[Continued from Twisted Cages: Hiccup]
She wasn't certain why she was there. Some part of her said that this was the most logical place to start, but standing there now, gazing up at the sign above the door, she couldn't be sure.
But then, she couldn't be sure of anything anymore. Even the words on the sign didn't seem to register in her brain. She read them, over and over. She understood them. But they _meant_ something more than what they said. Something...
She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Concentrated. Tried to calm the storm in her head. Tried to soothe the tempest behind her temples. She focused on the words. Attempted to force them into making sense.
They slipped away from her. Vanished into the mental maelstrom like everything else. Her life. Her soul. Even her name. All gone. Swallowed up by the whirling darkness in her mind.
It had been...
It had begun with a "D".
Dana? Darlene? Donna? Deena? Danielle? Deidra? Dianne?
She shook her head and fought back tears. What had it called her? That thing that talked to her after...
After...
After Johnny had gotten eaten by the alien thing bursting from the waitress' stomach.
What had the R called her?
Contingency.
She opened her eyes and dared the sign to mock her again. Whoever she might have been, she was Contingency now. And she would be damned if some stupid sign would get the better of her. She went over the words again with her gaze, and this time, they played no games:
"Bush's Steakhouse"
Something was wrong with the interior of the restaurant. Not wrong as though the air conditioning had been set too high or wrong like there were cockroaches skittering across the floor. Something was wrong in a higher sense. A preternatural sense. Almost as if the very existence of the restaurant was stretched thin. Weak. Punctured and patched like an inflatable pool toy that had sprung a leak.
Cautiously, Contingency extended her awareness; feeling the torn and repaired reality. It felt wrong. Improper. Slap-dash and half-assed. And the pool toy was still leaking behind the patch. A very slow hiss and bubble of something...
"How many?"
She looked up into the eyes of a waitress. _The_ waitress.
The woman looked sick. Really sick. The kind of illness that reached beyond mere levels of flesh and went straight for an infection of the soul. Heavy bags drooped beneath eyes surrounded by dark circles. All life and bounce had fled chocolate-brown hair that might once have been beautiful but now wilted limply from its roots. Her skin was gray beneath a futile make-up veneer of expensive cosmetics.
"Ma'am? Will you be joining anyone for lunch?"
*Johnny!*
Contingency had no problem remembering his name, now. She had forced herself to remember. Forced herself to repeat it over and over until it was hardwired into her memory.
*The waitress approached their table with a bottle of steak sauce... bottle of soy sauce... bottle of ketchup... bowl of wasabi... cup of lemon-butter... cup of...
The candle flickered and the woman dropped the... dropped what she had been bringing. Her eyes turned deep, glossy black. Irridescent black like oil on water. And her torso burst open in a splash of oily ooze and bright red blood that was too thin and too red. An explosion of tentacles and legs and toothy mouths.
And then the air was full of screams and blood. Human blood. Johnny's blood. And...*
"Are you okay, hon?"
Her thoughts snapped back to the hear and now. This patched reality inside a small-town restaurant. She looked at the waitress. Her eyes narrowed. She saw it sleeping inside the woman; that crawling darkness coiled around her spine and nestled against her uterus.
"No." She croaked. "And you're not, either."
She knew it sounded harsh even as she said it. Even as she raised her arm and pointed at the woman.
The waitress looked confused for only a slight moment before fingertip met forehead and her world exploded.
Around the two women, the candles in their cheap, red-glass holders flared briefly and were snuffed as one. The picture tube of an old Pac-Man game tucked away by the door to the restrooms exploded in a shower of sparks. The resulting short tripped the circuit breakers and the building went dark and silent.
In the darkness, it was almost impossible to tell who was puking and why and whether or not they were worrying about the state of the floor or their shoes. It sounded like someone dying -- barfin' up their liver -- or someone suffering the dry heaves after downing half-a-liter of whiskey in less than twenty minutes. But in between the retching and spitting, the sobs and moans were unmistakably female.
"Oh, God! What did you _do_ to me? Wha...?...grlk..."
A noise like a boot being pulled out of ankle-deep molasses accompanied the next round of ralphing, followed by a gelid splat of something finally coming up and out and onto the hardwood floor.
The lights flickered on as somebody, some cook or dishwasher or busboy, stumbled their way into the basement and flipped the circuit breaker. The blown-out Pac-Man machine started smoking.
"Crap!" The waitress, dripping with sweat, pushed herself up to a slightly-seated position on the floor and stared dizzily at the glistening thing that lay like a giant blood clot before her. She rubbed the back of her hand across her dripping lips, ignorant of the red-black smear that she drug across her face. She looked groggily up at the woman standing above her.
Contingency smiled down at the waitress.
"You'll be okay, now," she said softly. _Everything_ would be okay now. Here, at any rate. This place. This universe. The leak was plugged. The temporary patch made smooth and strong and permanent. Reality sealed back to the way it always should have been. Except for...
"What _is_ that?" The waitress slumped onto her side, propping herself up with one shaky arm.
Contingency looked at the bloody-black mass and nudged it with her foot.
"A type of tumor," she said. "It's out of you now. You don't have to worry."
The waitress took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was easier to breathe. And the dark cloud of oppression and depression was gone from her head. She felt better. Felt good. Felt light and happy for the first time in a long while. She looked over at the tumor and realization slowly dawned. Her eyes went wide and she stared up at the other woman.
"You...! You _cured_ me!"
Contingency said nothing. She had cured more than the waitress could ever know. But not enough. Her identity had not returned to her. Her life was still gone. Her soul still a gaping, black hole. And the call was still there. That overriding call that had grown so strong and was getting stronger still.
"Live a good life," she admonished softly. Sadly. And she closed her eyes and answered the call. The call to come home.
"Live a good life..."
The waitress shook her head at the words, unsure of their meaning.
"What do y...?" She began.
But the other woman's form had grown hazy. Translucent. Transparent. And then gone altogether.
The waitress stared at the empty air as her subconscious labored overtime to fit everything into her personal rules of reality. Finally, it made the right connections and flipped the right switches.
And the waitress smiled.
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