It Girl

Harry Lopner, Grade-2 Sewage Engineer, worked for the government, and he was proud of this fact. Not a lot of people would wade through graywater for forty-eight thousand dollars a year plus benefits, but Harry Lopner was not a hugely social person, and found a certain comfort in the dark, isolated tunnels. A childhood accident with a bottle rocket which had permanently destroyed his sense of smell helped, too. He worked with the city government, but was the only qualified sewage engineer in the town, which meant all the you-know-what rolled downhill to him.

 

He stood in the main street, his meager traffic cones preserving his life as he wedged the crowbar into the manhole cover. He got called in for anything that went wrong. Usually, it was disturbing smells. You got your fair share of dead animals, rotting food, all kinds of tremendously nasty things. Harry had burned out his disgust centers long ago, just interacting with people. From there, handling something squishy was relatively easy. A puff of steam rose from the manhole as he lifted it out of place, the warm air inside the sewers condensing in the crisp December air.

 

This was the time of year when you got people living in the tunnels. Homeless, the mentally ill, runaway teenagers, those who had nowhere else to go. Poor bastards, just trying to find somewhere warm and out of the snow. Even for Harry's stunted sense of empathy, it plucked at his heart-strings. He was not a social butterfly, but he was not callous, either. He'd found a body, once. Some poor kid who couldn't have been older than 18, lodged in one of the sewer tunnels, trying to hide, who had died from an infected wound. Ever since then, he'd done the best he could to help people find somewhere safe to go. Directing them to out-of-the-way parts of the city, places where they could find some warmth and safety without anyone noticing them. They usually moved on, but he knew of at least half a dozen people who were living in what he liked to call 'City housing'. They didn't impact the city's sewer systems any, and it beat the hell out of being in this weather.

 

Which brought him to his current problem. Citizens had spotted someone, down in the sewer tunnels. There had been a spate of attacks. Strange creatures menacing people from the sewers. Even one person who had claimed to have seen a giant cockroach. From the variety of reports, and their inconsistent natures, Harry suspected some hallucinogenic gas was getting released into the sewer lines, and screwing with the heads of people in the area. All of the 'attacks' centered around this manhole.

 

Harry tied one end of the ball of yarn around the ladder, and lifted the gas mask over his head. If the hallucinogen was inhaled, this would protect him. If it wasn't, he'd follow the yarn back to safety. No point in getting stupid. Harry's chemistry knowledge was substantial. He knew all the kinds of horrible things you could encounter where waste was decaying. He had a dim idea of what might be responsible, although it was nothing more than a theory. He pulled the mask on.

 

It was tight. Confining. Latex stretched across his skin, as he pulled it on. Halfway on, as it slid over his eyes, he heard a soft laugh in the distances, and inhaled sharply.

 

A memory returned, entirely unbidden, from his childhood. He'd spent his morning watching the children's shows, enjoying Saturday morning in the way only a kid with absolutely no responsibilities could. Right up until 10:30. At 10:30, the local TV affiliate had switched over to a piece of local programming. It was some kind of children's show, but he didn't know much about it. He'd never made it through the opening. The host scared the hell out of him. It had always started with the same sequence, the clown-white-faced woman in her overly large shoes and gloves. She had laughed shrilly, almost manically, and it had scared the hell out of him. He'd never been able to make it through the entire opening. He usually turned it off as soon as she laughed.

 

There had been so many things about the face of that woman which had disturbed him. The thick, almost mask-like clown-white. It made all of her expressions barely visible. The gigantic red frown, painted from lip to lip, had made her look like her cheeks had been split open into a Glasgow frown.  He'd always suspected those gloves and shoes had hidden vicious claws. He'd never watched the show since then. He was sure she was probably a perfectly decent human being. But that display had been enough to rattle him.

 

It had been her shrill, piping laugh ringing through the sewer pipe. A shiver ran down his spine. It could've been just his imagination. Maybe it was the gas getting to him. It didn't matter. He wasn't a little boy anymore. Hell, he could probably take that crazy clown-girl if she tried to attack him nowadays. He repeated these thoughts to himself as he began walking down the corridor, letting the ball of yarn trail out behind him. His flashlight flickered on, illuminating the sewer tunnel. Small ledges on either side of the flow of water provided a place for him to walk. At intersections, metal bridges spanned the underground river. The rush of cold air he was letting in with the open manhole cover was creating a bank of fog, billowing out over the water, giving an eerie quality to the tunnel.

 

He didn't know precisely where the source of the gas might be. Hell, for all he knew, he'd have no way of finding it, and the city would have to call in an expensive specialist. Harry was a great believer in due diligence, though. Maybe this would be easy, he mused to himself. The acrylic faceplate of the gas mask fogged as he walked through the mist, and he slowed his pace.

 

"Harry... What time is it, Harry?"

 

He froze, ice running down his spine. It had been soft. So soft he could almost dismiss it as his imagination. He stayed still for a minute, waiting for the voice to continue, but it didn't. As his muscles unclenched, and he began to walk again, the memories flooded back. The hostess' little spiel at the beginning of the show. The way she greeted the children watching the show with false cheer. Every week, it had been a different kid's name. He was sure, now, that they had chosen them from common names. Nothing suspicious about it at all. But when she had called out his name one time, he had nearly fainted. A little shiver of disgust ran up his back even as he remembered it.

 

He looked around. Jenkem was a possibility. If the human waste was getting caught up around an obstruction, being blocked, it could have hallucinogenic effects. He'd seen the reports of it back a few years ago on the news channels. Fermented human waste could be a hallucinogen. Admittedly, it sounded fake to him, but it was his best guess at what was causing the madness. He ran the flashlight over the flow, keeping an eye out. It also had the convenient side-effect of taking his mind off of the strangeness. Maybe the hallucinogen was effecting him from the brief breath he had taken. That was it. His flashlight ran up, and he saw a figure in the mist, just a few feet away.

 

His surprised exhalation- not a scream, mind you- sent a gout of hot air into the eye-pieces of the mask. They instantly fogged to opaque. He cursed loudly, yanking at the mask, his heart pounding. He brought the flashlight back up, waving it from side to side, trying to find the figure. It was gone. He stood, shaking, and looked back. But he had a job to do. He kept walking, the gas mask hanging off of his utility belt. The warm air was making him sweat. That's what he told himself, at least.

 

The central cistern was his best guess at where a blockage might be found. It was meant to be a floodwater-break. Nearly ten million gallons of water could be absorbed by the cistern. It was a vast room, semi-spherical. Pipes ran off in every direction from the room like spokes. As he entered the room, his stomach churned. Balloons were everywhere. Giant, multicolored, practically straining at their rubber confinement. Ready to explode.

 

It had been the worst part of the show. The host had a bundle of balloons as she danced. At the end of the opening song, she popped them. It had been like Harry's own personal Vietnam. He had never understood how they'd managed to give the balloons such a deep, rumbling bass when they detonated. He watched as the large balloons swirled around, caught in invisible vortexes of hot and cold air. And then she walked out of the swirling masses.

 

The hostess approached, smiling brightly. Wearing her overly baggy trousers and comically large top, her face chalk-white and split by a massive frown. She held a balloon string in one hand, the red rubber bright as blood. It was nearly the size of a beach ball, and it floated oddly, bounding up and down ahead of her, like a dog on the trail of a scent. "What time is it, Harry?"

 

"Party-time." he croaked. She laughed, high and wild,  as the balloon exploded with grenade force, her bright sharp teeth glimmering in the darkness. And he screamed, and screamed. Then his eyes traveled down from her face, and the scream died in his throat. She kept laughing for a while, until she seemed to notice he was no longer terrified. She frowned at him, and then her eyes drifted down, too.

 

"Why in the name of god do you have an erection?!"

 

Mortal terror was replaced with social anxiety. "I- It's not intentional! I just- When did you get those?"

 

Harry had been a prepubescent boy when the show was on the air, and hadn't revisited those old memories in quite some time. Those baggy, hanging trousers were held up purely by a pair of hips which seemed to belong on... Well, not on the local children's TV show host. Perhaps a model, though. Her loose shirt exposed the shoulders, and was held up by a pair of breasts whose like Harry had seen only once before, on some kind of fertility idol on display at the local museum. Certainly, the gloves had slipped off to reveal fearsome claws, and the teeth were sharp and bright, and her hair writhed as though the red strands were serpents. He was just having a great deal of trouble looking anywhere but at her chest.

 

"I didn't choose this shape! What on earth is wrong with you?! What kind of human is attracted to something they're frightened of?!" The girl's voice was sharp, and a bit harsh, but surprisingly attractive when she wasn't screaming or shrieking. It had a lyrical quality. That was right, the hostess had an Irish accent. He coughed, looking embarrassed.

 

"The last time I saw her, I was 9. I, uh." He rubbed the back of his head, suddenly feeling embarrassed for the nightmarish specter in front of him. "I guess I didn't notice some of her salient features. I've got to go check out those tapes again." He looked around. "You, uh, were trying to terrify me?"

 

"Oh, forget it. It's worthless trying to terrify a human who's aroused. You'd probably just find anything I could do more exciting." Disgust and annoyance warred for control of her face. Harry felt compelled to apologize.

 

"I'm sorry. But, look, if you're the one who's freaking people out around here, you've got some trouble. The city government has been getting reports. I mean, it might not be safe for you to stay around here."

 

She sat down heavily on an old, ratty couch. Literally ratty. Rats poured out of it, squeaking and hissing as they ran away. Harry didn't react. The local rats weren't diseased, and he actually found them kind of cute, in a spooky way. "What on earth are you doing down here? I was doing everything I could to terrify you. And the terror was radiating off of you- I'm already full! Why didn't you go away?"

 

He stood up straight, yanking his belt up. He was not an unattractive man, although he would probably be able to just say 'attractive' if he took care of himself. He ran a hand through his messy hair, feeling oddly compelled to look his best for the terrifying clown woman. "Ma'am, I am a licensed and bonded employee of this great city, and I had a job to do, to discover and stop the source of a number of frightening reports."

 

"And how much do they pay you for your duties?"

 

"Fourty-eight thousand a year, plus benefits." He stuck his fingers in his belt, and his ego withered like a delicate plant being subjected to a blast of liquid nitrogen as she laughed. This was a softer, more dulcet sound, warm and amused. He preferred it when she was shrieking like a banshee.

 

"Oh my goodness. You were risking your life, delving into the hall of a monster, for that? You don't even get hazard pay, do you?" She snickered, covering her face with her hand. "Anyway. I can't leave. I feed on humans."

 

His blood ran cold. "You eat people?"

 

"Oh, god no. It would be like eating a dairy cow. I feed on fear. The scent of adrenaline, the rush of impotent anger and hate. The taste of fear. It's what I feed on. Of course, I can't live among humans, or I'd just be a police officer or something." She waved a hand at herself. "You can see how it is. I have no shape, except that which I am given. Most humans don't function very well in the face of their most brutal childhood fears." She eyed him, a frown and a smile vying for control of her lips. "With a few... deviations."

 

"Well, the thing is, if you stay down here, city government's going to get pissed." Harry rubbed his chin, feeling the coarse bristles. It had been a few days since he'd had a meeting with the others in his department. He'd gone unshaven since then. "So, do you need to scare the people yourself?"

 

"No, but it does have to be mortal terror. Anxiety about taxes, fear of losing your job, those things are like the cheap fast food of fear. It's depressing, really. The world used to be full of black plagues, rampaging kings, madness. Now, all your fear is held at arms length." She sighed softly, wistfully looking across the room. "Everything used to be so much... bigger." It struck Harry that, beneath porcelain white and blood red, the woman- or whatever she was- was actually quite beautiful. A wistful sadness sat on her face which was almost enough to forget she was pining for the good old days when Black Plague was a thing.

 

"I..." He frowned. "I might have an idea. See, there's a movie theater in town. They've got a really spooky basement. I get called in sometimes when someone flushes too much butter down into the grease traps-" He saw the look on her face. It was surprisingly easy to read the body language of a terror from his childhood, compared to most people. "Right, too much information. The point is, they do horror movies all the time. All sorts of twisted stuff. I bet you could settle down down there, and get all the food you'd need, without bothering anyone. And, if you're lonely, uh..." He coughed, looking away. "I could always keep you company on my days off, if it would be alright with you. If it wouldn't bother you. I mean-"

 

"You don't speak with women much, do you?" She smiled, a fond expression on her face, as she stood up.

 

"No. Even less so with crazy fear demons."

 

She smiled. "Oh, you don't have to call me that, Harry. I used to have a name... The People of the Standing Stone called me... Slahtoyuk." She stepped closer to him, and pecked him on the cheek. Her breath was warm and rather sweet. "Well, I do not know these tunnels terribly well. Please, show me the way."

 

"Haven't you been living down here for- Oh." Harry flushed as he realized what she was saying. She took his hand, and he began to walk with her. Sure, he was scared as hell. But he was grinning, too.