Chapter 2: Do You Need a Hand?

Chapter 2 of A Ghoul Named Perry.

(2014 - one year later)

The South Keep was, of course, open. It was a shop tucked midway down an alleyway behind the main stores, and inside was always, always dark. In the window, there was a tiny hanging sign informing visitors that it was open, accompanied by a marionette of a witch. In the window were a few little pots of glitter and more puppets with cracked, expressionless faces. There was a reason the South Keep was so secretive, and even after a year of visiting the place, Perry didn't like it.

Another ghoul had risen. Perry was the first ghoul in seven hundred years. Before him, ghouls had been classed as extinct. His existence was an anomaly. But the existence of another ghoul? That was more than an anomaly. That was more than a coincidence. Somebody was doing this deliberately. But who? Why? What was going on?

Only the Sisters of the South Keep would know the answers.

Jarvia glanced at Perry, a gaze that he’d come to translate as: We’re going to have to be careful if this is going to work. He understood. They’d come here on numerous occasions within the past year. For Jarvia’s work. For Jarvia. For Perry, sometimes. They’d been trying to avoid coming here for the past month, but they really couldn’t put it off any longer. The information they had wouldn’t wait.

With a sigh of resignation, Perry nodded. Jarvia braced herself and opened the door, wincing at the twinkling of the bell announcing their presence.

As they walked in, one of the marionettes hanging from the ceiling brushed the top of Perry's head, and he shuddered. He didn't know what it was about puppets, but there was something inherently wrong about them.

Shadows danced around him like a bizarre show; he could feel the cold seeping into his skin. It smelled vaguely of vinegar and something else: something rotting. He wrinkled his nose, shuddering as he pulled his coat tighter around his slender frame.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered.

A low, female voice came from somewhere near the counter at the front of the room: “Visitors this late at night can mean only one thing…could it be? Is it he, is it she? Here again to buy secrets? Naughty! The Keep isn’t one for giving…”

Perry swallowed, his body trembling. He knew that voice; of course he did. It was the voice of Ayri, the woman who ran the shop alongside her twin sister, Noz.

“But it is!” Noz whispered into the darkness of the shop -only her voice came from right behind them, her breath chilling the back of Perry's neck. “Here they are, here they are, here to take our trade!”

Without warning, Noz stroked two freezing cold fingers across his throat to his collarbone, a touch that made him flinch violently away from her. Discomfort spread through him like fire. Ayri and Noz didn't exactly know the meaning of the words “personal space”. This wouldn't be the first time they'd touched him without warning, and it probably wouldn't be the last. He hated it when they touched him. It was disgusting to feel their cold, dead fingers poke and prod at him.

You’re dead, too, the little voice at the back of his head hissed. Hypocrite. Hypocrite.

The Sisters materialised in front of them, their grins so wide, their skeletal faces looked like they were splitting. The sisters looked quite odd, cast in the emerald light of the candles they were holding. They were short and haggard, with cloaks hiding their bodies from public view. Only their faces were shown, skeletal faces with gaping, empty eye sockets where their eyes should be. Calling them blind was a ridiculous understatement. In fact, calling them anything was an understatement; they were not human. These creatures could not be defined by simple words, in any language known to humankind; these creatures were layered and complex, with a million different tales and a million different lives to recount and claim as their own. These creatures were not for the eyes of mortals to determine.

They were staring at them.

Without thinking, Perry moved closer to Jarvia, trying to take comfort in her presence. She knew how to bargain with these creeps. With her, he was safe.

“You only come when you want something, friends,” Noz whispered hoarsely. “So...”

“What is it that you want?” Ayri finished. “Come, tell us. Tell Auntie Ayri...”

Jarvia glanced at Perry, raising an eyebrow. Its meaning was clear. Your turn.

Perry cleared his throat. He needed to sound confident. If they could hear the anxiety oozing into his voice, they’d sense the weakness in him.

“Something…something has happened,” he said. He struggled to keep his voice neutral. He wouldn’t let them win. Couldn’t.

“As you undoubtedly already know,” Jarvia added.

“Last year, I woke up as a ghoul,” continued Perry. He felt slightly more confident now that he’d already spoken. At least he wasn’t speaking into the silence. “A month ago, someone else did the same. A woman called Mira Leigh. We want to know who did it. Who brought her back, and why? Is it deliberate? Is someone trying to bring ghouls back?”

“So many questions!” chuckled Noz.

“So many answers,” Perry countered. He crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t going to stand here and listen to their riddles. He’d come for answers, and answers he’d get. He hadn’t spent the past year searching for them to give up when he had a lead, however slight. “We know you know. Give us the answers we need.”

He couldn't see them, since the shop was still so dark, but he knew they were smiling. Of course they were. Perry was rebelling against them, but he was playing to their tune. He and Jarvia were little more than the marionettes floating around their heads. They were toys to the Sisters. All humans were.

“Well?” Ayri demanded impatiently. “Tell him, sister!”

Noz giggled. “Payment!” she cried. “We want payment for your gift!”

Perry and Jarvia exchanged a glance, though it was rather difficult to see one another in the darkness. They knew not to trust the Sisters. Jarvia herself had had a long history with them, and she'd constantly warned Perry about their manipulative tricks before entering the shop. Once, she'd told him how she'd almost ended up selling her soul to the strange twins: a consequence of not listening closely enough to their riddles and whispers. Now, he knew better.

“What's the payment?” Jarvia inquired. She looked casual, leaning against the wall with her ankles crossed. But in her eyes, a fire blazed. It was a challenge.

“Simple!” cried Noz.

“Very simple,” Ayri agreed.

“We just want...”

“Percival!”

Perry shouted in protest, taking several steps away from them. “No,” he hissed. “Back the hell off.”

Jarvia moved off the wall, immediately lurching forwards with her hands at the ready. Soft purple smoke began to pulsate around her hands, a breathing monster of magic.

The threat was already obvious. Her growl of, “You just try to take him,” only added to the defensive response.

“The tigress defends her cub!” cackled Ayri. “Goodness! Goodness! Goodness!”

“Goodness,” Noz agreed.

“You didn’t even let us finish our sentence, you cruel tigress. Down, girl!”

“Down, girl!”

Ayri raised her hairy little hand, clicking her fingers. At once, the magical smoke surrounding Jarvia vanished into nothing. One of the few candles they had burning went out, leaving Perry and Jarvia in dark ignorance.

The Sisters had responded with a threat of their own. They stood staring at their clients, their twin faces completely expressionless. Once again, Perry pulled his coat closer around his body. Once again, Jarvia’s eyes were blazing.

“We want Perry,” Noz said again.

This time, neither Perry nor Jarvia responded.

“To do something for us,” continued Ayri.

“To drink something. And methinks he knows what!” snickered Noz. “You want feeding, don't you, ghoulie?”

Perry flinched at the use of the word 'ghoulie'. Somehow, it felt wrong to hear it from them. When Jarvia said it, it was affectionate. When they said it, it was putting him in his place. Reminding him of his own inhumanity.

“So it's a win-win situation!” Ayri continued. “You drink. We give. It's simple!”

Perry scowled. It was never that easy. “And what, exactly, do you get? What's in it for you?”

They shrugged in unison, which looked creepy. It was like they were holograms, copies of one another. Clones. Perry shuddered again, his eyes flickering to the door and back again. It was a few yards away, but it seems like miles.

“We just want to test you...” the Sisters said at the same time.

“Or else!” Ayri smirked.

“No...answers...no...questions...” Noz gasped.

Perry glanced at Jarvia again. She was watching the Sisters with an odd look on her face, as though she really didn't know what she was seeing. For once, she had no answers. And that was terrifying. Perry looked back at the Sisters, once again making the decision.

“Fine,” he said. His voice sounded shaky and hoarse, even to his own ears. “I accept.”

The two of them laughed loudly, which was never a good sign. One of them said something like, “Wait here, my lovelies”; whispered words in the air. And on that eerie note, the sisters temporarily disappeared.

The witch and the ghoul stared around them, blinking. They had no idea what they were supposed to be doing; the Sisters hadn't given them any time to even reconsider this strange “test” they were about to put Perry through. But here they were. Alone. Why was the room so damned cold? Perry was shaking from top to bottom. He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck, taking a deep breath of the lavender smell that still permeated it from his mother’s draw. His glance at Jarvia was anxious, his pupils large in the darkness.

“What do we do? Just wait here?” he asked, quiet in the cool atmosphere.

“I suppose,” she returned. “But if you hear any ominous chanting, the appropriate response would be to turn around and run.”

They returned a few moments later, carrying more candles to illuminate their faces and the objects they were holding in their hands. Noz was carrying a medium box in her hairy hands. It looked fairly ominous, lightly decorated with a silver skull in the centre. Ayri was carrying two candelabras, one in each hand. They were both lit with eerie green flames. Ayri placed the only sources of light down onto the counter at the front of the shop, but Noz continued forwards until she was standing right in front of Perry.

Noz bowed her head so that her face was hidden, and waited with a knowing smile for him to open the box. It was strange, but Perry had never experienced something like this before, something so wrong, ritualistic and unfamiliar. He'd come to the South Keep several times in the past, and they'd introduced the box before, but never with such ceremony. He rather felt as though he was an unknowing sacrifice, about to be thrown onto a table and stabbed to death for the second time. Perhaps he'd die here, and wake up in the next century. If it continued happening to him, he didn't think he'd be able to take it. Waking up and finding out everyone you knew was now dead or gone was not exactly one of the happiest experiences.

Swallowing nervously and extra aware of how dark and cold the room was, Perry reached out for the box. He almost expected Noz to move and scare him, perhaps grab his wrist or push him away from her. She didn't. All she did was stand there, with that same, large smile on her face, and that same emptiness in her expression, as he slowly placed his fingers on the box.

“Should I open it?” he whispered, very conscious of being too loud in the silence.

Jarvia, who had absolutely no qualms with breaking the peace, boomed her reply: “Is this one of those times you'd like me to lie and tell you it's probably full of glitter and smiley faces so you don't start crying or something?” Despite the grandstanding, Perry could hear the slightest crack in her voice. Even Jarvia Knot was out of her element in the South Keep. In fact, Perry expected that the gods themselves would be cut down to size here.

“Yes,” he swallowed.

“Then by all means, open it. I'm sure it's probably full of glitter and smiley faces.”

He opened the box, and almost dropped it in surprise when he saw what was inside.

It was a glass. It wasn't just any glass, however. The glass contained a disgusting, sloppy-looking liquid, mostly greyish in colour, except for the unmistakable sight of blood trickled on the top of it. It was as though it was some sort of delicious milkshake with extra strawberry sauce. But it wasn't the actual drink that shocked him: he'd seen that before, and knew just exactly what it was. It was the eyeball floating at the top.

“Well,” Jarvia commented. “It's certainly not glitter.”

Perry looked up at the sisters in horror, his own eyes wide and confused.

“What the hell?” he asked. Panic started rising in him like vomit. “What's this?”

At least it explained Noz's grinning. Unfortunately, the two sisters were not going to be giving him any answers. Their expressions stayed the same; their positions didn't change. They stayed where they were, completely silent, waiting for him to do what they wanted him to do with stubborn resolution. They made it clear what they wanted even without any words. Drink the drink and take the eye, or we will never help you again.

“I can't,” Perry wheezed. “I can't do it. I can't. I "there's an eye in it! What sort of sick, twisted joke are you two trying to play?”

Jarvia raised an eyebrow. As soon as he'd said the words, the sisters looked up at him, their heads moving in such perfect unison it was almost robotic. The sound of the door locking behind them sounded through the shop, shaking Perry to the core and warning him that these sisters were not going to let him go until he did as they asked. They weren't smiling now. They'd given him a test, and he was slowly failing.

“It seems that Big Brother is watching you,” Jarvia said darkly.

He could do this. He'd done it before, several times; the only difference this time was the eye. It actually looked like it came from a corpse, which was terrifying and strange. But Perry had dealt with terrifying and strange things before, and he felt suddenly determined to finish this, to get this over with so that he could get his answers. No one went to the South Keep without expecting to pay for their answers. Unfortunately, the Sisters knew exactly how to toy with their customers. He would find out why he was here if it killed him again. He would tear this world apart for those answers. It was the only way he would survive. This person was already dead; they didn't care whether or not he consumed them.

Taking a deep breath, Perry asked, “What is it? Which part of the body?”

Jarvia peered into the drink, sniffing and wrinkling her nose. “The hand. Or the arm. I can never tell with those two, since they're, y'know, connected and all.”

“The hand,” he repeated, nodding. “Right. So it's just a hand.” He caught Jarvia smirking, and scowled at her furiously. “If you make a single pun, I am going to throw you into a volcano.”

Perry reached for the glass, choosing not to think about what it was he was drinking, and tipped it back down his throat. Immediately, the eyeball touched his lips, teasing, trying to slide through into his mouth. He pursed his lips, clenching the fist that wasn't held around the glass and trying not to choke in disgust. He forced himself to continue gulping down the horrible grey mixture of flesh and crushed bone. He had to get it over with. So he swallowed, and he gulped, and he felt his intestines squirm in his torso like an unfed creature.

Drained, Perry slammed the glass down onto the table, refusing to look at the only thing left in it: the eye, which still stared at him disapprovingly. He imagined his mother wrapping him up in a warm blanket before a fire. A hot water bottle, a mug of cocoa. Happiness was being sick with his mother to help him get well; happiness was having someone fuss over him, having someone take a day out of work so they could cuddle up with him and watch the skyline, because they loved him, and they were family.

He could feel Jarvia watching him.

“You drank that fast for someone scared of their food looking at them,” she commented. The lightness in her tone, he knew, was meant to comfort. But right now, nothing could comfort him. He was floating in between humanity and monstrosity. He was no longer a boy of the 50s, smiling at comic books and dreaming of other worlds. He was a beast. He was a monster.

He was a ghoul.

“There,” Perry's voice was snappish, but he felt better than he had done in a couple of months now. Energised. He wanted to do something; he had a sudden need to kick a wall, to run a mile, to dance until he couldn’t breathe. “I've done your stupid test. Now, would you mind telling me what the hell that was about? Why put an eye in it? Where did you even get it?”

“It came from a client,” Ayri said, finally speaking and smiling normally.

“We killed her,” Noz agreed.

“Because it suited our needs.”

“And yours!” Noz giggled.

“So we thought, 'Why not?'” Ayri said.

“She ran over a six year old girl when she was a teenager. She didn't call the police.”

“The girl died.”

“So the woman deserved to die, too.”

“And she deserved to watch the man who was going to eat her soft, delicious flesh, boiled to perfection.”

To his surprise, Perry was not very shocked by this information. He didn't even feel that disturbed. It was late at night; despite his energy, his mind was spent. The whole day had been spent on soft discussions of what they would do, what they would say, when they met with the Sisters " he hated the very thought of them. He just wanted to go back to Jarvia's apartment and lose himself in dreams of home, of the family he'd lost.

“We wanted to test your resolve. To see whether or not you would dare do something so horrific in order to find your answers,” Noz said quietly. “We wanted to see how far you would go for your family.”

Perry scoffed. “Give me my damned answer,” he growled. “Who’s raising ghouls and why?”

“Ooh, isn't he rude!” Ayri cried, howling into the darkness. The candles had been blown out again, invisible waves of magic sweeping through the building. Their magic was stronger than any other. Theirs was the magic of rituals and of death. Theirs was the magic of gods. “Young man! The answer to your question...”

“Is hidden!” Noz snorted with laughter.

Ayri giggled: “To find the answers the ghoulie seeks:

One hasn’t got far to look!”

Noz laughed: “In the origin place where the dead man sneaks

Lie the answers death took.”

“What the hell?” Perry shouted. His fists were clenched at his sides; his body was shaking, though whether with cold or rage, he could no longer tell. “What sort of answer is that?”

But the Sisters were done helping him. He heard the clicking of the lock on the door behind him; creaking, it swung open.

“The door is open, young man,” Ayri said, in a tone so pleasant it could almost be mistaken as sweet. “But remember this test. In the future, it will help. It will help you fight the Beast of Music.”

Noz nodded, though she was beginning to turn her back on the visitors. “Danger is coming, boy. Danger is coming, and as soon as you open the box containing it, no one will be safe.”

He didn't bother asking them what they meant, because by this point, he didn't care. He'd got what he came for. With a scowl on his face, Perry swung the door open, feeling the familiar fire of fury burning in his veins as he took a step into the freezing air.

“You said you wanted to see how far I would go for my family,” Perry said, not bothering to turn around and face them as he spoke.

“Yes?” the sisters asked in unison.

“I don't have a family,” he said simply.

They smiled, but Perry, already walking away, did not see.

Author's Note

What? A ghoul's gotta eat.
Okay, in all seriousness: I'm hoping this scene is good for atmosphere. Is it creepy? Is it just flat? How's the horror factor?
Thanks for reading!