Part 1: A Thing About Myself
My name is Kate. I’ve been in school for a very long time, but not for writing books about ghost hunters. I also have a job where I put on slacks and go sit at a desk in an office and emote with Dilbert cartoons.
I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but also always sort of wanted other people to think of me that way, too. Bug Out! is a story I’ve been working on for a while now, and honestly I need something that will spur me to keep writing, because I’m not allowed to get a new tattoo until I finish.
Part 2: Eliot, Bug Out!, and Why You Should Fund It. Me.
Bug Out! began as a short story, part of a challenge I’d set for myself - write a story for every science fiction trope. Five Rules, my zombie story, was picked up by Dark Moon Books for their zombie anthology (Dark Moon Presents: Zombies, and this isn’t much of a pitch for that because my name isn’t even listed on the product page, but the stories are good) a few years ago, but something about Eliot Haskell, the ghost hunter, demanded a bigger story.
I’ve decided it’s best to let Eliot introduce herself. And she does so in the prologue of this very thing I am trying to sell you on, so I’ll just put that below.
Bug Out!
Prologue: Not At All At The Beginning
You know, it isn’t true what they say about the end of the world. The cockroaches won’t make it. In fact, the two most common species, American and German, prefer things well over eighty-four degrees, and don’t tolerate cold temperatures at all. That’s why Bug Out! gets so many calls about roaches right after the first cold snap - in the summer, the roaches are just doing their thing outside, like legitimate bugs participating in an ecosystem. Not bothering anyone. Not worth paying attention to.
As soon as it gets cold, though, they trundle right on inside, through the cracks in your foundation, under the gap of your screen door, squirming through the places where your window sealant’s gone weak. You don’t see them, not at first, maybe for a few seconds when you flick the light on in the kitchen, so fast you almost think you imagined it. You might never see them, but you can hear them, scratching their spiny feet up and down the warm insides of your house, rubbing their bellies along the pipes in your bathroom, gnawing with gruesome contentment at the salty paint chips flaking from the baseboards in the hallway. You know they’re there; they get louder and louder as the house gets darker and quieter. You hold yourself awake with the covers up to your chin, afraid that one will crawl across your face if you close your eyes.
The important thing to remember in moments like that is they need us.
No humans, no cockroaches.
Pathetic, really.
I’m an exterminator. My name is Eliot. I am going to tell you a story.
Unfortunately for you, it isn’t a love story. I’ve read enough maudlin teenage romances and airy summer beach novels to know that this would be much improved by a bit of fire, a bit of seething, sinewy tension bubbling under the surface, a little Mulder and Scully style tete a tete. But the woman standing barefoot in my kitchen, tediously building almond butter and jelly sandwiches, has never been my lover. In fact, for most of our history I wouldn’t have even called her my friend.
Her name is Walker, and unfortunately for me, and you, she’s the most important person in my life. She’s my first memory, and I’m fairly certain she’ll be my last.
But I’m going at this backwards. I’m beginning now, with Walker standing in my apartment, carefully constructing sandwiches for lunches I may or may not eat, when I should be starting at, well, the beginning. Which is to say my beginning. Me, Eliot Haskell. This is a story about me, though not really.
It’s a story about me, and Walker, and Father Jack. It’s also a story about my cat, Venkman, and almost but not really a story about pest control.
It’s a story about stuff I’ll have to explain eventually, but not yet. You’re not ready. I’m not ready.
If you want more, pledge.