Hedorah

I mean, if anything, it seems like*

   At three forty-two in the morning, an eleven-year-old elementary school student named Ronnie Chilton is shaken from his slumber by a piercing screech superseded by the sound of shattering glass or something like that. When he was nine years old, the boy had dropped one of his mother's fancy dinner goblets (the ones reserved for impressing visitors) while unloading the dishwasher even though it had, officially, been his sister's turn, but she was busy preparing for some stupid piano recital so she'd given him a 3 Musketeers bar to do it for her. Things had begun well enough but then, just like that, the chalice had slipped from his buttery fingers and he'd watched in horror as it exploded upon the kitchen floor, which made quite a racket, though not nearly as much as his mother produced that same evening (and well into the next day). The sound which wakes him is like that ornate glass breaking apart but much, much louder, and the first thing which pops into Ronnie's sleepy head is Mom's gonna be mad. His parents, however, sleep in a bedroom that faces the backyard, with door and windows firmly shut, whereas, in contrast, the window of this boy's room is nearly wide open to the vacant street beyond. Though the temperature's been dropping this past week, the sounds and sensations of a delightful summer linger, and besides, the lad's pajamas are flannel, a gift from his aunt.

   

   Cool weather may not disturb him, but those harrowing noises certainly do. In the time it takes him to rub his eyes and roll out of bed, a car has sped away; the boy is at once eager to see if there was an accident of some kind, yet fearful of what may be uncovered. He's also worried about his mother, for she could burst in at any given moment to put an end to his nocturnal investigation. With each step taken toward the window there's the unmistakable creak of pressure upon wood, and not a day goes by in which little Ronnie Chilton doesn't wish for plush carpeting in his bedroom but over the years he's learned to tread carefully across this wooden minefield so as to lessen the odds of his spirited mother's intrusion. She has the ears of a desert fox, although it's a case of extremely selective hearing. Footsteps on wooden floors, dangerous. The opening of a smuggled fun-sized bag of Fritos, even more so; but a bomb could go off a block away and his mom would sleep right through the night completely undisturbed. She's weird like that.

   The Anderson's turbocharged German Shepherd, Rathbone, is barking like mad from within its outdoor kennel, one installed by Mr. Anderson so that the dog would annoy not only its owners but, potentially, the neighborhood as a whole, at least according to Mr. Miller, Ronnie's surly, nearest neighbor to the east, whose porch light shines upon the immediate vicinity with countless watts of ferocious luminosity. From his vantage point, Ronnie takes note of the street itself, for it has become a vast, sooty ocean filled with tens, if not hundreds of sparkling diamonds which float atop the surface with flagrant impunity. Mr. Miller spots the abundant chunks of glass as well, Ronnie supposes, but parking along the street is prohibited and therefore the event, whatever it had been, probably caused no damage to Miller's own vehicle (a Lincoln Town Car purchased sometime prior to Ronnie's birth), so to him would be a minor inconvenience at worst. Just another thing for the old man to gripe about.

   Another five seconds pass and the light is shut off, Mr. Miller bearing neither a reason nor the will to care, but even now, with only the pale moonlight to chaperone him, Ronnie keeps staring out the window, his nose just centimeters away from the screen barrier. Rathbone has ceased barking, apparently satiated by the lack of continued disturbances (yet too stupid to realize the futility of his own) and the curious lad seizes upon the opportunity to simply gaze outward, taking in all the night has to offer; even though it's pretty much the same as the daytime hours, there's an odd sensation sweeping over him, a feeling of serenity, of timelessness, which is an experience oft-maligned by eleven-year-olds of most any disposition. Ronnie's no different but still he marvels at the wondrous, nearly infinite range of dark blue and black that blankets the cooling Earth.

   In the daytime, Roosevelt Middle School is aswarm with teenaged life, and the raw energy discharged by those older, scarier kids frightens him. Fifth grade has only just begun yet the rumors of what transpires during middle school abound: serious fights, meaner teachers, girls that don't look like girls anymore, a class entitled Life Skills, and so much more. Worst of all, Ronnie basically lives across the street -kitty-cornered, actually, but it's all the same, really- from his future middle school, which won't leave him much room for avoiding bullies and -if the tales told prove to be true, which in his experience, they most certainly will- come this time next year a legion of newly-promoted eighth-grade monstrosities would descend upon the sixth graders to zealously tenderize the fresh meat without the slightest shred of mercy.

   Such thoughts trouble the boy greatly, but at night, the massive structure is both majestic and wholly unthreatening. Ronnie Chilton's no commando, however, and the notion of being trapped inside the empty school scares the crap out him, but from a distance its mute simplicity is breathtaking. According to his father it's the nearest bomb shelter to their home, which makes the place even cooler just as long as the other kids don't get in there when the bombs start falling. Bombs don't exactly terrify him as they're an unlikely assailant (who would want to bomb Cedar Rapids, anyway?) whereas tangible threats such as oppressive people -and giant snakes!- are absolutely horrifying.

   Giant snakes! The thought alone causes his bladder to quiver. He hasn't the slightest clue as to how, when, or whence this phobia originated, but Ronnie's irrational fear is so great that his otherwise mundane imagination has been known to get the better of him, especially at night. In the absence of proper illumination, an untethered garden hose can become an adder; a wound extension cord a coiled King Cobra just waiting to strike. Nevertheless, from his mother's perspective a storm drain turned predatory anaconda is an outrageously infantile apparition for an eleven-year-old boy to entertain, and she may be correct but Ronnie doesn't care; if it scares him, it's scary.

   Upon first sight, he spots what appears to be a gargantuan snake slithering atop the thinning grass of the field across the street opposite his opened window, and for this reason he's trembling profusely yet unable to avert his eyes from the disturbingly amorphous curiosity. This shadowy, seemingly-reptillian mass is mostly obscured by the darkness, a half-eaten chunk of licorice spat into a puddle of unwanted coffee; nonetheless it exists, be it snakelike or not. The longer he watches, the more Ronnie placates the dread of it being a titanic snake, serpent, worm, grub, or whatever, but it moves like a slug (albeit a humungous one), creeping through the sticky grass, leaving an icky trail of putrid, nondescript goo in its wake, although it's too distant and too swarthy to ascertain much more than that, especially with the slovenly blob so near the ground.

   Maybe it's the Blob! he thinks for a moment, reminded of that old movie he saw on AMC last year while he was home sick with a vicious case of the flu. His mother stayed home from work for two days to make certain he'd been comfortable. Ronnie remembers the film well because the special effects were entirely laughable and his mom agreed but said that it was a classic, so they watched it together. But this thing couldn't be the titular blob. Even in the absence of manufactured light, Ronnie is able to discern that there are pieces or appendages of some sort moving about, which implies a definite shape or form, one that's, as of yet, unknown.

   Whatever the thing may be, it's slithering away from the houses toward the middle school with increasing speed (yet still progressing at a snail's pace). Ronnie wonders how long it's been since he began watching the shape crawl. Thirty seconds? A minute, tops. Then it halts.

   The slippery shadow begins to rise, and in doing so, inadvertently satiates a large portion of Ronnie's initial curiosity. It's a struggle at first; though his vision has adapted to the surroundings somewhat, the best he can manage is to speculate that the blackened creature has four limbs, and that it can stand, but at least one of those limbs is crooked, thus its upright position is uneven, like that of a marionette with a few of its strings cut loose. Yeah! Like a puppet! he convinces himself. The thing appears to possess arms, legs, torso, and a head of sorts. Given the restrictive viewing conditions, precise delineation is impossible, but Ronnie's confident that it's a head which rests atop the torso, for what else but a head would reside there, he supposes; so it's human or at least humanoid, although its stance is perplexing, to say nothing of the fact that it being humanlike is scarcely reassuring.

   The broken toy pulls its arms up toward the glistening sky, but the left arm seems reluctant to accompany its corresponding appendage, and Ronnie can see that the arm in question is bent, not at the elbow but, rather, at some inexact point nearer to the wrist. The shoulder itself, to which the arm is attached, is slumped at an implausible angle, as in the arm struggles upward while the shoulder continues to slope downward. The boy's no authority on human anatomy but he's pretty sure the position is an entirely unnatural one, and ostensibly the sinewy shadow concurs, for the disfigured arm is lowered gingerly, only to be whipped back toward the stars with bestial savagery. Once. Twice. Three times. There's a whole lot of snap, crackle, and pop involved, accentuated by a throaty, concluding moan, reminiscent of the ones occasionally heard in movies he's forbidden to watch but still does before his parents get home from work on weekday afternoons. The process seems to have done the trick, since both arms now arch toward the moon as if to strangle the light from its aluminum veins.


  Rathbone's back on the scene, frantically barking at whatever's out there while part of Ronnie wishes to God the dumb dog would just shut its trap, even if a second, more powerful aspect of him wants his neighbors to wake up, turn on some lights, and take heed. Ideally, that would happen, but most people have become so desensitized to Rathbone's prattle that they simply shut their windows, cover their heads with pillows, and sleep through it as best they can. No one arises: not a mother, father, or neighbor, and Ronnie merely watches in utter silence as the discomforting shape lowers its arms lackadaisically, pauses briefly, and pivots toward Ronnie and Rathbone's general direction, the twisted, unidentifiable mass stretching itself ajar to peek at that which disturbs its moment of grace. Amidst the blackness, therein lies a mark partially recognizable, like the soggy letter X found within a bowl of half-eaten alphabet soup, as well as something reminiscent of eyes, albeit a pale, unearthly shade of electric blue, leering at him or, perhaps, at Rathbone, for the canine's voracious yapping has grown despairingly frantic as if the dog were possessed by frenzied anticipation. Either way, Ronnie Chilton wants his mommy right now, but is unwilling to speak, move, or breathe lest he draw further attention to himself; instead, he merely gawks at the ghoulish, blacklit apparition that's peering at him. For a languorous moment the soiled wraith sways with the same cool breeze that gently assails Ronnie's cheeks, as if the wind itself were a callously duplicitous harbinger of atrocities to come.


   But nothing comes; the abstruse spectre turns from him, leisurely realigning itself toward the towering red-brick structure which so effortlessly dominates the not-so-distant landscape and then begins shambling toward some unknown destination. Hobbling at first, the creature nonetheless gains considerable, albeit wobbly momentum until, as to Ronnie's best reckoning, the crooked leg corrects itself, at which point the achromatic abomination surges into a dash of impossibly equine proportions, dashing across the field, up the ensuing hill, and then, finally, beyond the scope of Ronnie's restricted vision.


   Whatever the horrid thing may have been, it has departed and the world returns to normal, even if it hasn't. For the first time this season, Ronnie slams his window shut, oblivious to Rathbone's ongoing racket as well as his own. He charges into bed, pulling the covers well over his head, only to curl himself into a tight ball of shuddering flesh; his bladder is on the verge of exploding yet he cares neither about that, nor the unmistakable sound of his mother's approach. She'll thunder and moan about his wetting the bed, but even that is better than attempting to explain the situation to her. Rathbone would have better luck in convincing anyone of anything Ronnie's just seen, and even if the lad were capable of doing so, he wouldn't, though he'll scarcely forget anytime soon.




*  There's a foolish little boy eager to see the world for what it shall soon become.