Haunt: Volume 2

The Angels File Paperwork (A brief Kelsie, Autumn & Delilah Story)

Weekend Two: Saturday Night, Continued

September 24, 2022

POV: IHOP

Autumn, Kelsie and Delilah sat at their IHOP table, busily finishing forms. Empty plates were stacked nearby, their food quickly devoured so they could get down to business. Delilah signed one with a flourish and handed it to Kelsie, who aimed her phone camera over it to get a picture. Autumn soon pushed another form for the same treatment just as Georgia came to their table.

"More tea?" She refilled the women's glasses, and smiled as Kelsie paused in her work long enough to tear open three sugar packets and dump them into her drink. " Busy tonight, huh? I hope these aren't all accident reports."

They laughed, all three a bit giddy. The entire night at Haunt had gone smoothly - almost suspiciously smoothly - with nary a problem in the whole park. Whispers circulated about the "spell of bad luck" being over; many felt that the unpredictable spasms of magic would stop now that Cult Evermind was gone from the park. Rumor had it that there had been some attempt at a hostile takeover.

So things went normally that night: Delilah did makeup; Kelsie was a Badlands cowgirl; Autumn proved herself to be adept at Zombie management over at Zombie Grad School, and not a single thing went terribly, paranormally wrong.

At the end of the night, they met here, Kelsie bringing in a stack of Human Resources Complaint Forms, and they'd spend the last hour hastily filling them out.

Georgia saw that Autumn's pen was running dry, and passed her a fresh one. She then collected the plates. "Remember girls - include details - date, time and location of the incident, plus any witnesses."

"Thanks, Georgia!" said Kelsie.

"Oh my gawd, I've filled out a few harassment complaints in my time." The night manager went to attend to the complexities of the Swampocolpyse and Vampire's Lair tables.

"Almost done," Delilah said. She wrote left handed, her elbow thumping the wall occasionally as she tried to adjust. "Hmm, how do you spell somatization?"

"What's that?" asked Autumn.

"Stress-related pain - headaches, backaches. It's when your unhappy thoughts make you sick. I've been sick all week thinking about Snapper." Delilah looked up the word on her phone. "Do you think there's a legal term for spiritual trauma too?"

"Hey speaking of trauma," Autumn said, "how do you manage to get a switchblade into the park?"

Delilah grinned and pulled something from the pocket of her baggy shorts, a slender silver item that looked like a Swiss Army knife. "It's a bottle opener," she said, showing Autumn the end, which literally was a bottle opener. "Security scans it through every time. They've never noticed that it has a blade in it."

"That is incredibly alarming," admitted Autumn.

Delilah took this as a compliment. "Yeah! One of my mom's friends from prison made it for her, and she gave it to me."

Autumn didn't think she'd ever heard anyone say the phrase "mom's friends from prison" before. Did her own mother even have friends? It didn't seem likely.

Meanwhile Kelsie double-checked and reviewed her pictures, uploading them each to an email file. "Shit a brick, I hope this works."

"Here you go," said Delilah, and at the same moment she and Autumn handed over their last sheets. Snap, snap, and the pictures were added as further attachments to Kelsie's email.

"Should we review the letter once more?" asked Autumn. They'd spent the afternoon passing a draft of it back and forth by email, until their phones were taken away for work.

"No, it's good. It's better than good - it's epic," said Kelsie. "Okay, we're ready. Sending this email, attaching our cover letter and three separate complaints of a hostile work environment to Calicus. I've cc'd to my mom, Ramis, and to the entire staff of the human resources department in Whitewater. I'm going to say that was a mistake and apologize for it later. All I have to do is hit send."

She looked up, and the three of them exchanged excited glances. Delilah said, "This is good karma. We're following the path of our hearts."

"We're keeping Seven Wonders happy," said Autumn.

"We're sticking a boot up the system's ass," said Kelsie.

The three nodded their agreement.

"Send it," said Autumn.

Kelsie sent it.