. . .

After a while Linus becomes worried. He becomes concerned for his brother. He sends out his black dog. The black dog disappears. The black dog reappears. The black dog pants.

The black dog takes Linus’ sleeve in its grutty teeth.

It pulls him down paths that, if you are not the antichrist, you should not walk. You would get your shoes all muddy. You would get dog-slobber on your sleeve. You should not walk them. Those paths are bad.

The dog and Linus arrive by Tom.

Linus sits down next to Tom. Tom is in an empty office building hallway. He has fallen, then pulled himself painfully upright against a wall. He is sweating hard and his eyes have a thousand-yard stare. There aren’t actually a thousand yards between Linus and Tom, so this is awful unsettling for both boys.

“What happened?” says Linus. “What happened? Who did this?”

Tom looks at him.

“It was the cleaning man,” Tom mumbles.

“What?”

“It. Was. The. Cleaning. Man.”

Linus bites his lip. “Damn it, Tom,” he says. “I told you the undertones of your science adventuring were too classist!”

Tom laughs. He can’t help it. It wracks him. “That was my error.”

“Still,” says Linus.

“He swiffed me,” says Tom, swiffedly. “He had a swiffer. He swiffed — oh, God, Linus. He swiffed the parasitic ophidian DNA right out of my genetic code. I’m not inhuman any more! I can’t blink! I can’t smell anything! I keep trying and all that happens is my eyelids close!”

“Calm down, Tom.”

“What am I?” Tom says. He makes a whining noise, deep in his throat. “Oh, God, if I were a girl I would be bearing live young right now.”

“Not right now,” says Linus, hopefully.

“Look at this blood!” says Tom. He shakes his pinkish arm at Linus. “I’m not Tom. What is with this hot blood, Linus? What am I?”

“You’re my brother,” Linus says.

“Ha,” laughs Tom. “Ha ha. Your brother. The antichrist’s brother.”

He lets the tears flow from his eyes.

“I’m human, Linus. Look at me. I can’t even science.”

“You know you’re going to destroy the human plague and warm the earth and bring about a revived civilization of serpent-people,” says Linus, in distress. “Come on now.”

“That future was erased,” says Tom. “Swiffed right out of me. There’s just a hole —”

He laughs again. Then he gives Linus this aching smile.

“Guess I’m off the team, huh?” he says.

And more tears flow.

<< – 4 –

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