“Yo. Been a while, hasn’t it?” Fraise sipped from his bright red forty-ounce reusable bottle of cold brew he brought from the dorm.
Brown stared back at him, completely unamused. Sweat from the rush hour visibly stained into his black work uniform cap. “You do this on purpose, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Fraise sipped even harder, pushing up his sunglasses.
Brown sighed. “You know, I’m gonna start a new policy every time you do shit like this. You ever been written up for loitering? We’re gonna put up a giant NO LOITERING sign in front of the door, so next time you come in here to hold up the line, standing around like a dork with that big fuck-off metal flask, everyone’s gonna know who that sign is for.”
“Listen man, I don’t see any line being held up here,” Fraise retorted, “I’m just here to visit my roommate and drink my coffee. You got a problem with a guy like me having a warm cuppa joe at a café?”
“I can literally hear the ice sloshing around in that thing! Why are you fucking with me?!”
“Hey, lay off the Student VP!” Artemis piped up from behind the counter, elbowing Brown’s shoulder. “If anyone’s making a policy for dorks holding up lines, it should be for the lazy cashiers antagonizing their own roommates, instead of taking orders for customers during rush hour!” She snickered, looking back to their third coworker on duty. “Isn’t that right, President?”
“Guh?” Kay, tossing a levitated bag of ice into the freezer from way far back in the café, pulled out an earphone. “Uh, yeah! What she said!” She put it back in and went to get another bag, humming along to whatever was playing.
The redheaded hotshot turned to Brown with a coy smirk, able to restock the pastries in all their right places without even looking at the countertop display case. They all fell neatly in line with deadeye precision, then she bumped the case shut with her hip. “You heard her, Locker. She could put you outta business if you’re not careful!”
“Yeah, Brown. That’s not cool,” Fraise added.
“Oh my God,” Brown dragged his hands down his cheeks. “I am not hearing this from the guy who brings outside food and drink into restaurants and the girl who is eating the cheese danishes she just restocked in the middle of her shift!”
“Hey!” She said with a full mouth, wiping off her red hands with the clean sides of her otherwise dirty black work apron. She took a minute to chew, pointing an accusatory finger. “They are good danishes! You’re just jealous Suzy never lets you have any ‘cuz you’re always so rude to our customers. Maybe if you did your job and stopped running that mouth all day, she’d let you dip your grubby fingers into an eclair or two for once!”
“Oh yeah? What about him?” Brown’s accusatory finger pointed at his roommate, intentionally sipping as loud as he could over the workers bickering behind the counter like a married couple. “What’s Sir Drinks-a-Lot’s excuse for loitering and not paying for anything we sell around here?”
“Wait, haven’t you heard?” Fraise asked, rattling his ice around in the bottle. “Kay and I have to rehearse our speeches tomorrow for the public opening ceremony of Emerald Lake. I was really only here to see if she wanted to take a break and run lines after her shift.”
Kay, completely unbothered by the whole ordeal at the counter, was now dumping a sack of raw tapioca pearls into an empty metal container. Punk was blaring out of her Bluetooth earphones whenever she came within earshot. She lazily shouted over the lyrics.
“Shut up and eat!
Too bad, no bon appetit!
Shut up and eat!
You know my love is sweet!”
“I think being at work is her break,” Artemis reasoned.
“Hold on, what? Public opening of Lake Bob?” Brown raised an eyebrow. “As in, they’re actually letting people go there now? And it’s not trespassing anymore?”
Fraise nodded. “I thought I told you this a while ago? We ran a survey on Rabbl to see what students wanted the most from campus, and everyone voted for more space since everything’s so cramped at ERA. We passed a petition around and everyone signed for it. The permits are already reviewed by Administration, Big Arm’s stamped his approval weeks back. All we have to do is the ceremony. You really forgot about it?”
Clink, clin-clink. Somehow the ice was being more annoying to Brown than both Kay’s awful punk music or the guy himself who brought the iced coffee in. Fraise, being remotely serious for now, set his beverage down on a nearby table. The ice did not stop moving.
Brown rubbed his pained temples with his sweaty fingertips. “No. No, I did not forget because you did not tell me this. Nobody tells me anything unless it’s something I don’t care about or it’s to fuck with me! Artemis, you did not know about this until just right now.”
“Uh…Yeah, I did??” Artemis came back to clean a row of white ceramic mugs kept under the counter with a damp rag. “Don’t tell me you never noticed our poster right outside the store talking about the ceremony tomorrow! And I would know because I put it up there! And you’re wondering why Suzy never lets you into the pastry box?”
“Maybe he forgot how to read,” Fraise joked.
“Well, he does have the temper of a teenage girl, so we’re not ruling out the late-onset dyslexia.”
“Brown, do your best Scottish accent.”
“Extra sugar, extra salt,
Extra oil and MSG!”
“Oh, this is some bullshit,” Brown deflected, taking off his smelly cap and wiping his forehead. “You guys are not gonna stand here and gaslight me for my entire shift while telling me I can’t have pastries at my own job because I’m rude to customers! Am I seriously being led to believe that EVERYONE BUT ME suddenly knows they’re opening Lake Bob tomorrow, and somehow, for some GOD forsaken miracle, I’ve been living under a bigger rock than the next guy who walks through that door?!”
Just then, the electronic doorbell chimed, and the immediate sound after was the rattling of spurs on boots and a faint whip crack far off in the horizon outside. The cowboy whistled, tipping his Stetson hat.
“Howdy partners!” Nathaniel chided. “Y’all headed to the lake ceremony on that poster outside? Word ‘round these parts is they’re gonna make a beach day outta it. Y’all best be selling those new fangled cold brews for a hot day tomorrow.”
Brown threw his hat on the ground. “THAT’S IT! I’m going to lunch!” He shouted, hopping the counter.
Kay finally pulled an earbud out, as the only thing she heard from anyone besides her music was Brown’s mental fortitude snapping like a femur bone. “Yo! Bring me back some wings!” she shouted back.
“NO!”
“And some extra pollo ranch!”
“Fuck your pollo ranch!” He threw his apron on the ground too.
“BUH-ROWN!” She gasped dramatically. “No tantrums at the Lodge! Last time that happened on my shift, I got my eye cracked!” She pointed at her green gem inside her left eye socket. Nathaniel looked away sheepishly, ducking under his hat.
Brown was undeterred. “Get it yourself, woman! I’m not gonna be your errand boy just because you got a big speech tomorrow.”
“Speech? Oh, I got my lines down on lock already. I just got too much lumber, brother.” She started grinding coffee beans into a machine, spilling out half the dust on her first go. She ignored the mess entirely. “Yo, Fraise! Make sure he doesn’t forget the ranch, or I’m telling Suzy he ate one of the cheese danishes on the counter!”
Fraise saluted, picking up his 40oz. “Ma’am, yes ma’am. Oo-rah.”
Brown turned back and sputtered. “What the—how did you—ugh, whatever! But you’re not getting the spicy kind! Let’s go, Fraise. Ten paces back, McCree.”
He slid by the cowboy as he stormed out of the café, collecting his blue zip-up sweatshirt on the coat hanger by the door. Fraise followed loosely behind, giving the fellow customer in the room one of those man nods where you barely tilt your neck up as you pass by their general direction. Kay was already back in her own punk world.
Nathaniel stood bewildered. “What… just happened? Did I say something wrong?”
“Nah, he’s just hangry,” Artemis waved her hand dismissively. “Welcome to the Lodge! Can I interest you in a free pastry for your troubles?”
No matter how you twisted it, the students of ERA were right: the campus was cramped. And they would know—they had to live here every day of their entire tuition, save for holidays, studies abroad, or special emergencies. And while all of the potential situations above surely would have made for excellent, if not objectively superior adventures, sadly Brown and Fraise were stuck here. One could make the argument there’s plenty to do at the shopping district, and they would be technically correct, considering everything that’s currently there to do never usually stays the following semester. Perhaps that’s why the motion to expand the school grounds was met with a resounding unanimous consent. Even if it is just a lake.
In a single building alone, there would average five different establishments within the year. Students would line up at the fro-yo stands to beat the summer heat; the yogurt machines would then be removed and replaced by malt shakers in a 50s-themed diner by autumn; last-minute shoppers would flock there to get their presents wrapped during the winter; the same students would return to try out a new magical maid-themed cafe in the spring. All of them would be run by a different group of hard-working students with staff from the academy faculty to supervise them, and usually if they were successful in running the business, the credits they earned for the quarter would help get them to graduate that much faster. Those that stayed behind (much like in the case of Artemis for the past four years) would go on to run the next mock business. This summer, the same building just so happened to be a fried chicken joint.
“You know we were just messing around back there,” Fraise said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, I know. I’m already over it now. They just like to push my buttons over there. It’s whatever,” Brown brushed off, slouching as he walked. He was stuffing his hands deep in his sweatshirt pockets. “Like, Kay’s not gonna rat about the pastries if I don’t get her take-out. I’m actually surprised you agreed to tag along. Don’t you have to practice some speech?”
His roommate held his bottle up high, casually swinging his arms as he walked and drank. “Honestly, I’m just gonna wing it. Plus, who needs the stress? I can see why Kay’s in that café.”
“I don’t know how she does it and not go insane. It’s just the whole work environment, makes you wanna find the nearest ten-story roof and do a backflip off of it. You understand what working full-time in food service feels like.”
The half-plant nodded. “Nah, I get you. I want to believe I do, anyway.”
They passed by the commemorative Magnus plaque engraved on the side of the library. Nobody had bothered to clean it for a while. It was starting to get a bit rusty.
“To be fair, announcing it was kind of spur of the moment,” Fraise admitted. “To get enough traction for it, we needed a sponsor. You know, to pay for land grants, then terraforming, water purification, whatever. We didn’t even have enough money for the posters until last month. By the time we got them printed, it was already close to opening.”
“Sponsor? I thought the government subsidized whatever land ERA uses. Who’d be dumb enough to pay out of their own pocket to promote some stupid lake in the middle of Nondescript Mountain Range, Montana?”
“Probably someone equally as dumb to pay for and host an opening ceremony there. Anyway…” They stood at the entrance of what was appropriately named El Rancho del Pollo, and was even more appropriately the busiest place in the entire school. Fraise peered through the double glass doors, where a line had wrapped around inside. “Come on. It can’t be that good.”
“You say that like you’ve never been in here,” Brown said.
“I haven’t. I’m more of a liquid diet kinda guy lately.”
“No kidding.” The boy eyed the bottle, then at the green cowlick literally sprouting from Fraise’s head. “Kay sends me here all the time, people would sell their souls just to try a chicken tender here. I’m really hoping this place survives next semester.”
“I won’t be surprised,” Fraise said, peering inside. “They sound like they’re selling the Popeye’s chicken sandwich. You ever tried to get one of those, it’s a total rat race.”
“Fraise, I don’t ever remember being in a Popeye’s.”
“Oh, right, you’re dyslexic or whatever.”
“Amnesiac.”
“Bless you.”
The amnesiac rolled his eyes, walking into the resta–
Ka-Thunk.
He stopped dead in his tracks. The door wouldn’t budge. Brown tried a little harder. Walking into the–
Thunk-thunk.
–into the restaurant with Fraise in tow–
Thunkathunka KA-THUMP.
“Brown, it’s locked! You’re gonna break the door.”
“The hell I am, I need my goddamn chicken!”
A man in a sharp suit nudged the opposite door to Brown with the back of his gloved hand, wiping Fraise clean out of the way of the entrance, like the door was some squeegee. Fraise yelped in pain, the door striking his nose. The man shot a dirty glance at the two students and scoffed.
“I say, what an embarrassing display!” The man spoke with a posh, stuck-up dialect clearly stolen from Bridgerton, adjusting the greasy bag of chicken in his fingertips. “Apart from your rehabilitation, this facility ought to teach the new generation of Electi some manners.”
Brown squinted, staring back at the Victorian cosplayer. “Uh huh. Thanks for opening the door for us, dude.”
And that would have been the end of the conversation, if only the gentleman hadn’t paused to warn them. “Oh, I wouldn’t bother going in if I were you. They just sold out.”
Brown sputtered to say something, only for Fraise to proclaim first, “Bro, I think he’s right.” He pointed through the glass he was still stuck on to the people in line clamoring and dejectedly walking out of the establishment. Though, some stayed to complain. Actually, it was getting pretty loud in there. Brown had to walk over and peel his friend off the door.
“Sold out? That’s not fair, the lunch rush just started!” Brown protested. “And by the way, if you wanna talk about manners, was slamming the door on my roommate really that necessary?”
The man turned in a huff, checking his pocket watch (much to Brown’s scrutiny. A pocket watch?). “Apologies for your friend, it was not brought to my attention that planting your faces through windows like barbarians was the correct etiquette before entering a sold-out establishment. As for your elusive product in question, I’m afraid life isn’t always fair, good sir. But that’s what makes it interesting, don’t you agree?”
He swiveled his black suede loafers to face the two boys, offering an outstretched hand to shake. On closer inspection, the pink dress shirt and handlebar mustache made him look more like a 40’s Hollywood actor than anything, despite the out of place accent. Fraise honored the shake on instinct. Brown wondered why he said elusive. “Walt Hampshire, at your service. Do forgive my snappiness, though I have a very busy day tomorrow. I ought to be preparing my speech for Emerald Lake’s opening ceremony.”
“Wait, don’t tell me you’re our sponsor?” Fraise’s eyes lit up. “Jackson Fraise, Student Body VP. They said someone from the Art Department would help pitch in for the land grants, that was all you?”
Walt’s expression softened. “I see me bumping into you two wasn’t a complete waste of my time after all. Yes, I believe the cat’s out of the bag now. Assuming the event is met with a warm reception, which I have no doubt it will, I will wire the funds directly to Administration to officially close our deal. If all goes well, we shall have our lake and swim in it, too. I wished to keep my contributions anonymous, lest we overcrowd the ceremony should the public know of my appearance. I do love surprising my audience.”
“Don’t worry, we can keep a secret,” Brown promised, who was obviously so starstruck at the very presence of the Walt Hampshire himself, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes around to avoid direct eye contact out of sheer respect alone.
Fraise punched him in the arm. “Don’t worry about him, he’s always like this. What I wanna know is, why the Lake? There’s plenty of other underfunded departments that need our attention.”
Walt glanced up into the blue sky, evoking a sense of wonder. “Why not the lake? There’s much beauty to behold in a place of nature. As an artist, I am always looking for inspiration—Life and nature sometimes are more fascinating than what the human mind could muster…”
Brown and Fraise exchanged an odd look.
“Yes, I may profess in the field of music at this wondrous academy,” he continued unwarranted, “though I take care not to limit myself in just one of the fine arts humanity has to offer. Theater, dance, painting, sculpture—I’ve done it all. After all, isn’t public speaking yet another form of playing the character of your best self, performing live on a stage? I get thrills just anticipating the moment now…”
Someone inside the restaurant had managed to jump the counter. Those still inside were fighting to get their orders, while the workers pushed them back. Brown must have thought the chicken he was holding was long since lukewarm now. “That’s great for you and all, man, but we’re still out of a bag of chicken. Unlike you, the Student President isn’t gonna be too thrilled when I come back to her without even a cup of pollo ranch.”
“Ah, Ms. Seo?” Walt stood bemused. “I pity you, errand boy. Though I’ve yet to meet her in the flesh, I find Seo to be among the most fascinating characters of all. The stories told by Chancellor Ivory are almost unbelievable—sharp, valiant, intrepid, yet so young, elegant, articulate. Her influence as President has been my muse for quite some time.”
Articulate? The boys exchanged another look, though the unbothered gentleman kept on yapping.
“Why, there’s no doubt that having the most ideal representative of E.R.A. Student Body sharing my stage shall lead to nothing short of beginning the most excellent chapter in Electi history. My hope is that Emerald Lake will be just the beginning—Kay Seo should make a fine associate for future endeavors. After all, there have been many milestones in my life, and yet… none have ever come close to those I achieve for my own sake. That is to say, I love working for the people, though the feeling of working for myself, not having my clients impede on the projects I provide them but rather perfecting my art, my creations—my world… Well, that is simply irreplaceable.”
Neither student really knew exactly what this guy was talking about. Maybe, Brown thought, he just liked hearing himself talk. Though it was strange how much he glamorized Kay like that…
Someone had broken some glass inside the restaurant. Soon after, one of the workers missing a hat and half their pants escaped through the back door and ran for dear life. Brown wondered who even uses the word impede anymore. Impede… that wasn’t a real word.
“I’m sure you’ll get to see plenty of the President tomorrow morning,” Fraise added with a neutral tone. “I’d probably give her some space, though. She’s been a bit antsy getting her speech just right.”
“My, my, a perfectionist just like yours truly,” Walt snickered to himself, straightening his flat ironed necktie. “I am certain we will get along right away. I have much of my world to share, and I am eager to introduce it to whom I hope to be my most prospective student yet. Now, if you shall excuse me, gentlemen, I must be on my way. My newest guilty pleasure of an otherwise unrefined meal beckons for china and silverware.”
He peeked the paper bag open, taking a delicate whiff of its contents. “Ahh, fried wings. Exquisite.” With a bow to the boys and a click of his heels, he turned and walked away. He passed by a pile of students the workers had managed to finally throw out.
Brown waited until Walt was just out of earshot. “That guy’s a total fucking creep.”
“No, I think he’s just British,” Fraise replied, spitting into a crack in the concrete where a small weed had sprouted.
“Exactly. We can’t let him anywhere near Kay, did you hear the way he was talking about her?”
“Well, it was kind of drowned out with how much he was talking about himself,” the half-plant sprouted a vine from the tip of his finger to pick at his ear. “I kinda tuned him out. Plus, the door to my face didn’t help much either.”
Speaking of doors, one of the surviving students working at El Pollo del Rancho had limped over to turn the neon OPEN sign off, placing an iron rod across the handles to bar it shut. Somewhere in the kitchen, something had caught fire.
“So nobody’s gonna acknowledge whatever just happened in there?” Brown pointed back with his thumb.
“Like I said: you should see what a Popeye’s looks like.”
Brown groaned. “Son of a bitch. Kay is gonna flip when she hears they ran out of chicken. And I mean literally flip, she’s been practicing her capoeira, which I do not wanna be on the receiving end of.”
“I don’t suppose there’s another joint around here selling wings?” Fraise asked.
“Hey, don’t you know how to make wings?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he unscrewed the cap on his bottle and began to drink again.
Brown hung his head for a second, then pulled out his phone. “Hold on. I think I’ve got someone.”
After tapping a few times on the screen, he held it out between him and his roommate, where he was placing a call on speaker. The dial tone rang out twice, until a woman’s voice picked up.
“…Hello, Brown?”
“Pearl, hey! Uh, you got a second, or like, a minute, maybe twenty or more?”
“Er… Sure! What’s up?”
“So, like… really funny story, I got Fraise with me right now, and uh, we just got off work to go get lunch, and believe it or not, Kay wanted to get some wings, so we’re out here, and, uh—”
“They outta wings. Start the wok,” Fraise interjected. “Remember the Popeye’s chicken sandwich.”
Pearl took a long, dejected breath over the phone.
“Extra pollo ranch?”
“You guys are idiots,” Gabriel said to Fraise and Brown over the dining table.
“Maybe, but we’re not stupid! We know what we heard!” Brown banged his fist down, raising a brow from Pearl. He had just finished explaining the story, though still had some homemade pollo ranch on his lips, which did not make a great case for himself.
The sun had just begun to set. Everyone at the Lodge went home from their shift aside from Kay, who had claimed she was too busy to clock out just yet. She ended up getting her wings after all, at the expense of Pearl’s afternoon. In fact, she cooked so many Korean-fried wings to compensate for the tragedy at El Pollo del Rancho that her dorm neighbors (now sat arguing over the table) offered to take the leftovers while she bagged up the rest over the kitchen counter. Brown opted for all the lemon pepper-flavored ones. Gabriel was the only one willing to take on the spicy ones, blissfully unaware of Pearl’s last mistake with kimchi. Artemis had obligations with her seven other shifts that night, so she politely declined.
So that was one problem solved, and to Fraise and Brown, that would have been the end of their adventure for today. At least, it should have been, if not for the new problem on their hands.
But Gabriel rolled his eyes. Everything had to be a problem for his two new roommates. “Look, pendejo, I don’t care what this Hamster person said. He may sound like an obsessive, stuck-up prick, but as much as I’d like to help take down the rich, actions speak a lot louder than words. Did he do anything to show he might hurt your friend? Was he actively on his way to stalk her or creep on her?”
Fraise rubbed his nose. “He hit the door on me on his way out of the chicken joint. I think he took their last wings.”
“Must have been really good chicken,” Pearl thought aloud.
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” he leaned back in his chair, nibbling on a wing. His was dipped in soy sauce.
Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Que perdida de tiempo. Like always, you two are getting so worked up over nothing. Honestly, you have one conversation with some pretentious Brit and now you think he’s some sort of predator after the President.”
“I mean, he is British,” Brown pointed out.
“NO, puto!” The Latino threw a wing at Brown, who flinched because he couldn’t lock it down in time. “He’s not a predator, he’s not a creep, and if I didn’t know any better I’d bet he’s not even British! Walt Hampshire is just that—a complete nobody! All he’s got is a fat wallet with cash to burn, and if he’s the one that’s paying for the expansion of this sardine-packed excuse for a school, I say we let him burn it.”
“I’d hate to argue, Brown, but he’s got a point,” Pearl nodded with a frown. “One time Hugo, Leaf and I tried to expose our plant biology teacher for being a satanic ritualist and purging the innocent from campus. Turns out he was just purging weeds from the greenhouse Gabe now runs before going on sabbatical.”
“Shit, I’d take one too if you tried to cancel me for gardening,” Fraise remarked, much to Pearl’s irritation.
Brown sighed. “Okay, fine. Maybe we’re overreacting a bit. But don’t tell me his obsession with Kay isn’t a little weird. Would you feel comfortable if some rich asshole with a handlebar mustache kept calling you ‘his muse’ in front of all your friends?”
“First of all, I don’t have friends, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Rude, Brown and Pearl thought.
“Second, no rich asshole gives a shit about people like me, unless it’s to hire us to garden their front lawns. Third, I barely even know who Kay is, aside from being that bitch Skyber’s right hand woman, so again, I don’t really give a shit. And I can’t help that none of you have anything better to do with your miserably boring lives. So if you wanna keep obsessing over this music teacher just to waste time until tomorrow morning, I’d suggest you leave me out – ah, one moment.”
He paused and brought a finger to his neck, letting an otherwise unnoticeable mosquito climb off it.
“Had your fill, mi amiga?” the bug-whisperer whispered to the bug. He walked across the table, opened the window and let the mosquito fly off. Gabriel watched it go, though took another, longer pause as he watched below their dormitory.
“Oye, chicos… isn’t that your Hampshire dude outside?” As soon as the words escaped his lips, Brown, Fraise, and Pearl had crammed the windowsill to peer outside, leaving Gabriel absolutely boxed in.
From the twilight of the evening sky, the group could just barely make out a tall, sharply-dressed figure taking a casual stroll from the dormitory building complex. In his shiny white glove, one pinkie daintily raised, was a sizable black garbage bag dragging across the ground. In length, it was a bit smaller than his height, and heavy to carry with only one hand. However, his other white glove was busy holding something else, which nobody could make out quite yet.
“The hell is he doing here?” Brown questioned.
“Definitely not here for a casual stroll,” Fraise surmised.
“Come on guys, he’s probably just taking out the trash,” Pearl reasoned.
Gabriel tried to tell her that was stupid, but couldn’t get much more out than smothered muffling. But he was right—Walt would have been doing a horrible job at it, considering he was walking away from any trash dumps nearby, and he didn’t have to come out all the way to the student lodgings to do so.
Then, he glanced warily to his left and right, turning behind him with a cautious air about him. Everyone ducked aside from Gabe, who could finally breathe now. He watched incredulously as Walt was acting like he wasn’t supposed to be seen. Which, truthfully, he wasn’t.
Fraise bobbed his head back up. “Yeah, no, this is looking sus as hell, you’ve gotta admit that.”
“W-what exactly does he say he does for a living…?” Pearl hesitated to ask.
“Hold on, I’ve got it on his LinkedIn profile,” Brown answered, scrolling through his phone with his back against the wall. “Purveyor, Connoisseur, and Producer of Fine Arts. He makes shit out of whatever he feels like, and sells them to museums and other rich clients. Says here his biggest inspirations are… ‘the people he meets in his life.’”
As he peeked out the window again, he caught the glimpse of Walt dropping the bag to produce a handkerchief from his front breast pocket, wiping off the surface of a sharp, glimmering blade he had held by the handle in his other glove. On the cement below, he seemed to have been marking a trail of dripping stains. Now, cleaning off the trace he was leaving, he quickly picked up his body-sized bag with both hands, and lugged it much faster now.
“Oh, hell no. Tell me that’s not a goddamn person in there!” Fraise raised his voice.
“Shut up, he’ll hear us!” Gabriel barked. “That could still be anything in that bag. As bad as it looks, we don’t know for sure if he’s a–”
The mosquito Gabriel was watching all this time hovered close to Walt, eagerly vying for another drop of blood. The bug landed in between his neck, just as it did with Gabe. Only this time, it wasn’t so lucky.
SWAT! Before the poor mosquito knew it, its swift act of greed was its last, ended by an even swifter backslap of a white glove. The man carried on, brushing away its remains with the handkerchief. Within seconds, his figure disappeared into the night.
Gabriel slammed the window shut, screaming at the top of his lungs. “WALT HAMPSHIRE IS A FUCKING MURDERER!”
“Now you believe us!” Brown said, throwing up his arms. “I told you, dude! That guy is fucked up!”
Pearl started hyperventilating. “Wait, then who was that in the body bag?! It wasn’t–”
“No, Kay is fine, she’s out cold on her bed last I checked,” Fraise reassured, “he was on the other side of the building, plus he wouldn’t have a way up here without us hearing it. Probably some other poor soul he got. But the way he was talking about her, I’m thinking she might be next.”
“Dude, now it all makes sense,” Brown concluded, “he kills his victims after obsessing over them, then uses their bodies as art pieces and sells them to the highest bidder! That’s how he gets so stupidly rich!”
“And with that money,” Gabe added, “he’s gonna use the lake event tomorrow as a distraction to get close to Kay. Not the most effective method, but from my understanding, rich people are hardly smart with their investments.”
“Well, we can’t let that happen!” Pearl protested. “We’ve gotta stop him! Quick, let’s call the guards and–”
“NO!” the boys rejected in unison, Gabriel somehow being the loudest.
“The guards will be protecting Hampshire the whole time,” Fraise explained. “If anyone could get arrested tomorrow, it’s one of you three for intervening.”
“Esos malditos cerdos! Of course that inbred would line their pockets with hush money! We can never trust the Feds. Just tell Kay not to go when she wakes up!”
Brown shook his head. “No way, Kay can’t know there’s a serial killer on her ass. Fraise and I saw how stressed she was at work already, she’d completely lose it if she found out! Like hell I’d do that to her.”
“So what are we gonna do, guys?” Fraise asked. “We only have a few hours to figure something out before he kills her and I’m left with all her paperwork. I suggest we start thinking now, because no matter what, we’ve got to take out that creep.”
And think the four did. They spent a long, hard moment hanging their heads by the dining table, too full of adrenaline to sit down.
Finally, Gabirel looked up to Fraise.
“Hey. How close to the Lake are you having that speech?”
“Welcome, all, welcome!” Walt had announced, beginning his speech to the crowd of students before him. “Before we begin, I’d wish to thank each and every one of you for being here with us on such a momentous occasion today! Words cannot adequately express how touched I am to have garnered such a lovely audience as yourself!”
It would take him a while to actually get to talking about the lake. His suit was as fresh and as clean as ever for the event. But to Brown, Fraise, Gabriel, and Pearl, they all knew what was hiding under that sharply impressive facade.
The morning of the Emerald Lake Bob opening ceremony was upon them, and like they had predicted, everyone was there, anticipating the sweet taste of loosely sanctioned, heavily moderated freedom. Two visible guards stood watch on either side facing the crowd, a pink fat lion Therian and some Pacific Islander woman with some weird helmet around her colorful hair. Brown, like any sane spectator would, was hiding behind the bark of a tree, within the outskirts of the forest clearing.
“Okay, guys. I’m in position,” he reported over the group conference call on his phone. Fraise, standing beside Walt and Kay on a sizable platform bolted into the dirt ground beside the lake, glanced over to the trees and gave an OK signal with his index finger and thumb, just below his waist. To avoid suspicion, he only had a single wireless earbud in his ear and kept his phone tucked in his pocket. Walt was too busy introducing himself and his many, many achievements, and Kay had her own set of earbuds in, blasting punk music. Pearl nodded vaguely, and sat by the end corner of a set of folding chairs, where only half the students were provided a place to sit before the other half behind them took the standing floor. Within that crowd was Gabriel, who was using a cheap pair of knockoff wired earphones and abusing the hell out of the built-in microphone.
“This plan better work, Brown,” he whispered into the barely functioning piece of hardware, threatening to blow everyone’s eardrums out. “I am not going back to jail again because of one of your usual crashouts.”
“It was basically your plan, dude. Just remember what we talked about,” Brown said quietly. “When Kay goes up to present her speech, I’ll stall her out, and that’ll buy you some time to get your revenge. Then Fraise and Pearl will take them away from each other offstage, and Fraise can just say it was technical difficulties and pretend nothing happened. We’ll get our lake and nobody will get in trouble. It’s that simple.”
“For your sake, I hope you’re right, because if any of you fuck up even once— hold on a second.”
Gabriel turned, feeling a finger tap his shoulder. Annoyed, he shot the student a threatening glance. “Oye. Can’t you see I’m on the phone here?”
He was facing a rather scruffy man in some vintage striped one-piece swimwear, adorning a large Stetson hat to block out the baking hot sun. “Woah now, pardner. All I see is you spoutin’ nonsense into a wire, don’t go insinuating I’m bein’ rude here. I’m just tryna listen to the speech!”
He groaned. “Whatever. It’s not even a good speech. Just let me finish up on my ‘wire.’”
Gabriel leaned back in to torment his microphone and his listeners more. “I can’t talk now. This dickhead cowboy’s suddenly a fan of Prof. Hampshitter over here.”
“God dammit, Nathaniel,” Brown muttered under his breath, wiping the sweat from his neck with his shirt collar. “Alright, fine. Just ignore him and wait for my signal, then send in the cavalry.”
“And without further ado,” Walt continued, “I’d take no greater delight than to introduce to you, a woman of so many talents, such effortless charm and charisma, such a pristine content of character to rival that of my own, I dare say she needs no further introduction. Please welcome to the podium, your Student Body President, Miss Kay Seo!”
The students in the crowd (including Pearl) erupted in cheers and applause, though Brown couldn’t help but think that they were only clapping because he finally stopped talking for once. Kay brought out her phone to recite the speech off of, and he locked in to focus on her. Despite her normally cool and collected manner, she seemed unsure when she approached the podium, scrolling through the script with her finger. The moment she set her phone down on it, Brown enacted phase one. When she would realize her phone was stuck, she would have no idea what would then happen to Walt right behind her.
At least, that was how it was supposed to play out, before the wind blew a branch above Brown aside, exposing the harsh rays of sunlight straight into his retinas. “Gah, fuck!” he hissed, snapping his fingers while losing all his focus.
Kay approached the microphone and cleared her throat. “Uh… hey all. Seo here.” Her introduction got a few chuckles from the crowd. “I was having trouble remembering what to say, so I’ll just stick to the notes for a-aaaHH!”
Suddenly, Kay lost her footing on the platform, and with her left shoe miraculously stuck to nothing, she tripped over and caught herself on the podium. In a moment of panic, the bright emerald gem in her eye socket glowed brightly, and now both the podium and her notes were stuck in zero gravity, floating gently off the ground. She tried to pull them back while anchored to whatever she was stuck on, having no idea what was happening. The audience was even more confused, muttering amongst each other what was going on.
“Brown, the fuck was that?! Was that supposed to be my signal?”
Getting no response from his phone, Gabriel grit his teeth and closed his eyes. El hijo de perra, guess it’s up to me as always… Signaling every mosquito in his vicinity, the arthropod whisperer called forth a cry for help, to stage an act of retribution for one of their fallen brothers–to atone the malicious act of cold-blooded murder, at the hands of–
“By the way, mister,” Nathaniel piped up, nudging Gabriel’s shoulder again. “Y’all wouldn’t happen to know if there’s gonna be volleyball at this event?”
“…What.” Gabriel shot an even more threatening glance.
“Come on, you know! The volleyball game, with the massive net and keepin’ the white bouncy ball in the air, the one soft city folk like you oughta play on a beach, instead of shootin’ bottles and cans like in the Frontier! I’ve been fixin’ ta try my hand at it here!”
This man was seriously trying his patience. “I will tell you once, and once only. Do. Not. Bother me. Just turn the other way, and leave me the fuck alone.”
The cowboy scoffed. “Well, gee, pardner. I was jus’ askin’. If I hadn’t known better, I’d say you look like yer about to commit a murder. Sounds like someone had one too many cold brews this morning…”
That guy. Get that fucking guy right now. Gabriel pointed directly at Nathaniel’s comically sized hat, eliciting a look of confusion from the wearer.
“Uh, what’s with that pointing? Was it something I–what in tarnation?!” No sooner than he could think of the word, volleyball, was the cowboy suddenly swarmed by hundreds, of not thousands of mosquitos coming from the still water of the lake. He screamed bloody murder, his skin-tight suit doing nothing to prevent the incessant buzzing and blood-sucking around his body. Without thinking, Nathaniel threw himself into the lake, splashing and sputtering like nobody’s business.
But in fact, it was now everyone’s business. His impromptu performance, coupled with Kay’s mishap on stage, sent everyone into a panic, dozens of students taking their eyes of Walt and as confused as anyone else would be.
And in that split second, Walt decided it was the best time to brandish the dagger he had kept underneath his coat lining, holding it above Kay’s back.
“Oh no, you don’t! Get down, Ms. President!” Fraise, having stood still to absorb as much sunlight as possible from the flower sprouting atop his head (which he had carefully and diligently watered thanks to his 40oz the past two days), had now accumulated as much strength as he could from his pseudo-photosynthesis, and was the first to tackle Walt as he was the closest to him. At least, he would have gotten him, had it not been for his foot magically being stuck on nothing just before he caught the Brit, instead falling flat on his face. “OW! Fuck, my nose! Again!”
Brown stumbled out of the forest holding his eye in his palm, frantically snapping his fingers to unlock Kay, unaware he already did at least twenty snaps ago. “KAY, LOOK OUT! YOU’RE GONNA GET STABBED! AGAIN!”
Gabriel turned from his desperate attempt to redirect the mosquitos back to Walt. “Brown, it’s no use! She has her headphones in, she can’t hear us!”
“I got you, Kay! Just hold on!” Pearl frantically climbed over the row of panicking students, leaping onto the stage with her arms outstretched and jolting with electricity. That got Kay’s attention.
“What the–Pearl! What’s going on here?!” She shouted, her gem eye glowing even brighter now.
“Don’t look behind you, but you’re about to be–Kay–Kay, let me go! I’m floating! KAY! AHHH!” Pearl screamed, her body floating straight up to the podium. Her hands flew straight up to the microphone attached to it, and without thinking, she gripped onto it to prevent herself from floating any higher. Immediately, the feedback from the excess electricity coursed back into the speaker system, blowing everything out with a massive BOOM! The shockwave sent half the students jumping up in surprise, and the other half scrambling to escape or headfirst into the water, where the mosquitoes had all spread out to enact their feeding frenzy revenge on… apparently all of these Electi! Not like they were given any direct commands otherwise!
All the while, Walt sat perplexed and admittedly terrified at the chaos unfolding all in a matter of seconds. His arm still holding the knife in plain sight, the music professor had no idea what to do other than call out the only word that came to his head:
“Security!”
A tremendous Wall of Fat and Fur™ body slammed Gabriel to the ground in that instant, without even giving a second to react. Holding the student’s hands behind his back, the lion craned his neck upwards and unleashed a giant plume of smoke from his maw across the surface of the lake. The swarm of bugs dispersed as the smoke traveled outward, and soon they all but forgot about their nigh insatiable vendetta for bloodlust. At the same time, the other officer vaulted up onstage, letting her helmet loose. As it turned out, her hair wasn’t hair at all–the living tentacles colored a bright red and yellow ran wild with minds of their own, grabbing and pulling down everything that lost its sense of gravity, including Pearl and Kay. Fraise was still rolling around the stage, covering his face in agony. By now, the rest of the students had escaped the lake, and everyone but the unfortunate harbingers of anarchy remained with the guards and staff.
“FUCKING CHRIST, BROWN!” Gabirel shouted, being put in handcuffs, “YOU JUST HAD TO CRASH OUT AGAIN!”
“CRASH OUT? ME?!” Brown yelled defensively. “It wasn’t my damn fault you threw all those bugs at the stupid cowboy instead of Walt!” He then proceeded to make his acquaintance with the Wall of Fat and Fur™. Next thing he knew, he was lined up with his roommate-turned-accomplice on the dirt ground in handcuffs.
“I got the rest of ‘em right here, Joan!” The other security guard came forward, walking Pearl and Fraise in custody and tossing them down beside the boys.
Joan breathed out heavily, pulling his belt up. “Good work, Jett.”
“Nah, you can thank Steve for that,” Jett patted her sentient tentacles. They seemed to like the attention.
“Right. Good work, Steve. Anywho–just what the hell were you thinking, guys? Sabotaging an event like the Emerald Lake opening ceremony, I mean, who does that? I thought everyone wanted this lake to be part of campus! Gives me less pressure to patrol this area for trespassing students, anyway.”
“My sentiments precisely, good officers,” Walt straightened his tie, approaching the group with a look of bewilderment on his face. “Vice President Fraise, I expected better from you today—I’ll be having a word with you during my next office hour. As for the rest of you, you shall expect no sympathy for your careless acts of barbarity! I hope you find in your next chapter of Electi rehabilitation, you shall refrain from landing on the wrong side of justice.”
Gabriel was close to foaming at the mouth. “JUSTICE? What fucking justice is there in this shitty joke of a school?! You tried to KILL the President! In BROAD DAYLIGHT! You expect me to let these pigs take us all in while a rich white serial killer like you walks free?! ¡Váyanse al infierno todos!”
“My word, just what the blazes are you bloody talking about?” the professor shot back, taking offense to the bold accusation.
Kay stepped forward on normal gravity, her gem finally calming down. “Yeah, I’d like to know, too, people! If I’m getting stabbed again, I should be the first to find out, ya damn nerds!”
“Kay! Thank God you’re okay!” Pearl cried and tried to get up, before getting kicked down by Jett’s boot.
“Stay down, ma’am! We’ve had enough shocks for today!”
Joan shook his head at her. Jett shut up.
“We saw everything, sir!” Fraise interjected. “The bloody knife, the body bag, we all saw you from our dorm window last night! You were going to take out the President next, so we had to take you out first!”
“Yeah! We know all about your ‘art pieces,’ and how you treat your beloved ‘muses’ when you’re done obsessing over them!” Brown spat. “Well, you’re not making a profit off of my friend’s corpse exhibition! So sorry to impede on your murder parade, Hamp_killer!”_
“Don’t you mean, rain on your parade?” Fraise raised an eyebrow.
“Oh you would want it to rain right now, Mr. Liquid Diet flower boy.”
“¡Cállate, por favor!” Gabriel groaned. “Dios mío, I’d rather let that prissy Brit stab me next than listen to you two yap each other’s mouths off!”
“What?” Walt gasped. “Stab you? Corpse exhibitions? You must have gone mad! Surely you don’t mean with this remarkable piece of craftsmanship!” With that, he revealed the dagger stored underneath his coat once more, in perfect, pristine condition.
“I would never tarnish such a blade as this–in fact, I have been looking for its owner all morning. It was the most incredible work of art I had managed to scavenge from the lost items of the dormitories. I was preparing in secret for my latest stroke of inspiration–to beautify this dirty lake beach, by sculpting and placing structures of things left behind by students, for students. It was meant to be a statement about the state of all of you, trapped for so long in this establishment you’ve lost pieces of yourself–my surprise exhibition was meant as a way of giving back that identity you young Electi have once lost after all this time. Though I can see you’ve soiled that surprise now, via witnessing my supposed body bag.
Though when our young President launched herself afloat this morning, and as I attempted to wedge her from the podium with the knife, I noticed the leather-engraved spiraled pattern on the handle matched the one woven into her shawl nearly identically! Surely you must have misplaced this, Miss Seo. I cannot include in my work that which rightfully still belongs to you.”
Kay inspected her work, then shoved it back to him. “Nah, you can keep it. That was my toothpick blade from last night’s dinner. I don’t need it anymore.”
“…I see.” He held the knife a bit more daintily now, with little more than his fingertips. “Yet your talents have not gone unnoticed! Surely you must consider my offer to enroll in my class of the arts, together we c–”
“Pass, you’re kinda weird,” Kay declined nonchalantly. “Though now I see what’s going on. You guys thought he was staging some murder plot against me. I mean, I know I’m all that, but I can handle myself if he really was a creep. You know I know capoeira, right?”
Brown sighed. He didn’t consider she used it on anyone else except him when he forgot to restock the pastries at the Lodge. Even more so when he tried to sneak one. “Fuck… my bad, Kay. I really tried not to burden you any more today. I know how stressed you were. I didn’t mean to crash out like I did here… and at the Lodge.”
“To be fair, you always crash out at the Lodge,” Fraise corrected. “Oh, also sorry, I guess.”
“Sorry, Kay, Mr. Hampshire…” Pearl apologized solemnly. “Guess I jumped to conclusions. Again.”
“Yeah, I’m not sorry,” Gabe scoffed. “The only thing I regret was nailing that fucking cowboy freak instead of you. Murderer or not, rich bastards in power like you should all go down.”
“Again with such insolence,” Walt turned up his nose. “I say, you’re more embarrassing than your two other friends I met the afternoon prior. Making such a fuss about me having taken the last bag of wings from that putrid restaurant. Guards, take them out of our sight, will you?”
Kay’s demeanor shifted. “Wait. Last bag of wings? Putrid restaurant?”
“Yeah, we didn’t want to tell you, Kay,” Brown admitted, shying away as Jett pulled him and Fraise up. “You didn’t eat El Pollo del Rancho wings. Those were Pearl’s, they ran out before we got there.”
“Oh… oh, my stars. I knew they didn’t taste right, they…He ate my wings,” Kay spoke softly.
Fraise saw the chance and took it. “He ate your wings, Prez. He ate them all. He even took the pollo ranch, and I bet he didn’t pay extra for it. I bet he stole those wings. He STOLE your El Pollo del Rancho. Just like he stole your Popeye’s chicken sandwich! How’s that make you feel, eh? Whaddya gonna do about it, Kay!?”
“…Guards. Uncuff my friends. They’re not the threats here.”
The guards looked at each other, wide-eyed.
“Hampshire stole from El Pollo del Rancho?” Jett couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“NOBODY steals from El Pollo del Rancho.” Joan growled.
They did as Kay told them, letting the cuffs drop down on the ground. Fraise laughed hard. Gabriel, Pearl, and Brown were left speechless. Walt chuckled nervously, slowly backing away.
“Alright, s-so what if I don’t pay for my condiments? N-now, now, I- I know that sounds bad–”
“SIC ‘EM!” Kay barked.
“Ma’am, yes ma’am! OO-RAH!” Joan body slammed the music teacher with his iconic Wall of Fat and Fur™, letting Steve grab his legs while he pounced on that neatly-pressed suit of his. “You have the right to remain silent! Any chicken wing you’ve consumed in the past 48 hours can and will be held against you in the court of El Pollo del Rancho! Rip his mustache, Jett!”
“Beat his ass and hide the Bible if God’s watching, Joan!”
As the guards dragged Walt away, the students could hear him say something along the lines of, “This isn’t over! Good luck getting your lake funding now, you utter barbarians! OI, get your bloody hands away from there–!”
“…That worked?” Brown stood dumbfounded.
“Eeyup! Now’s your cue to leave!” Kay shot her friends a coy smile. “And hey, Brown: don’t worry about me. If anything was stressing me today, it was that dumb speech. I really don’t care for public speaking, so, yeah! Thanks for getting that off my chest–I know you got my back. Now get lost, ya filthy animals. I’ll take ol’ Snot Hampshire from here–I’ve been meaning to practice my axé kicks!”
Brown smiled, and followed his friends out of the lake and back to campus. Pearl was the first to break off after realizing she was late for a class. Dorm 3 remained to perform the Walk of Shame back home together. Although, they couldn’t leave saying their first official beach day at Lake Bob wasn’t uneventful. He and Kay’d have to tell Artemis all about this tomorrow.
“Hey. Brown… Fraise?” Gabriel spoke up.
“Yuh?” The two said in unison.