Crack Attack: A Collection of One-Shots and Other Disturbing Shit

Proofless - Chapter 4

"Do you remember when Lachlan was staying with us in Texas and he stepped in that pile of dog shit with his sandals on?" He fights back the chuckles as he tosses the cap of his water bottle up in the air and catches it over and over again, desperately trying to find something to amuse himself with. Two more empty, quiet days have passed and she doesn't seem like she's mad at us anymore, although she checks around us on the bed every time she releases us now. She finally let us use the shower and change our clothes and sheets after she saw that we were getting boils and bedsores from sitting here for so long. I catch myself itching my stinging arm again and I have to consciously pull my hand away and sit on it so I won't make myself bleed; the last thing I need is to get an infection from this shithole in the ground.

"You know what was even better? When we were at PAX East that one year and Vik tripped on that girl's leg cast and made her fall down and cry. Then she let him sign it and her eyes were all red in the selfie. He felt so b-ad!"

"No, I've got one. Remember when we were staying at Mitch's house and you sent him that PhotoShopped picture of his million sub play button that looked like it was broken?"

"Ooooh! What about when Jerome skateboarded right into the wall in the house and broke the drywall?" He is about to make himself break into laughter and I need this win. I lose at most of our games down here in the pit of hell.

"A couple of weeks ago, he was taking a shower and he popped the knob off and he flooded the bathroom. Mitch said he was all wet, running around the house in a towel and screaming obscenities."

"But he always does that. Ha! I win! You laughed." I can't help but laugh with him in agreement - after having known Jerome for four years, that sounds pretty believable for him. Preston's laughter makes me laugh, and me laughing at him laughing makes him laugh more, and we devolve into a chorus of insane laughter and tears. It feels so good to laugh again, even if the sadness and horror immediately comes creeping back in when you wipe the tears away and you remember you might spend the rest of your life down here, telling the same stories and the same jokes over and over again until the day you die. But we both fall deathly silent when we hear the heart-stopping rumbling upstairs and her car roaring to life outside. "She's leaving? Rob, we hafta do something. What are we gonna do?"

"Let's give her a few minutes to see if she's trying to fake us out. I have another idea but it's going to take a while to do, if we can do it at all. Don't get your hopes up, man." We both strain our ears for any sign of life upstairs, but there is nothing here. We wait until the silence burns our ears and makes them ring, then I make Preston jump when I rattle my chain to move a little bit closer to him. "I don't know how this is going to work, but I need you to open my watch."

"Open your watch? Like a secret compartment or something?"

"No, like an actual watch. There are plenty of things we can use in there and we can always seal it back up so she doesn't see what we did. Help me take it off and I can hold it for you while you get it open." I awkwardly turn my wrists so he can undo the clasp and he hands it back to me after he takes a few seconds to look at it.

"There's no screws?"

"No, it just pops into place. Dad used a screwdriver to get it open before so that I could change the battery. See the scratches?" He nods and starts trying to pry it open with his unusually long fingernails, slowly chipping them down as his grip slips over and over again. He grits his teeth and scrunches his nose in concentration as he tries to line it up just perfectly... before he flinches away in pain, reminding me of the bright red holes still glaring at me from the backs of his hands.

"Dad gommit. Sssssss... That one hurt." He brings his hand up so he can see what the damage was, and he has a bright red drop of blood collecting around the fingernail bed of his right index finger.