Commander Fletcher

“Pete, run the counter while I’m-Pete!”

Pete’s father’s voice managed to cut through the music. Pete pulled his headphones out of his ears. He was sitting in the backroom. He looked around the corner and called into the shop proper, “Yeah, Dad?”

“Watch the counter while I go get us lunch,” his father, August said, already starting towards the front door. He was tall man, with iron-colored hair. Muscular, but he wasn’t going to be on any swimsuit colanders thanks to that beer belly of his. Even so, most of the Salem’s single moms (and some of the married ones) gained heart eyes whenever he walked past.

Pete perked up. “Ooh! Can we get Rancheros Chicken?”

“I don’t know, bud,” August said, his hand on the doorknob. “It’s all the way across town…” Pete’s beseeching expression made him roll his eyes good-naturedly and chuckle. “Alright, alright. I’ll be back in thirty then. Watch that mouth of yours with the customers while I’m gone.”

“No promises, Dad.” The chime from the bell above the door echoed through the shop as Pete moved his books and sketchpad over to the counter. He pulled the nearby chair over and sat. By then the echoes had stopped. The Halloween shop was small, and only made to feel tinier by how cramped it was with costumes and trinkets. When he was little, Pete believed that all of the masks hanging on the walls were watching him. Dad’s little tattletales. It being the summer, the shop got little traffic these days, but the fall boom was just around the corner. Even so, teenagers or little kids still wandered in from time to time to be discount candy or makeup. Growing up surrounded by the holiday, Pete didn’t like Halloween. Especially once he was old enough to stop believing in monsters, it all seemed pointless to him.

“Excuse me?” a voice suddenly said, fifteen minutes into his sketch.

Pete glanced up from his sketchpad, confused. The bell hadn’t gone off.

“Huh-?Oh. Hey.”

The woman stood by the counter, hands stuffed into her burgundy coat. She was of Asian descent, with long black hair that nearly reached her waist. She was pretty, but her skin had a yellowed tinge to it. Her eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Most of her was covered up by the coat, but Pete did spot bandages wrapped around her throat, and she had a nasty bruise across her left cheek. Pete sniffed. Pete looked her over, muttered, “No handouts, lady,” and resumed drawing.

“I’m here to see August Fletcher, actually,” she said. Her voice was hoarse as she spoke.

“He went out,” Pete replied, not bothering to look up.

“To where?”

“To the outside. You can find it real easy. Just turn around and it’ll be right outside that door.”

“Ah,” the women said. “Never would’ve pegged August for the daddy-type. He was a real demon back in the day.” Pete allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. He looked up. “Oh, yeah. But of course you wouldn’t know.” She glanced around the shop. There was a flash of recognition, followed by a knowing smile. “Let’s kill some time. What’s your name?”

Common sense reasserted itself. “Name’s Back-The-Hell-Up-Before-I-Call-The-Cops,” Pete said. He had his hand under the counter, hovering by the panic button. He wasn’t kidding. The local station was a few blocks down. Salem’s police force weren’t anything extraordinary, but their response time wasn’t anything to sneeze at either. But if the lady did press the issue before they arrived, there was always the shotgun a few inches to Pete’s left leg. Dad had taken him shooting a few summers back. Just bullseyes painted across tree trunks, or tin cans or bottles lined up on a fence. Nothing live.

“Yep,” the women chuckled. “You’re definitely August’s kid.” She made a face. “By that logic, Juniper’s must be a real monster by this point.” She took a few steps back and leaned against one of the columns situated throughout the store, directly beneath a green-faced, hook-nosed witch mask. She glanced up at it, snorted derisively, and said, seemingly thinking aloud, “There are no good reds. But there are bad blues. One of the first lessons Raelyn taught me.”

She studied Pete’s face, searching for a hint of recognition in his face. “You’ve never met Realyn, have you, kid? Dad never told you what he was before…” She gestured to the store. “All this. I mean, it’s just like August to hide in plane sight. Like Santa Clause running a Christmas store at a local mall.”

“You’re not making sense, lady,” Pete said, but he was now more curious than annoyed.

 “I wasn’t too much older than you when she found me. I was gonna bust free from Mom and Dad’s cage. Hike all across America. Visit every single state until I finally found one that felt like home…” She scoffed. “Wanna know what I wish I knew back then? Buy spare shoes before taking off. Pack an umbrella. And that the only people willing to save you from monsters are other monsters.

“I was being gangraped by a pack of bums when Raelyn, Juniper, and your father showed. While he and June went to work, Raelyn wrapped her coat around me. I was numb then. None of it was real. I was too far gone to cry. I’d screamed plenty in the beginning. Tried to fight. But voice was gone and there was no more fight left in me.” The women shrugged at the horrified expression on Pete’s face. “You expect your first time to be special. Not with some homeless asshole.

“Raelyn took me to the nearest hospital. Told them she was my aunt or something. She offered to take me home to my parents. I lied and told her they were dead. She asked me where I’d been going. I told her I didn’t know. She stayed with me that night. And then, once June and August were done killing my rapists and then obliterating their ghosts to oblivion, they took me in.” The women shot the masks on the walls another look. “Your Dad didn’t want an apprentice, so Raelyn took me on as a second. Juniper was already far enough in her training to be promoted not too long after. A blue witch.”

The bell went off and all of the lights in the building went off, making Pete jump to his feet. The woman stepped off the column and turned towards the door. “Just like you, Commander Fletcher.”

Pete’s father stood framed in the doorway, daylight illuminating his silhouette.

“D-Dad?” Pete said.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, son,” August called over firmly. “Now get in the back room. I’ve already called your mother. She’s on her way.”

“Ooh,” the woman said, clapping her hands together. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

“None of your business, Irma,” August sneered. “You’re a long way from Chicago. Bet the thought of taking on June strapped rockets to your tits and made you zip out of town real quick.” He glanced back at Pete. “Peter. Back. Now.”

“Oh, but we were just getting to the good part,” Irma said, looking between them. “How you all turned me into a monster-”

“We tried to help you!” August snapped. But after what you did to that kid-”

“Don’t feel bad for Prez,” Irma snarled. Her hands audibly popped as she wrapped them into fists. “Been nothing but furry pain in my ass since he followed me over-Oh!” Her rage was immediately replaced with excitement. Like a big kid eager to show their parent the As they got on a report card. She began to reach into her coat.

August bellowed something in a language Pete didn’t recognize. The sound of sudden moment filled the store. Pete yanked the shotgun out from under the counter. By then two rows of monsters stood at attention on either side of the store. Deep blue shadows had risen out from the cracks in the tile floor and flowed into the Halloween masks. In unison, shadow soldiers wearing werewolf, vampire, alien, and serial killer masks had jumped off the walls and landed with heavy thumps, their newly solid feet splitting the floor.

Irma frowned at them. “To bad you didn’t open a Chinese place. I would’ve loved to fight a dragon for old time’s sake.”

“Do not push me,” August snarled, his eyes now fireballs of concentrated blue light. His soldiers readied themselves to attack. “I don’t give a damn about who you became on the other side. But for the memory of that scared, broken girl we found under that bridge, for my friend Irma Oz, I’m giving you this one chance. Get the fuck out of my life and don’t look back. Blues? Red? That don’t got anything to do with me anymore. I’m out. Done with this witch on witch, civil war bullshit. I put in my time, my blood. I played superhero. But that time is done. Just like this visit. Leave, Irma. Now.”

Pete watched on. Terrified and confused. His dad was a sorcerer? No, he was a witch?! And these monsters…they were his? Pete didn’t know whether to be distraught that his father had kept this from him or think that it was AWESOME that his dad had superpowers. Regardless, he did the only thing he could think of, and aimed the shotgun at Irma.

Much, much later, he’d curse himself for not following his father’s orders and hiding in the back room.

If he had, Irma would have never got to him. She never would have yanked out from behind the counter using a long, slimy tentacle sprouting out of her back. Like a snake, it had slithered around the counter unnoticed. It struck, wrapping around Pete’s waste and hoisting him over the counter, into her arms. The shotgun went off. It blew off the upper left half of her face. Blood and bits of brain splattered across Pete’s face. Even so, Irma smiled down at him with what was left and said, “To kill time, I could teach you a thing or two.”

And then she kissed him.

A horrible pang rippled through Pete’s body. Something hot and squirming flooded down his throat, making him see red. His father screamed an order, but it was an indecipherable whisper to Pete. The pain was just too much. He dropped the shotgun. Irma removed his mouth from his, allowing him to scream. Yet the voice that came out wasn’t his. “COMMANDER FLETCHER. WELCOME BACK TO THE WAR. YOUR FIRST MISSION IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR SON’S LIFE?”

Tears spilled from Pete’s right eye as he managed to get it to lock on Irma. She tossed something past August’s shoulders. He caught it. A black, curved dagger. The pommel splintered off into three snarling canine heads. The eyes of two of the heads glowed scarlet, yet the third’s were dark.

“FIND KENNEDY LINCOLN WASHINGTON,” the voice made Pete command, “USE THIS TO CUT HIM OPEN AND RETRIEVE MY GAURDIAN.”

August looked from the dagger, to Irma, and finally to Pete.

“I…I…Pete…”

“BUT FIRST, YOUR SUBJECTS MUST KNEEL BEFORE THEIR NEW QUEEN.”

Irma smiled ear to ear. Or she would have, if one of her ears hadn't been missing.

August’s body trembled with rage. His eyes pulsed with so much light that his skull showed behind his blue-tinged skin. But finally, with his son held hostage, he could do nothing but fall to one knee and command, “Bow, bow, bow.”

In unison, his monsters did. Each took a knee before their new queen.

Irma Oz.