An Outlaw, an Intimidation, and a Trip to Hell. Part Two.

“Let. The man. Go.” He glared fiercely.

The boy smirked and leaned in even closer. “Make me.”

Untrust was undaunted. He even seemed to be almost pleased. Very, very slowly, he lowered his head, still holding the boy’s glare steadily. His eye seemed to twitch as he furrowed his brow and squinted hard. After gazing out the window briefly, I immediately did a double-take. The sky seemed to be boiling over with darkness. Huge, billowing, black clouds overtook the wispy little white ones, and ate up the frail blue sky until there was nothing left but swirling coils of gray and black. The air was almost crackling with electricity.

The boy looked nervous. He shifted around a little before tightening his grip on the poor man. Untrust shivered with concentration. His breathing was ragged.

From the very corners of the bus, a kind of spidery darkness emerged. It ebbed and flowed and grew until it was overlapping into the laps of some of the passengers. They squealed and cried out as it reached them, but they were silent after it passed over them. It didn’t seem to be doing any harm.

Little beings began inching their way out of the dark. Nasty little buggers. Most looked like large hairy spiders, but I also saw quite a few that looked like long centipedes, snakes, and rats. Each had glinty eyes and left behind a thick trail of dark, slimy goo. Some scuttled quickly under the seats while others creeped along the edge of the bus at a sick crawl. I would have been horrified if I wasn’t so fascinated. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help scooting a little closer.

Untrust slowly opened his mouth, letting a black, smoggy stream of smoke slip out. His hands were trembling, his eyes wide. The long tendril slowly coiled around the boy. He stuttered gently. Untrust was twitching slightly. The whites in his eyes seemed darker and a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose. The young criminal in the making stared straight ahead blankly. His eyes were cloudy and unseeing. He dropped the knife with a clatter and finally released the old man, but Untrust didn’t seem to notice. Smoke continued to ooze out of his mouth, his eyes were still dark, and his hands persisted their twitching. This was getting weird, and since both the boys were down for the count, it seems that snapping them out of it will be up to me.

I stepped between them, turning first to Untrust.

“Hey! You!” I snapped my fingers in front of his nose to no avail. He continued to stare ahead soullessly. I placed my hands on his shoulders delicately before shaking him as hard as I possibly could. He bobbed back in forth, but remained standing. This wasn’t working. Untrust had been a good friend to me so far, and I didn’t want to hurt him, but all this non-responsive zombie behavior was really creeping me out. I slowly brought my hand out to the side. He could wake back up any second but . . . Quickly, before I could change my mind, I drew my hand back further and smacked him across the cheek as hard as I could. The people in the bus gasped and chittered to one another, as if it were some kind of sick sitcom they were watching, instead of reality. That had to hurt. My hand pulsed and stung while an angry red blotch appeared on his cheek. Geez, I didn’t even know I could hit that hard.

Untrust blinked a few times. Yes! He looked dazed and confused, but the light was slowly filtering back into his eyes. His hands were still. I smiled. After briefly twitching, he grinned mischievously. Slowly, his smile faltered. His brow was furrowed, making him look extremely solemn. This wasn’t right, what’s going on? His eyes had left my face, and drifted over my shoulder, where he was staring intently. He slowly looked back over at me, sighing and chewing his lower lip simultaneously.

“D***.”, he muttered.

Oh no, not one of those drippy melt-monsters again! I was afraid of what I’d see if I turned around, but Untrust didn’t seem to be afraid, so it can’t be that dangerous. I very slowly and very cautiously turned . . . To find nothing, except for the boy, that is. Wait-something’s not right. I scanned him over quickly. Aha! He should be awake by now, but he remained standing with a blank expression and eyes that were nearly black. I turned back to Untrust. Everyone in the bus was staring.

All of the dark critters had evaporated into puffs of smoke when the trance was broken, and the sky was rapidly growing lighter.

“Hmmm, what should we do?”

Untrust shrugged, then half smiled. “Smack him!” He gingerly touched the red blotch on his cheek, wincing comically before breaking into a grin. “Come on! It worked for me, right?” I shrugged, smiling and ignoring our audience. I turned back to the boy, reeled back, and struck him hard. There was no response. No eye blinking or anything- Except . . . God, he was now staring right at me. I reached out, and snapped in front of his black, cloudy eyes. No response.

“We need to get out of here.” I glanced around. The old man was back with his old-lady wife, safe and unharmed. Every single passenger was giving us their full, unwavering attention.

“Yeah, I agree, but what will we do with this thing?” I kicked at the vacant boy. “We can’t just leave him here, it feels wrong.” Untrust nodded vaguely.

“Guess we’ll have to take em’. See if you can get him to walk.” I pushed past the zombie, pushing him from behind.

“You!” I used my army commander voice. “Follow me!” The zombie boy obediently turned and marched behind me. At least we don’t have to carry him.

We hopped off the bus. Untrust sniffed, wiping the bit of blood from underneath his nose before solemnly saluting the driver, causing me to erupt into a giggling fit. The bus drunkenly pulled back on to the road and continued on its way. At least we gave them something to talk about.

Slowly, we made our way back home, with the hooligan stiffly tottering behind. We discussed how to fix the boy. I voted to beat him a little until he snapped to, but Untrust insisted on stashing him in the tree house and hoping he would eventually wake up on his own. Hmm, I guess we might as well give it a chance.

We had now reached the front gate.

“Alrighty then. Zom-boy!” He looked down, gazing blankly and stupidly. “This is an order! Go to the tree-house, stay inside, and try to wake up! Now!” It turned abruptly, running across the yard and hurling itself up the ladder. I laughed.

“Well, Untrust, I’m thinking that if I’m going to continue adventuring and such in your company, I’m going to have to know more about where you come from. I mean, I don’t even know if I believe in all that c***. Yeah, it’s hard to doubt after your impressive little display on the bus, but-” His eyes lit up. He looked sheepish and slightly embarrassed.

“Impressive? Really, You think so? Cause’ it was completely ad-libbed, Just parlor tricks and such, but still- I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I just concentrated! I can!” He looked extremely pleased with himself.

“Hey! Pay attention! I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with here. Come on!”

“Hmm, it’s kind of hard to explain . . . Maybe! No, no I couldn’t.” He seemed to be in deep thought, staring at the ground and muttering feverishly. Finally a mischievous grin broke across his stormy face. He nodded once.

“Let’s go!”

“Wha? T-to. . The. . Place? What’s there?”

“Oh, I don’t know, you’ll see! Come on! It’ll be loads of fun, and I’ll even introduce you to Jack! Please, I can’t go back there alone! Hosanna, Please.” I looked up, considering. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. Here goes nothing. I nodded slowly. He grinned.

“Thank you.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the house. Dang, I forgot to lock the door this morning. We stopped in the kitchen, crunching broken glass underfoot.

“Now, ready? Just stand your ground, okay? Stand strong.” He held his finger to his lips for silence. I obliged.

Suddenly everything seemed to be in slow motion. He stepped back, and then lunged at me. His hands caught my shoulders and he seemed to be smiling as he shoved me as hard as he could.

Falling-That’s the last thing I remembered. Falling, looking at the ceiling, and wishing for a cigarette, all in super-slow motion. I wondered why he was smiling as he shoved me, if he really was evil, and that maybe it had all been a dream.

I’m not sure when it was that I finally realized that I was still falling. It was strange, air was whooshing by me, and I could no longer see the ceiling. It felt so real. The air around me had grown dark, and yet, still I fell.

And as fun as it was with the wind ruffling through my fluffy hair, I still had to wonder, when would I ever land? I flipped over to fall on my stomach for awhile just in time to see the ground rushing up to meet me.

Thump-Crash!