Elliot Montgomery Street, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 04:00

Kneeling on the sidewalk, colder than the two dead bodies lying on the street, Sara's mind was as blank and white as the raindrops passing in slow motion through Joe's car headlights. She tried to feel anything and failed. Time lost all meaning; Sara felt her heart beat slowly, her blood flowed like molasses. She was frozen between seconds, the horror of the sin she'd committed denied entry to her brain. She refused to let the truth sink in.

Then she heard a ringtone.

In the middle of an abandoned street, in a town occupied by two living people and hundreds plus two dead, with no electricity, gas, water, or any utility running underneath the street, a smartphone rang.

It was unmistakably Sara's phone. It begged the question, how?

Maybe it was Fate trick or treating. Today was Halloween after all. Perhaps Lady Fate herself, all whimsical and mysterious as she ought to be, decided to descend upon Earth to play a prank. It wouldn't be the most absurd thing in her life.

She was too far from Morrow, from Clayton U. Three townships and one county away, to be more or less precise.

And yet, her phone rang.

It was so surreal Sara questioned her sense of reality. But no, she could feel the device vibrate in her belt pouch. That mundane thing distracted her from the horror of her crime and time flowed again.

Her hand pulled the zipper, letting a deluge of rainwater into the pouch. What was the point of being waterproof?

She took the phone. The screen lit up in her face as the device angrily demanded attention.

Sara stared at the caller ID. "Mary", it read.

She pushed the green button. Then the loudspeaker.

"SARA!?!?!" Mary shouted on the other side. "Are you okay? I heard gunshots and the dogs are going nuts!"

"No," Sara mumbled numbly.

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes. No. It's just a bruise," she let a dry chuckle. "You should see the other guy."

"Where are you? What other guy?"

Sara's mind was slowly revving back up. "Stay in the truck. I'm... coming back. Yes. I want to go back."

"I'm—"

No. Mary had no right to be stubborn. Sara was the only one allowed to be vexatious. She put a firm voice, "Listen up, Mary, stay in the car. The moment you open the door Bella and Brutus will get out! And it's freezing out here."

She didn't want anybody to see the dead bodies. She had to bury them and hide her shame somehow.

"Then you are freezing!"

"I'm a cold bitch. I'm fine with cold. I have cold superpowers. I'm dark Elza. You are a hot Latina. Stay dry and warm. Stay in the fucking truck."

"Sara?" Mary's voice mellowed.

"Yes."

"Do you really think I'm hot?" She squealed.

"Goddammit, woman. Have you ever looked at your fucking knockers in the mirror?"

Mary chortled on the other side. "I did. Many, many times," she purred.

"Stay in the truck, you buxom bimbo!"

"Come back soon," Mary said in a very good mood.

Sara ended the call.

"How the fuck are phones working here?" Sara wondered out loud.

"Seriously?"

Sara had kept her phone on airplane mode the whole time, unwilling to let it waste juice searching for a signal in vain. When Brett set up the cellphone infrastructure, the cell tower computers here and back at the university must've talked to one another and linked up like good telecommunication computers ought to.

It meant that...

The girl stared at her phone and remembered how people decided that everyone should have everyone else's contact information. Everyone at the party shared their contact list and now she could call anyone. Including Hainsworth.

Sara scrolled to the H, found the right name, and tapped the call button. After almost a minute ringing, the Major picked it up. He sounded either sleepy or drunk.

"Sara? What's wrong? Are you in the rain? I can hear the rain falling on the phone!"

"Your assassination attempt failed," She accused acridly.

"What are you talking about? I didn't... what happened?" He sounded genuinely confused.

"So you deny sending someone to murder me?"

"Why would I? It makes no sense!" Hainsworth protested. "I consider you an ally, a friend, hells, even from a military standpoint, you are a great asset to this community. You are the key to clearing the interstates, at least opening a way for my daughter to come home, why would I attempt to assassinate you hours before that?"

"Right. You passed my test," Sara made a wry chuckle. "Now, let me give you another one."

"Shoot," he said.

"If you had to accuse someone of leaking the drone shipment schedule to the gang, who would it be?"

"I'm guessing it's the same person who tried to kill you, to stop you from clearing the passage. Someone who was there with the tanks."

"Yeah, but I want a name."

"Is he dead?"

"He?"

"I know it was not Patricia, and you two were the only females there."

"Yeah, it was a guy," Sara admitted.

"Was," the officer's voice took a somber tone.

Sara sighed deeply. She then sniffled and whimpered, "I killed him." Her hands were shaking as she admitted murder, and she dropped the phone on the asphalt with a wet splash. The girl didn't mind. She felt the dam break, reality caught up with her mind and she wept.

"Sara! Where are you? Stay safe, I'm going there."

*

*

Elliot Montgomery Street, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. ??:??

A Humvee pulled over next to the kneeling girl. Wearing raincoats, Hainsworth and Kelly jumped out.

Kelly threw a blanket over Sara and picked the girl up. "She's freezing!" The musician shouted, worried out of her mind.

"I'll get her things," Hainsworth fetched her cell phone and gun. Then he turned on a large-headed flashlight and searched the street. "Motherfucker," the officer cursed. "It was Joe all this time!"

No Great Danes around to deliver the punchline.

Like a mother, Kelly spoke in hushed tones to calm Sara down. The girl was so out of herself she didn't understand a word of what she said.

They heard a truck engine and the U-Haul clumsily drove into the street with Mary at the wheel and the foxhounds glued to the windshield, barking anxiously.

"Sara, where's the key to the hotel?" Kelly asked.

"Pouch. White card," Sara answered mechanically.

*

*

Penthouse, Sky Pencil, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. ??:??

The rain stopped. Very soon, the Sun would be up, though Sara had no idea what time it was.

Kelly took Sara straight to the shower. She washed the girl, made sure to warm her up nicely, then patched the nasty wound on her back before she dressed her in a flannel pajama. Sara reacted to commands like an obedient doll but her eyes were glazed, unfocused.

Mary brewed some hot cocoa and made her drink. Hainsworth made a dozen phone calls, warning people of Joe's treason.

After she drank the hot beverage, Sara was taken to sit on a comfy armchair twice her size. Bella climbed on the chair and sat across the girl's lap. Brutus lay by her feet, the two foxhounds looking as sad as their foster mother. Bella even licked Sara's chin in an attempt to cheer her up.

Hainsworth ended the last call and approached her. Kneeling to her level, he put a hand on her head. "Sara, listen up. It was not your fault. I know what you are going through. My first kill was in Iraq. I felt bad for weeks after that, and I was a trained officer fresh out of the academy at the time. It was my fault for not noticing Joe's betrayal.

"You are an amazing person, Sara. A brave, courageous woman. A kind girl who put up a tough outlook out of self-defense. The world hurt you a lot, didn't it?"

Hainsworth could've pulled the knife in her belt and stabbed her in the heart and it wouldn't have hurt as much as his kind words. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. Bella raised her head and licked the first one to roll down her cheeks.

"It's okay to cry. It's okay to be sad. We are here for you," Hainsworth spoke in a fatherly tone that sounded completely alien to Sara.

Mary approached from the side. Hainsworth stood up and backed away to give the other girl space. She hugged Sara and started to cry for her only friend. Brutus howled in a muted and pained way.

Hainsworth and Kelly let the girls and dogs alone to comfort each other and walked upstairs to the rooftop patio. It was cold, windy, and damp outside.

*

*

Rooftop Patio, Penthouse, Sky Pencil, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 06:30

Kelly was shaking despite her heavy coat shielding her from the weather. "Sara was fighting a secret war all this time," the woman confessed.

"I failed her."

"I don't think she would mind me telling you," She said. "But since the meteors fell, she had not a single day of rest. I... how can I explain this? Let me tell you how she gained control of this building. It might shed some light on the true story."

Hainsworth took one of the pool chairs and turned it on its side to drain the water. He shook the chair to remove the stubborn droplets, then did the same with another. They sat and Kelly told him the whole story of their adventure that day Sara and Amanda had a fight, minus the camgirl streaming studio.

"I figured out she was a medium," Hainsworth said. "What I didn't know was that she was tasked with helping the stray souls find their way to the afterlife."

"I didn't believe her even after she showed me a couple ghosts. Only when she handled the computers in this building like she knew every password by heart, even the owner's digital certificate passcode. She said more than once she was doing 'God's Work'," the musician put a heavy sense of gravitas on the term.

"Did she ever explain where the meteors came from?" He asked.

Kelly perked up. "Yeah! She said that they didn't come from outer space but from other dimensions. Heaven and Hell, to be precise. She also said that the energy of Hell seeped into places of human suffering, like the congested freeways."

"Along with the airport and the prison. She even joked about how car rental companies drew the undead out of the freeway. Kelly," Hainsworth paused there. He was probably remembering the freaky portal at the federal penitentiary.

"Yes?"

"Do you think she's working for... 'him'?" He pointed upward. "That the NDA she hides behind is nothing but a front to cover her patron?"

"I don't know," Kelly made a mysterious air. "She sure as 'hell' isn't working for 'them'," she pointed down.

"The wound on her back, how was it?"

"She had some lacerations on her skin, and the biggest angriest bruise I've ever seen. I'm no nurse, though. She said that I should just patch it up and let her body heal."

"Was it a bullet wound?"

"It was round and the skin was a bit burnt. Yeah, probably. She boasted several times she was very tough. She said she uses magic to enhance her body."

"I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it. Yesterday, she was moving while dragging half a dozen undead clinging to her. Do you think..."

"Sorry, Major. I think I over-shared right now. If Sara wanted you to know more, she would tell you. Have patience. What do you think will happen to her now? Will she be okay?"

"I don't know. I'm actually glad she reacted the way she did. The only kind of people that can kill and not feel bad about it are psychopaths. But if she will bounce back? I hope so. When? I have no idea."

"About tonight," Kelly asked with a hint of worry in her voice. "What will we do without her?"

"She gave me an idea yesterday. So long the head and torso are intact, the 'ghouls' won't murder people. If she is unable to help, and I won't force her," he raised both hands to placate any reaction from the musician, "if push comes to shove, we are going to use the foam, cut off their limbs, and neutralize them. We can even lock a bunch of limbless undead in a container and forget about them. It's a stopgap measure but she said something about all of us gaining some sort of ability to fight back if we survive tonight."

He lowered his head, thinking of his daughter.

"Get ready for a lot of nasty black stuff," Kelly quipped.

"What?"

"I guess it's okay to tell. The black stuff Keynes found her wrapped in, it's some sort of waste byproduct of a body purification ritual. Apparently, to use magic properly, we need to purify ourselves. That black stuff comes out when we do. It happened to me."

The officer raised an eyebrow, "Really?"

"Yes. When she opened the, in her words, 'time bubble', I felt my throat burning. I then vomited a lot of the black stuff. She said I had forcibly purified my lung meridian. It's an Indian or Chinese term. All I know is that after that, I seldom got out of breath even when working out, and my vocal range increased by almost an octave on each end. I checked a book on acupuncture, people are supposed to have twelve, twenty, forty-eight, or even more of these. There's no consensus."

Absorbed in thought, Hainsworth put a fist in front of his mouth. "That's a lot to digest."

*

*

Living room, Penthouse, Sky Pencil, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 06:50

A small part of Sara was glad she was spared the visual horror of seeing Joe with part of his head blown off. She could rationalize that the man was a monster, a traitor, a cannibal, and that he was corrupted just like the dog pack she killed. That with the information she had, the most reasonable, optimal course of action was to kill him. And yet, he was a human. As human as she was.

Maybe not.

Abby claimed she was half-Celestial. That she somehow could use the feather to awaken her bloodline. To evolve past her mortal fetters. She had no idea if she did the right thing by refusing to do it or not.

As she uncoiled from her mental shell, she became aware of Mary sitting on the armrest of the chair, Bella on her lap, and Brutus laying next to her legs. Though she knew she had killed Joe, she felt... oddly empty. It wasn't sadness or grief, it was detachment. Like what happened a few hours ago had happened to someone else.

She also found she had a hard time remembering the details. As she tried to, her hands started to shake. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and in her ears like a deranged drummer. Sucking in each breath was a struggle.

Something soft squeezed her. Sara lifted her eyes and saw a yellow cloth with a floral pattern. It smelled of lavender and Mary.

"It's okay," Mary's voice reached her ears. "I'll be the big sister now," the voice sounded proud. "You're safe."

No, she wasn't. If only they knew what was really going on. She had a parasite with their own agenda inside her, three of the Four Horsemen were on the loose, Halloween and the Fourth, Death, was coming. Sara felt a sense of urgency, a need to break out of this cocoon she wove around her psyche, face reality...

She killed a person. In cold blood, in more than one sense. No matter what excuses she wove, like "he shot first", "he was trying to kill me", "he was a cannibal", "he was corrupted by the powers of Hell", "he betrayed our community", and so on. No matter what, she aimed, she pulled the trigger.

Or did she?

The girl couldn't think of what was worse. That she willingly killed the man, or that the parasite took control of her and did it against her will. Was it against her will?

Second-guessing everything that happened, every decision, every action she took was driving her crazy. They said "hindsight is twenty-twenty" but the truth was, she couldn't even peek at the past. Her head throbbed every time she considered the act of reviewing whatever sparse memories she had. It was a puzzle where every piece was wrapped in razor blades thirsting for her blood.

What about her berserker rage? Was it Abby too? She had no idea. Loss of agency felt like death. She found she hated Abby with a passion.

She felt warm dampness above her lips and tasted blood. A piece of cloth was pushed against her mouth. "You're bleeding," Mary's voice rang from afar. Or was it close to her?

Unwilling to engage with reality at its basic level, Sara didn't know. She couldn't think straight.

Then her mind cleared up, like a classroom where all the desks were piled up against the far wall and suddenly the crowded space felt empty and devoid of its main purpose. Like a lone ballerina sadly practicing a creepy dance that will never see the light of day, a thought stood at the center of her empty mind.

Should she even activate the System Core? Wasn't it what Verachiel and Abby wanted? Should she trust their agenda?

In her mind's eye, Sara tried to look at the ballerina's face but saw only shadows and a sense of dread. Their motive was inscrutable.

"Talk to me," Mary's voice rang through the classroom PA system. The ballerina didn't stop her macabre choreography. The room rumbled and shook. Perspective stretched and the far wall with the pile of desks sank into the distance, distorting as it fell sideways. The dancer was also gone. The blackboard became a hole and she fell backward into it.

Floating in the darkness, Sara felt her whole body rumble, she felt her Mana stir, and then something inside her broke. All the throbbing pressure in her bloodstream flushed as she sucked in a big lump of air.

"Sara? Sara, what's wrong?" A desperate Mary shook her.

Sara opened her eyes. They were open before but her brain refused to process the images. She was sitting on a wide armchair covered in soft velvety faux fur. The penthouse. Bella was on her lap, and Mary was sitting on the armrest. Brutus pushed its cold nose against her leg.

And she was bleeding black blood. From her girl parts. She felt the mother of all colics as her womb churned to expel more of it. She felt like she was sitting on a puddle of the oily, gross black stuff. Impurities. Fuck that.

"Help! Somebody help!" Mary hollered. "Sara, what's going on? Is this... your period?"

Bella jumped off her lap as Sara bent over her stomach in pain and pushed everyone away. Another colic, no, more like a contraction. More black stuff gushed out of her. She felt cold sweat form on her hands and forehead. She felt sick. She retched. Nothing but a small whiff of acid reached her mouth. She burped loudly. Another squeeze. Brutus whined and moved away as the black stuff overflowed down the front of the armchair and pooled on the floor.

She breathed in. Mana and Prana, airborne lifeforce, entered her body. The area around the lake was saturated with it. The energy she took in pushed what was already inside her down and the pressure squeezed her womb again. More black stuff materialized.

"What's happening? Is this blood?" Flustered, Mary kept trying to pull Sara off the armchair. "Help! She's bleeding?"

Sara grunted. "Get off the chair, Mary," She finally said something. "I'll..." Sara remembered how she reached the penthouse. "Get Kelly."

"Oh-okay. What's happening?"

"Some asshole decided it was time to clean the shop. Ugh. Without my consent."

"Is this... period blood? A miscarriage?" The other girl desperately tried to make sense of it.

"Sorta. Doesn't matter, now, go!" She ended up shouting at the end out of sheer pain as another contraction hit her.

Mary ran upstairs.

"Fuck you, Abby. What the fuck did you do to me?"

Another contraction, another grunt. "Goddammit, why were you messing around my... chakras? Why does it make me bleed from down there?"

"I fucking hate you!" She screamed out loud.

"If you can curse this loud, then you're okay," Kelly's voice came from behind. "But I guess you don't need me."

"Wait, no! Don't go! I wasn't talking to you, Kelly! It's Abby who's being an asshole! Look at what she did to me! Ugh!"

The musician went around, opening all windows despite the cold of the early morning. Kelly retched when she could no longer hold her breath, "Goodness gracious, it smells worse than before!"

She turned to face the entrance behind Sara, "Keep out, lady business!" She warned someone. Probably Hainsworth.

"I'll be on the rooftop then," the man said.

Sara clawed the armrests and lifted her body as she tried to push the impurities out of her faster. It was like when she cleared her circulatory system, but thicker and coming from the wrong place. She felt Kelly grasping her wrist and pressuring the underside.

"Your heart rate is nuts, it's like a squirrel's," she remarked. "You look like you're giving birth."

"Don't joke," Sara grumbled. "More like the grossest period ever. Not even the right time of the month!"

"You don't say. It's pooling on the floor. Sara, is there anything I can do? What do you need?"

"Get some towels, put them around me. Let's see if the room survives. I'll be fine. Ack! Damn, I liked this chair. Ugh! Just give me some time. And... Ugh. My gas mask is in the master bedroom."

"Good call. I'll be back, don't go anywhere."

Sara screamed as another strong contraction came. "As if!" Kelly left. Sara grunted in pain. "I'm fucking killing you, Abby."