Ben Thompson Brooks: Boy Necromancer, Chapter something, part 2
The length of time during which Jacob was locked in the cooler cab seemed interminable. The shopping mall parking lot into which they finally pulled was desolate and empty, with only a few cars parked here and there. Jacob wondered why there were any cars there at all. Next to the What-a-Burger a little school bus patiently waited. It looked just like the one the Cadillac man had been in that day, but it didn’t have Jacob’s name scrawled all over the side. Instead it had in big white letters ‘WJCNCBS’. Jacob assumed it stood for ‘Wild Jim’s Country Necromancy Camp and Boarding School’, and it struck him that the acronym might actually be more of a mouthful than the name proper.
“You go aheadz,” said Virgil. “I weel get your books on dez bus.”
“Are you sure you can get them?” asked Jacob concerned, for he had no idea how the small possum could transport all the books, or even one for that matter, but he was tired and ready for any chance to sit and fall to sleep. “Thanks,” said Jacob, his eye lids drooping.
“Serzly? You will let poor little possum carry all your heavy books for you?” cried Virgil.
“But you just said…” said Jacob, too tired to even manage some good indignation.
“How boyzes raisez today? How I’m supposed carry your books? I have no even opposable thumb!”
“Fine!” said Jacob, his eyes shut.
He was mostly asleep as he stumbled back and forth between the bus and the taxi. When he was finally done, which was either much quicker than he would have thought, or nearly half the night, he crawled up the steps of the bus, taking the last one on his hands and knees. He didn’t even look around to see the other kids on the bus, but felt that if he could just stumble in the right direction he could fall into an unoccupied seat. Sensing one nearby, he careened leftward, directly into the lap of a mystified girl dressed in all black with those black, spiky bracelets you find at HotTopic.
“Get off me you twerp!” she seethed at the sudden intrusion upon her person.
“What? Ohmygawd I’m so sorry!” said Jacob, shocked, but still not really awake.
KPOW! KPOW! KPOW! Jacob suddenly leaped out of his skin at the crack of three gun shots from behind him. The girl’s face exploded into a pulpy mess but then dissolved into black goo. Her livid grimace transformed into a circular maw full of spiral rows of lamprey teeth, her tentacles showing black and oily in the parking lot fluorescence.
“How’d one of those get on here?” he heard Virgil say from somewhere.
“I dunno, just slipped on, I reckon.”
“What was that?” cried Jacob.
“Don’t worry about it, Jacob,” said a man in a cowboy hat. “Didn’t really happen; you’re just sleepy. Why don’t you take a seat next to Ozzy here and get acquainted.
“Hi, I’m Ozzy,” said Ozzy from the seat just beside where Jacob now stood. He was short and pale with fuzzy brown hair, cut short so that the loose curls formed a strange sort of flat top. His face was rough with acne and he wore a greasy peach fuzz mustache over his lip that he dared not shave lest he disturb the crop of pimples which grew there. “What’s your name? Jacob? It’s really nice to meet you; I’ve heard so much about you, the one who didn’t quite die.”
“What?” asked Jacob, perplexed, his drowsiness overtaking him beside all the activity, most of which he figured was a dream. After all, he saw no sign of the squid monster goth girl, and the man seemed to be gone. Yes, he had imagined all of it.
“Whoops, I said too much. Don’t worry about it. So my name’s Ozzy. I really like stuff and things. What sort of things do you like to do? One of my favorite things to do is play role playing games; do you know what those are?”
Jacob groaned and turned away, desperate for salvific sleep. Who cared about squid monsters and cryptic messages and geeks, he jus wanted beyond anything else on earth to be able to curl up and fall asleep. But even now, the poorly padded seats thwarted his efforts, the metal frame of the seat rubbing against his shoulder blades.
“Aren’t there any other seats?” asked Jacob wearily as he turned to look around the bus. He thought he saw an empty seat somewhere, but the haze of his fading conscious was against refocused at the pestilential poking upon his shoulder by Ozzie.
“Hey, hey. Don’t you think this cool? I’ve been waiting ever since school got out to go to this camp. Do you know what it is? It’s a necromancy camp; know what that is? We get to talk to the dead and stuff. I hope there’s other kids that like to play role playing games there, because I have lots of characters of different levels, so I’m ready to play with anybody. Hey, hey. Do you ever play Magic?”
“No,” said Jacob, which was a lie. He had an infamously bad deck. Eric had gotten him into it, even though Eric didn’t play anymore, and Jacob still spent time during the school year Thursdays in the band hall trading and playing with some of the band nerds, who were the lowest ranking nerds he was willing to hang out with. Even then, it was on a very limited basis.
