge to lead us back to the changing area and where Freya had promised to have our costumes waiting.
“You made an amazing Inuyasha. Why don’t you design more stuff like that for yourself?” Alex asked.
“Not muc
h occasion to wear them.”
“That’s never stopped you from designing for Sky or me. No reason we can’t have random costume nights at the shop. It’s a craft shop. We specialize in random.”
I paused to look at him. Again, he was right. I sighed. He smiled that boyish grin that made me want to curl into him forever. “Stop seeing me so clearly,” I grumbled at him. “It’s not fair.”
He waved an employee of the booth over and got us led to the back where a bunch of hanging fabric had been created into dividers for makeshift dressing rooms. There were dressing bags hanging on a rack with names pinned to them. Alex grabbed ours.
“Did you give everything over to Freya this morning?” Alex asked with a frown. He lifted my bag a few times. “It feels really light. The red part of your costume was heavier, I thought.”
I took it from him and it was extremely light. The bulk of the fabric from the red outer layer alone had weighed more than this. “I gave her the whole thing. Wig and all.” I knelt at Alex’s feet, hoping I was out of everyone’s way and unzipped the bag. My heart flip-flopped. It wasn’t my Inuyasha outfit. It was the baby doll dress Freya had made me. I zipped it back up, my heart pounding, emotions rolling through me in waves of anger, terror, and sorrow.
“Maybe they just made a mistake.” Alex went to the rack and pushed through all the bags. “It should be here.” He paused to unzip his own bag. It was his Shaggy costume, untouched. “Fuck.”
I stood and put the bag back on the rack. Emotions slamming down on me. The wall I’d spent so much time erecting inside me to keep them back, shattered in an instant. Silence descended again. Not paranormal this time, but my own shutting out of all noise. Too much in my head. A thousand questions, thoughts, emotions all so jumbled I couldn’t even pull out a single one in that moment to form a coherent thought. I could barely breathe. All I felt was Alex’s arm around my waist. His breath tickled my ear but I couldn’t hear him, not until he wrapped his arms around me in a fierce hug.