Everwild

CHAPTER 22 Cram That Sucker

Zin was a good soldier, and proud of it. Being a ripper didn't leave a person with much self-respect, so Zin squeezed all the self-respect she could out of her military service. The Chocolate Ogre was now her general, and she would do her job to the best of her ability. A good soldier follows orders. A good soldier doesn't ask questions. But she couldn't help but wonder about some of the requests the Chocolate Ogre made of her. Particularly the secret ones he called "special projects."

The first request involved an all-day sucker. The kind as big as your face, all colorful and sticky, that gets stuck in your teeth when you bite it, and makes your molars hurt. This sucker had crossed over with a little kid who had probably been working on it since the day he crossed over. The thing was half-eaten, and would stay half-eaten no matter how much the kid licked it.

The Ogre took Zin and the sucker-boy to a candy shop-- not an Everlost one, but a living-world shop, where fleshies went about their business buying and selling sweets.

"I want you to rip him a new sucker," the Ogre ordered. Zin couldn't see why, as this sucker wasn't going anywhere, but she followed orders.

"Yes, sir. A' course, sir."

There was a stand that held suckers like a little metal tree. Zin reached into the living world, and ripped the kid a brand new sucker that was bigger and better than the one he started with. Then she proceeded to rip the old sucker from the boy's hand--something only she could accomplish--and replaced it with the new one. The boy acted like a kid in a candy shop, which, in fact, he was.

But then things started to get weird.

After the boy ran off hopping and skipping with his new sucker, the Ogre pointed to the old one in Zin's hand and said, "Now that he's got a better one, I want you to put this one back."

Zin was confused. "What do you mean 'put it back'?"

"I mean exactly what I said. Rip a hole, and put the sucker back into the living world."

The suggestion just made Zin mad. What, was he stupid? Ripping stuff out was one thing, but putting something back? Whenever Zin ripped, she always kind of felt like a midwife, helping someone give birth. To her, the living world was truly that--a living thing, that could feel everything that happened to it. You don't put back stuff that gets born. "Sir, you can't take sumpin' that crossed into Everlost and shove it back into the living world--that ain't the way it's done."

And then the Ogre asked, "Have you ever tried?"

Zin was about to explain to him just how ripping worked, but her words caught in her throat, because she realized that she never had tried. The idea of putting something back had never occurred to her. Why should it? It was all about taking.

"No, I ain't never tried that," said Zin. "But what if puttin' sumpin' back is one of them weird scientifical things that blows up the world?"

"If you blow up the world," the Ogre said, "you can blame it on me."

Which was good enough for Zin. He was, after all, her superior officer. If and when she got to the pearly gates, she could always claim she was following orders.

"Well, all right, then."

She steeled herself, then held the sucker in her ripping hand, and tried to shove it through, into the living world.

It was not an easy thing. Just opening a hole into the living world was different now that her intentions were different. It was like picking a lock. Then when the portal finally began to open, the living world resisted.

"It won't work, sir," Zin insisted. "I think the livin' world's got all the stuff it can stand, and don't want no more."

"Keep trying."

Zin gritted her teeth and doubled her efforts. As she tried to force that sucker through, she felt a powerful battle of wills between her and the living world. The question was, did the world want to keep the sucker out more than Zin wanted to put it in?

To Zin's surprise, she won the battle: The living world relented, and took the sucker back. When Zin was done, it sat on a counter in the candy shop, its bright colors faded and slightly out of focus, just like everything else in the living world. Zin pulled her hand back, and shivered.

"You did it!"

"Yeah," said Zin, pleased, yet troubled by this newly discovered power. "I felt like I done something wrong, though ..."

"It's only wrong if you use it for the wrong things," the Ogre said.

"But the world don't like it, sir."

"Did the world like you ripping when you first started?"

Zin thought back to her earliest days in Everlost. Ripping wasn't easy when she first began. The world held on to stuff like a kid holds on to toys. "No," Zin had to admit. "It was hard at first."

"But the world got used to it, right?"

"I guess ..."

"It got used to ripping, so it'll get used to ... cramming ... as well." They both looked at the half-eaten sucker on the living world counter until the candy store cashier noticed it and eyed it with disgust. He then picked it up, and dropped it into the trash.

"I want you to practice this," the Ogre told Zin. "Practice cramming every chance you get, until you can do it as quickly and as smoothly as ripping."

Then Zin asked the million dollar question. "Why?"

"Does there have to be a 'why'?" asked the Ogre. "Isn't knowing the full extent of your powers reason enough?"

But if there was one thing Zin had come to learn and respect about the Ogre, it was his strategy as a general ... and the fact that everything he did was always a single move in a much larger campaign.

CHAPTER 23 Severance and Blithe

Doris Meltzer had led a long and productive life. At the age of eighty-three, she knew she didn't have much time left, but she was satisfied with the life she had lived.

For her entire adult life, she wore her wristwatch on her left wrist, but would always glance at her right. She would gently rub it, and convinced herself it was just a nervous habit. The truth of it lay below the threshold of her understanding. At times she touched upon the true meaning of it--at the moment of waking, or the instant before sleep set in--the two places where one's spirit comes closest to Everlost. Never close enough to actually see it, but close enough to sense its existence.

It all began the night of her high school prom. It was a momentous occasion, but not in the way anyone had expected. Her date was a boy named Billy, and she'd had a crush on him since grade school. She had dreams they might be married--and in those days marrying your high school sweetheart was more the norm than the exception.

Billy had just learned to drive and was proud to be doing it, taking her to the prom under the capable control of his own hands and feet, even if he was driving his father's clunky old DeSoto.

He gave her a wrist corsage of yellow roses.

It was a beautiful thing that matched her lemon chiffon dress. She wore it on her right wrist, and lifted it to her face, inhaling its rich aroma all night long. Even then she knew that, for the rest of her life, when she smelled roses, she would think of this night. She would think of Billy.

The prom was spectacular, as a prom should be. It was after they left that everything went wrong. It wasn't Billy's fault. He had obeyed all the traffic laws, but sometimes none of that matters when someone else has been drinking. Such was the case when a car full of drunken classmates ran a red light at the corner of Severance and Blithe.