My Little Devil Darling

The Errand "Boy"

The elevator landed with a hard thud at Level 9, the Angel's den, and Charlotte stepped out as the doors opened, along with Boris. She was astonished at the sight that stood before her, a giant Alice head with a banner below reading: SHE'S QUITE A GAL. There was a metal sliding door right below, and stairs led up to it all, right across a bridge over a river of ink. This place that Alice probably called her home didn't look much like heaven to the young woman.

"Come on, Buddy," Charlotte stuttered, taking the wolf's hand, "Let's find this Angel."

Boris followed alongside the girl as she made her way to the entrance of the Angel's hideout; the doors slid open as they reached them. It was only about halfway open when Boris's ears perked up, and he let go of Charlotte's hand and ran through the hallway in front of them suddenly.

"Boris!" Charlotte called out in a panic. She began to run after him.

Charlotte wasn't able to reach him because she was shorter than him, but when she did, she became more horrified than panicked. In front of her was an entire ink-flooded room with dead toons everywhere. She could've cried at how many chest-open Boris' there were, the sight was disturbing. Charlotte stood beside her Boris and stared at the dead Boris that stood in front of him; the young woman felt so bad that he was in front of a dead copy of himself. She wrapped her arm around his and leaned her head on the wolf's shoulder as they both gazed at the heartless toon. After a minute of silence, a voice rang out from the speakers.

"Look around," the Angel called, "It took so many of them to make me so beautiful." Charlotte patted the wolf's back as she let go and made her way to the boarded path over the lake of ink. "Anything less than perfect was left behind."

As the girl made her way closer to the metal doors ahead, she spotted a tape recording down another path. She curiously walked over to it, noticing the Alice plush beside it, and pressed play.

Who would've thought? Me having lunch with Joey Drew. Apparently times are tougher than I thought. For a moment there, I thought I'd be stuck with the check. But I gotta say, he wasn't at all what I expected. Quite the charmer.
He even called me Alice.
I liked it.

Charlotte stood there confounded, Susie was really into her role here, and Joey encouraged it, charmed her even. Joey Drew was more mysterious then all the people she's heard about, he was either a nice, charming guy or a mean, irritating guy, depending on who was talking about him. Joey acted weird himself, talking about crazy dreams and cheating death. The young woman hoped she wouldn't go insane down here herself.

The doors slid open in front of her once more, and she went inside, following the winding path to find the Angel. She found her and noticed a familiar twisted toon; it was the one that had attacked her back at Level K, only this was presumably just another copy. It lay on a table, and Alice stood at a control panel as she electrocuted the poor toon. She was laughing, Charlotte couldn't hear her, but then the Angel felt the girl's presence and looked at her. The young woman was able to get a good look at Alice, the deformed right side of her face, the black abyss of her eye to the sight of her teeth. Charlotte's face showed disgust at the sight.

Alice shut off the loud machine, "I was wondering when you would show, and to think I was about to send some more of my monsters after you."

She stepped away from her control panel and got closer to the glass, waving for the girl to come closer. Charlotte didn't budge.

"Don't sweat, honey," she said sweetly, knocking on the glass, "It's thicker, I want a closer look at you." Charlotte obeyed and came up close to the glass.

"Have I seen you before?" Alice asked, "You look familiar to me." She shrugged. "No matter, it means I won't kill you, you should be happy about that. You can help me out actually; I'm sure you won't mind running some little errands for me, would you?"

Before Charlotte could even open her mouth, the deformed Angel perked up.

"Perfect! Just head on back to the stairs out there, and I'll tell you your instructions from there. Go on, shoo." And then her tone changed as she went back up to her control panel, it was devilish sounding. "Don't disappoint me." She slammed her fist down onto a button, and a metal door came down and blocked the view from behind the glass. Charlotte could hear her torturing the crippled toon once again, and she sighed.

Charlotte walked out of Alice's place back into the room of toon corpses, finding that Boris was no longer staring at his dead doppelganger; she walked along the wooden board path back towards the elevator shaft. When she did, the metal doors closed behind her as well as a sliding gate, blocking the bridge to get back to the elevator. The young girl panicked and ran over to it, trying to find a way to get it open.

"Ah ah ah, you can't leave just yet," Alice's voice rang through the speakers, "I have the tool you need to collect the first thing I need." Charlotte walks back up the stairs, awaiting the Angel's instructions.

"Have you seen them? The swollen ones? They're just full of extra-thick ink; it makes me sick! Yet...it's the perfect thing for keeping myself together. You thought I wouldn't notice you staring at my bad side, didn't you? If you're going to catch them, you'll have to move quietly."

To the left of the young woman, a storage compartment slides open, revealing a syringe hanging inside. Charlotte cautiously walks over and takes it off the display, placing it in her messenger bag as the compartment closes, and the gate opens again. Alice hadn't said anything yet, so Charlotte made her way back to the elevator; Boris was waiting for her. She never got told which floor she needed to go to, so the young woman pressed the button to head to Level 11, the only numbered button that worked.

"Let's go find some big searchers," Charlotte muttered to herself, "Shouldn't be too hard."

The elevator came to another hard stop as it reached Level 11, the girl stumbled, not used to it yet, and slid open the doors. The room in front of her was more narrow and long; Charlotte could see to the second area, and she spotted something. Bingo! Charlotte thought as she stepped out of the elevator, walking towards the ugly creature. She replayed the words that Alice had mentioned to her and moved as quietly as she could. She was now right behind the swollen searcher, and it hadn't noticed her at all. Charlotte slowly pulled the syringe from her bag and swiftly swung the needle into the creature's back. It made a deep, pained moaning sound as it dissolved in front of her, getting more ink on her shoes and leaving behind a glob of thick ink.

"Gross," the young woman groaned, sucking up the ink into the syringe. She looked at the meter on the side; it was a third of the way full, "Two more of these guys should be enough, I think."

Then she froze, she felt something, it was near. Her feet were heavy, and her heart started pounding in her chest. She saw the shadows forming along the walls in her peripheral vision, and that's when Charlotte turned around.

And she saw him.