JMJ

Chapter Nine

A Teenaged Mystery Science Theatre

It had been no thanking matter. I'd known that.

Ace needed to lie low. He couldn't afford to have my mom find out about him. Sure, he could have tied her up, gagged her, and thrown her into the closet instead of hiding in there himself, but what would he do then? Even if I had been in on such a thing with him, we couldn't just leave her in the closet and take over the house. Ace knew that. He had to keep this house looking normal. He was too sick to take risks. We didn't even have the green even if he hadn't been sick, and I think he was perfectly aware that if he could have gotten me to go along with treating my own mom like crap, he couldn't count on my perfect gusto. He needed me on his side 100%.

He made sure I understood it was no charity on his part in the best way Ace could.

"Nighty night, Sa-a-anfowd," he cooed in mockery of my mom when I came into my room and shut the door. "Mommy wommy just woves hew widdo baby boy jus' so dawnded muchwy!"

He clasped his hands together by his head and kissed the air.

He had been playing on the computer. Who knew what he'd been up to on there, but I couldn't help but notice how tightly the window shades were drawn or how he'd found my can of soda I'd forgotten about before he'd come in the first time. His boots were thrown in a corner and his stocking feet were up on the radiator. He was leaning against the computer table. There was no back on the swivel chair as the back was kicked under the table.

I sighed through my nose, but I was in no mood to argue with him.

Ace snickered and leaned back with more leisure than a cat that'd lived here twenty years; he still looked as sick and ratty as one too. Though, he was stronger than one, I soon saw with alarm as he crushed the empty can with two fingers as easily as crushing an origami decoration before he tossed it across the room.

"Goodnight, Ace," I said so tired despite it all that I could have slept standing upright where I stood.

In fact I slumped down into the carpet right now until Ace startled me back to my senses by half kicking me upright.

"Hey, no, no, what're you doing, Sanford?" he asked surprisingly quiet.

"What do you mean?" I grumbled.

"You gotta sleep in your bed like a good boy for mommy dearest."

"Hhsssssss."

"Wouldn't want her to get suspicious, comprendo? I mean, hey. She might pop in here at the crack of dawn and give you a kiss g'bye. Heh, heh! Tch. Just imagine if she ended up kissing me, huh?"

"Then what're you gunna do? Leave?"

"Sleep in the closet when I get to it," Ace shrugged. "So get slithering into bed, Snake."

"Right."

Shoes, hat and all, I obeyed, pulling the covers over my head no matter how hot it was in here with the window shut and Ace's body radiating heat enough to make a person think the radiator was on in this crammed room. The only thing I remembered on behalf of my own comfort was to flip my pillow over away from where Ace's medical-sweaty head had been lying.

Ace chuckled again. I don't know if it was because of my pillow or something else, but it made me shiver… with anger. I didn't say anything.

I pretended I was asleep as soon as I could, but it was hard not move when I was melting so badly and Ace had the computer on. Even when he did turn it off, he didn't go into the closet right away. He paced a little, looked out the window for a long time, paced some more, sat literally at the end of my bed with a huff. Maybe he'd lost his balance there, but I was plenty annoyed already. I could hear those snake rattlers in my head, but I just tugged the blanket around my sweltering body more.

Finally, he went into the closet.

For a long time more I didn't move. Then at last, I relaxed. I allowed myself a breath of air outside my cocoon. Throwing off my covers, I threw off my hat, kicked off my shoes, tore off my shirt and stuck out my tongue and just lay there for a while. Then slowly and carefully, I crept out of bed to open the window to let some cool air in. The night sounds broke the stifling silence. Though, I didn't let the shades part before crawling limply back into bed.

Then I heard a sound. At first I thought Ace was laughing again. Then I thought he was whimpering. But it was neither, but he was obviously asleep in there. I relaxed again, but then it occurred to me: what if my mom heard him? Two sleeping sounds from the same room and she'd be in here like a shot and calling the police I could only imagine, and imagine I did in that way one did best when lying motionless at night and staring up at the ceiling clutching the sheet beneath me.

The skeleton in my closet was heaving like a locomotive. It made my own breaths feel shallow in comparison. It was like a growing beast. Was it guilt or was Ace actually getting worse? I lowered my eyes helplessly towards the door. The closet was shaped in a way that it bulged into the room, like a cage with walls instead of bars.

The door itself seemed to moan from an upset stomach from the spicy burn inside it. Would it just burn through the wood of the door?

What if Ace really did die? In the morning he could just be lying there as a corpse and I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know whether to be heartbroken or freaked.

Should I just tell my mom now and be done with it?

My soul seemed to bounce without me towards the door to my room and into the corridor beyond. In spirit I shook my mom awake very gently and whispered my confession into her ear, but I just lied there in bed physically, knowing I would have to do the whole thing over far heavier and more miserably than my mind pretending it was happening.

I closed my eyes. I tried to relax again.

The noises from the closet settled down. I cooled off, and I actually could pull up my top sheet over myself again. I don't know when I moved from dizzy wakefulness to dreams, but suddenly I was woken up again with a start by a strange mucky sound like the smacking of drooling lips. I leapt up so disoriented that I fell out of bed in a tangle of my sheet and twirled up blankets. There I lied again for a few moments more, heart pounding and me barely daring to breathe.

The mucky sound grew more sickening like a swamp beast gargling on his own puke.

I blinked.

Then I heard Ace whimper again. It was soft compared to the goopy rotting gumbo sounds. As I stared at the closet door, the shuffling of normal things on the bottom of my closet from him writhing in there put me back on Planet Earth enough to do… something. I wriggled out of my bedding rather than yanking free of it. Then I slunk like a weasel, since I couldn't quite slither, up to the closet door. Biting my lip, I took hold of the handle and turned the knob.

"Hey, Ace…?" I whispered hesitantly.

Maybe I should have just called an ambulance, I thought to myself even before my eyes adjusted to what lurked inside.

But then I knew Ace was right. A hospital probably wouldn't be able to do much for him. I sure couldn't do anything for him. Staring stupidly wasn't even going to help myself.

"Huuuurt soooo baaaaad," Ace hissed through his teeth like his lungs were bursting with goop.

"I…" I tried to say.

"Rah…..krrgg," Ace's voice garbled.

I don't know if he was trying to talk and couldn't anymore, or if he even knew I was there, or if his mind was even registering enough to say I was in Ace's presence really from that point on. His eyes flashed, glowing golden yellow. Pupiless orbs flashing at me revealing the silhouette of a body bubbling, warping, gooping, cracking— changing into something horrible.

A monster. Like a lizard or frog or something else. Ace's features were still sort of recognizable. I'm sure if I had not been watching the transformation from the beginning I would have seen the resemblance instantly, but he was a haphazard zombie version of Killer Crock more than anything before I could even comprehend what was truly happening. He was still pretty much his height, but he had so many garbling spikes and so much jutting, bulging rippling flesh, he might as well have been twice the height.

"Acccce," I squeaked hoarsely.

His face registered pain. That was all I could make out expression-wise. He was like a gargoyle pried from a cathedral tower in Paris. His eyes lolled just like that. He was pleading, begging, desperate like a thing already dead and unwilling to be so.

I almost fainted.

But just as I was going under, I roused to the sudden snap of Ace's head towards something. Pain completely vanished. In fact he looked as keen and alert as a raptor returned from extinction and ready to make prey on those whose epoch it was meant to be. I blinked a few seconds, then heard what he head. Feet were coming to my room.

I bolted straighter than I ever stood normally, but Ace lunged for the door before me. Before either of us could reach it, the door opened, and strangely enough both Ace and myself stood like two teens just would being caught by an adult doing something wrong.

That certain adult flipped on the light even as she began to speak, "Sanford, what—?!"

Then her eyes locked onto Ace. Ace's eyes locked onto Mom's. I could not stare at either of them after the first flash back and forth. I stared at the wall in panic unsure what do to.

Who knows how long we stood like that. Then very slowly, I was the first to move. I looked at my mom again. She looked at me only for a second. Then, though still struck with horror, her eyes winced with anger at the beast who used to be my gang leader.

The beast then moved too. Slowly he slunk forward like a confused predator assessing the situation, but I sensed something else growing. Hatred. I knew he hated her. He hated all parents as far as I knew. He hated all authority. He feared it, didn't he? He growled low, deep, and sickeningly gurgling. Then he lunged.

MOM! My head screamed, but nothing came out of my mouth.

It was my muscles screaming. Adrenaline blared like a deafening siren through my veins. The suffering woman didn't deserve this, but even if she had, I felt something in me I only felt once before— the helpless feeling of watching two people I knew so well and one of them go violent on the one more helpless. The memory was like an explosions in my mind, one that I only half remembered, but the specifics were not necessary. It was the hatred of one and terror and sorrow of the other that only mattered.

Only now I was not tiny and helpless as I had been then. I lunged like a savage beast myself or maybe a noble warrior. Was the only difference between the two the reason for the attack or the intent? It was more than self defense. It was the defense of someone defenseless! And she had done that once for me.

I threw my whole body against the oozing bulging hot mass of monster just as its fangs were about to latch onto to her face— just before razor claws and spikes were about to split her into pieces.

A scream that almost sounded like Ace's echoed then, but the fact that it resembled that voice at all only made it worse. The beast lost its balance whether controlled by Ace or not. He completely forgot about the prey before him. Besides, in this short narrow corridor, balance was a key element. With me purposely knocking him down, there was only one way to go. The narrow stairs were waiting like the mouth of a whale.

I felt like I was in a shipwreck. Down I fell with him splashing into the goopy waves crashing into my face. It may have saved me from breaking my neck even if an elbow and knee felt bumps and bonks on the way down, but I was engulfed in a sea of hot bristling gooping foam. A bug stuck in a bubbling soap probably wouldn't feel much different, except that this probably tasted worse. I don't know what bugs smell or taste, but I know they breathe through their bodies and the pores of mine felt more suffocated than my lungs.

I'm sure I at least half passed out if only for a few seconds with that taste, that smell, that violence and asphyxiation. Suddenly I was on the floor. Ace's half-reptilian, half zombie face growled and drooled above me. He looked like something on a band cover that might have looked actually kind of cool, my brain still somewhat numb commented on this behind the numbness of shock and fear.

Drool-glop splatted on my face, but that was when I noticed more than being grossed out, that I was in pain. I winced. Spikes of pain on chest and arm. I instantly reached there and writhed myself with pain.

The beast jumped. I almost forgot the pain as Ace leapt off of me, looking down far more consciously. Still a beast but somewhat less-so, he staggered and then bolted.

Here at last I fainted again and didn't regain consciousness until I felt a damp cloth on my face.

Warm light flooded my hazy vision, but I could see enough to recognize the pale, thin face of that suffering woman, her heart pouring out to me.

"Sanford."

"M—M—Mom?" I managed with a choke.

She even had a pillow under my head, but I was still on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Tears bloomed in her eyes and a smile sprouted on her lips as she embraced me on the floor with relief.

Tears filled my eyes too. I couldn't help it. My face was in her messy dark hair and I let my tears fall into it.

"I'm… I'm sorry," I managed.

"Oh!" she broke away suddenly and looked at me again. "Not right now, not right now. Please!"

I closed my eyes and felt a dull pain in my chest. I touched it with my hand. It was only a scratch, after all. It was hardly even bleeding, though my mom must have already been cleaning that. I shivered as I pulled myself upright and coughed.

"No, really," I said. "I'm sorry. I should've… what time is it?"

"About 6:00."

"Shouldn't you be going to work?"

"I'm not going to work today, are you crazy!?"

I shrugged. "Well, probably kinda."

And I laughed a little. I don't know why. Maybe I was just giddy with the fact that I was alive.

"What happened to…?" I forced.

"He left," said Mom.

"Where?"

"I don't know."