Problems of the Last Fourteen Seconds

Problems of the Last Fourteen Seconds

Somebody is watching me.

I turn abruptly in my chair, expecting to see the back wall of the chemistry classroom. Instead, I see another boy, staring right at me through thick glasses. I've never seen this kid before, and I've always sat in the last row in this classroom; there has never been room for a desk behind me.

I lean over to the desk to my right, whispering to my best friend, "Who's the new kid?" He looks puzzled, and I gesture with my head to the boy, still staring, behind me.

"Who? José? Dude, we've known him since second grade. I think the championship pressure is finally getting to you." The teacher notices us chatting and tells us to keep going if we want after-school detention. We shut up, but I still feel José's eyes boring holes in my head.

**************

After school, I head to the locker room to change into my football gear. ("Soccer," to Americans.) As the team captain, I have the whole locker bay to myself while everyone else gets to fall over each other pulling on their cleats. Or so I think, when I see José pulling a uniform from the locker next to mine. "What are you doing here?" I blurt out.

José gives me a puzzled look, but I swear there is a glint of mischief in his eye. The coach comes by and begins to yell at me for not being dressed yet. As he gathers the rest of the team around him, he lists out the starting line-up. My name is called first, as usual, but the last name called is... José? "What about...?" I start, trying to name the player that usually rounds out our first string.

"He caught the flu, so José has been promoted to first string."

"Is José any good?" I wonder, accidentally out loud.

The team laughs. The coach responds gruffly, "You've been playing alongside him your whole life. Now put on your cleats and let's go crush the other team!" The team erupts in a roar and heads to the pitch, leaving me scratching my head. Why don't I remember anything about José?

**************

Whoever José is, he is a very agile striker. It's like he can see where the opponents will go and maneuver the ball around them. With a few minutes left in the game, we're tied 1-1. José and I gain possession of the ball and sprint toward the goal, hoping to avoid overtime. José becomes surrounded and passes the ball to me. The opposing team captain tries to slide tackle the ball away from me, but I'm too quick. He roars in anger, his usual response to anything bad happening to him. But as I leave him in my wake, I think I see a grin out of the corner of my eye.

I pass the ball to another striker when I become surrounded, and he juggles the ball around his foes before launching it to José. We're almost there! I can almost taste the trophy. It'd be just as delicious as the birthday cake I'm getting later this evening. Eighteen candles, one for each consecutive year my high school has won the championship. José winks at me through his thick prescription goggles and kicks the ball over his defenders, right in position for me to kick it into the goal with fourteen seconds left on the clock.

**************

The ball stops in midair. I also think I've gone deaf. I look around and everyone seems to be frozen in place. Players on both teams stuck in mid-jump, my coach stuck in mid-yell, the fans stuck in mid-cheer. I'm not frozen, and I walk around very confused, waving my hand in my friends' faces, as if that would cure them somehow.

"Welcome," a teenage voice says out of sight.

I look around the floating body in front of me to see José just as not-frozen as I am. As he steps over the still forms around him very casually, my suspicions begin to grow.

"What did you do to everyone?" I accuse. "Who are you?"

"All your humans are safe, dear boy. As for who I am, I'm a saboteur-for-hire."

So many questions run through my mind.

"I see you have many questions. This boy," he says, gesturing to the opposing team captain, still sprawled out on the ground, "desperately wanted to win the cup today, so he commissioned me to take you out of commission."

"How exactly are you going to do that?" I say as I back up slowly from his approaching form.

"I'm not going to kill you, since that's what you're thinking. I'm a monster, but I'm no demon."

"Monster...?"

"You'll love this." José removes his goggles. Those thick glasses weren't just to correct his vision... the refraction made it seem like he had two normal eyes, instead of the one giant eyeball he now blinks at me with.

"A cyclops?!" I yell, and turn to run. But before I spin around completely, José's eye flashes, and I find I can't move anymore.

"Not exactly a cyclops, and please don't go anywhere. You won't be able to, anyway. Just keep watching." José's eye flashes again, this time much brighter. The flash dims to an orange glow around his body. José grows taller and the uniform turns browner. Actually, the uniform melts into his skin and hard plates begin to solidify on top, forming a cockroach-colored exoskeleton. Soon, there is a hulking but lithe brown-plated being towering over me with his giant eye. The sky turns orange as he smiles... his teeth are like bony knives, ready to devour me in a bite.

"What are you...?" I croak in fear. The monster that was once "José" smiles wider, then opens his eyes.

When I say eyes, I don't mean a second eye appears where it should and he's no longer a cyclops. I mean, he's no longer a cyclops, because he has eight eyes. The largest one in the center of his head, but two over his chest, a few more on his arms, and smaller ones on his shoulders. They all look in different directions with their yellowed sclera and blood orange irises, analyzing the surroundings like a hunter on the prowl. With a blink, all eight lock on me.

"An ojombre..." I whisper. I recall reading a long time ago about a many-eyed Mexican ghoul that spent its days tormenting boys and young men, thriving on pettiness and jealousy.

"Yes, I'm real," he says, in the same teenage voice as before. "Yes, I can read your mind. And I have more than eight eyes." He turns and points to several more down his back. "I see all."

I'm still stuck in mid-flee, so I gulp and ask in barely more than a whimper, "So what are you going to do to me?"

"Well, after watching you all day, I think I've come up with the perfect solution." His seven forward-facing body eyes twitch, and slowly they begin to look in different directions. I feel a slight pressure on my wrists, ankles, knees, and waist. I am lifted off the ground into the air, and my limbs are spread apart, no doubt pulled by those telekinetic eyes.

The ojombre decides to lift my arms above my head and my legs behind me, slightly apart, pushing my hips slightly forward and arching my back. He taps a claw against his chin, pondering something.

"HAHA!" I bark out suddenly, feeling a claw circle the bare skin around my navel. I am able to look down to see a hole in my shirt, exposing my stomach to the tickling monster. The monster smiles an extremely toothy grin as his gaze travels upwards. The hole also moves, and widens, exposing my entire rib cage. With both hands now, the ojombre starts clawing at my sides.

I throw my head back and laugh, shaking to get away but unable to budge from my floating position. The monster explores each of my ribs, and claws dart in to scratch the hollows under my outstretched arms just to mix things up. Each touch sends a jolt of ticklish electricity straight to my mouth, coming off as increasingly high-pitched giggling.

The monster stops tickling me and blinks, and the hole in my shirt disappears.

"How...?" I pant when I get enough air.

"I see all," the ojombre says simply. I think about that for a bit, and then blush.

The monster lifts me higher into the air and raises my knees, as if I were sitting on an invisible floating chair. With a strong gaze, most of my football shorts disappear, exposing nearly all of my muscled thighs. "You are a footballer after all," he comments, probably knowing how proud I am of my strong legs.

Not strong enough, apparently, to kick away as he squeezes my thighs and brushes my knees. I holler with laughter as he tries different ways of tickling me, all effective at making me want to crawl out of my own skin. This is more draining than the entirety of the interrupted football match.

After what seems like forever, he gives me another break. I hang there, gulping down air, as he turns me around and allows my legs to dangle. Clawed fingers come from behind my head and cover my eyes, and I shut them, for some reason fearing he would take my eyeballs to add to his collection. But when I open them again, I see myself from behind. "You're seeing what I see," the ojombre explained.

Another strong gaze and the back of my shirt disappears. I see his clawed hands approach me, diabolically slowly, before he drags a lone finger up and down my spine, sending shivers through my body. The finger is joined by a second, and each cross over a shoulder blade and circle in my armpits, alternating between lazy ovals and furious dancing. I cackle as the sensations overwhelm these tickle spots, and soon all of the claws are having their fun in the hollows.

An abrupt switch: the monster attacks my ribs again, this time from behind, and I see myself twist side to side in a vain attempt to shake off the tickling. He squeezes my sides several times, making me squeak with each ticklish pulse. He then reaches around to trace around my abs and scratch lightly at my chest, changing positions so fast my mind cannot keep up. My laughter, however, has no problem indicating every tickle, every poke I feel.

The ojombre stops the onslaught against my torso and backs up. I see his gaze travel south, and see the back of my shorts vanish, exposing the back of my legs. My underpants flicker in transparency, but my clothes reappear before anything more is revealed.

My knees bend to raise my feet behind me, and the monster's gaze cuts through the cleats and socks and reveals my wrinkly soles. Like most footballers, I've developed a few callouses on my feet to protect them from the rigors of the sport. But looking at them through the ojombre's eyes, they are perfectly smooth; it's as if I've never walked on solid ground before.  

A test scrape from my right heel down to the base of my toes reveals to both of us that this is the best/worst tickle spot of all. My giggling goes straight to a high register as the monster doodles randomly on my soles, investigating my arches at unpredictable intervals. The toes of my cleats disappear entirely, allowing them to be bent back by unseen forces. My now taut soles increase in ticklishness as my laughter increases in volume. The flattened wrinkles on my soles prove to be extremely sensitive, and the evil monster decides to focus on these for a while.

As the monster finishes up his torment of my soles, he decides to turn me around so my back is parallel to the ground and my feet are raised up in the air toward him. I see my pathetic self with a plastered smile, forced to laugh via tickle torture. The ojombre stops tickling my soles and restores most of my shoes, but leaves my toes exposed. Using all his claws, he darts in between my toes and scratches the pads, eliciting the last of the giggles from my lungs as I lapse into silent laughter.

After an eternity of toe tickles, my cleats reappear whole. The ojombre lifts the rest of my body to be at his waist-level where my feet were just tickled pink. He stretches me out into an X before walking away. I'm unable to crane my neck to see where he went, but I hear a roaring war cry before I see him leap into the sky, his trajectory leading him in a line drive into my immobilized body.

My scratchy voice manages to scream in panic at the thought of being body slammed and becoming a pile of broken bones. The ojombre also lets out a scream, but it is both screechy and melodic. As the ojombre soars downward shrieking at me, his eyes flash and the pupils dilate. I shut my eyes to avoid the glare, and when I open them I find I am only wearing underpants, completely stripped of my uniform and my gear.

The shrieking condenses on my skin as a barrage of sonic tickles. I thrash back and forth, as much as my limited movement will allow, and laugh louder and higher than I ever thought possible. It’s like the tickling of the last several hours is being replayed on every inch of my skin, but on loop and with maximum intensity. As the ojombre closes in from the sky, each additional meter of proximity increases the tickles tenfold. Tears well in my eyes from laughing so hard, and all I can focus on through bleary eyes are his large central eye and toothy, impish grin.

**************

A whistle blast from the referee. I open my eyes to see a blue sky again, obscured by a huddle of angry and confused faces. I find that I’m still laughing, and manage to calm myself down.

The coach stomps onto the pitch, forcing his way through the people surrounding me. “What the heck happened?” he demands.

“I’m… not sure,” I stammer.

“I’ll tell you what happened. With fourteen seconds left on the clock, you had the perfect shot, and then you decided to whiff the ball and start rolling around on the ground like an idiot. Meanwhile, the other team managed to get the ball and score the winning goal. You ruined everything.”

“What happened to José?”

“Who’s José?” Coach seethes through clenched teeth.

**************

After changing alone in the locker bay, with no sign of José ever existing and the rest of my team furious at me, I head to my car to drive home, my head still spinning.

I slide the key into the ignition and check my mirrors, only to see the ojombre in the back seat. I whip around to see the brown-plated monster blink with smiling eyes at me.

“What do you want with me now?” I say, clutching my clothes tightly around me.

“Relax, boy, I’m not going to torture you anymore. That assignment is complete.”

I wait for him to continue, my guard still raised.

“I actually wanted to let you know that I know where the opposing team captain lives. You see, I like to give my victims a chance to exact vengeance on my employers. I am but an instrument of chaos, after all,” he winks.

I mull it over. It would be nice to see that smug grin wiped off his face and replaced with… a different type of grin.

“Come on,” he insists. “An eye for an eye?”