Skeleton Beats the Clock (ONC ENTRY-2020)

Chapter One: Tales of the Miserate Fault Line

The crushing of corpses under their feet sounded like bubble wrap. Serpents hissed and walls moaned and whispered like children telling wicked secrets. The trees dripped with molasses and the spicy odor burned their nostrils. The monsters shuddered. The children were the thing that bumped, rattled and creaked in the night. They should've never looked under the bed or in their closets. This night was going to be a fight. Chevoque's caged heart rattled. Her own apathy couldn't save her from the terror.

Both Pool and Buggle's teeth chattered like ice cubes breaking.

"This would be a great funhouse, if it weren't so crazy real," Buggle thought.

"This isn't a funhouse. Not exactly," Zin Swada said whispering to the monsters Pool and Buggle.

"You don't have to do this, Zin," Pool said whispering back with a shaky plea in its voice. "You're risking your life trying to combat this alone."

"Yes, I do. I want to redeem myself. I couldn't redeem myself with the humans. This is all my fault. I should've saved them or at least the little girl. I didn't think about all the consequences. I should've thought it through more."

"They should've known you couldn't tackle that case on your own. The humans didn't care. They just wanted you to solve their problem," Buggle interjected.

"I'm human, too, Buggle. I could've said, no."

"No, you couldn't they would've thought something was wrong," Pool said mumbling.

"Yeah and I didn't want them to think anything was wrong. I didn't want them to know the balance of power was so weak. But I had a duty nonetheless. One that has been since the Middle Ages."

In 1995, a year ago, when Zin Swada was nineteen, she'd just finished her shift for the night at the hospital, when she got a call on her flip phone on her way home. She detoured toward Grand, a town in Qualina in the Cladoorct Panhandle. She made no promises to the caller on the other end. "I'll only offer counsel. That's all," she told the caller.

"Ever since my brother came back from the war, he hasn't been the same. I'm afraid to leave my youngest daughter alone with him."

"I'm afraid he's going to kill my little sister."

"We don't normally make house calls," Zin informed the mother and sister. Those words sounded so awkward and misplaced coming out of her mouth. She was no longer part of a collective. She was the only one left. But no one else in the Qualina public knew. And it'd be dangerous to divulge this information.

"I know you don't, but if you could board with us for a night or two just for observation, we'd feel so much safer," the sister said with a desperate plea in her voice.

"Are you sure, he's not just suffering from psychiatric issues?" Zin glanced at the mother and the sister.

"We want to rule out anything supernatural going on with him before we get to that step next," the mother answered.

"I'll give it a go. But it'll be at the discretion of us three in this kitchen. I'll just be an out-of-towner boarding with you on holiday. Got it? If it's a supernatural case, then I'll summon the rest of the Marmalade-Giqware Mi'Puel," Zin said swallowing the uncertainty hard like hot tar going down her throat.

Why did Zin say that? She didn't have the power to rally the other members. But she couldn't bear to tell this family the Marmalade-Giqware Mi'Puel was broken up. She was retiring after this anyway. This was her old classmate from the university and she couldn't leave her, her mother and her little sister in a lurch.

"You can take the spare room next to my little sister's. That way you can keep an eye out."

The uncle came back from job hunting. They heard him coming through the kitchen door. Zin made herself scarce up the stairs.