And as she walks, Tiffany sees those piercing eyes and that dead smile greet her from the corner of her eye. Her heart leaps and she can feel Vanilla squeeze her hand as if in knowing. Tiffany’s walk stutters, but not long enough to alert Vanilla to what she’s looking at. Just long enough to pull the posted flyer off its staple on a telephone pole they pass by before Vanilla can notice. She crumples the flyer up into a ball with her free hand and lets it fall to the street. She turns back to check on Vanilla, who smiles at her through oblivion and whose pale skin looks so fragile against the rising sun.

I have fucking free will, Tiffany thinks. She turns back ahead and continues their journey into Hell.

As the two girls travel away, the flyer slowly uncurls from the damp morning mist. A man’s face, a man with sharp features and a jaw like a diamond, is hand-painted in black and white, confined to the size of a square portrait. Beneath this image, the flyer reads:

DOCTOR VICTOR CROHN

PEDIATRICIAN AND IDIOPATHIC SPECIALIST

ARE YOU OR A LOVED ONE SUFFERING

FROM AN UNKOWN AILEMENT?

NEED A CURE?

CONTACT THE OFFICE TODAY!

CHAPTER XXIII

Some-odd-decades ago in the 1920s, Victor Crohn befriended a patient named John Lloyd.

John Lloyd lived alone in the outskirts of their small town and visited Victor’s medical practice frequently due to a serious case of the tics—tics he explained would often climax into full-blown seizures. During these tics, John claimed to lose consciousness; he possessed a deep fear that one day he might unknowingly knock his head against a sharp object and soon after die of a concussion. Victor would laugh at his concerns but entertain them nonetheless, giving John weekly and then biweekly checkups pro bono, never seeing a tic or issue of any kind for himself but enjoying John’s lighthearted presence in his otherwise clinical office.

Their friendship flourished and checkups expanded to outings at parties and pubs and nights across many towns over. The two men became somewhat of local celebrities in their community, invited to any and every event and gathering to be oohed and aahed at for their preternatural looks. One was never seen without the other. Jokes abounded about them being attached at the hip.

On June 6th, 1922—a date that will forever be ingrained in Victor’s memory—the hinge of fate swung. Victor and John were attending a mansion soirée they’d been invited to by some mysterious mogul. The mansion was beautiful, the drink was abundant, and the masses were positively enraptured. The evening was filled with grasping hands and prodding questions that made the drink escalate from a trickling stream to a raging torrent. When John found himself too drunk to stand with Victor (who faked inebriation), they escaped into an isolated room, shut the door, and collapsed onto the bed in giddy foolishness. John stood, making a show for Victor in mockery of all the women who approached them that night.