Page 3 of Glow

He puttered in the kitchen for the first half hour of the show, prepping food for lunch and dinner, but kept an ear open to the flow of conversation.

“Caller number six, you’re on the air,” the host announced.

“We almost caught one this morning.” The man sounded breathless with excitement. “My buddy and me were out for a walk and we saw something really weird through the trees. Like some kind of monster or space alien.”

“Can you tell us what you saw?” the host questioned.

“It was tall—really tall,” the caller said. “With creepy long legs like a black spider and a big, round head. And the eyes, oh my God, they were gigantic, and they glowed.”

“Did it chase you? Were you in danger?”

The host knows how to suck in his listeners with engineered drama, Dan thought.

“We got the drop on it, and we chased it,” the caller replied. “Musta known we had shotguns, because it ran away. No telling what would have happened if it had turned on us.”

“You might not be here to tell the tale,” the host agreed, oozing support and empathy. Dan rolled his eyes.

We weren’t going to harm them. Why is he telling lies about us? Wally’s voice sounded in Dan’s mind, sounding hurt.

Because he’s a dickhead. They’re all dickheads, Dan replied silently.

“What happened then?” the podcast host asked.

“It ran into one of the caves, and we lost it,” the man admitted. “There are a slew of caves up there, and they all connect. Maybe that’s where it lives.”

“You were both lucky to escape with your lives,” the host replied. “Folks, if you’re in the woods, better keep a sharp eye out for the Dover Demon. It’s on the prowl, and it might just want to meet you for dinner.”

Dan sighed and closed the browser window to silence the podcast. It was pretty much what he had learned to expect whenever he was unlucky enough to spark a sighting, and he knew it would mean he would have to wait longer than usual before he dared shift again, even in another location.

Wally stayed quiet, and Dan figured his other side was probably sulking. He couldn’t blame him, but Dan didn’t have the luxury. He ate a sandwich for lunch while he read a couple of chapters of a new book, then spent the afternoon working before calling it a day for a late supper of fried chicken.

He felt restless and unusually lonely, both of which Dan chalked up to the aftermath of his escape that morning. While it hadn’t been nearly as skin-of-the-teeth as the podcast guest made it out to be, it had rattled Dan and brought old fears and worries to the fore.

Nights like this, Dan wished it was easier to manage friendships around his secret. He had come to accept that his supernatural gift—he refused to think of it as a curse—was a lot like being a lighthouse keeper, living in solitude to fulfill the role of a guardian.

He had thought about getting a dog, but they seemed to sense his otherness and stayed on alert around him. Cats never even gave him a chance before bolting. Dan couldn’t afford to let anyone in Dover get too close. No one seemed to have ever figured out Grandpa Steve’s dual nature, but Dan didn’t count on that luck holding too much longer in the internet age.

Dating was equally fraught. Dan had realized he was gay as a teenager, which meant he was also likely to be the last of the Dover Demon line. He was even less willing to explore the dating pool near Dover than he was to bare his soul about his supernatural abilities.

Frustrated and unable to shake his mood, Dan logged into his favorite online role-playing platform and hoped he could find a game to join. No one on the RPG sites used their real names, so playing offered a way to be social without risking revealing too many personal details.

The one exception was Ranger, a player Dan had cautiously gotten to know well enough to exchange real first names. His was Quinn, and he was someone who made Dan feel at ease, comfortable enough to have real conversations, if not to share secrets.

Join the campaign, Quinn typed in response to Dan’s request to join the game in progress. We could use another fighter.

For the next two hours, Dan worked off his frustration and bad mood slaying orcs and gathering hidden treasure, enjoying the snarky repartee of the group and gradually feeling some of his tension ease.

“Not too shabby,” Quinn proclaimed aloud when they paused the game for the night. “Nice fighting, everyone. I’ll start up again tomorrow at the usual time for anyone who wants to play.”

Hey Ranger, can you hang around for a minute? Dan typed into the message app, not quite ready to lose the connection.

Sure thing. The others left the shared room. If you want to talk rather than message, we can go to a private channel, Quinn offered. He shared the link, and Dan followed him to the new room.

“What’s up?” Quinn asked. “You seemed a little off tonight. Sometimes you were more reckless than usual, and other times you hung back more than you often do. Not that I’m prying.”

“I had a bad morning,” Dan said. “That kinda put a shadow over the rest of the day.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Quinn replied. “Is it fixable? Anything I can do to help?”