|
a new classic by Edward Summer |
ony
gasped. His knees buckled and he fell backwards onto the floor as the black
thing landed on his chest screeching furiously.
All at once the howling stopped. A small pink tongue reached out and licked Tony's cheek. The tongue belonged to Samantha, who was now curled up and purring contentedly upon Tony's heaving chest.
"You stupid cat!" Tony yelled. "You scared me half to death!"
"Meowrrrr?" Samantha answered. "Purrrrr," she continued, "purrrrrrrr."
Despite himself Tony reached down and scratched behind Samantha's ears.
"Meowwwp!" she commanded.
"She wants food," Teddy explained.
"She always wants food, and then won't eat what you give her," Tony said.
"Meowwppp!" Samantha said emphatically.
"She says the people next door tried to poison her with cold cat food from a can that had been opened more than three minutes before feeding it to her," Teddy translated.
"You are disgusting, Samantha." Tony gently put her onto the floor and stood up.
"Mowwwwww. Purrrrrrrrr." Samantha rubbed luxuriously against Tony's leg.
"She says…." Teddy began.
"I know what she's saying," Tony interrupted. He started walking toward the kitchen. "Hey, how come Samantha can't talk like you guys?
"I think she just never tried," said Teddy.
"Mowp," Samantha confirmed. It's beneath my dignity as a panther to speak in human words.
Teddy shook his head and decided not to translate.
As the little group crossed the living room, the house shook with another earth tremor. Samantha froze, turned and jumped back up into Tony's arms.
"Mmmmowwww," she murmured.
"There's something she forgot to tell you," Teddy said. "There were funny little spiny things creeping up from the basement. They had bright red eyes. They all disappeared when the lights came on. That's why she was so glad to see us."
"My father always sets a timer to turn on lights so people will think we are home." He and Ginger and Fred stood nervously looking for evidence of the demons.
"Meeeow."
"Near the basement," Teddy said.
Tony started once again toward the back hall. The basement door was ajar. He set Samantha down on the floor. She ran into the kitchen immediately. Tony crept slowly toward the basement door and peeked downstairs. Standing absolutely still, he clasped the door frame tightly.
Most of what he saw was blackness. But penetrating the darkness was a dull red light from thousands of tiny eyes that flickered angrily like furious miniature forest fires.
Confused, Tony picked up the flashlight from next to the stairs and flipped it on. The beam stabbed down into the basement and fell on a group of demons who scurried away from it. Tony couldn't believe what he saw. This was weird, really weird, he thought. The last demons I saw came with the Dungeons and Dragons set I got for my birthday. These can't be real!
He swung the flashlight back and forth, scanning the basement floor. As the light touched them, the hordes of demon soldiers scurried away in pain. The light was too dim to destroy them, but bright enough to burn. In their haste, they crawled one over another, mounding and clumping like an infestation of roaches. The pattern of light from their fiery eyes rose and fell like waves.
Some of the bolder demons began to crawl up the stairs. Tony's mind snapped back to full awareness. A trickling stream of eyes crept toward him, massing up from the darkness.
Tony reached out and flipped on the basement lights.
With piercing screeches the demons darted into the shadows. Tony didn't wait to see where they went. He slammed the door and locked it.
"Turn on all the lights, quick!" Tony shouted as he raced into the kitchen.
Ginger and Fred placed Dunkey and Teddy down onto the floor, then ran to turn on every lamp in sight.
Cowering in the shadows of the basement, Reon drew his wings around his body and listened to the children's footsteps on the floor above.
Sniffler has failed, Reon realized with a stabbing agony. Sniffler will not come back. Reon gazed out at his followers huddled in dark corners around him. He pictured his dog's face for a moment, then stopped. There is no time to mourn. The children above may warn others.
"Put it out!" Reon commanded. He pointed toward the bare light bulb that hung in the center of the basement.
With a flurry, a flying creature the color of bleeding black velvet swooped silently toward the bulb and smacked into it. The creature exploded into a mini-hurricane of dust, shattering the light bulb, and plunging the basement into darkness.
Reon felt his body relax as the shadows fell back over the room. The demons gave an audible sigh of relief.
Safe in the darkness, Reon's thoughts returned to Sniffler. Briefly, the rippling pain of loss tore at Reon's chest, only to be replaced a moment later by the searing flames of fury and revenge that burned away the loneliness.
Reon stood, flame spurting and drooling from every crack and pore in his body. He spread his arms and gestured toward the stairs and the locked door at the top.
"Break it down!" he hissed.
Like a single tendril of a gigantic, amorphous creature, a huge mass of soldier demons rose from the blackness and streamed up the stairs.
Dunkey waddled down the back hall. He had turned the corner into the kitchen when he noticed the light coming through the crack at the bottom of the basement door go out.
"Ahemmmmm." Dunkey cleared his throat.
No one paid any attention to him. Dunkey shuffled over to the door and bent down to peek underneath it. He could hear a strange sound. At first it wasn't much louder than the sound of dust settling, but after a moment, it turned into a clicking, almost like the crackling of frying butter. Then it became louder still, a definite scraping, scratching noise.
"Ummmmm, ahhh," Dunkey said. "Excuse me, but I think they are trying to get out."
"What?" Teddy said.
"What?" Ginger turned and ran over to Dunkey.
"I think they're scratching through the door," Dunkey reported.
"C'mere, quick! Help me!" Ginger called to the others. She ran toward the kitchen as Teddy toddled over to listen with Dunkey at the door.
Ginger returned to the door carrying a chair , which she wedged under the doorknob. Tony and Fred arrived.
"What's up?" Tony looked up from the refrigerator into the panic stricken faces before him.
"Bring something to lean against the door. They're breaking out!" Ginger ran into the kitchen again.
She and Tony wrestled a garbage can and another chair back to the basement door, wedged in the second chair and put the garbage can on top as Fred, Teddy and Dunkey looked on.
The sound on the other side of the door became more distinct. It was the scraping of hundreds of tiny, sharp fingernails breaking hundreds of wood splinters from the back of the door. The demons had crawled up on top of each other like acrobats making an inhuman pyramid. They were clawing and chewing their way through the wood.
"I'd feel safe upstairs," Tony suggested, "in my bedroom. We can lock that door, too." Ginger and Fred nodded. "Come on, help me get batteries and candles and supplies and stuff."
Tony and Ginger ransacked the kitchen drawers, piling flashlights, birthday candles, matches, batteries in the center of the kitchen table. Fred was adding a box of cookies when the phone rang.
Tony stared at the phone. "Oh, no! Not now!" The phone rang two more times.
"Pick it up!" Ginger urged. "It might be your parents or something."
Reluctantly, Tony answered the phone. "Hello? Oh, we're fine…. No, the plane didn't go…. Well, Fred was real tired, and we thought…. Yeah, sure…. It's your Mom, Ginger." He handed here the receiver.
""Hi, Mom," Ginger said as she put the phone to her ear. "Yeah, you're right, we should've called you before the airline did…. Mom! We'll be okay!!! I baby sit for Fred all the time! I'm almost ten! Uh, huh…. Uh, huh…. Uh huh…Yeah, yeah…. Tomorrow… okay?"
Ginger put her hand over the phone and whispered to Tony, "Should I tell her?"
"They wont' believe you!" Tony whispered back.
There was a loud cracking sound from the basement door. Then another, then a whole series of sounds that were like dozens of toothpicks snapping one after another very loudly.
"Noise?" Ginger said in a high pitched voice. "What noise? Oh, that! It's… Uh…. We're making popcorn! Yesssssss. We'll be careful! Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. I promise we'll call before we leave for the airport. I promise!"
The door began to shake visibly. The cracking noise was louder and more frequent.
"Oh!" Ginger started toward the basement. "It's overflowing the pot! Gotta go, Mom! Love you, Mom. Bye. Yes, Mom…. Yes…. Bye! Bye!" Finally Ginger hung up the phone.
Tony had just finished piling the "supplies" on the kitchen table. In addition to the flashlights, there were now peanut butter, bread, soda pop, and boxes of cereal. Tony gathered the tablecloth around it and started to tie the top when Samantha began to howl.
"Okay! Okay!" Tony ran to a cabinet and took out several cans of cat food and the can opener and added them to the bundle. Samantha quieted down. "Let's go," Tony ordered as he finished the knot.
Struggling with the heavy bundle, Tony moved toward the living room as fast as he could. Ginger scooped up Dunkey and Fred grabbed Teddy, then both ran after Tony.
"Moop!" Samantha declared.
"She says she'd rather eat in the kitchen," Teddy told Fred.
"Oh, come on Samantha!" Fred scolded. "Food is food no matter where!"
"Just hurry up!" Teddy said impatiently.
Realizing that the children were really going upstairs without her, and that they had the cat food with them, Samantha reluctantly stood up and sashayed after them.
A splintering crackle shook the door. With a start, Samantha ran as fast as she could, past Fred, across the living room, past Ginger, up the stairs past Tony, along the upstairs hall, into Tony's bedroom and under the bed. She got her back up against the wall and made herself as small as she possibly could.
The children were not far behind. Tony put down the tablecloth bundle. As soon as Fred was inside, Tony slammed the door and locked it. He began to wrestle his chest of drawers over to block it. Ginger put Dunkey down, then joined Tony in barricading the door. Fred tried to help, but was shouldered out of the way.
Panting from exertion, Tony leaned against the drawers, and stared. Ginger went and sat down next to Fred on the bed. As she glanced around the room, she fondled the amulet absently.
"It sure seems small in here all of a sudden," Tony said, looking from one pile of discarded toys to another. Tony's mother had left everything where it was on the floor, dirty clothes and all. "It seems so much bigger when we're playing. Now, it's just crowded."
Ginger nodded. I feel safe enough here, she thought, but maybe I'd rather be someplace else, much, much farther from what's downstairs.
A dry, brittle sound rattled the room. It definitely wasn't an earthquake. All three children and Teddy and Dunkey knew exactly what it was.
Down in the back hall, the door to the basement had been scratched and chewed so badly that the entire bottom two feet of the door had broken through. The wood had splintered apart and fallen in shards onto the floor.
A pile of demon soldiers toppled into the hallway. They fell helter skelter into the light from the hallway ceiling and the kitchen. Moaning, they tried to pull themselves back toward the safety of the dark basement. A few close to the door made it, but the rest crumbled into dust within seconds.
On the basement stairs, the demons scurried away from the bright beam of light that cut through the jagged hole in the door. They clung to the shadows, chattering, eager to begin an assault.
Slowly, they became silent. All eyes turned to their leader. Reon sat quietly in the center of the basement. There was no sound except for the hiss of flame from Reon's body.
"Put out the lights," Reon said softly. "All of them."
Dozens of bat-winged things took to the air to carry out his command.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE -- Reinforcements
