Mac sat on the front porch of the cabin, watching the last of the sunset fade to gray. Night came slowly in this part of the Smokies, creeping out of the valleys and muting the colors to yellows and reds, then finally black with just a touch of starlight to separate sky from ground.
He swirled the last half shot of a double Jagermeister in a plastic Motel-6 cup. One last gulp and the alcohol would be well on its way to putting Mac's mind to bed. It would blunt the mental stab wounds of betrayal, allowing him to sleep.
"At least somebody left the lights on for me." He almost laughed at his own joke. Mac got up and made his way inside.
His great aunt's house wasn't much. It consisted of four rooms on a relatively flat patch of clear ground in the middle of a hundred wild acres. Great aunt Mabel didn't live here. She was dead, cremated, and dissolved in the cold creek that ran through the property.
Mac sat on his camping cot in the living room and placed the cup with the last half shot on the hearth. He started his new job tomorrow, but really didn't care about showing up on time or sober. He tried for a second, but the NCO attitude was gone. He wasn't a soldier any more, just a bum with a busted brain.
He pulled a cardboard box from under the cot to his feet. It was one of three that contained his worldly posessions. One was all tools, one was a few clothes and household goods, the one at his feet was a mess of miscellaneous stuff his ex-wife left behind.
Mac pulled his radio out. The silvery nineteen-eighties plastic case read "Panasonic" but most of the electronics were new, either repaired or modded. He turned it on and said "Boombox, play playlist one". The circuitry inside played a few musical notes and then some smooth electronic sounds faded in like a rave set in a grocery store.
Mac got undressed and stepped into the shower. The tub was one of those old steel bathtubs with feet, brass pipes, and a brass railing above to hold the shower curtain; which was exactly the type of curtain that great aunts have. The inside curtain was clear vinyl, and the outside was convoluted pattern of lacework vines and leaves. The water washed the dirt of travelling a hundred miles off his body, but did nothing for the mind and spirit, which were the things that needed to be washed clean.
---
Fifi awoke to the sound of Mac summoning the music. Her home seemed to come to life as the electric currents made the whole house sparkle. The carrier wave kept time and the notes danced around it, pulling it higher or lower in pitch. She looked out to see some place new. The wood plank floor stretched away, with a sofa in the distance against a wall.
Fifi opened the door to the tape deck and stepped out. Home looked small now that she was outside it. Fifi stood nearly twenty inches tall, with hips just a little too broad for her petite torso, but the perfect size to go with her powerful thighs.
She adjusted her tool apron so the leather straps weren't all twitched up, and pulled a few strands of dark green hair out of the neck strap. She stretched in that kind of way that humans do when they have stopped to refuel on a long car trip. "Is butt flattener" she muttered to herself. She checked, and her butt was not flat. It was round and green brown. She was a bit chubby for a gremlin, with rounded cheeks and soft flesh over firm muscle; all covered with a few years worth of dirt.
Fifi's butt jiggled a little as she dashed across the open floor and slipped into the bathroom with Mac. She enjoyed their showers together, even though she never got in and Mac was totally unaware of her existence. One day it would be different but Fifi never got around to introducing herself. She meant to, but the courage always left her.
Once in the bathroom Fifi stopped short. The nasty lacy curtain completely encircled the free-standing tub. There was no way to peek in and there was no way to climb without alerting Mac to her presence. Fifi hated cloth, especially lace. The hand made pattern seemed particularly anti-gremlin. Instead, she waited patiently for her man to emerge, or tried to. Her attention wandered.
This house had the most interesting toilet. The tank was elevated over the user's head. A pewter hummingbird hung on a brass ball chain. It swung gently back and forth like a pendulum. Fifi watched it swing. Something about that hummingbird beckoned her. She climbed onto the rim of the toilet and reached up to grab the hypnotic little bird. It hung a few inches beyond her outstretched fingers.
Fifi steadied herself on the toilet seat. Then she coiled her legs and sprang up. She caught the pretty little bird in both hands and for a brief moment Fifi triumphed. Then she came down with a roar of rushing water as the toilet flushed. Fifi lost her footing and fell into the swirling water of the toilet bowl. She lost her grip on the bird, which rattled across the floor on a length of broken chain.
"Yowp!" shouted Mac. He turned off the water and stuck his head out. Fifi ducked as low as she was able and concentrated on not being seen. Her semi-invisibility must have worked, because Mac didn't seem to notice her. Instead he dried off. Fifi tried her hardest to hold still and keep from shivering in the cold water. Mac noticed the dirty water in the toilet. "Gross. Looks like there was crud growing in the toilet tank." Fifi suddenly regretted not bathing. Mac might be more receptive to meeting a clean gremlin than a dirty one.
When Mac was safely out of the room Fifi climbed out of the toilet bowl. She shivered. Muddy water dripped off her filthy body onto the floor. If she only had the human tolerance for cloth she could warm up in Mac's towel. It smelled of clean human man and glowed faintly orange with the residue of his magic.
She peeked into the living room. Mac was sitting on his cot with a sock in hand, staring at something a thousand miles away. His face looked tired, as if it had been sad for so long it went numb. He did that often. Maybe he was clairvoyant and looking at something that bothered him. Maybe he was looking at his former family.
Fifi took advantage of Mac's distraction and quickly ducked behind the antique sofa. The curved back made a nice hiding place, as long as she didn't touch the tail end of the antimacassar. The lace border warned her to stay off the furniture with a soft crackling hiss like AM radio static. Some old lady wanted to keep gremlins off the furniture, so she made that nasty thing. Mean old spinster. Fifi didn't want to sit on her scratchy old floral sofa anyway.
Mac arose and shuffled into the kitchen with Fifi following behind, just far enough to evade detection. She hid among some dusty pans while Mac filled a glass at the sink.
Fifi had to see if he would open the freezer, and if he did, was there ice cream? Unfortunately, Mac did not. He gulped down the water and returned to the living room. The last time Fifi tasted ice cream was during Mac's strange disappearance, a week before his just as strange re-appearance. The human offspring had some, and she got some later that night. She had waited until everyone was asleep, then pried open the freezer and took the remaining ice cream outside to eat.
The sudden darkness of the living room light being turned off brought Fifi back to the present. The volume of the music faded to a whisper. Mac was shifting around in a sleeping bag. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a red light that pulsed in time with the music. Mac had left the equalizer display on. She would give him time to get fully asleep.
Fifi sat motionless in a chair, listening to the house creak and the bugs chirp outside. She noted that there were no noises of cars passing. No sirens in the distance. No noisy neighbors. Fifi climbed up onto the counter and looked out the kitchen window. The small yard ended abruptly at a structure with a roof but no walls. Beyond it a field grew wild with young trees. It was different. Fifi had grown up among humans in a human town. It was second nature to turn incognito and live life surrounded by those big oafish beasts. Now to be in a place where there were so few humans would be new. As she watched, the moon came up and turned everything to silver and shadow.
