A Pinstriped Finger's My Only Friend (25 page)

The next thing I know, we're standing on a barren plain at twilight. There's no sign of the monsters or the parking lot or the school or anything else from the last world we visited. Just us.

And one man, walking toward us in the distance.

"What the fudge?" I can't see him too clearly in the dim light, so far away. Is it a hundred yards between us? More than that even? "Where the spit are we and who's the new dude?"

Judd's still shaking a little from his near-death experience. "I already like him better than the bunch we just got away from."

"You and me both, bruh." I give his palm a pat. It's good to be alive. "Those guys were
no
fun, man."

By unspoken agreement, we wait for the man to reach us. What the hell else are we gonna
do
, right?

While we stand there, we take a good look around. All that does is confirm our first impression that we're literally in the middle of nowhere.

The plain is as barren as it first appeared--nothing but gray dirt, hunks of gravel, and scattered clusters of low-to-the-ground white mushrooms as far as I can see, like a Martian landscape glimpsed by a rover but with mushrooms and without all the red. And it's perfectly flat, stretching away from horizon to horizon without the slightest visible dip or rise.

The sky above is just as featureless. It still carries a faint, purplish glow at the horizon behind the man...the remaining light of sunset, I suppose. The rest is nearly full night, but without all the stars--without
any
stars, actually. There's no moon, no stars, no nothing but indigo cover shading over into black.

And the only sounds are the rushing of the cold breeze and the man's footsteps scuffing through the gray dust, rasping toward us at a moderate pace, without hurry. In this world, there's no need to rush, I guess. It's not like he's got lots of other places to go or people to see.

Still, even a modest pace eventually closes the distance. Soon, he's within thirty yards of us. Finally, I can make out a few details: dude's bald on top with a neat gray mustache and goatee. He's slim, and he's wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt, bluejeans, and black sneakers. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

"Think we should worry?" says Judd.

"What good's it gonna do?" I finger-shrug and sigh. "I, for one, want to hear what he has to say."

"I do too," says Judd.

"Then I guess it's worth the risk." I jab the air a couple times and shout. "But I'll be ready to poke his
eye
out
Killdigit
-style if he
tries
anything."

"That won't be necessary," says the guy, now ten yards away.

(Holy crap!)

I do a double-take. Make that a
triple-take
.

(Did he just...?)

"You can
hear
me?" I tense up as I say it. This can't be true. He can't
possibly
...

"Yep." The guy pulls his left hand out of his pocket and waves at us. "Loud and clear."

Which gives me a clue. Because his left pinky is orange with purple pinstripes.

"Welcome." The guy stops ten feet away and grins. Up close, he looks friendly enough...and middle-aged, in his forties, I'm guessing. He's got plenty of smile lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

(Beats me what he's got to smile about all alone on a barren plain, but hey: better smiles than ravenous monster maws, right?)

"Good to see you." This time, it's the pinky who does the talking. "I'm Tipper." He sounds friendly, too.

(The voice is all his, not a trick of ventriloquism. I can tell. Pinkies can
always
tell.)

(We've got pinky radar. Call it "pinkydar.")

"Call me Killdigit." I give him my most intimidating name, just in case the friendliness is all a put-on.

(The chances are good, given our recent track record with fluctuating realities.)

"And I'm Judd." Judd steps forward and reaches for a handshake. He uses his right hand, so when the guy accepts it with his left, I get a fingershake from Tipper in the bargain.

The guy's grip is firm. "Nice to meet you, Judd." But he doesn't offer his own name in return.

(Man of mystery, huh?)

"So, uh...welcome to where?" I ask as the handshake/fingershake ends. "Where are we?"

The guy shakes his head and spreads his arms. "I wish I knew." He turns and gazes into the distance. "Just some infinitely empty, lonely, boring limbo."

"Not that that's a
bad
thing," says Tipper.

"True dat." The guy turns back to us and plants his hands on his hips. "Not after what
we
went through."

"And we do get visitors once in a while," says Tipper. "Like you two. That helps."

"Wait a sec." Judd frowns. "You mean you're alone here?"

"We've got each other," says Tipper. "But otherwise..."

"We're the only people in the world." The guy nods ruefully. "And believe me, I've
looked
."

(Whoa. Only people in the
world
??)

"How long?" says Judd. "How long have you been here?"

The guy shrugs. "Don't ask me, man. Time doesn't have much meaning here. My watch battery died ages ago." He holds up both hands so we can see his wrists are bare. "At least, it
felt
like ages." He rubs his goatee. "All I know is, this beard wasn't gray when I
got
here."

"There's no sunrise or sunset," adds Tipper. "No stars, either. No way to count the days." He sighs. "It's always twilight."

Judd holds me up in front of him so I can talk freely. "Well
that
sucks," I say.

Tipper finger-shrugs. "Not so sucky for us, though. We were kind'a glad to get here."

I cock myself to one side. "Why's that, yo? What exactly did you go through before this?"

The guy snorts and looks away. I think the subject makes him uncomfortable. "Complete insanity." He kicks a mushroom with the toe of his sneaker. "We got into some kind of reality warp, jumping from one alternate world to another, each one crazier than the last."

"Dude," I say. "You won't
believe
how familiar that sounds."

"I would, actually." The guy looks up and nods. "You're not the only ones to come through here with the same story. Like Tipper said, we do get visitors from time to time."

"No one knows why it happens, but it does," says Tipper. "People become unstuck and bounce between realities."

"Their specific experiences are never exactly the same," says the guy, "until they end up here. This place seems to be like a magnet."

"Or a sinkhole," says Tipper.

I turn in a slow circle, staring into the gray distance. All I see is dirt, gravel, and mushrooms under a starless sky.

I'm almost afraid to ask my next question. The answer could be something I don't want to hear. "So where are they? Where are all the others who ended up here?"

"Gone," says the guy.

"All gone," says Tipper.

(Not sure I like the direction this is heading. I wonder if the dude and I oughtta amscray before
we're
gone, too.)

"Gone where?" says Judd.

"They moved on." Tipper points at us. "You can, too, if you want."

"Seriously?" I say.

"Move on to where?" says Judd.

"Don't know." The guy lifts an eyebrow and shrugs. "Back to hopping between realities, maybe? Back home where you started?"

"We have no clue," says Tipper. "No one has ever come back here after leaving."

"So they could have gone anywhere," says Judd.

"Correct," says Tipper.

"The only thing we know for certain, from our own personal experience," says the guy, "is that if you stay here, you'll never get home."

"Wow." Judd sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly through his teeth. "We can just...leave?"

Time for my two cents. "And by
leave
, you mean we'll just
disappear
from here and appear somewhere
else
? You don't mean we'll
die
or something?" It's worth clarifying.

The guy nods. "You'll disappear from here. What happens after that, we don't know, since we've never left."

"Huh." Judd rubs the back of his neck with his left hand and stares at the ground. He seems to be far away all of a sudden.

"Do you think you might stay?" says Tipper. "We wouldn't mind the company."

"That's right," says the guy. "You're absolutely welcome to stay here with us if you like."

Judd doesn't answer.

So I try to keep up our end of the conversation. "Why did
you
stay?" I ask the guy and his pinky. "Was it the awesome scenery? The tropical sunshine? All the hustle and bustle?"

"All of the above!" Tipper laughs. "How'd you guess?"

But the guy turns serious. "I don't know about you two," he says darkly, "but we saw some terrible things in the different realities. We went through some awful experiences." He reaches up to stroke his goatee. "
Life-changers
, if you know what I mean...and not in a
good
way."

"You can say
that
again," says Tipper.

"By the time we got here..." The guy winces. "I was a wreck. I was glad to get here."

"It was the best thing that could have happened to us." Tipper nods. "This place is so quiet, so calm. It gave us a chance to recover. To forget." There's sadness in his voice.

I feel for him. "And you never left."

"That's right," says Tipper.

We stand there a moment, letting the cold breeze swirl around us. I feel like an intruder in somebody else's movie, somebody else's tragedy.

But then I realize it's
our
movie, too. We've been to hell and back just like they have. We've even ended up in the same place. We're mirror images of each other.

It seems to me it isn't much of an accident that we're here right now together.

Just then, Judd speaks up. "How did you know you wanted to stay?"

(I think he gets the whole mirror image thing, too.)

The guy pulls his hood up and tugs the drawstring tight. "Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to hold on to what you
were
...you've changed too much. Going home--even if you can get there--is no longer an option." He stuffs his right hand in his jeans pocket and kicks a toe at the gray dust. "Know what I mean?"

"Yes." Judd slouches, and his voice is soft. The raving lunatic from the Permanent Tournament is nowhere to be seen. "But don't you miss it? Don't you miss home?"

"Home was a state of mind." The guy shakes his head slowly. "It doesn't exist anymore."

Judd nods. "Maybe you're right."

(Something in his voice gives me a bad feeling. Dude sounds
beat
.)

"I take it you've had similar experiences?" says the guy. "Terrible things happened to you in the alternate realities you visited?"

"You might say that." Judd socks his hands in the pockets of his white jumpsuit...

("Dude! Do you mind??")

...then pulls out his right with me attached when I give him an earful.

(Tipper gets a chuckle out of that.)

"You're having trouble dealing?" says the guy. "Got some post traumatic stress disorder?"

Judd shrugs. "I feel pretty screwed up."

"Then staying here might be the best thing for you," says Tipper.

"I'm starting to think you might be right," says Judd.

*****

Can you imagine the coolest kid in school, master of mojo, captain of the state champion boys' basketball team, spending the rest of his life in a gray, unending limbo, talking to some old dude and eating nothing but mushrooms? Me neither.

But if there's one thing that's stayed constant during our fudged-up trip through crazyland, it's this: things change. Just because something was unthinkable a few days ago doesn't mean it isn't possible now.

Or probable.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it. "You're actually
considering
this?"

"We don't know what'll happen if we leave," says Judd. "Maybe we'll go to an even
worse
reality than the ones we've been to. Or maybe we'll go back to the one we just left, in which case we'll be dead on arrival."

"Or maybe we'll finally get home," I tell him. "Maybe this is the last stop before home."

"And maybe going home isn't the best idea." Judd looks away and clears his throat. "I don't know if I belong there anymore."

(Holy crap! How's
that
for a bombshell??)

(I knew the craziness had gotten inside the dude's head, but maybe I underestimated how much it affected him.)

"What're you talking about?" I ask him.

"Is it an identity crisis?" says Tipper. "That's pretty common, after the kind of experiences you've had."

"Maybe." Judd frowns. He's wrestling with whatever's going on in his head, trying to frame it out for us. "I used to know who I was." The words come slowly, with an effort. "I used to think I was pretty cool. But then..." He pauses and chews his lower lip. "But then, it was one crazy world after another. I tried to keep up, tried to keep changing to survive. But every time I thought I had the answer, the way out, everything changed again, and I was wrong."

"You did fine," I tell him. "You did your best."

He shakes his head and keeps telling his story. "Finally, I thought I knew how to win and get home. I thought I had it figured out. I let myself get as crazy as the rest of the world." He gestures with both hands, cupping and shaking them like something's slipping through his fingers. "And I lost it. Whatever it was that made me
me
, I don't know if it's
there
anymore."

"Sure it is!" I try to sound as upbeat and reassuring as possible. "You're just burned out, that's all."

"I don't know." Judd swings back a foot, then kicks the cap off a mushroom, sending it bouncing through the dust. "I think maybe I've changed too much to ever go home."

"If that's how you feel, maybe this is where you belong. Maybe you should stay." Tipper sounds a little too eager to talk Judd into it. He and the guy might be dying for some permanent company. "Sometimes you've gotta go with your gut instinct, right?"

I like Tipper, I really do, but maybe it's time to back him off some. "And sometimes, it doesn't hurt to
second guess
yourself, does it?" I stare right at him when I say it. "Your
first
instinct isn't always your
best
instinct, is it?"

Tipper starts to answer. "Well, I..."

But the guy cuts him off.

(Not
literally
, of course.)

"Killdigit's right," he says.

(Off to a good start.)

"No need to be hasty." The guy starts walking and bobs his head for us to follow, which we do. His feet crunch the gritty, ashen ground, and Judd's do the same. "Maybe you're being too hard on yourself."

Judd doesn't answer, and neither do I. I have a hunch we should let the guy say his piece.

"Change is inevitable," he says. "And constant. And it isn't necessarily a bad thing." Pausing, he plucks a mushroom from the dirt and takes a bite out of it. "Just because you've changed, that doesn't mean you can't go home again."

Judd scowls. "But I've been through so much
craziness
. Nothing makes
sense
anymore."

The guy laughs as he chews on a mouthful of mushroom. "You do realize you could be talking about
home
, don't you?" He claps Judd on the back and starts walking again. "The world back home's a crazy place, Judd."

"It never seemed that crazy to me," says the dude. "I always felt like things were kind of sane, actually."

The guy laughs some more. "Then you were
sheltered
. You were living an
illusion
, my friend. I
promise
you, things were crazier than you imagined."

Just then, Tipper speaks up, flicking from side to side. "Here we go again. He never gets tired of having this conversation."

"What conversation?" I ask.

"The one about which is crazier," says Tipper, "the insane stream of alternate realities or the world back home."

"The world back home
is
crazy." The guy throws away the uneaten stem of the mushroom he picked. "Back there, the rug is always being pulled out from under you. You can be cruising along, thinking everything's fine, everything's cool, and then
bam
...everything you knew is out the window. Your life becomes completely unrecognizable." He shoots a sideways look at Judd. "There's a fire. There's a tornado. You lose your job. Someone you love dies." He raises his hands, then pushes them apart suddenly, dramatically. "
Boom
, just like that. You're in a car crash and end up paralyzed. You come down with an incurable illness. You step off a curb and get hit by a bus. You're caught in the crossfire of a shooting.
Anything
can happen at
any time
. That's
life
." He elbows Judd in the side. "Now you
tell
me that's not
crazy
."

Judd walks along in silence for a while, puffs of gray dust rising from his footsteps. "My life wasn't like that, though. I guess..." He shrugs. "I guess I thought I had it figured out. I thought I had it under control."

"I've got news for you," says the guy. "You
never
had it under control. You were just
lucky
for a while. Things were
calm
for a while." He stops and turns, putting his hands on Judd's shoulders. "Kid,
no one
has it figured out.
No one
has it under control. They might
think
they do sometimes...they
pretend
they do...but they
don't
. It's a crazy life--stark, raving crazy." He smiles and shakes his head. "
You
are not in control.
Adults
are not in control. Everything's hanging by a thread all the time, whether you realize it or not. Back home isn't much better than the quick-change chaos you just got away from."

"
This
place, on the other hand...," says Tipper.

"Now wait a minute." Time for me to have my say. I'm not happy we're back to Reasons We Should Stay In Limbo again. "There's plain old crazy, and then there's
bugnuts
crazy, which is where
we've
been lately. I'll take plain old crazy back home over
bugnuts
alternate realities any day of the week!"

"And it's okay to
go
back home even if you feel crazy or out of control, because that's how home is, too." The guy smiles and nods. "That's what I was getting at."

"Oh." I dial down the righteous indignation. "Okay then."

"Or," says Tipper, "you can stay here with us."

(This finger just isn't letting up, is he?)

"You can spend your life in peace and quiet," says Tipper, "without changing. Without craziness. Without uncertainty."

The more I hear him talk, the more convinced I am that I'm right. This goes beyond my own not wanting to stay; Judd just doesn't belong here.

"Don't you mean he can
give up
?" I say. "Isn't that what you're asking him to do? Isn't that what
you've
done?"

"Hey!" snaps Tipper.

But I don't let him stop me from saying what I need to say. "How different is this from
death
?" I turn in a circle, taking in the empty world around us. "Hiding away from the living, from life...never changing, never experiencing anything new. Never making an
impact
." I draw back and flick myself forward dramatically, pointing at the guy and Tipper. "
Ghosts
. That's all you are. Flesh and blood, but no better than
ghosts
." I jab Judd's palm as hard as I can. "Now is that what
you
want to be?"

Judd stares at me but doesn't answer. I have no way of knowing if I'm getting through to him.

"Now listen to me, dude." I'm not letting up. "It doesn't matter who you are or where you came from or what you've been through. It doesn't matter what you've
become
or what the
future
might bring. It doesn't matter what's waiting for us when we leave here. You can still have a
life
. You can still have
hope
.

"And that's something
they
don't have." I swing around and point at the guy and his pinky. "They've given it up! They've forgotten it's the
heart
of
life
!" I swing back and jab Judd once more. "He was right--life
is
change and craziness and being out of control. But it's also
hope
. Hope that things will change for the better, because sometimes they
do
. Hope that
you
will change for the better, because that happens, too. It already
has
.

"You're a better person that you were when we started," I tell him. "You're
stronger
than you were. You know there's more to life than being cool, don't you?"

Judd nods.

"You used to think you had all the answers, but you don't anymore, do you?"

He shakes his head.

"You've been fighting so hard to get back to your home and family. You appreciate them more now, don't you?"

He nods.

"And you understand the true nature of the world." I pat his palm instead of jabbing it. "You're not a
kid
anymore, are you?"

He shrugs. And then he nods.

"I already knew all that." If I had a face, I would smile at him now. "Because I believe in you. I always have. I'm your best friend. And as your best friend, I'm telling you what
you
already know." I flick from side to side. "It wouldn't be right to stay here, would it?"

He hesitates. And then he shakes his head.

I pat his palm once more. "Then it's settled."

"Is it?" says Tipper. "You're not saying much, Judd. Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

There's a long pause as Judd stares down at the ground. Is he reconsidering?

Then, he looks up and nods firmly. "Yeah," he says. "It is."

"Crap." Tipper slumps. "Again we're abandoned."

"Thanks for the offer, though," says Judd. "Thanks for the hospitality and advice. It's been great meeting you."

"Likewise." The guy smiles and reaches out for a handshake.

"Thanks, uh..." I curl away from the shake as Judd moves to accept it. "What did you say your name was again?"

The guy blows me off, as usual. "Maybe we'll meet again," he says, as his hand and Judd's interlock. "In another lifetime."

"Maybe you'll follow us," says Judd. "Maybe you'll leave here, too."

"Like that'll ever happen." Tipper sighs as he and I reluctantly share a fingershake. "We're
ghosts
, remember? Isn't that what you called us? We can
never
go back to the land of the living."

"Spoken like a true wuss," I tell him. "There's nothing keeping you here but your own fear."

"Anybody ever tell you you suck?" says Tipper as the shake ends and we separate. "Because you totally do."

I finger-shrug as Judd pulls me away. "I just think you deserve better than spending your life in this deserted wasteland. So sue me."

"Go crack yourself," mutters Tipper.

"So how do we leave here?" says Judd. "What do we need to do?"

The guy pulls his hood down, exposing his bald scalp. "Let me just ask you one more time. Are you sure about this? Because I don't think you can come back once you leave. No one else ever has."

This time, the dude doesn't hesitate. "Thanks, but I'm sure. I'm grateful for the break, which we really needed, but I know we need to move on. Pinkerton's right..."

I make a noise like clearing my throat.

(If I
had
a throat.)

"The name's
Killdigit
! Or
Oogachucka
! How many times do I have to
tell
you??"

Judd keeps talking. "He was right when he said I need to keep trying."

(I didn't say those exact words, but I guess he got the gist, so I let it roll instead of setting him straight.)

"If there's a chance of getting home, I need to take it," says Judd. "Maybe I won't fit in there. Maybe I've changed too much. But I know one thing now, after what I've been through." He smiles. "If I had to pick between this place and home...if I had to pick between the alternate realities and home...I'd pick home every time."

"That's what you say now," says the guy. "But life is change, remember? You might change your mind."

"And then it'll be too late," says Tipper. "There's no coming back here."

Judd grins--a nice, normal grin, not an insane one--and shrugs. "Then I guess I'll just have to live with that."

The guy grins, too, and shakes his head. "All right then. I guess I can respect that." He narrows his eyes and squints at Judd in the dim gray twilight. "At least you look like you're in better shape than you were when you got here. And you sound better, too."

"Thanks to you," says Judd.

"Glad we could help." The guy watches him for one more moment, then nods. "So. Are you ready to haul out of here, or do you want to stick around a little more?"

Judd takes a deep breath and stands straighter. "We're ready to go."

(You said it, bruh!)

"Then jump," says the guy. "Jump on out of here."