Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
PART NINE
That got their attention. The skunk and mutt leaned forward in their seats, eyes wide.
"He's just outside!" Toby said. "He's... I mean..." He paused and had a thought. "Actually, I should probably go ask him if he's okay with this."
"Sounds, uh, sensible," Zinc agreed, still not sure he'd heard the mouse right the first time
Toby stood up. "I'll go talk to him and be right back. Do you guys maybe have an umbrella I could borrow for a moment? My pizza box got soaked."
Junella tossed Zinc a nod, approving the request.
The canine hopped up off the couch, darting behind some shelves. Rooting sounds could be heard. He returned with a translucent pink parasol clamped in his wrench-jaws. "Sorry. First one I spotted."
Toby accepted the girly thing. It had ruffles. "So long as it works," he shrugged. He was about to open it up to check for holes, but then remembered the superstition. Instead, he tucked it under his arm and headed back towards the maze of shelves.
The mouseboy was smiling a bit now. The more he thought about it, the more perfectly this plan fit together. Assuming George would be okay with it (and that seemed likely), these two would make much better companions for him. Toby's ears perked to hear Junella and Zinc's footsteps following eagerly behind him, glad to have their attention. He navigated through their stacks of stuff with much more confidence this time.
He reached the front entranceway and looked out into the rain. George was still there, standing in the same place, looking like a regal silhouette.
Toby was just about to unfurl his pink brolly when a powerful hand flew out of nowhere to clutch his neck. He slammed into the doorframe forcefully enough to send flakes of wood flying.
Through the pain, he looked in utter confusion and terror into Junella's eyes. They were fixed on his, ablaze with anger. Her mouth curled up in a snarl. Hot breath puffed from her nostrils like the Big Bad Wolf.
Toby realized that her irises were actually pumpkin-orange record labels, with spindle holes for pupils.
It took no effort on her part to keep the intimidated rodent pinned to the wall with one hand while she raked the other down her back-grooves. "WHAT THE FUCK KINDA HUSTLE YOU TRYNA PULL ON ME!?" she rumbled like a rap MC.
Every last one of Toby's muscles flinched. "I don't... know what... you're... GLAKK!" he gurgled out.
Zinc stepped in to play good cop, but he did not look amused either. "If I may translate for my compadré," he pointed through the downpour at George, "that thing's a nightmare construct, and we're no rubes. You think we haven't run into those before? You think we don't know what that goddam thing'll do to us? Buddy, I don't know how you got it here, or what crazy plan you had, but we're not that easy."
Toby understood now. These two thought he was a thief or an assassin who'd planned to have George attack them! "No! I promise! He's tame!"
Junella and Zinc both gave him pure looks of, 'Do you seriously expect us to believe that!?'.
"I swear, I swear!!" Toby pleaded.
Junella's glare drilled through him for a moment longer, then she brusquely released him.
The mouse sucked in a deep breath and massaged his throat. "I'm sorry I (cough) gave you the wrong Idea! I'm being sin- (cough cough) sincere, really!"
With a single needle-tipped finger, Junella reached down and brought his chin up. Their eyes met. Then she pointed towards the rain. "Prove it. Show me," she sang.
Toby nodded and swallowed. "Of course." He tried an ingratiating smile. "You're, um, really strong."
The compliment did not change her wrathful expression. "Ya goddamn right." She kept her eyes locked on his, hand hovering close to her cutlass, as the mouse knelt to retrieve his umbrella.
Toby opened it with a plastic-sounding 'fwoomph'. It was shaped like a half-dome and looked candylike but effective. Clutching it with both hands, he trotted into the falling water. The mud squished up through his bare toes.
Zinc and Junella watched him approach the nightmare. They were both outright befuddled by this turn of events. They'd encountered Toby's type plenty of times in the past. Someone pops up in Phobiopolis, scared out of their wits, and the first thing they want is to go home. So they come straight to J&Z's pirate ship, or to one of the other 'tour guides' scattered around. No one ever got what they wanted, of course. This place was a one-way trip. Zinc had been truthful: neither he nor Junella held any illusions about what they'd find on Anasarca. Aldridge might not even live there anymore. All they hoped to gain was the bragging rights of saying they had set foot on the summit and returned to tell the tale.
Junella saw the horse's head turn towards the mouseshrimp. It was keeping outside the rain boundary, even with food so near. It seemed to not like water, so maybe that was common among constructs? As soon as the kid stepped into the open though, she expected the pile of horse bones to rip him to shreds.
But then the impossible happened. Both skunk and canine went slack-jawed as the mouse walked right up to the horse and started chatting. No crushing with hooves, no shredding with teeth. This was not how things worked. Yes, Phobiopolis was a mercurial, untrustable place. But certain things were constant. One of them being the behavior of nightmare constructs.
"A shapechanger?" Zinc guessed.
Junella conceded the possibility. "A very good one if they are."
Zinc scratched his head. "What in the hell is the scam here?" he said breathlessly.
They'd known each other long enough that further collaborative speculating was unnecessary. They each knew the other would be having the same thoughts and reaching the same conclusion: "???" So they waited patiently for the mousekid to return. They watched every movement between the soul and the construct. They both flinched a little when the horse stamped its hooves a bit, but it seemed to be more a gesture of accordance than a prelude to murder.
Soon enough, the little albino was trotting back towards them with a big goofy smirk on his face.
Toby reached the doorway and closed up his umbrella, giving it a little shake. "He says he's perfectly okay with it! In fact, he likes the idea!"
Junella held up her hand: 'Give me a moment to process this.'
"It talks!?" Zinc spat in disbelief.
Toby looked a little offended. "He talks, yes."
Junella gave him a withering look. "Kid, you're confusin' the devil outta me," she moaned.
He nodded in understanding. "I get it now. You're used to how constructs normally act. But he's different! See, he got captured and burned up with some magic stuff a long, long time ago and then they buried him. He's been underground ever since. I found him last night by accident and dug him up. Also by accident."
"That coulda ended badly," Zinc deadpanned severely.
"I realize that," Toby admitted. "But he told me he'd spent all that time in the dirt thinking and reflecting and... and he doesn't want to be like he was anymore. He pledged to help me. He said he needs me to help teach him how to not be evil anymore. But I don't really feel comfortable having a servant, and it seems like you guys'd know better than me what to do with someone like him, so..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I thought that, if you take me to Anasarca and I go home, then you can have him. You can go on adventures together, I guess. I asked him and he said that sounds like a great idea. He can't wait to meet you both."
Junella and Zinc stared silently at Toby for a moment. Then they turned and looked at one another.
They shared a moment of wordless communication: a mixture of annoyed disbelief and overjoyed hope.
"If what you say is true," Zinc started slowly, then clanked his hands together for emphasis, "and I mean IF, then you absolutely, positively, fuckalutely have yourself a deal. The half of me that thinks you might not be entirely full of shit is jumpin' up and down doin' backflips at all the possibilities of us actually owning a controllable construct. We've got a lotta souvenirs, but nobody's got one of those."
Toby wrinkled his nose. "Like I said, he's... well he's not exactly a furson, but he's not a possession either."
Zinc nodded. "Sorry. But when we've encountered these things before, they act like machines. There's no soul in 'em. So forgive us for being, eh, 'cautious consumers'."
"I'm willing to believe you, for the moment," Junella added. She looked at Zinc and cocked her head towards the charred horse. "I can take it down if I have to," she sang with confidence. To Toby, she pointed with her finger, indicating he'd better get his umbrella back up and lead the way.
Fwoomph, it went. "Won't you two get wet?" he asked.
Junella gave him a look. "We choose not to."
Toby set out again, feeling little droplets making tiny drum sounds on the pink plastic canopy. He looked back and saw Junella and Zinc following, and the rain seemed to part around them like a curtain. 'I guess that's not surprising,' he thought. 'It is their house after all.'
George's nonexistent ears were tilted forward and his nonexistent face held an expression of pleased anticipation. Toby left the rain and, wanting to prove George's gentleness, walked over to give the blackened ribs a friendly pat. "See?"
Both of them were suitably startled. He was touching it!?
Toby smiled at their dumbfounded looks. He announced majestically, "Mr. Zinc and Miss Junella, I present Sir George Charles Atkinson!"
George bowed. "A pleasure to meet you. I look forward to getting to know you both."
Zinc's wrenches were dragging on the ground and his mouth was agape like an overturned jug.
Junella, by contrast, was tense. She still wasn't sure this wasn't some kind of elaborate trap. Her stare drilled into the horse-thing's eye sockets. One reason she hadn't just spilled Toby's guts onto her welcome mat a moment ago was that her gaze tended to bring out the truth in people. So either the mouse was supernaturally good at not giving away bullshit, or he was actually on the level. Still, nothing got within attack range of her without passing a few tests first.
George looked down at Junella, seeing suspicion incarnate in front of him. He'd resigned himself to such reactions. His appearance would forevermore bring them out, and that was his cross to bear. He waited motionlessly to give the strangely-smooth skunk plenty of time to get used to him.
Toby was a little worried now. Zinc looked like his brain had fallen out and he hadn't put it back in yet, but Junella looked coiled to strike. She stood in a fighter's stance, one foot braced behind her, perfectly silent. Her eyes were welded to George's. The sheer will in those eyes was enough to make his knees weak.
Then there was a flash, like a lightning bolt. Junella's cutlass had swung from her side to a few scant millimeters away from George's temple.
George had neither blinked nor flinched, but continued to regard her patiently.
Junella held her weapon steady for a few seconds more. Her sword arm did not tremble in the slightest. Then abruptly, she withdrew the blade, took a step forward, and lightly slapped George across the face.
He startled a bit, backing away and looking at her in confusion. "Goodness, what was that for?"
Junella scratched herself with both hands, needing snippets again to make herself clear: "If this is an act, I wanted to make you break character and attack me."
He nodded. "Ah, I see. A reasonable worry. I take no offense."
Her eyebrows went up. She was a bit flustered at his non-aggressive response and tried to cover it up by pulling her scarf closer around her face. She set off in a circle around George, beginning to lightly poke, probe and jiggle him.
"Oh!" said George. "You're giving me tickles, Madam!"
Zinc had finally regained his senses a bit. "I think she's making sure you ain't a hologram. Or two goons in a suit."
"Fair enough," he replied, stifling a giggle as she reached into his ribs and felt around inside them.
Junella finished her inspection by patting all along the construct's dry, rough skull. She even dared to touch his teeth. Finally she stepped back and gave an open-handed shrug. If there was any deception going on, she couldn't find it.
"Do I pass inspection?" George asked expectantly.
"I can't see why not," she finally sang.
Zinc was fully used to trusting his companion's judgment by now. He clanked his wrenches together with a great big grin. "Hot dog!! We got ourselves a steed the devil himself wouldn't mess with! ...I mean, assuming you don't mind havin' riders?" he asked George.
The nightmare thrust his chest out proudly. "Let me make it clear from now on, that any requests to use me for transportation are not an imposition, but an absolute pleasure!"
Toby nodded. "He took me here all the way from Stoma, or Quinsy, or wherever I was last night."
Either of those locations was far enough away to be significantly impressive. Zinc made a low whistle.
"Let's go back inside then," Junella sang as she sheathed her sword. "I think we have business to discuss."
George looked to the small, crumpled doorway. "Will I fit?" he asked worriedly.
Zinc dared to gently pat George reassuringly on the ribs. "Not to worry. The Jennie-Mae's a lot more structurally sound than she looks. Just try not to knock over too much of our crap."
"You have my word!" George pledged.
Toby was somewhat lightheaded at how well everything had worked out. His idea could have backfired in any number of horrible ways, but instead, it had gone swimmingly. The deal was struck and agreeable to everyone. It took a few moments to grasp the reality that, purely on luck, he had just managed to buy a ticket home.
Junella held up a paw to will the rainwater aside like Moses. The three males lined up at the gap.
All four of their backs were turned.
And that was the moment Tinder Fingers had been waiting for.
Toby's ears pricked up at the far-off sound of something moving at great speed over dirt and concrete. But he had no time to react. Seeing through George's ribs, he watched as a flash of round darkness rumbled towards them as fast as a drag racer.
Whatever it was, it reached out a silver arm to Zinc. With a single touch, it turned his body into a bonfire.
The canine's scream of agony split the sky.
Junella's face screwed up in a snarl of infinite exasperation. She cast a heartbeat's glance at the retreating foe before tending to her friend. With a single fluid motion, she swiveled on the spot and roundhouse-kicked him into the rain. His screaming stopped as the water cooled him and turned to steam.
All this happened in slightly more than three seconds. Toby was rooted to the spot, toeclaws sunk into the astroturf, petrified with fear and confusion. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the smoldering body of the wrench-armed canine. Was Zinc dead? Had he just watched someone die mere minutes after meeting them!?
Toby's stare was broken by a high-pitched, utterly artificial giggle. The mouse's head snapped around. The thing was rolling back towards them.
He got only a glimpse before Junella swung her sword and it detoured away again, but it was enough. This was undoubtedly the Tinder Fingers he'd been warned to "baware" of.
It was like a giant ball of burnt, wadded-up steel wool, perched on a single fat motorcycle tire. Its arms brought to mind stretched-out snot. Grey, spindly, every part of them overly-long. Hands wide as kites ended in bulbous fingertips. Its eyes were pupilless and square, recalling headlights or sunglasses. And then there was its grin. Fat, rubbery, cartoon-red lips stretched almost entirely around its circumference, splitting to reveal steel teeth.
It laughed again. The sound was devoid of anything living or sane.
"FUCK YOU!!!" Junella swore at it. Then she punched her own forehead in irritation, mumbling to herself with her other hand. "It was waiting. I'm so stupid. It was waiting to catch us with our backs turned. Fuckin' rotten rolling bastard!"
The speeding nightmare zigged and zagged among Phlogiston's charred foundations, always keeping within sight. It was taunting her to come play. Its tire sent up plumes of ash behind it. Those awful rubber lips bobbled and bulged whenever it hit a bump. It kept looking back at Junella and waving. Buildings were set alight wherever those fingertips brushed by.
Toby looked back and forth between the monster and the skunk, but he couldn't force his feet to move.
Then George spoke, and for the first time Toby heard some of the fury that must have characterized him in his earlier days. "It seems blind to my presence, Sire and Madam," he said in a low, controlled growl. "I am correct that it is a fellow nightmare?"
"No shit," sang Junella.
The spectral equine had turned to face their attacker, focusing his pinprick eyes on it as it sped back and forth. "Good. Then it does not fear me, as parasomnic constructs never attack one another. With your permission, may I attack my fellow construct with haste and viciousness?"
Junella looked a little dumbstruck. "You're asking my permission!?"
"'Tis only good manners."
"Then yeah! Go-"
The words were barely spoken before all of Toby's fur fluttered with the force of George's takeoff. The black bones accelerated like a bullet from a gun, aimed squarely at the silver monstrosity that had dared attack his new friends.
As George had said, Tinder Fingers didn't seem to be able to perceive him. Toby watched in awe as George ran straight at the horrible thing, it's headlamp eyes never looking in the direction of the hell that was rushing towards it.
George headbutted Tinder Fingers so hard the impact caused a visible shockwave. The wheeled demon was sent crashing through house after house. Six in total. Aluminum siding and window glass sprayed through the air like confetti.
Dazed, Tinder Fingers found himself at the bottom of a dry swimming pool with a skull-shaped dent in its metal flesh. It was as confused as far as its limited mind had the capacity for confusion. Nothing like this had ever happened before!
George was not about to end the fight until he was absolutely sure this scoundrel posed no further threat. He ducked his head to gallop through the neat round holes in each house he'd sent his foe crashing through. His expression was stern, but he allowed himself an inward giggle at the mess he'd caused. This felt good. Mannequins and faux-furniture lay in tumbled piles, covered in sawdust, shards and splinters. George knew there'd always be a part of him that needed to cause chaos, but it also felt good to be aware and in control of it. Before, he was merely a tool. Now, he was a craftsman.
Tinder Fingers looked up just in time to see an onrushing hoof drive one of its eyes halfway through its skull.
It squealed in pain, unable to comprehend what was going on. This was another nightmare! Nightmares did not take notice of other nightmares! Not unless they were members of the same kind hunting in packs, or predators seeking smaller prey when there was nothing else to eat. Regardless, they absolutely never protected souls! Tinder was simpleminded but did not lack self-preservation. Slick as a lathered frog, it leveraged itself up on its sinewy arms and dribbled itself like a basketball up over George's head. It bounced off a roof and headed far away fast.
Meanwhile, Toby was still impersonating a lawn statue.
Junella shoved him roughly down in the dirt by his shoulders. "DOWN," she commanded. "As of a few seconds ago, you're our client. First rule: the client is not allowed to die, no matter how dumb the client acts."
Toby's cheeks turned red.
The skunk's eyes scanned the distance where she could see debris from smashed houses flying here and there. Those two were certainly tearing up the town. She narrowed her eyes as she realized Tinder Fingers was doubling back. Of course he was. That round bastard had a hard-on for revenge against them, so of course he would try for a second shot at immolating her.
The vinyl skunk gave a split-second's glance down to the mouse whose cheek she was shoving into the ground. Her expression showed that maybe she was aware that she might, perhaps, have been slightly rude. "Thanks for him, by the way. I can tell he's gonna be useful."
"You're welcome," Toby grunted, trying not to get dirt in his mouth.
Junella stood up and planted her feet. Both hands were on her cutlass' hilt. Her enemy was coming back around again. She calmed her mind and focused on its approach.
Tinder Fingers was driving at top speed. At first away from the berserk nightmare chasing him, but then back towards its nemeses. It was not about to let George get back in range to hit him again. It was already leaking motor oil from a dozen different wounds. But if it could just put the fire to that damned stubborn skunk, it would be worth it.
Toby watched from the ground as that fat black tire headed straight for his face.
George was gaining on Tinder, smoke billowing from his nostrils. His every hoofbeat drove ruts in the concrete. He was not about to let his target go.
Tinder outstretched his arms, wiggling his fingers. The skunk was just up ahead.
Junella gauged the speed of the onrushing nightmare. If she could time this just right, she could lop off both the bastard's hands in one swing.
Tinder Fingers saw her sword. Then it decided on a change of plans.
George piled on the speed but Tinder was faster still.
Junella felt the tension in her arms like a set of metal springs about to snap.
And at the last second, Tinder Fingers hopped straight up, sailing over Junella and reaching out a finger towards the pale little thing she was shielding.
The tip of its finger was reflected in Toby's pink eyes. Then nothing else in the world existed but his screams of pain as the fire ate him inside out.
*****