by Unknown
Since the goblin box had been destroyed, all the bad dead were driven from the bodies of the living people. Forced back into the cemetery, they fell into a deep sleep that Molly knew would last for at least ten years.
Molly jumped to her feet in triumph, a huge smile on her face. She kicked some of the shillings and dirt from the floor back at Ick, who was now cowering against the gates.
“I know…I know now," exclaimed Molly. "I finally know the answer to my question. What is the only thing worse than a shriek in the dark? It's a zombie fart. Because if you eat enough of the wet worms, you will fart… and a zombie fart is always worse than a shriek in the dark.”
Molly grinned at Ick. "I guess now Ick, you will think twice before stealing another shilling from anyone ever again. Because if you do, I will be back with a belly full of wet worms just for you."
Molly walked away down the path toward her home, whistling and skipping along as she went.
Maxwell’s Silver Dagger
Kevin Candela
Boris Maxwell’s favorite video game by far was Tholla. Before stepping on bugs, he would quote the game’s final line: “Behold! I am Lord Tholla, the Spirit of Vengeance Itself. Within thy black heart my sweet blade shall find justice!”
Then he’d squash the bug. “Justice served,” he’d say.
To be fair Boris was pretty much just a chip off the block. His dad, old Bentley “Bent” Maxwell, liked to shoot at squirrels and birds with a pellet gun, but was really a terrible shot because of how much he drank. So he’d have Boris shoot them instead. Boris wasn’t a lot better, but at least he could get close enough to clip feathers off the birds. Still, he didn’t like being outside. He wanted to be back in his room playing video games.
Other games were fun. But Tholla was better than that. Tholla was even better than a girlfriend.
At least, it was better than his last girlfriend.
Adriane was on the list now too.
She had no sense of humor. She had stormed off before either he or his dad had hit anything; and she’d been avoiding him ever since.
Yeah, Boris figured, she was definitely on the list.
Not over Sally Rosebaugh though. Sally was the highest girl on the list. Boris had just been having a little fun with fifth grader Ike Ramsay, calling the heavy kid “Mike AND Ike”, when Sally had stepped in and decked him!
Bloodied his nose. Nearly broke it. He’d looked like a raccoon for two weeks. And worst of all, they ended up calling it a fight and he got suspended for three days too.
Yes, Sally was the highest-ranking girl. But there were five boys ahead of her.
Ike wasn’t even one of them. He wasn’t worth it. On the other hand, Rocky Ford was; he’d been the one to rat Boris out for cheating off him on the final exam…even though Rocky had sure looked all cool about it happening at the time. Rocky was a jerk.
Still, there were four worse. Back in October Teague Elsmore had called him out for picking on fifth graders in general, but Boris had been too scared of Teague – who studied karate and was almost Boris’ size – to do anything. Teague hadn’t razzed him about it, but his buddy Parker Williams had…as well as pointing out Boris’ ‘damp-in-the-worst-possible-spot’ pants one afternoon a few months back in the school hallway.
Boris could have beaten wiry, sarcastic Parker up, but the kid was too fast to catch. Plus the scrawny little weenie didn’t mind being called chicken – or worse. Then of course there was Terry Mandel, who Boris had really thought was cool right up until the day they’d hung out and Boris’ beloved Frank Castle figurine had vanished. And Terry hadn’t helped his case by flat-out denying he’d taken it.
Boris was rearranging his sacred list – which he kept on paper, he didn’t dare put it on the computer – and re-watching Cor-Loth of the Northern Storms, his favorite Conan knockoff movie, when he heard the commercial for the first time.
“Buy it now!” the man on the commercial said. “It’s absolutely unique and this offer won’t come again.”
Boris looked up from his list.
Tholla’s Dagger!
He couldn’t believe his eyes. It couldn’t be.
“Again,” the man was saying, “this is an absolutely unique offer that will not come again. Act now and receive the one and only Dagger of Tholla, the weapon by which the mighty Lord Tholla
exacted his revenge on those who ruined his life! ‘One at a time, before the sun does climb…’”
“Worst to the least,” Boris mumbled under his breath as the words echoed him, “feel the bite of The Beast!”
“Tholla’s Dagger is one hundred percent soft vinyl, collapsible and thoroughly tested to verify it is safe for handling…by the worthy!”
Boris slumped back on the bed. Collapsible vinyl? But it was so real-looking, so shiny.
The commercial was desperately trying to win him back again, or so it seemed. Now it was more or less reciting the intro to the video game as dramatically as possible. “In an age when the sky was filled with fire and the only rule was the law of the fist, they destroyed all that was sacred to him. So he vowed his revenge. Endowed with a mighty sentient blade by the mysterious Vendetti Circle he sought out those who had wronged him!”
“But alas, a betrayal most foul …” Boris mumbled dully, ahead of the script again.
“But alas, a betrayal most foul claimed the mortal life of Tholla before he could exact his revenge. And it is said that all the force, all the hatred, all the vengeance Tholla took to his tomb can still be wielded by a like mind, brought to bear against those who have done the most to cause harm to them…”
“…from the worst to the least,” Boris said in-sync with the TV. “Feel the bite of The Beast!”
The man shut up and the timer ticked down on the sale.
But there wasn’t a price.
Yet just as Boris had that thought, up it popped on the screen: $49.99, shipping and handling included.
He couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful, vicious-looking dagger, whether it was vinyl or not. The finish made it look just like polished silver, or at the very least stainless steel. Of course he knew that a chrome-painted vinyl dagger was even less likely to do what the real Tholla’s Dagger was enchanted to do: fly around on its own, slicing through the darkness after midnight, taking out one enemy per night until they were all gone. Each night Tholla’s blade would then return to its owner, having wiped itself clean of its latest victim’s blood. The only trick was, that Tholla had needed to get within “1,000 hands” of his targets for the blade to activate and take them out, and he hadn’t gotten that far.
Oh well.
His bad luck in real life was good luck in the video game though, because a player was meant to search various landscapes until he finally got his hands on the blade. Then he’d have to run around setting it within that strange-but-required Old World range of his game enemies – Krang Surlok and the like – so the blade could go get them for him. Once you managed to get your hands on the blade - which took you most of the game - it would direct you from worst enemy to least, which was kind of fun despite sounding backwards.
What would happen is that by the time the blade was cutting down about the fourth of the ten worst threats the game had been throwing at you, the rest would tend to surrender. The blade would back off too, and at this point a player could choose one of two endgame options: either accept the surrender and celebrate in a group dance with your defeated enemies, OR just go ahead and wipe the vanquished out completely by hand.
Boris had only chosen Option A once. VERY ungratifying. And 100,000 less game points too, it had turned out. Oh well, he’d figured, had to try it once. He’d beaten the game dozens of times since then. Choosing Option B was a reflex by now. He had always regretted that single choice of Option A, because it had deprived him of the enjoyment of slicing through his diminished foes that one time. Because of that one game, he had 100k less than a perfect score - at least in completed games anyway.
�
��One more time folks,” the man on the commercial said, rotating the glinting blade. “A unique one-time offer going once ...”
It was a really LONG commercial, but that wasn’t all that weird or surprising. After midnight various cable channels weren’t above occasionally sneaking one in with their regular-length commercials. And at least this one was interesting.
“…twice…”
Where was the phone number?
There it was. Like the price, it seemed to pop up on the screen just as Boris was wondering about it.
He was dialing before he even realized it.
“A wondrous good evening to you, sir or madam!” the bright female voice on the other end said. “What item are you interested in please?”
“The…blade…I mean…”
“You mean Tholla’s Dagger?”
“Yeah…uh, yes.”
“Very good sir,” the operator said. “That will be $49.95 and I’ll need a credit card number.”
“Uh…” Boris said “…hang on…please…”
“Certainly sir.”
Boris looked at the clock. Half past midnight. His dad would be asleep. There’d be big trouble when Pop realized he’d had his charge card lifted and used as he was snoring away on the couch with the news blaring. But that wouldn’t happen until the bill came, and Boris figured that if he could repay the money ahead of time – he had a fifty he’d intimidated out of fourth grader Timmy Collins in the alley by the bus stop one morning back in December – his dad might ask less questions about what he’d bought off a TV commercial. After all, as long as Boris didn’t actually cost him money his dad didn’t generally complain…at least about family finances.
He had no trouble tiptoeing down the hall and grabbing his dad’s wallet. There it was sitting on the coffee table, just to one side of his snoozing dad’s foul-smelling black socks. Boris took a deep breath and went for it. He made the floor squeak leaning down to pick up the billfold, provoking a mumble out of his dad, but the empty cans strewn around the area –‘dead soldiers’ as his dad called them - reassured Boris that dad wouldn’t be waking up until the usual three in the morning again.
He moved back around the corner into the hall and whispered to the operator.
“Got it,” he said.
He gave her the information, verifying that he was indeed “Mr. Bentley Maxwell” in the deepest and most mature-sounding tone he could manage.
Then he had to wait a week because he couldn’t afford rush shipping.
In that next week, his Top Ten Enemies List shifted considerably. Somebody – he was pretty sure he knew who – had spray painted “BULLY” right down his locker from top to bottom in big fat sky blue letters.
He was sure it was Parker Williams.
So Parker moved up to Number One. Not that Boris minded being known as a bully, he was fine with that. People didn’t mess with him. Well, except the Top Ten. But it really bothered him that someone had defaced HIS locker. That was his territory. Parker was just asking for it now.
When the dagger finally arrived, it provoked first great excitement and then even greater disappointment. In its gem-studded sheath and sealed in plastic it looked really cool. However, the moment Boris pulled the blade out and flexed the end of it easily, using no more than fingertip pressure, he had second thoughts about the fifty bucks.
It was kinda cheesy, really. But it looked great. Fake as it was, he guessed he wouldn’t be able to get more than a step or two into the school foyer with something that looked that real.
He shoved the fifteen-inch long blade back in its bag, which took a few tries because all the curved details on the fancy handle kept snagging. Then he hid the bag behind his boots in the back of his bedroom closet and sat on his bed for a while, staring at the muted TV and trying to come up with a way to give his dad the money to cover the card, without having to explain what he’d bought. Dad would beat his butt if he found out Boris was buying a FAKE weapon.
Lord Tholla was intimidating, but not half as scary as Bent Maxwell drunk and angry.
Boris had just dozed off that night when the closet door squeaked loudly.
He couldn’t see much, so he leaned out of the bed, swept his hand across the wall and found the light switch.
He flipped it on.
The closet door was open about half a foot. So, strangely enough, was the door leading into the hall. Boris got up, went over to the hall door and peeked out through the foot wide gap. The hallway was dark and quiet. At the far right end of it, his dad’s bedroom door was ajar too.
Turning the other way and seeing light coming from the living room sent Boris there. The TV
was off and the sunken spot on the couch where his dad always slouched was vacant, but the corner lamp was still on. He went back to his bedroom, noticing again that Bent’s door was open. He hardly ever went to bed and left his door open. He usually locked it even.
Boris closed both his hall and closet doors and went back to sleep.
Strangely, they were both ajar again when he woke up the next morning.
Boris thought it was weird that his dad wasn’t already up, crashing around the kitchen and slapping together bacon and eggs like usual. After all, the living room contained almost a double batch of empties from the previous night. No wonder his dad had gone to bed early, Boris thought.
So he went out to catch the bus that rainy March morning not thinking about it. He didn’t have a clue anything was different, in fact, until he came home that afternoon and found everything exactly as he’d left it. Even his dad’s door was still just like it had been the previous night…slightly ajar.
He went up to it.
“Pop?” he said, rapping on it. He got no answer. “Dad? You in there? You okay?”
He finally summoned the nerve to peek in around the edge of the door. There was a weird smell in there. Not just cigarettes, stale beer, and dirty bedsheets. Something worse.
At first he thought Bent was sleeping. Still passed out.
But he wasn’t moving at all.
And there was a weird maroon bull’s-eye in the middle of Bent’s stained white T-shirt.
Time stood still for Boris for a long while. He just stood there and stared. Then an hour passed in a second when someone very persistent at the doorbell finally rang him out of his shock. He somehow made it to the door with lead-heavy legs and peeked through the hole.
Bent didn’t have many real friends, but he did have one good drinking buddy, Kip Sours. Kip was looking really serious, which was a facial expression Boris hadn’t seen on him before.
Kip hit the bell again. Several times.
Boris didn’t want to answer the door.
But Kip was persistent.
Boris finally opened the door.
“Hey Bor,” Kip said. “Is your old man okay? He hasn’t been answering my pages.”
“Uh…he’s in his bedroom …” Boris said, still dazed.
“Oh, put one on last night huh? Well, he shoulda called in at least. They’re pretty ticked at him down there right now. Tell him he’d better call first thing in the morning.”
“Yeah …”
“Hey, you with me kid?” Kip said. “How sick IS he?”
“Umm …”
“Look, I don’t know if you’ve been skimming beers or not and that’s not my business. Although I’d guess yes. Just make sure your old man calls the office in the morning. Early. Got it? If he loses his job I won’t have anyone to hang out with at all.”
“Yeah …”
Kip finally gave up and walked away muttering.
Boris was really happy to be able to close the door. But that didn’t solve his biggest problem. He knew he should call the police, but even as he was going for the phone it hit him that someone had killed his dad. That blood didn’t just pour out of the middle of old Pop’s chest on its own. Boris knew a lot of people didn’t like his dad – Pop talked about them all the time, and had his own unwritten top ten too – but he could
n’t believe someone had sneaked in and quietly killed him.
Was the killer still there?
That thought chilled Boris like iced lightning running from head to toe. He forgot all about calling the police and became suddenly aware of his surroundings. He stood rigid and listened for even slight sounds that might hint at a killer hiding, say, behind that old recliner in the corner.
There was no one behind the recliner.
Boris’ heart was still running at double speed. He was barely breathing. Even though it didn’t make sense that somebody would break in, very quietly kill his dad and then hang around for no particular reason, logic wasn’t ruling Boris’ mind at the moment. Not by any means. He was in survival mode.
He spent nearly half an hour searching the house from one end to the other. The basement
was of course the worst. The weird part was that the garage and patio doors were still locked when he checked them. How had the killer had gotten in and out of the house with all three doors locked and all the windows still winterized?
The gloomy weather made sunset hard to recognize; it just got darker and darker around Boris as he did his wary tour of the house, butcher knife in his trembling hand. Finally satisfied that his dad’s killer wasn’t still in the house, he put the knife back in its block and headed into his bedroom to sit down and call the cops.
The closet door was ajar. Boris’ knees nearly buckled. The only place he hadn’t thought to search, and he’d left his weapon back in the kitchen. No, the closet wasn’t very big. A full sized man would have to be crammed in there - unless he was really skinny. Boris still started backing up toward the door, intent on retrieving the butcher knife and absolutely refusing to turn his back on that dark gap between the edge of the half-open door and its frame.
He creeped himself out. Feeling his short-trimmed hair standing up all over his head, chills running down his back, he retreated into the hallway and did a quick three-sixty spin to make sure he was still alone. The house had never felt like this before. Angry yes, eerie no.
