Fiction

Not Mike
by Jim Wittenberg

Hey, we have to get out of here. Do you know what just happened? I was at the school playground with Not Mike when it started raining. It wasn’t cold at all. Not Mike took off his shoes and his shirt, and then he started running around in the rain.

“Come on, Jimmy,” he yelled at me as he was running around. “Take off your shoes and shirt. It feels good running around in the rain.”

You know, he was right. It did feel good running around in the rain without our shoes and shirts on, and we were running around in the rain when some other kids showed up. They were human kids, not monsters like Not Mike and me, and they started pointing at Not Mike’s second head. The second head is Mike, but he’s mute and never says anything, and nobody knows he’s even there when Not Mike has his shirt on. Mike just tucks himself under Not Mike’s arm, and sure it looks kind of bulky, but Not Mike’s a monster and monsters always look bulky.

I wasn’t surprised about Mike being there when Not Mike took off his shirt, because I've known Not Mike almost all my life and you know these things about your friends. After all, Not Mike’s grandfather was a two-headed giant, and things like this happen in monster families. But those human kids started taunting Not Mike, and since I'm also a monster they started to taunt me too.

At first the taunting wasn’t that bad, but then one of the human kids came up to us with a brush cutter. You know, it’s kind of like a weed whacker, but instead of plastic strings at the end it has a small circular saw blade. I don’t know where the kid got the brush cutter. He must have broke into the custodian’s shed or something, because I can't imagine a kid, not even a human kid, running around with a brush cutter just for kicks.

“Hey, Freak,” the human kid yelled at Not Mike. “I'm gonna cut your extra head off. How do you like that?”

Well, you can guess that Not Mike didn’t like being threatened like this at all. He really started fighting.

“Jimmy,” Not Mike shouted to me. “You gotta help me, this human kid is going crazy and wants to cut off Mike’s head.”

I tried to help Not Mike, but about six of those human kids jumped me and knocked me to the ground. They sat on me. I couldn't do a thing to help Not Mike save Mike’s head. Some other kids tackled Not Mike, and the kid with the brush cutter got it started. He revved up the small engine, it started smoking, and the smell of gasoline was everywhere. He swung the brush cutter with the blade going full throttle at Mike, but instead of cutting into Mike’s neck the blade made a big gash in his cheek.

Not Mike gave full voice to a blood-curdling scream like only a monster can do, and all the human kids panicked. The kid wielding the brush cutter dropped it and ran. The engine was idling, but it hadn't stopped, and Not Mike picked it up and began running after that cowardly human swinging the whirling blade at his head. All the other human kids ran off, even the ones who had been holding me down. They were terrified.

I was terrified too. What if Not Mike catches that shitty human? I thought. Is he gonna cut off his head? I didn’t think about it for too long. Not Mike swung the brush cutter one last time and the human kid’s head flew off his shoulder. The body just dropped to the ground. I never saw so much blood in my life. Not Mike stopped the brush cutter engine, and just stood there looking at the corpse.

“Not Mike!” I shouted.

I was going to say to him that we needed to get away from there, but it was too late. Some cops saw what he did, and they shot him. I saw Not Mike die right there. It wasn’t pretty. Maybe the cops were there because somebody had called in to report a fight at the playground, I don’t know. But we have to get out of here. The humans are angry because one of their kids is dead. They don’t care that Not Mike was shot dead, or that Mike’s cheek was cut by the saw blade. All they know is that one of their own is dead, and now it’s open season on all monsters.

We got to get away from here.