Page 30 of How to Seduce a Slender

“Whoa! How’d you know that?” Kevin stared at Smith with a sweet, brainless expression that Smith returned for a long moment. Kevin finally let out an embarrassed chuckle. “Right, Lord Rosemont.”

“Maybe if you ate brussels sprouts, you’d remember that faster,” Smith teased as he pivoted once more on his heel.

“Butthey’re so grooosss!” Kevin whined after him as the Slender headed for the stairs. Smith left the zombie to ponder how to make brussels sprouts good. Instead, Smith had a werewolf to ensure was well rested.

It was at that moment he heard the screaming…and Kevin, Carl, and Smith raced up the steps toward the room where his Melody was supposed to be waking.She hadn’t fallen back asleep had she?

Chapter Eleven:

Melody

Itstartedslow.TheEndless Woods began to slip away, like a watercolor painting that was slowly bleeding away from her mind. Melody climbed to her feet, finding herself alone in a world of white static. She stood in the center of a television someone forgot to turn off, but the broadcast was already over. From edge to edge, it was shaky, fuzzy oblivion.Where am I?The Endless Woods, despite the danger lurking, felt almost cozy by the time Smith slipped away.

Melody glanced down at her notebook, checking to see if all her progress was lost. Instead, she stared at a spiral notebook, crinkled and used halfway.Her ticket book…from the diner.Melody groggily glanced up, the weight of some unknown thing pushing her through the static until her feet touched hard, aged linoleum. The scent of bubbling canola oil, sanitizer in a bucket, and damp cloths that had dried stiff filled her nose. Color bled back in around her, filling in the diner. Suddenly, she was tapping her pen against her notebook.

“Howdy, Mel! How’s it going!” Pete, one large chicken noodle soup with eight packets of saltines and an apple juice, sat down at the bar in front of her.

Melody smiled at him. “Not much, it’s deader than a doornail in here.”

“I know that’s right!” He chuckled with a slight wheeze. Old adventurer’s lung, they called it. Something out in the Badlands tainted his insides, but a retired old sword could rest easy in King’s Fall. That’s what the city was originally supposed to be…a place for adventurers to kick up their boots and leave the Badlands behind. Somehow, it’d changed over the years into a buzzing metropolis. But old knights like Pete tended to like the slow life. Like coming to the same greasy diner for the same bowl of soup with a bunch of crackers and a little noise.

“You want your usual?” she teased, as if she wasn’t already halfway done pouring his soup bowl.

“The only thing that brings a smile to my face,” he crowed, stretching out his old bones. Melody settled a large bowl of steaming broth, bouncy noodles, and chunks of rotisserie chicken before him. Flecks of parsley and pepper floated on the surface while Pete absentmindedly stirred it with his spoon. Melody placed his crackers beside his hands along with a cooled glass of juice. Pete peeked up with a cracked smile of someone who’d spent years full belly laughing. “How’s my little artist doing? Huh? Draw anything new?”

“Yeah! Actually, I did…”

But the memory faded. Someone was gently nudging her shoulder and pried her from the fuzzy memory. “Ms. Deathless, you still with us?”

A cracked, sleepy laugh broke through her lips as she peeled her eyes open. “I can’t afford to change my name, so I have to be.”

Agatha snorted, “Ms. Melody, good to have you awake. And good to see you so well rested.”

“Is that what I look like? Is it the eye crusties or the drool dried to my cheeks?” Melody cackled, struggling for her life to climb out of the blankets. It took the banshee prying her from the fabric to get her lazy bones to sit up. Everything was sluggish. She felt like she could flop back in bed and sleep. However, her stomach seemed to realize she was vertical and immediately began to growl.

Agatha ruffled her hair affectionately with long claws, undoing the nest on top of her head with ease. “Not a crusty or drool stain to be seen…but you did look peaceful. You were smiling. Did you have a good dream?”

“No dreams, Smith ate those for me.” Melody reached for the drawer next to her bed, wanting to grab her sketch book. She wanted to jot down the memory to add to the timeline. Pete always came into the restaurant around seven thirty and was never late. Plus, she’d shown him her sketchbook, which almost always detailed people that stayed in the diner the longest. If their culprit had sat down to eat for a while, they might have gotten lucky. Hopefully her boss made sure the sketchbook made it with the apron. She didn’t have much in her locker minus the apron, notebook, sketchbook, and miscellaneous things like a handful of straws.

However, Melody’s train of thought was immediately interrupted by the feel of her fingers brushing against flesh…that wasn’t…fleshy, but worse. She immediately shrieked, ripping her hand back. In one swift move, not graceful but swift, she swung a leg around the edge of the bed and knocked the drawer loose from the table. Agatha yelped in surprise as a drawer flew over her head and clattered to the ground.

Something skittered out of it!Melody and Agatha shrieked, pouncing onto the bed and scrambling backward as a book shapedthingon eight legs pedaled its way under the bed.

“Absolutely not!”Agatha roared, eyes flashing red. “What was that?”

“The haunted book! It’s the haunted book!” Melody cried out as panicked tears filled her eyes. She grabbed onto Agatha, throttling the banshee. “I found it in the wardrobe and accidentally kicked it underneath. It’s not supposed to have legs! Who gave it legs?”

The door to the room exploded open as bright amber light flooded the room. Smith darted to Melody’s side of the bed.

“No! No! Get off the floor! That’s where it is!” She twisted, tugging at his jacket to pull him onto the bed.

“Where what is? What is the meaning—ooop!” Smith was cut off as both Agatha and Melody yoinked him from his feet and tossed him onto the bed.

“There was something in the drawer, and itskittered!” Agatha hissed, looking up to Kevin. “Kevin! What’s under the bed? Can you see it?”

“It’s a haunted book! It’s got flesh for a binding and like six pairs of eyes on the front,” Melody explained breathlessly, hands trembling.

Smith took her hands within his gloved ones and soothed the frenzied panic in her veins. “Sweet girl, what in the dragon’s fire are you talking about?”

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