Work Text:
The Gribble household smells of floor wax and stale cigarette smoke. Outside, a biting February wind whistles through the skeletal branches of the pecan trees in Arlen, but inside the cramped guest room, the air is thick and stifling. Seven-year-old Jeff Boomhauer sits cross-legged on the floor, his blonde hair perfectly neat even in his flannel pajamas. Across from him, five-year-old Dale Gribble is a bundle of twitchy energy, his oversized glasses sliding down a nose that hasn't yet grown into its features.
"Man, I tell you what, Dale, it’s like a dang ol' oven in here, man," Boomhauer mutters, his voice already possessing that rhythmic, rapid-fire cadence that defines his lineage. He wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead. The radiator in the corner clanks and hisses like a trapped steam engine, pumping out a dry, oppressive heat that makes the wallpaper seem to curl.
Dale looks at the window with wide, suspicious eyes. "My daddy says the night air carries the 'flu-mist,' Jeff. It gets in your joints."
Boomhauer doesn't care about flu-mist. He stands up with the quiet confidence of a boy two years senior and crosses the room. With a grunt of effort, he heaves the heavy wooden sash upward. The cold hits them like a physical blow—a sharp, icy draft of Texas winter that cuts straight through the sweltering heat.
"That’s better," Boomhauer sighs, leaning his head against the screen to inhale the crisp, ozone-rich air. "Fresh, man. Real fresh."
He retreats to his sleeping bag on the floor, leaving the window gaping open. Dale huddles under three layers of wool blankets, his small frame beginning to shiver. The transition from the radiator's fever-dream heat to the sudden, piercing chill sends his internal thermostat into a tailspin. He tries to speak, to protest the open portal to the dark world outside, but his teeth are chattering too loudly.
As the hours tick by, the cold begins to do strange things to Dale’s overactive imagination. He watches the shadows of the swaying trees dance across the ceiling. Through the lens of a rising fever, the branches transform into long, skeletal fingers reaching through the gap Boomhauer left behind. The "flu-mist" feels real now; it’s a heavy, grey vapor swirling around his bed, whispering secrets about the Russians and the monsters in the creek.
"Jeff," Dale croaks. His throat feels like it’s been lined with sandpaper.
Boomhauer is fast asleep, breathing rhythmically, undisturbed by the freezing gale. Dale’s vision begins to swim. The floral pattern on the curtains starts to move, the petals turning into tiny, lidless eyes that blink in unison. He feels a terrible, rolling sensation in his gut—a combination of the Gribble family’s heavy Sunday pot roast and the dizzying fluctuations of the room’s temperature. The world tilts. The floor seems to rise and fall like the deck of a ship.
He leans over the edge of his bed, trying to reach for his friend, to warn him that the curtains are watching. "Jeff... the eyes... they're sticky..."
Boomhauer stirs, squinting through the dark as he feels a hand tugging at his sleeping bag. "Mmm... what’s up, man? You talkin' 'bout... dang ol' dreams, Dale?"
Dale doesn't answer. He can't. The "flu-mist" has reached his stomach. In a sudden, violent upheaval of cafeteria mystery meat and ginger ale, Dale loses the battle with his equilibrium. He heaves forward just as Boomhauer sits up to investigate the noise. The silence of the Arlen night is shattered by the wet, unmistakable sound of a five-year-old’s misery landing squarely on the front of Boomhauer’s pristine pajamas.
Boomhauer freezes, his eyes wide in the moonlight. He looks down at the mess, then back at Dale, who is pale and trembling, his glasses hanging off one ear. "Dang ol'... man," Boomhauer whispers, his voice filled with a rare, quiet horror.
A hot, sticky indignity seeps through Boomhauer's pajama top, the warmth of the mess contrasting sharply with the freezing draft still pouring in from the window. For a moment, his meticulously groomed composure shatters. He scrambles backward on his hands and heels, his face twisting into a mask of pure, seven-year-old revulsion.
"Aw, man, talkin' 'bout... dang ol' gross, Dale! You went and... man, all over the cotton, just... messy, messy!"
Dale watches him through a haze of tears and sweat, his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. The room isn't just tilting anymore; it’s spinning like a top. "I told you," Dale whimpers, his voice small and brittle. "The window... the mist got me, Jeff. It’s inside me now. I can feel the... the gov'ment bees in my ears..."
His eyes roll back, the yellow light from the streetlamp catching the whites of them. His small body suddenly loses all its tension, slumping forward over the side of the mattress like a discarded ragdoll. Boomhauer stops his frantic wiping. The irritation vanishes, replaced by a cold, sharp spike of panic that has nothing to do with the Texas winter.
"Dale? Hey, man, talkin' 'bout... don't do that, man. Wake up." He reaches out, his hand trembling as he touches Dale’s shoulder. The younger boy is burning up, his skin radiating a terrifying, dry heat that seems to suck the moisture out of the air.
Dale’s head lolls to the side, his glasses finally slipping off his face and clicking onto the hardwood floor. He is completely out, lost to a fever-induced darkness.
"Dale! Talkin' 'bout... Mr. Gribble! Mrs. Gribble!" Boomhauer shouts, his rhythmic speech patterns breaking into jagged, terrified fragments. He forgets about the ruined pajamas and the cold air. He scrambles toward the door, his socks sliding on the floor, his voice cracking as he calls for help into the dark, quiet house. "Man, I tell you what... he’s broke! Dale’s broke, man! Help!"