Invasion of the Road Weenies Page 12

Dad was on the ground next to me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I got up slowly and looked around. We’d survived. We’d been immune to the spray. This time.

  I walked over to the backyard. The bugs were gone. I wondered whether they’d return with a different spray. Maybe, if we left them alone, they’d leave us alone.

  “Darn bugs,” Dad said as he ran toward the garage. “I’ll get something stronger. That’ll show them. I’ll kill them all this time.”

  I watched Dad drive off. I understood why he wanted to kill them all. But I knew that wouldn’t happen. We’d end up killing the weak ones, while the survivors kept working, breeding another generation for their side of this war. Beneath my feet, the ground seemed to hum with activity. A breeze brought fresh, cool air, dispersing the last traces of the poison. I took a deep breath, enjoying it while I could.

  THE SHORTCUT

  Lucas felt like he was drowning. The water was pouring down so hard that it was almost a solid force. He could barely see Chuck. “You idiot!” he shouted toward the shape of his friend.

  “I didn’t think it would rain,” Chuck shouted back.

  “Idiot,” Lucas said again. He couldn’t believe he’d listened to Chuck. He couldn’t believe how wet he was.

  “This way,” Chuck said. “We can cut through here.” He pointed to the front entrance of Merrydale Hospital.

  “What good will that do?” Lucas asked.

  “The new section,” Chuck said. “We can cut across, and get all the way over to Perry Street. It will save us three blocks. And it’ll get us out of the rain.”

  Lucas followed Chuck through the doors. The sudden shelter was almost as much of a shock as the sudden storm. For a moment, he just stood and dripped, angry with himself for letting Chuck talk him into walking home. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—they could take the long way through town and stop at the arcade. But the downpour had turned the adventure into a disaster.

  “Let’s get moving,” Chuck said. He grabbed Lucas by the arm and headed down a corridor. Their wet sneakers squeaked against the floor.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Lucas said. To one side of the lobby, he saw a guard. The guard caught his eye and started to walk over. Lucas hurried down the hall. “I think the guard spotted us,” he whispered to Chuck.

  “That’s okay,” Chuck said. “There’s no rule that says we can’t be here. It’s a public place.”

  Lucas followed Chuck, who headed down a stairway next to a row of elevators. “I think this will get us over to the other side,” Chuck said.

  “Are you sure?” Lucas asked.

  “Yeah.”

  They reached another corridor. Lucas heard footsteps on the stairs. “Someone’s following us,” he said.

  “That’s silly,” Chuck told him. “Who would—”

  “Hey, you kids! Stop!” The voice came from behind them.

  Lucas froze for a second. Chuck started running. Lucas made up his mind and ran to catch up with Chuck. They turned a corner at the end of the hallway.

  “In here,” Chuck said. He dashed through a pair of swinging doors.

  Lucas followed. They could hide until the guard was gone, then get out of the hospital. He crouched next to the door, trying not to let his heart beat so loudly that it gave away their hiding place. He couldn’t believe all the trouble they were getting into because of one simple shortcut.

  In the hallway, he could hear running steps. The steps stopped just outside the door. A face peered through the small window in the door. Lucas scrunched down even lower. He looked over at Chuck, who put his fingers to his lips and went, “Sssshhhhhh.”

  Lucas nodded. The guard glanced down. Then he pushed at the door. It swung inward. “They know better than to leave this open,” the guard said. The door closed. There was a jangle of keys. Then there was a worse sound.

  Click.

  A bolt slid in place as the guard locked the door. He turned away. Lucas heard him chuckle, then say, “Of course, there’s no way those kids went in there. No way at all.”

  He walked off.

  No way? Lucas wondered what he meant. For the first time, he looked around the room.

  “Oh no . . .” In the middle of the room, Lucas saw four tables. Three were empty. One had something on it. There was a sheet over the table, but it didn’t hide the fact that the shape underneath was human.

  Across the room, Lucas saw a wall filled with drawers—like file cabinets, but a lot larger and made of stainless steel.

  Lucas reached up and pushed against the door. It didn’t open. “We’re locked in,” he said.

  Chuck nodded.

  “You know what this place is?” Lucas asked.

  Chuck nodded again. “Do you?”

  “Yeah.” Lucas didn’t want to use the word “morgue.”

  “Hey, no big deal,” Chuck said. “We all end up here sooner or later.”

  Behind him, Lucas heard a slithery sound. He spun, flattening against the wall. On the table in front of him, an arm had slipped down. A hand poked out from beneath the sheet.

  “It moved!” Lucas shouted.

  “Calm down,” Chuck said. “It’s dead. It can’t do anything to us.”

  Lucas stared at the hand, waiting for it to move again. But it didn’t. “Stupid shortcut,” he said, glaring at Chuck.

  Chuck shrugged. “I didn’t know . . .”

  Lucas looked toward the door again. There were more footsteps in the hallway. He looked right out the window this time—less afraid of being caught than of being locked in the morgue. This can’t get any worse, he thought. At the end of the hall, he saw someone who looked like a custodian. The guy was carrying a mop, wearing headphones, and bobbing his head as he walked. Lucas realized the guy was listening to music. When he turned the corner, he reached out and flipped a wall switch.

  The lights went out.

  The hall was pitch-black. The morgue was pitch-black. There were no windows. Lucas lost it. “HELP!” he screamed, slamming against the door. “WE’RE LOCKED IN!”

  He kept screaming and banging. It seemed like he’d shouted forever. Finally, his voice nearly gone, his throat hoarse, Lucas realized something was missing. Nobody else was screaming.

  “Chuck?”

  No answer . . .

  “Come on, Chuck, say something.” Lucas listened for Chuck. He tried to hold his breath, but he was still winded from his burst of panic and couldn’t keep from panting. He put his back against the wall and sat. “Chuck, this isn’t funny.”

  Okay, he told himself. I’ll wait. He wasn’t going to play Chuck’s stupid game. He was just going to sit and wait. Sooner or later, Chuck would talk to him again. Unless something happened to Chuck while I was screaming, Lucas thought. But that was ridiculous. He tried to keep that thought out of his mind while he waited.

  After a while, a sound broke the dead silence. It was the sound of a drawer sliding open—a large drawer.

  “Stop that, Chuck!”

  Another drawer opened. And another.

  “If I catch you, I’m going to beat the snot out of you,” Lucas said. He’d had enough. He stood and held his arms out. He was going to find Chuck. Lucas took a step away from the wall and tried to remember exactly how the room looked. There were tables in the middle. Lucas shuddered. He didn’t want to think about going near the one with the body. Especially not in the dark.

  Lucas decided to work his way around the walls first. He put his hand out, feeling the cool tiles. Still listening for any hint of Chuck’s location, Lucas started to make his way around the room. He held one hand against the wall and the other in front of him.

  Lucas reached the corner. He heard another drawer slide open.

  He worked his way along the side wall, then crept to the back wall. More drawers slid open. He dropped to his hands and knees and started to crawl along the floor so he wouldn’t run into an open drawer. Chuck had to be close by.

  Lucas crept silently tow
ard the spot where he’d heard the last drawer open. His hand brushed against something. It was a shoe. “Gotcha!” Lucas said, grabbing the leg.

  Shoe?

  Chuck wore sneakers.

  Lucas froze. He tried to detect any sense of life in the leg he clutched. The skin beneath the pants felt dead and cold. Lucas let go and leaped to his feet. He didn’t quite make it. His head crashed into the bottom of an open drawer. As he dropped to the floor, he felt hands grab him. The world was fading. The darkness of the room was being swallowed by a deeper darkness.

  “You weren’t supposed to arrive here for many years,” one voice whispered.

  “You’re ahead of schedule,” another said.

  Someone nearby laughed. “Looks like you took a shortcut.”

  A WORD OR TWO ABOUT THESE STORIES

  “Where do you get your ideas?” This is probably the most common question every writer gets asked. For me, there’s not one simple answer. Every story takes a different path. Some ideas appear in a flash. Others grow slowly. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the various ways I got the ideas for the stories in this collection.

  “The Last Halloween”

  As the father of a growing (and almost grown) daughter, I’ve always wondered when she would outgrow Halloween. Happily, it seems like that time will never come. But the thought of a girl on the verge of being too old to trick-or-treat gave rise to this story. It’s one of my favorites to read aloud. I especially like it because Jennifer refuses to be a victim.

  “Bed Tings”

  My grandmother talked with an accent. One day, I was thinking about the phrase “Bad Things Come in Threes,” and the word “three” spawned a memory of the way she said “tree” instead. She was a cool grandmother. She watched wrestling, played poker, and dressed up and wore white gloves when she went to the supermarket. As far as I know, she didn’t climb trees.

  “The Dead Won’t Hurt You”

  I started with the opening scene, and no idea what would happen. I just wanted to put a creeped-out kid in the middle of a cemetery at midnight. I figured something interesting would pop up. When I was younger, I felt spooked by cemeteries, but they don’t bother me now. At least, not as much.

  “Copies”

  Our local schools get very involved in Take Our Kids to Work Day. That was on my mind when I started writing this story. Sometimes, readers ask me what happened in a story after the ending. In this case, I don’t think anybody is going to want to think about that. Ick.

  “Shaping the Fog”

  This was one of those stories that just showed up. I have no idea what inspired it, but I’m so glad it appeared. I’d like to think I was staring out my window at fog that day. But maybe I was just in a fog of my own. I don’t think I’ve written anything else quite like it. Whatever magic is involved in the creation of stories like this, it is as elusive as a handful of mist.

  “Willard’s Oppositional Notebook”

  There’s a long tradition of stories where a powerful object brings disaster to its owner. I’d been thinking of various objects that might grant wishes. First, I thought of a pencil. That led me to notebooks. But I didn’t want the notebook to just grant wishes, so I kept thinking until I came up with a satisfying twist.

  “A Tiny Little Piece”

  There are always people who think the rules don’t apply to them, and people who don’t think it will matter if they steal just a tiny piece of something like a coral reef or historical object. That’s what was on my mind when I started writing this one. As you can tell from the story, I think it matters. But then again, when it comes to following the rules, I’m a bit of a weenie.

  “The La Brea Toy Pits”

  This idea came purely as a pun based on the La Brea Tar Pits. Once the idea of toy pits grabbed me, it was easy to write the story. Puns are always running through my mind. There’s no way I can stop them, so I might as well make use of them. I just have to remember to keep from saying too many of them out loud, or I’ll be asked to leave the room.

  “Mr. Lambini’s Haunted House”

  There’s one person in every neighborhood who goes all out on Halloween and creates a haunted house. I’ve watched kids who are too scared to enter, and others who make a big show of how brave they are. This gave rise to wondering what would happen if there were more to the house than anyone knew.

  “Numbskull”

  We each have an inner censor that keeps us from saying the wrong stuff. Mine doesn’t always work. I started to wonder what would happen to a kid if a shot of novocaine numbed that censor. Despite this story, I like my dentist.

  “A Little Night Fishing”

  The first time I went night fishing, I knew the experience would make a great setting for a story. I tried to capture the feeling of moving through dark woods and standing on the edge of moonlit water. All fishing is tinged with a sense of the mystic, but this feeling becomes especially intense at night. I caught a bat that evening, but that’s another story.

  “Precious Memories”

  I’ve always been amused by people who spend so much time taping an event that they never actually see it for real. And, of course, technology is a rich area for strange twists. We use this stuff, and we know it works, but sometimes it might as well be magic. And magic doesn’t always work the way we expect.

  “Baby Talk”

  I started out thinking what it would be like for a kid if her baby brother became famous. That, of course, led me to wonder, famous for what? This is a good example of how one idea can lead to another.

  “Unseen”

  I used to walk with my eyes closed to see if I could tell when I was about to reach something. I never went as far as our unfortunate main character, and I’d never be foolish enough to try to cross the street. I haven’t done it in a while. But the way my eyesight is, I might as well be walking around with my eyes closed anyhow.

  “Flyers”

  I started out with the idea that someone finds a flyer that says 10 PERCENT OFF, and then the world seems 10 percent smaller. It was pretty easy to come up with all sorts of other flyers after that. Feel free to give it a try yourself, and see what you come up with. Maybe you can find a different way to end the story.

  “Every Autumn”

  I was thinking about piles of leaves by the curb, and the way kids walk through them. This is another example of something ordinary (at least if you live where there are deciduous trees) becoming something strange.

  “Goose Eggs”

  I was wondering what would happen if a couple kids really did get their hands on golden eggs. And I’ve always felt that geese are vicious. Putting that together, it wasn’t hard to figure out what was really behind—or inside of—those eggs.

  “Fresh from the Garden”

  Another idea harvested from my “what if” collection. I guess I was thinking about the various fish buried in my backyard, not all that far from the tomatoes. Yum.

  “The Covered Bridge”

  There are half a zillion covered bridges in Pennsylvania. They’re pretty cool, but they can also be a bit creepy. Fear is a natural element for spooky stories.

  “Buzz Off”

  We’ve all been there—a bee lands on you and you freeze, wondering whether to hit it or wait for it to fly away. I just decided to take things to an absurd place. That’s one of the joys of short stories—you can get as weird as you want.

  “Just Desserts”

  I love fishing, but I’d much rather wade a local river than travel for hours to reach the ocean, and then travel more hours on a boat to get to some hot spot where the bluefish might be biting. The two deep-sea trips I’ve taken inspired me to put a kid on a boat and see what happened. As for the pie, I’ll pick cherry, and I’ll eat it first.

  “The Whole Nine Yards”

  After seeing lots of concrete with initials and other writing, I started thinking about what else you might see. Footprints came to mind. This is a good example of a technique I use a lot. I�
��ll set up a problem or puzzle, and then write a story to explain it. This way, both I and the reader are in for a surprise.

  “The Green Man”

  When I was in elementary school, everyone was talking about the Green Man. We were truly spooked about him, and I remember looking over my shoulder when I walked anywhere. They said he had a collie with him. He was spotted on the roof of the school once. It was a strange sort of dread. I knew he couldn’t be real, but he still haunted me. I tried to capture that feeling in this story.

  “Dizzy Spells”

  Yet another idea right out of my “what if” file. As is often the case, I started out with a concept—dizziness leads to granted wishes—and just let the idea grow and take shape as I wrote.

  “The Tank”

  My house has a septic tank. I try not to think about it too much, but as you can see, I can’t always control the directions my mind takes. And I can’t help noticing the ripples in the water.

  “Anything You Want”

  Another journey without a map. I wanted to write about a kid finding a genie. I guess that combined in my mind with the whole idea of things being misheard.

  “Lines”

  I was visiting an elementary school and noticed how kids are always moving from place to place in a line. From there, it was easy to wonder “what if someone stepped out of line?” The most commonplace things can spark a story if you look at them with fresh eyes.

  “Wandering Stu”

  If you go into just about any school library, you’ll probably see at least a couple hanging plants. More often than not, the plant is a variety of Wandering Jew. I guess I was staring at one of those when the phrase “Wandering Stu” floated through my mind. I knew I had to come up with a tale to fit the title. It wasn’t hard to dream up a way to make Stu wander. Mean kids are often the most fun to write about.