What Could Have Been
Chapter Fourteen "I'm stuck in a situation I can't get out of..."
Closing the attic door, the freaky barber went to the waste basket and fished out what Courage realized were rolled up pieces of paper. Ironing out and attempting to smooth out the crumpled paper, Fred grabbed the tape dispenser. He then reached into his blazer's innermost pocket and pulled out the dark blue journal.
"Regardless of whether we are in a simulation or not, you and I agree that there is something wrong with our minds, yes?"
Breathlessly, he glanced at Courage.
"Yeah." Courage nodded, uncertain, "What are you doing?"
"I'm taping the pages I tore out back into my book. Whatever this is - whatever is going on with our minds - it has infected my writing. I've been having trouble writing as of late. The voices in my head will tell me don't use this word or else this or that will happen."
"Wait - voices?"
"Not voices, not exactly. I'm not hearing voices. They're just thoughts. But they are not worded thoughts. I just feel the consequences of what will happen whenever I think of doing something. Whenever I've attempted to journal in the last month or so, my mind would say don't use this word or else this will happen. I've tried to use different words. I've tried to reword certain sentences. It didn't occur to me until Computer made that rather insulting comment..."
The freaky barber let out a laugh. It sounded closer to a growl than laughter.
"I'm glad he said that."
Courage started.
"Why?"
"My mind wants me to write what had happened to me at the Home a certain way. Whenever I think of writing the blue sky, my mind would say don't write the words blue sky. Don't use the words blue sky. Don't mention the sky. But -"
He paused to tape the ripped edges of the paper he had torn out to the parts of the page that remained intact in the journal. Another growl like chuckle rose from his throat, muffled by closed lips.
"There are hairs and dust spots in the tape." Fred muttered, "But I don't care. I'm going to write about the sky. I'm never going to leave it out from now on."
"What does the sky have to do with anything?"
Fred glanced at him, pausing in his frantic yet somehow precise taping.
"It had been a clear sunny day when she -"
He paused.
"When Enid attacked me. When she raped me."
Another dark laugh.
"That was her name. Enid."
He resumed taping.
"I'm going to write what Enid did to me on the pages I had torn out. I will write on the spots. I don't care what happens. What I feel and what I've experienced will not be dictated by this thing inside my brain. I will write every single thing. I will not leave anything out. Not anymore. Never again."
Courage already felt squeamish by the thought of the ballpoint of the pen rolling onto whatever spot Fred had seen on the paper. Just the fact that the freaky barber was saying all of this aloud when someone or something could hear them. Maybe the farmhouse is bugged. Whoever or whatever was bugging them would heard every word that the freaky barber had said. Courage could feel the spots inside his brain as though the spots were the trigger to a bomb. And now the freaky barber was going to purposefully touch the trigger of that bomb. He was going to provoke whoever or whatever was bugging them on purpose.
"Will you promise me something, Courage?"
"What?"
"Will you promise me that you won't erase your memoir? Computer is right. If you do, and once we overcome this, you'll regret it. All of that hard work and everything you've written from your heart deleted. And for what reason? Because a thought in your head told you to do it? A thought in your head dangled a consequence over your head? I'm going to overcome this thing in my head. And I want you to overcome it, too."
"But what if this is real? What if -"
Courage stopped.
He didn't want to say it aloud.
He glanced at the computer desk and grabbed printer paper and the red pen that Fred kept on the desk. He wrote:
"What if an actual person or thing is causing all of this? What if it hurts Muriel? I'm scared it will kill Muriel if we do what it doesn't want us to do. What if anytime we didn't do something or we don't do something, it prevented something bad from happening to Muriel?"
Swallowing, he handed Fred the note, wringing his paws as he waited.
"Courage," Fred handed him the note, "I can't live like this anymore. I have to be able to write what happened at the Home. And I have to use the words that I want to use."
Fred held his gaze.
"I thought you would understand, seeing as you're a writer yourself."
Courage grasped his ears.
"I don't care about my own writing! I don't care about my memoir! Muriel is more important to me than my memoir!"
"So, what will you do, Courage? Allow this thing to influence your every decision? What kind of life is that?"
"We don't know how powerful this thing is! And I don't want to gamble Muriel's safety! My memoir is not worth it!"
"Very well."
Fred held out his hand.
"May I have my pen?"
Courage took a step back, clutching the pen to his chest.
"No."
"Give me my pen, Courage."
In one swift motion, Courage snapped the pen in two.
"I won't stand by and let you endanger Muriel."
Glowering at him, Fred rose to his feet.
Courage moved quickly, pressing his back to the door.
"Get out of my way, Courage."
Courage shook his head.
"Get out of my way!"
The freaky barber's deep, bellowing voice terrified him for a moment. But he regained his courage and let out a snarl, baring his teeth.
"I won't let you hurt, Muriel-"
He was suddenly shoved against the wall as the door pressed against his back pushed open. He felt someone grabbing him, holding his forelegs behind his back.
"I got him." Computer said breezily as though this were a normal occurrence.
"What are you doing?" Courage gasped, attempting to struggle out of Computer's iron grip.
"I eavesdropped on your conversation. Duh."
Keeping a firm hold on Courage, Computer turned towards the freaky barber.
"I'll hold down the fort while you grab a pen. There should be one in the kitchen."
"He's going to kill Muriel! You can't let him do this, Computer! He's going to kill Muriel!"
"Honestly, Dog, listen to yourself. Listen to what you're saying. That's precisely why I'm doing this. I'm going to prove to you that nothing is going to happen. And the only way to prove that is to let the freak do what he's gonna do."
"Let go of me!"
"Sorry, Dog, no can do."
"I thought you were my friend!"
Tears sprung to Courage's eyes.
"You're my friend! Why are you helping him?"
At this moment, the freaky barber returned.
"Glad to see you're finally getting with the program, freak."
Fred ignored him, opening his journal and placing it flat against the ground.
"You don't care about Muriel! You were ready to let her die if a meteor hit the Earth!"
Fred paused, glancing up at Courage.
Dark anger burned in the freaky barber's eyes, anger which he swallowed with apparent and audible effort.
Courage's stomach clenched, hearing the taped pages crinkle as Fred's pen moved across the unsafe pages. He could feel Fred purposefully and deliberately pressing the ballpoint of the pen against the spots. He felt the spots on the pages inside of his gut.
If only Fred dug the spot out of the paper-
-if he tore out the page and wrote on a different page, the prickling in his brain and gut would stop.
"That page you're writing has dark spots embedded in it-"
A sudden feminine voice nearly caused Courage to jump out of his skin. Even Computer reeled back, holding Courage tightly to his chest with a startled "Oh my stars!"
The freaky barber pressed closer to Courage. The taped pages crinkled loudly as Fred clutched the journal to his chest. Heat radiated off his back.
A woman appeared holding a clipboard and a pen. She looked to be in her twenties. Stubble covered her otherwise bald head. She wore baggy white pants and an oversized white shirt.
"There are dark specks stuck on the tape you had used to tape the pages back into the journal. Something bad will happen if you keep what you wrote on the pages embedded with the dark specks. Tear out those pages and rewrite what you have written on pages that have no dark specks embedded inside the paper otherwise something bad will happen if you leave it as it is."
"No-"
The freaky barber shook his head.
"You're not real."
"And who might you be?" Computer asked, his voice bright with curiosity.
"I am the Virus. I am Fred's worst fear. His worst nightmare. The worst thing that has ever happened to him."
"No!"
The freaky barber pushed himself closer to Courage.
"You're not real! You're not real! None of this is real-"
"As for you, Courage, it is not too late. You can still save Muriel. All you have to do is go into your documents, erase what is causing you this anxiety and then save your documents."
"Sorry, lady," Computer said, "No can do."
"Don't you want this feeling will go away, Courage?"
"What is the point of all this, lady?" Computer asked as though he were conducting an interview, "What is the point of the virus? Is it to control everyone in the simulation or to control certain people?"
"Tear out the pages that have dark specks embedded in them and rewrite what you just wrote on a safer page. If you do that, this feeling will go away."
"None of the pages are safe." Computer said, "That's what the virus wants you to think. It wants you to think there is a safer page. The thing is, everything is always going to feel unsafe or unusable regardless of what you do. You might as well not even bother doing things safe."
"She's not real, Computer!" Fred all but shrieked, his voice teetering on hysteria, "She's not real!"
Courage realized the attic had disappeared. The window blotted out. He glanced towards the door seeing it had vanished.
His heart lifted in hope.
"Fred! You can stop this! You can make her go away!"
"Well, it appears that I'm out of the loop. Mind filling me in, Dog?"
"This is what I was trying to tell you before! He can make his thoughts real! He can make things real with his mind!"
"Rewrite what you have written, Fred." The woman intoned, "Find a safer page and rewrite what you have written and this feeling will go away. If you leave what you have written the way it is on the pages embedded with dark spots and tape with dark spots stuck on the inside and against the pages, something bad will happen."
Fred glared at her.
"If I rewrite it, that will mean I am under your control."
He tossed the pen into the darkness.
"I won't rewrite it. I won't rewrite what you did to me."
Courage started, fitting the pieces together in his mind.
Fred rose to his feet, towering over the woman.
"I won't rewrite it just so I can feel safe. Furthermore, I will keep these taped pages as a reminder that I have not rewritten what I wrote because you told me to."
"Very well. If you won't obey my orders, then perhaps pain will get you to undo what you have done. It seemed to work the last time we saw each other."
Courage suddenly became aware of a large glass window in the back of the room. He glanced back, hoping to see the attic door, instead he found a white wall behind him. He glanced around the suddenly bright, white walled room, panicked.
Computer was gone.
"Courage."
He started as the woman's voice crackled through an intercom. He spotted her seated behind the large glass window.
"I've read your brain waves and I know what sensation you detest the most. According to your brain waves, you hated the sensation of Fred shaving your body. I will recreate the sensation according to your brain waves and I will raise the sensation level to-"
She said a number that Courage had never heard of before.
"-percent. And according to your brain waves, you hated the sensation of your penis inside of my vagina. I will recreate the sensation according to your brain waves and I will raise the sensation level to-"
Again, she said a number that Courage had never heard of before.
"And I will continue pressing this button until you undo what you have done."
The freaky barber smiled. Then he grinned. Then he started to laugh. It was the most uncomfortable sound Courage had ever heard. It didn't sound like laughter. It sounded as though he were gasping, wheezing. It sounded as though he were going to scream, and every time Courage thought he would, he didn't.
Courage decided he had enough of this.
He grabbed Fred's journal prompting a startled cry from the freaky barber.
"Courage!"
Flipping through the journal and feeling and hearing the crinkle of tape, Courage ripped the pages out of the book as hard as he could.
"Courage, stop it!"
"I'm putting a stop to this once and for all!"
Dodging the freaky barber, Courage ripped the taped pages in two, ripping and shredding the paper, tape clinging and sticking to his paws.
"Courage!"
As Fred grasped at the shreds on the white floor, Courage turned to glare at Enid. He strode up to the glass window, too angry to feel any fear.
"There! I tore up the paper! Happy? Now, let me out of here!"
"Fred is the one who wrote on the unsafe pages. Only he can stop the consequences."
Fear prickled Courage's forehead.
"Your pen is in the corner of the room, Fred. Do you see it? Rewrite what you wrote on the safe pages and all of this will stop."
Courage spotted the pen and practically dove for it.
"Hurry!" Courage handed the pen to Fred.
Fred stared at the floor.
"You're making me rewrite what happened at the Home just so this fear of pain will stop."
Fred glowered at Courage.
"It had been written as authentically as it ever could've been."
Fred rose to his feet, clutching the ruined journal to his chest as though it were his own heart.
"If I ever rewrite what happened to me at the Home again, I will write it because I decided to write about it and because I need to write about it, not because you told me to."
Courage gripped onto the freaky barber's pant leg.
"Fred-"
"Well, then, let's see how long you'll hold onto your resolve, Fred."
A light filled the room.
Courage shut his eyes, scared that the sudden bright light would blind him.
It had been uncomfortable when the freaky barber shaved him.
Feeling Fred's razor touch certain parts of his body felt violating, but it didn't hurt.
Fred had been careful enough that he didn't hurt Courage.
Being shaved didn't hurt.
But.
This...
It felt as though a hand had gripped every single individual hair on his body and, in one swift motion, ripped each hair out of his skin.
That particular part of his body hurt the most.
"What a lovely visit!"
She called this a lovely visit.
After hearing him scream and cry and howl inches away from her.
While she watched television.
He kept still even after the light faded from behind his eyelids, scared that moving would make the throbbing in his crotch worse and even after the pain subsided enough that he could relax his lower body, he kept still. He curled up against the floor, every muscle tight and still, his crotch throbbing with pain.
Fred let out a choked moan through gritted teeth and Courage felt the writhing freaky barber's hot body heat against his nose and mouth.
Light filled the room.
Courage clenched his already clenched eyelids even tighter.
He had shaved his crotch while she watched TV.
He screamed for her to help.
He clawed at the door.
Beat his paws on the door.
Yelling at the top of his lungs.
And she just watched TV.
"I'll make you a deal, Fred."
Fred's hands pressed between his thighs, moans muffled in his throat. Shaking and convulsing, he lifted himself up to look at her, expression fixed with pain, eyes empty, lips clamped together.
Enid knelt and placed her hand under Fred's chin.
"There are spots stuck inside the tape you used. If you peel the tape off the journals, I'll lower the sensation level to-"
She said a number Courage didn't recognize.
"You don't have to rewrite what you wrote. Just peel the tape off the journal and I'll lower the pain level."
Fred spat at her face.
Courage felt his heart sank, every muscle in his body slumped, defeated.
"You won't hold onto your resolve forever, Fred. Just watch. After a few more shocks, you'll beg to take apart your journal. You'll beg to undo what you've done-"
Then.
A canine snarl jolted Courage awake.
He opened his eyes, body limp with exhaustion and pain.
Movement and snarling filled the room.
Enid screamed, shrieking over the snarling and barking.
Horrified piercing screams as the muffled growls and snarls grew even more menacing.
Courage heard a wet crunching, ripping noise.
A noise that could mean only one thing.
Enid stopped screaming
He covered his eyes, horrified at what was most likely happening, reminding himself over and over that it wasn't real, that he was still in Fred's mind.
Which mean't...
"Good to see you, Little Freddy."
"I'm stuck in a situation I can't get out of
This thing has infected my most private love
Contaminating any word I would belove
I don't want to do this forever."