[Her stillness helps. He does feel studied. Not quite clinical, but there's an assessment going on behind the calm dark of her eyes, the immovable line of her lips. Her attention is rapt and mysterious and compels him to crank the gates open another inch, another foot.
Can he trust her? Maybe not with some things. He has no doubt her missives and her training would tell her to ditch his ass if it meant some greater good could be gained. But with this?
Perhaps.
Richie holds her gaze for a moment longer. Then he fishes the photo out of his pocket, careful to only touch the edges as he showcases it between their pints.]
George's school picture was missing. But he collected old timey pictures. There was one of our home town some thirty years prior, just of the street and the canal bridge. And when we looked at it two little boys who had never been there before were coming in the corner, and they looked just like us. That's Bill. [He points to the boy in the sailor suit, hefted by the neck.] That's me. [The bespectacled boy in the cap, caught in a mute scream.] And that's George's face. [The painted, eyeless head atop the clown's shoulders. His fingers never touch the surface.]
Bill screamed and put his hand out like he could reach in and stop it. And he nearly did. His fingers punched through the plastic. They turned cream colored like the skin of the people in the picture. They bent at a funny angle, like a reflection in a pool. And when I yanked him back his fingers had been cut near to the bone.
[He holds there. Then, decisively, turns the picture over. The white back seems to glow in the seedy grime-caked lights. Turn me over! I've got so much more to show you! So much more kids, you won't believe your eyes! They'll pop right out of your skull.]
The next week he asked me to come check out that wrecked house with him. He brought his daddy's gun and he was going to put an end to the horror mauling up kids. He wanted to bring justice to George.
[His lips purse. His jaw locks up tight.]
The bullet hit. Bits of its skull came off, but it didn't hurt it. And over the course of the summer, we came to understand that this was a monster that didn't deal in the realm of reality. It's tricks and illusions and magic and all that shit you stop believing in as a grown up. And so the grown ups couldn't see it, couldn't sense it, and even as kids you couldn't see it unless it was coming for you. They might hear it. But only the ones it wants dead get the privilege. And it would do all ages, you bet, meat's meat and a free meal can't be beat. But kids? Kid's fears are easy. They're potent. They're ripe and they're easy. It only comes for the adults when the year of feasting is done. Usually something hateful stirs up around town, like those mists that came in during the riots. Amplifying the hate, whatever ugliness already lives in you. It stirs itself up a massacre, takes its pickings, and then goes to sleep for another twenty seven years, and the people all forget.
[He leans forward, touching two fingers to Gamora's forehead.] It pulls all its shapes from out of here. Whatever you hate the most. Fear the most. Private things you never confessed to anyone. And it makes them flesh and blood, and man's weapons won't do shit all against them. You have to fight like with like — and even that's a gamble. You have to believe the legends about how a silver bullet will kill a werewolf. You have to know in your gut they're true as you let that slug fly, or they're gonna paint wounds on like a decoration and it will still be coming after you. And none of it makes proper sense.
My friend Stan? The only reason he escaped is because he watched birds for a hobby. And when he was locked in the standpipe with it, and he could hear the squishing feet of drowned kids coming down the stairs for him, begging him to come play with him, he began shouting out the names of the birds he watches. Then the door popped open and he could run free. When we went to that house—
[Richie wets his lips, gives another little laugh, ain't it crazy folks? Ain't it wild?] —when it came to us then, it was the werewolf I'd seen in the movie theatre that weekend. It was that shape for me, and it was the clown for Bill. And the only reason we got out, when it was yanking Bill's ankles as I yanked his wrists, trying to wrestle him out the basement window, was because I did a voice. I didn't even think about it. It was ripped out of me and it sounded nothing like what an eleven year old boy could do. And I hollered at it to let go, pretending to be this old Irish cop that farted around town in those days, and it screamed in pain and let go.
We spent the rest of the summer hunting for a way to end it for good. And we thought we did, but...another twenty seven years roll around, and our imagination's all dimmed, we've forgotten everything that happened, we've forgotten each other. But it starts killing again, and we start to recall. It leaves little love notes for us by its new bodies. It left George's school picture by one. It never forgot. And we — I still don't have the full picture. I don't remember the final rules of engagement. I don't remember what we did to make it stop.
no subject
Can he trust her? Maybe not with some things. He has no doubt her missives and her training would tell her to ditch his ass if it meant some greater good could be gained. But with this?
Perhaps.
Richie holds her gaze for a moment longer. Then he fishes the photo out of his pocket, careful to only touch the edges as he showcases it between their pints.]
George's school picture was missing. But he collected old timey pictures. There was one of our home town some thirty years prior, just of the street and the canal bridge. And when we looked at it two little boys who had never been there before were coming in the corner, and they looked just like us. That's Bill. [He points to the boy in the sailor suit, hefted by the neck.] That's me. [The bespectacled boy in the cap, caught in a mute scream.] And that's George's face. [The painted, eyeless head atop the clown's shoulders. His fingers never touch the surface.]
Bill screamed and put his hand out like he could reach in and stop it. And he nearly did. His fingers punched through the plastic. They turned cream colored like the skin of the people in the picture. They bent at a funny angle, like a reflection in a pool. And when I yanked him back his fingers had been cut near to the bone.
[He holds there. Then, decisively, turns the picture over. The white back seems to glow in the seedy grime-caked lights. Turn me over! I've got so much more to show you! So much more kids, you won't believe your eyes! They'll pop right out of your skull.]
The next week he asked me to come check out that wrecked house with him. He brought his daddy's gun and he was going to put an end to the horror mauling up kids. He wanted to bring justice to George.
[His lips purse. His jaw locks up tight.]
The bullet hit. Bits of its skull came off, but it didn't hurt it. And over the course of the summer, we came to understand that this was a monster that didn't deal in the realm of reality. It's tricks and illusions and magic and all that shit you stop believing in as a grown up. And so the grown ups couldn't see it, couldn't sense it, and even as kids you couldn't see it unless it was coming for you. They might hear it. But only the ones it wants dead get the privilege. And it would do all ages, you bet, meat's meat and a free meal can't be beat. But kids? Kid's fears are easy. They're potent. They're ripe and they're easy. It only comes for the adults when the year of feasting is done. Usually something hateful stirs up around town, like those mists that came in during the riots. Amplifying the hate, whatever ugliness already lives in you. It stirs itself up a massacre, takes its pickings, and then goes to sleep for another twenty seven years, and the people all forget.
[He leans forward, touching two fingers to Gamora's forehead.] It pulls all its shapes from out of here. Whatever you hate the most. Fear the most. Private things you never confessed to anyone. And it makes them flesh and blood, and man's weapons won't do shit all against them. You have to fight like with like — and even that's a gamble. You have to believe the legends about how a silver bullet will kill a werewolf. You have to know in your gut they're true as you let that slug fly, or they're gonna paint wounds on like a decoration and it will still be coming after you. And none of it makes proper sense.
My friend Stan? The only reason he escaped is because he watched birds for a hobby. And when he was locked in the standpipe with it, and he could hear the squishing feet of drowned kids coming down the stairs for him, begging him to come play with him, he began shouting out the names of the birds he watches. Then the door popped open and he could run free. When we went to that house—
[Richie wets his lips, gives another little laugh, ain't it crazy folks? Ain't it wild?] —when it came to us then, it was the werewolf I'd seen in the movie theatre that weekend. It was that shape for me, and it was the clown for Bill. And the only reason we got out, when it was yanking Bill's ankles as I yanked his wrists, trying to wrestle him out the basement window, was because I did a voice. I didn't even think about it. It was ripped out of me and it sounded nothing like what an eleven year old boy could do. And I hollered at it to let go, pretending to be this old Irish cop that farted around town in those days, and it screamed in pain and let go.
We spent the rest of the summer hunting for a way to end it for good. And we thought we did, but...another twenty seven years roll around, and our imagination's all dimmed, we've forgotten everything that happened, we've forgotten each other. But it starts killing again, and we start to recall. It leaves little love notes for us by its new bodies. It left George's school picture by one. It never forgot. And we — I still don't have the full picture. I don't remember the final rules of engagement. I don't remember what we did to make it stop.