“What were Jennifer and Alana Catherine doin’?” Candy Vargo asked.
Shitty Ritchie threw his one little hand and one big hand into the air. He almost knocked himself over due to the massive weight imbalance. “Cheese Dick dropped some kind of ward around my friends. They were fighting to get to me, but Cheese Dick is a wily fucker. I should have just eaten the bastard, but with Tom Hanks already in my tum-tum, I wasn’t sure there was any more fucking room.”
Gideon scrubbed his hand over his chin and groaned. “You need to learn some self -control.”
“And work on that vocabulary,” Tim added. “You almost died, friend.”
I didn’t care about Shitty Ritchie’s manners. It was pretty much a given that the dude was disgusting and going to stay that way. I was more concerned as to why he believed that Cheese Dick wouldn’t harm Alana Catherine and Jennifer.
“Shitty Ritchie is gross,” I stated flatly. “That’s not the issue here.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Welcome,” I replied. “Tell me why you think that the thing won’t hurt Alana Catherine and Jennifer.”
“You mean Cheese Dick?” he inquired.
“Sure,” I said, getting annoyed. “Cheese Dick.”
“Cheese Dick acknowledged that there are three.”
“Three what?” Candy Vargo demanded.
“Three Higher Powers,” he replied with an eye roll. “There have always been three. That’s why Cheese Dick tried to eliminate me. I made four Higher Powers. HOWEVER, SHITTY RITCHIE CANNOT BE ELIMINATED! Cheese Dick failed.”
Gideon, Candy, Tim and I exchanged worried glances. We’d been under the impression that Tom Hanks had trapped theother half of the Higher Power to rule alone. However, Cheese Dick hadn’t said that exactly. We’d assumed. Never fucking assume.
The terrible exchange from earlier flashed through my mind—word for word.
“Who are you?” Alana Catherine asked. “And why are you here?”
“Oh my,” the being said with a laugh that sounded like tinkling bells. “I’m the other part.”
“Of what?” Shitty Ritchie asked, eyeing the creature with distrust.
“Another part of the Higher Power, sillies! There was always meant to be more than one.” The smile on the being turned into a vicious frown. “That bitch caged me billions of years ago, but now that Its gone I’m free to rule the Immortal Universe.”
“Keep talking, Shitty Ritchie,” I insisted. “Cheese Dick said there were three?”
“Oh yes,” he assured me.
“Cheese Dick said there were two when it showed up after Shitty Ritchie ate Tom Hanks,” Candy pointed out.
“No,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “Cheese Dick didn’t specify. The abomination said that there was always meant to be more than one.”
“FUCK,” Candy shouted. “Is some other freak caged somewhere that we don’t know about?”
My stomach cramped. With everything we learned, the story got more complicated and deadlier.
I had an idea. It might be smart or it might be stupid. Standing here and talking was getting us nowhere fast. We had no time to lose. I was about to do something that could move the mission along. However, I needed solid information before I didit. “Shitty Ritchie, I need you to think hard. Did you or did you not chew when you ate Tom Hanks?”
The dumb-dumb scratched his head with his huge fingers. The hand was bigger than his head. It was a bizarre sight. “Shitty Ritchie thinks he chewed just a little. Tom Hanks was too big to ingest whole. A bit of chewing helped get him down quicker. He tasted like rotten meat that had been left in the sun for a month. Shitty Ritchie, while proud of his accomplishment, didn’t enjoy it. Icky.”
“Okay,” I said, swallowing back my bile. “That’s disgusting, but helpful.”
“Helpful how?” Gideon asked warily.
I did a few jumping jacks to calm my racing mind. “If Tom Hanks is in there, I can get to him.”
