Darkness Creeping

by Neal Shusterman

  Lucinda rolled her eyes. “He’s been bored ever since he got expelled.”

  What Lucinda neglected to say was how happy her brother was to be out of school. He’d planned on getting out ever since last summer when he’d gotten a job operating the Tilt-A-Whirl at the local carnival. It was that job which had given him his powerful right arm. Pull the lever, push the lever, press the button—if he worked at it hard enough, and practiced at home, Itchy was convinced operating the Tilt-A-Whirl could become a full-time career. With a future that bright, who needed school?

  “Lucinda!” shouted Itchy, still under the car. “Mom and Dad are looking for you . . . and they’re mad.”

  Lucinda shrugged. That was no news. They were always that way.

  She turned to Garson. “You don’t have to come in,” she said, more in warning than anything else.

  But Garson forced a smile. He was going to see this through to the end, no matter how horrible that end might be. And it was.

  The inside of the Pudlinger home was no more inviting than the outside. It had curling wallpaper, brown carpet that had clearly started out as a different color, and faded furniture that would cause any respectable interior decorator to jump off a cliff.

  Mr. Pudlinger was in his usual position on the recliner, with a beer in his hand, releasing belches of unusual magnitude. He stared at a TV with the colors set so everyone’s face was purple and their hair was green.

  “Where have you been?” he growled at Lucinda.

  “Field-hockey practice,” she answered flatly.

  “You didn’t take out the trash this morning,” he said, grunting.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then how come it’s full again?”

  Lucinda glanced over to see that the trash can was indeed full—full of the usual fast-food wrappers, beer cans, and unpaid bills.

  “You take that trash out before dark, or no allowance!” her dad yelled from across the room. It must have slipped his mind that Lucinda didn’t get an allowance. Not that they couldn’t afford it—they weren’t poor. It was just that her mom and dad liked to “put money away for a rainy day.” Obviously they thought there was a drought.

  Mr. Pudlinger shifted in his recliner and it let out a frightened squeak the way recliners do when holding someone of exceptional weight. It wasn’t that Lucinda’s dad was fat. It would have been perfectly all right if he was justfat. But the truth was, he was also . . . misshapen. He had a hefty beer gut, and somehow that beer gut had settled into strange, unexpected regions of his body, until he looked like some horrible reflection in a fun-house mirror.

  “What does your father do?” Garson asked as they stepped over the living-room debris toward the kitchen.

  “What he’s doing right now,” she replied. “That’s what he does.”

  “No, I mean for a living,” Garson clarified.

  “Like I said, that’swhat he does.” Lucinda then went on to explain how her father was hurt on the job six years ago, and how he had been home ever since, receiving disability pay from the government. “He calls it ‘living off of Uncle Sam,’” said Lucinda. Of course, Mr. Pudlinger failed to tell Uncle Sam that he had completely recovered two weeks after the accident.

  In the kitchen they ran into Lucinda’s mom, who Lucinda had also wanted to avoid. The woman had a cigarette permanently fixed to a scowl that was permanently planted on her mouth, which was permanently painted with more lipstick than Bozo the Clown.

  Lucinda reluctantly introduced her to Garson.

  “Garson?” she said through her frowning clown lips. “What kind of stupid name is that?” Cough, cough.

  “I’m named after my father,” Garson replied.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said, and spat her gum into the sink, where it caught the lip of a dirty glass. “You wanna stay for dinner, Garson?” she asked, batting her eyes, showing off those caterpillar-like things she glued to her lashes.

  “What are you having?” he asked.

  “Leftovers,” she said flatly.

  Garson grimaced. “Left over from what?”

  Mrs. Pudlinger was stumped by that one. No one had ever asked that before. “Just leftovers,” she said. “You know, like from the refrigerator.”

  “No thanks,” said Garson. Clearly his survival instinct had kicked in.

  Lucinda was beginning to believe that Garson would soon leave, and she would be spared any further embarrassment. But then her father called him over to the recliner.

  “Hey, kid, I wanna show you a magic trick,” Mr. Pudlinger said with a sly smile. Then he extended his index finger in Garson’s direction. “Pull my finger,” he said.

  Garson did, and Mr. Pudlinger let one rip.

  Lucinda watched tearfully as, moments later, Garson sprinted down the street, racing away from her horrible family. It was the last straw, the last time she would allow her family to humiliate her like this. Their reign of terror had to end.

  Just as she turned to walk back into the house, a car swerved in the street, its tires screeching as it tried to avoid a cat. The cat, having missed being flattened, leaped into the arms of an elderly neighbor woman across the street. She turned a clouded eye at Itchy, who had just climbed out from under a parked car, laughing.

  “You monster!” the old woman screamed, shaking her cane at him. “You horrible, evil boy!”

  “Ah, shut yer trap, you old bat,” Itchy snarled.

  “You’re trash!” the old woman shouted. “Every last one of you Pudlingers. The way you keep your house—the way you live your lives—you’re all trash!”

  That’s when Mr. Pudlinger came out onto the porch. It was the first time Lucinda had seen him outside in months. He turned to Itchy, put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and as if speaking words of profound wisdom, said, “Don’t let anyone who’s not family call you trash.”

  And then he went across the street and punched the old lady out.

  When Lucinda’s salvation finally came, it came thundering out of nowhere at five in the morning. That’s when a mighty crash shook the house like an earthquake, waking everyone up.

  Furious to have been shaken awake, Mr. Pudlinger shuffled out of the bedroom with Mrs. Pudlinger close behind, her face caked in some sort of green beauty mud that actually looked less offensive than her face.

  “What’s going on around here?” bellowed Mr. Pudlinger. “Can’t a man get any sleep?”

  Lucinda wandered out of her bedroom, and Itchy—a true coward when it came to anything other than cats and nerds—came out of his bedroom and hid right behind her.

  Together the family shuffled to the front door and opened it to find yet another object on their front lawn—a Dumpster.

  Dark green, with heavy ridges all around it, the huge metal trash container was one of those large ones they use in construction—eight feet high and twenty feet long. Yet it seemed like no Dumpster Lucinda had ever seen before.

  “Cool,” said Itchy, who must have already been calculating a hundred awful ways the thing could be used.

  Mr. Pudlinger scratched his flaking scalp. “Who sent a Dumpster to us?” he asked.

  “Maybe the Home Shopping Network,” suggested Itchy.

  “Naah,” said Mom. “I didn’t order a Dumpster.”

  But it clearly was meant for them, because the name “Pudlinger” was stenciled on the side.

  It’s like a puzzle,thought Lucinda. What’s wrong with this picture?

  But there were already so many things wrong with the Pudlinger lawn that the Dumpster just blended right in. Slowly Lucinda went up to it. It looked so . . . heavy. More than heavy, it looked dense. She looked down to see a tiny hint of metal sticking out from underneath. The edge of a car muffler poked out like the Wicked Witch’s feet beneath Dorothy’s house.

  Mrs. Pudlinger gasped. “Look!” she said. “It crushed the Volkswagen Itchy was born in!”

  Mr. Pudlinger began to fume. “I’ll sue!” he shouted. And with that he stormed back int
o the house and began to flip through the yellow pages in search of a lawyer.

  The Dumpster caught the sun and cast a dark shadow. As Lucinda left for school that day, she couldn’t help but stare at the thing as she walked around it to get to the street.

  It’s just a Dumpster,she tried to tell herself. The way she figured it, some neighbor—some angryneighbor—had taken it upon himself to provide a container large enough to haul away all the junk her family had accumulated over the years. But if that were so, then why didn’t they hear the truck that had brought it here?

  Before Lucinda knew what she was doing, she had put down her books and was walking toward the gigantic green container. Slowly she began to touch it, brushing her fingers across the metal, then laying her hand flat against its cold, smooth surface. As she touched it, all thoughts seemed to empty from her mind. It was as if the Dumpster were hypnotizing her. She giggled to herself for thinking such a silly thought and stepped away from it.

  Then the Dumpster shifted just a bit, and the dead Volkswagen Bug beneath it creaked a flat complaint. Anything that crushes one of our lawn cars can’t be all bad,thought Lucinda with a chuckle.

  No, Lucinda decided, this thing was not evil—far from it. In fact, to Lucinda it seemed almost . . . friendly—certainly more friendly than anything else on their poor excuse for a lawn. And clearly it seemed to be waiting. Yes, happily waiting for something . . . but what?

  Whistling to herself, Lucinda turned away. And as she strolled off to school, she thought about the great green metal box and the way it sat in anticipation, like a Christmas present waiting to be opened.

  The neighbor’s fat tabby cat was sitting proudly on the hood of one of the lawn cars when Lucinda returned home that afternoon. The Dumpster hadn’t moved.

  All day Lucinda hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind. It was as if the thing had fallen into her brain instead of onto their weed-choked lawn. In fact, she had actually looked forward to coming home, just so she could take a good look at it again. There was something noble about the way it stood there—like a silent monolith.

  But it isn’t silent, is it?Lucinda thought. There were noises coming from within its dark green depths—little scratches and creaks, like rats crawling around. Is there something alive in there?she wondered. Is there anything in there at all, or is it just my imagination?

  If it had been a Christmas present, Lucinda would have been able to shake it, feel its weight, and try to guess what it held. But there was no way she could lift a Dumpster.

  Unable to stand not knowing what was inside, she ran to the porch, got several chairs, and stacked them one on top of the other. Then she climbed the rickety tower she had created and peered over the edge of the Dumpster.

  As she had expected, it wasn’t empty, and the shock of what Lucinda saw nearly made her lose her balance and tumble back to the ground. But she held on, refusing to blink as she stared down into the Dumpster . . .

  . . . at her father, who sat in his recliner, watching TV.

  “Dad?” she shouted. “Dad, what are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked, clicking the remote control with the speed of a semiautomatic weapon. “Get me the TV Guide, or you’re grounded!”

  In another corner of the Dumpster sat Lucinda’s mother, with her entire vanity and makeup collection before her. She scowled at her own reflection, took a deep drag of her cigarette, and began to apply a fresh layer of makeup.

  “Mom?”

  “Leave me alone,” she said. “I’m having a bad hair day.” Cough, cough.

  In the third corner of the Dumpster stood Itchy. There was a lever coming from the metal floor, and a button on the wall. Pull the lever, push the lever, press the button. Pull the lever, push the lever, press the button—Itchy was working away.

  “Have you all gone crazy?” yelled Lucinda. “Don’t you know where you are?”

  But it was clear that they didn’t. Her father thought he was in the living room, her mother thought she was in the bedroom, and Itchy, well, he thought he was king of the Tilt-A-Whirl. They all were in their own private little heaven, if you could call it that. This Dumpster—this terrible, wonderful Dumpster—wasn’t designed to haul away things—it was designed to haul away people!

  “Well, are you coming inside or what?” asked her father.

  Lucinda could have argued with them. And maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could have broken through their little trances and made them come out.

  But if she tried hard enough, she could also keep herself from telling them anything at all.

  That thought brought the tiniest grin to her face—a grin that widened as she leaped to the ground, into a tangle of weeds that cushioned her fall. Her smile continued to grow as she stepped into the house, and she broke into a full-fledged laughing fit as she raced into her room and began to bounce on her bed.

  The Dumpster was taken away sometime during the night.

  The following week, Garson McCall stopped by to apologize for being so rude on his first visit. The startled look on his face didn’t surprise Lucinda. She’d had many startled visitors during those first few days. One need only look at the carless, freshly planted lawn to know something had changed.

  “Hi, Garson,” said Lucinda in a dark, sad tone that didn’t seem to match the brightness of the spotless house.

  “Wow! What an overhaul!” exclaimed Garson as he stepped inside, his eyes bugging out at the new carpet and furniture.

  Lucinda just shrugged.

  A sixteen-year-old kid came bounding out of the kitchen to greet him, wearing a million-dollar smile that showed perfect teeth. “Hi, Garson, what’s up?” the boy asked.

  “Itchy?” Garson murmured in disbelief.

  “Ignatius,” the clean-cut boy corrected. “But my friends call me Nate.”

  In the living room a man who looked like an athletic version of Mr. Pudlinger was sipping lemonade and reading Parents magazine. In the kitchen a woman who resembled Mrs. Pudlinger, with several coats of makeup peeled away, was baking a pie.

  “Garson, would you like to stay for dinner?” asked the pleasant-looking woman. “We’re having T-bone steak and apple pie!”

  “Sure,” said Garson.

  Lucinda could practically see him drool, but the flat expression on her own face never changed. In fact, she didn’t know if she couldchange it anymore.

  “I can’t believe these are the same people I saw last week!” whispered Garson excitedly.

  “They’re not,” said Lucinda. “They’re replacements sent by the Customer Service Department.”

  Garson laughed, as if Lucinda had made a joke, and Lucinda didn’t have the strength to convince him it was true.

  “Listen, Garson,” she finally said. “I’d like to talk, but I can’t. I have to study.”

  “Study?” Garson raised an eyebrow. “On a Saturday?”

  “I have to get an A in math,” Lucinda replied.

  “And science,” added the new Mrs. Pudlinger cheerfully.

  “Don’t forget English and history,” Mr. Pudlinger sang out. “My daughter’s going to be a straight-A student, just like her brother!”

  Lucinda sighed, feeling herself go weak at the knees. “And I have to be the star of the field-hockey team. AndI have to keep my room spotlessly clean. AndI have to do all my chores perfectly . . . or else.”

  “Or else . . . what?” asked Garson.

  Then Lucinda leaned in close, and with panic in her eyes, she desperately whispered in his ear, “Or else it comes back for me!”

  Mrs. Pudlinger turned from her perfect pie. “Lucinda, dear,” she said with a smile that seemed just a bit too wide, “isn’t it your turn to take out the garbage?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Lucinda replied woodenly.

  Then Lucinda Pudlinger, dragging her feet across the floor like a zombie, took out the trash . . . being horribly careful not to let a single scrap of paper fall to the ground. Ever.

>   CRYSTALLOID

  When I was first writing the two collections that many of these stories come from, the publishers wanted a story that the artist could use to create a really great cover. I wanted to create a really interesting, unique monster; something scary, but classy at the same time. I had the image in my mind of a creature made entirely of crystal. With that in mind, I set out to write “Crystalloid.”

  CRYSTALLOID

  The Sand Trap had already claimed a neighbor’s dog. At least that was the rumor. They said the poor animal had gone down slowly, like it had been sucked into quicksand. It must have felt the same way a dinosaur felt when it got stuck in a tar pit and sank inch by inch into hot, black eternity.

  Of course, nobody believed the rumor. Quicksand? On a beach? No such thing! No, that stuff was only in the Amazon or deep in the Congo—and anyone foolish enough to poke around in places like that deserved whatever they got.

  But I believed it. People didn’t make up things like that—not unless they were particularly twisted. That’s what made me trek down that long strip of empty beach near my grandma’s old beach house. I had to check it out for myself.

  I’d been living with Grandma almost four months now. It was my dad’s new girlfriend’s idea, and at first, I was just supposed to spend the summer.

  “It’s for Philip’s own good,” she had said, sounding so caring, as if the real reason she wanted to get rid of me had anything to do with helping me. Anyway, she convinced my dad it was a last-ditch effort to keep me out of trouble. After all, ever since my dad and mom split, I had developed a special talent for getting rid of his girlfriends. Maybe my dad figured if I were out of the picture, that wouldn’t happen anymore.

  Anyway, it worked. They spent the summer together in Europe, and I kept out of trouble—if you don’t count that first day, when I got mad and shattered a bunch of glass figurines in Grandma’s crafts shop.

  In fact, I’ve done so well out here, my dad and his girlfriend decided to leave me in this lonely part of the world for good. Or at least it seems that way.