To whom it may concern

Watch out for scary garbage guys in mirrored shades, because we're about to rewatch the Lost Hour.

The wooden handle of the spatula was smooth, sturdy, and slightly warm to the touch, as though the ghosts of every chef who'd come before her had left some trace of themselves upon it. The head was a glossy rounded curve of smooth and flexible rubber, supple and unbroken.

And yet...

"Tod," said Janet, trying to pitch her voice at it's most un-judgemental level and probably failing, "Do you have any kitchen utensils without skulls and bats and pumpkins all over them?"

The smile of the grinning jackolantern on her spatular seemed to fade a little.

"Nope," said Tod. "None."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Janet was screening audiobooks for the three puffer fish who now lived a life of coddled luxury in a softly-lit and securely locked room at the back of the Baitshop.

"I don't want them to hear anything too shocking," she said, setting an eighteen-cassette unabridged reading of Watership Down into the "no" pile.

"Do puffer fish have a concept of fiction?" said Melanie. "Come to think of it, do they even understand human languages?"

Janet thought about this.

"The Mackerel Soldiers know rudimentary English," she said. "So do the mermaids. Puffer fish are at least as smart as them, so..."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The lake was hungry. Not just the things in the lake, the mermaids and sea hags and the squishy squid-like things that signed her paycheques, but the lake itself. Janet could feel it, gnawing at the pit of her stomach and sending a cold ache through her bones, turning her muscles to rusted tangles of barbed wire that caught on the underside of her skin with every moment she spent above the waves.

"I'm not ready," she whispered into the white and hissing surf, and, "I need more time." And, perhaps most damningly, "the tourist season will be here soon."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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"Oh good," said Janet, with the sort of sarcasm that would have struck the nigiri dead in their tanks if she'd turned it towards them. "The sun's out, so obviously it's time for every idiot in Eerie to stand around their idling cars with the radio blaring. Apparently this year's Sound of the Summer is just dipshits and exhaust pipes."

"You could just drown them out," suggested Melanie, motioning to the Baitshop's ancient and dusty tape deck.

"I could just drown them, period," said Janet. "But management have said I need to wait and see if they buy anything first."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The sun was high and hot, and around the lake the air smelled of salt and had a thick, cloying texture that coated the inside of her mouth with every breath, leaving her throat dry and her tongue tingling.

Janet Donner stood at the end of the boardwalk, wooden planks warm against her bare feet, feeling every minute shift of the water around her as it worked with slow and endless patience to erode the rotten pilings that sank deeper into the muddy lake bed with each day that passed.

It would get her eventually, she knew. But not yet.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The raw and weeping thing at the bar jumped a little at her outburst, as did Janet, though she controlled hers in time to stop the neatly-plated nigiri from sliding off her serving tray.

"There you go, sir," she said to the skinless corpse, setting the dish down in front of it. "Wasabi, soy sauce and ginger are on your left. Let me know if you need anything else."

She smiled, bright and breezy, then turned to Melanie.

"Mel," she said carefully. "Are you doing okay?"

Melanie took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. This was not the time to go all Marshall Teller on her best friend just because...

Just because...

Because there was a revenant sitting at her place of work, carefully separating a set of disposable chopsticks with bloody fingers that left red-brown smears over the cheap alder wood.

Janet's expression became one of concern.

"Do you need to sit down? We're kind of crowded today because of the King Tide, but there's room at the counter."

Melanie swallowed hard, shook her head, and forced her expression back to something that, if not cheerfully unconcerned, was least pleasantly neutral.

"No," she said. "I'm good. Just stopped by to say hi and pick up some takeout is all."

"It'll be a bit of a wait," said Janet. "Fred's compulsively impersonating a high-strung perfectionist right now, so there's a lot of drama going on in the kitchen. I'm actually hanging out with the customers for some peace and quiet, if you can believe that."

Melanie Monroe looked from her friend, to the heavy steel door that lead to the kitchen, to the bloodied tatterdemalion peaceably eating sushi dipped in way too much soy sauce, and raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Trust me," said Janet. "It's that dire."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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"Miss Donner," the Mayor said. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you before the next King Tide. Do I have a delivery on the way or are your calling on behalf of your... senior management team?"

"Have you refused to let any members of your tax base leave town lately?" asked Janet. "Been rude or condescending to a new prophet or recently-arisen messiah?"

Chisel hummed, as though mulling it over.

"Not that I recall," he said. "Though I suppose if they were very new, I might not have known it at the time. Why?"

"The lake has turned to blood."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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"Thanks for helping me out," said Janet, as she and Tod dragged the unwieldy sheet of corrugated metal across the slippery and still-bleeding earth around Lake Eerie.

"It's cool," Tod told her, navigating a small copse of trees who glared at him from a thousand yellow flower eyes. "I was planning a trip out here anyway - I'm planning to make blood pudding with some of the lake water."

"Bert and Ernie will love that," Janet said, her enthusiasm for the idea almost making her miss a shallow pool of leeches lying in wait in the shade of a bush whole leaves were lined with tiny human teeth. She dodged it at the last minute and continued, "They're getting really into this local sustainability thing."

"Bert told me they're going to reach out to the 666H Club again," said Tod. "See if they can lay to rest some of those old rivalries, get some community gardening off the ground. Or, into the ground, I suppose."

"That'd be cool," said Janet. "Let me know if you need a hand." She nodded over his shoulder. "Little to the left, just by the boat shack."

Tod changed the direction of his carful backwards shuffling, backing up until the heel of one heavy black boot bumped against the salt-warped boards of the boat repair shed.

"Made it," he said, letting his corner of the heavy metal sheet drop with a sigh of relief.

Janet set her end down too, then moved towards the red and viscous tide that lapped at the shore.

She rapped lightly on the closed door of the boat shed. There was no answer, though Tod thought he heard something move.

"Hi," she said. "I'm from the Baitshop. We thought, as long as the water is blood anyway, you might like some shade between here and the lake."

A susurration of voices, mingled with the distinctive sound of dozens of high-collared black silk robes rustling in agitation, burst from inside the rickety structure.

Finally, after what sounded like a short but intense debate, a single voice piped up.

"Yes please," it said. "That would be very nice."

Another voice, older and somewhat crackly, mumbled something, and the first voice added:

"You're not going to leave any iron nails lying about the place, are you?"

"No," said Janet. "No iron, no garlic, no scattered seeds or grains of rice. No tricks."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The fog rolled in, bringing with it the wet salt scent of the phantom ocean, the loud hooting of the foghorn and, of course, the ever-present call of the seagulls.

Behind the polished serving counter of the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar, Janet Donner pulled on a stainless steel hairnet and hurried outside to the patio, warning diners who had a moment ago been enjoying delicious teriyaki long pig rice wraps in the warm summer evening that they should consider taking the rest of their meal inside.

Some refused, of course. Some always did, at least until the screaming started.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The breakwater was littered with bodies and already the seagulls that had all but destroyed Eerie's native population of pterodactyl were out in force. Eyes were plucked out and swallowed, abdomens pierced and torn and entrails tugged free, and even the hardest wearing denim was shredded so the scavenging hoard could access the meatier parts of the human anatomy.

Janet Donner tucked her hair up under a wide-brimmed hat, exchanged her clean white apron for one of hardwearing leather, and grabbed a bucket. Much of the ocean's spoils were hers by right, and she would claim them for the Baitshop.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Soft light, filtered and dim and comforting, filled the room. Soothing piano music tinkled faintly on the air, combining with the bubble and hiss of air filters and water pumps.

Janet Donner paused at the doorway, slipping her shoes off and motioning for Melanie to do the same.

"Don't make too much noise," she warned, her voice soft. "I don't want to scare them."

Melanie made a zipping motion across her lips, then toed off her scuffed black penny loafers before following her friend to a huge fishtank in the centre of the room, where three puffer fish bobbed gently.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The mermaid wore tall platform shoes, though lacking any legs, she wore them around her neck, the laces knotted to form a makeshift chain. The thick soles were made from some sort of transparent plastic, and inside the soles a dozen tiny human figures floated, suspended in clear jelly. They jiggled and drifted with every small movement of the mermaid's body, and it was because of this that it took Janet so long to realise that the tiny humans were alive.

Although, she thought, watching them thrash slowly about in their choking viscous prison, probably not for very much longer.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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"How do you know so much about ovens anyway?" Melanie grumbled. "You work at a sushi bar. Sushi doesn't even need cooking."

"No," said Janet. "But it does need a degree of patience, which is something I never thought applied to preheating an oven until I met you."

"Patience," said Melanie, in a tone of voice that made the unspoken "pffffft" extremely clear. "Ovens should just know how to be. I don't see you preheating a puffer fish before you cut him up."

"I'd never cut up a puffer fish," said Janet. "Ever seen one? Way too cute to eat."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The man-eating water horses that made their homes in the clear streams and babbling brooks of Deadwood Park were out in full force today, sunning themselves on wet river banks where the dark mud and verdant green plant-life made a fetching backdrop for candy-coloured coats and showed off glittering manes to their best advantage.

Janet Donner watched as one pastel-pink pony kicked a blood-stained picnic basket behind a nearby rock before resuming it's artful posing beside a child-sized waterfall, and shook her head.

"Every summer," she said. "You'd think people would learn."

"I'm going to ride one," said Melanie, grinning.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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