by Sam Fisher
Wendy shuffled in beside James. “You need a compass,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” James said. “I seem to remember there’s a way to do it by first —”
“Sorry. You two will just have to get your own pie later,” Melissa said, grabbing the knife from James’s hand and roughly cutting the pie into six. “We’ll fight over the extra piece.”
James and Wendy exchanged glances. “I guess not everyone likes geometry,” she said, putting her hand on his arm and laughing.
Melissa squinted her eyes threateningly at James, but he was too busy staring at Wendy to notice.
Everyone tucked in happily to the pie, which was delicious. James, Morton, and Melissa in particular ate like hungry animals.
“Does your dad feed you at all?” Wendy asked.
“Oh, he feeds us,” Melissa said, wiping ice cream from her chin, “but whether what he feeds us could be called food is up for debate.”
“Yeah. It starts out as food,” Morton added, “but it’s usually just gray goo by the time it gets onto the plate.”
“Suffice it to say, this pie is the best thing we’ve eaten in months,” James said, raising his glass of cream soda. “I propose a toast to Robbie’s mother.”
Everyone lifted their glasses. “To Robbie’s mom,” they all said, and clinked glasses and giggled. Robbie blushed and smiled so broadly that he looked like a different person altogether. Morton wondered if Robbie had any close friends. He suspected not.
“So this is the Blind Man’s house?” Robbie said a few minutes later, as everyone was finishing up their pie. “It’s not as creepy as I thought it would be.”
“You should have been here last night,” Melissa whispered under her breath.
James elbowed Melissa hard, causing a piece of pie to fall off her fork.
“I suppose once you swap all the furniture out, it’s just a normal house,” Wendy said brightly. “It was the owner that was creepy.”
“Was he always creepy, or did he just get strange after he went blind?” James asked.
“Actually, I think he was creepier before he went blind,” Wendy said. “At night you’d always see him pacing up and down in that round room in the turret, talking to himself or sitting at his desk, working away in the candlelight. After he went blind we never even saw him. The house was always dark, but you knew he was in here, wandering around alone.”
“I know something really weird about him,” Robbie said, leaning forward and glancing around nervously as if King himself might still be listening.
James, who now seemed to be sitting even closer to Wendy, sighed. “Doesn’t anybody know any happy stories about him?” he said.
Robbie and Wendy, who obviously knew more about his reputation than they were letting on, exchanged glances.
“Well, come on. Out with it,” Melissa said, somewhat surprisingly. “I’m sure we’ll hear all the creepy stories about him sooner or later.”
“Not this story,” Robbie said. “This is something that never came up in the papers. It’s something only a few people know.” Robbie’s voice dropped to just above a whisper. “My mom’s a cook for the hospital, and she knows the guy who buys all the meat. Now get this, he told her that one time the old man bought five black piglets from him. He said they had to be black and they had to be alive!”
“I don’t get it,” Melissa said. “What would anyone want black piglets for? Do they taste better than pink piglets? Is there some kind of black-piglet pie recipe or something?”
Morton clutched his head. “Melissa!” he said. “Everybody knows that black pigs are sacrificed in dark rituals.”
Melissa rolled her eyes. “Everybody named Morton, maybe.”
“You think he was involved in dark magic?” James asked.
Robbie nodded. “I’d heard rumors about it before, but when Mom told me about the pigs, it sort of clinched it.”
“What kind of rumors?” Melissa said.
“Well, apparently he collected old books on dark magic. He used to go to auctions and spend huge amounts of money on them.”
“Where did he get his money?” Melissa asked.
“He was a successful artist, remember,” Wendy said. “And it’s not just a rumor about the books. My uncle works at the library, and the Blind Man was always coming in looking for anything to do with dark magic, even after he went blind. He said he needed them for his work, but honestly, who ever heard of a job where you need books on dark magic?”
Morton, Melissa, and James exchanged glances. They at least knew the answer to that question.
Robbie pulled in his shoulders and looked around nervously. “He didn’t scratch any magic symbols on the floor or anything like that did he?”
“Not that we know of,” James said, “but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. I mean, it’s not something you usually see advertised, is it? Four-bedroom house with two baths en suite, and a fine collection of dark magic symbols.”
Everyone laughed, especially Wendy.
James laughed even louder at his own joke and was about to say something else when he quite unexpectedly let out a huge belch. It was so loud that Wendy jumped.
“Oooh! Pardon me,” James said, covering his mouth with his hand.
Everybody laughed again, except Morton. There was something about the expression on James’s face that didn’t seem funny.
“It must be the …”
Morton thought James was about to say “cream soda,” but instead “CRRUUURP!” was all that came out. James took several deep breaths. “I’m sorry. What did your mom put in this pie, Robbie?”
“Don’t blame the pie,” Wendy said, coming to the pie’s defense.
“I’m just kidding,” James said. “I don’t normally BRRRAAAARRARRRUP!”
This time nobody laughed. This was possibly the loudest belch anybody in the room had ever heard. Melissa too now looked shaken, and her eyes found Morton’s from across the table. “That sounded painful,” she said.
James went bright red with embarrassment. Wendy was now staring at him with a look of concern on her face.
“Excuse me, I better go to the BRAAARUPthroom! Sorry, again, something BAAARP! funny with the BRAAARP soda!”
James practically ran out of the kitchen, belching three more times before darting upstairs and locking himself in the bathroom.
The four remaining kids sat in shocked silence at the table. Morton had an unpleasant panicky feeling and decided he’d better go and check on James.
“I’ll just see if he’s okay,” he said, and dashed up the stairs after him.
He stood outside the bathroom door and was about to knock when he heard a loud gurgling sound followed by another ear-splitting belch. A moment later a cloud of thick yellow smoke billowed from under the door and an acrid smell bit into his nostrils. Panic shot through Morton’s chest like a spear, and he had a sudden urge to bash the door down. If something happened to James …
“James! James!” he yelled, pounding wildly on the door.
He heard another groan and felt his own stomach tighten into a ball. An image of James lying unconscious on the bathroom floor popped into his head, and he pounded even harder.
Then, finally, James spoke up. “Just a minute,” he said, in a surprisingly calm tone and a moment later he flung open the door and smiled at Morton as if nothing had happened. Morton’s fear gave way to embarrassment.
“What just happened?” he said, feeling an incredible sense of relief to see James smiling.
“It’s nothing,” James said. “Cream soda doesn’t agree with me, that’s all.”
Morton looked searchingly into James’s eyes. Yes, he was smiling, but there was something there that didn’t feel right. And Morton was sure he could see a faint yellow haze in the bathroom, but the small square window was open and the acrid smell, whatever it was, had vanished.
The two of them returned to the kitchen and James tried to settle back into the conversation, but the mood had bee
n broken and everyone was thinking about getting home.
Morton couldn’t help noticing that as James waved good-bye to their guests, he began flexing his fingers and rubbing his hands yet again.
The next week or so felt almost, though not entirely, normal. The biggest change appeared to be in Melissa’s mood. She knuckled down earnestly to the comic reading research, often exceeding her quota of five stories a night and even admitting, to Morton’s great surprise, that the stories weren’t as horrible as she’d expected. “They’re quite insightful,” she said, “in a ghastly, drowning-in-blood kind of way.”
They were all sleeping better too, although Morton thought he’d heard James wandering around after bedtime on more than one occasion. And there had been no sign of the stray monsters. In fact, the only person who laid eyes on any of Morton’s monsters was Melissa, who despite James’s pleading, insisted on venturing into her magical closet to find new outfits every morning. Nothing could keep her from boldly storming in, baseball bat in hand, to stake her “rightful claim to stylish booty.” Some things, she insisted, were worth fighting for.
It wasn’t until Friday, almost two weeks after the monsters came alive, that things began to shift again. Melissa appeared at breakfast looking unusually disheveled. Though she wore a dramatic red silk top, tight pin-striped skirt, and expensive-looking pumps, her hair was bedraggled and her face was covered in black streaks.
“I think they’re breeding,” she said casually.
James spilled his glass of milk, and Morton dropped his spoon under the table.
“What do you mean they’re breeding?” James yelped.
“Come on now, James. You know all about the birds and the bees. They’re, you know …”
James shook his head, as if obstinately refusing to imagine what Melissa was suggesting.
“How do you know?” Morton asked, trying to decipher her exact meaning.
“There’s more of them, that’s how I know. After they chewed their way out of that old trunk, I’d only ever see one every few days. But now there are swarms of them.”
Morton hadn’t even considered the possibility that the monsters might reproduce and had a sudden foolish urge to go exploring in Melissa’s closet to see for himself. “So how many are there now?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t take a census. Two hundred, at least.”
“What?” James exclaimed. “Then why, in the name of sanity, do you still go in there?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. They’re frightened of me now. They keep well away.”
“Then what’s with all the marks on your face?”
“Well, a few of them still don’t know who’s boss. A Dragon Fly came at me this morning. I wasn’t ready for that.”
“That still doesn’t explain the marks.”
“Dragon Fly. You know, the breathing-fire kind of dragon.”
“Oh. I didn’t know Morton had one of those.”
“I had two,” Morton said.
“Not anymore,” Melissa said, smiling proudly.
Dad appeared carrying his mug of tea.
“What an earth happened to your face?” he said at once, looking at Melissa.
“Oh, it’s just toast.”
“Toast? What were you doing, wrestling with it?”
“You know me, Dad. I like to kill my breakfast and eat it while it’s still twitching,” Melissa said with a sinister smile.
Morton decided the comics were going to her head.
The real development happened later that morning when James and Morton were walking to school, arguing about whether or not John King was evil.
“Let’s look at the facts,” James said. “King spent all his time reading about dark magic or writing horror stories. He practiced animal sacrifice and refused to work in daylight. He lived alone in a run-down house and ended up drowning in his own well. It’s pretty obvious he was a twisted lunatic.”
Morton refused to believe that King was anything other than a genius but realized he didn’t have any concrete reasons for thinking that. “But everyone knows King’s stories are the best,” he said. “And even Melissa admitted that they were insightful.”
“Look, Morton, you’re an optimist. You always see the best in people, and that’s a good thing most of the time, but in this case it’s not. King was as cracked as a crater on the moon.”
Morton puffed his cheeks and was about to disagree when James stopped suddenly in his tracks.
“Morton,” he said, “does anything strike you as odd about the street?”
Morton looked up and saw at once what James was referring to. Every tree and telephone pole for as far as the eye could see had a poster on it. “That’s strange,” he said. “Is it some kind of festival?”
James walked up to the nearest poster and read it aloud.
LOST. TABITHA. GINGER CAT.
LOVES SARDINES.
PLEASE CALL RACHEL AT 555-2789.
He pulled the poster off, walked up to another tree, and read a second poster.
HAVE YOU SEEN MY BOBBLES?
PERSIAN BLUE.
FRIGHTENED OF TRAFFIC.
GENEROUS REWARD.
Morton crossed the road to find more of the same.
MISSING CAT. ANSWERS TO TIBBITS.
LOST ONE EAR IN FIGHT. PLEASE CALL
555-1750.
Morton began to get that familiar tingling of excited fear that always accompanied a good Scare Scape story. James crossed over to join him, now holding several posters in his hand.
“What do you suppose this means?” James asked.
Morton could think of only one explanation. “It has to be the Zombie Twins.”
“You think the Zombie Twins are eating the town’s cats?” James exclaimed.
“Not eating them,” Morton said, surprised by the suggestion. “The Zombie Twins are clever, remember? They control animals’ minds and get them to do whatever they want.”
“Oh,” James said in a dismayed voice. “Why would they want to control cats?”
Morton shrugged. He didn’t know. The Zombie Twins always behaved mysteriously in the comic. It was never easy to figure out their motives. He would need to do more research.
As they continued on their way to school they saw more posters. Some were printed with color photos, many were written in pen or permanent marker, one was even hand painted on watercolor paper with a lovely picture of a distinguished-looking black-and-white cat by the name of Count Claw. By the time they reached the school gates James and Morton counted more than forty different posters.
And they weren’t the only ones to notice. The whole school yard was buzzing with the news. Several kids had posters to give out and the rest were just chattering excitedly.
“Hey, Morton,” Timothy Clarke said, running up to them as they came through the gates. Timmy was in the same grade as Morton, and was also a big Scare Scape fan. In fact, he’d asked Morton a lot of questions about how to order merchandise by mail order, and today he wore a new King-Crab Spider T-shirt and was bubbling with excitement. “Guess what? Somebody’s stealing cats. It’s really cool.”
“Cool?” Morton said, confused by Timmy’s apparent joy.
“Yeah, it’s cool because Finchy …” Timmy paused and cast a sudden nervous glance up at James. “I mean, uh, Principal Finch, says the police are coming to ask us all questions after lunch. Which means no classes this afternoon!”
Morton practically choked on his own tongue at the mention of the police but managed to lock his face into a grin. “Oh, that’s great,” he said, and was relieved when Timmy ran off to continue spreading the gleeful news about canceled classes to the rest of the school.
Morton turned to look at James, who was licking his dry lips nervously.
“Oh no,” Morton said gloomily. “What if the police find out about my wish?”
“That’s crazy talk,” James said, almost as if he was trying to convince himself. “There’s no way anyone could figure
out that this has anything to do with you. I mean the police are looking for a person, aren’t they? They’re not looking for, well …”
“Zombie Twins,” Morton said.
“Exactly. They’re not looking for Zombie Twins.”
Morton didn’t feel very comforted by James’s words but decided he better go find Robbie to see if he knew anything more about the situation. As he wandered across the school yard he couldn’t help but overhear all the other kids debating the pros and cons of the missing cats. Most of the boys were ecstatic about the possibility of canceled classes, while most of the girls were indignant that the boys could be so insensitive about the suffering of the missing cats.
Strangely Robbie was nowhere to be seen. By the time the bell rang, Morton still hadn’t found him. It wasn’t until lunchtime that he saw him leaning up against the wall just inside the school yard, folding his arms across his chest in an uncharacteristic manner.
“Robbie, I’ve been looking for you all morning,” Morton said.
“Why?” Robbie said in a sullen, unfriendly voice.
“What’s wrong?” Morton asked.
“It’s those stupid cats!” Robbie blurted out, his voice cracking slightly.
“Did you lose a cat too?”
“I don’t have a cat! I hate cats! It’s everybody else who’s lost their cats.”
“Huh? I don’t understand….” Morton then noticed something strange. “What’s wrong with your shirt?”
Robbie turned around and showed Morton that his button-down shirt no longer had any buttons.
“Brad and his butt-head buddies cornered me this morning on the way to school. They said I stole the cats.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Morton said, outraged. “Why would they say something so stupid? Who’d want to steal cats?”
“Well, obviously somebody is stealing them.”
“No, nobody’s stealing them, it’s …” Morton managed to stop himself. This would be so much easier if he could just tell Robbie the truth. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Who cares what they say?”
“You don’t get it do you? They’re going to say I stole the cats, and then the police are going to come to my house and start asking questions. And then Mom’s going to get all upset again, and, ugh!” Robbie punched the wall hard, scuffing his knuckles on the coarse bricks. “Ouch!” He quickly rubbed his fist with his other hand.