2 Chapter 2: Mr. Moon and the Really Big Needle of Death

I stared, totally freaked out, at the spot where Hole-In-Head-Guy had just disappeared. In my sheltered experience up to that point, I hadn’t ever seen someone get sucked into the ground in the blink of an eye. Of course, a normal person would take the fact that the man with the hole in his head was no longer standing in the woods with me as a sign that maybe, just maybe, I had imagined the whole thing. Then that sane person would quickly scuttle home and unwind in front of a very violent video game.

Me? I dropped my bat and glove and ran over to where I’d last seen the freaky dude to see what had happened to him.

Turned out, I had no idea. I was pretty sure I was standing right about where he’d been standing before he’d, you know, gone all Wicked Witch of the West on me. But there was nothing. No open pit in the ground. No closed pit in the ground. No bubbling mass of goo that had once been a man with a hole in his head. Just dirt. Some roots. Fallen leaves. I stomped on the ground a bit with my foot until I realized how dorky I must’ve looked.

In fact, I was so completely unable to find a single trace of the guy, I was this close to convincing myself it had all been a dream. A very strange, slightly disturbing, sleep-walking style dream.

And then Xander showed up.

Sorry. Then Mr. Moon showed up.

“Please tell me you saw where he went,” pleaded a gravelly voice in front of me.

I looked up to find a tall, serious-looking man with intense, bugged-out eyes, a short beard, and thinning hair wearing a black leather jacket and ripped blue jeans along with an oddly shaped, lime-green fanny pack that bulged against his left hip. He kind of looked like a hippy who'd outlived his usefulness and tried his hand at being a biker in his golden years. And if that wasn’t creepy enough, the massive crowbar in his hands gave his look that extra special psycho something. I immediately backed away, which, guessing by his reaction, was the wrong thing to do.

“Don’t move! Don’t move!” He raised his hands up as if warding off evil. “You’ll lose the spot! You have the spot, right? You saw where he went? Where Gus went?”

“Gus?” I asked timidly.

“You know…” he twirled his finger in front of his eye, then made a strange whistling noise and mimed poking his finger through his head. I got the hint.

“His name is Gus?”

“Look. Look. I don’t have a lot of time. And frankly kid, you might not either. Where did he go?”

“He... He went…” I shrugged. “He vanished.”

The strange man, who I would eventually come to know as Mr. Xander Moon, double clenched his grip on the crow bar - a physical tic I have come to identify as his way of overcoming frustration. “Vanish. Vanish. No. He did not vanish. I suppose, if you don’t know what you’re looking for - and you don’t - you might think he got sucked into the ground. But he didn't vanish. Did you see him? See him get sucked into the ground?”

I nodded.

“Good. Good. Where?”

I pointed to the dirt in front of us. “Kinda right there.”

“No. No. Where, exactly? The exact spot.”

“What are you talking about?”

He double clutched the crow bar again before continuing. “OK. OK. Kid. Let’s start over.” He paused, and then began drawing out his words as if talking to a foreigner or a dog. “Were you actively looking at Gus when he, as you say, vanished? Please say yes, because if you say no, there’s a very good chance the world will end.”

Talk about pressure. Xander can lay it on thick when he wants to, and right then he wasn’t in his most personable mood. Luckily, I could honestly say that I had. “Yes.” Then I added, for good measure, “Did I just save the world?”

Xander ignored me and started pacing back and forth, at times jabbing the dirt with the straight end of his crow bar, as if the dirt had just insulted his mother or something. All the while, he was mumbling to himself. Things like, “promised I’d never” and “dire circumstances” and “ruin his life” and “no other choice.” Then he looked back at me and I got really scared - for good reason I can now say in retrospect.

“Kid,” he started. “Kid. Kid? What’s your name?”

“Zack?” I asked, as if he’d have a better chance of knowing than I would.

“Zack. OK. Zack, I need...” He stopped and looked at me, raising an eyebrow as if inspecting something in a petri dish. “Zack? Really? No. No, it couldn't... or could it? Is it...?”

He leaned forward to get a better look at me, and I leaned back to preserve my personal space. “Uhm, what are you doing?” I asked.

“It is. It is. Of course,” he said, shaking his head with a heavy sigh. “Of course. OK. Zack. Zack, I need to do something. To you. And it might hurt. Actually, yes. It will hurt. A lot.” He paused, awaiting my reaction. And I mean come on, what was he expecting me to say after such an awesome proposal? My head yelled at my feet to run. My feet told my head that they were kind of busy being frozen in terror and to please come back a little later.

“Uhm… no thanks?” I asked. I have been told that my habit of speaking simple sentences in the form of a question when I’m nervous is annoying. I can’t imagine why.

“Zack. Zack, Zack, Zack. Yeah. See, if I don’t, the world could end. I mean, well, it very well could end. Possibly. Really sorry.” He opened his fanny pack and poked around inside.

My feet finally agreed to at least take a single step backwards. “Hey Mr.? I’m gonna... go now.”

He didn’t bother to look up, just kept searching through his fanny pack - which really didn’t look big enough to warrant such a long, drawn-out rummaging. “Please don’t. Fate of the world and all. Just be a moment. Aha!”

And he pulled out a really big needle filled with some faintly glowing yellow stuff.

Now my feet got finally into the act and I jumped back. “Whoa!”

Xander held out one hand in a calming gesture while the other hand held the syringe in a very non-calming way. “Please. Please. Normally, I wouldn’t do this. It’s not fun. For you. Me, no biggie, but you? Not fun. I am also, more or less, changing your life forever. Which I try not to do, because… man. I mean. This is no life. Plus, I can't... well that's neither here nor there. You know?”

I turned and ran.

At least, that’s what I thought I was doing.

The instant I turned around, he had my arm in his grasp. I had no idea he’d be able to move so incredibly fast, and my underestimation cost me as one instant he was standing a couple feet away from me, and the next he was holding my arm tightly and giving me his sad face.

“Help!” I yelled. “Help! Somebody help me!”

“I hope someday you’ll forgive me,” he said, bringing the needle up to my arm. “But I doubt it.”

He jabbed the needle into my arm.