Jimmy the Exploder (the creature and the monkey)

by m maldonado

"I hear Bethany's got a new boyfriend."
"Does she really? Who?'
"Jimmy."
"Jimmy? Jimmy Pallin?"
"Yuuuuup."
"Whoa. No way."
"Yuuuuup."
"You're kiddin' me."
"Nope. She loves his beautiful eyes...his soft, silky hair..."
"His great big honking scar?"
"Of course! Who wouldn't love looking at that big pink thing, sticking right in their face? I'm jealous, personally."
"Oh, so am I, Jenny-dear. I am so, so j--"
"Would you two bitches like to shut the fuck up now?"
Both girls' mouths clicked closed. Their heads turned as if synchronized, their gazes eventually resting on the little boy with the great big honking scar.
"What did you call us?" one of them snapped. The other--clearly not the brains; already her look was going blank--continued to gaze at the boy.
The boy's eyes darted from one girl to the other, clearly aware of just how much bigger they were than him. His mouth began to form words even as he determined he could probably outrun them--if he stayed out of their reach. "Bitches. You know, female dogs. In heat."
Both girls looked at each other. Disgust was ingrained on both their faces.
"We are not bitches," the smart one said.
Jimmy's mouth twitched into a smile. "Would you prefer 'sluts'? Or 'whores'? Or how about something from the Bible, like 'ladies of Babylon'? Or 'harlots'? Or 'fiends'? Or 'forked-tongued serpents'?" His smile grew into a grin at the looks the two girls were sporting; they were desperately red with rage. "I can keep going, you know. I've got lots of words for people like you--"
"C'mere you little bastard--" screeched the brainless girl as she lunged--but Jimmy was already gone. He charged right past chubby little Bethany Miller, whose face was scarlet with restrained giggles, his overstuffed backpack bouncing up and down with every stride. He dashed away from the bus stop, away from the two girls, who were screaming obscenities at him as loud and as squeakily as they possibly could. He ignored them, just let the feel of running pour through him. The mix of adrenaline and the thrill of having provoked and produced such anger went straight to the boy's head. His grin was as big as his face, and his eyes were alight with the joy of adolescent madness.
There was an intersection up ahead, he could see it clearly. Still grinning, still running, and beginning to laugh, he looked both ways as he approached the curb. Seeing no one and nothing in any direction, he charged on heedless of the traffic signals.
Which is why he didn't see all the lights--all of them--turn red just as set his foot on the blacktop. And he didn't hear the screams of the girls behind him--the delighted yells of the two bitches and the wailing moan emitted by Little Miss Miller. Three steps onto the crosswalk, Jimmy felt the truck hit him.

---

It was like flying.
It struck him from the side. He immediately lost all feeling in the left side of his body. His grin slid into a slack-jawed gape. His eyes lost their life and became glazed with the shock spreading through him. His head lolled onto his shoulder as he began to slide off the bumper, rolling through the air onto the hood, up the windshield--
--catching just the barest glimpse of the bright red interior, and the driver--
--who gazed with burning orange eyes back at the little boy rolling over the windshield--
--and onto the top, where he remained for two seconds before dropping into the truck's bed with a horrid crunch--something was broken, he didn't know what, he didn't want to know. From there he slid across the slick surface into the back hatch, which he hit with enough force to unlatch, sending him--
--tumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs.

---

Oh God, I'm dead.
Then he opened his eyes and realized he wasn't. Not quite, no, not quite, but he was getting real close...
He tried to move and only managed to flop his body like a dying fish. Frustrated, he let his eyes scan his surroundings, and he soon realized he was lying on his back--everything was upside-down. When he looked down and could only see the rising hump of his chest, he panicked and tried to move again. Then he realized he was still wearing his backpack, and he was laying on it, forcing his body to arch. Relieved--somewhat--he tried to see what had hit him.
And found himself unable to move even his eyes.
There was a battered old truck parked about twenty feet from his prone body. It was bright red, but only in patches. He could tell, even from where he lay, that while the body was tattered, the wheels looked brand-new.
But it wasn't the truck that had left him paralyzed--it was the driver. The driver with his beat-up black boots, shoddy, graying black slacks, stained white shirt and tattered brown leather jacket. The driver with his ridiculously tubular top hat with its fatal crease, which left the top half tilting forward, looking ready to topple at any second. The driver with his big mottled green hands. The driver with his big eyes that were all white except for the tiny black dot of pupil. The driver that peered at Jimmy from beneath the brim of his hat, his face cast in deep shadow. The driver--
--the driver that bent down in front of Jimmy, tugged his hat up just enough to expose his entire face, and grinned, the hundreds of wrinkles in his skin deepening as the smile tried to consume the whole of his face.
Jimmy stared, unblinking, and waited for the driver to speak. For several minutes, nothing happened.
"Well, little boy, yeh have gone an' done a bad thing," he said, still grinning, the lids receding from his colorless eyes until they were competing with his grin for dominion over his face. "I think yeh deserve a bit o' punishment, yeh know? Jus' a little bit, mind, but enou' teh make yeh get the point." Jimmy watched the gums pull away from the teeth, which were slowly becoming pointed and yellow, a great contrast to the darkish green of this monstrous driver's face. "Doncha agree?"
Jimmy stared, having already evacuated himself twice in the last few seconds. The driver stared back, unmoving.
"Ah, I for-got." He licked his lips with a black tongue and smiled with fully-formed fangs. "Yeh canna control yeh-self, can yeh? Yeh canna move a budge, heh." The grin got wider. "Well, I'll think o' somethin' later, little boy. Righ' now, I gotta get back teh the truck. Got lotsa things teh do."
The driver stood, his hat flopping madly, and turned.
And stopped.
He began to growl.
"No, no." He clenched both of his huge fists. "No."
And then his eyes turned back to Jimmy, who paled.
"This is all yehr fault, little boy," he snarled, bending back down. He pulled his face right up to Jimmy's and breathed, letting the foul stench wash over the boy, whose eyes began to water. "All yehr fault."
Jimmy tried to look past this foul emerald fiend, but he seemed to have grown bigger, and completely blocked the view. All he could see was this monstrosity, all he could smell was its rancid breath, all he could hear was its breathing, and all he could feel was fear.
"Little boy," snarled the green man. "We're gonna have teh time o' our lives, yeh hear?
"Our lives, 'r yehr death."
A massive hand lunged for Jimmy's face, and all went black.

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