by M. D. Payne
I stood steady with my bucket.
“AHHHHHHH . . .”
The butt cheeks in his finely pressed pants raised up once.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH . . .”
Twice.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH . . .”
He pulled his head out from the door and aimed for my bucket with bug eyes.
“CHOOOOOOSHLURBSCHLURBSCHLURP!”
His ghost nostrils flared, his lips flapped, and out poured the snot.
And he kept going!
“My bucket’s almost full,” I yelled. “Shane!”
Shane pushed his bucket above mine, and Richard filled it halfway up.
“Yeah!” said Ben. “Awesome. Nice snottin’!”
Lady Stratford was next, followed by Quincy. We were up to four buckets.
“I don’t think we need to force any snot out of Leila,” I said.
But she walked over to the bucket Quincy had just filled, dug deep into her little ghost nose, and picked out a surprisingly large booger.
“Bogie for you,” the little three-year-old said with a smile.
“Oh, Leila, how sweet!” cooed her mother. “That’s so nice of you.”
“Nice,” said Quincy, and he dug into his nose.
“Tut-tut.” His mother slapped his ghost finger out of his nose. “That’s enough for now.”
We headed into the dining room of the West Wing, where Director Z and the Nurses had gathered every resident.
HAAAAACHOOO!
GWAAARRRFFF!
SNOOOORRFFFF!
Everyone in the room was sick. The table was covered in a layer of monster snot, and with each AHCHOO the layer got thicker. In some places, it dripped off of the tables.
“They’re so much older than before,” said Nabila.
“I can’t take it!” screeched Griselda. “I’m itching everywhere. The inside of my body itches.” Griselda fell to the floor, writhing in agony. She began choking, and a Nurse swiftly pulled her up and slapped her on the back.
Murrayhotep leaned back in his chair, giggling.
“Why is Murrayhotep so happy?” asked Ben. “Why isn’t he sick?”
Before anyone could answer, one of the old vampires sneezed himself off of his chair. When a Nurse picked him up, he was oozing boogers.
“I’m. So. Tired!” he wailed, and passed out.
“We’d better just hurry,” said Shane, helping Griselda.
“Yes, the residents are getting delirious,” said a very concerned Director Z. “I really want to administer this treatment as quickly as possible.”
“Let’s make sure everyone gets the same amount,” said Nabila, and she grabbed one of the soup ladles on the table.
“Yeah, and make sure we get some,” said Gordon. “I’m already feeling sick again.”
“We can always ask the ghosts to make more,” I said. “Although I’d rather not, if we don’t have to.”
The old monsters stared at us strangely through their weak watery eyes as we scooped out sloppy, goopy snot with booger chunks.
“What is that?” Clarice the banshee asked.
“Pietro said this was ghost snot,” replied Frederick.
“I don’t believe a thing Pietro says,” said Clarice, and she ate a spoonful. “Ugh, this is terrible!”
“So it is ghost snot?” asked Queen Hatshepsut, the oldest of the mummies in residence. “Oh, I can’t do it.”
She pushed her plate back.
“You have to eat it,” said Shane. “You guys are going to feel better.”
The old zombies had a stronger reaction to the boogers than the other old monsters did.
“Garrrrrr!” yelled one, and threw his booger bowl at Director Z’s face.
“People, people!” yelled Director Z, green chunks dripping down his face. “Please, remain calm. I know that everyone is exhausted, but Ben assures me that eating this will help you. Just ask Pietro.”
“Oh, this stuff is disgusting!” yelled Pietro. “It wasn’t this bad the first time.”
“Maybe because it’s so fresh?” I wondered out loud.
The old monsters that could were starting to stand up and walk away from the tables. A Nurse shoved a spoonful into Griselda’s mouth, and she immediately hacked it up.
Director Z caught a booger that crept down his face with his tongue and almost gagged when he started chewing.
“Oh my,” he said. “This actually is pretty bad.”
Shane sucked down a spoonful and almost immediately barfed up the green goodies.
“Terrible,” he shrieked.
More monsters were throwing booger bowls.
“Wait, wait!” I said, scooping up handfuls of snot off the raggedy old carpet. “Stop doing that! We’ll figure something out. Don’t waste it! It’s magical, I swear.”
“Vell, it’s not magical if ve can’t eat it,” snorted Grigore.
“Well, VHAT do you VANT me to do, cook you a booger pie?” I asked, frustrated.
“Hey,” said Shane. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
“Booger sauce over pasta?” asked Ben.
“Booger pâté?” offered Nabila, and then, “No, no, it’s too hard to cook.”
“Fresh garden salad with booger bits?” Shane tried.
“Booger casserole with chicken and noodles?” I asked. “Wait, even better—Mac ’n’ Sneeze!”
“Real-life Mac ’n’ Sneeze,” chuckled Gordon, then the visual of it hit him. “Oh, I think I’m going to hurl.”
We looked at Director Z.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s have a dinner party! The Nurses and I will try to calm down the residents as much as we can.”
He wiped off his face with a handkerchief and handed it to me.
“Here,” he said. “For your booger pie.”
Hungry for Boogers
Once we had gathered as much of the snot as we could, we instructed the chefs in the kitchen on how to perfect our creations.
“The boogers should be super crispy,” said Shane to one chef. “Nice and crunchy, so it really complements the bacon in the salad. Fry them hard, and don’t be afraid of oversalting.”
“Hmmmm,” said Gordon, peering under the arm of another towering chef, as he mixed furiously. “Maybe we should throw the cheese sauce in a blender before adding the macaroni. It’s a little chunky right now.”
I was about to tell my chef to add more eggs to my booger pie, when Director Z came into the room.
“Chris, can I have a word with you?” he asked, adding, “in private?”
“Sure,” I said. “You guys need to figure out a main course. Maybe roast chicken with herbs and boogers?”
“So, not ‘original recipe’?” Shane giggled.
“I think the walk-in refrigerator will be the perfect place to speak,” said Director Z, and opened the door for me.
I’d been having a great time in the kitchen and had almost forgotten about our situation. As the door shut, I began to get worried.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Chris, I fear that the puppies and kittens are more powerful than we think,” he said. “Or they’re just a precursor of something worse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Once the monsters eat dinner, we’ll be good to go!”
“Maybe,” said Director Z. “Or maybe not. I’m still trying to figure out how the puppies and kittens got here in the first place, and I fear that it may be the work of someone on the inside.”
“You mean a traitor?” I gasped. “One of the old monsters is a traitor?”
“I just don’t know,” said Director Z. “In addition, the team sent to investigate and deal with the puppies and kittens is no longer communicating with me. I fear they may have been destroyed. I hav
e a very bad feeling about this.”
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
“I need you to carry something for me,” he said, loosening his tie.
“Your pendant?” I asked.
“Indeed,” he said, and pulled a chain out from under his shirt. A piece of bloodstone hung from the bottom.
“I had two of these in my possession—mine and one that had belonged to my old mentor,” he said. “And now the other one is gone. I thought I had hidden it well enough in this old manor, but apparently I was wrong. Someone has gotten to it. If this is all the work of a traitor, they’ll most likely be after this one as well.”
He handed his pendant over to me. It was strangely heavy.
“I cannot stress enough how important this task is that I’m about to give you,” he said. “Humans have only just recently begun wielding pendants. It used to be only senior monsters that held them—those that were tasked with saving their kind. The second pendant—the one that I spoke of before, the one that was stolen—was the last to be worn by a senior monster Keeper. He was a wonderful Cyclops by the name of Percy. I had been meaning to find a Keeper to replace him, but quite frankly, we’ve lost so many residents that there was no need for a new facility. Percy’s pendant would have been much safer off this property . . .”
Director Z looked off into the back of the cold, refrigerated room, lost in thought.
“Director Z?” I asked. “Should I hide this one? Maybe I could give it to the ghosts?”
“No,” he said, snapping back to attention. “No, you must hold it. At this point, I don’t trust anyone, especially that old cutlass-wielding ghost who has it in for my residents. I don’t trust anyone but you, Chris.”
I started to put the necklace around my neck.
“Wait,” said Director Z. “Keep it on you, but don’t wear it. It would be too easily seen.”
“Okay,” I said, and I put the pendant in my pocket.
“You are a Keeper now, Chris,” said Director Z. “If anything happens to me—”
“What’s going to happen to you?” I said, afraid.
“If anything happens to me,” he continued, “you’ll be in charge. The Nurses will follow your every order. The residents will have no choice but to fall in line under the power of the pendant.”
He pulled another pendant out of his suit coat pocket.
“Wait, I thought you said you lost the other one,” I said.
“Oh, I did,” he said. “This one is a fake. If someone comes looking for the other pendant—my pendant—I want them to think I still have it. And you have to play along with me. No matter what happens—”
“What’s going to happen!?” I said, really upset now.
“No matter what happens,” continued Director Z, “you must play along that this is the real pendant. Understood?”
“Understood,” I confirmed.
Within an hour, the family-style booger feast was ready. We helped the chefs carry out our crazy creations.
“It looks so good, I just drooled a little,” said Gordon. “I don’t even feel like hurling. Do I like eating boogers now? Have I become that guy, the booger eater?”
“This is going to be amazing,” said Ben. “Amazing.”
“I dunno,” I said. “They might not even be hungry for real food—they all look terrible. Three more have passed out. We’re going to have to hand-feed some of them.”
A few of the old monsters reached out and grabbed spoonfuls of food and put it on their plates. The sounds of sneezes and snotting still filled the air, and a few of the older monsters that hadn’t already passed out kept falling out of their chairs. Nurses held a few in place and not-so-gently shoved spoonfuls of food into their mouths.
“I wish we had made a big soup,” Shane said. “Split-pea. The boogers would have blended right in and the weaker monsters wouldn’t be having such a hard time.”
We gathered around a large plate of food to share. We didn’t want to eat too much—the monsters needed it the most.
“Man, I’m pretty proud of us,” I said. “I don’t think anyone would think all of this was made with ghost boogers.”
“I feel great, too,” Nabila said. “In fact . . . ”
She sniffed a long, hard sniff.
“I think I can smell!” she said. “Barely . . . but I can smell!!”
“No way!” we all yelled.
“This is amazing,” she said, and hugged Ben. “What’s that smell?”
“Um . . . ,” Ben looked down nervously.
“That’s what is known to those who can smell as ‘stinky armpits,’” said Gordon through a mouthful of salad.
“That’s what those smell like . . . ,” she said, a sour look on her face.
“Sorry,” said Ben. “But, since you couldn’t smell, I didn’t spend much time scrubbing in the shower. And I sort of ran out of deodorant.”
“Just wait until you smell his barf,” I said, chuckling.
The noise level rose in the dining room as the old monsters slowly came back to life.
“I vant more!” yelled Grigore, and he plunged his spoon back into the Mac ’n’ Sneeze.
“Grrrrrrr,” growled Pietro and Howie as they fought over a chicken leg.
“Look,” said Ben. “Even the older ones are starting to get into it.”
Instead of holding up weak old monsters, the Nurses were struggling to get food on plates fast enough.
Old Bigfoot was chowing down on my booger pie, and with each bite, his fur glistened a little more. He stood up straighter.
“It’s working,” said Ben. “It’s really working. Roy’s back!”
“Ow!” shrieked Grigore. “There’s something under my dentures. Vhat did you put into this?”
I rushed over to Grigore with Shane.
“Just take them out,” said Shane. “I’ll take a look.”
Grigore pulled out his dentures.
“No way!” yelled Shane. “There are teeth under your dentures.”
“Vhat?” Grigore gasped and put a finger into his mouth. “Ouch! They’re sharp. I love it!”
“Look,” I said to Shane. “He’s getting his hair back.”
Grigore reached up to his head, which was sprouting fuzzy black hair.
“Stop bothering me—I’ve gotta eat!” he cried with joy.
Up and down the table, the monsters were getting younger by the second.
“This is amazing,” said Director Z. “Gentlemen, you’ve done it again! The residents look healthier than they have in years!”
“Mmmmm,” shrieked Murrayhotep, and he jumped up onto the table. “This tastes amazing! OM NOM NOM!”
He shoved handfuls of whatever he could grab into his mouth.
“Hey!” shrieked Clarice as Murrayhotep snatched a meatball and strands of pasta from her plate. “What are you doing?!”
“Murray, stop that this instant!” yelled Director Z.
But Murrayhotep kept going, on his hands and knees, down the long table, eating and screaming and flinging food everywhere.
“What’s gotten into him?” wondered Shane. “He was the only one that wasn’t sick.”
“Murray, this is my last warning,” said Director Z.
In response, Murray grabbed the roast chicken in the middle of the table and flung it as hard as he could at Director Z, knocking him back.
“NURSES!” yelled Director Z from the floor, and the Nurses moved in to detain Murrayhotep.
“You just try and get me, you brainless oafs!” he yelled.
“Get back,” yelled Pietro, and not-so-old monsters jumped back from their chairs and away from the table.
A Nurse grabbed Murrayhotep by his leg, and he came crashing facedown on the table.
He quickly turned right-side up and smashed h
is foot into the jaw of the Nurse, who went down hard onto the floor.
“Ha-ha-haaa!” yelled Murrayhotep. “Serves you right.”
“Where is he getting the energy?” asked Gordon.
“He just ate half of the food,” I said.
Two Nurses moved in on either side of the table and reached up to grab Murrayhotep.
“INUM-RA!” yelled Murrayhotep as he flung his hands outward. There was a flash, and the Nurses were flung to either wall.
Director Z, who was wiping boogery chicken off of his suit, stood up and faced Murrayhotep.
“This is preposterous!” yelled Director Z, so loudly that the dining room windows rattled.
“This is preposterous!” Murrayhotep yelled back. “Our kind is nearing the brink of extinction, and humans have been put in charge of our safekeeping? I’ve had enough!”
Murrayhotep raised the palms of his bandaged hands toward Director Z. Everyone stood in shock.
“OSIRIS-MUN-RA!”
Thousands of scarab beetles buzzed out of Murrayhotep’s palms, descending upon Director Z, who fell to the floor, screaming.
“Feast, my precious ones!” yelled Murrayhotep. “Feast until you taste bone!”
Your Mummy Doesn’t Love You
“KHEPRI-RA-ATUM,” yelled Nabila, her hands held high.
A great wind blew through the dining room. The chitter-chattering scarabs were blown off of Director Z and back onto Murrayhotep.
He dropped onto the table, flailing wildly, trying to fight off the beetles.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Ben asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Nabila replied, running to Director Z, whose face was pockmarked with tiny bites.
As we helped the Director up, he turned to Nabila.
“Thank you,” he said.
“That was AWESOME,” yelled Shane.
“RA-MUN-OSIRIS!” yelled Murrayhotep, and the scarabs flew off his body and exploded, a thousand small pops. He ran off of the table in a flash.
“Get him!” I yelled.
The entire room got up and rushed to the door—not-so-old monsters, kids, and all. Murrayhotep stopped in front of the doorway, his tattered wrappings flapping slightly, his breathing heavy.