Ikarus - Part VI (fiction)

There are five parts before this. One, two, three, four, five.

If you’d told Ikarus Wilty that within the week, not only would he be caught out by his stalkee, but he would also switch places with him for a while, he would have most likely believed you. Eric, of course, wouldn’t have, but that’s just Eric for you and with that attitude, it’s no wonder nothing fun ever happened to him.
However, if you’d told Ikarus Wilty that on top of all that, his week would also include a 10,000 feet elevation, he would’ve said that’s a bit much. As he blinked himself awake in the back of the airplane, he realized, to his shock, that he’d gone to sleep in a warm, if somewhat stiff bed, and had very much expected to wake up in one.

The plane was mercifully empty, unlike last time, when he’d made a terrible mess screaming and waking up the other passengers. But now, it seemed it was just him, still in Eric’s dinosaur blue pyjamas. He stood up, steadied himself on the empty chairs, and then made his way slowly up to the cockpit where he began banging on the door.
‘Hello,’ he shouted. He already had a sneaking suspicion who might be behind this and he was not liking it one bit. ‘Dad?’ he asked, hesitantly.
It was doubtful, but he had to check. Besides, he liked to pretend all this would be solved presently, even though he knew better. The door opened without so much as a creak and he found himself face to face with none other than his cousin Marge, short of course, for Margerine. No surprises there, I suppose.
‘Ah finally.’ She clapped him on the back and gingerly stepped around him. He peered inside to see a small, burly man he’d never met in his life, his eyes focused on the clouds in front.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked, coming after Marge.
‘Where aren’t we going? I’ve been thinking Singapore. It’s been a while. Do you remember Singapore?’
‘Of course I remember Singapore.’
‘It was fun,’ Marge cut in.
‘Y-yes, it was. It’s just, I was doing something, you know. I’ve got to go to work in,’ he stopped to check his watch. ‘Now my watch’s stopped. That’s great.’
Actually, I took out the batteries.’
‘What?’ Ikarus shouted. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I figured it was some sort of gag. I mean, what kinda bozo wears a watch, anyway? And when I saw it was in fact working, I said to myself, why Marge, someone should really do something about that.’
And then you put it back?’
‘Of course,’ she shrugged. ‘What would be the fun if I just took your watch?’
He stood silently for a moment, studying his cousin. How long since he’d last seen her? Three months? Six? She’d changed, lost a lot of weight and dyed her hair blue. It went with her eyes, or at least, with her contacts. Those weren’t her real eyes. No one in the family knew just what had happened with Marge’s eyes and no one seemed to wanna ask.

‘Seriously, Marge,’ he sighed. He knew his cousin and knew he could say as many “seriously”s as he pleased, wouldn’t make things any easier, ‘I have to go to work. Turn this thing around.’
Marge sat there, staring at him for the longest minute in the history of long minutes. The burly man was saying something, in the cockpit behind them, but neither paid him any attention. Wouldn’t have made much difference if they had, since neither of them spoke an ounce of Russian.
And then, just as the silence was falling once again, Marge let out a loud squeal of laughter. She sunk deeper into her chair and she just laughed. The thing with Marge was, she was one of those people whose laugh just caught on to you, and Ikarus would normally be laughing too, by now. But he knew that if he gave in, he’d have no chance of her taking him seriously.
‘I’m serious, Marge.’
She puffed, wiping at her heavily made-up eyes. ‘You don’t work.’
‘I’m doing this thing.’
‘That why you were in that crummy apartment?’
‘It’s not crummy and actually, how did you know where I was?’
Marge shrugged. ‘Tracked you.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I can’t just go to Singapore by myself, that would be lame.’
‘But you’re not listening, I can’t go to Singapore, I need to get back.’

And then, he told her all about following Eric and about how he’d always kinda wanted to try and have a normal life like that and how he didn’t really want to screw this up just now, so sorry, he couldn’t go to Singapore with her. And he watched, as the smile faded off Marge’s face and her thin, black brows furled up at him.
‘Marge, I’m sorry, I… what’s the matter, are you okay?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be okay? Of course I’m okay. So you wanna have this shitty, boring life. Good on you, who am I to stop you?’
‘Just for a week, Marge.’
But Marge didn’t understand. She couldn’t, not really, and it had been silly of him to try and explain. He should’ve known better, he should’ve read her better. See, ever since the thing with her real eyes, she was… a bit strange. A bit on edge. Well, a bit more than she used to be.
‘We can go to Singapore next week,’ he said, taking a step toward her. She ducked, just as he’d reached her and avoided his arm.
‘You want to get to your job, you’ll have to drop.’
She spat the words and disappeared behind him.
‘Marge…’
But it was like she couldn’t hear him anymore. Like she was someone else now, someone he didn’t quite know. She tossed a backpack at him and he began strapping it to his back.
‘I’m sorry. This doesn’t mean anything.’
Except to her, it did. She went back to the cockpit and the Russian guy came out to watch him go. Through the crisp night air, Ikarus fell.

And somewhere on a darkened slab of sand, Eric awoke from dreams of falling, right about the same time. They’d decided to spend the night on the other side of the lake, since going back seemed like such a hassle. Well, Barney and Lionel had decided. He’d sorta just gone along with it. What could be so bad about sleeping in the open? It wasn’t quite so cold and they had blankets on the boat.
It would be kinda like the Boy Scouts and he’d never been in the Boy Scouts, because to his mother, they seemed dangerous and dirty. And wasn’t this week supposed to be about adventure, anyway?

It had all seemed like rather a good plan, until he’d woken up, that is. The other two were snoring, on either side of him and at first, he thought that was what he’d heard, except the noise seemed to grow louder, with each second; and with each second, it sounded less and less like snoring.

And the noise was coming closer.