The Nightmarys - By Dan Poblocki Page 0,6

waiting, and he was becoming annoyed.

Throughout his life, Byron got what he wanted. In the courtroom, he’d earned himself the nickname “the Hammerhead,” as in shark. If you were accused of a crime, and the Hammerhead decided you were guilty, he usually found a way to put you away. His tactics were usually legal, but not always. He figured, when you have a job to do, you do it. You get it done. No matter what.

Now, if only the nurses had the same philosophy …

As he reached out for the call button again, a draft blew against the curtain, as if someone had opened the door to his room. Finally …

“Nurse!” Byron called. “I need a blanket. It’s freezing in here!” The curtain went still, but no one answered. “Nurse?” he tried again. “Hello?” Goose bumps broke out all over his frail body, and this time, it had nothing to do with the air conditioner. He could feel a presence. Someone was in the room with him.

He’d said goodbye to his children earlier that evening, but maybe one of them had come back.

The curtain at the foot of his bed was moving, as if someone were scratching at it from the other side. “Is anyone there?” he asked, though he wasn’t certain he wanted an answer. Suddenly, the scratching moved. Now it was directly to his right, next to the bed stand. Then the scratching moved again, to the opposite side of the bed. Suddenly, the entire curtain began to ripple, as if hundreds of fingers were dragging against the cloth. Eventually, the fingers clenched, balling up the fabric. They began to pull downward, putting pressure on the silver bearings that attached the curtain to the long slider on the ceiling.

The heart monitor began to beep faster and faster. Though it pained him, the old man cried out as loud as he could, “Nurse!”

The curtain was torn down, fluttering like a magician’s cape to the floor. Now Byron could see that the room was filled with people. He shrieked. Their faces were illuminated by that faint fluorescent light, making them all appear sicker than himself. He knew them. They were the criminals he’d helped convict over the course of his life. None of them spoke. None of them moved. They stood around his bed and watched as he wet himself. Then, from the middle of the group, Byron saw a man in a long gray overcoat step forward. He smiled.

“Christian? Is that you?” Byron whimpered. “You … you’re dead,” he added, pathetically. “You’re all dead.”

A new pain bloomed in his chest, like a bright red rosebush full of pricker thorns. The man in the overcoat smiled wider and chuckled as Byron’s vision blurred. He tried one last time to call for the nurse as his life slipped away into darkness, and the heart monitor finally stopped its awful beep-beep-beeping, instead filling the room with a plain and soothing hum.

5.

On the morning of the field trip, Mr. Crane lined up his students in the hallway. Several yellow buses waited in the fog in front of the school. The classes piled in. To Timothy’s surprise, Stuart smiled as he made his way up the aisle and slipped into the seat beside him. Tufts of dark hair stuck up from Stuart’s head, his eyes were still puffy from sleep, and some sort of pale milky crust had been left from breakfast just below his lower lip. As usual. But after yesterday’s fight, Timothy didn’t expect everything to be fine between them.

“Oh my God,” said Stuart, “you wouldn’t believe what happened last night.” He didn’t wait for a response. “You know the part in Wraith Wars where Fristor has to climb the cliff with his bare hands and we can never get to the top without losing almost all of our life force because the giant Nemcaws keep flying at our heads and trying to peck out our eyes?”

“Sure,” Timothy answered tentatively. “That part’s wicked hard.” He didn’t trust that Stuart wasn’t still mad at him.

“Not anymore,” Stuart continued. “When I was about halfway up the rock, before the Nemcaws got there, I noticed that there was this ledge sticking out of the cliff way off to the right of the screen. So I swung myself over to it, and guess what I found?”

Timothy shook his head and shrugged.

“A cave!” Stuart said, throwing his hands into the air. “It was so amazing. The walls were carved with all these weird symbols and it was