6 Lolita Outbreak

"Are you all right?" Her voice is soft and a bit cheerful, as if she already knows I'm not, but still asking, anyway. Silly girl. "Did I scare you?"

"You're beautiful," I say, admiring her unbearable ugliness.

"I know." She arches a brow. She starts chewing her bubble gum again. Her eyes, framed with thick lashes and haloed by thicker eyeliners, smile at me. "But I'm more beautiful without wearing any makeup, right, Michael?"

Sure. Precious is pretty even without wearing makeups, but the kind of makeup she's wearing tonight is out of the question. She's gorgeous. We're not friends, either in real life or in social media, but her photos on fb speaks for themselves. No wonder why she would set them to public: She wants to flaunt her angelic face to the world, and no one can blame her. Precious has every rights to be proud of her beauty. She is the kind of girl who can dare put captions on her selfies with her chin high up in the air, claiming No Filters, Folks! and get away with it. Every person who actually sees and knows her personally would instantly believe her claim without a second's thought, even if Precious was, in truth, actually wearing makeup the day the photo was taken.

The one photo that really caught my eyes and pique on my interest was the one where Precious was cradling her one year-old baby boy with a caption beneath it that says Proud Single Mother of One.

It's somehow saddening to think that Precious already had a baby despite her age being only months after turning eighteen. And whoever that jerk who dumped her and their little bundle of joy...well, at least, to Precious, their baby is a bundle of joy, is a great shame. She's a goddess. And fooling a goddess is foolishness. The guy is crazy, obviously, and crazy people must be seized and locked up because crazy people are potentially dangerous. She belongs to a museum. He belongs to an insane asylum.

"I'll take your silence as a yes, Michael," Precious says sweetly, her eyes still glued on mine. She gracely parts her hair with her delicate fingers and put them upon the bridge of her ear.

Jeez, something's wrong with this girl. This is the first time that she talks to me, and it's nice talking to her. She seems like a good person. But her words bother me. And her eyes. How they sparkle! As if she knows something that I don't, and seemingly enjoying it. Is she sensing my uneasiness? Am I that transparent to her? Perhaps Precious is being possessed by a spirit or a poltergeist. The kind that can shoot green slimy substances on the face of a silly priest and can rotate its head in as far as three hundred sixty degrees. Can it be? Is it possible?

Are they real?

Perhaps, Fyodor. Today is Halloween, the day when ghosts and monsters feast and stalk their preys, no longer lurking in the dark. And we're in Catacutan residence, a creepy old house in the middle of a spooky old woods. Doesn't the name itself ring a bell?

"You look restless, Michael," Precious says thoughtfully, studying my face. "Were you watching porn?"

I gasp. Dizzily, I slowly shake my head, my eyes not leaving hers. This girl is crazy and must be locked up, too.

"Really? Are you sure? You seem kind of...suspicious." Precious bites her lower lip, stifling a giggle. "You see, the Internet seems to slowed down and you're a guy and you're all by yourself in there so I thought maybe-"

A heavy hand drops upon my right shoulder.

Towering beside me, complicated as life and twice as ugly, is the witch, looking sharply down at me. The buttery aroma of peanut brittles greets my nose. A global flood is happening inside my mouth. My stomach which was stone-hard a while ago now eroding into pieces until they're nothing but boiling acid, groaning as if it has a mouth of its own. I resist the urge to stand up, grab the peanut brittles away from Helga's grasp and devour the pastries myself in one big gulp. I'm so cold, miserable, and hungry that the last thing I would want right now is a squeaky girl who will taunt me with the food she carries. Worse is, she may not even know she's taunting me at all. And how could she? She doesn't know the hell I'm going through; all the sufferings; all the torments. All she knows about me is that I'm a terrible sales agent...and a freak. A freak!

"I said close all apps, isn't it? Michael?"

"Sorry, Helga."

"TL Helga!" she hisses through clenched teeth. "You disrespectful, deprived person."

"Sorry."

Precious is no longer peering on the walls.

"Sure. You're always sorry, isn't it? I should have fired you for that. Let's see how sorry you will be."

I click the X button situated at the upper right corner of the Lolita Outbreak file. The curseful file remains plastered on the glowing screen. I have no idea why.

"Close that stupid file. Now!"

I click the X button again. The file won't let go. Perhaps the PC itself hanged? No, I don't think so. I can still move the cursor of the mouse. The keyboard is still operational. So maybe this file-

"Lolita Outbreak," Helga murmurs softly between her teeth, looking at the screen, all the while chewing and munching her peanut brittles. Bits of greasy brown things drop onto the floor from her oily mouth. She cackles antagonistically, shaking her head, as if she just murmured something very funny. If there is, I sure am failed to see it. "Who would believe in a silly story like that? Only stupid and gullible people will. In these time and age, we can even send men to Mars," Helga says in a low voice, more to herself. Her eyes roll down on me. "Are you scared, Michael?" Her lips curve into a sunken grin. "Don't worry. Customers all over the US don't like to deal with you, what more to this Lolita, right?"

Something vibrates inside Helga's pocket.

🎶ENERGY ENERGY GAP BEAT ENERGY GAP DRINK MILO EVERYDAY🎶

Frowning, Helga slides her right hand inside her pocket, fishes up her cellphone, and stares blankly at the screen. A look of dumbfounded confusion crosses her face. Her nostrils start to flare, her eyes glaring, widening, narrowing, and squinting that it seems like they're going to slide off from her eye sockets and explode like squashed jellies.

"What the hell? Those imbeciles! Those ungrateful morons!"

Helga screams at the top of her lungs, so loud my eardrums seems to split into halves! Helga hurls the peanut brittle container across the room, screaming and shrieking.

I almost smash my nose against the surface of the keyboard, the tip of my head brushing against the surface of the screen, momentarily mistaking myself as Helga's intended target. The projectile just shoots past me, in a safe distance, thank goodness, and goes on catapulting towards the far side of the room. It hits the wall, bounces against the side of the water dispenser, and finally falls, spilling its contents on the green floor.

"Helga?"

From the gloom, almost like a ghost from a horror movie, a tall woman with a pale skin, heart-shaped face, and green, thoughtful eyes, materializes behind Helga. She has a face that is attractive rather than beautiful, a face that reflects pride, courage, and sensitivity, a face that would be hard to forget. I can't help but to admire her get ups for the night, though. She wears a long-sleeved varsity jacket, each side differs in color: one red and the other one blue. Her hair, dyed and ponytailed, also differs in color: crimson red and sky blue. Her dirty white short, undeniably tight and too short for a standard short, deeply emphasizes her long and athletic legs. Written in screaming bloody red letters are the words Daddy's Lil Monster printed upon her white shirt that covers her considerable breasts.

I hastily shift my gaze to her face, afraid that she might misinterpret me again if she catches me looking at her chest the wrong way. Being punched by this girl once is enough. I can live with that.

"What happened, Helga? I heard you screaming." Sharon presses the clipboard against her chest, her left hand reaching for Helga's shoulder.

Clenching her jaws and eyes still fixed upon her phone, Helga nudges Sharon's palm off her shoulder with one swipe of her elbow. "Don't touch me!"

"What's the matter?"

"What's the matter?" Spits almost fly from Helga's mouth. Her face is twisted in a cunning mask of hatred and rage. "What's the matter, bitch! What's the matter?"

Sharon steps back, withdrawing her hand. Confusion clouds her face. And anger. Sharon's trying to keep a straight face. She's excellent at that. But behind her mask of civility and professionalism I can see a smart yet savage girl with a bruised ego and a bizarre anger issue of her own summoning all her will power and strength not to do something really barbaric right now.

"What's the matter? I'll tell you what's the matter." Helga looks at Sharon with burning eyes. "I helped them. I let them in. Gave them a chance. But what thanks do I got? Stupid! Ungrateful sons of a bitch and bitches!"

"Let me see it." Sharon gingerly scoops the phone away from Helga's grasp and studies it. She gasps. "My gosh, Helga. You-You just received plenty of Lolita Outbreak messages on your Gmail. Even on your fb. Seemingly coming from those former agents that you terminated. Yes, sure, it's them. I remember their names." Sharon bites her lower lip, seemingly trying to hold a giggle, her eyes still glued upon the phone.

"Those imbeciles! Those brats!"

Sharon turns to look at Helga, frowning.

"I also received this message a while ago. It means some people are pissed-Helga? What- "

"Durugin ang mga mangkukulam hanggang sa ika-sampung salinlahi nila! Mga salot!" Helga's face, now already as pallid as a corpse, seems stretched and rugged like a stump of an old tree. Her eyes squint and eyeballs roll upward that only the white parts show.

Wisps of smoke are floating, rising from Helga's mouth and nostrils.