CRACK.
CRACK.
CRACK.
One by one they smashed into the boulders below, skulls bursting like glass bottles, limbs flying, ribcages splintering like matchsticks. Puffs of ash billowed in the air. And the waves rushed over them, washing their scattered pieces out to sea.
Dill swung past Peter again, but slower this time as their momentum gave out. He was looking down at the rocks and the scattered arms and legs floating in the sea foam.
“Ssssssweet,” he murmured.
38
Now that his terror was subsiding, Peter realized the loop around his waist felt like it was cutting him in half. He grabbed the rope above him and pulled so that his stomach wasn’t bearing all his weight.
Dill saw and did the same. “Ohhhhh,” he groaned. “You know when you snapped off that guy’s head with the rope?”
“Yeah?”
“My stomach feels like that right about now.”
“Yeah.”
The tree creaked above them as they swung slower and slower through the air.
“By the way,” Dill added, “thanks.”
“Thanks for saving me on the roof.”
“No problem. You know…I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Well don’t get it on me. And don’t pee, either.”
“Too late on that one.”
They dangled there for a while longer, both waiting to see if Dill would upchuck. Somehow he kept it down.
“Phew. Good plan, dude.”
Peter beamed in the darkness. “It was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”
“So, how do we get back up?” Dill asked.
“Uh…”
Peter looked up at the tree. There was about five feet of rope between both boys and the trunk.
“You don’t know how we’re going to get back up there?!”
“I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“I take it back. Not so good plan,” Dill scowled.
“I can’t think of everything,” Peter snapped.
“Maybe your Grandfather can come get…”
Dill trailed off.
“I don’t know if he…got out,” Peter said.
“Yeah.” Dill paused. “Sorry, man.”
“I didn’t know him very well…”
“Well, if somebody had to die, better a crazy old man than you or me.”
Peter glared at Dill.
“I’m just sayin’,” Dill protested.
“Well, stop.”
They were silent again for awhile.
“We should try to figure out how to get back up,” Peter finally said.
“Okay.”
“Maybe you can climb the rope…get up to the roots…and then hold on while I climb up.”
“What if the rope slips and you pull me off with you?” Dill asked. “Unh-unh.”
“You got a better idea?”
“I’m just sayin’.”
Up above there was a slight patter of pebbles falling. Some of the dirt hit Peter.
His heart leapt into his throat. “Grandfather?” he asked, and looked up.
There was a figure up there, but it wasn’t his grandfather.
Peter knew immediately because it had no head.
It was the dead man Peter had decapitated.
Now the skull leered from the thing’s right hand as the body crouched atop the tree trunk.
“AAAAAAAHHHH!” Dill screamed.
“WHERE’D HE COME FROM?” Peter yelled.
“He musta been a slower runner without his head!”
The thing leaned over the tree and grabbed Dill’s side of the rope with its free hand. It jerked the cord, and Peter – the heavier of the two boys – sank a foot as the rope slipped across the tree trunk.
Of course, as Peter sank, Dill rose a foot closer to the dead man.
“NO! PETER, DON’T LET HIM DO IT!” Dill wailed.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?”
“I DON’T KNOW, COME UP WITH ANOTHER PLAN!”
The dead man yanked on the rope again. It slid across the bark with a wrrrrrhhhhh sound.
Peter jerked down another foot. Dill rose higher and screeched even louder.
The dead man extended his hand with the head in it. Peter could see the skull in the moonlight, the burnt skin pulled tight over black, grinning teeth.
Then another dark figure appeared behind the dead man, a silhouette against the stars.
No please God no not another one
The silhouette raised its arms, then swung down.
THUNK.
The dead man toppled forward and somersaulted past Dill, an ax jutting from its back.
His hand let go of the head, which fell separately from the body.
Down, down, down…
CRACK on the boulders. Arms and legs flew everywhere in a cloud of soot. PLUNK went the head into the sea. And the waves washed away the remains.
Peter looked back up. There stood Grandfather, his white shirt ripped and covered in ash. His tie looked like the end had been fed into a woodchipper.
“Thank you thank you thank you thank you, dude!” Dill howled in glee.
“I have half a mind to send you down there with him,” Grandfather growled.
Dill shook his head vigorously. “Don’t do that.”
“Give me one good reason why not.”
Dill looked pensive, then brightened. “I’m a heck of a guy?”
“Can we do this later?!” Peter yelled. “Thank you for coming and saving us and all, but can we not die right now?”
Grandfather snarled, then leaned down to the rope without another word.
39
Sauerkraut never tasted so good.
Peter and Dill sat at the kitchen table, scarfing down forkful after forkful of the stuff. In the dim light of the kitchen, Peter saw that both he and Dill were covered head to toe in soot, with only the occasional streak of skin wiped clean by sweat. The kitchen was covered with footprints and black smudges, too, where the dead men had obviously passed by.
Grandfather sat at the head of the table watching them eat. He had a nasty gash on his forehead, and flecks of blood spotted his crazy hair.
“Mmf, mmf and then I was like, ‘Hey, man, this rope – we could use this rope to, like, totally escape,’” Dill muttered through a mouthful of cabbage. “It was all, mmf, in my head from the beginning, mmf.”
“Jumping off the cliff was my idea,” Peter pointed out as he chewed.
“I was just saying I had the beginning of the idea in my head,” Dill smacked. “Mmf. Dis is good sauerkraut.”
Grandfather just squinted at him.
“Did we kill them all?” Peter asked Grandfather.
“I believe so. Trust me, we would know by now if we didn’t.”
Dill spoke through a mouthful of cabbage. “Are they really gone?”
Grandfather frowned. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
“Maybe they’re, like, under the water, and they’re setting up a little kingdom of dead guys under the sea, and they’ll get all the pirates who ever died to sail a big ship up and attack us again.”
Grandfather just stared at Dill.
“What, haven’t you ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean?” Dill asked.
“No,” Grandfather growled.
“Don’t you know anything?”
“They kind of exploded when they hit the rocks. I don’t think they’re coming back,” Peter said.
At least, I hope not.
“Does that mean we can go in the garden now?” Dill asked Grandfather.
The old man bared his teeth. “You will continue to stay OFF my property, you little no-goodnik.”
Dill pulled back. “Okaaaay…”
Then he shrugged and returned to devouring his sauerkraut.
“But just remember, I helped you get rid of the dead guys. It was like you had termites, and I was the sprayer man. Pshhh, pshhh – dead guy problem OVER.”
Right behind Dill, the ki
tchen hallway door banged open.
“AAAAHHH!” Dill screamed, sputtering sauerkraut all over the table.
“What in the world is going on in here?!” Peter’s mom yelled from the doorway. She looked half-horrified, half-amazed.
Beth, who was sitting in Mom’s arms, pointed at Peter. “You’we dirrrrrrty.”
“What is going ON here?” Mom repeated, now just angry. “The outside of the house looks like somebody drew all over it with charcoal, the kitchen looks like a barbecue pit got dumped in it – ”
Grandfather pointed at Dill. “It was his fault.”
“ME?!” Dill choked. “I didn’t – ”
Grandfather leaned in threateningly towards Dill. “WASN’T IT, idjit?”
Dill paused, then hopped out of his chair and waved to Peter’s mom. “I gotta go.”
“Dill Bo – Bo – ”
“Bodinski!” Dill yelled as he ran across the kitchen.
“Bodinky!” Beth gurgled happily and clapped her hands.
“Dill Bodinski, you get back here right now!” Peter’s mom shouted.
“Sorry, gotta go, gotta go,” Dill called out.
“You are going to clean this mess up, young man!” Mom yelled.
“You got it, lady,” Dill said as he bolted out the kitchen screen door.
Peter stood up and ran after him.
“Where are you going?” Mom demanded.
“I’ll be right back,” Peter promised as he darted outside.
40
Dill was already halfway across the yard.
“Dill, wait up!”
The boy turned around. “Oh. Hey.”
Peter trotted over. “You want me to tell her it was me, too?”
Dill sighed. “I don’t care. She doesn’t like me, your granddad doesn’t like me, nothing I ever do makes anybody like me.”
“I like you,” Peter said softly. “In fact…you’re my best friend.”
Dill smiled. “You know what? You’re my best friend, too.”
They stood there, uncomfortably silent.
“All right, enough of this mushy crap,” Dill said, and turned back towards his house. “I gotta get cleaned up before my dad sees me, or something really bad’ll happen tonight.” He looked back at Peter. “That was a joke, by the way. ‘Something really bad.’”
Peter laughed. “Yeah. But we’ll probably joke about it one day. ‘Remember that time those dead guys – ’”
“UNH-UNH,” Dill said, and covered his ears. “NO. I don’t ever want to talk about this again.”
“But – ”
“NO. I peed my pants three times today. THREE TIMES. Today was a three-pee-er day. I don’t EVER want to remember this day.”
“You peed your pants three times?”
Dill shuffled his feet. “They were just little squirts,” he said defensively. Then he got mad. “I don’t have to explain myself to you!”
“Maybe we should get you diapers.”
Dill bunched up his face. “I’m gonna kick your butt if you don’t shut up!”
“Why? Everything’s back…to ‘normal.’”
Dill’s face relaxed, then broke into a grin. “You’re a real goofball, you know that?”
“I learned from the best.”
“Ah, stop it.” Dill waved a hand like he was batting away a compliment. “See you tomorrow.”
Peter felt an invisible punch land in his stomach. “At the bus stop?”
Dill groaned. “School. I forgot.”
“Yeah, getting chased by dead guys makes you forget stuff like that…”
“STOP!” Dill covered his ears. “I don’t want to talk about it again, ever! EVER! Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala…”
Dill sang all the way back to his house.
Peter smiled.
If he could survive being attacked by a bunch of dead hobos, and nearly falling off a roof, and jumping off a hundred foot cliff, he figured he could make it through his second day of school.
Maybe.
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES
1
Monday morning started off the way all Monday mornings started off: badly.
Peter had a sore throat before he even left the house. It hurt a little to swallow his cereal. Not enough to stay home, but it wasn’t fun to eat. And the Crispy Chocolate flakes were all gone, so all they had was Mom’s raisin bran, which he didn’t really like. The raisins made him think of little bugs hiding in his bowl.
“Hurry, Peter,” Mom said, “you’ve got to catch the bus.”
“Yeah, huwwy, Petah,” mimicked his two-and-a-half year-old sister Beth from her high chair. “You gotta kesh da bus.”
“I’m hurrying,” Peter snapped. It was tough to swallow little bugs with a sore throat.
“Don’t you take that tone of voice with me,” his mother said crossly.
“Don’ you ta’ da’ tone of voyss wi’ me,” Beth said and clapped.
“Be quiet, Beth,” Peter scowled.
“Peter,” his mother said insistently as she pointed at her watch.
“I’m going,” Peter said, and got out of his seat. He was tired of the bugs anyway.
• • •
It didn’t matter, because the bus was late.
Peter joined Dill at the main road in front of Grandfather’s house. As usual, Dill was starting his homework thirty minutes before it was due. He sat crouched on the cement sidewalk, scribbling things hastily on a crumpled sheet of paper.
“Why do you always wait?” Peter asked.
“Uh, cuz it sucks? Homework sucks.”
“Well, have you ever thought that maybe it sucks because you wait so long to do it, and then it’s a big emergency?”
Dill rolled his eyes. “When do you do your homework?”
“At night after dinner.”
“Figures.”
“What does that mean?”
Dill kept his head down as he wrote. “It means you always do what grown-ups tell you to do. Ever since I met you, it’s, ‘Oh, we’re not supposed to do that! Oh, we’re not supposed to go in there!’”
Peter frowned. His throat hurt, his mother had been mean to him, his sister was a punk, and now his best friend was calling him a teacher’s pet. “Yeah, well, the last time we did something we weren’t supposed to, a bunch of dead guys came up out of the woods and – ”
“HEY!” Dill shouted, and pointed a finger at Peter. “I don’t want to talk about it!”
Ever since the fight with the dead hobos two weeks ago, Dill had shut down every attempt Peter made to talk about it. To Dill, it was ancient history – gone and buried.
“I’m just saying, that whole thing proves I don’t always do what I’m told.”
Dill returned warily to his homework. He kept shooting furtive glances at Peter as though expecting another surprise conversational attack. “There’s a big difference between…that…and doing your math homework, dude.”
“I don’t think so,” Peter said, annoyed.
“Do whatever works for you, man. I do what works for me.”
Peter pointed at Dill’s crumpled paper on the sidewalk. “This doesn’t look like it’s working so great.”
“While you were busy doing your homework last night, I was eating fudgesicles and watching the monster marathon on Channel 13.”
“What, again?”
Dill ignored Peter’s sarcastic tone. “Yeah, some vampire movie and a Frankenstein movie. I was busy squeezing all the fun I possibly could into my last few hours while you were doing your history report.”
“History…” Peter’s stomach suddenly sank. “We didn’t have a history report.”
Dill looked up, his eyes wide. “Yeah we did. Remember, on a Duskerville historical figure? I’m doin’ my great-great-grandpa. He got hung for stealing horses from the town mayor. They’re due first thing.”
Panic flooded Peter’s body. It all came rushing back – the writing on the chalk board, upper right corner: HISTORICAL FIGURE �
� 2 PAGES. “I don’t know any historical figures in Duskerville!”
“Make one up, that’s what I’m doing.”
“I thought your grandpa stole horses?”
Dill shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he did. Who cares, it’s a better story than ‘He grew corn.’”
Peter squatted down on the cement beside Dill, undid his backpack, and ripped out a piece of paper from his notebook.
Dill smirked a little as he continued to write. “Who’s doing their homework at the last minute?”
“Shut up,” Peter muttered.
But before he could write down a single word, the bus arrived.
2
Peter and Dill scrambled to the back of the bus and sat down immediately. Dill scribbled furiously on his paper, filling it with chicken scratch. Peter just stared blankly at his, trying to come up with some sort of half-believable details about some imaginary relative.
Then he remembered the things Grandfather had told him about two weeks ago. “I could write about John Stephen and the dead guys we – ”
Dill shot out a hand without looking up. “DUDE. I DON’T want to TALK about it.”
“But he’s the only guy in my family I know anything about.”
“Yeah, and what exactly are you gonna write about him, that he lived next to a bunch of hobos who stole his tomatoes? I don’t think Mrs. Cashew’s gonna buy that.”
It was the most Dill had said on the subject in two weeks. And he was exactly right: unless they had seen it with their own eyes, no one would ever believe what Dill and Peter had been through that night.
“But – ”
“Hi, Peeeeeeteeeeeeer,” a girl’s voice interrupted.
Peter looked up to see Mercy Chalmers leaning over the seat in front of him. He hadn’t even noticed that the bus had stopped to let her on.
Mercy was a little weird. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t pretty, exactly. Her eyes were a little too far apart. She was skinny as a piece of grass. She had this really quiet whistle coming out of her nose when she breathed: wheeeeee...wheeeeee. And sometimes Peter could see little hairs poking out of her nostrils. She always said his name “Peeeeteeeeeer,” which was really annoying. She always wore the same type of clothes: a white blouse and some sort of dress with suspenders that made her look like the kids in The Sound Of Music. She claimed to have seventeen cats. Her family didn’t celebrate holidays, and she was always asking people for pennies for her collection. “Do you have a penny? Can I have it? You don’t need it, it’s a penny.” Plus, her name was Mercy, which was a little weird, too.
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One) (PETER AND THE MONSTERS) Page 11