The Genius Files #4

by Dan Gutman

  “Mr. and Mrs. McDonald?” she said. “It’s time for your couples massage.”

  “Ewww,” said the twins.

  “You kids enjoy yourselves,” Dr. McDonald said as he stepped out of the pool and sipped from a cup of ice water. “We’ll see you in about an hour.”

  The parents went off for their massage, while Coke and Pep continued to soak in the good vibes of the pool. But soon, when their fingertips were getting pruny, the twins decided it would be wise to get out of the water and walk around the place.

  The Quapaw has several floors and lots of rooms. With no grown-ups around to tell them “You can’t go in there,” Coke and Pep went on a mission of exploration.

  When they were little, the twins had mastered the art of “sneaking around” the hallways of a hotel late at night. This consisted of slinking around while pretending to be secret agents on a dangerous mission to find the imaginary microfilm that had been locked in one of the rooms. You had to be very quiet and hug the walls to make sure that evil ninjas—or at least the hotel security guards—would not see you with their hidden surveillance cameras and night-vision goggles.

  After a few minutes of sneaking around, Coke turned a doorknob and entered a room that had two large metal boxes in it. The boxes looked a little bit like washing machines, but clearly weren’t. There was a basketball-sized hole in the top of each box.

  “Look at those things,” Pep said. “What do you think they are?”

  “They’re probably those vapor cabinets the lady was telling us about,” Coke guessed. “They’re like personal steam baths. They look cool. Let’s try ’em!”

  “We’re not allowed, remember?” Pep replied. “You have to be fourteen.”

  “Oh, come on,” Coke urged his sister. “These things must be pretty great if they won’t let kids use them. What are we gonna do, melt?”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble,” Pep argued.

  “You won’t get in trouble!” Coke said as he opened the door of the vapor cabinet on the left. “Look, we’ll be fourteen in less than a year. Mom and Dad paid a lot of money to get us in here. Have a little fun for once in your life.”

  Coke climbed into one of the vapor cabinets, pulling the stainless steel door down and popping his head through the hole on the top.

  Hesitantly, Pep did the same, climbing into the other vapor cabinet and sitting on a little bench inside it. The twins looked a little bit like a pair of turtles in their shells.

  Below, hot water created steam, which rose up through the vapor cabinet and was trapped inside.

  “This is awesome,” Coke said. “Do you feel it?”

  “I think I feel my pores opening—”

  At that moment the lights flickered and went out.

  “Oh, great,” Coke said. “A power failure.”

  As they sat in total darkness, the twins heard rustling sounds, and then the clicking of locks. Someone was just a few feet away, moving around the room.

  “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Coke, I have a bad feeling about this.”

  When the lights went back on, the twins were confronted by the most evil, the most hated, the most horrifying sight imaginable.

  Dr. Herman Warsaw.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  The twins shrank back in terror at the sight of his face. Despite the heat, he was wearing a suit and tie.

  “Well, well, well,” Dr. Warsaw said, a thin sneer on his lips. “If it isn’t the McDonald twins!”

  Coke struggled to push open the door of the vapor cabinet, but Dr. Warsaw had obviously locked it securely shut when the lights were out. Pep let out a shriek.

  “Go ahead and yell all you want, Miss Pepsi,” Dr. Warsaw told her. “Nobody will hear you, but it’s a great way to . . . let off a little steam.”

  He took a moment to laugh at his little joke.

  “What are you doing here?” Coke demanded.

  “Me?” said Dr. Warsaw. “I came here for two reasons. After our little altercation back at The Infinity Room, most of my large bones and internal organs were quite damaged, to say the least. The doctors told me I might never walk again. But they suggested I come here for my rehabilitation. The mineral waters have worked wonders to heal me. I’m almost a hundred percent now.”

  “So, what’s the other reason you came here?” asked Pep.

  “Oh, to kill you, of course,” Dr. Warsaw said matter-of-factly. “The healing waters may have saved my life, but I’m sorry to say that they will have the opposite effect on yours.”

  “You’re insane!”

  “Let us out!”

  “I never expected you two to make it this far,” Dr. Warsaw said quietly as he paced around the twins. “I thought I had gotten rid of you back in Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ll say one thing about you brats. You are quite resourceful.”

  Coke fumbled around desperately inside the vapor cabinet, trying to find a latch or switch that would open it up. He knew that some cars had such things in the trunk, in case people get trapped inside. No such luck this time.

  “Let me tell you a little story,” Dr. Warsaw said soothingly. “It’s sort of a . . . bedtime story, you might say.”

  “We don’t want to hear your stupid stories!” Coke spat. “Let us out of here and if you’re lucky we won’t press charges.”

  “Oh, you’ll be able to relate to this story,” Dr. Warsaw said. “It’s the story of the boiling frog. You see, if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will frantically try to jump out to save its own life. That makes sense, right? But if you put that same frog in a pot of cold water and put a high flame under it, the frog won’t notice that anything is wrong. It won’t be frightened. And as the temperature slowly rises, degree by degree, the frog will just sit there and allow itself to slowly boil to death!”

  “What’s your point?” Pep shouted.

  “Oh,” Dr. Warsaw said, “you might say it’s a metaphor for our inability to react to changes that occur gradually.”

  “You’re crazy!” Coke shouted. “And that story is terrible!”

  “Let us out of here!” shouted Pep.

  “Oh, I’ll let you out,” Dr. Warsaw said, his mood darkening. “But first tell me something. Where’s my wife? Where’s your aunt Judy? You must know where she is. I haven’t heard from her in three days. What did you do to her?”

  “We didn’t do anything to her!” Coke said defiantly.

  Dr. Warsaw went over to a control panel on the wall, about ten feet from the vapor cabinets.

  “I think I’ll just turn the heat up a little,” he said. “Maybe that will help you remember. They say the healing vapors are also good for the memory.”

  He turned a dial, causing a spray of hot vapor to shoot up inside the cabinets. Sweat was starting to bead up on the twins’ faces. A few salty drops fell into Coke’s eyes. They stung.

  “It’s hot!” Pep yelled. “It’s so hot!”

  “Now are you ready to tell me what you did to my wife?” asked Dr. Warsaw.

  “It wasn’t our fault!” Pep yelled at him. “We were at Graceland—”

  “No, Pep!” Coke shouted. “Don’t tell him!”

  “Shut up, Coke!” Pep said. “Aunt Judy was dressed up as an Elvis impersonator, and she pulled a gun on us, for no reason. I knocked the gun out of her hand with a Frisbee and she chased us. She found us in our RV, and she started waving lighted matches around like a crazy person. One of them set my brother’s backpack on fire. But she didn’t know that the backpack was full of fireworks. We jumped out just before the fireworks ignited, and the whole RV exploded. We never saw Aunt Judy again.”

  Silence. Coke and Pep looked at Dr. Warsaw, expecting him to lash out at them in anger. Instead, his shoulders heaved and he began to weep.

  “So that’s it,” he blubbered. “Judy was the love of my life. We were going to be together forever. And now she’s gone.”

  It was hard to feel
sorry for him, and the twins didn’t. Locked inside the steaming vapor cabinets, they just stared at the pathetic man.

  After a few minutes of sobbing, Dr. Warsaw pulled himself together. Once again, he looked like the face of indescribable evil.

  “I see,” he said, nodding his head. “I get the picture. At The House on the Rock you kids destroyed my iJolt, which was my life’s work. And you almost killed me in the process. Then you killed Archie Clone, my young apprentice, in Washington. And now, you tell me you killed my wife! What is wrong with you two? Do you think it’s normal for children to go around killing people?”

  “It was self-defense!” Pep shouted.

  “You killed your own aunt!” Dr. Warsaw shouted back.

  “She was trying to kill us!” Coke shouted.

  “Why don’t you drop the little charade?” said Dr. Warsaw wearily. “You’ve done enough. You’re not innocent little kids.”

  “B-but . . .”

  “I’m through playing childish games,” Dr. Warsaw said, going back to the control panel. “Now it’s time to finish you off once and for all.”

  “Noooooooooo!”

  “The part of the brain that controls thirst and hunger is called the hypothalamus,” Dr. Warsaw said as he fiddled with the knobs. “It also controls the body’s core temperature. Normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. I think I’ll just turn this up a little more.”

  “We don’t want to hear your biology lesson!” Coke shouted as he struggled desperately to open the vapor cabinet.

  “The body cools itself by sweating, and allowing that sweat to evaporate,” Dr. Warsaw continued. “This requires enough fluid in the body to make sweat, air circulating across the skin, and low air humidity to allow that sweat to evaporate.”

  “Shut up!” Pep yelled.

  “You’re probably getting a little thirsty by now,” Dr. Warsaw said, waving a water bottle in front of her face. “I bet you’d like a drink of this.”

  “Turn it down!” Coke said, his face bathed in sweat. “Turn the thing down!”

  “Did you say turn it up?” asked Dr. Warsaw. “Sure! I’d be happy to turn it up.”

  “Down!” Coke yelled. “Turn it down!”

  “When your body temperature gets to one hundred degrees, you have a fever,” said Dr. Warsaw. “Your sweat gland activity increases. Blood flow to the skin increases. The hair on your arms and legs lies flat so the heat is not trapped close to your body.”

  “Help!” Pep screamed. “He’s crazy! Somebody! Let us out of here!”

  “Your body temperature keeps going up,” Dr. Warsaw said. “If sweating isn’t enough to cool the body and you don’t replace the fluids, you become dehydrated. That can lead to heat exhaustion.”

  “Hellllllllp!”

  “You’re extremely thirsty now. Your skin is getting pale and clammy. You feel dizzy and weak. Your pulse is going up. Soon you’ll start to feel a throbbing headache, nausea, and muscle cramps.”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Coke shouted. “Why do you psychos always have to explain how you’re going to kill people?”

  “Oh, that’s part of the fun, Coke,” Dr. Warsaw said. “If your body temperature gets above 103 degrees, your hypothalamus becomes overwhelmed. Your body temperature regulation fails. Heat stroke sets in. You become confused and lethargic. You may have a seizure. I love seizures! Aren’t seizures fun?”

  “Turn it off!” Coke shouted. “I’ll do anything you want. Just turn it off!”

  But Dr. Warsaw ignored his pleas.

  “The next step is hyperthermia,” he said, excitement in his eyes. “Your proteins start to denature and break down. The electrical impulses in your nerves and muscles start to fire sporadically. If your temperature reaches 106 degrees, your brain is no longer able to perform the necessary functions to continue life. Vital organs shut down. You stop breathing, then your heart stops beating. And, well, I don’t need to go into all the gory details, do I?”

  “You already did!” Coke screamed.

  “So I did,” Dr. Warsaw agreed. “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  His evil, cackling laugh echoed off the walls for a few moments until Pep said something that shut him up.

  “How could Aunt Judy love you?” she screamed. “How could anyone love you?”

  Quite suddenly, Dr. Warsaw stopped laughing and began to weep uncontrollably once again. He certainly was a man of many moods.

  “I . . . can’t do it,” he said, leaning against the wall and burying his head in his arm.

  The twins breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Well, how about letting us go, then?” Pep asked.

  “What’s happening to me?” Dr. Warsaw moaned between sobs. “I used to be able to kill so easily, with no hesitation. No guilt. No remorse. And now look at me! I can’t bring myself to kill a couple of spoiled brats like you two. What’s wrong with me?”

  “Maybe you’re becoming sane,” Pep suggested, trying to remain calm. “It’s a good thing.”

  Dr. Warsaw came over to her vapor cabinet and slipped a key into the lock.

  “I tried to do something good for the world,” he sobbed. “The Genius Files was supposed to make the world a better place.”

  “We know,” Pep said quietly. “We know.”

  “If you tell anybody I let you go, I’ll kill you for sure,” he warned Pep, staring into her eyes. “That includes your parents. Do you understand me?”

  “Y-yes!” Pep stammered.

  “We won’t tell anybody,” Coke said.

  Dr. Warsaw opened both locks and stumbled out of the room sobbing, inconsolable. He was a broken man.

  Coke and Pep pushed open the doors of their vapor cabinets. They were weak and a little wobbly, but they managed to stumble out of the room and downstairs to the front desk. The woman who had greeted them was still behind the counter.

  “Did you see a weird-looking guy wearing a suit and tie?” Pep asked breathlessly.

  “No, why? Is he okay?”

  “No, he’s crazy,” Coke told her. “He must have snapped.”

  “Maybe he climbed out a window,” Pep guessed.

  They considered giving chase, but thought better of it. Dr. Warsaw was gone, hopefully forever.

  Pep remembered that her mother’s birthday would be in two days, and she dragged her brother into the little gift shop to look for a present. A package of soothing bath salts seemed like a good idea. She also bought a little refrigerator magnet in the shape of Arkansas. Pep had just finished paying when their parents came in. Both of them were beaming.

  “My Swedish massage was fantastic!” Dr. McDonald enthused. “I feel like I’m floating.”

  “I feel like I’m five years younger,” said Mrs. McDonald. “Do you kids feel more relaxed now?”

  “No!” they barked simultaneously. “Can we get out of here?”

  Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com).

  Click Get Directions.

  In the A box, type Hot Springs AR.

  In the B box, type Poteau OK.

  Click Get Directions.

  Chapter 9

  THE JOY OF ARKANSAS

  At this point, you might be getting a little bit angry because we’re eight chapters into the book and Coke hasn’t been shoved into a spinning clothes dryer yet.

  Don’t you hate that? You open a book and the author promises you in Chapter One that one of the characters is going to get shoved into a spinning clothes dryer. Then you read and read and read, and Coke still hasn’t been shoved into a spinning clothes dryer. You want to read about some good spinning in a clothes dryer, and you’re tired of waiting for it. You feel ripped off.

  Again, dear reader, I ask for your continued patience. I said that Coke would be shoved into a spinning clothes dryer, and I promise you that before the end of the story, Coke will indeed be shoved into a spinning clothes dryer.

  In fact, this book comes with a money-back guarantee. If, by the final chapter, Coke still hasn’t be
en shoved into a spinning clothes dryer, you will receive a full refund. No questions asked.

  For now, let’s get back to the story. In the car after leaving the Quapaw spa, Coke and Pep did their best to put the strange confrontation with Dr. Warsaw out of their minds. It seemed as though the guy had finally lost his marbles, and thankfully was in no condition to do anyone harm. But with crazy people, you always have to stay on your guard.

  There was something about being in the car that made the twins feel safer. The RV had felt like a rolling prison. But the little Ferrari was almost like a steel cocoon that would protect them from harm. They felt private and free.

  After some debate about whether or not they should visit the Arkansas Alligator Farm in Hot Springs (Coke was the only one who really wanted to go), the McDonalds decided to “blow this pop stand” instead.

  His mind and body refreshed, his pores fully opened, Dr. McDonald was so relaxed that he decided to turn off the GPS. He put the car in drive, and just drove. The compass said they were heading WEST, and that was good enough for him. Soon the family found themselves on Albert Pike Road, also known as U.S. Route 270.

  There are more than 53,000 square miles in Arkansas, and there are a lot of interesting places worth seeing. Inside the Ferrari, a great debate commenced to determine which sites were worth stopping at, and which ones should be bypassed.

  Dr. McDonald cast his vote for a side trip to Bentonville, where Sam Walton opened up the first Walmart in 1962.

  “There’s a museum there now,” Mrs. McDonald said, reading from her guidebook.

  “Gee, what a shock,” Coke said with his usual eye roll.

  He voted to visit the town of Eureka Springs, where the Museum of Fake Frogs is located. According to the guidebook, the old man who runs it has been accumulating frog collectibles for fifty years, and now he’s up to six thousand frog-themed items.

  Coke insisted that anything to do with frogs was cool, but if he couldn’t go there, he would instead be willing to see (and use) one of the world’s only double-decker outhouses, which is in Dover, Arkansas.

  Don’t believe me? Go ahead and look it up. That’s why they invented Google.