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The human whose name is written in this ledger shall void their bladder. I know this isn't the most original idea; but I ended up rewatching the Death Note anime out of boredom, and thought that I've seen this concept done three times that I can think of, but never seen it done well. I didn't want to distract myself from ongoing projects, so quickly hammered out my rough ideas of which parts to change, and asked Gemini to write it. The result was so bad that I felt like I had to rewrite most of it. So… it probably took more time than writing it myself, but I hope there's at least some continuity to the writing (like, not changing character descriptions every time they enter the room, and not starting every scene with an infodump explaining why future twists will be surprising). Would be interested to see if anyone wants to see more of this; I've written a chunk of chapter 2. Chapter 1 - Cleaner The human whose name is written in this ledger shall void their bladder. 本台帳に記名された者は、排尿するものとする。 The sky over the Daikon Private Academy was the color of a bruised plum. The air was hot and humid, the last vestiges of summer outstaying their welcome long after beach weather had departed. The school buildings were grey concrete, but contrived to imitate the colour of the bruised-plum sky, as if they could escape monochrome dreariness. The walls and courtyards were a little cleaner than other schools in surrounding areas, but it would have been hard to tell visually that this particular establishment was the pride of its district. The ceiling fan in Classroom 3-A rotated with a rhythmic, agonizing click in counterpoint to the overwrought ramblings of Mr Tagaki’s teaching. To the thirty students sitting in rows of polished oak desks, it was background noise. To one boy, light-ginger bangs less than a millimetre longer than regulation and his head resting on the window as he stared out, it was a countdown. “And you will see,” Takagi droned, tapping a piece of chalk against a complex diagram, “that whichever number you choose, it will return to one. Some may take longer than others, but it will be so. Maybe I should ask you to try it. These two rules, “n divided by two” or “3n plus 1”, seem like they should lead in opposite directions. But generations of mathematicians have worked on identifying whether there exists…” The boy by the window wasn’t listening as that voice continued to drone on in the background. He didn’t care about addition and division, like he didn’t care about most of the things the teachers at this school saw fit to drone on about. It was all too simple, like the endless repetition of multiplication tables that he could produce from his head if he wanted to but saw no use for in the real world. He already knew everything he needed to know, so he continued to let his body rest in class while his mind explored the world around him. Today, for example, his gaze was focused on a point between the monochrome buildings and sickly sky where a group of birds were unusually energetic. Maybe they were fighting, but some instinct told him that there were more important things to watch today. A sky blue speck detached itself from the heavens and descended towards the tree in the centre of the East courtyard. It shouldn’t have been particularly notable, except that the sky was anything but blue today, and a single microscopic particle of the colour seemed somehow out of place. He might have thought it just a phosphene; one of those stray specks that dances behind your eyes when you are overly tired. Or perhaps a tiny bubble in the arteries crossing his retina, visible for just a moment. But neither of those would have bounced off the ginkgo branches and made the leaves shake as it tumbled to the ground. Whatever it was, it was real. And the boy didn’t know what it was, which made it very much out of the ordinary. “Right?” a single sharp word cut into his consciousness. He shifted slightly and leaned his head on his palm, then let his gaze drift past the “Diligence” and “Skill through Effort” signs etched on either side of the chalkboard and focused on the teacher. Of course the man was looking straight at him, almost daring him to decide he was too busy to answer today. The rest of the class turned slowly towards him as well. They were probably all waiting for him to make a mistake, or for the lessons to reach a level where he couldn’t coast by on intuition. “Sir?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Two rules, Right,” the teacher said, tapping the board again as he enunciated Right’s name with a pressed voice that was clearly trying very hard not to become a growl of frustration. “You would know what we are discussing if you were paying attention to my lesson, rather than to the crows. How long do you expect it would take you, picking a number at random, before you found one from which this sequence forms a loop?” The class wouldn’t get their moment of schadenfreude today. Not when the answer was so clear. “I wouldn’t try, Sir,” Right said casually, and then turned his eyes back to the tree in the yard before he gave a more complete explanation. “No such numbers can exist. The constants in your expression, being three and two in this case, form a coprime set. Those digits correspond to a mapping of a logarithmic grid onto a discrete projection of the Julia set, as per Erdos’s least famous theorem, where the numbers in each such sequence represent the unit distance to the grid cell whose point density is closest to the exponent of the discriminant of the series. If the Syracuse function has any nontrivial solutions, which we know it does in any 3-adic fractal symmetry, then a looping sequence would necessarily correspond to a line traversing the Julia set which neither intersects nor is parallel to any points with degenerate gradient vectors. And that would obviously be absurd.” The classroom fell into silence for a moment. Right suspected that at least half of his classmates wouldn’t even understand his solution, let alone be able to guess whether it was correct. Maybe there was a simpler solution he had overlooked, because this one seemed a little beyond the level of a high school mathematics class. But Right knew that it was correct; it had just been so obvious when he looked at the problem. Mr Takagi stared at the chalkboard, his mouth slightly open as he compared Right’s answer to the textbook solution that must surely have been at the forefront of his mind when he asked the question. Eventually, he conceded defeat. “I… see,” he stammered, adjusting his glasses. “Yes. Quite. As I expected, you are always Right.” His chuckle didn’t have any humour in it. Right guessed that the teacher was just trying to fill the time, pass another boring lesson while he struggled to impress algebra into minds either too dull or too uninterested to master even such basic logical deductions. Right didn't care about the praise. He was too familiar with the joke by now to give it any attention, and his gaze was focused on one spot at the base of that tree. Where a mysterious speck had landed, which couldn’t have been an optical illusion. The one thing he didn’t know in his immediate surroundings, and thus a cause for interest. He was impatient now, waiting for the bell to ring so that he could satisfy his curiosity and know the truth. He didn’t need to rush; he knew exactly where it had landed among the shrubs, and he doubted that anyone else would be heading out to retrieve the mystery object before him. He was sure he would be able to find it, but once his curiosity had hooked onto something he knew that it would be all he thought about until lunch time. Right wanted so badly to find an answer, and as long as Takagi kept droning on about simple algebraic sequences, he would have to wait before he could get any answer. * * * Somewhere else, where the weather was different but no less oppressive. There was no sky here; anyone looking up would instead see an arched marble ceiling miles above, and stretching to infinity in every direction. Nobody marvelled at the scale of the construction because there were stranger things to be seen; besides which, nobody ever looked up here. The air was filled with steam, although the water temperature was kept at a constant thirty-seven point four degrees Celsius. The whole place smelled of lavender, talcum powder, and soap, although a slight draught might occasionally carry through a faint hint of roasting chicken; a scent which nobody had ever been able to discern the origin of. Any ground was hidden by a sea of bubbles, from soft foam no more substantial than the mist up to floating, iridescent bubbles as large as a man’s head. Thousands of stone pillars rose from the sea of foam, topped with oversized porcelain basins that overflowed with foam of their own as they were disturbed, pouring back to the unseen pool below with a roar that rose and fell like a distant heartbeat. Between the basins, uncountable figures moved through the bubbles and steam. Each one was occupied on their own tasks; all of them busy and no two about the same task. This place worked like a well-oiled machine, with none of the inhabitants ever being in another’s way or needing to ask about the status of their work. Any patterns in the movement would have been too complex to perceive, giving the impression of a million ants moving according to some inscrutable pattern, always industrious and every individual where they needed to be. Except that these were much larger than ants. Some of them towered over the outsized basins, while others had to jump in order to reach, or walked across the shoulders of their brethren, always assuming someone would be there when needed. They were distorted caricatures of a humanoid form, no two alike, and some were even stranger. One figure looked like nothing more than a towering mass of white linen, stretched over bones that looked like featureless ceramic rods where they emerged from sleeves, and made a rhythmic click-clack sound as the creature moved. Another had a head like a crudely carved rocking horse, fused into what could have been a crown or something else entirely. One lanky, shadow-thin figure was perched on the edge of a fountain. It had a smile across its face, frozen in place, and eyes like vacant discs. The blush on its cheeks was clearly painted on, the slightest hint of bright colour in a place where even the light was dominated by pastel blues and greens reflecting off the bubbles that drifted overhead. Its limbs were like sticks wrapped in liquid grey leather, flowing from place to place rather than moving according to the dictates of physics. When it deigned to move, in any case. Right now, unlike its fellows, it stared up towards the distant roof without any attempt at activity. It wasn’t dead, or even idle, but managed to convey a sense of restless contemplation. It gave the impression that it was stationary right now only because it was waiting to be needed; a delay which none of the others seemed to need. “You’re not working,” the folded-linen monstrosity whispered, in a voice that dripped with the hiss of steam and creak of disapproval. “No,” the tall figure answered, and turned its head to deliver the same constant smile as always. “I dropped my ledger. I’m waiting for a replacement.” “We can help you look?” another suggested, pausing for a moment in its own tasks. “It’s below the bath foam, right? Not in the void, or the… the Great Sink? You wouldn’t be that careless would you, Nuk?” “Oh, no. I’d never be that careless. I wouldn’t let my ledger be damaged. But it’s not in the bath now.” “Then where?” another indistinct figure, bloated and barely humanoid, turned towards them instead of walking past. After so many centuries of monotonous work, it was only natural that a break from the routine got the attention of everyone nearby. “The human world,” Nuk answered, and turned his attention back to a mound of bubbles atop a nearby basin. And then, sensing that some explanation was necessary, he added: “I was bored.” “You’ve ordered a new one, haven’t you?” linen-folds said, the creak of worry edging into its voice. “The Matriarch won’t be happy.” “Yeah, well,” Nuk answered, and gave a complex shrug which seemed to involve his shoulders somehow passing through each other. “Mommy’s never really been happy with me, has she? But I guess I should go.” “Go?” the question was asked by everyone at once. “Yeah. If a human found it and I wasn’t watching, that would be such a waste. I do hope I can meet someone… interesting.” The others were speechless as Nuk climbed up onto the fountain and then executed a dive towards the foam below. He never hit the surface, but instead grew farther away, vanishing into the distance second by second. And when he reached the limits of immortal sight, he became a smudge of soot floating in the lavender-scented air, and vanished. The others watched the empty space for a moment, a little tension joining a faint hint of chicken in the air between them, but none knew what to say. They stood there for a short while, and then each grotesque figure turned away to continue with their own work. They were needed, after all. * * * The rooftop of the East Wing was the only place where the air felt thin enough to breathe. School life was hectic, with so many people asking for help or seeking to socialise. Right had a lot of friends, but if there were more than a couple of them in one place, it would take a large fraction of his intellectual capacity to balance their differing desires and personalities against each other, just so he knew what to say so that they would do as he wanted. Right now, with a new curiosity on his mind, he didn’t need that kind of distraction. Up here on the roof there were some planters filled with greenery, a staircase, and a low concrete bench. The view was stunning, but Right could see that any time. He walked over to the bench and opened his bag. His lunch today had been prepared for him by Hitomi Narutaki; whose current investment in the tropes of romance anime showed in the ways she chose to express her interest. He set the bento box on the bench beside him, and lifted off the lid with one precise motion. He could identify grilled salmon, tamagoyaki, and pickled ginger, and he already looked forward to tasting it. But right now, he knew that he would first have to give his attention to the mysterious object that appeared to have fallen from the sky. He took it out, a notebook looking to a cursory glance very much like the cheap but hard-wearing ones that many schools provided for note taking. A coarse paper cover, in a colour he had initially thought to be sky blue but which might, on closer inspection, turn out to be be closer to periwinkle. He wasn’t an artist, so didn’t know the precise names of every shade, but he doubted that the distinction would be worth thinking about in any case. The book clearly wasn’t a school notebook, because there was a printed title on the cover, as well as space to enter dates and some kind of serial number in the corner. Oddly, he recognised the number as being in sanskrit numerals, and clearly printed on by some automated system after the book’s manufacture, but that wasn’t the most interesting thing. The line of text across the cover described it as a ledger; which would explain the serial number, perhaps. He could imagine many situations in accounting where it would be advantageous to know if one book had been removed from a series, particularly in the case of an audit. With consecutive numbers in a batch, it would be just a little harder to change records illicitly. What kind of ledger, he couldn’t quite make out. The printed title had been obliterated by a spiderweb of silver lines, as if this book were a pane of glass in the process of shattering. The lines at the centre clearly spelled out ‘pee note’, over the top of most of the printed label. And as unusual as the title was, it didn’t quite make the cut as the strangest detail about this object. Right’s lunch sat beside him, untouched as he ran his fingers gently over the notebook’s cover, confirming what he had thought he felt. The cover looked like ordinary paper; wood pulp or cotton, perhaps. But it yielded differently under his fingertips, and gripped his skin slightly. Rubber, perhaps, or some kind of vellum. He couldn’t be sure. And as he lifted it to the light, checking whether the texture he felt was visible, he realised that some of the blue pigments might have a trace of iridescence, like the whole thing was wrapped in a soap bubble. That would explain why it was so hard to accurately judge its colour. But now, that was all he could make out from the front and back covers. He set it in his lap, and flipped open the cover to read what was inside. He half expected just pages of blank space, perhaps ruled into columns, but he found that there was text to be read. On the very first page, laid out in silver ink on black paper so thin as to be almost transparent, were listed a set of what appeared to be rules; in the same spiderweb handwriting as the cover. 1. The human whose name is written in this note shall void their bladder. Right stared at the words, and a dry, humorless huff escaped his nose. “A prank,” he muttered to himself, immediately disappointed. “Quite high quality, someone clearly put a lot of effort into this joke. So why does the punchline need to be something so absurd?” He was closing the book again, contemplating whether to repeat the actions of whichever joker had first cast it from the rooftop, or to take it to the recycling collection point outside the gym once he had eaten. But his decision was interrupted as the echo of words demanded his attention, drifting up from the tiny, echoey space where banks of lockers were wedged into an alcove between the foot of the stairs and an entryway that was only used by delinquents in search of …a place to smoke during inclement weather. “She always takes the shortcut behind the gym before fifth period,” a gravelly voice muttered, tinged with a strange sense of anticipation. Right recognised the voice as Ishida, who he shared a history class with and whose report card was a graveyard of red ink. Nothing he was so excited about could possibly be good. “And then what? We just… block her in?” another voice asked. “It’s her own fault,” this sneering tone was Sato, who always looked down on anyone who wasn’t a star player on the football team. He was the kind of boy who was used to getting his own way, and could explode into a volcano of pure fury if anyone didn’t– “She should have shown me some respect.” “You don’t say no to the captain,” Isida reiterated. “So we teach her a lesson. Sato first, then we get what’s left.” Right’s hand clenched into a fist. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing; this sounded like more than just bullying, and he knew that he had to stop it. But he wasn’t dumb enough to think his fists would be any help against this little crowd; if they were Sato’s generals, there would be two more whose voices he hadn’t heard yet, and all his charismatic speech techniques would be no use if they weren’t willing to let him get a word in. Unless he could think of another strategy first, it would be a no-win situation. And calling for a teacher would only help if he could find one close enough. “We should take her phone first,” one of the others spoke up. “Make sure she understands some things shouldn’t be shared.” Right realised that his tightening fist was creasing the notebook in his hand, and again noticed the strange texture of the cover that clung to his skin. Of course he didn’t believe in magic. But after someone had gone to so much effort, it would be a shame not to at least try it. He wanted to give the prankster some credit for their creativity, and the ‘always Right’ part of his brain was reluctant to dismiss any hypothesis without the slightest attempt to prove or disprove. That was just the scientific method. And, of course, there was nothing else he could be doing right now. If he ran downstairs he would draw their ire himself; and if he waited they would be gone before he could reach the staff room. Writing a name in a weird notebook had almost no chance of success, but still infinitesimally better than zero. He yanked a mechanical pencil from his pocket and quickly pressed the button. In the stillness of the rooftop, he could imagine it sounding something like a secret agent clicking off his gun’s safety catch in the better class of spy movies. Then his hand came down, writing without any care for his normal neatness. SATO KAZUO Well, he’d tested it. But the chatter from the thugs at the bottom of the stairwell didn’t change. It was clear the notebook was a prank, and he wasn’t surprised because he’d never suspected anything else. But he also heard a click of the outside door opening, and knew that Sato and his generals were on the move. The girl they were talking about, whoever it was, must have come into view outside. Right didn’t stop to think. He didn’t need to. He wasn’t sure how long it would be before they were far enough from the door that they couldn’t hear his footsteps on the stairs, but he didn’t care. Right’s father had raised him with a strong sense of justice, and he couldn’t let this happen. His mind raced through the probabilities, but he knew that he couldn’t have just let this happen. He left his lunch on the bench now, with his bag and the strange notebook beside it, as he bounded down the first flight of stairs and headed for the science labs. There was a chance that Mr Kondo would be there, setting up for the afternoon’s practical classes, and even the faintest chance was better than nothing in a case like this. He didn’t pay any attention to the wind disturbing his expertly-prepared salmon, or a momentary hint of lavender and astringent soap in the air as a page fluttered back and forth. * * * The walk home felt longer than usual. The air was thick with the kind of static that precedes a storm, but the only thunder Right heard was the constant, low-level chatter of his schoolmates. By the time he reached his front gate, the humiliation of Kazuo had already been processed, memed, and dissected by half the student body. Kondo hadn’t been in the lab today, but Right had hurried to search for teachers in the reading nook in the north courtyard, where an old willow tree provided a little shelter from the noise of the crowds. It was a space used more often by teachers than students, but Right had known before he got there that he was already too late. By then, he’d barely had time to stammer out something about a disturbance behind the gym, and then rushed back to the rooftop to collect his bags. He’d rammed the notebook back into his bag and then bolted his lunch, not expecting to hear anything more about the day’s events however it had turned out. But the classroom had been buzzing with the first fragments of gossip before he even arrived. Sato Kazuo had threatened a girl, they said. A freshman, in the wind orchestra, and socially awkward enough that she didn’t know who to trust. Sato had stepped out flanked by his generals, ordered her not to move, and then pissed himself. Apparently the absurdity of the situation had been stronger than the loyalty of his second in command, and sato had been carried to the nurse’s office by four boys who were still itching for a chance to punish him for their second-hand humiliation. Right couldn’t believe it; but there was no way it could be a coincidence. Could there? He couldn’t work out the odds against the event without measuring how frequently a bully had his name written in a notebook and didn’t wet himself. But suddenly the existence of a mystical pee note somehow seemed the more likely option. He wanted to look at it again, and to read the rest of the rules, but by the time he had any reason to believe the Pee Note actually mattered, he’d been trapped in classes and hadn’t had the opportunity to read anything without someone peering over his shoulder. Now, finally, he was home and he could set about a scientific study of what he had found. The front door of the house clicked shut with a soft, expensive thud. “I’m home!” he called, his voice automatically modulating to the polite, dutiful tone his parents expected. “You’re home early,” his mother’s voice replied from the living room. “Did you not stop to chat with Ryouga at the convenience store? I was just about to start on some tea if you want some, and I have those almond chips you like.” “I have a lot of prep for the mock exams, Mother,” Right said, his voice a perfect mask of studious dedication. For once, the neutrality actually took effort to maintain. “I’ll take the tea, but I should get straight to work.” “Always so diligent,” she sighed, a note of pure, uncomplicated pride in her voice. Once inside his room, Right didn't even turn on the main light. He sat at his desk with the blue notebook resting on the dark wood like a piece of fallen sky. He felt a strange reluctance to touch it again. It was just too absurd, or too strange. Maybe it would be better to actually focus on his studies now, in case his mother came in with the promised refreshments. But the mental image of Sato filled his mind. Among the school’s most feared bullies, a boy who prided himself on physical dominance, crumpling into a state of whimpering, wet disgrace. It was so easy to imagine from all the descriptions he had heard, and he knew enough statistical theory to be confident that the null hypothesis was even more of a long shot. The timing was too precise, Sato’s accident had probably occurred when Right was hitting the first turn on his rush to find Mr Kondo. And even if his family came in… well, the iridescent cover of the book would look so much more suspicious than the normal paper of the inner pages. He opened the cover, and his finger drifted back to the list of rules.The first, he already knew. But when he got to the second, he thought that he would have been extremely impressed if any prankster thought out their jokes so thoroughly. 2. The individual writing the name must have the person's face in their mind as they write the name, in order to avoid affecting others with the same name. 3. The timing of this release should be written within 40 seconds of the name. If it is not, the human's bladder will release as soon as that 40 seconds has elapsed. Right felt the air leave his lungs. Forty seconds. He hadn't written a time. He had simply written the name and walked away. And from every version of the story he had heard, it was easy to believe that exactly forty seconds had passed. “It’s not a prank,” he whispered to himself, the LED glow of his monitors reflecting in his eyes. “It’s a mechanism.” He sat in his ergonomic chair, his mind racing through the implications. If he could do this to Sato, he could do it to anyone. He could dismantle the social standing of every corrupt student, every abusive teacher, every cruel class president or hall monitor who hid behind a mask of dignity. But a single incident at his own school was a statistical anomaly. Two would be a pattern. Three would be a trail which any competent detective could start to pick apart. Right didn’t think that anyone on the Daikon Student Council was smart enough to work out what was happening, even if he filled every page of this notebook with names. But he also knew that it wasn’t a smart move to underestimate your rivals. There was always a chance that some new student would rise up from the mass, someone who couldn’t be outwitted without expending a modicum of effort. His train of thought paused a little more than he would have intended at that stop, when a soft tap on the door heralded the arrival of his little sister bringing up a cup of hot tea and a small bowl of snacks. She was always so deferential, and didn’t want to outstay her welcome, so Right wasn’t worried that she might pry into his business. But still, she gave him a little cause for frustration. “Can you help me with my homework, Right? We’re starting calculus, and I just can’t get my head around it.” And then without a breath, she changed the topic completely. “Oh, and Mum says we’re having chicken nuggets for dinner. Naomi next door bought too many, and it’s better they don’t go to waste.” She must have seen Right’s face falter slightly, because she quickly bowed and left him alone again. Right simply did his best to put the thought of processed meat pieces to the back of his mind, and pulled out the notebook so that his gaze could rest on the page of rules while he decided how best to confirm that they were accurate. While he thought, his eyes skimmed over the next of the rules. 5. If the time is written, the nature and volume of the release and the events which led to it may be written within the next 4 minutes and 19 seconds. He told himself that he was a scientist, and that knowing the truth was the most important thing. Punishing someone who deserved it was nothing more than a side benefit, no matter how good it felt to be on the right side of history. He turned to his computer, fingers dancing across the keyboard, and pulled up ‘Frontline Confessions,’ a social media aggregator for school rivalries in their district. He scrolled past the local news until he found a video posted an hour ago. It showed a group of boys from Wakame Prefectural Academy, who apparently called themselves the “Iron Dogs”, harassing a delivery driver. The video showed the lead dog lifting a scooter over his head, trying to pretend it took no effort at all, before tossing it down an embankment onto a light rail line. It could have been only look that prevented this turning into a more serious incident when a train arrived, but the Iron Dogs supporters were all cheering it on like it was the height of humour. Right read some of the responses, and quickly determined that the boy responsible for this particular attack had been named Ryota. Arrogant. Loud. Untouchable by the Wakame staff because his father sat on the district school board. Right picked up his pencil, clicked the mechanism once, and then hesitated. There was no scientific reason it wouldn’t work, but it just didn’t feel right. Degradation should be permanent. He returned the pencil to its normal home in his pocket, and instead lifted a silver fountain pen which had been his reward for placing first in the national aptitude examinations for mathematics two years ago. Now it felt right. This was the tool for a genius correcting the world. He closed his eyes, bringing Ryota’s sneering face from the video into sharp focus. He felt the weight of the pen, the way the ink flowed onto the thin paper. RYOTA MORI Then he hesitated. Amongst the other comments, he saw a slight trend. Ryota commonly used his position on the school crossing patrol to ensure that elementary students felt they owed him something, or were afraid of him, before they were even at the same school. It made his popularity and respect among the student body unassailable. And Right decided that to get the best value out of this experiment, he needed to confirm the function of the other parts of the rules. His pen descended to the paper again, beside Ryota’s name. 8:12 tomorrow morning. Wets himself in surprise during the school crossing patrol, after a moment of inattention results in him almost stepping out in front of the principal’s car. He wasn’t sure that would work. It was an experiment. And when, after refreshing the Frontline Confessions for ten minutes, he saw no further mention of Ryota Mori, he knew there were two possibilities. Either the first experiment had been a fluke after all, or he would have another result to collate when he checked for new posts on the site tomorrow. In either case, there was nothing he should do to change matters right now. So he could focus on his homework, without any temptation or distraction. * * * The room was silent, save for the low hum of Right’s computer. Two high resolution monitors cast a dim glow across the bedroom. The spot where their light intersected, perfectly centred on his desk, was the only well-lit spot in the room. He set the plate down there. It was covered by a plastic lid to keep the heat from escaping, but he could guess what was underneath. His dinners were more varied when he ate with his family, but they didn’t insist he come down when he had a lot of homework to do; especially when his father was working late again. He looked at the shadows cast by the tiny dome, and then reached out to turn his desk lamp on. “Thank you,” he said, and then looked properly at Reina’s face. She seemed a little nervous, and he knew that she wasn’t just here to bring his food up. She wanted to talk to him as well; and being there for his precious little sister was one of the most important things to Right. “Do you want to sit down?” Reina perched on the corner of the bed, still anxious. Her hands shifted position, each clasping he other and changing places every few seconds, but it didn’t seem to bring her any comfort. “What are you working on?” she asked. “Calculus of modular forms,” he answered quickly. “Pet topic of one of the lecturers I hope to study with at university. If I can learn a little more, I stand a better chance of getting the placement I want.” He paused there. He didn’t want to comment on how thin this was stretching his time; devoting hours to extracurricular studies as well as his homework and all the other tasks that he had to find an opportunity for. There were other things to focus on right now. “Is something wrong?” “No,” she shook her head rapidly, but he thought he saw the slightest trace of moisture around her eyes. And then he was sure it was serious. He had decided long ago that he would never forgive anyone who made Reina cry, and even a single tear was enough to get his protective instincts up. “No, everything’s fine. Everything’s normal.” Right lifted the lid off his dinner for a moment, and then set it back down. She was eager to tell him, he knew that. Otherwise, she would have dropped off the food and gone back to get Mum’s help. So all he had to do was wait, and a few seconds later the dam burst. “It’s not like you can control who you love, right? You can’t make someone care. But Orihime tried so hard to impress him, and she did everything right. And then she was in the bathroom crying all afternoon. It isn’t that he said ‘no’, it’s just the way he did it. Like he was holding it off until it would hurt the most. Like he didn’t even try to let her down gently, he just laughed and sneered, and told all his friends. I hate guys like that, I wish they could be on the other end of that attitude for once. Someone needs to take them down a peg or ten.” Right nodded slowly. He knew Reina’s friends from the orchestra club, but he didn’t know any of the details of their relationships and connections. But he was sure that for Reina to be so agitated on behalf of her friend, someone had really crossed a line. He listened as his sister poured out her feelings, and did his best to provide a shoulder to cry on. It was all he could do right now, and he was sure that it was the most morally responsible way to meet her needs. But at the same time, there was a part of him itching to do more. As she said, it was normal for boys to be thoughtless and insensitive with the feelings of people who cared about them. And he wasn’t sure whether the best way to deal with that would be to punish one individual, or work to change the system. But he didn’t need to think about it yet. First and foremost, he needed to be there to listen, and to take in every detail while Reina sobbed out the story. Orihime was one of the stars of the band; a genius who was as adept with pan pipes as with the bassoon she had inherited from her grandfather, and a girl who might one day become a cultural treasure. Tetsuo Tendou, on the other hand, was an entitled rich kid who thought he was important just because he was on the school’s tennis team. Right could picture his face easily, and thought that even without a specific incident, Tetsuo’s general lack of respect for those around him was a good sign that he needed to have some of the confidence knocked out of him before he could actually learn to be a good person. “I’m sorry,” Reina mumbled eventually, once all the story was told. “It’s not a big deal, it’s kind of normal. But I just wish…” “People need to be better,” he said. “And don’t worry about it. People like that eventually… find themselves in a situation they can’t talk their way out of.” “Really? I think he’s got everything he wants. The world is treating him like a hero, even the teachers act like he’s a big shot sometimes.” “Yeah. But people who only think of themselves always end up in a situation they’re not ready for eventually. He’ll get what’s coming to him. I promise. “I wish I could believe that,” Reina sighed, standing up. “If there was something you could do to make him realise… well… Anyway, thanks for the help. And enjoy your dinner." As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, the atmosphere in the room shifted. No longer a place of comfort, but of tension and negotiation. Right turned to the corner behind the door, where the shadows seemed just a little too deep, and waited. “You can see me, boy?” a rough voice jangled like a xylophone in a trash compactor. “Most people wouldn’t notice until I step forward.” “Why don’t you do that, then. So I can see you properly. You’re an omugami, right? “My name’s Nuk. And yes. You know about omugami?” “Nuk?” Right answered, and then nodded. “And you can call me Right. I’ve heard of omugami before. Pee fairies. Like I've heard of tooth fairies, the easter bunny, and verruca gnomes. I never suspected any of those would be real. But that notebook clearly exists, and someone had to have dropped it. Your existence in some form was therefore an inevitability, and your appearance a mere data point, defining the form you take from all the different shapes you could be imagined in. So, are you here to take your Pee Note back, or to claim my soul because I dared touch it?” “You’ve done more than touch,” Nuk said, and then laughed in a carillion of discordant beats. “You would have the ability to see me while holding the Nursery Ledger. But to perceive me once you put it down, I know that you must have written a name in it. Probably not just one, if I’m any judge of character.” Finally, he stepped forward out of the shadows. His legs and arms looked like nothing more than cylinders of liquid leather, flowing from one position to the next. His face was a perfect circle, bearing a permanent porcelain smile; All in all, the omugami looked more like a child’s drawing than an actual creature subject to physics. It was hard to judge his size; he looked close to nine feet tall, but there was no way such a large creature would have been able to stand in Right’s room with only the slightest stoop. It was as if he wasn’t even subject to the laws of human geometry; a shape pasted into the room without any consideration of whether he could fit. And Right found himself wondering whether that face was a disc, or a genuine circle. A two-dimensional visage, looking the same from every angle, wouldn’t have been the strangest thing he’d seen today. “Pleased to meet you, Nuk,” he said. And then he reached under his desk and quickly produced a baby-blue notebook. He set it on his desk, and carefully licked his fingers before opening the cover. “I take it that means that Rei– my sister wouldn’t have seen you, even if I’d drawn attention to your presence while she was still in the room.” “That is correct. I likely couldn’t even touch her. And there’s no need to keep her name secret. We omugami always know the–” Nuk’s voice suddenly stopped as Right turned to the third page of the notebook, which was a lot more organised than the chaotically scrawled names on the first. The pages were divided into columns by faint blue lines, the kind of thing that would be common in any accounting book. There were no column headers. But it seemed that Right had already decided on a structure. On the left hand page there were six columns total, and they were being used in three sets of two. The first cell of each pair contained a name, and the second a time. In some places, where a time had not been needed, six names were packed between the page edge and the fold on each line. The right page, on the other hand, had been devoted to more precise experiments. The first column was given over to a name, the second to a time, and then the whole width of the page was filled out with however much text was necessary to describe the circumstances of that person’s accident. Nuk glanced across forty names, in studiously neat handwriting. And then the child’s drawing of a man inhaled sharply through teeth that he didn’t in fact possess. “So. What’s the price?” Right asked. “I assume there is one. You must have something to gain by sharing this note with a human.” “Oh, there’s a price,” Nuk answered, and the strange laugh repeated. “Once you started using the Nursery Ledger, if you stop or run out of pages you won’t be able to void your own bladder anymore. You’ll be entirely dependent on me writing your name in my own ledger to control when you can get any relief. A normal function entirely under the control of another, just like the babies we’re supposed to tend to. Didn’t you think to ask about the price before you wrote so many names?” “There are a lot of people who need some lessons in dignity, Nuk. People who think themselves above everyone else and need teaching otherwise. Bullies and petty tyrants. So much filth that needs cleaning up, so that we can have a school governed by dignity and mutual respect.” “You sound almost like a preacher. To so many of the omugami now, writing names in the Ledger is a chore. Doing our job, allowing infants to relieve themselves until they have the control to do it for themselves. But you’ve turned it into both a game and a weapon.” “Not a weapon, Nuk. A filter. Finding those people who don’t deserve to be a part of society and removing them from the flow.” “So that’s your motivation to have filled multiple pages in a single week?” “Partly,” Right admitted. “You see, Nuk, there’s very little in this world that can challenge me. I wanted to understand something new. It’s true that I wanted to help the innocents who have been bullied. But also because we’ve got something in common that I never expected.” This time, it was the human boy’s turn to laugh before he clarified: “I was bored too.” “I’m glad you were the one to find it. Most people would write two or three names and then stop. I think you might be…” he stopped, and seemed to sniff the air, with a nose that was no more than a dot drawn in the centre of his face. “Do I smell chicken nuggets?” “Convenient dinner when I’m working in my room,” Right said with a shrug, lifting the lid off his plate. “Mum’s been cooking them more often lately, just for the convenience when my dad is working late. Would you like some?” “Thank you! Thank you so much, Right! Chicken is the only smell which can pass through the seeing bubbles we use to observe the human world, you see. I’ve been craving an actual taste of the stuff for so long. And now I’m certain that you are the best human who could have formed a bond with my note. Thank you so much!” * * * Daikon Private Academy didn’t have anything so common as a student council. Instead they had the Holy Student Council, which was on a different level entirely. Their council chambers were a pillared chamber which could have been some kind of chapel, right in the centre of the oldest school buildings. Whatever furnishings it might have had back in the days this building was a seminary college were long gone now, replaced by a ring of polished wood desks with brass fittings, arranged in supplication to the higher thrones used by the council members themselves. The occupants of those thrones, four members sitting to each side of president Hana Natsuki, didn’t see themselves as a mere interface to allow the student body to communicate their concerns to the staff; but as an organisation ordained with some divine mandate to enforce the purity and honesty of all the students beneath them. They had the authority to give detentions or even to remove students from class in extreme circumstances, and it wasn’t exactly clear whether their power was greater or lesser than that wielded by the School Board. Competition for council seats was fierce, as they all knew that their roles could be contested by any honors student from a sufficiently affluent family who could maintain a perfect disciplinary record and earn the president’s approval. They were the lords who ruled over the student body, and took great care to make sure that all students lived up to their standards. But in a rare deviation from the norm, the council members were watched today by several attendees who didn’t bow down in fear or awe. To either side of the room were representatives from the District Student Councils, a loose union of six schools with overlapping catchment areas. All of them were respectful, all of them were the right kind of people, but they weren’t students at Daikon and so were not entirely under the authority of the council. And it would have required a very unusual situation for so many visitors to be invited to a meeting. Gatherings of the District Student Council, with one representative from each academy, were not unheard of. But some unspoken impulse had told all of the people present today that this was a serious matter which would best be conducted in the imposing surroundings of Daikon Academy. “The students are calling her ‘Tinkles’,” Bryce said, eyes darting down to a report he surely knew from memory. “It’s on most of the student discords, and making the rounds on Frontline Confessions as well. We’re not sure where the nickname first came from, but it seems to be accepted now that there is someone behind this stain on our reputation.” The president adjusted her glasses, and the light from high gothic windows reflected from the heavily varnished wood frames to cast honey-coloured streaks of light across the room. But before she needed to say anything, Pettigrew stood on the other side of her. “Not just our reputations,” he answered. “There are stains on the floors as well. Thankfully not the valuable carpets yet, but the janitors are starting to talk. They want to know what we are doing to resolve this situation. Is it some kind of literal plague?” “We have already ruled out disease,” and older man answered here. He stepped forward from the shadow of one of the pillars in the corner, a complete breach of the normal protocol. But he wasn’t entirely submissive towards the whims of the council, as he wasn’t a student here. Chief Administrator Arisato was a member of the school board, as well as being here today as a representative of the District Discipline Committee and Civic Council. He wore glasses like many of the council members, but his were less a statement of fashion and identity, more a necessity after many years of poring over every available record in pursuit of the right answer. His hair shaded to grey at his temples now, but he had the respect of someone who had been a member of the Holy Student Council nearly three decades before. “We ruled out environmental toxins as well, of course. Twelve of the victims so far have gone through complete medical examinations at the hospital, and the best doctors in the arrondissement have assured me that there was absolutely no medical reason for their loss of bladder control.” “It simply must be a matter of discipline,” Natsuki finally spoke, and everyone else was immediately silent. There was no space for whispered conversations at the back of the room during the president’s speech, and even Arisato remained silent. “We are aware of the general response on the Frontline website boards, and understand it to be a good representation of the opinions of the students. The victims of this strange phenomenon are often high-class individuals who have our backing, but the general sentiment amongst the student body is that it was something they deserved. That this imaginary ‘Tinkles’ figure is meting out some judgement on those who have abused their position.” This time, Bryce raised a hand and waited for a nod, to ensure that the president had finished before he spoke: “Justice is administered by the Holy Student Council, your honour. Not by an unknown outsider with some mysterious drug or weapon. We should treat this as an attempt to supplant our authority, and ensure that this ‘Tinkles’ is subject to appropriate discipline. Assuming that it isn’t one of us…?” The occupants of the other thrones stared with an expression of studied disdain, or shook their heads o make the point clear. “Other schools have been targeted just as much,” a voice from the edge of the room called out. Chiharu Miku, president of the student council at North Central High School; for once travelling without a secretary to carry her bag and take notes, out of respect for Daikon’s rules while she was on the grounds. “Almost exactly the same number of cases, that we know of. We need a special group to deal with this, we can’t just leave it to Daikon’s prefects.” “Our prefects will investigate the cases on our grounds, or involving our students,” Hana answered without hesitation. “You are, of course, entitled to investigate within your own schools. For the purposes of coordinating a district-wide effort, we shall require a weekly report of all cases, investigations, and suspects to be delivered to this Holy Student Council, from each of the six schools.” She didn’t expect any argument, but she certainly didn’t expect the request to be greeted by laughter from the back of the room. Her gaze turned like a lighthouse, with students bowing their heads as if they feared being tainted by association, until she found a tall boy with blond hair, with his red uniform jacket practically hanging off his shoulders and hair spiked up high enough to block the view of those behind him. Even Seibu Regional High wouldn’t appoint a punk like that to their student council, but he was nevertheless here as their representative. Yochii Hiruma, better known as an athlete than a politician, and apparently he didn’t know the rules of this hallowed chamber. “You act like you’re in charge, Miss President,” Hiruma said. “I’m sorry, but the schools in this district don’t answer to each other. We’ll share our discoveries, but only if you do the same.” The whole room went silent, tension feeling like it might explode at any moment. But the one who broke it was Administrator Kamehama, a young woman with ash-blond hair. Although she was a representative of the city council, and had the authority to regulate all student council policies district-wide, she glanced towards Arisato for approval before saying anything now. His remit was discipline, which made him the one with the most relevant experience in this case. “If I may…” she said. “The District Educational Board feels that this investigation should be led by an impartial body, without ties to any single school. But we also have received an offer from a certain individual you may have heard of, who may be willing to act as an impartial member to lead a team of inquiry with representatives from all six schools.” She stepped forward and set a laptop down on the table in front of the Holy Student Council, where supplicants would normally present their offerings and the accused show their evidence. Half the class could probably guess already who they would be speaking to. There was one student who always spoke through a computer screen, and whose real identity wasn’t known to anyone in the district. He was a genius, that much was beyond dispute. He would help with homework, or suggest solutions to complex interpersonal debates. He had appeared on Frontline Confessions and other district social media platforms to help all students with problems which interested him, regardless of which school they attended, and all attempts to discern his identity had always failed. Arisato had even wondered, at one point, whether the mysterious genius could be his own son. But still, the mystery remained. And if there was any consensus in the whispers that filled the room, it was that everyone kind of trusted this anonymous figure. And maybe, amongst the crowds, there was general agreement that it might be possible for one enigmatic figure to challenge another. The screen glowed into life, pure white. And after a second, a more technically-minded assistant of the Holy Student Council stepped forward and connected a cable to the laptop, so that the same image could appear on the big screen behind the thrones. Conversation in the background rose a little and then fell away again, everyone holding their breath as they waited to see what the genius would say. Finally, a single letter appeared in the centre of the screen; bold and black, in a distinctive typeface designed to be easily readable for dyslexic and neurodiverse students. Maybe it was redundant, as nobody would have trouble reading a single letter at that size, but it was the image everyone recognised as the profile picture and calling card of the mysterious genius. ‘P’ The room was silent for now, as the Holy Student Council waited for this new advisor to say his piece. But now everyone knew that the genius was on the case. The letter that could stand for Prefect, for Perfection, or for Problem Solver. Nobody knew who he was, but they were all sure that he would be able to help. And when an echoing voice started to come from the speakers, the same message would be echoed on social media to ensure that the entire student body knew that P was on the case now. This might not be a solution, yet. It was a declaration of war. And nobody could doubt that the situation was about to change.

Abandoned Daycare By: Personalias It was supposed to be an easy job: Spend the night cleaning up an old daycare that had been out of business longer than it had been open. Then Jake’s aunt could re-open it, take care of some brats, make some money, yada yada yada. It started out simple enough for the four college students. Carpet cleaner and stain remover were needed for neglected spots where pipes had dripped or wild animals and homeless people had done their business, but it’s not like the hallways were smeared in shit. If anything the place reeked of baby powder, and there were worse things for a place to reek of. All this place needed was some vacuuming, some mopping, a whole lotta trashbags, and a bunch of cardboard boxes. The quartet of amigos had all helped each other move out of dorms before. This was just that but on a bigger scale. One night tops. Maybe a weekend. Easy money. Until they found the storage room… It was Lester who spoke first. “It’s like if a preschool teacher was a hoarder!” Lester: Master of words, wits, and wisdom. Speaker of the obvious. Probably very high. His baggy clothes and gangly frame made him look like a scarecrow brought to life. The stoner wasn’t wrong. The room was littered with baby toys, furniture, clothes, and other what could be best described as ‘knick-knacks’. Everything was scattered about but nothing seemed hidden. “Some of this stuff looks in good condition,” Emily noted. “Wonder why they didn’t pawn or sell it?” Emily: Practical. Responsible. A good girl. Her Family was wealthier than all three of her friends’ combined, but she did her best not to flaunt it. Still dressed stylishly and feminine. She hadn’t been seen in pants since she’d been old enough to pick out her own clothes. Madison ran her hands over the crib bars. “This crib is giant,” she noted. “Manufacturing error?” Madison: The only one of them on a full academic scholarship. Blind without her glasses. Naive to the ways of the world. Over by a changing table, Jake reached beneath and took out an almost comically large diaper. “These got cartoons on them and everything. Maybe this was a daycare for old people or something.” “Why do the diapers have cartoons on them then?” “I don’t know! Old people like cartoons! Alzheimers and shit!” Jake: Blonde haired blue eyed All-American dreamboat. Point guard on the college basketball team. The unofficial leader of the group. The others winced and sucked in their breath. Jake didn’t normally talk like that. His grades had been slipping this semester and he was going full meathead dudebro as a result. They’d have to have a talk to him about that. Something else caught Jake’s eye. He put down the diaper and took a few steps towards a small silver whistle laying on a shelf with an anchor engraved in it. His lips started to pucker at the thought of blowing on it. Madison found a vial straight out of an old sci-fi movie, the green liquid inside it still bubbling. A voice in the back of her mind whispered that maybe she should drink it and see if it tasted any good. Emily fiddled with a dusty old carpet bag, opening it up and taking out brick-a-brack, noticeably a paddle that seemed too big to fit. “Uh guys,” Lester said. “I’m not sure it’s awesome to be messing around in here. Maybe we should get back to cleaning.” He was looking around and realizing there was some disturbing stuff in here: A pink straight jacket, a dollhouse that looked eerily like the outside of the daycare, a VHS tape called ‘This Show Is For Babies’, and golden diaper pail were just some of the things that were giving him the heebie jeebies. “Dude, chill out.” Jake put down the boat whistle and picked up a pastel puzzle box. He turned it over in his hands, trying to solve it, playing with it and his focus increasing and his frustration ratcheting up with every turn and click. The stoner rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Can’t even solve a damn kids’ toy.” Lester paced near the entrance. “Dude belongs here.” He stopped when he noticed a teddy bear. It was a clean but raggedy looking thing, with two mismatched eyes; one sparkling red and the other shimmering blue. Lester could have gotten lost in those beady eyes. Something didn’t sit right about that with him. “Where have I read…?” He let the thought dangle unspoken “Guys!” Emily called, barely containing a giggle. “Listen to this!” As if snapped out of a trance, the others put down their discoveries and gathered round her. “I found this rule book inside the bag.” The others all drew close. “I wouldn’t call that a book.” Madison said. “It’s too thin. More like a pamphlet.” Jake read the title aloud. “Nanny Windel’s Rules for Good Baby Boys and Girls.” Lester arched an eyebrow and stepped back. “Rules? Numbered rules?” “Yeah,” Emily said. “How’d you know?” Madison peaked over Emily’s shoulder and read the first rule aloud. “Rule Number One: Good babies wear and use their diapers at all times except when being changed or given a bath.” Emily snorted. “Weird right?” Jake posted up behind Emily’s other shoulder. “Rule Number Two: Good babies don’t touch their diapers.” He shook his head. “Who wrote this garbage?” “Nanny Windel, didn’t you hear?” Emily laughed. “Rule Number Three: Babies can’t feed themselves.” The corners of Lester’s mouth were plunging down towards the carpet. “Guys. I think you should stop reading that. Now.” Yet again, the others ignored him and kept going. “Rule Number Four,” Madison took over, “Good babies don’t use grown up words.” “Rule Number Five: Good babies crawl,” Jake said. “Most of these are just facts, not rules. What’s so good?” Lester was sweating bullets. “Guys. Stop.” “Oh. Finally!” Emily said. “Here we go. Something close to a rule. Rule Number Six: Bad babies get spanked until they’re good babies.” Everyone threw back their heads and laughed. Everyone but Lester. “What’s this at the end?” Jake pointed down to the bottom. Madison squinted, and held the pamphlet closer to one of the lanterns. “It looks like it’s in Latin.” “Don’t read the Latin!” Lester begged, “Haven’t you guys seen any horror movies, or read any-?” “This isn’t a horror movie,” Emily said. “This is a daycare.” The color drained out of Lester’s face. “It can be both.” “Stop being a fucking baby,” Jake warned. If Emily was concerned, she didn’t show it. “Capre nos, capre.” ******************************************************************************************* Elsewhere in the building, from beneath the floorboards a battered umbrella poked out and unfolded, its canopy blooming like a toxic flower. The eerie blue ghostly figure holding it rose daintily upwards, passing through solid matter unconstrained by the laws of physics. There was no need for her to smooth out her skirt or brush the dirt off her jacket. She did so out of habit more than anything. Immense (but not overly emotional) satisfaction filled her translucent face. “Bad babies need to be put back in their place,” she said to herself. KA-THOOOOOM! *************************************************************************************************** Far removed from the college students, a different gathering was taking place. Men and women wearing lab coats and business casual attire watched monitors eagerly, each one anticipating what artifact might catch the victim’s fascination. “We have a winner!” Gary announced to the grousing crowd of coworkers. “It’s Nanny Windel, ladies and gentlemen!” People groaned like they’d just lost a bet. Gary could barely contain his laughter. “Nanny Windel pulls a ‘W’!” Bald headed with thick rimmed glasses and looking like a bank teller, Gary walked through the assembled crowd to the whiteboard keeping track of everyone’s bet. “Alright, that means congratulations go to maintenance!” There was some low applause before he quickly added “Who share the pot with Ronald the intern.” A single pipsqueak leapt into the air. “YES!” Another co-worker came up and complained. “Wait, that’s not fair I had ‘Phantom Babysitter’, too.” Gary examined the board which had such entries as ‘Were-baby’, ‘MerMommy’, ‘Creepy Twins’, ‘DiaperBot’, and ‘Darleen Lattle’. “Yes you did, Gary said. “You had ‘Phantom Babysitter’. But this is ‘Ghost Nanny’. See? They’re very different monsters. It’s like the difference between zombies and zombie redneck torture family.” He then walked away, seeing no further point in discussing it. “There’s always next year.” Gary went and stood by Steve, his co-producer in tonight’s events. In his early forties, but with a full head of light brown hair, Steve had the demeanor of a kid who had just missed out on tickets to Disney. “Oh man, I’m sorry.” Steve shook his fist. “He had the whistle in his hand.” “I know,” Gary consoled him. “A couple more minutes, who knows what might’ve happened.” “I am never gonna see a MerMommy,” Steve pouted. “Ever.” Gary turned and looked Steve in the eye. “Dude, be thankful. Those things are a trainwreck. They never know when the baby is wet.” Steve sighed and looked at the Ghost Nanny floating through the hallway. “So, Nanny Windel.” “Well she may be an undead anal retentive Mary Poppins rip-off…” Gary started. Steve finished the thought. “But she’s our undead, anal retentive Mary Poppins rip-off.” “With a hundred percent clearance rate.” “True.” That gave the men comfort. Steve relaxed and asked, “So should we call Japan? Tell them to take the rest of the night off?” “Yeah,” Gary chuckled. “What are they gonna do, relax? They practically invented desperation play. They literally don’t know how to relax.” *********************************************************************************** KA-THOOOOOM! The sudden storm outside caused all four teenagers to jump practically out of their socks. The lights flickered off for a moment, just long enough for all four to jump uncomfortably close to one another. Jake opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by a haunting yet familiar melody. “This-is-the-way-we-go-to-school, Go-to-school, Go-to-school, This-is-the-way-we-go-to-school, So-early-in-the-morning.” The voice that sang it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Its haunting melody was a peculiar siren’s call that weaved in and out of the hallways outside the storage room. “We need to leave,” Lester said. “Yesterday.” “In this storm?” Jake said. He pointed out a suddenly rain streaked window. Lightning flashed in the distance. It really was a dark and stormy night. Lester pointed upwards to the ceiling. “Did you not just hear the creepy song?” “That was just a power surge,” Madison explained. “Yeah,” Emily agreed, “Just some old P.A. glitch.” The stoner started all-but sprinting out of the storage room and towards the nearest exit. “Shit!” he said when he slammed up against the door. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” He slammed his fists in anger and frustration. “Fuuuuuuuuck!” A nearby metal garbage can bounced off a window like it was nothing more than balled up paper. “Dude!” Jaked shouted. “Chill out! It’s just rain!” “We’re trapped!” Lester said. Emily shrugged. “Electric doors. Glitched with the lightning strike.” Madison dug her phone out of her pocket. “We’ve still got our cell…” she paused and frowned. “No signal.” “Huh,” Jake said. “Me neither.” He didn’t seem worried though. No one did. “Oh well. Not like we were going anywhere tonight.” He grabbed an empty trash bag and waved for the girls to follow him. “Come on. Let’s make some money.” Lester slumped down to the floor and rested his face in his hands lest he scream. “What did I do to deserve this?” he asked himself. Emily lagged behind. “What’s with you?” “This place is haunted or something,” Lester said. His knees were pulled up to his chest so he was in a fetal position. “There’s gonna be a ghost, or some kind of psycho Chuck-E-Cheese thing, or a portal, or moving toys.” He smacked himself in the forehead. “Why didn’t I see it?” “Daycares aren’t haunted,” Madison stated smugly, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Pretty sure this one is.” Lester was on the verge of tears. “I know how this story ends. We’re not gonna like it.” Jake walked away. “Whatever, dude. Somebody gave you a bad batch of gummies. I’m cleaning up and getting paid.” “Me too,” Madison echoed. Emily spared Lester a last pitying look. “Me too.” ***************************************************************************************** “And the game begins,” Gary said. He pointed to the layout of the ritual site. “We’ve got three runners and a bump on a log and the three are splittin’ up.” Steve furrowed his brow. “Nice, but why is the stoner freaking out? Shouldn’t he be experiencing mild euphoria and decreased cognition due to the gas we’ve been pumping in?” “According to these readings, he is.” Gary said. “He’s just got really baggy pants.” *********************************************************************************************** Madison had to pee and she hadn’t found any sign of a bathroom. It had gotten to the point where the ache in her bladder was distracting her and it was getting harder and harder to think about anything else. It had gotten to the point where she’d dropped her garbage bag and walked through the cluttered hallways without the extra weight. Every classroom she poked her head into seemed devoid of plumbing of any kind. This section was so cluttered that it made the storeroom they’d found earlier seem spacious and organized. Each step was slow and high, lest she step or slip. How did it get like this? It was like a bunch of rowdy tots had been allowed to trash the place and then vanish. “C’mon,” Madison hissed to herself. She poked her head into another classroom and saw nothing but cribs and changing tables…again. “There’s gotta be a pre-k or something. Gotta do potty training sometime!” Oh-dear-what-can-the-matter-be? Dear-dear what can the matter be? Oh-dear-what-can-the-matter-be? Johnny’s-so-long-at-the-fair. Madison’s head whipped around searching for the source of the song. Her body, sadly, didn’t follow. The sudden twisting threw her off balance and caused her to trip over an errant roller skate and then her own feet. She tumbled to the floor, relatively unharmed, but the momentum tore her glasses right off the front of her face. “My glasses!” Madison yelped. She couldn’t see a thing without her glasses! Everything was just a blur to her. Quietly, she crawled around on all fours, groping for her glasses. “Hello child,” a friendly, feminine voice called out to her. “Are you looking for these?” Before Madison could reply, something cold gripped her right hand by the wrist and placed the familiar frame of her glasses back in her hand. “Thank you,” Madison mumbled. Then she realized something about the voice seemed distinctly ‘adult’. She put on the glasses and looked up. “I sincerely appreciate the assistance.” “What was that?” her new savior asked. “Are you using grown up words?” Even with her impaired vision, Madison could make certain things out about the woman standing over her. For example, she wasn’t technically standing as she had no feet. And Madison could read the hallway bulletin board directly through the woman’s translucent body. “No way…” she gasped. KA-THOOM! The lights flickered and flared up with another nearby lightning strike. In that bare instant, Madison saw more than she’d ever wanted to. Rotting flesh, exposed bones, no lips to speak of and a raggedy patched uniform to match. The Nanny- and she was a nanny- looked less like a certain Julie Andrews role, and more like Geoffrey Rush from the pirate movies. Ghosts were real! This old daycare was haunted! Madison was alone! On the bright side, she no longer needed to go to the bathroom… “Naughty baby!” the ghost nanny scolded. “:Good babies wear and use their diapers at all times except when being changed or given a bath!” A spectral hand gestured to the spreading puddle on the floor beneath Madison. “You’re not wearing your diapers!” Drenched in her own pee there, the usually witty and articulate young woman was at a loss for words. “I..I…I…” “And don’t think I didn’t hear you talking like a grown up! “Good babies don’t use grown up words!” Madison’s eyes widened in realization. The rules! She was quoting those stupid rules! This would be terrifying if it weren’t also so ridiculously humiliating. “Nanny Windel?” “That’s right, baby girl! But it’s far too late for introductions!” Madison found herself picked up in the air, a cold dead arm wrapped around her waist and holding her parallel to the floor. “TIME! FOR! DISCIPLINE!” Madison didn’t have to be too brainy to guess what happened next… *********************************************************************************************** THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! Steve and Gary watched the brainy little girl get the daylights spanked out of her. Watched her squirm and kick and beg as a translucent paddle started spanking the maturity right out of her; listened to her scream as each swat to her drenched back side took away more and more of her adult mind. Within minutes the girl’s ability to walk was lost, and her vocabulary down to less than a hundred words. The men watching knew Nanny Windel had finished her job when Nanny took her to one of the nurseries and started changing her. With cold reverence, as if they’d just witnessed a ritual sacrifice, the men bowed their heads, and Steve pulled a lever. One down… ******************************************************************************************** Jake’s stomach growled. The daycare kitchen’s floor was now spotless and shined enough so that he could see his reflection. He looked down at himself. Damn his metabolism. Should’ve carbed up. “What kind of kids did this place used to take care of?” he puzzled, looking at the massive highchairs big enough to sit him. His mind refused to settle on the most obvious answer. It was too silly! Must just be his blood sugar getting too low. “Do-you-know-the-muffin-man? The-muffin-man? The-muffin-man! Do-you-know-the-muffin-man-who-lives-on-Drury Lane? Stupid sound system glitch. Where was it coming from? He walked up to a pantry and flung it open. “What do big babies eat, anyways?” Applesauce as it turned out. “Better than nothin’,” he grunted. He opened a drawer and found more than enough spoons. All plastic. “Whatever.” He ripped open the flimsy tinfoil top and dug in. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a burger, but it wasn’t bad. He started pacing, stirring the grainy mush around. KA-THOOM! “Babies can’t feed themselves!” The voice saying it made the inside of his fillings hurt. Jake turned to face it and was so stunned by what he saw that he forgot to swallow and bits of yellow paste dribbled out of his lips. “Good babies crawl!” The thing glided across the floor. It had no reflection. “I’ll make you good!” ******************************************************************************************************** THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! “Another one bites the dust.” Steve and Gary watched the cocky jock get spanked absolutely senseless. A few minutes later he was sitting in a highchair and pushing a load into his crinkly diaper. Nanny pinched his cheeks and started going through walls towards her next victim. “Two down,” Steve said. “Uh-oh…” Gary noticed. “Windel’s going for the virgin.” The virgin was on all fours, crying like they’d already been regressed. “Virgin’s gotta be last and this one’s making it a little too easy.” Steve leaned over and picked up a phone. “Containment, I’m gonna need an ectoplasmic containment field and plenty of thorazine to…” “No wait,” Gary interrupted. “Looks like she changed her mind for now.” Sure enough, the Ghost Nanny paused and about faced; the sounds of screaming more enticing to her than the faint babbles of somebody faking it. Steve leaned back and wiped his brow. “Perfect in practically every way.” “Let’s just hope things stay like that.” ********************************************************************************************************** KA-THOOM! “One-elephant-went-out-to-play Upon-a-spider’s-web-one-day She-had-such-enormous-fun That-she-called-for-another-elephant-to-come” Emily hid in the ballpit, her hand clapped over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She’d forgotten the pushbroom and went looking. That’s how she stumbled upon a cooing and crying Madison, topless and wearing nothing but a diaper. Emily thought it’d been a joke. It wasn’t, though. Neither was Jake. No way would Jake willingly shit himself for a bizarre practical joke. Running out of the daycare’s kitchen was when she’d seen the ghost. It was also when the ghost saw her. “Good babies crawl,” the thing’s voice was both beautiful and terrifying. “Good babies wear and use their diapers.” What the fuck was this? Emily literally had no words for what was going on. Why would a ghost be saying this kind of shit? Why would a fucking daycare be haunted? Did daycares even have nannies? Shouldn’t she be running from some sort of undead babysitter or something? The absurdity and terror of her situation compounded when an icy cold arm snaked into the ballpit and ripped Emily up into the air. “Naughty baby! Hiding from Nanny!” Emily didn’t have to pee. If she did, she’d be pissing herself right now. The thing dangling her by the armpits was both strangely beautiful or rotting depending on where she focused her eyes. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I’m sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry!” “Good babies don’t use grown up words!” The walls rushed by and the ballpit rushed up to greet her as Emily was dropped down to the edge of the ballpit, a terrible weight pinning her, forcing her to bend over. Something like a breeze blew her skirt up exposing her panties. “Please!” Emily begged. “Don’t!” “Bad babies get spanked until they’re good babies.” THWACK! Something hard and flat collided with Emily’s backside. She didn’t know math. Just lost it. She knew numbers. But she couldn’t do anything with them. THWACK! “Eeeeep!” Emily kicked futilely with another swing of a spectral paddle stung her ass. What were numbers? THWACK! “Noooooo!” she cried out, suddenly illiterate. Tears started to run down her cheeks. One part of her brain was crying out as bits of information were excised and removed from her consciousness like tumors. The other part reeled in pain and just wanted it to stop so she could get back to playing. She’d been a bad girl. Not even that, a bad baby. Before the fourth swat came down on her, both parts of her being decided that they wanted nothing more than being a good baby. Anything to make the hurting stop. There was a pause. “Hm?” The sound came from the ghostly woman just behind her. “What are you-?” THWACK! Emily’s ears heard the sound of the paddle hitting something, but her bottom didn’t feel it. The weight was off her too. She could move! In utter bewilderment Emily stood up and turned around only to see Lester holding a wooden paddle and staring down a now diapered and confused ghost. It was an objectively amusing sight, seeing the ghost with nothing but a diaper on below the waist. She no longer floated menacingly in the air, but stood awkwardly on the ground with bare feet that wriggled like worms after a rainstorm. “Bad baby!” Lester said in the exact same tone as the ghost had. “Wandering around without your diaper on! Daddy Lester had to put it on for you!” The ghost scowled. “I’m not a baby, you twat!” “Then why are you wearing a diaper?” The stoner retorted. “Because you snuck up and slid one on me.” Lester slapped the paddle into his open palm menacingly. “Of course I did, little one. Babies can’t put on their own diapers.” “But-...” Lester circled around the frankly confused and bamboozled specter “If you’re not a baby, then why are you getting spanked? Only babies get spanked.” Nanny Windel’s fingers started nervously fidgeting, her arms drawing closer to her waist. “I…I…I…” “Ah-ah-ah,” Lester wagged his finger. “Good babies don’t touch their diapers.” The ghosts hands splayed outward. Combined with her overly wide stance thanks to the giant diaper, she looked more like a starfish than a ghost. THWACK! The ghost poofed into a baby powder scented cloud, and the wooden paddle clattered to the ground out of Lester’s hands. “Lester!” Emily ran forward and wrapped her arms around her gangly friend turned rescuer. He hugged her back, making her feel safe. “You okay?” he asked. He pried her off of him and looked directly at her skirt. “Still potty trained?” Emily nodded. “Yeah. I think so…?” She did a mental run through of the process; panties down, sit, pee, wipe, flush, panties up, wash hands. “Yeah. Definitely.” “Good,” Lester said. Something inside Emily doubted he meant that, but only for a second. She’d just been saved. “Means I got here on time.” Emily pushed back her hair out of her face. “How did you know what to do?” “Circular logic is a trope, but it goes both ways but the advantage goes to the person who invokes it first.” It might have been because the college co-ed no longer knew her three R’s, but none of what Lester had just said made any sense. “Huh?” “Just jump into the ballpit with me.” Without waiting, Lester high stepped over the edge and started wading towards the middle of the plastic orb filled pool. “Come on. I got a hunch.” Confused and having trouble stringing together coherent thoughts, she did as she was bid. “What about Jake and Maddison?” Lester started scooping out armfulls of balls and tossing them over the edge. “Jakey and Maddie?” he echoed her question. “They’re gone. Stuck like that. If they’d been physically regressed there was an off chance that they might just have to grow up all over again. But they got mentalled by that Ghost Nanny. Probably not coming back from that. Most likely scenario is they spend the rest of their lives in a nursing home or something. Maybe the nurses will know about ABDL and get them some cute clothes and diapers but that’s a big maybe.” ABDL? Mentalled? Physically Regressed? None of this made any sense to Emily. It was like Lester was speaking an entirely different language. Not knowing what else to do, she copied her friend and helped him excavate the pit. ‘How do you know all about this stuff?” The stoner didn’t stop digging. “There are websites,” Lester said. “Stories. Pictures. Most people think they’re just internet fetish porn. But it’s way more than that. Investigative journalism? Prophecy? Some reflection of the collective unconscious? Whatever it is I’ve always had a hunch that it was true. This just proves it.” “This is why you came with us?” Emily. “To prove your conspiracy theories?” The pair neared the bottom. “I mean…” Lester paused. “Kinda? I didn’t really think this would happen. Just figured I could make some cash and get some ideas about posts on a message board or something. Then the storage room happened and I started connecting the dots.” The ballpit was finally empty enough that they could see a trap door. Lester opened it up and dropped down into what Emily could only describe as a glass walled elevator. “I did try to warn you.” That’s right, he kind of did. Emily followed and dropped down while Lester messed with some wiring. It was better than staying behind having to take care of Jake and Maddison. “How’d you know this would be here?” she asked. Lester smiled. “Come on. Never heard the one about a kid getting lost in a ballpit? Of course there was a trapdoor. AR Traps are too cheeky for their own good most of the time.” Emily let out a polite laugh; the kind people did when they didn’t get the joke. It only made her feel more childish. “How’d you find out about all this stuff?” Lester sparked a couple of wires together and blushed. “I was looking for internet fetish porn.” And down they went. ***************************************************************************************** Mission control was at red alert. People were panicking. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Technicians were scrambling, security was gearing up, and Steve was really regretting that he’d hit the tequila as quickly as he did. “Yeah, I know they’re in the elevator!” he shouted into his phone. “No! Don’t regress them both! Order matters! You know that! Well yeah, if you regress one go for the other. They both already know too much. Both of them need to spend the rest of their lives with their heads empty and their diapers full!” He paused, frowning through the tequila haze. “Kill them? What are we, monsters?” Gary was pouring over all the available data while one of the gals from tech searched the internet. “I found him, sir!” She pointed to a profile picture on a fetish site. He readjusted his glasses and pronounced the screen name phonetically. “Ay-Bee-Dee-El-Baby-Daddy-four-twenty-sixty-nine-eight-zero-zero-eight-equal sign-equal sign- Dee?” He cringed at having to read it. “That’s a terrible screen name!” More to the point, Gary added, “And he never should have been selected for this! He knows too much! It hardly ever works if they know the tropes!” The technician clicked deeper into the stoner’s profile. “Sir, look at this.” Gary felt a thin line of hope. He waved Steve over. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Notice a pattern?” Indeed Steve did. Steve got back on the phone. “Inform the director. Follow the protocol, but if this doesn’t work, we’ve got one last hail mary.” ********************************************************************************************** It was dark outside the box at first. That was a mercy as far as the college students were concerned. The mercy didn’t last long. They were moving. Emily could feel that much through the floor, the humming micro vibrations. It came in little starts and stops, and jolts. Unlike most elevators, the pair could see through three of the walls. Based on the slight rocking sensation, Emily guessed they weren’t just going down but also forward and back and sideways and around. They were on a track-a complex conveyor belt-and every time they stopped, they got a peek inside another box. “WAAAAAAH!” A giant, obese, fleshy, blob of a human wearing a sagging white diaper pressed itself up against the glass. It was in its own box, its own moving cell, but it didn’t make Emily feel any safer. “WAAAAAAAH!” “That’s a really big baby,” Lester commented with an air of cold detached authority. “Lot less cute when they’re scaled up to seven feet.” That was an understatement. Emily took a step back. “What does it do?” “If I had to guess,” Lester said, “It bites you and you turn into one. Werebaby? Babpire? Same difference.” Something wispy and smoke-like pressed itself up against an adjacent wall. Emily knew it would smell like lavender and piss just from looking at it. “Wsssssshhh!” it hissed through the walls. Why weren’t these damn things soundproofed? Emily pressed herself into Lester, his body the only thing that felt safe in the moment. “I think it’s saying wish,” Lester remarked. “Some kind of diaper genie? Thought that one would be prettier. Guess they went with Wishmaster or something.” She was at a slaughterhouse dressed as a cow. He was at an aquarium admiring the sharks. In another cell, two little girls with skin like porcelain held hands, staring at the pair. “Don’t play dress up with them.” The Cenobite wearing a rubber apron was the first one to stump Lester, yet it had nothing to do with identification. “Demon Mommy. Makes the Ghost Nanny look gentle.” The puzzle box resting in its hands was identical to the one in the storage area. “Why are there so many?” he wondered. “Almost any one of these could take most people.” Emily knew. “They need us to be bad babies,” she whispered. “They need an excuse to punish us. So they can say we deserved it…that we had it coming.” Hearing that truth come out of her own mouth made Emily launch into the biggest tantrum in her young life. Diaper Bot. Living Doll Granny Witch. Maternal Alien. None of the ludicrous horrors beneath the ground caused her scream to abate until she’d gotten it well out of her system. ************************************************************************************************* DING! The guard at the elevator doors didn’t get a word out. Lester shoved a pacifier directly into his mouth and the man went limp. “Stocked up before I came to the rescue,” Lester explained. The college kids stepped out of the elevator and into, surprisingly enough, an empty and sterile passageway. One each side was a row of elevators like the one they’d existed, and a single security booth betwixt them. “This…is not what I expected,” Emily said. “Me neither,” Lester admitted. “I was thinking more pastel. Maybe ironic smiley faces or something.” TZZZZZZZZICK! Static crackling filled the hallway. “You shouldn’t be here,” A voice boomed over unseen speakers. Neither Lester nor Emily had heard it before. They could only look up towards the ceiling and off into the middle distance, the way lost children do when searching for a parent. “This should have gone differently. Ended more quickly.” It was a woman. Definitely a woman. Late forties, early fifties. Old enough to be their mom. “I can only imagine your pain and confusion. But know this: What’s happening to you is part of something bigger, something older than anything known.” She sounded sincere, too. Whomever this was, believed every word that was being broadcast out. The lecture was accompanied by the sound of clicking heels en masse. Lester and Emily were alone, but soon they wouldn’t be. “You’ve seen impossible things,” the woman on the P.A. system went on. “An army of non-consensual, dominating, caregivers. Monster that would give Freud wet dreams and nightmares all at once. But they are nothing compared to what came before what lies below.” Lester grabbed Emily’s hand and dragged her into the security booth. “What’s she talking about?” Emily asked. “No clue this time.” The sound of footsteps grew thunderous while the woman’s voice droned on. “It’s our task to placate the ancient ones, as it’s yours to be offered up to them. Forgive us, and let us get it over with.” “Come here sweetie!” “Come to Momma!” “Who’s my little sugar lump! You are! Yes you are!” “Time for your nap!” Cooing motherese rang out like bullets from machine guns as a full squad of Professional Mommy Dommes circled the corner and entered the corridor, all armed with diaper bags, restraints, and syringes. They were going for a rush job. “Shit,” Lester cursed. “What do we do?” It was Emily who saw the button: The big, shiny, red, button. DING! ******************************************************************************************************** Chaos erupted in the Mission Control compound. Men and women were dropping left and right. The monitors broadcast the chaos. Orderlies were restraining victims into straight jackets over diapers so thick that they’d only need to be changed once a day. Mad scientists cackled with glee as they zapped people with age regression rays, leaving them as squalling infants in a puddle of their own clothes. Gargantuan storks snatched people up in bundles, taking them far away to lands best not spoken of. A number of helpless interns were forced on their hands and knees, crying with their pants down and glass thermometers jammed up their rectums; the temperature of each one reading ‘baby’. A security guard stood with his nose in the corner and his hands on top of his head, his new schoolboy uniform bulging and sagging with a loaded diaper. A walking changing table with mechanical arms and what appeared to be a salon hair dryer was busily dragging people onto it and dressing them in more ‘suitable’ attire while it wiped their bottoms and brains simultaneously. Lots of screaming. Lots of crying. Lots of begging. Lots and lots of diapers. Steve lay on the floor, out breath from whatever knocked down the door into the control room. Slithering over to him looked like the creature from the black lagoon cosplaying as Ariel. In the monster’s head was a dripping wet seaweed nappy. “OH COME ON!” ******************************************************************************************* Far away- but not far enough- from the chaos they’d created, Emily and Lester ventured out onto an open bridge dangling over a pit. The moon above them with infinite darkness below, if not for the carvings in the walls and the bedlam they’d just escaped, they might have allowed themselves to believe they’d escaped their tormentors’ demesne. “Where the fuck are we?” Emily asked, proud that she could still curse now that she thought about it. “We are very much in uncharted territory right now, baby girl.” Lester said. Emily’s nose wrinkled. She didn’t like being called that, least of all by Lester. “What’s the point of all this?” she wondered, trying to change the subject. “It’s like you said,” Lester replied. “It’s punishment.” Being turned into a drooling idiot for goofing off in a storage room seemed disproportionately cruel. “For what, though?” “For having power you’ll never be ready for,” came the reply. From the other end of the chamber, a woman in a gray pantsuit walked out to meet them. From her voice, Lester and Emily knew she was the one who had lectured them earlier. “It’s different in every culture,” the director explained. “And it’s changed over the years. For some it’s a parent being re-raised by their child. Other times it’s an unfaithful lover being taught a lesson in impulse control. Everyone is meant to grow old. Not everyone can be allowed to grow up.” “And us?” Emily asked. The director gestured to the carvings. The outlines were simple, but if Emily were to label them, she’d have thought of them as a wizard, a knight, a jester, and a maiden respectively. The director gave them their proper titles. “The Scholar; smart but arrogant. The Athlete; strong but brash. The Fool; beloved but naive.” Close enough. “All are forced back into the cradle forever by whatever surrogate they’ve summoned. Leaving the last to regress or mature as fate decides: The Virgin.” “Me?” Emily almost laughed. “A virgin?” The older woman didn’t even smile. “Not you, dear. Him. You’re the Fool.” “Hey!” Lester barked. “You don’t gotta tell everybody.” Emily ignored him. “What if you don’t pull it off?” “They rise.” Almost reverently, the director indicated the black morass below. A burning desire to know filled Emily’s almost childlike brain. “Who does? Who’s beneath us?” “The ancient ones. The True Adults. As long as they accept our sacrifice they remain below, content to let us grow up. But the other rituals have all failed.” The director leveled an accusing finger at Emily. “The sun is coming up in eight minutes. If you’re an adult when it does, none of us will be.” “Fuck you,” Lester snarled. “If we have to be stuck shitting our pants for the rest of our lives, then you do, too.” “Not you,” the older woman said. “Just her.” Lester’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah?” “Lester!” “Sorry, Emily,” Lester said. He pulled her closer to him, her back to his chest and his arm wrapped around her throat. “I’ll take real good care of you.” The former rich girl struggled in the poser Daddy’s grip, but it was no use. “If this is where we’ve gotten as a society, maybe it’s time for a change!” she yelped. ‘Change’ was a poor choice of words. The director was already unfolding a diaper for Emily. “We’re talking about the permanent regression of every human soul on the planet. Including you. They let us grow up once. They won’t let it happen again.” Lester was using his free hand to work Emily’s skirt and panties back down to her ankles. “You’re gonna be so cute, all pamped up,” he whispered. “I’m finally gonna get be a real Daddy!.” Overcome with revulsion, Emily did what most any young woman would do. Her head rocked back into the creeper’s nose and her fist swung down into his balls. Little did she realize just how close to the edge Lester was. The director dropped the diaper she’d been fluffing and reached out for Lester. “NO!” It was too late. If there was a bottom to that pit, it was too deep for the sound to reach Emily’s ears. “You fool! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve ruined everything.” The entire world shuddered. Both women fell to the floor. Emily, in particular, landed on her backside. A low, rumbling moan roared out from beneath them and Emily swore she heard something that vaguely sounded like “Naughty, naughty!”. Strangely enough, Emily didn’t care. If she was going to end up like Jakey and Maddie, she might as well take everyone else down with her. At least Lester wouldn’t get what he wanted. Did that make her immature? Whatever. Why did her underwear feel like it was getting thicker? “NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHTY!” ************************************************************************************************** The new daycare workers groaned about how they couldn’t get through the morning without their morning coffee. Thousands of years of dreamless slumber was one heck of a long weekend, but these kiddos wouldn’t take care of themselves. Little Emily crinkled around the daycare that morning, babbling to herself. Ever hungry, Jakey was putting everything in his mouth, thumbs and toes included. Madison was hoisted off the changing table, being declared clean just before the wetness indicator on her diaper turned partially blue. Not that Emily was one to talk. Literally speaking, no one was. Talking was just not what humans did. As a people the darlings were just too young for it. Emily stopped in her tracks. Something was wrong, but the girl just wasn’t quite sure. Just. Not. There! Whatever it was, the thought left Emily’s brain as quickly as something else had entered her diaper, causing it to balloon out behind her. A True Adult clicked its tongue and pulled back the waistband of her diaper, making her giggle and gurgle at the attention. Emily was lifted up as high as high could be, carried over to the nearest changing table. The sound of tapes being ripped off her diaper’s front landing zone sounding like a kind of cannon. She gazed out at all of her little friends and cooed while her ankles were crossed and her legs lifted into the air. There were her friends Jakey and Maddie, and several billion other humans that needed taking care of. But no Lester

A Naptime on Elm Street. (A Novelization of the Oskosh award winning ABDL Horror Film of the Same Name) Deep in the bowels of the Daycare, down in the basement where Little Ones dared not come and play for fear of the dark and ghosts; two hands worked slowly and methodically. Mustn’t forget a thing. Not a thing. It would be time soon. The old carpet bag, green and red stripes faded and dingy looking from years of disuse was popped open. Empty inside; just like the person opening it. Soon though, both would be filled; first, the bag. Spare clothes came first; onesies mostly. Onesies were an outfit all by themselves, no matching or coordination required. Keep the Little Ones warm and cover what little modesty they had. They went in the bottom precisely because if she did her job well enough, she wouldn’t need a spare change of clothes. Little Ones did love to make a mess though… Better safe than sorry. Next came toys and trinkets. Nothing major. Nothing elaborate. Nothing that lit up or required batteries. None of the hulking plastic monstrosities that were called play sets that littered the Daycare’s basement. Rattles. Plastic Keys. Teething Rings. Pacifiers, too. Those all went in. Cute little shiny things...or things that had once been shiny...to keep a Little One occupied for a precious few minutes. A bottle was wedged in for good measure. Cap on. No spills allowed. Next came the wipes. Practically a wonder tool wipes were. There was very little that couldn’t be cleaned up with a few judicious uses of a wipe. Finally came the diapers. Sweet smelling, perfumed, folded, crisp and crinkling. They got the top spot right next to the wipes. Things that were guaranteed to be used needed to be easily on hand. And it wouldn’t be much of a diaper bag without diapers, would it? As for the paddle: That would be for the other hand, wouldn’t it? A small, thin smile, blossomed over shadowed lips. It was the smile of satisfaction. Soon. Soon the little ones would come and play; they would need so much caring for. Then it would be time to work. ************************************************************************************************* Tina was alone. Alone and nowhere. It didn’t occur to her in that moment how impossible that was. By definition, space and time were both facets of existence. If one existed, they had to be somewhere even if they didn’t know where that somewhere was. Only the dead and the fictional could exist in a void. None of that came to Tina, though. For all she knew or cared, she was in a blank void as she heard the baby crying. Her landscape a literal blank slate. No...not crying. The baby wasn’t crying. She was screaming. A baby girl’s scream; caught somewhere between terror and tantrum. Despite being just eighteen and an only child Tina found it oddly familiar. Nostalgic without the good feelings. Deja vu. Pulse picking up she wandered ahead, her long white nightgown fluttering in a non-existent breeze as her legs pumped. In front of her was a broken down hallway. Tight walls filled with chipped and scraped off paint. Originally- Tina somehow knew even though she’d never asked- the dim yellow paint on the walls had been bright and cheery. It had been the color of sunshine. Time and darkness; especially darkness; had worn away at the facade. Now the yellow paint- what remained-was the color of sickness. Of jaundice. Of death. Everything was scarier in the dark. Beneath her silken nightie, Tina’s bare feet plodded on. The carpet was threadbare and worn in more places than not. The very bottom fibers still persisted, like a sandpaper rash. A few spots didn’t even have that much, leaving the cold smooth cement of the foundation exposed. As she half ran, and half jogged, trying to understand how she’d ended up here; Tina’s toes curled every time they touched the rare bit of carpet that had struggled on intact. Behind her? Behind her was nothing but a bright blank canvas of nothingness. She couldn’t go there; though the exact “why” wouldn’t come to her. Sometimes things just worked that way…. A little girl lost in the woods, Tina ran down the hallway, hearing the random clacking of plastic on plastic; the sounds of playtime. She turned in a circle, pivoting on frightened feet; as if looking behind her might reveal a door, or stairwell, or some other escape from this strange place that she couldn’t remember coming to. “tina.” Perhaps if she ran fast enough, Tina thought, she might escape this realm of concrete and decay. A shuttle escaping the bonds of gravity. It didn’t make sense, but sometimes that’s just how things were. “tina.” The voice was muffled, but she’d heard it that time. Unfamiliar. Beckoning from the shadows. Laughing. Tina turned back around towards the light. Even a blank canvas of nothingness might be better than what lay ahead in the dark. Impossible. With her meandering gait, she’d only gone a dozen or so steps, yet the other end of the hallway seemed so much further away. Impossible, but true. The laughter grew louder; more confident. Knowing laughter. Condescending. An adult watching a child struggle, their hand caught in a cookie jar that they just couldn’t get out of. The laughter grew louder as Tina stayed put; erupting into a full blown cackle as Tina’s heart started to pound. This was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be here... “WAAAAH!” The cry of a baby girl again! Such a familiar cry! The blink of an eye, and Tina saw that it wasn’t a child crying, but a sheep bleating. A sheep. Like what she pretended to count until she drifted off. Like the night light she used to have all the way until middle school when she’d decided it was time to put away childish things and just go to sleep in the dark. It’s white wool was cast in pitch black by the shadows as it skittered away, running for its life. “BAAAAH!” “HEEE-HEEEE-HEEE-HEEE-HEEEE!” Tina ran off to the side, neither towards the sheep nor the bright light at the end of the hallway. It didn’t matter that there hadn’t been a hallway or door for her to exit. It didn’t matter that she shouldn’t have been able to run; that there was no room in that wretched hallway. All that mattered was that she ran. She ran, and it was away from the knowing, witch like cackling. That’s just how things were… The world changed again. No longer a hallway, but a playground. Blackness above her, there was no sky. Blackness beneath her, there was no ground. But directly beneath her feet was the blue steel meshed floor of an elevated walkway so common at playgrounds and parks. Steel was not nearly so stainless, as the soles of her feet grazed by bits of rust. Hands trembling, she instinctively grabbed onto the safety bars at the edges, rather like the bars of a crib. The air, such as it was, stank of stale urine; an accident that had long dried and never been properly cleaned up. Someone had peed in the ballpit. Surrounding her were plastic tubes and slides jutting out at impossible angles; a veritable jungle of plastic trunks and styrofoam noddle vines growing thicker with every step she dared to take. And all with the hollow thunks and muted skids, and slapping patters of tiny hands and knees crawling and rolling and sliding through them. No laughter though. No mirth. Just the unsteady non-rhythm of a playground’s blood being pumped through hollow plastic arteries. She wasn’t supposed to be here… A movement in the dark! Tina ran! Past a built in rung ladder she sprinted. No going up! She wanted to get out, not up! Up would only lead back down. Ladders only went to chutes! She looked over her shoulder at the sailor’s wheel! She could spin that wheel as much as she loved and would get nothing but the howling and screeching of badly oiled joints. She would go nowhere. She would win no prizes. Out! Had to get out! She was lost! Lost on the playground! Just like long ago when… No! Don’t think about it, Tina. Just get out! Keep moving! Rounding the corner, Tina looked over the edge. Monkey bars, and a gymnasts rings dangled on the next section over, the ground still invisible in obsidian. She was high! So high off the ground that she couldn’t see it! Keep moving. Must keep moving. Come, the monkey bars seemed to beckon her. Come down to our level. Swing from us and dangle your feet out over the abyss. Get tangled up in the ropes and nets and chains and rings. Deep, knowing, feminine laughter accompanied the shadow that flitted below Tina. It knew what she thought. It knew what she imagined. It knew what she heard with only her heart; her heart that was beating faster and faster by the second. Another corner. Another turn in a maze that made no sense. Ladders and struts that went nowhere. Fireman’s poles that plummeted downwards into emptiness. Whirligigs and pinwheels that spun on their own. And just Tina in her nightgown… Tina shut out what little light there was in her life and stepped through the shadowy tunnel. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt the plastic give a bit beneath her weight. Where was the light coming from anyways? To say that Tina was brave implied like she was afraid and faced the danger anyway. This was simply not true. Even in this maze of unending steel twisting and turning, Tina felt she had only one choice but to go forward. Even with all the topsy turvey and movement and sound and winding and crisscrossing of the paths; Tina had never, in effect, left that hallway. Not really. Rrrrrrrring! A chime! A bell! The start of something! School? A race? Tina spun around towards the metal dinging. The sound of nails on a chalkboard! Behind her! Another blink, and Tina stood in front of a curtain; worn and moth eaten like everything else in this place! A withered, wizened hand peeked from behind the curtain and began to peel it back. Tina didn’t wait to see who was behind it. Tina ran. Tina sprinted. She didn’t see the old straw sunhat with desiccated flowers poking out from the brim. And yet... And yet Tina didn’t get far. She’d walked only a dozen or so steps before and somehow traveled over a hundred yards. Now as she ran for her life, those same legs were carrying her less than a dozen strides. The air, still thick with the scent of old ammonia, seemed to constrict her; the ground conspired against her like a treadmill on reverse! Tina was running as fast as she could, but her world crawled by at a leisurely pace. Panting just to keep her breath and her legs pumping, Tina didn’t scream. She couldn’t. Too out of breath. The most she could do was tremble and mewl as the person...the thing with the red and green bag creeped along up to her. She didn’t question why. Sometimes things were just like that… Tina looked back over her shoulder. She shouldn’t have done so. A dirty brown sunhat filled with dead flowers and a matching ankle skirt. A dingy off-white victorian ruffle blouse, that contrasted with gray-black oxford block heels. And a green and red bowtie that coordinated perfectly with it’s partner bag. A bag in one hand, and a rough, splintered paddle in the other; dragging and scraping the floor as she walked... A weak, muted squeak managed to leak out from Tina’s throat, just as she rounded the corner. Must escape! Must escape! Too late, Tina realized she was trapped. A dead end. A criss crossing lattice blocked her way; a giant baby gate! More impossibilities! This was the way she had come, wasn’t it? Frustration and adrenaline bubbled over to unsilence her terror in one high pitched scream. “AAAAAAAAAH!” It was the bleating of sheep. The cry of a baby girl. And it was indistinguishable from Tina’s own wail. And then silence. Tina breathed. And listened. Nothing. No footsteps. No shadows cast of sun hats or paddles. Behind her! A hand on her shoulder! Another reaching between her legs! “LET’S CHECK YOUR DIA-!” *********************************************************************************************************** Tina shot bolt upright in her bed; her face and dirty blonde hair drenched in tears and sweat. A knock on the door, and her mother entered. “You okay, Tina?” It was late. No trace of sunshine, no buzz of late night television. Mom was wearing her robe which she only put on when craving (or fetching) a two A.M. snack. “Just a dream, Mom.” Muscles tight. Breath short. But at least her voice was calm. Just a dream. Just a dream. She was home. In bed. Like she should have been. Her mom stepped into the room and turned on the lights. “Some dream, judging from that.” Tina followed her mother’s gaze down to her legs. It wasn’t just her face that was soaked, and it wasn’t sweat that her legs were soaking in. Sweat didn’t smell like that, nor did it make the sheets quite so cold and clammy on an otherwise crisp fall night. She sat there, paralyzed by embarrassment and leftover shock from the bizarre dream she’d awoken from; stupidly peeling the sheets from her legs and off her, as if it might somehow undo the accident she’d just had. Mom’s boyfriend, clad in a wife beater and boxers (a wardrobe not that much different than what he wore during the day) leaned in. “Are you coming back to the sack or what?” he grumbled impatiently. Mom gently shoved him away. He looked at Tina, regarded her for a moment, and went back out into the hall. At least he had the decency not to comment further about her soaked mattress and wet sheets. Either that or he was too drunk to notice. Tina’s mom looked back to her. “Tina, hun, you either gotta stop drinking so much before bed or stop that kind of dreamin’.” She glanced to the hallway. “One or the other.” And with that, she closed the door, allowing Tina some much needed privacy. Tina got out of bed and stripped the sheets from her bed. Her nightgown was just as ruined. They all went together in a giant pile. She’d stuff these into the washing machine, grab the stain remover and febreeze from the laundry room, and try to get back to sleep with some fresh sheets after a quick shower. But first she went over to her sock drawer and dug out the old sheep night light she’d never quite had the heart to get rid of. Just in case…. *********************************************************************************************************** Ten, nine, better watch your behind. Eight, seven, gonna learn your lesson. Six, five, never gonna thrive. Four, three, in your pants you pee. Two, one, Nanny says you’re done…. -A traditional jump rope song passed down from kid generation to kid generation since time immemorial. ************************************************************************************************************* Tina couldn’t stop talking about it the next morning all the way to school. “And even after I woke up it was like she was still there, watching me.” She shook her head. “Sounds like a real boogeyman,” her best friend, Nancy said. “Like that old jump rope song: Ten, nine, better watch your behind.” They piled out of Glenn’s car. Glenn was Nancy’s boyfriend, and Tina being Nancy’s bestie got to ride in the back on the way to school. Seniors were allowed to drive to school and park their cars in the parking lot. That meant that they didn’t have to worry about catching a bothersome school bus like the kiddies. It also meant they could sleep in a little later. There were perks to being a senior. Not that it mattered. “I’ve been having bad dreams too,” Nancy added; a note of commiseration in her voice “Even after I got changed into fresh sheets, I couldn’t go back to sleep,” Tina confessed. Tina cocked an eyebrow as they walked. “Fresh sheets? Do you mean…?” “Awwww,” Rod creeped up from behind, “did you wet the bed, baby?” He laughed. No one else did. Rod was a jerk that didn’t realize how sleazy his slicked back hair looked or how Axe Body Spray was no substitute for a good shower. “Don’t feel bad, I have wet dreams, too.” As if to drive the point home, he pumped his fist up and down. Tina and Rod were...complicated. If he wasn’t such a good lay, they might not be dating off. She could have ignored him, just then, she supposed, let him walk with them, but she just did not have time for his shit today. Not after last night. “Jizzing in your pants would require you to have balls,” Tina quipped, barely looking back at him. Something sparked in Rod’s eyes. “Yeah...yeah...well...fuck you too!” Rod was that special kind of masculine that was neither quick witted nor thick skinned. He broke off from the trio and walked away, and would likely invent a comeback after. Nancy and Glenn laughed quietly, but otherwise didn’t engage. They’d seen this scene play out too many times. Tina looked back over her shoulder to make sure her kinda sorta beau was well and gone. “Rod says the sweetest things,” she said. “Yeah. Real keeper, there.” Nancy replied sarcastically. They came to a stop just outside of school. “So anyway,” she asked, “what did you dream about?” Misery loved company. At least she wasn’t the only one tossing and turning at night. Nancy just said, “It was just a bad dream, okay, that’s it. That’s all they are.” Glenn, his arm draped over Nancy like a coat, spoke up. “Yeah, and next time you’re having a bad dream just remind yourself that it’s just a dream and you’ll wake right up. That’s how it works for me, anyways.” The bell chimed it’s dull electronic tone, signalling the beginning of yet another day of educational drudgery. Glenn and Nancy kissed goodbye, and Glenn jogged ahead of glass. Nancy and Tina had English first period; near the front entrance. Glenn had math near the back of the building. Something just then occurred to Tina. “Hey!” she called after Glenn. “Did you have a nightmare too?” Tina filed that idea away and turned back to Nancy. “Maybe we’re gonna have a big earthquake or something. They say that weird things happen just before.” Nancy didn’t laugh, but she did smile a bit. Arm and arm the two went to face the perils of dead poets and playwrights. Little did they know it would be the last time they’d walk into school together... ************************************************************************************************************ “Thanks for staying with me here, tonight,” Tina told her friends. “When my Mom told me she was taking off to Vegas with her boyfriend, I kinda freaked.” She and Nancy sat on the couch, easing into each other, while Glenn sat on the floor, texting away on his phone. “Glenn and Nancy to the rescue,” Nancy assured her. “We got your back.” All day, the dream about the playground and the shadowy figure stalking her had been with her. In some ways she’d never really woken up. “It’s so cool that your mom let you stay the night, Glenn.” “Yeah,” Glenn said. “About that…” Nancy laughed a little bit. Tina threw him a questioning look. “So, I’ve got this cousin who lives by the airport,” he explained. “Mom’s cool if I hang out with him. As far as she knows, I’m with him.” “But what if she tries to track your phone?” Tina asked. “That’s what I'm working on. I think I just downloaded an app that disables that one. Hold up…” Tina leaned forward and watched as Glenn texted. Nancy just hid her face in her hand and quietly shook her head. “Here...at...Barry’s…” Glenn read his text as he typed it. “Noisy...as...hell...but...fun…” Glenn looked up from his phone to the girls, a cocky little smirk on his lips. “I think she believes it.” He looked down and grinned. “And the app is working!” He pumped his elbow in a bit of celebration. His glee didn’t last long. “She wants me to send a picture of me and Barry right now! FUCK!” He turned off his phone. “I’m...gonna have to do some explaining...hope Barry can cover for me.” “Busted!” Nancy laughed. Glenn just shrugged. “Worth it. I’ll probably get chewed out. I’ve been chewed out before.” More laughter, this time from all three. “See?” Nancy said. “I told you you’d feel better with some friends around.” “Yeah,” Tina said. But the moment passed. “It’s just that all day, I keep thinking about this lady and her weird face, and thinking of that big paddle.” Something akin to confusion and suspicion flashed in Nancy’s eyes. “Paddle?” Silently, Tina nodded. “That’s so weird that you say that,” Nancy said. “That makes me remember the dream I had last night!” Unlike Tina, Nancy sounded lighter for saying it. As if the two girls having the same nightmare was mildly amusing instead of foreboding. Tina sat up a little straighter. “What did you dream?” “I dreamt about a lady with a grody green and red bag. She looked like one of the nannies on T.V., but creepier.” Neither one saw the look on Glenn’s face. It was as if he was hearing about his own troubled sleep. “What about the paddle?” Tina pressed. Nancy bit her lip in thought. “Oh yeah, she had a paddle. It was like one of those things you see in hazing or like BDSM stuff, I guess, but it was really rough. Homemade, and splintered at parts. She’d drag it along the ground or thump it on things. It looked like something she made herself.” Nancy kept her tone upbeat. It was just a stupid dream after all. “She kept dragging along the floor and it made this sound like kghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” She made the back of her tongue go up against the roof of her mouth and exhaled. Done fast it would have sounded like a poor impression of walkie talkie static. Done slowly, it was eerily similar to the quiet groaning of heavy wood dragging across the floor. “Nancy,” Tina whispered. “You dreamed about the same freak I did.” Glenn came to join them. “That’s impossible.” KGHHH…. The trio looked out the window into the darkness. “What was that?” Tina asked. Glenn stood up. “Nothing…” KGHHH… “I heard it too,” Nancy said. The three young adults stood up and cautiously opened the side door into Tina’s backyard. Glenn was the first out into the darkness. “Anybody there?” The girls came out, still staying just a few steps from the door. “Hello?” Glenn repeated. Still there was no answer. “I’m gonna kick your ass…!” If anyone was listening, they didn’t believe Glenn’s threat. Even Glenn, wholesome All-American type that he looked didn’t sound like he believed it. “Here kitty kitty kitty!” Still nothing. Nancy’s boyfriend turned around and started walking back towards the house. “Probably a racoon or someth…” The shadow that enveloped Glenn and brought him to the ground was fast, and strong. Bigger than Glenn and meaner. And reeking of Axe. “Boom!” Rod said as he climbed off of Glenn. “What a tackle! What a sack!” Ignoring Glenn he sauntered up to Tina, holding the old broken table leg left nearly forgotten in Tina’s garage. “Kinda creepy huh? The way it scrapes across the patio.” He let it drop clunk into the grass. “You should have seen his face,” Rod laughed thumbing over to the other boy. “YoU sHoUlDa SeEn HiS fAcE,” Glenn parroted back, mockingly. Immediately the two were in each other’s face, chests puffed out and chins held high. Tina grabbed her boyfriend by the elbow. Time to diffuse the situation. “We’re having a sleepover. Girls only. Glenn was just leaving.” Rod backed away but clearly wasn’t buying it. “Your Mom home?” “Of course.” Tina lied. “What are you doing here.” Rod pivoted to her. “I came to make up. Came to say I’m sorry.” His grin was nothing short of wolfish. He saw right through her. He always did. And the look on his face told her that the blood was quickly going down south. “You guys having an orgy?” “Just keeping me company,” Tina said. Already she was letting herself be led back into her house. Already, she was starting to relax and tense up in all the right places. Rod had that effect on her. It might be nice to have a creep of her own to protect her from the lady in her nightmares… “Hey,” Glenn called out. He froze when Rod turned around. “Relax you two. We’ll get her mother’s bed. You two can have the rest,” then ducked out of sight. “Seriously,” Tina said, her petite blonde frame still in the doorway. “Stay. You make me feel safe. Don’t leave me here with this luuuunaaatic!” Tina’s last word was cut off by a fit of giggles as Rod returned and started to cart her off to her mother’s California King. Left alone, Glenn realized just how pretty Nancy looked in the moonlight, and how much better she smelled than Tina’s creeper of a fuck buddy. “Glenn, no.” Nancy pushed him away when he leaned in for a little fun. “Not tonight. We’re here for Tina.” She ran her hand through her curly brown hair. Glenn felt his attitude deflate with his dick. “Why? Who cares? It’s just a bad dream.” “Because we’re her friends,” Nancy said. “She needs us. We gotta be mature and not fuck around.” ********************************************************************************************************* Glenn laid there in the dark of Tina’s living room. The couch made a poor bed and the living room a poor bedroom. He could hear Tina and Rod going at it through the walls. Neither were quiet about it. Blue balled beyond belief, Glenn could only sulk at the soundtrack to the two horny highschoolers getting it on. Meanwhile, he knew Nancy, pure and mature as ever, slept in Tina’s room. “Maturity sucks.” ************************************************************************************************************ Nancy slept in Tina’s bed, blissfully unaware of the sounds coming from the other bedroom. But she was not blissful otherwise. Nor was she unaware. Not totally. Eyes closed, and breath steady, Nancy did not dream. But she did have the peculiar feeling that something, or someone was watching her. She didn’t hear the wall above the headboard creek and moan as it warped. She didn’t see it become thin like puddy and mold itself into a humanoid shape. She didn’t feel the warmth of another not-quite-body looking down at her, bending over, reaching out like a woman readying to scoop her baby out of a crib…. When she rolled over and opened her eyes, the wall was completely normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Over the side of the bed, Nancy noticed a little lamb nightlight, lying there on the floor. She hadn’t seen this in years. She would have thought Tina tossed this away with her training bras, but her old friend never had outgrown her fear of the dark. Maybe that’s why she still had a waterproof sheet on the mattress. Or maybe that’s why her bathroom smelled faintly of baby powder. Maybe this bedwetting thing was more persistent than Tina was hinting at; the bad dreams just a justification. Nancy took a moment and plugged the old night light in. Just in case. She took a moment to touch and push against the wall, too; confirming that it was solid. Just in case. She gave it a few quiet knocks. Just in case. *********************************************************************************************************** PLINK! Tina awoke in her mother’s bed, the sound of pebbles hitting glass making her jump. She looked over to Rod; still sound asleep and snoring. Rod was practically a machine in the sack, and orgasming was his off button. It’s one of the things she liked about him, actually. Sometimes a good lay really is what a body and a troubled mind needed. It has also been nice, hearing Rod confess he’d been having nightmares. “What? Guys can have bad dreams too. You don’t have the market cornered.” He gave her a final kiss, before “No more bad dreams for either of us now.” That was about as emotional and open as Rod could get. In a way, Tina had been proud of him; the emotionally stunted mal-adjusted idiot. PLINK! Another pebble, this one harder, stopped Tina from rolling over and rejoining her boyfriend in unconsciousness. Definitely a pebble, too. There were nor branches from nearby trees long enough to scrape at the glass. “Rod?” she tried shaking her boyfriend awake. All she got was snoring for her trouble. PLINK! PLINK! She rolled back towards the window and started to sit up. “tinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” It was a whisper, a nagging bit of paranoia scratching at her brain. A sound carried by fear more than air. Picking Rod’s shirt up off the floor, she slipped in on over herself; it’s bagginess preserving her modesty as she padded over to the window. PLINK! A flash of purple. Not a pebble. But a...ball? A plastic ball, like in a children’s ball pit rocketed up to the window. PLINK! The next one,red, left a crack in the glass. Tina held her breath and leaned closer; feeling the break in the glass for herself. What could do THAT with a plastic ball? It was full dark outside. No stars. Whoever...or whatever...still lay in the shadows. And somehow, Tina knew it was waiting for her. “tinaaaaaaaaaaa!” Tina stepped back. It knew her name. It had come for her. Eyes staring straight into the abyss just outside her window, Tina dared to say “Who do you think you are?” She paused. No answer “Whoever you are…” The poor girl didn’t feel very brave, just then. Only fools weren’t scared, however. She took some comfort in that. Tina couldn’t say why she left her mother’s bedroom and turned on the back porchlight. It’s just what happened sometimes. She didn’t know why she didn’t call the police, either. The flashing lights of a cruiser and an officer at her door might scare away whatever was out there. Or they’d just think it was a prank and ignore her… Sometimes things were just like that…. Clad only in a pair of panties and Rod’s shirt, she switched on the lights, and ventured outside the safety of her home. No going back now. “Somebody there?” “tina!” The reply was short and crisp. An adult losing her patience with a particularly stubborn child. And like the stubborn child whose will was finally waning, Tina wandered outside in short uneven steps. Out into the dark backyard. Out into the darkness. “Tina…” louder this time. A growl or a groan. A muttering maybe. A beckoning, definitely. On toddling, uncertain steps, Tina kept going towards it. Past the junk in her backyard, and by the old rusted playground her dad...her real dad...had set up for her when she was little. Couldn’t have been older than three. There was something oddly familiar about those gymnast rings, come to think of it. Out into the alleyway, she went, some dark force compelling her to find the source of her torment. The hollow rattling sound of beads inside thin plastic almost gave her whiplash as a pink hula hoop rolled along the ground and pittered to a stop. The clicking of heels on pavement made Tina spin again, and the silhouette of a sunhat took Tina’s breath away. “Now….!” the figure came into the light. Her face terribly scarred, her clothes musty, as if dug up from a grave or a tomb. The dirty green and red bag slung over one shoulder; the splintered wooden paddle hanging from a strap from the other. Tina started to back away, to look“Shit…” The thing’s arms stretched out, impossibly long. Inhumanly long! Long enough that the woman stood in the middle of the road, but her fingers brushed fences on either side of the road. “Come...to...Nanny!” Her voice was gnarled and scratchy. Her smile crooked and eyes encased in shadow. Arms outstretched, she was a grotesque parody of a caregiver beckoning for a hug. “COME! COME!” Even as she walked, the paddle, impossibly large, dragged on the ground, scrapping the concrete road. “Please God…” Tina heard herself say. In a blur, the woman’s arms were the right size and the paddle in her hand. “This,” she padded the wooden club in the palm of her other wretched hand, “is God, now.” Tina ran. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her and it still wasn’t enough. The cackling witch behind her waved the paddle in the air, chasing after her; both moving at snail’s pace...the pace of a nightmare. She looked behind her. The hag was gaining on her! “Peek-a-boo!” The hag was in front of her! Burned hands covered a burned face, opening to reveal the giggling hag. “NO! NO! NO!” The poor girl naked save for her panties and shirt, ran back towards her house. If she could get inside she would be safe! If she could get inside she’d be safe! She ran, but now was even slower than before. Breathless, she managed to waddle out of the street and into her backyard, slamming the gate behind her. Waddle? Something was getting thicker, and it wasn’t the air. Her panties! Something was wrong with panties! Just outside her backyard, the girl stopped and lifted up her shirt. That’s why she was having trouble running: Her panties had thickened into a diaper! A diaper?! Not an adult one, but a larger version of something a toddler might wear. All the extra padding had thrown off her gait! She didn’t know why she was wearing a diaper, just then. Sometimes things just worked that way…. “Tina!” From out behind an impossibly skinny the wicked woman jumped. “Watch this!” Her voice was saccharine sweet; mockingly so. Tina stood there, paralyzed as the woman removed her thumb. An old trick. An easy trick. The most basic of slight of hand. Something that grandparents have been doing forever... until spurts of green ichor started streaming from the stump. It was good that Tina had been wearing a diaper just then. Otherwise, she might be standing in a puddle. The warm heat pooling and squishing between her legs was cold comfort, just then. The last few feet to her backdoor were an eternity. The gleeful cackling of the hag threw off her balance; not to mention the swelling Luvs between her legs. Scarred hands yanked at her shoulders; pulling her away from safety and salvation. The knob wriggled and stuck in Tina’s hands. Locked. “NANCY!” she screamed. “NANCY OPEN THE DOOR!” No one came to the door… The only one that heard her was the dead Nanny. “Naughy, naughty girl!” The last thing Tina would remember seeing was the grass and junk in her own backyard as she was pulled over the monster’s knee. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The cry sounded so much like a scared baby girl. A scared baby girl about to get a spanking. ************************************************************************************************* Rod woke when he was kicked in the ribs. “AAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! NO! STOP!” Tina screamed under the covers. “Tina?” he tried to ask, “Tina what’s wrong!” All he got in reply was Tina’s agonizing screaming...that and the sound of laughter, coming from under the covers. “I’M SORRY!” Tina yelled. “I’M SORRY! I’LL BE A GOOD GIRL I PROMISE! ROD! ROD! HELP ME ROD!” Panicked, Rod ripped the covers off his girlfriend. She thrashed there on her mother’s bed, her eyes closed and her ass up in the air. Rod stood there in his tighty whiteys, mouth agape as Tina struggled against nothing, wearing only his shirt and a… DIAPER?! The cartoon monkey on the back (and the yellow discoloration between her legs) made it kind of obvious. “PLEASE! DON’T! ROD! HELP! I’M SORRRRRRY!” “TINA” he called out. “TINA.” But Tina couldn’t hear him. In a flash, the borrowed shirt was hiked up, leaving nothing covering Tina’s backside but the wet Luvs inexplicably taped around her hips. WHAP! The sound thick wood hitting pulpy padding filled the air like a cannon shot. Tina screamed like she was being murdered...and in a way she was. “MOMMY!” WHAP! “DA-DA!” Tina kicked and screamed and thrashed as her body started to levitate off the mattress. Unable to believe his eyes, Rod went to turn on a lamp to make sure that the dark wasn’t playing tricks on him. Tina’s whirling thrashing form swinging into him more than confirmed what his eyes suspected. “HAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAA!” He’d heard that laugh too. He’d heard it before even. WHAP! “GAGAGAGA!” Up the walls, Tina’s screeching form was dragged. Eyes still slammed shut, she clawed at the wallpaper, trying to tear herself free as another heavy WHAP sounded. “WAAAAAAAAH!” Now she was crawling on the ceiling. WHAP! “WAAAAAAAAAH” “HAAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAA!” Finally, words couldn’t even describe the incomprehensible wailing pouring out of Tina’s mouth. All throat, no lips. She sounded more an infant than a young woman about to graduate into college. She looked it, too. All Rod could do was scream her name as she was dragged along by the unseeable force until she was set gently down, wafting back onto her mother’s bed. ********************************************************************************************************** Nancy woke to screaming. Tina’s screaming. On feet that would not carry her quickly enough she ran to the master bedroom and began banging on the door. “Tina?! Tina?! TINA?!” Her knocking went unanswered. “Who did this?!” she heard Rod say through the door. “I’ll kill you! Who did this?!” Only Tina’s wails of terror and pain let Nancy know that she was alive. But who was Rod yelling at?” Glenn ran in, fully clothed, from the living room. Together they broke down the door. The brief silence lasted just as long as the crash still echoed. The room was empty. Trashed, but empty. Tina lay in bed feebly kicking at the air and crying nonsensically. An open window, the only clue to Rod’s whereabouts. Tina lay on the bed, sobbing and inconsolable, crying around her own fingers jammed into her mouth. “Tina,” Nancy said “What’s wrong?” Nancy’s best friend since childhood didn’t answer. She just mumbled and cried through tear streaked cheeks. “What happened?” More crying. “Are you okay? Where’s Rod?” Nancy was feeling less and less certain with each question left unanswered. The smell of urine filled Nancy’s nostrils, and her eyes went below Tina’s waist. Nancy had babysat enough times to recognize a Luvs, though she’d never seen one that big. She’d also babysat enough to know when a diaper was on the verge of leaking. She felt the sheets just beneath her friend. Correction...leaked. “Glenn,” she called to her boyfriend. “I think Tina OD’d or something. Something’s going on in her eyes...she’s not all there. There’s something wrong with her.” “I’ll say.” Glenn wasn’t joking. Nancy wasn’t in the mood. “Go search her room or something. Look through her drawers! Maybe we can figure out what she took!” Glenn didn’t need further direction. Nancy waited in tense silence, positioning herself so that Tina’s head was in her lap. She gently shushed her friend, and just like a baby, Tina started to calm down with just a little gentle cooing and pets to her forehead. “You’re gonna be alright, Tina. Everything’s just fine.” Even then, Nancy could hear the lie on her lips. “Nancy,” Glenn said. “We’ve got a problem.” “No shit we’ve got a problem!’ Nancy screamed. “My best friend is bawling like a baby in a fucking diaper!” “There’s more…” “More what?” “More diapers,” Glenn said. “And a crib. Changing table too…” Nancy stood up. “Where?” “Tina’s room. It’s a giant nursery.” Nancy sat with her mother in the police station, clutching a box of tissues like they were a kind of life raft. She’d called the police and told them the whole story. About how her best friend was drooling and babbling, and Tina’s boyfriend was missing from their mother’s bedroom. It was just like Glenn had said: In the thirty seconds or so since they had busted open the door, Tina’s bedroom no longer looked like something belonging to a young lady; but instead was now the home of a baby. A big one, too. It took both her and Glenn working together to lift Tina and carry her into the nursery. There, she changed Tina’s diaper- there were more than enough- while Glenn looked away. The cops came, asked a few questions; mostly about Rod and where Tina’s parents were. Then they had her and Tina come down to the station. The strange thing was they didn’t so much as comment on the giant crib or infant playmat in the corner. Nancy just sat there in silence, her mother at first assuring her that everything was going to be okay. Soon enough they had run out of things to say before Nancy had run out of tears. The door opened and in walked Lt. Donald Thompson; a middle aged man with hairline that was just starting to recede. Nancy looked up from her tissues. “Hey, Dad.” There was no excitement in her voice. No terror either. Her confusion and shock had progressed beyond excitement or fear, and slid down into a numbing iceberg. “Hey sweetie,” her father gave her a chaste kiss on the top of her head. “How are you doing?” “Bad…” Nancy let her silence speak the rest. Lt. Thompson looked over to Nancy’s Mom. “What was she doing there, Marge?” “Hello to you too, Donald.” She was cordial, but her voice was ice. The divorce hadn’t been pleasant; and everytime her folks were around each other, the same old arguments popped up...usually about how they were raising Nancy. When Marge and Donald Thompson were around each other, Nancy might as well have been eight instead of eighteen. “What was she doing?” Dad repeated the question. “She was babysitting,” Mom said. “Just making a little extra money.” “In that part of town?” Dad was incredulous. “On a school night?” Part small town cop, part father, all overprotective and judgement asshole. “Looking after Marla Gray’s kid? That drunk? There’s gotta be better ways to earn some spending money.” Nancy didn’t didn’t look up, but she felt more awake? Babysitting? Really? Was this some kind of bad joke? Tina had been attacked by something. Attacked and transformed. Last Nancy knew, Tina was still bouncing on some lady copy’s knee. “You wanna tell me what you were doing over there? With a boy?” The question through...why was THAT what they were focusing on? “The three of us were just sleeping over,” Nancy insisted. “Nothing was supposed to happen. We were just keeping Tina company in case she got scared. She’s been having bad dreams.” Her Dad arched an eyebrow. “Three? You mean that Rod Lane character was invited?” “Well, no…” Nancy said. “But he just came over and…” “So we’ve got him for trespassing, breaking and entering AND attempt to kidnap,” her father said. “Kidnap?” Nancy tried to speak up. “Rod wasn’t trying to kidnap-?” “Then why did he lock himself in the room with the baby?” There was that word again. “Baby?! Dad I-” “Is he one of those sickos?” “Dad,” Nancy almost screamed. The tears were coming back now. “What’s wrong with you? Tina’s not a baby? She’s my best friend!” Both her parents exchanged looks; they were worried. It was Nancy’s mother that spoke up first. “Nancy,” she started in low and soft, “you’ve been through a lot tonight. I know you feel responsible for what almost happened to that baby girl, but it’s not your fault. You were her babysitter and you did the right thing. You saved her. You called the cops. You asked for help. But that doesn’t mean you have to say things like you’re her best friend. Okay?” More of that numbness overcame Nancy. Numbness, dotted with fresh little pinpricks of shock and confusion assaulted her. “O...okay…” She wasn’t really okay. She didn’t understand what was going on in the conversation, and in order to do that. “Okay,” Lt. Thompson nodded, more to himself than to anyone else. “Get her home safe,” he said to her mother. “I’ll get on finding that Lane punk.” Seeming to consider the matter settled, he went to walk out his office door. “Dad,” Nancy called out. “What about Tina?” Lt. Thompson stopped rubbed his temples. “Her mother’s out of town. We’re gonna put her with CPS for now. Foster home. There’s already an officer doubling back to the scene to get diapers and blankets. Some formula. Maybe a few of her favorite toys. Mom will have to go to a judge to get her back. She’ll be okay. She’s too little to remember any of this long term.” But Tina wasn’t okay, Nancy knew. Tina wasn’t supposed to be in diapers, or sleep in a crib or drinking formula. She was supposed to be sitting next to Nancy in English class first thing tomorrow morning. Why couldn’t Mom or Dad or any of the cops see that? ************************************************************************************************************ The little television on the kitchen fairly roared out the morning news: “POLICE SAY THAT A POTENTIAL KIDNAPPING, POSSIBLY IN CONNECTION WITH A CHILD ABDUCTION RING WAS BARELY THWARTED LAST NIGHT WHEN A MAN TRIED TO BREAK INTO A HOME AND STEAL AWAY WITH A CHILD NO OLDER THAN ONE YEAR OLD. POLICE SAY THE PRIME SUSPECT IS ROD LANE. LANE ALLEGEDLY BROKE INTO THE HOME WHILE THE MOTHER WAS AWAY, LEAVING ONLY A SITTER TO DEFEND HER. LANE IS NOW THE SUBJECT OF A CITYWIDE MANHUNT. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFOR-” The old boob tube was shut off just as Nancy entered the kitchen, but she’d heard enough. The whole city, if not the world, thought that Tina Gray was an infant, and that her boyfriend was some kind of child-napper. What had happened to the world last night? Nancy and her mother shared an awkward stare; just long enough for her to get her backpack and walk out the door. Glenn was grounded, and got his car taken away. Good enough. Nancy could use the walk to school. It’s not like she needed the car now that Tina wasn’t… Tina… “Where do you think you’re going?” It wasn’t accusatory. Mom was clearly concerned. She looked at Nancy as if she were sick, not defiant. “To school…?” Nancy replied. Why wouldn’t she go to school? “Honey, you were tossing and turning all night last night. You have no business going to school today.” That first part was true. Nancy hadn’t slept a wink. Yet with how bizarre everyone around her had been acting, Nancy thought that she might be the one sleeping. There was a bizarrely comforting thought: Maybe she’d wake up. Any minute now, she’d be back in Tina’s (adult) bed, and find Glenn moping on the couch and Tina and Rod still shacked up together in the master bedroom. The more she thought about it, the more Nancy hoped it was true. That the last twelve hours or so had all been a ridiculous dream was infinitely more reassuring and far less bizarre than what felt like the truth. “I’ve got to go to school, mother,” Nancy said. “Otherwise I’ll just sit up there and go crazy.” This is why Alice kept walking through Wonderland. To stay still meant to accept the madness. To venture forward, even if it was into more madness, kept it at bay. Even being bored in English class was better than being trapped in her room, alone with her own thoughts. “Did you sleep?” Mom asked. Clearly, she already knew the answer. Nancy took on a pleading tone. “I’ll sleep in study hall.” She needed sleep, she knew. Just not here. Not now. Not while Tina’s screams still rattled around in her head. Not while she kept replaying finding the room a nursery and changing her best friends’ diaper. Not while she still revisited the conversation with Dad at the police station: CPS. Foster Home. Blankets, toys, formula. “I’d rather...keep busy, you know?” She took a sip of coffee from her mother’s mug. She didn’t want to go back to sleep. Sleep meant revisiting last night; sleep meant more of Tina’s crying and mewling. Sleep meant staring into her best friends’ eyes and them not staring back. Mom grabbed the mug back. “Right home after?” “Right home after.” Nancy promised. They gave each other a kiss, and fueled mostly by adrenaline, Nancy made her way out the door. On her way to school, Nancy couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was being watched. That just out of sight, something was following her, trailing her, hunting her. She’d had last night, too, come to think of it. It was the feeling that someone she couldn’t see was watching over her, readying itself. A tiger waiting to pounce...or a teacher anxiously awaiting first bell to begin instruction.. Nancy stopped and looked back over her shoulder. The man in the suit and tie and sunglasses didn’t seem to be following her. He stood perfectly still against that elm tree on the other side of the street. Though what was he doing there? It wasn’t a bus stop and he wasn’t a neighbor. Not a face she saw everyday. A dozen or so steps later, she whirled her head around. Gone. Nancy was being followed. What to do? What did he want? Did she scream? Did she call for help? From the bushes behind her, a hand clapped over her mouth while its pulled her in and dragged her into the foliage. Nancy screamed in panic, not even recognizing the smell of fresh body odor and old Axe. “I’m not gonna hurt you!” Rod growled to her even as she thrashed. “I’m not gonna hurt you!” He loosened his grip, and Nancy pried his disgusting hand off of her mouth. Rod hunkered down in the cover of the bushes. Sweaty. Unwashed. Barefoot. Wearing nothing but his jeans and jacket. The shirt that Tina had been found in was collected as “evidence” of some sort. Rod looked at Nancy, eyes tired and desperate. “They’re gonna kill me, for sure.” “Nobody’s going to kill you,” Nancy said. Rod clearly didn’t believe her. Nancy didn’t believe herself. “Did you do it?” Rod looked like he was about to vomit, he was so disgusted. “Do it? Do what? Sleep with my girlfriend? Yeah, I did!” “No, not that,” Nancy said. “The other thing…” Rod looked confused. “Did you put her in a D-I-A-?” Rod cut her off. “Hell no! Tina’s not a baby! But I’m the only one who seems to know that!” “You’re not the only one who knows.” Rod didn’t reply, immediately. Instead his breathing slowed, and his eyes showed a level of gratitude that Nancy didn’t think the young man capable of. “Everybody thinks I’m a kidnapper, or some kind of…” his voice cracked rather than allow him to finish the sentence. “What happened last night?” Nancy asked. “You were screaming an awful lot.” The modern day greaser just shook his head. “I never touched her.” He let out a breath. “There was somebody else there.” Even he couldn’t completely believe what he was saying. “You were screaming like crazy.” “I didn’t do it!” “The door was locked from your side!” It didn’t make any more sense now that she was saying it, but it made her feel better to be on the offense. “Don’t look at me like I’m some fuckin’ nutter or something!” Rod proclaimed through gritted teeth.. “You think I put a big pair of baby pants on my girlfriend, spanked her padded ass, and then snuck out and made everybody think she was a baby?” Not when he said it like that. The whole thing was getting more difficult to believe by the minute. Wait a minute…”Spanked?” “Yeah,” Rod replied. “Kept hearing this slapping sound, right on her butt. She kicked and screamed every time...till she didn’t.” His eyes got hazy, reliving the moment. “But it wasn’t me. Somebody else did it. And when I find ‘em I’m gonna-!” More movement. A familiar figure in a police officer’s uniform. A gun drawn. “Just move away from her, son,” Lt. Thompson said in a low, even voice. Rod looked and saw the gun pointed at him. Arms up, slowly he stood. Nancy too. “Reeeeeal easy, like your ass depended on it,” Nancy’s dad intoned. Like his ass depended on it. A poor choice of words. Police sirens squealed out even as Tina’s (ex?) boyfriend darted for the street. “Hold it!” Lt. Thompson called out. Nancy stepped in front of her father, covering Rod’s barefoot escape. “NO!” He was innocent! She couldn’t prove it, but she knew Rod was innocent. Him being guilty would have meant that Nancy didn’t understand how the world really worked. “Jesus Christ!” her father cursed, lowering his gun. Running fast on tired legs and sore bare feet, Rod didn’t make it far down the street before the first police car cut off his escape. He didn’t make it ten feet before the second blocked his retreat and he was surrounded by men with guns. Rod was a lot of things: Most of them bad. An escape artist wasn’t one of them. Nancy had to watch as Rod was held at gunpoint, slammed on the ground, and cuffed. “I didn’t do anything, Nancy! I promise!” That last outburst wouldn’t look good for him n court. Rod wasn’t behind whatever happened to Tina. He wasn’t smart enough. He’d been following Tina and pulled her off the street because the whole world was out to get him and Tina was the closest thing he had to a friend, just then. A realization came over Nancy. Whether people thought of Tina as an adult or not, Nancy was on the shortlist of people that Rod might try to contact. “Daddy!” she followed her father out onto the street. “You used me!” “What the hell were going to school for, anyway?!” It wasn’t a question as much as an accusation. Again, she wasn’t Nancy the eighteen year old, but Lt. Thompson’s little girl. And little girls didn’t go to school after a scary punk broke into a house where they were babysitting. There was nothing to do. Nothing to do except walk away. “NANCY!” her father called after her. She ignored him, instead focusing on the sound of Rod’s struggling as he was dragged to the squad car. “NANCY! NANCY!” *************************************************************************************************** “What is scene,” the English teacher said, “is not always what is real.” That was a real mood. Mrs. Morgan had watched Dead Poets Society about three too many times, and was always trying to be profound and inspiring, but often her lectures came across as a dramatic monologue, more than an English Lit class. This was doubly true now that the class had shifted into its Shakespeare unit.. Still, the lady had a point. Slumping forward in her desk, Nancy lulled her head to her side. Somebody was in Tina’s seat. Somebody Nancy didn’t even know. But no one missed Tina or remarked about it. It was like that seat had always belonged to the boy sitting there; or that Tina had never been in school with them at all. “For example, in the final lines of a Mid Summer Night’s Dream,” Mrs. Morgan continued, “Shakespeare has Robin Goodfellow assure the audience, as well as the main characters that they ‘have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear, and this meek and idle theme no more yielding but a dream.” Ugh. More dream talk. More sleep talk. Mrs. Morgan was walking around the classroom as she spoke. Making Nancy’s desk in the back of the room less than idea for catching a few winks. “That and considering that he also has the famous play-within-a-play scene; where his actors play villagers badly playing mythic characters while OTHER actors play mythical characters as audience members making jokes about how poor the acting is, all in front of an ACTUAL live audience…” she paused for effect, “Well frankly, nothing is as it seems. It was very ‘meta’ at the time.” That actually got a polite chuckle from the rest of the class and a tired, quiet groan from Nancy. “Shakespeare was actually fascinated with the power of dreams, stories and illusions,” Mrs. and how they affected people, turning illusion into reality. From MacBeth’s soliloquy on life being a walking shadow, to some of his later poems, Shakespeare compared life itself to a story, and noticed how mankind broke itself down into the same repeated patterns and roles again and again. Theater and stories were both illusion AND real to him.” “John?” she said. “Will you go ahead and read, please?” The guy sitting in what used to be Tina’s desk stood up and walked to the front of the class. No page number was given, but everyone looked down in their books. Sometimes things just worked that way… “At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.” The new boy read flatly, and uninterested. Like he wasn’t used to the sound of his own voice. “the whining school-boy with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like a snail Unwillingly to school.” Somehow the guy was managing to make this worse. Did he know what words were coming out of his mouth. He didn’t have to go full theater geek or nothing, but read with a little feeling. Nancy closed her eyes. This was having the opposite effect. She closed her eyes... “the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.” John’s voice was literally about to put her to sleep. The palm of her hand was almost a pillow by this point. A new voice called out. “Nancy…?” The high school senior’s eyes popped open. It couldn’t be! It had to be! There in the doorway, clad in only an obscenely used Luvs, her tits hanging out and her hair tied up in little ribbons, was Tina. “Nancy…” she sat there, just outside the classroom, splay legged and diaper bulging light yellow and deep purple. Deep purple for the decorations printed on the outside. Light yellow for what had been put inside and soaked through and discolored any patch of whiteness that might have remained. “Nancy…” Tina smiled, like it wasn’t the name of her best friend but a new word she was trying out for the first time. She reached both arms out and up, like a child wishing to be carried. “the whining school-boy with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like a snail Unwillingly to school.” Nancy looked around the class. Didn’t anybody else see this? But nobody was looking at the doorway. No one else had heard the big baby calling out for attention. To make matters more bizarre, the new kid was apparently backtracking. Lost his place. Nancy looked back to the doorway. No Tina anymore, just a puddle of piss where she had been. A giant baby with a VERY leaky diaper. The reader’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper… “And finally the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.” The kid hadn’t just lost his place, he was starting over. Except he didn’t keep reading. He hadn’t lost his place. ‘First’ was now ‘finall’, too. He was going backwards. All the way to the lover section of the poem, and then backwards to school and then infant. Nancy stood up as he finished reading, a knowing not-so-gentle smirk on his face. He said nothing more. The rest of the class kept staring at him. The teacher too. No one stopped her from walking out into the hallway, over the puddle that Tina had left. Sometimes things just worked that way… Stepping out into the empty hallways, she saw the not-so-little girl just rounding the corner, drips and dribbles still coming out from her legs; the leak guards long having failed. “Tina?” Nancy called out. But if Tina heard her name, she didn’t respond. She just shuffled and crawled out of sight, leaving a wet trail behind her. Rather like a slug… The hall was empty too. And even though some of the classroom doors were open, there was no sound coming through them. Nancy didn’t know why. Didn’t care either. Sometimes things just worked that way… Tina! She had to find Tina! Following the trail of urine, the senior broke into a run. “TINA?!” She rounded the corner! WHAM! The girl’s sprint was cut short as she collided with what must have been the only other person in the hallway: A pudgy girl with dark black hair and a red and green sash. A hall monitor, of all the antiquated juvenile things! Some students were given the sash and patrolled the halls on off periods, running errands for the front office or playing security guard... Both girls went down to the floor. Fueled by adrenaline, Nancy was easily on her feet first. She looked down at the hall monitor. The girl had a bloody nose and her hair up in pigtails of all things! What self-respecting young woman would have her hair up in pigtails? If Tina had had long enough hair, she’d likely have her hair up in pig-tails right now… The little girl hairstyle combined with a pleasantly pudgy face wasn’t doing anything to make the monitor seem any more authoritative. She sat there on her ass, splay legged and clumsy looking; just like Tina had been a moment ago. Speaking of Tina, Nancy might have been wrong, but there seemed to be something of a swollen bulge coming from between the young lady’s legs. Almost like... But no… No it couldn’t be... “Where’s your hallpass?” the monitor demanded. She seemed unfazed and unconcerned with her bleeding nose. Nancy felt her throat start to close up with anger. “Screw your hall pass,” she growled, walking right past the stupid twat. She broke out into a jog; then a run. “HEY NANCY!” The voice from behind her wasn’t the nasally, whiney voice of the hall monitor. It was older. Deeper. Nancy looked over her shoulder. The hall-monitor was up on her feet again. A gleeful, sadistically playful look was on her face, which was now bleeding from more than just her left nostril. She patted a large, heavy looking paddle in the palm of her hand. “No running in the hallway!” It wasn’t her voice, but the older, raspier one. So was the laugh that followed. No time! No time to ask questions, no time to formulate a quip! No time to deck this wanna be cop in the face! She had to find Tina! Had to follow the trail! She went past an open locker that was so stuffed with teddy bears that they were overflowing out the hallway and piling up like the leaves in fall. She ignored the faint breeze and the scent of lavender baby powder. Had to find Tina! She made a right turn down the stairs. She couldn’t remember if there had been a downstairs before; but it didn’t matter right now. HAD TO FIND BABY TINA! And the stick trail of quickly drying pee was doing just that. There in the dark, gray, almost dingy light, at the bottom of the stairs, Nancy found a sign. It read: “PLAY PLACE! NO GROWN-UPS ALLOWED!” The balled up diaper just by the door was a pretty good clue. Good that someone had at least changed her. Wasn’t it? Ignoring the sign, Nancy stepped forward and opened the door and went in. Turning and taking her, she placed her back to another door, this one made of glass. An old yellowed room decorated with the tattered remains of children’s crayon scribblings laid behind her. But Nancy paid it little mind. What caught Nancy’s attention was the simple, moth eaten curtain in front of her. Nancy felt it call to her, invited her. With a singular swift motion, she tore back the barrier. Just as promised, an indoor playground lay behind it; perfect for a child to frolic and get lost in. Stepping forward past the curtain, she heard the door softly click behind her; so soft that part of Nancy wouldn’t have been surprised to look back and find that the door didn’t exist. There was a kind of heat here; one of energy and motion. It was the same kind of heat from a gym; where no matter how high the AC was turned up, people’s body were radiating energy. Same might be true for an indoor playground. “Tina?” Nancy called out, stepping from the solid concrete and onto the metal mesh of the playground. Such a dark playground, too. Impossible darkness above and below. No more ceiling, just monkey bars and gymnast rings. Her voice did not carry like she’d hoped it would, and she only got the sound of raspy breathing in reply. That, and the same off feeling of some unseen force watching her. Not like this morning after breakfast either; more like the feeling she’d gotten just before Tina’s bed stopped being a bed. No more walls in this place either, just play-tunnels and slides and tubes. Old ones, from the looks of them. Nails and old screws jutted out at odd angles from improper construction and overuse. Nothing like this would ever get past a safety inspector today. “Tina?” Nancy called out, her voice with a hint of hope in it. Please let her be here. Please let her be here. The place had a low thrumming noise, like a heartbeat. Unseen through the vast network of plastic arteries, children crawled and scurred through. No laughter though. No calls of ‘Tag! You’re It!’. Other than the occasional rattle of a body moving through thick plastic, the kids were quiet deathly quiet. Maybe not kids, Nancy thought. She looked around. This place was big enough to accommodate adults...or at least children her size. Tina’s size. Nancy stopped; her eyes being drawn to the sound of the raspy breathing. “T-Tina?” She no longer sounded (or felt) quite so hopeful. When the scarred witch with the red and green bag stepped out of the shadows, Nancy knew she had every right not to be. “Who are you?” A devilish smile blossomed across the disfigured face. Nancy washed as the woman opened up her white blouse and exposed her nipple. As if in answer, the ghoulish woman kneaded her breast slightly. That wasn’t milk coming out of her nipple. Milk wasn’t green. And the laughter that came out of her wasn’t human. The woman rebuttoned her blouse and opened the bag slung over her shoulder. Even at a distance, Nancy could see something white, rectangular and folded peaking out. She didn’t need two guesses to know what it was. A jagged, splintery padde held overhead, the monster woman slowly advanced on Nancy, her square heels clicking on the metal; her intent clear. A paddle, and a diaper bag. First one. Then the other. Nancy quickly pivoted and peeled back the curtain, finding only cement walls to block her path. She juked and ran sideways, deeper into one of the playground’s walkways. Even though she sprinted, she somehow knew she wasn’t getting away. Even though the undead Mary Poppins followed at a slow, leisurely pace, Nancy couldn’t help but feel as if a cold chill was breathing down her neck at every twist and turn she took. No time to think. No time to plan. Just move and turn. Move and turn. Left or right. It didn’t matter. Sometimes things just worked like that… Such a weird logic. Nancy didn’t normally think like this. Not when she was awake anyways. Nancy had been correct in one thing, though; it didn’t matter which way she turned. A dead end found her; and right on her heels, still walking at the same knowing, predatory pace, was the woman with the paddle rounded the corner. She cackled with glee and dragged the paddle along the ground, letting it’s low thudding scraping sound join the hum of the playing children. She gave it a practice swing and a low whoosh went through the air. “Gonna get you,” the shadowed hag taunted. Closer she came, as if savoring every moment. “Nanny’s gonna get you!” Her words were playful, her tone was not. Back against the wall and with nowhere else to go, Nancy realized why she’d been acting so strangely. Things DIDN”T just work like that. Not when she was awake! “IT’S ONLY A DREAM!” she screamed. It was as defiant as it was desperate, and did nothing to stop the woman with the paddle. She’d paused and looked down at the carpet bag filled with diapers, apparently savoring the moment and envisioning what was to come. “Come to Nanny...” she beckoned. No! Not like this! Not like this! Filled with frustration, the young woman’s anger overcame her fear. “GODDAMN YOU!” She got only puckered lips and blown kisses for her shrieking. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the play-tunnels. Old and rickety, with rusted screws and nails sticking out still from either wear and tear or improper manufacture. Necessity being the mother invention, it gave Nancy an idea. If this was a dream. If this really was a dream then… Without thinking or deliberation she slapped her arm on the nearest piece of jagged, crying out in pain as the rusted metal pierced her flesh. “AAAAAAAAAAH!” Now her voice echoed along the empty structure, deafening out all other sounds as the nail tore open her flesh. It was a little cut, but it hurt like something else. “NAUGHTY!” The woman cried out. Her paddle dropped to the grated floor. A burnt hand reached out to grab her “BE CAREFU-!” **************************************************************************************************** “NO! NO! NO! NO!” Nancy was in hysterics! She stood up from her desk and thrashed her arms, flailing and screaming at her attacker; even as the rest of her class turned around in their seats and stared in amazement at her. “I’M NOT A BABY! I’M NOTTA-!” She didn’t open her eyes, even then. It wasn’t until Mrs. Morgan rushed and grabbed her by the shoulders that she opened them. “OK! OK! THOMPSON!” Her last name! Children didn’t get called by their surnames. Nancy froze; fully awake and the center of attention. “I’ll-I’ll call your mother.” Nancy kept her eyes on her teacher, slowly starting to catch her breath. “Everything is alright now.” Wordlessly, Mrs. Morgan tried to guide Nancy back to her desk. Nancy planted her feet and backed away. ‘No,” she said. Even as she did it, she started to pick up her books and collect her back pack. “I’m okay.” “You sure?” “I’m fine.” Again, her teacher asked, “You’re sure?” Not quite believing her. It was fair. “Yeah,” Nancy repeated. “I’ll go straight home.” It took everything in her not to break down and cry right there in front of everyone. Somehow, Nancy found the strength. Somehow, her teacher seemed just as shook. “You’ll need a h-hall pass.” Nancy ignored her and walked out the door, this time turning towards the exit instead of going deeper into the school. She really didn’t want to know if there were stairs further down the hall and to the right; yet alone where they led to. Just outside the school, right past the steps of the front entrance, Nancy let out a sob. She couldn’t say whether it was from fear or relief; not that it mattered. A dream. It had all been a dream. Just a dream. But if it was ‘just’ a dream; why did she have a cut on her forearm right where she’d slammed it against the metal? That afternoon, the holding cell was cold and hard, but not sterile. There was a feeling of dingy, almost moldy wetness in the air, even though not a trace of the stuff could be seen or smelled. It had all the cold and clinical feelings with none of the safe sterility. The bars were a kind of graying green. How odd, Nancy thought, that something meant to confine and restrict would be the same color as the Statue of Liberty. Looking at each other through opposite ends of the bars, Nancy and Rod spoke in quiet hushed tones as the bored guard went to take a dump. “And then what happened?” Nancy asked. “I told you,” Rod said. “It was dark but I’m sure there was somebody else in there.” Rod sounded tired and exasperated. The police interrogators had probably asked him the same questions. The only difference was that the cops in no way believed that a hundred and twenty pound B-Cup wearing Tina Gray was more than a year old. “How could somebody be in there without you knowing about it? Exasperated as she was, Nancy knew the truth. She just didn’t believe it herself. In some wild way she was hoping poor stupid Rod could do it for her. “The door was locked.” “How the fuck should I know?” Rod was equally perplexed and considering he was being charged with kidnapping (among other things) he was infinitely more frustrated. “I don’t expect you to believe me anyway.” He retreated to the back of his cell and stared at the stainless steel toilet. “What did he look like?” She leaned up against the bars. “Did you get a good look at him?” Rod looked up and back around at Nancy. “No,” he said. He sounded more than a little sad. Anger and regret and exhaustion all blending together into a terrible cocktail. Nancy felt her frustration bubbling up. She whacked the bars, a fussy toddler in her crib, and started pacing. She was on the right side of the cell door but still felt trapped. “Then how do you know somebody else was there?!” “Because somebody spanked her while I watched.” Rod moved back to the door and leaned in as far as the iron would let him. Nancy crossed her arms, not looking directly at her best friend’s boyfriend. “And you didn’t even get a good look at him?” “I couldn’t even see the fucker.” He shuddered at the memory. “I could just see it happening. Hear the smack. See her diaper flatten out in the back with the paddle.” Paddle?” Nancy looked right at him. “What do you mean?” Rod’s voice went hollow, a tinge of fear in his voice. “My old man used to spank us,” he said, “before we learned how to throw a punch. My baby brother, too. I know the difference between a hand, a belt, and a paddle. The sound, the mark, the pain. This was a paddle. It was a big one, too. Rectangle, like they do at Frats or the movies or whatever. The kind that hits you down there but really knocks the wind outta ya.” His eyes came back to the present and he looked at Nancy. “You know, I probably could’ve saved her.” His voice cracked. “But I thought it was just another nightmare...like the one I had the night before.” Nancy didn’t speak. Nancy just listened. “There was this…” he hesitated. “There was this lady. She had this huge paddle; more like a club, really. It was too big, but she carried it around one handed, like it was easy. Like it was a toy.” Nancy’s skin began to crawl. This sounded familiar. Too familiar. Far too familiar. Just like what Tina had been talking about last night. Just like what Nancy had dreamed. And Rod had neither been around nor been told about either of those. On the verge of hyperventilating, Nancy started to walk away, towards the door back out to the police station proper. “Hey,” Rod called out, sounding weary. “Do you think I did it?” Just before she banged on the door to be let out, Nancy told him the truth. “No.” It didn’t make either one of them feel better. ***************************************************************************************************** The water was hot in the tub that evening. Hot enough to boil a lobster. Hot enough to cauterize the already scabbing over scratch on Nancy’s arm. Hot enough to destroy all the aches in her body from a perpetually bizarre day. Nancy lay there up to her neck in the clear hot water, her head propped up by a bath pillow. “Ten, nine, better watch your behind,” she sang in tired lackadaisical whisper. She turned the washcloth over her in hands, her eyes half closed. She wasn’t washing herself as much as wringing the thing like a wet teddy bear. “Eight, seven, gonna learn your lesson.” Such a weird little jump rope song. It seemed oddly appropriate, somehow. Strange how dreams and reality so often lined up. “Six, five, never gonna thrive.” Thrive. A fancy two dollar world meaning grow and mature. Funny considering she’d been dreaming about strange women carrying around paddles and diaper bags. Tina wasn’t thriving anymore... Nancy only half-knew it, but she was putting herself into a kind of trance. The rhythmic sing-song nature of it all becoming a kind of lullabye. “Four, three, in your pants you pee.” When she was younger that seemed like the funniest part; as if peeing your pants could be scary... “Two, one, Nanny says you’re done….” Her eyes were closed. The last line coming out as barely a mumble. She’d sang the old jump rope rhyme to calm her nerves. And it had worked. The tub held her like a hammock or a cradle;, and the water covered her and kept her warm like a blanket. Nancy laid there, still, in the tub. She breathed steady, shallow breaths as she dozed in the tub. Her stomach moved up and down below the water, and she began to lightly snore, not yet dreaming. If she had been dreaming, it wouldn’t have been of the hand racing up from the tub’s drain. Had she been awake she would have noticed the scarred digits reaching for the washcloth lightly clutched in her hand… A knock on the door. Nancy’s eyes snapped open. It hadn’t been long, not nearly long enough. The water was exactly the same temperature as when she’d closed her eyes. Funny thing about sleep; a moment could feel a millennium and vice versa. “Nancy?” A familiar and nagging voice called through the bathroom door. Nancy grumbled and then spoke up. “What, Mother?” “Don’t fall asleep in there,” Mom warned. “You could drown, you know.” The young woman rolled her eyes. “Oh for Pete’s sake.” In the quiet acoustics of the bathroom, even her mumblings could be heard. She picked up the washcloth again and wrung it in her hands if only to do something wit her hands and add the gentle dripping to the room’s soundtrack. She looked askance between her legs in the tub. Had that rubber duck always been there? “It happens all the time,” Mom insisted. “I’ve heated up some warm milk.” “Warm milk?” Nancy repeated, her upper lip curling in disgust. “Gross.” What did Mom think she was? A baby? She instantly regretted thinking of it in those terms. Mom’s footsteps faded slowly away as she gave Nancy a hint more of privacy. With a breath that started out as an annoyed huff and ended as a weary sigh, Nancy closed her eyes. One. Last. Ti- The shriek of fright she let out was muffled by the water. Down she went into the tub as two hands yanked her down by the hips. Down. Down! DOWN! Down further than it was possible in a simple bathtub, Nancy went. Instinctively, she kicked towards the sources, with those horrible hands pulling her farther and farther down. Not just those hands, either. More than one pair was grabbing her; caressing her; violating her. “Ah-ah-ah!” A voice from the depths chided. “Can’t go to bed dirty!” She couldn’t breathe! She couldn’t see, either. Still terribly warm, the water now clouded with soap. Soap in her eyes! Oh how they burned! How they stung! With near Herculean strength she breached the surface, stealing a gasp of air before being pulled back down. “HELP! Her eyes hurt. Soapy water rushed up her nose. She opened her mouth to scream and tasted suds. It was as if she were trapped under ice, with only a narrow porthole shining the light from her bathroom. The rest was incredibly dark, and from the dark came the hands; groping and probing. There were more than just hands in the water dragging her down. Wet, scrubbing fabric dragged across her skin. Washcloths! She was being drowned. She was being bathed. Either way, she was in a panic. Either way, she was being violated. Her laft arm was the only thing to breach the surface. Only by pounding on the sides of the tub and up against the near wall of the bathroom did Nancy have even the faintest recognition of still being in her own home. Only by that left arm did she have a hope of rescue. All the while down in the darkness, washcloths and hands that should not be scrubbed at her. In and behind her ears. Up and down her arms and breasts. Underneath her armpits “HE-!” When she managed to breach again she wasted her breath screamin. Nancy could have sworn she felt the teeth of a fine toothed comb brushing out her hair for her. Pounding so far away, coming from the bathroom door. Not nearly as loud as the pounding in Nancy’s head. The washcloths worked their way up and down her legs, and in her most vulnerable and intimate of places. “Almost…” The voice whispered from the darkness. Water still steaming hot, the washcloths withdrew as suddenly as they had advanced on her. “MOMMY!” Nancy screamed, her voice scratchy and hoarse; her mouth tasting of soap. “Hold on, baby!” Mom called through the door. An amphibian wriggling up on land, Nancy managed to claw her way out of the tub. She grabbed a towel and draped it over her shoulders just as Mom picked the lock on the door. “I’m okay!” she said when Mom burst in. “I’m okay.” The mirror was too steamed up to see her reflection, but even Nancy didn’t need to see her face to know that she was lying. “I’m okay.” “But I heard you screaming,” Mom said. “I heard you calling me.” “It’s okay,” Nancy lied. “I just...I just slipped getting out of the tub.” She didn’t resist as her mother took the bathrobe off the hook and started draping it over Nancy’s shoulders; removing the towel and guiding her arms through the sleeves, just like when she was a child who couldn’t dress herself. “I told you,” Mom said, tying up the belt around Nancy’s waste. “Hundreds of people a year, dear.” “I know,” Nancy panted. “I know. You were right.” That little acknowledgement seemed to satisfy her mother. “I’ll go turn down your bed for you.” “Okay,” Nancy nodded. Her voice was still shaky. “I’ll put on my pajamas.” “Okay.” And then she was alone. Nancy shivered. She was cold. Getting out of a hot bath, she was always a little chilly as her skin adjusted to the rapid shift in temperatures, but there was something different this time. Her skin felt funny. On a kind of dread intuition she opened the robe and examined herself. She had no body hair. Anywhere. None on or under her arms. None below the waist, on or between her legs. No stubble or even the vaguest hint of a root. Completely smooth. Baby smooth. To a degree, it was as if Nancy had never hit puberty. Or like it had all been scrubbed off like stubborn dirt in the bathtub. A sense of foreboding reminded Nancy of the tub. She turned to the tub. She hadn’t put that rubber ducky there. Nancy didn’t even own a rubber ducky since she was three. And she definitely didn’t take bubble baths. There it was though, in all of it’s lavender scented glory: a tub brimming with bubbles. Ten...nine...better watch your behind…. Nancy backed away and opened the bathroom medicine cabinet.. She reached in and took the pill bottle from the bottom shelf. “STA AWAKE (Fast Acting).” It read. She spared one last look at her body; another at the tub; and then downed double the recommended dosage. ********************************************************************************************************* “The all consuming act of bodily dismemberment-” The T.V. in Nancy’s bedroom droned on. “NOOOOOOOOOO!” The woman in the horror movie screamed while her arms were ripped from their sockets and corn syrup blood gushed out from her torso. Nancy lay in bed, struggling to stay awake; trying desperately to stare at the screen instead of the back of her head or the inside of her eyelids. The warm milk was doing nothing to put her to sleep, but the anti-sleeping pills could only do so much against her exhaustion. And her bed was comfortable. And unlike Tina, Nancies jammies didn’t have snaps along the inseam, nor did she crinkle when she moved. So much easier to just... She had texted Glenn, just so she could have someone to talk to and got no response back. He was probably grounded. Her freakout this morning in English had stopped her from getting to talk to her boyfriend. She worried about him and how he was coping with all the strange. More importantly, it was harder to go to sleep when you had someone to talk to. After almost drowning in the tub, and the not so pleasant nap this morning, sleep wasn’t exactly something Nancy craved. With no other options, horror movies became the last resort. The screaming and the blood, no matter how schlocky had always given her the creeps, given her trouble sleeping...given her reason to stay awake. In a weird way she was fighting bad dreams with nightmare fuel. Sadly, as her lids started to droop, threatening to weld themselves shut, even the nightmare fuel was running out of gas. Her head started to nod, just a bit. It would be okay. Just a quick nap...a cat nap. Not even a cat nap, a kitten na-.... NO! For what might have been the third or the dozenth time (she’d lost count), Nancy startled herself awake, forcing herself to stare at the old horror movie. Even the blood curdling screams and the sounds of chainsaws were becoming a kind of lullaby to the poor girl. . UP! UP! UP! Nancy sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Must not lay down! Must not sleep! She grabbed the remote and turned off her T.V. Maybe an eerie silence would help her stay conscious better than a grisly melody… Clad in pure white, she sat and huffed, chiding herself. This was stupid. She was acting like a child, afraid of monsters under the bed, (though that thought made her careful of her feet). Even the bathtub was more bad dream than reality. Her body hair? There was a logical explanation for that. She did like to keep a clean shop so to speak. Maybe she hadn’t lost it all as much as she’d just done a really good job of shaving...and forgot. But when she’d asked her mother about it, just before bed, all Mom had said was “You’re just a late bloomer, sweetie,” before giving her a kiss on the forehead and ensuring that she’d chunged down a glass of dairy. THAT was an unexpected reaction… Rubbing herself out of nerves and the strange smoothness of her own skin, Nancy got up out of bed and walked over to her bedroom window. Maybe some fresh air would help her stay awake. Gently sliding the window open, Nancy poked her head out and stared down at the neighborhood from her second story window. “Hi…” a voice from the night whispered. It was only Nancy’s deep familiarity with Glenn’s voice and his silhouette’s complete dissimilarity from the woman in Nancy’s dreams that saved him from a shove that would have sent him plummeting to the lawn below. The young woman drew back, swallowing her scream into a gasp as her boyfriend poked his head through. “I’m sorry, I saw your light was on. I wanted to check on you to see how you were.” “Do you know how much I sometimes wish you didn’t live right across the street.” Her tone was biting, her heart was pounding, but for the first time all day she felt something akin to relief. Glenn must’ve sensed it, too. “Will you shut up and let me in?” he asked. “Did you ever stand on a rose trellis in your bare feet.” Of course he’d sneak all the way over in his pajamas and bare feet… “Just get inside before somebody sees you.” Glenn clambered in through her window. Romeo on the balcony he wasn’t. More like an old boxer trying to climbe between the ropes. He cried out a little as his pricked his feet on a wayward thorn. “Ow!” “Shhh!” “What? They hurt?” “You gotta be quiet, Mom’s not even asleep yet.” Once he was inside, Nancy closed the window behind him. Laying there in his pajama bottoms and a gray sweatshirt, Glenn seemed to make himself very comfortable on Nancy’s bed while she closed her bedroom door; lest Mom see something she wasn’t supposed to. It was stupid, presumptious, and cocky...and it made Nancy feel at least five times better. Glenn being a bit of a horndog was infinitely more normal than the last twenty-four hours. “Do you mind?” she asked. Glenn seemed disappointed, but not terribly surprised. He slid off the bed and took a seat an old wicker chair next to it. “So I heard you had a freakout in English class today.” Nancy sat back down on her mattress. “Yeah, I guess I did.” “You haven’t slept yet, have you?” “Not really.” He reached over and noticed the cut on her left harm; the same arm that had managed to pull herself up from drowning in the bathtub. “How’d you get that?” “I cut myself in English class.” “Like with a razor?” Flashes of the sharp edged piece of shrapnel poking out from warped playground equipment appeared in Nancy’s mind’s eye. “No.” Glenn didn’t seem to have any further questions. Just more worried looks. The young lady grabbed a mirror and looked in her reflection. She looked tired. So tired. Her face sagged at the edges. Her cheeks looked puffy, chubby almost. She thought about her mother declaring her a ‘late bloomer’. “God, I look like I’m four.” She really did. Mom had mountains of photos saved on a drive from Nancy’s childhood. More than a few of them had a pre-kindergarten girl making pouty faces just before naptime. She put the mirror down and looked back to her boyfriend. “Did you have any weird dreams last night?” “Slept like a rock,” he replied. The answer was too fast. Too sure. Nancy kept digging. “Do you believe that people can dream about what’s going to happen?” “No.” Again, too fast. Too sure. This was a conversation that Glenn had had with himself ahead of time; like preparing for a job interview, or confession. “Do you believe in the boogeyman?” Flat heeled boots and ruffled blouses blinked in Nancy’s brain. “Or boogeywoman?” “No.” Glenn didn’t sound convinced of himself this time. “I talked with my folks. Maybe Tina always was...like that...and we just never noticed. Rod tried to kidnap her...or worse...you know that.” It wasn’t an admission; quite the opposite. But rather than the self-assured gaslighting coming from her mom and dad, that obvious bold-faced-lie of denial actually helped Nancy. It gave her confidence in her own experiences and senses. “I’ve got a crazy favor to ask you.” Glenn knew the look in Nancy’s eyes. “Uh-oh.” Nancy leaned forward. “I’m going to go look for someone. I just need you to stay here. Stand guard.” Not nearly as dumb as Rod, Glenn connected the dots. “Okay. Deal.” “Turn off the light.” Glenn did. Nancy saw a perverted little smirk as he switched off the lamp. “And it’s not what you’re thinking…” ********************************************************************************************************* It was late when Nancy finally managed to sneak out of her house. So late the crickets had gone to sleep. Every light in the house, save the front porch, was out. Still barefoot so that her footfalls were as light as possible, and still in her pajamas, the highschool senior snuck out onto an otherwise empty street. The street shouldn’t have been so empty. The ground, not so soft on the souls of her feet. The animals, not so quiet. The air, not so warm and cozy. Almost as if on some level, Nancy knew she was still asleep in her bed. Almost... Sometimes things just worked like that... A quick turn of the corner, and she was near Tina’s house. It didn’t matter that Tina lived much further away, certainly more than. Nancy was passing by her old friend’s backyard where they’d spent so many childhood days playing with dollies or tea sets. The old playhouse was still there in the yard, she noticed. Even the dark, that house looked far newer than it should have. Even the dark the house looked far older than Nancy knew it to be… Feeling ill at ease, Nancy looked behind her to the pristine streets of her own block. “Glenn?” she called out softly. “Are you still watching?” Out from behind a tree, Glenn glided onto the sidewalk. “Yeah?” he said. “So?” He sounded impatient. Irritated. “Just checking,” Nancy whispered. Though she didn’t know why she did. No one was around to hear either of them. A voice in her head, her own, prodded her on. She wasn’t here for Tina, she told herself. She couldn’t save Tina. She could still make sure Rod was okay. Slowly she walked forward as her boyfriend took his post behind the tree; looking around warily as a dog barked somewhere in the distance. A few more steps into the night fantastique, past burned out and decaying buildings, and Nancy was at the police station. Her mind instantly glossed over that this too should be impossible. But she’d gone there so many times throughout her life, she knew the way like the back of her hand. Even on foot, though the way might be long and tedious, she could make her way to Daddy’s Job in her sleep. Picking up her pace, Nancy jogged over to where the holding cells were, just to the right of the staired entranceway. Through meshed windows, not unlike a playpen, she peered to see the modern day Greaser, asleep in his bed. Safe. Likely uncomfortable on the holding cell’s cot. But safe. Nancy relaxed a little bit as he rolled over from his side and began to suck his thumb. Sleeping like a… A banging sound from within the station’s cell and the squeaking squeal of hinges that desperately needed oiling caught Nancy’s attention. The door to the holding cells opened. Nancy’s breath stopped, hiding inside her lungs than to come and face the open air. The intruder’s face was burned and boney, angular like a witches with texture comparable to raw meat. The dead flowers in her dirty brown sunhat seemed to drain the color from the room instead of add to it. The flats of her heels click-clocked on the cold pavement of the cells. Still, Rod did not stir. Looking down into the basement level, Nancy still had the advantage. She could see the witch-thing, the scarred beldam but the woman with the paddle slung over one shoulder and dirty green and red diaper bag over the other could not see her. Nancy turned her head. “GLENN!” She called. Her voice was loud but remained calm. Glenn did not appear. “GLENN?” a hint of doubt creeped in. A smidgen of fear. Nancy looked down into the cells and watched as the disfigured wenched walked straight through the bars and into Rod’s cell. The iron bars did not block her way. They might as well have been patches of shadow on her ruffled blouse and striped bow tie. The girl banged on the windows. “ROD!” The boy did not stir. “ROD! WATCH OUT!” He only laid there and sucked his thumb while the horrid woman peeled back his blanket and unbuttoned his pants. “ROD! Watch out!” The bizarre babysitter looked up at Nancy from the cell, a knowing smile on her face. A dark laughter as she set her bag down. “GLENN!” The young woman screamed and pounded. “ROD! WAKE UP! GLENN!” The monster beside the bed didn’t even break her stride, opening the bag and removing wipes, powder, and a diaper far too big for any actual baby to need. “GLENN!” Where was he? He was supposed to be standing guard! When she looked back down into the cell, unable to completely ignore the perversion going on, she saw Rod. Rod. And only Rod. The meathead’s eyes opened and he sat up, slowly looking around, confused by the presence of his thumb in his mouth. Nancy’s voice was back to full shriek.“GLENN!” . Glenn did not answer. “Nanceeeeeeee…” Not ten feet away, all by herself, was Tina, standing up but swaddled like a newborn. Nancy stood up, confused and shocked. Tina couldn’t be here. Tina wouldn’t walk. Tina couldn’t talk. “NANCEEEEE!” Tina’s voice sounded impossible distant. The echo of her former adult self. The big baby’s lips didn’t move in time. Instead, they parted, and slowly, very slowly, Tina began to vomit. It wasn’t even vomit, that mixture of breast milk and strained peas. When a baby did it, it was just called spit-up. Nancy turned her back to the wall and edged along the police station’s property, not daring to take her eyes off the disgusting sight in front of her. Bundled up Tina just watched Nancy with infantile curiosity as something thick and disgusting pooled at her feet. Someone needed a diaper change. This couldn’t be real! This wasn’t real! “GLENN!” the high school senior shouted out into the night. “WAKE UP!” she called. No response, save the gurgling noises from Tina as her stomach ejected all of its contents. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. She was in her bed at home! Glenn was watching, waiting for her to stir. If she screamed loud enough, the real her might at least mumble something in her bed. “ARE YOU THERE?!” “I’m here, little one.” It wasn’t Glenn’s voice. Not even close. “PEEKABOO!” From the shadows, the witch came and Nancy ran like the Devil Herself was at her heels. Faster! She ran! Faster! But her legs felt like they had weights in them. So much running. So little progress. “HEEEE-HEEEE-HEEEE-HEEEE!” It was just like when she was a child playing tag. It didn’t matter how fast she pumped her legs, the bigger, older kids, always caught up to her. Her five fastest strides were two medium steps to the tallest kids. Her sprints were barely a jog to the grown-ups; and so it felt here. Back! Back to her house! Her safe space! Her refuge! She’d started her dream there, and so it could end here. That’s how it worked, right? Sometimes, at least... Skin goose pimpled with cold sweat, Nancy opened the door to her home and slammed the door behind her; locking it and sparing only a glance. Maybe this was it. Maybe she was safe. Here in her own home. Wolves roamed outside the door. Not inside the house. Three steps up, the staircase turned to tapioca pudding beneath her feet. Nancy dropped down half a foot, her ankle caught in the vat. The next step had just as much give. The door thundered and shook on its hinges. From the outside, Nancy heard the telltale sound of a key being inserted, and tumblers making way. A key! The witch had a key! “NAUGHTY….NAUGHTY…” The door opened and the grinning maniac walked in. “You’re far too little to walk like that, sweetie! Be good for Nanny!” Nancy scrambled up the steps, crawling on her hands and knees the rest of the way up the stairs. The stairs held. Nancy’s appreciation for the irony didn’t. “GLEEEEEEEEEENN!” Hobbling like a monkey, Nancy screamed all the way into her bedroom. She closed the door behind her; anything to put one more layer between her and the Mary Poppins from Hell. “GLENN!” There on the door, in her bedroom mirror’s reflection, Glenn sat slumped over, asleep in the wicker chair he’d set up guard in. He was motionless, oblivious to her screaming. “This is just a dream, this isn’t real!” Nancy said, remembering Glenn’s supposed trick. “None of this is real! This is just a dream! She isn’t real, she ISN’T-!” The shattering glass of her mirror sounded real enough. The jagged, splintered paddle that sent the shards careening into the air looked real enough. The hag tackling her, cackling in glee as she yanked Nancy around by the hips seemed real enough. Nancy screamed until her throat her, while the cackling monster pulled her over knee and went to yank her pajama bottoms down. Nancy clawed at the carpet, squirming out of her bedtime pants in a futile effort to remain unspanked. This only seemed to amuse the female fiend. “GLENN!” Even as she clawed and kicked and did her everything to protect herself, Glenn snoozed away in his own little dreamworld. With nothing else to protect herself, she grabbed a pillow off her bed. One swing from the passive club later, and Nancy was holding onto nothing more than cotton stuffing. “GLENN! NOOOOO!” RRRRRRRRRIIIIIING! Glenn sat up with a start. Nancy did too, now fully awake in her bed as the alarm clock she’d set ‘just in case’ rang to life. Nancy turned it off and looked around the room. Her room. Her very mature. Very adult room. As her boyfriend rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Nancy peaked under her bed covers. Her pajama bottoms were gone. So were her panties. Where she’d gone to bed in dry underwear, she woke up in damp Goodnites. “Glenn...you bastard…”

I hadn't seen this posted here before but thought it was funny and wanted to share:

I found this funny video on Youtube about a girl who wants to explore roleplay and having a Daddy. Things take an unexpected turn..!