Substitute Creature

by Charles Gilman

  “I’m sorry,” Robert stammered. “I was—”

  Mac turned to Mrs. Arthur. “You need to leave,” he said. “The driveway’s turning into a ski slope. It’s a mess. Pretty soon it won’t be safe to drive.”

  “I’m just getting the lights,” Mrs. Arthur said.

  “I’ll get the lights,” Mac said. “It’s my job. Take your son and go before it’s too late.”

  Robert was relieved. In all the excitement over the blizzard, Mac seemed to have forgotten to tell his mother about the ledge.

  “What about you?” Mrs. Arthur asked.

  “I’ve got my truck. I’ll be right behind you,” Mac promised. “Now please, go home. Drive safe.”

  Robert and his mother gathered their things and left the building through the front entrance. Even though Mac had just shoveled the walkway, it was already covered with a fresh layer of powder. He hadn’t exaggerated: The snow was coming down harder than ever.

  Despite the blizzard, Robert and his mother both stopped to admire the strange surreal beauty of the landscape—the rolling lawns draped in white, the tall trees frosted with snow. All the buses were gone. All the students were gone. All except one shivering boy standing beneath a lamppost and looking up and down the driveway. Lionel Quincy.

  Mrs. Arthur hurried over to him. “What are you doing here?” she exclaimed. “Why aren’t you on a bus?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like buses.”

  “How do you expect to get home?”

  Lionel held up his cell phone. “I left my father a voicemail. I’ve asked him to send a driver.”

  Lionel was one of Robert’s least favorite classmates. He boasted to anyone who would listen that his father was the inventor of PerfectPrice, a website worth millions of dollars. Lionel had recently moved to Dunwich, Massachusetts, and he was constantly bragging about all of his rich friends back in New York City.

  Mrs. Arthur frowned. “Let me explain something, Lionel. This is a state of emergency. No chauffeur is going to slog through this mess. You were supposed to get on a bus.”

  “Fine,” Lionel shrugged. “Call me a new bus and I’ll get on it, all right?”

  “There are no more buses! You missed the last one!” She shook her head, exasperated. “I’ll have to drive you home myself. Where do you live?”

  “Wait, what?” Robert asked.

  “Up in the Heights,” Lionel said.

  The houses in the Heights were among the nicest in town—giant mansions built on tall cliffs overlooking the ocean. But to get there, you had to ascend a series of absurdly steep hills.

  “Our car will never make it,” Robert said.

  “We have to try,” Mrs. Arthur said. “Everyone else is gone. I can’t leave him waiting in the middle of the blizzard.”

  Together they trudged across the driveway, leaning into the wind, faces down. Robert sank up to his ankles in the snow. The faculty parking lot was empty except for Mac’s pickup truck and his mother’s tiny two-door Honda; cocooned beneath a white blanket, the vehicles looked like giant marshmallows. Robert brushed the side windows with his gloves while Mrs. Arthur cleared off the windshields with an ice scraper. Lionel stood by, his hands shoved in pockets, waiting for them to finish.

  “That’s good enough,” Mrs. Arthur said. “Get in.”

  Lionel climbed into the backseat and wrinkled his nose. “It smells funny.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Mrs. Arthur said. “We had an accident back in October.” The accident being that Robert left his window open on the day of a sun-shower, and the upholstery had been plagued with mold and mildew ever since. Robert was glad his mother didn’t go into detail.

  Lionel lifted his shirtfront over his mouth and nose. “Can you crack the windows or something?”

  “We’re driving through a blizzard,” Mrs. Arthur reminded him. “I’m not opening the windows.”

  She turned the key in the ignition, and the engine growled and sputtered without turning over. This was typical; on really cold days, their car needed a lot of coaxing before it would start.

  Lionel leaned forward from the backseat. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter,” Robert said.

  Mrs. Arthur tried again, and the engine made a desperate groaning wheeze. Snow was spotting up the windshield, slowly dimming the interior of the car.

  “Something’s the matter,” Lionel said. “You put a key in a car, it’s supposed to turn on.”

  “It’ll turn on,” Mrs. Arthur said.

  She tried again: no luck.

  “Give it a minute,” Robert said. “Let it rest.”

  Fat snowflakes pelted the windshield, plugging the gaps like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place.

  Lionel brought out his cell phone and punched in a number. “I’ll try my dad again,” he said. “I’m sure he can send someone.” He held the phone to his ear, waited a moment, and then frowned. It didn’t seem to be working.

  “One more try,” Mrs. Arthur said.

  She turned the key again and this time, incredibly, the engine purred to life, as if it had been functioning normally all along.

  “Buckle up,” she said.

  Robert and Lionel fastened their seat belts and Mrs. Arthur flipped on the wipers, slashing a view through the windshield. She pressed on the gas pedal but the tires spun helplessly over the ice. For a moment, it seemed like they might not be going anywhere.

  But then the wheels found traction and the Honda surged forward, hurtling out of the parking lot and cutting fresh tracks down the middle of the driveway.

  It was a narrow quarter-mile road that stretched past the school, the athletic arena, and the tennis courts. Mrs. Arthur leaned forward in her seat, both hands clutching the wheel, puttering along at fifteen miles an hour.

  “This is going to take forever,” Lionel moaned.

  Mrs. Arthur ignored him. Snow pelted the windshield and the wiper blades couldn’t push it away fast enough. She turned the steering wheel, following the curve of the driveway as it passed through a dense grove of pine trees. The snow had already risen above the curb; it was impossible to see where the road ended and the forest began.

  “You need to go faster,” Robert said.

  “It’s too icy.”

  “We won’t make it up the hill.”

  The school driveway ended with a steep climb to Phillips Avenue, the main highway into town. Mrs. Arthur pressed on the gas, increasing their speed to thirty.

  “Faster,” Robert said. “We need momentum.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Mrs. Arthur insisted. “I can’t see.”

  “We’re going to get stuck.”

  “That’s better than hitting a tree.”

  But Mrs. Arthur increased her speed anyway, accelerating all the way to forty miles an hour. The car refused to travel in a straight line; it swerved left and right, sliding all over the ice. The wipers were tossing snow across the windshield; there was no chance of seeing the hill in this mess, but Robert kept waiting to feel it, knowing that gravity would slow their ascent.

  And then, all at once, they were upon it:

  A blue minivan, stalled in the middle of the road.

  “Mom!” Robert shouted.

  Mrs. Arthur cut the steering wheel and hit the brakes, but it was too late. Robert put out his hands, bracing himself for impact, and the vehicles collided with a sickening crunch.

  The next time Robert opened his eyes, he had snow on his face and chest. He appeared to be outside, but somehow he was still wearing a seat belt. His lap was filled with thousands of tiny glittering diamonds. Robert reached down and cupped them with his gloved hands.

  I’m rich, he thought.

  “Are you okay?” Mrs. Arthur was saying. “Robert, honey, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  And just like waking from a dream, Robert was back in the Honda. He realized he was merely looking outside; the passenger-side window had shattered, and the di
amonds in his lap were actually tiny pebbles of tempered glass.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m all right.”

  Mrs. Arthur turned around to face Lionel. “How about you? Is everything okay?”

  “Give me a break,” he said. “Nothing about this situation is okay.”

  Mrs. Arthur hurried out of the car. Robert reached to open his door but it wouldn’t budge. He shook the broken glass from his lap, then climbed over the gearshift and exited through his mother’s door.

  Robert had walked along this road every day for six months—but seeing it now, shrouded in snow, it looked wholly unfamiliar. It may as well have been Alaska.

  Mrs. Arthur was already helping the other driver out of her vehicle. She was a tall thin woman who walked with a limp. Robert recognized her as Miss Carcasse, the substitute teacher who chased him and Glenn from the library.

  “I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “This is all my fault.”

  Robert’s mother put an arm around her. “You’re in shock. I want you to relax and take a deep breath. Do you have a coat?”

  All Miss Carcasse wore was a blue turtleneck and slacks—no hat, no scarf, no gloves. “I’m afraid I forgot it,” she said. “I was so anxious to get home, I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  Mrs. Arthur gave her car keys to Robert. “Go get the picnic blanket. We need to keep her warm.”

  Robert puzzled over Miss Carcasse’s remarks as he unlocked the trunk of the car. Who leaves school in the middle of a blizzard and forgets to put on a jacket?

  He gave the blanket to his mother and she draped it around Miss Carcasse’s shoulders. Up close, even in the middle of a blizzard, he could still smell her awful perfume. She was explaining that she had tried and failed to get her minivan up the hill. “Three times I tried, but it’s just too icy. And now we’re stuck here. What are we going to do?”

  The cars weren’t going anywhere without the help of a tow truck. Already they were disappearing beneath a layer of white powder, as if the surrounding landscape was trying to swallow them up.

  “I’ll hike into town,” Robert volunteered. “I’ll find a grown-up and bring back help.”

  “No way,” his mother said. “Too dangerous.”

  “We can’t stay here. What are we going to do?”

  The wind whipped past them, a slow and steady howling through the trees. Robert turned toward town—or where he thought town might be. He couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead. The wind was blowing so hard, it was difficult to keep his eyes open. The howling grew louder and louder, and Robert realized it wasn’t wind at all.

  It was an engine.

  “Car!” he exclaimed.

  His mother just stared at him.

  “Someone’s coming! Get out of the road!”

  Then the wind subsided and Mrs. Arthur heard the engine, too. It was revving up, accelerating as it approached the base of the hill. She took Miss Carcasse by the arm and hurried her to safety. Robert was following them until he remembered that Lionel Quincy was still inside the Honda. The boy was lying across the backseat with his eyes closed, listening to headphones.

  “Lionel!” Robert opened the door, reached in the backseat, and yanked off the headphones. “Someone’s coming!”

  “Is it my driver?”

  “No, not your driver. Get out of the car!”

  Headlights pierced through the snowfall, glinting in the rearview mirror, and at once Lionel understood the danger: low visibility, two wrecked cars, and no time to stop. He grabbed his phone and leapt from the vehicle just as a black pickup truck emerged from the blizzard.

  The driver turned the wheels and hit the brakes but momentum carried the truck forward; it smashed into the Honda, pinning it against the minivan with a squeal of metal and the loud bang! of a punctured tire. The impact shook the snow from the surrounding trees.

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Arthur gasped.

  The door to the truck swung open and Maniac Mac hopped out, wide eyed and panicked. “Is everyone all right?” he asked. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “We’re all fine,” Robert said.

  Mac ran over to check the disabled vehicles. Only when he confirmed they were empty did he stop to take a breath.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t see you until it was too late.”

  “We know,” Mrs. Arthur said. “The same thing happened to us.”

  Mac inspected the damage on his vehicle. The truck slouched forward on a flattened front tire. The headlights were shattered. The hood and grill were crumpled inward like an accordion. Robert thought the undamaged parts of the truck didn’t look much better. It was a real clunker, at least thirty years old and covered with dents and scratches. And yet Mac seemed devastated by the accident.

  “I think I should walk into town,” Robert told him. “It’s our only option.”

  Mac shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll never make it in this weather.”

  “Exactly,” Mrs. Arthur said. “We’re staying together.”

  Lionel was trying his cell phone again, pacing in circles with the device raised above his head, searching for a signal. When he didn’t find one, he threw down the phone and stomped on the screen with the heel of his boot. “Cheap piece of garbage!”

  “Relax, it’s just the storm,” Mac said. “It’s interfering with the cell towers. Your phone’s working just fine.”

  Not anymore, Robert thought. The cell phone lay scattered in pieces on the road. Robert could think of dozens of occasions when he’d asked his mother for his own cell phone, but her answer was always no, not until he saved enough money to pay for it himself.

  “Mac, what about the school?” Mrs. Arthur asked. “Don’t you have the keys?”

  He nodded. “That’s a good idea. There’s a land line in the principal’s office,” he said. “We can call for help and stay there until someone comes.”

  They each gathered their belongings from the vehicles and began the long march back to the building. Miss Carcasse could barely move in the deep snow; Mac wrapped an arm around her waist, helping her along. “Careful!” she said. “Not so rough!”

  “All right, take it easy,” he said.

  She stumbled forward and something dropped out of her side. Robert stopped to collect it and realized it was a greasy purple earthworm, six or seven inches long. He left it alone and hurried to catch up with the group.

  “I’m sorry about your truck,” Mrs. Arthur said.

  “Trucks can be replaced,” Mac said. “We’re lucky none of us were killed.”

  “There are fates worse than death,” Miss Carcasse said.

  “What does that mean?” Robert asked.

  “She’s in shock,” Mrs. Arthur whispered to Mac. “She’s been a little confused since the accident.”

  “What I mean is that humans have always feared dying,” Miss Carcasse continued. “But there are worse things in this universe. Forces beyond our knowledge or comprehension.”

  “Like what?” Robert asked.

  “Please,” his mother interrupted. “Let’s stay focused on the positive.”

  They emerged from the grove of pine trees and the blizzard surrounded them; it looked more like a sandstorm than any snowfall Robert had ever seen. Fortunately Mac’s tires had left a convenient trail through the oblivion. After several minutes of walking, an outline of the school slowly came into view.

  “We’ll use the main entrance,” Mac said. “It should be straight ahead.”

  The building seemed foreboding beneath the gloom of the blizzard. All the windows were dark except for a single classroom on the second floor. Karina Ortiz sat within the window frame, staring out at the falling snow.

  Mrs. Arthur saw her and gasped.

  “I forgot someone!”

  Karina’s performance was so convincing, Robert had to remind himself she was only pretending to be a frightened student left behind in a snowstorm. She even managed to fake some tears. “I d-d-don’t know what happened,” she blubbered
. “I was reading a book in the library and I guess I fell asleep. When I woke up, everyone was gone. And all the lights were off. I was so scared. I thought I would be trapped here all by myself—”

  “There, there,” Mrs. Arthur said, reaching to comfort her. Karina backed away just in time. “Have we met before? Did you come for your vision and hearing test last month?”

  All Lovecraft Middle School students had their eyes and ears examined by the school nurse once a year. All the living students, that is.

  “We met at the Halloween dance,” Karina reminded her. “The night Robert was elected student council president. I’m Karina Ortiz.”

  “I knew you looked familiar,” Mrs. Arthur said.

  They were all gathered in the lobby just inside the main entrance. No one had removed hats or gloves or scarves; they were all still thoroughly chilled. Miss Carcasse stood near the doors to the outside, watching the snow and occasionally squinting, as if she were looking for something.

  “Let’s go to the principal’s office,” Mac said.

  He used his keys to open the door, and the others followed. It was a large room with four desks for assistants and smaller, separate offices for the principal and her associates. Mrs. Arthur picked up a phone and dialed 9-1-1 while Mac turned on a television and searched for a weather report. Miss Carcasse went over to the window, opened the blinds, and continued watching the snow.

  Karina stood next to Robert. “What’s the deal with her?”

  “My mother thinks she’s in shock,” Robert said, “but if you ask me, she was acting weird before the accident.” He told her all about Miss Carcasse’s strange behavior in the library.

  “She’s holding something,” Karina whispered. “Look at her hands. What’s she doing?”

  It was a small gold object that resembled a pocket watch—but instead of a traditional clock face, this device had a dial that was numbered 0 to 100. Robert moved closer for a better look and saw the needle was pointing to 18. Miss Carcasse noticed him looking and put the device in her pocket.

  “Over here, everybody!” Mac called.