How to Curse in Hieroglyphics
Page 3
Tweed’s eyes grew wide and Cheryl barely suppressed a meep! of glee. Had they finally hit the big time? Title picking and programming final-say had always been the exclusive domain of Pops. It was a mystery and a science all rolled into one, with the goal being the achievement of perfect balance between the double or triple bills. The combinations were worked out by a complex system of math. Or perhaps wizardry. The girls were never certain.
“And if that goes well,” Pops continued, “maybe I’ll even have you give the catalogues a look-see and you can make some new acquisitions.”
The catalogues. Mysterious. Powerful. Awesometastic collected volumes of all movie knowledge … with order forms in the back! The catalogues were like the keys to the kingdom. The twins were rendered speechless.
Pops looked back and forth between the two of them. Tufts of white, wiry hair puffed out from beneath the edge of his Dodgers cap, haloing his ears and giving him a look that fell somewhere between Albert Einstein and a scruffy, beloved teddy bear. “Well?”
The girls threw themselves at their grandfather in a sandwich-hug, almost knocking him off his feet.
“Okay, okay …” He chuckled and gave them each a squeeze. “You girls know that you’re the stars in my sky, now, don’tcha?”
“The light bulbs in the projector!” Cheryl sang out.
“The monkeys in the barrel!” Tweed grinned lopsidedly.
A two-headed monster-movie-programming wonder. At twelve years old!
4
MISSION: IMPROBABLE
The next day, the girls spent the better part of the morning riding their bikes from the drive-in into Wiggins and back again, dropping off C+T Supersitter flyers in mailboxes all over town. To the casual observer, this was all they were doing—an industrious use of their free time. A less casual observer, however, might have noticed that the twins’ furious pedalling would slow to a crawl, and their eyes would narrow, each time they rode past the field directly across the way from the drive-in, where the truck caravan from the day before had parked in the empty, grassy space between a few scattered old oaks and was setting up shop.
The twins aimed to keep a close watch on the suspicious goings-on.
Initially, the girls had been perplexed rather than alarmed. Perhaps the carnival convoy was just rest-stopping on their cross-country road trip to elsewhere. But then the hammering and sawing had started. And, in a matter of hours, a plywood fence had gone up. Tent poles began to poke up into the air. And then, an hour after that, the fence was draped with more garish banners advertising the carnival’s opening.
Which was to be that very weekend.
Cheryl and Tweed’s very first drive-in programming effort would, it seemed, face competition. And while the girls still weren’t necessarily worried—how could a silly old carnival compete with the majestic allure of the silver screen?—the realization did motivate them to apply themselves with added gusto to the triple-bill task at hand.
Late-afternoon sunlight filtered through the cracks between the planks that made up the walls of the big red barn. Dust motes and bits of hay hung in the still, warm air, glittering like gold dust, as Cheryl and Tweed sat in their Moviemobile, sorting through stacks of film canisters.
The Moviemobile was an old 1964 candy-apple-red Mercury Comet convertible with a big old TV—the ancient, boxy kind of TV—bolted to the hood. The girls had done the modifications themselves with mechanical supervision and some helpful suggestions (and heavy lifting) from Pops. On those nights when the drive-in was closed, or during inclement weather, the girls could retire to their hideout/lair in the barn and watch videotapes rented from the town’s only movie rental store, Videorama-Rama.
After so many years raised on a steady diet of movies viewed through the windshield of an automobile, Cheryl and Tweed had discovered that it was the only way they could watch movies. The only right way. So they’d retrofitted the Moviemobile—an old clunker rescued from the town wrecking yard by Pops and driven to the barn for the twins’ project. This had involved installing drink and popcorn holders, and hooking up a couple of extra drive-in speakers to the VCR and hanging them on the car windows. Now they dreamed of the day when they would finally be old enough to drive a real car. They couldn’t take the Moviemobile to the drive-in, but they had already convinced Pops to teach them the basics of how to steer, shift gears, accelerate and brake—he even let them do donut spins with his truck when the lot was empty. One day, they would drive up in style!
“Here’s another one for the ‘maybe’ pile.” Cheryl passed a canister over to Tweed, who was separating them into two neat stacks on the Moviemobile’s back seat.
“What’cha got there, ladies?”
The girls turned to see their friend Pilot Armbruster stepping through the gap in the half-open barn door. Pilot’s real name was Yeager but no one ever called him that. Not since he’d flown his first solo flight in his mom’s crop-duster at the age of eight (without parental permission, having tied a pair of wooden blocks to his feet so he could reach the rudder pedals).
Pilot was fourteen now and had been the twins’ best pal and trusty confidant ever since “The Incident,” when the Sheriff had driven them back into town in his cruiser, after they’d been found alone in the wilderness. Pilot had already been at the police station with his mom—it was his dad who had been flying the plane that had disappeared. When Pilot heard the twins’ side of the story, he was the only one who didn’t try to tell them that it must have been a mechanical mishap. Or perhaps pilot error.
“My dad isn’t capable of ‘pilot error’!” he told them fiercely at the time, grey eyes shining with angry tears he refused to shed. “He just isn’t. And that’s that!”
That was seven years earlier, and the three of them had formed a bond that had only grown stronger as they’d gotten older. Pilot wasn’t around quite as much now. He had taken on more of the responsibility for his mom’s crop-dusting business when her back had started to bother her from sitting too long in a cockpit. And just last year, she’d finally given him permission to fix up an old duster that had belonged to Pilot’s dad, so he could have a plane all his own to fly. It had become a bit of an obsession for him.
“Howzitgoin’, Flyboy?” Cheryl threw him a casual salute.
Tweed just murmured, “Dude.”
Pilot swung himself up onto the workbench beside the car, expertly shelling and chewing on a handful of sunflower seeds. He was all lanky legs and arms, wearing denim overalls and workboots with a sun-browned face and a faded baseball cap pulled over a shock of floppy blond hair.
“Did you two see what’s happening across the way?” Pilot jerked a thumb in the direction of the carnival.
Tweed shot him a warning glance and shook her head as Cheryl’s brow contracted in a glowering frown.
“Interlopers,” she muttered darkly.
“Touchy subject,” Tweed said.
Pilot got the hint and changed the topic of conversation. “Okaaay … uh … what’cha up to?” he asked.
“We get to pick this week’s triple-bill lineup!” Cheryl informed him proudly, her wide, shiny-braces grin returning almost immediately.
“Cool!” He gestured to the movie reels. “Got anything good there?”
“Heck yeah!” Cheryl waggled a canister. “In today’s lingo, these beauties would be known as ‘direct to DVD.’“
Pilot chuckled. “That’s not good”
“Au contraire, Flyboy. This stuff here is jackpot awesome. Right, Tweed?”
Tweed nodded, holding a reel up and peering at the film strip. “Pure gold, partner,” she agreed in her most enthusiastic monotone.
Cheryl nodded her chin at the reel. “We figured maybe we’d strive for educational selections on our first outing—give the movie-going public a primer on how to properly deal with the Forces of Darkness. What’s your featured creature, there, Tweed?”
“Creatures,” Tweed corrected her, glancing back and forth from the film strip to a li
sting in the Movie Hound reference guide on the seat beside her. “Plural. The Doom of Dungeon Castle, released in 1968, highlights not only vampires but also zombies, werewolves and … uh … ooh, cool … ”—her dark eyes grew wide with gothly glee—“the ‘Black Shuck,’ also known as—”
Cheryl joined her in hushed unison, “Demon Dogs of the mist-plagued moors.”
Pilot decided to deflate the girls’ seriousness a bit. “From 1968?” He whistled. “That’s a hundred years old. Y’know, one day I’m gonna show you girls a movie with this cool new thing called ‘CG.’ Didja know they stopped using lizards dressed in dinosaur costumes ages ago?”
Tweed ignored the dig and put the film reel back in its tin. Neither of the twins was particularly fond of newfangled digital technology. It seemed somehow untrustworthy. Computers and cellphones struck them as much too easy for nefarious government agencies to track. Or space aliens.
“This is definitely one for consideration.” Tweed handed the canister to Cheryl. “Very instructional.”
“They’re movies!” Pilot shook his head in amusement. “Not case studies.”
“Says you … ” Cheryl rolled an eye at him. “The guy who was, if I recall correctly, convinced that the particularly large and misshapen toad we found in the slough behind the old abandoned Harryhausen farmhouse last summer was actually the newly hatched spawn of a ferocious, man-eating swamp monster? Hmm?”
“Ya, but—”
“C’mon, Pilot.” Cheryl threw a canister lid at him Frisbee-style. He caught it one-handed. “You’re not naïve.” The way she drew the word out made it sound like nye-eeeeve. “These films contain more than just entertainment value, y’know. This here is knowledge. Uncommon knowledge.”
“The most useful wisdom is that which is not dispensed carelessly to the general population,” Tweed said, adopting the manner of a Zen master. “It is passed on through secret means. Often hidden in plain sight.”
Pilot raised an eyebrow. Tweed was getting philosophical. He knew perfectly well that he was treading on sacred ground, ribbing the girls about their beloved B movies and their paranormal fixations, but he did it anyway. He was the only one who could, really, because he knew just how far he could push the twins before it resulted in chasing. And, usually, bruising.
Tweed gave him one of her flat stares. “You know that the things that go bump in the night have always—and still do—walk among us.”
Cheryl picked up the lecture: “The stories of ancient evils? Creatures of the undead? Zombies, witches, faeries?”
“Girls—”
Tweed took over again seamlessly: “Spirits, banshees, mermaids?”
“Girls—”
“Vampires, werefolk, skinwalkers.” Cheryl was gathering steam. “Mummies, wraiths, ghosts and—not to be confused with ghosts—ghouls?”
“Okay, okay!” Pilot held up his hands in surrender. If there was one tag team you didn’t pick a fight with, it was the Pendleton-Shumacher duo when they were on a roll. He wisely went for distraction. “So … uh … seriously. What else have you got in the cans? Anything I’ve seen?”
“Well, lessee … ” Cheryl shuffled through the canisters, reading out the names of the movies from the labels. “We’ve got Brain-Eaters—I through V, Splatter Manor, the Creature Lake trilogy …”—shuffle, shuffle, shuffle—“Night of the Mummy, Return to Splatter Manor, Puddle of Blood, Facesucker, Tomb of the Mummy, Demon Date, Curse of the Mummy and Blood-Puddle.”
“You already said Blood-Puddle,” Pilot pointed out.
“I already said Puddle of Blood,” Cheryl corrected him.
“Oh.” Pilot blinked and then—not wanting to appear uncool—turned the blink into another eye-roll.
Suddenly, the ginormous black rotary-dial phone in the barn jangled loudly—a jarring, startling ring that sounded as if someone had duct-taped a brass marching band together and pushed them down a flight of stairs. Pilot jumped a few inches in the air, but the girls were used to it. Cheryl reached behind her without looking and plucked up the clunky handset.
“Yello,” she said by way of greeting.
Tweed watched, silent, as Cheryl nodded and “uh-huh”ed her way through the conversation. After two or three minutes, Cheryl said, “Well, hold the fort, we’re on our way,” and placed the handset back in its cradle.
“Sitch?” Tweed asked.
“It’s the Bottoms Boys’ birthday bash,” Cheryl said, with perhaps a hint of smug satisfaction. “Not even at the cake-’n’-cookies stage yet and there’s been a containment breach!”
The Bottoms family lived in a big rambly house on the edge of town and had four sons—quadruplets—aged three years old, named John, Paul, George and Bingo. It was their birthday party, and Mrs. Bottoms had unwisely decided to go with only two babysitters to help keep an eye on a backyard crowd of rugrats wreaking havoc in a bouncy castle. Two sitters—Cindy Tyson and Hazel Polizzi—who (thirteen years old notwithstanding) weren’t Cheryl and Tweed.
Tweed shook her head gravely. “Parents. They never listen.”
“They never do.” Cheryl jumped down off the workbench and went to get the gear bag. “Ankle-biters are on the loose, literally. Cindy got bit real hard on the leg. Might need stitches.”
Tweed nodded, frowning. “Bite radius was …?”
“Two inches. Four tooth marks. Rear lower calf muscle, from the sound of things.”
“Ha. That means she turned her back on the enemy. Sloppy work.”
“Amateur,” Cheryl agreed. “Anywho, that was Mrs. Bottoms calling for backup. Said she’d pay double our hourly rate if we could round the critters up in good time. Plus an extra fudg-ickle each as a performance bonus.” Cheryl heaved the army-surplus canvas tote up onto the work surface. “Do an equipment check. They’re heading toward grumpy old Farmer Taylor’s cornfields.”
“Roger that.”
Cheryl glanced over at Pilot. “Could use some air support, Flyboy.”
“Yeah, uh … no can do, little ladies.” Pilot grimaced. “My plane’s grounded until I fix a wicked shimmy she picked up.” He jumped off the workbench and headed for the door. “Have fun with the little monkeys, I got a date with a monkey-wrench!”
The girls waved goodbye as he left and turned directly to the task at hand.
Knowing what had happened to the other party sitters, they knew their best chance of success in retrieving the quad toddlers lay in adequate preparation and reliable training. Tweed got a pair of bungee cords out of the workbench drawer and, with Cheryl’s help, strapped a Baby-Go-Bye-Bye collapsible travel playpen to their regular equipment bag.
It made for a slightly awkward ride at first as they pedalled their bikes, the bag slung between them, once more past the carnival’s fence—behind which the angular shapes of rides were beginning to poke up—but they soon got the groove of it. Once they got to the cornfield, the twins decided that they might as well have a little fun with the job. With swift efficiency, they set up their gear, did a brief scout of the terrain and gave each other the patented C+T Secret Signal.
“Roll camera … ” said Tweed.
“Aaand … ” said Cheryl.
“…ACTION!!”
EXT. A GROVE OF WALNUT TREES -- ESTABLISHING SHOT -- DAY
A group of ESCAPED PRIMITIVES (short in
stature, almost childlike, utterly feral)
crouch on their haunches, their GRINNING
FACES smeared with GORE (or, perhaps, CAKE)!
In the near distance is a CORNFIELD.
The GROUP LEADER suddenly raises his head,
sniffs the air. He frowns angrily.
PRIMITIVE LEADER
(in a commanding voice)
Booger …?
The PRIMITIVE LEADER is clearly unhappy about
what he has seen. He begins to howl and
points toward the GROVE. The sound of BRAYING
HORNS can be heard.
PRIMITIVE LEADER (CONT’D)
Booger
booger BOOGER!!
A PAIR OF “GRR-ILLA” SOLDIERS, clad in QUASI-
MILITARY GEAR, burst through the trees,
mounted on ENORMOUS BLACK STEEDS.
CAMERA ZOOMS IN as the PRIMITIVES react:
PANIC! RAGE! SPITTING UP!!
CLOSE-UP ON: The GRR-ILLA SOLDIERS.
GRR-ILLA SOLDIER CEE
They’ll try to make a break for it.
When they do, go wide -- circle
around and drive our quarry toward
the trap!
GRR-ILLA SOLDIER TEE
(sneering)
Barbarian beasts!
The PRIMITIVES make a break for it -- RUNNING
CRAZILY toward the CORNFIELD.
CAMERA TRACKS through the CORN, racing along
with the PRIMITIVES, running like crazy!!
CUT TO: The PRIMITIVE LEADER’s Point Of View,
as he RACES DOWN an EMPTY corn row -- toward
FREEDOM!! …
SWITCH TO:
CLOSE-UP ON: The PRIMITIVE LEADER’s face --
and the shock in his BEADY EYES as he sees
what’s up ahead…
PRIMITIVE LEADER
(through a mouthful of primitive pacifier)
OOK!!
GRR-ILLA SOLDIER TEE’S mighty STEED rears
up in front of the fleeing PRIMITIVE, iron-
shod hooves flashing through the air! The
PRIMITIVE’s escape path is thwarted! SOLDIER
TEE CRACKS her WHIP!
CUT TO:
WIDE SHOT of the PRIMITIVES, hightailing it out of there!
The SOLDIERS split off!
GRR-ILLA SOLDIER CEE
(hollering)
Don’t let them get away!
GRR-ILLA SOLDIER TEE
(shouting to her horse)
Yah! Yah!
PANORAMIC OVERHEAD SHOT OF: