and held its hands up at the window, like it was asking the aides to
stop wanting in. But Thomas knew what it was going to do was make the
blue light.
Thomas wanted to warn the aides, but be figured nobody would hear him or
listen to him until it was too late. So while the Bad Thing’s back was
turned, he crawled across the floor, away from the Bad Thing, even if
crawling hurt, even if he had to go through spots of Derek’s blood, all
wet, and it made him sick on top of being angry and scared.
Blue light. Very bright.
Something exploded.
He beard glass falling and worse, like maybe not just the whole window
blew out on the aides but part of the wall too.
People screamed. Most of the screams cut off quick-like, but one of
them went on, it was real bad, like somebody out in dark past the
blown-up window was made to hurt even worst than Thomas.
Thomas didn’t look back because he was all the way around the side of
Derek’s bed now, where he couldn’t see the wind anyway from where he was
on the floor. And, besides, he knew what he wanted now, where he wanted
to go, and he had get there before the Bad Thing got interested in him
again Quick-like, he crawled to the top end of the bed and look up and
saw Derek’s arm hanging over the side, blood running down under his
shirtsleeve and across his hand and drip-d dripping off his fingers. He
didn’t want to touch a dead person not even a dead person he liked. But
this was what he had do, and he was used to having to do all sorts of
things wished he didn’t-that was what life was like. So he grabbed the
edge of the bed and pulled himself up as fast as he could trying not to
feel the bad hurt in his back and in his kicking leg, because feeling it
would make him stiff and slow. Deryk was right there, eyes open, mouth
open, blood-wet, so sad, scary, on top of the pictures of his folks that
fell off the table still dead, off for always and ever to the Bad Place.
Thomas grabbed the scissors sticking out of Derek, pulled them loo
telling himself it was okay because Derek couldn’t feel an thing now, or
ever.
“You!” the Bad Thing said, Thomas turned to see where the Bad Thing
was, and when it was was right behind him, all the way around the bed,
coming at him. So he shoved the scissors at it, hard as he could and
the Bad Thing’s face made a surprised look. The scissors went in the
front of the Bad Thing’s shoulder. The Bad Thing looked even more
surprised. The blood came.
Letting go of the scissors, Thomas said,
“For Derek,” Thomas said, “for me.’, He wasn’t sure what would happen,
but he figured that making the blood come would hurt the Bad Thing and
maybe it dead, like it made Derek dead. Across the room where the
window wasn’t any more and where part of there wasn’t any more, some
smoke coming from the broken end of things. He figured he was going to
run over there and through the hole, even if the night was out there on
the other side.
But he never figured on what did happen, because the Bad Thing acted
like the scissors weren’t even in it, like blood wasn’t being let loose
from it, and it grabbed him and lifted him up again. It slammed him
into Derek’s dresser, which was a lot more hurt than the wall because
the dresser was made with knobs and edges the wall didn’t have.
He heard something crack in him, heard something tear. But the funny
thing was, he wasn’t crying any more and didn’t want to cry any more,
like he’d used up all the tears in himself The Bad Thing put its face
close to Thomas’s face, so their eyes were only a couple inches apart.
He didn’t like looking in the Bad Thing’s eyes. They were scary. They