Chapter Text
“I want you to text me every hour, okay kiddo? And stay in the boundary of town, and—”
Jim groaned, interrupting his mom as gently as he could, “Mom. We’ve been over this. I’ll be fine. I’m going to be with Tobes and some other kids from school, my phones fully charged, I just ate and I’m wearing my warmest jacket and scarf.”
Barbara Lake raised one eyebrow, “As impressive as it is you’ve thought about this, it’s not going to make me worry less, Jim. You know how this town gets around this time.”
“So really I should be asking you if you’re going to be alright.” Jim countered, a small smirk forming on his face.
Barbara ruffled his mop of dark brown hair playfully, “I will be at the hospital working a long shift, then Walt’s going to take me out.”
Jim grimaced at that.
Mr Strickler and his mom had been dating for about six months or so. And it had been weird.
Mr Strickler was his favourite teacher, but it was so awkward now when he was going out on dates with his mom. Not to mention the fact that the sense of uncanniness he’d always noticed around Mr Strickler and brushed away was even more intense when he was in his home.
His mom caught his look.
“Oh, Jim. Walt is trying his best to make this work. You know he cares about you too, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” Jim muttered in response.
Barbara gave his cheek a peck, tugging on his scarf teasingly, ‘Okay, go and have fun with your friends, just don’t stay out too late.”
“Yes, mom,” he replied dutifully, then turned his attention eagerly to the outside world.
As he exited the house, carefully shutting but not locking the door behind him, as his mom would soon be leaving anyway for her shift at the hospital, he took a deep, cleansing breath of air. The sun was still up, but it wouldn’t be for long, and he wanted to be at his destination before the light faded.
He’d only travelled a block when his phone buzzed with a text message. He took it out of his pocket. A text from Toby.
Tobes: Dude, hurry up, everyone’s here already!!
You: Already? That’s quick... Wait, even Steve?!
Tobes: Duh, yes! Even Steve! Claire’s here as well, with Darci and Mary. Gonna have all the ladies tonight. :-P
Jim chuckled out-loud at that, fingers deftly tapping out a reply.
You: I know Claire’ll be there and all... But should we really be doing this?
The dots that signalled that Toby was thinking about what to say came and vanished several times, then:
Tobes: Hey this town is pretty much dead, listening to Eli’s ghost stories at a Graveyard sure beats staying home all night. Now hurry up and get your butt here!
Jim weakly replied with an affirmative, then continued on his way, a bit faster than when he had set off. He shivered as a cool breeze teased at the back of his neck, feeling like cold fingers were crawling over his exposed skin. The appeal of roaming around a graveyard on Halloween was beginning to fade, replaced with a cold chill that what they were doing was going to have consequences.
But he would not be labelled a coward by chickening out of this meeting. So, shoving his concerns down, he determinedly pushed onwards, ignoring the way the hairs at the back of his neck prickled.
“Omg! Finally!” Mary rolled her eyes as she said it, the first to speak when Jim reached the graveyard, looking up from her phone screen with a irritated frown, slim figure leaning casually against a gravestone.
“Jim!” Toby hissed, as he came over to him, “What’s taken you so long to get here??”
“Saying bye to my mom. She was concerned about my safety.” Jim shrugged.
Claire and Darci exchanged knowing looks with one another.
Darci smiled at him warmly, “We definitely know what it’s like to have protective parents. Sometimes overprotective in the case of my dad.”
Claire snorted, “If my mom had it her way, I would stay locked up in my room.”
“Pffttt! That’s because you’re girls!” Steve scoffed.
He was immediately met by four withering glares, Jim’s included.
“Why did he get an invitation again?” Mary scowled fiercely.
Eli piped up, raising his hand nervously, “B-because me and Steve discovered together that this town is cursed!”
He paused for presumably dramatic effect, and was met with crippling silence.
“I thought Steve bullied you.” Toby remarked, one eyebrow cocked.
“Not anymore!” Steve snapped defensively, slinging one arm around Eli, “Pepperjack’s right. Weird things happen to this town, there’s creepers lurking in the dark! We’ve seen them!”
Eli nodded, propping his glasses up his nose, “I’ve done extensive research and observation. The people who go missing in Arcadia aren’t a coincidence this time of year. And someone’s covering it all up! We think the missing people get sacrificed to open the way between this world and the creeper world, and whoever is doing it might be anyone in Arcadia!”
“That’s nuts!” Toby blurted out, “Like crazy nuts!”
“You dragged us all the way out here, just to feed us some shitty story of your ‘monster sightings’ and conspiracy theories? Pepperjack, you could have just posted that to your blog online.” Mary whined.
Eli bristled, “There’s people watching my account! Some of my stuff got hacked and deleted. C’mon guys, I wouldn’t have dragged you all out here for no reason! This is serious—”
“Wait. Did you hear that?” Claire held up one hand for silence, eyes darting around.
“I think someone’s coming.” Jim realised.
“What do we do?” Darci asked.
“Hide!” Eli squeaked.
It was like a flip was suddenly switched. They all rushed towards the centre of the graveyard, ducking behind tomb stones and dense bushes and low stone walls hidden in tall grass.
Jim felt a burst of warm joy as he noticed Claire had joined him crouched next to the same rough stone wall. She smiled at him briefly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in the dying light of the setting sun.
Jim shook himself free of Claire’s captivating chocolate coloured gaze, and glanced about quickly to gauge where everyone else was hiding. Steve and Mary were opposite him and Claire, neither looking particularly happy about it, and Toby, Darci and Eli were slightly to the right and behind them, kneeling in dirt and leaf litter to be hidden by a copse of trees and bushes.
They were just in time.
A figure stepped out lightly from the pathway, into the clearing in front of them, thankfully, as the person would have seen them if they’d come from the same way as they had, holding onto a briefcase tightly, form hidden by a deep green peacoat.
The figure cautiously came further into the clearing, and rays of vanishing sunlight painted their face in red.
It was Mr Strickler.
There was no doubt about that.
Jim tensed, what’s he doing here? He thought, glancing at Claire beside him and seeing his confusion and surprise mirrored there.
Strickler set down his briefcase on the grass, kneeling on the ground and carefully clicking it open and removing a—hunk of blue crystal? Mr Strickler carefully placed it on the floor, muttering something low and quick that caused the crystal to glow and sent out a burst of light in a radius that just about included Jim, Claire and the other teens.
He glanced behind him, frowning in disbelief at the etched blue line that clearly surrounded them all in its circumference.
The thought that entered his mind was: magic. His history teacher was performing magic in front of them.
Mr Strickler seemed to relax with the border in place, he turned back to his briefcase, away from them and Jim peeked over to Eli. The other teen caught his eye and clearly mouthed told you. Jim sighed, quietly, Eli hadn’t really told him anything.
Strickler stood up and Jim ducked further down, suddenly scared he’d be spotted. He watched with puzzlement as Strickler shifted slightly, enough for him to get a glimpse of the altar that had been set up. It had candles, incense, flower petals, the whole works. Somehow macabre in the new dark. Was Mr Strickler part of some cult?
His history teacher sighed and briefly knelt at the altar, a smooth well practised movement that was more of a bow really, closed his eyes, and said something that was to him a prayer of sorts, then stood up again, backing carefully away.
Letting Jim see the portal, the one that was definitely not there before, splitting apart the air in front of their very eyes. The edges were a pale, icy blue, that made Jim only all the more tense and nervous.
He felt pressure at his hand, glancing down to see Claire gripping his hand tightly. He squeezed it, their eyes briefly meeting, Claire’s soft with gratitude. Any other time would have made this moment joyful, but the wrongness of what they were all witnessing here only filled him with dread.
Mr Strickler made a low sound, almost like a groan, stepping even further back and slightly to the side of the shrine, and reached out a hand towards his neck.
Then he did something just straight up bizarre.
He dug his fingers into the slightly loose flesh there and pulled up roughly with a squelchy tearing noise. Jim blinked, then averted his eyes, Strickler was probably squishing a bug or something equally gross. At least that was what he thought.
There was a muffled yelp and Jim turned his gaze to Eli, Toby and Darci.
Who all looked absolutely sickened.
Eli had almost given them away, if the hand Toby held pressed against his mouth was any indication.
“Lake!” Steve hissed opposite him, surprisingly quiet, because Strickler didn’t react, “Look!” The jock pointed back to Mr Strickler, voice a strangled whine, which alarmed Jim somewhat. He turned to look at Strickler again, then soon wished he hadn’t.
He was wrong.
It wasn’t a bug.
Strickler’s skin was literally peeling off.
Not in the way of a sunburn but actually tearing away from where he was pulling, causing his face to warp and bulge unsettlingly, as if there was some worm or snake writhing beneath the skin. Or... As if he was ripping away a particularly sculpted mask.
Strickler dragged the folds higher and Jim saw a glimpse of jade green.
And then in one motion Strickler was taking his face off.
It came away with a wet ripping sound, green eyes literally popping out of their sockets, hanging limply by red, vein-like threads, all the contours of his face becoming shrunken as his face was flipped back, like a gruesome parody of a hood on a jacket.
Revealing—revealing something else.
Bile filled Jim’s mouth and with difficultly he willed it down, leaving a trail of acid down the insides of his throat.
Claire’s grip on his hand became almost painful.
The thing posing as Mr Strickler calmly continued to remove the flesh from his body, assuming he was a he, like a sick parody of a costume.
Once the skin loosely fell down his shoulders and back, large, dark membranes erupted out from between his shoulder blades, that resolved into bat-like wings. He shook the last parts of the flesh costume to the floor, kicking it causally off his feet, three toed and clawed, only wearing a loincloth, somehow beneath the human and fully clothed skin suit.
Speaking of the skin suit. It lay crumpled in a heap by the demon things feet, who crouched by it to poke the now blank green eyes back into their sockets with a claw tip, before rising again and stretching those impossibly wide wings.
Jim felt sickened looking at the skin, all twisted beyond what was natural in on itself, almost like a carcass that had been picked clean only leaving the skin behind.
The creature sighed as he completed his stretches, rolling his shoulders and shaking his horned head, another detail somehow hidden beneath the human guise. His yellow, bright cat-like eyes glowed in the darkness as he gave a cursory scan of his surroundings before turning back to the altar, rumbling words in an indecipherable language that flowed with impossible smoothness.
Yellow light, a few shades warmer than the light cast by the demon’s eyes, poured into the clearing, the focal point the altar, swirling up and up into the shape of a majestic woman.
She was encased in golden armour from neck to feet, long red hair braided down her back, piercing green eyes captivating. She was beautiful, like a viper. So very dangerous most likely Jim thought.
She fixed those poison green eyes on the form of the demon, because what else was Jim supposed to call the creature with green skin, horns, glowing eyes and wings, and almost purred, “Stricklander. My most loyal champion.” She reached out a hand, tipped in golden claws, and caressed the demon’s green stony face. Not Mr Strickler then. Stricklander. He lowered those eerie lantern light eyes, tusked mouth turning down.
“Lady Morgana,” he responded, in a gravelly deep voice, “It is the thirteenth year, when the Veil between worlds is at its thinnest. I have procured with the others eleven out of thirteen souls, only two more remain for us to perform the rites.”
Jim’s brain had long ago stopped working. Eli was right. About everything. The town was in danger from monsters who wore skins of humans working for this Morgana to sacrifice people and open this Veil thing he guessed. Probably something to do with that portal.
Worst of all, the man he looked up to, who had supported and encouraged him, just because he was struggling to adjust to high school, was fake. A lie. Hiding a monster under his skin this whole time (what if this demon had killed the real Mr Strickler? Maybe that’s why he’d felt odd about the, supposed, man since he’d started dating his mom).
The Lady Morgana smiled sweetly, the dangerous edge to it not lost. “You have done well. Collect the remaining souls and patrol the boarders for signs of breaches and you will win your well-deserved reward.”
Stricklander bowed his head elegantly to the spectre, “As my lady commands, so it shall be done.”
“Excellent. Do not disappoint me.” The warning was clear, and Stricklander nodded.
With that, Lady Morgana dissolved away.
Left there in the clearing, Stricklander was deathly still, then he flicked his wings, eyed the crumpled form that was his skin and growled, sharp teeth glinting.
For a frozen, dreadful moment Jim thought they’d been spotted and be mercilessly slaughtered, two of their souls used in whatever twisted ritual had been spoken about.
But no, Stricklander merely picked up his human skin as if it was any other item of clothing and began putting it on again.
Jim closed his eyes, not wanting to see the horrific process in reverse.
When he hazarded a look up, he was just in time to see what now once again resembled Mr Strickler. For one horrible instant his face was ever so slightly off, enough to get a major uncanny valley vibe, then he pushed a point at his jaw and his skin settled over his face, looking completely normal.
If Jim hadn’t just witnessed a walking nightmare using human skin as a mask, he’d never have doubted the man now standing in the dark clearing was anything but human.
His gut gurgled unsettlingly and he clamped down on the need to puke.
The creature masquerading as his teacher brushed off his coat, flexed his arms and legs, cracked his knuckles and walked off. Likely, Jim realised in horror, to go and pick his mom up from the hospital.
A minute passed, none of them moving.
Either from shock or in case Stricklander made a sudden return.
He did not.
Finally, Mary stood up, face ashen, “What the fuck?” She expelled forcefully.
Jim stood up too, immediately feeling nauseous and managed a few steps before vomiting into the nearest bush. That happened to hide Darci, Eli and Toby. They all leap up, getting out of his way, as Jim fell to his knees, dry heaving.
Toby came to his side anxiously, offering water from his backpack and he waved it away.
But then Claire was taking it and firmly pressing it to his lips so he drank deeply, instantly feeling better.
He sat back on the grass, taking in everyone’s expressions. Seeing the revulsion and fear mirrored in their faces. Even Steve, confident asshole Steve, looked shaken.
“Doesn’t—doesn’t Strickler date your mom?” Steve whispered; eyes wide.
“He does.” Jim replied hoarsely, “So my mom is probably in danger from whatever Strickler is, as well as that creepy golden lady.”
“I was right.” Eli muttered, without a hint of triumph, “But I would never have guessed Mr Strickler would be in on it... He seemed so nice...” He trailed off, gaze gluing on the rift in reality that still remained hovering in the air.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Darci asked into the silence.
Claire looked utterly helpless, something that was just wrong on her face. “I don’t know. The adults won’t believe us... Even if we did tell them Strickler was a monster he’d probably be able to easily convince them we were making it up. He’s dangerous, that’s all I know. Sorry Jim, I know he was your favourite.” She finished apologetically.
“Not anymore.” Jim answered grimly, “I’ve been feeling weird about him since he started dating my mom anyway.”
“Do you think the demon guy killed the real Mr Strickler? And stole his skin, like a—like a—” Steve faltered, searching for a term.
“A boo hag?” Toby suggested.
“How did you—Pepperjack’s usually the supernatural expert...” He looked towards where Eli was and then frowned, “Where’s he gone?”
Jim turned around slowly. Eli wasn’t anywhere in view.
As one, they turned to the portal that was still hovering in the air.
Eyes focusing on the clear footsteps leading up to it and disappearing.
“He didn’t.” Mary gaped.
“He did apparently.” Toby snorted in disbelief, “Who goes running into the mysterious portal that likely leads to certain death?”
“Eli apparently,” Darci said, shaking her head.
“We gotta go after him.” Steve said, desperation on his face. He stepped quickly towards the portal, then stopped, turning to the rest of them. “You with me?”
“We’re with you.” Jim said, after a glance at his companions to confirm.
Even though he couldn’t help but feel uneasy at Strickler likely being with his mom.
As one, they approached, as one they walked into the portal, or Veil as Strickler had called it, separating them between worlds.
A moment of disorientation, then Jim was gasping.
The world around them was really dark, all jagged spikes of black and green rock and a wind that howled without any apparent source. And they had appeared at the edge of a massive cliff, sheer and steep. He backed away slowly, breathing hard. If he had walked any faster and he would have gone over the edge of the cliff and tumbling down to a speedy death.
Claire and Steve wobbled a bit, holding their arms out for balance as they retreated from the edge, also so that Darci, Mary and Toby had some support to prevent them toppling forwards.
Jim turned to where the portal was.
“Guys. We have a major problem. The portal. It’s gone.”
“Crap, crap, crap.” Toby chanted.
“No! There’s no signal here!” Mary wailed.
“It’s fine. It’s probably only hidden, right?” Darci asked.
“No. It’s definitely gone, Darci. We’re stuck.” Claire told her.
Steve scoffed, trying to mask his fear with bluster, “Hey, Pepperjack! This isn’t funny any more dude! Come on out!”
“Where did he go?” Claire said, narrowing her eyes, “he couldn’t have vanished into thin air...”
Jim felt something click into place at Claire’s words. Vanished into thin air. The cliff was almost right where they had stepped out and it looked like it was a long drop... Eli in his excitement probably went through fast without any caution. Then it was possible to vanish so quick.
If Eli was at the bottom of the cliff.
His stomach gave a sickening lurch at the mere thought, as he carefully went closer to the tip of the black rock to confirm his hypothesis. One he desperately hoped would prove false.
He peered down and then instantly felt dizzy and lurched backwards, sitting down heavily.
“What?” Steve demanded, frantic.
“I—I found Eli.” Jim managed.
Faces washed instantly white with comprehension as everyone rushed to see what he he’d seen.
Eli’s small, almost childlike body, at the base of the massive cliff, neck at a horrible, sickening angle, dead.
Eli was gone, and they were trapped.