The gray morning light of Schroon Falls seeped into Unit 4B, but it brought no cheer. Light, in this featureless, sound-proofed room, did not illuminate; it merely exposed. It revealed the grim texture of the gray foam pyramids on the walls, the dust motes dancing in a solitary sunbeam, and the rumpled depression on the bare mattress where Donnie Keller had spent a sleepless night. He sat at his makeshift desk, a single wooden chair pulled up to an overturned plastic milk crate, and stared at the cracked screen of his laptop. The screen was blank, a dark mirror reflecting his own gaunt, tired face. On the floor beside the crate, the neon-orange eviction notice he had retrieved from the trash last night lay flat, its corners held down by unseen weights of dread. He had uncrumpled it, smoothed it out, and placed it there deliberately. It was a flag of surrender. A constant, glaring reminder that his sanctuary was no longer safe.
A small, tinny ping sound erupted from the laptop's cheap speakers, a cheerful little noise that was grotesquely out of place in the silent room. An email had arrived. Donnie's eyes flicked to the screen, which had lit up with the notification. The subject line glowed in bold, black letters: RE: Voice Audition for 'Slo-Mo the Slug'. A faint, almost imperceptible flicker of something akin to hope stirred in the pit of his stomach. He had submitted the audition yesterday, a pathetic thirty-second recording of him making what he imagined were slug-like noises. It was demeaning work, but it was work. He clicked the email open.
The message was from a company called "Super Mega Fun-Time Animation," a name so aggressively cheerful it felt like a threat. The body of the email was a masterpiece of crushingly generic, soul-destroying corporate politeness.
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in the role of Slo-Mo the Slug. The casting team at Super Mega Fun-Time Animation was very impressed with the submissions we received. While your vocal skills are impressive, and we appreciate the time you took to audition, we have decided to move forward with other candidates whose particular... slimy, amorphous vocal quality... better fits the creative vision for Slo-Mo the Slug.
We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Donnie read the email once. Then he read it again. His gaze fixed on one particular phrase: "...slimy, amorphous vocal quality..." He, a man who could perfectly replicate the sound of a human soul being torn in two, a man who could mimic the complex symphony of a cholera victim's final, rattling breath, had been rejected because his voice was not sufficiently slimy. He had failed the slug audition. The irony was so bitter it felt like acid in his throat. A muscle in his jaw began to twitch, a tiny, frantic rhythm of contained rage. He closed the laptop with more force than was necessary. The first blow of the day had landed.
As if on cue, his phone began to buzz. It was a cheap, battered smartphone, its screen a spiderweb of cracks, and it vibrated against the hard floor with a harsh, angry sound. The noise drilled into the quiet of the room, an unwelcome intrusion. He glanced down at the screen. The name displayed there, in stark white letters, sent a fresh wave of dread through him: Mr. Kim. He stared at the name, at the insistent buzzing of the phone. He knew why his landlord was calling. He knew what was coming. He let it buzz, once, twice, a third time. It was a small, futile act of defiance, a pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable execution. On the fourth buzz, with a sigh of complete resignation, he leaned down and picked it up. His thumb hovered over the 'Accept Call' icon for a second before finally pressing it. He brought the phone to his ear.
"What." The word was not a question. It was a wall.
A voice, reedy and sharp and tinny through the phone's tiny speaker, sliced through the silence. "Mr. Keller. This is Mr. Kim."
Donnie said nothing. He stared at the opposite wall, at the repeating pattern of gray foam pyramids.
"Mr. Keller," the voice repeated, laced with a condescending impatience. "I am calling to inform you that your rent payment for the month, which you attempted to make online this morning, was just returned." A pause, for effect. "The reason given was 'insufficient funds'."
Donnie's eyes closed. He knew his bank account contained exactly seven dollars and fourteen cents. He had made the payment anyway, a desperate, magical-thinking gesture. "It's a bank error," he said, the lie tasting like cardboard in his mouth.
A dry, humorless laugh crackled through the phone. "The only error, Mr. Keller, is your continued tenancy. The bank is not in error. Your poverty is not an error. It is a fact. The eviction notice stands. As of this phone call, you have forty-eight hours to vacate the premises."
There was a sharp, definitive CLICK. Mr. Kim had hung up.
Donnie didn't move. He held the silent phone to his ear for a long moment, listening to the dead air. Then, slowly, as if it weighed a thousand pounds, he lowered his arm. The second blow had been a direct hit.
A hollow, gnawing emptiness began to grow in his stomach. It was partly the familiar pang of hunger, and partly the cold, hard certainty of his own impending doom. Driven by the more immediate of the two sensations, he stood up and walked the few steps to the kitchenette. He pulled open the door of the small, cube-like refrigerator. The internal light flickered on, illuminating an almost completely bare interior. The white plastic shelves were empty, save for a single glass jar standing in the center of the middle shelf. Inside the jar, two sad-looking pickles floated in a cloudy, greenish brine. That was it. He stared at the pickles. They stared back, their bumpy green skins looking weary and defeated. He closed the refrigerator door.
He then opened the cupboard above the counter. The door swung open to reveal a cavernous, dark space. His eyes scanned the deep, empty shelves. In the far back corner of the bottom shelf sat a lone, bright orange box of baking soda, a useless relic from a time when he might have had something to bake. And next to it, the last survivor of its pack, was a single, final "Noodle-Rama" cup. "Chicken-ish Flavor." It was his last meal. It was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Again. The third blow landed not with a bang, but with the quiet, crushing realization of utter destitution.
He closed the cupboard door. The quiet click of the magnetic latch echoed in the silent apartment. It was the sound of a final door shutting, a final option being exhausted. He turned and began to pace, a caged animal in a foam-padded cell. He walked the short length of the room, from the door to the window, then turned and walked back. Five steps one way, five steps the other. A relentless, pointless circuit of despair. His eyes, wild and cornered, darted from the glaring neon-orange of the eviction notice on the floor to the overflowing metal trash bin in the corner. Reality versus the ridiculous. Certain homelessness versus a ludicrous, long-shot prank. His cynicism, his primary defense against the world's endless disappointments, was at war with a raw, bottom-of-the-barrel desperation he had never known before. It's a prank, you idiot, the cynical part of his brain screamed. Rupert is going to laugh himself sick when you show up. You're going to be homeless AND humiliated. But another voice, a quieter, more desperate voice, whispered back, But what if it isn't? What else do you have? Pickles?
He stopped pacing. He stood in the center of the room, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He stared at the trash bin as if it were an adversary, a silent enemy that held the key to his potential salvation or his ultimate humiliation. To reach into that bin, to retrieve that ridiculous letter, felt like a surrender. It was an admission that his own logic, his own carefully constructed worldview of scorn and disbelief, had failed him completely. With a long, shuddering sigh of profound self-loathing, he walked over to the bin. He hesitated for a moment, then plunged his hand inside, past the empty noodle cups and discarded junk mail. His fingers brushed against the crumpled, brittle parchment. He pulled it out.
He walked back to the center of the room and knelt down. He carefully smoothed the brittle, wrinkled parchment out on the floor. It was even more pathetic now, creased and stained with a faint residue of coffee grounds from the trash. The elegant, looping script seemed to mock him with its dramatic flair, a fantasy of a forgotten time clashing with the harsh reality of his situation. His eyes found the key phrases again.
"...unique timbre of your talents..." The words stung. A talent so unique it couldn't even land him the role of a slimy slug.
"...a matter of great spiritual urgency..." His own urgency, the kind that involved rent and food, felt considerably more pressing.
And then, the final phrase, the one that had lodged in his brain like a splinter.
"...a most significant and material compensation."
The words stared up at him from the wrinkled page. This time, they didn't feel like bait. They felt like a lifeline. It was an absurd, insane, long-shot of a solution, but it was the only one he had left.
With a groan, he stood up and walked to the apartment's only window. It was covered by a thick, heavy blackout curtain that he never opened. It was a part of his sanctuary, keeping out the unwanted light of the world. Now, with a grim sense of purpose, he grabbed the edge of the fabric and pushed it aside. Gray light flooded the room. He squinted, looking out. Past the other sterile, modernist cubes of his apartment complex, past the haze of the town, on a distant, mist-shrouded hill, the gothic silhouette of Schroon River Manor stood starkly against the gray sky. Its spires and gables were sharp and dark, a jagged tear in the fabric of the horizon. It looked exactly like a place that would be haunted. It looked exactly like a place that would be home to a pair of "Spectral Siblings."
He let the curtain fall, and the room was plunged back into its familiar gloom. He stood in the semi-darkness, the image of the manor burned into his mind. He looked down at the letter on the floor one last time. He had weighed his options. On one side: certain, imminent eviction and a future of eating pickles out of a jar. On the other: a potentially humiliating wild goose chase, a prank set up by an annoying ex-coworker that might, on the infinitesimal chance that the universe had a sick sense of humor, actually be real.
"Fine," he said to the empty room. His voice was flat, devoid of all emotion. "Let's go see the ghouls."
The tone was one of complete and utter defeat. It was not the voice of an adventurer embarking on a quest. It was the sound of a man with absolutely nothing better to do and no other options left, choosing the absurd because the real world had officially voted him off the island.
He walked to the door and grabbed a worn, black jacket from the single hook. He bent down, picked up the ancient-looking parchment, folded it carefully, and shoved it deep into his jacket pocket. It felt both ridiculous and incredibly important. He grabbed his cheap, cracked smartphone from the floor, a tether to the world he was about to reluctantly engage with. He took one last look around his soundproofed sanctuary, then opened the door and walked out, leaving the silence and safety behind. He was off to Schroon River Manor, not out of bravery or curiosity, but because being broke is, in the end, so much scarier than any ghost.