Suzie came out of their house, bouncing with excitement. “Uncle Jerry’s here!” she shouted, hopping down the porch steps. “He’s going to stay with us. Dad asked him to come help us find the Marsh Monster.” She grabbed my hand excitedly. “Come on, Harold! You’re going to love him. He has a weird old flashlight thingy that kills vampires. He says he’s going to let me use it on the neighbors’ cats and dogs. Oh, I can’t wait for tonight!” She let go of my hand and ran back inside.
I took out my phone and called Mum.
“I see you, Harold!” she said playfully, answering my call.
I turned to our house and saw Mum waving at me from the kitchen window.
“I’m going to stay at the Goolz’s until dinner. Is that all right?”
She was quiet for a while, mulling it over. “Okay, then. I’ll call when dinner’s ready.”
I hung up and looked back at the window. Mum waved nervously and managed to smile. She was trying to hide how worried she was even after establishing this new truce with our strange neighbors.
“When you meet him, remember not to stare. He hates that,” Ilona said as we went up the ramp to their house. “And don’t laugh, no matter what he says. Or you’re in real trouble. He’s very sensitive.”
We went through the door and were greeted by a fog of horrible odors—like a mix of BO and moldy clothes, with undertones of rotten foot. Crates and boxes were still lying all over the hall, but the ones in the living room had been pushed against the walls. In the empty space were a cot, a kerosene lamp, and a pile of dirty tools. The room looked like an archaeological site.
Right in the middle of the mess stood a giant man, sniffing what looked like a slice of salami. “You’re right, my friend. There’s a distinct funk to it.”
Uncle Jerry didn’t look like a scientist—not the way I pictured one, anyway. He wasn’t frail, bespectacled, and giggling at the wonder of the universe. He looked like an oversized lumberjack on his way to kill grizzly bears with his bare hands. He was huge, with a thick white beard and slicked-back, thinning gray hair. He was as tall as a tower and bulky with muscle. His huge hands and thick fingers were covered with fading tattoos and looked perfectly designed to squash large objects. He wore extra-extra-large khaki cargo shorts and a screaming blue-and-pink Hawaiian shirt.
It was really hard not to stare.
The giant man pinched the slice of salami and stretched it between his fingers. “This is not normal human flesh…Oh, hello, darling,” he added, noticing Ilona. His gaze lost its warmth as he turned to me. “And who are you?” he asked suspiciously, but didn’t bother waiting for an answer.
He picked up a dish containing the human teeth we had collected in the pickup truck and dropped the slice of salami on top of them. It wasn’t salami, I realized. It was the slice of severed foot that Frank Goolz kept in their freezer.
Frank Goolz put a hand on my shoulder. “This is Harold!” he said with a flourish. “He’s a good kid. And he’s one of us.”
“All right, then,” Uncle Jerry said, looking at me sideways like he wasn’t convinced. “But he’s your responsibility. If he gets maimed, killed, or eaten, don’t blame it on me.”
“Harold’s awesome,” Ilona said. “He saved us when we got locked under a kitchen floor. He’s a natural.”
My heart went pop! and my face started radiating a thousand degrees of blushing heat.
“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that story? Hey Jerry, this guy’s awesome. Oh, can he join our team?, and then POOF ! Someone loses an eye, and everyone starts pointing fingers and yelling at me.”
Uncle Jerry took a red paper napkin out of his breast pocket. But instead of wiping his fingers with it, he tore off a large chunk, threw it in his mouth, and started chewing.
“Show him the pictures of the foot, Harold,” Frank Goolz said.
I took out my phone and pulled up the photos. Uncle Jerry snatched it away from me. I wished he had wiped his fingers first.
“Ha! Not human! So obvious.” He kept swiping through the pictures, sneering at each one. “You did good calling me, Frank. The Mallow Marsh Monster is awake, and that foot might be the first piece of proof.”
“You truly believe the Marsh Monster exists, like for real?” I asked, and the giant gave me a hard look.
“Kid, I’m a biologist and a Marsh Monster expert, all right? I’ve written tons of books on the subject. I’ve got a dozen copies in the back of my car, and I will sell you one for a good price. I’ll sign it too.” He turned to Frank Goolz. “We need the whole foot. Where is it?”
“I gave it to Ed Farrell. He’s the father of the twins with the missing mother. He’s a doctor. He said that the foot is part of his scientific research.”
“Ha!” Uncle Jerry handed me back my phone. “Doctors! What do they know? They have all the diplomas, but not the brains.” He tapped his giant head. “That’s more my department. I’m a math genius. Did you tell the kid that?”
“Uncle Jerry’s brilliant,” Ilona confirmed. “He knows everything about UFOs, Atlantis, Cryptocreatures, Hollow Earth, ancient aliens…” She ticked them off on her fingers. “And he’s saved us so many times.”
“You bet.” Uncle Jerry sat down on his cot. It squeaked painfully and nearly folded in half under his weight. He scratched his beard, thinking.
“What about those teeth?” I asked.
He picked one up and tapped it on the lip of the dish a couple times, listening carefully to the noise it made against the porcelain. “Fake! Obviously. Just like that phony foot.”
“You mean they’re not human?” I looked at Frank Goolz for a second opinion.
“Well. First day of school for you, kid.” The giant man threw another piece of paper in his gigantic mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. “People don’t get that about swamp creatures. They’re magical beings—shapeshifters. It probably disguised itself as human to lure this Feral woman—”
“Farrell,” I interrupted. “Mrs. Farrell.”
“HEY!” he yelled at me, bouncing on the cot and nearly giving me a heart attack. “Frank! Tell the kid not to interrupt me or I’ll bite his nose off.”
“Uncle Jerry doesn’t like it when you ruin one of his stories.” Ilona came close to me and put a protective hand on my shoulder. “He’s passionate. But don’t worry. Your nose is safe when you’re with me. Isn’t that right, Uncle Jerry?”
“The boy just needs to learn some manners,” he told her, his voice softening as he spoke to her. “And I’m not telling stories. Everything I say is factual, dear.”
“So?” I asked hesitantly, instinctively pinching my nose. “The foot? The teeth? They belong to the monster?”
He gave me a long, dark look. Clearly, I still had a long way to go before he accepted me as a member of the outfit. “If you had let me finish, you would know by now,” he snapped. “But yes. Those are not the remains of Mrs…. FARRELL.” The cot took another serious blow. He took the dish and gave the slice of foot another deep whiff. “They are human imitations that the creature shed when it shape-shifted back into the Marsh Monster. I’ll bet you my hat on it.”
“Uncle Jerry? Can I play with the vampire Zapo-thingy, now?” Suzie came back from the kitchen with a plate of Ilona’s horrible homemade cookies. She was already chewing on one.
“It’s not a toy, dear.” Uncle Jerry swallowed a mouthful of napkin and grabbed a couple of cookies from the plate. He threw one in his mouth and swallowed it like a pill. He licked his fingers—the very same ones that had touched the rotting flesh just an instant ago. “Giovanni’s Vampire Zaporino releases the light of a thousand suns all at once. It would atomize a vampire or any other sun-fearing demon in an instant.”
Frank Goolz picked up what looked like an ancient, rusted flashlight.
“Look, Harold. That’s the vampire lamp!” Suzie gave the plate of cookies to Ilona and held out her hand. “Can I have it?”
“It’s not a lamp and it’s very dangerous, Suzie.
” Frank Goolz looked at the strange symbols carved all over it. “Giovanni was an Italian alchemist. He was obsessed with vampires. He’s the one who invented the Zaporino.”
“A Zaporino!” I smiled at Ilona. “It’s a funny name for something you use to fight vampires.”
“With a name like that, quite a few of them must have had a laugh before being blasted out of existence,” she agreed.
“It’s part-science, part-magic. And Jerry’s right. The Zaporino is not a toy.” He handed it to Suzie anyway. “Just don’t press the trigger. We would all go blind for a very long time.”
“Cool.” She pointed it at an ancient stuffed owl staring at us from the top of a bookcase. “Zaaap!”
“Seriously, Suzie. Do not press the trigger.”
Suzie ignored her sister and pretended to zap each corner of the room. “If the monster attacks us, I’ll just…” She turned to zap an imaginary monster in the hall, then yelped and dropped the gadget.
Suzie stepped backward until she was safe against her dad, who put an arm around her.
“Oh, shoot.” Ilona forgot the plate of cookies in her hand. A few slid off and smashed on the floor.
The cot squealed painfully as Uncle Jerry stood up.
The Farrell twins stood silently in the hallway right outside the living room. Who knew how long they’d been standing there, listening to us? They weren’t carrying a shoebox this time, but they looked even more afraid than when they’d brought the boneless foot.
“I bet they found another body part,” Suzie said.
Their gray dresses were torn, their tights no longer white. Their hair was caked with black slime, like they’d been wrestling in tar.
“It took Dad,” they said with a freakish calmness.
“The Marsh Monster.”
“It came out of the floor—”
“In Dad’s lab—”
“In the basement.”
“And took him away.”
5
THE
THING FROM OUT
THERE
Ilona and Suzie were upstairs looking for clean clothes to give the twins. Frank Goolz and Uncle Jerry had gone to the Farrells’ house to look for Mr. Farrell and maybe have a close encounter with the monster.
I switched on a floor lamp. It was getting dark outside, and I was alone with the twins in the Goolz’s living room. I turned to the large window and looked into the twilight. An eerie chill ran through my body as I realized that an impossible creature like the Mallow Marsh Monster could actually be roaming around out there.
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“Like her little sister says?”
“We like her little sister.”
“We like your girlfriend, too.”
I shrugged uneasily. “She’s not really my girlfriend. I don’t think.” I took a breath to steel myself before asking the only question that mattered to me. “Did you see the monster? Did you see it for real when it took your father?”
“As real as we see you,” they said as one.
One twin was sitting on a crate, the other standing by her side. They looked particularly unsettling in their dirty, torn clothes, and with their hair full of black goo.
“What did it look like?” I switched on another lamp, trying to fight away the darkness and fear.
“Its skin was all green.”
“And slimy.”
“It had claws.”
“Huge ones.”
“And pointy teeth.”
“Lots of them.”
“And enormous red eyes.”
“And shiny scales.”
“All over its body like a snake.”
“And feathers—”
“Like this.”
They both held their hands up by their necks, fingers outstretched.
“Its screams hurt your ears.”
“It screamed and screamed and screamed—”
“When it dragged Dad into the well in his lab.”
“It kept screaming—”
“A long time after they were gone.”
“Crap,” I said. I tried to turn on the third and last light, but the lightbulb was dead.
“Do you think the writer—”
“And his big friend—”
“—will find our parents?”
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” I lied. I turned at the sound of Ilona and Suzie clamoring back down the stairs. They came into the living room with armloads of clothes.
Suzie dropped a pile on a crate. “We took a bit of everything. We weren’t sure what you’d like.”
Ilona added another pile on top of Suzie’s. “Go on, dig in.”
The Farrell sisters looked at each other with alarm in their eyes.
“It’s all right,” Ilona insisted. “You can wear whatever you like.”
Ruth pinched a pair of jeans and Beth pulled out a pink T-shirt. They looked at the clothes like they were filth.
“We can’t wear these.”
“Or those.”
“Except if you have two of something.”
“And they’re exactly the same.”
“Then maybe we’d like it.”
“Otherwise…”
“Nuh-uh!”
They dropped the clothes back in the pile.
“Why? They’re just jeans.” Ilona eyed the twins’ dirty clothes. “There are lots of dresses in there too.”
“We always dress exactly the same.”
“Always!”
“Can’t you make an exception for tonight?” Ilona asked.
“I’d die if I had to dress like Ilo all the time,” Suzie said. She picked up one of Ilona’s long black dresses. “She’s like a mini-Morticia. Don’t you think so, Harold?”
I loved how Ilona dressed and was about to say so when a huge CRACK-BOOM resonated through the house. It sounded like the house had been hit by a big rig.
Ilona and I looked at each other, and I saw my fear mirrored on her face.
“Cheese!” she said.
“Crap!” I answered.
Suzie screamed and ran to Ilona’s side. “I saw it!” she yelled, pointing at a window. “I saw it looking at us!”
My blood froze, and I turned to the window, expecting to see a monster grinning at us.
“We saw it, too!” the twins yelled.
They had retreated to the other side of the room, as far away from the windows as possible. They were holding each other in terror.
Ilona and I looked from one window to the next, but there was nothing but darkness outside. “Are you sure you saw it?” Ilona asked Suzie.
“Yes!” she shouted. “It was BIG and…and nasty and…and STUPID GREEN!” She pulled Ilona away from the windows.
“Define big,” I said, rushing to join them.
She spread her hands as far apart as she could. “I mean, really big, Harold. And it had these huge eyes, like fly eyes, if the fly was the size of a building. Staring at us like we’re its next snack!”
“Oh, great.” I kept my focus on the windows. The world out there was gone. No stars. No moon. No more twilight. All I could see was the reflection of the five of us packed together and scared. “Are you sure you saw what you saw?”
“Didn’t you hear me scream?” she barked at me, as if a Goolz wouldn’t scream for anything less than a bug-eyed monster outside a window.
I suddenly realized that the front door wasn’t locked and zoomed toward it. The lock was a little high for me. I reached for it, pushing against the arm of my wheelchair. I could just barely touch it with the tips of my fingers.
“I’ll do it,” Ilona said, picking up Uncle Jerry’s Zaporino thingy from where he’d left it on top of a crate.
“I got it.” I gave a final push to lift myself as high as possible. I was nearly there when—KABOOM—the door nearly jumped off its frame.
“CRAP!” I yelled.
“Get away from the door!” Ilona ran to it and locked it.
I reversed away from the d
oor at top speed.
“It must be huge,” I said.
“Did you see it?” Suzie asked, coming into the hall with the twins.
The twins were shaking so much that large flakes of dried mud were falling off their faces.
“We want our parents—”
“Now!”
That thing out there, it probably has your parents…inside its stomach! I thought, but I didn’t say it because I didn’t want to make everything even worse for them.
“Stay away from the door and the windows,” Ilona shouted at us, inspecting the Zaporino to figure out how it worked. “That has to be the trigger, right?” She showed me a brass button on the base. “I guess you just press it and…and that’s that.”
“Do you think it’ll kill it?” I asked.
“NO!” the twins shouted.
“We’re scared!”
“I am scared!” Ruth said, breaking from their usual we-as-one speak.
“It won’t work.” Suzie’s face looked drained of blood. “It’s not a vampire.”
“But…Uncle Jerry said this lamp’s packing serious blasting power,” I reminded her hopefully.
“Uncle Jerry’s a great guy, Harold. I love him to bits. But let’s be honest.” Ilona knocked the end of the Zaporino on her forehead. “Uncle Jerry’s bananas.”
“Shut up,” Suzie whispered. “Did you hear that?”
Ilona aimed the Zaporino at the door. We were all staring at it, waiting for something to happen. Everything was still and silent except for the dull cracking of the wooden boards under our collective weight. And then—CRACK-BOOM—the thing from out there rammed against the door again and nearly split it in two. We produced a chorus of yelps and shouts.
“Mommy, mommy, mommy…” The twins sobbed, hiding their faces against each other’s trembling shoulders.
“Suzie, go upstairs with them. Lock yourselves in Dad’s office. And stay away from the windows.” Ilona gave her sister a shove. “Now, Suzie! NOW!”
“FINE!” Suzie groused. She grabbed the twins by the arms and the three of them ran upstairs.
We heard a door slam and lock. And then it was eerily silent.
“We’ll be fine, Harold,” Ilona said. “If that creature tries to get in, I’m zapping it.”
“Oh, crapola!” I yelped suddenly.
The Mallow Marsh Monster Page 4
