The Demon Conspiracy (26 page)

“Who cares? Let’s go, I’ve seen enough.” At
that moment I spotted a stack of legal pads at the end of the
workbench. “This must be his recipe!” We each took up some of the
pads and tried to read what was written on the sheets. But the
markings were strange, like some foreign language with a weird
looking alphabet. Even the numbers were difficult to read, though
it was clear enough that they were numbers because of the way they
were arranged.

“What language is this?” I asked, unable to
decipher the mysterious scribbling. “Is it Greek?”

Melissa shook her head. “I know a few Greek
letters. It’s something else.”

“We should take one of the pages and try to
figure out what it says later. Maybe the letters are on the
internet.” I was about to tear off a page when Melissa grabbed my
hand.

“You should take a sheet
off one of the
bottom
pads,” she suggested. “He might notice if something on top is
missing.”

“Good point.” We moved all the pads out of
the way except for the bottom one, where I tore off one of the
sheets from the middle. “This is good.” I folded the paper and
stuffed it into my pocket. “It’s got lots of different symbols on
it.” We re-stacked the pads and stepped back to make sure they
looked okay. “Let’s go.”

“But we still don’t know what he’s making,”
said Melissa. “Let’s take some samples. We can worry about how much
it will cost to analyze them later.”

“Well, okay.” I checked the time on my cell
phone. “What can we put them in? Test tubes?”

Melissa looked around. “There aren’t any
clean ones, but that beaker looks clean. Which jar should we
sample?”

“I don’t know, maybe the red one there. It’s
kind of pretty and….” I stopped mid-sentence and looked up at the
ceiling. I felt the blood drain from my face.

“What’s wrong?” asked Melissa.

“He’s coming!”

We started for the stairs, but the back door
rattled and began to open. I froze with Melissa at my shoulder. We
gawked at the door, eyes wide with fear.

Hide!
I shouted into Melissa’s mind. But where?

The back door swung open. Luckily, Chris was
loaded down with bags of groceries and kept his back to us as he
tried to close the door with his foot. Melissa ducked under the old
desk. I looked to join her, but there was only room for one. I was
trapped in the open. My feet were stuck to the floor. I was so
frightened I nearly screamed. I saw the tall metal shelves stacked
with paint in the far corner of the basement. I slipped behind one
shelf and pressed my body against the wall. A moment later Chris
closed the door and set the shopping bags on Melissa’s desk. I
watched it all through a space between paint cans, afraid even to
breathe.

Suddenly, Chris looked up. “Who’s in
here?”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. My heart
pounded so loud I was sure half the neighborhood could hear it.
Chris scanned the room suspiciously. Then he relaxed, apparently
satisfied it was a false alarm. I watched him move the stuff out of
the shopping bags and set everything on the workbench. I saw boxes
of cough drops, all different brands and flavors. And there were
several quart-sized jars of cranberry juice and some cans of navy
beans.

Chris began to mix the ingredients into a
large pot. Next, he mashed it all into a runny, red paste. He
scooped out a portion of the paste and dropped it into another pot,
where he added three cherry cough drops and poured in a measured
amount of tonic water. He constantly stirred the mixture with a
wooden spoon, and taste-tested it every so often. Whenever he added
something to the pot he wrote it down on the top legal pad.

Chris nodded to himself and looked around
the workbench. He took up the hairbrush and started vigorously
brushing his hair. I looked on, puzzled. I’d never seen him brush
his hair so hard before and he seemed to be shedding because the
brush filled up rapidly with thick, dark hair, which wasn’t easy
considering he was going bald.

Chris stopped and pulled enough hair out of
the brush to make a toupee. He dropped the whole mess into the pot.
I gagged and covered my mouth. Was he going to eat that?

Chris took the jar of fruity-smelling red
juice and poured it into the mix. He stirred it some more before
dumping the contents into the blender, which he ran for several
seconds before shutting it off. Finally, he took off the lid and
sipped the mixture.

I couldn’t watch. I closed my eyes and
turned away. Chris was drinking his own liquefied hair!

For the next few minutes
Chris paced the room, deep in thought. Something wasn’t quite
right. I tried to scan his mind to see what he was thinking, but
again I couldn’t get a reading. It was so frustrating. He didn’t
look like a demon, and if he were possessed wouldn’t he be floating
above the floor or vomiting pea soup across the room? He
did
hit his head; he’d
had that big lump on his forehead when we were in the cave with
him. Would that make him crazy?

Chris paced in my direction. He turned and
marched toward the stairs. A moment later he did an about-face and
came toward me again. This time he kept walking. He went right up
to the wall and paused next to my shelf. I couldn’t move. I didn’t
dare. He was in front of me less than a meter away. If he glanced
to his left we’d be face to face.

Abruptly, Chris turned to his right and
hurried back to the blender. I let out a long, low sigh of relief.
He went to the workbench and took down a rubber mallet from a hook
on the wall. He reached into the blue mixture and removed several
dead cockroaches. Setting the cockroaches on the workbench, he
proceeded to smash them into tiny, mushy pieces with the mallet. He
scraped up the roach guts and measured out a specific amount on the
electronic scale. He dumped it all into the red mixture in the
blender and turned it on high. When it was done, he tasted it.

Chris smacked his lips.

“Very good,” he said,
nodding to himself. “Yes,
very
good.”

He unbuttoned the top of his shirt and took
out a gold chain from around his neck. I’d never seen him wear
anything like that before. Hanging from the chain, like a necklace,
was a solid black cylinder, which looked a lot like a lipstick
case. Chris removed the top, revealing the end of a thin silver
tube. He held the tube over the mixture in the blender and touched
the base. The tube lit up.

I had a good view of the blender and its
contents as I strained to see what was going on. Clearly, the
liquid wasn’t disturbed at all by anything he did with the
cylinder. Did something happen when it lit up? I couldn’t tell, but
the entire act seemed terribly important. Maybe Chris had some
magic of his own.

Chris stirred the ingredients with a dirty
spoon, then tasted it. He got very excited. He danced about the
room and jumped up and down, clapping. He abruptly made himself
stop.

“I have much work to do! I must work hard
and fast!” His eyes were wild as he went about the room emptying
all the other jars into one gigantic pot. He carried the heavy pot
to the rear exit, where he struggled to find the doorknob. Finally,
he opened the door and stepped outside.

“Kelly! Let’s go!” Melissa came out from
under the desk. We started for the stairs again. But Chris was only
gone a moment. When he came back, we were in the middle of the
basement. We barely had a second to duck behind Melissa’s desk.

Chris hadn’t seen us yet, but this time we
weren’t hidden. And he was coming our way. If he set the pot on the
desk he’d notice us for sure. Somehow I had to stop him.

Chris! Go back outside! Hurry! It’s your
recipe!

My blast of mental commands had no effect on
him whatsoever. He never even heard them. He continued to approach
and I couldn’t stop him.

TRAVIS

Travis turned off the TV and followed Angie
into the kitchen to help her put away the groceries. Whenever she
went to the store he liked to help put things away so he could keep
his mental inventory up to date. He was about to hang a roll of
paper towels on the rack by the sink when he got a distress call
from Kelly.

Travis! Help us! We’re in the basement!
Hurry!

Travis looked up confused.
It had to be Kelly, but what was she doing in the basement? She had
definitely said, help
us
. So who was down there with her?
And why were they there? She must have been crazy to go in the
basement.

“Where’s Chris?” he asked, as Angie left the
room to get the rest of the groceries from the minivan.

“He went to the basement,” she said back to
him, disappearing out the front door.

Kelly needed a diversion. Somehow Travis had
to distract Chris so she could escape. He had to do it fast. But
what could he do?

Desperate, he took up a roll of paper towels
and got the new cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped open the
phone camera and got ready to take some pictures. Then he charged
down the basement stairs, yelling like a maniac.

“Aaaaaaah!” Travis stomped his feet as loud
as he could all the way down.

Chris was so startled he dropped the big pot
he was holding. It clanged loudly and rolled across the concrete
floor. He spun around and stood there, glaring. Travis snapped a
picture of him.

“Get out of here!” said Chris angrily. “My
recipe is a secret!”

“Your recipe is
stupid
!” said Travis.
“And so are
you
!”
He threw the roll of paper towels as hard as he could. To his
surprise, it struck Chris right in the face. Travis snapped a photo
when it hit him. Chris picked up the roll and crushed it with one
hand. Travis snapped another photo.

For a moment they just stared at each other.
Travis was scared and Chris was so furious his eyes flashed bright
green. He didn’t even look human. Travis took two more snapshots.
Chris got madder and madder, but he still didn’t do anything.
Somehow, Travis had to get him out of the basement or Kelly might
have to spend the night down there. Finally, he did the one thing
that always seemed to tick off adults, even though it was totally
stupid.

“Nanny-nanny boo-boo!” Travis danced in
place and shook his butt at Chris. That did it. Chris’ face grew
scarlet. He tossed the paper towels at Travis.

“I’ll get you!”

Travis ducked the towels and ran for his
life up the stairs. He sprinted through the kitchen and blew past
Angie as she set a final bag of groceries on the counter. Chris was
right on his heels, but Angie caught Chris by the arm and jerked
him to a halt.

“What’s going on here?”

Chris shoved her away. “He was in the
basement! He hit me in the face!”

“He hit you?”

“With this!” Chris picked up the crushed
paper towels. “Wait till I get my hands on him!”

KELLY

Melissa and I were half way around the block
when we met Travis going the other way.

“You got out!” said Travis, breathing
hard.

“You did great, Travis!” I said. “He never
even noticed us. We went out the back door as soon as he went after
you.”

“You’re pretty fast, Travis,” said Melissa,
impressed.

“I took pictures of ‘im when he got mad!”
Travis grinned. “Look.” He showed us the pictures he took of Chris
on his cell phone. We laughed so hard.

“Oh my gosh!” said Melissa. “We need to put
them on the internet! How come his eyes are green?”

“It’s the flash, I guess,” said Travis, not
really knowing.

“But don’t most people’s eyes look red? It’s
called red-eye. I’ve got software that removes red-eye on my
computer. I don’t have anything for green-eye.”

“Maybe it depends who you are?” I said it
with a shrug.

“Thanks a lot for saving us, Travis,” said
Melissa. “How did you know we needed help?”

“Kelly told me,” he said, grinning. “It’s a
good thing she can read minds, or you guys would be dead now.”

As soon as he said it I gasped. Melissa
looked at me, then at Travis. Travis covered his mouth, helpless.
“Oops.”

“You
are
telepathic!” said Melissa. “I
knew it!”

“How did you know?” I asked, totally
distressed.

“Because I’ve heard you thinking, though I
was never sure if you were speaking with your mouth or your mind.
That is, until back there in the basement when you told me to hide.
I was looking right at you and you never opened your mouth.”

Melissa, you’re my best
friend. Please don’t tell anyone
.

Melissa lit up excitedly.
“You did it again! This is so cool! Kelly, don’t worry.” She
stopped in midsentence.
I’ll never tell a
soul, unless you make me
.

I got the message loud and clear. I smiled.
I knew Melissa was telling the truth. “I was going to tell you
eventually. But nobody else on the planet knows except my big mouth
brother here. Not even Jon knows, though, for some reason he can
completely block me out of his head.”

“Sorry, Kelly,” said Travis really feeling
bad. “I never slipped before. Melissa’s like part of the family. I
didn’t even think about it.”

I glared at Travis, then
softened. “We’ll let it slide, little bro’. Besides, we both owe
you.”
Be more careful next
time!

Travis nodded like he meant it. His
expression became distressed. “Do you think Angie‘ll be mad at
me?”

“I wouldn’t worry about Angie. It’s Chris
who’s ticked off. Maybe you should apologize to him right off, it
might calm him down. Let’s go home.”