The Reality Bug

by D. J. MacHale

  Halfway down the block was a big old set of black iron gates, but a heavy steel chain and padlock told him this wouldn’t be the way in. He only had one choice. He had to go over the wall. So he walked alongside the high wall until he found a tree that was close enough to climb up and get over the top. As he stood looking up, he wasn’t worried about ghosts or banshees or dead chickens running around with their heads chopped off. That was kid stuff. He was more worried about getting caught trespassing. The idea of calling his parents from jail was not a good one. Still, the insistent glowing of the symbol on his ring told him he had to keep going.

  He pushed his hair out of his eyes and dug his sneakers into the tree. Moments later he was up and over the wall, landing in tall grass. So far so good. He looked at his ring to see the small symbol was glowing brighter. He was definitely on the right track.

  He looked up at the house and could see why kids thought it was haunted. The place was ancient. The wind kicked up and the fall trees swayed back and forth, slashing against its walls. The yard was a mess too. A caretaker could be seen every month or so, cleaning up dead branches and making simple repairs, but that wasn’t enough to make the place look lived in. No, this was a big, empty, lonely old haunted-looking house.

  And Mark was on his way in.

  The ground floor was surrounded by a wide porch. He imagined people sitting there in rocking chairs on a hot summer night, drinking iced tea and swapping chicken stories. But they were long gone. The only thing on the porch now was dead leaves. Mark walked up the five stone steps that led to the porch.

  He thought he saw something move past a window inside the house. It was fast, and he wasn’t completely sure he really saw it, but the hair went up on his arms just the same. He stopped at the top of the stairs, looking into the dark windows for any sign of movement. There was none.

  He started walking toward the front door … and saw something again. It was a quick shadow moving past the window. For a second he actually thought it was a ghost. But there were no such things as ghosts. Then again, he never thought there were such things as Travelers, either. He looked around and decided the ghost was nothing more than the reflection of a tree branch waving in the wind. At least, that’s what he told himself.

  Mark walked cautiously up to the front door and tried the knob. It was locked.

  “Great,” he said to himself. “Now what?”

  That’s when he heard something inside the house. It was fleeting, but it sounded like something had run past, just inside the door.

  “Heeeere, chickie, chickie, chickie!” Mark croaked nervously, though the idea of there still being chickens around was absurd. He looked at his ring. The symbol was glowing with a fierce intensity. He needed to know why.

  He moved over to the big window next to the door and put his nose right against the glass to try and block as much of the outside light as possible. That helped a little, and he got a better view of the inside of the Sherwood house.

  The place was empty. The only illumination inside came from windows farther back in the house, and they didn’t do much to light the place up. Very creepy. There was no furniture, or pictures, or any sign of life—”

  GRRRRRR!

  A hideous, black animal face leaped out of the shadows inside. It stared Mark square in the eyes. Drool dripped from its white fangs as it snarled viciously, trying to bite through the glass and get a chunk of Mark-meat.

  Mark yelped in surprise and fell backward, landing on his butt. He stared up at the window to see two more animals join the first. They were awful-looking black creatures that could have been dogs, but no dog Mark had ever seen looked as evil as these beasts. They were focused on him, with only a thin pane of glass holding them back.

  Mark pushed himself along the floor of the porch to get away. The beasts barked and snarled. Mark’s mind was reeling. What were dogs doing in there? Were they watchdogs? They definitely weren’t ordinary dogs. They were vicious, uncontrollable demons, and they were out for blood. They were …

  It suddenly hit him. It was something from Bobby’s very first journal. What gave it away were the horrible, yellow eyes. There was no mistake.

  “Quigs,” Mark whispered to himself.

  Smash!

  The beasts threw themselves against the glass, desperate to attack Mark.

  Mark knew the glass would be no match for these demons. He had to get out of there, fast. He jumped up and ran. He suddenly realized he had left his backpack on the porch, but the pounding on the window meant he wasn’t going back for it. No way. Mark sprinted across the overgrown yard, heading for the wall and safety.

  He now saw that he was in deep trouble. When he first arrived, he had been so worried about getting caught trespassing that he hadn’t taken the time to figure out a way to climb back over the wall. Now he had another worry. He was worried about being trapped and eaten.

  Crash!

  The window shattered. The quigs were coming. Mark could hear them yelp and snarl as they tumbled over one another to get through the broken window.

  He was still twenty yards from the nine-foot wall. He desperately scanned left and right, looking for a way to scale it. Without some kind of help, Mark didn’t think he could make it over. He dared not look back, because he knew what he’d see. Every second counted. If the quigs got to him before he got to the wall, there wouldn’t be enough of him left for anyone to find.

  Mark saw nothing to help him climb.

  The snarling quigs drew closer. In seconds they’d be on him. But Mark was focused. He had no plan, but had to think of one fast or in seconds he’d be dog food. He was almost at the wall, but didn’t slow down. He thought to himself, “I’m gonna run right up the side!”

  He hit the wall running and dug his sneaker into the crumbling cement. His toe caught. He launched off it and grabbed the top of the wall. Normally Mark couldn’t even vault over the pommel horse in gym. But normally Mark wasn’t jet powered by surging adrenaline. He heaved himself up by his arms, threw both his legs to one side, and flung his body up and over.

  No sooner did he clear the top than all three quigs hit the other side of the wall, yelping and crying for having missed their prey. Mark sailed down and hit the ground, rolling away from the wall, lucky not to have broken an ankle. He jumped up and did a quick check to make sure all body parts were intact. They were. He stood there for a second, trying to catch his breath. He listened as the quigs snarled from the other side in frustration.

  Mark smiled. He had made it. It was probably the most exciting moment of his life. He even dared to think that this adventure rivaled some of the stories that Bobby had told. He had met a pack of hungry quigs and lived to tell the story.

  But his joy didn’t last long. The glowing ring on his finger took it away. The truth was, the adventure wasn’t over. Whatever was in that house, whatever was making his ring glow, he was going to have to come back and find it. Running away wasn’t going to cut it. He was going to have to get past those quigs.

  But next time, he was bringing Courtney.

  Courtney knew this was her golden opportunity.

  There was going to be a practice scrimmage between the varsity and the JV soccer teams. She had been practicing hard with the JV, swallowing her pride and improving her skills, waiting for the chance to prove herself worthy of being back on the varsity. This was her chance. She was going toe-to-toe with the very girls who had tarnished the golden reputation of the unbeatable Courtney Chetwynde. Revenge was not too strong a word to describe what was on Courtney’s mind when she stepped onto that field. Her game face was on; her emotions were in check; she was ready.

  So was the varsity. It seemed as if its entire game plan was about stopping Courtney. She was double-teamed all day and pretty much taken out of the action. Making things worse, with only a few minutes left to play, the JV team was losing 5-3. But truth be told, Courtney didn’t care if they won or lost. All she wanted was to prove that she could compete. That wasn’t happeni
ng.

  Finally, with only seconds on the clock, she got her chance. She was playing forward and the ball was passed to her. She was being double-teamed and one of the defenders fell. Courtney used the player’s body as interference and got past the second defender. It was now one-on-one between Courtney and the goalie. This was her moment … her chance to put a solid exclamation point on the game. She wanted this goal bad. She needed this goal. She dribbled the ball in quickly, deeked a kick that made the goalie move right, then drew back to fire the ball into the opposite corner of the net. It was perfect.

  Almost.

  Just as she was about to deliver the killer kick, the defender sprinted up from behind and took her out. It was a totally illegal move. The defender slid into Courtney’s feet like a baseball runner sliding into second base. Instead of putting her foot into the ball, Courtney landed on her back. Hard. Whistles blew, a penalty was coming, but it didn’t matter to Courtney. Her moment was lost.

  She jumped to her feet, screaming, “What was that?”

  Before the defender knew what was happening, Courtney gave her a wicked shove that sent her sprawling back onto the grass. She put her knee on the player’s back so she couldn’t get up. All her frustration finally came pouring out.

  “I beat you and you know it!” she shouted.

  A second later the other players descended and pulled the two girls apart. It was tough pulling Courtney away because she was so enraged. The defender got back to her feet and was ready to take Courtney on.

  “Come on!” she taunted Courtney.

  Courtney tried to lunge at the girl, but the other players held her back. Finally Coach Horkey ran in between the two girls and restored order.

  “Enough!” she shouted. “Laura,” she said to the defender. “Inside. All of you, locker room.”

  The fight was over. So was the scrimmage. The girls walked off, grumbling.

  “Courtney,” Coach Horkey said firmly. “Stay here.”

  As Laura, the defender, walked off, she looked over her shoulder and snarled, “Loser.”

  “Enough!” shouted Coach Horkey. Laura put her head down and kept walking. Courtney didn’t budge. She was breathing hard, still fired up from the fight.

  “She deserved it, Coach,” Courtney pointed out. “It was a total cheap shot.”

  “It wasn’t,” Horkey countered. “She had a point to give and made the aggressive play.”

  “But don’t you see? All they care about is shutting me down! It’s been that way since day one!”

  “I’ll tell you what I see,” Horkey said. “I see a girl who is faced with a challenge for the first time in her life. A true challenge. And she is losing. Courtney, you are a talented athlete. But it takes more than skill to be a winner. You know how to handle success, but not failure. Until you can do that, you won’t help this team, or any other.”

  Courtney didn’t say anything. As much as she hated to admit it, Horkey’s words rang true.

  “I’m suspending you for two weeks,” Horkey added.

  “What!”

  “Players on my team don’t fight. Especially with each other. Think about that and come back in two weeks.” Horkey jogged off the field.

  Courtney was left stunned. Not only was she demoted from varsity to JV, now she was kicked off JV! She stood in the middle of the field, covered with dirt, unable to accept this impossible turn of events. How could this have happened? How could she have fallen so far? In her heart she still believed she was as much of a competitor as ever, but reality was telling her otherwise.

  Courtney walked off the field, but didn’t go into the locker room. She didn’t want to face the other girls. She knew the old Courtney would have walked right into that locker room and taken the heat. But then again, she’d never had to take any heat before. Not like this. Courtney began to wonder if there was ever such a thing as the old Courtney. Maybe this is who she always was … a gutless coward.

  She walked past the locker room and made the commitment to walk all the way home. It was going to be a long walk. But she wasn’t about to take the late bus, either. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed. Since it was Friday, she wouldn’t have to worry about facing anybody for a couple of days.

  “Courtney!” a familiar voice shouted.

  Courtney had rounded the school and was headed for the sidewalk when Mark came riding up on his bike. He was out of breath and excited.

  “You’re not going to believe it!” he exclaimed. “I was—” Mark focused on the fact that Courtney was still in her soccer uniform, totally dirty, still wearing her cleats, and walking away from school. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t ask” was all Courtney could get out. Mark got off his bike and walked alongside her.

  “You’re walking home?” he asked, confused.

  “I’m really hurting, Mark,” she said. “Can we talk about it some other time?”

  “Yeah, sure.” They walked in silence. Mark was dying to tell Courtney what had happened at the Sherwood house, but wasn’t sure if she was in the mood to talk about anything. Still, she had to know.

  “Can we talk about something else?” he asked tentatively.

  “Whatever.”

  “Something happened today,” Mark said. “I … I’m not sure exactly what it means, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the acolyte thing.”

  Courtney stopped short. A second before, she looked like the walking dead. Now a spark had returned to her eyes. Mark thought that whatever had happened at soccer, it had beaten her up pretty badly. But the fire still burned inside her. He knew Courtney too well to think otherwise.

  “Another journal?” she asked.

  “No,” Mark answered. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Mark tried to ride Courtney on the handlebars of his bike. It didn’t work. Courtney was too tall and Mark was too … Mark. So they switched places and Courtney gave Mark the ride. Along the way Mark told her everything that happened at the Sherwood house. Courtney didn’t ask any questions. She just listened. By the time Mark had finished the story, they found themselves parked right back where the mystery began. They were in front of the locked iron gates of the spooky old house.

  Mark held up his ring. The symbol was glowing again.

  “What do you think?” Mark asked.

  “I think we’ve got to find out what’s inside that house,” Courtney answered.

  “Easier said than done,” Mark replied. “You didn’t see those dogs.”

  Courtney looked up at the sky and said, “It’s gonna be dark soon. I say we come back tomorrow, with some help.”

  Courtney’s idea of help was an obvious one. They waited until the next morning, then Mark came over to Courtney’s house and they put a call into their friend on the Stony Brook police force, Captain Hirsch.

  They had met Captain Hirsch when Bobby and his family first disappeared. Since then Hirsch had been working on the missing persons case. Of course, Mark and Courtney knew the truth about what had happened to Bobby, but decided not to tell, for fear of interfering with Bobby’s mission as a Traveler. Still, they kept in touch with Hirsch. He was a good guy. Now, they hoped, he was going to help them get one step closer to unraveling the mystery of the acolytes.

  Mark told Captain Hirsch about there being strange dogs running around the Sherwood property. He really built it up, saying how the dogs were vicious and wild. There was no way these dogs were somebody’s pets. Of course, Mark left out the part about having been trespassing on the property. He also didn’t mention that the dogs might be evil quig beasts who were guarding a secret inside the house. That wouldn’t have been cool.

  A half hour later Mark and Courtney met two uniformed police officers outside the front gate to the Sherwood house.

  “Hi, guys,” one of them said. “Remember me? Officer Wilson?”

  “Sure we do!” Courtney said.

  Officer Wilson had once given the two kids a ride to the police station. He was a good guy, too.
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  “This is Officer Matt.” Everybody shook hands. “Tell us what you saw.”

  Mark again explained how there were three dogs inside. Big, vicious, slobbering dogs with sharp fangs. Mark wasn’t exaggerating. He wanted to make sure the cops knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.

  Officer Wilson had a key to the lock on the front gate. They explained to Mark and Courtney that the Sherwood family had given it to the police in case of an emergency. This definitely qualified. While Wilson unlocked the gate, Officer Matt opened the trunk of their squad car and pulled out two pieces of equipment. One was a long metal rod with a loop of cable on the end. It was a snare that animal control officers use to capture dogs. The other thing Officer Matt pulled out was a tranquilizer rifle. Mark knew that if one of these dogs got the chance, it would tear a person apart. He wasn’t so sure that a tranquilizer dart would do anything to stop it either. Still, it was better than nothing.

  “Don’t bother with the snare,” Mark advised. “You aren’t going to want to catch one of these monsters.”

  Officer Matt chuckled, but kept the snare.

  “We’d like to come with you,” Courtney said.

  The two cops shared looks. They didn’t like the idea of putting the kids in danger.

  “C’mon!” Courtney cajoled. “We’ll stay behind you. And you’ve got guns and snares and stuff, right?”

  Wilson shrugged. “Okay. Just stay close.”

  They followed the two cops onto the property. Wilson held the snare, Matt kept the tranquilizer gun pointed at the ground, but ready.

  Mark made sure to close the iron gates behind them. He also took off his ring and put it in his pocket. He didn’t want the cops to ask him why he had a ring that was shooting off light.

  Officer Wilson whistled. “Here, boy! C’mon!” He whistled again.

  Nothing happened.

  The four walked up to the porch. Mark kept glancing behind them, making sure that one of the black dogs wasn’t sneaking up quietly.

  “Uh-oh, what’s this?” Officer Matt said. He reached down and picked up the shredded remains of Mark’s backpack. Oops. Mark had totally forgotten.