by M. D. Payne
I stood up, crossed my arms, and looked right into the Director’s eyes. He looked genuinely surprised.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“That plan would never work,” I said. “You’d have to erase too many memories and official records. Do you think the whole school district is just going to ignore all the records of missing students? What about our IM screen names?”
There was a moment of silence as the Director and I stared at each other.
“Good point!” whispered Shane.
“Yeah,” said Gordon. “This is a bunch of baloney! Where are the cameras, Director Dude? You’ve certainly got enough actors around. That old vampire bit was a hoot.”
Now I turned to Gordon.
“Wake up dude; this is for real!” I said.
“For real….” Ben curled up into a ball on his chair.
“You have seen too much,” snapped the Director. “You know about the vampires. The werewolves. It’s hard not to notice the zombies, and I presume you’ve seen a few of the banshees. We have a swamp thing. And a monster pieced together from the flesh of the dead. We used to have a Cyclops…”
The Director looked distracted for a moment and then continued. “The witches are actually quite helpful with potions and spells to calm some of the residents that suffer from dementia. But, they, too are losing their minds.
“So, that’s that. You’ll be helping us here until the end of your days. Rewrapping mummies, checking the werewolves for ticks, cleaning the vampire’s dentures, sewing on lost zombie parts. The list goes on and on. There’s a lot to be done.
“However, I will warn you. Don’t think these old monsters are harmless. Had Nurse Uwt actually applied denture cream to Grigore’s dentures today as he was supposed to, Gordon would not have fared as well in the laboratory. They are very, very hungry, and it is only because we tell them to behave that they do.”
I couldn’t stand it! The Director acted like he was going to keep the old monsters from harming us, but I already knew what he had planned. Now he had three more sources of lebensplasm!
“You don’t want us to help!” I screamed. “You’re just going to feed us to all the old folks. They’ll all eat our lebensplasm. Where have you put mine?”
The Director looked at me strangely. He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, it began raining.
Yes, it began raining inside. A light drizzle quickly became a steady pitter-pitter-pitter of rain. It wet the documents on the Director’s desk. It wet the rug. I felt it soak through my hair and onto my scalp. I touched my hair, and it felt…slimy.
We all looked up to see where the rain was coming from.
And then we saw them.
Dozens of them.
There were dozens of the same cat-size roaches I had seen the raven kill that very first day. And this time I could see them clearly. They looked exactly like huge roaches except for one special feature.
They had big-lipped, snaggletoothed human mouths. And they were all drooling.
It was raining drool.
The rain ended and the roaches started to hiss and moan with their twisted, puffy-lipped mouths.
I looked at the Director. He looked even more terrified than I did.
“SUSSUROBLATS!” he screamed. “ALARM!!!”
And that’s when all of the roaches screamed and dropped off the ceiling.
The roaches plopped down one by one, like massive ugly brown drooly raindrops. The Nurses squealed and bolted out through the door into the hallway. The Director followed.
“Let’s get outta here!” I yelled.
We ran into the hallway and turned right to get back into the lobby, and the exit beyond.
“Move it, y’all!” yelled Shane.
We ran so fast, the house shook.
We got to the end of the hallway and saw the Director and the two Nurses frozen in front of the door.
“Get out of our way,” Gordon yelled.
The Director and the Nurses didn’t move an inch. And I could see why.
They were surrounded on all sides by the massive roaches!
We turned back to where we had run from, and saw a few zombies being chased into the lobby with the large roaches at their heels. They looked terrified.
“Sussuroblats,” cried the Director. “Sussuroblats!”
“Sussuro…what?” asked Ben.
“I guess that’s what they’re called,” I said.
The sussuroblats closed in, forcing the zombies into the same small circle with us and the Director and the two Nurses. The crawled over one another, hissing, screaming, and drooling as they got closer.
“I think I smell their breath,” said Shane.
“Ugh, you’re right!” I said.
“GRELCH, GROWWWLCH, GRUUUUG!” cried the sussuroblats. They sounded like they were burping and screaming at the same time, and when they weren’t screaming, they were gnashing their snaggleteeth together, making wet, snapping sounds.
They were getting closer and closer. Shane took a karate stance. One of the old zombies tripped over another, and fell back into a pile of them. Almost as soon as he hit the floor, they swarmed him, latched on, and began slurping up his juices with their nasty mouths.
“Oh, man!” cried Ben. “We’re roach meat!”
The zombie was drained fast. Just as they finished their meal, one of the old witches appeared at the top of the stairs. She had a small vial of potion in her hand.
“Hellloooooo!” she cried, and for a moment, the roaches stared up at her. She flung the vial down into the pile of roaches that were sucking on what was left of the zombie, and they exploded!
The witch disappeared, and a cry of “Go, Go, GOOO!” could be heard from the hallway beyond the top of the stairs. A group of Nurses, clad in SWAT gear, spread out through the retirement home. There were still at least three dozen roaches left after the witch had worked her magic. Half of them headed up the stairs and the other half closed in on us!
The Director reached one hand into his suit, and pulled out a Taser. He zapped a sussuroblat that jumped toward him, and it fell on the floor. One of the Nurses stomped on the bug, and it grunted one last moan as green goo oozed out of it. Its nasty roach legs twitched.
Shane was kicking like crazy, stopping the roaches with big, squelchy hits. He kicked some of them just as they were jumping at him to bite. Teeth were flying out of screeching roach mouths.
The roaches that had gone upstairs scurried into bedrooms. Old monsters poured out of the hallway, trying their best to shuffle away. Many already had roaches stuck on them, slurping away! The monsters flailed about, trying desperately to get them off. Nurses were ripping roaches off old monsters left and right, but more disgusting bugs came out of nowhere to latch on to the moaning monsters.
But the old monsters weren’t completely defenseless. A few of them were actually performing the karate chop that Shane had demonstrated before, and a few of the chops actually landed, sending roaches over the banister and down into the lobby.
For all of the Tasing, kicking, chopping, and stomping that was going on, there seemed to be more and more roaches, and our circle was getting smaller.
A half dozen roaches were closing in on Ben, Gordon, Shane, and me. We backed slowly onto the stairs.
“I can’t keep this up,” yelled Shane as he kicked another roach in its ugly mug. “There are too many.”
“I’ve got an idea!” I said. “Follow me!”
I sprinted up the stairs, dodging downed old monsters and roaches. My friends followed, and we turned down the dark hallway to the Staff Only section of the retirement home.
“Ben!” I yelled. “I need to pull the candlestick out of the wall again. Shane and Gordon, just hold them back for a few seconds.”
Ben dropped to the floor. I jumped up to the candlestick, planted my feet on the wall, and pulled just as Ben held my feet in place.
Gordon grabbed a tattered, cobwebby painting from the wall to help Shane hold back the roaches that ha
d gathered at the end of the hallway.
This had to work, or we’d be roach meat!
Sure enough, the candlestick moved back into the wall and the clicking moved from the wall to the ceiling.
“Squeeze your backs against the door,” I said.
The roaches snapped and spat and screamed. One jumped up and took a bite out of the painting. We stared at a dozen more through the hole in the canvas. Another tried to jump through, and Shane karate-chopped it down. Gordon stomped on it for good measure.
The ceiling opened with a whoosh, and the metallic claw came swooping down inches in front of our noses.
It scooped up all of the roaches. They screamed even louder, knowing they were trapped. Their drool rained down on the tattered carpet as the claw lifted them higher.
As soon as the claw was above our heads, I yelled, “RUN!”
We sped down the hallway, the light from the growing fireball throwing our shadows on the floor. When we reached the end of the hall, we turned around to see the claw engulfed in flames. The roaches’ drooly screams slowly died out and a few of their bodies exploded in the heat. POP. SNAP. SPLOP. The claw disappeared into the ceiling, and we were back in a dark hallway once again.
By the time we got downstairs, most of the roaches had been cleared out. One of the vampires was still passed out on the stairs. The old werewolves had turned into dogs, and were chewing on a few roaches. A Nurse in SWAT gear kicked a roach, which flew over the banister…
…and right onto me!
And it wasn’t dead!!
I screamed as the roach knocked me over. I was amazed at how strong it was. It had pinned me to the floor, its spiny legs scratching all over me. It crawled up my stomach and chest before I could lift my arms up and stop it right before it lunged at my throat.
“Ben! Gordon! Shaaaaane!” I screamed in a panic.
Now I could REALLY smell bad breath. It was inches away from my face as I tried to lift it off of me, to push it far enough away so I could scramble back up.
“GRELCH, SHMELCH, BRALCH!!” the sussuroblat mouth, so human and disgusting, spat and yelled at me.
“SOMEONE HELP!!!” I yelled, as the hideous mouth got closer and closer. I could feel the heat of the roach’s breath on my cheek. I turned my head, and the smell of rotten flesh came pouring out of its mouth. I could hear it snapping at my ear, when suddenly—
“Get over here!” yelled Gordon.
He lifted the roach into the air, and turned it toward the Director. The Director plunged his Taser into the roach’s underbelly, and—
Click. Click. Click.
“Drat,” said the Director. “The batteries.”
The roach squirmed its way loose, right up Gordon’s arm and—
CRUNCH
It bit right into Gordon’s neck. Gordon screamed a phlegmy scream.
A Nurse tossed the Director a fresh battery pack. He ejected the old pack, smashed in the new one, pulled the roach off Gordon, and slammed it face-first into the floor.
Gordon clutched his neck, but blood bubbled out from between his fingers. It wasn’t a lot, but he was unsteady on his feet.
The Director knelt down in front of the roach and jabbed his Taser onto its belly. He zapped and zapped and zapped.
“I. Despise. You. Nasty. CREATURES,” he growled.
Zap, zap, zap…
POP!
The sussuroblat’s head exploded in a shower of hot green guts.
The Director rose up slowly, calmly straightened his rumpled suit, wiped down the Taser with a handkerchief, and placed it back inside his suit pocket.
The lobby looked like a war zone. The Director was staring through the glass next to the front door. His face was blank with shock. The Nurses looked upset. One looked down at what was left of the dead zombie and then punched the wall angrily. Ben looked like he was going to be sick. Gordon, who was now slumped at the bottom of the stairs, had stopped bleeding, but the area around the bite was starting to turn a shade of green. Shane, who still had a large cockroach leg twitching in his hair, was cleaning guts off his face with a rag one of the Nurses had handed him.
I had to find out from the Director if we should be worried about Gordon’s bite. But first, I had a much more pressing question.
“Where is the jar you’re always dipping into?” I screamed.
“Why?” the Director, still shocked, said.
“Just give it to me,” I said. “You owe me that much.”
“Fine,” the Director said. “Nurse Inx, go get the jar.” The Director waved one of the Nurses off to fetch it.
I turned to Gordon, who was looked like he was going to pass out.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Not so good, dude,” Gordon said. His voice sounded like he needed to clear his throat of the biggest loogie ever. “I feel really hot. And nauseous.”
I helped him over to one of the leather chairs in the lobby and sat him down.
Nurse Inx came back into the lobby holding the jar. He handed it to me, and I could see at once that there was nothing in it. Scared, I unscrewed the top as quickly as I could.
“It’s all gone!” I looked at the Director in horror.
“Yes, it would appear that someone put it back in the fridge after finishing it,” said the Director without any emotion, adding, “How cruel.”
“WHAT?!” I said, completely freaked out. “Where’s all of my lebensplasm? It was in the fridge this whole time?!”
“What?” asked the Director, raising an eyebrow. “Would you expect it to be in the pantry? I prefer my marmalade cold.”
“Marmalade?!” I screamed so loud that Nurse Inx jumped. He headed up the stairs to help the old vampire, who had finally woken up.
“Yes,” the Director said. “What did you think it was?”
I locked eyes with the Director. I still wasn’t sure I could trust him. By the look on his face, I don’t think he trusted me, either. But, if it wasn’t in the jar, it had to be somewhere. He did say that my lebensplasm was keeping the monsters alive.
“Where is my lebensplasm?” I asked.
There was a pause. The Director stared strangely at me. He cocked his head like a dog would when you whistle at it. Shane, who had finally realized there was a cockroach leg in his hair, tossed it to the side and came to stand next to me, ready for whatever happened next. Ben was tending to Gordon.
“Why…your lebensplasm…,” started the Director slowly, “is inside you. If it weren’t, you would be dead.”
“The day after I started volunteering at Raven Hill, you held a meeting with all of the mon—”
“Residents!” insisted the Director.
“You held a meeting with all of the residents,” I continued. “In that meeting, you said that my lebensplasm was going to go a long way in keeping them alive. Then you pulled out that jar, spread that goo on a piece of toast, and started eating it like it was the best thing you’d ever tasted.”
“I see you were spying about earlier than I thought,” said the Director. “Nevertheless, your lebensplasm was not in that jar of marmalade. I just happened to need a snack after such a long day.”
“Okay, fine!” I said. “I get that the marmalade isn’t my lebensplasm, but what about the comment? You know—that my lebensplasm is helping to keep the residents alive?”
“You believe that the residents are ‘monsters,’ as you like to call them, yes?” the Director asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
The director looked at Shane, who was still standing next to me.
“And you?” he asked.
“Definitely,” said Shane.
“You believe in the supernatural, where others do not. It is that belief, that lebensplasm, that keeps my residents…well, alive, for lack of a better word. So you see, I haven’t stolen your lebensplasm and hidden it somewhere—it’s always flowing out of you and all around you.”
“So, they’re just feeding off of positive brain waves,” said S
hane. “Theta brain waves most likely—what the ancient Asian warriors call zanshin.”
“What?” I asked, totally confused.
“Exactly!” said the Director.
“But why do you need lebensplasm?” asked Shane. “Y’all are old monsters. What’s happening here? The old vampire’s dentures fall out. The zombies are falling apart. The werewolves are losing their fur…”
“‘We all’ are not old monsters. The residents are monsters. I am not a monster, nor are my Nurses, otherwise we’d be just as weak as our residents. My residents are under attack. The Nurses and I are doing the best we can to defend them.”
“You’re under attack from the cockroach thingies?” Shane asked.
“Yes. Those ‘thingies’ that just attacked us are called sussuroblats, and they’ve been draining my residents’ energies. All of the residents here are vampires, witches, mummies, the living dead, and the undead, yes, but unfortunately, they are all dying. Their monster powers are being drained at an alarming rate by these horrific sussuroblats.”
“So…these sussuroblats are draining all the monster juice,” Shane said. “And you’re trying to keep them from the supply.”
“Precisely,” said the Director. “We’ve put up a charm around the house and the grounds, but it’s been working less and less as their monster powers diminish.”
“That’s the green glow I keep seeing!” I said.
“Indeed,” continued the Director. “We have other defenses. The ravens can pick off a random sussuroblat here and there, but when an army, like the one you just saw, attacks us, we’re helpless. We’re trying to figure out a way to defend ourselves, but until then, we need a constant supply of lebensplasm to keep the residents from slipping away completely.”
“That’s why you were looking for volunteers from Rio Vista Middle School?” I asked.
“That was one of the reasons, yes. There are many types of lebensplasm, and the positive, belief-filled brain waves children put out is a strong variety. There are other things—food, rituals, gathering energy from sussuroblats that the ravens kill—which help to supply lebensplasm. Aside from the lebensplasm, however, we really do need a good bit of help around here. My Nurses are wonderful for defense, and for controlling out-of-control monsters. They’re not so good, however, at giving my residents the ‘tender loving care’ that they also need.”
