It was as if the entire town had gone mad.
Nathan just stood there, staring at the chaos and destruction, wondering what could possibly have happened.
He ducked out of the way as an ocelot was hurled at his face.
“What has happened here?” he cried out, hoping that by asking this question out loud instead of merely wondering about it, he might get an answer.
“Cover your nose!” shouted a man, right before he jabbed a corn dog into somebody’s nose.
Had Nathan been a key force in maintaining the sanity of the town? Had things degenerated as soon as he left? Was it possible that though people considered him a freak, he was in fact the only thing maintaining the status of normalcy?
The answer to these questions is: no.
Dr. Thompson, who careful readers will remember had been Nathan’s physician as a child, had retired the previous autumn, intending to live out the rest of his years doing absolutely nothing. This worked out well for a few months, until he realized that a complete and utter lack of activity, while appealing in concept, was rather dull. And so, upon his wife’s urging, he began to test out random scientific experiments. Most of the results were buried in his backyard. But while experimenting with water purification, he discovered a chemical that would turn murky, contaminated water into water that was pure and crystal clear.
His initial thought was to use this discovery to benefit towns that had a poor quality water supply. Then he decided that perhaps he should use it on towns such as his own, whose water was quite good, and create a water supply that was so astonishingly pure and crystal clear that drinking it would create a town of intellectually and physically superior beings, perhaps even with psychic abilities.
Considering how difficult it was to gain access to the main water supply into which to pour the chemical, one might think that Dr. Thompson would have taken the time to test it on an individual before he gave it to the townspeople en masse. That thought did occur to him, and he wasn’t quite sure why he’d ignored it. Perhaps, deep inside, he craved the thrill of not knowing how hundreds of people would react to ingesting his experimental chemical.
They reacted by going insane and embarking on sprees of violence and destruction.
“Excuse me,” said Nathan to a man who was running past. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“To the best of my knowledge, it’s the end of mankind.” The man’s eyes widened. “Aren’t you…no, it can’t be…it’s not possible…there’s just no way…it simply cannot be…are you Nathan Pepper’s younger brother?”
“No, I’m…” Nathan suddenly realized who he was speaking to. “Are you Jamison?”
“Nathan?”
“Jamison! You didn’t die while I was away!”
“Nathan! This is incredible! Apart from the several missing fangs, you look exactly the same! Which would be a compliment if we were in our forties, but since we’re eighteen, it’s somewhat eerie and off-putting.”
A woman ran up to them. “I will eat eighty magic markers before the day is through! Don’t tell me I won’t!” She growled and ran away.
“Is there somewhere we can go and talk?” Nathan asked.
“Yes, I was running toward safe haven when you first spoke to me. As far as I know, there are no insane people in the Department of Motor Vehicles. Let’s hide there.”
There were, in fact, two insane people in the DMV, but they knocked each other unconscious shortly after Nathan and Jamison entered the building. They hurried behind the vacant counter and crouched down out of sight.
“So, Nathan, is it really truly you?” Jamison asked. “Or have I gone mad as well?”
“It’s me.” Nathan was astonished at the physical appearance of his best friend. Jamison was no longer thin and sickly. He was handsome, muscular, and had an aura of self-confidence that had been missing when he was a dying little boy. “Did they find a cure for your disease?”
Jamison shrugged. “Every two weeks I went in for my doctor’s appointment, and every two weeks they were reluctant to schedule another appointment because they doubted I would still be alive to keep it. But I did not die. My parents are very organized people and liked to plan ahead, so they purchased larger and larger caskets, but I continued to grow and continued to not die. Finally I decided that it probably wasn’t going to happen. I’m not living my life as if I’m immortal—Gordon tried that, and it earned him a face full of bottle rockets—but I’m also not living it as if I’m dying. So why do you still look seven?”
“I was frozen in ice.”
“Were you really?”
“Yes. Just like a box of fish sticks.”
“My word. If the citizens of this town weren’t running around in a state of deranged frenzy, that would be the oddest thing I’d heard all day.”
“Do you know what has caused it?”
Jamison shook his head. “I was just about to have a cool refreshing glass of water from the tap to help me think, when somebody burst into my home with an electric carving knife. It wasn’t plugged in and they don’t make cordless models, but the blades were no less sharp. Since then I’ve been on the run.”
“How terrible.”
“I’m glad you’re back,” said Jamison. “Even though I no longer need pity friendship, I’m glad you’re back.”
“Thank you.” And now it was time to finally ask the question for which Nathan wasn’t sure he truly wanted to know the answer. “Penny and Mary. How are they?”
Jamison frowned. “The Poor House is a dark, dark place, and once you’ve gone to live there, it’s very hard to get free.”
“But has it been attacked by those afflicted?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I literally just got away from the man with the electric carving knife. If I’d known you’d suddenly show after eleven years, I would have checked up on the Poor House, absolutely, but otherwise it wasn’t the first thing on my mind.”
“I have to go to them.”
Jamison nodded. “I understand. You’d be a reprehensible scoundrel if you didn’t.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Of course I will.”
They peeked over the top of the counter. A woman with a shotgun walked past the entrance, but she didn’t come inside.
“We need a plan,” said Nathan.
“No, we’ll be fine without one. It’s really just a matter of avoiding people. Move quickly, no unnecessary shouting, don’t close your eyes for extended periods of time…basic stuff like that.”
“Doesn’t that count as a plan?”
“Those are just safety precautions. See, when you become as old as I am you’ll realize these things.” Jamison considered that. “Are you eighteen or seven? How does that work?”
“I think I’m considered an eighteen-year-old in a seven-year-old’s body. I’ll have to use disclaimers for the rest of my life.”
“Wow. That’s going to get tiresome.”
“I know. As if the teeth didn’t give me enough to deal with.”
“Well, it could be worse. At least you know about things like fire and yogurt. Can you imagine if you’d be frozen eleven thousand years ago instead of eleven? You wouldn’t even understand what I’m saying right now, because I’m using words instead of grunts.”
“Or if I’d been frozen for eleven thousand years starting eleven years ago. It would be a world of spaceships and robots that train pigeons to do their bidding.”
“Yes. Well. The passage of time has obviously created a distinct difference in our maturity levels, so let’s focus on the task at hand.”
They left the building and hurried down the street.