The Hallucitect

Chapter 9

Crowley headed out of the small neighborhood to find his blue 2001 Chevy Malibu. He had parked it at the Boys and Girls club a few blocks away. He was feeling great. A group of six boys were hanging out near the sidewalk up ahead, one of them noticed him. The boy turned to the others and said something, but when they all turned to look, Crowley was gone.

"You seeing things J.J.?" One of them asked. "Ain't no one there!"

"Sure as hell was!" J.J. retorted. "She was just fucking there! Or He... I couldn't really tell."

J.J. and another boy ran over to where he thought he saw someone, to look in the bushes, but there was nothing.

"Hey! What the..." J.J. yelled and pulled his hand away from something.

"What?" asked the other boy.

"Something just fucking grabbed my hand and like zapped me or something!"

"Right..." the other boy mocked.

Crowley went to a nearby tree and leaned against it but nobody saw him. If he didn't want anyone to see him it was an easy trick to do and he didn't even need to make a connection to do it. He could just make people not see him, like he was invisible. But he did need to interface with people to do anything... too fancy.

He just learned from grabbing J.J.'s hand that he wasn't a bad kid, certainly not an angel, but not a hoodlum either; as Crowley initially thought. Sure, they were most likely going to razz him as he walked by, they were going to try to scare him a little, but they weren't going to try to beat him up, or mug him, or kill him or anything. But Crowley wasn't going to be the one scared tonight; he was feeling pretty good right now and decided to have a little fun.

"Hi!"

J.J. jumped and turned to the sudden voice.

"Jesus! You scared the shit outta me, where the hell did you come from?" J.J. asked the kid leaning against the tree with a big smile on his face. He had a dimple on his face but just on one side.

"Who me? I've been here the whole time."

"No... I just looked at that tree and you weren't there!"

"Who the fuck are you talking to J.J.?" The other boy asked.

J.J. looked at the other kid with confusion and then pointed to the tree. "That kid... right there!"

When they both looked at the tree there was no one there. J.J. looked spooked. "Hey, what the hell!" he yelled, "come back out here kid!" By this time the other four boys had walked over.

"What the hell are you two dumbasses doing?" the oldest kid asked.

"J.J. is seeing things. Maybe a ghost." The other boy teased, drawing out the word ghost in a spooky voice. They all laughed, as well as Crowley leaning against the tree, catching J.J.'s eye again.

"Hey, see, there he is, right there." J.J. pointed to the tree and never took his eye off of Crowley. The others looked but all they saw was a tree.

"There's no one there retard!" the oldest boy mocked.

"What? He's right there! Leaning against the fucking tree!" J.J. screamed.

"You done gone nutty J.J.? What's wrong with you?" another boy asked.

Crowley joked with J.J. by saying, "You're the only one who can see me J.J., I'm your guardian angel! Or am I your damning devil? I can never remember."

J.J. smiled and shook his head, "You, you guys are playing a joke on me. You're trying to punk me or something, you assholes!" J.J yelled.

"You've gone off the deep-end J.J., you've gone whacky. Maybe a bit too much wacky tobacky. You scored some weed and didn't share? You're the asshole!" Said the oldest boy.

"Hey, J.J." Crowley yelled. "Have them come over here and look close at the tree, then I'll show myself. It'll be fun!"

Reluctantly J.J. complied. "Okay guys, go look at the tree then, go look up close!"

They all rolled their eyes but headed over to take a closer look, pretty sure it was J.J. that was trying to punk them. J.J. about shit himself when the leaning boy simply disappeared. As they all got closer Crowley showed himself to all of them, which to them seemed like he just appeared out of thin air. But this time Crowley looked ghastly pale with sunken eyes, thin blotchy hair, dirty bloody cloths and black fingernails.

"Hi there!" Crowley said smoothly but gravely.

All the boys jumped back with a start uttering various expletives, four of them fell into the bushes lining the sidewalk while two of them turned and kept running. Crowley walked around behind the tree and made himself invisible to their minds again and then finished his walk to his car invisible, laughing most of the way. Two of the boys that fell into the bushes got up and took off in the direction of the other two boys running faster than they ever had in their life. The oldest boy and J.J. reluctantly looked behind the tree but found no sign of the zombie ghost boy. They decided to vacate the area as well and they avoided that tree, and that general area, for many years to come.