In the hour since I had last seen her, Miss Lindgren had apparently worked up the courage to finally move from her backyard. When I found her, she was in the town hall, reporting Pippi's disappearance. I guess she must have known I was full of it when I made my promise.
The instant she caught sight of her mother, Pippi let out a joyous shriek and ran to hug her, nearly tearing my arm off in the process. Miss Lindgren pivoted around, clutching at her chest like she'd just had a heart attack, then, seeing Pippi, burst into tears.
Letting the two of them have their moment, I looked past them toward the man she had been talking to. He was rather meek-looking blonde guy, probably in his twenties, wearing a pinstriped blue suit. On the desk in front of was a name plate that read "Abbott S.", followed by "Mayor's Assistant". He had looked extremely harassed before, but was now glancing between me and the other two with a look of confusion.
"So, I... take it this is Pippi?", he asked me.
I nodded.
"And I take it you're the one to thank for saving her?", he continued, eyeing my injuries.
"No, I just toppled down a mineshaft while walking here."
I know that wasn't cool, especially to somebody working for the mayor, but I wasn't exactly in a stellar mood.
"Alrighty, then. Right this way, please."
He stood up and made a turn for a nearby stairwell.
"Huh...?"
He gestured for me to keep my voice down, keeping a wary eye on the others.
"Mayor's orders, buddy, not mine. Come along, please."
Without another word, he began to walk down the climb the stairs, and I had no choice but to follow.
Normally, I'd have expressed curiosity by now as to why I'm being directed to the mayor right now, but at that point, all I cared about was getting out of there as soon as humanly possible. Abbott led me down a hall without saying a word to me, so my eyes ended up wandering boredly to his nametag. I choked back a laugh.
No wonder he didn't put it on his desk plate. His last name, apparently, was "Sheep".
Mayor A. Goodman, as you'll soon find out, had a very inappropriate name. I'm pretty sure that's how most mayors are, though. As me and Mr. Sheep stepped into his gleaming, sun-filled office, I could tell right away he had a doozy in store for me. Goodman didn't really look like a politician; he honestly looked like a park ranger more than anything, with the exception of his million-and-half dollar smile. I'd seen that look plenty of times on the Mother's Day Times front page; it's the face that meant he was in the middle of a carefully planned-out scheme.
"Ah, so this the man of the hour then?"
He strode over to me and gave my hand a vigorous shake.
"Bit shorter than I expected, but he looks like he'll get the job done just fine!"
"He's just brought the girl in now, sir." explained Abbott. "She's downstairs with her mother."
"Stunning work, lad! I always knew you had it in you!"
I wasn't sure how to react; in case you haven't been paying attention, me and the mayor had not recently met.
"Uh..."
Goodman's toothpaste commercial smile didn't fade, but I saw his expression falter slightly. He leaned in a little closer and began speaking in a hushed, much more serious tone.
"Listen, boy, I need you to play along here. As luck would have it, I'm up for re-election soon, and there's nothing that draws in support more than a story about rescuing a child."
I stared at him, trying to make sense of this. Then, his smile wavering for the first time since I'd entered, he pulled a small wad of money from his pocket and handed it to me. Then the pieces clicked.
"You're kidding me..."
Ignoring this, he crammed the money into my pocket.
"Well, come along, then!", Goodman said, once again jovial and loud. "Let us go meet our grateful company now, shall we?"
He clamped an arm painfully around my shoulders and began parading me back down the hall, crushing the lump of bribe money in my pocket between the two of us. He didn't say anything, but the tightness of his grip gave off a pretty clear message: Mess this up, and I'll make sure you regret it. I glanced back at Abbott, hoping desperately there was something he could do, but apparently there was not. He simply gave me a shrug, as if he understood exactly the way I was feeling, and mouthed the words "I'm sorry."
I wish I'd never laughed at that guy's name...
Goodman greeted Pippi's mother with so much obvious flattery it made me want to puke. I don't know why he bothered; she looked so nervous to be in his presence she probably didn't take in a word of it.
"... and I must say, that is a lovely dress you have on there, Miss!", he added for what felt like the third time. "Did you make it yourself?"
All she could do in response was let out a strangled sort of squeak.
"Momma?" piped up a little voice, "When are we gonna go home?"
Goodman's eyes found Pippi, who had been tugging at her mother's sleeve, and his grin widened even further.
"Oh, how sweet. So, this is the little one, then?"
Miss Lindgren nodded. Goodman squatted down in front of Pippi until they were at eye level, like he was an uncle she was meeting for the first time.
"And what is your name, sweetie?"
"I'm Pippi!", she replied, stabbing a thumb enthusiastically into her chest. Goodman chuckled and made a movement as if to pat her on the head, but Miss Lindgren pulled her away.
"Well, at any rate," he said, standing up, "I'm just glad I sent our friend here..."
He flung his arm back around my shoulders jovially at those words, then suddenly paused.
"What did you say your name was again, lad?"
"I didn't."
He gave me a warning glare.
"It's Ninten."
Apparently unabashed by the name, he continued on his speech as if there had been no interruption.
"I'm just glad I sent our friend Ninten out there to find her when I did!"
And so, he began to unpack his big bag of lies. He explained to them, in elaborately rehearsed detail, that it had been his idea to send a twelve year old out to find a missing child, instead of somebody more obvious like the police or something. Yeah, don't even ask me how that was supposed to earn him a shoo-in at the upcoming re-election; Goodman could twist anything to make himself look good. Once he had justified his story with claims of "I just had this feeling it'd be best" and his classic "All's well that ends well", I could tell nearly all my credit for rescuing Pippi was gone, and Goodman would now have one more vote come next month. Whether that was a testament to how corrupt Goodman was, or to just how painfully gullible all the residents of Podunk were, I'll let you decide for yourself.
"Mr. Mayor, can I go now?" I blurted, no longer able to remain silent.
Goodman stopped waffling and looked at me, surprised that I'd interrupted.
"Please?"
I had been standing there for over five minutes; my patience was officially gone.
"Oh, of course you can, my boy!"
He let me go, and I wasted no time huffing out.
"Be sure to tell your mother to vote for me!"
"Sure, whatever."
The sooner I could get away from that scumbucket, the better.
As soon as I was out the door, though, I felt a tug on my shirt. Pippi still wanted to say something.
"Thank'th for th'aving me", she said with a grin. Several of her teeth were missing. "I don't care what the th'tinky mayor think'th, you were really brave."
In spite of everything, I felt myself grin a little. At least somebody in this town was still sane.
"Don't mention it, kiddo."
"Here, I got th'omething to thank you...
Pippi began digging into her overall pockets for something, but I didn't feel like waiting around to see what it was.
"Pippi, I gotta go."
"Wait, juth't a th'econd!"
She kept looking, but apparently what she was trying to find wasn't with her. My guess was the zombies took it, but I didn't tell her that.
"Aw, poo, I think I left it at my houth'..."
"Pippi, dear!" called a voice, "We need to go!"
"Aw, mom..."
"Better listen to her, Pippi", I said.
She hesitated. Whatever little trinket she was looking for, she really wanted me to have it.
"Look, just send it over with Mimmie and Minnie the next time they come over, okay?"
She considered it, then nodded.
"Okay, I will! Bye!"
She waved, and before I could wave back, she had turned tail and ran. And with her left the dwindling remains of my good mood.
In hindsight, wish I had gone back into the building right then and there, thrown the bribe back at Goodman's stupid face, and told him exactly what I thought about him. I don't care what sort of trouble I'd have gotten in for it; it wouldn't matter much after what happened next. I didn't, though, and as much as I want to tell you it had nothing to do with the fact that I now had a large wad of cash in my pocket, unfortunately that would be another lie. I wasn't getting much allowance at the time, sue me.
I was too beaten up to ride on my bike comfortably, so I ended up having to walk it back. It wasn't too much of a walk, anyway, and in my state of stunned confusion mixed with unpleasant thoughts about Goodman, it felt even shorter.
It was only a short while past lunchtime, so I was actually coming home right when I should have. I began imagining the look on Mom's face when she would see me covered in injuries, how much of a fuss she would raise, and how long it would delay me getting to what I really wanted to talk about. If she even told me anything, that is...
No, I told myself, no more of this doormat business.
A floating lamp was bad enough, but a massive hoard of zombies that came darn near close to killing me was officially my limit. I wouldn't just ask this time, I would demand to know exactly what it is that's causing all this craziness. They wouldn't keep hiding things from me after something like this happened, would they?
They probably wouldn't have, but unfortunately, I never made it home to find out.
I was walking with my bike along the crest of a hill, about ten minutes away from home at that point. The road had turned from concrete to gravel when I made my way out of town, then from gravel to dirt as I made my way north toward the houses. Aside from the occasional beech tree, all there was to see on either side was just wild fields of grass, so I kept my attention on the road. This was my mistake; once I let my mood get to me, I failed to notice I was being followed. I was dimly aware of a weird rumbling, like something heavy being rolled over uneven ground, but I didn't even look up until I heard the ear-rupturing noise. And by then, it was right on top of me.
I was given exactly one second to process what I was looking at. I saw something huge, a massive wall of silver and blue metal, moving through the field toward the road. I saw two dirt-caked black tires, tearing viciously through the grass in front of them. And the noise I had heard, an ear-rupturing blare that rattled against the bones in my head, I recognized it as a vehicle horn.
I was given exactly one second to take in the sight of a solid blue semi-trailer before I realized it was about to hit me.
I can't really remember what I was thinking in that moment, if anything at all. The the sound of the horn had jolted my mind to a blank.
I think I must have gone into shock, because the crash didn't hurt like it should have. It felt more like being embedded into a speeding feather mattress than in the bumper of a speeding truck.
This is it. I'm dead.
My vision had gone blank, but I heard a terrible crunching sound. I thought it must have been my bones, though it sounded more like metal. My hand was free from my bike handle, and my sneakers were gone from the ground; I was in the open air. I couldn't feel anything, not even the clothes against my skin. My head knocked against something hard, and something hot filled my mouth. Then my back, my shoulders, then open air again...
I'm dead, the truck killed me, why am I still here?
I flew again for a second, then started rolling. Rough grass and thorns were cutting scratches into my arms and legs; I felt the scratches, but not the stinging.
I'm dead. It doesn't hurt because I'm dead.
I was hitting myself against rocks and clods of dirt, bouncing and tumbling like a helpless toy. My leg knocked violently against a boulder and I felt a jolt go through it that almost felt like pain.
... Am I dead?
I was slowing down; I wasn't turning over anymore. The ground beneath me, I think it was muddy.
I wouldn't be able to know that if I was dead...
I skidded into what might have been a puddle of shallow water, tipped halfway onto my side, then fell to my back and was still.
I lay there for what felt like an eternity, unable to feel, to move, or to think. Adrenaline was burning through me like a poison, making every square inch of my body agonizingly numb. My lungs had been knocked completely empty by the crash; I tried to breathe, but I wasn't able to. My first instinct was to reach for my inhaler, but my arms didn't seem to respond. And when I tried to think, all I my stunned brain could manage was a single question: Why am I not dead?
I had seen the thing coming straight toward me, at the speed it was going, there shouldn't be a single unbroken bone left in my body. I'd seen crashes like this on TV; they didn't actually show them, but I knew the victims never got out of it in one piece. And only thing protecting me had been a slightly rusted bicycle; it should be impossible for there to be a heartbeat pounding in my head right now, let alone me being conscious enough to hear it...
At some point, eventually, I opened my eyes.
The sky was nice; very blue with only a few puffy clouds in it. A bird quickly flitted its way into view, then zoomed back into a tree. In one of my hands, I still somehow had a slack grip on the handle of my bat, while the other was just sprawled out to my side. Recollecting my memories as best I could, I gathered that I must have been thrown down the side of the hill, down into the muck that usually gathered there in spring. Would anybody come looking for me? There hadn't been anybody around when the truck hit me, but it should have been close enough for somebody to hear it. What about the driver? What about my family...?
And as I thought these things, still struggling to breathe or at least regain some sort of feeling in my injured limbs, I became aware of something else: I felt completely exhausted. It had nothing to do with the crash or the fall; I suddenly felt like I'd been keeping myself awake for several days.
I felt scared... Now was I dying? Had I only been spared a few miraculous minutes?
Far off in the distance, or at least that's how it sounded, I heard sirens. Help had arrived. I wanted to call out, but my jaw was just as immovable as my the distant sounds, though, I heard something else, something much more pleasant.
The bird I had seen a while ago had flown down and had perched itself on my chest. It stared at me, twitching its little yellow head, as if it could recognize my face. I couldn't really think much anymore, but even still, I knew what sort of bird it was as soon as it began singing.
If I am dying, I thought as my eyes started closing, then this isn't a bad sound to die listening to.
The last thing I was aware of was a voice, and despite my fading senses, it sounded perfectly clear. It was like the one I had heard the day that I saved Mick, except this voice sounded more like it belonged to a girl.
"I'm Laura," it said. "Thank you for saving my baby."
But canaries can't talk. That's just silly.
I didn't feel like myself anymore. I was taller; the ground beneath me looked further away while the trees above seemed a little closer. My limbs felt frail and weak, as if I was a very old man, though somehow, I knew I wasn't. When I paused my walk to wipe sweat from my face, I felt a pair of glasses and an unshaven, scraggly beard. It should have been disorienting to be in control of a body so different than what I was used to, but for some reason, it felt very normal.
I was walking through a dense forest, and judging by the brambles and rabbit holes I kept stepping into, I wasn't on any sort of set path. I didn't seem to have a particular destination in mind, but I was sure I'd know when I was supposed to stop...
Then I was surrounded by chaos. I was staring up at the clear blue sky again, but this time, unfocused shapes kept blurring in and out of fit, sometimes blocking it out completely. Voices, dozens and dozens of terrified, panicked voices, were calling out from every direction. Some were shouting, others were screaming, a few of them I think might have been crying. Two of the voices, the ones who sounded closest to me, were keeping themselveslow and steady, though I could still hear fear in them. I tried to understand what any of them were saying, but all of it just sounded like noise.
I was moving; my body was being supported by something that felt like a bed-sized plank of fabric, and it was being carried urgently forward. Slowly, I became aware of another sound, one that was wailing over all the other terrified voices; it was the sirens.
Then, amongst the mass of hysteria and confusion, I heard one voice I could make sense of. A voice that stood out amongst all the rest.
"Let me through! Let me - ! Let me through! Please! I need to see - Please! That's my son!"
Her screams of desperation were unlike any of the others. It was as if her very life depended on her making her way through the crowd and reaching me.
"Oh, God, no! No, please not him, no!"
One of the voices closest to me said something, probably announcing that I that was still alive. The news was repeated by several others until the entire mood of the crowd had shifted. Some sounded relieved, while others just sounded dumbfounded and shocked. And the voice that I was able to understand, the voice that belonged to my mother, began weeping...
Then I was back in the woods. I had quickened my pace to a steady jog, making my tired lungs wheeze slightly with every breath. I ignored this, though; wherever I was going, it was too important for me to stop, even for only a moment. The hot fire of obsession was powering me as I walked further and further into the woods. It let me ignore the underbrush clawing at my legs, forget about the horrible sweat that was making me stick to my clothing, and made it easy to pretend that my throat wasn't desperately crying for water. All Icared about, all I seemed able to think about, was reaching my destination, and reaching it as soon as possible. It was a maniacal sort of feeling, detached and almost frightening, since I had no idea who I was or why I was feeling it. But it kept me going, and I wasn't about to let it stop.
My breathing had become ragged and harsh; a strand of spit ran from my mouth and I didn't bother wiping it off. It had to be close now, it had to be...
Then I pulled back a branch and - there it was.
But the instant I found it, the instant I felt a massive surge of joy at the sight of what I'd been searching for, my surroundings changed once again...
I felt incredibly groggy, like how it feels on mornings when I accidentally leave the alarm on during the weekend, but that was the least of my concerns. I felt horrendously sick; like I had just chugged down an entire gallon of ocean water. My throat and lips were sticky with thirst, but my stomach felt salty and sore.
I was still lying on something flat, though it was much softer and cozier than the other one had been. Instead of the madness I had been in before, everything was completely quiet, save for a quiet tapping that meant a clock with a second hand was nearby. It was also very dark; when I managed to get my eyes open, I could only barely make out a featureless dropped ceiling.
I wanted to return to the woods; the obsession I had felt while there was still lingering in me, even if it still made no sense. Perhaps it was just natural curiosity; whatever or wherever it was that I had wanted to get to so badly, it must be worth at least getting a look at.I tried closing my eyes and steadying my breath, neither of which was that difficult, trying to coax myself to sleep. But my head and body still ached, so sleep didn't seem too eager to return.
A spider about the size of my thumb was crawling slowly up the wall. It was almost invisible, but I was able to make out its movement. I watched as it made its way to a light on the ceiling, pause for a moment, as if getting its bearings, then begin spinning a web. With nothing else interesting to look at, I decided to watch...
I wasn't in the woods anymore. Instead, I was hurrying through somewhere narrow and dark. Cold stone scraped against my hands and shins, but once again, I took no notice. My only concern was reaching what I'd came here for, and I was close, so very close...
With a trembling hand far bigger than the ones I was used to controlling, I reached into my coat. It found a pocketed tube of metal, like a very weird sort of flashlight, pulled it out into the dusty air, and clicked it on. It produced a light that was feeble, but enough to provide illumination. My heart pounding, I looked frantically at every corner of the cave, searching... It must be here... it must...
Then I saw it. I saw what I had been looking for, and it had been practically under my nose. It was a rock. A weather-worn, slightly larger than average rock. Nothing whatsoever remarkable about it.
A small part of me, maybe the part that was aware I was still lying in a comfy bed right now, couldn't help but feel a bit let down at this. The rest of me, however, felt quite different.
With as much care and reverence one would give when being presented with their newborn child, I reached out toward the stone. My hands look calloused and pale, but again, not wrinkled as if they were old. My fingers slowly caressed the rough surface, taking in every detail of it. A strangled laugh rose from my throat, and I realized just how weak my voice sounded. After I had finished taking in the all the wonder of this seemingly unassuming boulder, I pulled several more instruments from the depths of my coat pockets, ones I couldn't identify if I tried, and began working.
It was sort of like watching Dad when he worked on something in the garage; you haven't got the slightest idea what he was doing or how anything he was using worked, but you were still compelled to watch every detail of it. Even from behind the eyes of this person, who I was beginning to distinguish more and more from myself as the dream went on, I still had no clue what I was doing, but it was almost hypnotic to look at. I tapped the stone, took measurements, waited, jotted down notes in a book of paper, waited, traced invisible lines, paced up and down the cave, then waited some more. I had been staring blankly at it for at least ten minutes when, with a note of triumph and finality, I pulled up a tiny chisel and hammer. The carving I made filled the entire face of the stone, making it clearly visible, even in the cave's poor light. It did not take long for me to to finish, because it was very simple; even a little kid could tell you what it looked like: two very tall, identical letter X's.
When I woke up again, I knew it was probably for good this time. There was soft light filling up the room now, and even though I still felt horrible, I finally had the energy to sit up.
Predictably enough, I was in a sterile white hospital room. My red hat was sitting on a desk by my bed, but otherwise, there wasn't much around for me to look at. Considering the fact that I had been hit by a truck, you would think I would be hooked up to a lot of scary equipment or in a mummy wrap of bandages or something, but neither of those were the case. A few of the cuts I'd received from the zombies had gotten a stitch or two in them, but otherwise, I might as well have been napping.
I didn't want to stay lying there; I wanted to find somebody, ask them what had happened and where my family was, but when I tried to stand, the pain in my head reached such a peak I had to immediately sit down again. These wishes didn't go unmet long, though; after maybe five minutes of me just sitting there with a palm to my forehead, the door opened.
"Oh... We weren't expecting you up this early, dearie."
The nurse sounded concerned, but not to the extent she would have been if I had been seriously injured. Which was nice, the last thing I wanted right now was somebody fussing over me.
I tried to say something, ask her one of the million questions that were sweltering in my head, but all that came out was a dry croaking noise.
"Water?", she offered.
I nodded, pressing my fingers harder against my hair.
As I gratefully chugged down cup after styrofoam cup of water, spilling it down my front now and then in my rush, a doctor came in and started looking me over. You know, checking things like my heart rate and such, anything that might get rattled up a bit when you are hit by a speeding truck. That was fine, just as long as they kept getting me refills. As she did this, I guess the doctor must have predicted half the questions I already had in mind, because she started answering them without me even having to ask.
To begin with, no, none of them had an explanation as to how I was still alive. They had looked over all the information gathered from the crash, and had come to the same conclusion time and time again; the medical odds of me getting out of it with functional brain activity was somewhere in the point-zeroes. It's not that they weren't happy I was alive or anything, but still; they're doctors, they're supposed to always have answers about this sort of thing. However, that was only scratching the surface of how strange a case the accident had been. From every conceivable angle, practically nothing about it made any sense.
For example, it turns out me being alive was actually not what the doctors were the most confused about, if you can believe it. What baffled them more was the fact that I had apparently received no physical injuries from it whatsoever. I did get battered up pretty bad when I fell down the hillside, but as far as they could tell, the actual collision literally hadn't left a scratch on me. Even the eighteen hours of unconsciousness I had just been through hadn't been because of a head injury or anything. I had simply been in a very deep sleep due to the sudden fatigue I had felt afterwards - and they couldn't explain that to me either.
It gets weirder, though - not only had I been left practically untouched by the accident, but on top of that, the exact opposite seemed to have happened to the truck. I saw pictures of it afterwards; you could have sworn all the damage that should have been inflicted on me had instead been dealt to the semi-trailer. The entire front had been crushed violently inward, bending the metal and sending cracks through all the windows. And it wasn't just a kid-and-bike shaped dent in the front of it, either; it looked almost exactly how it would have looked if it had run head-on into a flat wall of bricks.
"So, what happened to the driver?" I asked, trying to absorb all of this in.
"That's the biggest mystery of all," said the doctor as she checked my eyes. "We can't seem to find him."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean whoever was driving the truck should have been crushed in the wreckage, but we can't find so much as a hair on the dashboard."
"In fact," the nurse said with a mildly amused tone, "The actual owner of the truck showed up at the crash site thirty minutes afterwards, demanding to know who had wrecked it. It was on TV, you should have seen his face when they told him."
She chuckled to herself as I sat there, stunned.
"So... there was nobody driving the truck?" I said slowly, hoping I'd misunderstood, "At all?"
"As far as we can tell, yes."
Just like the lamp had done, hurtling itself at my head with no discernible force guiding it. In less than a day, the force that was apparently going to destroy the world, the force that I was supposed to stop, had made the upgrade from throwing around electrical appliances to throwing around twenty-ton vehicles.
"More water, dear?" asked the nurse, taking my silence as an indication to speak.
I didn't look up or say anything, but I held the cup out anyway. Even though my thoughts were very far away, some part of me was still bent on mindlessly rehydrating myself.
"Well, they'll call me crazy," said the doctor as she put away her last tool, "But aside from all those bumps you got, you're in perfect health. You should be out of here before the day is up, after you've rested yourself a bit."
She smiled at me, like should have made me happy. It should have, yes, but it didn't.
"You've got quite the line-up of visitors outside, if you wanted to let any of them in," she continued, the smile fading at my continued silence. "Most of them are from the news, though."
"You've become quite the regular celebrity, sonny," said the nurse, "Even the mayor himself popped in, so I heard. I can only imagine what the headlines are going to say..."
But I did not care what the headlines were going to say, nor did I wish to talk to anybody from the news. And I think I'd rather get turned into roadkill again than have another conversation with the mayor. The only thing I wanted right now, more than I can remember wanting it in my entire life, was to be alone. Alone, and with one other person.
"Is my mom out there?" I asked.