Fear the Barfitron (7 page)

My stomach turned as I watched a glob of phlegmy goo drip off of the cage and onto the table. I took a deep breath, only to smell a putrid odor coming from the trash can behind me. I could feel something gurgling inside of me.

As I tried to hold the erupting vomit volcano back, the old folks started to grumble and moan. They were not happy that their game had been ruined. I needed to get the game going again.

I turned the handle, waiting for the familiar squeak, but it never came. I saw that some of the spider egg goop had fallen onto the joint where the ball and the mount met, lubricating the cage. As I turned the cage, the goop became warmer—and smellier. I could taste the puke rising in my throat.

The Nurse must have noticed I was about to spew. He slapped me hard on the back and I swallowed it back down.

The rest of the game went smoothly. I had called out a dozen or so more numbers when the hairier of
the two hairy old men yelled, “BINGO!” and then howled excitedly. The howl took me by surprise. He looked so old that I didn’t think he would be able to make such a loud noise. It filled the Great Room and shook the windows. Even Horace stopped playing the organ to turn around and see what was going on.

A Nurse headed into the back of the room to grab the old man’s bingo card and confirm that he’d actually won. When the Nurse got back there, he scratched his head and looked around. That’s when a few of the other old folks pointed up to the front of the room. A mangy dog held a bingo card in his mouth and limped his way toward me.

The dog jumped up on the table and placed the card in front of me, then turned around and trotted shakily to the back of the room. I noticed that he had fur missing in great patches. He was a very, very old dog—the same one I had seen the first day. Where did he come from? Was he the old man’s dog?

I looked down at the card, and confirmed that, in fact, the old man had won. I announced this to the crowd, which moaned a collective, “Noooooo…” as they realized that they wouldn’t win that round. I looked into the back of the room and saw the old man sitting back in his chair again. He waved excitedly as the rest of the crowd hissed at him.

I looked around for the dog, and I couldn’t see it anywhere.

It was only Wednesday of the second week of the new school year, but it felt like I’d been in the sixth grade for two or three decades. Last night’s bingo marathon seemed to last forever. The old folks just couldn’t get enough. We must have played twenty or thirty games—and once it was over, the Nurses escorted me out the door. I never even got to do any investigating for my lebensplasm.

What worried me were the old folks. The more time I spent with them, the more frightened I became. It wasn’t just that they were
like
monsters. I was beginning to believe that they actually
were
monsters. There was no other way to explain what I’d seen! The hairy old man who had won the first game howled and disappeared only to have an old dog appear in his place—an
old dog with very human eyes.
Werewolf?
my tired mind asked. The old woman in the black shawl who had eaten the spider was the same woman I had seen in front of the cauldron on the first day. Was she going to use the spider legs in her leather pouch for a witch’s potion of some sort? And what were they planning for my lebensplasm?

Still exhausted from the night before, I shuffled into my first class of the day: Mr. Bradley’s Social Studies. You could smell his breath before you even walked into the room. I don’t know what was more upsetting, the stench or his huge, swollen, red, bald, spotted head. It looked like some kind overripe fruit that could explode at any minute.

I sat down next to Ben and didn’t even say hi. My mind was swimming from the day before. In my mind, I could see the eyes of the dog—they looked so human. The way the old witch—I mean lady—had eaten that spider was supercreepy. I wondered if the monsters—I mean old people—ate my lebensplasm the same way.

Mr. Bradley pulled a small vial out of his jacket pocket and took a sip from it. He did this all the time, thinking that it would calm the breath down. Sometimes it worked, but then the room would be filled with a sickening medicine stench. I’m not sure which smell was worse.

“Hey, Chris,” Ben said, wrinkling his nose. “You
look as bad as he smells. Are you okay?”

“They’re eating my lebensplasm,” I mumbled. The words just rolled out before I even realized what I was saying. The mixture of the exhaustion and stench was making me delirious.

“Did you say ‘eating egg salad’?” asked Ben. “What’s the matter?”

How could I tell my friend that monsters were eating a gooey extract of me to stay alive? I hardly believed it myself. At this point, I couldn’t remember if I actually saw an old dog last night, or if my mind was just playing tricks on me.

“Oh, nothing,” I said, recovering quickly and pretending to look awake. “If anything, you’re the one who looks sick.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” Ben fake-laughed. “Yeah, that’s sort of my thing, I guess. Which is why I’m sure there’s something wrong with you.”

Before I could defend myself, Mr. Bradley lumbered out of his chair behind his desk and said, “All right, everyone. It’s quiz time!”

“Awww, not a pop quiz!” I yelled it before I could even stop myself.

The entire class stared at me. There were a few moments of unbelievably uncomfortable silence, and then Mr. Bradley spoke again.

“Chris, why are you joking about a pop quiz? This
quiz was assigned, covering chapters two and three. You do remember, don’t you?”

I laughed nervously, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t even read chapters two and three. “Well, it’s still a surprise,” I said. “Shocking! Ha!”

Ben gave me a look that said
Shut up
, so I shut up.

Still, I wasn’t too worried. I read so much about history and culture online that I was sure to get a C.

At least I would have. If I hadn’t fallen asleep halfway through the quiz.

Apparently, I snore. LOUDLY. At least that’s what Mr. Bradley and the principal told me.

Ben texted me later that day:

I’m sorry I couldn’t wake you up.

Dude, my mom was furious!

I know. I could have shook you more.

You should have shook me HARDER!

Are you calling me a wimp?

Maybe.

Dude, you’re the one passing out from volunteering.

It’s IMPORTANT lifesaving work!

They’re old! How much life can you be saving?

You don’t understand.

You’re weird.

I know. Pls, just let me be weird.

I stared at my sent message in horror. I had just dropped all of the vowels in “please.” Things were getting bad. I fell back into bed.

As a star student, I had a lot of wiggle room with my parents when I screwed up. My mother wanted to ground me for my Social Studies Siesta, but I’d insisted that I go back to Raven Hill. “But the old people
need
me,” I’d explained in my most annoying, whiny voice.
If only she knew how much they need me,
I thought. After twenty minutes of begging and pleading, she let me go.

I made my way toward the retirement home. This time no ravens stood between the entrance and me. Pushing my way through the front door, I didn’t even pause when the Nurse said, “Wait here.”

Nothing was going to stand between me and my lebensplasm.

Beyond the entrance, the hallways were free of any Nurses or residents. I quickly got to the kitchen door
and reached out to the doorknob to give it a twist…

“Mr. Taylor, may I help you with something?”

The voice made tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. After changing my grimace into a grin, I turned around to face the Director.

“Oh,” I said, sounding completely calm, “I just needed a drink. I’m really thirsty.”

The Director looked at me intently for a moment, and then said, just as calmly, “I’m very sorry, but our kitchen is closed for the night. I’d offer you some punch, but I’m afraid it’s not the kind of drink meant for…a young person such as yourself.”

“Punch?” I asked.

“Yes, punch. Tonight, we’re throwing a dance for the residents, and the kitchen concocted a punch for the occasion. The Great Room has been transformed into a ballroom. All we need now is the appropriate music.”

He motioned me toward the Great Room, and we stepped through the door together.

A huge, empty dance floor took up most of the space. The residents were all slouched in chairs to the side of the dance floor or growling and burping around the bloodred punch bowl. The old man with the sharp teeth avoided the crowd around the bowl by using a long straw to reach it. He slurped loudly from ten feet away.

“Tonight,” said the Director, “you’ll be playing
music while our residents couple up and dance. You’ll find we’ve set up a DJ station for you where Horace usually sits.”

The Director took a bow and exited.

Two old turntables and a crate of dusty old records sat on a table at the front of the ballroom. After I made sure there were no spider eggs in the crate, I shuffled through the monsterly collection, which included The Dave Boo-beck Quartet, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, The Crypt-Kickers, and a bat-shaped record that didn’t have a sleeve.

I pulled out the bat-shaped record, but soon realized it wasn’t a record. It was a real bat. Its leathery skin was still moist and squishy, and small wads of greasy fur fell off its rotten body. Its little bat face looked terribly squished, but I could still see its sharp fangs.

The bat reeked terribly, and I tossed it behind the organ.

“Sorry, Horace,” I mumbled.

I sniffed my hand. It smelled like I had just petted a wet dog that had rolled around in week-old fish and horse dung.

“Ewww.” I burped, and my stomach bunched into knots.

I’m turning into Ben,
I thought, and held back another spewfest.

The old folks were starting to moan and groan, and
shuffle into the center of the dance floor. They were all well-dressed—but in really old clothes. One old man coughed and moths flew out of his holey suit…and his mouth!

To keep them from shuffling right up to me and making any requests (like “May I eat you?”), I grabbed a record out of the crate as quickly as I could, took it out of its sleeve, blew a few tons of dust off one side, sneezed, and then flopped it down on one of the turntables. I searched desperately for a Repeat button so I would have time to find my lebensplasm, but my only choices were Stop and Start.

I chose Start. The record crackled for a little bit, and then a spooky slow swing song started to play. After a short intro, a singer started. He sounded like he was growling.

A few of the old folks went “Awww” as they recognized the tune, and shuffled into pairs. They danced a slow, slow dance. Their bones creaked.

The name of the album was
Moonlight Serenades
by Count Vlad and the Count Basie Orchestra.

The song was called “Neck Nibble Nocturne.”

My skin crawled as the singer continued.

The singer stopped and a scary-sounding trumpet started to play. My heart rose into my throat. Monsters slow danced with monsters. Banshees. Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Swamp things. Mummies. Old monsters of all different shapes and sizes.

Two zombies were delicately nibbling each other’s necks. The Nurses in the room moved in to break them up.

With the Nurses distracted, I crept out of the Great Room. I went back to the kitchen door, opened it up, and quickly slipped inside.

A Nurse stood at an open refrigerator with a big, satisfied grin. He was chewing on a large, slimy tentacle when he saw me out of the corner of his eye.

“What are you doing?” he growled.