by Trish Telep
"Peggy? Nate?"
But at the campsite, instead of her schoolmates, she found two other people, a man and a woman near the fire. Both dead. A clear substance coated their faces, like a beauty mask, only there was nothing beautiful about their expressions, which were frozen in terror.
Sue Jean heard Chickie curse beside her. She turned and saw him kneeling on a sleeping bag next to Nate's body. His rifle had been wrapped around his broken neck like a bowtie. And less than a foot from Nate lay Peggy, still alive and tugging frantically at the hard clear mask that covered her face, blocking her nose and mouth and any ability whatsoever to draw a single breath. Sue Jean fell next to her and broke her fingernails on the mask trying to pull it off. But it was as hard and unyielding as concrete.
Chickie shoved her aside and smashed a branch against the mask to break it, but the branch broke instead, shattering into a million splinters. Peggy's eyes glazed over, and she went limp, her struggles over.
Sue Jean shot to her feet, hands over her mouth to keep the screams in.
Chickie was more in control, studying all of the bodies with a cool detachment. "Peggy was wrong," he said. "This wasn't the Klan. The nine-lived did this. They steal boys, young ones like Leo, and drain their lives. It's how they survive." He stood and brushed the dirt off his jeans.
"My cousin's son was stolen by them years ago. When she tried to fight them off, they spat on her face. She suffocated just like Peggy did." He nodded toward the man and woman. "And like they did. Notice how there's three sleeping bags? I'm guessing they had a son out here with them. The nine-lived have him now--him and Leo. Sue Jean, we gotta go and warn people."
"I'm not leaving those boys in the clutches of some monster."
"Monsters. Plural. There's only the two of us against who knows how many of them. And remember what I said about consequences? If we save those boys, the creatures'll just search for other boys, maybe killing more people along the way."
"You can reason your way out of this if you want, Chickie Hill, but I'm staying. I'm tired of being told I can't make a difference--"
"Sue Jean--"
"--and if the world explodes as a result, then so be it! God, don't you see? This is our freedom ride. Our chance to charge into battle and save the day." She watched Chickie struggling with himself and couldn't begin to guess what he was struggling with. When people needed help, you helped them; when things were wrong, you righted them. It could not have been more clear-cut. "Is there nothing you won't take a stand against?"
Chickie stared at Sue Jean for a long moment, the firelight snaking across his unhappy expression. He said, "The slime trail leads that way. Let's follow it." As Sue Jean hurried past him, he grabbed her arm. "But when everything goes to hell," he said, "remember that I tried to warn you."
* * *
They traveled a short way through the woods and came out into a smaller clearing just big enough for the large, weathered house sitting on the property.
"Look." Chickie pointed to a green light glowing in the basement window of the house and the misshapen shadows passing before it. As they watched, the light changed to a normal yellow, and moments later, the nine-lived exited through the front door of the house.
Maybe from a great distance, if you needed glasses, they looked Klannish, as Peggy had thought, but they were worse. What looked like long white costumes were their bodies; the long, pointy "hats" were their heads, and their eerie, ghostlike glide was definitely non-human.
"Where're they going?"
"I'd guess to find more boys," said Chickie. "That road leads into town."
When the nine-lived had disappeared down the dirt road, Chickie and Sue Jean ran across the yard to the basement window and peered inside the dimly lit space.
"I don't see the boys. Do you think--"
Chickie shook his head. "No, they're inside there somewhere. Nine-lived keep the boys they steal sometimes for years, the way farmers keep cows. When the last boy's life is drained, they go out and round up some more. I need to get my car so we don't have to make our getaway on foot in the dark with who knows how many kids. Stay here."
"No way! Splitting up is stupid. In the movies that's how people end up dead."
And so they both double-timed it back to Chickie's T-bird and then drove to the house up the same narrow dirt road the nine-lived had traveled down. Chickie parked the car close to the house, out of sight of the road and as near to the basement window as he could get.
The damp East Texas climate had eroded the wood of the house and rusted the screen, which screamed as Chickie used his tools to remove it and then pry open the window. He slipped inside and Sue Jean handed him the toolbox before crawling through the window herself. At least, she tried to crawl through.
"Come on," Chickie said, reaching up and taking her by the waist.
"You try crawling around in a corset," she said breathlessly. "Besides, my skirt is too wide for this window. If only my folks would take me shopping for those new, straight skirts, I wouldn't need all these petticoats."
Chickie finally pulled her through, despite her petticoats; she felt like a cork being yanked from a wine bottle.
"Why are you wearing a corset?" he asked, as she caught her breath.
"It's a shaper. It trains your body to conform to a proper womanly shape."
"Underclothes can't alter genetics. Besides, there's nothing wrong with your shape."
"Don't flirt with me now, Chickie Hill; I'm trying to be a hero."
He let her go so they could begin their search in earnest.
A cuckoo clock hung askew near the window above a moldering box full of daguerreotypes. An overturned fainting couch lay dank and rotting in a corner, and a crank wall phone was shattered at the bottom of the basement stairs. But what overwhelmed the room was a black, cast-iron stove that was taller than both Sue Jean and Chickie.
It was a real antique piece adorned with copper filigree and scrollwork. The transparent door ballooned outward in the center of the stove, but instead of a fire glowing through the glass, there were boys, six in all, sitting glumly together like sheep in a pen. There weren't inside the stove, but rather, they were able to be seen through the stove, as though it were a giant television broadcasting the boys' whereabouts. Sue Jean recognized Leo right away in his cowboy hat, tears on his cheeks.
Chickie kicked aside a gentleman's bowler hat that had become a receptacle for mouse droppings and knelt before the stove. He tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge.
"Boys?" Sue Jean beat against the glass, but wherever the boys were, they didn't seem able to see or hear her. "Is that the sun?" she asked, gawking at the boys' surroundings.
"Yep."
"Why is it sunny where they are and nighttime where we are?"
"Because," said Chickie, "they ain't in Kansas anymore."
Sue Jean turned away from the stove before her mind cracked from the weirdness overload. "I don't care where they are. We need to get that door open. You got an ax in that toolbox?"
"Nope. But I don't need one. I'm the kinda guy who likes to keep things simple. So all this is"--he slapped the stove--"is a locked door. We unlock it and, bam, we get the boys back. The only thing I need to unlock a door is a key." He snatched the cuckoo clock from the wall, cannibalized it for its clockwork mechanism, and discarded the remains; a blood-red cuckoo lay among the springs and bellows and splinters of wood like road kill. Then he rummaged through his toolbox for wires and screws, batteries, and a pot of glue. "See if you can find a long piece of wood around here," he said absently, already absorbed in his task.
Sue Jean didn't like that Chickie was doing all the work to save the day, and so she was glad to have a way to contribute, even a very small way. So she searched the basement.
A single naked light bulb hung from a chain overhead and did little to chase away the shadows. Sue Jean wandered toward the stairway and peeked into the darkness beneath it. An old crate with the word FRAGILE stenciled across it caugh
t her eye.
She reached for it ... and heavy, warm breath swooshed against her bare arm. Two red dots, like twin drops of blood, peeped at her, hovering high in the nothingness. Sue Jean backed away on legs she could no longer feel. A giant white blob followed her, oozing out from under the stairs, gliding along on its snake-like lower body; its pointy head scraped the ceiling. It had long, upsettingly human arms that it used to grab her and pull her up to its face, to its slimy hole of a mouth. It hissed something at her, like it was trying to speak. But Sue Jean didn't want to be spoken to.
All Porterenes understood that they lived next door to monsters, but understanding hadn't prepared Sue Jean to come, literally, face-to-face with a creature straight out of the depths of a nightmare.
She smashed the crate against the creature's head, and before she knew it, she was sailing across the room. She hit the ground hard next to Chickie who was squatting next to the stove.
"The hell?" Chickie looked down at Sue Jean and then up at the creature. And up and up. "Damn." He rose to his feet.
"No!" Sue Jean jumped up and waved Chickie back down to his gears and tools and tossed the remaining bits of crate at him. "Work on the door. I'll handle this part."
Any other boy would have shoved her aside and shouted, "No! This is man's work!" and then launched himself at the creature. But, though Chickie had many fine qualities, bravery wasn't one of them.
"I just need five minutes," he said, and then settled back to his arcane work.
Five minutes, thought Sue Jean, grabbing a crowbar from the toolbox. That was nothing. Surely she could outlast a monster for five--
The creature sped toward her, so fast she almost didn't have time to dive out of the way. It hit the wall near the basement window, pivoted, and then sped back toward her. Sue Jean was ready this time and waited until the last minute to dodge aside, swinging the crowbar at the creature's midsection as she did so.
But it jerked away, taking her crowbar with it, stuck in the deep layer of slime protecting its body. It wheeled on her and made that sound disgusting boys made right before they hawked loogies onto the sidewalk. She ducked just as a wad of slime came flying at her.
Sue Jean dashed behind the creature, leaping over its tail, and pulled the crowbar free with a squish; she hadn't even made a dent in the creature's hide. It grabbed at her, but she feinted left and then right. As it whipped its head around, trying to keep her in sight, it came into contact with the naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. The sound it made as the bulb scorched its flesh black could have peeled the paint off the walls. Maybe the creature's hide was thick with slime, but its head was--
The head.
Sue Jean jammed the business end of the crowbar into the creature's shiny, blood-drop eye. It roared in pain, its tail lashing the floor. Sue Jean pressed her advantage and smashed the creature in the head until it fell lifeless. She stood over it panting and listening to everything: her blood's heated swish through her veins, Chickie's efficient hammer blows, even the moon's icy skirl across the sky was audible. Everything was clearer than clear. And so when the creature lying dead at her feet began to inhale--a harsh, mucousy rasp--Sue Jean heard that too.
It rose from the ground--its head healed and all of a piece--and towered over her, its two bright, healthy bloody eyes gleaming with malice and remembrance. Staring at her.
It attacked. Sue Jean turned to run up the stairs, but the creature slammed her between the shoulder blades and she went sprawling. It got her by the hair and yanked her upright and then tried to pull her head back so it could spit in her face. Sue Jean swung the crowbar blindly ... and lost her grip yet again when it stuck to the creature's slimy body.
She reached out and grabbed the creature's arms, to steady herself, and then threw her legs up, kicking the creature in the face with the hard heels of her shoes. The crunch of the impact traveled up her legs as the creature fell backward, flipping her over completely so that she landed on top, pinning it to the ground. She leaped up and drove both her feet into its face again. The creature convulsed once and then was still.
Sue Jean pulled the crowbar free of the creature's body and waited. As soon as she saw its long, pointy head begin to heal itself, she jammed the crowbar into its mouth, skewering it. She waited again, but it must have used up all of its lives because this time, the creature stayed dead. Its chest, however, split apart and released a blinding ball of light, which rose high and disappeared through the ceiling.
"You see how it rose upward," said Chickie, startling Sue Jean, who had forgotten he was in the room with her. He looked beautiful, like a fairy creature. Even the scurry of rats in the walls was beautiful.
"Upward," he said, "like it was going to heaven. I think I'm gonna start worshipping Cthulhu."
"Before you go insulting God, do you mind waiting until we're not quite as close to death?"
"What death? You whaled on that thing."
She plopped down beside Chickie, who grabbed her and held her tight until she slumped against him and shivered. Sue Jean could have slept right there in his arms, that's how tired she was. So tired ...
"I knew you could take that thing," Chickie was saying. "You really are the toughest mama I know. And I'm the smartest daddy-o you know. See?" He waggled his hand in her face, forcing her to pay attention. "I finished the key. Look."
She followed his pointing hand to the huge stove. He had fastened gears to the draft controls below the bulging glass door, and at the stove's copper base he'd glued the piece of wood--Chickie's idea of a key apparently--which contained a large battery and a switch. Wires connected the battery to the draft controls, and when he flipped the switch, the gears began to spin and the entire stove rumbled and shook like a Gay Nineties rocket about to blast into space.
Chickie pulled Sue Jean to her feet and they backed away just as the glass door sprung open. Warm green light--the sun there was green?--spilled from the stove and filled the basement, and now the boys were able to see them as well.
"Come on out," Chickie said, causing a stampede as everyone tried to be the first out. It was like watching a hundred clowns pour out of a tiny car at the circus. When they were free, the boys crowded around Chickie and Sue Jean, wanting hugs and reassurance. When Peggy's brother, Leo, gave Sue Jean an especially hard hug, she realized there was no time for her to flip her wig or feel tired. And certainly no time to feel awed that Chickie had figured out in five minutes how to open a door to another dimension. Or that she had killed a creature--not once, not twice, but thrice--in the same amount of time.
Well ... maybe there was time for a little awe.
The key on the stove dinged as the switch flipped back into position, like a timer, and the gears stopped spinning. The glass door swung closed, and the green light vanished from the basement with the suddenness of a light turning off.
"Come on, boys," said Sue Jean. "We need to get you back home safe. So follow us and do what we say, okay?" She steered them away from the dead creature near the stairs and toward the basement window.
"I'm gonna go out and pull you guys up one at a time," Chickie said. He shoved the toolbox through and followed after it, then leaned in the window and called, "Who's first?"
Sue Jean gave each boy a boost up to Chickie, who pulled them out and directed them into the backseat of his T-bird. Leo, the fourth boy to go through the window, pointed and said, "What's that?" just as he was getting into the car.
Chickie backed away to look ... and froze. "Get in the car," he snapped at Leo, "and all of you be quiet." He hurried back to the window and said, "We need to hurry."
"What's wrong?" Sue Jean asked, helping the fifth boy through.
"That one you killed?" he whispered. "The light it left behind is hanging over the house. Like the bat signal from those old Batman and Robin serials I used to watch when I was a kid. It's--" He paused and looked over his shoulder, motioning for her to wait. So she did, the last boy in her arms.
Chickie disappeared
for a moment--forever it seemed to Sue Jean--and then reappeared. The panic on his face was not pleasant.
"They're back."
Her stomach dropped. "With more kids?" She would take on the whole group if necessary, though the thought made her want to find a hole to crawl into.
"They didn't come back with more kids. They came back because of that damn signal. We gotta get outta here now!"
Sue Jean was helping the last boy through when she heard something heavy and wet slithering above her on the first floor. Chickie helped her climb through the window, but once again, her skirt was too wide. The door burst open behind her and a roar echoed through the basement as Chickie yanked her free, ripping her skirt in the process. A long white arm shot through the window and grabbed at her feet, but the monster was much too big to follow them.
Chickie and Sue Jean raced to the car and sped away. Sue Jean blessed the universe for every foot of road the car put between her and that house. "Okay," she told the boys crowding the back seat. "We're safe now. Just--"
A loud splintering crash silenced her as a white fist broke through the rear window. The boys screamed, and Sue Jean wanted to scream too when she saw the nine-lived, all of them, streaking up the road. Right on their tail.
Chickie stepped on the gas and peeled down the road in a cloud of steam.
"Charlie Brown" was blasting on the radio. Such a fun, silly song, but after that ride, Sue Jean would never be able to listen to it again without breaking out in a cold sweat. The nine-lived rolled alongside the car, ramming their fists into it. Spitting at it.
"There goes my paint job," Chickie muttered, and then turned one of the antique knobs on the console. Flames shot from the back of the T-bird. Several of the nine-lived caught fire and so did the forest when the monsters slid blindly off the road and into the trees.
But the T-bird was still being followed closely. Too closely. The car jerked as one of the nine-lived grabbed hold of the tailfin and reached through the rear window to snatch Leo by the back of the shirt. The other boys held him inside the car while Sue Jean grabbed a utility knife from the toolbox at her feet. She climbed into the back and slashed the blade across the creature's eyes. It screamed and released Leo, and they left it in the dust.