Gremlins (24 page)

“You had to go makin’ fun of the kid, didn’t you?” Sheriff Reilly muttered as he and Deputy Brent raced once again for their cruiser. The past hour, after what had started out as a slow night, had been frenetic and inexplicable.

“Me?” Brent replied defensively. “You were the one who started it. Anyway, I still don’t think it’s his little green monsters. I think it’s kids gone crazy ’cause they got nothin’ to do. And that radio station that keeps sendin’ out reports every ten minutes ain’t helpin’. Crazy people hear stuff like that and they start thinkin’ of things they can do to top it.”

“All right, never mind.” Reilly shrugged. “Where are Dudley and Warren?”

“At Governor’s Mall.”

“O.K. You and me got a choice—the troubles at the TV station or the people bein’ attacked by Christmas trees. Which do you want?”

Brent shrugged. “I’d just as soon leave the media alone. Let ’em solve their own problems. Probably a normal screw-up anyway.”

“Then we’ll do the trees.”

Swinging left on Washington Avenue, Sheriff Reilly headed the cruiser back toward the center of town. The streets were fairly deserted considering it was so close to Christmas, giving Kingston Falls a ghost town atmosphere, but at least that made it easier to get from place to place. Moving rapidly to the end of the block, he turned again at Waterton, the cruiser’s wheels spinning slightly as he—

“What—” was all Reilly was able to say before the police cruiser hit the first of a solid wall of upright objects.

After grinding and bumping to a halt, the bottom of the car sounding like the hull of a ship struck by a torpedo, the two policemen hopped from the cruiser and surveyed the damage in the glare of the headlights.

“Now who did this?” Brent muttered.

Ahead of them, extending for the entire block, were nothing but cinder blocks, placed upright on their ends like tiny grave markers, their square forms lined up one by one as far as the eye could see.

—just in from the Kingston Falls Police Department. Motorists are advised to avoid using Waterton Avenue between Washington and Adams. Police say that unknown persons have blockaded the street with concrete cinder blocks apparently taken from Williamson’s Building Supply yard nearby.

Another bizarre development occurred just a block away from St. Francis of Assisi Church, where Father Edmund Bartlett was mailing a letter. While doing so, he was pulled into the mailbox past his shoulders by a pair of unseen hands or claws, suffering cuts and bruises in the process. Meanwhile, a neighbor who spotted Father Bartlett trapped in the mailbox called for help and he was pulled out. When the helpers got a look inside the box, however, they fled.

Unfortunately, that’s not the last item in this latest list of unusual events taking place this evening. A basketball game between the Tigers and Whales of the Presbyterian Intermediate League had to be canceled this evening when it was discovered that all of the basketballs had been filled with peanut butter. The contest has been rescheduled for January eighth.

Finally—for the moment—we have received word from Channel Ten to the effect that the trouble is not in your set. That station’s interference has been caused by unknown problems with the equipment
.

Did I say Gremlins earlier? It certainly looks that way. Stay tuned.

“Man on the radio said it was Gremlins, Murray,” Mrs. Futterman said, coming back into the living room with a cup of coffee for her husband.

“Maybe he said it as a joke,” Futterman growled, resisting the temptation to kick his television set. “They always say it as a joke, but nobody believes it.”

When fiddling with the dials some more failed to improve his fuzzy TV picture, he leaned back wearily. “Not again,” he muttered. “Just when Perry Como was comin’ on.”

“Him singing ‘Ave Maria’ again?” Mrs. Futterman asked, and then continued, “I’d think you’d be sick of that by now. They play it every Christmas.”

“That’s part of Christmas. What did the radio say about the television?”

“Gremlins,” Mrs. Futterman repeated. “Nobody knows.”

“They probably got a bunch of foreign components, if you ask me,” Futterman growled. “Same with this darn Sony. I knew we shoulda got a Zenith.”

Flipping the dial, he encountered terrible grainy interference on every channel, his cheeks getting redder with every turn. Slamming his fist against the side of the set, he beamed with delight momentarily as several stations returned in beautiful color, and then banged it again as the cross-hatching reappeared.

“That’s not just the one channel,” he snarled. “It’s either the set or the antenna.”

“Well, let’s not worry about it now,” Mrs. Futterman said with a soft smile.

“ ’Course I’ll worry about it now,” he shot back. “My favorite Christmas shows are on. Why should I sit here and look at snow inside and snow outside?”

Suddenly he was on his feet and striding toward the hall closet. His wife merely watched as he started bundling himself up, knowing it was futile to argue against it.

“Where are you going?” she finally asked meekly.

“I’m gonna check the antenna,” he said. “Maybe it blew over.”

Pulling a woolen hat over his head, he went outside to the end of his walkway and looked back toward the roof.

The antenna was still intact but Mr. Futterman hardly noticed. What he noticed much more was that it was surrounded by a trio of small, long-armed figures that brought back a rush of memories from World War II.

For a long moment he simply stood, slack-jawed, staring at the three playing with his antenna. Then, remembering the rifle he kept loaded in a locked closet downstairs, he walked back toward the house, his eyes never leaving the roof until he reached the front porch.

—nother warning for motorists in the Kingston Falls area. We have reports that a series of detour signs have been placed on the downtown bypass road in such a way that drivers have been circling the reservoir for several hours. Some drivers, in their frustration at not being able to find their way out of this cul-de-sac, have stopped their cars and created huge bottlenecks, not to mention several collisions. All we can tell you about that situation is that several local garages have volunteered to send trucks to lead motorists out of the area. These trucks will have large yellow signs identifying them.

Shoppers are advised not to use Kingbank’s automatic teller at all three locations and West Kelvin Bank’s Fast-Cash machines. These are issuing shredded bills and returning ID cards bent in half. Officials of both banks have issued statements saying this is not the work of the so-called Gremlins, but is part of normal problems both banks have been experiencing.

It took a while for Sheriff Reilly and Deputy Brent to calm down the trio of women who had been attacked by the vending machines at the Green Bend rest area; having survived what was apparently a very harrowing situation, all three wanted to talk about it.

“We were standing between the two rows of machines,” the tall woman with bluish hair began. “Alice was trying to decide whether or not to get some cheese crackers when all of a sudden the soda cans just started coming straight out. Not dropping down, mind you, like when you put money in for them, but they were
hurled
out. One hit me right there, on my bad shoulder, and another got Maude on the chin. She’s still woozy.”

Brent nodded and made a note on his pad, not because he needed or wanted it, but because he knew they expected it.

“Look at this,” the one called Alice said, displaying a mean-looking cut at the base of her nose. “You wouldn’t think this could come from a pack of chewing gum, would you?”

“No, ma’am,” Sheriff Reilly replied.

“They were just whizzing out of there,” the third woman sighed. “I thought it was the end of the world.”

“You know, we’re not very agile,” the second one said. “When they started shooting that stuff at us, we just couldn’t get out of the way.”

The two officers nodded, made a few sympathetic remarks, and returned to their cruiser.

As they drove back to Kingston Falls, Sheriff Reilly finally stopped muttering to himself long enough to say, “Well, I guess we better talk more with the kid.”

“The kid?”

“Yeah. The one with the funny little animal that turns into Gremlins if you feed it after midnight. You got his name, didn’t you?”

“I thought he gave it to you, sheriff.”

“You had the complaint sheet, and I saw you write something down after he came in.”

“Oh, that was just a note to remind myself to call home.”

“Great.”

“I think I know who he is, though. He works in the bank. We can find out.”

“All right. I think maybe we better find out what he knows before we do anything else.”

—lines are still open. That’s 922-7400, and be prepared to hang on awhile because our switchboard, very appropriate for this time of year, is lit up like a Christmas tree. O.K. Here’s our next caller. Go ahead, sir, you’re on the air.

Oh. Yes. My name’s Willkie Smith and I’ve just come from a Howard Johnson’s restaurant that spit this terrible stuff in my face . . .

The restaurant spit at you?

No. One of them machines in the men’s room that you use to dry your hands and face. The hot air machines . . .

Yes. Go on.

Well, I turned it on to do my face and suddenly I was covered with this awful-smelling orange stuff.

A liquid? Are you at liberty to say what it was?

I don’t know. It smelled like it come out of a toilet, except it was older, like with mold and—

Well, maybe that’s a bit too graphic. Where was the restaurant, sir?

Commerce and Lawndale. You know what I think? I think this is part of God’s plan. Now it says in the New Testament—

The look on her husband’s face told Mrs. Futterman that he was about to embark on a holy crusade. Although a generally volatile man, he never got that steely-eyed, twitching-nerve-in-the-cheek expression except when somewhat crazed or messianic. She had seen it when someone stole the radio from his car, and another time when his favorite football team lost the divisional championship on a bad call by the officials. When he emerged from the basement with his rifle, she knew she had read him correctly.

“Murray,” she said, taking his arm. “What is it?”

“Gremlins,” he replied. “On the roof.”

“What kind of Gremlins?”

“No time to explain now. You just stay inside—”

“But if you go out in the street and fire off that rifle, you’ll be reported for sure,” she protested.

“Let go of my arm, Jessie,” he ordered.

She did so and he continued on his heavy-footed mission. Outside, he was halfway to the street and had the first Gremlin in his sights when he realized that Jessie was right. Firing off a rifle from his front lawn was pretty foolhardy, especially when there was a window in the back of the garage which would provide an even better vantage point. Moving quietly into the garage, he groped his way past the snowplow, which took up all but six inches on either side, and pushed the window open. He smiled, for the view of his rooftop was perfect, and from here the sound of his rifle would be partially muffled.

Lining up one of the Gremlins, he squeezed off his first shot. The little green demon proved it was neither imaginary nor immortal by falling in a heap and sliding off the roof. Futterman laughed out loud. It felt good to fire the rifle again, to be locked in combat with the enemy—

A low chattering sound interrupted his excited train of thought. Where was it coming from? The rooftop? Somewhere nearby? There was no time to think about it. If the two other troublemakers near his antenna were to be dealt with . . .

He threw the rifle to his shoulder and fired again. Another Gremlin dropped.

In his excitement and eagerness to bag his third enemy soldier, Futterman hardly heard the snowplow’s engine roar to life.

The third Gremlin started to slide off the roof.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Futterman yelled, moving the rifle to follow him. In a split second he had the little target in his sights.

Now the snowplow seemed almost to lean forward, its wheels ready to burst from their positions like sprinters from starting blocks. The engine roar became deafening as—

Bam! Bam!

“Hot darn!” Futterman cried out. “I got you, you little son of a—”

He never completed the phrase. With a mammoth lurch forward, the snowplow tore through the back wall of the garage, taking Futterman with it in a shower of timber and bricks.

—know all of you are interested in what the weather’s going to be for the next few days, but you won’t be able to find out by calling for the weather. No one’s sure why, but calls to the telephone company’s weather number are going directly to Carl’s Sub Shoppe on West Monticello Drive. But you can’t get the weather by dialing Carl’s Sub Shoppe because calls for Carl are somehow going directly to the Gamblers Anonymous hot line. A few minutes ago an official with the phone company informed us that the Kingston Falls relay station was broken into earlier this evening and that everything is in a state of chaos. So stay off the phone unless it’s an absolute emergency.

Meanwhile, three more cases of people being trapped in pay phone booths turned up in—

“Well, what do you think, Kate?” Dorry smiled, leaning forward onto the bar. “Think it’s Gremlins, Commies, the end of the world, or just ordinary screw-ups?”

The pub was nearly deserted, thanks largely to the rash of strange and frightening incidents taking place in and around Kingston Falls. At first the early evening customers tended to regard the bizarre events with satirical amusement, but when reports were heard of electrical malfunctions causing fires, a man being electrocuted by his Christmas tree, and other life-threatening situations, even the most hardened scoffer began to think about protecting his loved ones. An even greater exodus from Dorry’s Pub followed reports that in another bar across town, lye, ammonia, aqua regia, and other deadly chemicals had turned up in cocktails. The result was an evening so slow that Dorry was seriously considering closing the bar and going home before midnight.