by M. D. Payne
“I think I can feel an imprint of my butt,” Ben said as he wiggled his rear on the bench. “Feels good.”
I grabbed my Blandburger and took a huge bite.
There was a loud crunch and something squirted out of my burger…right onto Gordon!
“Dude!!!” he yelled. A yellowish wad of goo slimed its way down his shirt.
“Is that some kind of sauce?” Shane asked as he poked at his dry burger. “I didn’t get any sauce.”
The burger was totally funky, but I didn’t care. I was starving. I took another bite—so what if it was a little crunchy?
“Arrgh, this is the worst day ever!” yelled Gordon as he wiped off the goo. “Two of my shirts are ruined—”
“One of your shirts,” interrupted Ben.
“And Coach Grey has gone crazy!”
“Wait,” said Shane. “I thought you and Coach Grey were besties.”
“Yeah, well not after today,” Gordon continued. “I just found out that everyone on a sports team has to ‘volunteer in the community’ or we’re off the team.”
“So,” Shane asked, “what are you going to do?”
“I guess I’m gonna have to do it. Coach said that even if we didn’t care that it was our ‘civic duty,’ we could do it for money.”
“What money?” I asked.
“He said the local Rotary was giving away five hundred dollars to the Rio Vista Middle School student who did the most hours of volunteering for the first half of the school year. But I have to spend time perfecting my technique! ARRGH!”
“Wait. Is it just jocks who can win the Volunteer of the Year award?”
“No, it’s the whole school. Which is why there’s no way I’d win it!”
My brain buzzed at the idea of winning the money.
“Okay, wait. No, really, last question!” I was so excited I almost burst. “Where do you go to sign up to be a volunteer?”
“Mrs. Gonzales is the volunteer coordinator. Sign-up starts tomorrow. Why do you care?” asked Gordon. “Volunteering isn’t your thing. It doesn’t involve books or studying or writing papers.”
Shane raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Ben asked. “What’s the deal?”
I stood up for dramatic effect. A few kids looked over from other tables. “I’m going to be Volunteer of the Year. I’m going to win the five hundred dollars. I’m going to buy the telescope of my dreams!”
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.…
The alarm clock buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. I set it for extra early the night before so I could get to school before all the other volunteers. The best volunteer assignment—and the TRQ92—would be mine!
My bed was so hot, I felt like a slug. My eyes refused to open. I reached over to the alarm clock to shut it up, and then yawned. And yawned three more times. My eyes felt like they were glued shut. When I finally opened them, I couldn’t see anything.
I rolled over to the window at the foot of the bed and threw open the curtains. Barely any light came in—it was almost as dark outside as it was inside. Large black birds circled below huge dark clouds. I opened the window to let some fresh air into my slug cave, and I could smell rain. Thunder boomed somewhere far off.
Blindly, I stumbled over to the light switch and flipped it on. My head felt as hazy and cloudy as the sky. The lights flickered slightly as lightning struck. A boom echoed through town. My head throbbed, and my stomach hurt. I burped a little burp, and I could taste the Blandburger from the day before.
The storm continued to rage on. It was still pitch-black outside when I got to school. My wet shoes squeaked loudly as I walked to Mrs. Gonzales’s classroom. Each squeak echoed up and down the empty hallways, and I suddenly felt very alone. Half of the lights weren’t on yet. The thunder still rolled outside. I felt like I was walking deep into a ghost town.
When I got to Mrs. Gonzales’s classroom, I peeked through the window in her door. The lights were still off and the room was empty. I’ll just wait for her inside, I thought as I pushed open the door. That’s when I saw it: a strange green light coming from Mrs. Gonzales’s desk.
There was a flash of lightning, and I swore I saw someone in the back of the room. I twisted my head around the door and searched the shadows. Nothing. As the thunder faded, I couldn’t hear anything but the rapid beating of my own heart. My stomach squirmed with fear.
I stepped inside and closed the door.
The mysterious green light glowed stronger with each step I took toward it.
As I reached the desk, I saw that the glow was coming from a letter—
Almost as if the words were written with some kind of glow-in-the-dark ink.
I picked it up. It felt extremely old. I remembered reading a letter that my grandfather had kept from his first job in 1965. It felt exactly like that—thin, from a different time. An older time. It smelled moldy. It looked like it had been written on a typewriter instead of a computer!
I read the letter:
Dearest Students of Rio Vista,
Volunteers are needed to tend to our geriatric patients’ every want and need. Many of our residents suffer dementia, necrosis, and many more rare and vexing ailments. Toward that end, discretion is very much necessary, as is a strong stomach.
Volunteers who are able to tend to these dear, suffering wretches, for as many hours as possible and as soon as possible, will be most welcome!
All interested parties should favor us with their company at our facility on Saturday next at nine o’clock in the morning.
If you find the time and opportunity to visit, we shall be extremely glad to see you.
Yours ever,
The Staff of Raven Hill Retirement Home
As I finished reading the letter, Mrs. Gonzales’s door creaked open!
I scooped up the letter, dropped to the floor, and hid under Mrs. Gonzales’s desk. There was nowhere else to go.
The lights came on in the room. I held my breath and crouched down extra tight, hoping that I would just disappear.
Footsteps slowly made their way toward the desk. Huge, banging footsteps.
CLOMP. CLOMP. CLOMP.
A monstrous pair of boots, caked with black goo, appeared in front of the desk.
I clutched the letter and thought, Someone is coming to get me because I saw this freaky old letter!
Two massive, hairy hands came reaching down toward the desk…
…and grabbed the trash can!
The janitor tipped the can into a trash bag, and then left the room.
I jumped up and scurried out through the door before Mrs. Gonzales could catch me under her desk.
That day at lunch, I sat at our table munching a nasty, cold Ick Stick with a huge smile on my face. Gordon noticed.
“Thinking about the moon again, space boy?” asked Gordon.
“Yeah,” I said, dreamily. I put my hands on my cheeks, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed for comic effect.
“What a difference a day makes,” Ben said.
“I got a really sweet volunteer assignment,” I said.
“Yeah, where is it?” Shane asked.
“Raven Hill Retirement Home,” I said. “I just need to show up Saturday, and I’ll be able to volunteer as much as I want.”
“Raven Hill?” asked Ben. “I heard Tami Evans went up to Raven Hill and never came back…”
“What?” I asked.
Outside the lunchroom someone screamed, and I jumped. I turned my head toward the doors.
“Did you guys hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?” Shane asked. “That Tami disappeared? I heard she moved.”
“No, did you hear—” I started, but Gordon cut me off.
“You’re out of your mind, volunteering there!” Gordon said. “Don’t you know what old folks in retirement homes are like?”
“Well,” I said, “I seem to remember visiting my Nana once when I was five. But, I don’t remember much.”
“Well, remembe
r this…” Gordon leaned into the lunch table. Shane gave him a look that meant Shut it, dude, but Gordon wouldn’t shut it.
“They smell totally funky. They mumble and moan. Some of them drool and shake. You’ll have to do all sorts of crazy things for them, like change their bedpans, wipe drool off of their mouths, even—”
Now Shane cut Gordon off.
“Don’t sweat it, dude,” said Shane. He glared at Gordon across the table. “Old folks take care of themselves at these places. Well, actually, the nurses take care of them. You’ve got nothing to worry about! Just play a couple of games of poker or Mario Kart or whatever it is old people play now and you’re IN!”
But it didn’t matter what Shane said. All I could think about was what Gordon and Ben had said. And that scream!
Saturday arrived before I knew it. I felt like I’d been on a roller coaster ever since finding the mysterious letter—and I wanted to throw up. I spent all night thinking about what my friends had said, and I still wondered if someone else was in Mrs. Gonzales’s room when I found the letter. But I just had to go to Raven Hill. It was the volunteer opportunity of the century.
The drive to Raven Hill felt like a dream. No, worse…a nightmare. Unable to focus, I just stared out the window as my mother drove us to the other side of town. Neither of us spoke.
The sign for Raven Hill sat just off the road. It was so overgrown with creeping ivy that we nearly missed it…almost as if it didn’t want to be found. The car made a sharp left, cutting off a huge tractor-trailer, and we shot up the hill.
The farther we went up the hill, the darker it got. I looked through the windshield to see a thick forest blocking the sun.
The trees leaned down and tried to hit our car as we whizzed past! I looked up through the sunroof, and could see branch after branch just barely missing our car: WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH!
“Mom, do you see that?” I asked, pointing. “Maybe you should speed up.”
“See what, dear?” she asked.
Clearly, she didn’t see anything, which made me feel even more panicked—and crazy!
I looked down the hill through the rear window and saw no road—just forest where the road we had driven on used to be. The forest was moving in from all sides!
When I looked through the windshield again, I could see a small bit of sky ahead. But the closer we got, the smaller the sky got—the forest was closing in on us.
“Mom!” I yelled.
“Honey, I’m getting you there as fast as—”
“Just floor it!” I yelled.
“Okay, okay, fine!” she said, and then…
VROOOOOOOM!
We reached the end of the forest at the top of the hill, but not before a branch hit the windshield! For the split second before we came out into the sunlight, it looked as though the branch had left a slimy green glow, just like on the letter from Raven Hill.
I looked over at my mother, who was yawning.
She hadn’t seen anything.
The blacktop turned into a dirt road. To our left, a huge mansion loomed over the top of a hill. It was at the end of a massive lawn that looked like it hadn’t been mowed since the place was built.
My mother pulled the car into the large circular driveway and stopped in front of the mansion.
“Have a nice time,” she said with another yawn. “Chrissy, I’m so proud that you’re doing this.”
I really wished my mother would stop calling me Chrissy.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, jumping out of the car.
As the sound of the car faded, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. Raven Hill Retirement Home looked like it should be condemned. Many of the windows were covered so you couldn’t see in, pieces of the roof were missing, the paint was peeling, and most of the visible windows looked as if they had been smashed in. As I moved closer to the building, the air got cooler and had a musty, old smell, like my grandfather’s leather shoes.
But that wasn’t the worst part. Circling above the home were five or six of the biggest ravens I’d ever seen.
“I guess that’s why they call this Raven Hill,” I said aloud to myself.
One raven broke off from the others and landed on the very tip of a spire that shot out from the top of the mansion. It stared down at me with its beady black eyes.
It was quiet up on top of the hill. Too quiet.
If this were a horror movie, everyone would scream “DON’T GO IN!” Good thing horror movies are fake, right?
I clutched my volunteer form nervously. An old dude from the Rotary gave it to me with very specific instructions on how to fill it out. The most important instruction: Don’t lose it! It’s the only official way to track hours for the award.
The old, musty smell got stronger as I walked up the rickety stairs to the front entrance. The creaking of the wood was outrageously loud. It sounded like the whole building was going to collapse. I was sure the place had been shut down…probably by the health department. The creaking became louder, but I could hear something else. I stopped suddenly—the air was filled with the sound of hissing.
I turned around and that’s when I saw it. The overgrown lawn…it was MOVING.
Something was moving through the grass.
Something big.
And it was making a loud, slurpy, hissing noise. Almost like a moan.
Before I could figure out what it was coming from, one of the ravens screamed a sharp CAW and swooped in where the grass was jiggling and shaking. Then there was a terrible scream. I couldn’t tell if it was from the raven or whatever the raven was attacking, but it sounded human.
The raven flapped around in the grass. It was straining, as if something was holding it down. Soon, it was able to gain enough speed to burst out of the ground covering. It was clutching a huge brown bug—almost the size of a cat—and the bug’s legs were flailing around. The screaming started again, this time not muffled by the grass. I still wasn’t sure if it was the raven, but it had to be. I’d never heard of a screaming bug before.
The raven soared higher and higher and let the bug go. The bug hit the ground with a squelchy squish and the screaming stopped. All of the ravens suddenly swooped in and disappeared into the grass where the bug had dropped.
Just as I was craning my neck to get a better look, I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. I screamed.
I whipped my head back around. Standing in front of the open door was a huge man in a nurse’s uniform. His giant round and swollen head was topped with a white hat that looked two sizes too small. He spun me around with his massive hands and then gestured through the open door. He had a look of panic on his red face.
“Inside. Safer. Now.”
There was no way this nut job worked at the retirement home. The nurse’s uniform wasn’t going to fool anybody. I bet Raven Hill had closed and this escaped mental patient had moved in. My instinct was to run back down the side of the hill. Of course, massive bugs waited at the bottom of the steps, so perhaps inside was better.
“NOW!” he said again, and used a beefy arm to push me through the door. He slammed it closed behind us. Above us, a chandelier covered completely in spiderwebs swayed slightly as the Nurse locked what sounded like thirty-four locks and then muttered under his breath. I turned around to see that—for a split second—the back of the door glowed green. The same green as the letter I had stolen.
As the glow faded, the room became pitch-black. I was lost in the cold darkness with nothing but the sound of the Nurse’s deep, labored breathing.
Gradually my eyes started to adjust to the darkness. Maybe it was an illusion, but on the inside the home seemed much bigger than it had looked from the outside. But just as run-down.
“Wait here,” he mumbled, then turned and left.
As I waited alone in the mildewy, cavernous lobby, I could hear activity—faint voices and the occasional moan of an old person. At least I hoped it was an old person—that would mean that the crazy Nurse wasn’t going off to sharpen an
ax. I looked around—there were a whole bunch of rooms down on the first floor and a decrepit stairway leading upstairs. I looked down at the rug, which was threadbare and holey. Dusty old paintings of sour-looking people lined the walls.
“This is like an old old-person’s home,” I whispered to myself.
“Indeed,” boomed a voice.
My chest tightened as a figure stepped out from the shadows. I turned to face a scrawny man with a pale, gaunt face. His jet-black hair was perfectly parted and his black eyes gleamed.
“Some of the clientele here are exceptionally old,” he added, as he adjusted his amazingly crisp black suit and bloodred tie. “We want to provide them with the appropriate—” he waved his hand around the front hallway and paused for effect “—atmosphere.”
As if on cue, an organ started playing from somewhere. It echoed through the house, creeping me out even more. He looked over his shoulder, toward the music, and said, “Ah, brunch will be ready soon.”
“Great,” I said, nervously. “I’m starvin’!”
“Oh, but you misunderstand me,” said the man, with a sly grin. “You won’t be eating brunch—you’ll be helping to serve it. You are here to volunteer, are you not?”
“Yes!” I blurted out. I had almost forgotten why I was here, and was secretly glad that I wasn’t going to be the main course. I presented my volunteer form to the slim man. “I’m ready to help day and night—whatever you need.”
He took my time sheet and said, “Very well.” He snapped his fingers, and the Nurse reappeared with another, equally large male Nurse. In fact, they looked so much alike that I could mistake them for each other. They were identical, down to the uniform.
“Escort this gentleman to the kitchen, and see to it that he lends a helping hand,” said the man. He then turned to me and said, “Please follow the orders you are given to a T, and most importantly, please do not stray into any part of this facility without an escort.”
With this, he pointed at the gentlemen who were looming over me.
