Termeny paused time and phased into existence under the bed. He was not a particularly frightening demon—the human would see him as a half foot, featureless doll; smooth and roughly jointed like an unfinished marionette.
It wasn’t Termeny’s job to look scary at all. His job was to send the freaks and spooks to the right children. He’d been the Dreamshiver’s Head Dispatcher for the eastern seaboard for almost two centuries, a nice healthy career, with aspirations to soon move up the chain to a cushier position in the illustrious Department of Nightmares.
At least, that had been his plan until this particular child.
She’d caused the last five assignees to resign. Not a reassignment request, no. A straight demonic resignation, casting their spirit out of the pits of Hell and into the void oblivion, to be reconstituted however the titanic swirling energies of Fate and Chance saw fit. Resignations were rare, a string of them were rarer, and all of them originating from the same kid was virtually unheard of.
Of course, Termeny’s boss held him responsible. If he didn’t figure out what in the world was happening (and fix it), he could kiss that promotion goodbye. It’d set him back a century or more.
Fortunately, the situation was serious enough that they’d equipped him with some heavy artillery. A special request had been put in and approved by the Ministry of Calamity for a Mindshatter frequency. It appeared with him as a little black beetle, perched on his smooth beige shoulder.
Termeny unpaused time and crawled out from under the bed.
“Turn back, you tiny bitch.”
He stood to find that there was a young woman standing in the corner of the dark room. Blue jeans and scuffed platform heels, voluminous cherry red hair, glittering makeup trailing from the corners of her eyes. She leaned forward on an upside down bass guitar, its headstock jammed into the soft carpet like it was the point of a sword.
“Excuse me?” said Termeny.
“Get down on your grubby hands and knees, turn around, scuttle back under that bed and go straight back to Hell,” she said.
Confused, he patched into the local netherwaves and checked the file. The troublemaking human was female, aged 8.
“You are not Miss Lainey Case,” he said.
“No, runt. I’m imaginary, legendary indie pop-rock star Jesslyn Sender. Mistress Case is sleeping peaceably, and she’d wish to remain so.”
Termeny made a note. Autonomous, manifested imaginary friends were uncommon, but typically not an effective line of defense against his assignees. The colorfulness of this one did indicate a strong mind, however. His first clue.
“You’ve met the others we’ve sent then?” he asked, turning away from Jesslyn and jumping onto the hanging bedsheets. He climbed.
“Yep. Told them the same thing. They didn’t listen.”
“Because they were all model employees,” he said, allowing himself a pang of pride. Atop the bed now, he could see the sleeping lump of the child. Her hair spilled out in dark ringlets across a pillow patterned with daisies.
“Oh, so am I speaking to management then?” said the pop star.
“Indeed. Our service is vital to formative fear conditioning and overall human emotive balance. I’m afraid Miss Case cannot continue disrupting Dreamshiver operations as she has been.”
“Or what?”
“Or tonight she shall suffer an acute ischemic stroke, losing between 65 to 75 percent of cerebral cortex function, and therefore be permanently taken out of Dreamshiver rotation.” He patted the little beetle on his shoulder.
Jesslyn’s eyes widened, and if Termeny had had a face, he’d’ve sniffed and smiled at her. The Ministry of Calamity did not joke around.
“I’d like to deliver this message personally,” he said. “And dissuade her from any further interference with our work. If you have any information that may aid this cause, Miss Sender, it could go a long way towards expediting this process in a civil, nonviolent manner.”
“The others only tried to spook her, little freak. If you try to hurt her…”
Termeny sighed, and keyed the netherwaves to issue a level four nightmare. They wailed and clanged, shimmering around him in ultrablack vibration. The dark bedroom flickered and faded as he seeped into the child’s dreamscape—forest critters and buzzing flies fled before him as he interrupted whatever she’d been so peaceably conjuring in her stupid, career-endangering brain.
The nightmare congealed, scene settling into a chalky, bonedust path in the middle of a recently burned forest. The corpses of flame ravaged trees jutted out of the ashy ground like diseased teeth, and the wildfire’s ghosts lingered in dirty puffs of stinking smoke.
In the distance, atop a misshapen hill, there was a dark structure. A single window flickered orange. Termeny trudged down the path, figuring the girl would be in the candlelit room. As such, he was a touch startled when he heard a light cough behind him.
Termeny turned. The eight year old stood before him; they were equal height here in this nightmare. She wore a simple green dress and knee high rubber boots. Olive skin and messy black hair. How long had she been following him?
“Lainey Case, I presume,” he said.
She said nothing, and instead raised a hand up and out, palm positioned like she was shielding a cough. The maddening sound of wingbeats surrounded Termeny, coming from every angle. He resisted the urge to spin around and look; The Department of Nightmares must be having some fun with him.
Eventually, the sound narrowed to one direction, and a fuzzy creature swooped down from the vague heavens. It was a bright brown squirrel with cartoon eyes and a pair of purple dragon wings. The thing settled on Lainey’s outstretched hand.
“Can we help you, sir?” it asked.
“I’d like a word with Lainey Case,” said Termeny, already tiring of the girl’s layers of gatekeepers.
“I am afraid my lady’s voice has been misplaced, sir. You’ve interrupted an important adventure.”
“I’ll be brief,” he said. “I represent—”
“Yes, you’re from the Dreamshiver Department. You’ve been awfully persistent lately. What else do you represent, sir demon?” asked the squirrel-dragon.
“What else— look, if you know where I’m from then you know the girl is causing a lot of operational inconvenience. I’m going to shut her down unless she stops. I’ve clearance from top brass.”
The the creature grinned, turned its head and shared some kind of look with the girl. When it turned back, it said, “You represent the same thing I do, dear Termeny. An idea. You are a projection in this reality. A coincidence of energy, a particular and temporary arrangement of focused thought—existing only because there’s a filter somewhere, somewhen, that permits it.”
“You may be imaginary, but I am the Head Dispatcher for the eastern seaboard,” said Termeny. His beetle scratched.
“I am an imaginary friend indeed,” it said, eyes darkening. “But when you come to Lainey’s world, you are merely an imaginary foe. The others understood, eventually.”
A tonal bass note rung out, and the sky flashed purple. Termeny grabbed the beetle off his shoulder.
“You’ll get the same choice, tiny bitch.”
Termeny did spin around this time. The other imaginary friend blocked the path, wearing her guitar now. The sky flickered again, purple, then blue, then green. The trees flashed too: from dead, burnt sticks to lush and full of life, then back to dead again.
“They say the return to elementary existence is very peaceful,” said the squirrel.
This had gotten out of hand, and fast. Termeny tapped into the netherwaves, intent on aborting diplomacy and escaping back to the bedroom. But when he reached out, he was horrified to find the waves running in a strange, tight loop.
The nightmare had never sequenced.
The little girl walked closer, watching him with a kind of detached interest. Termeny saw his whole career crumbling in that quizzical, semi-bored gaze. His horror was swept away by anger.
“Who are you?” he demanded, squeezing the little black bug. “What are you?”
“We’re all just ideas, sir,” said the squirrel.
From behind, the pop star plucked out a funeral march.
“By order of The Ministry of Calamity, I sentence you all to oblivion,” sneered Termeny, and crushed the beetle, aware that he’d likely be swept away too once the Mindshatter ruined the girl’s consciousness.
But instead of popping, the beetle squirted out of his hand like a bar of soap. It sprouted glassy green wings, and grew two cartoon eyes as it began to fly.
“What a pretty song!” it squealed, then buried itself into the place where Termeny’s face should have been. For a split second, he thought he saw the great wheels of Fate and Chance themselves, meshed and shimmering, pushing away from him. He reached out, suddenly desperate for their embrace, but there was only darkness.
* * *
“They’re getting creative,” said Jesslyn Sender, as the sky stopped flickering and the dead forest stabilized.
“Do the department heads not communicate?” said the squirrel. “I thought we cleared this up weeks ago.”
“They’re bureaucrats, what do you expect?” spat Jesslyn.
Lainey Case giggled and shrugged, then gestured forward.
“I suppose you’re right,” said the squirrel, taking wing. “Let’s go see what’s in that castle!”
The girl and the pop star followed the winged creature, picking their way down the bone-white path towards the distant structure. The lone window beckoned, stuttering orange as pale grey shimmers of netherwaves above danced and swirled.
by Jordan Castle