Chapter 5: Self-Harmer Alarmer

“You’re bringing on the heartbreak…”
~~ “Bingin’ on the Heartbreak”, Def Leppard

“This can’t be happening…” mumbled Todd, lifting the knife to take a closer look at his battered face. Closing his eyes, he began to laugh quietly. “This can’t be fucking happening.”

The laughter grew in volume as Todd turned toward the shattered mirror. When he took a step forward, he almost tripped on the vampire’s carcass. The laughter stopped abruptly and he looked down at it.

“Why did you do it?” Todd asked it quietly, squatting down next to the vampire with a puzzled expression on his face. “What was the point? Was it all out of spite?” He paused as if to give it a chance to reply then shook his head. “No. That doesn’t make sense. If you wanted to spite Jimmy, why not just tell him I was dead? Oh, right! I forgot he was a necrophile too.” Another pause. This time, Todd smiled nastily. “How did I know? Simple. The coroner told us…he told us in graphic detail exactly what the bastard did to our Johnny before and after he died. Isn’t that shitty?”

The vampire only stared up at the ceiling with empty black sockets.

Todd nodded his head like it had answered. “Good point, but it still doesn’t make sense! What motive did you have to do it? Why not just kill me yourself? Did you think I ever really had a choice?” Again, he began to laugh.

“I’m being rude, aren’t I?” he giggled. “Here I go, off on another rant without as much as a proper introduction! Let us remedy that, shall we?” Todd playfully shook the vampire’s mummified hand. “I’m Todd Casil…for now. What’s your name?”

When the vampire said nothing, Todd began digging through the vampire’s pockets. He pulled out a wallet and idly flipped it open. “Well, no wonder you can’t answer! Look at all these names! Helena, Miranda, Lolita, Mariah, Alicia, Rachel… you’ve been so many people, I bet you’ve forgotten which was the REAL you!”

Abruptly, his mood shifted to a strange sadness. “I can relate. I’ve been so many people lately, I wonder if there is a Todd Casil is real. Does he even exist anymore?” He shrugged in defeat. “Aw, fuck it! You don’t care. You’re dead! Well, dead again… So it doesn’t really matter to you how fucked up my life keeps getting or what I’m going to do next.”

Todd shivered, now acutely aware of how cold the room had become. “What am I going …

…to do now?” hissed Johnny, glaring at the things spread out before him. He’d spent the last few days ransacking the house and succeeded in gathering an array of pictures, letters, and the other detritus of the past he was desperate to uncover. In fact, judging from the sheer amount of stuff he’d sort through, it looked as if Johnny had enough evidence to prove he was a rather (in)famous New Wave artist with a coke-head trophy wife, the Black Dahlia killer, a heroin addicted transsexual hooker, Jack the Ripper, the front man of an obscure ‘70s punk band, an infamous voodoo bokor, and apparently the Cleveland Torso Murderer.

“This is insane! Just fucking crazy!” Johnny snarled as he got to his feet and started pacing again. “How can it even be physically possible?! All this stuff is apparently mine, but it can’t be mine! It’s just fucking impossible! Simply impossible! I can’t have been all these people...could I?”

“Silly, silly questions from a silly, silly boy,” chuckled Reverend Meat.

Johnny turned to glare at the Burger Boy, chipped and looking trashier than ever after Johnny’s attempts to ‘fix’ him. He was about to snarl something nasty in reply but a thought bubbled up from that cesspool just north the eyebrows. “You were here before, right?”

“Before what?”

“Before I forgot me and became a raving lunatic,” Johnny muttered. “It was you and Nailbunny before, wasn’t it?”

“No. You were always a raving lunatic.” The Reverend sighed. “It was me and Pscyhodoughboy before. The bunny came a little later.”

“Yeah, well D-boy isn’t talking to me anymore and Nailbunny knows what I was like before all this, so let us include him, shall we?” Johnny paused, and then added, “He’s always been much more honest than all of you yeasty little fuckers anyway.”

“I’m hurt that you still think of me as one of those wretched delusions,” muttered the Reverend.

Ignoring the Burger Boy, he tried to focus on the idea before it slipped back into the quagmire of his mind. “I’m trying to figure it out. Think this through logically. You see, I thought that if I found something—a picture or note or some other crappy cliché like that—I thought that maybe it’d trigger some memory. But, as you can observe, it’s only lead me to a myriad of dead-ends and even more confusion. Or has it? Maybe, just maybe you…”

“Could tell you what you were like before?” finished the Reverend. He chuckled. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll like yourself very much if you met the old Johnny…”

“I’ve never liked myself. Besides, that’s not exactly what I want from you.” Johnny groaned miserably, not sure how to phrase the jumbled thoughts in his head. “It…it would be easy just to let you tell me what I used to be like, but there’s the problem. I…I can’t trust you to tell me the whole truth. I can’t trust you not to twist the facts around to manipulate me…”

“And you think the bunny won’t do the same?” came the hiss. “He lies just as much as I do! That veriminious creature hates you for what you’ve done!”

Johnny thought for a moment. “Well, yeah. I guess I’d be a little upset too if somebody drove a nail through my body…”

At this, the Reverend began laughing. “Is that it? You think the Bunny was just a simple petshop rabbit?! Fool! The animal you killed was simply an effigy! It was the Wicker Man, the symbol! A sacrifice of those parts you tried to burn away so long ago…”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know nothing about yourself,” sneered the Reverend in glee. “Completely unaware of all the things you did…”

“Stop with the cryptic bullshit already!” Johnny snapped. “All I want to know what I was like before all…all of THIS! I want to know about when I wasn’t such a fucked up train wreck of insanity!”

“Train wreck? A fitting choice of metaphors…”

“It sums it up my life at this point quite nicely,” snarled the maniac.

“Oh, yes indeed it does,” agreed the Reverend. “Train wreck fits you both better than either of you think…”

“Both? Either?” Now there was a creeping sense of confusion into Johnny’s anger. “What do you mean ‘both’? There’s only me! Okay, so there’s also you and Nailbunny, too…but you’re technically voices in my head, so you don’t really count. Do you? Can you consider the voices in somebody’s head as other people?”

“A good question, but that’s getting us off-topic.”

Johnny clawed the sides of his head, forcing himself to concentrate again. His brains were starting to ach from the effort… “But why use ‘both’, then? Why not the singular, unless we’re including someone else in all this shit?”

“But I am including someone else in our…discussion. I—or maybe we should say you—have included Todd.”

“Who? Oh! Right. That is Squee-gee’s name, isn’t it? Still like Squee better. It fits him better, you know, with all the squeaking and the screaming…” Something clicked for Johnny and he rounded on the Burger Boy in a fit of Conan-style rage. “LEAVE HIM THE FUCK OUT OF THIS, YOU MEATY BASTARD!”

“Defensive, aren’t we?”

“I am not being defensive!” Johnny shouted. “Squee hasn’t got nothing to do with this!”

“Double-negatives simply prove my point,” hissed the Reverend. “It still surprises me how ignorant you are to the little things around you, Johnny. Then again, given your irrational and frankly self-defeating desire to kill off all emotion within yourself, it could only be expected that you wouldn’t notice them in others…”

There was a strained silence from the maniac as he stared perplexed at the Burger Boy.

“It’s so painfully obvious, Johnny…” continued the Reverend in a cheery tone. “After all, who was it the boy came running to after he first killed? Not to his ‘friends’ or the police. And certainly not to his parents! No, no. He comes running to you, Johnny.”

“So what? That doesn’t mean anything…”

“Yes it does, and you know it!” snapped the Reverend. “And you know exactly why you keep going to the boy.”

“You’re full of shit.” Johnny growled with a disgusted snort. His headache had grown into quite a lovely little migraine. “Squee is a friend of mine.” He paused. “Actually, I think he’s my only friend.”

“Friend? Oh, I very much doubt he’s wants to be friends with you…”

Johnny frowned. “Yeah… I wouldn’t want to be my friend either.”

There was a groan of frustration from the Burger Boy. “That’s not what I was getting at, Johnny.”

Grinding his teeth from the pain-fueled rage slowly building up, Johnny glared down the Reverend when it finally dawned on him what was being hinted at. “That’s just sick…”

“That all depends on your point of view,” the Reverend murmured. “True, it is criminal given the difference in your ages…But then again, why should you worry about getting caught? It’s not like you haven’t gotten away with worse…”

“It’s just sick,” repeated the maniac quietly. “He’s still a child, for Christ’s sake! A CHILD!”

“Is he?”

The question landed on Johnny like a lead brick in a mud. For the first time since intruding on his neighbor’s life, Johnny found his fickle brain turn to examining his relationship with Squee in the most uncomfortably meticulous way. He’d always thought of the boy as being a poor little innocent he wanted keep safe from things like…well, like him actually. Always felt that way and always would. But somewhere along the line, there had been a change. And now, to his own chagrin, Johnny realized something he’d been missing for years…

His cute little Squee wasn’t so little anymore.

When the hell did it happen? Johnny couldn’t say, but it was finally hitting home for him just how much Squee’d changed. There used to be a time when Johnny would catch glimpses of the little guy riding his tricycle around and eating frooty-pops with that linty bastard bear of his, cringing or screaming at the slightest scare. And now? Now Squee was smoking and drinking and lashing out at practically everyone who got too close. Hell! The boy even went off and slaughtered some asshole just like Johnny would’ve done.

Of course, it was to be expected. After all the years of being bullied, shunt, and tormented by his classmates, Squee had every right to be pissed. It just saddened Johnny to think that such human garbage could drive such a sweet little boy to become something as nasty and vicious as he was. And yet, as disillusioning as it was to realize his little Squee had succumbed to such disgusting excesses of adolescence, at least Johnny took some small solace that this may all just be a phase. It wasn’t as if the boy had given in to that other, more repulsive urge.

Had he?

Chewing on the knuckles of his hand, Johnny squirmed uncomfortably.

Sex was a subject he’d always loathed to contemplate and the very idea of Squee engaging in such bestial activities utterly appalled him. In fact, Johnny could hardly even bring himself to see the boy as a sexualized thing. He’d always been little Squee-gee, the neighbor child. Adorable and always so apologetically sweet…And a wholly asexual entity.

Then again, even Johnny had to admit the boy had grown quite handsome. He had that slender athletic body, the type of youthful figure that could have inspired Donatello or Verrocchio (1). Yet Johnny would never accuse the boy of being a narcissistic bastard. In fact, when he gave it some thought, he doubted that Squee was even aware of just how attractive he was. The boy was frankly too naïve to notice.

It was the combination such a natural beauty with his innocence and generally inoffensive demeanor which made Squee the kind of boy that brought out all the protective and predatory instincts in people. Which was exactly the reason why Johnny had taken it upon himself to do his best to shelter the boy from the human vermin out there waiting… waiting to take advantage of and abuse just such a lovely and helpless little creature.

But, as disgusting the thought was, there was something monstrously delicious about corrupting such an innocent, beautiful thing… And that led to some rather unexpected and disturbingly arousing mental images of the boy. After all, why was he so eager about keeping Squee safe and pure? Was it really about saving the boy from himself? Or was he saving Squee for himself?

“Argh!” growling and gnawing his hand in frustration, Johnny tried to suppress those thoughts. It was getting harder to reconcile these strange new feelings. Then again, maybe he’d always had them. Whatever possessed him to keep intruding on the boy’s life, anyway? Was it out of some twisted sense of duty? Did he do it because Squee was a friend? Then again, he never wanted to friends, because friends always left him. Besides, such affections left you open to those horrible goblin people… It was also clear even to Johnny own muddled self that it might be for the best if he stopped visiting Squee. So what kept him going back?

Did he really want to…to do… things to the boy?

Johnny groaned miserably, chomping away at the flesh of his hand.

He wasn’t sure what to do next. Should he ignore it? Hopefully, those feelings would just go away if he didn’t think about them! Or maybe he ought to go out for a little while, like to a club, so he could express his unique opinion on humanity’s superficial morals and it’s obsession with hyper-sexualized behavior. Of course that would only be displacing his own anxieties and loathing onto people who, while shallow and very likely deserving of whatever gruesome fate Johnny decided for them, really weren’t the problem this time. But on the other hand, violence against those petty maggots was the only acceptable outlet for such an upsurge of stomach-turning emotion. If he wasn’t’ going to partake in ridiculously graphic violence towards the assholes, then what would he for release?

“Go ahead,” rasped the Reverend. “Give in.”

“Give in to what?” Johnny snapped, his words muffled slightly by the hand he was still gnawing on. God, his head felt like it was going to burst…

“Don’t play dumb, boy. It’s not working.” The Reverend seemed to swell with glee. “Now, do you know what I suggest you do to relieve yourself, Johnny?”

Pulling his hand out his mouth, Johnny frowned at the bloody, slobbery mess his knuckles had become. “Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

With a hiss, he swatted the Burger Boy off the couch and stormed out of the house with the completely innocent, utterly wholesome, and absolutely chaste intention of seeing if Squee had any bandages. And maybe something for the migraine, too.

Deciding that the quickest way to the boy was by his window, Johnny cut across the strip of lawn between their homes and climbed up the conveniently placed trellis with a total disregard for the now very lushly overgrown roses twining almost up to the roof. It was only when he tried to get inside that Johnny finally realized a couple of things.

First, someone had finally put up blinds and curtains over Squee’s bedroom window, making it impossible to look in on the boy, much to Johnny’s annoyance. Not that he had any intention of perversity towards his younger neighbor. It was just a little troubling not being able to get Squee’s attention. But he doubted that do much good, since the second thing that he noticed was not only had the mysterious someone nailed the window shut in an almost obsessive manner, they’d also taken it upon themselves to place heavy-duty iron bars over each and every window of the house.

Johnny grumbled a bit as he climbed down, but was undaunted by such a hostile display of resistance, mainly because he needed those bandages even more now since the damn thorns had dug into his hands, face, and other tender regions…

Somewhat out of curiosity, he tried the front door and then the back. His irritation grew worse along with that fucking migraine when he discovered both were firmly locked and dead-bolted to a freakish degree. Johnny was about to give up and go find a street mime to take his mounting frustrations out on when a flicker of light caught his attention. Getting down on the ground, he peered through the grimy basement window, noting vaguely that it was sealed up and barred the same as Squee’s.

There was a man shillouetted in the dull glow of a flood light as he bolted down a reinforced steel hatch over the tunnel to Johnny’s house. Satisfied that it was securely locked, he stood and began hopping gleefully up and down on the hatch.

“I’d like to see that fucker get in now!” cackled the man—who Johnny assumed was Squee’s father, because that definitely didn’t sound like Squee. And he’d never heard that much anger in the boy’s voice before…

“From now on,” continued Squee’s shadowy parent. “Things are going to be on my terms, not his! Understand?”

There was a pause, and Johnny strained to catch the mumbled reply over the blaring music. Apparently, Squee was down there too, although Johnny couldn’t see him in the gloom. And, judging by the grimace on the man’s obscured face, the answer didn’t set well with his dad.

“SHUT UP! I sick of you parasites!” came the scream as the man whipped around, thrusting an angry finger toward his unseen companion. “That’s exactly what you both are: PARASITES! And I’ve had it with living like this, you son of a bitch!”

Johnny felt his painfully sensitive Asshole Sense blaze into overdrive, and that longstanding righteous fury against the bastard that fathered his helpless neighbor frothed up from the depths to further stoke his migraine-induced rage. Oh, he was dying to express his displeasure over this rampant negligence and abuse…

In another series of mumblings, it appeared that Squee was trying to appease his hateful parent, but it was only making the situation worse.

“I told you to shut up!” the man screamed again, this time brandishing something at the boy. “And get the hell outside of my sight before I smash your fucking head in!”

There was a funny sort of sound, like locusts chittering, and what may have been a faint yet defiant protest from little Squee.

With a snarl, the man lunged forward.

Seized by the fury and fearing for the boy’s life, Johnny found himself rushing the back door. It gave way after a few hits and Johnny was down the basement stairs, lunging without a moment’s hesitation. His brain didn’t have time to register that something was horribly out of place before blind instinct kicked in and he slammed the man up against the far wall, pressing a knife into his throat with uncanny speed.

“God damn piece of shit! I should have killed you years ago! Beating a defenseless—” Johnny’s rage-fueled rant was cut short by a left-hook to the jaw that sent him crashing to the floor. A kick to the ribs flipped him onto his back, making it easy for the man to grind the metal points of his boot into Johnny’s neck

“…Squee?”

The boy froze, his arm drawn back to club his uninvited guest with a length of lead pipe. He lowered the pipe slowly, shaking and glaring down at Johnny with a mixture of shock and horror on his face. “How did you get in here? How the fuck did you get in?! I locked everything! I nailed everything shut! Bars on the windows… Booby-trapped the tunnel… Nothing could get in now… Nothing human… How did you get in?”

“I…broke…*choke!* broke down door…to save you!” wheezed Johnny as Squee continued crushing his windpipe underfoot. He gasped with relief when the boy jerked his foot away, taking a moment to regain his breath before staggering to his feet. “I was only trying to protect you…”

“Protect me?! What the fuck is wrong with you! You were going to kill me!”

Johnny flinched, rubbing his throat. “I… I’m sorry. It sounded like… like your father was going to…”

“My father,” hissed Squee, suddenly going cold. “Hasn’t been home for over a month now.”

“I’m sorry…”

“No you’re not. And, frankly, neither am I.”

“Squee! He’s your father—”

“And you were going to kill him.” The indifferent way Squee stated it made Johnny redden with shame.

“I thought he was—”

“Beating me?” Squee lowered his gaze, laughed quietly. It was a bitter and jagged sound that made Johnny squirm even more. “Let me explain something to you, Johnny: My father hates me. He hates me so much that he absolutely refused to touch me. He hated having ANY form of contact with me. That man would never even risk brushing up against me by accident in the hallway, let alone land a fucking punch. After all, why beat your children when emotional abuse does much more lasting damage? And it doesn’t leave those troublesome bruises or belt marks…”

“Squee…” Johnny lightly touched his shoulder.

The boy’s head snapped up and he glared at Johnny, jerking away. “Leave me alone.”

“I just wanted to apologize.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t care.”

In a sudden motion, Johnny moved forward and pulled Squee into a bone-crushing hug. He felt the boy tense up at the contact then Squee slowly relax as he wrapped his arms around Johnny’s shoulders. They stayed like that for quite a long time and Johnny couldn’t help noticing how nice Squee smelt. True, the boy was rather sweaty but it only added a kind of saltiness to the candy sweet scent that made Johnny think of a certain caramel-coated popcorn snack with the prize inside. Burying his face against the boy’s chest, he greedily inhaled that mouth-watering aroma and found himself wondering if Squee would taste just as good…

With a growl, Johnny started to push the boy away only to have Squee’s hold tighten.

“What do you want, Johnny?” asked Squee in a tired and sweet voice.

Trying hard to think pure, Johnny mumbled something into Squee’s collarbone about bandages.

“…mm?”

“Bandages…” he grumbled, putting a healthy distance between himself and Squee when the boy loosened his grip. Johnny held up his bloodied hand. “See? Don’t worry. It’s all mine this time. I was chewing on my hand and sort of tore it open a little… Oh! There was that fucking rosebush, too…”

Squee looked concern. “Why the hell were you chewing on you hands?”

“I do that sometimes,” Johnny mumbling as he looked down at his feet in embarrassment. “When I get nervous…”

Squee started to ask something more, but only sighed and pointed toward the basement sink. “Sit down over there. It’ll be easier to see what I’m doing. I’ll be right back with the first aid kit.” With that, the boy disappeared upstairs.

Johnny stood there a moment, then shuffled dutifully to the sink and perched himself on the washer next to it. He kicked his heels while he waited, childishly enjoying each loud thump when his feet would hit the metal. Idly, he started humming to the tune playing on the radio and soon was singing merrily along.

“I don’t wanna touch you too much, baby… ‘cause making love to you might drive me crazy…” echoed through the basement as Johnny began crooning loudly. “Love BITES! Love BLEEDS! It’s bringin’ me to my knees! Love LIVES! Love DIES! It’s no surprise… Love begs, love PLEADS…It’s what I need…”

“Johnny?”

With a snarl, Johnny turned and glared at the boy who was giving him the strangest look. “What?”

Arching an eyebrow, Squee sat the first aid kit next to Johnny. “Def Leppard?”

“So? I happen to like that song…”

“Mister Scary Neighbor Man, singing along to cheesy power ballads?” muttered Squee, smirking and shaking his head. “Never thought you’d do something so… well, normal.”

“What’s wrong with that?” came the hiss as Johnny shifted to that spooky quiet voice.

“Nothing! Nothing at all!” yelped Squee, quickly moving out of striking distance. “By the way, you had such a pretty voice…” he added hesitantly.

Getting even more flushed, Johnny wasn’t sure how to react. He just stared at the boy blankly. “Uh, thank you?”

“Welcome…” Still wary, the boy came closer and got out some bandages and antiseptic. He started to reach for Johnny’s injured hand only to have the maniac jerk it away. “Johnny, I need to look at your hand…”

“I can do this myself. Just give me the bandages and…”

“Johnny…” Giving him an unnaturally stern look, Squee took hold of Johnny’s hand and inspected it. “Oh dear God… What the hell where you doing? Eating yourself?”

“No.” Johnny thought a moment. “Well, not on purpose…”

Squee reached for a disinfectant wipe to clean out the grime. “Jesus…” Wincing at the sight, he tossed the gory wipe away and looked up at his neighbor. “It’s awfully deep, Johnny. Maybe I should get you to the hospital…”

“No! No hospitals!” snapped the maniac with a panicked look in his eyes. “I fucking hate hospitals! God knows what those bastards will do when they get you all alone in those examining rooms… Besides,” he added gruffly. “You didn’t go after that T.V. thing.”

“That’s different,” Squee grumbled. “I honestly didn’t want to explain what happened. It would’ve been a nightmare! I’ve never hear the end of it from Norma-Jean and Polly.”

“Who?”

“They’re nurses in the ER,” the boy mumbled sheepishly. “I’ve been to the fucking emergency room so often I’m on a first name basis with the entire staff and half the damn hospital …”

“Why?” There was the faintest rumble of alarm in Johnny’s voice.

“It’s my mom. She…she forgets sometimes how many pills she’s taken and then she overdoses…”

“Squee…”

“Don’t start,” hissed the boy as he reached for a needle and some sterile thread. “I’ve already heard it from Norma-Jean and the rest of them. Do you have any idea what it’s like, watching you’re mother dragged out of the house by the paramedics almost every other week?” he snarled, sticking the threaded needle thorough Johnny’s skin as he started stitching the wound close. “And the looks they give you… The fucking pity… It’s humiliating! Do you know what it’s like to hear people whispering behind your back? Talking about Child Protective Services? Hell! The fucking coroner has even asked me to move in with him! The coroner!” Squee paused. “Of course, he does flirt with me every time I’m down there and keeps asking me out to dinner. Maybe he’s just trying to be friendly, but I’m beginning to suspect he might a crush on me.”

“What’s his name?” Johnny rasped. There was something about finding out some dirty old fuck was making passes at Squee that not only made him inexplicably furious but also hurt in the strangest way. Well, as soon as his hand was bandaged up, he was going to fix that…

“Don’t you dare…,”Squee snarled back, as if reading Johnny’s mind. “Dr. Vargas is a very kind man, and I won’t let you carve him up like you do everybody else you meet!”

Johnny blinked in surprise, vaguely recalling something that happened years ago. “Vargas?”

“Yes,” the boy sighed, going back to stitching Johnny’s hand. “He’s name is Edgar Vargas. Johnny, please promise me you’ll leave him alone. He’s one of the few people who are actually nice to me…”

“Um, I can’t do that Squee…”

Almost ripping out the final stitch with a jerk, the boy stared at him in horror. “Oh God! You didn’t…”

“Don’t give me that look. I killed him a loooooooong time ago... It’s a funny story, really,” Johnny chuckled guiltily. “ A couple years back I was looking for one of those annoying street performers—you know, the kind that impersonates robots and makes those annoying wheezy whistling noises… But I couldn’t find any and I was getting pretty desperate since I hadn’t painted the wall for a while… Then I saw this guy standing all by himself by this scenic overlook, holding a gun against his head kind like he was gonna shoot himself… So I stun-gunned him and took him home to drain his blood for the wall. Well, to make a long story short, we got to talking and Edgar turned out to such a nice guy I felt awful about having to kill him, but like I said, I really, really, really had to paint the wall or the monster would get loose. He was so nice that I even took his body—well, what was left of it— up to those woods by the lake and buried it in a nice, quiet little place that had this fantastic view of the stars!”

Squee stared at him for several awkward seconds. “Johnny, did you happen to have buried him near those houses up there?”

“Well… I did kind of leave him in some lady’s backyard and she ran me off with a fire-extinguisher… But, GOD! the view! The view was perfect, Squee! Absolutely PERFECT!”

“You buried him in Rufus’ backyard?!” Squee barked.

“Who’s Rufus? Is he a friend of yours too?”

“Well, yes, she is,” grumbled the boy. “She also happens to be the Second Coming of Christ!”

“Oh…” Johnny considered it for a moment. “So…that means Edgar’s not a zombie?”

“No. He’s not.”

“Aw, that sucks. He’d have made a really cool zombie…”

Squee stared at him, mouth gapping. Finally, he pulled himself together enough to glare at his murderous neighbor. “Only you! Only you could be such an utter fucker to pull shit like that! All this murder! The senseless fucking carnage! It’s like you’re looking for a fucking excuse to butcher someone! Most of the time you’re just grabbing victims at random! God damn you, Johnny! Why the hell do you have to keep killing?!”

“I dunno…” Johnny mumbled, and then angrily growled. “And I don’t always kill people at random! I’ve usually got a good reason!”

“Like what, huh? Because they were being assholes to you? ‘Oh noes! The nasty peoples are being mean to me again, so I must kills them!’ You’re always acting like you’re the fucking victim! And for what?! Because they just piss you off?!” sneered Squee.

“Because some people deserve to die!” snapped Johnny. “Like that sick motherfucker who tried to molest you…”

There was a pause. Then the boy asked quietly, “Why did you do that?”

“Because…” Johnny stammered. “Because I want to protect you, Squee!”

“I never asked you to,” snarled Squee.

“You never had to. I did it because I wanted to. Because I owe it to you… I want to keep you safe, Squee.”

“Safe? Safe from what?” the boy squawked, his pitch warbling between a squeak and a roar.

“From those filthy, nasty, horrible goblin-people that want to hurt you…”

“Then who’s keeping me safe from you?!”

Johnny looked down at the floor, completely at a loss. There was an unpleasantly heavy lump forming in his chest and he had the nastiest taste in his mouth, like he was about to vomit. It hurt to hear it, but the boy was right in a way. Who was going to protect poor little Squee if Johnny couldn’t even trust himself anymore? It was devastatingly clear to him that there was always a chance he’d turn on the boy like a badly trained pit-bull. Either he’d kill to boy outright in a fit of rage or he’d…he’d…

“Are…are you okay Johnny?” Squee asked quietly, his fingers grazing Johnny’s cheek.

“I’m fine,” the maniac snarled and shoved the boy’s hand away when Squee tried to wipe away the tears. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying.

“Johnny, please…” Gently, Squee reached out again and cupped Johnny’s chin in his hand. “Look at me.”

Unable to resist, he let the boy tip his face up and suddenly found himself caught up in that sad, beautiful face.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” Squee murmured softly. “There’s been so much shit happen to me lately that it’s… it’s getting to me. I’m sorry to take it out on you, Johnny. You didn’t deserve it. And you can’t help how you are, can you? You mean well, even if you do scare the living shit out of me…”

Squee went quiet again, then muttered, “I’ve been a real bastard lately, haven’t I?”

“You’re not a bastard,” Johnny whispered, leaning in closer to the boy.

“Yes I am,” he sighed, moving closer as well. “I’ve turned into a royal asshole…”

“That’s not true! You’re just going through some fucked up shit right now. Not having a dad around can really fuck anyone up… They say that boys your age need a strong father figure. Or at least a positive male role model, maybe an older brother…”

Now there was barely any space between them, their lips almost touching.

Sliding his arms around the other man’s neck, Squee smiled. “Johnny, I…”

“KRASSHUCK!!!! SQUEAL! *various other breaking sounds*”

“…dammit,” hissed Squee as he rushed upstairs. Johnny followed quickly behind and walked in on the boy right as he was grabbing something out of the mess of cans and broken jars spilt out on the kitchen floor. Something that looked suspiciously like a certain pastry mascot…

“What’s that?” Johnny asked, pointing at the Doughboy.

“This? Oh! It’s nothing! Just a…a…” the boy stammered for a moment, the slumped in defeat. “Oh hell, even you won’t believe me if I told you the truth…”

“Mister Eff?” rasped Johnny, snatching the Styrofoam monstrosity away from Squee. He glared death at the blandly smiling doughboy. “You little shit! What the hell are you doing here?! And what the fuck have you done to Squee?! ANSWER ME, GOD DAMMIT!”

Squee shook his head. “That’s not going to work. See, they won’t talk or move around if there are other people here…”

“Well in this fucker’s case, I’ll make an exception!” shrieked Mister Eff before he sank his fangs into Johnny’s arm. After having several large chunks of his flesh chomped out, the maniac finally flung Mister Eff into the sink.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Whipping out his knife, Johnny moved toward the sink.

“What you gonna do, BITCH?” jeered the Doughboy, defiantly flipping him off. “Kill me?!”

Johnny reared back to stab the laughing little beastie, but stopped mid-swing when something else caught his eye.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” hissed Mister Eff. “I knew you’d pussy out again, just like you did with De—”

Smiling an evil little smile, Johnny reached over and turned on the garbage disposal. That smiled kept widening as he listened to Mister Eff scream in agony when he was sucked down into the disposal. An ungodly wail reverberated through the whole neighborhood as the doughboy was ground into a slimy paste of Styrofoam and blackish gunk. When the last little bits had gone, Johnny turned to his stunned neighbor.

“Where’s D-boy?”

The boy only gave him the thousand yard stare.

Alarmed, Johnny grabbed Squee and shook him violently. “SNAP OUT OF IT! We have to find the other one...”

“Why?” whispered Squee, his voice shaky and weird.

“So I can kill him too.”

A change came over the boy. His face went dark with rage. “No...”

“Huh?”

Much to Johnny’s surprise, the boy dragged him suddenly to the back door and flung him out into the yard. Recovering quickly, Johnny got to his feet and ran toward the door, only to have Squee slam it shut in his face.

“LET ME IN!” he roared, pounding on the door in frantic desperation. “SQUEE, PLEASE! LET ME IN!”

“Go away…” whimpered the boy.

“GOD DAMMIT! THOSE THING’S ARE EVIL, SQUEE!” Johnny screamed. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND? EVIL! THEY’LL CORRUPT YOU! THEY’LL MAKE INTO A MONSTER, JUST LIKE THEY DID—”

Johnny’s startling revelation was cut short by another unexpected application of violence, this time in the form of a heavily modified stun-gun to the base of his neck. Before he slipped into unconsciousness, Johnny found himself staring up into the morbidly gleeful face of the new D-boy.

“I’ve wanted to do that for years…”

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(1) David and Verrocchio were Renaissance sculptors who produced a David. To learn more, just Google it or visit Wikipedia.

Drag the body over to Chapter 6: Wearing Donnie Darko's Tracksuit.