by M. D. Payne
I laughed nervously, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t even read chapters two and three. “Well, it’s still a surprise,” I said. “Shocking! Ha!”
Ben gave me a look that said Shut up, so I shut up.
Still, I wasn’t too worried. I read so much about history and culture online that I was sure to get a C.
At least I would have. If I hadn’t fallen asleep halfway through the quiz.
Apparently, I snore. LOUDLY. At least that’s what Mr. Bradley and the principal told me.
Ben texted me later that day:
I’m sorry I couldn’t wake you up.
Dude, my mom was furious!
I know. I could have shook you more.
You should have shook me HARDER!
Are you calling me a wimp?
Maybe.
Dude, you’re the one passing out from volunteering.
It’s IMPORTANT lifesaving work!
They’re old! How much life can you be saving?
You don’t understand.
You’re weird.
I know. Pls, just let me be weird.
I stared at my sent message in horror. I had just dropped all of the vowels in “please.” Things were getting bad. I fell back into bed.
As a star student, I had a lot of wiggle room with my parents when I screwed up. My mother wanted to ground me for my Social Studies Siesta, but I’d insisted that I go back to Raven Hill. “But the old people need me,” I’d explained in my most annoying, whiny voice. If only she knew how much they need me, I thought. After twenty minutes of begging and pleading, she let me go.
I made my way toward the retirement home. This time no ravens stood between the entrance and me. Pushing my way through the front door, I didn’t even pause when the Nurse said, “Wait here.”
Nothing was going to stand between me and my lebensplasm.
Beyond the entrance, the hallways were free of any Nurses or residents. I quickly got to the kitchen door and reached out to the doorknob to give it a twist…
“Mr. Taylor, may I help you with something?”
The voice made tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. After changing my grimace into a grin, I turned around to face the Director.
“Oh,” I said, sounding completely calm, “I just needed a drink. I’m really thirsty.”
The Director looked at me intently for a moment, and then said, just as calmly, “I’m very sorry, but our kitchen is closed for the night. I’d offer you some punch, but I’m afraid it’s not the kind of drink meant for…a young person such as yourself.”
“Punch?” I asked.
“Yes, punch. Tonight, we’re throwing a dance for the residents, and the kitchen concocted a punch for the occasion. The Great Room has been transformed into a ballroom. All we need now is the appropriate music.”
He motioned me toward the Great Room, and we stepped through the door together.
A huge, empty dance floor took up most of the space. The residents were all slouched in chairs to the side of the dance floor or growling and burping around the bloodred punch bowl. The old man with the sharp teeth avoided the crowd around the bowl by using a long straw to reach it. He slurped loudly from ten feet away.
“Tonight,” said the Director, “you’ll be playing music while our residents couple up and dance. You’ll find we’ve set up a DJ station for you where Horace usually sits.”
The Director took a bow and exited.
Two old turntables and a crate of dusty old records sat on a table at the front of the ballroom. After I made sure there were no spider eggs in the crate, I shuffled through the monsterly collection, which included The Dave Boo-beck Quartet, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, The Crypt-Kickers, and a bat-shaped record that didn’t have a sleeve.
I pulled out the bat-shaped record, but soon realized it wasn’t a record. It was a real bat. Its leathery skin was still moist and squishy, and small wads of greasy fur fell off its rotten body. Its little bat face looked terribly squished, but I could still see its sharp fangs.
The bat reeked terribly, and I tossed it behind the organ.
“Sorry, Horace,” I mumbled.
I sniffed my hand. It smelled like I had just petted a wet dog that had rolled around in week-old fish and horse dung.
“Ewww.” I burped, and my stomach bunched into knots.
I’m turning into Ben, I thought, and held back another spewfest.
The old folks were starting to moan and groan, and shuffle into the center of the dance floor. They were all well-dressed—but in really old clothes. One old man coughed and moths flew out of his holey suit…and his mouth!
To keep them from shuffling right up to me and making any requests (like “May I eat you?”), I grabbed a record out of the crate as quickly as I could, took it out of its sleeve, blew a few tons of dust off one side, sneezed, and then flopped it down on one of the turntables. I searched desperately for a Repeat button so I would have time to find my lebensplasm, but my only choices were Stop and Start.
I chose Start. The record crackled for a little bit, and then a spooky slow swing song started to play. After a short intro, a singer started. He sounded like he was growling.
Oh, I’m so hungry
Yes, so, so hungry for you
Dance on over to my castle
And give me something to chew
A few of the old folks went “Awww” as they recognized the tune, and shuffled into pairs. They danced a slow, slow dance. Their bones creaked.
The name of the album was Moonlight Serenades by Count Vlad and the Count Basie Orchestra.
The song was called “Neck Nibble Nocturne.”
My skin crawled as the singer continued.
Look up at the moon
My dear
The stars are so bright
My dear
I bend down to you
My dear
And I bite you so right
Don’t fear
The singer stopped and a scary-sounding trumpet started to play. My heart rose into my throat. Monsters slow danced with monsters. Banshees. Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Swamp things. Mummies. Old monsters of all different shapes and sizes.
Two zombies were delicately nibbling each other’s necks. The Nurses in the room moved in to break them up.
With the Nurses distracted, I crept out of the Great Room. I went back to the kitchen door, opened it up, and quickly slipped inside.
A Nurse stood at an open refrigerator with a big, satisfied grin. He was chewing on a large, slimy tentacle when he saw me out of the corner of his eye.
“What are you doing?” he growled.
“What are you doing?” I replied. “The Director said the kitchen was closed!”
Before I could even peek into the fridge, he rushed over, whipped open the door, grabbed me with both hands, shoved me back out into the hallway, and grunted, “Don’t tell the Director!”
With that, he slammed the door shut, and a lock clicked into place.
There was a good chance that my lebensplasm was in the kitchen, but there was no way I could get in there now. I ran halfway down the hall to search other rooms, but stopped when I heard a booing from the Great Room.
The record was skipping!
I had to keep the music going. But I’d be so busy changing records all night, I’d never get a chance to search all of Raven Hill. I wished I could just throw on a playlist.
I rushed past the booing monsters, ripped a handful of records out of the crate, and began pulling them out one by one to find a really long track. Finally, I found a record that had one long track on side A: “Tarantella Transylvanese.” I threw it down on the second turntable and pressed Start.
It started up fast, and at first the monsters were unsure of what to do. Oh no! I thought, I chose the wrong song! The monsters that were slow-dancing slowly shuffled off the dance floor, but luckily a few more came on. The song bounced along with accordions and tambourines, hoots and shouts—it sounded like it was recorde
d at a Gypsy camp somewhere in Europe, and the Gypsies were partying hard.
Soon most of the monsters were on the dance floor. I jumped off of the platform, and made my way back toward the door.
That’s when the old witch that had collected the spider legs the day before grabbed me. Her long fingernails dug into my skin. The rest of the monsters began hooting and hollering as she dragged me to the center of the dance floor.
All the monsters formed a circle with the witch and me in the center. Their bodies flailed about wildly. They licked their lips. Drool dripped onto the dance floor.
I was trapped!
Above the music, I could hear the witch scream, “You’re so precious, I could just EAT you!”
She started dancing wildly in front of me and motioned for me to follow along. I was terrified, but what could I do? I started dancing along. I looked around at the other monsters, and they looked energized. Had my lebensplasm allowed them to dance like this?
Monster legs kicked high in the air. An old werewolf howled along to the rhythm of the tambourines. An old banshee screamed with the accordions. The vampires flung their heads back—enjoying every second of the song that had come from their homeland.
The circle was slowly closing in!
Next to the witch, a zombie tried its best to dance. It slapped its knee a few times, and then its leg fell off. It kept hopping on one leg as another zombie bent over and started eating the leg, chomping in time with the music. A few of the other old monsters looked hungrily at the leg, slowed down their dancing, and headed toward the meaty treat. The three Nurses once again moved in to take care of the situation.
Now was my chance.
I danced my way out of the circle and toward the open door. Nobody noticed—they were either fighting over the leg or dancing like crazy.
I ran down the hallway and ducked into each room as I went. I opened drawers. I looked under furniture. I peeked in fireplaces. The rooms on the bottom floor didn’t have much furniture, and there wasn’t really anywhere they could have hidden my lebensplasm.
I went upstairs and into the first dark, mold-smelling room. There was a Crock-Pot with some sort of black ooze bubbling in it. All sorts of ingredients were lined up in front of it. EYE OF NEWT read one bottle; WING OF BAT read another. I recognized the contents of the third bottle—the hairy baby spider legs from bingo night. I went through all of the bottles. Not one of them was my lebensplasm.
Heading back into the hall, I heard a rattle of chains and a moan more deep and growly than anything I had heard at Raven Hill.
I froze in place, and slowly turned my head toward the noise, worried about what I would see. All I saw was a door at the end of the dimly lit hallway. It had a simple and clear sign on it.
DO NOT ENTER
Staff Only
I really hoped that my lebensplasm wasn’t on the other side, but I knew that I had to check it out. As I made my way down the hall, I could hear the low growl and rattling of chains coming from behind the door. My heart beat faster as I tried to guess what kind of monster could make those sorts of noises.
“Why are you here?” someone behind me asked as a large, meaty hand came down on my shoulder. It took all my concentration to keep from piddling in my pants.
The hand swung me around to face two Nurses standing in the hallway.
“Uh…bathroom?” I said, only half lying.
The other Nurse pointed back down the hall toward the stairs with one hand. In the other hand, he held…
My lebensplasm!
“Uh, okay,” I said as I walked backward.
I stared at the jar in his hand. Even in the darkness of the hallway I could see that it was ONLY HALF FULL! He didn’t seem to care that I was looking at the jar—he just kept waving me away.
I turned the corner, but instead of going down the stairs, I hid in the witches’ room. I got down low and poked my head out to look back down the hall. The first Nurse approached the Staff Only door. Instead of opening it, he stood to one side and grabbed a candlestick on the wall. With what looked like a great amount of force, even for the monstrous Nurse, he gave it a yank. As the candlestick pulled away, something mechanical started clicking in the wall. The second Nurse handed the first Nurse my lebensplasm, and then walked over to a statue of a screaming demon on the other side of the door. With a grunt, he dug his shoes into the ground and slowly turned the statue to the right. The heavy stone base scraped against the floor. There was a heavy clank and the Do Not Enter door swung open. Both Nurses casually entered, unaffected by the menacing growls coming from the other side. Once they’d lumbered through, the door slammed shut.
I could still hear the “Tarantella Transylvanese” playing downstairs, along with the hoots and hollers of the old monsters. I didn’t think I had much longer. But I risked waiting a little while. After about two minutes, the Nurses came out of the door…without my lebensplasm!
Once they vanished down the hall, I crept over to the door and gave it a cautious tug, hoping it would just swing open. But it remained firmly in place.
I reached up to the candlestick, but it was a good foot above my outstretched hand. I took a few steps back, ran forward, jumped up, and grabbed hold of the arm that connected it to the wall. It dropped slightly, but then stayed put. Hanging on with both hands like a crazed spider monkey, I tried bouncing up and down, hoping to shake it into place. No luck. Kicking my feet against the wall, I pulled on the candlestick as hard as I could. The worn soles of my old sneakers slid against the spiderweb-covered wooden wall—I might as well have tried ice-skating up an igloo.
My hands were starting to slip from the sweat. I paused for a moment, held my breath, then kicked my legs against the wall until I got some good traction. Straightening my legs, I felt the candlestick starting to move out and down. Then, with a mechanical click, it released, and my feet slid up the wall. My hands slipped back on the candlestick as I tried to hold on, but it was no use—I was headed for the floor.
Despite the pain of crashing my head into the hard floor, I stumbled over to the statue. Like the candlestick, it wasn’t going to move without a fight. I grunted and pushed and grunted some more, but it wouldn’t budge. Just when I had given up, I heard more clicking and clanking, like some kind of gear moving in the walls. Maybe I had done it. I ran back in front of the door to see if it would open, but as I stood there, the candlestick snapped back into place.
Looks like I’m going to have to start over.
But the clicking didn’t stop—it moved from the walls to the ceiling. When I looked up toward the sound, the ceiling slid open and a giant metal claw shot down right at me. I ducked, but it was too late. I could feel its razor-sharp talons pinch into my back.
“Somebody HELP!” I screamed as the claw began to lift me off the floor. Struggling, I screamed again. I didn’t care who heard me—I would rather get caught at this point than find out where this claw was taking me. As I wriggled, I heard a tear and I dropped down a bit. It was my shirt! The talons had hooked my shirt, not me!
As I rose up closer to the ceiling, I heard another click coming from the statue. Looking over, I saw its screaming face turn toward me. How could this get any worse? I asked myself, right as a small flame appeared in the statue’s mouth.
The flame grew into a mighty fireball. I struggled harder, my shirt tore a little more, but all I could do was flail helplessly in the air. The fiery glow filled the statue’s eyes, and, through the shimmering light, it appeared to almost smile as it blasted the giant orange fireball right at me.
I curled up into a ball. I closed my eyes and held my breath, trying to block out the blistering heat that filled the room. For a brief moment, I felt my body consumed by flames…then I felt myself falling. Opening my eyes, I could see the floor coming up quickly. For the second time in one day.
Crashing onto the cold floor, I couldn’t move for what seemed like an eternity. Finally building up the nerve, I sat up and reached for my back. The whole back
of my shirt been burned off—but the fireball just missed me.
I was done fooling around with Raven Hill. The next time I came, I was going to bring backup.
I knew that I could open the booby-trapped Staff Only door with the help of my friends, but that would mean telling them everything about Raven Hill. And I knew they’d think I’d lost my mind.
When I woke that next day, I felt like a total wreck. My bones creaked, my muscles were sore, and my back felt sunburned. On top of it all, I’d barely slept—and the sleep I did get was filled with nightmares of monsters sticking their long, bloody, nasty tongues into the jar of my lebensplasm, licking it clean. But I had to get out of bed and rally my friends.
When I got to school, it took what seemed like an eternity for the lunch bell to ring. I shuffled down the hallways on autopilot: Take books out of locker, go to class, put books back into locker. DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER. I cared about nothing else.
By lunchtime, delirium had set in. Maybe I had just dreamed of the fireball-spewing demon statue.
Nope, my crispy back told me. That happened.
I sat staring at my tray and chomped and chomped and chomped, trying hard not to chicken out of telling Shane, Gordon, and Ben about Raven Hill. DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER. I swallowed hard and gagged, once again holding back a Technicolor yawn.
Shane stopped talking about his latest paper route adventure, and asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Chris, what is wrong with you?”
Shane and Gordon stared at me from across the table. They were waiting for an answer. I looked over at Ben. He just nodded, and I knew that I could trust my friends with my secret.
I cleared my throat. Even though I’d gone over my speech a thousand times the night before, it still felt like the words were stuck in my mouth.
What if they think I’m crazy? I thought.
I took a deep breath and said, “All of the old folks at Raven Hill Retirement Home are actually mmm…”
I tripped on the word.
