A Bad Night for Bullies

by Gary Ghislain

  “Oh, I never had one of those.”

  “Is he …?”

  “Dead? Nope. He just doesn’t exist.”

  “Everyone has a father. You must know that, right? About the birds and the bees and how babies come to be?”

  “I know about the birds and the bees, but Mum decided to buy the bees at a clinic to have me on her own. It’s always been just the two of us.”

  “She’s an interesting woman, your mom.”

  “She’s cool. I like her.”

  What I didn’t like was the feeling that we were being observed. I stopped and looked back. “Does it feel like someone’s watching us?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said coolly. “They’ve been following us since we left your house. Didn’t you see them?”

  “Who?”

  “Alex’s gang. They were hiding in front of our houses all afternoon.”

  I turned and looked in all directions, but I didn’t see them.

  “Don’t worry,” she said as we climbed the hill toward the cemetery. “The second something scary happens, they’re going to run away screaming. They’re just a bunch of cowards.”

  “Oh, you’ll be fine. They always go for the guy in the wheelchair.”

  “Not when he’s with his awesome girlfriend,” she said.

  I suddenly forgot all about ghosts and bullies. I even forgot about how much I wanted the Stone back.

  I came to a stop and caught her wrist. “What did you just say?”

  She looked at the ground, scuffing her feet in the dirt. It was officially night by then, but I could still see her in the moonlight. I could have sworn she was blushing. “You understand that was sort of a joke, right?” she asked. “The girlfriend thing.”

  “Well, yeah. Of course.”

  But something inside of me was performing a happy dance over the idea that she meant it for real. And a deeper part of me was whispering that this was meant to be. That we were always supposed to meet. And then, I realized I’d been staring at her silently for an embarrassingly long time.

  “So,” she said, “should we go hunt some ghosts, or are we just going to stay here and be awkward all night?”

  “Ghosts are fine,” I said, and we started moving again.

  “Let’s get rid of them first,” she said, gesturing behind us. We got off the road and she pushed me across the grass of the cemetery. When we reached the edge, she pulled me back into a growth of trees and shrubby bushes that formed a perfect dome to hide in. We waited a few minutes and they emerged onto the road, looking around for us. There were five of them, all dressed in black, like Ilona.

  Peter cursed. “Where’d they go?” he said, knocking the tip of a red aluminum baseball bat against the road.

  I pulled on Ilona’s sleeve. “Baseball bat!” I muttered when she looked down at me. She put her finger over her lips.

  “They were right in front of us, and then they disappeared,” one of them said.

  “We should have jumped them on the beach,” said another.

  “We need to know what they did to Alex first. Then we jump them.”

  “Maybe they saw us and they’re hiding,” Ronny said.

  Peter smacked the bat against the road rhythmically, the sound making me wince. “We’ll split up and search the cemetery. Whoever finds them calls the others.”

  “Maybe we should stay together.” Ronny sounded as scared by the whole situation as I was.

  “He’s in a wheelchair, and she’s just a chick.” Peter used the bat like a golf club to smash a rock. “What’re you scared of?”

  “You saw how she pushed Alex. She’s crazy.”

  “We’re crazier,” Peter insisted. “Get going.”

  They walked into the cemetery, then split up and went in different directions.

  This was a tiny cemetery. The moonlight made us easy to see. If we didn’t manage to get away fast, they would find us in no time. I looked up at Ilona. She was focused on them, determined and beautiful. I felt something tightening inside me. I had been in this situation so many times: this same pack of guys out to hurt or humiliate me. But this time, I didn’t care what happened to me. All I cared about was protecting Ilona. I was ready to defy reality and jump out of the chair to strike the first one to come near her.

  Ilona pulled my chair back, dragging me deeper into the dome of vegetation, but she made plenty of noise doing so. She cursed between her teeth and fell silent. We held still. I stopped breathing entirely as I heard someone coming toward us, pushing branches aside and cursing when they slapped him in the face. Inside our dome, the moonlight was scarce, but I recognized Ronny when he appeared, holding a huge rock in one hand. He looked at us for a long while. Then he let the rock drop to the ground and put his finger over his lips just like Ilona had. We stayed frozen, still observing each other silently until finally, I nodded, and Ronny nodded back. My throat tightened. Not out of fear or sadness, but out of a sudden overwhelming sense of clarity. Guys like Ronny had no innate evil in them. Most bullies were just weak people standing by, silently supporting the evil of others.

  He held up his hand, telling us to stay put, and started to back out of the dome. But as he did, something pushed him back inside.

  It was the tip of Peter’s baseball bat.

  “You rat,” he said to Ronny when he saw Ilona and me. “You’re going to get it worse than them.” He swung his bat and hit Ronny hard on the arm. Ronny fell to the ground, balled up in pain. Peter pressed the bat into his chest, pinning him down. Even in the dim light, I could see the cocktail of madness and excitement on Peter’s face.

  “We’re not afraid of you,” I said.

  He smiled widely. “Yeah? So why are you hiding?”

  He was enjoying all this power and control, savoring every second. He whistled, calling his friends to come see the show. Ilona jumped forward and grabbed the rock Ronny had dropped.

  Peter raised his bat in the air. “What’re you going to do with that, freak?”

  “I’m going to break your skull with it if you try anything stupid.”

  Ronny had stopped moaning. He lay on the ground, quiet and still, doing his best to become invisible. I kept my eyes on Peter’s hand and the bat, tensing at the edge of my chair, ready to protect Ilona from the blow however I could. Peter whistled again, annoyed that no one was coming. “Guys! Here’s the party!” he yelled.

  The branches moved behind him, and I thought it was the rest of his goons coming to enjoy the show. But then I realized it was something much, much worse.

  “It’s her!” I shouted. Ice-cold fear squeezed my heart as the attic lady came toward us, pushing branches out of the way with her long fingers. Her face was a patchwork of reflected moonlight and shadows, and her lips twisted into an evil smirk.

  “Holy crap!” Ronny yelled, his eyes nearly popping out of his face. He crawled away from Peter, stopping at Ilona’s feet.

  “She’s not going to protect you,” Peter taunted, unaware that the monster was creeping up right behind him.

  The rock fell from Ilona’s hands. Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Ohmyfreakinggod!” she yelled.

  “What?” Peter said, finally catching on and turning around.

  Up close, she was a nightmare worse than I could have imagined. Her skin was corpse-green and her filthy scarf didn’t hide that most of her throat had been ripped away. Her white eyes moved crazily in their deep, fleshless orbits, staring down at Peter with two glowing, silver dots that might have once been pupils.

  He dropped his bat, opened his mouth, and let out a sad whimper. I was pretty sure he was peeing himself too. The attic lady lifted her hand, a garland of skin hanging off the bones of her fingers. As she grabbed his shoulder, her dry, leathery lips parted to reveal dark, rotten teeth.

  Peter screamed, and then we all screamed. Ilona got behind my wheelchair and pushed me hard. Ronny got to his feet and ran, holding tight to his injured arm. We followed his lead and chased him out of the dome. The branches were s
lapping me in the face, cutting the backs of my hands when I tried to shield myself. I didn’t care, as long as we got away.

  Soon we were back in the cemetery and the rest of the gang was running toward us at top speed. Ten minutes earlier it would have terrified me, but I didn’t care about them anymore. They must have realized that because they skidded to a stop before they reached us.

  “Run!” Ronny shouted.

  Then Peter screamed from inside the dome. It sounded like something was tearing him apart. His friends got the message and started running with us.

  “Ohmyfreakinggod!” Ilona kept repeating, pushing me onto the road at super-high speed. “Suzie’s right. This is a FREAKING zombie ghost vampire monster!”

  “Damn right, she is!”

  14

  ATTACHING DEMONS

  Mum was delighted that we were back so soon, but all her happiness vanished when I asked if I could spend the night across the bridge at the Goolz’s.

  “It’s a school night!” she protested.

  Ilona had decided we were in way over our heads and it was time to involve her dad. As we zoomed back from the cemetery, we had decided to tell him everything. And for that, Ilona wanted to relocate me to their home for the night.

  “We’ll be in bed in no time, Margaret. Miss Bell.”

  “Oh, it’s Miss Bell now?” Mum set the last plate she was washing in the drying rack and picked up a dish towel. “Do you know how sly that sounds?”

  “Please, Mum,” I interrupted. “It’s not like I’ve ever asked you for something like this before.”

  She gave me a hard look. I struck back with my best puppy dog eyes.

  “Everybody gets to have sleepovers with their friends,” I insisted. “Everybody but me.”

  “We’re just across the bridge,” Ilona pleaded.

  “Please, Mum,” I added.

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll be right next door!”

  “We’ve been so good, Miss Bell. I mean Margaret! We haven’t skipped school in days.”

  “You skipped school yesterday,” Mum reminded her. She was half drying her hands and half strangling the towel.

  “See? Huge improvement.”

  “I promise, Mum. This is going to go down as the most uneventful sleepover in history.”

  “We’re just going to do our homework,” Ilona added.

  “We’re practically asleep already.”

  “Stop!” Mum shouted.

  We kept quiet for a while. Mum sighed. “Let me talk to your father,” she finally said to Ilona.

  Ilona’s eyes went wide with panic. “My dad?”

  “Yes, your dad, the adult in charge of you two if I’m to let Harold sleep at your place.”

  Ilona looked back at her house through the open door. “Is that really necessary?” she asked. “He probably doesn’t want to be disturbed right now. You know. Writing and all.”

  Mum looked at her sideways. She knew something was fishy.

  “Let’s go talk to him.” She threw the dish towel on the counter, torpedoed past us, grabbed her yellow raincoat, and put it on over her pajamas. By the time we followed her outside she was practically running across the bridge.

  I was still crossing it with Ilona when Mum started pounding energetically on the Goolz’s door. Frank Goolz came to the door and by the way he looked, all lost and confused, I knew he would do a terrible job putting Mum’s mind at ease.

  “Dad, can Harold sleep over tonight?” Ilona shouted from a distance before Mum could say a word.

  “Who’s Harold?” he called back.

  “My son,” Mum said.

  “Your son?”

  “Him.” Mum pointed back at me.

  Ilona was pushing me wildly through the soft sticky sand of their yard.

  “Oh. Him? All right,” he said vaguely.

  “I’m your neighbor, remember? You slept at our place. I brought you cheesecake the day you moved in, and your daughter forced my son to skip school.”

  “Of course I remember!” Frank Goolz said. “How are you, Henry?” he added when we reached their porch.

  “It’s Harold, Dad. Harold!”

  I turned my chair around so Ilona could help me up the stairs.

  “I’m fine, thanks, Mr. Goolz,” I said, wincing at each hard knock of my wheels against the steps as we climbed them at top speed.

  “Harold’s spending the night,” Ilona said, breathing heavily.

  “Is that so?” he asked.

  “Yes, it’s very important, Dad.”

  Mum crossed her arms tightly across her chest. Frank Goolz looked at her and did exactly the same.

  “Important for what?” Mum asked Ilona.

  “I meant, it would be nice. That’s all.” Ilona made big eyes at her dad, then spoke to him in German.

  Mum frowned. “What did you just say?” she demanded.

  They ignored her. Frank Goolz asked a few things in German, and when Ilona answered, he opened the door wide.

  “We’ll be fine,” he told Mum, suddenly clear-eyed and sounding almost normal. “I’m taking care of the kids tonight.”

  He grabbed Ilona and pulled her into the house. I hurried in behind her and Frank Goolz shut the door in Mum’s face.

  “Now, tell me exactly what happened,” he said.

  There was a knock on the door. He closed his eyes and let out a grunt before turning to open it. “What now?” he snapped at my mother.

  She wasn’t happy. She shook her head, looking at me like she was on the verge of hauling me back home.

  “I’m going to be fine, Mum,” I begged. “Please.”

  I knew I was breaking her heart. Ilona was the first real friend I’d had since we’d moved to the States.

  “He’ll be fine,” Frank Goolz said, plastering the fakest smile on his face. “I promise.”

  Mum closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Can I stay, then?” I asked carefully.

  She opened her eyes and pointed a menacing finger at Frank Goolz. “You!”

  “Yes?”

  “Anything happens to my son, ANYTHING, and your fans will lose their favorite writer. Understood?”

  “Understood,” he said.

  “You pay attention for a change and make sure they go to bed early.”

  “All right.”

  “Separate rooms! Ten o’clock, tops!”

  “Mum!”

  We stayed by the door watching her stomp back to our house, moaning and cursing motherhood all the way.

  “She’s a fine woman,” Frank Goolz said, closing the door. “Now,” he turned to us, happily rubbing his hands together like a hungry ogre before a large serving of children, “what about this … zombie ghost thing?”

  It was amazing how a man who was dazed most of the time could become so sharp at the mention of anything paranormal, such as a rotting dead woman appearing out of nowhere and attacking a boy in a cemetery.

  We went into the kitchen, still the only place in their house that had chairs. Ilona made watery cocoa and a coffee for her dad while we told him everything we knew and had seen. I did most of the talking. I told him about Suzie in the Owl House and about seeing the attic lady the night of the flashing lights. I even told him about the light in the cemetery and how I’d been able to stand up then and again later, in my room, when I activated the Stone on my own.

  He took out a tiny orange notepad and asked me to describe the ghost in detail. Her face, her height, her clothes, her dead eyes. Her ripped throat and rotting flesh.

  Frank Goolz was eating up my descriptions, sketching as I spoke. He was a good artist, too, and ended up with something that looked exactly like the creepy specter that we had seen. He showed the notepad to Ilona.

  “That’s her,” she agreed. “That’s the monster.”

  “What is she? A ghost? A zombie? A vampire?” I asked, taking the notepad from Ilona and looking more closely at his perfect sketch.

  “She’s not a vampire,�
� he said. “Though a vampire would be nice. I haven’t dealt with a vampire since nineteen ninety-two. Time flies!”

  “You mean like a real vampire?” I started turning the pages of the notepad. “Oh, crap,” I added. It was full of drawings of other terrifying monsters.

  He laughed. “Of course a real vampire. What other kind is there?”

  I stopped on a page where he had drawn a creature with long, twisted fingers and claw-like nails, its half-open mouth displaying horrifying vampire fangs. The monster was dressed in a ratty, old-fashioned suit and staring straight back at me with huge bubble eyes drawn with thick black marker. The drawing matched the description of a murderous vampire in one of his novels down to the last detail. I felt a chill.

  “It’s all real, isn’t it? All your stories are things that actually happened to you guys. You really do live like this, all the time.”

  “Oh, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” he said. “Is Frank Goolz an imaginative writer, or totally bonkers, or do we truly live in a world full of ghosts and monsters?”

  “So which is it?”

  “All of the above,” Ilona answered for him. “Dad’s cuckoo, but nice cuckoo, and we run into monsters, you know—from time to time.”

  I had a feeling it was a lot more often than that.

  Frank Goolz grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Oh, that’s so sweet, darling. Nice cuckoo! I’ll remember that one.”

  Real monsters. Real vampires. A real zombie ghost staring at me from the attic next door. It was definitely cuckoo, but I wasn’t sure it was nice. Either way, there was no time to dwell on it. Attic lady was still out there somewhere.

  “So, what is she then?” I insisted, flipping back to the horrific drawing. “Did you ever deal with anything like her before?”

  “Does it really matter what kind of monster she is?” Ilona asked. “She’s anyone’s worst nightmare, and we need to send her back to hell.” She put a plate of cookies on the table. “I made these,” she told me.

  I couldn’t imagine Ilona baking cookies. I tried one. It was awful.

  “Well, you know what I always say,” Frank Goolz told her. “If you know what it is, it’s easier to destroy it.” He bit into a cookie and chewed on it happily. “Or at least you know what to do if it bites you: Look for a serum, accept that you’ll turn into a monster yourself, or cut off a limb before the infection spreads.” He winked at me. I had no idea whether he was kidding.