The Onset of A Panic Situation
Part
3
Alan and Stevie both heard Jerry's mental cry and looked up in a
panic. Both ran to the doors of their respective rooms and looked out, just as
Jerry's physical scream reached their ears. The two exchanged worried glances.
This was not a sound they had ever heard him make before and being only ghosts
inhabiting Jerry's body, the idea of that body being in danger was...bad.
"Wh-What was that?" Stevie
asked nervously.
Surprise prevented even
Alan from being his old self temporarily. "I don't know," he replied
honestly, then quickly added, "But who cares?"
"I cares, I mean, care!" Stevie
exclaimed. "It might be Jerry gettin'
hurt!"
"No
doubt!" Alan shrugged, the insistence of
Jerry's telepathic call still fresh.
"Or
maybe even gettin' killed!" Stevie added.
"That could be
cool," he said aloud, but the memory of the tone of Jerry's scream made
him think again. "But fuck it. I'm not interested."
Stevie
left his room and started running down the hall. "Don't be a pussy, Alan.
If you're too scared, just say so."
That was an insult to
harsh to pass up. "I am not a pussy, you little space waste!" he
shouted, chasing after him. He followed him into the file room, where another
scream was emanating.
"Jerry, we're comin' to save you!" Stevie
shouted bravely, running up and down aisles randomly.
Alan caught up to him
and clapped a hand over his mouth. "Shut the hell up!" he hissed.
"Do you want them to hear us?"
He needn't have
bothered, however, because they had already been heard. The confused feeling
Jerry had felt before now enveloped them and carried them to the room where
Jerry sat. A girl stood next to him while he bled heavily from two razor blades
that she had apparently pushed up under two of his
fingernails. She looked up from a third blade and smiled at Stevie
and Alan.
"Ooo," she said, putting a hand under Stevie's chin like a mother would her own child, "A
little ghost child and a big strong man. I could use the
exorcise."
Stevie
was so taken aback that he could only stand and gape at the woman in surprise.
Jerry, however, began moaning, "Exoricse...oh,
come on, Julie, he's just a kid, leave him
alone...!"
Stevie
certainly didn't understand the play on words, but Alan did. "Stevie, come on," he said quietly, taking the child's
hand.
He slowly began to back
up in growing horror as Jerry yelled, "Run, Stevie,
run! She's trying to get rid of you! Use the door!" A door appeared behind
them and Alan turned toward it, but Stevie wouldn't
budge.
"Stevie, come on!" he demanded, trying to pull him.
The fear began to
register on his little face as he said, "I can't move! Jerry! Help me! Alannnnnn!"
Alan was torn, but only
for a moment. He let go of Stevie's hand and began
running faster than he'd ever run before. At first, his feet felt like lead and
moving was excrutiatingly painful, but as he ran, the
leaden feeling disappeared, leaving only the pain. But pain, he thought, was
nothing compared to the urgent call of his survival instincts.
He grabbed the door
handle and threw it open, finding himself back in the hallway across from the
Link doorway. The sounds of Jerry's yells and Stevie's
cries intermingled for a long time as he ran for the Link, but by the time he
opened it and ran through it, the only voice he heard was Jerry's...
"Don't throw it;
toss it," Christine told Naomi, lobbing a penny at the wall. "If you
don't do it right, it bounces too far away."
Naomi tossed her coin
and it landed about a foot away from the wall. "Oh, for Pry's sake!"
she grumbled as Christine smugly picked up both pennies and pocketed them.
"I'm sick of this crap."
"You're bad at
it," Christine said, tossing another penny.
"I am not!"
Naomi snapped. "I just am slowly developing my proficiency at it."
"You suck,"
said Christine flatly. "Play or walk."
Naomi groaned irritably,
but knew she was hooked. Any type of easy money game, penny pitching included,
was an easy sell for her. Christine had been teaching her how to play here in Daina's subconscious hallway and she'd been doing lousy all
afternoon. Unfortunately, she thought, pulling out another penny, she didn't
have the willpower to stop, either. She tossed her penny and it landed against
the Link door, which burst open and flung the penny back at her.
"Interference!"
Naomi yelled, fumbling around for the penny. "The door opened and ruined
my shot..." When she turned back around, Christine was kneeling next to
Alan, whom had fallen in the doorway and to the ground. "What's he doing
here?"
"I don't know, but
he's hurting," Christine said, looking up at Naomi.
Naomi shrugged.
"He's a ghost; I don't know anything about that kinda
stuff."
"Neither do I," Chris agreed, "but we gotta
do something."
"Yeah, so move him
out of the way so we can finish the game."
"Nao-miiii!" Chris frowned.
"Oh, fine, call Daina, jeez!" she grumbled.
Involuntary shivers of cold bothered me all the time at work, but the involuntary shudder I had just suffered nearly made me drop my 30+ pound tray on my customer's head. My balance was fairly good and there was a tray jack nearby, so all I ended up doing was shivering violently again, then quickly setting the tray down without further incident.
"Little chilly?" one of the guys at the table asked me politely.
"Yeah, these saloon girl outfits," I said, covering my slight daze with a light giggle. "What're you gonna do?"
"Well, you could, uh, turn around for me," said the other guy, trying to look around at my butt.
"Oh, you...!" I
said, pretending aloud to be too stupid to be disgusted, but mentally thinking,
Yeah, you, you son of a bitch..!
Don't cuss, said
Christine in my head. It's not polite.
Neither is what he said,
I mentally replied to Chris. Hi, hon.
Hi, she said. I
need your help. It's important.
I can't right now, I
told her, depositing my salads at the table and
turning beack toward the kitchen. I've got one
table waiting for appetizers, one waiting for menus...
But, Daina...
Fax it to me, Chris. I love you and don't want to hurt your feelings, but I can't just fall asleep here at work just to come talk to you in my subconscious and we need the money. I waited for her response, but there was none. With a shrug, I went up to have an entree voided.
"Tim," I said, not really looking at him as I handed him the ticket, "this table doesn't want the gourmet filet, so could you..." I froze in mid-speech as I looked up and found my ex-boyfriend standing in front of me with a disgusting leer on his face.
"Daina, I can't live without you. Let's do it right here on the floor." He moved to grab me and I gasped in horror. He froze suddenly and Tim appeared in his place, looking strangely at me.
"Daina, are you alright?" he asked me, truly concerned.
Christine leaned around him, her projection of herself from my mind as visible as he had been. "Now tell him you're sick and you want to go home or I'll have Josh make that illusion real."
"I wanna go home," I almost wailed to Tim. "I feel real bad..."