“...Did you just offer this bitch a cigarette,” Abigail asked flatly, staring at Molly in quiet disapproval. “And did you just call me [i]Ab[/i]?” She was briefly distracted from the girl and when she looked back the kid was curled up in the corner, teary-eyed and vulnerable. Abigail’s brows furrowed in confusion. She turned to chastise Molly a bit more for spooking the girl (despite the fact she was obviously at fault here) when everything suddenly happened really fast. The first thing Abigail picked up on was that distinct wrongness in her gut - a split second later, an odd tugging sensation in her navel. The haunted house suddenly shifted underneath her and whirred past her vision, then she felt a burning sensation in her arm, and then she felt her body collide with a bunch of weeds and the sun-baked dirt of backwater Kansas. Abigail took a moment to register what happened. She stared up at the twilit sky in quiet contemplation, more stunned than winded, surrounded by little ants and beetles that scurried in the overgrowth. Her ribs hurt, and so did her arm, but neither of them were as bad as Scotty’s wailing made his wounds out to be. In fact, it was Scotty’s incessant screaming that snapped Abigail out of her reverie.

Everyone in town knew Abigail came from New Orleans, but not many could pick up on the accent, and only a special few had the honour of hearing her speak French - because she never said anything nice when she spoke French. As a result, it might’ve been a bit of a shock to Scotty (but not to Molly, who was never the recipient but often the witness) when Abigail’s head popped out of the bushes outside and she barked “[i]Ta gueule, je m’en fous![/i]” out of instinct. Moments later she hissed and grabbed her arm, hissing in pain, mumbling darkly under her breath - things like “[i]fille chiante[/i]” and “[i]putain de sorcière[/i]” were given extreme emphasis. She climbed back through the window with a long but shallow cut on her arm and a thunderous scowl. “Make him stop FUCKING crying, please, jesus, Molly I cannot deal with this right now,” Abigail groaned as she walked right past Scotty, right past Molly and out the front door, slamming it shut behind her.

That was when she started to freak out. Her breath came out in short, sharp puffs. She paced the decrepit driveway until coherent thought started to filter in. It could’ve been an elaborate prank at first - everyone who saw it would’ve thought it was just a joke, just some wires hooked up in the kitchen - [i]but Abigail was flung out of the window.[/i] It was impromptu acting too. There was no way Abigail could’ve been hooked up to anything in the brief moments between her standing at the front door to her approaching the girl. Not for a move as complex as that - there were no magnets, wires, mirrors...nothing that could’ve plausibly been set up for that specific action. It had to be real.

Abigail opened the door again, leant on the door-frame, ran a hand through her hair and stared at Molly, knowing full well that her friend was thinking the same thing. “Okay. That wasn’t-...yeah.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit it. Her mind couldn’t wrap around the concept, let alone its execution. She rubbed her hands together and sighed. “Right. Fuck.” Abigail pushed off the doorframe and wandered back into the kitchen, shouting over Scotty’s wails of agony. “Molly, make sure he doesn’t move that fucking arm any more than he already has! Rest of you lousy fucks go get his mom or something - don’t just hide up there, show’s over!” She leant in and said, quieter, “I need to make a call. I’ll be back in a bit,” before jogging off out of the house.

Brimstone was despairingly deprived of forms of entertainment, but at least they had the common sense to ensure that there were enough payphones scattered across the road. Abigail wandered down the side of the tarmac in a daze, unable to really focus on anything. Her fingers fished into the pockets of her shorts to pull out a half-finished pack of gum, a paperclip-turned-lockpick, some lint and a couple of quarters. Even in the dusk, the payphone box was a veritable greenhouse and it was stiflingly warm inside of it. She pushed the coins into the slot and punched in a few numbers.

“Hey, Brooks. It’s me.” Her voice was hollow with shock. “Y-yeah, uh...everything’s fine. There was a bit of a…” she couldn’t say it. She didn’t want to say it. “...problem, at the fright night thing. I’m just letting you know that I’m going home early. Could you pick up some antiseptic wipes or something on your way home tonight?” Another pause. “You’re on night shift again?” she sighed irritably. “Fine.” She hung up.

Ten minutes later Abigail slammed the door open again. God, she looked a wreck - covered in grime, dirt and sweat, scabs on her knees, bruises on her arms and legs - she had her tank top raised up a little and was poking experimentally at a rapidly blossoming dark purple patch on her ribs, probably the biggest and most impressive bruise she had accumulated today. Not to mention that there was still this shallow gash on her arm that was half-heartedly dribbling blood down to her elbow. “I need a shower, Christ…” Abigail groaned, approaching Molly. “How is he? How are you?”