The Tanglewood Terror Page 17

  “Yeah, I think I want a hot dog,” said Allan.

  “Bri, I can bring you a slice of pizza if you hold our spot.”

  “Extra cheese,” he said. “And a root beer.”

  “Got it. Hold our place.”

  Brian widened his stance, trying to take up as much room as possible.

  “Atta boy.”

  By the time Allan and I made our way back, it was getting packed up front. We had to go around a crowd of college kids who wouldn’t let us through. Two of them were wearing Bowdoin sweatshirts, which meant they’d come a long way for our small-town party.

  We ate our pizza and drank our soda while the park filled up with people. Way more people than I expected, a lot of them from out of town. I hoped that meant the town was making money.

  Some guy came out and thanked everyone for coming, reminded them of all the stuff they should spend money on while they were there, and left the stage. There was another half-hour wait while the sky darkened and the crowd got impatient. Finally the PA system blasted some static, and then a voice rang out.

  “Please welcome—all the way from Boston—the Bright Fun Guys!”

  Who?

  Brian looked at me, his eyes wide in confusion. I patted his shoulder to let him know it was okay. This was an opening band, not a replacement band.

  But it was Arkham Hat Shop. Rick came out first, sat down, and started pounding on the bass and tapping on the toms. Then Wade came out and thumped out a familiar bass line. The song was “Relationship,” their best-known song. I was surprised they didn’t save it for last, but maybe they wanted to hook the crowd with a song we all knew. The audience started clapping along with the drums.

  Dad got the biggest round of applause, since he was a local. He was a silhouette against the lights, windmilling his arm at the guitar, and I had to admit it was pretty awesome to be his kid right then and there with everyone cheering. Brian was jumping up and down, practically as high as the stage.

  Finally the singer came out—Danny—and grabbed the mike.

  “We thought we’d try a new name out tonight,” he growled, and then a big sign unfurled behind them, reading THE BRIGHT FUN GUYS. The crowd cheered. There’s nothing like a bad pun to kick things off.

  They ripped through “Relationship” and a few other songs, never taking more than a few seconds between songs. The sound saturated the crowd, the bass and drums sending little shock waves through our feet. It was really high energy, like football, only with more shoving. No wonder Dad loved it so much.

  Danny walked off after a few shout-outs to the crowd, and the rest of the band settled into a long instrumental called “Mountain Madness.” As the song wound down, the drummer and bass player also left, leaving Dad all alone on the stage. He edged up to the mike, dripping sweat like he’d run a marathon.

  “I’m going to do something dumb,” he said. The PA system squawked because he was too close to the mike. “I’m going to do something dumb,” he repeated.

  Please don’t be that dumb, I thought.

  “This is for my best buddies,” he said. He fiddled with a couple of strings on his guitar, then went back and kicked a pedal to soften the sound. He started strumming, a little picking here and there, and I knew the song instantly.

  “ ‘Through the woodland, through the valley, comes a horseman wild and free.…’ ”

  The crowd seemed to like it okay, but a lot went off to get drinks or hit the porta-potties. They were talking more, too. But it was all right, because Dad wasn’t playing it for them. He was playing it for Brian and me. I was kind of touched and teary-eyed.

  He carried on through the song, asking who the brave young horseman could be. When he was done, he muttered that the band would be right back, set the guitar on its stand, and disappeared. There was still some humming noise, and a sound guy ran to make sure the amps were muted and the mike was off.

  “I need to go,” Brian said. I thought he wanted to say hi to Dad, but then I saw his one-leg-then-the-other dance. He meant “go” as in “to the bathroom.”

  “All right, let’s go.”

  We got at the end of the porta-potty line, which was pretty long. I passed the time looking for friends, but it was hard to see anyone because of all the people.

  “I didn’t think this many people lived in the whole county!” Allan said.

  “They don’t,” said Brian. “They’re from all over.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Did Mom come? I wondered. She should have come, but it didn’t seem likely.

  “Boo!”

  Somebody nudged me from behind. I wheeled around and saw Mandy wrapped up in a scarf, with a wool hunting cap perched on her head.

  “You look like Elmer Fudd,” I said.

  “What’s up, Doc?” she asked in a bad Bugs Bunny voice.

  “Wrong character!” Brian said.

  “Whatever, Doc.”

  Brian’s turn finally came to use the toilet, and he ran off to do so.

  “You decided to check out the festival?” I asked Mandy. It surprised me that she’d take the chance of getting busted.

  “I heard that Arkham Hat Shop was playing,” she said.

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  “Yes! I’ve got a lot of their songs. They’re cool. The singer is awesome.”

  “Yeah. Brian likes them a lot.”

  Another porta-potty door opened and Allan took off for it. There were only four. The line behind us had gotten long.

  “He’s heard of Arkham Hat Shop?” said Mandy. “He’s cooler than I thought. So you’re not a fan?”

  “They’re all right.”

  “It’s cool to see them live,” she said. “I didn’t think they were together anymore. They’re old, too. The guitar player used to be really hot.”

  My turn came at the portable toilet.

  “Excuse me,” I told Mandy. “I have to throw up.”

  I didn’t really, but I did have to go. When I got out, the band was back on the stage. Everyone packed the stage, and I couldn’t see Brian or Allan or Mandy anywhere.

  Danny came up to the microphone.

  “I’m going to have the guys bring these lights down …,” he said. The spotlight dimmed, and he kept gesturing to go down more until all the lights around the band were off and we could see the mushrooms flaring up behind them. The crowd was quiet but started cheering when they realized what he was doing. The band launched into a song called “I’m Beginning to See the Light.”

  The crowd loved it, punching the air and hooting and swaying to the music. My dad had a long solo, and the singer came back for another verse and another chorus. They finished with a huge crescendo and a round of applause that went on and on, a lot longer than I expected. Then I realized that the band wasn’t playing and that most of the crowd had fallen quiet, but there was still a loud screechy noise in the air, coming from everywhere.

  The mushrooms were screaming.

  The caps were turning inside out like umbrellas on a windy day. They seemed to be moving—not rustling in the wind, but wriggling and struggling to break free of the ground. And all of them were making a racket, none of them in quite the same key. It was a total cacophony.

  All at once everybody was running every which way across the park. I realized that people might get trampled and moved back toward the porta-potties, still looking for Brian. I called his name, but it was impossible to be heard over the racket. I thought I saw him running in the distance and took off after him, but I only got about twenty yards before I was knocked flat by a big guy running the other way. Feet thundered by my ears, and I was sure I would get stepped on. I got to my knees and stopped.

  There was a mushroom not far from me—a really broad cap, turned inside out so I could see the gills vibrating. That was how they made noise—they were like a billion string instruments, their caps made into megaphones. They were able to reach Metallica-like volume because there were so many of them.

  Somebody grabbed
me and pulled me up.

  It was Mandy. I watched her mouth opening and closing, her arms gesturing, and shook my head. I couldn’t hear a thing.

  “I have to find Brian!” I shouted back. She shook her head and cupped her ear.

  It was impossible to hear anything.

  “Come on!” she shouted. I could read her lips.

  She ran, and I followed a herd of people heading down Keatston Street. A lot of people were getting into their cars, but once their cars were started, there was nowhere to go—the street was clogged with people and other cars. I saw one guy pounding on his horn, but nobody could hear him, so he opened the door and started yelling, and we couldn’t hear that either.

  There were Brian and Allan, stopped in the middle of the road, looking around. I waved, but Brian didn’t see me until I actually nabbed him.

  “Bikes!” I shouted.

  “What?” I saw his lips open and guessed the word. I mimed like I was grabbing handlebars and he nodded. We ran around behind the restaurant. It was just as noisy, but there were no people and it felt calmer. I pointed out the bikes and Mandy nodded.

  We slalomed through the crowd, Allan on his bike, Mandy on Brian’s, and Brian parked on the seat behind me. It was slow going until we broke free of the crowd; then we were able to pedal like mad until we turned off on our own street. Allan veered off into his driveway. His parents were waiting for him on the porch.

  I sped on right into our backyard and used my feet to help brake the bike. Brian jumped off.

  “We’re going to kill this thing!” I shouted. “You go inside.”

  “No!” He shook his head. I shoved him toward the back door. I didn’t have time to argue. He sulked but went in.

  Mandy caught up with me.

  “Did you take the quad out here?” I shouted.

  “Yeah, but it’s way over there!” she shouted back, gesturing to a little-used side trail. “I didn’t want anyone to find it!”

  We didn’t have to shout. The mushrooms had fallen silent, but it took us a moment to realize because our ears were still ringing.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s not that far.”

  “What do you want to do?” Mandy asked.

  “We’re going to kill it,” I told her.

  I grabbed a flashlight and a bunch of tools from the shed, and we set out through the forest to the clearing. I felt jangly and jittery, like I did before football games. I took the shovel and an ax, and Mandy carried a flashlight and a saw.

  We shone the light around the clearing, searching for the spot Cassie had marked, and found my nearly invisible X in the dirt. I grabbed a shovel and brought it down with all my might, barely getting it into the tough dirt and immediately hitting a gnarly mass of fungus. I scraped away the soil, exposing the neon cords—the roots lit up at night, too. Mandy went to work with the ax while I moved over and kept digging.

  We worked like that for a long time, trading tools a few times, barely talking because our ears were still numb from the noise at the park. We slowly unearthed an enormous knot of brightly lit cords and began chopping and sawing at it and taking it apart.

  It was nearly dawn when we felt a tremor in the ground. We’d cleared a hole about three feet around and three feet deep and were still working at the cords. The tremor was slight, like you feel when someone drops something heavy on the floor.

  The fungus was moving beneath us.

  I tried to pick up the pace even more, but my body felt like it was made of jelly. Sweat and dirt filled my eyes, and all I could do was try to wipe my face with my shirt, which was filthy from the work.

  There was a roar in the distance, and a moment later Brian appeared on the quad.

  “I brought food and water,” he said. “I made peanut butter sandwiches, and I brought the first aid kit in case anybody got hurt. Oh, and I brought Dad’s camping kit!”

  “Brian,” said Mandy, “you’re a hero.” She took a bottle of water and guzzled it.

  “Thanks, man.” I went for the water first, drinking half a bottle and using the rest to wash my face a little. I used a ratty towel from Dad’s camp bag to dry off.

  “We really appreciate it, but maybe you better go back?” I suggested.

  “But I want to help!” said Brian.

  “I don’t know if it’s safe.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be here either.”

  He had a point.

  “Somebody has to do something,” I said.

  “Hey, three people would be better than two,” Mandy whispered to me.

  “Fine.” I couldn’t win an argument with her on his side. “All right, but stay out of the hole. We need someone to help us out later anyway.”

  “Okay,” said Brian.

  Mandy and I went back into the hole to work with new energy, scooping out more dirt and sawing apart the fungal branches. They got thicker and thicker as we went deeper. Brian paced the edge of the hole, asking us every few minutes if we needed anything.

  The hole was now almost five feet deep. It might not be easy to get out again, but we kept digging. I pulled on a particularly stubborn cord and saw something tucked under it, off to the side.

  “Look.” I pointed it out to Mandy—it looked like there was a ball in there, shining as brightly as a streetlight bulb.

  “Is that the heart?” she asked.

  “It must be.”

  I dropped to my knees and went to work with an ax, hacking at cords as thick and fleshy as young trees. They splintered and slivered but refused to break. Mandy worked the other side with a saw, so we were on the same wavelength—if we could lift out this chunk of fungal root, we could get at the heart thing below it.

  I’ve come to doubt my memory of what happened next. I mean, I do remember it, but when I play it out, none of it seems believable.

  First there was another tremor, and I heard a deep grinding noise, like a tectonic plate sliding deep in the earth. I could see Mandy’s mouth open and close without a sound, while Brian shouted from somewhere behind me. The ground shook beneath us, and loose soil started to dance around the edge of the hole. I stumbled and dropped the ax. The blunt side glanced off my knee and sent a spasm of pain radiating up my body.

  I saw Mandy stumble too, the ground quaking beneath her. The cord we’d been hacking at lashed out like a tentacle, whipping over my head and slapping the edge of the hole. I grabbed the ax, reached over, and gave it a few whacks. It must have come loose, flopping out like a giant spring and making the ground shift under us.

  “Come on!” Brian shouted. “Let’s go!” He was on the edge of the hole, holding out a hand to help me out. I shook my head no. We were here to fight this thing.

  The grinding noise became louder and the ground erupted. Mandy lost the saw in a jumble of cords, kicked at a big fungal tentacle, and turned around, tripping as her foot got caught in a snarl. I pulled her free, striking at the tentacle with the ax even as the fungus rose up from the ground and rained dirt around our heads and shoulders.

  I felt a loop come around my waist. I dropped the ax and tried to pry the thing off me, but it picked me up and flipped me upside down like it was going to administer the piledriver, Undertaker-style.

  I could see the core beneath me, a ball of pink among the green. It was not as big as I expected—no bigger than a football, actually. There was a gaping wound in it where we’d cut off the major cord, and it was now connected only by some smaller, stringier cords radiating around it. I wondered if I could take it away, like I was forcing a fumble. I needed to free myself for one second.

  Something whizzed by, I heard a splintering crunch, and the shovel tumbled past my head, nearly taking my ear with it. Brian must have hurled it like a spear into the cord around my waist. The grasp on me loosened, and I dived toward the heart of the monster. I grabbed the corners with my hands and twisted, letting my falling body weight do the work. There was a series of snaps as the strings holding the core broke. I dug my fingernails into the spongy ball
so I wouldn’t lose it. I was whapped and walloped by hard-hitting weights piling up on me, but I’d been there before—a dog pile after a fumble—and knew what to do, which was protect the ball. I felt the fingers of the fungus poke and prod at my arms as they tried to work the core free, but I held on tight and waited as they gave a last desperate grab, then twitched and were still.

  At least I remember it that way. The more I try to re-create it, exactly as it happened, the more it feels like a vivid nightmare I had long ago.

  Mandy pulled the cords off me until a little window of morning light opened above my head. I crawled out, still holding the heart. Brian helped each of us out of the hole, grabbing our hands so we could clamber up the side.

  The fungus looked like nothing now—a twisted mess of thick twine and ropes, dead on the ground. In the trees past the clearing, I saw the mushrooms dimming. I still held the core, which was now white and felt as lifeless as a hunk of wood.

  “That’s all?” said Mandy.

  “I guess so.”

  Brian took it from me and drove the shovel into it, dead center. It split open like a big potato. There was no blood and not so much as a whimper. I’d forgotten it was just a fungus.

  “I thought it would be harder,” he said.

  “Me too.” I almost felt sorry for it.

  We heard voices and saw flashlights slashing through the trees, and a moment later some police came stomping into the clearing. One of them got on the radio and barked into it: “Three seventy-two niner five a zero.” I don’t remember exactly.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Mandy. She went. There were no handcuffs and no threats.

  “What is the nature of this vehicle?” another officer asked me, pointing at the quad.

  “Mostly a Royal Enfield quadricycle,” I told him, looking around to make sure Brian was okay. He was talking to another cop and pointing back at me.

  “It’s got a newer motor and some odds and ends from other things,” I told the cop.

  “Is the vehicle yours?”

  “No, but I borrowed it from somebody. Well, she borrowed it.” I gestured at the space where Mandy had been standing a few minutes ago. “The owner knows we have it. She’s a friend of ours.”