The Smiley-Face Witches

  Tabitha didn’t necessarily agree, but continued her story. “Anyhow, her hair was always kinda stringy to start with…”

  “Stringy and a bit greasy,” Lucy said.

  “Stringy and a bit greasy, and white as snow,” Penelope added.

  “True,” Tabitha said. “When she went out with a hat on and those stringy white bangs hangin’ over her face, she looked like someone turned a bowl of spaghetti upside down on her head. That was her undoing.”

  “Do tell,” Penelope said.

  Tabitha’s voice fell to a hush. “A hunk of her spaghetti hair fell on to her plate.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Penelope said.

  “Was eating an actual bowl of spaghetti and swallowed a length of her own hair by mistake. Choked to death.”

  “Didn’t think such a thing was even possible ‘til I heard it,” Lucy said.

  “She was a slave to her vanity,” Tabitha said. “But I suppose she needed all the help she could get, poor thing. She wasn’t what I would call a natural beauty.”

  “She were plain,” Penelope said, and Lucy agreed.

  Tabitha gave the assembled crowd a casual once-over. “Haven’t bumped into your sister yet, was she able to make it?”

  Penelope answered before Lucy could. “She was feelin’ a little under the weather, I’m afraid.”

  “That is a shame,” Tabitha said, “do send her my regards, won’t you?”

  “I promise I will,” Penelope said.

  They put their conversation on hold while the Acolytes made their way through the crowd with the sacramental wine.

  “Funny how popular the band got after we broke up,” Penelope said. “Got more groupies now, than we did back then.”

  “It’s the internet,” Tabitha said, “bringing us a whole new generation.”

  “New generation, same old problem,” Lucy muttered.

  Neither Penelope nor Tabitha could disagree. The line between band and groupies blurred over the years, with both factions drifting further from the music and closer to Gulliver Grimsby’s unorthodox teachings.

  “Remind me to talk to ya about my royalty checks,” Penelope whispered. She held her brass cup out and a statuesque girl fighting to keep her pink braids from tangling filled it to the brim.

  Tabitha watched the girl slink between the mourners. “Was we ever that young?”

  Lucy took a healthy sip. “If I was, I don’t remember it. Don’t remember my butt being that high or when my boobs started hangin’ this low.”

  “Who’s in charge of the Acolytes now?” Penelope asked.

  “Thought it was Imelda,” Lucy said.

  “I thought Medea took over after the last election,” Penelope said.

  “Actually, Nancy stepped in after Medea passed on, who stepped in after Imelda left this mortal coil,” Tabitha explained.

  “When did Medea pass on?” Lucy asked.

  “You didn’t know?” Tabitha said.

  “Can’t tell who’s who with everybody wearing these daggum masks,” Lucy said.

  “Amen,” Penelope said. The Smiley-Face Witches were always Grimsby’s band, and he added and subtracted musicians as he saw fit. But like their sister, Penelope and Lucy were original members, and that distinction still carried weight.

  “What happened?” Lucy asked.

  “Spider crawled down her throat and laid eggs in her belly,” Tabitha said, “babies hatched and gobbled her up from the inside out.”

  Lucy clutched at her heart and Penelope sniffed her cup. “Maybe you best slow down, baby sister.”

  “It hain’t the wine,” Lucy assured her, “but, my heavens, what a gruesome way to go.”

  “What about Imelda?” Penelope asked.

  “You remember how deathly afraid of guns she was?” Tabitha said.

  “Wasn’t her first husband shot during some kinda gas station hold-up?” Penelope asked.

  “Her second husband, actually,” Tabitha said. “Anyway, she decided in her head eating a bullet a day would build up her immunity to gunfire. Like it was some kind of allergy or something.”

  “That is a bit eccentric,” Lucy admitted, “Did it work?”

  “Actually, as far as I know, it did,” Tabitha said.

  “Then how’d she pass?” Penelope asked.

  “Got bit by a snake that crawled up through her septic tank and bit her big ol’ bottom,” Tabitha said.

  “Medea, Imelda and now Nancy,” Penelope said. “They say it comes in threes.”

  It seemed they were right.

  The ram’s horn signaled the time had come. They wound their way past the shrouded body, each of them adding their torches to the pyre as they bid their last farewell.

  Watching the crackling flames put Penelope into a melancholy funk. Times like this brought her own mortality into sharper focus than she cared to think about these days, particularly since she wasn’t much younger than the dearly departed.

  Lucy slipped out of her robe and stood naked in the frigid December air. “Time to boogie.”

  Penelope followed her lead, as did the rest of the members who joined them in their nakedness. The music began, and they danced around the pyre in memoriam.

  ***

  English Lit was right after lunch and the room faced the afternoon sun, strong enough to beat the students into drowsiness, even midwinter.

  Mr. Peck stood at the front of the class wearing his glasses chained around his neck like an old lady at a Bingo parlor. “Frankenstein’s monster is an outsider, rejected by society because of his hideous appearance and because…”

  Drew sat near the back, between Mickey-D on one side and Denise on the other, Brice kids like him. They weren’t tight before, but being thrust into Madison made them undeclared friends by virtue of their previous association.

  “…part of the revulsion is that the monster’s brought to life by way of supernatural manipulation, not because of science…”

  One of the kids up front raised her hand. Drew didn’t know her name because she didn’t go to Brice, but she looked kind of like Grady, except with longer hair.

  “What happens to the monster?” Lady-Grady asked. “After he escapes the ship? Does he die?”

  The class groaned. Lady-Grady asked questions requiring considerable exposition, something Peck happily engaged in.

  “The author doesn’t tell us,” Peck said, “The monster escapes the ship into the Arctic, never to be seen. But I’ve got my own theory about what…”

  “What ya got?” Drew whispered.

  Mickey-D flashed a big grin. His real name was Kevin, but his orange ‘fro insured he’d be linked with the MacDonald’s mascot into perpetuity. “Check it out...the new I-Phone Infinity.”

  “Heard ‘bout this,” Drew said, “Didn’t know they was out.” He took the phone from Mickey-D and slid through the different screens, even activating the augmented reality interface.

  “Same kinda phone Jay-Z got,” Mickey-D bragged.

  The phone was high-end, though Drew wondered how Mickey-D could afford it. He was about to hand it back when he remembered a link Grady sent him the day before. He typed the URL into the browser window and gave the phone back to him.

  Denise leaned over to see what was so interesting, her nose crinkling up like she was about to sneeze.

  “Not so close,” Drew said, “I don’t want ya bragging to your friends we hooked up.”

  She rolled her eyes and leaned back into her chair. He didn’t think much of her, because he couldn’t get past her toe-thumbs. But there was something about the combination of deep brown skin and hazel eyes...

  Mickey-D giggled…

  Drew’s eyes shifted from side to side. “Keep it down.”

  His giggle turned into a laugh…

  Drew caught Peck weaving through the aisles from the corner of his eye. “It ain’t that funny.”

  His laugh gave way to a full-blown donkey’s bray…

  Drew turned to check on t
he teacher, but it was too late.

  Peck swooped in and snatched the phone from Mickey-D’s hand. He pushed his glasses past the bridge of his pointed nose and watched the video before passing sentence. “You can pick this up after detention.”

  Mickey-D didn’t argue. He grabbed his backpack and headed for the door, still trying not to laugh.

  Peck looked at Drew and then back at the video, trying to decide what to do with him. For a second Drew thought he was going to get away with it, but then Peck started shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” Drew asked.

  Students at the front retreated while those at the back pushed forward, meshing into a scrum around the teacher two students deep.

  The commotion drew Mademoiselle Gagne out from tenth-grade French across the hall. “Merci, give him room,” the diminutive teacher commanded. “Jen…go get the nurse, tout de suite…”

  Denise peeked over Drew’s shoulder, drafting him into service as her personal bodyguard. “What’s wrong with ‘im?”

  Peck jerked and twitched, tearing at his clothes in a frothing-mad frenzy.

  “It’s happening again,” Drew muttered.

  “What’s happening again?” Denise asked.

  He’d seen the same side effects in the lab mice dosed with Enzyme Seven years before, but that was another school, and the man responsible for the experiment was long gone. “He can’t be back! This can’t be the same thing!”

  Peck imploded mid-aisle. He lay sprawled across the gray carpet, his breathing shallow but steady.

  Denise moved her cell phone back and forth, trying to find the best angle for her video. “Is it over?”

  It wasn’t. Peck bolted upright, arms flailing, eyes bugging.

  Denise screamed, starting the panic.

  “Out the way!” Manny barked. The stocky janitor fought through the crowd clotting the door and tackled the convulsing teacher.

  He was stout enough to keep Peck down—but just barely. “What’s he on?”

  Teachers from the adjacent classrooms poured in and piled on. They finally subdued Mr. Peck, but not before the semi-conscious teacher’s bladder emptied involuntarily.

  “Eww,” Denise groaned, and turned to Drew. “What is he on?”

  But Drew didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER 3

  The bus lurched forward, getting up to speed before slowing down again when the light turned red. They were almost half-way home and they’d already dropped off half of the kids, so Drew didn’t need to share a seat.

  He buttoned his jacket and pressed his face against the cold window. The cars fared no better than the bus in the snow and slush, and traffic was heavy at three-thirty in the afternoon.

  Fear of dreaming kept him from sleeping more than a few minutes at a time, but it was quiet now, inside the bus and inside his head, so he closed his eyes…

  “What happened?” Clementine asked.

  When Drew didn’t answer right away, Parker answered for him. “Peck lost it…”

  She tucked her gloved hands into her pockets and slid into the seat behind Drew. “What do you know?”

  Parker lay sprawled across the back seat, wearing his varsity jacket backward. He held up his cell phone, replaying the footage Denise shot earlier. “Saw the whole thing.”

  “Had some kind of seizure or something,” Drew said. “He just started shaking and twitching…”

  “Man, he was trippin’,” Parker giggled. “Wish I had some of whatever he was on.”

  Clementine’s aqua green eyes ignited. “Guess ‘til then you’ll have to stick to huffing paint.”

  Parker’s jaw clenched. She’d been there when the cops caught him behind the Seven-Eleven and couldn’t deny her innuendo. Rather than risk becoming the guest of honor at his own celebrity roast, he put his earbuds back in and cranked up the volume.

  “Denise told me he went into some kinda coma,” Clementine said. “Like, the whole school’s talking ‘bout it.”

  “Coma?” Drew repeated, “you sure?”

  “Positive,” she said. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “In your pocket…”

  He’d almost forgotten about the half-eaten candy bar. “That was on Mr. Peck’s desk.”

  She took a whiff and caught a faint hint of ammonia. “Smells bad. Can chocolate spoil?”

  “Dunno,” Drew said. “But…”

  “Kinda smells like the closet where ol’ boy kept Romeo and Juliet,” she said.

  He’d thought the same thing. But Dick Frost was gone for good. This couldn’t be Enzyme Seven…

  “Then what do you call that?” Newton asked. He was a few seats ahead of them, but his shrill voice carried.

  “Bro, you need glasses,” Grady said.

  “Got ‘em!” Newton said, “And they’re thick.”

  “Then get thicker ones,” Grady said.

  Clementine followed Drew up the aisle.

  “What ya looking at?” she asked.

  Newton pulled back his hood before answering. “Some school blew up. Literally.”

  The shaky YouTube video playing on his tablet documented the aftermath of some kind of natural disaster.

  “Where’s that?” Drew asked.

  Spider said something, but they couldn’t hear him with his chin buried in his parka, so he said it again. “Texas.”

  Clementine picked an errant feather from Grady’s down vest and blew it gently down the aisle. “Tornado?”

  “That’s what I told ‘im,” Grady said.

  “What’s the news say?” Drew asked.

  “Ain’t on the news,” Newton said, “it’s on YouTube.”

  Clementine unzipped her ski jacket and took off her gloves. “Who submitted it?”

  Newton scrolled up to the submitter’s profile picture.

  She took her slouchy off and let her hair fall free. “A Smiley-Face?”

  “How’d you find it?” Drew asked, “Somebody send you a link?”

  “I typed in schools blowing-up,” Newton said.

  “Wow, that ain’t creepy,” Clementine muttered.

  “I do it all the time,” Newton said, “just start typing in stuff…like when I’m bored.”

  “You should probably tell a psychiatrist or something,” Clementine said, “if they knew what you was doing in your spare…”

  She stopped talking when Newton started typing again. “What are ya doing now?”

  “Typing…’cause I’m bored,” he said. “Because you’re talking…”

  “Whatever,” she said.

  “Dude, you ain’t seen the best part yet,” Grady said.

  Newton rewound the footage frame by frame. “There…What’s that look like to you?”

  Drew leaned in. “Motorcycle?”

  Newton shook his head. “Monocycle.”

  The blurry image left itself open to interpretation. Whatever was on the footage was moving so fast it only registered every other frame.

  Clementine ran her finger across the screen. “Where’s that road go?”

  Newton wiped her prints away with his scarf. “I dunno…must be under construction.”

  “Looks like it just stops in the middle of the air,” she said.

  The bus rolled to a stop and the door whooshed open, ending their debate before they’d finished. They were the next to last stop on the route which meant they didn’t get home until almost four. They gathered their books and coats, and climbed down the steps through the diesel fog spewing from the tailpipe.

  Newton buttoned his coat and threw his scarf over his shoulder. “Who’s that?”

  The anonymous gray sedan passed the bus on its way into the tight alley before rolling to a lethargic stop. The boxy blankmobile’s doors opened and emptied its occupants into the alley.

  “G-Men,” Drew said.

  He didn’t know what alphabet soup acronym they were operating under, but recognized the government-issue suits from the last time they
’d shown up, after they came back from Transylvania Island. And while their anachronistic suits were strange, there was something stranger still in their herky-jerky motion.

  “We should bounce,” Grady said.

  Before they could figure out what the suits wanted, a van appeared at the far end of the narrow back alley, tires screeching in protest as it rounded the corner.

  “Who’s this?” Newton asked.

  The airbrushed mural on the van’s side panel depicted a primordial fantasy tableau using the standard iconography with one notable exception.

  “That a Smiley-Face or a sun?” Spider asked.

  “Smiley-Face,” Drew said.

  “Betcha they’re those groupies that follow the band around,” Newton said, “What’d Lazy-Eye Susan used to call ‘em?”

  “Acolytes,” Drew said.

  The van’s rusty doors slid open unleashing a puff of fragrant incense. Three hippie chicks appeared wrapped in bangles, scarves, and shawls, their faces covered by ceremonial masks.

  The tallest of the three stepped forward, long pink braids whipping back and forth, preening and posing like she was at some kind of photo shoot.

  “That ain’t Lazy-Eye Susan,” Spider said, “she’s way too young…”

  “And way too smokin’ picante,” Grady added.

  One of the G-Men pushed forward, his gaze shaded by the brim of his hat. His nervous twitch differentiated him from the rest of his horn-rimmed, button-downed brethren. By comparison, he seemed almost flamboyant.

  “Check it out,” Grady said, “Clark Bent is making his move…”

  Pink-Braids strutted toward him with the same confidence.

  “What do we do?” Newton whispered.

  “Wait and see what happens,” Drew said.

  Clementine agreed. “Not like we gotta choice.” Boxed into the narrow alley at both ends, getting past either contingent wouldn’t be easy.

  Pink Braids reached beneath her robe. “Guess you wanna go a few rounds with the neighborhood champ.”

  “What is that?” Newton asked. “An umbrella?”

  Her hand fit inside the leather bellows up to her elbow like a gauntlet. They waited for her to unfold it, but instead she aimed it like a gun.

  Clark Bent didn’t flinch. Maybe he should have.

  She squeezed the trigger. The bellows exhaled and the copper tip flashed.

  The G-Man’s chest exploded and his knees buckled. He fell forward before rolling over on his side, a multitude of silver needles sticking out of his chest and neck.

  Seeing the G-Man go down was the catalyst Drew and the others needed. They bolted from the scene in every direction, sliding between block walls and climbing over chain link fences.