Meg blinked as the world wobbled into focus and the blackness around the edges receded like ink. The feeling of the cold hard floor and the weight on her hip and legs came back slowly, along with the aching in her muscles.
"What in hell just happened?" she thought, pushing the cobwebs out of the way.
The gentle face of her Mother looked down at her, still out of focus like the rest of the world. Sounds filtered to her ears, muffled like she was under water.
"Mom?" she asked, her voice sounding hollow and distant. There was no answer and she wondered if she was still unconscious and imagining things. Then she heard the sound of something moving and tried to raise her head. Her vision cleared like she had just lifted her head out of water and she blinked something out of her eyes. Her entire body ached and she wondered if anything was broken.
"What happened?" she asked meekly and winced when she realized where she was and the weight on her was her Mother's two hundred year old washstand. The terror returned a heartbeat later when she remembered what was under there with her.
"OH HOLY SHIT!" she screamed, suddenly sober and kicking her way back into reality. It hadn't been her Mother's face looking down at her with angelic concern. It was Marie glaring at her with something mildly approaching hatred.
"You need to lie still, Miss. I've called for an ambulance," she said with as much disgust in her voice as Meg had ever heard.
"GET ME OUT FROM UNDER THIS!" Meg screamed, pushing and wiggling but to little avail. Her legs were hopelessly pinned under the stand along with that thing. God knows what it could do with her scissors or a sliver of glass.
"Lie still!" Marie persisted. "You might have something broken!"
"DAMN IT! IT'S UNDER HERE WITH ME!" Meg yelled, still kicking and pushing. "GET ME OUT OF HERE! PLEASE!"
So far there had been no movement below the stand, but Meg didn't know if that meant she had killed it or if it was just unconscious. Even if Marie couldn't possibly understand, she had to get free now. Her screams came with tears and she was pleading for help.
"PLEASE!"
Marie must have felt that the only way to calm the young girl down was to do what she asked and she stepped to the side of the washstand and lifted upwards. With the two of them pushing, Meg got her legs out and crawled backwards across the shattered glass to rest on the carpet of the study. It bit her arms and hands, tiny spears of silver sticking out like quills. Marie kept lifting and with a final shove, set the stand upright and then stepped back to survey the scene.
"My goodness young lady, I don't quite know what to say," she said and Meg looked over. She saw the destroyed stand, the cracked and mangled marble, and what was left of her dress but there was no Halloween Jack or his chainaxe anywhere to be seen. "You're certainly going to have a lot to explain."
"B-but it was there!" Meg stammered, realizing how this looked. "It was after me! IT WAS RIGHT THERE!"
"What was after you dear?" Marie asked, her voice crossing the border into condescension. "The Washstand?"
"N-no. It was, it was-" she started, but Marie cut in.
"It was what? One of those arctic SLA-mas thingees that you used to have nightmares about?" Marie asked with her hands on her hips. "Certainly there is no doubt that you have finally taken full leave of your senses."
"It's not like that!" Meg said, carefully coming to her feet. "IT WAS HERE! A HALLOWEEN JACK WAS RIGHT THERE!"
The maid stared at her without speaking, but she didn't have to in order for Meg to know what she was thinking. Sometime today, there would be friendly men in white suits coming to take her away to nice a padded room away from proper society. She could hear Marie and her Mother talking about how poor Mrs. Barker's innocent little daughter's fragile mind had finally snapped. Why, she was probably flawed from conception, but if not then, then her Father certainly screwed something up when he tinkered with her genes. It is really a pity, but poor Mrs. Barker will soldier on. She always does.
"I am not insane," Meg stated, looking Marie dead in the eyes. "And I know what I saw."
The maid didn't answer and the silence was drawn out until a chime sounded in the distance and Archibald started barking. Someone was at the door and Marie looked at the young woman before she went to fetch it. Not wanting to be alone, Meg glanced back at her bedroom and limped after her. Looking at what was left of her dress, she veered into the visitor's bathroom and washed her hands and face, removing the glass as carefully as she could. The cut on her leg wasn't too bad and she cleaned it and put a wide bandage. Eventually she found herself looking at her face in the mirror and realized how old and tired she looked.
"I'm NOT crazy," she said to the reflection, but there was doubt in her voice. What if there hadn't been an HJ chasing her? What if she imagined it all?
"NO!" she growled, slapping her palm into the mirror. This was for real, even if the maid didn't see it. Drying her face, she went to look for the dog. The little monster couldn't talk, but he had seen what happened and Meg felt a little sorry for hitting him earlier.
"Where did you get to, you little bastard?" she mumbled, pacing through the living area and noticing that there were new packages arranged along the wall near the tree. They must have been continually arriving from various family friends and associates and one of them was as tall as she was. As she stood there and counted, she saw Marie put down a phone and direct deliverymen to place more around the tree. Meg guessed that the call was either to cancel the ambulance or to call for one to take her to the nut farm. Her attention turned back to the dog and she started looking for him around the tree.
There was a clattering sound from the kitchen followed by barking and she looked over at Marie. If something was terrorizing the DAC, it was better if Marie was the one to come face to face with it. The maid glared back at her as she closed the door behind the last delivery and stormed past.
"If you did something else to that poor little creature," she said as she passed, letting the threat hang.
"I didn't touch him," she answered. "But something did."
The dog's barking had stopped, which meant to Meg either that the little bastard had dispatched whatever he felt threatened by (hah! Right!) or something had taken care of him. She waited at the swinging door to the kitchen and then went in behind her. She caught the sick-sweet scent of something familiar, but she couldn't quite place what it was.
Marie was leaning over, carefully maneuvering her wide girth between the cabinets and the central prep area as she looked around for him. She threw another glare at Meg that was probably meant to repeat the threat and kept looking.
"Archibald? Archibald?" she crooned. "Where are you, sweetie?"
Something made noise in one side of the kitchen and Meg involuntarily stepped in to see what it was. Marie heard it too and carefully followed it towards the corner with the two large ovens. Suddenly her eyes got huge and she rushed forward, dipping part way out of sight.
"MY GOD!" Marie screamed, looking back at Meg as she threw open the oven. "WHAT KIND OF A MONSTER ARE YOU?"
She threw the oven door open and cradled the DAC in her arms like a child. He was groggy and unstable and the Maid's squeezing probably didn't help. That was when Meg realized that the smell she had picked up was gas and she put her hand over her mouth, starting to back up.
"YOU MONSTER!" she yelled at Meg again. "WHAT KIND OF A PSYCHO ARE YOU?"
Meg's eyes caught something moving above the maid and she glanced upward at the rows of hanging skillets and cutlery. Something jingled and then she saw a tiny elongated face with eyes like coal looking back at her. It winked and pulled open a tiny cardboard folder, snapping one of the tiny slivers of paper free and striking it repeatedly across the edge of the book. Her blood went cold and her mouth was dry as she started to speak.
"I'm not the monster," she answered, pointing upward. "Th-th-they are."
Marie squinted and looked up, not quite believing what she was seeing. Her mouth dangled open, forcing the jowl down even before she realized what the little monster was up to. It must have thought this was pretty funny and took a moment's break to show her its middle finger and wiggle its tongue. Then there was a tiny spark of fire from its hand and it let out a high-pitched "Ah-hah!", just before it sent the burning match spiraling downwards towards the oven. Marie's eyes met Meg's and it looked like the maid finally believed in SLA-mas.
"RUN!" Meg yelled, lunging forward to grab hold of the woman's fat forearm with both of hers and pulling her through the door to the living area. Marie screamed and jumped forward as best she could, dropping the dog in the process and stumbling towards the door. The air suddenly became hot and bitter, and then the shockwave hit them from behind. Meg felt her a hot cloud of smoke and fire envelope and pick them up, sending both of them rolling ten feet inside the living room.
Meg had been shielded from the direct burst by Marie's bulk and got to her feet quickly enough to try patting out the fire on the other woman's back and hair. Her hands and feet weren't good enough, so she ripped one of her Mother's elaborate tapestries off a nearby wall and used it to whip the fire off the maid. As the heavy woman lay there and writhed in pain, Meg patted out the fire on the carpet and floor around them as best she could, suddenly aware that the fires on the floor and wall were the only lights in the house. The little fuckers had cut the power and probably the phone lines too, if they were acting like they did the last time they came after her.
Marie sat up and watched Meg fight the fire with a dazed look on her face. Meg was a little too busy to think about it and kept up the patting, but stopped when she realized the woman was staring.
"WHAT?" she yelled, irritated that she had to stomp out a fire that had taken hold on her cloth.
"Y-you weren't lying," Marie stammered. "Th-they're real?"
"NO SHIT!"
"I-I never thought they could be real," she continued. "I never believed in SLA-mas until now. Y-you're not crazy."
Meg turned around and stopped, barking a laugh that made Marie recoil.
"Yeah? REALLY?" Meg asked, looming over the maid with what she felt was probably not the sanest of looks. "Well, welcome to my fucking world!"
Comments to rw