An oldie but a goodie

 This is the first story I will share. I wrote it several years ago and it was lost for a time. I've decided it shouldn't stay lost. It needs polishing up but I've sort of grown attached to that old campy style I used to tell stories in.

 

REVENGE OF THE CHILDREN
By
Nick Pulsipher

 

1.

The light flickered in the tree house. The kerosene lamp that it emanated from hung from a hook attached to the center of the roof. It lit up the two children who were sitting across from each other deep in conversation. Their brows were furrowed to mark the seriousness of the subject.
“Is it really the last year?” One kid asked. He was a portly kid, wearing tattered jeans with more holes than Swiss cheese and a shirt that was so tight it looked like it was about to burst open. His face looked smudged with dirt but it was only the beginning of his very first set of whiskers.
“Yes Grubs,” said the other kid. He was the tallest of the two of them; having grown a foot over the summer, and that also made him the leader of the group. It was a nickname that he wore proudly, and one that Grubs was more than willing to call him by. His real name was Ashley. Grubs had called him that only once. That was the day he became Grubs.
“We’re in middle school now. It is time we grow up. We shouldn’t even be doing anything this year but we didn’t know this would someday come to an end. Otherwise we would have ended things differently.”
Grubs face turned sad. “Mr. Smiley,” he said.
“Mr. Smiley,” the leader repeated, with a sneer.
Mr. Smiley had once been the source of jokes made by all of the local children. Everywhere he went the children would laugh at him. No one knew his real name because no one ever bothered asking him, and the nickname they had bestowed upon him had been more than fitting. He was an old man dressed in a blue rain slicker that clung to his boney frame, and tan polyester pants that had to have been as old as he was. As for his age, no one knew that either. As far as they were concerned he had always been old. It was his face that drew the most attention though. He had an open mouthed grin that never changed and most of his teeth were missing. His face was a mass of wrinkles and grey whiskers. He looked like a Jack-o-lantern that had sat out in the sun for far too long.
For years children had made fun of him and he had never showed the slightest bit of reaction. That was part of the fun of it; to see if he would ever do something about it. Then, one day, he did, and the jokes made about him had stopped.
It was a Halloween night. Instead of the usual laughter that accompanies getting free candy, the air was filled with shrieks of horror. Children ran home screaming about the boogeyman stepping out of the dark and coming to get them. It turned out all he was really after was their candy, and every year he walked away with more than anyone could ever want. It
wasn’t until last year, when the boogeyman stole Grubs and the leader’s candy that they discovered his true identity. The moonlight had caught his face. The smile had been
unmistakable. It was Mr. Smiley. Now that his identity had been revealed, no one dared say a single thing about him.
Grubs had cried like a baby that night. The leader had only managed to calm him down by promising that someday they would get their revenge. If this was to be their last year of trick-or-treating, it would have to be now.
“Halloween is tomorrow,” the leader was saying. “It’s going to be a long day and an even longer night but by the time it is finished we’ll be glad we did this.”
“So we are really going through with this?” Grubs asked.
“Yes,” the leader confirmed. “We have to. Not only for ourselves, but for every child who has ever crossed paths with Mr. Smiley. He likes to steal from children? Let’s see how he likes it when some children steal from him.”

2.

So this is what a stakeout is like, Grubs thought, as he slowly followed Mr. Smiley around town. No, no, no, his mind corrected him. This is tailing. A stakeout is what you did all morning when you were watching his house. Tailing, he mused, because I’m behind him, like his tail would be, if he had one. He felt a smile start to form but he quickly got rid of it. This was serious business and at any moment the leader was going to show up. At least, that was what the text message had said fifteen minutes earlier, and Grubs still couldn’t see him anywhere. Still, he
couldn’t risk the leader catching him with a grin on his face. Now that they were in a new school the leader might decide it was time to start looking for some new friends. His face turned completely serious at the thought and he continued to follow Mr. Smiley.
Mr. Smiley walked at a leisurely pace, and for that Grubs was thankful. Walking wasn’t his most favorite thing to do. He preferred the indoors, and air conditioning. He was starting to
sweat and it made him wonder why Mr. Smiley always wore a jacket. In all the times he had ever seen him, he couldn’t think of a single time he had seen him without it.
What’s he doing now, Grubs thought. He’d stopped walking and was bent over the ground as if he was examining something. Then he reached down and grabbed something and put it in his pocket.
Cigarette butts, Grubs thought. Mr. Smiley liked to collect them and smoke whatever was left in them. It was probably why he had such a scary looking face. It was enough evidence to convince Grubs to stay away from cigarettes.
Suddenly something touched Grubs’ shoulders. He spun around and would have let out a yell if the leader hadn’t clamped his hand over Grubs’ mouth.
“Easy Grubs,” the leader scolded him. “You don’t want to give us away.”
Grubs exhaled and relaxed.
“You startled me,” he said. His face turned a light shade of pink.
“What’s he been doing?”
“Just walking, but he moves so slow, I’ve been worried he’s going to turn around and spot me.”
The leader nodded. For a moment he looked deep in thought, as if he was considering something.
“You know,” he finally said, after a moment. “This is pointless; us following him like this. At some point he’ll have to head home and eat something before the trick-or-treaters come
out. He’s not going to go out scaring kids on an empty stomach. We’re better off waiting until later.”
Grubs looked visibly relieved.
“We’ll go back and watch his place until he leaves again.”
Grubs nodded in agreement.
“I want you to text me the moment he gets home.”
“Wait, what?” Grubs gasped.
“I’ll be there after he shows up. Until then it’s really only a one person job. I don’t see the point in both of us wasting our time. Besides, you already know of a vantage point to watch from.”
Grubs was about to argue but decided it was pointless and so they parted ways. The leader headed home to his air conditioned house and Grubs headed back to resume his stakeout of Mr. Smiley’s house.

3.

Things weren’t going according to plan. It was dark out and Mr. Smiley had never returned home. Grubs was starting to feel like this was somehow all his fault. He was sure the leader would feel the same way. To top it all off, his stomach was growling. Hunger pains were
starting to overtake him. He should have brought some food with him. A cop on a stakeout would have.
When the leader finally showed up, Grubs already had an apology prepared, but the look on the leader’s face stopped it from reaching his lips. The leader had a grin on his face that was stretched so tight it was eerily similar to Mr. Smiley’s. Hs eyes looked like two black hollows. Grubs opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.
“I heard them,” the leader said, his voice filled with jubilation. “Children are already screaming. Mr. Smiley is scoring big for us tonight.”
“That’s great,” Grubs said. His stomach grumbled in agreement. “So where is he now? I want to get this over with so I can head home.”
“Out there somewhere,” the leader said, waving his hand in ever direction. “There is really no point in searching for him now. He’ll more than likely see us before we see him. We’re better off waiting for him to come home. It’s probably better this way anyways.”
“But that could take hours,” Grubs argued.
“Possibly,” the leader agreed. “But the way I figure it, the longer we wait, the more candy he will have when he shows up. I don’t know about you, but to me that makes it all worth it.”
The hours passed by slowly but in the end it turned out to be worth it just like the leader had said. They could make out Mr. Smiley’s silhouette walking towards his house. His arms were weighed down with enough candy to rot a thousand teeth. Grubs had never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life. It was all the encouragement he needed to finish carrying out their plan. In fact he started to get into position. He crouched down on all fours. Not only was he going to scare Mr. Smiley, but he was going to tackled him as well. He was just about to take off.
Mr. Smiley had just entered his line of sight. It would have been over then and there, but as soon as he lifted one foot to the ground, the leader placed a hand on his chest and stopped him.
“No,” the leader whispered, shaking his head.
Grubs looked at the hand on his chest in astonishment. He opened his mouth to argue but then the door to Mr. Smiley’s house slammed shut and when Grubs looked, Mr. Smiley was gone. He couldn’t believe it. All the time that he had spent was now meaningless. Then something happened that had never happened before. Grubs rose up from the ground filled with an uncontrollable rage. He towered over the leader with clenched fists. Instead of rising, the leader shrank back in fear.
“Easy now,” the leader said. “You gotta let me explain.”
“I don’t gotta do nothing,” Grubs said through clenched teeth. “We’ve been at this all day. No. I’ve been at this all day. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and now I have nothing to show for it.”
“You don’t understand,” the leader pleaded. “I had to stop you. You were about to ruin everything.”
“Ruin?” Grubs repeated. “I was about to get the candy.”
“You were about to be seen. We can’t be seen. When we do this he can’t know that it was us.”
“Then how are we supposed to get it?”
“Well, he’s gotta go to sleep sometime.”
It took Grubs a moment to register what the leader was really saying. When it finally hit him it was he who shrank back in fear.
“No,” he said. “No way. I’m not breaking into someone’s house, least of all Mr. Smiley’s.”
The leader shook his head in disbelief.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “You’ll tackle an old man for candy but you won’t sneak in his house and take it when he is asleep? What’s wrong with my way? In my way nobody gets hurt.
He can’t report it because what we are taking doesn’t even belong to him and he won’t suspect us because we didn’t even go trick-or-treating. If he suspects anyone it will be one of the kids he stole from tonight.”
Grubs eventually calmed down. The leader was right. They had to be cautious. If Mr. Smiley was willing to steal from children, their was no telling what he would do if he caught someone trying to do the same to him.

4.

The doorknob slowly turned counter clockwise. They had never once considered that it might be locked because people just didn’t lock their doors where they lived. It was pointless. Nothing bad ever happened. Mr. Smiley was no exception. His door opened just like they knew it would. A streetlamp shined through the front window giving off just enough light for them to see their way around the house.
Motes of dust floated into the light as they started to move further into the house. To Grubs it wasn’t a house at all; it was an antique store. He was certain that not only were most of the things in the house older than him, they were older than his parents as well.
The candy was nowhere in sight, and it didn’t take long before he realized that their was really only one place that the candy would be; in the bedroom with Mr. Smiley. Grubs would have stopped right there but the leader was moving towards the back of the house and he didn’t dare open his mouth. Instead, he followed. That was what he was good at.
On the left side of the living room, there was a hallway that led to more rooms. As they walked down in, Grubs could just make out picture frames that decorated the walls, but it was too dark to make out the faces that occupied them. Grubs was more than curious to see the faces
of the people who had been a part of Mr. Smiley’s life. Maybe it was better that he didn’t because if he did, he would never be able to go through with what they were doing. In this case it was better to think of Mr. Smiley as the monster Grubs knew him to be instead of the human man that he could be.
They passed an open doorway but a quick look revealed that it was only a bathroom. It was about the size of a cubicle and had towels thrown all over the place. The leader ducked inside the bathroom and shut the door before Grubs could do anything. He stood there in shock, waiting to see what was going to happen. Then he heard the sound of water, only it wasn’t water and he just couldn’t believe it. When the sound came to a stop the leader came back out.
“I’ve been holding that all day,” he whispered. Then he turned and continued down the hall. Grubs still couldn’t believe it. After the bathroom, that left only one room at the end of the hallway; Mr. Smiley’s bedroom. Each step they took was carefully placed. Grubs put his feet exactly where the leader had and paused whenever the leader did.
When they stopped at the doorway Grubs swore he could see a faint light flickering from the bottom. If the leader had seen it, he chose at that moment to ignore it. In a moment that felt
like an eternity, he turned the knob and pushed the door open. The door squeaked open on rusty hinges and all at one, their entire world turned upside down.


5.

Grubs had read a story once where two men walked along a dark passageway that was littered with human bones. The men had hardly paid any notice to them. It was like their appearance was a normal thing. The image he had conjured at the time came fluttering back to him as he stood staring at Mr. Smiley’s room. Piles of human bones hid most of the carpet, leaving only a few places to walk. A few well placed candles lit up the bones and reflected off of the skulls that smiled at them with toothless grins. Their was nothing right or normal about their appearance there.
On the bed, in the center of the room, sat the bags of candy that they had come for, but neither one of them made a move towards them because next to the bags sat Mr. Smiley looking right at them.
For a moment they were frozen. Even as he stood up from his bed, they didn’t move. Even if they could move it wouldn’t have been fast enough. He had moved past them with a quickness that shouldn’t have been possible and shut their only way out. They were trapped like deer caught in a set of headlights.
“You like my Halloween decorations?” Mr. Smiley asked. His voice was silky smooth, like a crooner from days long past.
“I only get them out when I’m expecting company. Pretty, aren’t they?”
It was the leader who first regained control of his mouth, only the words coming out of his mouth were a little hard to understand between the sobs. Grubs was surprised. He’d never seen the leader cry before. He was supposed to be the strong one. Grubs was the one who was supposed to break down. In fact he was surprised he hadn’t yet.
“Don’t cry,” Mr. Smiley said in his soothing voice. “I’m glad you’re here. I was expecting you. You see, I have lots of candy and I can’t possibly eat it all.”
The leader continued to cry and for the briefest of moments, Mr. Smiley frowned at him.
“On second thought, I don’t think I want to share with you. After all, I did all of the work. No, on second thought, I want you to share something with me.”
“Wha…” the leader started to say but then he broke down into sobs once again.
“Your bones. That’s what I want. That’s why I let you get so close to me. As you can probably tell, mine are starting to wear out. They wear out so much faster than they used to. It’s time I got some fresh ones and added these to my collection.”
Grubs looked at him to see if this was some kind of sick joke but he couldn’t tell. The smile didn’t look anything other than sinister. He had to do something. This wasn’t right. This was an unspeakable evil that had to be stopped. Just then he remembered what the leader had sad only the night before. He said this was going to be their last Halloween. He didn’t want to believe it then and refused to believe it now. He crouched down like an animal about to attack it’s prey and sprang forward with all his might. As he charged at Mr. Smiley he let out a deep, guttural roar.
Mr. Smiley’s eyes widened in surprise as Grubs crashed into him. Body parts flew in every direction. It was like he had toppled over a stack of wooden blocks. Jenga! He wanted tocry out at that moment. Grubs landed on the bed, spilling the bags of candy. He lay there panting, try to catch his breath.
“I should have done that sooner,” Grubs said aloud.
“Grubs?” said the leader in a childlike voice. Grubs looked over at him. He looked so small, nothing like the leader Grubs always thought of him as.
“Grab the candy,” Grubs said, as he pushed himself off the bed.
The leader looked at him like he couldn’t understand.
“Grab the candy, Ashley,” Grubs sneered this time. The leader did as he was told and just like that, he was no longer the leader. As they started to leave, Grubs looked back at the sepulchral room. On the floor, among the bones, lay Mr. Smiley’s head with wide eyes looking up at him. Grubs imagined that Mr. Smiley had a lot to say about this moment, only he couldn’t because his lower jaw was missing. Loose skin hung in it’s place.
People never figured out what happened to Mr. Smiley. The bones at his house only added to the mystery of his disappearance. The parts beneath his clothes were too old to belong to him and as for his head, no one ever found that. Some of the bones were so old they had to be sent off to a bunch of scientists. People talked about digging up their loved ones to see if they had any parts missing. They talked about a lot of things but in the end decided it was best to just let it go.
The leader tried to tell people what had really happened to Mr. Smiley but Grubs wouldn’t go along with him. In the end he was carted off to a place for people who weren’t right in the head. As for Grubs, he was doing just fine. He stopped trick-or-treating. The leader was right about that. He was far too old for that kind of thing. He still got plenty of candy on Halloween though. Mr. Smiley had started a tradition that Grubs was more than willing to keep alive and he had a mask that was scary enough to get the job done. On every Halloween he would remove the mask from a secret place and pull it down over his face as he stood in front of a mirror. He would adjust it until it fit just right. “Hello, Mr. Smiley,” he would say, and then he would step out into the dark of night.