by Rick Hautala
“Okay, mom,” Stan said, still chuckling softly as he started up the stairs. The humor of the situation was almost enough to make him forget how much he still hurt from his roll down the hillside, but as funny as his mother’s irrational fear was, the idea of being attacked by a rabid squirrel wasn’t what occupied his mind as he undressed and stepped into the shower. He felt at least a bit relieved that he hadn’t exactly lied to his mother; he had been in his tree house just before coming into the house. He had climbed the rickety ladder up into the darkness and deposited the football-shaped thing, burlap bag and all, in the safety of his tree house.
After his shower, as he settled down to sleep that night, he couldn’t stop wondering what that thing might be. He could hardly wait until morning when he would even risk the danger of encountering a rabid squirrel to go up to his tree house and find out what was in the bag.
5
“I’m not hungry!” Stan shouted. “I’ll have something later!”
The screen door banged shut behind him, cutting off his mother’s shouted advice that breakfast was the most important meal of the day as he raced out across the back lawn, heading straight into the woods that fringed the backyard. About a hundred yards along a narrow path he came to the towering oak tree that supported his tree house. Without a backward glance or any hesitation, he scampered like a monkey up the wooden slats he had nailed into the tree trunk as a makeshift ladder. He was panting heavily as he poked his head under the canvas sheet he used as a door. It took his eyes a while to adjust to the gloom inside the tree house, but after a moment or two, he saw what he was looking for over in the corner, right where he had left it last night.
After waiting in the entrance for a moment, he hooked the canvas flap onto the nail he used to hold the door open and entered. Shadow-dappled sunlight angled across the rough plank flooring, but it didn’t quite reach the burlap bag resting in the far corner. A tightening tension gripped Stan by the throat as he crawled over to the bag on his hands and knees.
“Now, let’s just see what we’ve got here,” he whispered, his voice hissing like sandpaper in the moist gloom.
His hands were shaking as he picked up the end of the bag, sucked in a deep breath and held it before dumping the thing out. It hit the floor with a dull thud and rolled to a stop in the darkest corner of the tree house. Stan sat back on his heels and stared at the object long and hard. Just like last night, he was strongly and equally drawn and repelled by the thing, whatever it was.
In rough outline, it was indeed about the size and shape of a football, but there the similarity ended. It had a thick, doughy look to it and was pinched at either end into a blunt point. In the dim light, the thick, segmented rings looked the color of sour milk—white blending into dull yellow. In the middle, where it was thickest, the thing was maybe half a foot thick, maybe a little more. Although the diffused sunlight didn’t quite reach it, it glistened as if it had its own internal light source.
“Goddamn, but doesn’t that look like a big maggot,” Stan whispered. “A big, bloated maggot!”
He didn’t quite dare get any nearer to it. Just the thought that he had touched it, had picked up and carried a monster maggot all the way home sickened him. And God-All-Mighty! Even though it had felt dead, the thing sure as heck looked like it might even be …
“Alive!” Stan whispered, sitting back and prodding it with the toe of his sneaker.
As soon as he touched it, the maggot-looking thing twitched. The middle segments puffed up, making both ends contract and point at each other like a fat, crescent moon. Squealing in surprise, Stan jerked back, banging his head on the low ceiling of the tree house. Tracers of light squiggled across his vision as he rubbed the back of his head and stared in utter disbelief at the thing.
It had to be a maggot or worm or cocoon of some kind; he could tell that much—but what? What kind of worm or slug ever got as big as a football?
Tense seconds passed as Stan just sat there, staring at the thing and waiting for it to move again. When it didn’t, he tried to convince himself that it hadn’t really moved the first time. It had to have been his imagination...or a shifting shadow and light that had made it look like it moved. How could a worm that big even exist, much less be alive?
After a minute or two, when the thing still hadn’t moved again, Stan scrambled out of the tree house. Climbing up onto the pitched roof, he reached up and snapped off an oak branch about two feet long. After stripping off the leaves and twigs, he swung back down onto the platform and re-entered the tree house. With the stick held out in front of him like a sword, he cautiously approached the giant maggot again.
“Just what in the hell are you,” he whispered.
His hand trembled as he reached forward and gently prodded the thing. He expected the sharp stick to pierce it easily, but the milky white skin had a rubbery resistance that deflected it. No matter how hard he pressed against the thing, even hard enough to press the thing against the tree house wall, he couldn’t puncture it.
“Well, then, maybe a knife,” he said aloud.
He leaned to one side and reached for his front pocket, then sighed out loud when he remembered that his mother had taken his jackknife away from him last week because she had caught him carving his initials into a tree in the front yard. With a sigh of frustration, he whacked the middle of the maggoty-looking thing with his stick.
In a flash, the wormy thing twisted around and flipped over.
Stan screamed so loud it hurt his throat when he saw the underside. It looked...weird, all puckered up and wrinkled like a dirty sock turned inside out. Inside the fat, folded wrinkles, it looked almost as though there was a face—a twisted face, distorted and squashed flat against the thick, milky wrapping. Round, bulging eyes stared unblinkingly out at him. Squashed up flat on each side and running halfway down the length of the thing, were what looked like the faint outlines of two arms...arms that ended in small, flat, clawed hands.
Stan was barely aware of the whimpering sound he was making as he scurried toward the tree house door. He felt his way blindly with his hands and feet, unable to tear his eyes away from the distorted face that steadily gazed at him. He tried desperately to convince himself that there couldn’t really be a face—an almost human-looking face—on the underside of this thing. No matter what it was—a slug, a maggot, or whatever—there was no way it could have a human-looking face!
His entire body shook as though he were being jolted by a powerful electric current as he swung over to the ladder and started down. Halfway to the ground, he let go of the steps and sprang out into the air. Landing on his feet, he turned and ran as fast as he could back to his house.
6
Throughout the morning, Stan was uncharacteristically silent—enough so that even Chet commented on it. After lunch, he went right out and mowed the front lawn without his father having to ask him more than once. When he was finished with that job, he even offered to rake up the clippings—a job Chet usually did when Stan did the mowing.
A couple of times during the day, Chet tried to talk to him, to draw out of him whatever was bothering him. Stan was tempted a couple of times to spill his guts and tell Chet all about the weird human-faced maggot-thing he had stashed up in the tree house, but he kept his mouth shut and wondered if he had truly seen what he thought he had seen...and if those bulging, round eyes had seen him!
Supper came, and although Stan was still withdrawn, he was also feeling nervous and anxious … and curious. As he ate, he couldn’t stop bouncing his legs nervously up and down. Although he was hungry, he had to leave his slice of lamb untouched because the light beige color reminded him of the thing in his tree house. Once supper was over, and he was free to go and do whatever he wanted to—at least until dark—he felt nearly compelled to go out to the tree house just to verify that he had seen what he thought he had seen.
Anticipation gnawed at his nerves like a worm working its way to the core of an apple. Before long, he knew tha
t he had to go out there, only this time he’d be prepared. Although he knew his father kept a pistol in his desk drawer, Stan didn’t dare to go quite that far. But he did manage to sneak his jackknife out of his mother’s top bureau drawer. With that, Chet’s flashlight, and a length of rope in case he had to tie the thing up or something, he left by the back door and disappeared down the trail that led to his tree house.
When he got to the tree, he stood for a moment, looking up at the underside of the tree house. Never in all the years since he and some of his friends had built it, had it ever seemed so scary...so ominous. The dark, jagged timbers of the roof line and flooring were black, dimensionless blocks against the paling evening sky. The sheet of canvas hanging down over the door looked like a sodden blanket, and Stan couldn’t stop wondering what in the name of Sweet Jesus was behind that curtain.
“I’ll take the human-faced giant-maggot behind Door Number One,” he whispered, chuckling softly to himself as he started up the ladder to the platform. This all seemed so unreal, so unbelievable. His breath caught, dry and scratchy in the back of his throat as pulled back the canvas door covering. Before entering, he folded the blade out of his knife and held it in out defensively in one hand as he snapped on the flashlight. Bending low, he went inside.
The sun was setting behind his back. It angled across the tree house floor with a wash of bright orange that illuminated every detail of the rough planks of the floor and wall. The quiet of the evening magnified every sound around him—the harsh rasp of canvas, the creaking of rusty nails in weathered wood, the swish of leaves as the branches that supported the tree house bent beneath his shifting weight. The oval of light from his flashlight darted like a laser beam over to the corner. His eyes desperately sought the pale, maggoty thing. As soon as he saw it, his heart started pounding hard in his chest, and tears started in his eyes.
“You bastard!” he hissed as he swept the beam of light back and forth over the tangled, white mess that littered the tree house floor. “You lousy, scum-sucking, rotten, bastard!”
He couldn’t believe what he saw. The only thing his brain could register was that whatever that thing had been, it was gone now, smashed and ripped and torn into hundreds of tiny, fleshy shreds. The floor was saturated with a thick, gooey liquid that had dried into a black crust on the old wood.
Stan had no doubt who had done this.
It had to have been Chet, the prick!
Sometime in the afternoon, probably while he was busy mowing the lawn, his older brother must have come out here, found what Stan had stashed up here, and destroyed it.
Why?
Simply to piss him off, of course—just like always!.
“I’m gonna get even with you,” Stan said with a snarl as he probed the remains with the tip of his knife. Even with a sharp blade, the outside covering resisted cutting or puncturing as if it were some kind of thick, milky-white rubber. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to touch what was left of it with his bare hand, so he sat down and used his foot to push what was left of his prize into a pile over in the corner.
Once he had the remains all gathered up, though, he realized that something was dreadfully wrong.
“Wait a second... There isn’t enough stuff here,” he whispered.
His eyes darted back and forth, following the beam of the flashlight to see if he had missed any. As he was looking, a faint scratching sound from overhead drew his attention. Cringing backward onto the floor, he was just starting to swing the flashlight around and up when something dropped onto his back.
Stan let out a shrill scream as the thing—whatever it was—sank tiny, sharp claws into the back of his neck and ripped the back of his head. A small part of his mind realized that the thing must have been clinging to the underside on the ceiling where he couldn’t see it, but he was consumed by searing white pain as his screaming rose louder and louder until it drowned out the high-pitched chittering sound close to his ears. His mind went blank with terror as his scalp was ripped open and blood flowed, hot and sticky down his back.
He swung out wildly with both hands, batting behind his head in a desperate attempt to dislodge the thing, but to no avail. Whatever it was, it had wrapped tiny arms around him like a clawed leech. His jackknife slipped from his sweaty grip as he thrashed about on the floor. The flashlight beam swung wildly back and forth, sweeping the inside of the tree house like a searchlight as he repeatedly hammered at the slick, skinny body that had attached itself to him.
A rabid squirrel, he thought through a numbing flood of panic. It’s a goddamned rabid squirrel!
Rolling back and forth on the floor, he reached out blindly for his knife. Several times he raised his head and slammed it back hard against the floor, hoping to kill the thing or at least knock it unconscious. With each impact, the creature let out a high-pitched squeal as it dug its claws into him all the deeper. Finally, knowing that it was his only hope to get free of the thing, Stan started crawling toward the door.
He needed room to move.
If he could get outside, get down to the ground, he just might be able to dislodge the thing by banging it against the tree trunk or something. He knew that he didn’t have much time. Tiny, razor-sharp teeth were burrowing deeply into his shoulder muscles like fish hooks, sending burning pain throughout his body.
But in his pain and panic, Stan over-reacted. Doubling his legs up underneath himself, he pushed back as hard as he could.
Too hard.
He shot out through the doorway and started falling...falling. Branches whipped past him as he plummeted downward. For a frozen instant, he knew that he was going to die as soon as he hit the ground, but then—miraculously—the underside of his left arm hooked over one of the lower branches. For an instant, his fall was halted, and in that split second, his other hand reflexively shot out and grabbed the branch. The impact jerked his body hard, slamming his teeth together hard enough so he bit off the tip of his tongue. The force also was sharp enough and strong enough to knock whatever the hell that thing was off his back. Muscles straining, Stan struggled to hold onto the branch. From down below, he heard an ear-piercing squeal when the thing hit the ground with a sick, heavy plop. Then he head a rustling of leaves as the thing scurried off into the deep brush.
“Jesus Christ! Stan! What the hell are you doing?”
The shout boomed like thunder through the woods.
Frantic and wild-eyed, Stan looked all around, trying to find the source of the voice. Tears, sweat, and blood streamed down his face and neck. His whole body was throbbing from the effort of hanging onto the tree branch. Down below, he heard the heavy tread of footsteps getting closer. In the dense twilight brush below, he finally made out his brother’s face, glowing eerily like a pale moon as he looked up at him.
“How the hell did you get yourself—”
Chet’s voice was cut off by a loud cracking sound as the branch holding him suddenly snapped. Stan pictured his body as nothing more than a piece of dust, being sucked into a vacuum cleaner as he plummeted down toward the night-stained ground. He landed with his left leg cocked behind his back; but he was unconscious by the time he hit the ground, so he never felt the snap that broke his leg in two places...at least not until several minutes later, once Chet had raced back to the house for help and returned with his mother and two guys from MedCu.
7
With its red warning lights flashing, the ambulance raced through the night, taking the curves of Route 25 perhaps a bit faster than it should have. Stan’s leg was completely numb. He half-suspected that it had been cut off. The physician’s assistant had given him a shot of something for the pain, but his neck and shoulders still felt like they were burning. His eyes were narrowed to slits as he looked up from the ambulance stretcher at his mother. The physician’s assistant, whose badge read Mark Cochran, was also leaning over him.
“I told you I didn’t want you going out there to that tree house,” his mother said, her voice a perfect mix of anger an
d concern as she stared down at her boy. “I never liked you playing out there!”
Stan wanted to say something in his defense, but he knew if he opened his mouth, the only sound that would come out would be a faint whimper...or else a scream.
In spite of everything Mark Cochran had done, cleaning and dressing his head and neck wounds, it still felt as though that giant-maggot thing was clinging to him, digging and gouging deeply into his flesh.
“I’ll just bet it was one of those rabid squirrels I warned you about. It was, wasn’t it?” his mother asked, unable to keep the sharp accusation out of her voice. “Just like I was telling you yesterday... It was one of those rabid squirrels.”
Mark Cochran cocked one eyebrow and looked at her with a half smile as if he thought she might be kidding. Then he looked at Stan, who shook his head in weak denial. Tears were pouring from his eyes, and he was ashamed to be crying in front of his mother and this guy he didn’t even know.
“Well, whatever it was, Mrs. Walters” Mark Cochran said mildly, “it’s too bad it got away.” He looked down at Stan and clasped him firmly on the shoulder. Turning to Stan’s mother, he said softly, “We’ll have to keep a watchful eye on those cuts for a few weeks to make sure they don’t get infected.”
Stan’s mother bit down hard on her lower lip, sighed deeply, and shook her head. “If only you had listened to me, Stan,” she whispered, “this never would have happened.”
8
“Look out!” the man riding up front with the ambulance driver suddenly shouted.
They were approaching the construction site where the state highway workers had been blasting away at Watchick Hill. The asphalt ended abruptly, and the road changed to hard-packed dirt, but that wasn’t what had drawn the man’s attention. Off to his right, in the flickering light of the yellow warning light, he had seen a dark blur of motion. Before the driver could respond to his warning, something small and fast-moving darted out of the woods, heading toward the trench on the opposite side of the road.
