On the Day I Died (8 page)

Strange.

I walked back into the house.

In the kitchen, Toni had already torn open the package and was laying out an assortment of foil envelopes on the Formica table. Each had a picture of a smiling creature with three horns, scales and a forked tail. The girl creatures had big red bows in their horns. The boys wore cowboy boots.

“See, David?” said Toni. She handed me the first of the envelopes, labeled
INSTA-PET EGGS
. “All I have to do is follow the directions and poof—Insta-Pets!”

I riffled through the other envelopes. They had names like
SASSY FEAST PET CHOW
and
INSTA-TREATS AND SWEETS
.

Toni had already measured water into Mom’s crystal punch bowl and was now adding something labeled
INSTA-PET WATER PURIFIER
. It smelled like dirty feet.

Idly, I wondered if the neighborhood ladies would notice a weird taste the next time Mom served punch at one of her card parties. I imagined Mrs. Neary taking a sip, then coughing, choking and pounding on her twinset and pearls before finally managing to sputter, “Betty, dear, did you clip this recipe from
Good Housekeeping
?”

I snorted at the thought.

“Quit daydreaming and do something, will you?” said Toni, who was now up to her elbows in measuring cups and foil envelopes. She handed me the instruction sheet. “Here, read that to me.”

I peered at the tiny print. “Did you add the purifier to exactly sixteen cups of water?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I already did that,” she replied. “What’s next?”

“Um … uh … add both the Grow Kwikley Growth Stimulator and the Plasma III to the purified water and stir. Add eggs.”

Toni pawed through the envelopes until she found the right ones. Tearing open the growth stimulator, she sprinkled its powdered contents into the water. Then from a thick silver envelope marked
PLASMA III
, she began squeezing out a mysterious-looking green sludge.

“ ‘Warning,’ ” I said, still reading the instructions. “ ‘DO NOT ADD ANY INGREDIENTS BUT OFFICIAL INSTA-PETS PRODUCTS TO YOUR PETS’ WATER.’ ”

Toni stirred the ingredients together with a wooden spoon. It turned green.

“Yum, breakfast,” I said.

She ripped open the egg envelope. “Here goes nothing.” Two ordinary-looking, quarter-sized discs plopped into the water.

Instantly, a silvery mist rose from the punch bowl and the water turned deep blue. The mist began to spin crazily like that teacup ride at Disneyland, spiraling higher and higher till it finally twirled into a mini-cyclone that churned and spewed across the water’s surface.

“Wow!” gasped Toni.

Mom’s punch bowl began to look eerily like a little ocean, with miniature whitecaps rolling and tossing and sending up spume. Then, just as fast as it had begun, the water calmed and the two eggs popped up like bobbers to the surface. Behind them stretched a trail of pink, blue, yellow and purple tendrils of color that swirled into a rainbow pattern.

Toni clapped her hands. “Oh, I love them. I really, really love them!”

I wished I felt the same way. But I had a creeping, bad feeling, and the things already revolted me.

The phone rang.

“David?” said my mother’s voice when I answered. “Is all going well?”

“Uh … um …” I was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation. Even from across the kitchen where the wall phone was mounted, I could see that the two eggs were transforming. One of them had already sprouted a tiny forked tail. And was that a webbed foot I saw?

“David, did you hear me? Is everything all right?”

No, I thought, it’s really not. Maybe you should come home right now.

But I kept my mouth shut. I knew how ridiculous that would have sounded. I mean, it was just a novelty toy from a comic book, wasn’t it?

“We’re great, Mom.” I forced myself to sound normal. “Have a good time.”

I hung up just as Toni squealed, “Horns! It’s got itty-bitty horns!”

After that, things accelerated. The Insta-Pets grew … expanded … stretched, and then grew some more. Within minutes they were as long as my hand, salmon-colored and plump. Their faces peered at us through the glass, their marble eyes round, dull and flat, their mouths opening and gasping. Just minutes later, they were so big they filled the punch bowl, uncomfortably wedged inside.

“The poor things can’t move,” said Toni.

And still they kept growing. The little buds of their arms began stretching into tentacles. The little buds on their heads began sprouting into three knobbed horns. Their tails grew longer, fleshier.

“They need more room,” declared Toni. “Let’s put them in the bathtub.”

“No, absolutely not.” I gulped as a tentacle flopped over the side of the punch bowl. A webbed hand was just beginning to bloom on the end of it.

As usual, Toni didn’t listen. She hurried down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the taps. Water splashed into the tub.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I said, going after her. “I said no!”

Ignoring me, she stuck her wrist under the running water, checking the temperature the way you would a baby’s bottle. As she adjusted the taps, a yellow rubber duck tipped off the edge of the tub. It hit the water with a squeak. But Toni didn’t bother plucking it out. She just bustled off to fetch her pets.

Remembering the instructions’ warning about putting things in the water, I reached down to get the duck.

That’s when Toni screamed.

I raced into the kitchen. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“We almost killed the poor things, that’s the matter!” cried Toni. She pointed.

The Insta-Pets had pulled themselves out of the punch bowl and were writhing and wiggling across the pink countertops. They were as long as my forearm now, translucent and shivering like one of Mom’s Jell-O molds.

Toni reached over and grabbed the first one.

It wrapped its immature tentacles around her arms and clung tightly.

“Look, it’s hugging me,” she cooed.

It didn’t remind me of hugging so much as of a boa constrictor squeezing its prey.

Gently, Toni carried it into the bathroom. Prying its tentacles off her arm, she lowered it into the tub. The first Insta-Pet splashed into the water. Moments later, the second one followed. Like some kind of alien squid, they swam around, using their tentacles to inspect their new place. Then they poked their heads above the water, and their mouths opened.

Teeth sprouted like tiny white daggers from their bloodred gums. Just then, two sets of tentacles rose and slithered around the rubber duck. It gave an alarmed squeak before being pulled under. It never resurfaced.

The doorbell rang.

“Don’t put your hands near those things,” I warned Toni.

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Davey, you’re being silly.”

“I mean it,” I said firmly. “Don’t do anything until I get back.”

I hurried to the front door, opened it and saw another red box. As I’d done earlier, I stepped onto the porch and looked up and down the street. It was quiet except for Mr. Mayfield washing his Oldsmobile in his driveway and Mr. Humor the ice cream man. Mr. Humor
cha-chinged
his chrome bicycle bell in greeting as he pedaled past.

Scooping up the box, I turned.

Toni stood in the hallway. “They’re gone,” she wailed.

“What?” I rushed down the hall, tossing the box into Toni’s room as I went.

“I went to get some toys for them to play with—they liked that rubber duck so much,” she explained, holding up two plastic dinosaurs. “I was only away for a minute. When I came back—” She pointed.

The bathtub was empty except for six inches of green-tinged water. Two glistening sets of prints trailed across the linoleum floor. Slimy webbed handprints dotted the sill of the now-open window.

“They ran … I mean, slithered away,” Toni sniffled. “Why would they slither away?”

Before I could come up with an answer, a scream from outside pierced the summer air.

We raced out onto the front porch.

Mrs. Neary hobbled into the street. The left sleeve of her twinset had been ripped clean away, and she was wearing only one high-heeled shoe. “Something took Muffin,” she kept repeating like a scratched record. “Something in my backyard. Something took Muffin! Something in my backyard …”

She bumped into the curb and just plopped down there, her legs splayed. Her one high heel now dangled drunkenly from her big toe. “Something took Muffin. I
heard my little angel howling.” Her eyes were wide open, but she stared at nothing. “Something took Muffin.”

Beside me, Toni groaned. “Was it … do you think?”

I whirled on her. “Of course it was!” I pulled her to the side and through clenched teeth said, “These are not cute pets like hamsters or parakeets. These are some kind of insane mutant Pekingese-chomping monsters!”

Despite herself, Toni giggled. “Pekingese-chomping monsters.”

But her laughter died a second later when we saw one of the creatures emerge from between the houses.

“Where’s the other one?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I … I don’t know, but you can bet it’s around here someplace.”

We crouched behind the porch railing and watched, horrified, as the creature moved through the yards, using the manicured shrubs and white picket fences for cover. Toni’s “pet” was now the size of a four-door Buick and covered in translucent pink flesh. We could make out the shapes of its organs, pulsing and fluttering. It dragged itself around upright on two tree-trunk-thick legs that ended in gnarled, clawed feet. As for its webbed hands, they twitched at the ends of two tentacle-like stalks. But it wasn’t until the creature lifted its head that I felt the bile rise in my throat. On its face was fixed a smile, permanent and corrupt—a yellow-fanged gash curving under eyes as dead as eight balls.

I sucked in my breath. “It can’t be.”

But it was—

Just like in those pictures on the Insta-Pet kit’s envelopes, a red bow decorated the monster’s three knobbed horns!

Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
The sound of Mr. Humor’s bicycle bell rang through the air.

The monster dropped behind a bush, crouched, became statue still. It cocked its hideous head to the right, listening, then flicked its forked tail. A black tongue, slimy and dripping, slicked its grinning lips. Then it focused its gaze on the ice cream man, who unknowingly pedaled straight toward its hiding place.

“Oh my God,” I whimpered. Then I was running down the sidewalk, my bare feet pounding on the pavement.

“Mr. Humor!” I yelled. “Stop! Stop!”

But it was too late.

A fleshy tentacle whipped from behind the bush and lifted Mr. Humor off his bicycle seat. A second tentacle wrapped around his waist, and I caught a flash of the creature’s hideous underside. It was a gray color like rotten meat, and it was dotted with hundreds of fluttering, hungry suckers.

Mr. Humor’s eyes bulged. “Get him off me!” he shrieked. “Please, get him off me!”

I lunged and grabbed Mr. Humor by his ankles. I pulled as hard as I could, falling onto the street, using my legs for leverage—straining, panting.

Mr. Humor struggled, grabbing the bike’s handle. He held it tightly, his knuckles turning white as the monster tightened its grip.

I tugged with all my might, feeling as if my arms might tear off.

The monster’s forked tail whipped around and slithered over my skin. I shuddered as the cold and pulsating thing slipped around Mr. Humor’s neck.

“Help me!” sobbed the ice cream man as the creature ripped him from my grasp.

It raised Mr. Humor to its weirdly smiling mouth.

Mr. Humor kicked frantically, knocking off one of his canvas shoes. It arced through the air, landing in the middle of the street, clean and white. Then the ice cream man screamed, and the shoe was suddenly splattered with blood. There came a wet, crunching sound, and his fingers slowly released their grip on the bike handle. The bike fell and the cooler unit smashed open, sending Popsicles and ice cream sandwiches skittering across the pavement.

The bell let out one final
cha-ching
.

The creature burped.

Mr. Humor was gone.

And then there was no sound at all, except for the rasping of my breath and the soft, slithery sound of the monster as it squirmed across the melting treats and through Mrs. Ivey’s yard.

I was sure I was dessert. But the creature didn’t turn
back. It never even looked at me. It just slid on past as I lay curled into a numb, terrified ball in the middle of the street.

Then I heard another sound—a soft, sobbing sound.

Toni stood on the sidewalk, her round face deadly pale except for her huge dark eyes. They were shiny with tears.

“This is all my fault!” she cried pitifully.

I dragged myself up off the pavement and over to her. “We can’t think about that now,” I said. I was in shock, but the look in Toni’s eyes, her little face so full of pain, galvanized me. “We have to get help.”

We stumbled back to the house and into the kitchen. I snatched up the phone.

Silence.

“It’s dead!” I cried.

Toni looked bewildered. “That makes no sense. Do Insta-Pets know about phone wires?”

The sunroom door began to rattle on its hinges. One of the monsters pressed its grotesque face to the glass. Which one was it? And—dear God—where was the other one?

I grabbed Toni’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here and get help!”

We raced across an expanse of gold carpeting toward the front door.

But at that very moment the picture window in the living room was darkened by the mass of the second
monster. It was peering in, drooling, with something furry and white between its teeth.

“That’s Mr. Kopecky’s cat,” said Toni. “Aw, poor Bubbles!”

And then from the sunroom came an explosion of breaking glass and splintering rattan furniture. A moment later the first monster lurched into the kitchen.

The second monster pressed hard against the living room window. Tiny cracks began to radiate from the corners of the glass.

In the split second before we bolted down the hall, I noticed something that made my blood turn cold. The second monster was wearing cowboy boots just like in that picture on the envelope. No, these weren’t baby Insta-Pets anymore. Not cute cartoons in a comic book. These were fully formed man-and-pet-eating monsters.