by Sean Platt
What the hell is happening?
“Luca?”
No response.
Ed heard a babbling brook to his right.
His feet decided to follow the sound before his mind had agreed it was a good idea. He stepped through a thick green bush with large purple flowers that looked like nothing he’d seen on Earth. Branches retreated as he stepped through, to protect the flowers or clear his way.
The environment’s surreality caused his head to spin in confusion. Had Luca teleported him to some other dimension? An alien world? Ed wasn’t sure what scared him more — to think that he was on some other world far away from everyone he knew, or … another possibility. That he was dead, and this was some kind of afterlife — Heaven? Hell? Limbo?
He pushed himself to walk faster to find the water. The answer that might be there. He couldn’t get lost in this massive forest. If he did, Ed would certainly lose his mind.
Suddenly, he was no longer in the woods.
Ed was pushing through a hospital door.
He looked down to see himself in scrubs over those same clothes from before.
What the hell?
His wife was on the operating table. A nurse held something in her hands, turned away from Ed.
Oh, God.
Memories flooded back, intermingling with present.
Impossible. Surreal.
Wonderful. Awful.
The nurse turned to Ed, holding his baby.
“It’s a girl,” she said, showing him the tiny creature he was suddenly responsible for, then handing her to him.
Ed held her carefully, so afraid he’d be too rough, drop her, or something worse. She was so small, so fragile.
Her tiny pink fingers melted his heart.
And then she was gone.
Ed was back in the woods.
“No, I want to go back!”
He fell to his knees, screaming, eyes squeezed tight, crying.
Then a voice came from behind.
“It’s okay, Daddy.”
Ed turned to see his daughter.
::EPISODE 36::
(FIFTH EPISODE OF SEASON SIX)
“The End”
Prologue
Jacksonville, Florida
Charlie Wilkens wasn’t upset when he woke up to an empty world. In fact, it was the best damned thing to happen in his seventeen years on the planet.
He was frightened at first, of course, when he opened his eyes to an empty house, both cars in the driveway, and no sign of his mother or asstard stepdad, Bob. But after going door to door and discovering his entire block was as empty as his house, Charlie was many planets past the moon.
He tottered down the street on his 12-speed, stopping to knock at each house, considering its occupants and the offenses they’d committed against him over the years. He knocked on the bully, Eddie Houghton’s, house, remembering the time the fat, redhead made Charlie eat dirt in front of his classmates in sixth grade.
A vague sense of déjà vu flooded Charlie’s senses as he waited for Eddie to answer the door. He knocked, but Eddie wasn’t home.
He’s never home.
Hasn’t been home any of the hundreds of times I’ve done this.
Charlie was confused.
He hadn’t done this hundreds of times. At least not that he could remember. And yet the sense that he had was too overpowering for Charlie to ignore.
He got back on his bike and headed toward Josie Robinson’s house, a girl he had a crush on since kindergarten. She’d been his friend until last year, before she started hanging out with Shayanne and the rest of the cheerleaders in the Bitch Clique. It was bad enough that she’d shunned him, but at one point, Josie had called him “pizza face” in front of half the lunchroom. It was all Charlie could do to keep from crying.
Bye bye, Josie.
Then there was that asshole, Mr. Lawrence, at the end of the block. A short, creepy dude who once hired Charlie to go door to door and hand out flyers for his painting business. Mr. Lawrence had promised Charlie $40 for the job. But after Charlie spent the entire weekend canvassing the neighborhood with ads, Mr. Lawrence claimed someone saw him ditching a box of the flyers in a dumpster at the Quick Stop (which was bullshit). So, he refused to pay Charlie.
Sayonara, asshole.
Charlie laughed, racing to the next block and repeating the process, growing increasingly giddy with every empty house.
“Goodbye, assholes! Fuckers! Motherfuckers!” Charlie shouted from the top of his lungs. It was an amazing release, even if no one was around to hear him.
“Who you calling asshole?” someone shouted.
No, not someone. It was Bob.
No, he’s not supposed to be here.
Not yet.
Charlie tried to follow his thoughts, to figure out what they meant. Again, more indications that he’d been here before, that this had happened. But it hadn’t. Had it?
Bob was standing in the street, wearing his greasy Sal’s Towing uniform, staring at Charlie with his usual disdain.
Why is he just standing there? Where did he come from? Where is his truck?
Charlie looked around, confused, as Bob came toward him. Nothing seemed right. Everyone in the world was gone except Bob? What kind of cruel cosmic fucking joke was that?
No. There has to be others. It can’t just be me and King Asshole.
“Why did you do it, Charlie?” Bob yelled as he got closer, face red with rage. Charlie could practically smell the beer on his breath.
He racked his mind trying to conjure Bob’s imaginary crime. Had Charlie left the cap off the milk? Had he left his backpack in the hallway again? What was Bob torqued about today? And, more importantly, what would Charlie’s punishment be?
“You little ungrateful shit!” Bob was on him in seconds, right in the middle of the street, not giving any fucks to possible witnesses.
As if anyone’s left to see!
Despite his slurred speech and slower movements, Bob’s fist flew fast and landed on Charlie’s jaw.
Pain splintered from through him like lightning, sending Charlie to the ground, writhing in pain.
Bob wasn’t done. He kicked Charlie, hard, in the gut.
“What did I do?” Charlie cried, throwing his arms over himself and crawling into a fetal position on the ground to give Bob a smaller target, or at least protect his face, chest, and groin from the kicks.
This isn’t what happened! What’s happening here?
“You ungrateful little fuck!” Bob said, kicking again, this time, hitting Charlie in the spine. “I took you and your bitch mother in. I didn’t have to do it!”
Something snapped in Charlie.
He stood up, despite the pain in his jaw, gut, and back.
He met Bob’s red eyes, widening in response to Charlie on his feet.
“Not used to me standing up for myself?” Charlie grinned.
Bob, unwilling to tolerate such disrespect, took a drunken, misguided swing. Charlie sidestepped and watched Bob fly by then fall to the ground in an embarrassing heap.
Charlie kicked Bob in the back of the head, as hard as he could. Bob cried out, an incoherent wail.
“You didn’t take anyone in. It was our house, asshole!”
Charlie kicked again, this time in Bob’s back.
Bob screamed.
Charlie stood over him, fists balled at his side, wanting to pummel King Cunt, to take out years of frustration of being Bob’s whipping boy, of being picked on by bullies at school. But how far could he take this? What was the next logical step? He couldn’t kill Bob. Even though the man was maybe the biggest asshole in Florida — and given the state’s reputation for assholes, that was saying something — no jury in the world would let him off for killing his stepfather, no matter how abusive the man was.
There are no juries left. Do it.
After a long moment of silence, Bob looked up at Charlie and apologized. “I’m sorry.”
Charlie stared at the man,
confused. He’d never apologized to Charlie, for anything. Ever. Charlie listened.
“You’re right, kid. I can be a bit of an asshole sometimes. But it’s not me, man. It’s the booze. It’s the stress of my fucking job. It’s — ”
“Oh, boo fucking hoo,” a voice said from behind with a slight indistinct drawl.
Charlie turned, surprised to see a young man in all black standing behind him, swinging a bat as if preparing to take the plate. His hair was long, pushed back, eyes intense. There was something familiar about the man, but hell if Charlie could remember how he might know him.
“The only way to get power,” the stranger said, swinging the bat and looking up in the sky as if he’d just cleared a ball from the park, “is to step to the fuckin’ plate and swing your bat in its fat fuck of a face. That’s how shit’s done on Team Boricio. Fuckers who don’t like it get squashed.”
Team Boricio?
Charlie felt like he’d heard the man say that before. That he somehow knew this Boricio fellow.
“Who the fuck are you?” Bob asked, standing.
“Did I say you could stand?” Boricio said, staying in his spot and not moving to stop Bob. There was a confidence in Boricio’s stance and swagger that Charlie loved, and longed to possess.
Bob marched forward, toward Boricio, fists ready to tangle.
Charlie stepped between the two men, emboldened by Boricio’s sudden presence, even though he didn’t know if this man was an enemy or ally. He sure as hell seemed like an ally, though, and if there was a Team Boricio of badasses, Charlie wanted his name on the roster.
Bob looked Charlie up and down then sniggered. “What are you gonna, do, boy?” He thrust a finger in Charlie’s bird chest and pushed him back slightly — something he’d done in their house several times when Charlie dared to talk back even a bit.
So much for the apologetic Bob. Maybe that had been a ploy to disarm him, to stop Charlie from attacking, and buy Bob more time to come back at him harder and more brutal.
A part of Charlie wanted to apologize for letting this get out of hand. Let’s just go back to the way things were. I’m sorry, Bob. Please, don’t punish me. Please, don’t take this out on Mom.
Charlie hated that part of himself.
He had to kill that part of himself. Now or never.
“Sit down,” Charlie said.
“Or what, boy?”
“He’ll make you sit,” Boricio said from behind.
Charlie didn’t turn to see the man but could tell from the disgusted reaction in Bob’s beady red eyes and trembling lips that Boricio was probably wearing a smug and oversized smile.
Ooh, Bob is afraid!
Charlie grinned then yelled, “Sit down, Bob!”
Suddenly, Boricio was at Charlie’s side.
Bob looked at the two of them, did the math in his head, and realized he was outnumbered and pretty much fucked. He blinked, a furrow in his brow indicating confusion before he verbalized it.
“Who the hell are you? What are you doing with Charlie?”
“The boy said sit.”
Bob reluctantly found a spot, smack in the road’s center, and sat. He looked like a confused child trying to figure out how bad his punishment was going to be, terrified to do anything that might make everything worse.
Charlie turned to Boricio and wanted to ask who he was and why he was helping but couldn’t bring himself to admit he didn’t know who the man was. He felt like he should. Charlie felt like if he could just get past some block in his head, everything would make sense. Yes, he’d been here hundreds of times. It certainly felt as if this scenario had played out, though maybe not this exact one, more times than he could count.
An obvious realization came to Charlie. He was dreaming. He had to be. That’s why nothing made sense, why the world was gone, and why he was suddenly able to stand up to his prick of a stepfather.
Boricio offered Charlie the bat. “You ready, slugger?”
So, if it’s a dream, just play along, and see where it goes!
Charlie grabbed the bat.
“Now what?” he asked Boricio.
Boricio looked down at Bob then back up at Charlie, eyes darting back and forth. “Duh.”
“Oh! You want me to hit him?”
Boricio smile and clapped. “How about that, Chuck, we’ve got ourselves a winner!”
Bob’s eyes went wide. “No, please! Please, don’t hit me. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll leave your mother. I’ll leave the house and never bother you all again.”
Charlie considered Bob’s offer. Were this real, he’d probably accept. Because all he really wanted was for the fucker to get out of their lives. All Charlie ever wanted was to see his mom happy again, like she’d been before his real father died.
But this wasn’t real, and hell if Charlie didn’t want to take out his frustrations on the bastard who had ruined their lives.
Charlie took a somewhat reluctant swing, hitting Bob in the arm.
Bob cried out, “Fuck!” Looked up at Charlie, rage painting his face red. He started to stand but stopped dead in his tracks when Boricio put a gun against his temple.
“No, no, no, Bobby boy, we ain’t even close to bein’ done!”
Bob glared at Boricio then returned his hateful stare to Charlie, mumbling something under his breath, likely vowing to get even with Charlie the first chance he got.
Fear bubbled in his gut. What if this was real? Not a dream at all? What would happen after he beat the shit out of Bob with a baseball bat? There was no way on earth the man wouldn’t retaliate against him, and his mother. Whoever Boricio was, he wouldn’t have Charlie’s back forever, and eventually Bob would find him alone, and get revenge. Charlie would be helpless to stop him. Because in the real world Charlie wasn’t brave. He was a scared kid, and Bob was a fucking bully. And the bullies always won.
“That’s why you gotta end the game now,” Boricio whispered in Charlie’s ear.
“How did you — ”
“Read your thoughts?” Boricio smiled. “Because, Charlie boy, we’re connected, you and me. We’re all connected.”
“All?”
“Not now, Charlie Brown, we got a job to finish. Now are you gonna stand there and tickle Bob’s berries, or are you gonna fucking hit him?”
Charlie hit him, in the arm, again, and still not nearly as hard as he could swing.
Bob screamed, as if it hurt more than it possibly could have.
“Oh, come the fuck on, put your back into it, boy!” Boricio said.
“I can’t,” Charlie whined.
“Why not?”
“I dunno. I’m confused. I can’t tell if this is real or a dream.”
Boricio, looking disappointed, reached out and grabbed Charlie’s bat.
“I thought you were ready to play in the big league, Charlie. I thought you were ready to be Team Boricio’s all-star hitter, but frankly, I’m not sure you have what it takes.”
“Please,” Charlie begged, “give me another chance.”
Boricio’s face relaxed into a smile. “You know what, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m expecting a bit much from a rookie. After all, you haven’t even been to Boricio’s spring training camp. I’m gonna show you how the pros play, all right? Now I want you to pay real close attention, okay, Charlie Brown?”
Charlie nodded.
“Now, the first thing is to get a good grip on your bat, like this, see? Not too tight, or you’ll just fuck up your swing and end up limp wristed like little Wilma here, right?”
Charlie nodded again, watching Boricio’s fingers tighten around the black tape wrapping the bat’s handle.
“Now, next you wanna pay real close attention to the angle of your swing. You want to connect with the ball, or, in this case, Bob’s fat fucking head, in just the right spot, like — ”
He swung, hitting Bob right in the temple, hard.
The bat made a sickening thunk and sent Bob to the ground like a sack of potato
es.
“ — this,” Boricio finished.
Charlie stared, unable to do anything else, wondering what the fuck just happened.
Boricio continued his lesson, all smiles, as if he hadn’t just murdered Bob.
“Now, that was a pretty good shot, but sometimes, what feels like it might go long winds up being a foul ball. And that’s a dick in the mouth when you wanted a lollipop, so you need to brush it off and find the confidence to face the batter again. Get your head straight, tell yourself, I’m gonna knock this bitch outta the park!”
Boricio swung again, in a downward arc, smacking Bob in the back of the skull.
“And sometimes, you get a pitcher who thinks he’s got you figured, and he’s gonna make you strike out, but no, you keep swinging, foul tip after foul tip, until you find the right pitch to drive right down his fucking throat!”
And then again, and again, repeatedly bashing, fragments of skull, brain, and blood splashing up and covering Boricio.
“And you just keep fucking swinging, and — ”
The bat broke in Boricio’s hand. He stopped, looked down at the mess he’d made of Bob, all over his shirt. He had no expression. No revulsion. No surprise.
And then a huge smile.
Boricio raised both arms triumphantly. “Fuck yeah, grand fucking slam! In the bottom of the ninth, Team Boricio comes back and wins the game!”
Boricio dropped the broken handle then trotted around Bob as if running bases. He ran up to Charlie and grabbed him, blood and remnants now varnishing Charlie. Boricio scooped him up, swung him around, and started singing Queen’s “We Are The Champions.”
Charlie pushed himself away, looking down at his shirt, disgusted.
“You’re a psycho!”
Boricio laughed. “Ding-Ding-Ding! What’s that? Looks like we’ve got another winner, Chuck! Now let’s show Charlie Brown what he’s won.”
Boricio grabbed Charlie, spun him around, and thrust him forward.
Suddenly, they were no longer on the street but rather in front of a grocery store. Boricio shoved him through the front doors.
Boricio was gone, and Charlie was back with Bob, hunched over in the dark aisles, searching for food, batteries, and any other supplies they could scavenge back to the house.
