Scare Scape Page 2

  “Sure,” James said, “but I should get started unpacking.”

  The two of them stepped back out onto the wide landing.

  “I’ll bring it to you,” Morton said eagerly.

  “Okay, then, but don’t get lost in this big creepy house of ours,” James said with a wry smile. “And look out for Kamikaze Cobras.”

  Morton chuckled again and sprinted to his new room at the end of the hallway. Since Morton had insisted on packing his moving boxes himself, he knew exactly what he was looking for. He quickly found the box marked SCARE SCAPE, ISSUES 200 TO 400 and ripped the tape from its lid. The familiar, comforting smell of old musty paper filled his nostrils. He pulled issue 237 from the box and was about to run from the room when he noticed something odd about the front cover. It had a shadowy illustration of a girl who looked exactly like Melissa. She was tall and skinny, with jet-black hair and dark brown, almost black, eyes. The girl was screaming, terrified of a giant centipede-like creature. Funny, Morton thought, he must have seen this cover a hundred times but never noticed the resemblance before now.

  He put the lid back on the box and rushed down the hall to James’s room. The door was closed, but he burst in without knocking.

  “Hey, I found that issue, and it’s the weirdest thing — the girl on the cover looks just like Melissa….”

  Morton stopped short. James was huddled in a corner over an open moving box, with his hands covering his face.

  “James?” Morton asked softly.

  After what seemed like too long a pause James turned around, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Oh, wow!” he said, putting on a crooked smile. “The dust in this place is out of control. Just look at me, allergies totally gone berserk!”

  James’s eyes were bright pink and his cheeks were wet.

  “Here’s that issue we talked about,” Morton said, wishing suddenly that he’d knocked first.

  “Oh, yeah, thanks,” James said, holding the same crooked smile, and without even looking at the comic, he took it from Morton’s hand and placed it on his small desk. “I’ll read it later.”

  Morton nodded and began to shuffle awkwardly out of the room. “Yeah, I better go, uh, unpack,” he said, and a moment later he was standing in the hallway with his back to the wall as an odd choking feeling seemed to envelop him.

  No, not like the old days, he thought. It had been stupid of him to even think that. It would never be like the old days again.

  It didn’t take Morton long to unpack, despite the fact that there were almost a dozen boxes in his room. In no time at all his comics were neatly stacked in numerical order on the shelf unit at the foot of his bed, and his monster toys adorned every remaining surface like specimens in a macabre museum. For years now he’d been buying toys from the back pages of Scare Scape, and his collection was almost complete. Two-Headed Mutant Rodents, Zombie Twins, Flesh-Eating Cockroach pods, Toxic Vapor Worms, Ten-Eyed Salamanders, Acid-Spitting Frogs, a Visible Fang. He even had a clock in the likeness of a Shark Hound that gnashed its teeth on the hour and howled at midnight on the full moon (although Dad had made Morton turn that feature off after the first month).

  Morton flopped back on his bed to admire his work. It was as though he were in a parallel-universe version of his old bedroom. The comics, the toys, the furniture, even the rug was the same, and yet everything felt different. The big old Victorian house, with its jagged, cracked ceilings and peeling flakes of paint, somehow made it seem like Morton’s toys, instead of being detailed and lifelike, were plastic and fake. Even the King-Crab Spiders, which he’d always thought were the most realistic of all, suddenly looked rubbery with garishly painted eyes and squishy foam bodies. Maybe that’s why James had lost interest in them, he thought. The toys just didn’t live up to the really cool stories in the comic. If only …

  Morton’s train of thought was interrupted by a sudden shriek from Melissa’s room.

  “It’s not fair!” she screeched, in a voice that sounded hysterical even by her standards.

  Morton decided to investigate. He found Melissa standing in her room surrounded by half-emptied suitcases of clothes and shoes, confronting a very tired-looking Dad.

  “I need a room with a walk-in closet! Honestly, it’s bad enough that I’ve lost all my friends in this stupid move, I don’t see why I have to lose my walk-in closet too.”

  “Melissa, calm down,” Dad said. “There aren’t any big closets in this house.”

  “What do you mean there aren’t any big closets?”

  “They just didn’t need large closets in Victorian times because they didn’t have a lot of clothes.”

  A look of abject horror came over Melissa’s face. “Then what exactly am I supposed to do?”

  “Just leave your clothes in the cases for now, and we’ll figure something out.”

  “When?” Melissa said suspiciously.

  “Later,” Dad said, rubbing his head wearily.

  This was the wrong thing to say. Melissa’s eyes became narrow slits. “Later!” she shouted, releasing several hours of pent-up anger. “It’s always later with you! Nothing ever gets done. We all know you’ll forget about us as soon as you start work.”

  “Melissa! That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is true! You don’t care about anything except your stupid telescope and those stupid Quasi Star things you’re always going on about.”

  “Quasars,” Dad said, correcting her.

  Melissa’s face became as hard as stone. “See?” she said. “You’re not even listening to me!” She stormed out of the room, pushing Morton angrily aside. A moment later the bathroom door slammed shut. Dad sighed heavily and scratched his head with a perplexed look on his face. Morton puffed his cheeks and gave him what he hoped was a sympathetic smile. Dad attempted to smile back, but he didn’t seem happy. In fact, Morton couldn’t remember Dad ever looking quite so run-down.

  “I’ve finished unpacking,” Morton said, in an attempt to brighten the mood. “Do you need help with anything?”

  Dad’s face softened into a half smile. “You know, there is one important job you can help me with. I’ll even pay you to do it.”

  A few minutes later Morton found himself standing on the edge of a very overgrown lawn. Dad was filling the lawn mower with gas.

  “It’s going to take a lot of work to get this lawn back into shape,” Dad said. “But you’ll have the honor of doing the first cut.”

  Morton had mowed lots of lawns over the last couple of years, which was one of the ways he’d managed to save up enough money for his monster and comic collections, but this looked more like a wild prairie than a lawn. He wasn’t even sure if the small, frail-looking, gas-powered mower was up to the task. But if he knew one thing about Dad, it was that he loved his lawn. Mum had always said it was a British thing that they’d never understand, and even though Morton was sure there were more-pressing jobs, he knew a neatly mowed lawn would make Dad happy.

  “Are you sure this will work?” he asked, looking at the dense knots of brambles and knee-high grass.

  “Just do what you can,” Dad said, heading back toward the house. “And be careful around the well.”

  Morton looked around and for the first time noticed a circular stone well with a winch and a rotten wooden bucket. It reminded him of a drawing he’d seen in a book of nursery rhymes. He fired up the mower and launched bravely into the long grass. The mower stalled several times at first, but he was determined to make Dad happy, so even though he was sweating and his arms began to ache, he forced himself to go on. Eventually he got the hang of it. As long as he went slowly, and kept raking away the freshly cut grass and brambles, things progressed smoothly. At least for a while. He had almost cleared all the way to the old stone well when there was a terrific clang. The motor backfired, making a sound like a gunshot, and a filthy cloud of black smoke spewed out of the small exhaust.

  He’d hit a rock. Not only that, he’d twisted the blade of the lawn mower so badly t
hat it was poking out at an ungainly angle from beneath the wheels.

  Morton saw a large gray hump half buried in the dirt. He bent down to clear away the tightly wound vines and began to uncover the object. At first it looked like a large, circular paving slab, but as he dug around it with his hands he realized it was some kind of statue. A garden ornament, perhaps? Whatever it was, it had been buried upside down in the middle of the lawn so that only its base was protruding. Morton dug more rapidly and soon unearthed what looked like a stone animal with a ghastly face and three horns sticking out of its head.

  Quite suddenly James and Melissa appeared behind him.

  “What the heck was that noise?” Melissa asked, all traces of her earlier tantrum vanished. She then spotted the smoking lawn mower with the twisted blade sticking out like some menacing metal claw. “Uh-oh! Dad’s going to blow his top now. That lawn mower was his most prized possession. He loves it far more than he loves us, you know.”

  “More than he loves you, maybe,” James said, winking at Morton. “What have you found, anyway? A creepy garden gnome?”

  Morton brushed some dirt from the statue and took another look. It had three goatish horns; a nasty, mocking grin; and hollow but somehow penetrating eyes. It sat squatting on three stubby legs and, most curiously of all, it was holding out its left hand.

  “I think it’s some kind of gargoyle,” he said.

  “There’s writing on it,” Melissa pointed out.

  Sure enough there was a small stone plaque gripped in the claws of one of its feet. Morton wiped the damp earth away to reveal a short stanza. They all read in silence.

  Break a finger, make a wish,

  But selfish thoughts you must banish

  Choices made without due care

  Will plague forever — friend, beware!

  “Break a finger?” James said. “What does that mean?”

  That’s when Morton realized that the outstretched left hand was holding up three fingers, only they were so encrusted in mud that you could hardly see them. He began pulling away the clumps of mud to reveal the details of the hand. As he did so, he heard a slight cracking sound and realized that he’d broken off one of the delicate stone fingers.

  “Oh no! I broke it,” he said.

  “Oh, cool,” Melissa said glibly. “That means you get a wish. Well, you better not waste it. What do you want most in the world?”

  Morton’s arms and back ached from the strain of mowing the long grass, and he wasn’t really in the mood to humor Melissa. “I don’t know,” he said, but Melissa was being strangely hyperactive.

  “Quick, quick, before the magic blows away!” she teased.

  Morton looked up at James, who seemed disinterested and distant.

  “I guess I’d wish for my monster toys to be more realistic,” Morton said, hoping Melissa would just calm down and stop being so irritating. Unfortunately she didn’t.

  “That’s a lame wish,” she said. “I’ve got a better one.” Then, to Morton’s utter amazement, she blithely reached forward and with surprisingly little effort snapped a second finger clean off.

  “I want a giant walk-in closet, complete with the latest and greatest fashions,” she said.

  James jerked suddenly to attention. “Are you out of your mind?” he blurted, sounding genuinely annoyed. “This might be some kind of antique.”

  “Oh, come on,” Melissa said. “It’s just some ugly old statue. And anyway, Morton already broke it.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Morton said defensively, looking guiltily down at the broken gargoyle. It now had one solitary finger remaining on its outstretched hand that pointed directly upward in what could only be described as a very rude gesture.

  “But that’s an act of vandalism!” James said, scowling angrily at Melissa.

  “Who cares?” Melissa intoned.

  “Not you, obviously,” James said. “That thing might have been valuable, and now you’ve turned it into something obscene.”

  “Oh, stop being such a mummy’s boy!” Melissa said mockingly.

  Morton felt his breath catch in his throat.

  James’s face became suddenly twisted, and his eyes turned hard as glass. He looked like he was trying not to cry, and Morton thought for a moment that James might even hit Melissa.

  Just then Dad emerged from the house. “What the blazes was all that noise?”

  James glanced over at Dad approaching and then at the gargoyle. Without any warning he roughly pushed Melissa aside, snapped off the remaining finger, and stuffed it into his pocket.

  “I’m not a mummy’s boy anymore, am I?” he said in a pained, angry voice, and stormed into the house.

  Melissa looked pleadingly at Morton, as if seeking forgiveness for her thoughtless slip. She opened her mouth in an attempt to speak but no words came out, just an odd croak followed by a stream of tears running over her cheeks. Then she too ran back into the house, brushing past Dad without a word.

  Dad looked questioningly at Morton. “I don’t suppose there’s much point in me trying to talk to them,” he said. “Any idea what started it?”

  Morton had no desire to recount the scene. “It’s nothing. Just the usual stuff,” he said, hoping it would all blow over without Dad getting involved.

  Dad sighed and turned his attention to the gargoyle. “Well, what have you found?” he said, crouching down to get a closer look. “‘Break a finger, make a wish.’ I’ve never seen a statue that encourages people to break it before.” Dad pointed to the three broken stumps that remained at the end of the gargoyle’s hand. “Too bad somebody gave in to the temptation. Looks like a genuine stone carving.”

  Morton tightened his fist around the stone finger in his hand and decided not to mention their part in defacing the curious artifact.

  “Looks like you did a number on my trusty old lawn mower too,” Dad said with a hint of regret in his voice.

  “I’m sorry,” Morton said. “But it was buried and I didn’t see it.”

  “Yes, well. My fault. I was in too much of a hurry to get my lawn under way.” Dad rubbed his hand over the gargoyle. “You know, this little fellow looks like he could be part of your monster collection. Maybe we should clean him up and put him in your bedroom, what do you think?”

  Morton had to agree that the gargoyle did look like it could be part of his monster menagerie, but somehow he didn’t want it anywhere near his bedroom. In fact, he thought, as chills ran inexplicably down his spine, he’d be happy if he never laid eyes on it again.

  “Um, no, thanks. It’s not really my style,” he said, hoping Dad wouldn’t sense his sudden unease.

  “No, I suppose not,” Dad agreed. “Come on, I think we could all use a spot of lunch.”

  Half an hour later Morton, Melissa, and Dad sat around the kitchen table eating some strange mashed-up fishy substance on partially burned toast. James however refused to come down for lunch, insisting he wasn’t hungry.

  “He must still be exhausted from the trip,” Dad said.

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t squash us into the backseat like sardines,” Melissa blurted out.

  “I am sorry about that,” Dad replied in his best attempt to sound reasonable. “But as you know, the front air bags are dangerous for children. Remember that story in the newspaper about the child who had his head blown clean off in a supermarket car park?”

  “Dad, firstly, it’s a parking lot, not a car park. A car park sounds like a place where you take your car for a walk.”

  In spite of himself, Morton almost laughed out loud at this comment, although he didn’t really like the way Melissa always teased Dad about his accent and his funny British ways.

  “Secondly,” Melissa went on, “I’m not a child; and thirdly, that never happened. It’s an urban myth.”

  “Unbelievable as it sounds, I did see the photo,” Dad said. “The child’s head ended up in some poor woman’s shopping basket. Quite shocking for the old lady. She never ate cabbage
again, so the article said.”

  Melissa growled with frustration. “Dad, those aren’t real newspapers. They make all that stuff up.”

  “In any case,” Dad said, “I can’t let you sit in the front until you’re eighteen. Would anyone like more toast?”

  Melissa pushed her plate into the middle of the table. “No, thanks,” she said, and excused herself.

  “Morton?” Dad said.

  Morton shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m full,” he said, and he too headed up to his room.

  He was halfway up the stairs when it happened.

  A blue pulse like a ball of lightning appeared suddenly all around him. He felt a prickling heat, as if a thousand hot needles had pierced his body, and heard a terrific throbbing drone. The drone got louder until it was almost more than he could bear and then all at once, with a fierce whiplike crack, the light and the noise exploded away from him and vanished, leaving him trembling and confused.

  Before Morton even had time to react, James flung his door open and stood there, his face drained of blood and his eyes wild with shock, holding the stone finger in his hand. Morton knew at once that James had experienced the very same thing. A split second later, Melissa’s door also burst open and a breathless and deathly pale Melissa looked frantically out at them.

  “Did you, uh, I mean …” Melissa struggled for words, obviously trying to remain calm.

  “A blue light?” James said.

  Melissa’s already wide eyes grew even wider, and she nodded silently.

  Morton pulled his own stone finger from his pocket and looked at it. “You don’t suppose … ,” he began, but he couldn’t really bring himself to say out loud the thought that was crystallizing in his head.

  Then, quite surprisingly, Melissa’s bewildered expression vanished and a look of cold anger crossed her face.

  “Oh, wait a minute. Now I get it,” she said. “You two are in this together. This is one of Morton’s pranks, isn’t it?”

  James and Morton exchanged confused glances.

  “Me?” Morton said. “Why do you think it has anything to do with me?”