Chapter #18Hardy Har Har by: Seuzz   Your decision to get away from the house seems wise after an adventure at the wall. Avoiding the front gate, you'd trotted over to an empty space by the wall and leaped to grasp the top. But as you pulled yourself up your jeans snagged on something. You yanked and pulled, but you couldn't get loose. Fear suddenly seized you when you remembered that you chose a spot on the wall that had no bushes near it. Blackwell hasn't a dog, and you'd heard no barking. And yet something has seized you.
Luckily, the form you have stolen is strong, and you manage to get your chest onto the wall despite the strong counter-tug. Once there you are able to pull yourself up further until gravity begins to help. There's a tearing and shredding sound as you topple over the wall, face-first, into the dirt on the other side, and then you're up and sprinting fast down the road back to your car. Only after you are back in town do you look down and find that your pants leg is torn completely away from the knee down.
But you're away, though not appreciably wiser for your reconnaissance mission than you were before. It appears that Shabbleman is either not in residence at Blackwell's, or he is semi-confined to another room. Blackwell took greater interest in your education during your brief time with him; you are now thoroughly puzzled as to how he intends to educate Shabbleman ... if educating him is indeed his plan.
You are mulling these thoughts as you open the door to your room and step in. You flick on the light. You find you are not alone.
The other person grins at you from the far side of the room. He is young, scarcely more than a kid, with longish blonde hair, but he looks utterly self-possessed. "Hey Frank," he cheerfully says. "Check it out. We didn't fuck up for once."
You open your mouth, and then something very dark and close goes over your head, and you know nothing more.
* * * * *
No time seems to have passed, and you don't even feel like you have been unconscious, when the lights come back on. You find that you are sitting at the foot of your bed. Your feet are bound together, and your arms are also bound, at the wrists and at the elbows, behind your back. You blink stupidly.
The blonde kid is sitting on the floor with his knees up by his chin and his arms looped around his legs. He grins up at you with an open and friendly countenance. Leaning on the wall beside him is another youth, dark-haired, with a rather more saturnine expression. As you shift on the bed, he casts aside a bag that looks like it is made of a silvery cloth and bends forward to study your face. Puzzlement turns to wonder and then to admiration. A smile creeps onto his face. "How does it come off?" he asks.
You blink and lick your lips. "How does what come off," you truculently demand.
"This," he says, and waves his fingers in front of his face. "It's amazing."
"The fuck are you talking about?"
The blond kid laughs, but there's no meanness in it. "You don't actually expect him to give up all his secrets, at least not yet, do you, Frank?"
"Well, there's no harm in asking, Joe," the other replies over his shoulder. "Besides, I'm actually paying him a compliment." He turns back to you. "It really is the goddamnest thing I've ever seen. You should be proud."
"I might be, if I knew what you cocksuckers were talking about," you growl.
The dark-haired one—Frank, apparently, is his name—studies you closely, and his face grows more grave. "You don't suppose we did cock it up," he says out of the side of his mouth to the other.
The blonde one—Joe—pulls something out of his hip pocket. It looks like a little gold plate. It has no groove or marking that you can see, but a bead like quicksilver slides around its surface. He tilts it this way and that, making it trace out a complicated path, and watches it intently, pausing only occasionally to stare up hard at you. His concentration is such that his tongue soon protrudes from between his lips. Eventually the bead comes to a resting place and he makes a clucking sound. "It's gotta be him," he says with a sigh. "Unless he's actually under the bed."
"Not likely, Joe," says Frank. "I looked there during our search, and though it was fucking disgusting there was nothing hidden under it. This motel, I may also say, doesn't seem like the sort to have trapdoors or other hidden crevices."
"You can never be sure," Joe says from under arched eyebrows. "Remember that bed-and-breakfast in Amityville? If I hadn't pulled at that knothole those smugglers—"
"What are you, the fucking Hardy boys," you interrupt. Your captors stare a moment, then burst out laughing.
"Yeah, I guess you could call us that," Joe grins. "We are fans, and sometimes we get a little too much in character. My name's actually Franz and my friend here is Giuseppe. Technically, that means I should be Frank and he should be Joe, but the Hardy names seem to fit us better the other way around." You blink; his smile fades not a bit. "And what's your name, sunshine?"
"Theodore Smith," you reply.
"Doubtful," Frank chuckles. "Extremely doubtful."
"Fucking doubtful," echoes Joe. "That's not even your real face."
"Then whose is it?"
"Theodore Smith's?" Joe replies, and his smile widens.
Frank sighs and pulls out a cigarette. He lights it, takes a drag, and hands it to Joe. The other takes a long drag, crinkles his eyes, and peers at you with a sharp though merry expression. "Try not to have too much fun," he says as he hands it back to Frank.
His partner puts a hand on his knee and leans toward you. He touches your cheek with the burning tip.
"Fucking hell," you scream, and jerk away. Frank takes another drag, blows the smoke sideways, and leans in again. You scramble away, but—though you don't see how he does it—he has the cigarette back on your cheek. Again, you yowl.
"I gotta carton of these back in the truck," Frank says in a weary tone. "They're fucking bad for my health—" He passes it back to Joe, who takes another cheerful drag, leans back, and blows a long stream toward the ceiling. "But they're worse for yours. And I'm not talking about second-hand smoke.
"So come on, Theodore. Be a pal and tell us how to take the mask off you."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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