Peter Pan and Me

CHAPTER 28: PART OF THE DISEASE

Flying over the fire, I let loose with a yelp Peter would have been proud
of and the elephant I was on, Tantor, let loose with a spray of water
that doused the fire that would have killed the Indian women running
right for it. We saved their lives and on the other side, Sole was having
Dumbo do the same thing over the other Indian camp. Clinging to my ear
was the fairy boy, exhausted from expending so much energy and fairy
dust. He tingled and I knew that meant danger, at least it did to Peter
when the fairies were on him. "Sole, follow me, boy--ohh! The Lost Boys
are in danger, boy!"

"But Chase, we're both out of water!" Sole called but I just laughed,
Peter-like.

"We can't fly with the babies on us!" Landen said, "They'll think we are
trying to take them again!"

"We're...." Aoi pushed the fat baby boy on his back to one side, trying
to get him off and not succeeding; and getting a second carry on in the
form of a smaller leaner child who started to cling to his shoulder on
the other side to from the fat baby boy. He lost grip so he began to put
his hands over Aoi's eyes. "We're..." Aoi brushed one hand out of his
face, "We're...not trying to take them and we can't make them understand
us without Peter's translation ability extended to us!"

"They don't know any of that! They think we're trying to take their
kids!" Pare said, trying to walk with two little native girls clinging
to each leg and then sitting at his feet, around them. "N' besides, we
can't fly with so many of them on us!" He had three more behind him,
touching his butt and trying to find out what he was made of.

"I don't think they've ever seen a white person before!" Rollin said as
five boys nearly tackled him, playfully. He could barely stand up.

The Indian braves, outnumbered them on both sides and were moving up on
them, knives raised, spears ready, and tomahawks cocked. They were mere
feet away when something blocked out the sun. "Geronimo!" I yelled and
whooped as the elephant swooped out of the sky. Then the Indians that
were so close to the Lost Boys, seemed to get blotted out by something
big and black and ....and smelly. "Okay Lost Boys, be men and rid
yourselves of those babies!"

"What? Kill them?" Landen asked.

"Kill children? Never! Get them off you!"

"What is that stuff?" Landen asked.

More of it fell, from Sole's Dumbo and my Tantor. Aoi's freed eyebrows
rose up, "Crap."

"Crap?" Je'ne asked, putting his children aside.

"Crap!" Rollin laughed, getting out from under a sea of native children.

"Holy shit!" Pare snipped as more elephant turd rained on nasty native
boys and men, weapons sticking out of brown waste soon enough. Some
seemed to have been killed by it, but most got free.

"What a shitty day!" Rico said as he flew upward. The other boys
followed him in kind. The Indian women were on the scene soon enough and
scooped up their babies but when their men folk came toward them, they
ran away screaming and holding their noses, babies and children in arms
and or their hands, in similar flight. For the males were brown and
smelly. They looked like monsters of mud and smelled like demons from
hell. Which reminds me...

Seth was kicking at a small creature. The thing had a large round head, a
tiny set of arms and legs and spikes on its forehead and back of head. It
looked a lot like the evil little midget monster from POKEMON named Mew.
"You gnome! You devil! You are crap!"

"No, they are," it signaled to Seth and covered its head, "I got you to
the Underground House! You know you can't kill them directly, they're
fully human beings and you are not! They won't allow you to do it and it
will let them know where you are and you don't want that cause they are
stronger than you are!"

"Go back to hell!" Seth yelled and the thing vanished in flames. Flying
overhead, Jennie was watching him.

The Lost Boys met in the forest where Chase landed with Sole, elephant
next to elephant. All relieved, the elephants in a different way from the
boys. The boys were all laughing. I watched them with my arms folded,
sitting on Dumbo's foot. He kicked me off and I laughed, then rolled over
onto my side to watch the boys. Rollin laughed and faked a punch to
Rico's stomach, "Oh boy, am I pooped!"

"No the injuns are!" Rico laughed.

Bo, Bailey, and Barry were wrestling. Bailey winning. Barry gasped, "That
took it all out of me!"

"And the elephants!" Bailey laughed.

I laid on the grass on my right side, head on hand, elbow on grass, one
leg bent, feet on grass, feeling happy for the first time since Peter
moved on. I felt very Peter-like.

"Did you know?" I began from my laying around state, "...that a man in
India once died when he gave an elephant an enema..." Dumbo and Tantor
were uncomfortable with this and trumpeted. "Oh calm down," I smiled, and
waved them off, "He put it in and then it all rushed out and knocked him
down, right in the face and covered him completely."

Barry asked, "What's the scoop? You think some of them injun boys are
dead?"

I shrugged. "I hope not but I couldn't let em slay you guys."

Rico laughed, "It's an Inj-Enema." That joke was almost worthy of
Peter.

Landen asked, "Did you think the children will be okay?"

"Will you stop!" I yelled, "I wanna just smack you." I rose up on my
torso.

Landen had puppy dog sad eyes and he backed off. I had never yelled at
him like this, if at all. I didn't yell a lot at the boys. And I never
hit them.

"I told you, the kids were not harmed. You were there yourself, you saw
them okay. They're allright. Their mothers..." I almost spat the word as
Peter might, for he said he hated mothers. Did I? "...whom I saved..."

"And me," chimed in Sole.

"...will be along to collect them. At worst, only a few were killed by
the poop."

"What a shitty way to die," Pare laughed.

Something nagged at the back of my mind, "Say, say, where's..." What's
his name? My, I was getting like Peter. "What's his name? Jennie?" I
was still sitting down but sitting upward more now, rather than laying.

I had this image of Jennie dead in the forest with a knife sticking out
of his belly button....the same way...well, like Peter. Except Peter
had a sword stab him down and the sword was no where to be found. Maybe
it was an Indian and one of the ones that just died.

"Snap out of it!" I told myself. I wasn't Peter. Sure, he was in me but
I wasn't him. I was me. Chase. I jumped up, worried, "Let's go find him!"

Jennie landed in front of Seth and stared at him. Seth whirled on him,
"You. Don't think you can do anything against me, do you?" Jennie
stared. Seth's angry face broke and broke into a worried look, "Do you?
Are you the one with the power?" Jennie shook his head no. "Then what?"
He looked as he walked toward Jennie, "What good are you?" Seth's
nails grew long and sharp on both hands and he fingered them with each
other and brought his hands close together. Jennie's eyes widened in
shock and terror but then dropped that visage. Jennie let a tear fall
from his left eye. Then his right. Seth, moving at him, fangs dripping,
stopped and turned human looking again, sad eyes of his own. "You...what?
Feel....feel for me?" Jennie shook his head yes. "No, no, no! No,
don't! Don't feel for me, it's...." Seth turned away and then smiled
his evil smile. His eyes turned red and a knife appeared in his hand,
"Go! Get away from me!" Jennie moved over to Seth and put a hand on
Seth's bare lower back and his head to Seth's spine. He cried tears.
"Stop it! You foolish boy! I will kill you!" But Seth didn't mean it. In
fact, he ran off. Ran from the little boy. He ran far and fast and while
he wanted to sprout wings to fly to get away as fast as could, for some
reason, he could not. He ran and ran and ran and tripped over a log. Then
as he plied himself off the ground, arms down, hands flat, he looked up,
tears in his eyes and saw something horrid. There were cloven hoofed feet
in front of him. "Father?!"

The Lost boys and I landed near Jennie who turned and gave us his
infectious innocent smile.

For a moment I thought I heard him telepathically in my head say,
"Peter?"

"Are you allright?" Jennie telepathically sent to us that he was.
"Good," I went to him and hugged him, "I know you Lost Boys want some
solo adventures but the ...the Neverland isn't really safe. We know that
and now that Peter's dead...moved on..." I corrected myself, "No one
really dies. Now that he's moved, there's really on safe place at all in
Never land. Not for me. For us." I put a hand around his back, "Let's
go home now and read some stories..."

For days after, the Indian tribes recovered. Rebuilt. Then fought each
other. Almost two months had gone by since Peter moved on. I had to
really believe he was gone for good now. All hope for his return was
almost gone. I cried every night still and in my dreams I felt someone
evil. I was having the dreams Peter had when he was here or so I thought.
I thought I was Peter sometimes. There was no one there to comfort me in
my dream states, the way I had comforted Peter. No ghosts came. Not even
Wendy. I didn't understand the lack of feeling I had and the lack of
spiritual support.

Indians lay in wait on either side of us one day as all of us walked
along a path playing, "Who can not fly today." The game was this: the
first one to fly lost the game. As we walked on the path, a sort of
yellow hay road, we all knew, thanks to my keen eyes, that Indians were
there in the forestry, on their bellies, each from the other tribe, lying
in waiting for their foes. We walked in between them, they didn't dare
attack us. I gave each side a look of challenge to do that. I made my
eyes wide with madness and blood thirst. These indians were not cowards
but they would not challenge the look of Pan, that I learned from him. We
walked among a near war unstopped. The boys shrugged. Rollin did a strut,
I wondered if it was to entice the gays among them or to show off. I
didn't care which as long as not a hair of head (or anywhere else) would
be harmed. After we passed and chatted about the weather, we heard the
Indian males clash into each other, body to body, fighting.

Death sounds were heard too. Slashing, stabbing, killing, slit throats,
opened bellies, hanging intestines. Butchered genitals, even scalping
which they learned from white men. I could tell which sound was which
even if the boys didn't. I stopped when Seth appeared in front of us, his
eyes red, literally. "What do you want?" I had grown to dislike him even
more than the Lost Boys disliked him.

"I'm here to give you information." He came forward.

"Tell it to your momma," I said, "We're busy."

"It's about that...." Seth nodded to the bloody battle.

"Nice isn't it?" I smiled, "The sound of death."

Seth shrugged, non commital, "I...they think...they don't think you did
that. The fires." He saw I didn't know what he meant at first and
didn't care after I did realize what he meant. "They think each other did
it."

The sound of a tomahawk against a young skull.

"I don't care," I said. Then I puffed, "Boys, game over, we all win."
The boys cheered.

Je'ne smiled at me and slapped my back, "Peter never let us win. Not all
of us. It was always him."

I nodded, "I'm not Peter." The boys flew off. "They flew first," I
said to Seth, "...so that means...I win."

I heard a death gurgle from an Indian.

"Are you...are you allright?" Seth asked me.

A stomach opened by a knife.

"Yes," I said, "I have to go on...for...for them. And for Neverland."

Another death cry. A victory whoop.

"Why don't you just leave?"

A hard moaning, lingering death.

"Leave?"

Ripping rib cage.

"You can." Seth moved toward me closer. I stepped back. His eyes were
normal color again. I didn't notice it then. "I can't. You can fly! You
can fly!!!! Fly! If you can, you can get word back to the mainland that
I'm here..." His fast talking stopped to a slow motion, "....you...you
do...want to help me, don't you?"

A skull opened by a tomahawk.

"I...I don't know what it is you want?"

Someone was just stabbed with a spear in their belly. I knew the sounds
that made and the type of yell produced.

"Go to Venice, that's the place...Italy...I lived there even though I'm
not from there."

"Italy?" The real world seemed so distant to me now. "Lotta water. No
Mermen, or merboys or mermaids."

More victory cries. "Apaches won this round," I said coolly, "Sounds
like," I added even more coldly.

Ignoring the fight, Seth nodded, "That's right. Go there, help me."

"I can't leave the boys and I won't take them. They won't all make it
without Peter's help. And I'm not even sure I would. Besides now is not a
good time to go with the Indian tribes both on the warpath."

"I can watch out of the boys or the Indians and maybe....well, look,
just....I'll let you think about it then."

"Okay, Seth I will think about it. But to fly there is very far, I'm not
even sure I can fly there."

Seth nodded to me, "Maybe if you had the right incentive?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you had to leave, maybe you would be able to find the power."

"Maybe. I've learned," I picked a flower off a tree that was hanging
overhead. The Indian battle seemed over and both sides split, with only a
few left alive. Moaning. Dying. Hurting. Blood. "I've learned that we can
do a lot if we have to. We can put up with a lot if we have to. I miss
him so terribly. So terribly..." My voice cracked.

Seth put a hand on my shoulder and he said...and now I can look back and
say that most of what Seth did and said was for a dual reason and only
that. But in his voice this time, I heard something sincere, something
that made me trust him again, something that made me want to help him. "I
know exactly how..." His voice broke into fear and sadness and cracked
too, "How you feel, I'm so sorry Peter's gone...you lov..."

"Yes I still do," I said and turned to him. He hugged me. Behind my back
he put both hands together and when his fingers met his fingers, a spark
flew between them.

A fire started. The mountainsides were on fire. The fires spread. The
volcano erupted. Lava shot out. The ground shook. Smoke flew up. In the
underground house, the boys fell. Mermaids shook. Fires sprang up out of
cracks in the ground. Trees burst into flame. I turned from Seth's
embrace, breaking his fingers apart and looking upward, "That? Again?
What's happening?"

"Maybe...maybe Neverland is finally giving in to the fact that Peter is
gone, is dead, is buried, is no longer."

I rounded on him, "Don't even say those things and not to me especially."

"Peter IS gone," Seth yelled at me, in my face, "I need your help. I need
you to free me!"

I thought he meant from Neverland but he didn't. I wouldn't find out more
about what he really meant until...well, later. Explosions rocked the
volcano and the side of it seemed to split open. The temperature rose. I
grabbed Seth by the shoulders, "Get outta my sight and don't ever let me
see you again!" I pushed him, shoved him and let go. He fell to his
knees and cried. Like a baby. I watched him and my coldness took over.
Yet somehow I felt Peter was there crying. How many times had he cried,
the little boy. The baby tears. The tantrums that lead to cries and
huffing sob stories? How many times had I cradled him out of his bed into
my lap, my arms, to wet my chest? Why would I hold such care for one and
not the other. Pity began to form in my heart for Seth, if not for Peter.
I was bitter toward Peter. Damn shit, I wanted him back. Neverland shook,
the Neverlands shook, the ground shook. A great big tree fell and headed
right for Seth, on fire. "Seth!" I flew at him and pulled him from under
his arms and face to face, I flew him out from under the tree and the
flaming mess landed just where he stood. Seth was crying and I was on top
of him. In the leaves. I got very hard as our bodies pressed together.

Seth may not have noticed, for he was still heaving great big sobs. He
couldn't be faking this. "You should have, should have, huff huff huff,
should have let it kill meeeeeeeeee!"

I was crying now too, "No, Seth, no. I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
hurt you. I just...nothing matters but the boys now and I'm angry. Angry
at Peter for...for dying..."

Seth gasped, "Did you ever think....."

"What?"

"Peter died for some reason? Maybe he..." Seth rubbed his tears with his
arm, "Maybe I'm just being stupid."

"No, what were you?" Fires spread and I heaved Seth to his feet and
told him to follow me. I was bringing him back to the Underground House.
I wanted to hear what he had to say but this was not the right time.


I had to take him through the jungle since I didn't want to give him the
power to fly, not just yet. Little did I know he had his own power to
fly. I wouldn't find that out until much, much later. En route, an Apache
jumped out as us and had his knife raised, ready to strike. Seth said,
much to my surprise, "Get to the cave, I'll take care of this!"

"I'm not gonna leave you!" I faced the Indian, a brave, a few years
older than myself and probably a few years younger than Seth.
"You...you're just scared. There's no reason to..."

Seth yelled, "This may be the one who killed Peter Pan!"

My face grew red and not from the surrounding fires. Seth could be
correct. I took out my own knife, which I almost never carried but had
this day. I yelled and ran at the Indian with the deadliest intent to
kill. Seth smiled behind my back. But then someone flew down between us
and it was Jennie.

"Watchout!" Seth yelled and Jennie turned to see the Indian baring down
on the little boy! "NO!"

I jumped low and dropped my knife, scooped up Jennie and tried to run but
I fell. I covered Jennie with my back to the Indian and awaited the
fateful knife in my spine. It never came.

The Indian. Seth just stared at him. The Indian looked at us, and then at
him. When what seemed an eternity passed, I peeked up and saw this. I
stood up and pushed Jennie behind me. The brave circled round us and
left. I eased my breathing. He said something that I couldn't figure
out, but what later I knew to be an Apache word for son of the devil. I
thought he was just throwing an Indian insult our way, you know, the
terrible white men. I wondered what time these tribes came from? What
era?

When we went to the Underground House I flew down with Seth on my back,
he was heavy but that heavy for a 17 year old, and yet I wondered how it
was he got in the last time he was here. Did he just tumble down? How was
it I didn't hear him? Rollin snorted, "What's he doing here?" The other
Lost Boys were in the midst of picking up fallen tables, chairs, pottery,
and other nick knacks.

"Leave all that," I said, "We have to leave Neverland."

There was an uproar the likes you never heard. "What?" "Leave
Neverland?" "Are you joking?" Even "Fuck you!" "Peter would never
leave Neverland."

"SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!" I screamed like a raging bull and louder than
anyone had ever heard before. The boys were gulping in fear, even Sole
and Aoi. Je'ne looked wounded. Landen pulled Jennie to him but Jennie,
infront of Landen, eyed only Seth. "We all have to leave! Look around
you! This place is coming apart. Fire will engulf the entire place. We
have to warn all to leave. And then we have to get the animals that can't
make it out of here."

"What? How? Why?"

"We have to face the fact that this might be because Peter is dead
and..."

Seth chimed in, "And...may be in Hell."

A round of yells from the Boys again. "NO!" "NOT PETER!" "SHUT YUP YOU
ASS!" "YOU STUPID ASSHOLE SHUT UP!" "GET HIM OUT OF HERE!" "GO TO
HELL YOURSELF!" "EAT ME!" "No way!" "You don't know what you're
talking about!"

Aoi picked up a wooden sword and threatened it toward Seth's belly, "I
ougtta kill you right now! Run ya through! Right in the navel!"

"STOP IT!" I yelled and ran to Aoi and took the sword from his fingers,
"You will listen to me! All of you! We might as well face facts now. We
have to leave or die here. Do you all want to die? Do any one of you want
to stay here and die?"

Silence. Jennie kept tugging on me now, having parted from Landen.

"We are going to build an ark."

Seth seemed surprised now, "An ark?"

"It's been done before."

The boys seemed to come alive again and this time for the better and
brighter. "Noah!" Rollin exclaimed brightly.

"Peter," I said, "Peter and the other Lost Boys, the older ones, know
dead, built an ark."

Which wasn't entirely true. They used Hook's ship the Jolly Roger to get
the animals out of Neverland when they believed Old Smokey Top Mountain
was going to blow up. It was a long story. Another time, Neverland was
vanishing due to Peter's map being erased by Hook. Maybe this was
something similar. And yet another time, Peter turned old thanks to some
crafty words by Hook and when Peter did that, Neverland started to
vanish. Seth looked at me and put a hand on my shoulder, "All that will
take forever!"

"Then we'd better get started at once," I said spritely. "I'll take both
Indian camps, although I'm sure they are already leaving and the Mermen
and maids' lagoon. Sole you take the Mysterious River folk and warn them,
Aoi and Je'ne, since you are the best swordsmen besides me and Sole, you
take the Troll Cave." Actually almost all of them were better than me at
swordplay with the exception of Landen and Jennie, who almost never
fought with weapons, and almost never fought at all. "Rollin, take
Slightly Gulch and Hook Island, I doubt anyone is at either place right
now but check em out and warn anyone there. Fairy, you warn Small Monday
Island and Tintagel, both places we either can't get into without money
or a pass or a way into another dimension but both which are tied to
Neverland. If it does go and it looks like it is going, so will those two
places. Landen, you warn anyone in the Hollow Tree caves but stay out of
them and also send some echo voice warnings into Buccaneer's Cave and
Cove?"

"Me?"

"Yes, Landen, I'm trusting you to be brave," I said, knowing full well
that Landen could be the meanest son of bitch if ever aroused. "I know
you have it in you."

"Yeah," Landen said, puffing out his tiny chest, "I just..." He grew
humble again, "Just don't want it to come out."

"I do and now. I need it out now, so get on, go on and get flying," I
said, "And then we start the ark, right away."

Everyone moved to different directions. Seth looked at Jennie, "I need
you, so don't go get yourself killed."

I didn't hear him say this and I'm not sure I could have even if I had
been listening. "Seth, you pack up what you can here with Jennie and the
redheads, so I'll go warn the Indian villages." I went to the opening
that I usually flew out of. Bailey came to me, with me.

"Why do we have to stay here? I can fight as good as..."

I put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered, "I know you can, Bail, I
need you and your brothers here to keep an eye on..." I nodded toward
Seth. Bailey gave me a knowing nod and look.

I flew out. As the three boys got ready to pack with Jennie, gathering up
belongings and tools they would need to build the ark, Seth looked at
them, "I'm just going to check the area so that we don't get surprised by
any fires." Before they could protest, Seth climbed up one of the
holes. When the boys were not looking, he spread foul looking crimson
wings and flew up the rest of the way. His eyes were red and as he looked
into the smoking darkening sky...even though it was afternoon now, the
sky was dark with fire and smoke, Seth's eyes turned fully red. He smiled
but broke into a laugh. "Go ahead, build your ark, Chase, build it."

As he spoke, more explosions were heard in the distance, rocking
Neverland and the waters around it. Lightning and thunder spoke up and
dark clouds mingled with the smoke from the volcano Smokey Top Mountain.

"There will be no escape for you as there is none for me unless either
you or your dumb and deaf mute boy can free me from my bonds. If not,
your Neverland shall become what my father wants it to become, the very
image of the pits of hell, I shall prove myself to him by making my own
hell, this Neverland shall not cease as you think it will, it shall
become my hell, my hell which will imprison not just me but all you seek
to protect."

Thunder burst, lightning hit a tree near Seth, in front of him and then
directly behind him, lightning then smashed a rock to his side. He
remained unflinching, unmoving, arms out and hands spread, fingers
constantly moving.

"Pan could not stop me, Chase. Pan could not help me. Pan failed me, you
may yet fail me and if so I have your little boy to try. If he fails,
then all this place will become the fires that we shall live in together,
my torture will no no end and from here, I shall spread the fires to the
entire world beyond! Do you hear me father, do you? Satan, father,
whatever you wish to think of yourself, you will know that half of you
resides in me for the fires will fill this world you love to torment so!
I will make it happen!" Seth laughed uncontrollably as fires rose up
around him, not burning him, not touching him, then touching him and not
hurting him. He kept on laughing for a long, long time...


The play Peter Pan and its characters are trademarks of and copyright
J.M. Barrie