Interlude

Johnny walked into his house as the sun started to go down. He was soaking wet, his clothes shredded, his body bleeding, and his favorite boots gone. A pair from a jogger were tightly tied to his feet.

"Nice shoes, Johnny m'boy." Meat said.

"Shut up." Johnny said, in a voice that could freeze Tahiti.

MEAT's grin never changed. "Kicked your ass again, did she?" he asked.

Johnny just left the room.

 The sun hit Devi full in the face, and for the first time since last night, she wondered where the hell she was. She was wet, and cold and she smelled earth and mulch.

 She blinked a few times, trying to clear her head. She sat up and looked around. She was back in the park near her apartment.

 How the hell did she get here? She thought for a moment before it came to her.

Right. She had left the zoo, and wanted to go home, but she figured Johnny might have gotten out of the gator pit and been waiting for her, so she went to the mall to lose herself in the crowd. But then there had been those damn teenagers and all the friggin' mutant kids, so she left and wound up back in the park.

 She'd sat down for a minute because her feet were killing her...and then she woke up.
 Dammit. She had to wake up for real this time. Go back to the apartment and get some sleep in a place where one of the homeless guys couldn't kill her with a sharpened dog turd.

She looked at the sun, rising out of 'sunrise' state, and into the boring yellow ball above that everyone takes for granted. Devi looked at it, fleetingly, trying not to hurt her eyes. She blinked and looked again. Something was... wrong.

 There was something in the air. A silvery blue mist. She tilted herself from side to side. The mist remained where it was, so it didn't seem like her eyes were playing tricks on her. She caught an impression of a deformed face in it and...teeth?

 The wind suddenly picked up and the mist dissipated.

 What the fuck?

Maybe she should get home RIGHTNOW....

Devi got up and began walking back to her apartment building. Her feet were seriously hurting now. She needed to get some pain killers. Probably needed to change the bandages too.

As she climbed the steps to her apartment, Devi stopped. Oh shit. She was going to have to deal with Tenna as well. How the hell was she going to get out of that one?

"Sorry I had to hit you over the head with my easel, Tenna but I really didn't want Spooky forcibly put there" wouldn't work. Especially if Tenna was still feeling...anxious.

 She sighed. Hell. Might as well get it over with.

 She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Tenna was curled up on the couch, still naked except for her tube socks. She was cuddling Spooky tightly to her chest and making contended little sighs every so often.
 Damn, that was a close one. Devi found a blanket on the couch and covered Tenna with it. She’d be fine when she woke up. At least Devi hoped she would. Devi got a pop tart and some milk and took them to her room

 She put the food on her night stand, sat down on the bed and pried her boots off.

 She sighed in relief. Even though the boots were three sizes larger than what she usually wore, the bandages filled the space easily. Speaking of which...

She leaned down and unwrapped them. The bleeding had stopped and the series of lacerations were beginning to scab over finally. She got up and walked on her heels into the bathroom where she got the antiseptic and fresh bandages.

 She doused the wounds on her feet and arm, rewrapped them and walked back into her room and collapsed onto her bed.

 After staring at her ceiling for a half hour, Devi started to get frustrated. She was exhausted, tired, ready to collapse... so why wasn't she asleep yet?

 That was a stupid question. She KNEW why she wasn't asleep yet. Johnny.

 Johnny could break in here at any time.

 Even though her window was barred, Tenna was out like a light, and the front door was triple bolted and quadruple chained, she was still afraid that he was going to break in.

 Fuck.

She couldn't even take time off to heal without being afraid.

And she thought she had gotten over this....

 She was sick of being afraid. Sick of worrying about being raped and killed by him. Sick of that Jekyll and Hyde thing he was going through. He had been so sweet and tender at the zoo, but when she called it off he turned into the sadistic asshole he was at his house. And the reverse had happened when he let her go earlier.

Why was Nny always like this? Why was it, whenever, they were actually enjoying each other's company, did he suddenly become the antithesis of what he was just acting like?
DAMMIT, why couldn't he have just stayed the nice guy from the book store who was nervous when she asked him out in the first place?!

Devi laid in silence for a few minutes, chewing on her bottom lip. Something had to be done.

She liked Johnny... underneath all the psychotic behavior, she really did... But this had to stop.

But she couldn't keep watching her back, couldn't keep living in fear.

Something had to be done about Johnny C.

And, unfortunately, she knew just what it was.

The cops weren't going to help. Johnny had a unique talent for not being noticed by them. And he'd probably find his way out of jail before the whole farce of a trial could start anyway. No, there was only one solution.

She was going to have to kill him.

Tonight.

Fuck.

"Filthy creatures." Nny said, attacking his face with a bar of soap.

"To whom are you referring?" Came the voice of Rev. MEAT out in the hallway. "The germs or the alligators?"

"Yes." Nny said, tossing the bar of soap into the sink with disgust. "Damned overgrown lizards. I'm still all stinky and squishy... I should go back and skin em all..."

 "Hmmm...The idea has merit. You could acquire a snazzy pair of shoes, or a handsome set of luggage." MEAT replied.

 "That's not funny." Johnny said.

"Well, you have to get your blood flowing somehow, m'boy... you didn't do much with the little girl you were with." MEAT said.

"I told you to shut up about that." Nny snapped. Was his head starting to hurt?

"No, I don't think so. Why on earth did you try to kill her, Johnny? No, wait, that's a stupid question. Might as well ask a fish why it swims. A better question is why didn't you just take her anyway and THEN kill her? You can't tell me you weren't thinking about it?"

Johnny could HEAR MEAT's smirk in the words. "I almost had her." Johnny growled. "If she hadn't started talking about a dolly in her brainmeats, she WOULD be dead by now..." Maybe...

"Dolly?" MEAT asked. "What dolly?"

 "I... I'm not sure. She said something about it earlier... she had ripped out it's tongue, or something. And then, just when I thought I had her, she sat up and started talking to herself. Then she got up and started saying she had to go... but even if there WAS a dolly in her brainmeats, I COULD have had her... I wanted to have her... DAMMIT, what the FUCK did I have to do?! Beg!?!?"

"Hmmmm...." MEAT mused.

"I mean, I try to be nice, but then she has to go do something stupid and piss me off and then all I want to do is disembowel her in the most hideously violent way possible...I..." Johnny felt his eyelids starting to grow heavy.

 "You look tired m'boy." MEAT said. "Why don't you take a long... hot... bath... and turn in for the night, hmm?"

"How do you know I'm... tired from the... the other... you know, that's a good idea." Johnny said. He moved some leftover body parts from the tub to the sink, then after a quick cleaning, started filling the tub with hot water.

 As soon as the tub was full, Johnny shut off the water, stripped, and sank into the steaming bath. The heat seeped into his limbs and relaxed his muscles. He felt his eyelids grow heavier and heavier with each passing moment.

Within minutes, he was fast asleep, his head pillowed on the rim of the tub.

Out in the living room MEAT chuckled. So, the girl had a figment in her head...well that explained a lot and why it was taking so long. He was only surprised his superiors hadn't mentioned that before.

Oh well, his job wasn't to worry about that. His job was to keep Johnny...hungry. The girl would arrive soon enough, and then it would be taken care of. And after that...

MEAT's grin widened.

After that, things would get REALLY interesting.

Whuh... Devi? Where are we? Sickness asked as Johnny's house came into view. Devi's grip on the crowbar tightened.

Someplace we're not going to be for very long... I've just got to take care of... a few loose ends.

Where? Sickness asked suspiciously.

Devi didn't answer. She reached house 779 and snuck around it to the side of the dilapidated shack next door. Devi crawled on her hands and knees through the brush until she was underneath the window.

 She heard Sickness gasp...or whatever a disembodied figment did when it was shocked. We're at the HOUSE?!

Yes. Devi said, trying to act as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I'm... I'm going to finish it.

HERE?! ARE YOU AS NUTS AS HE IS?

Devi started jimmying a window No. I'm going to get him when he's sleeping. Let the rats fight over who get him next. I thought you'd be happy. I defiantly won't be fucking him from now on. The window gave, and Devi smiled. Got it.

You WILL get it if you go in there! Sickness yelped. Can't you feel it?!

Not over your screeching. Could you cut it out? I'm starting to get a headache again....

Devi...LISTEN to me. You DON'T want to go in there. If you really want to kill him, fine. Just don't do it HERE...

Devi ignored her, threw a leg over the sill and slid into the living room. She stood up and looked around. The room was filthy.

"Welcome, my dear.”

 Devi's eyes widened and she searched for the voice. What the fuck?

Ohhhhh SHIT! DEVI GET OUT! GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!

Sickness will you shut the HELL up for o- Devi stopped talking to Sickness. She stopped thinking. She stopped seeing. Her eyes glazed over.

Ohhhh FUCK!!!! Sickness screamed.

MEAT chuckled. "He's right in there, Devi dear."

Her feet started taking her to a small room down the hall from the living room. As she went she started stripping off her clothing.

Devi! Dammit Devi listen to me! Fight this! You're going to have to FIGHT Dammit!

Devi ignored her and continued to strip. She unhooked her bra and stepped out of her underwear. As she passed through the bathroom doorway, Sickness felt an unpleasant sensation of being RIPPED out of Devi's head. She was falling and hit the ground hard.

"OOF!" she uttered. The bathroom door slammed shut.

The fuck? Sickness said, suddenly in the real world

 "Well, well. What have we here?" came the other voice...the voice of one of THEM. Sickness turned her head one way then the other.

"A blind figment," the voice continued. "Well, we can't have that, can we?”

"Who..." Sickness asked, "Where the hell are you?"

 Sickness became aware of a scraping sound along the floor, then she screamed as two points of searing pain burrowed into her eye sockets. When the pain had cleared, Sickness found she was able to see. Not as well, since the screws weren’t her own and not intended for sight. But she could see.

 She looked down at herself. She was still in that mutated doll form she'd been stopped at in her development. She got to her spindly legs and looked around.

"I'm up here." came the voice again.

Sickness looked up and found the voice. It was inhabiting a Bob's Burger Boy statue with a sharp toothed grind and a decidedly malevolent expression.

"Who the FUCK are you?" Sickness asked.

The Burger Boy's grin grew wider, then it stood up and, giant burger still in hand, leaped to the ground in front of her. It's eyes glowed evilly.

"My name is Reverend MEAT, my dear. And I think we need to have a chat."

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