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  YOUNG MONSTERS

  EDITED BY

  Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh

  HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS

  WILSON JR. HIGH MEDIA CENTER Tampa, Florida

  Young Monsters

  Copyright © 1985 by Nightfall, Inc., Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America. For information address Harper & Row Junior Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. Published simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto.

  Designed by Joyce Hopkins 123456789 10 First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Main entry under title:

  Young monsters.

  Summary: A collection of stories by a variety of authors about young people with one common characteristic—they are all monsters.

  1. Horror tales. [1. Horror stories. 2. Monsters— Fiction. 3. Short stories] I. Asimov, Isaac, 1920- . II. Greenberg, Martin Harry. III. Waugh,

  Charles.

  PZ5.Y842 1985 [Fic] 84-48352

  ISBN 0-06-020169-X

  ISBN 0-06-020170-3 (lib. bdg.)

  Acknowledgments

  “Homecoming” by Ray Bradbury. Copyright © 1946, 1974 by Ray Bradbury. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

  “Good-by, Miss Patterson” by Phyllis MacLennan. Copyright © 1972 by Phyllis MacLennan. From The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Copyright © 1978 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Wheelbarrow Box” by Richard Parker. Copyright © 1953 by Richard Parker. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Associates, Ltd.

  “The Cabbage Patch” by Theodore R. Cogswell. Copyright © 1952 by Perspective; copyright © 1980 by Theodore R. Cogswell. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Thing Waiting Outside” by Barbara Williamson. Copyright © 1977 by Barbara Williamson. From Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December, 1977. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Red as Blood” by Tanith Lee. Copyright © 1979 by Mercury Press, Inc. From The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

  “Fritzchen” by Charles Beaumont. Copyright © 1953, 1981 by Charles Beaumont. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

  “The Young One” by Jerome Bixby. Copyright © 1953 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.; copyright © 1981 by Jerome Bixby. Reprinted by permission of Forrest J. Ackerman, 2495 Glendower Ave., Hollywood, California 90027.

  “Optical Illusion” by Mark Reynolds. Copyright © 1953 by Standard Magazines, Inc.; copyright © 1981 by Mark Reynolds. Reprinted by permission of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022.

  “Idiot’s Crusade” by Clifford D. Simak. Copyright © 1954 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation; copyright © 1982 by Clifford D. Simak. Reprinted by permission of Kirby McCauley, Ltd.

  “One for the Road” by Stephen King. Copyright © 1977 by Maine Magazine Co., Inc. From Nightshift by Stephen King. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc.

  “Angelica” by Jane Yolen. Copyright © 1979 by Mercury Press, Inc. From The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  The Power of Evil

  by Isaac Asimov

  Young people living in the United States or some other developed and industrial nation are used to inhabiting a universe ruled by the laws of science.

  We know how to control the environment to what we think is our own benefit—to grow food more efficiently, to produce energy, and to control disaster. We know how to prevent many diseases from striking us, how to control or cure them if they do strike. We know how to lower the danger of lightning and how to make planes, cars, and machinery of all kinds quite safe to use.

  Even when disaster does strike—when a plane crashes or a tornado hits or someone is murdered or gets an incurable disease—we know there are natural causes and, if we can, we try to find out exactly what those causes are and how to protect ourselves more efficiently against such unpleasant events.

  How different things were in prescientific times—and, still are in many undeveloped regions today.

  When science and modern thought did not exist, and where they do not exist today, the universe is a strange and very frightening thing. There is no knowledge of the scientific laws that govern events. Things therefore take place without natural cause.

  Floods come or droughts wither the landscape; storms batter at people or epidemics cut them down; lightning strikes or animals die of disease; somehow things go wrong.

  Why? Why?

  No one in nonscientific surroundings even dreams of seeking a natural cause. If something bad happens it must be because some intelligent being has caused it out of anger or spite. If the event is something no normal human being can bring about, then it must be some superhuman being who does it. One of the gods is angry because he or she hasn’t been sacrificed to. A passing demon with a hatred for the human race inflicted them. An indifferent spirit is just amusing himself the way a child might when pulling wings off flies. Or perhaps the disaster is brought about by a just and kindly god who has been angered by sin, and who wishes to chastise the sinners.

  But you don’t know, you can’t know, exactly what caused the event or how to prevent it. Does one beg the superhuman being for forgiveness, or threaten him, or make use of certain magical charms or rituals, or what?

  And, of course, there is always the suspicion that some people are better informed on how to handle such gods and demons than others. Some people may have learned how to perform the rituals or how to say the charms in just the right way so as to prevent the supernaturally caused disasters or bring them to an end.

  If these gifted ones are kindly, and are concerned with the good of the people, they are priests, seers, saints, wise men. But what if they are themselves selfish or evil and want to use their control over the supernatural to make themselves powerful or to punish anyone who offends them? Then they are wizards, witches, enchanters, necromancers.

  Think how dangerous a universe would be if anyone you chanced to meet might be an enchanter, unknown to you. Some casual thing you say might annoy him and he might change you into a frog.

  Then, too, once you become afraid of any stranger because he might be an enchanter, it doesn’t take much to fear him (or her) because he might be a human being with horrifying abilities or habits—someone who looks like a human being, but who is so different in various ways that he might be considered a “monster.”

  What if he (or she) is not really alive, but is a ghost or spirit, an insubstantial remnant of a human being, who can take on the appearance of reality but who can disappear at will, and who means evil against you? Or what if he has the ability to change into a wolf (or some other animal) whenever he wants to; or what if he must undergo such a change even against his will at the time of the full moon. He is then a “werewolf.” What if he eats dead bodies (he is then a “ghoul”) or drinks blood (he is then a “vampire”), and what if he lives forever as long as he can indulge these appetites, or what if he has superhuman strength or other abilities in addition.

  In a world in which the idea of scientific law is absent, you don’t ask how human cells can change into wolf cells, or how hair can suddenly grow when a man becomes a wolf, and what happens to it when the wolf changes back to a ma
n. You don’t think that a diet of corpses might result in food poisoning, or that an exclusive diet of blood might result in vitamin deficiency or in an iron oversupply.

  Anything is possible, and as people tell these stories and pass them along, they get more and more horrible and horrifying.

  In this anthology, we have collected over a dozen well-done tales of young monsters, those who are children or teenagers. Some are sympathetically, even humorously, told, and some are grisly.

  But why should we be interested in such tales? Surely, we, with our familiarity with the scientific view of the universe, don’t believe that such things as vampires and ghouls and werewolves can exist?

  Yes, but we can pretend. In fact, that’s what makes it fun. In the days when we thought monsters really existed, tales about them would have scared us so badly we would have nightmares, or be afraid to go out-of-doors. We would jump at every sound or shrink at every unexpected movement. Such stories would be no fun.

  Nowadays, though, we can experience the odd world of non-science, and even get tense or scared while reading, but then, when the story is over, dismiss it and return to our normal world where things happen out of natural cause and where we know what is impossible and what is not. We have the fun of temporary fear.

  Then, too, in a way, to read monster stories is to move into a world so different from ours as to be a relief. Our own world has its terrors, too, though they are different from those of the nonscientific world.

  We don’t expect a stranger to be a dangerous enchanter— but he might be a dangerous mugger. We don’t expect to meet a ghost or ghouls when we are passing a cemetery at night, but we might meet a car with a drunken driver at the wheel. We might not expect an angry god or demon to destroy the world in a fit of anger or malevolence, but human beings in charge of governments might destroy the world by nuclear warfare in a fit of fear or anger—or simple misunderstanding.

  In a way, it is a relief to turn from the very real power of evil that surrounds us today to the totally different kind of evil that existed in the nonscientific world of ghosts and spirits and enchanters and monsters.

  After all, we know that monsters don’t exist—and that criminals and war do exist.

  Homecoming

  by Ray Bradbury

  Exactly who is a “monster” often depends entirely on your point of view.

  * * *

  “Here they come,” said Cecy, lying there flat in her bed. “Where are they?” cried Timothy from the doorway. “Some of them are over Europe, some over Asia, some of them over the Island, some over South America!” said Cecy, her eyes closed, the lashes long, brown, and quivering.

  Timothy came forward upon the bare plankings of the upstairs room. “Who are they?”

  “Uncle Einar and Uncle Fry, and there’s Cousin William, and I see Frulda and Helgar and Aunt Morgiana and Cousin Vivian, and I see Uncle Johann! They’re all coming fast!”

  “Are they up in the sky?” cried Timothy, his little gray eyes flashing. Standing by the bed, he looked no more than his fourteen years. The wind blew outside, the house was dark and lit only by starlight.

  “They’re coming through the air and traveling along the ground, in many forms,” said Cecy, in her sleeping. She did not move on the bed; she thought inward on herself and told what she saw. “I see a wolflike thing coming over a dark river—at the shallows—just above a waterfall, the starlight shining up his pelt. I see a brown oak leaf blowing far up in the sky. I see a small bat flying. I see many other things, running through the forest trees and slipping through the highest branches, and they’re all coming this way!”

  “Will they be here by tomorrow night?” Timothy clutched the bedclothes. The spider on his lapel swung like a black pendulum, excitedly dancing. He leaned over his sister. “Will they all be here in time for the Homecoming?”

  “Yes, yes, Timothy, yes,” sighed Cecy. She stiffened. “Ask no more of me. Go away now. Let me travel in the places I like best.”

  “Thanks, Cecy,” he said. Out in the hall, he ran to his room. He hurriedly made his bed. He had just awakened a few minutes ago, at sunset, and as the first stars had risen, he had gone to let his excitement about the party run with Cecy. Now she slept so quietly there was not a sound. The spider hung on a silvery lasso about Timothy’s slender neck as he washed his face. “Just think, Spid, tomorrow night is Allhallows’ Eve!”

  He lifted his face and looked into the mirror. His was the only mirror allowed in the house. It was his mother’s concession to his illness. Oh, if only he were not so afflicted! He opened his mouth, surveyed the poor, inadequate teeth nature had given him. No more than so many corn kernels— round, soft and pale in his jaws. Some of the high spirit died in him.

  It was now totally dark, and he lit a candle to see by. He felt exhausted. This past week the whole family had lived in the fashion of the old country. Sleeping by day, rousing at sunset to move about. There were blue hollows under his eyes. “Spid, I’m no good,” he said, quietly, to the little creature. ‘‘I can’t even get used to sleeping days like the others.”

  He took up the candleholder. Oh, to have strong teeth, with incisors like steel spikes. Or strong hands, even, or a strong mind. Even to have the power to send one’s mind out, free, as Cecy did. But, no, he was the imperfect one, the sick one. He was even—he shivered and drew the candle flame closer—afraid of the dark. His brothers snorted at him. Bion and Leonard and Sam. They laughed at him because he slept in a bed. With Cecy it was different; her bed was part of her comfort for the composure necessary to send her mind abroad to hunt. But Timothy, did he sleep in the wonderful polished boxes like the others? He did not! Mother let him have his own bed, his own room, his own mirror. No wonder the family skirted him like a holy man’s crucifix. If only the wings would sprout from his shoulder blades. He bared his back, stared at it. He sighed again. No chance. Never.

  Downstairs were exciting and mysterious sounds. The slithering sound of black crepe going up in all the halls and on the ceilings and doors. The smell of burning black tapers crept up the banistered stairwell. Mother’s voice, high and firm. Father’s voice, echoing from the damp cellar. Bion walking from outside the old country house lugging vast two-gallon jugs.

  “I’ve just got to go to the party, Spid,” said Timothy. The spider whirled at the end of its silk, and Timothy felt alone. He would polish cases, fetch toadstools and spiders, hang crepe, but when the party started he’d be ignored. The less seen or said of the imperfect son the better.

  All through the house below, Laura ran.

  “The Homecoming!” she shouted gaily. “The Homecoming!” Her footsteps everywhere at once.

  Timothy passed Cecy’s room again, and she was sleeping quietly. Once a month she went belowstairs. Always she stayed in bed. Lovely Cecy. He felt like asking her, “Where are you now, Cecy? And in who? And what’s happening? Are you beyond the hills? And what goes on there?” But he went on to Ellen’s room instead.

  Ellen sat at her desk, sorting out many kinds of blond, red and black hair and little scimitars of fingernail gathered from her manicurist job at the Mellin Village beauty parlor fifteen miles over. A sturdy mahogany case lay in one corner with her name on it.

  “Go away,” she said, not even looking at him. “I can’t work with you gawking.”

  “Allhallows’ Eve, Ellen—just think!” he said, trying to be friendly.

  “Hunh!” She put some fingernail clippings in a small white sack, labeled them. “What can it mean to you? What do you know of it? It’ll scare the hell out of you. Go back to bed.”

  His cheeks burned. “I’m needed to polish and work and help serve.”

  “If you don’t go, you’ll find a dozen raw oysters in your bed tomorrow,” said Ellen, matter-of-factly. “Good-by, Timothy.”

  In his anger, rushing downstairs, he bumped into Laura.

  “Watch where you’re going!” she shrieked from clenched teeth.

  She swept away. He ran
to the open cellar door, smelled the channel of moist earthy air rising from below. “Father?”

  “It’s about time,” Father shouted up the steps. “Hurry down, or they’ll be here before we’re ready!”

  Timothy hesitated only long enough to hear the million other sounds in the house. Brothers came and went like trains in a station, talking and arguing. If you stood in one spot long enough, the entire household passed with their pale hands full of things. Leonard with his little black medical case; Samuel with his large, dusty ebon-bound book under his arm, bearing more black crepe; and Bion excursioning to the car outside and bringing in many more gallons of liquid.

  Father stopped polishing to give Timothy a rag and a scowl. He thumped the huge mahogany box. “Come on, shine this up, so we can start on another. Sleep your life away.”

  While waxing the surface, Timothy looked inside.

  “Uncle Einar’s a big man, isn’t he, Papa?”

  “Unh.”

  “How big is he?”

  “The size of the box’ll tell you.”

  “I was only asking. Seven feet tall?”

  “You talk a lot.”

  About nine o’clock Timothy went out into the October weather. For two hours in the now-warm, now-cold wind, he walked the meadows collecting toadstools and spiders. His heart began to beat with anticipation again. How many relatives had Mother said would come? Seventy? One hundred? He passed a farmhouse. “If only you knew what was happening at our house,” he said to the glowing windows. He climbed a hill and looked at the town, miles away, settling into sleep, the town hall clock high and round, white in the distance. The town did not know, either. He brought home many jars of toadstools and spiders.

  In the little chapel belowstairs a brief ceremony was celebrated. It was like all the other rituals over the years, with Father chanting the dark lines, Mother’s beautiful white ivory hands moving in the reverse blessings, and all the children gathered except Cecy, who lay upstairs in bed. But Cecy was present. You saw her peering, now from Bion’s eyes, now Samuel’s, now Mother’s, and you felt a movement and now she was in you, fleetingly, and gone.