Draculas

by J. A. Konrath

  "Yeah, you're right. It says, 'Do Not Try This at Home. Use Only Under Expert Supervision or You'll Be Really, Really, Really Sorry.' Better not mess with that."

  "Oh, yeah?" Mick the Mick had had it--really had it. Up. To. Here. He opened to a random page and read. "'Random Dislocation Spell.' "

  Willie winced. "Not my shoulder!"

  " 'Use only under expert supervision.' Yeah, right. Look, it's got a bunch of gobbledygook to read."

  "You mean like 'Mekka-lekka hi--?"

  "Shaddap and I'll show you what bullshit this is."

  Mick the Mick started reading, pronouncing the gobbledygook as best he could, going slow and easy so he didn't screw up the words like he normally did when he read.

  When he finished he looked at Willie and grinned. "See? No random dislocation."

  Willie rolled his shoulder. "Yeah. Feels pretty good. I wonder--"

  The smell hit Mick the Mick first, hot and overpowering, reminding him of that time he stuck his head in the toilet because his older brother told him that's where brownies came from. It was followed by the very real sensation of being squeezed. But not squeezed by a person. Squeezed all over by some sort of full-body force like being pushed through a too-small opening. The air suddenly became squishy and solid and pressed into every crack and pore on Mick the Mick's body, and then it undulated, moving him, pushing him, through the solid marble floor of the Arkham Pennsylvania Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards.

  The very fabric of reality, or something like that, seemed to vibrate with a deep resonance, and the timbre rose to become an overpowering, guttural groan. The floor began to dissolve, or maybe he began to dissolve, and then came a horrible yet compelling farting sound and Mick the Mick was suddenly plopped into the middle of a jungle.

  Willie landed next to him.

  "I feel like shit," Willie said.

  Mick the Mick squinted in the sunlight and looked around. They were surrounded by strange, tropical trees and weird looking flowers with big fat pink petals that made him feel sort of horny. A dragonfly the size of a bratwurst hovered over their heads, gave them a passing glance, then buzzed over to one of the pink flowers, which snapped open and bit the bug in half.

  "Where are we, Mick?"

  Mick the Mick scratched his head. "I'm not sure. But I think when I read that book I opened a portal in the space-time continuum and we were squeezed through one of the eleven imploded dimensions into the late Cretaceous Period."

  "Wow. That sucks."

  "No, Willie. It doesn't suck at all."

  "Yeah it does. The season finale of MacGyver: The Next Generation is on tonight. It's a really cool episode where he builds a time machine out of some pocket lint and a broken meat thermometer. Wouldn't it be cool to have a time machine, Mick?"

  Mick the Mick slapped Willie on the side of his head.

  "Jesus, Mick! You know I got swimmer's ear!"

  "Don't you get it, Willie? This book is a time machine. We can go back in time!"

  Willie got wide-eyed. "I get it! We can get back to the present a few minutes early so I won't miss MacGyver!"

  Mick the Mick considered hitting him again, but his hand was getting sore.

  "Think bigger than MacGyver, Willie. We're going to be rich. Rich and famous and powerful. Once I figure out how this book works we'll be able to go to any point in history."

  "You mean like we go back to summer camp in nineteen seventy-five? Then we could steal the candy from those counselors so they couldn't lure us into the woods and touch us in the bad place."

  "Even better, Willie. We can bet on sports and always win. Like that movie."

  "Which one?"

  "The one where he went to the past and bet on sports so he could always win."

  "The Godfather?"

  "No, Willie. The Godfather was the one with the fat guy who slept with horse heads."

  "Oh yeah. Hey Mick, don't you think those big pink flowers look like...

  "Shut your stupid hole, Willie. I gotta think."

  Mick the Mick racked his brain, but he was never into sports, and he couldn't think of a single team that won anything. Plus, he didn't have any money on him. It would take a long time to parlay the eighty-one cents in his pocket into sixty grand. But there had to be other ways to make money with a time machine. Probably.

  He glanced at Willie, who was walking toward one of those pink flowers, leaning in to sniff it. Or perhaps do something else with it, because Willie's tongue was out.

  "Willie! Get away from that thing and try to focus! We need to figure out how to make some money."

  "It smells like fish, Mick."

  "Dammit, Willie! Did you take your medicine this morning like you're supposed to?"

  "I can't remember. Nana says I need a stronger subscription. But every time I go to the doctor to get one I get distracted and forget to ask."

  Mick the Mick scratched himself. Another dragonfly--this one shaped like a banana wearing a turtleneck--flew up to one of those pink flowers and was bitten in half too. Damn, those bugs were stupid. They just didn't learn.

  Mick the Mick scratched himself again, wondering if the crabs were back. If they were, it made him really angry. When you paid fifty bucks for a massage at Madame Yoko's, the happy ending should be crab-free.

  Willie said, "Maybe we can go back to the time when Nate the Nose was a little boy, and then we could be real nice to him so when he grew up he would remember us and wouldn't make us eat our junk."

  Or we could push his stroller into traffic, Mick the Mick thought.

  But Nate the Nose had bosses, and they probably had bosses too, and traveling through time to push a bunch of babies in front of moving cars seemed like a lot of work.

  "Money, Willie. We need to make money."

  "We could buy old stuff in the past then sell it on eBay. Hey, wouldn't it be cool to have four hands? I mean, you could touch twice as much stuff."

  Mick the Mick thought about those old comics in Willie's basement, and then he grinned wider than a zebra's ass.

  "Like Action Comics #1, which had the first appearance of Superman!" Mick the Mick said. "I could buy it with the change in my pocket, and we can sell it for a fortune!"

  Come to think of it, he could buy eight copies. Didn't they go for a million a piece these days?

  "I wish I could fly, Mick. Could we go back into time and learn to fly like Superman? Then we could have flown away from those camp counselors before they stuck their..."

  "Shh!" Mick the Mick tilted his head to the side, listening to the jungle. "You hear something, Willie?"

  "Yeah, Mick. I hear you talkin' to me. Now I hear me talkin'. Now I'm singing a sooooong, a haaaaaaaaappy soooooong."

  Mick the Mick gave Willie a smack in the teeth, then locked his eyes on the treeline. In the distance the canopy rustled and parted, like something really big was walking toward them. Something so big the ground shook with every step.

  "You hear that, Mick? Sounds like something really big is coming."

  A deafening roar from the thing in the trees, so horrible Mick the Mick could feel his curlies straighten.

  "Think it's friendly?" Willie asked.

  Mick the Mick stared down at his hands, which still held the Really, Really, Really Old Ones book. He flipped it open to a random page, forcing himself to concentrate on the words. But, as often happened in stressful situation, or even situations not all that stressful, the words seemed to twist and mash up and go backward and upside-down. Goddamn lesdyxia--shit--dyslexia.

  "Maybe we should run, Mick."

  "Yeah, maybe...wait! No! We can't run!"

  "Why can't we run, Mick?"

  "Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer went back in time and stepped on a butterfly and then Bart cut off his head with some hedge clippers?"

  "That's two different episodes, Mick. They're both Treehouse of Horror episodes, but from different years."

  "Look, Willie, the point is, evolution is a rea
lly fickle bitch. If we screw up something in the past it can really mess up the future."

  "That sucks. You mean we would get back to our real time but instead of being made of skin and bones we're made entirely out of fruit? Like some kind of juicy fruit people?"

  Another growl, even closer. It sounded like a lion's roar--if the lion had balls the size of Chryslers.

  "I mean really bad stuff, Willie. I gotta read another passage and get us out of here."

  The trees parted, and a shadow began to force itself into view.

  "Hey, Mick, if you were made of fruit, would you take a bite of your own arm if you were really super hungry? I think I would. I wonder what I'd taste like?"

  Mick the Mick tried to concentrate on reading the page, but his gaze kept flicking up to the trees. The prehistoric landscape lapsed into deadly silence. Then, like some giant monster coming out of the jungle, a giant monster came out of the jungle.

  The head appeared first, the size of a sofa--a really big sofa--with teeth the size of daggers crammed into a mouth large enough to tear a refrigerator in half.

  "I think I'd take a few bites out of my leg or something, but I'd be afraid because I don't know if I could stop. Especially if I tasted like strawberries, because I love strawberries, Mick. Why are they called strawberries when they don't taste like straw? Hey, is that a T-Rex?"

  Now Mick the Mick pee-peed more than just a little. The creature before them was a deep green color, blending seamlessly into the undergrowth. Rather than scales, it was adorned with small, prickly hairs that Mick the Mick realized were thin brown feathers. Its huge nostrils flared and it snorted, causing the book's pages to ripple.

  "I really think we should run, Mick."

  Mick the Mick agreed. The Tyrannosaur stepped into the clearing on massive legs and reared up to its full height, over forty feet tall. Mick the Mick knew he couldn't outrun it. But he didn't have to. He only had to outrun Willie. He felt bad, but he had no other choice. He had to trick his best friend if he wanted to survive.

  "The T-Rex has really bad vision, Willie. If you stay very still, it won't be able to---Willie, come back!"

  Willie had broken for the trees, moving so fast he was a blur. Mick the Mick tore after him, swatting dragonflies out of the way as he ran. Underfoot he trampled on a large brown roach, a three-toed lizard with big dewy eyes and a disproportionately large brain, and a small furry mammal with a face that looked a lot like Sal from Manny's Meats on 23rd street, which gave a disturbingly human-like cry when its little neck snapped.

  Behind them, the T-Rex moved with the speed of a giant two-legged cat shaped like a dinosaur, snapping teeth so close to Mick the Mick that they nipped the eighteen trailing hairs of his comb-over. He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the mouth of the animal open so wide that Mick the Mick could set up a table for four on the creature's tongue and play Texas Hold 'em, not that he would, because that would be fucking stupid.

  Then, just as the death jaws of death were ready to close on Mick the Mick and cause terminal death, the T-Rex skidded to a halt and craned its neck skyward, peering up through the trees.

  Mick the Mick continued to sprint, stepping on a family of small furry rodents who looked a lot like the Capporellis up in 5B--so much so that he swore one even said "Fronzo!" when he broke its little furry spine--and then he smacked smack into Willie, who was standing still and staring up.

  "Willie! What the hell are you doing? We gotta move!"

  "Why, Mick? We're not being chased anymore."

  Mick looked back and noticed that, indeed, the thunder lizard had abandoned its pursuit, focusing instead on the sky.

  "I think it's looking at the asteroid," Willie said.

  Mick the Mick shot a look upward and stared at the very large flaming object that seemed to take up a quarter of the sky.

  "I don't think it was there a minute ago," Willie said. "I don't pay good attention but I think I woulda noticed it, don't you think?"

  "This ain't good. This ain't no good at all."

  "Look how big it's getting, Mick! We should hide behind some trees or something."

  "We gotta get out of here, Willie." Mick the Mick said, his voice high-pitched and uncomfortably girlish.

  "Feel that wind, Mick? It's hot. I bet that thing is going a hundred miles an hour. Do you feel it?"

  "I feel it! I feel it!"

  "Do you smell fish, Mick? Hey, look! Those pink flowers that look like--"

  Willie screamed. Mick the Mick glanced over and saw his lifelong friend was playing tug of war with one of those toothy prehistoric plants, using a long red rope.

  No. Not a red rope. Those were Willie's intestines.

  "Help me, Mick!"

  Without thinking, Mick the Mick reached out a hand and grabbed Willie's duodenum. He squeezed, tight as he could, and Willie farted.

  "It hurts, Mick! Being disemboweled hurts!"

  A bone-shaking roar, from behind them. The T-Rex had lost interest in the asteroid and was sniffing at the newly spilled blood, his sofa-sized head only a few meters away and getting closer. Mick the Mick could smell its breath, reeking of rotten meat and bad oral hygiene and dooky.

  No, the dooky was coming from Willie. Pouring out like brown shaving cream.

  Mick the Mick released his friend's innards and wiped his hand on Willie's shirt. The pink flower made a pbbbthh sound and did the same, without the wiping the hand part.

  "I gotta put this stuff back in." Willie began scooping up guts and twigs and rocks and shoving them into the gaping hole in his belly.

  Mick the Mick figured Willie was in shock, or perhaps even stupider than he'd originally surmised. He considered warning Willie about the infection he'd get from filling himself with dirt, but there were other, more pressing, matters at hand.

  The asteroid now took up most of the horizon, and the heat from it turned the sweat on Mick the Mick's body into steam. They needed to get out of here, and fast. If only there was someplace to hide.

  Something scurried over Mick the Mick's foot and he flinched, stomping down. Crushed under his heel was something that looked like a beaver. The animal kind. Another proto-beaver beelined around its dead companion, heading through the underbrush into...

  "It's a hole, Willie! I think it's a cave!"

  Mick the Mick pushed aside a large fern branch and squatted down. The hole led to a diagonalish path, dark and rocky, deep down into the earth.

  "It's a hole, Willie! I think it's a cave!"

  "You said that, Mick!"

  "That's an echo, Willie! Hole must go down deep."

  Mick the Mick watched as two more lizards, a giant mosquito, and more beaver things poured into the cave, escaping the certain extinction the asteroid promised.

  "That's an echo, Willie! Hole must go down deep."

  "You're repeating yourself, Mick!"

  "I'm not repeating myself!" Mick yelled.

  "Yes you are!"

  "No I'm not!"

  "I'm not repeating myself!"

  "Yes you are!"

  "No I'm not!"

  "You just did!"

  "I'm not, Willie!"

  "I'm hurt bad, Mick!"

  "I'm not, Willie!"

  "I said I'm hurt, Mick! Not you!"

  Mick the Mick decided not to pursue this line of conversation anymore. Instead, he focused on moving the big outcropping of rock partially obscuring the cave's entrance. If he could budge it just a foot or two, he could fit into the cave and maybe save himself.

  Mick the Mick put his shoulder to the boulder, grunting with effort. Slowly, antagonizingly slowly, it began to move.

  "You got your cell phone, Mick? You should maybe call 911 for me. Tell them to bring some stitches."

  Just a little more. A little bit more...

  "I think my stomach just fell out. What's a stomach look like, Mick? This looks like a kidney bean."

  Finally, the rock broke away from the base with a satisfying crack. But rather than rolling to
the side, it teetered, and then dropped down over the hole, sealing it like a manhole cover.

  Mick the Mick began to cry.

  "Do kidneys look like kidney beans, Mick?" Willie made a smacking sound. "Doesn't taste like beans. Or kidneys. Hey, the T-Rex is back. He doesn't look distracted no more. You think he took is medication?"

  The T-Rex opened its mouth and reared up over Mick the Mick's head, blotting out the sky. All Mick the Mick could see was teeth and tongue and that big dangly thing that hangs in the back of the throat like a punching bag.