David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

“I don’t know where,” I said, “but I think I know who.” That sing-song, high-pitched taunt was unmistakable.

“Fezkul,” I said. “Quit dicking around.”

“Who’s dicking around?” Some ferns rustled about a dozen feet away. “I’m just saying. Officer Tom there just thinks she’s pretty . It’s all pretty pervy, you ask me.”

“Hey!” said Tom, aghast. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said to him, still looking for Fezkul. “Where are you?”

“Where am I? Why, right in front of you, Poindexter.” There was a chuckle at my ear. “Whatsamatter? Can’t see me?”

I squinted. Nothing. I couldn’t see him — no matter how much I wanted to, there was nothing.

Then he laughed. “Of course you can’t see me. You’re losing it — growing up. Becoming dull. Right before my eyes. Already, you can’t see me any better than Officer Tom here. Soon as you give up Dungeons and Dragons for bridge or canasta or something, you won’t be able to hear me either. Oh, I’m tearing up at the thought of it.” Somewhere, Fezkul sniffed loudly. “You had such potential, kid. Such potential.”

“Where—” I said, but he went on:

“Ah well. Maybe you can go on that Up With People tour with your loser sister. Know any good show tunes, Sammy?”

As he spoke, I thought I could see a shimmering, on top of a boulder that was shaped like a curled-over rabbit. I started toward it.

“Or should I say, Samuel. That sounds — so much more — adult. Samuel.”

“I’m not Samuel,” I said, and as I did, the shimmering started to resolve itself, and I felt another kind of shimmering in my belly. It was the feeling I got the first time I went to the end of the dock at the cottage, looked into the cold water that was deep over my head and thought: There is no way I can jump into that ; younger, when my mom told me it was time to unplug the night light; and today, when I thought about the prospect of going into Grade Nine, friendless but for Neil and the rest of the William Howard Taft Elementary School Dungeons and Dragons gang who wouldn’t be in high school for one more year…

“I’m Sammy.”

And with the words, the shimmering came into focus: on the top of the rock, into the form of a kid: first, wearing something right out of a Dungeons and Dragons game — what looked like a doublet and hose, and for a second, with wings coming out of his back, and then in the baggy jeans, baseball cap and shark-teeth of Fezkul.

Fezkul clapped twice and grinned, teeth fanning out like a deck of cards.

It was not one of my proudest moments. I leaned over to Officer Tom and whispered: “I think I see him,” and I put out my hand and whispered: “Give me the wand. I’ll zap him,” and Officer Tom fell for it. Why wouldn’t he? After all, I’d just saved his life from the crew of psycho toddlers. And hadn’t we just bonded over our mutual love of Dungeons and Dragons?

So he was completely surprised when I flipped the switch and jammed it into his thigh. With barely a qualm at having tricked poor old Officer Tom, I switched the wand off, stuffed it in my back pocket and said to Fezkul: “I am ready, oh master.”

Or at least I think that’s what I said. I felt like I’d just eaten a whole birthday cake: the kind that little kids get, with the white sugar icing that’s about two inches thick and the soft sugary cake underneath. All my nerves were humming; the world seemed to be vibrating; I felt like I had to pee except that I didn’t have to pee at all. So it is possible that what I said was “Glar worngo. Foo.” However it came out, Fezkul seemed pleased. He held up his hands, shook them in the air and laughed like a midget mountain man.

Okay — it wasn’t just “not one of my proudest moments.” It was, up until that point in my life, the hands-down worst moment yet. I’d just betrayed my new friend Officer Tom’s trust. I’d pocketed a weapon that was, if not illegal, then certainly restricted. And I’d thrown in with Fezkul, the demon-child who had told me to set fire to a restaurant and murder its owner.

And that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was how good I felt about it all. Really good. The idea of arson and killing didn’t strike me as anything more than a lot of fun. I tumbled down the slope to the Fun-Park, an overgrown maniacal toddler with mayhem on his mind.

The little kids gathered around me almost as soon as I’d stepped onto the grass. This, I remember thinking, must have been what Honorius felt like when he made his Leadership roll and convinced those elves to follow him into the troll cave — like one bad-ass paladin, that’s what.

Oh, what to do? There were a few things that came to mind. If we could find more propane, we could just set it off in the grill’s kitchen. Although I wasn’t sure how to make it blow up without making me blow up too. We could fill a paper cup with root beer, put a lid on, then toss it into the deep fryer. The cold liquid in the hot oil would certainly be catastrophic — but would it go off, or just send hot oil everywhere? Dave Rigby had once tried to convince our dungeon master Neil that if you threw a sack of flour into a room, tossed in a torch after it and shut the door, everything would go up in a colossal flour explosion that could clear a whole dungeon level. Neil had said no way that would work, but who knew? It wasn’t like we’d gone down to his condo’s parking garage and tried it or anything…

“You’re thinking too much,” said the little pigtailed girl Blair. She pushed her way through the crowd and handed me a long barbecue lighter. “Fezkul said give it to you.” Her brother, whose french fries she’d ruined just a little while ago, nodded encouragingly from behind her as I flicked the lighter and looked at the little flame that popped out of the end. It was a happy flame and it filled me with gratitude that she would bestow such a gift on me. Having nothing else to give in return, I handed Blair the stun wand. She flicked it on. Her brother lurched and fell, and she squealed appreciatively.

And we were off.

At first, we moved like a well-coordinated Marine unit — or a company of elvish archers led by one totally wicked champion of good, maybe — wending through the tables and the still-oblivious parents toward the prize of the Grill. A bunch of older kids broke off to go play video games, but when I told them to stick to the plan, they came back like I was a drill sergeant, or Honorius the Paladin. Soon, we had the Grill House surrounded.

We were met by four security guards, who waved their arms and threatened to call our parents, but like Officer Tom, they didn’t have the stomach for a fight and they soon succumbed to Blair’s stun wand. We tied their shoelaces together, and then headed inside. In my head, I could hear Fezkul’s voice but I couldn’t understand the words anymore. Just the encouraging tone.

So in we went.

We tore through the washrooms, stuffing the toilets with all the tissue we could find and turning over the garbage cans; we pulled down fire extinguishers and turned the no-slip rugs upside down; we tried to break the fluorescent lights up above but even I was too short for that. Finally, we came out in the front, where there was a counter and a soft-drink dispenser and some grills.

It was magnificent. I could, I think, have taken it all the way. I could have found a sack of flour, burst it open, tossed a Jumbo-Sized root beer into the deep fryer, set off a tank of propane with the barbecue lighter.

God knows the kids were waiting for me to do it; in the back of my head, Fezkul was telling me, in a language that I was beginning now to understand, to do just that: “Blow it up. Destroy the old wizard. Kill him. Kill his minions. Blow it up, boy! You are the champion! Get it! Blow it up!” Something like sugar was itching through my veins and I was ready for anything.