Black & White Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  “Grym, I yelled again. Look!”

  Just then, the downed projectile lifted his oversized head, pointed ears twitching with delight, and yelled, “Again!”

  Grym forgot about the pan and Mr. Aberdeen and looked across the room just as Hobs spotted me and shoved to his feet, running into my arms with a delighted cackle.

  “Miss, you came!”

  “Of course I came. I couldn’t leave you in this place. I’d miss you too much.” I tapped the end of his nose. “Besides, Sebille is devastated without you.” I kissed him on a plump, soft cheek and pulled him in for a hug, enjoying his familiar frosted brownie scent.

  “I thought I’d never see you again, Miss,” he said, nestling his head against my shoulder.

  Tears burned my eyes. I took a shuddering breath and…

  Clanggggggg!

  Turned just in time to see Grym folding toward the couch cushions from the application of a frying pan to the temple.

  “Again!” shrieked the hobgoblin joyfully, earning a repressive glower from me.

  Grym held the towel against his head, occasionally adjusting it to place the ice cubes that were wrapped in the thin cloth in a more strategic spot on the giant goose egg he sported there.

  “Sorry about that, sonny,” said the old man. “Me and the kid was just playin’ a game. I mighta gotten a bit worked up.”

  The kid in question chuckled happily and stuffed a chunk of pie into his mouth, his cheeks covered in more filling than the slice he was finishing off. I was glad I’d brought the never-ending slice of pie plate with me. Hobs was characteristically hungry.

  “The kid was havin’ fun,” Aberdeen said, shrugging. “I figured there weren’t no harm.”

  “Hobs might not be the best barometer for that,” I told Aberdeen. “He’s into self-sabotage in a big way.”

  “Self what now?”

  “He thinks it’s fun to pretend he’s Wile E. Coyote,” Grym said, fixing the hobgoblin with a less-than-friendly look. “And apparently he thinks its fun to watch me take a frying pan to the head too.”

  Hobs grabbed another chunk of pie from the pretty china plate and grinned, totally without remorse.

  “I don’t know nothin’ about that,” Aberdeen said. He fixed an affectionate look on Hobs. “But he sure is a fun little guy.”

  Remembering the crotchety old man Polly the oversexed neighbor had described, I had trouble picturing Aberdeen joining in Hobs’ questionable games. But I’d seen it with my own eyes, hadn’t I?

  I forked up a bite of the pie in front of me and chewed it slowly, thinking about how best to broach the subject of our visit. While I was beyond relieved to find Hobs, we were still missing two friends.

  Grym beat me to it. “Your neighbor said she’d seen a cat that looked like hers at your house. Do you, by any chance, have a gray cat with dark eyes?”

  Okay, not exactly what Lea had said, but close enough, and it should get us where we needed to go.

  “Nope.”

  Or not.

  “But the kid has one.”

  As the meaning of his words sank deep, something that had wrung tight and ugly through my belly slowly untangled. I suddenly found it easier to take a deep breath. I looked at Hobs. “Wicked’s here with you?”

  “Yes, Miss. He’s looking.”

  I frowned. “Looking? For what? For Slimy?”

  “Who’s Slimy?” Aberdeen asked, plucking pie from the scraggly beard covering his chin.

  “Um…another…kid,” I finally said.

  “That’s an odd name for a kid,” Aberdeen said, looking disgusted.

  “He’s an odd kid,” Grym said, his lips twitching.

  Aberdeen shrugged.

  I watched him for a moment, something about the man bothering me.

  “Do you know where Slimy is, Hobs?” Grym asked.

  “Swimming,” Hobs said, throwing a strange glance at Aberdeen. Though it would be totally out of character for Hobs to show restraint over any situation, I couldn’t help feeling as if he was trying not to say too much in front of the elderly man.

  The room around us darkened suddenly. I turned to look out the large window overlooking the front yard and spotted the cause. The sky had gone from the pale gray of what would probably be blue if we weren’t in a black and white world, to a charcoal gray that was almost black.

  “What’s happening?” Grym asked as Aberdeen visibly tensed.

  The old man surged to his feet. “Dagnabbit!” He hurried out of the room and disappeared down the hallway.

  Hobs jumped up. “It’s coming,” the hobgoblin said as he grabbed another slice of pie and shot toward the front door, his form a pale blur on the air.

  Grym and I were right behind him. By the time we hit the sidewalk at the front of the house, the entire neighborhood was filled with people, every small porch holding two to four people, men and women, young and old.

  But nobody spoke. Everyone just stood on their stoops and stared up at the darkening sky.

  Grym and I moved out into the yard so we could see better. I realized there was no scent of ozone in the air. No moisture. No thunder or lightning in the distance.

  The sky above wasn’t filled with storm clouds and there was no wind to herald a coming storm. The air was almost too still.

  “This isn’t a storm,” Grym said, his handsome face dark with worry.

  “Where did Hobs go?” I asked, glancing around.

  “No idea.”

  I turned to find Polly a couple of houses down, standing in the yard like we were and staring toward the sky. “Polly! Did you see a little guy with a piece of pie run through here?”

  She didn’t move. Didn’t turn her head. It was as if she didn’t even hear me speak, though I was sure I’d shouted the question plenty loud enough. I scanned another look at the other people on the street. None of them had moved.

  They all appeared mesmerized by whatever was boiling above our heads.

  Except for one little boy, who stood a few feet away from the family directly across the street. He was staring at us instead of the sky, his tiny hands shoved into his pockets and a messy fringe of hair falling into his eyes.

  Grym’s voice pulled my attention back to the sky. “Something’s happening,” he said.

  He was right. A circular spot had formed at the center of the darkness. It was enormous, encircling most of the street where we stood, and abyss-level black.

  The eerie black circle was spinning, like a vortex, the occasional lighter wisp threading through it highlighting the speed at which it spun. The horizon began to twist, the upper corners folding inward and the center rippling, as it seemed to be sucked up into the spinning sky.

  The ground beneath my feet jerked suddenly, sending me to the ground as if a rug had been yanked out from under me.

  Grym managed to keep his feet but barely. He crouched beside me to widen his base of support.

  “What in the world is going on?” I asked, my hands clenching the grass beneath them.

  “I don’t know, Naida. But whatever it is, I don’t like the look of it.”

  “Do you think it knows we’re here?”

  The horizon was still narrowing. The distant ground lifted toward the sky, rising into the vortex as if the maelstrom were a giant vacuum cleaner sucking it up. Around us, the homes started to creak and groan as the ground beneath them shifted.

  Terror clawed its way down my spine and sent my blood roaring through my ears. “Grym!” I shoved upright, ready to run but having no idea where I could go. We were in the grip of a power so much stronger than any of us. An evil force unlike anything we’d ever faced.

  And I felt helpless against it.

  Aberdeen’s door slammed open and he flew out of the house, a double-barreled shotgun clutched in his bony hands. He was still wearing only his underclothes and his longish gray hair flew around his head with abandon as he jerked to a stop in the middle of the yard and aimed the gun toward the sky. “You’re not gonn
a take me alive, ya rottin’ varmint!” he screamed, and then he racked the big gun and let ’er rip toward the boiling sky.

  Boom!

  The sound hit my ears like a fist and I covered them, ducking my head as if he were shooting at me.

  Rack…Boom!

  It slammed into my brain, making my head feel like 100 tiny soldiers wearing golf cleats were dancing over it.

  Rack…Boom!

  Something shifted in the center of the vortex. I grabbed Grym’s arm, intending to warn him that something was changing, and the center blinked open.

  A jolt of lightning speared from the center and shot downward, heading right for Mr. Aberdeen.

  Grym’s muscled arm tore from my grasp and he threw himself sideways, smacking into the old man just as the shotgun went off again.

  “No!” I screamed.

  The thick beam of sizzling electricity slammed into the ground where Aberdeen had been, ripping an eight-inch-wide hole in the grass that sent dirt and grass spraying.

  A heavy clump of dirt hit me in the face, slamming into my nose in a painful blow. I went down under the attack and hit my head hard on the ground.

  Dazed and bleeding from the strike, I rolled over with a groan. Distant echoes thumped against my benumbed eardrums and I shoved upright, scraping the back of my hand under my nose and finding blood.

  Then I remembered why I needed to get off the ground. Grym!

  My terrified gaze swung to the spot where he’d been, finding a still smoking hole in the earth. And just beyond that hole were two bodies, both covered in dirt and grass and something that might have been blood. It was hard to tell in a monochrome world.

  But there was one thing I could tell for sure, and it nearly made my heart stop beating.

  Neither of them was moving. Not even a little bit.

  10

  Festering Frog Farts!

  “Grym!”

  Across the street, a door closed with a firm thump. Then another and another. I glanced around me and saw that everyone had gone back inside their homes.

  There had been exactly zero reaction to the world-eating vortex in the sky.

  Not even a shrug.

  I hurried over and dropped to my knees beside the detective. “Grym?” I grabbed his shoulder, giving him a gentle but insistent nudge. “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t move at first, making my stomach clench, but then he groaned softly and rolled over, exposing a dazed-looking Aberdeen beneath him.

  The older man looked a little wild-eyed, but I was happy to see he’d lost his shotgun when Grym barreled into him. “Is it dead?” Aberdeen asked, blinking at me.

  I wondered at the man’s thought process. That he believed a shotgun could have any effect at all on a massive vortex in the sky was clearly alarming. “What was that thing?” I asked him.

  He flopped around like a landed fish for a beat, and I realized he was trying to get off the ground. Grym and I each took an arm and helped him up.

  On his feet again, Aberdeen glared up at the sky. “That’s the thing that took me.”

  Grym and I shared a look.

  “Took you?” Grym asked, watching the other man carefully.

  Aberdeen nodded. “Every day I lose a bit more of my life.” He looked sad, his faded gaze sliding toward the sky again. With the vortex gone, it looked peaceful, filled with fluffy white clouds as if the world hadn’t almost ended moments earlier. “I don’t remember many details anymore.”

  “But you remember something,” I told him, grabbing his hand. “We’re here to stop it.”

  He nodded. “That’s what the kid said.”

  “His name’s Hobs,” I said, giving the man a smile. “He and Mr. Wicked and Mr. Slimy were taken by the thing too. We came to get them back.”

  Aberdeen stared at me, his mouth working as if he wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Mr. Aberdeen, have you met the young woman down the street? Thelma Lou?”

  Aberdeen scraped a large hand over his jaw, the raspy sound of overlong whiskers filling the air. “Pretty little thing.” He frowned. “She’s new too.”

  “Yes!” I said, getting excited. “She’s our friend. We got separated when we came here and she doesn’t remember who she is.”

  Aberdeen sighed. “It pulls your memories away and puts others in their place.” The old man shook his head. “Nasty business.”

  “Yes. Do you have any idea how we can help her remember?”

  Aberdeen gave a firm shake of his head. “No hope there, hon. If she don’t remember there’s no hope.”

  Festering frog farts!

  “Did you always remember?” Grym asked.

  “Did I? I guess so. I must have.”

  Grym looked at me, and I saw the point he’d been trying to make. That it was possible Aberdeen had gone through the same process Lea seemed to be going through.

  I tried to grasp onto that possibility. Lea was confused. She was struggling. Maybe her memories were trying to come back to her.

  A warm breeze slid past and Hobs was suddenly there. “Miss, can you come? I need to show you something.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Aberdeen. We’ll let you know if we find a way out of here.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. He’d turned and was heading toward his home, his steps heavy. He looked so weary. So sad. And I wondered how long he’d been the only one in Mayberry who knew what was going on.

  “Lead the way, Hobs,” Grym said.

  “Hellooo!”

  We turned to find Lea, aka Thelma Lou hurrying toward us, Hex trotting along at her feet. She had one of the clips I’d used to hold my hair off my face in her hand. “You left this at my house.”

  “Oh.” I reached out and took it. “Thanks. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m just peachy,” she said, a television smile stretched across her face. I noticed the poodle skirt was looking a bit dingy. Apparently, the Mayberry artifact didn’t return things to new once they’d been soiled or damaged.

  That probably explained why Aberdeen looked so disheveled.

  “That’s good.”

  She frowned at the plate in my hand. “Do you always carry a slice of pie around with you?”

  I stared at the pie on the plate. Apple. I knew from experience that the type of pie changed. Once the piece on the plate was eaten, a different slice of pie appeared to replace it. I had a sudden thought. There had to have been a reason I’d brought the stupid thing with me. I held it back out to Lea. “Actually, I brought this for you.”

  Lea started to reach for it and then stopped, her cheeks darkening. “Oh. Thank you kindly. But I don’t eat sweets.”

  I thought of the cake she’d brought to Fiff earlier. I realized I hadn’t seen the rest of the cake in her kitchen, though she’d implied she’d baked it. Had the artifact put it in her hands and nudged her toward the jail? And, if so, why?

  Try as I might, I couldn’t talk Lea into trying the pie. I looked at Grym. He was staring after Aberdeen, looking thoughtful. He suddenly grabbed the plate. “I have an idea.” Hurrying after the elderly man, Grym spoke a few words with Aberdeen and handed him the plate.

  I was pleased to see that the old man’s step was a bit lighter the rest of the way into the house.

  Grym rejoined us. “You ready to go see what Hobs found?”

  I nodded. Looking at Lea’s pleasant but clueless expression, I blinked back tears. On impulse, I gave her a hug. “Take care of yourself. If you don’t mind, I’d like to come back to visit?”

  “That would be lovely,” my best friend responded with perfect plastic-coated manners.

  I forced myself to turn away from her, my heart breaking. The only way I could help Lea was to find a way to kill the artifact.

  “What did you find, Hobs?” Grym asked as we hurried to keep up with the hobgoblin.

  “A place, Mr. Grym. A scary place.”

  My steps faltered and I sucked back. “A scary place? Why is there a scary place in Mayberry?
And why would we go there?” I asked.

  Hobs chuckled as if I were joking. Which I was decidedly not.

  He led us past the small empty playground, whose swings were swaying under a phantom influence that gave me chills. In the distance, on a raised road that wound away from town and into the countryside, the Sheriff’s car drove slowly past. The enormous, boxy vehicle was being driven by a dark-haired man who had a stern face topped by dark eyebrows that slashed over a hostile gaze.

  Sheriff Andrew didn’t look nearly as friendly as he had on television.

  I shuddered, wishing I could hide from the assessing gaze he scraped over us as he drove on past.

  In the distance, the little pond we’d pulled Grym out of when we’d arrived sparkled prettily, even its inherent grayness not taking away from the picturesque little spot. “Are you taking us to the pond?” I asked.

  “No, Miss.”

  Hobs was moving fast but not nearly as fast as he could have, and he seemed focused on something other than us at the moment, unwilling to chat.

  I suddenly wondered how Sebille and Rustin were doing. “Have you seen Sebille?” I asked Hobs.

  “Yes, Miss. She’s at the scary place.”

  “Rustin too?”

  Hobs nodded, skipping across the dusty grass.

  Looming up ahead of us, was one of those giant concrete tunnels, or culverts, I thought they were called, cut beneath the road to provide drainage if the pond beyond the road flooded. I guessed, from the slashes of street art coating its surface, that the tunnel provided more than that. “I can’t believe they have graffiti here,” I told Grym, laughing.

  But he was frowning. “That’s not graffiti, Naida,” Grym said.

  “It’s a working,” a voice said from a nearby copse of trees.

  I jumped, clapping a hand over my heart, as Sebille and Rustin stepped out of the trees. “You scared me half to death.”

  “Sorry,” Rustin said, looking sheepish. “We were hiding from the Sheriff. He’s looking for us.”

  I thought of the beefy old car rolling slowly down the road and the dark face of the Sheriff behind the wheel. “Did you do something?”