True Believers Chapter 15

15
CONFESSIONS OF INSANITY

PUCK STORMED THROUGH THE FAIRGROUNDS, IGNORING EVERYBODY WHO offered him a "Hello," even Sid as he swept past, leaving them all behind wondering just what was wrong with him. He didn't care what they thought. He was too busy looking for someone, the someone who might finally be able to shed a little light on all this--

He stopped abruptly, dust swirling around him, his eyes seizing on just who he was looking for.

"Jacob!!"

The target of his attention whirled around so suddenly he nearly fell over. When he saw Puck it was as if he were having a conflict of emotions; part of him looked like it wanted to say hi, the other part looked like it wanted to run.

Instead, he only stood where he was, letting Puck push his way through the crowd, again ignoring the shouts of annoyance coming from the people he shoved. By the time Puck reached him he was sweating and covered with dust. He shot a quick look at the sky. Looked like another scorcher.

"Hi," Jacob forced out, not knowing whether to stay or flee.

"I want to talk to you," Puck said, as if he hadn't even spoken.

Jacob gaped at him. "About--? I hope this isn't about your horse again. I swear, I didn't have anything to do with--"

"No, it's not about my horse," Puck replied. "Now I want to talk to you. In private. At Adelphic Pi."

Jacob looked blank; "You do know where that is, don't you?" Puck prodded.

The kid nodded. "Y-yeah. Over there." He waved his hand in the general direction of the frat house.

Puck nodded. "Good. Meet me there in an hour. That should give you time to clean up or get something to eat or whatever you have to do. But I want you to know," he added, a threat hidden in his voice, "that if you don't bring your willingness to answer some questions, then you're going to be in a bit of a mess."

Jacob nodded again, a lump in his throat. Puck turned and walked away, steeling himself for later. He didn't like threatening kids, but this was something that had to be done.

* * * * *

He went straight to Adelphic Pi himself, having nothing else to do, and climbed in through the basement window. The basement of the frat house was very large and spacious; sometimes he and Tasubo would share a friendly (or not so friendly, depending on their moods) hockey match, with the fireplace serving as goal. [Note--cripes!! I never even mention Tasubo in the story before now so any readers will be like, "WTF??"! *cough* Victor Tasubo is one of the students who was Puck's roomie for a VERY brief time, before they parted ways. They don't hate each other, they're just solitary-type people, and both like to rag on each other. Outside the bounds of this story (and most of my writing), both of them are also members of Damien's band, Radioactive. Tasubo, AKA "Tass," is also schizophrenic (high functioning), and if anybody can piss people off more than Puck, it's Tass.] A few old chairs and sofas stood around, their stuffing falling out, and old copies of paintings hung on the walls. This was where students came sometimes to party, and it had earned the name of the Pit. The upstairs door to the Pit was very sticky and hard to open, so people visiting, when not attending parties (at those times the door was left open), had to crawl in through the window. Puck landed on his feet about six feet below and dusted himself off. He cast a look around the musty room, and stamped his foot; the sharp clap of his sandal against the wood made a loud echoing noise that bounced off the walls several times before coming back. He paused and listened. Nothing stirred. That meant he was alone. He went over to one of the overstuffed chairs and flopped down, letting out his breath at the same time the duest [sic] exploded around him. He waved it away absently and leaned his head on his hands to wait.

The time stretched out; he closed his eyes to rest, as the duest [sic] had aggravated them again. A hollow thud and ringing sound from above snapped him out of his doze and he cast a look at the old grandfather clock by the far wall, having to pull out his glasses and squint to read it. About a whole hour had passed already. He stood up, stretched, and went to the window.

He climbed up onto a chair and pulled himself out, scrabbling to his feet and making his way for the front door. The inside of the upstairs was dim as well; the house usually wasn't occupied during the day, which was just as well, since so many people passed through at all hours. He walked silently down a hallway and found Jacob trying to open the downstairs door; he didn't even bother wondering how Jacob knew he was even down there, what with all the apartments upstairs left to explore.

"Hi," he said.

Jacob shot away from the door and just about slammed into the wall. Puck rolled his eyes. "A little jumpy?" he asked, beginning to think maybe Al had been force-feeding this kind [sic] too much coffee.

"Uh--yeah," Jacob said, trying to smile and holding up a hand, as if to still his fluttering heartbeat. "It's just that--well, I don't think very many people around here like me very much."

"Me included."

"Y-yeah, that too."

"Well, come on into the den. I want to ask you some questions."

Jacob gave him a questioning look, but followed. The den was considerably smaller than the Pit, but there was enough room in case part of the party happened to spill upstairs--depending on where it started first. Puck sat down on the sofa lining the wall; when Jacob didn't join him, he shrugged and spread his arms. Jacob chose a spot near the mantel, and sat down, twisting his fingers.

"You probably already know what this is about," Puck said.

Jacob shook his head. "No."

Puck snorted and shrugged. "Well, what do you think it's about? My horse? Rosie's ancient history. Literally. I wanted to talk to you about what's been going on with Anders and me."

Jacob looked confused; then it seemed to dawn on him. "Oh. You mean your little guys."

"Has Al been talking to you?"

"No, no. Al can't talk to people about that. He's a therapist. It's private."

"So then how did you find out?"

"I kind of figured. I mean, lots of people have been talking about it. Oh, and your owls, too."

Puck frowned. "Yeah. My owls." He rubbed his eyes; Jacob leaned forward, and [sic] if sensing his confusion. "Don't think I haven't been able to tell you know a lot more than you're letting on," he said, waving a finger at him. [Note--this is still Puck talking. I know, my pronouns are awkward.] "You know what happened to my horse, by the way. Even if that isn't what I want to talk to you about."

Jacob's expression changed to anxiety and he turned to look out the picture window.

Noticing this, Puck seized his opportunity, and pointed out it. "My house back in Eastlake--that's near Manistee, by the way--had a big window just like that that faced a neighbor's field. I had this dream once that I looked out the window one night and there was this bright white ball way across the field. I looked down and when I looked up it was closer. Every time I did this it was a little closer to the house. Finally I looked up and there was nothing there-and [sic] then this big white ball rose up right in front of the window." [Note--a nightmare I had once, very long ago. The hyphen between "there" and "and" should be an em dash.]

Jacob gave hima [sic] blank look, but it was hiding something.

Puck only smiled. "That one freaked me out. I woke up screaming and woke up everybody else in the house. It took me several hours just to get back to sleep."

"Bad dream," Jacob said.

"Yeah. Pretty bad dream."

Jacob bit his lip; silence filled the room. "How--how old were you when you--well, you know, had this dream?"

Puck shrugged. "I don't remember too well. Probably six or seven." He stood up and stretched again, and went to the window, staring out at the paths and the park behind the college. He heard Jacob shift around behind him, and smiled to himself. Maybe it was better that the kid was so easily spooked. He turned back around, leaning back against the window and crossing his arms.

"Okay," he said, finally. "Tell me everything you know."

Another blank look. "Know? About what?"

"Everything. For starters, how do you and Al know each other?"

Jacob turned his head again. "We met at the fair. I believe you were there at the time."

"Yeah, but you two seem to know each other already. Am I right?"

Jacob shrugged and sighed. "It's too hard to explain."

"All right then. I'll just skip over that, because Al's not who I'm here to talk about. I want to know just what you have to do wtih [sic] everything."

"Me?" Looking surprised. "But I just--I mean--"

"You just spilled in here, being chased by a bunch of military guys," Puck reminded him, seeing his face turn red. "And stole my horse to get away from them. You looked pretty freaked out at the time. Why don't we start there? Why was G. I. Joe after somebody like you?"

He looked at his feet again. "It's pretty hard to explain," he echoed himself.

Puck stepped forward, causing him to shrink back. "I don't think it could be all that hard," he said, lowering his head so that they were face-to-face. "Or else no one would know about it in the first place. So tell me."

Jacob lifted his eyes and they stared at each other for several minutes. Finally he dropped hsi [sic] gaze again, stood up, and paced to the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. He sighed.

"I'm sure you're aware what it feels like to be thought of as being nuts, right?" he said.

Puck decided not to take offense, and shrugged. "Sure. A lot lately. So?"

"Well, that's kind of what's wrong with me. Everybody thinks I'm crazy."

Puck left the mantel and went towards him. "So? The military doesn't to [sic] after you if you're nuts." He cocked his head. "Unless it's a special kind of nuts."

Jacob gave him a weary-looking smile. "Exactly."

"So what's so special about your insanity?"

Jacob shrugged and sighed again, flouncing down onto the sofa. Puck joined him. He spread his hands out, as if addressing a room full of people.

"It started about a year or two ago," he began. "I started feeling a little strange. Especially around my family. I mean, I've never really been that close to them or anything, but now I felt especially left out of everything; not that they were leaving me out or anything, but it was just that I didn't belong with them. I'd always had that kind of feeling, you know, that I didn't fit in. Jeez! I always spent more time with the pets than with my own family."

He lifted his shoulders slightly. "So, of course all this time I've been wondering just where exactly it is that I do fit in; I tried the church, but that didn't work at all. I tried hanging out with friends; they all thought I was a little loony so I left them alone too. I only felt comfortable either with the animals or by myself. And of course, by yourself it can get pretty lonely after a while."

Puck nodded. He himself often felt as if he didn't belong, but somehow he also felt it wasn't the same feeling as Jacob's. So he let him continue.

"So, one day, I went out to this stable at the local fair," Jacob went on. "This place was full of animals--I mean, cows, horses, chickens, rabbits, everything. I was like I got lost in there! I must have been in there for hours, just looking at all these animals. I saw this big white bull. It was staring right at me with these huge, dark eyes. I had to go over and pet it."

Puck felt a strange feeling creeping up his chest at the mention of the bull's "huge, dark eyes." It began to remind him of smething [sic] he too had seen, not too long ago, either...

"So I went over to this bull--there was this big, bright sign right above hsi [sic] pen that said 'Please stand back--I'm not very friendly!' I just ignored it. I reached out to him and he bared his teeth and stomped a hoof, like he was getting ready to bite me; but then he just put his head down and I scratched him behind the ears. He started licking my hand. It was funny! Being licked by a bull, I mean. Like it was just a big dumb dog."

He laughed weakly at the memory, and continued.

"I left him and went over to the horses' pens. I've always loved horses and I wanted to check them out. This other person came in behind me; he must've seen me petting the bull, 'cause he stuck out his hand to pet it too--and the thing snapped out and chomped down on his fingers."

Puck winced. Jacob noticed it, and shuddered.

"Yeah, I know. You should've heard him scream. They had to call an ambulance. There was blood all over. He was lucky the thing didn't chomp off his fingers, but it was close. I doubt he'll ever regain full use of that hand."

"So you're saying you seemed to have some kind of influence over this bull," Puck said, trying to sort things out. "That you have some kidn [sic] of influence over all animals."

Jacob shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. All I know is that, whenever I'm around, horses and cows and stuff just seem to calm down. When I pet them, that is. Sometimes when I walk by them they freak out!"

Puck frowned. "But what's this got to do with anything?"

Jacob sighed, and twined his fingers again, looking down at them. "Puck, I know this sounds completely nuts, but...I really dn't [sic] think I'm from here."

"Huh?" Puck said. It was really all he could get out.

"You heard be [sic] correctly," Jacob replied. [Note--how did I even get some of these typos? You type B and M with completely different fingers!!] "And it is what it sounds like."

Puck stood up abruptly, waving his hands. "Hold it, hold on a minute--you mean to tell me you think you're not from here? From here? You mean to tell me you're from--somewhere else?" He waved his hands at the ceiling.

Jacob nodded. "Pretty much."

Puck snorted. "That is nuts!"

A sigh. "I thought you'd think so."

"I mean, how could you be from somewhere else? Somewhere else what? Where? Up there?" He couldn't stop waving his hands.

Jacob stood up now and slapped his hands down. "I told you it sounded nuts! My family thought so, too, when I tried to tell them. They tried to have me committed. 'You'll grow out of this,' my mom said. 'It's just a phase.' But it's not. I know because I've seen things. I've been seeing them all my life. And I'm not the only one who's been seeing them. My mom saw them. She doesn't remember but she did! And you saw them too! Maybe even the same ones!"

"What do you have to do with me?" Puck demanded.

"We're all involved in this, don't you see? Me. You. Anders. Maybe even Al! I don't know how I knew, but I did. When I first met him. It was like we had some kind of link or something. It happened with you, too. I'm sure it did. I felt it. I saw your owls. At the fair. You remember, don't you?"

Puck started to say that he didn't, when he remembered their meeting near the Gravitron, when he and Jacob had shaken hands--the brief, startling vision he'd had of owls flying over his head, just as Anders had described.

"But how could you be from there," he murmured numbly. "Just why would you be?"

"I don't know," Jacob admitted. "I know it sounds crazy but it's the only thing I can think of. And evidently someone believes me, or else the military wouldn't be after me now, would they?"

"Military--?" Puck said, just remembering. "Why would they want you?"

"Isn't it obvious? I mean, if I'm really not--you know--then wouldn't they want to get me? Maybe to find out what I know, even though I don't recall it. Maybe to see if I'm any different. To see wha [sic] makes us tick."

"Please--" Puck said, holding up a hand. He was still finding this too difficult to believe. "Please don't use the word 'us.'"

"Sorry," Jacob replied. "But I can't group myself with all of you. I just don't fit in that way."

"But do you have any proof? Any proof that you're--" he forced himself to say it, even though it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard "--part of--one of them? Part alien?"

Jacob winced; evidently he didn't like the description any better. "All I know is what I've already told you. And what I've seen."

"What have you seen?"

"Electrical dreams," Jacob said, startling Puck again. "Dreams about lights. I've been having them all my life. Ever since I was a couple years old. I can remember that far back, at least. I probably had them even before that! I remember waking up in the middle of the night and there'd be these people in my room. When I was really little they didn't scare me. They still don't scare me, not by themselves. It's only what I'm starting to realize that scares me. I tried to tell Mom about it--I'd say to her, 'The Egg-Men were in my room!'" He shrugged. "Because they had big heads that looked like eggs. And she'd just get pale and say that I was only dreaming." He bit his lip and turned away. "I still believe she knows. She may be repressing it, but she does know. She'd have to. Because they must have visted [sic] her, too. In order for there to be me." He turned back to Puck, looking him in the eyes; Puck noticed for once how dark they were, and how penetrating, once he wasn't scared. "She doesn't want to know," he said. "Maybe she would be able to put everything behind her, if it weren't for me. You see, in her world view I just wasn't supposed to happen. I'm not even supposed to exist! But here I am, so she has to hide it." He looked at Puck closer. "They say it runs in families, like a genetic thing, did you know that?" Puck nodded, still in a daze. "Like how we study animals in the wild. We tag them and then we watch them grow up, and have babies of their own, and then we tag the babies too. Sometimes when they don't have babies we have to drug them and bring them in and make it so they do have babies. Just to continue the line. The same thing goes for this. Maybe your own parents or any brothers or sisters have had something like this happen. Maybe Anders's. All you can do is check up on your history. Me, I didn't get the chance--they still think I'm nuts!" And he twirled a finger at his head.

The longest silence followed. Puck couldn't say anything; for one thing, he was too shocked, and for another, there just didn't seem to be anything to say, at least not to a charge like that. He barely noticed Jacob cast several glances at the clock as the minutes ticked by. He finally found his voice and forced himself to speak.

"So--if you're not frome [sic] around here," he started, hesitantly, "if you don't think you belong here--then what do you do? Where can you go?"

Jacob gave a final shrug, in an afternoon full of them. "I don't know. I thought maybe Al would know; but he doesn't say anything. I thought for a minute, when I met you by the Gravitron, that maybe you knew; but you were just as confused as I am. I wondered if Anders might know; but he's blocking everything, just like my mother did."

Puck shook his head slowly. "He's trying to put it all together now," he said softly. "He's just scared. Like you. Me, too. Even though I hate saying it. If Al couldn't tell you then you wouldn't know what he's been going through."

Jacob looked at him. "He was hypnotized, wasn't he?"

A nod. "But it didn't go too well the first time...he was blocking something off. From his first experience. They did something to him, something he couldn't go through. He still doesn't know what it is. He doesn't want to. But I think maybe I do." He sighed and put his head in his hands. "And if it goes along with what you're saying, then I don't think I like it, either."

Jacob stared at him for a while, now looking sympathetic. "I know that," he said, his voice barely above a whisper in the silent room. "I know that it must be hard. And that he wouldn't want to know about it."

Puck waved his hand. "All the implications, you know," he said vaguely.

Jacob gave a faint smile and nodded. "Yeah, I know. I should."

Puck raised his head, looking up at the ceiling as if he might see something revealed there. "I just fail to see how I'm involved in all this," he sighed. "You and Anders, maybe. But me, it doesn't seem to make sense."

"Did Al ever hypnotize you?"

Puck shook his head. "No way. After seeing what Anders did I don't think I want to go through that."

"Maybe you should. To find out. To know what's going on. Sometimes it's even harder going through life not even knowing what was happening half of the time than to know what it was and not like it."

A crooked smile. "Yeah. You can say that again." He looked at the clock now, and was surprised at how much time had gone by. "Excuse me, but I thought my time was my own, thank you." He bowed to the clock.

Jacob laughed, and the tension eased slightly. "That too. I don't see how you people have any time to do anything when half of it is missing time."

"You don't know the half of it. Well," stretching again and ignoring his own pun, "I think maybe I'd better find Anders. He's probably looking for me, God knows why."

Jacob stood up, now looking anxious again. "Hey, Puck," he called, as Puck turned for the door. He turned back, waiting. "Uh...just, don't let anybody know about what I said, okay? I mean, they'd probably gang up on me and ship me off to Northampton!"

Puck smiled, crooked again. "Don't worry," he assured him, and Jacob's tensed shoulders relaxed. "They won't hear it from me."

"Thanks," Jacob said, and Puck turned and left the house. He was left alone, and he sat back down on the mantel, looking out the window at the fading light. [Note--now in reference to Jacob, not Puck.]