i am a haunted house

“Do you think you’ll be able to talk to him?”

“O–oh. What? Sorry.”

“Steve,” She said again, pointedly, “Do you think you’ll be able to reach him?” 

People did that, sometimes, named the entities that circled their periphery. It helped them rationalize their fear of the unknown and helped them come to terms with something they shouldn’t have believed in. 

“It’s not exactly a phone call.” You stated, but it fell flat. Forward. You were too forward. The downside of the only human contact you get comes from the dead ones. “But I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Thank you.” She whispered, turning outward towards the expanse of the room, her footsteps masked to a dull thud as she walked over the sheets draped over every piece of furniture in the place. 

She wasn’t your typical client. People with money never called you– never believed in these things. From what you understood, she was a high-profile linguist for a Fortune 500, but she didn’t look it. Not in the big cuffed jeans and the sea salt textured bob.

“You hear that, Steve?” She called out into the void, “She’s here to help you. Be nice.” 

You didn’t blame him for guarding it. You would have too. If you had something this wonderful to cling to.

“I tried to bring in some people to finish it.” She had explained to you out front, sifting through her saddle bag for the key, “But he ran them off. Said his guys kept freaking out and walking off the job.” 

“So it’s a hostile entity we’re dealing with?” You’d asked her, and she chuckled, almost coldly, towards the door, still fighting against the lock. 

“I wouldn’t go as far as to call him hostile, but he certainly has a temper.”

Whatever that meant.  

“You keep calling it a he.” You looked back towards the house, the arms of the sinewy trees reaching out towards you, beckoning you back in. “Did you know who lived here?” 

“My friend.” She said, “He died in the house.” 

“If you don’t mind me asking, do you know how?” 

You wouldn’t turn back to face her. You hated this part. The human part. The feelings part. You did this because you weren’t afraid, because you had felt this pull to whatever they were for your entire life, and somehow, some way, you found a way to make money off of it. But this part? You didn’t get paid enough for this part. 

“He fell.” She cleared her throat, and you knew that if you tore your eyes from the house, you’d see her pulling at the corners of her eyes. “There was a ladder, and he was working on the house, and he fell. And as selfish as I want to be, keeping him here and keeping him close to me, I can’t sit here and let the house rot with him in it.” 

“It wouldn’t be right.” You agreed, eyes still skimming over every covered window, searching for a face that would not be there. 

Modern media projects paranormal investigation as a surfactant for quacks– a smoke show and a parlor trick to fool people into toying with their souls or, at the very least, coughing up a good chunk of money for whatever it is that you provide in service. But when Robin pulled down her collar to show you the scratches that spanned down her back from shoulder blade to rib cage, you knew that whatever, whoever, was left in this place had been very, very real. 

“Can you tell me more about him?” You ask, “The more information, the better, really. I need to know all I can get to see the full scope of who we’re dealing with here.” 

“His name was Steve.” You could see it beginning– that far-off look in the distance, that glass-eyed stare that the living clients got when they sift through the haze that they cannot reach. Where they rack their brain for clouded fragments of memories, the little details round out like polishing stones. “And this was his dream.” 

You look around into the open expanse of air, where the light casts a vignette over the room. Plumes of sheetrock dust circle through the golden beams of light. You listen to the stagnancy, feel the pressure in the room to make sure it hasn’t changed. Search for him in the clouded corners of the room. 

This house could have been beautiful at one point. It could still be beautiful now with some work. White marble spanned over a finished galley kitchen with a proper bay window that overlooked some overgrown gardenia, a big sitting room now draped in linen to protect whatever nice antique furniture sat underneath. Memories of a life built together, and now it was a shell. 

“I’ve been calling in contractors to try to finish it, the way he wanted it finished,” Robin’s voice reverberated over the plastic sheeting and drop cloths, as if the house were devoid of the world that was left behind, “But I’ve had two walk off the job. Just point blank, refund with no negotiation.” 

“Did they say why?” 

“They said it would start with stupid stuff. Cold room, weird feeling, but then things started falling, and their guys would start getting hurt, and– Does this sound crazy?” She buries her face in her hands. “God, I sound crazy.” 

“No. Not crazy.” Here it was, that thing uglier than death. The living in the after of it. That sinking hollowness that has lived in Robin’s chest, begging to swallow her whole. 

“I just can’t keep letting the house go to shit knowing he’s in there.” She frantically wipes at the corners of her eyes, and you have to nod like she wasn’t a stranger two days ago, “It’s like its rotting around him a-and it’s the last piece I have left of him.” 

“I know.” You nod towards her, doing that thing that you’ve rehearsed so much. You’ve gotten quite good at it, staying genuine and stone-faced at times like this, “And we’re not going to let that happen, okay? I’m not afraid of a little spitting and yelling.” 

+

The lavender haze of twilight followed Robin as her yellow Fiat backed out of the driveway, and you tried to picture her here. In this house. With him. 

You tried to hear the tincture of her laugh reverberate against the bassline hum of his, as they mingled and seeped into the walls. You searched for pieces and fragments of memories of him to cling to, transcend time, and fill the spaces with yourself. Impose your body into places where you don’t belong– haunt his memories as he haunts her, now. 

It will always be unnerving, watching the light sink into darkness and surround you. You try not to think of the evil things that lurk under beds and in closets, and try to picture the gilded softness of something akin to heaven. 

You could see the shell of his life here, mapping the valleys and rivers between furniture and belongings to map out routines. To the left, a living room, and to the right, a galley kitchen with a bench seat and a bay window. 

You can see them sitting there, humming and dancing in the kitchen and trimming gardenia from the open windows above. You try to exist in regularity with him, follow his footpaths through the house, and feel the remnants of him flow through them like riverbeds. 

A formal dining room with no table, from meals shared over the scuffed coffee table leftover from an apartment, disproportionate to the house, but a relic loved enough to keep. Something with swooping legs and craftsmanship from a time when things were meant to be enjoyed. A reminder of the spaces between the quickness of living to remind you how fast life passed you by. 

A green bedroom with the cans still stacked in the corner. The memory of what almost was. The richness of the tone, a welcoming gloss over the room, that stinging chemical tinge of paint fumes mixing with the dust of dreams never coming to completion.  You could smell them now, even though it had been years since the room had been painted. 

You took a step in, coexisting with the ladder in the center of the room. You looked for traces of him in here, looked for the plans for gold-framed pictures of beloved relatives, paintings from artist friends, or things that reminded him of home. But the walls had never been filled, the static resonance of the room a chilling emptiness sitting hollow in the pit of your stomach. A nothingness that filled the room and sat adjacent to you, bathed you in its discomforts and stared you in the face. You kept along your path through the rest of the house. 

As you walk, you pull picture frames haphazardly from their neat piles, setting them up on surfaces where they should belong, breathing the dwindling remnants of life into the shells of rooms. You map their footpaths through the house, waltzes through the kitchen and the corner that everyone cuts too close. 

A first one, with Robin– you can place her immediately– and Steve– you can place him with Robin’s description. Handsome in the effortless way, in the way that you could stare at. Of course he was. People are always prettier when they gloss over after death. They stand side by side on a college football field, Robin in a gold and maroon Master’s degree hood. 

A second, face down on a solid antique buffet. Robin and Steve, with a dark-haired girl and a stony-faced man, were at a wedding. 

And another, unframed and tucked in a mirror by the doorway. Steve and a girl are holding keys by the front door. On the back, in a flattened cursive scrawl, “Homeowners! (Pic creds to Robin :P).”

And last, dog-eared and color-faded. Steve and Robin. Before the wedding, the Master’s degree, or the girl. There was them, knock-kneed in striped shorts. Tongues out, kids laughing at a summer job. Before the nuances of adulthood or the shadow of death reared their heads. There was a time when it was just them. 

It’s easy to impose her into this space; it’s easy to picture this house as an extension of her, and in turn, picture Steve as a Robin by proxy. But he isn’t as easy. You can’t see him as anything other than dead– anything other than a dog-eared photo tucked safely away in Robin’s mind. 

There is one final door that has been left unturned, a seal of paint and dust left untouched, sitting in a fine layer over the handle and jamb, but when you go to turn it, it will not budge. You know it is the turret room, surrounded by solid oak windows, that lives at the front of the house, and you also have a sneaking suspicion that it was not Robin who kept it from your interrogation. 

You never feel the shift in pressure. You never see the redistribution of dust settled. You are the only one haunting this space tonight, and you wonder what secrets the other one hides. 

+

They’re always hopeful. Always wanting to be proven right, that their assumptions of the supernatural are correct, and someone will validate them so they can feel less wrong for suggesting it in the first place. 

“Anything?” She asks, still smelling of black coffee and a sneaky morning cigarette covered by something more expensive. 

“Not yet,” you shrug, watching the dust swirl in the gilded light of morning. It’s still hard to not superimpose them into the space, a flash of golden brown hair in the sunlight, that pretty man through a sheen of white linen. 

You watch the inevitable slump of her shoulders, the tinge of doubt and disease creep into her voice, and, again, you must remind yourself that reassurance is for the living. 

“But again,” You continue, before she can make any hasty decision about your employment contract, “It’s only the first night. He might be sussing me out. Sometimes they get shy once they realize I’m here for them.” 

“He was never shy.” She laughed, the lilt at the end of her scratchy voice feeling a little too humorless.  

“There were some pictures, lots of you guys, lots of him.” You stand, making your way to the walnut buffet where you had meticulously spent the night dusting the frames– removing the dirt and fog from times that were once real. “Can you tell me anything about these?”

She picks one up in her hands, her long, delicate fingers grasping it to her palm like it was precious. You can see her place herself back in the moment, smell the grass and the dew from the rain days prior. You know she is in a different place that exists only where he is still alive. 

“I’m sure you know about the earthquake.” She nods, and you do. It was the kind of lore that sets towns like these into stone, a crack in the earth that split and swallowed half of the city– the kind of thing that you could only see on television. Her red fingernail clicks as it runs over the glass, tracing over a boy with long hair and kind eyes. The kind of boy you’d see in a band. 

“It was a long couple of months for all of us. We lost a couple of really good friends during that.” 

One by one, she goes through them, a younger man with a mop of curls and a cheesy smile, tall and gangly boys all lanky with the marks of adolescence leaving the body, but stuck in the in-between of not yet being men. Clad in graduation caps and with something akin to both relief and excitement in their eyes. 

Two girls, one with red hair and one cropped close to her head, smiling with arms slung over one another in the embrace of girlhood grown together. 

You learn their names, learn who they are, or who they could have been. Learn about the ones who didn’t make it. You piece together love through Steve’s eyes, learn about the blood of covenants that ran thick like rivers through his chest and breathed life into him. 

Steve was the kind of person who loved with everything he had, and Robin loved him with everything she had. 

“That’s got to be upsetting, dying the way he did. Going through that and then…” You find yourself speaking to feel the silence, catching your insensitivity as it hung stagnant in the air no longer than a moment before cutting yourself off, “Sorry.”

“No, you’re okay.” Robin shakes her head, “I just.. I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Do you think this is what he’s so mad about?”

“I always thought it was more of a tortured romantic thing. Steve was always the type.”

“Who is she?” You ask, pointing at another image. Steve and a girl, both in No Doubt concert t-shirts, sitting tangled in one another on a patchwork quilt on a lawn somewhere back west. 

“She was the love of his life.” Robin shrugged, like it had been obvious. It was obvious. “This is who the house was for. This was his dream.”

“But not hers?”

“I don’t think she knew what her dream was. They were going through this kind of weird separation. He was working on the green room when he fell.” Robin gestured towards it. You had passed it last night, the one with the white French doors and the warm olive tone. Of course, it had been where he died. 

“And he was alone?”

You knew immediately it was the wrong question to ask. Of course, he had been alone. You could feel the weight of guilt, both from Robin for a thing she couldn’t control and from yourself for being stupid enough to ask in the first place, that static hanging thick in the air for you to answer your own question with. 

“Yeah.” Robin choked, “I didn’t find him until I got back into town that night.”

+

Something felt different in the air tonight, and immediately you knew that he was here, and he was upset that you were here. There was a change in pressure, a disruption of silence, and suddenly you felt like you were not alone. 

You always hated the static buzzing of the EVP reader; it disrupted the silence more than you liked, but you were determined to see what he had to say. Sometimes you wondered how they heard it from their side, the rapid flipping through frequencies. Sometimes you equated it to the way a silent whistle bothered a dog, with the way you felt that kind of grating settle between your shoulder blades. But he was here, and you needed answers. 

“…Go…” It said, almost immediately after you flipped it on, and you kept your face trained into complete calm. You would not invite him to scare you, you would not let him drive you out without at least forcing him to talk. 

“I’m sure you’d like that, huh, Steve?” You called out into the open expanse of night, your boots heavy as they thud across the antique wooden floors. 

You waited a few minutes, the frequencies flipping through their high-pitched tenor without another word from him. 

“What about Dustin, Steve?” You asked again, walking to the credenza to flip the picture up, that same mop-headed boy still lanky with adolescence, except now in a suit and standing with a raven-haired girl in a white gown, “Robin said he got married, she told me he saved you a seat at his wedding, and that it was beautiful.”

And she had, earlier today, through those same lingering tears. She said that Dustin had been the most devastated by his death. That he had been the closest to Steve, second to her.

“Why are you so angry?” You ask, unable to keep the annoyance out of your voice. “Is it because life went on, Steve? Because you think people forgot about you? Because they didn’t.”

You hold your arms out, gesturing for him to argue with you. You could understand his anger with death. Only those who had died could feel what it was like. You had never been cross with their anger, having never known death, but you couldn’t fathom why when he was so, so… loved. When this many people cherished him. 

“She told me that you were his best man. That he left your picture at the altar so you could still stand with him.” 

The frame snaps back down on to it’s face with a vigor so violent that it rattles the brass hangers on the credenza. You almost want to check to see if the glass had shattered, but you had so much energy that you needed to keep talking.

“… Suzie…” That same voice comes back through the EVP reader, more howling with a forlorn nature that only the dead could possess. 

“Yes, Suzie is Dustin’s wife. I know you knew her.” You try to lighten up your voice, try not to project your own feelings onto him. You would not allow yourself to be a vessel for him to feed from. Not allow him your peace of energy– not if he was as hostile as he was proving to be. 

You run your hands over your arms. The room is disgustingly cold, that ugly feeling of aloneness and being watched creeping up your spine. This part never got better, but it was your cross to bear. It was your job to find answers and help everyone finally find some peace. So here you would sit, shivering and uneasy, if it meant that the poor woman who called you as a last-ditch effort could stop feeling like she was the reason her best friend was dead. 

“You can’t scare me with a tantrum, Steve. I’m trying to help you. Robin is trying to help you.”

“Tell me who she is, Steve.” You flip another picture up, the one with the girl at the No Doubt concert, “Tell me about her.”

You gasp out loud as you feel the stinging over your shoulder and down your arm. Almost at the same time that the frame snaps back down onto its face. Blood seeps slowly down from the deep gashes that have opened on your shoulder and drips down onto the hardwood.

+

“Thanks for helping me finally go through all this stuff.” Robin says, sympathy heavy in her voice as her eyes flicker over the gauze patches taped to your arm. She had been so apologetic, as if it had been an untrained dog scratching you and not a grown man conscious of making his own decisions. 

“Maybe there’s something that can help us.” You shrug, as nonchalantly as possible, a silent I don’t blame you for this. 

A thick plume of dust swirls through the turret room like glitter through the sunlight as she pulls back a drop cloth. Beneath lies an antique green steamer truck, lined with brass rivets and a manufacturer’s label still stuck to the side. The heavy clank of the latches echoes off the walls of the octagon that you stand in the middle of, and Robin gasps. 

“Oh god.” Robin chokes, covering her mouth. You place a hand on her shoulder to reassure her that she absolutely does not need to apologize again for crying, as she had several times this morning.  

“This is good. This can help.” You nod, dropping to your knees, neck to her, to sift through some pictures. All ink-blotted and charcoal-smeared renderings of him at all angles, the softness that only the watchful diligence of a wife could capture. Most with him in small reading glasses with a pencil clutched delicately between fingers. Some of them bend over a geranium shrub. Some half-finished and smeared with the movement of laughter and love and all things radiant. 

“She did these– the… the fiancée.” Robin sniffled, frantically wiping at the stream still pouring from her eyes, “ There were so many of them through the house that I just gathered all of them up and shoved them in here and forgot about them. At the funeral she… I don’t think she knew how to process it. She kind of just shut down.” 

“I-I don’t think she could handle it; she didn’t know how to be loved, and in turn she didn’t know how to love anyone back. It wasn’t her fault, but he was so, so hell-bent on making her love him back and she just… I don’t know.” 

Her face crumples again, and you try your best to hold her as she cries. Minutes pass this way, of Robin starting and stopping and sniffling again, and you let her do it, because you’ve seen grief in all of its faces. You’ve seen what it does to people, and this, you could tell, had been eating at her for a long, long time. 

“I told you I was a linguist for work.” She says finally, hugging her knees to her chest, “I speak nine languages. And there’s no way in no language to tell him how much I miss him.” 

And, then, suddenly, you see that dam break in her, that ugly thing called grief rearing its head and gashing its teeth and clawing through her ribs to get out. She is clutching at her chest and pounding on the floor like a child and screaming into oblivion, and you will watch, and you will understand. Because you know, in the loss of Steve, there was a piece of her that was lost, too. 

“I told you not to do that until I got back, not with the vertigo, dammit.” She thrashes, standing up and kicking the trunk with the toe of her leather boot. Her rage bounces off of the walls and cuts through the air so much that it stings. 

“You weren’t my Suzie.” The tears of back, angry and red and snotty, “Fuck! You weren’t my suzie, but you were my Steve, and I wasn’t supposed to do all of this by myself.” 

And then she throws herself back on the floor, her head back into her hands, and she curls her body so far inwards you think she might implode into stardust around you. 

“I wasn’t supposed to do this by myself.” She sobs into her hands, body shuddering in great waves. 

And you let her have this, watching the dust that has been settled for far to long swirl in great plumes around the disruption of this monster of grief. 

+

You go back to the turret room that night by yourself with all of your gear, but you stop yourself halfway through setting it up. 

Part of this job relied on gut feelings, and tonight, you knew that he wouldn’t be speaking. 

“You had people that loved you, you know.” You sit on the antique couch, crossing your legs in front of you. Not imposing, not demanding any sort of feedback, recall, or evidence. Just… talking into the open air. 

“I know that this anger and resentment that keeps you here and scares everyone away isn’t you. Not when you’re this loved.” 

You take a breath in, unsteady as it rattles its way to where it settles in your lungs, and you keep it there for just a beat too long, letting it burn for just a second to remind yourself that this is real. 

“I’ve never had someone who loved me like that. I think I was given this gift and this… awareness… to try to help you. But I can only help you if you want to help yourself.”

“But I think now we can both agree that it’s less about helping you and more about helping her.” 

You feel them before they track down your face, two solitary things. Single streams of hot silver burn their way down your cheeks as you continue through a shaking voice. 

“Because– and I think you know this better than anyone– the kind of love that Robin gives is the kind of love that you can’t find anywhere else. And I think that means more than a marriage that fell apart before it even started. I think it means more than your wasted time or your broken heart. Because I think now you’ve become so— so lost in that that you’re just a shitty, resentful ghost of the person you actually were. And you choose to continue to hurt her because it’s easier than just letting it go. And all I can do is prove that you’re real. I can’t change your mind. I can’t make you see. And I can’t make whoever she is love you in a way that was different.”

You sniff, scrubbing at your face violently as you look for the shape of him around the room, as you wait for the change in pressure or the snap of a frame or the slam of a door. You have no inkling that he is even still here when you speak again. 

“I think you need to rest now. I think it's time you let her rest, too.”

As you sit there and take in the house, you feel the sense of impending dread lighten, and whether it is that hardened spot in your own heart softening or the plume of him dissipating from this place, there is a dust that settles within you. 

You open the windows and doors, and you watch the dust swirl through the alabaster beams of light, and you know that it is over. 

The house gets finished. You know this because Robin had sent you a Christmas card from the front steps of the house, a show-variety Afghan hound standing upright on the porch signed neatly from Robin & Batman. 

"Too risky, Lieutenant Storm," said Wingfoot. "Let us wait and see whether those sails are friends or foes."

Swallowing his impatience, Johnny flew up to the crow's nest with a spyglass instead. "Colors?" he asked, lifting the spyglass to his eye.

"English," replied the lookout.

Johnny nodded, satisfied. True enough, the red and white were flying proudly from the other ship's main mast. Not that he would have balked had it flown the black... only he'd had enough of battles. The sea used to hold such wonders, but in the past four years, for Johnny, Lieutenant Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm of the Royal Navy, it had held nothing but cannonballs and blades and bullets and screaming men and blood. But no pirate ships would dare approach Nassau Harbor head-on like this, not now, not when he and his family, the Four of the Fantastic, were known to be protectors of the West Indies. There was comfort in that, at least.

"That would be Governor Evans's ship," Commander Wingfoot said once Johnny rejoined him on the quarterdeck.

"I should return for the welcoming party then," Johnny said. Sue would have his hide if he were late.

"Shall we await you for tonight's patrol, Lieutenant?" Wingfoot said.

As it always happened whenever Wingfoot showed deference towards him, a jab of shame pricked at Johnny. Even though Wingfoot's ship, the Marvel, was only a small eight-gun sloop, mostly used for reconnoiter missions and patrolling, Wingfoot still outranked him, and yet Wingfoot treated him as though Johnny were a captain and not a mere first lieutenant. All because Johnny was a member of the Four. If he was to have respect from the men, then Johnny wanted to earn it on his own merits, not simply because he could set himself on fire.

"Naturally," he told Wingfoot. "A festive occasion is no excuse to shirk my duties."

"And you'll pass the word to the Governor about the... disturbances we've heard?" Wingfoot said, a little more hesitantly.

Johnny understood the commander's doubts. In the past year or so, strange tales had been reaching them across the sea, tales of disappearances—merchant ships, fishing fleets, frigates, and even galleons, were discovered adrift with not a soul on board. All living things, from the crews down to the animals in the holds, had vanished as if swallowed by the depth, leaving only the empty husks of the ships. No one, not pirates nor navies, came forth to claim responsibility. To add to the mystery, these ships' cargoes were intact—if they had been attacked, why would the raiders leave the valuables behind? So far, no ships on this side of the trade route had had firsthand experience of them—the disappearances seemed to be concentrated on the other side of the world, along the South Seas, and stretching as far as Madagascar and even the Indian Ocean—but they were unsettling, to say the least, and almost too fantastical to be believed. And yet, wasn't the very existence of the Four proof that the ocean held far more strange and terrifying wonders than humans thought possible? Johnny, for his part, was inclined to believe those tales.

"Of course I shall ask him," Johnny assured Wingfoot. "Even if the Governor himself does not know, his captain or someone in the crew may have heard something."

After saluting the commander and nodding at the rest of the men, Johnny made his way back to Baxter House, the modest manor that stood in the shadow of the fort overlooking the harbor, which had served as the Four's home since they were first sent to Nassau. Though not as imposing as the Governor's Mansion, it had the advantage of being close to the water, which allowed them to keep an eye on the bay.

Johnny flew through the window, which had been kept clear of drapes after he accidentally burned them to ashes when they first arrived, and landed on the floor of his bedchamber.

"You're late," Ben's gruff voice came from the corner of the room, making Johnny jump out of his skin. And here he thought only his sister could sneak up on people. How did Ben manage it with his bulk?

"The Governor's ship has only been spotted on the horizon," Johnny said, once he'd regained his composure. "The Excelsior will have no trouble meeting her before she even reaches Hog Island." He turned around to face Ben. "Why are you here anyway?"

"Sue sent me to tell you that you're late." Ben's voice made it clear that he didn't appreciate being relegated to the role of a pageboy.

"I'm ready."

"Not until you put those on." Ben pointed to the dresser, where a navy jacket with gold trim and a periwig, freshly powdered, had been laid out by the valet. Ben himself was looking quite distinguished in a similar jacket, though he had forgone the wig.

Johnny wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Why should we have to dress up to go out to sea?" he asked, poking at the wig as though it would sprout wings and take flight. He was a Royal Navy man, dammit, not a beribboned fop.

"We're not just going out to sea," Ben said. "We're meeting the Lord Governor of the Bahamas and welcoming him to Nassau."

"Which we would not have to do if Reed took the governorship when they offered it to him," grumbled Johnny, shrugging on the heavy wool jacket. Adding the wig on top of that, and he would be a sweaty mess before they could even reach the ship. Surely, Sue would want them to be presentable when they met the Governor? Would he be able to use that as an excuse to forgo the wig? 

"Ha!" Ben snorted. "Can you imagine Reed as the governor?"

"He wouldn't have to govern anything," Johnny insisted. "He could be the face and let Sue make all the decisions, while he retreats to his workshop with his tools and machines. Everyone is happy."

"They wouldn't be. You know as well as I that Reed can never be the face of anything, nor would Sue hide behind anyone."

Johnny huffed. Ben was right. His brother-in-law could invent astonishing devices, but put him in a room with councilmen and politicians, and he would unwittingly start a war in his unending quest for the truth. As for his sister... well, those same councilmen and politicians had barely tolerated her presence on the ship; they would never go for her presence in the office. And, as Ben had said, Sue was no wallflower.

"You could be the governor then," Johnny said, seized by sudden inspiration.

"No one wants to be governed by a thing made out of rock, Johnny," Ben said, his voice tinged with bitterness that made Johnny instantly regret his quip.

"I would," he said earnestly. "And you could decree that no man should have to wear a wig ever again," he added with a grin, tossing the offending thing at Ben's head. No one expected Ben to wear a wig, of course.

"You can always say you accidentally set it on fire," Ben said, chuckling.

Johnny raised an eyebrow. Now that was an idea... Just as a little flame appeared on the tip of his finger, a blast from the door blew the wig out of the way. Johnny turned to find Sue, wearing a resplendent blue brocade gown and an irritated look on her face that he knew quite well.

"Stop dilly-dallying, both of you," she said sternly. "We're late."

Johnny wondered how long she had been standing there, and how much of his and Ben's discussion about the governorship she had heard. But there was no time to ask. As Sue swept downstairs, the flustered valet poked his head in and asked if Johnny needed any help getting dressed. Johnny waved the man away. He might be the youngest member of the Four, but he'd be damned if he let someone else dress him like a child. With a resigned air, he rammed the wig over his close-cropped blond hair and followed Ben out of the room.

Sue and Reed were already in the hall. Reed, in a navy jacket similar to Johnny and Ben's, was cradling Franklin, who seized Reed's dress sword in his chubby little fists and refused to let go. In one smooth movement, Sue gently extracted the sword from Franklin's grip, handed Franklin to the nurse waiting nearby, and buckled the sword on for Reed.

"I know, darling, I know," she said soothingly to Franklin, who was whimpering and trying to reach for the ribbons of her lace cap. "Mama and Papa have to go now, but we'll be back soon, all right? Be good and mind Sally."

She and Reed kissed the child's blond head, and Ben tapped Franklin on the chin with one rocky finger, before heading out the front door. Johnny was following when a furious yap stopped him in his tracks. He turned to find Herbie, their little white-and-tan terrier, running down the stairs, barking all the while as if calling for them to wait. Johnny scooped Herbie up before the dog could launch himself out the door.

"Not today, boy," he said. "We don't know if Lord Evans likes dogs or not, and we don't want to frighten him off."

Sally was already holding out her other arm with a long-suffering look, so Johnny handed Herbie over to her as well. Herbie immediately started licking Franklin's face. This had the double effect of making Franklin giggle and distracting Herbie at the same time, and the Four finally made it down the dock.

The Excelsior was waiting there, its blue-and-white trims gleaming under the Caribbean sun, its sails furled so the three masts rose like sentries, showing off the Four's pennant from the mizzen. It was the perfect day for sailing, the wind blowing true and steady from the southwest, but Reed had decided not to use the sails, to best demonstrate the Excelsior's power to the Lord Governor.

They boarded and took their usual positions—Reed and Sue on the quarterdeck, and Ben at the helm, while Johnny made his way into the boiler room in the bowels of the ship. Back on their first ship, the Fantastic, it had been Johnny's job to stay down there and make sure the furnaces were hot. He'd hated it, and he'd hated Reed for it. He admired his brother-in-law's genius, of course, but couldn't Reed have invented something that didn't require Johnny to confine himself in a hot, dark cell for hours on end, while the sea and the sky and all their wonders passed by overhead? Fortunately, in his design for the Excelsior, Reed had devised a mechanical system to convey the coal to the furnaces via pulleys, so now all Johnny had to do was shoot a bolt of fire from his hand to ignite the furnaces and wait for the rumble that signaled the wheels on either side of the ship had begun turning, and then he could join his family.

Here was the part Johnny loved the most—standing on deck with the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin, smelling the salt air, watching foam-flecked waves part before the bow of the ship and disappear into the turquoise water, so clear he could almost see down to its coral-filled bottom, feeling so free, as though he were weightless. Best of all, there was the discovery of new lands, new places, new beings. Everything else he could get while flying, but that anticipation, that promise, could only come with a long sea voyage. Alas, the anticipation was in short supply that day, as they were going no further than Hog Island. Still, there would be new people to meet—Johnny had heard that the Governor was bringing his family, including a rather attractive daughter—and there was the promise of learning more about the mysterious disappearances as well.

Soon, all too soon for Johnny's liking, the Governor's ship appeared from behind the headland of Hog Island. Reed signaled to it, Ben brought the Excelsior to a halt and steered it right alongside the other ship, and the Governor and his retinue were rowed across.

"Lord Evans, welcome to the Bahamas," Reed said, helping the Governor climb on deck.  

Governor Evans was a small, short, colorless sort of man. Even the plumed hat and heavy coat he was wearing added little to his height and bulk. His eyes, of an undetermined shade somewhere between brown and green, looked out dully from a shallow face, half-hidden under a silver wig and beaded with sweat. Johnny's attention, however, was on the young lady standing behind the Governor's back, all rosy cheeks and chestnut curls, her shy brown eyes fixed on him with great interest, and his disappointment with the short voyage faded considerably.

"Thank you, Commodore Richards." The Governor nodded at Reed, the ostrich plume on his hat trembling in the breeze.

"May I introduce—" Reed began, gesturing at Sue, Ben, and Johnny.

"No introduction necessary, Commodore," the Governor said, cutting him off. "Of course, we have heard about you and your family." He bent over Sue's hand and inclined his head at Ben and Johnny. "It's an honor meeting all of you." He looked around the ship, taking in the furled sails, the smokestack, and the wheels on the sides of the ship. "And this must be the famous Fantastic." In his eagerness, the Governor seemed to have forgotten to introduce his daughter.

Reed cleared his throat. "Uh, no," he said. "The Fantastic was our old ship. It was destroyed when we—"

"When you encountered the mysterious vortex that gave you your supernatural abilities, of course, of course!" the Governor exclaimed. "That was near Drake Passage, was it not? You were trying to circumnavigate the globe. I remember reading the report."

"Indeed." Reed looked slightly uncomfortable. It had been four years, and he still blamed himself for their accident. "But the Excelsior was built from the same design, only with certain modifications. Allow me to show you."

And off they went, Reed taking the Governor on a tour of the ship, rattling off facts about the paddle wheels, the furnaces, and the boilers, how they allowed the ship to travel without being dependent on the wind, how the pulley system helped to reduce the number of crew members, how the sails were still necessary, not just for extra propulsion but also to keep the ship even-keeled in rough seas, and how the specially-designed carriage of the cannons allowed them to fire faster, farther, and with more accuracy. They were followed by Sue, Ben, and the Governor's retinue, while Johnny trailed behind, glancing impatiently at the Governor's daughter. By the equally impatient look she gave him, it seemed Miss Evans had no interest in propulsion or pulleys, but as they could not talk to each other without being formally introduced first, there was little they could do.

"Wouldn't the smoke alert the enemy to your position?" the Governor was asking as he looked at the smokestack belching gray clouds into the sky.

"No more than the sight of sails does," Reed said. "In fact, the smoke can help to mask our movements and add an extra layer of protection."

"By the time the enemy spots us, it is nigh impossible to outrun us anyway," Ben added with pride.

Miss Evans piped up, "And even if they do, Lady Susan can always hide you with her shield of invisibility, can she not?"

Sue smiled at the girl's enthusiasm. "Yes, I can," she said, "but not for long."

Thankfully, the Governor remembered himself just then. "Oh, I do beg your pardon," he said. "Allow me to present my daughter, Dorothea. Dorothea, the Four of the Fantastic—Commodore Reed Richards, his wife, Lady Susan, her brother, Lieutenant Jonathan Storm, and Captain Benjamin Grimm."

Johnny didn't simply bend over Dorothea's hand as the Governor had with Sue. He lifted it to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckle, deepening the pink on the girl's cheeks. "Welcome to the Bahamas, Miss Evans," he said with his most charming smile. "Did you enjoy the voyage across the Atlantic?"

The blush on Dorothea's face was replaced by a peculiar shade of green that made her look, for a moment, just like her father. "I can't say that I have," she replied. "I was stuck abed with seasickness for most of the crossing, and when I wasn't, I was so frightened of running into pirates that I spent my days locked in my cabin."

Johnny deflated slightly. And here he had been hoping to talk to Miss Evans about all the sights she'd seen during her crossing of the Atlantic. He had made the same trip only once, five years ago, during their fateful voyage around the world, which they had never completed. Since then, they had been wasting away in the Bahamas, chasing pirates like England's hunting dogs, never going further than the Spanish Main and the Carolinas. Well, if he couldn't satisfy his thirst for seafaring with Miss Evans, then Johnny hoped that her father would announce that with the pirates more or less eradicated, the Four could retire and return to exploring.

What Lord Evans said only strengthened that hope.

"Now, now, Dorothea." The Governor patted his daughter's hand. "I told you, there are no more pirates in the Bahamas. The Four took care of that."

"But some of them escaped, did they not?" Dorothea said, her eyes wide. "I've read about them. Mole Man, and Namor the Mariner, and Captain Barracuda..."

"Mole Man and his people have taken the King's pardon, Barracuda is holed up in his hideout in the Carolinas, and Namor has not been seen for over a year," Johnny said in a reassuring voice. "Even his pod of leviathans has gone quiet."

"And what of—Galactus?" Dorothea asked, whispering as if afraid she might call up the pirate in question by speaking his name.

Johnny exchanged a look with his family. Even the Governor was watching them warily. Galactus—or Galan of Taa, as he used to be known, back when he had been but a humble privateer working for the Spanish crown, before he'd gone rogue and become the Devourer of Ships, the most fearsome pirate of the Bahamas—had been the Four's biggest foe, the hardest one to defeat. And, to own the truth, they hadn't defeated him, not definitely. When they faced him, it had only been a year after they gained their powers, and they had still been struggling with how to manage and master those powers. It had taken everything they had to destroy his flotilla, and Galactus himself had fled toward the South Seas on his flagship. Going to the South Seas meant facing Drake Passage once more, and who knew what would be waiting for them there this time? What if it should be something worse than the vortex that had given them their powers? So, in the end, Reed had balked at chasing Galactus down. With luck, Cape Horn might have claimed Galactus, his ship, and what remained of his crew already. This hope had grown in the past four years, when there had been no sights nor sound from the former Pirate King. Now Johnny told Miss Evans the same.

"Nassau is perfectly safe," he concluded. "You have nothing to worry about."

Miss Evans looked slightly comforted. "It seems I must thank you for that," she said, fluttering her lashes at him.

Johnny smiled modestly. "It's only my duties, Miss Evans." He was trying to think of a way to bring up the disappearances to the Governor without alarming her, when Dorothea asked, "Are you fond of dancing, Lieutenant?"

"Indeed, I am," Johnny said, brightening up at the change to a more lighthearted subject. He always felt slightly embarrassed to discuss their pirate hunting, the same way he felt when Commander Wingfoot deferred to him, that he didn't deserve the respect and admiration. "Alas, we haven't had much time for dancing in Nassau. But now that you're here, Miss Evans, I hope we might dance together soon."

"Oh yes, Papa, let's give a ball!" Dorothea cried out, clinging to her father's arm.

"All right, my dear, as soon as we're settled into the mansion," the Governor said with an indulgent smile. "We shall have balls and parties to your heart's content."

Dorothea squealed in delight and turned back to Johnny. "I hear you are an accomplished musician as well, Lieutenant," she said. "Shall we have the pleasure of listening to you play at one of these parties?"

Johnny smiled again, not so modestly this time. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that it would be his pleasure to play to such a welcoming audience, but just then, as if conjured up by Miss Evans's question, a snatch of singing floated to him over the expanse of blue.

There were no words in the singing, only voices, so faint that they sounded little more than a whisper in the wind. As soon as the singing reached Johnny's ears, the words he was about to say died on his lips, forgotten. His family, the Governor and his daughter, the crew, all vanished. He was no longer on the Excelsior, but on the Fantastic, on his first voyage across the Atlantic. One night, during that voyage, somewhere past Madeira, he'd stood on the deck, gazing at the sea, its black velvet surface matching the black velvet sky so perfectly that he could tell them apart only by the moonlight glittering on the water. In that moment, he'd felt as if he were the only living being in an immense world, yet at the same time, the world was so small, its horizon extending no further than the bow of the ship, and the velvety sky and the moonlit sea were close enough to touch. Everything was possible. Now, hearing that singing, he was back to that night, and that vast, welcoming sea was beckoning him...

A force pulled at his waist, and his back collided with something that felt like a solid brick wall, knocking the wind out of him.

"Easy there, Firefly," Ben said behind him.

Johnny became aware that he had drifted over to the starboard railing, and it was Ben who had pulled him back, saving him from tumbling into the sea.

"Did you hear it?" he asked.

Ben nodded, his eyes somber. Johnny looked at the others. Sue and Reed were looking the same as Ben, grave and wondering, while the Governor and his retinue, some with eyes still glazed over, were shaking their heads as if trying to dislodge cobwebs in their minds. Whatever the singing was, it had had a strange effect on them all. Even though the music had stopped, Johnny could feel the longing for the sea still in his heart, tugging at him, and he could hear the melody lingering in the back of his mind, like a dream that faded upon waking but never completely disappeared.

"Lieutenant?" Dorothea said, looking frightened once more. "What just happened?"

"Excuse me," he said, shaking off Ben's grip.

He hurried past the others, ignoring their curious glances, and went toward the hatch. The moment he opened it, Herbie flew out in a white-and-tan blur and ran straight into Dorothea's skirts.

"Herbie!" Ben's scream rang out, threatening to shake the Excelsior off its moorings. "What on Earth is he doing here?"

"I—I don't know," Johnny spluttered. "I could've sworn I left him with Sally!" But they both knew the little dog could be as stealthy as Sue when he wanted. And as fast as Johnny, as flexible as Reed, and as strong as Ben, too.

Dorothea didn't care about any of that. Bending down, she picked Herbie up and started petting and cooing over him, her fear over the strange singing gone. Giving Herbie a silent thank for the distraction, Johnny slipped belowdecks and made his way into his small cabin.

Ignoring the chaos of clothes, maps, charts, bits of ropes, and even ribbons, silk flowers, and fans—mementos of his many romantic conquests—Johnny found a quill, the inkwell, and a bit of paper. With the strange music still fresh in his mind, he scratched down the melody as quickly as he could. He was hardly aware of what he was writing, only focused on committing the memory to paper before it vanished, as though those disembodied voices were dictating it to him and compelling him at the same time.

Only it was done did Johnny turn his attention back to the mess. It took him a moment or two of digging before he located what he was looking for—another sheet of paper, filled with similarly hasty scrawls of music notations. Even before he held the two sheets up for comparison, he knew they were similar in more ways than just the speed at which they had been written. The notes were the same. And back in his room in Nassau, there were more music sheets filled with the same notes, the same melody.

For nearly a year, Johnny had been hearing that singing coming from the sea—while he was on patrol, while he went on supply runs to other islands, and even on sleepless nights, when he opened his window hoping to catch a cool breeze to disperse the stifling tropical heat. It was always the same melody. There were variations here and there, but the leitmotif remained constant. There were never any words in it, only voices, so distant and ethereal that the first time he'd heard it, Johnny hadn't been sure if they were real voices or simply the wind. He had even tried to recreate the melody himself, but his violin could not compare to those voices. And there was always, always that sense of longing, sometimes so acute that it completely took over his mind, as it had just then, other times just a passing feeling, like smelling lavender and remembering the same scent of his mother's sachets.

What magic did those voices possess to affect him so? Did it have anything to do with those disappearances in the South? The singing had started shortly after reports of the disappearances had reached Nassau. Could it be that people had heard the same singing and were ensorcelled by it into abandoning their ships? And where did the singing come from? Who did those voices belong to? What did they want? There were times when, as soon as he heard them, Johnny had jumped to the sky and raced toward the music, only for it to be drowned by the rushing of air in his ears, and he was left hovering in the sky, lost and bereft. Now he sat staring at the music sheets, trying to discern the secret hidden between the staves. The sheets stared back, mocking him with their impervious black marks, until he was forced to give up with a sigh and rejoined the others on the upper deck, as the Excelsior made its way back to Nassau. Just another mystery of the sea that he was not allowed to explore.

Chapter 2

"Four dollars," Jeff Williams says, pushing four dollar bills across the counter at Steve. Steve just keeps his arms crossed. 

Steve can see Eddie Munson's van in the parking lot, and he's not an idiot.

"Where's the rest of it?" Steve demands.

"I owe more than four dollars?" Jeff asks, and Steve tilts his head back, sighing.

"No. They do."

Jeff turns and looks out the plate glass windows. 

"Uh, I don't know them?" Jeff says, voice lilting up, as if he's not really sure about that statement.

"Sure you don't," Steve answers, finally grabbing the four dollars, and shoving them into the register. Moving over to the computer, and pulling up Jeff's accounting. Marking it as paid in full, begrudgingly. 

Jeff taps the two tapes on the counter, and Steve rents them to him. Even if he doesn't want to. Even if he knows exactly what they're doing. 

The note is wedged under the BMW's wiper blade. It's just a crude drawing of a VHS tape and an address. Steve knows it's them. Knows he shouldn't even care what the freaks are up to, but he's curious. Sue him. 

He parks in front of the house, and Eddie Munson is waiting in front of the garage, smoking. Steve saunters towards him, and Eddie pulls up the garage door, letting Steve duck under. It's all dark, and Steve suddenly feels a gnawing pit in his stomach that he's been set up. 

Eddie makes no sudden movements though, and just presses his finger to his lips, telling Steve to be quiet.

He opens the back door, and there's an immediate set of stairs leading into the basement. Steve follows him, careful to be light on his feet, and down there are three other guys and a lot of video tapes.

One of them is sitting in front of a double-VCR set-up.

"If you wipe those fees, Goodie said you can borrow anything you want," Eddie says, and Steve scoffs. Who's Goodie? Well, Charles Goodwin, he supposes. Doesn't matter. Steve works at the video store. He can already borrow anything he wants for free, and in better quality than a bootleg.

But he looks closer. And they have things that they didn't get from Family Video. Hardcore things.

"Where'd you even get these?" Steve asks, and Eddie taps a case.

"Indy," he says, "we've got accounts all over."

"And you're selling them?" Steve asks, and Eddie laughs.

"You know how long it'd take to make multiple copies? No way. This is for our own personal enjoyment. And we'd share, if we can strike a deal."

Steve looks at him, studying his face, seeing if he's bullshitting or not. Eddie's a freak, and Steve has no business trusting a word he says.

But.

"You don't want pornos? Fine. Quarter of weed a month," Eddie offers. "You wipe our fees, keep us in tapes, and I'll keep you stocked."

Steve thinks about it. Then, he demands: "Four sleeping pills a week."

Eddie doesn't react for a moment, then says: "Two."

"Three," Steve counters, and Eddie sticks out his hand. Steve shakes it.

Between the headaches and the nightmares, three good nights of sleep a week is well worth making a deal with Eddie Munson.

April 1986

Steve turns the key in the lock. Somehow, Family Video is still standing. He boots up the computer, and slowly types: Eddie Munson.

When Eddie's account comes up, it's mostly squeaky clean. Steve had made sure of it. Their deal really saved his ass over the last few months. There's a lone dollar fee for not rewinding the last tape he'd rented. Steve deletes it. He also marks the two movies that are currently late as returned, before moving the account to inactive. 

Then, he scrolls through Eddie's account history. Like he's going to learn something new about him from the tapes he'd rented. Unfortunately, he doesn't.

Steve's not sure when, or if, Hawkins is going to be normal enough for renting videos, but if it does bounce back? Well, nobody needs anything else to dig into about Eddie.

"You're here earlier than we planned. Whatcha doin'?" Robin asks, waltzing through the front door.

"Just some housekeeping," Steve says, and clicks back to the main screen. Planting his elbows on the counter, leaning over. He yawns. He's not sleeping well. Again.

"Ready to board this bitch up?" Robins asks. Keith fled or is dead. They don't know which, and Steve nods.

When they leave, Eddie's friends are loitering around Steve's car.

"Here," Gareth says, pressing a baggie into his palm. 

Three pills. 

"A deal's a deal."

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @corrodedcoffinfest and follow along with the fun! 🦇

Note: Does this follow S4 canon? Or is Eddie just over there healing? Whatever you prefer.