The Butterfly Kid

24

HE DIDN’T have a lot to say, and he didn’t say it very well, but that’s Laszlo. We weren’t expecting more.

We might as well forget the music gambit, he told us. All the lobsters were wearing protective suits now. I accepted this, but only because I could see lurking in the trees behind Laszlo two lobsters dressed in silvery blankets. Even so, I wasn’t all that sure we couldn’t make them feel at least a bit uncomfortable. We had a lot of energy going for us.

Ktch sent me his regards, said Laszlo, and promised that if my friends and I would agree to go home right now, he’d personally guarantee that we’d get away from the reservoir unharmed.

I gave Laszlo four detailed and imaginative things he and Ktch could do with that safe-conduct guarantee. Then I demanded that Ktch come out like a man or whatever and speak to me man to thing. In fact, I made quite a scene about it, a virtuoso tantrum, at the end of which Laszlo was huddled on the sand, sniveling, and the MacDougal Street Commandos were cheering.

No soap. Ktch stayed safely out of sight. Too busy, Laszlo claimed. Chicken, I replied.

Then Laszlo haltingly expressed Ktch’s regret that our ill-advised stubbornness (those words gave Laszlo fits) forced him to take strong measures. If we still refused to leave, said Laszlo, Ktch couldn’t even guarantee our lives.

Since we hadn’t expected any such guarantee, I replied, not having it wouldn’t seriously inconvenience us.

(I didn’t feel half as cocksure as I sounded. The triple dinosaur was proof that Ktch could throw some pretty strong magic at us. But I knew that if we didn’t win this fight, being alive afterward wasn’t going to be a particularly advantageous condition. And there was always a possibility, albeit a misty one, that we might actually win.)

Because he so respected me, Laszlo choked out, Ktch was going to give us one last chance. He was going to show us what we’d be up against if we didn’t go quietly home right now like good little cats and chicks.

Then we all screamed. Something was standing behind Laszlo. It was only a shadow, a big opaque black shadow, featureless and formless; but just looking at it turned my stomach, and when it moved a prophecy of pain crawled through my nervous system, a memory of agony to come. It wasn’t just a shadow, it was Evil, a whole history of Evil, contradicting everything I loved in waves of future torment. That was bad. Oh, bad.

And then the thing was gone.

That was only one of the weapons Ktch could use against us, Laszlo chortled, and not the worst one, either. Surely we could see we had no chance. Why did we persist in this foolishness?

By then I wasn’t too sure myself.

Perhaps, Ktch said through Laszlo, we were being so headstrong because we hadn’t had time to think the problem out. Or perhaps the group didn’t agree with me as unanimously as I thought. Perhaps I wasn’t as appropriate a spokesman for the group as they had formerly believed. Perhaps the group would like some time to discuss the situation, maybe even take a vote.

Therefore (another hard word for Laszlo) Ktch was giving us twenty minutes’ grace before he loosed his arsenal against us. He instructed us to take the bus out a hundred feet from the shore and talk it over. He also apologized for putting guards around us, but surely we could understand his position? And he wished us wisdom in our deliberations. (Poor tongue-tied mindless Laszlo.) If we decided to go home, we had only to blink our lights and he’d have us escorted to the nearest road.

That ended our parley. Laszlo shut up, turned, and shuffled back into the willow thicket. Mike backed the bus off a hundred feet, as ordered, keeping the beach well lit all the while. Our guards were pretty bad — huge, luminous green swimming things with red eyes, lots of teeth, and tentacles — but they didn’t even disturb us; not after the black shadow.

We were all thoughtful and quiet. When we spoke we didn’t whisper, but our voices were low. No one even mentioned going home but Gary the customary Frog, and even he pretended he was joking.

I found myself standing beside Sean, and felt a duty to apologize.

“This isn’t what I expected last Saturday,” I said softly. “No, it’s not at all the way I expected things to go. Now I feel I should’ve sent you back to Fort Worth, or not taken you in, or something. I’m sorry I got you into this mess, Sean.” We shook hands.

“Hell, man, you didn’t get me into this. I done that myself. Me an’ them damn butterflies. Shucks…”

“Butterflies!” I yelled, scaring everyone on board. “Butterflies! Yahoo!”

“Hey, man, cool it!” Sean thought I’d flipped, and, I had, too, but not that way.

“C’mon!” I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him toward the harpsichord. “Everybody!” I was shouting. “C’mere! On the double!”

Everybody, looking mighty puzzled came running.

Butterflies indeed! And there under the harpsichord, where I’d left it hours ago, there was my briefcase. I pulled it out, set it on top of the harpsichord where everyone could see, and opened it.

And there they were, hundreds of thousands of pretty blue Reality Pills. We had our weapon!

Maybe.

Time was our only problem. We had something less than twenty minutes, and I had no idea how long it took the pills to get to work. Except for that one little hangup, we were saved.

Well, we had a chance.

“Everybody take at least five,” I ordered, hoping superstitiously that the more we took, the faster they’d work. Considering what Ktch and company were planning to dump into the reservoir — ten billion doses — I wasn’t seriously worried about overdoses, and it didn’t really matter anyhow.

“Take at least five,” I repeated. “The more the better.” I grabbed a handful of the pills, stuffed my mouth with them and started swallowing. The U.S. Cavalry was on the way!