Thunderland (35 page)

But Mr. Magic had his own plans.

Eyes wide, Jason moved away from the figure standing in front of him. He backed up against the bed and dropped onto the mattress.

He sat up, tried to speak. But he could neither think of anything to say nor draw the breath necessary to form words.

Watching him, Mr. Magic chuckled.

Jason’s imaginary friend, Mr. Magic, had resembled the stage magician whom he had once seen perform years ago. Tall and lean, with chiseled features and chestnut brown skin, his playmate had sported a whimsical costume: a black top hat, black tuxedo with white ruffled shirt, bow tie, flowing black cape, polished black shoes, a thin, dark cane. An almost comical outfit, really, and one that Jason had found amusing and comforting.

The Mr. Magic that stood before Jason in the flesh looked similar to Jason’s imaginary friend and was dressed in the same flamboyant garments. But there were differences. This Mr. Magic was taller; a year ago, a forward on the Chicago Bulls, an athlete who stood six feet eight, had visited Jason’s school, and Mr. Magic was clearly as tall as the ballplayer. Mr. Magic’s hands were grotesquely long, his fingers like giant crab legs. There was something weird about his eyes, too. His eyes were brown, but something seemed to ...
wriggle
in the whites of the entity’s eyes, as if tiny worms slithered around his pupils. When Jason stared more intently, the wormy things vanished. He wasn’t sure what he had seen. In
fact, he wasn’t sure of anything he was seeing right then.

“How?” Jason said, at last able to talk. “How can you be here? You aren’t
real.”

“You underestimate yourself, Jason,” Mr. Magic said in his inimitable, sonorous voice. “Your imagination is extraordinary. It breathed life into me as God breathed life into Adam. True life. I am far more than the imaginary friend you’ve always considered me to be. I am as real as anyone you’ve ever met, and I always have been.”

He certainly seemed to be real. When he moved, his shoes made slight indentations in the carpet. Shadows swarmed over his clean-shaven face, and the flickers of lightning that came in through the window flitted across his voluminous cape. Jason also thought he could smell him. No longer smelling of smoke, Mr. Magic’s scent reminded him vaguely of Old Spice.

“But you were only in my mind,” Jason said. “It should be impossible for you to be here, living and breathing like a real person. Impossible.”

“Almost nothing is impossible,” Mr. Magic said. “The universe is filled with nearly infinite possibilities. Remember, too, not only is your imagination unusually vivid; you were also born with a caul. A legendary sign of paranormal talent.”

“Yeah, I remember, my mother told me all about it,” Jason said. “But it’s just an old legend. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means that you possess great power,” Mr. Magic said. “Whether you choose to believe so or not.”

“Enough power to create you and then give you the ability to jump out of my head and into the real world?”

“Well, it did not work quite like that,” Mr. Magic said. He pursed his lips. “Let me see ... when you fell out of the tree in March, and, unfortunately, forgot about me, I missed you so much that I decided to
cross over,
I suppose you could say. Cross over from the land of dreams, where you created me and where we shared our adventures, to the land of flesh and blood.

“I discovered, however, that crossing over in the manner I wished to was impossible,” Mr. Magic said. “It seems the universe does have rules that govern these issues. The nearest I could get to the dimension in which you live is the alternate world you and your friends have entered on several occasions. You named it quite aptly, Jason: Thunderland.”

“Thunderland,” Jason said. “I guess we were right about it being another ... dimension.”

Mr. Magic nodded, smiling. “You always have been an intelligent boy. I can appear in the ‘real’ world, but my powers are limited there. It’s taxing to assume a physical form, though I have done it on occasion. I prefer, however, to limit myself to phone calls, simple messages, things of that nature.

“But in Thunderland, I am a god. Nothing is beyond my capabilities. The world is completely uninhabited, except by those whom I choose to bring there. It’s my private playground, in a sense. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

“Sure, whatever you say,” Jason said. He was amazed at how easily he had adapted to this most improbable of circumstances. His imaginary playmate coming to life? You could not get any crazier than that. But he accepted Mr. Magic’s existence. He did not understand how it was possible-he probably never would but he accepted it. Like the average person who did not understand a thing about nuclear physics yet accepted the reality of the nuclear bomb. To Jason, it was really that simple.

He sensed, too, that it was not important to worry too much about how Mr. Magic had become real. Obviously, Mr. Magic had a plan. He needed to learn the plan and do whatever was necessary to ruin it, so that he could go back to living a normal life. That was the important concern.

“I could ask you a million things, but I really want to know the answer to one question,” Jason said. “Why are you doing all of this stuff to me and my friends?”

“You wish to know my motives?” Mr. Magic said. Tapping his cane on the carpet, he sat on the windowsill. “Very well, I’ll
explain. I gave you the bike, gave you sex with the girl, and killed Blake and his despicable friends because I want you to see that this new life of yours is a mistake. You can be happier with me than you ever can be with any of your friends and family. By doing you these favors—granting you three secret wishes, if you will—I had hoped to show you the truth. The truth being that you need only me. No one else.”

“You think you’ve been making me happy?” Jason said. “Are you crazy? You’ve only scared me and confused me for the past week.”

“Be honest, Jason,” Mr. Magic said. “You were delighted when I left the bike in your garage, you moaned with pleasure when I thrilled you with the girl, and you would have eagerly bathed in Blake’s blood if I had provided a tubful. You know it’s true.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jason said. “Yeah, I liked the bike, but only until I found out that you had given it to me. And the sex was exciting, but afterward, it made me sick. And I never wanted Blake and those guys dead. I only wanted them to leave me alone.”

“I granted your wish,” Mr. Magic said.

“I didn’t wish for you to kill them,” Jason said. He swallowed. “And I definitely didn’t wish for you to kill Shorty.”

Mr. Magic chuckled. “Ah, your buddy Michael. Michael I murdered for a different purpose. I murdered him to liberate you.”

“Liberate me?”

“Precisely. To liberate you from the feelings you nurture for other people. To free you from the chains of love. Relationships are stifling, Jason. Your loved ones demand time, energy, money, commitment, kindness, love, understanding-an endless list of fussy, selfish requests comparable to the ransom demands of a mad bomber. For what? What results from your perpetual attempts to please these taskmasters? Nothing. Death. Ashes. Yes, loved ones die, my friend. They suffer heart attacks, get crushed in car accidents, and are slain by the numerous psychotics who prowl your streets in this sad age. Somehow, some way, they all die, and everything you have given them perishes with them. It all rots in the grave. Perfectly useless, wasted effort on your part.

“But I do not die, Jason. I will exist forever. You gave me everlasting life. I will never leave you.”

Jason shook his head. “I didn’t understand a word you said.”

“It is quite simple. I plan to liberate you, to set you free from your prison of ordinary, human concerns. The most effective way for me to achieve that goal is to terminate the relationships you are presently ensnared in. Hence, my disposal of Michael. Your liberation is essential, Jason. You must be a free soul before you can come back to me.”

“What do you mean, come back to you?”

Mr. Magic, still sitting on the windowsill, leaned forward on his cane.

“I mean, join with me. Not roam with me in the fantasy world, as we did in the past, but merge with me as if we were separate flames uniting into one enormous fire. A roaring fire that will ravage your world as no war in history has ever done. Nothing is quite as exciting as murder, Jason. No childhood game can compare to the thrill of gripping a living, beating heart ... and bursting it in your bare hands.”

Slowly Jason blinked. Mr. Magic was nuttier than they had expected. Jason understood, right then, that reasoning with Mr. Magic was impossible. He was as mad as any dictator who’d dreamed of world domination.

When Jason spoke, he tried to prevent his voice from quavering. “Why do you want to destroy the world?”

“In Thunderland, I have tasted godlike power,” Mr. Magic said, “and I have enjoyed it immensely. But as I said, that place is devoid of life. Your world, however, overflows with the living. The prospect of exercising divine power there is indescribably thrilling. Furthermore, considering your world’s present sorry state, it is ripe for a bit of, shall we say, cleansing. Why wait for God to do what we can do ourselves?”

“But you said that your powers were limited in my world.”

“That is correct,” Mr. Magic said. “Alone there, my capacities are restricted. But with you, I would be invincible.”

“So you need me to conquer the world?” Jason said.

“You are a vital component,” Mr. Magic said, nodding.

Not only was he insane; he was a selfish, manipulative son of a bitch. He didn’t suspect it, either. He thought he was charming. He was a case study in pure insanity.

“Forget it,” Jason said. “I’m not coming back to you. I don’t need you, and I don’t want you. If you’re so great, destroy the world by yourself. “

Mr. Magic threw back his head and laughed.

Outdoors, thunder cracked.

Rain marched across the roof, streamed like tears down the windows.

“Don’t need me, don’t want me?” Mr. Magic said. “You are an intelligent boy, but you don’t understand what we mean to each other. We are part of each other, inseparable; the link we share is unbreakable. You will realize that fact after I’ve liberated you. That exciting time is drawing near, Jason. Several others will die tonight.”

Jason shot off the bed, hands clenched into fists. “What others are you talking about?”

“The ones you love most, of course,” Mr. Magic said. “Surely, you know who they are.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s not your concern,” Mr. Magic said. “From this moment onward, your only concern is me. You will enjoy being with me again, Jason. You may experience grief and anger over the deaths of your loved ones, but that will pass, I assure you. Once we unite, we’ll have so much fun together that soon you won’t even remember them.”

Jason shook. “You’re crazy.”

Mr. Magic only smiled, as though Jason were a dim-witted child who did not comprehend anything he had said.

Mr. Magic pushed off the windowsill. God, he was so tall. The peak of his top hat was only inches beneath the ceiling.

“How about some magic, Jason?” Mr. Magic grinned. He raised his cane.

Then he cast the cane on the carpet.

“Oh, shit,” Jason said, backing up and staring at the stick.

But it was no longer a stick. When it struck the carpet, the wood transformed into a long, shiny creature that seemed to be a hybrid of a snake, a centipede, and a figment of pure fantasy. It had the length and gleaming black scales of a serpent, and dozens of tiny, jittering legs along both sides of its sinuous body. A pair of bulbous black eyes adorned its head, and when it opened its mouth, small fangs glistened.

The beast crouched on the floor between Jason and Mr. Magic. It hissed. Its large, glistening eyes focused on Jason.

Hot terror had pinned Jason against the door.