A Pinstriped Finger’s My Only Friend

Chapter 6

6TOMORROW MORNING, SEVEN HOURS LATERWhen Judd's eyes start to open, it's for the second time since he went to sleep last night. He woke up once already (remember?) and saw purple furries with tentacles, swirling orange eyes, and mouths like green croissants. He ran past squirming walls and heard the chocolate Lab Sphinx singing opera. Then the furry that sounded like his Mom wrapped its tentacles around him...

(Which isn't as much fun as it sounds!)

...and Judd passed out.

(If that wasn't a textbook case of information overload, I don't know what is.)

So now, finally, he's coming around again after fainting. But it's a rough reentry. Seeing...

(And hearing and smelling!)

...the things he did was a shock to the system. He literally couldn't process it all, so he simply shut down.

(Not me, though, I can handle anything, why do you think they call me Killdigit?)

Fainting is a defense mechanism, and Judd's sanity needed defending, so voila. But the big question now is, has the nap prepared him to deal with his weird environment? Did the down time boost his insanity resistance?

(Or did he just avoid the problem and skip off to a dreamland in which everyone and everything was nice and normal again?)

(Hold on to your hamsters! We're about to find out.)

When he blinks his eyes open, he finds himself staring at a very familiar ceiling--the ceiling of his bedroom. The swirling ridges of plaster above his bed are the same as always.

Judd feel instant relief that there's no purple furry hanging from the ceiling like the last time. Jacking himself up on his elbows, he looks around the room and feels even more relieved. Everything is just the way it should be. Nothing's out of place.

The walls are layered with posters of hot girls, sports stars, and cars. The desk is swimming with clutter--candy wrappers, energy drink cans, game controllers, phone. Trophies crowd the top of the dresser, gleaming in the morning sunlight. The same dresser drawers are half-open, exactly the way he left them when he fell asleep last night.

All is well, from the looks of it. Maybe that whole scene with the furries and crawling walls and singing dog was just a dream. That would explain it, all right. It sure seemed like a crazy dream, didn't it?

Judd sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He shakes his head hard to clear the cobwebs, then stretches and yawns.

Thank God. That freaked-out nightmare had felt so real, but that's just the way dreams are sometimes.

But what had brought it on? He'd had a perfect day from start to finish yesterday. Not exactly fertile ground for nightmare visions.

He hadn't eaten anything that disagreed with him, just his favorite homemade lasagna with bacon and extra mushrooms, which never gave him a bad reaction.

Is it possible he was feeling the pressure from the impending state championship game? Not a chance! He eats pressure for breakfast.

(Just like Killdigit!)

Whatever the cause, at least it seems like he'd snapped back out of it. Bye-bye nightmare.

Judd gets up from the bed and walks to the door. He stands there a moment before looking out, half-afraid he'll see the same squirming walls. Then he laughs, pulls the door open, and peeks into the hall.

No squirming. The walls beyond the doorway are perfectly normal--just good old lifeless white plaster just sitting there. Time for a nice big sigh of relief, everybody.

Judd grins, feeling sheepish that he was ever worried at all. Of course the craziness was a dream; what else could it have been?

Just then, he hears the ringtone on his phone--a snatch of hardcore rap--and he jumps to grab it. Because that particular ringtone means he's getting a call from super-hot you-know-who.

He touches the screen to take the call and slaps the phone to his ear. "Kaela?"

The voice on the other end isn't hers. "Good mooning, looover boy-ee." It's deep, double-bass deep, with a drawn-out, strung-out drawl. "Missss me-uh?"

Judd frowns and snaps the phone from his ear. He double-checks the name and number on the screen, guessing there's been a mix-up, guessing someone dialed a wrong number that somehow triggered Kaela's ringtone.

But according to the phone, he's guessing wrong. The letters of her name couldn't be more clear and correct. The digits...

(Did somebody say "digits?")

...of her number appear to be perfect. So he moves on to Likely Possibility Number Two.

He puts the phone back up to his ear. "Good one, Kaela. Very funny."

(A joke! That's it! Gotta be a joke!)

"Is it Talk Like a Weird Old Guy Day or something?" He chuckles. "Did you get some kind of new voice-altering app on your phone?"

"Heeeyy!" The voice on the line sounds insulted. "Don't you-uh liiiike muh vooyiss, hoooneey?"

"Sure I do." Judd laughs again. "Now how about talking in your real voice again?"

The line explodes with screaming. "This-uh yiiisss muh ree-yul voyisss!"

Judd scowls. Frankly, the joke is getting kind of weird. This isn't like Kaela at all. "I'm sorry. Maybe we have a bad connection." He lowers the phone to cut off the call. "Let me just..."

Suddenly, he hears heavy footsteps approaching quickly from behind. He spins just in time to see it stomping toward him.

The eye. That's what he locks in on first--that one giant eye. It's as big as a basketball, with a rotating red iris and throbbing spinach-green veins.

(Red iris? Green veins?)

It belongs to a seven-foot-tall cyclops. And the cyclops is charging, allowing Judd scant seconds to take in the rest of its bulk.

Flashes of detail leap out at him: shaggy black hair, rings of jagged teeth, clumps of shivering white barnacles. Three-fingered hands reaching out, studded with jagged black nails.

(Oh my God oh my God oh my)

Heart thundering, Judd drops the phone and goes brain-dead...

(Snap out of it, Judd!)

...stumbling back until he falls against the desk, knocking cans and game controllers to the floor as the cyclops grabs him by the shoulders...

(Raagh! I try to fight back, to give this thing a taste of Killdigit power...)

...and shakes him like a psycho kid with a new baby brother...

(...but I'm a pinky finger! I could scratch this thing's eye but good if Judd would just raise me up there...but he's too shell-shocked to call in the Killdigit Marines!)

...and then the creatures spits some kind of gray goo all over Judd's face, one steaming blob after another, and it stinks like cigarette butts. Every time it spits, it makes a sound like, "Jih-yug! Jih-yuggg!"

And Judd's just shamelessly screaming, little girl screaming, he's losing it big time.

"Jih-yug! Jih-yuggg!" The cyclops keeps shaking him and spewing goo in his face. The whole time, that huge eye keeps him fixed in its unblinking gaze. "Jih-yuggg!"

With a burst of adrenaline, Judd wrenches his left arm free and flings it up to block the stinking spray. That puts me right where I wanna be, where I can finally do some damage.

The next time the cyclops lunges forward with a mouthful of goo...

(Come and get it!)

...now that Judd has his left arm up, I'm right in its path...

(Kowabunga!)

...so I flick myself so I'm sticking straight out when the eye hurtles toward me. I jab that basketball-sized orb smack in the pupil...

(Take that, you one-eyes weirdo!)

...but it's rubbery so I don't punch through...

(Wait...what?!)

...and instead, I stove myself but good!

(Which sucks! Ow ow ow ow ow!)

But at least I had an impact! The cyclops lurches back, howling its lungs out...

(Or whatever it howls with...)

...going "Hur-muh! Hur-muh!" and clutching its giant eye with both three-fingered hands.

"Yeah!" I'm in pain, but I am not depriving myself of a victory cry. "How ya like me now, cyclops?"

"Jih-yug! Hur-muh!" The creature staggers back, wagging its skull like it's in pain. It trips over one of Judd's basketball shoes and comes down hard, collapsing on the floor.

At that point, the way to the door is finally clear. "Run, Judd!" I don't hesitate to say it. "Run!"

But before Judd can get his bearings and sprint out of there, something else enters the room. The way to the door...

(What is that freakin' thing??)

...is no longer clear.

"Greetings, dearest and most pride-inducing son-child-being." The voice is high-pitched and delicate, like that of a talking baby doll. Each syllable is pronounced with exquisite care. "What has she done this time?"

The voice comes from what looks like a bundle of barbed wire strung with chunks of bloody meat. It stands four feet tall, and the wire is constantly twisting. As Judd watches, it slides and screws around, bringing three ragged red chunks to the top of its body.

Together, the chunks form the features of a face.

(Okay, now that is just...)

One chunk has a big eye with the lid shut. The chunk below it has a nose, and the chunk at the bottom has...

(...messed up.)

...a sphincter, a puckered-up sphincter, but it's in the right place for a mouth, so it must be...

(Even for a day in the life of a talking pinstriped pinky, this is seriously weird.)

The eyelid opens, revealing an eyeball with four irises (each a different color--red, yellow, silver, pink) and four pupils (each a different shape--round, square, triangular, octagonal), and then the sphincter mouth flexes open and shut, open and shut, open and shut, as it talks.

"Poor, poor Molly." A strand of barbed wire slithers out and touches the blubbering cyclops' brawny arm. "You just want more kisses from your son, don't you?"

The cyclops nods its shaggy head. "Jih-yug! Luh-ruv!"

(These things think Judd is their son?? Did another Judd used to live here, and if so, did he look like Judd Judd? If he did, then where the fudge did he go when we got here??)

At this point, Judd feels like his head is about to explode. It is not a familiar feeling for someone who's always so in control and totally cool.

"Your mother says she loves you, Judd." That's what the talking sphincter-mouth says next. "She's going to prove it, aren't you, honey?" The tangle of barbed wire and meat pats the cyclops on one of its clusters of barnacles.

"Luh-ruv!" The cyclops reaches up, puts its hands on either side of its head, and squeezes. "Mah-gah luh-ruv Jih-yug!" The head compresses like a dog's rubber chew toy, and the big eye pops right out, leaving a gaping cavity oozing bright red slime.

The eye lands upside-down in the creature's lap, jiggling like a gelatin mold. Then the cyclops reaches into the open cavity in its head...

(Is this sick or what??)

...and pulls out a pulsating gray brain.

"Mah-gah luh-ruv shoo-hooo!" The cyclops holds the brain out toward Judd, inviting him to take it.

(The brain is dripping red slime. Green veins dangle behind it, connecting it to the inside of the cyclops' head cavity.)

Judd's eyes are wide as galaxies as he gapes at the bizarre scene. He makes a weird gurgling sound in the back of his throat.

I think he might be about to faint again. And why the hell wouldn't he?

"Mah-gah lur-ruv shoo-hoo, Jih-yug!"

Because now he knows, with sickening certainty, that he's back in the dream or the madness or whatever it is. He never did escape.

And whatever's coming next, it can't be good.