POINT THE FINGER

A short story by DAN JIRE

Ralphie’s finger hurt. Must’ve woken up that way. He tried to stop the pain by biting his lip. Old advice that like all things old, didn’t apply to him. He thought of stubbing his toe on the kitchen door, but he remembered he didn’t care much for stubbed toes. He once stubbed his toe so bad, his toenail turned black and then, slowly, painfully fell off just enough where it had to be ripped off with a pair of pliers just to make wearing socks and shoes and option. There was blood.

Back then, Ralphie had hated blood, but right then and there in that kitchen he’d prefer it to the weird poking and prodding right on his finger tip. He skirted behind his mother—preparing his school lunch and her salad. If she kept her eyes off him long enough, he thought, he could grab one of the steak knives and try cutting whatever the heck it was out of his finger.

And there would be blood. But Ralphie didn’t mind blood so much anymore, it tasted nice. Not like a soda or chips, but better than snot or boogers. It’s why he couldn’t truly fault the nature of vampires other than their slicked back hair, ruffled sleeves, and capes with large collars.

“Ralphie. What. Are. You. Doing?” His mother asked.

She had top notch hearing. One day, Ralphie would too, but he couldn’t hear as good as his mother. His mother could hear him even though he was an expert of making no sound. Around his father he could get away with anything, but not his mother. Expert hearing. Sometimes she heard his thoughts.

Ralphie quieted his mind and said, “Nothing.”

“Did you put your bowl and spoon in the sink?”

“Not finished.”

“Then get back to that table and finish your cereal, hon. We’ve got to go in five minutes or you’ll miss the bus.”

“I don’t like my cereal.”

“Eat it.”

“I need a new spoon.” Ralphie wasn’t that quick with his reply. There had been a delay, a slight standoff. In that time, his mind realized she’d let him into the silverware drawer if he needed a new spoon. Then when she turned her back, he’d sneak the steak knife and get to whittling at the thing in his finger.

“No. No way. Get back to that table. You are not making more of a mess for me to clean up. Are you ready to start cleaning dishes, mister?”

Ralphie snarled, then returned to the breakfast table and put on a dramatic reenactment of someone eating his cereal with a serious chip on their shoulder. Of course, where he gripped the spoon was exactly where the pain in his finger sat. He splattered milk on the tablecloth and his jean shorts.

His mother hadn’t been watching, so he mopped it up really quick with his shirt. He smiled to himself. She’d never know. Then he pressed his finger against the table, and tired to use the spoon to dig at the bulge. Whatever was beneath his fingerprint moved. He could almost push it from side to side, but it was stuck or something, or according to Ralphie’s six-year-old mind: it pushed back.

“Okay, hon, get them shoes on.”

“But, mom, I didn’t finish my breakfast.”

“You had half an hour to eat. Come on.”

“I needed a new spoon.”

“I need you to get your shoes on. Pronto, mister.”

Ralphie knocked the table, spilling a little more of his cereal, not that he noticed. Then he stomped into the mudroom to find his shoes. He spotted a small rock that had been tracked in. It looked like a miniature arrowhead.

Ralphie went to work on his finger, picking at it with the tiny sharp rock. He scratched a layer of skin, though still not deep enough.

“Shoes, now.”

“I am. I am.”

Ralphie slipped his feet into shoes. Then he panicked. He’d lost the tiny arrowhead looking rock. He scanned the floor of the mudroom, growing more frustrated.

His mother entered, grabbing her keys off a hook. She noticed Ralphie standing there dumbfounded.

“Tie your laces. Let’s go.”

Ralphie didn’t tie his laces, he just followed his mother out into the garage and got in her car. He searched his seat for a tool of some kind.

“Seatbelt. Now, mister.”

“Mom!” He screamed while obeying her command with dramatic flair.

Not much had changed since Ralphie got on the bus, waving bye to his mother as she drove off to work, looking relieved and perturbed at the same time.

On the bus, Ralphie tried to use the window frame and squish the strange object beneath his skin. Maybe he could pop it. When that failed, he tried to calm himself, knowing he had a decent pair of scissors at school.

“Ralphie is putting his fingers all over the windows, Miss Carney!” whined the bus’s self-appointed tattle-tale.

“Shut up, Wendy Perkins, no one likes you.”

“Miss Carney! Ralphie called me fat.”

“Don’t you call girls fat, Mr. Gottschalk! I’ll tell your mother.” Miss Carney eyed him in the bus mirror long enough to be in one of those old Hollywood movies where the driver of a car never looked at the road in front of them.

The wheels fell off a low shoulder. Miss Carney overcorrected, yanking the wheel left.

The weight of the bus shifted, every kid crossed the aisle, bumping into each other with choice words shared with little eloquence.

“The hell, Ralphie! Get your finger out of my mouth!” slurred Wendy Perkins.

“No way. You said a bad word, and I just washed my hand this morning. I’ll brush your teeth.”

Wendy Perkins bit. Everyone knew that. Ralphie had just forgot.

He screamed, and so did everyone else because Miss Carney had lost control. The bus toppled over into a ditch on the wrong side of the road.

Everyone fell to the front of the bus, as the rear tires came five whole feet off the ground, and the door at the front of the bus, leaned against tall grass on a thick and muddy embankment.

Miss Carney rested her head on the steering wheel, while lunches and other items the kids weren’t supposed to bring to school, rolled beneath the seats and bounced off the wall under the dashboard.

“You’re sick!” Ralphie told. “I didn’t wash my hands. But I wiped my butt! Poop eater!”

Wendy screamed and then spit, a little of Ralphie’s own blood speckled his cheek.

He’d punch her, but he knew better.

“I hate you.”

“I hate you ten times more, Ralphie Gottschalk. You make me ralph!”

Ralphie’s lips went fully automatic. He spat until he was dry. No one was there to reprimand him.

Miss Carney raised her bloodied forehead.

“Everyone. Shut. Up.”

They’d never heard that tone before. It sent chills through the topsy-turvy buss. If the kids could’ve sat back in their seats, they would’ve. Instead, their eyes widened. They tried not to blink or move a muscle.

Miss Carney went on muttering to herself. Then she gave a long deep sigh, and reported the accident.

“Truck driving too fast, I had to ride the edge and . . . No, no, we’re all fine. But we’re stuck—stuck in a ditch—No I can’t back out. Yes. Yes. Hurry.”

Miss Carney ended the radio transmission and glanced up in her mirror. Her seat belt was the only thing keeping her in her seat, it gripper her tightly, like a heart attack. “Everyone’s not hurt right?”

“Wendy Perkins bit my finger!”

“He shoved it in my mouth, Miss Carney!’

“Shut. Up. You stupid brats.” Miss Carney doubled down. “All of you better shut up. Don’t you dare move a muscle. Got me? Do you? How many times have I told you all to stay in your seats and keep your hands to yourselves?”

The question was not rhetorical.

“How many!”

“Every day,” all but one said. Some kid tried to be accurate. He said, “One million and three.”

“That’s right. Your parents are going to wallop those behinds of yours tonight!”

And so, the great silence began. The mirror showed Miss Carney’s dread and despair, something she was not aware of as she gazed down the hood the bus into a muddy creek bed.

Wendy Perkins pursed her lips and glared away from Ralphie.

Ralphie watched her, already plotting his next attack.

Then Wendy Perkins turned the most unappetizing shade of lemon. Her throat jumped, her cheeks inflated, and then vomit rained from mid-bus to the back of Miss Carney’s head.

Everyone braced, teeth clenched, knuckles white. But Miss Carney was defeated. She let out the most terrifying sound any child in that bus had ever heard, an adult’s whimper.

Wendy Perkins moaned, clutching her stomach.

“She’s gonna do it again!” Ralphie warned.

But Wendy Perkins burped instead.

Wendy blushed and hid her face in her backpack. An infectious laughter could not be contained, and true chaos erupted behind Miss Carney’s inability to put up a fight any longer.

This noise drowned out the sounds and sights of what happened next in Wendy Perkin’s seat. She felt it, wet and similar to a dropped golf ball. It rested between her thighs. She squirmed, rolling it out beneath her dress. The smell already engulfed her nostrils.

“Ah that’s horrible!” Ralphie said. He squeezed his nose, and pretty soon the rest of the bus smelled Wendy Perkin’s accidental excretion.

Miss Carney almost tried to calm the children down and explain how it is normal in the case of an accident to relieve oneself. But why bother, she thought. She was pretty sure she was out of a job.

“It’s Wendy!” Ralphie pointed. That’s when he noticed the blood dripping off his finger. He’d forgotten all about it. Wendy must have bit that little thing right out of his finger. He was almost grateful. “Miss Carney, I’m bleeding where Wendy bit me. She bit off my finger, Miss Carney.”

“Did not! You! Liar!” Wendy raged as she heaved, her bowels a fury of blood and acid like a bucket of steaming hot oatmeal.

Ralphie put up his arms, but he couldn’t stop it. Wendy’s eyes were bright red. She glared about the bus and everyone that looked scared got a taste of her insides whether they had time to block their mouth or not. Soon the entire bus was covered, like sheets covering fancy furniture in an old home. Only it was a bubbling bile that popped and hissed as Wendy Perkins heaved and purred. Her attention snapped back to Ralphie.

He started to climb up the seats to the rear door. She drenched him. The bile now sticky and heavy, he could barely bring his knees up to reach the next seat. But he fought his way, then battled the handle which needed a strong shoulder before it’d swing wide enough open.

The vomit adhered Ralphie to the bus floor as he tried to pull himself up. He could feel his ankles being pulled as Wendy climbed up the strange bile on all fours, growling lowly. Her skin bubbled and stretched as if something beneath her was reaching out for Ralphie.

Ralphie strained, breaking free. He pulled himself out of the exit door, and flipped down, down into the ditch. He splashed in the mud. Vomit chased him out like a spilled tub of melted ice cream. He ducked beneath the bus, working his way underneath the transmission and up the side of the ditch.

The other children pounded on the bus windows as the goo squeezed through every seam in the bus.

Wendy reached the doors, and threw up a mound to step off into. It carried her down to the ground.

Ralphie watched, unable to move as he witness the unfathomable. He shook his head clear, and darted across the road. The vomit hill leapt, Wendy riding upon it like a stead. A truck squealed as it hit the brakes.

Then it thumped and jostled up and over the mound, spreading Wendy Perkins across the pavement.

Ralphie witnessed all of this. Speechless when his mother arrived to pick him up. She was so grateful to have her son back home with her, with just a little scratch on his finger. The other children were said to have not survived the crash.

THE END.