13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days

The Viscount’s Supporter

Charlotte pulled her jacket tight against the autumn night. She’d thought during the blood-boiling drought of summer that she’d welcome the colder weather like an old friend. But it chilled her bones and she wished for Octobers of her childhood, before everything went to Hell.

She was headed to a trendy gastropub in the safe part of town. She normally couldn’t afford the place, but they did buck-a-shuck oysters during happy hour, and she wasn’t paying. Which was good, because she was hungry. They all were.

She paid little attention to the heads on spikes, enemies of The Viscount, lining the road into the safe part of town. She was used to the heads. They were a part of life in the city, like duck boats and street magicians had once been.

She stopped to wait for an undertaker’s cart to cross and glanced at the impaled head displayed to her right. She recognized the eyes, still oozing charisma and confidence. Johnny Baker. They’d gone to high school together. Lacrosse player. Never struck her as particularly political. Time changed them all.

She crossed the street, checked her makeup in a grimy window, wiped some dried blood from her cheek, and entered the gastropub

Dan stood up and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, just like he had on the previous three dates. It was a sweet and chivalrous gesture that she liked. This was the fourth date. On the first, they talked about the before times. He’d been in software sales. She was a veterinary assistant. They spent the second date ranking their favorite Taylor Swift songs. The third date was mini golf. On this night, she was going to ask him back to her tent. But first she had to know.

“OK, we’re just gonna do this,” she said, taking a seat. “I’m going to be extremely blunt, but I have to know. And this conversation is hard, so please just be honest.”

He held up a hand as if he already knew where this was going.

“I admit it,” he said. “I’ve been engaged before. But it was the right decision at the time.”

Miranda stared at him in confusion.

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “Why would anyone care about that?”

He looked relieved.

“The election is next week,” she said.

He nodded.

“And, so. I think. That perhaps. A thing people must sort of, ask, any potential partner… In light of these unprecedented times. .. Is… You know. Who do you? Or should I say, who have you…?”

Dan turned his head sideways.

“Oh whatever!” Charlotte reached over and yanked his arm across the table. She pulled up the sleeve of his corduroy sweater. He didn’t react. She looked down at his forearm and shuddered. The tattoo of a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle stared up at her.

Charlotte stood up to leave.

“Pity,” she said. “I was going to give you the best fourth date you ever had.”

Dan looked at her sadly. She knew some of The Viscount’s supporters could manipulate people’s thoughts with their stares, but she’d looked into Dan’s eyes a lot during those first three dates and all she ever felt was that he was kind of cute in a sad puppy dog sort of way and she wanted to kiss him. She sighed. She still thought he was cute. She didn’t really want to kiss him anymore.

He motioned for her to sit back down.

“Maybe I got the tattoo on a dare and I regretted it,” Dan said. “Maybe it was a mistake from spring break gone wild. Maybe I’m a spy.”

Charlotte paused and sat down across from him.

“Are any of those things true?” she asked.

He said nothing.

She shot back up and put on her coat.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said. “I’ll see you in Hell. And I don’t mean that in the nice way that one sinner says to another to let him know she’ll be waiting for him in the afterlife.”

“Maybe we’re already in Hell,” Dan said, glumly.

Charlotte tightened her coat.

“Doubt it,” she said. “But if we are, it’s because your supreme leader opened the membrane between two worlds and the universes got all tangled up.”

Dan lowered his eyes.

“I guess you’re all not as open-minded as they say,” he mumbled.

Charlotte’s eyes bugged out of her head. She walked over to him and pointed a finger in his face.

“Really?” she said. “You’re using the, ‘So much for tolerant libs’ line on me to save this date? That’s pathetic”

Dan slumped his shoulders. For some reason Charlotte felt a little bad. He really was cute. She always had a thing for sociopathic losers.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dan said. “That was unfair. Can we just talk about it?”

Charlotte looked toward the kitchen. She was so hungry.

“You have exactly six buck-a-shuck oysters to make your point,” she said. “And you’re paying. Put those tax cuts to use.”

She sat across from him, dispensing lemon into her first oyster.

“I mean this without any disrespect or snark,” Dan started. “I just wonder if maybe you’re living in a bubble. Have you actually gone out and talked to any supporters of The Viscount?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. It had been a common refrain in the early days of His reign to present The Viscount’s supporters as hard-working forgotten farmers just trying to save their only way of life. Then He converted all the farms into bone yards and it became clear that the only one’s living a better life under The Viscount were those who were never alive to begin with.

“Do you want to talk to some of The Viscounts opponents? I saw a couple outside.” She sucked on the last bit of oyster. “Oh wait, sorry, they can’t talk because they had their tongues cut out.”

Dan made a serious face that showed he thought it was a good point.

“I don’t agree with all of his policies,” he said. “I obviously don’t think people should have their heads on spikes. I just want safer streets for my future children.”

‘The Viscount literally eats children!“

“That was one time and it was debunked,” Dan said. “An independent commission — overseen by one of your senators may I add — determined it to be a very small adult.”

“I’m not sure that’s better.”

This time Dan looked horrified. Charlotte held up her palms in surrender.

“OK sorry, I’m getting heated. That’s obviously better. You should never eat a child.”

The waitress came by to ask if they needed anything else. Dan ordered filtered water, the only kind you could drink.

“I mean, am I happy we have to have all our water filtered from the sewage fields through a convoluted and labor-intensive system of irrigation and desalination? Of course not. Do I regret voting for him last time? Sometimes. Do I wish that decision hadn’t branded me with this enchanted tattoo of a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle?” He glanced down at the tattoo. The flames were lighting up and shimmering. “No. The tattoo is badass.”

“He’s just good at marketing,” Charlotte said. “The Viscount has no policies beyond ensuring there are enough souls to keep his 10 most evil supporters alive for another millennium. Everything beyond that is just branding.”

Dan shrugged.

“Isn’t that true of all politicians?”

Charlotte took the shells from her already finished oysters and put them in her purse. If things got really bad, she could grind them into a paste and give it to some of the hungry children in The Outskirts. She grabbed a fresh oyster and doused it in hot sauce.

“The shellfish are running low, buddy,” she said. “And I’m not finding myself any more convinced.”

“Of course I don’t love The Viscount,” Dan whispered. “Some of my best friends were First Borns. Do you think I agreed with his decision to round them all up and scatter their bones to the wind? But what was I supposed to say? That policy was really popular at the time. We thought it would lead to more jobs.”

“In times of injustice, silence encourages the oppressor,” Charlotte said.

“Is that from a movie?” Dan said.

Charlotte shrugged. “I saw it on Taylor Swift’s Instagram.”

Dan paused. Charlotte knew she’d landed a blow. They’d bonded over their shared history as former Swifties a week earlier. Taylor had been in exile for years, but her Instagram account continued to be a leading source of resistance information. She wondered how Dan compartmentalized it all.

“It’s not like there’s anyone else to vote for,” he finally said

“Harry O’Sullivan? We have a choice. This is still a democracy.”

“Harry O’Sullivan is so boring and so fake,” Dan said. “Come on. Do you even know what he believes in?”

Charlotte groaned.

“I know he DOESN’T believe that when the moon crosses Venus the oceans will boil and the dead will inherit the earth,” she said. “That’s enough for me. Believe me, he wasn’t my first choice either. I voted for AOC 2.”

Dan looked horrified at this admission.

“He’ll tank the economy,” he said. “O’Sullivan said he wants to free every soul trapped within the Golden Mountain. Do you know how much that will cost?”

“It will create jobs,” Charlotte said. “That’s a lot of digging.”

“It’s the first step toward destroying the middle class,” Dan insisted. “Do you want your children to be saddled with all that debt?”

Charlotte looked out the window. Frogs were falling from the sky.

“There has been a 700% increase in blood hurricanes since The Viscount took over. We have volcanoes exploding in cities nowhere near a fault line. The sun disappears once a week for days at a time. If we don’t enact O’Sullivan’s climate plan, we’re not going to have a world for our children.”

Dan turned and looked out the window. Charlotte wondered how he ignored the frogs.

“I won’t deny that the moon is slowly turning a much frightening color than it used to be,” Dan said. “Or that the air in New York City is filled with way more locusts than when I was a kid. But we don’t know what’s causing all that.”

“Maybe the guy who said he was unleashing a plague of locusts to punish New York City for its sins?” Charlotte said. “Just a thought.”

“I just think we need more evidence,” Dan said.

Charlotte grabbed the final oyster. She looked at Dan to show his time was almost up.

“Look, it’s how I was raised,” Dan said. “I’m actually left on a lot of social issues. I thought voting for vampires was progressive. When I realized it wasn’t, what was I going to do? Switch my political party?”

“I did,” she said.

It was true. She’d even voted for Oleg the Unknowable not that long earlier. It made sense at the time. She loved her country and believed in the value of working hard. At one point she completely bought into the idea that putting the public’s trust in unkillable demigods would mean safe jobs for everyone. So she understood where Dan was coming from. Maybe that’s why she was still sitting with him.

She looked down. The oysters were gone. Dan looked uneasy.

“I guess my time’s up,” he said.

“Mini golf was fun,” she said.

Months later, the election has been cancelled. The nation is plunged into chaos. The sun has vanished without a trace.

Charlotte is walking with a small band of resistance fighters, who have been intercepted by The Viscount’s secret police. She breaks free and escapes through a hole in a fence and runs straight into an officer, a man wearing a wolf’s head and holding a giant axe. She sits calmly and waits for death.

“I knew this day would come,” Charlotte says. “Just get it over with.”

The wolf man lowers the axe.

“Go three blocks east, then walk the old canal to the river,” the voice says. “A neutral ferryman will take you to a safe harbor. I never saw you.”

She looks up, confused.

“But why?”

The man removes the wolf head. Blood clings to his forehead. His face has been painted black and his puppy dog eyes have turned yellow, but it is clear enough who he had once been.

“That was the only good date I’ve ever been on,” Dan says. “I still think about you.”

She nods and runs off toward the old canal. Dating is a pain, she thinks, but on nights like this, it all seems worth it.

The only rule of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days is that the story must be posted the same night I started writing it.

Previously on 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days:

2020:
Day 13 A Very Kaboom Halloween
Day 12 Save the Cat
Day 11 Vampire Weekend
Day 10 What We Drink at Brunch Besides Mimosas
Day 9 Lightbulb Moments
Day 8 Gift of the Magi 2
Day 7 The Hook
Day 6 Die School Musical
Day 5 The Viscount’s Supporter
Day 4 Eternal Necromancer
Day 3 Right Now
Day 2 Good Bones
Day 1 The Girl with the Green Mask

2016:
Day 1 The Ghost’s Girlfriend
Day 2 The Girl with the Puka Shell Necklace
Day 3 The Time I Went to the Old Church Later Than I Should Have
Day 4 Ride Scare
Day 5 Miranda, Who Appears as a Portent of Death
Day 6 A Halloween Carol
Day 7 El Mariachi de los Muertos
Day 8 Death on Demand
Day 9 The Ballad of the Cursed Mudville Maroons
Day 10 Officer Mac’s Last Day
Day 11 Chad vs. The Genie
Day 12 Luigi’s Coins
Day 13 Somewhere Beyond the C