Tock-tock-tock.
I felt such an awful fear that I couldn’t move. Everything my dad had ever told me about the Lizard Man ran in a loop through my mind. Run away. Scream for help. Never, ever let him catch you.
He was in no hurry. His shoes made the same steady rhythm.
Zoe moved her lighter up and down the door as we tried to figure out how to open it. I could see the hinges. I knew it swung out toward me, and not into the room, but what kept it closed? There was a steel rod, a lever, a twisted handle, all lit up one at a time by the flame of Zoe’s lighter.
She pointed and whispered, “Try pulling that handle.”
It didn’t move. But it made a rattling noise that echoed down the corridor, and the Lizard Man stopped walking. He stopped whistling. Zoe let her lighter go out, and in the darkness we listened for each other. It was so quiet that I could hear the tiny tingling of Zoe’s jewelry as she turned her head. I even heard her hair brushing against her coat.
The Lizard Man started walking again, faster than before. The tapping of his shoes rang through the castle. Tock-tock, tock-tock.
I turned to the door and groped for the lever. Zoe said, “Forget it. We’ll wait till the guy leaves again.”
“That might be too late.” Anything could happen if we left Angelo alone with the Lizard Man. I tried pulling the lever, but it wouldn’t move.
Through a doorway, in the dark, the Lizard Man’s lantern flashed like distant lightning. Tock-tock-tock-tock went his shoes. He was running now.
“Here he comes!” I said. “I can’t open the door.”
Zoe yanked on my arm. “Let’s go!”
But Angelo begged from inside, “Don’t leave me here! Please!”
Again I pulled the lever. I used all my strength, but it still wouldn’t budge. The Lizard Man’s light bounded along the walls, racing closer. “Zoe, help me!” I said.
But she was gone.
The light swung around and pinned my shadow to the concrete wall. Right in its glare, I stood alone outside the door as the Lizard Man came running.
Desperate now, I pulled once more on the handle. Something screeched and something clanked, and the door lurched open. Angelo pushed against it, swinging it toward me. I tried to step back. But caught by surprise, I stumbled and fell, and a moment later the Lizard Man was towering over me.
He looked monstrous, all hunchbacked and twisted. With one hand he slammed the door shut. Then he held up his lantern, blinding me with its glow.
“What are you doing here, boy?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to tell him. He swung his foot and kicked me in the ribs.
“Get up,” he said.
I rolled over onto my hands and knees, and the Lizard Man grabbed my collar. He was incredibly strong. His fingers squeezed like clamps. He pulled the door open and dragged me into the room.
The lantern glared in my eyes for a moment. Then it swung around the room, over Angelo, into the corners. It reflected off the metal door, and in its glow I got my first good look at the Lizard Man.
PANTS ON FIRE
He wasn’t monstrous. He was just a little man wearing a backpack, the same canvas bag I’d seen in the car behind the school.
He was wearing tall boots with checkered pants stuffed inside them, and he looked pretty much the way Bumble had described him. As old as a mummy, he had yellow skin stained with purple liver spots, and a neck like a wrung-out dishrag. From under his black hat dangled strands of white hair.
Up close, the tattoo that I had imagined in such awful detail was just a faded blur on his neck. With a crocodile face and a dragon’s tail, it must have looked ferocious once, but now it looked old and harmless, as wrinkled as the Lizard Man.
He held the lantern higher, till its light filled the room. “Billy Weaver,” he said.
Hearing that name made me shudder, and the Lizard Man saw it. “So it’s true!” he gloated. “Your friend told me I had the wrong boy.”
He switched off the lantern. The candle sputtering on the floor was now the only light in all of Deadman’s Castle.
“You should have heard him snivel,” said the Lizard Man. His voice rose into an awful imitation of Angelo. Don’t hurt me. Please. Well, I’ve got the right one now, all right.”
I could see past him, up through the grate in the ceiling. Smasher was still there, peering down at us.
“How many years have I waited for this?” said the Lizard Man. “You’ve been running me ragged all over the country while my boy rots in a jail cell. Well, now it’s payback time. You’re going to die in here, boy, and your friend along with you.”
“Why me?” said Angelo. “I never did anything.”
The Lizard Man sighed. “Well, be reasonable. I can’t just let you go.”
“I won’t tell anybody,” said Angelo. “I swear I won’t.”
The Lizard Man laughed. “That’s some friend you’ve got there, Weaver.”
“Please!” begged Angelo. “Just let me go!”
“Put a sock in it.”
The Lizard Man set down the lantern and took off his backpack. He groped inside it and pulled out a whip, then stepped toward Angelo.
“You ever had a lickin’ in your life, boy?” he asked.
Angelo held up his hands. “Don’t!”
Smasher snarled. She pulled back her lips and made an awful, sinister growl. The Lizard Man whirled toward the sound.
“Igor!” shouted Angelo. “Eat the feet!”
He was suddenly Johnny Shiloh, and I was Colt Cabana. We leapt from the floor and tackled the Lizard Man. The whip fell from his hand; his hat went rolling into a corner.
“The Frankensteiner!” shouted Angelo.
We knew just what to do; we’d done it a thousand times. With fists and feet we attacked the Lizard Man together.
But it didn’t mean a thing. The Lizard Man fended me off with one hand. With the other he knocked Angelo right across the room. In half a minute he’d beaten us both. Then he picked up his hat and his lantern, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Who else is down here?” he asked.
“No one,” I said.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” The Lizard Man switched on his light and shone it up at the metal bars. Their shadows stretched and twisted through the room above. But Smasher was gone.
The Lizard Man put on his hat, covering threads of hair as thin as cobwebs. “See you, boys,” he said.
“Don’t leave me here!” pleaded Angelo. “Please!”
“You’re breaking my heart.” The Lizard Man put on his backpack. “My boy’s been locked up for years. Get used to it.”
He stepped from the room. We didn’t even try to stop him. Angelo just sat huddled in the corner, looking tiny and sad. The beam of the light shone right onto him until the closing door cut it off and slammed shut. The latches closed; the Lizard Man walked away.
In the yellow light of our dying candle I watched Angelo shake as he sobbed. “Hey, it’s okay,” I told him.
“Oh, shut up!” wailed Angelo. “We’re dead!”
I moved over to sit beside him. I put my arm around his shoulders, but he threw it off with a shrug. “Leave me alone,” he said. “I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.”
“Zoe’s out there,” I told him. “She’s waiting for the guy to leave. Or maybe she went to get help.”
“He’ll catch her,” said Angelo.
“No he won’t.”
On the floor in front of us the candle flickered. There was almost nothing left but a tiny wick standing in a pool of wax. Angelo sniffled. “I want to go home.”
“We will.”
Again I put my arm around him, and this time he let me keep it there. I watched the flame and listened for the closing of the secret door that would mean the Lizard Man was gone. It was a scary thought that Angelo and I would be left in pitch blackness as soon as that wick fell over.
It leaned farther and farther, slowly sin
king into the wax. Angelo kept his face buried in his arms and didn’t see how the flame shrank, how the darkness seemed to close in.
I thought of the witches, and of the things Zoe didn’t want me to look at.
On the other side of the door, the Lizard Man shouted. There were no words, just the sort of grunt that an animal would make. Then somebody screamed—and I was sure it was Zoe.
Angelo heard it too. He straightened up, lifting his head. Outside our room, the latches clicked. The door creaked open.
THE BRAVE LITTLE DOG
In the glow from the dying candle, Zoe’s whitened face floated in the darkness.
She came staggering through the door, practically flying into the room. “Hey!” she shouted as she stumbled, sprawling onto the floor. “You don’t have to shove me.”
The Lizard Man turned on his light and swung it through the room, over Zoe first, over Angelo, onto me. “What a touching picture,” he said. “I think I’ll just leave you like this.”
He stepped backward out of the room and began to swing the door shut. We all must have thought the same thing. Once it closed, it would never be opened again.
Zoe was the first on her feet. She rushed at the door and leaned against it. I leapt up beside her, then Angelo too, the three of us pushing back against the door.
But it kept closing.
We heard a tiny ticking that became the scrabble of Smasher’s claws on the concrete. She was coming to find us, running as fast as she could. But the Lizard Man wouldn’t even wait to let her in.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of your little dog.”
The three of us together were not as strong as the Lizard Man. The gap between the door and the wall kept shrinking. At the last moment, Smasher lunged through the gap.
She didn’t quite make it.
Maybe she just wanted to be with Angelo. But it was possible that she was trying to stop that door from closing. Either way, it didn’t matter. The door slammed against her.
There was a thud and a cry that came together, the most terrible sound I’d ever heard. Angelo screamed. Roaring with anger, he lunged at the door. Zoe and I both moved along with him and we hit it together, our shoulders slamming the metal. We drove it back, hundreds of pounds of steel and iron. It crashed into the Lizard Man and knocked him down like a stack of stones. He lay on his back with the beam of his lantern piercing through the dark, shining on a wall covered with the faces of painted devils.
We didn’t wait to see if he was alive or dead. Angelo lifted Smasher from the ground, and we raced for the stairs with Zoe leading the way.
Behind us, the Lizard Man stirred. His light flashed along the walls until it shone on our backs. Our skinny shadows, stretched far along the floor, looked like three stick men running on spindly legs.
We couldn’t escape that light. It seemed to jump up and follow us, leaping along through Deadman’s Castle. Angelo breathed in wheezy gasps, and every time we looked back the Lizard Man was closer.
“This way!” shouted Zoe.
We bounded up the stairs. I heard him running behind us nearly step for step. Around the landings, from floor to floor, his light chased us at every turn.
I stumbled over something soft and rotten, something that burst underneath me with a whoosh of foul air. Angelo hauled me up and on we went, and again the Lizard Man’s light came slicing through the dark.
We were barely a hundred feet ahead of him when we reached the bottomless pit. But we could cross the planks only one by one, and the Lizard Man was coming fast.
Zoe went first. The planks chattered and banged under her feet. On the other side she turned back to help Angelo, reaching out to take his hand when he got close enough. The Lizard Man was gaining on me when I started across.
“Hurry!” shouted Zoe. But I had to go carefully, watching every step. In the bouncing of the Lizard Man’s light, the planks seemed to move. They appeared and disappeared as it flashed across them.
On the other side of the pit, Angelo crouched on the floor holding Smasher. Zoe leaned out from the edge, stretching her fingers to grab me. “Come on, Igor,” she said.
The planks suddenly shifted as the Lizard Man started across them, just six feet behind me. They bowed like springboards, nearly bouncing me into the pit. I dropped to my hands and knees.
“Hurry up!” shouted Zoe.
I crawled. I moved inches at a time, swaying from side to side like an elephant as my weight shifted from one plank to the other. The ends rattled on the concrete floor, and the Lizard Man was right behind me.
Zoe sat down with her feet in the pit. She leaned forward, reaching out to grab me as soon as I was close enough.
The planks twisted. I started falling sideways. Behind me, the Lizard Man cried out. I lunged forward, stretching out my hand.
Zoe grabbed it. She pulled me toward her, and I nose-dived onto the floor beside her. In the middle of the pit, the Lizard Man was trying to keep his balance as the planks rocked underneath him. His arms whirled around and around, sending the beam of his lantern spinning crazily across the walls.
With a scream, he fell. The lantern dropped from his hand and went tumbling down in a whorl of light. It hit the wall and went out, and we heard the thudding of the planks as they boomed from the sides of the pit.
Everything landed all at once, what seemed a long time later: the light, the Lizard Man, the planks of the bridge.
Angelo got to his feet, still holding Smasher. I stood on one side of him and Zoe stood on the other side, all as tight together as we could possibly be. We swayed back and forth, until Zoe—with a nervous laugh—said we should maybe move away from the edge.
We made our way through the dark rooms as quickly as we could. Even Zoe was anxious to get out of there, and she led us out onto the hilltop.
There was a golden gleam in the sky to the east, sunrise just minutes away. We looked down at streetlights and traffic lights scattered through the darkness, at a smear of color along Jefferson Street.
Angelo was cuddling Smasher, sobbing as he stroked her head and her back.
“How is she?” I asked.
Angelo’s voice broke as he tried to talk. “I think she’s dying.”
“Let me see,” said Zoe.
She took Smasher from his arms and knelt down to set her gently on the ground. The little dog lay without moving, her eyes closed, her tiny teeth still showing in that weird smile. Zoe ran her hands slowly over Smasher’s ribs and down her back. The dog’s hair smoothed under her fingers and sprang up again behind them. In her long coat, with her black-painted nails, Zoe looked like a witch casting a spell.
“Smashy saved us,” said Angelo. “She knew it would kill her, but—” He started sobbing. “But she did it anyway. And now she’s dying. She’s gonna die.”
“Shh, shh, shh,” whispered Zoe. She leaned so close to the dog that her breaths moved the hairs on Smasher’s nose. “Good dog,” she said. “Good girl, Smasher.”
Beside me, Angelo put his face in his hands and cried. I held his shoulder.
“You’re a brave little dog,” said Zoe. “Thank you for saving us.”
The edge of the sun appeared in the east, and a burst of golden light shone on the ruins of Deadman’s Castle. The highest thing around, it was the first to be lit by the rising sun. For the first time since I’d left the house, I began to feel warm in the sun’s wonderful glow.
At my feet, Zoe kept whispering. With her black hair shining, she straightened her back and lifted the dog into the light.
Smasher’s head flopped sideways.
THE MEN IN DARK SUITS
I was sure Smasher was dead. The little dog who had saved us was gone. But Zoe kept holding her up to the sky as Angelo blubbered beside me.
“Come on, Smasher,” she said.
The glow of the rising sun spread down the hill. It lit up the treetops and the roofs of the houses. It sparkled on Zoe’s jewelry and shone in Smasher’s fur.
/> “Come on,” said Zoe again.
Smasher’s ears twitched.
“Yes. You’re a good dog. You saved us.”
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked.
“Shh,” said Zoe.
She whispered into Smasher’s ear. The dog’s eyes cracked open, blinked and widened, and in the sunlight they blazed like balls of fire.
“Good girl,” said Zoe softly.
Smasher lifted her head. She twitched from end to end and let out a little cry.
“Smashy!” said Angelo.
Zoe brought the dog down and held her close against her heart. She rocked her back and forth, like a mother with a child.
“Let me hold her,” said Angelo.
He dropped down beside Zoe. She handed him the little dog.
Angelo and Smasher curled up together in the dirt.
“Careful,” said Zoe. “She’s hurt pretty bad. She’s got broken ribs, I think.”
We started down the hill, Angelo carrying his little dog. Without shoes, he had to step carefully over stones and roots. He looked like My Little Pony prancing down the hill. Smasher just lay in his arms, gazing up at him with her eyes wide open. I touched the trees as we passed them.
I still had the woozy feeling that nothing was real. Zoe kept looking at me with worried eyes. She asked, “Are you okay?” and I told her, “Yes, I think so.”
It was like she wanted me to keep talking. “You want to tell me what it was all about, what happened in there?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “Remember when we went to the army store, and I took that hundred-dollar bill out of my sock?”
When we reached the bottom of the hill I was still trying to explain everything to Zoe. Just talking about it was a big help, but I was surprised to see that my hands were shaking. Angelo looked just the way I felt, like he was sort of stunned by what had happened. He had been through even worse than me.
“Let’s go a different way,” he said at the bottom. “I don’t want to see that guy’s car. I don’t want to go anywhere near it.”
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