Chapter Text
Two days ago…
Billie Dean fiddled with the dial on the radio, trying to tune in a local station. Some of the areas she and Constance had been through when they were still traveling together were advanced enough to have a radio station. In some cases, they had more than one. She tended to leave the radio on low volume in hopes of catching something. Currently, she was struggling to hear the soaring vocals of Johnny Mathis crooning "Chances Are" through a storm of static snow, with the music fading in and out as she tried to pinpoint the call number.
In addition to breaking up the silence of traveling alone, local stations were helpful for getting a feel for what was happening in the world. The last update she'd heard, rumor said there was a telecommunications network up in Massachusetts that was becoming something of an official broadcasting location. It was also supposedly one of the few areas left in the world that had a network of computer servers up and running. It wasn't the Internet but it was a huge step toward reclaiming what society had lost.
Billie Dean had thought about heading that direction, but she'd had her fill of witches in New 'Salem. She didn't want to take chances encountering any on their home turf. She was likely to get sent right back to Fiona if she did. So, she headed toward Mexico instead. As she drove further south, the city gave way to the seaside. Bluffs and sandy hills erupted from the fog, a pleasant change from the hunkering silhouettes of rundown buildings and abandoned gas stations she had been passing for miles. Having something other than static on the radio would make the drive that much better.
While she was distracted with the radio, a figure stumbled out into the road, right in front of her car. There was a loud thump as the front end of the vehicle connected solidly with the individual. The impact caused her to look up in panic, but all she saw was a flash of dark cloth and a streak of blood across her windshield, then they were gone. A new spiderweb crack distorted the lower portion of the driver's side of the windshield.
Billie Dean slammed on the brakes and the car came to a stop with a hard jerk. Her heart thundering, the startled woman sat there for a moment, trying to sort out what had happened. She had hit something; of that she was certain. The blood streak on her window was slowly oozing down the fractured glass. Exactly what she had hit was hard to guess at, but she was sure she had seen cloth, which meant it was likely human or had been at some point. Looking in the rear view mirror, she could see a dark lump on the foggy road behind her. It wasn't moving. That didn't necessarily mean anything, though. Not in this crazy world.
She debated driving away. If it were a zombie or some other undead creature, she wasn't sure if she could fight it off by herself. But there was a chance it was a person she had hit, one that was alive and possibly seriously injured because of her distraction.
The empath groaned at her bad luck and indecision in how to handle things. Of all times for something to cross her path, why did it have to be while she was looking away? For an instant she missed Constance. The woman was the definition of collected. She would know what to do at a moment like this, and even if she didn't she would know how to fake it well enough to pass.
Billie Dean realized with a chill that it was possible the collision wasn't coincidental at all. Between the strange powers the coven possessed, Michael's growing abilities, and all the other weirdness in the world, it was possible the individual was quite literally put in her path for a reason. Understanding that only weighted the situation more. Were they put there by someone trying to help her? Or someone trying to harm her? Some other reason?
After sitting there watching the form on the road for several seconds, Billie Dean reached over and pulled the loaded handgun from the glove compartment. She took the safety off. If she was going to investigate, she was doing it ready for action.
She took a steadying breath and opened the car door. Fog swept in, wrapping around her in curling tendrils that carried the scent of the sea. In the distance she could hear the ocean and the raspy cry of sea fowl. With both hands around the gun and one finger on the trigger, the medium crept a few steps closer to the stationary lump in the road. At that range, she could easily sense he wasn't a spirit or other undead thing.
"Hello..?" she called and immediately wished her voice didn't sound so timid. Screwing up her courage, she added in a firmer voice: "Are you alive?"
The body didn't respond. Billie Dean inched forward warily, pausing every few steps. The wind stirred the mist but otherwise there was no motion on the road apart from her own mincing approach.
When she was just out of arm's reach she tried again. "Hello?"
There was no response. She could see dark brown hair and dark red blood on the pavement. After another moment spent rallying her nerves, she stooped down and put a hand on them. She found a shoulder and was able to carefully roll the individual over. It was a young man, roughly 20 years old if she had to guess. He was dressed in a black trench coat that was too big for him. He had a long cut above his left eye and his right arm was laying at a funny angle. He was breathing, though he was unconscious.
Billie Dean agonized. She felt badly for hitting him with her car and she knew if she left him prone on the road, something worse would happen to him. She had no way of knowing what kind of person he was, though. If she put him in the car and he woke while she was driving, he might attack her. He could be insane or worse. She wasn't pulling any strange vibes off of him; nothing supernatural. It wasn't much of a comfort, though. She had known too many people who were considered "normal" who were just as dangerous as any witch or ghost she'd encountered.
She cast about, looking for inspiration or a solution, and suddenly saw it. The fog was thin enough to make out a nearby beach house, an abandoned summer spot that had seen much better days. She knew what to do then. Once she moved the car to the side of the road and parked it, she got back out and got to work. He was too heavy for the older woman to lift, so she dragged him as gently as she could toward the weathered old home.
...
-= AMERiCAN HoRRoR SToRY =-
...
Present Day
(Suggested reading music set at a quiet volume: Drop the Game by Flume & Chet Faker)
Desiree carefully carried the tray of food down the back stairs of the Hotel Bradford, eyes on the steep steps. The chore reminded the mulatto witch of her youth in Metairie, helping out at her uncle’s Creole restaurant.
It was in New Orleans when she was just a child that she met a zombie for the first time. The experience completely changed her life. She was visiting her grandmother in New Orleans proper when it happened. The Halloween encounter opened her eyes to the very real world of the paranormal and it proved to her that there were still gentlemen in the world, even if they were shambling undead monsters. If it weren't for him, she never would have sought out the Voodoo Queen. And it was through that harrowing encounter that she had found her way into the coven.
The zombie who had rescued her that night from a pack of older boys intent on stealing her candy was the very same zombie she was tasked with feeding now.
As she came off the stairs, Desiree paused to let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the cellar before forging ahead. This section of the basement was filled with machinery and wires that ran the upper portion of the old hotel. It smelled its age down there. Around a corner made of large boiler pipes was the cage the he was being held in. It was technically built for a large dog and barely big enough for him to sit in. Another canine crate deeper in the basement held the girl that the coven had captured in Sin City. Pieter insisted she was a succubus but if she was, the cursed collar she wore arrested her abilities. She seemed like a normal girl to Desiree. The Supreme had enchanted both cages so they were proof against physical or magical tampering.
"I brought ya some food," she said to Kyle when she arrived at his cage. Speaking to the prisoners wasn't forbidden, though it wasn't encouraged either.
Kyle glared at her from the kennel. He hadn't seen a shower or comb in days, lending him a feral quality.
The witch crouched down and passed the tray through the slot in the crate's door. Unlike most of the other women in the coven, Desiree favored pants over skirts, and situations like this only proved her choice right. The undead boy hesitated, then accepted the tray. Once it was in his hands, he promptly threw it at her. The tray banged against the cage door. Mashed potatoes and beans went everywhere, mostly inside the cage. Desiree flinched back instinctively then looked at the mess, dismayed.
"You have to eat," she insisted. She made a feeble attempt to brush potatoes off her black crushed velvet pants. "If you don't eat, you'll starve."
Kyle glared at her and turned so his shoulder was to her, like a shield.
"I know you can understand me," she said. She gave up on keeping her pants clean and scooted closer to the messy cage door. "Do you—A few years back, you helped a little girl on Halloween. She'd have been about ten, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Do you remember?"
The young man in the cage shifted a little so he could peek at her over his shoulder. Her words stirred something in his thoughts, but it was muddy and indistinct.
"I was dressed as...a fairy that year," she went on since she had his attention. She put her hand on the slot where she'd put the tray, to steady herself. It meant getting more potatoes on her, but she didn't care. "I had to go alone because my sister got sick that year. So, I was gonna give half of what I got to her. Not the better half, I'll admit," she smiled. "But still. I was gonna share it with her. Then these mean older boys, they came out the cemetery and just grabbed my bucket of candy, right outta my hands!"
Kyle vaguely remembered encountering some teen boys who had a pumpkin full of candy that didn't belong to them. He also remembered standing in a yard full of zombies. Then another memory struggled to surface. He scooted a little closer to the cage door.
"I don't know where you came from," Desiree went on, shaking her head. She noticed peripherally that she had potatoes on the end of her thin braids too. "But all a-sudden, there you were, kickin' butt and taking my candy back for me. I knew you weren't like anybody else I ever met. Wasn't sure what you were until I talked to my maman. By then, though, you's long gone."
"Flower," grunted Kyle.
Desiree looked at him in surprise then broke out in an impish smile that showed straight, white teeth. "Yeah. Yeah, y'right. I gave you a flower after ya showed those assholes what was what. Damn! You got a good memory."
The overt praise from a kindly feminine source felt good; it made Kyle want to smile at her. He didn't have a good memory at all but in that moment, he could pretend. The expression didn't take, though. He hated the cage he was in. Every time he shifted he was reminded of how cooped-up he was.
"I'm sorry," Desiree sympathized, reading his expression. "I hate that they have you down here. I guess they're afraid if they let you out, you'll run amok."
Kyle would do exactly that and he wasn't afraid to own it. He huffed a surly breath and gave the cage door a meaningful shake. It was a token effort and he only used one hand; he had already exhausted himself previously trying to bust out. He knew he couldn't escape, but she might have the ability to let him out.
"I can't open it," said the witch apologetically. "Fiona's spell is way too strong. Besides, you wouldn't get far. There's no way outta here that they don't got people sittin' on, ever since that psychic lady took off with one of Fiona's prisoners."
Kyle heaved a sigh and put his back to her again.
"Don't be like that," she chided. With body language that strong, who needed words? She squatted there, helplessly staring at his back for several seconds before heaving a sigh of her own. "I'll bring you some more food later, when I can get away. Okay?"
Just then there was a rumbling underfoot and in the surrounding basement walls. The dim lights flickered and went out briefly before coming back on again. Mood forgotten, Kyle sat up straight and alert, eyeing the ceiling warily. Desiree uncurled from the protective stance she'd taken and stood up.
"Whatever that was," she said. "I got a bad feelin' about it. I'll be back."
She hurried for the stairs then, forcing herself to tune out the patchwork boy's unhappy, insistent grunts that followed her. There was nothing she could do for him…yet.
...
Author's Note:
The song "Chances Are" by Johnny Mathis was also featured briefly in a scene in the sci-fi horror film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It played in the background during the scene when the little boy is abducted by the aliens. I saw the film when I was 6 and it was one of the first to truly scare me.
So, I know I sorta left things on a cliff-hanger at the end of last episode. I couldn't resist stringing things along a little while longer. Call it my Halloween-month spirit. We'll get back to Michael and the rain of witches next chapter.