The Color of Fear

by Billy Phillips

  She turned and approached Caitlin.

  “Never!” Caitlin shouted, bug-eyed, as she tried to guard her head with both hands.

  Rapunzel stared blankly at Caitlin. Then she picked a dried-up sugar maple leaf from a dead tree and brought it to Caitlin. She held it up to Caitlin’s mouth.

  “Spit.”

  Caitlin stared at her, open-mouthed. Rapunzel remained steadfast.

  “Spit on the leaf, or I pluck a clump of hair.”

  Caitlin snorted and amassed a swirl of saliva in her mouth. She chucked the huge wad of phlegm all over the leaf.

  “Eloquent performance,” Natalie said.

  Cindy ripped a few thin strips of fabric from Sleeping Beauty’s cape and descended on Caitlin, using the strips to wipe perspiration from her brow and to swab out her ears.

  Rapunzel took the fabric strips and rubbed Caitlin’s earwax on a long branch. “Wait here,” she commanded.

  “Hang on,” Cindy said to her.

  She reached into her pocket. She pulled out four jalapeño peppers, three garlic cloves, and a wasabi root. Rapunzel grabbed the spices.

  “Good thinking.”

  She marched toward the old castle, dragging the stick across the ground. Along the way, she dropped the strands of hair and scraps of fabric. When she got to the castle entrance she opened the large, wooden doors and disappeared inside.

  “What in the world is she up to?” Caitlin asked no one in particular.

  “Sly as a fox,” Natalie muttered. “She’s buying us time.”

  After a long few minutes, Rapunzel returned. A self-satisfied grin was planted on her face. “Time to get out of here!”

  The girls turned to the right and started down the road in the direction of the queen’s castle.

  Rapunzel stopped them. “Not that way.” She pointed to the marsh. “This way.”

  “I don’t get it. Thought we needed to hurry?” Caitlin said.

  Rapunzel waded knee-deep into the marsh. She turned and waved her arm, summoning the others. She made a wide right turn and walked about a hundred yards through the shallow water before wading back out of the marsh and onto the dirt road. The girls followed Rapunzel’s path.

  After twenty minutes of trekking in the stifling heat, their clothes had dried out completely.

  Natalie wiped beads of perspiration from her forehead. “Are we almost there?”

  “Yes,” Rapunzel replied. “But keep your voice down, and be on the lookout. The queen has minions everywhere.”

  As if on cue, menacing black crows appeared overhead, flying in a V formation. The leader made a sudden nosedive. It returned to the flock and led the birds in a new formation—a figure-eight pattern close to the ground and right above the girls’ heads. There must be hundreds of them. Not exactly the warmest of welcomes.

  The dirt road ended and a cobblestone lane took its place. It wound around a mess of tangled, brown branches. As they followed it, Caitlin noticed that the branches were evenly spaced, in clumps, and that most were encrusted in dead leaves. Even more curious was that they looked like sculptures in the forms of classic shapes. One tangled clump was shaped like a perfect diamond. Another was shaped like a heart. A third was shaped like Cupid pulling back on his bow, ready to shoot his arrow.

  The cobblestone lane twisted around one more bramble, and then Caitlin saw a fortress-style castle surrounded by a massive rock wall. A crimson-colored flag flapped in the wind on the highest spire.

  They had arrived at their destination: the Queen of Hearts’ castle.

  Its gray stone towers pierced a heavy blanket of hot smog. Sunshine heated the thick soup of vapor.

  “Pick up the pace,” Rapunzel said. “Those crows have already signaled the wolves.”

  Rapunzel unfolded the map and scoped out their position.

  “The front gate leads to the drawbridge,” she said. “So that entrance is not an option. The queen will spot us for sure, which leaves only one way to break into this royal fortress … ”

  Caitlin’s mouth fell agape. “You mean that ginormous rock wall in front of us?”

  Natalie nudged her sister in the ribs. “Acrophobia. Aka, fear of heights.”

  The ash-gray bricks of the wall were chipped, broken, and worn, but it still stood a solid four stories high.

  “Those chips will make it easier to climb,” Beauty said.

  Caitlin went weak in the knees.

  When they reached the base of the wall, the girls cast expectant eyes upon Rapunzel. Her grin was sly. She twirled her golden braid until it formed a lasso again. She flung her rope-hair high, and it landed over the top of a bastion. She tugged on it, and it held fast.

  Rapunzel began to climb the wall of rock. Her bare, spindly toes dug into crevices. Her powerful arms yanked her upward as she pulled on her own golden rope.

  She stopped abruptly after a moment and looked down at the group, grimacing. “These stone chips are sharp. Careful you don’t cut your feet.”

  Rapunzel renewed her climb, leaving a red-stained footprint on the gray wall beneath her.

  Caitlin thought she heard a wolf’s howl echo in the distance.

  Rapunzel finally mounted the ramparts. She turned around and flung her golden braid down to Beauty.

  “Your turn.”

  Beauty started climbing. She was quickly followed by Snow, Cindy, and then Natalie.

  Caitlin bit her lower lip. “I’ll stay here and be the lookout,” she volunteered meekly.

  Natalie threw a look at Caitlin before she took her first step. “We need you. You’re the imperceptible one, remember?”

  Cindy called down to Caitlin as quietly as she could. “Move it, sister. Those wolves are definitely back on our scent.”

  Caitlin glanced behind her, then back up at Natalie. Her sister waved at her to follow.

  She took a deep breath and started climbing.

  Slowly and carefully, the girls scaled the face of solid rock, holding on to Rapunzel’s hair for dear life.

  “What if we fall?” Snow cried as she passed the halfway mark.

  Now she asks?

  “Not to worry,” Cindy said, “you’re already dead.”

  The color drained from Caitlin’s face. She didn’t dare look down. She fought to keep her focus on Natalie’s backside and legs, moving steadily upward above her.

  Then Natalie stopped climbing.

  Caitlin then made the worst possible mistake. She stole a quick look down. She saw the spot on the cobblestones below where she’d splatter if she slipped and fell. She glanced back up. Black crows were circling above them, drawing closer with each rotation. Caitlin’s brow dribbled sweat, and her palms became slippery from perspiration. She tightened her grip. She recalled what Amethyst had told her: the crows sensed courage, not fear. Which meant she was now in stealth mode. This gave her a small measure of comfort. Enough to keep her climbing.

  Caitlin took a deep breath and tried to focus on Natalie, who was still stalled near the top. “What’s the holdup?” she asked.

  “Beauty!” Rapunzel yelled. “Bad time to catch a nap!”

  “Someone give her a nudge,” Snow said. “We don’t want her to fall.”

  The bell in the castle’s clock tower rang out.

  Beauty opened her eyes and yawned after being woken by the clanging. She glanced up at Rapunzel. “Another dream,” she said. “The wolves are sprinting to the castle.”

  The girls hastily resumed their ascent. Upward they climbed, tired arms tugging, aching legs driving. Just when Caitlin’s limbs seemed spent and ready to give out, she reached the top. She waggled over the ledge and then crouched on the ramparts with the other girls.

  Directly in front of them loomed the higher levels of the castle. The windows were glassless but barred by rusted iron. Below them flowed the moat.

  Rapunzel pointed to the map. “According to this, we should be able to sneak in through some unguarded windows on this level.”

  Cinderella skulked
up to a small window. She peered inside.

  She could hear a loud, booming backbeat penetrating the walls and shaking the ceiling.

  Caitlin whispered to Natalie, “Sounds like the music Mom and Dad listened to when we were kids. I think this is The Who!”

  “Who?” Natalie asked.

  “The Who. It’s a band.”

  Cinderella wiggled her butt. “Ooh! Rockin’. Sounds like a party.”

  Rapunzel peered through the small window. “The place is crawling with Blood-Eyed.”

  They took turns peeking through the window and peering down on the heads of well over fifteen hundred hard-partying zombies. The Blood-Eyed jerked, jostled, and jumped on the crowded dance floor.

  If ever there was a wanton party from hell, this was it!

  Natalie whipped out her camera and stood up.

  “Awesome shot!” She snapped photos in a rapid-fire sequence.

  “Get down!” Rapunzel said. “They’ll spot us!”

  Caitlin knelt, listening to the melody reverberating through the roof. The music stirred a memory as only music could. Caitlin was transported back in time; she remembered dancing around the house with her mother to oldies from the 1960s. Especially one of her mom’s favorites, “She’s Not There.” The irony was not lost on Caitlin. She really was not there.

  Caitlin had to have been nine or so at that time. Natalie six. Her mom had taught them all sorts of dances with funny names, though Caitlin couldn’t recall the names at that moment. She just remembered everyone laughing and dancing in the living room.

  She remembered something else. That might have been the very last time she had ever danced without being self-conscious in front of another human being. Sure, she danced alone in her bedroom, in front of the mirror. But that was the last time she had truly let go.

  Caitlin glanced over at Natalie. Girl Wonder seemed transfixed by the music. Soon her eyes even began to mist over. Then Natalie abruptly scooted over to Caitlin and, for the first time ever, leaped into her sister’s arms. She wrapped her legs tightly around Caitlin’s waist and flung her arms around her neck. Caitlin’s eyes welled up as she pulled Natalie closer. As they were embracing warmly, Caitlin suddenly felt Natalie’s body stiffen.

  “Desmodus rotundus!” Natalie shouted out. “The common vampire bat.”

  Caitlin spun around with her sister still tight in her arms. She glanced up at the sky.

  She gasped.

  A colony of Blood-Eyed bats was winging swiftly across the orange sky.

  Natalie squeezed Caitlin tighter.

  “It’s twilight,” Natalie said. “They’re hunting for food.”

  What happened next happened so fast, Caitlin didn’t even have time to react.

  A flapping Blood-Eyed bat suddenly nosedived. It hurtled like a heat-seeking missile straight for the red chili pepper in Caitlin’s arms. Before Caitlin could dodge it, the incoming winged ghoul nipped Natalie on the scalp. It broke the skin.

  Oh God, no! That didn’t just happen. It couldn’t have.

  It did.

  A Blood-Eyed zombie had just bitten Natalie Fletcher.

  Caitlin set her sister down in front of her. A trickle of blood dripped down Natalie’s forehead from the wound.

  Natalie’s hands immediately took on a throbbing glow and sizzled with electrical currents the color of sapphires. Her body began to tremble. Her camera fell from her grip and swung like a pendulum from the strap that hung around her neck.

  Her veins flashed from blue to red to orange to violet under translucent skin. The current sizzled up her arm, swam across her shoulder, and then spread out, swallowing her torso and face. It devoured Natalie Fletcher from head to toe.

  Her raincoat was shredded and in tatters. Her face flickered with specks of neon that split her skin into sections.

  “No! Make it stop! Make it stop! Caitlin, please, make it stop!” Natalie writhed in pain.

  Caitlin’s heart froze as she watched her sister’s flesh separate from the bone. Layers of skin then reformed and reattached over her cheekbones and around her eye sockets with zipper-stitch scars where they met.

  Natalie looked up at Caitlin. “What’s happening to me?!”

  The word fell out from Caitlin’s mouth in a somber whisper, “Zombification.”

  “But I don’t want to turn into a ghoul!” Natalie wailed.

  Caitlin grabbed her and hugged tight as she stared helplessly at the zombie princesses.

  Rapunzel turned to Cinderella. “Okay, Cindy. Take your bite.”

  Caitlin’s eyebrows arched sharply in surprise. Cinderella’s eyes burned with hunger. Caitlin’s heart skipped a beat as Cindy seized Natalie’s hand and slid it into her mouth.

  Caitlin squeezed her sibling tighter. “What’s going on?” she asked, horrified.

  Rapunzel ignored her. “Just a nibble, Cindy.”

  Chomp!

  Cindy bit the tip of Natalie’s thumb as Caitlin’s eyes went wide. A droplet of blood flowed. When Natalie saw her own blood, her eyes rolled up into their sockets.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Caitlin shrieked.

  Rapunzel calmly rolled up her sleeve. “We’re not on Earth. What I’m doing is arranging a makeshift blood transfusion.”

  Rapunzel placed her wrist in front of Cindy’s mouth.

  “Bite, girl.”

  Cindy’s teeth pierced her friend’s pale flesh. When she extracted her teeth, blood dribbled from Rapunzel’s wrist.

  “Better hurry!” Beauty cried. “If you don’t inject some royal blood cells into Natalie’s circulatory system now, she’ll be a Blood-Eyed in minutes.”

  Caitlin’s chest tightened.

  Rapunzel extended her wrist and smeared a few droplets of blood against Natalie’s reddened thumb.

  Natalie broke away from Caitlin’s embrace.

  She snarled.

  Then she grunted like the ghoulish beast she was on her way to becoming.

  Saliva dripped from her teeth. Her eyes blazed pink. Like a hound from hell, she tore off on all fours along the stone ledge of the wall, then dove through the palace window.

  “Party animal,” Cinderella quipped. She dabbed a drop of blood from her lip with her pinkie and then licked it clean.

  Rapunzel’s response was a grim look of concern.

  Caitlin stood motionless, tears streaming down her face.

  This can’t be happening.

  Only a moment ago she’d held her beloved baby sister warmly in her arms.

  Now her decomposing sister had just crashed a rampantly wild party crawling with savage ghouls—literally!

  Deep in the heart of Zeno’s Forest, Jack, limping and exhausted from crawling through the glowworm tunnel, emerged into the cavernous hideout of the caterpillar. Grapevines with only a few remaining clusters hung above decapitated artichoke stems. Bean plants with but a few pods left drooped against tomato vines almost devoid of fruit. Though a few watermelons and pumpkins—both far taller than Jack—lay on the floor, it appeared that all the plants had been freshly harvested.

  “This place has been picked clean,” Jack declared.

  Alfonzo hopped out of the tunnel and joined Jack in the cave. “Fortunately, there are still a few morsels for me.”

  Alfonzo scooped a baby glowworm off the wall with his tongue and swallowed it whole. “Scrumptious.” His belly shone with a faint, green light. The frog looked down at his glowing gut. “And quite stylish.”

  Jack couldn’t help but notice his own shadow, cast on the wall from the glowworms’ green light. Although he was the size of a worm, his shadow was tall and curved up to the ceiling. The bone sticking out of his leg formed an unnatural-looking appendage that loomed large.

  “You think the caterpillar can help me grow back to my normal size?” he asked the prince frog.

  “Yes, amigo, but what is making that other shadow?”

  Other shadow?

  Indeed, a much larger shadow was being cast by something in the ro
om. Jack turned. His eyes focused on a huge, limp pile of fur. The light from the glowworms shifted, and then Jack saw it: a dead zombie wolf.

  Jack grimaced.

  “Must have ruffled somebody’s feathers,” Alfonzo said.

  Jack made his way over to the large mushroom that sat in the center of the cavern.

  “Caterpillar?” Jack said.

  No answer. The frog tried. “Lord Amethyst? It is I, Alfonzo the Frog Prince, in person and in the flesh.”

  Jack took out his pocketknife. He carved a hole in the side of a watermelon. With a mighty yank, he unplugged the cork of rind and began scooping out fistfuls of red, juicy melon flesh. He was in up to his shoulders when he heard a faint rustle coming from the mushroom. He rushed over, looked around, and then found where the sound was coming from: a fluffy cocoon hanging securely from the underside of the mushroom’s cap. It rocked back and forth. He could see a tiny hole forming—it was being chewed from the inside.

  Jack leaned in close. “Are you there, Amethyst?”

  “I’ll be out in a moment,” replied a little mouth from inside the hole. “Some privacy, please.”

  While Jack waited, he got a wonderful idea. He tore a wide strip of fabric from one of the large mohair throw blankets hanging off the sofa. Then he ripped a few strips of vine from the grapes and fashioned a make-do rucksack. It would come in handy later, he knew. Then he knelt on the cool, rich soil of the cavern and started scooping up dirt. He filled the rucksack with soil. Next, he plucked the two remaining beans from the plant’s stem and shoved them inside the sack as well.

  He had just begun to wash his hands with watermelon juice when he heard an authoritative “Ahem.”

  He spun around.

  The caterpillar had blossomed into a magnificent butterfly. He shimmered a deep purple, with black accents. His tremendous wingspan extended almost wall to wall.

  “You’re looking for Caitlin, I presume?” asked Amethyst.

  “Desperately.”

  Jack dried his hands and motioned to the wolf. “What happened here?”

  “That wolf saved us,” Amethyst said, pointing to the dead Big Bad Wolf. “The other wolves were none too pleased about it. He gave his life for us. But now the murderous wolf pack is after Caitlin and the girls.”