خون هیولا فصل بیستم

Monster Blood Chapter 20

“No!” Evan screamed aloud as the green gunk bubbled up to his neck.

Pulling him. Pulling him down.

“No!”

Try again. Up.

Try again.

Up. Up.

Yes!

Gripping the sides of the tub, he was moving upward, pulling himself, hoisting himself, straining with all of his strength.

Yes! Yes! He was beating it.

He was stronger than it was. One more tug and he would be free.

With a relieved sigh, he dropped over the side of the tub onto the cool basement floor.

And lay there, pressed against the damp concrete, waiting to catch his breath.

When he looked up, Sarabeth stood a few feet away, her head cocked to one side, her yellow eyes peering into his, an expression of supreme satisfaction on her dark feline face.

The next morning, after a fitful, restless sleep, Evan brought the pad of yellow lined paper and a marker to the breakfast table.

“Well, well,” Kathryn greeted him, placing a bowl of shredded wheat in front of him, “you certainly look like something the cat dragged in!” She laughed, shaking her head.

“Don’t mention cat to me,” Evan muttered. He shoved the bowl of cereal aside and pointed to the pad in his hand.

“Don’t let your cereal get soggy,” Kathryn scolded, reaching to push the bowl back to him. “You get more of the vitamins that way. And it’s good roughage.”

“I don’t care about your stupid roughage,” Evan said moodily, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He pointed to the pad again, and then began to write, scribbling quickly in big, black letters.

His writing caught her interest. She moved around the table and stood behind him, her eyes on the pad as he wrote his desperate message.

I HAVE A PROBLEM, he wrote. I NEED YOUR HELP. THE BATHTUB DOWNSTAIRS IS OVERFLOWING WITH GREEN MONSTER BLOOD AND I CAN’T STOP IT.

He put down the marker and held the pad up close to her face.

Looking up at her from the chair, seeing her pale face in the morning sunlight as she leaned over him in her gray flannel bathrobe, Kathryn suddenly looked very old to him. Only her eyes, those vibrant, blue eyes running quickly over his words, seemed youthful and alive.

Her lips were pursed tightly in concentration as she read what he had written. Then, as Evan stared eagerly up at her, her mouth spread into a wide smile. She tossed back her head and laughed.

Completely bewildered by her reaction, Evan slid his chair back and jumped up. She rested a hand on his shoulder and gave him a playful shove.

“Don’t kid an old woman!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. She turned and headed back to her side of the table. “I thought you were serious. I guess you’re not like your father at all. He never played any dumb jokes or tricks. Chicken was always such a serious boy.”

“I don’t care about Chicken!” Evan shouted, losing control, and tossed the pad angrily onto the breakfast table.

His aunt burst out laughing. She didn’t seem to notice that Evan was glaring at her in frustration, his hands tightened into fists at his sides.

“Monster Blood! What an imagination!” She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes with her fingers. Then suddenly, her expression turned serious. She grabbed his earlobe and squeezed it.

“I warned you,” she whispered. “I warned you to be careful.”

“Ow!”

When he cried out in pain, she let go of his ear, her eyes glowing like blue jewels.

I’ve got to get out of here, Evan thought, rubbing his tender earlobe. He turned and strode quickly from the kitchen and up to his room.

I knew she wouldn’t be any help, he thought bitterly.

She’s just a crazy old lady.

I should pull her down to the basement and show her the disgusting stuff, he thought, angrily tossing the clothes he had worn yesterday onto the floor.

But what’s the point? She’d probably laugh at that, too.

She isn’t going to help me.

He had only one person he could rely on, he knew.

Andy.

He called her, punching in her number with trembling fingers.

“Hi. You’re right,” he said, not giving her a chance to say anything. “We have to take the stuff back to the store.”

“ If we can carry it,” Andy replied, sounding worried. “That hunk of Monster Blood you gave me—it outgrew the coffee can. I put it in my parents’ ice bucket, but it’s outgrowing that.”

“How about a plastic garbage bag?” Evan suggested. “You know. One of the really big lawn bags? We can probably carry it in a couple of those.”

“It’s worth a try,” Andy said. “This stuff is so disgusting. It’s making all these sick noises, and it’s really sticky.”

“Tell me about it,” Evan replied gloomily, remembering the night before. “I took a swim in it.”

“Huh? You can explain later,” she said impatiently. “The toy store opens at ten, I think. I can meet you on the corner in twenty minutes.”

“Good deal.” Evan hung up the phone and headed to the garage to get a plastic lawn bag.

Andy showed up with her plastic bag wrapped around the handlebars of her BMX bike. Once again, Evan had to go along beside her on foot. His plastic bag was bulging, and so heavy he had to drag it over the sidewalk. He couldn’t lift it.

“The tub was nearly full to the top,” he told Andy, groaning as he struggled to pull the bag over the curb. “I’m afraid it’s going to burst out of this bag.”

“Only two blocks to go,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. A car rolled by slowly. The driver, a teenager with long black hair, stuck his head out the window, grinning. “What’s in the bag? A dead body?”

“Just garbage,” Evan told him.

“That’s for sure,” Andy muttered as the car rolled away.

Several people stopped to stare at them as they entered town. “Hi, Mrs. Winslow,” Andy called to a friend of her mother’s.

Mrs. Winslow waved, then gave Andy a curious stare, and headed into the grocery.

Andy climbed off her bike and walked it. Evan continued to drag his bulging bag behind him.

They made their way to the next block, then started to cross the street to the toy store.

But they both stopped short in the middle of the street.

And gaped in shock.

The door and window of the store were boarded up. A small, hand-printed sign tacked to the top of the door read: OUT OF BUSINESS.