Would looking at all those documents at once be too much? Johnny thought so.
He turned from the troll (and Jenny, who was finishing up cleaning the kitchen) and headed up towards the bathroom upstairs.
Everything upstairs looked normal. There was a narrow hallway down to the left with two doors on the left and one on the right. To his right there was a shorter hallway with a guest room to the right and a bathroom to the left. All the doors were closed, but Johnny heard water running from somewhere on the other side of the door.
What he saw when he opened the door to the bathroom both fascinated and horrified him.
The house he remembered seeing when the troll had taken him down from the tree wasn’t that big and didn’t go very far. Yet this multi beige tiled floor was massive - dungeon-like even. Dim lights were on the ceiling, which was made of chipped white paint (some of the plaster had fallen dust-like onto the tiles in places). As Johnny reluctantly made his way in, making sure the door behind him stayed open just in case he had to make a run for it, he tried finding the source of the running water.
A bright pink shower curtain appeared out of the darkness about twenty feet in. It was a shower - with clean water (he saw and made sure of) that went into a drain about five feet from it (and about ten feet from where Johnny stood).
Reluctantly, Johnny approached the shower. He noticed the pink curtains had mini reddish dots on it. Another memory came to him then. Him in the similar shower at age 10 or so.
He had just wanted to play his Nintendo games and get the shower over with. He’d stepped in for less than a minute, let some water fall on him, put some shampoo on quick and brushed himself quick with the bar of soap.
Then he turned the water off. Laughter greeted him downstairs as his alcoholic stepfather and too scared-not-to-take-his-shit mother joked about how quick the shower was.
Of course later on when the first pubic hair he’d seen in the shower one day turned to multiple ones and Johnny traded his video game obsession into girls, the showers got longer (actually, it was girls and games- which he’d never stopped). But that particular day, all he wanted to do was eat supper and go back upstairs to play his Nintendo games. As he thought of this memory and opened the curtain, he saw the shower had been just as it was when he was 9-10 or so. The light and dark green marbled soap on a rack with the No More Tears shampoo (though he’d cried many when it stung his eyes - no more tears my ass, he’d thought). And most importantly - clean water coming out.
He had a sudden thought that the water might turn filthy all of a sudden. Fuck - another thought came to him that the water might even turn to blood all of a sudden..
Johnny undressed quickly, noting as he did that a clean towel on a stainless- steel stand was waiting for him nearby in the shadows (had it been there before? he’d thought). What else was waiting for him in those shadows, he didn’t want to find out.
Just take your shower, Johnny - no need to dread the things to come. You will get your strength back and conquer all!
That positive voice again, seeming to come from left ballpark.
The Positive Warrior Voice, he suddenly thought. That was it. Life in existence is never easy. Put on your shield and sword and fight the monsters.
The monsters from The Ocean Of
Horrors - The Sea That Never Sleeps! That thought came from out of nowhere too, followed by another thought. That was another of Marcus Rowen’s books - but it never circulated or got published, because he had died too early.
Yet did he? Weren’t there manuscripts found later on in his attic? Weren’t some circulated on the internet later on?
Was he still writing somewhere? Inventing new horrors and fantasy worlds alike?
Not all of his dream works had been bad - now Johnny remembered.
Some places had been beautiful.
But the monsters were vicious. Johnny undressed from his three-piece suit and stepped into the shower. The hot water coming over his skin soothed him instantly. He saw it was turned at just the right temperature (just for you Johnny) by that triangle shaped handle.
Though physically his body may have been 10, mentally he was getting there. There was no Nintendo around and no woman, but he took a shower longer than 30 seconds.
Much longer.
About 15 minutes in, and the water did start turning filthy.
Feeling satisfied and horrified at the same time, Johnny stepped out of the shower in the dim lighted darkness. He went over to the towel that had been waiting for him, dried himself off and dressed quickly.
Was it just him, or was his three-piece suit that had just fit him 20 minutes ago now a little tighter?
He wasn’t sure, but it felt like that. You’re getting bigger, boy! He heard the troll say in his head.
He had a vision then of Pickle nose coming to him while he was eating and handing him the documents of his past life.
But if that had happened, Johnny wouldn’t have opened them to read them.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what had happened to that little 10 year old boy that had somehow found a noose around his neck and rage he couldn’t seem to control. That type of rage doesn’t come from the joy of video games and beating the next level. Sure, you may get aggravated and throw a tantrum if you kept dying, but - from somewhere far off in the dim lighted darkness, there was the sound of water running again. Only this wasn’t just shower water - it seemed faster, harder, more aggressive. Like an ocean, Johnny thought. Then the tapping of something small and wooden hitting the tiles. Then multi - somethings hitting the tiles.
Wooden balls, Johnny thought. As if reading his mind, one of the wooden balls rolled over to him from within the darkness. It was wet with what smelled like saltwater.
Yes - salt water was in the air distantly. Johnny could smell it.
He picked up the wooden ball.
It was a light brown color. Engraved in black in the center of it was that same image of the black bird flying in midair with two semi - circles on the top and bottom of it.
Johnny had another flash of memory. He turned towards the darkness, bouncing the wooden ball as hard as he could on the tiles. It bounced, hitting the tiles hard with a CRACK - ing sound, yet not breaking. Instead, the tiles had cracked.
The ball was consumed in the darkness. Johnny lifted his right hand and looked into the darkness in a commanding way.
Nothing at first. Just the sound of more running water in the distance. Then, about a minute and a half later , the ball bounced back to him from the dim lit darkness . It hit the same tiles again, cracking them even bigger. Then bounced from them and went right into his right hand. Johnny tightened his grip on the ball and felt a certain energy within it as he did so. This wasn’t just a ball. And he wasn’t just a boy.
Johnny walked towards the sound of the saltwater in the darkness. He didn’t look back to see if the door was still open or not; at this point it didn’t matter to him.
He wasn’t like Jenny - submissive and mechanical (though what had happened to her before that still intrigued him).
He wasn’t like the toll, having to have control over people weaker than himself.
He was more like The Writer - persecuted, shunned and ignored for being different. Yet having gifts that no one could take away from him that brought him joy and happiness. Whatever gifts he had, connected with this world somehow.
Johnny went further into the dim lit darkness, then he saw.
A giant porcelain toilet, marble colored like the soap he just washed himself with, only instead of dark green and light green, it was light pink and dark red colored, came into view. It had rusty pipes attached to the tiled wall behind it. Johnny guessed it was thirty feet high and three feet wide.
The flusher on top of it was set down, as if someone (or something) intentionally set it like that. Painted on the tiles to the left
and right of it were cartoon eyes staring blankly ahead. What looked like bristled sink pad material was shaped into what appeared to be eyebrows on top of the painted eyes on the tile. In the center, a red sponge, almost ballooned shaped like the trolls but not as big - protruded out of it posing as a nose.
Porcelain teeth were also brightly painted below the nose (all pearly whites, Johnny saw). They actually seemed to glow in the darkness. On the bottom half of the giant porcelain toilet, another row of pearly whites were painted. In the center of the porcelain bottom row of teeth, a cartoon tongue, pinkish red, was painted sticking out. It went from the center of the teeth out to the tiles and ended right before the drain where the saltwater was going into. The saltwater was flooding out of the porcelain giant, onto the tiles, splashing droplets onto Johnny as well.
This is one of the nicer ones, Johnny thought. He didn’t know if it was a thought that came out of left field again or a sense he had.
Johnny looked on the top of the toilet, a little bit above where he missed before, and saw something else. Written in bright red colors, half buried in the dim lit darkness, was a number about 5 feet wide and 3 feet tall: 217.
Written below it in chalk (it looked like this one was from kindergartners) was: This One Is Nice. It was messy cursive, but Johnny was able to read it anyways.
Below this message, in blue chalk (and a little readable this time - maybe by a 6th grader) was: Happy Herman. Maybe it was a nickname given by a passersby.
And what happened to them? Johnny knew this wasn’t the first time he thought of this. And it wouldn’t be the last.
Did Marcus create this world and Johnny and others got stuck in it somehow, or did he just write about it as the ideas came, and it was a real- world people pass through death and/or dreams?
Maybe both.
Dreams can be both good and bad, really fucked up where you see loved ones in the past very vaguely, or right there with you, being able to hug them again. But they weren’t like Heaven where everyone is in the light, smiling and shining and no bills to pay. They weren’t like Hell either where you’re burning in it for all eternally, begging for one drop of water.
They were in between.
This world was in between - maybe Johnny’s second chance for redemption at something he’d done in the past.
Or rather, some things.
All he could remember for now was being 10 and hating his asshole stepfather and hating when he brought them to church on Sunday with his sister, mother and his two stepsisters and stepbrother. He remembered them vaguely, but it was the stepfather that stuck out like a sore thumb. Dragging him down the stairs with his Burger King shirt on. Pinning him to the bed, telling him he was a little brat that got everything. And Johnny thinking: wait ‘til I get bigger, I will fuck you up so bad you alcoholic, abusive fuck!
The rage came back to him, and Johnny threw the wooden ball on the tile wall beside Happy Herman. Happy Herman didn’t deserve the ball being thrown at him - cracking the porcelain and possibly changing his name to Unhappy Herman in the process. Rather, he would crack the tiles beside him.
The ball hit the tiles, cracking them, returning to Johnny’s right hand every time. He did this over and over for about 20 minutes straight, making a bigger and bigger dent in the tiles each time.
Then, the dent became a hole as the tiles caved inward, some spilling onto the ones on the floor.
Johnny felt better now, the stress and rage almost gone - at least for the time being.
As if to compliment this, about 100 of those wooden balls poured from the darkness of the hole he just made, onto the cracked tiles floor. They rolled towards Johnny, as if recognizing him, then rolled into the darkness behind him. After a while, he heard no more rolling. They just seemed to disappear, save for the one in his hand.
Suddenly, Happy Herman stopped flushing. The handle, Johnny saw, went up on its own. After a while, the last of the saltwater stopped flushing out and went into the drain. From behind him, he heard the water in the shower turn off also.
Silence. Almost. Save for Jenny in the distance, laughing and calling out to him.
“Silly Johnny - you made a mess!” she giggled. Then sighed. “Guess I’ll have to clean up for you.”
Johnny saw her come out of the darkness, dressed in a black dress with white cuffs and shoes and socks to match.
It was what she had in her hand that amused him. It was a giant, oversized bristled brush about 6 feet in length. “But first - it’s time to wash Happy Herman!”
She walked over to Happy Herman, and in response, the flusher flushed again. Only this time instead of sea salt, hot water mixed with soap came out.
Jenny dipped the large bristled brush into the water, then began gently stroking the porcelain giant. “Ah, that’s why he’s happy!,” Johnny joked, to which Jenny giggled playfully.
She then turned to him before going back to her duty.
“Oh - by the way Johnny!” she called from the darkness behind him. He turned, interested now.
“What Jenny?”
“Watch out for number 213. That one isn’t a nice one. Not at all.”
-------------------------------------
After the shower, Pickle nose had some errands for the boy to do it seemed. He had what looked like an envelope wrapped in light brown paper with the image of the bird with the semi circles stamped on the center.
“Go down a couple blocks until you see Cecilian Street to the right. Walk until you see an old abandoned building. There’s a mailbox there. Just put it in. Dinner will be ready when you get back,” the troll said. Johnny was actually delighted to get out of this house. Yet, horrified at what he might see outside. Were there other trolls worse than this one out there? Ones that would devour a little boy such as himself ? He thought so.
As he closed the door behind him, envelope in hand, a thought occurred to him.
What if the troll locked him out? What if he had to spend the whole night out here in the dark?
What if he lost his way home on the way back?
Then the Warrior’s Voice came to him as he turned right and walked on the street.
You weren’t always a boy - you’ll make it!
The voice gave him strength. He then prayed to God he would be given the strength to make it in this world of horrors.
Johnny walked on, feeling stronger now.
Bigger.
To the right and left of him were old abandoned houses, most grayish in color with chipped paint and smashed in windows. Most also had graffiti on them.
Inside, he could here whisper’s also. The furniture, he thought. The old fashioned, quilted furniture with the teardrops, calling out to anyone that would listen.
“Johnny,” he heard one of them say. He couldn’t resist; he found himself turning towards the house. The door was unlocked (as he suspected just about all were on this street). Stepping inside, he was amused and horrified at what he saw. Many different colored ones - white with green, maroon with red, blue with golden - teardrop designed high chairs, sofa’s and dining room chairs , scattered about the old wooden floor. Some ripped, some in good shape, some with barbed wire and dried blood stains on them.
But the high-chair that called his name stood out among them like - (the Judgement Seat) a large accusing figure. It seemed to stare at him from the corner of the room, taller and looming over the others.
“Johnny - remember me?”
No, he didn’t. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Any more than he wanted to sit on it. He was more than sure hands would have come out and grabbed his crotch if he did so. And fuck - he had an errand to do, he noted to himself, looking down at the envelope.
If he lost this envelope, he’d be fucked. He would probably go without dinner.
Johnny turned from the chair, and felt it move towards him. He froze in fear. He hea
rd the legs start to hop on the wooden floor, making their way towards him.
He then felt a piece of barbed wire prick him in the back.
Johnny’s paralysis broke and he ran for the door. There was a horrible moment when he thought it would be locked, but -
(the bird - the bird needs you to deliver the envelope boy!) the knob turned, and he escaped. From inside the house, Johnny heard laughter and this time from the other pieces of furniture scattered about. One sounded like an old woman and one a woman sounding very familiar to him as well.
He had a vision then. Feathers in the air as a woman screamed and a large knife was brought up, then down into thrusts.
Johnny pushed the horrible thought away as the furniture inside the house taunted him. Familiar voices filled his head, yet the broken memories suppressed them, at least for the time being.
As he walked a couple blocks down, he saw some passersby also. One was a girl a lot like Jenny. She had jeans on, freckles and a green cotton shirt.
Her red hair blew in the mild breeze. Her green eyes met his baby blue ones. She smiled and waved. As she did so, he noticed she, too, had an envelope in her hand. It seemed like she was on an errand too. Perhaps also from a troll.
Johnny also held the envelope up and they smiled at each other. “Like to talk but I gotta go!” she called.
“Same here!” Johnny said back. It was the first mild, normal conversation he’d had here with another living being that wasn’t mechanical or troll. The thought started to bring a terrible sadness to him.
He almost wanted to cry but then pushed the tears back. He was a Warrior and would make it here! Up ahead he saw Cecilian Street. To the right of him, he saw something else that peaked his interest and made his stomach knot.
It was a giant porcelain toilet like the ones in the dungeon he was in earlier. Only this one was broken and abandoned. It was tangled in picker bushes. Blue and white marbled in color, with cartoon eyes that were sad, almost crying. It had dark blue hair attached to it that blew in the wind. As Johnny approached it, he saw it’s flusher was down, water pouring down it, making the eyes look like they were crying.
Struggling With the Afterlife Page 2
