CRITIQUE WANTED Rumblestrip

[Asmodeus]

Chapter 1 | Oakwood Supper

An hour had passed since the cat ate his finger.

Toben had spent that time debating whether to sit on the rock or remain by the tree. He was often criticized for 'just standing there', but on this occasion making others nervous might have worked in his favor. After all, without his index finger the option to poke a belly was diminished, as was the option to scratch his head at this whole dilemma.

Finally, he took a seat. Across from the rock, Hobbers gave a happy squeak while tied to the tree by Toben's cloak. The suspended cat was as large as he was orange, and as content as he was large. He cycled his paws while beetles roamed his fur and butterflies alighted on his nose. The ginger was in his element: making friends and earning attention.

So began the stand-off. Toben's eye-sockets were pools of musty darkness, tapering tear-like to a rictus grimace. They lent him the look of a bureaucrat bearing tragic news. The only sound was from the leaves that danced through the gaps of his ribs and pooled in his hip bones.

He didn't like being without his cloak. He also didn't like being without his finger. A skeleton has few possessions in this world.

The cat gave another squeak. Squirrels were yelling at him to move along, and Hobbers might have obliged had he not been bound so expertly by the cloak. Tight around his belly, taut black against prosperous orange, the constriction was designed to quicken the cat's regurgitation.

"Ride moonward, my dears, for the world, it is not ending," Toben said at the top of the second hour. His jaws barely moved, reinforced as they were with twine – the only part of him, save his cloak, which was more than bone and void. The narrow mouth admitted only troubled sentence fragments. "We're northbound for Amberfly with smeared and slapdash dreamers, to join a generation's victory parade. You'll no sooner halt the moon than stop the coming change. While fools get high the high will fall, though all the streets be paved with riot shields."

Hobbers made a horrible noise, sending bugs and squirrels scattering. It was like an old pickup truck failing to turn over. Indeed, Toben considered helping things along with a slap to the bodywork. But by the time he had gotten up from the rock and crossed to the tree, the cat was openly vomiting.

"That's mine," the skeleton murmured, as if still reciting poetry. He picked up the corroded assortment of bone and knuckle-joints that was once his finger. Then, like a waiter with an insolent wine cork, he mashed the digit against the stump on his right hand.

Hobbers continued to writhe and splutter. More of his forest friends fled.

There was a click before Toben flexed his newly reattached finger. Then, satisfied by its range of motion, he untied the cat. Hobbers plopped to the ground and circled the trunk sadly, licking dew from the grass as if it might freshen his palate. Then the cat watched his skeletal companion get dressed. The tattered robe covered all but Toben's face once the hood was pulled up. From the back he would look like a traveling mystic, and from the front – well, he had been advised to turn his back on anyone he met.

Once cloaked, Toben did just that to Hobbers, and retraced his steps out of the grove. But the ginger cat gamboled after him, meowing all the way. They returned to the scenes of their struggle. The algae-rich pools where Toben had fallen while lunging for Hobbers in the camellia patch. The valley side where towering bougainvillea had snagged Toben with thorn and vine. The sodden slopes where Hobbers had tumbled head-over-haunch in his haste to reach the flooded lowland. Then the boulders split by stands of alder and ash, on which cat and skeleton had hopped like grabby chess pieces.

Hobbers was game for a second round, but with no extremity to bite he could only nip at Toben's cloak. It did nothing to win the skeleton's attention. They climbed the slopes with minimal slapstick, as the setting sun brought purple to the green.

Just before the tree line Toben stopped, and so did Hobbers, wheezing happily as he gazed up at the skeleton. But Toben was looking elsewhere. His cavernous sockets beheld the far highway where valleys flattened out along the Gambler's Coast. As the sun came down it stretched the shadows of a hunched figure, crossing the road from one ditch to the next. A distant scene that might be mistaken for a forager gathering roadkill or a madman chasing portents. The white-shawled creature curled its hands, gripping an imaginary steering wheel as bedraggled hair fell across its features. Then it changed direction, twice in short succession – a sign of mania that ended as it plunged decisively into a bank of moonflowers at the roadside.

Hobbers gave a curious meow, excited to meet a stranger. But Toben pressed on into the foliage. "Stay away from wraiths." It was more like a quoted warning than one of his own.

Deep in the oakwood that crowned the dales, Toben located the campsite. It had been spruced up since his hasty Hobbers-hounding departure. A campfire sent shadows dancing across a clatter of boulders where vegetable sacks were stuffed with leaves and scattered like cushions. Here and there, cardboard boxes spilled rags and leaflets from their sodden insides.

While Hobbers bounded ahead to rub his face on everything, the skeleton looked around for signs of his fellow cat-sitter.

"Oh, Mama told me how to keep a creature sweet. With milk from goats and cows, fruit, vegetables and meat. You cook 'em up, you keep 'em down - salt, acid, fat and heat. And if you ain't the cookin' type just order out them eats!"

"Pickles?" Toben asked.

"Out them eats! Out the meats! Come on, bring out all them eats! If you ain't much for food and such then stay out of my sheets! Out the meats! Out them eats! Come on, bring out all them eats! Cos life ain't glum when you've got some fine flavors to excrete."

"Pickles?" Toben asked.

Toben gave up trying to interrupt, and stood behind Pickles while she continued her presentation. The three-foot possum worked around the campfire, where a pot was set with boiling water and a skillet with bubbling oil. She gripped a bowl with her tail, and sang while tearing skin from a raw chicken. Her striped hoodie was spattered with juices and dusted with spices. She had prepared a dry rub of powders (mostly baking soda) in a separate bowl, where each strip of chicken skin was immersed.

The attendee to her lecture was a long-haired tuxedo cat, posing on the other side of the campfire. This second feline had one paw lifted as it turned its left side, then its right, towards the fire. The exquisite creature was clearly here for the heat and not the meat, but she lent a graceful ear while Pickles rambled.

"Now," the possum explained, "Once the skin dries you have to blanch it. You'll say I'm crazy, but it ensures an even crunch. Meanwhile, we pulverize the meats." She slammed a rock into the bowl of chicken parts – the noise of which erased Toben's third feeble attempt to get her attention. Juices and organs flew around her as she worked. The tuxedo cat gave an indignant growl when some got on her coat, and began grooming all over again.

"We're making balls!" Pickles exclaimed to the cat. "Then we put it back in the skin. Little sacks, like this." She shaped a pouch of dried chicken skin and jiggled it. "Then it goes in the water. Then the grease. It's super-hot, so we seal it up with glue!" She shrieked the word glue as her tail fetched up a tub of dubious-looking paste. She popped the lid and used her other paw to scoop some goop onto her dumplings. "Now stand back, Jess. It's splatter time."

Jess (or Jestaphia, according to her collar) grumbled again and stepped back from the fire, while Pickles stood and raised the bowl above her head. Like a priest in holy rapture, the possum was about to bring the dumplings tumbling into the water pot when Toben made a fourth attempt.

"Pickles?"

The meat went flying, as did Jestaphia, when half of it tumbled into the fire and took the pot and skillet with it. Pickles stretched wide her toothy maw and gave a terrible shriek before dropping, lifelessly, to the ground.

The skeleton waited for the oil and meat debris to stop sizzling. Meanwhile, Hobbers leapt out from behind a box and collided with Jestaphia. His squeak of happy reunion was cut short when Jestaphia whipped around. Hefty though Hobbers was, he was no match for the weight of Jestaphia's bushy tail. One cat whumped on the ground while the other went back to grooming.

"There's a wraith on the highway," Toben announced while drifting between the boxes, examining leaflets. Though shredded he could still decipher their intentions. Local music shows, circus flyers, business cards for handymen and local artists. Deep colors and smudged text. Every time they made camp it was like a rainbow spilled on the soil.

Behind him, Pickles lay unmoving, her eyes closed and her tongue hanging out.

"I think she died here, long ago," Toben continued. "A car crash, I suppose. She looked young. There was sadness there. But when is there not? Leland's Road: it claims people."

Hobbers had now reached Pickles, and was licking the foam and meat glue from her chin.

"I know we have to follow the road," Toben whispered, staring to the distance as sunset painted fire across the treetops. "But so do all things." Then he turned and looked down at the unmoving possum. "Why are you doing that?"

Hobbers leapt clear as Pickles bolted upright. She waved her arms excitedly, paws barely protruding from the baggy sleeves of her hoodie. "Benny! I had an idea while you were gone. Paint me green, head to tail. Ever seen a green possum? No! And neither have they. It's the perfect plan."

"We don't have any green paint."

The possum picked herself up and shuffled around the campfire, scooping handfuls of dirt now clumped with oil and lightly seared chicken balls. "I know what you'll say: we don't have any green paint. But leave that part to me. And don't go improvising. It has to be green. Reckon a passing car will stop when it sees a pink or blue possum lying dead in the road? No! But a green one..." She stuffed a handful of chicken-flavored dirt into her mouth, pondering while she chewed. "They'll take me to a museum, or maybe a sheriff's station. But that's where you come in. You'll need to break me out."

"This doesn't help." Toben answered, before looking down at Jestaphia. The beautiful tuxedo turned her left side towards the skeleton, and made an insistent croak. Toben had no idea what this meant. Jestaphia gave another, more annoyed, croak.

Pickles waved her skillet. "You just don't get the big picture. See – the cats are in the trunk."

Toben stared. "How are the cats in the trunk?"

"You put them in the trunk while the driver's scraping me off the road. Then boom-bang-bingo – we're on our way to the city."

"But how do I get in the vehicle?"

Pickles waved him off while packing up her mess kit. "It's always 'Me! Me! Me!' with you. Running off whenever you want, coming back without warning. Knocking things over. Look at this, Benny – supper is ruined."

Toben lowered his head. "Hobbers ate my fing—"

"Hobbers!" Pickles shouted upon seeing the ginger furball sniffing at her skillet. The bipedal possum bent over and jiggled the cat's cheeks. "There he is! Who wants a chicken ball? Who wants a chumpling? You do! Yes, you do!" She stuffed a handful of meaty dirt into his cheerful, meowing mouth. "Benny, give Jestaphia a dumpling."

Toben did so, and both he and the tuxedo cat were left staring at the strange lump of meat on the ground between them.

"Where's Garret?" Pickles lifted a box with her tail and checked underneath it. "Garret! Here, kitty kitty! Get your cronchy treat."

Toben pointed skyward with his newly attached finger. "He's climbing again."

Overhead, in the dusk-blanched boughs of the canopy, a tabby watched them. Garret's claws were dug into the branches - a stance that exaggerated his wiry, muscular physique. Though the oldest of the cats, he retained the best survival instinct (or street smarts, as Pickles termed it). Garret had not yet come to trust this skeleton and possum who were feeding him.

Pickles tried to amend that situation. She waved a handful of meat at the trees, as if invoking woodland spirits. "Garret! Come get the yum-yums."

Hobbers quietly stole Jestaphia's portion, while Toben continued watching Pickles. "We should go."

Pickles kicked the chicken carcass at her friend. Another stain was added to Toben's robe, along with the cat vomit, rainwater, and cooking oil. "We're not leaving them, Benny. These cats need us. They're lost and trying to get home." She placed Garret's dumpling at the base of the tree he had climbed.

"We don't even know if they're from Amberfly."

"Of course they are!" Pickles scooped Hobbers up and jiggled him as he struggled to swallow Garret's dumpling. "See this collar?" The nametag on the cat's collar glinted in the campfire light. "That's a city collar. You don't get something this nice in the country."

Toben wasn't sure what to make of that. He tried a new angle. "The owner might not want them back."

Pickles almost tripped on her hoodie while dumping water over the campfire. The striped garment was sized for a human adult, which Pickles clearly was not. "You say that because we found them in the middle of nowhere. But sometimes that's where the most cherished things are."

Before Toben could reflect on that – like he reflected on everything the possum said – Pickles scooped up the last dumpling and looked around. "Now, where's Inkh?"

A pair of yellow eyes materialized next to Toben's head. The fourth cat was perched on a low-hanging branch just behind him. Completely black, the kitten blended perfectly with the gathering dark. She gave a small yowl, while scrutiny and disgust brewed in her slow-blinking eyes.

Pickles offered the final dumpling. "Now, Inky Kitty: just try a little piece and see how you feel. It's okay if you don't eat it all. But try your best." She tore off tiny morsels and deposited them into the Inkh-shaped void around the branch.

"We should go," Toben repeated.

"Alright. Take these." Pickles stuffed the uneaten dumplings into the pockets of Toben's robe. "Oh, and some of these." She also stuffed some leaves and shredded pamphlets in there. "Oh, and this rock. That's a nice rock." The possum wriggled her paws through the straps of her rucksack, then picked up a pillowcase in each arm. "Tonight's the night, Benny. You won't be laughing at me anymore."

Toben gave her a puzzled look. As they set off, Hobbers darted after them, as did Garret once assured there was enough room to climb down without getting snatched. The two males darted between the boxes and boulders of the vacated campsite. Meanwhile, the females followed more slowly: Jestaphia sauntering in case a misstep muddied her coat, and Inkh bringing up the rear after casting a knowing glance to the shadowy undergrowth.

Back on the trail, Pickles tittered while hefting the pillowcases. "Oh yes. I'mma wipe that smug look off your face. I know what I saw. It's on the roadside up ahead. You called me crazy. But it's there. And it glows in the dark."

"I never doubted you."

"Don't deny it!" the possum screeched. "I'll prove it soon enough. Just over the next hill. There's a billboard – a fancy one with lightbulbs." She waved a pillowcase around, scattering leaves like glitter. "The Woofle House Diner: five miles ahead." She grinned up at the skeleton, showing an equally impressive collection of bones inside her mouth. "That's what they call a landmark. Last stop before Amberfly city limits."

"Diners don't like me."

"You'll be fine. We'll get disguises from the dumpster. The Woofle House has the best dumpster." Pickles peered up at him, her snout silhouetted in the gloom. "How's your finger, Benny?"

"Corroded by powerful acid," the skeleton moaned. "These cats are not normal."

"You said that when you met me." She bopped him with a pillow. "And look where a little tolerance got you."

"Hmm."

Leaves spilled from the pillowcase as possum and skeleton joined the downhill trail. A crunching carpet was formed for the cats – a procession of fur that ran from bright orange to smothering black. The noise of their paws made music with chirping crickets and croaking frogs.

And at the base of the forest, where moonflowers opened their petals to the night, a Cadillac sat with its lights off, playing dead in the middle of Leland's Road. The creature inside watched as fireflies gravitated towards the skeleton, possum and their four rescues. Light by tiny light, the path of the travelers was tracked.

The driver lowered one hand to the car's radio, smearing dials with an oil-slick of colors. Viscous streaks of purple, pink and green were left on the equipment as the channel skipped and the volume rose. From the white noise a ballad soared, like a proud oak cutting through the clatter of late-night hosts and jingling commercials. An ode to sleepless city nights; a neon fugue of synths and guitars.

"Take care…" The driver's voice was guttural, choked by the same multicolored substance that dripped from her face and fingers. She returned her gaze to the creatures on the hill. "…take care of my babies."

 

[Asmodeus]

Chapter 2 | Roadkill

The biker was tossed back to Hell.

His chain unwound from the rear pillar, whipping free in a spray of window shards. For that airborne second, he might have pictured how the crash would smear his colors. Grey where his motorcycle struck the asphalt; yellow where his horns speared the sand. Black as night fell upon his leather-clad body.

Even those wide, white eyes would mix with sparks and starlight. And if he screamed it was not heard, for Merv was screaming louder.

"Eat my glorious ass, you fuck-nugget!"

Merv took their hands from the throttle to punch the car ceiling. This victorious flurry ended with a middle finger, flashed to the rearview mirror. Lone headlights dwindled in that reflection as remaining gang members abandoned their pursuit or were left for dust.

"Oh, what? That's it? Your little douche-bikes can't keep up?" Merv returned both hands to the paddles. Each adrenal squeeze was answered by the force of acceleration. The car hurtled along the highway, while the rearview filled with the flash of police lights. Red and blue washed out the silhouettes of the motorcycle gang. Merv was breathless, laughing.

Frankie, meanwhile, lurched upright in the passenger seat. She examined a glass bong retrieved from the footwell. "Well now, darlin'..." A tin was fetched from under her poncho. "…That's on me for wishing your mood would pick up. We've gone made a nuisance of ourselves."

Frankie spilled most of the tin's contents when Merv slapped her shoulder. "Did you see that shit, Frankie? We were surrounded by those cosplaying fucks. Then boom! Bye, bitch!" The car lurched and swerved as Merv bent to kiss the steering wheel. "Gimme that sugar, Hank."

Frankie stuffed more nugs in the bowl, and shook her head at Merv's nickname for the car. Her hair had come loose during the chase, and now frizzy tumbles hung across her eyes while she worked. "I saw it, sweet pea. We're faster than a cat lapping lightning."

Merv checked the rearview again. A single set of police lights had arrived at the motorcycle crash. Perhaps one squad car had that been drawn to the chase. Though distant, its red and blue glares deepened the collage of Merv's features: the sharp line of their nose, the seams and gashes of their denim outfit, the tightness of their fade. "Deaths Ten shouldn't be out this far. We should've slipped right past 'em." They eyed the shattered pieces of the rear and side windows. "Fucker put a chain through the glass. You see that? Tried to take my Hank, and now he's roadkill."

Frankie sparked her lighter and, while sealing her lips over the mouthpiece, gave a sidelong glance to her friend. She noted how Merv was torn between gasping and giggling.

"It was that bitch at the gas station," Merv continued. "I fucking know it. Came out of the restroom and there she was. Boiled ham with a scrunchie. Told her biker friends all about me. Fucking skank."

Frankie made bubbling sounds while she listened.

"Guess I'm pissing in the desert now," Merv muttered. "Fine. I'll find your fucking graves. Fill 'em up. Garbage inbred fucks."

A great pall of smoke filled the cabin, before getting sucked out through the shattered window. Frankie's voice dipped lower, and slowed to a drawl as she exhaled. "I thank you kindly, Merv, for keeping your eyes on that mirror, 'less more of them Deaths Ten fix to ruin our evening. But I ain't so sure it's them you're checking for."

"Pigs won't catch up. They've got their hands full with those biker bitchboys."

"I ain't talkin' about the police neither."

Merv glanced at Frankie, who returned a dreamy smile while cradling the bong to her poncho. "Tell me, pardner: why'd you turn your phone off? And why'd you carry me from the Reels before I could muster two words to debate you?"

Merv watched the mirror instead of Frankie. "Like I told you: Sarina's racing on the city limits. She's agreed to a meet-up. Why - you don't want to be here?"

"That ain't what I said. And what I said ain't the issue. Issue is what you ain't said. Like hide nor hair about your folks."

"Family knows I'm out here," Merv snapped.

"Do they now?"

"Well, they know I took the car."

"And you's worried they might take another car, and come chasing after you?"

"I can drop you at the next gas station if you want."

Frankie chuckled while lining up the stem with her lighter. "That'd be mighty cruel of you, given my weakness for chips and soda. Now would you mind easin' down on the gas some?"

Merv realized the breakneck speed they were racing at. The terror of the moment, twinned with Frankie's unflappable delirium, had drawn all attention from it. Releasing their own breath as Frankie released hers, Merv pulled on the brake ring. Smoke from the bong fogged up the windshield, while behind it highway markings stretched from blurs to stripes.

***​

They might have been the only car in the badlands tonight. Cruising northwards on the Gambler's Coast, they wasted hours on the subject of trees. Merv couldn't see them. It was only mesas and gullies wherever they looked: a bleak floor where sand spirits danced with wolves and vultures. But Frankie insisted she could smell the trees – the ones that were here before the waterways slashed their wrists and drained out the other side. She could taste the hinterland, the tangled forests and lagoons. A little green in all your moonscape, she told Merv.

Snippets came and went in the radio crackles. A minister called on them to repent, his voice so tired that he might have given up on saving anyone but himself. Merv changed the station before the sermon upset Frankie. Next a talk show host, like a butcher choosing where to make his cut. Foreign powers are our friends. Marriage thrives on cruelty. Nature and plastic can coexist. He was drowned by a commercial for fishing equipment, asking highway-goers to take a road without signposts to find their warehouse. Then a monologue meandering: a corn farmer who spoke of how things were out here, before all money and dreams flew overhead to Amberfly.

"You wanted to come back one day," Merv said out of nowhere. It took Frankie a moment to realize they had circled to their previous argument. "Back to Amberfly," Merv clarified. "So how about we worry about your family, and stop talking about mine?"

Frankie dropped an empty packet in the footwell. Then she smoothed her curls before licking her fingers. She sampled each flavor: the residue of pickle chips, the ash from her bong, the sting of hand sanitizer, the warm blend of nicotine, candy, and hand lotion. "So you picked the very hour? Awfully kind of you to put me in the mindset. Reckoned I'd grown entirely too headstrong since leaving the cult?"

Merv rolled their eyes. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry. But you were never gonna face your past unless I kidnapped you. How many years have we talked about doing this?"

Frankie made popping sounds with each finger she sucked. "Yes, and…"

Merv smiled. "And I fucking love your ass, and wanted some company on my way to the race."

"Now what would Hank make of so bold a statement?"

Merv tapped the dashboard. "Unlike you, Hank doesn't approve of me driving under the influence."

Frankie blinked. "Oh…" She reached into her poncho, disturbing crystals, feathers and charms entangled with her scarf, before producing a tightly wrapped joint. "…where are my manners?"

They worked together: Frankie leaning over to keep the throttle paddles depressed while Merv used both hands to light the joint. It was this, more than anything, that eased Merv back to a steady heartrate. It also helped when they passed a Chrysler parked on the hard shoulder. Merv noted the Newport design, and smiled when the headlights swept over its pink-hued hardtop.

A Dodge La Femme, way out here? Must be a hundred years old. Dad would kill to take a look under that hood. Wonder if it still has the rosebud upholstery, and the boxes behind the--

Merv snuffed out further thoughts of family. They offered the joint back to Frankie, "You remember how to drive this thing, right?"

Frankie took the joint. "I assumed my tertiary purpose was to be your Huckleberry."

"Just in case. Just in case." Merv drummed on the wheel. "Gotta plan for the worst when you're racing Sarina. Cannonball run, canyon chase. Shit's gonna get real, and Hank might get jacked up."

Frankie waved the joint in Merv's face until they noticed it. "You're gonna wanna drive real safe, darlin'. But I know you won't. Not with your eyes all glued to Sarina's title."

Merv looked through the side-window while finishing the joint. At first it was to hide further expressions from Frankie, but in time it turned to ponderance. "Do you remember any of this?"

Frankie rooted around in her poncho as the nightscape rolled before them. "I surely remember the Deaths Ten."

"Yeah, thanks for the heads-up back there. You smelled 'em before I saw 'em." Merv took another drag. "But seriously: you used to come out this way?"

Frankie produced a sandwich bag, and broke the seal as she reminisced. "We're on Leland's Road, where the wraith was made. Folks up on Blangast Ridge used to talk about it. Tales of the forests where cars hang from trees. Tales of Cheryl Leland and how she comes for you. All twisted in your wreck, or broke down on the shoulder. Then she comes a-shufflin'. Pale and ragged-nailed; hair more crazed than mine; clothes more plain than yours."

Merv was tricked by fireflies as they drove past grave markers, garlands, and scrap heaps. They had to squint to keep inside the lines. "I didn't ask for a ghost story. Quit freaking me out."

Frankie popped a shriveled mushroom in her mouth. "You asked what I remembered. And I'm telling you this road remembers. Flowers 'round the signposts, graffiti over barns and truck stops. Folks out here still telling Cheryl how sorry they were about that crash. Telling folks like us how it all might end. One wrong turn, a bad breakdown. Then if the desert don't kill you the locals will."

"But what about the cult? Did things out here ever fuck with the Half-Closed Eye? What if you told them who you were? Wouldn't they be more afraid of the—"

"Cat!" Frankie yelled, spilling her bag as she lunged against the car's momentum. Merv's reaction was both the worst and most natural one: to glance over at Frankie rather than the asphalt. By the time they looked back it was all too late. The cat darted from right to left – a tabby by its flecked and swirling patterns caught in the headlights. Merv spat out the joint and reached, grabbing for the brake ring and praying not to grab the throttle by mistake. Then they yanked the wheel, and squeezed.

The hood was struck. Frankie cried out. Leaves, paper, fur and metal went flying. The debris made no sense, but few things did as the car spun out. Most of all that familiar ambivalence: that sense of being dragged and being cradled. In this comfort and calamity there was no room for panic. Merv surrendered to momentum and curled in their seat as the vehicle rotated once, twice, and once again for luck. Then all went still amid a din of hissing and clicking. The smell of rubber mixed with the smell of musk; the driver's groaning mixed with their passenger's.

"Frankie, you okay?"

Frankie sat back while picking mushrooms from her hair. "Why, I'm just thrilled to be along for the ride."

Finding her sarcasm was as good as finding a pulse. Merv shook the girl's shoulder. "We hit something."

"A cat. Bless its heart."

"You have to get out and check."

"Me?"

The two youths looked at one another. Frankie remembered, and nodded while fumbling for the door handle. "Me."

Merv was left to grip the brake ring anxiously, while Frankie stumbled from the car. A clatter of bottles, snack packets and paraphernalia went with her. Her scarf got caught in the door when she kicked it closed. She examined the mess, kneeled, then spluttered as the scarf constricted. Struggling free of it, she fetched up her bong and began her investigation.

A line of tape crinkled under her sandals. This black border ran parallel with the roadside, deliberately measured. Frankie gave it a knowing nod. They were surely close to Amberfly if the spike tape was being put down. She made a mental note to explain the phenomenon to Merv later, assuming their road trip hadn't just reached an untimely end.

Beyond the tape was a ditch where grass had sprouted in the sand. This fertile bank preceded an uphill rise to oakwoods and wildflowers. Behind her were more black marks left by the vehicle's tires. Between these and the tape, Frankie spied slow-falling leaves. The brown litter rained upon a smear of fabric, paper, and other debris. She thought she saw a rucksack, a pillowcase, even pots and pans left crumpled by the impact.

"Uh-oh."

"What's uh-oh?" Merv called from the car.

"Think we hit a hitchhiker, Sug'."

"What?"

Frankie tottered to the other side of the car, sucking on the bong as if it was still loaded. Tufts of white fur fluttered with the leaves, and she winced at their musty aroma. "Reckon I saw two shapes, not one. A hitchhiker and his kitty cat?"

Merv's silhouette shifted behind the side window. They were reaching around their seat. "Alright, I'm coming out."

"Hold yer horses, now. Ain't no need for that." Frankie froze within sight of the far ditch. She took her lips from the mouthpiece to exclaim, "Heavens to the half-closed!"

"What?" Merv shouted.

Frankie squinted at a white-furred shape, sprawled head-first in the ditch. "We hit a possum."

"A possum?"

"Big one, too." She wrinkled her nose and stepped closer. "Reckon it was chasing the cat."

"Possums don't chase cats," Merv protested, before rummaging around their seat again, undoing clasps and buckles. "I'm coming out."

Frankie did not protest this time. Keeping her eyes on the ditch-draped possum, she backed up a little. She was all set to help her friend out of the car when she bumped into something. The hair on her neck was the only part of her that moved: standing on end as a deep, dreary voice addressed her.

"She's just pretending."

Frankie spun, then screamed at a man in a hooded cloak. Or rather, the back of a man in a hooded cloak. The tall figure was deliberately turned away from her. Frankie punctuated her scream by shattering her bong on the base of the stranger's skull.

Merv had begun exiting the car. Motors whirred as the driver's door swung open. A small ramp extended, and Merv was halfway through maneuvering onto it when the hooded man whumped to the ground close by. Merv clutched the rims of their wheelchair, and stared. "What the fuck?"

Glass shards and bong water fell from Frankie's hands. "What the fuck?"

Merv pointed at the unmoving body. "Did you just kill that guy?"

"He startled me!"

"Is he dead?"

"Where in blazes did he come from?"

"Is he dead?"

Frankie bent to check for a pulse, realized her hands were bleeding, straightened up, then stomped on Toben's back a few times before concluding, "He ain't breathing!"

Merv pressed the button for the automatic door again. Several times. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

Frankie couldn't tell if the stench was from the possum or from the unconscious man. She scanned the debris-strewn highway. "Fella was hitchhiking," she groaned. "His rucksack, his little pillow..."

"Get in the fucking car, Frankie!"

Dread had descended, suddenly, upon Frankie. She darted to the driver's door, and leaned in as it was closing. Merv got the wrong idea and hugged their friend, whispering words of comfort. But Frankie reached across Merv's lap and pressed another button. "What the fuck? Frankie!"

Frankie got clear as the door closed, then rushed to the lifting trunk lid. "Can't leave a hitchhiker."

Merv was too slow to remote-lock the trunk. Frankie had already opened it fully. "Are you higher than usual? This is a crime scene!"

"Can't leave a hitchhiker," Frankie repeated, mantra-like, while grabbing Toben under the arms and hauling. She didn't register how light his body was, nor glimpse the moonlit skull that gleamed beneath his hood. Twisting, she lifted and stuffed the skeleton into the trunk, panting so loudly that it muffled further protest from Merv.

"Okay!" Frankie slammed the lid down on Toben. "Now we go. Come on." She stumbled on bottles, tins and chip bags while scrambling into the passenger seat. "Go, go, go!"

"Why is there a body in my trunk?" Merv screamed.

"I'll explain when you get to eighty!" Frankie screamed louder. She clamped a bloody hand on Merv's and crushed their grip upon the throttle controls. The car squealed forward, flattening the rest of Pickles' skillets and cooking utensils. Black fumes trailed as the racecar departed into the night.

Neither Merv nor Frankie looked back.

Had they done so, they might have noticed the silhouettes of four cats converging on a ditch, where a possum was sitting up to express her disappointment.

 

[Asmodeus]

Chapter 3 | Melqart Motel

The black lights were a brave investment. But motels are no place for cowards.

Morgan fixed his spotted bowtie as it glowed, specter-like, in the mirror. Stood between the marble counter of his reception, and the mock Corinthian archway of his back office, he was framed in ghostly white. Yet save for his eyes and teeth, the rest of him was shadowed: a suit tailored so tightly you could read his gym schedule. It matched the recessed doors and frames of his lobby, painted as they were a pastel violet. With the original brick facade remaining, it gave the sense of a modern building caged inside the old one. And he, its half-seen jailor.

The back office, where the mirror hung, was sealed away with reflections of archive cabinets, video screens, and bookshelves. He stepped beyond the pillars to wait at the counter. A glance across the lobby - to the cabriole sofas, the coffee table fanned with brochures, the marshmallow stalls, and the seashell chandelier – confirmed that all was in place.

The glass doors swung inwards till they gleamed in the black lights: orbitron font spelling 'Melqart' on one and 'Motel' on the other. The customer who parted them seemed to share Morgan's sense of grandeur. This girl would be the centerpiece of a painting, the golden ratio drawing the eye to her electric abundance. Round cheeks, long curls, and a profusion of layers. Mystic symbols were heaped around her neck, forming stripes of color with the sashes, scarves, and bracelets that adorned her. She rattled as she walked, and wafted scents that begged to be counted.

"Bon!" Morgan declared, circling two fingers in the air to draw her attention. "You are exquisite. Turn back now, and you shall only break my heart."

Frankie smiled, and slid the rest of the way through the doors. As was her habit, she did not approach the motel owner in a straight line, but rather drifted clockwise around the lobby. "Why thank you, darlin'. So kind of you to say." She trailed one hand upon a display case of dead snails. "And if this ain't the prettiest motel I ever saw."

Morgan tweaked his thick-rimmed glasses. Then he turned the burgundy cover of a journal and began taking notes. "It is not for all kinds. But neither is heaven. Bienvenue, mon cher. You are in need of a room?"

Frankie's bandaged hand trailed past the works of Joyce, Faulkner, Lovecraft and Dickens - their books arranged like monoliths amid the frozen march of the snails. "We've traveled awful far, my friend and I."

Morgan glanced through the glass doors. His pen hand kept moving, recording what he saw in the parking lot beyond. Hyundai Elantra. Black and red. One driver. A girl – a boy? – neither. Early 20s, cropped hair…

Merv did not catch him staring. Their face, anxiety-stricken, was lit by the screen of their cellphone as they waited in the car. They were texting furiously. Morgan made note of this too.

Frankie, meanwhile, squeezed between the sofas and the snail exhibits to complete her circuit of the lobby. "Leland's Road ain't like I remembered. Reckon Cheryl departed with the last of the living."

She stopped to examine the side of Morgan's face which had, till now, been hidden. The eye there sat too deeply in its socket, wreathed in thicker shadows than the rest of him. The skin around it was plastic smooth, stretching flawlessly to his jaw and lips. The reconstructive surgery had been effective, but had robbed one half of the motel owner's expressions.

Frankie folded her arms and rested them on the counter. "What's that called, when a place feels haunted cos even the ghosts have left?"

Morgan returned to his note taking. "Much danger, mon papillon. Brave you are to travel so late at night, on so vile a road. The people are shit." He flicked over a page when he said this, making Frankie wonder if he had said sheet instead of shit. "This desert is shit. All things outside of Amberfly..." He touched her wrist. "But you are safe now. Morgan Melqart will take care of you. My finest room, oui?"

The page he had turned floated up again. Frankie spied manic scribbles there: purple ink describing her every feature or assuming her every trait. Estimates of her age, ethnicity, height and weight. Questions posited about where she had come from (the Reels, Morgan had deduced). The motel owner had also clocked some of her symbols: the sandstone fist, the third-eye camera, the bloody wheel, and the scarred moon.

Frankie sunk lower on the counter, till her head rested on her hands and her necklaces dangled, concealed, behind the marble. "I'd surely appreciate your kind discretion, Mr. Melqart. My friend and I have troubles enough for one lifetime."

Morgan smiled with the half of his face that could. "I am bon ami to hidden things." With his purple pen he flicked an errant curl from Frankie's bloodshot eyes. "Fifty dollars is all I ask. Fifty dollars and a name."

Frankie sunk lower behind the counter. "Folks once called me Liberty. But they're gone now. Only Libby Frank remains." She lost her grip and fell to the lobby floor, laughing.

Morgan laughed with her, while his hand kept moving.

***​

Outside, Merv yelped when Frankie slammed a room key (and her cheeks) against the driver's window. Their phone dropped into the footwell with a text message unfinished. Merv cursed while fetching it up and turning off the power again.

They taxied to the far side of the building's u-shape. While single-storied, the motel's plumbing suggested a subterranean level. The wheeze of water in the pipes was high – almost tinny – as if rushing through caverns. Every room had drawn curtains and feeble lighting. It produced a fungal glow at each window, shimmering as AC units battled the primordial swelter.

Stepping from the car, Frankie was able to peek behind some of these curtains. More black lights inside – more fluorescence – where people occupied beds while scrolling phones, working laptops, or fucking on silky bedsheets. She wondered if all of them were guests, or if some were friends and servants to Morgan Melqart. There was something rhythmic to the squeaking of bed springs, the tapping of keys, and the buzz of electrical current. She imagined neither flies nor rats, but rather crustaceans. Teeming, choking; crushing one another into ink.

"Watch out!" Merv rattled down the car ramp and nearly caught Frankie's feet with her wheels. They quarter-turned the chair before clicking a button on their key set. The ramp folded up and the door slid closed. Merv then learned, very quickly, that the parking lot was in no better shape than the highway. They made only a few attempts to self-propel through the dirt before Frankie took the hint and pushed them up onto the cracked stone walkway. Frankie then unlocked the room so Merv could roll inside.

"Alright. I'm gonna gear up so I can help you lift." Merv wheeled to the far side of a queen bed. "And I'm gonna keep asking you, Frankie: you sure this guy is cool?"

Frankie hovered in the doorway to eye the curtains. They matched the bed sheets: striped in mauve and cream. The mauve had never lived while the cream had lived too long. The lampshades were just as aged, and all but smothered the light of their economy bulbs. Had the walls not been painted a similar cream the room would have felt as grotesque as the reception lobby. An AC unit rattled by the door, sending vibrations along the wall that held the flatscreen. A table with purple tiles, and two chairs of frayed velvet, completed the décor.

She closed and chained the door while nodding. "The coolest. We heard stories of Mr. Melqart all the time, up on Blangast Ridge. Never was a snitch. What happens in these rooms - what you have in your car, and whatever you're running to or from - Morgan Melqart keeps your secrets."

Merv gripped the arms of the wheelchair and hoisted up, walking forward on callused hands. They twisted, tipped, and collided with the cushions of the headboard. Another twist, and they were done. Merv sat upright in bed and continued working. "He fucking better. Else we'll break a bong on his head too. Get your hand cleaned up." They took no breath between these sentences.

While Merv unpacked the wheelchair's side bags, Frankie drifted to the bathroom. More pallid cream awaited, bedazzled with notes of purple in the shower curtain, the tiled mirror, and the toilet roll holder studded with fake gemstones. She removed her bandage and washed the wound while pipes groaned at her presence. "You're a true friend, Merv. Ain't many in this world who'd do a thing like this for me."

Merv grunted from the main room. Bed springs squeaked in time with the plumbing. "I'm not saying I understood half the shit you told me in the car. But if it's bad luck to leave a hitchhiker unburied, then let's not chance it. I've had enough bullshit in this desert for one day."

Frankie watched bloody water swirl down the drain. "Ain't just that. It's like…" Her various necklaces glinted in the mirror. "Half-Closed Eye says we're all hitchhikers on an unlit road. We raise our hands to the light of our betters…"

"Frankie?"

"…lest we freeze in place."

"Frankie!" Merv clanged two objects together. "Focus, Frankie. We can't fuck around here."

She pressed the clean end of the bandage to her wound and retied, knotting it on the bloody side. Then she returned to the main room to find Merv taking their blades from the side bags. A pair of cylindrical sockets, each attached to a c-shaped curve of carbon fiber. It looked like Merv was holding a pair of giant question marks. They handed the first prosthetic to Frankie. "The place you mentioned, where the cops don't drive…"

"The Clutch."

"You sure it hasn't changed?"

"It never changes." Frankie watched Merv place a silicon patch inside a liner sock, before slipping it over the stump of their right leg. "There's holes in the earth there, Merv. Places you can put a man. Ground pretty much swallows 'em up." She lowered the running blade and aligned it with Merv's right leg. There was a hiss as the liner sock slid into the suction of the socket.

Merv rolled up the neoprene sleeve then handed Frankie the second blade. "Are you being literal? I need you to talk straight, Frankie. Look at me. Can we bury the corpse there? Yes or no?" They pulled on the second liner sock, a little too roughly.

Frankie realized she was taking too long to answer. "There's been all too many put in the ground there. All too many."

The hiss of the second blade engaging synched with Merv's growl. "I need you to be fucking real with me, okay?" They indicated their two prosthetics. "I'm not someone who can fuck around with poetry, and maybes, and half-remembered bullshit."

"It's gonna be okay, darl—"

"Don't tell me it's gonna be okay! There's a body in my car, and my partner-in-crime's a fucking flower child!"

Merv pulled up the second sleeve, then went still and silent. Frankie swayed in place as the air itself seemed to wince. Merv covered their eyes. "Shit… I'm sorry."

"How's the seal?" Frankie asked, quietly.

"Frankie, I didn't mean that. I'm…"

Frankie tested the seal herself. She grabbed the bottom of each running blade and yanked. Merv's cry of shock turned to laughter as they slid from the headboard and ended, flat on their back, in the center of the mattress. The laughter grew as Frankie clambered over them and whumped down on the other side of the bed.

"There I was, thinking you were tough."

Merv socked her in the arm. "I am tough. And I can outrun you now." They waggled their blades, menacingly.

"A toddler in a sombrero could outrun me, friend." Frankie pulled a vape pen from her poncho and thumbed the button.

They lay together, staring at the ceiling as the moment passed. "Why the fuck are we joking?" Merv whispered. "We killed a drifter. I hit them, and they're lying in my trunk."

Frankie sucked on the cartridge then thumbed the button a few more times. "And we ain't gotta ruin three lives over that fact. Leland Road takes its cut. Always has and always will. Be glad it ain't us getting buried out by the Clutch tonight."

Merv's eyes teared as they searched the ceiling. "You think he had family? People looking for him?"

"Ain't our place to wonder."

"You ever dug a grave before?"

Frankie shook her head then blew a cloud of vapor above them. "But when a child of the Narrow Family dies, we put 'em in the ground. No ifs nor buts about it. Grandmother Harlan would take a few of the men and drag the body to the hills. Better still if there's a wishing moon. It was elders' work. A thing to be earned. Cos when you plant a sibling's bones, you're sending prayers back to the desert."

Merv interrupted with a yawn. "Narrow Family? Another name for the Half-Closed Eye?"

Frankie nodded. "One of three, darling. Third name is what the locals called us. I mean the locals who weren't too friendly to our ways. Them what came to the parties then left, all hot and bothered, when we tried to put on our movies. The cowards and casuals. When they learned who we were, those types would call us The Cult. The Cult of the Pink Moon."

Frankie looked over and saw that Merv was out like a light. Adrenaline had flushed from them, and the bed had worked its magic. Frankie blew another cloud, affectionately, around her friend, before settling back on her side of the bed.

She glanced only once to the window. But with the curtain drawn, she could not see the car, let alone its occupied trunk.

***​

The lights of Melqart Motel winked out, one by one. But across the highway a second building gleamed. A diner, nestled at a bend where the road climbed a hill to the city limits. Its color scheme suggested a banquet: awnings and window frames painted ketchup red; wood floors in coffee-brown; a roof band of honey-mustard that beamed like a crown. This fascia was studded with black letters, spelling out the diner's name: Woofle Houzzz.

Inside, a waitress slavered while looming over Morgan's booth. Purple spittle crested the mouth-hole of her mask, almost dripping into the coffee cup she refilled. But she sucked it back when Morgan peered at her. The waitress slid him the cup with a devilish grin upon her coyote mask. "Anything else, Mister M.?"

Morgan dismissed her. She continued down the aisle with her coffee pot, topping off other customers and chewing her bubblegum. Meanwhile, a second coyote grinned from behind a glass case filled with blueberry pies. She and Morgan exchanged nods. The masked cashier turned the dial of a radio near the register, and the diner was refreshed by drum machines and synthesizers.

With his rhythm restored, Morgan rolled up his stack of Byzantine paper. Photographs, printouts, and meticulous lines of purple text were curled into a cylinder. He slipped this report into a scroll case, capped with amethyst studs. But his flow was disrupted again when the fry cook began coughing.

Once a mountain, the man in the open kitchen was now more like vapor, doubled over amid the steam and heat haze of his appliances. He wore all-white - a bad choice given the oil and condiments that spattered around him. The cook used one sleeve to mop his mouth and brow, before taking a throat box from his apron. He pressed the device beneath his larynx, and called out the order in buzzing monotone.

"Wormsteak patty melt!"

The big man slung the plate to the first coyote that converged on him. Morgan sneered at the interruption, and refocused on the electronic jazz. With his pen he marked the outside of the scroll case. A few letters, a few numbers – enough to identify his latest guests. Libby Frank and Emery Irvine.

The third interruption was the most violent of all. A motorcycle screamed past the diner. Literally. The flash of metal and headlight was accompanied by animal shrieks, as if the souls of cats and vermin were trapped inside its fuel tank. Morgan glared as it passed, though any rider looking back would read no rage on the motel owner's face. His reconstructed cheek was closest to the window, presenting no expression to the outside world.

Morgan's pen hand moved, scribbling on the napkin pinned beneath his coffee cup. He kept his eyes on the departing motorcycle. 'Deaths Ten are too close. Log complaint with Tekhlan.'

He stopped. He stared. Where Leland's Road climbed the hill to Blangast Ridge, desert blooms and cacti shimmered like flesh in the headlight of the vanishing motorcycle. Had it been any hour but now, the Dodge La Femme would have been easily spotted. Instead, the car hid amongst the shadows of pitchfork-like saguaros. And only the passing headlight betrayed its paintwork.

"No…" Morgan breathed, before lunging out of his booth. The fry cook folded with another bout of coughing, while the radio twisted into white noise.

There was a crash. The motorcycle had veered off the road and into the cactus field. The animal cries were smothered, and its headlight sputtered out. Up on the hillside, the pink Chrysler was no longer highlighted. It was no longer there.

"Ready to send, Mister Melqart?"

Morgan realized he had made it as far as the register. He glanced at the cashier there, who watched him while cutting a slice of blueberry pie. The radio beside her was mixing with another broadcast – one older and more obscure than the late-night electronica.

"I am ready," an old woman's voice crackled. "Death unknowable, like the Pink Moon, comes swift to scorch my flesh and fortune. But I am ready. For as surely as the moon shall come, as a scythe through the heavens, so shall I be born again. So shall I endure. A wheel ever turning, ever crushing and ascending, as celestial bodies crashing through the void."

Morgan turned back to the window. He gave no second glance to the motorcycle crash – to whatever bystanders or drivers were rushing to the scene. Instead, he wondered if he had truly seen that thing up on the hill, inside the Dodge La Femme – that driver who sobbed and screamed and held the wheel in an ever-tightening grip that bled molten candy between her fingers.

"Ever keep your eyes half-closed. Ever embrace the narrow family. We shall be together soon, my loves. We shall live again."

Morgan handed the scroll to the waitress, then hissed, "Turn that shit off."

He buttoned his purple jacket and departed. A line of glow tape stretched across the highway back to his motel, marking his route from the diner where the coyotes circled.

 

[Asmodeus]

Chapter 4 | The Rescue

Thump, thump, thump!

It was a cop knock if ever they'd heard one. Frankie and Merv bolted upright to watch the door shudder. They looked at one another, realizing they had both fallen asleep. "I got it," Frankie yawned before rolling off the mattress.

Merv, meanwhile, twisted their weight onto the running blades. The carbon fiber curves flexed as they came upright. As if possessed of newfound power, Merv backhanded their wheelchair aside. "That better be Melqart with a fucking night cap."

"Calm yourself now." Frankie waved at her friend to stay back. Merv did just that – concealing their running blades as they stood behind the bed.

Frankie rewrapped a few of her scarves then checked the chain and opened the door a crack. "To what do we owe this pleasure?" But her performance stalled when she saw there was no one outside. Not a soul. Frankie peered left and right to find the parking lot empty. She wondered what could have made such a loud and heavy knock.

Perhaps the frying pan, which swung out from a knee-high blind spot to wallop her foot.

"Aaaagh! Jesus Christ!"

"Frankie!" Merv yelled, and bolted forward on their running blades. They were all set to catch Frankie as she hopped back into the room. But then the door chain went taut, and something squeezed through the opening.

"Where's my skeleton?" screeched a small white creature in a hoodie, before tossing an even smaller creature through the air. A glimpse of tabby fur ensured that Merv was struck by déjà vu a moment before they were struck by the cat. Garret hissed and yowled while clawing the face he was thrown against.

"Aaagh! Fuck!" Merv cried while tottering backwards on their running blades. The bed tripped them, and Merv went down with Garret still attached.

"Where's my skeleton?" Pickles repeated while hurling a box of baking soda at Frankie. It exploded on impact. The possum then tried to spank Frankie's other foot with her frying pan. The two hopped and danced in the spreading cloud. "You're defeated! I'm defeating you!"

Frankie shattered the table and chairs when she finally toppled over. "And stay down!" Pickles cried, before calling over her shoulder. "Get 'em, Hobbers!"

Another cat, large and ginger, made a furious ek-ek-ek battle cry before bounding into the motel room. He ran straight into the bathroom and began eating the toilet roll.

Merv wriggled under the bed, but unfortunately Garret had similar instincts. Human and feline collided in the shadows. Forced to shield their eyes, and contend with the wheelchair blocking their escape, Merv lost all sense of what direction to crawl in. "Get this fucking thing off me!"

Pickles used her tail to hold the frying pan, then scooped up one of the lamps. She plunged into the cloud of baking soda and shined the light in Frankie's eyes. "Where's my skeleton?"

Frankie's poncho was tangled with broken chair legs. "I don't know! I don't know!"

"Talk!" the possum screeched.

"Frankie! Help me!" Merv's hands flailed from under the bed.

"Talk!"

As cursing and crashing filled the room, two other cats waited in the parking lot. Jestaphia paused her grooming, now and then, whenever a piece of furniture tipped or a shadow passed behind the curtain. On the walkway beside her, Inkh's slow-blinking eyes betrayed her night camouflage. The kitten was weighing her options.

Back inside, Merv had escaped from under the bed. Getting clear of their wheelchair and Garret's swiping paws, they grabbed the coffee maker and brandished it at Pickles. "You got the wrong room, furball. Get the fuck out, or I'll break your face!"

Pickles answered with a scream that showed her jagged teeth. With the lamp in one hand, a chair leg in the other, and the frying pan gripped in her tail, she circled Merv. "I knew it. You humans covet the carcasses. Take them from us!"

Merv whipped the cord of the coffee maker. "Don't know what you're talking about, you hairy crackhead!"

Hobbers had now devoured an entire toilet roll. He clambered into the bathtub to lick the faucet.

"There's cocaine in my eyes!" Frankie moaned while crawling to the bed. Garret swiped at her scarves.

"I found him first." Pickles screeched. "Toben's mine!"

"Fucking who?" Merv's question was cut short when Pickles dropped all three of her weapons and dived. She landed between Merv's running blades, grabbed one, and sunk her teeth into the carbon fiber. Merv reeled towards the bathroom. "Get off, you little shit!"

Inkh slunk into the room as the others battled. The kitten looked around then proceeded to the dresser opposite the bed. She hopped up, ducking Frankie's vape pen as it sailed across the room. Then she stretched a little, and sniffed at Merv's car keys. The kitten used her paw to press one of the buttons on the fob.

Outside, Jestaphia paused grooming and, with her tongue stuck out, watched the lid of Merv's trunk raise up.

There was another crash from inside as Merv fell into the bathtub, taking the shower curtain with them. Hobbers gave a happy squeak and climbed atop his new friend. "That's right, Hobbers. Pin 'em down!" Pickles tittered victoriously before pelting Merv with a shampoo bottle. Then she scurried back into the main room. "Toben! Toben, where are you?"

Frankie got to her feet while abandoning her scarves and necklaces to Garret. She looked at the possum, then at Inkh. "Oh, hey there, kitty." Then she yelped when Pickles threw the coffee maker at her.

Pickles danced from foot to foot while Frankie collapsed on the bed. "Toben! Toben! Toben!"

There was a furious growl from behind her – a voice so deep it would make a Deaths Ten biker tremble. "Alright, you fluffy bitch!"

Pickles turned to see Merv emerging from the bathroom, bringing the shower pole with them. They held it like a spear, and did their best to ignore Hobbers. The ginger cat was brushing against Merv's running blades and demanding attention. "Tell me who the fuck you are, and what you want, or I'll mount your head on this god damn shower pole."

Pickles fetched up the frying pan with her tail. She held it to Frankie's throat. "I'm rescuing my friend. Pickles to the rescue."

Behind the possum, the chain tore free of the wall as the door swung wide. Night air assailed the weary warriors, and they turned to behold a newcomer. A robed skeleton was framed in the doorway, and behind him Merv's race car stood with its trunk wide open. There were also lights coming on in the other motel rooms.

"We're not allowed here," Toben told Pickles. As with the two humans, there was the sense that he had just awoken from sleep. But this particular nap sounded like it had lasted a few millennia.

The possum tossed the frying pan away, and in doing so knocked the flatscreen from the wall. The crash of the appliance was eclipsed by her delighted screech. "Toben! I rescued you!" Her white form vanished inside the skeleton's robe when she hugged him.

Toben patted her head, hesitantly. "You shouldn't do this."

Jestaphia brushed past their legs. The tuxedo cat observed the wreckage as if it had been personally prepared for her. Then she hopped up into the seat of Merv's wheelchair.

"Oh, phooey!" Pickles spat from under Toben's robe. "No one takes my friend away in their fancy carcass wagon. Don't care how nice the museum is."

"Excuse me!" Merv shouted. They were still holding the shower pole, although Hobbers was now gnawing on one end of it. "Who the fuck are you two?"

Frankie sat up, glanced at Jestaphia curling up in the wheelchair, then rubbed her head and groaned, "Some kinda undead and its familiar, I reckon. Didn't think they came out this far. At a motel, of all places."

Toben peered at Merv and Frankie, then was shoved towards them as Pickles ushered him into the room and closed the door. The skeleton shifted nervously, and murmured to the humans. "I was in your car."

Merv and Frankie looked at one another. "Wait, you're the fucking hitchhiker?"

"No," Toben replied.

"Uh-huh. Yes indeed," Frankie corrected him. "I bonged you."

Pickles checked the hinges on the door. "There now. All good. Perfectly good door. Still works."

"You were alive in the trunk all this time?" Merv yelled.

"No," Toben corrected. "I was quite dead."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"He was playing dead." Pickles flashed a smile over her shoulder while she fixed the door.

"I am quite dead," Toben repeated.

Inkh shifted her impatient glare between the speakers. Garret yowled from under the bed. Jestaphia purred. Hobbers continued chewing on the shower pole.

"Stop saying you're dead!" Merv shouted. "We didn't kill you." Their eyes widened with realization. "Holy shit! We didn't kill you."

"No," Toben confirmed, helpfully.

"Well I, for one, am greatly relieved," Frankie said while rising from the bed. "Now, I believe introductions are in order."

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Everyone looked at the door. Pickles was braced against it, halfway through her repairs. She returned everyone's stare. "Wasn't me, that time."

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The door shook again, and a voice sounded from the other side. "Mademoiselle Frank! You will tell me what is happening in there. Open this door - maintenant!"

Everyone froze. Merv dropped the shower pole and spread their hands, tracing imaginary strings to the possum, skeleton, and four cats that had invaded the room. "Alright. Everyone be fucking cool. I got this."

***​

The room's sole remaining lamp shed a pallid beam. It could not lighten the plastic skin of Morgan's face, revealed now in the crack of the doorway. Merv smiled at him while keeping one blade braced to the door. "Oh! Hey there, cutie."

The motel owner looked up and down at the band of visibility he was permitted. "Emery Irvine?"

"My friends call me Merv."

"And where is your friend now?"

Merv leaned against the wall, as casually as possible. "Oh, Frankie?" They glanced to the bed, where Frankie was violently rejecting Hobbers' advances. The ginger cat was trying to lick her face, while Jestaphia was trying to nap in the nearby wheelchair. Luckily, Garret was still hiding, and Inkh had gone into the bathroom. "Oh, she's fast asleep," Merv spoke over the sounds of the wrestling. "You know what it's like, when you finish the sativa and start on the indica." Merv laughed as if Morgan was laughing with her.

"There was noise," Morgan snapped, and rolled his Rs while adding. "Racket! My paying customers – they tell me there is a man, and a petit enfant – knocking at your door. Making trouble."

"A man and a small child?" Merv glanced to the blind spot behind the door. Toben was standing in the corner, as he had been told to do. Pickles was lying motionless on the floor in front of him, her eyes rolled back and her tongue hanging out. No one had told her to do that.

Merv laughed again then leaned closer to the motel owner, practically whispering through the gap in the doorway. "And you must know, Mr. Melqart, I don't take such things personally. Most people, you see, they're not used to me." They indicated their short hair. "I've been called a little boy more times than I can remember. And the changes in size, well…" They poked their other running blade through the door. "Sometimes I scare people, when I finally get these on and stand upright. They're used to me being at a certain level – you know?" They waved their hand near Morgan's crotch. "They want me down there, where they can control me. You know what that feels like?"

Morgan stared for so long that Merv almost broke down in tearful confession. But then the motel owner thrust one hand up, probing an index finger behind his glasses, into his reconstructed eye socket. "Police water cannon," he whispered back.

Merv wasn't sure what to say to that.

Morgan snapped the same finger in Merv's face, drawing their gaze away from his cheek. "Keep down your racket." He then jabbed the thumb over his shoulder. "And close your fucking car boot." He pivoted, buttoned his suit, and marched back to his office.

Merv opened the door a little, revealing smashed furniture as they called after him, "Sorry as shit, Mr. Melqart. Won't happen again." Then they slammed the door and put their back to it, trying not to hyperventilate.

Pickles abruptly stopped playing dead, and sat up. "Heh heh. Tricked him."

Merv frowned at the possum, then looked at the uncomfortable skeleton in the corner. "Alright. Time to talk."