Note: I don't own JtHM, Jhonen Vasquez does, and I am NOT him. I'm not even the same gender as him (whoa! I hope… must check in pants to be sure… yep! Am a girl!)
Chapter 2
Part One: Kicking Someone's ASS!
Johnny had jumped up, using the cloud of mace as a distraction, and was now hanging from the ceiling like a terrifying mutant spider. He was holding himself up by jamming his two long knives into the ceiling. As he moved across the ceiling, he left a series of jabs and dents. He was now hanging right above her, an angry expression playing on his face.
Devi, the one that got away… I thought I knew her… he thought to himself. I don't think giving her time made her forgive me.
Devi's face was red with rage. " Get out of here right now!" She shouted at him.
Ian turned and saw Devi screaming. " Devi, what's going on? You're shouting at the ceiling…?"
Devi spun around and shrieked: " Ian?! Can't you see him? Up there?" She pointed up at the ceiling.
Ian looked up. Johnny was gone.
Devi's heart pounded angrily and full of fear. Oh God… she thought. Ian probably thinks I'm insane now. What's happening to me? Is Johnny becoming some sort of freakish vision for me?
Ian shook his head. " Come on, Devi. You're just tired."
Devi sighed and told him: " I don't know what's going on with me. I thought – I thought that psychotic manifestations of ex-boyfriends wouldn't haunt me any longer."
Ian patted her shoulder. " Don't worry about it. If that Johnny guy tries to even touch you, call me."
" I don't think he's very into that whole touching scene." Devi replied. " He's all about some sort of mental connection. That's why it's so creepy. I just don't get his motives."
" He probably doesn't even have motives. I bet it all started after some sort of weird childhood trauma." Ian's chin trembled. " I've had so many of those." He turned away, looking very, very sad. The author of this story holds no sympathy for Ian though, and with an impeccable burst of wit, Ian suddenly has a gross little snot hanging out of his nose. Nobody tells him.
" Let's go home." Devi told him. " I need to get more mace." Her eyes narrowed into dark, blood-shot slits. " Much, much more mace."
Meanwhile, at Johnny's house, a dark and thin shadow is cast across a kitchen table. A small plate is set down in front of a hunched figure. The plate is empty except for a red-stained Popsicle stick. Johnny lifted the little wooden stick up and twisted it around. He had resorted to eating some old, freezer-burned ice cream for dinner. He could have had Fizz-Wiz, or a Frosty, or some other delicious (and fresh!) treat. Instead, he was tired, lonely, and filled with measly flashbacks.
He could remember how happy he had been on his date with Devi. It seemed like a very long time ago, even though it was really within the past year. It felt like an echo from a totally different life, though. Before he had died, before he had gone through so many various changes. Now he looked down at his thin, pointed fingers and thought hard.
Am I a slave to my own emotions? Do my primitive feelings own me? Love, hate, sadness, joy, such trifle words, but they describe things that can make or break a person. Do they make me or break me, though? Johnny snapped the Popsicle stick in half in frustration. I have no feelings left for Devi. She could move on for all I care.
He glanced out the window of the kitchen and saw the remnants of a sunset. The scattered clouds were gorgeous and a vivid red against the blazing emblem of the sun. Such beauty out there, does it deserve to be graced upon this stretch of land? He thought. With all the hypocrites and assholes out here, you'd think that there'd be some sort of veil to keep the heavens from witnessing it.
Johnny stood, the chair scraping the floor. In the basement he heard stirring. He had spent a while burying the corpses in his yard – quite a wholesome activity, really, and good for the biceps! – but now, now he had found new bodies to litter his lawn with.
If only I could have the shell of an insect, he figured, then it would be easier to reject feelings.
o-o-o
Meanwhile…
A Visit From the Author!
Be happy, Reader! I command it!
I, the author, am sitting, very tired, in front of a computer. I have a very nice, high-tech curvy sort of keyboard. My friend says there is a fancy name for these keyboards, but I just call it my split-in-half sci-fi keyboard. As I write, the E key often gets stuck. (EEE! So annoying!) Today is no exception. I scream in frustration, then rip the key off and stare at the little button beneath.
Dare I press it?
Fuck, no time to debate. I press it.
Immediately, the wall reverses itself and I find myself sitting in some freakish science lab. There is a duo of scientists inspecting something in a jar. The two scientists speak amongst themselves just loudly enough for me to hear them.
" I'm telling you, Carl, the rash is just a normal side-effect from…" The scientist spins around on his heels and faces me. " Oh! Hello! You have finally arrived!"
" Finally?" I mutter. " Was I on appointment or something?"
They seem to miss my joke. As the scientist turns to the one called Carl, I draw him an extra bodily sphincter in the middle of his back. Just wait until that starts itching for him in the middle of the night, I giggle to myself. I need coffee.
Carl says: " Listen, Greg, we need to explain everything to our test subject."
I suppose I am their test subject, for suddenly, they are both staring at me. I check my ears to see if perhaps something horribly wrong had sprouted out of them. There is nothing there.
" We have been performing an unusual test to see what the effects of small doses of computer radiation are." Greg says. Greg is really ugly, I must note. I have to bite my tongue not to laugh at his nose, which seems to be horribly off center. It looks like a tumor growing out of his cheek. My eyes hurt right now, I am shutting them to see if perhaps, by magic, this story completes itself on my own. I have reopened them, but the scientists are still standing, motionless, over me, waiting.
Carl is mixing something in some test tubes. He looks very intrigued. " Most people do not realize that computers read your mind. Microsoft Word is an evil demon that turns off the moment you finish writing a brilliant story."
" So true." I whisper, horrified.
Greg sniffs the air, looking worried. Carl ignores him.
" There is also the Internet, which shuts down sites randomly when you need them most." Carl continues.
Greg is sniffing the air. He lifts his arm and sniffles his armpit.
I am in need for adding gore and violence to this story. My fingers tremble. I wish to bang the "E" key in frustration. Then I recollect that my fingers are going 124 words a minute and banging any finger out of tune will probably split it in half.
" The virus scan only pretends to scan all your files. Secretly, it is duplicating them all and sending them to the government." Carl whispers frantically. " They're out to get us!" He grabs his head, shrieking.
I pull out my cattle prod. I had always thought it would be useful to carry one around, what with the crowds in the mall over the weekends. Especially all the annoying ditzy girls that just stand there talking, and I have to use my karate chop action to get into the comic book store. It is my home away from home. The store clerk knows me by name but prefers to call me Sparky. That is a very different, and possibly emotionally scarring, story.
Greg sniffs the air again. He is now sniffing Carl's neck. " Jeez, Carl, you reek." Greg informs, like the good friend he is.
Carl spins around to him. " What do you mean?" Carl then sniffles the air. " That's not me! It smells like some strange bodily fluid!"
They turn at me. I tend to be able to control the release of my bodily fluids. I say, very calmly and rationally: " Look down."
There is a very stinky puddle of shit (and some unidentifiable stuff too) around Carl's legs. Carl turns very red and lifts up his shirt. There is no sign of leakage on his white lab pants. " See? It's not me though!"
I shake my head and jab him with my cattle prod. His special little orifice – which I had added onto his back – squirts blood and shit all over the place. I find this very funny. I am glad he is facing me with his front, and his back is facing Greg. Greg's eyes are being pummeled by an onslaught of bodily fluids. He is shrieking.
Greg screams out: " I will never reveal the secret code, then! NEVER!"
I shrug. If indeed all computers are the spawn of Satan, I would prefer to not know. After all, about half my life has revolved around a screen of some sort.
Just then, I find myself lying on the front steps of my house in my very embarrassing pajamas. Someone has covered my face with a newspaper, thinking I was dead. I curse the considerate person to hell as I stand up, my hands shaking. I realize I had been hallucinating, but for some reason, I am oddly aroused by this all.
Moral: Coffee-deprivation is a very bad thing. Enjoying the smell of gasoline is another, more disturbing thing.
o-o-o
Chapter 2, Part 2: A Hair Affair
Johnny no longer had to kill out of necessity. He had previously killed to contain the beast in the wall. Now that the beast had destroyed it's own existence by tearing the wall down, he had nothing left in his house to fear but himself. So, rationally, he killed for himself. It was some sort of guilty instinct he had begun to possess since high-school days.
His hair was a mess, he noted. He rarely paid much duty to his own physical well-being, but now he realized that the last time he used a hair product of any sort, it was when he poured PepperAction H all over his head in Squee's bathroom. Then he lost all his hair after returning from hell, and afterwards it had grown back somewhat darkly. It was no longer shaved off and left as a mass of spikes at the top. It was more of a full-headed layer of spikes, which was much more easy to manage.
He realized he needed to cut his hair. Yet, he had clogged his electronic razor with intestinal flesh, and his razors were all dulled from being impaled repeatedly into human bones. He didn't have the money to buy himself new hair products. He realized he'd have to go to a barber.
Johnny couldn't remember when he had last had a professional inspect his hair. Johnny did rinse it out occasionally to make sure no other human's body parts were in there, but other than that, it was probably laden with all sorts of problems. A barber was almost as cold as a doctor, simply pinpointing your problems, like a knife making a straight cut: " You have dandruff, you bastard! Holy shit, and look at all these lice! And is that – God, no! – that is clearly a piece of someone else's skull! And what's with all the shrapnel bits?"
He thought of this as he walked towards the Barber. He stopped in front of the window display. There was a sign in the window: Now Specializing In Punk and Goth Haircuts. Johnny's own dislike of being lumped into a box – a label, so to speak – was lessened when he saw that there was a haircut you could get that was just like his original one.
He pushed open the door. The bells jingled happily, but he was startled by it. He yanked out his knife and he spun around, staring at the door in a wide-eyed paranoia.
" Mommy! The man has a knife! He'll kill me!" A little girl cried out.
" See? That's what you get for watching Pokemon." The mother scolded. "You're seeing things." The mother was deeply engrossed in the new issue of Madame magazine. The cover read: Top Ten Ways to Cover Bite Marks On Your Face. Menopause and You (Special Pop-up Book insert). Three Effective Ways to Potty Train Your Husband.
Johnny walked up to the desk.
The girl that was on duty at the desk looked up at him, blowing an angry pink bubble with her bubble gum. It popped, sending Johnny into jitters again.
" Y' want a haircut, a haircut and a wash, or a haircut, wash, and style?" The girl asked.
" Uh…" Johnny thought hard. " I guess a cut and wash."
" Twenty Four dollars." The girl replied, plopping a big fat yellow piece of paper down in front of him. Her sloppy, cutesy handwriting told clearly that a haircut was no simple affair – it would cost, and a lot. (The author wonders, why can't he just put a bowl over his head and snip off all visible hair? Its' a great way to look like a social outcast!)
" Shouldn't I pay after it's cut?" Johnny asked.
" What are ya, the fuckin' President or sumthin'? No pay, no service." The girl lowered her eyes at him. " Get yer ass out of my face. There's more people in line."
Johnny gave her a silent middle finger from within the pocket of his coat as he sat down on the sofa beside the girl. He pulled out his wallet and thumbed out the money. Luckily, he always collected victim's money from their pockets, took a small percentage fee, and then left the rest in the victim's family's mailbox. He wasn't a stealer.
" Mister?" The girl whispered.
Johnny turned and gave her a toothy grin. " You know how they cut hair, right?"
The girl's eyes widened. She shook her head.
" For the little kids – like you – they have an alligator in the yard. They just put your head in it's mouth, or sometimes through the other way, and then whatever's left of your scalp is your new look." Johnny whispered.
The girl gasped and buried her face in her mother's sleeve, weeping.
The girl's mother didn't even look up. She was reading an article called How to Pay Attention to Your Child – Forty Signs That You Should Stop Reading and Help!
Johnny stood, put the money on the counter, and then sat down again. It would be a long wait. He took out a sheet of paper and began to draw a Happy Noodle Boy comic.
o-o-o
Chapter 2, Part 3: A Surprise
Devi walked down the street, heading home from her grueling day at the bookshop. She hated having to walk all the way to work and all the way back again, but her car was currently in repair. She felt the can of mace through the pocket of her jacket. She hoped it was enough to ward off a surprise attack from Johnny. She didn't know what he wanted from her anymore. She couldn't comprehend why he couldn't understand just how much she couldn't stand him. She didn't want to see him – EVER again. She wanted to reserve whatever remaining good memories of him she had, and not replace them with new, more traumatizing ones.
She was walking by the hair salon now. It had been a while since she had been in here… Tenna had once worked here… she stopped and looked inside. Her heart froze. Johnny, right there.
Sweet angry baby Jeezus, I'm seeing things again, she thought frantically. She tore her eyes away and shut them, shivering in fear. Why is his image following me? What the fuck is wrong with me? Have I honestly lost all touch with reality? I just knew I should have aired my apartment out from all that acrylic paint smell before I got brain damage!
When she opened her eyes again, he was still there. He looked up from whatever it was he was doodling on a piece of paper and waved to her.
Heh. Well, if it's just a freaky illusion, I won't let it worry me. If I don't let it annoy me, it'll go away, right? She thought to herself. She waved back to Johnny, smirking. Hah! Take that, psychotic hologram!
His eyes widened and he gave her a gigantic, very frightening grin. It was almost all too real. She didn't let it bring her down though. She could remember how, in her childhood nightmarish dreams, all she'd have to do is stop and wave to the monsters to make them go away. If she would acknowledge them as fake, and show she didn't care, they would disperse. She gave Johnny a huge grin back. Then, she walked on, shaking her head.
You're losing it, Devi, she thought bitterly. I bet all the store people are wondering why you were waving at the wall…
o-o-o
Chapter 2, Part 4: What the Fuck?
She isn't mad? Johnny thought suddenly. Or maybe she didn't recognize me… but you'd think she'd remember me from yesterday, right? His mouth dropped open in surprise. Oh my God, I broke her brain!
" Mr. C, your turn." The snotty desk girl was saying. She blew a bubble gum bubble and added, meanly: " What're you, on drugs? You're scaring the old lady over there."
Johnny glanced at the old lady. She shivered in fear and shrunk away from his glance, as if he were some sort of demon. He turned angrily at the girl. " Why do you talk to me like that? Would you talk to her like that?" Johnny motioned carelessly towards the old lady.
" Oh, shut up." The girl rolled her eyes.
Johnny glanced at the shiny nameplate on the girl's breasts. It said, in bold print, Mimi. Mimi frowned in anger. " Stop staring at my tits, you asshole."
" Asshole?" Johnny hissed. " I'm an asshole?"
" Shh!" The woman with the child shrieked. " How dare you use such language in front of my child?"
The little girl whimpered. " Mommy, your voice hurts my ears."
" Shut up, you little fuck." The woman replied to her child, then said to Johnny: " You have some explaining to do, young man!"
Johnny's brain reeled. Devi had waved to him, smiled at him, with what had to be some sort of unusual female flirting gesture. Then all of a sudden, here he was standing in the center of a hair salon, assholes abound, and he was just taking the ass whipping from them.
His eyes narrowed into slits. Devi couldn't do this to him. It was far too late to turn back, to allow himself to feel some sort of affection for her. She was probably crawling back to him, or maybe she was joking around, trying to make him crawl back to her. Whatever it was, it was just an evil ploy. He didn't need anyone, no friends, no girl to hold him back. Besides, happiness was so fleeting when it came to love.
Johnny lifted the little girl and scooted her into the closet, just because he had always felt some affiliation towards children of Squee's age. Then, he spun around, yanking a very sharp hatchet out from his pants pocket. He spun it around on his fingers.
" Oh, mi Gawwwwwwd!" Mimi gasped. " You are so not going to do what I think you're going to do, right?"
" You talk so much!" Johnny exploded. " Why don't I just…" He grunted with exertion as he slammed the hatchet into her cheek. "… rip you a new mouth?"
Red blood gushed out, creating some artificial cherry red lip-like ring around the hole in Mimi's cheek. Johnny laughed viciously. " Red lipstick is not your color." He whacked again. Wham! " I bet it's so hard to live with yourself, if your lipstick doesn't match the lace on your socks."
" It… doesn't?" Mimi gasped, looking down.
"Let… me… take … care… of…" Whack, whack, whack… "… that." Suddenly, her legs were shards, and her socks, lace and all, were crimson.
Johnny spun around at the child's mother. " You're no mother, you fuck." He mimicked.
" Get away from me!" The mother shielded her face.
" It's a story, of a pervert…" Johnny sang along the Brady Bunch theme song, possibly the worst song in the universe. "…who was about to raise a little asshole of her own… and all the time you thought, she was breast feeding… she was having in-cest!" The hatchet propelled itself through the air. Johnny shouted, laughing joyfully: " I bet you thought you were such a great mother, right?"
" Ahhh!" The woman cried, the hatchet splitting her in half.
" Your child will thank me some day." Johnny whispered. He turned around and faced the old lady. The old lady seemed to have fallen into a diabetic coma though. He raised his hands, ready to whack her one, then suddenly felt a wave of guilt and sadness.
Why am I not truly happy? Johnny thought. I should have a huge smile on my face by now.
He turned and examined himself in the mirror hanging on the wall. He had an artificial smile plastered on. What's wrong with me? Suddenly, Johnny felt he understood. Ah, yes… slowly, all human emotions are being erased from me. This is not guilt… this is an insect-like perversion that is creeping through me. Soon I will feel nothing at all…
At least, so he hoped. He hoped against hope that his feelings had nothing to do with Devi.
Author Sez: Did you notice any typos? If so, too bad! Just white them out on your computer screen and draw the rightful letter/word in with marker, you tight ass! I refuse to have any Beta Reader! I'm independent! I need nobody!
Whoa… serious coffee hangover…
Review or I'll die!!!!!!!!