by Sam Fisher
“You didn’t ask me if I brushed my teeth,” Morton said.
“Did you brush your teeth?” she said mechanically.
Morton sighed and nodded.
“Good, now get to sleep.”
“But,” Morton called out, causing Melissa to pause in the doorway. “Aren’t you supposed to tuck me in, or straighten my blankets or something?”
Melissa froze for a moment, her face unreadable in the angular shadows. “I’m not Mum,” she said finally, and slammed the door behind her.
Morton lay in the darkness and felt a lump swell in his throat as he listened to Melissa’s feet stomp off down the hall. Of course he hadn’t expected her to make things any easier, but then again, he didn’t really expect her to make the situation worse either, which she seemed determined to do. This was always the hardest time, he thought, the time between when the light went out and when he fell asleep. That was the real reason he’d been staying up late reading. It was much easier to fall asleep reading than it was to lie awake thinking.
A moment later Morton’s bedroom door creaked open again and the familiar silhouette of James’s uncombed head bobbed in the doorway.
“Hey, Squirto, did Mel-zilla tuck you in okay?”
“It could have been worse,” Morton said dryly. “At least she didn’t stick chewing gum in my hair or bite me.”
James chuckled and came to sit on the side of Morton’s bed. “That bad, huh?”
Morton made an exaggerated shrug. “No point complaining about tigers.”
“What does that mean?” James said, cocking his head to one side.
“I read it in Scare Scape. If a tiger was chasing you in the jungle, you wouldn’t stop and complain that you were being chased by a tiger. You’d keep running, because everybody knows tigers can’t help but be tigers. Nothing you can do to change it.”
“And Melissas will be Melissas,” James said. “That’s pretty good advice … from a comic.”
“It’s like I keep trying to tell everybody,” Morton said. “It’s not just about monsters.”
“No, just mostly,” James said, glancing over his shoulder at the shelves cluttered with monster toys. “I still don’t understand why these things don’t give you nightmares.”
Morton shrugged again. He’d never had a nightmare. He’d dreamed about the stories in Scare Scape lots of times but they never frightened him. He began to wonder if that was normal.
“Well, sweet dreams anyway,” James said, leaving Morton to his thoughts.
“You too,” Morton replied, rolling over and pulling his duvet up around his chin.
He had no idea what time it was when something jarred him wide awake. He’d heard a noise. Or had he dreamed a noise? He looked around. The full moon had now vanished behind a thick blanket of clouds, and the room was almost completely dark and deathly silent. He could hear nothing but the whoosh of his own pulse in his ears. It must have been a dream, he thought. But as he was about to roll over and go back to sleep he did hear a sound. He heard a deep growling from beside his bed. Morton recognized it at once. It was his Shark Hound clock. The batteries must be dying, he thought, because he was sure he’d turned off the night mode. Morton fumbled for his reading light but, in his drowsy state, knocked it to the hardwood floor. The bulb popped like a glass balloon. Morton sighed and climbed out of bed and began groping his way along the wall trying to locate the light switch. At last he found it and flicked it on. The intense light blinded him for a second, and he threw his hands over his eyes until they adjusted to the glare.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next. His heart lurched as if someone had just whacked him in the chest with a fairground mallet.
His room was full of all manner of slimy, spiny, wriggly, toothy, twitching beasts. No more plastic toys. No more limp, rubbery replicas. No more fake painted eyes. The creatures before him looked sinewy, muscular, and powerful. He could see the Visible Fang’s organs pulsing in its abdomen, he could see the King-Crab Spiders’ eyes swiveling around in their sockets, he could see the Electric Killer Eels writhing around in hypnotic knots. They weren’t just realistic — somehow, impossibly, they were completely and utterly real.
A loud howl made Morton spin around. It was the Shark Hound clock again. Its teeth were gnashing and its gums frothing and Morton noticed that he could now see a hairy wolf’s neck where before there had been only the sharklike face. Then, quite suddenly, a paw emerged from behind the rim of the clock. The Shark Hound was still being born, still being dragged into existence.
He then realized that most of the creatures were in some state of awakening. They were stretching or flexing their limbs as if recovering from a long sleep. The magic of his wish — for that was surely what had brought them to life — hadn’t yet fully taken effect. They were vulnerable!
In a flash Morton dashed over to his closet and pulled out a pile of pillowcases. With his heart hammering in his chest he began grasping the creatures with his bare hands, stuffing them into the cases and tying the tops. He quickly filled up all the pillowcases he had, but still wasn’t finished. The Zombie Twins, the Gristle Grunts, the Toxic Vapor Worms, a clutch of Two-Headed Mutant Rodents, and several others still remained.
Suddenly the door burst open. A surprisingly calm but nonetheless wide-eyed Melissa stood in her nightgown breathing heavily. Morton was sure she was about to scream, but instead she just said, “You too?” in a thin, tremulous voice.
Morton stared at her. “You mean your wish …”
Melissa nodded. “My closet. It’s, uh, well, bigger.”
At that moment the Shark Hound let out a piercing howl and, with a ferocious effort, dragged a fully formed body completely free of the clockface and leaped onto the bedroom floor. This time Melissa did scream. Morton wasted no time in throwing his duvet over the vicious shark-toothed dog, wrapping it into a tight bundle before it had time to attack.
“What are we going to do?” Melissa gasped.
Morton squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his mind to focus. He knew the thin cotton cases would do nothing to contain the monsters when they were fully awakened. They needed something stronger.
“The attic!” he yelled. “We need a trunk from the attic!”
Morton practically flew down the hall and skidded around the corner to the attic door. The stairs now vanished into utter blackness above and the light switch still did nothing. Melissa appeared behind him. “The light doesn’t work?” she asked, glancing nervously over his shoulder.
“Wait here,” Morton said, and bravely fumbled his way up the stairs until he reached the top landing. The attic beyond was a dark void. His skin puckered with goose bumps and his legs began to tremble. “I am afraid of nothing,” he whispered to himself, and then, feeling his courage return, he inched steadily forward into the swallowing darkness, using memory more than sight. At last he grasped what he was sure was one of the leather handles of the trunk and dragged it across the floor toward the narrow staircase, where light spilled from the hallway below. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard James’s voice.
“What the heck is going on?”
James appeared at the bottom of the stairs wearing his tartan robe and stared up at Morton. James’s hair was flying wildly above his head and his eyes squinted in confusion.
“It’s the wishes,” Morton blurted as he dragged the trunk right past him without pausing.
He burst into his bedroom and immediately hoisted the now writhing and twisting pillowcases into the large trunk.
James and Melissa followed him and stood in the door. “You gotta be kidding me,” James said, frozen to the spot.
Morton wiped sweat from his forehead as he grabbed the rolled-up Shark Hound and stuffed it into the trunk before slamming the lid firmly. “It’s definitely the wishes,” Morton said breathlessly. “Only it must be dark magic, because I wished for more realistic toys, not living monsters.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” James repeated.
“It’s no joke,” Melissa whined, barely holding on to her sanity. “My closet’s bigger too. Actually, it’s not just bigger. It’s, well, it’s not natural.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” James said a third time, with a completely blank expression on his face.
Morton and Melissa exchanged glances. James was in shock. To Morton’s complete surprise Melissa slapped James hard across the cheek. James stumbled backward and began panting fiercely. He looked around as if waking from a dream.
“Whoa! Sorry,” James said. “I just … I thought I was dreaming.” He looked around at the partially wrecked room, then he looked at Morton with an expression of awe. “You single-handedly captured all these monsters?”
Morton was about to explain that they weren’t fully alive yet when he noticed a broken pane of glass in his window and realized that the Zombie Twins and several of the others had vanished while he’d been in the attic. “Oh no!” he said. “The Zombie Twins! They got away.”
“The Zombie Twins?” Melissa said. “Who are they?”
“They’re the smartest ones,” Morton groaned. “They’re like the ringleaders of the monster world.”
“You mean those little floating guys with the skull faces?” James said. “They look harmless enough. I mean, they don’t have deadly venom or sharp teeth or claws or anything.”
Morton was shaking his head vehemently. “Don’t you remember? They can control all the other monsters with their minds. They got away with the Vapor Worms and Gristle Grunts and …” Morton groaned again. “This is not good!”
“Well, you get the medal for the understatement of the evening,” Melissa said. “But how about we worry about the Zombie Twins later and figure out what to do with this trunk now.”
Melissa had a point. The whole time they’d been talking, the scraping and growling noises from inside the trunk were growing steadily louder. It wouldn’t be long before they scratched right through the soft wood paneling.
“Any suggestions?” James said.
“You didn’t use your wish yet,” Melissa said. “You can wish the monsters away.”
“Uh, I don’t know … ,” James said, glancing sheepishly around the room.
“What do you mean you don’t know? Where’s the third finger?”
James pulled the finger from his bathrobe pocket and clasped it in his palm.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Melissa yelled above the increasing din.
James swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I wish Morton’s monsters would vanish forever.”
Nothing happened. If anything, the gurgling growls from within the trunk got even louder.
“What’s wrong?” Melissa said frantically. “Why isn’t it working?”
Morton knew. He’d known it from the moment the strange blue light had pulsed through their bodies, and he knew that James knew too.
“James already made his wish,” Morton whispered. “Right before that blue light, didn’t you, James?”
“I … I don’t know,” James said, clutching his head.
“What do you mean?” Melissa screeched, panic getting the better of her. “How can you not know?”
“I was, uh … I don’t know, I was thinking about something and that’s when the blue light happened and I sort of wondered if I’d made a wish, but I —”
“You what? What the heck did you wish for?”
“I don’t know!” James snapped. “And now is not the time to discuss it. We have more pressing matters.”
A series of loud snarls flared up, and the trunk began to rattle visibly.
Melissa clearly saw the sense in James’s argument and backed down. “Okay, let’s drag the trunk outside and burn it,” she said coldly.
“That’s no good,” Morton explained. “Half of the monsters are fire resistant, and some of them give off toxic fumes.”
“Then we need to contain them,” James said. “At least for a bit longer. How about the basement?”
Melissa shook her head. “They’d find a way out in minutes.”
“Oh, wait! Of course!” Morton said.
“What?”
“Melissa’s closet!”
“What? Don’t even think about it,” Melissa snapped with surprising vehemence. “That’s my closet, and I don’t want it made into a petting zoo for your toothy little flesh-eating pals.”
“Melissa! What do you want us to do, dump them at a bus stop?” James pleaded.
“Doesn’t anybody have any explosives or something?”
“Oh, let me check my pockets,” James said. “Darn, nothing there. Oh, wait! I think I have a few sticks of dynamite in my pencil case….”
“For once in your life will you be serious!” Melissa screamed.
“Of course we don’t have any explosives,” James barked back. “You think because we’re boys we have bottles of nitroglycerin tucked under our beds?”
Melissa didn’t have time to respond. There was a sudden splitting sound as a pair of vicious, miniature fangs gnawed a small hole in the side of the trunk. A mouse-size cockroach with razor-sharp teeth and a spiny brown back crawled out.
“What in the devil’s name is that?” Melissa said.
“Looks like a cockroach,” James said, grabbing Morton’s baseball bat from beside his bed.
“Flesh-Eating Cockroach,” Morton confirmed. “There’s a whole pod of them in there.”
“A pod?” Melissa said in an accusing tone. “How many in a pod?”
Morton swallowed, feeling suddenly very guilty about his fascination for gruesome toys. “Hundreds.”
Melissa glared murderously at Morton, but the cockroach leaped for her foot, causing her to yelp and dive onto the bed.
James swatted at the oversize insect with the baseball bat and missed. He tried again, but the creature was too small and too fast.
Melissa grabbed a large dictionary from Morton’s bedside shelf and bounded down, squashing the bug with one fierce movement. It made a sickening crunch.
“You see,” she said, smiling proudly. “I do know how to use a dictionary.”
“We don’t have much time,” Morton said, looking at the hole in the side of the trunk.
“Okay, let’s get it in the closet,” James said, starting to push the trunk back out into the hall.
“No way!” Melissa yelled, hefting her full weight against the trunk and pushing back in the opposite direction.
“Melissa!” James said in a pleading voice. “Now is not the time to argue.”
James pushed on the trunk again.
Melissa pushed back even harder.
“No!” she said, stamping her foot angrily. “This is Morton’s stupid wish, and I am not taking responsibility for it. My whole life I have had to put up with brothers who like toy monsters and stupid comics. My whole life I have had to play along with what you want because there’s two of you and only one of me. No way am I going to sit back and let you ruin the one truly awesome thing I ever got.”
Morton clutched his head and began to groan in frustration. “Do we have to argue about this now?”
There was another splitting sound and suddenly two more giant cockroaches wriggled out of the tiny hole in the side of the trunk. One nipped Melissa on the ankle.
“Ouch! Why, the nasty, filthy little …”
Melissa grabbed the dictionary again and started swatting, while James attacked with the bat. This time they each got one of the roaches. A thick yellow and green ooze spewed out of their fat broken bodies like runny toothpaste.
Several more cockroaches scrambled out of the hole, each nibbling the sides of the trunk to make the opening a little larger.
“Here they come!” Morton whimpered.
Melissa and James began swatting fiercely, but no sooner had they squashed one giant insect than two more leaped out. Morton grabbed one of his shoes and joined in the swatting, but within minutes dozens of roaches were running in the hallway, biting at everyone
’s ankles.
“Forget this,” Melissa said at last, dropping the dictionary and storming off to the other end of the hallway.
“Hey, where are you going?” James yelled in protest, but Melissa didn’t even glance back.
Morton dropped his shoe and grabbed the dictionary, which turned out to be a much better weapon. But because of the sheer numbers of snapping, biting cockroaches, he kept getting bitten on the hands and wrists, and blood was soon dribbling down his fingers.
“There’s too many,” James shouted. “We’re going to have to run for it.”
Indeed it was starting to look hopeless. There were more than fifty cockroaches scuttling in the hallway now, and they were pouring out of the small hole so fast they looked like brown, lumpy liquid.
Just as James and Morton were about to drop their weapons and run, they heard a voice behind them.
“Stand back, boys. I’ll handle this.”
Melissa stood there wearing safety glasses and headphones, sporting the power head to the old 1950s Hoover that had been in the family for generations. The saucer-shaped vacuum cleaner was plugged in and ready to go. James and Morton took cover behind Morton’s bedroom door as Melissa fired up the antique appliance. It whirred like a defunct jet engine. The power head puffed out dust as the rotating brushes gathered speed and the body began to vibrate. Melissa moved in for the kill. She pushed the power head into the crawling carpet of cockroaches with awesome and horrific results. The rotating brushes cracked the roaches’ hard, brittle exoskeletons and pulverized their soft inner bodies. The doomed insects shrieked, almost in harmony with the vacuum cleaner. They ran to escape, but Melissa was surprisingly fast. None managed to get past her. A viscous yellow blood boiled out of the pipe and sprayed from the motor. Melissa’s face and arms were spattered, and she looked like she was playing a losing game of paintball. But the attack was working. Within a few short moments the last of the vile insects jumped out of the trunk to meet its turbulent end.