I’m Still Here
Relic 11of
Lady Yate-xel
“She’s what?”
“I think she’s me.”
It had been a long time since the group had gathered in Devi’s living room to discuss things. They felt comfortable and at home there, like they had in the choir room years before. Everyone had a place.
“Nny,” Devi said, narrowing her eyes, “the kid is a girl. Swear to God.”
“I know that! She made a big enough deal about her chest for fuck’s sake. I know she’s a damn girl.” Johnny was sitting on Devi’s table, with Edgar and Jimmy on the couch behind him. Tenna sat on the couch’s arm and Devi paced around in front of the kitchen waving a paintbrush for emphasis.
“What I want to know,” Tenna said, “is why she’s wearing glasses.”
“Uh, how about she can’t fucking see?” Jimmy said.
“Maybe it was to throw us off the trail or something,” Edgar suggested. “You guys never stopped talking about how much she looked like Nny without the glasses.”
“Edgar, you’re not a girl, are you?” Tenna asked suddenly.
“What the fuck?” Confused and maybe a little disgusted at Tenna’s serious tone, he slid across the cushion closer to Jimmy.
“You wear glasses,” Tenna said. She pointed as if to remind him.
Edgar scowled. “So does Tess. And Devi when we met, and Dib, and probably Todd and half the damn world. What the hell.”
“So Banshee’s eyes aren’t as strong as Johnny’s, and she has boobs,” Devi interrupted.
“They’re not the same color, either,” Jimmy pointed out. Everyone but Johnny stared at him, mouths twisted in expressions of confused horror. Jimmy quickly amended his statement, “Her… eyes, I mean. Not her boobs.” He stood up from the couch and made a big show of opening a bottle of rootbeer that Devi had left on the counter.
“What the fuck were they doing trying to make a girl me?” Johnny asked.
“I just want to know why they sucked so hard at it, really,” Tenna said. “And why she has Edgar eyes. I think we should make sure he’s not a girl.”
“Because I definitely had a baby in the van, hid her from you guys for a couple months, and then chucked her in a ditch when I realized I had no damn breasts to-”
“Christ, Edgar!” Devi and Johnny shouted.
“Tenna’s the one who seems to think I’m some kind of hermaphroditic baby machine! Talk to her!”
“Sorry,” Tenna muttered. “Maybe it’s actually Johnny…”
“No,” the others countered.
“Why am I the only one who hasn’t seen Johnny naked?” Tenna pouted. “Even Jimmy got to. Is this why I’m not really in the band?”
“Can we stop with the me naked and focus on the not-me girl?” Johnny attempted to cross his arms, but his cast made it an awkward position, so he substituted some ‘meant to do that’ dramatic gesture instead.
Devi sat next to Johnny and clapped her hands together. “So, someone needed to make a new Johnny, but he had to be a girl?”
“Or they needed a new regular Johnny and fucked up,” Jimmy suggested.
“But fucked up how?” Edgar asked, still as far from Tenna as he could manage without being in Jimmy’s lap. “What did they even do to make a new Johnny?”
“Any wackos come tear out your hair or make you pee in a cup a couple months back?” Tenna asked, playfully poking Johnny’s leg with her toe.
“Yeah,” Johnny said, “I totally forgot about those people who wanted me to fuck a chicken back in January. That’s not anything I would have found suspicious at all. Why don’t I just find their number and ask them to forward us their notes?”
“So that’s a ‘no’ on them collecting stuff from you then.”
“No, it isn’t,” Jimmy said as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He squeezed back onto the couch and gestured to the ceiling with his rootbeer. “They’re dumb up there, but I think they’d be a little more careful than, “Here man, fuck this chicken.” They probably took some hair from a hotel room or something. On a pillow case, you know?"
“Oh, shit,” Edgar said suddenly, jerking away from Jimmy as though he’d been shocked. He became a little nervous when the group’s attention focused on him and tried to convey what he’d realized in mime before the attention became a concentrated glare.
“Come on, Edgar. Fess up,” Tenna prodded.
“Before we found Banshee, right when Tess started sending me notes and stuff, we… lost some stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?” Devi asked.
“Um, stuff.”
Jimmy looked like he was preparing to cover his ears and Tenna leaned in closer.
“Edgar, what kind of stuff?”
“Some scissors, a comb maybe, a razor… some sheets.”
“Sheeeets,” Tenna snickered. Johnny looked like he wanted to hit her.
Devi, attempting to be tactful while Edgar looked a little embarrassed, took the conversation, “I’m assuming the sheets are a little more relevant than the stuff with tiny bits of hair on them.”
“A little.”
“So theoretically… Banshee is part Edgar in all that Johnny.”
“That sounds sooo incredibly wrong,” Jimmy moaned. Edgar angrily elbowed him in the ribs, splashing rootbeer onto Jimmy's thigh.
“Sheesh, Jimmy,” Tenna said, “It’s not like you don’t know that they’re fucking each other.”
Johnny hit the table with his good hand and kicked Tenna’s shins. “Why is this whole conversation about me naked?! Fuck you guys!”
Edgar tried to offer some excuses in his defense without turning bright red in the process and Devi held Johnny down while he attempted to maim Tenna. Several minutes of incoherent screaming and three bandages from Devi's understocked first-aid kid later, the conversation returned to its original topic of Banshee.
“So…,” Edgar started awkwardly, “You guys really think Banshee is our kid by way of some dirty sheets?”
“You think those aren’t your eyes on Johnny's mysteriously female body?” Devi narrowed her eyes at him.
Edgar bit his lip and then replied, “I hope they’re not?”
“It doesn’t matter if they are,” Johnny said. “Kid is fucking crazy and we need to figure out why she’s here before she goes crazier and cracks my head open looking for candy.”
“Did they just not know you were dead?” Jimmy asked.
“Even if they did, why the hell are they trying to make more of me? They apparently know I live with Edgar, how hard is it to check if I’m still here?”
Devi suddenly seemed to remember something and looked intently at Edgar. “Does Banshee know about any of this?”
Edgar shook his head. “I haven’t mentioned it."
“Oh, she’ll love this,” Jimmy grumbled.
“Thank you for your understanding,” Edgar said.
“Stop whining, Jimmy,” Tenna said, shoving his shoulder. “Your babies with Nny would be seriously ugly anyway.”
Edgar looked a bit like he didn’t know how he’d ended up on the couch at all and Johnny’s glare grew increasingly murderous. Devi broke in to attempt to keep peace once again.
“Shut up, jeez,” she said, swatting at Tenna’s leg. “You guys planning on telling her about this?” Edgar sighed when she raised her eyebrows at him.
“I’ll tell her, I’ll tell her,” he said, leaning back into the couch. “It just feels a little premature to freak her out with ‘You might be our freak-clone-baby!’ unnecessarily.”
“I don’t think it’s ever too early to tell someone that,” Tenna said, sticking her leg out to invite Devi’s impending beating.
“I’ll tell her,” Johnny said, poking idly at his cast. “She either believes everything I say, or thinks I’m full of lies. I don’t particularly care which way she swings this time around.”
****
Banshee was not amused when Johnny told her, though he never managed to get beyond ‘clone of me’ before she cried foul and jumped up from the couch.
“You just want credit for how awesome I am!” she cried.
“Oh come on, like I’d want to be a teenage spaz again. You’re not that cool, Banshee.”
“I am too!” Banshee insisted, stamping her foot. “And I’m not you! I have glasses and boobs, remember?”
“I didn’t say you were me. Just that you were supposed to be once.”
“And what happened?” Banshee challenged. “Did I just decide to be me one day?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I existed and it fucked you up.”
“I’ll say you did.”
“Okay, okay, just hold on,” Edgar said. “Let’s think about this for a minute. If Pepito is right and Banshee is from upstairs, and we’re right and she’s a bad copy of Johnny… why did the guys in Heaven want to make a copy?”
“Because I died?” Johnny guessed.
“They didn’t notice you coming back to life? That was sort of big. I mean, I thought it was important.”
Johnny shrugged.
“I didn’t show up until months after Nny died, though,” Banshee said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Edgar answered, crossing his arms. “It… wasn’t long at all. We were still sort of coasting on Johnny’s high from coming back.”
“Way to ruin it, Banshee,” Johnny said.
“Fuck off.”
“How did they not notice?” Edgar asked. “They used to watch me so closely… surely they’d know if you were still here.”
“Maybe they did know, but it was too late.”
“Then why I am here at all?!” Banshee shrieked. “What am I doing if I can’t even do what some angel fucker somewhere made me to do?”
“Maybe you’re still going to do it,” Johnny said. He was calmly inspecting his fingernails as though the answer was just under his nail polish.
“What is it?” Banshee asked, a slight trace of panic in her voice. “What am I supposed to be doing?”
Johnny looked at her, stared at eyes that were the wrong color if they were to have been his, and shrugged.
“I have no idea.”
****
“I wouldn’t have existed if Johnny didn’t die.”
“Don’t say that.” Edgar thought maybe it was possible that Banshee would have existed without Johnny’s death, but wasn’t thrilled about explaining the disaster with the sheets to her. And even without the ‘magical clone baby’ element, she was pretty likely to be Johnny’s replacement given the logic Edgar and the others currently had to work with.
“It’s true.”
“It’s not a good attitude,” Edgar said.
Banshee made a face and recoiled in her seat.“Ugh, do you want to talk to me about becoming a woman and accepting myself too? Gross.”
“What? What did I say?”
“Nothing.” Banshee was quiet for few moments, and Edgar almost left the room with another notch for his failed conversations collection. Instead, Banshee blurted out, “Edgar, what is Heaven like?”
Something jumped inside Edgar when he heard Banshee bring up the word on her own.
Cautiously, Edgar continued the conversation. “Excuse me?”
“What is Heaven like?”
“What brought this on?”
Banshee gazed out the window over her shoulder as she played with a rubber band on the table.“I keep thinking it must be important. I think you’ve mentioned it before. And a long time ago, Aunt Devi and Aunt Tenna told me that you would explain what it was.”
“Me specifically?” Part of Edgar was annoyed that Banshee would remember the singular time that Devi and Tenna off-handedly mentioned Heaven and not the millions of times he’d deliberately tried to spell it out for her.
“Yeah.”
“It’s... this is hard to explain.”
Any mention of ‘Heaven’ brought images to Edgar’s mind that were just as unpleasant, if not more so, than the ones he had associated with Hell. He’d been to Heaven, or at least its gates, only once, but since that was all most people ever got, he hadn’t been complaining about it. Unfortunately, his experience there was less than blissful.
“You were there once?”
“Yeah, just before this life. Just at the gates, though.” He hated how often he had repeated this information in the last few months.
“What was it? Aunt Devi said good people go there. Just good ones, I mean.”
“That’s the theory, yeah. I really don’t know because I was never inside. I gave up getting the chance to go in to come back here and help Nny.”
“You’ll get to go again, though.”
Edgar’s thoughts turned immediately to Johnny’s grand plan to die and take Edgar with him, and tried not flinch.
“I hope so, yeah.”
“What’s it supposed to be like?”
“Stories differ, but the idea is angels and clouds and fluffy white happiness shit, mostly.”
“That’s it?”
Edgar laughed for a moment.
“No, not really. I think Johnny’s starting to rub off on me. The idea is that it’s the place that good people go to be rewarded for being good while they lived. There are divine beings and God, usually. Everything is bliss and peace, you are reunited with the people you loved in life, and there’s nothing like pain or suffering or war or anything like that.”
“Just one god?”
“I guess you haven’t read those myths. A little less exciting with only one, I suppose.”
Banshee shrugged. “I read a little of the Bible in a hotel room, once, but not a lot of it. There were lists and lists of people’s family trees and a whole thing about not killing and ‘beget, begat, begotten’, and smiting and sacrifice and not having kids with people you were related to.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. There’s some good stuff between the lists, though.”
“Oh, I know. Lots of killing, mostly.”
“That’s not really what I meant, but I’m not surprised that’s what you liked.”
“It’s kind of boring with only one God. Besides, where are all the good people from all those other religions supposed to go, if Heaven is the only thing that exists?”
“I think the official stance is that they weren’t good people because they didn’t believe in that one God, though some think there’s a special place for people who were born too early to get the opportunity to be converted.”
“That’s a little better,” Banshee said, absent mindedly braiding a long section of pink hair. “But what happens to us?”
“What?”
“We not only don’t worship him, we’ve eaten cookies with a guy we’re pretty sure is the Anti-Christ.”
“I… don’t know.”
“When Nny died, he went to Hell, didn’t he?”
Edgar nodded, but remained quiet. Banshee prodded further.
“If you had died, your Heaven would have had no one in it. He could never go up there, could he?”
“Banshee, could we stop talking about this?”
“Are you afraid of it?” She wasn’t challenging him for backing away, like Johnny would have done, but she was pressing the issue. The tone in her voice sounded betrayed.
“I’m not afraid of death.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
There was a tinge of anger in Edgar then as he felt himself having a very familiar conversation. He remembered the absurdity of his current life when it was stripped down to its basic components and parts of him boiled inside at the kind of injustice he sat through occasionally. Maybe Tess had really been on to something.
****
“So. Banshee.”
Johnny flinched when Edgar said the name.
“What… about her?”
“Do we have any way of proving what she is? Or what we’ve been telling her she is?”
“I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“Nny, if she is, then we have a resp-”
“A responsibility?” Johnny challenged. “Really? It’s our fault that someone took sheets, is it? It’s on me that I died and am apparently so replaceable that it doesn’t matter if the new me has ovaries? Not a chance.”
“Who else is going to do anything?”
“We’re all doing things! She lives here and not in a drainage ditch! What more do you want? Just leave it alone.”
“She doesn’t live here, she’s boarded here. She’s tolerated here.”
Johnny actually growled in response. “If you wanted a magical happy family to start with, you probably should have found yourself a girl.”
“Apparently I didn’t even need one of those!” Edgar yelled back.
“That isn’t my fault! She has nothing to do with me! I wasn’t wishing on shooting stars for babies or trying to convince Devi to carry a love child! She was on the god damn side of the road!”
“And we picked her up. We owe her something a little better than all of this.”
“It’s a little late for that. She doesn’t want it anymore. This is all fucking ridiculous anyway.”
“What is?”
“That I am having a conversation with you about a kid that belongs to us. Fucking seriously?”
“Oh, that part. Yeah. Maybe it’s some kind of punishment for-”
“Yeah, no. Stop.”
“Sorry you’re upset about it. Later maybe?”
Johnny glared. “That’s what I said when you walked in here.”
****
After her experience on stage, Banshee discovered that she was more visible than she had been before and thus went outside less and less. She complained that people followed her when she went anywhere on her own. She felt trapped in the house and destroyed parts of it in retaliation. She sang. She tore up everything she was given and rearranged it until she was satisfied. She surprised Edgar more often than he wanted to admit. She drew on everything, and she destroyed everything except what was hers.
The only problem with Banshee as Johnny's replacement was a single chromosome.
Edgar could only assume that Johnny was meant to take on some sort of task that would have been hard to accomplish while dead and that had made Banshee necessary. Or else the guys upstairs had taken pity on him and were intending to create a replacement just for Edgar's enjoyment. That would sort of explain Banshee's accelerated growth and her attachment to him, though how they expected him to form a relationship with their creation after he had watched her grow he had no idea.
Sometimes, when she was trying her hardest to be her own person, she reminded Edgar the most strongly of Johnny. When he heard looping noise from her room that he could hardly sort out, he was treated to an experience that made him feel like he was back in high school.
When she told him he could come in, he asked what she was playing.
"A song."
"I know, but, what the hell is it saying?"
Banshee blinked at Edgar, then looked at the speakers, confirming the sound was coming from them.
"You can't tell?" she asked.
"It's in... I don't know. What language is that?"
"I dunno."
"But you understand it."
"Of course."
The music pounded behind her and her foot twitched while she stood talking to him. All Edgar could understand was the occasional 'hey!' but the rest didn't even resemble German, which Banshee would have been able to piece together.
"What does it say?" Edgar asked her again.
"I can't just tell you... that doesn't make sense."
While they stood there, the song started again. The opening was loud horns and tribal drumming. Edgar thought they sounded like the start of a hunt and Banshee responded like she desperately wanted to go hunting. She mouthed all the nonsensical words and when she saw that Edgar was just watching her enjoy the song, she grabbed his wrist.
"I can show you what it means, I think.”
Banshee's dance to the song was undignified to say the least. It was largely stomping and flailing, and Edgar wasn't about to follow her until she glared at him. She instructed him to do as she did until he “got it.” He felt utterly foolish with his arms in the air and a song he didn't understand in the background, but Banshee was insistent.
The room spun, and his arms felt like the blur they resembled. Banshee sang along beside him, still flailing and jumping. The bass of the song dictated Edgar’s heartbeat and he felt drums in his blood. The song came sailing to the surface of his brain and combined with Banshee’s speakers, it melted rational thought from inside and out.
Banshee grabbed Edgar’s hands when the song experienced a small break, and she spun them both around for the final reprise of the chorus. She was laughing, singing, screaming, chanting. Something. He couldn’t tell what was music and what was Banshee and what was in his head and what was coming from the speakers. Whether Banshee was doing anything even remotely in line with the lyrics or whether she was just shrieking with glee, he didn’t know, but he wanted to do the same something and nothing she was. By the end of their brief whirl, Edgar was ready for the next round of drums and tried to pull off a two-person stampede just as enthusiastically as Banshee.
When Johnny came in two repeats of the song later to ask why it sounded like a tribal sacrifice upstairs, Edgar understood the song, though he still didn't know a word beyond 'hey.' The dance, if it could even be called that, had been exhausting, but somewhere in that exhaustion was the feeling of the song. In all his experiences feeling the songs inside of people, and the feeling of playing music for people, he had missed that there was still something to be had for music outside of him, even if was technically in his head somewhere.
As Edgar followed Johnny back downstairs, Banshee turned the song up louder and screamed the lyrics after them. It remained close to the surface of Edgar’s mental music collection for a long time.
****
The voice was coming from Banshee’s room, and, as Edgar discovered when he looked in through the partly open door, it wasn’t coming from her mangled music player. When the tune ceased, Edgar eased the door open.
“Was that you?” he asked.
Banshee startled and spun around, wide-eyed.
“Sorry,” Edgar said, holding his hands up. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just heard the song and wondered.”
She sighed, relieved. “It’s okay. Was I too loud?”
“No, not at all. It sounded great." Edgar braced himself against the door frame, hoping to stay a while. "Do you like singing?”
“I don’t know, I guess,” Banshee answered, sinking to the floor in the center of the room.
“You don’t have to stay as the mascot, you know. If you can do this…”
“Eh, I don’t know.”
“Not interested in the job?”
“Isn’t it Nny’s?”
“Devi’s done it before, you know that.”
Banshee looked thoughtful and twirled a long piece of her multicolored hair around her fingers.
“What does Nny do when she takes over?”
“Eh, goes and absorbs adoration from the audience, I guess. Looks pretty or something.”
She stopped fussing with her hair.“‘Pretty?’”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Can I ask you something?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Why did you do the Homicides thing anyway?”
“No one could see us.”
“I mean you specifically.”
“No one could see me?” Edgar tried again.
“Really?” Banshee sounded disappointed. “It just doesn’t seem like your kind of thing what with the killing and screaming and black light and everything. I’d think a band you started would be… well, you wouldn’t be in stitches in it.”
“I think you’re assuming that I started it.”
“Then not ‘started’. ‘Were part of the beginning of.’ Nny says you named the group.”
“My name was the one they liked, yeah. But it was up against some bad puns and Jimmy’s ‘Death in German’ collection, so...”
“‘Die Morde’?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah.”
She shook her head and said something in German under her breath. “Still. This is what you like?”
“I do. I wouldn’t live with Johnny if there wasn’t an odd sense of humor buried in me somewhere.”
“But you’re not going to do this forever, are you?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“What do you want to do instead?” Banshee turned her attention – her nervous twitching habit – to a patch on her pants.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Edgar said. “But something I’m proud of. Or something I’ll be remembered for.”
“You aren’t proud of the Homicides?”
“It’s more Johnny’s thing now. I think it was always more Johnny’s thing.”
“Does Nny want to do this forever?”
“No.”
“What does he want to do then?”
“Live forever. Become God maybe, I don’t know.”
“You’d think the fastest path to that would be to keep performing.”
“He’s found a better way.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up and the amount of interest she showed worried Edgar just a little. “What is it?”
“I can’t really say,” Edgar lied quickly. “He hasn’t explained it to me in detail.”
“When he does, can you tell me?”
“I suppose so, but why? You in a hurry to have eternal youth or something?”
“I have grown faster than most people, in case you missed that.”
“Worried you’ll get old?” Edgar laughed.
“Maybe a little.” She looked back down to the patch on her knee, and then out the window.
“I wouldn’t worry too much. If you’re as much like Nny as you look, you’ll just stop aging in a few years.” He was pretty sure that was sarcasm, but he was not completely convinced that Johnny would ever grow old.
“Sure.”
Edgar coughed and tried to redirect the conversation. “I think Johnny would be excited to try something with you singing, though. To get back to that.”
“It could be okay.”
“This really doesn’t interest you? You used to love yelling into the mic.”
“Yelling is a little different than singing," she replied quietly.
“Just try it?”
She turned back to him, and glared right through him. "And be more like his clone, right?”
Edgar didn’t know what to say.
****
“She’s going to snap one of these days,” Johnny told him when they were alone in their room.
“I know. I think. I think I know. I just… I don’t know what to do about it. She’s angry that she’s supposed to be you, so she’s just all…,” Edgar held his hands up, hoping perhaps to catch the word he wanted as it fell from the sky. It never came, and he dropped his hands into his lap a few moments later.
“How old do you think she is?” Johnny asked.
“A few months.”
Johnny sighed. “I mean, how old would anyone who isn’t Banshee be if they looked like she does.”
“Sixteen? Seventeen?”
“You met us around that age.” Johnny was occupied with trying to catch flecks of dust in the ray of sunlight from the window. As far as Edgar could tell, he thought that whatever he was saying made perfect sense.
Edgar attempted to inject some clarity into the conversation. “So… if she’s replacing you, then she has to do something from where you and I started? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Maybe. Was there something we forgot to do while we were all spazzing out about my keys?”
“Go to school, mostly,” Edgar replied, shrugging. “Other than you dying happily, I can’t think of anything we were obligated to do.”
“Just a thought.” Johnny’s breath was sharp and shallow, like he was panting from a marathon he hadn’t run.
“You said before that you think it’s you making Banshee grow. And that it’s happening through Tess.”
“Something like that, yeah.” Johnny uncurled his fingers and inspected his palm for some dust that he had to know he wouldn’t be able to see.
“Are they doing this to you, then? Is Tess sucking the life out of you through Banshee?”
Johnny regarded the nothing in his hand. “It’s probably not Tess proper, but it’s a pretty strong possibility. The thing that has her doesn’t like me very much.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Johnny laughed. “Kill everyone?”
“Don’t,” Edgar threatened.
“I want you to be happy.”
Edgar half-smiled. “I meant about Tess and Banshee.”
“So did I.”
Edgar leaned closer. “Johnny, I-”
Johnny’s hand against Edgar’s shoulder stopped him from getting very far. “Don’t.”
“You don’t even know what -”
“Just don’t.”
Johnny looked tired and maybe a little scared as he stared again at the swirling dust.
****
Johnny only continued to get weaker while Banshee grew stronger. She refused to speak about what she was or wasn’t, only screamed during the night about what her purpose could have been. Edgar mentioned off-hand one morning that he worried that Banshee would start living up to her name. Johnny refused to sleep for the next two days, despite how clearly exhausted he was. Edgar did everything he could to convince Johnny that Banshee would not kill him in his sleep, but only his body shutting down sometime in the afternoon on the third day finally got him to get what he desperately needed.
Banshee thought it was funny.
In reality, Edgar could only guess as to why Banshee and Johnny were insisting on living with each other when they shared this clearly antagonistic relationship. Edgar hoped that it wasn’t some sort of fucked up suicide on Johnny’s part, and that it wasn’t willing murder on Banshee’s.
When Johnny began to get sick from the horrible treatment his body was receiving, Edgar had to try more than sleeping pills or any other medication he could convince Johnny to take. Johnny had been inside so long that Edgar thought a positive stress-free outing would help his condition. He had a feeling it would be stupid, but he felt just as strongly that he had to try.
“Nny, how would you feel about a trip outside?”
“Like shit.”
“Really, come on. I think it would do you some good. I want to take you somewhere.”
“Why don’t you go, and then come back and tell me about it?”
“Johnny, please. Even you have to notice you’re not doing well. Let me do something for you.”
“Fine,” Johnny said, pulling himself to his feet. “Where are we going?”
Edgar held out his arms to offer Johnny a brace, which Johnny tried to knock out of the way, but crashed into instead. Johnny's pride wouldn’t allow him to admit it had been accidental, so Edgar made no mention of it.
In the time that it had taken Edgar to convince Johnny to leave the house, get him to put some boots on, and have him stable enough to walk around without bitching, it had started to rain. Johnny was determined to ignore it, despite repeated offers from Edgar to fetch the umbrella. The rain wasn’t too bad when they left, and Edgar thought maybe it would clear Johnny’s head.
“Where are we going?” Johnny asked, attempting to lead the way to nowhere himself.
“Not far, just hang on, okay?”
“I don’t want to see Devi.”
“We’re not going to see Devi.”
When they turned a corner, Johnny knew exactly where they were headed.
“The school?” he asked. “What are you doing?”
Edgar didn’t answer but led Johnny to the doors near the choir room, where Johnny sat on a nearby bench while Edgar worked the lock. When both sets of doors were open, Edgar beckoned Johnny inside. Johnny followed, but seemed reluctant. Edgar took his hand and led him down the long hallway, where Johnny had dragged a confused Edgar many times before. They almost missed the small offshoot of the main hallway and turned into a closet before Edgar found the right spot. While he fussed with the lock, Edgar heard Johnny breathing hard, as though they’d sprinted rathered than casually strolled all the way from Edgar’s house.
The lock snapped and Edgar pushed the doors open, gesturing for Johnny to go through first. Johnny obliged silently, though he didn’t look enthusiastic about the stairs.
“I thought this was supposed to make me feel better,” he griped as he stomped up the small flights to the bridge.
“You’ll feel better when we’re out there.”
One more lock, the trickiest one in the school, and Edgar finally felt the wind from the roof again. It had been a long time before he felt the air that only blew above the school, and he’d been there trying to cure Johnny of something the last time as well.
Johnny let out a long, relieved sigh as he passed through the doors and leaned on the ledge of the roof, grateful for a chance to rest. He blinked down at Pepito’s house, which was still lit up brightly, and inhaleded deeply.
“The air up here,” he said.
“What about it?”
“Nothing else, just the air. You were terrified of being up here when I met you.”
Edgar leaned over the edge, just slightly. “It wasn’t up here I was so scared of, it was suddenly being off of up here and very much down there.”
Johnny laughed, though the sound struggled to escape him. “You were afraid of me suddenly being off of up here.”
“I’m always afraid of bad things happening to you. It’s what I’m here for.”
“That’s a sad life to be living, with my track record.”
“You’ll get better.”
Johnny shook his head. “Not unless you kill Banshee or something.”
“There will be something else,” Edgar insisted.
“No, I don’t think so. But it’s okay." Johnny smiled. "I was planning to head out early anyway, remember?”
Edgar shivered, and though he convinced himself it was from the wind, he knew better. “I told you,” he said. “I’m not okay with something ending your life for you.”
Johnny shrugged. “Do whatever you want.”
“What’s wrong with you? You once fought out of Hell because it wasn’t convenient for you. Why are you so content to go now?”
“Because you would never kill Banshee or Tess for me, and I can’t do it myself without becoming something horrific, and that’s the only way I see out of this.”
“No, I know there’s something else we can do. We just have to find it. Get the monster out of Tess and-”
“And what, Edgar?! Call in the Ghostbusters? Have Banshee exorcise her? Have Pepito or Dib do it?” He wheezed and stooped against the ledge, his chest heaving.
“We’ll think of something,” Edgar said gently. He offered his hands in case Johnny needed some kind of support.
“We’ll think of what?!” Johnny gasped, hand grasping at his chest. “You remember the same things I do. You were in my head for a while, or something like it. You know what it felt like, you know what it did, and fuck, it chased you once. You think we can just take it out of Tess and then frolic around with bunnies and Freezies and world is fine? Really? What are you going to do with it, Edgar? Keep it in a fishbowl?”
“Maybe we can put it in someone else.”
“That is the general idea,” Tess’ voice cooed from near the locked door.
Johnny took a sharp breath and slid to his knees without even seeing Tess. His breathing quickened and he muttered things that Edgar couldn’t understand. Edgar dropped to his knees and tried to cover Johnny’s ears, though he wasn’t sure what that was going to accomplish.
“Tess, stop it!” he yelled. “Stay back!”
“It’s not going to keep being Tess,” Johnny moaned. He was trying to burrow into the roof to escape whatever was happening in his head. The rain had provided puddles that Johnny attempted to drown himself in while Edgar held onto him and continued to yell at Tess.
“Get away, Tess! We'll talk somewhere else! You’re hurting him!”
“No, wait, it’s okay!” Banshee, half-dressed and sporting a wild expression, emerged from somewhere in the rain. She sounded out of breath from scaling the stairs to the roof, but she was brimming with energy. She’d apparently followed them, though Edgar wished she’d chosen some other time to come to the rescue. “I can do this!”
Tess seemed as shocked to see her as Edgar, and Johnny flinched at the sound of her voice.
“Banshee, no!” Edgar yelled. “Just get away from her, run! Go and get Pepito or Jimmy and Devi or something!”
“No, no!” Banshee said happily, almost bouncing in place. “I can do this!”
Tess swayed between approaching Johnny and tackling Banshee. As she took a few steps, her skin began to fade to a sort of gray. Edgar did his best to shake Johnny into staying focused and not drowning himself. Wet pieces of gravel poked at Edgar’s knees and Johnny was covered in dirt and small cuts from trying to bury his face in the concrete ledge.
“Nny, come on. We have to get out of here, you have to get up!”
Edgar tried to haul Johnny to his feet by his armpits, but didn’t make it very far from Tess before the weight of Johnny’s mostly limp body dragged them both back down to their knees. Tess walked an odd line, as though she was magnetized to Banshee while still determined to reach Johnny. Just as Edgar was going to yell for Banshee to run away from Johnny in an attempt to slow Tess down, Banshee jumped in between them. Tess’ approach sped up and she moaned something that sounded like, “I’ll be heading back soon,” in a voice that was not completely her own.
“Banshee, no!” Edgar flailed his arm away from himself and Johnny. “Go the other way!”
“It’s okay! I know what I’m doing!”
Tess stared at Banshee quizzically for a moment and then approached her, reaching outward. Tess began to glow gently, an effect magnified by the rain. Banshee’s half-wet hair was sticking to her face and Edgar could feel water running down the back of his neck.
“Well come on then!” Banshee shouted, throwing her arms into the air. “I want to see the red star!”
Banshee’s words called one hundred songs into Edgar’s mind. A form that he had seen once on television, and many times in the nightmares he was sure he’d borrowed from Johnny, rose from Tess’ shoulders. It had no head, no top, no bottom and no front. It made a deafening noise, but only inside Edgar’s skull. For a momentor two, he was paralyzed, and then he felt Johnny’s grip on his arm lessen.
The song wasn’t Tess’, or even Banshee’s, but it was there. Banshee seemed to have called it up to be her accompaniment for the evening.
“Come along, come along with me
Stay out stay clear but stay close
Friends, foes, God only knows
Let’s be the thorn on the rose
Time flies, make a statement, strike a pose
Come along now, come along with me
Come along now, come along and you’ll see
What it’s like to be free”
Calling upon your own soundtrack really was a Johnny thing to do, after all, and it made some sort of sick sense.
In a move that he knew was stupid the moment it happened, Edgar threw a piece of gravel at the thing crawling out of Tess. It passed through the monster and flew on to put a nick in one of the school’s windows. Banshee turned to stare at him, baffled. The song playing changed sharply, briefly singing of a something Banshee had mentioned before.
“..red star…”
“What the hell are you doing?” Banshee asked angrily.
“She’s- well look at her!”
“I know, it’s fine. Just wait.”
The song switched back, but still flitting among the casual call to be followed were soft whispers of the red star.
“Come along now, come along with me
…red star…
Come along now, come along and you’ll see…
…it’s my red star…”
Tess moved in short jerks or in fluid shuffles, but never walked. She was slow, but advancing, and the thing looming over her struggled to take some kind of shape. Banshee was not running, or even moving away. She simply stood between Tess and Edgar, arms open. Edgar looked at Johnny in his lap, and up at Banshee and decided he had to do something. Johnny tried to speak as Edgar picked him up. Edgar shook him without thinking and shouted for Johnny to repeat himself.
“She can take it out,” Johnny said. The rain had plastered his chopped up hair to his forehead and trails of water were running into his eyes.
“Banshee can-? Okay, hang on.” Edgar let go of Johnny despite protest and ran across the roof. Without much thought at all, he flung himself into Tess, and ran them both into the gravel. She glowed brilliantly on the moment of impact. Tess and Banshee called his name at the same moment, though Banshee tacked on ‘You idiot!’ while Tess sounded as though she hadn’t seen him there until now.
“What are you doing?” Tess asked. The voice that came out of her was the same voice that had spoken to Edgar the first time at the library – definitely actually Tess. He didn’t answer, but turned to Banshee instead.
“Can you do this?”
“Yes! Yes, I can do this! I was doing fine on my own!”
“What are you going to do with it?”
Tess gripped Edgar’s arm in terror and shook him. “Do with what? Edgar? Do with what?”
“I’m going to get rid of it!” Banshee proclaimed.
“it’s my red star”
Edgar caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Johnny sitting up behind Banshee. The thing in Tess noticed too; it surged from her and stretched toward Johnny, whipping past Edgar’s face. He could feel it that it existed but that it was also nothing, and it thickened and electrified the air around it. It was far larger than a person – already more of it had grown from Tess than she should have been able to carry and yet it was still attached to her, still reaching out as though vital parts of it were still trapped inside her. Edgar stared at it, transfixed as it towered over them and began to spread, though it remained completely intangible. Banshee’s personal soundtrack surged with her voice.
‘Built a castle for yourself
“Edgar, let go!” Banshee called. “I’ve got it! Just go watch Johnny for a minute!”
You left me drowning’
Edgar pushed himself up onto his palms and tried to roll away from Tess, who was still clawing desperately at his arm. Edgar yanked at her wrists himself, yelling for her to let go. He tried to stand and partly dragged her along the gravel. Suddenly, her grip vanished and Edgar staggered to one side. When he was out of range of Tess’ grasp, he turned to see that Johnny had grabbed Tess’ wrists and pegged them against the ground, even with full use of only one arm. The thing trying to free itself from Tess pawed desperately at Johnny, and although it was gigantic and should have been more than capable, it still couldn’t reach him.
‘Like a hunter in the night
I was your prey’
“Are you okay?” Edgar asked, climbing over the flailing Tess.
“Not now,” Johnny said, releasing his hold on Tess. “We just need to get back. She’s gonna blow.”
“What, seriously?”
Johnny dragged Edgar back, though only by force of desire; he was in no way strong enough to haul Edgar anywhere and with only one good arm, he was not very persuasive. Johnny’s rough breathing and troubled stance returned when he and Edgar had put enough distance between themselves and Tess. Johnny muttered something to himself about how Tess made him feel, but Edgar couldn’t get him to repeat it.
‘And your heart is cold and dark
You left me bleeding
Your plague was meant to kill’
“Okay!” Banshee cheered. “Now let’s go! I want to see the red star!”
‘I'm still here’
There was a cracking sound and the thing from the wall flowed visibly from Tess; her posture changed, her skin tone brightened and she seemed to be breathing out for the first time in ages. The force of the monster leaving reached out and Edgar felt it hit him somewhere on the inside of the back of his head. Johnny apparently felt it too and heavily abused the bracing shoulder Edgar had offered. Banshee glowed with the joy that she’d released the creature, and seemed to be attempting to channel it. Somewhere high in the air, pieces of it were solid. No parts of it were interested in Johnny any longer, with every one of its horrible pieces curling toward Banshee from all angles. With a few strands of it still stuck inside Tess, it seemed to have difficulty reaching its new target. Edgar screamed at Banshee repeatedly, begging her to stop what she was doing, to throw the monster into the sky and let it hit the wind, but Banshee was practically singing and ignored every word. Johnny was nearly delirious in Edgar’s arms and felt lighter than he really should have been.
“It’s okay!” Banshee shouted excitedly. “I know what I’m doing! We’re going to be fine!”
‘I'm the amazon
That you've brought out in me
Fighting for my destiny’
Tess’ knees hit the ground a few feet away and Banshee conducted the essence of the wall monster toward herself. It reached for her as happily as it had reached for Johnny, only now had no trouble getting to her at all.
‘So go and watch your’
“Banshee, this is ridiculous! You know what it did to her!”
“It’s okay!” Banshee shouted back, still delighted. “I’m from Heaven!”
‘kingdom burning down’
The wave of shape and churning existence approached Banshee’s face, and she tilted her head back. She gave it no resistance and in fact seemed to be welcoming it by breathing it in. The long green strip of hair on her head whipped around her face, but she showed no signs of being anything but serene. It reached around her and arched her back, helping itself to her offer of her own head. Edgar thought she was almost being held off the ground by the thing. Still, even with it shaping her to be more easily taken over, Banshee smiled and hummed to herself.
‘And there's no one here to save you
Cause you're all alone’
Edgar shook Johnny, pushed him off of his shoulder and eased him to the ground. With Johnny practically unconscious, Edgar reasoned, there was little he was going to be useful for.
“Edgar, no! Stay with Nny!” Banshee yelled, suddenly worried.
‘wild horses running free
And don't you try to find me
Watch your kingdom burn’
“He’s not being eaten! You are!”
When he grabbed her hand, the thing holding her whisked away to leave Banshee grounded and bent back into a natural posture. Edgar thought, for one brief stupid moment, that it had been dispelled by the clichéd powers of love.
Then he saw it pick up Johnny.
‘See it burning down!’
“What did you do?! I told you to stay with him!” Banshee shrieked. “Now look!”
“Don’t worry,” Johnny said suddenly. His voice was more stable than it had been in months. “I know this.”
‘See it burning down!’
The moment when it all flowed into him, he looked like Tess had – the same posture, the same paler skin, the same odd expression – and then it vanished. Several seconds passed with nothing but the sound of the rain as Johnny stood staring at them, supporting his own weight with no trouble at all.
Edgar stared, unsure of how to react.
“Is it… gone?” he asked.
“Feels nice to have my knees back again,” Johnny answered cheerily.
Edgar felt a weight in his stomach lift and he thought he’d start to dance or something equally stupid. Before he could celebrate with Banshee, however, she began screaming into his shoulder.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” He tried to hug her but she only continued to scream.
“What do I do now?!” she wailed. “I was the replacement! It should have taken me instead of Johnny!”
“He’ll be fine, look at him – everything’s fine.”
“No it isn’t! It’s still in there! It’ll come after him! Edgar, I’m from upstairs, from Heaven! I had a chance to neutralize it! Johnny used to be in charge of Hell! It’ll take him over!”
Edgar felt panic rise in his chest again.
“Can you take it out of him like you did to Tess?” His voice was shaking.
Banshee shook her head.
“No. It wants to be in him. That’s why it was going to take me instead, that's why it came out at all. I’m Johnny’s replacement, just, just without the connection to Hell… It would have vanished in me! It had no idea!”
Johnny examined his hands while Banshee shrieked against Edgar.
“I feel fine,” Johnny said, though he was talking to himself.
“You look okay,” Edgar said slowly.
“I am.”
“He’s not,” Banshee sniffled into Edgar’s shirt.
“I’m sure it’ll-” Edgar began.
Banshee slammed her fists violently against Edgar's chest. “NO! He has to ruin everything! It’s always about him! Even when he’s me!” She glared at Johnny, and nearly spit on Edgar as she lashed out. “You ruin everything!”
Johnny smiled indulgently, and Banshee buried her head in Edgar’s shirt.
Tess groaned against the pavement, and Edgar tried to detach himself from Banshee to help Tess off of the ground. Instead, Johnny strode across the roof and stood next to Tess. He nudged her with the toe of his boot.
“Hey,” he said, paying specific attention to shaking her shoulder.
She wearily picked up her head, and took a sharp breath when she saw Johnny standing over her.
“Get up,” Johnny said.
“What’s going on? What happened to it?” Tess remained on the ground, glaning around wildly with Johnny’s boot still pressing on her shoulder.
“It’s gone,” Edgar answered quickly. He did his best to steer Banshee over to Tess rather than try to separate her from his arm.
Tess sat up and braced herself with her arms behind her. “That’s it? It’s just gone?”
“You don’t need to worry about it,” Johnny said.
Banshee moaned something in response, but Edgar did his best to drown it out. Johnny apparently followed suit.
“Now get up,” he ordered, shaking his hand at her.
Tess gingerly accepted Johnny’s offered help and rose to her feet. Edgar flinched when their hands touched, sure that one of them would melt inside of their own skull, but neither of the two seemed bothered at all.
“Don’t I hurt you anymore?” Tess asked, her eyes lingering on Johnny’s hand.
Johnny shook his head, and even smiled a bit. “I think all this going crazy I’ve been doing has just been getting me used to it. I’m fine.”
Tess stood and looked at Edgar, her eyes wide.
“Edgar, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, no, I really made things awful for you… I never meant it to get this bad. I just wanted-”
“You’ve said. It’s fine.”
“Edgar, I-”
“I know. We can talk about it later.”
Banshee continued to cry into Edgar’s sleeve, covering it in her smearing make-up.
“What now?” she asked through her sobs. “What do I do now?”
“I don’t know,” Edgar answered flatly. “Let’s just get home.”
“You can’t take that thing home!” Banshee cried, pointing desperately at Johnny.
“That’s not a thing, it’s Johnny.”
“It’s a thing! " She rammed her forehead into his shoulder every few syllables. "There’s a thing in his head, and gods, it’s going to- he’ll kill you, Edgar!”
“I think he was going to do that anyway,” Edgar said quietly.
Banshee trembled beside him. Her hands grasped at nothing and her expression was contorted in horror.
“Oh god, what do I do?” she moaned. “I was supposed to do this, I was the replacement, I could have saved him and I didn’t and now I’m just here!”
Edgar reached out to touch her, to try to calm her, but she smacked his hand away. She looked at him, pleading, her lip quivering and dripping with drops of rain.
“I’m still here,” she whispered.