On the Day I Died Page 6

  Scooping up the box, I turned.

  Toni stood in the hallway. “They’re gone,” she wailed.

  “What?” I rushed down the hall, tossing the box into Toni’s room as I went.

  “I went to get some toys for them to play with—they liked that rubber duck so much,” she explained, holding up two plastic dinosaurs. “I was only away for a minute. When I came back—” She pointed.

  The bathtub was empty except for six inches of green-tinged water. Two glistening sets of prints trailed across the linoleum floor. Slimy webbed handprints dotted the sill of the now-open window.

  “They ran … I mean, slithered away,” Toni sniffled. “Why would they slither away?”

  Before I could come up with an answer, a scream from outside pierced the summer air.

  We raced out onto the front porch.

  Mrs. Neary hobbled into the street. The left sleeve of her twinset had been ripped clean away, and she was wearing only one high-heeled shoe. “Something took Muffin,” she kept repeating like a scratched record. “Something in my backyard. Something took Muffin! Something in my backyard …”

  She bumped into the curb and just plopped down there, her legs splayed. Her one high heel now dangled drunkenly from her big toe. “Something took Muffin. I heard my little angel howling.” Her eyes were wide open, but she stared at nothing. “Something took Muffin.”

  Beside me, Toni groaned. “Was it … do you think?”

  I whirled on her. “Of course it was!” I pulled her to the side and through clenched teeth said, “These are not cute pets like hamsters or parakeets. These are some kind of insane mutant Pekingese-chomping monsters!”

  Despite herself, Toni giggled. “Pekingese-chomping monsters.”

  But her laughter died a second later when we saw one of the creatures emerge from between the houses.

  “Where’s the other one?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I … I don’t know, but you can bet it’s around here someplace.”

  We crouched behind the porch railing and watched, horrified, as the creature moved through the yards, using the manicured shrubs and white picket fences for cover. Toni’s “pet” was now the size of a four-door Buick and covered in translucent pink flesh. We could make out the shapes of its organs, pulsing and fluttering. It dragged itself around upright on two tree-trunk-thick legs that ended in gnarled, clawed feet. As for its webbed hands, they twitched at the ends of two tentacle-like stalks. But it wasn’t until the creature lifted its head that I felt the bile rise in my throat. On its face was fixed a smile, permanent and corrupt—a yellow-fanged gash curving under eyes as dead as eight balls.

  I sucked in my breath. “It can’t be.”

  But it was—

  Just like in those pictures on the Insta-Pet kit’s envelopes, a red bow decorated the monster’s three knobbed horns!

  Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching! The sound of Mr. Humor’s bicycle bell rang through the air.

  The monster dropped behind a bush, crouched, became statue still. It cocked its hideous head to the right, listening, then flicked its forked tail. A black tongue, slimy and dripping, slicked its grinning lips. Then it focused its gaze on the ice cream man, who unknowingly pedaled straight toward its hiding place.

  “Oh my God,” I whimpered. Then I was running down the sidewalk, my bare feet pounding on the pavement.

  “Mr. Humor!” I yelled. “Stop! Stop!”

  But it was too late.

  A fleshy tentacle whipped from behind the bush and lifted Mr. Humor off his bicycle seat. A second tentacle wrapped around his waist, and I caught a flash of the creature’s hideous underside. It was a gray color like rotten meat, and it was dotted with hundreds of fluttering, hungry suckers.

  Mr. Humor’s eyes bulged. “Get him off me!” he shrieked. “Please, get him off me!”

  I lunged and grabbed Mr. Humor by his ankles. I pulled as hard as I could, falling onto the street, using my legs for leverage—straining, panting.

  Mr. Humor struggled, grabbing the bike’s handle. He held it tightly, his knuckles turning white as the monster tightened its grip.

  I tugged with all my might, feeling as if my arms might tear off.

  The monster’s forked tail whipped around and slithered over my skin. I shuddered as the cold and pulsating thing slipped around Mr. Humor’s neck.

  “Help me!” sobbed the ice cream man as the creature ripped him from my grasp.

  It raised Mr. Humor to its weirdly smiling mouth.

  Mr. Humor kicked frantically, knocking off one of his canvas shoes. It arced through the air, landing in the middle of the street, clean and white. Then the ice cream man screamed, and the shoe was suddenly splattered with blood. There came a wet, crunching sound, and his fingers slowly released their grip on the bike handle. The bike fell and the cooler unit smashed open, sending Popsicles and ice cream sandwiches skittering across the pavement.

  The bell let out one final cha-ching.

  The creature burped.

  Mr. Humor was gone.

  And then there was no sound at all, except for the rasping of my breath and the soft, slithery sound of the monster as it squirmed across the melting treats and through Mrs. Ivey’s yard.

  I was sure I was dessert. But the creature didn’t turn back. It never even looked at me. It just slid on past as I lay curled into a numb, terrified ball in the middle of the street.

  Then I heard another sound—a soft, sobbing sound.

  Toni stood on the sidewalk, her round face deadly pale except for her huge dark eyes. They were shiny with tears.

  “This is all my fault!” she cried pitifully.

  I dragged myself up off the pavement and over to her. “We can’t think about that now,” I said. I was in shock, but the look in Toni’s eyes, her little face so full of pain, galvanized me. “We have to get help.”

  We stumbled back to the house and into the kitchen. I snatched up the phone.

  Silence.

  “It’s dead!” I cried.

  Toni looked bewildered. “That makes no sense. Do Insta-Pets know about phone wires?”

  The sunroom door began to rattle on its hinges. One of the monsters pressed its grotesque face to the glass. Which one was it? And—dear God—where was the other one?

  I grabbed Toni’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here and get help!”

  We raced across an expanse of gold carpeting toward the front door.

  But at that very moment the picture window in the living room was darkened by the mass of the second monster. It was peering in, drooling, with something furry and white between its teeth.

  “That’s Mr. Kopecky’s cat,” said Toni. “Aw, poor Bubbles!”

  And then from the sunroom came an explosion of breaking glass and splintering rattan furniture. A moment later the first monster lurched into the kitchen.

  The second monster pressed hard against the living room window. Tiny cracks began to radiate from the corners of the glass.

  In the split second before we bolted down the hall, I noticed something that made my blood turn cold. The second monster was wearing cowboy boots just like in that picture on the envelope. No, these weren’t baby Insta-Pets anymore. Not cute cartoons in a comic book. These were fully formed man-and-pet-eating monsters.

  We raced into Toni’s bedroom. Heaving and panting, we shoved her Pink Princess vanity table across the door, then headed for the window.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on,” I groaned, beating on the sill, the frame, the glass.

  We could hear the scrape and slither of the monsters in the hall.

  “Davey? What do we do?” cried Toni.

  There was no time for plans. The monsters had already reached the door and were pushing and grunting against it. We could hear their teeth gnashing like saw blades and smell the sickening mixture of grape Popsicle and blood. One of the tentacles flattened and swept under the door. It slid between the vanity’s legs, groping.… It gra
bbed Toni’s Wetty Betty doll, seemed to examine it by touch, then released it. Its webbed hand bumped into my bare toe, and I jumped back. The movement excited the monster. It closed around Toni’s teddy bear. It squeezed. Stuffing exploded.

  “Pookie!” yelped Toni.

  A forked tail joined the tentacle in searching, grabbing, squeezing. Books and board games scattered, the Sky King bedside lamp bounced once and shattered, and in a sickening crunch the little man on top of Toni’s peewee bowling trophy was pounded into shards.

  The tentacle reached for her Chrissie Dream Cottage.

  “Not Chrissie!” Toni screamed. Snatching up a tennis racket, she forehanded the tentacle. Thwack!

  The tentacle grabbed the racket and squeezed. Wood and strings flew. And now the forked tail was back. It swept across the bed, knocking a package to the floor, seizing a pillow. Feathers filled the air.

  Even in the chaos, I noticed the red box.

  “Toni!” I shouted. “What else did you order out of your magazine?”

  “Huh?” She was ducking and jumping, trying desperately to stay out of the monster’s reach.

  The vanity table began to move across the bedroom floor. Wood and plaster cracked. We had only seconds.

  “Tell me now!” I shouted, beating at the tentacle with a Happy Trails hairbrush.

  Toni clambered onto her matching Pink Princess dresser to escape the flailing tail. It followed her, pulling out drawers. Socks and underpants flew.

  “What’s in the box?” I screamed again.

  From her perch, she said, “Um … uh … let me think.”

  The door was ripped from its hinges.

  “Um … a pair of X-ray glasses, a Hypno-Coin, onion gum, a crystal ball, a Captain Gizmo atomic ray gun, and—”

  Lunging across the room, I snatched the package out from under a shredded Snuffy Town bedspread just as the door burst open. The monsters stood there, staring, smiling.…

  I clawed at the package’s wrapping. Please, God, I begged, please don’t let it be the onion gum!

  The monsters slithered across the floor, suction cups fluttering eagerly. We were trapped.

  Toni jumped off the dresser. Placing herself between the monsters and me, she began hurling anything and everything at them—her poodle skirt, her Howdy Doody ventriloquist dummy, even her Elvis Presley records. “Go away! Get back!”

  I pulled back the box flaps.

  It wasn’t the onion gum!

  “Get out of the way!” I shouted at Toni.

  She turned, saw what I was holding and instantly understood. She rolled to the left side as I raised the Captain Gizmo Atomic Ray Gun, aimed at the first monster and pulled the trigger. The ray gun crackled, flared red and let out a loud dat-dat-dat-dat!

  The first monster exploded in a cloud of black goop, splattering the Pink Princess wallpaper.

  I pointed the gun at the second monster.

  Dat-dat-dat-dat!

  It exploded, too—a spewing fountain of black gore, teeth and suckers.

  “We did it!” shouted Toni, hurling herself into my arms. “We did it!”

  I dropped the ray gun and, whooping, whirled her around and around.

  That’s when I felt something wet and rubbery twist around my ankle.

  A tentacle rose from behind me and coiled around my legs. The slimy flesh tightened, squeezed, tugged. I could feel its rows of suckers tearing my skin. I turned and saw the thing. It was like the others—fork-tailed and tentacled—but its body was different … yellow … rounder … like … a huge rubber duck! I had time for one thought—DO NOT ADD ANY INGREDIENTS BUT OFFICIAL INSTA-PETS PRODUCTS TO YOUR PETS’ WATER—before it grabbed me. I screamed, lightning bolts of pain radiating out to my fingertips and down to my toes. It had me, and I was being eaten alive. Eaten alive!

  Toni shrieked, hitting at the new monster with her bare fists.

  “The ray gun!” I screamed.

  She dropped to her knees, scrabbling through the debris of clothes and games and exploded stuffed animals.

  The second tentacle whipped around my head, covering my mouth.

  “Help me!” I tried to scream, but it came out a muffled moan.

  The suckers were doing a vicious dance on my neck and face now, feasting on my skin, dissolving my flesh. The room began to grow dark. My breath came in weak puffs. I felt myself being lifted, tilted. I could smell the creature’s putrid breath, could hear—even through the hammering of my own heart—the gnashing and grinding of its teeth.

  Dat-dat-dat-dat!

  I dropped to the floor, splashing hard into a sticky pile of goo.

  But I knew it was too late.

  Toni dropped to her knees beside me. Although she was nothing more than a dark blur, I could hear her voice and feel the touch of her hand in mine. I could feel her tears dripping onto my ravaged face, too.

  What was left of my mouth opened and closed like a dying goldfish. Strange, but I had always thought it would be a Russian A-bomb or a UFO that would get me in the end. Who would ever have imagined a comic-book novelty?

  “David, oh, David,” Toni sobbed.

  I squeezed her hand weakly to reassure her. My sister was safe, and that was all that really mattered. I let my fingers relax.

  “You must have cared deeply for your sister.” It was the girl in the long skirt. She was seated on an urn-shaped gravestone, and in the moonlight the tear slipping down her cheek glimmered like a tiny crystal.

  David, his expression stricken, nodded.

  “I had a sister, too,” the girl said. “Her name was Blanche. But I did not care for her.” She shook her head. “No, I did not care for her, not one little bit.… ”

  A FIERCE CHICAGO WIND ROARED off the lake that day, rattling the white buildings of the World’s Fair with rude, jostling whooshes. For one moment it settled—ah, calm at last, I thought—before puckishly rising again, more tempestuous than before.

  I watched as fairgoers scampered along the winding pathways seeking refuge. According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, more than fourteen million visitors had already flocked here to experience the eye-catching wonders of the World’s Columbian Exposition—more commonly known as the Chicago World’s Fair. All across the country, Americans were mortgaging their farms and houses, borrowing money on their life insurance or trimming their Christmas budgets to save for the trip, convinced there would be nothing like it for at least another hundred years. And few, it seemed, regretted their sacrifices. Just the other day I had read about an Iowa farmer who—after gazing openmouthed at Edison’s Tower of Light with its zigzagging, flashing bulbs—said to his wife, “Well, Susan, it paid, even if it did take all the burial money.”

  Today’s weather, however, was wreaking havoc with the fairgoers’ fun. Some ducked into the immense Illinois Building to catch their breaths. Others sought protection in Machinery Hall or girded themselves against the blustery gusts with a stein of beer at the German Village. But the wind always found them. Shoving. Pushing. Snatching off hats and blowing up skirts.

  Already this evening’s fireworks had been rescheduled, and the movable sidewalk that jutted into Lake Michigan was shut down because of the whitecaps breaking over it. I had even heard rumors that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show would be canceled.

  Such a shame! I would have sincerely loved seeing my sister, Blanche, get trampled by a herd of stampeding bison.

  “I cannot believe this weather, and on the day I decide to attend the fair,” Blanche fretted, fumbling with her parasol. It might have been windy, but the sun beating down on us was a hot July one.

  Just as soon as she opened her parasol, though, the wind snatched it from her lace-gloved hands. It flew out over the North Pond like a fleeing raven.

  I giggled.

  “I fail to see the humor,” said Blanche in her usual nose-in-the-air tone. “I’ll be baked crispy as a farmhand if I don’t escape this dreadful sun.”

  I imagined a curl of smoke rising from a charred, withered
thing. Blanche baked to a crisp. Delightful!

  Blanche noted my pleasure.

  “Sister dear,” she said oh so sweetly, “you’re positively dewy.” She offered me one of her lace-edged handkerchiefs. It smelled of rose water. “Really, Evelyn, you sweat so profusely one might think you were a common laborer.” And with that bit of nastiness, she sailed off.

  I stood there, hating her. I think I had always hated my twin sister—since that day, sixteen years ago last month, when we were born.

  Blanche came first, of course, shoving me aside so she could make her dramatic entrance into the world. The firstborn. The special one.

  “She had such wide blue eyes,” Mother once recalled when I asked about that day, “and such translucent alabaster skin. The midwife claimed she’d never seen such a beautiful infant.”

  “What about me?” I begged. “What do you remember about me?”

  “You were different from Blanche,” Mother said. “So small and dark. We were”—she fumbled for the word—“startled.”

  Something cold and bitter began nibbling at my insides.

  Did anyone coo over me when I appeared minutes later? I longed to ask. Did they marvel at my skin, too? Admire my eyes? I guessed not. As always, Blanche had seized all the attention for herself.

  As we grew, our differences became more pronounced. Blanche was all golden light. I was dingy and plump. Blanche glowed with wit and laughter. I preferred to keep to myself. Blanche was all cultured breeding. I detested putting on airs.

  “Like day and night,” Father often said.

  “More like Beauty and the Beast,” Blanche would taunt behind his back.

  That was Blanche—sweet kisses and pretty smiles in public, hisses and torment when we were alone together.

  Now Blanche turned, the wind snapping at her skirts. “Come on, Evelyn.” She pressed her Handbook of the World’s Columbian Exposition to her chest to keep its hundreds of pages from ruffling. “Honestly, you dodder like an old man. We won’t have time to see a thing if you don’t hurry up.”