Tommy and Laura in Night in the Mummy's Tomb

Tommy was becoming increasingly more and more paranoid with the events that unfolded mere weeks before. Coach Feratu died to give him some info that he wasn’t sure was even true, making the sacrifice even more pointless than it was meant to be. Something rubbed him the wrong way about it. Who would even be after Coach Feratu? He mentioned it was a long story but it was a story that Tommy wish he knew now.

Tommy heard knocking at the front door. He sighed as he picked himself up from the bed, his eyes painted with grey circles. He hadn’t slept well. He opened the door slowly as a pair of claws jutted out just beside his left leg. He slammed the door on the claws, opening and closing before it finally closed all the way.

He looked out the window, straining to see who was at the front door. He was barely able to decipher it through the glass, a fogged surface. He wondered what the point of having a such vague viewpoint through glass was. Whatever it was, it seemed like something small and nonhuman. He opened the door carefully.

A team of munchkin monsters awaited him. Furry, small, and having all kinds of little bits of horns and claws placed in them; some of them logically, others not. He glanced at them and opened the door wider, stepping outside. They didn’t seem to be the under impression to attack all the sudden or anything.

“Alright, what is it?” he asked. A monster rubbed his throbbing hand from the pain that had been inflicted before. Another monster rolled his eyes as they looked over to him.

“We are in the understanding you’re a monster hunter,” said one of the monsters. “You must understand that we do not mean harm but there is something dark coming. Something from the depths of blue, but red as blood. And we mean to purvey you a message of warning and of peace…”

Tommy looked at them. “Well, get on with it then.” He stated. The monster seemed annoyed.

“Basically, we’re asking you not to kill us.” the monster stated, interlocking it’s claws.

“Why would I go about doing that?” he asked, scratching his head. “We only kill monsters that threaten the school.”

“Well… it’s happened before. History repeats.” said the monster.

Tommy felt something move beyond his presence. Someone was watching. He walked over to the end of his porch to spot. He recognized what fleeting details he had to go off, strands of red hair, a small glimpse of pink sneakers, what seemed to be a grey sports jacket…

“Jess?” asked Tommy. Jess stepped out from behind the pillar. Tommy was confused and irritated. What was she doing at his house? She waved her hand nervously.

“Hey…” she said. Tommy diverted his attention back to the monsters.

“Well… I mean, if you’re not interfering with our lives in a harmful way, I suppose I can say I’m not gonna kill you. But you better not, you hear me?” he said, shooing them off. Jess stepped forward towards Tommy. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a much harsher tone than he intended.

“...you okay?” she asked. Tommy was pierced by her words, placing his clawed grip onto his head.

“I’m fine… just stressed out. I guess a... friend of mine died. Laura nearly died, I nearly died… I’m a mess. But how are you?” he asked, putting his hand down. Jess looked at him kind of concerned.

“Well… I’ve been wondering this for a while but have you ever thought about training someone else to be a monster hunter?” Jess asked. Tommy scratched the back of his head.

“I can’t say I have. I dunno if you could though… seeing as you have to be some kind of… prophetic black dude or british blonde girl… I think that’s how it works? I don’t know what’s going on Jess, and that scares me. Something’s under the school, something’s not right with the janitor that’s been teaching me and Laura, something awful is lurking under the surface of my life and I’m the only that’s been trying to figure it out. Laura doesn’t give a shit. I doubt Michael gives a shit, I don’t know what his role is…” Tommy said, the external expanse of stress laying out before him.

“I mean… you don’t have to take me on as your monster hunting apprentice but… I dunno. Something seemed so cool about killing those unicorns that one day and I dunno, I just wanted to be part of it.” Jess explained.

Tommy sighed. “Alright, fine I’ll do it,” he said. Jess jumped up in excitement. “We’re not doing it right now though, we’ll do it later. I’ll text you when I’m ready, I guess. Do I even have your number-?”

“Here’s my number.” she said, handing him a slip of folded and ripped paper. She walked out, doing a little gig with her walk and Tommy couldn’t help but crack a little smile. He glanced over to where the monsters were, only to see that they had gone off.

He sighed pretty deeply. Winter was here, best not to waste it.

Tommy met with Laura in the early school morning. She had seemed to be over her near death experience with top-mark grace, but he was still shaken by it.

“Looks like a goddamn bus ran over you. What the hell happened?” asked Laura, a slight smugness in her walk present today.

“I started thinking…” he said before being cut off by Laura.

“You should stop doing that, clearly not good for your health.” said Laura. She laughed a little as Tommy’s facial expression still hung limp.

“I started thinking about all this shit we do, you know? What the fuck is going on? Why did Coach Feratu try and warn me about that shit if it didn’t matter? Like, clearly he was risking his life to give me that info-” Tommy said, his hands pulling on his tired face. Laura was tired too, of his shit.

“Tommy, none of that shit matters. Dude was clearly crazy or something, besides he’s a monster and we kill those.” Laura said, her arms folding.

“Laura, for fucks sake, just take something seriously for once in your life. I mean, you fucking dated and hell, pretty sure you had…” Laura closed Tommy’s mouth.

“Look, can we not talk about that? All I have are kind of bad memories of that.” she said, her face actually somewhat serious.

“All I’m saying is that we need to look beyond the surface of this. Beyond this school, even. Remember the runes and shit we found under the school?” Tommy asked, hoping any of it would piece Laura’s mind. “Just… fucking listen to me, please.”

“Look, if you wanna go on a fucking goose chase for some ‘truth’, alright. Fine. I’ll even go with you to prove how pointless this was, how you wasted my fucking time-” snapped Laura.

“Ya’ll fighting?” asked Michael, appearing from the corner of the hallway and heading straight towards them.

“No.” said Tommy. Laura crossed her arms, most of her lip on the left side of her face.

“Good. I kind of regret that I… was fighting with her before she died.” said Michael, a bit of solemn feeling on his face.

“What’s below the school?” asked Tommy, trying to press through with his questioning. Michael had been saying stuff like that more and more often, drawing parallels with his past, yet never any context that Tommy could figure out much more than he was telling them.

“The school? Well… I suppose I couldn’t hide that secret forever. It’s built on top of a pyramid of sorts. Was one. Who’s to really say for sure in it’s current state. The slime’s gone now.” Michael stated, looking down.

“Any other monsters attacking?” asked Tommy. Michael glanced at him.

“What do you want, kid?” he asked back. “You’re not gonna find anything. Place has been deserted for years.”

“Years…” Tommy repeated. Michael’s eyes opened up.

“Wow, you really think there’s something going on, don’t you?” Michael said, laughing a little. “Knock yourself out.” He threw Tommy the keys to the teacher room.

Tommy grabbed the keys. His eyes squinted and then opened to full. Well then, if they wanted him to prove it, he was gonna find it.

“Jesus christ, Tommy, you can’t be serious about this,” Laura said, sitting on a table in the teacher’s room as Tommy attempted to recall how they opened up the secret door in the teacher’s room. She pulled on her black knee high socks, for they were falling to her ankle again.

“Look, I know something’s going on. Michael said years. Also, why would he know if it was deserted or not?” asked Tommy. He was on his hands and knees, pressing any strange bumps in the carpet down. Laura rolled her eyes, folding her legs.

“Look, Tommy, I have to tell you something. You’re fucking nuts.” said Laura. Tommy glanced over to her as she insisted with her face that she was telling the truth. Tommy put his head down again as he looked for some kind of secret button, switch, whatever…

“What’s the deal with Jess?” he asked, catching Laura off by surprise.

“Jess? Why the hell would I know anything with Jess?” asked Laura. “Do you mean if she’s dating anyone? Shit, I hope not. Is she single?” Tommy looked up. “Well, is she?”

“She was over by my house, asking if I could train her to be a monster hunter like us.” explained Tommy. “I was wondering if you knew about that?”

“Oh she wants to become a monster hunter now? Lame. Ugh.” said Laura. Tommy rolled his eyes.

“Aren’t you a monster hunter?” asked Tommy, knowing full well that she was.

“Yeah, but we don’t need another jackass on here.” explained Laura.

“Yeah, we already got one.” said Tommy, smiling.

“Exactly- wait was that about me or you?” Laura asked as Tommy smirked. “Well?!”

“Anyway… I’m gonna train her later, I guess. Depends if we get out of this alive or not…” Tommy stated. He pressed another weird bump on the carpet but nothing else happened. “...so you have a crush on Jess?” he asked.

“Honestly… just kind of desperate, really.” she said, leaning back. “I’m not finding a lot of the guys around here to be good options and hell if I’m going back to Andrée. So… y’know.”

“Desperate?” asked Tommy. “You’re not that bad of a person, you could probably get a date going on if you wanted to.”

“Well… I just told you, I’m just not finding a lot of people I’d want to get personal with,” Laura said. Tommy hunched his shoulders and then relaxed them again. “I mean… I could get with you but nah… that would be too weird.”

Tommy paused for a moment. “Me?” Laura shrugged.

“It would be easy, I guess. But like… I thought about it for like three minutes before realizing it was kind of dumb. We already argue enough as it is, I don’t need that shit messing me up beyond that.” Laura said.

“...should I be honored?” asked Tommy looking at her. He never thought about it happening.

“Nah.” laughed Laura. Tommy laughed back and then pressed another weird bump in the carpeting that opened the center of the floor.

“Well, found it. Secret button. I dunno how I’m going to mark it if we need to go back here again, though.” said Tommy.

“You know we’re not coming back to this, right? I mean… there would be no reason to do so. Unless there’s something cool the slime was covering up.” said Laura.

“I dunno, it’s good to know these things, right?” asked Tommy.

“I suppose,” said Laura. “Hey, what did they do with your bag of salt? You know the one you left when I shoved you in here?”

“I have no idea. Huh.” he said, thinking about it. It was apparently a good enough distraction for Laura to push him in again. He fell to the bottom, descending to the water floor and then bobbing back up. He climbed out as he heard Laura scream down.

“You gotta stop fucking do that.” he said, his hair trickling out drops. She laughed as she got out, utterly soaked and shaking off the water.