Creatch Battler

by Mark Crilley

  “Do with me?”

  Jim stopped and rested a hand on Billy's shoulders. “Those Affys who crashed through your bedroom window weren't kidding, Billy. You broke some rules. You did do an impersonation of me on the phone, didn't you? A darned good one, I'm told.” Billy felt his face grow warm. “And good impersonation or not,” Jim continued, “that's a violation of code 574, section six, paragraph two.”

  I broke rules. They're going to do something to me. “This is ridiculous!” Now that his question-and-answer session was being officially shut down, Billy's anger was back with a vengeance. “I didn't know anything about codes and rules when I made that phone call. Thanks to you two, I was completely in the dark!”

  “You're right,” said his mother. “This is our fault, and we're sorry for it. Deeply, truly sorry. You haven't deliberately done anything wrong. But …” She paused, struggling to find the right words. “… this is bigger than just the three of us, Billy. Rules are rules. Rules were broken. And there is a price to be paid for that.”

  Billy swallowed hard.

  They're going to lock me up. Or torture me. Maybe they'll feed me to a creatch….

  “I'm sure they'll be lenient with you, darling,” Linda said, as if reading his mind. “You're only twelve years old, for heaven's sake. They won't … hurt you or anything.”

  “They?” “AFMEC high command,” said Jim. “They're the ones who sent Twain and his squadron here to check you out. What'd you think of Twain, anyway? He's pretty hardcore, isn't he?”

  “I… wasn't too crazy about the guy.” “Yeah, well, social skills aren't his strong suit. He's a good Affy, though. And a hard worker. Makes Linda and me look like slackers,” Jim added as he trotted up the stairs.

  “Try not to think too much about the punishment, Billy,” said Linda. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

  Billy swallowed again.

  His mother rose from the table and carried the bowl of popcorn kernels to the sink. She sighed and tried to sound casual. “Remember that time you broke Daddy's ten-speed the day after he bought it? How did we punish you?”

  “You didn't,” Billy said. “You just told me to be more careful next time.”

  “Oh.” She paused, with a confused look on her face, and then dumped the kernels in the trash can. She plunked the bowl down on the counter, crossed the kitchen to where Billy was sitting, and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “Listen, honey,” she said. “I know it's hard for you after… all this…to trust your father and me. I don't blame you if you can't believe anything I'm saying to you right now. But this is the truth: I won't let them hurt you. I won't let them lock you up. I won't let them separate you from your father and me.”

  Billy looked deeply into his mother's eyes. She was telling the truth. There was no doubt about that.

  “We thought we were doing something good for you by keeping AFMEC secret all these years. We were wrong about that. Dead wrong. I wish we could go back and undo that decision, I really do. But things are going to be different, Billy. From now on, we're sticking together, all three of us. You're in now.”

  “In?”

  “In,” Linda repeated. “In the know. Starting tonight, you're going to know everything that's going on, as it's going on. You'll know where we are, what we're doing, and how to get in touch with us if you need to. You'll never be in the dark again.”

  As she said these last words, her voice trembled a little. She leaned forward and gave Billy a hug: a big, strong, warm one that lasted for a full minute. For once, Billy didn't feel embarrassed or try to pull away.

  Jim came bounding down the stairs. “All right, you two. High command wants us at HQ right away. We've really got to skedaddle.”

  Billy's parents led him out to the BUGZ-B-GON van. Once before—when their other car was in the shop—Billy had been forced to ride with them in the van. He'd sworn it would be the last time. It was crammed from front to back with cardboard boxes, insecticide canisters, and tangled wheels of plastic tubing. There were no seats of any kind, just a cold rusty floor. He was barely able to squeeze in, and even then it meant getting whacked in the head over and over again by a loose piece of plywood.

  Jim pulled the van door back, revealing that very same wall

  of junk, all the objects in the same positions they had occupied before.

  “Watch this,” he said.

  He flicked a switch and… FSSSSSHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh … the boxes and canisters began to shrink, collapse, and rise into the ceiling. It was as if all of it were made from inflatable plastic and were now having the air sucked out of it. Within a few seconds the rear of the van was completely clear of clutter, leaving only two swivel chairs (bolted to the floor), a wall of sleek metal drawers and lockers, and a small desk area that looked like a hyperhigh-tech home office. There were four or five different computer screens and dozens of flashing lights.

  “Whoa” was all Billy could say. He'd always been embarrassed by his parents' clunky old van. Now he was suddenly envying them: what a ride!

  “Not bad, huh?” Jim said with a wink.

  As Billy climbed in and strapped himself into one of the chairs, his father made a whistling sound and Piker came trotting out to join them. She still had a very anxious look on her face.

  “Don't worry, Orzy,” Jim said, scratching her behind the ears. “We know you did your best. I'll put in a good word for you with high command.”

  This seemed to cheer up Piker—or Orzamo, which Billy had now concluded was her real name—and she leaped into the van with more energy than she'd exhibited in several hours.

  Wait a minute: if she understood English so well, how come she never seemed to understand the words sit and roll over?

  Laziness, he concluded. Then again, if I were a dog that understood English, I probably wouldn't be so crazy about sitting and rolling over either.

  Once everyone was inside, Jim revved the engine and sent them tearing off down Dullard Road.

  “Mom, what does all this stuff do?” Billy asked as he stared at the array of buttons and dials on the desk.

  “Some of it's for locating creatches,” Linda said. “Some of it recommends strategies for dealing with specific creatch species. Some of it operates…well, weaponry.” She smiled and added: “Don't touch anything, okay?”

  Billy nodded quickly and folded his hands in his lap. Now they were rumbling down a dirt road in the middle of Dullard Woods. It was a road hardly anyone ever drove on, since it was riddled with potholes and trailed off into a marshy dead end.

  “How long will it take to get to AFMEC headquarters?” asked Billy. “A couple of days?”

  “Days? I sure hope not.” Jim chuckled. “Provided the wind

  currents are in our favor, we should be there in two and a half hours.”

  Billy was about to ask what in the world wind currents had to do with a van on a dirt road when he noticed that the ride had become dramatically smoother. Not because the road was becoming less bumpy—far from it—but because the wheels of the van were no longer touching the road.

  “We're …” Billy was too amazed to even finish the sentence.

  “Airborne?” his mother said. “Yes, that's right. It's called transgravitational propulsion. Perfected by AFMEC back in the sixties. It's far superior to conventional air travel—a lot less noisy, for one thing.” Indeed, they were coasting through the air in absolute silence.

  Billy stared wide-eyed out the small square windows in the back of the van. He saw the treetops of Dullard Woods rolling underneath them like a green leafy sea. In the distance were the dimly lit windows of Piffling's tiny downtown, and beyond them, the waters of Lake Flawatamee.

  “A flying van,” said Billy to whoever could hear him. “I'm sitting inside a flying van.”

  “That you are, Billy boy,” said his father, popping a CD into the dashboard. “I've been wanting to take you up in this thing for

  years. So far as I'm concerned, there's really
no other way to travel.”

  “Oh, man. You have got to teach me how to fly this thing.” “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Jim. “Take it easy, little man. You don't even have a driver's license yet.”

  “Come on, Dad. I'll be careful.” “I'll make you a deal. Be a good kid, get decent grades in school, and I'll let you take her for a little spin on your next birthday.”

  Fair enough, thought Billy. But flying the van is just the beginning. I want to get in on all this creatch-battling stuff. I mean, talk about extreme sports: messing with monsters is about as extreme as you can get. I bet it's the ultimate rush.

  Billy turned his attention to a series of strange weapons kept in a glass case attached to one of the walls. There were the same pear-shaped pistols he'd seen Twain and his crew use, but there were other things that looked even weirder. One was a disk covered with spikes and made of steel polished to a mirrorlike finish: from the looks of it, a sort of lethal Frisbee. Another was long, curved, and engraved with intricate spidery carvings, like a bazooka from another planet. Still others didn't look like weapons at all: they were soft and rubbery, and dangling from hooks.

  I want to learn how to use all this stuff. It's gotta be so sweet to get out there with the creatches, blasting them with these things. I wonder if you get to keep body parts as souvenirs. Probably not. Still, just knowing you took one of them down…it must be the most awesome feeling on earth.

  The van was suddenly filled with the psychedelic guitar music of Abstruse Muse, an obscure seventies rock band his fa-

  ther was crazy about for some reason. Normally Billy would immediately beg him to shut it off, but for the moment he was too fascinated with the view out the back window. They were now high above the Indiana countryside and the tiny yellow lights of farmhouse windows and backroad streetlamps slowly crawled past beneath them.

  Linda handed him a stick of gum wrapped in silver foil. “For the altitude,” she said.

  He unwrapped the gum and popped it in his mouth. “These AFMEC people must be rolling in dough,” he said. “They make their own antigravity vans. Their own viddy-fones. Even their own chewing gum!”

  “Almost every country on Earth has a contract with AFMEC,” Linda said, “and governments don't quibble about what it costs, as long as their lands are kept creatch free. So AFMEC's got money, yes. But they don't make their own chewing gum.”

  “They don't?” “No. This is Juicy Fruit.” “Oh.”

  They began to pick up speed. The clouds flew past, and by the time they'd reached “Parade of the Paisley Pantaloons”—the eighth track on the CD—Linda said they were already over the Pacific Ocean.

  “So where exactly is AFMEC headquarters?” Billy asked.

  “For a long time it was in the side of a mountain in Tibet,” Jim replied. “Then some hikers stumbled across it and they had to relocate. From around '91 until '93 they had temporary digs in Antarctica.”

  “Hoo, was it cold,” said Linda. “Yeah, Affys weren't too crazy about that. Now they've found the perfect hideaway: the Pacific Ocean.”

  “The ocean ? What, it's underwater?” “Yes, but very near the surface. You'll see. Better get some sleep, Billy. This is going to be a long day.” Billy's father switched off the music and punched a button on the dashboard. A small bunk rose from the floor in the back of the van.

  Billy didn't want to sleep. He had never wanted so badly to stay awake. But it was the middle of the night, and he was exhausted, there was no getting around that.

  I'll close my eyes for a couple of minutes, he thought. Just to get my energy back.

  He was asleep in five minutes.

  When he opened his eyes, blinding yellow sunlight was pouring into the van. He was startled, then relieved as he realized where he was.

  “Rise and shine, honey,” Linda said. “We're almost there.”

  Billy rubbed his face and shielded his eyes from the glare. The van began to bank and turn away from the sun, making it easier to see the dazzling view beyond the windshield: bright green ocean and blue morning sky. Billy searched for signs of an entrance to AFMEC headquarters but saw nothing except water and white-capped waves.

  His heart was beating faster. Discovering the flying van had been a mind bender, all right, but now he was heading into something so amazing he was having trouble picturing it: an inhabitable headquarters located entirely underwater. Billy wondered if it was some kind of submarine or if it looked more like a giant aquarium.

  “Now, remember, son,” Jim said, “the fact that they've asked us to bring you to headquarters is a pretty big deal. You're in trouble, yes. But you're also being checked out.”

  “Checked out?” “AFMEC membership, whenever possible, is handed down from generation to generation. It's part tradition, part biological necessity. We Affys need to possess certain genes that allow us to withstand the rigors of creatch battling. Ever notice how your scrapes and scratches heal quicker than other kids'?”

  “Sure,” said Billy. When he and Nathan went out skateboarding all over Piffling and came back with the bloodied shins

  to prove it, Billy's cuts always healed a day or two ahead of Nathan's. “I always figured it was just 'cause other guys pick at their scabs more than I do.”

  “Don't kid yourself, son. You pick at your scabs plenty. I've seen you.”

  Billy rolled his eyes. “No sirree. It's your Affy blood. It's come down to you from generations of Affys on both sides of your family. I got it from my parents just the way you got it from your mother and me.”

  “Wait a minute. You mean Grandpa was an Affy?” “Oh, sure. And his father before him.”

  Billy thought this over. His grandfather had died about five years earlier. His grandmother, though, was still alive and well.

  “What about Gramma?”

  His mother turned to face him. “She was one of the best. She could have been the Affy prime magistrate if not for the prejudices of the day.”

  “Gramma?” It was really hard to imagine. Billy's grandmother was a frail old woman with a hunched back and squinty hazel eyes who got around using two canes. She looked as if she'd lose a fight with a garden hose, let alone a monster.

  “You'll see,” said Linda. “Next time we go visit, she'll tell

  you all about the creatches she dealt with back in the thirties. Once she gets started, there'll be no stopping her.”

  Checked out. Handed down from generation to generation. Did Dad mean they might want to turn Billy into an Affy? Well, of course he did. What else could he mean?

  Yes! But how soon will they let me join? Am I still gonna have to wait until I'm fifteen? Man, I hope not. I want to start right now. Okay, so I did a little impersonation of Dad on the phone. They're not gonna hold that against me, are they?

  Suddenly Billy felt as if there was nothing on earth he'd rather be than an Affy. As if it was what he'd wanted to do all his life.

  I want to know all the lingo. I want my own viddyfone. I want to learn how to fly the van and use all these freaky weapons. And I definitely want to see some action with a creatch. Maybe just a small one to get started. Still, nothing too cute. Gimme one about the size of a cow, but with really sharp teeth.

  “All right,” Jim said, “this is it.” He steered the van down toward a tiny rock sticking up from the waves. You couldn't really call it an island. It was no larger than a baseball diamond. The waves smacked up against it on all sides, sending towers of spray into the air.

  Jim brought the van in for a gentle landing and killed the engine. For a moment they just sat there listening to the waves

  pounding the rock. The saltwater smell reminded Billy of trips to the beach.

  K'CHUNK

  There was a noise from the underside of the van, as if something hard and metallic had reached up and grabbed hold of it by the axles.

  A crackle of static from the dashboard, then: “How do you find my pickled radishes?” said the voice of a tin can woman, serious but slightly bored.


  Jim leaned back in his seat, allowing Linda to answer the question.

  “They're fine with rice, but foul with barley.” She turned to Billy. “That's the password. For today, anyway. They'll have a new one at the stroke of midnight.”

  “How your mother remembers them,” said Jim with an admiring sigh, “is beyond me.”

  CHZZZZZzzzzz

  A buzz filled Billy's ears and the whole van lurched backward a foot or two.

  “Hold on, Billy,” Linda said. “They're taking us down.”

  It all happened so quickly that Billy would have missed it if he'd blinked at the wrong time. The van tilted backward, dropped through a trapdoor in the surface of the rock, and shot down into a vast space below. It was a controlled fall: they were gliding along a track like a car on a roller coaster.

  Billy peered through the windshield and struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. A thick wall of glass rose on all sides, enclosing a vast manmade world beneath the waves. The sun's rays poured in from above, blue-green and wavering like light at the bottom of a swimming pool.

  Un. Be. Lievable. Look at the size of this place!

  The rock they had been resting on just seconds before was fake: a secret entrance at the top of an enormous underwater city. Billy guessed the whole complex was at least three miles from one side to the other, and nearly a mile from top to bottom.

  The van rolled noiselessly along the track, slowly circling the entire dome as it descended into a cluster of buildings that would have been the envy of any city on earth. There were glistening white office towers dozens of stories tall, along with older buildings that looked as if they'd been disassembled and moved in from various regions of the world. There were people walking through green parks lined with leafy trees and spacious plazas with fountains spouting water high into the air. There were roadways that carried shiny gray vehicles throughout the city and shimmering glass tubes that allowed foot traffic to pass from one high-rise to another. There were even narrow strips of farmland squeezed in between buildings.