by David Lubar
“Death,” Rivka said. She stared at Brutus. “I didn’t know that part of the story. And I didn’t know you were Jewish.”
“I’m not,” Brutus said. “I know about Odin, and I’m not Norse. I know about Osiris, and I’m not Egyptian. I know about Cu Chulainn, and I’m not Welsh.”
“Me, too,” Rivka said. “Good point.”
“Thanks for saving us,” Raj said.
Brutus shrugged, as if his heroic actions against a deadly clay monster hadn’t been a big deal.
“Yeah, thanks. I thought I was doomed,” I said. But there was something I needed to know. “Why are you mean to us?”
“Why do you stare at me like I’m a monster?” he asked back. “And why did you make fun of me when I was trying to warn you not to touch the moldy books? Did you want to get a respiratory infection?”
It looked like the golem wasn’t the first monster I’d foolishly helped create. I felt a flush of embarrassment in my cheeks as I ran some of our past encounters through my mind and saw them in a new light. I didn’t have a good answer. Maybe we had started the whole problem somehow, long ago, by making assumptions about him.
I changed the subject. “You like to read?”
“Doesn’t everybody?” Brutus asked. “Hey, I saw one of those little free libraries right down the road. You know—the box where you can get a book or leave one for someone else. There’s still time before the bell rings. We can sneak out through the window. Who wants to go grab a book?”
Everyone chimed in affirmatively. And they slipped out, racing each other to be the first to reach the library.
Still dangling, I looked over at Raj. “It could have been worse.”
He nodded. “Agreed.”
We managed to slip out of our shirts and drop to the floor. Then we extracted our shirts from the golem’s lifeless grip.
“Looks like there will be one more library weenie,” Raj said as we headed out to meet up with everyone and get something to read.
“I’ll let you be the first to call Brutus that,” I said.
But when he did, Brutus smiled, because it’s good to be a library weenie, and it’s perfectly fine to be kidded by one of your own.
CALL ME
My parents finally got me a phone. It’s not a real fancy one, but it does everything a phone should do. I can download apps, play games, and text my friends. I don’t think I’ll use it much to call people. Nobody does that, except my parents. But just for fun, after I’d set everything up, and figured out how to find my own number, I called myself. As I tapped the icon to connect, I wondered whether I’d get to leave a message on my own voicemail. That would be sort of fun, and sort of geeky.
Instead of an electronic greeting, I heard, “Hello?” It was a kid’s voice. I didn’t recognize it as one of my friends, but it sounded sort of familiar.
“Hello,” I said back, too surprised to say anything else.
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“Who’s this?” I felt like I’d been zapped back to first grade, where the height of cleverness often lay in repetition.
“You called me,” he said.
“I called me,” I said. “I was calling my own number.”
“So you must have gotten you,” he said.
We both fell into silence for a while as we let that sink in. Now I understood why the voice was so familiar—I’d been hearing it all my life.
“You’re me?” I asked.
“So it seems,” he said.
“Lance?”
“Yup.”
“Lance Kirkenwald?”
“The one and only,” he said. He pretty much instantly followed this with, “Or so I thought.”
“Where are you?” I asked. I pictured my other self floating in a cloud somewhere.
“In my room,” he said. “Sitting on the corner of my bed, staring at the clothes I was supposed to fold.”
“Me, too,” I said. “Now what?”
“We hang up and forget this ever happened?”
“I’m not sure I can forget this,” I said.
“Me, either.”
There was another long gap. I guess I really didn’t have much to say to myself. It’s not like I could ask me anything I didn’t already know the answer to. But I needed to break the silence.
“Well, it’s been nice talking with you,” I said.
“Same, here. Sort of…”
“Yeah, sort of…” I reached to end the call.
The phone rang.
It was me, again.
“I gotta go,” I said. “I’m getting a call from me.”
“Me, too,” he said.
“Later…?”
“Probably.”
“Bye,” I said to me.
I took the other call. “Hi,” I said to me.
“Who’s this?”
“You’ll figure it out,” I said.
Good thing I had unlimited calling.
THE RUNNING OF THE HOUNDS
I like almost everything we do in my Young Adventurers Group. I love hiking and fishing, and I’m pretty good at knots. Cooking is fun, too. But I’m really not a fan of Campfire Creep-Out. I know the stories aren’t real, but it’s still hard to accept that the creaks, scritches, and rustles I hear around me during my walk home from the meeting are all natural. And the feeling doesn’t end when I get home. Creepy thoughts chase each other through my mind until I fall asleep. And then, creepy dreams take their place.
Our regular meetings are in the basement of St. Dominic’s Church, but for the Creep-Out we go up the road to Tucker’s Pond, where there’s a fire pit. Usually, our troop leader, Mr. Benchley, will read scary stories from a book. This time, for a change, he invited people from the neighborhood to tell us the creepy legends from their cultures.
It started out fine. Mr. Giaccomo, who runs Kevin’s New York Style Pizzeria, told us about the Jersey Devil, who stalked the Pine Barrens of south Jersey. That story didn’t scare me, because we’re at least a thousand miles away from New Jersey, and there aren’t any pine trees anywhere near here.
Ms. Patrois, who teaches French at the high school, told a Haitian story about zombies. By the time she reached the end, I could feel my muscles start to tighten.
Weird old Mr. Mackalson was up next. Nobody is sure what he does. But we’ve all seen him loading up his rusty ancient station wagon with cameras, binoculars, and all sorts of electronic gadgets, before driving off and disappearing for days in the mountains.
He told us about the Dread Stomper, an invisible monster who was attracted to fear and driven to stomp its victims into the ground without mercy. I think he made all of it up, because he didn’t even say what country the monster was from. Still, it spooked me a lot, as I tried to imagine how anybody could escape from an invisible monster, or how you could stop your fear once you knew a Dread Stomper was on your trail.
We had three more stories after that, and then, just as Mr. Benchley was getting ready to end the meeting, Mr. Maddox, who’s on the town council, raced toward us from the darkness beyond the fire pit, his eyes wide with terror, and screamed, “They’re coming!”
I leaped to my feet. But when I noticed Mr. Benchley was trying to hide a smile, I realized this was all a set-up to introduce the last story with a bang. At least I wasn’t the only one who’d jumped. Our whole troop was standing.
As we settled back down on the ground, Mr. Maddox charged to the fire and started his tale.
“Listen,” he said, pointing toward the heavens. “Can you hear it? It’s them. They’re baying and howling. Snarling beasts running with the thunder, chasing down their prey as they descend from the clouds with the fury of a storm.”
I listened. I didn’t hear anything except the pounding of my heart.
“Gabriel Ratchets,” he said. “That’s what they are. Some call them Gabriel Hounds. And, aye, they are hounds, for sure. But not like any you’d want to meet. Or any that travel on land. They’re huge, and terrible, with eyes
like burning coals, and sharp teeth to tear chunks of flesh off their victims to feed their endless appetite. They could eat a whale in an eye blink. But that’s not what they’re hungry for.”
He went on for a while, describing the dreadful fate of those the hounds hunted. He didn’t explain how the victims were chosen, how often the hounds hunted, or even why dogs would live in the sky. There were plenty of gaps in the story, but he made up for that with a lot of energy and plenty of dramatic hand gestures as he told the tale. Just as he finished, a log in the firepit crackled and exploded with a bang, sending up a shower of sparks, and sending us back to our feet.
We ended the meeting without sitting down again.
“Want a ride?” one of my friends asked as we doused the fire. “I’d hate to walk home after this.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Naturally, I kept hearing the shuffling of zombie feet coming toward me from all directions as I cut across a field that bordered the pond. I could picture them slinking through the darkness, like in the movies, with their arms out and their flesh falling off their faces, hungry for my brains. That spooked me. I tried to forget about zombies, but Ms. Patrois was a really good story teller, and she managed to wedge the tale deep into my brain. I was afraid I’d spend the night sharing my bed with visions of the undead.
Then, something chased away the zombies. Thunder. It was faint and distant. But beneath the rumble, I could swear I heard the baying of a pack of hounds.
“It’s just geese or something,” I said. “There’s no such thing as Gabriel Hounds.” But I sped up as I left the field and reached the road.
The thunder grew louder and closer. So did the baying.
I tried again. “It’s all in your mind.” That didn’t work any better than it’s just geese.
I looked over my shoulder, and froze, as a flash of lightning illuminated the sky. Still far off, dark figures loped toward me from the clouds. As my eyes recovered from the flash, I saw pairs of red embers pierce the night. Mr. Maddox’s words came back to me: Eyes like burning coals.
Gabriel Hounds!
They were real, and they were on my trail. I burst into a run as the rain began to fall. Home was still ten blocks away. From what Mr. Maddox had told us, I had to believe I’d be safe once I got inside. He’d said people stayed sheltered behind sturdy oak doors fastened with thick iron bars during thunderstorms to avoid the hounds. He’d added, “But woe be to the traveler who is foolish enough to get caught outside when the thunder rolls in and the hounds give chase.”
Foolish traveler—that would be me. I could have gotten a ride. Instead, I was racing for my life on rain-slick roads as lightning tore the sky. When I reached the next block, I risked another glance at the pack. They were closer to me, now, and closer to the ground. I could see flashes of white as they opened their jaws to let out spine-chilling cries. I didn’t pause to count the hounds, but there had to be at least twenty of them.
The ground shook, as if a truck passed by. That didn’t make sense. The hounds were still in the air. And I was on narrow roads where few trucks traveled.
I kept running. I reached the playground on Maple Street. I could go left or right to get to the other side. Or I could go straight, cutting through the basketball courts and the kiddie area with the swings and slide. I went straight ahead. It would be quicker. I’d have to go through the fence by the tennis courts, but there was a gate that nobody ever bothered to lock.
At least, not until now. With the hounds even closer, I stared at the huge lock that hung from the gate handle. I turned back to face the hounds. They’d reached the ground, not far from me.
I was trapped.
I’d seen angry dogs in backyards, and a snarling guard dog at an auto scrap yard. But I’d never seen anything this fierce. They growled from deep in their throats. The rain seemed to turn to steam as it hit their backs.
The ground shook as they ran, like tiny tremors were trying to build into one large body-wrenching earthquake. Mixed with the thunderclaps and lightning flashes, it felt like the whole world was attacking me from every direction.
I spun away from the hounds and kicked at the gate. It was no use. I’d never break through. Worse, the frantic action threatened to feed my panic and push me to the point where I couldn’t even think.
I forced myself to stop kicking. But I had to do something. I couldn’t just give up. I grabbed the fence with both hands. I could try to climb it, but I knew the hounds would leap through the air and pull me down. I could try to do the unexpected, and run right through the pack. That didn’t seem like a good plan, either.
The howls and snarls died so suddenly, the change was as startling as a thunderclap. I spun back around. The hounds, no more than ten yards away, stood still, and silent, as if waiting for a signal to spring on me and tear me to pieces.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Leave me alone!”
I realized this could be my last moment on Earth. Wet, scared, and alone. That’s how I’d die. I should have taken the ride. I should have tried to climb the fence, even if that gave me only a small chance to escape. But I couldn’t move. As much as I tried to stay calm, I was so scared I could almost taste my terror. Above the hard splatter of the rain and the thunder in the clouds, I heard another sound. It would have been drowned out if it weren’t right in front of me. But it was less than a yard away.
Crunch!
A depression appeared in the playground gravel, five feet to my left, as if a giant were lumbering toward me. The ground shook even harder.
Crunch.
A second depression appeared, about five feet to my right. The shake that came with it almost jolted me off my feet.
As if they’d finally been given a signal to act, the hounds all let out a soul-piercing howl and leaped toward me, mouths wide open. I slammed my eyes shut and braced for the impact that would come as they fell on me. If they could eat a whale in an eye blink, they could finish me off before I even knew it. At least it would be quick.
But nothing ripped my flesh.
I opened my eyes, blinking hard to clear away the raindrops that blurred my vision, and saw something stranger than everything else I’d seen on this strangest night of all. The hounds dangled in the air, as if they’d struck an invisible shield.
No. It wasn’t a shield. It was their target. They sank their claws into some invisible mass. Teeth snapped as they bit into their prey. Heads jerked sharply to the side as they tore off chunks of flesh. A stench of rotten meat washed over me, as if the hounds had ripped open a road-killed carcass.
But this was no carcass. They were battling the Dread Stomper. It might have been invisible, but it was as real as the hounds. I could see its bulk, where the rain struck its body and rolled off.
It spun, trying to fling off the hounds, and brushed me with one massive, thrashing arm, knocking me hard against the fence. I could feel the padlock press against my spine. The hounds held on. I heard another crunch. The hounds were suddenly lower. The creature must have dropped to its knees. I slipped along the side of the fence, away from the gate, hoping to be out of the way when the monster fell.
And fall it did, with one final ground-shaking crunch. The hounds swarmed around their prey, devouring the invisible monster from all sides.
They made quick work of it. And then, before I realized that this feast had been my chance to escape, they all faced me.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping that the monster they’d brought down wasn’t just a warm-up for the hounds.
One of them, at the head of the pack, seemed to nod, but maybe that was just my imagination. I was still trembling all over, making it hard to focus on what I saw.
The hounds loped away, then leaped in the air and didn’t touch the ground again. I watched them run toward the clouds. After they’d passed out of sight, I walked along the fence until I reached the sidewalk. I was shaking and sweating. But I realized I wasn’t shaking from fear, anymore. My nerves were buzzing from the remains o
f a narrow escape.
No zombies or other horrors followed me as I walked the last stretch toward home. I think the hounds had slayed them, too. No monsters haunted my dreams. But the hounds roamed through them, guarding me in my sleep that night, and many nights since. No story ever scared me again. No nightmare ever troubled me. But I knew, the next time Campfire Creep-Out came around, I could spin a tale that would chill your blood, freeze your heart, and haunt your dreams.
A BOY AND HIS FROG
I guess I was about five when I got Jumparoony. Dad found the tiny frog in the backyard after a heavy rainstorm. Nobody expected him to last long. Especially when he was being taken care of by a little kid. Actually, at first it didn’t even look like I’d get to keep him.
“You aren’t letting that slimy thing in my house,” Mom said, making a face like she’d bitten into a caterpillar.
“Oh come on,” Dad said, “the kid needs a pet.”
They argued for a while. From what I remember, the discussion leaped quickly off the subject of the frog and bounced into other areas like Dad’s love of bowling and Mom’s shopping habits. I never did understand the rules grown-ups used when they argued about stuff. But the end result worked out fine for me.
Once Dad had talked Mom into letting me keep the frog, he warned me not to get upset if the frog croaked. Well, he didn’t say it that way, and if he had I wouldn’t have gotten the joke, but I remember him explaining that frogs usually didn’t last as long as cats or dogs.
The thing is, this frog must not have known that he was supposed to die. He just kept on living. And he kept on growing. Within a year, he’d grown to about the size of a baseball, except of course a baseball doesn’t have legs. Or bulging eyes. But if you imagined him rolled up, that’s about the size he’d have been.
I really didn’t have a clue why he did so well. Maybe I was just good at taking care of pets. Mom says everyone has gifts. I guess I had a special touch with animals. That’s the only way I can explain things.
I had Jumpy—that’s what I called him those days—for almost five years then, and during that time, he kept on growing. From the size of a baseball, he grew to the size of a softball. At that point, I could still pick him up without any trouble, but parts of him would spill over the sides of my hand.
