When Damon reached the curb, he took a shallow breath. This
trick he had recently learned made the darkspace thin enough so he could see if
any cars were coming. There were none, so he burst into a run. As he crossed
the street, he heard the voices of the others. It sounded like they were
cheering him on, so he ran faster.
It took longer to reach the other side of the street than
Damon had thought. Sometimes it was difficult for him to judge distances inside
the darkspace, and there were no bushes or trees or houses to indicate how
close he was to the other side. Finally, he reached the other curb. A fireplug
appeared in view, as his darkspace surrounded it to let him know he had made it.
Damon walked up the
street a ways, thinking he must surely be where the others were by now. Why
hadn’t they appeared inside his darkspace? Then he realized they were probably
scared of it, like people sometimes were, and were making sure they stayed
outside of it. He decided to make the darkspace go away and tell everyone it
was safe to be inside the darkness. Then maybe they could go trick-or treating
inside the darkspace. He laughed as he imagined going up to someone’s house,
knocking on the door, and scaring people, who would only see a cloud of
darkness! That, he decided, would be the best trick ever!
But when he inhaled and made the darkspace go away, he was
stunned.
None of the houses on this block looked familiar, and none
of them had their porch lights on.
Oh, no! I’ve crossed
the boulevard, he realized. That’s
why it took so long to cross the street. It wasn’t the street at all. I’m in
the Forbidden Neighborhood.
But it was no big deal, he thought. He’d just go back the
way he came. He turned to walk down the hill, but something blocked his path.
In the darkness—no streetlights were even on—he strained to see what was
ambling toward him. The figure looked no bigger than a kid, maybe a year or two
older than he was, but it was very skinny and lurched as it walked. Damon
thought it was just some guy out trick or treating, but when the figure was
close enough to see clearly, Damon jumped back.
The first thing he noticed was a toothless mouth drawn
tight across a bony face. Dead eyes stared at him from underneath wisps of hair
which hung limp across an exposed skull. The figure was clad in what must have
once been a tee-shirt and jeans but were now rags. A bony, rotted hand reached
out toward Damon.
“Th-that’s a neat costume!” Damon said, hoping it was a costume.
The figure strained to speak. “Giiiiimmeeee caaaan-dee!”
Damon realized the figure was pointing to his bag of candy.
Too terrified to move, Damon could only joke, “D-don’t zombies eat brains?”
The figure lunged, moving faster than Damon thought
possible. But it was off-balance and Damon easily stepped aside. All Damon
would have to do now, he thought, was run back toward his side of the district.
But before he could take another step, he heard a scraping sound from the
middle of the street. He glanced over and saw a manhole cover being shifted.
Then, to Damon’s horror, another figure much like the first emerged.
This zombie had no hair at all, and its jaw hung lopsided
on the bottom of its skull. The sight so revolted Damon, he thought he might
throw up. But now a third zombie appeared from somewhere behind Damon—this one
was missing its head, but its exposed rib cage, outstretched arms and bony legs
were coming right toward him. The zombies made a noise which sounded like
chanting and moaning, and a horrible smell permeated the air. To Damon, it
smelled like rotten eggs and bad breath—the smell of death.
Damon wanted to run as fast as he could back to his side of
the district, but he was too scared to move. Instead, he exhaled and the
darkspace came, surrounding him. He felt safe, at last. The zombies would not
be able to find him in the cloud of darkness.
The second zombie wandered inside the darkspace and
appeared momentarily confused. A noseless face sniffed the air, and then it
reached out and grabbed Damon by the sleeve of his costume. “Weee smeeeellll
youuu!” it taunted through its lopsided jaw.
Damon somehow shook loose and found he could move again.
The darkspace was not helping him, so he inhaled, making it go away. Then he
tossed the bag of candy on the ground in front of the second zombie. “Here!
Take it!” he screamed.
“Tooo laaaate!” said the third zombie, whose somehow seemed
to be talking without a mouth or even head. “Waaaant toooo eaaaat youuuu!”
Damon screamed as loud as he could, thinking he might scare
the zombies away, but they did not leave.
Someone—or something—landed on the sidewalk a few feet away
from him. It snarled as it grabbled the headless zombie and tossed him into a
nearby yard. The new arrival moved so fast Damon couldn’t see what it was at
first, but, finally it stopped and growled at the two remaining zombies. Fangs
protruded from a maw below a ridged snout. Yellow eyes peered out from dark fur,
as the creature swiped at the two zombies with huge claws.
A werewolf! Damon
thought, his heart pounding faster than ever.
The zombies ambled away as fast as they could. But now the
werewolf turned and faced Damon.
***
Damon remembered seeing a movie about a werewolf when he
was a little kid. It had given him nightmares for a week. Now the nightmare was
standing before him. Damon was too scared to even exhale.
But there was something odd about this werewolf. Its eyes
consisted of round, black circles surrounded by deep yellow, yet somehow they
looked kind. A large, hairy paw scooped Damon’s bag of candy off the sidewalk. I guess werewolves like candy, too,
Damon thought. But then the werewolf did something totally unexpected. It held
the bag out toward Damon. Is . . . is it
giving it back to me?
The werewolf glanced over its shoulder and then nodded urgently
toward the bag. Damon carefully reached forward to take the bag, but something
appeared in the sky. It looked like a flaming bottle rocket. It flew between
Damon and the werewolf and struck the bag of candy, causing it to burst into
flames. The werewolf dropped the bag, and Damon could only watch as fire
consumed all the candy he had gotten.
Damon glanced warily at the werewolf, who seemed just puzzled as he was.
From the yard where the headless zombie had been thrown, a
new creature appeared. Damon rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was
seeing. The new creature was clad in an old-time suit with a vest and trousers.
It appeared human except for its head, which looked just like a jack-o-lantern
with an evil grin. Damon didn’t know whether to laugh or be scared. In one of
the creature’s hands, it appeared to be carrying something on fire. It made an
eerie sound as it reached back like a ball player and tossed the ball of flame,
which barely missed Damon.
Damon and the werewolf ran in opposite directions, but Damon
got only a few feet when he saw second jack-o-lantern coming toward him, its
arms outstretched to make sure Damon couldn’t get away. He looked back and saw
the werewolf confronting a third jack-o-lantern.
“We was just havin’ fun with the kid, wolfie” the third
jack-o-lantern said. “You shoulda’ minded your own business!”
It struck Damon as odd that the jack-o-lantern didn’t have
a creepy voice. It had the deep-nasal voice of a boy in his early teens.
“Yeah,” the second jack-o-lantern said, “now we’ll just
have our fun with you!” This
creature, too, sounded like a teenager. It made another pitcher toss, and
hurled a ball of flame past the werewolf, grazing its shoulder. The werewolf
howled in pain as it danced around, trying to put out the fire in its fur.
Damon didn’t know what to do. He turned to run, but the
third jack-o-lantern cut him off. “Not so fast, kid,” it said. “You’re in the
wrong neighborhood, so you’re next!”
A strange idea occurred to Damon: These weren’t real
monsters at all, but powered kids, like him, who probably had some sort of
shape-changing power. Real monsters don’t
make threats, he concluded. Zombies may be able to smell him in the dark,
but he wondered if jack-o-lanterns could. He exhaled, and the darkspace
came—spreading over him, the werewolf, and all three jack-o-lanterns. The first
two stopped advancing on the werewolf, and the third, likewise, stopped moving
behind Damon. Their hands flailed about
in a vain attempt to grab onto something.
Damon realized he could run back to his side now, and he
would reach the boulevard before the monster-kids had a chance to react. But
then he noticed the werewolf, who had managed to put out the fire on its
shoulder and was also feeling around in the dark, confused. Whatever this
creature was—another kid or something else—it had tried to help Damon. He
couldn’t just leave it.
He concentrated, opening a soundspace directly to the
werewolf. He didn’t know if the werewolf could even understand speech, but he
tried anyway. “Hey! Follow me! Follow the sound of my voice!” The werewolf
perked up and nodded. Damon then turned and ran as fast as he could down the
hill, occasionally saying “This way! This way!” so the werewolf wouldn’t get
lost. Damon did not slow down until the fireplug he had seen before reappeared
inside the darkspace.
He came to a stop at the edge of the curb, but, once again,
he did not know what to do. If he sent the darkspace away, would the werewolf
turn on him? Damon was trying to remember the movie he had seen so long ago. In
it, the werewolf was just like an animal; it couldn’t control itself or think
like a person. Yet this werewolf had tried to help him.
But as Damon turned to tell the creature it could stop
running, he noticed it no longer looked like a werewolf. It looked like a kid,
about his age—a very hairy kid, to be sure, with mounds of hair shedding on the
sidewalk behind him. The snout had shrunk into a normal-sized nose, and the
fangs had become smaller, less menacing. “Please,” the boy said in a voice
which was half growl, half human, “whatever you’re doing, make it go away so I
can see again.” He sounded almost afraid.
Damon inhaled, and the darkspace vanished.
The boy blinked several times as his eyes grew accustomed
to the bright light under the street lamp. Damon watched, amazed, as the boy
continued to transform. The dark fur was replaced by blonde hair, cut neatly in
bangs. His yellow and black eyes were now green. Most importantly, the boy
stood before him almost naked, expect for some cut-off shorts.
Not knowing what else to say, Damon asked, “Aren’t you
cold?”
The boy shrugged. “Not yet. I still have some of the wolf
blood in me. I’ll transform back in a few minutes, as soon as you’re safely
across the street. But that’s a neat
trick you did back there. Did you make the Pickett brothers blind, too?
“Pickett brothers?”
“Those three guys. First they were zombies and then they were jack-o-lanterns. They love to terrorize the neighborhood on Halloween. That’s why no one goes out trick-or-treating.”
“Those three guys. First they were zombies and then they were jack-o-lanterns. They love to terrorize the neighborhood on Halloween. That’s why no one goes out trick-or-treating.”
Damon smiled, realizing he was right after all: Those kids
weren’t monsters. They were just powered kids, like him. Damon explained what
his darkspace could do, and then asked the boy if he was a shape-shifter, too.
“Sort of,” the boy said, sounding dejected. “But I can only
turn into something like a werewolf. It’s good for Halloween, I suppose. I may
not be able to go trick-or-treating, but I can still get out. I was leaping
across some rooftops when I heard you scream.”
Leaping across
rooftops. The idea thrilled Damon. He recalled how Kyle could teleport and
Vee could run at super-speed. “I wish I could leap across rooftops,” he said,
absently.
“I wish I could do what you can do,” the boy replied. “Then
I could live in the regular part of the
district instead of here, in the Forbidden Neighborhood.”
Damon wished he still had his bag of candy so he could
offer the boy some candy for helping him. Instead, he said, “Why don’t you come
across the boulevard with me? We’ll pick up some more Halloween bags at my
house and go trick-or-treating together?”
The boy shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, pointing to his
leg. Damon hadn’t noticed the boy was wearing a metal ankle bracelet with a
single, glowing red light in the center. “All the powered kids in the Forbidden
Neighborhood have to wear them,” he said. “It’s how the district keeps us on
this side.”
Damon suddenly felt angry. All the rules he had to live
by—like not being allowed to use his power in public—were nothing compared to
what this poor kid had to live with. Damon could at least go where he pleased
and could go out trick-or-treating with his friends.
Speaking of his friends, Damon thought they must have
wondered what had happened to him by now. So Damon and the boy said their
goodbyes. Before he ran back across the boulevard, however, Damon asked the boy,
“What’s your name?”
The boy’s face lit up, as if it had been a long time since
anyone had asked him his name. “Eduardo," he answered. "Call me Eddie."
Damon told the boy his name and wondered if they would ever
meet again as he ran back to his side of the district. When he reached the
curb, he found his brother waiting for him.
“Damon! There you are!” Eldon shouted with a sigh of relief.
“Where’ve you been? We saw your darkspace cross the boulevard and yelled that
you were going the wrong way. Didn’t you hear us?”
Damon admitted he had, but the thin darkspace had garbled
their voices. “I thought you were cheering me on,” he said sheepishly.
“Cheering you on!” Eldon seemed more annoyed than angry.
“Don’t ever do that again! You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Damon didn’t know if it was possible for a kid Eldon’s age
to have a heart attack. He looked around. “Hey, where are the others?”
“Oh, they got bored waiting for you,” was the answer. “They
went to Kyle’s house to play video games.”
“Why did you wait for me?”
Eldon looked dumbfounded. “Damon, you’re my brother. If
anything happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Damon was genuinely touched, and he felt ashamed that he had
earlier thought of “losing” Eldon while trick-or-treating by running ahead of
him. Suddenly, going out dressed as a twin skeleton didn’t seem so bad, after
all.
“Come on,” Damon said, as he started up the street.
“Where are we going?” asked Eldon.
“Back home. I need to get another bag so we can keep trick
or treating.”
Eldon stared at him in disbelief. “Trick-or-treating? Just
you and me?”
“Sure,” Damon said. “I’ll race ya!” He took off, but he deliberately
ran slowly so Eldon could catch up.
No comments:
Post a Comment