Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  “But,” I said, slowly removing my eyes from the eyepiece, “if that’s a remote control, then . . .”

  Liz nodded.

  All I could think of was what happened whenever I clicked off a TV for the night. All those smiling faces and newsreels and puppets and laughter collapsing into a single line and then shrinking to a bright blip that flashed like a dying star or an atomic blast before . . . nothing. Just a blank screen with a warped reflection of yours truly.

  I’d waited my whole life to have the perfect kiss on the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. But if Daddy turned off the world, I’d never get there. I’d never see Ma again. My legs went numb, ready to collapse.

  “I find it’s best not to consider our insignificance in the universe,” Liz said, steadying me. She squeezed my arm. “Perhaps it’s best if I explain what we do here.”

  She exited the room, and I followed in a daze. We walked down a different hallway to the room I’d seen through the wire window with all the machines and weird static. The man in the lab coat was gone.

  “Our job in this lab,” Liz said, punching buttons on a panel, “is to ensure that Father never grows bored.”

  Several wavering images appeared on a row of screens, each showing a close-up of a different part of Daddy. There was one for each of his drooping eyes, one on the corner of his lips, and one on his thick fingers holding the remote control—almost like a Picasso painting.

  Liz adjusted dials until the pictures became clearer.

  “Because I’m the only one who can see him—well, until you and your mother came along—it’s my job to keep an eye on Father’s expression and report what I see.”

  She punched another button and the images changed to what looked like a sundial. Only in place of a shadow was an illustrated silhouette of Daddy, his arm lifting the remote.

  “This is our Doomsday Dial,” she said. “If Father’s remote is pointed downward at six o’clock, then we’re safe as houses. But if it rises to three . . .”

  The whole world becomes nothing more than a blip on a TV screen.

  Right then the remote on the Doomsday Dial was pointed at three thirty.

  “As you can imagine,” Liz said, “the men in this lab are losing their minds over our current situation. But don’t fret. I can’t tell you how many close calls we’ve had. I’ll bet we’ve prevented this remote control from rising a dozen times at least.” She seemed distracted by something on the screen. “Father is very predictable. Perverted men usually are.”

  My mind was sifting through the information as fast as it could. “How do you stop him from getting bored?”

  Liz flipped a switch, and the screens fell into darkness. “Simple. We turn up the excitement.”

  Something crackled overhead, nearly making me jump out of my skin.

  “Ease off, Link.”

  So there was a speaker in this room too.

  Liz gave an exasperated sigh, while I collected my thoughts. Turn up the excitement . . . I peeked through the wire window into the hallway with its rooms full of monsters and oddities.

  “You caused the Shivers.”

  Liz’s head turned quickly in my direction. “Oh, my dear, no. The monster disasters are perfectly natural. There’s nothing in this lab that wasn’t already crawling on God’s gray Earth. This lab was built to understand how these creatures came to be. Then we re-create them ourselves using radiation or atomization or—”

  “Link,” the speaker said. “No specifics.”

  The woman gave the ceiling a cold look, then warmed to me. “Imagine if Godzilla waded his way over from Japan and appeared off the coast of San Francisco. We could fight it off with an army of Gill-men that we personally generated. You understand?”

  I took a step away from the window, imagining webbed claws and slimy lips. “You have Gill-men here?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Liz said. “They’re an aberration of evolution. That was just an example.” She hit more buttons, and images of blueprints of all sorts of monsters started to flash across the screen. Antennae. Tentacles. Claws. Suction cups. “Over time, these creatures came to serve an even more important purpose. Keeping Father entertained. If things become too dull for his tastes, then—”

  “Link,” the voice through the speaker said. “What did I just say?”

  Looking up, Liz muttered, “A rock and a hard place.” She took my hand and smiled. “We need you to do something very simple for us, Phoebe—simple as playing I Spy. Do you know that game?”

  I took my hand back. “I’m not six.”

  “No, no, of course you’re not. I apologize.” She nodded at her round belly. “This is my first, and I’ve never been good with children. I suppose I should be as straightforward with you as possible.” Her eyes bounced around the room. “Father is growing bored more often lately. There’s going to be a war. A big war . . . and lots of people are going to—”

  “Link,” the speaker said, “you are endangering that girl’s life.”

  She scowled at the speaker and then regained her composure. “All I’m asking you to do is watch through that periscope and keep an eye on Daddy’s expression.”

  I gazed around the room with its screens and switches and concrete walls. “You want me to stay here?”

  “In the lab, yes. We’ll make up a room for you. A few times a day, you’ll peer through the periscope. If it appears as if Father’s thumb is about to move away from the button or if it looks like the remote is lowering at all, then you’ll inform Mr. Peak, and they’ll start to wind down the attack.”

  “What attack?” I said.

  The speaker crackled again, and Liz gave it a sharp look. “I know.” Again she smiled at me. “Just know that the sooner you tell someone that the remote is descending, the more lives you’ll save.”

  “Is that . . . Ma’s special mission? She’s watching Daddy too?”

  Liz nodded. “Precisely. We have her squirreled away in a different base. She’s doing very important work, keeping an eye on the eastern side of our father’s face. We just need someone to keep an eye on the western side. That’s your job. We’ll be trying out different experiments around the country. If Daddy isn’t interested in one type of monster, he might be interested in another.”

  “Why can’t you do it?” I asked.

  She patted her pregnant stomach. “I’m due any day. And I’m certainly not as alert as I was a couple months ago.”

  I leaned against a switchboard, feeling light-headed. “Do I have any say in this?”

  Liz looked at the microphone on the ceiling. “I’m afraid not, my dear.”

  So this was my life now. I would live in this concrete hole, among the creatures and caged lights and smells and beeps and electrical currents. I imagined myself peering through the periscope while Peak stared at me from the corner with his saggy expression.

  One of these days, I might be staring at the end of a remote control pointed straight at my heart. Daddy’s giant thumb would press down on that big button, and the ground would rise like a pulled shutter while the sky fell like a dropped sheet. Both would meet in the middle in a single line on the horizon before shrinking to a bright point of everythingness before it faded to nothing.

  And there I was, spending my final moments with a man who looked like Droopy Dog.

  “Guess the answer’s ‘yes’ then,” I said, wondering how I was going to escape.

  If the world was really coming to an end, I wanted to live the life I’d always imagined was waiting for me in the big cities. Or at the very least have a milk shake with Beth. Maybe go on a date with Calvin and get one last laugh.

  A knock came at the door right before it opened. Pan-Cake ran into the room with a wet branch in her mouth and started leaping at my legs.

  A handsome man entered behind her and kissed Liz on the cheek. “Hello there, star eyes,” he said in a Texas drawl.

  “Stop,” Liz said, fighting a smile. “You saw me twenty minutes ago.”


  It was the man who had opened the steel door. He’d seemed hostile with Pan-Cake at the time, but it turned out he was just going to play fetch with her. He wore a bomber jacket, Levi jeans, and leather boots. A matchstick hung from the corner of his lips.

  “Peak got me caught up on Phoebe here,” he said, flashing me a smile and sticking out his hand. “Heck Halberstam. But you can call me Hal. Pa signed the certificate before Ma got the chance, and she wasn’t the type of woman to raise no Heck.”

  I shook his hand and smiled, which felt odd in a situation like this.

  Hal thumbed his nose toward Pan-Cake. “Lucky-13 sure seems to have taken a fancy to ya.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to pretend like I was excited about the dog right then. Or anything, for that matter.

  Liz put her arm through Hal’s. “Do you have any questions for us, Phoebe?”

  How could you take my life away like this?

  “Phoebe,” Liz said carefully. “No one else can do what you do. In fact, if I go into labor, then you might be the only one in the West who can call off the attack.”

  And save thousands of lives from the Shivers you made, I thought.

  Liz suddenly brightened. “Let’s just pretend this is going to work, shall we? You’re going to have a short vacation. Right here in the lab. You’re going to perform a simple job, and then when it’s all finished, you’ll get to go to a normal school with kids your own age.”

  Not if Daddy gets bored, I thought. Then all the motels and all the schoolkids and the Navajo people, the parks and the television sets, Calvin and Rhoda, Officers Shelley and Graham, Beth and Ma, wherever she was, even the motel manager and his wife. They’d all get swallowed up in darkness.

  “In fact,” Liz said, “I’ll bet we can arrange it so that if you help us out, you’ll be given protection for the rest of your life. You and your mother. You’ll never have to flee another town again.”

  My heart fluttered as the speaker crackled. “Miss Link, I don’t think offering—”

  “I’m sure we could arrange it,” she said, staring daggers at the ceiling. She smiled at me again. “That way you wouldn’t have to worry about these Shivers anymore, and you could just focus on you things.” She squeezed my arm. “Whatever they might be.”

  I got a flutter of hope, but it died just as quickly. It was easy for Liz to say. She already had a handsome fella. She got to leave the Buried Lab. I was just a glorified canary in a coal mine.

  “Let me show you to your room,” Liz said, and then looked at my one wet sock. “And my goodness, let’s find you some shoes. Hal, we might need to borrow yours. I’m not sure any of mine will fit her.”

  She and Hal led me and my big feet deeper into the lab. Right then I’d take Rhoda or the two beehive hairdos over being buried in the desert with Droopy Dog, a bunch of monsters, and a pregnant lady who talked to me like I was six.

  I was still awake when the sobbing echoed down the hallway.

  “Ma?”

  I threw my feet off the bunk and waited to hear the crying again. The concrete floor of my windowless cell was littered with excelsior, as if they expected me to use the bathroom like a guinea pig. It smelled like the last occupant had.

  The sobbing came again, muffled and distant. I leapt up, grabbed my dress, and then remembered Liz had locked the door.

  “For your own safety,” she’d said. “If there’s an emergency, we’ll be able to hear you scream down the hall. Rest well.”

  Obviously, she didn’t have much experience as an older sister.

  The sobbing continued. Was that Ma? I’d only seen her cry a handful of times in my life. It was mostly about Brad, who had divorced her after she got miraculously pregnant when they’d been trying for kids for almost ten years.

  I decided to take a chance and slipped on my dress. When Liz had closed the door, I hadn’t heard it click. I stood up and tried the handle. It was locked. But when I pulled on it, it came open.

  This hallway had no lights save a faint glow rounding the corner at its end. I crept as quietly as I could. As the hall started to bend, the sobbing grew louder. Then it crackled. I looked up. It was coming through a speaker on the ceiling. . . .

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone stepped around the corner.

  “Oh!” Liz said, putting a hand to her chest. “Hello.”

  I froze. “Um, hi.”

  “What are you doing awake?”

  I glanced at the speaker. “I thought I heard crying.”

  Liz wiped her cheeks. “That was me, I’m afraid. Pregnant women should be in bed, not assisting a buried laboratory in saving the world.”

  I nodded like I understood.

  Liz sniffed and smiled. “I see I could have done a better job locking your door. Ah well, you’re here now.” She cradled her belly. “We can’t sleep either. Shall I make us all some tea?”

  I followed her to a closet kitchen where she boiled some water and prepared a tray with a flower-painted teapot, two fragile cups, and a tin of butter cookies. “We have a few creature comforts in this wretched place,” Liz said. I followed her down the hallway, the lid on the teapot clinking delicately. “I find a little chamomile stops the fussing in its tracks. I’m expecting a snob, I guess.”

  What she really meant was a cultured baby, I thought. Ma once said she alternated Olympia beer and Coca-Cola every other night while she was pregnant with me. I didn’t know what those drinks made me, but it sure wasn’t a snob. Or cultured.

  We came to a door with rounded corners and a big wheel on it, again like something stolen off a submarine.

  Liz lifted the tray toward the wheel. “You mind?”

  I turned the wheel, first to the right, then remembering “lefty loosey,” quickly turned it the other way, hoping Liz hadn’t noticed. I never made these kinds of mistakes in front of Ma. The door made a hissing noise as it creaked outward. I held it open while Liz carefully stepped over the lip of the frame.

  She set the tea tray on a small table that already had two chairs on either side of it and said, “Would you seal the door again, please? I don’t want anyone breaking up our party.”

  I turned the wheel—the right way this time.

  Liz sat in the far chair and I sat in the other. A band of light crossed her eyes, leaving the rest of her face in shadow, making her even more beautiful somehow. She filled the cups with tea and said, “This is pleasant. Two sisters getting to know each other.”

  I looked around the room, whose walls were made up of tiles like charcoal pyramids, all pointing inward, right at us.

  “Why are we in here?” I asked.

  Liz picked up her teacup, holding it just with her fingertips. “Because this is the only room with no microphones.”

  I picked up the other cup and tried to hold it just as delicately, but it made the porcelain feel slippery. “How do you know?”

  “I was here when they built this place.”

  We took sips of the chamomile, and I set mine on the tray, trying not to make a face.

  “So,” Liz said, “now that we’re alone, tell me about yourself.”

  I held my arm. “What do you wanna know?”

  She shrugged her pretty shoulders. “Anything.”

  I felt about as vulnerable as a frog with its guts splayed open. I didn’t have any good stories. Not like Ma. That was the problem.

  “Perhaps you’d like to ask me a question first,” Liz said.

  “Okay, um . . . do Daddy’s eyes follow the monsters? Or do the monsters pop up wherever his eyes go?”

  Liz sipped her tea. “There’s no real way for us to tell, is there?”

  “I guess not,” I said, feeling stupid for some reason.

  “Anything else?” Liz said.

  My cheeks darkened. I’d had a question burning inside me for years. “So how does Daddy . . . how did our moms, um . . .”

  Liz smiled. “Let’s just say there was no actual physical contact. They were just beautiful and standing
in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I scratched at my clavicle, trying to piece that one together.

  “Why didn’t you get locked up?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ma was tossed in the loony bin the minute she breathed a word about Daddy. Why weren’t you?”

  Liz set down her teacup with a small clink. “I suppose that had to do with my mother. She never told me about the man in the sky. She was a geisha, and they’re trained never to speak of untoward things. The man in the sky was a taboo topic, like sex or that time of the month. She simply pretended he wasn’t there. Although I’m quite certain she could see him. I could tell by how she didn’t look at the sky. Mother avoided clouds the same way she avoided the eyes of her clientele.”

  All of a sudden I wasn’t much jealous of Liz anymore. How would it be having a mother who never shared the secrets of life with you, who kept them tucked up and hidden within the folds of her kimono?

  “I managed to keep it a secret for most of my life,” Liz said. “But then I married a military man. You met Hal earlier this evening. I told him where Father was looking, and he started reporting it to the military as hunches. Over time, the secret service grew to trust us. Eventually, I learned to make myself indispensible.”

  Did that mean I was indispensible too? A part of me hoped not. I wanted this lab to dispense of me immediately.

  “They thought I was the only one,” Liz said. “The military, that is. But then combing through old police files, we found a woman who claimed she saw a man in the sky who caused disasters with his eyes. And to think it was the famous Loretta Lane herself. So we summoned her to the nearest town, Pennybrooke, by setting up the Emperor Ook tour.”

  “You planned the carnival tour?”

  “Of course,” Liz said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Ook is tired news these days. But you’d be surprised at what a couple phone calls and a little money will do.”

  Ma had been surprised when she’d received the call saying she was back in demand. She’d been out of the limelight since 1943 when she got pregnant. But a job on the road was too enticing for a woman and her daughter always on the run.