The Tell-Tale Start (8 page)

THE
Poe family’s car trip to Kansas proceeded for hundreds of miles with little to report besides occasional stops for gasoline and a few nights spent in roadside motels. The hours passed easily for Edgar and Allan, who sat in the backseat of the family’s Volvo wagon reading their favorite series, True Stories of Horror. Each boy absorbed not only the content of the book in his own hands, but also whatever his brother was reading. As their two sets of eyes scanned two sets of pages, their shared minds were flooded with twice the ideas and images—a fantastic combination of ax-wielding lunatics, vengeful ghosts, mad scientists, mythical monsters, and evil spirits.

But just west of St. Louis, a problem arose.

Edgar and Allan were coming to the last few pages of their last two books.

“Over there!” Allan called, unbuckling his seat belt and tapping frantically on Uncle Jack’s shoulder.

In the distance, the boys had spied a shopping center. They saw the signs for a giant electronics store, a giant sporting-goods store, a giant toy store, and, most important, a giant bookstore with escalators, a DVD section, a café, and many books, including the entire sixty-two-volume True Stories of Horror series—or so they hoped.

“Pull over, Uncle Jack. We need more books,” Allan said.

Uncle Jack’s eyes remained focused on the road ahead. “Why don’t you two just trade books with each other?”

The boys rolled their eyes.

“Actually, I could use a bathroom break, Jack,” Aunt Judith said.

Uncle Jack nodded and got off at the next exit. “Fifteen minutes,” he said as he parked.

Once inside the bookstore, Aunt Judith bee-lined for the women’s restroom, Uncle Jack headed for the magazines, and the boys went to the information
desk, where a tall blonde woman (nametag: Jeanine) tapped on a keyboard. When she turned to look at the boys, she took off her jeweled reading glasses, letting them drop and dangle from the equally jeweled chain around her neck.

“Hey, you two are twins,” she said.

Allan and Edgar did not dignify the comment with an answer. “Do you have the True Stories of Horror series, specifically numbers twenty-four through—”

“And hey,” she continued, “you look just like that famous writer.”

This happened from time to time.

“You know the one,” she continued, pointing to the poster-sized caricatures of famous writers that hung on the walls of the giant store.

Though the boys were eager to get their hands on the new books, they couldn’t pass up an opportunity for a little fun. “William Shakespeare?” Edgar suggested.

“No,” she answered.

“Walt Whitman?” Allan inquired.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, turning to the bearded caricature of Whitman on the wall above the literature section. “Wait, no. It’s somebody else.”

“Emily Dickinson,” Allan suggested innocently.

Shakespeare

Whitman

Dickinson

“No, I’m not kidding, boys. You two look like, hmmm…” She turned and scanned the caricatures on the opposite wall. “There he is! Up there. Edgar Allan Poe.”

She turned back to the boys. “Wasn’t he the horror one?”

Edgar nodded. “‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’”

“‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’” Allan added.

“‘The Premature Burial,’” Edgar continued.

“‘The Masque of the Red Death.’”

Jeanine made a face. “Oh, I read those stories in high school. I didn’t like them. They were too…” She searched for the word.

“Too scary?” Allan suggested.

“No. They were too…” At last, she found it: “Unrealistic.”

The boys were shocked.
Unrealistic
? Who was this woman to criticize their great-great-great-great granduncle?

“I like stories that are more
real
,” she continued. “I mean, all that horror stuff…those dark and stormy nights, interrupted only by flashes of lightning and screaming? Come on, that never happens.”

The boys’ eyes burned into her. “You don’t believe in dark and stormy nights, interrupted by flashes of lightning and screaming?”

“Well,
I’ve
never seen one.”

Edgar and Allan looked around the store—neither Uncle Jack nor Aunt Judith was anywhere to be seen. Identically wicked grins spread across their faces

“May I see that computer keyboard?” Edgar asked.

She shook her head. “That’s against the rules.”

“It’s not like we’re asking for your password to operate it,” Allan said reassuringly.

“We just want to
see
it.”

She smirked, turning the keyboard around on the counter. “If you two can guess my password, go for it.”

Big mistake.

For Edgar and Allan, passwords existed only to be passed by. They cracked their knuckles, masters of making computers do their bidding. They typed a four-handed series of commands (both tap-tap-tapping at once on the keyboard), which injected into the cyber world their wickedly playful imaginations. Of course, they did so strictly for the sake of their great-great-great-great granduncle’s literary reputation.

After a moment: ZAP!

The boys stepped away from the keyboard, their hair standing on end as the massive bookstore suddenly filled with static electricity.

The lights flickered. “Hey, what’s happening?” Jeanine asked.

The lights went out, sending the vast building into almost total darkness.

Then there was a flash and a boom, like lightning and thunder—but indoors. Was this a meteorological miracle? No, it was a set of ceiling lights flashing on for a split second with such an intense brightness that the
bulbs blew out—boom! Then another set and another, exploding in flashes and bursts.

It wasn’t quite lightning and thunder. But it
seemed
like the storm of the century.

The escalators started moving at three times their normal speed, changing directions every ten feet. Ten feet up, ten feet down, ten feet up, ten feet down…up, down, up, down, up, down. Those customers who were trapped on the terrifying thrill ride could only hold tight to the handrails, their bloodcurdling shrieks slicing through the darkened store.

Meantime, the espresso machines in the café started steaming crazily, hissing like dragons. Cash-register drawers rattled open and closed and credit-card machines beeped and whined like demons. Screaming voices came from more than just those trapped on the lunatic escalators.

Darkness, lightning, screaming…

After sixty seconds, the backup lights came on and everything returned to normal—except, of course, for the customers and employees. Many of them still cowered on the ground between the bookshelves. And no one was more frightened than Jeanine, who’d crumpled behind her information desk.

Sometimes defending great literature required extreme measures.

The twins leaned over the counter.

Jeanine remained crouched on the floor, her hands covering her head.

“What do you think now of the darkness and lightning and screaming in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories?” Edgar asked, his static-electrified hair still standing on end.

She looked up and tried to rise, but her legs were shaking too much.

“Do you still think they’re ‘unrealistic’?” Allan inquired.

Unable to speak, she meekly shook her head no.

The twins went behind the counter and helped her up, placing her shaky hands on the counter so she could balance herself.

“Jeanine, you don’t have to look up those books for us,” Edgar said.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t touch that computer for a few minutes,” Allan added as they walked away.

A five-year-old boy carrying a Dr. Seuss book tugged with his free hand on Edgar’s arm.

The twins turned to him.

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” the kindergartner said, grinning as wide as a jack-o’-lantern.

“Glad you liked it,” they answered, patting him on the head.

Moments later, Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith found their nephews in the Horror section.

“Did you two do that?” Uncle Jack demanded, walking up behind them.

“Do what?” the pair asked innocently.

Uncle Jack started rolling up his sleeves and fixed them with his most stern expression (which they rated a mere 3.5 on their 1 to 10 “sternness” scale). “Boys, I wasn’t born yesterday,” he said. “Don’t deny it.”