Eerie fic: Wally

[froodle]

Weatherman Wally did not consider himself a confrontational person. In the town he'd been born in, his profession had been chosen for him before the midwife had finished cleaning him up. The little tag affixed to the newborn's wrist had said Weatherman Wally, and a little later, his birth certificate had said the same. All things considered, it seemed pointless to run around arguing with people about things.

He was reconsidering that position now.

"I have the utmost respect for your work," he said, and it was mostly true. "It's just that I don't know that it really applies in this case-"

Howard Rainer scoffed, and took a huge bite from a sandwich that was almost comedically over-sized. A blob of dijon mustard oozed through the layers of lunch meats and lettuce and fell with a splat on the felt-and-cardboard map of Eerie that Wally used in his show. Wally suppressed the urge to tear off his beloved pink bowtie and use it to strangle the visiting meteorologist.

"And I'm telling you," Howard said, speaking with his mouth full. "There is no way that Eerie will have ground fog tonight. With the cloud coverage, the dry air, the summer heat - do you even own a barometer?"

Wally pointed to a large cartoon barometer at the edge of his set. It was paper mounted on plywood. Howard sighed theatrically, put his sandwich down right on top of the plastic die-cut model of Old Bob, and produced a sheaf of papers covered in bar charts and mathematical notations.

"Look, that's my report," he said. "Use it, don't use it. If your little TV station likes being wrong so much, that's your business. I just thought you could benefit from a real scientist's input for a change."

"And I'd thought that someone whose theories had him being asked to leave NOAA before he was thrown out would be more careful about disparaging other people's work," said Wally sharply, and flushed. Well, it was the truth, he thought. Something like that should give a man more compassion, not less.

Howard glared at him for a moment, then rose stiffly to his feet, gathering the remains of his lunch as he did so. Back straight, he walked silently to the door, which got stuck halfway through his attempt to slam it and ruined his dramatic exit.

Wally rubbed his face ruefully and looked at his map. There was a pickle slice covering the Eerie Bingo Parlor. He removed it carefully and fetched a damp cloth to clean off the worst of the vinegar, though he knew the damage was likely already done.

That night, the Eerie Express rolled through the cornfields, rattling it's iron tracks and shuddering as it passed over the points that hadn't existed in a century or more. It screamed as it vented smoke from the coal-fired engine and filled the air around it with the smell of suplhur. Thick grey fog roiled around it, licking at the gold-liveried doors of the carriages and turning hazy shades of red and orange where it surrounded the locomotive.

Weatherman Wally stood on his back porch to watch it pass, as he did every Midsummer. Pale faces peered from the darkened interior of the passenger compartments, white hands splayed against the smudged glass, and Wally raised a hand in return.

"Of course there was going to be fog tonight," he thought. "You can't very well have a ghost train steaming past under a clear sky."

Still, he felt a little guilty about his earlier outburst. Maybe tomorrow he would call Howard and apologise. It wasn't the meteorologists fault if he didn't understand that, here in Eerie, science would always give way to the need to create an appropriate atmosphere.

Besides, if the ghost train didn't convince him, maybe tomorrow's localized pickle shower at the Bingo Parlor would.