September 2006 Issue The Horror Library, your Haunted Home for Horror Fiction, Dark Art, Horror Games, Movie Reviews, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction, Alternative Music, Horror Authors, Horror Short Fiction and featuring The Terrible Twelve - RJ Cavender, Bailey Hunter, Boyd E Harris, Megg Roper, Jason Beirens, CJ Hurtt, Eric Stark, Cordelia Snow, Chris Perridas, Curt Mahr, Stephen Sommerville, M Louis Dixon, Kerry Drummond
Eve opened her eyes, she was in the living room of Bellows' brownstone. He sat across from her. Joe walked in and the room seemed to shift to his presence.
"We gotta fight monsters." Joe said nonchalantly. His hands buried deep in his pockets. He did not look at Eve or Bellows. He stared at the ground, hoping for something to happen, what he didn't know.
Eve looked at Bellows began to speak and then stopped. She slowly shook her head, her mouth twisted in confusion.
"This is what is happening, both of you please listen. You are both breaking the rules. Dead is dead, and the dead move on to where ever they need to go. Joe you aren't moving on. Broken rule number one. Eve you should be dead as well, but magic is what you are now, and magic can never die. You have too much power though, and no way to control it. You need a teacher."
"To teach me how to fight monsters?" She sat back holding her face in her hands, her voice quivered.
"To learn control so you can fight the monsters."
"This sounds like a bad sci fi original movie. Exposition reigns." Joe chuckled to himself.
Both Eve and Bellows looked towards him,
"Shut up!"
Eve turned back to Bellows,
"Are you going to teach me?"
"No. I don't know magic well enough."
"That doesn't sound right..." Joe began to hover for a moment then returned to the floor.
"I am not a thing of magic. I am cosmic dust and energy. Magic is something else entirely."
"Like Fairies and Greek gods." Joe laughed again.
"Or Shaman, witch doctors, medicine men?" Eve said.
"Yeah. We need to find you a teacher. Someone powerful, someone willing to teach someone more powerful."
"Is Merlyn available?" Joe snickered, "Sorry I deal with stress by laughing. I'll shut up."
"That's a good idea Joe, both of them. Though we have to free Merlyn from the cave first though."
"Uhm. More monsters?" Eve said.
"No, he is there and will remain there for a while more. Someone else."
"I think it should be a woman!" Joe said.
"That would be nice considering." Eve agreed.
"I know..." Bellows said.
###
The three figures stood before a chicken legged house in the Russian countryside. The house moved around a bit, it seemed to be leering at them, the windows appeared to open and close a little, giving it a strange face.
"Baba Yaga come down please!" Bellows said this in flawless Russian, he then turned to Eve and Joe, "I hope this sister is in a good mood."
"Sister?" Joe said.
"There are three sisters all named Baba Yaga, who all live in their own chicken legged houses'. At times they can be in foul moods and they are very dangerous then. Especially for little ghosts who break the rules."
A voice with a strong Russian accent comes down from the moving house,
"Bellows? What do you want?"
"I have a student for you. She is powerful and needs to learn quick."
"Why should I?"
"The monsters are coming back."
A pause, then, "We can beat them, but we'll need help. Your sisters won't be enough either. Please come down and meet your student. She is powerful, she will be enough herself, if she can learn from you."
The door opened, the chicken legs folded under themselves and the front step touched the ground, and out walked Baba Yaga.
###
Bellows and Joe went back to the brownstone without Eve. Joe was not happy. They sat in the living room once more.
"I need to help out as well. I'm here for a reason too."
"You need to go on. You need to move on."
"I don't want to, I don't think I can anyway. I haven't yet, and I feel no tugs. Besides your house told me secrets."
"What?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"No, I mean my house told you? My house, no houses talk. They can't speak."
"Your house talked, and sounded a lot like you."
"What did it tell you?"
"That the monsters are coming. That we have to fight them." Joe stopped, looked down, "That I would die saving Eve."
"You are dead."
"That I would die. I guess be destroyed then. No more. Poof!"
Bellows looked around his brownstone, studying the spider-webs in the corners, the paintings, the wainscoting, he was concentrating.
Then his eyes widened.
"Where is everyone. Why didn't I notice they were all gone."
"Everyone?"
"The spirits, like you, waiting to go on. They're all gone."
Bellows took a hold of Joe, and they were in the bar. Josh was behind the counter. It was half empty.
"Not all gone?"
"Bellows?" Josh Lincoln tilted his head.
"Where are they all?"
"Most have moved on. Some haven't.. Why?"
"They're all gone from my home. Not a one, except Joe here." a beat, "something's not right. Too many rules are being broken. This place should be full, my house should be full. Traffic never stops or slows, it is constant! Bugger!"
Joe and Bellows popped up in a hundred or so bars, abandoned factories, houses, stables, and the like. Everywhere was the same. Half or near empty. The spirit highway was almost a bare stretch of road.
"The monsters, Joe, the monsters that are coming. They eat souls. I can deal with things that eat universes in infancy, I can deal with a lot of things, I have dealt with a lot of things. These monsters though I hate them. I almost never use that word. Almost never, but these things..."
"Will Eve be able to defeat them?"
"Hopefully. Baba Yaga is a good teacher if the student is good. If she fails, Heaven and Hades and all, will be quite empty."
