Читать книгу Spindle Lane - Mark Reefe - Страница 11

Chapter 5

By the time I made it upstairs, my breathing had returned to almost normal. I blundered into my bedroom, and papers flew everywhere.

“Hey, come on, spaz!” Steve barked.

“Sorry.” I navigated the minefield of notes scattered around the room and made it successfully to my bed without stepping on a single one of them. Plopping down, I stared out the bedroom window. All was still and silent as the grave. I checked the window and blew out a sigh of relief when I found it locked tight.

“What the heck are you doing?” Steve scowled as he gathered his papers and began organizing them into separate stacks.

My mouth opened, but the words turned sideways and wedged in my throat. I wanted to tell him about White Marsh and the thing lurking in the Colberts’ bushes, but I couldn’t. I knew it would take more than a pile of bones and a warning about a window for my brother to believe me, so I decided to switch subjects. “Just messing around. What about you?”

Steve removed his horn-rimmed glasses and wiped the lenses with a shirt sleeve. Before putting them back on, he shoved his fingers in his hair and ran his hand through it. “Right now I’m cleaning up your mess. What I was doing was putting the final touches on the script for The Jungle of Doctor Dubois.”

Steve’s movies were a big deal in the neighborhood. If Tracy was the Queen of Spindle, Steve was the Spielberg. All of us neighborhood kids wanted to be in his films, and our parents got a giant kick out of watching the finished product. With his Super 8 millimeter camera, my brother made epic adventures, exciting whodunits, and—most recently—a history of the world project for school. Everyone enjoyed the spectacle tied to each cinematic venture, but I got something extra out of every movie. It was an opportunity to hang out with my brother and have some fun, like we did in the old days before he became such a big-headed wanker.

“When do you want to start filming?”

“By the end of the week, when Perry and Paul get back. I’ll need them, you, Brian and Mark Johnson, and maybe one more.”

“How about Kevin?”

“Who’s Kevin?”

“He’s the new kid over on Spiral. He’s pretty cool and has a sweet collection of D and D stuff.”

“You think he’d want to be in the movie?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. What’s this one about anyway?”

“It’s science fiction. A mad doctor experiments on people, turning them into half-men, half-animal monsters.”

“Oh, kind of like The Island of Doctor Moreau.”

Steve frowned. “A little, but mine’s way cooler. The movie takes the hero to the jungles of Africa where the doctor’s compound is located. I was thinking we could set up the backyard to look like a jungle, maybe use the shed as one of the doctor’s laboratories. It’s not perfect, but –”

The thought struck me like a lightning bolt. Without thinking I blurted, “What about the bike trail?”

Steve stopped sorting his papers and looked back at me. “The bike trail?”

I inched my way to the foot of the bed, moving closer to where my brother sat on the floor. “Sure, White Marsh. Think about it. It’s got a lot of big trees, some streams. Heck, it even has vines. It would make the perfect jungle.”

“Hmm. You may actually be on to something. The whole crew could bike up there, and we could do most of the shooting in an hour or two. You know, Chris, you’re actually a little smarter than you look.”

That was the closest thing to a compliment Steve had given me in a long time. “Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

With seven or eight kids stomping around, I was sure we would all be safe. Having a decent idea of how long it usually took Steve to find the perfect shot and organize, I figured Paul, Kevin, and I would have plenty of time to snoop around. Exactly what we would be looking for was another question entirely.

Leaving Steve to fuss over his screenplay, I flopped back in bed, kicked off my shoes, and opened the Player’s Handbook. After a few minutes of paging through magic user spells, my thoughts drifted back to the bushes. I suppose it could have been someone wearing a costume, maybe one of the neighborhood kids yanking my chain. But still…

“Hey, Steve?”

“What?”

“Ever heard of the Goatman?”

“Of course. Everyone has.”

“Do you believe he’s real?”

“Doubt it. They’ve been telling stories about him for years, but there have been no pictures or evidence to show he exists. I think he’s more or less a myth.”

“Perry says he’s real.”

“Hah! Let me guess. He told you and Paul he was real when you slept over.”

“Maybe. Why? What difference does that make?”

“He was trying to scare you, doofus—you and Paul. I bet it worked too.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Sure it did. You two suckers probably stayed up all night hugging each other and praying that the big bad Goatman wouldn’t drop by and hack you to pieces. Classic!”

Before I could mount a protest, Steve pointed to the book in my hands and said, “Someone like you probably shouldn’t be reading that stuff.”

“What do you mean, someone like me?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe I mean someone who thinks the closet is alive and staring at him.”

Only a month ago, I swore a pair of bulging eyes was peering out at me from our bedroom closet doors. My scream woke the whole household that night, and it wasn’t until my parents showed me what I was actually seeing was just the reflection of headlights off the porcelain knobs of the closet doors that I finally settled down. The most embarrassing part was even after I knew there was nothing to be afraid of, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Buried somewhere deep in the back of my brain, I was convinced the knobs were eyes, and as soon as everyone else fell asleep, those huge, unblinking peepers were bound to turn my way. It was a favorite subject of both Steve’s and Perry’s and something I wasn’t going to live down anytime in the near future.

Steve smirked. “What about someone who believes vampires are roaming the streets of Bowie or—my personal favorite—someone who thinks your stomach will blow up if you eat Pop Rocks and drink soda? You, dear brother, are hopeless.”

“Whatever. Mom and Dad say having imagination is a good thing.”

“They say that to your face because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Keep it up, and one of these days they’ll end up wrapping you in a straitjacket and putting you in a rubber room somewhere.”

What Steve said touched a nerve because there was truth in his words whether he knew it or not. Just a few weeks earlier, I overheard my folks discussing the possibility of sending me to see a shrink. It was hard to make out most of the conversation from the top of the stairs, but words like hyperactive imagination, anxiety, and worrier came up several times. In the end they agreed to wait to see if I grew out of it—whatever it was. To an insecure fifteen-year-old already prone to thoughts of doom and gloom, the implications were terrifying. For the next several weeks, I’d break out into a cold sweat every day I came home from school, convinced that eventually I would return only to be met by a couple of no-neck strangers in lab coats and then hauled off to the looney bin. I pictured the visits from my family during the holidays. They would stay for an hour or so, watching the clock the whole time as they spoke slowly, using third-grade words so as not to excite me. Then they would split back to the real world to enjoy their lives without Crazy Chris butting in. It all sounds a bit dramatic, but I promise you, it seemed inevitable at the time.

Getting in an argument with my brother never ended well for me, but the crap now spewing from his mouth was simply more than I could stomach. It had gotten much worse over the past couple of years. To him I was either stupid or a nuisance or, in some cases, a stupid nuisance. As if he was so perfect, so brilliant and talented with his precious little movies. Big deal. I could make movies. The thing with my brother was, his calm, cool look was just an act. Beneath the gleaming armor of superiority, Steve was almost as insecure as I was, and by some strange twist of fate, I had a unique talent for finding the chink in that armor. “Crazy or not, at least I know a crappy movie when I see it.”

Steve looked up from his script. I knew his blank expression was an act. He was seconds away from going nuclear. “What was that?”

A queasy feeling rose in my stomach, but for some reason I couldn’t stop. “You heard me. At least I know a lousy movie when I see it.”

My brother had entered a growth spurt when he turned fifteen. When Mongo stood up now, he stretched over six feet tall. I, on the other hand, barely made it to a lame five foot four. “What lousy movie are you talking about?”

Now that I had his attention, I had to zing him, let him know he should think twice before dismissing me as his stupid kid brother. I spat out the first movie that came to mind. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe Space Wars. I mean, talk about a rip off. All you did was take Star Wars and switch out the title.”

He walked to the edge of my bed. It was just a matter of time. “Everybody liked that movie. Mom and Dad said it was one of the best ones yet.” Steve smirked. “And you seemed to have plenty of fun being in it as I recall.” He turned and started back to his masterpiece in the making.

Time to poke the bear with a sharp stick. “Yeah, it was fun acting in it, but the whole thing still sucked. They were just being nice to you. The movie stunk it up more than a fart in an elevator.”

I sprang off the bed but couldn’t escape his hands in such tight quarters. He grabbed me by the neck and slammed me into the closet. The whack to the back of my head wasn’t as bad as it sounded, but it still left me seeing stars. Steve was in full-on Hulk mode now. Next, he tossed me to the ground and planted a freakishly large foot on my chest. Leaning down, he smiled. “At least I’m doing something with my life and not daydreaming about fairies and dumbass dwarves!”

I reached up and was able to grab a fistful of hair.

“Wow, look at how the sissy fights! Grabbing hair like a girl!”

Frustrated, I let go. As he straightened up and loomed over me, I did the only thing I could think of. Thrusting my right leg up, I arched my back to get a little more momentum. The result was a well-planted but somewhat lacking groin shot.

Steve grunted and stumbled off me as he cupped his tenders.

I jumped to my feet and swung.

Avoiding my punch by a mile, Steve pushed me back onto my bed.

As he pounced on top of me, I grabbed his shirt in an effort to try and pull myself up. The rip of polyester was unmistakable.

We froze.

“You tore my shirt!” he yelled.

I said the only thing I could think of, “I know!”

As quickly as it started, the brawl was over. Being the biggest and strongest, Steve had the final word when it came to ending our fights. This time it didn’t work out so bad for me, so I was more than happy to call it quits.

Steve stormed off to the bathroom to assess the damage to his shirt. Before slamming the door, he shouted, “And don’t forget to shut the bedroom window, you little stain! You’re lucky I did before the rain came and almost ruined my script!”