John's Lawn

“Well if it isn’t the man of the hour. How ya feeling man?” I asked Terry as I saw him slowly make his way out of his room, “Megami awake yet?”

“I feel like shit, can’t you tell by looking at me?”

I gave him a once over and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, “Don’t tell me, you got some new concealer to hide your blemishes? I didn’t know they made any that pale.”

“Guess I feel worse than I look. As for Megami, she’s still out cold, but breathing.” He paused, then shook his head, “Why was she in my bed?”

“Doc said it’d be easier for him—”

He rubbed his temples, “No no no I get that. What I wanna know is, why was I on the ground?”

“Alright, now that, I don’t have an answer for. Maybe the doc has the hots for Megami or something, or maybe he’s some creep who fantasizes about dissecting people. Fuck if I know man.” I threw my hands in the air as we made our way to the couch, “Speaking of dissections, you two were pretty fucked up when you got here, what the hell happened? All Sepratine and Rachel knew is they found you at Rachel’s doorstep, anything before that is completely—” 

Terry’s phone started ringing, he hesitated until I made a gesture that could’ve only meant, “Come on just pick it up so we can continue what we were talking about.” I think he understood for the most part. 

“Terry’s residence, this is Terry speaking.” I silently willed him to put his phone on speaker as he continued, “Yeah, I’ve been a bit busy… personal stuff you know how it goes… Wait what?… There’s no fucking way!” I could tell his rage was legitimate when static began sounding in the back of my mind, “I am calm!” He definitely was NOT, the static had begun to pick up in volume, “Listen, wh-… Yeah I know, just hear me out. I know where she was, I saw her hideout. We don’t have much time before she changes location… Can I count on you for some assistance this time around?… I appreciate it, I need to make some phone calls so I’ll see you tonight.” Clicking the hang-up button, he tossed his phone onto the coffee table.

“Who was that?”

“No one you know, but they’ll be here tonight. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Nope! We aren’t doing this bit, tell me what happened right now, I don’t care what happens, I’m GOing to help. I can actually moderately handle Chad’s workout now, so I guarantee I can be of some use. You helped me, so now it’s time for me to repay the favor.” I literally stood from the couch to hold my ground, but Terry simply let out a sigh.

“Man, you can be a real child sometimes. It’s Maerod, she, or they, whatever you wanna call her, them… did this to us. She caught us off guard somehow. It’s just one of her abilities, she can sap someone’s soul from them, and it doesn’t exactly leak out of pores when it’s being forcefully sucked out of you. One moment we were trying to figure out if it was her, the next I’m waking up in my bed three weeks later. But overall this isn’t something you can help me with, you saw what she did to Megami and I. What do you think you could possibly do to help? I want to say you can help, but if you did you would just be another in a long list of her murders.”

Sitting back down, I didn’t have anything to say, he was completely right, if she was able to mess up Terry like she did; how was I supposed to do anything? Just because I had a little bit of training? The best case scenario would be her taking my soul. The worst case would be suffering an agonizing death. Neither option was what you would consider ideal. But I couldn’t let him almost die on his own. Why did he care about taking her out so much anyway?

“I’m still confused as to why you hate Maerod so much. Does it have something to do with your falling out? Why are you putting yourself and your friends through all of this?” I just wanted answers, and he told me all those months ago he would give me them if I asked.

“Joseph, I know you want the truth, but I can only tell you so much. The main thing being that she’s the reason I stopped working for other entities. The cause for it… well, I don’t know if I’m ready to share that with anyone yet. The last thing I told ended up dying, and I’m worried it’s gonna happen again. Call me superstitious, but it seems anything I’ve told dies.”

“Given who you are, I think it’s fair to be a little stitious.” Realizing I’d interrupted, I gestured for him to continue.

“She’s the one who’s been pulling the strings. She put together the shadow government, and even has people inside the real government. I know what I’ve said in the past, but this is just one of those things I never thought would come up. I can’t give you all of the answers you want this time.”

“I-I’ll stop pressing, I understand. Do you have anywhere to be?”

Before Terry could respond, a groaning could be heard coming from Terry’s room. We turned our heads to see Megami stumbling out the door, hair everywhere as she headed to the bathroom, “Yeah Terry, have you called anyone to pick us up yet?”

“Yeah, I talked to David, he’ll be here later.”

I joined back into the conversation, “Why do all the male entities have such normal names, but then the others are like Megami, Sepratine, and Maerod? Seriously whatever happened to all those cool ass latin names?”

“Is that really what you’re asking right now? Why does Terry even keep you around?” It was clearly a rhetorical question, but it didn’t sound as insulting as I expected.

“Well I am going to make some calls. Megami I need you to stay here until David arrives, you’ll be coming with me.” Terry headed to his room and closed the door behind him. Megami shut the bathroom door behind her, starting the shower, and I just sat there on the couch to absorb everything while I put on a show.

So many things were swimming in my mind, fighting for first place. There must’ve been some deeper reason as to why he couldn’t tell me much about Maerod, some alternative reasoning. But what was it? Sure, Terry and I are friends, but was it really just that he didn’t want me getting hurt? Could it be that simple? What did Megami have to do with all of this? Why were they dropped at Rachel’s door? How could Maerod have known where she even lived? What ended up winning was, why was Terry so hellbent on taking her down? There were so many questions, but it was unlikely I would get any of them answered. Not by Terry anyway.

Megami came out of the shower and I realized I’d been sitting and staring at the black screen of the TV for nearly an hour thinking everything over. I had the controller in hand, but I forgot to actually press the power button, “Well, do you have any food here? I haven’t really eaten in a little while.” She sounded almost like she was contemptuous with my existence. It was terrifying to say the least.

“U-Uh yeah. We have some stuff in the fridge, I can make something if you’d like. I’m kind of hungry myself.” Thanks to the meal prepping I had been doing with Chad, I had actually learned far more than I expected to about cooking. He was the last person I expected to be taking culinary classes from, “Don’t sirens eat humans or something? That’s why you would lure men to their deaths right?” I asked as I headed to the kitchen.

“No, not at all. We tend to eat seafood. We would only eat the sailors if we hadn’t eaten anything in days. That in itself was rare, but did happen from time to time. We never intended to lure anyone in with our songs, but once we had learned that we could, it began a practice in the art of mind and matter manipulation through sound waves.” I finished pulling out the chicken breasts from the fridge, and began getting the pan ready “Though, the matter manipulation hasn’t worked as planned, not yet anyway. Back at the bunker, all I did was concentrate the sound waves just enough to cut the metal. It’s exhausting, but useful when you don’t want to waste all of your spiritual power fighting a single being.”

Throwing the chicken on an oiled pan, I began prepping the asparagus, “How does all that spiritual power stuff even work? I mean, it seems like scientists would’ve discovered whatever energy it is by now. Is it all hush hush or something?” I was ecstatic to finally be getting some answers.

She began picking at her nails, “I don’t quite know, I guess some just have that potential from when they’re born or made. Rachel or Sepratine may have the answers to that, but that isn’t my area of expertise.” She trailed off like she was getting bored of the topic, “Is that food almost done? I’m starving over here.”

“I just got started on it, calm your tits and just give me some time. You can’t rush art.” Throwing the asparagus in the oven, I got a larger pan for two more chicken breasts.

“If that’s what you call art, I can’t imagine what you’d call real art.”

Terry appeared from around the corner, entering the kitchen, “Something smells good. Got any for me?”

“How can you even?… You know what nevermind, just going to put a pin in that for later. Yeah, I’ve already got yours on the pan, just sit down and wait patiently with Bitchpants McCrabby over there.”

“Filthy thinskin.” Megami retorted.

“Excuse me?”

Terry elaborated, “It’s a derogatory term for humans.”

I flipped off Megami and began prepping the rice.

——————————–

Once I had finally finished making everything, Megami let out a groan, “It’s about time, I was thinking our ride would get here before you finished.”

“Yeah yeah, dig in and all that.” I turned around to get the salt and pepper shakers for them, but as I turned back around, Terry’s food was already gone. “Yeah, I think I’m just going to have to accept that I will never see anything go into you now. I only now realize how weird that sounds.” Despite my embarrassment, they were ignoring me, apparently deep into a conversation. In such a short amount of time too, “Ahem, you’re welcome?”

“Yeah, thanks.” They said in unison, before going back to their conversation. It seemed like they were discussing something about their plans to take on Maerod, or something like that anyway. I wasn’t paying too much attention since I still had to sit to eat my own meal. When I finally sat down to eat, I decided to listen in more on their conversation.

Terry had just started talking, “So I’m thinking the best course of action would be to let the Marines lead us in. Since the government refuses to let us take her down on our own and. If they lead they can take the brunt of the attacks, while alerting us to anything that’s there.”

Megami responded, “It will be nice having some cannon fodder this time. Does that mean we’ll be bringing the Doctor along with us?” She asked with mild disgust.

“Yeah, we’ll need him to make sure no one dies this time. Though he can’t really revitalize a soul, so I think it would be best to bring Rachel with us too.”

“Speaking of Rachel… Does that mean we will be bringing Sepratine along as well?”

“No, considering who we’re going with, it wouldn’t be the best idea to bring her along. Also, Abraham won’t be accompanying us either, he’s been held up with a side project for the government so he said he can’t make it.” He said it so casually, had someone been listening to the conversation out of context, it could’ve been mistaken for a normal exchange between friends.

“And the brute?”

“He’ll be looking after Joseph. When we get there, there’s no guarantee he’s going to be safe. Hell, I’m not certain he’s safe here, but since you and I are here, not to mention everyone that lives in the complex, whatever she’s planning will have to wait.”

“If I may?” I interjected, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m just curious about a couple things.” Megami let out an agitated sigh, “Hey I made you food, calm down. If Maerod is planning something, and she has her eyes on killing me, why are you talking about all of this out in the open?”

“Well, it’s more that she has eyes on killing anyone and everyone connected to me. Why she chose now to do it, I’m not sure. But I knew it was coming eventually so I already had plans for this. Adding one more piece to my plan doesn’t mess anything up though. I had already planned on leaving Chad at his place, so you aren’t messing anything up.” Terry finished.

“I think I might know why. Maybe, now stop me if I’m wrong, but just maybe, hear me out now, cause I think this may be a possibility. MAYBE it’s because you and Megami were scouting her out?” Neither of them said anything for a moment.

“You didn’t tell him why we were scoping her out did you?” Megami asked rhetorically.

“Call it aaaaa…” he paused briefly, “Slip of the mind?”

“Oh for fucks sake Terry! Listen, Joseph, ever since the raid on that bunker, she’s had scouts looking over everyone Terry has ties to. Anyone she’s able to anyway. It’s like being able to track someone through their body heat, but she’s able to see their exact location and movements. That’s our guess anyway. Rachel is able to see souls as well as the energy produced by abilities of other entities, she’s also able to manipulate this energy. She tried cutting the spiritual ties that each of us have but it’s no use. She told us that they appeared after meeting certain people, following the raid on the bunker. Apparently you had one before anyone, even before the bunker, but she just figured your spirit was stronger than the average human. But then the same energy began appearing on everyone else. After we were attacked by Maerod while trying to spy on her, Rachel had determined they were some sort of tracker.” Terry stopped her.

“The only reason we figured out it was her to begin with was Rachel’s description of the energy. That, paired with the information I got from Tucker basically confirmed my suspicions.”

“Man, that is a lot more than I expected to get-” There was a knock on the door, “That for you two?” I asked.

“That one must be Chad, that’s for you.” Terry said seemingly thankful, “Come on in, the door’s open!” He yelled towards the door.

I headed to my room to grab a few safety precautions before I could see if it really was him or not. Ninjato? Check. Future pistol? Check. Emergency paranormal drugs? Check. Also the bare necessities like phone, wallet, Terry resistant earplugs, you get the jist. I got some clothes ready since I didn’t know how long the whole thing would last, and finally, the mythril vest Abraham put on my tab. As his message put it, I’m “likely going to need it again soon.” so he’s letting me keep it and I can pay him back once I can actually manage a job.

“Chad, you ready… to… go? Where is he?” I asked, not really noticing anything out of the ordinary.

A new voice answered me, but I couldn’t quite place the accent, “No, that meathead isn’t here yet. I’m David. You’re Joseph I presume?”

“That’s great and all, but I don’t see you. Are you invisible?”

Terry answered, “He’s a huldufolk, so technically yes, he is invisible. But also no. It’s similar to the military’s camouflage. He’s just invisible to human perceived light.” There was another knock at the door, “Now that must be Chad.” Before he could open the door, Chad burst through it.

“The man of the hour has arrived. Joseph you ready to dip or what man? I am going to kill you with this workout I have planned for us.” He paused for a moment, “Uh, cinematically of course.”

“You mean metaphorically?” I asked.

“Hey Don’t argue semantics with me bro.”

“That’s not how you use that wor— You know what? Nevermind. Yeah let’s head out. Terry, if you come back dead, I’m gonna kill you. Just try to come back in one piece.” I waved as I headed out the door, and he gave me a thumbs up.

We got into Chad’s car and left. It felt strange, just leaving Terry and everyone else to quite possibly die trying to protect everyone. I know he understands he can’t take on Maerod by himself, but it seems like backwards thinking to take his friends to what may be their deaths to try and prevent their deaths. But I guess, if they would die regardless, might as well go down fighting right? Chad interrupted my train of thought, “You alright dude? You look like you’re about to put down the puppy you just got.”

I suppose it wasn’t the only thing that felt strange. Chad actually sounded concerned, “Yeah, guess I’m just lost in my head. Worried about all of them; you know?”

“You know, we aren’t letting them go it alone right? I said I’d just go along with it, but you and I both know they may die there. We still need to drop by my place for a few things. But dude, I’m not gonna let them take that chance alone. If you’re in, then come with me. Otherwise I can leave you at the house. I know you’re human, that’s why I’m like, givin’ you this choice.”

“I mean, I’m not letting you go without some back up. I picked up a few things as safety measures, so I’m good to go.”

“Sounds good bro, let’s do this.”