Thanks to crazy veggie for reading and reviewing so much. You've just made me so...snif...happy...

I can't recall the title or the author of the song I've included in this chapter, but it just came to mind today, and I felt like using it. Anyway, I don't own it, so no lawsuits.

After writing this, and doing the final edits, I glanced up at the logo on the top left of this page, "unleash your imagination and free your soul," and I'm just a tad freaked out.

I have a confession to make, I've got absolutely no idea where this story's going. Sometimes I feel like I've got this massive block, then ten minutes later I'm rambling on and on. So, I guess, if I've got no idea where the plot train's gonna crash, nobody else will, so it all works out. But I hope that at this point it should be obvious what's going on, at least.

--------silec

Here's a man that lives a life of danger

Everywhere he goes, he stays

A stranger

Howdy stranger, mind if I smoke?

And he said...

"Every man...every man for himself..."

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The hospital was reluctant to let Johnny leave so soon after arriving. Not only was his body still in terrible condition, but he was also fascinating for the psychiatric ward to study. There was something different about him, something that they could sense, but could never quite see. Nevertheless, just two weeks after arriving as a bruised and battered heap, Nny packed up his few possessions and left without a word.

Johnny couldn't stand it at the hospital. The white walls and the blaring sameness, the monotony, the precision of the entire place made him feel like his heart was being placed slowly into a tiny box with no escape. And, in such a small place, there was nowhere he could run. Once he was on the road again, in his car, he felt as if he had been let adrift in an endless ocean.

The creature was getting annoyed with Johnny. It had abandoned the "silent treatment" method and now was hot, angry, and excessively talkative. He tried his best to ignore it, but in each passing day it gained in strength.

The hardest part in ignoring it, Johnny noticed, was that it knew him. It was him, as Reverend Meat and Mr. Eff and all the other countless entities had been, and yet, it was an entity in and of itself, which made it all the more persuasive. At times, it could be soft and motherly, gently prodding little Johnny in the right direction. And, at other times, it was menacing and antagonizing, turning to threats and dreadful information that Johnny himself knew all too well.

And sometimes, it used the most devastating tactic of all. It would not make a single move, only sitting and waiting within him, letting him just imagine all the horrible things he would be forced to endure when the creature grew bored of this game. During this game, the nausea would grow and grow until Nny was forced to expel the fear and worry through his mouth.

Upon stopping the car for the first time since his departure from the hospital, he had a sudden desire to flip through his die-ary. Just for a moment. It wouldn't be a loss or a gain for either side, he told himself. "I'm just curious." Johnny nodded, and rubbed the rust from the trunk's lock gently.

Johnny spun around, guarding the trunk protectively. He looked around, peering at the small crowd gathered at the gas station. Tourist families and their fat little children. Leering, shit-poor old men and their broken-down station wagons. No one of any particular danger. One of the large children giggled at him. Nny tossed a frozen glare in his direction, and the child burst into tears. Carefully, he unlocked the trunk.

The lid popped open. Strange, he didn't remember it ever opening up so quickly. But there it was, just as it had looked the day he left home. An uninteresting collection of papers. Stray lines of ink dotted the sides and the cover, but nothing else distinguished it from something found in a gutter.

Johnny held it in his hands far from his face like a long-lost child he never really wanted. He opened to a random page, and read. Typical, asinine crap. Nonsensical, ten-page monologues spouting pseudo-philosophical bullshit. He turned the pages, forward, backward. The dates didn't matter. More of the same.

He shut the book, and laid it back into the trunk, closing it slowly. Without filling up on gas, he got in and sat down. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his eyes lay straight ahead. But he couldn't move.

The creature chuckled. It was a low, deep rumble that hurt his organs. "Tell me, Nny, what did you expect?" Johnny shrugged. "I don't know. Something. Something…else, I suppose."

"Johnny, Johnny…I'm ashamed of you."

"Shut the fuck up, you vomit-inducing tick." He turned the key in the ignition. The car sputtered, then died.

"Now, that's not very nice, is it?" Johnny tried the ignition again. Nothing. "There's no gas in there, Johnny-poo, and anyway, you're going to have to listen to me sooner or later." He got out and slammed the door behind him. The chubby little boys and girls were gone. He kicked the tire several times with the worn toe of his boots. His favorite boots, reduced to a mound of stitched-up, graying leather.

"What?! What is it you want me to do, you fucker?!"

He could feel it inside him, moving around, readjusting to this new victory. "It's what we all want, Johnny. It's what I've been wanting for a very, very long time. And I've tried hard, so many times, so very many times, to get through to you. Because it's what you want, too, and you won't accept that. You push it away like so much dirt and sewage. You can call it unnecessary or whatever else you'd like, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still in you, and it wants out." Johnny shook his head, and regained his posture.

"No, you're wrong. I'm through with that. That's why I left. I'm going to get rid of all of that, and then you'll be gone, too, and I can finally be myself!" Once more, the creature laughed, in a different voice, this time. It was using Nailbunny's voice, to trick him, to persuade him into thinking things differently.

"Johnny…"

"Shut up, that trick's not going to work on me anymore!"

"Poor, deluded Johnny…you really are stupid, aren't you?" He broke into a run, past the junk food station, past the loose shrubs beyond it, anywhere, just to get away."You can't run from me, Nny." It was still right there, beside him.

"I can do whatever I want! I'm free from it all! I'm free from humanity! I'm free from you!"

He felt a smile grow on the jagged lips of the creature."Of course you are, Nny. Whatever you'd like yourself to think."