Kevin's Point of View
By Del Shannon

Chapter 5

Tony rattled into the Tobin’s front yard and hopped off his bike, letting it crash to the grass. He bounced into the house and took the stairs two at a time. As he reached Kevin’s room he saw Kevin standing outside it, staring.

“What’s wrong? Got a problem with giant termites?” Tony asked as he stood behind Kevin, peering over his shoulder and noticing the hole in the wall Kevin fixated on.

Kevin ignored the comment. “See that thing on the bed?” he asked.

“The remote control?”

“It’s not a remote control,” Kevin whispered. “It’s called an Influxitron and it just put that hole in my wall.”

“It did not,” Tony smirked. “That’s great. You make me race over here just so you can play some stupid practical joke on me. I just used every trick I could think of to get here and this is all you have? Hey Kev, I like Captain Disaster just as much as you but it’s not real life. It’s a cartoon, okay?”

Kevin turned and locked his eyes with Tony’s. “I’m not making this up. Come here, I’ll show it to you.”

Kevin crept toward the Influxitron like he was walking underwater. Tony folded his arms across his chest and rolled his eyes at his friend’s theatrics. Tired of waiting for Kevin to walk across the room at his glacial pace, he jumped into the room, pushed passed Kevin and grabbed the Influxitron. “Hey, I’ve got the death ray now! Let’s go put a hole in something,” he mocked and waved the Influxitron.

Kevin’s eyes widened as big as dinner plates. “Tony, put that down before you kill somebody,” he hissed, diving for the floor.

Tony whirled and saw Kevin lying face down on the floor, his hands covering his head. “Get up, Kevin,” Tony complained. “We both know this is just some dumb box. It can’t put a hole into anything. Look, I’ll show you.”

Kevin looked up and saw Tony randomly pushing buttons on the Influxitron and swinging it wildly around the room. Time seemed to slow down. Kevin screamed in terror but it sounded to him more like a slow motion belch. But when Tony hit the Activate button everything went into fast-forward. A shaft of white light spiked out of the Influxitron and slammed into the ceiling. Tony yelped and jerked his hands away from the Influxitron, sending it flying toward Kevin. It landed on his left shoulder and he instantly screamed as if his whole arm had been cut off. “You shot me, you shot me, you shot me, you shot me,” Kevin moaned over and over.

“I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!” Tony pleaded in unison with Kevin.

Captain Tobin slithered in pain on the operating table. He’d taken a 9mm slug in the left shoulder at close range and knew the damage was bad. It was something he’d prepared himself for every morning of his Air Force career but he always thought he’d be the lucky one, the one who would always escape unscathed. A white-coated doctor walked into the room distracting Kevin’s eyes from the heavily bandaged shoulder.

“Can you save it, doc?” he pleaded.

For a long time Dr. DiVietti didn’t say anything, he just stared at his shoes.

“It’s okay, doc. I know you’re going to have to amputate. Let’s get it over with. Let’s do it now,” Captain Tobin ordered.

Dr. DiVietti slowly raised his sorrowful eyes, took a deep breath and said…

“Kevin, would you get up off the floor? The stupid thing just hit you in the shoulder when I dropped it.”

Kevin touched his left shoulder, expecting blood, but instead felt only his uninjured shoulder. A huge sigh escaped and he rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. His eyes grew wide again when he noticed the new hole. “I told you to be careful with that thing,” he growled at Tony.

“I thought you were joking,” Tony shot back.

Kevin hopped to his feet and ran over to the wall. “Does this look like a joke?”

Tony joined him and they looked at the hole in the wall for the first time. It was an inch across and Kevin gingerly touched the newly created hole, running his finger around the edges. He expected the sides of the hole to feel rough, like charred wood, but instead they were as smooth as polished metal. “Feel this,” he said to Tony.

Tony pushed a finger into the hole just as Kevin had done. “This is so cool,” Tony whispered as he felt the smooth sides of the hole.

As Tony looked at the hole in the wall, Kevin pulled his desk to the center of the room. He climbed onto the desk and looked at the new hole in the ceiling. Wisps of smoke fell from its inside. Kevin held his hand a few inches from the opening. He decided it was cool enough to touch and quickly jabbed his finger at the smooth sides. It was slightly warm but cool enough to keep his fingers on the sides without burning them.

“Let me have a look,” Tony said, climbing onto the desk and trading places with Kevin. “That thing did this?” he asked, pointing to the Influxitron.

“Yeah,” Kevin answered.

“Cool. How’d you get it?”

“That’s the weird thing. It just came in the mail today.”

“Who sent it?” Tony asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Tony asked again.

“I - don’t - know.”

“Oh, okay.” Tony jumped off the desk, walked back over to the hole in the wall and looked through it. “Hey Kevin, come here and look at this,” he said. Kevin walked next to Tony and knelt down beside him. “Take a look. The Influxitron doesn’t only put holes in walls.”

Kevin slid over and looked through the hole. Outside his room was a large maple tree, just beginning to leaf out. But Kevin noticed something different about the tree, and then realized what it was. “Cool, there’s a hole in the tree too.”

“Do you think the Influxitron’s safe?” Tony asked, his eyes darting nervously as he started to realize what had freaked Kevin out earlier.

“Well, I’m sure it could put a hole through your gut, if that’s what you mean,” Kevin answered. “But as long as we don’t point it at each other I think we’ll be fine.”

“I’m not so sure,” Tony countered. “What if you’re carrying it and you accidentally trip and blow off my hand, or something? That wouldn’t be too safe. Or what if it puts out super radioactive rays that’ll make another eye grow on your elbow?”

“Tony, I don’t think…”

Tony cut him off. “Or maybe its got an autodestruct function if someone uses it without the right access code? That could happen.”

“I guess it could, but…”

Tony cut him off again. “Kevin, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.” Without waiting for a response, Tony lunged for the Influxitron on the floor, picked it up, spun, and hurled it out of Kevin’s open window.

“Hey!” Kevin barked. “What’d you do that for?”

“That thing was going to kill us,” Tony barked back. “It was going to blow up in a few seconds.”

“The Influxitron’s not going to blow up,” Kevin explained as calmly as he could. “But, it could blow off Mr. Neumann’s leg because that’s whose yard you just threw it into. And when it does, they’ll find our finger prints all over it and throw us into jail.” Kevin, suddenly realizing the event he just described to Tony could actually happen, jumped up and raced out of the room.

“Where’re you going?” Tony yelled after Kevin.

“I’m going to get it back before it kills Mr. Neumann,” Kevin yelled as he ran down the stairs.

Tony hesitated for a second then ran after Kevin. “Mom’s going to kill me if she finds out any of this,” he mumbled as he ran. As he reached the top of the stairs he saw Kevin standing in the doorway looking down at the steps of their porch.

“You all right?” Kevin asked the steps. The steps moaned.

Tony reached the door and saw Kevin standing over a pizza deliveryman. “What’s he doing here?” Tony asked.

“I don’t know,” Kevin answered. “But I think I knocked him out.” They both stared at the deliveryman lying on the front steps.

“Did you order a pizza?” Tony asked.

“Nope. But he doesn’t have a pizza with him? Here’s the box but there’s nothing inside.” Kevin pointed toward the empty pizza box on the steps.

“What’s his name tag say?” Tony asked.

Kevin bent over and looked at the pepperoni shaped nametag on the deliveryman’s bright yellow shirt. “Says his name’s Scratch.”

“Scratch? What kind of a name is Scratch? Are you sure that’s his name?”

“Take a look yourself,” Kevin answered.

Tony stepped out of the doorway, walked toward Scratch when a pizza fell on his head. “Heyph,” he bumbled underneath the pie, waving his arms . “Who threwph thif piffa at me?”

Kevin looked back and saw Tony staggering around the porch trying to peel the large pizza off his head and fell to the ground laughing. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kevin blurted between convulsions.

Scratch moaned as he began to regain consciousness. He strained to open one eye and saw a blurry kid with a pizza for a head waving his arm wildly and another kid twitching in laughter on the sidewalk next to him. “Wow, this is a prime time hallucination,” he moaned. “Who’s Pizza Head over there?” he asked Kevin, who was just beginning to calm down. This was too much for Kevin and he rolled sideways onto the lawn, jerking with laughter at the spectacle.

“Kevin, will you pull it together and help get this thing off my head?” Tony pleaded. He peeled off the slice covering his face and walked down the steps toward Kevin. Halfway down the steps he slipped on a pineapple and landed squarely on Scratch’s forehead with his knee, spinning Scratch back into unconsciousness.

“Oh man, I’m sorry,” Tony apologized, shaking Scratch by the shoulders. “You okay? Scratch? Yo, Scratch? Hey man, I’m sorry. Oh jeez. Kevin, I knocked Scratch out again. Do you think we should call somebody?”

Kevin looked at Scratch. “He’s not in as bad of shape as Mr. Neumann’s going to be if he finds the Influxitron and starts shooting holes in himself,” Kevin answered, quickly regaining his composure. “Look, we’ll just leave him here for a few minutes, go get the Influxitron, and come back and take care of him. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

“I guess that’ll be okay,” Tony said.

“Sure it will, now let’s go.”

“But how’d the pizza wind up on my head?” Tony asked.

Kevin pointed to a large grease stain on the ceiling of the porch. “It probably got thrown out of the box and stuck to the ceiling when I ran into Scratch. Now are you coming?” Kevin ran to his bike.

Tony ran sloppily behind, sliding a piece of pizza from his head into his mouth.

End Chapter 5