Gremlins Read online

  “I don’t celebrate Christmas,” she replied. “As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist.”

  “Why, are you a Hindu or something?”

  “No. I just don’t like to . . .”

  “But . . . why?”

  “Do you really want to know?” she asked, looking at him in a way that was almost challenging.

  “Sure . . . I guess I want to know everything about you.”

  She avoided his glance.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured, her expression distant. “I don’t know why Christmas is always so horrible . . . My grandmother died on Christmas . . . She was my favorite person . . . I had my appendix taken out on Christmas. It burst while I was opening my presents . . . Even my dog Snappy got run over on Christmas . . . by two big kids on a sled . . . But the worst . . . God . . . it was horrible . . .”

  “What?” Billy urged.

  “It was Christmas Eve,” Kate continued slowly, almost as if she were in a trance. “I was six years old. Mom and I were decorating the tree . . . singing carols, happy, excited . . . waiting for Dad to come home from work.” She paused, took a deep breath. “A couple of hours went by, then more. Dad wasn’t home. Mom called the office . . . no answer . . . Then it was past the time when the stores were closed. That’s when Mom and I really started to worry . . .”

  Billy waited, dreading hearing the rest of the story, yet impatient for her to continue.

  “Anyway, we stayed up all night . . . He didn’t come home . . . Christmas Day went by like an eternity, and still nothing . . . The police began a search. A week, two weeks went by. Mom was close to a nervous breakdown and neither of us could eat or sleep . . . Then, one night in January it was snowing outside. The house was freezing cold so I tried to start a fire. That’s when I noticed . . .”

  “Noticed . . . what?” Billy muttered.

  “The smell . . . The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. Mom and I were expecting them to pull out a dead bird or a cat . . . Instead they pulled out my father.”

  Billy, eyes wide, gulped.

  “He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit,” Kate continued. “He had been climbing down the chimney on Christmas Eve, his arms loaded with gifts. He was going to surprise us, but I guess he surprised himself . . . He lost his footing . . . slipped and broke his neck . . . and must have died instantly. At least he didn’t suffer long . . . His body just stayed there, lodged in the chimney . . . Anyway, that’s how I found out there was no Santa Claus and why I don’t like Christmas.”

  Billy’s chilled expression softened as he noticed a moistness in her eyes.

  “That’s terrible!” said Billy. He reached out and touched her hand.

  Kate sniffed, then smiled. She gave Billy’s hand a squeeze. “Anyway, that’s my own little Christmas carol that I tell people when they ask me why I don’t like Christmas. Actually, you’re one of the few people who didn’t express any doubt. Most just kind of look at you oddly and some even laugh.”

  Knowing he was more sensitive than the average person made Billy feel better. It gave him a thrill to find out about Kate, who was generally secretive about her personal and family life.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I feel like the wishy-washy jerk Gerald always says I am.”

  Kate laughed. “No, you’re not. You’re just concerned about other people’s feelings. If that’s being a jerk, give me a jerk any day.”

  “One jerk, coming up,” he said.

  Stripe’s mind was made up. After fifteen minutes of being followed around the house by the big, sad-faced dog, he had decided that drastic measures were in order. It simply would not do to have that noisy oaf in their wake if and when they decided to take some action. That was the practical aspect of the situation; the pleasant side was that it would be fun to gang up on Barney, honing their skills in the process.

  Gathering the other Mogwai about him, Stripe mapped out a rough plan of action to be started immediately. The others, as he suspected they would be, were almost joyously enthusiastic.

  “As soon as the woman goes next door for her afternoon coffee,” Stripe ordered, “we’ll gang up. Until then, we’ll make individual passes with these.”

  So saying, he passed out some long pins he had found in Mrs. Feltzer’s sewing basket. “There’s also some stuff in the garbage can under the sink,” he said. “Some dog food he didn’t eat. You two chew that up into a soggy paste and then drop it around so it looks like he’s vomited.”

  Lynn Peltzer started noticing Barney’s unusual behavior soon after lunch. Every once in a while he would let out a yelp for which there seemed no logical cause. The Mogwai were out but none of them appeared to be molesting Barney in any way.

  The worst incident occurred about two o’clock. Barney began to cry, yipped several times, then came rushing into the living room, his snout covered with the remains of his breakfast.

  “What did you do?” Lynn asked accusingly. Tracing his tracks into the hallway, she had no trouble spotting the huge splash of vomit dripping down the wallpaper. Her new wallpaper.

  “What is going on?” she shouted at Barney. “Why can’t you just barf on the floor like other dogs? Why am I the one with a projectile-vomiter?”

  Shooing Barney away, she set to work cleaning up the mess. As she busied herself, Stripe took the opportunity to silently congratulate his cohorts and, their arms across each other’s shoulders like football players in a huddle, whisper another plan to them.

  Had anyone been able to observe them in action, one might have described the four Mogwai’s movements as almost balletic, so well coordinated were they. While two of them distracted Barney at a discreet distance, a third leaped onto a chair and with one great swipe ripped out a section of the cake Mrs. Peltzer was icing. Then, as he moved with it toward Barney, Stripe grasped a chair and rattled it noisily against the floor. That signaled the two Mogwai on Barney’s flanks to feint toward him, causing the dog to scrape his claws loudly against the tile floor.

  “What’s going on in there?” Lynn called out.

  As Barney turned toward the sound of her voice, the Mogwai with the iced cake chunk let the dog have it full on the mouth. Chuckling silently, the four scampered out of the kitchen as fast as their little legs could carry them.

  The picture was self-evident when Lynn entered the kitchen—her cake mutilated, the crumbs and icing still on Barney’s chops, and not another soul in sight.

  “What’s come over you?” she cried.

  Tossing the cake in the garbage, she banished Barney to the basement but was careful not to lock him up. Better to make him feel guilty for an hour or two and then invite him back to society. It was quite possible, after all, that his strange antics were the result of a virus or some temporary disorientation. Dogs and even Mogwai, after all, were not that different from human beings.

  An hour later, while Lynn Peltzer was next door, Stripe led his troops to the gaily decorated Christmas tree in the living room. Working swiftly, three of them began unwinding several strings of lights while the fourth grabbed strands of tinsel and smaller ornaments. Then, all pushing together, they upended the tree and dragged it back and forth across the room, leaving a wake of shattered glass ornaments and broken limbs.

  “Now, quickly,” Stripe ordered, leading the way to the basement door, which was slightly ajar.

  The four Mogwai bounded down the stairs, still carrying their strings of lights and tinsel. Barney, curled in the corner next to the oil burner, leaped to his feet, his eyes flashing. Fanning out, the Mogwai approached the snapping and snarling dog like Roman gladiators armed with net and tridents stalking their prey. Barney, hampered by fear of actually hurting them, could do little more than try to avoid them. For a brief while, spinning like a top or a mad dog chasing its tail, he was able to throw off the light cords nearly as fast as they were deposited on his back. Then a snag developed; one of the light strands got caught under his ear just as another encircled his paws. The Mog
wai, meanwhile, kept up a busy barrage of jabbing needles. Soon Barney was thrashing on the floor, completely and hopelessly enmeshed in the light cords. By bending over the ends and making double loops, Stripe made certain the dog would never be able to get out without human help.

  “Now let’s go,” Stripe cackled. “It’s up to Billy’s room and to sleep.”

  Rand Peltzer, knocking off early that afternoon in order to grab a few hours’ sleep prior to a final pre-Christmas selling trip„ walked into the house within several seconds of Lynn’s reappearance via the back door.

  She heard his scream and the basement struggles of Barney at the same time. Looking through the open doorway, she saw the dog on the second-from-top step, his front paws knotted together as if in prayer, the eyes wild and frenzied, teeth bared as he tried to tear loose from the light-cord bondage.

  “What the heck happened?” Rand asked.

  As Rand rushed into the kitchen, Lynn caught a glimpse of the Christmas tree lying on its side in the living room. Putting the grim puzzle together from opposite ends, Rand and Lynn shook their heads simultaneously.

  When they finished, Lynn helped drag the still-struggling Barney into the kitchen and freed him from the light strands. Rand picked random slivers of tinsel from the dog’s body, muttering to himself the while.

  “How did you get this wrapped on so tight?” Lynn asked, shaking her head.

  “Must have gone crazy,” Rand said.

  Lynn was describing Barney’s erratic behavior all that day when Billy entered. As he heard about the yelping, vomiting, cake stealing, and apparent kamikaze mission against the Christmas tree, the concern in his eyes grew to something resembling panic.

  Rand, searching for a reasonable explanation, said, “He’s probably just trying to get attention away from those Mogwai things. Jealous, you know. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if those little devils goaded him on.”

  “No,” Lynn murmured. “They weren’t bothering him. They’ve been sleeping upstairs most of the day.”

  “It’s Mrs. Deagle then,” Billy said sharply. “It’s got to be her.”

  “Mrs. Deagle—?” Lynn said.

  “She’s had him drugged. She told me she would and now she’s done it.”

  “That’s crazy,” Rand murmured. “Why would she want to do that?”

  “Because he rubbed against her ceramic snowman and caused its head to fall off. It was loose, anyway, but that didn’t matter to her. She’s just looking for people and things to hate.”

  “Now, Billy,” Lynn cautioned. “We can’t point our finger at anybody. Not even Mrs. Deagle.”

  “But she threatened Barney. Kate heard her.”

  “But that’s not enough proof, son,” Rand said. “There aren’t even any new footprints in the snow around the house.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Billy replied. “She’s got enough money to hire a real pro. I hear there are people who can be hired for that—to drug or poison pets.”

  Rand shrugged. “Maybe it would be a good idea if I dropped Barney off at your mother’s house,” he said, looking at Lynn. “It’s on the way to the Millersville Mall, where I’ve got that sales meeting. I could leave him and bring him back for Christmas.”

  Billy nodded. “I’d feel a lot better if you did that, Dad.”

  “O.K. It’s settled.”

  Giving Barney a pat on the head, Rand stretched and started unbuttoning his sweater. “I’ll see you in a while, pooch, after I grab me some shut-eye.”

  As he left the kitchen, Barney padding after him, Lynn put her hand on Billy’s arm. “Try not to worry,” she said. “I’m sure it’s just a one-day craziness. Humans fly off the deep end once in a while and then are perfectly normal. Why shouldn’t animals?”

  Billy nodded. He knew she was probably right, but he couldn’t help feeling better with Barney out of the house.

  “Where do they come from? How did they get here?”

  The small group of actors stood looking at the mysterious podlike object, their faces showing fear, disbelief, and horror in the 1956 classic movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Because it was one of Billy’s favorite old-time horror films, he glanced at the screen only occasionally, usually when the sveltely gorgeous Dana Wynter was visible. Otherwise he just listened, concentrating on his artwork.

  The movie, which began at eleven that night, had barely started when the four new Mogwai stirred from their long sleep and began to grumble for food. Billy tossed them a handful of chocolate candy kisses, which they proceeded to down, foil and all, in a matter of seconds. A minute later the begging sounds started up again with renewed urgency.

  Billy looked at the clock. It was 11:30. There was time enough to feed them before midnight but he was too lazy to move.

  “Forget it, fellas,” he said. “You had a good dinner a few hours ago. Go back to sleep and we’ll take care of you in the morning.”

  His reluctance to move caused a crescendo of group consternation, but a minute or two later they quieted down, apparently having decided their pleas were being ignored.

  Roy Hanson looked at his watch and sighed. It was nearly midnight and he still could not identify several main components of the Mogwai’s blood. As a result, both he and his subject were angry and exhausted—Hanson from scientific frustration, the Mogwai from the numerous irksome injections.

  “No doubt about it,” Hanson murmured to the creature, who glared at him from the farthest corner of his cage, “you and I are getting on each other’s nerves, all right. Maybe it’s time to knock off.”

  He studied his notes one more time, concluding that he was right in deciding that he simply did not have sophisticated enough equipment in his lab to do the proper tests. Tomorrow or the day after—or whenever the restrictions of Christmas allowed—he would take the Mogwai to a bigger lab and run more tests. For the moment, doing any more blood sampling was simply an exercise in futility. His stomach rumbled with hunger.

  “Yeah, that’s another good reason to knock off,” he murmured. “I’m starving.”

  During one stretch of four or five hours, when he had thought he was on the verge of a breakthrough, he had eaten nothing after unwrapping a large salami and cheese sandwich brought him earlier in the day. His stomach still churning, he looked at the sandwich now, half with desire and half with revulsion. The bread had already started to harden and the edge of the cheese was curling up. He lifted the top slice of bread, exposing lettuce rapidly turning limp and brown, an off-white sauce (but hadn’t he ordered “no mayo”?) insinuating itself like glue between the soggy leaves and slices of soft, now quite warm, meat.

  “No, thanks,” he muttered, dropping the bread onto the foil wrapping. “I’d like to have some real food.”

  The heavy smell of food, albeit rapidly aging, sent the Mogwai into near-contortions in its cage. Whining louder and louder, it grasped the bars like an angry penitentiary inmate, hopping up and down and accompanying itself with verbal gyrations that were alternately plaintive and angry.

  Hanson regarded the animal with a sympathetic glance. “Hey, I guess you are hungry at that,” he said. “You’re welcome to this sandwich, although I don’t guarantee it.”

  With that, he slipped the sandwich, foil and all, through the bars of the cage.

  When he left the lab, he could hear the Mogwai attacking the sandwich with undisguised gleeful gluttony.

  Stripe was hungry, perhaps even hungrier than the others. While they had slept peacefully, he had lain still, his eyes closed, and planned.

  With the dog gone—just an hour ago he had heard him barking as Rand put him in the car—their options were greater. If the man stayed away awhile, that reduced the odds against their eventual success even more. The problem was that he could not figure out how they would get out of the house, assuming someone did not carelessly leave a door open. Would the sheer weight of their numbers be sufficient? Stripe did not want to count on that any more than he wanted to count on a doo
r or window being left open.

  If we could just increase our size! he thought.

  He knew there was a way. He did not know why he knew, or how the growth could be brought about. But his sense of instinct was strong. That instinct told him to wait, but not long. Perhaps two days, no more.

  In the meantime, he was still hungry and infuriated that the one Gizmo called his “master” was too lazy to walk downstairs and get them something. They had tried moving him with pleas and threats, but to no avail. What other form of persuasion was there?

  The young man seemed absorbed in the flickering box with the small people inside. It, like so many other things in the house, seemed to operate through a wire stuck into the wall. Stripe recalled that while studying the Christmas tree prior to making such a fool of the dog, he had pulled the cord’s end from the wall, an action that had caused the lights to go out. Was it possible the entertainment box operated in the same manner?

  He looked across the room, saw the black cord from the box disappear behind Billy’s desk. Several feet away, near the baseboard, the same cord (or one that looked very much like it) was stuck in the wall. Stripe decided they must be one and the same. Pulling the plug from the wall would certainly get the young man’s attention; if inconvenienced, he might have the sense to get them something to eat.

  With that strategy in mind, Stripe detached himself from the group and slowly worked his way over to the cord. Grasping it, he cocked his ear toward the television.

  “Miles!” Dana Wynter cried.

  A long pause followed.

  Stripe, cursing silently, waited. Had the young man turned down the sound? Or was it merely a dramatic pause in the action?

  “Miles!” Dana Wynter said again, followed by more silence.

  “Well, I can’t wait here forever,” Stripe murmured. With that, he wrested the plug from the wall and as quickly as possible snuck back to the group.

  Nearly a minute passed. Then dialogue from the box told him it was still operating. Stripe gnashed his teeth, rolled over, and tried to sleep. When his rumbling stomach would not allow it, he decided to have another try at oral persuasion. Shaking his cohorts awake, he told them to really let him have it and began the whining, threatening chorus himself. Before long Billy turned his attention from his drawing and to the group.