Things

by Rodman Philbrick

  Gagging and shaking with fear that something would jump at me out of the light, I pressed on, following Jessie’s voice.

  “I hear one of them, Nick,” she called. “It’s coming at you.”

  I felt a change in the air near my head. It was no more than a shimmer but instinctively I ducked.

  WHAAAP!

  Something whiplike whizzed over my head. Twisting up, I caught a glimpse of a glowing tentacle as it lashed across the space where my head had been and disappeared into the mist.

  Keeping my head low, I kept moving toward the place where I’d heard Jessie. I was afraid to call out to her, afraid to give my position away to the aliens.

  Feeling another shimmer in the air, I ducked again and turned to look and—

  SNAAAAAP!

  The whipping tentacle came so close I fell to my knees. Instantly I felt as if the sticky floor was sucking me in.

  “Ewggh,” I choked, struggling to free myself. I floundered in the goo, getting myself coated with sticky slime. Just as I got to my feet, a tentacle whipped out of the glowing mist and I stumbled.

  Falling, I stuck out my hands, terrified that I would land facedown on the floor and drown in alien slobber. My hands sank to my wrists. My stomach heaved and my heart fought to escape my chest.

  I started to push myself up, gasping with fear and disgust. I pulled one hand as hard as I could and slowly—SWUUUCK!—it came unstuck.

  But suddenly something dropped onto my free hand. It felt warm and thick, like tapioca pudding. I shook my hand but it jiggled and stuck.

  26

  The blob slid over my fingertips. I felt it running between my fingers. Frantically, I tried to shake it off and drops spattered onto the gooey floor.

  I yanked my other hand free of the floor and scraped at the thing. Finally I managed to fling it off me to the floor. It splattered into a hundred blobby drops.

  It must be slime goo that drips off the tentacles, I thought, my flesh crawling.

  As the mist swirled I watched the blobs quiver and run together in larger puddles, like spatters in a frying pan. The bigger puddles ran toward each other. The blob was re-forming!

  Sticky and shaking, I stumbled away from there as fast as I could. “Jessie!” I called out, forgetting about my fear of giving my position away to the aliens. I was just desperate to find her and get out of this horrible place.

  “I’m here,” she cried. But her voice seemed to be coming from all directions, echoing off the alien walls I couldn’t see.

  “Where are you?” I cried, whipping my head around, trying to catch a glimpse of her in the swirling glow of fog.

  “I don’t know,” answered Jessie, her voice high and frantic. “I can’t see anything. But I can feel them, Nick. They’re coming back for me.”

  I listened hard and tried to let my twin sense pull me toward her, even though her voice kept bouncing around. “Keep talking,” I said. “I’ll find you.”

  The glowing fog was so thick it did strange things to her voice.

  “Hurry, Nick. I can feel them messing around in my mind. They can’t really get in, yet, but they keep trying. I don’t know how much longer I can hold them off. I’m scared, Nick,” she said in a breathy voice that pierced my heart.

  I felt something blobby ooze up around my foot and kicked out, hearing spatters in the mist. It was hard, struggling across the sticky floor, and my legs were beginning to ache. I couldn’t even tell how big this room was.

  “I’m coming, Jess,” I said, hoping I was moving in the right direction.

  “Glad to hear that, Nick,” said Jessie. She laughed weakly. “Save me from this and you can have all my desserts for the rest of the year. Promise.”

  Tears pricked at my eyes. That was just like Jessie, trying to sound brave, to make a joke out of the situation when she was terrified out of her mind.

  The terrible truth was, even if we did get out of here, there wouldn’t be any more desserts—or any Mom to make them—unless we found a way to defeat the alien invasion.

  And how could three kids fight blobby stuff that dissolved and re-formed? How could we stop something that could control human thoughts?

  I plodded on over the sticky floor. Each step was an effort, a tug-of-war with the floor.

  And I was straining to see through the thick mist, fighting off prickles of anxiety, wondering if I would ever find Jessie or just keep going around in circles until I sank into the goo in exhaustion.

  Then suddenly there was a horrible shriek.

  “NICK!”

  It was Jessie.

  They’d got her!

  27

  I leaped up, blood pounding in my veins. Jessie was close. She was screaming inside my head and suddenly I could feel right where she was.

  I turned, homing in on her, and ran, tearing my feet out of the goo with every step, struggling not to lose my sneakers. I was on fire with rage but I still couldn’t see a thing in the glowing mist.

  BANG!

  My head rang with pain. I stumbled backwards, realizing I had run smack into something, headfirst.

  “Nick!” It was Jessie. Right in front of me! “Are you all right?”

  Laughter bubbled up inside me as I groped for the thing I had hit. How typical of Jessie, to ask if I was okay when she was the one captured by aliens.

  “I’m right here,” I said. My hand touched something hard. I pulled myself closer and Jessie’s face swam up out of the mist. She was in a cage!

  The edges of the cage disappeared in the thick glowing fog but I could see that it was suspended from the ceiling. The cage swung slightly when I touched it. What I didn’t see was a door. There seemed to be no way out of the cage.

  Jessie grasped the bars, grinning at me in relief. “Am I glad to see you!” she said. “I know you’ll get me out of here, Nick. I know it!”

  I tried to smile back but at the moment things looked pretty hopeless. The bars of the cage were made out of what looked like melted rock. They were thick and smooth and felt stronger than steel.

  No matter how I pulled or pushed at them, they didn’t bend even a tiny bit. I reached through and grasped Jessie’s hand. “We’ll figure this out,” I said, wishing my voice sounded more confident.

  Jessie nodded, still grinning at me. Her smooth brown hair was matted and full of tangles but otherwise she looked okay. No bruises or cuts. No slithering motion in her eyes.

  I moved around the cage but found no door or lock or any way in. The cage hung several feet over the floor and was constructed of the same melted rock bars on all sides.

  “How does this open?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Jessie’s smile slipped. “I was unconscious. I don’t even know how I got here. I just woke up inside this—this cage! Like a wild animal!” Her eyes blazed with anger.

  Then she looked over her shoulder fearfully. “One of those things was just here,” she said. “I don’t think we have much time. A tentacle poked in right there.”

  She shuddered and pointed toward the back of the cage as I continued to search for a way to get her out. “It brushed up against me,” she said. “And then I felt it probing at my mind. It was trying to find a way in!”

  I ran my hands over the bars, looking for any kind of break. But all the bars felt smooth. “There has to be a way to open this thing,” I muttered.

  Inching away from the cage, I stretched my hands out through the thick mist, searching for a wall where I might find a lever or switch that would open the cage.

  “Nick, don’t go!” pleaded Jessie. “They’re coming back for me. I’m afraid! I won’t be able to hold out against them. They’re going to take over my mind!”

  “I have to, Jess. I’ll find a way to get you out of here,” I promised. “Trust me. Yell out if they come back.”

  Jessie choked back her tears. In an instant her face disappeared behind me in the mist.

  I groped ahead until my fingers bumped a wall. The wall felt slick, the same as t
he bars of Jessie’s cage—rock that had been melted to make it strong and smooth.

  Quickly I ran my hands over it, looking for a switch, listening all the while for the sound of a whipping tentacle or the dripping of alien blobs behind me.

  But the wall stayed perfectly smooth. I felt my way along it, hating that I was getting farther away from Jessie.

  I froze. Something was creeping near me, slithering over the sticky floor, trying to be quiet. I stayed perfectly still, hoping it would miss me.

  pppUUCK, squish, ppppUUCK, squish, ppppUUCK.

  It wasn’t going to pass me by. It was headed straight for me, but sooo slowly, one maddening inch at a time. Like a slug. But why so slowly?

  Was it feeding as it moved? Was that why there was so much gunk on the floor? Could this whole room possibly be an alien feeding trough?

  My mind filled with a picture of Jessie in her cage like Hansel and Gretel at the witch’s house. My heart pounded and my stomach churned.

  pppUCK, squish, pppUCK, squish, pppUCK, squish.

  I squinted into the mist as if that might help me see better, but it didn’t. I gritted my teeth and balled my hands into fists.

  The disgusting feeding noises stopped.

  The air stirred. Had I imagined it? No. I felt the mist swirl slightly against my cheek. Something was there. Staring at me.

  I clenched the muscles in my arm, then let go and swung my fist with all my might.

  Take THAT, you alien creep.

  “OW!” the thing squealed in a human voice.

  28

  I knew that voice. It was Frasier!

  I reached out to keep him from falling onto the goopy floor, hoping that it wasn’t really some alien that had stolen his voice.

  But my hand grabbed shirt and I gripped Frasier’s arm. “Why’d you hit me?” he complained.

  “I thought you were one of those things,” I said.

  The mist swirled around us and fear shot up my spine. I’d wasted precious minutes, standing still like a frightened rabbit, imagining THINGS creeping up on me, gobbling goo as they came.

  I knew we were running out of time. “Help me. I’m looking for a lever or a switch,” I explained, telling him about the awful cage Jessie was trapped in.

  I felt him shiver as he joined me, running his hands along the smooth wall. “One of those tentacle things almost got me,” he whispered, coming closer so I could see his face through the fog. “But I think I figured out how they find us.”

  Hope flashed through me even as I explored another stretch of wall and found no switch. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, nothing could see through this weird mist, right? And those tentacles don’t have eyes, so how does it see?”

  Frasier sounded pleased with himself so I didn’t point out that we had no idea what alien eyes might look like. And the tentacles were only the tip of the alien. We had no idea what the whole creature looked like.

  “How do they find us? That was the problem,” continued Frasier. “And I think I solved it.”

  He stuck his face close to mine and stared until he had my full attention. “The things home in on your thoughts,” said Frasier. “They sense your brain thinking. The energy or something.”

  I blinked doubtfully. But in a weird way it seemed to make sense. We moved farther down the wall. I explored frantically for a switch while Frasier kept talking.

  “The way it happened was there was this slimy tentacle coming right at me,” explained Frasier, wincing at the memory. “My mind just went blank, phtt, blotto, nothing. The tentacle quivered and whipped around like it didn’t know where to go. Like it had lost track of me, see?”

  “Okay, great,” I said. “But how did you make your mind go blank?”

  “I was scared to death, that’s how!”

  Suddenly there was a bloodcurdling scream.

  “They’re coming!” Jessie shrieked. “They’ve got me!”

  29

  “This way,” I shouted at Frasier, plunging back toward Jessie.

  The goo tugged at my feet. I heard something slap against the cage, and Jessie cried out in terror.

  I plunged forward but it felt like I was running in slow motion. I heard slurping and squishy liquid noises. Nothing more from Jessie but little high-pitched yips of fear or pain.

  My heart pounded uselessly. I knew I was going to be too late. There would be nothing left of Jessie except maybe her other sneaker left at the bottom of the cage.

  At last the outline of the cage emerged from the mist. When I saw what was happening I totally froze in horror. Behind me, Frasier gasped.

  Dozens of slimy writhing tentacles were coiling over the cage. They were so excited that the fog was actually being dispersed by the force of their whipping motion.

  Even worse, we could see where the tentacles came from. A huge glowing, pulsing dark blob of goo sat under Jessie’s cage. It was bubbling up through the bars of the floor of the cage and tentacles were sprouting from all over it!

  Popping from the blob, tentacles slid through the bars like fat growing worms, slithering toward my sister. Jessie was squeezing herself away from them, her eyes wide with terror.

  She was also trying to fight them. She made fierce breathy sounds as she stamped on the slimy tentacles, stomping them to bits. Others she slammed against the bars with her fists, squishing them.

  The broken pieces of tentacle fell back flipping and writhing on the heaving blob. They made loud gassy noises as they landed, like huge, horrible farts.

  But the blob absorbed each piece and a new tentacle emerged from the same spot and poked its slithery way back up through the bars.

  Jessie was keeping them off her but I could see it was only a matter of time. She was tiring and there were more and more tentacles every second.

  “Ugh,” she grunted, stamping on a wiggling purple tip. But she couldn’t move fast enough to get the one that was coiling itself around her ankle.

  “No,” I shouted, running forward to pull the thing off her.

  I stuck my arm through the bars as far as it would go. My fingers grasped the wriggling tentacle. It was smooth and strong, sticky and slimy.

  My stomach heaved into my throat, choking me. I pulled with all my might and finally the tentacle came free with a sucking noise. Its tip whipped around, trying to grasp my wrist.

  “Urrg,” Jessie grunted and brought her foot down on the tentacle, smashing it in two against the bar. The tip went limp and dropped off me, splashing back onto the blob. The rest of it writhed, in pain maybe, and withdrew.

  Jessie kept stamping but I felt helpless. Reaching in from outside I wasn’t strong enough to do anything but pull the alien tentacles off her so she could stomp them herself. I knew this couldn’t go on much longer.

  Then the mist dispersed a little more. I saw a sight that stole my breath. It was so horrible I didn’t even feel the tentacle that was winding up my arm.

  “Behind you!” I screamed.

  While Jessie had been fighting off the tentacles coming from the bottom and sides of her cage, others had been sneaking up the back of the cage, gathering at her back where she couldn’t see them.

  Long and fat and thick as my leg, they were coiling in through the bars, weaving their tips toward the back of her head.

  “No!” I shouted, tearing a tentacle off my arm, hardly noticing the slime trail it left behind. I felt so far away. The whole cage was between me and the big writhing tentacles.

  Jessie whirled but the tentacles were too fast for her. They swung away so they remained hidden behind her.

  The floor goo sucked at my sneakers as I started around the cage. “No,” I screamed as one of the tentacles lifted a strand of Jessie’s hair and wound around it.

  I threw myself on the cage and started to haul myself around the bars. Tentacles wound around my ankles and dragged me back as the cage swung wildly.

  Where was Frasier?

  “Frasier! Help!” I shouted, but I didn’t have
time to look around for him.

  I kicked my feet against the bars, trying to dislodge the tentacles on my ankles. Freeing one foot, I looked up in time to see a glistening purple tentacle dart in the bars behind Jessie’s head and coil itself around her neck.

  I struggled desperately but already two more had whipped themselves around her arms so she couldn’t fight.

  Jessie’s eyes rolled in terror. Two more tentacles slipped between the bars. Quick as a flash, they wound themselves around her head, right across her face! Jessie was covered with the things!

  But that still wasn’t the worst. As the tentacles flattened themselves against her face, their wiggling tips probed into her ears.

  My whole body seemed to turn inside out with anger and disgust.

  That was how they did it! That was how the aliens got into a human brain! They wiggled their way inside the ear and made straight for the soft brain!

  “NO!” I couldn’t let it happen. There was only one thing I could do. I knew it would probably cost me my life but I couldn’t watch this happen to Jessie.

  I had to attack the blob itself.

  I dropped down off the cage, tearing tentacles off me right and left, no longer taking the time to stomp them into the gooey floor.

  This was Jessie’s last chance and I had little hope that it would work. But I had to try.

  I crouched down to look over the greasy, pulsing blob, trying to judge the best place to attack.

  There was a spot on the top that looked especially soft. It bubbled and dripped more than other parts. And tentacles seemed to sprout from there thicker and faster.

  I braced myself. I wouldn’t have more than a second before the blob absorbed me. I’d have to make it good.

  Wanting to get everything perfect, I pictured in my mind exactly how I’d attack—ramming the blob, then kicking, punching, and biting as furiously as I could. For as long as I could.

  I was hoping the tentacles attacking Jessie would drop off to come back and defend their blob from me.

  I tensed, head down, and ran straight at the blob like I was shot out of a cannon!