Darkness Creeping

by Neal Shusterman

  So, since it looks like I don’t have a choice, I’ve been trying to make the best of it, and I’ve actually grown to like the desolate beaches better than the crowded city I used to live in. Of course, the kids at school out here are kind of time-warped back a dozen years or so. But I can put up with that. After all, I have little mysteries to spice up my day—like pets disappearing in the Sand Trap.

  The rumor about the dog had been going around school for a day or two before I actually decided to check it out. It was early on a Saturday morning, and as I left the house, a wall of storm clouds had stalled on the horizon. They seemed to be taunting the little beach community, sounding off dull thunder every now and then, but keeping their distance, like an army waiting to attack.

  “You have no business going out on a day like this,” Grandma warned me. “The wind’ll blow you halfway to tomorrow.”

  Of course, that didn’t stop me. Weather never did. And neither did warnings. Besides, I loved going out when it was cold and windy. I didn’t tell Grandma I was going to the Sand Trap though . . . or that I was taking a bucket.

  As I trudged along the smooth shoreline, I breathed in the ocean spray that chilled me inside and out, then I opened my shirt and let the cold of the day fill my body with goose bumps. People didn’t understand why I liked to feel cold all the time. I couldn’t explain it, either.

  A few hundred yards down the strand, I finally came to the weird, perfectly round patch of sand on the beach behind Grandma’s house. Everyone called it the Sand Trap because it was always a few inches lower, and a few shades lighter, than all the other sand around it. But what was really weird was that the Sand Trap washed away every day in high tide, then always came back to re-form itself—once again, perfectly round. And, when you looked down at it long enough, you could swear the sand was moving. But that was just an optical illusion—I was sure of it.

  I stood before the Sand Trap for the longest time, building up my nerve to do what I had decided to do . . . and then I stepped into it.

  Instantly I noticed that this sand was finer than the rest of the sand on the beach—and it was colder, too. But was it quicksand? I didn’t think so; after all, I didn’t start sinking.

  And so I got down on my knees in the Sand Trap, and I stared into it until I could see the sand slowly start churning. Then I dug my hands into it and filled my bucket to the brim.

  I had wanted some of that strange sand ever since I heard it existed, and now, at last, I was going to have some of it for my very own.

  The windows in Grandma’s workshop are always wide open because of the heat from the furnace and blowtorch. You see, Grandma is a glassblower. She creates bowls and jars and dainty little crystalline figurines that she sells in a crafts shop right next to her house.

  That first day, after I had smashed that shelf of figurines, Grandma, instead of yelling at me, sat me down and showed me exactly how much work it took to make just one of the delicate pieces. She also told me how good Grandpa had been at it. “He had always wanted to teach you,” she told me, a bit of sadness in her voice, “but you never had the interest.”

  But after living with Grandma for a while and watching her work the glass, I did develop an interest. There was something about the molten glass that fascinated me, and I grew to love learning the craft.

  At first, all I could make were lopsided glasses and mystery ashtrays—everything with sides that didn’t quite stay up was a mystery ashtray. But that was three months ago. I’ve gotten much better at glassblowing now, and I spend most of my free time in that workshop making things.

  The things I make aren’t cute little animals, though. Mine are powerful beasts. Tigers with angry eyes. Dragons breathing crystalline fire. Glass sharks with bloody teeth. Grandma sells them in the shop, too. She even gave me my own shelf to display my creatures, and she labeled my shelf PHANTASTIC PHENOMENA BY PHILIP.

  Now, Grandma never knows what to make of my creations, and she just eyes them with a look that’s half proud and half worried. “I guess it’s better to get your monsters out of you than to keep them inside,” she told me once, laughing nervously.

  Well, there are lots more where those came from, I wanted to tell her. And then I thought of the Sand Trap and said nothing. As far as I knew nobody had ever blown a glass creature from thatsand.

  As soon as I had dragged the bucket of strange sand to the workshop, I began to work with it. First, with the fire turned full blast, I quickly melted the sand into a thick semiliquid. Next I wrapped it around my glassblowing pipe. It wasn’t muddy and speckled like other unpurified glass, but instead it burned a clean white-hot. Then I held out the stick and watched as it dripped down the stick, inching toward my fingers like the Blob.

  “You will be incredible!” I told it. “You will be like nothing I’ve created before.” And with that, I put my lips to the end of the tube and blew into the pulsating mass of hot liquid glass.

  Grandma almost screamed when she saw it later that week. Her face went white, and at first I thought she was going to pass out. Then I realized she was just stunned by my creation. I grinned, entirely pleased with myself.

  “Do you like it?” I asked.

  She caught her breath. “Philip . . . I don’t know what to say.” She dared to venture closer. “Is this what you’ve been working on all week?”

  “Pretty cool, huh?”

  Grandma grimaced. “Well, it sure is something. . . . I just don’t know what.”

  To me, it was everything I’d imagined it would be. The glass creature stood there capturing the late afternoon sun, sending out daggers of light in all directions. Two feet tall, with claws that were sharp and menacing, it had shiny muscles on its hind legs that bulged, looking as though they were ready to pounce. When you looked at it long enough, you would swear you could see it moving.

  Its animalistic face was like nothing on earth that I’d ever seen. It had a long snout, and a menacing grin filled with row after row of razor-sharp teeth. Its nostrils flared; its large eyes seemed to follow you around the room. The thing could scare a gargoyle right off its rooftop.

  “My masterpiece!” I told Grandma.

  “Uh, maybe you’ve been spending too much time blowing glass,” she suggested. Then she left to make dinner, and I closed up the shop—which gave me more time to admire my creation.

  “You need a name,” I told my crystalline beast as it sat there on a wooden countertop, for it was too large to fit on my display shelf. I thought and I thought, but no name I came up with seemed right. “Perhaps you’re something best left nameless, huh?”

  Outside I could hear a chill wind blowing, sending shivers up my spine . . . just the way I liked it.

  I awoke the next morning to the storm that had been looming offshore for days, and was now finally rolling in with a vengeance. I slept with the window open, so the sill and the carpet beneath it were drenched. My toes and fingertips had grown hard from the cold, the numbness inching up through the rest of my body, which shivered uncontrollably.

  In fact, I was so cold that I put on warm clothes, which I never do. Then I closed the window, which I never do, either. I ventured downstairs, fully believing that I was heading for the kitchen to cook something hot for breakfast. I was surprised when I realized which direction my feet had turned—I was out the side door, and heading into Grandma’s shop.

  As I opened the door, bolts of lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the place before I could flick on the light. I could see the glass beast reflecting that cold white flash. Then, just before the lightning bolt vanished, I caught a glimpse of my creature’s eyes staring at me.

  Quickly I turned on the light. My glass beast stood there just as beautiful and menacing as it had the day before, hunched and ready to spring. It leered at me with its large eyes and many rows of teeth. As I neared it, looking deep into its glassy mouth, I swear that I could smell its breath, all salty and wet, like the sea. I moved my hands across it. It was cold as ice and
smooth as whalebone. I slid my fingers down the ridges of its curved back, feeling its crystalline sharpness. Then, leaning toward it, I whispered . . . “I made you.”

  Saying it somehow made me feel powerful. “I created you,” I said, my voice stronger this time. Then, as I peered into its clear glass heart, I thought I saw something move . . . but it was only the reflection of Grandma opening the door behind me.

  “Philip, what are you doing here?” she asked. “We don’t open for an hour.”

  I turned to her with a start, feeling a bit embarrassed and guilty for being caught admiring my own handiwork.

  “Come have breakfast,” she said with a grin. “It’ll still be there when you come back.”

  Then the look on her face changed. It became curious, then concerned. She walked closer to her prize showcase, where her most precious creations were kept—colorful swans, dainty unicorns, and other kinds of graceful creatures—and the concern on her face deepened. Something wasn’t right in that case. And I realized what it was the same moment that Grandma did.

  Every one of her most precious creations was missing its head.

  I looked into my grandmother’s face and saw a look that wasn’t anger—it was sorrow. In fact, it was pain. “Philip, what did you do?” she exclaimed.

  My first response was the same sorrow as hers, but it was quickly overcome by fury. I gritted my teeth and felt my face going red. “Why do you think it was me?” I shouted, my voice practically a growl.

  Her eyes were full of tears. “Who else was in this shop, Philip? All the windows are locked. Do you think neighborhood kids would come in here and do such a thing? No—we have nice children in this neighborhood—nice children,” she repeated, as if I wasn’t one of them. It made me furious. It made me want to take what was left of those pretty glass sculptures and wreck them all.

  “Maybe somebody did it before you left yesterday!” I shouted. “Maybe they were like that half the afternoon, and you just didn’t notice. How often do you look over there, Grandma?” I stared her down. “How often?”

  She looked away, proving that I had won, but I didn’t let up.

  “Why would I do something like that to you, Grandma?” I pressed, and then I thought back to that first week when I smashed that whole shelf of figurines. “I mean . . . why would I do that now? I like it here. I don’t want to get sent away.”

  That clinched it. She finally believed me. One thing about grandparents, when you give them the truth, they can tell. Still, the question remained: Who broke the heads off those figures?

  “I guess it must have been some tourist kids,” Grandma finally said, shaking her head. Then she headed for the door. “Come have breakfast,” she said as she left, not saying another word about it.

  I could have believed it, too—that it was some bored tourist kids. I could have believed that there were people mean enough to do things like that . . . because at times I had been one of them. But somewhere deep down, even though I couldn’t admit it to myself quite yet, I knew the answer was much closer to home. And as I sat down quietly to eat my bowl of cereal, I couldn’t help but think back to my crystalline creation on the heavy wooden counter . . . and how, as I had left the little shop, I could swear it winked at me.

  We sold it that afternoon. I was kind of upset. I never thought it would actually sell. If I did, I would have hidden it. It was mine, and I had no desire to see it in someone else’s hands. But a large man with a big black hat took one look at it, let out a deep belly laugh, and slapped his fat wallet on the counter. “How much?” he asked.

  I swallowed hard. “It’s not for sale,” I told him. Maybe I didn’t say it forcefully enough.

  “Name your price,” he countered.

  Then Grandma had to open her mouth, thinking she was doing me a favor. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “Not a penny less.”

  The man raised an eyebrow.

  I sighed with relief, certain that no one would pay that much for a piece of glass.

  But the man pulled out the cash, placed it in my grandmother’s hands, and she placed it in mine. “You earned this,” she said proudly.

  The man laughed out loud again. “Never seen something so ugly that looked so beautiful,” he said. “My wife’ll kill me.” And then he laughed once more as he carried out my prize beast.

  As it turned out, his wife never had the chance to kill him.

  Whatever happened, happened sometime during the night. All I know is that the next day the papers said something about a man disappearing. They didn’t have a picture yet, but I knew who it was. Even before I read the papers, I knew.

  You see, that morning I awoke with a spot of sunlight reflecting in my eyes from a piece of sculptured glass sitting on my dresser. It was my own grinning glass beast.

  Again, I had left my window open and was half frozen. My teeth were practically chattering out of my head. I wanted to scream in terror when I saw that my creation was back . . . but at the same time I was glad to see it.

  As I stared at the glass beast, I could swear that it was closer to me than it originally was. Was it creating some optical illusion the way it did back when it was just weird sand in the Sand Trap?

  No, I finally decided, it wasn’t closer—it was . . . larger. At least six inches larger than before. And it wasn’t just taller, either. It was broader as well, and its muscles were thicker than those I had given it. In fact, now I could even see fine glass ridges, like tiny veins, in its huge, bulging muscles.

  “Come down for breakfast, Philip!” Grandma called from downstairs.

  I looked at the thing, wanting to hate it, wanting to tell it to go away. But I couldn’t. The truth was that I didn’t want it to go away.

  “I can’t let her see you,” I told my beast, “so I’m going to lock you in here, okay?” Not waiting for an answer—afraid I might actually get one—I quickly left and locked my door.

  After school, I went straight to the shop. I didn’t want to think about the glass beast in my room. I just wanted to sit there at the register and smile mindlessly for what few tourists and passersby came into the shop on that cold September day.

  As I walked in, Grandma gave me a big smile. “You little sneak,” she said, wagging her finger at me. “To think you kept it from me all this time!”

  I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I’ve learned the best thing to do when you’re clueless is to keep your mouth shut until you have a clue.

  “I needed to get in to your room to collect your dirty laundry, and I was wondering why you locked your door,” she went on with a grin. “Anyway, I used my old passkey, and do you know what I found in there?”

  I gulped a gallon of air. “What?”

  “This,” she said, and pointed to the showcase that used to hold her now-headless creations. In their place was a large, crystalline punch bowl carved with such care and sharp precision, it looked like it had been cut out of diamond. It must have cost thousands of dollars.

  “When’d you buy this?” I asked her, staring at the rim of the bowl, which had fine beveled edges . . . like teeth.

  She laughed. “Stop trying to be funny, Philip. I know that you made it. I just didn’t realize how talented you were!” she exclaimed, giving me a hug. “Tell me, how long have you been hiding this masterpiece in your room?”

  All I could do was keep silent, trying to figure out what was going on.

  I looked at the bowl’s perfect surfaces, each cut like a gem-stone; its shape perfectly round. I could never make anything like this. Still, there was something familiar about it. I touched it, running my finger down a deep ridge in its surface design.

  Cold as ice, I thought. Smooth as whalebone.

  Then I shuddered so hard I shook nearly every piece of glass in the room.

  But Grandma didn’t even notice. She was busy putting a five-hundred-dollar price tag on the punch bowl.

  It sold that same day to a couple driving south, whose names I made a point t
o forget.

  With my bedroom window open, I waited for it that night. The temperature had dropped, and I could feel myself almost disappearing into the cold.

  I heard it before I saw it—a hissing, slithering sound through the window, down the cold, coiled radiator, across the wall, and onto my dresser.

  So perfect, I thought. So beautiful. And then I let myself relax, like a father who had been waiting for his child to return home.

  Fascinated, I watched it take shape once more—its old shape—the beast I had created. I fell asleep staring at it across the room, mesmerized at how the moon, its blue light twisting through the flapping blinds of my open window, painted my beast in fine neon lines.

  In the morning when I awoke, it was something new. A chandelier, with glass arms, and dangling from those arms were a hundred beautifully shaped, sharp crystalline spears. It was too heavy for me to carry down the stairs all by myself, but somehow I managed it—probably because the chandelier’s many arms actually helped itself through the hall, like the arms of an octopus.

  Grandma looked at it with a sense of apprehension and a vague sense of dread—the kind of dread you feel before you know enough to feel fear.

  “You . . . youmade this?” she asked.

  “Of course I did, Grandma.”

  She looked into my eyes, trying to catch me in a lie, but she couldn’t, because in a way, I wasn’t lying.

  “You must have worked all night,” she said to me coolly.

  “No,” I told her. “Actually this is something I’ve been working on for a while. I’ve been, uh, hiding it . . . like the punch bowl.”

  “You’ve been hiding a lot of things from me in that room,” she said.

  When I just shrugged, she let it go. I knew she was fishing for a lie, but she found only half-truths. Lucky for Grandma she was a firm believer in old sayings like “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” and “Let sleeping dogs lie.”