Pervading Interactive Stress Syndrome (PISS)
Part
5
Alan
was fairly glowing now. He was putting the finishing touches on his wing
tearing machine, which consisted of a ceiling fan with variable speed and a
much subdued fairy halfling on a string.
"Okay,"
he said, setting Christine atop one of the fan blades. "All you have to do
is wait here."
"That's
it?" Christine asked tremulously.
"That's
it. Free ride, big fun. When it's over, you won't feel
a thing." He turned to hit the wall switch, adding, "That is, if you
hit the wall hard enough."
The
fan began to turn and Christine began to take in her situation. The fan wasn't
turning too fast, so she was fine right now. She looked from one end of the
string, which was tied snugly around the base of her wings, to the other end,
which was tied to the fan blade. If she were to speed up and slide off...
To
her horror, the fan did speed up and she began sliding toward the edge. With a
scream, she held on the blade edge for dear life. There was no way for her to
fly, since her wings were still clipped together, but if she didn't do
something before she lost her grip, the force of the fan would throw her off,
tighten the noose around her wings and separate them painfully from her body.
"Don't
fa-allllll!" sang out Alan, as she continued to
slide toward the edge. Knowing she couldn't hang on much longer, she took this
chance to enact one ditch effort to save herself. She
wrapped one hand around the thread she was tied to, then after gasping out a
sob, grabbed the thread with her other hand and went hurtling out into space...
Naomi
sat up, blinking. Surely she couldn't have been this stupid. She had just sent
Christine over to get Josh while no one was there but Josh, Stevie
and Alan.
Of all idiots, Alan.
"Oh,
shit!" she said, jumping up and running for the door.
The
door opened before she reached it and Joshua stuck his head around the edge,
saying, "It's me-eee!"
"Thank
Bios!" she gasped, halting abruptly. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah,
why?" asked Josh.
"Good,"
Naomi sighed, dropping into the chair near her. "You and Christine go to
Robin's for a while and stay on this side of the Dee-N-Jay Expressway for a
while."
"Y'mean, we can't go back to Jerry's?"
Naomi
looked at the child in confusion. "No, go to Robin! Duh!" she
replied.
"O-kay!" Josh said,
closing the door.
"What'd
she say?" Stevie asked. "Can I spend the
night?"
"She
said me and my sister have to go back to Aunt Robin's
for a while and we can't go back to Jerry's," sighed Joshua.
"'Kay,
so technically, that means I can't go home right now 'cause she said,"
said Stevie thoughtfully.
"Yeahhhh!" whispered Josh. "And I can't really go
to Aunt Robin's if I don't have my sister wif
me!"
"Yeahhhh!" Stevie agreed excitedly. "So I can stay and we can
play in your room!"
"Ye..."
"Stevie, get your butt back to your side right now!!!"
Naomi bellowed from behind the door.
Joshua
froze. "You better go," he whispered.
"She's
not Daina or Jerry, though," Stevie
said staunchly.
"That's
right. I do give beatings on a regular basis to little boys who don't
listen," came Naomi's voice again.
"Bye!"
Stevie said, fairly skipping to the door to Jerry's
side.
"See
ya!" Josh said, running to his sister's room.
"Stine!" he said, opening the door before knocking. "N'omi says we gotta...Stine?"
He found her room empty, so he trotted back down the hall to Daina's door and knocked. "N'omi,
where's Stine at?"
There
was a groan, then a haggard reply. "Obviously, if she just came to get
you from Jerry's and you're both back, then she's somewhere
around here. Now go find her and leave me alone!"
Joshua
frowned. Christine had come to get him? "But..."
"Go!!!"
"O-kay!!!" He moved away
from the door, then stopped to think. If she wasn't
around here and she'd gone to get him, then she had to be back in Jerry's head.
And since he and Stevie hadn't been around, then she
must've run into...
"Alan!"
Joshua gasped. "Oh, no!"
"Dammit!" Alan snapped. He'd turned off the fan and was
now staring irritably at Christine, who was swinging relatively safe from the
thread she was holding. Her wings, having had enough slack between her hands
and the noose, were still intact.
He
created a knife and swished it through the air near her, barely missing her
hand, but cutting her down at the same time. She fell into his open palm and he
frowned down at her. "Make a cage," he said, his tone of voice filled
with the assurance that this would be done.
"What
kind?" she asked in a small voice.
"Birdcage,"
he said, as if this were obvious. A cage appeared hanging from the ceiling and
he sighed and picked up his book. "Alright, now get in it; I got tortures
to plan. Can't believe you go and fuck that one all up..." he murmured to
himself as he settled down with the text again.
Obediently,
Christine teleported into the cage and sat glumly in the corner to wait. She
was feeling scared still, but not really.
Actually,
she thought, it was sort of funny when Alan had found out why she wasn't
wingless yet. She giggled slightly, then looked at the
rope burns on her arm and hands from the thread, hoping they'd heal quickly.
She
was still scared, but she didn't have to keep the paper clip on her wings...did
she? He wasn't looking, so...
The
paper clip bent away from her wings with a thought and she extended them
slowly. They were stiff and sore, but not much of either. She stood up and
looked around. Alan was reading again, turning pages with a predator's
curiosity.
She
was still scared, but she didn't really have to be scared inside the cage...did
she? Not just because he said so.
She
teleported back out, with some hesitation and looked at him. The less she
thought he was scary, the less he really was. What was so scary about
him, really?, she thought. Just when he touched you
and he'd done that so many times by now, the scary feeling was starting to get
like going through the same haunted house over and over again. You still got
scared, but not the same way. In fact, you stopped hiding your eyes every time
something jumped out at you until finally you walked through the whole thing
with your eyes open.
Or
you just stopped blocking out your view.
Alan
turned to look at her with mild irritation on his face. "What are you doin' out?" he demanded, looking up from his book
briefly. "Get back in that cage."
Christine
shivered and giggled nervously. She was still scared, but she didn't really
have to do what he said...did she? And would it be that big a deal to find
out...?
Alan
looked up again to find her still standing near him, head still bowed. "I
said, get back in there!" he repeated menacingly.
"No,"
Christine said in a low voice.
"What
did you say?" asked Alan incredulously, rising from his seat and slamming
the book on the table.
"I
said...no," Christine repeated, her voice barely steady.
"Get
your little ass back in there, or I'll put you in there myself." He
grabbed Christine by her clothes and pushed her against the wall. She thought
to block the feeling this time, but never did. At last, she looked up at him, her
head still bowed slightly, her eyes gazing deep into his, not with a look of
fear or terror...just a small smile.
It
was Alan's turn to shudder. This was not a cute little girl smile; this was a
demonic smirk, something he had personally never seen before, but knew on
sight. It was a look he had given her and many others frequently.
The
look unnerved him wholly.
"What
the fuck is your problem?" he asked, pushing her away.
Christine
shrugged nonchalantly. "I dunno," she said,
lifting her head up to look directly at him with the same gaze. "You tell
me."
Alan
was not sure how to reply to this. He suddenly felt woefully vulnerable, as if
the tables has been turned, but done so quickly that he hadn't had time to see
it. "Look, there's the door. Take your ass out it," he said.
Chris
looked at the door for a moment, as if considering this option, then turned
back to Alan and took two steps toward him. "No," she said, as he
took two steps back from her. "I think I want to stay with you for a
while."
"You
can't stay here!" said Alan almost desperately, starting to back away.
"Why?"
she asked, walking toward him. He backed into the door and she stepped to him.
"Are you gonna stop me?"
He
could actually feel it now. He stood shakily, looking down at this innocent
fairy child with the gremlin eyes and, for the first time, Alan was actually
aware of a "presence". He supposed it had always been there with this
kid, but not like now. Prior to this, she'd been afraid, and he'd unconsciously
known it, even preyed on it. Now the same feelings she'd felt before were his.
He wasn't sure how, since he had no clue about magic auras and the like, but he
was afraid that he just might have pushed the kid off the deep end and she was
going to drag him down with her.
Afraid
was definitely the key word.
"I
can see your haunted house much better now," she said softly, hooking a
finger over the edge of Alan's shirt and gently wrapping it around her finger
until it constricted around his throat.
It
was then that Alan knew he was in extraordinarily deep shit.