Night Monsters (4 page)

Only a branch of the hedge.

He yanked Bubby free and raced toward Fulton Street. He glimpsed the roof of his house.

Choking on a scream, he reached the corner and burst into the street and the safety of streetlight, feeling like the little piggy who went wee-wee-wee all the way home, and when he caught his breath, he began to sob hysterically, so he gnawed on Bubby to keep from waking the neighborhood.

He hurried to his back door.

Home. Safe. At last.

Pale moonflowers trumpeted his return. He rummaged for the rock under the bush, scared that icy claws would rake his hands.

There’s the rock. Turn it over, find the key. There!

Striving to steady his hands, he aimed the key at the lock. But the door was already open.

His parents would never leave the door unlocked, let alone open.

He climbed the back steps and pushed open the door on a dark kitchen. No light above the sink. Maybe the bulb burned out. No lights were on anywhere on the first floor. Even the little red light on the stove was dead.

“M-Mom?”

No answer.

“Dad?”

No answer.

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Petie bit his quivering lip.

He grabbled his way around the kitchen table to the back stairs. He snapped the switch but no light came on at the top of the steps.

The electric was out! That explained it.

He blew a sigh of relief but realized he must navigate the house in the dark.

Where was his jumbo flashlight? The one with the big twelve-volt battery? Somewhere in his room, probably still under his bed.

He climbed the steps slowly, one at a time, using the handrail. His other hand hugged Bubby to his chest—thank goodness for Bubby! At the top, in the narrow hall, he was sure something was shadowing him.

Strangling Bubby, he rushed blindly toward his parents’ bedroom, screaming, “Mom! Dad! Where are you?”

The door stood open. He could see that much in the dimness.

“Mom, Dad? You here?”

In the angle of streetlight that sliced through the triple windows, he saw that the rumpled bed lay empty.

A crash sounded somewhere downstairs. Maybe in the cellar. He squeezed Bubby harder.

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Was it a burglar?

An ax murderer?

Maybe just his parents, checking the fusebox. Of course! That’s the first thing you do when the lights go out.

More crackling came from downstairs, followed by his father shouting something he couldn’t make out. If Dad had stubbed his toe on the stone floor in the cellar, it probably wasn’t very nice.

Petie made his way to his room and found his jumbo flashlight among the dust bunnies underneath his bed.

The flashlight was heavy. He thumbed the rubber switch, and the light winked on, silhouetting a tattered corner of Bubby against the closet door. The light was dim, yet if it held out, it would lead him safely downstairs to his parents.

He followed the sickly yellow ellipse down the hall to the back stairs, struggling to keep hold of the flashlight. He used both hands, but in the kitchen Bubby slipped off his arm to the floor. For a moment he considered leaving it so he could use both hands.

No way.

He scooped Bubby off the linoleum and continued toward the cellar doorway.

He descended the uneven stone steps, Bubby clasped tight in one hand, the flashlight wavering in the other. The weak spotlight careened over the lath and plaster walls. All was dark at the foot of the stairs.

“Mom? Dad?”

No answer.

They hadn’t managed to replace the fuse yet. But why didn’t they answer him?

When he reached the bottom of the steps, a plopping sound came from the other room, like Mom dumping an armload of wet towels on the floor.

“Mom? Dad!”

He battled to keep hold of the flashlight with only one hand and still clutch Bubby in the other.

When he entered the far room where the fusebox was, the flashlight rim caught on the doorlatch. The flashlight clattered to the floor. The dim light winked out, but before it did, across the stone floor he glimpsed his parents’ tangled legs, a flash of blood-splashed pajamas.

And in the corner, by the washer, something huge and black and hulking.

As that final image dissolved into darkness, the thing in the corner rustled like savage bats fluttering through sheaves of dried skin, and the clean scent of laundry soap yielded to the stench of hot fetid breath like spoiled milk and dead rats wheezing down upon him.

Too terrified to run, Petie buried his face in his stinking blanket and wet his pajamas again.

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Petie could think of nothing worse than this. This was the thing in the alley, the creature under the bed, the monster in all his nightmares.

A moan rose from the dark floor.

Mom!

“Son . . .” Dad’s weak voice. “It came for you . . . wants . . .” His voice trailed off with a groan.

Petie knew what it wanted.

As it had come to claim Nate’s eyeless bear last year, as it had come to all children everywhere, its mission was greater than that of moms and dads all over the world. It had come to carry off what stood between him and growing up.

The thing shuffled closer and reached out its hairy arms.

Could he do it? Mom moaned again in the dark. He had to do it.

Shaking, Petie offered up his Bubby.

The nasty fluttering thing closed its talons around the tattered blanket and then rustled through the other room and up the stone steps, away into the night.

“Mom? Dad?”

“Come on, Son. We’re all right.”

Peter ran to them and fell into their arms. They hugged desperately for a moment. Then his father pressed something into his hand, something cool and round.

“You change the fuse, Peter. I’ll lift you up.”

Keeping Cool

by
Lee Allen Howard
 

T
erry Fleischman raced down the Boulevard of the Allies, windmilling his arms, but his last bus home was gone. Gone. Its taillights disappeared in the sweltering darkness like the eyes of some creature retreating into its lair.

“Shit.” He stopped to catch his breath, leaning on a signpost.

When he recovered, he pulled out his wallet. Only five bucks. Not enough for cab fare. His ATM card was cracked, and he hadn’t received the replacement yet. No one he knew who worked in town stayed this late. No cash, no ride home. He swore again.

He considered going back to work to call, but only certain people could enter the building after eleven—“important people”—and he wasn’t one of them. As much as he hated to, he needed to call his wife.

Melinda often complained about his long hours, and it was a sore subject between them. Waking her and expecting her to drive all the way to downtown Pittsburgh at nearly midnight was beyond the call of duty. Yet he had no choice. She would probably give him an earful when she picked him up but, hey, it was better than walking home fifteen miles.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. It still had a sixty-six percent charge, but no bars. He dialed home, but it failed to ring or connect. Damn local carrier. Frustrated, he stuffed it back in his pocket.

He spotted a telephone booth on the corner of Smithfield and headed up the empty street to make a call, steering clear of doorways where strangers could be lurking.

Terry worked as a sysop for DataLogical Systems, a data services firm that dealt mostly with hospitals such as Allegheny General. During his two years there day-to-day operations had gone smoothly, despite the long hours. This month, however, local hospitals were doubling and tripling their off-site DASD. Did the need for increased disk storage have anything to do with the recent sickness that had filled all the area hospitals? It was some kind of wasting influenza sweeping Allegheny County. If so, it added meaning to what Terry otherwise considered a rather humdrum job.

He reached the phone booth but stopped short of opening the door. Someone was in the booth, a tall, skinny man in a herringbone tweed sport coat. Why wear that in this heat? The weather had been miserable for the entire month of August; Terry’s clothes were already sticking to him. Maybe the guy couldn’t get cell reception either, and that’s why he was using the payphone. Terry looked around as he waited for the man to finish his call.

The sidewalk was dotted with blackened coins of chewing gum and cigarette butts smudged with lipstick. Reeking garbage overflowed a city wastecan. The entire Boulevard was deserted as far as Terry could see. No cars, no pedestrians—not even any homeless people. Downtown Pittsburgh was still a place everyone abandoned on weeknights.

What was taking the guy so long? Terry considered pounding on the phone booth door but noticed Slim wasn’t even using the phone.

Terry knocked on the door. “’Scuse me. You making a call or not?”

Slim pivoted, gazing out with eyes like black marbles sunk in a soft-boiled egg. He fumbled the door open with a long, ivory hand and lurched out as if Terry weren’t there. He staggered down Smithfield toward the glow of neon, hacking out a croupy cough. His bald head looked more like an egg than ever, nested between his herringbone shoulders.

Terry stepped into the booth and smelled what lingered there. He gagged. Backed out of the booth and turned away, gulping fresh air.

At thirteen, he’d spent summer vacation at his grandparents’ farm. Hiking the country road that meandered past the cow barn, he encountered a possum with its head smashed, bloating in the blistering sun. He booted the flyblown carcass into the tiger lilies along the bank. The thing had burst, releasing an unforgettable stench.

The phone booth smelled like that now, like the sickly-sweet fetor of rotting flesh. Terry suppressed the urge to vomit.

A block down Smithfield, Slim lumbered up to a harshly lit diner. The fellow paused to stare at Terry, then slipped inside.

Why did the guy stink so bad? He wasn’t carrying anything rotten. Was it something in the booth, a dead rat, perhaps? From outside, Terry scanned the fly-specked light, the payphone above the graffitied shelf, the littered floor. He saw nothing that could reek that bad.

Could it have been Slim? The stink wasn’t urine or body odor. Terry had smelled that before, and while offensive, it wasn’t half as bad as this. Down Smithfield, Slim had vanished into the diner. Maybe the poor bugger had lung cancer or some other flesh-eating disease. Or perhaps that flu, and he needed help. An ambulance, maybe. Terry didn’t know. He just wanted to get home.

He inched into the booth and found the stench had dissipated. He mopped his face with his handkerchief, lifted the receiver and chucked in two quarters, but heard no dial tone. He tapped the hook, irritated. The line was dead.

He hung the receiver and stepped out of the booth. He surveyed the street, but the only place that seemed to possess any life was the diner. Slim probably went there to place his call.

Terry sighed and headed for the neon glare.

•     •     •

Inside The Den, the aroma of old grease and burnt coffee assaulted him. Somewhere in the back, a buzzer chirred and died when the door bumped shut behind him. The heat swarmed him like ravenous flies.

Chrome stools lined the streaked Formica counter. Under the harsh fluorescent buzz, soda straw papers, matches, and a mashed French fry littered the red floor tiles.

Terry expected to see Slim hunched over a back table, nursing a coffee bought with begged quarters. The place was deserted. He approached the counter and, looking through the service window, saw no one in the kitchen.

“Hello?” he called. “Anybody here?”

No answer.

It seemed strange that the place was open after seven on a weeknight. Probably only one person was on duty, acting as cook, server and dishwasher.

After a minute he hollered again, but no one responded. Where was Slim? He’d staggered in only a few minutes ago. No scent of him yet.

Terry followed the counter around the corner to a payphone on the far wall. A note scrawled on the back of an order check lay taped over the coin slot: BROKEN.

He picked up the receiver anyway and discovered the cord had been torn from the box. Colored wires splayed from the chrome sheathing.

“Shit.” He slammed down the receiver.

Terry swabbed his dripping face with his handkerchief and returned to the counter, where he drummed his fingers on the pitted surface.

“Hey, you got a customer out here!”

When no one appeared, he slipped behind the counter. No bodies, skinny or otherwise, lay stretched across the floor.

It occurred to him that Slim might work here and, needing to make a call, had stepped out to use the phone booth. But wouldn’t the diner have another phone, a business line?

Terry rounded the ice machine, its steel door lying open, and pushed through the bat-wing doors to the kitchen. The griddle smoked beneath a dust-furred safety hood.

In the back he located the office, which was dark. The door stood ajar. He flicked on the light and exposed a disaster zone.

The filing cabinet bulged papers from all four drawers. Mounds of overflowing manila folders slumped against every wall. The desk was buried under a blanket of invoices for meat, buns, and food service supplies.

He picked his way through the mess and found the desk phone, an old black dial model, hiding under a ruptured package of dinner napkins. He set the phone atop the heap and lifted the receiver.

Thank God, a dial tone.

He dialed home and waited while it rang: once, twice, three times. Someone picked up. He braced himself to break the news to Melinda, but static gushed down the line, and a recorded voice announced, “I’m sorry, but this number is not in service. Please check the number and—”

He punched the plunger and dialed again, more carefully this time. It rang once before the line coughed a busy signal somewhere from the telephonic wastelands.

He tried once more but failed to raise a dial tone. As he cradled the receiver, he wondered if Melinda was lying awake in the dark, worrying about him. He prayed her concern might prompt her to do something.