The Orphan of Awkward Falls (22 page)

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Authors: Keith Graves

Tags: #Mystery, #Young Adult, #Horror, #Childrens

BOOK: The Orphan of Awkward Falls
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Twittington House was little more than a pile of cinders and scorched beams by mid-afternoon, when the motley crew of firefighters had finally doused the last of the flames. The fire chief/chef was unimpressed by the blaze, saying that they were used to old homes like this going up in flames every so often. The houses were real firetraps, he complained, with nothing built to modern safety codes. He never even bothered to ask how the blaze started, though Josephine and her parents tried to tell him. Unfortunately, he was even less interested in killer mutant creatures than the policemen were.

As the firefighters coiled their hoses and stowed their equipment, Barbara was allowed to use the supplies in the fire truck’s medical kit to sterilize and bandage Howard’s clawed forearm and Josephine’s bitten shoulder. Luckily, the kit also contained vials of rabies vaccine, which she used to give each of them an injection to ward off the deadly disease.

“Do you think this stuff works on mutant monster scratches and cannibal bites?” asked Howard.

She shrugged. “They didn’t teach us that in nursing school.”

Josephine was much more concerned with Thaddeus’s condition than her own. He looked unhurt on the outside, but under the surface he was not himself. She tried to get him to talk, but he would not even make eye contact. What had happened in that lab to cause him to shut down so completely? Standing apart from them, shivering and mute, he seemed like an entirely different person.

Felix made his concern plain. “I’m no bloodhound, but the kid smells funny,” he said to Josephine, away from Thaddeus’s ears. “My nose is tellin’ me somethin’s fishy.”

The firemen offered the family a ride into town on the bumper of one of their trucks, but Howard declined, asking for a jump start for the old Volvo instead.

Howard revved the engine gently as the trucks drove away. “Can’t leave this old girl behind. She’s just about all we have left after the fire. It’s too bad about the sofa, though. Naps will never be the same.”

“Forget it, Howard,” said Barbara. “It’s time we replaced that ancient thing anyway. The important thing is we’re all safe.”

They piled into the car, with Josephine and Thaddeus in the back and Felix curled on the seat between them.

“We really should get Thaddeus to a hospital,” Barbara said quietly to Howard. “He needs a thorough examination.”

Josephine overheard her. “No, we can’t do that, Mom! You promised.”

“I know,” said Barbara. “But he could really be hurt, dear. There could be internal injuries, hidden wounds, who knows what else. We have no way of knowing if he’s all right until he gets a complete physical by a doctor.”

The boy’s eyes went wide as saucers. He wasn’t talking, but it was obvious that he did not like the idea of going to the hospital at all.

“But, he’s a clone, Mom, remember?” she whispered. “When the doctors find out, they’ll turn him into a guinea pig. You know they will. They’ll see him as some kind of science experiment. He’s never even been outside that spooky old house in his whole life, except to buy junk food at a gas station. A hospital would terrify him!”

“I think Josephine may be right, dear,” said Howard. “The boy seems to be stable enough at the moment, with no obvious problems. Maybe peace and quiet and a good night’s sleep would be the best thing for him at this point. Given his…unique…characteristics, the stress of going to a hospital for the first time might do him more harm than good. What do you say we get some food in him, watch him closely overnight, and see how he does? If symptoms develop, we can always take him in then.”

Barbara finally agreed, though reluctantly. They stopped at a pharmacy in town, and Barbara bought a thermometer, a blood pressure gauge, and various medicines and supplies to help monitor his condition through the night.

“If his temperature goes up so much as one degree, if his blood pressure does anything remotely abnormal, or if he even so much as coughs,” she declared, looking very much like she meant it, “we’re taking him to a doctor, stat. Does everyone understand?”

Everyone did.

They found a room at the Hook, Line, and Sinker Lodge, a creaky old fisherman’s inn whose leaning sign proudly proclaimed it had been in operation since 1928. Since the place was mostly empty, the severe weather having deterred all but the hard-core anglers from driving up from the south, the desk clerk put them in the Trophy Suite. The suite was made up of two pine-paneled rooms on the ground floor, decorated profusely with mounted pike and boat paddles arranged in artistic formations. A clanging radiator made the place blessedly warm.

They were all starved by this time, so Howard went across the street to a Chinese restaurant for takeout. He came back minutes later with veggie lo mein, sweet and sour tofu, and two or three other meatless dishes, and dinner was served. The boy looked at the plate Barbara fixed for him as if it were piled with rocks instead of food. A red spatter of sweet and sour sauce interested him briefly, until he put a bit on his finger and tasted it. He frowned and spat. No amount of Barbara’s motherly coaxing could make him eat.

“Maybe he doesn’t like Chinese food,” said Howard.

“He likes sweets,” Josephine said.

“For dinner?” asked Barbara.

“He’s got a sweet tooth the size of France,” said Felix. “Dinner, breakfast, brunch, whenever. He never met a candy he didn’t like.”

Howard found a few chocolate mints in a dish on top of the dresser and offered the boy a few. Thaddeus sniffed the candies, then tossed them all into his mouth, not even bothering to remove the wrappers.

“Whoa,” said the cat. “ Guess the kid was hungry after all.”

For the rest of the meal, while the Cravitzes and Felix ate, Thaddeus sat still as a stone, becoming animated only when a fly buzzed near his chair. Out of the corner of her eye, Josephine thought she saw him catch the fly and pop it into his mouth in one swift gesture.

Since the old black-and-white television in the room picked up only one channel, devoted exclusively to lake temperatures and weather forecasts, the group began to yawn not long after dinner. Barbara thought it best that Thaddeus be given one of the bedrooms to himself. A good night’s sleep, she knew from experience, often worked wonders.

The beds were squeaky and old, but were layered with soft quilts. Josephine and Barbara watched with curiosity as Thaddeus climbed between the sheets fully clothed, not even bothering to remove his shoes or glasses, but neither said anything. He was bound to have some odd habits, Josephine thought, having grown up the
way he had. She put a glass of water on the nightstand, and Barbara tucked him in. A final temperature reading showed 98.6, and Barbara deemed him well enough to be out of her sight for a few hours.

“Good night, Thaddeus,” said Josephine. The boy barely glanced at her as she turned out the light and closed the door.

“I wish he’d eaten something besides candy,” said Barbara. “He looks like he could really use some protein.”

Just as a shark has no interest in fruit salad, cannibals generally eschew vegetarian Chinese food. Fetid Stenchley, a strict cannibal whenever possible, was famished, and had every intention of enjoying a late dinner. The candies, which would normally have repulsed him, had gone down surprisingly easily, but they were not nearly enough. Other than that, a cockroach and few flies were all he had managed to slip between his brand-new lips since escaping from the lab. Now he was ready for something more likely to stick to his ribs.

Cynthia was beside herself with hunger. In the gray moonlight, the python slid from the madman’s mouth and curled her scaly head around to his ear. She began singing a hissing lullaby that Stenchley found irresistible, her forked tongue tickling his earlobe as she crooned.

A father for me, a mother for you, she lilted, a girl for dessert, and a kitty pie, too…

The hypnotic rhyme possessed Stenchley’s weak mind, urging him up and out of bed. The snake had to be fed. The people in the next room would all be asleep by now, he was sure, which would make things easier. He knew what to do.

He opened the door silently, tiptoed into the main room, and froze, watching to see if anyone had awoken. The girl lay between her parents in the big bed, all three making quiet sleep sounds. The cat was a furry puddle purring on the quilt at their feet. None of them would wake up in time to stop him.

A floorboard squeaked beneath his clumsy new feet, something he could have prevented in his old body, the body so skilled in nighttime hunting. The mistake reminded him of the difficulty he had had with the Friend, when it had overpowered him. His new hands and teeth had not been enough to subdue the friend. He needed a weapon. Glancing around in the darkness, he saw the remains of the revolting takeout meal they had tried to feed him on the coffee table at his knees. Utensils lay next to the boxes. Stenchley took a fork and knife, one in each hand, and moved closer to the man’s side of the bed. He would eliminate the strongest of them first. The females would be easier to handle with the big male out of the way.

Stenchley loomed over the man, mumbling under his breath, “A father for me, a mother for you…” The black serpent inside him hissed madly as he raised the fork and knife high over his head, directly over the man’s heart. His mouth watered, and his jaw dropped open as he stabbed with all his might.

Which was not much.

Once again, Stenchley found that his might was not what it used to be. Also, he had overlooked the fact that the fork and knife he had chosen as his tools of death were plastic. Instead of plunging into the victim’s heart, the dinky utensils snapped into pieces when they struck the man’s chest and merely woke him up.

Howard, Barbara, and Josephine all screamed simultaneously and leapt out of the bed. Howard pushed the chubby attacker away, sending him spinning across the floor.

“Thaddeus!” Josephine shouted. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Everyone stay back!” Howard said. He used a chair like a lion tamer to keep the boy away.

The boy was drooling and panting, and a low hissing came from deep inside him. He looked completely mad.

“He must be delirious!” said Barbara, turning on the bedside light. “We have to get him to a hospital. Howard, he needs a doctor!”

Howard slowly began to approach the wild-eyed boy. “Now, calm down, buddy. No one’s going to hurt you,” he said.

Stenchley backed up to the wall and crouched like a cornered animal, still holding the broken nubs of the plastic knife and fork as if they were deadly weapons.

“I ain’t goin’ to no hospital!” he said, in a horrible voice that had no business coming from Thaddeus’s mouth.

“What did you say?” Josephine asked, confused. “Why does your voice sound like…like that?”

The boy hissed again and bared his teeth like an animal.

“Thaddeus? What’s wrong?” asked Josephine.

“No doctors. No surgeons. No asylum,” the boy growled. “Cynthia don’t like it!”

“Wait a minute, he’s not Thaddeus. He’s Stenchley!” Felix’s bald tail twitched and the hair stood up along his spine. “I knew somethin’ was rotten in the state of Miami!”

It seemed impossible, but Josephine saw that Felix had to be right. This looked like Thaddeus, but wasn’t. She took her mom’s hand and pulled her away from the boy. “I think Felix is right, guys! That’s Fetid Stenchley!”

“Stenchley?” stammered Howard and Barbara at the same time.

“You mean this isn’t Thaddeus?” asked Barbara.

“What are you talking about, Jo?” Howard asked. “He’s just a sick kid. He can’t be Stenchley.”

Felix hopped down from the bed and cautiously approached the white-haired person in question. “He must’ve done something in the lab to make himself look like the kid,” said the cat. “With all the weird equipment in there, there’s no telling what he did. Believe me, I know the boss, and that ain’t him!”

“It’s true,” said Josephine, her voice quivering. “I’m sure that’s Fetid Stenchley!”

Barbara reached for the phone on the nightstand.

“I’m calling the police,” she said.

“No!” snarled Stenchley. He grabbed the coatrack by the door and ran at the window. Holding the stand like a jousting lance, he bashed out the window, then dove through the opening.

They all hurried to the window and saw him roll down the snowbank outside, then run off into the freezing darkness.

Josephine figured she could catch him if she got a quick start. She began to climb out the window after him, trying to avoid the sharp shards of glass. “Come on! We have to catch him!” she said.

Howard held her back. “No, Josephine, it’s too dangerous! If that’s Stenchley, we’d better let the police handle it.”

“But he’s getting away!” she pleaded. “I could’ve caught him!”

“He won’t get far,” said Howard.

Josephine reluctantly came back inside. She found Thaddeus’s glasses on the floor where they had fallen from Stenchley’s face during the scuffle. One of the thick lenses was cracked. Wherever the real Thaddeus was, he was probably in a panic without the spectacles. She had to find him.

Barbara had already dialed 911 and was talking rapidly into the phone, trying her best to relay the outlandish information to Deputy Flange on the other end without sounding like a complete nut.

“She’s a complete nut, eh?” said Deputy Flange as he hung up the phone. “First, spider monsters attack their house, and now the boy isn’t really the boy, he’s really Stenchley, the escapee.”

“They’re a kooky bunch, all right,” said Sergeant Cole.

“Do we have to go out and investigate?”

The sergeant leaned back in his chair and turned his attention back to the hockey game on the portable television on his desk. “Investigate what? We captured the fella and delivered him to the asylum ourselves, didn’t we? With no help from the Mounties, I might add!”

Flange grinned and high-fived him.

“What kind of medal do ya think they’ll give us, Sarge? The Cross of Valor, maybe?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up with the CV, Clarence. I wouldn’t be surprised a bit.”

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