Invasion of the Road Weenies (16 page)

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 toward 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.”

“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.

“Tarnation”

Little kids have their own amazing mythology about things like monsters. I liked the idea of a little kid getting involved in something that actually worked. Of course, I liked it even better when I realized how it could backfire.

“Ten Pounds of Chocolate”

Every Halloween, I hear kids passing the word about which houses give out the biggest candy bars. The news almost takes on the feel of a legend. I'd been playing around with a different idea, about Halloween candy that turns into something bad, but when I started thinking about big bars of chocolate, it led me in a new direction.

“The Boy Who Wouldn't Talk”

I get a lot of ideas by thinking about things that don't quite fit into the normal world. There always seems to be one kid in each class who doesn't talk. The fun part is figuring out why.

“Invasion of the Road Weenies”

Like the character in the story, I noticed that adult joggers never smile. As I started wondering about this, I realized that something must be making them jog. This was the best explanation I could come up with.

“We Interrupt This Program”

I think I was playing with the remote when I got this idea. There were actually a couple buttons hidden under a sliding panel. There was nothing as exciting as “insert.” It was just stuff like a sleep timer (which I never figured out how to use, or even had any desire to use). Mundane or not, those buttons gave me the idea.

“The Smell of Death”

I've always been concerned about the excessive use of pesticides, and amused by the people who are so in love with their lawns that they will wash themselves in chemicals for the sake of grass that looks nicer than the neighbors'. (See
In the Land of the Lawn Weenies
for another example of this.)