Doorbells at Dusk

by Josh Malerman

  Mr. Impossible turned and asked me, “Want one?”

  “Why not?”

  He poured another shot, and I drained it in two gulps. I wanted to savor it. The shit was delicious. Not go-into-debt-to-drink-it delicious, but damn good.

  “That’s some fine, fine shit,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mr. Impossible said. “It’s great to see you guys. Let’s get high.”

  And with that we started in with the small talk and caught up on where we worked or didn’t work, where Mr. Impossible went on vacation, music, and movies, and other sundry bullshit. Mr. Impossible rolled a giant joint using two rolling papers. He took his sweet time lighting it up, and Monkey kept his eyes trained on that thing like a dog waiting for a Bacon Chewz.

  Mr. Impossible noticed this and handed the joint to me first just to mess with the Monkey.

  I took my time with it, too, even made a conscious effort to strike up a conversation while holding the burning thing in my hand. “Hey, Mr. Impossible, you know anything about Captain Crowbar?”

  “Huh?” Mr. Impossible said.

  I poked the joint toward Monkey but didn’t hand it to him—a real asshole move, I know—and said, “Steve says it’s some kind of Saturday morning cartoon.”

  “Kids don’t watch cartoons on Saturday mornings anymore,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “When do they watch them then?” I asked.

  “Anytime they want,” Chapman chimed in.

  “Captain Crowbar?” Mr. Impossible drummed his fingers on the bar top and looked up and to the right, biting his lip. He shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s Kid Crowbar,” Chapman said.

  I turned to Chapman. “Oh, you know what it is?”

  Chapman shrugged. This style of shrug said ‘yes.’

  “What’s it about?” I asked.

  “Can I get a hit off that?” Monkey asked, pointing to the joint still blazing in my hand.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry.” I handed it over, then turned back to Chapman. “So, what’s it about?”

  “Kid Crowbar?” Chapman said, his fingers pinching on his phone’s screen. I was too far away to see what he was looking at.

  “Yeah, what’s the deal? We saw a kid dressed like him, going absolutely batshit.”

  “The show’s set in a future totalitarian state,” Chapman said, “and all the adults are corrupt. The only good people left are the kids. Kid Crowbar’s a freedom fighter who leads a band of rebels. They mainly fight corrupt super cops.”

  “Super cops?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Another shrug. “The super cops have all kinds of high-tech gadgets and shit, and they’re always giving some kid the beat-down.”

  “And you watch that?” Mr. Impossible asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Chapman said. “Not anymore. Betsy and Billy do though.”

  “Hmmm,” Mr. Impossible said. The ‘hmmm’ meant that he’d have to see about that.

  “Where are Betsy and Billy?” Monkey asked.

  “They’re out making the rounds with Sandy.”

  “Ah,” Monkey said.

  “So, what happened with this Kid Crowbar kid?” Mr. Impossible asked.

  Monkey relayed the story.

  “What the hell?” Mr. Impossible said. “That’s crazy? He actually jumped up on the car and whacked the cop in the head with the crowbar?”

  “It was plastic,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Monkey said.

  “Still.” Mr. Impossible looked very concerned about this. “Now tell me again, what happened to your head?” He gestured at Monkey with the joint and Monkey almost grabbed it.

  Monkey retold the story about the kids chasing each other across the crowd, this time with more details and embellishments.

  “That sounds like Jackie Saturn and Kill Machine,” Chapman said.

  “I’m out of the loop when it comes to cartoons, I guess,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “I’ve heard of them,” Monkey said. “But I didn’t know these kids were supposed to be them. And I didn’t give a shit.”

  “Yeah.” Chapman lit up his own joint and took a drag. “They’re sworn enemies,” he said as he exhaled. “And they’re not from a cartoon. They’re from a live-action movie.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Impossible said. “God, I’m getting old.”

  “Magmanauts,” Chapman said. “It looks cheap as shit, but it’s popular as fuck.”

  “Watch that mouth,” Mr. Impossible said, with zero conviction.

  Chapman ignored him.

  Something was bothering Mr. Impossible, and it wasn’t his teenage son cussing and smoking a joint in his presence.

  “I’ve never even heard of that,” I said. “It’s a movie for kids?”

  “Sort of. Not really. It’s PG-13, but the comic it was based on was for adults. Allegedly. Well, adults that are fat creepy guys.” Chapman snickered.

  Monkey turned to him and held out the joint. “Don’t you want some of this?”

  Chapman shook his head and took a hit off his own joint. “Germs, man.”

  “Kids today don’t pass joints around,” Mr. Impossible said. “They all smoke their own. They say it’s unsanitary.”

  Monkey and I didn’t have a thing to say about that.

  We made it through about half of the giant hog leg before we had to quit. Mr. Impossible pinched it out and slipped it into a sandwich baggie. He reached under the counter into a mini-fridge and pulled out a Hippo IPA—the expensive shit. He took a swig and said, “Preventive measure.” He winked. “For the cottonmouth.”

  Monkey cracked open a beer. I poured my cheap bourbon over ice, and we took a moment of silence to drink and to gauge how high the weed had gotten us.

  Then Monkey said, “Shit!” He pointed at Mr. Impossible. “I forget to tell you about the kid who got his nose bitten off!”

  “What?” Mr. Impossible said.

  “Yeah, what?” I said. I didn’t see any kid get his nose bitten off. “What are you talking about?”

  “The army man,” Monkey said.

  “What army man?”

  “The kid dressed up as an army man. You saw him. In the street, blood pouring out of his face.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about. He wasn’t missing a nose.”

  “The fuck he wasn’t. That little zombie girl bit that shit clean off. I saw her spit it into the street.”

  “Bullshit,” I said, but I had a feeling Monkey was telling the truth as he saw it.

  “Yeah,” Mr. Impossible said, “that sounds pretty unbelievable.” He took a long draw from his beer, set it down on the bar, and stared at his son.

  Chapman turned to meet his dad’s glare and laughed.

  “What’s so funny, Chapman?” Mr. Impossible asked.

  Chapman tried to suppress his laughter, but failed. His was the loud, sinister laughter of one guilty son-of-a-bitch.

  “What did you do?” Mr. Impossible asked.

  “Nothing.” Chapman stopped laughing long enough to take another puff. “Nothing at all, Pops.”

  Mr. Impossible took another swig of beer. “Tell me what you did. Now.”

  “Well,” Chapman took a long drag off his joint, by this time a fat roach glistening with black resin, “I may have injected some buckeyes with a little bit of the spirit of Halloween.” He sniggered like the devil and coughed out a cloud of smoke.

  “What’s he talking about?” Monkey asked.

  I looked to Mr. Impossible for an answer.

  “Unacceptable,” Mr. Impossible said. “Unacceptable.” He came out from behind the bar, clenched his fists, but didn’t approach his son. He kept his head down and tried to control his breathing. His rage. “How many?”

  “Hmmm. Let me think.” Chapman touched his chin and rolled his eyes. “All of them.”

  “This is bad,” Mr. Impossible said. “Very bad.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Monkey aske
d.

  “What did Chapman inject the buckeyes with?” I asked.

  “Larpinol,” Mr. Impossible said. “It’s a side project of mine.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Monkey said. “You told me about that. I even read something on the web about it.”

  “Yeah,” Mr. Impossible said. “It’s been getting some attention. The FDA is involved, and it’s getting a little hairy. But until they close a couple loopholes, I could still sell it with no worries.” He looked at his son. “Until now.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s controversial because a couple of big shot actors are taking it, right?” Monkey asked.

  “Right,” Mr. Impossible said. “People are claiming unfair advantage. They’re calling it steroids for movie stars. Method acting in a pill. It’s not illegal.” He looked at Chapman again. “Yet. So there is nothing unfair about it. Anyone can order it from the website.”

  “I’m still not getting it,” I said.

  “Larpinol is a chemical compound I put together, a drug which helps an actor get into character. It stimulates centers in the brain that naturally light up when a person gets into costume. Or dons a particular accessory. Like a mask. Take glasses for instance. You may have read about this one study—it’s pretty well-known—which shows that people perform better on tests when wearing eyeglasses. Not corrective lenses. Just clear glass. It’s the associative power of the artifact that sets the mind, frames it, and enhances the performance. Our cultural notions about people who wear glasses are all tied up in it. But you get the picture. Larpinol enhances that effect.”

  “How?” I asked.

  Mr. Impossible glared at me. This glare said ‘I’m not going to waste time explaining the science to someone who will not understand it.’

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Yeah, don’t tell me how it works. So, the problem is that some kids may have already eaten these buckeyes, and they’ll be pretending really hard that they are whatever it is they’ve dressed up as for Halloween?”

  “Probably not,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “What do you mean?” Monkey asked.

  “Obviously, I never tested the stuff on children,” Mr. Impossible said. “But my guess is that it’d go beyond just pretending really hard. I’d say any kid who’s ingested Larpinol would completely and totally believe they are whatever they are dressed as. With absolute conviction. Children don’t have the same wall adults have built up between fantasy and reality. Larpinol helps the geeks reenacting the Civil War really, really get deep into it, but they still know they’re pretending. I don’t think kids will.”

  “Shit,” Monkey said.

  “Plus,” Mr. Impossible said, “overdosing could be a problem. It’s not like kids eat just one piece of candy.”

  “Aren’t kids supposed to be waiting to get home to have their folks inspect their candy?” I asked.

  Both Mr. Impossible and Monkey glared at me.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said.

  “Besides,” Mr. Impossible said, “these buckeyes are a tradition. The parents all know who makes them. They’ll be letting the kids eat them without a problem.”

  “Shit,” Monkey said.

  “Shit, is right,” Mr. Impossible said and stormed out of the room.

  Chapman smiled down at the new joint he was building.

  I couldn’t believe the kid thought this was funny.

  “This is totally fucked up,” Monkey started pacing. “I need a smoke.”

  “You quit,” I reminded him.

  “This is a special occasion. Can you bum me one?”

  “Sure.”

  “You guys can’t smoke in here,” Chapman said. “Cigarettes.”

  Monkey and I both knew that, so we ignored him. But before we could head outside for a smoke, Mr. Impossible stomped back into the room, holding a wooden case about the size of a cigar box. He rushed around to the back of the bar, set the case down, and fixed himself a stiff drink. Gainsail Black on the rocks. A double. He slugged it and slammed down the highball glass. Hard.

  We all jumped.

  He then fished around in his front pants pockets and produced a key chain with a single key on it. He unlocked the wooden case.

  Monkey and I both stepped back when we saw what was inside.

  “We’ve got to take care of this problem,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “With a gun?” Monkey asked.

  “No, I’m not going to run around shooting doped-up kids,” Mr. Impossible said. “It’s not like they’ve transformed into zombies. They’ll come down. Eventually. I think.”

  “What’s the gun for?” I asked.

  “It’s a tranquilizer gun,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “Dad?” Chapman said. His voice cracked.

  “Sandy wouldn’t let me keep a real gun in the house,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “Dude,” Monkey said, “you can’t run around shooting other people’s kids with a tranquilizer gun, either.”

  “I don’t plan to.” Mr. Impossible picked up the gun, aimed it at Chapman, and squeezed the trigger. “Not other people’s kids.”

  I jumped, ducked, and when I looked up, I saw a tiny dart poking out of the side of Chapman’s neck.

  “Dad?” Chapman said again in a strangled voice. His eyes went wide, and he slid out of his chair and under the table, out cold.

  “Fuck!” Monkey said. “What the fuck?”

  Mr. Impossible waved the gun dismissively. “He’ll be all right.”

  Monkey had both hands on his head, pacing back and forth, and he kept saying, “Fuck.”

  “Settle down, Steve,” Mr. Impossible said. “He’ll be fine.”

  “What about Sandy?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to shoot her,” Mr. Impossible said.

  “No,” I said. “Won’t she be pissed when she finds out you shot your kid with a tranquilizer dart?”

  “She’ll be more pissed about the Larpinol,” Mr. Impossible said. “I might be a bachelor here real soon, fellas. Now, help me get Chapman on the couch.”

  Monkey didn’t seem to have heard this exchange. He poured himself a stiff drink and gulped it while Mr. Impossible and I grabbed Chapman by his wrists and ankles and flung him onto the couch.

  When the deed was done, Mr. Impossible clapped his hands together like he’d just finished digging a grave and said, “All right. Let’s get out there and warn folks about the buckeyes. They have a PA system we use for announcements. Raffle winners and shit like that.”

  “I need a smoke,” Monkey said.

  Then the world exploded.

  We dropped to the floor.

  Outside it sounded like a war zone, like bombs going off, and a hundred people had decided to just start shooting guns at one another. Women and children screamed, and I heard things bursting into flames and heavy things falling and crashing into other things and busting them up.

  The window over the pool table shattered, and the room filled with smoke and sparks and a deafening roar.

  I think I was knocked unconscious for a second, maybe longer, because when I woke up I heard a loud hissing noise. Mr. Impossible ran around the room, spraying a fire extinguisher. I didn’t remember him grabbing it, and it looked like he’d been spraying the thing for a while.

  All the bottles behind the bar were shattered. The bar itself was charred. All the movie and sports posters on the walls were burnt away or smoldering. The card table that Chapman had been sitting at was gone. The folding chairs were twisted scraps of blackened metal.

  If Mr. Impossible hadn’t shot his son with the tranquilizer dart and moved him to the couch, he would have died in the explosion.

  Monkey was on the ground, kneeling, with his hands over his head, like he was in a tornado drill, repeating the phrase, “What the fuck?” over and over again.

  “Shut up, Monkey!” Mr. Impossible said as he continued to put out fires. “Please, shut the fuck up!”

  I got to my feet, held on to a wall for balanc
e, and asked, “What the hell just happened?”

  “Someone set off the fireworks early,” Mr. Impossible said. “After aiming them all into the fucking neighborhood first.”

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  Monkey removed his hands from his head and sat back on his haunches. “Who the fuck would do that?”

  “Who do you think?” Mr. Impossible threw the fire extinguisher down. All the flames had been put out, but it was still hard to see, to breathe, through the smoke.

  “Kids,” I said. “Crazy fucking kids.”

  Mr. Impossible ran from the room, and I heard him leaping down the stairs like a madman.

  “Where’d he go?” Monkey asked.

  “His kids are out there with Sandy,” I said.

  “Shit,” Monkey said and jumped to his feet.

  A second later we were running down the stairs like madmen, too.

  When Monkey and I made it out of the house, Mr. Impossible was nowhere in sight, and the block was on fire. Fireworks exploded in the night sky. We saw blood in the street. Shattered windows blighted cars and houses. A scarecrow burned face down on the neighbor’s lawn. People, the grown-ups, screamed in pain, screamed for missing loved ones.

  Across the street, a group of kids dressed in sci-fi combat body armor moved like a trained military unit. It would have been cute as hell if it hadn’t been so damn scary.

  A mob ran back and forth between us and the space marines.

  A dog bit a woman dressed like a gypsy.

  A girl dressed like a koala bear scurried up a light post and perched on its lamp.

  Another Kid Crowbar took down an old lady by smashing his crowbar into the backs of her legs. Then he turned and swiped at an EMT—it wasn’t a costume—and the guy was quick, which was good, because the crowbar smashed through the passenger side window of an economy-size car.

  I elbowed Monkey and pointed to the Kid. “Watch out. That one’s got a real crowbar.”

  “Oh, shit,” Monkey said. “Let’s go.” He jumped off the porch and raced down the sidewalk.

  I took off after him.

  We ran past parents hugging kids as the little ones kicked, screamed, and struggled to break free of their embrace.

  We found costumed children on the ground, unconscious. Monkey made us stop to make sure none of them were dead.

  Not like I didn’t want to.