Things

by Rodman Philbrick

  In my mind I heard it scream.

  30

  “NOOOOOOO! WAAAAIIIIT!”

  Startled, I realized it was Frasier’s voice I was hearing, not the death agony of the blob.

  “Don’t, Nick,” he yelled. “I’ve got it!”

  There was a clicking noise and then a rumble of stone.

  I was already airborne. It was too late to stop. Inches from my face, the blob was glowing brighter and bubbling feverishly. Goo splashed my skin.

  I jerked my head up and arched my back, trying to reverse my leap. My feet swung under me and my heels dug into the floor. Goop welled up around my ankles and I slid to a slow stop, my nose almost touching the blob.

  Tentacles writhed wildly around my head as I back-pedaled furiously, getting myself covered in floor goo and spatters from the blob.

  The sound of grinding stone was louder. I looked up and stared in amazement as the bars of the cage began to slide open.

  “I found the lever,” yelled Frasier. He bounded across the sticky floor and grabbed me, pulling me away from the pulsing glow of the blob. “Maybe we can still save Jessie.”

  The blob glowed even brighter, almost blinding. Dark ooze rose to the surface, bubbled and popped. Globs fell to the floor. More tentacles sprouted—and faster, too—an army of slithery tentacles.

  I threw myself at the opening of the cage and hauled myself up. I was almost inside when I felt the tentacles coil around my ankles and squeeze, pulling me back.

  Reaching down to tear them off, I saw that every inch of the bulging blob was now covered with small squirming tentacles. They wiggled off it in all directions.

  Dozens of them nipped at Frasier’s ankles, dozens more launched themselves at me. They were trying to suck us down into the mess of bubbling goo.

  Yelling wordlessly, Frasier stomped at the ones that grabbed his ankles while he helped tear the others off me.

  Straining to pull against their slimy grip, I worked my way across the floor of the cage toward my sister.

  Poor Jessie was huddled in a ball and so plastered with writhing tentacles I could hardly see her.

  “Jessie!” I called, beginning to rip the tentacles off her. “Jess?”

  No answer.

  I pried the tentacles off her face, smashing them against the floor until they lay still.

  Jessie’s eyes were closed. There were tentacles wound into both her ears! I could see she was unconscious.

  But there was one thing I didn’t know. Had the aliens eaten her brain?!

  I yanked the tentacle tips from her ears and banged them on the bars. They went limp and fell away through the bottom of the cage. I wished I had a weapon—a knife or even a heavy stone—but my fist would have to do.

  Working feverishly, I peeled the things from Jessie’s hair and off her shoulders and slammed them against the stone bars, wincing against the drops that spattered my face.

  The cage swayed as something heavy landed in it. My heart nearly burst with fright. But it was only Frasier, bits of broken tentacle sticking to his feet and legs.

  He helped beat back the new ones wriggling up through the bottom of the cage while I got Jessie’s arms and legs untangled.

  Together we pushed and dragged her out of the cage, beating back more questing tentacles.

  We balanced her on the edge of the cage opening so we could kick and stomp the mass of tentacles crawling over the floor, clearing ourselves a path, sort of.

  Then, as we lifted Jessie, we noticed the dark blob was pulsing with bursts of light and boiling over with goo that dripped down its sides and overflowed onto the floor. It jiggled and rocked feverishly, spouting out great clouds of steamy mist.

  “I don’t think we have much time,” said Frasier in a small, shaky voice. “We’d better get out of here.”

  But even as he spoke the pulsing blob swelled, its bubbling blubber knocking the cage aside. It bulged larger and larger and pulsed harder and harder.

  Suddenly, in a huge gassy explosion, the blob erupted like a slimy volcano, spewing hundreds of tentacles and gobs of dark goo into the misty air.

  Some of the gobs landed in our hair and on our clothes. They turned instantly to small tentacles and began worming their way down through the strands of hair to our scalps, seeking our ears.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

  We screamed in revulsion and panic as we grabbed at our hair and clawed at our clothes and stamped our feet.

  I plucked wormy tentacles off poor Jessie and flung them against the wall. But when we’d freed ourselves of the small stuff, we noticed what was really happening.

  We were surrounded.

  Hundreds of tentacles rose from the floor, some higher than our heads, thicker around than even Frasier. Even as we stared, our insides turning to quivering jelly, more tentacles emerged from the mist and joined the crowd, tips quivering like noses in the wind.

  They were all around us. I forgot to breathe. My heart felt like it was trying to rip a hole in my chest. I clutched Jessie closer to me, trying to think how we could get out of this.

  Suddenly all of them seemed to come to attention. The tentacle tips stopped quivering. All in unison they swiveled toward us like periscopes.

  United, they had homed in on us.

  Frasier tapped my shoulder. “Think of nothing,” he whispered urgently. “That’s the only thing that can save us!”

  31

  It was the hardest thing I ever tried in my life.

  You try it. Just try it. Think of nothing. Make your mind blank. Except that even thinking of thinking of nothing takes some thinking, right?

  Jess had it easy—she was already unconscious. What was I supposed to do? Knock myself out?

  I glanced at Frasier, feverishly trying to blank my mind and totally aware of how much it wasn’t working.

  But Frasier’s eyes were empty, his jaw slack. His knees were quivering. He was so scared his mind had gone completely blank.

  I was terrified to let myself feel that scared. Afraid the tentacles would swallow me and I might never move again.

  All together the tentacles swerved toward me and me alone. Waving like hypnotizing snakes, they began to slither across the gooey floor.

  My mind howled with fear. Desperately I wanted to run. But there was no way through the army of alien tentacles. My head swiveled, looking for a way out. Finding none.

  And then I forced myself to do it. I let the fear grow in me. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done, laying myself open to that paralyzing fear.

  I let myself imagine what would happen if the alien tentacles got me and Jessie.

  I pictured the wormy things slithering into my ears. How it would tickle as the slimy thing wiggled its way down my ear canal. How its strong tip would slide into my brain.

  I felt the aliens eating my mind, gobbling my brain like a hot fudge sundae!

  My head filled with slimy tentacles coiling over one another, like a nest of purple snakes, leaving slime trails on the empty inside of my skull.

  Until there was nothing in my head but a writhing mass of purple alien tentacles.

  My legs began to tremble helplessly as the horror of it washed all thought out of my mind. My blood iced up in my veins and my heart shivered to a stop. Until finally there was nothing left but FEAR.

  I was so scared I didn’t even know my name.

  Slowly the tentacles stopped advancing. Their damp slimy tips wavered in the air, turning every which way. They began whipping around in confusion as if they didn’t know which way to turn.

  I was so frozen with fear, I didn’t notice when the tentacles began to ooze away. Wiggling and searching, they were slowly drawn back into the blob of goo, which had become a shapeless blot on the floor.

  As hundreds of tentacles were sucked back in, the blob grew larger again, bulging and bubbling and rippling.

  When the last tentacle disappeared with a slurping belch, the blob’s glow began to fade. The bubbling subsided and finally st
opped.

  The blob drooped and lost its shape. It seemed to shrink, little by little. But it wasn’t shrinking. It was sinking into the floor.

  It seeped down right through the rock, finally vanishing with a faint hiss. All that was left behind was a dark stain in the slime.

  The alien was gone.

  But we weren’t out of here yet. And our minds were paralyzed with fear.

  32

  “Nick!”

  My head jerked. Frasier was shaking me. Light and color flooded back into my brain. My knees felt weak.

  “Run for your life!” yelled Frasier. He grabbed Jessie’s legs and we started into the thickening mist.

  “Hey! Let me go,” yelled Jessie, coming awake with a start and kicking out with her legs.

  “It’s us,” I told her. “Me and Frasier.”

  Coming to herself, Jessie looked around at the swirling mist and caught a glimpse of the cage, its door hanging open. She shivered and grinned at me. “Thanks,” she said.

  Frasier grabbed her arm. “Let’s go!”

  We ran into the glowing fog, unable to see through the dense mist, hoping we were headed the right way. We huddled together, alert for whipping tentacles, moving as fast as we could over the gloppy floor.

  “Here it is!” cried Frasier triumphantly, somewhere in front of me and Jessie. “I’ve found the opening.”

  We hurried after him and emerged into the cavernous mothership. After the clinging, blinding fog of the chamber we’d been in, it seemed even vaster than I remembered.

  “Wow.” Jessie craned her neck in fearful amazement. “It’s humongous.”

  “Don’t stop now,” warned Frasier. “We’ve still got to make it all the way back through the tunnel.”

  We started running across the huge expanse of the cavern floor, feeling small and terribly visible.

  As we circled the towering structures that curved out of the center of the floor, Jessie frowned and slowed.

  “I’m getting the strangest feeling from those things,” she said between breaths. “Like I almost recognize them. It’s creepy.”

  The hair prickled on my scalp when she said that. “I think those are the pilot’s and copilot’s seats,” I told her. “Maybe they carried you through here at some point. Maybe you were half-conscious.”

  “Could be,” said Jessie, shuddering at the thought of being carried by those tentacles. “Or maybe they just remind me of a modern sculpture I saw at a museum one time.”

  Jessie picked up the pace again but suddenly Frasier faltered and I ran smack into him.

  “Where is it?” Frasier asked breathlessly. “Where’s the tunnel?”

  I looked. The walls were smooth and seamless, except for the odd protrusions of knobs and controls, like the one that had opened Jessie’s chamber.

  “I know it was here,” said Frasier, his voice rising with fear. “But it’s been closed up! We’re trapped!”

  I ran up to the wall where the tunnel opening had been and drummed my fists against it. It was as slick as marble. I whirled around, my eyes searching along the cavern wall. Maybe we’d remembered wrong. Maybe the opening was in another place.

  But it wasn’t. The aliens had us right where they wanted us. Trapped inside the mother ship.

  I couldn’t stand it. A bomb of fury seemed to explode inside my head. “There has to be some way to open it up again!” I said, and began to yank on every weird-looking structure I could reach.

  “I don’t like this,” said Frasier, biting his lip. “You’ll set off an alarm. They’ll know we’re here.”

  “They know anyway,” I said, hanging my full weight off a hook-shaped thing that wouldn’t move.

  “Hey, guys, look at this!” called Jessie from partway across the room.

  I twisted around to look over my shoulder and as I did the hook-shaped thing moved. The sound of stone grinding on stone filled the cavern.

  “I did it!” I yelled, dropping to the floor. “Let’s go.”

  I turned toward the wall where our tunnel had been. The wall hadn’t moved. The tunnel opening wasn’t there.

  “YEEEOOW!” screamed Frasier.

  I whipped around. A different section of wall was sliding open. Inside the opening was a pulsing pink blob. It began to ooze down over the floor, raining pink spatters.

  “Oh, no!” screamed Jessie. She wasn’t looking at the pink blob. Her horrified eyes were staring at the place we’d come from—the cage chamber.

  I snapped my eyes around. The chamber wall had closed. But that wasn’t what horrified Jessie.

  Through the solid rock wall something dark was oozing. At first I almost missed it. It was just a trickle.

  But then it began to gush and bubble. The blob!

  It poured over the floor, bulging and pulsing madly.

  Frasier screamed and began to run. A huge tentacle shot out of the dark blob. It snaked across the broad floor so fast it was a blur.

  Frasier glanced behind him and screamed again. It was aiming straight at him, faster than a speeding train. He was running too hard to remember to blank his mind.

  I wasn’t sure it would have worked this time anyway. Quick as the lash of a whip, the tentacle swept Frasier up off the floor and held him up, coiled in its grasp. Frasier struggled like the lady in King Kong’s fist.

  The blob began to suck the tentacle back in. Frasier’s eyes popped in horror. I could see when his mind went blank with fear but it didn’t help now that the alien already had him.

  “We’ll save you, Frase!” shouted Jessie.

  We both took off running, determined to rip Frasier from the alien’s grasp. But we had forgotten about the pink blob.

  As we pounded across the floor past the big alien structures, it spurted out a pale tentacle, which scooped Jessie off her feet before she even knew it was there.

  I skidded to a halt, reversing direction toward my twin. Jessie dangled from the pale tentacle, kicking and screaming.

  The tentacle was so pale a shade of pink that it was almost clear, like the biggest, most disgusting jellyfish I had ever seen. It waved Jessie around like it didn’t know what to do with her. Or like it was mocking us with how easy we were to catch.

  I rushed toward Jessie, my mind filled with rage. Then Frasier whimpered behind me and I hesitated. My eyes darted wildly between my friend and my sister.

  I couldn’t save them both. I had to choose.

  And then I knew with terrible certainty that I couldn’t save either one. The aliens were too strong for me. And this was their place, full of their secret things.

  Suddenly I had a brainstorm. Sure it was their place. But maybe I could mess it up a little. Maybe I could make them want to get rid of me and my friends.

  Seething with anger, I turned my back on both weaving, taunting tentacles. I was close to the big structures that I thought controlled the ship. Now was my chance to find out if they really did.

  I picked out the biggest structure, thinking that was probably the pilot’s cockpit, and dashed for it. I scrambled up, bracing myself for the tentacle that would pluck me away.

  As I climbed I banged, pushed, and pulled on every knob and switch I could reach.

  At first I didn’t hear much except the sound of stone grinding on stone in some distant place elsewhere deep in Harley Hill. That wasn’t much help.

  I risked a glance back. The dark blob was pulsing wildly and shaking poor Frasier like a rag doll. The pink blob swelled and shrank and bubbled. It was reeling Jessie in slowly, like a fish.

  But then I yanked something and there was an earth-shaking noise like ten million cherry bombs all going off at once.

  VVVVVVRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMM!

  Ready or not, the mothership was taking off!

  33

  VVVVVVRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMM!

  I toggled the switch down and the sound responded.

  vvvvrrrRRRROOOOOMMMM! vvvvvvrrrrrooooOOOMMMM!

  “Let my friends go,” I screamed. “Or I’ll destroy
your ship and everything in it.”

  The tentacles waved wildly.

  “Way to go!” screamed Jessie, waving a fist in the air.

  “Yeah!” Frasier responded slightly less enthusiastically.

  “LET THEM GO NOW!” I hollered.

  Still the tentacles only writhed uncertainly.

  Furious, I banged the heel of my hand on the switch.

  VVVVVRRRRRROOOOOOOM!

  The pink blob dropped Jessie and retracted its tentacle like a rubber band. The blob itself began to retreat back into its chamber.

  I had to push the switch one more time before the dark blob released Frasier.

  Then both of them ran to me and climbed to lower parts of the pilot’s “chair.”

  “That was so cool,” said Jessie, grinning.

  “Yeah, Nick,” said Frasier, reaching up to slap me five. “I thought I was blob food.”

  I looked toward the dark blob. It was boiling and pulsing light and belching out fog. Tentacles kept popping out and retreating, like it was having trouble controlling itself. It looked mad.

  “We’re not out of this yet,” I told them. “We still don’t have a way out of here.”

  “Maybe you should push that switch again,” suggested Frasier eagerly. “Tell them to open the tunnel.”

  “I don’t know that I could get them to understand,” I said. “Besides, now that you guys are safe, I don’t really want to take any more chances on blowing this thing up.”

  “But I found a way out,” said Jessie. “Right before Nick opened the door to that pink one and everything started happening. I never got a chance to show it to you. Over there.”

  She pointed to what looked like a shadow on the smooth wall.

  “It’s a crack,” Jessie explained. “It goes through to the outside. I felt regular earth dirt when I put my arm through.”

  “Wow,” said Frasier. “That must be one of the places that got damaged in the landing. Wonder why they didn’t melt it over?”

  Jessie shrugged. Frasier didn’t really expect an answer.

  “Now all we have to do is get there,” I said.

  They looked up at me questioningly.