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.<\/p>\n
The black dog takes Linus\u2019 sleeve in its grutty teeth.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The dog and Linus arrive by Tom.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t actually a thousand yards between Linus and Tom, so this is awful unsettling for both boys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d says Linus. \u201cWhat happened? Who did this?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom looks at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the cleaning man,\u201d Tom mumbles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt. Was. The. Cleaning. Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linus bites his lip. \u201cDamn it, Tom,\u201d he says. \u201cI told you the undertones of your science adventuring were too classist!\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom laughs. He can\u2019t help it. It wracks him. \u201cThat was my error.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStill,\u201d says Linus.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe swiffed me,\u201d says Tom, swiffedly. \u201cHe had a swiffer. He swiffed \u2014 oh, God, Linus. He swiffed the parasitic ophidian DNA right out of my genetic code. I\u2019m not inhuman any more! I can\u2019t blink! I can\u2019t smell anything! I keep trying and all that happens is my eyelids close!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCalm down, Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat am<\/i> I?\u201d Tom says. He makes a whining noise, deep in his throat. \u201cOh, God, if I were a girl I would be bearing live young right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot right<\/i> now,\u201d <\/i>says Linus, hopefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at this blood!\u201d says Tom. He shakes his pinkish arm at Linus. \u201cI\u2019m not Tom. <\/i>What is with this hot blood, Linus? What am<\/i> I?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re my brother,\u201d Linus says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHa,\u201d laughs Tom. \u201cHa ha. Your brother. The antichrist\u2019s brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
He lets the tears flow from his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m human,<\/i> Linus. Look at me. I can\u2019t even science.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know you\u2019re going to destroy the human plague and warm the earth and bring about a revived civilization of serpent-people,\u201d says Linus, in distress. \u201cCome on now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat future was erased,\u201d says Tom. \u201cSwiffed right out of me. There\u2019s just a hole \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughs again. Then he gives Linus this aching smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuess I\u2019m off the team, huh?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And more tears flow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019 sleeve in its grutty teeth. It pulls him down paths that, if you are not the antichrist, you should not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-4242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stomping-the-world-round-chapter-5","series-stwr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Square-Linus.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4242"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6302,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions\/6302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=4242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}