A Bad Night for Bullies

by Gary Ghislain

  I nodded. Words wouldn’t come out anyway. I was out of anger. It had passed, for both of us, and we were back to what we’d always been: a unit of two on our own on this planet. She let go of my face and gave me a little tap on the head. “There!” she said, as if that silly tap was my punishment. And then she started the engine and drove away.

  19

  GONE WITH THE DARK

  But the tap on my head was far from the end of it. A complete Goolz embargo went into effect. Valid indefinitely.

  “I’m going to blow up that bridge with dynamite,” Mum said as she threw her yellow raincoat onto the sofa. She sounded dead serious.

  I went up to my room and straight to the window. I instinctively looked up at the little round attic window, but it was dark and empty. And then, I waited for the Goolz to return.

  I was about to give up when a police car pulled up to their house and the three of them climbed out. Frank Goolz stayed by the car, talking to the driver. I thought I recognized Officer Miller behind the wheel, but I couldn’t be sure. Ilona looked up and waved at me as she and Suzie walked to their house. I waved back and immediately felt that the world was right again.

  Frank Goolz knocked on the hood of the police car and it drove away. He waved at me too before he went into the house. Mum was right. She would have to blow up that bridge to keep me away from the Goolz. Ilona had been absolutely right about needing a secret route to my room. I was sure she would climb up any minute so we could recap the day’s morbid adventure on the docks.

  I picked up Voodooland and started reading on a random page. It felt different now that I knew the truth. It felt magical. I looked out the window again.

  Frank Goolz was stepping out his front door. He had his satchel with him, meaning he was up to his usual tricks. Ilona and Suzie followed him onto the porch and stopped there. When Frank Goolz reached the middle of his yard, he paused and looked up at me. He searched his satchel and took out his goggles, then put them on and shot their eerie blue light straight at me. He gave me a thumbs up. I didn’t know if he was trying to be funny or he’d seriously just checked for a ghost beside me in my bedroom. He removed the goggles, put them back in his satchel, and walked away toward the pier, which was also the way to the old cemetery.

  “Where is he going?” I said as loudly as I dared, looking down at Ilona. She shrugged like she either didn’t know or didn’t understand what I was asking.

  Whatever ghost expedition Frank Goolz was going on, he wanted his daughters to stay safely out of it. Ilona said something, but I couldn’t hear her either. I unlocked the window and opened it as discreetly as I could.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Your mom is watching us,” she said, pointing at our house.

  “Oh.” I looked down and saw Mum’s shadow projected across the yard in the light from our kitchen window. I imagined she’d seen Frank Goolz doing the goggles trick, too, which I was sure made her desire for dynamite even stronger.

  “Right,” I said, closing my window.

  Ilona mouthed something else. I was pretty sure she’d said, “See you later,” so I gave her a thumbs up just like her father had and watched her go back inside with Suzie.

  I went back to reading Voodooland, though I couldn’t really focus on it. I was waiting for Ilona to come knocking on my window. Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed that I was trapped in a mall, trying to find an elevator that wasn’t out of service. I woke to a touch on my shoulder.

  “Crap!” I said when I opened my eyes to find Ilona sitting on the edge of my bed. “When did you get here?”

  She shrugged. “Just now.” The window was open behind her and the wind played with her hair.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Almost midnight.”

  She leaned over me and switched off my bedside lamp. The sky had cleared and the moon provided us with all the light we needed.

  “Dad hasn’t come back,” she said.

  “Where did he go?”

  “He went to see Alex’s father. Dad’s sure that man holds all the missing pieces to this puzzle.”

  “He also holds a plank of wood that could crush your dad’s head.”

  “I know,” she said, taking my hand. She held it silently and I liked that very much.

  “I gotta go, Harold.”

  “Go where?” I already knew the answer; I just didn’t like it.

  “I have to go look for Dad.”

  “Where? The Hewitt grounds? In the middle of the night?”

  Her silence was my answer.

  “Let’s call the police and get them to go,” I suggested. I didn’t want to let go of her hand. We’d been holding hands for so long now that it felt like it meant something.

  “We can’t do that,” Ilona said.

  “Why not?”

  “We have no idea what’s happening or what Dad’s up to. We need to find out before calling in the cavalry.”

  “I can’t go with you,” I said. “I can’t go down the stair lift without waking Mum up and if we wake her up trying to go on a midnight hunt, she will kill the both of us and then your dad.”

  “I didn’t come up here to ask you to come with me,” she said.

  “No?”

  “I came up here because I wanted to do something else.” Her face was really close to mine. She erased the space between us and kissed me on the mouth.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked when it ended.

  “Cheese, Harold. Use your imagination.” And she did it again. I sort of lost myself in that second kiss. I didn’t know if she was a good kisser. I didn’t know if I was a good kisser either—I’d never kissed a girl before. But I liked it and I still wanted more when she stopped and let go of my hand.

  “I gotta go.” She stood up and backed away from my bed.

  “Wait.” I didn’t want her to go anywhere, but I couldn’t think of a good reason to make her stay. I grabbed my phone from the bedside table. “Take it. You can call the police.”

  She came back. She grabbed my phone and I caught her hand.

  “I gotta go,” she repeated, gently pulling away.

  I thought I was supposed to tell her something deep and meaningful to let her know how much I cared for her. “One, two, three, four,” I said, instead.

  “What?”

  “It’s the pin number for my phone.”

  She smiled. “One, two, three, four,” she repeated and dropped my phone in her coat pocket. She left through the window.

  I dragged myself into my chair and went to the window. Suzie was waiting for her on their porch. Ilona showed her my phone. Suzie looked up at me, but she didn’t wave. I had a feeling she knew something had happened between Ilona and me besides borrowing a phone. I watched them walk away toward the pier. I stayed by the window long after they were out of sight.

  “Calm down,” I said to myself, checking the time on my stormtrooper clock. It was nearly two a.m. and the Goolz were still gone.

  “They’re fine. She has your phone. Frank Goolz has Indiana Jones’s revolver,” I told my own reflection in the window. It didn’t help. I looked up at their attic. Madame Valentin’s ghost wasn’t at home either. Or if she was, I couldn’t see her. All I could think about was Old Hewitt and his plank of wood, Donahue in the fish tank, and the way Ilona had kissed me before she left.

  “Do something!” I ordered my reflection. I went into the hallway. The boards under my wheels creaked up a storm. I could hear Mum snoring through her wide-open door. I considered waking her up to tell her about the missing Goolz. I knew it was a terrible idea, but going back to my room and doing nothing wasn’t much better. I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed to know what was going on. I approached the lift. It made so much noise, it would definitely wake Mum if I used it. At that point, I just wanted to get to the phone downstairs to call Ilona. I slid onto the lift and threw down my chair. It bounced down the stairs, making tons of noise, then landed on its wheels and rolled all the way t
o the hall. I stayed on the second floor in the lift, listening. Mum had stopped snoring. I was sure she’d come out to investigate, but she started snoring again instead. I had my hand on the lift remote. My chair was already downstairs. If I could go down without waking Mum, and somehow get back into my chair, I might be able to avoid capture.

  “This is going to hurt,” I muttered. I let go of the remote and pushed myself off the lift, aiming for the hallway. I crash-landed with the grace of an oversized hippo. Mum stopped snoring again and I heard her twisting and turning in bed. I stayed put, holding my breath. She stopped moving, spoke a few indiscernible words, and started snoring once again. So far, so good, I thought, and started crawling down the stairs like a disarticulated ghost in a Japanese horror movie. It was the first time I had done this, and I aced it, going at the exact right speed to keep my feet from drumming on the steps. I made it downstairs, crawled to my chair, and lifted myself into it. I could hear Mum snoring even from the bottom of the stairs. I was pretty proud of myself. I totally ninjaed that thing. I went to the phone in the kitchen and dialed my own number. The phone rang and rang until my voicemail came on. I tried again and this time left a message: “Answer me, please,” I whispered. “I’m worried.”

  I hung up. I was sure Ilona was in trouble and I didn’t know what to do. I dialed the first digit of 911, but then hung up. Calling the police felt wrong. What could I tell them? My neighbors went for a night walk and didn’t come back, but we should be alarmed because there was a zombie ghost running around feeding people to crabs?

  A wave of panic flowed through me as I thought of Donahue inside the tank. I couldn’t stay like this, waiting for something to happen. I thought of Ilona holding my hand up in my room.

  “I have to know,” I whispered.

  I had left my jacket in my room, so I unhooked Mum’s yellow raincoat and put it on. Her secret pack of cigarettes was in the pocket. I smiled and shook my head. “Busted,” I muttered.

  I opened the door as silently as I could and went out. My keys were in my jacket in my room and I had no idea where Mum had put hers. I didn’t want to lose any time searching for them, so I left the door unlocked for when I returned safe and sound.

  How naïve of me.

  20

  NIGHT TERROR

  Best-case scenario: Frank Goolz and his daughters were walking around the old cemetery looking at things with his funny goggles. Worst-case scenario: they were running through the woods to escape a madman with a plank of wood or a decomposing ghost with a thing for crabs. And I was on my way to join them, armed only with a yellow raincoat and a pack of cigarettes. No phone. No flashlight. No revolver. No goggles.

  “I hope Madame Valentin likes to smoke,” I said to myself as I approached the old cemetery. I struggled to roll between graves to reach the church and knocked on the wall above the hole Suzie had created to get in.

  “Ilona? Suzie? Are you in there?”

  Something moved inside. I knocked again and a large white shape flew off the tower. I had scared off an owl. It flew down toward the trees around the Hewitt grounds. The dogs were unusually silent. I didn’t like not hearing them barking. It reminded me of the night Suzie had used the Stone inside the church. It reminded me of all the horrific sightings of Madame Valentin.

  I moved away from the church, crossed the cemetery, and got back on the road, then stopped to listen, doing my best to ignore my fear. Nothing moved. Nothing attacked. Nothing howled at me from the darkness.

  “Thank you,” I muttered in case the ghost of Madame Valentin was listening. “I’ll ignore you and you won’t eat my face. Deal?”

  I went to the top of the hill and looked down at the thick patch of trees. I was starting to think I’d never find them when a blue light cut through the darkness.

  “Oh, thank God,” I said. I blessed the sight of Frank Goolz’s silly goggles. He was down there, and he and the girls were probably fine. I thought of going down to meet them, even though I knew it could be a oneway trip for me, as it was way too steep to come back up without help. But then a dog barked. I froze. Others joined in, yapping angrily. The two tiny dots of the goggles turned toward me. I waved. I must have been easy to see, in my bright yellow. The blue dots moved away from me and emerged from the woods—but not on Frank Goolz, on a huge bearded creature, holding three dogs on leashes in one hand and brandishing a plank of wood with the other. The dogs went wild as they approached, and the creature lifted the goggles off its face to take a better look at me. It was Hewitt. He must have taken the goggles from Frank Goolz. Which meant that wherever Frank Goolz was, it wasn’t a good place. And Suzie and Ilona were with him.

  “Oh, cheese!” I yelped, spinning around to find an escape. “Oh, cheese, oh, cheese, oh, cheese!” I repeated, going as fast as I could toward the cemetery. I could hear the dogs barking and closing in. If Old Hewitt let go of the leash, I was done.

  “Cheese, cheese, cheese!” I headed for the church. Love sucks, I thought as I slammed against the wall. I pushed myself off the chair, dropped onto the ground, and crawled into the hole like a mole on steroids. I wiped tears of fear out of my eyes and rolled over to pull my legs in after me. The dogs’ noses poked excitedly into the hole, fighting to get in first. They yapped and barked as they scratched at the ground, digging to make the hole larger.

  “Get, get, get!” Jonas Hewitt encouraged them. I grabbed the jagged edge of the wooden floor and pulled myself up and in, scratching and tearing the skin on my stomach. I rolled onto my back.

  “I’m dead,” I said. Old Hewitt banged on the walls and howled. The dogs scratched the ground and barked. I tried to keep breathing as I grabbed a bench and struggled to push it over the hole. It only half covered it. It wouldn’t keep them out for long. I crawled away from the hole and went for Alex’s gun. I’d never fired a BB gun in my life. BBs would probably be like mosquito bites to dogs this size. I held it tight to my chest. I could hear the dogs snarling ravenously as they tried to tunnel into the church.

  “GET! GET! GET!” Old Hewitt yelled. As far as I was concerned, I was pretty much gotten.

  The bench I’d pushed over the hole shifted. It made little jumps as the dogs pushed against it. I pointed the BB gun and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I’d had recurring nightmares about being eaten by sharks that felt more comfortable than this. I held the BB gun by the barrel, thinking maybe I could use it as a bat against the first dog that came through the hole.

  Old Hewitt threw something against the wall. From the sound of it, I knew it was my wheelchair. “I’m not weak like my boy. When I get you, I’ll get you for good!” he shouted.

  There was a plastic box glued to the butt of the gun. I opened it and BBs cascaded to the floor. I gathered them quickly, but now I had to figure out how to load them before the dogs got inside.

  Outside, Old Hewitt started cursing at his dogs. I found a switch on the BB gun, pressed it, and cranked open the barrel. I tried to place a BB, but it fell on the floor because my hands were shaking so much. I finally managed to put one in place and push back the barrel. The dogs kept trying to twist their huge bodies through the hole. It was probably the first time in dog-attack history that the dogs were too big to do the job.

  “Please help me,” I said, holding the gun tightly against my chest.

  “I’m going to kill you people, you hear!” Old Hewitt yelled, slamming his plank again and again against the wall.

  “I hear,” I whispered. The dogs had finally abandoned the hole and begun barking and scratching at the walls around the church. I heard Old Hewitt hammering at the chains and padlock at the main door.

  My heart was trying to burst through my chest like a wild animal. I heard something move up by the ceiling. I looked up. A huge white owl peered down at me.

  “If you stay around, you’re going to see a real nice massacre,” I told the owl. It seemed to nod. “Why don’t you fly away like your mate? At least you can do that.”

  You’ll h
ave to learn to fly first. That was what Ilona had told me. I looked up at the owl, at the beam it was standing on, at the nest beside it.

  There was something on the wall next to the nest: a trace, like a dark footprint, visible in a ray of moonlight. “You’ll have to learn to fly first!” I shouted. “Sorry, owl.” I aimed the gun, then took my chances and fired. The owl flew away. I missed the nest. I picked up one of the BBs that had fallen on the floor and reloaded the gun. This time I hit the nest, but it didn’t budge. It was hopeless even if my theory was right. I reloaded the gun as the door started to crack under Old Hewitt’s attack. I shot and hit the nest again. This time it moved a little. I searched the floor for another BB. Old Hewitt was kicking the door with all his might, and with each strike there were signs that he was almost in. The dogs knew it. They had stopped barking and were whining expectantly, ready to charge inside.

  “We’re gonna do you like we did that old witch!” Old Hewitt screamed, slamming his body against the door.

  My finger found a BB on the floor. I put it into the barrel. Aimed.

  “Please,” I said, and shot. I hit the nest, but it barely moved.

  “Crap, Ilona! Next time bury it!” I yelled. I thought it was the end of me, but the nest disagreed. A piece of it fell off. The rest stayed put, but it had gotten knocked off balance. A moment later the whole thing crashed to the floor with a THUD. I threw the gun aside and scrambled to the fallen nest like my life depended on it. And there it was. The Stone of the Dead.

  I grabbed it and started turning the dials, praying for something to happen. The chain and the padlock were still holding the door. It had come open partway, but not enough to let them in. The dogs took turns poking their noses in. It sounded like they were barking my name.

  “You’re done getting into other people’s business,” Old Hewitt said, sliding the plank into the gap. He was using it as a lever to break the chain. I kept turning the dials on the Stone, crawling away from the door on my elbows as fast as I could. I reached the altar. There was nowhere else to go. The chain broke. The door flew open. The dials clicked. The Stone was jammed.