Katya Dies at the End

Chapter 1: That Time Katya Was Really Fucked Up

Chapter Text

I don’t know how it happened but it did.

One second I’m sleeping off a buzz and the next my phone is ringing—over and over and over again. I know who it is before I even answer it. My best friend Katya has a way of…getting into trouble. She likes to drink a little too much, smoke a little too much, snort a little too much and while that all seems like fun it usually leaves me picking up the pieces. Everyone in [Undisclosed] knows I’m the one to call when shit gets real.

At 3 A.M. it’s clear shit has gotten real.

With a grunt I lean over to my bedside table and answer the phone, “Do you know what time it is?”

“Trixie, you need to go to Vegas. You need to go right now. Pack up your shit and GO GO GO like now. What are you doing? Where are you going? Vegas! NOW NOW NOW.”

“Where are you? I don’t care. Go to sleep.”

“VEGAAAAAAAA-”

Click.

Did I mention that being her friend isn’t a choice?

I had a tough time growing up—something I think about whenever I drink—so I’ve developed a certain personality. I’m funny but not like ha ha funny. It’s more like an observational humor with an eclectic flair. Whatever it is, I’m off putting and Katya seems to be the only one in the universe that can stand me. By extension I am the only one in the universe that can stand her.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Seriously, we have work at seven. You can’t bail again.”

“I’ve been calling you all night and you aren’t answering me! I need your help! There’s something in my apartment!”

“What…? You just called and told me to go to Vegas…”

Crash!

“I’m coming!”

I’ve been through the before with Katya. Since high school she’s been prone to wild fits of madness, psycho ex-boyfriends, and homeless stalkers and always it is Trixie that comes to the rescue. I’m still wearing the white dress from the party we got separated at earlier so all I really need to do is pull on my fuzzy boots, grabs my keys, and run out the door. For a second I think of calling the cops but I know that is a bad idea. Katya isn’t exactly the most law-abiding citizen I know and she can get pretty mouthy with all the Russian swears her grandmother taught her.

My Sedan is still warm from coming home two hours ago so all I have to do is punch it in reverse and drive to the rescue. Nights like these I’m always taken back to the story of how I met the wild Russian girl. It was freshman year, girls will be girls, she was the upperclassman that defended me. Not as romantic as the average story but it’s enough for her to earn my undying loyalty. Katya stuck up for me when everyone else wanted to watch me burn and for that I’m grateful. It’s the only reason I pick up her 3 A.M. phone calls.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“I’m already on the way!”

“Trixie, you really need to start answering my phone calls. Don’t come to my apartment. You’re going to be really mad at me. I did a bad thing and it is going to ruin your life. I’m too far-gone. I’m sucked all the way into it. Please don’t come.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Seriously, Trixie. Turn around. Go to sleep.”

“This is too fucking weird. I’m around the corner.”

“Please? For me?”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Just go home.”

“I’m pulling up right now.”

“You’re not going to like what you see.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Katya!”

Click.

My heart is hammering so loud and I’m shaking so much I can hardly breathe. She has her demons but she swore to me she would never…she would never end things because of me. She knows I need her to hold onto. If she…no! I punch the car into park and jump out of the driver’s side.

“K!” I shout as I storm up her walkway.

She lives in a two family home with the other tenants usually never around so I’m not surprised that no one else is bothered by the noise. Inside I can hear things thrashing and breaking and heavy metal blaring but my only concern is making sure she’s alive. I slam the door open and look around the room with worry and fear.

“Katya!”

I have a weird feeling when I glance inside. The place looks like a mess. It looks like Jerry came and messed the place up again. It looks like someone she owed money too came to teach a lesson. It looks like…like she’s back on that stuff she swore she’d never touch again.

“Tr-Trixie…don’t…move.”

My eyes zoom to the girl cowering behind the over turned sofa, “What the FUCK is going on, Katya. What are you on?”

“Don’t move…stay very still…”

I disregard her and step inside, looking for the shit that got her this way, “You are TWENTY FOUR FUCKING YEARS OLD, KATYA. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH YOURSELF?”

There, on the coffee table. Next to a box there’s a syringe with thick black liquid inside. It looks like an insulin needle neatly packaged with a cap over it and everything. I’ve never seen anything like this before but I’m sure this is what has her over the edge. I pick it up and as I do I feel this weird anxiety flow through me. I drop the thing into my dress pocket. I’ll ask Willam at work what this shit is and he’ll give me a good answer—Willam knows everything there is to know about any kind of drug and how to get someone off of it.

“You said you were done with this.”

“TRIXIE, RUN!”

Katya storms toward me, grabs my arm, and forces me out the door with such strength I almost fall. She doesn’t stop running until we are at my Sedan and she jumps through the Driver’s door and crawls to the passenger seat, leaving me to shout, “What the fuck!”

“Get in! Go! Go! Go!”

I listen to the girl but only because I want to get as far away from the scene as possible. I’m not worried that in her drug haze she’ll attack me. The worst she’s ever done is try to kiss me and the worst I’ve ever done is let her but that's only because it’s the only way she’ll go to sleep. I pull on my seatbelt and start driving but I don’t know where I’m going. I’m so angry and so disappointed in the girl beside me. She said she was done with needles and for the briefest seconds she let me think she had…

A dark laugh comes from Katya as she reclines the chair as far as it will go, “You don’t know how close you were! You were so damn close, Katya. It almost got you.”

“You are Katya. I’m Trixie, remember? The friend you swore to that you would never touch needles. The friend that you swore to that I would never have to come rescue you from a scenario like this again. I’m going to the fucking police station.”

“No! Don’t!” she screams, throwing herself against me, “Please! I just need some coffee. Please, let’s go to Denny’s or something! Please! They’ll never understand and I just need you! You’re my best friend!”

Inside my chest my heart is hammering, throbbing, storming as she heaves against me. The police station was a hollow threat. Her parents swore they would send her off to a rehab in the old country if she ever got in trouble with the law again. Her parents were good folks but good folks can’t help against mental sabotage. If they take her I’ll have no one in the world on my side and I just don’t know how to live with that.

Katya seems to know this, seems to sense what I’m thinking because she relaxes into her reclined seat once again. She curls onto her side and it’s only now that I notice what she’s wearing. It is nothing like she was wearing at the party…

My friend has always had a special taste for clothing, ranging from poodle-like wigs on top of her head to an entire dress made of her favorite movie, but at the party she actually looked breathtaking. Since [Undisclosed] is a small town all types of people get together and hang out regardless of clique or class you fall into it. Seems after graduation everyone gets a blank slate…except for me that is. I’ve given up on trying to impress anyone but because Katya was all aces I decided to follow suit. I did my make up to the nines, styled my hair in one of those cute ballerina buns, and even wore my brand new lace white dress. We were two blonde bombshells walking out in our high heels until we actually got to the party.

Because of her skintight red dress I knew Katya would get the attention first but I thought I would at least get one look after the initial gagging went down. I’m not the jealous type but I really tried for once and it yielded no rewards. I was reminded that I’m still the same emotionally disturbed kind that I was three years ago.

“Trixie, you’re beautiful,” Katya mumbles beside me half-asleep.

“Those fucking crocs aren’t though. I thought I burned those last week. Why are you wearing those? And who’s shirt is that? It looks like you went crawling through the Crypt Keeper’s treasure chest.”

Katya moves to face me as she grabs her tits, “I’ll show you a treasure chest.”

I can’t help but to laugh, “We’ll save that for when you’re sober.”

The Denny’s is 24 hours and it’s not the first time we’ve made trips looking like two hot pieces of shit. I’m sure my make up is all over my face and Katya isn’t wearing any pants so I know I’ll have to tip the waitress good. I park the Sedan and grab my wallet and phone while Katya follows me. She seems a little more put together as we walk in and I’m thankful that her shirt is long enough to cover her twat.

I doubt she’s wearing underwear.

We find a spot and the waitress comes with two menus, “Two coffees please and…two waters too.”

She smiles, “Coming right up.”

“You have to tell me the deal with that shit I found in your apartment and what the fuck is going on,” I decide to crack down on her.

Katya leans back into the booth comfortably with that smile on her face that she only uses when she has no idea what the fuck is going on.

“Don’t give me that smile. You have no idea what the fuck is going on.”

Her smile drops, “Fine…I…I don’t know what’s going on. I’m freaking the fuck out, bitch.”

The waitress sets down the waters and coffees and I smile. I realize that Katya is angrily shoving her hair behind her shoulder so I open my wallet and hand her one of the hair-ties I always carry with me, “Don’t lose this one.”

“Do you remember that Jamaican guy at the party? Out back?” she asks as she fixes herself.

“Not really. I stayed inside.”

“That’s right, because you’re a judgmental cunt.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Fine. Anyway, the Jamaican guy, his accent is bullshit. Completely fake.”

“Wait…I think I remember that guy when I went to the bathroom. I thought he was kidding. Did he do that accent the whole time?”

“Yeah, what the fuck?”

“He’s fucking white.”

“I know, bitch, I know.”

“He told me I was going to die choking on my own blood.”

“Wha…”

“Yeah, and I was like ‘Whatever, dude’ and just went to use the bathroom.”

“Did he really say that?”

“Go on with the story!”

“Well…I had lost you and I didn’t know where you were and I was hanging with the usual suspects at Tyler’s house when this guy shows up. We were smoking some shit and all of a sudden he starts getting real weird. He starts guessing our birthdays and like when we lost our virginity and all of a sudden he looks to me and he says something that only I know and I was freaked.”

“Bitch, you are a freak.”

Katya bursts into that sudden laugh that brightens the seriousness of our conversation. Her blue eyes were getting a special kind of blue that they got when she was in her feelings and besides I was sure I had known all of her secrets. Whatever this serious one was must have been legit.

“Okay, go on.”

“Alright…he pulls out this thing and calls it Soy Sauce.”

“Soy Sauce?”

“It be opening doors to other worlds, mon.”

“What?”

“It’s what he said and he was right. We watched him do it and when he didn’t die we did it too. I didn’t see but he shrunk himself down to like three feet. Bitch. It was the funniest shit I had ever seen.”

“And you still tried it?”

“Bitch, how could I not?”

“You said you’d stay away from needles.”

“I know but I didn’t take it in needle form. It was in a capsule and he poured it into my hand.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was like black and hairy and like alive!”

“Is this another sex joke cause I am not having it.”

“No!” her bulging eyes are nearly out of her head, “It was on my hand and it like seeped into my skin. When the Jamaican guy exploded I grabbed a bunch of shit and ran out of there. I guess I took it and the wig monster with me.”

“Hold up…Drop it low, pick it up slow. What the fuck did you just say?”

Katya licks her lips as she leans in, “The fucking guy exploded, Trixie. I heard screaming and I ran out of there. Everyone had their clothes on the floor and I grabbed what I could and ran out. I guess I took the needle by accident and that thing followed me.”

“Why did everyone have their clothes on the floor?”

“It’s a party hellur.”

“Have you decided what you wanted to eat?” The waitress asks as she comes to the table.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

I roll my eyes, “I have to take this.”

Katya orders for us as I answer the phone, “Two number fours.”

“Hello?”

“Trixie, I’m sorry for freaking out. Good thing you didn’t answer. I was being dramatic as shit. You’re probably going to be getting calls from me for the next twenty years.”

My heart is in my asshole.

The Katya before me furrows her brows, “Who is it?”

“Anyway, I’m just calling to let you know it’s all good. Me and the wig monster came to an agreement and he’s actually chill as fuck,” says the Katya on the phone.

“Is it me?” the Katya before me questions.

“I don’t think I’ll be making it into work though so…yeah. Have a good night, Trix!”

“It’s me,” the Katya before me nods her head and smirks.

The phone is still against my ear as I look into those blue eyes of my best friend. It has to be a recording, something she did while she was at the peak. Katya is a crafty women when she gets her mind focused on something. They have those kinds of apps right? They have an app for everything…it couldn’t be real.

The waitress sets the food down before us and I look up to her, “Can I have a to go box.”

She winks, “Sure thing, honey.”

“This shit is like fucking crack,” Katya moans as she eats.

I look down at my phone and my heart drops all the way down into my uterus. My phone is dead. I’m going bat shit.

“You’ve always been bat shit, Trix, don’t flatter yourself,” Katya teases.

“I need to sleep.”

The rest of Denny’s we spend in silence. I pack my food up and pay for the meals, knowing that Katya has no money and that I really just want things to move on so I can get to my bed. She keeps talking about the universe and mumbling about memories that haven't happened and shit but I don’t listen to one bit. I am too focused on trying to keep my head screwed on tight. Back at my apartment I lock the door behind us, changeinto a new shirt, and wash my face. By the time I’m done Katya is already sleeping in my bed like she usually does.

I ball my clothes up to throw in the ham-

“Fuck!”

This burning pain courses through my finger and when I look I feel that sharp pain of terror. I pricked myself with the fucking needle. I feel this strange coursing through my body and instantly want to call the police but at the same time I’m exhausted. It wasn’t a lot and if I die in my sleep, good riddance. I set the syringe inside my bedside table and put a band-aid around my finger. It wasn’t a big cut but I’m also a baby like that plus I’m too exhausted and know I'll never sleep if I don't.

I get into bed next to Katya and put my phone on the charger.

Work is going to suck.

Chapter 2: That Time I Switched Realities While I Was Dreaming

Summary:

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

One second I close my eyes and the next I am standing in a stranger’s living room. I’m no stranger to wild dreams but this is as vivid as it gets. The place is a mess but then again so is mine. It’s bare minimum decoration so either the person just moved in or a guy lives here. Whoever it is has a dog and that’s really cool but still I can’t figure out this place.

Wait…why am I trying to figure out a dream landscape?

“Bitch!”

Katya’s voice drives a spike through my being and I whip around to see her standing with two tallish men, “Please don’t tell me this is another sex dream.”

“This isn’t a dream but I won’t put a hold on the sex,” the taller man shrugs with a curious smirk.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come, what the fuck took so long!” Katya shouts.

“Please don’t tell me this is one of those ‘late for school’ dreams,” I mumble.

“This isn’t a dream,” the second man repeats but begins to point at my lower half, “But I think everyone should check something out.”

My hands jump to cover my body, “Please don’t tell me this is a show up naked dream!”

“This isn’t a dream!” Katya shouts but as she looks down her eyes bulge wide, “Whoa. You are giving me Casper the Friendly Ghost realness.”

I snap my head down with confirmation, “This is definitely a dream.”

“This isn’t a dream!” the three of them yell.

“Then why the FUCK am I blinking!”

Everyone is quiet. My body—and probably my head—is in this state of transparency that comes in and out of focus. I can touch myself but I realize that I am standing with my right leg inside of an armchair. I’m still wearing the long white shirt I went to sleep in and if this isn’t a dream and this is real life…I do look like a fucking ghost. I am not excited about this.

“Maybe we should start with some introductions,” offers the shorter, chubbier man, “I’m Dav-”

“Monster Dave,” the other man corrects.

Dave or “Monster Dave” punches him in the arm, “And this asshole is my best friend John.”

“Big Dick John, to be more accurate,” the taller man receives a punch again but this time it’s from Katya.

I’m stunned and confused. Why do we need an introduction? I read somewhere that you only dream about people that you know or have seen and I am sure I don’t know them or have ever seen them. It must have been that shit...

“Yes! It is because of that shit!” Katya shouts.

“And this isn’t a dream?”

She fake smirks, “If this were a dream it’d be a little less conversation, a little more action if you know what I mean.”

“Wait, aren’t you gonna introduce yourself?” John questions with a weird look coming over his face.

“I’m Trixie?”

“YOU’RE TRIXIE?” John and Dave shout.

I step back nervously.

“Yes!” Katya screams as she throws herself at me like she usually does…except this time she lands on the floor.

“Katya!” I turn over and try to get her up but my hands keep slipping through her body.

In that super high fake ‘sexy voice’ she always uses she begins to writhe on the floor, “Yes, baby, go right through me!”

“Ugh!” I pull my hands away and stand to look at the guys, “What the fuck is going on!”

“You’re hot!” John shouts. Dave punches him in the arm again but he continues, “You’re fucking hot! Katya has been talking about you the whole time and you’re hot!”

My face is burning red and I hope being a transparent blinking ghost makes it not noticeable. The only one that has ever called me hot has been Katya but I was literally on fire at that point so it doesn’t count. I’ve dated before but nothing really stuck. They’ve always broken up with me and got with someone much more attractive and after what happened in high school you can say that my self esteem is fucked. No one in [Undisclosed] would agree with John or Dave.

“See bitch!” Katya is on her feet next to me now, “I fucking told you!”

“What did you tell them?” I narrow my eyes on her.

“Oh nothing. Just about how your mother had to give herself a C-Section, you murdered your step dad, high school, and you have the prettiest pink kitty!” she shouts as she shoves her hand through my crotch.

Even though I don’t feel it I jump away and scream, “You’re so gross!”

She chases after me, shoving her fist through my body, “Come on, baby, let’s show them how you like it!”

I jump between John and Dave and watch as Katya nearly pisses herself and when I do I realize she told them everything…and I don’t feel very good about that. This isn’t a fun dream. I don’t like people knowing about me. I don’t like anyone knowing about me. Katya knows this. If this is real life…I feel violated.

“Hey, I only told them about you because of the Soy Sauce. I didn’t mean to but everything about you and me just came out. You’re my favorite subject, Trixie. I couldn’t help it. Plus John and Dave have been through some shit.”

“Wait? The Soy Sauce?”

“Yeah, the black drug straight from Satan’s anus? You might have heard of it,” John nods.

“Wait? What?”

“Katya said you picked her up and when you were eating you got a call…from her?” Dave has this look of absolute focus or constipation.

I nod, “Yeah, but I was fucked up a little.”

“No…the same exact thing happened to me with John.”

John grins as he throws his arm around Dave and pulls him against his frame, “Howdy!”

“Bitch, did you try it?” Katya wonders.

“What! Why the fuck would I try it after how bat-shit you were? I didn’t try it but when I was changing it poked me which is fucking weird because I put the cap on it.”

Dave nods, “It chose you both.”

This time Katya is with me when I question, “What?”

“It looks to me like whatever reality you come from that you are the Dave of the situation and Katya is the me,” John explains, suddenly wearing glasses from I don’t know where, “Would you like some coffee?”

“It’s shit girl don’t do it,” Katya warns.

“I’m fucking transparent!”

Katya’s eyes bulge again as if she completely forgot. Her eyes are all over my face, which isn’t unusual but suddenly she starts putting her hand through my head and I try to slap her away but it doesn’t really work. I need to wake up.

“Wait, so you’re saying we’re in a different reality?” I finally grasp.

“Yeah…that’s what we think. What you’re going through mirrors what we went through. That drug your friend tried isn’t just a regular drug. It’s a gateway,” Dave sighs.

“A gateway to where?” I wonder.

“Hell.”

“Alright, I’m out! Time to wake up now!”

“No, bitch! Listen! It’s true!”

“No! This is bullshit! Whatever it was is fucked up and I’m having a fucked up dream!”

“Please, Trixie! I need you.”

I finally stop running around.

“I need you to listen.”

“Fine.”

“You might think this is a dream but tomorrow when you ‘wake up’ it will be fucking real. If you remember any of this…it is real,” Dave’s eyes started to look really weird. “Your life is never going to be the same. For Katya’s sake we need you to believe what we’re saying right now. She could die if you don’t.”

I nod.

“Our timelines aren’t the exact same,” he begins.

“Yeah, your interaction with Bob Marley is completely different from Dave’s. Plus there’s no Justin. Also there’s no band,” he grins, “I’m in a band. You should totally check me out.”

“Different reality?” I question.

“Plus she’s taken!” Katya snaps, standing in front of me and actually kind of in me.

“A detective is going to take both of you into questioning and Katya is going to die.”

“What!”

“Not really die,” John explains, “Your consciousness will leave your body and enter Molly. Hey! Do you have Molly?”

“Who is Molly?” I ask.

“This is weird…” Dave steps back, “She’s a dog and she’s kind of very fucking important. Like the most important.”

“Yeah, she saved the world…like a million times,” John nods.

“We don’t have a dog and no one that we know has a dog,” Katya informs them.

“Maybe she’ll find them?” John asks Dave.

“Hopefully. I don’t see how you could survive anything without her.”

“Well, what else is going to happen?” Trixie pushes forward.

“Oh right!” John grins, “You’re going to be kidnapped and taken to Vegas where terrible things will happen.”

“There’s a little more in the middle,” Dave rolls his eyes.

“When you called me the first time I answered you told me to go to Vegas.”

“Yeah, that’s because you should have gone to Vegas. You could have avoided all of this. All the unnecessary deaths that are going to happen.”

“How do you know what’s going to happen?”

“The Soy Sauce…it has weird side effects,” Dave looks to John with that constipated look again.

“Like?”

“Basically your life will never be the same again and the curtain between ‘normal’ life and what’s really going on will be lifted completely. Plus you now have a target on your back and all the crazy shit is going to be after you. Oh and Korrok is a fucking dick,” John starts shoving middle fingers into the air at the ceiling and the floor.

“What’s a Korrok?”

“Korrok isn’t a who but a wha- Wait…that’s what you said.”

“It’s from a different reality and I’m sure because you have easily crossed into this one…He’s going to be after you so that he can eat you and steal your secrets so he can get into this one,” David purses his lips as if ‘yeah, that’s all there is to it.’

“How could Katya die?”

“It’s in the title!” John nods.

“What?”

“Katya Dies at the End,” Dave confirms.

“Mine says John Dies at the End but really Dave is the one that died. We think it’s from the extra life I got at the mall that one time. Super sweet. But anyway, your timeline is different from ours. Things could go completely different,” John looks to Katya and then to me with real concern in his eyes.

“We know you won’t believe us but when you start to you should just head to Vegas. Don’t even wait. Actually…you have to go to the dealer’s trailer, see some crazy shit, get the silver canister of Soy Sauce, then go to Vegas. You’ll have to meet Dr. Marconi as soon as possible.”

“Who?”

“Shit! No Molly and no Dr. Marconi! You are fucked!” John grabs Katya as he screams in her face.

“FUCK!” she starts to scream and suddenly they are both shaking each other as they shriek.

“Shut the fuck up!”

For once I actually feel like me and Dave are on the same page here. He looks to me and Katya and sighs, “Maybe it’s just different people but the same thing? Is there some cheesy, spiritualist you see infomercials at like three in the morning?”

“No.”

“Wait…,” I look to Katya, “What about Yes GAWD?”

“No, no, no. Gawd is not some cheesy, spiritualist. Gawd is all-powerful. Gawd has been everywhere, done everything, and knows all about it. She has her own talk show and she will read you straight to hell, mama!”

“That sounds like Marconi…”

“Is she having a show in Vegas?”

“I don’t kn-”

“YASS! SHE FUCKING IS!” Katya nearly screeches. “The tickets are two hundred fucking dollars each.”

“Why do you know that?” I furrow my brows at her.

“I wanted to surprise you for your birthday?”

“My birthday is no where near now.”

“I wanted to surprise me for my birthday?”

“Bitch.”

“Okay! I just wanted to go.”

“Well, now’s your chance. The first thing you need to do when you wake up is GO. Don’t go to work, don’t talk to anyone, just get up and go,” Dave repeats.

I feel this weird thing in my stomach like bubble guts and I look down to see that instead of blinking I am actually disappearing, “Fuck! Katya!”

She is right next to me, trying to grab onto me though she keeps going past, “Why is she disappearing! Why am I not going with her? What the fuck!”

“She’s going back to your reality. Maybe you’ll go after her?” Dave suggests.

“It was nice meeting you, Trixie! Call me when you come back to visit sometime!” John shouts.

“I’m right behind you bitch!” Katya screams.

And then there’s nothing.

Notes:

Chapter 3: That Time Shit Hit the Fan

Summary:

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My hand flies from beneath me to the phone and I quickly check the time: 6:55 am.

“Fuck!”

I’m late!

I leap out of bed and run to the bathroom. I’m freaking the fuck out. I don’t know how I could have slept in. I set my alarm last night to 6 am and there is no way I could have slept through the blaring. I know I was/am tired but still.

I take my morning piss, wash my face, brush my teeth, put on my deodorant and strip naked as I run back into my room. Katya is sleeping like the dead so I don’t turn on the light and instead rummage through my drawer with my phone light. I put on the essentials first—underwear, bra, socks—then jump into my thick, fleece leggings and my work shirt. I grab my work sweater and a jacket as I leave and head to the door. Beside it I have my moccasins that I slip into and I grab my keys and my wallet.

If I’m late again I’ll be fucked, especially since there is no way that Katya will be joining me.

I jump into my Sedan, still warmed up from the late night trip to Denny’s, and start my drive. You would think working in a video store in the middle-of-nowhere there would be no need to rush but the town of [Undisclosed] is a peculiarity. We are home to the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. The rich like our store because it makes it feel authentic and old school. The poor like our store because they can’t afford Netflix or Hulu and the membership depends on income.

Today me and Katya are supposed to be working 7 to 3 but because she is absent I’ll be having to do both of our work when before I would only have to do my work and half of hers. Willam will be coming in at 1 but still. Between customers I’ll have to restock shelves, clean, do brief inventory and send warning emails about late fees.

The store is neatly nestled at the middle of a shopping center that is home to family-owned dinners and Planet Fitness. Wally’s Videe-Oh is a franchise but you’d never know that from looking at it. There’s one in every backwoods town and each one is so far and few between no one can connect the dots. I’m thankful that the store is only ten minutes away from my apartment but as I pull into the parking lot I see that there is someone at the door already. I jump out of my car and walk in hurried steps to see: Tatianna. Fuck.

“Would you look at that? Late again.”

“You don’t even work here! Why are you here so early?” I grumble under my breath as I unlock the doors and turn on the lights. Tatianna has been on my ass since high school and she has not let up one bit. She’s two years above me and a year below Katya so somehow she’s her friend and my enemy. She has nothing to do with the issues of high school—bullying, photographs, tying down, stabbing—but she still hasn’t been the kindest. I suppose it’s not her fault though. When you’re born that beautiful there’s no point in being nice since everything will just be thrown at you.

“It’s all about choices, honey. My choice is to go to Planet Fitness every morning at 6, work out for an hour, come to Wally’s and watch my shows before work. Your choice seems to be showing up late for work everyday and not showering.”

I’m behind the counter, clocked in, and starting my list of things to do but she still insists on hovering around me. I never show how much her words affect me but suddenly I feel the burning of heat in my face at the thought of actually stinking, “I don’t smell bad.”

“You smell like sausage.”

“Well, I’m a vegetarian.”

“I’m not talking about that kind,” she smirks. “Did you finally get lucky? I heard you went to the party last night.”

“You know what, Tatianna, I’m always lucky. Especially when I get to see you every morning.”

She laughs at my sarcasm and turns her back to me to walk down the aisle of TV Shows, “I was expecting to see Katya today but I guess she won’t be joining us.”

“Why don’t you text her and find out?”

“Well, you’re her girlfriend!”

“Haha, we’re just friends,” I grumble for the millionth time.

It’s not that I have an issue with anything like that, I have dated girls before, but when they say things like that it’s always with something behind it. As if I’m a joke and they are making fun of Katya by suggesting that we would date. I don’t like it and I don’t entertain it when Katya’s not around. When she is there’s no way to dismiss the comments. She drapes her body over me and does something way over the top to get their attention and to make herself the joke instead of our relationship.

Because the computers are all off I have to power up each one and because the computers are ancient it takes at least five minutes. In the lock box under the counter is the set up for each register and while I’m waiting for the computers to turn on I start counting them out. I don’t have an issue with doing that while Tatianna is here. She might be too beautiful to be sweet but she would never do anything questionable. She is the typical American girl that stands by her faith and her morals.

“I heard the cops got called at Tyler’s. Do you know anything about that?” Tatianna asks as she comes up with the next installment of her series.

“Not a thing. I left the party and went to sleep.”

“Katya was there, wasn’t she? Did she get arrested?” she probes.

“No, she crashed at my place. Can I see your membership card?”

She hands it over and yet again I nearly barf at how perfect she looks. As always she does that smirk, hair-flip because it’s clear on my face. She is attractive. I am not. Everyone gags over her; no one gags over me.

I write down her membership number and the number of the DVD set she takes so I can type it in when the computers turn on. Her brown eyes are hard on me and I know she’s waiting for me to mess up so she can make a comment on it. But I don’t mess up easy.

“You should tell Katya I missed her.”

I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes, “That’s weird. Why don’t you just tell her?”

“You know, you should be a little kinder to your patrons.”

I put on a fake smile as I bag the DVD set, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She takes her stuff from me as she gives that seductress wave of her hand, “I’ll see you around, Trixie.”

“You know where to find me; hopefully you don’t.”

I let out a huff as the little jingling of the door signifies that she has left. The computer next to me turns on and I log into the system to open the register and put in the set up. I feel eyes on me and I look out the door to Tatianna standing against it with her eyes fumbling with her keys, glancing at me every so often. I roll my eyes and move onto the next computer. She wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t so weird. Half of the time I think her comments are just teases and the other half she is just sincerely cruel. When Katya is around she’s a lot softer around the edges but then again so is everyone.

Whatever.

I look at the list left for me to accomplish.

I have got a lot of shit to do.

Jingle. Jangle.

“Hey, y’all!”

I turn my head up to see Willam coming in, “Hey!”

“Where’s the Russian Whore?”

With a sigh I stand from my crouched position, leaving my inventory sheet on the ground so that I can remember where I was. I don’t know how to answer the question without getting Katya into trouble. It’s Willam that owns this store and it’s Willam that said if she’s gone again she’ll be fired. I know Katya doesn’t take it personal and won’t mind but I actually like working with her. Ugh.

“What’s up, Barbie? Cat got your tongue?”

There’s something about Willam that oozes the weirdest kind of sex appeal. He is a Drag Queen by night but most of the time he walks and talks and acts like he’s still in six-inch heels with a full face of make up. I lean against the counter and decide I should be brutally honest. I was going to ask his help anyway. There’s no way I can talk around the subject.

“Hellur!!!”

“She didn’t come in today.”

“You know what I said.”

“I need your help.”

Willam lets out a deep breath and drops his bag down at his feet, “What happened?”

“We went to a party last night. Nothing huge. We got separated and I went home. At like three I get this call.”

“The Russian Whore?”

“Yes. She calls me freaking the fuck out about going to Vegas.”

“She been talkin’ about seeing Gawd for the past two weeks.”

“Has she?”

Willam recoils at me as he shouts, “Nurse!”

“Well! That’s not it! I hang up. She calls me back and says there’s something in her apartment. I start going. When I’m there she calls me and tells me not to come. She’s been calling me all night. She tells me just to go to sleep. She did something bad. I’m going to be mad at her.”

“Fuck.”

“I get in and her apartment is trashed. She tells me that there’s something inside and to be still. I found a needle with black stuff in it. She drags me out of the apartment and into my car.”

“Needle?”

“Yeah, we get to Denny’s a-”

“You bitches are always at Denny’s.”

“I know! But bitch, listen. She tells me this story about this white ‘Jamaican’ gu-”

“Barry! I know that asshole. He comes to the bar all the time!”

“Well, Barry and a bunch of them go to Tyler’s place. He whips out this thing called Soy Sauce.”

Willam’s face grows serious.

“He does it in front of them and they do it all together. Katya said it wasn’t in a needle form though when she took it. She said it was like a capsule that seeped into her hand. She said Barry exploded, she grabbed a bunch of clothes, then ran out of there. That’s how she got the needle and some wig monster.”

Willam reached down and grabbed his bag, “Bitch, I gotta go.”

“What!” I scream, moving to block the only exit from behind the counter, “What the fuck? Do you know what this Soy Sauce shit is?”

“Bitch, if you know what’s good for you you’ll stop saying it out loud. You and Katya need to pick up and get the fuck out of here. Do you understand me? Before the cops start snoopin’ around. We didn’t talk about this, I didn’t hear about this, I need to leave.”

Inside of me my heart is racing wildly and I feel wisps of a memory tugging at my head. Willam tries to get past me but I stay firm, “Tell me what you know.”

“Barbie, I voluntarily have no information on that shit. Every time I hear that name bad things follow. You understand me? Did you try some?”

I feel the burning in my finger again, “The needle poked me.”

Willam starts crossing himself as he pushes past me and to the door, “Fuck! Store is closed. Get yo’ shit and go!”

“The first thing you have to do when you wake up is GO.”

“Fuck, that damn dog is there again.”

“What?”

As I walk to the door that Willam is cowering behind my dream falls upon me in reverse order. Waiting outside is a Brindle Pit Bull with two gorgeous brown eyes staring at us. The dog’s head is lopsided as if trying to figure something out and the way that Willam is cowering has me on the same boat.

“Is that your dog?”

“No! It’s been coming here every day at the same time and won’t leave. When I try to walk outside it jumps on me and follows me to my car. I called animal control but when they get here it’s gone. They think I’m makin’ it all up.”

“This is weird…She’s a dog and she’s kind of very fucking important. Like the most important.”

“It’s kind of cute. Maybe it just need’s food?” I offer.

“Well, why don’t you take care of it? I’m going out the back door,” Willam scurries away.

“Are you serious? What am I supposed to do?”

“Go!” Willam shouts.

Ugh.

I walk back to where I left my inventory on the floor with that dream coming back coming back coming back. All the moments seem to be flowing in reverse. Something about Vegas, something about a dog, something about an alternate reality, something about a cop, something about “this isn’t a dream.” I was with Katya and John and Dave. We were in Dave’s house. The Soy Sauce has ruined our lives. I need to go.

“Now, now, where do you think you’re running off to so fast?”

I stop in mid step as a shorter black woman stands before me. I didn’t even hear the bells jingle, “I-I have to get home. The owner just came in and said we could close up early.”

“Now, that is awfully convenient seeing as how a Detective just walked in to ask you a few questions.”

I look around, “Who?”

The woman pulls out a badge, “Me. I am Detective Coco Montrese and I’m going to have to take you in for some questioning. I’ll wait while you close up the store.”

Fuck.

Notes:

Chapter 4: That Time I Was Interrogated

Summary:

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sitting in the interrogation room sends my mind spinning back to darker times. I never knew my father and though my mother is awesome she didn’t have the best track record with men. Her husband at the time wasn’t the nicest…actually he was a fucking piece of shit. I don’t like thinking about it but one thing led to another and I sort of killed him. It was an accident of course…but it happened.

It was a long process. I was only like eight at the time and I had to see a lot of doctors. I had to talk to a lot of lawyers. My mother cried the whole time. I cried the whole time.

I remember sitting in the interrogation room and looking at my reflection in the two-way mirror like I am now. I was wearing my Barbie pajamas and I remember thinking that if she could be strong then so could I. It’s always been my nickname as a kid because of my obsession with Barbie but I don’t wear anything pink much anymore. I don’t know why that is. Sitting here with only my Wally’s sweater makes me wish I had just something in a brighter color. Something that Barbie would wear to remind me to be strong.

Even though I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m sweating. What if Katya gets in trouble? What if that dream that wasn’t a dream actually isn’t a dream? What if we are all truly and completely fucked? What if Katya dies?

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. That friend of yours is quite the handful. Are you alright?”

I whip my head behind me to Detective Montrese, “Katya is here?”

“Ms. Zamolodchikova? Yes, we found her hitchhiking to Las Vegas a little after we brought you in.”

“Whoa.”

“Yes, that is fairly strange. Do you know why she would be trying to leave the state?”

“No, whoa, you said her whole last name. That’s like…really weird. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone but her say it correctly. Big props to you,” I nod.

Detective Montrese gives me this look as if she is exactly two seconds away from locking me in solitary for the rest of my life. Her dark eyes are tired and blood shot but even still she has this sophistication about her. She looks like in her past she did Pageants and then something bad happened and she decided to stop bad things happening for the rest of her life. She has the cool and style of Pam Grier but the fierceness and ease of Angela Bassett. All in all she does not look like someone that should be fucked with.

“You found her hitchhiking?”

“Yes,” the Detective seems pleased to return to the conversation at hand, “She was delirious, argumentative, scatter-brained. Do you have any idea how she had gotten that way?”

“I’d say it was a birthing accident but I don’t really know. Delirious, argumentative, and scatter-brained are probably the three best ways to describe Katya though. That’s honestly her on a good day.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem to be sweating.”

I feel like the brightness of the universe is turned all the way up. I feel like I’m in a boiler but all I do is nod, “Better than ever.”

“I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot here.”

I furrow my brows as I look to her, “What do you mean?”

“You aren’t in trouble here. I’m not here to bring up what happened with your step-father. I’m not here to ask about the trouble you had in high school.”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be able to see any of that,” my heart is racing out of my chest and I’m sure she can tell.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh. I’m not here to talk about any of it. I don’t want you to pee in a cup, I don’t want your parents being called in, I don’t need your employer to vouch for you. I’m not here to accuse you of anything.”

“It doesn’t really seem like it now.”

“I just need you to tell me what you did last night.”

“Simple. Me and Katya went to a party, left a little early, went home to sleep since I had work today.”

“Are you sure that’s all? You didn’t happen to go down to Tyler Lemkin’s house? Have a nightcap with your buddies?”

I wanted to point out that I really only have one buddy but that seemed pointless and now I’m defensive and overheating. I shake my head, “No, I didn’t do that.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I can hear myself answer “Uh huh” but my mind is back to my dream that wasn’t a dream and I’m starting to feel like maybe they were right. I’m starting to feel like I was a blinking ghost before but I am becoming full ghost now. They said the police would come for us, they said Katya would “die”, they said her mind would be put into a dog. But they didn’t say anything about the moth in the corner with the tear on its wing. They didn’t say anything about the guy talking outside of the building to his wife who had just found out that her sister was pregnant. They didn’t say anything about Detective Montrese’s ex-boyfriend that had been killed thanks to a Drug Overdose so many years ago.

I look into her eyes and it’s almost like I can guess the words that are going to come out of her mouth before she even has the time to say it.

How well do you know…

“How well do you know Tyler Lemkin?”

“Not at all. Just through Katya,” my heart is on overdrive and if I was sweating before I am raining now.

How about Luke Rogers?

“How about Luke Rogers? His family owns the local theater in town?”

“No. Don’t know him.”

It was like I had been walking through life with candlelight and suddenly someone finally turned on the fucking high beams. Like all the doors suddenly opened and I could see everything. The list of people had been at the party last night and that same list of people were all dead or heading there.

“Alaska Thunder…?”

“I know her. She was in my grade. She was at the party last night.”

“Larry Bishop.”

“No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Pearl Liaison?”

“No.”

“Jamin Ruhren?”

“No.”

Staring into Detective Coco Montrese’s eyes had my head spinning. It was like I could see inside of her when usually the only person I can see inside of is Katya. She’s been through a lot. She’s seen a lot. Since her war on drugs began she has been crawling deeper into the rabbit hole and what has happened here is only the beginning. She knows that just like I know that now.

This is not just a regular day for her, I am not just a regular perp. She has got the scent of something and me and Katya are the only one’s she’s found that have even gotten close. What Willam said rings inside of my ears. There is no way that Detective Montrese could will herself into voluntary ignorance. There is no way Detective Montrese can run from a name or a pattern. She is at the start of something and she intends to finish it.

“You graduated High School little under three years ago. Went to school with most of these people and yet you only know one person?”

“I kept to myself in school and plus Katya is older than me and knows a lot more people than I do.”

“I can imagine with what went down you’d stick to yourse-”

“Is Alaska okay?” I ask though I know it’s a pointless question. They don’t know.

“We don’t know.”

I’m not reading her mind. I can’t do that. I’m just watching her face. We can tell so much about a person’s face through the subtle motions they make. Most of it is subconscious understanding but for me everything is right here in the moment. I am entirely present.

“Which brings me to this point. Your friend seems to be the only survivor of last night’s events and I don’t mean to worry you but she isn’t looking too good. Did she say anything?”

“Katya called me last night about three am. She was wacked out of her mind. She was screaming about going to Vegas and then she called me again and told me there was something in her apartment. I got there and the whole place was a mess. She was hallucinating and freaking out but nothing too bad. I got her in the car, we got some food, went back to my apartment and got some sleep.”

“Did she say what she was on?”

“No.”

“You know we have ways of finding out. I’m not interested in locking away a bunch of kids that got into some pills. I’m here about the bodies. If someone is selling poison out there we need to know.”

“What did everyone die of? Overdose?”

“This Alaska…is she your friend too?”

“No,” I answer because it’s the truth. She was an acquaintance, also friends with Katya like everyone else was. I thought about asking my question again but there in Detective Montrese’s silence was another open door.

The way she asked her question—“This Alaska…is she your friend too?”—gave me everything I needed to know. Between each separate syllable of each separate word came the truth to me. She hadn’t slept in twenty-nine hours, the fifteen minutes in the break room didn’t count, and she hadn’t eaten anything respectful in fifteen hours and twenty-two minutes. She always said her favorite food was her mother’s Macaroni and Cheese but really it was her father’s Chicken.

All I have to do is blink and then I see it.

I know everything about the kids that Katya had spent her night with.

Tyler Lemkin shot himself with his father’s .22 caliber pistol. Right in the head.

Luke Rogers threw himself into the lake.

Larry Bishop and his girlfriend Sandra Dorothy were found in their car. Larry had his right hand chopped off.

Everyone else is missing. Alaska Thunder, Pearl Liaison, and Jamin Ruhren are all MIA and that was everyone that had joined Katya last night. Now she’s all that’s left.

Detective Montrese had her hands on a manila folder the whole time but it’s only now that she opens it. Two mug shots she removes and places them side by side. I recognize them both. The one on the right is the fake Jamaican “Barry” and on the left is Jay Jackson—known in our town as Laganja Estranja.

I point to the photo on the right, “Barry. He was at the party last night. Had a fake accent. Katya said he was there at Tyler’s. He told me I was going to die choking on my own blood.”

There is that look that Katya had when I told her the same thing. I’m starting to realize that maybe I should hold a little more weight to that prophecy but now isn’t the time. The Detective points to the photo on the left, “And him?”

“You already know I know them and how I know them so there’s no point in lying. Laganja Estranja is the only person that can get you weed around here, insists it’s the best anywhere. Insists they’re a weed connoisseur and I’d have to agree. What does Laganja have to do with this?”

“We think…” she pauses with some amusement to the name, “Laganja might have introduced Barry into the neighborhood.”

Laganja is also missing.

The Detective pulls two more photos from the manila folder but these are unlike anything I have ever seen. Dave’s words come back to me slowly: you have to go to the dealer’s trailer, see some crazy shit, get the silver canister of Soy Sauce, THEN go to Vegas. I’m looking at Barry’s trailer but other than that it’s a mystery.

“What is this?”

“That’s Barry.”

I shove the pictures away and drop my head down over my arms as I try to block out the images that are now burned into my mind. Katya said he had exploded but fuck. I’m squeamish. I don’t like blood or guts or chunks and that is exactly what I have seen. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“Trixie, do you need some water?”

I look up and in the reflection of the two-way mirror I see another Detective step forward that I hadn’t noticed before. He looks like he’s going to try to help in someway but he knows he can’t. He doesn’t want to be covered in vomit.

“Trixie?”

I shake my head, “No, what the fuck could have done that?”

“Nothing you’re capable of, I’m sure. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility to consider this is something that we have never faced before.”

The door opens suddenly and in walks an out of breath cop. He catches eyes with Detective Montrese and rushes to whisper something in her ear. My heart sinks all the way to my uterus.

Together they rush out of the door and I stand to follow but the other Detective stands to guard the door. I feel tears rushing past my hold and down my face. I hear commotion, running, feet on tile floor but I don’t hear the breathing that I need. I don’t hear the breathing that I need to keep me alive through all of this bullshit. I don’t here Katya. After about ten minutes Detective Montrese rushes in.

Dave’s words are in my head again: A detective is going to take both of you into questioning and Katya is going to die.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

I can’t feel.

“Your friend is dead.”

Notes:

Chapter 5: That Time I Got Into A Fight With a Pretzel

Summary:

Chapter Text

When I had first met Katya I was crying.

High school had been bullshit straight down to the last two seconds standing to get my diploma. I don’t know what it was but as soon as I walked through the door it was like no one liked me. They saw something in me that reflected something in them and they weren’t okay with it. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t wear make up or that I wore dark clothing or that I did well in my classes and the teachers liked that. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t remember their names—I don’t know.

I had moved from Milwaukee to [Undisclosed] the summer before freshman year and from the first orientation I had trouble. I was in this group with one girl in particular, Cassandra, that didn’t like me from first glance. She made it clear by her stares and the whispers she shared with her friends what she really thought about me. Her tone was always pointed in my direction and she made comments about how poor my clothes looked. It was regular girl kid stuff so I didn’t let it get to me.

But the first day of school it had crossed a level.

I walked in to see flyers with my face on it. Somehow she had found out what happened with my mother’s ex-husband. Somehow she had gotten the details and she made posters that she handed out and put up on all the walls. That stuff was supposed to be private, supposed to be hidden, supposed to be locked away but she found it and tormented me with it. I hid in the girl’s room all day.

Katya was a senior when I was a freshman. She had snuck into the bathroom to smoke a cigarette and she saw me. I knew she knew who I was but instead of mentioning anything about it she asked if I wanted to smoke with her. I declined and she proceeded to rant about race relations in the country and her favorite movie: Contact. The rest of the year was exactly like that—even after the incident.

We were best friends from the second Katya looked at me in that bathroom. She was popular and she had many friends and she talked to a lot of people and because of her the next few years weren’t so harsh. She helped me when no one else would. She trusted me when no one else would. She cared for me when no one else would. Out of the sea of millions of people she picked me to be the person that she would share her deepest secrets with, her wildest dreams, her most adventurous aspirations, her harshest vulnerability and it is because of that I have given her my unrelenting loyalty.

I’m thinking of all of this as Detective Montrese tells me she is dead.

“Whoa, now, hold on.”

I didn’t realize I was falling until her arms helped to prop me up. My legs feel like jello and my mind is spinning an a thousand different directions.

“We have Tony out there doing CPR on her, he’s a lifeguard on his off time. The ambulance is already on the way.”

We don’t have a Molly. If John’s consciousness went into Molly then where is Katya’s consciousness going? If it doesn’t have a host will it be suspended in the air indefinitely? I mean, there is that dog that Willam was terrified of but can that just be a coincidence? Willam does generally smell of rotting meat. Could that be why it follows him?

I can see in Detective Montrese’s eyes that she is losing it herself, “Now you just hold on a moment here. This is what is going to happen. You are going to sit there in that seat and I am going out there to check on your friend. I am going to come back and you are going to start telling me the truth here. I need to get to the bottom of this and if you impede me in any way, shape, or form I will make sure you spend the rest of your life regretting that decision. Do you hear me?”

I look from Montrese to the other Detective in the back of the room. There’s no way I can deny them. I don’t give quite a nod as I do a blank stare. The truth is I’m afraid of the Detective. Her mind is tumbling the way a normal person’s shouldn’t.

The dead are getting the better deal out of this.

I shiver; that doesn’t sound like a normal cop thought to me.

I watch as she leaves and I try to find some way to steady myself but all I can think of Katya lifeless while some huge man has his hands and lips all over her, fighting to bring her back to life. I hear commotion, I hear shouting, I hear sirens in the distance but still I don’t hear her. I know what John and Dave said but I know what else they said. Katya dies at the end. I don’t know how I can live with that…I don’t plan to live with that.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

I look down in my pocket at my phone; I had forgotten completely that I still had it on me. It’s not like I was offered a phone call. It was just questioning. It wasn’t like I was under arrest.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Normally I would ignore it but that doesn’t feel like the right decision. I bring the phone up to my ear and answer, “Hello?”

“Trixie! It’s Katya.”

“What the fuck!” I can’t help but to shout.

“I know, I fucking know.”

“Are you in the ambulance? What the fuck is going on?”

“Did I die yet?”

“Yes!”

“Then I’m late. Fuck. Get out of there.”

I look to the cop in the room waiting with me but he doesn’t seem to care about my heart beating out of my fucking body, “What?”

“You just need to walk out of the room and walk out of the building. The cop that’s there with you, I need you to not look at his body. This is definitely a ‘Naked Dream’ scenario. Just get up and go.”

“What are you ta-”

My mouth is hanging open. There is no bottom half to the man, the cop, the thing. I look to the two-way mirror and suddenly he isn’t in it anymore. All there is before is a half body of a man moving his way toward me. I’m having a stroke. Clearly I am dying.

“Katya…”

“He isn’t real. He’s a fucking ghost and you need to get the fuck out of there. You’re going to start seeing some shit. Okay? Shit that John and Dave didn’t even get a chance to tell you about. All I need you to do is not freak out.”

I’m curling against the wall as he comes closer and closer, “He can’t hurt me right?”

“Bitch, he sure as hell can.”

“Ahhh!”

His hand lashes out and slaps the phone from my hold and I pull backward as I try to kick him away but my leg goes flailing through air. I drop down onto my ass trying to roll away and grab the phone at the same time but I feel an invisible leg kicking after me until I’m on my feet and his arm is around my throat. I can see myself in the mirror fighting with nothing but it doesn’t feel that way. I remember self-defense from junior year of high school and so I drop down onto my knee, pivot my hips, and flip the ghost/monster/man thing over my shoulder. He goes flying but still I feel choking and it isn’t until I’m on my feet that I realize I still have his arm around my throat.

“Fuck!”

The arm starts clawing and scratching at the ghost/monster/man thing starts to stand and I throw my weight into the wall against the arm that freezes a moment then keeps going. The guy is on his “feet” and coming my way and suddenly I can hear everyone in the universe shouting “GO GO GO!”

I lunge to the door, feeling the arm cutting off my air while another hand grabs my hair. I’m grunting with all my strength to pull on the handle while all this force is dragging me back and in my mind all I can think of is Katya and I know I have to do this for her. I can’t let her down. With everything in me I push forward, out of the door, and into the hallway where my battle has vanished. The arm is gone, the man is gone, and I am okay.

I take in deep breaths of air and see that four people are running down the hallway with a stretcher toward Katya. My first instinct is to run to her body but I have to listen to her “spirit” before anything else. I try to look as calm as possible as I walk out of the building and onto the sidewalk. I finally look to my phone to see it’s smashed from falling to the ground. Fuck.

I try to focus but everything around me is not the same as it had been yesterday. A woman walks past me and I instantly know she has killed every single pet she has ever had—on purpose. A car drives by and I know it’s going to crash in three weeks while the driver falls asleep at the wheel. My mind is working faster and harder than it ever has before. I don’t know what to do.

“Trixie?! Where are you now?”

As always Katya’s voice somehow brings me back and brings me the comfort that only she can. I take in a deep breath and keep moving as I answer, “I’m outside. Where the fuck are you?”

“That’s not important right now! I need you to keep moving down the block. There’s going to be a pretzel guy a few blocks down the street.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Just do it!”

“Bitch, I don’t care if you’re a cloud in the fucking sky do not take that tone with me,” I grumble into the broken phone even though I’m still walking.

“What did I say?”

“To walk and I’m walking!”

“No, I said don’t freak out and you’re freaking out.”

“What the fuck did you expect!”

“Trixie. Please. I need you to do this. Take a few deep breaths while you walk.”

Because I love Katya more than anyone and anything in the world I listen. I see the pretzel guy on the sidewalk a little ways away and I take in deep breaths as I move toward him. I can feel my mind follow the path of everyone that’s ever shared the same oxygen but I have to focus. If I don’t I’ll end up I don’t know where and this is important. I can’t keep drifting away.

“Are you there?” Suddenly her voice is choppy.

“Yeah, I’m here. What now.”

“I need you to buy a pretzel,” she says, her voice drifting in and out like she’s under water.

“What the fuck? Why?”

“Just do it!”

“Fine.”

I order a pretzel roll and with cheese inside and pay the man. I take a few steps away and feel this overwhelming urge to put the pretzel roll to by ear. Seeing as how the day has been going I figure that denying it would be pointless.

Into the pretzel roll I speak, “Katya?”

Nothing.

“Katya!”

From the phone I hear static and I put that to my ear again, “Trixie?”

“You’re clear now…what the fuck is going on. I thought I was going to have to talk to you through the pretzel or something.”

“Oh no, bitch, I told you to buy that so you can eat something. I know you’re hungry.”

I can’t help but smile and get all hot in the face.

“Are you blushing? Ewww,” she teases.

“Listen, cunt!” I shout through a bite of the pretzel roll. “What is going on? That shit burned. That shit had a presence like it was alive.”

“Okay, seriously. The only way you can talk to me now, the only way you could switch realities with me last night is because you got some of that in your system. It wasn’t a lot though so just like last night you’re start to blink.”

“Fuck, what do I need to do?”

“I need you to go to Barry White’s trailer.”

“Barry White? Are you serious?”

“Come on now. Focus.”

“Okay.”

“You need to go back to Wally’s, get your Sedan, then go to his trailer. You need to go to Shire Village on Lathrop Ave, alright? It’s a trailer park past the candy place we’re banned from.”

“You’re banned from.”

“It’s a picture of both of us on the wall!”

“Because you dragged me into it!”

“Trixie! I need you to focus!”

“Fine! But I have an issue. How the fuck am I supposed to call a Lyft if my phone is broken?”

“Shit…did you finish eating the pretzel?”

“No…”

“Okay, hold down the home button and tell Siri to order it for you.”

“Really?”

“Really!”

I let out a frustrated huff and look at my pretzel. After fighting that ghost man this has got to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done. I hold down the bottom of the pretzel and to my surprise I feel the vibrating through it. I put the bottom toward my mouth and speak, “Siri, can I have a Lyft to Wally’s from current location?”

“Sorry, I didn’t get that,” the pretzel says.

I roll my eyes and speak louder, “Siri, can I have a Lyft to Wally’s from current location?”

Once again, “Sorry, I didn’t get that.”

“SIRI! I NEED A FUCKING LYFT TO WALLY’S FROM CURRENT LOCATION.”

“If you’re going to be a FUCKING CUNT I won’t do anything for you!”

My mouth is hung open again.

I hear Katya shouting so I put the phone to my ear to listen to her shout, “Did you piss Siri off! You have to apologize!”

“I am not going to apologize to a pretzel!”

“Well, in all fairness you were being rude.”

“She wasn’t listening!”

“So you just shout at people and things when they aren’t listening?”

“I can’t wait to see you again so I can just hit you as hard as I can.”

“Apologize!”

I hide my face in my arm and scream before falsely smiling as I speak into the pretzel, “I apologize for my outburst. May I please have a Lyft to Wally’s from current location.”

“Much better,” Siri speaks, “You catch more bees with honey.”

I shiver at the thought. I’m terrified of bees.

I bring the phone to my ear again so I can talk to Kaya, “Okay, it’s coming.”

“You really need to work on your people skills, Trixie.”

I let out a deep breath through my nose, “Please don’t do this right now. Not the speech again.”

“I’m just saying!”

Chapter 6: That Time I Was A TV Star

Summary:

Chapter Text

My connection with Katya had been fading but still I refused to let her go on my end. I had the phone resting against my speedometer behind my steering wheel as she spoke in statics and beeps. Because I needed her to keep me sane she sang songs in her the weird static and made me guess what they were. It wasn’t long before I realized she was singing ‘What’s New Pussycat’ over and over again. She really does know how to piss me off enough to forget about my extreme anxiety.

When I pulled into Shire Village I found the only Trailer with police tape around it.

Katya gave me a series of chopped up instructions, “Okay…inside…DO NOT…just…and go…I repeat…inside…DO NOT…just…and go. I’ll see you soon, Trix!”

If it were for anyone else in the universe I would have laughed and said ‘You’re S.O.O.L.’ There is no way I would go into a creepy trailer. There is no way I would go get some hell drug. There is no way I would drive all the way to Vegas. There is no way I would crash a show with GAWD and there is no way I would even begin to imagine any of this was real. Maybe that’s why the universe brought me and Katya together in the first place.

There were no cars around so I didn’t bother sneaking in or being stealth. I went in right through the front door. I had forgot that Barry White had exploded and so nearly threw up at the smell but I pulled my sweater over my nose and fought through. Most of the mess was cleaned up but the stains will live forever. I kept on walking past without looking at the spot again.

I tried to imagine where I would hide a hell drug if I were a white guy faking a Jamaican accent and telling kids when they lost their virginity. There were no pictures on the wall, no classy accents with hidden compartments, hardly any furniture. Further down the trailer there was a small kitchen and across from it there was a door. I figured it must have been the bedroom so I’d have to start in there.

I opened the door—

—and stopped.

Suddenly I was looking at tropical landscape, rolling waves stretching for miles, golden sand under stunning heat, the future reaching out into the horizon. It wasn’t a picture. It was like the door had opened into this place like in Beetlejuice when the door opened into the desert scary scene. But Beetlejuice was just a movie and this was real life and if that were true then it would mean I was dead and I was positive I wasn’t dead.

I shut the door again and closed my eyes. It wasn’t real. I told myself when I opened the door again it would be gone.

I opened the door—

—and it was still there.

But suddenly I knew what I was looking at. It was a floor to ceiling painting. Painted over wall, painted over window, painted over carpet, over trim, over surface. The curtains, the unmade bed, the side table, the doorknob to the closet, the shoes thrown into the room forgotten. Every crinkle had a purpose. Every lost shoelace, every crack in the wall, every crust on the carpet had a part in the painting that made it come to life. It was too much to comprehend. It was too much to understand. No living being could have done it. No master painter from any point on the globe.

I don’t know how long I was there being weighed down by the effort of it but I was there a long time. A woman sits in a tanning chair with her back to the audience. There’s another seat next to her that’s empty. There’s a dog beside the woman licking her hand. There’s a palm tree with a coconut at the bottom that had just fallen. There’s a boat off into the distance of the seawaters.

But too much of anything will show you the darkness to it.

The details aren’t as majestic as they had been.

The details are fucking frightening.

The boat isn’t gracefully diving the water; the boat is being dragged under by some mysterious beast. The coconut is actually a decapitated head and there are still so many left in the palm tree. The dog is not just a dog. It’s some weird creature I can’t even begin to describe like half spider, half scorpion, have yellow-wigged bitch. And the woman is a beautiful blonde and even from behind I know who she is supposed to be.

I shut the door and never open it back up again.

I don’t know why but it helps me to think of what Barbie would do in this situation. My childhood was stripped from me and as I get older I try to remind myself the beauty and innocence of having a childlike mind. As I stood outside of that room I tried to think of how Barbie would handle the situation. She would handle the situation like she has handled every situation. She would knuckle up and get moving. She had honor and responsibility and no matter what she would always help a friend in need—especially one that had the only available space in her heart.

I knew that Katya needed me and I had to keep moving.

I took in a deep breath and walked a little further into the trailer, passed the bathroom, found a random closet. The closet was completely empty though and despite my attempt at uncovering a hidden hole I found nothing. I walked back into the kitchen and searched through the cabinets but found a heaping pile of zero also. Did Barry White even live here?

THUD.

I jumped so hard I fell onto my ass but I quickly realized the sound was coming from the freezer. I knew that sound. Ice was being made and that was it.

“Fuck,” I mumbled to myself as I got back onto my feet.

I’m no good to anyone if I stay this jumpy.

Instead of bothering with the kitchen any longer I move toward the empty bathroom. It was the only thing in the entire trailer that looked like it had been used. The toilet seat was askew, the shower curtain pulled back, a toothbrush discarded in the sink. It wasn’t anything suspicious as far as Barry White went but I figured maybe something was hidden in the toilet. I stepped into the bathroom and began to stomp my foot in absolute frustration.

I don’t often have temper-tantrums but when I do it’s because of a good reason. This time was no different. As I pouted and felt tears burn my eyes and stomped my feet and punched the air a realization dawned on me. The toilet was pulled a foot away from the wall to reveal a gaping hole dug through the trailer and down into the ground—I realized that I had to go into that.

The unknown descended onto me and I saw on the floor with my feet hanging into the hole. I began to cry good and hard and I knew that it was because I was out of my element. John and Dave looked like disgusting people that probably threw shit at each other for fun so this would be no big deal. Dave looked like he could watch someone blow their own brains out in front of him and with blood and chunks splashed across his face he could eat a burrito. I am not that person so the thought of dropping into a shithole was a lot to me.

But I had to do it.

I wiped away my tears angrily and observed the hole. It went down a while and there was thankfully a roll-up rope ladder securely in place. The hole went straight into the ground and the way it was dug into a perfect cylinder reminded me of that room. Only something dark and evil could create it which meant it lead to something dark and evil. At the bottom there was a light from what looked like an old camping lantern and from what I could see at the top the room down there was spacious. That did not seem good to me.

I took another deep breath and began to climb downward.

I tried not to think of Barry White climbing up and down everyday between painting that horrific scene and between talking with Laganja and between talking with Willam and between exploding. I tried not to think of Katya naked with that guy in Tyler’s house…wait. Barry White had exploded in his own Trailer but Katya said they were at Tyler’s house when it happened. Part of me felt a pang of suspicion but realistically Katya had the mind of a sloth. If it doesn’t have to do with her immediate survival, food, sex, sleep, shitting she doesn’t remember the details.

Squish.

The sound my feet made as I hit the ground had me nearly in tears again. These were my favorite moccasins and now I would have to burn them. The room was tall enough to stand in and from the bare light I could see it was wide. The lantern rested on the ground and so I lifted it but suddenly wished I didn’t. Though the room was perfectly sculpted into a rectangular space it was covered entirely of a squishy, clay-like, shit-like substance. It reminded me of the gunk that Will Smith and Kevin Kline dropped into in Wild Wild West but…more fecal like than anything else.

Fuck.

I pulled my sweater over my nose and kept moving. There were long tables with piles and piles of papers of drawings and strange writing. I got dark and frightening vibes from them so I didn’t bother to read or pick them up. My mind was focused on finding that damn hell drug and if I didn’t find it here then I was sure it didn’t exist. There was an old TV on one end with random things sticking out of it and curling up around it. There were pickle jars lining random places. There was a big duffle bag on top of another table and it clicked in me that it must be there but when I went to it I found something hideous inside.

I screamed a soundless scream as I registered inside the bag was a huge five-foot long thing. It was segmented like an earthworm but thick like an animal that could kill. On one end was the “mouth” with sharp teeth in a circular motion and I wanted to die. But it wasn’t moving. I hoped then that like the painting it was something disgusting that Barry White had made. I really hoped it wasn’t real.

With a shake of my head I realized there was nothing down here but the horrors of a mad man. I turned around to climb back up but nearly fell and ate shit—literally. I looked down to see what it could be that I slipped on and felt that soundless scream rip through me again. Covering the ground in different chunks and piles were fingers. I was paralyzed.

Paralyzed until the TV blinked on and off.

Without my control I walked toward the TV. It was gutted completely with no real working parts but it had turned on and off. How could that be—

It turned on again and it was on on.

I didn’t know what I was looking at. It looked like I was watching a trip down someone’s small intestines like I was a doctor looking for a weird spot. The shot changed to a guy with long blonde hair around my age talking. The person behind the camera was calling him “Todd.” The scene began to blur and I realized it changed to a weird first person view of a car coming down a residential street. It got very blurry after that and I lifted the lantern to look at the TV itself.

There weren’t any power cords running to it and I hadn’t seen any extension cords dangling from the trailer to this room anyway. There was no generator to be found. The random things sticking out of it looked like thick globs of the substance I was standing in had been slapped together and hardened. The back of the TV was removed so it was literally just a box with a screen but instead of working parts inside there was…weird stuff. A strip of seaweed led out of it and into a dead fish but not like any regular dead fish. The fish’s stomach had been slit open and bulging out from in it was a pink, wet mass the size of a basketball as if its insides had swollen fifty times its regular size. An aquarium tank was close to it but it wasn’t filled with pretty floating creatures. It was filled with a thick, yellow-like substance and at the bottom there was a wrinkly grayish blob that looked like meatloaf…that looked brain.

I pulled back and looked at the screen…

…and that’s where I am now. On the screen played every action I had made since driving up to Shire Village. It’s weird to see yourself recorded. It’s weird to see yourself recorded on a TV in a dead mad man’s trailer. It’s weird to see yourself watching yourself with the same shivering terror you have been feeling for the past five minutes.

I don’t know how Barbie would handle this but I’m sure she would need a little more than honest determination to get her through it. All that is running through my mind is the simple fact that I’m not ready for this. I’m not okay with this. I cannot handle this. At eight years old I thought I had experienced the worst thing in my life. In high school I thought I had experienced the other worst thing in my life. And now I’m here.

I think I need a fucking break.

Something twitches on the screen behind the me watching me on an infinite loop. It’s the black duffle bag. It’s the disgusting gross slug monster. It’s coming right behind me. I duck.

The slug monster thing goes flying across the TV like it had wanted to fly against me and I don’t wait a second. I lunge my body to the hole back in the trailer and slip hard on the gross shit beneath me but I use that momentum to drag myself on my hands and knees and feet through the substance—losing my moccasins in the process. I hear the thing screaming and shaking as it jerks in the TV horror until it thuds onto the ground. I don’t bother looking at it while I climb up the rope ladder like I’m Katya on three Red Bulls. When I get to the bathroom I hurl myself up into it, shit and mud and clay staining the floor and making it harder for me to get a grip but I do.

On my feet I grab the toilet and push it over the hole to stop that thing from finding me. I move to run and fall down hard on my hands and knees again and as if I’m back in that hole I drag myself out into the carpet floor. I pull myself up and slam the door behind, sobs escaping me immediately as I throw my body against the counter in the kitchen. This is too much. I can’t handle this. I can’t take it.

THUD.

With so much anger I stomp to the freezer and I slam it open only to watch a frozen coffee can fly past my head and punch the wall between the hellhole and the hell room. Of all the things I’ve seen in this trailer a flying coffee can isn’t the worst but fuck. I think this is a good time for me to get the fuck out of here. I run to the front door but the sight of familiar car rolling up stops me. Through the window I can see the same car I had seen on that demon TV. It’s a cop car. It’s Detective Montrese’s car…FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Chapter 7: That Time I Traveled Through Dimensions and Then Died

Summary:

Chapter Text

Thump. Thump. Thump.

To say that I am stuck between a rock and a hard place is an understatement. I have the possessed coffee can slamming against the wall and the floor while behind me the very person I do not want to see is rolling up. I know there isn’t a back door to the trailer. I know the window in the kitchen is tiny and if I run out of the door she’ll probably shoot me dead. I know the only other sizable window is in the hell room and the only other place to hide is the hellhole. I also know that I would rather be murdered than face either of those options.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Hello, Detective, Channel 4 news here. What can you tell us about the events last night.”

“All inquiries go through the Chief’s office.”

What? A reporter must have pulled up while I was looking around the trailer and now he is questioning Detective Montrese. But that won’t hold her for long.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The coffee can is going full force like it’s filled with a Mexican Jumping Bean and it’s only now that I realize what must be inside of it. Barry White wrapped this coffee can in a shit load of duct tape. Barry White froze it. That means the Soy Sauce is inside of it. That means I am fucked.

“I have nothing for you. You are aware as well as I am that any formal statements will come from the Chief himself.”

“We aren’t looking for formal.”

“Then how about this for not-formal. Get the fuck away from the crime scene. You are disrupting a police investigation.”

“So there is still an investigation?”

THWACK.

Like a firecracker has been hiding inside the coffee can this whole time it explodes in confetti of ripped duct tape. What was inside of it went flying against the ceiling, bounced, and rolled until it landed next to my disgusting feet. I stare at it with a trembling body. It’s a small, pill bottle like metal-silver canister that looks absolutely frozen solid. It’s still and lifeless and motionless.

“We know you won’t believe us but when you start to you should just head to Vegas. Don’t even wait. Actually…you have to go to the dealer’s trailer, see some crazy shit, get the silver canister of Soy Sauce, THEN go to Vegas.”

Okay, I’m here. I’m looking at the silver canister of Soy Sauce. The only trouble is no one told me how to actually “get it.” This thing is alive. This thing somehow was able to stab me and inject me with it. This thing was rolling waves of negativity and anxiety and fear. This thing was a hell drug so how the fuck am I supposed to take it?

Wait…am I supposed to “take” it?

I lean forward slowly and grab the pill bottle.

There is a seam that I can unscrew to open it and while Detective Montrese shouts at the reporter to leave I weigh the pros and cons of taking it.

Con: my life will never be the same (my life is already not the same).

Pro: I’ll be able to talk to Katya’s floating spirit again.

Con: I’ll probably become really weird and sexual like Dave and John (I’m already weird and sexual).

Pro: my best friend needs me and when I was at my peak my senses and reasoning were on over load and right now I am too terrified to think.

Con: my life will be over (if Katya dies, my life is literally over).

I unscrew the lid and shake out two little pills. Katya said they were in pill form and then they started to seep into her hand but right now they look harmless. They look like two Advil Liquid Gels but in black with all of hell waiting inside. I look up to the sky and shut my eyes a moment like I’m about to take the first shot of Tequila that I know will lead to a bad night. This is for Katya.

Nostrovia!

I tilt my head back and swallow both pills whole.

And then comes the pain.

FUUUUUUUUUUCK!

All at once it’s like my body has decided that my mind is too stupid to take control any longer! I’m flinging against the ground, rolling across the carpet, sitting up and trying to do anything so that the Soy Sauce doesn’t dissolve in my stomach acid! I’m trying to hurl, trying to spit, trying to cry out the hell drug all at the very same time! I don’t care where I am, who I am, and who is after me! All I know is this raging pain that controls my entire being that is rejecting this thing that I have consumed!

I can feel the pills inside of me sloshing around and trying to jump into the pools that will disintegrate them into me and I can feel when they decide to take wings and I can feel them as they torpedo head first into that sizzling pool and I can feel the absolute panic paralyzing me and convulsing me back and forth and I can feel the need to scream for the Detective to help me and I can feel—

Nothing.

This calm takes over me that I have never before in my life felt. Every muscle in my body has stilled and I am in the deepest form of rest. I have that same feeling like back at the police station like I was a blinking ghost and now I’m becoming full ghost again. Before it had taken me hours before I got high from the Sauce but that was a prick to the finger. This is full frontal consumption and it is instantaneous.

I can hear the doorknob turning while Detective Montrese opens the door to the trailer. I can hear the Channel 4 van rolling away. There is no way I can lie to her. Not like this, suspended like this in this eternity. I want to run and hide and jump out of the window in the room but the human body is much slower than the human mind. So slow—

Suddenly I’m standing outside of my body.

Time has stopped and I really look like shit but that’s not why I’m laughing. Suddenly it all makes sense. There are 1.88 seconds until Detective Montrese opens that door. That is an entire lifetime in its own respect. There are insects that live and die in the span of 24 hours but to us it’s just another day. Supercomputers can create an eternities worth of equations in just one second. The only reason we think seconds are so short is because our physical form can do nothing in that time but our minds are endless.

1.84 seconds until Detective Montrese comes through that door—I need a plan.

I’m on a planet that has formed through continual fire until it slowed enough to cool down and create life but that burning is still present down at that core. The burning never stopped. I’m on a planet that will forever fly through space surrounded by other planets surrounding a dying sun. There are a set number of billions and trillions and millions and trillions of subatomic particles that went flying into motion at the moment of the Big Bang. So whether you get your nipple pierced or kiss your best friend or drink almond milk instead of animal milk next week was all decided billions of years ago when the universe collided into existence because of where and how fast those particles moved at the first millisecond of physical existence. So it is impossible for anyone to deviate—

And now I’m in the desert.

All around me are rolling, rolling, rolling hills of sand and I half expect a monster to come out and eat me but it doesn’t. All around in every direction there is nothing but sand dunes that go on from sunrise to sunset. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I remember Katya rambling and rambling while she was eating at Denny’s. She kept talking about how she would slip in and out of the time stream and in out of dimension with each phone call she was sure she left pieces of her behind.

I hear little movements and I look down to see a beetle making its way to somewhere special. He’s got nothing important going on. I could stand there and follow him but I don’t really want to. Instead I sit down on the sand and marvel at how the different particles don’t separate so that I can fall through. Maybe that’s exactly what they are doing. Maybe that is exactly how I got here.

Suddenly I’m somewhere else.

I’m staring at a chain-link fence. The grass here is dead. Everything here is dead. There are people passing by in rags like they are refugees and I feel sick. I want to help them and at the same time I know that I cannot. I’m only a spectator. I don’t belong.

A little girl runs up to me and I feel sick. It’s rude to vomit in someone’s face so I hold back what feels like creeping up. Half of her face is missing. There is half little girl and half whatever is behind her. It is a wound that hasn’t healed and it doesn’t look like it is going to. She is dirty and her little dress looks like she has worn it since she was two. She looks like she needs something from me but I don’t know what it is.

“I…I don’t have anything.”

She waits. I decide to pull off my sweater from Wally’s and I hand it over. She takes it but keeps waiting. I search through my pockets and find that I have a fork. She takes that and runs way. What the fuck?

Suddenly I’m in a building…no a factory…no an assembly line…no all three. I’m standing behind a man at a computer looking at a screen. All around me I hear noise and when I turn my head I see a no-smoking sign and a calendar that is so wrong it’s funny. There’s a half-naked woman on there so I guess they leave it up around here for her. I don’t know what I’m doing here and there’s no beetle and no little girl but there is that man that is staring at the screen as if I don’t exist one bit.

For a second I’m afraid I don’t.

I call out, “Excuse me?”

The man whips his head around, nearly falling out of his seat. Our eyes meet. He shuts his head tight and looks forward again with them still squeezed closed. Something pops up on the screen but he turns to me again and suddenly he’s relaxed. His eyes are shooting from one place to the next looking for me but not really seeing me. While staring at that screen and focusing hard he lifted the veil but his fear shut it once again so tight he can’t see me right in front of him.

But he saw me.

Looking like shit.

Great.

I look down at myself and see that my feet aren’t here. I know where they are. They’re back in the trailer where I need to be. I shut my eyes and focus on the Trailer, on [Undisclosed], on Katya and I’m back. That was one wild ride.

I lift my arms over my head and stretch. My sweater is gone in that dimension but I still have my Wally’s shirt. I let out a little yawn. What was I doing again?

“I’m not surprised to see you here.”

Fuck!

“Don’t stand up on my account.”

I stand up anyway. She looks me over as I look her over and I realize we are both a sight. I’m shoeless, covered in mud and shit while she is holding two red gallons of gasoline. She’s going to light this place on fire. She’s going to burn me down with it.

Detective Coco Montrese sets the two gallons down at her feet as she pulls out a lighter and a cigarette. She offers me one but I shake my head. I don’t smoke and never will. For some reason it seems like a good idea to try to head for the door but she pulls out her gun on me and I nod. No matter what I do she’s going to shoot me. No matter what I do she’s going to leave me in this trailer while the flames take it over.

I let out a breath and began, “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“Not at all, Miss Trixie. I know what you’re doing here. You’re trying to figure out what is going on. Just like every one else. Everyone but me, of course. I don’t care to find out anymore.”

She looks tired, so tired, and suddenly I feel really sad. She looks at me and I think she’s sad too. We don’t want to be apart of this. We don’t want to be in this. But here we are.

“Are you wondering what I am going to do with this gasoline here?”

“No…and if I were you I’d probably do the same.”

“Do you believe in hell?”

I’m stunned. I didn’t expect her to ask that. I look back toward the hellhole and the hell room and that silver canister on the floor, “I didn’t until this morning.”

She puts her gun away and picks up one of the orange gallons of gas. She offers it to me and I take it. Might as well help now. She unscrews her lid and begins dousing the couch and the carpet but I know where the real horror is. I open the door to the room, splash the insides, slam the door behind me. I throw some gasoline on the door for good measure too.

Detective Montrese smirks at me.

“You’ve seen it.”

I nod.

“That room can get into your mind. Crime scene photographer spent an hour and a half in there. He came out crying like a baby. No reason.”

I nod, “Where’s Katya? You know. The other girl you were interviewing.”

“I thought she was with you.”

“Didn’t she…die?”

“She did. She was in the other room, Marcus Duval was asking her the same questions I was asking you but she got all sleepy. Like she was in a daze or something and was mumbling about needing to go to Vegas. Duval finally breaks down and says ‘there are kids missing and dead so you’re going to be locked in here until I’m satisfied or you’re dead.’ Just like that she’s dead.”

“Sounds like Katya.”

“She’s gone now. The hospital thinks she ran off so she didn’t have to pay the bill.”

“That also sounds like Katya.”

I start splashing the kitchen and the fridge. She doesn’t ask me why but just lets me keep going. She’s splashing over the crime scene.

We have this thing with us and I think if we met in a different way we might be friends. I respect her. I think she thinks I’m okay. But there’s no way she can keep me around after what she has seen here…something she can’t even speak about.

But she doesn’t need to because I’m there just like I was in the factory, just like I was in that other dimension, just like I was in the desert. My feet are back in the trailer but I’m standing just hours ago in the Trailer when life was normal for me but life was falling apart for Katya. Wait. My heart leaps and I look for her amongst the crowd of faces.

Everyone is naked, frozen in horror. Marvin Gaye plays out of the sound system and the clothes are on a pile in the floor. I realize that Katya was right and wrong about where the party was. By the door and me there are party people in Barry White’s trailer but in the back where the empty closet should be there are people standing in Tyler’s basement. The Soy Sauce opened up a half portal that allowed them to take the party to a half location. This was one weird night.

I see her standing in the back, naked to perfection, with Alaska beside her. They look like they had just seen each for the first time in a long time and were surprised they were at the same party. Alaska was saying: It’s been so long. Last I saw you were with Jerry. Katya was rolling her eyes: Yeah, that’s a long fucking story. Alaska: I heard, I’m sorry. Are you with Trixie now? Katya: Always, she’s my best friend. Alaska: When are you going to make it official? Katya: I was thinking about drugging her sometime soon and driving off to Mexico. Romantic right?

But suddenly they stop talking. They both had drinks in hand but instead of finishing the conversation they were staring in my direction—everyone is staring in my direction. I realize they aren’t staring at me though. They are staring behind me…fuck…I don’t want to look.

“It’s alright, mon, it’s alright, mon. I’m feelin’ fiiiiine.”

I turn around and nearly vomit. I can’t look. I can’t breathe. I can’t comprehend. Barry White is laying in a ball but his head is detached. Mouthing off about how good he is and to let the party rock on is his head that keeps inching further away from his body with each word that comes from his mouth.

With my eyes squeezed tight I wait for the rest to unfold. I hear the pop and the shrieks unleash. I hear Katya’s scream among the roar and I want to run to her, to help her, but I can’t. I’m just a spectator again. She runs by me to grab at the pile of clothes and then runs back through the portal to Tyler’s house where her and Alaska flee. Someone knocks over the stereo and the sound cuts out.

Laganja is here and they have the phone to their ear. They’re screaming to the police and their words aren’t even understandable but the police have the location and unites are on the way. The closest unite is Detective Montrese. She is a minute away but she gets here in thirty seconds. I want to stop her and tell her not to come.

Everything is screaming and I feel my heart bursting with sadness at how Laganja is screaming with pure terror. The portal to Tyler’s has closed and so they are stuck in the trailer with the dead man. But they keep screaming like there is something more.

I’m afraid to turn my head but I don’t have to.

This massive swarm goes flying from behind me and attacks Laganja. Wait, slow down, flip it and reverse it. The scene slows down and returns back to two seconds ago where it pauses. I turn around and see from the empty carcass of Barry White is this huge swarm that arises. I don’t know what they are. It’s like a massive flock of insects, like flying maggots, but instead it’s just a white small rod with a corkscrew tail. On it’s own it doesn’t look too menacing but all of them together is terror. The scene plays out again and the swarm attacks Laganja and those things consume her through every orifice, drilling their way inside of her.

The door behind me flies open and there is Detective Montrese stunned and terrified. She doesn’t know what to do but she runs up and uses her pepper spray to try to stop the creatures. It doesn’t work and she grabs a blanket to wrap around Laganja but at the same time she doesn’t want to help her. She runs back to the car to radio for more help and when she runs back Laganja is fine.

“Yo, what’s good, mama?”

I’m back in the trailer in daylight with the gasoline in hand.

“You okay there?” Detective Montrese asks.

“I’m fine,” I nod.

I open the door to the bathroom and see the mess I made running out of the place. I pull the toilet away from the hole slightly and start to pour the gasoline down against the rope ladder. I don’t hear any movement or anything and I don’t care to. I pour the gasoline over the toilet and jump a little when the Detective asks behind me, “What’s down there?”

I look to her with honesty, “You don’t want to know.”

She accepts my statement and I follow her to the living room. I catch the glint off of the silver canister on the floor and I quickly lift it while Montrese has her back to me. I slip it into my waistband and take in a deep breath.

I know what’s coming. John and Dave said it was John Dies at the End but because of one situation David had died instead. Maybe this is my time. If I have to die for Katya I am more than happy to do it.

“I’ve been thinking about that question I asked you.”

“Do you believe in hell?”

She nods, “I think we have the same answer…What happened here…I don’t want to explain. I don’t want to understand.”

“You think it was hell?”

“My father always said there is no hell. What you do in this life you pay for in this life and in some ways I think he was right. I think hell is all around us just like heaven is all around us. The only thing is we can’t see it. We ain’t supposed to. Do you think you could go to work in the morning if you could see heaven and hell all around you all the time? I think humans need to work, need patterns, need order to function. I think humans are the universe’s way of comprehending itself. I think the Big Bang and evolution and God and Jesus and all the religions are all right. I think someone or something big and grand made the universe and we’ve been trying to figure out who and what did it this whole time. I think heaven, hell, and our world all exists at the same time and somehow Barry White opened up the door, the gate, the portal from that version of the world into this.”

I let out a deep breath, “And you want to close it.”

“I wish things were different Trixie Mattel.”

“If you see Katya before I do…” I shut my eyes a moment then let them open again, “Just tell her I was thinking about her.”

Detective Montrese nods her head, “Will do.”

She pulls out her gun and shoots me in the chest.

Chapter 8: That Time Shit REALLY Hit the Fan

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Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

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About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him—and I didn’t know how potent that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Wait.

That’s the wrong story.

Fuck!

There are three real things I’m fucking positive of. One: I’m fucking dead. Two: I’m in hell. Three: Katya is here somewhere with me.

I can hear her voice somewhere but I can’t make out a distinct word. All I can hear is the sizzle and crackle of fire and all I can smell is the burning of smoke and souls of the damned. My eyes burn and my chest hurts like…well…you know.

There is so much off everything all over the place. There is so much heat that I wasn’t expecting. I didn’t expect hell to be so physical but here it is and it is agony. There is too much off everything and the only thing that brings me any kind of peace is Katya’s voice so far and so close. It looks like it’s not just Katya Dies at the End anymore. Now it’s Trixie and Katya Die Somewhere in the Beginning/Middle. It doesn’t really matter though. Nothing matters at all.

For some reason I think back to that place in the desert with the beetle that I didn’t follow. I laid down on the sand then and just marveled at how each individual particle didn’t separate so that I would fall thro-

I black out.

I come back somehow and realize I’m not dead.

My hand moves up against my chest and I feel soaking through my Wally’s shirt and when I press down there is pain. So this isn’t hell. This is real life in Barry White’s trailer burning around me. My instinct is to get up and run but my body is in shock and all I can think of is Freddy Webster.

For ten years Webster worked on the Winchester Production line in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Winchester is the reputable manufacturer of a variety of ammunition, especially for law enforcement. Webster worked for quality control and was a third-line inspector. Because of the three-tiered inspection system bad bullets are measured in parts per billion.

About two years ago there was a dud going through among the half-million .40 caliber rounds at Winchester—a fly had crawled into the casing of one bullet and went through to the machine that added its pinch of propellant. That fly bullet somehow managed to get past the first two inspection stations without being detected. Freddy would have noticed the defect error pop up on the screen but a woman behind him caused a distraction.

The only trouble was no one else saw the woman.

He wasn’t even sure he saw the woman.

All he heard was a definite “Excuse me?” but that could have come from anywhere.

And so the bad bullet went through unnoticed, got packaged, sold through a catalogue for the [Undisclosed] police eight months later and was delivered to Detective Coco Montrese five months after that.

It wasn’t until a year later that she loaded the fly bullet into her cartridge in her Glock and fired it into my chest. Because of the fly that made the bullet a “fly bullet” the .40 caliber had only a small percentage of the normal propellant and so less than one tenth of the standard impact force. The bullet hit through my skin, scratched my thick chest bone and ricochet away.

Katya would be impressed that I survived a shot at point blank and exactly how. That is if I don’t burn alive first. Fuck.

I let out a hard cough and feel it fall back against my face. I realize I’ve had my eyes open but the smoke is so thick and dark everything looks black. Slowly I turn over onto my chest and begin crawling, keeping my nose and face low but all I smell is that tainted smoke. I’m looking for the door but I can’t find it. I feel like I’m crawling through eternity. I hit something hard in front of me and when I reach up I see it’s the fridge.

Fuck. There’s no way to get out from here. But there is a way to buy time.

I open it and cool air reaches me that gives me brief relief from the burning heat. I grab a rag that was hanging on the drawer handle and use a bottle of water in the fridge to soak it. At least I can cover my mouth with this while I make a run to the door. I shut the fridge and put the rag over my mouth…

…and immediately pass out.

Of course that wasn’t regular water.

How could I expect anything else from Barry White?

Once again I am drifting through blackness but this isn’t regular “passed-out” blackness. It is absolute nothingness but it isn’t sleep. My consciousness is alive and I can understand and think and I know what is going on. I may not be in the physical but I can still feel and what I can feel is that I am being watched. Not just by one thing but by many.

GO GO GO!

I don’t stop to figure it out. Though I have no legs here I get the fucking hell out of Dodge. I run back as hard as I can with all I am and suddenly I’m in the inferno again.

Katya’s voice is in my head along with this weird growling, barking, grumbling noise. It’s getting louder and louder until all I hear is her screaming, “GET BACK.”

I roll over onto my feet and throw myself into the wall just as my Sedan comes crashing through the kitchen. The fridge is at my right, the counter at my left and I would have been dead on the floor if I didn’t listen. Fresh air throws itself at me as the car pulls out of the fireball of a trailer and I rush out to throw myself at Katya except…Katya isn’t driving.

I hear a bark.

“Bitch! Are you okay!”

My mouth falls open in confusion.

Another bark.

“Get in! We need to go!”

I jump into the driver’s side and pull out of the trailer park at high speed as I try to figure out what is going on. Next to me is the Brindle Pit Bull that has been “terrorizing” Willam but when those gorgeous brown eyes stare at me I see Katya’s electric blue. Suddenly escaping death doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.

Through barks and grumbles and yaps Katya speaks to me, “Shit has really hit the fan now. We are in DEEP shit.”

“Yeah, I think I got that after a Cop SHOT me in the fucking chest.”

“TRIXIE! ARE YOU OKAY! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!”

“Katya?”

“Sorry, when I get worked up I lose control and then Disco gets his hands on the reigns.”

“Disco?”

“Don’t make fun of it. He loves it.”

“I won’t but I’m fine. Thank you for saving me.”

Somehow she put on her ‘Maureen’ voice, “Anytime, doll, you can repay me later and I’ll show you why they really call me man’s best friend.”

“Disgusting. Why are you a dog?”

“I was trying to contact you but you couldn’t hear me so I was looking for a phone to call you on and then got sucked into this guy.”

“I’m going to pretend I get that. What’s going on?”

“Okay, there are three survivors from last night. Alaska, Pearl, and Jamin. Laganja has my body and is driving us somewhere and when we get to that place things are going to be no bueno.”

“When did you speak Spanish?”

“It’s Disco, he speaks three languages.”

“Cool, cool, cool. But you said there are three survivors but if Laganja is still alive that makes it four.”

“No…Trixie. Laganja is dead. They’re a host now. There’s nothing left of Laganja any- FUCK FUCK FUCK! GIVE ME GIVE ME GIVE ME!”

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

Katya/Disco is at the door barking and howling and I realize we are at the red light beside a food truck with the heavenly smell of beef cooking in the air. I lean forward and grab onto Disco’s collar to pull him down and into the seat for all of our sake. This is wild.

“Katya can you please come back and talk to me?”

“Sorry, Trix, you remember what babushka used to say before she passed—God rest her soul,” she sighed and then continued in the Russian accent she picked up from her grandmother, “Talking through a dog is very different from talking through a potato.”

“You mean a phone-ato?”

Somehow that wheezing, sudden, kicking and grabbing laugh of Katya’s is so much cuter in dog form.

I grin and ask, “Where is Laganja talking everyone?”

“Vegas.”

“What the fuck is in Vegas besides Gawd?”

“Well…it’s partly because of Gawd. It’s like…every person is a doorway. Some live with it half open but most live with it completely closed. This Soy Sauce shit opens you right up. The Soy Sauce turns people into open doors. That swarm shit, the shit in Barry’s basement? The Soy Sauce let that shit all come through by turning people into doors. If there’s enough people open imagine what you could bring in.”

I feel uneasy as I think of the things watching me and then something that John and Dave said clicks in me, “Korrok?”

“I didn’t even think of that but maybe. Probably.”

“But what does Gawd have to do with this?”

“She’s a spiritualist. She’s like a natural door and she can let whatever she wants in or out. She can help us stop this. Also she’s doing a show at the Luxor—you know that one that’s like a black pyramid—and it’s going to be on the occult and all sorts of spiritual things and it’s sold out. But trust me. That’s only the beginning. There are fifteen other sold out events happening the same night.”

“When is it?”

“Tomorrow.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because it’s already happened.”

“What?”

“CAT!! CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT!! CAT CAT!! CAT!!! CAT!!!”

“I’m having a really hard time figuring out who’s talking here!”

I drive faster away from the cat darting into a driveway and pet Disco to try to coax Katya into making another appearance. I don’t need the effects of the Soy Sauce to tell me the truth. Disco is going to be silent for the rest of the night.

That’s fine. Though I know I need to go to Vegas immediately there is no way I can take that drive with no shoes, smelling of absolute shit, and blood soaking my shirt. I know I’ll need some swindling to get through to Gawd and there is no way I’ll even get into the city dressed like this. Though it’s risky I know I need to make a pit stop home.

I turn down the familiar streets and get to my apartment quickly. Just like Katya I live in a two family home but this time we are side by side instead of one on top of each other. Also, the neighbors are home often and they are often on the front porch smoking weed or having huge bangers. Both of which I’m not invited to though I’ve caught Katya coming from there. I’m totally not jealous.

“Oh dear child what is happening HERE?”

One of the neighbors is a drag queen like Willam so in full drag she is Roxxxy Andrews but out of it he is Michael Feliciano. Right now he seems to be in the middle of getting ready so I am at a loss for words. Besides. I don’t want to talk right now.

“You are serving sewer cunt realness. Bitch you look like a hot mess!” Gia Gunn shouts loud enough for other neighbors to hear.

“Yes, I fucking know. That’s why I’m going inside to take a shower and change.”

“You look like you just crawled out of someone’s asshole,” Gia continues.

“You’d know all about that bitch,” Roxxxy laughs.

Gia nods proudly, “Absolutely. Is this your dog?”

Of course Disco would want to hang out with them, “He’s a friend’s dog. His name is Disco.”

“How fucking cute! Come inside, baby, we’ll take care of you,” Roxxxy grins as they both pet him all over.

“I’ll be inside,” I say to no one because they have both stopped paying attention to me.

I am totally not jealous.

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Chapter 1: That Time Katya Was Really Fucked Up

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Chapter 2: That Time I Switched Realities While I Was Dreaming

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Chapter 3: That Time Shit Hit the Fan

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Chapter 4: That Time I Was Interrogated

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Chapter 5: That Time I Got Into A Fight With a Pretzel

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Chapter 6: That Time I Was A TV Star

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Chapter 7: That Time I Traveled Through Dimensions and Then Died

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Chapter 8: That Time Shit REALLY Hit the Fan

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E (Guest) on Chapter 8 Sat 22 Jul 2017 08:31PM UTC

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im doing so good amanda what do you mean? (Guest) on Chapter 8 Sat 04 Apr 2020 07:27AM UTC

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2r (Socialistwh0r3) on Chapter 8 Sun 07 Jun 2020 01:08AM UTC

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