How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (Necon Modern Horror Book 9) (6 page)

It stood on the edge

after calculating Rolm’s Levels of Acceleration,

while considering circular
argumentation

of the Newtonian principles of inertia,

the displacement of the Aristotelian
assumption

of natural place.

It mulled over the possibility of a
glitch

in the inverse-square law,

the use of translational motion over

rotational motion meant only one thing,

it had to cross the road

to get to the other side.

“This is a very special day,” he
says, raising his glass with his six fingered third hand and tapping my glass.

Why does this always happen to
me? I could go to the loneliest, faraway bar — a place on a planet
outside the known universe and some unnamed genetic hybrid will find me. They
always treat me like a long lost brother. They talk and talk and talk until I’m
all sticky and wet with their words.

I discreetly blink a change
control code into my three-dimensional self-projector implant to create a
transformation in my outer displacement.

“I’m a lucky guy!” he says smiling,
looking straight into my eyes.

So transparency doesn’t bother
this guy. Great. I fade back into the bar’s temporal zone just in time for the
bartender(‘s hair) to notice me. Her dark cloak of hair undulates around her
body, covering her in a living full-length gown.

A mass of curls form ‘??’ above
her head. I draw ‘==‘ on the counter and longingly watch her hair make another
Ankle-high Buffalo Bill for me while the bartender carries on a conversation in
sign language with a Venusian in a pressurized tank. I begin to imagine what
else hair like that could do...

“Not only is this a special day,
but meeting you here really makes it unforgettable,” he says.

The remnants of my daydreams
scatter to the darker corners of the darkened bar. This guy has to pick now to
get friendly. Just when I’m in the process of building up the energy to talk to
the bartender; her hair’s been giving me erotic daydreams all evening. I was
definitely not looking for a pal, I want the bartender(‘s hair).

“Do I know you?” I ask as rudely
as I can. I look him up and down. Didn’t anyone tell him that polka dots were
out of style on this side of the universe and those big, floppy red shoes
— where did this guy come from?

“I know you’re here, you know I’m
here. Double knowing. It doesn’t get better than this,” he says confidently,
his orange curly hair bobbing up and down as he nods.

Now I know I’m in trouble. I have
no idea what he’s talking about. So I just stare at him. Then suddenly his
words have a startling affect on my subconscious, resulting in an unexpected
physical change. I liquefy and pour into the rim around the bar chair.

Wet.

I knew that was coming.

“You’re my kind of person,” he
says and pours into his chair’s rim. A drop splashes into me and suddenly we’re
in direct pipeline mental contact.

All matters of fellowship and
love floods my mind. Life is good. Rainbows always come out after the rain. A
list of words with a heart replacing the letter ‘o’ begins to march through my
mind.

I recompose and say, “Just a
minute — you can’t just go around splashing yourself into strangers.”

“I thought like that once,” he
says after recomposing. “But now that I’ve met you. Well, I can’t stay
unaffected. You’re the best.” He reaches out to slap me on the back, but I
activate my Portable Matter Contact Repellent and his hand swings through a
temporary tunnel in my torso.

That’s my limit. Accidental mind
drips are one thing (and I’m not so sure that drip was an accident), but body
touching without so much as an eye-to-eye invitation — that’s an outrage!
I slide my right hand into my jacket searching for my Guiltless
De-molecularizer when a thin filament wraps around my wrist. I look down and
it’s a strand of the bartender’s hair. She’s still talking to someone else, but
her hair forms the words BE KIND in the air.

I can’t believe it — a
dream come true. Her hair noticed me! Maybe I could retrieve some joy from this
evening. If...

If I could get rid of this guy
and spend some time with the bartender(‘s hair). I take an empty hand out of my
jacket and three strands of hair caress my cheek before the bartender walks to
the other end of the bar. This gives me the kind of chills I’ve been
fantasizing about since I first saw her hair in action.

It’s time to jump to light speed.
I have to make this guy go away and I have to do it in a civilized way since
her hair made it clear it didn’t want me to disperse him into star matter.

So this guy’s sitting there real
impressed with knowing me (I don’t know why) and wanting something (I don’t
know what).

His eyes are bright and filled
with expectation. I take all my three-dimensional energy, pipe it into a
one-way line in his direction and say, “I can see that you want something
— that you have a question to ask me.”

He nods, smiling with a rim of
pink teeth around his lower head. He looks around mischievously to see if
anyone is listening and leans toward me.

I blink and his face had
transforms to pasty white with blue eyebrows and a large, red, round nose.

“TRICK OR TREAT!” he yells. The
force of his words flings me across the room and I adhere to the wall like one
of those six pointed Niobium wall hangings.

Sticky.

Finally.

It is kind of a relief.

He runs out of the bar, laughing
loudly. And it takes two hours for the bartender(‘s hair) to coax me down from
the wall. Not the worst two hours of my life, but I’d rather have that kind of
stuff done to me in private instead of in front of the gamey crowd of the bar.
But sometimes you have to take your treats (or tricks) where you can get them.

Designed as tiny harmless pets

their escape from the genetic lab

was barely news worthy.

Cruising the concrete sidewalks

their miniature fins bobbing up

through cracks in the grey squares.

Hoping for a tired pigeon or dropped
food

steering clear of leather soles

and running rubber cleats.

When death comes their tiny bodies

lose form and meaning

becoming part of a crumbling
sidewalk.

You might see a round grey pebble

of an eye glint before it rolls over

to its rough concrete stomach.

“Lay another one on me, Goosie”
she said, flicking the ashes from her cigarette across the bar into the ashtray
next to the cash register. The scratched mirror over the bar reflected a
perfect little girl, with curly hair, wearing a red velvet dress. Most of the
usual crowd was missing, no doubt resting up for the evening ahead. It was
Saturday, one of the busiest nights of the week.

 
“You really oughta slow down “ The
bartender pushed her wire frame glasses up on her nose and poured two fingers
of vodka into Red’s glass.

 
“Easy to say when it ain’t you that’s
gotta go skipping through the same dark woods day after day only to end up in a
wolf’s belly,” Red replied.

 
“Hey, kid,” the wolf croaked from a small
table in the corner, where he nursed a bottle of rum. “I’ve eaten better before
I got stuck with this gig. At least you don’t have to go through a c-section
every night.”

 
“Yeah, so am I supposed to feel better
about getting dragged out of you?” She threw the cold, clear liquid to the back
of her throat and shuddered. Smooth warmth filled her for a brief moment before
the dusty, dank air of the bar cut back through her body.

 
“The Three Pigs tell me our hours might
get cut back now that the Power Rangers are taking over,” the wolf said.

 
“Yeah, yeah, I heard that same talk when
that purple people eater was the in thing, but nothing changed. I’m not holding
my breath waiting for those pastel freaks to change things.”

 
“Things did slow down when Big Bird was
topping the charts,” Old MacDonald said two seats to her right.

 
“Those were good days,” Red said softly,
taking a drag on her cigarette. “We had time to hang out with Dorothy in the
Green City, live a little. Now “

 
A screeching siren filled the air. A red
light in the ceiling pulsed brightly. The siren stopped when two hulks dressed
in green fatigues walked in. One jerked his finger at the girl and tossed her a
bright red hooded cape. The other one gave the wolf the thumbs up. The wolf
stood and limped towards the door.

 
“We’ve got a reading alert, bedtime
stories starting on Grant Street. Let’s go, and no trouble this time, girlie,”
the first one said.

 
“Come, my hairy one,” she said, draping
the cape over her shoulders and letting the wolf lean on her as they walked out
the door. “Time to live happily ever after.”

I saw colors a little bit different,

edges of the garden came into focus,

I took a little walk – just to
see what was out there

I planned on coming back, really I did.

Found magic in my hands and my hips,

found even a look could stir things up

so I stirred and stirred

making little and big things.

With the walking my legs got
stronger

even with the calluses, I kept walking

making things bright and shiny,
sweet and sour,

I kept on stirring.

I planned to return, to show you
what I found.

Oh, there were so many things,

so much to stir up – keeping
me busy,

I forgot my way back.

Where was I?

((...))

Oh yeah, I was telling you when I
first noticed I was changing.

I woke up Saturday morning feeling
exhausted. The room spun. Throbbing pain crept across my forehead. I looked
down at my hands and saw lights.

What — ?

((??))

Sparkling lights. Not fluorescent
or 60 watt or halogen. I’m talking about infinite points of brightness in the
brown flesh of my hands. In and on them.

If that wasn’t bad enough my
nicely manicured fingernails were no longer painted Pleasingly Plum. They had
become little oval windows to outer space.

((!!))

I know it sounds strange, but
this is what happened.

((...))

Apology accepted. And lay off the
fancy titles. I’m not an official representative from Earth. Just call me
Janet.

Anyway, no matter which way I
turned my fingers all I saw was endless velvet darkness filled with sparkling
stars.

((??))

Yes, every single finger. I thought
it was those funny lights you see when you close your eyes and press on your
eyeballs.

((...))

Oh. I forgot you don’t have
eyeballs.

((??))

Uh — yeah. I guess if I had
anything like that and did that to them it might be the same. Then I looked
down at my feet. They were transparent.

((??))

Like glass, but not shiny. I
wiggled my toes. They felt normal but I could see the wood floor through them.

((??))

I did what any normal human would
do. I closed my eyes. That didn’t help because I could see through my eyelids.

The lights in my fingers grew
into swirling intricate designs up my wrists and around my arms. That’s when I
first heard you.

((??))

No. Nothing like now. There was a
low rumbling sweet sound in my nose. The words were jumbled. I didn’t know then
but it was the interlateral skiagramic time space continuum split that was
distorting your words.

((??))

Just something I figured out
later, or maybe I overheard you mention it.

((...))

Sure I sound calm now. Back then
I decided that standing on my transparent feet and running through my apartment
screaming would make me feel better. Except I started to float. I tried to grab
something but I couldn’t move my arms or legs. I thought for a moment I had
died and this was an afterlife thing, but it didn’t look like anything I’d seen
on television.

Did I tell you that I lived in
one of those factory buildings that had been converted into apartments?

((...))

Well, when I saw myself
approaching the two-foot thick brick wall in my bedroom I knew it was all over.
But instead of banging into the wall, my body bubbled through it.

((??))

I was more than surprised. I was
shocked. When I came out of the wall I found I had shifted in my body.

 
((??))

No, that’s not normal for us.
Humans see everything from our head. We can lose arms and legs and live, but
off with our head and that’s the end. One second I was in my left hand, the
next in my right thigh. Every now and then I’d slide into my head and could see
the Earth getting smaller and smaller. This doesn’t happen to the everyday
blood-sweat-and-tears human body.

((??))

I don’t mean that literally.
We’re made of a lot more than that. It’s just a saying. You’ve got to loosen
up.

( ( . . . ) )

Hey, stop that! I don’t mean
loosen your physical dimensions. Pull yourself together.

I wanted to cry or clench my fist
or anything except float around in my body as it floated around in space with
strange voices drifting in and out of my nose.

((...))

Thanks for understanding. Loss is
a universal thing.

I don’t know how long I floated
around. Every now and then I’d end up in my head and could look around. I don’t
know the constellations so I couldn’t place myself. I couldn’t see Earth
anymore.

Then I bumped into you. That’s
when your voices came in loud and clear.

((??))

Well, I’d get out of your way if
I could but we seem to be stuck together.

((...))

I don’t think moving towards me
is a good idea. Wait...

((O...h....!!!))

((wh!e!r!e...w?a?s?...I...!?))