Umm...yeah. First Parnoia Agent fic. So please...be nice.
"L'il Slugger, L'il Slugger, come out and play with me,
I've got too much to do, but I know you hold the key.
L'il Slugger, L'il Slugger, there's nothing left to eat,
But still you're welcome in our house, so come and take a seat!"
The young girl hopped on her right foot from square to square, chanting her hopscotch tune. She couldn't really remember where it had come from anymore, but she liked it. It was just one of those things that kids her age sang sometimes.
"L'il Slugger, L'il -"
She gasped and lost her footing as, down the street, she heard a roar start up. It sounded like something rolling, really fast, and coming straight to her. Picking herself up off the lawn, the nine-year-old rushed to her door, and tried to reach for the handle.
It was too far up for her.
What was happening? Usually it was right about waist-high, but now it stretched up with the door, contorting itself until it nearly wrapped around her, as, all the time, the roaring was getting louder in her ears and she tried to scream –
"Hey, Yurumi!" An older girl smiled and waved to her, trundling past on pink roller blades. Blinking in the bright sun, the little girl raised her hand to return the greeting, but ended up staring blankly at her much-too-small fingers and arm.
Looking back at the door, in a normal shape, the doorknob the usual shoulder-height, she wondered what she had been so scared for. Eventually, she shrugged it off and tossed her favorite white stone across to her self-drawn hopscotch squares.
Raising her left foot, she jumped, chanting,
"L'il Slugger, L'il Slugger, the grown-ups are all gone,
Nothing's being done no more, no one to mow the lawn.
L'il Slugger, L'il Slugger, I don't like it here,
How can I focus right now when I know you're so near?"
She reached her starting point again, smiling. Now she would need two stones. Looking all around her, she saw that the only ones to be found were across the street in her neighbor's gravel driveway entrance. Nodding to herself, the seven-year-old psyched herself up for a sprint across the street and took off running.
Did something just move on the edge of her vision? Something sounded like roller skates, a long way off.
She gritted her teeth and reached the opposite side. Selecting a choice pebble, she expertly lobbed it onto her driveway and prepared for the return trip. Dashing back over now, she definitely saw something move, and stopped dead. What was that shadow?
The roaring, clattering sound was ringing in her ears, and a dark figure lurched from behind one tree to another every few seconds. Growing frightened, she hurried from the street and slammed into her door at full speed.
Where was the handle?
Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, she lifted her eyes to the towering wood that seemed about to crash down on her. She was panicking, almost out of control. "Mommy? Mommy, let me in!"
"Yurumi, is that you? You now I like it better if you spend such a nice day like this outside. Besides, you need to wait until you've learned never to do something so bad again."
Banging her small fists on the door, Yurumi screamed, "Mommy, what did I do? Are you angry that I crossed the street? I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Her mother poked a skewed face out of the kitchen window, and all but snarled, "You now what you did all right, you little tramp, and it's nothing to do with streets."
Staring at her, not comprehending, Yurumi gasped from her fear. The rolling was too much! It was giving her a headache, and her mother had said she was a, a… She snapped her eyes open and whipped her head toward the open street.
There, on golden roller blades, a boy wearing a baseball cap was striking a twisted metal bat against the ground. She couldn't make out any details of his face, but she knew in her heart that she had to get away.
Just as he lifted his face to hers, everything went silent. She was standing outside her normal house, on the front step, not sure what to do. Had her mommy sent her outside? Had she done something wrong?
All her doubts vanished as she saw a hopscotch game traced on the pavement. Of course, at four years old she only knew that most basic rules to the game, but it would entertain her. Her bustled over to it, and heard her mother's voice from the kitchen.
"You had better learn your lesson."
She froze. That wasn't her Mommy! It was laced with a deeper, more menacing voice, and she twirled on her heel to see who it was.
An eerie grin awaited her. On the windowsill, her eyes followed a golden, warped bat bang against the wood once, twice, three times. There was a horrible roaring in her ears, and when she backed up, she pressed against an itchy sweatshirt.
She screamed, watching a light as it whirled down toward her.
Some where, a long way from where Yurumi was, a baby cried. A doctor, standing near it in the hospital, looked at his nurse.
"And the mother just…died?"
"No, Doctor. She seemed fine, stable even, but she kept screaming for her mother."
"How old was she?"
Papers were flipped through on a clipboard, and the answer came reluctantly. "Fifteen, Doctor. She also screamed that she wanted her…childhood back? I understand her mother disowned her after finding out she had become pregnant over six months ago."
"So unfortunate. Why the police, though?"
"You didn't see? There was blood everywhere, all over the machinery. A lot of trauma, to the entire head area. They're…they're saying it was suicide."
"They are…?"
"The police, officially, doctor. People around here are saying that it was L'il Slugger."
"People do seem to draw conclusions rather quickly."
R&R...and I beg no flames.