Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures

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Introduction by Andre Norton

Illustrated by Rod Ruth
Rand MQNally & Company

Chicago / New York / San Francisco
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Baleful beasts and eerie creatures.
CONTENTS: Butler, B. The patchwork monkey.

Gessner, L.
The Yamadan. Land, C. Monster blood,
[etc.]
1. Horror tales, American. [1. Horror stories.
2. Short stories] I. Ruth, Rod.

PZ5.B216 813'.0872 (Fie) 76-20529
ISBN 0-528-82171-7
ISBN 0-528-80211-9 (lib. bdg.)
Copyright 1976 by Rand McNally & Company

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
by Rand McNally & Company
First printing, 1976
*AJM flAi LIB RAM*

- RAFAEL. CALIFORNIA
iKcOl
contents
INTRODUCTION 9
by Andre Norton
THE PATCHWORK MONKEY 13

by Beverly Butler
THE YAMADAN 25
by Lynne Gessner
MONSTER BLOOD 41
by Charles Land
TIGGER 54
by A. M. Lightner
THE SPELL OF SPIRIT STONES 64

by Alice Wellman
THE NIGHT CREATURE 77

by Richard R. Smith
TO FACE A MONSTER 90
by Carl Henry Rath j en
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT 102

by Wilma Bednarz
NIGHTMARE IN A BOX 114

by Rita Ritchie
introduction
by ANDRE NORTON
Recently there have been many changes in our ways of
thinking about the unknown. In a world which gives serious
consideration to the investigation of the existence of the
Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snow-
man, monsters are no longer just a part of superstition.
Things once labeled "magic" are known to be "wild tal-
ents" which some of us do actually possess even if they
cannot yet be controlled.
Fear, however, remains perhaps the oldest and strong-
est emotion known to mankind. And that fact has not
changed. It is ever at his back, touching him on the shoul-
der, ready, lurking about the corner to confront him.
We are fascinated by fear as long as we can keep it
under control, our servant rather than our master. Why do

so many of us enjoy reading ghost or terror tales? Because
therein fear is chained upon the printed page so we are safe
and yet can savor the excitement it raises in us.
Some years ago I attended a writers' conference where
BALEFUL BEASTS AND EERIE CREATURES
there was a discussion of what made up fear. One writer

stated that her idea of a truly horrifying experience would
be to walk out of one's door in the morning, only to discover
that the rosebush planted to the right, now stood on the left.
Distortion of the everyday provoked, in her, fear carried to

a fine art.
I must admit that I have a taste for the eerie, there-
fore I welcomed the lucky chance of being able to read the
stories in this collection. Who does not relish a shiver or
two?
The impact of any story depends upon two things:
the ability of the writer to create believable characters and
background, and the reader to be aroused in turn when
some emotion of his own is awakened. The collection of
"Baleful Beasts" herein presented is still extraordinary
enough, in spite of our present preoccupation with such
material, to raise more than a chill along the reader's back-
bone.
Here the "rosebush" theme of the accepted and famil-
iar becoming the menacing is used to splendid effect with
careful and delicate plotting and evocation of atmosphere
in two tales
Ms. Butler's truly malicious monkey, and Ms.
Ritchie's evil in a box brought in an everyday fashion by the
delivery man. Personally I shall distrust all calico monkeys
and unexplained boxes from now on.
Ms. Gessner returns to old legends for inspiration, as
does Mr. Land. But the Yamadan of the Amerindian tales
is quite different from the creature that the hero in "Mon-
ster Blood" sees in action and is able to combat because he

does know his legends.
"Tigger," "You Are What You Eat," and "To Face A
Monster" deal with alien surprises either on this world or
another under exploration, in which creatures utterly be-
yond our knowledge are the menaces. One delights in the
10 unquenchable Tigger, a Terran hero wearing fur instead
INTRODUCTION
of a space suit, while the strangers of Ms. Bednarz and

Mr. Rathjen are formidable enough to provide those who
must deal with them a hard battle.
In "Spell of the Spirit Stones," Ms. Wellman returns
to one of the oldest legends that of the werebeast, human
and animal in one. But this tale is set in a background
springing from the magic and beliefs of a people unknown
to most Americans.
We enjoy being just a little frightened as long, of
course, as the ghost and the monster remain only the prod-
ucts of gifted imaginations. This collection will provide
stimulation for that part of us. It is shivery and strange,
and perhaps not to be taken just before bedtime. But read
it by daylight and enjoy it as much as I have done.
11
The patchwork Monkey
by BEVERLY BUTLER
Molly might not have been so angry if it hadn't been rain-
ing, but seemed like the height of unfairness for her
it
mother to drag her away from her favorite television pro-

gram and send her out in the rotten weather to fetch Jason
home from his tea party with Mrs. Welles. Just because her
little brother was too dumb to know when it was supper-
time, and Mrs. Welles was too old-fashioned to have a tele-

phone, Molly had to suffer.
"It's not raining that hard," her mother said, handing
her a slicker and a pair of rain boots. "And the fresh air
will be better for you than that witch show. I don't like all
this interest of yours in magic and witchcraft, anyway. The
first thing you know, you'll start believing all that nonsense
is true."
"I could believe Mrs. Welles is a witch," Molly said.
"She's probably fattening Jason up for the kill, like in
'Hansel and Gretel.' Why else would an old lady like that
13 invite a seven-year-old in for chocolate and cookies?"
"Now that'senough of that talk. Mrs. Welles has had

a lot of tragedy in her life, and if Jason reminds her of one
of her youngsters who died so long ago, there's no harm in
letting him help her relive her memories. I want you to be
respectful toward her."
Molly yanked the plastic rain boots over her shoes. "I
hardly ever even see her. She never gave me even a stick
of stale gum. It's Jason who gets all the favors."
"She is odd," her mother conceded, "but you have to
remember that she's very old, too. She probably doesn't
realize you'd care about candy and gum and comics at your
age. You grown up for twelve, you know."
look pretty
That wasn't true, and Molly knew it. She was small
for her age and had more than once been mistaken for
younger than she was. Anyway, it wasn't the candy and
gum and cookies she cared so much about it was the un-
fairness. She and Jason were the only children on this road.
According to the real estate man, there had been no chil-
dren in the neighborhood for some twenty years. So it wasn't
as if Mrs. Welles had singled Jason out from among dozens
to be her pet. Besides, it was Jason who got all the favors
from everyone. And Molly was always expected to act her
age and not care and go sloshing out in the rain on errands
nobody else wanted to do. It wasn't fair.
She ran most of the short distance to Mrs. Welles's
house, her head bent against the rain and her fists clenched
in her pockets. Jason let her in, acting as if he lived there.
"Don't come on the carpet all wet," he told her. "Stay on
the mat."
Molly stuck her tongue out at him and raised her eyes
in swift innocence as Mrs. Welles appeared from the kitch-
en. From the top shelf of the bookcase a plump rag figure
grinned down on her with a mouth of red yarn. Molly's
interest was captured at once. "Is that a doll? Or a monkey?
H Or what?"
THE PATCHWORK MONKEY
Mrs. Welles turned. "Oh, that's Patches. He started

out as an ordinary toy monkey, but he wore out so fast that
I finally had to make him anew skin out of pieces from the
clothes of all the children who ever played with him."
She lifted the creature from the shelf and brought it
to Molly for examination. It really was a monkey made of
patches. One paw was red, the other a pink candy stripe,
and was a long tube of faded denim. Tufts of brown
its tail
yarn stood out around a face that looked like it might once
have been a white stocking. The eyes above the red grin
were round black buttons, and a collar of little brass bells
jingled around its neck.
"He's taken care of quite a few children in his time,"
Mrs. Welles said, smoothing a triangle of blue gingham
that formed the monkey's left shoulder. "The children come
and the children go, don't they, Patches? That's what keeps
us young."
Molly touched a flower-sprigged hind foot. "What a
lot of different cloth. I'd sit and look at him all day if I had
him." She wasn't sure herself if she were wishing or hinting.

"I wouldn't," Jason said. He slid both hands around the
monkey's middle, ignoring the fact that Molly was holding
it. "I'd play with him."
"Jason," Molly protested, tightening her grip. She

glanced up at Mrs. Welles for confirmation that he had
been given no permission to take possession.
"Would you, dear?" Mrs. Welles's blue-veined fingers
removed the monkey from both children and held him up
at a tantalizing height. She tilted her head to smile into
the white stocking face, and the reflected light of a lamp
shot sparks of fire from her spectacles. "He'd like you, I'm
sure. It would freshen him up a lot to go home with you."
For one delightful moment Molly thought Mrs. Welles
was about to give the monkey to her. She put it instead into
is Jason's hands.
"
I don't care, Molly told herself fiercely. She said it
aloud to Jason when they got outside and Mrs. Welles's door
was shut behind them. "I don't care. I saw him first, and
she showed him to me first, so he ought to be mine if I want
him. But I don't."
"Yes you do." Jason patted the bulge where the monkey
was zipped inside his jacket and pranced ahead of her
through a puddle. "But you can't have him because she
gave him to me. She's my friend."
"She's not a friend. She's a witch. A mean, spiteful,
two-faced old witch. She hates children, but she needs fresh
blood from them every once in a while to keep alive," Molly
said, stretching her stride to catch up with him.
"You shut up," Jason yelled at her. "You're a witch."
"No, I'm not, but I can tell one when I see one." Molly
was inventing easily now, almost as if she were telling a
story she had always known. "And that monkey's not a
monkey, either. He's her creature that she sends out to
gobble up children for her. Every patch on his body is from
the clothes of a child he has gotten rid of for her, starting
with her own. Just you wait. Tonight at midnight

Jason broke into a run. "You shut up, I said. I'll tell
Mama and Daddy what you're saying, and you'll be sorry.
You shut up."
Molly ran after him. "You'll be sorry when he bites
you."
Jason dashed into their yard and slammed the gate
shut before she reached it. "If he bites me, he'll bite you,
too. Then you'll really be sorry."
But Molly wasn't sorry. She knew that by the time she
got the gate unlatched and could follow him, Jason would
be in the house, telling how she had spoiled his monkey for
him. So what? That would not unspoil it for him or
for Mrs. Welles. She glanced back up the road to where
Mrs. Welles's front windows were staring out into the dark
16 like two unwinking yellow eyes watching her.
A queer prickle down her spine sent her hurrying in-

doors. Jason was already eating his supper, and Molly's was
waiting on the table. She had forgotten that their parents
were going out this evening and that she and Jason were
going to be alone for a few hours. "And I want no more talk
of witches and evil spells while Daddy and I are gone.
Understand?" her mother said, stopping Molly as she was
about to sit down. "You'll be scaring yourselves to the point
where you don't know what's real and what isn't. Anything
can happen after that."
Again Molly felt her skin prickle under her shirt. For
a second she almost wished her parents were going out
another night, not this one. How could her mother be so
certain what was real and what wasn't? Molly had given
witches scarcely a thought until she moved here where she
passed Mrs. Welles's house every day on the way to and
from school, but now they were on her mind all the time.
Maybe Mrs. Welles actually was some sort of evil creature
sending out vibrations for Molly to pick up.
Molly thought about that while she ate, and decided
not to think of it anymore until her parents were home
again. It was not that she was scared exactly. She didn't
think Jason was very scared, either, the way he danced
around the living room in his yellow pajamas, waving the
patchwork monkey at her after their parents left, chanting,
"Nya, nya, he's mine."
"So take him to bed with you and be quiet," Molly said
when he had to pause for breath. "Nobody's going to fight
you for him. He's too ugly."
And the monkey truly was She was surprised she
ugly.
hadn't noticed it before. The red yarn mouth was so long
and so thin that it looked as much like a snarl as a smile.
And the unblinking button eyes seemed to stare right at you
no matter where you were in the room.
"I will takehim to bed with me," Jason said. "If I go.
17 But I'm not going. Not until you do."
"
He could be stubborn when he wanted to be. Molly

chased him into his bedroom five times before she finally
got him to scramble under the covers and stay there. She
waited outside his door for a while, ready to catch him if
he tried getting up again. When all had been quiet for about
ten minutes, she peeked inside. The light from the hall
showed him sound asleep, his cheek nestled in the pillow,
and the old monkey tucked under his chin.
Molly admitted to herself that he was a cute little boy
when he was asleep, and she could understand why an old
lady like Mrs. Welles could like giving him things. But that
didn't give Mrs. Welles any excuse for taking him over as
if he were her own, and it was no excuse for being so unfair.
Molly tiptoed downstairs. She was on the bottom step

when Jason yelled. Her anger at him came back in a flood.
She spun around on the step and shouted up at him, "You
shut your mouth, Jason, and go to sleep this instant."
"He bit me," Jason shouted back. His voice quivered
as if he were about to cry. "He bit me. Molly

Molly ran upstairs and switched on his bedroom light.
"Who bit you? You were having a dream."
"He did. The monkey." Jason, sitting on the edge of
the bed, fingered his neck. He opened up the yellow collar
of his pajamas to let her see a bright spot of blood on his
throat.
"That monkey couldn't bite you. Don't be Molly
silly,"
said. "I made that stuff up. That's not a bite, anyway. It
looks more like a scratch."
She picked up the monkey from the pillow. Funny, he

was heavier than she had thought. A little bigger, too. She
held him by his stiff, overstuffed arms and felt something
scratch her thumb. There in the end of each paw, almost
hidden in the seam, was a pin bent like a hook. Some child
of years ago must have thought monkeys should have claws
and provided this one with them,
is "You probably rolled on him in your sleep and got
stabbed," she said, showing the pins to Jason. "Lie down

again and forget about it. You'll live."
"No!" Jason said as she started to return the monkey
to its place on the pillow. "I don't want him in bed any-
more. Put him on the dresser."
Molly couldn't blame him. Her own heart was thump-
ing faster than was comfortable, although that was mainly
because she had sped upstairs in such a hurry. She sat the
monkey down hard on the dresser so that the blue denim
tail pointed up against the wall. Ugly thing, she thought.
There was a faint jingle from the bells around the monkey's
neck as if in answer, and for just the flicker of an eyelid the
button eyes seemed to reflect the light with a yellow gleam.
"I don't want to stay up here," Jason said. "I want to
come down and watch television for a while."
Molly considered this. She would be in trouble if he
let it slip tomorrow that she allowed him to stay up late to
watch television. Still, if she made him stay up here and

he scared himself sick because of her stories, she would be
in worse trouble. "Okay," she said.
She him curled up
left in their father's armchair in the
living room and went into some water
the kitchen to heat
for instant cocoa. Maybe that would soothe him enough to
send him back to bed.
When she returned to the living room, a marshmallow-
topped mug in each hand, she stumbled over something in
the doorway. "That's a dumb place to leave anything," she
said as hot cocoa sloshed over her fingers. "Why'd you bring
that thing down, anyway? I thought you didn't like him."
She gave the patchwork monkey a kick into the middle
of the room. It landed sitting up, facing her.
Jason huddled himself deeper into the corner of the
chair. "I didn't bring him."
"Well, I didn't bring him. So how else did he get here?"
A little more cocoa spilled as Molly set the dripping mugs
19 in a pair of glass ashtrays. She drew a long breath and
added very firmly, "He certainly didn't come by himself."

Jason stared at her from wide, dark eyes. "I didn't
bring him."
Molly stood quite still. The monkey had drooped for-
ward so that its front paws touched the floor between
sprawled hind legs. It looked as if it were gathering itself
for a clumsy leap. A gust of rain spattered against the win-

dows. The drizzle that had been falling all day was growing
into a real storm.
"Maybe he did come by himself," Jason whispered.
So that was it. Molly suddenly understood. Jason was
trying to get even with her for scaring him. He was out to
scare her.
"If you're going to be that silly, I'm shutting him in the
hall closet where he can't get out. I'd shut Mrs. Welles in
there, too, if she was here."
Molly stalked to the monkey, grabbed it by its arms,
and marched into the hall. A pain jabbed her fingers. She
knew it was from the imitation claws, but it felt like tiny
fangs sinking in. It felt, too, as if the monkey were wriggling
in her grip, trying to get free, but that, of course, was only
the effect of its heavy body swinging from its captive arms.
The thing must be stuffed with lead. She needed both hands
to thrust it up on the shelf in the closet.
"There." She slammed the door and heard the latch
snap into place.
Then she switched on the hall light and another light
inside the living room door and a third one on the other side
of the room. Not a shadow was left lurking anywhere. Then
she twisted the television dial to a channel that filled the
screen with dancers in beautiful gowns. Happy party music
liltedfrom the speaker.
"Drink your cocoa," she told Jason.
"I don't want it." Jason was eyeing her fingers. There
20 were streaks of blood on them. "He bit you, too, didn't he?"
"
Molly put her hand to her mouth. The punctures were

beginning to smart. "Scratched, not bit. That's a dumb toy
to give anybody. It doesn't have to be alive to kill you."
"But what if it is?" Jason asked.
"Is what?" A flash of lightning beyond the windows
dimmed an instant.
the lights for
"Is alive." Jason gave a strange giggle. He was rubbing
the scratch on his neck again. "What if everything you said
is really true?"
"That's crazy. And you're crazy to believe it." Molly
wished she had closed the drapes, but she didn't feel, some-
how, like walking to the end of the room to do it. "The
monkey belonged to Mrs. Welles's own children. She
wouldn't give an evil thing to her own children."
"Those weren't her own children. She was their step-
mother, and they didn't like each other when she first came
to their house," Jason said. "She told me so."
And those children had all died as children. How they
had died no one remembered anymore; it had happened
such a long time ago. Molly had heard Mrs. Stark, the or-
ganist at church, telling her mother the old story just yester-
day. One child had died from falling downstairs in a fit,
Mrs. Stark thought. But nobody was still living who really
knew, except Mrs. Welles, and she seemed to go on from
generation to generation, never growing any older or get-
ting any younger. Were the patches on the monkey from
those stepchildren's clothes? Their clothes and no others?
"Anyway," Molly said a little too loudly, "the monkey's
shut away. He can't

A roll of thunder stopped her. It started as a rumble
that grew and grew until the house trembled. In the midst
of it there was a click in the hall. Molly's neck muscles went
stiff. She couldn't turn her head to look. But she didn't have
to. She knew that the closet door had jarred open.
21 "It's true," Jason whispered into the silence that fol-

lowed the thunder. "True, what you said."

"No!" Molly cried. "Don't believe it. Don't."
But they both heard the thud of something falling or
jumping to the floor from the closet shelf. They both
heard the jingle of brass bells.
Molly shot a glance at the living room door. It was
still empty. "Run," she said, and she hurled herself toward
the opening just as the lights flickered and went out.

Something bumped into her and knocked her down.
"Jason!" she yelled.
"Molly! Molly, help!"
He was behind her somewhere, lost in the dark. There
were scuffling noises and a crash. He kept crying to her, but
his voice seemed to come from first one direction and then
another.
Molly was lost, too. A wall met her reaching hands
where the doorway should have been. She turned to the
right and stumbled against the armchair. Jason was no
longer in it. The chair arm and the cushion were warm with
a sticky wetness. In the corner of the chair her fingers slid
across a glass ashtray like the ones she had set the cocoa
mugs in.
"Jason," she called. "Where are you?"

This time there was no answer, no sound anywhere ex-
cept the lashing of rain against the window.
A flare of lightning showed her the living room door-
way. She ran for it and into the blackness of the hall. The
edge of the closet door struck her head full force as though
someone had pushed it. She went down in a heap on the
floor.
When her spinning wits cleared and she could bear to

lift her aching head, all the lights were on again. A woman
on was talking cheerily about toilet bowl cleaners.
television
Neither Jason nor the patchwork monkey were anywhere
22 to be seen.
\
ssS?
.*-,*'.
.
"Jason?" she tried waveringly.

"Up my
room." The voice was muffled a
here. In bit,
but it was Jason's sure enough, and he wasn't crying.

He came out of his bedroom fully dressed as Molly
gained the top of the stairs. His eyes were round and black
in a very white face, but hewas smiling.
"Where are your pajamas?" she asked.
He ducked his head, avoiding her eyes as he tucked his
shirt inside his faded blue denim jeans. "I changed them.
They got messed up."

His rumpled hair stood up like tufts of brown yarn.
The shirt he had on was the patchwork one their grand-
mother had given him for his birthday. Molly hadn't ever
noticed before that one of the patches was a triangle of blue
gingham on the left shoulder. Or that at the throat there
was a square of yellow the exact same shade as Jason's
pajamas.
"What happened to you? How did you get up here?"
She was groping behind her for the stair rail, but she
couldn't find it.
"Don't you know?" Jason stretched out a hand still half-

covered in a pink candy-striped cuff. "Come on. I'll show
you."
"No." Molly raised her arm to ward him off. "Stay
there. Stop it. Stop fooling."
He started toward her, his smile growing wider and
thinner until it was a red line of yarn across his flat face.
He laughed in a silly falsetto that wasn't Jason's laugh at
"I'm not fooling," the monkey said.
all.
Molly shrank away from the blazing yellow of his eyes.

The bells around his neck jingled as he moved closer. "No,"
she cried once more. "I don't believe you. You're not real."
And she stepped backward off the stairstep into
space. . .
24
The Yamadan
by LYNNE GESSNER
The on the nightstand showed exactly mid-
digital clock
night when Steve Glimson sat up in bed, wondering what
had wakened him. He couldn't remember hearing a noise.
He didn't have a stomachache. And nobody had turned on a
light.Yet here he was, sitting bolt upright in a pitch-dark

room waiting. For what?
Though the summer night air was balmy, he shivered.
As though sleepwalking, he slid from the upper bunk and
dropped silently to the floor. Beyond the open window only
blackness met his gaze. Yet he knew something was out
there.
"Phew!" he gasped, clapping his hand over his nose and
mouth as he caught a whiff of a musty odor like rotten
garbage.
At the sound of low exclamation, two lights
his
flickered in the darkness just outside his window. He felt
his skin crawl as he stared, convinced somehow that these
25 two glowing lights were eyes staring at him. Yet how could
they be? He had seen many wild animals in the woods

surrounding the farm, but always their eyes reflected light,
they never generated the light themselves. But on this moon-
less night there was no light to be reflected, and the house
was in total darkness.
"What's up, Steve?" came a sleepy voice from the
lower bunk.
"Nothing," he managed to say without a quiver. When
he slammed shut the window, the two points of light dis-
appeared. Only then did he turn to face his younger
brother, Irwin. "Just closing the window because of the
stink."
"What stink?" Irwin mumbled. "I don't smell any-
thing."
"You couldn't smell cow dung if you fell in it."
"Sorry," Irwin said into his pillow, and immediately
Steve regretted snapping at his brother. It wasn't fun
having stopped-up sinuses like Irwin did, and the kid was
sensitive about his allergy.
Steve climbed back into bed, but sleep was a long time
coming. He kept seeing those two glowing lights. Finally
he fell into restless sleep.

The sound of Irwin opening the window woke him,
and he struggled off the bunk bed, feeling strangely tired.
He looked at the eight-year-old boy, five years younger than
himself. Maybe
was because Irwin was small for his age,
it
or because he was a slow learner

not really mentally
retarded, Steve insisted to himself, but slow in grasping new
ideas. Anyway, it always made Steve feel protective about
his brother a protectiveness he didn't feel for his eight-
year-old cousin, Emmy, who was spending the summer with
them, or for Adele, his fifteen-year-old sister. He only felt
that way about Irwin. But then, everyone in the family had
a special feeling for Irwin.
26 The two boys raced to see who would be the first one
THE YAMADAN
dressed,and Steve deliberately put his shirt on inside out,

so he had to take it off and put it on again. Irwin's gleeful
"I won!" made Steve feel better after the way he had
spoken last night.
Steve went with Irwin out to the chicken house to

gather the eggs, Irwin's before-breakfast job. On their way
back to the house, Steve stopped in mid-stride, staring at
several huge footprints window. His
in the dirt outside his
dark hair felt stiff at the roots, and his body was suddenly
clammy. Automatically he wiped his hands on his jeans.
Through his mind flashed thoughts of the terrible creature
the local Indians called the Yamadan, the monster that
lived in the forest. He glanced around, expecting to see the
burning eyes, but all he saw were Adele's two horses
rounding the house at full gallop. Adele was on one, Emmy
was on the other.
Dodging, he leaped up on the back porch step and
yanked Irwin up with him, yelling at his sister for being so
reckless. Irwin found the momentary excitement amusing,
but Steve's thoughts were still on the footprints. They had
been obliterated.
"Are you okay?" Mom asked when came into the
Steve
kitchen. "You look pale." She touched her hand to his fore-
head, but felt no fever.
"You'd be pale if you had two dumb girls galloping
their horses right at you," he snapped. "They could've run
over Irwin."
Mom clucked, as she usually did when her children
bickered, but she didn't seem concerned.
When they were all gathered around the breakfast
table, Steve looked at his square-faced father. "Dad," he
began, feeling a little uncertain. His father wasn't one to
put up with ghost stories and such. "Have there been any
bears around here lately?" Those footprints probably had
27 a very logical explanation.
"
"Bears?" Dad said, looking up while he nibbled a strip

of bacon.
"No not in the last few years."
"You sure?"
"Sure as I am that hens lay eggs. Not a farm around
here has seen a bear or even a bear print for that matter,
since . .
." He paused to think, ". . . since the rangers moved
the last of them to the national parks. That's been seven or
eight years at least."
Steve's heart seemed to stop for a moment. No bears.
His logical explanation dissolved.
"W-what about a Yamadan? They
Dad slammed a fist on the table so hard that the
dishes clattered, and Irwin timidly shrank in his chair.
Automatically, without being fully aware that he was
doing it, Steve put a hand over Irwin's. His younger brother
smiled and resumed his silent eating.
"Yamadan! Yamadan!" Dad growled. "A lot of Indian
gobbledygook. Horned beasts that walk like man, mysterious
disappearances, moss-draped forest utter nonsense!" He
glared at Steve. "Look for yourself. Do you see moss hang-
ing from the trees in our woods?"
Steve shook his head. All of the surrounding woodland
was filled with oaks, birches, and other more delicate trees.
Yet Indian legends said that these very woods, the home of
the Yamadan, were dark, dank, and draped in ghostly
moss.
"What brought this subject up?" Adele asked in the
imperious tone she had been using lately.
"Steve's trying to scare us because we scared him,"

Emmy suggested, and she grinned tauntingly, showing a
mouthful of braces. Steve ignored her.
"I'll have no more talk about the Yamadans," Dad
said sternly, nodding toward Irwin who was busy eating
his oatmeal. Then in a gentle voice he added, "I won't
28 have him frightened. Do you understand?" Steve nodded
THE YAMADAN
and concentrated on his breakfast.

When the meal was over, Steve went out to do his
chores. Theirs was known as a truck farm, growing mostly
corn, melons, and squashes. And back toward the woods
was open pasture land for their cows.
"When you finish your chores around the house," Dad
said, "I could sure use some help. How about harvesting the
ripe corn?"
Steve nodded as an idea formed in his mind. When he
finally got to the cornfield, he hurriedly filled his big bags
with the ripened and then left them, darting off
ears,
beyond the pumpkin patch to the clump of trees where old
Nobara lived in his log cabin. Nobara claimed he was an
Indian chief, but there wasn't much left to be chief over.
Only six Indians, the remnants of what was once a proud
tribe, still lived in this grove, and Dad didn't like Steve to
hang around them. He said they made up stories that
frightened the neighboring children, and that it was only at
the sheriff's insistence, that they kept quiet. But today Steve
needed information.
The old chief sat on the stoop of his cabinby the front
door. Though Nobara wore the conventional jeans and
plaid shirt of his neighbors, he still preferred moccasins to
shoes, and he tied a red silk band around his gray hair. His
dark face was all lines as he smiled a welcome, but his eyes
held the usual deep sadness. Steve had often wondered
what tragic event in the old man's life had brought such
grief to him. As far as he knew, Nobara had never fought in
any wars, nor had any of his immediate family been
massacred. Yet he must have known some great sorrow.
Today, as usual, the old man seemed pleased to see
Steve, and he talked of the little squirrels he was trying to
lure closer to eat the acorns he had gathered for them.
"Nobara," Steve said when there was a moment of
29 silence, "does the Yamadan make huge footprints sorta . . .
like a bear?" He tried to steady his voice.

"Big tracks," Nobara said, nodding, "but two not four
like the bear."
"What kind of . .
." Steve hesitated, shivering despite
the heat. He wanted to know, yet he was afraid to find out.
"What are its eyes like?"
For a moment Nobara looked startled. "Eyes? Why do
you ask about its eyes?"
Steve shrugged. "Oh, I don't know," he said carelessly.
"I just wondered, I guess. I've heard that the Yamadan is
big and hairy, and that it has horns, and claws for hands.
But I never heard about its eyes, and eyes are important.
You can tell a lot by eyes."
"Like fire," Nobara said in a low voice. "Eyes like fire."
"Have you ever seen a Yamadan?" Steve asked, re-
membering the red glowing lights of last night.
The old Indian shook his head. "If I had, I would not
be here to talk with you now. To see it is to die. In all time,
only one man ever saw it and lived. That is why I know
how it looks."
"Who saw it?" Steve's voice cracked.
Nobara, looking uneasy, shuffled his moccasined feet.
"My father's brother."

Steve's eyes widened in surprise. "Tell me about it,"
he pleaded.
For a long time Nobara said nothing. When he finally
spoke, his voice shook with dread. "The Yamadans there
are two, both males
they are necessary to each other.
When one dies, the other must get a new companion."
"How?" Steve murmured, feeling goose bumps.
"It steals a man ... or a boy. It changes him into a
Yamadan."
"It stole your uncle?" Steve asked in awe.
Nobara nodded. "When I was only a boy, my uncle
so disappeared. He came back a few days later and told about
THE YAMADAN
theYamadan said it lives in a wet, gloomy forest with

much moss. He said he began to change to grow horns

and hair on his body and he begged the Yamadan to let
him go home. Uncle talked to animals. The Yamadan
understood and let him go."
"Do you really believe that?" Steve asked, terrified, but
remembering his father's scorn.
"Before my uncle disappeared, he told us he saw the
Yamadan's and eyes like fire." A shiver ran
footprints,
through the old man. "Then he disappeared."
Nobara looked up. His face was suddenly closed. "I
will tell you no more. The sheriff-man says I should not
talk. But I know the Yamadan lives in the woods. I know. I
know."
Though Steve pleaded, Nobara refused to say any
more. So he returned to the field and dragged his bags of
corn to the wagon Dad had left nearby.
After a quick lunch, Steve was so busy helping Dad
that he had little time to think about legendary creatures.
Maybe it was the influence of his very practical, hard-
working father, but as the day wore on, Steve began to feel
that both the footprints and the lights must have logical
explanations, even though he might not know what they
were.
That afternoon, after the work was finished, he and
Adele rode the two horses out to the pasture to round up the
cows. "Let's take a quick ride along the edge of the woods,"
Adele suggested with a mischievous grin.
"Race you," Steve challenged, and off they went, heading
toward the beautiful, flower-decked woods. In and out
among the scattered trees and shrubs they dashed, yelling
and cheering their horses on.
Suddenly Steve's horse skidded an abrupt stop, al-
to
most unseating him. Then it reared on its hind legs, pawing
31 the air and screeching in terror. It reared and danced,
backing away as though afraid to pass an invisible barrier.

When Steve tried to heel it forward, it suddenly bucked,
and Steve went sailing over its head.
"Steve!" came Adele's wail. That was the last he heard
as his body seemed to crash through a solid wall.
When Steve opened his eyes, he stared in bewilder-
ment, wondering where he was. Catching a whiff of the
rotten garbage smell, he sat up. The surrounding gloomy
forestwas almost choked with underbrush and junglelike
growth. Long whiskers of gray-green moss hung like shrouds
from the trees.
Turning to find the source of the smell, Steve stifled a
scream. Out of the shadows came a big, hairy creature with
goatlike horns projecting out of a melon-shaped head.
Beneath eyes like live coals were a flat nose and a big slit
of a mouth.
"The Yamadan!" Steve leaped to his feet and turned to
run, but something knocked him down. He glanced back
but the Yamadan had not moved. Once more Steve tried
to run, but again he toppled backward, feeling as though
he had slammed headlong into a brick wall.
A wall a barriersomething the horse wouldn't cross
but that he had crashed through. Instead of panic, his
father's sensible calmness settled over him. He tried to
figure out what had happened. Had he somehow been
thrown through an unseen barrier? Where was this jungle?

Only one explanation not one Dad would arrive at came
to mind. Somehow he had crossed a time barrier. He had
no idea what time period he was in, but it certainly con-
tained a strange creature.
More curious than afraid, Steve glanced back at the
Yamadan. It was ugly with its big round head, its blazing
eyes, its clawed hands, and itsimmense feet, but it didn't
seem vicious at least not at the moment.
32 When Steve looked at his own body, he breathed a sigh
THE YAMADAN
of relief. It was normal. "Well, what happens now?" he

said.
The Yamadan responded with a wheeze. The creature
turned and slowly walked away, looking back, beckoning
Steve. Curious, Steve followed, scrambling, tumbling, and
climbing over the tangled logs and underbrush. Because he
couldn't travel fast, they didn't go far, and to Steve the heat
and humidity were oppressive.
He heard a commotion, and as if he were up on a
mountain, he watched Dad, Mom, and Adele ride up to the
edge of the woods, hunting for him. Adele was almost
hysterical, insisting that Steve had fallen unconscious at
this very spot.
"But now he's gone," she cried.
"Maybe he's gotten up and gone home," Mom said, and
she rode back to see. In a short while she returned, sobbing.
"No he's not there."
"Well, he's got to be somewhere,'
1
''
Dad said. "People

don't evaporate." Steve called out, but even as he did, he
knew they would not hear him. Reluctantly they rode away.
When the forest began to get dark, Steve gathered
some branches and made himself a bed. Then he lay down,
aware of those glowing eyes watching him. He was hungry,
but he hadn't found any food. The Yamadan, it seemed,
ate only vegetation. But Steve didn't think he was hungry
enough to eat leaves.
Trying to fall asleep was difficult. Steve thought of his
family. Poor Mom had been terribly upset, and Adele
blamed herself for suggesting the race. But Irwin Irwin
was the one who worried Steve most. The boy would be
alone in his bedroom tonight, and he didn't like to be alone.
Maybe Dad would sleep in the upper bunk, Steve thought,
though Adele would be better. Irwin felt safer around Adele.
He loved Dad, but his father sometimes scared him. Not
33 that Dad ever yelled at Irwin. He never even raised his
',
a
w ,
-
-<
&r
voice. But he yelled at the rest of them and that bothered

the timid little boy.
When daylight crept weakly through the dense over-
head growth, Steve got up, ravenously hungry. In a small
clearing he saw a huckleberry bush loaded with plump,
dark berries. Reaching out to pick them, he paused with his
hand in midair.
"Oh no!" he squawked, his blood seeming to freeze. His
arm was hairy! He tore open his shirt, horrified to see long
brown hair covering him. Savagely he grabbed at it, feeling
pain as he pulled the hair. But it did no good. Shivers
shook his body, and he clutched the shirt front over his
hairy chest, hoping that by hiding it, it would go away. He
moaned in anguish.
34 But hunger was stronger than dismay, and Steve
?m
m
\<T-'i
T^
r T\
stuffed the berries into his mouth until there wasn't a single
one Only then did he look for the Yamadan who was
left.
squatting by a small swampy pool drinking the brackish

water.
day Steve followed the hairy monster. Twice he
All
saw Dad and some troopers off at a distance, searching the
35 woods. But he was too far away to hear their words. And
the next morning when he tasted some leaves, he had to

admit that they didn't taste bad at all. To his horror,
though, his hands were becoming clawed.
"No, I don't want to be a Yamadan!" he screeched at
the monster. "I want to be a boy. I want to go home. Dad
needs me to help out."
But the Yamadan wheezed and plodded
merely
around. And Steve, though he couldn't wheeze back, was
beginning to understand.
"I don't want to understand you," he cried out, but it
was useless. He was afraid com-

that by the time he could
municate to the Yamadanthat he wanted to go home, it
would be too late. By then he would be a Yamadan, and
most likely he would be satisfied with his fate. He probably
wouldn't even remember that he had ever been a boy or
had even known Dad, Mom, Adele, or Emmy. Would he
even forget Irwin?
Steve wondered how Nobara's uncle had made himself
understood. "He Nobara had said. So
talked to animals,"
Steve talked and talked. But it did no good. By nightfall he
was growing horns, and his head was getting big and round.
The next morning Steve ate leaves and enjoyed them.
He even played games with the Yamadan, and he enjoyed
that, too. Scrambling over the undergrowth was not so
difficult now, and he didn't notice the steamy air.
"I don't want to be changed," he pleaded. But the

Yamadan only wheezed noisily, and Steve understood it to
mean, "We're going to be good friends."
Just then Steve heard a voice call his name. He raced
to a spot where he could see people moving below. He saw
Dad with Irwin, Adele, Mom, Emmy, and several of the
sheriff's men. But it was Irwin he watched. It was Irwin
calling him. In anguish he realized he could no longer
understand the words his brother was saying, but the boy's
36 voice was plaintive.
THE YAMADAN
Steve turned to the Yamadan, his heart aching with

longing to comfort his little brother. "You've got to let me
go," he pleaded. "Irwin needs me more than you do.
Don't you understand? I'm needed at home." He felt his
own eyes burning . . . glowing. . . .
The Yamadan seemed to be thinking back to the

companion he had and how much they had needed
just lost
each other. "You can go back," his wheezing seemed to
say. "I'll find someone else. Here, I'll take you down to
them."
Then the Yamadan picked him up, and even as they
traveled, Steve realized that his own body was slowly
changing back to normal. He tried not to breathe as he was
clutched close to the stinking body, but the stench invaded
anyway. Suddenly the Yamadan lifted him high
his nostrils
and tossed him forcibly away. Crashing into something,
Steve blacked out.
When he came to, he was in a sunny glade. He
staggered to his aware of voices in the distance, and he
feet,
began to run toward them through the sun-dappled woods.

In a short while he saw his family.
"Dad Mom!" he yelled as they rushed to him.
"Are you all right?" Adele demanded.
"You poor dear, you must be starved." Mom was tearful
and hugged him close.
"You must've had a concussion," Dad suggested.
Everyone talked at once, firing questions at him. Irwin
wound arms around Steve's waist and stared up at him
his
rapturously. "You'll come home now, Stevie?" he begged.
"You bet," Steve assured him. "I'll be in the top bunk
tonight."
"Where have you been, young fellow?" a trooper asked.
Without thinking, Steve blurted, "I've been with a
Yamadan in the jungle." But after one look at Dad's
37 shocked face and a reassuring glance at the sunny woods
around him, he grinned sheepishly. "I don't know where

I've been. I guess I stumbled around and got lost. I've had
some weird dreams."
Yes, he decided, that's what really happened. He had
talked to Nobara and had his head filled with all those
crazy, scary legends. After being knocked had come
out, he
to while Adele had gone for help. Then he had wandered
off and gotten lost, imagining himself turning into a
Yamadan.
No one had a better explanation, so by the time the
troopers had gone, and the family had
down, Steve
settled
was convinced that the whole incredible incident was the
result of his being knocked out in the fall.
That night he lay in his upper bunk, listening to
Irwin's quiet breathing. Adele had told him that in his
absence she had slept in the room, hoping to calm Irwin
enough so he would sleep. But it hadn't worked he had
cried all Now, with Irwin at peace, Steve was con-
night.
tent. In moments he fell into the first sound sleep he'd had
in days.
The next morning Steve overslept. When he woke up,
he realized Irwin was gone. Dressing quickly, he went to the
kitchen and made himself breakfast. No one was around so
he went out to the barn.
"Where is everybody?" he asked Mom.
"Your dad and Adele are out harvesting corn. Emmy's
driving the cows to pasture," she replied, gathering the
eggs.
"Where's Irwin?"
"I haven't seen him. I thought he was still asleep."
Steve opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. No sense
in alarming Mom. Maybe Irwin was in Adele's room.
He raced back toward the house, then came to an
abrupt halt. Footprints big ones in the dusty yard! All
38 the horror of his days in the dark forest rushed in on him,
THE YAMADAN
and involuntarily he tore open his shirt. His chest wasn't

hairy! And his hands were normal. But he couldn't control
the shivers that ran over him. It was the Yamadan! One
really did exist! But why was it here? Fearfully he glanced
over his shoulder, but there was no big hairy creature there.
In a state of panic he dashed beyond the barn and looked
out across the pasture. There was Irwin riding the horses
with Emmy, driving the cows before them.
He grinned in relief. Boy, he was letting this Yamadan
thing get to him. A few big footprints and he had almost
gone bananas. Irwin must have gotten up after Mom left
the kitchen, then joined Emmy when he saw her going out
to the pasture. Their laughter drifted back to him.
Steve started out to the cornfield to help Dad and
Adele, but they were at the far end. He saw Nobara sitting
on the front step of his cabin, and on an impulse, Steve
hurried over.
"Tell me more about the Yamadan," he said, feeling
foolish, yet wanting to hear the story.
Nobara looked frightened. "No, I dare not. I'm for-
bidden to speak of it."
"You said it had horns. Were they like antlers?" Steve

persisted.
"No like goats."
"And a head like a melon?"
Nobara gasped. "You have seen it?"
"And it stinks like garbage?"
The old man seemed "Yes like
about to faint.
garbage." His bony fingers clutched Steve's arm. "You saw
the Yamadan?" Then he shook his head and closed his eyes
without releasing Steve. "No only one man has ever seen
it and returned."
"I saw it."
The ancient eyes snapped open. "You saw the
39 Yamadan," he repeated in disbelief.
"
"At first I became covered with hair, then my hands

became claws." Steve went on, "I began eating leaves
"Yes, yes, the same as my uncle." The old man stiffened.
"If he let you go, who will be the new Yamadan?"
"He said he'd find someone else." Steve wondered at
the old man's obvious fright. "When your uncle returned,
who took his place as the new Yamadan?"
There was a long and suddenly Steve
silence, realized
that the expression in the old man's eyes was not just sadness.
There was a sort of horror.
From the depths of Nobara's frail body came the
whisper of a voice. "My father. The day my uncle returned,
my saw footprints and the
father eyes of fire. He told me. I
never saw him again."
Steve felt his legs turn to rubber. Dad! Would Dad be
turned into a horrible hairy monster? Dad, who didn't
believe in such things?
Steve went racing to the cornfield where he saw Adele.
She was alone. "Where's Dad?" he croaked in fear.
"Heading over to the pasture. He's worried about
Irwin."
"Irwin? Why?"
"Just before Dad and I started over here, Irwin came
out of the house and told Dad he had seen funny eyes last
night. Dad's afraid Irwin is coming down with a fever or
something."
Steve felt as cold as marble. Before he could organize
his tangled, horrified thoughts, he heard Emmy's scream
cutting across the farm.
"Irwin's hurt. His horse threw him- in the woods! He's
out cold!"
"No!" Steve cried out in agony. "No, Yamadan, not
Irwin! Not Irwin!"
With glassy eyes he watched Dad race to the woods. It
40 was too late.
Monster Blood
by CHARLES LAND
Monsters were something you believed in or you didn't.
Keith Volmer was a believer. He was a monster buff. Some
guys collect bugs or stamps, but Keith collected monsters.
And he didn't settle for just any monster like Frankenstein
or Wolf man. Keith devoted himself to the basilisk the
horrendous monster of the Middle Ages.
Once Keith began to specialize on the basilisk, he soon
learned to know and value the works of Professor Zembeck,
world authority on the subject. And as he xeroxed illustra-
tions or diagrams from the Zembeck tomes, the professor
took on heroic proportions in Keith's mind. So when he read
that Professor Zembeck had Abbot Castle as
actually rented
a retreat to house his books, ancient manuscripts, and arti-
facts, Keith was determined to meet him.
Riding his bicycle up to the castle gate, Keith stared

at the stone tower, brooding and silent in the afternoon
shadows. Though he knew his plan was way out, he was
41 determined to go through with it.
The wrought-iron gate sagged open. Keith chained his

bike to a rusted iron scroll and walked resolutely to the
massive oak door. In T-shirt and jeans, he looked like any
boy out to find an after-school job.
He pounded the bronze knocker, shaped like the head
of a hideous gargoyle. The hollow sound was enough to
summon the dead. He pounded again and again until, at
last, a small window in the door opened. Two eyes drilled
through him.
"What do you want?"
"Do you need any help, sir?"
"Go away, boy." The tiny window snapped shut.
Suddenly it opened again. "How old are you?"
"Twelve, last July."
The huge oak door swung back. "Come in! I'm
Professor Zembeck."
In the great mirror across the hall, Keith saw the pro-
fessor look him over. "You're a well set-up boy," he said. "I
can use you."
Keith felt the magnetic power of the man. Although
not much taller than Keith, he seemed to bend over him.
His domed forehead and long stringy hair added height to
his slender body, and his voice boomed with authority.
"Tell me, boy, what is a basilisk?"
"It's a monster, half rooster and half snake."
"Very good," the professor murmured. "Basilisks are
little known today. How are you so knowledgeable?"
"I collect monsters. Pictures that is. I am a Zembeck
fan. I have xeroxes of every monster picture of yours I can
find. Maybe you'll autograph one for me."
The professor looked pleased. "Well, well, I think I
can even do better than that. But we have work to do. Let's
get on with it."
Keith followed Professor Zembeck across the flagstone
42 floor to the tower arch. The tower smelled musty and damp.

MONSTER BLOOD
It wasn't as old as it seemed. Fifty years ago the ancient

stone farmhouse had been remodeled into a castle by a
family who wanted one. Now it was hard to rent. People
didn't live like that anymore.
"I have some fragile material to unpack. Are you a
careful handler? What is your name, boy?"
"Keith Volmer."
"Keith will do well enough. A good Scottish name. My
godfather's name was Keith."
The professor seemed to run out of breath as they
climbed the spiral stone stairway. Keith was full of ques-
tions, but he thought it and listen. At the
best to keep cool
top of the stairs, Professor Zembeck pushed through the red
velour draperies.
"Come in, boy." Keith wondered if the professor had
already forgotten his name. "Come
come in," the pro-
in,
fessor repeated, and Keith followed him into the tower

room. Boxes were everywhere. An ornately carved chest
stood in the center of the room. A long worktable was
pushed against the wall. Beside it stood a refrigerator. It
was then, lookingbeyond all this, that Keith saw the cage
large and strong enough for a gorilla.
Professor Zembeck's eyes seemed to give Keith a care-
ful appraisal. Picking up a carton from the floor and hand-
ing it to Keith he said, "Open it."
Keith put it on the table gingerly. "Is it a basilisk?"
"It's a Jenny Haniver
-a fake basilisk," explained the
professor. "During the sixteenth century there was a ready

market for basilisks. Malefactors created monsters out of
skate and ray fish. By adding a few feathers and a snake,
these creatures could be made to look like basilisks or
what folks thought basilisks looked like. Open it up and
take a look."
Keith carefully peeled off the gummed tape and
43 opened the carton. In a sealed specimen case, under glass,
lay the most loathsome creature he had ever seen.

"Yuk ... I'm glad it's a fake."
"You will note," the professor said, "that the face of
the ray has a vaguely human appearance. By pulling and
snipping and adding a length
feathers,snake, of and a
rooster's head we come up with a pretty good basilisk."
"So that's a Jenny Haniver," Keith said.
"I have the most extensive collection in the world. In
these boxes are bits and pieces of creatures to be put
together. Most are not mounted. You will find it fascinating
work."
Somehow, Keith's plan was not working out. He had
come to see a monster, not to cut and paste a collection of
fakes. His glance rested on the steel cage.
"What's that for, sir?"

"Ach, I almost forgot. That is for the chest. Give me a
hand. We will push it into the cage."
The chest was a masterwork of intricate carving. As
Keith's hand gripped the oak surface, the carved snake
squirmed under his palm. The thing was alive. The chest
became a writhing mass of serpentine horror, but the pro-
fessor didn't seem to notice. They pushed the chest up to
the cage.
"Now we lift," the professor said.
As they set the chest down in the center of the cage,
Keith saw a carved rooster's head on the top of the lid. The
beak was open, but completely sealed with wax. There was
a brass inscription beneath it.
Keith asked the professor what it said.
"Read it. Ach, I forgot boys are not taught Latin

nowadays. What a pity. But it's just as well. We have work
to do."
"But Professor Zembeck, I have to know."
"Why?"
44 "The wood snake on the chest came alive in my hand."
"
MONSTER BLOOD
The professor's eyes radiated excitement. "Ah, this is
most interesting. Then you indeed are the one to know. Any
boy can handle the unpacking, but you have sensitivity
you are the one I have been looking for. It is your destiny
to be here."
Keith became more and more uneasy. Standing in a
cage with this strange little man was almost frightening.
"Professor, how could anyone know what a basilisk looks
like? If you see one you're dead. Even a basilisk can't look
at himself in a mirror, or he's dead."
My reasoning exactly. That's why I
"Bright boy. collect
Jenny Hanivers. My search led me to this

"The chest?"
"It's not really a chest. It is the carved coffin of the only
basilisk in existence."
"Wow!" Keith said. "Is it alive?"
"No, but that's why I hired you. You will help make it
come alive."
Wondering how this could be, Keith followed the little
man to his workbench. The professor seemed to be searching

for something.
"How did you find the chest, Professor Zembeck?"
"My studies led me to a manuscript written by a scholar
in the sixteenth century. In it was an account of the carved
coffin and its basilisk. It took me years to trace it down."
"But who could capture a basilisk without looking at
it?"
"A blind man," said the professor. "A blind wood-
carver carved the coffin. Then, with the help of a wizard, he
enticed the basilisk into it."
In the lower cabinet the professor found what he was

looking for. He pulled out a pair of dark glasses.
"A real wizard?" asked Keith.
"All scientists were called wizards in those days, espe-
45 cially if they worked in the dark arts. This unknown wizard
wrote the inscription on the coffin."

"You said you would tell me what it says," Keith
reminded him.
The professor polished the dark glasses. "Very well.
Translated from the Latin it reads: 'From the cock's
mouth remove the wax. Then pour in twelve ounces of
cock's blood, mixed with one ounce of youth's blood. The
"
youth must be twelve years and his blood freely given.'
Keith felt his heart pumping like crazy. "What
happens then?"
"The monster will break out of his wooden cocoon and
we will cage a basilisk."
"Yeah, but we'll be dead."
The professor waved the dark glasses. "Not so. These
lenses have magic qualities. Made in ancient China of ink
crystals, they ward off the evil eye."
"Even of a monster?"
"What eye is more evil than a basilisk's?"
Keith bit his lower lip and looked straight at the pro-
Even though he knew the answer, he had to ask the
fessor.
next question. "Ah where are you going to get that

. . .
blood?"
The professor flashed Keith a knowing smile. "That is
not a problem." He went to the refrigerator and took out a

glass rooster half-filled with blood. "I have ready the
rooster's blood.You have ready the youth's blood." He laid
down the spectacles and picked up a glass beaker. "Won't
you give an ounce for science? With your blood, a basilisk
will come alive."
"Is that cage strong enough to hold him?" Keith asked.
"Steel was not yet invented when the basilisk lived. It
will hold him. This will be the scientific discovery of the
age. We will
have the living wonder of the ancient world."
The professor's voice was lilting and persuasive. "It's a
46 great moment in life to be twelve years old. This is when a
MONSTER BLOOD
boy sees into his own manhood and has a clear view of what
is before him. Can't you see the two of us in Stockholm
sharing the Nobel Prize?"
Keith had set out to see a monster, and now fought
against his fear. If the price of a ticket was his own blood,
he was willing to pay for it. "Okay," he said, "I'll do it for
science."
Keith helped up the camp cot and stretched himself
set
out on it. Professor Zembeck expertly drew the ounce of

blood from his arm, and though Keith had no feeling of
weakness, the professor told him to lie quiet while he put
away the cotton, the rubber hose, and the syringe. That
bright red liquid in the glass beaker was his blood, and he
watched as the professor added it to the blood in the glass
rooster. Seeing his own blood mix with the blood of a fowl,
Keith felt strange.
The professor smiled down at him. "At midnight this

mix of blood will bring a basilisk back into the world. We
will be famous."
A shiver went through Keith. He
up from the cot.
got
"Take these," said the professor. He handed Keith
the evil-eye glasses. "You will need them to work around the
basilisk. I had two pairs put into modern frames the
ancient tie-on temples were hard to manage. Oh, and here
is a case for them. Now you can put them into your pants
pocket," he said.
Keith felt bewildered. "Thanks a lot."
"You'll make a fine assistant. Come, I'll let you out."
Keith followed the professor down the stone stairway.
Through the slit window of the tower he could see a flash of
orange sky above the trees.
Professor Zembeck touched the switch by the door.

The entry hall was flooded in light. He took out a ring of
keys and removed one. "Let yourself in when you come
47 tomorrow after school. I can't hear this knocker from the
tower room." His domed forehead shone in the light.
"Yes sir."
"Goodnight. I'll see you tomorrow."
Keith rode out of the grove of trees onto Circle Drive.
Some cars already had their lights on. He was late for
dinner.
His parents were at the table when he rushed into the
family room. "I've got a job," he announced proudly.
His father looked up, pleased. "Really? Where?"
"Out at Abbot Castle."
His father put down his fork. "Not for Professor
Zembeck?"
"Yes. I'm to help him unpack some stuff."
"What stuff?"
"Jenny Hanivers. He has cartons full of them."
"What are they, dear?" his mother asked.
"Fake monsters. Fishermen used to make and sell them
as curios."
His mother looked concerned. "Has anyone ever
pointed out to you, Keith, that in the Dark Ages monsters
were really the manifestation of evil?"
"No one ever saw one I guess."
"That doesn't mean they were not used to influence the
minds of men," Mrs. Volmer said.
Keith was annoyed but curious. "How?" he asked.
"By the evil eye. Superstitions about it were encouraged,
and some people used it to manipulate others. Thank good-
ness the evil eye is not one of our modern problems."
Keith could tell that his father, too, was disturbed.
"Look," he said, chewing his food thoughtfully, "I'm glad
you have what it takes to go out and get yourself a job, but
tomorrow I'll drop by and have a talk with the professor."
"Why?" Keith demanded.
"Oh there's some gossip about. Some say he's not right
48 in the head. I'll talk to him and let you know."
MONSTER BLOOD
>3
"He's okay," Keith said. "I talked to him.
"That will make two of us." His father's voice was firm.
Keith was behind schedule with his homework. He
kept thinking what his father had said about the professor.
Of course people would think Zembeck a nut. Folks didn't
believe in old-fashioned monsters anymore. Instead, they
have new ones like the Abominable Snowman, or the Loch
Ness Monster, or flying saucers. But at midnight there would
be another monster around, and it would come to life with
his blood.
Keith also couldn't stop thinking of the evil eye. His
mother's remarks worried him. Surely he would be pro-
tected by the Chinese glasses, but would he also be respon-
sible for the monster's return? Would he be accountable for
his blood for what the basilisk might do?
He shivered. The evil eye would be back in the world
again the monster serpent of evil. He thought about it
with mounting concern. would have his blood, with his

It
consent. No prize was worth it. He must go and beg the

professor not to bring the monster to life. The basilisk had
long been forgotten. It must remain that way.
At ten o'clock Keith shut off the light in his room and
climbed into bed with his clothes on. He waited in the dark
for what seemed like hours. When the luminous hand on his
bedside clock pointed to eleven, he heard his door being
pushed open. He snorted a snore through his lips, and
minutes later, the light in his parents' room blacked out.
For what seemed an eternity, Keith lay waiting. When
he could stand it no longer, he slipped down the hall to the
back porch and opened the inner door to the garage. He
rolled his bike back through the porch and out to the cement
walk. Rubber tires and sneakers made no
Keeping tonoise.
the side of the road, without lights, he became a silent
shadow, spinning under the trees. That was his undoing.
49 Keith had stayed on Circle Drive because it was lined

with trees and he would be unnoticed by passing cars. But

he overlooked parked cars. Almost running into one, a
battery of lights hit him in the face.
"Where do you think you're going?" The voice was
tough, authoritative, and a little amused.
Keith stared into the light, blinded.
"Speak up, boy," said the voice, and when the lights
shut off, a police officer stood facing him.
"I'm going home eventually." That last word was
. . .
spoken under his breath.

"I'll have to write you a ticket," the officer said, "for
riding without lights. What's your name?"

"Keith Volmer."
"Address?"
"Twenty-two forty Circle Drive."
"It's pretty late for kids to be out. What were you
doing?"
"I have a job."
"You better get on home. Hear?"
"Yes Keith was on his bike and down the road
sir."
before he had to answer more questions. Luckily, Circle

Drive passed the castle before it passed his own house
Circle Drive circled the town.
Keith rode his bicycle up to the castle gate. With only
a thin slice of moon in the sky, the castle looked bleak.
There was a glow of light behind the draperies in the tower.
Was he too late? Quietly Keith laid his bike in the tall grass
and started for the door.
Keith fished for the key in his pocket, and the small
modern lock opened silently. Keith switched on the lights.
Carefully he put on the evil-eye glasses, and with the utmost
caution, entered the stairway.
Climbing the steps one stone at a time, Keith felt his
way along the wall. What had happened? Everything was
50 quiet as a tomb. When his eyes became accustomed to the
MONSTER BLOOD
dark, he climbed faster and faster.

Reaching the red draperies, Keith carefully parted
them. At that moment an alarm clock on the workbench
began to ring. A cry stuck in Keith's throat as the professor
poured the blood from the glass rooster into the cock's
mouth.
Like splintered glass, the wooden coffin exploded. The
professor leaped through the door of the cage, but the
basiliskwas upon him. Frantically, he tried to close the cage
door, but the monster slammed it back against the bars with
its powerful wings, flattening the professor like a steak on
a grill.
Keith tore the draperies apart and let out a whoop.

The basilisk turned its feathered head. The baleful eyes and
monstrous beak made Keith yell even louder. The uproar
worked. Dropping the professor, the monster started for
Keith.
Down the stairs Keith fled. He could hear the scratch-
ing claws on the stone steps and he could smell the sickening
smell of the basilisk as it advanced. His heart pounded, and
the smell made him weak and sick to his stomach. His
mouth was dry and bitter. He could barely swallow. How
close was the thing behind him?
Keith plunged into the entry hall. The blazing lights
seemed undimmed by his dark glasses. He backed against
the huge mirror, his eyes focusing upon the stone staircase.
In hypnotic fear Keith waited for the monster.

The tail of the basilisk writhing and hissing between
its feathered legs
came first, followed by the malignant
cock's head, more horrible than the counterpart rattlers on
the tail of a rattlesnake. Then out of the shadows came the

body of the winged reptile a gory horror of yellow feathers.
Cold terror froze Keith against the mirror.
The monster's eyes, shining with greenish luster, turned
si on Keith, while the smell the nauseous stenchpermeated
I /!
&> *-
MONSTER BLOOD
the entry hall. With its horrible head thrust forward, the
creature came and closer. Lifting its limpid eyes to
closer
the mirror, the basilisk saw its own face. Instantly it ex-
ploded into an eruption of yellow feathers. The hissing
sizzled into silence while a pool of monster blood formed at
Keith's feet.
Keith was aroused out of his shock by a man's voice. It
was a policeman the same officerwho had given him the

ticket. His parents were close behind. The three stared at
him. They stared at the feathers and the blood.
"Are you okay, son?" his father asked. "The officer
phoned us about you and your bike, and we guessed you'd
be here."
Somehow Keith found his voice. "Professor Zembeck
needs help." Steadying himself, Keith started for the tower
room. Followed by the others, he felt drawn up into a whirl-
pool of evil. At the top of the stairs, the red velour draperies
framed a view of the giant cage. The door of steel bars was
shut tight. Wild-eyed, Professor Zembeck cowered in the
corner of the cage. He waved his arms.
"Don't open the door!" he shouted. "An unholy monster
of evil is loose in the world. He will come back for me. He
has broken my glasses. The evil eye will destroy me!"
Keith took off his own Chinese glasses and handed
them through the bars to the professor. This quieted him.
The officer snapped the lock on the cage door and put
the key in his pocket. "It's a sad case. A brilliant man, they
tell me." He turned toward the stairs. "Let's get going. I'll
send out for an ambulance."

Mr. and Mrs. Volmer each took Keith by the arm as
they slowly descended the stone steps. The officer waited in
the entry, studying the mound of feathers.
"What's this mess all about?" he asked.
Keith stared down into the yellow feathers and the pool
53 of monster blood. "Just a crazy experiment," he said.
"rigger
by A. M. LIGHTNER
They call me Tigger. I'm a cat. Not one of those little
household cats that are sometimes taken aboard a spaceship

for the companionship they give. My ancestors were earth-
side wildcats often called bobcats which is why I have
such a short tail. But the rest of me is bigger than most space
cats and I have a handsome ruff. I'm also a smart cat and
have learned to use the bio-thought-recorder. And that is
why I've been asked to report on some of my most interest-

ing adventures.
I joined the space service when the call went out for
cats. It was recognized that when exploring a new world
with unknown dangers, the special senses of a cat an
animal that can see better, hear better, and smell better

than humans could be used to great advantage. Oh, a
human can spot a huge monster coming at him. And the
many instruments they have can tell if the atmosphere is
poisonous or if an avalanche is about to fall. But for the

54 many little dangers the snakelike animal in the grass, the
TIGGER
deadly creature hanging from a bush there is nothing like

the keen senses of a feline. Especially if it's a smart one
like me with all the instincts of my wild ancestors.
I've always worked with the crew of the Condor, and
of all the humans aboard that ship, my favorite is Ellie.
That's short for Eloise, but everyone calls her Ellie. Ellie has
the loveliest smell. I'd know
from thousands of others
it
on a dark night. Like me, she's only been on this ship a short
time. You see, we're both quite young and just starting in
this work.
Ellie's crazy about plants. At least it seems crazy to me.
She doesn't care where she goes to find a new plant, and
she's always on the lookout for plants that can stop bleeding
or cure some disease or are good to eat. And when she gets
on the track of something like that, she forgets about every-
thing else. Believe me, she needs me to keep her from walk-
ing into a mess of angry alien ants or just to help her find
her way back to the spaceship.
I go out with some of the other crew members, too, but
I like Ellie best.She pays attention. She gives me credit.
The others often act as though I don't know anything . . . till
we get into a really hot spot, that is. And then they're apt to
level everything around with their blasters, and I'm lucky
if I can get out of the way.
Ellie, on the other hand, never takes a weapon with
her. She says that we're the intruders, and if there's any
danger she can always count on me to warn her. And any-
way, with all her scientific gear, she has enough to carry.
But I've talked sufficiently about myself. If I say any
more, they'll cut it out of the report. I know. They think
I'm stuck on myself. Well, maybe after you hear this story,
you'll agree I've got reason.
This last place we went, something happened that
really had me scared. We were in a big dense forest what
55 the captain calls a rain forest and what Ellie says is the

best place to find interesting plants. The

and the
trees
bushes were so thick that after we had gone only a few steps,
we were all shut in. Ellie said it was easy to get lost and
made little cuts on the trees to blaze her trail. But I never
get lost. I always know which way the spaceship is. It's
something the captain calls instinct.
Moving slowly through the forest, Ellie was having a

wonderful time collecting leaves from every tree and bush,
and digging up low plants or pieces of root for her collection.
The biggest trees went straight up so high you could hardly
see where the branches began, and they had rough purple
bark, and blue leaves instead of green.
But there were smaller trees, too, and leaves from these
were the ones she collected. Sometimes she climbed them
she's a good climber on the smaller trees. And sometimes I
would climb up and go out on a branch to bend it over far
enough for her to grab hold and pick the leaves. But busy as
I was helping Ellie, I also had to keep a sharp nose and eye
out to be sure she didn't get hold of some strange poisonous

creature. For mixed up with all the trees and bushes were
hairy vines, mosses, and other strange growing things.
After working like this all morning, I naturally began
to get hungry. So when Ellie decided it was time for lunch,
I was glad. In the deep forest you can't see the sun, and the
light is always dim so it's hard to know what time it is. But
Ellie had a watch, and she wouldn't let us stop for lunch till
it was really noon.
That's another thing I like about Ellie. She's always

willing to share. When I go out with any of the others, they
say, "You'll get yours when we get back to the ship. One
meal is enough for a fat cat like you."
I don't know why they think I'm fat. Ellie says I'm just
the right size for a big bobcat. She says the others are
critical because they remember the little house cats they
56 grew up with.

TIGGER
This time, Ellie had a sandwich and she gave me

fish
some of the fish. Why humans like to surround delicious fish

with something like bread, I can't understand. But I guess
it was best that way because while Ellie had the bread to
eat, I had a lot of the fish. Ellie also had some cheese. And
she wasn't stingy.
Having polished off every crumb of that savory meal,
sitting on a rock I had carefully inspected for stinging bugs,
I was busy cleaning myself when Ellie gave a little cough
and sucked in her breath. When I looked up to see what had

startled her, I found myself face to face with one of those
big menaces that explorers like to talk about but usually
have never seen. And, though I'm ready to deal with any
little menace that may come hopping, crawling, or slither-
ing toward Ellie, I guessed right away that this was way out
of my class.
All we could see at first was a face peering out at us

through the leaves. It was quite high up, so I could see
that the creature was a great deal bigger than I was.
And if it wasn't quite as tall as Ellie when she was standing
up, its teeth were certainly a lot bigger than hers.
Ellie put her hand out and took a firm hold of my ruff.
"Sit still," she whispered. "Maybe it will go away." But I
could smell her fear and it made my ruff bristle and the hair
along my back stand up. My job was to take care of the
little dangers. Now here was a big one, and I began to wish
that Ellie had brought a blaster with her. From the way this
beast smelled, I knew it wasn't going to go away.
As usual I was right. The leaves slipped aside as the
creature came more fully into view. It was big all right
four legs with well-clawed feet, and a body covered with
dark blue spots good camouflage for stalking through blue-
had a long tail with a purple tuft and
leafed forests. It also
sharp claw on the end, and teeth that were certainly not
57 made for eating vegetables. But then something struck me.

The head on the end of a long neck looked like a cat's! In

fact the facewas not unlike some of my bigger relatives on

Earth lions or tigers. But I had never run into cats before
on any planet I had visited. Could this world be different?
Deciding to see if it would understand cat language, I
walked toward it, stiff-legged. When I pulled loose from her
grasp, Ellie didn't like it. "Come back here, Tigger!" she
hissed. "That thing could eat you in one gulp!"
But I kept right on. Since Ellie didn't have a blaster for
protection, this was my responsibility. I walked up to the
nearest bush and sprayed it liberally with my strongest-
smelling liquid. I moved on to the next tree and repeated
the action. Monster Cat, as I'd begun to think of the
creature, followed me around, sniffing at each place. In
doing so, it turned its back on Ellie, and I heard a scuffling
noise from her direction. When I looked again, she had
shinnied up the nearest tree. Not a very big tree, it was
inclined to bend under her. And I noticed with some
exasperation that she had left all her equipment on the
ground. Such carelessness, I thought. Suppose Monster Cat
decided to eat it? What did she think I could do about that?
I turned back to look at the monster and could hardly
believe my eyes. It didn't look much bigger than me! What's

more, it was rolling on the ground with its feet in the air
an obvious invitation to play. Could I have been mistaken
about its size? I had a distinct impression of a big creature,
but perhaps it had looked tall because it was up in a bush.
There was something here I didn't understand. So slowly
and carefully, belly close to the ground and nose stretched
out ahead, I approached.
Then I heard Ellie calling from the tree. "Tigger!
Come back here, Tigger! It's a trap, you idiot!"
pay any attention. Let her stay up in the tree
I didn't
where she was safe. I was going to get to the bottom of this
58 mystery. Maybe I had been wrong and this was a she-cat.
TIGGER
It was certainly acting like one a cute little female for me

to play with.
Just as my nose was about to touch the stomach of this
strange creature, it leaped to its feet, turning completely

around as it did so. It stood there facing me, every hair on
end and every tooth exposed, breathing in quick gasps. And
with every gasp it got bigger and bigger and bigger!
. . . . . .
Soon it was as big as I remembered it, towering over me. I
didn't wait to see how big it could really get. I turned and
ran. The monster came after me, pouncing as I would
pounce after a rat.
Ellie was yelling at me, "I told you so! I told you!
Hurry and get up this tree, you silly, crazy cat!"
Who's crazy? I thought, as I dashed past her and
scurried under a bush and around a clump of trees. If I go
up your tree with this thing after me, the whole tree will
come down. But I didn't try to talk to her. I was too busy
keeping a good distance between myself and that horror.
It was then that I began to notice that same strange
behavior. The monster was getting smaller! I was able to

outrun it as long as it was big and I was small, for I could
dive into narrow openings between trees and rocks. But
soon it was small enough to follow without any trouble it
was almost down to my size. Everything seemed to shrink
except its head and that mouth full of fangs.
I'd never heard of an animal that could change its size
like this, but on an unexplored world, anything is possible.

This will never do, I thought. It's gaining on me. It's getting
through the close cover as fast as I am.
Of course I had another way out. I could really run
away and try and find a hole that was too small for it to get
into. But that meant leaving Ellie up the tree when I was
supposed to be protecting her. And anyway, with all those

claws, itseemed obvious that this thing could climb, too. If
59 it lost interest in me, it might climb up after Ellie. And
although I'd had a frightening glimpse of how big this thing
could grow, I had no idea how small it could get. With my
luck it could probably shrink small enough to follow me into
any old hole!
So I just kept moving, running so fast I hardly noticed
where I was going. Two big trees loomed up ahead. They
were so close together, I just managed to squeeze through.
Could the monster follow me? It was down almost to my
size now and just made it. A little bigger and it might have
been stuck.
That gave me an idea. I began to circle. I could hear
60 it right on my tail and I put on speed. I managed prodigious
leapsfrom rocks to tree stumps. If I could only make the
monster grow big again! I could probably lick it if it stayed
small, but I
knew it wouldn't especially in a fight. If only
I could make it get big again just as he reached those trees.
Fighting would do it. And so might fear!
As I bounced off a rock slide and cleared a small
stream, I could almost feel the saliva dripping from that
cat's jaws. The two trees were coming up in front again, and
suddenly I was inspired. I remembered my bobcat yell.
61 That used to throw a fright into everyone.

I've been trained by Ellie to always lower my voice.

She used to tell me about the famous man in the olden days
on Earth who said that the bobcat has "a shriek and yell like
the devils of hell."
"And we don't want any devils in a spaceship, please,"
she would say.
But right now, I thought, the devils would come in
handy. The trees were close ahead, and just as I reached
them and bounded through, I let out my old bobcat scream.
I hadn't done it for. so long, I thought I might have for-
gotten.But it came out high and clear, seeming to echo all
through the forest in a frenzy of sound.
I heard an answering scream from Ellie in the tree,
and when I looked up, I could see her clutching a branch,
having almost fallen from her perch.
"Tigger! Tigger!" she yelled. "Are you all right? Did it
get you? Come up the tree at once. Oh, why don't you do
what I tell you?"
"Because you tell me all wrong!" I cried, looking up at
her from the bottom of the tree. "I've trapped the monster.
Now come down here fast so we can scram before it gets
loose again."
But she couldn't seem to understand what I was saying.
I don't know why can understand humans better
it is that I
than they can understand me. There must be something

lacking in their brains. But there it was. And all the while
the monster was struggling to escape from the tree trap. It
had blown itself up to its biggest size, and while its head was
sticking out on the near side of the trees, its body was kick-
ing on the far side, and its long neck was caught firmly
in between. It was growling and snapping and snarling, but
I couldn't be sure how long it would stay there. Once it
calmed down, it would figure out that all it had to do was

shrink a few sizes.
62 I was jumping up and down at the foot of Ellie's tree,
TIGGER
trying to get through to her, when I fell over some of her

equipment. I stopped and looked it over. What was most
valuable to her? Why, the packet of newly collected leaves,
of course! Without another thought, I picked them up in
my mouth and headed back toward the spaceship.
Ellie yelled after me. "Tigger! Come back! Where are
you going with my specimens? Tigger!"
I ignored her, running till I was out of sight. And then
I stopped. I heard her scrambling down the tree, but did I
hear the monster? Though itwas still hissing hideously and

seemed to be staying in the same place, I let out another
scream, just to be sure.
It was then that Ellie burst through the bushes, carry-
ing the rest of her gear and crying, "Tigger, don't do that!
You've already scared the pants off the whole forest!"
I didn't argue with her. She could see where I was, and
I lost no time in setting a fast pace back to the ship.

Later that evening, I heard her telling the captain
about our adventure. She received a scolding of sorts.
"That'll teach you to go into an alien forest without

some kind of weapon!" the captain said.
"Oh, but I do have a weapon with me," she told him. "I
have Tigger. He's better than any blaster you take along!"
Yes, that's me
Tigger the best blaster on the space-
ship Condor!
63
"
The spell -^/^
of spirit stones
by ALICE WELLMAN
Though we had entered the forest only ten minutes before,
the branches of the great trees locked in a dark roof above
us, and ropy vines twisted down to block our path. I clung
to Jinell's hand as if I were six instead of way past twelve.
Each step drew us deeper into the forest's green mouth.
I said, "Let's go back. This wasn't such a good idea

"No," Jinell said firmly. "You beg me to go. We go."
Her face had set into grim lines, and her eyes held a strange
glitter.
She was right about my begging to visit her home

village. Dad had driven off that morning, headed for a two-
day conference with the other scientists of his group. The
American foundation that sponsored Dad's research project
in the Pakaraima Highlands of Guyana required quarterly
reports on the findings. I waved to Dad until the jeep was
out of sight, then I ran to find Jinell.
She was doing the wash behind our camp home.
64 "Come on, Jinell. You can wash tomorrow. This is a great
THE SPELL OF SPIRIT STONES
chance for you to visit your people."

She wiped her perspiring face on her sleeve. "No,
Nan-cee. Your father said I should keep both eyes on you
while he is gone. We do not go off this place."
"But you promised. You said you must see your brother
before the snow lies white on the mountains. And the last
time Dad went, you said you'd take me the next time he
had to leave."
knew I was being unfair to remind Jinell of her
I
promises. They had been the when-peace-covers-my-people-

we-go-Nan-cee kind. But to the Akawai Indians a promise
was a bond, an unbreakable bond.
Jinell sighed. She stuck the wash into the soak water
and faced me. "We go now. Dress for rough walking. This
is a time for strong steps and eyes wide open."
It didn't take long for me to pull on my thick denim
slacks, mosquito boots, and a long-sleeved plaid blouse. I

hurried to meet Jinell in front of the house, but stopped
short, amazed by the sight of an alien and startling ap-
parition before me a Jinell I didn't know. Cloth of
brilliant stripes hugged her hips, her honey-tan body nude
above it, with half-moon breasts nearly hidden by strands of
shells and red Bands of glistening green-gold beetle
berries.
wings wound about her upper arms, and iridescent tree bark
dangled from her ears and dark curling hair. She was
beautiful.
"I leave my people a shaman, and I return to them a
shaman," she said, pointing to the sling of jaguar skin
hanging from her shoulder. "We do not go without my spirit

powers my powers as el tigre."
The Jinell I knew was pretty but she had always worn
the shapeless dresses the Waramadong Mission supplied to
their Indian students. The mission served all Amerindian
settlements of this part of the Amazon forest highlands, and
65 Jinell had learned English there. She had been with us since
we first arrived at the house near the Kamarang River. "Be

good to my little girl," Dad had said. "Nancy has no one but
me to care for her." And Jinell was good tome, very good.
was slow going through the forest
It now. The ground
was spongy and a spatter of heavy dew fell on us. "The
forest weeps," Jinell said. "It weeps for me."
She walked proudly with long sure steps I had diffi-
culty matching. I'd always hated being small, pale, and
blond, and when forest vines caught my long hair, I wished
I had tied it up. But I didn't let that slow my pace.
"Jinell, why did you become a shaman if you didn't

want to stay with your people?" I looked up at her for-
bidding face.
Her voice was bitter as she said, "A shaman trains with
suffering for two years. One dies before becoming a shaman.
I did not leave of my own will."
Her answer left me even more curious about what
could have driven her from her people into a routine of
house help for Dad and me. A shaman understands the
demands and needs of the spirit world, Dad had explained,
and through spirit magic protects the people who look to
the shaman for leadership. I wasn't surprised that Jinell was
a shaman. I'd always sensed an unusual power in her.
Shrill cries burst from the fig tree not far ahead of us.
Both my hands gripped Jinell's as I pulled back in alarm.
"Howlers, Nan-cee," she said, and at once a spiteful
chorus of the resonant howls of male monkeys and the harsh
barks of the females challenged us. I tried to laugh, for the
howlers with all their infernal noise were quite harmless.

But as we walked toward the fig, the screaming gained in
volume. Jinell's eyes met dominant male who
those of the
crouched on a lower limb. His shaggy neck was swollen with
the force of his horrible howls.
At once all noise ceased. The silence of the forest
66 seemed unreal, more frightening than the noise. "Why did
the monks stop howling?" I asked, moving closer to Jinell.

"I told them to stop."
"How how did you tell them?" I'd heard no sound
from her.
"My total spirit, Akwalu, holds power in the forest. It
speaks to forest creatures like one to one. Stand quiet,
Nan-cee. I give you spirit stones."
I "stood quiet," waiting. Jinell took three stones from
her sling of Jaguar skin two the size of Brazil nuts, the
third a tiny red pebble no bigger than a fresh pea. She

rubbed the stones between her palms, then blew deeply on
them.
"Swallow this." She gave me the red pebble. When I
hesitated, she insisted. "Good to swallow. It stay with you

all Always you can hear the words of my
the days you live.
total spirit and always you can speak to me."
The red pebble went down my throat like nothing at
all. She put the crystal stone in my hand. "This will free you
from bad spirits. And this ." The third stone was
. .
polished quartz shaded with green. "This . . . think well

what I say. This stone will call my forest spirit to help you."
"But Jinell," I protested. "How can I need help from
bad spirits when I am with you?"
"What will be will be." She held open the right-hand
pocket of my denims.
"Put your stones in here. You will feel
the rough of the freeing-stone and the smooth of the call-
stone. When you face trouble, blow your spirit into the stone
and throw it far. My spirit will take it from the air."
We walked on. "We go to my people as I promised you.
But Ekjojo, the shaman who leads them now, is the man
whose spirits fought my spirits and outwitted them. He
made me leave my people. His power in the
total spirit holds
plains, the mountains, and the water. You and I do not
know what he feels against me, but my young brother,
67 grown to full man since I left the Akawai, tells me with his
red speak-pebble that Ekjojo's magic grows weak. Time

calls me back."
Jinell's voice gained a strange power. "Keep close,
Nan-cee. Do not go beyond the touch of my hand. I hold
great fear for you."
Light through the trees. We heard the distant
filtered
sound of laughter. Uncanny and mocking, it grew louder
as we reached the forest's end. Though the sunshine splotch-
ing the ground was cheerful, the wild unearthly laughter
came in sudden and fear rose in my throat.
peals,
Jinell must have felt me shrink against her. "The
mountain ghouls laugh. Shaman Ekjojo holds a seance.
They laugh at his songs. Keep close, Nan-cee. We enter
Akawai over the rise."
Quickly we climbed the rise, went down the slope
through a stand of heavy bamboo, and came to a clearing
within high bushes and palms. Houses of rough bark
huddled together all empty.
Men, women, and children sat motionless around a low
platform of saplings. When rustlings rose from a nearby
bush, all heads turned to stare. "Ekjojo brings his leaves,"
Jinell said softly, and she pulled me down beside her in the
outer circle.
Almost at once, a robust young man leaped from the
bush, strode with an easy grace to the platform, and swept
his outstretched hands around the circle of villagers. He
was handsome, with thick wavy hair and comely features,
yet his smile held lust for power as well as welcome. I could
feel it.
He sang, shaking his "leaves" in rhythm to his song.

The "leaves" four large twigs of trees tied together were
like thickpompons of rustling green. He flapped them in a
swishing pattern and snapped them in time to his chant.
The dark mottled skins of the great water snake, the
68 anaconda, wound about his red breechcloth. This except
for the many strings of cotton covered with white bird down
that dangled over his shoulders and arms was his only
garment.
Jinell reached for my hand and tucked it under her
arm. Immediately the shaman's eyes fixed on us and his
teeth gritted together in a sinister smile. Hatred flashed
from his eyes. He cupped his hands about his mouth and
snarled, "swas-i-i-k swoak" into the air above our heads.
I felt as if I'd been struck. Jinell put her hand on my
knee and gripped it firmly as a young man with warm

brown eyes slid down beside her. He folded his legs in front
of him as we had done, and Jinell blew into his ear. I
nodded to him, for I knew the muscular youth must be
her brother.
Shaman Ekjojo lifted a small barrel. He drank deeply
with violent coughing and spitting. From somewhere a
whistle sounded. "Shu-ee-ee." The shaman was trembling
all over, and the bird-down strings about his shoulders
began to crawl like long white worms.
Suddenly wings beat above my head. I looked up to
see a giant gray and black bird with a white-down breast
hovering above me.
Jinell shrieked. Her hand left my knee and her arms
reached out for me.
In that split second when her touch was lost to me,
the giant bird swooped. Its beak seized my shoulder and
snatched me from her arms. Pumping in ever-quickening
strokes, the powerful wings bore me up into cold, dry
currents of air.
Jinell's screams followed me, then slowly died away

as we headed toward a cone-shaped mountain in the
Pakaraima range. My body felt light as the air, and though
the curved beak clamped tightly on my shoulder, I felt no
pain. Only panic filled me. I could not cry out.
69 When the mountain loomed close, I could see, above
the tree line, broad sheets of rock with thick plants growing
erraticallybetween them. I would be dashed against those
rocks any moment now, yet somehow any fate seemed better
than this terror.
But no! The taloned feet clutched my waist, and the

massive wings thrashed against the chill wind. I hung side-
ways, barely clearing the rocks, and a hideous chant of
croaks and groans over a muffled thudding floated through
the frigid air.
The giant hawk carried me over the sharp rock ledge

of the mountaintop where saw a swarm of shapeless non-
I
human things bouncing up and down in aimless fashion.

Terrible to hear and even more terrible to see, the creatures
were as formless as jellyfish, their long tentaclelike arms
striking the lava rock of the mountaintop with every
bounce. Each thing bobbed to its own time so that the
thudding never paused or stopped.
The huge claws of the bird released my
beak waist, its
opened, and I fell into the center of the ghastly mass. Lying
still on the jagged lava, a freezing wind swept over me. I
shook with the chill, but the trembling that seized me when
I opened my eyes and saw the formless faces clustered above
me was worse. Lidless eyes under hairy brows peered at me,

and pale straggly beards trailed from the nonhuman blobs.
Smacking colorless lips, the creatures made greedy sucking
sounds that congealed my blood.
Two bearded things picked me up with stringy tenta-
cles. I felt the sticky mucus on their boneless arms. They
lifted me high and threw me to be caught by other gummy
arms, and I was tossed on and on like a senseless plaything.
Faster and faster they hurled me until I couldn't catch my

breath couldn't scream or struggle. Only pain let me
know was alive.
I
Each toss brought forth an outburst of the demonic

71 laughter Jinell and I had heard as we came out of the forest.
These, then, were the wukna, the mountain spirits. They

were once real people, Jinell had me, but had been
told
ruled by evil forces. Doomed to be ghouls, they wailed for
the living to be brought to them so they could suck the
blood and drain the human body dry. And they wouldn't
stop until it was a shapeless nothing like themselves.
At last the bearded ones tired of their catch-and-toss
game. They dropped me on the lava floor, and women
things more terrifying than the bearded men bent over
me. Their mouths opened to show translucent tongues all
ridged and beaded like overgrown leeches. They must be
the bloodsuckers.
Gasping for breath, I tried to lift myself to my feet. If
I could escape the slimy tentacles and run to the ledge of the
mountaintop, I would throw myself over. Instant death
would be preferable to being sucked dry of life. But the thin
mountain air took away my strength, and the freezing blasts
of wind numbed me. My arms were like useless rags, my legs
without feeling. The hideous women things cackled with
delight as I strained to sit up.
Mucus from their jeering mouths dripped on me.
Their flaccid arms carried me over the rim of a lava basin
toward a patch of murky green water bordered by a frothy
scum. Though rumblings in the mountain's heart broke out
into thundering booms and the mountain shook, the arms
that held me did not loosen their clutch.
Then, like the gush of a newly drilled well, the green
water rose in a whirling column. It threw off a stench of rot
and death, and my fight for breath became more desperate.
I manage shallow gasps that did not seem
could only to
reach my lungs. Mocking laughter rose up around me.
Then, like an attacking beast, the ghoul who supported
my head tore off my shirt. With a groan of pleasure, her
ridged, leech mouth fastened onto my left arm. The others
72 waited in turn.
I felt the gentle touch of a hand on my stomach. A

faint whisper sounded in my ears. "Jinell," I said, though
no word came from my lips. I dug my right hand into the
pocket of my denims for the rough stone.
Unbearable cold wrapped about me and my mind
went blank. But Jinell's voice came through the oblivion.
"Inhale. The stone."
Idragged the stone from my pocket and inhaled. The
stone flew from my hand and whistled through the air. Not
a moment passed before the swooping claws and strong beak
of the giant bird snatched me up away from the clammy
tentaclesand the slobbering mouths carrying me down
toward the Akawai settlement and Jinell.
Faster than the wind the enormous hawk As we flew.
whizzed over the clearing, I could hear singing and the
rhythmic beat of Ekjojo's "leaves," and then the sound of
the rushing currents of the Mazaruni River. I felt the waters
rise to meet me, and was dropped on the mucky bank. At
last, I could breathe.

Dizzy and barely able to see, I crawled away from the
spitting water to dry land. The stretch of warm sand be-
tween the river and the forest was inviting. I stretched out
to rest.
Whether I slept or lost consciousness do not know,
I
but the touch of a hand on my stomach awakened me.

"Nan-cee, Nan-cee, where are you?"
"Here, Here on the sand strip by the river. I
Jinell.
can't walk." Again my words were uttered without a sound.

"Close by the cave of the water-papai. The call-stone.
Blow."
I dug into my pocket. No stone. Nothing there. Had I
lost it during the long from the mountaintop? Or had

flight
the evil magic of Ekjojo taken it from me? "Lost," I

whispered. "Jinell, call-stone is lost."
73 I turned my head. From the great boulders beyond
me, a shiny green head on a black-mottled neck protruded

from a dark opening. It was an anaconda, a giant anaconda.
Its iridescent green body splotched with black rippled as
it slid over the sand. Alerted by my fall, the snake had left
its cave to explore. Though the anaconda sees little and

hears not at all, its fast-flicking tongue its organ of smell
and feeling directed
toward the warm meat lying near
it
the river the warm meat that was me.

. . .
It was now halfway between the cave and where I lay.
I could see its muscle segments grip the sand as it neared. I
was paralyzed with terror. The lidless brilliant eyes of the

monster fixed on me, and I felt myself sinking under its
hypnotic stare.
Then I heard a strange hoarse whisper. "Nan-cee,
water-papai draws near to kill. Throw sand in mouth."
No time was left not a minutebefore the gigantic
snake would unhinge its jaws. Its saliva would ooze over
my long pale hair and seep down to cover me. Its coils
would squeeze out my breath, quickly changing me into

a rag. I would be easy to swallow.
The terrible head hovered over me. Its mouth, with
teeth slanting back to prevent its prey from escaping,
opened like a great tunnel. Already a steel-strong coil
twisted about my legs and tightened to encircle my hips.
With my uninjured hand I scooped up sand and threw it at
the flicking tongue.
A threatening roarcame to my ears from far away. It
was the roar of the Guyana jaguar, larger and heavier than
any leopard, the sly ferocious king of the forest.
But threatening roars did not disturb the slow, method-
ical attack of the monster-snake. Like a shadow, the story of
the Guyana boy swallowed by an anaconda just three days

before crossed my mind. I, too, would be found within an
anaconda, my body deteriorating in its digestive juices. . . .
74 No sand stirred under the pads of the spotted gold

jaguar as it leaped past my closing eyes. The big cat must

have cleared the sandy stretch in a single bound, fastening
its back of the snake's head.
teeth on the
Almost at once the snake's jaws turned about and its
coils released my hips and legs to attack the jaguar.
Thrashing and flailing sand, the two huge beasts locked in

their fight to the death. had told me that
And though Jinell
no killer of the wild has the tenacity and agility of the
jaguar, el tigre, the raging snake tried again and again to
coil its tail about it. But the jaguar did not pause for a
second its springing bounds were too quick for the snake's
weak eyes to follow. And at last I heard the great cat's fangs
tear into the neck bones of the anaconda. A shattering
crunch and the snake became a wriggling massive length
beating upon the sand.
As and twisted in its dying struggles,
the snake writhed
the jaguar bounded away; then Jinell ran from the forest
and leaped to my side. Her brown eyes held pity as she
knelt and lifted me in her arms. Carrying me to the river's
edge, she stooped to wet a cloth in the water. Tenderly she
bathed my face and washed back the sand-laden hair from
my eyes. Then she plunged my left arm, still oozing blood,
deep into the fresh clear water of the river.
"Nan-cee! Open mouth, Nan-cee," she said, and from

her jaguar sling she took a coconut shell to drip a cool
liquid between my lips.
"Jinell. Oh, Jinell," I sobbed.

"Shush now. You are safe. We go home." As she bore
me to the forest path, I saw the monstrous snake body of
black and green lying motionless in the sand. "But Dad says
the dead snake writhes until the sun sets," I said with
wonder.
Jinell slowed her steps so I could look more closely.
There, beside the ugly head, were the two pompons of
75 Ekjojo's magic "leaves." "He has gone to join his wukna,
the mountain ghouls," she said, staring at the snake.

"Where is the jaguar?" I asked. Jinell put her hand on
her heart.
"I am the jaguar spirit of the forest." From the sling she
took a broad leaf with dark spots. "A kumala leaf," she said,
holding it so I could see its strange markings. "I chew
it to pulp and change into my Akwalu spirit the spirit of
el tigre."
Never had home looked so good, so wonderfully good

to me. After a bowl of stew, and bread hot from the oven,
Jinell sponged my exhausted body and put me to bed.

Kumala leaves made the poultice for my injured left arm.
"Don't tell my father we went to see your people.
Please, Jinell," I begged.
She passed her hand over my eyes, and I was lost in
sleep. Whether she told Dad or not, I never knew. Dad

asked no questions about our two days without him.
Jinell stayed with us only until her sister, also trained
at theWaramadong Mission, came to our house to help
Dad and me. And though my joy overflowed to know that
Jinell again ruled her people as shaman, to bid her good-bye
was heartbreaking.
Yet even today I can call, "Jinell, does all go well with
you?" And always her red speak-pebble gives me the
answer.
"My days pass in peace. My brother soon learns his
shaman magic. Our hearts beat sweet songs for you."
76
muMJEDmn
The Night creature

by RICHARD R. SMITH
When I was twelve, my
Uncle Ronald in the city
I visited
as I had done for several years. Coming from a small town,

each two-week visit was like a trip into another world one
of giant buildings, huge stores, art galleries, and new
people a series of adventures to be remembered until the
following year.
Uncle Ronald was a tall, strong man with unruly
brown hair that usually tumbled down over his forehead
and a bushy mustache that nearly concealed his upper lip.
He was a technician for a large company that developed
and manufactured electronic equipment. Although he
would have been considered eccentric by many people,
Mom and Dad liked him very much and seldom found
fault with his ways.
"Call me Ronald from now on," he said as we left the
train station. "You're getting too old for that 'uncle' bit.
And tonight, after you've rested, I have a special invention
77 to show you."
unpacked my
I suitcase, and as we Ronald
ate dinner
told me about some of the things he had been working on
during the past year. We played a game of chess while he
drank coffee and I sipped a cup of hot chocolate. The sun
settled on the horizon and the was rapidly growing
city
dark. I could hardly wait until morning when Ronald and
I were to visit the new Aquarama.

Ronald won the chess game but not until after I had
given him quite a battle. Feeling drowsy, I said, "What was
the invention you wanted to show me?" I couldn't resist
yawning, but felt embarrassed because it seemed impolite.
"In the workshop," Ronald said. He led the way to the
back room of the apartment and once more I marveled at
all the electronic equipment.
During past visits, Ronald had showed me many of his
inventions. I had always been interested but had never been
able to understand most of them.
"Have a seat." He waved at a chair. I sat and yawned
again, feeling completely relaxed. Ronald's eyes were bright
with excitement and pride as he said, "Don't be alarmed by
what you see. Now watch this." Standing perfectly still,
. . .
he rose several feet from the floor. Close to the ceiling, he

stretched into a prone position and drifted through the air
as easily as a feather.
"Levitation," I said.
"Exactly." He smiled and returned to stand beside me.

"Can you levitate other objects?" I asked.
"No. But that may come later."
He placed a helmet over my head and I noticed wires
extending to a large machine with gauges. "Touch this
lever," Ronald said. "Push it up. Feel the pressure? Nothing

will happen .the machine is turned off. I just want you
. .
to get the feel of it."

The lever was a sliding kind that he had shown me
78 during a previous visit, but this one traveled in a channel
.
THE NIGHT CREATURE
beside the numbers one to ten, and I could feel a tension

against the lever.
"Would you like to be able to levitate?"
"Yes!"
"When I turn the machine on, push the lever slowly. It's
spring-loaded so it'll return to the 'off' position if you release

it. You'll feel a tickling sensation. It may hurt. If it hurts
too much, take your hand away."
"What does the machine do?"
"It activates a certain portion of the brain. There is no
danger. I've tested it thoroughly." He flipped a switch and
the machine hummed with power. "Ready?"
"Ready."
"Move the lever as high as you can. Six or seven may be
your limit." I moved the lever up. . .
Two
Three
A tickling sensation in my head.
Four
Five
Electricity . . . almost a pain . . . not quite . . .
"The higher you move the lever, the more effective it
will be," said Ronald.

I wanted it to work. Ronald was my only uncle. During
the past years hehad taken me on trips to places I could
never have seen alone. I wanted to join him in this new
adventure of levitation.
Six
Seven
A flame burning in my skull . . .
Eight
Nine
An inferno . . .
Ten
79 "Gary!"
Ronald reached for my hand but I released the lever

and it slid back to the 'off' position.
"I didn't think you could stand that much." He took the
helmet from my head. "Are you all right?"
"Uh-huh." Strangely, I still felt relaxed.
"Can you stand up?"
I rose from the chair.
"Imagine yourself rising from the floor ... as light as a

balloon," Ronald said.
I expected failure on the first try. But the floor dropped
beneath my feet! I bumped my head on the ceiling.

Ronald laughed. "Very good!"
We experimented an hour or so in the apartment, then
he led the way to the roof. Patches of dark clouds scudded
across the night sky.
Ronald pointed at the vault of stars and clouds above
our heads. "Do you want to try it?"
I knew we could do it
up, up into the sky as free as
birds. . . .
"Hold my hand this first time," said Ronald. "There's

nothing to worry about. You aren't afraid, are you?"
"No!"
Feeling a little foolish, I held his hand as we ascended.
The roofdropped beneath our feet. I had never been afraid
of heights and now, as we rose, I felt an exhiliration I had
never known before. Soon we could see the city stretched
out far away in every direction, an expanse of shadowy
buildings with glittering lights from windows and cars,
neon signs, streetlights, and shimmering reflections of the
moon.
We rose up, up, up through dark clouds into the
world beyond. A sea of stars became our ceiling, and the
earth far beneath, our floor. We drifted in a faint breeze. I
laughed, reacting to the sheer joy of flying. Some distance
so away, a large jet swooped toward the airport, its lights
THE NIGHT CREATURE
twinkling, landing beams bursting to life.

"Let's go down," said Ronald. "We can come up again
tomorrow night."
We descended slowly and carefully. The clouds scur-
ried not far below, and suddenly we saw the creature. It
swirled from a cloud, dark and ominous, immense and
powerful, moving toward us. . . .
Ronald drew an object from the sheath on his belt. I

had been so engrossed in the novelty of flying that I hadn't
noticed his weapon. The creature came closer as if to attack,
and Ronald raised his arm, moonlight gleaming on the
weapon. A thin blade of bright light suddenly stabbed
through the darkness.
The creature vanished in a mass of clouds.
Early the next morning, I awoke to find Ronald sitting

by my bed.
"How do you feel?"
"Great!" Last night I had felt exhausted by all the
excitement and had tumbled into bed. Now I felt refreshed
and filled with a million questions about levitation. "How
long have you been doing that?" I asked, sittingup in bed,
my heart beating faster as I recalled how good it had felt
to float above the city.
"Since shortly after your visit last year. I want to ask

you to promise not to tell anyone."
"Why?" I felt disappointed. It would have been ter-
rificnews to tell Mom and Dad. They had always been
proud of Ronald; this invention would make them prouder.
And what a way to show off at school! I could imagine
floating higher than the rooftops, the kids staring and
squealing in disbelief.
"It's a very extraordinary power," Ronald explained.
"Some people can read minds . . . others claim to com-
8i municate with the dead . . . and a few can move objects
with telekinetic energy. But so far, no one else has demon-

strated a power of levitation."
"But . . . why would it be bad to tell people?" I knew
that what he said was the truth. I had never heard of any-
one levitating himself higher than a building. But I still
didn't understand the need for secrecy.

"The world isn't ready for that kind of knowledge,"
said Ronald. "Some governments might use it for the wrong
purpose."
"Oh." Slowly I began to understand how the power
could be used by one country against another not to help
mankind but as a weapon in war. "The creature we saw in
the clouds what was it?"
. . .
"I don't know."

"Have you seen it before?"
"A few times."
"It started toward us. Do you think it would have
hurt us?"
Ronald frowned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I'm
not sure if it could. Have you ever walked down a street and
had a small dog come yapping or barking? Then, abruptly,
if you start toward the dog, it runs away?"
I nodded that I understood. There was such a dog on
a street not far from where I lived. It came barking at

everyone who passed by, and ran whenever someone started
toward it. The creature in the clouds had come toward us
until Ronald drew the weapon and waved it threateningly.
"What kind of weapon did you use last night?" I asked.
"It seemed more than a flashlight."
"I call it a knife-light," Ronald explained. "It focuses a
narrow high-intensity beam with a considerable amount of
heat. It frightens the creature. I'm not quite sure if it's
afraid of the light or the heat."
"What kind of creature could it be?" I wondered aloud,
82 remembering the huge, dark form.
THE NIGHT CREATURE
"I'm not sure. I've never seen it during the daytime . . .
and I've spent hours studying the sky with a telescope. It

must hide during the day, appearing only at night."
"Nocturnal," I said, proud that I knew the word. "Like
an owl."
"That's right. Owls prey at night. This creature could
be similar."
I felt a faint chill and could not help thinking of the
thing we had seen as a kind of monster. It had swirled
toward us from a cloud as if about to attack. Large, dark,
moving had seemed incredibly strong and dan-
quickly, it
gerous. In a way I could not quite understand, it had

seemed ugly and evil. What did it eat? Birds? Mice?
Insects?
"Why wondered aloud.
hasn't someone else seen it?" I
"If someone had, there would have been an article in the
newspaper."
"There may be good reasons for it never having been
seen before," Ronald answered, frowning. "If it is nocturnal,
as you've guessed, then it would sleep during the daytime.
At night it may hide in clouds even when it is active. It
would be almost impossible for anyone on the ground to see
it. And as for anyone in a plane seeing it at the speed
planes fly . .
."
We looked at each other. Ronald smiled but it was a

grim sort of smile. "We may be stumbling upon a creature
as rare as the Abominable Snowman in Tibet."
Or even more rare, I thought. This thing had never
even been reported. Considering its size and the fact that it
lived in the clouds, it was more unique than ghosts, witches,
demons, and other supernatural phenomena people have
been talking about for centuries.
"Does the creature scare you?" asked Ronald, watching
me carefully.
83 "Uh . . . not exactly." Putting my thoughts into words
was difficult. The thing in the sky was an unknown

element. We did not know how dangerous it was. Almost
everything in life traveling in a car, train, or plane in-
volved danger of one kind or another. Why, a person had to
be careful just crossing a you were too cautious in
street! If
life, you would never go anywhere. I tried to explain, "It,
uh, doesn't bother me enough to keep me from flying."

"Good!" Ronald slapped me on the back. "Now, for
more ordinary things. . . What do you want for breakfast?"
.
"Scrambled eggs. After we eat, can we fly again?"

Through the window I could see the morning sunlight, and
the idea of flying in the daytime sounded exciting. We'd be
able to see for miles!
Ronald laughed. "I'm afraid we can't. Suppose some-
one saw us? How could we ever explain?"
But we did fly again that night. We did not see the
cloud creature and had to return when it began to rain. As
we went down the stairs from the roof, one of the elderly
tenants, seeing us in our soaking wet clothes, must have
thought we were out of our minds.
On the following night, the sky was cloudless and
bright with moonlight. "We'll have to be quick," Ronald
explained. "We can wait until after midnight and then rise
as high as possible before someone sees us. After we've
reached a certain height, we won't have to worry. No one
will be able to see us after we're a few thousand feet up."
Shortly after midnight, we soared into the moonlit sky.
Despite our speed, we heard a shout from the street below. I
saw a man and woman pointing. They
became tiny rapidly
dots, but I could imagine them telling others what they had
seen. Ronald said we should land before the news spread.
As a precaution, we came down among trees in a park
several blocks away and walked back to the apartment.
The weather was so clear that we had to wait several
84 days before we could fly again. During that time, Ronald
THE NIGHT CREATURE
gave me a knife-light identical to the one he carried. He

demonstrated how to snap the sheath on my belt. "We may
never need these, but it is best to have some protection,"
he said.
To avoid the risk of ascending repeatedly from the
same place, we took a bus to another section of the city,
then rose into the cloud-filled sky. was a dark night It
and there was little chance that we would be seen, so we

hovered beneath the clouds, drifting with the wind, making
minor adjustments in our course as if we were sailboats
upon a dark but peaceful sea. The city lay stretched out
beneath us, much different in appearance than on previous
nights. Now, with the stars and moon almost completely
obscured by the seemingly endless layer of clouds, the city
resembled a forest of soft black velvet studded with gleam-
ing and glittering jewels.
But the beauty of that voyage ended, for we saw the
night creature following
several hundred feet behind and
above lurking under cover of a cloud.
"Take my hand," Ronald said. "Let's see if we can
lose it."
He and I soon understood
rose higher, into the clouds,
why he wanted to hold hands. It would have been easy to
become separated in the darkness. I had learned that clouds
were much like thick fogs, and though Ronald had said that
the power of levitation was permanent and would soon feel
as natural as walking, tonight I felt as if we were running.
Occasionally glancing over my shoulder, I could see
the night creature on our trail. It came relentlessly in
pursuit dark, ominous tendrils outstretched as if to seize
our bodies. wondered how it had been created where it
I
had come from. An alien from another world? There were
so many reports of UFOs that it might be a visitor from
another planet, a strange form of life. A mutation? Every-
85 one talked about the danger of mutations from atomic test
^H
explosions. Was some sort of monster that had been

this

created by man? Or was it possible that creatures such as
this had existed since the beginning of time, few in number,
always hiding, keeping their existence a carefully guarded
secret?
I followed Ronald, and though we raced through the
clouds, I knew he was not afraid. He wanted only to see if
we could outrun our mysterious opponent. Finally we

reached the apartment building and descended.
The next night was my last one in the city until next
year. In the morning I would be on a home.
train headed for
I suppose that is why I hated to leave the sky that night, and
why, when Ronald said we should return, I held back

moments longer, studying the panorama of crystal-clear
stars. Above the smog of the city, galaxies were like handfuls
of diamond dust sprinkled across the black ocean of outer

space.
86 As I began to descend, I saw Ronald had already
dropped hundreds of feet and was very close to the layer of
clouds that hid the city so far beneath our feet. The creature
leaped from the darkness as a lion would leap upon its prey.
Ronald saw the attack at the last moment and drew his
knife-light. I watched in horror as they struggled Ronald
slashing with the thin bright beam and the monster en-
gulfing him with dark tentacles. They fell beyond view.
Drawing my knife-light, I hurried to help, gliding
down into the billowy mass that was so much like an im-
87 penetrable fog. . "Ronald!"
. .
Turning this way and that, I still could not see. The
wind whistled in my ears. I had never imagined a wind
passing through clouds. It drowned my voice and made
Ronald's impossible to hear. Blinded and frustrated, turning
around and around, struggling to see through this strange
murky jungle, I kept sliding until I fell from the mass of
cloud, and the city lay sprawled beneath me in its glittering
array of neon-speckled shadows.
Ronald appeared nearby and I rushed to his side. "Are
you all right?"
"Fine." He sheathed his knife-light. I wanted to ask
how the fight with the night creature had gone, but the
wind had increased in tempo, whipping around us so we
nearly had to shout to be heard. Ronald signaled that he
and I should return to the apartment to talk.
As I had a cup of hot chocolate and he drank coffee,
my uncle said the fight had been a strange one much like
fighting the wind. "And," he added with a smile, "it isn't
anything to be afraid of."
Afew months after I returned home, we received the

news that Uncle Ronald had died in an explosion at his
workshop. I felt sadder than I ever had before. We had been
so close
in some ways closer than brothers and now he
was gone. For days I felt lost, hardly able to eat, wanting
only to be alone. I could not help but wonder if the night
creature had somehow been responsible. And it was strange
to know that I was the only human able to levitate that . . .
the actual secret of levitation had died with Ronald. It was

very lonely.
I flew three or four nights a week, setting an alarm
clock and placing it beneath my pillow, awaking, dressing,
slipping through thebedroom window, and soaring into the
sky at two in the morning while the town slept. As winter
88 came I dressed more warmly and continued my adventures
THE NIGHT CREATURE
in the star-filled sea. On Christmas Eve I hovered thousands

of feet in the air as a fluffy snow fell. My small home town
had turned white, spotted with the bright pyramids of out-
door Christmas trees.
The creature attacked when I least expected. Its dark

tentacles twisted around my throat and chest. My ears were
filled with an eerie shrieking asbecame more and more
it
difficult to breathe. My whole body was soon caught in the
crushing grip and I struggled to draw the knife-light

Ronald had given me slashing, stabbing with the bright
beam. It isn't anything to be afraid of, Ronald had said. I
swung the beam in a wide circle. . . .
As the suffocating tentacles disappeared, I looked in

every direction.
The night creature had vanished.
Real? It had been real. I had felt it, seen it, fought with
it
Still, I wondered. Had I killed the night creature?

Or had it been my imagination? Had a whirlpool of wind
tugged at my body while fear itself shaped sight and sensa-
tion into was old enough to know
an unearthly monster? I
that fear could make the unknown seem very real. Was that
what Ronald meant when he said the night creature wasn't
anything to be afraid of?
Today, years later, I still roam the sky, usually in the
early morning hours as the town sleeps. I cannot let a little
thing like a fear of the unknown keep me from the vast
realm of the sky.
But I always carry my knife-light, and I watch the
clouds for a sign of the night creature.
89
to Face a Monster
by CARL HENRY RATHJEN
I wasn't enjoying the fishing that afternoon with my Uncle

Bob because I knew what was coming. But if I'd really
known what was in store for me . . .
What I expected was a lecture. The fishing was just to

get me relaxed and, Uncle Bob probably hoped, receptive.
Of all the people in the McCullum family, Uncle Bob was
just about my favorite. But I doubted if even he would
understand my problem.
Grandpa McCullum claimed that I, as the runt of the
clan, carried a chip on my shoulder because had I figured I
to knock down anything bigger than me. In a way he was

right. I was constantly in trouble, and even my own
brothers and sisters refused to play with me, claiming I was
always starting fights.
At school things were no better. My teachers said that

though I was capable of getting good grades, I expected too
many indulgences because of my size. But as I saw it, they
90 only had time for their "pets." I was not one of them.
a
TO FACE A MONSTER
In fact, the only person who really tried to understand

how it was with me was my Aunt Beth. She is a tiny woman

who raises Chinese pugs toy-sized dogs that look like bull-
dogs but aren't and until a few years ago, she and the dogs
and I got along real fine.
But on our way to a dog show one weekend, it all came
to an end. We had stopped to exercise three of the pugs
when a mongrel, its lips curled, approached. Aunt Beth
hurried her two dogs back to the car, but saw the cur as
I
a challenge. I thought Mingo would feel the same way. So
I slipped off his collar and commanded, "Sic 'im, Mingo!"

Instead of charging, Mingo fled.
We spent the rest of that day searching and calling.

When we had no luck, Aunt Beth hired other people to hunt
for him. She offered a big reward for Mingo's return, but
when no one succeeded, Aunt Beth gave up. She hasn't
spoken to me since.
It's been like that all my life. Challenges I meet head-
on have a way of boomeranging. The latest came about in
Scouts when a new kid in town joined our troop. In the
midst of first was called to
aid instruction, the scoutmaster
the telephone. Since I had earned a merit badge in first aid,
I assumed he'd want me to take over. So I decided to
demonstrate the fireman's carry. The new boy was big

challenge
and I chose him as my "victim." When he
backed away, trying to argue, I ducked under his arms and
doubled him up over my left shoulder. He screamed
and struggled.
By the time the scoutmaster came running it was too
late. The boy had recently had an appendicitis operation
and my "demonstration" had ripped open the incision.

Everyone, of course, acted like I should be expelled from
the troop. And the boy's parents threatened to sue the
Scouts and my parents. That's when I was shipped off to
9i Uncle Bob. He was a last resort.
"
Trying not to embarrass me, Uncle Bob acted as

though there was no special reason for my visit. First he
took me fishing. I knew it was just a stalling tactic. If we
hadn't been interrupted by a deer crashing through the
brush, a lecture most certainly would have followed. In-
stead, Uncle Bob only frowned and watched the deer leap
over the stream and bound up the hill behind me. "They
usually bed down this time of day," he said. "Something's
panicked it must be chasing it."
. . .
We stared up the hill across the stream. A weasel and a

couple of rabbits came fleeing down. "It must be something
big to make a weasel run," I said. "Maybe a bear."
"No bears around here," Uncle Bob muttered. "As I
told you on the way out here, there hasn't been much wild-
life in this area until recently because

The screaming clamor of blue jays, crows, and other
birds drowned him out. But I knew what he'd been about
to say.
Several years ago, after a nuclear explosion had started
a radioactive cloud drifting across the Pacific, a heavy rain
had brought most of the fallout down here, killing and
misshaping wildlife and plants. No one had been allowed
into this dangerous area for some time, but recent tests had
shown the woods and hills to be safe. The area was once
again opened for fishing, hiking, and camping.
"If it isn't a bear, then what ..." I began, staring up
toward a leafless tree killed by the fallout.
Uncle Bob reeled in his line. "What do you say we go
back to the pickup." His voice had a false cheeriness about
it and I wondered whether he was as scared as I was.
A heavy grunting made us jump. Looking up toward

the rim of the hill, we both gasped. Looming into view, the
sun behind it, a huge black silhouette stood snorting.
Squinting into the sun made it hard for us to see details, but
92 the huge black shape had a flat-topped head and large
TO FACE A MONSTER
drooping ears that flapped in the breeze like an elephant's.

That was frightening enough. But when it turned its
head to face us, its flattened nose and bulging, bowling-ball
eyes made me feel weak in the knees. Each eye seemed to be
surrounded by black fur, and a deep growl came from its
tawny chest.
"Uncle Bob," I whispered. "What is it?"
"I don't know," he muttered. His voice shook. "Don't
make any fast moves. Don't raise your voice. I don't think
it's seen us yet. Let's move away . . . quietly . . . slowly . . .
carefully. . .
."
Gingerly I started to reel in my line. The ratchety

click sounded awfully loud. "Never mind that!" Uncle Bob
snapped, keeping his voice down. "Just lay it down leave
it."
The sun must have glinted on my fishing rod, because

the beast peered straight down at us. Growling deep in its
throat, it stepped toward us. More of the immense body
came into view. A tail, outlined in the gold of the sun,
curled over waved menacingly from side to side.
its back. It
As the beast stalked down into the shadows of the hill,
we could see it in frightening detail. The fur was short for so
huge a beast, and the face and ears were black. Dark
furrows radiated from the broad brow to the top of the huge
skull. I stood transfixed.
"Uncle Bob!"
He yanked my arm. "Come on. "
When we moved, the beast came faster. So did its
growls. "It's too big we'll never make it to the car," Uncle
Bob cried.
"But Uncle Bob," I shouted. "Listen to me! I have an
idea"
I tripped over a boulder and went down. Uncle Bob
hauled me to my feet. We raced ahead. I glanced back over
93 my shoulder. The growling monster was gaining on us,
crashing through the bushes as though they were mere

weeds.
Uncle Bob pointed ahead toward a thick grove of
lodgepole pines. "Get in there."
"But Uncle Bob!" The bounding beast was almost upon
us.
"Keep going," he yelled, shoving me. He twisted around

to face the charging beast. Waving his arms, he yelled. The
beast knocked him tumbling, then swerved away beyond
the bushes.
Uncle Bob didn't move. He just lay there, moaning.
When I ran back I saw that his face was sweaty and sort of
greenish white, and his leg, bent at an angle that shouldn't
have been possible, looked even worse. His trouser leg was
torn above the knee, and something jagged and white thrust
through it. Blood stained the torn cloth. I knew from my
first aid that this was a compound fracture.
"Uncle Bob," I gasped, not wanting to look. "There
isn't time to splint. Can you try to hold on while I get you
into the pines?"
He opened his pain-filled eyes and gestured with his
head. "Never mind me. Get in there yourself. The trees are
too close together for it to follow."
"That's okay," I said, and I tried to sit him up. Al-
though he was heavy, I thought that if I could get him up
into a fireman's carry we'd both make it.
"Get in there," he repeated as the growling grew louder.

I was so scared, the temptation to obey was almost
overwhelming. But I couldn't leave Uncle Bob. I'd never be

able to live with myself if I did.
Bushes crashed behind me and I spun around to face
those monster eyes. Maybe it was bravery, or maybe I just
reacted like a defiant mouse that squeaks when it's cornered.

But for some reason, from deep inside me came a powerful
94 yell. The beast braced to a stop. Yelling once more, I
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grabbed a piece of broken limb and threw it. Surprisingly,

the beast whirled back from sight into the bushes.
Jumping behind Uncle Bob, I got my hands in his
armpits. Digging in my heels, I dragged him toward the
lodgepole pines. He helped by shoving with his good leg.
Once or twice he let go of his thigh to grasp trees to help
me pull him to safety. At last we were deep into the grove
of tall, close-growing trees. Outside, the mammoth animal
sniffed and growled, stalking back and forth, looking for a
way in after us.
Uncle Bob had fainted. His pants were soggy with
blood, and when I tore his trouser leg open wider, the blood
spurted. I knew then, from the first aid movie I'd seen in
Scouts, that Uncle Bob needed a tourniquet.
Slipping off his belt, I looped it around his thigh close
to the crotch, placed a wadded handkerchief over where the
severed artery should be, then used a stick to twist and
tighten the belt. When I finished, Uncle Bob regained
consciousness.
"Thanks," he murmured. When I asked if he could
hold the tourniquet, he nodded.
By had gathered pine needles to make a
the time I
softer bed for him, it was almost dark. I crept toward the
edge of the grove. The beast was waiting. Though it was
lying down with its head resting on gigantic clawed feet, its
eyes were wide open and alert. It must have spotted me
because immediately it jerked its head in my direction.
Bouncing to its feet, it growled, and I fled back to Uncle
Bob.
He'd fainted again. His hand had slipped from the
tourniquet, and though I knew it should be loosened every
so often, I wondered how much blood Uncle Bob had lost
and how much more he could afford to lose.
Tightening the belt, I caught an end of the stick in one
96 of his belt loops. Now I could safely let go of it. But what
TO FACE A MONSTER
could I do instead? Sitting there in the darkness, shivering

in the night chill, I really didn't know.
Uncle Bob needed a doctor, a hospital. Help would be
needed to move him. If I could get to the pickup, parked
about a half mile away, I could call for help on the CB, the
citizens' band two-way radio.
The pitch-black night had substance. It shook with the

growls and snorts of the beast as I eased toward the far side
of the lodgepole pines. At the edge of the grove I peered out
into the open darkness. The sounds of the beast were far
behind me. All I had to do now was move toward the pick-
up as quietly as possible.
But I couldn't do it. I'd forgotten to get the keys. I'd
need them to unlock the pickup and the ignition lock.
Otherwise theCB wouldn't work.
Ashamed as I am now to admit it, I was glad I didn't
have to leave the shelter of the pines. And when the beast
suddenly came raging and snorting around the grove I felt
relievedand lucky as well.
Scrambling back into the pines, I tried to move silently.
But the darkness became thicker, and behind me, the
creature tried to thrust into the pines. Limbs swayed over-
head. The big nostrils snorted in frustration. A blast of its
hot breath swept pine needles up and around me.

Crawling around in my fright, I lost my way. I
couldn't find Uncle Bob. Bumping into trees, I called softly
but there was no answer, and thoughts of how I never
should have left him alone plagued me. Suppose the tourni-
quet had loosened. Suppose he was bleeding to death. It
would be my fault. Once again I'd tried to tackle something
too big for me. I shivered because I was cold and because I
was scared. Maybe I was crying a little, too.
Then I heard a sort of sobbing sound this time not
my own. Pausing, I listened until it came again. It was a
97 moaning sob and I crawled toward it. Finally, I found
Uncle Bob. He was delirious.

Carefully loosening the tourniquet, I detected no sign
of new bleeding, and throughout the rest of that horrible
night listening to his moans I checked
from time to it
time. It would have been easier if I could have talked to

him gotten his advice but it was just me and that
rumbling monster. Uncle Bob stayed unconscious, and I was

going to have to face things the beast and myself alone.
Along toward dawn, when my eyes had adjusted to the
darkness, I got Uncle Bob's car keys. Then, shivering, I
removed my shirt and tore it into strips to bandage his
thigh. With more strips of shirt and two strong lengths of
fallen branches, I splinted his broken thigh the way I'd been
taught in Scouts. I'd never splinted a real fracture before,
and I hoped it was all right.
The grayness of dawn had begun to sneak through the

treesby the time I had finished. So I crept toward the edge
of the pines where the rhythmic sounds of the beast were
louder. Peering out at the huge, lion-colored form, I saw
that its eyes were closed. It was asleep. Those rumbling
sounds that had terrified me throughout the night were
snores!
Moving quietly to the far side of the grove I paused,
breathing hard, shivering and sweating. Maybe I should
just stay with Uncle Bob until people came looking for us.
I'd be alive, but would Uncle Bob?

Breathing deeply, I stepped out from the lodgepole
pines. My legs felt like wood, and fright was like a beast
inside me, trying to get out. I had to force myself not to look
back. I had to keep going. If it rushed after me, I'd certainly
hear it.
The pickup was on the other side of a little hill just
ahead of me. I wanted to run but knew that the noise would
wake the beast. When I finally reached the brow of the hill,
98 a band of sunlight added a rosy tinge to the clouds and
TO FACE A MONSTER
glinted off the windshield. It was an encouraging sight and

I moved ahead too eagerly. A rock tumbled down the hill.
Back by the pines a faint snore became a startled
eruption of sound. Though I couldn't yet see the beast, the
blasts of barking sounds were enough to convince me to run.
Scrambling down the hill, practically falling, I glanced
over my shoulder. It was going to be close. Frantically I dug
into my pockets for the keys. Maybe I wouldn't make it.
Both my mind and body raced. I thought of my conver-
sation with Uncle Bob yesterday and about all the things I
wanted to tell him during the night. Now, with no assurance
that I might be right, I was going to have to face it alone.
The clicking of the beast's huge claws on the rocks behind
me was a terrifying reminder.
Fumbling with the keys, turning them in the lock, I felt
the creature's hot breath. The door was open! But the beast
was there, blocking me from shutting it. I scurried back
across the seat. It was the moment of truth.
Uncle Bob kept a revolver in the glove compartment.
He had taught me how to use it, but I hesitated. A revolver
bullet? Big-game hunters used special high-powered rifles.
A revolver bullet would only make the beast angry. It would
never kill it.
The beast rocked the pickup in its efforts to get to me.

Any moment it was apt to turn the whole thing over and
wreck the CB radio antenna. And then what? I reached
toward the glove compartment. Maybe I should take a
chance and try shooting at it. Or maybe I should take a dif-
ferent chance
one I had wanted to discuss with Uncle Bob.
I had my hand on the glove compartment but I didn't
open it. I faced the huge pug-nosed face that was slobbering
and growling through the open door. In that instant, frag-
ments of my first impressions of the beast began to fit to-
gether. Or did they? Maybe it was just wishful thinking.
99 Maybe I'd better get the gun.
The monster growled deep in its throat, its hot breath

steaming the windshield. The pickup rocked wildly. I
braced against the dash and clung to the steering wheel. I
shouted, but this time it was not a meaningless, frightened

yell. The was there, of course, but this time I shouted
fright
words commands. And if I were wrong if they had no
effect?
"No! Down! Stay!" Somehow my aching lungs took in
another breath. "Down! Stay, Mingo, stay! Mingo . .
."
Yes, the beast did look like a mammoth Chinese pug. It
had the same and grunting sounds of Aunt

coloring, face,
Beth's Mingo. That's what I had wanted to discuss with
Uncle Bob last night. I wanted to know if he thought it
possible that the radioactive rain could have caused a dog
to grow to such an unbelievable size. Mingo had been lost
just before that destructive drenching rain, and this giant
creature, despite its size, strongly resembled that tiny
champion pug.
"Mingo!" I shouted again. "Down! Sit!"
Did those eyes look less angry? Were they ever really
angry or were they just alight with the friendliness of a
lonely pet? I yelled to make myself heard above the loud,
puglike grunting sounds. "Mingo! Sit! Sit, Mingo!"
For a horrible moment he stared, blowing his breath
into my face. Then he backed off and sat on the ground, his
head as high as the cab roof, his eyes alert, his breath quick
and eager.
"Good boy," I said, my voice shaking and squeaking.
"Good boy. Stay, Mingo."
I put the key in the ignition switch, turned it, then
called into the CB mike. "Ten thirty-three. Ten thirty-
three." That was the emergency CB distress call. Voices

answered. I told the CBers and the police who had also

tuned in what had happened and where to find us. Before
100 I signed off I had one more urgent thing to say.
TO FACE A MONSTER
"Please, do not be frightened by the big animal with me.

He's just an oversized friendly dog. Please do not think you
have to shoot him. Please!"
Later that day when Iwas finally able to visit Uncle

Bob in the hospital, I told him how I had helped get Mingo
to a high-fenced corral belonging to a veterinarian who
specialized in treating large animals. Everyone the vet,
doctors, and scientists all thanked me for alerting the
police not to kill Mingo, large and fearsome as he looked.
He was going to be a great source of study and research,
and privately, for Aunt hoped they might
Beth's sake, I
even discover how to get him back to normal size.

When I finished my story, Uncle Bob gave me a funny
little smile. "I think the biggest discovery has already been
made," he said. "And you made it when you faced up to

something big without a chip on your shoulder."
I nodded, beginning to understand. "If I'd grabbed
your gun, I could have spoiled it all by shooting at Mingo.

And," I admitted sheepishly, "I guess I've spoiled a lot of
things because . because they were bigger than me
. . . . .
and because I was just a runt. ." . .
Uncle Bob smiled. "What matters is how big you are

inside." He reached out and grasped my hand. "Thanks for
what you did for me."
It was great to shake his hand and not have him mad
at me for something I'd done wrong. It was a nice feeling

and I was going to try and keep it that way from now on.
101
you Are what you Eat
by WILMA BEDNARZ
Kevin Wheatmore thought how unfair it was to be twelve
and have to trim the hedge instead of reading his new book
on interplanetary survival.
"Didn't you know two weeks ago about the book re-
port?" his father asked.
"Sure, but you don't understand. . .
." He didn't say any
more. He never knew how to answer questions like that.
"Be as sullen as you want, but finish that hedge." His
father returned to the other side of the house and Kevin
heard him start the lawn mower. Then, over the mower's
drone, he heard a jetlike whine that came closer and closer.
A fireball circled the house next door, smashing into
the chimney. A loud explosion resulted and the house went
up in flames.
Just before it struck the chimney, a green opalescent
figure emerged from the burning machine. It darted con-
vulsively back and forth over the houses before diving into
102 the Holmans' back yard.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
"Call the fire department, Mom," Kevin shouted as his

mother ran out on the front porch. "I'll see if they need help
getting out of the house." He ran toward the rear. The
Holmans' back door was usually open.
Fourteen-year-old Joyce Holman was a good friend.
Kevin had seen her return home on her bike about half an
hour ago, and when he reached their yard, he was relieved
to see that both Joyce and her parents were safe. They were
gathered around the green creature that had flattened their
zinnia bed.
The thing was as large as the outdoor cooker nearby,
and it was shaped like the wasp pupae he and Joyce had
found last summer. But this thing was not dormant. Pulsing
and wiggling, its wing pads, feelers, mouth parts, and legs
were tightly folded against its body. It smelled like ferment-
ing grass.
As Kevin hurried toward the group, he saw a green
appendage whip toward Mr. Holman. Another wrapped
around Joyce and her mother. A green quivering mass en-
veloped them. Mr. Holman's hammer dropped to the
ground. The Holmans were gone.
Kevin's stomach surged but he grabbed a board
leaning against the fence and ran toward the monster.
"You can't get away with that. Joyce is my friend. The
Holmans are our neighbors."
He struck the monster with the board only to have it
jerked away from him.

As he watched the contorting insect body, Kevin
thought he was going crazy. Moving like dough being
kneaded, it took on the form of Joyce Holman. It reached
toward Kevin.
"Don't you touch me," he shouted. But before he could
dodge the green hand, it grabbed his wrist. A painful
burning sensation spread across his skin. His arm was being
103 drawn into the monster. He screamed.
For a moment Kevin thought it was his scream that

made the monster drop his arm, but it must have been the
fire sirens as the engines blasted their arrival. The creature
clapped its
hands over its ears Joyce's ears.
"I forgot about the cursed sounds of this planet," a
voice that sounded like Joyce's said. The thing had taken on
the insect shape again, but as the sirens began to wind
down, Joyce's figure returned. This time a flesh color spread
over the skin, and short brown hair curled over the head.
Except for the bloodshot eyes that glared at Kevin from an
angry face, it looked just like Joyce.
Firemen, dragging extension ladders, hoses, and chem-
ical packs,came around the house. Kevin's mother and dad
were with them. Mrs. Wheatmore rushed toward Joyce.
"Don't touch her, Mom. She's a monster!"
"Oh, Kevin!" Mrs. Wheatmore took Joyce in her arms
and nothing happened.
"My mother and dad! They're in there!" Joyce pointed
to the burning house. Firemen were just about to dart into
it when the roof collapsed. Kevin's mother and father tried
to console Joyce.
"Mom! Dad! Be careful! She ate the Holmans!" Kevin
shouted. "That's not Joyce, I tell you. She's a monster!"
"Kevin, that's enough," roared his father.
"Excuse me, mister, but the kid is suffering from shock,"
one of the firemen said. "Nothing could live in that build-
ing. He knows it. Look at the burn on his arm. He's a
brave kid. Must have tried to save them."
The Wheatmores took Kevin arid Joyce home, and Dr.
Brennan was called to treat Kevin's arm.
"This shot will put you to sleep for a while," Dr.
Brennan said. "When you wake up, everything will be all
right."
"No, you've got to listen to me. . .
." The injection took
104 effect.
It was late in thewhen Kevin woke up. The

evening
pain in his bandaged arm brought back the memory of the
fire and the Holmans. He sat upright in bed. Were his
mother and dad safe? Where was the space alien now?
Suddenly he was aware that his door was opening, and
that a strong odor of fermenting grass permeated the room.
The creature, using only the rough figure of a human body
to allow it to walk, stood in the doorway. "I want you," it
said. "I need your help." Its voice began with Mr. Holman's
deep tone and pitched to Joyce's voice.
"What have you done with my mother and dad?" Kevin
didn't know that anyone whose heart was pounding as hard
as his could still live.
"Your mother and father are downstairs watching tele-

vision the noise box. I need them so that everything will
seem normal until the pack arrives on this planet."
"What planet do you come from?"
"From Olgorin. In two weeks Olgorin will be in a posi-
tive position to condense messages from earth via the
nuclear frequency accelerator. Then my pack will swarm.
But you must help me find a quiet place where I can send
my signals. There are too many city sounds here."

"This pack are they like you?"
"Of course. We are creatwasps. I'm in a stage of travel
transformation and I need food."
"Is everyone on Olgorin like you?"
"We are the only ones remaining now. That is why I
am here as a scout."
"What you mean is that you're coming here for food.
We would be your food." Kevin found it difficult not to
scream at the creature. "There are small animals in the
fields along the highways on the edge of town. Why don't
you eat them?" The creatwasp didn't answer. It only

shrugged its half-human shoulders and left the room.
105 It was decided that because Joyce's only relative was a
bachelor uncle who traveled, Joyce would stay with the

Wheatmores. She settled into the guest room.
The creatwasp had been able to take over Joyce's
figure, voice, and mannerisms so well that had no identity
it
trouble with her friends or teachers. Only Kevin could not

forget what she was, and the urgency of proving this to
others before the creatwasp pack swarmed to earth got him
into trouble. He tried again to warn his father, but it
accomplished nothing.
"Tell me, Kevin. Hasn't Joyce always been your friend?
Didn't she teach you to dive rather than belly flop last
summer?"
"But that was Joyce, Dad. This is a creatwasp. You
read about all the cats and dogs that are missing. Well,
Joyce"
"Stop it. That's a terrible thing to say about the poor
girl."
"Dad, just smell her. You'll know."

"That's enough, Kevin." The subject was closed.
A week after the Kevin took the homeroom
fire,
attendance record to the office where the principal's door

was open. Joyce was in the room with him, and Kevin
could hear some of their conversation.
"I know that you have gone through a terrible experi-
ence, Joyce, but it doesn't give you the right to be imperti-
nent. Miss Jones told me that when she asked you to put the
algebra problem on the board, you barked at her."
"Meow, meow," Joyce answered. From where he stood,
Kevin saw the back of Joyce's neck turn green. She was
having trouble controlling herself. When Joyce noticed him,
Kevin hurried out of the office.
Two days later the newspaper carried the story of the
principal's disappearance. "No clues ... no notesno ...
ransom letters," Mr. Wheatmore sighed, quoting the news-
106 paper at dinner.
!
"Kevin, eat your dinner," his mother said. "You're

getting so thin."
"I'm really not hungry. I've got so much homework, I'd
like to be excused."
Waiting upstairs until he heard Joyce go to her room,
Kevin turned on his favorite radio station. It was rock the
Mama Bugs. He liked to listen at full volume. Soon his
parents would settle down in front of the television and he
could talk to Joyce. He didn't really expect her to listen to
reason though.
"Come in." The creatwasp's voice sounded like the
school principal's.Opening the door, Kevin was repulsed at
what he saw. Though the creatwasp was partially in its
original shape, its head was a green version of Joyce's,
collie paws rested on the arms of the chair, and a cat's tail
twitched from the insect body.

"Turn off that radio!" The creatwasp lunged at him,
placing two collie paws on his chest. Kevin shoved against
it with both hands.
"Do it now!" Strong insect mandibles thrust near his
face.
"Let me go and I'll turn it off."
The creatwasp followed Kevin across the hall to his

room. As he snapped off the radio, the creatwasp returned
to Joyce's form, though it still had some difficulty with the
collie paws.
"Small animals do not agree with me," the creatwasp
said. "You saw what happened in the principal's office the
other day."
The fermenting grass odor was heavy in the room.

Something possibly the smaller animals that did not agree

with it had weakened the creature. This could be his
chance to get rid of it
Kevin waited until the house was dark and quiet.
107 Taking the only weapon he could find, a baseball bat, he
went into the hall. When his bare feet made a brushing
sound on the carpet, he stopped. But the house remained
still.
The guest room door made only the softest click as

Kevin pushed it. The drapes were open, and the moonlight
showed the creatwasp in a resting position on the bed, its
green feelers extended two feet in front of it. The creatwasp
sprang up.
"Help! Help! He's going to me! Help!" Joyce's voice
hit
rang through the house. Lights flashed on in the hall.
"What's going on here?" Kevin's father grabbed the
baseball bat.
"He's crazy!" the creatwasp sobbed, looking exactly like
Joyce, and Mrs. Wheatmore put her arms around her.

"Into your room, young man," his father said.
"But Dad"
"We'll talk about it in the morning." When his father
left, he locked the door to Kevin's room from the outside.
was late the next morning when Kevin's mother
It
called him for breakfast. "I'm late for school," he shouted.
"You're not going to school today. I made an appoint-
ment with the doctor for you this morning."
"I suppose you mean a psychiatrist. There's nothing
wrong with me, if you would only listen."
"Shhh, don't get excited."
The psychiatrist reminded the Wheatmores that the
experience of the fire and the deaths of the Holmans had
been more than Kevin had been able to accept.
"It will take time," he said. "Didn't you mention that his
grandfather lives on a farm? Perhaps a change would help.
Why don't you send him there?"
Kevin boarded the jet that afternoon. Though the trip
took only two hours, and the stewardess in charge of him
was kind, it seemed longer. His grandfather was waiting at
108 the airport.
Kevin had never been able to talk to his grandfather,

whose favorite question was, "How's school?" How do you
answer a question like that? He would never be able to
convince him that there was such a thing as a creatwasp
and that its message must be stopped.
It was about twenty-five miles from the airport to the
farm. As they drove, his grandfather did most of the talk-

ing. "You can ride that colt now that you admired so
much last summer." Kevin thanked him and a long silence
followed.
"How's school?" his grandfather asked, nervously clear-
ing his throat.
"Great. I math grade." Kevin
got the second highest
went on to tell him about the magazine rack he was building
in shop because it seemed now that it was his grandfather
who needed to be put at ease. He asked such questions only
because he didn't know what else to say.
By the middle of the week Kevin felt at home on the
farm. If were not
it for the realization that the creatwasp's
message would go to Olgorin on Saturday and that by
Sunday they'd all be gone, Kevin would have been happy.
Kevin was grooming the colt in its stall while his
grandfather mended a feeder at the other end of the barn.
The farmyard was noisy. Chickens, dogs, and horses made
most of the sounds, and Kevin had an idea.
"Grandpa, I've got to talk to you. You've got to listen
to me."
"Try me," his grandfather said.
So Kevin told him all about the creatwasp and its plans
for Saturday. Grandfather wrinkled his forehead. "What
you're saying is serious, Kevin. Can you prove any of it?"
"Look at this!" Kevin desperately tore the bandage
from his wrist. "See the claw prints? I wasn't burned in
the fire."
109 Grandfather Wheatmore gave a low whistle. "Your
story sounds incredible, Kevin, but I believe you. Do you

have any idea how we can get rid of this thing?"
"I do now," Kevin said. "I know that it's not what it
eats that weakens it, as I first thought. ." And he went on
. .
to describe his plan.

"There's one thing wrong," his grandfather said. "Your
parents won't let Joyce come up here. Only a few days ago
you attacked her with a baseball bat!"
"But, don't you see, Grandpa. Joyce is the creatwasp,
and if you mention how quiet it is up here, she'll come
anyway. She needs the silence."
The trap was set the way Kevin suggested, and Kevin
tested it several times to make sure it worked. Early the
following Saturday, Joyce arrived. Kevin knew that if his
trap didn't work by afternoon, he and everyone else would
be dead. But as they talked, the creature looked so much
like Joyce, with the same voice and mannerisms, that Kevin
began to wonder if maybe his parents and the psychiatrist
were right. His grandfather looked doubtful, too.
"I'd like to see the farm," Joyce said after a short time,
and Kevin, anxious to try his plan before his grandfather
changed his mind, went into his act.
"There's nothing special about it," Kevin said, pretend-
ing he didn't want to show her around.
"Where is the quiet place?" Joyce asked, grimacing at
the clucking chickens.
show you later. Come on, you'll like the barn."
"I'll
"What's in the barn?" Joyce stopped to look at a kitten

playing with a piece of string.
"The horses. I'll show you the horses." Kevin hadn't
intended for his voice to sound so eager.
"No, thanks. I've tried them. I mean, I know what a
horse looks like."
"There's a calf."
no "A what? Oh, I want to see it," Joyce said, and she
followed him toward the barn. Just at the door, though, she
clapped her hands over her ears.
"Kevin, I can't stand those squawking chickens. I've
got to get away from here." Green splotches spread across
Joyce's forehead.
"No, you've got to see the calf," he yelled, and careful
only to touch her coat, he shoved her through the barn door.
At the same time he kicked the hidden switch he had set up
under the straw.
Bells rang. Radios tuned to different stations and set at
full volume blared. Records of train whistles, fire sirens, and
factory whistles played on old phonographs. Kevin and his

grandfather had even dragged in an old dinner bell that
was used to warn the neighbors in case of fire. Operating
electrically, it clanged loudly.
All this came over the amplifier at multiple volume.
The horses, frightened at the noise, began to neigh. Kevin
blew on his athletic whistle and directed the piercing sound
right into Joyce's ear.
The plan was working. Joyce began to turn green. Her
features blurred, forming the insect eyes and heavy mandi-
bles of the creatwasp. Long wasplike legs appeared, and her
body slimmed out to a hornet shape. The odor of fermenting
grass dominated the smell of the hay and the horses.
Grandpa Wheatmore, who had followed them to the
barn, watched what used to be Joyce. "Look out, Kevin,"
he cried. "The dinner bell has stopped. The creature will
get back its strength."
Kevin saw that the bell mechanism had broken down.
The creatwasp was stretching up on its legs, reaching
toward Grandpa Wheatmore. Kevin grabbed the bell's rope
and yanked, ringing it over and over until the creatwasp
collapsed.
Kevin did not stop ringing the bell or blowing his
in whistle until the monster, now nothing but a green quiver-
1.
.
, I
!
W^
;

\i
<
5 i
"
MS,
J*.
i
>
1 JFv:.
.
Jf
|
-
*.
ing mass, shriveled and was still.
They put it box and nailed it shut. "The UFO

into a
Investigation Committee will want to see this," Grand-
father Wheatmore said.
The following Wednesday, in the living room of his own

home, Kevin held out his hand to receive the engraved
commendation from General Greene. His mother, father,
and grandfather watched proudly.
"... for your brave contribution to both science and
your country," General Greene was saying. "Through you a
grave danger to the people of this planet has been removed."
A photographer's flash unit went off and the ceremony
ended.
"You saw your duty and you did it." Mr. Wheatmore
patted Kevin's shoulder. "But there's more to be done. Look
how the hedge has grown. You'll find the clippers in the
garage."
113
Nightmare in a box
by RITA RITCHIE
Tracy Ann Stuart huddled in the far corner of the dark

fruit cellar, her heart thumping as she listened to the
creature prowling outside the door.
She could hear its harsh breathing and the scraping of
its nails on the wooden panels. Had it found her at last?
Abruptly the pawing stopped. There was an irritable,

questing rumble deep in the monster's throat. Then the
swish-thump of its movement began to recede.
Tracy crept to the door and peered through the latch
hole. She could see the creature in the occasional shafts of
evening sun shining through the tiny basement windows.
The hideous thing was big now, bigger than her father, and
itwas methodically scrabbling in the various corners of the
old basement. It would move fast enough, she knew, once it
found its prey.
The growths on the monster's back were now
quill-like
long fleshy tubes, and the flexible nose of the misshapen
purple face extended like a baby elephant's. The yellow
114 horns looked harder and sharper, while the red eyes . You
. .
NIGHTMARE IN A BOX
did not need much light to see those malevolent red eyes.
Tracy wished again with all her might that she had
never taken that package inside the house. When the door-
bell rang that afternoon, Tracy had been alone most of the
day in the big old house that was the Stuart family's new
home.
At twelve, Tracy was old enough to be left in charge
while her parents made one last trip to their former home
over a hundred miles away for the final load of personal
belongings. Someone had to stay here to admit the telephone
people, in case this was the day they chose to install the
phone. Her parents had hardly left after breakfast when a
lady came to read the water meter. Staying a little while to
chat, she told Tracy something of the neighborhood. Now
at last the telephone people had arrived.
But it was not a telephone company truck Tracy saw
when she pulled open the heavy front door. Instead, a large
red van was parked in the gravel driveway, and a man in a
brown uniform stood on the steps holding a box. The man
said, "National Package Delivery. Can I leave this ship-
ment with you? The lady down the road isn't home."
Tracy hesitated, then remembered her mother taking
in things for their neighbors in their old town. She nodded.
"Okay. How do I know where to take it?"
The man set the package down and scribbled in his
notebook. "You don't have to do anything, miss. I'll just
leave a notice in her door and she can come for it when she
gets home." He thrust pencil and pad at Tracy. "Sign here,
please."
She wrote her name carefully. "Who is the package
for?"
"Name's Cranshaw. Lives in that green house down
there. Thanks, miss!" He walked vigorously to his van,
hopped in, and drove off, leaving Tracy with her mouth
open in dismay.
us "Cranshaw!" she repeated, looking down the road at
the home of their nearest neighbor. Here at the edge of

town, the houses became widely scattered and were not at
all like where Tracy had spent most of
those in the suburb
her life. And the ramshackle dark green house down the
road, half-hidden behind a luxurious growth of spooky-
looking pine trees, seemed like the kind of house a witch
would live in. "Creepy" Cranshaw they called her in town,
or so said the water meter lady. Tracy shivered, then
remembered the package.
The box was perfectly ordinary looking, wrapped in
brown paper and sturdily tied with cord. It had a neat
white label bearing the name of Miss Lulu Cranshaw, but
no return address. Big red stickers with white letters fairly
shouted fragile! do not drop! keep out of light! And
here the midaf ternoon sun was pouring its warm rays down
upon it.
Tracy was reluctant to touch anything destined for a
witch. But she did not want Miss Cranshaw angry with her,
either. So she picked it up carefully, surprised at its light
weight, and set it down in a dark corner of the entry. Now
it was just an ordinary package waiting for its owner to
claim it.
While she washed the set of good dishes her mother

had unpacked that morning, Tracy began to wonder what
a witch would order through the mail. Maybe it was a
surprise sent by somebody else a relative, or another witch.
The wondering about the box became an itch in
Tracy's mind. Drying the last of the dishes and putting them
in the cupboard, she went to look at the box sitting in the
shadowed entry.
She flipped on the light switch. A little light could not
hurt. Then she gently raised the box a few inches off the
floor and shook it. There was a faint rustling, like crunched-
up newspaper. Maybe somebody sent the box for a joke. Or

maybe Tracy's throat got tight maybe it was a doll to
116 stick pins in!
NIGHTMARE IN A BOX
The flaps of the neatly folded wrapping paper were not

stuck down with tape. And the stiff cord was loose enough to
somebody wanted to.
slip off, if
Tracy slipped it off. She unfolded the brown paper to

reveal a gray cardboard box. She lifted off the lid.
Tucked in a nest of crushed newspaper was something
wrapped in black paper. It was irregular in shape, with the
paper twisted around so that nobody would ever notice a
couple of extra creases. Standing up under the entry light,
Tracy untwisted the paper and opened it.
For a second or two she stared at the horrible little
dried-up thing in her hand. Then shuddering with revul-
sion, she flung it away and ran back to the kitchen. There
she soaped her hands under the running faucet, washing
and scrubbing, trying to forget the dreadful image.
It had been alive once, but Tracy had never even
imagined an animal like that, not in her most awful night-

mares. She remembered a stupid joke from way back in
fourth grade. What does a witch ride on? A night mare.
Ha-ha-ha.
But nobody would laugh at this nightmare. The dessi-
cated body was purple-gray, with stickerlike things like
porcupine quills over part of it. The underside was
covered with mangy gray under the folded
fur, half -hidden
dead paws that looked like tiny clenched fists. But the face!
It was a parody of a human face, with purple bulbous
features, cracked and wrinkled, and with a tiny pair of

yellow horns on the forehead. The nearly closed red eyes
seemed to stare.
Ugh! Tracy shivered as she wiped her hands on a
towel. Then she hugged herself, standing alone and nervous
in the brightly painted kitchen. Her parents would not be
home for at least a couple more hours, maybe even longer.
Meanwhile, if Miss Lulu Cranshaw came and asked for her
package She would be awfully angry that it had been
. . .
117 opened.

Remembering had told

the stories the water meter lady
her about "Creepy" Cranshaw, Tracy knew she had to
put the package back together. She rehearsed it in her mind.
She would just march in, quickly wrap up the little dead
monster, and jam it back in the box. Taking a determined
breath, she walked swiftly to the front entry. Trying not to
think about it, she scooped up the black paper.
It was empty.
The dreadful little dried-up thing must have fallen out
when she had thrown it. Tracy looked around carefully,
then stooped to feel the patterned rug with her hands. Sick
at the thought of touching the thing, she knew she had to.
Except for the box and its wrappings, the entry was
completely bare. Tracy shook out the paper, cord, and box,
but found nothing. She wondered how she could fail to see
the little monster under the entry light.
Light. Keep Out of Light!

Maybe light had somehow made it disappear. It was a
crazy idea about as crazy as having a witch living just
down the road. But Tracy snapped off the light anyway.
Going into the living room, she glanced around, hoping
the nasty little husk had rolled in there. Light flooded in
through the windows, but the wide expanse of carpet was
bare. The furniture was too far away for it to have
What was that?
A quick movement flickered at the edge of her vision,
but when Tracy turned her head she saw nothing out of the
ordinary. Maybe it was just a bird shadow flashing across
the window. She glanced outside.
A face stared back at her. It was an old woman's face,
pointed and wrinkled, and piercing dark eyes locked into
Tracy's. The woman on the porch stepped closer and held
up the National Package Delivery slip in a bony hand.
Swallowing hard, Tracy numbly went to open the front
door,
us "I'm Miss Lulu Cranshaw," said a voice as spiky as a
NIGHTMARE IN A BOX
dried milkweed pod. As the breeze pulled her dress against

her, her tall spindly frame was revealed. An old-fashioned
car was parked in front of the house. "You have a package
for me."
Tracy's breath hurt as she said, "No, ma'am, we
haven't got a package or anything."
Miss Cranshaw pursed her lips. She held out the de-
livery notice. 26445 Baxter, isn't it?"
"This is
"Yes, it is. I was home all day and nobody came." She
waited a moment and when Miss Cranshaw did not move,
Tracy added, "I guess somebody made a mistake."
"I am your nearest neighbor, Miss Tracy Ann Stuart. I
think we should start out being friendly."
It sounded like a threat. Tracy's momentary wavering
hardened into a resolve to carry the charade through. "Yes,
Miss Cranshaw. I'll look around to see if I can find any-
thing. And I'll ask my parents when they come home."
"This package," said Miss Cranshaw, speaking slowly
and distinctly, "has a very special pet inside. It needs a
certain kind of care. If it is not treated correctly, it can
be fatal."
"I'll look for the box," Tracy said, thinking desperately,
Go away, please!
"I will go now," said Miss Cranshaw, grinning a know-
ing grin. "When you find my little pet, come and tell me
immediately. You don't have much time perhaps an hour,
maybe less. Then it will be too late." She turned on her heel
and went to her car.
Relieved, Tracy shut the door and locked it. But as
she turned, her eye caught the jumble of box and wrappings
lying exactly where light from the opened door would fall
upon it.
Had Miss Cranshaw seen it?
If so, she knew now that Tracy had opened her box.
Maybe that's why she had given her a time limit to restore
119 the contents or suffer dreadful witch consequences!
Tracy had box it up, then

to find that horrible thing,
tell Miss Cranshaw she found it near the back door. She
would search hard all over for it, now, before her parents
came home.
Once more a shadow fluttered in a corner of the living
room, a larger one this time. Maybe a cat had gotten into
the house. And if it found that dried-up "pet" and tore it
to pieces . . .
Tracy had plenty of experience with other people's

cats. "Here, kitty!" She pulled out the easy chair.
Gazing into evil red eyes, Tracy froze. The creature

was no longer a dehydrated husk. It was fleshed out to five
times the original size. The fists clasped and unclasped, the
dreadful bulbous nose wriggled, and down in its throat was
a rattle and a hiss.
It was alive!
Tracy screamed. She tore into the kitchen, slamming
the door behind her.
When she stopped shaking, she forced herself to think.
She did not understand about the witch's pet coming alive,
but she knew she had to deal with it. If she could just think
of that wretched monster as a dreadful kind of cat, she
could manage it.
Armed with a broom and the strongest carton she

could find, Tracy quietly sidled out of the kitchen, sneaked
down the long dark hall past the basement door, and slipped
into the living room.
Grimly she advanced on the easy chair corner, but she
found it empty. Wedging the box at one end of the space
behind the nearby sofa, Tracy shoved the broom down along
the wall toward it. She met with nothing.
Something snuffled behind her.
The creature, a yard tall, was standing on hind legs in
the doorway to the dining room.
120 Tracy felt her insides dissolve into ice water.

NIGHTMARE IN A BOX
The monster took a step toward her, hissing.

Tracy panicked. Stifling her sobs, she sped upstairs to
her room, locked herself and cowered behind the door.
in,
The hideous thing was growing* Something maybe

light had started it, and now it was getting bigger.
She went to her window and looked down to the con-
crete walk two stories below. There was no way down,
nothing to climb on. She could not jump without risking
broken bones. The only way out of the house was to go
downstairs. She would try to leave through the kitchen.
Tracy listened a long while, but if the monster were
prowling downstairs, she could not hear it.
One fast dash

Tracy reached the downstairs hall at running speed.
At the bottom she leaped toward the kitchen.
Suddenly the creature reared up in front of her, tall
and dreadful, arms poised as if to catch her. Shocked, Tracy
sagged against the basement door. Then quickly she jerked
it open and all but fell down the steps.
She blundered into shadowed dead ends and sections

of wall, for this old basement was divided into many odd
rooms. At last, in a far corner, she thrust open a door,
stumbled through, and slammed it behind her. Her fingers
encountered a snap lock, and she clicked it shut.
Tracy blinked in the gloom, for the dusty window set
high in the wall was on the shady side of the house. She
made out some old mason jars on gritty shelves. One of the
long boards was loose, and she managed to wedge it behind
some big bent nails on either side of the door, barring it
against the monster, whose strength must be growing as its
size increased.
It was not long before Tracy heard the creature mov-

ing around in the basement. The monster snuffled through
the different sections, came to the fruit cellar door and
121 scratched, then went away to search elsewhere.
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The sun had nearly set. Surely her parents would soon
come home! Then she remembered that as they left that
morning her mother had said, "Since this is our last trip
back and we have so much to do, Tracy, you're not to worry
if we don't return before night/' Not to worry! All Tracy
had done was let loose a horror in their home.

A strong weight thudded against the door, and the
crack of splintering wood was like a knife of fear through
her heart. Somehow, by sound or smell or increased sharpen-
ing of its growing senses, the monster had found her!
Tracy scrambled up the shelves under the window, but
the frame was nailed shut. Then her fingers gripped a piece
of old pipe. Though she smashed the glass, the sound was
122 lost under the crashing of the door. Pounding out the jagged
edges, Tracy squeezed through, sobbing as the glass
scratched through her clothing. But she was free!
She hurtled through the dark underbrush separating
the house from the Cranshaw place, and she warded off
small branches that raked her as she plunged past. Then
she fell with a painful thump into a dark hollow.
Tracy lay, waiting for her breath to come back. Bushes
crackled above the hollow, and she heard the unmistakable
snuffling of the dreadful beast. She closed her eyes, frozen
with fear, waiting.
123 The crackling and the snuffling slowly went away.
" " "
Tracy squeezed her eyes tighter and concentrated on listen-

ing. At last she was convinced that the monster was really
gone.
Tracy crawled up to the lip of the hollow. Not far
from her a light from the Cranshaw place shone down a
smooth woods path. Tracy sprang up and ran down the
path, throwing herself at the door. Pounding on it, she
cried, "Miss Cranshaw! Let me in!"
The door opened and she fell into Miss Cranshaw's
arms. Tracy sobbed out her confession. "I opened the box,
Miss Cranshaw, and the thing inside, the monster

"Hush, child! Come in." The old lady, surprisingly
strong, pulled Tracy inside and turned the key. "So, you let
loose something you did not know how to control."
"It's after me, Miss Cranshaw," Tracy babbled. "You
can stop it. You're a witch. Save me!"
Miss Cranshaw grinned her dreadful knowing grin,
and shook her head. "It's too late, Miss Tracy Ann Stuart.
An hour after light falls upon it
"It's not too late, Miss Cranshaw!" Tracy's arm hurt
where the old lady clutched it. "The monster's alive. It's
growing bigger all the time!"
"That's right," Miss Cranshaw said firmly, pulling
Tracy to a door in the wall. "While small, it did not matter.
But now it's too late, my dear, because it is a full-sized

monster and you know." She thrust Tracy into a dimly
lighted room and locked the door.
Tracy hammered on the door. "Miss Cranshaw, don't
lock me up! I didn't mean
A dreadful snuffling stopped her in midsentence.
She turned, and there it was, the nightmare from the
box, hideous head nearly touching the ceiling. The evil red
eyes gleamed and a harsh voice came from the dreadful
mouth. "Hello, Tracy," the monster said, reaching out for
124 her.
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
^ "^sssi
!he creatures inhabiting the pi

t
come in a!!shapes and sizes. Some are decedflvely 'normal" until you
get to know them and others reveal at a glanbe ft)ai %ey are u be
avoio'ed al all ,osts. A cuddly patchwork monl'jS^^&rrtom spirit of
the night, a oasilisk of old these are among ,
"-
horrors presented.
Like recu! rent nightmares, they will return to haunt you. *#
The scope and variety of the nine stories comprising this collection
insure that every reader's spin* will be tingled. And the illustrations
by Rod Ruth both colo r and in black and white bring each
in full
"baleful beast" and "eerie creature" to life in frightening detaii.
Though the stories presented here are by no means bedtime fare for
the weak of heart, a delightful shiver or two is in store
for the reader with courage.

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What is the writer's perspective on fear and why people enjoy reading horror stories?

What is the writer's perspective on fear and why people enjoy reading horror stories?

What is one writer's idea of a truly horrifying experience according to the introduction?

What is one writer's idea of a truly horrifying experience according to the introduction?

-:

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Introduction by Andre Norton

Rand MQNally & Company

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

Baleful beasts and eerie creatures.

CONTENTS: Butler, B. The patchwork monkey.

1. Horror tales, American. [1. Horror stories.

2. Short stories] I. Ruth, Rod.

Copyright 1976 by Rand McNally & Company

First printing, 1976

*AJM flAi LIB RAM*

THE PATCHWORK MONKEY 13

THE SPELL OF SPIRIT STONES 64

THE NIGHT CREATURE 77

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT 102

NIGHTMARE IN A BOX 114

under control, our servant rather than our master. Why do

there was a discussion of what made up fear. One writer

Distortion of the everyday provoked, in her, fear carried to

ster Blood" sees in action and is able to combat because he

of a space suit, while the strangers of Ms. Bednarz and

mother to drag her away from her favorite television pro-

time, and Mrs. Welles was too old-fashioned to have a tele-

"Now that'senough of that talk. Mrs. Welles has had

Mrs. Welles turned. "Oh, that's Patches. He started

him." She wasn't sure herself if she were wishing or hinting.

"Jason," Molly protested, tightening her grip. She

BALEFUL BEASTS AND EERIE CREATURES

I don't care, Molly told herself fiercely. She said it

A queer prickle down her spine sent her hurrying in-

BALEFUL BEASTS AND EERIE CREATURES

He could be stubborn when he wanted to be. Molly

Molly tiptoed downstairs. She was on the bottom step

She picked up the monkey from the pillow. Funny, he

stabbed," she said, showing the pins to Jason. "Lie down

watch television. Still, if she made him stay up here and

added very firmly, "He certainly didn't come by himself."

for a clumsy leap. A gust of rain spattered against the win-

THE PATCHWORK MONKEY

Molly put her hand to her mouth. The punctures were

21 "It's true," Jason whispered into the silence that fol-

lowed the thunder. "True, what you said."

the opening just as the lights flickered and went out.

"Jason," she called. "Where are you?"

When her spinning wits cleared and she could bear to

BALEFUL BEASTS AND EERIE CREATURES

"Jason?" she tried waveringly.

but it was Jason's sure enough, and he wasn't crying.

They got messed up."

"Don't you know?" Jason stretched out a hand still half-

Molly shrank away from the blazing yellow of his eyes.

they be? He had seen many wild animals in the woods

he fell into restless sleep.

or because he was a slow learner

AJM flAi LIB RAM