The Journal of Curious Letters 1r-1, Page 3

  Edgar the Brave

  Five minutes later, Tick’s dad stood next to him in front of the closed door to his room, robed and slippered, flashlight in hand. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice still deep and rough from having woken up. “Did you see it?”

  “No, but I heard it loud and clear.” Tick shuddered at the memory.

  “Was it a rat?”

  “I don’t know. It… It sounded like a machine or something.” Tick winced, sure his dad would finally send him to an insane asylum-first his bizarre behavior at breakfast that morning, now this.

  “A machine? Tick, what book were you reading before you went to bed? Stephen King or something?”

  “No.”

  “Was it the movie we watched?”

  “No, Dad. I promise I didn’t imagine it. The thing had to have been huge-more like a… a dog or something.” Tick felt stupid and resolved to quit babbling.

  “Well, I guess opening the door is all there is to it, then.”

  Tick looked up at his dad, whose face wore a scared, tense expression, and felt oddly relieved that his old man was just as spooked as he was. “Let’s do it, Dad.”

  Dad smiled, flicking on the flashlight. The hallway light was on as well, but Tick thought you could never have too much light when searching for mechanical demons that ate through the bottom of beds before gobbling up the child who slept on it.

  Several seconds passed, the two of them staring down at the brass doorknob.

  “Well?” Tick asked.

  “Oh… yeah.” Somewhat sheepish, Dad reached forward and twisted the handle, pushed, then pulled his hand back like he expected a troll to jump out and bite it off.

  As the door swung open with a long, groaning creak that echoed through the house, a wave of light from the hallway spread over the carpet like a rising tide. Tick tensed, sure the strange something would dart at them the second it had a chance, scuttling across the floor like a possessed badger. But he saw nothing unusual.

  Dad reached around the edge of the doorframe and turned on the bedroom light. In an instant, every last shadow in the room disappeared, bringing a completely different feel to everything.

  Tick felt his fear go down a notch. Just a notch. “Maybe it went under the bed again.”

  Letting out a big sigh, Dad walked over and knelt down next to the bed, where a heavy quilt draped nearly to the floor, hiding the space underneath. “Listen, Tick, I’m not gonna lie to you-you’ve got me just as freaked out as you.”

  “Really?”

  “Let’s just say if something runs out at me, I’m going to scream like a little girl and run to your mom.”

  Tick laughed. “Me, too.”

  Dad quickly pulled up the quilt and beamed the flashlight under the bed, sweeping it back and forth like a sword of sunshine. Nothing but a few random books scattered across the dusty carpet. “Not under there,” he said with relief. He leaned against the bed to push himself to his feet-no small effort for a man the size of Edgar Higginbottom.

  “The closet?” Tick said, licking his dry lips.

  “Yeah, the closet. Where every monster that’s ever eaten a child dwells. Just great.”

  They edged across the room, which now seemed as wide as the Sahara Desert. Tick noticed his dad tiptoeing, which for some reason made him laugh, though it came out sounding like a panicked hyena cornered by three starving lions.

  “What?” Dad asked, settling back down onto his heels.

  “Nothing. Go for it.” Tick gestured to the closet door, which stood ajar a couple of inches.

  Dad reached out and flung it open, then took a quick step back. Nothing moved in the cluttered pile of dirty clothes, sports balls, Frisbees, and other junk. There didn’t seem to be enough space for a mechanical dog-sized monster to hide.

  Tick stepped forward and nudged a pile of clothes with his foot. No response. They spent the next ten minutes searching the room from top to bottom, their initial fear having almost completely melted away, but found nothing.

  “It has to be here somewhere, Dad. I’m telling you, there’s no way I imagined that thing. It scared me half to death.”

  “Don’t worry, son, I believe you. But sometimes we wake from dreams and they seem very… real. You know?”

  Tick wanted to argue, but he was smart enough to consider the possibility, even though it kind of made him want to kick his dad in the shins for suggesting it. Tick had been on the bed for a long time-maybe he’d fallen asleep without realizing it. But then the thing that clunked against the door…?

  No, he was convinced it’d been real. But why worry his poor dad any longer? He nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Come on,” Dad said, flicking off the flashlight and putting his arm around Tick’s shoulders. “You can sleep on the little couch in our bedroom. It’ll be like old times when the branch outside your window used to give you the heebie-jeebies on a windy night. It’s been years since we’ve had a sleepover.”

  Tick felt dumb and embarrassed, but he didn’t hesitate, grabbing his pillow and blanket before following his dad out of the room. In the hallway, they shared a glance, then Dad shut Tick’s bedroom door, pulling on the knob until they both heard the comforting click of the latch taking hold.

  Chapter 5

  A Most Unwelcome Patch of Smoke

  The next Saturday afternoon, still in the bliss of Thanksgiving vacation and full from leftover turkey sandwiches, Tick sat in the front room, staring out the window at the falling snow. His family lived in a heavily wooded area and the east side of the state of Washington made for lots of snow in the wintertime. Many people in town grumbled about it, but Tick never did.

  He loved the cold, he loved the snow, and he loved what came with it-Thanksgiving, then Christmas vacation, then the football play-offs, then the annual Jackson County Chess Tournament-where he’d won his age bracket three straight years. But even more than any of that, Tick loved the look of the cold white powder resting in soft clumps on the dozens of evergreen trees outside his house.

  He heard a rumble coming down the street and saw the mailman’s truck slugging through the thick snow with chained tires. Tick watched as it pulled up to their mailbox; he saw the mailman reach out and put a stack of letters inside. A flash of yellow in the bunch made Tick’s heart jump-start to super speed. He leaned forward for a better view but it was too late. The truck lumbered away, sending twin sprays of snow shooting out behind the tires.

  Tick jumped up from the couch and ran to the front door where he quickly put on his coat and snow boots. The rest of his family seemed busy with their own thing so no one noticed his nervous reaction to seeing the golden piece of mail.

  It had been a full week since receiving the letter from Alaska, and he’d thought seriously of burning it every single day. He knew the weird thing in his closet had to be related to the “very frightening things” he’d been warned about. It seemed so simple to throw the letter into the fire to make sure nothing else happened.

  But the part of Tick that loved chess and brainteasers and science desperately wanted to see what the “Twelve Clues” were all about, so he hadn’t burned the letter and the week had dragged on worse than the one right before Christmas.

  And now, it looked like his choice not to burn the letter may have paid off.

  He trudged his way through the few inches of snow to the mailbox. His dad had cleared everything with the blower earlier that morning, grumbling about how early winter had set in this year, but now Tick could barely tell he’d done anything at all. The storm was one of those that just kept on coming. The world lay bathed in white, a wintry wonderland that Tick knew would put even the scroogiest Scrooge in the holiday spirit.

  He reached the brick mailbox and opened it up, pulling out the stack left moments earlier. He shuffled through the stack, taking each piece off the top and placing it on the bottom-a JC Penny catalog; power bill; an early Christmas card from Aunt Liz; junk mail; junk mail; junk mail.

  And then
there it was, the envelope, crinkled and golden, with Tick’s name and address written messily in blue ink across the front; no return address; the stamp an exotic temple perched high on a mountain. As promised, his next message had arrived.

  And this time it was postmarked from Kitami, Japan.

  Tick couldn’t believe his luck-no one had to know about this second letter. Something inside of him still itched to tell his parents, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not until he knew more, understood more. Not until he’d figured out the puzzle. With a crazy mix of excitement and panic, he locked the door to his room and sat on the bed, the yellow envelope in his sweaty hands.

  He paused, considering the creepy thing from his closet one last time. He could still stop, burn both letters, and never look back.

  Yeah, right.

  Tick tore open the letter. He pulled out a single piece of the same white cardstock that had been used the first time, though this time it was only about half the size of the first one. As before, one side was blank while the other contained a typed message:

  Mark your calendar. One week from the day before the day after the yesterday that comes three weeks before six months from six weeks from now minus forty-nine days plus five tomorrows and a next week, it will happen. A day that could very well change the course of your life as you know it.

  I must say, I hope to see you there.

  Scribbled directly below the last line were the initials “M.G.” and a note that said “This is clue 1 of 12.”

  Tick sat back against the wall, his head swimming in confusion and awe.

  He no longer doubted the messages represented a very serious matter-clues to something extremely important. He was sure the phrase in the first letter that said many lives were at stake wasn’t a joke and it scared him. No matter the source, Tick knew he had to get to the bottom of it.

  And he felt an overwhelming itch to figure out the first clue. He looked over at his calendar and started running through the words of the message, trying to mentally pinpoint the special day it referred to, but his mind kept spinning in too many directions for him to think straight. Let’s see… one week from today… six weeks before

  … six months… minus forty-nine days… ARGH!

  Shaking his head, Tick grabbed the first letter from M.G., folded it up with the second, then stuffed them both into the back pocket of his jeans and ran downstairs. It was time to get serious. First things first.

  “Mom, I’m running over to the library!” he yelled as he quickly put on his coat and gloves. He was out the door before she could respond.

  By the time Tick left his neighborhood, the snow had let up, the air around him brightening as the sun fought its way through the thinning clouds.

  Deer Park was a small town and since the city center was only a couple of miles from Tick’s house, he walked there all the time. And, being a bookworm and study bug, the library often ended up as Tick’s destination of choice. Especially when he wanted to use the Internet. His family had it at home, but it wasn’t as fast as at the library, and Kayla always seemed to want to play her Winnie the Pooh game the second he sat down at the computer, bugging him until he gave in.

  He crossed over the town square where, during the summer, a huge fountain usually sprayed. Now the square lay as a flat expanse of whiteness, countless footsteps in the snow crisscrossing it as people bustled around the town.

  The library was one of the oldest buildings around, a gray bundle of granite built decades ago. To get there, Tick always took a shortcut between the fire station and the drugstore, a thin alley the width of his shoulders. The stone walls that towered over him as he walked along the alley made him think of old medieval castles.

  He had almost reached the end of the alley when a quick breeze whipped past his left ear, followed by an eerie, haunting moan that rose up behind him like the last call of a lonely ghost before heading back to its grave. Tick spun around, stumbling backward when he saw what was there.

  A swirling, rippling cloud of gray smoke floated in the alley, surging and receding, billowing out then shrinking back again every two or three seconds. Like it was… breathing.

  And then the smoke turned into a face.

  The wispy smoke coalesced and hardened, forming into unmistakable facial features. Dark eyes under bushy gray eyebrows. A crooked nose with black, gaping holes for nostrils. Thin lips pulled back into a wicked grin, exposing an abyss of a mouth with no teeth. Wild, unkempt hair and beard.

  Tick willed himself to move, but he could only stare in amazement at the impossible thing floating in front of him.

  The moaning sound returned-a deep, low groan filled with grief and pain. It came from every direction, amplified by the narrow stone walls, growing louder and creepier. Tick felt goose bumps break out all over him, chills washing across his skin in waves.

  “What… who are you?” he asked, amazed that he had found the courage to speak.

  Instead of answering, the smoky face groaned louder, its eyes flaring wider.

  Then it lunged toward Tick, who turned and ran for his life.

  Chapter 6

  The Lady in the Trees

  Tick shot out of the alley at a full run and slammed into a man walking past, both of them tumbling to the ground in a chaotic jumble of arms and legs.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Tick yelled, helping the man to his feet as he looked back at the alley, expecting the smoky apparition to appear. But nothing came out and the creepy sound had stopped completely.

  “It’s okay,” the man replied as he brushed himself off. “What’s the rush?”

  Tick finally focused on the man he’d tackled and saw it was Mr. Wilkinson, the school custodian. “Oh, just going to the library. Sorry.” Tick took three hesitant steps so he could see clearly down the alley. It was empty, no sign of a spooky ghost-face anywhere. “Well, gotta run. Don’t want to waste any study time!”

  Not waiting for an answer, Tick took off for the old library building, wondering if somehow Mr. Wilkinson had saved him from a terrible fate.

  Five minutes later, Tick stood doubled over in the lobby of the library, hands on his knees, gasping like each breath might be his last. Even though the thing in the alley had disappeared and not chased him, Tick had run as hard as he could until he was safe inside the musty-smelling entryway of the old building.

  Maybe I am imagining things, he thought. There’s no way I just saw what I think I saw.

  The librarian behind the desk gave him an evil stare as Tick caught his breath. If he’d been in a better mood he would’ve laughed at how she fulfilled every clichZ in the book: hair up in a bun; glasses perched on the tip of her nose with a linked chain drooped around her neck; beady eyes that told small children they’d never reach adulthood if they didn’t read thirty books a day. This librarian must be new; the rest of the staff knew him like a mother knew her own kids.

  He spotted Ms. Sears over by the non-fiction section and quickly walked toward the computers, trying to avoid her; the last thing he needed right now was some nice chitchat about the weather.

  She saw him anyway.

  “Hi there, Tick,” she called out to him, her beaming smile managing to calm his nerves a bit. Ms. Sears had gray, tightly curled hair that looked like a cleaning pad permanently glued atop her freckled head. “What are you up to today? Here to study up on your chess strategy? Or maybe look for a pen pal?”

  Tick shook his head, trying to dislodge the heavy feeling that clung to his bones like an oily sludge. “Nah, I just wanted to poke around on the Internet. Got a little boring over at my house.”

  “Your dad didn’t break out the karaoke set again, did he? If so, I hope all your windows were closed.” She gave him a wink.

  “No, I think he finally figured out he sounds like a wounded goat when he sings.” He knew his voice sounded tight and he hoped Ms. Sears didn’t notice. So many questions bounced around inside his head he felt like he’d need surgery to relieve the swelling.r />
  “Oh, Tick, you better hope I don’t tell your father you just said that,” she replied. “By the way, I hear you’re no match for him in that silly football video game.”

  Tick forced a laugh. “How in the world did you know that?”

  “Small town, kiddo. Small town.”

  “Yeah… guess so.” An awkward silence followed, and he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I better get to a computer.”

  “Have fun. Let me know if you need any help.” She turned and pushed her book cart down another aisle.

  Relieved, Tick jogged to the long row of computer desks and found an empty one, glad to sit down and rest. As he pulled out his library card, he nervously glanced around, though he had no idea what he was looking for. Getting a little paranoid, aren’t you? he chided himself. There has to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. Something.

  He slid the card into the electronic reader, then typed his password when the prompt appeared on the screen. A few seconds later a window opened for him, connecting him to the Internet. Peeking around the library stacks like a top-level CIA agent searching for spies, Tick pulled out the two mystery letters and unfolded them, pressing them flat on the desk next to the keyboard.

  He read through them both again, even though he already knew the first thing he wanted to try on the Internet search engine. He hoped other people had received similar letters and were talking about them in blogs or message boards. Holding his breath, wishing like crazy he’d find something useful, Tick typed “M.G.” and clicked SEARCH. An instant later, the computer screen told him how many hits: 2,333,117.

  Great.

  Web sites about MG Cars, Madagascar, Magnesium, MG Financial Group were listed, but nothing that gave any kind of hint about who had sent the two letters. He tried other phrases: “frightening things”; “despicably deadly”; “forty-nine days plus five tomorrows.”