Behind The Locks || ONC 2024

Chapter 3: Jeepers Creepers

Pink, like a bloomed and well nourished rose flower. Full, like they had been packed with a taste her lips wouldn't mind venturing. And well curved from inch to inch. They must have been one of the lips sculptured when time and resources were adequate.

Before her thoughts could get out of control, Mirabelle rushed in with a cup of water.

She tucked it between her hands the coldness leaching into them insidiously and taking part in restoring her consciousness.

Her hands, mirroring her body, were strengthless, as if they had been drained off anything resembling energy.

Nick took the honors. He pressed the glass between her lips, angling just the right amount of water into her mouth.

She couldn't distinguish which one was more embarrassing; the fact that she couldn't give herself water, or the fact that it was someone she tried ignoring for the better days of her life in Twelve Locks Valley that gave it to her.

Mirabelle could not last a solid minute without instagraming anything, even if it meant instagramming herself wearing socks. I mean who needs to see another person wear shocks?

She filmed the entire scene, Nick giving water to Arielline.

#My boyfriend’s bestie is a hero.

A split of a memory speck thunderbolt Arielline in the finality of a bullet, its aftermath nearly making her twitch.

A moment past she was being chased by a cloud of white smoke and apparently she passed out. 

“Were you the ones who did that?” She let the words slip out of her mouth as soon as the thought.

“Did what?” Mirabelle quizzed behind her phone, probably teaching her Instagram subordinates how to chew gum.

“The smoke thing. The smoke that was chasing after me,” immediately after the words left her lips did she notice how unbelievable she sounded.

#My friend going nuts.

“How many fingers do you see?” Mirabelle offered to erect two fingers infront of Arielline’s face.

“C’mon, there was smoke running after me. Were you behind that trick?”

The incredulous looks that followed signed two things; one, they were not behind it, two, it was like trying to convince them that dogs can lay eggs.

“I guess your head was hit,” Nick muttered after a reasonable five seconds. “We’ve been in the cafe. We just closed about a half an hour ago and thought of coming to see how you were doing on your first day. Dan went home early; he had a deadline to attend to.”

Dan, Nick, and Mirabelle worked in the Crispy Donuts Cafeteria, so as much as she wanted to press the blame on them, she knew Mr Abraham, their manager, would not let them out of his sight for a single second. 

Unless all or one of them was sacked, it was safe to say that they weren't behind it.

Suddenly, as she crossed a glare from Nick to Mirabelle’s phone camera, in front of her face, her eyes caught a silhouette.

Outside the far window of the library, under the shimmering silver glow of the crescent moon, was a male outline. His giant figure put on an oversized hat like that of the Jeepers Creepers, from a horror film, and a coat, just like his, running from his collar downwards.

Images of brutal kills from Jeepers Creepers crossed her mind, retrieving scenes that gave her a sleepless whole week.

Not that she would mind being the starring and toddling animatedly as fire erupted behind her, but standing the thought that her friends and family's lives would be in the line was guilt she couldn't handle. 

One kill had already broken her enough, one too man would be unbearable.

Dan and Mirabelle both turned towards the direction Arielline was mesmerized in, a live Instagram screen morphing towards Jeepers Creepers.

Unanticipatedly, he disappeared. One moment he was there the other he was gone. He vanished into thin air, like he never existed in the first place.

“Did.. did you guys see that?” To prove to herself that she wasn't going mad, she had to know whether the things she was seeing were also visible to other human beings.

“See what?” Dan turned his glare from the window to Arielline.

Designated! One ticket to crazy town please.

“I did,” Mirabelle interjected. “A male silhouette, right?”

You can keep the ticket.

“Right.” 

“What do you mean?” Dan shuffled his eyes between both of them and the outlooking window. “Did you record it?” His eyes turned to Mirabelle's screen.

“I… I… think so.” Mirabelle's traumatization had shut down her systems, knowing that maybe what Arielline had said about running smoke could also be true. If her grandmother ever was, then the twelve locks were back.

A face rather more terrified than Arielline’s glew under the shade of a phone’s screen, wobbly fingers fumbling with it.

She reached for the scene where she began cocking her head. 

It displayed Nick’s husky cheekbone, to a well arched ear, and nicely combed silky, black hair. It went to book-filled shelves to a certain extent and the window popped at the screen, but there was nothing.

The silhouette was nowhere in the view of the screen. It was as if it disexisted and was only a wild fragment of their imagination.

“I swear it was right here.” Mirabelle gestured dramatically at an empty screen in a failing attempt to convince Nick that she was sober.

It was Arielline’s first day in her job and all she got for a thank you was being chased by ghost smoke, seeing Jeepers Creepers peeking through a library window, and breaking nearly every part of her body. 

Could she be appreciated more?