The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

the friend in his head and the ones who kept him in the cell. The one he loves most and the ones he hates. He’s never imagined having real friends with abilities. Angels and skinless boys.

“I’ll get you out,” he tells her. “No one should be in a cell.”

“You can’t,” she says. “He touched you, didn’t he? He can make you do whatever. He’ll put you in a cage with us.”

“I’ll get you out,” he says again. He feels a hand on his real, actual shoulder, reminding him that he has a body, and the shimmering room is gone. There’s the Angel behind the glass, the twin reflections of himself and Jake hanging like ghosts over her face.

“You got a crush there, O?” Jake says. “You went all spacy for a minute.”

“Freaked out,” says Owen.

“I don’t know what your bankroll looks like,” Jake says, leaning in close, “but there are arrangements you can make if you can pay for it.” The Angel turns away. Owen wonders if she can hear them. “Paul talked to that boy out front about it. For his tentacle girl. If he wasn’t dropping a hundred bucks at the door every time, he could afford to fuck her out back or wherever. They let you do all kinds of shit.”

“Like what?” Owen asks.

“Eddie who tends bar at the Eight of Swords paid three hundred to beat on bony there with a bat,” says Jake. He jerks his thumb at one of the other cells, where the lights are fading on a boy with gray nubs of bone protruding from his joints. Owen can see ossified ridges at the boy’s shoulders and hips. “I threw in fifty, and they let me watch.”

“You paid to watch your friend beat him,” Owen says. Not a question, a reckoning with the fact. Jake gives him an idiot nod.

You see now, Owen, says the friend in his head. Why I brought you here. What you’re meant to do.

Owen turns his back on the Angel and faces Jake full on. The null roils in his gut, hungry for this one. But the pain stabs in his head. He’s gotten it wrong.

“What’s going on with you, man?” Jake asks. “You look like shit.”

From behind Jake, there’s a little sound. Owen’s never heard it before, but he knows what it is. Bone tapping on glass. Owen peers over Jake’s shoulder. He stretches the null out, shapes it so it’s broad and flat. He feeds the null the glass that holds the bone boy back. It doesn’t fill the null, doesn’t sate that hunger at Owen’s core. But he smiles as the boy approaches Jake from behind, raising an elbow that ends in a jutting gray blade. It plunges into Jake where the shoulder meets the neck, and Jake the dishwasher dies with a disappointing burble of blood in his throat. Owen opens the other cages, leaving the Angel for last. As she steps out, her wings spread to half their span.

“Stay,” Owen says. “Wait.”

“Where’s your friend?” asks the ticket collector as Owen comes down the stairs. Owen glances back over his shoulder.

“Still staring at that tiny girl?” Owen says.

“Every guy comes here’s got some twist,” says the ticket collector. “Busy nights I go in once an hour to squeegee jizz off the glass.” He sizes Owen up. “What’s your kink, kid?”

Owen makes a show of shyness, examines his shoes. “That Angel is something.”

“She sure is, Vanilla,” says the ticket collector, bored with the predictability of Owen’s fetish. “See the office trailer over there?” He points to the RV at the end of the row. “Go ask Bobby, in the suit. He can set you up some time with her. She even talks.” He smiles. “If you want to talk.”

“Thanks,” Owen says. The ticket collector holds out an open palm. Owen stares at it, then realizes what’s being asked. He pulls a twenty out of his wallet and folds it into the man’s hand. He’ll take it off the body later.

“Thank you, Vanilla,” says the ticket collector.

Owen walks across the muddy field toward the RV. As he crosses, Paul steps out of the trailer on the right, the truly bizarre. “Where’s Jake?” he calls.

“In the strange,” Owen says. “You should check on him.”

Owen speeds his steps. There’s not much time. There will be screams soon, and Owen wants a minute alone with Bobby. He has a special place for jailers. He knocks on the door of the RV.

“Come on in,” says the boy’s sweet voice. Owen couldn’t not come in. Something in the voice compels him: the spot where Bobby brushed his finger tingles. The Angel said, He can make you do whatever. Owen steps into the office.

“Did someone send you?” Bobby asks. He’s sitting behind a small pine desk with stacks of bills and coins. “Is there a Resonant police force after me now?”

“Passing through,” says Owen.

“Stay right there,” Bobby says. Owen obeys. Bobby stands up, comes around the desk. He moves slowly, no reason to hurry. Owen wonders if Paul has found Jake’s body yet. “That is some seriously bad luck on my part. The megabucks lottery of shitty luck.”

“Let them go,” Owen says.

“No, Moses, I don’t think I’m going to let your people go,” says Bobby. “I think I am going to keep them in their cages until people are no longer paying to see them.” He reaches behind his back and pulls a small gun out of his waistband. He puts it on the desk. “I also think you are going to wander about an hour into the woods and then shoot yourself in the face.”

The gun glitters. It will feel perfect in his hand. The cool of it pressed against his forehead. The relief as the bullet pushes through his brain and his body falls back into a pillow-soft layer of dead leaves. Bobby smiles approvingly. Owen wishes he could tell the Angel what he’s going to do. Sorry, he’d say. I would free you, but first I need to—

Owen,