Black & White Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  Rustin and Sebille shared a look.

  “What?” Grym asked.

  Rustin stared at Sebille, willing her to respond. She finally sighed. “I might have accidentally brought this with me.” She pulled her cell phone out of an oversized pocket of her dress.

  I felt my eyes go wide. “Oh no, Sebille! Your mother told us that would be really bad.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Grym and I glared at her.

  “There’s no sense beating her about the head and shoulders now,” Rustin said. “Believe me, I’ve already yelled at her. The Sheriff seems to be tuned into that phone somehow. He’s like a bloodhound with the thing.”

  “That’s why we came down here,” Sebille said. “We were going to throw it into the pond. Then we ran into Hobs and the cat.”

  My eyes went wide. “Wicked’s here?”

  Hobs nodded enthusiastically. “He’s by the pond.”

  “And Slimy?” I asked, hopeful.

  “We left him there when we came. He didn’t like it near the buildings. He said there weren’t enough flies.”

  My chest loosened as some of my worry slid away. “That’s good.”

  “You said these symbols are a working?” Grym asked Rustin. “Any chance they’re the engine behind this artifact?”

  “Wouldn’t that be sweet?” I asked rhetorically. I followed him over to the concrete tunnel, where rows and rows of painted symbols seemed to tell a story I couldn’t decipher.

  Rustin shrugged. “I’ve never seen workings like these. But I don’t think so. If I had to guess, I’d say somebody was trying to get out of here.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “Lea?”

  Sebille shrugged. “Maybe. Have you found her and Hex?”

  “We talked to her. But she still doesn’t remember who she is,” Grym said.

  “And there’s an older man who lives up the street from her,” I told the sprite and the ghost witch. “He seems to know about the artifact. He was shooting at it.”

  “Shooting at it?” Rustin shook his head. “Sounds looney to me.”

  “He is a little,” I admitted. “But you’d be crazy too if you had to live here for very long.”

  “Do you think you can figure out how to make this work?” I asked Rustin, pointing to the unknown spell.

  “I can try. But my magic doesn’t seem to work here in Mayberry,” he said, frowning.

  Grym nodded. “Mine either.”

  I looked at Sebille, feeling my stomach twist with alarm. “Please tell me yours works, sprite.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Naida.”

  I looked at Hobs, realizing that he hadn’t used his super-sonic speed since he’d been inside the artifact.

  I took a deep breath and lifted my hand, sending a ribbon of keeper magic out into the universe.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then the most goddess-awful noise flared through the otherwise quiet spot. It sounded like an air-raid siren set on stun.

  I doubled over, covering my ears with my hands and trying to make myself too small for the sound to find me. All around me, my friends hit the ground on their knees, no doubt doing the same thing.

  Above our heads, dust bloomed from the country road, small rocks shooting off into the surrounding grass. Someone grabbed my arm, yanking me into the tunnel as the Sheriff’s car flew past, going much faster than I’d thought it could go.

  Inside the tunnel, the siren was like a physical force. Each wave of the appalling sound reverberated off the rounded concrete walls and seemed to get stuck there, slashing at my tortured eardrums until I thought I’d go mad.

  Finally, the noise just stopped, the cessation almost more startling than the din had been.

  I kept my hands over my ears for a few beats, just in case, and then cautiously let them slide away. “Is it over?”

  “I think so.” Grym’s face was covered in a sheen of sweat, his eyes looked haunted. “What was that about?”

  I stared at my hand. “You don’t think that was a reaction to my keeper magics, do you?”

  “It could have been,” Rustin said. “It seems more than likely, actually. And that means, when we get ready to try to take this thing down, we’re going to have to move fast.”

  Horned hornet helmets! Just what we needed. More challenges.

  “Miss!” Hobs’ panicked voice brought my head up, and I started running through the tunnel.

  “Now what?” Sebille groused behind me as I took off.

  The tunnel was cool and dim, its smooth sides covered in brightly-hued drawings and symbols that made no sense to my scanning gaze. The ground was littered with debris too. A fact that made it seem out of place with the unnatural tidiness of the rest of the place. And there was an underlying stench of something sour. But I couldn’t quite place what it was.

  Overall, the tunnel was an unpleasant spot within the artifact, and one I was relieved to leave behind as I stepped out into the bright sunshine.

  Until I saw what waited beyond the tunnel.

  11

  Floundering Fish Flippers!

  The man’s hair was an untidy dark spray on his round head, and his pale cotton button-up shirt was stained and rumpled above slacks that were just as untidy as the shirt.

  He held Hobs effortlessly in one hand, despite the fact that he wavered on his feet, and his eyes kept trying to cross. The little hobgoblin’s enormous eyes were even bigger than usual, his spidery fingers clenching and unclenching with uncertainty and fear.

  “Don’t hurt him,” I said, knowing even as I said the words how useless they were.

  The man’s bulbous nose was dark, veiny. He held a filleting knife in one hand, the eye-watering stench of dead fish wafting from the blade as he brandished it in my direction. All around our feet, in the pale, sandy soil of the pond area, fish scales caught the sun and speared the air with colorless fire. The silvery glint of the scales was pretty but did nothing to overcome the miasma of guts and other detritus of fish-cleaning from the area.

  A slime-covered tree stump stuck out of the ground not too far away, next to a small camp fire. I realized the man with the filleting knife probably caught, cleaned, and cooked his own dinner more often than not.

  “Who are you people? You’re not from around here.” The words were spoken with the heat and force of an accusation. As if we were a band of mass murderers come to slaughter all his loved ones.

  Grym moved carefully up behind me and lifted his hands. “We’re friends. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  “Liar!” said the man, his slightly bulgy gaze taking on a fanatic’s gleam. The knife found its way to Hobs’ throat, the meaty fist that was clutching it tensing as he pressed it close. “Y’all are up to no good. I can feel it in the air around you. There’s buzzing. It feels dangerous and makes my skin prickle with gooseflesh.”

  Well, that was oddly specific.

  I shook my head. “No! We’re just trying to find our friends. We’ll find them and go. You’ll never see us again. I promise.”

  The man shook his head. “It don’t work that way and you know it.” He lifted the knife away from Hobs’ throat, swinging it wildly in front of his own face and nearly slicing off his veiny nose. His movement was manic, his gaze wild. “Stop it! Stop the buzzing.”

  I wanted to share a look with Grym but I was afraid to look away from Hobs. The man was clearly beyond crazy. He was being affected by something that was causing his mind to shift. And I hoped it wasn’t us. I thought of Sebille’s phone.

  Could that be it?

  “We can help,” Grym said gently, taking a small step forward. “Whatever’s making your skin crawl, we can help you with it. We just need you to tell us how? How can we help?”

  The man shook his head, swinging his knife-wielding hand through the air and nearly stabbing Hobs with the stinky blade in the process.

  The little hobgoblin yelped softly, trying to duck away from the wildly flailing
blade but unable to go anywhere with the man’s meaty fist dug into his shirt.

  Something moved, low on the ground, drawing my gaze.

  Wicked!

  My cat sauntered toward the madman as if he were greeting a visitor in Croakies. Calm as you please, tail dancing gently on the air behind him, Wicked rubbed against the man’s ankle, his fur brushing the bare and filthy skin I could see above the stranger’s sockless shoes.

  The man twitched once and then looked down.

  I moved before he could slash at Wicked with the knife.

  But Grym was faster.

  He jumped the man, throwing him to the ground and knocking the knife from his fist even as Hobs spun safely away.

  The hobgoblin didn’t waste any time getting out of the man’s reach. He flew toward Sebille and jumped into her arms, wrapping his long arms and legs around her and burying his face in her shoulder.

  “Shh, it’s okay, buddy,” Sebille crooned.

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  Grym tugged the guy to his feet, and I kicked the knife away. “What’s your name?” the cop asked him.

  The man had deflated as soon as Grym got hold of him, his shoulders sagging as he lowered his head. “I’m Otis. I don’t want to hurt nobody.”

  “Why did you try to hurt our friend?” I asked.

  He shook his head, pointing toward the tunnel. “Nobody’s allowed in there. That’s my bridge.”

  I frowned, catching Grym’s eye over Otis’s bowed head. “You live under the bridge?”

  Otis rubbed his face with his free hand. “I don’t belong. Never belong. Never.”

  Rustin came up next to me. “Are these your drawings?” Rustin asked the man.

  Otis looked at the symbols. “It’s my work. I have to do my work.” He shook his head, shuddering violently. “Something’s wrong. Something’s buzzing. It’s buzzing around you.”

  I narrowed my gaze at Sebille and she cringed.

  It was her cell phone. It had to be. And if Otis was so sensitive that he’d felt it from clear across the road, I doubted flinging it into the pond was going to be enough to neutralize its effects. “We’re sorry we bothered you, Otis,” I told the man. “We’ll be gone soon.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody goes. They’ll feel the buzzing. Nobody goes. They’ll feel the buzzing.”

  Ice covered my spine at his words. If he was right, then we were in deep trouble. Because we might have found all our friends, but we were still a long way from finding a way back home.

  And it sounded as if we’d just run out of time.

  I heard an engine on the road again and looked up to find the Sheriff’s car returning, driving slowly as if searching for someone.

  For us.

  Both lawmen were inside the car.

  “We need to get out of here,” Grym said. “They’re going to find us if we don’t go somewhere else.”

  Otis swung a big hand in front of his face. “Buzzing, buzzing. Need to hide from the buzzing.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the alcoholic stench coming from the other man. It was as if it came from his pores rather than his mouth.

  “Where can we hide, Otis?” Sebille asked.

  The man just shook his head and continued swatting the air.

  Hobs lifted his head. “In the tunnel.”

  It was all we had. There was no time to find anything else. But it seemed like pretty weak cover. All the bumpkin cops would have to do is stop the car and walk down the embankment to find us.

  “Let’s go!” Grym said, herding us all toward the cool dimness beneath the road.

  “What about him?” Rustin asked, pointing at Otis.

  “We need to bring him with us,” I told Grym. “If Fiff or the Sheriff see him standing here all agitated, they might come to investigate.”

  Grym grabbed Otis’s beefy arm and pulled him into the tunnel with us.

  Dread slid over me again as we stepped into the culvert, but I soon forgot it as the police car approached. The oversized car drove slowly up to the overpass, seeming to slow to a crawl, and then eased to a stop above our heads.

  We huddled together beneath the cool concrete, barely breathing as, first one car door and then another creaked open above us.

  “You reckon they’re around here somwheres, Andrew?”

  I recognized Deputy Fiff’s reedy tone and held my breath, praying to the goddess they didn’t come exploring.

  “I reckon they is, Barney. Ain’t noplace else to hide in these parts. And I’m plum certain that siren come from here.” The Sheriff’s voice was deeper than Fiff’s, the tone filled with harmless interest. But I could feel the razor edge beneath it and knew the “good old boy” thing was all an act.

  Hobs slid out of Sebille’s arms and crouched in front of her, his eyes wide enough to pop out of his head.

  I eyed him, frowning a warning.

  He twitched backward, sliding behind Sebille again, and inadvertently kicked a stone.

  It flew across the tunnel and clanged against the concrete wall across from us, reverberating through the tunnel.

  We all tensed as, above us, the two men fell silent.

  “What was that?” Barney asked, his shrill voice deepening to a threatening tone.

  “I don’t know, Barney, but I reckon I’m gonna find out.”

  My grip tightened on my cat as footsteps started down the bank at the side of the road. Rocks skittered down with their steps, each one seeming to ping against my nerves like notes on a badly tuned violin.

  I shared a look with Grym and he sighed. The jig was up. We needed to face the music…erm…Sheriff.

  Without warning, Wicked jumped from my arms. He trotted toward the opening of the culvert, tail high and whipping the air.

  “Wicked, no!” I whispered.

  My cat ignored me as only he can do.

  Grym grabbed my arm to stop me when I would have gone after him.

  “Well, lookee here, Andrew,” Fiff said. “It’s Thelma Lou’s cat. What in the world do you suppose she’s doin’ here?”

  “No idea, Deputy. But I reckon cats like ta wander.” There was a beat of silence before the Sheriff went on. “How’s our Thelma doin’, Barney. She fittin’ in okay?”

  I tensed, realizing they were discussing whether they needed to be worried about Lea.

  “She’s right as rain, Sheriff. You got no cause ta worry about that gal. She’s madly in love with yours truly.”

  “Well, just keep an eye on her, Barn. I’m a bit worried about the timin’ of her arrival here at Mayberry. She come just about the same time as those circus people. If she starts actin’ off, you know what we’ll need ta do. Ain’t no room for rabble-rousers in Mayberry.”

  Ice formed in my belly at his words. Lea seemed to be struggling. If they interpreted that as a threat, she could be in real danger.

  Rocks crunched and I pictured the Sheriff crouching down to pet my cat. “Hey, gal. You best get on back home now. They’s things about that ain’t healthy for good folk.”

  “Meow!”

  “Awe, ain’t she a nice kitty. Get on now.”

  Wicked shot away from the culvert and we watched him trot toward the playground in the distance. I prayed they didn’t notice that Wicked was a male cat.

  “Let’s go, Barney. I want to drive through town again. Those varmints have to be here somewhere and I’m fixin’ ta find ’em.”

  As soon as the car had turned around and headed back to town, I started off after my cat. “We need to check on Lea. I didn’t like the sound of that Sheriff’s interest in her.”

  “What do you suppose they do to, rabble-rousers?” Sebille asked, frowning.

  “Nothing good, I’m sure,” Rustin responded.

  We were nearly out of the tunnel before Grym whistled. We all stopped, turning back to find him with Otis still in hand. “What are we going to do with him?”

  I frowned, realizing we couldn’t just leave him there. H
e might talk to the Sheriff about us. I sighed. “I guess he’ll have to come with us.”

  It was less than ideal. Otis was dead weight, and unpredictable at best. But I did feel a little guilty about making him go all cray-cray. Or at least Sebille and her phone had.

  Maybe, if we brought him along, we could figure out how to help him with the buzzing he was hearing.

  Or, at least, show him how to play Angry Sparrows on the thing, so he’d be distracted.

  Lea wasn’t home when we got there. Her house was empty, and her doors were unlocked. I tried not to panic about the unlocked doors thing. It was the kind of thing people who’d lived in the country in the 60s had probably done. But, since I knew the Sheriff was keeping an eye on her, not knowing where she’d gone was concerning.

  We settled in to await her arrival back at the house. I knew it would be hard to explain our presence there. I also knew it would probably cause my friend undue worry to find the entire motley crew sitting in her kitchen. But I’d made a decision. We needed to get Lea on our side fast. We’d inadvertently pinned a giant target on our backs and I was afraid she was going to be targeted with us.

  Ignorance had just become too dangerous for her.

  12

  See? He’s Fine. We Need to get out of Here

  While we waited, Hobs perused the refrigerator, complaining that he was hungry. I was hungry too, though I’d been trying to ignore the aching hole in my belly since we’d arrived. I didn’t want to take time to eat. I’d rather do what we’d come to do and get the heck out of Dodge…er…Mayberry.

  But it seemed we weren’t going anywhere very fast. So I stood up and joined him in front of the old-fashioned rounded refrigerator. It was so small compared to modern fridges, and so empty. “She has no food.” I frowned. “How can she have no food?” I really wished the rest of that chocolate cake was there. It had looked delicious.

  Sebille opened cabinets and one small closet looking for food and found nothing. “It’s like the abyss, where everything’s just for show.”

  “No food,” Otis mumbled, shaking his head. “Don’t drink the water. Don’t eat the food.”