Chapter 3
When it came time for Christie to come home most of water balloon water had gone but she had
kept a wet. She didn’t bother draining the water from her jacket with her magic because she
didn’t care much about the water on her. Her mother said in a shock voice “Dear lord, what
happened?” Christie explained “A robot threw a water balloon at me; also I met a guy named
Will.”
“Are you okay?” Her mother said in a worried state. “I’m alright; is the take-out nice?” Her mother kept concerned about her, but she answered her take-out question by commenting “It’s nice, not as good the Zen garden restaurant back when we lived in Tennessee but good!”
Her father nodded and said “Hey, I have this book of local mythology here, got it a few miles outta town and thought you might like it.” She looked at it, the title showed to be ‘Massachusetts mythos: A catalog of New England’s secrets’. She flipped to a page of it and found ‘The cult of Simon’; she proceeded to read the details on the myth:
‘During the early Puritan settlers in the New England, rumors spread of a cult in the colony of Massachusetts. Denied as the ramblings of a drunkard after the Salem witch trials, it became forgotten. Though a few rare reports said it was true.
People describe ‘Simon’ as something like an anteater that had the body of a man with his left arm disfigured. whether it had been born like that or not is a mystery that even those whose saw the cult’s altar can’t solve. The cult’s practices are mostly consisting of ritualistic dances that are performed by…’
At this point she put the book down. She continued eating her take-out but later that night after reading the rest of the myth which told that the ritual needed a ‘device’ aka a Neth’uegi’a to help do the ritual and that once ‘Simon’ was summoned he will go to wreak havoc on the galaxy if not stopped an unknown way she noticed her fear. Christie, for a moment, had a nightmare.
It wasn’t very clear and it seemed as though the place she was dreaming of had dim lighting. She soon could make out the forms of people dancing in a disorderly manner as if they were having seizures. A form of a bunny was on an altar of sorts and it looked frightened. It tried to run away but it had been tied down. The sound of a knife being sharpened brought her dream to the dancers again but she noticed this time they looked like they were controlled via puppet strings. The sound of chanting came into her dream as it showed the old woodcut of Simon. She didn’t think it was terrifying when she read about such things in the book but now it seemed more menacing. The chanting continued as the pictures switched quicker between the dancers and woodcut before she woke up with a gasp.
She looked about her room, turned on a nearby flashlight. She cursed herself for deciding to read the legend in the first place when she could’ve lived without reading the tale. She, after her panic, lay down in her sleeping bag, and went back to sleep.
When school came about Will and Christie were walking from the bus to their math class. Christie entered the school building; inside of it students were bustling about the halls. Gray clouds hung in the sky over the head of the red brick school house’s head.
The first class was math class. The teacher was a Martian that studied earth mathematics in college. He looked similar to that of a bipedal lizard in a sweater vest, with jeans, and thin rimmed glasses. After wiping off the 700th chalk drawn parody of him, he started the class. He said “Good day class, I’m Roger Martell, not Liz, Slips, or Professor Chameleon; I’m your mathematics teacher. We have a new student today. Her name is Christopher Amelia Spears” Christie introduce herself to the class, she did. “Hello everyone, my name is Christopher, but if you want to you can call me Christie. I like wizards, the paranormal, and magic.” She announced to the class. One student asked “Can you do magic?” Christie said in a clear voice “Yes, I am a witch after all.”
“So, you’re one of those pixie people?” remarked an Axitillian teenaged female. “Not a pixie, a witch.” Christie corrected sternly. The squid-like Axitillian female gasped and snapped “Do you even know who I am? I’m Beatrice Anna Bones, cheerleader and daughter of a famous businessman. I’m upper class and rich as…” Dr. Martell scolded “Miss Bones, we all appreciate your father achievements but this classroom is not a trash talk arena. So please sit.” Beatrice reluctantly obeyed. She whispered to Christie as she made her way to her desk “Loser.” Christie whispered back “Pri-.” “Now,” Dr. Martell said, interrupting Chris, “Let’s review some things you all learned in grade 8, shall we?” Everyone got out their notebooks and flipped them to an empty page and began to write anything they thought would be important.
Later at lunch Will told himself to sit down with Christie to verbally guide her through the school hierarchy. He said at the cafeteria’s line “You’re lucky, most of the time she would end up crushing your soul into many-.” The cafeteria lady asked if he wanted any chicken surprise, he answered “No, thanks.” Christie asked, looking confused, “Chicken surprise, what’s that?” “It is good for ya.” The lunch lady, named Ms. Gillman said. Will said “Chicken surprise is the vilest thing in existence; it’s made of chicken, mayo, and some mystery ingredients.” Ms .Gillman felt hurt and slightly annoyed at Will’s opinion on it. She said “Oh come on, it’s just some Chicken in a broth, though you’re right about the mayo. Come eat it, you’ll be stronger afterwards!” She then plopped a huge ladle full on Will’s plate and added “And I want you to eat all of it!” Christie said to herself “Well, the insectivore menu isn’t as bad, I mean she probably doesn’t have any idea of how to prepare them so she probably lets them live in a container.” Ms. Gillman, in an unpleasant twist, did have the intellect on how to prepare them for cooking, but not how to cook them in a delicious way. What was put on Christie’s plate was unappetizing dish that the lunch lady called her take on ‘Poor man’s tarantula-fry’. The dish was a tarantula but it hadn’t been done right. It appeared burnt, the herbs it marinated in might a have just lost their good flavor and became bitter. The tarantula’s meat inside was rather, unlike its normal characteristics, chewy and bland. Christie wondered if Ms. Gillman even cared how it turned out. Chris thought that maybe she just did a bad job and just kept repeating the phrase ‘it is good for ya’ to excuse her terrible cooking.
Chapter 4
Will wanted to forget about the Chicken surprise he had to eat. He said “Since you’re new here I should probably tell how things work here. We’re probably among the freaks and geek, hope that it’s always been that way for you. ‘Cause if it hasn’t you’re gonna have a bad time in high school. Beatrice and her clique as you’ve notice are the popular girls, and josh and his posses are the popular boys.”
“And over there,” He said pointing to a robot teen getting beat up by three humans “Is the classic bully/victim relationship.” Christie said “And we aren’t going to help them?” Will responded “I was thinking of going to the principle, but I worry Ms. Gillman might strap me down here till I finish this.” “Well I’m gonna see if I can break this up, okay?” Christie said before going towards the bullies. “Hey give it up!” Christie said. ‘Chud’ said “Huh, watcha gonna do, wicked witch of the lame?” Christie retorted “Oh, this.” She then did a swift slap with water by reciting “Aquis circumfluus”. Unfortunately as you expected, her slap led to the weighty ‘Chud’ punching and soon it devolved into an all-out fight.
Bruises had been made. Teeth had damaged, but soon the principle came in. Ms. Strickland came and pointed at the people in the fight and shouted “Break it up, you four!” The members of the fight got up and turned towards the principal’s light brown eyes. “I’ll see you four in detention.” She said with her hands touching her wide hips of her plus-sized figure. ‘Chud’ started to sit down moodily at his and his friend’s lunch table, Ms. Strickland added “You too, Georgie.” At this his friends laughed.
After school Christie and Will walked down the sidewalk to their houses. This was due to their houses being rather close by. “You shouldn’t have fought him. The principle’s ‘Chud’ mom so you could’ve told her what was happening.” Will critiqued. Christie said “Do you think I like the fact I got detention? No, my mom said clearly ‘no more me getting trouble’ and here I am after... I got… Detention!” She threw her hands up in the air at the last part and then let them flop down along with the rest of her body and groaned.
William noticed the robot teen from lunch along with three others were coming towards them. The robot from earlier whispered to one female sounding one something about Christie and ‘Chud’. Occasionally could be heard “Well, I’m grateful she helped you…” or “Yes, the very same!” & such things like that. Soon the female one turned to Christie and said in a German accent “Hello, I’m Agatha, a friend of Bruce, he told me about how you fought ‘Chud’ or ‘Georgie’.” Christie said “Hey, I’m Christie and you don’t have to do this. I mean, I got sent to detention.”
Another robot named Jake said “Whoa, whoa, we owe our lives to you because of you fighting them, even though you coulda just made them stop but okay as far as defending us.”
Randy, another robot, boasted “I coulda beat ‘em but I…wasn’t there to see, I was in…the bathroom, yeah.” Bruce came in and said “Well anyways the point is most of us are happy about you standing up to ‘Chud’ and would like to hang out with you guys sometime.” Christie thought for a bit and said “Well… sure, you guys just made this a fairly good day. Now how to explain getting detention…”
Of course her parents became distraught at her detention. Her mother said “What did I say about getting in trouble?” “I know,” answered Christie “but there was this nasty-looking guy named ‘Chud’, his real name’s Georgie by the way. He was beating up this robot kid and I had to do something!” Her father suggested “Then you go to the principle, that’s the sensible thing to do!” Her mother agreed with him.
“Well I didn’t know the principle was Georgie’s mom!” Her parents stopped the serious conversation for a bit to engage in a casual talk about Georgie being the son of the principle but soon came back on topic. Her mother scolded “You’d better clean up your act, honey. Remember, colleges don’t like juvenile delinquents.”
Chapter 5
The room where detention had been held was a dreary gray room with a window overlooking the dumpsters. The room was fairly old and most of the paint had been chipping of the walls and the floor had been coming undone with it. Most of the desks were in equal disrepair; in fact everything was in need of something new in that room. Even the sign on the door that said detention needed to be replaced. That Tuesday was only made worse Due to the rainy weather outside. Christie knew she was in there for a reason but she couldn’t believe she had to spend that horrid Tuesday there.
She was staring at the ceiling sighing and “thinking about what she had done.” The latter was completely inaccurate though. For she had been instead imagining herself further into her boredom by imagining what she’d be doing if she hadn’t gotten detention. One had been going to the library; the second was to take photos in the park. She would have gone on to imagine more things but soon Randy interrupted her mindscape.
Randy tugged on her ponytail for a while by then but only then had she realized he had been doing it at all. She looked over at him, wondering what he could’ve wanted. Randy whispered to her “Hey, how’s it going?” She asked him “What did you do?” Randy answered “I tried to prank Coach Larson.” Christie noticed Jake and asked “Well, what did he do?” Randy answered “One of ‘Chud’s’ cronies framed for pulling a fire alarm.” Guidance counselor Mr. Swanson hushed them and went back to his magazine.
Christie was supposed to be writing 12 times “I will not get into a fight again.” But she figured she could do it near the end of detention or close to it. ‘Chud’ eyed Christie with contempt. Christie turned to him and asked “What’s your problem?” ‘Chud’ stayed silent for a long time, but eventually said “You got a lotta nerve, new girl.” “You know, I used to think the principle’s kids would be goody-two-shoes or at least snobs but you’ve proved me wrong.” “Oh really?” “Yeah, you’ve shown some can act like crap.” Mr. Swanson hushed them again and said “Don’t you all have something to write?”
They all caved in and start writing their assigned phrases the recommended amount of times. Christie thought it a bit unfair. She did what she imagined was justice and the counselor treated her as though she were like ‘Chud’. She admitted she could’ve avoided slapping him with her aquamancy, but she reasoned she had to demonstrate what she can do at minimum levels of violence. Besides, she figured, it was partially his fault for asking what she might do if he didn’t cooperate. Her mind told her actions reflected police work.
Christie got to the 6 repetition and looked at the clock, the time became 11: 04 AM but it felt like a century had passed. Bored Christie accepted the fact that even after she finished the 12 repetitions she can’t be released from the monochrome misery bog till 12: 00 PM. Last Sunday she planned to wake up early on Tuesday and try to get to the pastry shop that served donutsicles before the lines started forming. By now there developed a line reaching from the shop to the eastern side of town in her opinion. Randy wanted to play at the arcade. Jake wanted to watch an eco-documentary, but Randy and Jake sat in Detention.
At 11: 30, they ate lunch. Mr. Swanson brought it; he had taken the precaution of lock the door after he left the room. This left the perfect opportunity for everyone in the room to tell each other their real opinions. ‘Chud’ immediately took advantage of this to tell Chris that she got off lucky. “‘Cause if my mom didn’t come…” He made a cutting motion across his neck and made a gagging sound afterwards. She wanted to say he didn’t have the guts, but Jake restrained her from saying anything as a follow-up.
“How is it you guys put up with this?” Christopher asked Randy and Jake. Jake said “I try to mellow out and just let whatever they say about me roll off me like glue off of rubber.” Randy said sneakily “Don’t tell him I said this, but I plan to someday show him up.” “How?” asked Christie. Randy said “Well I figure I’m gonna do butter the floors of the hall where science 612 is. Why is because him and his patrol go there every day and it’s the first one they patrol. They usually just go straight down the middle of that hall so that’s where I’m gonna put the butter.” “Is there anything specific they’re gonna slide into?” “Well I’ll rig it up to make them slide into that hall’s girls’ bathroom now that you mention it.”
Mr. Swanson cleared his throat; he had come back with lunch from the lunch hall for ‘Chud’ and his gang. Christie’s mom made her some small tacos and included some taco well sauce. Randy and Jake just drank some oil.
Christopher remembered her English project and, as soon as she became able to, reached for her English notebook. The project had been about local myths and it was due Monday of next week. She wanted to write a bit more in it but she hadn’t been allowed to write it in detention. She stared at the page regretting the fact that the page had so little on it. The page mocked her with its large, blank space.
Mr. Swanson left to answer an important phone call and told them not speak a word or he’ll give them another day of detention. This almost immediately became null and void though since everyone started whispering to each other. Randy joked “If he really wanted to punish us, he should’ve made us write a paper on who we think we are.” Christie giggled and said “I can’t imagine he’s making us repeat a sentence instead letting us write our school papers.” Jake said “Yeah.”
“So what are you writing about?” Randy inquired. “An English paper, it’s about local mythical creatures.” Jake said “Maybe we can help you with it.” “Really?” Christie asked. Randy nodded as best he could and said “Of course, after all you’re kinda new here and you don’t know the local legends well.” Jake added “Plus it will be our way of repaying you for beating Chud.” “Cool, meet you in the park tomorrow.” Christie said. She added she’d bring Will and they would’ve shared more but soon Mr. Swanson came back in the room.

Chapter 6
A few days afterwards, the robots, Will, and Christopher walked about the park as Christie tried to get some material for one of her English class project. “So, the cult of Simon…this is gonna be better than a generic local ghost story.” She said contemplating most of the other in her English class had been doing for their projects, one kid had written about local hoaxes. Another child wrote a repot on the ‘demon-snake’ legends. Some other kid did ghosts of WWIII victims, and another had been doing a video about miner ghosts. She then started her interview “So, Will, when did you first learn this legend?” Will said incredulously “I listened to it from some old ladies outside of a gas station; one of them claimed that one of their neighbors was a member of the cult but I theorize they’re crazy.”
Christie asked the same question to the others, Randy replied he learned about it from a former classmate, Agatha said she caught wind of it from the same classmate, Jake said his parents told him about it, and Bruce said he got it in a tabloid. She asked “Do any of you believe in it, and are any of you scared of the legend?” Agatha said “Maybe it is true. I’d say I am a bit scared.” Bruce answered similarly, Randy said “I believe in it a little bit, but I could take those cultists and their ‘god’ easy.” Jake answered “The legend is true, and I’m sure they’re a misunderstood group.” Will said, as a self-proclaimed man of science, “I don’t believe in the legend no matter how frightening that story is.”
Randy responded “But what about water balloons?” Randy snickered. William realized Randy had been the one who dumped the water balloon on him and Christie. He said “Why you little-.” He then prepared for fisticuffs but Bruce stopped the fight by distancing him and Randy and telling them “Calm down, there’s already been a fight last week, so let’s not repeat history.” They both said “Fine.” But they shot a quick glare at each other.
Agatha remembered a fact she learned and told Christie “You know, it is convenient we came here, because it’s rumored zhis is the park some cultists are supposed to show up in.” Christie sensed a chill come over her body, but it wasn’t because of the weather, since she had a jacket on, but from her own fear. She wondered whether it was wise to research ‘The cult of Simon’, what if it turns out to be all too real? What if it meant death to walk through this park, which a few days ago she visited on her first day without a care in the world?
When Christie was coming home via one of the shuttle buses the radio/inter com system had a news reporter talking about a planetary alignment of mars, mercury and Pluto that was going to happen that week. On Ikipedia it said that in legend ‘Simon’ was to be summoned by his cult to wreck havoc in the world when that planetary alignment took place, Christie was a bit disturbed, but brushed it off as a coincidence. Her phone’s text alert went off, she picked it up and it turned out to be one of her old pen-pals ‘Happydays74’. Happydays74 had typed “Hey grimoirehoarder13, long time no see.” Christie typed back “Wow, nice to hear from you, sorry about not calling or texting you in a while I’ve just been having a turbulent time lately. So why’d you text me, you got a girl’s night out or something?”
“Well,” typed Happydays74 “It’s just that, not saying I can get vision from my dreams, but ever since those planets you probably heard were about were entering alignment I’ve been having these weird a-word dreams, for example just the words ‘He’s coming’ in different places or a dream about ants.” Christie remembered she did have a few dreams like that for the past and typed “Yeah I’ve had dreams like that lately too.” Happydays74 responded in text “I’ve also noticed these pale guys with hoods wandering around town, mostly the parks though.” Christie typed back, full of intrigue, “I kinda noticed more of guys who looked like that wandering about Weskerville.”
“So you moved there, cool! But back on topic, mom’s complained about the weird noises from the parks around where we live.” Happydays74 typed quickly. Christie felt regret of getting back to such a creepy topic, but in test she replied “I haven’t experienced that yet even though my new house is near a park.” Happydays74 texted “Well whatever it is, it should blow over soon, anyways bye, I gotta help my mom with breakfast.” Christie was grateful the topic was closed, she typed “Dinner probably ready where I am, bye.”
Once she put down her phone she remembered even though she saw the hooded figures practically everywhere in town, the local news didn’t talk about it at all. “Why was that?” she wondered, it was a plain as the nose on her face but it seemed the news didn’t care at all what this could mean. They seemed mostly concerned with how schools still have a bullying problem, the upcoming fall dance, and other things that may or may have not been important that were happening in town.
But then again, a potential would probably be bad for tourism and community moral, not to mention it could just be nothing or a goth/emo convention in town that was reported earlier in the local news in an issue Christie didn’t read.
But then there was the fact that her pen-pal also saw the hooded men, so there was the potential for it to turn out to be an international phenomenon, maybe it was the cult of ‘Simon’.
Chapter 7
Once she got home and finished dinner she went onto her holo-screen computer and searched ‘hooded figure sightings of 2051.’ In the results were pictures of hooded figures in different towns all across the known universe.
Now, by hooded, Christie and happydays74 didn’t mean medieval monk robes, no, that would be too obvious what they were. What they meant was people with gaunt faces and makeshift cloaks made out of old thrown out and worn bed sheets tied to their anorexic looking figures with old stained rope. If anything they looked like hobos, but their behavior across the world was described as more of like a middle-class antisocial person, they drifted about the park with hardcover books with the cover picture blacked out, and they called other people roaches.
Upon seeing these same garbage cloaked people appear in all of the known planets she came with a solution for her fear and curiosity, she was going into the park tomorrow night to find out if there was a cult in town and maybe the known worlds.
She started working on her perfected report on the cult of ‘Simon’ when some of her friends contacted her on her computer’s IM app, when she answered it she found that the one’s talking to her were Agatha, Jake, Randy, and Bruce.
Technomeister typed “Hello there, it’s me, Agatha, so how’s your report going?” “Did Will tell you my username? Also my report’s going well as far as I see, though I should probably interview a few more people.” Christie typed back. Naturesoul typed “Yo, Jake here; yeah Will did tell us about your username, grimoirehoarder13.”
“Bruce here and-ugh, brb, there’s a slimy spot were my dog licked on holo-computer console.” Einsteinjr typed. Captainoguard typed “Bruce, you’re such a sissy.” Bruce typed “Randy, please, it’s not good to call someone a sissy.” “You sound like a guidance counselor.” Randy typed back. Jake typed “I think sounding like a guidance counselor isn’t such a bad thing, maybe he could become one when he grows up.” Randy typed “Yeah… totally a useful profession.” “It helps people why wouldn’t anyone like to be that?” “Well some people actually have big dreams of what career they want!”
“Oh come on, guidance counseling is like when I help you make it through the times when a circus is in town, you know, because of the clowns.” Jake typed. Randy typed quickly “It’s not because of the clowns, it because I don’t trust the elephants and it’s not called fear, it’s called suspicion.” “But you were all jittery during Stephen King’s IT, remember?” Jake typed. “I THOUGHT WE AGREED NOT TO TALK ABOUT THAT!” Randy typed quickly in response.
“I’m back.” Typed Bruce. “Oh good,” Agatha typed “Now about our last movie night guys, could we not watch night of the killer leeches again, it’s bad enough being scared of leeches in real life but a movie?” Christie typed “You’re a robot, leeches won’t harm you.” “Yeah but they’re still scary, I mean their teeth and how they move, it’s just… ew.” “Oh, well don’t worry Agatha; I’m afraid of any uncooked spider I lay my eyes on, so you’re in good company.” Christie typed. “Thank you.” Agatha typed. This conversation went on for a while until Christie went back to her project.
Chapter 8
The very next day, after school, Christie and her friends her going to the library to make some book reports on a few classics they had been reading. That and to return those said books to the library. Christie did one on David Copperfield and her study buddy Agatha did one on the secret garden, Randy did one on Goodbye Mr. Chips and Jake was doing his on the 2030 classic ‘The day Ms. Higgins froze in her footsteps’, and Will and Bruce were doing one on the autobiographical novel ‘The Viktrillian invasion: The story of Texas, one sci-fi story that almost never ended.’
Christie said to Agatha “I need to talk to you about something when we get into the study booth, it’s important.” Agatha said curiously “Um…okay I guess, wat do you want to talk about in zhere?” “You’ll find out when we get there.” Christie said as though she was going to talk about enemy classified information in the cold war era.
Once in the soundproof study booth Christie told Agatha about what she intended to do. Which, basically, was to tell their parents they were going to see a movie that was about an hour long and they’d be on their ways to their homes soon then after that they’d wait till darkness fell and sneak into the city park near the rumored ‘Cult site’ to see if it was the local cult home base. “What, no, no, we are not doing zhis, no!” Agatha said with a great feeling of opposition in her computer-generated voice. Christie explained “It’s not so we can end up in a slasher horror movie, this is strictly investigation, and I mean nobody else is investigating the cult’s existence.” “Zhat’s not why I’m opposing it, I mean, for example, New York has hobos, serial killers, and ra-well you get what I mean, it almost like our city park’s situation.” Agatha tried to reason. Christie argued “I’m not stupid, I took a karate class when I was younger up until I got a blue belt, besides I’ll make sure that we’re careful.” Agatha’s said cynically “Are you really sure you can do zhat?” “Yes I’m sure, Ag,” Chris said as she leaned near Agatha “Please trust me.” Agatha’s curiosity about what rebellion felt like got the better of her and finally approved it.
The first part of the plan went into action and soon they went off into the park with their pocket flashlight. Will said “This is nuts, I don’t wanna end up on a milk carton.” Agatha retorted “Well you tell her.” Christie said “Come on you guys, I think I can hear chanting.” Randy was in calculation mode. “Dude, what are you calculating?” Jake said, looking at his screen. “Oh, just the chances of us dying and everyone non-organic being repurposed and sold on the black market, my calculations say that there’s a big chance we robots will be turned into holo-computers and our unused parts will be sold as replacement parts.” Randy’s words seemed fearless but his body looked like it was shuddering.
Even as most of them disapproved of this trek’s usefulness the rest of team eventually heard the chanting like Christie did. It grew louder and clearer as they drew closer towards the source of the noise, the chanting was varied in tone and it didn’t sound like any known coherent language at all, it just sounded like random rhythmic noises shouted into the night.
The team hid behind a big lilac bush close to the sound’s origin place. There were people that danced like in Christie dream on her first night in Weskerville, and the picture slab of their idol looked just like the woodcut of ‘Simon’, but it was bigger and looked more menacing in the light of the giant bonfire the people were dancing about. And more importantly, they looked like the hooded figures around town and in the pictures. Christie was felt the chill she got from learning that the forest was the supposed home of the cultist, only this time it felt stronger, as if she was in a blizzard in a swimsuit. She felt almost frozen; her eyes were locked on the scene and she felt like she was having an out of body experience. Will tried to drag her down behind the bush, but Christie’s silent fright won and soon the cult members saw her. “Ah, our ‘device’…take her to the tablet.” The one that appeared to be the cult leader said.

Chapter 9
The cultist lackeys grabbed Christie as soon as she regained consciousness and started to try and fight them off, alas it was all in vain for they tied her arms together behind her back with flax rope and was thrown in front of the stone slab as some minions held her legs down.
Now her friends on the moment the cultist toadies laid their hands on Christie, but they were forced by some other cult flunkies with free hands to stay at the sidelines due to the cult flunkies holding them back. “What are you doing?!” An angry Will said. One cultist explained whilst sounding annoyed “We are summoning ‘Simon’, the one who’s real name must never be known, you heretic imbecile!” “Well why not it do to yourselves, you…guys!” Will said, angry as ever. “Because,” saith the cult master “We reject the use of magic unless absolutely necessary, magic is our master’s job, not ours.”
The cult master then said to Christie condescendingly “Now, witch, read the sacred text.” Christie saw there were some words in a language she never heard of before and a translation text in Latin. Since she wanted to be free of her shackles and general entrapments she asked the cult master “If I do, will you let me go?” The cult master nodded but, little did she know, he had his fingers crossed behind his back. So, not know he intended to have his ‘master’ carry out the betrayal on her and her friends, she recited as such: “O magnum Mellita, Venit hora vestra, egrediuntur in terram, et docebit nos vias gaudere novis, collegarum quoque tuum veniet, Sit inventum terrae…”
She then started speak what sounded like the language the cultists were singing earlier, she seemed that her body was trying to levitate and she looked very much in pain. “Yes, yes, it’s starting!” The cult leader said eagerly.
Her friends merely looked on in horror as she was surrounded by a malefic purple light. The cult members that were holding her let go and let her float upwards when suddenly the light that surrounded her turn into a ray that shot into the sky. After the ray, Christie gently came down, but they weren’t going to go away peacefully. For cult master told his brown-nosers to block any possible exit.
Fortunately, the crew got out of that place quickly but at the same time they were being chased by cultists. Christie was held in Will’s arms due to her being drained of power from performing the cult ritual.
“Come on come on, wake up!” Will exclaim in a panicked fashion; suddenly a roar came in the distance. Will, Randy, and Agatha got tackled by some cultists who kept saying things such as “You must observe him!” or “Foolish children!” or “You can never leave!” Will kicked at the ones holding his leg, Randy turned on his navigational wheels, and Agatha tried to temporally blind them with her flashlight.
But in the end Christie’s parents along with Will’s grandma saved the day by pulling up to the ever so close parking lot with their headlights on. This scared the cultists and ‘caused them to scatter. Christie’s mom came forward and said “I can’t believe you all would lie to us like that, we’ve been looking for you all everywhere!” “Oh thank you, miss!” thus saith Randy. “Thank you, auburn haired goddess of forgiveness!” Jake said jocosely. Christie’s mom then noticed that her daughter was stone cold asleep in Will’s arms. She gasped and asked fearfully “What happened to Chris?” Will answered “Those guys that were there, t-they made her do something, and they tried to make us stay, b-but we ran before they could corner us and-.” “Well sound like they could’ve been-, nevermind we’ll just take her up and ask questions later,” Christie father said concernedly “Let’s go, Amanda.” Will’s grandmother came up and tugged good and hard on Will’s ear and said “You and your friends are coming with me, I’ll drop you all off at your worried parents houses!”
Her Harvard accented, aged voice was practically authority as the rest of Christie’s friend piled into Will’s grandma’s 2030’s hover-car.
Once Christie got home she was carried was to her bed by her mother. “Wow, she’s heavier than I thought, David.” Amanda said, trying to keep the mood light. David was still a bit upset with worry though. After a long time of silence with him moving his hand through his blond hair he looked upon Christie and said “God only knows what happened to her, poor girl.” “We’ll ask her what happened when she’s rested, honey.” Amanda consoled him. “Goodnight.” They both said to Christie before heading off to bed themselves. The family cat, a gray, female Persian called Nibbles, came onto Christie’s bed and starting pawing at her face a bit before lying down at the end of her bed with an expectant looking look on her feline face.
Chapter 10
After the crew got a stern talking to by their parents, the crew decided to see if anyone in town would believe them, a group consensus showed that they should probably call either the police or the local news first. Randy won the deciding rock, paper, scissors match so he dialed the news on the holo-phone “Hello, Chad Baker?” Randy said confidently. “Present, whatever it is make it snappy, I got a schedule to keep.” Chad said in classic businessman fashion. Randy explained “Yeah, my friends and I encountered some of the fabled cult of ‘Simon’ and-.”
Chad interrupted “Yeah I’m not bothering with this crap.” “Why not?” Randy said. “Because everyone knows ‘the cult of Simon’ is just some old Puritan paranoia, now don’t call me again, I’ve got more important stories to cover.” Chad said. Christie was just about to ask what he defined as more important stories but he hung up before she could say it.
Then Will and Agatha tried to contact the police to see if they could arrest the cult members. “Hello, Weskerville police how may we help you?” A policewoman said. “Hello, last night we encountered-.” Will said to the female officer.
The police woman then looked in the direction of Randy, immediately looked annoyed and said “Oh no, you’re not fooling us this time.” She then hang up, Will looked at Randy and asked “You like prank calls don’t you?” Randy shrugged and said shyly “I thought it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the shiny, red, ass.” Agatha chided “It would be better if you didn’t prank them so much.”
Christie then said “Well we still got a way to tell what we saw, after all the local supernatural hotline is going to probably believe it, plus their phone number is practically known by everyone.” She dialed the number and said it out loud “555-413-UKWN, I practically hear it every night after bedtime. “Yes, but I’m sure no one sane is gonna believe it.” said Will. “Hello, this Clark Jones, seer into the abnormal, the show is currently not on the air but I’ll listen to whatever it is you want to report.” A Texan voice said dramatically. Christie said plainly “We would like to report a cult of ‘Simon’ sighting.”
Clark was overjoyed and said “Oh, really?” Christie nodded. Clark continued “Wow, oh this will be great I can just imagine the schmucks who are gonna-!” Christie hung up immediately with a look of disillusionment and hopelessness. She quietly slumped down onto her bed.
Will said to her “Don’t worry, probably our encounter was just a bunch of weirdoes acting out their delusions and the roar was just a truck or train.” “It sounded like it came from monster, not a train or truck.” Christie said feeling spited. Christie then said “If anything I’m gonna keep my guard up. “If it makes you feel any better we could too.” Jake said comfortingly. Christie said skeptically “I don’t think Will would go for it.” “Right!” Will said, confirming her unconvinced view on his ability to believe. Bruce said in compromise “Well, will give your believe the benefit of the doubt, Christie.”
If they saw what happened after they ran off though, there, in all likelihood, wouldn’t be any doubt about if the cultists were sure about what they meant. For, you see, it turned out ‘Simon’ was real; he appeared right were the now extinguished bonfire was with his eyes closed. He then opened them, looked about him and pensively asked “Who summons me?” The cult master said most beholden “That is us, our master, o, what a holy feeling it is to see you!” Another said “O what luck we have, o, seraphic leader of our minds and hearts!”
‘Simon’ felt flattered by this praise, though he did see himself a bit lower in position; he saw his goal to be the most impressive undertaking. His plan will be told later, but for now one may enjoy the mystery.
He basked in the massaging for a while, but soon snapped back to reality and got back to subject and said “If this is so, I have finally been summoned to convert life to that beyond current comprehension.” “Oh please, Sir, change us first, we have been waiting for this day for so long!” A cultist said, follow by the rest saying “Yes, please.” And “O change me first, great one!” and “No me!” ‘Simon’ was overwhelmed with cajoling cult members but soon, remembering the plan, said “Please, the time for that is not now, now we must reduce all opposing life to its knees. Right now we must work to reduce their technology to worthlessness. They have built huge structures like the one we are standing on because of their fear about change in their bodies. We must burn their inventions, smash their energy sources, and, generally, destroy their fear-fueled titans, for it will not be proper to have them till they are ready!” The cultist cheered loudly.
Chapter 11
Soon, ‘Simon’ created lodging for himself in one of the big sewer pipes under Weskerville; it was protected by a password only he and his cultists were able to speak. One outside the cult cannot pronounce it, but the word meant ‘eternity’. This lodging seemed less of a house and more of a dimensional plane of nearly empty whiteness. There were, however, some off-white figures denoting furniture in the place.
‘Simon’ was explaining his plan whilst sitting on an off-white figure that was shaped like a couch. “The plan I have to sabotage the progress of current life, at this moment, is for some of you to blend in with the beings here. You all must assume menial roles, this is imperative; anywhere else could mean our plan getting discovered, you will remember this?” He said, looking at the cultists. One cultist, Alfred, said “O sir, you know we would follow you to the ends of the earth!”
A few days later this part of the plan went into action, Alfred got a job at a Rhonda car dealership. He was in the position of accounting, counting costs, calculating the best prices, comparing rival dealerships prices, and such other things a company accountant has to do. It wasn’t very exciting, but one day he decided to talk to a car salesman named David. His hair was blond, his eyes were green, his Caucasian skin had freckles abound, and his face had a big nose. He was wearing chinos and a deep blue sweater vest over a powder blue dress short-sleeve shirt and with it an orange tie. Alfred came over and said “Hello, sir, my name is Alfred; I can see your name tag says your David.” “Good eye, Alfred!” David said gleefully and then added “How are ya?” “O I’m alright I guess, how long have you lived here?” Alfred said, full of boredom. “Well, Al, can I call you Al?” Alfred nodded, which made David add “Good! I moved here a few days ago with my wife Amanda and my daughter Christie” He then showed a picture of him and a blue-grey, auburn haired, tall, black eyed, curvy woman in a pink checkered blouse and light blue jeans. Next to her was a short, blue gray, big-nosed, freckled teen girl with her carrot hair in a ponytail held with a black scrunchie bearing a plastic cartoon skull on it, a black and white striped t-shirt, and dark blue jeans.
Alfred recognized Christie instantly, he looked at the calendar and saw take your daughters/sons to work day was very soon, Alfred smirked venomously at the calendar and then said in the disguise of friendliness “So are you going to bring Christie to work?” “Why yes I am, she loves visiting my workplace.” Said David. Alfred said in faux innocence “O I would love to see her, I’m single, lonely, and childless after all, plus she seems nice.”
David said tenderly “That’s a great idea, and if I need to tend to a lot of customers you could watch her, I can trust you with that, right?” David looked a bit concerned, he didn’t want to look like a fool and have his daughter kidnapped or worse after all. Alfred successfully faked a comforting smile and said “Yes, you quite surely can.”
Later when Alfred went to ‘Simon’, he told him all about what he found out from that talk and his future plan to make Christie one of the first victims. “Ah, yes, good work Alfred, this David has asininely revealed the ‘device’ that summoned me, and she may have, from what you, my followers, have told me, gotten away a few nights ago. On the parent-child work day she won’t be so luck, I swear on that!” Simon announced, liking how, seemingly, smooth everything was going. “O Yes, only the very best for you, illustrious one.” Alfred said.
Simon went over to what appeared to be a screen that a showed downtown Weskerville and he whispered “You may have gotten away for now, but soon, very soon, Christie, you will be brought to your knees.”
Christie awoke on Friday the 13th at 5:00 am in order to join her father when it was time to get breakfast and go to his workplace. After getting dressed she went downstairs, greatly disliking to creaking noises that those stairs made at her every step, the pinewood stairs seemed to be getting too old to be walked on yet miraculously they hadn’t caved in yet, in Christie’s personal opinion she wished the stairs would give in and get it over with. She came down the hall to her father in the dining room eating some scrambled eggs and bacon, “Hi dad!” She said confidently. “Hello my little tulip!” David said jokingly. “You don’t have to call me that, I’m a nearly a full grown woman.” Christie said whilst re-dirtying the cast iron pan the cooking spray in order to make her own scrambled cricket eggs. David said, still smiling from his excitement, “I know, but remember you aren’t a full-grown woman yet, you, and many others your age range, still have a lot of growing to do.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Christie admitted with a friendly smirk. As Christie sat down and got down and retrieved a small locust cake. “I remember when I could carry you on my shoulders through my office, you were so small back then, now looked at you, you might as well be old enough to drive a car!” Dave said, reminiscently. Christie giggled and said “Yeah, it looked so high from up there. I hope you new office is just as good as the one back then.” “It will be, and I got a new office friend so there’s an attraction probably better than splash hill.” Quoth David.
Chapter 11
When they got out of the old blue Superbu ‘Potter’ hover car, they were greeted by the shiny, metal and glass structure of the Rhonda dealership. The inside was equally modern looking; The showroom of the building was a fantastic naturally lit through the large windows, the inside was mostly colored light earth tone, pictures and videos of Rhonda cars covered the holo-screens, and on the floor in coffee brown paint was the Rhonda symbol with the brand name under it. The paintings in the office were mostly abstract or just plain “Modern” and the cubicle walls were a warm honey color, and there was a skylight in the room Mr. Spears worked in. The water cooler looked more like an aquarium on black pedestal that blue and red button on it, and there were decorative ferns graced most of the office space.
At the point they got to the office it was time for David to introduce Christie to Alfred, her father described him as a clean shaven gentleman growing out his formerly shaved Brunet hair and that he mostly wore purple colored vests contrasted by white dress shirts. The decoration of his cubicle, as Christie noticed it to look like, wasn’t very splendorous, it just seemed to be mostly the necessities besides a Zen garden with a strange pattern in it.
Alfred had just come back from the water cooler with David, who said cheerfully “Here’s the man of the hour himself, say hello to Alfred, Christie!” Christie felt something wasn’t entirely good about Alfred but she couldn’t think of why, she said hesitantly “Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you too, I’ve been waiting for you, dear.” Alfred said whilst smiling, Christie was sure she should be happy he was smiling but it seemed as if he was smiling wryly instead of out of a mere sense of friendliness. David then announced “Well, there are a lot of people down in the showroom right now so I think I can leave you to in a peaceful conscience.” Before he could make a step Christie asked unsurely “Are you really positive about that dad?” David responded “Don’t worry, I told him what you like for lunch and most importantly I can trust him to take good care of you. And besides, he says he loves kids and wouldn’t even think of harming one, okay?” “Okay.” She said, still a smidge worried about her well being. As soon as he left, Alfred looked around the room and finally said “How’s about, when lunch comes we go to a restaurant?” Christie nodded with a troubled look on her face. “Good.” He said in a satisfied tone.
Later at lunchtime, David, Christie, and Al went to Tonghorn steakhouse, Christie still could shake the feeling she should be avoiding Alfred and also the feeling that she saw him before somewhere, but she still couldn’t understand why. He appeared to be a good guy; why else would her father trust him? But he looked at Christie like he was a mountain lion about to pounce on its prey, coming for the kill when she least expected it, mouth ready to bite down on its future victim, claws ready to tear flesh. Eating her cockroach sirloin was extremely difficult under these conditions; in fact, David thought something was wrong with the food for a while. “Something the matter, honey, you barely touched your food.” Christie noticed this and said nervously “Oh I guess I’m still a bit full from breakfast.” “That’s funny,” Saith Alfred “Your father told me you’re normally starving at this time of day.” “Well breakfast was filling today.” She said, trying to excuse her nigh untouched cockroach steak. “You had scramble grasshopper eggs and a locust cake, if that filled you up we’d spend a lot less on groceries.” David said and added “It’s alright if you can’t finish it now, we can always get a to-go box.” “Oh a to-go box, yeah, yeah that’d be nice!” Christie said, shifting her eyes quickly from her father to Alfred in a paranoid fashion. David nodded in a concerned use while Alfred nodded quite eagerly.

Chapter 12
After lunch Alfred decided to take Christie through the ‘scenic route’ back to the dealership, Al’s reason for this was both the ‘scenic route’ and the normal route were a reasonable distance from the steakhouse to the dealership so he might as well “Show a child of a newcomer around.” This ‘scenic route’ was barely scenic at all was what Christie immediate thought was. It mostly went through a place that often had traffic jams, hobos with possible connections to dealers were in the alleyways, and stray dogs ran free. “This isn’t exactly the best ‘scenic route’ I’ve been on, Al.” Christie said. Alfred kept silent and just kept on walking, he didn’t even flinch when she pointed out a lot of the people had possibly illegally obtained ray guns. When she had suffered a long time of this she finally said in frustration and fearful confusion “Okay, explain to me where in h-e-double hockey sticks are you taking me?!”
At this point they were next to a sewer drain; Alfred took of the manhole cover, which said ‘Weskerville circa 2035 ‘vivat in posterum’. The manhole also had a picture of the platform city as seen in most tourist bait photos. Alfred said “To my master, of course.” “What?” She said even more anxious and flustered than before. But suddenly she remembered his face from the crowd of cultists in the park a few days ago, “You were in the park, weren’t you?” she said as her sudden epiphany burst into her thought process.
Alfred grabbed her and dangled her over the now open sewer drain and returned “Yes, I was there, little girl, now we shall finished what was left undone.” Christie summoned forth a water diagonal slice on Alfred and when he let go of her she jumped away from the drain and ran back towards the steakhouse in order to get a clear view of the normal route. Alfred got up quickly, whilst disregarding the nasty slice on his right cheek, and ran after her.
She saw that he was catching up to her and decided to instead use her power to self levitate to guarantee a safe passage back to the dealership, so she recited “Te levitate” and for a fraction of a second it seemed it would go off without a hitch. But Alfred grabbed on to her left foot and was hanging onto it rather willfully. She desperately tried to shake him off, but he grabbed on tighter saying things along the lines of “You won’t get away so easily!” or “I am strong than you think, child.” She tried to get him off by banging his hand against a few walls, which slightly worked but didn’t full get rid of him so she finally threw him off her leg and, deeming it an unfair time to do any further harm to him, into a big dumpster of a pillow factory As she flew away to somewhere near her father’s workplace, Alfred shouted curses at her quite loudly.
Once she finally got back to the dealership Alfred was not far behind and he wasn’t in the happiest mood either as one could apparently see on his pale face. Christie came up to her father and said “This creep you call your friend tried to throw me into a sewer drain!” “Christie, he would never do that!” David said with understandable disbelief. Alfred excused Christie words by saying “She’s only joking, you see she naïvely decided to do some urban exploring in the bad part of town and was trying to talk her out of it, as for the sewer, she wanted to explore down there, even though she probably knows all modern sewer ways lead to a water recycling treatment plant at some point after their long journey. But I talk her out of it, it’s our little joke now.” “No it’s not!” Christie said in an indignant manner. David said “Christie you should’ve now the place you were going was dangerous, what if somebody took you are killed you, if Alfred wasn’t there we’d have no way of knowing what had happened to you.”
One customer asked in adoration “Aw, is that your daughter?” “Oh yes, this is Christie, my one and only daughter, don’t worry about her, I’m pretty sure she’ll grow to like Al here.” Christie looked at Alfred and motioned that she’d be watching him as her father went back onto the subject of cars with the customer. She then walked over to another part of the showroom, unknowingly dropping a school fall dance poster she had intended to put in her room, out of her blue oyster cult tote bag. Alfred picked it up without hesitation. He investigated it closely, upon realizing he could now easily defeat Christie during a social event such as that he knew he had to report that to his ‘master’ later.
And so he eagerly told ‘Simon’ that night, ‘Simon’ contemplated it for a while then went off into another room to do something, Alfred followed him and he noticed it looked as though his lord was making something. When his work was done ‘Simon’ bid him to come to him. What his master made were strange, withered looking, winged beasts with eyes that glowed a sickly yellow. “What are these things?” thus saith Alfred. “They are banshees; they will be part of our plan, or at least the 2nd stage of it.” ‘Simon’ said informatively. Alfred asked “And when will the 2nd stage activate sir?” “Soon.” he, ‘Simon’, said whilst looking at the date of the gala event.
Meanwhile at Christie’s house, dinner was made and Amanda was quite pleased at the results of the mealworm spaghetti. “So,” She asked cordially “How was this year’s bring-your-daughter-to-work day?”
“It was going nice until the freakazoid named Alfred appeared.” Christie said honestly. “Christie that’s the last time you call Al a freak, he’s a man who’s probably been through a lot.” David said defensively. Amanda agreed with David and said “Your father’s right; from what he told me Mr. Fink was a very nice man who was formally part of a gang and is just trying to get his life back together.” “Yeah, former gang member, that’s incredibly cute; let’s ignore that I have reason to believe he’s currently a cult member and let’s ignore he tried to throw me into a Sewer in the middle of the bad part of town!” “Christie, I never in all my years heard such horrible accusations!” Ms. Spears said in horror and disgust. “It’s true, every word of it!” Christie exclaimed in earnest. “We talked about this after you awoke the morning after the park attack. It was just a bunch of mental ill people and they’re probably at Weeping willow asylum right now being cared for.” Amanda explained the same way she explained how much she loved her every birthday, with care; she added “Now please behave.”
Christie, though, was convinced she knew what she experienced; Al tried to kidnap her for a cult ritual. She had planned to prepare for the next time it happened, so she’d reviewed some of her old karate moves, practice her defensive spells & try to get her mother to get her a karate membership at the ‘Bamboo palace dojo’. But her mother negated the karate membership with a swift “That cost too much money, dear.” This sentiment stayed even after Christie tried to explain, though after her explanation her mother added that she might consider a shrink. Christie found it was probably best to rely on herself for training and train she did, for she soon got karate file upon karate file from the libraries files and reviewed her previously learned moves. “I am not going to become Simon’s pet,” she thought to herself “not now not ever.”
Chapter 13
Eventually the school dance was into view and Christie wasn’t particularly interested, but Will definitely was interested in the dance, for he already picked out a possible partner. And ‘twas Christie herself that was to be his partner, not because of romantic feelings but because of familiarity, he knew what she was like and could stay in her easy-to-stray-from good side quite well, not to mention deal with her stubbornness. He approached her, trying to look as if he lacked self consciousness in all the right ways, and said “So the school dance is coming up.” She responded “Uh-hu.” He then asked “Do you have a chaperone?” “No, I personally just sit back in the corner at dances.” She said as if she were Daria. “Well I was thinking maybe you need a break from that way to get something a bit, different…” Will said, twiddling with his fingers. Christie knitted her eyebrows trying to figure out what he meant and said “What are you talking about?” Will finally gulped in some air and said “I would like to be your platonic prom date.” Christie shrugged and said “I guess.” “Oh, good!” Will said in relieve, he was afraid he’d have to jump through some hoops to be her prom date but fortunately it wasn’t the case.
Christie remembered her poster, wondering if it was still in her tote bag she reached inside, but nothing like it seemed to be there but she kept looking for it. She searched the bottom of the bag, the sides, everywhere. But the poster wasn’t there, she wondered where it could be and she wondered when she lost it, she remembered it was precariously placed in her bag when she visited her father’s dealership and she heard a paper-like plunk happen behind her after giving the signal she was watching Alfred from then on. “Oh my god.” She said in a shocked manner. “What, what?” He asked naively. “My poster, I lost it at the dealership!” She exclaimed. Will was silent for a bit but eventually spoke up and said “But I thought you didn’t like it, and the only reason you were going to put it up was because you didn’t want it to go to waste.” “Well here’s the deal, there’s this creepy guy at my dad’s dealership who I think is a cultist. He tried to throw me into a sewer pipe and held to my foot while I was trying to fly away from him and I think he took the poster which, need I remind you, has the school name and the date of the event in clear, bold, orange letters!” “Well he can’t be that much of a threat and besides the cultist were just some homeless people, remember?” He said, sounding very much like her parents at that moment. She said crossly “Oh excuse me, I’m just trying to prevent everyone from becoming a sacrifice to an Aardvark!”
Will wondered how she could believe such nonsense, he wondered if she knew it was just a myth made by Puritan community that needed something to fear and so made one for themselves, and to blame every 18th century hobo for cult activities.
But of course there was also the fact he observed she was into supernatural investigation shows and would eagerly follow ‘mysterious mysteries’ type broadcasts wherever she could, she would even request a supernatural show when they were deciding on what to put on the personal entertainment/virtual bill tablet at a restaurant. In his eyes she seemed to prefer fantasy over reality, as if willingly shoving herself into ignorance, as if it were better than having to deal with reality. He also saw she owned a few plush cryptids on proud display on her on her blue and gray quilted bed comforter.
He didn’t get why she could love it so much, it was just a bunch of people lying to the surprisingly gullible; she seemed so doubtful of the words of the class president and she met most thing said to her by obviously brainless classmates with sarcasm. Yet she willingly believed in Bigfoot, the moth-man, crops circles, and el chupacabra without questioning for a second if the show hosts were just messing with people for a quick buck. After all, supernatural stuff did get one a lot of money and there would always be gullible people somewhere in the world.
As much as he mentally criticized her view of the supernatural, he couldn’t help thinking that the roar in the park was strange. The magic ray performed, under the possible threat of death, and something like the chant was definitely mentioned in old magic textbooks in a way, but it wasn’t entirely explained exempt with a warning of “Certain incantations are illegal and are not to be preformed when Mars, Mercury, and Pluto align.” he wondered if the one Christie was forced to perform was one of those incantations. ‘Twas a rather strange incantation Christie had to perform and the fact that the cultists only seemed to have set up the place on that day, the bottom of the stone tablet had little dirt on the bottom on it and there seemed to be no tourist damage like the picnic tables in the rest of the park. Not to neglect the fact the cultists were seen by him earlier that September. And there did seem to be records of something similar to ‘Simon’ in older written works than in Puritan times, in fact some dating back to ancient Rome or the early Cenozoic era if you referred to the witch records. This might’ve meant people, at least, believed he existed for a long time.
But soon his mind came off subject of this when the dance came about; he wore one of his father’s chocolate brown prom suits since he was big enough for them even if they were still a bit baggy, along with a sand colored flower corsage. His grandmother said “Best you polish the shoes, they’ve seen better days.” “Oh yeah!” He said, realizing exactly that about his chocolate brown dress shoes. After he polished his shoes he got on his father’s old dark brown coat and went into his grandmother’s car to Christie’s old dark purple colored house.
Chapter 14
“I’m here to pick up your daughter.” He said plainly after ringing the doorbell to the house. Amanda said “She’ll be here soon.” She then called for Christie to come down, Chris responded with an urgent “I’m coming!”
When she came down it was obvious Christie was a tomboy, she didn’t bother much with make-up on her freckled face and she was wearing a black double chest jacket with blue accents, black dress pants, and some dress shoes. That may have been what she looked like but Will definitely felt a rather pleasant attraction. Something about her in the light of the old Victorian house might’ve just shown him that she looked like quite the catch with her long carrot hair let down and only kept out of her eyes by the left part of it being restricted by her small ears. Her lip balm covered lips, and the way she self-assuredly walked also attracted him. He was in a trance for a while just looking at her, almost everything she said was in slow motion and he swore he could hear the Romeo and Juliet love theme in his mind. He noticed Christie seemed to be a bit concerned about him part of the way through this and eventually Christie said “Hey could you snap out of it!” He shook his head and eventually said “I’m sorry I just…” “Nevermind let’s go.” She said, not wanting to possibly upset Will’s grandma and so dragged him to the car.
In the car his grandma laid down some ground rules for the car. “First of all, this isn’t a taxi. That means ‘no’ to things that I think you two know about, second part of what you need to do when you are riding is make sure you don’t cause to much litter since I am getting on in my years. And third, don’t try to loot treats offa me, I don’t wanna be robbed blind.” Christie felt a bit awkward at the taxi bit and said “We won’t do anything like what you might be thinking.” “Oh I bet you will.” Will’s grandma said. William asked “How do you know?” Will’s grandmother adjusted the rear view mirror and said “I worked as a taxi driver, remember?”
Will remembered she told him a lot about how many times and why she had to clean her taxi out, what streets she drove on the most and which one were the bad parts of town, and some more ‘ahem’ types of things she was forced to endure as a cabbie, “Oh, sorry, I just forgot.” He said. “Well don’t forget again.” His grandma said, she then nodded at her reflection in the car’s cosmetic mirror in satisfaction & started driving.
Once they got to the school they noticed the decorating committee for the dance really hammed it up, there were the school colors of purple and white on the streamers, a large red, brown, orange, and gold colored banner the proclaimed “Weskerville middle school fall dance 2051”, a bunch of cutesy scarecrows littered the green field of the manicured, leaf covered lawn of the school, cornucopias proudly displayed wax fruit with little signs saying “WARNING: do not eat. The fruit is made of wax.”
Agatha seemed rather smitten over her dance date, Bruce, in all his blue, Cyclops glory. She seemed to be flirting with him a bit, Christie guessed this would be true when she acted so bashful whenever she tried to ask him out. Also she saw her affection when she was apparently very glad when Bruce said yes to a date.
Randy and Jack were forced by circumstance to be platonic dance dates for what Randy said was “Probably, the 400th time in our middle school lives.” Jake tried to look on the bright side; he said “Maybe it’s happening because the universe wants us to get to know each other as friends before we can know other people as our romantic dates.” “Or maybe,” Randy said in a frustrated way “the universe likes to see us awkwardly explain we’re just friends.” “Come on now, it’s not that bad to be on a friend-date with me.” “Not for you but imagine how I feel when people are always making assumptions about you and me.” “Well we’re 13, who knows what who will end up liking in the end, for all we know the assumptions may be true.” “Oh that’s very comforting.” “Hey there are our friends! That oughta cheer you up!” “Fine.” Randy sighed.
Agatha and Bruce also came over to Christie and Will, “I see you’re enjoying Bruce’s company.” Christie said proud of her but for some reason feeling like she was missing out on something. “Yes, it’s nice to talk with someone that has a similar IQ to yours.” Agatha sighed in affection towards Bruce. Christie found Bruce a bit boring, but she didn’t want to say it out loud so she just nodded. Will said to Randy “I didn’t know you and Jake-.” “It’s not what you think!” Randy interrupted in anger. Bruce explained “They end up every year as each others ‘friend-date’; they haven’t had a single change to this.” “Wow.” Will said in a sympathetic voice.
In the gymnasium there were autumn colored decorations and lights in the big indoor sports center turned ballroom, millions of teens and tweens dancing their hearts out to that decade’s pop music, and it had the standard Hors d'oeuvre/punch table, its tablecloth was red velvet colored.
Christie instinctively tried to go to a wall to lean on and look upon the dance scene with a look of boredom and slightly judging everyone who chose to dance’s brain power but Will forced her onto the dance floor. “It’ll be a change, come on!” She really didn’t want to dance she hated the music and the band that was performing at the moment. She attempted to fulfill the required dancing but she felt it was half-hearted and wondered if it was good to continue in such a fashion, she wondered how her friends could bear dancing to such music.

Chapter 15
Outside of the school on a nearby hill, ‘Simon’ waited for his loyal henchmen impatiently. Alfred was lugging the heavy cages with the banshees in them; the strain that dragging them up the hill was obvious in his arms and face. “Where have you been, Alfred?” ‘Simon’ said in dull surprise. “Sorry master,” Alfred saith apologetically “It’s hard carrying heavy cages up a hill like this.” ‘Simon inspected the cages of the banshees; he had a look of approval in his white iris eyes, and then said “You have served me well, Alfred” “Only the very best service, most holy one.” Alfred said proudly. “Now on my signal you shall release the banshees.” He looked at the school for a while as if looking for signs of the staff and students letting their guard down, and, after what seemed to nearly an hour he said “Now.”
The banshees soared out of their cages like comets across the sky, screaming bloody murder as they did so. How frightening they looked, especially on a cold, cloudy night such as that. They seemed to be enjoying being free and immediately zoomed to the school, taking out the electricity first.
Inside the partygoers were both disappointed and slightly frightened when they power suddenly went out. Coach Lucas self assuredly said “Don’t worry, I’ll get the janitor to check the power box, the party will be up and running again soon.” The janitor Quincy “Ol’ Scruff” Williams plodded outside massaging his presumably aching back whilst muttering to himself. Christie was thankful the music stopped, another hour and she thought she’d have to wash her mind out with some Queen in the bathroom. Beatrice complainingly said “Oh my god, why did it have to stop, I’m, like, the princess of dance!” Christopher was about to make a comeback when she and the rest of people in the room heard the distinct sound of the janitor screaming
“Help! Somebody, please! Help me!” The students screamed and the staff was shocked. After some time of silence from outside, the doors to the gym started rattling and finally the doors opened at the banshees came through. The staff had no plan for if anything like that happened, they had plans for if they got attack by aliens seeking to conquer earth since WWIII, but nothing for events were unknown beings invaded the school.
Because of this most of the school was in a panic, everyone who could grab a makeshift weapon did and some of the school security bots handed out anti-crime weaponry. The current plan seemed to be to treat the banshees like escaped carnivorous zoo animals, as in try to at least knock ‘em out before they take a bite of you. Christie decided to use her wand and defensive spells to protect herself, Will chose a broomstick, Randy’s weapon was a fencing lance that the coach gave him, and Bruce and Agatha decided on some baseball bats. Jake was hesitant to pick a weapon of any kind, he insisted “I don’t wanna harm them.” Though finally, after being urged on Randy, he picked a stun gun.
The students were now coming out into the halls fighting the banshees with whatever they picked to be their weapon. The melee weapons seemed to be the most effect, but the other weapons might’ve been just as effect. Soon the halls were full of teenagers, staff members, and banshees getting beat up. Jake would always say “I’m sorry” after he stunned a banshee. Everything seemed to be going good until Randy started screaming in a surprisingly high pitched voice. Everyone there turned to the source of the noise and it turned out the banshees dragging him into their swarm like the blob absorbing people.
Jake tried to save him but they continued absorbing Randy and tried to grab Jake too, fortunately he successfully pulled his hand away from the banshees. He breathed heavily out of fear, but there was no time to rest and Will reminded him of that by tugging him away from the banshees. Jake said urgently “We gotta save him!” “From those thing?!” Will said. “Well there’s always a chance-.” “You mean the chance that just died?!” “Well I-.” Will was cut off by a banshee taking a swing at him, the banshees hissed and clawed at anything and everything. The crew continued on, they saw other people were being dragged off by the banshees, Beatrice, ‘Chud’, the principle, and many others. ‘Twas a bit frightening even for Christie, but they had to keep going, and they did keep going even when Jake was claimed by the banshee horde.
‘Simon’ was watching the result of his plan through a crystal ball, laughing jocosely at his impending success. “Yes, yes, this is going very well.” He said in admiration of himself, he then noticed Christie’s friends and said “You didn’t tell me she had friends.” Alfred apologized “I-I didn’t know, she did she came to the work with only her father you know.” “Hush,” saith ‘Simon’ “This is a good surprise”“It is?” questioned Alfred. “Yes, now I have a few ‘toys’ to play with.”
Christie, Agatha, Bruce, and Will were fighting their way to the front exit, and so far it was not going good. They had many bad scratches on them and most of them rather deep wounds, but not so deep they were beyond normal treatments and meant they had to go to the emergency room. Another bad thing was that the banshees seemed to be really fighting hard this time and due to this their escape appeared to be a suicide mission. Will genuinely thought none of them would make it and there would a headline in the local news that said “School emptied mysteriously: Screams heard during fall dance.”
But Christie wasn’t ready to give up hope; she said quite “We’ll make it even if it kills us!” William said it was better not to give the banshees ideas. Agatha and Bruce were bonking the banshees on their heads as much as they could, but it there seemed to be more banshees than they could hit. Christie and Will noticed this too. Bruce was a bit concerned, but he wasn’t going to let it take away his nerve so he kept hitting the banshees as they came at him. Alas ‘twas no use, he was dragged into the banshees pack. Will felt clawed hands grab onto his ankles and eventually more hands up his leg, he was dragged down and suffered the same fate as Bruce.
Chapter 16
Agatha was devastated but there was no time to stop running so she was forced to continue on running in, if her robot functions were to allow it, tears. Christie knew she was probably upset so she said whilst running and in between spells “Don’t worry, when we get-outta here we’ll have a memorial for them, in honor of their bravery and what they meant to us.” Christie gave Agatha a reassuring look as they went through the school’s main hall and Agatha felt better for it, so much better she fought the banshees with a renew courage and strength that almost felt supernatural.
‘Twas as if an force unknown was carrying her hands and making them better at their assigned task of helping her get out of the endangered school, Christie felt better too, her spells seemed more effective and more efficient. They felt on top of the world and what made it better was the fact that they were getting close to the entrance door, Oh what a feeling to have it seem as though one’s suffering is over. ‘Tis like hope can truly be described with poetry, for it truly seems to fly into a person’s heart and influence them to great things and amazing feats, all by knowing relief is on the distant yet close horizon. It can give a 1940’s camp prisoner a sense of tear-jerking happiness thinking about their possible escape or rescue and make them almost forget the horrible conditions they live in.
But this hope only lasted for so long before Christie heard Agatha get dragged back screaming when it appeared as though they were only a few more steps from the door. Christie noticed the Banshees crowding around her waiting to snatch her into their ugly, distorted clutches of their clawed hands. Christie kept recited the spells her DNA gifted her with being able to do, but it wasn’t enough. Next thing she knew she was on the ground being dragged away from her wand. And what’s worse, she felt herself getting woozy and soon everything fell to blackness.
Christie woke up in what first seemed to be a wooded area, when she fully awoke she realized it was the park and she noticed she was wearing an amulet that she couldn’t remove, but she didn’t know why she couldn’t remember when she put it on or why she was wearing it. It was cold weather and it seemed to be starting to snow. She walk around for a bit and soon found a slowly awakening Randy and a still asleep Agatha. Christie, Randy, and Agatha were still in their dance clothes as Christie noticed, yet their formal wear was in partially in tatters. She noticed there were some bloodstains from the banshee battle; she also noticed the still had their scars from the same event. Christie shook awake Agatha and pointed to the trees, it took Agatha a moment to realize was she meant, but eventually the memory of what place the trees belonged to made her nervous. Randy soon recognized the park; it did seem like a place one would take their family to for a picnic during the day, at that moment though, it seemed like the scariest patch in the middle of nowhere. The trees looked like giant daggers ready to stab the sky, the rocks might as well have been sleeping beasts ready to attack them when they awoke, and the shrubs seemed like monsters too.
Jake came over and asked “Hey dudes, have you seen Will anywhere?” Christie realized she didn’t hear or see him anywhere she had gone and she answered “No I haven’t.” Agatha and Randy agreed, Bruce awoke and inquired “What’s going on?” He was asked the question Jake had asked and he didn’t think he saw him either. They then began wondering where Will could’ve gone and they looked around for a bit until a mysterious voice asked “Wondering where you all are, I see.”
Christie asked “Who said that?” A figure like the one on the cultist’s tablet appeared out of nowhere, he wore a robe that was colored lavender and white and his white iris eyes were quite unsettling. “Oh yes, you don’t remember who I am, well do you remember my followers from the 30th of September?” Christie realized he was the infamous “Simon”, she was shocked, she was scared of the legend about him, but it was because she feared the cultists. But to see him in the flesh was more than she expected to see after the forced ritual. She was frozen in her steps and soon her present friends were so along with her.
He had an air around him that made the present members of the crew uneasy and generally fearful, another reason Christie was scared was that he resembled a creature of witch folklore called “The Mush’inq.” that was said to be the main enemy of a witch folklore/history figure and heroine named “Neph’ka.” This can be seen in this poem:
‘She walked through the green abundant leaves into a clearing,
Not minding the heat or anything until she saw the Mush’inq,
‘What are you doing here in this place?’ She said most curious,
It looked at her and said ‘Get ye gone, witch’,
She was more concerned, so she repeated her words,
It said more angrily ‘Ye must go right now’,
She said frustrated ‘Why do you say so, strange being’,
‘You have tested my patience;’ said it ‘now freeze’,
And in ice she was encased for what seemed eternity
Dreaming an almost endless dream of strange things.
Chapter 17
‘Simon” noticed they had been searching for William and he said quite astutely “I see how you’re searching for your missing teammate, I might as well deliver the bad news.” Christie looked serious now instead of scared but she couldn’t find the courage to speak for a while, when she did she asked “What do you…mean?” He looked slyly at them all and said “O it’s just that he’s in a slumber that only I can break.”
His anteater-like tongue flicked out as he spoke and this was no different when he said “Now I know you all are going to ask me to break him out of it, but here’s what I plan to do with you, I plan to have you all go through some challenges of sorts. I’d rather save what they are as a surprise though, just go down the park’s main path to the building over there and you’ll be rewarded.” “That’s it?” Christie asked quite surprised, she expected a much more complicated challenge, a lava pit, a sword fight, sharks, etc…, but when she found out it was just that she was feeling much more confident in her abilities.
“Yes, that is all.” ‘Simon’ said factually. Christie’s fearful face turned into a smiling one as she said “Ha, piece of cake right guy?” The others slowly started to adopt her regained cheeriness. Christie led them bravely into the woods talking about how they were going to easily succeed. Randy agreed with her plenty of times, but as they did so ‘Simon’ adopted a rather malefic, clever look.
Christie and her team were rather nonchalant whilst walking down the path, in fact they were joking about how they were sent by such a ‘creepy guy’ on such a ‘hard’ quest, Christie made a quip about how any following challenges would be about baking cookies or hopping. Quips such as that continued for a while until the sound of a lighting storm started being heard in the distance, when that happened Jake felt a bit uneasy and looked about anxiously. Randy asked “What’s wrong is somebody wearing fur?” “That’s not fun Randy and besides that is not what I was worried about!” Jake said in an antsy fashion. “Then what is it?” Randy said impatiently. Jake said “I think I hear a storm.” Randy said in a most frustrated mood “We live in a coastal state; of course we’re going have storms!” Jake said in urgency “I know that, I just think this is a big one; my calculations say so.” “Your calculator function is broken!” Randy said cynically.
The storm raged on after that, Jake felt disconcerted and on edge. The group continued on never the less, despite Jake reporting that the storm clouds seemed to have a face. Christie thought he was probably just being a scaredy-cat as usual, but she admitted there was a bit of a face she could see in the lightning lit clouds.
Agatha tried to call her parents’ but there were no signal bars on her phone and when Randy check his holo-computer it didn’t work and it didn’t have any wi-fi. Randy thought aloud “What the he-.” He was interrupted by a voice saying “Oh I forgot to mention that.” “Who said that?” Randy said worriedly. The voice replied “It’s me ‘Simon’, the one who put you on this quest, anyway, I forgot to tell you all I am observing you and your every move and that I can talk to you, and how I’m doing the observing is through some ants. I’m utilizing your computers to communicate with you; as for why there is no signal or ‘wee-fee’.” Christie corrected “wi-fi!” “Is because if there was then it wouldn’t be a fair game now would it?” ‘Simon continued.
As they continued on Christie noticed that the storm clouds did seem to be following them and also it was taking up only the patch of sky over them, everywhere else was getting snow clouds instead. This was strange enough, but it got curiouser, as Alice from Alice in wonderland would put it, when she noticed it seemed to have a face. And not just any face, the storm had an evil looking face. She didn’t like it, not one bit, even if it was just pareidolia, it was rather frightening.
Soon there seemed to be a lightning strike happening somewhere off-trail, it was so bright that the crew had to cover their eyes. After the lightning strike the storm clouds had left, Christie felt disappointed along with the rest of the team, but there were still the noises of a storm somewhere close. It was incredibly confusing, hadn’t the storm gone they wondered, in one form or another, as they continued walking.
The thunder sounded as if it were happening somewhere near the ground and with all the frequency of footsteps, quick footsteps, like someone running in a marathon. The crew looked around everywhere whilst walking on the trail but nothing seemed to be making the noise. The “footsteps” seemed to be drawing near them and soon it seemed to be coming from somewhere northwest of their current position. It seemed to be coming towards them with power in its “step”. The “steps” came nearer and nearer until eventually the crew came face to face with a malignant looking, as strange as it sounds, humanoid made entirely of storm clouds.

Chapter 18
Jake was jittering with fear; after all it was an anthropomorphic edition of his fear of storms. It had everything he was scared of. Lightning flowing in it freely and some of made its eyes, a body made of angry, ominous clouds, a voice of a howling wind, and footsteps that sounded like thunder. The rest of the team was simply puzzled how such a thing could be, “What the heck is this?” Christie asked. ‘Simon’s’ voice answered “Oh, just wanted to let you all know that the theme of the challenge is facing one’s fears, alright?”
After that comment from ‘Simon’ the creature charged at them with the fury of a storm. It threw lightning bolts that caused a great deal of damage to anything the bolts touched. It hit the crew roughly 5 times per seconds.
At that rate and if it accelerated the speed which the bolts were thrown at them, they would be dead soon, so they soon took cover behind a rock to assess their retaliation. “Okay so here are all the options we can’t use, my aquamancy, anything involving metal that needs to be held by anyone of us, and any type of cover behind trees or windows.” Christie said, still panting from all the running they had been doing. “Well zhere’s got to be something we can do, we can just sit here and wait for zhat thing to come.” Agatha said, drifting into deep contemplation on what course of action they should take. Everyone thought for a while, trying to think of a way to defeat it.
Jake, even though he was fearful, had an idea come to him “We could trap it.” Randy said sullenly “How, Einstein?” Agatha and Bruce immediately remembered lightning rods and the mechanics that went behind them, Agatha spoke up, in defense of Jake, “It’s very simple how, Randy, we’ll do it with a lightning rod.” “I remember somebody left a bike not far from this spot we can use the bicycle spokes to make one!” Bruce said with his intuition guiding him as he planned it out with Agatha and the rest of the team. “Okay, why are we planning to use a lightning rod?” Randy asked. “Remember, lightning is attracted to tall objects, and the lightning rod lures lightning into the ground because the lightning takes the path of least resistance aka tall things?” Christie reminded him. Randy explained his cynicism “Well it is made up of more than lightning, clouds for instance.” Agatha argued calmly “We know zhat but Bruce and I theorize zhat after zhe lightning part of it is removed zhen zhe storm creature will unravel into mere vapor.”
The monster was fast, but luckily, it was far enough away and slow enough to let them construct the lightning rod. They found some pliers in one of the park recycling cans. “Thank god it’s not recycling day.” Bruce said, relieved when he found them. They found the bike right where Bruce saw it, on a rotting log and with a raccoon living in the log. They had to be careful removing, unfortunately Randy disturbed it and they came back to the rock, where Christie was keeping watch for the storm fiend, with clear claw marks. They made sure to make it a tall rod for their intent and purpose by securing the spokes together with tree sap; after they had constructed it they placed it in front of a dark place where it wouldn’t catch the moonlight. Christie sacrificed herself as the bait, so she stood in a place behind the lightning rod where she’d be safe and wouldn’t reveal the lightning rod.
The storm beast soon came to their position, which activated Christie’s time to attract the being’s attention to where the rod was. She started hooting and hollering and insulted it by saying “Hey ugly, over here!” It turned to her full of fury and struck a lightning bolt in her direction with the intent of killing her, but instead struck the rod and its body was carried into the ground. It tried to get up through the rod but the crew pulled it out before it could and ‘twas stuck in the ground for good.
‘Simon’ saw this and said “Clever, very clever indeed. You all may proceed onward on your journey.” Jake was amazed his little stress-born idea actually worked, he felt it was best to right this in his diary later. But right now he decided to continue on the quest he and his friends set out to do. Agatha looked over at him and said “Jake, that vas brilliant!” Jake blushed a bit in bashfulness and said “Aw, it was nothing, dude.” “That wasn’t nothing, that was the thing that saved our lives! You’re a hero!” Jake blushed brighter now, he swore anymore and he’d look like a red beet.
Soon their minds turned towards the here and now and away from Jake’s victory. They had to; after all they didn’t know what could be lurking out of the corner of their eyes. ‘Twasn’t as simple as they had thought the challenge was before the storm man, they felt a bit paranoid to be honest. Every sound made their steps a bit more cautious. Randy especially and this didn’t get any better for him when he heard a bicycle horn going off.
Chapter 19
He immediately thought of his fear of clowns, he considered them to be untrustworthy looking, and generally a bit uncanny valley with their constant ‘smiles’. Their face paint, their dressing habits, ‘hair’, and their actions also frightened him. He never did like the circus because of this and refused to have anything that looked like a clown near him, not even somebody dressed up as one. His mother learned this rather quickly and learned to respect that about him, even though she had a collection of adorable clown plushes.
“Oh god, i-is the circus in town?” Randy said with jittery motions. Jake comforted him by saying “Don’t worry the circus isn’t coming for a while, it’s probably just some people biking.” Randy said sarcastically “Yeah, in the middle of the night.” Jake admitted “It’s unlikely but it did cam you down, didn’t it?” “No!” Christie said with agitation “If you turn this into a fight Randy you’ll both be dead; now come on, we need to keep vigilant!” Randy continued on shivering, the horn noise grew louder and more frequent. Randy grew more scared in response to this; he held Jake’s hand tighter due to this also. Soon the horn sound seemed to be coming closer to them and Randy kept looking over his shoulders trying to make sure nothing was stalking him.
Soon a figure kept appearing out of the corner of his vision, the figure seemed to have pointed hair and fairly chubby. As it appeared to draw closer to them the honking worsened and he was practically attempting to piggyback on Jake. Jake said in a slightly concerned tone “What’s wrong?” Randy said with fear in his heart “T-There’s somebody s-stalking us.” He pointed right at the figure with dismay, everyone turned to it and soon they too were filled with panic.
The figure turned out to be a clown, it didn’t seem terrifying to the crew except for, obviously, Randy. It was wearing a orange and purple polka dot outfit with large orange shoes, a tiny purple top hat with an orange flower on top of its head, and make up that was also orange and purple against a white make up backdrop. Christie had a rather disappointed look on her visage. “Really, ‘Simon’?” Randy was still shivering and continued to look worried after it was revealed to be a clown. Jake assured Randy “He’s probably heard us and wanted to see if we’re alright.” He started approaching the clown whilst dragging Randy with him “How ya doing, clown?”
Without warning the clown whipped out its hands that seemed to be attached to some stretchy plastic hoses. Randy squeaked in terror and hid behind Jake. “Aw, c’mon,” said Jake “He just wants to shake our hands, righ-.” Jake and Randy were snatched up by the clown’s gloved clutches as it laughed almost maniacally the classic clown laugh. Out of one of the clown’s pockets dropped a little box, when the clown kicked open the box revealed there was a terrifying high speed swirl of bright colors and screams, what was worse was the fact that the clown was slowly lowering Randy and Jake into the box.
Randy wasn’t the only one fearful of the clown then, everyone was reasonably scared of the clown. This made everyone who was being chased by some appendages on the clown’s that looked like its arms find it hard to concentrate and think of a plan to save Jake and Randy.
Christie tried her powers, but they didn’t work. She noticed her amulet was glowing purple and making a fizzing sound when she tried to cast any spells. “This amulet ought to keep you from cheating, witch.” ‘Simon’ said, self satisfied in his clever thinking and precognition “I must say, it’s working rather well.” “You put an anti-magic amulet on me?” Christie said. ‘Simon’ said “Actually my dear cultist Alfred did it.” “That creep that tried to kidnap me?” “Yes, rather a shame he didn’t succeed the first time, but then again this is more fun.”
Suddenly a clown hand leaped out and caught Bruce by his torso, the clown was evidently going make him suffer the same future fate of Jake and Randy and it seemed the same would happen to Christie and Agatha eventually. The situation seemed hopeless, but soon Christie saw a steak knife that somebody probably forgot at a picnic and got an idea. She told Agatha, between gasping for breath during the rigorous task of avoiding the hands, that her formulated plan was for her to pick up the knife and slash of the extra hands. Once there is only the three hands holding Bruce, Randy, and Jake, Agatha would kick the box away from where the clown was. Christie would then stab the clown. Agatha complied with this plan willingly.
The plan started off well with Christie slashing the hands rapidly but she noticed the hands grew back in greater number like a hydra; Christie lost all sense of bravery and confidence in her plan. Agatha felt the same until she found a lighter that somebody left on the ground, that apparently still was usable, and thought “I never thought I’d think this but thank god for littering.” She shouted with urgency at the bewildered Christopher “Hey, use this, I think it’ll help!” Agatha then threw it to Christie and Christie dived back into the fight with hope and a slight sense of doubt as she slashed and melted the hands away from her. The hands didn’t grow back after exposure to the fire, Christie felt surer of what she was doing then and she told Agatha “Now!” Just like in the plan Agatha quickly kicked the box away before the clown could act and Christie stab the clown only to find out it deflated like a balloon when stabbed. The clown appeared to be vanquished but Chris didn’t take any chances so she melted the plastic shell of what was the clown to be positive that it was dead.
“Good, quite a…clever move.” ‘Simon’ said with a slight annoyed surprise in his tone. He couldn’t believe it, he wondered why they weren’t dead yet with all that he put them through. But soon he calmed himself with the thought that they may yet be defeated in the future challenges, after all this was only the second challenge and there were 3 more to go. “Proceed onwards.” He said with a renewed sense of calm.
Chapter 20
Randy was still shivering after the clown attack; Jake comforted him by trying to get to realize the clown was gone. Fortunately Randy was slowly starting to realize the defeat of the clown, though he desperately still want to get out of the park as soon as possible. The others shared this sentiment in one way or another, the challenges ‘Simon’ was putting them through seemed to be get be getting more and more dangerous as time went on and they were a bit afraid to find out what the final challenge was like.
As they walked on the concrete path they noticed that there seemed to be small patches of slime on it, Bruce felt a bit queasy looking at the slime patches so he tried to occupy his thoughts with other things like how happy they all would be when they get out of the park. “When were out of here I think I’ll be happy to deal with whatever ‘Chud’ puts us through, even the flagpole treatment.” Bruce said. Agatha added “And I’ll be happy to get the low-grade oil the cafeteria serves up.” “Yeah, I’ll be glad to have my mom be all freaky about if I got hurt.” Christie said, looking around to try to make sure nothing snuck up on them.
The patches of slime grew bigger and less sparse in placement, but they crew didn’t notice except Bruce, though he tried not to think about it. He tried to think of how heavily the snow was falling and how already there were mounds upon mounds of snow all around them, he tried thinking about the tall American elms the surrounded them, even if they looked intimidating that night. He tried thinking about his security AI mother back at home, but his mind kept wandering back to the slime.
Bruce finally spoke up and asked everyone else “Does anyone else notices the slime stuff on the path or is it just me?” Everyone looked down and noticed the slime that was up to their knees, or in Randy’s case, his midsection, there was an obvious sense of disgust in Agatha and Bruce’s faces, But Bruce’s was looked as though he were about to expel oil. Jake & Christie winced a bit and Randy was teasing Bruce with a bit of slime. “What’s the matter Einstein, it’s just some gak.” Randy said. Bruce said through his grimace “Get that stuff away from me, Randy.” “Oh, does the slime make lil’ future security drone go burpie?” “Randy!” Bruce said seriously, this was one of the times he wondered why he let Jake befriend Randy, after all he was kind of annoying in his opinion.
Agatha was about to tell Randy to “Lay off”, but was interrupt with the realization that the slime that Randy picked up and the slime on the ground was gathering together. Eventually the slime in Randy’s left claw got out of Randy’s claw, which was about the point everyone else noticed the slowly forming lime green slime creature. They also noticed it seemed hungry, very hungry.
They tried to run, but the slime monster started absorbing them quickly into its body. Bruce was both extremely disgusted and frightened so he desperately tried to grab onto the snow saying “I don’t wanna die slimy!” over and over again. Agatha shouted “Zhis isn’t zhe time for a snowball fight!” Christie noticed that the snow was slowly freezing the slime, and said “Maybe it is the right time.” Agatha looked confused, but Christie soon pointed out how early it was avoiding the snowy edges of the sidewalk and the effect of the snow on the slime beast. Agatha looked at Bruce and said “Whatever you do, don’t stop.”
In response to Agatha’s command he gladly dumped more onto the gooey fiend and soon they were spat out of the slime. But this was not a victory for the blob still pursued them via the trees; they ran quickly to a picnic pavilion. “Okay, what do we do now, smart guy?” Randy said with a cold tone. Jake said “Well maybe we could put some dry ice on it, Halloween’s only a while away so…” Bruce said urgently “Yeah, Jake, Agatha, you guys go through the supply closet, Randy, Christie, and I will try to slow the slime down by throwing snow at it till the dry ice is out.”
The goo had reached the pavilion sometime after Bruce gave the orders; it licked its lips and edged ever so close to the defensive team. Luckily the snowballs seemed to slow the being down as Agatha and Jake struggled with the supply closet’s lock. Unfortunately the Slime scooped up Randy and Christie before Agatha and Jake were done with the lock. “Uh, no pressure, but maybe you could help us!” Christie said to Agatha and Jake. Soon the supply closet door was unlocked, but the dry ice seemed to be buried under mounds and mounds of stuff. When they finally found it Christie and Randy were waist, or eye, deep in the monster.
They threw the dry ice at the slime beast in one violent lob; it froze into a giant lime green block of ice. This time it was very quickly frozen as one would imagine, in contrast to the snow’s slow effect on it from before, and Christie and Randy were freed from the beast. Bruce felt a bit proud of this success; he had always been squicked out by any sort of slimy mess, but this time he had defeated something that would before have made him queasy. He had a new sense of swagger in his walk, instead of his usual manner of maneuvering, which was more of a self conscious proceeding.
‘Simon’s’ voice seemed rather balked, but it was clear he was trying to hide it, as he said “Nice work, now let us progress on, you all are getting close to the building and the end of your quest.” “We’re nearly done!” Christie said with an air of satisfaction. High fives were handed out among the group momentously, but ‘Simon’ soon interrupted by saying “Proceed onward, all of you!”

Chapter 21
“So how many are left now?” Agatha asked, trying to keep track of the challenges. Christie said “Well he seems to be going at each of our fears one by one, so we probably only have two more to go.” Bruce exclaimed “Good job, us!” Bruce held up his hand for high fives and he received, it seemed as if the end to the nightmarish journey was close, very close. They were so enthralled with the promise of freedom that they nearly walked into a muddy creek.
Agatha alerted them about it fortunately, she exclaimed in disgust “Oh god, this river looks like a leech paradise…somebody please tell me there’s a bridge.” “Negative,” Randy said “there was a bridge, but it’s gone now; you should see it, it looks like a mini-Godzilla crashed through it.” Christie rolled up her torn dress pants and said “We aren’t gonna get anywhere standing here, that includes getting out of here.” Agatha answered “I’d rather not.” Christie replied “Don’t worry, leeches don’t attack robots, you be safe!” “Zhey slide past my legs and I don’t zhink it would be something I would enjoy…” “Like I said, don’t worry, and just keep your mind off the leeches.”
Eventually, Agatha reluctantly waded into the stream; a look of disgust was on her face as she looked into the muddy water. The mud slowed everyone’s crossing so it seemed like it was taking hours to cross the stream. Christie nearly lost one of her dress shoes, but was able to retrieve it, nevertheless, something got into her shoe. It wriggled around like a fish, but it didn’t feel like it had fins, she thought it might have been a leech so she reached down. “What are you doing?” Agatha asked. Chris looked over at Agatha and said “I think there’s a leech in my shoe, but it I don’t think it’s bitten yet.” “What? No, don’t do zhat!” “Relax, I’ll take my foot out of the water” Christie said in an attempt to sooth Agatha’s fears.
There were slight silhouettes of some worm-like entities underwater as Christie pulled her foot out of the mucky water of the creek; these silhouettes also seemed to be drawing closer towards everyone ever so slowly. When Christie finally put her hands on her dress shoe, the worm-like silhouettes leaped out revealing themselves to be leeches and tried attaching themselves to the crew, the same happened with the leech in Christie’s shoe. It soon became evident that some of the leeches were robotic as they started feeding on the robots’ oil in great amounts.
The crew tried to run as fast as they could but the mud and the leeches flying at them slowed them and tripped them many times as they tried to escape. This didn’t seem to be like the previous challenges for there didn’t seem to be any obvious solutions in sight; it seemed to be a challenge of getting out of the stream fast enough to pull any leeches off on dry land.
They were nearly in sight of the other side of the river, but they were tripping up more than before. It got to the point that they had to crawl through the mud at the bottom of the river. The leeches didn’t need to leap at that point; at that point they only had to hop up to get to the parts of them that weren’t underwater. The crew was in tremendous pain as they started to barely touch land and they were swarmed with leeches by the time they started crawling onto the bank.
On the bank it became a race against time to pull the leeches off them before they sucked all the blood and oil out of their bodies. It was a messy procedure, but eventually it seemed as if they had gotten all of them. That is, until they noticed a huge leech that had flung itself on Christie’s back and was sucking the life out of her fast.
Everyone tried to get it off, but it seemed to be hooked into her back tightly, despite this they persevered. Christie felt extremely weak as they kept tugging as they tugged harder on the leech. They nearly lost hope until the fat leech came off her back with a loud pop; the crew worked up enough energy to crush the leech’s head with a heavy rock. Agatha tended to Christie’s wounds and everyone else’s as best she could by using some sanitary napkins she original intended to use to wipe her hands at the dance.
‘Simon’ was absolutely steamed, “why hadn’t they been gotten the better of?” He wondered as he looked upon the team through the ants’ eyes. “Well done, you have reached the end of your quest as you can see.” He said with obvious anger, though he tried to disguise it under a calm mask. After a moment of recovery, Christie said through exhausted gasps “We’re done… I-I can’t believe it!” The rest of the crew soon became as excited, they all ran up to the building.
Chapter 22
The building in the dark of the night seemed to be one of the enclosed amphitheaters that were used during cold days such as the one that the crew was enduring; it also seemed in their weary delirium to be glowing with the golden promise of freedom being within their reach. Christie opened the dark red door of the beige building. They found that the amphitheater wasn’t like she and the others expected, it seem to be a white expanse on the inside with shapes of all colors floating upwards in the distance.
Randy said “What the heck is going on here?” “I don’t know…” Christie said. They wandered about the white plain wondering if they had become so weary that they were experiencing near-death hallucinations. They wondered if Will would ever be found in the building or if “Simon” lied to them. Agatha cried out “Look, up there!” She pointed up at a black box that was standing still high up in the air; in it was Will who looked like he was asleep. The crew stood looking at him with surprise until Christie asked herself “How are we going get him down?”
A voice behind them said “It’s not a matter of getting him down, it’s a matter of how long you all are going to resist.” The crew turned around to find ‘Simon’ looking smug, he was sure he had them now, after all they did appear to be cornered and too tired to fight. “What, do you mean…?” Christie said suddenly realizing that ‘Simon’ might have meant to kill them, anger and fear welled up inside her until she exclaimed “…You said we would get Will back when the challenges were done!”
“Well that was before you managed to survive my attempts to show my followers’ power and my power. You see, you all weren’t supposed to survive, you were supposed to give up and surrender yourself to my followers and become part of them or die…” “Simon” said “But you got through my challenges and didn’t surrender and this made me a bit…irate…But I realized something, all I had to do was give you all a false sense of hope and lead you here and force you to give in and maybe sacrifice yourselves, so what do you all say?” Christie looked at every one of her friends; they all looked ragged and scared, they wanted to go home, that she was sure of. She looked “Simon” in the eyes and said “No, I’d rather die than join your cult!” “Are you sure? You are rather a temperamental creature from what I’ve seen and heard.” “No means no, and I’m willing to fight to prove it.”
“Simon” seemed to wear a face of quiet rage as he turned away for bit and after a moment of silence he finally said “Fine then, prepare to die.” There appeared to be a squirming mass under the back of his robe, Christie and the others were confused. “Is he gonna gross us out to death?” Randy said. Soon huge, long tentacles burst out of his back, which were the same yellow color as the rest of his skin. “Simon” took off the bottom of his robe to reveal purple pants underneath. He also discarded of the ornamental spikes on the straps of the top of his robe. Having done this entire course of preparation, he leaped towards Christie and punched her with his tentacles.
Christie despite her training she could only do so much due to her condition at the time, her wounds made sure her every move would be painful and threatened to worsen her wounds, her weary mind and body made it so she could hardly make a dent in Simon’s body, she swore that soon she would pass out. “I wish I didn’t have this damn amulet on me,” Christie thought “…then I’d really show this guy what I think of him”. Suddenly, it hit her, if she could trick him, he could remove the amulet, all she had to do was make him miss and grab the amulet instead of her.
But this was easier planned than executed, for “Simon” seemed to be the future victor of the battle. No matter what she tried to do to trick him, he would just thwart what her plan was at the moment. She was getting bruises and whip-marks like she was a gladiator. Though a gladiator could’ve handled the situation better then she could in her mind, then again she remembered they never had to fight someone that was the likes of “Simon.”
After a while of being beaten, Christie could hardly go on. Her fatigue grew too strong for her to bear and the wounds and bruises she had had only made it worse. She slumped onto the cold, white floor. She gasped for breath wildly; “Simon” took advantage of her position and condition and gloated at her. “Having trouble?” “Simon” asked “Don’t get too discouraged; in all honesty, you’re lucky.” “What do you mean?” Christie asked. ‘Simon’ answered “Well, you don’t have to explain your scars to your parents.” Chris looked curious and asked “Why?” “It’s because they’re dead.” “Y-you’re lying!” “No, I saw it myself, no need to go home either thanks to that, child.”
Christie was distraught, was he telling the truth or was he playing her for tears was her big question. Christie did know that she was in a state of mind that could be manipulated easily but she tried to think logically. “Remember, he just wants to make you weaker”. She reminded herself. “He didn’t tell the truth about the end of this adventure, why would he tell the truth now?”
She tried to look for a way she could trick him into removing the amulet. All she needed was for his tentacles to slip up for it to work properly. Christopher saw one of his tentacles coming towards her and decided that could be the moment she had been waiting for. The tentacles came quickly; she struggled to get herself on her feet. As if in slow motion, in the middle of her getting up, she saw the moment. She flung the amulet’s chain in front of one of his tentacles, knowing that there was a chance she could get decapitated or “Simon” would know what she was planning and avoid it.
Chapter 23
A light, metallic clink could be heard. This was followed by a sound of a coin rolling and finally landing. Christie fluttered her eyes a bit and looked at ‘Simon’, whom of which seemed as bewildered as her. She realized the amulet was off, she felt her powers returning to her at a slow pace. Christie the shot ice shards at “Simon.” “What did you do to the amulet!?” “Simon” cried out, fury was in his eyes. “Beat you at your own game, eh?” Christie asked with a smirk.
“Simon” realized what she did and became enraged. The next few hours turned into a blur of darkness, water, and tentacles as Christie and “Simon” fought. “Simon” displayed his true vicious nature in the fight as he slashed, whipped and punched Christie. Christie on the other hand seemed to behave with more honor in her magic, even though she showed she could fight as rough as he could if she wanted.
Unfortunately, Christie could still only do what she could as she fought and soon she was thrust to the ground by one of ‘Simon’s’ tentacles. “So that’s what your powers can do?” He asked “That’s rather disappointing; I thought there would be a little bit more of a brawling spirit in you.” Christie was so weak she couldn’t give a response, but she desperately wanted to give ‘Simon’ a piece of her mind.
Her friends wanted to do something similar; this even went for calm Jake. Randy wanted to get in the ring, but “Simon” intimidated him away from the fight. “This is between your redheaded friend and me, not any of you!” Jake said in desperation “There’s gotta be a way to help her…” “Do you think we have any ideas?” Bruce said whilst pointing at him and Agatha “Well guess what, we don’t, this is hopeless!” Randy looked up at William and suddenly was struck with an idea. He looked towards the crew and explained his plan.
“Now how would you like it if you just gave up and joined me, Christopher?” “Simon” said “It would be better for you to have my religion and I raise you instead of you being a hopeless orphan, after all.” Christie tried to power through the pain and get on her toes, but she could only prop herself up somewhat before she collapsed again. She wanted to slap him at the very least, but her body didn’t allow her to do so.
She noticed her friends at the sidelines throwing Randy straight up into the air. He didn’t go high up, but he appeared to be urging the others onward. Christie saw this as curious and found the strength to sit up a bit to find out what they meant by this. “Are they cheering me or something?” She wondered. ‘Simon’ didn’t know what it meant either, but was infuriated by it.
Christie noticed something, Randy kept pointing at Will before he was thrown up. She grasped what was meant by this in an instant. They wanted to use ‘Simon’s’ tentacles to break William’s prison. She raised her left hand at a slow pace, as she did “Simon” said “O will you just give up, you’re finished, understood?” she started saying through her sleepy, wounded lips “Ego…t-te…jamdudum.” All she saw before her vision, at last, faded to black was Randy being levitated up in front of Will and ‘Simon’ turning towards him in frustration.
When Christie awoke from her fainting spell she noticed she was in the nurse’s office. She also noticed she still had her banshee scars; she looked around her and noticed her friends did also, along with a lot of the rest of her schoolmates.
When she couldn’t see Will, she panicked and kept asking the nurse “Where’s Will, William Manson?” The nurse soon replied “Get a hold of yourself, dear, he’s in the waiting room.” “H-he is?” “Yes, he is, now try to get some-.”Christie and her friends got up out of their beds. The nurse exclaimed “Hey, get back in bed!” The crew ran towards Will at great speeds.
When they saw he was alive and well with his grandmother in the waiting room. They gave him groups hug as they told him all that happened. “You did all that after the banshees?” Will inquired. Christie said “Yes, we did. ‘Simon’s’ absolutely messed up let me tell you.” His grandma was at a loss for words for their park adventure, she thought they had gone nuts or were joking. “We thought we were goners.” Bruce commented.
“Did we defeat ‘Simon’?” Christie asked as she realized “Simon’s” condition was in Schrödinger’s box. Randy remembered and said “Well, after ‘Simon’ broke the stuff holding Will in, Bruce took one of the shards and…” He handed Christie a black shard with purple goo on it. Christie studied it and said “What’s the purple…” “It’s his blood.” Bruce said. “After we stabbed him 5 times he finally vent off somewhere. When he left we fainted like you, probably from being too stressed out.” Agatha added. Christie stared at it awhile longer, looking at the edges of it and the blood.
Christopher’s parents came in shocked at the sight of Christie standing in her condition. Christie pocketed the shard. “Chris, you have huge scars on your legs, you shouldn’t be standing!” Amanda scolded. Chris said “You know about last night?” “Yes,” Mrs. Spears said “you over exerted yourself while dancing and you fainted on the gym floor.” Christie had to hear her mother say it again before she could process it. She turned to Coach Larson and asked if it was true. “You betcha.” He said.
Apparently her classmates and the other students of the school, along with the school staff, couldn’t remember what happened that fateful night and they just though an equipment error happened to make the scars on everyone. No matter how Christie or her friends or both tried to explain how it came to be that supernatural beings got into the school last night nobody in the school would listen to them, not even their own parents.
When Agatha tried to communicate what happened last night her mother said in her clear German “That is the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard, the nurse strictly told me that a spotlight broke and that the shards rained down and gave you on all those cuts, this is not a fairy tale little missy!” “Yeah, I know it sounds veird but-.” Her mother had hung up right before she had time to explain in detail what had happened though it probably wouldn’t have made such a difference. Randy’s mom simply said he was attempting to prank her and told him he needed a hobby. This pattern of disbelieve was the same with everyone else guardians.
The nurse said Christie and her friends were not to do anything that might reopen their scars and to make sure they rub a blue tinted antibiotic gel onto their scars everyday to make sure the wounds didn’t get infected. As they stepped outside of the school, Christie said “So nobody’s gonna remember yesterday except us apparently, whoop Dee do!” “Well it’s not all bad, we at least did something interesting last night, even if we almost died.” Will said looking on the bright side. Christie reluctantly nodded, just then she stepped on a lavender envelope with white ink writing the letters on it. The envelope’s out side said simply ‘To a Ms. Christopher Amelia Spears’ Christie recognized her own name at once and opened it, on the inside she found a letter that went as such:
10/12/51
Dear Christopher,
You are quite an annoying little girl aren’t you; your “friends” are too apparently. I wished ever so dearly to make you see that I am the master here but unfortunately you and your friends decided to start a campaign to eradicate my plans in one fell swoop. But not to worry, I shall stay to do more “harm”, as you phrase it, and show you I only plan to do the very best for life in the universe, that is if you all don’t try to thwart my plan.
-From the desk of whom you may call “Simon.”
When they saw this letter they felt fear but there seemed to be an element of adventure in their minds. The rest of their days they would be fighting a creature of power; this was to be their fate from then on. Christie said to the rest of the team “Well this is definitely different than my old moves; for once I have some friends, I fought this…thing and I actually felt like I was doing something important.” “Yeah judging by these scars I actually think this going to be an interesting rest of the year.” Will admitted cautiously.
End of book 1.