Chapter 1

PAUL HAD EXPECTED to die of a gunshot wound through the chest, at high noon, in slow motion. Or to be trampled to death by a herd of rabid cows as he carried a beautiful cowgirl to safety. Because, if you’re forced to die in Wyoming, you should have the inalienable right to do so with a bit of Old West dignity; you should be allowed a John Wayne drawl in your final words, snakeskin boots on your feet, and a harmonica wailing plaintively in the distance. Or at least a Maverik gas station nearby.

But apparently Paul was going to die in a dusty alley between a hardware store and City Hall. And he was going to die not as a man dies but as a squeaky toy crushed beneath the treads of a dump truck dies.

The day had started out only slightly ominously. A line of cows, chewing cud behind a barbed wire fence, had watched Paul silently as he made his way to the front door of the school. Then a line of students, chewing gum in front of their lockers, had watched him silently as he tried to find his first class. But that was to be expected; it was his first day in school, and cows rarely have anything pressing on their schedule.

Paul couldn’t help but notice that Harrowed Valley Middle School was nothing like the Acorn Academy for Young People in Seattle, where “the child flourishes in a non-structured environment filled with intellectual stimulation and attentive mentors.” For one thing, the teachers here wore pointy, steel-toed cowboy boots instead of soft, hand-beaded moccasins. And they never once asked him how the lessons “made him feel.”

But things had stayed quiet until social studies class, when a little mechanism inside Paul’s gut started blinking nervously to itself. He knew this was the mechanism that detects the possibility of severe bodily harm or death. It goes off when you step in front of a bus, or when the ladder you’re perched atop starts to tip, or when Mom confronts you with the report card you thought you had hidden. What he didn’t understand was why his Survive-O-Tron was going off right then.

The answer revealed itself later that afternoon at the local 7-Eleven. As Paul walked in to the store, the door he was pushing hit something, and that something grunted. Paul turned to see a big, muscular kid about his age—the type of kid young bulldozers want to be like when they grow up—looking precisely as if he had just dumped thirty-two ounces of cherry slush down the front of his shirt, a Slurpee cup still clutched in one gorilla-sized hand. Paul recognized him from social studies class: Cody.

Cody gave Paul a long, hard look and crushed the cup meaningfully, as if it might be a particular person’s neck. Paul’s Survive-O-Tron popped a few light bulbs and blew a fuse for good measure.

But it was too late. Cody’s hand had already dropped the cup and grabbed the front of Paul’s T-shirt. He pushed Paul out the door and up against a telephone booth.

Cody looked straight into Paul’s eyes and studied him a moment. “Think you’re funny?” Cody asked.

Paul knew this was a rhetorical question. But he wasn’t sure how to answer rhetorical questions. If only he had spent less time contemplating his teachers’ nose hair and more time listening to their lectures.

“If you think you’re funny, you should be laughing right now,” Cody continued in a reasonable voice.

The Survive-O-Tron flopped around in Paul’s gut like a landed fish.

“So laugh,” Cody smiled. “Laugh.”

The Survive-O-Tron collapsed into a quivering heap, and Paul stared at Cody, too frightened to react.

“Don’t worry,” Cody soothed. “You’re the new kid here. I’ll help you out.”

A knuckle dug itself deep between two of Paul’s favorite  ribs. He gasped at the pain, tears springing to his eyes.

“Now we’ve both begun to share in the humor of this moment,” Cody said. “Shall we continue?”  

But the front door swung open and a man stormed out.

“Hey!” he shouted. “What’s going on?”

As Cody let go of Paul’s shirt and turned around, Paul decided that his career as a long-distance sprinter would begin now.

* * *

Cody started tracking Paul immediately, even deputizing a couple of other kids—the kind who look like they torture small animals for fun. The kind who look like they don’t bother to make distinctions between small animals and small humans. Feeling them getting closer, Paul had abruptly rounded a corner and run for all he was worth before ducking into this alley.

Of course, he wasn’t safe here. He’d have to find another hiding place, pronto. He briefly considered running home, but at the thought, a dark feeling filled his chest. He didn’t want to go back there. Not before Mom or Dad got home. Something about that place.

It watched. That was the only way Paul could describe it.

Paul poked his head out of the alley and looked up and down Main Street, his ears on high alert. The street was deserted, so, gathering up his nerve, he crept out.

Behind him to his left stood a huge warehouse. Painted on it were the words, “Doc’s Den” and then, in smaller print, “If you can’t find it here, you haven’t looked hard enough.” Inside the display window, on top of a carpeted shelf, stood a mob of small figures peering out at Paul, some wooden, some porcelain, some—he wasn’t sure what they were made of. They obviously hadn’t been dusted since the Great Depression. Paul felt like he was being stared at by a clutch of mummified gnomes. The more he looked, the more the hollow little eyes reminded him of the dark windows of his house—the windows he didn’t look into because he was afraid he’d see something other than his own reflection.

Suddenly rough voices broke into Paul’s thoughts. They were echoing toward him from the alley and he was positive his name was being sprinkled into the conversation along with an abundance of other four-letter words.

Paul didn’t have a fight or flight instinct, his was flee or pee. And the second option was about to assert itself. He cast around for an escape route, but no more alleys stood within running distance, and the empty street offered no protection.

The little gnomes stared at him. “Come into our house,” they seemed to whine in little Munchkin voices.

The voices from the alley came close enough to become very distinct. It was now or never. Paul shoved the door to Doc’s Den open and skittered inside.


Copyright 2013 by Stephen Carter
All rights reserved