Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories (21 page)

***

Later, in the other place, Flattop told him it was the orange sherbet that had done it, that had changed everything that day.

At first, Scott found this hard to believe, but, having nothing else that made sense, he shrugged it off.

Orange sherbet? Well, okay . . .

***

Scott visited the candy shop first, almost as a way to delay the gratification of heading to the book store. Comic books had just gone up to 25 cents from their price of just 20 cents a year before, and that had put a real crimp in Scott’s budget. His usual allowance of 50 cents a week used to buy him two books and a candy bar. Now he had to either buy two books and forgo the candy or buy one book and two candies, which was generally more candy than he wanted, or buy one book and one candy, leaving him with the strangely useless amount of 15 cents.

But today, he’d received not just the nifty new 10-speed, but three whole dollars from his dad. Scott’s head spun . . . he could buy eight comic books and a Coke and some candy . . . or maybe just a buck’s worth of comics—still four issues!—a Coke and a slew of candy. Pocket the change and add it to his allowance next week.

Or maybe a paperback sci-fi novel. As Scott had moved from children’s underpants and his childish nickname, so, too, was he starting to drift away from comics. The racks of fantastically covered science fiction and fantasy novels (usually by artist Darrell K. Sweet) had begun to grab his attention—Silverberg, Foster, Clarke, and Asimov, Bradbury, Sturgeon, and Heinlein. But these books were generally about a buck apiece, which meant buying even one forced him to save for at least two weeks. And as any kid could attest, two weeks without candy or a comic book was like withdrawal for a heroin addict.

The choices that were unlocked by his father’s unexpected gift of three dollars were overwhelming, confronting Scott with so many possibilities that he almost couldn’t decide.

So he darted into the candy shop first, to spend a carefully budgeted amount of money before heading over to the vastly more tempting book store. He devoted a great deal of time poring over the shop’s wares—eventually drawing the attention of the shopkeeper, who, Scott realized, probably thought he was preparing to rip him off.

Scott grabbed two packs of Lik-m-Aid, a Hershey bar and two sticks of Laffy Taffy—banana and grape. That set him back just 45 cents, leaving him with more than enough for a Coke and a few comics . . . and perhaps a paperback.

Scott walked past his bike, still parked at the bike rack, and headed toward the book store, the paper bag with his candy swinging happily at his side.

The shopping center was shaped like a horseshoe, and the bookstore was at its center. He passed by the department store his mother took him to every year to buy his school clothes, the sporting goods dealer with its mannequins of men in soccer outfits and women in tennis skirts, a knick-knack store, the record store with albums by Queen, Elton John, the Eagles, KC & the Sunshine Band, and The Captain & Tenille. Like paperback books, music was beginning to exert a powerful gravitational pull on him. Soon his little 45 rpm turntable and pocket AM/FM radio wouldn’t be enough, and he’d need a stereo and some records to go with it.

Perhaps later, though. Maybe his next birthday.

Not today.

The little bell jingled as he entered, and Scott took a deep breath as the door closed behind him, sealing him off from the outside world. Here in the bookstore, the air was cool, crisp and smelled of paper and ink and the glue binding it all together. The shop was plain, just five aisles of low shelves filled mostly with paperbacks and gigantic racks of magazines and newspapers covering the far wall.

Near the front, close by so the cashier could glare at the audience of mostly kids who pawed over them, were the spinners filled with comic books—two for Marvel, two for DC. Scott rarely, if ever, bothered looking at the DC titles.

Today, though, he drifted past them, went by without even looking, and went to the aisle with the science fiction books. And as he stood there looking at the covers and trying to decide which single book he’d plunk his money down for and take home, a curious thought came into his head.

Orange sherbet.

He picked up a copy of a book called
Sign of the Unicorn
by Roger Zelazny and stared at its cover blankly for a few moments.

All the while, he could think of nothing but orange sherbet, the cold of it against his lips, his tongue; the taste of it, tangy and creamy down his throat.

The only ice cream place in the shopping center was a Dairy Queen. But Scott knew that no amount of plain, white soft-serve would be enough.

He suddenly, and quite forcefully, wanted . . .
needed
. . . a scoop or two (What the heck? He had the money!) of orange sherbet.

And, he realized just as forcefully, he could get it himself.

That thought was so liberating, so freeing that his head literally spun.

But the only other ice cream shop he knew of was the Velvet Freeze, about a mile up the road. The problem with this was that road, Lindbergh, was the major thoroughfare in the area, a four-lane behemoth lined with strip shopping centers and fast-food restaurants and grocery stores. And while his parents hadn’t exactly forbidden him to take his bike on this road, he knew that it was only because the very idea of doing that was so patently absurd that it didn’t bear discussion.

Surely, he would never even think about doing
that
.

Scott knew that they wouldn’t approve, that they’d be furious if they found out, that they’d most likely ground him from the bike for some period of time.

But it was those four simple, little words that took root in his mind, grew until they overshadowed everything else.

If they found out . . .

Nearly vibrating with the dual excitement of his revelation and his decision, he walked the Zelazny paperback up to the cashier and paid for it, 97 cents with tax, pocketed the change and left with another bag.

Heading toward his bike, he saw something out of the corner of his eye . . . a clump of shadows at the far end of one of the U-shaped shopping center’s arms.

He shielded his eyes with one hand, squinted.

Kids on bikes, four of them, silhouetted against the light. Looked to be one older kid and three younger ones. The larger one was definitely a guy, but he couldn’t see if the others were boys or girls or some mix of the two.

Were they kids he knew? Kids from his neighborhood or school?

Because one thing seemed certain. They definitely appeared to be looking at him . . .
watching
him.

And now, they seemed to be following him.

A little self-conscious now, Scott looped the handles of his bags through the handlebars, climbed onto his bike, backed it from the rack.

For some reason he didn’t understand, seeing those kids made his stomach twitch.

He cast one look behind as he set off for Lindbergh, but they didn’t seem to follow him. As before, they didn’t even move. People moved around them, like water flowing around rocks in a stream. But they took no more notice of this than the rocks might the water.

Scott pedaled fast, trying to shrug them off.

Thinking only of orange sherbet.

***

As Scott came to the end of the shopping center’s main entrance, he began to have second and even third thoughts.

Lindbergh was a real road, not one of the gentle two-laners that meandered through his subdivision or past his school. It was two lanes in each direction, and the speed limit was not the gentle, unrushed 20 or 25 miles per hour, with a few cars going by, but a heady 45 miles per hour and packed with cars.

Scott stood with his bike for a few seconds, weighing his options as vehicles whizzed past. He could feel the air of their passing buffeting him, pushing him as if trying to shake some sense into him.

Each side of Lindbergh had a wide, gravel shoulder, more than enough room for a bike, to be sure. In fact, several kids on bikes went by as he sat there.

All of them, he noted sourly, visibly older than him.

As he sat there, another thought crept in, one that carried considerably more weight.

None of them had a bike cooler than his.

That one thought effectively drowning out all others, Scott stood on the pedals, steered his Varsity Sport onto the shoulder, and made his way to the Velvet Freeze.

***

Riding against traffic on the shoulder of the road was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The cars came right for him, or so it seemed, brushing by so close that he could, literally, reach out and touch them had he wanted to.

Scott rode beside the highway and felt more alive than he’d ever felt before. He felt every muscle in his body working in its prime—his legs pumping, his arms keeping the bike on course. His heart thrummed blood through his veins, and everything, every little mysterious thing inside his body seemed to be working together gloriously.

It was probably a mile or so up Lindbergh to the strip mall that housed the Velvet Freeze. He’d have to pass through a couple of intersections—some of them major—but that didn’t worry him. This was going so well, it seemed so easy, he wondered that he hadn’t tried this before, even with his baby bike, though the thought of that sent a chill through him.

And that chill made him think of the strange, shadowy figures he thought might be following him.

As before, he started to turn behind, to see if they still followed. But he realized that, this near the fast-moving traffic, it would be crazy to just turn around . . . or even stop and turn around.

Just ahead, there was a cut-out into a small parking lot of a free-standing store. There were no cars there at the moment, so he decided to pull in there, take a breather and look back.

It happened, as they say, so fast . . .

He leaned into the left-hand turn, and his bike leaned with him, slipping deftly into the parking lot.

He heard a horn, but it sounded distant, as if coming from the nearby traffic.

He felt a tremendous shove from behind, as if a giant hand had reach out and swatted him.

The bike skittered on the gravel parking lot, then simply smashed against whatever had shoved it.

Scott was thrown over the handlebars, felt himself sailing through the air for one giddy, heart-stopping moment.

All was light.

Then all was dark.

***

Scott opened his eyes onto two things.

First, the blue, blue sky. It stretched unbroken from one horizon to the other, and for a moment, this time more queasy than giddy, he felt like he was flying again.

But then he felt the gravel under his back, the aches and pains of a thousand hurts, from his head to his legs.

And screaming . . . that was the other thing that surrounded him . . .
screaming
.

He shook his head, sat up.

He was in the parking lot, and at his feet was his bike. It lay in the gravel, its front wheel twisted, its shiny white metal dusty and scraped, its seat knocked askew. All of the other hurts faded at that instant, and his heart hurt most now.

My bike! My brand-new bike! Not even a day, and it’s already ruined!

And hurting almost as much . . .

Mom and dad are never going to let me ride anywhere now.

Scott looked at his arms and legs. Surprisingly, they seemed uninjured. He didn’t see any cuts or scrapes or even any rips in his jeans. His head hurt, and he swiped his hand across his face and forehead, looked at his palm for blood.

None.

But, boy, his head sure hurt, something that wasn’t helped by the screaming.

Just past the twisted metal of his bike, he saw the shiny bumper of a car. The front end was caved in just a bit, and the hood was pushed up. Near the front of this car, he saw two legs—bare woman’s legs—and he blinked, raised his head.

It was a young woman in a short black skirt, and she was screaming at him. She was loud enough to hurt his ears, but he couldn’t make much sense of what she was saying.

She seemed upset, angry even, but she made no attempt to go to him or help him up.

She just . . .
screamed
.

And in that, Scott saw a way out of all this, out of explaining everything to his parents, out of being grounded, out of possibly losing his new bike.

He’d simply leave—ride away,
flee
. . .

He looked down at his limbs again, checking one more time to make sure there were no broken bones jutting out or blood spurting from anywhere. When he was satisfied, he climbed gingerly to his feet.

A little sore, but everything seemed okay . . . and, bonus, the woman wasn’t paying all that much attention to him.

He went to his bike, lifted it up. The front wheel seemed bent out of true, but other than being dusty and a little scraped here and there, it didn’t seem badly damaged at all.

He would tell his parents that he’d had a little spill, that’s all . . . happened all the time, no need to worry.

“I’m all right, really, ma’am,” he said, sliding the front wheel between his legs and clamping it between them. Then, he twisted the handlebars until the wheel came back in line with the body of the bike.

“So,” he said, coming around and sitting on the seat, which was still crooked. “I’ll just . . . ummm . . . head on home . . . and you can just . . . ummm . . . go on with your shopping.”

He veered around the car, shot out of the parking lot and back onto the shoulder of Lindbergh, her screams following him.

He hated to look back, because he was sure she was screaming at him to stop, screaming at him to come back and take responsibility for her car, come back until the police arrived to sort it all out.

But he did look back.

He looked back because he’d never run from anything this big in his life, never fled from an adult, never even contemplated a situation where he’d be running from the police.

What he saw nearly made him run off the road.

He’d almost forgotten the kids on the bikes, but there they were now, close by, right in the parking lot he’d just left.