“If there’s something strange in your neighborhood
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters!)
If there’s something weird and it don’t look good
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters!)
I ain’t afraid of no ghost”
Ghostbusters __ Ray Parker Jr.
The guy who flies me out to Lentimas Town is too chatty. He tells me all about the horrors of the “Strange House” that I’m about to go into. They have some urban legend about a monster of complete darkness that steals away children in the night. Apparently there used to be a family that lived in the house, and their daughter fell into an endless slumber of nightmares. The parents tried to find the legendary Cresslia who’s got some feather that keeps away the bad dreams. Long story short, the feather doesn’t work, the little girl slowly withers away from the thing feeding on her dreams, and she dies. The parents move out. The house is deserted. They say to the local kids if you go near the house, the little girl’s ghost will warn you away, and if you don’t listen, the big bad boogieman gets you.
Bunch of blitzle shit. They’re lucky I don’t believe in ghost stories.
So I’m hiking from Lentimas Town, dodging trainers when I can and being pressured into battles when I can’t. I fight three trainers: one with Golem, one with Magnets, and one with Boulder. Golem and Magnets get beat up pretty good, but Boulder takes it like a champ. The one’s an asshole who tried to skip out without even handing me some winnings, but the one I beat with Golem was nice enough to both pay me AND provide me with a basic potion when I said I didn’t have one for Golem.
It’s a white lie since I have a single potion in my pocket, but come on. That asshole made me battle, he should be the one to heal my pokemon.
Reversal Mountain towers above me. The way out here is craggy and jagged, like cracked concrete on a hot summer’s day. Sprouts of thick, lush grasses from the volcanic soil pop up here and there, but the clay is mostly rich red. Lentimas Town is tiny, but this is what they thrive off of. Almost everyone in the town makes handmade porcelain and pottery in the one single factory at the mountain base, and that’s how Lentimas Town makes its money. That, and they make the most elaborate stained glass and the brightest red dye in the entire world. (I hear a lot of the rich as shit Arceus churches out in Sinnoh ship their stained glass from here.)
Basically, anything that’s made and bought from here costs more than my yearly paycheck. It’s funny, because Lentimas Town is so rich, but they’re old-fashioned as shit. They live in clay buildings, have one tiny power plant, grow their own food, and have a bunch of skiddo, mareep, and ponyta. From what I hear, they sit on a stack of cash for when Reversal Mountain may eventually spew lava on them so they can rebuild, but they mostly donate to people that need it. Far as I know, Lentimas Town is full of decent people unlike the cash cow Undella Town on the other side of the mountain.
Gravel slides under my boots as I hike out to the Strange House. It’s less than a mile out, and I’m only halfway when I start getting nervous. The wilds out here are stronger than the ones out by Nimbasa. Probably something to do with this unforgiving countryside. I tiredly consider crybaby Lazarus and scardy-cat Golem. Neither would be good for this hike. Magnets is spunky and ready to fight, but he’s hurt from our other battle. Boulder is too damn slow to keep up, which leaves me with—
Fuck.
But as I climb rock formations and slide into lower valleys where the heat has scorched the spindly trees, I realize I can’t keep hiking out here without protection. I can hear the ekans and skorupi beneath low outcroppings, and I’ve seen the vibrava and skarmory overhead. This is not friendly territory, so I resign myself to my fate and release Seraph from its shiny Silph Co. pokeball.
Seraph immediately swings around and heads back to town. And I realize my mistake right after I release it.
“You fucking IDIOT,” I groan, and I fling my hands out at the patrolling sigilyph. “This is NOT fucking Relic Castle! Get back here!” No dice. Seraph continues on, and I briefly wonder how far it’d go before I return it. Fine. Golem it is. I release him and cock an eyebrow. “Okay buddy. You and me. Let’s go.”
He’s timid on this route, but he keeps up with me and helps deter the wilds, which is all I need. Reversal Mountain blocks the morning sun, which doesn’t help my exhaustion, but I resign myself to my fate. I think the guy who flew me here said there’s a route to the house through the mountain, but I’m not stupid enough to hike through there. The upper levels are boiling hot water because the lower levels are full of lava. I’m not risking getting lost in there. So I struggle outside the mountain, getting nicked by dead tree branches, pricked by cacti, and using my busted shovel as a walking stick until I see the god forsaken house in the distance.
The Strange House looks like a really bad horror house made out of clay. It’s cracked and crumbling after so many years of disuse, and it’s complete with spindly, leggy trees stretched and twisted like modern dancers. The beautiful stained glass windows are shattered and opaque with dust and years of weathering. The winds howls through this lower bit of the valley, tossing dust and tumbleweeds. I can see why the teenagers like this place. I bet they all come out here at night for a good scare.
Golem whines. He presses close behind me, and I roll my eyes. “Chill out, Golem. It’s just an abandoned building. Come on.” He stays rooted to the ground when I walk toward the house, so I’m forced to return and haul him forward by his hand. He knocks nervously the entire time, like his heartbeat is a drum banging on the inside of his chest. I open the door, and it scrapes inward on its hinges with a perilous shriek.
It’s dark inside even though it’s daytime since we’re in the shadow of the mountain. I stop for a moment and let my eyes adjust in the doorway, and I grab my flashlight. The light illuminates a rather large foyer since this house is almost mansion sized. Dust particles make the beam glitter, and I can hear the wind whistling through the cracks and broken windows.
I turn and grin at Golem. “You think there’s ghosts in here?” Golem squeals, and it’s only because I’m holding his hand that I keep him from running off. “Oh, stop it, Golem! Ghosts aren’t real! I mean—you! Ghost like YOU, numb nut! Pokemon!”
He’s still shivering. Golem whines again and hides behind me, peeking into the house. I roll my eyes. “Whatever. Come on. The house isn’t even that big. We’ll grab the dead jolteon and get out, okay? Look, I’ll even leave the door open.”
Golem nods as fast as he can. I step into the house, consider kicking the door shut just to give Golem a good scare, and I decide against it. I’m gonna be dragging him through this shitty job anyways. Might as well not make it worse.
The furniture is old and ugly and tossed about the foyer by whatever teens had their way with the place. To the far left and right, I can see two stairwells going downstairs and the main one is directly ahead, going upstairs. I decide not to push my luck with Golem just yet and I tug him into the house. He sounds like his internal mechanisms are hiccuping. I begin searching the four first level rooms from left to right. The first is a bathroom. Wallpaper peeling. Porcelain cracked and tarnished. Tiles missing. And it smells. There’s no jolteon.
I pull Golem along as he simpers about everything in sight. I mutter and tug him into the second room. I know why he’s freaked out. The house still has everything inside it, like it’s lived in, but it’s deserted. There’s dust coating every inch of the place, and the air is stale. The house creaks and groans like a living fossil. When Golem jumps again, I snap, “Golem, STOP. It’s just the house settling.” I don’t ask myself how a clay house is settling like a wooden house. Maybe clay creaks and snaps like wood as well. It’s certainly old enough. Hell, if I was this old, I’d be settling for whatever I could get too.
This room is a living den. There’s beat up couches and leaning bookshelves with their insides strewn across the floor. I step over the fallen books and go deeper into the place, checking behind the couches for the body, but I don’t see the jolteon. A soft whisper sifts through the air, and Golem beelines it to me with a squeal and his arms lock around my waist like vice grips.
“GOLEM!” This. Idiot. Ghost. I take one deep breath. I can’t freak him out further or god knows I’ll never get through this. I turn around and smoosh his face between my hands. I lift an eyebrow. “Listen to me, Golem. There is NOTHING in this house. You hear me?” He whimpers pitifully. “Golem. We are the ONLY ONES—”
This time, I hear thumps above us. On the second floor. I look up to the flaking ceiling, and the footsteps fade. I can feel Golem shaking in my hands. “Huh,” I mutter. I smirk at Golem. “Well, looks like we’re not alone.” His whine becomes a squeal. “TEENAGERS, Golem. This is a hot spot for scares. Bet it’s some local kid. Come on, let’s scare the pants off him.”
I tug Golem along and flick off my flashlight. When Golem protests, I shush him and head up the side staircase. The stairs groan like I’m stepping on old bones, and I hope the noise doesn’t give us away. I peer across the top floor. I fucking hate houses like this—the first floor was open and wonderful. However, upstairs goes back to that awful Victorian style home where it’s all narrow hallways and nooks and crannies. I don’t see anyone, so that means this kid’s gotta be creeping around in one of the rooms . . .
I think of where the footsteps had to lead, and I push the door open to the first room ever so slowly. There’s a kid with a darumaka by his heels, and yup, he’s a teen. I wink at Golem, and I creep forward. The boy’s flashlight is shaking, and his breath is labored. He’s looking deeper into the room, at the open closet, whispering, “J-Jameson? Jameson, wh-where—”
“BOO!”
“AAIIIGHH!!”
I howl with laughter when he screams like a little girl. The darumaka squeals and bolts beneath the bed, and I can’t fucking help it. I’m doubled over with laughter while the kid stammers, “W-What th-the hell! Wh—What’s WRONG with y-y-you! S-Stop it! That’s n-not f-funny!”
Tears spark in my eyes, and I can barely breathe I’m laughing so hard. “Oh, it’s pretty funny from over here!” and I snort into a second round of laughter when he not-so-subtly wipes the tears from his eyes.
“Shut up!” he repeats again, but now the venom is almost sucked from his voice. He’s all yellow bellied again and grabbing his darumaka like it’s the stuffed animal he had as a kid when the nightmares scared him. I flick on my flashlight again as Golem comes up behind me and takes my hand. “There is seriously something WRONG in this house,” the kid whispers. He looks wildly around the room again, and he hisses, “Have you seen anyone else in here?”
“Nope.”
He swears under his breath. “I—I’ve lost my friend. J-Jameson, I can’t find him anywhere.”
I give him the most dubious look I can. “And you were looking in the closet?”
“You’re not taking this seriously!” With the harsh light of my flashlight on him, I can see the kid is pouring sweat, and it’s not from the heat of his darumaka that’s pulled in all its limbs so it looks like a giant red turd. This kid is freaked out. I’m surprised he hasn’t pissed himself. “There is something WRONG in here! J-Jameson—” and he drops his voice to a harsh whisper—”Jameson disappeared. I—I heard him scream, a-a-and I haven’t been able to find him since.”
It’s deathly quiet in the house. That’s why when something scratches in the closet it sounds LOUD and CLOSE and sends the kid, his darumaka, and Golem all squealing behind me like I’m their bodyguard. I roll my eyes to the heavens for help. I turn my flashlight on the open closet.
Okay. So let me be real. It’s a LITTLE bit scary. Mostly because these three idiots are blowing it out of proportion and we’re in an abandoned building, in the dark, snooping in hallmark horror movie spots for scratching noises, but I’m no fool. It’s probably a ghost type pokemon trying to scare us. Abandoned buildings like these are breeding spots for the pranking ghosts.
I walk forward. No, that’s a lie, I’m going a lot slower than I thought I would be, I’m creeping up to this closet like something’s going to jump out at me. That’s why, when I’m within arm’s reach of the closet, I roll my eyes at myself, stick my shovel in and sweep away the clothes.
Nothing.
I ignore the feeling of relief and relish in being right. I turn on my gaggle of lily livered companions and say, “See? It’s fine.”
My spine tingles. I can FEEL something looking at me, but I know it’s just my mind telling me,
Oh, you said what they say in horror movies right before something drags you into the closet and kills you. I ignore the feeling and walk forward. I’m absolutely not picking up my feet quicker to avoid something snapping at my heels. “Let’s go, idiots. We’re getting you out of here, kid.”
“Wh-WHAT. You can’t!” I’m already out of the door of the room, and I turn back down the stairwell. For all his bellyaching, he doesn’t stray from me. “I have to find Jameson!”
“You’re too scared to be any use other than a drag and complete paranoia,” I tell him. We’re back in the main hall, the one that’s decently lit. I squint at the room and feel a weird sense of deja vu. Am I missing something here? The room seems . . . Oh fuck, that kid’s getting to me. Nothing about this room is off! I point to the door. “There’s the door. Scram.”
“B-But—!”
“I’ll find the other idiot teen around here,” I say. I might as well. I still have to find the jolteon, and I’ve barely started checking the house. “Now get the fuck out and stop wasting my time. I’ve got a job to do.”
I walk across the foyer with Golem by the hand. I turn towards the next room when I hear the door slam and the boy screech, “NO! No no no no—!”
If creatures in this house don’t kill him, I’ll kill him myself.
I turn around and see the scared-as-Luigi-in-the-haunted-mansion boy pulling and yanking on the door with all his might. Another howl of wind tears through the valley, and it whistles through the cracks in the house. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Just open it,” I tell him.
“I’m TRYING! I’m trying, I swear to Arceus, I’m trying, it just swung shut on its own!”
I don’t get paid enough for this.
“That’s because it’s windy as shit and the wind blew it shut, pally. Get out of my way.” He whirls from the door, shining his flashlight for things in the dark while I pull on the door. Huh. So it won’t budge. I fiddle with the locks. They won’t unlock. Stupid rusted shit.
“We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die . . .”
“Oh would you SHUT UP.” He’s freaking Golem out too. I take a step back and kick the door. It rattles on its hinges with a deafening BANG! and still doesn’t open. Luigi-boy yelps and grabs my arm when I start to do it again.
“Don’t do that! You’ll get us killed for sure!”
I whirl and put my hands together like I’m praying. “Look,” I say to Luigi-boy’s splotchy, sweaty face. “The only types of ghosts that are real are pokemon, like Golem here. The only thing that might be messing with you in here are the ghost types. Okay? Ghosts are notorious for pulling creepy pranks. The door here? Probably an arena trap of some sort. Maybe a Mean Look.” I knock on the door. “It’s wood. You’ve got a darumaka. Just burn it.”
He’s gulping and shaking like a madman. But he nods and says, “O-okay . . . U-Use Incinerate!”
The fire splatters ineffectively on the wood, like water over a waterproofed boat. I grunt in surprise. Okay, that I wasn’t expecting. “Guess something’s blocking the door,” I say as Luigi-boy whimpers. I grin at Golem. “Wanna go on a ghost hunt?”
Golem shakes his head.
“Sorry, you don’t actually have a vote. Let’s go.”
We check the last two rooms downstairs for the jolteon and Jameson. Both are empty, and I’m stuck with the three stooges behind me, all jumping at the slightest creak in the old house or the wind screaming above. It’s hard to keep a level head like this. Their paranoia brushes off on me, and the more time we spend in this creepy ass house the more unnerved I get. I choose to go upstairs to the narrow hallways first instead of downstairs. It’s not because my heart is beating too fast in my chest. Nope. Basements are bad ideas.
It’s only when we start hearing skittering in the walls that I’m CONVINCED that there are ghost types dicking around with us. My gaggle of flat tires all cluster up next to me. I elbow Luigi-boy off and bat with mild annoyance at Golem. We inch up the stairwell. “Hello?”
Luigi-boy chokes on a rubber duck. “Don’t talk to them!”
I roll my eyes. They’re going to get stuck in the back of my head at this rate. I still my quaking heart and shine my flashlight down an empty hallway. Nothing. I give Luigi-boy my best bored look and push into the nearest door. It’s a bedroom. Looks like the guest bedroom too. Luigi-boy, his darumaka, and Golem all pile in behind me, and they quickly shut the door on the darkness and focus on the room we’re in. We don’t split up. No, I begin combing the room, checking under the bed and in the closet for bodies while Huey, Dewy and Lewie here treat me like their personal fire extinguisher.
I don’t find any bodies, but there’s a dresser drawer open that makes my skin crawl. The lowest one with darkness shifting ever so slightly in it. I tug on Golem and gesture. “Shadow Punch.”
He looks up at me like I’ve asked him to dig up my mother’s grave. “Oh for pete’s sake, Golem, I know what a ghost type looks like! SHADOW PUNCH.”
Golem bolsters himself as best he can, shines bright as a night light, and he goes careening into the dresser. Luigi-boy flinches with a loud cry, and I think Golem catches more wood than he does pokemon. But, for all my trouble, up from the darkness springs a banette, all sharp clothed edges and slitted pink eyes. The zipper mouth pulls back, and it screeches a noise like nails on a chalkboard. I clap my hands to my ears and shout, “Shadow Punch again!” while Luigi-boy screams in unadulterated fear.
Golem’s chest bangs shrilly, like a dropped gong on concrete, and he leaps forward. His fist, cloaked in ghostly energies, plows the banette into the ground, and it hisses, writhing and twisting before it fades into the floor. I jump—we can’t lose the thing—! And then the coalescing shadows zip around Golem and rise up behind him. My mouth opens with a warning when the banette’s Shadow Sneak tears into Golem’s back like hot irons in water. Steam pours out. Golem shrieks in pain and twists, and even in this darkness, I can see the gashes in him.
“Stay calm and overpower it!” I tell him. “Shadow Punch!”
With another bull rush, Golem gets into the banette’s space and hauls off with a right hook that makes me proud. The banette snarls and spits, but this time, it’s retreating. The thing’s frayed, coming apart at the seams, and its baleful pink eyes hiss at Golem. Golem shrinks, and then pitifully shakes his fist at it. The ghost slinks back into the darkness, disappearing somewhere deeper in the house.
My fists are clenched knucklebone white around the flashlight and the shovel. Everything feels tight in my chest, like I’ve seized up in defense of an attack. My muscles are tense and my lungs are squished by my rapidly beating heart. But I rasp, “Attaboy, Golem,” and he gives me the tiniest thumbs up.
I drag in a deep breath. I spare Luigi-boy the briefest of smirks. “See? A ghost POKEMON. Dumbass.”
He giggles weakly. “Y-Yeah,” he says. “A pokemon.” He’s squeezing his darumaka so tight I’m surprised the thing’s legs haven’t popped back out.
I roll my eyes at him. With one of the ghosts flushed out, I feel more in charge of the situation. Get rid of the ghosts, find his buddy, find the jolteon. I have a game plan now. “C’mon, kid,” I say as we exit the room. “I told you it was the ghost typ—OH FUCKING—mother of fuck!”
There, down at the end of the hallway is a little girl that makes me jump right out of my skin. I slap my hand to my chest to calm myself. Golem whines and Luigi-boy starts rasping air between his teeth. I think he’s stammering, but I’m more concerned with this little girl standing like a creepy doll at the end of this dark as fuck hallway. The only reason I even saw her is because of my flashlight.
“Kid!” I call to her. My voice does NOT break. “What are you doing here?” No kid that young needs to be traipsing around a deserted house all on her own. I grip my shovel. These tight hallways are making me claustrophobic, and no one likes little girls in pretty dresses in infamous haunted houses. The whole house creaks again like a ship at sea. The girl turns and walks into the room to her right.
“Hey—!”
I get one step before Luigi-boy grabs me. And the teen’s hyperventilating like he’s run a race now, stuttering, “Th-th-th-that’s her! Th-That’s the g-g-ghost o-of the h-h-house! W-We have to l-leave! NOW. W-We have t-t-t—”
“Oh for crying out loud!” I shrug the kid off. He’s making me paranoid as shit! I try my best, but I can’t get my heart to calm down now, and my fear translates into aggression. “There are no such thing as ghosts! If you want to get out, then be my guest! Go chase yourself! You deal with the door, and I’ll deal with the canceled stamp.”
My heart feels like it’s about to explode at this point, and I can’t tell if it’s my own genuine fear anymore or if it’s the annoyance of Luigi-boy who has no balls to his name. Clearly he doesn’t fancy going back down the stairs by himself because he tails me and Golem to go deal with this mysterious girl. The door she went into is cracked. I put my shovel in front of me and push it open.
It creaks with a sharp squeal on its hinges. The sound damn near echoes in this hollow house, and we enter a little girl’s room. There’s a frilly, dusty bed center stage and a dresser with little girl clothes vomited from it. And—Oh for FUCK’S SAKE. There’s even those old-school dolls with the porcelain faces staring out at us. It’s the picture of creepy. I can’t even make this up. I step inside, literally dragging Golem’s scardy-cat ass with me, but Luigi stands in the hallway, shaking his head.
“Whatever,” I mutter to myself. I need to talk or something. The house is too damn quiet. Aspertia City was pretty quiet as a country bumpkin town, but it DID gain that “city” title for a reason. Aspertia had been growing. And especially in Nimbasa with all the noise? This deathly quiet is unnerving as shit for me. Golem is at least reassuring with his arms wrapped around my waist.
I poke around the room that’s strewn with toys. I peek under the bed. Nothing. I ignore my queasy stomach and check the closet. Nothing there. I step on a dollhouse bed and swear. My eyes follow the stream of toys on the floor all the way to a closed toy box.
My heart turns into a thin-blooded acrobat about to lose consciousness. I shuffle forward with Golem to the toy box. There’s a lip just big enough for me to slip the edge of my shovel into. I’m shaking.
Please don’t let Jameson be in here, please don’t let Jameson be in here, PLEASE don’t let Jameson be in here—
I flip the lid open.
“Oh fuck—” I turn away before I pace back and look at this kid stuffed into this toy box. Jameson is dead. Deader than a fucking doornail. His limbs are all contorted in unnatural angles to make him fit. The skin around his face is pulled tight like a face stretcher, like those old dames trying to look young. His eyes have damn near sunk into liquid goo in his skull, and there’s blood oozing from his ears. Golem muffles a wail in the small of my back.
A chill goes up my spine. While logically I know it could have easily been a pokemon that killed him, for the first time, I can’t shake that Luigi-boy might be right.
“Kid—” I can barely get a rasp out of my throat looking at this corpse. “Kid,” I call louder, and I turn, “I think I found—”
The breath snags in my lungs. I jerk backwards and half collapse into the toy box with Jameson because right there in front of me is that little girl. Her face is the same, stretched too tight, watery and mushy eyes, blood seeping from her ears. She stares at me, and she shakes her head.
“An endless dream,” she whispers. She’s pale as the dead. Her form isn’t corporeal. My ass sits froze on top of this teenager’s body that’s stuffed away like a snack, and for all my fucking bluster. I can’t. Fucking. MOVE. I can’t even fucking breathe. The little ghost girl shakes her head. “An endless, dark dream . . .”
Her head snaps to the corner of the room. I look too, but there’s nothing there. She looks around the room. My flashlight flickers. “He’s coming,” she whispers. She looks right at me with those pulpy eyes. “Run,” she whispers. “He’s coming. He’s coming, RUN!”
She disappears like a wisp of smoke blown away by the wind. For one second, I’m petrified. The breath seesaws in and out of me with audible rasps. My hands are clammy, and my heart feels like it’s going to explode.
Then, I hear footsteps down the hall.
I bolt to my feet. Fuck Jameson, fuck the jolteon, and fuck Luigi-boy, he’s on his own! I run to the door, and like the most fucking predictable horror movie, the door slams shut with a resounding BANG! and I leap for the handle. It jiggles, locked, and I fumble with the flashlight and the shovel as I yank and pull on the fucking thing. I step back and kick it. My flashlight flickers, and I KNOW it’s not running out of juice, I just replaced the batteries! I smack it a couple times, and then, it flickers out completely, leaving me in the pitch black room with Golem. He glows like the faintest night light, and I leap back to him as he whimpers. His core flickers wildly, like it’s about to go out like my flashlight.
Someone rattles the door. The shadows coalesce over there, and I don’t fucking care whether it’s paranoia or not, whatever is beyond there is NOT Luigi-boy. Luigi-boy got snatched. Me and Golem are all that’s left in this fucking terrible house, and I squeak, “Shadow Punch! Shadow Punch!”
I can sense it now. Just like the closet, I can FEEL that thing in the room. It’s all around us, and it’s too fucking dark to see it. We cluster in the center of the room, Golem pressed up against me with two hesitant Shadow Punches flickering around his fists, but he’s stuttering like a broken lawn mower. He’s twitching to all sides of the room, and my eyes are whipping back and forth like the second I look to one spot, that thing in the dark will be there in another spot.
The bed rattles. We both bolt away like we’ve been burned, Golem with a squeal and me without any breath left to scream. We can’t see it. But I hear something in the walls, and I hear a dark, inhuman cackle echo from the shadows. I grab Golem as the thing closes in. I can’t see it in the dark but I KNOW it’s there, I can feel it in the room, I can feel it closing in, the shadows are playing tricks on my eyes—
And I scream, “Golem, MAGNITUDE!”
Golem shrieks too, stomps out with one foot, and the attack unleashes in the house. The earth shakes beneath us violently enough to vibrate my bones and crack the clay ceiling. Something caterwauls from the dark. The wood splinters beneath us. Golem and I scream as we fall, and we crash through one more level before I hit the ground hard and I fall into the black.
Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We’re off to never neverland”
Enter Sandman __ Metallica
I fall into black and I wake up in the black.
Pain races up my body. I groan, tired and groggy and disoriented with stabbing pain in the back of my head. I feel like I’ve woken up from a bad hangover where I was drunk enough to hop in one of those new tumble washing machines. I hiss as I sit upright and peel my eyes open again.
It’s pitch black. My breath stops when it all rushes back to me, and I whip my head around. Fuck. FUCK. Where’s Golem?
My mouth catches on his name. I can’t call for him. That thing might come back. And then I think of Golem, scared little ghost type Golem in a haunted house full of ghosts that can do him a lot of damage, and my heart stutters.
Fucking . . . Fuck!
I scramble on the floor for my flashlight. I pat around in the dark, my heart racing so fast it should have exploded at this point. After a long minute of panicked scrabbling, my hand knocks the flashlight further away. I manage to find it again, and I toggle its switch. It lights up, like it’s fine with working now that the monster’s gone.
I’m in a new room. This one is like a library, lines upon lines of bookshelves with a carpet of books and papers strewn throughout. It’s pitch dark, musky, stale, and cold. It occurs to me that I’m in the basement.
I glance at the nearest bookshelf. What’s left on the shelf is religious and demonic texts. I shake that off because GOLEM isn’t here. I’m not about to lose that ghost for anything, haunted house with undead demons in it or not. That is MY ghost. He’s the last link I’ve got to my father and I will NOT lose him in here.
I wince to my feet and rasp, “Golem?” My voice echoes down the apparently large room. “Golem?”
A voice mimics me. I freeze. I don’t recognize that voice. It’s squeaky and too friendly. The high-pitched voice yips out again, but this time in song. I grab my forgotten shovel on the ground, and I wield it with one hand like a knight creeping in to slay a dragon. I creep between the bookshelves, peering my eyes forward. “Golem?”
It’s a jaunty song. It doesn’t sound human, but it’s too friendly to be the monster. So that leaves me with a ghost pokemon. Hopefully. The house has been suspiciously empty of ghost types even though I can hear them in the walls. My lead feet drag forward, and the hairs on the back of my neck raise as I stalk between the bookshelves. The house sways ominously around me, like the shadows play tricks or like Golem’s Magnitude compromised the foundation.
There’s a faint light ahead. My sweaty hands re-grip my adventure items. How the FUCK am I breathing so god damn loud? I’m not sneaking around if I sound like a punctured tire! I stifle my breathing until I feel light headed, and I turn off my flashlight. I approach the faint light.
I exit the bookshelves. There, on top of a table, is a small litwick. The oozing candle is dancing around a single book on the table—the entire basement has been filled with strewn papers and books like a tornado tore through the area, but not there. On the table, it’s just the ghost and the book. I stand frozen at the edge of the bookcase, watching the little litwick dance around the book like it’s completing its own personal seance. I wet my dry lips. My head is fuzzy from more than falling two stories—I haven’t eaten today, much less drank enough. But my stomach is cramping so hard at the unnerving sight of this ghost that I can’t fathom trying to eat now. My numb fingers try and fail to grab the pokeballs in my pocket.
The litwick comes to a stop with a grand flourish. It turns to me. I stare at it. It bows, and the flame on the top of its head twinkles.
I’m in a haunted house with a dancing candle pokemon. I would be out of my mind if I didn’t bow to the thing and rasp, “G-Great show, Lumiere.” My voice is too damn LOUD in this eerie as fuck house.
The litwick brightens. It chirps at me, and it whirls around that book again. And I’m not stupid. Sure, I’m broke as hell and ornery as fuck, but I ain’t stupid. I know an invitation when I see one. And I don’t know why I do it, but I turn on my flashlight to double check that we’re alone, and I walk up to the table.
It’s a journal. Worn, leather binding and frayed pages leaf out of it, and I drag the thing to me. Lumiere stares at me. Unblinking. Fuck. FUCK. I reach for the pokeball with the strongest pokemon I have, and I release it. Seraph begins to fly away even now, but I grab its tail to get its attention.
“This isn’t Relic Castle,” I rasp to it, hoping for once that it will understand. I think of the Champion and her Haxorus, and I think of Seraph posted between us. I whisper, “Patrol me,” and its feathers rustle. Seraph floats in place, hesitant. Here and now, I need this abomination by my side because it’s more threatening than anything this fucking house can dish out at me, so I order it, “Patrol. ME.”
A guttural chirp emits from Seraph. The sigiliph begins circling me the way it did when Iris threatened me. Only then do I grab the journal and leaf through it.
Its full of scribbles about dreams and demons, ghosts and creatures and pokemon. Dreams specifically. I flip to the back of the journal for a name, and
Jeff Fennel is there in faded ink. I turn back to a chunk in the front of the book, and it reads,
“Amanita still won’t wake up. She’s even weaker than before. The doctors can’t do anything. Something in this house is killing her, and I must find out what it is so I can save her.”
I turn to hurried notes. They detail pokemon like haunter, hypno, drowzee, duskull, and drifloon. Their abilities. Things like forewarn, aftermath, and behavior tendencies like stealing away children.
Seraph swings back and forth around me like a pendulum. The litwick on the table croons, and its flame flickers. I bend over the table with my flashlight. It has to be the father’s diary. Amanita is the ghost girl. I turn forward to where the spine of the diary naturally unfolds.
There is a pokemon called Darkrai in the far Sinnoh region. To protect itself, it drives people and pokemon away with terrible nightmares. I know this is what is killing Amanita. Darkrai is a malevolent creature in their myth. Amanita is still suffering her nightmares, but she doesn’t scream anymore. She’s gaunt and weak. I have to find the cure. I have to find it. I won’t lose her.
I turn the page. The date is less than a week later.
There is a pokemon called Cressslia in the far Sinnoh region. They say its wings shine like the crescent moon and keep the nightmares away. Darkrai is a creature of the new moon; Cresslia is a creature of the full moon. I must find it. Summon it. Somehow. It is the only hope for Amanita.
My hands are cold and clammy. Goosebumps are chasing up my skin, but Seraph hasn’t sounded any alarm, so everything must be fine. I peek around the room myself, find nothing other than Lumiere in front of me, and I turn the page again. Jeff’s handwriting is jagged. It’s barely legible.
Dahlia is pregnant again. She wants to leave this house and leave Amanita. Gods help us.
A rattle yanks my head up from the journal. Lumiere squeaks, and his light dims, dims to a very tiny fleck. Seraph snarls, and its feathers frizz. I slap the journal shut and shove it in the pocket by my knee. I whirl around to the bookcases where Seraph faces, and I point my flashlight down there, lighting Seraph’s way.
My mouth hurts. I’ve been grinding my teeth. I unlock my jaw and lift my shovel. “Where is it?” I whisper to the sigilyph.
Seraph growls, a low, ethereal sound that echoes the undead lurking these halls. The flashlight shakes in my hand. I grip it hard, praying it doesn’t go out, and I check out rear.
The girl is there. Blood and viscous liquid oozes from her ears and eyes, but she’s a victim. She’s not my enemy, no matter how she makes my heart rate spike and blood pressure boil with fear. Amanita wheezes, “In the dark dream . . . I heard my father’s voice . . . Forget about the Lunar Wing . . . It didn’t work . . . Please stay here with me . . .” Her head lifts past me. Seraph’s spitting grows fierce. The flashlight rattles, and the bulb swells like a pus filled cyst before exploding. Darkness cloaks the room, and I hear Amanita’s cold breath hiss in my ear,
“Run.”
I bolt to the one light source in the room, little Lumiere on the table, and I snatch the litwick up with my bare hands and run into the darkness. The litwick whines and shivers in my palm, cold and sticky, and Seraph screeches in the darkness. A blast ripples the air behind me, and my knee smacks hard into a metal chair, but I don’t waste time screaming. I lunge through the darkness, tripping over open books with a pinprick of light from Lumiere lighting my way until I crash into a banister. The stairs!
Seraph yowls in the brownout like a thing possessed, and I hear it—the monster. It rattles and screeches in likeness, and papers fly in the room. Scrambling and sweat slicking my grip on my shovel, I bolt up the stairs, taking them two by two until I reach the first, dim floor, and for once my eyes can see in this lighting. The faint sun of afternoon filters from above, even in the shadow of the mountain.
I go crashing over a couch with a shriek. I look up, and my blood thins and I feel a dizzy spell make the room swim. This house is WRONG. The place IS rearranging itself, this was NOT how the furniture was the first time, and it’s not how it was the second time. I look to the door. There’s poor Luigi-boy, flat on his back, staring listlessly at the ceiling. Blood trickles from his ears. His eyes are pools of soup in his skull.
The furniture rattles.
I shriek when the couches, chairs, and bookshelves go flying across the room. They pile against the door, and I know there’s no leaving. We’re going to fucking die here, that thing is going to tear through Seraph, it’s too powerful, and Golem—
FUCK! Fucking anyone but him—
I open my mouth, and I SCREAM
.
“GOLEM!” I race up the center stairwell into the upper halls again, toting Lumiere like a sticky flashlight as his little wick brightens with panic. The ghost is just as scared, if not even more scared than I am. “GOLEM! Golem where the fuck are you! Golem!”
That is MY pokemon! He’s MINE! My father gave him to me, and no fucking monster in the dark got him! I fly through the upper halls, shouldering open doors and tearing through the bedrooms with Lumiere wailing in my hands like a banshee. I can’t find him. Sweat pours down my back. I feel hot and dizzy, like the oxygen is sucking from the house. He’s not here. He’s not. FUCKING. HERE. And I shriek, “Golem! GOLEM! Where are you! Fuck, fuck, FUCK, GOLEM!” and I check the girl’s room again, I check the closets, I toss back the bedspreads, I tear the house apart from top to bottom, but I can’t find MY ghost, MY Golem, it’s like he’s completely disappeared, and I can’t reconcile that, he was HERE WITH ME, he’s not gone—!
I shoulder into locked doors so hard the wood splinters around the brass handles, and a bruise stains my skin. My body hurtles into a giant music hall, and I stop in the doorway, shuddering.
The stench of rotting, decaying DEATH hits my nose, and I see the swelled body of the jolteon in the far corner. This room is faintly lit by the day’s sun filtering through the patchy roof. Leaves and dusts swirl in the room as another wind howls through the house with a creaking groan. There, in the center of the room, is a small skeleton on dark stained wood, and tons of gray feathers, like a pillow fight gone bad.
It’s not a human skeleton. I ignore the instruments and shelves of music, and I walk in because that larger feather in the center of the skeleton is sparkling faintly even under the dust. I reach into the ring of ribs and pick the feather up. It’s bright green and yellow and curved like a crescent.
Bile pitches in my throat. I sweep my foot through the gray feathers. They dust up, pale blue, yellow, and pink.
Lumiere pitches from my hand with a squeak. I whirl, and before I can do anything, I’m caught. A shining ring glows, swinging back and forth, and my eyes are attached to it like it’s a lighthouse signal and I’m drowning at sea.
The fear leaves. It leeches out of my body like the blood leeched from Luigi-boy’s ears, and I feel tranquil as I watch the pendulum swing back and forth, back and forth. I know I should be afraid when I see a yellow furred humanoid step from the shadows. A hypno is serious shit. And it’s battered and furious, but I can’t control myself. I drop my shovel. My arms go limp. My eyelids feel heavy, and I feel like I’m falling through the house again, falling into a deep, yawning abyss.
The abyss has electric blue eyes. It stares back, rising up behind the hypno.
For some reason, the color makes me think of Golem.
***
My dreams are vivid.
Bright.
Dark.
Bloody.
I see Amanita. She laughs with an abra and strays far too deep in the mountains from her home. Someone beckons her, and she follows. The figure shifts just beyond my sight, dark and hidden. A hand reaches out to Amanita. She takes it.
She falls limp in bed. I’m trying so hard to communicate with her, but she can’t hear me. She looks like a doll in her plastic house, just like one of her toys. I can’t protect her.
The monster is too fast.
The darkness screams. Daughter. Mother. Father. Two have living nightmares. The other cannot understand me, lost in her dreams.
This is my fault.
It’s all my fault.
Heavenly squalling peals through the house. They think I’ve done this. I can’t tell them what the monster is, and now, I see her. Cresslia. The father is gaunt, shagged with unkept hair, and the mother as thin and waifish as her daughter. They drag the legendary to the center of the room, and Cresslia is blindfolded, chained, and weak from the struggle.
“It will work. We need all of the feathers. If the Lunar Wing doesn’t work, we’ll take them all! This will work!”
An axe rises.
An axe falls.
Blood splatters.
The butcher’s axe hacks into the creature. The first blow doesn’t kill it. Cresslia wails. Amanita screams. The axe tears deep into her. The full moon wanes. Bloody feathers fall like rain around me, and pain rips into me with every blow he delivers to her body. And I scream, and the blood fills my lungs, and I see baleful blue eyes like glinting cyan stones BURN. And the darkness rises. And rises. And it crashes over me.
***
Seraph is howling.
I choke awake, coughing on blood. I’m cold and clammy, and sweat drenches my skin. I hunch over, hacking up globs of viscous blood and eyes crying waterfalls. I can’t see, but sharp pain stabs my brain with every heave of my body, with every pound of my heart.
My head is splitting. I’m blinded by a haze of tears and eyes that won’t focus. Seraph is wailing like an alarm, and there are blasts all around me, but it’s muffled. It sounds like I’m underwater and the hubbub is muted. I grab my throbbing skull and push across the floor, heaving and vulnerable.
My ears clear first. I hear a gong, loud and clear, and it brings my head up. I KNOW that sound. And it feels like I’ve got a film of plastic wrap pulled against my eyes, but I blink and blink and wash away the involuntary tears until my eyes focus in on the disarray around me.
Seraph wings around me, back and forth and around, and its eyes are all peeled in different directions, rolling around like a madman. And there’s Golem, internal mechanisms banging, and Shadow Punches primed as he postures in front of me. I see he’s got a new wound. It looks like a massive force collided with his front, and now his body is cracked like glass from that point. Mist seeps from him with every step, following his movement like morning fog on a lake.
The hypno stands before us, but it’s hunched and defensive. It licks around its mouth and bulbous nose, panting with hunger and eyes locked on me. And it suddenly occurs to me why we barely saw any other ghosts in this house. They were there. They were in the walls. They all scratched and hid and fled except for the powerful banette and little Lumiere who gave me the hint. Of course the weaker ghosts would flee when something as powerful as a hypno stalks the halls.
The hypno screeches and lunges. It’s eyes glow bright, and Seraph reacts in kind, eyes flashing with power as a Light Screen wraps around us. An invisible force blasts my hell bird out of the sky and into the grand piano. The lid falls closed over it. Golem rushes the hypno, and I reach for him, screaming, “Golem, NO!”
The pendulum yanks straight in the hypno’s hand. It swings, and Golem’s charge slows. He stumbles, swings wide, and collapses in a sleeping heap when the hypno hypnotizes him.
I grab one of the apricorns in my pocket, and I don’t give a shit who it is. I scrub my eyes, leap to my feet, and suddenly the fear doesn’t matter because it’s all hot rage in the back of my head as I twist the knob and release my pokemon. The hypno’s eyes glow. It takes too long for Lazarus to form.
The yellow psychic twitches. It looks straight at me, and my shadow lengthens before me, claws outstretched. A sickening, lurid, and SMUG smile stretches over the hypno’s face as pure darkness rises up from my shadow and into the air. The hypno winks out of sight just as a powerful Dark Pulse emits from the murky form. Splinters fly from the wooden floor. The inky ghost grunts, a low, husky, frustrated sound and the shadow seeps through the floor.
Lazarus whines and sinks back to my ankles. My heart hammers in my chest, my ears, my head.
It keeps getting away with it because it can Teleport.
It senses the big one coming with Forewarn, and it has its getaway panned. I scramble to find my note inside Lazarus’ pokeball. Will O Wisp, Night Shade, Hex, and—
I scoop up my tiny new friend, if I can call the ghost a friend after knowing it for less than 24 hours. “We can’t let it get away,” I say. There’s another ghost in this house, and one with Dark Pulse. That’s strong enough to really HURT that hypno, if not kill it outright. “The second you see that hypno come back, you have to Disable its Teleport! Got it? We can do this—”
More smoke pours from Golem. I stare in abject horror as a knot of darkness slithers about his skull like a hoard of electric eels, zapping him and sucking on his life force.
Nightmare.
“Golem!” I bolt across the room with Lazarus. I fall on my knees and yank the potion from my pocket and spray it on him, and I KNOW that hypno is healing, but I have to stabilize Golem first. I WON’T lose him, I refuse to fucking lose him—!
The second I’ve emptied the entire potion on him, I return him. Seraph yowls in the dim room, and I hear the piano break with a grisly, discordant squeal of keys and snapping wood. It zooms to me, zapping psybeams at it comes, like a laser-filled dreidel. Its feathers are askew. Its mouth is open, drooling with exhaustion and frothing with anger.
The hypno reappears feet in front of us. We all scream, Lazarus and I with terror and Seraph in blind anger. Psybeam blasts against Psychic. The hypno stumbles back but Seraph hits the dirt behind us. The hypno extends its pendulum again, and I cover Lazarus’ eyes and try to close mine, but . . . It’s just . . . So . . .
The hypno jerks back, and my body lurches forward like an internal string yanks against my ribs. I stumble and almost drop Lazarus. I sense the presence of that powerful ghost behind me, and I see the hypno curling back with a seething leer—
“Lazarus, NOW!”
A white wisp pops in the hypno’s face just as it attempts to disappear. Its body flickers and stays rooted in front of us. Wild terror fills its eyes, and it looks up above me. Black coils pummel into the pokemon.
The hypno eats dirt, and I flinch, wincing back and falling on my ass. Lazarus cuddles into my stomach, hiding behind his face. I gape as this creature of the night surges up, and I realize grimly that that is NOT a ghost.
The Darkrai lunges over the fallen hypno. The jagged, teeth-like rim of red circles its head, and white smoke tousles from the top of it like it burns inside. The hypno bats weakly at the dark type, but the Darkrai collects inky pitch in its claws, reaches down, and smothers the hypno in the substance. The hypno struggles. It falls limp.
My palms sweat as I watch in horrified awe as the Darkrai surges up like a smoky black cloud, cyan eyes burning, and it plunges through the hypno. The body convulses and then rests.
Silence falls.
It’s just me and Lazarus and Seraph. I stare at the hypno, breaths labored and body weak. I feel sick. My head is whirling, my blood is hot, and I’ve got a headache the size of Mt. Coronet, but I stare at that hypno. It’s dead. I can tell. It looks untouched by the darkrai, but it’s too still. The body is stiff, like it’s already seized up with rigor mortis within seconds after dying, something that shouldn’t happen until nearly four hours later.
I find my shovel. Pick it up. I slip Lazarus into my pocket since he’s scared, and Seraph begins patrolling around me again. It doesn’t sense a threat from the hypno anymore. I reach forward and touch it. The corpse is cold and rigid, like it’s body has accelerated into death because of the darkrai.
I look around the silent music room. There are still no ghosts coming out of the walls. I think of the Darkrai, a greater threat to the ghosts living here. It’s powerful. Even more powerful than the hypno. That thing is a minor god. And I suspect that the hypno’s only defense against them was its Forewarn and Teleport. Otherwise, it would’ve been mincemeat a lot time ago.
“Seraph,” I rasp. I sound too loud. My voice is too rough. I sound like I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes. “Where is it?”
My sigilyph rustles in agitation. It swings back and forth, searching. I don’t know why I asked. A psychic type won’t be able to sense a dark type. I don’t know if any pokemon could.
I check my watch. It’s frozen, like the hypno decided to fucking short out the battery like it fucked up my flashlight. I look up. There’s still light filtering through the patchy ceiling, but it’s slanted. After going unconscious twice in this god forsaken house, we have to be pushing late afternoon. Evening. I sit on the ground, rub my face and try to gather myself.
I hurt. I fucking hurt all over, and most of all my brain. That hypno had to be leeching my fucking brain when I dreamed about good ol’ Jeff butchering a minor god for his daughter. How the fuck did he even get it. Why the fuck do these things happen to me.
There’s not much to do in the house now except get the hell away. I go back downstairs with Seraph and Lazarus, searching for my pack. It’s by the entrance to the basement, where I toppled over that couch. I pick it up, take my coffee mug, and I take a big drink. The coffee is cold and gross, and it tastes so strong that it could probably get up and walk. I can’t eat. I’m nauseous as hell, and I know it’s from more than just getting my brain slurped by a hypno.
I find the body bag in my pack and head up the stairs with a limp. I don’t remember what I ran into in the basement, but my right shin is throbbing something fierce. I bag up the dead jolteon and head down the main stairwell again, jolteon corpse thumping on ever step.
Seraph uses its psychic powers to clear the doorway for me. I leave Luigi-boy at the threshold, and I leave Jameson stuffed in the toy box. That’s not my job. And I’m too weak to carry extra bodies through this fucking wasteland. I know it’ll slow me down, but I return Seraph since it’s tired and weak, and I release Boulder. I heft the jolteon on him, and he’s so dumb he’s fine with being my pack mule. I steady his load with my hand, and we begin the long trek back to the Pokemon Center.
Jeff Fennel’s journal and the Lunar Wing sit like lead weights in my pant pockets. My mind and body sink gratefully into numb shock about it all, and I’m dead tired. My legs feel like they’re in splints as I stumble around Reversal Mountain’s base, and I just want to get back to Lentimas Town. I want to sleep, but there’s still enough dread lingering in my bones to fuel my nightmares. I just want to rest. My body needs food, water, and rest, and I can’t give it to myself as much as I want or need.
My shadow feels heavy, like I’m dragging the dead along with me.
