THE LAST STANFORD

Rebecca pulled into a long gravel driveway and parked her low-bearing, burgundy, Subaru Impreza next to a line of six vehicles, those vehicles consisting of two trucks, two SUVs, and two hatchbacks, all of these vehicles of various colors, makes, and models.

The large upper-middleclass house in the distance was an odd one, too. It was all one story, but it was sprawling, like way bigger than it needed to be.

“They could have just built three stories,” said Rebecca to herself. “What were they thinking?”

That was odd, true, but it was the sight of all of those vehicles that made her heart twinge.

“Must be nice to have a family gathering like this,” she muttered.

She looked over at her “companion,” that “companion” quietly sitting within the passenger seat of her car.

“Well, what’s the skinny, Sam?” she asked.

The skeleton in Uncle Sam rags turned and stared upon her with his hollow orbital sockets. He held his tattered stars-and-stripes top hat in his bony left hand as he held up four of the bony fingers of his right hand.

These were her lives for this job. Her gift of life was very powerful, so powerful, in fact, that it was to be kept a secret at all costs. If she were to be killed here, she wouldn’t actually “die.” No, she would end up at a point in time before her death where her safety was guaranteed, a significant point in time where she could “try again.” It was much like having extra lives in a video game. This did give her options for each “job,” but it was also a very painful and very horrifying experience to be killed, and she’d been killed before at these jobs…

She had nightmares at night, but they were not really about her experiences with her jobs. They were mostly about being tortured to death and going to Hell, something she was not likely to forget any time soon, especially since that experience had left her with severe PTSD. Nevertheless, the more “lives” she had, the bigger and badder the job, and four extra lives was not a good sign by any means. Normally, she only had one or two.

Rebecca sucked in her breath and then spat out a low curse.

“Ooooookay,” she said unhappily. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this ain’t cool. Minnie reeeaaaally needs to inform me first when things are this bad…Damn…This is like suicide. Four is a little much…Hell, three is a little much. Four is a lot much.”

The macabre skeleton nodded his skull-head with a creaking of bone on bone. He then swiveled his gaze off toward the upper-middleclass home in the distance.

“All right,” winced Rebecca. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get this over with. I’d better call this kid so we can get this show on the road.”

She took a look at herself in the mirror, a reflexive habit she’d had…well…forever, or at least as long as she could remember.

She was short, only 5’2”, but she was built like an hourglass, so there was that. She was cute in the face, with round cheeks and a button nose, full lips, and moody dark-blue eyes.

A long time ago (not really that long ago, only a few years, but long enough in her mind to be long ago, anyway) she had been a typical middleclass college student, a little white sorority girl interested in being a little white sorority social-justice warrior, but those days were long gone, blown away by the smoke and ash of sheer tragedy and straight-up reality. Now she walked the Anarchy Road, and she fought the madness and evil that only those who walked the Anarchy Road could fight.

She used to dye her pixie-cut dark-brown hair blonde, but now her head was bald, the skin shiny, perfectly shaved, all except for the bright-green, short-cut mohawk on her otherwise hairless head.

She had on her black-cherry lipstick and her black eyeshadow, and this feature accented her punk look to a T.

Today, she wore her studded, black, punk leather jacket coupled with her favorite black Ramones tee, along with her black cargo pants and her black outdoorsman boots. This choice in clothing was a far cry from when she’d worn her normal, dressed-down sorority clothes…The green sweater and blue jeans just didn’t cut it anymore.

“This is all trauma induced,” she said as she studied her cute face in the mirror. “That’s what this is; you know that, Sam? Being tortured to death and sent to Hell kind of changes your perspective on life. I gotta be a punk now. It’s how I deal…It’s how I roll.”

The skeleton in rags said nothing, though he did turn his skull to stare over at the large upper-middleclass home beyond the gravel drive.

“Yeah, yeah,” sighed Rebecca. “I’ll get to it. I gotta call this kid and see what the hell is going on here…I’m supposed to pretend to be his girlfriend…I think he said he was nineteen?…Sheez, he’d better be a big weightlifter or something, because I’m turning twenty-six next month. His family’s gonna think I’m robbing the cradle…Not to mention my current drip…They are really going to have a conversation over that.”

Sam continued to stare out the passenger window at the house in the distance.

Rebecca’s macabre companion had been with her since she’d been rescued from Hell. Who he was, what he was, she had no idea, but he was not hostile in any way, and in fact, he carried with him some divine information that she most certainly needed if she was going to get any of these jobs done for the Anarchy Road. Of course, only she could see him, so she didn’t talk to him unless they were alone together.

“Okay,” sighed Rebecca yet again. “Let’s do this…This is probably going to involve a lot of pain, but let’s do this.”

She picked up her smartphone from off the dash and dialed Lane, her current client, this particular client a normie in need of some help along the lines of the paranormal, supernatural kind. This kind of help was what the Anarchy Road did…It was their specialty and their curse.

The phone rang three times before it was picked up. Rebecca put the call on speaker.

“Hello?” came a young male voice from her phone.

“Yeah, this is Reb,” said Rebecca flatly.

“Oh,” replied the young man on the other end.

Rebecca no longer used her old nickname. She went by “Reb,” because that was also short for “Rebel,” but it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that one out. No, the complex matter of her situation was that she no longer used her old nickname “Becca,” because that name was associated with “failure,” and not just “failure,” but ultimate failure, the kind of failure that got you tortured to death and sent to Hell.

Whatever the case, she was here now, and this kid needed help.

“I’m out front, if this is the right place,” said Rebecca. “There’s a big single-story house and six different vehicles out here—”

“You’re at the right place,” blurted out this “Lane.” “I’ll be right out.”

“Got it,” said Rebecca, and then she hung up.

She turned to Sam and shook her head.

“I’d better just grab the bats, Sam,” she frowned. “Until I know what’s going on, they’re the least intrusive…Can’t imagine what this white-bread family would think if I walked in with my pistol strapped. That would be hilarious, like some real sitcom shiz.”

The skeleton in Uncle Sam rags turned to stare at her with those empty eye sockets and then turned back to look at the house in the distance.

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Rebecca. “You just never shut up, do ya? You’re so talkative these days, like a little chatterbox.”

She exited her vehicle, opened the back driver’s-side door, and removed her leather case containing her two bats. She had her big bat and her little bat, both bats constructed of steel with aluminum cores, both bats coated with silver and blessed by Father Martin, himself, though the big bat had angelic symbols carved into the silver and steel, those carvings ranging all the way up and down the club part of it.

“My babies are heavy, but they’re ready to punish,” thought Rebecca in grim silence. “Besides, I’ve gotten some muscle from ’em just by practicing with ’em.”

She walked forward with her case toward the front door, walking past vehicle after vehicle, but the door opened inward before she could get to it, and out stepped the young man in question…

“Good grief,” groaned Rebecca, although it was a quiet groan.

This young man, this “Lane,” was supposed to be nineteen, but he looked sixteen, and…well…he was a gigantic dork, a real and honest-to-God girl repellent.

Lane was tall, almost six-foot, in fact, but skinny with a pasty complexion, and he wore big, black, square, nerd glasses on his face. He had short dark-brown hair in a business cut, and he sported brown eyes behind those giant-dork glasses. He was wearing a short-sleeved button up that was white with red lines crisscrossed over it, tan slacks, white socks, and good beige dress shoes. He was one-million-percent the unmentionable-part-between-her-legs repellent…Good lord.

“I mean, I’m not a virgin by any means, and I wasn’t exactly a slut, but at least I got laid now and then,” she mentally wandered. “But, holy cow, this kid is extra, EXTRA-virgin olive oil. He’s probably wearing tighty-whities…Can’t imagine clappin’ my cheeks with that…”

“Holy…” muttered Rebecca as she rolled her eyes.

She walked up on the porch and gave him a courtesy nod, but…he was even more of a dork up-close.

His dark eyes goggled out behind his nerd glasses as he visibly studied her.

“You’re Reb?” he asked in audible disbelief.

“Oh, I’m gonna have fun with this boy,” thought Rebecca with a grim mental smile. “I should get a little frisky with him in front of the folks. Hoo, buddy, would that be an After School Special…well, according to Father Martin anyway. It’s not like I’ve ever seen an After School Special, but I’ll take his word for it.”

“Yep,” she replied. “Look, I’m only going to ask this once, mainly because I’m required to…It’s part of the deal. Did you give a shout down the Anarchy Road?”

“Y…Yeah,” stammered Lane.

“Okay, kid,” answered Rebecca. “What’s the problem? What’s going on?”

This boy frowned and shook his head.

“I’m not a kid,” he said quietly. “We’re like the same age, anyway.”

“I’m turning twenty-six next month,” frowned Rebecca.

“Oh…” said Lane in awkward reply.

Of course, Rebecca’s thoughts turned toward a nastier tangent.

“You know, I could do a good deed and give this boy a treat,” she thought. “I could just take him into a back room, get down on my knees, unzip his pants, and…No…No, no, NO! What the hell is wrong with you! Focus, you moron! This kind of sinful BS is what got you into trouble in the first place!”

“It got me killed,” frowned Rebecca.

“What?” asked Lane.

Rebecca shook her head and waved him off.

“Never mind,” she said flatly. “Anyway, I’m here, so fill me in.”

“Or you can fill me up, tiger,” she thought with a mental laugh. “Quit it. Quit it right now, Rebecca. I know it’s funny, but you need to focus. Concentrate, or this is going to end very badly, very quickly, and dying in a horrible way is not your favorite pastime. I know you’re used to it, but you shouldn’t be.”

She struggled to keep a straight face.

“What’s going on?” she asked in her best and flattest voice.

“Something weird’s been going on,” frowned Lane. “For the last month I’ve…I’ve had this feeling that something’s wrong.”

“Like what?” asked Rebecca.

“I feel like I’m being watched,” replied Lane. “I feel uneasy in the house, and…and I can’t sleep at night. It’s like I’m scared something is going to jump me…I feel something is really wrong, like something is here that shouldn’t be…I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“Normally, I would say this is all in his head,” thought Rebecca. “This can’t be the case, though. Sam said I had four. That means something really is here…so…I’ll just have to find out, won’t I?”

“Okay,” she nodded. “Let’s go in so I can get a feel of the place…Just tell me who’s here right now.”

“Just my family,” shrugged Lane. “Oh, and my aunt and uncle are visiting with my cousin.”

“Is that normal?” asked Rebecca. “Do your aunt and uncle and uhhh…cousin visit a lot?”

“No, not really,” replied Lane. “They flew in a few days ago, so this is a special occasion.”

“Gotcha,” said Rebecca as she screwed up her lips in a curly-Q. “Well, let’s head in and meet the folks, slugger. If we’re going steady, I’d better put on my actress face.”

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” frowned Lane. “I’m not sure they’ll believe you’re my girlfriend.”

“We do look about the same age,” thought Rebecca. “Yeah, they’ll believe it. Extra, extra-virgin olive oil here looks desperate enough to date outside the box…They probably will think I’m a randy little slut, though, just because of the way I’m dressed. If I’d come here dressed like old Rebecca, like…ugh…Becca… they’d be sending out invitations for the wedding tomorrow…but that’s not gonna happen, so…yeah.”

“I guess we do look around the same age,” said Rebecca. “I could lie and say I’m nineteen…However, I’m not going to lie, Lane.”

“What?” asked Lane. “Why not?”

“It’s simple psychology,” said Rebecca. “It’s doubtful a nineteen-year-old girl is going to hang out with you, much less date you, but someone who could be perceived as a ‘loser’ who’s looking for a good boy to corrupt?…Yeah, that might work. You look desperate enough to date someone like me anyway.”

“Hey, that’s not—” began Lane, but Rebecca cut him off.

“Don’t sweat it,” she said firmly. “Don’t blow a gasket. I’m just tellin’ the truth…And by the way, they’re not going to be mad at you over me, if that’s a worry. I’ll just look like an obnoxious ‘predator’ who’s looking to ‘steal’ their little boy. It’s fine.”

“I’m not a little boy,” frowned Lane.

“Of course, he’d say that,” mentally sighed Rebecca. “Well, I’ll just stroke his ego.”

“Of course, not,” she replied. “That’s what your family will think, not me. Of course, I imagine your mom will immediately hate me, but your dad…well…your dad will probably be proud of you, ’cause I can guarantee he’ll believe you’ve been gettin’ busy with me.”

Lane’s cheeks immediately burnished to a nice red.

“Uhhh…That’s…I mean…” he stammered.

“Don’t get a hard on,” frowned Rebecca. “We’re not boning, Lane. It’s not like you’re going to bend me over the family table in front of everyone. It’s just a cover, and the whole ‘sexually active thing’ is something that’s unspoken anyway. You’ll put your arm around my waist, and I’ll put my arm around yours, and they’ll get the picture. It’s that simple. It’s a little light affection to seal the deal, so to speak.”

“Yeah…Of course,” said Lane with a distinct uncertainty in his tone. “I knew that.”

“Oh, yeah, he’d definitely like to pop his cherry by bending me over,” mentally smiled Rebecca. “Blow his little balls out in me…Pffft…Like that’s gonna happen…What a friggin’ dork…He probably jerks off to hentai…

“Good grief, he’s gonna be a virgin until the day he dies at this rate…No, no. Don’t be mean. Let’s just get this done. Extra, extra-virgin olive oil needs real help, as does his family, so let’s do this.”

“You go out on your own, right?” she asked. “I take it you have your own car?”

“Yeah,” said Lane. “I go out and see my friends.”

“Good,” nodded Rebecca. “Your family will think you’ve been seeing me some of the times you’ve gone out and that you’ve been lying about it. That will feed into the whole ‘I’m a predator trying to steal their little boy’ shtick, and you’ll be in the clear. I’m going to be the bad guy, so to speak, so they’ll be relieved when we suddenly ‘break up,’ and you’ll get family consolation points. I get the job done, and you get a bonus. It’s a win-win.”

“O…kay…” said Lane warily.

“It’ll be fine,” said Rebecca. “Let’s get in there so I can look around, all right?”

“Yeah,” nodded Lane.

They walked into the house together, Lane first, but Rebecca stopped just inside the threshold.

“What?” asked the young man. “What is it?”

A dark feeling drove down upon Rebecca like a black nail. There was a…a presence here…something powerful…something inextricably evil.

“Whoa,” she breathed out. “Yeah, something’s wrong here.”

“What is it?” asked Lane.

“I don’t know…” said Rebecca slowly, “but I’m going to find out…Come on. Let’s go meet the folks first, lover boy, then you can show me around.”

“Don’t call me that,” frowned Lane.

*****

Rebecca currently sat at a large dinner table in the rather spacious dining room this family had. This was the Smithson household, they were upper middleclass, and it showed, because this house was pretty big, bigger than it looked from the outside.

Rebecca looked around the table at the entire cast of family eating dinner. There was Lane, naturally, his sixteen-year-old sister, his mom and dad, of course, his aunt, his uncle, and his older, twenty-something-year-old cousin, who was also a dude, but a dude much cooler than Lane, but that was neither here nor there. There was the little eight-year-old brother running around somewhere, but he hadn’t come to the table, but that was irrelevant, because Rebecca was not concerned with him. She was only concerned with the adults, because something was off here.

There was a bad vibe in this house, a strong one, as if something was, in fact, watching her, if not all of them, and that’s where her current attention rested. Nevertheless, she needed to get past all of the questioning first.

“So, Reb, where did you and Lane meet?” asked the mother, whose name Rebecca honestly could not remember, nor did that matter, because the woman clearly hated her and was suspicious of her anyway.

This woman was a Karen to a T. She was a middle-aged blonde with slight curls in her hair, she had dark eyes, she was of normal weight, and she was tall like her kids. She wore a lavender dress and a string of real pearls around her neck, probably for clutching, but whatever.

It was clear the woman wanted an answer, so Rebecca was going to give her one, but she didn’t get the chance to.

“We met at the library,” said Lane quickly.

Rebecca mentally groaned. Lane was clearly not good at this.

“Oh?” asked Lane’s mother. “Do you visit the library often, Reb?”

“Oh, boy, is this awkward,” thought Rebecca. “She’s really going to give me the third degree…All right. Let’s play the ‘slutty-ne’er-do-well-looking-to-steal-your-baby’ routine.”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I was just looking for a couple of books, but they didn’t have them.”

“Oh?” asked the mother. “And what were they?”

“The Kama Sutra and the Anarchist Cookbook,” replied Rebecca.

“Really?” asked Lane’s father. “That’s uhhh…That’s interesting.”

Lane’s father was a big guy sporting short brown hair with a slight updrift, a style that had died out in the early 2000s. He wore a collared red polo with tan slacks and good brown dress shoes…He was a typical “I-own-a-business-and-I-am-a-success-of-which-you-are-not” kind of guy. Lane had mentioned something about his father owning several hotels, but eh…this was unsurprising.

His reply, however, wasn’t what Rebecca was currently focused on.

Lane’s mother gave a slight scowl and shook her head, but Rebecca noticed it.

“Things are heatin’ up,” thought Rebecca. “Time to excuse myself so I can take a looksee ’round the house.”

“Excuse me,” said Rebecca. “I have to use the restroom.”

“It’s down the east hall and two doors down on your left,” said Lane’s father. “Just go through the living room and head that way.”

“I’ll show her,” said Lane quickly.

Lane excused himself so fast that his parents didn’t even have time to argue.

Rebecca made sure to take her black leather case with her; she could not afford to leave her protection behind.

She followed Lane down the east hall from the living room as he pointed her to the restroom two doors down on the left.

Rebecca sighed. This boy was all kinds of clueless.

“I don’t need to use the restroom, Lane,” she said firmly. “I’m trying to pinpoint where your problem is coming from.”

“Oh,” replied Lane. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that.”

“Clearly,” frowned Rebecca. “Look, as much as I like playing twenty questions with your family, I’ve got a job to do. Can you tell me about the rooms down this way?”

“Yeah,” said Lane. “Here’s the restroom, but you know that. Next to it is my sister, Charla’s, room. Across the hall is the study, and next to it is my room.”

“What about the double doors at the end of the hall?” asked Rebecca.

She nodded toward the brown dark-oak doors at the end of the short hallway. These doors stood out in this pristinely-white hallway, as they were the only non-pristinely-white doors in it.

A look of confusion spread across the young man’s face as he stared off in the direction of where she was looking.

“What double doors?” he asked.

Rebecca turned and stared directly at the dark-oak doors in the distance.

“The frikkin’ doors that are right there,” she said unhappily. “Can’t you see them?”

“There’re no doors there, Reb,” said Lane in even more confusion.

This was frustrating. Either he was playing her, or something really strange was going on.

She set down her black case, reached up, grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, and pulled him forward a couple of steps. She pointed at the dark-oak doors in the distance with extreme emphasis.

“Those…doors…numnuts,” she said slowly and deliberately.

Lane’s brown eyes went wide as the blood drained from his face. He looked truly startled, as if he’d just seen an alien or he’d just found out Bigfoot was real.

“Wh…Where…Where did those come from?” he asked.

“Say what now?” asked Rebecca. “You’re telling me you didn’t see those doors?”

He looked upon her in visible horror.

“There are no doors there, Reb!” he said in a shaky voice. “There have never been any doors there!…There’re not supposed to be any doors there! There’s only supposed to be a wall!”

Rebecca pondered this.

“Hrmm…Maybe going to Hell has given me some kind of special supernatural sight,” she thought. “Lane didn’t even notice those doors were there until I touched him and pointed them out…Wait…Does he really notice them, or is he just playing me?”

“Can you really see them?” she asked. “Can you see them now?…I mean, you look like you’ve just noticed—”

“Yes, I can see them!” said Lane in a frantic, terrified hush. “There’re not supposed to be any doors there! There have never been any doors there!”

“Uh, huh,” said Rebecca quietly. “Well, I think we’ve found the source of your unease, then.”

“Y…Yeah!” said Lane in a shaky voice. “Yeah, I’d say so!”

“Did your family build this house?” asked Rebecca. “I mean, did they have it built?”

“N…No,” said Lane. “The old guy who lived here was an architect of some kind. He died five years ago right before my dad moved us in.”

“Right,” replied Rebecca. “Hmm…Do you remember the guy’s name?”

“Y…Yeah,” said Lane. “I think his name was Stanford, like the college.”

“Well, this ain’t California,” said Rebecca. “Was he famous or something?”

“I guess,” shrugged Lane. “Yeah, yeah I think he was. I think that’s the reason my dad moved us here. He wanted an ‘original Stanford.’”

“Okay,” said Rebecca. “Okay…Well, that doesn’t help me at the moment. I think I should investigate these doors before I do anything else.”

“Is that safe?” asked Lane.

“Hell, no,” said Rebecca. “And that reminds me…Stand back, Lane. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“You can’t even be five-foot-five,” scoffed Lane. “Plus, you’re a girl. I should be protecting you. How much do you even weigh?”

“Ugh…I should lament the whole sexism thing, but he’s right,” mentally frowned Rebecca. “He’s right under normal circumstances, anyway. I doubt a dork like him can actually fight worth a damn, but the truth is…I don’t like fighting, and a typical guy, even one like him, could kick my ass. Nevertheless, he only has one life, so this task is uniquely suited to ME, not Poindexter here…Still…he should know better than to ask me my weight.”

“Never ask a girl that,” frowned Rebecca. “Look, just let me do my thing, okay?”

“I don’t know…It doesn’t seem right,” said Lane hesitantly.

She ignored him, reached down for her black leather case, and unzipped it. She pulled forth her two bats and then handed the smaller, unadorned one to Lane. He took it, though he looked confused.

“If you want to do something, hold this,” she said firmly. “That bat is blessed and coated with silver.”

“Shouldn’t I take the bigger one?” he asked.

“Uh, uh,” she said with a shake of her head. “This one’s my favorite out of my entire collection. Now, just stay behind me and follow my lead.”

She readied her larger bat with a two-handed grip and walked up to the mysterious double doors at the end of the hallway.

“Stand back a little,” she ordered. “Stand back and get ready…just in case.”

She reached for the left-door knob…

Her left-hand fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the doorknob, but that’s all she got the chance to do. She quickly released her grip on the knob as both doors blackened over as if being burned from the inside out, as if they were being incinerated, and then they were gone, collapsing into ephemeral ash that left behind no trace of their existence, that ash vanishing along with the doors, just a blank, pristinely-white wall where those doors should have been.

“This is new,” said Rebecca quietly. “Never seen that before.”

“Wh…What just happened?” stammered Lane.

“I don’t know,” said Rebecca. “I don’t know, but welcome to the world of the paranormal, Lane.”

“I…I don’t like it,” said Lane in a shaky voice. “I don’t like it at all.”

“No kidding,” frowned Rebecca. “Now you know what it’s like to be me…Well, kind of…Look, I’ve got to go out to my car and make a phone call. I’ll be back shortly.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Lane quickly. “I don’t want to be in the house right now.”

“I don’t blame you,” sighed Rebecca.

*****

Rebecca entered her car and picked up her phone. Lane was waiting on his family’s porch in the distance, but this was fine. She needed a private conversation anyway.

She dialed Minnie. There was no telling what the crazy old bat was up to or if she was even awake, but Rebecca needed answers, because that feeling of absolute evil had not gone away after the disappearance of those strange doors.

The phone rang twice before it was picked up, and Rebecca put it on speaker.

“Yes, Rebecca, dear?” came Minnie’s elderly voice.

Rebecca shook her head and frowned. How the old bat always knew it was her was still somewhat of a mystery, especially since the octogenarian was still using a landline without caller ID.

“I’ve got trouble,” said Rebecca.

“I can tell,” replied Minnie. “Exactly what is going on, dear?”

“This house you sent me to has probably the strongest vibe of evil I’ve ever felt,” frowned Rebecca.

“Oh, you’ve felt stronger,” answered Minnie. “It was not that long ago when you turned into a bat and had your throat torn out.”

Rebecca sighed and rolled her eyes. Minnie was clearly having another one of her “episodes.”

“Minnie, I don’t have time for your dementia,” said Rebecca in frustration. “Concentrate, please.”

“I am, dear,” replied Minnie. “You’re wondering about the doors.”

This startled Rebecca, but honestly, it shouldn’t have. Minnie’s gift was a powerful one, almost as powerful as Rebecca’s. The old woman could touch a person and “connect” with them on a spiritual and psychic level, but that was with a normal person.

Minnie had personally told her that Rebecca was like a beacon in the darkness that could not be ignored, but she was only that way with Rebecca…Minnie was somehow attached to her like a psychic vampiric squid. The elderly woman knew everything about her; all she had to do was speak to Rebecca and bingo, that’s all it took.

“She pretty much knows me right down to the last detail,” thought Rebecca. “If I so much as speak a single word to her, she can tell if I’ve just taken a crap or not…Ugh, it’s so invasive. I hate this lack of privacy with her…Doesn’t matter. Just answer her.”

“How did you know about that?” asked Rebecca, but she already knew the answer to that, as this question was simply to move the discussion along.

“I can see the doors in my mind, dear,” spoke Minnie. “They’re fresh in your memory. You’re wondering why they vanished.”

“Yeah, of course, I’m wondering why they vanished, but…” began Rebecca, but her voice trailed off as she looked up at Sam.

The Uncle Sam skeleton in patriotic rags sitting in the front passenger seat of her little burgundy Subaru Impreza held up three fingers instead of four.

“Wh…What?” asked Rebecca.

One of her lives was missing. One of her extra lives was missing; it had to be, because she could have sworn she’d had four.

“Did I lose a life?” she asked herself, but she was heard.

“You used one to seal those doors, Rebecca, dear,” answered Minnie.

“That’s a thing?” asked Rebecca. “I didn’t know that was a thing!”

“Those doors led to somewhere else, somewhere not so nice,” said Minnie. “I expect they were a gateway to some ‘other place,’ somewhere that should never see the light of day from our world, a liminal hell, as it were.”

“Really?” asked Rebecca. “Huh…So I closed a hell-gate? I didn’t know I could do that…Well, whatever the case, those doors may be sealed, but that feeling of evil still hasn’t gone away.”

“There may be other points of entry,” said Minnie.

“Possibly,” said Rebecca unhappily. “Lane…uhh…the kid who called me…Lane said he’d never seen those doors before, and his family’s been living here for five years.”

“Is there a floorplan of the house?” asked Minnie. “That might help you locate anything unusual.”

“A floorplan?” scoffed Rebecca. “This isn’t a city hall, Minnie! Nobody has a floorplan of their house!”

“There’s no need to be rude, Rebecca, dear,” scolded Minnie. “Was there anything unusual you may have noticed while walking through the residence?”

“Uhhh…yeah,” replied Rebecca as she thought about it. “This family’s rich or upper middleclass or something like that, but the whole house is only one story. It’s kind of sprawling. They could have just built a three story.”

“That is unusual, but unsurprising when it comes to those with wealth,” said Minnie. “As you know, our building has a specific layout because of what it contains.”

“Yeah,” said Rebecca. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve got the vault and the residence rooms, the cafeteria, the library, the archives, the computer lab…I getchya…But I don’t know about this house. All I know is that this place was apparently designed by some old architect named Stanford. He died here before the Smithsons moved in.”

There was a sharp intake of breath over the phone before the old woman replied.

“You didn’t tell me Cornelius Stanford designed this house, Rebecca, much less died in it,” said Minnie.

“I…don’t know who ‘Cornelius Stanford’ is, Minnie,” frowned Rebecca. “I’ve never heard of him before.”

“He was famous in the occult world, not just in architecture,” said Minnie. “His buildings have all had issues of the paranormal kind because he designed them in specific occult patterns.”

“Ooooooh,” nodded Rebecca. “So this place is like that building out of Ghostbusters.”

“Something like that,” said Minnie. “I would be very careful in there, dear. Stanford was mad—as in insane—in his later years, so this house may be a kind of supernatural ‘trap’ for any inhabitants.”

“There’s definitely something going on in there,” breathed Rebecca.

“The family members within could open one of those gateways,” warned Minnie.

“I…doubt that, Minnie,” replied Rebecca. “Lane couldn’t even see the doors until I touched him and showed them to him. I think I may have the ability to see some things other people can’t, and…you know why.”

“In that case, dear, something may still enter into our world through one of those gateways,” said Minnie. “You need to find and seal them all with your ability. I know you’re not allowed to speak of your gift, and I know why, so I won’t expound upon that.”

“Yeah, all right,” sighed Rebecca. “I’ll get to it. Finding these things might be tough, though. It’s getting away from the family that has me pinned down. I can’t just wander through someone else’s house without reason, and Lane’s mom hates me anyway.”

“You’ve been deliberately antagonizing her, dear,” replied Minnie. “I know you want to distance yourself from this young man to complete your cover story, but you’ve also been having bad thoughts about him, sexual ones, and you need to watch those desires.”

“Wha…What the…!” stammered Rebecca. “I do not have desires for this dweeb! I just thought banging him would be funny, Minnie, like a joke, and…Wait…Wait a minute! How do you even know what I was thinking!…Never mind. I already know how, you freak.”

“Names, names, dear,” said Minnie. “I’m not crazy, in spite of what you may think.”

“Dementia, dementia, you nutjob,” retorted Rebecca with a roll of her eyes. “I’m going to hang up now, because I have to go turn into a bat and have my throat ripped out, you crazy old bird. See ya; definitely wouldn’t wanna be ya.”

She hung up and scowled at herself in the rearview mirror.

“Crazy, crackpot, nutjob…” she muttered to herself.

*****

Lane’s mother stood in front of the kitchen sink as she rinsed off the dinner dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Lane stood next to Rebecca as his father poured himself a glass of red wine at the kitchen counter next to Lane’s mother.

“So, Reb, what is it you’re doing with your time?” asked Lane’s mom. “Are you in school or training, or do you have a job?”

Rebecca had already thought about this. She had a story ready, and it was a doozy.

“I’m a bounty hunter,” she said matter-of-factly.

Lane’s father grunted out a short snort of laughter.

“No, it’s true,” shrugged Rebecca. “I do the lighter work at the agency. I track down young women and elderly women who fail to show up for court, but…their crimes are always petty, stupid stuff. There was this one time when I did have to bring in a thirty-something-year-old ex-convict who’d killed her boyfriend. That was really dangerous, but I was the one who’d stumbled upon her by sheer accident, so I had to do it, or we would have lost her.”

“Really?” asked Lane’s father. “I never would have guessed you do something like that…uhhh…a job like that.”

“I am a really good liar,” thought Rebecca with a mental smile. “I just came up with that last bit off the top of my head…Huh…I really have a talent for this…Wait…That’s not a good thing…”

Lane’s mother turned and gave Rebecca a confused look.

“How old are you, Reb?” she asked.

“I’m twenty-five,” replied Rebecca.

Lane’s father choked on a sip of wine from his wineglass.

“But I’ll be twenty-six next month,” finished Rebecca.

She could sense the veins about to explode on Lane’s mother’s forehead. The woman was barely keeping her rage contained.

“What exactly do you and Lane have in common?” asked Lane’s mother.

This was a really rude question, so rude that Lane’s father’s eyes widened as he gave a startled look toward his wife. This was really funny to Rebecca, but she honestly needed to stay on track. An answer was expected, but this one needed to be diplomatic. It needed to be diplomatic, because getting thrown out of the house right now was not going to do anyone any good, and…

Of course, it would be really funny if…

“What do Lane and I have in common?…Don’t say the sex, don’t say the sex, don’t say the sex…” repeated Rebecca in her own mind.

“Ummm, it’s complicated,” she replied. “My old boyfriend is in prison.”

“Oh…that’s not good…” said Lane’s father in awkward recognition of this imaginary fact.

“He…” began Rebecca.

She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and shook her head once before opening her eyes again.

“He…ummm…How can I put this?” she said with tight lips. “He tortured me…like physically. I don’t really want to get into the details of it, but he’s been put away for a long time…To be fair, I didn’t know he was like that when I first met him. Yeah, it turns out he’d murdered the girlfriend before me, so he’ll never see the light of day…

“Anyway, to make a long story short, I have PTSD from that relationship, but Lane and I got to talking at the library, and he was just such a nice and honest upfront guy that I got hooked on him, you know? I think I just wanted someone good in my life, someone who could balance me out.

“Besides, I’m honest with Lane, so he knows all of this already. He really is a great guy.”

It was Lane’s mother’s turn to stare with a confused look on her face.

“Really?” asked the woman in imitation of Lane’s father.

Rebecca marveled at her own ability to straight-up lie to someone’s face.

“I should win an Academy Award for that one,” she thought.

She turned to read the expression upon her “boyfriend’s” gawky face, but Lane looked as if he were in full panic mode.

“Uh, I…I…I left something in your car,” he stammered. “Could you unlock the door for me?”

“Uhhh…sure,” replied Rebecca.

He grabbed her by the left wrist with his right hand and pulled her forward, but in truth, she didn’t need any coaxing to leave the kitchen. What she needed was to keep exploring the house, and Lane was giving her the opportunity to do just that.

They had walked through the dining room and into the living room before Rebecca yanked her hand away from him. Lane turned and looked at her with evident shock on his dorky face.

“Was that story true?” he asked.

“Not a bit of it,” replied Rebecca with a shake of her head.

“Wh…What?” asked the young man.

“None of that was true,” waved off Rebecca. “Hell, the real story of my life would make them crap their pants. That was tame compared to what I’ve really been through.”

“Really?” asked Lane. “What could have possibly happened to you that was worse than that?”

Rebecca stared at him as if he were an idiot, but it was understandable for people to be curious, so she wasn’t exactly mad at him.

“Like I’d tell you that,” she snorted. “You can’t just pry into people’s personal lives, Lane. Your mom did it because she’s worried about you, and that’s why I concocted that lie…which I will use in later situations with other people, but…but that’s beside the point.

“You and I aren’t actually dating, so you don’t need to know my backstory, you goob…Besides, you couldn’t handle me in bed, anyway. I like it rough, and I don’t think you’ve got the spine to pull my hair and spank me.”

Lane’s dark eyes widened as his face burned a bright red. He looked as if he wanted to say something, to protest, maybe, but she wouldn’t let him.

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter,” frowned Rebecca. “I came here to do a job, and that feeling of…well…What you’re feeling about this house in no joke. Whatever threat is here has to be dealt with, or…I don’t want to think about what will happen to your family if it isn’t.”

“Yeah…Yeah,” nodded Lane.

“Come on, then,” sighed Rebecca. “We need to search for other strange doors and whatnot.”

“Yeah,” replied Lane. “It’s just that…Okay.”

“What is it?” frowned Rebecca.

She put her hands on her hips and stared up into his dark eyes.

“You want to say something, so out with it,” she demanded.

“Okay,” said Lane with an equally unhappy frown upon his lips. “Okay, well…I’m not five, Reb. I have the internet, you know. I know what sex is…You need to stop treating me like…whatever it is you’re treating me like…It’s making me…uhh…upset.”

“No, it’s making you mad,” said Rebecca as she rolled her eyes. “A woman gets ‘upset,’ Lane. A man gets mad and would have told me off by now. A man would have told me to get back to the kitchen or some such nonsense. A man would swat me on the ass while pulling my hair.”

“I am a man,” said Lane in a defensive tone.

“No, you’re a virgin,” shrugged Rebecca. “Not that I care, but you’ve never even been in a fight before. I can tell.”

“What does that have to do with—” began Lane, but Rebecca wouldn’t have it.

“It’s part of being a man, Lane,” she sighed. “Men get into fights. Men get laid. Men talk trash online…Men take charge, that kind of thing. Women may say they want femboys, but then you look at what they read, and it’s usually about banging a giant muscular lizard man or a minotaur or something…I know. I used to read that trash. I used to jack off to that trash. I spent many a night flicking my bean to that trash.

“What women really want are real men, but they’ve been conditioned to believe that real men are evil, but since they’ve never come across real evil, they don’t really know what evil is, do they?

“I, unfortunately, know exactly what real evil is, and somehow I got onto this tangent with you, which…in retrospect…makes no sense, because none of this has to do with cleansing this house, but hey, I suppose it’s part of my own psychoses, which you don’t need to know about…so let’s get moving.”

She wanted to turn and get to the job, but the young man in front of her simply stood and gave her a very weird look; he shone a very strange and confused expression upon his dorktastic face, that face still somewhat red from obvious embarrassment.

“What is it now?” she asked.

“Did you just say something about masturbating?” he asked.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked in frustration. “That’s all you got out of that?…That entire monologued tangent, and that’s all you got out of that?

“You want to know about me rubbing one out? Are you imagining it right now? Would you like me to give you a detailed description of it, Lane? Would that make you feel better? How about we go into a private room, and I’ll just strip and show you. Is that what you want?…I swear, you’re like the most sheltered, nerdy, uncool, clueless, virgetastic…ugh…It doesn’t matter…

“Stupid frikkin’ normies…Maybe I’m just jealous of what you have, but you’re beginning to piss me off…N…Never mind. Here…Just take my small bat and let’s search the house. I don’t have time to jack around anymore…Sorry…I didn’t mean to say ‘jack around.’ I know you’re sensitive about that.”

She snorted out a short laugh and then shook her head as his lips curled up into an expression that was something unreadable.

She’d carried her weapons case with her this entire time…She wasn’t stupid. Nevertheless, now was as good a time as any to open it. She unzipped her black leather case, pulled out her big bat, and then handed him the little one. She dropped her case to the short orange carpet below their feet and propped her big bat up on her right shoulder.

Lane stared at the small bat and frowned.

“I still think you should give me the big one,” he said unhappily.

“You can’t handle the big one,” replied Rebecca.

“Neither can you,” shot back Lane. “Like you could fit around that…or maybe you can. God only knows where you’ve been.”

“What the…?” thought Rebecca in slight shock. “Did he just…? He didn’t…Oh, my God, he did.”

“Oh, ho, ho,” she said a little louder than she had wanted to. “Was that a dirty insult?…Didn’t think you had it in you…Come on, lover boy, this is my bat. If you end up using my big bat, that means I’m down and we are in some deep shiz, because you’re not getting your mitts on this any other way.”

“I could just take it from you,” said Lane bluntly.

“You can try,” said Rebecca just as bluntly.

“He actually can take it from me, but I’m not going to tell him that,” she thought unhappily.

“Quit this already,” she said firmly. “We’ve got to find out what’s going on here…Believe it or not, I don’t want to argue with you. I just want to get this job done. It’s my duty to help people in need.”

“Yeah, alright,” said Lane in a begrudging tone. “I want this over with, too.”

“You should,” replied Rebecca. “Let’s look around, and I’ll ask you about stuff. Because you can’t see what I see, we can pinpoint what doesn’t belong.”

He shook his head no and then gave her a strange look.

“How is it that you can see this stuff?” he asked. “Why did those doors disappear when you touched one of them?”

“There’s a big secret reason why I can see this stuff, and it has to do with my gift,” said Rebecca flatly. “I know I said you didn’t need to know my backstory, but I’ve changed my mind…The reason I can see this stuff is…well…I went to Hell, like the actual fire-and-brimstone Hell.”

He gave her a hard look.

“Really?” he asked. “Are you lying again?…I suspect you’re lying again. Normally, I wouldn’t believe you at all, but because of those doors…I just…No…I think you’re lying this time.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I really was tortured by someone, but I died from it and went to Hell. I got rescued from Hell, and I came back here…There’s not much to that story. That’s pretty much it.

“All I can say is that…is that everyone who walks the Anarchy Road has a gift, and our gifts are public for each other except for mine. Part of the conditions of my gift is that I can’t disclose what it is, but I received it because of what I went through…I can disclose the fact that I was tortured to death and went to Hell. That is not a lie, it is not an exaggeration, and it is definitely, one-million-percent something I don’t like to talk about or remember.

“I have PTSD over it, real and honest-to-God Pit-Sid, and I’m not afraid to admit it. No one should ever, ever go to Hell, Lane. People think they know what Hell is like, but they don’t. Trust me; they don’t. I was completely bald, naked, and swarmed by giant maggots, and that was just on wakeup there, and that…that was nothing compared to what was coming…Trust me; you don’t want to be there.”

“I…Okay…” said Lane, but he sounded wary. “That’s…really bad…”

“I used to be a dyed-blonde sorority girl,” said Rebecca. “That was back in my college days. I had a pixie cut, I was a cutie patootie, I had my sweater puppies perky and a bouncin’, and I was just a happy little camper, just a completely blissful, moronic, utterly-ignorant, happy little camper lookin’ to get a nursing degree and to occasionally get laid…which I did…get laid…but that’s neither here nor there.”

“That clearly didn’t work out,” said Lane.

“You think?” asked Rebecca. “I did something really stupid, and it got me tortured to death and sent to Hell…Not a fun time…Stay on the straight and narrow; that’s all I can say.”

“That’s what everyone says,” frowned Lane. “I’m always getting lectured.”

“No, that’s what I’m saying,” said Rebecca. “Did everyone else get tortured to death and go to Hell?…No?…I didn’t think so…Believe me when I say I said it…I said it because…Dammit, this is hard to put into words…I’m lecturing you, Lane, because I genuinely don’t want you or anyone else to suffer like I did, okay?”

“I don’t want people to suffer, either,” said Lane.

“Good,” said Rebecca. “I think you’re a good kid…as far as I can tell…and even though your family has money, I don’t hate you that much over it. My family has some cash too, but now I can’t ever see them again, and your family reminds me of them, and that…gets under my skin…just a little.”

“You can’t blame me or my family for that,” said Lane.

“I’m not,” frowned Rebecca. “My problems are my own, and trust me, I have a lot of them…You wouldn’t want to date me in real life. Too much baggage.”

“Is that why you’re dressed like that?” asked Lane.

“Yeeeeaaah,” said Rebecca warily. “That’s part of the reason. I guess it’s a coping mechanism…Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re beautiful,” said Lane, a clear note of confusion in his voice. “I know you said you’re cute, but that word doesn’t do justice to you…I think all of this punk stuff is just a crutch you’re leaning on…It’s holding you back.”

“What the…?” thought Rebecca in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“I’m not having sex with you, Lane,” said Rebecca firmly.

“I didn’t say that,” said Lane in a defensive tone. “I was just saying that…that you don’t have to act this way…You’ve been hostile to me since we first met. I think you’re holding a grudge against me for some reason.

“I’m not going to hit on you or anything, you know. You’re not my type anyway. I want to get married and have kids, and I don’t think you’d do that…I just wanted to know why you have a grudge against me.”

“I told you the reason,” frowned Rebecca. “I’m jealous of what you have. You have a real family, Lane. You have people who love you and support you and who you can count on to have your back, so…that’s really all there is to it.

“You have your mom and dad, and I still have mine, but I can’t see them again, and I took them for granted when I had them, so that’s on me, and I have to live with that. You have your aunt and uncle, too. Do you get along with them?”

“Yeah,” said Lane quietly. “I see them every once in a while, but…you know how it is.”

“No, I don’t,” frowned Rebecca. “My dad is an only child, and my mom has a sister, but my aunt is a chain-smoking alcoholic, so I don’t want to get to know her…What about your cousin? Do you like him?”

“He’s okay,” shrugged Lane. “He’s kind of a jerk sometimes.”

“My aunt never married,” replied Rebecca. “She never had kids, either. I realize you can have kids without getting married, but she didn’t do either…What about your sister?”

“She and I don’t get along,” he frowned.

“Would you defend her if someone attacked her?” asked Rebecca.

“Yeah, of course,” said Lane, but he sounded offended. “Nobody touches my sister.”

“Exactly,” said Rebecca. “I’m an only child, so I had no siblings. I just had my friends, and now I don’t even have them.”

“That’s…really depressing, Reb,” said Lane.

“Yeah,” snorted Rebecca. “So you can see why I might be jealous. I mean, you also get to be a role model.”

“A role model for who?” asked Lane.

“For your little brother,” replied Rebecca. “I’m an only child, like I said…”

She could see a small form walk by out of the corner of her eye. That shape walked out from behind the couch and headed toward the hallway that had held the strange doors.

“Speak of the devil,” she said as she turned toward the moving figure. “There he is…now…”

Her voice trailed off as she studied the small figure she had thought was Lane’s eight-year-old brother. The child standing at the entrance of the hallway looked like a child in a multi-colored striped shirt and blue jeans, but the face was…wrong. In fact, everything about this “child” was wrong.

This child’s eyes were not quite aligned horizontally, the lips wrong, curved on one side and straight on the other, the face angular in a way where the chin was too long, too narrow, one arm longer than the other, the hands too big, adult-sized…

It was the uncanny valley given human form.

Startled, Rebecca stepped backwards and instinctively gripped Lane’s right arm with her left hand. She looked up at Lane, but the young man simply stared at the very disfigured and definitely awful representation of humanity of whatever this thing was. Lane’s lips were slightly open, his dark eyes wide, his expression one of silent horror.

“Reb,” breathed out Lane.

“Yes, Lane?” asked Rebecca.

“I don’t have a little brother,” replied Lane.

“Yeah,” said Rebecca slowly. “I…just…figured that out, Lane.”

This thing smiled at them, the lips parting in a wide toothless gash, the right hand raising, the glint of a kitchen butcher knife…

“You little shi…!” began Rebecca, but she stopped her expletive mid-curse as the thing turned and ran down the hall that had once contained the sealed doors.

She bolted forward after it, her big bat clutched within both of her hands, her grip tightening as her booted feet dashed onward without a mental command to move them.

“It went for the doors, but it’s trapped now!” hissed Rebecca. “It can’t escape that way! Come on!”

The small, unholy creature turned the knob to Lane’s bedroom, opened the door, and dashed inside just as Rebecca came upon it. The door slammed shut in her face, and she skidded to a halt.

Lane appeared behind her as his footsteps ended within her hearing.

“Damn!” cursed Rebecca. “It’s in your room!”

“What do we do!” asked Lane, his voice shaky with audible excitement.

“We go after it,” frowned Rebecca. “Stay behind me.”

She reached for the door, but Lane pushed her aside with ease and opened his own bedroom door.

“I can’t let you do that,” said Lane.

Rebecca tried to move him out of the way, but with her bat in her right hand and only her left hand free, she could not budge him an inch.

“Lane, stop!” she cried. “You can’t go in there by yourself!”

“Neither can you!” he huffed out in a desperate heat.

He pushed her. He pushed her, and she fell to her butt onto the short orange carpet of this long hallway.

She momentarily stared at the pristine white wall opposite of her as she struggled to stand.

He was gone after that, vanishing inside his own bedroom, and then he cried out a second later, but Rebecca was already on her feet and following him.

She entered his small bedroom and turned toward her left to view this small yet horrific thing on top of Lane’s chest and face.

“Get off him!” she yelled as she swung her bat with full force.

Her bat solidly connected with this faux-child’s head, there was a solid “THUNK!” as the bat impacted, a splatter of green goo appeared, and then she was instinctively beating this thing into green paste with her bat as it twitched and spasmed upon the short brown carpet of Lane’s bedroom.

“Die…you…piece…of…shi—!” she cried out, one word for each hit, but her expletive was cut short yet again, this time by force.

Hot blood blinded her as she was sprayed in the face with the sanguine liquid. She staggered backwards as she wiped at her eyes, but by the time she could see again, Lane had already fallen to his bedroom floor.

There was blood all across the once-ivory-white walls of Lane’s bedroom. The young man’s sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling as his blood sprayed from a terrible knife wound to his neck, the blood now pooling around him to soak the short brown carpet beneath him.

“Oh, no!” gasped Rebecca.

She dropped her bat and immediately took to his side.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she cried out as she clamped down both her hands upon his bleeding neck.

She could feel the warmth of his blood upon her as she raised her own crimson-soaked hands to her face.

“No!” she gasped.

“This is…No…He can’t be dead,” said her brain as her thoughts sparked into consciousness. “No…No, I screwed up…He can’t be dead…He can’t be!”

She turned to stare at the body of the small creature that had attacked Lane, the small and hideous thing that had killed him. It was now nothing but a smoking stain on the carpet, and though it was dead and gone, banished or whatever, and though that horrific feeling of absolute evil was now gone, its taint lifted, the situation was now far, far worse.

Tears came to her dark-blue eyes as she realized how horrifically screwed this was.

“He’d dead,” she said as she stupidly wiped at her eyes, wiping yet more blood across them. “He’s dead, and I screwed up…I…I’m going to go to prison now. Th…They’re going to blame me, and I didn’t even do anything to him…I tried to save him…”

A thought came to her, a fleeting burst of hope…There was something she could try. There was indeed something she could try.

“P…Please, let this work!” she choked out. “Please, God!…I…I…I liked him…I thought maybe I could have…We could have…He shouldn’t have died…He shouldn’t have!”

She raised her hands to her chest, took in a deep, sob-filled breath, and closed her eyes. She felt the power, the magnificence, and the heat of pure life fill her hands as she opened her dark-blue eyes and stared down at the glowing white orb of light in her bloody palms.

“Yes…Yes, this can…” she stammered as she released the orb.

It floated through the air and drifted downwards to enter Lane’s lifeless, bloody body, there was a brilliant burst of light, and then Rebecca felt as if she were floating.

*****

Rebecca caught herself scowling into the rearview mirror of her little burgundy Subaru Impreza. She shook her head once, blinked twice, and then tried to remember…something.

“What?” she asked herself. “What the…? I…I can’t remember what just happened…No…No, I was talking to Minnie, she pissed me off, and then I hung up, but…I feel…I feel weird, Sam.”

She looked over toward the skeleton in Uncle Sam rags. The ghastly apparition now held up two bony digits of his right hand.

She shook her head in disbelief. This was all kinds of egregious wrong.

“No!” she cried out in reflexive umbrage. “No, that’s not right! You just told me I had three! What the eff, Sam!”

The skeleton simply turned its skull to look toward the house in the distance.

“I didn’t die!” hissed Rebecca. “Dammit, Sam, I didn’t die! I haven’t died once here! Why in the hell have I gone down to two! I started with four, and now I have two, and I haven’t died once! What the eff!”

She stared past him and looked onward at Lane; the young man was still waiting for her on his family’s porch.

“I’ll have to call Minnie again,” scowled Rebecca. “No…No, you know what?…Let’s just get this done…Something weird is going on here. I think this effed-up house is stealing my extra lives somehow, but if that’s the case, then I need to hurry and get this job done before I’m completely out. I’ve only got two left.”

She put her phone down on the dash and exited the vehicle. There was no point in stewing over a lost life. She was just going to have to make do without it.

She walked up to Lane, but the young man was out of sorts for some reason. He looked paler than he normally did, and he was clearly agitated over something, and honestly, Rebecca did not know what to make of it.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Are you still thinking about those doors?…Get used to it. Apparently, you’re in a one-of-a-kind house.”

“N…No,” stammered the young man. “No, it’s just…I just…”

“You just what?” asked Rebecca.

He was beginning to annoy her, but he genuinely looked upset over something, so a little questioning was in order.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said. “Did you see a ghost?…Seriously, I need to know. There are only a few ways to get rid of evil spirits, so I need to know now if you’ve actually seen one.”

“No, I just…I think I had a vision or something,” said Lane.

His voice was strained, vibratory, a tremulous tension there that was impossible to ignore.

“A vision?” asked Rebecca. “Like what?”

“Like I died…uhhh…There was a thing that attacked…It felt real…I…I…” he choked out.

Rebecca waved him off. This boy was being weird, and she simply didn’t have the patience for it.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but they’re waiting for us inside, so let’s go,” said Rebecca. “I’m really on the clock here, and we’re running out of time anyway, so we need to get this show on the road. Let’s hoof it, Skippy.”

He did appear as if he wanted to say something, something important, but the truth was that she wasn’t in the mood for any more shenanigans, and this job, in general, was starting to tick her off, because she’d now had two lives stolen from her, and those were her lifeline, so this was getting out of hand.

*****

“Besides, I’m honest with Lane, so he knows all of this already. He really is a great guy,” said Rebecca.

It was Lane’s mother’s turn to stare with a confused look on her face.

“Really?” asked the woman in imitation of Lane’s father.

Rebecca marveled at her own ability to straight-up lie to someone’s face.

“I should win an Academy Award for that one,” she thought.

She turned to read the expression upon her “boyfriend’s” gawky face, but Lane looked as if he were in full panic mode, and that was clearly over this awkward situation, but it was more than that, like he was also weirded out by something.

“Uh, I…I…I left something in your car,” he stammered. “Could you unlock the door for me?”

“Uhhh…sure,” replied Rebecca.

He grabbed her by the left wrist with his right hand and pulled her forward, but in truth, she didn’t need any coaxing to leave the kitchen. What she needed was to keep exploring the house, and Lane was giving her the opportunity to do just that.

They had walked through the dining room and into the living room before Rebecca yanked her hand away from him. Lane turned and looked at her with evident shock on his dorky face. He said nothing for a few seconds, however, so she just decided to prod him.

“What?” she asked. “What is it?”

“I…W…We’ve…We’ve done this before,” he stammered.

“Like how?” she asked.

“I’m having serious déjà vu,” replied Lane. “It’s like I’ve seen all of this before.”

“What is he going on about?” she pondered. “What now? This kid is weird, weirder than me, and that’s actually saying something.”

“Oh, really?” asked Rebecca. “Enlighten me. What happens next?”

“Everything’s happened just like in my vision, right down to the words in our conversations,” explained Lane. “Even my parents have said the same things…except…except now, it’s all different, different right now, like right now, because I’m bringing up this weird feeling of déjà vu.”

“Uh, huh,” scoffed Rebecca. “So explain. You’re not really making sense, Lane. If things are different right now, like you say, what are they supposed to be like?”

“I don’t know,” said Lane in a tone laced with unease. “We had a long conversation about you. I remember you mentioning something about you…uhhh…masturbating.”

He whispered that last word, as if he were embarrassed to say it. Nevertheless, what he’d said had an immediate impact.

“Wh…What the…!” mentally coughed Rebecca.

“Excuse me?” she asked, and she made sure her tone was not kind. “What did you say?”

“You said something about ‘jacking off’ to stories about ‘big muscular lizard men’ and ‘minotaurs,’” frowned Lane. “I remember, because it made me feel uncomfortable.”

“That’s actually true, but there’s no way he could know that,” thought Rebecca in surprise. “He’s…He’s just been online watching complaint videos or something. He’s been listening to people rage about the state of the book industry and women’s lit…Yeah, that’s probably it…He doesn’t know jack about me…Jack…heh, heh…That’s kind of funny…No…No, no, dammit, Rebecca, focus!”

She held up her left hand, palm out, and shook her head once.

“You don’t know anything about me, Lane,” she said firmly. “Not a damned thing, and I’d prefer to keep it that way…And don’t sexually harass me. You know better than that. I thought you normies were supposed to be clean cut anyway…And no, I’m not having sex with you.”

“No, no, I’m not,” said Lane with an adamant shake of his head. “I’m not harassing you…And you’ve already told me you weren’t having sex with me. You told me in my vision…not that I’d have sex with you anyway.”

“Well, at least I’m consistent, vision or not,” frowned Rebecca. “And you would jump at the chance to bone me, boy. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” frowned Lane right back at her. “I told you in my vision that I wanted marriage and kids and I didn’t think you would give me that…Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you ended up telling me your background or history or whatever.”

“And what would that be, Lane?” asked Rebecca. “There’s no possible way you could know my story, uh, uh.”

“You told me you were tortured to death and went to Hell,” explained Lane. “That’s what you said. You told me you were…were uhhh…you were bald and naked and swarmed by giant worms…ummm…maggots—I think it was maggots—down there…when you were in Hell.”

Rebecca’s dark-blue eyes widened as her jaw dropped. Shock was too light a word for what she was feeling.

“THERE’S NO WAY HE COULD KNOW THAT!” she mentally screamed.

The look on her face must have been something special, because Lane ran with it.

“After that, we talked about my family and how you were jealous of them,” said Lane, and his tone grew in confidence with each passing second.  “We talked about your chain-smoking alcoholic aunt and the fact that you were an only child, and…and uhhh…oh, yeah…we talked about your ‘gift,’ but you wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

Rebecca felt shaken. Either Lane was very, very psychic and could read her mind, or something very, very, very strange was going on.

“L…Lane, what else happened?” she asked, but then she shook her head no. “I meant, what else did we talk about?”

“I told you,” he said unhappily. “We talked about how you were jealous of my family, and then you mentioned my little brother.”

“What about your little brother?” she asked.

“Reb, I don’t have a little brother,” replied Lane. “You’d seen some horrible thing I can’t even begin to describe, but you must not have gotten a close look at it, because what you thought was my little brother was actually this thing…and then you…you touched me, and then I saw it, just like I saw the doors after you touched me that first time.

“Anyway…Anyway, that thing had a butcher knife, and it…it stabbed me and killed me…At least, that’s what I saw in my vision…I can still remember what it felt like, though…to feel the knife going into my neck…what it felt like to be killed…That’s what’s really freaking me out.”

“He died?” pondered Rebecca. “He died in his ‘vision,’ and it was so realistic he can remember what it felt like…What does that mean? Does he have a gift like I do?…He must have some kind of gift…Maybe he can see the future?…But if that’s the case, then he dies, and…No…No, I can’t let him die…I can’t…

“If he dies, I’m screwed, because they’ll think I did it, especially if it was murder with a butcher knife. Plus, I don’t want him to die anyway. I actually like him…Huh, I really do like him…No, focus, Rebecca!

“I mean, if he did die, the only thing I could do is…Wait…Wait, a minute! The only thing I could do is…is give him one of my extra lives!

“This isn’t a vision! This has already happened, and I don’t remember it because I’ve already given him one of my lives! That’s why I only have two left! I didn’t magically lose a life; I gave one to Lane!…Okay…That means time has already reset, but he went back, not me…If that’s the case…If that’s the case, then…”

“Lane, what did this…this thing look like?” asked Rebecca.

He squeezed his eyes shut, gave her a pained expression, and then opened his eyes.

“I told you already,” he said unhappily. “It was small, like a child, but it was so…so horrible I can’t even explain it. It kind of looked like a kid, but it was…all messed up.”

“Uh, huh,” said Rebecca as she chewed on her lower lip.

She’d carried her weapons case with her this entire time…She wasn’t stupid. Nevertheless, now was as good a time as any to open it. She unzipped her black leather case, pulled out her big bat, and then handed him the little one. She dropped her case to the short orange carpet below their feet and propped her big bat up on her right shoulder.

“We should be prepared,” she said. “I think what you saw was a vision of the future, like one ‘possible’ future. The future isn’t set like the distant past, so we can change it without significantly altering reality. What I think you saw was a vision of one ‘possible’ future, and we need to change it.”

“So I had a death vision of the future?” he asked. “You mean like in those Final Destination movies?”

“Something like that,” she replied, but then she balked at her own statement.

“I’m beginning to sound like Minnie,” she thought unhappily.

She shook her head to chase out that awful thought.

“Anyway…Anyway, where did I see this thing?” she asked. “Where was it?”

He pointed behind her, and she turned to see the spot he was pointing at, but what he was pointing at was the actual thing, something she had not noticed simply because she had been so intent upon her own conversation with Lane.

Her brain temporarily misfired as she studied the small figure she had thought was Lane’s eight-year-old brother. The child standing at the entrance of the hallway looked like a child in a multi-colored striped shirt and blue jeans, but the face was…wrong. In fact, everything about this “child” was wrong.

This child’s eyes were not quite aligned horizontally, the lips wrong, curved on one side and straight on the other, the face angular in a way where the chin was too long, too narrow, one arm longer than the other, the hands too big, adult-sized…

It was the uncanny valley given human form.

Startled, Rebecca stepped backwards and instinctively gripped Lane’s right arm with her left hand. She looked up at Lane, but the young man simply stared at the very disfigured and definitely awful representation of humanity of whatever this thing was. Lane’s lips were slightly open, his dark eyes wide, his expression one of silent horror.

“Th…That’s it…” he stammered. “The…There it is! It’s real! Oh, my God, it’s real!”

This thing smiled at them, the lips parting in a wide toothless gash, the right hand raising, the glint of a kitchen butcher knife…

There was, of course, only one thing to do.

“You little shi…!” began Rebecca, but she stopped her expletive mid-curse as the thing turned and ran down the hall that had once contained the sealed doors.

She bolted forward after it, her big bat clutched within both of her hands, her grip tightening as her booted feet dashed onward without a mental command to move them.

“It went for the doors, but it’s trapped now!” hissed Rebecca. “It can’t escape that way!

The small, unholy creature turned the knob to Lane’s bedroom, opened the door, and dashed inside just as Rebecca came upon it. The door slammed shut in her face, and she skidded to a halt.

Lane appeared behind her as his footsteps ended within her hearing.

“Damn!” cursed Rebecca. “It’s in your room!”

“Wait, Reb!” cried Lane. “Don’t go in there!”

“I have to!” cried Rebecca. “We can’t let it get away!”

There was nothing more to say.

She ignored him and opened the door. She gripped her bat tightly as she dashed inside, but she did not see the small and malicious figure drop from above until it was too late.

The large butcher knife’s deadly tip went through her short green mohawk, that tip penetrated her skull, and then the whole of the blade entered her brain. Her vision went black as she felt a sharp pain on the top of her head, the blood flowed out and down her head, her muscles felt strangely weak all over her body, she felt her own hot urine soak her panties, and then there was nothing…no sight, no hearing, no pain, no sensation at all, just…nothing.

*****

Rebecca gasped as she shook her head and blinked a couple of times. She looked over at the skeleton in Uncle Sam rags sitting next to her in the front-passenger’s seat of her own little burgundy Subaru Impreza.

The morbid figure dressed as Uncle Sam held up one bony digit, his skeletal right index finger.

“Okay, one left,” nodded Rebecca. “That’s fine. I know what to do now anyway. I’m going to lure that little sucker out, and then I’ll take care of it once and for all.”

She raised both hands, felt the top of her bald head, and ran her fingers through her short green mohawk.

“It dropped from the ceiling,” she said shakily. “That’s what happened. It ambushed me from above…I felt the knife go through my skull…It…It made me piss myself…I pissed myself again…Dammit…”

“Not the first time I’ve pissed myself,” she thought angrily. “Not the first time, but it’s definitely going to be the last.”

“I’m gonna eff that little sucker up,” she frowned. “That little turd is going down for that.”

She set her phone on the dash and opened her car door. She turned and nodded once at Sam before exiting the vehicle.

“Hold the fort here, Sam,” she said firmly. “I’ll be back shortly.”

The grim patriotic figure nodded its skull head once and then looked toward the sprawling single-story house in the distance.

“Yep, I’m moving,” she said angrily. “This time, however, I want to get moving. I’ve got a nasty little turd to flush.”

She slammed shut her car door, immediately regretting that action, but such an action was understandable.

She walked up to Lane after that, and the young man was clearly distressed, but of course, she already knew why.

“Save it,” she frowned. “I already know. I already know you had a vision of the future where you get killed.”

Lane looked truly taken aback.

“Y…You do?” he choked out.

“Yeeeee-ep,” she drawled out. “The same thing happened to me. This kind of thing happens a lot in my line of work.”

“It…It does?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said matter-of-factly. “Come on. We’ll go talk to your parents in the kitchen, and then we’ll have a talk about what we both saw happen to us in our ‘visions.’”

“I…Oh…Okay,” said Lane, but he sounded defeated.

“Don’t worry,” said Rebecca confidently. “I know how to handle this. We’ll fix this, and this time, we’ll fix it for good.”

“Okay,” replied Lane. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I do,” nodded Rebecca. “Come on. Let’s get a move on. Your parents are waiting for us.”

*****

“Besides, I’m honest with Lane, so he knows all of this already. He really is a great guy,” said Rebecca.

It was Lane’s mother’s turn to stare with a confused look on her face.

“Really?” asked the woman in imitation of Lane’s father.

Rebecca marveled at her own ability to straight-up lie to someone’s face.

“I should win an Academy Award for that one,” she thought.

She turned to read the expression upon her “boyfriend’s” gawky face, but Lane looked as if he were in full panic mode, and that was clearly over this awkward situation, but it was more than that, like he was also weirded out by something.

“Uh, I…I…I left something in your car,” he stammered. “Could you unlock the door for me?”

“Uhhh…sure,” replied Rebecca.

He grabbed her by the left wrist with his right hand and pulled her forward, but in truth, she didn’t need any coaxing to leave the kitchen. What she needed was to keep exploring the house, and Lane was giving her the opportunity to do just that.

They had walked through the dining room and into the living room before Rebecca yanked her hand away from him. Lane turned and looked at her with evident shock on his dorky face. He said nothing for a few seconds, however, so she jumped in to get the ball rolling.

“Okay, let’s go over our separate ‘visions,’” she said quickly. “Now I don’t know exactly what happened in yours, but in mine, you said you were having strong feelings of déjà vu, and then you said some things about me from a conversation I haven’t actually had with you where…where you knew some things about me you couldn’t possibly know otherwise.”

“Y…Yeah,” agreed Lane. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“You see, my vision happens after yours…after you die, that is,” explained Rebecca.

“Oh…” said Lane, but he both looked and sounded shaken.

“Don’t fall apart on me,” frowned Rebecca. “I’m not going to let you die…I’m not going to let me die, either. I’ve been there and done that.”

“That’s what you said before,” said Lane. “You said you were—”

She cut him off. There was no reason to go over this again.

“Murdered and went to Hell,” finished Rebecca. “I said I was tortured to death, right?”

“Y…Yeah,” said Lane.

“That part’s true,” replied Rebecca.

“It is?” asked Lane, and she could immediately pick up the shock in his voice.

“Yep,” nodded Rebecca. “I also…apparently…because I don’t remember this, but…I also said something about me masturbating…Now I don’t know why I said that…”

“Th…That is so weird…” stammered Lane. “You are really freaking me out, Reb…How do you know all of this?”

“Because my vision happens after yours, numnuts,” frowned Rebecca. “Keep up…Point is…Point is, there’s a frikkin’ little frikkity-frik ugly-ass demon or something running around here, and we’re going to chase it, but this time, instead of either one of us getting killed by it, we…yes we…you and me…we are going to kill it.”

“You mean that thing is real!” gasped Lane.

“Of course, it’s real,” snorted Rebecca as she rolled her eyes. “It obviously came through that gateway I closed…Whatever the case, it’s going to come out here and see us. It’s going to know we can see it, and because of that, it’s going to run for the doors. Because the doors are sealed, it can’t escape to go and bring in others, so it’s going to try and ambush us.

“Now, I have a theory. I think this thing…whatever it is…is like a parasite. It’s attached itself to your family, but being a spirit, it isn’t fully formed…as in corporeally formed, a solid mass…something physical you can touch…you know what I mean…so it’s…it’s leeching off of you in a psychic or spiritual way. That must be what this feeling of absolute evil is in this house. It’s leeching off of you. Do any of your other family members feel this…this kind of…of dread here?”

“I don’t think they do,” said Lane with a shake of his head. “I think it’s just me.”

“Okay,” nodded Rebecca. “That means it’s just leeching off of you…just you…Well, now it’s leeching off of me too, because I can automatically sense this stuff, and that may be causing it to form faster…

“Whatever the case, I think it’s eventually going to get there…fully form…and then it’s going to insert itself into your family where it can kill you all off one by one.”

“So what do we do?” asked Lane. “If it’s a spirit, how do we get rid of it?”

“It’s a demon,” frowned Rebecca. “A demon is, by definition, an evil spirit. You see, my time walking the Anarchy Road has given me access to their library, and they know a lot about this shiz, so I’ve brushed up on it.

“I think this particular little turd is what I call an ‘otherwhere’ demon, because it’s from a particular liminal-space hell. Individual hells are created by demons in response to a sort of collective unconscious amongst living people—mortal souls.

“These demons will use our imagination and creativity against us, and this ‘otherwhere,’ the place that door led, was created, no doubt, by the collective imaginations of some terminally online people—probably those SCP jackasses, but I wouldn’t put it past the legion of short-horror writers out there—but regardless of where it’s from, it’s still a spirit, which is why you can’t see it, not normally anyway.

“Now, I think because of what happened to me and the fiery place down below, I must stand somewhere between life and death, so I can see this damned thing. Apparently, I can also transfer this gift by touch…Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know how…Because of that, I think it can physically kill us once we’re able to detect it, buuuuut…that means we should be able to do the same to it.”

“Should be able to?” asked Lane. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Rebecca sighed and shook her head. This kid was all kinds of frustrating.

“Lane, be a man,” she frowned. “Grow some balls.”

“I am a man,” he scowled. “You were onto me about that before. You said ‘real’ men get into fights and get laid and talk trash online. That’s what you said…but I don’t think those things are necessary to be a man.”

“I guess not, if you wanna be a momma’s boy,” frowned Rebecca. “Wanna go back to the kitchen and suck on your momma’s tit?…Grow the eff up, because I don’t have time to wait for your hairless balls to drop.”

“Are you serious?” frowned Lane. “You insult me, but you act like an obnoxious…a…You’re just a…Oh, you’re lucky I’m being polite, because you’ve been nothing but crude to me.”

“I’ve been crude?” snorted Rebecca. “How so? Because I’ve just been telling the truth.”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Lane. “You also said a real man would ‘spank your ass and pull your hair.’”

“That…does sound like something I would say,” mentally winced Rebecca. “Now I feel embarrassed. I must really have sex on the brain…Why do I have sex on the brain? Ugh, especially with wonder dork here. God, Minnie will never live this down.”

“Look, I don’t have time to argue with you, Lane,” she replied. “We need to get ready.”

She’d carried her weapons case with her this entire time…She wasn’t stupid. Nevertheless, now was as good a time as any to open it. She unzipped her black leather case, pulled out her big bat, and then handed him the little one. She dropped her case to the short orange carpet below their feet and propped her big bat up on her right shoulder.

“I still think you should give me the big one, Reb,” said Lane unhappily.

“You can’t handle the big one,” replied Rebecca.

“We’ve already had this same conversation,” frowned Lane. “I said, ‘Neither can you,’ and then I said…uhhh…I said…err…never mind.”

She was curious now.

“What?” asked Rebecca. “What did you say after that?”

“Never mind,” said Lane with a shake of his head. “It was dirty, and I don’t want to repeat it. I was angry when I said it, so…no.”

“Oh, my God, really?” she mentally questioned. “I have a pretty good idea of what he said…Horny, little…”

“I’m not having sex with you, Lane,” said Rebecca firmly.

“Why do you always say that?” he asked. “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“What?…Seriously?” thought Rebecca. “Every guy wants to have sex with me. I thought that was a given…Shoot, every guy just wants to get laid, and they’ll screw anything with a pulse…That IS a given.”

“Lying little liar,” she scoffed. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not,” scoffed Lane in return. “To be honest, you’re cute in the face—beautiful, actually—but you’re weird and creepy, you’re kind of crude at times, and you keep talking about sex or…or thinking about it…or something. You come off as a horny, oversexed, creepy weirdo, and you don’t even have a full head of hair. That mohawk’s a real turnoff. Maybe you have a great-looking body—I don’t know—but the mohawk is a no.”

“Okay, that’s uncool,” grimaced Rebecca. “That’s just low…This is who I am now, Lane. I’m not going to change just to please a guy. I may have been a stupid, ignorant little sorority girl in the past, but that BS got me tortured to death and sent to Hell, so I’m not going to change just to please you…I should be the one changing you. You need to loosen up before we take the next step in this relationship. Do you get me?”

“Reb, we’re not actually dating!” said Lane in loud frustration. “We don’t have a relationship! You’re not actually my girlfriend!”

Rebecca balked at her own cluelessness.

“Oh, right…” she said unhappily. “Huh…I somehow forgot…How did I forget that?…Huh…What is wrong with me?”

“I would say…a lot,” replied Lane.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Rebecca quickly. “Doesn’t matter. Point is…Point is that little bastard is probably here right now, behind me.”

“Yeah, it was right there,” he said as he pointed behind her.

He indeed pointed behind her, and she turned to see the spot he was pointing at, but what he was pointing at was the actual thing, something she had not noticed simply because she had been so intent upon her own conversation with Lane.

Her brain temporarily misfired as she studied the small figure she had thought was Lane’s eight-year-old brother. The child standing at the entrance of the hallway looked like a child in a multi-colored striped shirt and blue jeans, but the face was…wrong. In fact, everything about this “child” was wrong.

This child’s eyes were not quite aligned horizontally, the lips wrong, curved on one side and straight on the other, the face angular in a way where the chin was too long, too narrow, one arm longer than the other, the hands too big, adult-sized…

It was the uncanny valley given human form.

Of course, she had already seen this thing once before, but its horrific sight still got to her.

Startled, Rebecca stepped backwards and instinctively gripped Lane’s right arm with her left hand. She looked up at Lane, but the young man simply stared at the very disfigured and definitely awful representation of humanity of whatever this thing was. Lane’s lips were slightly open, his dark eyes wide, his expression one of silent horror.

“Th…That’s it…” he stammered. “The…There it is! It’s real! Oh, my God, it’s real!”

This thing smiled at them, the lips parting in a wide toothless gash, the right hand raising, the glint of a kitchen butcher knife…

There was, of course, only one thing to do.

“You little shi…!” began Rebecca, but she stopped her expletive mid-curse as the thing turned and ran down the hall that had once contained the sealed door.

She bolted forward after it, her big bat clutched within both of her hands, her grip tightening as her booted feet dashed onward without a mental command to move them.

“It went for the doors, but it’s trapped now!” hissed Rebecca. “It can’t escape that way!

The small, unholy creature turned the knob to Lane’s bedroom, opened the door, and dashed inside just as Rebecca came upon it. The door slammed shut in her face, and she skidded to a halt.

Lane appeared behind her as his footsteps ended within her hearing.

“Damn!” cursed Rebecca. “It’s in your room!”

“Wait, Reb!” cried Lane. “Don’t go in there!”

“I know, Lane!” she fired back. “Don’t worry, because I know what to do!”

She reached for the knob, turned it, dashed inside, and then immediately hopped backwards from out of his room.

This thing, this demonic uncanny gremlin in a pseudo-human form, dropped down from the ceiling to land on all fours upon the short brown carpet of Lane’s bedroom.

“Gotcha, you little—!” cried Rebecca, but she was cut short.

It hissed and jumped forward so quickly she had no time to react. It leapt upon her midsection, and the point of the butcher knife sank into her leather jacket near the bottom hem. She felt the blade penetrate her skin and enter her body just left of her bladder and uterus, puncturing deep into her left hip, barely missing one of her very-important baby-making organs, the left one, by a hair.

The pain was instantaneous, as was her kneejerk reaction. Rebecca shrieked in both pain and fear as she tossed the childlike demon away, but she fell backwards to her rump against the other wall across from Lane’s bedroom, dropping her big bat in the process.

The large butcher knife was still embedded within her, and both of her hands instinctively gripped the knife’s handle. She cried out as she pulled the blade from out of her body, but her cry was drowned out by Lane’s own verbal rage.

“Don’t touch her!” he yelled as he tagged the horrific “otherwhere” demon in the side of its small malformed head.

The creature shrieked in much the same manner Rebecca had, but Lane struck it yet again in the head before it could even react to the first blow.

The young man dropped the small bat, reached down, and snatched up Rebecca’s big bat as the small and horrible thing wobbled in place. Green goop flowed down its misaligned face from a grievous wound in its now partially-crushed skull, and that ungainly head lolled on its narrow, uncanny neck as Lane wound up with the larger bat.

“Go to Hell, you little…!” he yelled out.

Whatever he’d been going to say was cut short as he took one very nasty and one very accurate swing that impacted the demon’s head with such force that its little body lifted from the short orange hallway carpet to fly through the air.

Rebecca knew it to be “dead” even before it hit the floor, but this did not stop Lane from stepping forward and hitting it three more times.

That sensation of pure evil, that presence of dark horror in a bottle, lifted all at once, like a black cloud dissipating by the sheer force of some divine effort to let in the sun.

The terrible pain in Rebecca’s hip dissipated as well, vanishing with a strange warmth that left behind a sudden wash of relief. She stared in wide-eyed astonishment as a white light erupted from the wound, and then both the pain and the wound were gone, both disappearing like magic, as if she were watching the final act of a stage-magician’s performance.

“This is new…” she breathed out.

“What just happened?” she mentally asked herself. “I got stabbed, but Lane just killed that thing, and that feeling of evil is gone, so…”

“That must have been my last extra life,” she said to herself. “It healed me…I didn’t know I could do that.”

She quickly snatched up the butcher knife and smeared the blood across her black jeans. Hopefully, Lane wouldn’t notice it, but then again, there was blood on the carpet, but…

“Reb!” cried Lane. “Are you all right!”

He was at her side in a heartbeat.

Rebecca nodded a couple of times as she stared over at where the demon had fallen. The creature, that thing from somewhere else, somewhere not so nice, was now nothing more than a smoking stain on the orange carpet.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” she said quickly. “I’m all right. That little bastard put a hole in my jacket, but I’m okay…Here, help me up, big guy.”

He gripped her right hand with his own and pulled her to her feet.

She stared up into his dark eyes and nodded a couple of times.

“That was great, Lane,” she said quietly. “That…That was awesome…Whatever I said about you not being a real man? Well…I was wrong. You saved my life. You protected me…You…You risked your own life for me, and that’s awesome…That’s what a real man does.”

“I…uhhh…” he said in awkward reply.

And boy did he look awkward. He was still a goob, but she felt pretty hot and bothered by him at the moment, and that was definitely unusual.

“Come here, slugger,” she breathed out.

She grabbed his right shoulder with her left hand, pulled him down, gripped the back of his head with her right hand, and then pulled him in for a kiss. She kissed him for a few seconds, and then she released him and the kiss all at once, but a smile grew into a grin upon her face, and this was also unusual.

He stood tall and stared down at her, red-faced and silent.

“These Stanford houses must have pretty thick walls, huh?” she asked.

“Uhhh…yeah,” replied Lane.

“They must have, because no one came-a-runnin’ with all the shoutin’ going on,” said Rebecca.

“No…I guess not,” said Lane.

“You know, we could go into your room and make some other noises,” said Rebecca. “I don’t think they’ll hear us…You can fill me up, tiger.”

He simply stared at her, incomprehension in his eyes at first, but then they widened as his brain visibly worked out the meaning behind her words.

“I…I…I’m not having sex with you, Reb,” he replied, but his voice was shaky, uncertain.

“Oh, he wants to,” she thought wryly. “He definitely wants to.”

She snorted a short laugh and then shook her head once.

“Well, this is a Stanford house, so I still have to come by a couple more times to make sure no more funny business is going on,” she said. “I’ll have to come by and see if any more gateways have appeared.”

“Y…Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“Well, you saved me when I was deep in the shiz,” shrugged Rebecca. “That’s part of being a real man, Lane…Now…you just let me know when you want me to help you fulfill another part of being a real man…emphasis on the ‘fill’ part.”

“Yeah, sure,” he nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like…Oh…Oh, my God…”

He held his burning-red face in his right hand as Rebecca simply laughed.

*****

The phone rang three times before Minnie picked up.

“Yes, Rebecca, dear?” asked the old woman.

“It’s done,” replied Rebecca. “The house is clean, but I should come back here a couple of times to make sure it stays that way. I don’t know if any more gateways will appear.”

“It is the last Stanford,” said Minnie. “We should keep an eye on it.”

“Exactly,” smiled Rebecca as she stared through the window out past Sam.

Lane was on his family’s porch, waiting for her. She wasn’t leaving just yet, even though she was supposed to. She wanted to hang out with him and his family just a little longer. It was selfish, true, but at some point, she needed to afford herself some luxuries.

It couldn’t be suffering all the time.

“You know you cannot interfere with that young man’s life, don’t you?” asked Minnie.

“I know,” sighed Rebecca. “I just…I’d like to pretend some more, you know? I want to pretend that I have a somewhat normal life for just a little bit longer.”

“I understand, dear,” said the octogenarian. “In this life, in what we do, we cling to normalcy when we can get it, because in the end, it’s all we have.”

“Yeah…” sighed Rebecca again. “Still, he saved my life, so I’d like to give him a handy, or a jobber, or just a good ol’ slammin’ to my kitty…something. Maybe some backdoor action…You know what? He can put it anywhere.”

“Rebecca,” replied Minnie in a stern voice.

“I’m just kidding, Minnie,” chuckled Rebecca.

“No, you’re not,” said the old woman. “You can’t—”

“I already know what I can and can’t do, you old bat,” frowned Rebecca. “Now you’re just making me mad…You know what? I don’t need your permission. If I want a relationship with him, I’m going to have a relationship with him. You can’t stop me.”

“We don’t know what consequences—” began Minnie.

“I don’t care,” said Rebecca.

“What if you get pregnant?” asked Minnie.

“And?” asked Rebecca. “I guess I get pregnant. I’m still in the baby-making age range, you know.”

“Rebecca, you have been brought forth from Hell for a purpose,” warned Minnie. “You have already lived your life through. This is extra time so that you can be saved from the fires of Hell. You also have a part to play in staving off Judgement Day…nothing more. What makes you think you have time for anything else?”

“Maybe finding real happiness is part of it,” said Rebecca. “I’m doing a service for good, right? I don’t see why I can’t be happy. Why can’t I have a family, too?”

“You do have a family, dear,” said Minnie. “You have us…Who first found you when you appeared bald and naked and in shock upon the floor of the Archives?”

“You did,” sighed Rebecca.

“Who understands you like no one else?” asked Minnie. “Who knows when you’re feeling down and when you’re hurting inside?”

“You do,” replied Rebecca in a flat tone.

“And you do understand that I understand what it is you want,” replied Minnie. “More importantly, however, I understand what you need.”

Rebecca felt that screw turning, that screw in her life that prevented her from doing anything for herself, and…it really hurt. It really frikkin’ hurt this time.

“Yes, I know, but…” replied Rebecca in a slight whine. “Minnie…”

“She’s not gonna let it go,” she thought in extreme unhappiness. “It looks like I’ll never be happy…I’m just going to keep paying for my mistakes for all eternity…

“That’s all you are, Rebecca. You’re just a failure who pisses her pants and begs to be spared by offering her own body like a whore…That’s all you’ll ever be…”

She could feel the onset of tears, but they hadn’t arrived, not yet.

“I agree that you need more in your life, Rebecca, dear,” continued Minnie. “I understand your frustration and your loneliness, so here is the advice I am going to give you: If you’re going to do this, you must ensure the safety of that young man, his family, and any family you may produce with him. Do you understand?”

That onset of tears vanished in a heartbeat and a puff of proverbial smoke.

“I sure as hell do!” said Rebecca in unbridled excitement. “Hot damn!”

“Rebec—” began Minnie, but the crazy old bird never got to finish that statement.

Rebecca hit the “hang up” button, practically tossed her phone onto the dash, opened her car door, exited her vehicle, and then slammed the door shut. She ran toward Lane after that, a big dopey grin on her face, running toward the awkward young man before she even understood what it was she was doing.

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The Last Stanford Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott

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The image for this story was generated by artificial intelligence courtesy of OpenAI and modified courtesy of Canva.com.