Dwayne

The click clack of keys could be heard from the closed door, down the stairs and all the way into the kitchen. Dwayne wasn’t sure how his story would be taken. Wasn’t sure if it would be believed. Its subject matter was quite fantastical and he knew it. He just couldn’t hold back any longer.

Thirty years had been too long-for him at least-to hold on to the events from his childhood and he felt he would soon burst if he put it off any longer. So, Dwayne began the daunting and slightly traumatic task of recollecting and retelling his days as a Lost Boy under the command of one Peter Pan of Neverland, the tyrant every story has gotten wrong.

It all started one dull and rainy day in 1943. It was 1:22pm and the sky had remained gray and cloudy all of that morning. But, as noon rang into 1:00pm the weight of the oppressive gray storm clouds drifted and began to bleed away into the clear cerulean that had been hidden underneath.

My sister and I sat by the window, watching and hoping and hoping and watching, praying really, for the sky to clear and to mark “playtime”. We were rabid. Being confined into our home by the weather had transmuted our boundless wells of affable child energy into that of a more frantic nature. Seeing the beautiful blues we’ve long awaited…

The windowsill creaked as something perched there. Dwayne jumped and clutched at his chest, creaking window sills did that to him more often than not now.

He got up from his chair and crossed to the window on rattling knees. Terror to what he knew would be, more likely than not, just your average everyday swallow, sparrow or other S named bird. Those seemed to be all he would-

A flash of green whirled away as he approached the window, which he slammed open and stuck his head out of onto a bright and sunny midday scene. There were indeed birds singing in his scattering of trees, all well groomed and vibrantly green, and some were in fact swallows, or maybe those were sparrows? They were some S named birds anyways. Though, none were the green he had seen zip away.

Dwayne's heart began to pound in his ears.

“Maybe some leaves from the trees decided to float on by and look in. Yeah, that must’ve been it.” He said to himself

There was no breeze on that beautiful clear day, which did trouble him. But he wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on the subject for any length of time. He had to get his story out. The people needed to know.

He again sat back at his typewriter and began to work. Though his pace had sped up and taken on a familiar frantic quality.

He could be watching me, he thought, maybe thinking of him brings him. That’s a terrifying thou-

A tinkle of bells sounded behind him alongside a boyish chuckle.

“Been looking for ya Weasel. The one that got away, heheheh.”

Dwayne jolted upright but didn’t dare turn. He couldn’t. Shock and horror gripped him with its oppressive weight.

“Oh come on. Aren’t you happy to see ME.”

The last part came out as a scream into Dwayne’s right ear in a flash. So, like anyone would, he jumped and raised his arms to shield himself. But the little green boy-man was quick, his knife quicker.

“Now, we’ll be friends forever and ever. Now, you can never get away.”

The impossibly flat and narrow dagger slid to the hilt into Dwayne's chest as if through butter and poked out of his back. He coughed and a gout of bright red blood bubbled from between his grimace stretched lips.

The little green boy-man giggled and tittered, slipping the knife free slowly. So very slowly. Once the blade was free he stabbed again, and again, and again. Speeding up with each blow until the movements became blurred. The little green boy-man's eyes widened till Dwayne thought they would plop out their sockets to rest on his cheeks.

That insane little green monster held his gaze locked on to Dwayne’s throughout the entire slaughter, grinning quite literally ear-to-ear.

After the punctures reached well into the double digits the little green monster plunged the dagger one final time and twisted,

“Don’t you EVER f******g leave me you worthless scum. I OWN you. You hear me?! I. OWN. YOU.”

Then the little green boy-man was gone, as quick as he had appeared. And as for Dwayne, well, he died in a pool of his own blood. Savaged by the thing in his nightmares. But it wasn’t so bad. He was finally rid of them. Given sweet relief.

Or so he hoped…

THE END

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