CW: There is a small mention of gore (two-sentence flashback).

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“Hello,” Elias offered a wan smile to their now singular customer. “Let me know if you have any questions! Anything specific you like?”

The elderly gentleman smiled back at Elias, but something about the way his lips curled made the hair on the back of Elias’ neck stand. Lucky for Adino, he was too invested in his latest level of Bejeweled to pay the man any mind. The old man’s eyes roamed over Elias, and he stared at his chest.

Just what is he looking at? Elias pondered. 

“Have you ever thought about having children?” The man asked with a glint in one of his beady black eyes. He did not look up from Elias’ Mothman T-shirt.

All the thoughts cleared from Elias’ head for a moment, and he looked through the thin wisps of the man’s Einstein-like hair.

I’m sorry, but whaaaat? Elias willed himself to think again and frowned. This man is seriously random…

The question was odd enough that even Adino furrowed his brows. But he remained fixated on his game, leaving Elias alone on the battlefield. Coward.

“No,” Elias laughed, but it came out dry and certainly felt delayed. “That question kind of came out of left field there. Is that what you’re, er, ‘looking for?’”

A slow, almost lecherous smile. The man had lifted his beady eyes back up to Elias’ face, and Elias squinted when one of the man’s irises drifted sideways. A lazy eye, it seemed, but the way the older man’s one good eye held Elias’ gaze sent shivers crawling up his spine.

“And what if it is?” Elias didn’t think the leering grin could grow any wider

A question for a question. Is this some kind of game? Like 20 questions? Elias pursed his lips and closed the Rage comic he’d had open in his lap. Sometimes he liked to read the mini series made for the USA’s number one superhero. Since the comic was produced by a group of fangirls, it tended to have, er, questionable moments, but the fight scenes were worth the occasional dive off the deep end.

Menthol City was lucky to have Rage in their arsenal considering they also had Waves running around the streets. The supervillain hadn’t been seen for some time now, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lurking, planning his next big move.

“Then I’d say you might want to start looking at Adoption Centers first,” Elias snarked. He heard a little snort to his right—Adino’s way of reminding Elias he was still there—and chose to ignore it. Adino was usually the one handling the customers, and yet Elias somehow always ended up dealing with the strange “customers.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed at Elias, but his smile remained. “Oh, I have no need to look there, young ‘un,” the man said. He reached toward one of the beams supporting the booth’s signpost, and lifted an Eeveelution keychain attached to the display. By the looks of it, the man was fiddling with either Vaporeon or Glaceon. “The whole world is my oyster, you see. I need only find the right…host.”

As the man huffed out a wheezing laugh, Elias felt all the color drain from his face. He’d read enough comics, seen enough stories on the news, to know the old man had an agenda. Just what he was trying to get at with the children talk, Elias had no idea, but he didn’t plan to be a part of it in any way. The old man could very well be senile and simply talking nonsense, too, but all of Elias’ instincts told him otherwise.

Even Adino felt the air shift. He’d slipped his phone into the back pocket of his pleather pants and bobbed his head to the side, eyebrows raised. “What the heckie you mean, ‘good sir?’” Adino said, scooting his seat closer to Elias. “Are you actually interested in our merch? ‘Cause there’re plenty of other ready customers behind you that I’m sure would love an up-close peek at the ‘Flash Comic’ you’re blocking.”

There wasn’t actually a line, but there were quite a few people stopping within the crowded walkway to study their stand. Good call, Dino, Elias thought. He hoped the old man would take the hint and move on.

Unfortunately, the higher beings never quite listened to Elias’ silent prayers.

“Your pin,” the man said, his smile strained as he dropped the keychain and pointed.

Elias looked down at his badge lanyard and frowned. He’d been using the same “cute cryptids” lanyard he’d bought from an artist four years ago—his first Menthol City Comic Con—and continued to add button pins to it every year. There were at least twelve on it alone, so which one was the old man referring to? The man had also completely brushed off Adino’s question, so the bolder of the two straightened his posture and crossed his arms, brown eyes glaring.

“Oh, so now you’re ignoring my—”

“Are you a couple?” the old man cut Adino off, and the color returned to Elias’ face ten-fold. If he wanted to change the subject, he could’ve just asked about the Glaceon keychain!

“No! What?” Elias spluttered, his throat feeling dry. He could really go for one of the Gatorades in Jay’s cooler right then.

The old man laughed, and Adino scoffed next to Elias. “You know, these kinds of questions are none of your business, sir.” Adino looked tense, and Elias thought he was going to jump over the booth and force the man to leave.

“Don’t get your gotchies in a twist,” the old man said, still wheezing from his laugh. Adino’s eyes looked near bloodshot at this point. “You both wear those rainbow flag pins. I had to confirm.”

Why the pride flag pin, out of them all? If Elias wasn’t confused before, he definitely was now. Is the old man gay and looking for a partner? He nearly blanched at the thought. The kooky senior was way past his prime, and Elias was only twenty-two!

“Okay?” Adino bristled. “What does that have to do with children?”

“Two men cannot make a child.” The old man finally turned his attention to Adino, but his lazy eye was somehow trained on Elias. He felt goosebumps cover his arms despite the warm warehouse air.

“And does my pin say anything about a ‘kid?’” Adino rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. “That’s a problem for future me to worry about.”

“Adoption Centers are always too full,” Elias cut in, turning the conversation back around to his previous remark. He stared into the man’s lazy eye, daring it to move. “Gay men can always adopt. Don’t you know that?”

The beady eyes returned as the old man slowly turned his head back to Elias, and grinned. “Yes. Yes, yes, of course! But they wouldn’t be made from your own flesh-and-blood.”

“Who cares? I’d rather help a child in need.” Elias met the crazed, sparkling gaze of the old man with his own sharp one. “Could always find a surrogate mother, though.”

“Eli, why are you entertaining this loon?” Adino sighed, and Elias saw him shift within his peripheral vision.

But the old man was leaning over their booth now; his pale, wrinkled hands placed palms-down onto the table cloth. “That would taint their genes. You wouldn’t be the mother, that woman would be.”

“Well, I’m not a woman, and I wouldn’t want to be a ‘mother,’ either.”

Elias wrinkled his nose, the old man’s hot breath tickling his face from how close he’d become. A low, dark chuckle came from somewhere deep within the old man, and Elias could see his own reflection in the man’s black eyes. All the hairs on his body stood up, and he thought he heard warning bells ring.

A glimpse of one of the many memories he’d long-since bottled up came hurtling back. One of the pregnant girls in middle school, stomach cut open and bleeding all over the boys’ tiled locker room floor. Elias grit his teeth, willing the image to go away.

“Not yet you aren’t.”

The old man showed so many teeth with his smile that Elias thought him reminiscent of one of the AI “art” pieces from the early 2020’s. The crazy man’s eerie demeanor led Elias to believe that he meant his next words. What the old man planned to do exactly, Elias wasn’t sure, but he didn’t feel good about it.

“What the fuck do you mean by—”

“How are the sales going?” 

Jay’s deep voice rang over Elias’ oncoming threat, and he thanked the heavens for his boss’ sudden appearance. The old man pulled back from Elias’ face rather fast for his age, and Adino jumped up into a stand.

“Not good, Jay,” Adino hissed, pointing a finger in the old man’s direction. “‘Cause this weirdo keeps scaring all the customers away—”

“What ‘weirdo?’” Jay furrowed his brows, and Elias snapped his attention back to the front of the booth.

But the old man was disappearing into the sudden rush of convention attendees, his sparkling eyes and lecherous smile the last Elias saw of him before he vanished completely.

“What the hell…” Adino whispered, slowly lowering his pointed finger.

Elias gripped the little potion bottle necklace he wore, made by Adino himself, as his whole body shook. While the old man didn’t actually do anything, Elias had this foreboding feeling. He’d always had a sort of six sense to begin with, but he didn’t think that old man was a ghost or demon. He was clearly a living being; a human with an ulterior motive that Elias hoped he wasn’t now a part of.

“Dino,” Elias said, voice a little too shaky for his liking. “You saw him, too, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did, Eli,” Adino rolled his eyes, hands on his hips. Jay had returned to his hiding hole, muttering something along the lines of them being the “weird ones,” but Adino looked at Elias with a knowing gleam in his soft eyes.

“Don’t worry, Eli,” he whispered. “He was just crazy. And clearly lonely.”

Elias certainly hoped that was only the case.

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**Need something else to read while you wait for the next episode? Consider these other entries! (Links are in the author description)**

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