# CHAPTER 1 - THE HOWLING MONSTER #
I sat up in my bed, sweating in my dinosaur pajamas and listening to
the busy ticking of all the clocks on my desk. What I needed to do in a
few minutes completely terrified me. I had done the most horrible thing.
It was so horrible that I had gone window-shopping for a bulletproof
vest yesterday. I had lost my mom's most prized-jacket and I had to get
it back. But in order to get it back, I had to find wherever I had left
it first. Before Oz found out it was missing.
"It's time to go," I
said to Duma, hanging off the side of my bed and looking at him upside
down. "This is extremely important. You're lucky I'm letting you go with
me. But no funny business or I will leave you behind."
Of course
Duma didn't know what I was saying, and I certainly was not about to
leave without him. Oz never let me go outside alone. She was always so
over protective. I hated to admit it but going outside alone on a full
moon the night before Halloween was a little scary. At least I'd have a
black cat with me, anyone who knew anything wouldn't mess with me with
Duma around; or at least I hoped. I stuffed my backpack with a sharp
piece of glass, a butter knife, a hammer, a switchblade, and a bottle of
aspirin.
"Okay, Duma, if we can't find her jacket, she'll never
let us back in the house. She'll board up the windows and the cat doors.
She might even buy a gun. She'll put both of us to sleep."
Duma ran crazily around the room.
"No! Asleep, as in, you'll never wake up," I corrected. "Don't be stupid!"
I
threw the stuffed backpack over my shoulder and tightened the straps,
all the while thinking about the consequences of not finding the jacket.
It was a green worn-down leather jacket. Oz loved that jacket possibly
more than me, saying it was the only thing that jogged her memory after
her car accident that left her with amnesia eighteen years ago. I hated
myself for losing it after she had given it to me as a gift. She trusted
me. And how did I repay her? I lost it.
Determined to get it
back, I walked over to the window to make my escape. Going out the front
door, simply wasn't an option. I didn't want to draw any more attention
than necessary. It took me three tries to get the window opened. I
stuck my one leg out, followed by my head and was met by Oz, peering at
me from the outside entryway, looking at me like I was a lunatic. She
stood pale as ghost in her checkered nightgown, holding a steaming cup
of tea.
"Oz!" I said anxiously. "What - what are you doing outside?"
"Hand it over," she said sternly, walking over to me in her green fuzzy slippers, pointing to my backpack.
I handed my backpack to her and bowed my head.
"What are all of these for, Jess?" I heard her say, rummaging through my things.
I slowly lifted my head to see her pull out Katie's switchblade from my backpack.
"For protection."
"Protection?
From what? Jesse, where are you going so late at night? This is the
second time this week. I can't stand outside every night afraid that
you'll decide to sneak out again. Sitting outside for two nights in a
row is exhausting enough. And this?" She was holding up the bottle of
aspirin.
I wasn't sure what to tell her, but I chose to tell the truth. "It's for the pain."
"What pain?"
"What if I run into that man and he hurts me? I don't want to be in pain."
"Jess,
stop it. I'm tired. You were six when that happened. And you said all
he did was take your school I.D. card, right? That's what you told me."
"I know. What if I forgot a small detail and he actually wanted to hurt me or kidnap me?"
"You don't forget anything. Neither of us do."
"I know. But they never found him, Oz. He's still out there."
"No
more, Jess. I'm grounding you." She reached into her pocket and pulled
out an orange envelope. It looked old, with corners faded and bent and
dust embedded along the edges. "You see this? It's very special to me."
I couldn't help wanting to know what was inside. If there was one thing I hated, it was not knowing the answers to something.
"I'll let you see what is in this envelope, when you start acting more mature. No more sneaking around."
She
moved away from the window without another word and walked along the
front of the house. I could not believe that she was blackmailing me
with some envelope.
I called after her. "Are you at least going to give me a clue about what's inside?"
She didn't answer.
I pulled myself back through my window, ran across my bedroom, and met her in the kitchen. "Oz, what's inside that envelope?"
"When
you show me that you can handle what's inside, I'll tell you." She
dropped the envelope into a safety box, locked it, and placed it in the
cupboard that always had a padlock fastened to it.
"Just one
little teensy clue? Please! Pretty please! Why do you always have to do
this to me? This is not normal to go locking things away! Tell me what's
inside."
"Someday."
"Someday? I can't wait that long."
"I have to punish you somehow, Jess. And I want my jacket back. You're not mature enough for that either. Hand it over."
"What? No."
"Yes."
"But . . . uhmm . . . it's at Katie's. I left it there - I let her have - borrow it for school."
"Jess!
You know what that jacket means to me. I gave the jacket to you, not
Katie." Oz paused for a second and then said, "Please just go to bed."
I
turned without saying anything else and went into my bedroom and
flopped on my bed, thinking I was done for. I had to find Oz's jacket.
If Oz asked Katie about it, Katie would never lie to Oz about something
so serious. I got right back up and re-packed my backpack with my new
arsenal of tools and weapons and once more tightened the straps.
I
peeked out of the window, craning my neck to see the front entryway,
but didn't see any sign of Oz. Eying the light fog outside; I stepped
over the windowsill and hurried across the wet grass. Duma was already
moving down the sidewalk, glowering at his surroundings.
"Duma, wait up! Where are you-"
Duma stuck his head into a patch of mud.
"Stop
messing around!" I scolded him quietly. I ran over and picked him up.
"Why must you make everything so difficult? We're here to find her
jacket! Not rodents! Okay? Look, if you stay with me, I'll make you lots
and lots of coffee when we get back."
This seemed to motivate
him, as we both hurried stiffly through the chilly fog, which was
thickening before our eyes, so we could only see twenty feet in front of
us. There was no way we could find the jacket in this weather.
"L-let's g-go home," I trembled. Duma was up ahead, staring into the wall of fog. "We can look for it to-tomorrow-"
My voiced croaked. Something touched my leg.
"Who
are you?" said a woman sitting cross-legged on a dirt lawn. She slowly
picked herself up. She was short, chubby, dirty, and smelled like eggs.
She was wearing three or four layers of clothes.
Oh my god, I'm going to be robbed by a homeless woman.
"Duma!" I shouted.
"No,
no, don't shout," she ordered, snatching my arm. "There's nothing down
that block. Hey, you want to see something scary? I know you boys like
scary stuff."
I shook my head, wondering what special type of crazy the woman was.
"What you doing out here at this hour if you ain't looking for adventure?"
"I'm-" My voice caught in my throat as I tried to continue.
"Is
that a black cat? And it's almost Halloween. That's bad luck for the
both of us." The woman shuffled away, disappearing into the swirling
fog. "Come here," I heard her say somewhere further down the street.
"Come on, boy. . . . You want to see magic?"
I wanted to run, go
back to my warm bed, and confess to Oz everything I had done. Maybe
she'd forgive me. But when the woman muttered that one word, magic, I
forgot all my fears. What did she mean by magic? Did she mean real
magic? I caught up to her, but kept a five-foot gap between us. You
could never be too safe with strangers.
"It's almost time," she
huffed, raising her eyes to the hazy night sky. "Wind's still. Many
clouds. Round moon. And the fog's creeping all over. Yes, the fog is
here, and so they will be. Two minutes from now. Just over there."
I
wondered what I was getting into. The woman made no sense at all, but
something about the promise of magic kept me wanting to wait just a
little bit longer.
The woman waddled through the damp mist to a
red house at the corner. She motioned for me to follow, and I jogged to
stay in pace with her. The front porch was lined with a dozen
jack-o'-lanterns, none carved even remotely scary. I kept close to the
woman now, crouching down next to her in front of a window off to the
right of the porch.
My mind raced. What if we got caught? The
police will come and I'll be arrested for spying on the neighbors. What
will Oz say when she finds out I've been window peeping?
The woman
pointed to the window, motioning for me to look. I peered in, my soccer
shoes soaking from the wet grass. The living room was off to the right
and had a few couches, a dim lamp, and a crackling fireplace. The
kitchen was to the left, but it was too dark to see into. I turned back
to the street, where Duma was eyeing a cawing crow perched on a
telephone pole.
"What you
see here, you'll never forget," said the woman in a hushed voice. "Stay
quiet now. A world you've never known is about to be revealed to you.
The tale is no tale at all."
"What tale?" I asked.
"Fifteen seconds," announced the woman, holding a pocket watch in her hand.
I could hardly stand the suspense. I didn't know what to expect, but for some reason I felt like I had to be there.
"Ten, nine, eight," the woman counted. I started counting with her in my head. ". . . seven, six, five, four, three, two . . ."
The
wind howled, and the air swiftly changed from cold to warm, then back
to cold. A few dogs barked frantically blocks away, and the crow flew
off the telephone pole, but I heard nothing unusual until a wolf's howl
broke the silence. The howl carried on until it reached an eerie high
pitch. I pressed my face into the wet windowpane, desperately trying to
get a better peek into the living room, where the howling was coming
from. A hall light flickered on as a tall elderly woman, as dark as the
night sky and as old as a great-great-grandma, came into view.
"Charles,
what did I tell you?" she grumbled sleepily at someone hidden from view
in the far corner of the room. "I told you not to do that when you come
in. You'd better hope you didn't wake your grandnephews." Her tone
softened a bit. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, but I'm still your
mother."
There was a deep animal grunt in response.
I crept
over to the left side of the window, but still could not get a clear
view of the far corner of the living room. Oh how I wanted to see what
had made that howl. I ducked my head down as heavy footsteps boomed
across the wooden floor, getting closer. I stumbled backwards when I saw
a hairy brown creature with lanky arms trudging across the creaky
floorboards. I only got a quick glance at the creature, but it was just
long enough to see that it was too tall for this house and had to stoop
and hang its head to avoid hitting the ceiling.
"You see," whispered the woman beside me. "No one believes me. But you do now."
Ten seconds passed, and the house fell silent again. I could not think of one logical thing it could have been.
"What was that?" I whispered back breathlessly, still peering through the now fogged-up window. "Was that a costume?"
"No,
no," said the woman. "Can you not see right? I've been coming to this
house for years. Same time - twelve o'clock - it appears. No one's in
the room at first, then - poof! - there you have him-"
"But what is-"
"A werewolf."
I turned to her in disbelief. There was no way that thing was a mythical creature. No way.
I
heard the old mother's voice in the kitchen along with a second voice,
sounding like a low rumbling. It had to be the creature.
I leaned in again to hear what was being said.
"I am going to be out late. I've got to find a kid," said the creature.
"Charles, you know you can't send a kid to that monster."
"We
already had this discussion. Only a child can kill Himalaya. Don't you
even care that a menala was murdered yesterday, along with another
human?"
"What menala?" said the mother quietly, sounding sad. "Dili?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know because the menala was taken away. . . ."
I
could not understand anything they were saying. My mind raced trying to
make sense of it all. They might as well have been speaking a foreign
language.
"You know what they speak of, boy?" said my lady friend.
I shook my head, needing to know the answer.
"Himalaya is an evil creature, suspected of murdering humans on Halloween."
"What?"
"Yes.
And as bad as Himalaya is, there is one that is worse. His name's Jack,
and he is the real problem. My money is on Jack having killed the
menalas. Why do you think they have jack-o-lanterns out?"
"I don't know."
"Jack's scared of them," she whispered, poking a rotting pumpkin.
Suddenly, the werewolf's growling voice cut through the silence. "Are there enough jack-o-lanterns on the front porch?"
"Why? Do you think Jack killed the human?"
"There's reason to believe the human had Jack's death mark."
"Oh, my sweet bundle of fur. I better put out more pumpkins, just to be safe."
"Mother,
I have only a few days left to live. I need you to pass all that I know
to Forlin before the Dark Hours - I have found the human kid."
"What? Charles, I told you that you are not taking a child to that thing!"
"It's done. He's been chosen. He's wearing pajamas and-"
"Who?"
"And soccer shoes," he finished.
"Soccer shoes? Kids don't play soccer this late. I bet you my good socks they don't."
"It
doesn't matter. I can see the boy through your dirty wall as we speak.
He's peering inside your living room, straining to overhear our
conversation."
I jerked back away from the window, zapped by the
sudden realization that it was me - I was wearing pajamas and soccer
shoes. Before I could form my next thought, something yanked me forwards
through the window in a flash of light and chilling cries. Next thing I
knew, I was standing in the middle of the yellow kitchen before the old
mother and her hairy beast of a son.
I shook standing in front of
them, my knees trembling. I wanted to scream, but found my throat
constricted in fear. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to
die.
"What in Halloween are you doing, Charles?" the mother
scowled at the monster, who was even taller and more frightening up
close. "Take this poor boy out of here. Look at him. He's shaking. Go,
child. Run home."
I was too scared to run home, and even if I was
not, I would not be able to; the werewolf had a firm grip on my
backpack. He used his other paw to dig through it. He pulled out
everything, staring at each item, much like Oz had done. He looked
deeply confused when he took out the bottle of aspirin.
"No, he
will stay with me," he said firmly, placing the bottle back into my
backpack. "I do not have much time. This child will have to do. He can
easily be taught to be brave."
"Charles, you'd better let this boy go."
I pleaded in my mind for the werewolf to listen to his mom and let me go, but it was no use.
The
creature shot one of his hairy arms over my head. "How old are you,
child?" he asked, leaning down to my level. His black eyes had the
reflection of the moon in them. "Judging by your height, I'd say you are
in middle school. Are you in eighth grade?" His eyes opened wide. "Are
you thirteen?"
His mother stepped between us, but the werewolf
brushed her aside like a feather and straightened out to his full
height, slightly tilting his head under the ceiling and looking more
terrifying than anything I could have dreamt of.
I started to
hyperventilate. I grabbed my stomach and closed my eyes. This is not
happening, I told myself. Wake up, Jesse, this is just a nightmare.
"If
you want to live, you're going to have to give me what I want. You are
thirteen. Otherwise, you would have said you weren't. Is this your
father? Open your eyes."
The beast held out a picture of a
clean-shaven man with short brown hair. It wasn't my father. It was the
man who stole my school I.D. card when I was six.
"This is very
important. Wasthis your father?" He showed me the picture again. "Speak,
child! Or your limbs will be torn off and you will be murdered most
savagely. A man more evil than Satan is coming for you."
"How dare
you," snarled the mother, punching her son in the arm, which did
nothing but make him snarl back at her. "How dare you terrorize this
poor kid. You're scaring the Jassum out of him."
Dismembered? Murdered? Oh, my God, I was going to die.
"Charles, I'm warning you this one last time: you stop this craziness right now."
"But I am not the one who is going to snap his bones in half! Can't you see? I am trying to prevent that from happening."
"That's
not his father. I can tell. I don't want another word from you. Listen
to me. What good is this second life of yours if all you do is go around
disobeying your mother and scaring kids? You're staying home today.
That's final."
Two young kids pitter-pattered in from the hall,
rubbing their sleepy eyes. Once their eyes adjusted, they ran up merrily
to the werewolf and wrapped themselves around his hairy legs.
"Leave, child," the mother motioned to me.
I
was desperate to flee, but my legs would not move. Seeing this, she
pushed me rather gruffly. Thankfully, that got me going. I ran out of
the kitchen, staggered through the dark living room, and slipped my way
out of the house, but tumbled over the pumpkins on the front porch,
crashing head first into a large moldy jack-o'-lantern. I paused on the
porch, picking out pieces of pumpkin from my orange hair and trying to
orient myself as to where I was.
"Please, Charles," I heard his mother say inside.
"I have visited
Antarctica and know what needs to be done. I need you to relay
everything to Forlin while I take the boy to Himalaya."
"Don't you want to spend your last days with me?"
"I am sorry, but this is more important."
"And if the boy is killed?"
"If the boy is killed, there will be no more afterlife."
That was it.
I darted off the porch and raced off into the fog. "Duma!" I called,
unable to see a thing. "Charles is - a monster is coming! A real
monster!"
The screen door from the red house screeched open the
exact moment I felt warm breathing down the back of my neck. It was the
most frightening thing I had ever felt in my entire life.
"Help
me!" I shrieked in the direction of a white house, just barely visible
through the fog. I ran further down the street and screamed toward some
other houses. "Help me! Someone help - Duma!"
Duma scurried across the street, totally spooked.
"Duma, wait!"
I
ran after him and past the chubby woman standing on the sidewalk. "Tell
your friends!" she yelled after me. "Lock your doors! Because they
are-"
The woman's ranting suddenly changed to a deadly scream.
Duma and I froze for an instant, frightened by the way she was
screaming. A moment later, everything fell silent.
==========================
By : Tony J. Ortiz
==========================
