Red Shirt Kids (11 page)

MIKE MOVED DOWN
the sloped pathway and toward the light inside the giant spruce tree. The slope of the path was becoming steeper, and Mike put his hand against the walls of the path to steady himself. The walls felt like bark, which Mike found odd—he was pretty sure that you found bark on the
outside
of a tree.

The light began to increase in intensity as Mike came to an opening that led to a circular room carved out of what looked like the inside of a tree. Mike had come quite a distance down the path—at least half a football field. What was this place?

The room was a perfect circle. The walls were made of smooth wood, like a stick with the bark peeled off. There were two doors built into the walls—one to Mike’s left and the other to his right.

At the far side of the room, there was a set of steep, stone steps that led up to a circular walkway with two doors. Neither the walkway nor the staircase had a railing. Hanging from the forty-foot ceiling was an enormous chandelier made from the lights that had been stolen around town—street lights, a movie house sign, lanterns, hundreds of odd-shaped light bulbs, and even the neon sign from Hardy’s Hardware—all held together by interweaving strands of the glowing amber substance. The odor of sap was almost suffocating.

The man in the cloak emerged from one of the rooms on the first level. Although Mike was still invisible, he instinctively looked for a place to hide from the ghastly form. The man closed the door and began to climb the stairs, which wound to the right. Then he went through one of the doors on the upper landing. Mike tiptoed toward the door from which the man had emerged. As he came closer, the smell of dirt assaulted his nostrils. Mike turned the doorknob made from a petrified apple and pushed the door open slowly.

Mike entered a room made entirely of dirt—dirt floor, dirt walls, dirt ceiling. Tree roots ran up the sides of the room and slithered in and out of the solid dirt walls.

In the center of the room, Sam and Amy stood knee-deep in a thick block of liquid amber. This amber seemed different from the ball they had been encased inside. It was more of a gel, and it was growing.

“Mike! Is that you? Mike?” Amy whispered. There was no mistaking the fear in her voice.

“It’s me,” he whispered, moving closer.

Sam looked up with newfound hope. “Mike! Help us!”

“Can’t you break out of it?” Mike asked.

Sam shook his head. “No. It gives too much—it’s not solid enough, so my strength is totally useless. It’s like jelly or something.”

“Amy! Do you still have your pad?” he asked.

“It’s over there,” she motioned to a small sketchpad lying in the dirt. “It fell out of my pocket when that horrible man was sticking us into this goop.”

“Hold on.” Mike raced to the far side of the room, grabbed the sketchpad, and ran back. “Here.” Amy took the sketchpad and grabbed the pencil out of her back pocket right before the gel climbed to her waist.

“We need to freeze this jelly stuff,” said Mike. “How can we do that?”

“Ice cubes?” Sam suggested.

“A fire extinguisher?” Mike asked.

Amy thought for a moment and then began to draw frantically. “I once had a wart frozen off at the doctor’s office. He told me that liquid nitrogen was practically the coldest thing on the planet. Let’s see if that’s true.”

Gold dust began to swirl around Mike’s feet. When the dust settled, there was a small metal can.

“Try spraying the gel around Sam with that,” said Amy.

Mike turned the can over in his hands. “How does this thing work?” he asked.

“Just pull the handle,” said Amy impatiently.

“I would if it had a handle,” smirked Mike.

Amy looked down at her sketch. “Oops,” she said as she quickly drew a handle on the extinguisher.

A trigger handle suddenly appeared, and Mike sprayed several long blasts of liquid nitrogen all over the amber surrounding Sam. The gel froze.

“Now, break out!” yelled Mike.

Suddenly, Sam’s hand flew out of the hardened amber as it shattered into a thousand pieces. Sam tumbled to the ground.

“Are you all right?” Mike asked.

“Yeah. Thanks, Mike.”

Mike next blasted the amber surrounding Amy. Sam grabbed the amber but recoiled in pain. “Ouch! It’s cold,” he said.

Amy was shivering. “No kidding! Get me out of here!” she yelled.

Sam grabbed the amber again, yelling as the cold stung his hands. He pulled with the full force of his strength, and the amber shattered, sending Amy tumbling to the floor. She stood up quickly and headed toward the door.

“Let’s go!” yelled Mike. The three flew into the main chamber and made a beeline for the opening leading to the exit.

“Wait,” Amy stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” asked Sam and Mike in unison.

“What about Diane and Darren?”

LAURA AND KATHY
stood in front of the chest in Laura’s attic.

“What’s the medallion for?” asked Laura.

“This was Greg’s … key,” replied Kathy.

Kathy turned the medallion, and the lion’s head split and revealed the key inside. She inserted the key into the lion’s head lock and opened the chest.

Laura and Kathy stared into the chest and saw the drawings for the tree fort lying next to a neatly folded red shirt. Kathy picked up the drawings. “What are these?”

“I think Amy drew those,” Laura replied.

“What are they? Blueprints?” asked Kathy.

“I don’t know,” said Laura. She shook her head, wondering how she had missed the intrigue going on right under her nose.

“Ow!” Kathy exclaimed, jumping back. “That shirt shocked me.”

Laura looked inside the chest. “A red shirt,” she mused as she reached for the shirt. She too received a solid jolt from the magical fabric.

“It won’t let us take it out,” said Kathy.

Laura stepped back further and stared wide-eyed at the shirt. “They’re real?” she wondered aloud.

“They’re only meant for certain people. Maybe everyone else gets shocked,” said Kathy.

“They’re real.” Laura repeated, still trying to wrap her mind around everything she had learned during the past few hours. “They’re real.”

“I wonder who this one is for,” said Kathy. They heard the front door open and shut.

“Michael! Amy!” shouted Laura.

“Nope, it’s me!” David yelled back.

Laura turned to Kathy. “Should we tell him?”

Kathy shrugged. “He’s your husband.”

SAM, MIKE, AND AMY
faced the second door in the circular chamber inside the tree. “They could be in there,” whispered Amy.

“Okay, who wants to go first?” asked Sam nervously.

“Where’s Doctor Dread?” Mike whispered as he scanned the chamber.

Sam pointed to the door on the second-floor landing of the chamber. “Up there,” he mouthed.

“We’d better hurry,” said Amy.

Sam nodded. He placed his hand on the apple knob and turned. “It’s open.”

Sam eased the door open, and the three crept inside. The room was an exact replica of the one that Amy and Sam had been trapped inside. A boy and a girl stood, eyes closed, in the middle of the room, encased in blocks of amber up to their chests. Vine-like wires ran from the amber blocks to the slithering branches in the dirt walls.

“It’s them,” said Sam.

“Oh no,” Amy gasped. “Are they okay?”

Sam stepped toward the boy. “Darren?” he whispered.

The boy’s eyes fluttered open. “Help … me,” he pleaded softly.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked Darren.

Darren nodded but then closed his eyes from fatigue. It was clear that the amber and wires were zapping his strength.

“What is this thing?” Sam asked.

“He built it,” said Darren.

“Who is he?” asked Amy, stepping closer to Darren.

Darren looked at Amy, noticing her for the first time. “Francis.” He turned to Sam. “Your uncle.”

“But he died in the fire!” Sam exclaimed.

“He didn’t. Your dad and Francis found a way to combine pow—” Darren stopped suddenly and looked away.

“We have shirts,” Amy prodded. “It’s okay, we understand.”

Darren’s eyes widened. “You have shirts!” he said breathlessly. “What are your powers?”

Amy smiled. “Well, Sam is very strong, and Mike, that’s my brother, he can be invisible—like right now. I’m Amy.”

“What can you do?” asked Darren.

“What I draw comes to life,” said Amy.

“Cool,” Darren smiled softly as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

“When you say they found a way to combine, you mean like to use each other’s powers?” Mike asked Darren.

Darren opened his eyes wide, looking to see where the voice was coming from. “Well, they tried wearing each other’s shirts at the same time,” he said to the space in front of him.

Mike’s cheeks reddened as he thought about the time he asked Amy to trade shirts. He was glad they couldn’t see his embarrassment.

“That didn’t work,” Darren continued. “But Francis found another way. He built a machine like the one in here with the lights. He said that the first experiment started the fire. He said it was an accident.”

“What is the machine?” asked Amy.

“If we’re hooked up in here, he can use our powers. It’s powered by that huge chandelier,” said Darren.

“Have you guys been in this stuff the whole time?” Sam asked.

“No, he gives us food and lets us sleep. The branches keep us in here when he’s gone,” said Darren.

Darren gestured with his head to the writhing branches running in and out of the dirt walls and ceiling. Mike shook his head, in awe at what he was hearing and seeing.

“How’d he get you if you were wearing your shirts?” Mike’s voice asked Darren.

Darren stared at Mike. “You don’t know how it was. He had Diane.”

Sam stepped in. “Hey, Mike, he got me and Amy, remember?”

Amy turned to look at Diane. “Is she okay?”

Darren looked at Diane. “Diane! Diane!” he called.

Diane opened her eyes slowly. She looked at Amy and then at Sam. Her eyes widened in hope. “Please,” she said weakly. “Please get us out of here. Help us. Please. Please.”

Amy stepped closer to Diane. “We will.”

“I still don’t get how the machine works,” said Mike.

“It’s simple really,” said a raspy, horrible voice behind the kids.

Mike, Sam, and Amy turned around slowly as Francis, the man in the cloak, glided into the room, his dark hood still covering his face.

“Are you familiar with the term ‘osmosis’?” Francis asked, his toothless smile broadening. “This tree here; how do you think the leaves at the tiptop get the nutrients that come from the soil?” Francis gestured as he spoke, his pale hands with no fingernails emerging from beneath his cloak.

No one answered.

“Never thought about it, huh? That’s osmosis. The pressure—like when you put a straw in a cup of liquid and put your finger over it? This invention is like that, you see?” Again there was no reply.

“No? When you wear the shirt, there is energy that supplies your various powers. I’ve found a way to tap into that energy, to divert it into the amber, then along the conduits, then out through light waves.” Francis, clearly enjoying his monologue, pointed at the wires running from the amber cages to the vines slithering in the walls. “I’ve created quite a chandelier—have you seen it?” Francis filled the silence with a hoarse chuckle.

The kids remained motionless.

“The energy is delivered here,” said Francis as he opened his cloak, displaying a red shirt so dark that it was almost black. Clipped to the neckline of the shirt was a small antenna that looked similar to the wires embedded in the amber. “I’m very proud of it,” Francis added.

“But you kidnapped two kids,” said Amy, finding her voice for the first time.

Francis faced Amy. “Kids? Are you aware of what Darren and Diane can do?”

Francis stood and faced the far wall in the room. He opened his eyes and aimed them at the wall. There was an intense glow from the outer room and a sound like a generator exerting more energy. Darren winced in pain, and Francis’s eyes opened wide, as red lines of heat shot from them and blasted a small hole in the wall. Francis closed his eyes. He turned to face Sam. This time Diane winced in pain. Francis raised his arm, suspending Sam in midair. Francis pointed his long, bony finger and spun it in the air. Sam’s body followed suit, spinning in the air like a Frisbee.

“Hey! Hey! Put me down!” yelled Sam.

Francis lowered his arm slowly and placed Sam on the ground. Francis beamed with pride, his grotesque smile visible beneath his hood.

Sam took a tentative step toward Francis. “Uncle Frank?”

Francis looked down at Sam. “Yes, Samuel. It is me. Your strength is a great gift. Like your father’s.”

“Can you let them go?” Sam asked Francis.

Francis’s smile disappeared. “No, no, no! This is important!” His raspy voice grew more horrible as he yelled.

“But you can’t just keep them forever,” said Mike.

Francis turned to face the space from where Mike’s voice had come. A smile spread over his face. “Ah, another member of the fold,” Francis said. “But I cannot let them go. It’s for their own good.”

“You’re a liar,” Darren spat bravely.

Sam, Mike, and Amy looked at Darren, surprised at the harsh tone of the comment.

“Shut up, please,” said Francis.

“He’s jealous. He thinks that his power isn’t good enough. He wanted to be strong like your dad was, and now he wants our powers!” Darren spat.

“I said
shut up
!” Francis gestured toward Darren, and his amber gel trap glowed brightly and began to spin rapidly. Darren howled in pain.

“Stop!” screamed Sam as he slammed into Francis, sending him crashing into the dirt wall.

Francis landed hard. His hood fell back completely, unveiling his scarred head.

All of the children gasped at the horrific site.

Francis had no eyelids. One eye looked normal, but the other was completely bloodshot. His nose was nothing more than a nub, and his entire face was enveloped in scar tissue. His lips were gone, and his teeth were a nasty brown.

Francis glared at Sam, his eyes filled with anger. He extended his right hand, and liquid amber began to drip from his fingertips. Sam took a step back. “Do something!” yelled Amy to Mike.

Mike stood still, unsure of what to do. The liquid amber seeped toward Sam and wrapped around his ankles. Francis grimaced, and the amber twirled rapidly around Sam’s legs, spinning faster and faster.

Mike moved quickly toward the door, but Francis heard Mike’s footsteps and blasted a line of red heat at the doorway. The chandelier in the outer room glowed, and Darren yelled in pain.

Amy stared at the door where a hole had been blasted through the wall. “Mike?” she pleaded. No answer. Amy turned back to Francis, her eyes red with anger. The chandelier glowed once again as Diane screamed, and Amy hung suspended in the air.