Chapter 7, Part 1: What To Do?

Johnny heard the phone ringing. He had closed his eyes and proceeded to sit in a meditating silence, trying to recover some strength, for his severe lack of sleep. He opened his eyes again, lifted the phone, and cradled it to his ear. " Start talking." He said hardly.

" It's the police. Come out of the house with your hands up!" A voice barked from the other end.

" Devi…?" He asked.

She laughed nervously. " Call it guilt, but… I won't call the cops on you."

Johnny's hands trembled and he had to keep the phone balanced entirely between his shoulder and his cheek. " Oh? Oh! That's great!" He looked around nervously, trying to see if he was dreaming. Nothing out of the ordinary though. A quick pinch to the arm convinced him fully.

" That's just about it though." Devi said. " This is the last time I hope to talk to you. The last time to even see you, to be honest. I just don't want to deal with you anymore."

Johnny nodded, then realized she couldn't see him nod through the phone and said: " I can understand that you want nothing to do with me. I have thought about it for the last few hours. All I have to do is figure out what to do with these tampons."

Devi laughed. " Sometimes I think you're the old Nny."

Johnny grinned blandly. " Hmm."

" I have to go." She said. " Before this one moment of fondness passes. I want to end it with a happy feeling for you, okay?" Devi sounded a bit sad.

" Don't you have any feelings in you for me anymore?" Johnny pleaded.

" No." She lied. " I don't." It was better not to lead him on.

" Goodbye." He said, hanging up first, so as not to hear the click of the phone from her end. The click that would separate them forever, a click that made him hurt inside.

He sat there, feeling lost and alone. He whispered, out loud: " I don't want to kill anymore." It hung heavily in the air, a statement that finalized his decision. " I just don't want to do it anymore."

Nail Bunny replied, sagely: " It's always wise to allow your better sides to win, Nny."

" It's too late though." Johnny countered. " I can give up now, but she had already moved on. I'm giving it up for her, but she'll never even look at me again."

" Love is a painful thing. Your unrequited love is just one variation of thousands of themes of love. You should do this for her, and for yourself. Perhaps changing gradually will reinvent you in her eyes." Nail Bunny explained.

Johnny rubbed his temples thoughtfully. " What if it doesn't? What if she never wants to come back to me?"

" Then you would have won anyway. You've done your part, now you need to rest and recover. Perhaps lying low, continuing your art career, and writing some more intelligent things other than Happy Noodle Boy will lead the way to recovery." Nail Bunny told him.

" Eventually all the voices will fade away." Johnny added.

" Yes. I will be gone too, though. You'd have to find my reasoning within you then." Nail Bunny told him.

" I hate the feeling of being alone!" Johnny said. " That's why I invented you…"

" So now you remember another thing. You recall what led you to want to have us voices. You felt alone, and with dozens of combating forces in you. It would have killed you to keep them all inside, so you assigned them to objects around you. You let them duke it out. Now you'll be left alone again, and with all the voices inside. It will be very hard to learn to let the good ones win." Nail Bunny said. " But you can do it."

Johnny looked outside at the slate gray sky. " I hate it, everything, I hate it!" He covered his eyes with his hands and sat there in a poised silence.

" Your easel waits. Paint, Nny. Learn how to release your feelings through your paint." Nail Bunny told him.

Johnny stood up and yanked out the dusty old easel from the closet, and then his paint set. He would try again, try to master an art he had known so dearly many months before.

o-o-o

Meanwhile… Squee's Nightmare!

o-o-o

Squee was dreaming again.

This time he was walking down a street, eating peacefully, when a vision of his parents appeared in front of him.

Squee gasped and dropped the lollipop he was sucking. " You look just like Mommy and Daddy!" He whimpered.

His Father smacked him. " We are Mommy and Daddy, you idiot!"

Squee put his thumb in his mouth and whimpered.

" Todd!" His Mother scolded. " Don't suck anything not meant to be sucked. Suck only suckable things that are suck-worthy, like suckers." She lifted his lollipop from the dirt. " While you're at it, we have some spaghetti stains in Daddy's shirt. That would be dinner."

" No!" Squee shrieked, frightened. He felt that, at least in the mental hospital, he'd be free of their control.

" Squee, we have other news for you." His Mom said. " You'll have a brother." Suddenly, his mother's stomach was split in half, like that scene in Alien, and this gross little baby rolled out, bit in half his own umbilical chord, and threw himself against Squee, choking him.

" AHHHH!" Squee shrieked in fear.

His mother's body fell to the ground, a bloody empty skin-shell.

The little baby was Pepito. " Hey, Squee! How are you? Did you miss me?" Pepito laughed in his face. His breath smelled worse than the smelliest smell that ever smelled. That is pretty foul, mind you.

" Don't hurt me!" Squee whimpered, sobbing.

" Come with me!" Pepito dragged him up a hill and showed him the world's view from up there. "See out there, kid?"

" Mmm-hmm?" Squee squealed out.

" Watch!" Pepito snapped his fingers. Suddenly, everything was in flames.

" NO!" Squee gasped. He could see everything, as far as the eye could see, go up in flames.

" And guess what, Squee?" Pepito lifted Shmee and dangled him over the Cliffside. " Look who's getting burned next!"

Squee gasped and threw himself off the cliff, catching Shmee.

Squee woke up, having wet his pants.

" Oh… you're still alive." The nurse reading the heart monitor said. " We were all excited too. Your heart pure damn stopped for a second."

" I wet my pants." Squee mumbled, embarrassed.

The nurse wasn't even listening. She plopped a Band-Aid on his face and walked off, muttering: "Get well soon."

Squee hugged Shmee and rocked back and forth. A sign on the wall said: If you can read this, your medication isn't strong enough.

o-o-o

Chapter 7, Part 2: The Painting

Two weeks later, Devi opened her apartment door, ready to go outside and buy some more chicken soup cans, when she saw a tall, thin package propped up against the door. " What's this?" She wondered, pulling it inside.

The label on the package read: To Devi from Nny C.

She wondered if she should open it or not. It could contain highly explosive… uh… explosives, and if she were to open it, she'd have to manually yank out shrapnel from her ass for a week. Devi tore the wrapping open anyway.

A painting slid out. It was in majority done in dark colors, and it showed a girl dressed in black standing on a cliff, looking at the dark turbulent waters below, obviously ready to jump. Then, behind the girl, a shadowy figure, like a boy, holding her hand.

It was her in the painting, and that was Nny in the background. Thin, dark, shadowy, nothing to distinguish his features other than a smudge of dark beige against black.

" Sweet Jeezus." She moaned, looking the painting over. It was absolutely gorgeous. Then, she turned it over. On the back, he had signed it. So messily, of course, that his last name was just a blur. "Johnny C---."

" What're you looking at?" Tenna appeared in the doorway from the kitchen.

" Package." Devi replied. " Look what he painted."

" Ian?" Tenna asked, looking at the painting. " That is so romantic."

" No… Nny." Devi sighed.

" Oh, man." Tenna shook her head. " That weirdo has the hots for you, what can I say?"

Devi glanced out into the distance blankly. " What's really scary is that I'm not sure anymore whether I have feelings for him or not."

" Look, you need to call Ian right now and strike up a date. The moment you're out with Ian, you'll forget Johnny. Trust me, you need fresh air." Tenna told her. " How about it?" Tenna handed her the phone.

Devi nodded. " You're right. I need to go out there and enjoy what I have."

" What you have is a successful psychology major. Trust me, there's no way Ian will ever do anything bad to you." Tenna grinned. " Okay?"

" Okay…" Devi dialed Ian.

o-o-o

Chapter 7, Part 3: Devi's Date

o-o-o

Devi glanced up from the wineglass and smiled tentatively at Ian. " So, how's everything at the office?" Ian held a pretty good, $19 an hour, steady job at a psychologist's office. So far he was just an assistant, and that meant he did the original checkup and sign-in of patients. Ian was moving up the psychologist spectrum though.

" Someone barfed on me." Ian confessed. " Some psychotic little boy peed his pants later on, too."

" That's horrible." Devi said, though she didn't really feel that way. " Did anyone help the boy out?"

" Well, I guess so." Ian shrugged. " I don't really deal with those things. I think they took away the boy's teddy bear as punishment."

" Oh." Devi blinked sadly. " Hey, listen, Ian. I'm sorry for my outburst yesterday."

" No problem. You were facing a positively traumatizing situation. It was a defense mechanism." Ian smiled happily. " Trust me, it's nothing worse than what I've seen before at work."

" Please don't analyze me." Devi warned.

" Oh, alright. I can see how my constant analyzing could have strained our relationship."

" You're doing it again!" Devi sighed. " You're going to force me into a rage-filled frenzy if you keep this up."

" Devi, do you still have feelings for Johnny?" Ian asked, seriously.

" Do you have to bring his name up?" Devi asked.

" It seems that you still do, and I'm worried."

" Devi!" She heard someone whisper from behind her just then.

Devi turned. Johnny was sitting at a table just adjacent to theirs. Her eyes widened and she mouthed: Do Not Talk To Me!

" We need to talk!" Johnny said, loudly.

" Who the heck is that?" Ian asked, looking at Johnny.

" Just an old acquaintance." Devi lied through gritted teeth. " Excuse me."

Devi stood and walked to the bathroom. She felt like throwing up all of a sudden. As she stopped in front of the bathroom, Johnny emerged from behind a potted plant.

" Devi!" He said, finally. " I know we decided that you would never have to look at me again, but…"

" Keep your word, Nny!" She threatened. She could feel her heartbeat increase. She hated him so much! Why did he have to make her feel so caught, as if she were a deer in the headlights?

" … Listen to me." Johnny said. " My friend's in trouble."

" You have friends?" She exclaimed. " Or are we speaking about one of your voices?"

" It's this little boy neighbor. He's being held in the mental institute where Buttface Ian works." Johnny said.

" What am I supposed to do?" Devi spat.

" Steal his access card."

" How am I supposed to do that?" She asked.

" Pretend you are hugging him, however sickening that is, but in the meantime remove his access card from his rear pocket." Johnny offered.

" Why would I do anything to help you?" Devi demanded.

Johnny gave her a sad face. " I'm working so hard to change myself for you, that's why."

" Damn it!" She fumed. " You're insane. I wouldn't want to ever be with you. Get that through your thick head! Here…" She pulled out her switchblade and handed it to him. " Just do yourself a favor and kill yourself."

Johnny pocketed the knife for later use and replied: " Devi, listen to me."

" I'm through with you." Devi said. " I really am. You don't frighten me. If you want to kill me, go ahead." She hissed. " I'm tired of hiding."

" If only you could talk to Nail Bunny!" Johnny said. " He'd explain everything. Why I do everything that I do."

" I know why you do it. You're simply crazy." Devi told him. " And now you're really become pathetic, crawling back to me, groveling at my feet. You're not your old self at all."

" I don't know what I am." Johnny said.

" To be honest, I preferred the bookstore-Johnny to all of them." Devi said, tenderly. " The one that stood in a mysterious shadowy way, always a big question mark as to what was inside. Very calm, rational, romantic, quiet, and endlessly patient. You were perfect. Then… then you had to ruin everything."

" I can still change! I didn't think I could, but I made Reverend Meat disappear already. And the Doughboys… and Nail Bunny disappeared last night." Johnny told her. " I'm working on it."

" Well, find yourself, fast, and then realize you need help." Devi told him, walking away.

Johnny looked down at his wrists. Suddenly he wished to slit them. He wanted to die more than ever. What had he become, but a hapless, misshapen grovel-driven freak? He was a kiss-boot to a girl, something that was worse than death. He wanted to die, plainly and simply. It would save him from weeks of hard work and self-discovery.

Meanwhile, Devi returned to her seat with Ian. She smiled at Ian. " Sorry about that."

" It's fine." Ian replied.

They began to eat, but suddenly Ian fell head-first into his soup bowl.

The waiter stared in disbelief and said: " Couldn't even wait until I brought spoons!"

Devi stared at the back of Ian's head. It was a bloody mess.

Johnny emerged from the shadows, looking embarrassed. " I'm sorry, I had to do this." He knocked the waiter out as well with a faucet spout he was carrying from the bathroom. Then, he turned and took out Ian's access card. " Squee, I'm coming." He whispered. " I promised I'd look out for you…"

" Nny…?" Devi exclaimed, frightened.

" Don't worry. Ian's fine." Johnny said. " He'll regain consciousness soon, as will the waiter. They might not remember the past few days though."

Devi shook her head, stupefied. " Why didn't you just kill them?" She hissed, hugging her sides nervously.

" Killing does nothing for me anymore." Johnny looked away, looking very sad. " Nothing makes me happy anymore."

Devi shook her head. " Why don't you just get some help?" She asked.

" I'm not a criminal, that's why." Johnny said.

" Oh, right. You're a flusher." Devi sighed. " What if that was all just a weird vision of yours, too, Nny?"

" Why else couldn't they catch me? I didn't even cover up my footprints." Johnny told her.

" Perhaps you're just lucky." Devi prompted.

" Lucky." Johnny scoffed. " I want to die every moment that I live."

" Nny…" She said, nervously.

" Sorry to bring your hopes down... I'm just breaking into a mental hospital. I won't stay." Johnny grinned at his own meager joke. " I'll see you around." He hopped out the window. " If you hear anything about some psychiatrists getting cleaved, don't be surprised."

" I thought you wouldn't kill anymore!" She shouted after him into the night darkness outside the restaurant's realm. Nothing replied but the cricket's chirping. She closed her eyes and felt a wash of pure fury drive over her. She was sick and tired of Johnny, sick and tired of Ian, and sick and tired of her own life.

Johnny was trying to reform himself, and perhaps if she did return his affections for her, she would reawaken a lost emotion deep within him. Devi feared him, though, it was a natural and instinctual fear. He was not a man, nor a beast. He was many people all at once trapped in one, and he didn't know which person he really was, which voice was his and which was created by his ill mind.

" Great. Suddenly I'm thinking like Ian. Analyze, analyze, analyze." She mumbled. She patted Ian's hand and stood, feeling she was about to vomit again. It was all too much, all at once. Suddenly she was accomplice in another of Johnny's crimes. And somehow, she felt she was right to do it.

o-o-o

Happy Noodle Boy

Last Issue from Johnny C

Sorry Homeless guys. I guess you'll all die soon enough anyway. It's been fun.

o-o-o

Happy Noodle Boy pulled out a block of cheese and put it down. " Great cheesy block of custard yum! I worship thee! Your radiance makes my eyes dry out and turn into prunes!"

He fell to his knees, bowing to it.

" I lick the salt off your toes. So many spoons, so little time!"

" Get up, you bum! You're under arrest!" A policeman shouted.

" AHHH! FLAMING DIARRHEA! FLEE, BUTT MONKEY!" Noodle Boy shouted fiercely, choking the policeman.

The policeman flogged him angrily with a stick. " You get off me right now, or I shall use the arm of the law!"

" You have consumed enough doughnuts, my portly friend!" Noodle Boy hissed in the policeman's ear. " My anus itches for your rectal bacteria."

" Get off, you weirdo!" The policeman lifted a huge mechanical arm. " You asked for it!" He slapped Noodle Boy with it. Then the policeman lifted a shark. " The Jaws of Life! Ironic that it'll be your death!" The shark bit off Noodle Boy's head.

" Ass monkey! Butt munch!" Noodle Boy cursed as he slid down the beast's stomach.

Deep in the gurgling acid-filled depths of the shark's stomach, Noodle Boy shouted: " Acid drops keep falling on my scalp! Fred, I want no poodles! Flap like the titties of an elderly sumo wrestler! Flap, damn you! FLAP!"

Noodle Boy's head was slowly being processed by the acid, and as the remaining scraps of his mouth floated around, he shrieked: " Death will not conquer me! I prepare my bladder for spontaneous release! TV Hump Joy Joy! Whee!"

And then, he was gone.

o-o-o

Author's Note: Nny goes to free Squee… Devi will have to analyze (Shudder… as much as she hates to do so…) what her feelings for Nny are, and Ian… Ian should die. I must think of good ways to murder Ian. Axe in the nuts? Massive choke-on-a-hoagie freak death? So many choices… wow, this chapter wasn't very funny either! What's going on? *gasps* Perhaps freeing Squee shall renew my comedic charm.

Please review, and perhaps I will write soon! And tell me, do you like Devi and Nny to get together? And how shall I torture Ian?