Darkness Creeping (17 page)

It didn’t happen the way he had imagined it. He had thought there would be a whirlpool spinning around and around, but there wasn’t. Instead, there was a wave in the deep end that rolled like the ocean surf but never got any closer. The water in front of that wave was dragged beneath the churning water like a powerful undertow.

“Wow, a wave pool!” shouted Charlie.

Nate, who was right underneath the big window at the deep end, was the first to find out exactly what was going on. First his head bobbed on top of the great rolling wave, then he was pulled beneath it. Without even having a chance to scream, he was pulled deep down in the pool, and before he knew what was happening, he was out in the cold night air, falling toward the taxicabs twenty-seven floors below.

Everyone caught on quickly when Charlie disappeared, too. Then the screaming began. They all tried to fight the riptide pulling them to the deep end, but it was hopeless. One by one their screams were silenced, and they were pulled under as if into the mouth of a shark, then ejected from the building through a huge, jagged hole in the side of the pool.

Duncan watched with a sense of power he hadn’t felt since the week before, when he had finished building the time bomb—the very bomb that had now blown a hole in both the pool and the outer wall of the building. It had been easier to build than any of his science projects.
I’ll bet they heard that in Jersey, huh, Eugene?
he thought when the blast first went off.

The lifeguard and adults, who had rushed back to the pool, could do nothing but gawk and shriek as they watched kid after kid go under.

Melissa went, dragging the volleyball net with her, followed by several others. It was then that Sandra came floating by, her green party dress rippling around her like a lily pad. Duncan could not let
her
go. He had never intended for her to be in the water at all. He reached out his hand and she grabbed it—this time with no reservations. That in itself was something! He pulled her toward him and helped her hook her arms around the chrome pole of the pool ladder.

Now do you see?
he thought.
Now do you see why I didn’t want you to swim? You’re the only one worth saving, Sandra. The only one!

There was a roaring blast like the sound of a whale’s blowhole, and they both turned to see that the water level had dropped far enough to reveal the top lip of the gaping hole. The rolling wave was gone, and all that remained was the water pouring down a bottomless waterslide that spilled into the sky above Eighty-fourth Street.

Brett bobbed past Duncan, holding out his grubby hand. He locked eyes with Duncan. This time, Brett’s eyes were the eyes of the antelope. “Help me,” he pleaded.

Duncan held out his hand toward Brett, but instead of taking Brett’s hand, Duncan closed his fingers into a fist and gave Brett a thumbs-up.

“Flush!” Duncan sneered. With that, the current caught Brett and pulled him into the hole, where he was permanently expelled.

Duncan looked at Sandra, who was screaming and shivering as she clung to the ladder.

“It’s okay,” he said.

He wanted to stop her from crying. He wanted to kiss her. Would she let him do that, knowing how strong he really was? Strong enough to beat his enemies—strong enough to win once and for all. Duncan took one hand from the ladder and moved it toward her trembling cheek.

That’s all it took.

His foot slipped from the rung, his hand slipped from the bar, and he was suddenly moving farther and farther away from Sandra. “Duncan!” she screamed. He tried to swim back to her, but it was too late. The current had him, and he felt himself being pulled toward the final flush of his life.

Trevor was still in the pool, fighting a battle with the foaming white water—a battle he lost. Trevor went down, then at last the hole locked its sights onto Duncan, pulling him toward it like a tractor beam. Helpless, he stopped fighting its powerful gravity and accelerated toward the black hole. Then, as if in slow motion, it ejected him out into . . . city lights! All around, dazzling him! Wind, filling his ears, eyes, and mouth!

Far below, the traffic had already come to a screeching halt. Honking horns, screaming bystanders, and bursts from the fireworks filled the night. Duncan took in the amazing view as he fell, and he let out a final cry of victory, for he knew that all the others had gone before him. At least that was something!

As the ground raced up to meet him, Duncan threw out his arms and legs, riding the wind like a skydiver.

And he held his breath.

My sister wakes up screaming at the top of her lungs—a sharp, shrill sound, like an alarm, or a teakettle boiling to death. The awful noise rips me out of the deepest of sleeps. I twist through space until I feel the blanket around me and the coldness of my feet. She screams again, and I pull the blanket over my head, trying to cram it into my ears.

Then I hear the panicked footsteps of my parents as they race down the hall. I glance at the clock. It’s almost four in the morning.

Mom and Dad bound into the room as Melinda empties her lungs again, even louder than before.

“Shut her up!” I croak to my parents in a raspy night voice. Mom and Dad ignore me and race to Melinda’s bed. They shake her and shake her until she comes out of her nightmare. Her screaming fades into a whimper, but when she sees Mom and Dad above her, she begins to sob. Dad takes her into his arms as she cries.

“I’ll get her some water,” says Mom.

“Bring some for me,” I say, knowing that Mom doesn’t hear me. She never hears me when Smellinda is crying. Smellinda: that’s what I call her, because as far as I’m concerned, she stinks.

“Can’t you shut her up?” I plead, trying to stretch the blanket over my freezing feet.

“Ryan, just go back to sleep,” says Dad.

Easy for him to say. He doesn’t have to share a room with a human air-raid siren. There is something wrong when a twelve-year-old boy is forced to share a room with his eight-year-old sister. There ought to be a law against it.

Dad picks up Melinda and rocks her gently. “What is it, honey?” he asks.

“Monkeys,” whimpers Melinda.

I groan and bury my head in my pillow as Mom brings water for Melinda and nothing for me. Why did I know it was going to be monkeys? It’s always monkeys.

Monkeys. Of all the dumb things to be afraid of. I mean, there are plenty of
really
scary things to be afraid of, aren’t there? Mummies, and skeletons, and spooky graveyards, and vampires. But personally, it’s spiders that freak me out. Sometimes I imagine these big, three-foot-long spiders with hairy black legs the size of human arms. They drink your blood, spiders do. Well, not human blood—fly blood. But I suppose if spiders were big enough, they could go for human blood, too. Just the thought of them makes my skin crawl and my heart start to race. But
monkeys
? Who in their right mind is scared of monkeys?

Smellinda, that’s who.

Dad holds her and walks back and forth on Melinda’s side of the room, full of dolls and rainbow wallpaper. It’s the side of the room my friends make fun of when they come over to visit, as if I had anything to say about it.

“There are no monkeys in here,” Dad tells Melinda. “It was just a dream. Just your imagination.”

“They came down the chimney,” she cries. I start to laugh to myself. A few weeks ago we saw a television show about how they transport zoo animals by plane. One of the animals they showed was a monkey. Ever since then, every time a plane flies by, Melinda is certain that a monkey is going to jump out of the plane like a hairy paratrooper and head straight for our chimney.

“There are no monkeys in the room, sweet cakes,” says Mom, flicking on the light, blinding me. “See?”

I roll over and bury my face in the pillow.

“The closet,” says my sister.

Dad opens the closet to reveal clothes and a messy pile of toys.

“The bathroom,” says Melinda.

Dad steps into the bathroom, peeling back the shower curtain to reveal just a leaky faucet and a bathtub ring.

“The kitchen,” insists Melinda.

Dad carries her down the hallway, and I hear him and Mom inspect every inch of our house. Closets, cabinets, the oven, the fireplace—they even check under the furniture.

Finally, ten minutes later, they come back with Melinda happily asleep in Dad’s arms, satisfied that the house has been purged of the banana-eating menaces. They gently tuck her in, turn off the light, and go back to bed.

Melinda, her nose stuffy from crying, snores away. Even after her monkey fit, she can sleep. But I’m not so lucky. I can hear everything around me. I hear the awful ticking of her Mickey Mouse clock. I hear the
whap!
as the paperboy throws newspapers on driveways long before the sun comes up. When I open my eyes I see shadows and get spooked. The shadows are like fat spiders, with legs stretching along the walls and floor. Darkness creeping, inch by inch toward my bed. I know that it’s only clothes piled in the corner, and stuffed animals on the shelves, and patterns cast by the window blind, but still, I see spiders. Once I’ve got the spider creeps, I know I won’t sleep for the rest of the night, no matter how much I want to.

But there’s Melinda across the room, sleeping happily with her dolls and purple ponies and fluffy teddy bears. She sleeps peacefully, probably dreaming of a beautiful fairy-tale castle. And I silently wish for her dream castle to be invaded by baboons.

On the drive to school in the morning, Melinda and I sit in the backseat. Melinda plays with Deep Space Barbie, who has blue hair and green skin. I just sit there like a zombie who didn’t get enough sleep. How I wish I could go back to bed!

Mom drives, listening to the news, hoping to hear a traffic report. Instead, we hear a story about the zoo.

Tragedy struck the Central Zoo yesterday,
begins the reporter,
when an angry gorilla apparently broke through its cage, grabbed a man, and ripped off—

CLICK!

Mom quickly turns off the radio, pretending she didn’t hear the reporter.

Melinda looks at me with a face that’s turning almost as green as Deep Space Barbie. “Ripped off what?” she asks.

“Probably ripped off his arms,” I tell her.

“Ryan!” my mother warns.

“Maybe his head, too. Gorillas are known to do that.”

“Mommy, what do you think the gorilla ripped off?” Melinda asks tentatively.

“I think it ripped off his wallet,” says Mom, “so it could treat
Mrs.
Gorilla to a fancy dinner.”

Melinda laughs.

“Maybe he got his legs, too,” I tell Melinda. “Apes are strong. Monkeys are, too. I’ll bet if they wanted to, all the gorillas and baboons and orangutans and chimps could break out of their cages and escape in a matter of minutes. Hey, Mom, how far is the zoo from our house?”

“Never mind that!” says Mom.

I snicker, and in a flash of inspiration, I grab Melinda’s Deep Space Barbie. “This is probably how it looked at the zoo yesterday.” I insert Barbie hair-first into my mouth and bite off her head.

“
Mommmmyyyyyyy!
” screams Melinda.

Mom glares at me in the rearview mirror. “Ryan, stop it!” she yells.

I spit it out and the little plastic head ricochets off the window and lands in Melinda’s lap. She puts the head back on, but she can’t stop crying. I, on the other hand, can’t stop laughing.