𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒 𝒶𝒾𝓃'𝓉 𝑔𝑜𝓉 𝒶 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓁  |  v. Goblin - Blog Posts

I’m fed up with you and the way that you do

I used to love you, now I change my mind

and I’m fed up with you feeding me a line

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ      𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼      𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ,                               (hellmartyr​)

𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐕𝐎𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 bombarded the theater with rapacious glee. metallic barks followed gluttonous drops as they sniffed out every crevice, every surface, like foxhounds in pursuit of their eponymous prey. the accompanying winds were equally ruthless, tearing at the woods that outlined campus. roots moaned in an uncanny human chorus as they clung to clods of drowned soil. barks of thunder followed claws of fearsome light, incensed by the trees’ refusal to surrender their centennial roosts.

      eddie munson had given up on music as he labored by candlelight. layers of rebar and concrete couldn’t placate the stormy quarrel, and each time the most satisfying part of a song was about to assail his eardrums — a peal of thunder injected a riff of its own. thus he surrendered to the company of silence, interrupted only by the echoes of his own activity and nature’s bitchy roiling.

      but at least tonight’s premier bullshit worked in his favor. normally goblin’s three hundred sixty days of downpour lacked an inspiring ambiance for campaigns set in sandy tombs of reanimated kings or crystalline caverns carved deep within an ivory castle. this semester was different; four months of adventuring ( and a previous summer of planning ) brought the members of the hellfire club to a gothic crypt and its restless denizens. here, in the belly of a diabolical mansion torn between the material plane and an eldritch parallel, heroes would face their most dastardly foes yet while negating the sadistic twists their dungeon master had slithering in his sleeves.

      the wild-haired eccentric was always one to set a stage for the finale. what started as simple seasoning grew more and more elaborate over the past six years. eddie was determined to make this night of zenith revelry one to remember. his swan song before graduation. a didactic legacy for all dms who thought themselves worthy of his draconian lineage.

      last year’s after-halloween sales had given the youngest munson an idea. he raided what was left on the clean-picked shelves of pop-up shops and every discount store in the county. over the next several months, added to his growing stockpile via regular visits to every bargain dealer within reach of his cough-and-hack brick of a van.

      his uncle’s trailer became a slaughterhouse of creativity. cheap curtains shredded and stained by hand hung from the ceiling while sheets and shirts lingering long past their natural lifespans were cut-up on the floor. testing anything at school was too risky; the hellfire club was made up of a clever bunch. so, his uncle wayne was forced to endure several months of embellishing chaos as eddie turned their small home into a dollar store’s rendition of a haunted house.

      by mid-january the bulk of the backdrop was done. eddie packed it into two old moving boxes and stored them in the corner of his room where it silently teased him till the momentous day. the time between was spent on finishing touches: spray painted candelabras, disposable wine glasses transformed into jewel encrusted goblets, plastic skulls smeared in coffee and dirt, and a cathedrals worth of white candles.

      now those latter bastards had been his bane. eddie pre-burned half of the lot while he melted down the rest to be reforged in various shades of black and red. he trawled candle making books for how to do it, but fell back on good ol’ trial and error since he lacked just about every damn thing the instructions called for. but, after coating the trailer’s kitchenette in a waxy film for two weeks, the young man succeeded and gave rise to one of his favorite decorations: a skull with a black cherry candle burning through its head, twin flows oozing out its sockets like offerings of an unholy sacrament.

      wayne was visibly relieved when his nephew loaded everything into his van last night, yet still commented on how neat it was all going to be once eddie set it up. months of work, now lambasted all over the theater, looking just how its creator envisioned it … or at least a realistic interpretation. and in all fairness, the decorum looked a little less — thrifty — in the moody lighting.

      reaping what he’d sown at last, eddie glanced at his watch. done and with plenty of time to spare. if the storm kept up its scathing temper ( knowing goblin’s visceral hatred for all things breathing, it would ), then tonight, hellfire was really going to taste the truth of their namesake —

      eddie’s head jerked up as the weathered doors keened open. a pillar of dim light cut through the pitch of the theater’s innards. an elongated shadow stretched over the foyer as munson dropped low.

      shit — why were the guys so early? were they planning something too?

      fist balled tightly, teeth grinding his lower lip in a row of frustration. careful to avoid any unwanted sneaker squeaks, eddie crept around the table into recesses so opaque the candles’ sultry lighting wouldn’t dare breach it. if the boys hoped to get the drop on him, there was a price to pay for attempting to outplay the master.

@greenscrunchy, this is for you

goblin high school was haunted. at least, it was supposed to be.

there’s no proof besides stories, the customary churning water wheel of rumours that flowed ceaselessly through cracked linoleum-lined hallways. arteries from a heart in which children were flung loose, but goblin was so famous for its tall tales that every one of them might as well have been set in stone. perfectly preserved history. so wild they had to be true. repeated and repeated and repeated, religiously cradled in the minds of the peculiarly suburban city dwellers of goblin. when a small city operated like an even smaller town, there had to be something keeping everyone spinning.

of course it would be the ghosts.

among whom were the phantoms of the senior class royal couple that tracked chrissy cunningham down the corridor leading away from the basketball court, floating just behind the squeak of her sneakers all the way from the wood-paneled gymnasium to wherever it is she was trying to escape. a foxhole she needed to decide upon quickly before she ended up in a circle right where she started from, the place she wanted to be the least. 

at her back, raucous cheers rumbled still from throats packing the gym. goblin’s marauders had won the basketball championship game, thoroughly shocking all onlookers to the point of pure frenzy. even chrissy let the momentary thrill consume her, shaking wild pompoms along with her entire stunned squad. all it took was a foul, a timeout, and a benchwarmer launching his perfectly timed gamble into the air for a nail-biting three pointer no doubt already being carved in the annals of goblin legend. the basketball had swished through the net against a backdrop of a final buzzer. thunder to rival even goblin skies’ best and boomiest rattled the foundations of the gym until even the buried-upright dead in the graveyard miles away could feel so many joyous vibrations. 

an unlikely win from an unlikely source. no one present would ever forget it and wouldn’t keep it to themselves. it would make the goblin post before sunday. 

enthusiasm befitting of a true sportswoman buoyed chrissy until before the amoebic goblin high crowd could even begin to think of oozing off the court and into the downpour outside, washing slurries of the away team with them. an indoor tennis match would follow not long behind, somewhat of a downturn in excitement after such a triumph for the basketball team. but around here, the rain made the rules. initial celebrations could not last forever - and chrissy had to get out before anyone tried to pull her attention. particularly, especially, jason. his prior pep rally stunt was the only one of its kind she could bear after a week of heightened pda; all for show to hammer home goblin’s worth as the next district champions. goblin had the team, and the team captain had the girl. (until teenage throngs abandoned the couple for more riveting objects of affection and jason melted into the shadows to wrap his arm around lizzie miller.)

meanwhile chrissy ticked down seconds until she could bolt from the room he was in, with the additional bonus that no one should be able to ascertain the source of her disquiet lest her performance be revealed as just that: a performance and a sham.

the hallway ahead stretched longer and longer, calling to mind a frustratingly pliable piece of taffy on a summer afternoon. it kept going, and going, and going. a monstrous unfairness when all chrissy wanted was a simple getaway, tucked out of sight from swaths of paper banners drowned in every drop of purple and green paint goblin high school could wrap their wet, wrinkled hands around.

nothing but purple and green. chrissy hated purple and green. purple and green together. the fluttering rustle of pompoms clutched white-knuckled in both hands mocked her, their vomitous, plastine shine reflecting goblin high’s storm-lit passages. separated, she didn’t mind the colors too terribly much. even a rare violent in the grass was more pleasant. but in school all bets at their joint attractiveness were off. 

a metallic clang punctuated the now distant rumble of sports fanatics and thunder combined. chrissy stuffed her pompoms into the depths of her locker, out of sight at last, exchanging them for the soft pink corduroy of her backpack. its weight comfortably settled the pumping desire to take flight far, far away although not enough to quell her urge to hide. 

somewhere. there had to be somewhere quiet and dark she could wait out her tides of discontentment apart from the ghosts. maybe.....

there was one possibility. enough of one that chrissy’s feet took off again, chasing down the faint illusion of privacy. down the main hallway to the right, past the a.v. closet, past the principle’s office and the coachs’ offices, veering to the left toward the science lab, the school nurse, and just beyond....the theater. perfect. 

like a blessing from heaven, the enormous doors hung open juuuuust a sliver. 

in a flash chrissy bolted for the alluring dark ribbon of silent freedom. mere moments later she’d dragged one door open enough to slip inside. the answering darkness was almost dizzyingly relaxing in comparison to the shadowy high school corridors now echoing signs of life; students were emerging from the gym and she’d been just in time to miss all the action.

her forehead met the cool surface of the doors as she shut them decisively. heavy exhales gusted against the metal until she could wrangle her heartbeat back in check. only for it to halt completely when a rustle split the curtain of silence.

solitude rendered itself an illusion. 

trepidation tempered a one-eighty pivot to investigate the source and weighed down painfully on her heel. a strange terror built as her peripherals picked up on a flickering light that multiplied with each centimeter exposed. more, more, and  —

the full revelation of why lay behind resulted in startled howl.

as a cheerleader, most would imagine chrissy’s voice capable of projecting powerfully across any open space. reality was far less impressive. instead of a mighty, rousing shout, all chrissy was capable of was a high pitched, elongated squeak. nevertheless, it communicated the same thing.

                                            ❝ OHMYGOD! ❞

spread across the room was a rippling tableau of yawning skulls dripping in waxy blood, goblets filling unsettlingly with dark liquid, and scattered glimmers of who knew what all over a rich tablecloth in pitch hues. everywhere the dull, ghostly white of bone and insidious sparkle of metal sent candlelight ricocheting across the theater. among the instruments of death, almost randomly but not quite, were placed multiple kinds of dice and miniature figures looking frozen from battle.

not even the zombified goblin police could compare to the sensation of wrongness filling the room. whatever she’d stumbled upon, it couldn’t possibly be good.