by D. C. Akers
Looking down, he noticed the outside faucet was still leaking and the cracks in the foundation were getting worse. The entire house was falling apart all around them. He was probably safer sleeping outside of the house than he was inside.
Cautiously Sam pressed on, hoping all the hours he had logged playing Ninja Warrior 5 would pay off. He was scared, but excited. His blatant curiosity drove his every step toward the front of the house.
The gravel beneath his feet hurt as the jagged rocks dug into his bare skin. Sweat streamed down the sides of his face as he reached the two garbage cans near the front of the house and crouched down behind them.
Finally he could see the outline of the stranger perfectly. Sam was right—he was holding a long staff with a round glass pommel. He wore black pants and tall black boots that came up to his knees. His face was still in shadow but Sam could see the bottom of his rigid jaw line. He leaned forward staring at the stranger, thinking how eerie the night had become. There was no breeze, no chirping crickets; there was nothing but the sound of Sam’s breathing.
Something hairy brushed up against Sam’s leg. He jumped up and staggered forward into the garbage cans, knocking them over. The tin lids slid to the ground with a loud crash. Barron, the neighborhood’s stray cat, hissed and darted across the lawn.
Sam panicked and tried to grab the lids as they banged and clattered around his feet. So much for the ninja moves, he thought. He looked over at the stranger, who was startled as well. The man was crouched down next to Mrs. Cambridge’s maple tree with his staff across his chest in a defensive position. Then in one fluent movement he stood, lifted his staff and tapped it once on the ground. A flash of emerald light burst from the glass ball and engulfed the man, leaving only a green haze in his wake.
Sam stood there, mesmerized as the last of the two lids came to a stop at his feet. He could not believe his eyes. Did that just happen, or was he really going nuts? There was no way anyone with half a brain was going to believe this. He wasn’t even sure he did.
Sam was more than just scared; he was also fascinated, and a little dumb-founded at what had just happened. But who wouldn’t be? he thought. It’s not every day someone is staring up at your window and then disappears into thin air!
While Sam was trying to process all this the toppled trash cans had rolled down his driveway, churning out trash as they went. This forced Sam back to the reality of the situation at hand. With a half-hearted run, he quickly recovered the cans at the end of the driveway.
He looked over to the tree in Mrs. Cambridge’s yard where the stranger had stood just minutes ago. He still could not believe it had happened. How in the world did he do that and where did he go?
Sam noticed several small pieces of white paper scattered near the base of the tree. Quickly he scanned the rest of the yard.
The lady may have been a witch, but she was a witch with a green thumb. She had an extensive collection of shrubs and conifers that bordered the perimeter of the house. Daffodils and apricot tulips lined the curved stone pathway that led from the sidewalk to the front porch. Her grass was so green it looked like a golf course. The white pieces of paper were the only things out of place.
Sam set the cans upright before they rolled into the street, and swiftly crept across the street to Mrs. Cambridge’s yard to take a better look. The street was still warm from the hundred-degree day and the tiny rocks continued to poke away at the bottom of his already tender feet.
He reached the cool, plush grass and made his way to the tree. He scanned the surrounding houses just to make sure no one had come out during the great trash can debacle.
Sam looked down at the small white papers, which were thrown carelessly on the ground. He picked one up and carefully scrutinized it. It was a candy wrapper.
The wrapper itself was made of cloth paper, not regular wax paper like you see today. The name “Becker’s Famous Chocolates” was written in bold red letters across the wrapper. The letter style looked old-fashioned to Sam, like something you see in a black-and-white movie, large and overstated.
Sam thought it odd because the name Becker’s Famous Chocolates did not sound familiar to him, and he was well-versed in the ways of the chocolate. Whatever it was, he was sure it was not as good as the Goldkenn Chocolate Bar his best friend Travis Martin had brought back for him after his family went on vacation in Switzerland. The Black Praline Goldkenn was sweet, but not too sweet, and its creaminess was offset by thin layers of almonds and hazelnuts. It was chocolate perfection. When it came to chocolate no one could out-do the Swiss, as far as Sam was concerned, and Travis was probably the only person on earth who knew chocolate better than Sam.
Sam surveyed the area one last time, then gathered at least five wrappers from the ground and headed back toward the garbage cans.
He grudgingly gathered the trash that had fallen out of the cans earlier and replaced the lids. He placed the garbage cans back where they belonged and headed back into the house and up to his room.
Finally, he reached his bedroom door. There was no sign of his mom, and more importantly there was no sign of Sarah either. Sam quietly opened the door and crawled into bed. The rickety ceiling fan was still turning overhead, sending out a cool, gentle breeze. The crooked street lamp outside had somehow resurrected itself, casting flickering shadows on his bedroom wall, but Sam was too tired to care.
His mind continued to work through every detail of the night, from the monster in his dream to the disappearing stranger.
He was tired. The adrenaline he felt when he first saw the stranger was gone, replaced by exhaustion. His mind was drifting with fading thoughts of the stranger, his disappearance, and Becker’s Famous Chocolates.
CHAPTER 2
The morning came in a blink of an eye. Sam was barely awake when he smelled it—it was awful. There was no other word for it. The smell was so pungent it not only woke him up from his deep sleep—it was starting to make his stomach turn too.
He jerked abruptly and his eyes opened, but instead of seeing his room as he expected, he saw nothing. There was something covering his eyes. It was white—well, kind of white, and made of a soft material. Sam reached up and grabbed the fabric from his face. He squinted as the sunlight rushed into his room like a blinding spotlight.
He hated mornings.
The room slowly came into focus as he tried to figure out what the material in his hand was. To his surprise it was a sock, but it wasn’t just any sock. It was one of his filthy, extremely smelly gym socks.
Laughter erupted from just beyond the doorway of his bedroom. Sam looked up to see Sarah. She was standing in the hallway, half-dressed for school, with a black top on and blue pajama bottoms with hearts on them. Sarah was laughing and snapping what looked to be salad tongs in her right hand. Apparently, she had not wanted to touch the sock.
snap snap snap
Sam also noticed that she was pointing her cell phone in his direction with her left hand.
click click
Was she taking his freaking picture?
“You are such a dork!” she said, laughing. “That was absolutely brilliant! You should have seen your face when you finally got a whiff of that stench! This is sooo going on Facebook!”
Sarah’s face was red from laughter, and her voice was giddy with delight. Her long brown hair was wrapped in a loose bun that was starting to come unraveled, and her blue eyes were watering like she had been crying.
Sarah threw the salad tongs on his bed where they bounced off and landed on the floor next to a pile of clothes. Still laughing, she reached up and wiped a small tear that seeped from her eye.
“You know, freak show, I don’t think I have ever laughed that hard in my life!”
Sam blinked one eye and then another. Is this really happening? Did my sister just take a picture of me with a nasty gym sock on my face?
After a minute or so, Sarah finally pulled herself together. “Time to eat, moron, and Mom said to clean your room before yo
u go to school.” She turned and walked down the hallway talking to herself and shaking her head.
“Man, I’m good. That was awesome!” he heard her say.
She reached the end of the hallway and stopped. She turned around slowly and looked straight back into her brother’s eyes.
Sam, who had not moved anything but his eyelids at this point, sat motionless watching the corners of Sarah’s mouth curl up ever so slightly.
Ooh no! his brain warned him. THE GRIN!
It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
The “grin”, if that’s what you wanted to call it, was like that of a sly wolf, the cat that ate the canary, or the Grinch who stole Christmas. It was the kind of grin that would have consequences. It was mischievous in every sense of the word, and whatever happened next would not be good for Sam, that much he knew. He was already visualizing the duct tape over her mouth.
“Hey, Mom,” she called out. The grin was gone, replaced with a gleaming white smile. “Sam said he’s NOT getting up OR cleaning his room!”
As if on cue, a voice from downstairs shouted out like a drill sergeant, “Samuel Rylan Dalcome, you get yourself out of that bed right now and clean your room or you will be grounded! You’re going to be late for school again!”
Sam cringed when he heard his mother’s voice. She was not happy. His eyes narrowed as they fixed on his sister.
Sarah quickly turned and began to walk down the stairs, when suddenly she stopped, turned, and walked back up. Still smiling, she looked at her younger brother and proceeded to take a bow.
When she stood, she pointed at Sam and winked. “Thank you, I’m here all week,” she said.
Sam could feel his blood begin to boil.
Any similarity between his sister and a human being had to be purely coincidental. It just had to be!
Sarah turned and casually strolled down the stairs as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Sam sat up, threw the sock into the hallway, and looked around his room in frustration.
The room was a disaster; it looked like his closet had thrown up on his floor. There were piles of clothes in just about every corner of the room. But, to Sam’s satisfaction, the piles were all color-coordinated in lights and darks. Just in case the world ended and he was forced to do his own laundry, he was good to go.
His wooden dresser and matching desk were a complete mess. The dresser was covered with sport bottles, coffee mugs, skateboard parts, and broken PlayStation controllers, while the desk was cluttered with school books, magazines and more clothes. He was sure there was a computer under there somewhere, but he hadn’t seen it in months.
The Sony PlayStation, which sat atop a small entertainment center with a twenty-inch TV, seemed to have the least amount of clothes thrown on it.
The only thing remotely straight, or that had any kind of order whatsoever in Sam’s room, were the dragon posters on his walls. They were almost like wallpaper. Each poster was roughly the same size; every corner matched and lined up perfectly. His room looked like one large cave of dragons. A messy cave, but a cave nonetheless.
Sam loved dragons. Sarah made fun of him because she thought it was childish, but he didn’t care. It was something he had loved since he was a small child. He had pictures of dragons in all shapes, sizes, and colors. His father had been interested in dragons as a kid too; at least that’s what his mother told him, since he had never really met his father.
Sam’s father died a few months after Sam was born. His mother didn’t like to talk about it much; it made her sad. But when she did she would always say the same thing.
“Your father was the most caring man I have ever met; he was my better half, and my soul mate. The day your father died was the day I lost a part of myself, a part that I will never get back.”
Sam didn’t really know what all that meant, but it sure made her miserable when she did talk about him. His mother would always have her husband’s love, and Sam, well Sam shared his father’s fascination with dragons. It was strange, he thought, to miss someone he never even knew. But he did, and that was something he would have to learn to live with.
Sam reluctantly spun around in his bed and placed his feet on the cold, wooden floor. He needed to get moving or he would be staring at the inside of his room for the next week. Ten minutes had already passed since his mother warned him to get up. There was no way he had time to clean his room now. Sam looked around for the shorts he had on last night, but they were nowhere in sight. He must have taken them off in the middle of the night, because all he had on now were his boxers. He would need to find them; those shorts contained the only evidence of the vanishing stranger. He still could not believe what had happened. The man had actually disappeared right in front of his eyes! Sam made a mental note to keep his mouth shut and say nothing to anyone about the disappearing stranger. Not even to Travis. A person thinking you were crazy was one thing; talking as if you were crazy was something totally different.
Sam stood up slowly. He was still tired. He glanced up and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
Hello there, Mr. Average, he thought with a yawn and a stretch.
There was no other way to put it—he felt so ordinary. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t short; he was just average size. His face was thin and his ears were small. He had a short nose and full lips, like his mother. He wasn’t sure what features he had of his father’s, but whatever they were he hoped they hadn’t shown up yet. Because if this was all there would ever be, Sam felt cheated. He stared at himself in disgust. His light blue eyes were probably the only feature that stood out whatsoever. They were an ice blue, just like his mother’s and sister’s. People commented on them all the time.
“Wow, your eyes are cool!” or, “Wicked eyes dude!” they said. Once a girl even told him, “You have the most amazing eyes!” which was kind of cool.
At least that’s what he thought she had said. Her name was Mary Bartlett and it was sixth grade during lunch. They were standing in line when she turned around and told him. Although, it was hard to tell exactly what she said, because she had half a roll in her mouth. But Sam was quite sure that’s what she said through the spray of bread crumbs.
Today was the last day of eighth grade and Sam would finish out the year looking like crap. He had circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, his normally olive-colored skin was unusually pale—like the living dead kind of pale—and he had the worst case of bed head. He had bed head every morning, but today it was particularly bad. He had large lumps on every side of his head making his short, straight hair look curly. It also made him look ten inches taller. It was like a bomb went off inside his hair.
Sam stood there slumped over with his oversized Garfield boxers and giant hair thinking to himself, Nothing like giving the ladies something to remember you by. The words “epic fail” came to mind.
Quickly, he straightened his back, puffed out his chest, and flexed his arms in the mirror.
“Welcome to the gun show!” he said as he tried to flex his skinny muscle-free arms. Sam was checking to see if by some sort of miracle his arms had sprouted muscles since the last time he had checked. They hadn’t.
Just then he heard a snort from the hallway.
“Oh yeah, well I want my money back!” Sarah said, letting out a giggle.
Sam whipped his head around so fast he thought it would spin off his body. The blood rushed to his face. Embarrassed and still in his underwear, he panicked.
“GET OUT!” he yelled.
Sarah did not move.
“You are so gross!” she continued, standing in the hallway and fully dressed. Sam was furious. He was about to go Ninja on her, he could feel it.
“Mom, Sam’s being gross again!” she yelled out. Then she gave him the irritatingly mischievous grin he hated so much.
Okay, that was it! Therapy was too expensive. But a good blow to the head was cheap! Sam reached for the closest object he could find, which was an empty vid
eo game case lying on the floor, and hurled it at her. The plastic case whirled through the air like a boomerang, finally striking the side of the door frame next to her.
Sarah didn’t move or flinch a single muscle. She watched unimpressed as the plastic case fell to the ground and looked back at her brother.
“And that’s why you don’t play baseball, loser!”
Sam thought his head was going to explode with rage.
“I … I …”
He was trying desperately to think of something hurtful, yet clever enough to leave his sister speechless, but all that came out was, “… think you’re stupid!”
Sarah rolled her eyes, folded her arms, and leaned into the frame of the door.
“You know, dork, you should never enter a battle of wits unarmed, just sayin’.”
Then she sighed while looking down at her nails, as if she were bored.
Sam clutched both of his fists, trying to control his temper.
“Look,” she said calmly, “I can see you’re a little overwhelmed right now trying to think and all, so I’m going to play nice and throw you bone.”
She blew on her nails and looked up at her brother.
“We have new neighbors. They moved in yesterday while you were with your girlfriend, Travis.”
Livid, Sam stared into her eyes. She hated Travis, despite the fact he had a crush on her, and for whatever reason, was always nice to her.
“So?” Sam said, becoming more frustrated by the moment. “So” and “stupid” were all he had in his arsenal of comebacks at the moment.
Sarah grinned, “Sooo, they have a daughter about your age.”
Why in the world would she be telling him this? She had never talked to him about girls before, and why was The Grin back?
“So, I don’t care!” he said abruptly, even though he knew he sounded like a child. There was a moment of silence between them, where the two of them just stared at one another—Sam with his big hair and bad boxers, and Sarah with that stupid grin on her face.
Sarah’s grin turned into a smile. “Well you should care, because she’s staring at you right now through her window! And guess what? You’re still wearing your boxers!”
