The Mallow Marsh Monster by Gary Ghislain

Author:Gary Ghislain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2020-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

“Where are the twins?” I asked once Suzie, Ilona, and I were in my bedroom.

“They sneaked out,” Suzie and Ilona said as one.

“Poof!”

“Departed.”

“Vanished.”

“Ha!”

They rolled their eyes and sat on my bed in perfect synchronicity. I didn’t know whether to laugh or shudder.

“They weren’t scared of the monster anymore,” Suzie said, breaking from their pitch-perfect impression of the twins. “They probably think they can talk it into transforming back into their mother and ask it for a good-night kiss.”

“Dad and Uncle Jerry are going to try to get them back before they get bit and turn into two identical mini-monsters.”

“Speaking of bitten and soon-to-be monster people…” Suzie looked at me sideways. “Is there anything else growing on you that we should know about?”

“No, just the teeth.” I clenched my fist and my knuckles cracked loudly. “My hands feel weird though.”

“And you burp like an ogre.”

“I’ve been eating a lot.”

I went to the window. There was nothing to see outside, no moon, no stars, just endless darkness. I reached for the glass of water on my nightstand.

Ilona got to it first and took it away from me. “About that.” She opened my window and emptied the water outside. “You have to stop eating or drinking anything. It will slow down the process.”

“The process?”

“Of you turning into a monster.” Suzie opened her white handbag. “But if you turn and attack us, we have this.”

She fished out a short, ancient-looking stick.

“Brilliant. Please tell me that’s a magic wand.”

It looked like a magic wand, but hollow, like a wooden pipe. It was about half the length of Suzie’s forearm and came to a needle-thin point.

“It’s Dad’s,” Ilona told me. “Suzie and I call it the Sleep-o-Stick. It’s not a wand. It’s a blowgun that shoots magical pellets.”

Suzie dug deeper into her handbag and took out a little leather pouch and a set of chopsticks, the kind you get with Chinese takeout.

“Why the chopsticks?”

“Fair question, Harold.” She untied the pouch and used the chopsticks to pinch out a tiny green marble that glowed softly. “This is the pellet. If it comes in contact with your skin, you’re done for.”

“You mean…done like dead? Like it’s poison?”

“No, silly. You don’t die. You just take a long nap.” Suzie dropped the pellet in the opening of the blowgun, then brought the other side to her lips and aimed at me. She puffed her cheeks and pretended to shoot. “Plop! You’re dead asleep. Hence the name we gave it: Sleep-o-Stick.”

“We used to play with it all the time,” Ilona told me. “But then Dad confiscated it after I accidentally shot Suzie and she got knocked out for a long time.”

“It’s really fun.” Suzie tilted the blowgun over the pouch and the pellet fell back into it. “Dad says it’s really old, like medieval something. It was created by a sorcerer. It’s black magic. Dad said we could bring it in case you turn into a monster tonight.”

She gave it to me and I inspected it. It was made of dark wood and engraved with snakes eating each other’s tails.

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