"Peter And The Dead Men" - Page 17

It was more of a skull than a face, but black and charred. There was skin still left that covered most of the head and hid a lot of the teeth. But the skin looked like leather that somebody had roasted on a fire until it was black and shriveled as a burned raisin. The lips were gone, and had pulled away from the yellowed teeth in a permanent sneer.

The thing looked at Peter with its empty sockets.

Then it lunged at him.

Peter screamed, stumbled back through the corn, and ran fast as he could.

“DILL! DILL, GET OUT! GET OUT OF HERE!”

Dill’s voice piped from somewhere off to the side.

“What? What is it?”

“GET OUT OF THE GARDEN! RUUUUUUUUN!”

Peter tore through the corn and into the tomatoes, flailing his arms and ripping apart the vines. His feet smushed vegetables underfoot, his head smacked into stakes. He spun around dizzily like a drowning man trying to find his way to the surface of the lake.

Behind him, he felt a tug on the bottom of his t-shirt. A tug that didn’t feel like it was snagged by a vine or a plant.

He screamed and ran faster, plowing through anything and everything in his way.

If he could only see the house again…

And then it was there, the dim lights from the windows. Safety.

Peter stumbled in the cucumbers but managed to keep upright, one foot flying in front of the other. For the first time since he started running, he looked over his shoulder.

Nothing was behind him, just the ever-receding garden patch.

Peter stopped and whirled around. “DILL!” he screamed.

Silence.

“DILLLLL!” he screamed again and prayed that he hadn’t left his friend behind to die in the clutches of a monster.

There was a giant shaking and shuddering in the tomato plants.

Peter’s heart froze in his chest.

And then Dill came tumbling out, batting away vines from his face, sputtering and spitting pieces of leaves from his lips. “Jeez, man, why’d you go and scare me like that?! I peed my pants, I was – I mean, I almost peed my pants, you scared me so bad. I think I lost my flashlight…”

Peter ran up to the edge of the garden and urged Dill forward, yet kept his eyes glued to the vines and stalks behind them.

“Dill, I saw a hobo!”

“Really?” Dill gasped. “Did you talk to him?”

“No, he was burned to a crisp!”

Dill stopped in his tracks. His lower lip trembled. “He was…he was burned up?”

Peter grabbed Dill’s arm and pulled him over to the rose bushes. “Yeah, he didn’t have any eyes or nose or anything, and his hand was like this – ”

Peter contorted his own hand into the shape of a claw.

“ – except it looked like a branch after a fire, and his clothes were black and burned and everything.”

Dill looked into the field. “Do you…do you think I…” he whispered.

“And then it came after me!”

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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.