Fright Squad

by Flint Maxwell

  Where his clothes looked like a magician’s, his face did not. Though, I can’t say I had seen too many magicians in my short twenty years. But I’ll admit this man’s face wasn’t the face of a man you’d want entertaining at birthday parties. It was the face of a monster. His skin was pulled tightly over his skeleton, cheekbones so sharp they looked like they’d rip through his flesh. His eyes were sunken in and riddled with zig-zagging red veins. Either he was really stoned or really tired, but probably neither. He wasn’t, to say the least, very handsome, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of room to talk.

  Then Doctor Blood smiled and I saw how his teeth were as sharp as his cheekbones, probably even sharper. I pitied him for whenever he bit his tongue or his lip.

  “Ah, young Abraham Crowley,” he said. “I have been expecting you for nearly fifteen years.”

  “Why?” I asked. I tried not to let the pure, untethered anger ripping through my body show, but, you know, that’s not always an easy thing to do. “Because you killed my father?”

  “Oh,” Doctor Blood smiled, “I didn’t kill him as much as he killed himself.” Now he tap-danced over to me. From his inside pocket, he pulled out a bouquet of dead flowers, like those that were all over the graves outside. “Here,” he said, throwing them in my face, “I am sorry for your loss, young Abraham.” He burst into laughter, tossing his head back.

  I growled and the anger got the best of me. Even though I was chained up, I went for him like a mad dog on a leash. I didn’t get very far at all and Doctor Blood only kept laughing.

  Rover saw this and started laughing, too. The ghoul followed suit, his laugh sounding like two humping naked mole rats.

  Again, I thought of James Bond villains. Or bad horror movies on the Syfy channel, which, lately, seemed like how my life had been going. Stuck in a cheesy horror movie.

  Once I got control of myself, I said, “Laugh it up. It’s really gonna suck when I kill all of you.”

  This wasn’t the coolest thing I could say and probably seemed specifically uncool coming from my lips, but it was true of how I felt.

  This just sent them into another burst of laughter. After a few torturous minutes of this acid trip nightmare, Doctor Blood put up his hand and the laughter abruptly stopped.

  “Ah, I believe it is time to get this show on the road, as they say,” he said as he tap-danced over to the glowing wall. With a swipe of his hand, the bricks disintegrated. I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a dark magician.

  Now that the bricks were gone, the green and blue light was much brighter. My eyes eventually began to adjust and I saw the light had begun to take a shape, a circular shape—a portal.

  A void.

  “Better than pulling a rabbit out of a hat, eh, friends?” he asked.

  “No, I’d rather have seen a rabbit,” Zack answered.

  This brought a grin to Doctor Blood’s face, that sharp-toothed grin. Then he turned to me. “Do you like what you see?”

  I said, “I don’t know what I’m seeing.”

  “Ah,” Doctor Blood said, “To put it in the simplest of terms, it is a doorway. A doorway to infinite power. I have learned how to control the power. Ask Mr. Rover here.”

  On cue, Mr. Rover turned his limbs into tentacles and waved them around like live snakes.

  It only made the comparison to a bad acid trip more apt.

  “But I have only scratched the surface,” Doctor Blood said. “Tonight! Tonight I shall master it! And how lucky of you to be in attendance. You will be perfect offerings to these dark gods. My dark gods. They have devoured the countless bodies of this cemetery, but now they want fresh meat!”

  Of course, Zack took it upon himself to say, “This place has plenty of doorways. I think one more would really throw the balance off. Don’t you?”

  I piggybacked off of this: “Can’t have too many doorways.”

  “Oh, young man, you have your father’s sense of humor. I remember how he cracked jokes even when he was covered in gore and in excruciating pain,” Doctor Blood said.

  The werewolf got to laughing again. So did the ghoul. I didn’t let it bother me.

  I decided to fight fire with fire.

  “Cool it, fleabag. It’s not that funny,” I said. This was out of character for me, of course, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

  “What the hell did you say to me?” Rover snarled. His eyes crossed in anger.

  “Oh don’t act like you haven’t heard dog jokes before,” I replied. “I mean, your name is Rover.”

  “Abe,” Maddie said warningly. Where Zack was good with the puns and the zany humor, I was not. Maybe Maddie didn’t want me to make a fool out of myself.

  But that ship had sailed a long time ago.

  Besides, I knew what I was doing. Werewolves had a short temper, obviously, and even in the presence of his master, he wouldn’t be able to control it. So I just had to have him get a little closer…

  “Did you remember to take your heart worm medicine this month?” I asked.

  “Nice, Abe!” Zack said. “I wish I would’ve thought of that one.”

  Rover’s teeth bared and a deep growl rumbled forth from his sternum and out of his mouth. I caught a whiff of his breath. It was not good.

  Despite this, I thought: Yes, come closer.

  Sure enough, Rover did.

  His claws were out, like a cat ready to play, and his mouth was all teeth now, lips peeled back like a rotting corpse.

  “I’ll kill you where you stand, human,” the werewolf said.

  “Good luck,” I replied, and then with my shoe, I kicked up a chunk of the dirt floor. I mostly did this out of anger, but with what came next, I saw I could use this to my advantage.

  A dust cloud engulfed the werewolf and he exploded into another sneezing fit.

  I leaned forward as much as I could, trying for the eye of the storm.

  Zack and Maddie exclaimed.

  “What the hell!” Maddie said, coughing.

  And there I was, getting sneezed on by a werewolf. Spit and snot coated my front, found its way into my mouth, my hair, my eyes.

  One sneeze, two sneezes, three, four, five—then I’d lost count. I truly didn’t think it could get any lower than this. Getting sneezed on by a werewolf was not up there with my greatest accomplishments. I would neglect putting it on my future resumés.

  Oh well. Despite all of the grossness, the inside of my cuffs were soaked with spit and gunk, slippery as black ice.

  “Rover, it is not nice to sneeze on our guests,” Doctor Blood said. “Not when the show is about to begin.”

  The cloud of dust dissipated. The snot did not.

  “He’s crazy!” Lola said. “Don’t look! Don’t look! Whatever you do don’t look at them!”

  The way Lola had said them, had looked on the brink of madness, chilled me.

  So did the now-cooling werewolf saliva.

  Doctor Blood found this funny, began laughing wildly. Then, as the fit passed, he chanted words. They were dark words. I don’t know their meaning or how to properly spell them, but I’ll try. They sounded like: Gurty Furdty Feman, Malkantini Orion, Onion Rings—something along those lines.

  Whatever they were, whatever they meant, they worked.

  The small blue-green light grew.

  “Ah yes!” Doctor Blood said. “Come to me. Come!”

  Zack was too stunned to even crack a joke about how inappropriate that had sounded.

  “There are dark things lurking just beyond the fabric of our reality, my friends!” Doctor Blood yelled. He stepped forward and threw his arms up as if in preparation for a hug. “Dark and evil things. But beautiful. Oh, so beautiful!”

  A rumbling shook the Slaughterhouse’s foundation. More dust drifted down, which caused Rover to step back to avoid another sneezing fit. He was almost right in front of me. So close.

  Outside, I heard excited chatter. That must’ve been Doctor Blood’s other monster goons, the vampires,
the mummies, the banshees, the weird bullfrog thing on a leash.

  “Come forth, my children! Be free!” he shouted.

  They all watched, transfixed.

  I decided this was my best shot. I began wiggling my hands. The left one moved easier than the right so that was the hand I focused on.

  Then I heard something that made me stop.

  The screaming sounds of lost souls, things in pain, unnatural sounds.

  It was hell.

  “Yes! Yes!” Doctor Blood yelled.

  The ghoul stepped back, his posture even more hunched. He was scared.

  Lola began screaming, too, as the Slaughterhouse shook so hard, I thought the roof was going to come down on our heads.

  “Close your eyes!” she shouted. “Close your eyes!”

  “It won’t matter,” Doctor Blood said. “It won’t matter. My babies are hungry and they will tear your closed eyes right from your faces!”

  A lurch came from the opening as it widened. Bricks tumbled out of their spots, leaving holes in the walls, the gap-toothed smiles of happy hillbillies. The opening widened some more and took out the wall to its left. It didn’t look like it was slowing down.

  Doctor Blood stepped backward. This was the first sign I had seen of uncertainty from the dark magician.

  I didn’t take that as a good omen, but as something completely and terribly bad. That meant that Doctor Blood hadn’t expected this.

  The similarities to a really cheesy Syfy movie were piling up by the second.

  Still, cheesy or not, I was scared. I had to act and I had to act fast.

  The screaming became louder. So loud, I felt my eardrums expand like the doorway itself and threaten to split open.

  I couldn’t let this slow me down.

  Doctor Blood took another step back, then another as a great green tentacle slipped out from the doorway. It was easily as big as three pythons braided together. All over it were suction cups—

  No, I was wrong.

  The suction cups weren’t suction cups; they were eyes, great, glistening eyes. Each one rolled in a different direction, searching, seeking, seeing.

  Another tentacle spilled out, slapped wetly on the dirt floor.

  Doctor Blood began chanting more nonsensical words again. I thought he was trying to control the beast, but if you saw what we had saw, you would know there was no controlling it.

  The second tentacle began running over the floor, patting it, sending dust into the air. It was now at the feet of the ghoul, who let out a dying shriek that we heard over the rumbling sounds of Armageddon.

  The werewolf gave the ghoul a nudge and the ghoul stumbled forward. He would’ve fallen had the tentacle not caught him. But then, of course, he might’ve lived.

  “No, my lord!” Doctor Blood boomed. “Your sacrifices are here. HERE!” He pointed in our direction. The great beast didn’t care where its sacrifices came from. All it cared for was meat.

  Beside me, I heard Zack say, “This really sucks.”

  He was right.

  The tentacle wrapped around the naked ghoul. Those eyes I had mistaken for suction cups turned hungry, ravenous. The green flesh tightened and the ghoul split in half with a wave of blood and a slap of organs. No more screaming came from the ghoul’s mouth. He hung there by strings of muscle and bone, like a broken tentpole.

  The tentacle began dragging it toward the opening, where its mouth now protruded. I saw so many teeth. Too many teeth. They were as large as the headstones outside of the Slaughterhouse. They dripped saliva, thick globs of mucus that made the werewolf mucus currently covering me look like some kind of expensive lotion.

  This thing was a giant monster, a giant god, from a dimension that wasn’t our own, and though I fought monsters for a living, there was no way I could fight this one and walk away unscathed.

  I had to move and I had to get the ones I cared about to safety by any means necessary.

  So that’s exactly what I did.

  With a great yank, my left hand came free from the handcuff. It wasn’t painless, I’ll admit. I lost a few layers of skin, but that was nothing compared to losing my friends or my head...or my life.

  The werewolf didn’t even feel it when I took the keys off his hip.

  Doctor Blood’s attention was elsewhere. Rover was snarling, worried he would be the next sacrifice. I didn’t blame him.

  With the keys in my hand, I began trying them into the lock of the right cuff. It took me two tries before I found the correct one.

  I was free.

  The doorway continued eating up the far wall of the Slaughterhouse. Now another beast crowded in. Great pincers like those of a giant beetle entered our world. Beneath that, the tentacle monster sloshed forth. Its massive size was breathtaking and disgusting enough to freeze a normal man.

  Alas, I am no normal man.

  I’m weird, and according to others, not in a good way.

  So I ran, ran toward the other room where our weapons were.

  In my rushing, I nudged the werewolf forward. He screamed out in shock, nearly jumped out of his fur. On any other day I would not have been able to move him, but since he was so preoccupied with not getting eaten by the monsters, it was pretty easy. He fell onto all fours and tried scrabbling away, but the tentacles of death had found him, pulled him closer, lifted him up. This was where the giant beetle with its giant pincers got a hold of him. With a click like the sharp blades of giant garden shears, the werewolf was decapitated.

  I didn’t exactly feel bad…

  But the werewolf was not my target. My target was the dark magician. Doctor Blood. I would get my revenge and save the day.

  In the other room now, I tossed aside a chair in my way, tripped, scrambled back up. It was only a matter of time before more beasts came forth from the other doorway and found my friends.

  “Where is it? Where is it?” I said to myself, sure I’d be feeling a cold tentacle tapping me on the shoulder very soon.

  I knocked away old, moth-eaten board games, spilled over Zack’s hatchet, my sword, a tool chest, a container with a moldy sandwich, and so much other useless junk. Stakes went rolling. Glass broke, the sound swallowed up by the chaos behind me.

  I was looking for the gun. Silver bullets or not, they’d do the trick on Doctor Blood, I knew that.

  But I couldn’t find it.

  In the other room, Maddie began screaming. This was bad. Maddie hardly ever screamed. I turned around, saw Doctor Blood backing away as a new tentacle entered the fold. “No!” he shouted. “No! You are mine. OBEY ME!”

  They weren’t obeying him.

  I wasn’t surprised.

  One of the green ones with the suction-cup-eyes slobbered over Maddie’s foot. She kicked at it, sent it back a few feet. It arched like a curious snake, about to strike.

  “Where is it!?” I shouted again. And this time I flipped the table over.

  Word of advice: Whenever you are angry and in a rush just flip a table over.

  It feels good and, even sometimes, will solve your problems. Because, in the bare patch of dirt, I didn’t see the gun.

  I saw something else.

  The bomb-ball.

  I picked it up, feeling the heat within. All I had to do was press a button and those monsters would be blown sky-high.

  “He’s gonna get away!” Zack shouted.

  Coldness crept over me. The smile on my face from the bomb’s discovery vanished.

  “No!” I shouted and ran to the other room.

  Two more huge tentacles were searching the floor for prey. The thing they were connected to was half out of the doorway, dripping with slime and alien goo. I couldn’t look at it for too long. I knew if I did, I would lose my mind.

  These beasts were the definition of unnatural, of insanity.

  As I came to the threshold, Doctor Blood looked in my direction, then looked at what I held in my hands. A smile spread across his face.

  “You son of a bi—” I began, but he
cut me off.

  “We shall meet again, young Abraham,” he said.

  But it was too late. I had already pressed the button on the bomb-ball. A chirping emanated from it, then little red numbers that were counting down from fifteen.

  Fourteen…

  Thirteen…

  Twelve…

  Doctor Blood leaned his head back and cackled like the cheesy B-movie villain he was. Then, with a puff of smoke, he disappeared right before our eyes.

  “NO!” I shouted.

  But the answer was a resounding yes.

  I stood there on a blood-soaked floor in a room full of people I cared about chained to the walls and tentacles all around us like weeds, and to top it all off, I had a live bomb in my hand.

  Nine…

  Eight…

  26

  Boom!

  “You have to throw it!” Storm said. “Far!”

  “Throw it now!” Zack said.

  “No windows!” Maddie said.

  “We’re all gonna die!” Lola said.

  Six…

  “What did I tell y’all about my weapons?” Storm shouted. “Damn it all to hell!”

  I looked around as a tentacle slapped on the toe of my shoe.

  I kicked it away. We weren’t going to die. I already knew what I was going to do with the bomb. I just had to do it because I had mere seconds on the clock. The score was tied. This was my last shot to win it all. I had to take it.

  With the bomb-ball in my hand, its heat scorching my palm, I rushed toward the door of insanity.

  Toward thy tentacles of death.

  Four…

  The great gelatinous blob Doctor Blood had summoned through his dark magic opened its giant mouth full of sharp teeth in what I thought of as surprise but knew better as anticipation. Anticipation for my sweet human flesh.

  Well, I wasn’t going to give it to him.

  Not tonight.

  The red number on the bomb-ball said Three in cautionary red.

  I took the shot.

  The crowd held their breath. The arena went still, so silent you could hear a pin drop.

  But that was not what we heard.

  What we heard was the wet thunk of the bomb slapping against the back of the creature’s throat. It reflexively clamped its jaws shut. The giant yellow eye somehow grew bigger and it retracted its tentacles as it stood up and knocked the giant beetle backward into the infinity behind it.