Things

by Rodman Philbrick

  I nodded but suddenly I was afraid our parents could hear us.

  In my room I went to the window. The glow over Harley Hills was gone. Now they just looked cold and rocky. We had played there for years, me and Jessie and Frasier, but now I hated the place.

  Harley Hills had always been a little spooky and scary. That was one of the things we had liked about it. But now it seemed like the hills had been waiting for the aliens. It was a perfect base for them. From those rocky isolated hills they could take over a whole town and no one else would know.

  Anger flared up in me. I banged my fist on the windowsill, vowing I would keep the aliens from getting me and Jessie. Together we would fight them and free our town.

  Then, all of a sudden, my scalp began to prickle. A shiver ran down my spine like a sliver of ice. Dread enveloped me like a damp cold blanket. What was happening to me?

  I raised my head and listened, trying to sense what was going on in the house. And then, like a flash going off in my head, I knew.

  Something bad was happening to Jessie.

  I spun away from the window, trying to throw off the heavy foreboding dragging at me. I had to get to Jessie.

  As I moved across the room, I thought I heard rapid sneaking footsteps in the hallway outside. And whispers.

  I raced to my door and flung it open. The hall was quiet and dark. No one was there. The loudest noise was my pounding heart.

  Slipping out, I ran as quietly as I could along the hall, my ears alert for any sound. Around me the house creaked, making me jump.

  Hunched figures hid in the shadows, lurking in wait, making my heart race painfully. But I kept moving, fear for my sister urging me on. Shadows rose over me as I approached. Then dissolved into nothing as I passed.

  Reaching Jessie’s room, I put my ear to the door. The door swung open, startling me. My heart hammering, I peered into the darkness. Faint moonlight fell over the bed. I could make out a Jessie-size lump under the covers.

  She was there! Hiding under the covers. I let out my breath in relief. But I knew we’d had enough of this. The danger was too great to stay here another minute. I’d grab Jessie and we’d escape now.

  Crossing the room, I swept the blanket off my sister.

  She wasn’t there!

  It was only two pillows bunched up to look like someone sleeping. Jessie was gone.

  But while I stared at those pillows, a door slammed downstairs. The basement door.

  12

  “Jessie!”

  I leaped across the room and raced down the hall to the stairs. But as I started down, my foot caught on something soft. I went flying into the air, seeing the floor a long way below me.

  My heart leaped into my throat. I flung up my arms to protect my head, and my foot caught on the banister post. I grabbed the banister and threw my leg over it. As I began a fast slide down, I glimpsed what had tripped me.

  It was Morty, Jessie’s old one-eyed stuffed rabbit. She never played with it anymore but she still took it to bed sometimes when she was feeling scared or sad.

  My chest tightened. I slid the rest of the way down the banister and hit the floor with a hard thump. Ignoring my twisted ankle, I ran for the basement door.

  It was locked. But light leaked from underneath it and I could hear noises down there. There was a dragging sound, a grunt, then a muffled cry that could have been Jessie.

  “Noooooo—”

  That cry echoed in my head, piercing my heart like a knife. I pounded on the door, yelling. “MOM! DAD! JESSIE!” Maybe if I screamed loud enough it would wake my parents from their horrible trance.

  But no one came, no one answered. At last, hoarse from shouting, I put my ear to the door again. Maybe if I could figure out what they were doing, I could stop them.

  I heard a shovel bite into dirt and then a voice rang in my skull.

  “NOOOO!” It was Jessie’s voice but it wasn’t coming through the door. It was in my head!

  Strange feelings pulled at me. Fear, but not my fear. I fell against the door, then slumped to the floor. I was too weak to move.

  I felt the rough bump of heels dragging against a dirt floor. It was Jessie! I was feeling what was happening to my sister.

  Paralyzed somehow, she couldn’t move. Her terror churned in my stomach. There was a hood or something over her face so she couldn’t see what was happening. She was closed in, the darkness pressed on her.

  I felt the sensation of being carried, the hopelessness of being unable to struggle. My breath strangled in my throat. I pawed at the basement door as if I really were Jessie, trying to fight my way free.

  Then there was light, bright enough to penetrate the hood. Jessie saw dark formless shapes gathering around her. Terror forced its way up my throat as a glowing thing came closer, closer, closer—

  I must have passed out then because I came to and Jessie was gone from my mind. My head was propped against the basement door.

  Something was coming up from the basement. It had a heavy menacing tread.

  It was coming to finish the job. Coming to get me.

  13

  I scuttled sideways to get away from the door. But not quickly enough. The door flew open.

  Mom and Dad looked down on me crouching there on the floor and smiled. Their smiles were horrible.

  “Jessie!” I screamed. “What have you done to her?”

  They smiled even more broadly and exchanged glances. “The-female-child-is-well. Perfectly-well,” they said in unison. “And-soon-she-will-be-normal. Perfectly-normal.”

  “You gave her to them, to the things,” I shouted. “You want her turned into an alien, just like you!”

  “You-understand-nothing,” they said in the same flat, even voice. “But-you-want-to-be-like-your-sister. To-be-with-her. You-want-us-all-to-be-a-perfectly-normal-family.”

  I felt their voices reach into my mind like scaly fingers. They were trying to hypnotize me!

  Mom stepped closer and held out her hand. “Come. We-will-all-be-together,” she said, her eyes boring into mine.

  It was horrible. She looked like Mom, she wore the same clothes and had the same shiny brown hair. But there was a slithering thing behind her eyes that had wormed its way into her brain.

  “No!” I screamed, pushing myself across the floor with my heels. “No!”

  I scrambled to all fours, then to my feet, stumbling as I ran. Their voices followed me like evil echoes of my parents calling. Then I heard them coming after me.

  This time I had to beat them to the front door. They’d never give me time to get out of a window again. I knocked a dining room chair into their path and then another as I raced for the living room.

  Somersaulting over my dad’s favorite armchair, I kicked an end table over to slow them down, sending a lamp and some books flying. The lamp smashed, littering the floor with splinters of glass.

  I heard Dad’s grunt of pain as he barked a shin on the end table but it didn’t slow him down much. Heavy feet crunched the broken glass. I might make the door but it wouldn’t take him long to catch up with me.

  Then my eyes lit on the jar of marbles I’d left on a shelf by the front door. Mom had never made me put them away—another sign of how changed she was.

  With one hand I yanked the front door open. With the other I grabbed the jar of marbles. I spilled the marbles across the floor behind me and lit out the door.

  As I slammed the door behind me I heard Dad cry out and then WHOMP, his full weight hit the floor. I winced but kept running and reached the street before I heard Mom skid on the marbles and fall, too.

  But where could I go? Officer Trueblood would be back here in a flash, looking for me. I didn’t think the bushes would be shelter enough this time.

  Still running, I found myself in front of Frasier’s house. It was dark downstairs but there was a light on in Frasier’s room. Chest heaving, I crossed the lawn silently and peeked into the downstairs windows.

  No one there. The house was
quiet.

  Jumping up onto the porch railing, I hauled myself up onto the porch roof.

  GGGGRRRRRRNNN!

  The old roof sagged loudly under me. I froze, expecting to fall right through it.

  But the roof held, although the boards under me continued to creak and groan. I crawled up against the house and hunched there, waiting to see if Frasier’s parents would come.

  The house stayed quiet. No one stirred. After a while I started moving again, pressing myself against the house, sneaking along to Frasier’s room. Every step was an agony of noise.

  CRRREEEEAK. GGGRRRRRNNNN.

  Finally I reached Frasier’s room. The light was still on. Slowly I stood up and looked inside.

  Frasier’s shadow was a sharp outline against the wall. Yes! It looked like he was hunched over his computer, absorbed in something.

  Craning my neck to see over to the computer, I raised my fist to knock on the window.

  But—something wasn’t right. There was Frasier’s computer. But no Frasier.

  The computer was off, his chair empty. I looked at the wall. His shadow was still there! Frasier hadn’t moved but he wasn’t where his shadow showed him to be.

  Little currents of alarm began to ripple across my skin. I stood on tiptoes, and my eyes probed the room.

  It was empty! No Frasier. Just his shadow. Impossible but true.

  What had they done to Frasier?

  I pressed my nose to the glass, feeling more alone than ever. My shoulders began to sag with hopelessness.

  And then a hand shot out of the dark and grabbed my neck.

  14

  My feet slid on the porch roof. Boards creaked under me, drowning out my strangled yell.

  I pried at the choking fingers. But I was slipping on the roof and my fingers were weak. My throat felt like it was being crushed.

  Gurgling, I twisted to get free, bashing out at whatever was on the end of that viselike grip.

  “Nick?!”

  “Frasier?!”

  Frasier’s hand fell away from my neck. He climbed down from the roof over his window.

  “Wow, man,” he said. “I had no idea it was you.”

  I rubbed my neck. “You have quite a grip, Frasier. I thought I was a goner.”

  “Sorry.” Frasier slumped down beside me under his window. His face was drained of blood and he was shaking all over. “I thought you were an alien. Or one of their human zombie servants come to get me. I heard noises, like someone was sneaking up the side of the house to get at my window.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me.”

  We sat quiet for a few seconds, catching our breath and letting our heartbeats return to normal.

  “Say, how’d you like my shadow?” Frasier asked, jumping up to look in his window. “Pretty cool, huh? When I heard the noises, I cut a piece of cardboard to look like my outline and taped it to the wall so it would throw a shadow like I was at my computer. Then I climbed out to wait for the invader.”

  He pushed up the window and looked at me. “I’m glad it was only you. Hope I didn’t hurt you. Let’s go in.”

  We pulled ourselves in through Frasier’s window and I noticed Frasier had his door barricaded, a board nailed right across it so it wouldn’t open.

  “Wow, Frase,” I said, staring at it.

  He looked grim. “My mom and dad knocked on the door a couple hours ago. They sounded really weird, like they had wooden frogs in their throats. They wanted me to go for a walk. Right! I don’t think so.”

  “I didn’t think your parents liked to walk,” I said numbly, sitting on the bed.

  Frasier took off his glasses and rolled his eyes. “Walk? These are people who get in the car to go to your house,” he said. “But that’s not the end of it. They tried to drag me—physically—out of my room. I managed to get the door shut and bolted but I knew that little bolt wouldn’t hold them for long.”

  He sighed. “My parents were always weird but now they’re really strange.”

  I shivered, thinking of my own parents chasing me through the house, dragging Jessie off to the basement.

  “That’s because they’re not really your parents,” I said. “They’re being controlled by that thing in the tunnels. You felt it, Frasier. You know how strong it is.”

  Frasier frowned and shook his head. “It couldn’t have made me turn against my parents, I know that.”

  “That’s because you’re a kid,” I said. “They can’t seem to take over our brains like they can adult brains. Our parents might be paralyzed in there, watching everything but helpless to stop it. We’ve got to save them, Frasier.”

  “Maybe we should call somebody,” said Frasier. “The state police or the FBI or somebody.”

  “Right, like they’re going to believe us,” I said. “If you were them who would you believe—a bunch of kids yelling about aliens or a whole town of reasonable adults who can’t imagine what’s got into us?”

  Frasier frowned. “We could show them,” he said. “Dig out the rockslide and take them into the tunnel. Show them the glowing pool we found, let them get chased by a slimy tentacle that stretches on forever. They’ll believe us then.”

  “We don’t have time for all that, Frase.”

  His head shot up. I think he knew what I was going to say before I said it.

  “They’ve got Jessie,” I told him.

  “No way,” he breathed, his eyes round behind the thick glasses.

  I nodded. “And you’re going to help me get her back.”

  15

  Frasier listened to my story without interrupting. As I described what had happened, I felt Jessie’s terror once again and suddenly the minutes seemed to be whizzing by like seconds.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” I said, jumping up and starting for the window.

  “Wait,” said Frasier. He knelt down and pulled out a cordless drill, a hammer, and a flashlight.

  “We’ll need the drill to get through that lock on the basement door,” he said. “The flashlight is obvious and a hammer always comes in handy.”

  We let ourselves out the window and down the porch roof, trying to be as quiet as possible. We crossed the lawn to the street and kept to the shadows as we made our way to my house.

  The house was dark. Cold foreboding clutched my heart. Mom and Dad weren’t out looking for me or sitting inside waiting for Officer Trueblood to bring me home. That meant they were in the basement.

  “Hurry,” I urged Frasier. Panic surged through me in sickening waves. Jessie was in terrible trouble. I could feel it.

  We crept quickly around the house to the back door. Frasier aimed his drill at the lock, but when I tried the doorknob, I found the door open.

  Spooky thoughts flitted into my brain but I pushed them away. So Mom and Dad had forgotten to lock the back door. That didn’t mean they were lying in wait for us. It only meant they weren’t themselves, but I already knew that.

  We let ourselves into the kitchen. No light showed under the basement door. The big padlock was shiny even in the dark. Frasier got ready to drill but when he hefted the lock, it was open. They hadn’t locked up. Did that mean they were still down there? In the dark?

  The basement door creaked opened at a touch.

  Frasier and I looked at each other. The basement yawned before us, a black hole waiting to suck us in.

  Frasier switched on his flashlight but the beam hardly penetrated the darkness. We listened hard but there wasn’t a sound.

  Where were Mom and Dad? I wondered. Had they delivered Jessie to the aliens and gone to bed? Or were they down there, perfectly still, lying in wait for us?

  We started down. I avoided the places on the steps that creaked and pointed them out to Frasier. At every step Frasier probed the dark with his light but we saw nothing. It was like the dark was swallowing the light.

  CRREEEEAAK—

  Frasier lifted his foot instantly but the noise of the creaking step seemed to reverberate through the house and basement. We
froze, listening. But nothing moved. There was no sound from above. Or below.

  I looked up to where the open basement door should have been but saw nothing. In a sudden panic I grabbed Frasier’s arm and shined the light upward. I let out my breath. The door was still open.

  But now I couldn’t shake the thought that my parents could slam the door shut any second and lock us down here. Finally they had me where they’d wanted me all along.

  We started down again. Frasier’s light winked out. We were plunged into blackness. My heart skipped. Frasier gasped and shook the flashlight. It came on again but the light was weak, as if the battery was low.

  “Don’t worry,” Frasier whispered in my ear. “I put in a new battery earlier. It should last for hours.”

  I tried to calm my breathing as we edged down a few more stairs. My foot touched dirt. We had reached the basement. Frasier’s light flickered, died.

  The darkness was total. As we stood there it seemed to come for us, wrapping our bodies in coils of inky nothingness.

  My heart started jerking like a jackhammer. I flailed out my arms and something soft and sticky plopped onto my hand and clung.

  “UGGHH—”

  Frasier’s light winked back on. The clingy thing on my hand was just a cobweb. I scraped my hand on my pants, fighting off a sick feeling in my throat.

  Frasier swung the light around. It flickered, then stayed on. But the weak beam held off the darkness for only a few inches.

  “I don’t understand it,” whispered Frasier. “It’s a good flashlight. New battery. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s as if the darkness is soaking it up,” I breathed.

  Frasier shivered. “Come on, man. Let’s see what’s down here.”

  He moved deeper into the basement. I started after him but almost immediately Frasier disappeared into the blackness. I opened my mouth to call out softly but the darkness filled my mouth and flowed down my throat.

  My breath got choppy. I stumbled after Frasier, feeling panic rise up inside me. The dark was sucking away my breath.