I made a reference to Fatal Frame 3 if any of you played the game. See if you can find the reference.
Warning; This chapter has a very ambient feel to it by the way.
"Unto an evil counselor close heart and ear and eye . . ."
Spiderfly
Chapter 4
The alleyway was spotted with lights leading back towards where the Happy Times side entrance was. He saw the back entrances of many different kinds of stores, restaurants, and shops. Every now and then he'd see somebody step out to smoke or grab a breath of air. They hardly spared him a glance as he walked by them; dodging the rings of light from above the doors they opened and closed so easily.
His boots barely scuffed the floor as he walked, he hardly made a sound as he moved and whether or not this was from his natural organic programming or some outside force keeping him under the spectrum he didn't know. Johnny slid in and out of focus too quickly for anyone to get a good enough look at.
Some people, though, reached out to what they couldn't see properly. They saw something strange and touched out of either curiosity or in malice because they believed that touching something that wavered like smoke was okay. They believed that the intangible couldn't hurt them back. A door slammed somewhere behind him and he heard the clinking of glass and the gruff voices of two men opening a dumpster.
Two bright lights above a door to his right made him stop. The Happy Times logo was printed on the neon green door in bright Red Letters and black words wrapping around the big and round brass doorknob read; Walk Ins.
'Are you still listening to me?'
What was he doing? His hand was reaching out again of its own will to touch the doorknob, to grab it and open the door with a quick twist. It was reaching out to follow a mother and child he didn't know, into a place he'd never been.
"The faces, all I see are shadows and seamless skin. No eyes or mouth, there's nothing."
Nny sat up, his right arm and thigh dripping red from lying in the glass, "I can't remember anything." He buried his face in his knees and hugged his legs. Larvae were eating at his brain.
'You need to learn to control your temper tantrums, Nny.'
The tip of his finger brushed the cold metal and he snapped back into focus. His hand was already gripping it and turning. Everything in front of him blurred and neon green turned black. The hand reaching up for the doorknob was small, pale and shaking as it only just managed to pull the door open.
"These nightmares will fade, I promise." A man, someone who was nice, somebody who bought him and his mother things reached out to ruffle his hair. The touch was comforting.
"Malnutrition, dehydration, stress, sleep deprivation, possible chronic insomnia . . ."
"Take this." His father was speaking this time and giving him some of his mother's medicine for when he screamed. He was seeing monsters in the night, crawling from his back.
"Shut up you little-!" His mother woke him from his night terrors into a very real one with angry slaps and a raised fist. His father pulled her off just as he slipped into a dreamless black.
The doctor was darker than his dad, but not by much. His eyes were brown, hair black, Gabriel Manning was smiling at Todd sadly. His mother never paid any medical bills.
"He's an old friend, says he'll help Todd through this, he owes me a favor." She reached up to take her pills from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet, "He just wants to help." And they both know this is a lie.
"Did they catch the guy?"Mr. Casil sitting at the kitchen table, staring into his hands.
"Who?" Looking into her eyes he saw nothing.
"The one who attacked Todd."
"Yes, he tried taking another kid from the mall again."
A man he didn't know reaching for him, grabbing his shirt. Screaming but not making a sound, the smell of sweat and the sting of cold night air on his skin and in his cuts. Breathing, hurting, crying, running, falling, not understanding why . . .
Mr. Casil glanced back at his wife, she was examining a pair of faux silver earrings with subtle interest. There were so many people today. It took about a minute for him to realize that something was missing.
Todd was gone.
Two hours later; "We found him."
"We need to contact the hospital, Doctor. He should be admitted to the proper facilities for evaluation. We don't have the equipment or the right to handle adults."
"It's time to wake up." Johnny's eyes opened immediately, the woman was startled but the man beside her in a white lab coat just smiled.
"Your name?" He pushed himself up to his elbows and just looked around. The room was small, an examination room perhaps, he was laid out on a high and stiffly cushioned bench that was so small his legs dangled off the side. The walls were gray and bright and colorful pictures were hanging all around him.
"Sorry if you're uncomfortable. We're not used to accommodating anyone over the age of sixteen." The man was a little on the short side, about 5ft 4in tall, with dark skin and thick black hair. He held out a burly hand that Nny ignored in favor of pushing himself off of the bench.
"I didn't quite catch your name, Sir." He watched as Nny wandered curiously towards one of the walls.
"Johnny." He said simply. The doctor nodded over to the woman who took down some notes and prompted him further.
"Johnny-?" The posters, though bright and surrounded by flowers and smiley faces, warned of deadly and highly contagious diseases one could catch if they didn't wash their hands every day. He wondered, with a smile on his own face, what people would think if he told them he came into contact with blood on a daily basis and had yet to catch anything.
"Johnny C."
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. C." Nny turned from investigating a poster depicting images of staph infections to bow for the Doctor.
"Likewise, Mr-?"
"Herring, Anthony Herring. I'm the head Doctor here at Happy Times Correctional Facility."
"Since when did doctors run correctional facilities? I thought the state did that." Dr. Herring wondered quietly if the young man was perhaps homeless, he didn't smell but his clothes were a little threadbare.
"Dr. Herring?" The young woman near the door called out and held out the clipboard in her hand. He walked over, around Johnny to take it from her.
"We found you near the side-entrance, you'd passed out before we brought you in. How did you end up out there, Mr. C.?"
"You didn't answer my question." The Doctor looked up from the clipboard with a politely confused expression.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Since when did doctors run correctional facilities for children?" Johnny smiled and said it slowly, pronouncing each word carefully. The Dr. Herring bristled at his tone.
His bag was still in his car, Nny realized and he wondered if being in a clinic meant he would find something useful lying around. The mumbling man looked away and the woman stepped forward to speak to him.
"How about a tour? I could show you Happy Times and explain exactly what it is we do here before you leave. Dr. Herring is, after all, a very busy man and has a lot of patients to watch after." She looked over at the Doctor and gently pushed him out the door. Johnny watched warily as she dumped the clipboard on the table and reached under the cabinet to pull out a bin.
"Your keys were the only thing we found on you." She set them on the table near the clipboard. "We decided to wait until you woke up before we called the nearby hospital. How are you feeling?" She started making notes on the papers she had.
"Any pain? Are you experiencing any hallucinations or having trouble hearing?" He snatched his keys off of the table and the woman jerked back.
"Can we just skip the paperwork? I have to get going soon and I don't want-" Johnny pulled open the door just as someone went running by. They streaked by in front of him, screaming as they went.
"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?" a scraggly blonde person twirled in circles as they sang and ran only a little ways down the hall. The nurse behind him excused herself to join several other staff members as they tried to subdue the person, an obvious patient, screaming.
"But the snail replied 'Too far, too far," and gave a look askance. Said he thanked the whiting kindly but he would not join the dance!"
"Calm down Ms. Jacobs, everything is alright!"
"Dance with me, Nancy!"
"Let's get you to your room, Leslie."
"'What matters it-!'" A nurse made a grab for her, "'how far we go?' his scaly friend replied!" Jacobs jerked her arm away and started running back the way she came, "'There is another shore, you know, upon the otherside!'"
"Grab her!" Johnny couldn't see her face amidst the mess of matted blonde hair as she skid past him again, through some double doors to his right down the hall, the nurses and two doctors running after her. Even the woman who was supposed to be watching him had followed her, a needle in her hand. He watched them until they disappeared entirely and slipped out towards the other end of the hallway. Almost everyone was gone and the people left didn't pay him any mind.
"That Leslie girl's almost as bad as her mother."
"Her mom used to attack other patients though, she should have been moved across the city when they found out she was pregnant."
"She was fifteen, still young enough to be here." The two women at the nurses' station sat gossiping while they did their work. Johnny thought, as he continued down the hall that he could still hear the girl singing in the distance.
"Yeah but did you hear that Dr. Manning . . ." the hall opened up to what he guessed was the front entrance, the double glass doors letting in what little light was provided from the street lamps outside. Just before he walked towards the gate that lead to what he guessed was a waiting area the outside door lights flickered on and caught his attention. Looking over he saw the woman and her child from the convenience store walking out of an elevator beside the nurses' station. He stared in disbelief at his luck.
"You did well this time, honey. When we get home-"
"It's none of your business!" Why had he followed them here? Johnny saw the mother gently grasp the boy's hand and lead him out the doors with a sick sense of dread and the quick creep of anger.
. . . to keep you hungry!
"Why would you tell me that-!"
. . . that fucking need for sensation no matter how sick the circumstances. People touching and feeling without abandon, without inhibition or reserve! Just the thought of it makes me want to rip the skin from my body and use it to gag a prostitute with the awareness of suffocation. Hunger stems from that desperate and physical need for the physical world and in the end the touch leaves us empty, hungry for more. It drags us with our appetite, beats us with our loneliness, and thrills us because it is the only thing that proves we are alive, but not awake! Even in our dreams we feel those damningly necessary hungers when all we need is silence, even if only enough to gather our thoughts. I don't want touch to be the only thing that keeps me aware when I'm not even sure if what I'm aware of is real. Etched into our thoughts and skin over and over and over . . .
"Your mother and I only want to help you, Todd."
"I don't think I'm Todd anymore."
"Gabriel I don't think he's going to be okay . . ."Mrs. Casil sobbing into Dr. Manning's shirt.
"Don't cry, I'll help him in any way I can. I don't want you to worry about a thing."
. . . and over until our mind and bodies are a mess of lines and words that make no fucking sense. No matter how much is chipped away we still feel every line cut, every need carved into us. It leaves behind horrifying scars that displace us, separating who we are from who we were . . .
"I don't think I'm Todd . . ." and then abrupt silence.
They said you were a sweet boy
But all I see is wrong
What do you see?
I want you to look at it and concentrate.
Numb, he moved without realizing what he was doing towards the door. He followed them out, his keys jingling loosely in his hand but they did not hear him. They walked past the convenience store, the clerk an older man this time, and Johnny's car. He didn't even stop to grab his bag but followed the two of them in the dark like a man possessed.
When all that sweetness is used up
You'll sing an empty song
She was the one who let go of him.
". . . again, that moment always in my eyes . . . etched in there over and over, again . . ."
"Todd?" his voice barely above a whisper but he was speaking and that in itself was promising.
". . . my eyes . . . etched in there over and over, again, again . . ."
"How are your parents doing?" Todd stilled for a moment just staring at the window. At first he didn't make a sound until a shadow flapped across the glass and he looked up at Dr. Manning, then down at his desk. He clutched at his teddy bear, fingers digging into the fabric.
The empty jar was still sitting right in front of him, gleaming and full.
"They won't stop talking."
"What do they talk about?"
"Someone named . . ." Dr. Manning sat up straight in his chair. His fingers itched for his pen.
"Who?"
"It's not empty anymore."
"What?"
"I see something." A breakthrough, the road uphill, the doctor felt the joy of the promise of success and Todd's possible recovery.
"What do you see?" Todd looked through the glass with curious, brown eyes. There were too many to count, he was sure. They flew around in zigzagging shapes, into the walls of their prison and each other buzzing louder and louder.
You'll sing of dying butterflies
Of bugs and crocodiles
You'll sing of empty towns and streets
That run for empty miles
Walking down the sidewalk felt wrong, he should be running, he should be hurting her. He should be screaming.
Alone in his room and cradling his friend in his arms, Todd listened to the screaming coming from downstairs. Weeks had passed and bruises had healed but something had been broken beyond repair and it tore at his hands and legs like the long and twisted fingers of a nameless and faceless fear. While his parents fought Todd huddled in his bed, jumping at the sound of a vicious thud a floor down. Possibilities slipped into his head like poison and swirls of smoke drifted from under his bed and out of his closet, carrying voices that whispered things Todd didn't want to hear. He sobbed under his blanket.
"Shmee, make the bad thoughts go away. I don't want to remember anymore."
X
End Chapter 4
Thank you to those who reviewed Chapter three and Hannah for Chapter 2.
Hannah- Any review given dignifies a story as long as it isn't childish or rude, of which your review was neither. Thank you for reading and liking what you read.
I can't remember if I replied to these personally or not so just in case;
wolfWhispers-Thank you, I have fun completely twisting a cult classic comic book to suit my own deranged ideas. Tis great fun.
Invader Jay- Yes it is in the past, but the real question is whose past. Thank you for the review
Neo-kun- I'm glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for the review.
The song sung by Leslie is from Lewis Carroll's The Lobster Quadrille and is based on Mary Howitt's poem Said the Spider to the Fly which is where the top quote comes from. Lyrics at the end of this chapter are from a poem titled Monster and it was written by me. For the full poem either log in and leave a review stating that you'd like it or, for those without an account, leave me a working email address and I'll send it to you.
Monster is not the official Spiderfly poem, by the way. That comes later. This more of a children's rhyme sort of song.
Please review for the next chapter.