Glitch. Part 24

"Could be he just never saw the need."

Josh took another bite out of his popsicle. "Sounds weird to me. Like, suspicious s.h.i.t."

I kept on nodding.

"How's the ice cream?" Josh asked.

"It's not ice cream," I said. "It's a fudgecicle."

"f.u.c.king same thing."

We reached the end of the parking lot, the far side of the empty strip mall. A wooden fence rose up here, covered in spiky leaves and twisty nightshade.

Josh finished his popsicle and threw the stick on the ground. I still had a while to go on the Magnum.

"Let's go." I said. I'd tell him about the time-skip in the car, I decided. Where it was warm.

"Sure." Josh said from behind me. "Sam?"

"Yeah?" I asked, not looking.

"Sorry."

The world faded.

My sense of self became fuzzy, like the borders of my body were expanding and shrinking beyond the surface of my skin.

Clear, crystal thoughts went off like great ringing bells in my head.

Josh knew about the time-skip.

He suspected something.

His knife was out.

I looked up. The sky was full of stars.

"What are you doing with that Josh?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

My eyes saw in black and white and grey. They saw squares of white dots, checkered out on a black sky. My ears heard static. Every sound came in distorted like someone had hit the world's whammy bar.

"The knife behind your back." I said. My voice sounded raspy in the altered soundscape, like it wasn't used to speaking.

"What knife?" Josh asked. His voice was far away. So far away.

"The knife you're holding out." I said. "The knife you're ready to-"

I leaped ahead. The edge of a knife prodded my kidneys but didn't even break my clothes. I spun.

"It got you," Josh said. His voice stuttered like a skipping record.

Josh jumped forward. He swung the knife level with my throat. I jumped back and missed.

I guess I should have been angry. But I wasn't. Emotion seemed very distant now. I still knew what anger was, maybe I could spell it on a blackboard, but I didn't think I could feel it. Not now.

But then, I'd already blocked out a lot of feelings. Why not block out anger?

Josh pulled out a golden blur.

It looked like Lena's earring.

He sc.r.a.ped his knife across it.

White light poured from the cut, sharp and clear and painfully bright. And it was painful. It hurt.

I turned away, repelled by the toxic, charring warmth on my skin.

"f.u.c.k you for making me do this," Josh said. His voice now came clear now.

Too much light. Couldn't see. Couldn't hear. Light screaming at my nerve-endings, setting my world on fire. No senses, only pain.

But...

A shadow.

Shaped like a man. A man clutching a knife.

The light.

The shadow shuddered. It raised the knife. The blade went up. Had to stop it.

But the light.

The knife was coming closer now.

Had to stop it.

But the light.

HAD TO STOP IT.

The shadow's arm came down.

And froze.

The light faded. The hanging, silent stars rea.s.serted their hold on the world.

"f.u.c.k." Josh whispered.

CHAPTER NINE: HUNGER.

"Sam? That you?" Greg asked.

"Yeah." I kicked off my shoes and set the box of popsicles-cold, flimsy and damp-onto the floor. I pushed the door with my a.s.s and it creaked shut.

The apartment was dark, except for a blue glow from the television in the living room.

"Where were you?"

I ripped off my dress shirt. I loosened my belt with my other hand, toed off my socks, and kicked the hard nylon b.a.l.l.s so they scurried away into the coat closet. I took to box from the floor and headed to Greg's voice.

Greg was watching TV.

He sat on the sofa. In one hand, he held an orange family-size bag of Spicy Doritos. In the other hand he held a dusty, wadded up handful of chips. The TV showed a National Geographic program. It seemed to be about kung fu. On screen, a bunch of angry Chinese people in period costumes were breaking coconuts with swords. A narrator was explaining how steel was forged in ancient China.

"I was with friends," I said. I thunked the box down on the coffee table. "Popsicle?"

"Huh?" Greg asked, still staring transfixed at the TV.

"They're really good," I said. I ripped a slit through the box flaps with my thumb, and withdrew a dewy Magnum popsicle.

"I'm good. Wait-so what were you doing?" Greg asked. He pulled a handful of Dorito-shrapnel from the bottom of the bag and crammed it into his mouth.

"I was with friends," I repeated.

"You have friends?" Greg asked.

I unwrapped the Magnum and crashed on the couch next to Greg.

On the TV, the voicover explained that ancient a.s.sa.s.sins had used chopsticks for weaponry. We watched as a neon skeleton took hold of a pair of CGI sticks, and battled with another one holding a dagger. The chopstick-skeleton slapped away a knife thrust, and jammed the chopsticks into the other's eye-socket.

"Kung PAO!" The narrator exclaimed.

"Think you can eat chips with chopsticks?" I asked.

Greg looked into bag open in his lap. "There's some with the spoons."

I went to the kitchen. The cutlery drawer held three metal chopsticks. I took two tossed them over to Greg. They bounced off his face. Greg swatted at them noncommittally.

The doc.u.mentary showcased more unlikely weaponry: pens, fans, and miniature dogs that hid in sleeves-which I thought was cheating. Each weapon featured a CGI skeleton fight scene, and ended in a horribly pun.

"This is one weapon you don't want to cross!" The narrator said as one CGI skeleton pointed a crossbow at another and shot. Greg and I were trying to eat the Doritoes with chopsticks.

After Greg shoved a chip in his ear for the fifth time, I decided to go to bed.

I had a few bad dreams that night.

I dreamt I killed Josh.

I dreamt I was in danger.

But mostly I dreamt about the Stalker Man.

The cold started it. At first I shut it out. I bundled the covers tighter, and shoved a spare pillow against my chest. I had a few dreams-within-a-dream where I won the Kentucky Derby. I had another dream where I was a claymation alien on some kid's show. In another dream I fought a CGI skeleton with a dogbow-a crossbow that launched dogs.

But again and again the cold woke me up. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep and opened my eyes.

The Stalker Man.

Its head-white and hard and featureless-screamed loud and ugly and profane in my sight. It loomed like a mountain, dominating my field of vision, creating a dizzying sense of height, power, and dumb size.

The Stalker Man's face appeared distorted-a nightmare bulging in a fish-eye lens. Its face was lit from below, as if it held a flashlight in its hands. Shadows fell long and deep at the sides of its skull. They emphasized the paleness of its skin, and the way it stretched tight over the skull.

But it wasn't perfect, I noticed. The Stalker Man's skin didn't have pores, but I did see tiny wrinkles and golf-ball dimples-imperfections in the perfect, rubbery mask. The small errors just made it scarier. They made it real.

As I stared, the room grew slightly larger, then slightly smaller, like it was breathing, bending at the edges.

In typical nightmare-logic, I couldn't move.

I tried to look away. But the Stalker Man filled everything. My dirty room, with the mounds of dirty clothes, poster of Panda Lenin, and my two laptops open and glowing with white light, looked disturbingly accurate for a dream. I forced my eyes left, and saw red numbers spell 13:61 on my alarm clock. That wasn't helpful.

The entire time this dream played by, there was a sound: haaaaaa-waaaaa. It sounded like the ocean in a seash.e.l.l. At every haaaaa. a cold breath blew on my forehead. At every waaaaa, the hairs on my stubble tingled.

The Stalker Man was breathing.

I tried to look at my fingers, because that's a good way to realize you're in a dream. But I still couldn't move.