The nurse glanced at the patient while checking the water was warm enough. The half man. The bone and meat wreck. It was a pity to look at him. He had really tried to live, but now, now he could not retain consciousness, the pain was excruciating. He had fought well but was losing. Being optimistic, he would not live past that night...Being very optimistic. She had heard doctor Yoshinaga consider giving him morphine so he was saved as much pain as possible, let him leave painlessly.
Yes, that seemed like an act of mercy...
"You!" Kath grunted, and wanted to grab him, but she couldn't reach Beans. By her side, José tried desperately to find a way out, slip though the bars, try to bend them, and it was useless. Those painted bars were as hard or even harder than real iron
"You are a dirty traitor, Buddy. I thought you had guts, but you're nothing but a coward." Beans confronted Buddy.
"Beans! Please!" Buddy begged him, but Beans just had to get his hand into the cage and zip his mouth so that a literal zip made Buddy shush.
"Well, much better for me. Once I'm through with you, I'll be the only one standing. The applause will be all mine! As for you, Porky..."
"Beans..." Joey whined.
"Are you going to stop being a pain in my side? Almost ninety years and you're still bothering me. I thought making you real would change you, but I see you just love mortifying me."
"B-B-Beans, that's not true...I didn't..."
"I admit everything got out of hand. I should have known lunacy is like playing domino: all you need is one piece falling for it to drag the rest. But I'm optimistic. That screwy rabbit is not going to be screwy, never more. And, oh well, I still got time to make you wish you didn't nose around."
"What a-a-are you go-go-go-going to do, Beans? What m-more? Please, just give up...Just s-s-stop, Beans..." Joey begged him.
"Why stop now? I didn't go this far to stop here..." The cat replied, impassive.
And he ignored their insults and pleas so he could quickly place some iron bars in line on the pavement, so quickly he would have been a fine construction worker.
Pip and Isadore drew back slowly, not looking away from Billy. That supposedly worked with wild animals but it was worth a try with that rabid, savage man. He groaned and babbled incomprehensible things, showing his rotten teeth in a menacing way. He looked as if he would pounce on them at any second.
"W-What should we do?" Pip asked in a low voice, not daring to speak up.
"Nothing. Don't…move…" Isadore replied as quietly as his partner.
"My boys! Oh, here you are!"
Billy turned around with a roar and Mrs. Hart placed a hand on her chest.
"Granny!" Pip exclaimed.
"No! Run!" Isadore yelled, shaking his hands at her.
"Luc! Oh, God, Luc!" Julie gasped, kneeling by Luc's side.
"Did you call emergencies?" Warren asked Officer Riley.
"No! Phones aren't working and I don't know why! Something's going on with the radio too!" She replied, hitting it because it was the only thing she could come up with to make it work.
"Okay, okay. Calm down. Everybody calm down!" Everything will be okay..." Warren paused for a moment to run a hand through his hair. He took a look at Luc's wounds to see how bad it was. It seemed the shot had hit a rib. Nothing too lethal. But he had seen that kind of injuries before: a fragment of bone could have been stuck in his lungs, and produce an internal bleeding. He was already seeing that the impact was making it difficult for him to breathe. He had to go see a doctor immediately.
"Take care of all these people, Riley, please!" He then instructed his partner, given how many witnesses they had, recording with their cameras, yelling and chattering excitedly about it, practically glued to them. "Luc, do you hear me?"
"Oui..." He replied with a gesture of pain.
"Good. Keep losing blood, not hearing. Just for a second, at least. Everything will be alright, my friend. If we can't call emergencies, we will take you to the hospital ourselves. Julie, help me."
Julie did all she could to help Warren get Luc up from the ground and get him into his car. Silent tears ran down her cheeks.
"Breath. In and now out, that's right." It wasn't clear whether Warren was talking to Luc or to Julie.
"I'm sorry I…" Luc muttered to Warren.
"Save your breath. None of that matters right now." He replied.
Luc was lied down on the rear sits and Julie sat by his side to assist him while Warren drove. Twenty minutes to the nearest city, with no hospitals but a medical center in which Luc would be given the most urgent care. Everything would be alright soon. He only had to resist twenty minutes. Everything would be alright soon. Julie repeated that to herself a million times, all times needed until actually believed it.
"Oh, come on!" Warren exclaimed suddenly. He turned the key again and again, stepped on the gas pedal as if he wanted his foot to go right through it, but it was all for naught. The car didn't move one little bit.
The guy with pop eyes and big teeth by his side looked like he was going to abduct him to experiment with his brain. But Sheldon kept on eating his hot dog calmly, while reading the newspaper. The Chicago Bulls had lost the last match—blast!
He was sorry for Marvin, he knew he was running out of time but...Oh, well, he had shot him in the face more times than he could count. Also, his imminent death wasn't his fault. It was Buddy's. He was the one who slipped the dynamite bar at his feet, not him. It was his idea to turn them into creatures that could die from those things, not his.
He was not a bad guy, he said to himself. He was one more victim of all of this plot.
Bugs Bunny was gone and he had no intention of looking for him.
"Hi, Sheldon."
His surprise was great when he rose his head from the newspaper and found no other than Ben himself.
There was no apparent change in him, but there was something different. Sheldon could feel it but couldn't pinpoint what.
"Do you have a moment?" Ben asked.
"Uh..."
"There's something I need to tell you."
Ben interrupting his millimetrically-calculated routine to socialize? Strange. Suspicious. Sheldon didn't reply. He was about to when a guy with a potato nose passed by then riding a tank, laughing like a child on a merry-go-round.
"Let's take a walk. There's a lot of noise around here." Ben said.
"Well...Whatever you say..." Sheldon could only reply. He finished his hot dog with a couple of munches.
Unsettling how Ben placed a hand on his shoulder in order to guide him out of Meléndez Street, then out of the neighborhood and finally, before he knew, out of Warner Falls, towards the woods.
"Uh...What do you want to tell me about? And why can't you tell me in town?" Sheldon was starting to get really nervous.
"You will see." Ben simply said.
They kept on walking in that dark forest, avoiding fallen trees, pointy rocks and roots. They walked for fifteen minutes or so, until Ben halted in front of an oak tree.
"I used to come here after school. I had no friends to mingle with, so...I came here and spent the time drawing, thinking..."
"...Uhm...Are you alright, Ben?" Sheldon couldn't resist asking.
"Yes. Actually...Yes." Ben replied, stepping forward. "And I'll be so much better after I do this."
He walked towards the roots of that big tree and hunched to dig something from a little space among them. He extracted something he carried in his hands back to Sheldon: a tin lunch box.
"I am leaving Warner Falls." Ben announced then.
Leaving? Sheldon frowned.
Leaving! A gleeful voice inside him repeated.
"Oh, yeah, you'd do great leaving this place! I'm hitting the road too! Did you see the mess this has become! Bailey's the worst thing that's ever happened to this town: he's elected and the gates of hell open! Yeah, you're doing well. In fact, forget about packing your things! I've heard shots and explosions! Here!" Sheldon opened his wallet and gave him all bills he could find. "It's all I've got. You should have enough for the bus! It's been nice knowing you, don't forget to write! Careful not to take the wrong turn at Albuquerque! Bye!"
Ben didn't move and barely reacted.
"You are right. I got nothing here I'll be sad to leave behind. I just had this, and I'm leaving it to you." He replied.
"What is it?" Sheldon asked.
A part of him was cautious. He had watched a lot of noir movies. He could not show him a pistol and shoot him, or...or...he didn't know, but he definitely didn't like this situation.
But it wasn't a weapon, nor a carrot for him to munch. It was a picture. A picture he had preserved with a plastic cover.
The moment he saw the person on the picture, he knew it was Kath, just some decades younger.
"I liked her, you know?" Ben said, apparently indifferent. "Ever since middle school. But I never had the guts to tell her. So you came, and you...you lived my dream. I don't mean to hold it against you. It was my fault. I just wanted to tell you...Ask you...To take care of her. She's an amazing gal and I hope you realize how lucky you are. And I wanted to say...Thank you, Sheldon."
"...Thank you for what?..."
"...I know I've never told you, because...well, uh, I'm not very good with words, but...You hit my head with a mallet and helped me wake up...Realize how much of an idiot I've been all of my life...I don't expect you to understand. I just...felt I had to tell you..."
He had taken a decision but still had a moment to be sincere with Sheldon before he left. After so much time bothering to say hello to him when others didn't even look at him, he deserved a little bit of his time.
"...Thank you." He repeated, looking at him to the eyes.
Sheldon didn't respond to it, he was that confused. And when Ben went silent and started walking back to Warner Falls, he felt something very unpleasant inside of him.
Remorse?
Bugs never thanked him for anything. Would have he done so if they...? No, impossible. He was a jerk. He used to go around as if he owned the place. He was the best and he knew it. He enjoyed stealing his glory and making him the butt of the joke...
"Hi, hi! A new doodle, huh? Nice to meet you! They call me Daffy!"
"Me? Mr. Hardaway hasn't given me a name yet. They just call me Bugs' bunny."
"Hey, you should keep it. Bugs Bunny. Sounds good! Well, Bugs, welcome to Warner Bros. I saw how you made Porky mad. It was hilarious!"
"Did you like it?"
"I loved it!"
It wasn't always like that. He was the oldest of the two, once. He had been drawn one year before Bugs. He was the veteran in a way. He had tricks to teach him face hunters. At time he was not competition. They were too complete goofballs with an astounding talent to bring chaos to the studio. They were two of a kind, cut from the same cloth.
Sheldon frowned. That was before the writers fed his ego! Then, Bugs showed how much of an opportunist was! How quick he forgot everything he had taught him, the sympathy he had shown him to become an scheming dirty dog! He started acting like he was miles ahead from everybody! He left the slapstick and the utter madness to him while he acted like the witty, the smart one, the boss, the white clown...!
...Did he remember it nevertheless, as Ben?
Maybe...The one who had just thanked him...was Bugs after all?
Sheldon shook his head. No! Bugs Bunny always got away with everything, but not this time! Not this time!
Still...
It would be nice. Rubbing into his face that this time it was him the one who saved the day...
Yes. He could be the hero of this story! Tex would have reasons to be proud of him!
"Ben, wait!"
Sheldon ran to Ben before he lost him. When he reached him, he placed his hands on his shoulders.
"I know it's been a hell of a week, but wait: there's more..."
Martin hadn't put shoes on before running away, but he didn't seem to mind. He looked rougher now, not the intellectual kind but more savage, used to the stone under his feet, the free air, the wilderness. A man capable of building whatever artifact he needed but driven by pure instinct.
Treg gazed at him completely calm.
"Ah, here you are. Busy with your usual business, I see." His voice didn't shake either.
"It seems like you were expecting this. As usual." Martin's voice hadn't lost that sophisticated accent, but something in its tone had changed, making it like he was growling.
"I know you, and I know you don't waste a chance to show how smart you are."
"You don't know me."
"Of course I do. We've been together for a long, long time."
"I am sorry to tell you but you have been fooled." Martin replied. "To be fair, so have I. You never left your home to follow that powerful wanderlust you were feeling and escape your oppressive home. I am not a nomad with tons of degrees and only a van to my name. We never crossed paths on a road and we were never, ever friends."
"See? Acting like you're the only guy around with a brain. I know all of that, all right. I know everything. I know you are Wile E. Coyote and not Martin, and I know I don't even have a legit name apart from Road Runner. I know there are many things I remember with much detail that are not true at all. But there's one thing that wasn't a lie: you are my friend."
Martin drew a smile, and Treg noticed how sharp his teeth were. Had they always been that way and he didn't notice? That would explain why no girl ever wanted to kiss him.
"Friend? Friend..." Martin repeated with despise. "I am a predator and you are my prey."
"You are my friend." Treg insisted, tilting his head a little. "That hasn't changed. I don't keep one single memory that doesn't include you. The first thing I saw after Chuckie first drew me was you, drooling and licking your lips. It was always the two of us alone, in that big place where there was only us, no dialogue, doing things our way. The background and our designs have changed but everything else is the same."
Martin kept smiling mockingly for a moment. Seeing how Treg's expression didn't change, seeing that he was talking seriously, the smile started to fade.
The nurse washed Cian's chest with much care and delicacy, while humming a song. «The Merry-go-round broke down...The Merry-go-round broke down..»
A series of beeps the vital signs monitor started to emit interrupted her melody brusquely.
"Doctor! DOCTOR!" She ran out of the room.
Nothing. Not a soul. Not even a rabbit. Brian was so frustrated. He was supposed to find rabbits, tons of them. It was rabbit season because there were rabbits around, right? But he hadn't found anything, even other kinds of animals, and he was getting really frustrated.
He wanted to shoot. Like back to his childhood, he threw a tantrum. He wanted to shoot. He wanted to shoot at something. He wanted to bring home a hunting trophy. He wouldn't go home until he knew what it was like, claiming something's life!
Then he heard voices echoing.
He walked into the direction of the source, careful not to make a sound.
Beans was finished...Finished doing what? The thing is, the next step was taking them somewhere. He opened the door to the cage. As soon as he did it, José pounced on him. He didn't seem to remember he was a toon and he had access to everything in any moment. He only needed to search his pockets to find a mallet with which he hit his head. José fell flat on the floor letting out an 'oof!'. He then tried to stand up and Beans neutralized him with a blow on his ribs. Hearing José's shows of pain, the times when these kind of accidents could be easily shaken off were long gone. Once José couldn't move, Beans approached him. What happened then was so fast they only realized seconds later that he had tied him up with so much cord and so tightly that he seemed to be trapped inside a cocoon.
Kath tried to defend herself but toons were so much faster than human beings. She ended up just like José, tied up with a rope he had grabbed out of nowhere. Buddy was no match for him either.
"Beans..." Joey pleaded.
For some reason, he was spared. Beans just lifted his three prisoners with one hand and left them in a perpendicular position to those bars he had placed on the floor before.
"Beans, pl-pl-pl-please, listen to me!"
"I don't wanna." Beans replied without looking at him.
"A-A-A-All of this is be-beb-because you think I ruined your ca-ca-career? Is it?!"
"No, I don't think so. I know you did."
José didn't surrender. Even if the pain and the blows had numbed him a little, he writhed, trying to break free.
"Th-That's not true...Had you tal-ta-talked to me instead of j-j-j-just stop l-l-l-leaving, you would have k-k-known I didn't want to hurt you..."
"Who could have talked to you?" Beans finally turned around to look at him with anger. "You were always busy with some new cartoon, a new rehearsal, a new plan. You forgot about your friends completely! It's you who abandoned me!"
"You're wrong! I still l-l-loved you! I didn't want to l-l-l-leave you behind. I wanted you to b-be there with me."
"How pretty! Phooey! Take your lies somewhere else, brother, I'm not buying them!"
"I am not l-l-lying...It all took me by s-surprise..."
"Did it, really? I don't believe you. You had it all planned from the very beginning. You wanted to be the next Bosko and by God, you were willing to do anything to get the attention. The bosses chose me! Me! If you were really my friend, you would have simply stepped aside!"
"It's not my fault that the audi-audi-audience preferred me!" Joey exclaimed. "I really did no-nothing. I was just being myself! Of course y-you were my friend! You, Oliver, Ham, Ex, Kitty, a-all of you were my friends. I wouldn't have do-done something like that. I know you're hu-hurt..."
"What do you know?!"
"Da-Daffy and Bugs ecli-ecli-eclipsed me too! I helped introduce them an-and they-they made me the sidekick! A background cha-character! A cameo, sometimes! They stole my atte-attention too! It's comple-completely natural! No one's at the to-to-top forever!"
"Bah! After so many years people still remember you, love you, you've got merchandise, the directors want you to appear on movies!" Beans replied. "I got nothing at all! No one knows me nowadays! I am less than a one-shot character!"
He was getting nervous. But the good thing was that he was so furious at Joey that his full attention was on him. José felt a vibration approaching, he didn't know what it was but it couldn't be anything good, so he thought he had no time to lose, and carefully rolled towards Kath and Buddy, with the intention of helping them out by cutting their rope with his teeth if needed.
"Cursing the entire Too-Toon Town's not gonna solve it!" Joey kept saying.
"It did! In this timeline I am the most famous cartoon of history, and if I have to get you or anybody else out of the way, I will!"
It was at that moment when Beans suddenly turned around and hit José with the mallet so hard Kath let out a scream, thinking he had killed him this time. "Do you think you can fool me, little rat? You are nothing now! Do you hear me? None of you! You will be sad, little bone bags for the rest of your existence and I will keep on living! I will be famous! None of you can stop me! I am a toon, you're not!"
"Do you know what you are?! A little dirtbag, that's it!" Kath exclaimed.
"Shut up, doll, I'm not talking to you!" Beans replied.
"DOLL?!" A new strength took over Kath's body. It was very difficult to her to move, but she got to put her muscles to work and get up. With tiny but firm steps, she ran towards Beans to kick him in the butt. Stars flew from the hit and Beans let out a yell of protest.
"No mangy cat's calling me doll!"
"Why you-?!" Beans started to protest, rubbing his aching behind, when a whistle echoed in the street and a smile formed on his lips. " Too bad, Miss Bunny, the train's coming for you!"
Kath didn't know what he was talking about until she turned towards the source of the noise and realized.
Those were railroad tracks.
What they had heard was the whistle of a train.
Oh, hell. That little psychopath was going to use the old trope against them.
Sheldon felt his mouth dry from talking too much. He had to stop for a second and see if all those words had had any effect on Ben.
It seemed they did. Ben had his gaze lost somewhere behind him, on the bushes behind them.
"Are you telling me that we were both animals? Not only that...drawn animals?"
"The term is 'toon'."
"And we've been cursed to become human."
"To put it simply, yes."
"And I have to remember in order to lift the curse?"
"You got it perfectly. So...what do you say?"
Ben then glared at him. "I say you're a cretin."
He wanted to walk away, but Sheldon stopped him.
"I'm not lying to you! All I've told you is the gospel truth!"
"Yeah! You think I'm stupid? You think it's fun to mock me like that? Well, I'm getting tired, you know? Of this town, of you, and everyone! I'm glad I'm leaving. You know what? Keep your money. I want nothing from you."
"Bugs, please, listen, I'm telling you the truth! I know it sounds incredible, but I swear I didn't make it up! Ask Lola!"
"Ah, Kath, yeah. Say goodbye to her from me. I hope you're happy together..."
"Oh, come on! Do you really think we...? I mean, I do have a lot of sex appeal, but ducks and rabbits don't really—I mean, she was made for you, she loves you and she's very worried about you! Have you forgotten about Lola? You couldn't have!"
He was afraid of no big guys, bulls, hunters...But females had always been his weak spot...The first time he saw her was like all of his wit flew out of the window...He behaved like a maroon...
Ben closed his eyes firmly. No, it couldn't be. I mean, he did feel like an idiot the first time he met Kath, because she was gorgeous and he didn't know what to say, but they never met at a gym...
A basketball match...He got crushed but got to win her heart...No!
"You're remembering, are you?" Sheldon insisted. "It's difficult, I know. It hurts. It's exhausting. But you have to try. Come on, Bugs, buddy. You can do it. You have to do it, for all of us. Think of Lola. All the people you've come across. Hazel the Witch, Gossamer, Elmer, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, me! I've tried to have you shot so many times!"
Why would Sheldon want to...?
Because of them were game animals, of course, and none of them wanted to be the kill.
Duck season! FIRE!
Take a peek out and see if he's still around...
No! That never happened! It was ridiculous!
"Stop fighting, you jerk! Listen to me!" Sheldon really wanted to slap him. "Bugs, I know it's hard to believe, but you have to try, you have to dig inside of–"
"I'm digging nowhere and stop calling me Bugs! My name is Benjamin!"
"No, it's not!"
They were in such a heated argument they didn't see the figure standing a few yards away from them. A figure which watched them for a good while.
Brian recognized one of the men standing there. He was Ben, that clerk. He didn't know who was the other.
But something inside him had a much greater reaction, beyond his understanding.
He had come there to find something to shoot and he had found it.
No Jiminy Cricket told him not to shoot at people. Taking into account all the arguments he had absorbed, it could be safe to say that men were animals after all.
He prepared his shotgun, his finger caressed the trigger.
"I'm telling you your name is Bugs Bunny, and I'm telling you it's...!"
Rabbit season.
A shot. The pellets grazed Ben's shoulder, making him let out an exclamation.
Sheldon muttered something. He remembered this.
"Oh-Oh...Just my luck!" He grabbed Ben by the wrist and dragged him.
A few drops fell from the sky, dying Ben's hair grey.
A new shot. This time, Sheldon was almost left without his left foot.
"Mr. Benson?!" Ben exclaimed, recognizing in the dark the features of someone he knew.
His boss didn't seem to hear anything. He just shot again.
"That's Elmer! Elmer! Remember? Remember the gun that goes pew?" Sheldon made him shelter behind a tree.
Why wasn't the car moving? What was Warren muttering?
"W-What's wrong?" Julie asked.
"It's not working!" Warren replied.
"Are you kidding?!"
"It's not the gasoline, because it was full this morning, it must be the engine or…or…" Warren quickly got out of the car to open the hood.
"This looks like a bad day to get shot." Luc chuckled with a weak voice.
"It'll be okay, don't worry, Luc." Julie caressed his dark hair with the hand which wasn't pressing the wound. "How do you feel?"
"It has to be the battery." They heard Warren say, followed by a whole sentence and what sounded like a curse.
"We will hitchhike, or take you by foot if it's necessary." Julie assured Luc, placing her hand on his cheek to make him look at her to the face.
But Luc knew, and Julie had to face the facts too: he could barely breathe, he seemed to have an internal bleeding...He was probably dying and there was nothing that could be done to prevent it. They wouldn't get help on time. It was such an awful truth Julie started sobbing.
"Pigeon, don't cry...I don't want to leave this world seeing you cry...Give me your smile...Please..."
He placed his hand on her face and made her look at him. Julie couldn't stop crying, even if she tried to give him his last wish. But her eyes filled with tears had a certain beauty, too...
Maybe it was his brain starting to fail, but he was sure he had seen those eyes long before. Long, long before...
Julie felt the exact same thing. That made her sobbing cease for a second, when she came to realize...She had smelt that stench somewhere else...
The train was coming! They could see a light in the dark getting closer and closer. Buddy struggled to get out and couldn't. Kath used all of her strength but felt it was useless. José wasn't conscious—they feared Beans had hit him too hard and killed him.
"No...Beans, please, don't..." He was crying when he said that.
"This time, I am going to wreck your world. And you are going to be an spectator." Beans said with sadistic pleasure.
"We're losing him!" One of the doctors exclaimed, as he injected Cian adrenaline to try to make his heart beat again. His partners were giving it a massage. It all seemed useless. It seemed his time had come.
They could hear Brian's boots crushing the dry leaves on the ground, approaching. He wasn't in a hurry. He had them cornered after all.
"Please, Bugs...We have done this a million times...Do what you always did..." Sheldon begged Ben.
What he always did? He had never found himself in a situation like this...
"You always had an ace up your sleeve. No one could fool you. You fooled everyone. Please, we need that Bugs back. Please, please!"
What did he want him to do? They were unarmed and Brian was only seeing red. There was nothing to do here.
Brian charged his shotgun and stopped right in front of the tree.
"Don't make me waste my time. Come on, get out of there."
Ben closed his eyes.
It seemed he couldn't just get a bit of relaxation without somebody ruining the day for him...
Sheldon gasped when he walked out of his hideout willingly. He stood face to face in front of Brian. He pressed the tip of his gun against his chest.
Then, before he realized, Ben had placed both hands on his cheeks and attracted him into a big, loud smooch which resounded all around.
Brian gazed at Ben with eyes wide open. A grin slowly formed on Ben's face.
Sheldon needed a second to process what just happened before he smiled his widest.
"Bugs!"
And then a deafening boom. The biggest thunder any of them had ever heard, so loud all of them flinched and drew back, and the ground and the trees trembled.
The three of them turned their eyes to the sky. Finally, after so long, it started to rain.
A boom. A boom so loud it wiped the smile off Beans' face and woke José up.
And then, rain falling. Thick, big—colorful?
It was...
"Gasp! No...NOOO!" Beans shouted.
They didn't hear the train any more. It started to rain so hard they couldn't see beyond their noses. They could only hear Beans groan and Buddy let out a loud sigh of relief.
Now that Billy had chosen a victim, he got closer, roared again and then, only then, Pip and Isadore realized that Granny was carrying something in her hand. When the madman got too close, she used the umbrella she was carrying to protect herself from the burning sun to hit him right in the head. She was an old lady, but she was not that frail or weak—that seemed to hurt a lot. Billy, after that moment of pain, was angry and wanted to attack, only to receive another, stronger blow.
"Don't you dare touch my boys!" From then on, Mrs. Hart only had to threaten Billy with the umbrella to make him whine and shrink.
"Oh, Granny!" Pip exclaimed and ran to embrace her.
"What are you doing here? I was worried sick! With all the things going on in the streets! This is no place to be, my loves!"
Pip looked at her into the eyes, and Mrs. Hart seemed to lose her breath for a second.
"Granny...Do you remember?" Pip whispered.
"Those eyes...Those pretty eyes...I know them, of course I do...These are the eyes of my little birdie! The little birdie who used to make my days so, so bright!" Mrs. Hart sighed.
Pip smiled and buried his face on her chest.
"My Granny...!"
"You're shaking, my love! Don't be scared! I am here! I am here and we will never be apart, and I will let no one hurt you! You have changed much, but you are so handsome, you know?, and I still love you with all my heart..."
Pip felt so happy hearing this. He glanced at Isadore and a shadow was cast over the happiness a little. He saw he was expecting the good life he had lived to end here and, in spite of all he had done to him, Pip felt pity. He only wanted Granny to be his for a change...An owner who worried about him...
But then Mrs. Hart looked at him as well and let out an 'oh!'.
"Oh, goodness! Is that blood? What happened to you? Did this savage hurt you? We're going to the police right now!" Mrs. Hart placed both hands on Isadore's face, touched the nose delicately and looked at the dry blood on his clothes with horror. Her horror was genuine.
"…Granny, we…" Isadore started to say.
It was then when they heard the thunder and it started to rain over them.
But it was not water!
First, a blue drop, then a purple one, dense as paint. Pip looked up and a drop fell on his hair, making his blond seem way more intense, garish yellow even.
Mrs. Hart grabbed him with one arm and Isadore with the other to shield them, while Billy opened his mouth to swallow the raindrops which fell.
Martin clenched his teeth. "I have one aim in life, just one, and that is eating you! We are not friends. It's ridiculous."
In spite of the situation, Treg managed to smirk in a slightly mischievous way.
"You know you can't. It's cartoon rules."
"But there are no rules now, I remind you. And I am making the most out of it."
"It's so much funnier when you fail. You know what I think? We should let the other guys do what they want with this. If they want to keep things this way, fine for me. I miss my feathers, now that I remember I used to wear them, but as long as I got legs to run, I don't mind about my looks or the applause. Come on, let's go back to the van and get out of here, to the desert, to the road—home. I guess we were longing for our home all of this time. I know you do as well. You don't like noisy places and folks, being forced to speak up. You want to go back to our place as much as I do. We will play chase, like in the old times. Or we can stay like this and do whatever comes to mind. But Wile E., you and I together. Anywhere. We were created a duo. The curse didn't do us part for a reason. So...What do you say?"
Treg never gave up on him...
Martin shook his head. Tregoweth Sadowski was just a fabrication. Someone, something had made him believe his pray was a friend, clouded his instincts with the illusion of a civilized life and memories of two lonely guys whose paths crossed. He was nothing to him. Nothing! Just a meal!
But they did have so much fun...
He was still there. It seemed it was true and he was not going to escape this time. It was a chance he had to seize.
Martin got closer, his stomach protesting, demanding him to bite once again. If they heard the thunder, they didn't pay attention to it, nor to the rain dissolving the pavement under their feet, the buildings and everything around them. Martin couldn't be bothered by anything. He saw the solution to his madness: it was Treg. He only had to clasp that neck, his prey was that close…
But, like always, something always frustrated his plans right when he was about to catch him...
A boom startled Warren. He really hoped it wasn't the car.
The sheriff raised his head to the sky and had to cover his eyes. It had started raining.
Luc and Julie heard it too but didn't mind it much. All that minded was the realization that they had seen each other before.
In a street in Paris...Or in a zoo...A park, maybe...
"You..." Luc muttered. "I knew there was a reason why you haunted my thoughts...This is not the first time we meet...We already met a long time ago...In a different place...With different looks..."
Warren thought he was delirious. But no, the whole town was looking at the sky, exclaiming. The sky was melting and falling over their heads!
Julie's chest stopped trembling for a second to stare at Luc, as if it was the first time she actually saw him. She froze completely and Luc smiled.
"Ah! It seems we are destined to find each other again and again...Maybe...we meet one more time...eventually...Who knows where..."
Julie finally reacted, letting out a sob again, burying her face on his shoulder. He stank, dear God, did he stink, but that didn't stop her now. He couldn't die...He couldn't...
Luc did nothing to stop it now. Maybe he was not dying, and was just terribly hurt...In any case, he loved this excuse to have her so close to him. Everything was as it was supposed to be. His heart had finally found the love he so desired and his soul was at peace.
The sheriff wanted to move but found he couldn't. He watched how drop after drop fell, dying everything around with bright colors. His suit never looked whiter until that substance fell on it. The little drops started falling faster and harder, until it was a downpour. People around them screamed, more in awe than fright. There was no shelter possible, for the substance dissolved everything, buried everything and everyone under it.
Luc caressed Julie's shoulder and approached his face to her head. The ceiling of the car melted. A few drops slipped down his back, making a white line in his dark uniform.
If he had to die...It was okay. Dying in the hands of his true love...was the sweetest death...
His lips almost made contact with her smooth, beautiful hair when everything disappeared.