The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge (13 page)

The houses were all small and widely spaced—wood-frame buildings, cottages, and bungalows. Lewis thought they seemed like the sort of homes that retired people lived in. Most of them had vegetable gardens in the backyards. But one yard was choked with lush green weeds except for a dozen scattered gray patches, which looked just like the plants on the Clabbernong farm. Rose Rita didn't even have to tell Lewis that this was the Moote house. An old black Buick was parked near a big
cedar tree in the front yard. Rose Rita rode past the house, then turned down a grassy lane that led toward a narrow brook. The weeds on either side had grown taller than Lewis.

When they reached the stream, they stopped. “Now what?” asked Lewis.

“Now we watch,” said Rose Rita, carefully parting the weeds. From here they could see the house. “In fact, I'll bet we can sneak up on them.”

“I don't think that's a good idea,” objected Lewis, but Rose Rita was already creeping forward, bent double. She moved carefully, disturbing the weeds as little as possible. Lewis followed, hoping no snakes were crawling through this tangle. Closer and closer they edged, until they were within a few feet of an open window. Lewis could hear two quarreling voices: a crabby old man and a woman who spoke in a hoarse, husky tone.

The woman was saying, “Of course he doesn't remember being Jebediah Clabbernong, you fool. There's too much of the Other in that body. And his cursed nephew kept him prisoner with that terrible iron bridge for all those years.”

“I don't want to change if I can't remember anything,” complained the old man. “What good is that? It would be like dying, and I don't want to die!”

“You will remember,” said the woman. “Because your body will not be cremated before you change! It won't be pinned to the bottom of a stream for more than sixty years, while the alien flesh absorbs every particle of your
brain! You'll still be Mephistopheles Moote—you'll just have a new body, a new flesh, like our friend!”

Lewis leaned close to Rose Rita and whispered, “What are they talking about?”

Rose Rita shook her head. She didn't know.

“Aahh!” snarled the man. “I've half a mind not to go through with this!”

“What!” shrieked the woman. “Back out now, when the Red Star is in the night sky?”

Lewis and Rose Rita exchanged a glance. We've got to tell, Lewis mouthed silently.

Rose Rita frowned and shrugged.
Maybe
, the gesture said.

The woman was yelling now. “Are you mad? All we have to do is trick those foolish friends of the Barnavelt man into attacking our little pet with magic—the stronger, the better! The idiots won't know that any magical attack will make him more and more powerful, until he can open the gateway for the other Great Old Ones!”

“And they will come from the star,” said the old man. “Yes, yes, Ermine, I know all that! Well, when should we attack them?”

“Soon!” replied the woman. “As soon as possible! There's a weakness, you know. Jebediah Clabbernong thought he was being so clever, holding back a part of himself! Elihu hid that part so well, we can't find it. I'm sure Jebediah's precious nephew didn't destroy it—he would know enough to realize that it could only be
dealt with when the Red Star shone. But that's the weak point! That's human enough so that magic might work against it.”

Lewis felt Rose Rita squeeze his arm. He was leaning forward, conscious of everything—the tickle of weeds on his cheek, the oppressive weight of the sultry, cloudy day, the harsh voice of the woman. His head was spinning. What weakness was she talking about?

“What do you want to do?” asked the man. “Go back out to that blasted farm and comb every inch of ground again? The animals that died there in 1885 are stirring again, you know. That's the work of the star. Ugh! The stench of them!”

“No, no, no!” shouted the woman. “I've given up on finding that little prize package. Curse Jebediah and his spell for separating the soul from the body! No, what we have to do is make sure that what
we've
hidden stays hidden. It must emerge only in the light of the star. I think we should check.”

“I'm not driving to the waterworks every five minutes!” barked the man. “If you want to go and look, go! I have to rest!”

“Oh, no, you don't,” said the woman. “I'm going to keep my eye on you. We're not parting from each other until we both change. I know you! You're selfish enough to change without me!”

The old man must have left the room, because his voice faded to a whining, angry mutter. A moment later a door slammed, and all was silent. Rose Rita squirmed around, and Lewis followed her to their bikes.

“Come on,” she said.

“Where?” asked Lewis. “Shouldn't we go back and tell—”

“Not yet,” interrupted Rose Rita. “Those two have hidden something. We've got to check that out.”

“You mean the waterworks,” said Lewis.

“Come on,” said Rose Rita again, and she climbed onto her bike. Lewis got on his too, and they pedaled back to town and over to Spruce Street. At the bottom of a hill were four or five vacant lots, and the city waterworks, a big brick building that hummed with machinery. Behind the waterworks was the reservoir, a round, clear pond protected by a high chain-link fence. Across the street was a green park, through which Spruce Creek meandered. A few families were there, tossing baseballs and having picnics.

“I don't see anything,” said Lewis. “I think we'd better go and—”

Rose Rita hopped off her bike and stared downward. “Look at this.”

She was pointing to the ground. Feeling his stomach heave, Lewis saw streaks in the grass. Streaks of gray, brittle decay. “The grass is dying,” he said.

“The trail leads toward the bridge,” said Rose Rita. “Come on.”

The brick footbridge crossed a deep part of the stream and was built over three big barrel arches. As Lewis and Rose Rita rolled their bikes across, a sickening odor made Lewis gag. “What's that?”

Rose Rita leaned over the bridge. “I think it's coming
from underneath. Ugh! It smells as if something's crawled in there and died!”

The two friends looked at each other. Lewis could tell they both had the same thought. “Do we have to?” he asked.

Rose Rita grimaced. “I think we do.”

They left their bikes, crossed the bridge, and clambered down the bank. The brick arches were so tall that they could both stand under the first one. Here the creek was about a dozen feet across. Lewis and Rose Rita stood on the bank beside the first arch and looked at the water under the middle arch. It had the dark, greenish color of deeper water, and now and then a few scummy yellow bubbles came up from the depths. It looked as if a rock or something was a foot under the surface.

“Wait a minute,” said Rose Rita. She scrambled around the stream bank until she found a fallen tree branch, thin but long and springy. She brought it back. “Let's see if we can reach it.”

Standing at the very edge of the water, Rose Rita leaned forward and prodded with the stick. It was just a little too short. “Let's go,” said Lewis.

“Not yet,” muttered Rose Rita. “Hold my hand. Lean back. And don't let go!”

Lewis gripped her left wrist. Rose Rita bent far out over the water and tried again. This time the stick touched something. “It feels spongy,” reported Rose Rita. “It feels like—”

She pitched forward so hard that Lewis thought they were both going into the water. He tugged back, just as
she let go of the stick. They toppled onto the bank. Lewis saw the tree branch thrash wildly. A writhing tentacle had wrapped around it. It tossed the stick aside and slipped under the surface. Then something round and nasty looking broke the surface of the water. It was lumpy, gray, and veined with red and blue.

And it opened a ghastly dead-looking eye to stare at them!

The face—if it
was
a face—sank immediately in a swirl of water. Lewis and Rose Rita leaped to their feet and stumbled up the bank of the creek. At the top they turned fearfully, but nothing showed that the hideous, quivering thing had even been there. The smooth green water flowed on without a ripple or a bubble.

Still—the creature had to be down there. It might return.

“Let's go,” said Lewis, climbing onto his bike. Just as he did, the thunder that had been building all morning resounded with an earthshaking rumble. The wind gusted. As Lewis pedaled across the bridge, he saw that everyone had deserted the park in the few minutes he and Rose Rita had been near the stream. The tops of the spruce and fir trees whipped back and forth, and above
them, the ragged clouds swirled past like dark smoke. A white bolt of lightning split the sky overhead.

Lewis looked over his shoulder and saw that Rose Rita was close behind him. She was leaning over the handlebars, her face pale. Her eyes opened wide. “Look out!” she yelled.

Lewis jerked his head around. He was almost at the street. The battered old black Buick rolled to the curb, right in front of him. Lewis put on the coaster brake of his bike, but on the grass the rear tire just skidded. The car loomed closer! Desperately, Lewis swerved, lost his balance, and tumbled from his bike. At first, everything seemed to happen in nightmarish slow motion. He saw the grass coming toward his face, each green blade seeming distinct and sharp.

With a sickening thud, his head hit the ground, and the world exploded in yellow light. Lewis had a vague sensation of turning a somersault, then he slammed flat on his back against the concrete sidewalk so hard that he lost his breath. His lungs pumped, but no air came in. Everything faded out. For a second he wondered if he were dying.

At last his breath came back with a great shuddering wheeze. He heard a clatter off to one side, and Rose Rita was kneeling over him, pleading, “Are you okay?”

That's a silly question, he thought, but he didn't have wind enough to talk. And the pain had started, the sharp hot sting of cuts on his knees and the palm of one hand, the throb of a lump high on his forehead.

Two other people leaned over him. To Lewis, they
seemed to waver in and out of focus. His uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann? No, an old man and an old woman. But not until he heard the woman's low-pitched, husky voice did Lewis realize that they were the Mootes. “My goodness, young man, you took quite a spill!”

Lewis's skin crawled at the sound. If he could have gathered the strength, he would have sprung up and run for his life. But all he could do was lie there, fighting for air.

The old man stood leaning on a cane, while the woman knelt next to Rose Rita. Mr. Moote said, “Perhaps we should take you to our home. We could call—”

“
No!
” said Lewis. He still had hardly any breath, but he would have to have been dead not to object. He said, “Uh, no, thanks. I—I'm fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me.” His voice sounded weak, uncertain, and on the verge of tears.

“Are you sure, dear?” asked the woman, smoothing his hair away from his forehead.

Lewis was terrified. He half expected her touch to be as cold as a snake's. He did not know how badly he was hurt—he was scraped up and bruised, at the very least—but he fought hard not to cry. “I'm fine!” He tried to force his voice to be calm. “I've had lots worse falls than this, really. My sister Nancy will tell you.”

“Uh, sure,” said Rose Rita. She blinked behind her round spectacles. Of the two, Rose Rita was always the quickest to dream up some improbable story. Now she said, “Uh, see, Billy went to the circus with Mom and Dad when he was four, and they had this big grizzly bear
that rode a bike. The bear could do wheelies, and he could ride no hands, and he rode across a tightrope. Well, ever since we saw all that, Billy's been trying to do the stunts that bear did—”

“C'mon,” Lewis said, getting up and going to his bike. His steps felt wobbly, as if the earth were quivering like Jell-O under his feet. “Mom and Dad will be mad if we get wet, and it's gonna pour in a minute.” Painfully, he lifted his bike, which did not seem to be seriously damaged. He climbed aboard, said, “Thanks!” and pushed off. Now he could tell that both his knees and the palm of his left hand were badly skinned. His fall had ripped two big holes in his jeans legs, and he could feel a warm trickle of blood down his shins. But he wouldn't have stayed near Mephistopheles and Ermine Moote for a thousand dollars.