The Smiley-Face Witches

by George Traikovich

The words dangled before him but Drew couldn’t quite reach them. But worse were the ethereal images flickering past his mind’s eye, blurred and out of focus. Something happened between the time he broke free of the chair and crashed into the amphitheater. “I can’t remember.”

  “Dude, maybe ya hit your head,” Grady said. “Maybe ya got a concussion when you crashed your sweet ride.”

  Drew walked his fingertips over his skull searching for an obvious wound but didn’t find any. “Damn!”

  His phone slipped out of his pocket during the frantic self-examination, bouncing against the hardpan ground.

  Grady dusted it off for him. “The glass cracked. Kinda looks like the scar I got on my…”

  “A scar is better than bleeding,” Drew said. “Wait…Where’d she go?”

  “Who?” Clementine asked.

  “Deneese,” he said.

  “Denise?” Clementine said. “She’s in D.C. with the rest of…”

  “No, Deneese,” Drew said, “the girl who…”

  “What girl?” Grady asked.

  Drew searched the meandering assemblage but didn’t see her. “The one who hitched a ride with me…She was just…”

  “Mighta gone on one of the buses,” Spider said.

  The first bus was gone by the time they made it back through the sphinxes. More followed, one after another until the psychedelic exodus stretched across the lonely interstate in both directions.

  “Maybe she snuck on board when nobody was looking,” Drew muttered. Maybe the ride aboard the Stinger shook her up worse than he thought.

  Clementine put her hands on his shoulders, turning him the other direction. “Dunno where your boo went, but there’s another chick I know that’s looking for ya.”

  She’d been gone almost four years, and by that measure Drew had known her memory longer than he’d known her. His throat got dry and his feet grew heavy, and the fear that the idea of the reunion might be better than the reunion itself pushed all other thoughts out of his mind.

  He shuffled toward her, his awkward gait bringing him within just a few feet. He wasn’t sure whether to hug her or not, but Lazy-Eye Susan was. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on his forehead.

  “Just look at ya,” she said. “You’re almost all growed-up.”

  “Didn’t think we’d be seeing ya ‘round no more,” he said.

  “Hain’t getting rid of me that easy,” she said.

  She condensed four years away into just a few sentences, a remarkable feat for a storyteller like her. But what she told him about Frost left him more confused than ever. He owed his life to his sworn enemy, but reconciling the Frost she knew with the one responsible for Harley’s death wasn’t something he was ready for.

  “Best to let it go,” she said.

  “Can’t.”

  “He’s gone,” she said. “There ain’t no more Boogeyman hiding in the dark.”

  His expression changed, the emotion draining from his face. “There’s worse things than him hiding in the dark.”

  His enigmatic response troubled her, but she couldn’t disagree.

  Drew snapped out of his stupor, looking past her to the winding path leading back to the amphitheater. Penelope and Lucy stood waiting with the handful of Acolytes who’d sworn loyalty to Susan, the wheat among the chaff.

  “What happened to…”

  “Nancy? She got away in the confusion,” Susan said. “Reckon she had herself some kinda escape plan…Her and that gal with pink braids.”

  Their absence was victory enough. Camaro was dead and with no more Enzyme Seven to mine, there’d be no more EZ8 in their school or any other.

  They stepped back to let a pixie-faced Acolyte shepherd a line of Clones back toward the amphitheatre. The docile brutes followed her flute, charmed by her sonorous lullaby, and even the blood-spattered Thingamajig struggled to keep up.

  He’d seen the fragments of gleaming vinyl scattered across the stage when he crawled out of the Stinger and knew what their condition meant. “Can ya fix ‘em? Put ‘em back into their bodies?”

  “Reckon ya can always undo whatever was did before,” she sighed, “but there hain’t no instruction manual for this kinda thing.”

  “Guess ya got a lotta work to do,” Drew said.

  “Days…Weeks…Months…Years.”

  “Guess this is it then,” he said.

  “For now,” she agreed. “But who knows what the cards hold?”

  ***

  Drew woke with a jolt.

  It’d been so long since he’d slept that consciousness became an unwelcome interruption. He listened to the rumbling road for a few seconds before remembering he was curled up in the back of the Winnebago.

  “Bad dream?” Grady asked.

  “Ever dream about that night on the coaster when everything went down?” Drew said.

  “Ya mean back on Transylvania Island?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Used to,” Grady answered, “but not anymore.”

  “Me neither,” Drew said.

  He felt around for the binder and found it right where he’d left it. There wasn’t much he could do with the information inside, so he tiptoed through the slumber party clogging the aisle.

  Grady leaned back against the bathroom door to let him pass. There wasn’t much room to move, but that wasn’t what was keeping him awake.

  They’d taken one of the ex-Acolytes aboard as a passenger, the same hippy chick who sold Molly the candy bar at the convention center.

  “Do ya mind?” she asked.

  Grady didn’t. He let her lean up against him while she tried to sleep. Tears in her gown left her shoulder exposed and her bare skin pressed against his. He snaked his arm out around her slender waist and…

  Spider crouched down beside him. “Bater…That’s Portuguese for getting slapped.”

  His admonition stirred Clementine across the aisle. Her face reddened when she realized she’d drifted off with her head on Newton’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

  “Just watch it,” Newton said, but the truth was he didn’t mind.

  Drew turned toward the bunk bed where Molly kept a vigil at Ivan’s side. “Seems like we should work out some kinda commission if we keep feeding ya stories.”

  “Seems fair,” Molly agreed. “How’s ten percent sound?”

  “You gotta deal,” Drew said. “He gonna be okay?”

  She squeezed Ivan’s hand. “The bandages make it look worse than it is.”

  “Guess ya got the exclusive on this—again,” Drew said.

  “Yeah…”

  Her casual indifference was unexpected. She should have been rehearsing her Emmy acceptance speech. How come she wasn’t?

  “Because I can’t connect the dots…”

  He knew there was something profound in what she’d said but wasn’t sure what it was. “Ya got pictures…ya got video…even eyewitnesses…Ya can’t just…”

  “My General Manager said I reminded him of a reporter he used to work with…Jack McGee.”

  “Who?”

  “Had to Google him,” Molly said. “You ever watch the Incredible Hulk?”

  “No.”

  “Used to be on TV back in the Seventies, even before I was born. Anyway, they still run old episodes every once in a while on Sci-Fi channel or something.”

  “Cartoon or…”

  “Live-action,” she said. “But anyway, you know the premise?”

  Drew guessed. “Big green guy goes nuts?”

  “Pretty much,” she said. “But there’s this reporter chasing the Hulk all across the country…”

  “Jack McGee?”

  “Jack McGee,” she agreed. “And he keeps showing up one day too late to catch the Hulk or get any kind of evidence.”

  “How’s he keep his job?” Drew said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” she said. “How do you miss a seven foot-tall green guy stomping around in broad daylight?”

 
; “Don’t know,” he said, “How?”

  “Because that’s what the script says.”

  He kept silent for a moment to give her the impression he’d contemplated her philosophical insight. “Maybe this’ll help.”

  She opened the binder, but wasn’t sure she got the joke. “Empty…”

  “Empty?”

  “What was supposed to be in it?” she asked.

  He felt the blood rush to his head. “She switched ‘em…That’s why she...”

  “Who switched ‘em?” Molly asked. “What’d she switch?”

  “She musta done it right after we landed,” he said, but he knew the con started with the kiss.

  “Who ya talking ‘bout?” Molly asked.

  But that was just it, he didn’t know.

  “You alright, kid?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Still waking up.”

  He’d been played, but he wasn’t angry. His amazement at the ease with which she’d manipulated him tempered his rage. Deneese got what she wanted, but why’d she want it?

  He heard the Old Man clear his throat before he saw him and tensed up. Seeing him under any circumstances made him nervous. Seeing him after blowing-up Bixby especially so.

  Drew wove his way through the aisle and slid into the empty passenger seat to pay his respects. “Principal Hoyt…”

  The Old Man’s neck brace kept him from turning his head in acknowledgement. “Don’t suppose you were anywhere near Bixby Elementary a few days ago?”

  Drew kept his eyes on the undulating road in front of him. “No, what happened?”

  “Never mind,” Hoyt said. “Just making conversation.”

  The setting moon and rising sun shared the same hazy tangerine sky, providing a welcome respite from the conversation both felt obligated to continue. But then a light flashed at the lunar pole, a brilliant flare appearing where none should be.

  “What was that?” Hoyt asked.

  “Some kinda explosion,” Drew said.

  “Must be a meteor,” Hoyt grunted.

  Drew watched the light burn bright for a few seconds before fading, leaving a lingering glow as proof he hadn’t imagined it. He sensed the fireworks they’d witnessed were the opening salvo of something much more terrifying to come, but wasn’t sure why.

  CHAPTER 17

  The blizzard from the night before kept the city busy shoveling, letting the waifish girl wander the congested streets unimpeded. The hoodie shaded Deneese’s face, helping her blend in among the snow-weary pedestrians who couldn’t care less about the strange girl humming to herself.

  The explosion leveled most of Bixby Elementary at the moment of detonation, but remnants of the steel skeleton remained, propped up by mounds of fractured brick. Heat from the blast melted the snow but sub-freezing temperatures flash-froze it back again, leaving a snapshot of the aftermath rendered in black ice.

  “Beautiful,” she hummed.

  She stepped through the gray ashes and descended into the scorched ruins. Shafts of blue light stabbed through the ponderous space, punctuating the stark contrast between light and shadow. And though she couldn’t see anybody, she could feel herself being watched.

  Deneese didn’t expect the Botkins to be there, but didn’t question their presence within his majesty’s subterranean court. Their regent stared back at her from the shadows, scaly skin glistening in the dismal light. He considered her from behind burning red eyes set deep beneath a heavy orbital ridge, deciding whether to grant her an audience or kill her.

  “The time has come,” Deneese announced.

  Harley crept between the shadows, his heavy thorax balanced by a spiny tail held upright like a rudder. He navigated the darkness with the ease of someone well-used to it, banished from the daylight by those unlike him. “Who you?”

  She waited for the Botkin’s beeping and clicking to end before answering. Translating his words into their language slowed the dialog, but alliances came with concessions.

  “Call me Deneese,” she said.

  “How you find us?” he growled.

  Us. She wasn’t sure how much of Harley remained inside after Enzyme Seven took hold, now she knew; the symbiosis was complete, but not absolute.

  “Enzyme Seven leaves an indelible signature,” she said, “We can track it across...”

  Harley’s sinews tightened. “We?”

  “We,” she said. “But I came alone.”

  “What you want?”

  “I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” she said, “but destroying the contaminated sites up wasn’t our idea.”

  Harley snorted. “Don’t care…”

  “I think you do…”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were the target,” she said “You and those like you. And you’ll need our help to survive what’s yet to come.”

  “What kind help?”

  She took her glasses off and Deneese disappeared, but the girl didn’t. The birthmark splitting her face into almost equal halves would have taken anybody else aback, but Harley wasn’t anybody else.

  “See you before,” he snarled.

  The injuries he’d suffered on Transylvania Island almost killed him, but instead of dying he slept until he woke in the sewers beneath Bixby. She’d haunted his nights since, but the dream always ended before he could hear the secret she whispered in Drew’s ear.

  “But you little girl in dream.”

  “A little girl then,” she said, “a teenager now, an old woman tomorrow. But I think I like this face best.”

  “Why mask?”

  Her eyes shifted from the Hypno-Specs back to him. How could she explain the value of subterfuge to someone whose currency was brute force? “I crashed over New Mexico and had to…”

  “Spy,” he chuffed.

  “Someone sent me to be their eyes,” she agreed, “just like you sent the Botkins to be yours.”

  She reached for her backpack but the Botkins fell into a protective phalanx around their warlord.

  Deneese waited for Harley’s approval. He grunted and the Botkins retreated.

  She showed him the floppies she swiped from Doctor Jagger’s binder.

  Harley remained unmoved by her offering. “What those are?”

  She fanned them out like a deck of cards, shuffling them across the debris. “Names and addresses…”

  “Whose?”

  “Survivors...like you,” she hummed.

  He listened to her for a few seconds before recognizing the tune. It was the same song he’d heard just before Bixby collapsed around him. “You play the music…”

  “An invitation to some, a warning to others,” she said.

  “What you want?”

  “I’ve got a message for you,” she said.

  He’d been chosen, but he didn’t know why. He was supposed to do something, but he didn’t know what. So he waited for something to happen, and now she had.

  Harley’s back bowed, forcing his cobby head lower. His mouth opened into something like a grin, sharpened canines stabbing past his jaw like daggers. “What the message?”

  She called him in closer with her finger and whispered in his ear. “Rise.”