Temporary Monsters

by CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

  “Korgar,” a pinball machine to his right replied.

  The sound bounced on from game to game.

  “Beep beep honk beep.”

  “Kung Fu Fighter!”

  “Beep de beep de beep beep beep!”

  “Pong!”

  Lenny’s gift had been working all the time. The games would give him a chance to escape. He slid between a Whack-A-Gator and a Ms. Pac-Man.

  “Help me, Dimm!” the dark supervisor cried. “We cannot allow our prey to escape!”

  “Certainly sir.” One of the two raincoated Dimm approached on Lenny’s right.

  “Our pleasure!” The other swung through the game consoles to Lenny’s left.

  The beeping noises grew ever louder. Beep honk bleep jingle. A male voice shouting, “Play Blackjack!” Beep ayooga beep beep crash. It was the sound of triumph, a battle cry for gaming consoles everywhere. And, above it all, that one repeated word:

  “Pong! Pong! Pon . . .” The cry faded as quickly as it had come.

  “I just had to find the plug,” the void said. “Now if Mr. Hodge would kindly remain still? It is time for me to envelop and be gone.” A great darkness reared up before Lenny.

  With another great boom of wood hitting wall, the door to the game room flew open one more time.

  Lenny hadn’t realized somebody had closed the door in the first place. He was still very happy to see who stood on the other side.

  “You go no farther!” Karnowski the Ghost Finder declared. “Terrifitemps is here!”

  “See?” someone insubstantial added. Lenny squinted and made out the nameless ghost from the pit.

  “I told you I could find this place again!” the ghost continued. “They don’t call me—well, actually, they don’t call me anything.”

  Foo stared at the newcomers with an angry frown. “Is my secret lair a secret to anybody?”

  “You will give us Lenny now,” the Baron added, “or I will release the rats.”

  “And I will befuddle you with my legions of spirits,” Karnowski said.

  “I will use my mental powers to discern and foil all of your plans,” Lenore added.

  “Ignore them!” the dark void commanded from the other side of the room. “Our only priority is the capture of Mr. Hodge!”

  “Yes sir!” one of his underlings barked.

  “We live to obey,” the other remarked. The two Dimm pushed forward to either side of their leader. Lenny found himself pinned in the corner, with only half a dozen game consoles between him and the encroaching darkness.

  The Baron howled and waved his cape. “Come, my brethren!”

  Lenny recognized the gray carpet sweeping across the floor.

  “Watch out!” Swami Phil called.

  “Ewww!” Sheila remarked with disdain. “Rats? I won’t put up with rats. Here! I’ll kick them away with my pointy toes.” The rodents squealed as she did just that. “I knew these fashion heels would serve a purpose!”

  Karnowski raised his closed fist high in the air. “Attack, O spirits!”

  “Oooooooh!” the nameless ghost moaned. Other, fainter groans and shrieks gathered around him.

  Bruno waved his gun around. “Boss! Who do you want me to shoot next?”

  Foo pointed past the Dimm. “Plug anybody who tries to take Hodge from the room.”

  “Oooooooooh?” the ghost tried again. More shrieks, more groans, but, even without the Pong machine, they had trouble being heard over the incessant game console chatter.

  “Lenny!” Lenore shouted. “Don’t lose hope. We’ll get to you somehow!”

  “You do not steal my victim from my lair!” Foo was so angry he didn’t notice the rodents scurrying inside his robes.

  “I have had enough of outside interference. Lenny Hodge is going to die when and where we decide!”

  “Now that’s the Daddy Foo I remember!” Sheila cried out as she kicked a rat across the room.

  “Ignore these people!” the booming void demanded. “Ignore these games, and ghosts, and rodents, and anything else they throw at us. The Dimm will not be defeated!”

  “As you say, Wise One,” the Dimm on the void’s left answered.

  “Right on the money with that one, Chief,” the other Dimm echoed.

  “Would you mind,” asked Bruno, a pleading tone in his voice, “if I shot a few vermin?”

  “Ooooh? Ooh ooh ooh? Anybody?” The ghost paused to wipe nonexistent sweat from his nonexistent brow. “Boy, this is a tough room. I knew I should have brought my chains!”

  “Come, my rats!” the Baron cried from where he stood just inside the door. “Scamper as though your very lives depend upon it!”

  “Come, my spirits!” Karnowski added with verve. “Chill these souls. Show them what it means to be truly dead!”

  “This isn’t working as well as I had hoped,” Lenore admitted. “We have to find a distraction. Where’s a werevole when you need one?”

  “Listen!” Swami Phil called above the constant din. “Aren’t the buffalo getting closer?”

  Lenny listened. Yes! He could hear it, too. There, just beyond the gaming beeps and ghostly moans, a great chorus admired the Yellow Rose of Texas.

  “We must take him now!” Even the void was beginning to sound desperate. “Hold Mr. Hodge firmly. He must be enveloped for the good of the Dimm!”

  The two Dimm in raincoats lunged forward to grab Lenny as an even louder crash than any he had heard before came from directly behind him.

  Everyone froze.

  Lenny coughed as he turned around and got a face full of dust.

  “Be careful, my minions!” Foo called from the middle of the room. “My advanced air-filtration system will soon show us just what has happened.”

  Lenny heard the whoosh of giant fans as the view went from impenetrable to slightly hazy in a matter of seconds. The wall behind him was gone. In its place stood another wall, a tall, furry wall composed of over two dozen buffalo, crammed side by side along the entire length of the new opening.

  And the buffalo sang:

  Swanee, how I love you, how I love you

  My dear old Swanee,

  I’d pay the world to see . . .

  “Singing buffalo?” Lenore asked. “Now, there’s a distraction!”

  “It is impressive,” the swami agreed. “And I don’t think we’ve heard their full repertoire.”

  “It will do you no good, Mr. Hodge.” Irritation crept into the void’s voice. “Envelopment, dissection, it will all still go according to schedule. But now we’ll have musical accompaniment.”

  “Oh yeah?” Lenny started, but could think of nothing else to add. Like many of the things that happened around him, the bison chorus was strange and spectacular and pretty much totally passive. Stampeding buffalo he might be able to use; singing buffalo, not so much. The jaunty chorus did make Foo’s secret lair a bit more cheerful, though.

  “Lenny?” Sheila asked. “So you brought the buffalo?”

  He was startled by her question. How could he explain a power he didn’t really understand?

  “Kind of—I suppose so—yeah,” he finally admitted.

  Sheila sighed and shook her head. “You know, until this minute, I could never admit to myself how strange you really were.”

  “Lenny?” Lenore stared hard at Sheila. “This is your old girlfriend.”

  He found himself genuinely surprised. “Huh? How could you know that?”

  “Our files on you are very extensive,” Karnowski explained.

  “They did not mention that she was in league with Foo,” Lenore said.

  “His daughter, actually,” Lenny added.

  Karnowski grunted. “Our files are not extensive enough.”

  “Did the files tell you why we broke up?” Sheila demanded. “Did th
e files tell you that Lenny loved his stamp collection more than me?”

  That wasn’t true at all, Lenny thought. How could Sheila ever make that comparison? Then again, he could remember very few screaming arguments with his first day covers.

  “No,” Lenore replied, “our files tell us about the real Lenny Hodge.” Her stare became even harder than before. “Sheila? That is your name, right? You’ll never know what you lost when you left Lenny. You’ll never know what you had. Lenny’s in a safer place now. With Terrifitemps, we’ll see to his happiness in ways you could never imagine.”

  Lenny realized he was smiling. He really liked when Lenore said something supportive like that. He hadn’t had that many people really try to understand him. He wondered—with that mention of happiness—if she was speaking for herself, or for Terrifitemps?

  He glanced to his right and saw the void rearing up before him. Why was he thinking about Lenore when he was about to be cut into little pieces?

  But, rather than enveloping him, the Dimm supervisor spoke. “We have already spent far too long in the pursuit of Lenny Hodge.” The darkness twisted about. “Foo. Perhaps we can come to an agreement. What do you want from this individual?”

  The criminal mastermind smiled with great satisfaction, as if he had been waiting for someone to ask this very question. “We simply wanted to destroy all of Terrifitemps to clear the way for our total global synergy. Lenny just seemed like a particularly strong piece of the puzzle.”

  “Such a pitiful goal,” the void rumbled in response, “when the Dimm could offer you so much more.”

  Foo paused to stare at the floor for a moment. He sighed and looked up at his daughter.

  “I’m sorry, Sheila, but a quick death, or at least a quickish death for Lenny, seems terribly shortsighted. Rather than continue this discord, I believe we should not further hinder in the Dimm’s examination—and dissection.” He waved vaguely at the void. “You may take him. We will not stop you.”

  “Finally!” the swirling darkness cried in triumph. “If you two would hold him?”

  But the void’s subordinates hesitated. The room was suddenly very quiet. The bison had finished their song.

  And then, from the middle of the herd: “Uno, dos!”

  And the buffalo began again. “La-la-la-la-la la bamba!”

  The room shook as the bison tapped their right forehooves in time. The menacing void stumbled backward.

  “Y arriba arriba!” the bison continued.

  “Do I hear music?” a cheerful voice cried out.

  Something large and blue materialized in their midst.

  “Bob?” Lenny asked.

  “Bob the horse!” another dozen voices called as one. It seemed that just about everyone knew the pooka. Lenny could swear he’d even heard Bob’s name uttered by a couple of the game consoles.

  Bob grinned at everyone in the room. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys! I haven’t had anybody to talk to in, like, forever!”

  “What is this final annoyance?” the void demanded.

  The two Dimm exchanged shadowed glances.

  “You don’t know Bob?” both asked as one.

  “And I don’t want to know him, either.” The void was growing irritable. “Will these distractions never end? Stop him from getting any closer!”

  Bob cantered about, midair. “Here I was, dancing to a cha-cha beat. Those Latin rhythms are the best! One, two, one-two-three. And then where do I end up? Nowhere! I was in the middle of the Big Empty!”

  “I can’t concentrate!” the void rumbled. “Get him away from me!”

  “What was that you said, Boss?” one of the Dimm replied.

  “It’s getting awfully difficult to hear with all this noise, Your Honor,” the other one added.

  “La-la-la-la-la la bamba,” the buffalo chorus added.

  “I wonder who got me into this in the first place?” Bob continued cheerfully. “He could use a good talking to! And I’m just the pooka to do it!”

  Lenny saw Swami Phil quietly back out of the room.

  “Enough!” the void insisted. “I need you to deal with that blue thing so I can get back to enveloping.”

  One of his subordinates shook his shadowy head. “I’m sorry sir. I can’t hear you over all that singing. What thing that blew in here are you talking about?”

  “Nothing that blew in!” the void insisted. “I’m talking about that blue horse!”

  “You will get hoarse if you keep shouting like that,” the other Dimm agreed. “I don’t think we can talk in here at all, Boss. Maybe we can have this conversation out in the hall.”

  “The hall it is,” the first junior Dimm agreed all too readily. He called out to the void: “We’ll meet you whenever you’re done doing whatever you need to do in here.”

  The two Dimm nodded cheerfully and made a pronounced detour around Bob as they ran for the door.

  Bob barely seemed to notice. “I don’t know where I’d be without your buffalo singers. The minute I heard ‘La Bamba,’ I knew I was going home!”

  The void thrashed about in midair. “Where did they go? No matter. I don’t need any help from my underlings!”

  Bob whinnied cheerfully. “I really owe you one. Lenny, we’re going to be best friends forever!”

  “La-la bamba, la-la bamba!”

  “I was enveloping victims before they were born!” the void shouted at no one in particular. “I can take a little pressure. I’ll show them what a supervisor can do!”

  Bob the horse cocked his head to one side, as if only now noticing the void. “What’s up with this guy?”

  Lenny shouted a brief description of the whole enveloping/dismemberment scenario as best he could over the singing buffalo, who were now keeping time with both forelegs.

  Bob nodded as if he understood perfectly. “See? I told you things were going to get worse. Always trust a pooka!” He turned to the rolling blackness. “Maybe this cloud guy and I need to have a little talk.”

  “Envelop! Absorb!” the void screamed. “Smash! Kill!”

  Lenny wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. “But what if—”

  “Nonsense. Pookas are welcome everywhere! Maybe I can teach him a few dance moves.”

  Bob reared onto his hind legs. With a shout of “Hola!” he galloped headfirst into the void.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The buffalo were silent at last. The noise from the games seemed to have diminished, as if Bob’s departure had sucked the energy from the room. Even the void was nearly silent, emitting a muffled sigh or groan now and then, as though having a particularly bad dream or a bit of indigestion.

  Lenny saw no sign of Bob the horse. Apparently the pooka had been enveloped, at least for now. Lenny was sure Bob would fare far better than he would have. How the heck could even the Dimm dissect a pooka?

  “Now should I shoot somebody?” Bruno asked, shattering the stillness.

  Foo surveyed the game room for an instant before he shook his head. “The situation has changed. It is not the time to confront our enemies directly.” He clapped his hands sharply.

  “A good leader knows when to cut and run. Minions! Into the photo booth!”

  Sheila, Bruno, and Foo were joined by a pair in red robes who must have been skulking behind the game consoles. They passed one by one through a curtain under a sign that read: 4 PHOTOS FOR $10.

  Lenny heard a loud grinding noise overhead the instant the last of Foo’s group disappeared through the curtain. A hatchway opened in the ceiling directly over the photo booth, and the booth rose quickly up to the floor above. As soon as the booth was out of sight, the hatchway slammed closed.

  “Karnowski says we foiled their plans! They still have great escape!”

  “That Sheila is a remarkable woman.” The Baron shook his head in admiration. “She would make a
wonderful bride.”

  Lenny shook his head. The immediate threat was gone. “It’s good to see you guys again.”

  Lenore looked him straight in the eye. He noticed how her hand brushed lightly against his elbow.

  “We never expected to be separated for so long,” she said softly. He thought again of Lenore’s reaction to Sheila. Was Lenore simply protecting a team member? Or could it be more than that?

  “Karnowski knew Lenny would survive.”

  “But it was bad planning,” Lenore continued with a frown. “Withers was more than just a werevole. He was our tactician as well.”

  For an instant, Lenny hoped that he might take over for Withers. Lenny could become a real part of the team—and maybe something more. But how could he possibly plan if he had no idea what his gift would bring him next?

  “Wait!” the Baron shouted. “My creatures tell me we are not alone.”

  Lenny heard a scuffle coming from behind the fortune-telling machine. Many high-pitched rodent sounds mixed with someone crying, “Ow!” And “Get off me!” And “All right! I’ll show myself!”

  Lenny looked at the fortune-teller’s turban and saw double. The owner of the second turban stepped out from his hiding place behind the glassed-in mannequin.

  “Swami Phil!” Karnowski cried.

  Phil bowed slightly in greeting. “I am still here. It was my choice to remain. And why was I hiding?” He looked at Lenny. “Because of Mr. Hodge. I was simply trying to determine the best way to approach your team.” He pulled a struggling gray and furry mouse from inside his Nehru jacket. “Being driven from my hiding place by rats was not my first choice.”

  “My children!” the Baron called as the swami tossed the rat aside. The vampire looked to the others. “How can we trust a minion of Foo?”

  But the Baron’s objection did not faze Swami Phil. He continued to wear the same gentle smile as he continued his explanation.

  “These last events have shown me something remarkable. Trying to take down someone with the sort of power Lenny Hodge holds would run counter to every rule in the Swami Code!”

  It was Lenny’s turn to ask the question. “The Swami Code?”