"I'll do it. Time is running out," I tell them both. "What is it?"
"I feel ashamed that our final hope is what I am going to tell you." Fabiola exchanges looks with the Pillar and turns back to me. "The Cheshire called me in the Vatican a few hours ago."
Chapter 6 1
"Called you?" I know it's rather insulting to call Fabiola, but it must be one of his sinister tricks.
"Phone call, Skype, WhatsApp?" the Pillar says, but we dismiss him.
"He came to me in the form a repenting woman in the confession room," Fabiola says. "I don't want to talk about it."
"And he made her an offer she can't refuse," the Pillar mocks.
"The Cheshire said he knows how to stop the Muffin Man," Fabiola says. "And before anyone comments, I know how humiliatingly ironic this is. The man who created an evil murderer to terrorize us is also telling us how to get rid of him."
"He is mocking us. It's an analogy." The Pillar's seriousness returns.
"For what?" I ask.
"In the Muffin Man's mind, the food companies create food that gets us sick, so we end up going to the medicine companies asking them for a cure for the food. Both medicine and food companies are owned by the Black Chess corporation. They sell us the poison and then the cure for it. The same thing the Cheshire does now."
"I don't want to confuse her with all the details about the Black Chess Corporation now." Fabiola waves a hand at the Pillar. "The fact of the matter is the Cheshire demands he only tells you the how to get rid of the Muffin Man." She is looking at me. "He will meet you in Mudfog Town—"
"Mudfog, where everyone is dead now. It looks like a smaller version of England's Black Death in the 1600s," the Pillar comments.
"Is that where we're going?" I ask.
Fabiola nods. "You will have to shake hands with the devil to save the innocent. I know this is the noblest thing to do."
"Noble, my tarts and farts," the Pillar mumbles, but I can hear him.
"Are you ready to meet him?" Fabiola asks me.
I nod.
The chauffeur stops his car. I assume we've arrived in Mudfog.
When I pull down the window, the town reeks of the dead. The sight of them sprawled on the ground is really no different from any zombie movie I have watched.
"No one cleaned this town yet?" I can't believe this.
"They said they did in the news." The Pillar winks, but then his face changes. He stops and looks at me from top to bottom. I don't know what he is looking for. "Did you read my paper about Jack yet?" he asks.
"No. I didn't find it." I dig my hand in my pocket and don't find it again.
"Strange, I searched for it in your pockets while you were sleeping and couldn't find too," he says. "Would you like to know who he is before you go to meet the Cheshire?"
The idea of knowing has been paired with the word horrifying. When I woke in a physiatrist's office, I ended up with crippled legs. Whether it's the truth or not, I am afraid that knowing who Jack is will have the same effect on me. And I'd had that feeling for the last couple of days.
"I think I'd see the Cheshire first." I pull the handle. "I might return to you briefly when I know what he is asking from me." Gazing outside, I see an overweight kid somersaulting and dancing atop a wall. His moves are impossible for his body figure and shape. I know it's the Cheshire. I step out.
"Tell him the Pillar says 'meow'!" the Pillar chirps from inside before I shut the door behind me. "And if possible, can he tell us how to stuff a head inside a watermelon, because I think it's brilliant!"
Chapter 6 2
Mudfog Town, seventy miles from London
Amidst the corpses, I walk toward the overweight boy dancing upon a wall. His egg-shaped body reminds me of Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass. When I get closer, I notice his head is cut off. He wears it on and off, and even kicks it like a football and runs after it. His overalls are spattered with blood. I am going to talk to another dead boy.
But the silence in the town of Mudfog isn't quite silence. A corpse stands up and greets me here and there. "Welcome to my frabjous playground of madness," they say, possessed by one of the Cheshire's nine lives.
"What a golden afternoon we have!" the boy greets me with open hands, pointing at the sinking sun in the distance.
"It's almost four o'clock." I stop before him, craning my neck up, just like Alice did in the book when talking to the cat on the tree. "Get to the point."
"Not before you see this." He walks on his hands on top of the wall while dribbling his head like a ball with his legs.
"Good for you," I say. "You belong to a circus."
"Why do you hate me so much, Alice?" He stands straight and jams his thumbs behind his overall straps.
"If you don't talk, I will walk away," I say.
The boy lets himself fall, and pretends his neck is broken. His head rolls right under my feet. He props himself up without a neck. His head underneath me talks to me. "Did I tell you my name is Humpty Dumpty?"
"A pleasure," I say with pursed lips. "I've had it. I am walking."
"Could you please give me my head back, then?" His face snickers at me. "How do you expect me to talk to you without my head on my shoulders?"
I kneel down, pull it up, and throw it in his hands. He catches it with ease and hinges it back on.
"Talk," I demand. "Fast. No games."
"Look at you," the boy says with both resentment and admiration. "You're not scared of me anymore."
"That's not fast enough." I am terrified. Somehow, I've learned not to show it.
"Oh, and you have learned good comebacks." He rubs his fatty chin.
"The only comeback you will get is my fist in your ugly chin." I think my fear to awaken crippled again is what moves me now.
"I am beginning to like you," he says. "Here is the deal. I will help you kill the Muffin Man and stop him from mass-poisoning everyone."
I want to ask why he would do that, but I have a much more important question. "Killing him isn't going to solve it. He must have already poisoned food across the country. I need to know what kind of food and where to find it."
"You believed that?" He pulls out a yo-yo and plays with it.
"He was bluffing?"
"Not exactly," the boy says. "At the moment, nothing has been poisoned yet. But he, and a few acquaintances, will start poisoning a lot of candies and junk food across the country."
"I'm not quite following."
"Poisoning the food as he promised wasn't going to work. At best a few people would die, and then a pattern of which foods are poisoned and which aren't will present itself. We had a greater plan. To shock you and do nothing, and then right when everyone on the news calls the Muffin Man's bluff, the poisoning starts without warning."
"Because the food he poisons now will take about week to get into the market, and then when it starts there will be no going back." I am thinking their sinister plan out loud.
"Touché! I'm a brilliant cat." He grins. "Although it all could have been stopped if the Queen and Parliament confessed their wrongdoing, which we knew they would never do."
"This means I have to stop him now."
"Right on, tough girl." He fists a hand, mocking some comic superhero. "If you kill the Muffin Man, all his acquaintances will stop immediately, and you will truly have saved Britain."