Warning: This chapter is long and filled with interruptions such as "meanwhiles" and "Happy Noddle Boy", just because I felt inspired. So bite me! *laughs insanely* Wait… where am I?…

Chapter One

Part One: Tick-Tock

He watched the seconds hand as it slid slowly from one thin black dash to another. Thin little black squiggles against the snowy white background. Thin, pathetic, annoying squiggles that were struck repeatedly, once a minute, for eternity by a thin black little arm. Very similar to what he was doing at the moment, repeatedly slicing thin little marks across a writhing man's back, so very white compared to his black gloves.

" What the hell is your problem!" The man bawled. " Don't you respect other's opinions, you loser? Yeah, that's right - - you're a loser!"

Johnny wasn't very disturbed by the man's incessant whining. He had been away for three months from Squee and all the rest. Now that he had returned, Squee was packaged in the loony bin, Squee's house was a pile of rubble (some blamed alien destruction on it), Devi had found herself some new (and handsome) boyfriend, but what about him? He felt like he was stuck in a little bit of a void, where everything progressed around him, and he was swinging his arms, trying to keep the tide back, to level things around a bit.

He had almost allowed for the greedy hope that he'd be cured. Three months was a long time to be cured. But then again, cured of what? The mind was not something that was capable of being erased. It could be lost, it could even be removed by forceps (much to his personal delight), but it was not just simply flushed free of all previous, diseased memories.

Perhaps it was Nail Bunny that had eventually talked him into it – to just try and leave, to try and figure out his place in the world. Of course, the moment he had left, he ended up just getting more screwed up than before. All along his little journey of wanderings and tracing roots where there were none, he ran across pricks and fuckheads and all sorts of lame losers. People he would never be able to avoid. Finally he blew a gasket and gave up his odd little obsession with figuring things out. Instead, he began to kill again. Oddly enough, he wasn't even incited by the Doughboys anymore.

" Oh, God no!" The man shrieked.

" Did you consider all this when you were saying it?" Johnny asked, his hand rummaging through the little crate by his feet for a nail.

" Saying what?"

" Oh, you act ignorant now." He hammered the first nail down. " But soon, soon you'll feel sorry and scream in pain how horribly apologetic you are." Johnny shook his head. " Well, no more, no more…"

" Damn it! I had my tooth pulled yesterday! Don't you dare stick that nail -- AHHHHHH!"

" Hold on." Johnny stood, cracked his knuckles, and then took out a power drill. He didn't want to mess his hands too much with this sort of filth.

" I swear I didn't mean to kick your car tire! And call you a fag!" The man screamed. " But my girl was there, I couldn't just miss out an opportunity to show her that I kick ass!"

" You'll have plenty of time in hell." Johnny mused. He turned the drill on and switched the little ticker on the side from normal mode to extreme pain. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. I bet you've never made anything this scream-worthy!

The drill roared close to the man's cheek, just skimming the skin a bit, touching the nail and sending a vibration through the man. The scream echoed down the street, but once you cross the corner it sounded more like a horny dog with a groin ache. So much for this author's attempt at sound effects magic, right?

Needless to say, the fun and games were over within a few minutes. Johnny went upstairs to watch television. There was a new show that featured all the incoherent madness of talk shows, lumped into some sort of grotesque beast, where in the end the audience picked who they hated most and stoned them to death. The most memorable episode was perhaps the one where they turned against a fellow audience member. Oh, the audacity of it all.

o-o-o

The Adventures of Happy Noodle Boy

A Break from the Excitement

Happy Noodle Boy grinned joyfully and put down his crate, stepped on top of it, and looked around the park. The happy folks all around him were all enjoying picnics. Noodle Boy couldn't fathom why anyone would want to have a picnic on the roach-infested grounds of the park.

He looked around merrily and began his ramblings of nonsensical rage: " I'll tell you all what the results are! GO HAVE FUN! Run happily in your wart-infested own behinds of creamy cotton candy!"

Some passerby stopped and stared at him, blinked, then moved on.

" It is the age of the golden wang! Many miles away Simba was run over by a knuckle! Shudder in FEAR!!!!!!!!!!"

There is no response.

" Make love, not concrete! No! Not the periwinkle toe fuzz!"

The police lady, fat as ever, ran up and went ape on him. " Get off of there right now, you psychotic psycho!"

Happy Noodle Boy shook his head. " I spit at you! Oink!" Happy Noodle Boy continues: " The ape gave birth to the children! Oh, the joys and tribulations of the grumpy old man!"

He paces and gesticulates madly.

" I am a prophet! Pummel yourselves in the crotch with blunt objects!"

He threw his hands in the air, screaming: " Never confuse thy mustard with thy honey, you chocolate-twist ass bump! My stomach grumbles your name!"

Happy Noodle Boy then stamped his foot on the crate furiously.

" Create an anecdotal record for your nipple-sucking rash-prone infants! It is never too late to prove your insanity! Your own thought-constipated minds triple your needs for cheese-less doom!" At this, he trips and falls off the little crate. A fat man came up and shot him a couple of times in the head, which was always a healthy past-time for the criminally insane. Noodle Boy's Earth-altering, mind-numbing and truly amazing prophecies have ended for the day.

o-o-o

Chapter 1, Part 2: Wally the Screamer

Johnny sat down in the darkest corner of the café, watching as the store worker filled the snow cone machine with red dye, flavoring, and ice, which came in little bags similar to bags of liquid they added to IV hangers. He trailed his eyes outside the window of the café and saw that an older couple, perhaps in their fifties, were approaching the store.

They stopped right outside the glass door and stared at Johnny, debating whether they should enter or leave promptly. The old woman was shaking her head, but the old man was nodding vigorously. " We ordered ice cream cake for our 30th anniversary, and I'm not going to let some dirty punk keep me from it!" The man barked.

" Oh, Wally." The woman sighed, entering after him. " Alright."

Johnny squirmed in his seat. He watched as the old couple came up to the counter. The man slapped his hand down on the counter a couple of times, shouting the entire order out. " We - - CAME HERE – you hear me, store kid? - - WE decided we wanted our ice cream cake. DAMN 30th ANNIVERSARY!"

This Wally fellow was so loud that his voice echoed throughout the entire store.

" THE CAKE - - GOT THIS? - - was supposed to be a SURPRISE for my wife, but YOU already called her at work to confirm the ORDER. SO YOU DAMN BETTER not screw this up, YOU HEAR ME?" Wally hollered. " A SURPRISE!"

Johnny stared at Wally, thinking: Shut up, geezer, before you get a two-knife surprise up your ass.

The bumbling teen behind the counter squeaked a reply and then said into the store microphone: "Order number 454-231, pronto." The feedback from the microphone echoed throughout the room, piercing Johnny's eardrums.

Johnny has had enough. He jumped up and raced at the snow-cone machine. He poured himself a cone, then yanked the metal rectangles out (you know, the ones you press down to make the stuff come out!). They were pointed like fireplace prongs at the tip.

With little more than an evil glare of warning from Johnny, Wally the Screamer was now impaled right through the ass to the prong. All of Wally's little hemorrhoids were screaming.

Johnny stared at the old lady. " Surprising enough for ya?" And with a pretty gruesome set of jabs, the old lady was lunchmeat.

Johnny spun around on his heels and glared at the store worker.

The store worker grabbed the microphone. " Urgent! Clean up at Front Counter!… wait? What am I saying? HELP!"

Before the uttering for HELP was finished, the teen café worker's acne problem was solved – he no longer had a face. The teen hobbled around on his feet, blood spraying grossly everywhere. Johnny stared at the back of the café, where some poor innocent worker was carrying a big tray with the frozen cake. Johnny shook his head and chopped the man into some chunky raspberry jam and then shoved him into the freezer.

Johnny stood there, his knives dripping blood, his face lightly glazed with perspiration. He had to admit to himself – he did a pretty nice job today.

o-o-o

Chapter One, Part 3: To Leave or not to Leave?

Devi woke up with a headache. A throbbing, painful, horribly unfair headache, which she hoped would be liquidated if she were to add an extra 3 hours to her sleep. Instead, she realized she needed an even more powerful coffee to keep her up. She used four teaspoons of black coffee and poured boiling water over it. It was strong enough to level a herd of yaks off their feet, but she liked it.

She sat at her kitchen table and stared at the newspaper. Four Killed in Café. Gruesome Scene Traumatizes Hundreds of Toddlers as they Walked By the Café for their School Fieldtrip.

Devi flipped the newspaper over and stared at the back page, where the story continued. Security cameras have caught a twiggy, tall, black blur racing out of the café. So difficult to make out was the picture that cops dismissed the photo as any sort of evidence. Devi knew, though, somehow she knew, in the pit of her stomach.

She groaned and stood up, gulping the rest of her coffee down in angry swigs. She was going to be brave today. She was going to walk to the store, and not just the corner shop, but a good three blocks away. She hesitated all week but finally she couldn't take it anymore. One person couldn't ruin her life. She had a good boyfriend now. He cared for her, like a good boyfriend should. Not once did he try to kill her. That was always a plus in a relationship.

Devi pulled on her black trenchcoat and shuddered slightly. Insanity was always an impending doom to her, and she had tried to ward it off by being as busy as possible. She avoided dating, she painted and squeezed Spooky doll and was at work all day. Perhaps that's why she was so susceptible to Ian, her new boyfriend. He had appeared, a cool, sophisticated man, dressed in black, right in front of her one day at the bookstore. Oh, how lovely it was that so far he had done nothing to disprove her theory that he was perhaps "the one". It gave her a chill to even think of it.

Devi had been through her own series of voices, including a creepy doll called Sickness, but her own strength and determination made her get over it. Thanks to Tenna, her one close friend, and the newly-acquired Ian, she was able to pretend Johnny was gone.

Yet now she saw this tell-tale reminder in the newspaper of Johnny. He was indeed still around, even though his neighbor's house was gone (the newspaper kept ringing Johnny's doorbell to ask but he was mysteriously gone). No further police interest followed. Yet, Devi was always paranoid that he'd return, and he had, and he was still a killer.

Even more disgusting, though, was that the police were just about the most annoying boobs under the sky. If they were to try to strike the ground with a rock, they'd probably miss. She couldn't fathom how Johnny could just slip between their fingers like water.

So much for wondering, though. Devi needed to buy some food, and she knew she couldn't rely on her friends to bail her out anymore. Without further ado, she left the little room of hers and went out into the hallway of the apartment. She silently wished herself mental abilities to morph necessary items into her house. However, no such luck.

o-o-o

Chapter 1, Part 4: These Voices… I hear them…

Johnny was hearing voices again. Seeing things, too. Nail Bunny was an old favorite to see, and he remained there, but there was also Reverend Meat, the porky little white kid holding up a hamburger. He was no Mr. Fuck or Psycho-Doughboy, but it was still disturbing enough. The conversations he had inside were getting more and more in-depth too. He was feeling the same primitive urges as before, the ones that made him desire to be even with all the hypocrites out there. Not even hypocrites, but all the teasers and whiners and bullies, people who looked like people he hated, and of course, cheerleaders.

He, of course, had to be triggered into it. But it could even be a scowl nowadays. His failed little self-improvement issue hadn't exactly given him fruitful results. Now he was just angry at the world. It seemed like even the few things he thought of as people he knew, meager little flies buzzing in his ears as they were now, had progressed. Squee, perhaps, hadn't exactly achieved much in the forwards-moving sense, but he had also moved on. Devi was obviously very far moved-on. He remembered reading all about her new boyfriend in a little underground Goth magazine one of her friends ran. By choice was it that some drunk had thrown the magazine at Johnny just as he was entering town again.

He had made attempts to become "normal", or at least figure out what was wrong with him, if it were more than his own ideas of justification and world balance. Perhaps it was some weird neuron malfunctioning in him, or a lack of some enzyme, or maybe he just needed a bit of sleep. Johnny had signed up at Squee's mental hospital for a study which was to analyze his dream content. Johnny remembered reading somewhere that your dreams held keys to what you were feeling, thinking, or going through, things that normally you would never find within yourself. He thought that perhaps these scientists would have some explanation. Instead, he found that they analyzed all the wrong things – his brain activity, REM, sleep cycles, all sorts of physical nonsense. No mental analysis at all – they weren't even those sort of doctors.

Johnny kicked an empty Pringles can and it rolled across the room, scattering little flakes. The small white dots on the floor aggravated him, like the dandruff left behind on the head straps in the torture chamber. All this bodily waste, all these rejected layers of skin, tissue, liquids and solids…

His eyes hurt. He had stopped sleeping again after the doctors couldn't prove much to him. He almost felt sure he could rest for more than prolonged series of blinking, but now he didn't trust any longer. What he really wanted was to go the some store and get a cherry Fizz-Wiz. Just the idea made him feel a bit better – but not much.

Johnny pulled on an overcoat (nothing too bulky, it was still warm out) and left the house.

o-o-o

Meanwhile…

At some little girl's home

(Further Misfortunes of Real People)

The lights were all off. The entire house was drenched in pitch-black. She could hear her breath rasping in her throat, just from the exertion it took to force herself out of bed. She had been ill – her skin color went from a rich olive to some sort of ghastly pansy-pale. Her hair had gone from a black sea of shine to a frizzle of dulled, matted waves. She looked seven years older than her meager ten years.

She had stayed inside for one reason only – a paranoid phobia of transportation. She refused to go in a car, airplane, train, bus, skateboard – in a nutshell, just about any mechanically propelled object. Her name was Mandy, and today she would attempt to conquer her fear.

Her parents had almost disowned her in desperation. Mandy's pastor had smacked her with a Bible and told her to repent. She had refused to see a doctor for it would have required transportation, and her insurance wouldn't allow house calls.

She decided that she'd go on the train. Cars were too dangerous, and airplanes unpredictable. She liked the odds for being safe on a train. She had to be chained to her seat, but finally the train started off. Ten minutes later, as it was nearing a stop, Mandy felt happy and cured.

Just then, a car skidded in the way of the train, and a plane fell on top of it. Horrible massacre followed.

The Moral Of This Story: The author is typing in the dark, it is 2:43 AM, and the author's house reeks of gasoline. Too … much… inhaled…. Must… stop… and … breathe…

o-o-o

Chapter 1, Part 5: An Encounter

Devi called Ian from a payphone just outside the apartment. Ian decided to accompany her just because he was a very boring, no-life person – just the type to keep Devi sure of him. Ian pulled up in his black Toyota and they rode off towards the store, which Devi hadn't visited for a while. There was a big Frosty machine visible through the store windows. Devi thought to herself that she could use a cold drink.

" Ian, here's my grocery list." She mumbled, pushing a wadded little paper into his hand. " I need to get a drink."

" 'Kay." Ian replied, looking down at the grocery list.

Devi wandered off to the Frosty machine and glanced over the flavors. There was Cheese Surprise (now with scraps from the Chinese food restaurant across the street!), Cherry, and Plain (just ice… so boring). Devi pushed a plastic cup against the metal bar beneath the Cherry label. Someone else's hand was there. Clad in eerie black gloves.

She took a step back. " Sorry - -" She began, then looked at the person the hand belonged to. Up the long thin arm, to the scraggly jagged shoulder, up the thin neck, and there was that familiar maliciously-grinning smile.

" Johnny?" Devi stammered, yanking out her mace can. " Get away from me!"

Johnny blinked, unsure of what to say in these last few seconds before he gets an eyeful of agonizing, stinging fluid. " I…"

She released a fury of sprayed mace. It made her eyes grow watery and full of tears. She coughed and then shouted at the cloud of gray before her: " You are a bastard! You don't know how much I hate you now! I've decided not to let you traumatize me anymore, you fucker! So why don't just just go lie down in a ditch and die?"

The spray cleared and she saw that Johnny wasn't there. Suddenly, she had a freakish thought – was he even there at all?

She glanced around herself, and then her jaw dropped in horror at what she saw.

Subliminal Message: Run to me children! … Run to me!

. . . . . . . . . . Actually, my subliminal message is, review. Sorry if it's OOC, I tried but I am not a very good writer. I really tried though. Most of the JTHM stories on here are really OOC … BTW! I only read all the Johnny's and all the Squee's and have only heard rumors of what I FEEL SICK is about… so if I got anything wrong with Devi, just pretend that I FEEL SICK didn't happen but my story did. *Nods* See? Isn't living in a pretend world fun?

If this story has thus far traumatized you in any way, nobody cares, you wussy. Why are you reading in this category anyway?

(Oh yeah… and if this story just disappears, it's probably because I realized this was just a very very weird thing I wrote in the middle of the night, and I should not, under no circumstance, have posted it. Or if people don't like it *sniff*)