Invasion of the Road Weenies (10 page)

“Whatever.” He pointed to the middle. “Check that out.”

I looked. Then I laughed. Someone had managed to
leave a pair of footprints right in the middle of the concrete. I didn't have a clue how they'd done it. There were no other footprints, and no sign of a splash or anything. The strangest thing was that there wasn't any tread—the print was flat and smooth. Maybe whoever had done it was wearing old sneakers.

Scott kneeled down and touched the surface of the slab. “Darn, it's dried already. I wanted to write my initials.”

“Cured.” I told him. “Concrete doesn't dry—it cures. How do you think they use it underwater for bridges?”

“You need to be cured,” Scott said. He looked back at the sidewalk. “One of these days, I'm going to get to the cement in time and leave my mark—you know, my initials. Just once—that's all I ask. Just one SB written to last forever.”

I shrugged. I guess everyone had different dreams. We headed down the street. A while later, we saw another sawhorse. Scott picked up the pace and jogged over. Once again, he knelt down and checked out the concrete.

“Dry,” he said, getting back up.

“Cured,” I said.

“Hey,” he said, ignoring my comment, “maybe they're doing a bunch of sidewalks today.”

“Could be. One truck holds a lot. As a matter of fact, a whole load is nine cubic yards,” I told him. “That's where the expression comes from.”

“What expression?” Scott asked.

“The whole nine yards.”

“You're crazy—that comes from football,” he said.

I didn't bother arguing. Scott hurried down the street. He seemed to be on a mission. “Gonna leave my mark,” he said.

As I walked after him, I looked back. There was a set of footprints in this patch of concrete, too. I had no idea how the kid had done it. I really thought I knew everything about concrete and cement. As I turned away from the spot, I realized that I had a bit of a mission myself. While Scott was running around, trying to find a place to leave his mark, I was going to go with him, hoping to get a chance to see how that kid was leaving those footprints.

We wandered up and down the side streets. We found two more slabs of recently poured sidewalk, but they'd already cured. Each spot seemed a bit fresher than the previous one. I figured we were getting close.

“That's it,” Scott said, looking ahead as we caught sight of another sawhorse. “I know this is the one.”

He ran ahead. I saw him kneel down. Then he almost jumped for joy as he shouted, “Yes!”

I caught up with him. There was a small mark where he'd tested the concrete with his finger. Otherwise, the surface was perfectly smooth. There wasn't even a footprint. “Finger or a stick?” Scott asked.

“What?”

“Come on—you're the big expert. What works better? Should I use my finger? Or should I look for a stick?”

I shrugged. “Either way would work. Some people are allergic to concrete, but it's not that common.”

“Great. Here we go. Ess,” he said as he drew his first initial
into the concrete. He lifted his finger and paused for a second, then grinned. “Finally, I'm doing something that will last.” He reached down and added the
B
.

“Oops, one more thing, just to make it perfect.” He raised his finger and thrust it down, making a period after the
S
. Then he made a period after the
B
.

“Okay, you've left your mark. Now let's get out of here,” I said.

“I can't,” Scott said.

“What?”

“My finger's caught.”

“Quit joking.” I looked over his shoulder. He still had his finger stuck in the concrete. He was pulling, but it wouldn't come out. I figured he was fooling around, trying to play a trick on me.

I changed my mind when he was yanked in up to his elbow with one sudden jerk. “Get help,” he said.

“Yeah.” But before I could take a step, he got dragged down and across the concrete. His body slid over the spot where he'd written his initials, smoothing the surface out. A moment later, he got pulled under. It wasn't like someone sinking in quicksand. It was fast. One second, he was only sunk in up to his arm. The next, he got tugged down. For an instant, there was nothing to see but his ankles and feet. The laces of his sneakers dangled, lying on the surface of the concrete.

Then he got pulled completely under. I heard a plop. As his feet sunk down, there must have been some kind of suction. They left behind two marks like footprints.

As I watched, the rest of the surface smoothed itself over. But the footprints stayed there. Right below them, the concrete bulged for a second. Then a bubble burst through, making a sound a lot like a burp. I waited a minute, to see if there would be anything more, but nothing else disturbed the surface. The concrete was already beginning to cure, leaving those two perfect footprints.

So that's how it happened. And I thought I knew everything about concrete.

W
e all spent a
good part of the spring creeped out by the Green Man. I don't know when the stories started, or where I first heard them, but everyone was talking about him by late May.

“He's not human,” Ethan said. “He's some kind of lizard or something.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Danny told Ethan. “He's human. But he's got wings or something.”

“He used to be a cop, that's what I heard.”

“No, he was in the army. Something went wrong with an experiment.”

“He's not from this planet.”

That's how it went. Every day on the playground, there were new reports of sightings. The Green Man wasn't actually ever seen by the person telling the story. It was always someone else. Mary heard he'd been spotted on the roof of the school by one of the teachers. She wasn't sure which one.

Eldridge said that the janitor had chased the Green Man
out of the storage room. Or maybe it wasn't our school—maybe it had happened across town at the high school.

My best friend, Rob, swore his older brother knew someone who had seen the Green Man in the woods behind the town pool.

I noticed that the Green Man wasn't ever seen alone. He had an animal with him. Most kids said it was a collie. This was the only part of the story that wasn't creepy. I'd never known a mean collie. They were great dogs. If the Green Man was real, I doubted he had a collie. I found it easier to believe the versions that mentioned something wild like an eagle or a wolf. I didn't pay much attention to the really weird stuff, like Danny's claim that the Green Man ran around with a jackal.

Even if some of the stories were hard to swallow, I couldn't help believing in the Green Man. And because I believed, I couldn't help feeling twitches of fear in my gut. Nobody knew what he was capable of doing. He was a shadowy figure. But there was always a hint of danger in the sightings.

When I walked anywhere alone, I checked over my shoulder constantly. I'd scan the rooftops and tense up as I approached each potential hiding place—a large tree, a parked car, anything that might conceal the Green Man. At night, every small sound sent me to the window. A branch scraping against the house was enough to wake me. I slept with the Green Man slithering through my mind.

I'd always tried to face the things that scared me. When I was little, I used to be afraid of the basement. One day, I
made myself climb halfway down the steps in the dark. I'd wanted to go all the way down, but halfway was as far as I could push myself. Still, I went and I sat on the steps, and nothing grabbed me and dragged me down or fell on me and drained my blood. I don't think I'm brave—I'm just stubborn. It annoys me when something scares me. So I deal with it.

“I'm going to find him,” I told Rob as we sat behind the school watching the younger kids playing kickball.

“Who?”

“The Green Man.”

“Yeah, right.” Rob shook his head. “Get me his autograph, okay? And get one from the dog, too. I'm sure he can write.”

“I'm serious. If there's a real Green Man, I'm going to find him. I'm tired of hearing all these stories. Don't you want to know if he's real?”

“No way. I don't want anything to do with him.”

I listened to every story, no matter how weird, and marked each sighting on a map I'd taped to my bedroom wall.

There was a pattern.

The sightings swirled around a single center—the town pool. That's where he was. If he was real, he lived near the pool. If he wasn't real, why would there be a pattern?

“I think I found him,” I told Rob. “I'm going to check it out this weekend.”

“Maybe you should just tell some adults,” Rob said. “Let them take care of it.”

“They wouldn't listen to me.”

There was no way Rob could argue about that. We both knew that grown-ups didn't really pay attention to kids, and they certainly didn't listen to them when the subject was something like the Green Man.

I had no idea how to search for him. I didn't know whether to sneak around or to shout for his attention. I went to the pool—it was still drained and empty, awaiting the return of summer—and stood by the fence.

If I were the Green Man, where would I go when I wasn't haunting rooftops?

There were woods behind the pool. He might live in a tent or something. Maybe he didn't need man-made shelter. Maybe he just tunneled into the ground like a giant worm or glided across the tree branches like a python.

I strolled along the fence. At one end, there was a shed that held supplies for the pool. The door wasn't quite closed.

I walked over to the shed and put my hand against the edge of the door. In my mind, I saw a scene unfold. It was a daydream, I guess. Maybe it was my way of dealing with the fear. I imagined that I looked through the opening and saw a figure sitting on a box near a corner of the shed.

Are you the Green Man?
I asked him.

No
, he said.
Please come in
.

I stepped inside. He stayed in the shadows. I moved closer. He raised his head and spoke.
Actually
, he said, extending his hand toward me, holding it right up in front of my eyes,
I think this is closer to blue
.

Then I saw his face, and it was the face of a lizard. In the corner, a collie growled. Man and dog dove at me.

I shuddered, trying to fling the image from my mind. My hand squeezed the door of the shed. I held my breath and listened.

The raspy sound of another breath leaked from inside. The Green Man was there. I knew it.

He must have known I was outside.

Face my fears or run?
I opened the door an inch. I opened it another inch. A new scene raced through my mind. As I stepped inside, he spread his wings and flew at me, all fangs and claws. His dog had wings, too.

I wrestled with my thoughts for a moment, then opened the door farther. Not knowing what else to do, I called, “Hello?” The word sounded stupid as it fell from my lips. I cleared my throat and called out again.

There was no reply, but a rustling sound drifted from the far left corner of the cluttered shed. The single window in the back wall was too dirty to let in much light. I stepped into the doorway. He was huddled against the wall, wrapped in a blanket. He hadn't shaved in a long time. He wasn't much older than my father, but he was thin and tired. No threat to me.

“Sorry,” I said. That didn't seem to be enough. I had to fill the empty space between us with words of explanation. “I was looking for the Green Man.”

I turned to leave. As I stepped away, his words caught me. “The Green Man.” He let out a sound somewhere between
a laugh and a cough. “I remember him. We used to be so scared—back when we were kids.”

I looked over my shoulder. “You know about the Green Man?”

He nodded. “Just a story. Just something kids scare each other with. Wait until you grow up. Then you'll find real things to be scared of.” He started coughing again.

“Can I do anything for you?”

He shook his head.

“Are you sure?” I asked

“I'm sure.”

As I walked away, I wondered if I should tell someone about him. Maybe there were people who could help him. A few paces later, I realized I'd left the door open. The cool air would blow into the shed. I turned back to close the door. Right then, I heard a whistle from inside. It was a short, loud whistle—just one note.

Something shot past my legs, so close I almost tumbled over it. A furry shape, running on four paws, dove through the doorway into the shed.

For a heartbeat, I froze, trying to catch my balance. Then I flung open the door. I got there just in time to see them leaving by the window. The dog—if that's what it was—had already escaped out the back. The man—if that's what he was—still straddled the sill. The blanket lay discarded on the floor. Green tattoos covered his arms. Even his face, in the light of the window, had a greenish cast to it.

Somehow, I spoke. “You're him, aren't you?”

He looked back at me. “It doesn't really matter who I am,” he said, his voice no longer feeble and tired. “You make your own fears. That's how it works.” He slipped outside and ran off, following the beast.

I watched the Green Man fade into the woods. I had a funny feeling he'd go somewhere else now. Or maybe there were many Green Men. Maybe each town had one. I really didn't understand what had happened—at least, not all of it. But I figured he was there to give us a fear we could deal with, since so much of what we faced each day was out of our control. Or maybe he was there because our fears had made him real.

But as I watched him vanish into the distance, I realized that I was no longer afraid of the Green Man. In a way, that knowledge made me sad. I'd lost something. In a way, it also worried me. I wondered what would show up to take his place.