The Monsters of Morley Manor (15 page)

“Why?” asked Sarah.

“Because if it were unlimited, it would allow renegade planets to launch massive invasions of other worlds without warning. Of course, the Coalition doesn't have many planets like that, since we carefully screen worlds before we allow them access to the doors. Even so, errors sometimes happen.”

“Like the Flinduvians?” asked Gaspar.

“Precisely,” said the Wentar. “Mowing the creatures of the red haze into the Coalition of Civilized Worlds was one of our few mistakes, and one of our worst. They are subdued now, and have been for some time. But their planet is a world where great evil lies sleeping. It would not take much to waken it, for the Flinduvians have a lust for conquest. To guard against such peoples using the doors improperly, those who designed them specified that no more than ten members of a species can pass through a gate on any given day.”

“I still don't understand what this has to do with Earth's ghosts,” I said.

“I'll be glad to explain,” snarled a voice from behind me.

I turned, then screamed.

The Flinduvians had arrived.

18

T
HE FIRST TIME
I saw a Flinduvian, it had been tearing its way through the barrier that separated the magical corridor leading out of Morley Manor from our own world. I had gotten only a peek, then, because just as the alien was breaking through we had fled through a Starry Door.

That brief sight had been fairly terrifying. Even so, it had not prepared me for the full horror of the Flinduvians.

To begin with, they were big—between six and eight feet tall. Of course, Gaspar and the Wentar were tall, too. But they didn't have biceps like basketballs, and thighs as big around as my waist. We're not talking
fat
thighs, either. I could see that they were solid muscle (or whatever Flinduvians have), because the aliens' uniforms consisted of nothing more than tight-fitting shorts, broad silver armbands, and chest harnesses to hold weapons and ammunition. They didn't even wear shoes, which you would think would be a basic item for warrior types. At least, you would think that if you hadn't seen a Flinduvians foot, which is sort of like a horse's hoof made long and flexible.

Their fingers were even more flexible, because they weren't really fingers but scale-covered tentacles. What really gave me the creeps was that the tentacles were of different lengths and thicknesses. I figured this meant they had specialized uses . . . something I decided not to think about too much.

The Flinduvians' muscles weren't the only things that bulged. They also had bulging snouts and eyes.

All in all, they were pretty ugly.

Mom has always told us not to judge people by their looks, but I was having a hard time following that advice right then. Not only did the Flinduvians look big, mean, and nasty, my gut was telling me that they probably acted the same way.

There were ten of them, and they pretty much filled the room.

The guy at the front, who I assumed was their leader, smiled.

I wished he hadn't. Not because of the two rows of silvery fangs, though they were bad enough. No, it was the black, snaky tongue flicking out of his mouth that really got to me. It was far more horrible and frightening than Gaspar's had been, probably because it had two big holes in the end of it—holes that opened and closed like sniffing nostrils.

“The plan is simple,” he said, in a voice that sounded like pebbles being run through a blender. “While no more than ten members of a species may pass through a gate, that restriction applies only to the living. We can transport as many
corpses
as we wish. Once we have them here, we can inject them with the spirits of Earth's dead, and bring them back to life.”

“What good will that do you?” asked Gaspar. “You can't expect Earth's dead to fight on your behalf.”

“They'll have no choice,” said the Flinduvian cheerfully. “All we need is their life force to animate the body. Once we install them, their actions will be completely under our control.”

“And where are you going to get an army's worth of corpses?” asked Gaspar.

The alien smiled again. “No Flinduvian hesitates to die in the service of his planet. When the call goes out for bodies, our biggest problem will be sorting through the many volunteers eager to earn a spot in warrior heaven. Such a death is a great honor, a privilege.”

“If you can put a soul into a body, vy don't you just reinsert the one that vas there to begin vith?” asked Ludmilla.

The leader sneered. “Once a body has died, reinstalling a soul can give it power and movement, but not genuine life. These re-animates will be mere zombies.” (He didn't actually use the word
zombie
, of course, since he was speaking in Flinduvian. But that was the sense of it.) “To be trapped in such a thing is not a proper fate for the soul of a Flinduvian hero. It would be an insult to his honor. That's why it was such a great boost to our plans when we captured young Martin there. By studying him, we eventually discovered what an absurdly strong connection to life the ghosts of this miserable, long-ignored little planet of yours possess—strong enough to make them cling even to an alien body. It makes them perfect for our uses.”

He threw back his head and laughed. At least, I think it was a laugh. The actual sound was sort of a cross between a chainsaw and a werewolf gargling. “Now, at last, Flinduvia will rouse from her slumber! Now we wake—and the galaxy trembles!”

I heard a groan, and turned to see Martin push himself to a kneeling position. Melisande started toward him.

“Don't move!” snapped the Flinduvian.

Martin looked up at the sound of his voice. “Oh, it's you, Dysrok! It's about time. I was wondering when you were going to get here.”

“Martin, what are you talking about?” cried Gaspar.

“Be quiet, you fool,” snapped the boy. “Why do you think I let the Wentar bring me back here? Does the word
bait
mean anything to you?”

Melisande started to cry. Gramma put an arm around her shoulder.

That's my Ethel
, thought Grampa.
Always worried about others
.

Though he didn't say anything else, I caught a note of terror running beneath his thoughts. He was right to be terrified. The very moment he sent those words to me, one of the Flinduvians armbands began to beep.

Dysrok smiled, and his tongue flicked out. “Well,” he said happily. “It looks as if we have a ghost near us right now. Might as well collect it while we have the chance. Who knows when it might prove useful?”

The Flinduvian behind him, the one with the beeping armband, turned in a slow circle. When he was facing in my direction, the armband began to beep more loudly. His blue face creased in one of those horrible, tongue-flicking smiles, and he stepped toward me.

The beeping increased.

Dysrok looked puzzled. “Are you harboring one of the dead, boy?”

I shook my head, trying to look both innocent and stupid.

It did no good. The Flinduvian with the armband raised his hand. He was holding something shaped like a big squirt gun—colorful and bulgy, with a wide mouth at one end and a yellow, bottlelike thing at the other. He smiled, his snaky tongue flicking out at me. The big black holes in its tip opened and closed like sniffing nostrils. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he tailed mockingly.

Then he pointed the collecting gun at my head, and pulled the trigger.

19

I
HEARD A CRACKLE
, and felt a buzz of energy, a little like the feeling we got when we went through the Starry Doors.

Hold on, Grampa!
I thought.
Hold on!

Someone screamed. (Later, I realized it had been me.)

Then everything went black.

I felt a horrible wrenching, as if I was being pulled apart at the seams. I thought, at first, that it was because Grampa was being ripped from inside me.

It took me a while to realize that the true situation was even worse. It wasn't Grampa who had been ripped out of my body—it was me!
I
was the one who got sucked into the collecting jar!

At first I just felt as if I had fainted or something. Then, for a little while, it was as if I were in a dream—the kind where you know you're dreaming but can't force yourself to wake up. Finally I began to realize where I was.

I screamed again, which was getting to be sort of a habit. It didn't make any difference, since no one could hear me. I suppose it was because I didn't really have a mouth. I didn't have eyes or ears, either, but somehow I could still hear and see what was going on. Don't ask me how that worked. I suppose I was hearing and seeing the same way that ghosts do—the same way I had when we left our bodies to go to the Land of the Dead. I hadn't thought about it as much then, because I was still in a shape that resembled my own body. But being stuffed inside a bottle made you wonder about that sort of thing.

As I began to get a sense of what was going on, I realized that Grampa was putting on a big show.

“How could you just take him like that?” he cried. He was speaking with my voice, through my mouth, and clutching the sides of my head with my hands.

“What's happening?” cried Gramma. “Anthony, what's going on?”

Grampa turned my body toward her and said, “It was Grampa. He was inside me, and they pulled him out!”

A cold fear gripped me. What was Grampa doing? Was he planning to
keep
my body? Was it possible my own grandfather would betray me that way? But why else would he be lying to her like that?

Gramma was furious. “You let my husband out of that bottle!” she cried, lunging at the Flinduvian who held the collecting gun.

“Ethel!”
cried Gaspar. He caught her and held her back.

Dysrok laughed. “We'll let the ghost out when the time is right. Out of the bottle . . . and into the body of a Flinduvian warrior. His life force will animate that body, but control of it will be ours. He will be a perfect slave.”

Gramma didn't understand any of that, of course, since she hadn't had a translation spell put on her. But I did, and believe me, it didn't do anything to make me feel better about my situation.

What made things even worse was when the Flinduvian yanked the bottle off the end of his gun and dropped it into a pack he was carrying. Everything went dark I couldn't see or hear a thing.

I had just come back from the Land of the Dead.

In my opinion, this was far worse.

The only good thing about being stuffed into the pack was that it gave me a chance to think. In fact, thinking was about the only thing I
could
do under the circumstances. Actually, that's not quite true. I could also
panic
, which was the first thing I did. Not that it did me any good. I mean, usually when you panic you run around and scream, or hyperventilate, or something like that. All I could do was feel like I
wanted
to do that stuff. That feeling kept growing and growing, until I thought I was going to explode. That might not have been all bad. Maybe the bottle would have exploded, too, which might have been kind of cool—though I don't know if I would have zapped back into my body, or just been left floating around like a ghost.

A living ghost. What a weird thing to be.

When you panic, you're supposed to take deep breaths. Since I had no nose, mouth, lungs, or air, I couldn't do that. Finally I started to pray. That helped. I didn't get a miracle or anything, but I did settle down—which was sort of a miracle all by itself, if you consider my circumstances.

Once I finally got calmer, I was able to start thinking. The first thing I needed to think about was why Grampa was pretending to be me. I finally decided he was trying to fake out the aliens. Maybe he figured if they thought they had a ghost, but had really gotten the spirit of a
living
person, there might be some advantage to keeping that fact from them.

At least, I hoped that was what he was thinking. Part of me was afraid that what he was really thinking was, “Yippee! I'm alive again!”

The second thing I needed to think about was why the Flinduvian collecting gun had taken me and left Grampa in my body. I came up with two theories that sort of made sense. The first came from Dysrok's statement that Earth's ghosts have an “absurdly strong” connection to life. Maybe Grampa, having already experienced death, was clinging to life more tightly than I did. The second possible reason was our recent trip to the Land of the Dead. Since I had already been out of my body, and not that long ago, maybe I wasn't as tightly connected to it as I should have been.

Or maybe it was the two things put together. I was in uncharted territory here. And even if one of those theories did explain why I had gotten pulled out of my body, they didn't tell me what I really needed to know—namely, what should I do next?

Of course, when you've been yanked out of your body, stuck inside a bottle, and then crammed into an alien's backpack, your options for action are pretty limited.

So is your sense of time. I had no idea how long I had been in the bottle panicking, praying, thinking, and fussing before one of the Flinduvians opened the pack and pulled me out again.

Holding up my prison, he said, “Let's give this one a try. Bring in one of the corpses. We'll put him inside and see how it works.”

20

T
HE
F
LINDUVIANS
carried in a box that looked something like a coffin. It was bigger than most coffins—though given how big the Flinduvians were, that made sense. It was also very plain, with no decorations or fancy woodwork or anything. The only marks on it at all were some squiggles across the top, which might have been Flinduvian writing. Suddenly I realized that the squiggles looked like the marks on the box where the Martin-clone had imprisoned Gaspar and the others.