I barely got any sleep last night, suffice to say. After staring at the ceiling all night, I fell asleep just before the crack of dawn. Mercifully, I did not dream, even if when I closed my eyes, I saw the face of that fucking thing with its large eyes looking at me like I was a juicy steak.
My all-too-brief sleep was interrupted by the buzzing of my phone on my dresser beside my bed. I stirred, grabbing it. I brought it to my eyes before flashbanging myself with the light of the phone, as I reeled back.
My eyes adjusting to the light, I saw I had two text messages. One from Heitor and another from Dad.
"Don't forget to call me sometime soon, son!" Dad's message said.
I would keep that in mind for later.
"Hey, you alright?" Heitor asked.
"Yeah, couldn't sleep good last night." I typed in, sending it.
I got a reply back soon enough. "I'll have a coffee ready for you, just get your ass over here!"
I got up and rubbed the back of my head. After combing my hair a bit to tame it, I put my hair into a ponytail as I got up. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes and put on my boots.
I walked into the living room and I saw Ephraim on the couch, with a cup of ice water in his hands. My nephew sat next to him, with our black cat Messier resting on Ephraim's lap. They were watching the TV as they watched something on the Disney Channel.
"You look like poop." Ephraim said, looking up at me.
"I know I do." I said, frowning.
"I didn't hear you playing any games last night," Ephraim shook his head. "Had a hard time sleeping?"
"Obviously." I crossed my arms.
"Whatever," Ephraim sighed. "I guess you're going out for a bit?"
I nodded.
"Eh," Ephraim sipped his water. "Mom's being questioned by police about last night, so she'll be home late, so she wanted me to tell you that we'll have to take care of ourselves tonight."
"Alright." I nodded.
"Just let me know if you're coming home or not, I don't care what you do out there," Ephraim held his hand up. "Just so I have to order some extra pizza."
"I love pizza!" Niall said, raising his hands.
"I know you do, kid." Ephraim ruffled Niall's head as Messier's eyes opened as they looked up at me, his little green eyes.
"I know your pain, little kitty." I said to Messier.
"You have fun, then," Ephraim said, sipping his water. "Sorry about last night."
"Apology accepted." I shrugged before I left out the door.
As I got out the door, I ran to the nearest bus stop, paid my fare and soon, I would be dropped off at Goldcrest.
The sun shone on Goldcrest Kindercroft Academy, the brilliant white symmetrical building with its domed roof looming over me. Its two dorms were separate, the boys living on the west side and the girls living on the east side. The entrance was a brick road flanked by evenly spaced out trees, as I walked down towards the western dorm.
I passed by a few souls, as I sighed. I thanked whatever deity was around as Stanley no longer lived here when his folks moved over from Oklahoma, as I entered the dorm.
I still looked left and right, just in case one of his goons would attack me.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I went to the hall. The western dorm had wooden paneling, and the hall and I saw my reflection on the white tiled floor. I took an elevator to the second floor where Heitor lived.
I got to Room 203, and I knocked.
"Come on in." Heitor said from the other side.
I entered the room. Heitor's room was pretty clean. His bed was neatly made in the military style, and a photo of a younger Heitor with his father, his arm wrapped around his son, hung from the wall.
His shelf was full of books on various sciences from biology to chemistry. He sat at his computer desk as he turned to me, with a cup of coffee in his hand. He also has a little minifridge, as well.
"There you are," He handed me the cup of as I sipped the holy ambrosia. "You look like shit, what happened?"
"Didn't sleep well last night." I said as I put the coffee on the bookcase.
"I heard there was another murder nearby. I was going to go to old Liang's to check out that secret room," He said. "But I saw the cops round the corner and," He took out his phone, and my own buzzed. "I think a photo would speak better than I could."
I took my phone out of my pocket and saw it.
In the background, a blurry figure with its back turned was running away from my neighbor's house.
I frowned.
"Look, Heitor," I said, my tone quivering. "I-I have something to show you."
"Do you?" He asked, smiling.
I showed him my tattoo again. "Touch it."
He pressed a finger on it. Nothing happened.
"And?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
I sighed. Seems it only worked when I touched it as I pressed my finger to it and my transformation happened.
Heitor got up from his seat, taking a few steps back as he witnessed it. His eyes were wide as my other self took over, and Heitor was speechless.
"I saw a ghost at old Liang's and they gave me this," I said, displaying myself. "And now I can do this."
I floated upward, willing myself off the ground. "Your neighbor is stressing themselves over the SATs." I said, feeling anxiety bleed from the wall to my right. I sensed every soul in the building, as a matter of fact, and I sensed a few souls in the school building, the security doing their rounds inside.
I came down, as Heitor watched, his jaw on the ground.
"Holy shit," Heitor said. "I can't believe it." He walked to the door and locked it.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"Can you change back?" He asked.
I grabbed my wrist, and I returned to my human self once again, as he smiled.
"Dude," He said, walking around the room. He rubbed his hands. "You can change the world with this, come on, let's go!" He unlocked the door and walked out, as I followed him to his Jeep.
"Where we going?" I asked.
"My uncle's got a cabin out there in the woods," Heitor got into his Jeep as I joined him, buckling our seatbelts. "I gotta run some tests."
Lovely, I was going to be a guinea pig for today.
The mountains of Kindercroft grew shorter when we entered the freeway, soon we passed by a sign welcoming us to South Carolina as we over a bridge over the Savannah River. I undid my ponytail, allowing the wind to blow my hair around.
I leaned the seat back as I slouched.
"Hey," Heitor said, reaching from a cooler in the back seat, handing a can. "You want a Mr. Pibb?"
"Damn right, I do!" I said, laughing and taking the Mr. Pibb and opening it as I drank it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket as I took it out. It was from the ghost number.
"Look behind you." It read.
In the rearview mirror, I saw an orange Land Rover Defender with a push bar tailgating us as I frowned. The windows were tinted enough that I couldn't see the driver.
"Hey Heitor, how long has that car been following us?" I asked.
"..." Heitor remained silent. His smile was gone, replaced with a frown.
He moved down another lane. The car followed us. He swerved to another and so did our pursuer. Heitor saw an oncoming exit and turned to it.
The Land Rover didn't follow us.
I breathed a sigh of relief, as I looked at it.
"How did you know?" He asked, pulling in a nearby gas station.
I pulled out my phone and showed my entire history with the ghost number to him.
"So, that ghost keeps sending you text messages?" Heitor asked, handing me my phone back.
"Yeah." I nodded.
"Interesting," Heitor put his hand on his chin. "If you haven't shown me everything you did today, I would've thought it was a bunch of bullshit," He shook his head. "But it isn't."
We got some gas and drove off. It wasn't too long before we got onto a gravel road flanked by the woods, the branches of the trees sheltering us from the sun.
Heitor's uncle's cabin sat on a small hill, overlooking its domain. It was a classic log cabin with actual window shutters and a roof covered in solar panels. It had a stone chimney with a metal cover.
Heitor got out of his Jeep, me following. We got onto the veranda, with two rocking chairs flanking us. The green-painted door was guarded by an electronic lock, as Heitor leaned forward and punched in a code, the door latch clicked and he opened the door, keeping it open for me.
I entered, Heitor closing the door, the lock clicking back. he flicked on a light.
The living room of the cabin was cramped with a fireplace with old ashes inside a rack of deer antlers hanging above it, a green sofa, and an armchair looking at an old CRT TV. Nearby, a fridge and chest freezer with a simple stove was there with a few kitchen islands next to it.
"Why don't you turn into your super form for me?" He asked.
I grabbed my wrist and I ousted my human self for my other form before Heitor smiled. I felt the combined presence of many creatures in the forest, clustered together into a mass of minds. It felt like picking out one would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
"Without any prying eyes, we can test you out." Heitor took out a notepad from his jacket pocket, a pen clicking in his hands.
We went outside through a back door to a clearing around the woods. A thatched awning with chopped wood sat as Heitor looked me up and down.
"First test," He pulled a log. "Let's see how reactive or baring that, tough you are!" He winded his arm back and threw it at me.
Without thinking, I squinted. My eyes glowed and the log suddenly found itself flying into the woods.
"Seems you also know telekinesis," Heitor wrote on his pad. "I suppose that explains the flight."
Heitor threw me a few more logs, each one flying into the woods. One he tossed at me found itself shattering on a larger tree, as it became naught but chips. Each result he wrote down.
"I wanna try something," Heitor said. "Try to lift me."
"Are you sure?" I asked, tilting my head.
"Go ahead, I know you wouldn't hurt me," Heitor shrugged. "At least not intentionally."
I held out a hand to him and tried to will him to go up.
"Huh," Heitor said, as I opened my eyes. He still stood there in the backyard. "I don't feel anything." He wrote that down in his notepad.
Soon, the shadows of the tree loomed over as the sun sunk behind the horizon.
"Alright! That's a good set of data for me," Heitor said, grinning. "Let's go."
We went back inside and I sat down. It felt a little weird sitting with a long tail like what I had, as I tried to sit in a few positions before I found myself laying down on my side.
My phone buzzed in my utility belt, as I took it out. It was a text from Ephraim.
"You coming home?" It asked.
"No."
I got a thumbs-up emoji from him.
I put back my phone as Heitor looked at me.
"Apparently, there's a Chinese place that'll deliver here, what do you want?" Heitor asked.
"General Tso's chicken with lo mien," I said grinning. "Make sure it's spicy too."
"You bet." Heitor grinned as he called in it.
Soon, we heard a car pull in, and I felt the presence of the delivery person. He felt exhausted as he knocked on the door.
"That'll be twenty-five fifty." He said as Heitor handed him the cash.
We ate dinner as we watched King of the Hill, and I sat up, wrapping my tail around myself.
"That boy ain't right." Heitor said in an exaggerated Texas accent.
"That's my purse, I don't know you!" I said back, in a falsetto.
We laughed together, as we ate.
After dinner, Heitor led me to a door to an even more cramped room dominated by a computer desk. It was windowless and only illuminated by a single light bulb. On the wall was a mounted Blaser 93R rifle, with a box of .375 H&H Magnum on the desk.
Photos of an older man who looked a bit like Heitor with a rifle in his hand next to his prey ranging from deer to buffalo were mounted on the wall.
Heitor sat down at the desk, the two monitors of the computer turning on, as soon, as it demanded a password. He typed in and looked at me.
"My uncle would stay here whenever he visited," He turned to me, the computer going to the desktop. "He didn't like being in Kindercroft proper," He would click on the start menu to bring up his documents. "I don't blame him, though I feel it's a little overkill to go across the border."
"Agreed." I nodded, my tail flicking behind me. "Why though?" I asked.
Heitor looked at me, swiveling in his chair. "He was investigating a string of murders," He said. "You know when Liang was killed back in the summer of 08?"
I nodded.
"He was the second victim of this dude," Heitor gave me a photo of a freckled young woman with fawn skin, brown hair, and green eyes. "And he's the odd duck, considering you're holding the pictures of the last victim before Liang."
Heitor was about to click a video file before I felt it.
The amassed presence of the forest went from business as usual to a sense of great anxiety, dread, and terror. I winced as I closed my eyes and before Heitor could click, I felt something detach itself from the collective minds of the forest and it got closer to the cabin.
A great feeling of malice washed over me as I winced.
"Heitor," I said. "I feel something coming over and it's not friendly."
Heitor looked over to me, as he frowned and took out a flash drive from his jacket and plugged it in, copying the files to it.
My sensitive ears heard the crunch of grass and the squish of soft soil, replaced by the crunch of gravel. The thump of a heavy boot came onto the porch, audibly resonating throughout.
Heitor took out the flash drive, as he stood up to grab the rifle on the wall. He opened the bolt and saw it was empty, opening the box of ammo and loading it, taking the rest in his pocket.
We stood there for a moment, as Heitor motioned for the door. I squinted, as the door eased open. We were thankful for the shutters on the windows, as we crept out of the room, as I hovered over the floor.
The doorknob to the front rattled for a moment, as we paused.
The thing moved away for a moment, as I gestured to the back door, as we moved to it.
I opened the door telekinetically and we got through, as I slowly did the same to the door.
That we heard a slam from inside, the sound of wood creaking, and heavy steps running toward us. Heitor scrambled around to the front as I flew over the roof, an alarm now blaring.
Light bled out of the cabin where the front door used to be. I flew down as a hulking figure in a trenchcoat, wide-brimmed hat, and a pair of jackboots, its head almost touching the ceiling of the cabin. It turned to me, its gaze landing on me with its wide sharp-toothed grin.