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Part 5-18: Spoon
Head spinning with all the new information, I tugged on Fergus, intent on heading to the cell and getting the hell out of this place. He came along willingly enough, but broke my grip a few paces away from our destination.
“Hey, hey, hold up a sec,” he said.
“What is it?” I was secretly glad for an excuse to put off stepping any closer to the looping horrors beyond the bars.
“I want to check the first ever victim. It’d be that one, probably?” He pointed to the tiny prison three to the right of Roman’s.
“I guess it would. I might let you go do that one by yourself,” I said.
Fergus nodded once, and trotted over. I kept my eyes on him, while walking closer to Roman’s cell. The curve of the wall let me know that I was about to smack my head into the steel bars, so I stopped and continued to try to decipher Fergus’ expression.
Ever gung-ho, he gripped the bars and stuck his face between them, peering. I imagined a ghoulish tendril snaking out around his neck and yanking him in, tried to dismiss the idea, then got twice as antsy when I realized that there could be such a fate awaiting me as well, for I stood a step away from my own set of bars.
It got even worse when I remembered that Roman had been done in by vines—surely if an evil tendril lurked in one of these jails it’d be the one in front of me.
I solved the issue by gasping involuntarily and scampering backwards, like a truly brave heroine. Unfortunately, this brilliant maneuver left me staring straight ahead.
Roman was shrouded in gloom, but I saw his posture well enough. He appeared standing, but what he really was was stretched out into an X. A dark ring ran around his belly, and then the arms and legs started to move toward the edges of the room, while the torso stayed put.
“Oh,” I remarked, then my left buttcheek screamed in pain as my weight came down on it, and everything swam in shades of fuzzy grey. I thought I saw a farmhouse, and knew I needed to crawl to get the gun, because the gun was used to shoot the transformer so the house’s power would go off so the crab would die.
“Alena, Alena,” Dack called. Probably trying to warn me that the crab was eating people. Like him.
“Wassh out,” I tried to say, slurring. Why was I so dizzy?
“Hey, missus, don’t conk out on me now, yeah?”
I blinked and shook my head, because that sounded like Fergus. He wasn’t—
“Don’t conk!” squawked Lobster.
That brought me back. Bright spots zipped around my vision as I tried to orient. I was in Fort Ticktock. The crab was dead, the trophy to prove it in my pocket. I plucked it out with two fingers, and jabbed it at Fergus.
“I can’t look in there, can you, can you do it? Please?”
Graciously, he didn’t ask me why. We traded book for key and he turned to the cell. There was an unimportant scrape of metal as the tumblers rolled, then the little prison blared as if someone had flicked on a dozen construction lamps. I didn’t wait for the sky to fall—I flipped open The Secret to Taming the Wild and found our escape window.
“Tell them about the wolf,” I said, as the picture swam out of the page and wrapped its edges around everything.
Fergus said something in return, but the moment I sensed that I was back I thought of the first outdoor spot that came to mind.
Around me, some kids sprinted, trailing blue streamers. A car horn tooted politely. Grandstands rose up in front of me, half misted in wifi fog. The signal wasn’t so bad here, in the middle of Henderson Recreational Park. I pushed the shaky diamonds away anyway, because I needed to be sure.
As I turned, arms spread wide, parting the great wifi sea like a modern day Moses, I caught it in the nick of time. A wicked thud and grinding chime reverberated as the skyscraper clock shuddered. Its minute hand rocked backwards to eleven fifty-seven. It tilted, innards within gave, and it disintegrated as it fell.
All that was left to do—for now—was hope that we’d caused enough chaos to divert whatever was about to happen at that playground.
Back in the condo, I leapt into the original Alena, and flopped sideways onto the couch, needing the feeling of softness. A conversation faltered.
“I’m okay,” I said, muffled through the cushion. “Gimme a minute, please.”
My friends kept talking, but I tried to ignore them. One minute of peace, of comfy, squishy couch, and no thinking. That’s what was needed. Not even the gentle itch of my full body singe could keep me from milking every last drop of comfort from the reprieve. I imagined a movie theatre, quiet with the smothered echoes of a soundproof room. Buttery popcorn, Deluxe minding her own business on her phone next to me. We’d come to the last showing of a mediocre romance flick, so it was empty in the place save for Theodore Roman and Willy Tulun, who were unpossessed, unmurdered and thankful that I’d gotten them some tickets. A little odd that they’d want to come see this kind of film, and also a little odd that they’d not want to sit together, given all our shared fates.
I shrugged it off, relaxed in the big reclining chair, and munched popcorn. It was awesome, but soon a nagging feeling crept in, like I’d forgotten an important errand. Oh yes, Dack. We had to get him back soon. Why were we fucking around at the movies if he was still in trouble?
I realized I had no idea what the movie was, and that weird lack of memory (how had we gotten here?) tripped the alarm bells: I was sleeping, wasn’t I?
Caught dead to rights, the dream fled my brain and I woke with a weird half-yelp. Still on the couch. Friends still talking. I’d been out for maybe a few minutes.
“God damn it,” I groaned, then exploded into a yawn. The fuzziness of interrupted sleep piled into my skull like a heap of soggy pillows.
“She needs a siesta, I’d say,” said Fergus.
“We should all rest,” agreed Deluxe. “You may both stay here tonight. Given the circumstances, I’d feel uncomfortable if the group split while low on energy and attentiveness.”
“Okay,” said Persi.
“Take m’bed,” I said, flapping an arm. “Dun wanna move.” It was true: now that I’d had a taste of dreamland, I was fading fast.
“You said The Minder estimated eight hours?” asked Deluxe.
“Something like that,” said Fergus. “At least that much.”
“I’ll rouse us in six,” said Deluxe. “Unless the monitor detects hostile activity in the next half hour, in which case I’ll raise an alert immediately. Though if what you fear might have happened already transpired, we probably would have picked it up by now.”
I took that to mean there had been no slaughter, and punched my ticket back to the blessed land of the Z’s, hoping that Deluxe would find an excuse to let me vacation for well over six measly hours.
Turns out my trusty guts had other plans, and I found myself up for a washroom trip at one A.M. Everyone else was out cold, including most Lobsters, or so I thought. When I returned to the living room, I almost missed it: soft gasps. I listened a little closer, and realized my bunk-mate was trying to conceal tears.
I’d gotten the couch and Fergus had been relegated to a camping mattress on the floor in front of the TV. A hitching sob, barely audible, broke through the background drone of the ventilation’s sighs and the fridge’s hum.
“Fergus?” I whispered.
The noise stopped, then he chuckled and whispered, “Shit.”
“You okay?” Stupid question.
A pause. “I still can’t see faces. Only works in the Fort. All gone when we got back. Poof. Freaky. Didn’t… didn’t tell the others. Just said I didn’t think I should drive.” He swallowed.
I didn’t know what else to do but crawl over, lay down and put my arm around his shoulders. He was a head taller than me, but seemed content enough to be the little spoon. He wept more freely the moment I touched him, and we stayed that way for a while.
After he was done, he sighed, shivered, and said, “Thanks, hey?”
“I’ll get us out of this,” I said, angry now.
“Okay.”
We slept.
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