In this episode: Princess Marie-Louise does a bit of light kidnapping, gets bored halfway through, and wanders off to witness… a murder!? With the Princess’s life on the line, George faces off against Gentle Chapman, the possibly undead Neo English champion, while Domon and Allenby stop Michelo Chariot’s Team Rocket-esque assassination attempt. Plus, Allenby discovers bubble tea!
The teacup was delicate and beautiful. It was a luminous white decorated with tiny pale blue flowers. I held it awkwardly, terrified that it would shatter in my hand. I needn’t have worried. “What a beautiful tea set,” I said, holding out my cup for the hostess to pour from the matching pot. “Thank you,” she said. “I made it myself. It’s a little hobby of mine.” She poured gracefully, not spilling a drop. “That’s amazing! What material do you use?” “It’s bone china,” the necromancer said as the cup handle flexed and began to wrap itself around my wrist.
It was not the sort of house people whispered about or looked away from when they walked by. It was a beautiful cape cod, with spotless white siding and an impeccably manicured lawn. If you asked the neighbors, they wouldn’t be able say who lived there. But lights went on and off inside at the correct time. Smoke came from the chimney, and the garden changed with the seasons. Sometimes, someone would ring the doorbell, and the front door would open on a dark and silent foyer. If they stepped inside, the house would snap the door shut behind them.
We’d been rivals since we were children. In school, sports, and even games. We didn’t hate each other, but he could never let me win, and I was the same way with him. This continued all through high school. I read a lot of fan fiction in those days, and when I came across the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope, and it put things into sharp relief for me. One day I worked up the nerve to ask him out, and he accepted. We went on one date, but it was a disaster. There isn’t a way to win a kiss.
The Vampire came, and the men of the city were powerless to stop him. There was nothing in them that was strong enough to resist his influence, much less his power. They had grown weak, distant from one another. He wriggled in through the cracks and took what he wanted, which was everything. The men hid behind symbols that stood for nothing now but their own avarice, carrying mystical weapons that were mere superstition. From his new throne he laughed at the weakness of men. But when he called their women to him, they had stakes hidden behind their backs.
He dwelt in darkness under the earth. He lived in the lower regions and hunted eyeless fish in cold subterranean lakes. He was content for a long time. Then the noises came from above. He heard digging, and drilling, and strange voices that seemed to call to him. As they grew closer, his curiosity became insatiable. He found himself climbing up winding stairs and through artificial waterways, until he climbed an iron ladder and found himself in a vast stretch of light and noise. The surface creatures were strange, ugly things. But he did his best not to be afraid.
The traveling preacher won the hearts and minds of the locals with his fire and brimstone rhetoric. He made a place for himself by making friends and giving them cushy jobs in his church organization. Soon hehad a gang of loyal enforcers, but he needed something more to fully take over. He explained one chilly autumn Sunday that witches were to blame for their faded rustbelt town’s troubles. Once he whipped up the crowd and they chose a victim, they’d be his forever. But the Crones had protected the town for generations, and his cronyism was no match for them.
After I started having strange, sudden pains, I went to the ER and they took an x-ray. After demanding to know if I had ingested or ‘inserted’ anything, the doctor handed me the tablet. A human hand was growing out of my torso, skeletal fingers distinct against my ribs. “We’d like you to stay for observation,” he said. I agreed, silently fretting that this was too weird for insurance to cover. Every day, the skeleton grew a little more, sprouting an arm, then a shoulder. Nothing the doctors tried worked, but eventually I left the hospital a whole new person.
He sat in the corn maze ticket both and watched the customers line up. They’d gotten a lot of buzz this year and he’d worked extra hard on the design to make it the scariest maze yet. It was going to be a great Halloween. Suddenly, he heard screams from deep within the maze, and something else, chilling but unidentifiable. The crowd stampeded back to the parking lot trying to escape the figures emerging from the waving stalks. He sighed. Everyone said they wanted a terrifying maze, but you add one eldritch summoning rune, and suddenly you’ve gone too far.
She taught herself to lucid dream, and created a fantasy world where she could be and do whatever she wanted. She imagined herself a heroine, and weaved a story around herself. She was a princess in a magical world. For years, her dreams were good. But gradually the intensity of her quests increased. She found herself sleeping later but getting less rest. Her health began to suffer. She went to a psychologist, who proscribed medication for dreamless sleep. After a week, her companions made the perilous journey to the Waking World to find out why their leader had abandoned them.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 