The Bulb People

  Who has done this – Mr. Handcrost? But this is pretty low-class stuff, it doesn’t seem that a millionaire like him would stoop so low. He’d have to hire some jerk from town to do the paint job, the sort of guy who’d be at the Yookey Lake Bar shooting his mouth off now over long-neck beers. Or else some high school punk who would brag to his friends.

  Word would get around. This would open Handcrost up for the “big fat lawsuit” that Bob is just itching to have Mom file against him. So, I don’t think Mr. Handcrost is behind the vandalism.

  But as I come up to the sign, I can see that the blotch is only dark mud. Some random punk with nothing better to do must have tossed it. The first good rain will wash it off.

  An eerie breeze whistles around the sign posts. I zip my jacket up all the way and glance nervously around. Something seems to be terribly wrong here – much worse than just a muddy sign. I can almost smell evil in the wind like some rotten incense.

  I’ve been out here once before with the H. B. F., and it wasn’t all that pleasant, despite Bob’s enthusiastic commentary. But now it’s a hundred times worse. Make that a thousand.

  Larry doesn’t seem to mind, though. Quite the opposite. He is walking in a happy daze, like he’s just arrived at the Emerald City. His feet glide over the rough ground as if they are treading on luxurious carpet. He scarcely limps any longer. I chase after him.

  “We’d better go back, Larry!” I call.

  He stops and turns back toward me. He wears the oddest expression I’ve ever seen, one that could haunt your nightmares for the rest of your life. His face actually glows, and his eyes have this dead, faraway look. His mouth is drawn up in a twisted, maniacal grin.

  I gulp hard.

  “Larry ... w-we’d better ...”

  He turns away and starts walking again. Like a complete idiot, I follow him. By the time we reach the midpoint of the vacant field, I am about out of courage. Why am I being such a dope?

  I should be running for home, but a stubborn, macho desire to match Larry has gotten hold of me. If he isn’t scared to be out here, then neither am I!

  Who am I trying to kid? I’m scared stiff!

  Larry stops walking, I pause a few yards behind him. My legs vibrate as fear seeps up from the ground. Odd, greenish-brown things sprawl about. They look like thick vines twisted in among the stones and prickly shrubs. The air smells rotten.

  Time seems to freeze solid – Larry standing with a blubbering, joyful grin on his face, me all quiet and afraid. Two of the vines suddenly spring to life. They snap around Larry’s legs and pull him down hard.

  “Help!”

  He isn’t grinning anymore. Whatever spell he was under snaps, and he is just terrified Dirty Larry now. The vines drag him brutally over the ground, his head bumps against the rocks. A hole suddenly tears open and Larry disappears inside. His shrieks became muffled, mixed in with tearing, slurping noises.

  I am too horrified to move a muscle. Then two more vines are coming after me!

  They whip across the ground like psychotic rattlesnakes, hissing and ripping the air. I jump back, but the vines catch the tips of my shoes. In a flash I am down and being dragged toward a hole.

  I scream my head off all the way, flail my arms, try to grip the rocky ground. I am almost at the hole now. Two horrid, yellow eyes stab at me.

  Then the tendrils slip off my shoes and I am free! I roll away, dodging other vines snapping all about.

  I get back on my feet somehow and start running.

  Plans and Schemes

  10: Recovery Time

  Then I am at our house, charging up the front walk, with no idea of how I got here. The tacky little place seems to be on the very edge of paradise now.

  Bob and Katie are gone, so nobody witnesses my frantic dash upstairs. I tear off my filthy, ripped clothes and dive into the shower. I lie there for long time, letting the hot water blast over me until it starts running cold.

  I turn off the water. Then I manage to stand somehow and dry myself off. My legs feel all rubbery, so I grip the towel rack to keep from tumbling over. I can scarcely breathe; I grab an asthma inhaler and suck it hard.

  I leave the bathroom and stagger toward my bed. It welcomes me like a fluffy cloud come down from heaven. I collapse into it and pull all the covers over my head. Despite the hot shower, I am cold, cold. I hold the extra pillow in a death grip and curl into fetal position.

  ***

  I spend the rest of the school week in bed – numbed, trying to keep the terror at bay, never leaving my room except to microwave food when nobody is home. The little bathroom attached to my bedroom enables me to avoid any outside contact.

  My brain is in deep, agonized turmoil. I don’t want to talk to anybody – not even Spider, not even Mom. I’m in my own private hell, and blabbing about it to somebody else won’t help me a bit. Especially not to Bob and Katie.

  Bob pokes his head in my door once, on Thursday morning. “Time for school,” he says.

  “I’m too sick,” I croak.

  “Okay, I’ll call in for you,” Bob says.

  He closes the door again. Thanks for the heartfelt concern, pal!

  Mostly I just sleep, or try to. When it gets dark, I leave my lights burning, but that doesn’t keep the nightmares away.

  I close my eyes and see myself back at Melody Acres, getting dragged to an unspeakable death. Sometimes I’m watching from the outside, like somebody in a movie audience, but mostly I am right there on the ground, feeling the crushing grip of the tentacles on my feet again, feeling my head bang on the rocks.

  I jerk awake in a cold sweat.

  Then back to sleep, another flashback, another sweat-soaked wake up.

  And always, always – those gnashing, slurping noises play through my mind like a symphony from hell. The terrible stink of the creatures is in my nose, as if a rotting corpse is lying in my room.

  Watching Larry get destroyed was beyond ghastly, like a scene come to life out of a horror movie. That’s how I try to look at it – just a make-believe event. This thought helps to keep me from going totally nuts.

  Just think how awful I’d feel if someone I like had been killed!

  Physically, I’m not too bad off. I’ve suffered some scrapes and the back of my head has a couple of new bumps. My toes are bruised where the ropy things gripped them.

  It’s the terrible shock that has laid me low. If I could put another brain into my body, things would be okay. I’ve heard that many people who have experienced a traumatic event go amnesiac and simply blot it out. Not me. I remembered every detail.

  “That darn boy’s malingering again,” I hear Bob mutter in the upstairs hall on my second day home from school.

  “I’ll take care of that!” Katie says.

  “Naw, leave him alone,” Bob says. “He’s not worth the trouble.”

  I am recovered enough by now to get out of bed and open my dictionary:

  Malinger: Pretend to be ill in order to escape work or duty.

  Pretend to be ill! I’d like to see how Bob would act if he’d gone through what I have – or how Katie would be if she’d come within a heartbeat of getting devoured by monsters.

  Then my anger suddenly leaves, and truly wicked thoughts enter my mind. Yes ... how would it be if those two had my experience for themselves? Or, better yet, Larry Nolan’s experience – a one-way trip to Melody Acres Underground Estates.

  I try to shove the idea from my mind. A civilized person shouldn’t be considering such things, right? But the thought keeps lurking in the background, like a coiled up snake, waiting for a chance to spring.

  Maybe I should call the cops, but I don’t trust them. I’ve seen Sheriff Fergueson and his deputies hanging around town with their pot bellies and mean little eyes. They seem as awful as the rest of Bridgestock.

  How about the State Police, then?

  No, they’d just think I was nuts, or they’d refer things back to the local fuzz and the gu
ys with the mean eyes would show up.

  Anyway, I don’t feel that there’s immediate danger to innocent people. Whatever it was that grabbed Larry had also grabbed Mr. Johnson. I’m certain of that. Wasn’t Johnson’s ice cream truck found at Melody Acres? They were both rotten individuals. They’d both gone there voluntarily, as if the place was calling to them.

  Heck, it did call to them! I’d seen that hypnotized expression on Larry’s face myself. It can’t call to anyone decent. I know that from personal experience. I would have never gone into the fields if it hadn’t been for Larry.

  If only Mom were home!

  But what good would that do? Even if she were right here in the room with me, Mom would still be off wandering around in Make Believe Land. She can’t see things that are right in front of her – like the fact that Bob only wants her because she’s a good lawyer and has money. Like that fact that Katie despises her and is only nice on the surface in order to get her own way.

  Jason, a friend at my old school, had similar problems. His mom married some jerk shortly after his dad divorced her. She was “on the rebound,” Jason said, and had “lost her self esteem.” I felt sorry for him, not realizing that I’d soon be in the same boat.

  How could somebody as smart and pretty as Mom lose her self esteem? I know that Dad walking out was a terrible blow for her, I often heard her crying at night. It hurt me a lot, too, but ... I don’t know, I’m still just a kid, I can’t figure out how grown up people deal with the world.

  Spider is the only person I can talk to about the terrors I’ve seen. When I’m up to talking, that is. Hopefully on Saturday.

  Then again, maybe this is something better kept to myself. Maybe this horrible problem can somehow help me solve my own horrible problems ...

  11: Surprise Party for Mrs. Thromp

  Friday afternoon found Leota Thromp in an ugly mood. She stalked the abandoned sidewalks of Bridgestock’s east end like the Grim Reaper, thrashing her cane through the vegetation of overgrown lawns.

  Actually, she could walk fine and had no need of a cane, but she never left home without it. Having it in her hand made her feel powerful.

  “That’s for the skinny kid!”

  She decapitated a dandelion with a savage rip. The yellow flower catapulted a great distance then came to rest on the dirt road by a dead animal.

  “And that’s for the other brat!”

  She beheaded a second unfortunate weed.

  These out of town boys were ruining her class. They were always telling disrespectful jokes and riling up the other students. And that Ryan kid was so much smarter than the others that it made her look bad, like she had failed in her educational duties.

  Well, at least he’d been sick a couple of days. Maybe that would be a comeuppance for him. She thought of the Cozzaglio punk again.

  “What’s the purpose of a scuff mark, eh?” she raged. “I’ll show you!”

  She smacked another weed.

  Worse yet, Larry Nolan had disappeared. The talk was that he’d run away from home again. Now she had nobody to help enforce discipline. And that namby pamby school board saying you couldn’t whip the kids yourself anymore. How could she possibly keep order? Not like in the good old days when you could beat and humiliate the ones who deserved it!

  A terrified little bunny broke from the underbrush. Mrs. Thromp missed it by inches with her cane. Frustrated, she swung the weapon with especial viciousness, tearing a hunk out of the ground.

  “And that’s for you, James Thromp!”

  Her worthless drunk of a husband – cowering in bed four days now, babbling about some monster he’d seen on the job. Right! Seen in a whiskey bottle, you mean.

  How had all these problems piled up – why did everything happen to her? She felt desperate and alone, and completely misunderstood. Then a comforting thought entered her mind.

  “Yes ... of course.” She fondled her cane tenderly.

  There was at least one person she could thrash and get away with it. When she got home, James Thromp would experience the full power of her anger. She’d knock some sense back into his worthless old head.

  She glanced about the area. Somehow, without her realizing it, her steps had taken her here beyond the edge of town. One minute she was walking home from work, as usual, the next she was headed to this place.

  Why?

  No matter, she rather liked it here – peaceful, no annoying people around. And just over there were broad, open fields, a place where a person could collect her thoughts. Why rush home just to see James? Heck, he wasn’t even worth caning if the truth were told. Mrs. Thromp’s rage subsided, replaced by something approaching contentment.

  She paused by a billboard advertising the new subdivision that was going to be built here. It sparkled fresh and clean from the rainstorm last night, its perfect family looking off to the bright future.

  “Isn’t that a shame?” she said. “They have to wreck everything nice.”

  ***

  Within their burial chambers in the center of Melody Acres, the Bulb People stirred into complete wakefulness. Their ropey arms tingled on the open ground, sensing the approach of prey. The low, infrasound rumble of their snare song ratcheted up until it was an irresistible vibration pulsing through the ground.

  They were hungry, and very frustrated. They’d not eaten for two days now, and one of their human catches had escaped from their grasp. But here was another morsel ...

  ***

  Mrs. Thromp walked past the billboard and headed out into Melody Acres. She was at peace now. Everything felt so right. It was as if something was guiding her along, relieving her of the burden of conscious thought. She inhaled deeply of the wholesome air. She raised her cane in joyous salute.

  “This is wonderful!”

  Then she spotted something puzzling on the ground. A long, greenish-brown ribbon lay nearby twisted among the rocks and weeds.

  “Eh, what’s this?”

  Mrs. Thromp took another step and poked the mysterious thing with her cane. In a flash, it whipped around her ankle and pulled her down.

  “Ahhhhh!”

  A hole suddenly gaped open. She disappeared into it, cane and all. Her screams grew muffled. Growling, slurping, slashing noises –

  Then silence.

  All that remained above ground were Mrs. Thromp’s wire-rimmed glasses which had fallen from her nose. A huge crow swooped down, snatched the glasses in its beak, and carried them off to who knows where.

  12: Visit from Katie

  On Friday evening, Katie’s curiosity must have gotten the better of her. Ignoring Bob’s urging to leave me alone, she enters my room with a dish full of pepperoni pizza. It smells terrific.

  “That looks pretty good,” I say.

  “Yeah, it’s the last of the leftovers.”

  She takes an enormous bite. Had I actually been dumb enough to think she’d offer me a slice?

  “So, how’s it going, Dork?” Katie says around a mouthful of pizza. “Feeling any better?”

  “Yeah, I’m just great.”

  Katie laughs. “You look like left over pizza yourself, come to think of it!”

  This conversation has definitely gotten old very fast. I look toward my old CD/tape player thinking I can put on some music. Katie follows my gaze.

  “Hey! You’re not tape recording me, are you?”

  She grips my arm and wrenched it hard.

  “Ow!”

  “I’ll break your arm if you are!” she snarls.

  She pops open the tape door and, seeing that it’s empty, calms down again.

  “Sorry, twerp, you shouldn’t upset me like that.”

  My poisonous revenge thoughts return, more powerful than ever. I envision Katie being dragged over the ground, her head bouncing on the rocks, her ugly pigtails tangling in the weeds ...

  When I speak, it’s as if somebody else’s voice is coming out of my mouth.

  “I know where Larry Nolan
is,” I say.

  “Yeah?” Katie says. “Ran away from home again, didn’t he?”

  “I can take you to see him, if you want,” I say.

  Katie seems to consider this; her chewing slows thoughtfully.

  “He’s closer than you might think,” I add.

  Katie swallows. “No thanks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Katie tears off another bite of pizza. “Yeah, I’m sure. He was starting to get boring.”

  Contrary emotions run through me – part disappointment, part relief.

  “Hey, I hear that scrawny friend of yours beat him up real good,” Katie says. “Is that true?”

  I grunt. It seems a good enough reply for Katie.

  “Jeez, what a wimp!” she says. “And he was always acting so tough. No wonder he skipped out.”

  Bob calls up the stairs. “Katie, can I see you down here?”

  “Coming, Dad!” Katie yells.

  She turns back to me.

  “Well, gotta go, dweeb,” she says. “It’s been nice talking to you.”

  “Just a second,” I say.

  “What?”

  Katie looks surprised that I’d actually ask her to stick around, even for a second.

  “My ‘scrawny friend’ asked me to spend the day with him tomorrow,” I say. “We plan to stay overnight in his old neighborhood.”

  “So, you’re getting away from this dump for the weekend?” Katie says. “How did you luck out?”

  “Could you ask your dad if it’s all right?”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  “We don’t really talk much,” I say.

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

  This has become a huge issue for me, somehow. The thought of having a conversation alone with Bob is unbearable. I don’t want to speak with Katie either, of course, but she’s already here.

  “I mean, I’m used to dealing with Mom, but she’s not home,” I say. “So, will you please ask him?”

  “Okay – but then you’ll owe me one.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, “I always pay back favors.”

  Katie leaves me alone with my toxic thoughts.

  13: To the Martial Arts School

  Saturday morning I venture outside and head for Spider’s house with my big leather shoulder bag. I’m all packed for an overnight stay – pajamas, extra clothes, towel, mini sleeping bag, stomach and asthma meds, etc. If only I never had to come back!