by John Marsden
ou grab the can with one hand, still holding the cross with the other. You point it straight at the little spiders and let fly. The spray drifts over them in a toxic cloud. But they don’t even pause! They’re still coming at you, as menacing as ever. You back away, but these little critters are quick movers, and you don’t know if you’ll be able to outrun them. Then you hear Stacey cry out something. It sounds like ‘Fire!’ What on earth does she mean? Suddenly you get an idea. Just to your left there’s a candle burning in front of a statue. Fire! You drop the cross and grab the candle. You spray the Mortein through it, and yes, right away you have yourself a flame-thrower. You aim it at the spiders and laugh with pleasure at the sight of these evil little monsters shrivelling up and dying. It takes you about three minutes to kill them all but at last they’re all dead. Lucky for you, because there’s no Mortein left.
All around you are little smouldering cremated spiders. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Through the smoke you see Stacey. She’s staggering to her feet. She comes towards you. You’re not sure if maybe you should grab the cross again but she looks pretty normal now. She’s smiling and she reaches out and takes your hand.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘What was that all about?’ you ask.
She explains: ‘Years ago my great-great-grandfather looted the tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh. It was full of these little spiders. They bit him hundreds of times. He recovered, but what no-one realised was that they had laid their eggs under his skin. In time they hatched, and made their homes inside his body. And he passed the affliction on to each new generation. Since then our family has been cursed by the Pharaoh’s spiders. They gradually drive people mad.’ She shuddered. ‘They make you do the strangest things, behave in the strangest ways. The only cure is the cross and the fire. But it has to be someone who is innocent of the curse, who knows nothing about it, who can save us.’ She hugs you. ‘You’ve saved my life.’
‘Well, that’s great,’ you say, as your nostrils fill with smoke and a strange red glow starts to envelop the building. ‘But . . . um . . . hadn’t we better get out of here before the church burns down?’
ou gradually drift into the most relaxing sleep you’ve ever had. You seem to sleep for a long time, but it’s hard to tell with sleep, of course. You know you do have dreams, lots of wonderful dreams. Especially you dream of your family and your school and your old house, the one you left to come to the new place. And, funnily enough, you dream of Stacey—only in the dreams she’s a witch and she’s really horrible and all her teeth are long and green and pointy, and she’s waving a strange-looking stick and shouting long words at you, words you’ve never heard before, that don’t seem to make any sense.
Then you wake up.
You feel pretty weird, like it’s hard to move, like your limbs won’t do what you want them to do. You stretch slowly and open your eyes and look around. The car seems colder now and the light is dimmer. You can barely see the shiny brown plastic dashboard or the big black steering wheel. You gaze out the window, feeling a little anxious. ‘What’s going on?’ you wonder.
It’s misty out there but you gradually see someone coming towards the car. It’s a man dressed in some kind of Alfoil. Must be on his way to a fancy dress party. He’s walking really carefully though, like he’s nervous of something. What’s he doing on your property? You make your left arm move and you open the door of the car.
As soon as the man sees you he jumps back like he’s terrified. What a loony! Must be the local cracker case.
‘Can I help you?’ you ask politely.
‘Who . . . who are you?’ he stammers.
‘It’s our house,’ you say. ‘We’ve just bought this place. Well, at least my parents have.’
The man goes all pale and looks like he’s about to faint.
‘But who are you?’ he asks again. ‘What is this vehicle, and why are you wearing those strange clothes?’
‘Me?!’ you say indignantly. ‘Hey, I’m not the one in the strange clothes. You look like you could bake a chicken in your costume. I mean, sure, you’ve got a right to wear what you want, but if I had an outfit like . . .’
You’ve stopped talking. You’re standing there staring past him. There’s a good reason for that. The mist’s just cleared and you’re looking at your own house. Or rather, where your house used to be. Now there’s no sign of it. Not a trace. Not a brick, not a splinter of wood, not a pot plant, not even a pair of undies hanging on the line. It’s gone. Totally utterly completely absolutely entirely wholly undeniably gone. Eradicated. Vamoosed. Disappeared. Gone.
In other words, it’s not there any more.
In its place is a black dome that is about the size of a footy oval.
Now you’re the one who might faint.
‘Er, do you mind telling me what you’ve done with my house?’ you ask.
‘You don’t live here,’ he says.
‘Oh yes, I do,’ you answer.
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
‘Oh yes, I do.’
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
‘Oh yes, I do.’
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
This goes on for about five minutes, until you get sick of it and say: ‘Listen, wise guy, if I don’t live here, who does?’
‘I am not the wise guy,’ he says. ‘I can take you to the wise guy tomorrow. Maybe he will explain this mystery.’
This is the final straw. ‘Where am I?’ you shout, in total frustration.
‘231 Cherrywood Drive.’
‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ you say. ‘I was getting worried about the state of my head. And this wise guy, who’s he?’
‘I cannot tell you about the wise guy. He may choose to tell you himself. Or he may not.’
‘And that would be tomorrow, correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Tomorrow, being Tuesday, correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Tuesday the sixteenth, correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘The sixteenth of May, right?’
‘That’s right.’
You hardly dare ask the next question but you know you have to.
‘The sixteenth of May, 1996, right?’
‘Wrong,’ he says. ‘The sixteenth of May, 3014.’
‘Oh no!’ you scream. ‘That Stacey! Wait till I get my hands on her!’
esperately you grab the handle of the door. You almost wrench it off getting out of there but, to your relief, it opens. You stumble outside and run up the path as fast as you can, not even looking back. Then you get a brilliant idea. You keep running, all the way up to the house. You know exactly what you want, but because there are still unpacked boxes everywhere it takes a few minutes to find it. At last you have it in your hand: your mother’s video camera. You rush back down the path, hoping you’re not too late. There’s the car and yes, to your relief it’s still rocking and rolling, and that pink glow is as strong as ever.
You press ‘record’ on the camera and move up to the windscreen. You aim the camera. Through the viewfinder you see Stacey. She’s still swaying happily, lost in her love of Elvis. In the back seat there’s the King himself, belting through another song. It sounds like ‘Jailhouse Rock’. Now the car’s just about shaking itself apart. You’re getting some great footage. But twenty seconds later Elvis hits the final chord on the guitar, there’s a great explosion of white smoke and he disappears.
It doesn’t matter, though. When you check that twenty seconds of film you find it’s perfect. You send it to Channel 9 news. Within twenty-four hours it’s flashed around the world, to every TV channel on the planet. It’s the biggest news story of the year. Soon the tourists are flocking to your house. It becomes a shrine to Elvis, as big as Graceland, even bigger. You and Stacey and both your families work full-time running it. Elvis never returns, but what do you care? You’ve become incredibly rich, famous, and you don’t even have to go to school! What more could life p
ossibly offer?!
t that moment Stacey turns around. ‘STOP!’ she screams, when she sees you pressing the button. ‘NO!’
You don’t know why she’s so upset, but then you get a rough idea. The bridge she and her mother are standing on starts wobbling. Both Stacey and her mother try to run off it. Unfortunately for them Stacey tries to run towards the castle and her mother tries to run towards you. They crash into each other. At that moment the bridge falls apart completely. It just disintegrates. Bits of it rain down into the water. Stacey and her mum rain down into the water too, screaming wildly as they fall. Away to your left and also to your right there’s a sudden disturbance of water. What could it be? Could it be . . .? Could it possibly be . . .? Yes, it could! Those ugly big snouts sticking out of the water and those big reptilian tails kicking up spray . . . it’s four huge crocodiles, and they are charging straight at the two people in the water.
The next sixty seconds are not pretty. No reader would want them described. What’s that? I’m sorry, can you say that again? I think I must have misheard you. You do want them described? Ohmigod, what kind of sicko person are you? Are you quite sure about this?
rom somewhere deep in your memory you recall a piece of advice about dogs. It’s . . . what is it? Yes, now you remember. ‘Play dead!’ you yell at your mother. ‘Lie down and play dead. They won’t be interested in you then.’
She looks a bit doubtful but the dogs are almost on top of you and there isn’t much choice. You both quickly throw yourselves on the ground and shut your eyes. An instant later you can feel the hot breath of the dogs on your face. One of them seems to be about a centimetre from you. You give yourself up, but nothing seems to be happening. Then you hear Stacey say to her mother: ‘Come on, we might as well go back. We can safely leave them to the dogs.’
You hear their footsteps as they walk off. You still don’t dare open your eyes, though. Over to your left you hear some funny scuffling noises. To your right your mother whispers, ‘What’s happening?’
‘Shh,’ you say, ‘don’t move, whatever you do.’
After about three minutes something strange happens. You feel the dog’s hot breath again. You lie doggo . . . sorry, you lie still. Then, to your amazement, the dog picks you up in its giant jaws. Wow, are these dogs ever strong. Lucky you didn’t try to fight them. You’d have had no chance. But brains outwit brawn every time, that’s what you tell yourself. The dog’s dragging you over some rough ground. Then it drops you. You fall about two metres, which is further than you expected. Very strange, this. Suddenly dirt starts showering on your face. Now at last you open your eyes. And now at last you realise what’s happening. There’s one important fact about dogs that you completely forgot. Oh oh. Big mistake that. Big big mistake.
Yes, the one important fact that you forgot is that dogs like to bury fresh meat for a week or two before they eat it. Whoops. Was that ever a big mistake!
rantically you start dancing on the spiders, stomping them with your Docs. Stomp stomp stomp. You’re inventing a new dance, but it’s getting messy. The faster you do it the faster they keep coming at you. Soon the floor is slippery with the squished black bodies and the pools of spider blood. It’s getting harder to keep your balance. A couple of times you nearly go over, skidding on the slimy crushed arachnids. And then suddenly you’re down. Your arms are flailing wildly, but there’s no hope. Before you know it you’re lying on the cold marble floor. You banged your head when you fell, so you’re slightly concussed. You lie there, unable to move. You hear Stacey’s maniacal laughter. Then you feel the spiders starting to crawl all over you. There’s one in your earhole and dozens swarming onto your arms and legs, then one coming up each nostril. You try to blow your nose but it’s too late for that. You roll around trying to dislodge them but it’s too late for that too. You can feel the ones inside your nose starting to eat into your head. They’re all over your face and somehow a couple of them get into your mouth. There’s more pain, red-hot pain, as they start taking chunks out of your tongue. You try to scream but there’s just a gurgling noise. Then you see Stacey standing over you. ‘Help me, Stacey,’ you want to say, but your tongue’s half-eaten. She leans forward. Her face has turned evil, dark, frightening. She hisses at you: ‘I sentence you,’ she says, ‘to suffer these torments for ETERNITY.’ You feel yourself spinning through a horrifying sickening vacuum. The spiders are still biting you, eating you, devouring you. You keep spinning through the vacuum. After a few hours of that you realise you’ll keep spinning through it forever.
Eternity is a long long time.
ith Stacey and her father hot on your heels you grab the rope and start wriggling up it like your shoes are on fire. As you do so you hear a bell ringing. It’s immensely loud and it’s coming from right above your head. In fact it feels like it’s ringing right in your head. Either this is the biggest headache you’ve ever had or else there’s a big bell that’s very very close to you.
Then you realise what’s happening. It’s the church bell you hear and you’re ringing it by climbing the rope! Hot diggity! The whole district must be hearing this! In fact even through these thick walls you can hear dogs barking. You’re not going to be popular with the neighbours! But then you realise that this might work for you. It might scare away Stacey and her dad.
The rope is shaking violently. You look down. About two metres below your feet is Stacey. About two metres below her is her father. They’re climbing fast. The sight of them gives you a lot of motivation. You start climbing twice as fast. It’s hard to hang on, the way this rope is swinging backwards and forwards. The noise of the bell is deafening. You’ve heard of people getting ringing noises in their heads; now you know what they mean. Your arms are so tired and sore. You look down again. Stacey is just as close as she was before, but her father looks a little tired. You get a glimpse of his face, red and sweaty. Your own hands are sweaty too. The rope starts to slip through your fingers. Oh no! You thought you were in trouble before! Now things are really getting serious! If you fall from this height you’re a dead duck. Can you hang on or not?
or a second, nothing happens. In fact Stacey starts turning around, saying, ‘Come on, get a move . . .’
But that’s all she has time to say because, at that moment, the entire bridge collapses under them. The whole thing just drops, without the slightest warning. One moment they’re standing there, the next moment they’re both in the water, splashing and spluttering and shouting. For the first time you notice that the water is smelly and stagnant, a kind of repellent green colour, like vomit that’s a few weeks old. It’s not very nice.
You and your mum think it’s quite nice, though. You stand there laughing and having a little chat about their swimming styles. You leave them in there for about ten minutes. When they’re totally exhausted, sinking for the third and last time, you kindly drag them out, tie them up, then send for the police. The police are very glad to see them. It turns out they’re wanted in four different countries for crimes ranging from kidnapping to theft, to parking in a disabled zone without a permit.
By the time you and your mum pick up all the rewards from all the different countries, you can afford to move to a better house!
uick, Mum!’ you yell. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘I’m glad you asked, dear,’ she says. ‘You should always take your mother’s advice.’
You can’t believe this! You’ve got Stacey and her mother behind you and two huge savage dogs in front and your mum wants to have a little chat about how she’s always right. Honestly!
‘Mum, would you just get on with it, please?’ you ask. ‘After all, you’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place.’
‘All right, dear,’ she says. She turns to the dogs and in that firm voice she uses when she wants you to clean your room, set the table, or get your baby sister off the roof, she says, ‘Sit.’
There’s something about her voice. You’ve never known anyone able to resist it. Bu
t will it work on vicious dogs?
ou take a deep breath. Somehow you’ve got to face this thing, this terrible frightening sight, on your own. It’s just you and the skeleton. ‘Come on,’ you tell yourself, ‘don’t be such a wimp. The thing is dead, after all. Now, if it was alive, you really would have something to worry about!’
And at that moment the skeleton moves.
You let out a scream, but it doesn’t come out quite right. It’s more like a death rattle, deep in your throat. You can’t believe what you just saw. But there’s no doubt about it. The thing definitely moved. Its left arm jerked up about thirty centimetres, as though it were giving a little wave. Then it fell back to the same position.
‘Oh no,’ you beg yourself, ‘please don’t let this be happening.’
But it is.
You think: ‘OK, I’m not going to panic. I’m just going to step slowly backwards, one step at a time, until I’m out of here. Then I’m going to panic.’
But fear has paralysed you. You’re fixed to the spot like you’ve suddenly become the Statue of Liberty.
Then there’s a noise behind you. More trouble? You don’t think you can cope with anything more. There’s a kind of scratching and crying, then you realise what it is.
‘Bingo!’ you cry.
And Bingo comes bursting through the door, panting and woofing and bouncing around like he’s on a trampoline. Sure he looks like a cross between a camel and a corgi, sure he’s got the IQ of a lobotomised goldfish, sure he’s the daggiest dog in the neighbourhood but, right now, you’re very very pleased to see him.
Bingo gives you a lick to say hello, but he’s too interested in exploring the room to give you much attention. Then something makes his nostrils twitch. He looks up, he looks around, his nose is doing aerobics. Then he sees what it is. It’s the skeleton. With one huge bound he leaps straight at it.