by Lee Hayton
Tyler rested his forehead against the countertop and tried very hard not to cry.
“I asked you if you were some kind of weirdo?”
“Hey,” Gary called out from the table. The chair legs squeaked on the wooden floorboards as he stood up. “Leave my friend alone.”
“Not until he answers my question.”
The stupid bravado of a drunk man attaching importance to trivia. Tyler wished he were in the same position, starting some idiotic fight because his brain cells were sloshing around on an ocean of beer.
He looked up and met the man’s gaze. A hard task, given how the fellow’s eyes wandered around the room, not quite focusing. “Yeah,” Tyler said. “I’m some kind of weirdo. What’s it to you?”
“Just like I thought,” the man settled for, handing out a sneer and turning back to his drink. “A couple of pansies out on the town.”
“You should watch yourself, mate,” Gary said, leaning closer to the guy. “My friend here has magic. You keep pushing, and it won’t end well for you.”
For a moment, the man’s face was stunned, then he broke into a burst of uproarious laughter.
“Magic, is he?” He stood up on his wobbly legs again, poking a finger into Gary’s chest. “What magic acts does he perform then, apart from the one with the disappearing beer?”
“Hey, I don’t want no trouble in here,” the bartender said, flapping a tea towel at them. “If you want to fight, take it outside.”
“I don’t want to fight,” Tyler said. Gary looped his arm around his shoulders, though, and started pulling him toward the rear exit.
“Let go,” Tyler muttered, pulling free. “What do you think you’re doing? This is stupid.”
“I want you to throw a pile of magic as this loser the same as you did the gunmen back at the park.”
At the word gunmen, the man who’d previously been up for it flinched. “No fair having weapons,” he said. “I’m only interested in a fair fight.”
“There’s two of us,” Tyler pointed out. “We’ll just whip your ass in a few seconds and then go back to the bar.”
“One at a time, like real men!”
“See? He’s up for it,” Gary said. “That’s a threat right there.”
The drunk man stood in the parking lot, his hands raised in a boxing stance. The wobble in his eyes suggested he still wasn’t tracking.
“Let’s just go back in and leave him out here,” Tyler said. He shoulder-bumped past Gary but was pulled back, his friend putting a pincer grip on his neck.
“Come on. Show this troublemaker the magic. I want to see what it can do!”
Tyler pulled his glowing hand from his pocket. His opponent’s face crumpled into confusion, and he lowered his hands.
“What the fuck is that? A gay ray?”
“I told you,” Gary said, giggling in a high-pitched squeal. “You’re gonna get what’s coming to you.”
“I don’t even know how to work it yet,” Tyler whispered, furious. “For all I know, when I try to knock him out, I’ll just end up making him bigger or stronger or something.”
“Do it. Do it. Do it.”
Gary’s chant was added to by Wilma, who’d just joined them at the back door.
“Do it. Do it. Do it.”
Tyler shrugged and whipped his magic stone hand toward the waiting opponent. A flame of pink shot out, striking the concrete at the man’s feet with a hiss.
“There,” Gary said, triumphant. “I told you.”
“What the hell was that?” The drunk man scraped his toe over the concrete where the ray had hit. “A pink light show? Is that all you’ve got?”
“Yep.” Tyler turned to go back inside.
Gary gripped hold of the magic hand, squeezing it tightly. “Do something else. Grant a wish or place a curse or do something!”
“Yeah. Turn me into a frog or a warthog, why don’t you?” The man chuckled, his high-pitched voice scratching fingernails down Tyler’s nerves. “Show me your magic powers, magic dude.”
Gary leaned over and pointed Tyler’s hand at the man. “Don’t do those, do something good and rotten. I wish I were a warthog, just sitting around eating and rolling in the mud all day.”
Tyler stared at Gary, watching him transform before his eyes. His mouth elongated out into a snout, bristles poking out from the bottom half of his face, while the top half went bald.
His friend didn’t seem to notice, still holding onto Tyler’s hand he continued, “It’s got to be something far worse than a frog, too. Try making him into a sewer rat or a snake with no venom.”
Tusks sprouted on either side of Gary’s snout, curling upward like he was the villain in a silent movie and they were his mustache.
“What the fuck?” The drunken man swayed on his feet, eyes fixed on Gary, his mouth dropping open. “How the hell did you do that, man?”
“Do what?” Gary let go of Tyler’s hand and stepped away. He looked down at his hands, the fingers clumping together into trotters.
“Stop!” Tyler yelled out in distress.
Gary’s transformation stopped, but so did he, standing motionless as the moon disappeared behind a cloud.
Chapter Four
“Hey, it was just a joke, right?” The man who wanted to fight him a moment before now backed away. His hands were up again, but this time palms out toward Tyler, warding him off. Once he got three steps back, he turned and ran around the side of the building. His internal compass had him cut the corner too closely, smacking off the edge of the breeze-blocks and howling in pain.
“I think you killed him,” Wilma said, poking her fingers at Gary’s eyes. He didn’t flinch. “How do you start him up again?”
“If I start him up again, he’ll just change fully into the hog, won’t he?”
Wilma put her face closer to Gary’s, her nose almost touching the tip of his snout.
Suddenly, she turned and grabbed hold of Tyler’s hand.
“I wish I were young and skinny,” she yelled before he could shake her off.
As he watched, mouth dropping open at the change, Wilma’s body thinned down, the wrinkles fell away from her face. From her forty-ish state she dropped down solidly into her thirties, then her twenties, her clothes hung loose and baggy off her skinny bones. “This is incredible,” she yelled in excitement, twirling in a circle with her arms flying out to either side. “I must look so pretty.”
Her voice changed, became higher. Late teens now, and her height suddenly altered. Five feet six became five feet five, four, three. Wilma shrank and turned younger still.
“What’s happening?” she called out, this time with the shrill note of fear. She put her hands up to her face, feeling the sharp new contours and highly elastic flesh.
Wilma put her hands to her chest where an ample bosom had shrunk into flatness. She pulled away the loose waistband of her jeans to peek down her pants.
“How old am I?”
Tyler looked from Wilma to Gary and back again in horror.
“Maybe ten?”
Her face contorted and the young girl reached out for Tyler’s hand again, a determined expression on her face.
“No,” he shouted, easily pulling free of her. “No more wishes.”
“I can’t stay like this,” she trilled, her voice reaching notes that pierced and prodded at Tyler’s eardrums. The headache that had begun to form earlier thumped and pounded on his skull.
“You”—he poked at Gary’s chest— “can you hear me?”
No response. Gary was frozen solid, just like the men back at camp.
“Start,” Tyler commanded. “But don’t change anymore.”
A reassuring glow of light pulsed out of his hand and Gary began to move again, stepping back and staring at his half-changed hands with a look of horror on his face.
“Take it back,” Gary said. “Make me the way I was before.”
Wilma jumped up to grab hold of Tyler’s arm, shouting, “No! Do me first. Do the w
ish properly, this time.”
Tyler shook her off quickly, the young girl not the match in strength that the grown-up Wilma would have been. He whipped a beam of light toward the warthog. “I wish Gary looked like a human again.”
Nothing happened. Gary’s face still looked like it needed a trough for feeding. As Tyler tried, again and again, he resolutely stayed a warthog while Wilma remained a ten-year-old girl.
# # #
“I’m fine to drive,” Wilma insisted.
Giving upon changing anybody back to anything remotely like they should be, Tyler had suggested they bugger off back home to the trailer park.
“First of all, you won’t be able to reach the pedals,” Tyler said, shaking his head that he needed to explain this at all. “Second, the moment a cop sees you driving, he’s busting us and then we’ll never get home.”
“Fine, let’s stay at the tavern then.” Wilma crossed her arms and pouted.
“I can’t drink, and you and”—Tyler flicked his hand at Gary, momentarily lost for words—“he won’t be let inside in the first place. Why don’t you just try to be reasonable for an hour and then we can discuss all this from the comfort of the trailer park?”
“Fine,” Wilma said, stamping her foot. “But I’m not having that”—she also waved at what used to be Gary—“traveling up in the front seat.”
“That’s an excellent point.” Tyler turned to Gary, raising his voice and talking slowly. “Can you lie down in the back seat, mate? Just for the ride home?”
“I’m not fucking deaf,” Gary growled back. He put his half-hands, half-trotters on his hips in an aggressive stance. “You’re ashamed of me. I always knew it.”
Tyler pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. “I’m not ashamed of you, Gary. I just think it would be best for the time being that people didn’t see too much of you.”
“I’m not some dirty secret. I’m a grown man with feelings.”
“Oh, so many feelings,” Wilma echoed with delight, twiddling her fingers and dancing in a circle with delight. “Poor Gary the warthog. Nobody understands.”
“Stop it! Both of you get in the car. I’m driving. I’ve got enough on my plate without needing to hear the two of you going at it!”
Gary and Wilma stared at him, wide-eyed for a second, then both of them burst out laughing, Wilma clutching Gary when it seemed she would fall over from the effort.
“Going at it?” she managed to cry out when the bout began to pass. She wiped the tears from her eyes and shook her head, giggling again briefly. “You think Gary and I are ‘going at it’? That’s disgusting—pedophilia and bestiality all rolled into one.”
“Ha. Ha.” Tyler pointed at the vehicle and pressed the button, so the doors unlocked with a beep. “Now, get in before someone sees you.”
Wilma jumped into the front passenger seat while Gary got into the back. He slouched down, a concession to Tyler’s request without the indignity of actually laying down out of view.
“You better not crash this baby,” Wilma warned.
“A half hour ago you made me the designated driver because you wanted to get smashed,” Tyler said. “Do you want to lay off the running commentary?”
“Considering that Gary and I are the ones who you’ve transformed into circus freaks, I think you should be in a better mood.” Wilma glared at him.
“I didn’t…” Tyler stumbled to a halt, losing the energy to continue the fight. “I can drive, you know. Your car will survive just fine.”
He pulled out into the flow of traffic and had just settled into the ride when flashing lights came up behind him.
“Damn it, Gary. If that’s because of you, then you need to learn to obey instructions.”
“It’ll be because you’re a shitty driver,” Gary shot back as Tyler pulled them over to the side of the road.
The cop car pulled up behind them, the officer in the front seat writing in his notebook before he got out of the car.
“Do you have the registration?” Tyler asked as he wound done the window. “Either way, he’s going to ping me for no license.”
“You should have let me drive, then,” Wilma said, opening the glove box and pulling out some papers.
“Evening, officer,” Tyler called out as the man approached. Gary pulled back into the shadows, but still, there was a hesitation in the officer’s steps before he came up level with the front door.
A bright flashlight shone on Tyler’s face, making him blink. “Do you know how fast you were going, sir?”
Wilma smashed her fist into the back of Tyler’s shoulder. “I told you, you shouldn’t drive.”
Tyler shrugged her off. “No, sir. I thought I was within the speed limit.”
“Well within the speed limit. You were going ten under. I’m going to ask you to step out of the vehicle.”
The officer turned and shone the torch into Gary’s face. He emitted a snort, then put his trotter up in front of his face to shield his eyes.
Tyler tried to think of some excuse for the appearance of his friend, but nothing came to mind.
“This your daughter, sir?”
Wilma snickered and leaned across Tyler. “Yeah, he’s my daddy,” she said with a pout. “He takes gooooood care of me.”
The flashlight turned to her face, and she retreated, blinking against the intense light.
“I’m going to ask you to step out of the vehicle, sir. I’ll need you to open the door from the outside. Put your hands out through the window and lift the handle that way.”
Tyler stretched his hands outside. He tried to shelter the pink glow with his other hand, but in the dark night sky, it was a failed effort.
Suddenly, the cop grabbed hold of Tyler’s hand and twisted it, so he shrieked at the pain.
“What the…?”
The cop pulled a machete out from the back of his belt and raised it up in the air.
“No,” Tyler yelled. A second later pain shot up his arm. Agony. The machete stuck halfway into the meat of his arm. He could feel where it lodged into the shrieking bone.
Tyler tried to jerk back, but he felt his arm tearing apart, leaving his hand in the officer’s grip.
The policeman yanked at the machete, but it was wedged into the bone. He worked it back and forward while the pain built up in Tyler’s arm to the point where he thought that he must faint.
Finally, the officer got the blade free and lifted it up in the air again for another hack. Blood spurted up in a pulsing river. Wilma lunged across his lap.
Tyler stared into the face of the officer for a second. He mouthed “Please,” then the keen edge of the machete headed down for another blow.
Chapter Five
There was a pop of noise in the car, and the blade dropped out of the man’s hand. A small hole appeared in his forehead.
“Get the fuck away from my friend,” Wilma yelled, then squealed in triumph as the officer collapsed forward, his face catching on the edge of the window.
Tyler pulled his arm back, cradling it in his lap. The policeman’s chin kept him suspended for a second longer, his dead eyes fixed on Tyler with an accusing stare. Then gravity exerted its pull again, and he tumbled down onto the road.
“Got the fucker,” Wilma crowed, putting the gun back into the glove-box and closing it with a satisfying snap. She jumped out of the car and ran around the front, giving another crow of victory when she saw the dead body prostrate beside the vehicle.
“Quick,” Gary said. “We need to get out of here. We’ll have a billion cops on our tail in a second.”
“He wasn’t a cop.” Wilma dug at the man’s hand with the toe of her too-large shoe. “Cops don’t try to hack off people’s arms on the side of the road.”
She stuck her head in through Tyler’s window. “We need to get rid of this body, though. We can’t just leave him lying out here in the street.”
Gary and Tyler manhandled the body into the backseat while Wilma hurried back to the pat
rol car to turn off the lights. She insisted that she could drive her own car—or if not that the fake-cop’s vehicle—but finally it was settled with Tyler at her wheel and Gary in the police car.
“Just find a dim alley somewhere, and leave it there,” Tyler instructed. “Then give us a text to let us know where to pick you up.”
“And where are you putting him?” Gary jerked his head toward the dead guy in the back seat, his ears flapping.
“There’s a dumpster behind the K-mart with his name on it,” Wilma said. Her lack of pity seemed atrociously unfeeling until Tyler looked down at the still-healing scars on his arm.
“I bet those men back at the trailer park woke up and called him in,” Wilma said. “Otherwise, you’ve got something new to worry about.”
“How about we focus on dumping the dead guy first and then everything else later?”
“A thank you wouldn’t go astray,” Wilma muttered.
“Thank you for saving my arm,” Tyler said. He traced out the healing scab and shivered. “Now, let’s find a nice empty dumpster to fill up.”
It had been a hard-enough job maneuvering the body into the backseat with two men—or partial men. Trying to carry the dead weight with a weak man and an even weaker little girl was a task that seemed never-ending.
“What if we roll it up in the rug, and drag it?” Tyler suggested after what felt like hours of struggling. Wilma shot him a look that said the use of her car was bad enough, stealing a rug would be the end of him.
“Grab his arm, then,” Tyler said. “I think we’ve managed to prove that we can’t carry him. Dragging him might work, even without bundling him up.”
They made more progress, but Tyler’s back was soon screaming. When he looked up to see how far they’d come, the car was only a few yards away.
“You should have parked closer.”
“You told me I wasn’t allowed to,” Tyler reminded Wilma. “You said that if I scratched up your paint-job, I was a dead man.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be such a bad driver, and then I wouldn’t have to worry.”
They heaved in tandem again, the blessing of the hard work that neither of them could speak while doing it. Tyler judged the distance once more. Another two yards, tops.
