He snapped open his bag, and hundreds of small, almost transparent balls floated up into the air. A quick, forceful exhale from Dr. Fell sent the balls flying into the faces of the three children, who raised their hands up in a futile attempt to swat them away. The balls expanded, pulsating and shimmering with a ghostly inner light, and attached themselves all over the children’s skin. As Gail, Nancy, and Jerry cried out in a mixture of fear and frustration, more and more of the slimy balls coated them, until the sheer weight of these globular invaders dragged each child down first to his or her knees, then all the way to the cold, hard floor.
“I do apologize for any discomfort caused by my little toys.” Dr. Fell smirked, closing up his bag. “Normally my subjects are unconscious when they do their work. Alas, I felt a certain urgency in the situation and chose not to stand on ceremony.”
Now that all three children had been subdued, the balls on their bodies began pulsating and bubbling. Out of each stretched dozens of the strange, thin white strands, which proceeded to wrap themselves around their subjects. Other strands reached toward the ceiling, and slowly but surely the children were lifted off their feet. As Dr. Fell hummed pleasantly to himself, Gail, Nancy, and Jerry were trussed and bound in a manner identical to that used for Old Lady Witherton. In what seemed like only a few quick moments, the three of them hung in a line in front of Dr. Fell, staring at their captor in horror.
“There,” he murmured. “That’s better. Now then, who would like to go first? Any volunteers?”
“You’re a monster,” said Gail, spitting the webbing out of her mouth.
“Oh, my sweet, innocent little child. You have no idea what I am.” His trademark grin wavered a moment into a look of pure hatred. Gail gasped in fright, then spent the next several seconds spitting more wispy strands out of her mouth.
“It occurs to me that we already have a patient in need of my care.” Dr. Fell marched down the line, stopping in front of Jerry. “Unless I am very much mistaken, you still have a boo-boo on your knee, do you not?”
Jerry shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.
“Come now, don’t be shy.” Dr. Fell reached through the webbing and pulled up Jerry’s pants leg until the red scrape from before was visible. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
He turned away to address the darkness, but then stopped and twisted his head back around. “It honestly will not hurt, in case you were curious. You will not feel a thing.”
He returned his attention to the darkness behind him. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, my pet.”
The children held their breath and stared, too terrified to blink. The dark void in front of them seemed to writhe and wriggle about, yet nothing appeared to answer Dr. Fell’s call. At length, he frowned and tried again. “Come forth, my friend. I have need of you.”
Again the darkness pulsed and slithered, yet again it refused to appear. Dr. Fell grew increasingly angry. Taking a deep breath, he lifted one hand up to his chest (though what exactly he was doing the children could not see) and called out, “Heed my summons, Fiend, or face my wrath!”
The darkness came alive, squeezing itself forward in jerks and spasms. “I…come…,” claimed the heavy, raspy voice from within the black.
“Much better,” said Dr. Fell, lowering his hand. “Now then. If you would be so kind as to attend to the boy’s injuries.”
With a gesture toward Jerry, Dr. Fell stepped aside. At first, the children could not make anything out in the darkness. But then, bit by bit, forms took shape. Limbs or tentacles or arms or legs pulled themselves forward, as if dragging a great weight. Dim yellow pinpoints of light that might have been eyes blinked on and peered intensely at Jerry. Then, more than a shadow, the darkness itself lurched toward the young boy caught in the abominable webbing. Jerry could not scream, could not look away, could not do anything as the terrifying darkness reached out and swallowed up his knee.
“Get away from him! Leave my brother alone!” Gail thrashed about as best she could.
Jerry stared down at where his knee should have been but where he could see only a jet-black nothing. It was as if his knee had ceased to exist. Or as if it had vanished into an alternate universe.
Then the dark tentacle pulled away from Jerry and receded into the larger mass of darkness. Jerry’s knee was suddenly right where it had always been. And the raw, nasty-looking scrape on his flesh was gone.
“There now. Was that really so awful?” asked Dr. Fell.
“You just stole his time,” accused Nancy.
“A trifling amount,” replied Dr. Fell. “How long do you suppose it would have taken for that particular injury to heal? Two days? Three? Also, if we are, indeed, being technical, it was not I who absconded with those three days. It was my…companion. Point of fact, I have never stolen a single moment from a single child in all my long, long history. I am not, after all, a monster.”
“But you…you get young!” yelled Gail in frustration.
“Oh, you noticed?” Dr. Fell smiled and flexed his youthful muscles. “Yes, I can see how you might be perplexed by this puzzling conundrum. You see, the real monster at work…the creature that haunts the darkness…feeds not on time but on pain. It digests the pain of one’s injury, and in so doing inadvertently digests one’s time. A side dish, if you will. But as it has no use for the time it devours, it excretes it through the tips of its limbs much as your own body excretes water through your pores on a hot summer’s day. The time is a waste product, nothing more. All I do is collect this waste product and ensure that all that precious time does not go to waste.”
He turned back to address the darkness. “Are you ready for a full meal, my pet?” he asked.
“Not…hungry,” came the tortured reply.
“I did not ask if you were hungry,” said Dr. Fell darkly, his tone threatening.
An idea began to form in Jerry’s mind.
“Now then,” announced Dr. Fell, twirling back around. “I have need of a gruesome, horrific injury that would take months to heal. But what should it be? A broken leg? Cracked skull? Some hideous internal injury? Shattered vertebrae? So many choices.”
“Please,” whispered Gail. “Don’t hurt us. Just go. You’re young again. You can disappear and no one will ever find you. You’ve won.”
“Oh, I have most certainly won, my poor, pleading friend. But I desire to do more than just win. I want to crush you. To ensure that none ever again dare oppose me like this batty old crone.” He gestured at the still form of Old Lady Witherton. “I tire of living a lie, of maintaining the facade. I want the whispers of what happened here on Hardscrabble Street to spread far and wide, so that when I next step out of the shadows a withered old man, people will line up to give me their youth willingly for fear of facing my fury!” A fire raged in his eyes as he spoke, the evil within finally breaking through the mask he so carefully cultivated.
“You really are a monster!” cried Gail.
“No!” screamed Dr. Fell, pointing behind him. “There is the monster! There is your evil! There is your creature of ultimate darkness! I am merely the one controlling it!”
Jerry’s idea began to take shape.
“Since you are so very critical of my work, little Gail, I think you shall be the first to have the honor of donating your youth.” Dr. Fell approached Gail, wrapped in her cocoon, and began ripping strands away from her legs. “I should think a fractured shinbone most appropriate. Those bones take a devilishly long time to heal. It would ordinarily keep you in a cast for close to a year. I will take that year.”
“Leave her alone!” yelled Nancy, punching the air in front of her and partially freeing one of her arms.
“No…eat…,” moaned the voice from the darkness. “Taste…bad….”
“You will do as I say or face the consequences!” snapped Dr. Fell.
The children were surprised to hear what sounded like whimpering coming from the black void.
Jerry’s idea locked into pla
ce.
“Now, hold still, little one,” growled an obviously annoyed Dr. Fell, reaching in and grabbing hold of Gail’s left leg. “This is going to hurt quite a bit.”
As she squirmed and wriggled in a frantic attempt to free herself from his grasp, and as Nancy continued to yell and punch in a frantic attempt to free herself from the strands of webbing, and as Dr. Fell’s eyes bulged with anticipation, Jerry’s idea hatched.
“His watch!” he yelled. “Go for his gold watch!”
The outburst distracted Dr. Fell, who turned his head, suddenly alarmed, just as Gail wrenched her leg free and kicked with all her might at the gold chain tucked into his suit pocket. The first kick caught Dr. Fell in the gut, knocking the breath out of him. The second hooked the chain around the tip of her foot and yanked it up and out of his pocket, sending it flying into the air.
“You brats!” screamed Dr. Fell, reaching up to catch the shiny gold watch as it soared above him.
“Nancy!” yelled Gail.
“Got it!” Nancy yelled back, ripping her arm all the way out of the webbing with a final grunt of effort. Everyone watched as the watch dropped down as if in slow motion toward the ground in front of her. Straining beyond what she would have thought possible, Nancy groped forward, making a final lunge with as much of her body as the strands wrapped around it would allow.
The watch landed in Nancy’s palm with a satisfying thunk.
“Trash it!” yelled Jerry.
Dangling above the floor as she was, Nancy had few options, and she looked about desperately as Dr. Fell got to his feet and approached her, face contorted with fury. “Give that back right now!”
“The ceiling!” cried Gail.
With the menacing form of Dr. Fell less than a foot away, Nancy suddenly tilted her head and shoved her free hand up, slamming the gold pocket watch against the rocky cavern ceiling.
“No!” bellowed Dr. Fell. He flinched back a step as if it were he himself being smashed against the rock and not his pocket watch.
“Keep going!” cheered Jerry.
Nancy slammed the watch against the ceiling as hard as she could, cracking the casing a little more with every strike. Gail joined Jerry in cheering Nancy on.
One more smash and the cover of the watch broke off, revealing the glass face beneath.
“Stop! You do not know what you are doing!” wheezed Dr. Fell, his entire body suddenly shivering in fear.
And a third voice joined Gail and Jerry in urging Nancy on. A raspy, grinding, horrific voice that nevertheless sounded suddenly joyful.
“Go!” called out the creature of the darkness.
With one final thrust, Nancy smashed the glass face against the rock ceiling, shattering the pocket watch. Shards of glass, tiny gears, and splinters of mechanical doohickeys rained down around them, and an exultant cry of glee echoed throughout the chamber.
“Free…free!” bellowed the darkness.
Dr. Fell dropped to his knees and gathered as many of the pieces of his former watch as he could. “What have you done, you filthy vermin! What have you—”
He never got a chance to finish the sentence.
The mass of black swept forward and engulfed him, wrapping its tendrils around the youthful-looking man, pulling him off his feet and backward into the void. Even his screams of horror were suddenly cut off as he vanished into a vibrant blackness darker than night.
All three children closed their eyes as a bright light burst forth from deep within the nothing in front of them. For an instant, the cavern was illuminated with an intense, yellow-purple essence that threatened to blind them even through their eyelids. But then, just as instantly, the pulse of energy was gone.
Slowly, Gail opened first one eye, then the other. The cavern, while still dimly lit, was no longer black. Even the circle of utter black beneath the pirate ship was replaced by the hazy glow of star- and moonlight filtering down from above.
“What just happened?” asked Nancy.
“I think…” Jerry paused, hesitant to give voice to the hope welling up within him. “I think when you smashed the watch, that…thing…was free to return to its own…whatever. And it took Dr. Fell with it.”
“Did you know that would happen?” asked Gail in awe.
Jerry shook his head, wild-eyed. “Are you kidding me?”
“Oh my heavens,” murmured Old Lady Witherton, stirring in her cocoon. “You’re all trapped here too. We’re doomed. Dr. Fell will kill us all!”
“No, Constance,” replied Gail. “I don’t think Dr. Fell will ever hurt anyone again.”
AFTER NANCY FINISHED RIPPING herself free from the thin white strands, she quickly helped the others down, until all four former prisoners of Dr. Fell had their feet on solid ground once more. The large doorway through which they had seen Dr. Fell enter and exit in the past was not to be found, so Gail led the others up the Stairway of Death into the smoking ruins of what had once been the large, empty brick house at the end of Hardscrabble Street.
“Gail! Jerry!” Stephanie Bloom raced over and wrapped her children in a mammoth hug. “Thank God you’re OK!”
“What in blazes just happened?” asked Jonathan Bloom.
“What was that big explosion?” asked PTA Co-President Martha Doomburg as she and a number of other neighborhood parents approached.
“Why is everybody standing around holding kitchen tools?” asked Veronica Plaugestein.
“Where did you four come from?” asked Abner Fallowmold.
“What is Old Lady Witherton doing here?” asked Sandy Gallowsbee.
“Was she bothered?” asked a slightly worried Horace Macabrador.
“Where is Dr. Fell?”
The adults all turned as one to look at little Ethel Pusster, who stepped forward and repeated her question.
“Where is Dr. Fell?”
“Dr. Fell is gone,” answered Old Lady Witherton. “And good riddance to him.”
Everyone opened their mouths to automatically defend Dr. Fell but found themselves suddenly seeing him in new ways.
“I always felt rushed during his appointments,” muttered PTA Co-President Candice Gloomfellow.
“I don’t recall ever seeing his physician’s license,” said Lars Oozewuld.
“What was with all those pictures of cats?” asked Sharon Rottingsly.
Everybody nodded and agreed with her on that point.
And so the people of Hardscrabble Street, as well as all those on nearby Vexington Avenue and Von Burden Lane, and nearly all on Turnabout Road (Old Lady Witherton could not be bothered), quietly made their way back to their homes, walking down streets whose streetlights seemed to burn just a little brighter than before.
For her part, Old Lady Witherton knelt down before Gail and Jerry and Nancy (grimacing slightly as her arthritis kicked in) and clasped her hands in front of her in thanks. “You saved my life,” she said. “Or what’s left of it. Thank you, you dear, sweet dovelings.”
The children smiled.
“Nancy? Nancy!”
Nancy looked up to find her mother rushing over to her. She stopped a good foot or two away, suddenly feeling awkward with everyone watching. Nancy smiled, closed the distance, and gave her mother a big hug.
“I love you, Mom,” she said.
Cecilia Pinkblossom blushed, then wrapped her arms around her daughter. “I love you too,” she said. “Honey, do you have any idea why I’m carrying the turkey baster?”
And so life slowly returned to normal. Or, at least, it found a new normal.
The whirlwind of life under the sway of Dr. Fell was over, but the damage done lived on. Leonid Hazardfall hit puberty at a surprisingly young age and developed into a star middle school and high school athlete who seemed, physically at least, to be years ahead of his peers. Other children at McKinley Grant Fillmore Elementary School, as well as those at Lincoln Adams Coolidge Elementary School, Washington Madison Hoover Elementary School, and Ford Garfield Taft Elementary School, also found
themselves rushing through childhood perhaps a little faster than they would have liked. And every boy in the entire sixth grade of Southeast North Northwestern Academy had to be taught how to shave.
Those were only the more obvious, physical ramifications. As Old Lady Witherton had warned, a number of parents found themselves second-guessing their decisions or those of their spouses during the time of Dr. Fell, and sadly the bonds within more than a few families were tested.
But the more horrific examples of devastation left in the wake of Dr. Fell described by Old Lady Witherton failed to appear. Perhaps because, at the end, he had not left on his own terms, or perhaps the people living in the shadow of Killimore Hill had simply gotten lucky.
His play structure, of course, was torn down right away, with children and parents working together to disassemble the devious death trap. In less than a week, all that remained at the end of Hardscrabble Street was the burned-out husk of the old house. Even the immense basement had disappeared. There was nothing strange or sinister or remotely magical left behind. Just an empty vacant lot.
After some discussion among neighborhood parents, it was decided to build a new playground down there. Money was raised, a contractor was hired, ground was broken, and the new playground became the envy of the area. It had a climbing wall, swings, slides, a big space ball built of rope—a bunch of things for kids to climb on or over or under. It also had a very soft, sandy play surface.
It did not have a pirate ship, or a moat, or a tower, or a dungeon, or a spaceship, or the Pyramids of Giza, or a life-sized dollhouse, or ancient ruins, or a circus tent, or a zip line dangling hundreds of feet above the earth.
And that was fine.
One day a few weeks or months later, three friends sat on the bank of the tiny trickle of a stream that snaked behind Hardscrabble Street, lost in their thoughts and memories. The three children had spent many days like this, uneasily sitting together, apart from the other children, each day more unsettling than the last.
Like the other children of the neighborhood, they liked the new playground at the end of Hardscrabble Street. Like the other children of the neighborhood, they had initially played on the new playground at the end of Hardscrabble Street. Like the other children of the neighborhood, they had expected the hundreds of new, happy memories spent playing on the new playground at the end of Hardscrabble Street to replace the less pleasant ones that had been created in that same space all those weeks or months ago.
Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom Page 15