The Lemon Meringue Boy

Part 25

When I got to the tree, I saw Bill pacing. He had his hands locked behind his back and was circling the tree like a shark circles a sinking boat. I stepped out of the bushes and he looked up. When he saw I was me he quickly looked away. I walked up to the circle, plopped right down in the grass, and started to pick at the unicorn hair. It was awkwardly quiet for a second. "Sooo..." I said, desperate to start a conversation of some kind. "About earlier..."

"It was a hard day!"

"What?"

"I was abused as a child!"

"Bill_"

"I got laid off yesterday!"

"BILL_"

"I'm tellin' ya it was the booze!"

"BILL!!!" He finally quit talking and looked at me. 

"I'm gonna throw you a bone here and not mention... that. I'm gonna pretend that it never happened and in return you can tell me... about the Mindscape? And the Nightmare Realm?" I pulled my journal out of my vest and started excitedly clicking my pen in and out. I'd wanted to talk to him about that for a while, and now that I had something to hold against him I thought I might be able to get the info I needed. Bill dropped his defensiveness almost instantly.

"What?! Why?" He said it like I had just asked him to lick the bottom of my shoe. I guess he had some bad memories. Or he thought of it as private information. Either way, I had no problem bringing up the previous night if he didn't talk. I know it's blackmail but hey, desperate measures.

"Ford could only get so much and I want to write about it. You're the only one who knows what it's really like. You kinda lived there didn't you?'

"I didn't "kinda" live there, I did live there. "Did" being the operative word in that statement thanks to you, so don't expect me to go handing out information like candy." He gave me the stink eye and I held his gaze, my expression icy calm. After a while sitting like that I smiled and turned away.

"So let me get it straight..." I said, twirling a clump of grass around a single finger. "You miss your powers like you miss your favorite binky...you couldn't stand your little time-out... you bawled your eyes out and... you need my help? Did I get that right?" I looked up and cocked my head in mock-confusion. 

Yes I was being a little cruel, but it was worth it when I saw his reaction. Bill glared at me, his eye glowing red around the edges with suppressed hatred and his fists clenched tight and shaking.

"Okay wise guy. You win. What do you want to know?" He forced the words out. It was hilarious.

"Just... tell me what you think is relevant."

"Well I don't have feeling in any of my body so I can't be too descriptive in that sense... it's dark. It's weird. There's no laws or constraints and the air tastes like the screams of lost souls. I have a throne and about an entire dimension full of freaks that'll do anything I tell them to. Well I did. I don't even know if the Nightmare Realm even exists anymore. The Mindscape isn't even a place really. It's more like being in the same world...but not." Bill was making hand gestures without thinking, the kind that only make sense in his mind. 

"When you're in the Mindscape you're sort of like a ghost. You can see people but they can't see you. That's where I usually spend most of my time. How I know what people are up to and what they're planning. It's more in-between than the In-Between Space." I was writing this down like my life depended on it. I looked up at Bill and he looked back at me. "What?"

"I was just thinking... ever since I saw you in that void you've been talking a lot more. Why?" I could tell I sort of caught him off guard, but he did a pretty good job of hiding it.