Author's Note: I cried writing this chapter, but then again, whatever. I cry writing a lot, because my fingers are hurting from typing. Did I cry from this miserable fate, or… otherwise?
Chapter Five, Part One: Devi, Come Back!
It wasn't enough that her every waking moment was plagued by haunting images of Johnny's face; and all his words to her; and all they have done so treacherously to the poor young club goers. Now she was seeing him in her dreams, like the thin sickly-green faces of people leaving concentration camps in those old post World War 2 photos.
And, of course, Johnny happened to speak to her in the dreams, though faintly. " I changed." He promised finally. " I made the voices go away. You did too. You're just like me. You know it."
" No I'm not!" Devi woke up shrieking just that very morning. " I am not like you!"
She heard pounding on the wall next door – Tenna was awake. " Devi!" Tenna groaned. " Are you talking to your coffee cup again?"
Devi shouted back: " No! It was a nightmare!"
" Shut up back there!" A voice from down the hallway shrieked. Ah, the beauty of apartment buildings.
Devi blinked sadly and tried to imagine a time where her few hours of sleep were actually undisturbed. Now that she could remember everything, though, she knew she never did sleep soundly. Ever since her first date, she'd been on the path of doom that destined her to be an old bitter maid.
She stood and turned on the television set. No reports of murder? She expected to see reports of new victims daily from Johnny's own madness, but the Weekly Report didn't seem to provide her any luck.
He had grown sedate.
And for that, she feared him all the more.
o-o-o
Chapter Five, Part 2: Words of Hate
That evening, Johnny took a lonely walk through the park. Squee was at home, watching television, the god of child babysitting. All he could think about was Devi. Devi gone, Devi part of the normal world, and what Devi could have been to him.
He looked at all the kissing couples in the park and felt ill to his stomach. Must their affection be so obvious? He frowned to himself and stumbled on.
And then – as if by some unusual twist of fate – the crowds split apart and revealed Devi, sitting on a park bench. Her eyes were focused on the magazine in her lap and she was eating some soup from one of those Japanese noodle cups. She looked like a gorgeous flower to his eyes.
Johnny stood there, shivering not from the chill in the breeze, but from his own fear. Suddenly, he had second thoughts. She might not want him back, at all. She might even start screaming, and make an awful scene, and therefore force him to run. And he was sick of running away.
He walked up to her slowly. " Devi?" He asked.
She glanced up, a noodle hanging from her mouth in a most unromantic way, like a slug dribbling from between her lips. Johnny didn't know whether to stare at her lips continuously, or make eye contact, or stare at some other part of her. This was always a problem for him when addressing girls – he would have no idea what to look at. He figured that the breasts or thighs would be most perverted to glance at, so he took the easy route and stared at her shoes.
" Nice boots." Johnny added. The good old pick up line.
She slurped the noodle down nervously and gave him a look that was as fierce as the death glare of a lioness. " Nny?" She whispered, and shot up to her feet. " Listen, I have a Swiss army knife, and enough mace to stun a herd of yaks."
" Well, that's lovely!" Johnny grumbled, then added on: " Can't you trust yourself with me? You slept in my house. I did nothing to you. Nothing."
" But those freakish voices in your head might come back." Devi hissed. " And what then? You'll just snap like the lunatic you are and kill me! Fuck, why don't you just back away slowly while you still have a brain to snap?"
Johnny smiled, his teeth pointy and menacing above the curl of his lower lip. " Can't you just let me talk to you?"
" No." She replied.
" When you didn't have your memory, you trusted me. What difference does it make now?" Johnny exploded.
Devi looked down at the soup in her hands. She stared at it long and hard, hoping the artificially colored carrot chunks would tell her something that she should say. Her eyes unfocused and the soup became a blur. Ripples spread across the surface of the soup as a tear fell from her cheek.
Johnny's heart sank. He'd made her cry. " Ack." He murmured, and then looked around nervously. Nobody around them; not for a good knife throw's distance anyway. " Look, Devi, erm…" He fumbled over the words. " Don't cry. I didn't say anything to make you cry."
Her back was shivering. " Leave me alone!" She croaked. " You made me kill, Johnny!"
" Good Heavens!" An old lady standing nearby cried out, and then scuttled away, thumping her walking stick as she did.
" There's a squirrel up someone's ass today." Johnny said under his breath, staring at the old lady as she raced off. Then, he turned to Devi and gave her a meaningful look. " What are you so afraid of – me? Or yourself, and what you're capable of? What your destiny might be?"
Devi looked up at him, her eyes a burning red, piercing right into his. " I don't know. Can't you just let me be?" She sobbed.
" Don't you have any feelings for me?" Johnny whispered.
" No." Devi replied hardly. " I don't. I hate you, in fact. I loathe you!" And she threw the soup at him. The hot liquid was scalding against his skin.
Johnny's ears burned hotter than the soup on him as he turned and stalked off, trying to convince himself he looked less stupid than her really did, with a huge puddle in the front of his shirt, creatively in front of his crotch.
At the park gate, he turned and glanced at Devi.
She had pushed the magazine off her knees and to the ground and she'd brought her knees up to her chest. He couldn't see very well, but he thought he saw her crying again.
o-o-o
Chapter Five, Part Three: No Life Left To Live
He didn't know how long it had been.
He'd been lying flat on his back on a make-shift bed, staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed, for days and days. He'd only gotten up when nature called for him to remove his own wastes. Unpleasant, but necessary, functions of his mind.
" That's it, then." He whispered to himself finally, as he went out of his blank-out. " I truly and utterly sank the ship of my life. Yes, I've been reduced from human rank to shaved monkey. There's nothing left to do but sit here and think of purple acorns, because…" He laughed bitterly. " … It's all pointless, isn't it?"
Squee was sitting on the floor beside the bed, his eyes huge and significantly frightened-looking. " Mr. Scary Neighbor Man!" Squee mumbled, propping Shmee the teddy bear up against Johnny's cheek. " I thought your brain broked."
Johnny smirked to himself and turned his head, looking directly at Squee. " Squee, you think you could bring that mechanical arm over here and put a bullet in the gun in there?"
Squee shook his head immediately. " N-no way!" Squee gasped.
" Drat." Johnny looked at his hands, which were shaking. " I guess I'll do it myself. If I misfire, I won't have the pleasure of feeling my brains implode, though."
Squee smacked Johnny's face with Shmee as he collapsed across Johnny's chest in a last-minute life-saving effort – a big, merry, little-boy-to-scary-but-nice-adult kind of hug. " No!" Squee shouted. " You can't die, Mr. Johnny!" He crooned on: " I won't know what to doooo…" And suddenly Squee was crying like a little kid again. " They'll just make me go back to the crazy people place, and they always ask me to cut their jelly beans into four pieces for them, but then the mean crazy people there would just take the jelly beans and shove them up their noses and blow them out at me, and stuff."
Johnny shuddered. Hugging was overrated. He patted Squee's head, at the same time slowly moving him away from him, each pat a slight shove backwards in a sense.
Squee was back on his feet, staring at him.
" You can go to Devi. She'll take care of you." Johnny sighed dreamily. " Because I sure as hell won't, not cold as a corpse."
" What if you come back to life?" Squee choked out.
" I won't." Johnny said, his nostrils flaring. " I've used up my Get-Out-of-Hell Free card. Now it's time to die for real, face the last judgement, get my bootie stomped on my some angels on the way to Hell, Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda."
" But what if?" Squee demanded. " Would you keep killing yourself?"
Johnny shrugged, which was hard to do when lying flat on your back, but he managed. " I think I'll die though. I want to die. Before, it was sort of by surprise, almost. I was all happy because I got a call and such. Now there's nothing to hold me back."
Squee's lip trembled. " Me?" Squee squeaked out squeakily, tongue-twister style.
" Well, yes, but… but with Devi, it's different." Johnny closed his eyes. " Close the window shades. I don't want the sun in here when I die."
Squee shook his head. " I won't let you!"
" Listen, Todd." Johnny's never before called Squee by his real name. The room fell silent. This was really serious now. " Todd, you are a great kid. Really, you are. Don't take this personally. Besides, I thought I scared the shit out of you."
" Less than the rest of the world." Squee admitted. " Besides, I'm kinda used to you." He grinned shyly.
Johnny couldn't smile back. He still kept his eyes closed. With one hand, he reached out and patted Squee's shoulder. " You remember where Devi lives, right? You go find her. She'll let you stay." With that, Johnny pulled the covers up over his head and blanked out again.
" But what if you hurt yourself when I'm gone?" Squee asked.
Squee shook Johnny angrily. " Mr. Nny! Mr. Nny!"
Johnny didn't reply. Johnny could have very well been dead, for all Johnny cared.
o-o-o
Chapter Five, Part Four: The Voices, I Hear Them, and When They Talk I Follow…
" You're weak, Johnny."
Johnny couldn't recognize the voice at first, then it dawned on him.
" Go away!" He cried out hoarsely. " Leave me alone!"
" You are weak."
" Leave – me – alone!" Johnny demanded. " I want to die in peace."
" You haven't cocked the gun. Seems like you're trying to avoid the big finale. You're dancing around the edge but too afraid to jump." The voice persisted.
" Leave, Meat." Johnny spat. " I don't need you."
Reverend Meat's voice droned: " You thought you got rid of me, but my voice lived inside of you. It lived on, and on, and lived on and on, and on, and on, lived on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and lived on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on…"
" Shut up!" Johnny shouted. " Shut up!" His shout hung suspended in the air, the echo bouncing from the eaves in the room.
" You're trying it again. Dislocating yourself from emotion. This time, by death. You're avoiding Devi again. Why not just kill her? You want to get rid of all your troubles, don't you? You want to be rid of her, and that way you can live on without having to face her existence." Reverend Meat whispered. " Admit it. You considered killing her again."
" Of course I did!" Johnny muttered crossly. " But… but I can't do it. I don't expect you to understand."
" Oh! I won't understand, huh?" Reverend Meat demanded. " You think I just came out of nowhere? I'm you, Johnny, the stronger part of you. The demonic, the evil part of you, the part that knows what should be done to keep justice and rationale in your mind. In your starved mind, you know you haven't killed in a long time. The last time you have, it was with Devi. Now you can finish what you began in the club – kill the last survivor – her."
Johnny opened his eyes. Reverend Meat was nowhere in sight. He sat up and stared at the gun in the automatic arm. Squee was gone, he'd probably gone to find Devi; the arm was ready. Reverend Meat would never bother him again, in dream or in life. Johnny stood, pulled a bullet from the drawer of the desk, and inserted it into the gun.
He lifted the remote control and a tape recorder from the desk. He turned and sat down on the bed, staring at the gun. It was aimed at the center of his forehead.
Johnny clicked on the tape recorder and began.
"Devi, I want you to first of all understand that I'm killing myself to stop the voices. As you said, who knows what they'd make me do if they were to come back. If I were to kill you, I'd loathe myself beyond human capabilities. So first and foremost, I die so you don't have to…"
o-o-o
Chapter Five, Part Five: Race Against Time
WHACK. WHACK.The windshield wipers roared against the windshield as Devi sped down the road towards Johnny's house, Squee in the backseat. She checked the mirror, from which a rosary hung, and she said to Squee: " Are you triple, quadruple sure he's going to kill himself?" Her lips were bitten raw, she was biting her lower lip nervously for the past ten minutes. Devi could taste the stale iron tinge of blood in her mouth already.
"… And I want you to take good care of Squee, because he… oh, shit, I wish I wrote a speech or something… well, Squee's been a great neighbor. And it was fun to scare him. Sorry Squee. Don't let the aliens attack. Heh. He heh ha heh! Tuesdays are alien nights, right? Or was that Thursday?…"
Devi strained her neck out the open window. A huge truck was turning in front of them. " MOVE IT!" She shrieked, the rain splattering all around them. A thunderbolt laced the sky, turning everything into a white wonderland for a second before the shriek and clatter as it hit something.
She pulled her head back inside, her mascara running. Not just from rain, but tears. " God! Why did I say that? Fuck! Fuck!" Devi shouted at the steering wheel.
" Say what?" Squee asked innocently.
" I told him I loathe him! I… I wanted him to go away, to stop bothering with me." Devi moaned out, sobbing. " I thought I'd do just fine with him gone, like I did for the past few months until he came back."
" But could you?" Squee whispered.
" No." Devi replied darkly. " It's like he's become a part of me."
" Me too. My life too." Squee nodded.
" We can't let him do this." Devi said decisively.
" We, erm…" Squee coughed nervously.
" We love him. God, I love him! Fuck!" Devi hissed loudly.
" … My house isn't much so I give it to anyone who wants it. Maybe all the bums who actually read Noodle Boy for it's short-lived life. Heh! Bwa ha heh he heh. We all know that they'd make good use of all the torture chambers in here. That's what the world needs, more homicidal homeless people, you know? Add color to the streets. Red color. Blood. Okay, I promised to keep this PG-13 for Squee-ears… right… Devi. Devi, God. Devi, I loved you…"
Devi was now turning the corner, right near Johnny's house. She stopped the car and ran out into the rain, her clothing plastering to her body. She whipped open the back seat and took Squee in her arms. " Squee!" She whispered to the little boy. " How could I have been so stupid? Why didn't I think about my feelings? Why was I so afraid to even consider a life with Johnny?"
Squee didn't know what to say, he just toddled after Devi in the rain as they ran to Johnny's house, number 777.
" And I can't believe I said what I said to him. I mean… it's one thing to tell him that I'm scared. It's another thing to tell him I loathe him." Devi was crying again. " I can't believe I lied. And he's going to die, because I lied. And he's gotta be the only man in the world who'd seriously screwed up a date and I still remained in love with him. Afraid, but in love."
" You can get used to him." Squee shouted over the sound of the rushing rain.
" I'll get used to visiting his grave if we don't hurry it up!" Devi replied.
" … So I don't really know, Devi, if you were really in love with me or not. Maybe you were. It's so hard to tell with girls. One minute you're talking about birds and trees and flowers, the next you're threatening to impale us men through the backdoor sphincter on a garden hoe. Heh he heh. But really… I just… I… I wish we could… I don't know. I wish we could have given it a try… I wish you didn't get your memory back. Sometimes your memory is what holds you back, maybe? You live in the past, your life becomes a stained glass window of memories and you can't see clearly through it, because the past influences everything you see afterwards. I guess maybe that's why I'm lucky not to remember. That's why we were able to be so happy for a few days. You were capable of forgiving and forgetting the past…"
Devi ran up the steps of Johnny's house and rattled the doorknob, but it wouldn't open. It was locked.
" No!" She sobbed.
" The secret passage!" Squee exclaimed. " A tunnel, between Johnny's house and mine!"
They ran into Squee's house and started on their way through Squee's basement and into the dark, muddy tunnel. Devi recited prayers to every deity in the world as they did, hoping against hope that Johnny would last long enough – that he was babbling melodramatically in prose-like sentences long enough for them to make it in time.
"… But really. There's so much you wish for, right before you die. Stuff that maybe I could have done, if things had gone a bit differently. But they didn't, maybe this was fate. I'm scared… who's going to turn the tape recorder off when the arm fires? I don't know. I…"
" … Devi, Squee. I love you both a lot, I guess. I didn't think I knew what love was, but I guess this psychotic attachment to you guys must be it. The love that disables me from being able to kill you guys…"
" … I…"
" … I'm sorry. For living. For being here and ruining both your lives. I guess it's been my fault."
" … Good bye…."
" Johnny, NO!" Devi shrieked, running out of the tunnel and through Johnny's house. She could her a tape recorded clicking off somewhere far off. Devi raced into the room just as the resounding echo of the arm firing ran through the air.
o-o-o
Author's Note: OOH! Did Johnny die or didn't he? I don't even know myself. Depends on the mood I'll be in when I write the next chapter… Did Devi's scream throw him off? Or will she see him, in his splattered-all-over-the-walls-like-raspberry-jam glory?
I am evil. So evil, to stop here.
Review. Or… Or else you shall never know!
