The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp (10 page)

“Where am I to tell my fortunes?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind a well-aired spot. This kitchen smells like a bear’s breath.”

“You’ll be upstairs in one of the bedrooms,” Alexander said in an offhand way. “We don’t have time to wander around up there.”

He was more than ready to leave right then.

“Listen, Alexander,” I said, “we’ve come out here to give this house a thorough investigation. We aren’t going to learn a thing with a quick look around a couple of rooms.”

He sulked.

“It’s all right if you’re afraid to go upstairs with me,” I said. “I understand.”

I had him there. He wasn’t about to hang around down here all by his lonesome. His imagination was already working overtime.

We were in the dining room again as Alexander edged toward the front door. He knew he was going to have to go upstairs with me, but he was putting it off. Setting the lantern on the floor, he reached down to rub his so-called twisted ankle.

Suddenly, right behind him, I saw a small wink of light, bright in the lantern glow. I’d like to have turned to stone. My mouth fell open. Alexander happened to notice my bugging eyes.

Slowly, slowly he turned to look behind himself, his face as white as this page. The brass knob on the china closet door was winking in the light and turning.

My boots seemed nailed to the floor, and Alexander
began to sway. Still the knob kept turning, all by itself.

Squeaking on its hinges, the door opened upon the blackness of a tomb within. Peering from inside was a frightful sight, a face not quite human in the flickering lantern flame. It appeared to be an ungrinning skull.

“Oh, I will be a good boy for the rest of my life,” Alexander moaned, “if only this isn’t happening!”

He sagged, but he couldn’t run any more than I could. The ghastly little face looked up into Alexander’s tear-filled eyes. The terrible little mouth drooled. It was Roderick.

He stepped out of the china closet in his small pair of bib overalls.

“What say, Roderick?” I greeted him, though my mouth was dry. Roderick looked us over but said nothing.

“Who,” moaned Alexander, “who in the—”

But the kitchen door banged open then, sending a shudder through the house. Footsteps stalked, and another fearful apparition appeared in the dining room door. Alexander’s head swiveled toward this new horror. He grabbed his throat.

Daisy-Rae marched in. “There you are, you little rascal!” She was wearing a feed sack nightgown and a nightcap of faded flannelette. Sweeping Alexander aside, she made a grab for Roderick and hooked him by the ear.

“Ain’t I told you time and agin not to slip off? It’s a-way past your bedtime!”

Alexander’s eyes were like saucers, and in truth, Daisy-Rae in her night togs is a sight. He managed to stand clear of her flailing elbows as she nearly shook Roderick loose from his ear.

“Who,” Alexander moaned again, “who in the—”

“Hey there, Blossom,” Daisy-Rae said, nodding her wan face at me.

“Hey there, Daisy-Rae,” I replied.

“Be glad you ain’t got any little brothers,” she said. “They are a continual worry. It’s my own fault. I had no more sense than to tell Roderick here that you and yore Alexander was coming over tonight to check over this place for haunts. Naturally the little scamp had to spy on you. You know how he is.” Roderick’s neck seemed permanently bent, but she never turned him loose.

Out of the room she marched, quick as she’d come. Roderick scampered by her side, trying to keep up with his ear. The back door banged behind them as off they went to their chicken coop home.

After a long pause Alexander spoke. “Don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know.”

Delay it though he would, it was time to explore upstairs. The thought of those throbbing blue lights in the upper window skated past my mind. But I planted a firm foot on the stairs, keeping Alexander by me. Thunder crashed above the attic. Lantern light wobbled on the treads as we climbed up through the house. The things that live in walls skittered,
seeming to warn one another. Cobwebs swept our beanies and caressed our ears.

Where the stairs curved at the top, I dropped back a little just to see how far ahead of me Alexander would go. The ceiling had fallen up there, so he crunched along a step or two over broken plaster, holding his lantern high.

Alexander opened the first door he came to and banged it shut again. Making a strangled sound, he took flight and shot into the next room he saw. After a moment he spoke in a hollow voice. “Now here is a good room for your fortune-telling, Blossom. Yes, this will do very well.”

I was standing in the upstairs hall. Even without the lantern I could still see. My gaze fell to the door Alexander had opened and closed so quick. There was a line of light under it, bright across the dusty hall floor.

It glowed like daylight but whiter. To save my soul I couldn’t walk past that door. I looked back down the curving stairs into blackness.

“Get in here, Blossom!” Alexander called out from a far room. “Don’t go near that door! You hear me? There’s something there. I don’t know what, but . . . something.”

I hardly heard him. Everything faded except for the light beneath the mystery door. All by itself my hand reached for the knob.

L
IGHTNING SPLIT THE AIR
, traveling down the rods on the roof. It clamped my hand to the doorknob. I couldn’t turn loose or turn back now. My skin sizzled, and the door blew in, jerking me half out of my boots.

Inside, the light like a white fog peeled my eyeballs and took me prisoner. The sounds I’d heard in the distance were clearer and nearer: the
pyongs
and the
beeps
alike. They were no noise of nature or the human voice.

Suddenly I was free of the electrified doorknob, so I threw up my hands, thinking I’d be burned by the light. But it was cold. Then I was drawn like an autumn leaf into a funnel of brightness. I swam in this spiral, never trying to breathe. My kinky hair flattened against my skull as I gathered speed. My spelling medal flapped like a loose shutter against my chest.

I seemed to shriek, though no one heard, not even me. But my thoughts cried out.
Oh, Mama, you were right. I never should have come near this place.
. . .

But it was too late. Whatever was to befall me now was happening already.

I traveled in a great void past thunder and beyond lightning. But I wasn’t alone, far from it. Looming up from every side were creatures far worse than any in Alexander’s dungeon or model torture chamber. There were circular monsters that were all mouth. There were creatures with lights for eyes and steel for skin who wielded long glowing tubes of light for swords. Their dreadful jaws snapped at me in passing, and those bright swords of light tried to snag me. But I hurtled on.

Then, don’t ask me how, I was swimming up through dry waters. Square ahead of me stretched a glassy skin like the ice on a pond as seen by a fish. I rocketed nearer this cruel barrier, expecting to batter out my brains.

In an explosion of ice or glass, I burst through. Gasping with my first breath, I did a neat somersault in real air and fell flat on my back on a carpeted floor. My eyeteeth were all jarred loose. Though I was as dizzy as a swung cat, I tried to raise up on my elbows.

Looking toward a door, I saw I was still in the old Leverette place. The bedroom door was painted now, but I knew the knob. Though I saw where I was, I’d fallen out of my time. Or I’d been pushed.

“Oh, wow,” said a voice quite near me. “I’ve pushed
DELETE
and
RETURN
. What more can I do?”

My beanie was over my ear, but my mind was clearing. Cautiously I scanned the bright room. A bookshelf without books held long rows of narrow boxes in bright colors.

Beside them was a sight that made me shrink. It was a creature nearly my height. I’d seen it not moments before, or a near cousin to it, hurtling through space. It had a cast-iron face and a long tube of glowing light that it brandished for a sword.

I chanced another look at this specimen. It was only a large, air-filled doll. The wicked iron face was painted onto a slick skin that may have been rubber. It was a monster-shaped toy or perhaps a work of art. There is no accounting for taste.

My shifting glance fell upon a wall calendar. It was decorated with more monsters conducting warfare in tin airships. But it was the date on the calendar that burned my brain.

I raised a trembling hand to count on my fingers. Arithmetic is not my best subject, but from the year on the calendar I saw I’d slipped ahead near enough . . . seventy years.

My eyes dropped to the floor. There was someone in the room with me. I’d known that right along. I was stretched out beside a table and chair. There were several legs, two of them human.

Planted on the carpet were two things of white rubber and colored canvas. Figuring they were shoes, I took a closer look. Written on these so-called shoes were little words:

ADIDAS

I chanced a look up the legs. They weren’t long and were covered by ordinary blue denim work pants, somewhat farmerish. Well worn, too. I craned my neck to read a small announcement stitched to the seat:

SEARS TOUGHSKINS

Still, nothing moved but me. Above the pants was a plain cotton shirt stretched over a boy’s torso. It was short-sleeved of the undershirt variety. I was up on my knees now beside the occupied chair. This undershirt was lettered boldly across the chest:

PAC-MAN FEVER

I looked up into the face of a boy.

He was a kid of thirteen or so—eighth grade, tops. Except he would not be born for many years. I knew that much. His cheeks were freckled, and a shock of red hair hung on his forehead. Propped on his nose were spectacles that gave him a learned look.

He sat at a desk before the keyboard of a thing like a typewriting machine. There were other buttons and a lever before him and a variety of metal boxes. One of them contained a window with a small curl of gray smoke rising out of the shattered pane. That was where I’d entered this particular world.

The boy looked worried. My nose was near his thigh, since I’d been reading his outfit. Being a boy, he was trying to be brave. Still, his elbow edged away from me, though he seemed rooted to his chair.

“Oh, wow,” he said again. “And they call this model state-of-the-art.” Somewhat disgusted, he smacked the keyboard of his machine with the heel of his hand. “I guess I could try the
CLEAR
key or maybe
GOTO
. They promised open-ended options, but this is ridiculous.”

“You can say that again,” I remarked.

That moved him. He jerked up his Adidas feet and grabbed himself. “You can
talk,”
he gasped.

“And what’s more, I can make sense,” I replied, “which is more than you’re doing.”

“Wow,” he pondered, “I didn’t think even Atari had the chips for speech yet. I hadn’t counted on a voice option. I can’t seem to get a fix on this model.” He gave the keyboard another thump.

“It’s an off brand,” he went on, “a loaner from off the showroom floor. Its hardware is fairly primitive, and I can’t say much for its peripherals. I traded in my Atari 2600 VCS, which is somewhere between obsolescent and obsolete. Now I’m waiting to take delivery on the 5200, which is basically a teen toy and actually reasonably sophisticated for adult games. I’m in the Gifted Program myself.”

“Is that a fact,” I said. “You speak any English?”

He blinked at me in wonder and rubbed his chin in thought. “I guess I sort of . . . made you happen,” he remarked. “In the Career Discovery module at
school I’m already locked into Systems Analysis as a life’s work, but now I wonder. With you, I guess I sort of looped when I should have branched. Where’d you come from?”

“Bluff City,” I answered cautiously.

He nodded. “You do look sort of inner-city. But what I meant was, what
game
are you from?”

One of his fingers edged out to press a key on his board. He seemed to think he had to push certain buttons to make me talk sense.

“I mean, like, are you from Berzerk or Demons to Diamonds or Donkey Kong or Chopper Command or what?”