Laughed! God, yes! Laughed!
It was like smashing glass. His fear shattered, fell away.
“Eleven!” he cried. “Twelve!” he shouted. “Thirteen!!” he hooted. “Damn you! Hell, oh God, hell, yes, hell! And fourteen!”
Why hadn’t he thought of this before, age six? Just leap up, shouting laughs, to kill that Thing forever!?
“Fifteen!” he snorted, and almost brayed with delight.
A final wondrous jump.
“Sixteen!”
He landed. He could not stop laughing.
He thrust his fist straight out in the solid dark cold air. The laughter froze, his shout choked in his throat. He sucked in winter night.
Why? a child’s voice echoed from far off below in another time. Why am I being punished? What have I done?
His heart stopped, then let go. His groin convulsed. A gunshot of scalding water burst forth to stream hot and shocking down his legs.
“No!” he shrieked.
For his fingers had touched something…
It was the Thing at the top of the stairs.
It was wondering where he had been.
It had been waiting all these long years....
For him to come home.
Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-made Truly Egyptian Mummy
That was the autumn they found the genuine Egyptian mummy out past Loon Lake.
How the mummy got there, and how long it had been there, no one knew. But there it was, all wrapped up in its creosote rags, looking a bit spoiled by time, and just waiting to be found.
The day before, it was just another autumn day with the trees blazing and letting down their burnt-looking leaves and a sharp smell of pepper in the air when Charlie Flagstaff, aged twelve, stepped out and stood in the middle of a pretty empty street, hoping for something big and special and exciting to happen.
“Okay,” said Charlie to the sky, the horizon, the whole world. “I’m waiting. Come on!”
Nothing happened. So Charlie kicked the leaves ahead of him across town until he came to the tallest house on the greatest street, the house where everyone in Green Town came with troubles. Charlie scowled and fidgeted. He had troubles, all right, but just couldn’t lay his hand on their shape or size. So he shut his eyes and just yelled at the big house windows:
“Colonel Stonesteel!”
The front door flashed open, as if the old man had been waiting there, like Charlie, for something incredible to happen.
“Charlie,” called Colonel Stonesteel, “you’re old enough to rap. What is there about boys makes them shout around houses? Try again.”
The door shut.
Charlie sighed, walked up, knocked softly.
“Charlie Flagstaff, is that you?” The door opened again, the colonel squinted out and down. “I thought I told you to yell around the house!”
“Heck,” sighed Charlie, in despair.