Ghastly

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Ghastly

By Plot Roach

Sarah rearranged the tiles in her hand before setting them down on the game board. Her favorite word was “ghastly”, and she used it in the game every chance she could get.

“Again?” her older brother, Aaron asked. “Don’t you know any other words to use in Scrabble?” He set down five tiles, with ten tiles yet to be used.

“Yes” she said, adding “fiends” to the board before running out of tiles and thus ending the game.

“I don’t know why I bother playing this game with you.” he said.

“Because you’re a good brother.” Sarah said. “Ready to play again?”

“How about we do something else?” Aaron asked, a mischievous look in his eye.

“What do you have in mind?”

A few minutes later they piled into the family car with their parents and went to a little swap meet at the edge of town. They picked up fresh corn for dinner, a handful of toys from a second hand dealer and Aaron sidled up to Old Tom, a friend of the family for years, to pick up a paper bag that had been stapled shut. He slipped the man some money and smiled as he handed the bag to Sarah.

“What’s in it?” she asked, trying to peek into the bag.

“Don’t open it here.” he said. “It’s a surprise.”

“So what’s in the bag?”

“A surprise for later tonight. So let’s keep this between just us, okay?”

Once back home, they unloaded the groceries and helped their mother in the kitchen. Dad fired up the grill and everyone got into the mood for the holiday.

“I wonder what they do in other countries for the fourth of July.” Sarah wondered.

“I think we’re the only ones who celebrate it. Seeing as England’s probably still sore that we won our freedom from them and all. And I can’t think that any other country would care.” Aaron said.

Sarah giggled and helped their mother prepare food in the kitchen, as Aaron help their father set up the picnic table and chairs. Within hours, they were ready, and so was the feast: hot dogs and burgers fresh from the grill, hot buttered corn on the cob, and a hot apple pie cooling under a dollop of vanilla ice-cream. They ate until they nearly burst. The last rays of sunlight creeping away from their home as their parents cleared away the rest of the food.

“What’s the surprise?” Sarah asked, their parents too busy with the clean up to wonder what their children were up to. Aaron pulled her to the side of the house and opened the bag, showing her the fireworks he had bought off of Old Tom at the swap meet that morning.

“But aren’t those illegal here?” Sarah asked

“We’ll be careful.”

“But they might start a fire with the weeds and stuff.” Sarah said.

“That’s not why they are illegal.”

“Then why?”

“You see, when monsters see the lights of the fireworks, they know that there are some well fed plump American kids on the other end. So they follow the lights and snatch up the kids, never to bee seen again.” Aaron explained.

“Oh, yeah. And how come no one has even told me this before?”

“They didn’t want to scare you. And besides, the grown ups have never seen it happen. They’re too busy watching the fireworks themselves to see the kid get snatched.”

“You’re weird.” Sarah said.

“You’re just scared.”

“No I’m not.”

“Then prove it“, he said, holding out a brightly colored box.

They waited until full dark before they lit off the first of the fireworks, laughing as the sparks colored the sky. Sarah was playing with a sparkler near the end of the driveway when she first heard the noise, like a deep breathing echoed in a cave.

“I hear something.” she told her brother.

“You’re just trying to get even with me for the story” he said.

“No, I really did.” she said, still hearing the breathing, but this time it was closer.

Her brother set up the next batch of rockets to light when Sarah saw movement from the corner of her eye. Something dark slithered out of the sewer grate next to the end of their driveway. “There it is!” she called to her brother, but he was too busy with the fireworks to care.

If I don’t do something fast, it will get us, she thought. She quickly grabbed one of the rockets her brother had just lit and aimed it at the dark thing, even as her brother began to yell at her. “Do you want to blow your fingers off? Put that thing down!” But she ignored him, and aimed at the beast.

Three shots burst forth from the small firework rocket, lighting up the night, and the creature with it. Aaron froze when he saw the thing, though Sarah advanced until she was within touching distance of the monster. Fire from the rocket set its hair on fire and it shrieked off into the night.

The following morning they set out to look for the thing, finding it in an overgrown hedge at the edge of their property. It looked like an ape, covered in purple hued hair. It had great webbed wings, like a bat and a set of teeth that reminded Aaron of a shark. In the night, as it was attacking, it seemed more impressive than the half burned, shriveled hulk they now studied.

“It’s so…” Aaron began to say, at a loss for words.

“Ghastly.” Sarah finished.