Moonlyte - part 6

 Author's Note: I've been doing a lot of storyboarding for this piece and, at long last, I'm hoping to get the whole thing done before August is out. Then y'all won't have to see any more of these non-e pieces anymore... until I get taken on for another novella, anyway. Can't pass those up, yo.

Anyway, as always, this is NOT PORN. It is a non-erotic horror/crime short story in the process of being made by me. If you didn't read the original story that this is a prequel to, you can find it here.

Also note that these are all early drafts, so if you have suggestions or criticisms now would be a good time to give them, as none of this is currently set in stone and will likely be subject to changes.

[story] [non-erotic]

_______________________________

‭The Fourth Day

“And this... Ascendant, knew your name?” Lindsay’s cold gaze remains leveled at me as she speaks. I find myself in the passenger seat of her little green sedan, parked outside of an apartment a lot nicer than mine. Well, nicer than mine... had been. The fire hadn’t spread far, only damaging a few other apartments. My own place, however, looks like a fucking bomb was set off in it. I’d called Lindsay with what little phone battery I had left, and she’d picked me up, helped me get through the paperwork. Even had a friend of hers sweep some of my ‘unusual’ bill records under the rug. As much as she creeps me out, I’m not sure what I’d do without her.

I stifle a snort, which breaks my glass-eyed trance. I know exactly what I’d do without her in my life -- I wouldn’t be in this fucking situation, or anywhere near it, in the first place.

I bring the cup of coffee I’d gotten earlier to my lips, and take a long sip. Not quite sweet enough. All the way cold, too. I hadn’t realized how long I’d let it sit. “He did. He knew I was on the case too. He seemed to know a lot about me.”

“And you don’t have a name on him?”

“Just his handle. Ascendant. The way he moved, though... he was like a fucking ghost.”

“Moved? I thought you said your interaction was entirely online?”

“It was. He hacked into my chat client without me noticing. Messaged me without notifications. He didn’t even seem to type. Like he was inside the internet. Part of the dark web.”

Lindsay taps her pen to her bottom lip, thinking for a moment, then scribbling something down in a little notepad. “You keep saying ‘he.’ Did Ascendant confirm itself to be male?”

“Uh... no. Could be a girl I guess, for all I know. I can’t figure out if it’s behind this or if it’s trying to stop the murders itself.” I let out a long, slow breath. “I can’t even tell if it loves me or hates me. It was... weird.”

“Well, then,” Lindsay scribbles down another note, and at a brief glance I notice her handwriting to be illegible -- some kind of scrawled shorthand that I’m not even certain is english. “I... apologize, for bringing you into this, Katelyn. I’ll continue the investigation on my own and hope the FBI doesn’t get involved before I can figure something out. You’ll be staying with a friend of mine until you can get your affairs sorted out.”

Friend? Lindsay Alexander has friends? Wait, no, not important. No fucking way is she firing me. “I’m not done yet,” I say, almost whisper. “I’m close to something. I need more time. Does your friend have a computer?”

“I should hope so. But you don’t have to do this -- I endangered you, foolishly, and put you on something that was too big for you. You’re not supposed to be on this case at all, Katelyn. If you get hurt, and someone finds out that you were working a case I gave you, it’ll be both our asses. Especially mine.”

“That’s fucking bullshit,” I hiss. “You got me into this and I’ve been working on it for three straight days. The things I’ve seen looking for these goddamn lunatics are gonna turn my fucking hair white, my fucking house burned down, and you’re telling me to stop? Looking for these people is like trying to find Waldo in Carmen Sandiego’s asshole. I’ve been chasing down encoded names of Lovecraft books, kiddie porn, shepherds, and fucking forum posts. You have any idea how much I hate forum posts?”

“Wait, shepherds?”

I bite back a growl. “Something Ascendant mentioned. Some shit about the shepherds getting me. As far as I--” I pause. My eyes go distant for a moment as something nags at the back of my head. Wasn’t one of the goons on Silence named shepherd-something? Shepherd... lord... Shepherdman, Shepherdguy... ShepherdKing! All caps! The guy with the yellow everything.

...The guy with the yellow text on the yellow background that I didn’t read.

“I have my next lead,” I say hurriedly, opening the car door and leaving my cold coffee behind.

“Kate, I can’t let you--”

“I’m still gonna find these kids, whether you want me to or not,” I slam the door shut, leaning down to look through the open window at Lindsay. “You want me to stop, arrest me for vigilantism.” I turn and start walking towards the apartment, then pause, sheepishly turning back around. “Uh...what’s your friend’s apartment number?”

Lindsay lets out a controlled sigh. “831.”

“Sweet, thanks.”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

“You’re Lindsay’s friend?” His British accent catches me off guard at first, but it doesn’t take me more than an instant to wrap my head around. The man at the apartment door looks me over quizzically, one brow arched. He’s tall and pretty thin, with dark skin and hair, the latter of which is bundled into a loose bun of dreadlocks at the back of his head. For being a contact of Lindsay, though, he’s more well put-together than I expected, wearing black jeans and converse along with an unbuttoned dress shirt and dark green vest. “Didn’t think she had friends, besides me.”

“You’re one-up on me, then,” I grunt. “I didn’t know Lindsay had friends.”

“From the way she talks about you, I’d say you’re as close to a friend as she gets,” he smiles warmly, offering me a hand to shake. “I’m Warwick. Warwick Hayes.”

My mind races for a pop culture reference. Warwick = Warwick Davis = Wicket W. Warrick = Star Wars, but Hayes = ...Isaac Hayes? South Park? Can I make Star Wars and South Park click? Shit, what else was Isaac Hayes in? I don’t know music. Come to think of it, I’m not the greatest fan of South Park, either. “Ohh, hehe, Warwick Hayes; are um; are you gonna make sweet love to the... ewoks?” Nailed it.

He blinks. In that instant I can see him rethinking everything, especially having me in his house. “I’m sorry?”

“Your name. Warwick is... Davis, and... ewoks. Isaac Hayes is Chef.” Amazing first impression. He’s only gonna think you’re crazier when you hack his desktop and use it to try to bring down a child-slaughter cult. I clear my throat.“Ah, my name’s Kate. And as you may be guessing now, I’m not great at... humaning.”

“That’s becoming rather clear,” he says, then shrugs. “But it’s not my place to judge. Come on in; not quite well-off enough for a guest room, sadly, but the living room couch folds out. I’m told your apartment recently had a bit of an incident, yeah?”

“If you count a ghost in my internet blowing up my computer and setting my apartment on fire as an ‘incident’ then yeah I guess you could say that.” I shoulder past him and into his apartment. Place is clean and pretty spacious, except for the kids’ toys, which are neither as numerous nor as chaotic as they could be. “You have a kid?” I ask, leaning down to pick one up -- a dress-up doll that’s had her hair shaved into a long, messy mohawk. Cool-ass kid.

“A daughter, Sophie,” he smiles. “She’s watching something in her room right now, I’m sure you’ll meet her at some point.”

“Right, yeah,” I say as I sit down on the bed, still taking in the living room and gathering my thoughts. At this point I don’t even know if I could be around a kid that isn’t dead or being tortured by some fucking sicko. Forgotten what a healthy human-spawn actually looks like.

“Can I... get you anything? I’ll be in for a few hours before I have to head out, and Sophie’s got a sitter so she won’t be a problem.”

“Computer?”

For an instant, I see hesitance flicker in his eyes. “I... have one, yeah, but it’s for my personal use.”

“That’s fine, as long as it’s not a fucking mac.”

“Lindsay told me what you do,” he says cautiously. “And I’m fine with it. I don’t judge for what you do on your time as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But the last thing I need is the cops banging down my door for something that wasn’t me.”

“Lame. You’re lame.”

“I’m letting you stay in my home, for free!”

Hmmm. “Okay that’s fair. Can I use your computer though?”

“No!”

“Lame.”

Warwick pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “Look. I’ve got a telly and a Nintendo, you’ll have stuff to do while you’re here. Just... chill it, alright? With the computer stuff?”

I inhale through my nose. “What kind of Nintendo? ‘Nintendo’ is more a concept than an actual thing you can have. Unless you’re literally a shareholder of the company, in which case I’d expect your apartment to be nicer.”

“I signed on for a lot more trouble than I thought, didn’t I?”

“Depends on what kind of Nintendo you have, I guess.”

“I dunno! The new one.”

“The Switch?”

“No, the... Wii something.”

“Oh. That’s not the new one.”

“I can retract my offer to have you stay here at any time, are you quite aware of that?”

Actually it hadn’t occurred to me until right now. He may be onto something. I exhale slowly. “Alright, fine. I’ll be good.”

“And staying off my computer, yeah?”

While he’s here, at least, sure. “Yeah whatever. I’ve had enough trouble with them recently anyway. And yours probably sucks.”

“It’s password protected, anyway,” he says, and I try really hard not to laugh. Seeming to relax a bit, he continues. “I’ve got leftovers in the fridge if you want to heat those up. If not, there’s... something in the freezer, I think.”

“Fish sticks?”

“Fis-- why would you guess fish sticks? That’s quite specific.”

I shrug, defeated once again. “I like ‘em.”

“It’s frozen White Castles.” Ohh shit, jackpot. I swear I’d live in a White Castle if I had half a chance. “Alright, I have some things to sort through before I head off. Remote’s under the telly.” He nods at me and makes his way through a long hallway into a back room, where I assume the computer’s kept. Have to bide my time, wait ‘til he leaves, but then... then, my quest continues.

And hey, in the meantime, it looks like they have Sm4sh. So at least I’ll have something to do.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Fifteen minutes have passed since Warwick left for work, but I’m giving him ample time to suddenly return for his keys or a jacket or some shit -- either genuinely, or to make sure I’m not doing exactly what I’m itching to do. Finally, I feel secure enough to switch the TV off and get up off of the couch, looking around to make sure the kid isn’t anywhere nearby where she might be able to see me going where I shouldn’t be.

Taking a deep breath, I start to stealth-ninja-creep over towards the back room, only to be frozen in my tracks at the sound of a knock on the door. Fuck. Looks like I waited just long enough to make my move.

Wait, knock? Why would Warwick have to knock?

Blinking, I make my way over to the door and glance through the peephole, seeing a scrawny punk kid in a leather jacket a couple sizes too big for him. While his wildly spiked hair is dyed a bright lime green -- whether permanently or temporarily I can’t tell -- his fiery orange eyebrows and pasty white skin show him for what he truly is: a ginger. I narrow my eyes suspiciously on the other side of the door.

“Uhh... Mr. Hayes? It’s me. Hello?”

Shit. Wait. The sitter. There was a babysitter coming. That’s right.

Sighing, I flick open the locks to Warwick’s front door and open the door in all my glory -- boxers, an Invader Zim tank top, smudged makeup, and even crazier hair than the kid’s. Making hard eye contact, I offer a grunt and wait for the teenager to make the next move.

Unexpectedly, I see the kid’s face start to flush, his ghostly skin reddening from the cheeks outward until the whole of him is consumed. “UhhhhIiiiIthink I might have gotten the wrong door, I’m sorry, I’m looking for Mr. Hayes doyouknowhim?”

“You okay, kid?”

“I’m sorry! You’re just... really... y’know. Uh, do you-- are you seeing Mr. Hayes? Is he home?” It takes a few seconds for me to remember what teenage boys are usually thinking about before I realize why he’s acting so weird. “I’m the babysitter. My name’s, um... Axel. Axel Kage, you might have heard of m-my band.”

I stare at him for a long moment, silently watching him squirm.

“My name’s Tommy,” he finally relents.

I sigh, stepping out of the doorway and nodding inwards. “Kid’s inside. And no, I’m not ‘seeing’ Warwick. I’m just a stray he was coerced into taking in.”

“Oh, I doubt it took much coercing.”

Shit. Kid’s kinda smooth. But more importantly, he can keep Sophie busy while I get balls-deep in Warwick’s computer and decrypt SHEPHERDKING’s message.

“Anyway, Sophie’s in her room, and I’m gonna be doing some cleaning in the back. Be as loud as you want, try not to kill anyone, if the cops show up, don’t let ‘em take you alive. Kay?”

Tommy just stares at me, dumbstruck, as I shuffle my way into the back room I’ve been coveting for so long.

Okay -- all distractions taken care of. I click the lock behind me and check the layout of Warwick’s study; organized but a bit cramped, a huge window on the far wall letting in thin light through the blinds and beyond those, the ubiquitous Michigan clouds. His desk is fairly bare except for some papers and pens, a shitty little punch-clock at the edge of it, and a framed photo of his (admittedly adorable) daughter. His PC’s better than I expected, but obviously a far cry from my own, not to even mention his chair. When are businessmen gonna start learning that gamers make the best computer chairs? It’s just a fact, at this point.

I’m past his password and have admin privileges in minutes. While I know exactly where the forum post archives are (in the private file host I put them in at the time), the issue is that I’m gonna have to log in and go underneath the internet to get them. Which means that I’m gonna have to get a proxy system running again, and somehow keep the entire operation incognito inside Warwick’s computer. Easier said than done, of course, but by the way his layout is configured and the way it looks like he hasn’t defragged in years, I’d say I know my way around computers a teensy bit better than my illustrious host.

Downloading the necessary software, configuring a proxy layout, and then hiding the entire thing of course takes some time, and it’s a few hours before I finally log in with my secret account.

The sudden sound of a triumphant “whooooooa!” coming from a teen and a young girl almost freezes me solid as I type away, but I finally relax and swallow my pancreas back down. Just Tommy and the kid in the next room. From the itinerary I dug up on his computer, Warwick has at least two hours at the office yet. Plenty long for me to dig up these posts and see what, exactly, SHEPHERDKING said.

At long last I’m into my files, downloading the Silence archive I was looking for and skimming down to the all-yellow comment, selecting the text with my mouse and pasting it in another empty document. Half of me -- more than half, maybe -- doesn’t even expect it to work. It does.

(1:00pm) SHEPHERDKING wrote: They belong to us now. In flesh and in soul. We discard their shells as effigies, totems to Him. That Hungering Intellect that tells us nothing but listens always. The space between concepts, emptiness within worlds. The spawn of your wicked and your foolish are consumed to bring forth the Spawn of the Void, to create terror from that which was once only roiling emptiness, a shriek in darkness.

WE BRING THEM FORTH. WE CALL TO HIM. WE WATCH HIM RISE. WE COME NEXT.

I lean back in Warwick’s shitty business chair. I feel a tightness in my throat and a lurch in my stomach. I want to throw up, but I haven’t eaten in... a while. Nothing comes up.

I don’t know what’s worse -- that this was under my nose the entire time and I never bothered to scan the fucking text? That this... cult, whatever it is, is extremely real and not going anywhere soon? That now, for the first time, I have no choice but to wonder if all of this is actually... y’know... real?

Or that, after all the work I put into finding it again, this wasn’t an actual lead at all?

I sit limply for a moment, closing the forum archive and just staring at the generic starter wallpaper that I didn’t bother to change when I made my own User in Warwick’s computer. Nothing. It was absolutely nothing helpful. No odd keywords, no strings of numbers to decode. No URLs to crack. No names. Nothing.

I’m exactly where I had been two hours ago. I’m just more scared.

Ascendant: You’re back.

My heart leaps in my chest as my chat client silently pops up on the screen. I don’t remember even turning it on. Now, replacing the blank space he’d exhibited last time, Ascendant actually has an avatar -- though unlike my still image, theirs is a gif of a human face, one that continues to subtly shift back and forth between female and male, an ever-changing mane of silvery-green CGI hair flowing behind it. The way it moves is almost organic, more like a live feed of a constantly moving image than a short clip. I feel myself staring at it for a long time before turning my eyes back to the text, heart pounding so hard I can feel the veins in my own neck.

Moonlyte: No thanks to you.

Ascendant: I’m sorry about what happened.
Ascendant: I hope you weren’t hurt.

Moonlyte: Did you do that? Did you blow my computer up?

Ascendant: I
Ascendant: yes

Moonlyte: Fuck you.

Ascendant: I had to be sure you wouldn’t keep looking. That you’d stop trying to find them. Are you safe now?

I lay my fingers on the keyboard, geared up for a hasty, pithy response, but I pause at the very last instant before I start typing. If Ascendant could nuke my computer, what’s stopping him from frying Warwick’s and leaving me royally fucked? Maybe, if I’m smart -- which I like to think I sometimes am, when I’m not being 100% a fuckup -- I could play along.

Moonlyte: Yeah I am. I was taken off the case.

Ascendant: You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. Do you have a place to stay?

Moonlyte: I’m being put up with a friend of a friend, and his daughter. It’s temporary, but hopefully I can figure something new out soon. Maybe I can hack a dead rich guy’s condo and take ownership of his lease. Some shit like that.

Conversing with Ascendant feels... surreal. But I need to keep him from fucking my life again, and if I’m lucky, maybe I can even get some kind of information out of him. Now, of course, is the perfect time for him to go silent.

Moonlyte: Hey, are you still there?

Ascendant: Yes.

Moonlyte: Can I ask your name?

Ascendant: my name is
Ascendant: like yours

Moonlyte: ...Um?

Ascendant: You go only by your handle, correct? Your name in the other world is a corpse to you. Katelyn Webb is only a mask. I apologize for using it when we first met.

Moonlyte: So you’re saying...

I start typing to continue the thought, but they answer an instant later.

Ascendant: That I am Ascendant. That I am only Ascendant. Who I was is lost.

The avatar turns, and I grit my teeth as it seems to look directly up at me. Programmed into it, obviously, but as tense as I am from SHEPHERDKING’s message it’s still enough to give me an unwanted chill.

In the time I take to think of something clever to say, my gaze finds itself on the little punch-clock. Fuck, I’ve taken up more time than I meant to. Warwick will be home at any time.

Moonlyte: I have to go before I get caught on this guy’s computer.

Ascendant: Moonlyte, are you being a bad girl? How thrilling.

Moonlyte: Will I see you again?

A pause, way longer than Ascendant usually takes to respond.

Ascendant: Why would you want to talk to me again
Ascendant: after what I did to you?

Moonlyte: Color me crazy, but I love a mystery.

Ironically, I despise mysteries. But even if he knows everything I do online, the fucker can’t read my thoughts. I don’t think.

Ascendant: Yes. Call on me, and I will be here. I’m always here.

I draw in a slow breath, and close the chat client, logging out of TOR, signing back into Warwick’s account, and burying any evidence I was ever here. I slide the chair back into place, slip out of the office, and go to watch Tommy and Sophie play whatever video game they’re still on.

I may not have gotten a lead on the shepherds, but I did get something. Now, I just have to bide my time until I get Ascendant to come out of their shell.

A little shudder runs through me. I need to remember not to say -- or even think -- the world “shell” for a while.