Really Strange Stuff - Ch.28 - Sightings (Patreon)

=::= Bailey's PoV =::=

It didn't take long for us to figure out that our vacation and the encounter with the Walden Worm was another big turning point for Really Strange Stuff. Sort of like the first time we met Kid Chaos, when she and Kaylee gave us all the Council files.

Prior to the Council series we didn't really have regular monthly episodes. Apart from the live streams it was more like RSS did a show whenever we had the content. The first really big break was when Callie and Serenity went to Canada.

Then we got all those case files and suddenly we were producing an episode every single month, and that was exciting at first. But when the excitement faded all we were left with was a lot of work for three people to handle. Especially when we were still doing the live streams and the newsletters too.

Taking a month off went a long way to recharging all our batteries. And even though our monster hunt was scary and probably really dangerous, it reminded us of what we'd given up when we started focusing almost exclusively on those archives.

So we spent the first half of August working on what would be the last Council episode, at least for now. We made sure everyone knew it was the season finale when it went live on August twenty-sixth. And after that my girlfriends and I spent about two-thirds of our time focusing on returning Really Strange Stuff to its original format, while the rest of our time went into building and growing our new Praise The Chaos channel.

For the most part that went well. The new channel opened with a strong start, thanks to almost half of our existing supporters being on board immediately. A few of our RSS moderators even helped out on the new channel, but not all of them. Which was fine, we knew the religious aspect wasn't for everyone. And we went out of our way not to be too preachy, on either channel. Even though PTC was definitely about promoting Chaos and Cassandra, we also made sure it was fun, for us and our viewers. And while we did some cross-promoting between the two channels, we tried not to be too annoying about it.

Unfortunately that did result in a drop in output for RSS. Without the Council stuff we weren't guaranteed an episode every single month, although we did keep up the live streams and the newsletter. That in turn left us worried that we'd see a drop in support, which would mean a drop in revenue. And while our numbers did wane a little, it turned out we didn't need to be concerned about a loss of income after all.

Callie Serenity and I were all surprised when Cassandra started providing financial support, ostensibly for the new channel. Except the amount of money she contributed was more than enough to take care of everything. In fact she was single-handedly sending us more money each month than we got from all our other supporters and sources combined. For the sake of appearances her contributions were flagged for 'Praise The Chaos', even though in truth it pretty much covered all our endeavours.

The main thing was, with her backing we didn't have to worry about any sort of financial pressure. We could just focus on covering whatever strange stuff caught our attention, while also putting out a PTC episode whenever we had the content for it.

And of course one of our first shows on the new channel was about our holy tools. By mid August we'd managed to figure out how they worked, thanks to a lot of trial and error and a few hints from Cassandra.

In short they worked through faith, emotion, and intent. Like when Callie used her 'sceptre' to scare off the Walden Worm, it created that flash of light to startle the monster since we all knew it was sensitive and fled bright lights. It probably didn't harm the Worm at all, since that wasn't her intention. She told it to scram, and coupled with the emotions and her faith that was enough to manifest a bright flash of light to scare the thing off.

Callie even took the time to learn how to use her baton the way it was intended. She taught herself how to twirl it and toss it up in the air then catch it again. Both Serenity and I were surprised by how much effort our little calico put into it, and how graceful she was when she was doing it. Neither of us bothered to go that route, Sere didn't take up golf and I definitely wasn't joining any lacrosse teams.

On the other hand we were definitely interested in the magical side of things, and with some practise we were all able to do some simple tricks like the light conjuration that scared off the Worm.

According to Callie and Serenity that was probably just the tip of the iceberg too. They were both convinced we could learn to channel more complex magic and spells through our tools, but I wasn't so sure. On the one hand it sounded pretty cool, but on the other hand I had a feeling the two catgirls were basing their theories on role playing game mechanics rather than any real-life evidence.

Cassandra refused to confirm or deny their suspicions, although she did tell us that Callie was right about how and why those three items became holy in the first place. Like the calico figured, it happened because those were the objects we chose. Our faith in Cassandra, our status as her disciples, and our devotion all combined to turn three mundane second-hand purchases into actual holy relics.

And with our three tools being so strange, so eclectic, and so unexpected, there was only one thing we could do. We put the three together and turned them into a new logo for our Praise The Chaos channel. We arranged them in a triangle, with my lacrosse stick across the bottom, Serenity's golf club on the right, and Callie's baton on the left. And in the centre we placed Cassandra's eight-pointed chaos star. And no sooner had we done that then our supporters started asking for PTC merch with the new logo. So that became one of our projects for September.

Another project we were working on for the autumn was a potential return to West Virginia. We wanted to go back after some proper preparations, and this time we'd be bringing all our professional camera gear. Maybe even some spelunking equipment too, so we could venture into that abandoned mine. Assuming we were feeling brave enough, that is.

Then around the end of September we got a message from Frank about the Walden Worm. He wanted us to know that apparently the army had visited Walden, and from the sound of it they'd put an end to the sightings. So we reached out to Mike Howard to see if he could confirm that, and he did.

It seemed like the army turned up at the start of the month and spent about two weeks doing what they called 'training manoeuvres' in the woods around Dave White's property. According to Mike he couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone involved, but after the military left he checked the place out and found the old mine entrance had been blown up and sealed tight. He couldn't say for sure that they killed the worm, but if it was still alive then odds were it was trapped underground.

So we abandoned our plans to revisit West Virginia, at least for now. My girlfriends and I agreed to maybe head back there either next spring or maybe in the summer, to do a follow-up and see if the Walden Worm was really gone.

In the meantime we had lots of other things to work on, and other leads to pursue. We also made sure to take personal time too, so we wouldn't immediately burn ourselves out again.

Like in November we took a week off and drove down to Arkansas for another visit with Callie's parents. We made sure to be there for Thanksgiving, and got to see her sister and brother again too. And in December we did xmas with my family, and spent some time talking with Heather and Jasmine along with my aunt and uncle.

Then in February we took ten days off and flew out to Los Angeles. That was uncomfortable, airplane seats turned out to be extremely unfriendly for folks with tails. On the other hand they weren't so bad if you turned yourself into a cat or a fox for part of the flight, although that seemed to freak out the cabin crew and some of the other passengers. So there were trade-offs either way.

Once we actually got there we had a good visit with Serenity's parents, checked out some of Sere's old haunts, and did a bunch of touristy things.

Back home in Chicago things started getting busy again with the spring weather, as we received a few more tips to look into and leads to follow up on. On the other hand all three of us were a little surprised that Cassandra never had any holy work or assignments for us, despite making us her disciples. She seemed content to just let us do our own thing on our own time.

That finally changed in early June when she and Kaylee visited the studio again for another interview, this time for our Praise The Chaos channel. The young Goddess did the same trick as before where she gave out enchanted plushies to anyone who asked for them, but this time around she had some other goodies on offer too. So anyone who wasn't interested in a plushie could still participate, or folks who already had a plushie could get something else from Kid Chaos.

The new items were an assortment of enchanted temporary tattoos, and before the show she gave my girlfriends and I a handful of them to play with. And needless to say, that got all three of us very excited.

The tattoos themselves weren't all that special. The artwork was kind of basic and simplified, like the sort of thing you'd get from a free clipart site. And they were applied just like normal temporary tattoos, you got them wet then pressed them against your skin and rubbed to transfer the image over. According to Cassandra, they'd last two to four days before they started to fade or peel.

What made these special was as long as the tattoo was in place and intact, it allowed the wearer to cast a magic spell that was related to the image.

There were a half dozen different designs and they were all fairly benign, like a tattoo of a lantern that allowed you to conjure up a ball of light that would float around for a minute or so. Or a snowflake that enabled you to cast enough cold magic to chill a beverage.

Then there were a couple cutesy animal tattoos that would let the wearer temporarily transform themself into that animal, for a few minutes at a time. According to Kaylee those ones would let folks experiment with transformations without the lifetime commitment of an enchanted plushie. Or allow someone who already had a plushie to try out different animal forms.

And finally there was a tattoo of the trans pride flag. That one had the obvious effect of allowing the wearer to temporarily trans their gender. According to Serenity that was probably going to result in more than a few eggs hatching.

By the end of the interview Callie all but begged Cassandra to let us sell the temporary tattoos in our merch shop, but the goddess had something else in mind. Rather than sell them she wanted us to give them away for free, as long as folks paid for the postage and handling. Or better yet, we could give them away free with merch orders. The only other catch was she didn't want people to be able to order specific tattoos, they were to be distributed randomly. Although she did agree to let us set them up in 'three-packs' of assorted tats so folks would get a variety with each order.

Of course we wouldn't be the only source of the enchanted tattoos, Kid Chaos was setting up a few other distribution channels as well. Even so, we still saw a significant boost in merch sales as soon as the tattoos were added to the store.

Meanwhile we were still busy with Really Strange Stuff too. We never did find a vampire or werewolf who wanted to be interviewed on camera, but we did manage to get a fae on the show.

He didn't want his face shown so we had to do some tricks with the lighting so he'd be in silhouette, and he made it clear that he'd given us a pseudonym. Those precautions led to some dissent among our viewers, with the skeptics dismissing the whole thing as a fake. Most of our viewers were willing to give us the benefit of the doubt though.

Either way it was a fascinating interview. 'Mr. Green' told us fae and fairies and similar beings came from a place they referred to as Otherworld, and according to him most humans would think of his world as kind of backwards or medieval. That's because the fae generally didn't like technology and didn't trust it.

Apparently magic was much more common over there, so they didn't need human technology since their magic could already do a lot of the same things. According to him they also had some of the fantastical wildlife we thought of as myths, like dragons and unicorns and pegasi. They were rare, but he said they were real back where he came from.

Unfortunately 'Mr. Green' wasn't very good with magic himself, so he declined to give us any in-studio demonstrations. And he didn't have much in the way of proof to back up his story, so while some of our viewers found it interesting the show wasn't as well-received as we'd hoped.

That was ok though, they couldn't all be big hits.

So we kept working on both channels, and we kept doing our live streams along with the newsletter. And just over a year after our first visit to West Virginia we finally made our way back to Walden, to try and do a follow-up on the Worm story.

We spoke with Mike Howard and a few other locals, and they all confirmed what we'd been told the previous year. The sightings and animal disappearances stopped after the army's visit. Nobody could say for sure if the the military killed the thing, but everyone agreed that sealing the mine entrance seemed to do the trick.

My girlfriends and I visited Dave's old property anways, to get some pictures of the sealed mine entrance. And that's where things veered back into strangeness, because the mine wasn't sealed. In fact it looked exactly the same as it did when we first saw it the year before, as if the army had never even been there.

That left everyone scratching their heads. Especially Mike, who claimed he'd seen the destruction himself after the military left. There was no explanation for how the mine entrance could have rebuilt itself, but with the worm gone nobody was too worried about it. We were tempted to explore that mine a little more since there was clearly something strange going on, but we hadn't brought any spelunking gear since we didn't expect to find it intact.

In the end we agreed to maybe visit the area again in the future for a more thorough investigation. And it made for another interesting show, which is basically what the three of us were all about. We kept looking for and trying to uncover or expose all the really strange stuff we could find. And while that sometimes meant shooting video in spooky places, just as often it also involved a lot of reading and research from the comfort of our home.

And that's what we were doing one afternoon towards the end of September, when our little calico suddenly let out an excited gasp.

"Woah!" Callie exclaimed as she stared at something on her computer. A moment later she asked, "Hey you two remember we got those emails back at the end of June, about a mass demon sighting up in Canada?"

Serenity and I looked at each other, then I shook my head. "Not really? I think if there was a mass of demons I'd remember that."

The calico's tail was already twitching around in excitement while her ears folded back impatiently, "It was just one demon, but she was seen by a whole lot of people! Remember? It was some kind of college play?"

"Oh right," Serenity nodded. "A play where one of the characters was a demon. So she was in costume."

I rolled my eyes, "Now I remember. That wasn't a demon sighting cutie, it was just one or two people getting freaked out because an actor had a really good costume."

By that point it was obvious from Callie's expression she was getting more and more frustrated with both me and Serenity. She shook her head and insisted, "I'm telling y'all it wasn't a costume! And now we've got proof! Come check out this picture, and tell me this isn't a pair of real live demons!"

I got to my feet then moved closer to her desk, while Serenity rolled her chair over so she was next to the little calico. And all three of us had a look at the picture she had up on her screen.

The image was dark and a little blurry, but it was obviously taken from an apartment window or balcony several stories up above the ground. It was also clear this was a zoomed-in crop, and the lighting indicated it was taken some time after sunset, probably just before dusk gave way to night.

In the middle of the shot, hanging in mid-air as if they were flying, were a pair of identical twin coeds with long black hair and dusky skin. They were both dressed normally, in what appeared to be dark hoodies, leggings, and running shoes. It even looked like they had fanny packs around their waists. Less normal was the large pair of dark red bat-like wings emerging from the two girls' backs. One of them also had a pair of horns sticking out of the top of her head, and a long spade-tipped tail trailing out behind her.

"The one with the horns is the same demon from that college play," Callie stated. "I'm sure of it. Except she didn't have the wings back then."

Serenity frowned, "When was this taken? And where?"

Our calico girlfriend tabbed from the picture back to the email it was attached to then read the details, "It was taken two weeks ago, on the night of Friday September the thirteenth."

"The sighting took place in the north end of Toronto Canada," she continued. "According to the email this picture was taken from the eleventh floor of an apartment building near the intersection of Yonge Street and Finch Street. It says here there were two other demons sighted, but they couldn't get a picture of the other two. And all four of them were heading west. So they probably originated somewhere east of there."

Finally she tabbed to a map app then added, "The sighting back in June was at a college that's less than four miles east of where this photo was taken."

"Can we see the demons again?" I asked.

Callie tabbed back to the image, and the three of of us studied it for another minute or so.

Eventually Serenity suggested, "Maybe we should start planning another road trip? After we check with Cassandra, to make sure it's safe for us to go back into Canada again."

** if you're not already familiar with the Saga of Mara then this would be an excellent time to dive in & binge all seven books in that series! just sayin' ^^
(you can find them all right here under the Mara tag) 
(You can also find them on ScribbleHub:
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/253656/i-got-reincarnated-as-my-own-long-lost-sister-but-im-actually-ok-with-this/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/284215/im-sharing-my-body-with-a-demoness-but-im-actually-ok-with-this/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/317836/my-girlfriends-are-both-succubi-but-im-actually-ok-with-this/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/385739/my-other-mom-is-a-demon-but-im-actually-ok-with-this/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/419534/me--my-girlfriends-became-more-demonic-but-im-actually-ok-with-this/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/454804/i-got-turned-into-a-demongirl-and-i-am-totally-ok-with-this/
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/567728/missed-connections/ ) **