Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things

by Guy Bass

  7) The zombalien FLEES back to the far reaches of SPACE! The world is SAVED from Dinkin’s neighbor! (Likelihood of success: 0.4%)

  [Please note that The Frightening Things’ terrified objections to The Plan (all 93 of them) have been removed due to lack of space.]

  THE CHAPTER WHERE DINKIN AND THE FRIGHTENING THINGS NEATLY EXECUTE THE PLAN

  Chance of The Plan being neatly executed : 4.2%

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” said Dinkin to The Frightening Things as the rain beat down on the window. The storm was going to make an impossible job even harder. “We have no idea what our enemy is capable of. There is more danger out there than we’ve ever faced before, and not just everyday stuff, like poisonous blackbirds or psycho-mice. There’s a zombalien in that house, and I’m number one on her people-to-zombify-before-breakfast list. But as long as we work together, we can possibly, maybe, sort of, reveal her secret.”

  We’re with you, Dinkin!” shouted Arthur. “I mean, unless things get really scary . . . ”

  Dinkin put on the Zomb-O-Tron 6000 and handed Edgar the Dog-Distracter Mark IV. He saw Herbert lick his lips with both tongues.

  “Don’t eat it,” said Dinkin. “That’s for Princess Puppy-Face. And make sure you hold on to the string once she’s taken the bait —we have to keep her in one place.”

  Dinkin and The Frightening Things snuck out of his room and made their way downstairs to the front door. By now the rain was falling harder than Dinkin had ever seen.

  “I thought you didn’t like rain, Dinkin,” said Arthur.

  Arthur was right. Of all weather-related horrors, Dinkin hated rain the most. After snow and sleet. And possibly fog. Anyway, he hated it. He thought it was like being in a shower for giants, but using only the cold faucets. And he was terrified of anything that involved giants. Or the cold. Or faucets.

  “I’d rather be wet and alive than dry and a zombie,” said Dinkin. He tucked his pajama bottoms into his rain boots, opened the door, and peered out. The rain fell in huge, angry drops and soaked the ground.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Dinkin Dings and The Frightening Things made their way slowly toward the Coddles’ house. The freezing rain soaked Dinkin’s pajamas and filled his boots. Edgar and Herbert huddled together as they walked, their eyes darting around in dread. Arthur, who never got along well with water, was actually soaking up the raindrops.

  “I’m filling up like a water balloon!” he moaned as he floated along.

  “Shhh! We have to stay quiet!” whispered Dinkin. He was shaking so much with cold that he almost couldn’t shake with fear. He stared up at the house, trying not to imagine the unimaginable horrors inside. As if on cue, a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Dinkin and The Frightening Things covered their mouths all at once and tried not to scream!

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” squeaked Arthur. “I’m filling up! I can barely even float anymore!”

  “We can’t turn back now,” said Dinkin, trying to convince himself.

  “Super Secret Team

  ALPHA- 1, deploy Dog-Distracter Mark IV.”

  “Hm? Oh, you mean us! Sorry, all this code-talk is baffling my bones . . . ,” said Edgar. He and Herbert edged toward the front door, while Dinkin and Arthur ducked behind a hedge just in front of the house.

  “Princess Puppy-Face? Are you in there?” whispered Edgar as he peered nervously through the mail slot. With no sign of her, he pushed the Dog-Distracter Mark IV through the gap and lowered it to the floor with the string. He waited for a moment, listening for the sound of Princess Puppy-Face’s paw-steps.

  “Is she taking it? Maybe she’s asleep. Maybe she’s not hungry. And if it’s going to go to waste I could always take it off your hands . . . ,” said Herbert, rubbing his belly.

  “Shh! I hear her sniffing around . . . ,” whispered Edgar. He held on tightly to the string, and pinned his ear cavity to the door.

  CHOMP! The string tightened!

  “She took it!” said Edgar. Sure enough, Princess Puppy-Face had sunk her teeth into the Dog-Distracter Mark IV. Edgar held on tight as she tugged on it. “I’ve got her! Dinkin—go!”

  Suddenly, Edgar’s arm was pulled through the mail slot, slamming him into the door with an enormous SPWOK!

  “AAA-AH! She’s got me! Herbert, help!” cried Edgar. Herbert grabbed him around the waist and pulled with all his monstrous might (which actually wasn’t that much, as it turned out), but the more they struggled, the more Princess Puppy-Face fought back! Dinkin and Arthur looked on in horror from behind the hedge.

  “We have to help—they’re no match for one small dog!” said Arthur.

  “We can’t! We have to stick to The Plan!” said Dinkin, realizing with horror that that actually meant carrying out the rest of The Plan. He pinched himself and wiped the rain from his eyes. “W-we have to go, Arthur—fly us through that upstairs window.”

  “I’m not sure I can—I’m almost full of water!” said Arthur, trying to wring himself out like a wet dishcloth.

  “It’s too late to back out now—I’m going to be zombified in less than six hours!” said Dinkin frantically.

  “All right, fine, but don’t blame me if it’s a bumpy ride,” mumbled Arthur. He wrapped his arms around Dinkin, turning him ghostly, and carried him up into the air!

  “Don’t drop me!” squealed Dinkin as they floated slowly upward. He was, of course, terrified of heights. Although, being Dinkin, he was almost as afraid of going farther and farther up until he hit outer space as he was of falling.

  Arthur did his best to dodge the raindrops, but it was no good. By the time they reached one of the upstairs windows, he was almost completely waterlogged.

  “Dinkin, I can’t stay afloat, I’m too heavy!” cried Arthur.

  “Hang on, we’re almost there! Fly me through the window!” said Dinkin.

  Arthur held his breath (or the ghostly equivalent). He flew at the window, hoping that he wasn’t so full of water that they’d just splatter against it.

  THE LAIR OF THE ZOMBALIEN

  Chances of making it out alive : 2%

  Chances of being turned into a

  brain-eating zombie slave : 98%

  Dinkin landed face-first on the hard floor. It worked—he was inside!

  “We did it, Arthur!” whispered Dinkin, rubbing his nose. He looked around, but the ghost was nowhere to be seen. Dinkin’s eyes scanned the room. “Arthur? Where are you?”

  Dinkin looked out the window. There was Arthur, still outside. He was so full of water that (just as he’d feared) he’d splattered against the window! He could barely even stay in the air. As he started to sink out of view, he mouthed, “Good luck.”

  inkin was alone in the house! And he wasn’t even ghostly! Which meant that he was defenseless. Dinkin tried not to panic. Then, after panicking for two minutes and thirty-nine seconds, he tried again. He took several deep breaths and looked around. He could see:

  A toilet.

  A sink.

  A towel with a picture of a pony on it.

  He was in the Coddles’ bathroom! This was it, there was no going back. Dinkin wiped the sweat from his brow, checked that the Zomb-O-Tron 6000 was still working, and tried to give himself a pep talk.

  “Dinkin Danger Dings, you can do this. It’s this or a lifetime of brain eating. Do you want to eat brains for the rest of your life? No. Are you sure? You don’t sound sure. Of course I’m sure! Okay then, don’t go on about it. I wasn’t going on about it! Yes you were!”

  After arguing with himself for another fiftyone seconds, Dinkin decided it was time to go. He opened the bathroom door and crept out into a moonlit corridor. Everything was silent. He turned on the Zomb-O-Tron 6000’s flashlight, faintly illuminating two doors on his right, and another at the end.

  Three doors to go.

  The first door was shut tight. He reached out with a quivering hand and pulled it. It creaked open.

  It was a closet full of
laundry! “EemMph!!” Dinkin put his hand to his mouth to stop himself from screaming. Then he realized that he wasn’t actually afraid of laundry, after all. He closed the door and moved on.

  Two doors to go.

  The second door was ajar. Dinkin slowly pushed it open. It was so dark he could barely see anything at all. Suddenly, there was a low, thunderous growl.

  “EEeeepmMph!!” squeaked Dinkin, covering his mouth again. That’s not growling, thought Dinkin. That’s snoring! He was in Mr. and Mrs. Coddle’s room! Dinkin backed silently out of the door, and continued down the corridor.

  One door to go.

  As he reached the door, he could see there was something written on it in big, pink letters:Molly’s Room (come in and play)

  He’d found it—the hideout of the zombalien! In his head, Dinkin was running home and hiding under the covers, but then he remembered that eating brains for the rest of his life was even more terrifying. He felt for the Zomb-O-Tron 6000, held his breath and (after another one minute and forty-two seconds of motionless dread) turned the door handle.

  The zombalien’s room was perfectly disguised as a human girl’s room. It was vile. It was pink from floor to ceiling, and covered with boy-band posters and pictures of ponies and kittens. In the middle of the floor was a neatly laid out plastic tea set. In the corner of the room was a small bed. Dinkin took a step forward. It was empty!

  “Where is she?” he whispered in panic.

  Suddenly, the light came on, halfblinding Dinkin. He blinked nineteen times, until he could finally make out a shape in the doorway. It was Molly Coddle.

  “Hello, Dinkin!” she said with glee. “Are you here for the tea party?”

  TEA WITH MOLLY

  Host: Molly Coddle

  Invited guests: Miss Dolly,

  Freddy Teddy

  Uninvited guest: Dinkin

  Danger Dings

  Dinkin stared in frozen horror as Molly Coddle pretended to pour tea from her plastic teapot. She gave pretend tea to a doll and a cuddly bear before she got to Dinkin.

  “Would you like sugar?” she asked.

  “No, thank you very much, please,” said Dinkin, so scared that he ended up sounding incredibly polite. Molly passed Dinkin a plastic teacup on a plastic saucer. There was a moment’s silence. Why wasn’t she in bed? More to the point, why wasn’t she turning him into a zombie slave?

  “I’m glad you came over for tea, even if it is the middle of the night, which is a little weird, but I don’t mind,” said Molly. “All my other friends are far away, where I used to live.”

  Yeah, far away in space, thought Dinkin, realizing that he had the perfect opportunity to reveal her secret. One good lunge with the Mask-Demasker and he could reveal her in all her hideousness! Of course, in The Plan, a) the zombalien was asleep and b) Dinkin was ghostly throughout. Dinkin shuddered with fear at the thought of having to do this without those two key ingredients.

  “Where I used to live, far away, I had a pony,” said Molly, a little sadly. “She was called Polly. When we moved, I had to leave her behind. Now I don’t have any friends and I don’t have a pony.” She put down her teacup and sniffled. Then she rubbed her eyes and wiped away a tear.

  This is my chance . . . it’s now or never! thought Dinkin. He aimed the Mask-Demasker at Molly, but as he edged toward her, Dinkin had a funny feeling. He stopped in his tracks, not quite believing what was happening. Despite himself, Dinkin was actually feeling a bit sorry for the zombalien.

  “Sorry,” said Molly, “I’m just a little bit sad.”

  Then a strange thing happened—Dinkin had a thought that he’d never had before in his whole life. What if he was wrong? What if maybe, just maybe, this sad little girl was actually just a sad little girl? He thought about all the things that had happened over the last two days. If Molly Coddle wasn’t a flesh-eating alien space zombie from beyond horror, he had:

  1) Run away from a little girl.

  2) Thrown an egg at a little girl and accidentally hit a little girl’s mom instead.

  3) Gone to the (And wasted supermarket. six dollars and ninety-six cents.)

  4) Gone outside in the middle of the night in the middle of a rainstorm.

  Dinkin started to feel a little bit guilty. He also stopped worrying so much about being zombified.

  “Do you like ponies?” said Molly.

  “Um, I think ponies are scary,” said Dinkin, honestly.

  “Oh. What do you like?” asked Molly.

  “I like being inside and making sure all the doors are locked,” said Dinkin.

  “If we were friends, you could play with all my toys and everything. And you could even play with Princess Puppy-Face if you liked! Do you want to be friends?”

  Dinkin wasn’t sure what to think about that. He wouldn’t normally make friends with a little girl. Then again, he wouldn’t normally make friends at all—he’d never actually had any friends other than The Frightening Things. He wondered what it might feel like. He also wondered how he could have imagined Molly was a zombalien. His mom and dad would be quick to say how stunningly silly he had been. He took the Zomb-O-Tron 6000 off his head, and put it on the floor. Fourteen seconds later, he said:

  “I . . . think we could be friends . . . ”

  “Yay! We’ll be the bestest friends ever!” said Molly, clapping her hands together. Dinkin suddenly felt incredibly awkward and, secretly, quite good.

  “I’d better go. I don’t want to get into trouble,” said Dinkin.

  “Do you want to come over and play tomorrow?” said Molly.

  Dinkin thought for a moment. “I . . . suppose I could.”

  “Yay! What should we play? Ponies? Oh, wait, I have a better idea . . . ,” she said, and she tore off her human disguise!

  “Let’s play

  WHEN ZOMBALIENS ATTACK!

  Danger of robot vampire attack : 0.0002%

  Danger of snot monster attack: 0.013%

  Danger of zombalien attack: 99.999%

  Dinkin stared in frozen horror for the second time that night. He watched, terrified, as Molly threw her human disguise on the floor. Her skin was gray and rotting. Her huge eyes glowed red, and she had two wriggling antennae on the top of her head. Thick, white ooze dripped from her mouth, running between row upon row of yellow fangs. And she really did smell like sour milk and old ladies’ underwear. She was a zombalien! Dinkin would have felt smug, if not for being more scared than he had ever been.

  “I fooled you there for a second—admit it!” said Molly triumphantly. “What a performance! I even cried! I should get an Oscar!”

  screamed Dinkin, tearing out of the bedroom.

  “There’s nowhere to run!” the zombalien cried, chasing after him. Dinkin raced down the corridor and into the first room he came across. It was Mr. and Mrs. Coddle’s bedroom.

  “Mr. Coddle! Mrs. Coddle! Wake up! Molly’s a zombalien!” he screamed. Mr. and Mrs. Coddle sat bolt upright in bed.

  “Well, of course she’s a zombalien—she’s our daughter, after all!” said the Coddles in unison, and tore off their human disguises!

  screamed Dinkin.

  “You’re good, human, I’ll give you that!” said Mr. Coddle. “No one’s ever seen through a zombalien disguise before. Of course, Molly could only afford the basic disguise on her pocket money. The Mrs. and I upgraded to the new I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Human Version 2.0!”

  “It’s even more impossible to see through! Touch it. It’s just like the real thing!” drooled Mrs. Coddle, flinging her human mask at Dinkin. “And, you don’t get any of the chafing you get from Version 1.0 . . . ”

  “V-v-very l-l-lifelike,” stammered Dinkin.

  “Are you both going to talk all night? There’s zombifying to be done!” grumbled Molly. She growled an ooze-filled growl and turned her attention to a trembling Dinkin. “You know what, human? I was going to wait until the morning to zombify you, but since you’re here now, it’s brain eating time!”

>   “Don’t worry, Duncan, life is so much better as a zombalien!” said Mrs. Coddle, with an ooze-filled grin. The three zombaliens gathered around Dinkin. As he felt their hot breath on his skin, Dinkin closed his eyes . . .

  Suddenly, a pair of arms shot up through the floor and grabbed Dinkin by the ankles. He immediately turned ghostly and was pulled into the floor below.

  “Got him!” cried Arthur. He carried Dinkin down to the Coddles’ kitchen, where the other Frightening Things were waiting.

  “You all right, Dinkin?” said Herbert.

  “Zombalien! Everyone’s a zombalien!” screamed Dinkin, and then he noticed Edgar was missing his right arm. “Wait, what happened to you?”

  “Do you mean after Princess Puppy-Face pulled off my arm or after we finally managed to wring all the water out of Arthur so he could make us ghostly and transport us safely inside?” said Edgar grumpily.

  “Uh . . . nevermind,” said Dinkin, hearing the zombaliens running downstairs. “Come on, we have to get out of here!”

  Dinkin and The Frightening Things raced to the front door, the sound of brain-hungry zombaliens close behind. They were almost there when they spotted Princess Puppy-Face crouched on the floor. She was busily chewing on something.

  “My arm!” shrieked Edgar. “She’s eating my arm! You stinking little mutt, give that back!”

  Princess Puppy-face got to her feet, let out a low snarl and began to shake. As Dinkin and The Frightening