HERETICS INC.

It  wasn’t  unlike  the  specters  that  had  floated  through  these  halls  for  the  last  several  decades,  scraping  away  at  the  innards  of  his  head  with  little  regard  for  the  state  of  his  sanity.  But  this  was  a  new  face.  Someone  who  had  walked  through  those  doors  of  their  own  free  will.  His  mind  playing  tricks  on  him,  and  the  guest’s  apparent  confusion  aside,  it  was  exciting.    

“Uhm  —  the  …   Westover  Motel.  Maine.  We’re  a  small,  locally  run  Stephen  King  themed  bed  and  breakfast.  Pretty  much  all  of  our  rooms  are  horror  movie  themed,  but  if  that’s  not  really  your  vibe,  we  have  one  regular  one  that  I  haven’t  gotten  around  to  redesigning  yet.  It’s  totally  functional,  though! Really nice.”  

There’s  a  pause  in  the  ramblings,  as  he  realizes  that  maybe  it  had  been  a  bit  too  long  since  the  last  time  he’d  indulged  in  those  good  old  fashioned  customer  service  skills.  Not  exactly  the  greatest  sales  pitch  he’d  ever  given,  either,  as  he  hard  pivots  into  small  talk. 

rage.

he never thought of it that way. he felt it hot in his chest when he looked at the pulpit — empty or not, it felt like a branding iron between his lungs, somewhere deep in his sternum that only God could possibly find. he just never found the right word. and when joelle says it, it clicks in his brain. peter realizes then, that if the rage didn’t kill him, it would have made him kill someone else. on bad days he wishes the latter — on his worst days, he deeply wishes the former. but, in front of him, he notices joelle is … here. the rage didn’t kill her. they’re both here. they’re both lucky. he appreciates this, and he takes note of it.

his hands are nestled into the sleeves of his flannel — one leg bounces, quick, nervous, steady. he looks down. he doesn’t look at joelle. he keeps his eyes on the floor, on the scuffed edges of his shoes, on the frays of his ripped jeans, anywhere but joelle. quiet, like it’s dangerous : “ how did you end up leaving? ”

“I just … ran,” Jöelle says, her voice hollowed out as the sensation of bare feet sinking into cracked dirt, rock, and roots resurfaced. Her toes curled, twitching in the shoes she wore now. The felt the weight of her child slung across her back, tied tight in a homemade sling as she scaled the walls. The dirt road winded ahead of her, and it seemed to stretch on forever until it didn’t. Until that dreaded town came into view, as unsettling as it was dark. It might as well have been filled with ghosts. 

Curtains were drawn, not a single building stirring with any signs of life — except for one. Lights flickered, a neon sign she couldn’t yet read. Salvation in the form of a bar. Jöelle remembers bursting through that door, pleads spilling out of her mouth like a running faucet. 

“I ran until I hit the town, and I cried to this old man — Eddie. Told him everything. Him and his wife kept me and my daughter safe until those men showed up and took everyone away.”

Her siblings, her parents, everything she’d ever known, had cracked and splintered in that moment. Children were taken ... hauled off to hospitals and police stations in towns they’d never heard of, only to be filed away neatly into the system and put up for adoption. With how tainted the Ballard name was now, she wondered if any self-respecting set of prospective guardians would want to touch any of them with a ten foot pole. Her heart ached for every single one of them, but at least their parents were in prison. 

The children who, like her, were just barely above the age of eighteen had been thrown to the wolves of the real world and left to figure it out themselves. She had nothing. Not really, anyway. Nothing but her daughter, which was enough.

Violet + Frank // @hereticsinc

Frank turns slow, eyes narrowed-- but he never holsters his gun. Finger still curled, cradling the trigger. Mouth set in that half-curl... part smile, part snarl. Like he's contemplating how hard to bite. He gives what he can only assume is another fucking vigilante a once over.

"Huh," Frank grunts. "That supposed to hurt? You tryin' to hurt my fucking feelings?" Gravel grinds beneath his boots as he steps closer, slow and calculated.

"You don't know a goddamn thing about stupid," he spits. "Stupid is thinkin' you run your mouth at a stranger with a gun and nothin' happens." And yet he never raises the firearm. Every motion is low, cautious.

“You always angrily monologue about your tragic backstory to people who don’t give a shit?” Her tone is flat, bored-sounding as it filters through voice changer embedded in the armor. 

“ — Quit fucking up my plans and I’ll mind my business just fine, asshole.” 

Ghost  only  takes  mere  moments  to  process  the  words  coming  out  of  her  mouth  before  his  eyes  sink  into  his  surroundings,  darting  down  the  apartment  halls  to  ensure  that  nobody  had  followed  her.  He  doesn’t  say  much  before  he’s  shuffling  her  inside  and  shutting  the  door,  shifting  every  lock  into  place  behind  them.  

“Well,  you  did  the  right  thing.”  I  just  wish  your  father  would’ve  let  me  know  that  I  was  your  emergency  contact,  for  fuck’s  sake.  He  hadn’t  exactly  been  expecting  company,  and  the  abysmal  state  of  his  apartment  and  loungewear  reflected  that.  It  was  about  as  bare  bones  as  it  could  get,  and  it  was  any  wonder  that  a  person  actually  lived  here.  ( 𝙽𝙾𝚃  𝚃𝙷𝙰𝚃  𝙷𝙴  𝚆𝙰𝚂  𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙻𝙻𝚈  𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁  𝙷𝙾𝙼𝙴  𝚃𝙾  𝙱𝙴𝙶𝙸𝙽  𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷. )  

𝐡𝐞  𝐬𝐡𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝  𝐨𝐧𝐞  𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫.  a  small,  dismissive  motion.  he  thought  of  his  father.  his  mother.  the  quiet  study  tucked  deep  inside  the  library,  filled  with  framed  degrees  —  proofs  of  brilliance  that  now  felt  less  like  accomplishments  and  more  like  mile  markers  on  that  quiet  road.  each  one  a  reminder  of  his  relentless  reach  toward  the  only  thing  that  had  ever  truly  made  sense  in  his  world.  ❝  rejection  and  isolation  became  my  life  for  a  while.  maybe  young  flynn  knew  what  was  coming.  ❞

when  he  finally  turned  toward  her,  trying  to  piece  her  together  through  the  blur,  his  mouth  curved  into  a  smile.  he  slid  his  glasses  off  and  tucked  them  into  the  pocket  of  his  oversized  shirt.  ❝  there  are  a  lot  of  scary  things  out  there.  humans  are  by  far  the  worst  of  them.  ❞  he  shuddered,  then  shook  his  head,  as  though  physically  casting  the  thought  aside.  no.  too  heavy.  too  close.

“Me?  Oh,  well  …  I  don’t  know,  I  was  always  a  pretty  morbid  kid,  scared  of  a  lot  —  horror  and  gothic  literature  always  seemed  like  a  safe  place  to  explore  the  things  that  really  terrified  me,  gave  me  a  controlled  environment  to  do  it  in.  The  Haunting  of  Hill  House  by  Shirley  Jackson?  Fucking  horrifying.”  

For  more  reasons  than  one.  Growing  up  lonely  in  an  empty  mansion,  nobody  but  her  brother  and  a  ghost  with  an  innate  ability  to  unravel  her  mind  and  drive  her  insane,  that  book  hit  a  little  too  close  to  home.  No  parents  around  to  take  care  of  them,  always  left  to  their  own  devices  with  a  weird,  indescribable  secret  to  keep.  Poor  little  rich  girl,  she  thinks  to  herself.  

“  —   But  if  I’m  being  honest,  the  first  first  thing  that  really  got  me  was  Goosebumps.  Don’t  tell  my  students.”  Eos  laughs, in spite of the fact that she had on numerous occasions used that series as an example of the common themes and tropes found throughout the genre.