Cold canned spinach leaves a bizarre aftertaste in the mouth, especially when you don't have a tongue. Wet, slightly bitter. Slippery enough to swallow without chewing, which is good when you also don’t have teeth.

Lenore isn’t eating spinach right now. Loch sulks, I bet she’s eating something fun, like cupcakes, or cookies, or corn on the cob!

The can presses against his mouth again, and Loch reluctantly takes another sip. He closes his eyes as the bitter mush dissolves inside his mouth.

I bet she doesn’t even miss me. She’s too busy having fun with Miss Odell because she likes Miss Odell. I bet they're dancing, and playing games, and having so much fun… Without me…

Something smooth, but slightly fuzzy, taps his cheek and Loch opens his eyes. A pair of flowers bob and weave in his face; Belva and Astra gaze inquisitively at him, holding the can of spinach in their tiny tangled vines. They’re holding it for him. He can’t even hold his own can of gross, slimy spinach. It’s awful.

Loch smiles. They’re no point in trying to speak to them, but still, he wants to say thank you. He tries to say it their way instead, using that swaying, twisty, dancing language they ‘speak’. The Detective hasn’t taught him much of it yet, but how hard can it be?

What he means to say is, “Thanks for helping me!”

Unfortunately, what he actually says is something along the lines of, “Vegetables dumfoozle on blue happy day. Nifty discombobulates your canoodle! Help!”

The flowers go still. Then, they start to quiver, and Loch gets the feeling that they're laughing at him. Oh well, at least he made them happy. But, as much as he tries to push these emotions down, Loch can’t help but feel embarrassed. He has no voice to speak with, he has no hands to hold things, and he has no idea what to do with himself. Everything is awful. Belva and Astra bring the can to his mouth again, and he takes another sip. Everything is still awful, especially spinach.

The Detective and Mr. Rousseau are talking across the room. The Detective speaks with their voice and Jean-Luc speaks with his hands. Loch listens to them converse but the chatter is rather one-sided.

“Do you think we should simplify the shapes?” The Detective asks.

“...”

“Yes, that makes sense. The question is, how do we resolve that kind of problem? A different model, perhaps?”

“...”

“Good point.”

“...”

“... I see. I suppose we can try that.”

Loch finishes the last of his spinach just as the Detective calls for him to come over. Wearily, he floats up from the floor. Belva and Astra wave goodbye, but as Loch turns away, a prickling sensation falls over him quite suddenly. It’s like a cavity boring inside him. This chasm of dread, biting and cold, but when Loch looks around, there’s neither a source nor a cause in sight. Loch shivers as he floats over.

As he’s getting in position, he asks, … When is Lenore coming back?

No answer. He’s ignored, more out of ignorance than malice. The Detective can’t hear him. No one can. And that’s okay. Being ignorable isn’t so bad. Maybe that’s what this prickling sensation is. The feeling that comes from being forgettable. Unimportant. Voiceless.

At least Miss Laymon is having a good night.

~*~

The door splinters. The knocking pounds loud and unhurried; patiently waiting with eerie confidence. Worse than the sound, it’s the smell. A scent like bloody, spoiled meat leaks inside from every crack and crevice, filling the lungs of every patron, prostitute, and plebeian. Odell holds her breath. Her hands tremble. Standing under the blinking spotlight, surrounded by strangers, the singer feels overexposed. For once, all Odell wants to do is succumb into the nearest shadow.

The knocking persists. No one moves.

Someone has to open the door. The singer knows it, the whole Cathouse knows it; nothing good will come of letting it in, but something much worse will surely befall them if they wait any longer. In the corner of her eye, the singer spots the tail-end of Felina’s white fur wrap slinking around the bar. Felina already has one foot out of the room when Odell speaks, stopping her dead in her tracks.

“Missus Van Der Venne,” Odell’s voice is a wispy thing, shallow and yet loud enough to draw all eyes back to her. The eyes of everyone in the front lounge linger on the singer, and then following her tempering gaze straight to Felina, “Where are you going? Someone still needs to open the door.”

Felina looks over her shoulder, lips forming words, but her voice fails her, “I--I c-can’t--”

“I’d be happy to let them in for you, but wouldn’t that be rude of me? This is your cathouse, isn’t it?” The singer gingerly steps down from the stage.

“But I--I’m not--I don't own--”

“...You do, though…” To the singer’s surprise, it’s Rafael who speaks up. Sitting on the stage, he has the drum player's petite jacket stretched over his shoulders. The jacket is ill-fitted. It makes Rafael appear bulky. His posture, however, is meek as a mouse. Chewing on his bottom lip, Rafael continues saying, “You’re our owner. Nobody gets in or out without your permission. That’s the rules…”

The heated look on Missus Van Der Venne's face could melt a hole through your head. Her cheeks are as crimson as a pair of redlove apples. Her eyes bulge like a bruxing rat. Betrayal, hatred, desperation, fear; all these emotions flicker over her face in rapid succession. She doesn't have time to put any of these feelings into words. Shaky voices rise up from the crowd, all of them expressing a similar sentiment.

“...If those are the rules…”

“T--they ain’t wrong, you know. You… you are the boss.”

“...Somebody’s gotta let’em in.”

“It’s probably here for Missus Van Der Venne, anyway…”

“...Open the door, Felina.”

“Open the door…”

“Open the damn door!”

“What are you waiting for…! Open the fucking door before they break it down…!”

Missus Van Der Venne can barely get a word in otherwise. Felina stumbles as the crowd encircles her, pushing her closer and closer to the door. The knocking makes the ground vibrate under their feet. Like a pack of dogs herding a lost lamb, her patrons are relentless.

In one last ditch effort to turn the tide, Felina calls out, “Medina! Get the door--!”

And all Rafael does is blink at her, aware that danger is near, but not aware enough to really give a damn about it. It’s been at least an hour since he met Lady Averill. An hour and a half since he’s gone on break. His stomach is twisting. His head is pounding. There’s something about Felina’s voice, about that knocking that he can’t quite place the source of, that’s downright irritating. Why is he shaking? Where did this coat come from? Who are all these people? Why are they all staring at him?

Felina snarls his name again, and Rafael jumps to his feet. He can’t make her angry. He remembers that much, at least. But before he can do much else, something heavy presses against his chest, holding him back. Odell gently pushes Rafael behind her with the body of her guitar.

The singer's eyes narrow, “Don’t let it touch you, Felina.”

And just like that, Felina’s fate is sealed.

One tiny step and the knocking stops, as if it can sense her approaching. Knees weak, hands sweaty, she can barely turn the handle.

The door pulls in.

And there it is.

Rotting in the night, its lurid pallor obscured by red-tinted moonbeams, with anatomy too human in every sinister way. Felina stumbles back and it steps inside. Beyond it, the street is empty; the people have vanished, but no one is foolish enough to believe it’s come alone. Officials are never sent alone. Felina’s hand falls from the door handle as she doubles over and vomits all over her ruby shoes. Oh, that stench. This close, it is more of a taste than a smell. Her bile barely compares.

It leaves the door open. Another step forward, and everyone scrambles backward. Subconsciously, they form a circle around Odell. Not to protect her, of course, more likely in hopes that she could somehow protect them.

Felina clutches her stomach and chokes, “G-good evening, my m-most noble Official. How m-may I be of s-service?”

A final stagger closer and the Official falls into the light.

It is a pitiful creature. Wobbly and woefully unstable. Skin calcified like bone and teeth. It’s cysts, and clumps, and knots, and tumours braided together inside itself with fragments translucent so that one could see the red veins swimming underneath like puppet strings. It is human flesh. Unmistakably human trapped by a cruel, undying parasite.

It is malignant.

It does not speak. It doesn’t even change its expression. Its gaze is so blank it might as well have been looking through Felina.

The Official answers not with words or any readable signs but by silently handing her a milky white letter. It’s unmarked. All the patrons can do is wonder. Shrinking into a cluster of sweaty limbs and hot, anxious breath, they silently speculate; what does the letter say? What does it say?

Felina fumbles as she tears open the envelope. The message inside is frighteningly short.

“In Regards to the owners of Felina Van Der Venne’s Kitty Cathouse,

On the evening of July 29th​ your establishment shall be searched, by order of the House of Romilly, by Old Quinn City Officials for suspicious contraband and individuals threatening, traitorous, and/or otherwise illicit. Please remain calm. Should you, or any of your employees and patrons, refuse, resist, or retaliate, you will be detained.

With reverence of the highest esteem and consideration,

The House of Romilly”

The paper is torn at the edges. The handwriting is smudgy. The letter, as she crushes it between her palms, is so clear, why can’t she make sense of it? This can’t be happening. She reads the whole thing over again. When it still makes no sense to her, she reads it once more.

And as Felina reads, Odell clutches her guitar, and it must be noted that the way she holds the instrument is more than a little odd. You don’t hold a guitar by its body. You don’t cradle a guitar against your abdomen, intimately careful of where you point the neck. But then again, most guitars don’t have a trigger. An iron sight or a loaded magazine. As Odell’s fiddling with the headstock, untying the strings and bending the peghead until it is parallel with the neck, the singer hears the faintest creak. She looks up. On the stairwell’s second level, she spies a flash of beige. A slightly hiked up skirt, legs still hidden, with three extra pairs of feet tiptoeing in a line behind her. Odell can’t help but smile in relief. Her shapeshifter is alive and unharmed, at least for now. But Lenore’s not alone. There’s not one, not two, but three strange kids tiptoeing behind the little lady like kits chasing their sow. As Lenore and her train of raccoons pass by each boudoir, the silhouettes pull back their sheets. Peeking out, seeing the source of all this commotion, and jaws dropping; the silhouettes quickly throw the sheets closed again. Maybe if they’re quiet, maybe if they pretend they saw nothing, maybe if they hunker down and pray for forgiveness, they will be spared.

Odell sneers.

“Cowards,” She thinks to herself, “All of them.”

Perhaps Lenore would agree, although she’d probably be less vindictive about it. The line quickly gets longer behind the little lady. As she passes, she draws each curtain open and with a scowl, silently commands all those inside to follow. Most of them scurry along without a fight. Like herding lambs out of the slaughter.

All things considered, the little lady appears surprisingly calm. Odell knows better, however. The twitchiness of Lenore’s hands. The hefty rise and fall of her chest. The haunted look in her fake brown eyes. Even from so far away, Odell sees it clear as day. Lenore is terrified. Try as she might, the singer can’t catch the little lady’s attention. She can’t call out to her without being heard. She can’t sneak up the stairs without being seen.

“Fuck. Why do I always got to be one the one to bite the bullet…?” The singer’s finger settles over the trigger of her instrument, no longer just an electric guitar.

Suddenly a puff of smelly breath blows over her neck, followed by three hard taps on her shoulder. Without thinking, the singer goes on the offensive. Elbowing the person leering over her, Odell curls her free hand into a fist and she twists around. The person catches her punch. When she finally gets a look at them, it’s the piano player she sees.

Her first instinct is to scream at him. Given the circumstances, Odell reins herself in. Barely. Grabbing the piano player by his hideous yellow tie, she hisses into her ear.

“Touch me again and I’ll ram my guitar so far up your--”

“I’ll cover for you.”

Odell’s mouth snaps shut.

Even the gentlest whispers sound too loud. Too perilous. Neither the piano player nor Odell speak any further. He slowly reaches into his coat, all the while his gaze shifts with rapid paranoia to the doorway and back. The Official hasn’t moved an inch. From his breast pocket, he reveals a pocket pistol no bigger than a cigarette box. It’s so cute, Odell almost wants to laugh.

The singer pushes the pistol back into the piano player’s pocket, shaking her head. She draws his attention to the instrument in her hands instead. The piano player’s face scrunches in confusion. It is only when Odell clicks the safety off that his eyes widen in surprise. Then his gaze hardens, and he understands.

Rafael watches them with an innocent tilt to his head. He doesn’t understand, but that’s nothing new. Odell and the piano player share a nod, cementing their brittle partnership. They have work to do.

As Odell and the piano player scheme, Felina finally lowers the letter. She reread its contents upwards of two dozen times, hoping in vain that the words would somehow change before her eyes the longer she stalled. Nothing’s changed.

A scratching sound causes Felina’s gaze to snap upwards. The Official had stumbled closer when she wasn’t paying attention. It’s nearly nose to nose with her. It is close enough to reach out. To touch. Felina trips over her feet, tumbling into the man behind her, causing him to bump into the woman behind him, and so on and so forth. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what the letter says. One can assume it’s nothing good.

Felina grabs the closest person by the arm, yanking them in front of her like a meat shield. She says, “Okay, okay, I-I not, I-I mean, I w-won’t fight! Just… Just please stay back!”

Odell readies her instrument. She bends at the knees until her tall frame is obscured by the crowd. From there, she waits. It’s agony, but she waits.

Ominously, the Official reaches out. Two arms, held wide and inviting until, quite suddenly, there’s not two arms, but four. And then there’s eight arms, and then twelve, then sixteen. Dozens of hands, dozens of fingers, plunge into view from beyond the doorway. Twenty-four, thirty-one, forty. Clawing like the undead, like skeletons out of the grave. Dry, fleshy fingers tearing at wood and steel. They enter. Follow the first official into the cathouse like a parade of unpredictable havoc.

Felina’s meat shield struggles out of her grasp. Left vulnerable, Felina panics, “Please! Please don’t!”

The piano player keeps Rafael at his side, dragging him along as he tiptoes from person to person. He taps them on the shoulder and they always flinch, stifling their startled squeaks. Once the person, be them man, woman, or otherwise, calms down the piano player pushes them into position.

Into their ear, he whispers, “Wait for my signal. Get ready to duck.”

There’s far too many of them. The doorway can’t handle the sudden flash flood. The walls split; the destruction spreading. Every crack and crevice, really any weakness in the brick and mortar, the Officials invade. A deafening cacophony of scratching. It reverbs from the rooftops all the way down to the foundation, growing louder and louder until the Cathouse itself buckles.

Lenore makes it to the last boudoir. The two men inside scramble out, joining the now lengthy train of people behind the little lady. They’ve almost made it to the last set of stairs. Almost there. The little lady forces herself to ignore what's going on in the front lounge. One step at a time. This is no time to panic, no time to make a fuss.

Everything will be fine. Odell can keep the peace until Lenore comes up with a plan. Everything's fine.

All the Officials do is reach out. As if they're only asking for a hug. Pathetically probing, begging, pining, and for what? Touch? A simple brush against your skin? The warmth of a soothing caress? Such a harmless thing, just one feeble touch. How could anyone be so cruel as to deny a pitiful creature such an innocent request?

But don’t be fooled.

Don’t be naïve, don’t be stupid. For though it may be true, Officials are pitiful, needy, pathetic things, they are hardly harmless. Don’t let it touch you.

It will never let go.

The crowd forms a circle, Odell and the piano player shielded in the middle. There’s no room to breathe, let alone move. The Officials only make it worse. Surround the huddle like a pack of wolves, encircling closer and closer with every stumbly step. Their glazed eyes never stray, blankly staring with expressions strange and sad.

Felina, abandoned outside of the group, falls to her knees as tears bubble under her eyelashes, “Please…”

The first Official stares down at her. Clumsily, it reaches down. The tips of its fingers scarcely pet Felina’s hair and the shiny blonde strands on Missus Van Der Venne’s head quiver as if caught in the wind. That’s all it takes. Burning black, clotting like blood, and suddenly sticky, the strands cling to the Official’s hand like a cobweb. Her hair rots.

Felina screeches, “Stop!”

The piano player knocks Rafael to the ground and bellows, “Get down!”

Every patron and prostitute dives for the floor. Everyone except for Odell. The singer jumps to her feet, the neck of her instrument pointed right at the first Official’s chest, and suddenly, bang! A blast, loud as lightning, and the Official goes flying backwards. It lands outside the doorway, in the dark ret-tinted street.

Fast as the click-clack of a typewriter, shots ring out at breakneck speed. Boom! Bang! Boom! Bang! Odell’s instrument rumbles like lightning, although not every shot finds its mark. Frankly, the singer’s aim is shit. Just as likely to hit the wall, the windows, the door, or the people, as she is to hit an Official.

Boom! Bang! Boom! Bang! The piano player lets a few bullets fly as well, although the sound of Odell’s firearm completely drowns it out. From his spot laying on the ground, his aim isn’t much better.

Boom! Bang! Boom! Bang! The Officials stumble back, but they don’t fall. Aside from slowing them down, the bullets don’t seem to have much of an effect. Blood splatters, limbs are blown clean off, and the Officials don’t flinch. They take in the onslaught passively, waiting for it to be over.

Boom! Bang! Boom—click! Click! Click! Click!

Fuck. She’s out of bullets.

Odell lowers her instrument and yells, “Scatter!”

Screaming, crying, and the roar of stomping feet. It’s chaos. Patrons and prostitutes stampeding away from the door. But where could they possibly go?

Outside the blown-in door, a new sound emerges. More shrill than any scratching sound. Almost like a whistle that you’d hear from a boiling teapot. It’s an angry sound. A sound that promises vengeance.

One thing’s certain, they can’t go through the door.

“Get out of my way! Move!”

“Oh my god! Oh my fucking god!”

“Why would you do that!? What the fuck is wrong with you!”

There’s only one way to go. Up the stairs. The boudoirs have windows, don’t they? An idea seems to pop into very patrons and prostitutes' heads at the same time, solidifying into action all at once. They rush the staircase.

Odell, disoriented from all the kicking, pushing, and shrieking, sees what’s about to happen and panics, “Stop!”

But it’s too late. It happens all at once. An army’s worth of frantic, intoxicated riffraff collides with Lenore’s troop of the similarly frantic, mostly-naked rabble, one scrambling up the staircase while the other scrambles down. The shrill sound heightens in pitch; the singer feels the force of the Officials rage throw her forward. She lands face-first against the bar as the walls and windows explode inward.

The staircase creaks and croaks like a dying frog. Inverted shadows, back-lit with a red tint that makes their veins glow, stare with eyes dead and wrathful. Shoving and shouting make the first level of the staircase rock to and fro.

Odell looks up. Lenore is looking down at her. The little lady is squished against the railing, those three strange children squashed by her feet. Lenore, wincing in pain, gives the singer a look. It’s a look of disappointment, of defeat, that only highlights the burning flames of fury. It’s a look that says, “You know this is all your fault.”

It happens all at once. The staircase collapses. The Officials charge inside.

And the singer can do nothing but watch as everything falls apart.

~*~

“Well done!”

Loch pants heavily. His body aches and his head hurts, but he’s smiling all the same. He’s done it. He’s finally done it.

“Smashing job, little one, absolutely smashing!” The Detective cheers in their quietly mumbled but nonetheless enthusiastic tone.

Loch turns to them, beaming like starlight on a cloudless night. Belva and Astra are dancing with joy as Jean-Luc proudly signs, “Good Job! Best Job! Fantastic Job!”

Jean-Luc then burst into a cloud of feathers, flying across the laboratory and spinning around Loch fast enough to lift the boy even higher off the ground. And Loch laughs. He laughs and laughs, even as his limbs tremble and throb. He has limbs! He’s done it. Sure, they aren’t the prettiest limbs in the world, sure they hurt more than anything’s ever hurt him before, but he has limbs. Two of them, to be precise. Two arms made of paper and whatever that blue-red goo he’s made of is called.

He’s got arms! This is the best day ever!

The Detective chuckles as Jean-Luc finally releases Loch from his feathery vortex, “All right, all right, you two. Let’s settle down now.”

Loch smiles happily at the Detective, wriggling his arms like a deflating balloon. But then, there’s that prickling sensation again.

“Loch?” The Detective says, “Is something wrong, little one?”

Maybe it’s just that achy feeling. Maybe he just ate too much spinach.

Loch rubs his stomach area with one of his arms. He figured out how to form arms, but hands are a whole other matter. Loch shakes his head.

Nothing’s wrong. In fact, for the first time all day, all week, it feels like something’s finally going right.

~*~

Lenore knew what was coming, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. The whine the metal makes as the stairwell rips from the wall. More screaming and pushing. How do these people have room to breathe, let alone flail? It’s a short fall. The little lady tries to angle herself between the three raccoons and the direction of the fall. She shoves Soma and Colin out of the way, but Estella gets stuck by her feet. One minute they’re flying through the air, the next they’re laying on the ground.

The little lady’s hearing pops in and out. There’s this stiff weight on top of her, and this incessant jabbing in her ribs.

“No… Get awa--!... Sto--!”

“Help… Help--!... You can’t… Please!”

“It hur--!... Don’t touch m--!”

“Cla--?... Clar--!... Clara!”

Lenore snaps to attention, her hearing popping back to normal.

“Clara! You’re crushing me!”

The little lady looks down. She and Estella are chest to chest, limbs tangled and stuck under the weight of a section of the staircase.

“Get off of her! Colin! Help me!”

“I’m trying!”

Colin and Soma are on either side of them, prodding at Lenore’s prone body and the broken stairwell. They’re not strong enough to pull them out of this cramped cavity they’re stuck in. They’re definitely not strong enough to lift the stairs.

Lenore grumbles, “... Step back…”

Soma scowls, “Oh, so you’re not dead. Ain’t that a shame.”

Estella shifts and kicks Soma in the shin. The boy snarls, but he shuffles back nonetheless. Colin does the same.

Lenore braces herself on her hands and knees. The rubble under her skin leaves red indents that pinch quite painfully whenever she moves. She pushes up. The hunk of metal on her back groans. She lifts the stairs as high as she can, which isn’t very high at all, and then she hisses, “What are you waiting for? Grab her and pull…!”

Colin and Soma scramble to pull Estella out, even as the girl winces when her bare legs scrape against the concrete. Once Estella’s free, the little lady relaxes. The stairs tilt as the little lady sinks to the ground, panting like mad. Lenore would have surely been crushed if it weren’t for three pairs of tiny, dirty hands pulling her out just in time for the rest of the staircase to come crashing down.

It takes half a minute more before Lenore has enough strength to raise her head. “Thank you…” She says.

Colin coughs as the dust from the crash wafts through the air, “Ah, I know you’d have done the same…”

The screaming is just background noise now. The world is dark. All the lights have gone out in the front foyer, no doubt torn from the wiring when the staircase went down. The little lady tries to find her bearings. They are in some kind of cavity, buried under the rubble, that’s getting smaller and smaller as the wreckage shifts and settles. They can hear heavy footsteps above, which only adds to the background noise. It’s difficult to focus on any one sound aside from their laboured breathing. They need to get moving before the rest of it comes down on their heads.

The raccoons seem to have the same idea. Lenore watches their dim silhouettes scout out the cavity for any holes or weaknesses. Soma finds a way out first. A low-to-the-ground tunnel headed to the left. What’s to the left of them? The broken doorway? The gambling parlour?

“Ha, I saved your life! Twice!” Soma whispers, “Now you owe me!”

Lenore crawls into the tunnel, absently muttering, “I recall, I saved you first.”

“That doesn’t count!”

“And why not?”

“Because I don’t want it to!”

They don’t crawl for long. The tunnel turns out to be as long as it was small. They quickly reach the end of the tunnel and still, it’s too dark to see. Lenore crawls out and reaches back inside to help the raccoons. She has to lean in close for them to her, on account of the screaming. She says, “Watch your heads. The beams are very--”

A steel-toed boot punts the little lady in the back of her head. Then a heeled foot jabs her thigh, and then a pair of slippers kicks her in the ribs. She can’t see where they’re coming from, nor can she see where they go. It’s too dark.

That is until she spies a red glow.

The three raccoons are just starting to stand when Lenore pulls them back down again.

“Shh…” The little lady gently pushes them down until their chests touch the floor. She drapes herself on top of them.

Contrasted against the pitch black, it glows with ribbons of red. The veins under its skin appear to float like a jellyfish illuminated in the darkness of the deep sea. A glowing brain, lumpy like beef fat, with all its nerves and blood vessels branching out like tentacles. It has no head, no body, and no limbs. Only blood vessels and nerves.

It’s just one Official at first. Floating around. Seemingly frivolous.

Lenore and the raccoons watch with bated breath.

It brushes against a shadow. Some unfortunate soul, not observant enough to have seen the danger. Not fast enough to get away in time. The Official brushes against it, and the shadow shrieks as it tries to flee. Too little, too late. It consumes. Latching on to the shadow, who pleads and screams like their life depends on it, its veins throb and its prey shrivel.

The sound of the shadow’s begging snaps the little lady out of her stupor. Lenore skims her hands along the floor, searching for something. Anything. She finds an object that feels sleek and splintery. Just light enough for Lenore to lift it over her and fling it across the darkened foyer. The object finds its target, piercing the Official’s brain and making it stumble just enough for the shadow, or whatever is left of the shadow, to escape its clutches.

She was probably too late. The shadow, whoever they were, was probably as good as dead. All she’s accomplished is delaying the inevitable.

The Official steadies itself. It’s looking around, hunting for the source of its attack.

Lenore pushes herself and the raccoons further into the ground.

It floats closer.

Lenore holds her breath.

Even closer.

The little lady feels the raccoons shivering against her back.

Closer and closer and then… It floats off.

The four of them breathe a sigh of relief, but the danger hasn’t passed over yet. While that one Officials floats away, they can still see the glow of the others. Dozens of them.

The little lady’s stomach twists. She has to find Odell. She has to know that the singer is safe. God, what if she was caught under the rubble too? What if, the very thought makes her feel terribly ill, what if an Official had found her? They wouldn’t hurt her, would they? They wouldn’t touch her, they wanted the singer to perform for them at the new year’s ball. Killing her would be a stupid, illogical, disadvantageous decision…

But making stupid, illogical, disadvantageous decisions is what the House of Romilly does best.

“Don’t panic.” Lenore thinks to herself, “Panicking is pointless. Panicking makes you illogical, it fosters bad decision making. You’re fine. Everything is fine. Stop panicking!”

Colin crawls out from under the little lady. He takes a deep breath and lets out a whistle that echoes soft and clear. Estella follows his whistle with a string of chirps. Soma, ever the show off, whistles and chirps and even throws in a couple of trills for good measure. Then they wait. A moment passes, and then they hear it.

A warble. Faint and from the sound of it, coming from somewhere to their right.

The raccoons take the lead. If Lenore didn’t know any better, she’d think they could see in the dark. Together they scurry through the darkness, pausing to hide whenever an Official floats too close. Around turned-over tables, under metal rods, and over broken glass, they crawl with a single-minded drive. To get where they’re going, and to get there fast.

Lenore hears the raccoons change their tune. Their chirping turns into trills that ring with excitement. What could they be so elated about? She’s the last one to see it. Light. It prickles through the darkness, seeping in from two separate sources. Two doorways. One to the right of them and the other to the left. Lenore squints. They’ve reached the back of the front foyer. The left doorway, where the light glows pinkish and dim, leads behind the bar. The right doorway, where the light is bright and sickly yellow, illuminates from the gambling parlour. It is from the right doorway that the warbling calls out to them.

But heeding that call comes with a price.

The hair on the back of the little lady’s neck bristles like a porcupine. She freezes. When she glances over her shoulder, all she sees is a wide, five-fingered shape. Its skin is knotty. Its veins pulse. It towers over them, impassive of their very existence and yet too hungry to let such an easy meal slip through its grasp.

At that moment, Estella turns around, whispering, “I guess we do owe you one, so if you wanna come with us, I--”

Her voice dies on her tongue.

The Official reaches down.

Lenore lurches to her feet. She grabs Estella by the wrist, jerking her forward hard enough to force a pained yelp through her lips. Her cry snaps Colin and Soma to attention, but Lenore is already on the move. Unfortunately, so is the Official. The little lady tosses Soma over her shoulder and grabs Colin with her free hand. Then she sprints towards the right doorway.

She’s not fast enough.

It circles her. Careening weightlessly, the Official seems to know where she’s going before she does. It vaults itself in front of the right doorway, mingling with the yellow light and sending flares of bittersweet orange cascading through the darkness like a cloying aurora.

Lenore tumbles to a stop, less than a foot away from where the Officials stands. Just a split second too slow and it would have had her in its embrace. Almost. It almost got her, but that doesn’t really matter. It had almost gotten the kids. If her grip had been just a little looser, if her reflexes had lagged just a little too late. It would have gotten them, and that’s all she cares about right now.

The little lady twists around and bolts to the left towards the pinkish glow of the empty bar. At this point, it’s their only option.

Estella shouts, “Wait!” And even knowing they can’t possibly follow that warbling call any further, not without being killed or worse, she doesn’t care. She claws and shoves and kicks, but Lenore doesn’t let her go.

She dives over the bar counter and through the pink doorway.

It’s a liquor cellar. Tall hickory racks of wine and whiskey take up space in this cramped, smelly room. There’s very little light.

Colin shakes off her grip and runs to slam the door shut. Moments after he clicks the lock, the door jolts with the force of the Official’s pounding. The wood wouldn’t hold out long.

“You went the wrong way!” Soma scowls, “What, are you stupid?”

Estella is even angrier. She bashes her fists against the little lady’s shoulder, shouting loud enough to make her voice hoarse, “This is all your fault! If any of my friends get hurt, I’ll make you sorry! I’ll fucking kill you!”

All three raccoons scream when a rotten hand punctures through the wood.

Lenore grabs the nearest rack and flings it in front of the door. Thick chunks of glass go flying, but it’s pointless. The Official digs its fingers into the door and wood rots under its touch. The hole it made with its fist gradually widens.

Lenore tucks Estella and Soma behind her back, but when she goes to tug Colin in, she finds he’s disappeared from her side. Panic floods in, but the sound of the young boys’ voice quickly soothes it.

“There’s another door!”

Lenore turns and sees Colin standing beside a massive wine barrel laid flat on its side. On the face of the barrel is another wooden door. The lock hangs uselessly from the latch, and the doors half-open. It’s from within this door that the pink light shines.

“Go!” Lenore shoves Estella and Soma towards the wine barrel just as the hole becomes large enough for the Official to lunge inside. It smashes into the racks, sending glass and fizzy liquor everywhere.

The scent of rotten meat doesn’t mix well with rotten eggs and sulphur. The smell only intensifies as the Official skids over the frothy pool, coating itself in booze. It’s putrid. Lenore listens to the quiet tapping of Colin, Soma, and Estella's footsteps, as they race through the second door. Oddly enough, she doesn’t hear the door clicking shut behind them. She’d have thought they’d be smart enough to leave her to her fate. Yet, the door remains open.

There are only three liquor racks left standing. Lenore knocks them over, one by one. A jungle, a maze, wet with alcohol and sharp with shards of bottles and boards. Anything to slow it down.

She runs and it chases. The ground is slippery and the skirt of her dress sticks to her leg like flypaper.

“Hurry up! Why are you so slow?”

The crunch of breaking glass and wood hunts her down.

Lenore makes it in time, but so does it.

“Move!” Her hands clasp onto the handle as she dives inside. The door swings in with her, nearly flattening Estella against the wall before Lenore finds steady enough foot for her to thrust the door closed again.

There’s a snap. Not quite broken, just a little fractured, but the sound it makes is loud in her ears. The Official is caught by the crook of its arm, crushed between the door and the wall. The opening is thin as a stick, too small for the official to see inside. It claws and thrashes, but the raccoons are too far away for it to reach. Lenore, on the other hand, isn’t able to keep her distance as she throws her full weight against the door, desperate to force it closed.

Lenore scowls, face squished against the door, “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

She’s almost got the door shut. Damn it, she’s so close! She hears the tiniest thud and sees Soma pushing the door with her. He’s as heavy as a half-empty bag of sugar, so his contribution isn’t much help. Sweet of him to try, though.

She hears Estella exclaim, “Another fucking door? Are you kidding me!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lenore glances down the hallway and sure enough, there’s another fucking door. But this door is made of metal. Like a bank vault, the lock on it is twice the size of the little lady’s head.

Colin pulls on the handle, but it doesn’t budge. “It’s locked!”

“I’ve got a pick!” Soma shouts. He takes one of his hands off the door and pulls a handful of wrenches and hooks out of the pocket of his tunic.

Lenore grunts, “I’ve got the door! Go help him, the doors too heavy for him to get it open on his own!”

Her shoes slide across the floor, squeaking shrilly as she’s nudged further and further backwards.

The hallway is short, Soma skids up to the metal door fast as a cheetah and starts fiddling with the lock. It feels like it takes both a second and a century, but eventually, they hear a click and the lock goes slack. Colin pulls the handle again, but it still doesn’t move.

“What the fuck!?” Colin tugs the door again, accomplishing nothing but pressing more bruises into his calloused hands. “Why! Won’t! It! Open!”

“You missed a lock!” Estella says.

“What?” Soma replies indignantly. He checks the vault again, and sure enough, there’s another lock. It’s a tiny thing with no keyhole. He frowns, “It’s a combo lock!”

Lenore grits her teeth. “Does it have any number or letters on it?”

“Uh… It’s got one slot for letters and then four slots for numbers!”

The answer seems to fly out of the little lady’s mouth before her brain can even comprehend what she’s saying.

“L. One. Seven. One. Four.”

The arm caught in the doorway bends. It pounds against the wood, less than an inch above the little lady’s head. The wood putrefies under its touch.

Some rustling and then she hears, “It worked! It fucking worked!? How the fuck did you know the code?”

“Enough with the fucking swearing!” Lenore scowls, “My god, you develop an entire language system out of thin air and yet you’ve still got a mouth like a sailor!”

The door rattles as the Official sinks its nails into wood and pulls. Suddenly, Lenore is no longer pushing. Now she has to pull. The dragging of the door as the Official forces the hinges to curl, metal nails yanked out of the wall, everything pulling in the wrong direction. The crack in the door dilates. The glow of its veins creeps in. A horrid, spine-chilling sound pierces the air as Lenore comes closer and closer to losing her grip.

She raises her voice, “Run!”

Waiting half a second for the sound of tiny feet to scamper away, Lenore then uses the last of her strength to pull in one last time. She pulls as far as she can and then, she lets go.

Shoving the door away, the momentum thrusts them both backwards, giving the little lady the tiniest head start towards the second door.

Lenore runs.

Nothing but the tapping of her footsteps. But then, the whine of the door and that spine-chilling sound; the chase is on.

It is only a step behind.

Footsteps and scratching. Pounding, pounding, pounding; step after step after step, and it’s gaining on her.

And then, there’s that phantom feeling at the back of her skull. A sense that something is right behind her, almost touching, knowing it’s so close without having to turn around and look. Veiny hands reach out for her. She reaches out for the handle of the vault.

She yelps. A hot, pulling sensation at the base of her skull. Burning and pulling and then rip! A few strands of hair attached to an itty-bitty clump of flesh torn fresh from the little lady’s scalp.

Lenore seizes the handle of the vault. She falls through the doorway, throwing the door closed behind her as she collapses to the ground.

As the door swings closed, she sees the way it looks at her, her bloody hair still swinging in its fist. Its eyes are tache noir. Black specks in the sclera, shifting like ticks under its eyelids. Eyes like death, barely seeing and yet knowing of the dismal world that awaits. Who shall depart from this world first? Like a race; that unwilling chase. You? Or It? Maybe everyone, all at once.

It sees.

The vault slams shut.