Gremlins Read online

  He was about to pursue the topic further with her when he noticed the vanguard of their battalion standing near the front door. Although Dorry did not realize it, his pub, with its very subdued indirect lighting, was a magnet for the Gremlins, an ideal spot for them to relax after their early-evening knaveries. Darting out of the shadows bordering the main square, they gravitated naturally to this wondrous arena of free food, drink, games, and music.

  A person’s jaw dropping—even several jaws dropping in concert—is not generally considered a measurable sound. Tonight, as Dorry and his few customers one by one noticed the collection of forms moving slowly through the foyer toward them, their jaws dropping seemed to generate a negative force so powerful and complete, not unlike a black hole in space, that it could be felt and heard as clearly as any explosion.

  The brief moment of paralysis and terrifying silence was immediately followed by a detonation of people, Dorry included, toward the side and rear exits. Chairs fell, drinks were dropped or spilled, and bodies stumbled as the Gremlins took over the bar as rapidly and thoroughly as if an opening night theatre next door had just discharged its patrons. Chattering to each other in broken Mogwai, hopping excitedly as they spotted the game machines and pool table, the Gremlins inundated Dorry’s Pub in less than a minute.

  Dorry was the last person to escape via the rear entrance. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw a confused and surrounded Kate hesitate and then retreat behind the bar as the sea of green cackling faces spread in unearthly agitated waves from one corner of his establishment to the other.

  —a state of emergency at the Governor’s Mall Shopping Plaza ever since the electronic doors jammed, trapping some hundred and fifty people inside the complex. The telephones are still working, however, although one by one the lines are being taken out of service by the same unseen forces that have been terrorizing Kingston Falls since shortly before eight o’clock this evening.

  At last reports, eyewitnesses stated that chaos broke out in the mall when the escalators started moving at terrific speeds, perhaps as fast as seventy or eighty miles an hour. Passengers were spun off like tops and hurled through plate glass windows or into each other. This was followed by all the lights being turned off and the background music being turned up to a deafening volume. We’ll keep you posted on the situation at Governor’s Mall, as we know many of you in our listening audience have loved ones or friends in that facility. We repeat that so far there have been no fatalities although many have been injured.

  Elsewhere in the area, two more people have been attacked by Christmas trees—

  Swallowing the last morsel of her Dinty Moore Beef Stew—one large can of which lasted her three days—Mrs. Deagle sat back to await the start of her favorite nighttime soap opera on television, the one with so many despicable characters, whom she found singularly attractive.

  Once again the doorbell’s ringing disrupted her pleasure. Even more aggravating was the persistence of the callers, one of whom kept his finger against the button so that the chimes continued to sound endlessly.

  “Fools!” Mrs. Deagle hissed, struggling to her feet. “I’ll have them arrested.”

  Flinging the door open, she nearly choked on the angry words she had prepared for the unwanted callers. She gasped. For how could one even begin to preach responsibility and common sense to a group outfitted such as this one? Were they a joke cooked up by the angry carolers?

  “What is this?” she finally managed to growl. “A late Halloween prank? Well, I’ll thank you to get off my porch and lawn this minute or I’m calling the police!”

  The group, apparently oblivious to her attitude, began a singsong mumbo jumbo that was totally incomprehensible to Mrs. Deagle.

  “Get out of here!” she shouted. “I don’t want to hear you and I don’t want to see you. Those costumes are terrible, anyway. Very cheap and tacky and unconvincing.”

  The giggly dirge continued. Leaving the front door open, Mrs. Deagle went inside and looked around for something to throw. As she did so, two of the creatures padded into the house and faded into the darkness.

  A moment later Mrs. Deagle returned holding a broom. While inside she had considered dousing them with a bucket of water, but her arms weren’t strong enough to lift a full bucket much less throw it.

  “All right,” she grated, moving toward the unwanted visitors, “now scram or else.”

  When the Gremlins continued singing, she lifted the broom and began thrashing left and right. More surprised than hurt, the creatures tumbled off the porch onto the snow, quickly hopping to their feet to snarl defiantly at her.

  The exertion had caused Mrs. Deagle’s heart to start pounding, and the night air was cold. An urge to return to the comparative warmth of her living room gripped her, but she took one final moment to glare them down before turning away.

  “And don’t come back,” she snarled, going back inside. The chill had worked on her bladder and she felt an urge to go upstairs to the bathroom.

  “Miserable little creeps,” she muttered, seating herself on the electric stairs climber and turning the switch to UP. As she was in the process of doing this, one of the Gremlins watched with increasing fascination; meanwhile, in the kitchen, its partner took the opportunity to grab a late snack by stealing some of the cats’ food. A huge tabby, not liking this, hissed and took a swipe at the Gremlin’s leg. He received a quick kick that sent him half sailing, half sliding across the kitchen floor.

  “What’s that commotion?” Mrs. Deagle whined. Putting the machine in neutral, she climbed down and started for the kitchen, grumbling as she stumbled along. Arriving at the swinging door of the room, she pushed it open to see a half dozen cats standing with tails upraised and fur as straight as a poker, their wide eyes fixed on the door leading into the dining room.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Deagle demanded. “I swear, sometimes you stupid animals are more trouble than you’re worth.”

  It took her a while to clean up the spilled food, calm down the cats with some milk, and make a perfunctory search of the dining room for them. She saw nothing. While she did these things, the Gremlin at the stairway had a wonderful time with the old woman’s elevator chair, twisting wires and changing leads almost as if it were a born electronics expert.

  Finally, the troubles apparently over, Mrs. Deagle sighed wearily and returned to her original problem, that of going to the bathroom.

  “At last,” she wheezed, “a chance to relax.”

  As she spoke, she disengaged the chair from neutral and pushed the switch back to UP.

  —body was identified by his wife as that of Murray Futterman, a professional handyman and mechanic who was born in Kingston Falls and lived here all his life except for a brief stint in World War Two. How Mr. Futterman was literally pushed through the wall of his garage by the snowplow is not known. The machine was still running when his body was discovered beneath it.

  Another unusual accident occurred not far away at the home of Mrs. Ruby Deagle, wife of the late real estate millionaire Donald Deagle. Mrs. Deagle, who used a stair-climbing device because of a bad heart, was found dead in that chair only minutes ago. The unusual thing was that the chair and Mrs. Deagle were not in her home but in a vacant lot a tenth of a mile north of her Decatur Drive residence. The police officer who examined the circumstances of the case said that the chair apparently had gone completely haywire, carrying the woman up the stairs, through a window in the hallway, and onto the vacant lot. To have achieved such a trajectory and distance, the officer estimated that the chair must have been going at least two hundred miles an hour.

  This just in—a report that the green monsters have taken over an entire bar for the evening. Because of the demands placed on the Kingston Falls Police Department by the events of the past few hours, the owner of the bar known as Dorry’s Pub could not get in touch with the police, so he called this station to warn everyone to stay out of Dorry’s Pub. That’s Dorry’s Pub, 460 West Main. The owner said th
at all of the customers got out safely when the little people entered except one waitress.

  Meanwhile, two more people fell into open manholes—

  “Kate!” Billy shouted, hitting the brakes so quickly the car spun almost completely around in the road.

  He was nearly home, but now he would have to go all the way back to town.

  “Darn,” he muttered, “this is all my fault—”

  Yes. My name’s Damian Phillips and I have a theory about all this. I have a brother who recently retired from the CIA and he says the Russians developed a robot that—

  “Shut up,” Billy snapped, reaching forward to turn the car radio off. Accelerating as much as he dared to on the icy streets, he peered through the small square of clearness generously given him by the VW’s antiquated defrosting system. Like most citizens of Kingston Falls, he had been amused initially at some of the pranks committed by the Gremlins, partly because he had experienced a secret longing to see what might happen if every traffic light showed green. But that and pulling a man into a mailbox and rolling tires down a hill were far cries from the most recent mishaps engineered by the Gremlins.

  “Mr. Futterman is dead,” Billy whispered. “The poor guy. I can’t believe it.”

  He did believe it, though, and the corollary was painfully self-evident. If these creatures could kill Mr. Futterman and Mrs. Deagle and perhaps others, they could also kill Kate without a second thought.

  His engine roaring as the wheels spun beneath him, Billy breathed a silent prayer he would make it in time.

  C H A P T E R

  EIGHTEEN

  Dummy, she thought, you had an opportunity to get out of this place but you blew it. It wasn’t that long a chance and making it would have involved a little shoving, but you had to act civilized and cool and sophisticated.

  So now you’re a civilized, cool, and sophisticated prisoner, she mused, not going easy on the self-recriminations.

  “It’s even worse than that,” she muttered under her breath as she poured another round of drinks. “It’s a new definition of perpetual motion. I’m the only waitress for the thirstiest, meanest, sloppiest bunch of drunks in the world. What a living nightmare!”

  Trapped behind the long rectangular bar at Dorry’s when the torrent of green demons poured through the door and enveloped her like a snag in a stream, Kate had initially diverted the Gremlins’ attention by mixing and pouring drinks as fast as she could and passing them around. It had worked, or at least kept the unruly mob from murdering her or, as they used to say in cheap fiction, subjecting her to a fate worse than death. The problem was that there was no time to even think, much less plan a hasty and safe exit. As soon as she filled one batch of glasses, another batch of empties was plunked down in front of her by a leering, giggling, slimy-fanged customer. One consoling factor emerged as she carried out her arm-wearying ordeal: they weren’t particular. At first, Kate had mixed real cocktails—Manhattans, martinis, whiskey sours—but soon it became obvious they would drink anything. So when a bottle of bourbon ran out, she added rum of tequila or whatever was handy to the drink. One Gremlin sitting at the end of the bar even developed a taste for bitters, throwing a tantrum when Kate finally ran out.

  Now, though not much more than a half hour had passed since the Gremlins had arrived, Kate was exhausted and Dorry’s Pub looked like a cross between party headquarters on election night and Omaha Beach the morning after D day. The air, smelly and sticky, was filled with flying objects—bottles, glasses, cue sticks, billiard balls, chairs, whatever was not nailed down. A raucous babble of foreign sounds, squeals, and high-pitched giggling kept the tension level dangerously high. Amid the noise, a few passed-out bodies lay on the floor, which oozed with spilled drinks, bits of food, and crushed popcorn. Kate fought back increasingly powerful urges to scream and make a sudden rush for the door, acts which she knew would call attention to her and perhaps seal her fate forever.

  “Just keep calm,” she murmured over and over again. “Sooner or later there’ll be a chance to make a break. Or help will come. Or they’ll all pass out at once.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed it, but it made sense to continue serving them. At least she was invisible, or visible only when they needed a drink.

  As more Gremlins drifted into the pub and supplies began to run low, however, the devilish creatures became more onerous and overbearing. Although she could not understand their language, Kate noted that the typical Gremlin drunk and his human counterpart displayed the same impatience when service didn’t keep up with their needs.

  Faces leered openly, no longer bothering to feign coolness. Some seemed to delight in holding her up, shouting in her ears, deliberately spilling drinks, anything to keep her from doing her job.

  “Where is everybody?” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Aren’t there any cops in this town?”

  Suddenly a cigar-sucking Gremlin popped up in front of her, waiting to be served. Kate poured him a drink. Screeching angrily, he threw the glass and its contents into the crowd near the pool table, clawed the counter, and seemed about to leap at Kate.

  “What?” she yelled.

  The creature gestured to the dead cigar.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Kate muttered.

  She located the butane lighter and moved it quickly toward the Gremlin’s face, snapping it on. A jet of flame six inches high shot from the lighter, causing the Gremlin to squint, grunt in pain, and stumble backward.

  “Sorry,” Kate murmured.

  As she adjusted the flame to a lower level, a plan was forming in her mind. Those rules Billy mentioned when he turned the Mogwai over to Mr. Hanson—wasn’t one of them something about avoiding bright direct light? Of course, Kate reassured herself, that’s why the Gremlin with the cigar didn’t care much for the high flame when it came close to his eyes.

  Kate looked around. If direct light was her ally, she was mired deep in enemy territory. Why couldn’t she have been trapped in the bank or an office building? Then her only problem would have been getting to the switches in order to turn on the overhead lights and escape in the pain and confusion.

  Dorry’s Pub was a completely different situation. Dimly lit, there was not an overhead light throughout the entire lounge area. They called it romantic, old-fashioned, cozy, but for Kate it was a trap. Unless Dorry kept a flashlight or two behind the bar, she had no way of using light as a secret weapon. He’s got to have a flashlight, she thought, flinging open doors and panels, all the while continuing her duties as waitress, punching bag, and slave to the green masses at the bar.

  Probably having gotten bored with pool, video games, food, and drink, she noted that they were becoming more and more obnoxious. Kate was gradually losing her patience, too, her annoyance and fear rising as she went through one drawer filled with useless junk after another.

  “I can’t believe it,” she whispered angrily, “there’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. How can a bar not have a flashlight behind the counter?”

  There were several packs of matches, she noted, all gaily decorated in green and white with the outline of a four-leaf clover, a shillelagh, and the telephone number and address of Dorry’s Pub. For a moment she toyed with the idea of setting them on fire one pack at a time and holding them before her, forcing the Gremlins to retreat like Dracula from a crucifix. Lots of luck, she thought. Such a strategy might irritate the closest Gremlins, but there was so little shock value in a pack of slowly burning matches, she had no faith in the plan.

  “Still,” she mused, “if it’s the only game in town . . .” A claw reached about her waist as a second, not belonging to the same owner, grabbed at her arm. Twisting away, Kate walked quickly to the middle of the bar, trying not to appear frightened or intimidated.

  The two Gremlins followed, elbowing their way through the double and triple layers of fellow carousers packed along the rail of the bar.

  Clutched in her left hand, which she carefully but casually tucked beneath her apr
on, were the packs of matches, Kate’s only slim hope. If she could get them all in a single ashtray and light the whole thing at once, maybe, just maybe—

  Two more Gremlins seated at center bar reached out for her, the more aggressive one lying flat on his belly in order to grab Kate’s thigh. As he did so, a roar of approbation burst from the other Gremlins near the scene. Reacting instinctively, Kate picked up the nearest bottle and slammed it alongside the Gremlin’s head, not pulling her punch in the slightest degree. A heavy liquid thunk, like a cantaloupe hitting the floor, told her the blow was a solid one. As the creature nose-dived onto the bar, its eyes rolling up into the top of its head and the smile collapsing into a confusion of flaccid drooling lips, Kate felt the first surge of relief since her ordinary evening of waitressing had turned into a torture test.

  Following her knockout blow, Kate noted grimly that the reaction of the other Gremlins was not exactly what she had expected. Humans—even construction workers, Kate thought ironically—would have laughed at the comeuppance rendered on their buddy, partly because an innate sense of justice would have told even the vilest drunk that the grabber got what he deserved. Apparently the Gremlins didn’t look at it that way, instead regarding Kate’s act of self-defense as an attack on all of them. In a moment the quasi-happy jabbering changed to an ominous rumble as the Gremlins angrily debated what to do with this evil person.

  Oh-oh, Kate thought, quickly picking up the drift of their muttering. Unless I miss my guess, they’re talking about me. Looks like it’s match time.