My Brains!!! ep, 5

Brick threw his head back and guffawed—they thought that puny door could stop him. He kicked thru it and stared down at them—the ones he had yet to kill. His mouth literally watered and his eyes bugged in his head.

I recognized this story. I'd written it when I was thirteen. I remembered how old I was because that was also the day I noticed the first few sprouts of hair down there. But why was my brain writing it now?

No time to think about it. Had to keep to my goals. 1) Throw away bag, 2) phone in prescription, 3) call work, 4) pick up child. And I wasn't happy not to be doing the last one. This morning might have been the last time I saw Sidney.

My tire exploded. Which was weird considering I'd just stopped at a red light. I saw the hot dog vendor from the corner of my eye and turned to see him just as he was tucking something in his shirt pocket as he dismounted his bike.

It was do or don't time. Official introductions had been made between rubber and road. Those and more fight-or-flight clichés raced through my mind as I got out the car. I grabbed the bag containing Oscar-the-Cat.

We met eyes. There was no way he was just somebody. He was definitely here for me, but I had to play it cool at least until knowing exactly what he wanted.

"Hi." He didn't whip out a gun. That was a bonus. He put down the kickstand on his bike and stood still on the sidewalk, arms at his sides. I was standing at the curb, ready to bolt or shake his hand, whichever proved to be the better response.

"Hey, buddypal!" someone shouted from a car behind mine. "C'mon, the car!"

"Sorry," I said, turning to him. "Flat tire." I waggled my cell phone in the air. "Just called Triple-A." I had no intention of calling Triple-A.

He shook his head and ducked his head back in the car, lurching it into the left turn lane to get around my car. I turned back to the hot dog vendor.

He opened his mouth and a sound came out. I can't explain it any better than that because I'd never heard anything like it before. It wasn't a scream, but it was high-pitched. The closest thing I could associate it with was a sped-up recording, the words running together so fast as to not be understood. But his lips, teeth, and tongue hadn't moved—it seemed like it had come directly from his throat.

"Wha?" I shook my head to indicate I hadn't understood, but he brushed past me to my car. My hand dug my keys out of my pocket and my thumb hit the button on the key fob to pop the trunk. I hadn't done that.

He dug beneath all the junk and pulled out the spare at the bottom along with the jack. He jacked the car up and we changed the tire together. I wasn't entirely certain if it was me making me move around, but it needed to be done, so I didn't fight it.

Once the donut was on I took the jack off and put the whole works in the trunk. After I shut it, the hot dog vendor was already sitting in the passenger seat.

So I could a) get in the car and drive where ever he wanted to go; or b) turn around and run. The second seemed the wiser decision, but I dumped the Oscar-the-Cat bag in the backseat again and got behind the wheel.

"Where are we going?"

He opened his mouth and made that sound again. It sounded a little different this time. I started the car and made a right at the corner.