2.d.i
The Greed was
well hidden this time. Mr. Jones had
already confronted several likely host candidates but none of them seemed to
house The Greed. Where could he be? From a few scattered memories, Mr. Jones
recalled past encounters with this entity of avarice but this creature seemed
much more advanced. From what he’d seen
so far, each new host seemed to be a platform for The Greed to illustrate just
how extensive his influence was; how deeply embedded in the American people
he’d become.
So who would
it be? Which person here was different
from the previous hosts?
And finally,
Mr. Jones knew. There was a boy, maybe
eight years old, with an armful of toys, filling his mother’s shopping cart. He didn’t seem to care which toy, there were
many duplicates in fact, just that he get as many as he could.
Mr. Jones
looked around for Tanya and spotted her in the perfume section. She reluctantly joined him when he motioned
her over.
“He’s in the
kid,” he said, and gestured toward the boy.
“What? No, I don’t believe that. Then he’d be in every kid in the world
because they all want everything.”
“Maybe he
is. Look at our society. Look at the rampant commercialism in kid’s
entertainment. We’re creating a populous
engineered to act as hosts for The Greed.”
Tanya shook
her head and said, “Uh uh. That’s just
sick and wrong.”
“I think I
know a way to get him out of the boy,” said Mr. Jones.
“Yeah, I want
no part of that.”
“Would you
just trust me, I think I’ve done something like this before. Back in the 80’s. You have the bag?”
Tanya held up
a box of zippered freezer bags.
“What is
that?”
“Bags. You said to get bags.”
“I meant big
bags. Extra durable garbage bags. How are we going to–”
“They’re moving,
Jonsey,” Tanya said, pointing to the boy and his mom.
Mr. Jones
swore and then hurried along after them.
He grabbed the boy by the shoulder, and spun him around.
“I know you’re
in there,” Mr. Jones said.
The boy
smirked and when he spoke it sounded like gravel in yogurt and smelled like
rotten fruit. “Of course I’m in
here. I was trying to be obvious. We can’t play this cat and mouse game
forever, after all.”
Mr. Jones
stepped back, a look of concern and puzzlement spread across his face.
“Yes,” The
Greed said. “Do you recall yet? Our previous encounters? Or are you still going on blind instinct and
half remembered flashes?”
Mr. Jones
clutched at his temple, rubbing his eye and the side of his forehead. There was a sharp, panging throb beating
through his brain.
“Go on. Procede as you had planned. Let’s play out parts and see how it turns out
this time.”
Mr. Jones
grunted and fought to clear his head.
“You… don’t have to be like this,” he said.
“Yes,
yes. And what comes next?”
“You… What…”
“I think
you’re supposed to appeal to the boy’s sense of valor,” The Greed said.
And then it
clicked. Mr. Jones remembered. The light went deep orange and the edges of everything
glowed a whitish, violet neon as if lit by a black light.
Halloween 1982.