Lois shook her head. “Can’t,” she said. “If we’re going to stand a chance of surviving, there’s some stuff I should get.” The witch pursed her full lips in thought. “I’ll need help carrying things. I can sneak two of us in, and the other will be the get-away driver.”
“Okay,” Herb said, doing his best Dallas impression. “Let’s do this. Stanley, you’re driving. We’re gonna be coming out of there hot and heavy, so the second we get in the car, you burn rubber.”
Stanley nodded, but Lois shook her head.
“Sorry, but that won’t work. What I have in mind means we’re going to have to be really quiet. That parka of yours sounds like someone walking through a pile of dry leaves, and you can’t take it off.”
Turning to look at Stanley, she said, “I can’t make us invisible, but I can make us really hard to see. If we’re quiet, we can slip in, grab what I need, and slip out. Think you can do that?”
Stanley’s mouth went dry and his pulse pounded. The last time he’d seen the Society, they’d tied him up and tried to stab Dallas and burn Lois. Not exactly the kind of experience that left you feeling good about another encounter. He was about to say as much, but Lois and Herb were both looking at him expectantly. Well, he assumed Herb looked expectant. It was hard to tell with the goggles and facemask. Stanley sagged, resigned to his fate. His friends had saved him time and again. The least he could do was be really quiet and help Lois carry some stuff.
“Okey doke,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “G-get in, g-get out, g-get drunk, g-get laid.”
“What?” Lois asked, shocked.
“J-just something Dallas used to say,” he explained. “Boy oh b-boy, do I wish he was here.”
Lois and Stanley stepped quietly from the car, and Herb slipped into the driver’s seat. The witch closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she slowly released it, her fingers started to twist and twine.
“Urbenz fontila, byrachen ull wanthra. Shadows, heed my dire request to move unseen among the rest.”
Stanley thought he was getting to be a bit of an expert on strange. He’d seen things that most folks would agree were well outside the realm of normal. Vampires, werewolves, ‘squatches, and now zombies. He’d chatted with Herb when Herb was nothing more than a disembodied soul in an empty Milwaukee’s Best can, and had a front row seat when Lois put that soul into the body of a dead monster hunter named Randall. It was no wonder that Stanley considered himself well-versed in weird, but he quickly discovered that weird could always get weirder.
Even with the wintery sun shrouded in cold, grey clouds, everything around them cast a shadow. It was a simple fact that wherever there was light and stuff for that light to hit, there were shadows. Shadows gave things their shape, texture and depth. The underside of tree branches. The backside of leaves on the bushes between the trees. The car door handle and the wheel wells and the snowy ground beneath the car. Shadows were everywhere, and they did what shadows were supposed to do.
At least they did what shadows were supposed to do until Lois finished casting her spell. As the last syllable left her lips, all of those shadows stopped behaving like they were supposed to and started flowing into a single, growing shadow. The effect was unsettling. Stanley had never realized how important shadows were to making things look normal. As the trees and bushes and leaves and car all slowly lost their shadows, they seemed to flatten, expand, and get noticeably brighter. All of the movement that had been so perceptible just a moment before was getting harder and harder to discern. And all the while, the one remaining shadow grew and took on a life of its own. Stanley’s eyes stung and watered, but he couldn’t make himself blink. Instead, they continued to stare at the shadow as it began creeping steadily in their direction.
“L-Lois?” he asked worriedly.
The witch reached for his hand. As their fingers intertwined, she gave a reassuring squeeze.
“Just wait,” she counseled.
The shadow reached their toes, pooled up at their feet, and began to fill a shapeless space around them. Stanley squeaked nervously when his boots vanished from view, then his legs, his narrow waist, his chest.
“L-Lois?” he asked again, stretching his neck to raise his chin.
“Nothing to worry about. It’s just about done.”
The pool of shadow slipped up over his neck. He felt a cool, dry sensation as it crept up his chin. It tickled his lips and nostrils, almost causing him to sneeze, and then it was over his eyes. The disturbingly bright panorama before him darkened like he was seeing everything through heavily tinted glass.
“Let’s go,” a voice whispered. He turned his head to see who had spoken, and saw Lois’s face and hair floating in a dark, translucent sea.
“Okay,” he replied. At least, he thought he’d replied. He knew he hadn’t whispered, but even so his voice sounded impossibly soft.
Hand in hand, Stanley and Lois crept toward the house. The hunters had left the front door open, but they still had to pass through the screen door. Lois stood quietly and waited while Stanley kept squishing down his rising panic. After what felt like an eternity, Lois nodded, gently pulled the screen door open, and tiptoed inside.
The first thing Stanley saw was the man Herb had mentioned earlier, and Herb had been right. The man was ginormous. His neck alone looked as thick as Stanley’s torso. A dark shirt stretched against a broad chest and heavily muscled arms, and black track pants with white stripes down the seams strained across quadriceps that looked borrowed from a mountain gorilla. His bald head served to accentuate wide-set eyes and a broad nose. The lower half of his face was covered in a beard a shade darker than the surrounding skin. As Stanley gaped, the man smiled and spoke to someone just out of sight, his teeth flashing pearly white. The words sounded impossibly far away, preventing Stanley from discerning what the man was saying. A softly accented female voice answered, faint as the ghost of an echo, and Aletia stepped into the room.
When Stanley saw the deadly hunter, he focused intently on controlling his bladder. Before it had a chance to empty, he felt Lois gently tug his sleeve. She held a finger to her lips for silence and walked further into her living room. The shadow that enclosed them stretched and then separated. The part that went with Lois encased her completely, undulating like a giant soap bubble. She paused and then took a careful step directly between the giant and Aletia. When neither hunter registered her presence, she gave Stanley a subtle thumbs’ up and walked to a table beside the sofa. With a quick glance at Aletia and the giant, she reached out a hand and grasped a black felt sack that was about the same size as a bowling ball bag. When her fingers touched the fabric, the shadow extended from Lois’s hand and stretched over the bag.
Stanley stared in amazement as the witch walked back to his side, each step careful as a cat in a room of sleeping dogs. When she was close enough, their shadows rejoined, and she handed the bag to him.
“I’ll show you what to put in the bag,” she said quietly, her voice so soft that Stanley took most of her meaning from reading her lips.
Frightened, but resolved to do his part, Stanley gave a quick nod. Lois smiled reassuringly and worked her way back around the giant and toward a bookcase that stretched along the room’s wall. As she walked, she pointed at items and looked meaningfully at Stanley. Taking the hint, he followed in her footsteps. As he passed each item she’d indicated, he’d check to make sure that the hunters weren’t looking his way, slip it into his own concealing shadow, and deposit it in the bag. The sack gained weight as a variety of books and strange objects slowly disappeared into its mouth, but somehow always had room for each new object she pointed at.
Stanley’s meager arms were starting to shake. It felt like he was carrying half of the town’s library. He gasped quietly in relief when the witch turned and gave him the ‘OK’ sign. As one, they retraced their steps across the room. With a final glance back at the Society hunters, Lois pushed open the screen door, stepped through, and held it open for Stanley to fol
low. He took one last look at Aletia and suddenly found himself thinking of Dallas. The poor guy had really fallen for the woman, and Stanley had thought they were a cute couple. Too bad she wasn’t willing to overlook the whole werewolf thing. Small-minded, in his opinion. Folks came in lots of shapes and sizes, and had all sorts of quirks. Being a hungry, oversized wolf that walked on two legs a few nights a month shouldn’t come between two people that were in love. Just didn’t make any sense.
Stanley was still contemplating Aletia and thinking about Dallas when the third hunter appeared from Lois’s bedroom. One look, and Stanley knew the guy was bad news. If he had walked into the roughest biker bar in the county, the other guys would look like Boy Scouts next to this one. The mental image fit, seeing as how the hunter was dressed in motorcycle boots, black jeans, and a well-worn leather motorcycle jacket. A chain connected a wallet to the man’s black belt, and a crossbow rested with easy familiarity on his shoulder. The dangerous man said something to his companions, and they all shared a laugh while he fished a cigarette from the breast pocket of his jacket. Stanley was still quivering when the man started walking directly toward him.
“Stanley,” Lois whispered. “Let’s go!”
He wanted to go. He really did, but someone had swapped out his legs for pillars of ice when he wasn’t paying attention.
“Stanley!” the witch said again.
The urgency in her voice melted the ice from his joints. Lois ran ahead, but Stanley was forced to follow more slowly, burdened by the weight of the sack he carried. He was almost halfway to the car when he made the mistake of looking back. When he did, he saw the dangerous man step onto the front stoop of Lois’s house. A Zippo clicked. The man raised the lighter up to his cigarette, but stopped just short of the rolled tube of tobacco’s tip. Flame reflected in his eyes as they traced their way along a set of dragging footprints that led to… nothing. With unexpected grace, the hunter flipped his Zippo shut, slipped it into a pocket, brought the crossbow down and released a bolt.
Stanley had just enough time to yell, “Crappers!” and then all went dark.
Chapter 14
Stanley’s alarm clock was a thing of beauty. A reliable wonder of plastic and circuitry with a blue liquid crystal display.
“It’s time,” it buzzed. “It’s that time that you indicated was important. I’m so glad I was able to help wake you at this very important time.”
Stanley wished he could come up with a truly wonderful way to thank his alarm clock. Before he had a chance to express his meager gratitude, a familiar voice said, “Oh, bother. I forgot to switch off the alarm.”
Stanley opened his eyes and saw a man in his bedroom. A man holding his alarm clock. A man wearing a strange, colorless single-suit whose fabric looked almost liquid in texture, like it had been poured onto the wiry and angular body. A man with a mop of brown hair pushed into a severe part and an Adam’s apple sharp enough to cut cheese with. A man that looked exactly like him.
“Oh, this is awkward,” the man that looked like Stanley said in Stanley’s voice. “We weren’t supposed to meet, and most certainly weren’t supposed to meet like this.”
Stanley silently agreed. As near as he could tell, no one was ever supposed to meet an identical twin they never knew they had by waking up to them. He tried to put that observation into actual words, but his words had apparently left the building.
“I imagine you have some questions,” the Stanley said as he carefully set the alarm clock back on Stanley’s bedside table.
Stanley considered the Stanley. He decided to think of it as ‘the Stanley’ because that was like thinking of any number of inanimate objects. The refrigerator. The T.V. remote. The foot cream in his medicine cabinet. The Stanley. All very normal, very non-threatening things.
“Yep,” he squeaked.
“Right. Hmmm. Where to begin? As they said about the Big Bang, might as well begin at the beginning. That seems like a reasonable proposition, don’t you agree?”
Stanley found himself nodding. Obviously pleased, the Stanley sat at the foot of Stanley’s bed, eloquently crossed his legs, and rested his hands on a knee.
“I do apologize for the shock. Before I begin to quite literally talk to myself, did you need anything? Perhaps a glass of water? Or a cup of coffee? I know that’s one of your favorite things in the morning. I’d offer to make you breakfast, but that would take more time than I have to spare, I’m afraid.”
Stanley considered the offer. “Water. G-gotta stay hydrated,” he managed to say through an incredibly dry throat.
“Excellent,” the Stanley replied. “Just a moment.”
The Stanley left the room. Stanley was about to convince himself that he’d just had an incredibly odd waking dream when he heard the kitchen sink squeak on.
Not a dream, then, he decided.
The Stanley returned a moment later with two glasses and handed one to Stanley.
“How very interesting. The glasses were exactly where I would have put them. That said, you should really invest in some dinner plates,” the Stanley commented with a measured look at Stanley. Returning to his place at the foot of the bed, he took a delicate sip of water. “Now, to explain things. I, as I am certain you’ve discerned, am Stanley.”
“The Stanley,” Stanley clarified.
“Quite,” the Stanley agreed. “I am the original. The alpha. Stanley Prime, as it were. I was abducted by aliens when I was walking home from school. They had been studying and cataloguing Wisconsin’s lifeforms. Quite a tall order, I’m sure you’ll agree. Concerned about staying on schedule, they opted to enlist a human specimen to assist with their work. I was that specimen. After a brief negotiation, I found their proposed terms amenable and chose to remain with them. Are you following?”
Stanley blinked. He was most certainly not following, but didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of himself so he forced a hesitant nod. When the Stanley arced an eyebrow, he added a thumbs’ up and smiled for good measure.
“Hmmm. As I was saying, I negotiated terms with the aliens. One of the conditions for my staying was that I would be able to return to my original life whenever I chose. However, how was I to explain my absence? What would people think if I disappeared for months or years and then suddenly reappeared? I certainly couldn’t say I’d been abducted by aliens. They would think I’d lost my mind.”
“Not if you k-kept the umbrella,” Stanley offered. “You c-could show them it wasn’t lightning. No sir. If it was lightning, it w-would’ve ruined the umbrella.”
The Stanley blinked and then continued his story. “The aliens offered to create a clone, a temporary Stanley that would occupy my place in my life until I saw fit to return. They also provided that,” he added, pointing at the alarm clock. “In the event that my clone died, that would create a new clone and ensure my continued presence in my life.”
The Stanley frowned and considered his doppelganger. “They neglected to inform me that the cloning device was a prototype with a few, um, glitches. You may recall that after you were abducted, you had no recollection of the event, but all of your clothes were on backward. If only that had been the full extent of the problems… but no matter. The clone – you – served its purpose. You have occupied my life and ensured that all of my former associates still think I am alive and well and living among them. It is unfortunate that they don’t realize the full extent of my intellectual prowess,” he mused. “Also, I must admit that I am not overly fond of your life choices. Bowling? How crude.”
Stanley’s face flushed. He began to sputter a defense, but stopped when the other waved his objections aside.
“Again, no matter,” the Stanley continued after a drink of water. “As I mentioned, the device is glitchy. The aliens promised to fix it, but they’ve been so busy. Also, no one expected you to die, and we certainly didn’t expect you to die repeatedly. To the outside observer, it would appear that dying is the only thing you’re truly adept at.”
&nb
sp; The Stanley stood and crossed to the bedside table. He set his glass next to the alarm clock and squatted down to peer more closely at the little plastic box.
“I was about to finally fix it when you died again and triggered the cloning function. Which brings us to the present,” the Stanley said in a tone that indicated story time was over. “Now, that should cover all of your questions. I’ll just need a moment, and this whole ordeal will be resolved.”
The Stanley reached for the alarm clock. Stanley leaned in with interest to watch, but was distracted by the slamming of the door downstairs and the heavy pounding of footsteps. A moment later, Lois and Herb burst into his room.
“You’re alive! I knew it!” Lois exclaimed, followed by a suspicious, “Hey, wait a second…” from Herb.
The Stanley startled and jumped a clear two feet away from the bed. “Oh my. This certainly couldn’t get much worse, could it?” he gasped. In the moment before he disappeared in a flash of yellow light, he added, “No one was ever supposed to see both of us.”
“Were there just two Stanleys here?” Herb asked through his face mask, breaking the long silence that followed the vanishing of the second Stanley.
“P-pretty much,” Stanley affirmed.
The vampire pulled his mask down and slid his goggles off his head. “Lois? Was that, you know, witchy stuff?”
Lois was still looking at the empty spot that had held a second Stanley a moment before.
“No witchy stuff,” she said slowly.
Stanley flipped the covers off of him, revealing that he was already dressed. After he climbed out of bed, he went straight to his alarm clock. Examining it from every possible angle, he explained that Lois was right, it wasn’t witchy stuff.
“Aliens,” he said. “I always t-told you there was aliens, and I was right. There sure was some aliens.”
Stanley filled his friends in on his strange encounter, ending with, “And then you t-two showed up and that Stanley Prime j-just up and disappeared.”
“Unbelievable,” Lois gasped.
Undead Cheesehead (Monsters in the Midwest Book 3) Page 10
