03 - Monster Blood (7 page)

“Huh-uh.” Andy shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Put
it down, will you?” She pointed to the corner behind the red leather couch. “Put
it over there. It’s giving me the creeps.”

“Giving
you
the creeps!?” Evan cried. “What am I going to do? Every
time I turn around, it grows some more. It’s growing faster than Trigger!”

“Hey!” they both cried at once.

Both had the same thought, the same frightening memory. Both suddenly
remembered that Trigger had eaten a ball of the green gunk.

“Do you think…” Evan started.

“Maybe…” Andy replied, not waiting for him to finish his thought. “Maybe
Trigger’s growing because he ate the Monster Blood.”

“What am I going to
do
?” Evan wailed, pacing the room nervously, his
hands shoved into his jeans pockets. “The stuff is getting bigger and bigger,
and so is poor Trigger. I’m all alone here. There’s no one who can help me. No
one.”

“What about your aunt?” Andy suggested, staring at the bucket on the floor in
the corner. “Maybe Kathryn can think of something—”

“Are you kidding? She can’t hear me. She doesn’t
want
to hear me. She
hates
me. She just sits at her jigsaw puzzle and argues with that horrible black cat all day.”

“Okay. Forget the aunt,” Andy said, making a dispirited face.

“Perhaps if you told Dr. Forrest—”

“Oh, yeah. For sure,” Evan snapped. “He’d really believe that Trigger is
turning into a giant because I let him eat Monster Blood.”

He threw himself down on the couch. “I’m all alone here, Andy. There’s no one
to help me. No one I can even talk to about this.”

“Except me?”

“Yeah,” he said, locking his eyes on hers. “Except you.”

She plopped down on the other end of the couch. “Well, what can I do?” she
asked hesitantly.

He jumped up and carried the bucket over. “Take some of this. Let’s split it
up.”

“Huh? Why don’t we just toss it in the trash?” she asked, staring down at it.
The green gunk was pushing up near the top of the bucket.

“Toss it? We can’t,” he said.

“Sure, we can. Come on. I’ll show you.” She reached for the bucket handle,
but he shoved it out of her reach.

“What if it outgrows the trash can?” he asked. “What if it just keeps
growing?”

Andy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Also, I
have
to save it,” Evan continued excitedly. “If it’s really
the thing that’s causing Trigger to grow, I’ll need it as proof. You know. To show the doctors or whatever. So they can cure Trigger.”

“Maybe we should call the police,” Andy said thoughtfully, tugging at a
strand of hair.

“Oh. Sure,” Evan replied, rolling his eyes. “They’ll really believe us. For
sure. ‘We bought this stuff in a toy store, officer, and now it’s growing bigger
and bigger and it’s turning my dog into a giant monster.’”

“Okay, okay. You’re right,” Andy said. “We can’t call the police.”

“So, are you going to help me?” Evan demanded. “Will you take some of this
stuff?”

“I guess,” she said reluctantly. “But just a little.” She climbed to her
feet, carefully stepping around the bucket. “I’ll be right back.”

She left the room, then quickly returned, carrying an empty coffee can. “Fill
’er up,” she said, smiling.

Evan stared at the coffee can. “That’s
all
you’re going to take?” he
complained. Then he immediately softened his tone. “Okay. Okay. It’s a help.”

Andy crouched down and dipped the coffee can into the middle of the bucket.
“Hey!” she cried out. Her hands flew up and she tumbled back onto the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Evan hurried over to her.

“It was pulling the coffee can in,” she said, her features tight with fear
and surprise. “Sucking it. Look.”

Evan peered into the bucket. The coffee can had disappeared under the
surface. “Huh?”

“I could feel it pulling,” Andy said shakily. She regained her perch over the
bucket.

“Let’s see,” Evan said, and plunged both hands into the middle of the Monster
Blood.

“Yuck,” Andy said. “This is really gross.”

“It’s pulling. You’re right,” Evan agreed. “It feels like it’s pulling my
hands down. Wow. It’s so warm. As if it’s alive.”

“Don’t say that!”
Andy cried with a shudder. “Just get the can out,
okay?”

Evan had to tug hard, but he managed to pull up the coffee can, filled to the
top with the quivering green substance. “Yuck.”

“You sure I have to take this?” Andy asked, not reaching for it even though
he was holding it out to her.

“Just for a little while,” he said. “Till we think of a better plan.”

“Maybe we could feed it to the Beymer twins,” Andy suggested, finally taking
the can.

“Then we’d have
giant
Beymer twins,” Evan joked. “No, thank you.”

“Seriously, you’d better watch out for them,” Andy warned. “If Trigger scared
them away this morning, they’ll be looking to get back at you. They really think
they’re tough dudes, Evan. They can be vicious. They could really hurt you.”

“Thanks for trying to cheer me up,” Evan said glumly. He was still pulling tiny, clinging clumps of the Monster Blood off
his hands and tossing them into the bucket.

“I was watching a video before you came over. The first Indiana Jones movie.
Want to watch it?”

Evan shook his head. “No. I’d better go. Aunt Kathryn was busy making dinner
when I left. Chopping up some kind of meat. Another great dinner, sitting there
in silence, being stared at by Aunt Kathryn and her cat.”

“Poor Evan,” Andy said, half teasing, half sympathetic.

He picked up the bucket, now only two-thirds full, and let her walk him to
the front door. “Call me later, okay?” she asked.

He nodded and stepped outside. She closed the door behind him.

He was halfway to the sidewalk when the Beymer twins slipped out from behind
the evergreen hedge, their hands balled into red, beefy fists.

The brothers stepped out of the shadows of the hedge. Their short blond hair
caught the late afternoon sunlight. They were both grinning gleefully.

Evan stood frozen in place, staring from one to the other.

No one said a word.

One of the Beymers grabbed the bucket from Evan’s hand and tossed it to the
ground. The bucket hit with a heavy
thud,
and its thick, green contents
oozed onto the grass, making disgusting sucking sounds.

“Hey—” Evan cried, breaking the tense silence.

He didn’t have a chance to say more.

The other twin punched him hard in the stomach.

Evan felt the pain radiate through his body. The punch took his breath away.
He gasped for air.

He didn’t see the next punch. It landed on his cheek just below his right
eye.

He howled in pain, and his hands flailed the air helplessly.

Both brothers were hitting him now. And then one of them gave Evan’s
shoulders a hard shove, and he went sprawling onto the cool, damp grass.

The pain swept over him, blanketing him, followed by a wave of nausea. He
closed his eyes, gasping noisily, waiting for the sharp ache in his stomach to
fade.

The ground seemed to tilt. He reached out and grabbed it, and held on tightly
so he wouldn’t fall off.

When he finally managed to raise his head, Andy was standing over him, her
eyes wide with alarm. “Evan—”

He groaned and, pushing with both hands, tried to sit up. The dizziness, the
spinning, tilting grass, forced him to lie back down.

“Are they gone?” he asked, closing his eyes, willing the dizziness away.

“Rick and Tony? I saw them run away,” Andy said, kneeling beside him. “Are
you okay? Should I call my mom?”

He opened his eyes. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”

“What
happened
?” she demanded.

He raised a hand to his cheek. “Ow!” It was already swollen, too painful to
touch.

“They beat you up?”

“Either that or I was hit by a truck,” he groaned.

A few minutes later—it seemed like hours—he was back on his feet,
breathing normally, rubbing his swollen cheek. “I’ve never been in a fight
before,” he told Andy, shaking his head. “Never.”

“It doesn’t look like it was much of a fight,” she said, her expression still
tight with concern.

He started to laugh, but it made his stomach hurt.

“We’ll pay them back,” Andy said bitterly. “We’ll find a way to pay them
back. The creeps.”

“Oh. Look. The Monster Blood.” Evan hurried over to it.

The bucket lay on its side. The green gunk had oozed onto the grass, forming
a wide, thick puddle.

“I’ll help you get it back in the bucket,” Andy said, leaning over to stand
the bucket up. “Hope it doesn’t kill the grass. My dad’ll have a cow if his
precious lawn is hurt!”

“It’s so heavy,” Evan said, groaning as he tried to push the glob into the
bucket. “It doesn’t want to move.”

“Let’s try picking up handfuls,” Andy suggested.

“Whoa. It doesn’t want to come apart,” Evan said in surprise. “Look. It
sticks together.”

“It’s like taffy,” Andy said. “Ever see them make taffy in those taffy machines? The stuff just sticks together in one big
glob.”

“This isn’t taffy,” Evan muttered. “It’s disgusting.”

Working together, they managed to lift the entire green ball and drop it into
the bucket. The stuff made a sickening sucking sound as it filled the bucket,
and both Evan and Andy had trouble pulling their hands out of it.

“It’s so sticky,” Andy said, making a disgusted face.

“And warm,” Evan added. He finally managed to free his hands from it. “It’s
like it’s trying to swallow my hands,” he said, wiping his hands on his T-shirt.
“Sucking them in.”

“Take it home,” Andy said. She looked up to the house to see her mother
motioning to her from the front window. “Uh-oh. Dinnertime. I’ve got to go.” Her
eyes stopped at his swollen cheek. “Wait till your aunt sees you.”

“She probably won’t even notice,” Evan said glumly. He picked up the bucket
by the handle. “What are we going to do with this stuff?”

“We’ll take it back to the toy store tomorrow,” Andy replied, taking long
strides across the lawn to the house.

“Huh?”

“That’s what we’ll do. We’ll simply take it back.”

Evan didn’t think it was such a hot idea. But he didn’t have the strength to
argue about it now. He watched Andy disappear into the house. Then he headed
slowly back to Kathryn’s, his head throbbing, his stomach aching.

Creeping along the wall of the house, he slipped into the garage through the
side door to hide the bucket of Monster Blood. Sliding it behind an overturned
wheelbarrow, he realized that the bucket was full to the top.

But I gave Andy a big hunk of it, he thought. The bucket had been only
two-thirds full.

I’ll have to find a bigger place to put it, he decided. Tonight. Maybe
there’s a box or something in the basement.

He crept into the house, determined to clean himself up before seeing
Kathryn. She was still busy in the kitchen, he saw, leaning over the stove,
putting the last touches on dinner. He tiptoed up the stairs and washed up.
Unable to do much about his swollen, red cheek, he changed into a clean pair of
baggy shorts and a fresh T-shirt, and carefully brushed his hair.

As they sat down at the dining room table, Kathryn’s eyes fell on Evan’s
swollen cheek. “You been in a fight?” she asked, squinting suspiciously at him.
“You’re a little roughneck, aren’t you? Just like your father. Chicken was
always getting into scrapes, always picking on boys twice his size.”

“I wasn’t exactly picking on them,” Evan muttered, spearing a chunk of beef
from his stew with his fork.

All through dinner, Kathryn stared at his swollen cheek. But she didn’t say
another word.

She doesn’t care if I’m hurt or not, Evan thought miserably.

She really doesn’t care.

She didn’t even ask if it hurts.

In a way, he was grateful. He didn’t need her getting all upset, making a
fuss because he was in a fight, maybe calling his parents in Atlanta and telling
them.

Well… she couldn’t call his parents. She couldn’t use the phone, since
she couldn’t hear.

Evan downed his big plate of beef stew. It was pretty good, except for the
vegetables.

The silence seemed so
loud.
He began thinking about his problem—the
Monster Blood.

Should he tell Kathryn about it?

He could write down the whole problem on the yellow pad and hand it to her to
read. It would feel so good to tell someone, to have an adult take over the
problem and handle it.

But not his Aunt Kathryn, he decided.

She was too weird.

She wouldn’t understand.

She wouldn’t know what to do.

And she wouldn’t care.

Andy was right. They had to carry the stuff back to the toy store. Give it
back. Just get rid of it.

But in the meantime, he had to find something to keep it in.

Evan waited in his room until he heard Kathryn go to bed, a little after ten
o’clock. Then he crept down the stairs and headed out to the garage.

It was a cool, clear night. Crickets sent up a relentless curtain of noise.
The black sky glittered with tiny specks of stars.

The round beam of light from the flashlight in his hand darted across the
driveway, leading Evan to the dark garage. As he entered, something scuttled
across the floor near the back wall.

Maybe it was just a dead leaf, blown by the wind when I opened the door, he
thought hopefully.

He moved the flashlight unsteadily, beaming it onto the overturned
wheelbarrow. Then the light darted across the garage ceiling as he bent down,
reached behind the wheelbarrow, and pulled out the bucket of Monster Blood.

He moved the light to the center of the bucket, and gasped.