Scare Scape

by Sam Fisher

  Morton recognized the emotion at once and felt suddenly horribly insensitive.

  “Oh no! I’m so sorry. That was stupid of me. I should have …” Morton stammered for words. “Look, I know how you feel. Our mum died last year and … well, there’s nothing you can say, is there? I mean, I know what you’re going through.”

  Robbie looked up at Morton. “I didn’t know about your mom. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry about your dad too,” Morton replied, and neither of them said any more about it.

  It wasn’t until last period that fatigue from the strange events of the night before came back with a vengeance. The history teacher, it turned out, was Mr. Brown, the heavyset man with short gray hair and a walking stick who had handed out welcome packages on Morton’s first day of school.

  At the beginning of the lesson Morton thought he was going to really enjoy Mr. Brown’s class. He was friendly and managed to get everyone laughing a number of times by telling corny jokes. Unfortunately he had a bad habit of reading enormous sections from the textbook out loud, and Morton found himself repeatedly drifting into sleep. He pinched himself to stay awake and tried breathing deeply, but nothing seemed to work. As the class progressed he slid lower in his chair and began to feel as though somebody had tied lead weights to his eyelids.

  The next thing he knew the whole class was laughing at him. His eyes fluttered open, and he found his face stuck to the oak desk in a puddle of drool. Mr. Brown was shaking his shoulder.

  Morton sat up and wiped his face with his sleeve. Every eye in the classroom was on him.

  “Really, young man, is my class that boring?”

  “Yes, sir — I mean, no, sir, of course not.”

  Everyone laughed again.

  “You’re Morton Clay, the new boy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Morton, I think you better stay behind after class so we can have a word. All right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Morton said somberly.

  When class was dismissed Morton waited until everyone else had left before sauntering up to Mr. Brown’s desk. Butterflies fluttered nervously in his stomach. Mr. Brown pulled up a chair and asked him to sit. He turned his own chair around so that he was sitting on it backward and folded his arms on the back.

  “Morton,” he said in a friendly tone, “I know you didn’t really fall asleep just because my class is boring, did you?”

  Morton thought for a moment and had to admit that he didn’t fall asleep just because the class was boring, he fell asleep because he hadn’t slept all night and because the class was boring. He decided not to share this insight and simply said, “No, sir.”

  “No, of course not. That much is obvious. You see, Morton, as you know, I’m not just the history teacher, I’m also the guidance counselor. You can come to me anytime you like with any problems you might be having at home or in school.”

  “Any problems, sir?”

  “Yes. And anything you say to me will be in the strictest confidence. Usually if a kid is falling asleep in class, then he’s not sleeping at night. And if he’s not sleeping, then we know there’s something not right, don’t we?”

  “Uh, yes, sir.”

  “So what’s wrong in Morton’s world?”

  Morton’s head suddenly swarmed with images of Acid-Spitting Frogs, Toxic Vapor Worms, and Zombie Twins roaming the streets of Dimvale.

  “It’s nothing really, sir, honest,” he said. “We just moved here, so I guess we haven’t settled in yet.”

  “Still unpacking boxes, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about those strange cuts on your wrists?” Mr. Brown said, keeping his tone even.

  Morton quickly pulled his sleeves down over his hands. He’d forgotten about the tooth marks from the giant cockroaches. “Oh, I was helping my dad clear the garden. It’s all overgrown with raspberry bushes. I should have worn gloves.”

  “Really? That’s nice of you to help your dad. Do you like gardening?”

  “I mow lawns to earn extra allowance.”

  “That’s very impressive. We don’t get all that many entrepreneurial kids these days. Where is this new house of yours anyway?”

  “It’s a big old house on Hemlock Hill. Victorian, I think. Needs a bit of work.”

  Mr. Brown, who had been smiling sympathetically up to this point, frowned and shuffled uncomfortably in his chair.

  “You don’t mean the old King house?”

  Morton felt an odd jolt at the mention of the name.

  “Uh, I think a blind man owned it before. I don’t know his name.”

  Mr. Brown sat up straight and began to rub his chin. “Yes, that’s him, John King.”

  Morton felt another jolt, only this time he realized why. The name was familiar to him. A wave of adrenaline raced through his veins and his fatigue vanished instantly. Surely it couldn’t be …

  “Was there anything else, sir?” Morton prompted, suddenly eager to get home.

  “No, I think we’re good,” Mr. Brown said, smiling. “We’ll just keep an eye on you, shall we?”

  Morton didn’t like the idea of anyone keeping an eye on him — it made him feel like an insect in a jar, but he smiled and nodded.

  “See you next class, bright eyed and bushy tailed.”

  Morton ran quickly out of the classroom with an increased sense of foreboding. An idea was forming in his mind, and he didn’t like the shape of it at all.

  He ran all the way home and was sweating fiercely by the time he burst into the kitchen. Without pausing even for a second he raced up to his room, grabbed a handful of Scare Scape comics, and took them down to the kitchen to scour through them.

  Melissa walked in and saw him flipping pages rapidly.

  “Morton! Aren’t you cured of those things? I mean honestly, give it a break!”

  “I’m doing research,” Morton hissed.

  “Research?”

  “I knew there was something familiar about the Blind Man’s story,” Morton went on, feeling more anxious by the second. “I’d heard it before, and then when I found out his name was John King, it all made sense.”

  “It all makes sense?” Melissa said incredulously.

  “Well, no, but … just hold on!” Morton continued scanning through the comics furiously.

  “What’s going on?” James said, appearing at the door beside Melissa and dropping his schoolbag to the floor.

  “Morton, sibling of sin, is losing his marbles.”

  Morton ignored Melissa and kept flicking through the comics. At last he found what he was looking for.

  “It’s here! I was right. This is it.”

  James and Melissa stared at him blankly. “Look,” he said, showing them the introduction to what appeared to be a special edition of Scare Scape. There was a fuzzy black-and-white picture of a grizzled old man with an immense mop of greasy gray hair. He was wearing dark, circular sunglasses, a dirty striped shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and an old black waistcoat. “Don’t you see? John King was the Blind Man.”

  “John King?” Melissa said.

  “Just listen,” he said, and read the entire editorial out loud.

  * * *

  “King of Scare”

  The John King Commemorative Edition

  Beast Meisters, Weirding Women, and fellow Scare Scapers the world over have mourned with us the loss of our greatest and grimmest King of Scare, the late John King. No doubt you, like our staff, cried tears of blood when you learned that the once great and gloomy artist and writer had died in a tragic accident on the grounds of his private creepy mansion in the isolated town of Dimvale.

  We all remember King’s classic covers from issues 275 through to 347 as the glory days of Scare. Indeed, King’s ultra-realistic style and unforgiving depictions of gore and ghastliness are what made him the readers’ favorite cover artist. In fact, it was you, dear readers, who by sending letters flooding in like locusts in praise of his raw (and bloody)
talent forced us to give King his own strip: King’s Disturbing Things.

  The strip’s varied and harried tales of demonic deceit, pestilent plunder, and murderous madness was the raven feather in our creepy cap for six hideous years. Most famous for his tireless research into the lost dark arts, King brought an unwelcome touch of credibility to the horror fantasy realm.

  Sadly, all bad things must come to an end, and, as you know, two years ago King lost his sight in an undiagnosed illness. Unable to work, King’s black heart was broken. Now, he has left us forever to join his fellow corpses in the underworld.

  Please join us on a commiserative, commemorative trip down a memory-haunted lane as we present you with this humble and horrible special collector’s edition of some of King’s favorite, most fiendish works.

  * * *

  John, we salute your bones and dance reverently on your grave.

  The King is dead. Long live the King.

  The Editors and Staff. Scare Scape.

  * * *

  PS: Look out for more reruns of King’s top terror tales in our regular comic, starting next week.

  * * *

  As soon as Morton finished reading, Melissa snatched the comic from his grasp and squinted in disbelief at the fuzzy picture. At last she placed the comic on the counter. Her hands were trembling.

  “Is this a coincidence?” she asked, the tremor in her hands spilling over into her voice.

  “It can’t be,” James said. “It’s exactly what Wendy said. He was some kind of artist who went blind.”

  “But what about the gargoyle?” Melissa said. “Did he have something to do with that?”

  “Had to,” James said. “I mean, someone who devotes his whole life to writing about dark magic and monsters lived here, and then we find a magic gargoyle, and Morton’s monsters, monsters right out of this very comic, come to life…. It can’t be coincidence.”

  “This is terrible,” Melissa said. “I mean, this King character was a sick man.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Morton protested. “He was really smart.”

  “Oh, come on, Morton. Grow up!” Melissa snapped. “Tears of blood? Dancing on graves? What kind of a twisted kid are you? It’s sick. You’re sick!”

  “Whoa! Calm down,” James said, stepping between Melissa and Morton. “Yelling is not going to get us out of this mess.”

  “No, but it makes me feel better about being in it,” Melissa retorted.

  “This is a good thing,” Morton said, feeling strangely exhilarated by the idea of not only living in King’s house but also somehow getting pulled into his life. “You heard what it said. King did lots of research. Everything he wrote or drew was based on something real. That’s why the house looked so familiar to me. King used it for inspiration. I’ve seen drawings of different parts of this house all over the comic.”

  “How is that a good thing?” Melissa said.

  “Because it means we might find some kind of clue in the comic about how to reverse the wishes.”

  “I don’t know about that,” James said. “From what I remember none of the stories end happily.”

  “That’s only because the people in the stories do the wrong thing,” Morton explained, eager to convince them.

  “Yes, well, we’ve done the wrong thing,” Melissa said. “We’ve made selfish wishes, so we’re probably doomed.”

  “But we can still look for clues. If King knew anything about the gargoyle, I’m sure he would have put something in one of his comics.”

  “This isn’t one of your stupid stories, Morton,” Melissa said coldly. “This is real, and real life doesn’t have simple comic book solutions.”

  Morton clenched his teeth angrily. “Do you have a better idea?”

  After a moment’s tense silence James spoke up. “Morton has a point,” he said. “There might be some clues in there.”

  “What? I will not read that vile garbage!” Melissa stated firmly.

  “Nobody’s asking you to,” James said. “Morton and I will go through them. How many comics do you have, Morton?”

  “Thousands, but only four hundred or so with King strips.”

  “Four hundred!” James exclaimed.

  Morton nodded. “And there are two King strips, Disturbing Things and Night Terrors. Night Terrors didn’t start until later, so I think it’s about seven hundred stories in total.”

  James whistled. “That’s going to take longer than I thought. Bearing in mind we still have to do homework. Let’s see, if we each read three stories a night, that’s going to take …”

  “Months,” Melissa said flatly. “If we up it to five stories a night each and I join in, we can do it in seven weeks.”

  “You’re right,” James said, after a minute of counting fingers. “But I thought you weren’t going to go anywhere near Morton’s vile comic.”

  Melissa pressed her lips together. “It looks like I don’t have a choice,” she said. “As always, having brothers is going to completely ruin my life.”

  An unusual tension hung over the table at suppertime. Morton was eager to begin rereading back issues of Scare Scape and, for the first time all day, dared to feel optimistic, but the others seemed somehow glum and reticent, which Dad noticed at once.

  “What a cheery lot,” he said, dishing out his version of spaghetti and meatballs. “Is everything okay at school?”

  “Oh, we’re just tired,” Melissa said. “We were up so late with Morton’s —”

  “Card game!” James cut in before Melissa could finish.

  “Ah, so now the truth comes out,” Dad said. “Which card game is this?”

  “The Monster Tarot,” Morton said, thinking quickly. “It’s really cool.”

  “Melissa was playing with Morton’s monster cards?” Dad said, eyeing them all suspiciously.

  Melissa bit her lip and nodded unconvincingly.

  “This game wouldn’t have anything to do with the broken window in Morton’s bedroom, would it?” Dad asked casually.

  Everyone exchanged nervous glances. They’d cleaned up most of the mess but had forgotten about the broken window.

  “I think it was already broken when we arrived,” Morton said, choking on a meatball.

  “Or maybe kids are still throwing stones at the house,” Melissa said. “Kids always throw stones at abandoned houses.”

  “Hmm!” Dad said, rubbing his beard. “I’m also trying to figure out what happened to the vacuum cleaner. It was full of some kind of sticky goo. Took me ages to clean it out. Was that something to do with your game?”

  This time Morton coughed a rubbery meatball right back out onto his plate.

  “Must have been the movers,” Melissa said. “I bet they spilled some eggs or something and vacuumed them up. You know how movers are: all muscle and no brain.”

  “Perhaps,” Dad said. “In any case, let’s make sure you all get to bed nice and early tonight, shall we?”

  “We will,” Melissa said earnestly.

  A few minutes later Dad put on his tie, grabbed his phonebook-size stack of papers, and went to kiss each of his children on the forehead. Melissa, who thought she was too old to be kissed, turned away at the last minute so that Dad ended up kissing her ear.

  “Dad!” she exclaimed, wiping her ear with her sleeve.

  “Sorry. Perhaps you’d prefer it if I kissed your feet.”

  “Gross!” Melissa said.

  Dad smiled at Melissa, even though she was looking at him in disgust. “Remember,” he said, “best behavior or you get an unctuous babysitter.” He waved a finger playfully. “No falling asleep on the couch.”

  As soon as the car drove away Melissa turned to face James.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve figured out what your wish is, have you?” she said harshly.

  “No, I haven’t,” James said defiantly, and Morton noticed that he started rubbing his hands again.

  Melissa snorted. “I can’t believe you wasted your wish on something and you don�
��t even know what it was.”

  “Wasted?” James said. “You don’t think a giant closet is a waste of a wish?”

  “Actually, no, I don’t,” Melissa said, blowing the hair out of her eyes in the way she did when she was angry, which was most of the time. “Anyway, aren’t we supposed to be reading these stupid comics?” she said.

  Morton was about to protest and insist once again that they weren’t stupid when the doorbell rang.

  James answered it. “Are you expecting a pie delivery?” he called out from the porch.

  Morton turned to see Robbie standing in the doorway holding a small cardboard box. With everything that had happened he’d completely forgotten that he’d invited him over.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Robbie said. “Mom insisted on baking a fresh pie. Said a housewarming present had to be warm.”

  “Real pie!” Melissa said enthusiastically. “As in, pie not made by Dad. How completely awesome. I think there’s some ice cream hidden in the basement freezer too,” she added, sounding happier than she’d sounded since they’d arrived in Dimvale.

  “Come in,” Morton said. “This is my sister, Melissa.”

  “Hi,” Robbie said, waving nervously at Melissa.

  “I’ll get the ice cream,” James said.

  A few minutes later they were all seated around the table just about to cut into the pie when the doorbell rang again. Everyone turned to see Wendy waving through the screen door. “Hope I’m not interrupting,” she said.

  “Perfect timing!” Melissa said, practically dragging Wendy into the house. “I was outnumbered three to one.”

  Wendy was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. Her hair hung loosely down her back, and she must have been wearing contact lenses because she didn’t have her glasses. Morton noticed that James began shuffling nervously in his seat and tucked in his shirt. “Five for pie, then,” he said.

  Morton remembered that they had a bottle of cream soda in the fridge and poured five glasses and then dished out generous helpings of ice cream. He stopped, however, when he got to the pie. “How do you cut it into five equal pieces?” he asked, scratching his head.

  “Oh, that’s a geometry puzzle,” James said, dragging the pie to his side of the table. “I can solve that. Let me think.”