Swoop.

Chapter 9

And then the Earth cracked in half.
Well … sort of.
The ground began to rumble at first, almost as though it were an earthquake. But then a crack started to grow beneath Olive’s feet, at first hardly noticeable but began to grow and grow …
Olive yelped and took a step back, Martin Swoop floated closer to the ground, examining the crack.
“What is it?” Olive leaned forward cautiously, holding tightly to her umbrella.
BOOM!
An electrical red light pushed through the cracks like an overbearing spotlight, and suddenly the crack pushed apart, causing a gaping hole to grow in the asphalt. Martin blew backwards and landed on his see-through ass. His teeth clenched in knowing anger. Olive was on the opposite side of the crack, face on the ground and looking up in shock. Her umbrella twisting and turning with the ground vibrations behind her.
Slowly, a monster began to rise from the ground. He was as big as a bus, as red as Rudolph’s nose, and had horns on the top of his head. Electricity seemed to radiate from him, sparks were glowing and humming like a high powered security fence. He loomed over the unlikely duo, and cackled with his meaty grin.
Olive shook her head in disbelief, “No. No I refuse to believe this!”
“WHAT?!” Martin Swoop called over the cackles of lightning.
She did not acknowledge Martin for that moment, she backed up and grabbed her umbrella. Despite the rain, she closed it, stood up and clutched it tightly in her hands.
Her head shook, “This is impossible. There’s no logic with this. I’m dreaming, that’s it. This is a DREAM.”
“What are you talking about?! There’s a demon monster right in front of you, how could this be a-,” Martin Swoop paused to reconsider his words, and despite having fought many monsters in his short life-time, he knew that the first time always felt like a bad and unrealistic dream.
“I must have passed out - this sort of thing doesn’t happen. It can’t happen. I must have -,” she squeaked as an enormous claw swung at her, “I must have slipped and fallen in the shower, that’s the only explanation!”
“You didn’t fall! I caught you!” Martin yelled as he swooped past the monster’s outreached grasp, “I know that’s not exactly proof of sanity on your part -,” He grabbed her shoulders and made her face him, “- but you have to listen to me. This monster is REAL.”
Her face filled with sadness as she looked into his ghostly face, she couldn’t accept this.
Suddenly she was lifted into the air by her hoodie, the monster pulled her close to his face, giving her some sort of look that was half way between a snarl and a smile, “Why such a disbeliever, Olive?” Electricity sparked across him, causing her hair to stand on end - literally.
“Because this is RIDICULOUS!” With a thrust, she stabbed the monster in the arm with her umbrella. He shrieked and dropped her instantly, shaking his wrist like he had just gotten a blister.
Olive plunged down, realizing she was going to drop into the abyss of the hole in the ground. She closed her eyes and suddenly realized with a squeak that she was hanging mid-air again by her hoodie. She looked up expecting to see the knowing smirk of Martin Swoop, but instead was greeted by the panting smiles of the three-headed dog.

Chapter 7

Olive hastily put on her clothes, “Turn around!” She barked at Swoop, “You may have gotten a peek in the shower, that doesn’t mean you’re welcomed to stare at me for the rest of time, ok?”
Swoop simply rotated in a circle as he rolled his eyes with extreme exaggeration, “Whatever, I didn’t even look at you in the shower! I may be dead, but I’m still respectful of the living.”
“Mhmm,” she wasn’t listening, her brain was swimming as she threw on the first sensible outfit she could pull together. She pushed her feet into striped socks and big rain boots, she followed up with a nice jacket and old scarf.
“Alright, you can turn around,” she poked her head out of the closet, “Hello?”
She hesitated, no one was there. Perhaps it really was all in her mind?
“Up here!”
Olive’s head remained static, while her eyes drifted to the ceiling, Martin Swoop was riding on the ceiling fan, chasing after what looked to be like a young … dragon or dog creature.
“The hell is that?”
Martin couldn’t seem to get a hold of the creature, but he still growled at Olive, “Hey! Don’t make fun of her nationality!”
The little ball of trouble ‘tripped’ over Swoop’s leg and tumbled off the ceiling fan to slowly float down in front of Olive. Upon further investigation, she realized this cute little creature had three heads. Not sure how she missed that one.
“Isn’t that … I think these guys are called a Cerberus?”
She scratched one of the heads and the creature started to caress one head against her hand, another head coughed and a little shot of fire burst out. Olive yelped and jolted backwards.
“Cerberus … yeah … I call them Carebears,” Martin Swoop swooped down and tackled them - effectively going straight through Olive and into her closet.
Olive shuddered at the cold rush of ghost that went through her, upon composing herself, she muttered, “That’s ridiculous.”

Chapter 6

“No! No, not at all!” He laughed nervously, “I swear!”
She scoffed, “Yeah, I figured the first thing a ghost might do would be to haunt his ex-girlfriend’s shower!”
He shrugged as she reached over for another towel and wrapped it around her head to dry her sopping hair.
“Why me?” She asked to him, and not herself.
He looked at her, “Honestly, I went a lot of other places first. No one could see me. Not my family, my girlfriend,” the words stung Olive just a tad, even now, “Not even my best friend. I don’t get why you can …”
“Clearly some supernatural being out there has a hilarious sense of humor,” Olive crossed her arms over her toweled chest, “Because existing as a ghost that can only be seen by their ex is pretty cruel fate, no offense.”
Martin Swoop was playing with a rubber ducky, tossing it back and forth in his transparent hands, “Yeah, it is a pretty good joke,” and he looked up in all seriousness despite the toy he held, “But I actually am glad, I need your help.”
“My help? What - do you want a message passed along? Because every one’s going to think I’m crazy!”
“Well you ARE crazy, but that’s not it at all,” he smiled, “There’s trouble.”
Olive seemed skeptical, partly because a little bit of her was pretty certain she was losing her mind, and another part of her really couldn’t believe that the infamous Martin Swoop would need her help to get out of trouble. Much less would she believe that she could do anything to help a ghost.
“What kind of trouble?”

Chapter 5

It must be clarified right now, that Martin Swoop is in fact completely dead.
Also, Olive is not crazy.
She certainly felt crazy, however, as in a swift movement she turned off the shower, covered herself with a towel and swung her hair brush at her ex.
He flinched as her brush went straight through him, it was sort of odd. Things didn’t move through him like a whisp of air, but more like a floating clearish liquid. The brush jolted from her hand as she cringed backwards with shock.
She slipped, nearly certain she was about to fall to her own death, a smooth yet slimy pair of hands grabbed her.
She blinked.
How was this possible?
A moment later she was sitting on the toilet cover, pushing her wet and soapy hair behind her ears and trembling. Martin Swoop floated next to her. Yes, floated.
He rested a hand on her shoulder, “It’s nice to see you.”
She couldn’t respond.
He accepted this.
They waited in awkward silence for a while, till a knock on the door made Olive nearly hit the ceiling.
“Sweetie? You ok in there?”
“F-fine mom!” She squeaked, “Just drying off.”
“Alright ..” Her mom sounded wary, and the only sound they could hear were her distancing foot steps.
Olive collected herself for a moment, sat up straight, still covered by her towel and looked Martin Swoop directly in the eye.
“Hey,” he smiled warmly.
“Hi there,” she finally breathed, “Come here often?”

Chapter 4

The shower was perfect.
She sighed into the heat and let the steam encompass her. She took her soap and blew bubbles everywhere, giggling with delight as they washed off the mud. It was a nice moment to clear her thoughts and feel free again.
She turned to grab the shampoo, it almost slipped out of her hands, but was caught at the last second.
Olive barely noticed, “Oh, thank you!” She sighed with a smile, as she took the bottle from her ex-boyfriend’s hands.
“Yeah, no problem,” He said quite nonchalant. He leaned back against the bath tile and looked the opposite direction, just thinking.
Olive hummed as she squirted the shampoo into her damp hair, “Oh I suppose you’re just my imagination, teaching me a lesson or something.”
Martin Swoop blinked.
“Yes well,” Olive cleared her throat as she rubbed her fingers through her hair, “I have no need, Mr. Swoop! I am in my happy place, you can come back when I eventually succumb to my distressed feelings at 3AM. Begone! I’m enjoying this hot water!”
“You can see me?”
Olive had moved on to conditioner.
Martin Swoop sighed, “I didn’t think so,” he crossed his arms and slumped against the tile.
Two blinks later, Olive’s conditioner made a loud BANG on the ground.

Chapter 3

Olive walked home alone, the mud started to seep into her not-rain-boots-shoes. It was miserable and uncomfortable, just like her mood. It started to rain a bit harder and at some rate she kind of figured Martin Swoop was snickering at her.
“That’s what you get for never appreciating my jokes!” she mocked in a deeper voice.
This was a lie, she always enjoyed Swoop’s jokes.
They were kind of immature, but she always made a delightful little snort before bursting into laughter.
She often could not recall the exact reasoning for their breakup. Olive could not fool herself, she knew it had to happen, but the memories still saddened her.
She walked by the corner towards her house, a little wooden with green trim bench just sad there. It was soggy and sad looking. It was where they had their first kiss, a very long time ago.
Olive decided she definitely needed to get inside and take a shower.
Today couldn’t feel worse.

Chapter 2

Martin Swoop’s death will always be a mystery and a thing of controversy. No one was a suspect, and all it left him was with a giant bloody “X” on his chest in the middle of the street. Martin would have relished in the mystery, he always liked those sort of movies and television shows. The thought gave Olive a guilty smile, as she slowly tried to ease past Martin’s relatives in the funeral home.
She looked up at the grey sky that greeted her upon her exit, it seemed to mock her pain.
She sighed, “I didn’t ask for this.”
“Didn’t ask for what?” A voice made her jump a brief mile.
She turned around to find Martin’s best friend, Milo.
Milo was always a good and trustworthy guy, a skinny lad with a head full of ginger hair, he smiled down at her.
Olive smiled in response, “I didn’t ask for this weather, I need a scarf!” She laughed briefly and pushed her equally red and chaotic hair out of her face, “I’m sorry.”
He smiled.

Chapter 1

Olive never wanted Martin Swoop to die.
Ok, that was kind of a lie. Most broken hearts tend to wish the worse upon the one they once called ‘love’.
But she would have never wished this, and it’s important that you remember that.
Olive and Martin were exes, and it was a messy crumbly breakup (as most tend to be). The most hurtful part of all, after all they had been through, was that he had moved on a quick month after their break up. So of course she was bitter and angry, but Olive would like to think that she was better than that.
Now her once true love was dead, and here she was at his funeral - the most awkward funeral of all time.
The priest said kind words, some of which were true. Martin was a great guy, Olive would have never dated him if the case were otherwise.
Olive’s great rival, the most recent girlfriend of Martin Swoop, ran up to Olive in such distress you might have thought someone else had died.
“Nice to see you, Wendy,” Olive wafted in the awkwardness as the blonde sobbed into her shoulder with a level of ease that terrified poor Olive.
Wendy continued to soak Olive’s shoulder with the grace of a broken sprinkler on a rainy day in Seattle.
“He was so young! So innocent!”
Olive grimaced, he was definitely young - but hardly innocent.

‘Swoop’ has been a story sitting in my mind for years.
I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to present it - and I finally decided it needed to be a combination of illustrations and words.
The chapters are brief, the illustrations are sketchy, but it’s a story from my heart.

I hope you enjoy Olive Holt and Martin Swoop as they embark on the scariest of adventures - dealing with your ex.
Also there’s monsters! ;)