= Drawlloween Story #4 - Maliboo Scream House =
 
You have to admit, KO-35, Mali B-00 doesn't really sound like a good address, but when Orion read the brochure for this property, he was immediately convinced.
Yes, KO-35 was more of an industrial planet, characterized by ethnic diversity, not one of those you would visit as a recreational tourist, but the latter was just what Orion didn't want. One of these, overpriced as they are, he as the promoter of the Black Hole Busters events could have paid for entirely out of petty cash. This was supposed to be his refuge, a place where no one would expect him, especially his lecherous ex-wives, but where he wouldn't attract attention either. And this spot looked ideal: Temperate, warm weather all year round, a beach on the doorstep, and behind the house, forests, meadows and the foothills of a mountain range, all inviting for a hike or a ride. Besides, there was a not too small town with a harbor nearby, which could be reached wonderfully with a small boat trip, or even in half an hour on foot if need be. Orion didn't even have to look at the price, sums under one Eurocent were not worth his time to read, and so he immediately bid.
The property was not old, and Orion had only a few remodels done. Taking a few days off when no shows were scheduled, Orion invited Nicky, his protégée, and Tammy, her kind-of-fiancée, to the housewarming. The personal reforming unit had just been installed, the pantry was well stocked, and the video database was filled with classics that the two young women, he thought, had certainly not yet seen.
 
While Orion explored the house, after all it was his first time here, the two girls went to the beach. It was summer, and the water was wonderfully warm and clear, but because it was quite a distance to town, few people had driven all the way here to swim. And without Tammy's trademark newsboy cap, and with Nicky's cat ears under a bathing cap, no one recognized the couple that was known through Black Hole Busters halfway across the universe.
Eventually, the two got bored on the beach and went exploring in the surrounding area. When they returned, Orion had also been in the water and was shaking his lion's mane dry. It was getting dark, everyone was hungry, and they had the automatic kitchen prepare something.
"Maybe Mom can give you some recipes, Mr. Orion, I think she has a compatible kitchen model," Tammy suggested.
"That would be nice, but feel free to just call me Orion, Nicky is almost family, and now you're practically part of it too," Orion said, and Tammy just gave a thumbs up, since she wasn't eating off plates like the other two, and the conveyor belt that fed food to her mouth had finally started up.
 
After dinner, they sat down in a living room that was designed like a small movie theater. Orion had picked up a few rare classics, which he now screened. The first was "Trust No Earthling," a horror flick in which insect creatures were threatened by an invasion from Earth; the second was "00110101 00110102", an outlandish comedy from the early years of the AI anarchy. While the two girls were snuggled together for most of the time, cringing every time the somber music accompanied the creepy sight of soft skin, lidded eyes, breath coming out of the eating hole, clothes or flowing hair, Tammy had to explain almost every second joke of the robo-com to the other two. In the third film, "Three Million Light Years Towards the Galaxy Cluster," a visually stunning cosmonaut flick set in the early days of the colonization of the Andromeda Galaxy, she then hit top form, and, as Nicky described it, "let the Purr hang out." Purr was the one who had infected Tammy with the movie fever, and could talk your ear off for hours about every movie she found interesting. And for lack of her nerdy neko, Tammy took over this part in the speaking breaks, but didn't manage, like Purr, not to include spoilers.
"Purr, isn't that your agent? I'd like to meet her in person. Why don't you invite her?" suggested Orion. Tammy didn't think it was a bad idea and sent her an invitation before they all went to sleep.
 
The next morning, although they had all slept through the night, they were somehow exhausted, and only after a cup of strong coffee, or in Tammy's case, a five-minute draft from the coffee pipeline out of the kitchen, were they fit enough for the second day. Orion, still following an old tradition from his home world, unveiled the mirrors after the first night in their new home before they set off by boat for the port city. There, a sign caught Nicky's eye. Orion had taken them here in his space yacht, not revealing which planet they were on, and as she read KO-35 as the name of the planet something rang her bell. She had a good memory for names and after a few minutes she figured it out. That was the planet where Tammy's mother had defeated that kaiju - what was her name? Now they could check to make sure she wasn't fibbing, and sure enough, when Nicky asked some of the locals about a kaiju skeleton, they just said "Dekaigen, yeah right in the next port." So Nicky suggested visiting the museum there, and indeed, the remains were as large as Patty had described them. Even though the info board in front of it didn't give Patty's name, it became clear that it must have been her the museum had bought the diaper from to extract the skeleton. The two young women did not reveal any of this to Orion, because Patty had demanded they keep quiet about what she told them that day, and they weren't sure if this fell under that promise. Better safe than sorry.
 
Back from the city tour it was late again, they only took one more dinner, and all three fell half-dead into bed to fall asleep in no time, only to be awakened in the middle of the night by a scream. It was Nicky who screamed, standing in a hallway in front of a mirror, not knowing how she had gotten here. Orion and Tammy were no longer in their beds either, but the scream woke them up where they were, Orion in the kitchen, and Tammy at the window of a bedroom, but not the one she had fallen asleep in. Somehow, they all three must have been sleepwalking until something in her dream startled Nicky. It was very strange, but they were all still dead tired, didn't think too much of it, and went back to sleep. Twice more the same thing happened that night, but this time it was Orion and Tammy who did the screaming, each time in front of a mirror, and each time the other two were somewhere in the house, just not in their beds.
 
The next day they stayed in the house, being too exhausted, and dozed off, the only thing they did was drag themselves to the kitchen to eat. Fortunately, the cooking was fully automatic. This time they lay down already at dusk, and this night they were even woken up five times by the screams of themselves or one of the others. Slowly, the three of them started to feel uneasy, but, after all, the environmental parameters were ok, there were no unusual chemicals or anything else that could cause this, so they just blamed it on the unfamiliar surroundings.
 
The next afternoon, a small long-distance shuttle landed in front of the house. Purr had accepted the invitation, had been given the course, and had flown by, since as long as Tammy was on vacation, she also had nothing to do that she couldn't do as a digital nomad. She was a little concerned at how worn out the three beach house residents looked, and how lacking in energy Tammy's greeting was, who was usually much more enthusiastic, and told them to go lie down first. The three were too drained to argue with her, so they lay down as suggested while Purr was still outside on the porch watching the sunset.
 
When Purr came back in, the three were wandering the halls like zombies. Purr tried to address them, but what they said didn't sound like them at all. Her universal translator indicated that the language detected was one spoken on KO-35. She was trying to find out something from Tammy when a shrill scream rang out from Nicky, and when she rushed there, she found her alone in front of a mirror.
 
The three of them told Purr what had been going on the last few nights, and Purr concluded that something they had seen in the mirror while sleeping must have frightened them. So they covered the mirrors like in the first night, and the three went back to sleep.
 
That same night, when Orion was the first to get up and walk around, Purr woke up the other two. She had to calm Orion, or rather the mind that had befallen Orion, and tried to communicate with him. What he said was mostly gibberish, in a language he shouldn't even know, but when he mentioned Dekaigen, Purr noticed Tammy and Nicky looking at each other.
"Okay, what do you folks know that I don't?" asked Purr.
"Can't tell you." Tammy looked on sheepishly.
Purr looked back with a sharp gaze. The pupils in her huge cat eyes narrowed to slits.
"Honestly, we swore this to Mom."
Purr looked at her dead serious now. Her cat ears bent backward.
"Yeah, we swore it wouldn't leave the Hammerspace kitchen, but we surely can tell Purr..." said Nicky.
"Mom will..."
"It can't leave the Hammerspace kitchen, were those the exact words?" asked Purr.
"I think so," Nicky agreed.
Purr looked at Tammy again with a piercing gaze.
"Yes, they were."
"Come with me." Purr marched ahead into the kitchen of the mansion, and behind trotted a contrite Tammy and a confused Nicky. She flipped a switch that said HS, waited for it to unfold, and entered a huge room that stretched out to beyond sight in all directions. A huge grid of giant kitchen robot arms and massive kitchen utensils, repeated beyond eyesight.
Something flashed in Nicky's mind. "Seriously?"
"You should know her by now. So ..." Purr nudged Tammy, and out poured the story her mother had told her on her 25th birthday, supplemented by a few bits and pieces Nicky thought she remembered better.
"Okay, a kaiju who endows her minions with mental abilities," Purr pondered. She still didn't know what to make of it. Was this the spirit of one of her followers? Unlikely, as far as she could tell from the gibberish, more likely one of the victims. Until recently, she would not have believed in mental possession, but after the technical achievements of recent years, she was taught better. In fact, there were some renowned researchers in reformation technology who attributed part of its functioning to a hitherto unknown property of consciousness, which they called, for lack of better terminology, spirit or soul.
They went back to the living room, where the spirit in Orion's body was watching news on the screen. Boy, she had totally forgotten about him.
"Has it really been 25 years? Why am I in a lion body?" he asked.
"Oh, you can remember again? Do you know what your name is?" Purr sat down next to him and placed her paw reassuringly on his hand.
"Yes, my name is Serar Teble."
"Can you take care of him, or her? Make sure Orion doesn't wake up." Purr went into an adjoining room, picked up her tablet and spoke into it, "Was there a Serar Teble missing or deceased on KO-35 over 25 years ago?"
In fact, he did exist, the search bot found a missing person report with a detailed description and a photo of him, she was even able to track down the genetic code given for identification. Purr had to try something.
 
Fifteen minutes later, she came back into the living room, and asked Tammy to help her. Orion's eyes widened when they saw what Tammy carried in on her arms as she returned. The reforming unit which Orion had installed in case the girls developed an appetite for each other had created a replica of his body based on the missing person report, but had not implanted consciousness. The shock was so great that Orion awoke, taking over his body himself and evicting Serar.
"Now I'm curious," Purr remarked. Minutes passed, with Purr explaining to the three others what she had in mind. Nicky was amazed at Purr's abilities, but Tammy even said that Purr had come up with the idea of the reforming technique herself, but by the time she went to register the patent, it had already been taken. After some time, Purr already thought her attempt was a failure, when Serar's replica began to move. And unlike Orion's body, to which he first had to adapt, his mind immediately gained control of his clone. Serar didn't know how to feel at first, and after the situation was described to him, ultimately flung his arms around Purr's neck. "Thank you!" was all he said, but then he began to cry. His entire village, he said, had been put under a spell at the time by the psychos who worshiped Dekaigen, kidnapped them, and had taken them here to the beach to feed them to her. And so Purr proceeded to recreate one body after another based on the missing persons reports from his village, and sure enough, most of them woke up, their 'souls' not bound to a body but willing to slip into their clones, already in the machine even without consciousness transfer.
And so, little by little, the living room filled with more and more people celebrating their rebirth while Tammy browsed the movie database. "Who's up for 'Night of the Living Dead'?" shouted Tammy to the crowd, and Nicky shouted back, "That's even more fitting than 'Ghostbusters'!" and Purr, who had just come into the room with the last reborn, facepawed.