Chapter Thirteen
Johnny strips off his clothes and climbs into the running shower. He jolts when the hot water seeps into his bite wounds.
“Stings like a motherfucker,” he sighs. He stands still for a few minutes until the pain disappears. Then he squirts some shampoo into his hand and begins washing his hair.
He can’t get Zoli out of his head, which really isn’t anything new since Johnny can hold a grudge for a really long time over something that’s not a real big deal. But Zoli especially pisses him off. He should’ve killed her when he had the chance.
He grunts with frustration and slams his fist into the porcelain wall. Then soap flies into his eyes and he gets mad for a whole other reason.
He quickly washes out his eyes and stares blankly at the floor.
“Why didn’t I kill her? Why did I let him stop me like that?” he mumbles, “why did I listen?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mr. Fuck sings, “you’re starting to get feelings for the boy.”
“Don’t be stupid. I have no feelings,” Johnny retorts.
“You’re a human, Nny. And like it or not, all humans have feelings,” Revered Meat argues.
“I haven’t heard from any of you for days. Are you just surfacing now to torment me?” he snaps.
“Of course,” Eff laughs, “after D-boy got his body back, we’ve all been focusing on trying to get ours. But we deserve a break every now and then.”
“It’s adorable, really,” Meat giggles, “how easily you give in just from one look at that boy. He must be more formidable than I thought.”
“Shut up. I feel nothing for him,” Johnny snarls.
“You can’t lie to us, Nny,” Eff sings, “we know everything about you.”
Johnny flinches. For a second it almost sound like Eff’s voice was outside his head. He quickly flings open the shower curtain and looks around, but nobody’s there. He’s all by himself.
Johnny takes a deep breath and turns off the water. He grabs a towel and quickly dries off, being careful around his bite wounds. He walks over to the mirror and takes a look at himself. He doubts the wounds are going to disappear completely.
“More scars to add to the collection, I guess,” he shrugs, “I should disinfectant them though. And bind them too, at least for today.”
He grabs a first aid kit from under the sink and takes out a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of gauze. He dumps some of the disinfectant onto a cloth and dabs his wounds with it. He watches blankly as puss and fresh blood drip to the linoleum floor.
“Suppose I should clean that up before Squee sees it,” he mutters then flinches. There he goes again, being all considerate of Squee. He doesn’t even notice it at first.
He shakes his head and tightly wraps the gauze around his right shoulder, left arm, right hip, and left leg. Then he pulls on some fresh clothes over top.
A fresh, warm scent wafts up his nostrils as he pulls on his shirt. This is one of the shirts he washed with Squee.
He smiles a little but flinches again. He wipes the smile off his face and ruffles his hair, frustrated.
“This is pissing me off,” he growls.
He takes a deep breath and marches out of the bathroom. He walks into the living room and sighs disapprovingly at the couch.
“You two are still here?” he grunts at Devi and Tenna. They’re watching TV with Squee.
“Johnny,” Squee exclaims and jumps to his feet,” are-are you okay?”
Johnny flinches and looks away. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.” He quickly walks into the kitchen before he can look at Squee again. He opens the fridge and groans. Completely empty. Nothing good to eat or drink. What a pain.
“So what do you guys wanna do now?” Tenna asks.
“Well I don’t know about the rest of you, but I gotta get to work,” Devi grunts as she stands up, “I’ve been missing for a few days. My boss is going to kill me.”
“Alright, tell everyone I said hi,” Tenna chimes.
Devi quickly grabs her arm and pulls her away from the boys. Johnny watches curiously.
“Tenna, do not take them to the café, understand?” she whispers furiously.
“Relax,” Tenna says aloud, “I would never do that.”
“Uh huh,” Devi grunts, unconvinced. “Well, then I’m going.”
“Have fun,” Tenna sings.
Devi half waves as she leaves the house.
Johnny cocks his head curiously. “Café?”
“You heard that?” Tenna asks.
“I have fantastic hearing,” he states, “I could hear a pin drop across the house, behind a closed door.”
“That’s cool,” she comments excitedly.
“Not really. It makes me kinda paranoid.”
His ears suddenly pick up a light growling sound. He glances at Squee, who is rubbing his stomach.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Squee nods.
“I don’t have any food right now,” Johnny mutters.
Tenna suddenly smiles a devilish grin, even by Johnny’s standards. “I know a place we can eat.”
Johnny and Squee look at her curiously.
A few minutes later they’re in Johnny’s car and Tenna is giving him directions to a café. Johnny’s only following along for two reasons: he’s hungry and he’s curious. Those are two feelings that should never mix together, especially in somebody like Johnny.
“Alright, pull over here,” Tenna says.
Johnny parks the car in front of a small, white building with large front windows and pink letters reading ‘Café Latte.’
“Café Latte?” Johnny questions.
“It’s a nice place with good food,” Tenna smirks, “and interesting employees.”
They step out of the car and walk through the front door. Bells chime, alerting the greeter of new customers. She’s wearing a long, flowing white skirt with light pink stripes along the hem, a short, light pink apron, and a white top underneath with long, flowing sleeves. On her back ‘Café Latte’ is written in light pink letters. When she spins around, it’s like a flower blossoming in spring, her familiar purple pigtails twirling around her head.
“Welcome-urgh!” Devi exclaims with surprise. Johnny and Squee blink at her, while Tenna giggles nefariously behind them.
“Tenna! I told you not to bring them here!” she snaps angrily.
“They were hungry and this was the first place that came to mind,” Tenna says innocently.
“Yeah, right,” Devi grumbles.
“Wow, Devi,” Johnny chuckles, “you know I was just calling you ‘Princess’ to piss you off. But in that outfit you really do look like a princess.”
Devi glares daggers into his face. Johnny just smiles triumphantly. He’s not sure why, but this feels like a win.
“Well, I like it,” Squee chimes, “I think she looks pretty.”
“Thanks, Squee,” Devi sighs, defeated by his cute smile, “feel free to take a seat at any empty table.”
The café is pretty full, most of the customers being families or teenage girls. But there are a couple of sleazy looking guys checking out the waitress’. Johnny’s asshole meter starts going off the second he sees them.
There are about ten tables, six along the far and left wall and four in the middle of the room. Along the right wall is a doorway and pick-up slot most likely leading to the kitchen. Beside that is a short hallway labeled ‘bathrooms’ and an old fashioned jukebox with calm, soothing music playing through it. The tables are all decorated with light pink table cloths and fancy little salt and pepper shakers. Tenna leads them over to one with four fancy chairs and they take their seats.
“Hello, I’m Samantha. I’ll be your waitress today,” a young woman smiles kindly. She has light brown hair tied into two little pigtails and matching eyes. Her uniform is different from Devi’s. Her skirt is short and fluffy, like a tutu. It’s white with light pink lining. She’s wearing a pink apron and a sleeveless white top underneath, her straps flaring out at her shoulders. Her uniform looks much more fun than Devi’s.
“Hi, Sam,” Tenna smiles.
“Hi, Tenna,” she chirps, “are these friends of yours?”
“Yup. This is Johnny and Squee,” she replies.
“Friends?” Johnny mumbles.
“Squee? Aw, that’s so cute,” Samantha coos. Squee smiles at her and she practically melts. “Adorable! We don’t get cute boys like you here very often.”
“Well, any friends of Devi and Tenna’s are friends of ours,” she smiles, “so let me introduce you to the rest of the crew.”
“Friends,” Johnny mumbles.
“Over there is Tamika,” she points to a young, dark skinned woman with long dreadlocks tied into a ponytail. She’s wearing a flowing miniskirt that looks like a shorter version of Devi’s skirt. Along with the usual pink apron, her white top is completely sleeveless. She’s also wearing flowing, light pink arm warmers. She smiles warmly as she serves a little girl and her family some cute looking appetizers.
“That’s Piper.” A red-headed girl with pale skin. Her skirt is full length, nearly covering her feet, with light pink stripes along the folds. Her top has long sleeves covering her whole arm with light pink along the cuffs. She smiles shyly as she hands a couple of teenagers their orders.
“That one there is Jade.” An older teenager with a black pixie cut and a pink stripe in her bangs. Her skirt is short and tight with light pink pointy stripes along the helm. A black leather belt is sitting crooked on her waist. Her top underneath her apron is like a small, tight tank top. She’s wearing a spiked leather bracelet on both of her wrists. She looks like she should be in all-girls punk rock band instead of a waitress, but she stills smiles brightly as she takes everyone’s orders.
“There are two others in the kitchen,” Samantha says, “Payton, Nana, could you come here for a sec?”
Two girls exit the kitchen. One of them looks about the same age as the waitress’. She has short, dark brown hair tied into a tiny ponytail with messy bangs sitting on her forehead. Her uniform looks the plainest with just a short, white skirt and a pink line across the hem and a white tank top underneath her pink apron.
Beside her is a middle aged woman with tan skin and shoulder-length black hair. She’s wearing a long pink skirt with white stripes in the folds that flow along her legs like waves as she walks. Her apron is white while he long-sleeved top is pink. ‘Café Latte’ is written in white letters on her back.
“Payton is our main chef. But she mostly works in the kitchen because of her temper,” Samantha explains, “and Nana is our manager.”
“Who are they? New customers?” Payton asks.
“Yup. They’re Johnny and Squee, friends of Tenna and Devi,” Samantha replies.
Johnny flinches again at the word ‘friend.’ Squee notices but doesn’t say anything. But he’s not the only one who takes note.
Nana marches right up to him. She bends down and grips his chin so they’re looking eye-to-eye.
“Whuh-what?” Johnny grunts, too surprised to react any other way.
“Your face,” she states, “I’m not sure I like it.”
“Huh?”
“Nana!” Samantha squeals.
“Quiet, Samantha,” Nana snaps, “Johnny, was it? Let me tell you something. I consider all the girls here my daughters. I want to protect them and make sure they’re safe. So I have to ask: what is your relationship to Devi?”
“We have no relationship,” he croaks as he struggles to remove her hand. That woman is an iron grip.
“None?” she questions.
“None.”
“I can confirm that, Nana,” Devi says, “we have no relationship whatsoever.”
“Then how do you know each other?” Nana asks.
“It’s a long story. But right now we are merely two separate people with similar goals,” she replies, “we’re just helping each other out for the time being.”
“I see,” Nana mumbles.
“Wait, so after all this time, after everything that’s happened, you two don’t consider each other friends?” Tenna asks, bewildered.
“Of course not,” Devi snaps.
Johnny doesn’t say anything, but his facial expression does change once again at the word ‘friend’. Nana immediately notices. Her face softens and she lets him go.
“Fine. I just want to make sure my girls are safe,” she grunts.
“No need to worry about me, Miss,” Johnny groans as he rubs his chin, “I won’t do anything to your girls unless they provoke me.”
Nana looks at him once more then nods, “well, good then.”
She turns on her heel and marches back to the kitchen. “Come on, back to work, Payton.”
Payton glances at Johnny and cocks her head. Johnny catches her staring at him. She quickly looks away and trots after Nana.
“This place is odd,” Johnny comments, “how come I’ve never heard of it before?”
“We just opened up like three months ago and we don’t have much advertisement,” Samantha replies as she rests some colourful menus on the table, “anyway, here are your menus. I’ll be back in a few minutes to take your order.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Tenna chimes as the waitress skips away.
They look through their menus silently. A lot of their food can be found in any old restaurant, but judging from some of the pictures, they seem to add in their own flare to make each dish their own. It’s really kind of impressive.
“Hey, so how come everyone’s uniform looks different?” Squee asks curiously.
“Nana designs our uniforms based on everyone’s personality and such,” Devi replies, “for example, I don’t like skirts and Piper doesn’t like showing so much skin. So Nana designed our uniforms to be long and comfortable.”
“This Nana seems really considerate,” Johnny mutters.
“She is. She’s like a mother and not just to the employees,” Tenna explains, “she also takes care of the regular customers.”
Johnny grunts in reply as he blankly scans the menu. That woman is definitely overprotective. His chin still hurts. But he’d be lying if he said he hated her.
His asshole meter starts reacting. He looks up just as one of the sleazy looking guys attempts to flip up Tamika’s skirt. She screams with surprise and spins away from him.
Johnny’s first reaction is to stab the guy with a fork and maybe shove a pepper shaker through his eye socket. But Tamika responds before he can, and smacks the guy over the head with her serving tray. He gasps with surprise and falls to the floor.
“Watch your hands, honey,” Tamika says innocently, “I have dangerous reactions.”
“Tamika, don’t get too rough with the customers,” Nana calls through the pick-up slot.
“Sorry, Nana,” Tamika sings and immediately gets back to work, like nothing even happened.
Johnny and Squee watch the scene with their mouths hanging open. Tenna laughs at their reaction.
“Nana is overprotective of the girls, but there’s really no reason to be,” she clarifies, “they’re all just as tough and dangerous as Devi, if not more so. Even the shy, little Piper can hold her own in a fight.”
Squee smiles and giggles a little. Johnny almost smiles too, when he senses more asshole moves. He looks back at the sleazy guy and snarls. It seems like he hasn’t forgiven Tamika for smacking him and he wants some payback. He stands up from the table and starts rushing for the door.
“Dine-and-dash!” Jade exclaims. The girls all turn in response, but none of them are close enough to stop him.
He runs past Johnny’s table. He sticks out his leg just as Devi swings her serving tray. The guy trips over Johnny’s foot and slams face first into Devi’s tray. He hits the ground hard and groans.
“They got him!” Samantha claps.
“Teamwork!” Tenna cheers.
Johnny and Devi look at each with surprise. Their eyes lock for a minute then Devi quickly looks away.
Johnny smiles as he settles back in his seat. “I like this place.”
“Me too,” Squee chirps.
“I’m glad,” Tenna laughs.
The café suddenly grows quiet as Payton stomps out of the kitchen. She picks the dine-and-dasher up by the back of his shirt with one hand. She’s a lot stronger than her skinny arms would suggest. Then she points him at Tamika.
“Apologize to Tamika for being so insensitive,” she snaps.
“I-I’m sorry,” he moans. Tamika smiles innocently, but there’s a layer of selfish satisfaction.
Payton turns around and points him at Johnny. “Now apologize to Johnny for ruining his visit.”
“I’m sorry,” he moans again. Johnny smirks. Luckily for this guy he’s in a good mood so he’ll let him live, for now.
“Now pay up and get lost,” Payton demands. The guy pulls some money out of his pocket and hands it to her. She puts it in her apron pocket and shoves him to door. He stumbles out and the café livens up again.
“Thank you for your help,” Payton says to Johnny. He just shrugs. She turns away and walks back to the kitchen.
The rest of their time there is much calmer after that. The regulars don’t seem too fazed by the incident so it must happen a lot. Johnny likes that. It livens up the place.
Samantha takes their orders and after about an hour or so, she delivers their food. As Johnny thought, each dish has bit of Café Latte flare to it. He just ordered a plate of French fries, but the fries are all arranged to look like flower petals with a little bowl of gravy in the middle. He really likes that. Though his demeanor would suggest otherwise, he really likes cute things. He almost doesn’t want to eat the fries cause he would ruin the floral design. But they’re too good to pass up.
The crew eats in relative silence, making small talk every so often but for the most part just enjoying the ambiance of the café. It’s a nice place with a comforting atmosphere. But then something happens that ruins Johnny’s afternoon.
Mr. Eff and Reverend Meat butt in.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Eff comments.
Johnny chokes on his French fry a bit but otherwise ignores him.
“You shouldn’t enjoy yourself too much, Nny,” Meat says, “you’ll grow complacent. And complacency leads to weakness.”
“Aw, leave him alone, Meat,” Eff scolds, “he’s just having a good time with his friends.”
Johnny’s breathe catches in his throat. He rubs his neck and pants a little as he tries to calm down.
“Johnny? Are you okay?” Squee asks.
“I’m fine,” he mutters.
“Aw, poor Nny,” Eff sighs, “you’re so afraid of feeling your feelings you can’t even handle certain words.”
“I had no idea emotions would be your weakness, Nny,” Meat laughs.
“Quiet,” Johnny whispers.
“I have to say, I’m disappointed,” Eff pouts, “you were always a tough challenge, Nny. But those people are making you weak. I think you should ditch them or capturing you just won’t be fun anymore.”
“Be quiet,” he whispers again, a bit more harshly this time.
“Now, now, Eff,” Meat scolds, “we should support Nny in making friends. Besides, it’s about time he became our slave already.”
“I suppose you’re right, Meat,” Eff agrees, “all good times must come to an end eventually.”
Johnny’s head suddenly starts swimming. He grips the table as his vision blurs and his body starts trembling like a leaf. He tries to drink some milk but it doesn’t calm him down. Especially when he has a hard time swallowing it.
“Johnny, are you sure you’re okay?” Squee asks cautiously.
“No, I’m not,” Johnny grunts. He digs around in his pocket and plants some money on the table; he’s not sure how much. Then he stands up. “I’m going home. You can stay here if you want. Actually, yeah, stay here. Then Devi can drive you back to the house… or wherever you want to go.”
“Are you okay to drive? You seem sort of woozy,” Tenna comments.
“I’m fine,” he mutters and walks away. Devi quickly avoids him as he lumbers by and stares after him through the glass door as he stumbles to his car.
Johnny doesn’t stop moving until he collapses in the driver’s seat. Then he lets the nausea wash over him. He doesn’t get sick but his stomach jumps a couple thousand times. When the worst of it has passed, he starts the car and drives away.
He has a hard time driving straight and staying in the right lane. But he forces his body to obey his commands and he somehow makes it home alive. He stumbles up the walk and through the front door. He doesn’t stop until he reaches his room, then collapses against the closed door.
He breathes deeply, his eyes closed as he tries to calm down. He doesn’t feel good at all. He feels incredibly sick. And he thinks he knows the cause.
He opens his eyes and looks at his right wall. Mr. Fuck is gone. All that’s left is a knife sticking in the wall, just like Psycho Doughboy.
“Joined your brother in life, huh?” Johnny mumbles as he removes the knife, “is that why I feel like this? Are you stealing more of my imagination? Is there even any left at this point?”
He looks at his mantle. Reverend Meat is still there, standing next to the picture of Nailbunny.
“You’re still here,” Nny observes as he picks him up, “but I bet you’re coming next, right? And then Sickness?”
“Well, I’ll be ready when you are,” he grunts. He tucks Meat under his arm and stumbles out of his room.
He collapses onto his couch, burying his face into his arm. Reverend Meat hangs loosely out of his hand, over the edge of the couch. Johnny’s body welcomes the break and he falls asleep almost immediately.
