oracle urchin.

Pascal handed the young woman’s ID back to her after eyeing over it for a few seconds. He didn’t have much of a plan to give her too hard a time about ordering a soda, mostly because she was at least of age and he wouldn’t have to spend the next half hour telling her she needed to leave. “Soda,” he repeated, filling a bar glass with clear soda for Frankie. He set it in front of her on a coaster asking, “You a Girl Scout or something?” 

His expression soured ass he looked over toward the unfortunate corner where the karaoke machine had been on full blast for the majority of the day. “Destruction by Joywave,” he answered almost instantly. “What’d you come up with.” He looked back over at the karaoke machine as another person queued up yet another insufferable Top 40 song. “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you take a turn at that thing and manage to break it.”

“Just someone with an attachment to their license,” Frankie replied as she took the drink he offered to her. “Like I said, the cops are going to be all over the roads -- they have been, if you haven’t noticed. I’m not about to risk it all over a half-off drink, though I appreciate the opportunity.”

Frankie took note of his less-than-enthused reaction as she mentioned the karaoke machine that had been going at least as long as she’d been there, and smiled at his readily supplied answer. “Take Me Out -- Franz Ferdinand. Perfect mix of being an underrated pick and an instant success. I won’t be taking any criticism on that.”

“Isn’t your grandma like… basically your mom? I didn’t realize we were getting so technical,” Remi responded, raising her brows only pretending to have been bothered by the correction. She drummed her fingernails on the countertop and quickly scanned their surroundings for anything  of apparent interest as she asked, “Then what did you do that was bad after the funeral?” 

“Well, you came and sat next to me, so that’s got to count for at least one bad decision,” Remi suggested, though she left it at the light joke. She didn’t want to push Frankie to do anything she wasn’t comfortable with.  When Frankie suggests alcohol didn’t taste good Remi leaned forward with enthusiasm. “Right? It’s what I imagine nail polish remover tastes like.” She shook her head at Frankie and corrected her. “More like I don’t have any friends to start with.”

Remi pouted and sighed. “Wow, why would you get me so excited and then just knock me down like that. How disappointing.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head quickly. “He’s got good taste in music, but based on what I’ve heard around town the list of pros stops there.”

“No, I meant her death was a boner-killer. And I think she’d probably agree with me. Shit, given the exciting events today we might even get a chance to ask her first hand.”

“I’ve never thought about her that way,” Frankie answered honestly, shrugging her shoulders. “But you’re right, no need to get caught up in the technicalities.” 

Instead, she smiled when Remi asked her what she did that was bad after the funeral, and gestured to their surroundings. “Got in my car and drove here, instead of staying home and minding my own fucking business, for one.” She ticked off a finger to represent her first bad decision, and then ticked off another with a laugh. “And yeah, came right over here and sat with you. So I should probably ditch the soda and switch it up for something a little more heavy duty, huh?”

“Most of the people in town just don’t like the idea of anyone coming in from the outside and doing something new. That’s why they all hate that British dude that’s building all those new houses and all the other shit. That being said, they might be right -- he might suck beyond the music.”

He shakes his head, his smile a little misplaced. It’s just - who the fuck would be out here, offering on-site counseling, after a body was stolen? Especially someone as horrifically unqualified as a guidance counselor. Honestly, the whole thing is laughable. There’s a million reasons that Rhett could make up, but he opts for the truth, this time. 

“Nah. Onsite counseling would be a disaster here, really. I’m just curious. Like, the body’s missing and no one knows what’s going on? Someone at the bar said the cameras glitched, it’s just… way too weird for me,” he shrugs. 

“What are you doing out here, wandering around? At least stand in the shadows, you’re basically asking to get arrested for trespassing,” a normal guidance counselor probably wouldn’t know that, but Rhett can’t help his instincts. He begrudgingly likes this redhead, as he does with most people who carry as much sarcasm as him. “You didn’t steal her body and return to the scene of the crime, right? Just checking.” 

“Someone said that the cameras glitched?” Frankie echoed, her brows furrowing as she looked at the older man. It made perfect sense -- how else would there be no evidence of when or how the body was moved -- but it hadn’t occurred to her. Specifically, it hadn’t really occurred to her that Mr. Kane would have camera installed inside the funeral home. She was admittedly embarrassed by her own small town mindset, and opted to keep that bit of oversight to herself. “Who told you that?” The benefit of that same aforementioned small town mindset was -- ideally! -- that Frankie might just have an idea of who the person was if she could get a name. And if she knew that much, it would be a hell of a lot more information than she’d anticipated getting when she’d left the house hours earlier.

Even though she was more than utterly deserving of it, she didn’t like the way that the other woman had a mind to respond with just as much venom as Marty had offered. In a way, it reminded Marty of herself, and she rarely liked people that made her self-reflect. It was much easier to snap at someone who didn’t like confrontation or even people who could volley it like banter, but if someone snapped back, it was usually a slippery slope to Marty seeing red.

“I haven’t had the pleasure.” She drawled, barely offering the other girl a side-glance. She was actually trying her best to behave, but she couldn’t help herself. “But I hear things.” It was true that Martha overheard a lot of conversation behind the bar at work, and sometimes her ears would play victim to people’s drunken confessions. Truthfully this girl hadn’t really come up often, but she wanted to get under her skin now. “And I heard it’s about time that old toad of yours croaked.” She still wasn’t looking at the other woman, but there was a faint hint of a smirk on her lips. How one could so easily tease about the death of a loved one was beyond most levels of comprehension, especially when Marty had lost two of her own. But the emptiness inside Martha thrived on moments like this, when adrenaline pumped fire through her veins.

Frankie could feel her heart beat accelerate in her chest after the other girl had deigned to bring Grams into the conversation -- really, who the fuck did the total stranger think she was? -- and she opened back up the refrigerated door in an effort to cool off. She even went to the effort of putting back the drink that she’d gotten, and looking over the display again, as if that would help distract her from the girl’s comment beside her, and her mention of “hearing things.” Frankie picked up the soda she’d had her hands on before, and asked in an edgy voice: “what sorts of things?”

Frankie did not need to wait long for the other girl’s answer, and it was all she could do not to reach out and shove her into one of the nearby shelves. It wasn’t just that she’d said something so unnecessary and cruel about Grams, who didn’t deserve to be talked about that way by someone random girl in the market, but it was that she’d done it so callously. She hadn’t even gone to the effort of looking over at Frankie when she’d said it. 

Rather than respond violently -- which was entirely out of character for the younger girl, though her body nonetheless tensed with -- she took advantage of the other girl’s apparent total lack of interest, and started to shake the soda in her hand. “Do you think it’s cute to walk around like some kind of hungover grim reaper?” Unsurprisingly, her comment had little effect on the other girl -- but Frankie was nonetheless satisfied with the amount of shaking she’d done, and called out “hey!” to elicit the older girl’s attention. 

     Patch is pretty sure his reason for being awake is the same as Frankie’s. But knowing and saying are entirely two different things and the latter involves diving far too deep into the already overthinking brain. Hence why the whole diner and pancakes thing. They’ll talk a lot but it’ll be about nothing, they’ll drink coffee, eat their weight in pancakes, and wait it out till the sun rises. It’s better than being alone and staring at the ceiling while laying in bed for hours. It makes the longest nights slip by quickly doing it this way. Patch is rather grateful for Frankie for that- But saying any of that out loud? Nope. Never.

“National compensation… Kinda saw it as a big dick measuring contest. Eiffel tower? Meh, that’s only one big thing- look at the dozens we have.” Patch doesn’t understand it. America in a way seemed like the toddler of the world who wants to play with the big kids but what grown ass countries want to deal with a child? Specially a child that punches itself in the face more often than someone else does. “Though, I like the weirdness of it. A temple is great and everything but- the world’s biggest rubber band ball has a nice ring, but I also wanna push it down a hill.” At the pancake question, Patch hums in agreement without much thought to it. “I’m feeling blueberry so- least we’re getting one of our five a day.” At the mention of ghost towns, Patch lays his menu flat on the table, fingers lacing over the top as he leans in. “Think I ended up in some void area of Youtube watching people explore them. The malls creeped me out the most. They’re just- entirely intact, there’s barely any dust, it’s like they could move everything back in and be open within a mere few hours. They’re like frozen pockets of time but- in the worst place.”

“Exactly! France has the Eiffel Tower, so we’re like: “fuck you, we’ll make something taller than that in every god damn city if we have to.” America has a centuries-old chip on the shoulder, except it’s not that many centuries compared to other countries, so it’s, like, an extra big chip. Or...” Frankie tried for a handful of moments to put together a more artful metaphor, but decided to settle on her first choice, and shrugged. “You get what I mean.”

Such righteous words spilled from Frankie’s mouth and stained the night air in a way that made the blonde’s skin crawl, and bubbled a laugh to her lips. Sharp, her shattered halo promising to slide in such things. “No, I plan to go in through the back. Weren’t we all?”

Closing the distance between herself and Frankie, it was easy to see the flickering flames in Chuck’s eyes. The ones that danced in hellfire, and desired to see destruction. But to tell where that destruction was directed, it wouldn’t be that clear. Rather Chuck had the kind of destruction that longed for anything that stepped into her path. “These are all quite virtuous words for someone caught slinking around in the shadows of a home where a woman up and left from the dead, Frankie. Enough about me don’t you think, what are you doing here?”

"Just like that?” Frankie asked, clearly unimpressed by the plan suggested by the younger girl. “Don’t you think that there have got to be like, at least five cops sitting inside just waiting for someone to be dumb enough to bust in?” That was what she wanted to believe, anyway -- the promise of a group of cops just waiting for someone to make the asshole move of breaking and entering was potentially enough to get her to turn around and walk back to her car: no harm, no foul. “You want to be the dumb one?” 

If Marty had been gifted the slightest hint of grace or decorum, she may have regretted starting so readily on the nearest target. Hell, she may have even apologised. But - gifted she was not. All sense of shame and self-reflection had been buried in the ground with her mother, and now, nearly fifteen years later, she was no one her mother would be proud of. However, it was a gloomy morning and her head hurt, so she didn’t have time for those kind of thoughts.

“Really? How hard is it to choose whether you want diet coke or full fat?” She grumbled, doing exactly what she could have done in the first place and moving around to access the drinks just on the other side of where the girl was standing. “Don’t you work in that old lady’s crackhouse?” She asked rudely, exaggerating the rumours that she’d heard about the elderly woman that ran some kind of ‘herbal’ shop.

“I guess how long it takes really isn’t your problem,” Frankie muttered, shifting her body to allow the other girl to pass as she moved around her. Reaching back into the refrigerated shelf, she pulled out an energy drink and remarked: “I think you’re thinking of sugar, not fat. You’re in the nutrition label ballpark, at least.” 

The comment about the apothecary turned a vague, tired irritation into full-blown agitation -- and Frankie promptly shut the glass door, and turned to look at the other girl with a scowl. “I’m sorry -- do I know you?” 

THE LONG GAME / tyler & frankie @oracleurchin

          “Doesn’t make sense at all,” he muses, frowning into his pint of beer as he takes a sip. “The cops are on it, though, aren’t they?”

          He’s been echoing similar words for the past thirty minutes or so to a number of different patrons, who each throw in their own two cents as to what happened to Josie’s body. A giant misunderstanding, a perverted prank, a zombie resurrection―evidently, not all the residents display the same sensibilities―to name a few. Tyler is a genuinely concerned, confused, but creeped out newcomer, who tentatively lingered at the back of the funeral crowd as a polite gesture of solidarity while the whole town mourned ―- that is the impression he gives, and he plays the part well. It’s exhausting work, though, and he’s more than ready to walk back home. And eat. And glare at his laptop screen as he figures out what to do next.

          He strolls over to the bar for his last refill, nearly stumbling as he tries to step around the gaggle of customers; fortunately, he manages to catch himself before anything disastrous involving their multiple cocktail glasses and his pressed clothes can happen. Frankie’s there, watching the whole ordeal.

          “Never seen this place so packed,” he remarks with a slight roll of his eyes, leaning on the counter, and finally flags down the bartender. “You doin’ alright?”

The easy, mindless mingling had been Frankie’s main purpose in coming out to the Conifer Lounge that evening. She wasn’t a drinker, and the promise of dollar drafts had done very little to entice her otherwise -- but after the events of the morning, she knew that the bar would be assuredly packed, and therefore a welcome distraction from the nonstop intrusive thoughts that’d plagued her since she and her Grandmother had left the funeral home earlier in the day. 

The bar had given what it promised: wall to wall Wadians, with a volume level that was sure to leave her hard of hearing when she eventually slipped out and back into her car. Unfortunately, it’d been unable to fully deliver on her hopes of a thorough distraction. Even as she perched on a barstool and watched the expansive crowd of bar-goers, she was chastising herself: do not get up. Do not leave. Finish your drink.

Frankie was thankful when Tyler stumbled his way into her line of sight: the familiar face was the exact diversion she needed to keep herself from leaving the bar.

Where: Conifer Lounge When: After 8 PM Who: Frankadank @oracleurchin​

Some bar patrons had been around all day while others were somehow still arriving even as the sun set on the town of Wade. Pascal certainly didn’t mind the business, but he would have been considerably less cranky on the whole if the din of gossip in the bar didn’t overcome the music on the pay-to-play digital jukebox he’d paid too much for. His shift was also supposed to have ended several hours prior as well, and other than a few moments in the back during which he’d put in load of dishes and had a single quiet moment to himself he hadn’t had a single break.

Couple all of that with the fact that his staff had decided today of all days sounded like a good time to leave their work ethic at home, Pascal was pretty hangry… not that his usual temperament was something worth writing home about. He squashed his sour mood deep down inside with the rest of his issues and approached the bar to meet Frankie. He passively asked her to show ID, he didn’t need anyone accidentally supplying to a minor on tonight of all nights when there almost had to be some of Wade finest in the crowd and offered only a quick nod of approval.

“What’ll it be?” he asked, pausing to give her time to order. He grabbed a glass after Frankie had picked her poison and then glanced across the countertop at her. “You’re here a lot later than the rest of the town, what was the hold up? You got something more interesting on your plate than Josie Johnson?” He hoped she did. There was no price he could possibly put on hearing someone talk about something other than Josie, or zombies, or Red, or vampires, or ghosts, or a hundred other conspiracy theories.  

By the time that Frankie had walked into the Conifer Lounge, it was in the midst of what she did not doubt had been an hours-long production of drinking, gossip, and horrific karaoke. The mock-speakeasy was far from what she’d consider her typical comfort zone for an evening out -- but after the morning the majority of townsfolk had gone through, she knew that it would be assuredly packed out. And with her own mind working overtime, she was in need of a little bit -- or a lot a bit -- of noise. 

As she approached the bar and handed over her ID -- which was a regular occurrence, given that half the time she was assumed to be younger than she was -- she recognized that the guy serving the drinks was the owner. When he asked her what she wanted to drink while hovering near the display of bottles, she answered: “just a soda for me.” Feeling the obligation to explain, she added: “I have my car, and I assume there are more cops out than usual, what with half the town getting a load on.” She wasn’t embarrassed of saying that she didn’t drink, but wasn’t interested in the inevitable response of “then why the hell are you at a bar?”

When he questioned what had taken her so long, she shrugged. After she and Maddie had parted ways, she’d gone back home -- she didn’t have a good reason for how she’d spent her day, short of overthinking herself into a migraine. "I was thinking really hard about what karaoke song would be the perfect mix of underrated and killer, and it took all day.”

“Wow, did you really just shrug me off? I’m not your mom, you’re not going to get in trouble if you tell me,” she laughed, but she didn’t press the issue. There were more than enough hours in Remi’s own week that she didn’t want to disclose to others. 

Remi propped her head in her hand as Frankie went on. Maybe she was on the straight and narrow since she wasn’t drinking? It wasn’t that Remi thought Frankie was trouble, but she seriously doubted she was devoutly sober.  “Yeah, I get that,” Remi agreed. “This is maybe… the third time I’ve been here. I don’t drink but I like the music the owner plays and I’m all about supporting a local business, but it’s not like I have friends to meet here or anything.” 

When Frankie asked if Remi had been around all afternoon, Remi shook her. head. “I’ve only been here, oh, maybe….”-she glanced at her glass to see how full it was-”two and a half sodas longer than you have? I just figured it might be better to come out for a while than sitting home alone but of course no one can talk about anything but Josie–which is a real boner killer… like for her. And me I guess. But mostly her.”

When Frankie commented on the barkeep’s spending habits she perked up slightly. “Ohhh, so like, Pascal is daddy?” 

“I don’t know if I would take that as gospel,” Remi responded. She’d spent enough nights awake watching old crime documentaries to take anything at face value. “People do all sorts of crazy shit–like totally innocent people will confess to murders or make up tips they call into the police. Maybe it was some sort of freak like that.”

“Can’t get in trouble with my mom either,” Frankie pointed out, offering a crooked grin to let the other girl know that the comment had been intended as a joke, albeit a dark one. “I don’t know, it’s been a long, weird day. I didn’t do anything good after leaving the funeral.” 

Frankie nodded when Remi explained that she didn’t drink. “I only drink after I’ve made at least two other bad decisions first. I will never understand anyone saying that it doesn’t taste horrible -- and the feeling just isn’t really for me.” When Remi mentioned that she didn’t have friends to meet at the bar, Frankie took note, and replied with an exploratory: “what, none of your friends want to come out and sing karaoke?”

A surprised laugh escaped Frankie at Remi’s inquiry about the bar owner, and she shook her head. “Yeah, I don’t know about that much. If you’d like to dig a little deeper and find out, I’ll happily watch from a safe distance.”

date: april 30th time: 11:37am location: walker’s family market status: open babey !!

To put it lightly, Martha is hungover. It’s not a feeling she’s stranger to and she’s definitely not cowardly enough to feel sorry for herself or swear she’ll never drink again, but lord, has it put her in a bad mood. Alright, perhaps that wasn’t so unusual either, but she was feeling particularly crabby and it seemed that people were being particularly annoying. The person, for example, standing in her way in the aisle. All she wanted was some damn kombucha. Could she have moved aside and walked around? Absolutely. Was she going to? Hell no. “Oh my God.” She couldn’t keep it in. “Can you move?”

Frankie hadn’t had a “good sleeping schedule” since about the seventh grade, but things had gotten progressively worse as of late. It wasn’t enough to just go for a drive after getting off a shift at Spins -- she was out and about for hours after work looking for something to distract herself with, and was only returning home to go to bed when she was too tired to think or keep her eyes open. That perpetual exhaustion was the reason why she was loitering in the mostly-empty refrigerated aisle of Walker’s, eyeing the available options for a drink that would give her a little pep to get through the morning and into the afternoon. 

The impatient girl complaining nearby did nothing for Frankie’s own, exhaustion-induced limited patience, and she gave an eye roll before turning her head to look at the agitated woman.

     “How are you not impressed by flying?” His brows furrow, completely unable to understand the lack of awe in regards to Mothman’s ability to flap his wings. At the mention of mothwomen, he takes a sip of his coffee and hums. “Where are the mothchildren? Maybe he’s a rogue mothperson, everyone else is doing D. B. Cooper and staying hidden?”

Patch begins to use the sauce bottles, napkin dispenser, and the salt and pepper to create a tower on the table. “Too cliche that even cliche itself would cringe at it.” He shakes his head, thinning his lips together as he does so placing the ketchup at the top of his makeshift diner tower. “Yeah, you have to actually talk to people to make a cult and that’s just way too much energy.” There’s probably a variety of other reasons but Patch sticks to that one.

The question has Patch reaching for his own menu to hide behind. He could tell the truth, that his mental health is in tatters and with that comes excruciating bouts that he has to drown himself in liquor in hopes he passes out. But… Patch would rather swallow the very fork on his side of the table than answer. As always, choosing to suffer in silence. “I started researching the biggest things in the world, and how America has a weird obsession with random big things. Like balls of yarn, wind chime, buffalo. How am I suppose to sleep knowing there’s a ball of yarn out there bigger than four of me? Impossible.”

Frankie lowered the menu just a little as Patch spoke, her blue eyes narrowed and observant as he explained the reason why he had been up that evening. She didn’t really believe the reason he offered up -- maybe it took one to know one, but she knew that wikipedia holes hadn’t ever been the real reason she was up all night. Frankie felt the lurching, gut instinct to call bullshit and pry deeper, but she forcibly ignored it. After all, if she called him out, he had every right to do the same thing to her. And what would she say, if he asked? 

Oh, you know -- just pondering if this is all there is and ever will be, and thinking about how fucking depressing that is.

Rather than chance the possibility of opening up that can of worms, she ducked back behind the menu and opted to co-sign his story. “It’s a national compensation tactic,” she commented. “Other countries have hundreds of years of history, culture, and national landmarks -- we’ve got a big fucking ball of yarn. Take that, Stonehenge. Oh --” interrupting herself, Frankie lowered the menu. “If I get one kind of pancakes and you get another kind, we can swap one, right?” Assuming her answer, she continued: “you know what keeps me up sometimes? Ghost towns. Not the wild west bullshit attractions, but the abandoned towns. There are like, 80 in Illinois alone.”

Pale blue bows in braided golden locks, twisting that image of innocence that dripped saccharine honeysuckle in her tone. A mouth made for prayer. Adorned in white lace, like a porcelain doll, paraded around. Oh how good she was they’d all say. Just like her father. With that smile of sin, that masked so well to saints. Sitting in the pews, stain glass dancing colours cascading to her pale features, under this light the iridescent halo could be seen on her head. Something holy. White knuckled grip on her bible.

Worship me. 

“Oh, aren’t I?” Her teeth glistening in the silver moon light, “I wanted to know if the rumours were true. Don’t you?”

“The rumors about what? The lady in your ghost story? No, I’m not interested.”  

Unlike Frankie, who found it challenging to reckon with the idea that she had come to the funeral home with a need for some kind of an answer; it was easy to assume that Chuck would have no qualms with busting in to the funeral home. Frankie could imagine her doing it on a regular Tuesday, missing body or no. She couldn’t buy into the idea that the younger girl had some kind of an investment into the disappearance of Mrs. Johnson’s body -- if anything, it was likely a source of macabre entertainment. 

He notices her relax slightly, which causes him to subconsciously relax himself. He has that habit, mimicking the energy and tone of others, whether he’s aware of it or not. The defensive posture she takes on is less than welcoming though, so he’s sure to not let his guard down. Nonetheless, he’s somewhat relieved that he’s not alone here. It’s reassuring to not be the only one curious about what’s going on.

“I live here now, isn’t that investment enough? I feel like I should be involved in whatever is going on this place. This my new home, I can’t just stand idly by as weird things happen.” It feels weird to him to justify his actions, he’s not used to it. “Yeah, I figure I can sneak in the back door or something. Y’know, when no one’s watching.”

"I don’t know, is it?” Admittedly, his speech about feeling some kind of obligation to his “new home” came across as convincing -- even though Frankie couldn’t necessarily imagine herself doing the same, had she picked up and moved somewhere else. Regardless, she couldn’t pick up any clear indicated that he was bullshitting, and so she opted to believe his story.

Sometimes Olivia would merely keep a safe emotional distance from everyone around her while keeping herself surrounded by people that would believe her lie. That day, however, seeing everyone come out of the funeral home with a shocked expression rather than a grieving one, the woman was glad she had decided to sit that one out. 

She leaned against a tree, on the other side of the road. Her eyes never left the crowd gathering outside, curiously watching. It wasn’t hard to eavesdrop a conversation between two PTA moms as they dramatically retold the story of Josie’s disappearing body. 

“Even funerals are strange in this town, huh,” Olivia commented.

When Fred Kane had come out and told the waiting crowd that they had to go home, it had taken no time at all for the shivering crowd to devolve into a pit of whispers. Mrs. Abbot had been predictably disinterested, and had bid her granddaughter to drive them back home -- which Frankie was only too happy to oblige. A brief interaction with a friend had caused Frankie to hang back a little while longer while the older of the two Abbot women left to go to the car, and when it finally came time for her to go, she was weaving her way through dens of gossip. 

Crossing the street didn’t help much, as the would-be mourners had spilt over and lingered on both sides of the road. Shoving her hands into her pockets and scowling, Frankie was determined to tune out the murmurs around her -- but fell just a little short. 

“Everything is usually excessively normal in this town,” Frankie commented to the other woman. “Soon enough, it’ll go back to being that way.”