And yeah he’d abandoned his buddies, that was too bad, that was a genuine bitch-kitty shame; he could feel guilty later.
Spencer reached a landing, saw another shining red EXIT sign, and hauled himself tottering to his feet. He staggered toward the door.
If this one was locked, he was fucked.
Understood and agreed. He’d cannonball back down the stairwell to break his neck, if that was his only other option.
It had no window, not that he would have had any way to break one.
Tucking his broken wrist against his chest, he leaned on the pushbar.
Nothing.
Fuckin’ nothing.
He pressed his forehead to the cool metal, eyes squeezed shut.
Okay.
Okay, fine then, fuck it.
Then, from the other side, he heard a grating, scraping rattle, and a heavy tumbler-click. The door juddered open, pulled as he still leaned against it. Spencer stumbled through, reeling, suddenly blinded by a splash of light like a bucketful of splash to the eyeballs.
Faceplant, which fuckin’ hurt, not that he could do much more damage to his face at this point.
“Spence? Holy shit, Spencer, what happened? Where’s the others?”
Beth?
Beth?
The fuck?
But, there she was, as he blinked his poor abused eyeballs into a more accustomed state for seeing. Beth, sliding her lockpicks back into her cell phone case, staring at him with an astounded expression.
“Beth…?”
“Jesus, Spencer, you look like homemade hell on a stick.”
“... doing here?”
“Looking for you retards, what else? Yeah, I was pissed, but did you think I’d stay pissed forever? You’re still my friends.”
He laughed, but it hurt.
She peered past him, down the stairs. “Did they not make it? Are you telling me you’re the Final Girl?”
Spence squinted up at her. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“In horror movies, dumbass. The Final Girl trope. The one who survives, the one who gets away.” She smirked at him. “You know, the good girl, the virgin.”
“Now wait just a damn minute,” he said, mustering the scraps of his dignity. “Anybody’s the Final-fuckin’-Girl around here, should’ve been Devon.”
“I know,” Beth said. “I thought it would be. But you left him behind, ran out on him to save your own scrawny ass.”
“Whuh…how did…?”
Her smirk widened to a triumphant smile, as a shimmering blue-green aura spread out around her. “But, you know what, Spencer Bodean? You’re still utterly fucked.”
Interlude #7
Of course, you just knew something like that was going to happen. It’s just the way these things work! The last-minute gotcha right at the end. When salvation and safety almost seem too good to be true.
Where’s the real Beth, you might wonder? Oh, she’s at home. Still plenty pissed at her friends, no matter what that mirage had to say.
She’ll stay pissed at them a while longer, until it’s obvious they’re missing.
Until it’s obvious other weird things are going on.
Like Troy Cahill jumping out his bedroom window, and the strange pictures found on his phone.
Like most of the men in town starting to act really distracted and strange.
Almost as if they’re addicted, hypnotized, obsessed.
And then it’ll start getting even weirder.
Remember, this was only the first phase. The summoning, the Call.
Once the succubus colony is established, thriving, and strong…once they’ve gathered and brought…stockpiled, and prepared…
Why, then it’s time for the next stage.
The incubus stage.
When the unsuspecting ladies of Fairmont get their turn.
We’ve met or heard of a few of them already. Beth’s mom, and Devon’s…little miss saving-it-for-marriage Cynthia-Lynne…the hot lesbian high-school French teacher…Hank Vilstreet’s wife…the evil Vivian Farcastle with her cigarettes…Beth herself…hell, Roxie the dog, why not…
Nothing like a whole host of surprise, unexpected, and even supposedly impossible pregnancies to shake things up.
Oh, and just to kick it up a notch, to raise the stakes and make everything worse? Let’s look in across town at the clinic, In Vitro Veritas.
A bunch of faulty fertility drugs weren’t disposed of properly.
They were, in fact, illegally dumped.
Contaminating Fairmont’s water supply.
“Oops,” says the employee, a nerdy poindexter who hasn’t been sleeping at all well thanks to a series of very vivid dreams involving Betty and Veronica, Daphne and Velma, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, etc.
“Oops?” echoes Dr. Enoch Shaw. “We’ve just turned every woman in town into a game of uterine pachinko, and you tell me ‘oops’?”
You better believe he acts angry, and you better believe the poindexter is fired and will be scapegoated like whoa.
But the truth is, inwardly, privately, our eunuch couldn’t be more thrilled!
What this all really boils down to is a blatant set-up for a sequel.
I’m thinking Babydaddies of the Damned...
(the ‘oops,’ setup for a sequel)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christine Morgan is a crazy-cat-lady old frump who looks like one of the last people in the world who’d be writing stuff like this. Until you get to know her, with her long history of smut, dirty fanfic, and sex-in-gaming books/articles, not to mention her habit of mutilating -- I mean, customizing! -- Barbie dolls.
Picture by Erik Wilson
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Inspiration
Chapter Two: Preparation
Chapter Three: Anticipation
Interlude: Vignettes #1
Chapter Four: Location
Chapter Five: Incantation
Chapter Six: Reaction
Interlude: Vignettes #2
Chapter Seven: Confusion
Chapter Eight: Rationalization
Chapter Nine: Inebriation
Interlude: Vignettes #3
Chapter Ten: Confession
Chapter Eleven: Visitation
Chapter Twelve: Temptation
Interlude: Vignettes #4
Chapter Thirteen: Suspicion
Chapter Fourteen: Confrontation
Chapter Fifteen: Discussion
Interlude: Vignettes #5
Chapter Sixteen: Investigation
Chapter Seventeen: Revulsion
Chapter Eighteen: Diversion
Interlude: Vignettes #6
Chapter Nineteen: Suspension
Chapter Twenty: Evacuation
Chapter Twenty-One: Resolution
Interlude #7