

Dangerous Lunatics
by Alex Reynard


          "How long? Not long!
          "'Cause what you reap, is what you sow!"
                    -Rage Against The Machine, "Wake Up"


*****


BOOK THREE:
  THE GATHERING OF THE STRANGE


     -BRAD-

"Hey."

Keith looked up from the shoe he was tying. Seeing the cat he'd beaten up two days ago standing in the doorway of his room this early in the morning did not exactly fill his heart with joy. He bristled, his muzzle becoming a snarl. "What the fuck do you want?"

Brad scowled. "I'll tell you what I *don't* want. I don't want to have to spend another day stuck in my room. I don't want to spend any more time locked up in the quiet room either. And I *especially* don't want to lose my phone privileges for another week."

Keith just stared at him, not quite getting it.

Brad stuck out his paw. "...Truce?"

Keith gawked in astonishment, as if he had never seen a hand before.

Brad growled in mild irritation. "C'mon. It's stupid to fight anymore. If we do, they'll just punish the shit out of us. And I don't want to get punished anymore. I'll bet Dr. Bitch-trix did something awful to you too, didn't she?"

Upon hearing that, something in Keith's facade splintered. Just hearing this other kid badmouth Dr. Beatrix made him instantly respect him a bit more.

"Plus, I don't wanna have to worry about you ambushing me with a shiv. Or whatever it is people do to each other in jail 'n stuff," Brad shrugged.

Keith let out a tiny little chuckle and actually smiled for half a second. He stepped forward and shook Brad's paw. "Aw, shut up already. You had me when you called her 'Dr. Bitch-trix'."

Brad grinned a whole lot. His tail started wagging. "So we're cool?"

Keith looked down at his footpaws. "Yeah, I guess. And..." He gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry." He looked up abruptly, his eyes blazing with emotion. "I got anger problems, okay? I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. It... The anger, it just takes over and I get pissed off at everything I look at!"

Brad did his best not to back away. Keith was scary. Oh hell yes. But he was also deeply, deeply hurt inside. He was just as much a victim of his anger as anyone else. Anyone with half a brain could see that.

"I understand," the tomcat said softly. "I get in trouble all the time for beating people up. That's why I'm here."

Keith tried his best to approximate a friendly smile. "Well... least we've got something in common."

The two boys chuckled together in the hallway. And from that moment on, they forever left enmity behind. Mostly.

"So, um..." Brad fidgeted a bit. "There's this friend of mine who has an idea about this place..." he started out, and cursed himself for sounding like an idiot.

Keith arched an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"I'm supposed to ask someone I know... If they have any special kinda talents. Stuff you can do that no one else can do."

Keith's expression shut down like a bank vault. "What the fuck?"

Brad pleaded with his eyes. "Dude, come on. I'm not trying to be a jerk. You know what I'm talking about. I can do something ...weird too."

A small spark of light peeked through Keith's darkness. "Like what?"

Brad grimaced. "Um, that's really the point. There's a meeting in the art room right after lunch. Be there, and everyone'll tell everyone else everything. Okay?"

Part of Keith thought Brad was out of his mind. But the other half knew damn well what the other boy was talking about, and knew that he knew too. The conflicted young vulpine looked away for a moment, feeling resentment for being asked such a thing.

But God, he'd wanted to tell someone his secret for so damn long now...

"Fine," he eventually grumbled.

Brad nodded. "Okay, cool. Art room, after lunch. Remember that?"

The fox nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Just... leave me alone, I guess. For now."

Down the hall, Thurston started calling the kids to line up for breakfast.

Brad nodded understandingly. "Okay. See you then."

"Okay."

Keith mostly looked down at the carpet as he crept into line at the very end. As usual. Even though they didn't let him eat meals with the other kids, he still had to get in line.

He had a lot to think about. And he hoped no one would notice him blushing...


*****


     -TYLER-

With his tray piled high with pancakes, Tyler was pretty much in heaven. Pancakes did that to him. He was fairly certain they shut down his nervous system and turned him into quivering, blissful jelly. To put it succinctly; pancakes were his true love and Achilles' heel all in one. And he wouldn't have had it any other way.

He noticed, off in the corner, that bunny girl who always seemed to sit way the heck away from everybody else. That wasn't too strange, given how some people in here were just loners by nature. Like that Keith kid.

The weird part though, was that she sat over there during every single meal. And no one ever said a word to her about it.

Hell, he couldn't remember ever seeing *anyone* saying anything to her. It was like she didn't even exist...

The mouseboy suddenly grinned.

Tyler walked across the room and plopped his tray down right in front of the honey-colored young rabbit. "Hiya!" he burst out.

She looked as if a loaded gun had just gone off a few feet above her head. "What!? Who? Holy...!" She stared at him in utter, horrified disbelief.

Tyler smiled charmingly at her.

Her mouth fell open. "How the hell can you *see* me...?" she hissed in a husky, horrified gasp.

Right then, Tyler knew his suspicions were confirmed. His grin grew even wider, if such a thing were possible.

"Go away," the bunny told him, trying to sound firm and instead sounding scared.

"I think I've figured out your secret," Tyler said simply.

Her expression went from frightened to pissed-off in half a second. Like a player in a game who's just been caught cheating after having gotten away with it for months.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna tell anyone," Tyler assured her. "I was just thinking maybe you could show up at this little group thing we're having."

"I hate groups," she spat petulantly.

Tyler's good cheer did not wane a whit. "It's not that kind of group. This is for people like you. And me."

She grew wary at his words. "But there aren't-"

He cut her off. "There are. There's shitloads right here in this room. And you just can't see them." He put a little ironic twist on that last sentence.

The young girl looked small and unsure. She hesitated, clearing her throat a few times. This was simply unprecedented. She had no idea if she was even still scared or angry or what anymore.

"Hey," Tyler said softly, "If nothing else, we'll help you realize you're not crazy. Or alone."

It was finally that last little bit of kindness that did it. She had always wanted nothing more than to be alone. Alone forever, where she could do whatever she wanted whenever she liked. But really, deep inside where she didn't have to acknowledge it, she also knew that sometimes what she truly wanted was to be alone with someone else. Someone else who understood her. Maybe several someone elses.

"Okay," she said resignedly. "Where's this group?"

"In the art room, after lunch."

"Do I have to bring anything?"

"Nope. Just try to let everyone else know you're there," he said with a wink.

Amazingly, she chuckled. "I'm Sherri," she said, for the first time in years.

"Tyler," he supplied. "See you after lunch."


     ~~~


The young mouse swaggered over to where Brad, Karen and Holly were sitting, feeling quite proud of himself.

"Why were you just sitting over in the corner talking to yourself?" Brad asked through a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

Tyler grinned so hard he almost shat his pants.


*****


     -HOLLY-

Holly had been looking for Veronica all over the place, with no luck so far. The grey squirrel was starting to get annoyed.

Wait, there!

There she was. In the TV room. Finally!

Quietly, she approached her petite, coffee-furred friend with wings.

Veronica heard anyway. She *was* a bat after all. Those gigantic ears weren't just for show. "Hi, Holly," she said in her pretty, feathery voice.

"Oh, hey. Um. Hi Veronica." Holly shifted from foot to foot, more nervous than she thought she'd be. At least she'd remembered not to call her Nikki. Veronica had practically thrown a hissy fit the last time she'd done that.

"What's up?" the young bat asked, looking away from whatever badly-animated cartoon show happened to be on at the moment.

"Well..." This was not going so good. "I was just wondering if... Uh, like, if you have any special talents. Party trick type stuff, I mean."

The young bat stared at her as if she were an alien from the planet Jupiter. "I can fly," she said teasingly.

"Yeah, well, all bats can fly. Duh," Holly said. "I mean, is there anything you can do... that _nobody_ else can do?"

Veronica's expression grew quite fragile for a moment. Confused. Then a little scared. And then as if she were made of glass. "No," she said, so softly it was as if she feared speaking at all.

Holly's heart sank. She'd fucked up. There _was_ something Veronica could do. Holly could see it in her friend's eyes plain as day. But she'd scared her off by being too blunt. Her chance was blown.

She'd always known the little bat was fragile, that she broke down emotionally with the touch of a feather. Holly had always wondered why. And now she thought she just might understand the reason.

"Oh," the red-haired squirrel finally said. "I can roll my eyes in a weird way," she added weakly.

Veronica nodded absently. "I'm gonna go sit down somewhere else now," she said, as if in a dream. "'Bye now."

Holly watched her go and felt like crap. She'd spooked the poor girl. She'd broken her brain or something. She thought she should've realized that maybe, for some people, their 'gift' might be something they were not at all prepared to acknowledge as a reality yet.

Ready to go report failure to Karen, Holly turned to leave the TV room...

...and found a little skunk standing there in front of her.

"Hi," said Victor.

"Oh. Hi," Holly muttered. Offhand, she mentioned, "Do *you* have any nifty party tricks you can do?"

The boy's face positively lit up. "I sure do!!" His eyes twinkled. His tail quivered with excitement.

Holly began to feel a ray of hope. "Well, that's cool. What is it?"

"I can fart the national anthem!" Victor proudly announced.

Holly's brain slipped a rod. "You _what_?"

"No, seriously," the little skunk insisted. He tensed up for a moment, concentrating. He lifted his tail. "Listen!"

     frrt-frt frt frt frt frrrrrt
     frt-frt frt frt frt frrrrrrrrrt

'Oh my god, he's actually doing it...' Holly thought.

     frt-frt frrrrrrrrt frt frt frrrrt
     frt-frt-frt frt frt frt frt

Victor smiled in the most boyishly adorable manner possible, boundlessly happy with himself. "Pretty cool, huh? I can do the whole song like that. Heck, I can pretty much do any song you can think of. Got any requests?"

Holly's mouth opened and closed involuntarily for a second. Her mind was still in shock from witnessing the single most weird, gross, bizarre, fucked-up thing she'd ever seen (or rather heard) in her entire life.

What she finally said, almost wholly without conscious thought, was, "There's this meeting in the art room after lunch..."


*****


     -BRAD-

There was another new arrival today.

Brad had noticed Monsoon leading the kid in a little while ago. A diminutive fennec with yellow fur so pale it was nearly white. His ears were big as a bat's. He walked along calmly, carrying his suitcase under one arm and a plush bunny rabbit under the other.

Yet what Brad noticed most was the kid's eyes. He did not look scared in the least. In fact, his expression was as serious as a grownup's. He simply looked all around at everyone and everything. Cataloguing. Indexing. Evaluating.

Bred felt pretty sure that a kid like that must have some kind of secret.

So now here he was again. The wee fox was sitting in the back corner of the TV room by himself, craned over a short plastic table and paying scrupulous attention to the drawing he was producing.

As Brad approached to see what it was, the fennec spoke up. His voice was serene, but instantly arresting. "Stop."

"I just wanted to see what you were drawing," Brad said, trying to sound non-threatening.

Still not looking up from his artwork, the fox pointed down at Brad's feet. "You would've tripped on that."

Lo and behold, there was a crayon on the tile not a foot away.

"How did-"

"I can see fifteen seconds into the future." The fox said automatically.

"Whoa! That's-"

"Exactly what you were gonna ask me about anyway?" His expression never changed an iota as he spoke.

Brad's brain was having a hard time keeping up. "Uhh..."

"I'm Zeek, by the way," the young fennec said. "Not my real name, but I like it better. And you were just about to tell me you're Brad." Not a question; a statement. His drawing hand went right on scribbling.

"...Yeah," the thoroughly befuddled tomcat said.

"I'm sorry," said Zeek.

Brad looked puzzled. "For what?"

"That I can't join your little group in the art room." He actually sounded a little sad about that.

"Why not?" Brad asked sympathetically.

"Just because," the fennec replied flatly. His colored pencil zoomed furiously about the page, giving much more insight into his true feelings. "Sometimes... Sometimes I can see more than fifteen seconds, that's all."

Brad got the message. Somehow the fennec knew that now was simply not the time for him to participate. But Brad hoped that somewhere in the little canine's inscrutable mind there was hope for later.

"Maybe," Zeek said.

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe later."

Brad nodded.

"Would you like to see my drawing?" the little fox asked.

"Sure," Brad said, stepping closer.

"It's not very good."

Although actually, it was. For a kid not yet in junior high, it was actually a very well-detailed, accurate and emotional portrait of Monsoon. Done hastily in colored pencil, but still retaining a surprising amount of the character of the subject.

"Thanks," Zeek said shyly. Then clarified, "You were about to tell me it looks just like him."

"I was," Brad admitted. "I'll, um, I'll see you around, I guess. Maybe you could sit with us at lunch?"

Zeek looked up for a moment, and Brad saw that his eyes were a glassy, shining blue. If he hadn't known better, he would have almost thought the kid was blind. "No," he said simply. "Not yet."

Brad was mildly creeped out. But at the same time, he'd begun to get the feeling that Zeek was attempting to tell him more than just what his words conveyed. That maybe he had seen some point in the future that could only exist if, for now, he laid low and did not risk being connected with their barely blooming rebellion. Maybe it meant the little fox would have an important part to play at some crucial moment in the future. Of course, there was also the possibility the kid was just nuts. That did occur to Brad also.

The tomcat turned to walk away. "Okay, well, goodbye."

Zeek looked back down at his drawing, about to put the finishing touches on. "For now."

Brad took a single step...

"Crayon," Zeek warned.

"Oh, right," Brad said, a little sheepish. He picked it up and plopped it in the plastic basket with the other art supplies.

Zeek nodded satisfactorily.


*****


     -KAREN-


At breakfast, Brad had told her about this girl he knew. He thought for sure she was in here for a rather obvious reason, but that they might have more luck getting her to join their little jam session if Karen approached her instead of him. Karen had asked why. Brad just said he'd had a bad experience with her before.

So it was with expectations of some tough cookie, some bad girl, that Karen approached one of the day volunteers and mentioned the name Brad had given her. The volunteer pointed out a room down the hall. The art room, actually.

'Neat coincidence...' Karen thought.

When the open door came into view, Karen was struck silent by what she saw. Not some punk chick with a bad attitude, but a 200 pound retarded tiger.

One look was all it took to see why Brad thought her reason for being here was obvious. The tigress was putting something together with construction paper, smiling pleasantly to herself, while the veins in her biceps throbbed like serpents through the fabric of her t-shirt.

For an instant, Karen seriously considered just turning around and running away.

Then a more noble part of her soul gave her a mental slap across the face. Just because this girl looked different from her was no reason to treat her like a monster.

Approaching as quietly as she did anything else, Karen peeked into the room and knocked softly on the open door.

Ruby looked up. "Hello," she said. Her smile was shy and charming.

Karen smiled too. She decided right then and there that she and Ruby were going to be friends. She padded over to the table and took a chair opposite the mammoth eight-year old. "Hi. I'm Karen. Are you Ruby?"

The tigress nodded, then went right back to her project.

Karen turned her head this way and that, but couldn't quite figure out what it was. It was colorful, certainly. Various bits and blobs of construction paper had been carefully cut and glued together in an eye-defying kaleidoscopic non-pattern. Rubiella was now meticulously adding gold glitter.

"What's that supposed to be?" The raccoon asked finally.

"Oh, jus' shapes," Ruby admitted bashfully. "Not sposta *be* anythin'. I jus' like how they look."

Karen smiled. "I like how they look too. It's very pretty."

Ruby looked straight up, her smile beaming with gratitude. "Thank you!!" she practically exploded.

Karen giggled at such enthusiasm. "You're welcome."

"'S not finsh'd yet," Ruby said, then went back to measuring out tiny pinches of glitter and applying them where her mind decided they would look best. Truth be told, even Ruby didn't know why she liked making these odd construction paper collages. She just did. And they didn't _have_ to look like anything, Mommy had said. They could just be pretty, and that was perfectly okay. Ruby had nodded vigorously upon hearing that. She was happy that someone finally got it. All the other grownups at the day care place had insisted that everything _should_ look like something else. Like houses or trees or animals or something. But Ruby didn't *want* her creations to look like houses or trees or animals or something. She wanted them to look exactly how they did look.

She did not understand the word 'unique', but she grasped the concept quite well. Even if she didn't realize it.

"Do you spend a lot of time here, in the art room?" Karen asked.

Ruby nodded absently. Her tongue was stuck out in concentration as she sprayed a bit more glue on. This clear, canned stuff was a miracle to her. Loads better than the goopy, messy white gunk she'd been forced to work with before, down on Ward B.

Karen wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. "Well... um, do you think you'll still be here after lunch?"

Ruby thought about that, then shook her head with finality. "No. I us'ally take a nap then. Sometimes I do it bafore lunch though. Yesserday I took a nap b'fore lunch."

"Okay, well, me and some friends of mine were gonna have a card game in here after lunch, and I-"

Ruby looked up and sadness instantly covered her face. "Oh. I'll take my nap then. I'll be gone. I won' bother you."

"No, no! That's not what I meant at all!" Karen quickly explained. "I actually came here wondering if you'd like to join us."

This puzzled the tigress. Her tail flicked back and forth warily. She knew well that normal kids usually didn't want anything to do with her. "Why?"

Geez, how to explain it? "Um. Well, basically, we don't just wanna play cards. We think we've found out a secret. About here; this hospital. We think they're keeping us here for a special reason. Because... Um, because we can do special stuff that normal people can't."

Ruby smiled, finally comprehending. "Ohhhh, okay! The supahero stuff! I know 'bout that!"

Karen did a double take. "You DO?"

The tiger smiled proudly. "Uh huh. When I was downs'airs, I saw other kids do all sortsa really *weeeird* stuff! One porkypine boy could glow in the dark. Like my nightlight. I saw 'nother girl make a trash can move when she yelled at it."

This new information was making Karen's head spin. "They... They were just doing all this out in the open?"

Ruby firmly shook her head. "Nuh-uh. They thought they were bein' secret. But I saw 'em anyway." She tried to think of a way to put what she had felt into words. Her eyes narrowed in concentration "I think... I think they musta thought I was too... too stupid to see 'em."

Karen gasped in sympathy, understanding totally now. She put her paw out to gently pat Ruby's (it was almost the size of a double cheeseburger). "I don't think you're stupid," she said. She smiled determinedly. "And if any of my friends say you are, I'll punch 'em in the arm for you."

Ruby appreciated the sentiment, but shook her head regardless. "No fighting," she solemnly intoned.

"Okay, you're right," Karen recanted. "I'll just tell them firmly not to be rude."

A smile now. "Good."

Karen chuckled. She liked how straightforward Ruby was. Karen had never met a retarded furson before, so she hadn't been sure what to expect. She thought they drooled and talked funny. But Ruby wasn't like that at all. Sure, her words were slightly slurred. But Karen didn't see much difference, intelligence-wise, from just carrying on a conversation with someone a bit younger than her. As she would later learn to understand the tigress better, she would eventually come to the conclusion that Ruby was just as smart as any of them, in her own fractured way. Ruby had trouble thinking sometimes, but she was also smart enough to understand her condition, and to try to find ways around it whenever possible.

"There's another thing I wanted to ask you about," Karen mentioned.

Ruby listened politely.

"You, uh, look really strong. Are you?"

The nod that Ruby gave said volumes more than she ever could have conveyed with words. 'Yes, I'm strong. Monstrously strong. And it's caused me so many problems and accidents, I honestly hate it sometimes.'

Karen nodded back, understanding perfectly.

"Have you got a penny?" Ruby asked, sounding a little weary.

Curious as to why she'd want one, Karen dug around in her pockets and found a bit of loose change, including four pennies. She handed one to Ruby. "Why do...?"

Her question was answered before it was even finished. Ruby took the coin between thumb and forefinger and her entire body suddenly tensed. She grunted with intense effort, her whole face scrunching up. Her arm muscles bulged frighteningly.

Karen jerked back in her seat.

*pling*

What Ruby dropped to the table a few seconds later was as flat as any that had ever been laid across a railroad tie.

Ruby smiled bashfully. "My daddy show me how to do that."

Karen picked up the squashed cent and stared at it in awe.

"I di' a whole bunch like that and glued 'em on some paper to make a pi'ture for him for his birfday las' year."

Trembling a little, just from having witnessed something so impossible, Karen looked up at Ruby.

The tigress worried she had scared her new friend. She was angry at herself. Now maybe the nice raccoon wouldn't want to be friends with her after all.

Instead though, a wide smile grew on Karen's muzzle. "Promise me you'll be here after lunch," she said, thinking of all the possibilities a friend like this could offer...


*****


     -HOLLY-

"Good morning, Holly," Dr. Jones said pleasantly.

The plump squirrel nodded, but entered the small office with a wary look in her eyes.

She believed what Karen had told her at dinner the night before. About the hospital's secret purpose and why she and the others had really been brought here. But if that were true, then the logical conclusion was that Dr. Jones had to be a part of it.

And Holly simply didn't want to believe that.

The fact of the matter was, Dr. Jones was one of the few grownups in existence Holly actually thought were pretty cool. He'd always been nice to her. He'd never looked at her like she was some ugly freak. He never said a thing about her weight. She always got the sense that when she talked to him, he really, honestly listened to her.

To think that it was all just because he wanted to gain her trust so he could help Dr. Beatrix brainwash her... To think that he was no better than Thurston Caercase...

She'd told Karen all about Mr. Caercase. She remembered the wolf girl too. She also remembered many, many occasions when she'd seen that fat bear's gaze linger on the young female patients of Ward F. One time he had looked her right in the eye and said, in what he thought was a charming way, "You're kinda pretty for your size, honey-muffin." Holly had glared at him with all the malice of hell and stomped as hard as she could on his foot. It was practically a reflex. She had not regretted a single instant of the three hours she later spent locked in the quiet room. It was well worth it. She'd rather have that sicko sneer in disgust at her for the rest of eternity than ever look at her _that_ way again.

She'd wondered how in hell such an obvious creepshow could possibly keep a job working in a place like this. But then she remembered who the head psychiatrist was. Dr. Beatrix definitely struck her as the type who valued blind loyalty. She'd probably forgive Thurston for practically anything, so long as he always obeyed her.

Cripes, maybe she even wanted him here *because* of what he was. That thought made the fur on Holly's neck stand up.

So where could a nice guy like Dr. Jones fit into all this? Could he possibly be just as sick as them; just really, really good at hiding it?

Holly slid into the swivel chair (hating how it always creaked when she did), and looked straight into the doctor's eyes, searching for the slightest sign of a lie.

Even if he hadn't been an accredited child psychologist, Dr. Jones could have still seen how deeply troubled Holly's thoughts were from that ice-cold glare of hers. "How, uh... How are you feeli-"

"You always ask me the same question every time I come in here," Holly snapped. "And, no, I haven't had any thoughts about hurting myself since we last saw each other."

Her anger bewildered him. Had he offended her somehow? "That's, um, good. But you understand, I *have* to ask you that. You know as well as I do why you're here. I need to know that you're not going to try anything like that again."

She 'hmmph'ed.

Mildly miffed, he adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. "Are you angry at me, Holly? Have I done something to make you feel that way?"

Holly's heart was split with doubt. She wanted to believe she could still trust him. But at the same time, she realized just how dangerous that could be if he really was in cahoots with the pink-eyed beast upstairs. Finally, she carefully asked, "Why do you work in a place like this?"

'Well, that certainly came out of left field,' Dr. Jones thought. "That's really none of your business," he replied as politely as he could.

She fidgeted. "Look, it'd... It'd make me feel better if I knew. And I don't mean 'a place like this'; I mean _here_. Why do you work here, in this hospital, out of all the other hospitals in the world you could be at?"

He was beginning to grasp a grain of an idea as to where she was coming from. "Actually, I'm not entirely sure myself," he admitted, easing back in his chair. "I used to work for a state-run hospital a few cities away. Not a mental hospital; a regular one. Emergency room and all that. But I did work in the psychiatric ward there. I was head of it, actually.

"You do know, I suppose, that King's Orchard is federally funded, right?" Holly nodded, having seen that in the brochure. "Well, for some obscure reasons that no one ever really explained to me, my boss at the time informed me that King's Orchard had requested me to come work for them. Something about needing someone at state level on their staff. I refused at first. Even though I do have plenty of experience treating both children and adults, switching jobs would mean a longer commute and an unfamiliar location. And I've always had a terrible sense of direction.

"However, I was told that they were offering a huge incentive if I were to relocate. And that first single payment was nearly half of what I made in a year. I also gradually got the sense that they would keep on pestering me the longer I held out, and that my joining their staff was not really something I had any say in. So..." He threw up his hands in a little shrug. "Here I am."

Some of Holly's fears were assuaged, but not quite all. "So, you didn't *want* to work here?"

"Well, not at first," the otter said. "But I must admit, I have grown to take some pride in this position. Helping children gives me a real sense of satisfaction. Especially intelligent young people like you, whose potential I would dearly hate to see wasted."

The squirrel's heart began to warm. He'd said that last sentence so sincerely, it was nigh-impossible to believe it hadn't come from someplace genuine.

Dr. Jones glanced for a moment at the ceiling, then his voice dropped to a stage whisper. "And, if you can keep a secret, I sometimes think the reason they wanted me so badly is that most of the children I've met here seem to be petrified of the woman who runs the place. I'm sure you know exactly who I mean. And if I'm not mistaken, this was part of the reason you asked me about this in the first place, wasn't it?"

Okay, that was it. If he could so artfully but unmistakably admit to not liking Dr. Beatrix, then he was cool. Holly smiled in relief. "Kinda," she conceded.

Dr. Jones nodded crisply, always a bit proud of himself when one of his deductions turned out correct. And Holly wouldn't be the first child in King's Orchard to be wary of him because of who he worked for. "To put it gently, I am often uncomfortable working with that woman. She and I disagree on many things. Professional courtesy prevents me from saying more."

"I understand." Holly gave him a 'no hard feelings?' smile.

It was gratefully accepted. The wise otter found himself suddenly reminded of the saying, 'It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you'. He and Dr. Beatrix had not worked together for very long, but it had been more than enough time to convince Artemis Jones that the woman was very likely a sadist. Completely unqualified to run any kind of hospital, much less one for children. Her 'new treatment techniques' often appalled him in their heartlessness. They were usually nothing more than ways to punish children for not curing their own conditions quickly enough to suit her (a school of psychiatric thought he could not have disagreed with more).

Still, he had also gleaned that it was in his own best interests to argue with her as little as possible; to save his battles only for when they truly counted most. He knew he was the most qualified doctor in residence, but that wouldn't really matter to a madwoman. She could tire of him at any time and simply kick him out on a whim. Frankly, as much as he worried about his own financial status if that happened, he worried more about what would happen to the children. Especially if a new psychiatrist were hired to replace him. One who shared a more compatible wavelength with Dr. Beatrix Beverley...

Lunch was only a few minutes away and Holly was getting antsy. "Can I go now?" she asked.

Her voice nudged him from his internal ponderings and worries. "Not quite yet," he said. "I wanted to ask if you've noticed any effect from the pills you've been taking the past few days."

Holly shook her head. "None. Totally nothing. I think *maybe* I've been going to the bathroom a little more often, but I'm not sure."

He nodded, as if knowing her answer before she even spoke it. "I'm not surprised. Dr. Haroldson suggested it, but I only prescribed it as sort of a test. That pill is supposed to combat depression. And as far as I can see, you show no real signs of that, Holly."

She arched an eyebrow. That couldn't be right. "Really? Are you sure?"

He nodded again. "My dear, there are two kinds of depression; clinical and situational. Clinical depression comes from chemical imbalances in the brain. At least, that's what most of us with Ph.D.'s happen to agree on at the moment. Situation depression, on the other hand, comes about when you have a perfectly good reason to be 'bummed out'. And there is no drug on Earth that can possibly cure that."

Holly considered this, and thought it made a lot of sense.

The otter's voice took on an exasperated tone. "Holly, your parents treat you like you're not even their child, like they see you as some sort of hideous monster. Which you're not, of course. And to top it off, you've been plunked down in one mental hospital after another for nearly two years now. I'd say if anyone has a right to not be happy all the time, it's you."

"Yeah..." She smiled shyly. She no longer thought he was in on the evil conspiracy. Anyone who could peg her that well had to at least care about her a little bit. "And I don't even really feel depressed most of the time. Just bored."

"I remember you mentioning that earlier. And how I told you that many, many suicide attempts are really only a cry for attention. What puzzles me though, is that you seemed to realize you weren't going to get that attention from your family, and yet you did it again. And *again* after that. What did you really hope to accomplish? The more I talk to you, Holly, the more I doubt you truly want to eradicate yourself."

It was almost uncomfortable in a way, to have him see so easily through her like that. But Holly liked it too. She liked knowing that someone finally gave a shit. "Like I said, boredom. I guess. I mean, I've never thought death just meant you blinked out of existence. I don't think life's like some big computer game. I believe our spirits move on to some higher place after we die. That maybe this life is just a teaching tool. We're all really angels, or whatever, and from time to time we get born and live a life just for the experience."

He smiled softly. "That's a rather lovely thought, Holly. I think I wouldn't mind an afterlife like that. So then, are you saying that when you first took those sleeping pills, you were in essence saying 'Stop the world, I want to get off'?"

She chuckled. "Yeah, kinda. I just thought my life was so *stoopid*. I didn't wanna bother with it anymore. It was boring. I was sick of everything. I hoped... I thought that maybe if I died, then everything would finally make sense. Someone'd just tell me, 'Oh, sorry about that. Not much fun, huh? We'll fix you up with a better life this time. Step right this way, miss.'"

This time Dr. Jones chuckled. "But Holly... you yourself said that you believe this life is a teaching tool. If you're right, then what if everything that's happened to you is for a reason? Maybe your parents are the way they are specifically to teach you not to act like them."

Holly had considered that before, but hearing someone else say it out loud made it sound even more highly plausible.

"Many of my psychology courses in college were extremely hard. I nearly went mad from lack of sleep all the nights I stayed up studying textbooks nearly as big as I was. Sometimes I'm amazed I even passed at all. But the point is, even though the work was hard and boring, and many times I wanted to just drop all my classes and move to a desert island somewhere, I never did. I kept at it and got my degree. It's right up there on the wall behind you," he pointed out. "I learned, Holly. I stuck with it and I _learned_."

Holly was very quiet. She felt just a little like crying. She'd been given plenty of 'Life is hard, don't give up!' speeches before, but they had always felt like big piles of bullshit cheerleader crap. She'd never heard one before that sounded so honestly sincere. And used her own philosophy to convince her of it too.

Dr. Jones sighed sadly. "There are many ways to kill yourself, Holly. And not all of them affect your body. One of them is letting other people make you feel bad about yourself, and believing the awful, hurtful things they say about you," he told her gently. "You have a rare mind, Holly. I seldom meet anyone your age with perceptions so sharp and clear. I think, if nothing else, your parents have taught you how to be outraged by injustice without losing track of your own moral compass and becoming the very thing you hate in the process."

She nodded, smiling modestly to herself.

Dr. Jones glanced at the clock on the wall. "Well," he said, "it's nearly lunchtime. And I, for one, am famished. I believe there are hoagies in the cafeteria today, and there is not much I would not do for a good hoagie."

Holly laughed a little. "Sounds good to me." She got up from the chair and gave Dr. Jones a thankful smile. She felt ashamed of herself for ever suspecting him of being anything but honest, caring and dedicated.

The pudgy otter nodded. He walked past her and held the door open. Seconds later they heard Thurston's calls for everyone to line up. Perfect timing.

"I'll see you later, Dr. Jones," Holly said.

"Likewise. Oh, and you can stop taking those pills. Tell the nurse I said so if she tries to make you."

Holly nodded, rather relieved, and told him she'd be happy to.


*****


     -BRAD-

Despite now being able to go wherever he wanted, Brad ended up spending much of the morning in his room anyway (aside from his two recruitment forays).

Mostly he read one of the novels he'd brought with him; a gleefully amoral sci-fi spy thriller. But reading was really only a cover-up for how anxious he was to finally have this secret meeting in the art room, and also how worried he was about his mom.

Three more days. That's how long he'd have to wait until he could talk to her. It had already been two, and he'd promised to call her at least once a day for the first few weeks. She was probably already wondering what had happened to him.

He no longer thought she'd be angry at him. Brad had more faith in his mother than that. She knew how much he loved her, and that he was always very good about keeping promises to her (as if in penitence for never being able to keep the big 'I won't fight anymore' promise).

No, she'd probably be pacing around, worried out of her mind that something awful had happened to him. Or had happened *because* of him. He *assumed* Dr. Beatrix had called and told her about the fight he and Keith had been in. If she had, then Mom might be able to figure out on her own that his not-calling was part of a punishment. He didn't really think she'd picture him not calling out of shame or something; they both knew him better than that. Brad was at least a little proud of the fact that when he screwed up, he always acted like a man and admitted it to her.

Though if the evil rabbit doctor *hadn't* called, then who knew what was going on at home right now. He could definitely envision Dr. Beatrix deciding not to tell his mom anything out of sheer spite. She knew she was hurting him by hurting someone he loved, and she'd probably want to do everything possible to maximize that pain.

Finally though, Brad got a reprieve from his depressing thoughts: Mr. Caercase's lunchtime shouts. Tyler was knocking on the door in an eyeblink, and Brad managed to put on half a smile for him.

He got in line without saying much to Tyler. That didn't matter though, since the mouse was in another world, going on and on about some TV show he'd been watching.

Brad just hoped that getting some food in his belly would improve his mood.


     ~~~


As it turned out, it did. Quite dramatically, in fact.

Not only did they have some pretty damned delicious submarine sandwiches for lunch that day, but Karen told him all about this nice fox guy who was usually there (he seemed to have the day off today though) and that line B was better anyway. Tyler looked a little sheepish at that.

Brad, Tyler, Karen and Holly sat down in the same place they'd eaten breakfast and had a long and fascinating talk about Karen's dreams the previous day. She said she had talked with the mysterious Always-Jimmy-Never-James all night long, and he had told her a whole lot more grisly and bizarre details about his own stay in the hospital. He still hadn't said much about his friends or their escape (she said he thought he just wasn't ready to yet), but had given her a wealth of information about the asylum and the secret plans of its builders.

Jimmy had been wandering the Earth for years ever since his death. He had learned beforehand about the other facilities the government used to round up 'unusuals' (as one document he'd seen had put it). So, he walked to them. Through the shifting, surreal eternal twilight of the Inbetween, he had visited all three other hospitals, and had found no one to listen to him in any of them.

Undaunted though, he had observed. Being no more than a spirit, locked doors and barred windows were no longer problems for him. He walked the halls of each hospital in turn, searching for seeds of rebellion to nurture, and cataloguing the crimes of the adults in charge.

Each hospital, he said, had a basement level. Ward Zero was its code name. When each facility opened, there were nothing but empty beds there. Then gradually, children began to trickle in. Children who resisted, children who disobeyed. The children's minds were methodically destroyed and they were sent down to the basement one by one to sleep forevermore in darkness.

At one hospital Jimmy visited, the beds in Ward Zero were nearly full.

When Karen had asked in horror how in the world they could possibly get away with this, Always-Jimmy-Never-James had laughed very hard at her. He said they got away with it the same way they convinced kids that their strange powers and abilities were just figments of their imagination. It was all about impossibility, he said. Most people simply cannot deal rationally with it. They would sooner lie to themselves and deny mountains of evidence if a conclusion did not fit with what their minds believed feasible. That was how the government got people to not believe in UFOs, Jimmy said. "Just keep saying it's crazy to believe in something like that long enough, and eventually people will tell it to themselves all on their own."

In exactly the same way, people simply chose to believe that the government couldn't possibly be so evil as to seek out and eliminate helpless children they saw as a threat. And to think they did so because the kids were all actually superhero mutants? Pffft! Come on! How ridiculous can you get?

That, the wolf said, was why a facility with such top-secret stuff going on still let parents call and visit, and also why they hired so many civilian workers. It was all part of the illusion. The more open a place seems to be, the less likely anyone will think it hides something dark deep within. That was the mistake the government made with Area 51, he explained authoritatively. They *acted* like there was secret stuff in there, so people *believed* there was secret stuff in there. All there really was in those hangers were jet engine prototypes, concept planes and other banal mili/sci research projects. All the really cool stuff had been moved elsewhere years ago. (Jimmy knew because he'd walked there on a whim once to take a peek.)

The evidence of the crimes at King's Orchard and its sister facilities was all left in plain sight, he told Karen. Anyone with enough time and effort could have put it together. The parents could have contacted each other to see how many of them had lost their little ones. A reporter could have blown the lid off the whole, sordid mess. But no one ever had. Because to even acknowledge that such a thing was really going on was more than anyone's mind could deal with.

No help was coming; Jimmy made this clear to her. No one would come even if she called 911 every hour of every day and blabbed till she was blue. Because, after all, who'd believe some kid in a mental institution?

The conversation gave most of them chills.

But not Brad.

Brad got angry.

To him, this was the chance to fight the very biggest bully of them all. The mother of all bullies. The worst evil he'd ever encountered. This made all those lummoxes on the playground look like an army of Mother Teresas.

The more Karen talked, the more his blood boiled, and the more charged up he became to get things in motion and start figuring out a way to screw these bastards for good. He was jonesin' for that meeting today. He was a heartbeat away from sprouting wings and *flying* to the art room.

Karen watched his reactions and felt her hope rise. If she could just get everybody feeling like Brad, she thought they'd have a pretty good chance.


     ~~~


The airlock doors hissed open at one-oh-four p.m..

A line of children marched through.

And when Thurston Caercase dismissed them, nine of them made their way as inconspicuously as possible to the art room...


*****


     -MONSOON-

The mountain was leaning on a wall in between the showers and the pay phones, just keeping an eye on things and nibbling a cinnamon-flavored toothpick to splinters between his teeth.

Karen streaked past him like a bolt of lightning, not even registering his presence.

A moment later, Holly walked past too, looking like she was all geared up to cause some mayhem.

As he watched the red-topped grey squirrel turn the corner at the end of the hall, he thought he saw a glimpse of something that might have been another kid, but wasn't sure.

Then here came Rubiella out of her room. She looked both ways down the hall, giggled secretively to herself, and also headed in the same direction.

"Hi, Moosoo," she said casually to him.

Monsoon's eyebrows drew down. Something was up. The only room down there not off-limits to patients was the art room. And *nobody* ever went in there unless they had to. It was like an unwritten law of the ward. Maybe once or twice a week someone'd go in there to read or to be alone for a while. But the general consensus seemed to be, 'Why bother with arts 'n crafts when there's two televisions and a Nintendo in the other room?'

There were certainly no rules against congregating in there though. Maybe they were just gonna swap secrets or dirty jokes for a while. Something harmless like that.

But when he saw a certain tomcat walking side by side with a certain dark-haired fox, the mountain's suspicions increased a hundredfold.

He stepped out and put a hand up in front of the two boys. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, you two. What's so interesting in the art room all of a sudden?"

Keith scowled. "Do we freakin' *need* a reason to go in there?" he growled.

Brad grinned ingratiatingly and stepped forward, trying to diffuse any hostile feelings before they had a chance to breed. "Karen and I organized a card game," he supplied cheerfully.

The mountain's eyebrow went up. "A card game?" He thought he smelled a hint of bullshit in the air. "Keith, do you even *like* cards?"

Before the fox could open his mouth, Brad made a pre-emptive strike, throwing his arm around the fox's shoulder like they were the best of buddies. "He _loves_ 'em! A total freak! Seriously! And me too! When I found out, we not only buried the hatchet, we poured concrete over it and built an ice cream shop on the spot!"

Keith looked at Brad as if to say, 'Remove your arm from my molecules right this second or I will fucking kill you to death.'

Brad got the hint, returned a 'don't make him suspicious then, jackass' smile, and backed off a step.

Monsoon bored holes in their skulls with his gaze, hoping to catch any hint of their true purpose. But Brad just smiled and Keith just scowled. Monsoon sighed and shrugged, leaning back against the wall as he had been. "Fine. Have fun then," he said resignedly.

The boys nodded to him and scooted off to the art room like two junkies successfully crossing the border with a trunk full of cocaine.

Monsoon was certain now that something more than just cards would be going on in there soon. But so long as the kids weren't having sex or murdering each other, he would consider it none of his business. At least not for now. He was paid to keep watch, after all.

Though really, what's the worst thing a bunch of kids could get up to in the art room of a psychiatric hospital? Plot a revolution?

The mountain chuckled to himself at such a notion.


*****


     -KAREN-

In the center of the arts 'n crafts room were two white-topped metal folding tables pushed together to make one big long one. A small flock of kid-sized plastic chairs surrounded this arrangement, much like a boardroom table. Karen took a seat at the head and waited with blazing excitement for the others to arrive. She felt her body almost vibrating in anticipation. She couldn't wait to get started. She didn't think she'd ever felt this confident about anything before. She was changing inside, and the change was growing more powerful by the day. Maybe, she thought, it came from finally deciding to acknowledge her dreams for what they were. And maybe it also came from being apart from Mommy and Daddy for a while.

Holly showed up first, followed closely by Rubiella. As Holly sat down, she caught a glimpse of the giant coming through the door behind her and her eyes got very wide. Karen shot her a look that warned, 'Don't you dare say a thing!'.

Ruby took a seat just as Brad and Keith arrived. They were bickering about something, but didn't seem actually angry at each other. More like mutual unease, mixing with equal parts respect, examination and a dash of curiosity.

Victor was next to arrive. "Hope no one minds, but I brought a friend," the young skunk said. An extremely nerdy-looking red fox followed him in. The kid was about as far removed as possible from Keith while still being part of the same species. He was short and weak-looking, with humongous square eyeglasses in thick black frames. His muzzle was oddly shaped, giving him a bit of an overbite, and his shoulders had a few flakes of dandruff on them.

Brad looked up. "Oh, hi Benjamin!" He'd met this fox his first day here. One of Tyler's friends. He'd stood in the same lunchline with him.

"Hey," Benjamin replied, sounding like he felt a little out of place here. His voice was, not surprisingly, quite nasal for a fox.

"What's your shirt say?" Holly asked.

Ben grinned a bit and stretched his tee out to make it legible. In white letters on black fabric it read: INSERT EXTREMELY OBSCURE MOVIE/TV/VIDEO GAME REFERENCE THAT WILL MAKE ME FEEL SUPERIOR TO YOU HERE.

Holly busted a gut. Even Keith chuckled.

"It's one of a kind," the foxboy said proudly. "Had it made up at the mall for my birthday."

Benjamin sat down and Karen looked around the room. "Is that everyone? No, wait... Where's Tyler?"

Brad was closest to the door. He leaned back in his chair to get a glimpse of the circular mirror in the corner of the hallway. It not only let the nurses see them, it also let them keep an eye out for anyone approaching. "Here he comes."

Running as fast as he could get away with, Tyler finally came puffing up holding a lumpy plastic grocery bag in his paw. "Ta da, I'm here!" he said in between breaths. "Sorry I'm late."

"What's in the bag?" Karen asked.

"Why I'm late," the mouse replied. "I told myself to get all this together earlier, but I forgot like a moron. They were scattered all over the damn place." With that, he leaned over the table and dumped out the bag.

A _tsunami_ of Uno cards emerged, spilling out all over the table, onto the floor and into a few laps.

"Wow!" Ruby shouted. The colors looked great; just like her construction paper collages!

"How many decks is that?" Benjamin asked.

"I dunno. Seven, maybe?" Tyler guessed. He ran around the table real quick, picking up stray cards, then chose a seat next to Brad and Ben.

This was it. Karen felt a lump in her throat. She was feeling very official all of a sudden. She giggled. "I suppose you're all wondering why I've called you here today..." she couldn't resist saying.

"Because the butler did it?" Tyler burst out. "With the chef and the gardener? On the pool table?"

Everyone freakin' cracked up. Even Ruby, who mostly was just laughing because everyone else was.

Karen's smile was strong and bright. "Okay, sorry. So, how many of us are here..." She pointed to everyone, going around the table clockwise. "...six...seven...eight. Eight."

"No, nine," Tyler corrected. An odd smile was on his face. He jerked a thumb at the seat in between Rubiella and Keith.

Karen looked again. They all looked again. More than a few of them did double-takes as another kid was just suddenly *there* in the room with them.

"Hi," Sherri said bashfully.

"I'm sorry," Karen apologized. Her eyes must've been playing tricks on her. She'd looked Right At the spot where the little honey-furred bunny was sitting and had seen absolutely nothing just a second ago. Like a blind spot in her vision. Or when the thing you're looking for in the refrigerator is really right in front of you. "I must not have seen you."

Sherri smiled oddly. "No problem," she said, and chuckled.

A bit puzzled by that, Karen continued. "Okay, um... I guess the first thing we should do is just say our names, then start the game up so the nurses won't get suspicious."

Various murmurs of agreement. They went around in a circle, counter-clockwise.

               "I'm Karen."

     "Holly."               "Brad."

     "Rubiella Dunston."     "Tyler."

     "Sherri."               "Victor."

     "Keith."               "Benjamin."

Karen nodded. "Okay, let's play cards then." She thought things were off to a pretty good start.

"You said you had some special rules or something?" Brad asked Tyler.

The mouse nodded. "Does everyone already know how to play?"

Most of them nodded. Ruby, Victor and Keith didn't. (Tyler had explained the game to Karen during lunch.)

Tyler started herding all the cards together in a central pile in front of him. "Okay. For the newbies, here's how it works. And these are *my* rules, remember. We played this way at this one summer camp I went to once and it made the whole thing run a lot smoother. Faster, too!" He started rounding up the cards into a single pile as he went on a motormouthed spiel of how the game worked. As he'd said, it was simple enough for dead people to play. Victor and Keith listened carefully, and even Ruby understood pretty much what was going on.

Everyone started out with a set number of cards in their hand. The object of the game was to be the first one to get rid of all of them. This was accomplished by dropping cards onto the face-up discard pile on the table. You had to match either the color of the card (red, blue, green or yellow) or the number on its face. If none of your cards matched when your turn came up, you had to pick one card from the face-down pile. 

The cards didn't just have numbers on them. Some had instructions. 'Skip' meant that the next furson after you skipped a turn. 'Reverse' meant the direction of the turns changed. 'Draw Two' meant exactly that for the next player. 'Wild' meant that *anything* could be played on top of that. And that left the single deadliest card in the deck: the wily and elusive 'Wild Draw Four'. It can be guessed what this card meant, and why you either loved it like a savior or cursed it like a plague.

And the one last rule that gave the game its name was that, when you came to the last card in your hand, you _had_ to say 'Uno'. Or else bad things could happen to you.

Since there were so damn many cards to begin with, Tyler separated out some of the most obviously wrinkly ones and then started flicking the rest out to everyone at the table, thirteen to each, still talking the whole time. The basic changes to the rules in his version were that, in a single turn, anyone could keep putting instruction cards down as long as they wanted, so long as they all matched in either color or face. Also, if you couldn't put down a card when it was your turn, instead of just one, you had to *keep* taking cards until you came across something useable (which would sometimes lead to the excruciating phenomena of having to pick up about twenty cards at once right when you thought you were winning). And lastly, if someone came to the last card in their hand and didn't yell 'Uno', and anybody caught them, they had to take *ten* cards from the pile. This made things not only speedier, but delightfully more frustrating. And it could also change the leaders of a game in a split-second.

(Tyler had his own secret move he called the 'blitzkrieg'; amassing an entire handful of Wild Draw Fours and then slamming them all down in a single turn and wiping everyone else out at once to win. He laughed evilly to himself as he envisioned fleecing everyone at the table. Too bad they weren't playing for cash.)

The game started slowly. Tyler and Holly were the only ones who weren't either new or rusty at it. They wordlessly agreed to give the others at least a fighting chance at first. 'At first', being the key words. Keith ended up being pretty decent for a beginner. Benjamin was also rather skilled, and played without mercy. Ruby put down a wrong card every now and then, but Holly was there to help her and soon got her on the right track. Brad played mostly on blind faith, never thinking too much about his decisions. Karen was cautious but observant, keeping track of what she thought everyone else had in their hands by deductive reasoning. Victor was a little lost, but having fun anyway. Sherri kept very quiet and cheated whenever possible. But only a little bit.

"Uno," the little bunny said demurely, holding up her last card; a yellow four.

The others instantly got wary. Sherri and Tyler seemed to be in the lead. Victor had a dozen more cards than he'd started out with.

"Uno," said Keith.

"Uno," said Ruby, surprising everyone.

More cards came down on the discard pile. The tension was palpable.

Holly said not a word, waited politely for her turn, then got rid of all eight cards in her hand at once, slamming them down just rapidly enough for everyone else to see them. She crossed her arms triumphantly. "I win!"

The others all groaned.

"Wait!" Benjamin shouted. "You didn't say Uno before you put your last card down!" He grinned like a shark.

Holly looked like someone had just shot her between the eyes. "Aw, FUCK!!" she exploded. Grumbling, she picked up her last card and joined it with ten more.

Karen was having a great time. Something inside her felt that now was the right time to bring up the true nature of this meeting. Before play could resume again, she cleared her throat. "Um... Hey, everyone. You all know why we're all _really_ here, right? It's not just to play cards."

The others went silent. There were various nods and mumblings. Everyone laid down their cards.

Karen sat up straight in her chair. She did her best to look authoritative. "I think we should just get all the weird stuff out of the way as soon as possible so we can concentrate on more important things."

Brad, Holly and Tyler gave her encouraging looks. The five newcomers listened intently. They knew only that this had something to do with their own odd, sometimes crazy, but still deeply-kept secrets.

Karen tried to be brave, tried to channel some of Always-Jimmy-Never-James' confidence and outrage. "We're all here, in this hospital, because we can do something science says we shouldn't be able to do. That's the real reason all the brochures were sent out to our parents. The government chose us all. Everyone in the whole building. Because we're different."

Benjamin sneered. "That's crazy. There's no way they could know about-" He cut himself off quickly and shut up, looking suddenly embarrassed as hell.

"Know about what?" Holly asked slyly.

He glared angrily at her behind his glinting glasses.

Karen looked into each of the eight faces surrounding her, trying to force upon them how serious this was. "You all know there's no reason not to believe me." A few of them opened their mouths, but Karen quickly silenced them. A fierceness had come to the little 'coon's eyes that hadn't been there even since yesterday. "Rather than just arguing like a bunch of dumbasses and saying I'm crazy, which is pretty much exactly what they want us to do, I want all of us, with NO exceptions, to go around the table in a circle and say why you got sent here, and then why you *really* got sent here."

Keith looked doubtful, but intrigued. "You first," he challenged.

"I was going to anyway," she said tersely. She let herself relax a bit and took a deep breath. "My reason is the same in both cases. I have really bad dreams. Every single night, for almost as long as I've been alive, I have horrible nightmares about death. And until just a few days ago, I didn't realize it was because..." God it was hard to just come out and say it. It still sounded crazy, even to her. "...because dead people talk to me every night when I dream."

Benjamin laughed out loud.

Tyler reached behind Victor and socked him in the arm.

Karen saw disbelief plain on their faces. But she wasn't worried. She had a trump card up her sleeve. Or in this case, a Wild Draw Four. "Benjamin, your brother Steve says he's sorry about that pan of brownies he put in your bed that time."

The bespectacled fox sat straight up in his seat. His mouth opened and nothing came out.

"Victor, your mom says she really loves you, and she wants you to know Button is okay too."

The little skunk choked. He very nearly started crying.

"Keith, your Uncle Randall says Hell's a pretty cool place. And that his motorcycle's all fixed up and shiny now."

The dark fox shut his eyes tightly and dared not show any of them his true feelings.

"Sherri, your Nana knows where you hid the bag of dimes. It's under the loose floorboards in the attic."

The young rabbit bit her lip to keep from screeching.

"Ruby, Jason says he's sorry he pushed you in the mud, and that he forgave you a long, long time ago.

The tigress' face went slack, then she looked very, very sad.

"Tyler, your Grandpa wants you to know he's *always* been proud of you, even if the last thing he ever said to you was that you were a numbskull."

The skinny mouse trembled in quiet joy.

"Holly... Um, there was no one there with anything for me to give you."

The plump squirrel nodded, understanding perfectly.

"And Brad, you already got my message for you."

The tabby tom nodded as well.

Karen let out a long sigh of relief. She felt lighter now for having unburdened herself of some of her unearthly communiques. There were still others though. One for nearly everyone in the hospital, in fact. Some spirits had made their requests up front, and many others had contacted the lands beyond to seek out more for her. Karen had no idea how she remembered them all. She just knew she did. They were all safe for now, locked up in a cozy little vault somewhere deep in her mind.

"Now, do you believe me?" she asked firmly.

None of them said a word.

"Good."


*****


     -HOLLY-

"Would you like to go next?" Karen asked.

The squirlette nodded and took up the mantle. No one had so much as touched their cards in quite a while, so she slapped a card down on the face-up pile.

"It's not your turn," Benjamin croaked, a little distantly.

She scowled. "I know, but if anyone checks up on us, we have to look like we're still playing. So we should all just toss some cards down once in a while."

Everyone agreed that was a good idea.

To the sound of fluttering rectangles of multicolored waxed paper, Holly reluctantly began her tale...


     ~~~


"God, you are such a fat fucking freak!!" Ivy shouted at her, and slammed the bathroom door.

Holly said nothing in return, just like always.

She could have kicked the door in and smashed her sister's face into the sink a few times. She could have gone downstairs and complained to Mommy, who was probably getting a manicure now or some other damn thing. Instead, she decided that right now might not be a bad time to test her hypothesis.

She dragged herself though her immense, elegant house like a tiny stormcloud on a sunny day. And it *was* a sunny day. Bright and beautiful, shining down on her whole rotten goddamned family like they were the rightful heirs of Olympus.

Ivy with her tiny waist and perfect fur.

Mommy with her bleached-out smile and corroded heart.

Daddy with his silver hair and heavy fists.

Grampa with his wheelchair and his neverending supply of razor-edged 'jokes'.

She wished she could just kill all of _them_ instead of the other way around.

In the Thornbridge family, the rule was either 'act like Holly doesn't exist' or 'treat Holly like she is the cause of all our worldly problems'. That seemed to be about the gist of it.

The fact that they ignored her so much was really the only decent thing about them. Holly had wondered time and time again who the hell had switched the bassinets at the hospital when she was a baby. These were not her real family. That was like saying a bunch of flamingoes had given birth to a buffalo.

Even the house seemed to mock her. Every room screamed of how filthy stinking rich the family was. How affluent, how much more important they were than all the ugly little common people around them. Holly was glad her room was the smallest one in the house. It was the only one she could stand.

As she slowly ascended the stairs, she heard the toilet flush from down the hall. She smirked viciously to herself. "Ha. There, Mom: proof your little darling actually takes a shit every now and then, just like the rest of us mortals."

Though as far as Mommy was concerned, only sunshine and rainbows ever came out of her younger daughter's asshole. Holly had been the first child and had been different right from the start. She was a heavy baby. She flinched when strangers tried to kootchie-koo her. She was more interested in books than toys; she'd play with the pages and stare at the funny little black squiggles on them for hours. She preferred dark colors to bright ones. She eschewed television fearfully. In short, her parents were convinced she was the spawn of the Devil.

Ivy, on the other paw, was their way of making up for their first, failed, experiment. She was slender and perky. Talking at one and potty trained by two. Honor rolls and painted nails. Little miss goody motherfucking two-shoes. Sometimes Holly just wanted to hurl her through a plate-glass window right into the path of a steamroller.

But she'd learned the hard way that arguments with Ivy never went her way. Even if she was 100% in the right, all Ivy had to do was give Mommy and Daddy the 'big sad eyes' routine. And then Daddy would have Little Holly over his knee, turning her ass bright red with his belt. Or his bare hands when he felt like it. They'd all gather round to watch. And Grampa would laugh and laugh at her tears...

Holly got to her room and resisted slamming the door shut behind her. There were still little swatches of wallpaper visible in here, but not many. As much surface area as possible was taken up with posters of punk musicians, rock musicians, lesbian musicians, gory horror movies and really rude phrases. Her room was the one place she could be herself and feel free to let out all the nastiness her family forced her to keep inside. They almost never came up here. Not because they respected her, but because they really just didn't give a shit.

Holly had been thinking about the sleeping pills, and the incident in the bathtub the following day, for quite a long time now. At first she had been somewhat ashamed of herself. She had even made a promise not to try anything like that ever again. Even if her life was nothing but a big pile of crap, at least she could take some comfort in knowing that the rest of her family would all probably be *happier* if she were gone. And she certainly didn't want that to happen.

Holly looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was black this week. Last month it had been green for a while, then sort of brackish as the color faded back to its usual grey-brown.

Sometimes she didn't know why she made herself look like the freak they always saw in her.

Other times though, she thought it was just about the most important thing she could do. It was her own small way of saying, 'I am not like you people. And I don't WANT to be either. You are my enemy.'

Sighing, she reached under her pillow for the nylon rope.

After getting over the initial embarrassment of being found naked in the bathtub with blood all over the place and nothing to show for it, Holly had gradually become more and more fascinated with the laws of probability. Specifically; what were the odds that she could try very hard to kill herself two nights in a row, and have both attempts fail so completely?

She had swallowed an *entire bottle* of sleeping pills.

She had slashed her wrists almost to the *bone*.

_Nothing_.

So... how was this possible?

She remembered one of her teachers saying something to the effect that, 'once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern'. It was time, Holly decided, to see if a pattern really existed.

Holly sat in her faux-leather desk chair and carefully knotted the rope into a hangman's noose. She hadn't even been serious when she checked out the book that had taught her how to do this. But still, she loved the irony that parents across the country wanted to censor music and video games because they supposedly caused violent behavior, and yet the good ol' public library was her unwitting accomplice here.

Once she had a nice, neat loop, she climbed oh-so-carefully up onto the chair and affixed the other end of the rope to the light fixture above her head. Her legs shook as the chair wobbled. Wouldn't it be funny if she slipped and broke her neck while trying to kill herself anyway? Ha! Ha! Ha!

When everything was in place, Holly took a deep breath and prepared herself. She knew she didn't really want to die this time, but part of her dared to believe that maybe she had nothing to worry about. She did not allow herself to be afraid. Either her little experiment would bear fruit, or she'd end up in a lake of fire with the Devil telling her, 'Smooth move, Einstein!'

Holly gulped, then slipped the noose over her head.

She knew she didn't want to jump. If she did that, the downward force might rip the light fixture straight out of the ceiling. And if her parents heard a loud noise and found her flat on her back covered in plaster with a noose around her neck, she was pretty darn sure she'd want to kill herself in earnest after that.

Holly calmed herself. She let her rational mind go. She let herself believe in her completely impossible idea.

Slowly, carefully, she stepped off the chair.

The pain was instantaneous.

She felt her full weight putting ungodly pressure on her throat. She choked, she coughed, she struggled. She screamed internally and forced herself to calm down and just go with it.

Her breathing stopped completely. She didn't even try to take any air in.

Her lower brain was panicking, but her higher self told it to just shut up and watch.

She patted the boxcutter in her pocket. If things really started getting bad, she knew she could always just slice the rope. Her toes were only a few inches from the floor anyway. She could simply toss the noose in the trash and no one would ever know.

The pain started to ease a bit. She felt a bit light-headed. It was a good thing she hadn't yet heard of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Holly hung there, feeling the seconds pass by. And she waited. She waited to black out, to cough up blood, to sprout wings and fly. Anything at all.

She waited.

The numbers on her alarm clock changed.

She waited.

Birds in the tree outside her window were making noises.

She waited.

Forty minutes passed.

There was a thumping on the stairs. Ivy was running up in a 'get it over with quickly' kind of way. She knocked on her sister's door, opened it a crack, yelled, "Dinner, bitch!" and slammed it behind her.

'She never even noticed me...' Holly thought angrily as she swung in the breeze.

"Oh, fuck _this_," she rasped, and cut herself down.

Before heading down to dinner, she put a leather choker on to hide the immense red marks encircling her throat.


     ~~~


Holly put down a green Reverse.

Everyone looked at her uneasily.

Finally, Karen had the courage to ask, "Um, Holly, just how many times *have* you tried to commit suicide?"

"Six," she replied flatly.

Several kids cringed.

"A little later on I tried the pills again. I went to the drug store and got the stuff that said it was damn-near prescription strength. I had all kinda warnings about 'children should not take this product' and 'do not operate heavy machinery'. Shit like that. I bought three boxes, went home, popped out all the little red pills from that annoying foil stuff, mixed 'em up in a smoothie and gulped the whole thing down."

"No effect?" Karen ventured.

"No effect," Holly confirmed. Well, there had been some effect. But it had taken place on the floor of the bathroom the next day, and she did not feel like sharing those particular details.

"What about the other two times?" Tyler asked, trying not to sound like a nosy jerk. He really was honestly fascinated by this.

"The fifth time I tried the Indian Rope Trick again," Holly quipped, getting a few laughs. "I stayed like that for four hours this time. I read a book for a while, then fell asleep. Woke up and I was still alive and dangling. It even started to feel good after a while.

"The sixth time was after my mom did something really, really awful to me that I'm NOT telling any of you about. Let's just say... um, basically, she not only humiliated me worse than I've ever felt in my entire life, but she also made it clear that she wished I'd never been born." God, it was hard to talk to other people about this. But the sympathetic sounds and glances she got in response did help to soothe the pain a little. "At that moment, I was _done_ doing experiments. I wanted it to really work this time. So, I sort of built a guillotine."

"You *built* one?" Benjamin asked, a little incredulous and also a little impressed.

"Sort of," Holly said with a shrug. "I went to the hardware store and got this really big sawblade. I sharpened the hell out of it with the grinder-thingy in the garage when Dad was at work. He would've killed me if he'd found out. Woulda saved me the trouble." A few dark chuckles.

She tried to illustrate her story with hand gestures to help the others get a sense of the positioning of everything. "I made this set-up where I was lying on my back in my bedroom, and I had the sawblade wedged almost halfway in a block of wood with some weights from the gym set on top of it. The whole thing was at the end of a rope that I had looped over the light fixture; my faithful helper in trying to off myself."

Most of them were fidgeting uneasily now.

"When I was ready, I pulled the blade almost to the ceiling, scooted directly underneath it, tilted my head back...

"And let go."

"W-what happened next?" Karen asked, not really sure she even wanted to hear it.

"I blacked out for a long time," Holly said, her voice mostly emotionless. "When I woke up, Ivy was screaming. Mom and Dad were looking down at me like I was the scum of the Earth. There was a whole hell of a lot of blood all over the place. The saw-thing was lying next to me. And my neck hurt, all around in a ring. Some of my fur was missing there too."

The other stared at her, believing and not wanting to believe.

"That was almost two years ago. I've been in places like this ever since. And," she added with a strange fake smile, "I really don't feel like talking anymore."

Karen nodded. "Okay. Um. Soooo... who wants to go next?"

"I will," said


*****


     -BRAD-

It had been almost six years ago.

Long before all the moving. Long before all the expulsions from school. Long before all the nights he'd lain awake listening to his mother cry in the next room.

Brad was just a little guy. His Dad was still around. The family had not yet broken up. And they were all still living in their very first home.

Brad was in first grade, and had just gotten into another fight.

He'd had some scuffles with other kids in kindergarten, but his parents mostly passed that off as normal for a rambunctious little boy his age. At the first of many parent/teacher conferences, his teacher had even told them that Brad was usually a very smart, polite, perceptive child in class. He had many friends. Always waited his turn. Almost never acted selfish. It was like he had an innate sense of right and wrong the other children hadn't fully developed yet.

But when he'd seen Rory Brown steal Amanda Skellington's cookies at their Christmas party, she said Brad had lunged across the room like a wild beast and pummeled Rory so fiercely the teacher had to pull on his shoulders with all her strength just to separate them.

It was a story Brad's parents would hear many, many variations of over the course of their son's education. That is, until Dad finally got sick of the whole mess forever and walked out.

But that was three years in the future. Right now it was the first week of first grade. Brad had been sent to the principal's office for kicking Mr. Oberon in the shin. He'd tried to explain that it was only because his teacher had called Janine Bromburg stupid and lazy and made her cry, but Principal Horn wouldn't listen. No one ever listened. They just gave him the same old speech that violence was not the way civilized fursons solved their problems. (Brad was a bit too young at that point to say that the President didn't seem to think so, but would eventually spit that clever little retort in Principal Sadlers' face several years later.)

He was sent home for the day, and his parents met him with stern frowns when he walked up the front steps.

A few days after his punishment, Brad's father got the idea that maybe the problem was due to his spending too much time at his job and not enough with his son. He speculated that maybe the boy just needed some 'man time'. Their next-door neighbor was going on a fishing trip that weekend and had invited him and Brad to come along. Dad thought it was a great idea, especially since Brad and the neighbor's kid were good friends anyway. Mom was initially a bit reluctant, not really seeing how this would help any, but eventually gave in. If nothing else, she told herself, maybe getting back to nature for a few days would calm her little kit down for a while.

They had a barbecue that night. Brad and Scotty discussed the upcoming trip with much enthusiasm. Scotty and the rest of the family next door were beavers, so the boys naturally delighted in passing playful 'fish breath' and 'waffle butt' jokes back and forth between each other.

Brad did his absolute best to keep out of trouble for the rest of the week. He didn't want to do anything to put the fishing trip in jeopardy. He even bit his tongue so hard it bled once, to keep from yelling at Dennis Farnum when he pushed Kevin Greevs to the blacktop during recess one day.

Finally, the weekend came. Brad got up before the sun and downed a bowl of cereal while yawning a lot. He and Scotty and both their dads hopped in the trusty station wagon and headed north. The boys both fell back asleep after five minutes of driving. The grownups snuck peeks at them in the rear-view mirror and chuckled at how cute they looked, snoring and propping each other up like bookends.

Once the sun was up and pouring through the car windows like liquid heat, the boys acquired some energy and watched life passing by on the highway. They talked, told jokes, played highway games, and always made sure to punch each other in the arm every time a Volkswagen passed.

They arrived at a big, gorgeous lake with an unpronounceable name sometime after noon. They boys were rowdy and full of greasy roadside hamburgers by then. They had acquired a bad case of the sillies, as Scotty's father noted.

Once parked, the grownups got out to unload the gear. Brad jumped out too, to help. As soon as he did, Scotty slammed the door shut and locked everything. Brad hollered and started running around the car, trying to get back in.

The boys were giggling so hard they couldn't think straight. All the windows on the station wagon were open and Brad darted from one to the next like a mole in one of those arcade games with the big rubber mallets. He would reach in, pinch or tickle his friend, then disappear, showing up a second later on the opposite side of the car to mount a new attack.

Scotty crouched down in the front passenger seat and held his breath, hoping Brad wouldn't be able to find him. Brad circled a big car a few times, then took a chance and reached in a window at random. He was rewarded with a fistful of wiggling, shrieking fur.

The boys laughed and laughed as Brad tried to tickle Scotty as much as possible. The young beaver pushed the power window button, hoping to seal off one of his nemeses' tickle-holes.

It didn't quite work out that way.

Brad was mildly delirious from the long car ride and all the hard laughter, so he didn't notice how far up the window was going. Scotty didn't either.

That is, until it closed shut with a soft 'thup' sound.

The boys' laughter stopped immediately.

They both looked up and saw that Brad's arm was lodged halfway in and halfway outside the car. The window had squeezed it to the top of the door so hard, the young cat's arm had flattened and bent like a crushed cardboard toilet-paper tube.

Brad felt no pain at all. Even though he could tell instantly his arm ought to be broken.

Shuddering with wide, uncomprehending eyes, Scotty pushed the button the other way and the window slowly receded into its slot.

Right in the middle of the bone, Brad's arm was pinched to about a quarter of an inch thick.

As the boys gawked silently, the horrific dent eventually popped back out to normal. Good as new.

Scotty slowly backed out of the car. He did not speak another word to Brad for the rest of the trip.

After that, the boys simply were not friends anymore. Their fathers were never able to figure out why, and the strain it put on the two men's friendship ended up becoming part of the reason why Brad's father left one afternoon with a suitcase and half the family's money and never came back.


     ~~~


"Gosh, that's so sad," Victor said sympathetically.

Brad gave him a small, unhappy smile and a shrug.

"Scotty sounds like he was a jerk," Tyler spat. "I wouldn't abandon a friend just because he had a rubber arm."

"Well, hey... We were both first-graders," Brad defended. "Seeing something impossible like that probably snapped his brain somehow. I... I've never really blamed him for all the crappy stuff that came after."

"So, um, is your whole body like that?" Benjamin asked.

Brad nodded. "Oh, yeah. I tried a few experiments after we got back from the trip, but I ended up freaking myself out. Actually, for a long time afterward, I kinda convinced myself it never really happened. Like it was all just some weird dream.

"But every time I get in a fight, I hardly ever get hurt. Someone punches me; I don't even bruise. The only time I ever really got hurt was when this panther kid got me across the face with his claws. Sharp stuff hurts me, but blunt force trauma doesn't seem to have any effect."

Tyler grinned. "Dude, I gotta see this to believe it."

Brad sighed. He knew he'd have to eventually. The hardest part, really, was just getting up the courage to admit to himself that his abnormal body structure wasn't just a hallucination he'd had as a kid. Mountains of proof notwithstanding, it turned out to be pretty easy not to acknowledge something's existence if bad enough memories were attached to it.

For starters, Brad put his paw down flat on the tabletop. "Can everyone see okay?"

Various murmurs of 'yes'.

"Okay then..." With his other hand, Brad took hold of his pinky and bent it straight back till his fingernail touched his wrist.

"Eeeeugh!!" said Karen.

Brad did the same with his ring finger, then his middle, then his index, and finally his thumb. Nearly everyone was cringing at this point. Brad's hand looked like a curled-up starfish.

"Freakin' *awesome*!!" Tyler shouted. This was the coolest thing he'd seen in months.

Brad let his fingers go and they slapped right back into place. He held up his paw and gave his fingers a wiggle. A-okay.

"Doesn' that hurt?" Ruby asked worriedly.

He gave her a reassuring smile. "Not a bit. Hey, Keith," he called out.

The fox looked up.

Brad smiled. "Wanna get revenge on me for what happened in group therapy?"

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "No fighting," she said warningly.

"Relax," Brad told her, "I just need his help for a little demonstration."

When Keith stood up and walked over, Brad scooted back in his chair and plopped his left foot right up onto the table.

Keith recoiled. "Jesus! I don't wanna smell your fuckin' socks!!"

Brad chuckled. "Sorry about that. All I want you to do is just take hold of my foot, and turn it."

Keith looked at him funny. "What?"

"Turn it. Like a wind-up toy." Brad wiggled his foot. "I'm serious!"

Finally figuring out where this was going, Keith nodded and reluctantly took hold of Brad's grimy sneaker.

"I'll tell you when it starts hurting," Brad said, and gave the 'go ahead' sign.

Keith began to slowly twist Brad's foot. He smiled a little, respecting how much trust his former enemy was putting in him. This wasn't revenge for what had happened two nights ago. This was, in a weird way, a peace offering.

As the others got up out of their chairs to look, Keith turned Brad's foot around 180 degrees, pointing it down at the floor. Brad clenched his teeth. "Keep going."

Trying as best he could to be gentle, Keith turned Brad's foot from six o' clock to eight thirty.

"Keep going," said Brad.

When it had completed an entire circle, Karen turned away and thought for a moment she was going to ralph in her paws.

"Keep going," said Brad.

Keith finally gave up after another half-turn. He let go abruptly and backed away. "Screw this!" he said, putting up his hands in a surrender gesture. "Way too weird for me!"

Brad's foot swiveled slowly back around like a dizzy snake. "Aw, come on! It was only starting to tingle a little bit! I'll bet you could have made it go around at least three more times! At *least*!"

Tyler was laughing his ass off. "My roommate's Stretch Armstrong! How cool can you possibly get!?"

Brad appreciated that. To have a friend react like that to his unique gift, instead of becoming scared, made him feel a whole lot better inside.

As Keith took his seat again, Brad said to him, "So, why the heck are you in here then?"


*****


     -KEITH-

The fox crossed his arms and looked down at the tabletop. "I really don't want to talk about it. Can somebody else go?"

Holly gave him a reproachful scowl. She figured she was big and weird-looking enough to get away with challenging this guy. "Hey, I didn't really feel like telling about trying to hang myself in my bedroom, but I did."

Keith looked up swiftly and glared daggers at her. Her words had called him chicken, and he did not like that at all.

Karen tried a different approach. "Keith, come on. The whole point of us meeting like this is so that we can _all_ be honest with each other and figure out what to do with these weird powers we have. No one's going to make fun of you or anything. And if they do, I'll tell Rubiella to pick them up by the head and sling them down the hall.

Ruby opened her mouth to say 'No fighting', then realized it was a joke and chuckled.

Karen chuckled with her.

Keith rolled his eyes. "Aw fer *chrissakes*..." he wailed overdramatically. But out of resignation, not protest.

The dark-furred fox leaned over the table and rested his head on his folded arms. He mumbled into the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, so at times it was a little hard to understand him.

"I've got this anger thing," he started quietly. "That's why my parents stuck me in here. I've been seeing doctors since I was five. They put me on all sortsa pills and none of 'em ever fucking work.

"When I get mad, it's like my blood turns into lava. It's like my brain turns off. One minute I'm okay, the next thing I know I'm yelling something rude at someone for no reason. Or swearing my head off at nothing. Or punching somebody. Or kicking them, or biting... It could be anything. I never know in advance. And most of the time I don't even know *why* I'm doing it.

"Sometimes I even hit my mom and dad. Which sucks and I hate myself for it because really, they're decent people and they put up with so much of my shit. And I love 'em a lot..."

Keith stabbed at his eye with a finger to keep a tear from emerging.

Brad looked at the other boy with a wealth of empathy. He could tell already that Keith had it a lot worse, but the young tomcat certainly knew what it felt like to lose control of his temper like that.

"So, yeah... Sometimes I just go crazy and beat people up and act like I'm possessed by demons. I hate it. I don't wanna be this way. I don't know what sets it off and I don't know why it does this to me. If I could just tear my head open and pluck out whatever defective part of my brain is doing it, I would. No hesitation whatsoever."

He looked up at the raccoon at the head of the table, but eventually his gaze drifted back down again. For Keith, making eye contact was not something that came easy. "Karen, in case you were wondering, my Uncle Randall was pretty much my best friend when I was little. He lived with us for a while. He had this gigantic orange Harley-Davidson and he could wake up the whole neighborhood when he really revved that sonofabitch. I _loved_ that bike. He used to pick me up and sit me on it when I was small.

"Sometimes he'd take me with him for short rides. Around the block and stuff like that. My mom wouldn't allow anything more. She was scared I'd bust my skull open.

"Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to _him_," he said. Barely a whisper, his voice was low, hurt and bitter. The art room was utterly silent except for it. "Somehow, he drove straight into a semi truck in broad daylight and was just *gone*. In a heartbeat. My mom told me about it when I got home from school that day.

"I was so mad at the universe for taking my best friend away, I went to my room and just fucking destroyed everything I owned. My dad had to force me down on the ground in a choke hold. By then I'd already punched the walls so much I'd broken two of my fingers."

Holly felt suddenly as if she understood Keith completely, and was sorry she'd snapped at him earlier.

Keith leaned back in his chair, hands stuffed in his pockets. His eyes were clear, but they only appeared calm on the surface. "I've pretty much been in a constant state of trouble ever since. I mean, I had anger things before, but especially after the funeral I'd just go ballistic all the time. I'd beat up total strangers. Scream in public. Absolutely anything could set me off. My parents even had to ban me from watching the news, I'd get so pissed..."

He was silent then. It took a while for the others to figure out he considered his story finished.

"You know, for someone who said he didn't wanna talk..." Brad said.

Keith looked up, saw that Brad was smiling in a 'just kidding, really, I totally know what you're going through' kinda way, and smiled back at him.

"What weird stuff can you do though?" Sherri asked abruptly, startling everyone in the room who'd forgotten all over again that she was there.

"Oh, that?" Keith said, sounding like the topic at hand was rotting corpses, old potato salad and sewer slime. "I, um... I don't like doing it, but..." He growled in resignation. "Fine."

He picked up one of the Uno cards. "Here, look."

Everyone looked.

Keith stared at the card.

The room grew just a little bit warmer.

A brief blast of orange light engulfed Keith's hand for a split second, making everyone jump back in their chairs. Keith never moved so much as an eyebrow.

The card fluttered to the table as nothing more than a cloud of grey ashes.

"Whoa..." said Victor.

"Dude!" Tyler complained. "Couldn't you have picked one of the wrinkled ones!?"

"Sorry," Keith muttered.

Brad laughed out loud. "Wow, a flaming fox!"

In the blink of an eye, Keith was up and out of his seat with a murderous rage in his eyes. If not for the distance between them, he would have already been clutching Brad's throat in his paws.

Brad backed way the hell up. "Shit!! Jesus, calm down! What did I say!? What did I say!? I'm sorry!!"

Keith let out a piglike grunt of frustration. He grabbed his head like he was having a migraine and seemed to be yelling internally at himself for a few moments. Finally, he sat back down, head still clutched in his paws as if it were about to burst.

The other kids stared uneasily at him.

"What the heck was that?" Holly asked.

Keith looked up at her, and then at Brad. His eyes were raw and red and tired. "No. *I'm* sorry. You just... What you said..." He sounded almost on the verge of tears.

Brad realized then that for all his toughness, Keith was, in reality, extremely fragile. "What? Really, whatever it was that made you mad, I didn't mean it that way..."

"I'm gay," Keith said abruptly.

Immediate. Awkward. Silence.

"Oh," said Brad. "OH!" he said again, as he realized exactly why what he'd said before was now among his 'top ten really goddam dumb things I've said by accident' list. "I did _not_ mean it like that," the young tom said sincerely.

"Of course you didn't," Keith said, head still buried in his arms. "I should've known that. It's my fault."

"No, really... I just have this thing where I say dumb stuff and piss people off all the time. It's what I'm good at," Brad said.

This finally coaxed Keith out from his shell and put a tiny, embarrassed smile on his muzzle. He looked at the cat boy and was amazed he was trying so hard to make him feel better. "That's why I yelled at you when I bumped you in the hallway the day you showed up. I was pissed at myself for thinking you were cute."

The words were out before Keith's brain could take over and reel them in. His mouth hung open stupidly.

Brad blushed so hard you could see it through his fur. "Are you _serious_?"

Feeling as if he couldn't possibly humiliate himself any further, Keith nodded. "Yes."

Brad mulled this over. "Well... Uh..." Finally, he came to a decision. He looked at Keith with determination. "Alright."

The fox looked up. "Alright what?"

Brad stood up and walked over to the fox. He pointed to his cheek. "Right here. One free kiss. Get it over with."

Some of the other kids giggled. Keith stiffened in incomprehension. "Wh-WHAT?!"

Before Keith could get angry again, Brad explained patiently, "This is my way of showing you that I don't give a rat's ass if you're gay or not. It doesn't bother me, and I don't want to fight about it or make you feel weird around me anymore. So just kiss me if you wanna and get it over with."

Keith stared at Brad like this was all some bizarre hallucination. "You're sure?"

Brad nodded. "I am."

Keith shrugged. "Okay, I guess..."

Hesitantly, he stood up, leaned in close, and felt his lips touch another boy for the very first time.

It was only for a second, but in that second a surge of sensation shuddered through Keith's whole body like a jolt of lightning. The soft fur against his lips... The soft BOY fur... The 'rightness' of it was indescribable. Something deep within him cried out its congratulations for finally accepting this dreaded, hated, misunderstood part of himself after so long.

He looked at Brad afterwards and his eyes held no more rage. "Thanks," he said quietly. "If... If you're not... Not gay, I mean, ...I won't bother you about it. I won't like, ask you out on a date. But still... That felt..." One could almost see the blush through his russet fur. "Um. Thanks," he finished awkwardly.

Brad smiled. "It's cool. Like Karen said, let's get all the 'weird' stuff out of the way now so we don't get all tangled up in it later." He chuckled. "And you kissing me on the cheek *was* sorta on the weird side."

The other kids laughed with him, and Keith joined in.

"So, can I kiss you on the cheek too?" Tyler piped up. He winced. "Oh, _hell_ no, I did NOT just say that out loud!"

The laughter got even louder. Brad groaned dramatically. "Crap, who else here wants to kiss me!?"

In one of those perfect comedy moments when a whole roomful of people will all be on the same page at once, everyone raised their hands, even Ruby.

Brad tried to look like he wasn't half a breath away from giggling his brains out.


*****


     -SHERRI-

Ruby went next, and with Karen's help, did her very best to tell them all about her family, her accidents, her hospitalizations and her strength.

Karen also helped clarify to her that she had not, in fact, killed Jason; the boy who'd pushed her in the mud. At least, not directly. His chest had been sore and weak ever since the injury and his subsequent hospital stay. One afternoon playing street football, he simply got tackled too hard and his heart was crushed in his ribcage. As he had told Karen last night, he did not blame Ruby for this. He knew she had acted purely on impulse when she'd hit him. Whereas his taunting of her had been completely intentional. He had only himself to blame for his death. Although it had taken him a long, long time to accept and make peace with that fact.

Ruby was very glad to know that he wasn't mad at her anymore. She told Karen that if she saw the boy again, to let him know that she hoped he was happy now, wherever he was. 

Karen promised to relay the information if she could, noting that this would be the first time she'd be taking a message from someone alive back to someone who was dead.

For her demonstration, Ruby told everyone to hold tight to the table. Then she simply lifted it up a foot or so and all of them went with it. She ended up bending her little plastic chair from the strain, but the applause she got in return was well worth it.

Sherri spoke up afterwards. "I guess I'll go next, if no one else minds," she said crisply.

Nobody had any objections. By now, they were all pretty damn curious as to why she kept seeming to suddenly not be in the room with them from time to time.

The young rabbitfemme was actually rather pretty. When she allowed herself to be seen, that is. Her fur was radiant, and her hairdo was enormous: a waterfall of poofy blond tresses bloomed all around her head like a yellow-orange mushroom cloud. Her eyes were a strange shade of purple-blue. Just from her looks, it was hard to believe she was so unnoticeable.

Her looks had nothing to do with it though.


     ~~~


Put simply, Sherri duBois did not like other people.

Her mom and dad were okay, but she really didn't consider them 'other people'. They were her _parents_. Difference.

By 'other people', she meant kids at school, teachers at school, people at the grocery store, people in movie theaters, people on the bus, people at the mall, the neighbors next door, the lady down the street, most of her relatives, the mailman, the paperboy, and pretty much all other fursons currently living.

She didn't *hate* them. They just annoyed her.

Sherri liked to be alone, and her greatest annoyance was that no one ever seemed to understand that. As an infant, total strangers were always pinching her cheeks and saying how cute she was. Her teachers always made her answer questions when she felt like reading instead. In public, people were always saying hello to her and breaking her concentration.

She was sick of it. In fact, she became so sick of it after a while that it became an obsession. Where at first she was merely annoyed by the presence of others, soon she grew to levels of frustration so intense it felt like her fur was on fire. She wished she could just kill everybody on the planet, if only there was a big red nuke button put in front of her.

Her parents did notice this behavior, and they tried everything they could think of to convince their daughter that wanting to be by herself all the time wasn't healthy, that she needed to make some friends. To Sherri, all this accomplished was making her wish they'd go away too.

She became unbearably selfish and demanding, not even acknowledging others as being anything more than obstacles in her way. She did not throw tantrums, but would instead find devious, calculated methods of getting her way that frankly frightened her parents.
They started secretly discussing having her put on medication.

The little rabbit got progressively worse. While she never lowered herself to actually getting in fistfights, she still found ways to let her classmates know exactly how much it displeased her when they bothered her. Her teacher sent home notes and phone calls, saying that Sherri's little 'pranks' were so sophisticatedly cruel, she would have surely been expelled by now if not for her other maddening little habit of making sure she almost never got caught. The more her parents lectured her, the more stubborn Sherri became. She explained over and over again that if the other children would just leave her be, she would do exactly the same for them in turn. She felt no remorse for anything she did. To her it was simple; the only way she knew to achieve solitude was to make everyone around her either fear her or hate her. She did not particularly like having to do this, but she acknowledged that it was the only thing she knew of that seemed to work.

Despite having started out as a shy, gentle and intelligent young girl, Sherri was now careening ever closer to becoming a full-blown sociopath. With no salvation in sight.

And then one day, it was as if a genie had come out of nowhere and granted her heart's desire.

She had been sitting in class on a perfectly ordinary afternoon just like all the others. She was seated at her desk, way in the back. Scribbling in her notebook. Not listening to the teacher.

What she was writing, over and over and over again, was: LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE

On and on into infinity.

Her eyes were sharp and bright with swirls of madness.

And then, her teacher called out, "Sherri?"

The little bunny looked up fiercely. Suddenly, she felt something *pop* in her brain. It hurt, and at first she thought she'd blown a blood vessel and was about to die. But that, of course, didn't happen.

Instead, she noticed her teacher looking all around the room in confusion. "Sherri?" the dowdy old hamster asked again. "Class, did anyone see Miss duBois get up and leave?"

'What the heck...?' Sherri thought to herself. 'I'm sitting right here. Like I always do. Can't she see me?'

The other students started looking around. Anyone who looked in her direction simply saw around her, or through her, but not *to* her.

"Sherri!" the teacher barked, starting to get angry. "If you're hiding someplace, you had better come out right now, young lady!"

Sherri opened her mouth to protest. After all, she certainly didn't want to get in trouble for something that wasn't even her fault.

But then a little voice piped up: 'Keep quiet. See what happens.'

So, she kept quiet.

The confusion mounted. Despite the fact that Sherri had not budged an inch, the whole class started getting up to look for her. The teacher started questioning everyone, asking if they had seen the young rabbit sneak out.

'Am I invisible?' Sherri wondered to herself. She was rapidly becoming even more confused than anyone else. This was Twilight Zone stuff, she thought. Whenever one of her classmates turned in her direction, she saw their eyes simply go blank and zip right past where she was. Not like she was invisible. More like she was sending out a signal to their brains somehow, making it impossible for them to acknowledge her presence. Jamming their radar.

Once that had occurred to her, Sherri realized that this was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life. She had gotten her wish. They didn't even know she was there, so they were _finally_ Leaving Her Alone. Sherri became determined to see this thing through as long as it would last. Instead of wanting them to see her, she concentrated as hard as possible on *not* wanting them to see her.

It worked beautifully.

The school went into a panic. Nobody had any idea where she was. The principal got on the P.A. system and asked everyone if they had seen her or if they had seen her leaving. Nobody had, obviously. Sherri watched it all happen with unbridled glee. All this attention, all about her, and none of it actually directed AT her! How fun!

But when she heard police sirens outside the classroom windows, her blood went cold and she realized that maybe she should have called this off a little sooner. Fun was fun, but trouble was also trouble.

She heard heavy bootsteps approaching the classroom.

'Oh shit!' she thought, starting to really worry now. 'What if this is permanent? What if no one'll ever be able to see me ever again!?' That would be bad. She wanted privacy, yes, but not nonexistence! She didn't want her parents to never see her again! She didn't want them to think she'd been kidnapped - or *worse* - and be sad and have a funeral and give away all her toys!

Before her panic reached pants-wetting proportions, a police officer poked his head in the room and shouted, "Is that her!?"

A second later, her teacher, her parents, two policemen and the principal all swarmed into the classroom and found her sitting right where she'd been the entire time.

They could see her alright. Judging by the astoundingly pissed-off looks she was getting, they could *definitely* see her.

Sherri cringed and shrank back in her seat.

There had been an apocalyptic fight that evening. It went on for nearly six hours. Neighbors four houses down heard it. Sherri's parents screamed at her again and again about how dangerous and stupid it was to pull a prank like that and how seriously angry the policemen were for being called out over nothing. Sherri had screamed right back the truth; that she had never moved a single paw away from her desk and it was everyone else's fault for not seeing her there.

Naturally, they did not believe her. They grounded her for a month and started making her see a psychiatrist soon afterwards. Sherri was mildly grumpy about that for a while. Especially since the lady's office always smelled like bad perfume.

But she couldn't be too angry. Because whatever had happened in the classroom was still happening, whenever she wanted it to. There wasn't even that weird 'pop' in her brain and the hurting anymore. She could just choose not to be seen, and it was like an invisible shield going up. She felt a wonderful relief that A, it wasn't just a one-time thing and B, it seemed she could control it as easily as breathing. She never spoke to anyone else about it again. She kept it tightly hidden, like hugging a treasured toy to her chest.

From that day on, Sherri became a shadow. She left the magic invisibility power on all the time and only thought about it when she wanted to turn it off (and that only happened for a small fraction of any given day). Now she could sit in class and read and draw and play with toys and do practically anything she wanted. Just so long as she was quiet. As one embarrassing experiment had taught her, people could still _hear_ her just fine in her unnoticeable state.

Whenever she heard her teacher shout, "Sherri?", wondering if she'd run off and hid again, all she had to do was 'phase in' and say sweetly, "Here I am!" It caused her no end of amusement torturing the old bag like this.

Whatever 'it' was, it didn't work on her parents though. At least, not most of the time. She could sometimes use it to sneak into the kitchen for an extra cookie if she was really fast and they were distracted anyway. But near as she could figure, they shared a family bond and simply *knew* she was there, no matter how hard she tried to mesmerize them otherwise. This minor matter notwithstanding, Sherri was totally satisfied with her gift.

The little rabbit's personality even improved over time. Sure, at first it got much worse. She'd used her newfound ability to commit some unsettlingly nasty practical jokes, for instance. But after a while, the novelty wore off and she was content with simply enjoying being left alone. Simply put, she mellowed out. Her frustration dwindled to the point where it hardly ever bothered her at all anymore. (Her psychiatrist, naturally, assumed this was all due to her own brilliance.)

Gradually, the more she thought about it, Sherri was able to fully comprehend that somehow she had achieved something impossible. Something that had helped her. Some force in the universe had given her this thing because it thought she was worthy of it. That idea had hit her hard. It made her step back from herself a bit and realize that it might not be such a bad idea to straighten up and stop acting like a jerk. In gratitude to whatever her unseen benefactor was, she made a determined promise to herself to use her 'gift' wisely as long as it lasted.

And after quite some time, hardly even noticing it herself, Sherri changed for the better. She even started using her ability to help people. If she happened to notice somebody drop something, she'd walk over and retrieve it for them. She'd fix up messes people left in the school library. She'd keep something from tipping over if she noticed it about to fall. (Like, for instance, Karen's tray at lunchtime several days ago)

Still, even though she was showing many signs of improvement, her parents still worried about her flat refusal to even consider the idea of having friends. So, when the brochure from King's Orchard was mailed to Sherri's school...


     ~~~


Sherri edited her story quite heavily for the other eight children at the table with her. She mentioned nothing about her personality ups and downs, for instance. The fact was, she had a hard time accepting her own true nature. While she didn't think she was perfect, she did tend to gloss over some of her less charming points without realizing it.

Still, to even be talking at all with these bozos was admirable on her part. To her horror, Sherri had realized months ago that being alone was actually starting to become a little, well... *lonely*. While she was not yet to the point of wanting to make 'friends' (eew, yuck!), she thought at least that this art room opportunity afforded her the chance to talk with other kids who found themselves in similarly bizarre situations.

Not friends, she told herself. Colleagues. Like what Mommy had at work. Yes, that was acceptable.

"I'd like to try an experiment, if that's okay with everyone," she finished up her story by saying. Her voice very rarely showed any trace of emotion. When she had to talk to other people, she acted as if she was at a business meeting or a fancy restaurant: polite, but not very chummy.

"What kind?" Karen asked.

This was another thing other people were turning out to be good for: research subjects. "I want to know if my 'thing' will still work even if you all know I'm right here," the young bunny explained. "So, just look up at the ceiling and count to ten, then see if I'm still here when you look back."

The rest of them were game. They dutifully craned their necks heavenward. Ruby counted out loud, so she set the pace for everyone else.

To Sherri's fascination, the results were quite diverse.

Tyler looked right at her and winked. No surprise there. Rubiella looked flabbergasted at seeing her vanish. So did Victor, and he was sitting directly across from her. Brad squinted a little, then seemed to focus on her. Benjamin said "Whoa!" as she apparently sprang into being right before his eyes after a few seconds. Holly, Karen and Keith seemed to see her right away, or almost right away.

"Interesting..." Sherri said to herself, and let them all perceive her again.


*****


     -BENJAMIN-

"So, what does it feel like?" the nerdy fox asked her.

"What do you mean?" Sherri asked back.

"Like, does being invisible have a feeling?" he clarified. "How can you tell when it happens?"

"Actually, that's the weirdest part. I *can't* feel anything. I only know when it turns on and off by how other people react. The best I can describe it is that I just sort of _want_ it to happen. I tell myself; 'okay, no one look at me now', or 'okay, I want to be seen again'."

Benjamin stroked his chinfur thoughtfully. "Damn. Reminds me of this Star Trek episode I saw once."

"Do you want to go next?" Karen asked him.

"Huh? Oh, um, okay. I guess so." He sat up a little straighter in his chair and adjusted his glasses. "For those of you who haven't met me before, my name is Benjamin Feldman."

"That's gotta be the dullest name in the world," Holly remarked sympathetically.

He grinned. "Funny you should say that. That's why mom gave me the middle name Zarathustra."

"Benjamin *Zarathustra* Feldman!?" Tyler burst out. "Okay, that kicks ass."

The fox nodded. For a long time he'd been afraid to tell anyone his middle name for fear of being teased even more than usual. But overall, once his secret was out, most of the reactions had been similar to Tyler's. Thus, he finally forgave his mom for saddling him with it.

"That sounds familiar..." Keith said, nibbling a clawtip.

"It was some ancient King's name, or someone in mythology," Ben said. "Something like that. My mom got it from this classical music piece."

A-ha! Now Keith remembered. One of his deepest secrets was that he actually liked classical music on occasion. He had a few CDs of it mixed in with the usual loud, alternative/garage/ska stuff he usually bought.

"'Also Sprach Zarathustra', by this guy named Strauss," Benjamin carefully enunciated. "You've all heard it; you just don't know it."

Holly had an epiphany. "Is that the one that goes: dunnn... dunnnnn... dunnnnnnn... DAH-DAHHH!!!"

"Bum bum, bum bum, bum bum, bum bum," Tyler supplied, recognizing it too.

Benjamin giggled quite a bit. "That's it! You got it! And as you can guess, my mom's pretty weird for naming her kid after that. My Dad came up with Benjamin, and she said she wanted to give me something distinctive to offset it.

"But that's the difference between them," he said, sounding suddenly quite grim. "My mom's nice, and a lot of fun. And my dad's a stupid asshole."

Holly nodded, able to relate to at least half of that.

"That's the _only_ reason why I'm in here," the scrawny fox said defensively, crossing his arms in a huff. "There's nothing wrong with me. I'm not crazy - no disrespect to anyone here who actually is. And I'm not saying I'm totally 100% normal either. Just that every therapist and counselor and psychiatrist my dad's ever dragged me to have all said the same thing: I'm as sane as anyone else. And then he gets all pissed at them and yells a lot and drags me off to another one. They believe his lies for a little while and the whole cycle starts anew."

For his age, Benjamin was exceptionally eloquent. He used words very well. Always had. So he was able to convey very effectively just how bitter he was towards his father.

He stared down at the pile of Uno cards, not making eye contact with anyone. As if he were having an intense discussion with the tabletop. "I mean, he wants me to be this stupid Boy Scout image he has in his head. He wants me to do sports and shit like that. He wants a macho-macho man for a son. Instead, he thinks I'm a fruit." He looked up quickly at Keith. "Sorry, it just slipped out. I have nothing against fruits, but my father does. Big time."

Keith bit his lip and shrugged it off.

"Dad thinks there's something psychologically wrong with me because I don't agree with absolutely everything that comes out of his big fat stupid mouth. I *must* be crazy, because I like sci-fi shows and reading books and going on my computer and doing card tricks."

"You can do card tricks?" Victor asked, interested.

Ben shrugged a little. "Yeah, but I kinda suck. I only know three good ones. And I need a pair of sunglasses for one of 'em."

The fox went back to his tale. "So basically, in my father's tiny skull, all that stuff means I am a grand champion world-class faggot. His words, not mine," he was quick to point out. "You wouldn't believe the names he calls me. Seriously, I think it's the only creative spark he has."

A few sympathetic chuckles at that. Holly knew exactly what he meant.

"It doesn't matter to him that I'm smart. I took this IQ test at school, and while I don't wanna sound like a bragging asshole, if brains were dynamite I could wipe out this whole town with one sneeze." Several chuckles at that. Benjamin often used humor to better deal with things that deeply hurt him. Even if laughter didn't make problems go away, at least it could make him feel better for a few minutes or so.

"Nothing matters to him. Not my good grades. Not the fact that I can beat my teacher at chess. Not the fact that there's a lot of things I'm really good at and that I'm proud of. If they're not on his mental 'approved activities' list, it's like he sees them as signs of witchcraft or something.

"I'd just kill him and go to jail and get it over with if it wasn't for my mom. She's..." He took a deep breath. He didn't think he was ready to tell these other kids about her. Not yet, at least. It was easy to rant against Dad, but if he started talking about Mom he was likely to start crying. He didn't like doing that. And he knew he *would* cry if he thought too hard about all the times he'd watched his father slap his mother across the mouth for defending him. *Trying* to defend her son, at least.

So, he changed the subject. But his silence on the topic told them plenty nonetheless.

The little fox snarled hatefully. "When that goddam brochure showed up at school, you wouldn't believe how happy Dad was. He took it as personal validation of all the times he'd said there was something wrong with my head. Now the government thought so too! Good for him, the dumb bastard. He made me pack my bags the second I got home from school."

"Hey..." Brad said softly, "my dad turned into kind of a dick near the end there too. He walked out on us one day. Just like that. So, yeah, um, I guess I know a little about how you feel."

Benjamin allowed a shard of a smile to appear on his short, crooked muzzle. "Thanks. Though if MY dad walked out on us, I think my mom and I'd have a wild party and break out the champagne."

More laughter. *Good* laughter. Laughter of sympathy and understanding, not the jeering, cruel kind he was so used to the rest of the time.

It was Tyler who finally brought up what everyone else had been secretly thinking so far. "Okay, so if they sent a brochure, that must mean they wanted you here for a reason. Spill it, man. What's your weirdness?"

"That sounds like it ought to be the name of a game show," Holly noted.

Benjamin straightened up and a small, proud smile grew on his face. He'd only recently come to understand what it was and how he could harness it, but once he had, the applications of it became clear instantly and he knew the universe had given him something cool to compensate for him having such a shitty jerk for a dad.

"Lemme just show you," said the fox.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He blocked out everything else in the room but the table in front of him. He put his paws on it and clenched down hard.

A second later, he shot back in his chair like he'd been punched in the forehead.

Ruby stood up instantly, about to go over and see if he was okay. Several more of them had similar reactions. But when they saw the goofy, dizzy grin on the fox's face, they knew he was at least physically alright.

He pointed at Ruby, then Karen. "You two were in here earlier. You were making something out of construction paper and you sat directly across from her, right where Holly is now."

The girls both looked suitably stunned.

Then he pointed at Holly. "You came in here a while ago, not sure how long but at least a day, and you were reading a horror novel. Stephen King, I'm guessing?"

Holly made a little 'I'm impressed' sound. "He's right."

"Clifford came in last night and smoked a bit and farted a few times. Some other kid came in just before we did and drew some pictures. Might've been a fox. I don't think I've seen him before. There was some other stuff, but nothing else interesting."

Brad started to get it. His face lit up with comprehension. "The table told you all this somehow, didn't it?"

Benjamin grinned foxily. "Absolutely right! Give yourself a gold star."

"How?" Karen asked.

"All I know is I've seen it a few times on sci-fi shows and this one really bad movie I saw on cable once, but I don't know what they call it. I can get information from objects just by touching them. Anything! Well, almost anything. I'm kinda new to this.

"Basically, my whole life I've gotten these weird flashes where I'll be daydreaming and then I'll just *know* something about whatever my paw's resting on. It's usually so vague I don't really notice. I never made the connection until, like, a year ago. I'd just out of the blue *know* something. Just like if I'd read it out of a book. All of a sudden, I'll know the kid who sat in the same seat on the bus before me wets the bed at night. Or that whoever touched some bottle of soda in the grocery store last likes to collect salt shakers. Seriously! The salt-shaker one happened when I was eight, I think.

"Usually it's just boring stuff. Only on rare occasions would I get anything useful, like the bedwetting thing. Which I could've used for blackmail if I was a mean guy. Which I'm not.

"Then one day, I'm lying on my bed doing my homework, and I just *get* it. I felt stupid for taking so long to understand what was happening. It's kinda like... I dunno. It'd happen to me at such random times, I never thought much about it. I even thought maybe it was normal; that everyone got little flashes sometimes. Then all at once my subconscious mind must've connected the dots and *whammo*! I knew everything!

"So, I practiced my ass off. It's a little harder to do when I force it, and usually it all hits me in a rush when it does. But the stuff I *do* get, I remember forever. It's like I have a computer disk in my head. I touched basically everything at my school and I learned enough secret shit to keep me amused for the rest of my life. Like the fact that my seventy-year-old teacher keeps a vibrator in her desk."

Several of the others went, "Eeeewww!"

Ben continued on blithely. "There's other stuff I can do, too. One of the coolest is that if I go into a music store, I can just pick up a CD and listen to every song on it right while I'm standing there."

"Wow," Brad laughed, "I bet the RIAA must *hate* you!"

The fox chortled. His grin got positively evil, like a young supervillain in training. "You know what else I'm gonna use this for someday?" he asked everyone. "If I ever get out of here, I plan on becoming the greatest computer hacker in the history of the universe. I've been thinking about it; all I have to do is touch a CPU and I can know anything on it. My hands are now the greatest password-busters in the world." He held up his paws and wiggled his fingers dramatically.

"That is just too cool," Holly said, seriously envious of the guy.

"I swear I'm gonna kill you for not telling me this before," Tyler said. "Can you _imagine_ the trouble we could've been causing all this time!?"

Ben giggled. "Good point!" He looked to Karen. "I hope I can be useful to whatever you're trying to put together here," he told her sincerely. "Really, anything you need me to do, just point me in the right direction. I love showin' this shit off. It feels like an orgasm mixed with getting shot in the face when I really open myself up."

Though slightly queasy at that description, Karen nonetheless definitely valued his dedication. "Thank you, Ben. Really, I appreciate that."

He winced. "Okay, just don't call me Ben unless you have to. I think my full name sounds better."

She nodded. "I'll be sure to remember that."

Benjamin nodded and leaned back in his seat. "Well, that's about all I can think of for now. You wanna go next, Stinkoman?" he asked Victor, giving his striped friend a light fwap on the shoulder.

"Sure," the little skunk said bravely.


*****


     -VICTOR-

Though when he thought about what he'd actually have to *say* to them, Victor's courage melted quickly and he suddenly wished he'd never agreed to come here.

Karen noticed how quiet and frightened he suddenly looked. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked softly.

The little skunk fidgeted in his seat. His large, striking sea-green eyes resembled those of a deer trapped in a car's headlights. "I... Um. Is it okay if I just skip this?"

Several other kids protested. "You think *I* wanted to say all that shit that I did!?" Keith burst out.

Victor looked even more scared. "N-no... Please. I'm sorry, I'll just go. I don't even belong here. Really." He got up out of his seat and hesitantly started moving towards the door.

To the others' surprise, Holly got up and blocked his path. "C'mon. Sit back down."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me. I didn't know it was gonna be like this..."

The squirrelgirl put a soft paw on his shoulder. "I'm not mad. You showed me you can do *something*. And it's certainly unique. Though I don't know how many practical applications it'd have."

That was true enough, he thought.

"Besides," she said, "you've got everybody all curious now. You've gotta take your turn. We won't laugh at you. I promise. In fact, if anyone does, I'll give them a wedgie so bad they'll be shitting out of the back of their neck for a month."

Tyler discreetly held in a guffaw.

Victor didn't laugh, but he at least believed in her promise. "Fine," he said quietly.

He looked up at the rest of them and his eyes were suddenly filled with deep fear and anger. "But if any of you *do* laugh, or make fun of me, or even say *anything*, I'll run out of here and never talk to _any_ of you again!!!"

None of them expected his words to carry such ironclad forcefulness. He meant it completely, and they all knew he would not be forgiving of any slipups.

"I promise too," Ruby said earnestly.

Each of the others made similar pledges.

Only when he was absolutely sure they meant it did he relent and walk back to his seat. The young skunk was shaking. Like he'd just run a marathon or was narrowly missed by an oncoming truck.

Holly sat down too and waited for the skunk to start speaking. She thought he was just embarrassed about showing off his rather bizarre ability in front of the others.

Boy was *she* wrong...


     ~~~


Mr. Scarbough looked up from his morning paper. His ears twitched.

His teeth gritted.

His son had only been up for an hour and he was ALREADY doing it again!!

The tall skunk stormed though the house to his son's room, his footfalls sounding like thunderclaps. He shoved the door open so furiously he ended up splintering the wood.

Victor looked up, tears in his eyes. He was holding the homework he'd worked all night on in one hand, a black crayon in the other. The paper was utterly decimated. He'd obviously been scribbling on it so hard he'd even tore it in places. Still crying, Victor could not stop himself from shouting, "The fucking bastards won't stop! They won't fucking leave me alone, Daddy! It's not my fault!!"

"The HELL it's not!" he raged, barrelling into the room and snatching the ruined paper out of his son's hands. "Look at this! LOOK at this! You're going to be getting another 'F', you little screwup! What the hell is wrong with you!? How many times do I have to tell you to cut this crap out!?"

"But it's not ME!!" Victor wailed. Tears flowed from his eyes so hard he could barely see. All he'd done was take the paper out to look at it. Just to check his answers again for mistakes. And before he knew it, THEY were at it again. The crayon was in his hand so fast he didn't even see it happen. He was sure they had made him put it in easy reach the night before and then made him forget about it. THEY were sneaky little bastards, oh yes. And as stupid and cruel as he knew they were, he also knew they could plan things like this out for weeks if they had to.

Mr. Scarbough hauled off and backhanded the boy.

Victor fell on the bed, snot spewing in a wide arc from his nose. He cried out, just once.

"When are you going to learn to take some responsibility?" His father bellowed. "*You* ruined your homework! You, you, YOU!! Are there any other little boys in this room, huh!? Do you see anyone else? All I saw when I came in here was you holding that goddamned crayon and swearing at the top of your lungs like you always do!!"

Victor tried to prop himself up, but his arms were shaking too badly to support him. "Dad, I've *told* you! It's not like that! Those rotten little assholes make me do it! They get inside my hands and my brain and they MAKE me! And they're laughing at me right now because they got me to make you mad at me again!"

The elder skunk growled in mortal frustration and clutched his head in his hands. He spoke low and furious; "Victor, I have had _enough_ of this. No one 'made' you do anything. I know you're messed up in the head, but the only furson who can make you do anything is yourself. Now, I am going to work in ten minutes and you are going to school. You are going to walk up to your teacher and tell her YOU drew all over your homework with crayon. Then you are going to ask her politely if you can have a chance to do it over again. And if I hear another WORD out of you until I get home tonight, I'm gonna... I'll... I'll take away your stuffed animals!!"

"NO!!!" Victor shrieked. Oh God, if Dad did that he'd have no way to control it at all! If he couldn't curl up in bed and cuddle his plush friends to get away from THEM for a while, then they'd be free to attack him whenever they felt like!

He jumped up off the bed and ran to his father, hugging him around the waist and pleading more fiercely than he had in months. "PLEASE!!! You can't take them away! They're the only thing that makes it stop for a while! Please, Dad, please! Anything else! Ground me, take away TV, spank me, *punch* me, just don't take my stuffed animals!"

Mr. Scarbough was struck by the outright terror in his son's voice. This was not the usual begging for mercy over a punishment. It was like he'd threatened to _kill_ the kid.

His anger dulled, and he felt ashamed of himself. Jesus, even if it was annoying as all hell to listen to him screaming swear words all the time, his son still obviously had some kind of mental problem and it wasn't fair of him to just expect the kid to turn it off like a switch. He'd been finally convinced months ago that even if he didn't believe in 'them', Victor certainly did. It was not an act, or a cry for attention, or anything selfish like that. It was an honest-to-god mental illness. And if he were to be honest with himself, he was scared to have to face that. He did not want to accept the fact that, sometime after his wife's death, his son had somehow acquired some kind of paranoid delusional psychosis.

His paw shaking, Mr. Scarbough reached down and softly patted Victor on the head. "I... I'm sorry, champ. You know I'd *never* punch you. In fact, it was wrong of me to slap you like that. _Very_ wrong. I know I shouldn't. But I just can't stand it when you..."

Victor nodded. "Daddy, I know. I know how mad you get. And *I'm* sorry. I don't mean to yell, it just starts coming out and I can't stop it!"

The little skunk thought that was the worst part of all about THEM. Their worst crime. How it wasn't just him they tortured, but his father too. How they'd just keep poking at him and drilling and pinching and kicking and driving him crazy. Like an invisible man standing behind him all the time, always jabbing him in the back with a sharp pencil. He'd reach the point of not being able to control it any longer and he'd just lose it. He'd curse them. THEM. Those evil, evil little bastards, whatever they were. And he couldn't help the swearing either. He knew it was wrong, and he never, ever said bad words like that in public, but there were simply no other words to use. He _had_ to use the very worst words he knew to let THEM know how much he hated them. How much he wanted them to just leave him and Daddy alone. How much he wanted to split his own head open and dig around inside till he found them, and then just pound them and pound them and pound them with his fists until they finally stopped tormenting him forever.

...And of course, eventually his father would come in yelling like this, and Victor would realize he'd hurt his Daddy again. And oh, how THEY would laugh.

"I know it's hard..." his father said softly, giving his dear, sweet boy a soft pat on the back. He knew Victor tried. He knew his son was polite and generous and smiling and kind almost all the time otherwise. Then sometimes, seemingly out of the blue, he would just... go insane. He would scream at 'them' for hours. Usually it would start small. A muffled 'stop it' from behind the door, and they'd both hope that would simply be it. But it hardly ever was. Soon enough the whispers would grow in volume until his otherwise adorable little boy would be screeching the most disgustingly obscene language imaginable at the top of his lungs. Sometimes just the swearing alone was enough to terrify Mr. Scarbough. He could not conceive of how a nine-year-old could possibly have such filth inside his head in the first place.

He knelt down and looked his son in the eyes, which were burning pink from all the tears. "Look, give me the paper. When you get to school, just act like you left it at home and I'll call your teacher from work and say I accidentally took it with me. We'll work on it together tonight and have it ready by tomorrow. How 'bout that?"

Victor shuddered and threw his arms around his father. He could only hope for a resolution like this one time out of a dozen. Maybe. If he was lucky. Usually they just screamed at each other for a while and he ended up getting punished. But he always did his best not to get angry with Daddy over it. THEY were using Daddy. Just like they were using him. It wasn't his fault, and it wasn't Daddy's either.

"I love you, Daddy," he said, sniffling. "I love you, I love you. I'm so sorry I'm like this. I don't wanna be. I want it to be like before Mommy died. That's when they showed up. I think maybe they're made out of bad feelings somehow..."

Mr. Scarbough stopped him. "Please. No. Don't say things like that. I can't listen to talk like that. Just... Just go to school, and do your best not to have another outburst tonight. Just work on tonight, for now. Please. I know you can do it."

Victor nodded. "I'll try my best, Daddy."

He took his son by the shoulders. "Promise me you won't have another outburst tonight."

Victor turned away, his heart feeling like it was full of broken glass.

"I can't..." he whimpered.

His father stood up, said nothing else, and left the room.

A few minutes later, Victor heard his car pull out of the driveway.

Victor dried his eyes as best as he could. Slowly, as if his whole body had turned old and brittle, he went about the rest of his morning routine. He put his backpack together. Ate breakfast. Cleaned up the dishes his father had left without putting away. Then he stood by the front livingroom window, watching the corner two blocks away for the bus to show up.

His eyes were glued on the street outside. Completely emotionless, he muttered under his breath at THEM.

"God damn I hate you, you stupid sonofabitching motherfucking cunt bastards. You rotten fuckin' dirty stupid lying fucking assholes. I'm gonna catch you someday and I'm gonna gouge out your motherfucking eyeballs and laugh at you, you little shit-bitches. You're never gonna hurt me and my Daddy ever again, do you hear me? You rotten filthy goddam cocksuckers?"

After a few minutes, the school bus came around the corner.

Victor got up and dashed out the door, making sure to lock it behind him.

He had no idea if Daddy would really call his teacher from work now.

     ~~~

Victor finished quietly, his voice wavering a little, and closed his eyes.

Nobody said anything for a very long time.

Benjamin finally broke the silence. "...Jesus."

"So, uh..." Brad tried to think of anything he could possibly say that wouldn't sound stupid or crazy or insulting. Finally he just shut his mouth.

Victor looked up, and saw in their eyes that none of them really believed him. They all thought like his Dad did; that he was just hallucinating or something. But they had no idea what it felt like. They'd never had to watch their own body betray them again and again and again, and snatch away every last single moment of happiness until he just wanted to find a deep well and jump in it and hope there was enough water in the bottom to drown in.

That's when he realized Keith was staring straight at him.

"What do they look like?" the fox asked quietly.

Victor was mildly stunned. No one had ever actually asked him that before. "Well... Um, I never really *see* them. I just know when they're there. Like an itch."

Keith registered no obvious expression. "Are they here right now?"

Victor shook his head. "No way! They almost always show up only when I'm by myself. I don't think they're afraid of other people, I think they just know that if they show up when someone else is around, I can say, 'Look! Look! It's happening!', and then maybe somebody'll believe me."

The fox nodded. "Like when an engine makes funny noises ...but not when there's a mechanic around."

Victor shot straight up in his seat, trembling in relieved excitement. "Exactly!!" he shouted, amazed that someone finally _understood_.

"You believe he's really got li'l gremlins living in his brain?" Benjamin asked Keith, more than a little skeptical.

Victor gave him a dirty look. But it'd take too long to explain how utterly dumb what he'd just said was.

Keith looked oddly calm. Contemplative. "I have no idea. But what he was talking about reminds me a lot of how I feel sometimes when I can't control my anger. I'm just curious what's going on."

The young skunk's face fell a little. "You mean you *don't* believe me?"

"I didn't say that either," Keith said shortly. "I'm just saying 'who knows?'."

"You're trying to be open-minded," Karen supplied.

Keith nodded. "Yeah."

To Victor, that was the most comforting reaction he'd ever gotten in his whole life. So he was still quite grateful.

"Um, I'm not saying you're nutzo either," Benjamin added, a little shamefully. "I mean, it *sounds* crazy. But I get psychic vibes from tables, so I guess I'm not one to talk."

Victor nodded. "Okay, I understand. Thanks."

Benjamin had an interesting thought. "Actually, why should someone automatically be labeled crazy for seeing little goblin-things floatin' around their heads? I mean, _millions_ of people believe there's a big invisible guy with a beard floating over *their* heads, and they're considered perfectly okay."

Tyler could not hold in a bray of laughter. "Good point! Though you could probably get your ass kicked if you said that in certain places."

"Oh, probably," Benjamin agreed.

Victor was feeling a little better now. While he'd never really expected anyone to believe him outright, at least no one was pointing at him and laughing, or looking flat-out repulsed. All things considered, this was really the best result he could've realistically hoped for.

"So, what's your secret power?" Brad asked.

The little skunk blushed and cringed. "Aw, no! Please! It's really stupid and it'll just be embarrassing now!" he whined.

"I'm sure it's not," Karen said, trying to sound reassuring.

"Um, actually..." Holly said, wincing a bit. "I think you'd better listen to him this time."

"Why? Does he turn into a pineapple or something?" Tyler asked.

She gave him the usual scowl. "Be quiet. Or else I will sit on you. Seriously."

Brad leaned back in his chair to jog Victor's shoulder a little. "Come on. It can't be that bad. I let Keith twist my foot around, and that was kind of embarrassing."

"Yeah, I wanna see it," Sherri said, her curiosity piqued.

Victor shut his eyes tight and groaned. 'They're gonna make me do it no matter what...' he told himself. "Alright! Geez... Someone think of a song."

"Should we tell you what it is?" Benjamin asked, thinking he was gonna guess it. Like, well, a card trick.

"Yes," the skunk snapped, sounding as if he'd rather be doing pretty much anything else in the entire world right now. "Just someone think of something!"

"Enter Sandman," Keith tossed off the top of his head.

"I don't know that one."

"Mary Had A Little Lamb?" Karen tried, going for simplicity.

"One that's NOT embarrassing!" Victor pointed out.

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?" Brad ventured, mostly joking.

Victor shrugged. It was do-able. "Okay. My dad's got that record somewhere." He concentrated, then lifted his tail. "Listen."

Some of them figured out what was about to happen a split-second before it did.

     frrt frrt, frt-frt-frt, frrt frrrrrt frrrrrt frrrrr-rt
     frrt frrt, frt-frt-frt, frrt frrrrrt frrrrrt frrrrr-rt

The whole table went nuts.

Tyler laughed so hard he nearly wet himself. Holly groaned. Rubiella thought it was the funniest thing ever. Keith tried very hard to keep a straight face, but failed. Brad fell out of his chair. Karen gaped, open-mouthed. Sherri looked like she'd just drank milk past the expiration date. Benjamin was sort of staring and vibrating with silent laughter.

Victor buried his head in his arms and wished God would just drop something heavy on him, like a 747.

Tyler, barely able to talk from laughing so hard, so hard he was actually *crying*, pounded on the table in Karen's general direction. "Oh please! Please promise mee-hee-hee-hee! Promise me that if you, you decide to throw any of us out of, of, of your little superhero gang, that h-he stays in. He _has_ to! He's my he-hero! Tee hee! I nominate Victor as the greatest single living being ever to walk the Earth!!"

Victor heard that and couldn't help a little smile. Sure, they were gonna tease him endlessly about this. But he'd much rather the teasing be about this than THEM. And at least this meant they accepted him. So, really, it wasn't all bad.

'You can call off the 747,' he thought.


*****


     -TYLER-

When the laughter had died down a bit, all of them began to realize something. Eight stories had been told so far, and there were nine of them present. That meant there was only one left. And slowly, all of them turned to look expectantly at Tyler, knowing somehow that his was probably gonna blow all the others away.

The mouse grinned like a housecat who'd just figured out how to open the door on a birdcage. He had them in the palm of his paw now. There was a reason he hadn't volunteered to tell his own story yet. He wanted to go last. To stop the show. And while some pretty freakin' incredible tales had come before him, he was still fairly certain he could top 'em all.

"Tyler...?" Brad said in a curious purr. "Is there something you'd like to share with the group?"

The young mouse leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, tail swishing lazily behind him. "Mmmmmmaybe..."

"Knock off the suspense, rat fetus," Holly jabbed.

Tyler giggled. Holly could pretty much insult him forever. It was like getting to watch a master composer at work.

Tyler was keyed up. It was hell trying to keep up the appearance of being calm. Inside him, his heart felt like boiling hot espresso had been poured all over it. Like he had itching powder in his veins. Like his brain was full of 33 rpm records set to 78. That feeling of everything being TOO MUCH. Sometimes he hated this feeling, but other times he found it could be harnessed, and used.

The grey mouse turned to Benjamin. "You like card tricks? How 'bout I show you one of mine?"

The fox grinned at the friendly challenge. "Okay, sure."

Tyler sat up straight and cracked his knuckles. He'd had the idea for this somewhere during the middle of Sherri's story and knew instantly it was a good'un. He addressed the whole table in a polished-sounding stage voice. "Alright, I want everyone to take a facedown card, look at it, then memorize the hell out of it. Then hold it behind your back, facing away from you. Everyone got it?"

They all picked cards. Ruby stared at hers with the solemnity of a bomb disposal technician. She knew her memory was as weak as runny oatmeal sometimes, and she really wanted to help Tyler do a neat trick.

One by one, eight cards were hidden from sight. None of them doubted that this would not be an ordinary show of sleight-of-hand.

Tyler reveled in expectation of their reactions. He readied himself, his eyes shining like diamonds. "Okay, folks. I'm sure you've all guessed why my parents sent me here; I'm hyper as a fruit fly at the bottom of a Coke bottle. Actually, my parents are really, really, really cool and nice and *I'm* the one who told them I wanted to come here. They were about to throw the brochure away, saying I didn't need to get locked up in a nut house. But shit, I thought maybe the doctors here could give me some drugs to help me sleep. Seriously, I'll bet I have as many bad nights as you do," he told Karen.

She chuckled and gave him a 'not bloody likely' look.

"I actually convinced Mom 'n Pop to send me here! Bad decision, huh? Least I met the rest of you mutants, so it's not totally hellish. The *point* is, I could go on and on and tell my life story, but it really isn't all that interesting. Typical Tyler day: Get up, eat a shitload of cereal, go to school, have teacher yell at me five hundred million times for not paying attention, come home, watch cartoons, go to bed and lie awake for five or six hours while my brain impersonates a tornado. Repeat ad nauseam."

Many giggles. God, Tyler loved the sound of laughter. Laughter just made a furson feel good, like a tiny little spiritual enema. He felt honestly proud to be so good at giving people that feeling. "So, without further ado... my card trick."

He put his hands flat on the table, as Benjamin had, and sat up even straighter. He looked like he was waiting for a sign from above.

Everyone watched carefully.

Then suddenly, Tyler's head pitched forward and landed on the table with a loud *THWACK*. His body went slack as a popped balloon.

Karen gasped, holding a paw to her mouth.

"Tyler?" Ruby asked, sounding quite scared.

"Is he okay!?" Victor shouted worriedly.

"I hope so," Brad replied. "He did this the night I came here. Scared the shit out of me."

They continued to watch Tyler's completely motionless form, hoping that this was part of the trick, that Tyler had *meant* to do this, rather than that he'd suddenly had a heart attack or an aneurysm or something and was now dying right there in front of them.

Just when their unease was at its peak, the mouse's head popped back up, still smiling as brightly as ever.

"Woooo, boy!" Tyler shouted. He rubbed his forehead a bit.

"Didn't that hurt!?" Brad asked.

"Not too much," Tyler responded. He put his paws down, blinked a few times, stretched his facial muscles and seemed okay again. Like putting on an old jacket again to see if it fits. "I think my forehead's one big callus now from all the times that's happened."

"*What* happened?" asked Brad.

In lieu of replying, Tyler concentrated with all his might. He pointed intensely, first at Karen, then going around the room in a circle. "You're holding a green three. Holly's got a blue Reverse. Ruby's got a regular Wild. Sherri's got a blue seven. Keith's got a red Draw Two. Benjamin's got a red eight, Victor's got a green four, and you, Bradley my boy, have a blue Skip."

"You got it!" Brad said.

"Daaaaamn!!" Benjamin shouted, impressed as hell. He brought out his red eight and stared at it. "How'd you DO that!?"

Ruby, Karen, Holly and Victor also said he'd gotten theirs right.

Sherri and Keith looked at their cards, a little disappointed. Then they looked at each other's and realized what had happened. "You switched us," Keith said, holding up his blue seven. Sherri held up her red Draw Two.

"Aw, shit," Tyler grimaced. "I guess that woulda been too perfect if I'd gotten everyone's right. Sorry, but that was a heck of a lot to try and remember in such a short time."

"So how'd you _do_ it?" Benjamin asked again, knowing this was nowhere *near* the tricks he knew.

"Unlike most magicians, I do reveal my secrets," the mouse said smoothly. "Anyone here ever heard of astral projection?"

Holly's mouth drooped open. "No WAY. You little bastard! That's supposed to be only for people who've attained a higher spiritual consciousness! How the hell did a giggling slimeball like YOU achieve it!?"

He snickered in delight. "I have no damned idea!" he admitted. "I've never thought it was anything mystic or enlightening or any of that new age hoobledygoo. It's just like, whoever was supposed to superglue my soul to my body fucked up the job. So, just now, all I did was jump out of myself and run around the table, looking at all your cards. Simple, huh?"

"Lemme get this straight," Brad said. "When I saw you lying dead in your bed that night, you actually WERE dead!?"

Tyler shook his head. "Not exactly..."


     ~~~


The first time he'd watched his mother scream as she picked up his seemingly lifeless body had been a bit jarring.

He'd leapt back into it in a heartbeat, plenty scared himself, and had hugged her fiercely. "I'm okay, Mama! I'm okay!!"

"Sweetheart! What in heaven's name just happened to you!?" she shouted.

Tyler popped his thumb in his mouth. "I dunno," he mumbled.

He'd only been three years old at that point.

Tyler had never been able to accurately describe the feeling in words. It was moot though, since he'd never, until now, actually dared tell anyone about his strange ability. But when he felt the essence of his being; his mind, his spirit, his soul, his *Tylerness* (or whatever one chose to call it) simply slip out of his coat of flesh like a pea from a pod, he always felt a sweet, calming tingle come over him. A feeling of detachment, of freedom, of escape. It felt *nice* to simply exist as pure thought on occasion.

Fortunately enough, returning to his body felt pretty good too. Like coming into a warm house on a cold day. Like biting into a favorite food. Like snuggling up in a familiar blanket. It was neat to feel his soul settle back into all parts of his material form. He could feel his paws return to being like putting on rubber boots, and his fingers slide into place like winter gloves.

It was as natural to him as sleeping or peeing. Like taking apart Legos, his body and soul always seemed perfectly happy being separated for a little while. He did start feeling shivery if he was out if himself for more than half a day or so, but that had only happened a couple of times. Usually it was just in and out. Like 7-11.

And it was useful as a motherfucker too. For a clever tyke like Tyler, his gift allowed him unlimited opportunities for mischief.

Like the time his teacher had announced a surprise quiz on multiplication and division, and he'd realized to his horror that he'd completely forgotten to read the chapter on them that had been assigned as last night's homework. Thinking quickly, he pretended to be napping. Halfway through the test he looked at everyone else's answers, guessed which ones were right by how frequently they showed up, then returned to his body just as Mrs. Stick-Up-Her-Ass started yelling at him for not paying attention. He'd gotten a B+ and had repeated this same trick many, many times ever since.

...Like the time his parents made him go to that excruciatingly long and boring family reunion. After the only interesting part of the whole thing, dinner, he'd propped himself up as best he could, left his body, and then ran around all over the place, looking through people's stuff and shouting naughty words no one could hear. Just as he was waving his noncorporeal ass in his great aunt Thelma's face, he heard his Grandma point out how he'd fallen asleep sitting up and everyone 'awwwwwed' at how cute it was, like grownups always did. He quickly jumped back in himself, said something charming, and his parents both praised him highly on the drive home for how good and patient and quiet he'd been the whole time. They even caved in the next day and bought him that dirt bike he'd been wanting.

...Like the time those goddam Laudin brothers caught him after school and beat the living snot out of him for telling on them to the teacher after they'd pulled his pants down in the 2nd floor bathroom. Tyler merely had to jettison his consciousness and watch from a little ways away as, after punching their nemesis for a while, the two big dumb morons finally realized he wasn't moving anymore. Terrified they'd killed him, they tossed their prey behind some bushes and ran home like their pants were on fire. Tyler felt a few bruises here and there when he returned, but he knew there could have been a whole heck of a lot more if he hadn't bailed out in time.

...Like the time he figured out that, if he just watched invisibly over his dad's shoulder enough times, he could puzzle out the computer password and see what the heck was so gosh-darn secret about it. It turned out to be a treasure trove of really interesting porn. Tyler only ever looked at it when he was Dead Certain his parents were gonna be out of the house for a while, and he found it all very stimulating indeed. Sometimes he made popcorn.

...Like the time he'd wandered away from a particularly boring field trip to a historic military base and had happened to come upon the school bus driver sitting behind the wheel drinking Jack Daniels from a paper bag. Understandably alarmed, he ran back to where his body was enduring a godawful video presentation about some dumb war and told his teacher he thought he'd left his lunch money on the bus. Initially reluctant, she had agreed to let him go back and look, but only if she accompanied him. It couldn't have worked out better. She caught the driver red-handed and he ended up getting fired over the phone less than half an hour later. The teacher told Tyler how lucky they all were that he'd picked that particular moment to ask to be excused. All he could think about was what they might have crashed into had he not.

...Like the time he'd let his parents send him to a mental hospital, and how he rather enjoyed pretending to take a nap on occasion, while really he was creeping about from room to room to peek in everyone's dressers. He'd never found anything more scandalous than a few cigarettes, and once a condom, but it was really the thrill of being naughty that excited him most. He'd been just on the verge of checking out his latest roommate's belongings when Brad had woken up, noticed his seemingly dead body, and went apeshit. Tyler'd jumped back into himself just in time to make sure the guy didn't have the nurses call a coroner on him.

That, and a million other moments, made up Tyler's unusual life.

If it wasn't for the daily releases his strange gift allowed him, Tyler surely would have gone completely crazy by now. He'd been hyper even longer than he could remember being able to split himself. And sure, sometimes that had its perks. His teachers were always going on and on about what impressive energy he brought to art projects and creative writing and other things of that nature. But the pain it caused him far outweighed the rewards. If the process didn't come with such unpleasant side effects, Tyler thought he might hypothetically agree to a lobotomy just to see what calmness felt like.

He was a much lonelier boy than anyone around him would ever guess. Yes, he was charming and funny and always good for a laugh. But everyone, from relatives to classmates, always saw him as nothing more than an entertainer (either that or a goofup). To them, he was just a doll that would say something funny whenever you pulled the string in its back. While Tyler did enjoy making people laugh more than almost anything else, he was always reminded of that Aesop story about the hare with many friends. The one who, in the end, found out that none of them were friends he could actually *count on*. Sure, just about the whole school liked him, but were any of them more than merely acquaintances? Could he sit down with any of them and have a serious discussion about how hard it was sometimes to concentrate on some mundane, everyday task? Did he trust any of them enough to know that they could see beyond his grin to the actual furson inside? Hell, would he even feel comfortable asking any of them to borrow five bucks?

The answer, sadly, should be obvious.

So Tyler was forced to be his own best friend, letting his imagination blossom into something grander than anyone around him had ever suspected. He lived whole other lifetimes in his head. He created other personalities, wove tales from other dimensions, invented imaginary friends. To keep himself from going hopelessly batty, Tyler fully utilized the vastness of his overproductive mind to explore all the things he would never get a chance to grasp hold of in reality.

And too, there was always his gift to fall back on if his mind was feeling sluggish that day. Sometimes it was wonderful just to leave his flesh tucked in bed and go running through town, free as the wind. Often he'd quietly watch people going about their daily business and wonder what kinds of lives they led. Sometimes he'd just stare off into the sky and feel gratitude to whatever unseen force had given him this power.

Controlling it had never been a problem, but learning to control the consequences of it sometimes had. He'd started out doing it as a toddler. He'd been a bit sickly as a baby and his arms and legs weren't very strong. Walking was possible, but difficult. And annoying. After getting frustrated at falling on his face for the hundred zillionth time, young Tyler had finally just stomped out of his body in a huff to go watch TV. Only after he'd done it, and looked back to see his material self lying as inert on the floor as one of his stuffed animals, did he panic. This was Not Normal. Even as a three-year-old he somehow instinctively knew that. A lot of his fear was soothed when he found he could get back *into* himself just as easily. Nonetheless, he decided that whatever this was, he should probably be careful with it.

He'd scared his parents dozens upon dozens of times. It took them years to get used to the fact that their little boy would just suddenly lapse into a coma-like state for no apparent reason every now and then. They'd sent him to more doctors than you could fit in a semi truck. None of them had any explanation. Narcolepsy was the usual diagnosis, but they almost always acknowledged that it was like no form of the condition they'd ever seen before.

The worst was when he'd go off for a while and someone would find his body before he got back to it. One time he'd been doing homework and had all of a sudden gotten totally sick of it. He discorporated and went off to go run around naked in the streets for a while and let cars drive through him. (Though he didn't actually have a body in his soul-state, he could sort of *sense* the invisible outline of one. And yes, it was wearing only fur.) When he finally came back after a refreshingly aimless fifteen minutes or so, he found his mother cradling his physical half in her arms as she and Dad had a very loud, angry argument over whether or not to drive him to the emergency room. Feeling like a total ass, Tyler reinserted himself and instantly gave his mom a hug. Though they badgered him for hours afterwards, he insisted again and again that he never worried he'd somehow get stuck in his 'sleeping' state. He told them also that, aside from the occasional bumped forehead, he always felt fresh and relaxed after he 'woke up'.

Tyler *did* worry a little bit about it sometimes though. Anyone messing around with something supernatural they know nothing about eventually does (as they should). But the big split _never_ happened accidentally, and for that he was intensely thankful. If it ever did though; if he ever found his spirit suddenly squirted out like a peach pit without him wanting it to... He had no idea what he'd do then. He hated the thought that he might be overusing whatever it was. But his usual argument for that was that muscles don't get worn out the more you use them, and skills don't fade away the more you practice.

Though he often used his powers for relatively mild evil, he was a good mouse at heart and never, ever did any of the worst things he'd considered. Sometimes he'd daydream about the most outrageous ways he could corrupt his gift. He could become a spy and sell out the government. He could case banks and later rob them. He could hang around in girls' dressing rooms and see their boobies. But those things were only fun to fantasize about. Though he doubted he could ever get caught, morality demanded he keep things strictly on a prankish level and go no further.

Tyler was not really a spiritual furson, but if there was a God, he definitely didn't want the guy to be pissed at him.


     ~~~


Holly, on the other hand... 

"You Looked Through My *Stuff*?" she snarled, grinding out the words like flattened tin cans, starting at him with nuclear fire in her eyes.

Tyler chuckled ingratiatingly. "I didn't touch anything," he weakly defended.

"*Can* you touch anything when you're in that state?" Brad asked.

He shook his head. "Nope. I'm pretty much a ghost. I've tried though. I mean, how cool would it be if I could make people think objects were floatin' around all by themselves? I could hold fake seances and get filthy rich!"

Brad was conflicted. He understood now what had been going on his first fateful night, but was a little mad at Tyler for attempting to snoop though his stuff (as they all were). 'He's probably already done it for real by now,' he thought with annoyance. But Tyler had 'fessed up and admitted it, which took some courage. And Brad honestly didn't think he could stop himself from doing the same damn thing if he'd been able to pop his soul out too.

Benjamin thought about it practically. "You know..." he said to Tyler, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with his index finger. "If I ever do become a hacker, and you teamed up with me, we'd be unstoppable."

"I think I'd like that," Tyler said, grinning and rubbing his hands together like a criminal mastermind. "Of course, isn't the whole point of this meeting that we *all* team up and do evil shit?"

"Not evil," Karen quickly corrected. "Just... necessary, I guess. You *do* want to get out of here before they find a drug to give you that'll stop you from being able to do your soul thing permanently, right?"

Tyler shuddered. "Fuck yeah!" he shouted, the very possibility scaring the hell out of him. 

The others were thinking much the same thing. Even if their powers were embarrassing or scary or maddening at times, at least they all knew that they did not want them to be stolen away by a bunch of crazy doctors.

Just as Tyler was about to tell Karen about the time he'd blown the principal's mind by casually telling him everything he had in his desk drawers, Victor, who was leaning back in his chair a bit, went nuts. "Someone's coming!! A big tall guy! He's gonna catch us!!" he shouted, flailing his arms around over his head.

Everyone quickly grabbed handfuls of Uno cards and pretended to start playing again. They'd all forgotten long ago to keep up the illusion and one by one they winced as they realized this.

Just as Monsoon came into view, Tyler had an idea. Thinking quickly, he manufactured a fake punchline for purposes of subterfuge. He shouted out loudly, "...so then the robot says, 'That's strange. Teddy bears don't shoot out of MY ass when I eat pants!'"

The whole table broke up, most of them laughing at the sheer weirdness of what he'd just said. Fortunately, it came naturally enough to not sound forced.

Monsoon wasn't really fooled though. He'd been sneaking intermittent glances at the hallway mirror for hours and, while thankfully he had not seen Brad's foot trick or Keith's fireball, he _had_ seen a bunch of kids talking rather intently about something or other while their Uno cards laid idle on the tabletop.

Not that he really cared. Even if they were in here badmouthing this place, or the doctors or the nurses or even *him*, he didn't consider it any of his business so long as they weren't actually breaking any rules. That was all he was paid to do; stop the patients from causing trouble. So unless their talk later led to trouble, he had no problem with it for now.

"Hey guys, what's up?" he asked casually, leaning on the doorframe.

"Nothin' much," Brad lied nonchalantly.

"We're just havin' fun in here," Karen affirmed.

"Lots of fun!" Ruby added with a smile.

"What's new on your end of things, ya dirty screw?" Tyler said in a bad jailbird impersonation.

The mountain chuckled. "Just came down here to tell you all that dinner's in a few minutes. You guys've spent *hours* in here! You couldn't have been just playing cards all this time..." He said it with a smile, not really expecting them to tell him a damn thing about what had really been going on.

Holly thought that half a lie might help cover up the other half that was truth. "Actually, we've also been sharing stories. Past histories. Getting to know each other," she said, making it sound perfectly innocent.

"Yeah," Tyler added, "Like group therapy without the idiot holding a clipboard."

Monsoon *barely* restrained a smile at that. He didn't have that high of an opinion of Kimberly's mental facilities either.

"We've really been in here that long?" Victor marvelled to Benjamin.

"Yeah, dude. Take a look." The fox held up his watch and the skunk could barely believe his eyes. It had felt like no time at all.

"It's okay that we're in here though, right?" Karen asked Monsoon cautiously. "I just wanna make sure we can come back later, if we want."

He nodded reassuringly. "Sure, sure. Just be sure to clear out if any of the staff's got an activity scheduled in here. And the usual rules apply too."

The little raccoon breathed a sigh of relief. Being 'caught' by Monsoon was a whole hell of a lot better than being caught by either Clifford or Thurston. She thought that maybe they should figure out how to rig up a second mirror that would let them see the one in the hallway clearer.

"If you think you'll be back again, you can probably leave some of the cards here and put the rest back," Monsoon suggested. "You can't actually need that many."

Several nods. When they had been playing for real, the piles had gotten a little ridiculous and kept falling over.

"Well, finish up your game. I'll be calling you to line up pretty soon." He nodded to them and walked off, back down the hall.

He had no doubt in his mind they were up to some kind of monkeyshines in there, but something inside told him to just wait and see what it was before saying anything to his supervisors. Monsoon liked kids, and liked seeing them happy. Whatever that group had been doing in the art room, if it made Brad and Keith reconcile their differences, Holly and Tyler agree on something, Sherri actually join in, and all of them treat Rubiella like she was normal, he couldn't help but secretly approve.


*****


     -ZEEK-

The meeting had been an outstanding success!

Karen bounded down the hall to the dinner line, her heart practically singing in her chest. She even did a few amateur pirouettes and cared nothing for anyone else's reaction.

In the few scant minutes left to them after Monsoon had left, the Art Room Rebels had swiftly become all-business. Another meeting was suggested by Benjamin for after dinner, but Karen came down strongly against the idea. This wasn't just some secret clubhouse meeting; this was a life or death situation. Seeming overeager to get together just to play card games for hours on end would raise all kinds of suspicions in the staff's minds. Hell, Monsoon probably smelled a rat anyway.

Karen's decision was to hold another meeting tomorrow at the same time. After lunch. And in the meantime, they should all just sit at their regular places at mealtime, not talk to each other in the halls any more than normal, and try their best not to discuss *anything* that had gone on in here until tomorrow.

The nine friends had each sworn, one by one, to follow Karen's directives. None of them so much as asked about her unagreed-upon position of leadership. She just *was* their leader, as naturally as a tree grows from an acorn. In fact, Karen herself was the most surprised of all at how surprisingly comfortable the mantle of command felt upon her shoulders. As frightening as King's Orchard might have been, there was no denying it was bringing forth things about her she had never even suspected before.

Monsoon was standing by the doors, watching the children gather for their evening meal. He occasionally barked tired orders for some of them to straighten the line or stop horsing around. Karen skipped and danced over to stand by Holly. She was positively glowing. Holly whispered in her ear, complimenting her on a job well done.

Just after Monsoon finished his head count, but before he could give the signal to the desk nurse to open the doors, a young fennec near the back of the line felt a light go on inside his head.

An instruction. Or rather a vision. He had learned long ago never to disobey them. When his mind's eye saw himself walking over to stand behind some raccoon girl he'd never even met before, he did so without hesitation. He then awaited further instructions.

Karen regarded him, but was too wrapped up in her own happy astonishment to really do more than notice him.

Zeek did not mind. He seemed to have that effect on people anyway.


     ~~~


After the long walk down the stairs, P.A. declarations echoing around them like phantom sports commentary, Monsoon held open the cafeteria door, the children entered, and Zeek's purpose became clear.

He followed the raccoon into the B lunch line and stood very close to her.

Holly had just picked up a tray when Karen felt a small paw tap her on the shoulder.

She turned around and saw the fennec boy staring at her with eyes like diamond drills.

"Eat the burrito," he said solemnly.

Normally, she would have chuckled at that. But he'd said it so dead seriously, it actually unnerved her. Karen nodded shakily, assuming this guy was just another one of the *really* crazy ones. "Um, sure..." she mumbled and turned back around.

"Hey Karen!" Alf called out, waving to her.

"Alf!" she cried happily. She hadn't seen him at lunch or breakfast, and had just assumed he was off for the day.

"Good to see you. My Thursday shifts are a little screwy," the blue-topped fox explained. "Sorry again about last night," he said sincerely.

Karen laughed it off. "It's okay. I've had a lot more important stuff to think about than that. So what's edible today?"

"It's Mexican night," he grandly pronounced. "Either a 'fiesta burrito' or a chicken soft taco." His voice dropped a subtle octave. "The burritos are very good..."

"Yeah, but I don't like spicy stuff. Usually, I-" She stopped suddenly, and remembered the look in the fennec's eyes. How had he known what was being served before either of them were in view of the warming trays?

Feeling a little disjointed, Karen told Alf, "...Maybe I'll be adventurous today though."

Alf nodded, pleased with her decision. "Tell you what, I'll give you both. So if you don't like one you can eat the other." He started loading up her tray.

Had Karen not been watching carefully, she would not have noticed that the burrito Alf placed beside her taco was taken not from the pile of others, but from his *pocket*. She was about to protest that it'd have lint all over it, then realized there had to be some secret purpose behind such a bizarre move.

Alf handed Karen her food with a quietly shrewd glint in his eye. "Think of this as my way of making up for yesterday," he said.

She took the tray but gave him a puzzled glance before moving on down the line.

Zeek smiled silently to himself, not understanding what had just happened any more than Karen had. Really, what higher purpose could a burrito serve? Though at the same time, he acknowledged that whatever oracle sent the visions to him had deemed it crucial to events that would later follow. It was not his place to question.

It had never been wrong. That was why he trusted it. Whatever it was, it had Never Been Wrong. Though his extra sight was nearly always limited to the painfully near future (fifteen seconds had merely been a round estimate on his part), Zeek had come to understand long ago that whatever power was working through him could see on into infinity. It viewed the entire cosmic tapestry of existence as a whole, and he suspected it only gave out such tiny bits of information because that was exactly how much his mortal brain could handle without exploding.

"What'll it be?" Alf asked the pensive fennec cheerfully.

Not saying a word, he pointed out a burrito too. What the hey.


*****


     -KAREN-

Karen sat down beside Holly, with Brad and Tyler across from her. The boys were already devouring their burritos with gusto, while the squirrel nibbled her taco with more dignity.

"Honestly, you dips," she scolded them, "don't you remember puking your guts out on Tuesday? My rule is: when in doubt, leave the heavy shit alone here."

Tyler 'hmph!'ed. "That's it. You're totally not invited to our farting contest later tonight."

She groaned in disgust.

"We should invite Victor to that," Brad suggested.

"No way! He'd kick our butts!" Tyler returned.

"Karen?" Holly asked suddenly.

The raccoon was silent. Her burrito was in her paw, and she was staring at it with wide, unbelieving eyes.

They all looked at her.

"It's a burrito," Tyler said slowly, like a kindergarten teacher. "You put them in your mouth and eat them. Not a hard concept."

"There's something hard inside it," Karen said. "Like metal."

"What!?" spat Holly.

Carefully, Karen unwrapped the little bundle, understanding now that Alf had slipped something inside it, but having no idea what.

A glint of silver plastic. She gasped.

It was a cell phone.

Opening it up, she found a tiny note inside:

     This is for Brad
     BE CAREFUL!
     Try to get it back to me
     tomorrow at breakfast
     Good luck!

The four of them just stared at it for a while, totally unable to believe that some guy who served their food and whom they barely knew would risk his job for something like this.

Karen shoved it at Brad. "Take this. Hide it. Swallow it if you have to!"

The tomcat nodded. "You don't have to tell me that." Glancing up and noticing Monsoon's attention was far, far away, he slipped the shiny little device down the side of one of his socks. He didn't want it to make a telltale pocket bulge.

Brad sat back up and felt a sense of unreality smack him in the forehead. "I'm gonna be able to call my mom..." he uttered, sounding awed.

"How the heck'd he know about that?" Tyler asked, jerking a thumb in Alf's direction.

"I mentioned it the other day. After he spilled all those mashed potatoes on me," Karen reminded him.

"Right, right." Tyler nodded. "I *knew* I'd forgotten something. I'd been meaning to call you The Potato Queen about a half-billion times this afternoon."

Karen glared at him playfully. "You do and I'll have Holly floss her teeth with you."

Holly displayed her pearly whites, quite liking the idea.

Tyler chuckled. "Oh, so you've got an apprentice now, eh Madame Mascara?" he queried Holly.

She nodded and put her arm comradely around her roommate. "Between the two of us, you won't be safe anywhere, you maggot-sucking twerp."

The young mouse grinned. "Bring it on."

"I'm gonna be able to call my mom..." Brad said again in a daze.


*****


     -HOLLY-

Tyler had been quiet and thoughtful through most of the last half of lunch. This was a bad sign, Holly predicted.

Sure enough, as soon as they were all lined up and tromping up the stairs again, the annoying little cheese-eater squirmed through the line to fall in step directly behind her. She glanced back and did not like his grin.

Tyler waited until Monsoon was staring straight ahead. Then he leaned forward, cupping a paw to his mouth, and whispered in Holly's ear, "Yo momma's so stupid she had to hire a maid to teach her how to pee."

The squirrel let out a thin laugh-hiss between her tightly closed lips like a teakettle. Tyler had a point. And it was especially funny considering her family really *did* have a maid come by during the week. (Not surprisingly, Holly was the only one of the bunch the woman could stand)

Tyler bided his time, letting his prey think it had just been an isolated incident. Then he struck again. "Your sister's such a cunt, she brushes her teeth with tampons."

Holly clutched at the stairway railing, squinching her eyes shut and forcing down a sudden bray of laughter. "Eewww!" she whispered back. But as gross a joke as it was, it was also perfectly apt.

The mouse wasted no time to put in a third strike. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat. "Your grampa's so old he got syphilis from a mastodon."

Karen thought someone had yanked Holly's tail from how violently her friend suddenly pitched forward, looking like she was in horrible pain. But a glance at the utterly helpless grin on the squirrel's face told her she was trying her damndest to not start howling with mirth and rolling down the stairs like a rootbeer barrel.

Monsoon scanned the line behind him, then rolled his eyes. He had not heard Tyler's whisper, but he sure enough knew the sound of barely-contained laughter. Seeing whom it was coming from, and who was standing directly behind them, he didn't need to be a detective to put two and two together. He sighed. 'Geez, what I let these little furballs get away with...'

It is a testament to Holly's strength of character that she was able to get herself under control relatively quickly. "I can, and will, eat you if you don't shut up," she hissed back at Tyler.

Oh, but her tone of voice spoke volumes. Tyler knew he had her right where he wanted her. She loved it, and he knew it.

He waited until they were almost all the way up the stairs, creating a nice little false sense of security, before unleashing the atom bomb. "Your dad's such an asshole he burps farts."

It was the mental image that came after, more than the joke itself, that finally broke Holly's iron spirit. She could just picture her pompous, self-righteous father gearing up for yet another one of his endless lectures about what a disappointment she was to the family, then opening his mouth and having a great big 'FRAAAAPP' come out.

She leaned on the railing for support, giggling breathlessly, laughing so hard she could not produce a single sound. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. It was a miracle her legs still functioned and kept her walking.

Tyler smiled proudly. Mission accomplished.

She was so totally gonna kill him when they got upstairs.


     ~~~


Instead, as soon as they were through the double doors and free to socialize and make noise again, Holly whirled on Tyler and gave him a bone-crunching hug. Literally. Tyler felt like his elbows had punctured his ribcage.

"I love you. You're my best friend now," Holly said with a wide grin.

"Hey, you two..." Monsoon pointed out. "No touching."

Holly nodded politely and released her captive, who immediately took a huge breath.

Gasping and coughing a bit, Tyler searched around his throat and found his vocal cords still intact. "So, the way to get on your good side is to insult your whole family?" he asked, knowing perfectly well the answer already.

She nodded sweetly. "You didn't say a single thing that wasn't 100% true. Plus, I haven't laughed that hard in months. I'd kiss you if I weren't afraid of getting head lice."

"Aw, that's sweet!" Tyler replied.

It was just about then that Kimberly stepped forward (brandishing her clipboard, of course) with a very special announcement for all of them.


*****


     -BRAD-

For Brad, 'absolute torture' did not even begin to cover it.

Throughout dinner he'd been a glassy-eyed zombie, just feeling the weight of the phone in his sock, knowing it was there and not being able to use it, thinking of all the things he'd say to his mother and wondering how much, if anything, Dr. Beatrix had told her too.

All though the long trudge upstairs, Brad could feel the weight of it seeming to grow. Six fucking flights of steps. Feeling the phone jiggle in his sock over and over and over again. The hellish worry that it might slip out and clatter on the metal behind him and some other kid would pick it up and either tell on him or just steal it. The even worse worry that if it did fall out, it might go bouncing right over the edge and spiral down into blackness to shatter in a million pieces at the bottom. And then Alf would freakin' skin him alive.

Worries do not actually cause things to happen though, contrary to popular belief. Brad's trusty sock gave Alf's cell a cozy, safe ride all the way up to Ward F. Brad let out a gigantic sigh of relief and thought he must've lost about five pounds from sweating.

And then, just when he was about to run to his room and call his mom after over forty-eight hours of excruciating worry, here came that fucking mouse nurse with 'special group activity' written all over her! FUCK!!!

"Listen up, guys!" She called out cheerfully to the returning cluster of patients. "We've got a special group activity for you all right now in the TV room!"

Brad clenched his fists. 'ARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!' he thought.

Everyone pretty much had the same reaction as Brad's, though nowhere near as strongly. What grownups call 'fun activities', kids can always interpret as 'stupid boring pointless wastes of time'.

Kids descended on the TV room like slaves being called to an execution. Only one of them seemed really happy about it, and that was only because she had no idea what universe she was presently inhabiting. The reality-impaired little kangaroo girl came skipping down the hallway in her underwear. _All_ of her underwear. She was wearing panties for a hat, panties for socks, panties for a bra, panties for mittens and plenty more just for decoration. The second they saw her, several nurses all scrambled to gently nudge her back in the direction of her room while she hummed a happy tune. (She got to sit out the group activity though, so maybe there was a method to her madness. Probably not though.)

The TV room quickly filled up. Kids sat on whatever flat surface was available. Kimberly strode to the TV with the VCR beneath it and bent over to retrieve a video cassette. For many of the patients, the sight of her hot little ass in a tight skirt was the most entertaining part of the evening. "We've got a special treat in store for you kids tonight," she told everyone.

That word 'special' again. As in, 'the Special Olympics'. Many, many children suppressed groans.

Kimberly popped the video in and sat down in a plastic chair to watch it begin. "This is a very inspirational movie, and I think all of you should pay attention. You could really learn something from it."

Tyler nudged Brad and pantomimed vomiting down the front of his shirt. Brad was too pissed off to giggle.

"Mr. Takkalikeawayee, would you please turn out the lights?" Kimberly asked pleasantly.

Monsoon winced so hard he thought he might've fractured his skull. He REALLY wished she'd stop trying to pronounce his name. Everyone else on the entire staff had just tastefully given up and called him Monsoon. Even Dr. Beatrix had the balls to mispronounce it on purpose. But no, Kimberly believed quite strongly in valuing the rich heritage of other cultures, so she thought Monsoon would be grateful to her for her efforts in repeatedly garbling his family name. Instead, Monsoon often wondered what the fuck they were putting in the water supply of most college towns these days.

Someone asked to see the video box, and it was soon being passed around to everyone like a doobie.

Brad was trying hard not to scream. 'Calm down, calm down,' he thought to himself. It was only a movie. Just ninety minutes, two hours max. It might even be a good movie. Not very likely, but it might. Then he would be free to go call his mom to his heart's content. Just a little delay. No big deal.

Then Tyler handed him the video box and his blood rose about a thousand degrees.

They were going to make him watch a total piece of SHIT!!!

Brad had watched quite a few sports movies in his time, but he'd seen more than enough of them to know that for every decently made, truly moving film out there, there were about ninety million others that just rehashed the same old tired 'total-loser-somehow-magically-becomes-a-champ' plotline that had already been beaten to death decades ago. And what was significantly worse than all the other cutsey kiddy ones put together were the few bullshit adult versions of the exact same story that actually had the gall to present themselves as real drama. Pathetic, tearful, emotionally-manipulative, dime-a-dozen piles of steaming 'who the hell wrote this?' _crap_.

And, oh God, this one looked like the granddaddy of them all.

And to really put the cherry on top, it was about college football. Brad did not hate college football; he had just never really cared much about guys with necks the size of couches who got to be on the six o' clock news every night despite not being able to modulate their voices or string together a complete sentence.

As the stirring orchestral music began to swell amid the opening credits and a montage of old fake sepia-toned photographs of cheering fans in some random stadium, Brad could not keep himself from wailing, "This is gonna *suck*!"

Kimberly's head popped up, angered that someone would dare interrupt such an important movie. Why, it had even been nominated for three relatively minor film awards! "Who said that?" she asked sternly.

Pissed and not giving a shit who knew, Brad sat up and stared at her across the darkened room. "I did. I said this movie is going to suck."

"Well," she said huffily, "that's just your opinion. I'm sure there's a lot of other kids here who want to see this, so please be quiet."

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Kids can spot boring-as-hell grownup movies miles away. They stink like dust and old pants. And, too, a relatively mediocre movie can easily become Utter Garbage if you are forced to watch it against your will.

Brad crossed his arms petulantly. The phone in his sock seemed to thrum with the fact of its very existence. He forced himself to watch the film for a little bit.

Finally, he couldn't contain himself any longer. "Come on! That guy's gotta be in his thirties! There's no way he's a college student!" He'd spotted thirty-year-olds playing high schoolers in other movies too. Didn't anyone else *notice* these things before they released movies like this!?

Kimberly looked personally insulted. "I think he's a fine actor! That's what actors are supposed to do; play other people. Now, one more word out of you and I'll have Mr. Takalickawahlee escort you to the quiet room!"

Monsoon gritted his teeth with the force of a thousand tons.

Quiet room, eh? That gave Brad an idea. A delightfully sneaky idea!

He waited, just a little bit, then pointed out another glaring logical inconsistency. "If his family's supposed to be so poor, then how the heck's he going to a fancy college like this anyway?" he said, loud and clear and smugly.

The mouse with the clipboard snarled like she wanted to tear his cheeky little head off. "This is your last warning, young man!"

Brad smiled. "And didn't the guy who's playing the kindly old coach get arrested for drunk driving and beating his wife in real life last year?" he asked blithely, knowing it was perfectly true.

Her lip trembling fiercely, Kimberly simply pointed at the door. "OUT."

The young tom got up from his seat, doing everything possible to keep a straight face. He moseyed to the doorway and gave the rest of the captive audience a jaunty wave as he left with Monsoon's huge paw on his shoulder.

Benjamin turned to Victor. "The movie sucks, but the halftime show was interesting," he whispered.

The little skunk giggled silently.


     ~~~


Heading down the hallway to the quiet rooms, Monsoon could not keep a small smile from appearing on his face. "You must think you're pretty smart," he said.

"Yeah... Yeah I do," Brad replied.

The mountain opened the door of the soundproof room and was not at all surprised when the young tomcat stepped inside just as cooperatively as you please. He grinned. "Good. You are."

Brad chuckled and smiled back at him. "See you in an hour?"

The mountain nodded. 'Well played, kid,' he thought, and shut the door.


*****


     -TYLER-

As the movie dragged on, seeming to take six or seven hours, if not several weeks, Tyler seriously considered adopting Brad's plan and acting up so he could get sent to quiet room #2 and take a nap. Unconsciousness would be more mentally stimulating than this slapped-together smarm festival.

Eventually he decided upon amusing himself by staring at other people. He figured slipping out of his body wouldn't be a wise idea, what with everything they'd discussed in the meeting earlier. So far, he thought the hospital staff believed his sudden 'naptimes' were random, and he wanted to keep it that way. Of course, they could also already know everything about him through some weird psychic whatever. That was a scary thought. And regardless, it was best in a place like this not to use his power unless he really had to. He'd been goofing around with it way too much since he came here, he now realized.

The bored mouse's gaze travelled all around the room, from noticing how Karen was holding her tail like a plushie, to realizing that Holly actually had very cute feet. (You couldn't pry it out of him with a crowbar, but aside from really liking Holly a lot for being so smart and outspoken, he also thought she was kinda pretty.)

Then, without really intending to, Tyler's focus fell on Victor. He noticed something odd about the other boy. Though he seemed to be at least trying to watch the insipid movie, the young skunk kept flinching. Twitching. Like he was itching, or being poked.

Tyler at first thought Benjamin might be doing something to him, but the fox was off in his own little world, staring down at the blue glow of his watch and counting the seconds until the movie would be over.

Again, Victor twitched, and Tyler saw now that he was trying very hard to keep anyone else from noticing. As soon as he relaxed a bit, something made him jump and wince again. Tyler watched it happen a half a dozen times.

Remembering the skunk's story from earlier, Tyler had an unsettling thought: It looked exactly like some invisible man was standing just behind Victor and jabbing him with a sharp pencil every few seconds.

This bore further investigation, the mouse decided.

And later, his sense of something unseen going on was heightened dramatically when, the second the credits finally started rolling, Victor was the first one out of the room...

Running like something was chasing him...


*****


     -BRAD-

He punched in the numbers frantically. He'd never used a cell phone before. The buttons were maddeningly tiny and he had no idea if the signal could get through soundproof walls.

Brad had kicked the well-used mattress into the corner of the room, as far away from the door as possible. He curled up on it in a fetal position, his back to the door, looking like a donut in a blue shirt. He clutched his tiny silver lifeline tight. Even if the room was soundproofed (and maybe it wasn't either? Had he thought about that before? There might be teensy little microphones in here), he still didn't want to take the chance that someone passing by might peek in and see him talking.

After three failed tries, mostly because his paws were shaking so much, he got a ring.

"Yes! Yesss!" he hissed.

*ring*

*ring*

*ring*

Finally: "Maplewood residence. Who may I ask is calling please?"

Her voice! So wonderfully familiar! Brad started crying without even realizing it. "MOM!!!"

"B-Brad?" she said, sounding confused. She was about to ask him why in the world he hadn't called all this time, but the sheer heartbroken relief in that one word he'd spoken told her that this was not an ordinary call. "What's going on, honey? I've missed you!"

"I know, I know, I know, Mom. I was supposed to call Tuesday night after you dropped me off. I meant to, I really did. I just got busy unpacking my stuff and meeting my new roommate and some other people, and I was gonna do it after dinner, but..."

She knew him well enough to know what kind of a 'but' that was. "You got in trouble, didn't you?" she said with a sad sigh.

To her surprise, Brad reacted with frightful anger. "She didn't tell you about it!?"

"Who didn't? Brad, I've been worried sick! I've been waiting all week and there hasn't been a single call from you or the hospital or anyone! I've been checking the answering machine every five minutes!"

Brad held the phone away from him and drove his knuckles into his mouth to keep from screaming, 'That BITCH! That BITCH! That lying albino BITCH!!!'

"What's been going on up there? I thought maybe the phone lines were down. I've been checking the weather channel every day for tornado reports."

She could hear his sobs now. "Oh god, Mom... She lied to me."

"Who did, sweetheart? Who lied?" Her voice was fluttery with confusion. Hearing her son cry like that, her every instinct wanted to reach out and hold him.

"You're right, I got in trouble. The very first damn night I got here, I got in a fight with this kid named Keith."

"Oh, Brad..."

"Mom, please. Let me finish. And really, he threw the first punch. Honestly. But I kinda goaded him into it. See, there was this retarded girl, and he said something about her, and I got pissed, and the next thing either of us knew we were beating the shit out of each other on the floor."

Silence on the other end. But Brad could nonetheless hear her frustration in it.

"If it makes you feel any better, we got over it. Keith 'n me, I mean. We're actually almost friends now."

"Well, that's good," she said, and was in fact rather proud of him for that.

"Yeah, but the thing is, I got sent up to talk with Dr. Beatrix; the woman who runs the place."

"I think I talked to her on the phone a little bit Sunday night," she remembered.

"She's awful, Mom. Really. Seriously. This is _not_ like all those times I said my teachers hated me, or the principal was out to get me. This woman is a total psycho. Even though I apologized for fighting, she made me stay in my room the entire day on Wednesday. The Entire Day! I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to take a shower or not!"

Mrs. Maplewood blinked. Brad had a point, that did sound awfully harsh for a first offense. "Were you rude to her?" she asked.

"No, she was rude to *me*! It was creepy! I felt like she was actually getting turned on from humiliating me! You have to believe me, I'm not exaggerating. Her grin was just about the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life!"

Mom's brow furrowed with worry. Brad had spun wild tales about people who'd punished him in the past, but the difference here was that she had *never* heard him sound so deeply frightened before. Even though the static and the faintness of the connection, she could tell her son truly believed what he was saying. Plus, she knew anyway from how long she'd waited for this call, and from her own faith in her son, that something very wrong was going on up at that hospital.

"Then that morning, I got called up to her office *again*," Brad told her. "She said that I had to be punished for leaving my room in the middle of the night. Which was true, but only because I thought Tyler wasn't breathing! He's my roommate. And I honestly thought he was dead. I ran to the nurses' station, dammit!"

"She punished you for *that*?" she asked in a 'you have got to be kidding me' voice. "Are you sure you're not conveniently leaving anything out of this story?"

Her disbelief hurt, but he did not say a thing about it. He had earned it, from all the times he'd broken her trust in the past. Now he had to somehow convince her that he really WAS telling the truth, and get her to accept a story that was, quite frankly, crazy. "I promise I'm not. I _promise_, Mom! I promise on how much I love you."

That struck her hard. She knew without a doubt her little boy wouldn't kid around about that. Their love for each other was all they really had in the world. Despite a wealth of confusion and uncertainty, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "What happened then?" she asked in a gentle tone.

"She took away my phone privileges. Until Sunday!! All because I didn't follow her stupid instructions to the letter when I thought my new friend had fuckin' kicked the bucket in his sleep!"

She shook her head, wanting to believe him so strongly, but having a hard time thinking that the head of a child psychiatric hospital could possibly be so cruel.

"But the worst part... Mom, are you listening?"

"I am, honey. I am."

"The worst part is, Tuesday night she _told_ me she was gonna call you and tell you I got in a fight. And she LIED!! She never even told you about not letting me call you, did she?"

"No! I told you I haven't had a call from there since before I dropped you off. But, Brad, honey... It just... Just doesn't seem possible! Maybe there's a connection problem. Maybe she tried to call and I was in the shower or something."

"Yeah, but wouldn't she have tried to call back then?" Brad demanded.

"I... I don't know. Oh Brad, I'm so sorry. You sound like you're scared for your life of this woman. Is it really that bad there?"

'Jesus, if you only knew the half of it,' he thought bitterly. "Well, it's not ALL bad. I have made a lot of friends so far. Tyler's great. And one of the staff guys, his name's Monsoon, is actually really nice to me. But yeah, I am scared. I don't think Dr. Beatrix has anything against me personally, I think she just really enjoys messing with people's minds. Everyone here hates her. _Everyone_! Even the rest of the staff's afraid of her!"

It was a mistake not to tear up that goddam brochure, Cora realized. She'd known it then with a mother's infallible instinct, and this was her punishment for not heeding it; hearing the fear in her only son's voice and not being able to do a damn thing about it. "Sweetheart, do you want me to come and get you?"

Brad stopped, and took a deep breath. "I don't know." He didn't want to abandon his friends. Tyler and Karen and the others all needed him. He didn't think it was arrogant to believe that. If they were to try and rip this place open and show the world what Dr. Beatrix's real plans for them were, they would ALL need each other to do it. "I don't know," he said again, much softer this time.

"Well, I don't think I can get any time off until Monday morning at the earliest. Why don't you think about it and call me again Sunday night to tell me what you've decided?"

"Okay, Mom."

"And... Wait, how are you calling me right now then?"

Oops. "Uh, well... a friend of a friend kinda risked getting in huge trouble to sneak me a cell phone," he admitted.

"That explains why the connection's so awful," she replied. "You'd better thank this person, whoever they are. And don't you worry, I'm not mad at you a bit for disobeying your punishment and calling me. A boy ought to have the right to call his mother whenever he wants to. You're in a hospital, for God's sake, not a prison!"

The anger in Mom's voice gave Brad hope. He'd known all along where at least some of his righteous indignation came from; he'd always been amazed at how fiercely stubborn his mother could be when she thought someone was treating her kitten wrong. "I will thank them, Mom. I promise. And I'll call you on Sunday. Even if Dr. Beatrix says I can't, I'll find a way."

"Alright, sweetie. Good luck," she told him. "I get the sense you can't talk very long wherever you're at?"

"Yeah. Kinda. I'm in the proverbial padded room and I don't know when they might peek in on me."

She gasped in shock. "That's where they're keeping you!?"

A reassuring chuckle. "No, Mom! I just mouthed off a bit so I could get out of having to watch a dumb movie. I'll only be in here an hour. It's nice in here, really! I can scream all the swear words I want and the mattress on the floor's more comfortable than the one on my bed!"

It broke her heart that, as scared as he was, he was still trying to make her feel better with his humor. "Oh Brad... You just be brave, honey. I *will* come get you if you ask me to on Sunday. I don't care what anyone says. I'll drag you out by your feet if I have to. I'll beat off the security guards with my purse!"

Brad laughed warmly, knowing she could come pretty close to that if they really did try to stand in her way. "I'd kinda like to see that."

"You might, sweetheart. Promise me you'll stay out of trouble as much as possible from now on. And by that I mean I don't want some crazy woman heaping more horrible punishments on you."

"I understand."

"And if they come at you with any needles, you have my full permission to bite and kick!"

He chuckled. "Okay, Mom!"

He heard the soft sound of her kissing the receiver. "I love you, my sweet little troublemaker."

Brad did the same for her. "I love you too, Mom, and I can't wait to see you again."

"Soon, sweetie, soon."

"Okay. Probably best if I go now."

"Alright then."

"I love you," Brad said one more time, and clicked off the phone.

Trembling, he stuffed the cell back in his sock and held himself tightly, wishing it was his mother's arms he was in instead.


*****


     -TYLER-

By nine thirty, the staff expected all the patients to be in their rooms. The lights would go off at ten, automatically, no matter what anyone was in the middle of doing.

When the night nurse came by their room, Brad and Tyler both took their pills without complaint. She was surprised, knowing that these two could be rather rambunctious.

As soon as she was gone, the boys were both bent over the sink in the bathroom, trying to make themselves sick.

Tyler's pill shot out and scored a perfect little bullseye down the drain. Gagging a bit, he ran some water over his hands and mouth. "Learning to only swallow things halfway is an acquired skill," he told his comrade solemnly.

Brad nodded as best he could with his index finger all the way down his throat. He wondered why in the hell bulimics would subject themselves to something this disgusting every day. But after hearing all that stuff about Ward Zero and Always-Jimmy-Never-James getting shot in the head, there wasn't a chance in hell he was gonna trust these people to give him a pill that would actually *help* him.

Finally, up it came, along with about half a cup of burrito remains. Tyler whacked his friend on the back a few times as Brad coughed and spat, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. But the pill was clearly visible amidst the brown mess, so that was all that mattered.

Tyler rinsed out the sink while Brad gulped about six paper cups' worth of water. The mouse wondered how many other kids were going through this very same ritual right now.

Thus purged, the two boys went over to their beds to lie down. Brad picked up an issue of Stinger Force, having gotten almost all the way through Tyler's comic collection by now.

Tyler laid down flat on his bed like a corpse in a coffin. "I'm, uh... gonna be 'stepping out' for a little while now, if you know what I mean. So don't worry about me." Geez, it felt weird to actually warn someone about that.

Brad nodded. "You're not gonna look through my underwear again, are you?" he kidded.

Tyler smiled, but didn't laugh. His demeanor was uncharacteristically serious. "No. There's, uh, just something I kinda wanted to check up on. A hunch, I guess."

Brad arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. It might just be nothing." 'Not to mention I'd feel like an idiot telling you that I might actually believe Victor's story about THEM,' he thought. But he thought his soul separation trick probably had a lot to do with why he could see Sherri clearly when no one else could. He couldn't begin to guess why, but it just *felt* right. And if that was so, then maybe...

The tomcat nodded. "Okay. See ya whenever you get back." He'd already talked for a while with Tyler about his phone call to Mom, and right now he was feeling sleepy. He wanted no more adventures today. Just to read a bit of drivel and then black out for the night.

"Okay," Tyler replied. And with that, he closed his eyes and left his physical form behind.


     ~~~


It took peeking through several doors to make certain which one was Victor's. Actually, Tyler rather liked passing himself through solid matter. It was a really fascinating sensation to feel something else occupying the place where his body ought to be.

Six doors down, there was the little skunk. Sitting on his bed, already in his pajamas. Tyler thought someone must've been discharged just before Victor arrived, since the skunk didn't have a roommate yet. He'd thought Keith was the only one to whom that distinctive honor belonged. And maybe Ruby.

Tyler stepped into the room. He was used to other people not knowing he was there in this state, but it was still a little disorienting to have Victor staring practically straight through him.

The kid looked haggard. Like a thousand troubles were upon his shoulders. Like a man who's just witnessed murder. Tyler thought that Vic might know at least as much about sleepless nights as he did.

But he didn't see any little red devils floating around the guy. No gremlins, no hobgoblins.

Relieved, the mouse was about to leave and go back to his room. It was all just in the skunk's head, that was all. Just a delusion, Tyler thought. A nice, safe delusion.

Then he heard Victor cry out.

The skunk had meant to stand up, then suddenly pitched forward in a heap on the floor.

Tyler turned around and felt his entire being shudder in cold, unflinching terror.

There they were. Just like Victor had said. THEM.

He was seeing _THEM_.

Victor tried to stand up, and to anyone else it would've looked like he'd tripped again. But Tyler saw the truth. The little bastards had pushed him. And now they were giggling in glee.

There were two of them. They were unspeakably ugly. Unspeakably *wrong*. So utterly alien it hurt Tyler's brain to acknowledge they were there, that he was really seeing something that looked like it could only exist in a fairy tale or a horror movie.

They were fat. Floating in the air like little ghastly fairies. Their leathery skin was the color of shit, and if they'd had a scent, Tyler was sure they'd have smelled like it too. Their limbs were long and spindly. Their fingers and toes were sharp little tree branches. Their noses stuck out like long, bumpy pickles. Their hideous grins nearly split their whole heads in half with hundreds of piranha-like crooked teeth.

Their eyes were bad; little yellow nubs stuck in sunken folds of flesh. But that wasn't the worst. The worst was the fact that they were 'anatomically correct'. More than that, their pendulous genitals stuck out like grotesque baboonish caricatures.

They were laughing at Victor. Laughing at this poor little crying skunk boy who they'd been harassing and terrorizing for *years* with no one to believe in him. They had driven Victor's father almost to the point of wanting to smother his own son with a pillow just so he wouldn't have to listen to him anymore; vulgar cries of rage and pleading that he *thought* were only the ramblings of a diseased mind. He couldn't allow himself to believe, or even consider, that his son was telling the truth about THEM. To do so would be to allow himself to go mad.

Tyler felt pretty close to madness himself. He had never felt revulsion like this before in his whole life. These disgusting, filthy little _things_ were so utterly, incomprehensibly repulsive, he thought he would've gladly jumped into a vat of manure just to escape from them.

Victor had said he thought they were somehow made of bad feelings. Tyler knew now what he'd meant.

And what he must do.

They didn't notice him, and that was very, very good. THEY were so used to going about their work without interruption that they never even considered there might be another soul in the room with them, watching their atrocities.

Giggling like high-pitched infant demons, they started in with their favorite game; stabbing the boy with their knifelike claws and watching him jump.

Victor felt the tiny pains appear all over his body. His back, his tail, his legs, his sides, his crotch. He waved his arms all over, knowing it wouldn't do any good. He was crying so hard he couldn't see. Weeping from hopeless, helpless desperation.

Not thinking, not doubting, not daring to consider the consequences, Tyler 'felt' the edges of his spirit-body and reached out at THEM.

They squealed in shock as invisible hands clutched them harshly and *squeezed* without mercy.

If Tyler's spirit form had had eyes, they would have been pouring tears. Just the *touch* of their filthy bodies was like plunging his hands into the most germ-laden toxic sludge imaginable. "Die, you horrible fucking things! Jesus Christ, just DIE!!!" Tyler screamed.

Victor looked up. The pain had suddenly stopped, and he thought he'd heard a muffled, indistinct voice. Though he had no idea who it belonged to. An angel?

Moaning in unimaginable disgust, Tyler struggled to hold on to the slimy little monsters. They were defecating all over themselves, trying to make their squat bodies too slippery to hold. They shrieked and mewled at the top of their lungs, their voices sounding like teapots whistling, like baby rabbits being stomped on, like a dozen knives dragged across sheet metal...

Screaming for the sake of his own sanity, Tyler squeezed with all his might, feeling THEM crush and ooze and writhe in his hands. Feeling their insides come out. Feeling them burst like water balloons full of dog food. Feeling them _die_.

Their death-wails were beyond the description of any mortal mind.

Even when they finally stopped making those awful noises, Tyler could not allow himself to take any chances. With the strength and speed of a madman, he began ripping the bodies up into gruesome wet chunks, flinging the ragged bits of not-flesh everywhere. Their insides were jet-black, as if they were full of raw oil. They didn't even have any bones. Tyler tore and shredded until there was not a single scrap left, and the arms of his spirit-body were coated thick in gelatinous, sticky ichor.

Panting, though not physically exhausted, Tyler willed himself to become only a collection of thought again. The black blood simply fell through him and spattered on the floor.

Victor was looking all around the room. He knew that something monumental had happened here, right in this very room, and he hadn't been able to see any of it. But the pain had stopped. The pain had just *stopped*, and that had *never* happened before!

Tyler ran out of the room, straight through the door, down the hall to his body. He checked carefully for any of that awful stuff still on him before joining his two halves again. God, even though he knew it was all gone, he could still feel the lumpy, oily warmth of it on his nonexistent skin. Like baby birds ground up into paste. Like vomit mixed with rubber cement. And that had been *inside* of them!!

Brad jumped back a little when Tyler suddenly sprang to life across the room from him. The mouse's eyes were wide with fear. Like he'd just seen a ghost.

Tyler got up and went immediately to the door.

"Hey, where're you going?" Brad called out. "You're not supposed to..." Tyler hadn't even looked at him.

The mouse blazed down the hall, not caring a damn if any of the nurses saw him. He stopped at Victor's door and banged hard on it, twice.

A visibly shaken skunk answered. "What?"

"I killed them," Tyler said simply, panting hard. "I killed them."

Victor's face lit up in almost incomprehensible joy. He couldn't contain himself. He flung himself at Tyler and hugged him tight. "I *thought* so!! They just... Went away! All of a sudden! And I thought I heard someone else there, fighting them! That was you!" Both of them were crying, but for different reasons. Victor from relief, Tyler from horror.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Victor whispered. "No one's ever believed me. I didn't even believe myself sometimes. And now they're gone! Jesus, Tyler, THANK you!!"

The young mouse broke away from the hug. He felt weak and disoriented now. He was proud of what he'd done though, even if he also knew he'd had no choice. Those things had been so mindlessly, gut-twistingly evil, he didn't think any living being could have possibly encountered them and not attacked. They were simply too _wrong_ to exist in this world. Too alien. Too *eldritch*. Like all that weird shit H. P. Lovecraft wrote about. Something so horrifically different from him that every instinct in Tyler's body had demanded that it cease existing immediately. The universe simply could not allow something like that to live.

Victor looked at Tyler with blue-green eyes as wide as saucers. "I owe you everything now. You pretty much saved my life. I'll do anything you want. Ever."

Tyler shook his head. "That's okay. Just... Just tell me if they ever come back again. I need to know they're gone for good too."

Victor nodded in complete understanding. The revulsion Tyler was feeling now was something he'd grown to live with every day of his life. He knew it was not a pleasant feeling.

Still, the little skunk managed a grateful smile. "Hey, how 'bout a free concert? Whenever you want. All requests!"

It took Tyler a second to realize what that meant, and then he found the strength to chuckle. "Yeah, okay. That sounds okay."

"You'd better go before the nurses see you," Victor said.

Tyler nodded. "Yeah, well. Goodnight."

"Goodnight. See you at the meeting tomorrow."

Tyler nodded again, and walked off down the hall.

He was almost to his room when the night nurse looked up from her paperback romance novel. "Hey! What the heck are you doing out of your room!?" she exploded, flustered and angry more at herself for not noticing him until now.

The mouse turned to her. "I just went over to his room to ask if he'd seen my... Seen my..." He stopped and shook his head. His expression became angry, and spoke volumes of the toll his nightmarish encounter had taken upon him. "Look, my head's too screwed up right now to even think of a lie. I just had to get up and tell my friend something important. Something really, really important and personal. If you wanna get me in trouble for it, go ahead. I don't even care."

Mildly stunned, especially hearing this coming from *Tyler* of all people, the bobcat nurse just nodded at him. "Well, alright then. I won't say anything if you just get back to your room now and go to bed."

"Thanks," he said flatly, and continued on his way.


     ~~~


As Tyler crawled between the sheets that night, not daring to tell Brad a word of what had just happened to him (or anyone else for that matter, ever), he knew for a certainty that he would not be sleeping well.

He did not know, however, that in less than twenty-four hours he would be lying in a very different bed.

One down in Ward Zero.


*****


END OF BOOK THREE


