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Jimmy the Exploder
by m maldonado
Chapter 01:
COLLISION
“You said it’s
dangerous
to be so intimate.
You know it’s
dangerous
Dangerous
Dangerous.”
--“Love Rhymes With
Hideous Car Wreck,”
The Blood Brothers
Jimmy was, as most boys his age were, smaller than the girl he was talking to, puberty having hit her harder and faster than it had him. He was scrawny and short, with blonde hair that stuck out every which way, looking like a bedeviled haystack. His white face was slightly pointed, rounding out a bit around the cheeks. He usually had a taut, downtrodden look to him, and seemed to shuffle from one place to another with weakened shoulders. There were times, though, that he brightened, mood matching his blue eyes. Talking to her, right now, he was absolutely glowing.
She. She was at least four inches taller than him, and a good deal heftier. Round in places that most girls these days are told they shouldn’t be, her form seemed to consist of a series of pleasantly-placed curves; even the slight round bulge of her stomach seemed friendly and easy on the eyes. Her hair was black, hanging down to her shoulders, and her face was as round as the rest of her. She clung to her books (the ones that couldn’t fit in her too-small, hand-me-down backpack) as if she was afraid of losing them. Her clothes were threadbare, clean but old, in dire need of replacement. Normally her eyes were watchful and her mouth quiet, well-adjusted to keeping in the background, out of sight and out of mind. Today she sat in the fore, smiling happily, laughing at the boy’s jokes, her mouth running wild and the edges of her eyes crinkling with mirth.
“Okay, so the difference between the old Batman and the new one is...what, again?” she asked, her chin resting on her hand, all ears for him.
Jimmy leaned forward, looking eager and energetic for once in his life. “Well, a lot of things, really. The old one a lot of people seem to remember is the one from the Sixties, y’know, the really dorky one, with all the sound effects. Bam! Crash! Boffo!” He punched the air with each sound effect, and she giggled, holding her hand to her mouth. “That one was kinda as dorky as the comics were, only more so. I mean, the show had ‘Bat Shark Repellent Spray,’ for God’s sake. I can’t stand to watch it, it’s just too damn silly.”
She nodded, her black hair bouncing and flashing silver with the motion. “Okay, and the new one?”
“The new one is this dark avenger, a real human being,” Jimmy said. “He suffers. He makes mistakes. He loses. And he’s always suffering and struggling through these bad situations, and a lot of the time he comes out of them the worst off. He’s had to deal with the deaths of his friends and companions and stuff, and tragedy kinda seems to always follow him. But,” he said, smiling, “he never goes bad like his enemies, even though he goes through all this bad stuff. He’s always a good guy, even if not everyone really thinks so.”
She leveled a smile at him, and he might as well have melted under it, the way a popsicle melts under the sun. “I see. So the old one was dorky and silly, and the new one is dark and serious.”
“And cool.”
“And cool, of course.” She smirked.
He returned it, pushing some of his hectic hair out of his eyes. “Yeah.”
“So what’s the best thing about him?” she asked, head tilted curiously, jade-green eyes caught on him.
“About Batman?” Jimmy asked, surprised; no one usually listened to him talk on this subject beyond this point.
“Who else?” Her eyebrows arched playfully.
“Well...hrm...” He laid his elbows on his knees and stared out into the street, thinking. He was acutely aware that her gaze on him wasn’t breaking. “Well, okay, it’s ‘cause he’s always a good guy.”
“Explain.”
“Well, see, Batman goes through a lotta shit.
One of his sidekicks got killed, and another got paralyzed from the
waist down and has to be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life,
and all his enemies are super-psychos who all seem hell-bent on
killing him, fucking with his head, destroying his life, or just
corrupting his city. And he’s totally devoted to his mission to
protect Gotham, so if you fuck with it, you fuck with him and his
partners.
“But even though he goes through so much stuff, Batman rarely ever
breaks down and drops to their level. He always stays a good guy, he
always fights evil and rights wrong and stays the course, even though
the bad guys are always provoking the hell out of him.”
“Ahhhh...” she said, nodding. “So you like him because he’s incorruptible and strong.”
“Yeah!” Jimmy beamed at her. “But he’s also human, so sometimes he breaks down. He’s realistic, and stuff, but he’s still a hero. Not like Superman.” He wrinkled his nose. “Superman’s too goody-goody.”
“You don’t like Superman?” She was giving him an incredulous look.
“No, he’s too—“
Shadows fell over them, and they both shared a look that said “Not again” in tones of purple despair. They both looked up and tried not to scowl too much; if you looked too unhappy, they knew, the Bitches would only stick around longer.
It wouldn’t be until later that Jimmy labeled them “the Bitches,” but it was what they were, nonetheless. If ever there was a bigger pair of foul, hateful creatures in the world, Jimmy hoped they weren’t on the same continent as these two: the whole damn thing would sink from the weight of their poison alone.
“Hello,” the first one said, in a way that meant she’d rather like to squish the both of them under her heel. She wore clothes that looked like they might be made of bubblegum, and her mouth smacked noisily around an actual piece of the stuff. “We just saw you two together and wanted to know when the wedding was.”
Jimmy looked to the girl and the girl looked to Jimmy. His eyebrow was arched, her face was annoyed.
“Wedding?” he finally asked, not quite sure he’d heard right.
“Y’know, the one you little freak loverbirds are gonna be havin’,” giggled the other Bitch, who wore too much makeup and too-tight clothes, premature curves outlined in nylon. “Scarface and Fatass, together at last!”
Jimmy’s curious look turned into a half-scowl; all this achieved was to make the long, furrowed gash on the side of his face even more prominent than before. Bubble-gum Bitch giggled and seemed to nearly swallow her gum in her glee. The rounded girl that sat next to him seemed to sag on the pavement, as if the happy part inside her had started to rot and decompose.
“We’ve always thought you two would make such a wonderful couple,” Gum Gal continued. “The Boy No One Likes and The Girl No One Wants. Just perfect.” She smirked around the chewed, fruity clump in her mouth. “Can’t you imagine? Your kids would be The Kids No One Gives A Fuck About, how sad is that?”
Neither of them seemed to be able to find anything to say to this; the girl continued, smacking her lips and looking triumphant. Her friend joined in every now and again, piping up like an eager duck.
“I can just see it now...we’ll hold the ceremony in the dumpster by the Seven-Eleven, y’know, the one with all the dead animals in it. Fatass can wear some shitty hand-me-down her great-great-great grandmother wore on her fucking stupid wedding day, and you guys can drive away on a tricycle, with some cans tied with string to the back!” She leered at them, leaning in and looming like a horrendous pink idol. “Of course, you guys shouldn’t pedal too fast; after all, those cans are the only food you’ve got.”
The tightly-packaged mini-model sniggered wildly. “Tell ‘em about their honeymoon, Shayla, tell ‘em!” she crowed, fists clenched and waving gleefully.
Shayla blew a big bubble, popping it hard enough in Jimmy’s face that a strand of the sticky goo flicked onto his forehead. He fumed under her smarmy gaze as she fulfilled her friend’s request.
“That’s where little ol’ Scarface gets to strut his stuff,” she said with a pervy wink at Jimmy, who glared burning holes in her. “Even tho’ he’s got a dick like a stick and a chick like a brick, he’ll still be the happiest little husband in the whole world! Besides,” she added, clasping her hands behind her back, looking so cutely saccharine that both Jimmy and the girl scowled at her, “Bigass here has enough fat to make a good fuck out of just about any of her—“
“Pink folds!” they crowed together, both of them doubling over, spewing giggles out of their glossy mouths, hanging over their prey like cackling vultures in too-expensive clothing.
The girl’s face seemed to flush through about three different shades of red. Scowling, she looked down at the pavement, face dark and rumpled, like a discarded shirt. Jimmy watched her, with her hair draped around her face like a scraggly shawl, and felt something red and angry uncurl inside him.
He turned to the nearest of the Bitches and said: “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a whore?”
Both of them froze in place, their mouths and eyes wide. Shayla looked to her friend, who looked absolutely flabbergasted. Jimmy decided she looked quite like a stunned panda, or a startled raccoon. He glanced at the girl beside him out of the corner of his eye, and was happy to see that she looked both amazed and gratified by this turning of the tables.
Shayla leapt to her friend’s defense with a pop of her gum. “Has widdle Scarface found his iddy biddy widdle balls all of a sudden?” she asked in a mocking, momma-talks-to-baby voice.
Jimmy ignored her...mostly. “Why do you want to pick on this girl, anyway?” he asked, sounding idle but with eyes flashing at them both. He looked from them to the girl, then grinned at the Bitches. “I bet it’s ‘cause you’re both dead fucking jealous ‘cause she’s got tits and neither of you assholes do.”
Three female faces turned scarlet in rapid succession; only one face was grinning behind her mussed hair. The other two looked more like furious lionesses than middle-school girls. Jimmy just looked smug, his smirk asking for it—an answer, a slap, a threat, a kick. It didn’t matter to him, he’d already won.
“Maybe,” he said, grin growing like a swelling leech as he watched both of the little harpies growl low in their throats, “maybe you wish it was you that was sittin’ here, talkin’ to me and havin’ a good time? I’ve always wondered if you two had crushes on me, but I never brought it up because I was afraid it would break your hearts to know that I think both of you are complete twats.”
Shayla’s friend stomped both feet, huffing like a wounded bull, her fists clenched at her side, and swung a kick at his head, screeching like a tortured tire. He took it without flinching, his head rocking to the side, purple-black pain cracking in his skull like a firework. Cheap rubber tugged viciously at his hair, dragging a dozen strands out of his scalp. He could feel the blood rushing loose from its vessels, flooding the zone of impact, raising a tragic lump on his skull. As he wound his way away from pain he could’ve sworn he heard someone saying his name, but it wasn’t a girl’s voice...
He stretched his neck, lowered his head back into place, and just kept grinning at both Bitches, who were staring at him as if he’d grown elephant ears. He could feel something wet and coppery-smelling dripping down the side of his head and knew he was bleeding. He didn’t care. He was winning.
“You—you—“ Shayla’s friend was sputtering like a choking hose, her foot trembling with rage as it dropped back down to the concrete. “You fucking little shit!” she roared, shoulders hunched as if she meant to pounce him and rend him limb from limb, splattering him all over the bus stop in little bloody pieces.
Shayla stepped forward, her face as pink as her clothes. “Let’s get him,” she said, voice cold and steady, her eyes bright orbs of ice. “You get his legs and I’ll get his chest, and then we’ll beat the fuck out of him, got it?” She spoke as if Jimmy wasn’t there, grinning her in the face like a clown. The third girl—the only one even approaching maturity among the four of them—watched on with mingling shock and fury, her hands clenching and unclenching as she tried to get Jimmy’s attention, tried to tell him to go, to run, to get the fuck out of there before they hurt him.
Jimmy paid no mind.
Then both Bitches launched themselves at him, shrieking their fury in a mix of insults and cruel howls, one going low and one going high. Both came up dead and dry; the boy had split the scene.
Jimmy pounded down the sidewalk, laughing and laughing, shoestrings flapping like wet noodles as he sped away from the screeching half-human felines that pursued him from behind, their caterwauls unintelligible behind the wild boy’s gales. He felt like a bullet shot from a gun, helpless in the hands of his own momentum and free, free in the air, in the wind all around. He let his laughs out to the sky, let the Bitches and the birds and God Himself know that Jimmy Pallin had won, he’d won and here he was, dashing away the victor for the first time in years. He thought he could hear someone saying his name again, but he didn’t care, he couldn’t stop to see who it was, he couldn’t stop at all.
He looked up as he neared the upcoming intersection and giggled when he saw the light was green. The happy little walking white man glowed like a beacon on the other side of the street, urging him on with his iconic pose. Jimmy’s scrawny muscles drew together and he found himself zooming up the street even faster than before, all the yells fading away behind him as he shot onto the crosswalk, hair flapping in his face as he laughed his way to freedom.
Something—maybe the sound of the tires, maybe the shriek of the girl he’d been talking to, maybe Fate itself—managed to draw him out of his reverie just in time for him to turn his head and see the beat-up red truck coming at him like a cannonball, dust pulled up in smoky brown waves behind it.
The last thing he remembered before impact was seeing the driver’s vile, wrinkled green face and bulging colorless eyes as he sped up, grinning from ear to ear.
Time had begun to slow, and those watching could feel it. Shayla and Company could see every last detail of the union of boy and truck, joined at the fender. Shayla let out a horrid, victorious shriek, pleased to see that the obnoxious fuck had been taken care of. Her friend just stood there, gaping, her balled fists held up in the air, like a cheerleader who’d just been robbed of her pom-poms.
The third girl stood behind the two of them, her face red and slick with sweat, her shoulders heaving as her body struggled to come down from rage and settle into shock like it was supposed to. Her hands opened and closed, fingers like flower petals, each one inches from the Bitches’ shirts. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, swiveling in her head to watch Jimmy and the truck as they shot across the intersection in slow-mo. She had the oddest feeling of not knowing whether things were really slowing or if she was just seeing it that way.
The truck had pushed itself halfway through the crossed streets when time seemed to return to normal, as if a slipped gear had been pushed back into place and set the world to running right again. It swung around, back tires screeching against the tar as the ass end knifed through the air.
Jimmy slipped off the truck’s front and flew to the ground, rolling in a spider-leg tumble of limbs, only coming to a stop when his back hit the rise of the curb. He slumped against the concrete, breathing shallowly through the waterfall of blood spewing from his nostrils. His arm lay limply under him, bent at unnatural angles.
He was broken and bleeding, but he was alive
The truck screeched to a halt with its driver-side door facing the boy, leaving a semi-circle of burned rubber in its wake. It rocked on its axles, engine rumbling like a furious alligator. Dust swirled around it in a thin cloud, though there didn’t appear to be any place it could have come from.
It idled there, shaking and growling in the middle of the street, puffs of black smoke trailing from its tailpipes. Even from a distance, the green-eyed girl could tell the truck was huge; it could easily take up an entire lane. Her eyes squinted as she tried to peer behind the dirt and sun-glare that hid the driver from view, but to no avail. All she could see were hands…huge hands, gripping the steering wheel, thick fingers tapping thoughtfully. For a second they shifted into the sunlight, and for a confused instant she thought they were green.
The hands dropped away from the wheel, and out of sight.
Then there was a clicking noise, and a thunk, and the door swung open with a vehement creak. A black boot planted itself firmly on the ground, the bedraggled, dirty edges of long black pants lying over it. Its fellow followed, and one of those overlarge hands—with a bitter spark of shock the girl saw that they were, indeed, green, green as pine needles—gripped the edge of the door, long fingers splayed over the glass.
The driver drew himself out, a too-tall, ragged-looking top hat unfolding and flopping up, its upper half drooping perilously forward. A large emerald hand tugged the hat firmly into place over black hair that looked slick with oil. The hand itself was wrinkled and splattered with small dark green blotches, like liver spots, leading down to the wrist, which almost didn’t exist; the forearms were thick, and tapered down to the pointed elbows. Draped over the wrist was the loose cuff of what looked like a dirty white dress shirt, thick and almost as wrinkly as the skin beneath it. The arms themselves were long, nearly reaching the ground, huge hands and pruny fingers swinging over the rough tar road.
The friendly girl with the green eyes and the quiet nature watched, horrified, as this vile monster took a few steps out into the morning sunlight. His face was hidden by the shadow of the hat’s brim, and the girl hoped to heaven above that it would stay that way; he frightened her enough without having to see what lay between that ludicrous hat and the thin, anorexic chest to which the wrinkly shirt clung like a second skin. He seemed overlarge, as if to match his truck, and he stood there in the street looking like the world’s biggest mistake, an abomination, a stain on the skin of the universe.
As she watched, he kept on walking across the street, and when she realized he was headed for Jimmy, she barreled at the Bitches and plowed through them, ignoring their screeches as she rushed to the curb, hoping to get there in time to do something.
Shayla snarled at the back of the chubby girl, then turned to her friend, shaking her head. “Jesus, what the hell’s her problem?”
Shadow. Blessed shadow. He opened his eyes, peering between slick digits and sparse eyelashes, winding his shaky vision across the shadow-blackened tar. He followed it to a pair of steel-toed boots, and up…and up…and up…up into a silhouette, tall and freakish, the early morning sun shining golden-orange behind it. He could see only solid black, stretching up high with the hat, and back down again with the lanky body and overlong, swollen arms. He was reminded of massive spiders he’d seen in movies, and his fear kicked into overdrive, legs flailing at the gravel as he tried to propel himself backwards, away from this thing that loomed over him like a bat ready to swoop in on a hapless bug.
It took two steps toward him, rubber soles scraping loudly against the old blacktop, the leaning pillar upon its head bobbing slightly. Its head lifted, and huge white eyes, colorless except for the pinprick dots of the pupils, peered at him from a face that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Wrinkles. It was what he noticed first. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of deep, crevasses, pocked and marked with the same spots that covered the thing’s hands. Skin the color of deep emeralds, but foul-looking, as if it had some sort of disease. A wedge of a nose rose up out of the wrinkles like a viridian mountain. The face itself was severely pointed, ending in a sharp chin; above it was a mouth that seemed to consume the whole face, the grin eating one corner and then the other, the ivory-cube teeth in-between chewing up all the rest.
If Jimmy hadn’t been driven insane by this point, this face, those eyes, that grin, shot him fully into lunacy. It was the grin of a murderer, a maniac, a manhunter, a fiend, a monster—but it called to him, beckoned him like a crooking finger, asking him to come along and hitch a ride, come take a ride with me, Jimmy Pallin, come and take a ride.
“Come an’ take a ride, Chimmeh Pallin, c’mon an’ take a ride,” the monster said, speaking while still grinning, in a voice like gravel being crushed. “Come an’ ride with meh, Chimmeh, the trip ain’t long.”
It leaned in, and he screamed; its teeth had turned to fangs, each tooth curved and pointed and deadly. “Come on in, Chimmeh, there’s room feh two.” It was kneeling in front of him now, leaning in, grinning like the devil, hands laid flat on either side of the boy. “A seat feh meh, an’ a seat feh you.” Its nose was inches from his own, and he could see every last detail of that foul face and wanted to shriek and strike it away, but he couldn’t move, those pinpoint eyes had caught them in their monochrome leer. He laid under them, trembling, trapped like a rat, arm and will lying shattered in the same body.
“Come with meh, boy, come an’ see the sights, it’s the least yeh can do feh slammin’ inteh meh truck like that.” Eyes. Dead white eyes. White. Dead white teeth. It was all that Jimmy seemed to see, dead eyes and dead teeth in a face full of vile life.
“I-I-I didn’t do anything to your t-t-tr-tr-truck!” he burst out, twitching there in fear. He could hear someone shouting, some girl, and he could hear sirens, off in the distance but coming closer, and knew that soon this—hallucination, reality, sign from God—would be over soon, and that seemed to make him happier than anything else in the whole world. He felt a lazy calm begin to seep into him, and his eyes started to glaze.
The creature frowned, an action that set his whole face into motion, wrinkles fluidly shifting the grin into grim displeasure. “Boy,” he snarled, fang-teeth flashing in the sunlight, “yeh’ve got a lotta learnin’ teh do ‘fore we go.” Then he smiled again, and now his teeth were like a shark’s, lying in long, curving rows in his too-big mouth. “An’ yeh will go, boy, yeh will. Yeh’ll take a ride, sooneh ‘r lateh, an’ yeh an’ I will have so much fun...”
He lifted his hand and extended one huge, long green finger in front of Jimmy’s face. Still smiling with those shark-teeth, he slowly, almost playfully, drew the tip of it down the boy’s cheek, following the ragged curve of his ugly scar. The boy’s mind was a hellish mix of wild screams and soft, pleading sobs, neither of which escaped his frozen mouth. The fingertip felt red-hot, and scorched his skin where it touched. His leg was jerking in a wild paroxysm, the only evidence of his inner agony.
He was grateful, so so grateful, when the creature drew its finger to his chin and pressed it to his lips.
Bright hell-heat fell to cool darkness, and Jimmy Pallin sunk with it.
She was reduced to watching them, watching this thing touch and talk and loom over the boy on the ground. Her mind was rambling a flurry of prayers up into heaven, begging for a happy ending to this fiasco of a morning.
A siren cut into her thoughts, and her head swiveled to watch police cars zoom towards the intersection, lights flashing red-blue, red-blue. There was the sound of scraping gravel, and she turned again, this time to see the driver had swung around, abandoning the boy to peer grumpily at the incoming cars. She watched him, feeling her knees weaken as she spied that horrible face. Even from this distance it seemed to revolt her.
The driver looked from his truck to the incoming cars, his pruny face growing even more wrinkled as a look of deepest displeasure twisted his features. He seemed to be trying to make a difficult and unpleasant decision. The girl was just glad to see Jimmy still breathing, though his bloodied-up, passed-out condition made her want to cry. Hell, everything made her want to cry right now; she’d been having such a good time this morning, and now everything had gone straight down the tubes.
“Damn,” muttered the green thing, scowling as the cruisers swept into the intersection, flanking his truck on both sides. He didn’t seem to notice the girl at all, or how she’d squeaked when she’d heard his deep, gravelly voice.
He took a couple steps back, looking reluctant and furious, and squatted in the middle of the road. He fit his filthy, yellow-green-stained fingernails into the edges around the manhole that lay there. He plucked it out with ease, turning it in his hands until he held it right-side up on the tips of his fingers, the same way a waiter holds a platter. With a final spiteful glance at the cruisers he slid his scrawny legs and body down the hole, one hand on his top hat to keep it from coming off as it, too, slid out of sight.
The thing disappeared underneath the manhole cover, but not before it poked its now-hatless head back up, the cover resting balanced on its slimy hair, and gave the girl a wink and a grin.
She watched the cover drop down with a heavy thunk, idly wondering, between her tears, if she was going insane.
He barely noticed when he was scooped off the ground by paramedics and onto a stretcher. He was only half-aware of the fact that he was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. He was aware, detachedly, of the fact that he was screaming as he dropped back into darkness, screaming of the green man.
She watched, crying, not even listening as a mustachioed police officer calmly and politely waited for her to settle down so he could talk to her. Every now and again he called her name, and every time she just sat there, silent except for sniffles and the occasional choked sob. He could see her trembling, and sighed to himself, wondering how he was going to explain this to her mother.
The Bitches boarded the bus when it came, both talking and giggling to one another as they discussed their very eventful morning, both becoming decidedly forgetful about certain parts of it when they retold it to their friends. No mention was made, for instance, of the way little Scarface had gotten the best of both of them, nor of the fact that it was them that had chased him out into the street.
The officer watched the bus as it turned the corner at the intersection, chugging determinedly as it zoomed away down the street. When it was gone, he tried the girl again, getting only a shake of the head this time. He calmly considered this a good thing: any response was better than no response. He passed the time between his next attempt by observing his fellows as they investigated the scene, occasionally hearing a report from one of them as they passed.
It seemed that they were at an utter loss from square one. Not one of them had seen anyone but the kids as they’d approached, and they could find no one else now. They’d tried investigating the interior of the truck, but had found both the doors and the windows locked. They couldn’t even determine the make or model of the vehicle; while it looked like a Dodge Ram, no Dodge they knew had ever been this enormous. A search for plates turned up nothing. A search for dents also turned up nothing, despite the crash. An attempt to force the hood open resulted, oddly, in a bent and twisted crowbar, which weirded the officers out enough to leave it be for now.
The cop took these reports with a sense of growing mystification. He’d never run across a truck so damn impregnable, or circumstances so strange. And, for some reason, he had a feeling that when he got this girl to talk, things wouldn’t be getting any better.
“Officer?”
He turned to the girl, smiling comfortingly at her. “Yes, Bethany?”
She was wiping at her red-rimmed eyes and sopping up the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve, sniffling as she answered. “Y’think I can go home? I don’t think I want to go to school.”
He nodded. “Definitely. I think your mom wouldn’t want it any other way. But,” he said, with much regret, because he could see the disappointment in those green eyes, “I’m going to have to ask you some questions before you go.”
She looked at the ground, shuffling her feet on the concrete. “Okay…” she said quietly.
He turned himself so he was facing her a bit more, and put his hands on his knees. He spoke briskly but gently, with a businesslike manner that wasn’t too rough but still forceful enough to demand answers. It was his standard voice and manner for the interrogation of civilians, though he was being fairly tender with this girl.
“What did you see?” His pen and pad were out now, poised and ready.
She paused before answering. “These two girls were chasing him, and he was running from them, and he ran across the street—there was a green light, so he wasn’t jaywalking or anything—and then this truck just came out of nowhere…” Her voice cracked a little, and she swallowed. “And—and it hit him, hit him hard, you know? And it kinda swerved to a stop in the middle of the road...”
He nodded, finishing his sentence, pulling at his mustache a bit, as if tugging it back into place; it was a nervous habit of his. “And where were you?”
“Right here,” she said.
“Did you see the driver?”
Another pause, but this time it was too long. Frowning a little, he asked again. She blinked, and seemed to shake herself out of a daze. “What was the question?” she asked.
He repeated it for her, watching her carefully.
“Oh. Well, yeah,” she admitted, peering at her shoes. He waited for further details, and his mustache bristled when he got none.
“What’d he look like?”
“He was, uh, big. Tall. Kinda skinny. With big hands.” She cringed at her own words as she tried to be truthful, but not sound insane. “He was wearing black pants and a white shirt. And he had a big top hat on.” She knew how it sounded, but she kept going. “And he had a big nose, and was pretty wrinkly. And...I think he had green skin, or green paint on his skin, or something.” She looked up at him desperately. “I know how it sounds, but it’s really what I saw. I guess it had to be makeup or something…” She frowned helplessly at her knees, at a loss for anything else to say.
He was staring at her, though he tried not to. “I heard the boy say something about a green man when they were loading him up in the ambulance,” he said slowly. “But I wasn’t sure what to think about that. Now I do. Thanks.” He watched her look up at him with gratitude all over her face, and he allowed himself a broad smile. She looked at him, with his overlarge mustache, and thought of a walrus, and allowed herself a giggle. It seemed to crack through her nervousness and shock, and she felt calmer now, a little more whole.
“So, we’ve got a perp that’s tall, thin, with big hands, green body paint, a big nose, and a top hat,” he said, looking down his list with faux focus. “Right. We’ll check every circus in town.”
She laughed, and he beamed. “Naw, just kiddin’, but really, Beth, this is a damn odd case, pardon my language, and we might actually look there. No harm in investigating in the likeliest places. And with a description like this, circuses might be a good hideout for this guy, if we can’t find him in the surrounding area.” He glanced around, as if hopeful this oddball would pop out of the nearby bushes, our out from behind the bus bench. Disappointed, he turned back to her. “Catching him around here is really more likely, I think. He musta scared the crap outta you, though, you were bawlin’ when I got here.”
Bethany smiled weakly, wishing she could tell him that the best place to look would probably be the sewers, wishing she could tell him the truth about the driver, but she knew she could do neither of those without sounding like she had a screw loose. So she didn’t. “Yeah,” she said, “it scared me pretty bad, but I’m okay now. I’m really worried about the boy, though. Do you think he’ll be okay? He looked…he looked kinda bad…” It was a terrible understatement, but she didn’t like to think about the way he’d really looked to her: on the edge of death, ripped to shreds and cracked to pieces.
“I really don’t know,” the officer admitted with a sigh, pocketing his pencil and pad. “The kid got hit pretty hard. Far as I could see, his arm was shot all to hell. Again, pardon my language. This has been a bad day. Or, it will be, I can tell. No day that starts off with some poor kid getting blindsided by some freak behind a steering wheel can possibly be good.” He shook his head, and stood up, straightening his uniform as he did so. “Besides, that kid’s got it rough enough as it is without this sorta thing happening to him.”
“He does?” Bethany asked, looking up at him curiously. She’d only met the boy today, and beyond his love for Batman (and how cute he looked, especially when he was talking), she knew nothing else about him.
The officer—Magratson, his tag said—looked down at her, nodding. “Yeah, but that’s too long a tale to tell, sittin’ here on the curb.” When she gave him a puzzled look, he leaned down and winked at her. “Go on and get your stuff, and I’ll take you home and let you in on Boy Pallin.”
She nodded, smiling thankfully, and let him pull her up by the hand. They parted ways for the moment, one going to his cruiser, waving wearily at the other officers, and the other walking quickly back to the bus stop, cheap yellow sneakers flip-flopping against the ground.
Bethany slowed as she approached the stop, then halted altogether, staring sadly at what was there. Then, hunching her shoulders a bit, as if she was about to heft some great weight, she marched forward, trying not to sigh too heavily, but finding herself unable to control it as she saw more and more of the mess the Bitches had left for her.
Her backpack had basically been pulled open and upended, the contents dumped on the concrete and then, she figured, kicked every which-way. Into the nearby grass. Into the rocks. Into the gutter. Into the street. She followed the trail with her eyes, growing more spiteful with each object she saw. Here were her notebooks, with wet footprints lying in the middle of the crushed pages, here were her pencils, many of them broken; here were her erasers, whole but dirty, here was her glue bottle, squashed in the grass, oozing white Elmer’s.
She spied her trapper keeper out in the middle of the street, but didn’t bother going to get it. She could see from here that someone had done her the favor of running it over, flattening and shredding the cloth. It didn’t matter anyway: she kept her homework in specially organized folders, and while those, too, had joined everything else in her backpack in a hodge-podge on the ground, the papers had not budged from their places. She beamed a little as she stuffed her things back in her bag: at least there’d been some brightness this morning.
Magratson pulled up beside her just as she was zipping up her backpack. He gave the ruined glue bottle a glance, but respectfully refrained from comment. The girl looked happier than she had when he’d left her, and he didn’t want to run the risk of ruining that.
“You got everything?” he asked as he nudged the passenger door open for her.
“Everything important,” she said with a faint smile, closing the door behind her.
“All your limbs and luggage?” He pretended to give her a once-over. “Yep, looks good to me. Now your mom will only half-kill me when she finds out about this.”
“Calm down, Jimmy, calm down...” he soothed. “Nurses, don’t be too hard on him, he’s got injuries all along his left side.” He watched them sharply until they’d properly complied, then returned his focus to his patient. “Now, isn’t that better?” he said to Jimmy, who had stopped writhing so much as clarity slowly came back to him. “Just calm down, you’re safe, you’re fine, we’re going to get you patched up, alright?”
Jimmy nodded as best he could with his head in a vise-grip. His chest was hitching with his frightened gasps; he couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming before he’d woken up, but he could guess...oh, he could guess...
He quivered, nerves shot all to hell. Suddenly he wanted to sleep, to escape from the horror of the morning in cozy dreams. Green skin and white shark-teeth flashed in his mind, and fright pulsed in him…then eased down again…he gazed blearily around, vision turning cloudy at the edges. He watched a nurse draw a needle from his arm in surreal slow-motion, and looked hopelessly up at the doctor, who just smiled at him.
“No dreams, boy, no dreams. You’ll be up again in an hour or two. No worries.”
Jimmy nodded again, even as sleep took him away again, into peace.
And headache. Pounding headache. Jimmy groaned, and raised his hand to press it against the ache. Instead, it bounced off clumsily, and he felt dull pain in his hand. He frowned, and looked woozily at his arm, which was now encased in a yellow-orange cast that formed the limb into a right angle. He stared at it for a few seconds, then let it and his head drop.
He sank into a soft pillow and sighed, letting himself relax. While he could feel tingling pains streaking up and down the southpaw side of his body, he paid no attention to it. He’d deal with all that once he’d finished absorbing just what the fuck had happened to him.
Let’s see, he thought, closing his eyes. I got up. Got dressed. Avoided dad. Walked out to the bus stop. Met the (pretty) girl there, talked to her. About Batman. Stupid thing to talk about. Then those asshole girls came and ruined everything. I bitched ‘em out. They chased me. I get hit by a truck driven by Yoda’s nasty big brother. Great. Now I can die happy.
He laughed bitterly, and broke out into sparse coughs. He rubbed at his neck with his good hand; it, like most of his body, ached. He’d always wondered what whiplash was like, and now he knew: it sucked. Royally. He only hoped painkillers came with the cast, preferably in a complimentary gift basket.
Jimmy found the controller for his hospital bed and fiddled with it until he was laying half-upright. He peered around the room: lots of white, per the usual for a hospital, though the walls were covered in tacky floral print wallpaper. The room was dimly-lit and L-shaped; he figured there was a door around the corner, out of sight, that led to a bathroom. He felt like he could use it soon, too, but he had no idea if he had the capacity; a quick look down his body was enough to affirm that.
There were bandages in thin white patches on his left leg, especially around his knee, which looked strangely bulgy. He figured some of them were cuts and bruises from the hit, and some of them were abrasions from when he’d rolled across the street like a reluctant armadillo. From his upper thigh to partway up his stomach there was a big, ugly black-purple bruise that hurt like a mad bastard; he shifted on the bed, turning himself so he laid more on his right side than his left, grunting as parts of his body vocally protested the movement.
Nope, he didn’t think he was going anywhere soon.
He brightened suddenly: that probably meant he wouldn’t be going to school anytime soon, either. If ever this cloud had a silver lining, this was most certainly it. Jimmy absolutely despised going to school; he usually preferred disembowelment over attending, but he’d yet to find anyone willing to give him the pleasure.
This means I’ll be at home more often, he thought with a grunt. He wasn’t sure if that was entirely a great thing, but he knew that for the most part it was better than having to go to school. He’d just have to spend as much time as possible in his room during the evenings, when his father was home.
His nose wrinkled at the thought of his father, and he tried to stem the fury that swelled in him. After a few calming breaths and a count from one to ten, he had no luck whatsoever. Disgruntled, he frowned at the wall, locks of brown-blonde hair falling into his eyes. He nudged them away with puffs of breath just as he heard the door to his room open.
Jimmy twisted his head around, saw his mom, and felt his anger pop and fade like a soap bubble. He smiled at her sheepishly, and went to turn the rest of his body to face her.
“No no no,” she said, shaking her head and easing him back into place with her hands, smiling gently at her son. She was a good-looking, well-dressed woman, with medium-length red-brown hair, blue eyes, and a calming smile. Also, and much to Jimmy’s chagrin, she almost always looked like she was cringing.
He took no notice of that right now, though. He was just happy to see her.
Back in his original position now, he watched his mom slide around the bed to stand in front of him. She smiled again, and while it was as pleasant as ever, Jimmy could see the strain at the edges. This, too, he tried to ignore.
“Hi, mom,” he said, grinning sheepishly.
“Hi, son,” she said, waving playfully. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m okay,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve had better mornings, though.”
“Well, at least your sense of humor is still intact, even if the rest of you isn’t,” she said, leaning in to inspect him, which he knew she’d wanted to do ever since she’d seen him laying there. Her eyes drifted along his wounds, bruises, bandages and scabs. She gazed woefully at his cast, which was supported by a sling, and shook her head.
“I don’t feel as bad as I look,” Jimmy said, smiling lopsidedly. He had his head propped up on his arm, the other laying against his chest. “I could really use some food, though, I’m starved.”
“I’ll have them bring some in for you,” she said, her hands and eyes now examining the swollen bruise on his side. “Oh, they told me this wasn’t very bad, but it looks awful...” She peered under his shirt and shuddered as she examined the extent of the injury. “They called me on my way back from Ami’s school,” she continued. “Nearly had an accident myself. I got here as soon as I could, but they wouldn’t let me see you until now.” She let his shirt fall back into place, looking worried. “Only your arm is broken, but I don’t think you can go to school with these injuries...”
Jimmy tried not to look too happy about this, but she caught him at it and scowled at him. “Keep in mind,” she said seriously, crossing her arms over her chest, “that you’re going to have to keep up with your schoolwork at home while you’re away.”
Jimmy blinked, then gestured at his broken arm. “Mom...I’m left-handed...”
She glared at his arm for several moments, as if willing it to switch places with the other, then let out a sigh. “You’re right,” she said miserably, holding her hand to her forehead. She always looked as if she had a headache when she felt defeated. “I’ll have to work something out with your principal...”
Mentally cheering, Jimmy nodded. “Sorry, mom,” he said, half-meaning it; he didn’t like to see her looking despondent, but he also didn’t like to go to school. “At least you know I won’t be able to play video games!”
To his delight, she smirked at that, bringing life back into her face. “Well, that’s one way to look at it. Those things drain your brain worse than TV.”
“Mom,” Jimmy said, giving her a haven’t-we-been-over-this-before? look. “Please. No.”
“Fine, fine, fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to bombard you with books, though. Many, many books. And you will read them, or they’ll start coming out of your allowance.”
Excitement and concern rose in the boy at the same time. Cautious as ever, he addressed the concern first. “What about dad?”
Here his mother’s confident look seemed to weaken, her face taking on a slightly hunted expression. “Well…we both know his feelings on the matter of fiction,” she said stiffly, her mouth a firm, flat line, making her face look skullish. “But,” she continued, determined to finish her sentence, “he doesn’t have to know about this. And I know...I know you’ve been wanting some more books...it’s just been harder for me to get them...” She looked at him sadly. “I will try, though,” she said, smiling weakly. “I can work something out, don’t worry.”
Jimmy nodded solemnly, his excitement rising as his concern fell, though it still clung to him like an acrimonious burr. “What books?” he asked eagerly, scooting himself a little closer to her.
She began to count off with her fingers as she listed titles, her mood seeming to brighten with each one. “Well, I couldn’t get you Frankenstein last time, so there’s that... The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Alice in Wonderland, that Hush thing you’ve been wanting so much, but don’t be surprised if I can’t get it; the last Harry Potter book…what was that one called again? I can never remember the titles anymore.”
“I think it started with ‘Harry Potter and the...’ and then something else,” he said impishly; he honestly couldn’t remember himself.
She rolled her eyes again. “Wiseacre. Fine, I’ll just look for number seven. I think you also wanted the Hobbit—I still can’t believe I haven’t managed to get a little Tolkien in you yet, and you nearly thirteen—and...hrm...” She paused, tapping her fingers on her chin. Jimmy watched her, enthused by her manner, which had become chatty and energetic. “You still don’t have Pratchett’s Hogfather and The Truth, do you? I think I can get one or both of those. We might need both, you go through them in less than a day usually, you read so fas—oh my god.”
“What?” Jimmy blinked; she was staring at him, mouth agape. “Mom, what—? ”
“Your scar,” she breathed, mouth and eyes growing wider. “Jimmy, your scar.”
“My—my what?” His tried to clutch at his cheek, but ended up clubbing himself in the face with his cast. Frowning, he lowered himself back onto the bed, then pressed his hand to his cheeks: first the left, then the right, then the left again, then the right, almost as if he were checking if it had migrated from one to the other.
It was neither here nor there.
“It’s gone.” He plucked at his skin, drawing sharp pain. He did it again, trying to prove to himself that it was a dream. When that failed to wake him up, he rapidly slapped both in succession. Pain flashed across his face and he quickly let go, rubbing at the sore flesh mournfully. When he spoke it was in a panicky, frightened voice. “Mom, it’s gone, how can it be gone?”
He stared up at her, and she stared back with wide eyes, her hands over her mouth. He waited for her to say something, and then he waited for her to move, and then for her to blink, and then—
“Sheh ain’t movin’, boy.”
Jimmy shrieked, swerving around in his bed, looking around frightfully for the source of the voice. He nearly wet himself when he saw it: the green man’s head, sticking up from the end of his hospital bed, grinning at him from beneath the brim of his gigantic hat. His hands clung to the bed’s metal frame, and the boy could see, with frightful clarity, that the painted steel was crumpled beneath the wrinkled fingers.
“F-Fuck!” he screeched, pushing himself back with frantic kicks until he was curled up against the opposite end of the bed, his broken arm caught between his tense thighs and his hitching chest. He stared bug-eyed at the green man, whose grin had only grown bigger at the boy’s reaction.
“Hello teh yeh, too,” the green man said, swiftly drawing off his hat and performing a grand bow (at least, as grand as one can do when one is clinging to the end of a hospital bed by the fingertips). His leering eyes did not shift from the boy, who squirmed as the top of the grimy, overlong hat flopped in his direction. “I see yeh still have no mannehs whatsoeveh. Whateveh would yeh motheh think, eh?” It licked its lips with a dead-black tongue, slick with what looked like oil. “Let’s ask heh, shall weh?”
The driver dropped down, as if pulled by an unseen force, his hat sliding away from Jimmy, across the bed, and down, disappearing with a flop of filthy felt. He came back the same way he’d gone, popping back up right next to Jimmy’s mother as fluid as a snake. “Miss Pallin!” he said, smiling maniacally, “did yeh teach yeh son nothin’?!”
Jimmy’s mother said nothing, but the man nodded and continued as if she had. “I see, I see, yeh’ve tried yeh best but the poor boy has bad role modehls. Feh shame, feh shame.” He shook his head, making tsk tsk noises; it would’ve been almost comical to Jimmy if he wasn’t deathly afraid that he’d finally lost it. “But, what’s tha’ yeh say?” The green man moved his head to the other side of the woman, who continued to stand there looking like a too-real mannequin. “Ahhhh, yes...” He leered at Jimmy from over his mother’s shoulder. “The boy can learn betteh, oh yes...the boy, so young, so...pliable...hm?” He looked to the woman again, listening intently. Then, suddenly, his face took on an expression of deepest hurt. “Oh, Miss Pallin, I promise not teh beh too rough on th’boy, what more do yeh expect o’ meh? I’m a man of meh word, I can beh trusted, feh sure. As long as yeh son is cooperative, things’ll go jus’ fine.
“But, if he don’t...well, Miss Pallin, I can’t say the boy won’t get a few cuts’n bruises. Meh line o’ work is the roughest, y’know.”
He watched the frozen woman for a few moments, then nodded, grinned a grin that seemed too big for his face, and casually swept her into a corner with one hand. Jimmy made a choking sound in his throat as he watched his mom slide across the floor as if she was on wheels. She slid neatly into place between an IV stand and the trashcan, bumping against the wall with a soft thud.
“Now, Chimmeh, weh gotta talk.” Jimmy turned and found the green man staring intently at him from a few inches away, having somehow managed to manifest on his hospital bed in the blink of the eye. He was squatting in front of him, overlarge arms resting on scrawny knees. Jimmy was distantly reminded of a frog. “Yeh an’ I, weh got some b’sness.”
“Wh-what—“
“Yeh know what b’sness I’m talkin’ ‘bout, boy. Yeh cost meh somethin’ vereh precious teh meh, Chimmeh, feh one.” He held up a single green finger, about as long as Jimmy’s forearm. “Feh two,” and it held up a second finger beside the first, “I came teh see yeh feh a reason, y’know. Weh have much teh discuss. An’ feh three,” and up came another pillar of a finger, “yeh owe meh an apologeh.”
Jimmy blinked, leaning his head out from behind his arm, which he’d been crouched behind. For the first time since he’d met this putrid-looking creature of a man, he really took a good look at him. He looked at his strange emerald skin, mottled with olive-green spots and lined with infinite wrinkles. He looked at the arched, sharp eyebrows, thick and black. He looked at the slick midnight hair, which left dark stains on the shirt as something nasty and wet dripped from the locks.
But most of all he looked at the huge crooked crescent of moon-white teeth, set in green-black gums and lined by shriveled green lips. At the moment, each tooth was a pristine enamel cube, rounded at the edges and arranged perfectly straight, but Jimmy had seen that mouth full of fangs and shark teeth, not long before.
It doesn’t matter if this thing is real or just my imagination, he thought, breath quickening, because either way, it’s a monster—one with teeth.
No way, he thought suddenly, the words hard-edged and glinting. No way, this is bullshit. You just got a way hard knock to the head when some drunk blindsided you off the road. You really have gone off your rocker, Jimmy boy, but you don’t need to sucker yourself into this crap.
His expression became hard, his jaw set and his eyes dark. He looked the creature—the hallucination—right in its freakish eyes and said:
“I’m not gonna fuckin’ apologize to somethin’ that isn’t even real.” He let his arm drop away from his face, and unfolded his legs, casually refolding them Indian-style. “I’m not gonna suck up to somethin’ that’s not even gonna exist after these doctors get my head straightened out or whatever.” He leaned back in the bed, smirking. “I’ve been insane before, y’know.” He ignored the way the green man’s face was falling into a look of dark fury and pressed on, refusing to be cowed by his own imagination.
“I have to admit, though,” he continued, “you’re the ugliest thing I’ve ever come up with. I honestly never knew the Wicked Witch of the West had kids.”
In a whirl of vicious snarls and blurred white and green Jimmy found himself moving upward through the air, held in the grip of a massive, gnarled hand. His head cracked against the ceiling and fireworks flashed in front of his eyes, moving in agonizing slow motion, sparks squiggling like worms. He stared dizzily through their burning comet-tails, gazing dimly into the face of the driver, whose face was oddly calm.
“Boy,” he said, mouth moving slowly in Jimmy’s eyes, “mannehs. Yeh motheh didn’t teach yeh teh beh so rude, I’m sure.” He had the pre-teen pressed against the ceiling, between the dimmed fluorescents. “Now yeh listen an’ yeh listen good, yeh heah? I’m here feh a reason, an’ that reason is yeh, boy. I came teh getcha, yeh didn’t cooperate, an’ now yeh got meh truck tekken by yer local police.” He spat the last word out like a mouthful of vomit. “Yeh cost meh mah truck, mah cover, an’ mah time, an’ yehr gonna make it up teh meh, or else, yeh got that?”
Jimmy shook his head to clear it of the colorful globules that littered the inside of it like ice cream sprinkles; his mouth was stuck in a cynical smile the whole time. “That’s lame. I can’t even come up with good lies anymore.” He sighed heavily. “And this used to be entertaining. My, how the mighty have falleeeAHHHHHHH!” he screeched as he was swung through the air, down from the ceiling and over to the nearest wall. His progress halted a heart-thumping six millimeters from the floral-print wallpaper. He stared at it, startled into silence, his body limp and numb. For a hallucination, this shit was pretty fucking real.
“Y’see this, boy?” The green man jabbed at a petunia just to the left of Jimmy’s face. When he didn’t answer, he shook the kid a little until he cried out that yes, he did see it, now for the love of God stop. That done, he continued. “This, boy, is yer world. This happeh little hospital an’ all its shitteh wallpapeh.” He pierced it with his fingernail, carving a curve over the petunia’s bloom. “This is all yeh see, jus’ the world aroun’ yeh an’ everythin’ in it. I know yeh’ve neveh seen what’s beneath, but I know yeh’ve felt it, kid. They all do. Yeh’ve felt there was somethin’ wrong with this poor ol’ little world, yeh chust neveh knew what it was, now didcha?”
Jimmy hung in his grip, staring up at the green man with wide eyes. “N-No, I never knew what it was,” he whispered timidly, all thoughts of adamant denial gone.
The driver nodded, the top half of his hat wobbling high above him. He was steadily, slowly drawing his fingernail down the wall, peeling away the wallpaper with ease. The shreds piled at its feet, curled in on themselves. He kept peeling away at the wall with his fingernails, clawing away a ragged square, about six inches on all sides. He gouged at it again, and again, and again, even after the paper was gone, although it didn’t appear to Jimmy that he’d gotten to the drywall, even though he was attacking it viciously at this point.
Suddenly the green man dug in hard, wiggling his hand as if trying to get a firm purchase, and drew his hand down, ripping out the final layer with a flourish.
Behind it was rotten brown-black, like the color of a cockroach’s shell, only putrid and ruined with decay. It looked like the material had suffered termites on top of water damage on top of fire damage. Startlingly, Jimmy could just make out the floral print beneath the layers of destruction. He peered closely at it, trying to make sure he’d seen what he though he’d seen, but recoiled when tiny ash-black beetles scrambled over the surface in a frenzy.
“This is it,” the green man said, holding Jimmy just far enough away to keep the beetles from leaping out at him, but close enough to give him a good look. “This is yer world’s problem, Chimmeh. It’s right there, chust beneath the skin.” He looked at it with a disgusted scowl, anger in his too-white eyes. “It’s a canceh.”
Jimmy stared at it, fascinated, disgusted, and caught up in belief and disbelief all at once. Unable to help himself, he asked, in a hushed whisper, “What’s causing it?”
The green man looked down at him, half his face shadowed by the brim of his hat. His mouth was neutral, almost expressionless. Jimmy looked up at that strange green face, for once honestly interested in hearing him speak.
He found himself disappointed. “Sorreh, kid, that’s memebehship infehmation.” He idly tossed the boy away, and watched him drop safely back into his bed, looking simultaneously stunned, incredulous, and annoyed, his disbelief settling back into place with remarkable speed. “Feh now yeh should just think on it, let it all sink in.” He grinned massively at the boy. “Oh, an I almost forgot: I gotta make sure nobodeh will notice mah little handehwork anehmore...”
“Your what—fuck!” Jimmy squawked, backing up on the bed as he found the green man squatting on it once more, a bony finger pressed against his cheek. His hallucinations had certainly gotten more annoying since he’d last had them, that was for sure.
“This ‘ere,” the thing said, tapping his cheek, leaving a greasy smudge on the pale flesh. “Mah little...correction...”
Jimmy stared. “My scar?”
The green man nodded, smirking in a way that made him look horribly vulpine. “Consideh it—an’ this—a present. I took it off, an’ now I’ll mehke it look like I put it back again. Nobodeh will notice it’s gone, anehmore—not yeh mom, not yeh sisteh, not even the one who gave it teh yeh, though I figgeh he’ll catch on pretteh soon no matteh what.” He dragged his finger up and down Jimmy’s cheek, smearing the dark smudge in a long, curved line, ignoring the way the boy writhed under his touch. “But onleh yeh’ll see it how it realleh is: gone.”
“Why did you—“
“It was holdin’ yeh back.”
“But what the hell does that m—“
“Hush, boy. Yeh’ll find out soon enough. Feh now, though, I got otheh b’sness ‘round hehre,” the driver said, vaguely jerking his thumb behind him. He watched Jimmy as he wriggled furiously under his finger, which effortlessly held the boy pinned in place. “Vereh impohtant, need teh keep mah appointmen’, y’know how it is.”
His other hand came up in front of Jimmy’s face, his thumb, pointer and middle fingers pressed together as if he were about to ask for money, or snap his fingers. Jimmy stared at them, wondering what this new bullshit was, and how come he hadn’t woken up from it all yet.
“Keep meh offeh in mind, boy. I’ll onleh make it once.”
Jimmy snorted. “No th—“
The fingers snapped explosively, the sound booming off the walls in violent echoes. Jimmy jerked in his bed, hands reflexively clapping to his ears (he managed to club himself in the side of the head this time, leaving both his skull and his hand aching). He let out a surprised bellow that was lost in the cannon blast of the snap and the frantic, concerned questions of his mother.
Jimmy blinked, staring around with wide eyes. Normal hospital room. Normal lights, normal bed, normal mother staring down at him with startled worry all over her face. He let out a deflating sigh, and relaxed in his bed. The hallucination was over.
“Jimmy?” his mother said, worriedly squeezing his arm. “Jimmy, are you okay?”
He nodded, sighing again, feeling worry escape him and relief fill him. “I guess I dozed off while you were talking...you know how I am when I wake up out of a doze, I jump some.” He did his best to chuckle; it came out too-dry, and he wisely turned it into a cough. “Didn’t mean to scare ya, mom. I guess I’m just really tired...”
She nodded, patting his arm and smiling, apparently reassured. “Well, I guess I’ll just leave you alone now...I still have to call your dad to let him know you’re alright, after all. He’s been worried sick about you.” She took no notice of the way her son’s expression stiffened as she began to fix his bedsheets, straightening them and layering them over Jimmy’s beat-up body. “And I have to get your books, of course,” she said, smiling at him.
He would’ve smiled back if he hadn’t just noticed the scraped-out square in the midst of the wallpaper, revealing the rotting, infested layer underneath. It was just to the left of his mother, and as he watched, a dozen of the beetle-like black bugs leapt from the wall to cling to her clothes. He swallowed and tried to ignore it, but it got difficult when they started making loud, cicada-like chittering noises.
“You okay, Jimmy?”
“Y-Yeah, I’m okay, just spacin’ out,” he lied, tugging his sheets up under his chin. He faked a yawn and a stretch, and made his eyes look as glossy and half-lidded as he could. He wanted his mom out of there as soon as possible, and he knew the more sleepy he looked, the sooner she would go. For some reason, her sharing a room with his hallucinations made him nervous.
“Oops, sorry!” she said, looking meekly apologetic. She stood there for a few seconds, playing with her nails a bit, then turned on her heel and walked to the door. While this was what Jimmy wanted, he felt a sharp pang of disappointment; something was missing here. “I guess I’ll go now. You rest up, I’ll be back later in the day, okay?”
“Okay, mom. Bye!” He gave her a weak wave as she departed, closing the door behind her. As soon as she was gone he sat up in his bed, peering over at the floor. He was pleased to see about six of the bugs had fallen to the floor, though he wasn’t sure why he should care: they weren’t real anyway.
His eyes slid over to the hole in the wallpaper, and in the back of his mind he started to wonder. He watched it avidly, waiting for it to fade away, like his hallucinations always did. Like the green man had.
It didn’t, so Jimmy decided to just ignore it. Sometimes, if he paid no attention to it, a hallucination would just disappear in the time it took for him to forget about it. So he rolled over in bed, turning his back to the rot in the wall, and curled up under his blankets. He closed his eyes and turned his thoughts to the books he would be getting soon, and all the free time he was going to have to read them in.
It wasn’t until he was starting to slip into somnolence that he realized his mother hadn’t given him a hug.
