He was halfway to the sidewalk when the Beymer twins slipped out from behind the evergreen hedge, their hands balled into red, beefy fists.
17
The brothers stepped out of the shadows of the hedge. Their short blond hair caught the late afternoon sunlight. They were both grinning gleefully.
Evan stood frozen in place, staring from one to the other.
No one said a word.
One of the Beymers grabbed the bucket from Evan’s hand and tossed it to the ground. The bucket hit with a heavy thud, and its thick green contents oozed onto the grass, making disgusting sucking sounds.
“Hey —” Evan cried, breaking the tense silence.
He didn’t have a chance to say more.
The other twin punched him hard in the stomach.
Evan felt the pain radiate through his body. The punch took his breath away. He gasped for air.
He didn’t see the next punch. It landed on his cheek just below his right eye.
He howled in pain, and his hands flailed the air helplessly.
Both brothers were hitting him now. And then one of them gave Evan’s shoulders a hard shove and he went sprawling onto the cool, damp grass.
The pain swept over him, blanketing him, followed by a wave of nausea. He closed his eyes, gasping noisily, waiting for the sharp ache in his stomach to fade.
The ground seemed to tilt. He reached out and grabbed it, and held on tightly so he wouldn’t fall off.
When he finally managed to raise his head, Andy was standing over him, her eyes wide with alarm. “Evan —”
He groaned and, pushing with both hands, tried to sit up. The dizziness, the spinning, tilting grass, forced him to lie back down.
“Are they gone?” he asked, closing his eyes, willing the dizziness away.
“Rick and Tony? I saw them run away,” Andy said, kneeling beside him. “Are you okay? Should I call my mom?”
He opened his eyes. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”
“What happened?” she demanded.
He raised a hand to his cheek. “Ow!” It was already swollen, too painful to touch.
“They beat you up?”
“Either that or I was hit by a truck,” he groaned.
A few minutes later — it seemed like hours — he was back on his feet, breathing normally, rubbing his swollen cheek. “I’ve never been in a fight before,” he told Andy, shaking his head. “Never.”
“It doesn’t look like it was much of a fight,” she said, her expression still tight with concern.
He started to laugh, but it made his stomach hurt.
“We’ll pay them back,” Andy said bitterly. “We’ll find a way to pay them back. The creeps.”
“Oh. Look. The Monster Blood.” Evan hurried over to it.
The bucket lay on its side. The green gunk had oozed onto the grass, forming a wide, thick puddle.
“I’ll help you get it back in the bucket,” Andy said, leaning over to stand the bucket up. “Hope it doesn’t kill the grass. My dad’ll have a cow if his precious lawn is hurt!”
“It’s so heavy,” Evan said, groaning as he tried to push the glob into the bucket. “It doesn’t want to move.”
“Let’s try picking up handfuls,” Andy suggested.
“Whoa. It doesn’t want to come apart,” Evan said in surprise. “Look. It sticks together.”
“It’s like taffy,” Andy said. “Ever see them make taffy in those taffy machines? The stuff just sticks together in one big glob.”
“This isn’t taffy,” Evan muttered. “It’s disgusting.”
Working together, they managed to lift the entire green ball and drop it into the bucket. The stuff made a sickening sucking sound as it filled the bucket, and both Evan and Andy had trouble pulling their hands out of it.
“It’s so sticky,” Andy said, making a disgusted face.
“And warm,” Evan added. He finally managed to free his hands from it. “It’s like it’s trying to swallow my hands,” he said, wiping his hands on his T-shirt. “Sucking them in.”
“Take it home,” Andy said. She looked up to the house to see her mother motioning to her from the front window. “Uh-oh. Dinnertime. I’ve got to go.” Her eyes stopped at his swollen cheek. “Wait till your aunt sees you.”
“She probably won’t even notice,” Evan said glumly. He picked up the bucket by the handle. “What are we going to do with this stuff?”
“We’ll take it back to the toy store tomorrow,” Andy replied, taking long strides across the lawn to the house.
“Huh?”
“That’s what we’ll do. We’ll simply take it back.”
Evan didn’t think it was such a hot idea. But he didn’t have the strength to argue about it now. He watched Andy disappear into the house. Then he headed slowly back to Kathryn’s, his head throbbing, his stomach aching.
Creeping along the wall of the house, he slipped into the garage through the side door to hide the bucket of Monster Blood. Sliding it behind an overturned wheelbarrow, he realized that the bucket was full to the top.
But I gave Andy a big hunk of it, he thought. The bucket had been only two-thirds full.
I’ll have to find a bigger place to put it, he decided. Tonight. Maybe there’s a box or something in the basement.
He crept into the house, determined to clean himself up before seeing Kathryn. She was still busy in the kitchen, he saw, leaning over the stove, putting the last touches on dinner. He tiptoed up the stairs and washed up. Unable to do much about his swollen red cheek, he changed into a clean pair of baggy shorts and a fresh T-shirt and carefully brushed his hair.
As they sat down at the dining room table, Kathryn’s eyes fell on Evan’s swollen cheek. “You been in a fight?” she asked, squinting suspiciously at him. “You’re a little roughneck, aren’t you? Just like your father. Chicken was always getting into scrapes, always picking on boys twice his size.”
“I wasn’t exactly picking on them,” Evan muttered, spearing a chunk of beef from his stew with his fork.
All through dinner, Kathryn stared at his swollen cheek. But she didn’t say another word.
She doesn’t care if I’m hurt or not, Evan thought miserably.
She really doesn’t care.
She didn’t even ask if it hurts.
In a way, he was grateful. He didn’t need her getting all upset, making a fuss because he was in a fight, maybe calling his parents in Atlanta and telling them.
Well … she couldn’t call his parents. She couldn’t use the phone, since she couldn’t hear.
Evan downed his big plate of beef stew. It was pretty good, except for the vegetables.
The silence seemed so loud. He began thinking about his problem — the Monster Blood.
Should he tell Kathryn about it?
He could write down the whole problem on the yellow pad and hand it to her to read. It would feel so good to tell someone, to have an adult take over the problem and handle it.
But not his Aunt Kathryn, he decided.
She was too weird.
She wouldn’t understand.
She wouldn’t know what to do.
And she wouldn’t care.
Andy was right. They had to carry the stuff back to the toy store. Give it back. Just get rid of it.
But in the meantime, he had to find something to keep it in.
Evan waited in his room until he heard Kathryn go to bed, a little after ten o’clock. Then he crept down the stairs and headed out to the garage.
18
It was a cool, clear night. Crickets sent up a relentless curtain of noise. The black sky glittered with tiny specks of stars.
The round beam of light from the flashlight in his hand darted across the driveway, leading Evan to the dark garage. As he entered, something scuttled across the floor near the back wall.
Maybe it was just a dead leaf, blown by the wind when I opened the door, he thought hopefully.
He moved the flashlight unstead
ily, beaming it onto the overturned wheelbarrow. Then the light darted across the garage ceiling as he bent down, reached behind the wheelbarrow, and pulled out the bucket of Monster Blood.
He moved the light to the center of the bucket and gasped.
The green substance was quivering up over the top.
It’s growing much faster than before, he thought.
I’ve got to find something bigger to hide it in — just for tonight.
The bucket was too heavy to carry with one hand. Tucking the flashlight into his armpit, he gripped the bucket handle with both hands and hoisted the bucket off the floor.
Struggling to keep from spilling it, he made his way into the dark house. He paused at the door to the basement steps, silently setting the heavy bucket down on the linoleum floor.
He clicked the light switch on the wall. Somewhere downstairs a dim light flickered on, casting a wash of pale yellow light over the concrete floor.
There’s got to be something to put this stuff in down there, Evan thought. Hoisting up the bucket, he made his way slowly, carefully down the steep, dark stairway, leaning his shoulder against the wall to steady himself.
Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the pale light, he saw that the basement was one large room, low-ceilinged and damp. It was cluttered with cartons, stacks of old newspapers and magazines, and old furniture and appliances covered in stained, yellowed bed sheets.
Something brushed his face as he stepped away from the stairs.
He uttered a silent cry and, dropping the bucket, raised his hands to swipe at the thick cobwebs that seemed to reach out for him. They clung to his skin, dry and scratchy, as he frantically pulled at them.
He suddenly realized it wasn’t the web that was moving against his cheek.
It was a spider.
With a sharp intake of breath, he brushed it away. But even after he saw the insect scuttle across the floor, he could still feel its prickly feet moving on his face.
Moving quickly away from the wall, his heart pounding now, his eyes searching the open wooden shelves hidden in shadow against the far wall, he stumbled over something on the floor.
“Oh!” He fell headfirst over it, throwing his hands forward to break his fall.
A human body!
Someone lying there under him!
No.
Calm down, Evan. Calm down, he instructed himself.
He pulled himself shakily to his feet.
It was a dressmaker’s dummy he had stumbled over. Probably a model of Kathryn when she was younger.
He rolled it out of the way as his eyes searched the shadowy room for a container to store the Monster Blood. What was that long, low object in front of the worktable?
Moving closer, he saw that it was an old bathtub, the insides stained and peeling. It’s big enough, he realized, and quickly decided to store the green gunk inside it.
With a loud groan, he hoisted the bucket onto the side of the old tub. His stomach muscles were still sore from the punch he had taken, and the pain shot through his body.
He waited for the aching to fade, then tilted the bucket. The thick green substance rolled out of the bucket and hit the tub bottom with a sickening soft plop.
Evan set the bucket aside and stared down at the Monster Blood, watching it ooze, spreading thickly over the bottom of the bathtub. To his surprise, the tub appeared nearly half full.
How fast was this stuff growing?!
He was leaning over the tub, about to make his way back upstairs, when he heard the cat screech.
Startled, he let go of the side of the tub just as Sarabeth leaped onto his back. Evan didn’t have time to cry out as he toppled forward, over the edge of the tub and into the thick green gunk.
19
Evan landed hard on his elbows, but the thick Monster Blood softened the fall. He heard the cat screech again and pad away.
He sank into the ooze, his arms and legs flailing, trying to lift himself away. But the sticky substance was sucking him down, pulling him with surprising force.
His whole body seemed to be held by it, stuck as if in cement, and now it was quivering up, bubbling silently, rising up to his face. I’m going to suffocate, he realized.
It’s trying to choke me.
The warmth of it spread across his body, invaded his chest, his legs, his throat.
I can’t move.
I’m stuck.
It’s trying to choke me.
No!
He pulled his head up just as the green gunk began to cover his face.
Then he struggled to twist his body, to twist himself around in it. With great effort, panting loudly, hoarse cries escaping his open lips, he pulled himself up into a sitting position.
The green substance rose up even higher, as if it were reaching up to him, reaching to drag him back down into it.
Evan gripped the side of the tub with both hands, held on to it tightly, and began to force himself up. Up, up from the clinging, pulling ooze. Up from the strange force that seemed to be drawing him back with renewed power.
Up. Up.
“No!” he managed to scream as the warm green ooze slid over his shoulders.
“No!”
It was gripping his shoulders now, sliding around his neck, sucking him down, pulling him back into its sticky depths.
Down. Down.
It’s got me, he realized.
It’s got me now.
20
“No!” Evan screamed aloud as the green gunk bubbled up to his neck.
Pulling him. Pulling him down.
“No!”
Try again. Up.
Try again.
Up. Up.
Yes!
Gripping the sides of the tub, he was moving upward, pulling himself, hoisting himself, straining with all of his strength.
Yes! Yes! He was beating it.
He was stronger than it was. One more tug and he would be free.
With a relieved sigh, he dropped over the side of the tub onto the cool basement floor.
And lay there, pressed against the damp concrete, waiting to catch his breath.
When he looked up, Sarabeth stood a few feet away, her head cocked to one side, her yellow eyes peering into his, an expression of supreme satisfaction on her dark feline face.
The next morning, after a fitful, restless sleep, Evan brought the pad of yellow lined paper and a marker to the breakfast table.
“Well, well,” Kathryn greeted him, placing a bowl of shredded wheat in front of him, “you certainly look like something the cat dragged in!” She laughed, shaking her head.
“Don’t mention cat to me,” Evan muttered. He shoved the bowl of cereal aside and pointed to the pad in his hand.
“Don’t let your cereal get soggy,” Kathryn scolded, reaching to push the bowl back to him. “You get more of the vitamins that way. And it’s good roughage.”
“I don’t care about your stupid roughage,” Evan said moodily, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He pointed to the pad again and then began to write, scribbling quickly in big black letters.
His writing caught her interest. She moved around the table and stood behind him, her eyes on the pad as he wrote his desperate message.
I HAVE A PROBLEM, he wrote. I NEED YOUR HELP. THE BATHTUB DOWNSTAIRS IS OVERFLOWING WITH GREEN MONSTER BLOOD AND I CAN’T STOP IT.
He put down the marker and held the pad up close to her face.
Looking up at her from the chair, seeing her pale face in the morning sunlight as she leaned over him in her gray flannel bathrobe, Kathryn suddenly looked very old to him. Only her eyes, those vibrant, blue eyes running quickly over his words, seemed youthful and alive.
Her lips were pursed tightly in concentration as she read what he had written. Then, as Evan stared eagerly up at her, her mouth spread into a wide smile. She tossed back her head and laughed.
Completely bewildered by her reaction, Evan slid his chair back and jumped up. She rested a hand on his shoulder and gav
e him a playful shove.
“Don’t kid an old woman!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. She turned and headed back to her side of the table. “I thought you were serious. I guess you’re not like your father at all. He never played any dumb jokes or tricks. Chicken was always such a serious boy.”
“I don’t care about Chicken!” Evan shouted, losing control, and tossed the pad angrily onto the breakfast table.
His aunt burst out laughing. She didn’t seem to notice that Evan was glaring at her in frustration, his hands tightened into fists at his sides.
“Monster Blood! What an imagination!” She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes with her fingers. Then suddenly, her expression turned serious. She grabbed his earlobe and squeezed it. “I warned you,” she whispered. “I warned you to be careful.”
“Ow!”
When he cried out in pain, she let go of his ear, her eyes glowing like blue jewels.
I’ve got to get out of here, Evan thought, rubbing his tender earlobe. He turned and strode quickly from the kitchen and up to his room.
I knew she wouldn’t be any help, he thought bitterly.
She’s just a crazy old lady.
I should pull her down to the basement and show her the disgusting stuff, he thought, angrily tossing the clothes he had worn yesterday onto the floor.
But what’s the point? She’d probably laugh at that, too.
She isn’t going to help me.
He had only one person he could rely on, he knew.
Andy.
He called her, punching in her number with trembling fingers.
“Hi. You’re right,” he said, not giving her a chance to say anything. “We have to take the stuff back to the store.”
“If we can carry it,” Andy replied, sounding worried. “That hunk of Monster Blood you gave me — it outgrew the coffee can. I put it in my parents’ ice bucket, but it’s outgrowing that.”
“How about a plastic garbage bag?” Evan suggested. “You know. One of the really big lawn bags? We can probably carry it in a couple of those.”
“It’s worth a try,” Andy said. “This stuff is so disgusting. It’s making all these sick noises, and it’s really sticky.”