Tales From Beyond the Brain Page 6

  What was the first thing Jamie did in the morning? Brush his teeth.

  It was all part of the routine that had become automatic. Jamie’s mind could wander, and his body would go about the routine without taking in all the details—walk down the hall, open the bathroom door, pull toothbrush and toothpaste off the counter, stick toothbrush into mouth—

  Jamie spit out a mouthful of toothpaste at the mirror. He wiped it away with his hand, smearing the glass.

  The fang had grown.

  It hadn’t just grown in length but had swelled in width too. It easily dwarfed Jamie’s other teeth. It hung so low now that it threatened to puncture his lower lip. It had forced his other front teeth aside as if they were paper. The fang was twisted and rutted, and Jamie could see a layer of yellow scum covering the surface.

  Jamie wiggled the fang. He wondered if it might come loose, like a baby tooth. He stopped cold before he could form another thought. He could feel the very roots of the fang burrowing farther up into his gums, anchoring deeper into his flesh. The tooth lengthened like pulled toffee.

  He had to tell Mom and Dad. It would mean a trip to the dentist, but what was a needle and the drill compared to this dagger in the middle of his mouth?

  Jamie stormed downstairs, prepared to tell his parents what was happening. But they were preoccupied with getting Jamie’s kid brother packed up for school. His father had his work pants on but was still wearing the T-shirt he’d gone to bed in. His mother’s hair was wrapped in a towel. Everyone was scurrying back and forth with the typical frenzy of a weekday morning.

  Jamie opened his mouth to tell them everything.

  Tried to open his mouth.

  He could feel a force preventing him from flexing his jaw. It clamped that hinge shut like a vise. Jamie swallowed. He wiggled his jaw, cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

  Before he could utter a sound, his mouth snapped shut like a clam.

  “Good morning, Jamie,” his father said. “Here’s your lunch. Put it in your bag. And get dressed, will you? We’re running late.”

  But I’ve got a fang, Jamie said—or tried to say.

  Again his mouth resisted Jamie’s attempts to expose the fang.

  Jamie scowled. He could still write a message down on paper, couldn’t he? Explain everything to his parents? They’d understand. Hopefully, they wouldn’t think it was some kind of weird joke.

  It was worth a shot.

  Jamie turned and ran back up the stairs to his bedroom. He pulled a sheet of paper from the printer on his desk, fished around for a pencil and began to scrawl his message.

  I GREW A FANG. IT CAME FROM A POPCORN KERNEL THAT WAS STUCK BETWEEN MY TEETH. IT WON’T LET ME SPEAK TO YOU. GET ME TO A DENTIST!

  Jamie looked at the note and nodded.

  Then he looked up.

  He was staring into a mirror on his wall.

  His mouth opened without Jamie even trying.

  A second fang had grown beside the first, pushing Jamie’s other teeth back out of reach.

  “What…? How…?”

  He stopped cold.

  The fang lengthened.

  And then it spoke.

  Of course, it was Jamie who was doing the speaking. It was his own mouth moving, his own jaw jutting back and forth. Wasn’t it?

  Even the voice sounded like his.

  “You will want to resist,” Jamie said to himself, only the words weren’t coming from his own thoughts.

  He opened his mouth in horror, tried to scream, but the tooth took over. “They all try to resist at first…”

  Jamie resisted. “Wh-wha-wha…what. D-do.” He had to tighten the muscles of his mouth and work against the forces that were pulling on his own jaw and face. “What do you mean, all?”

  But instead of an answer, Jamie felt the roots of the fangs work their way deeper into the flesh of his face. They seized control of the muscles around his cheeks, causing his lips to curl into a horrid smile.

  Jamie wasn’t surprised that the tooth did not want him to talk that day, even when he got to school.

  Normally, he’d be chatting up a storm with his friend Hamid. The pair of them had spent the entire year trying to come up with new and creative ways to irritate their crusty old teacher, Mrs. De Palma. Not that this was hard to achieve. Mrs. De Palma got irritated by almost everything, especially children. Jamie couldn’t figure why she’d chosen teaching as a career.

  It didn’t help that she was the most boring speaker Jamie had ever heard. Her voice was either a dull monotone (when she was in a good mood) or a nasal screech (when she was upset, which she usually was with Jamie). It was always “Blah, blah, blah, practice your spelling words,” or “Blah, blah, blah, study for your math test.” That morning Mrs. De Palma was busy explaining how to write paragraphs. It took her a long time to write down the words on the front board, since she made sure each letter was perfectly printed. That gave everyone else in the class plenty of time to pass notes and whisper to their friends.

  “Pssst.”

  Jamie turned to find Hamid holding what appeared to be a long red ribbon with a series of raised dots running down the middle of it.

  “Check these out,” Hamid said. “They’re explosive rounds for my dad’s old cap gun. We can set them off in the class when De Palma’s not looking. We can even take that magnifying glass on her desk and concentrate a beam of sunlight on them. I bet that might set them off. Either way, it’ll be hilarious!”

  Hamid thought almost everything that involved spoiling Mrs. De Palma’s class was hilarious, and usually Jamie would agree.

  But that morning Jamie just shrugged, keeping his mouth firmly closed. How was he supposed to tell Hamid about the fang-like corn kernels growing in his mouth? What would Hamid do when he saw them?

  Maybe it was worth a shot. Jamie tried to open his mouth, but the teeth held his jaw tightly together. How could they do that?

  Jamie tried to murmur the word help through his closed lips, but Hamid shrugged.

  “I know,” Hamid said. “It’s gonna be awesome!”

  Jamie tried again. “Hllllllllllp mmmmmmmm!”

  Then he reached into his desk and pulled out his writing book. He started to scrawl the words HELP ME, but he made a mistake with the P. He was about to erase it when a dark shadow fell over his desk.

  “What’s that you’re writing?”

  Jamie looked up to find Mrs. De Palma staring him down. Her face was contorted into a furious scowl.

  “I will not tolerate such filth in my classroom,” she said with a huff. She gestured to the open door. “Please leave at once,” she said. “We will discuss this matter later.”

  But I need help! My mouth is being taken over by fangs growing from a piece of a popcorn kernel. That’s what Jamie wanted to say.

  But the kernel teeth in Jamie’s mouth wouldn’t let him speak. And Mrs. De Palma had nothing further to say.

  Other students—basically, Hamid—had tried to put up a fight with Mrs. De Palma before. This had only brought them to the office, and a visit with Mr. Carpenter, the principal.

  Jamie’s biggest problem wasn’t Mrs. De Palma anyway. He sulked out of the room and into the hallway. Across the way was the boys’ washroom, as good a place as any to figure things out.

  Jamie thundered into the washroom. His heart was hammering so madly he was amazed it didn’t burst right out of his chest. He clutched his hair and spun around in a circle or two. He must have looked pretty messed up, because the two boys who were goofing around at the sink took one look at him, stopped what they were doing and immediately left.

  Jamie staggered to the sink and clutched the cold porcelain edge. He hunched over it, feeling the world spin around him. Slowly he raised his head to look at his reflection in the oversize mirror. He had to stare through a thick film of soap and scum, but there he was. His face was bone pale, his eyes wide and bloodshot. Jamie swallowed, feeling a big, painful lump in his throat.

  Then he dare
d to open his mouth.

  For a second he thought the teeth weren’t going to let him. But his lips pulled apart like the velvet curtains at the start of a play.

  As Jamie had suspected, the kernel-fangs had taken over even more of his teeth, creating a jagged set of stalactites.

  It was amazing they could even fit inside his mouth. Jamie stared at them with fascination and horror.

  “Theresssss no way to connnnntrolll it,” Jamie said, knowing full well it was not him but the teeth doing the talking. “Soon I’llllll havvvve the teeth. Then the tongue. Thennnn—”

  Jamie clamped his hand over his mouth.

  But the teeth sunk deep into the flesh of his hand, and Jamie yelped. A few drops of blood splashed into the white sink.

  “Yesssssss,” Jamie said, not even looking at his reflection but staring instead at the drops of red as they swirled around the drain. “Ssssssoon I shall have you all to myself.”

  But you’re a kernel of corn, Jamie tried to say. Corn grew in fields and got popped and eaten. It didn’t have a mind of its own. It was meant to take root in the earth of farmers’ fields. Not in fleshy human gums.

  Unless it wasn’t just a kernel of corn.

  Maybe it was something that only looked like corn. Something that had drifted to earth from another world. Like in that movie Jamie had seen the other night. Seeds and pods came down from outer space, and the pods took over people, made doubles of them and got rid of the actual people.

  Jamie stared at the fangs again and shuddered.

  “You are right to fearrrrr meeeeee,” said the teeth.

  A glint of sunlight shone in through the window and bounced off the exposed teeth. The reflected light created a noticeable glare on the mirror, and Jamie had to shield his eyes.

  Jamie forced his mouth shut, whirled around and kicked open a toilet stall. He sat down on the toilet seat, ignoring the fact that it had not been wiped perfectly clean. He pulled the stall door shut, locked it and brought his knees up to his chest. He sat there, rocking back and forth, trying to think things through.

  Jamie knew it was only a matter of time before the kernel would have taken over all of his actual teeth, one by one. And then what? He could feel the roots of the kernels burrowing farther into his face. Would they take his eyes next and turn them into unseeing yellow orbs? And after that? His ears? His nose? His mind?

  The glint of light off the mirror had given him an idea, but he’d need help. And he’d have to wait until lunch.

  Shortly after the lunch bell rang and Mrs. De Palma left the room, Jamie handed Hamid the note. It was as messy as a note scrawled in both terror and a hurry could be. But Hamid was used to passing notes and easily deciphered Jamie’s hurried handwriting.

  “Use the magnifying glass. Don’t stop until they’re all popped,” Hamid read aloud. Then he turned to Jamie, who just sat there, nodding. “What do you mean, until they’re all popped?”

  But Jamie was already on his feet.

  The rest of the class took no notice of Jamie as he skulked over to Mrs. De Palma’s desk. They were too busy shoving food into their mouths or throwing it around the room.

  Hamid followed Jamie. He watched with delight as Jamie started pulling open the drawers of Mrs. De Palma’s desk. “Oh, I get it now. You want to go with my brilliant idea of using the magnifying glass to set off those caps!”

  Jamie shook his head, fished out the giant magnifying glass and shoved it into Hamid’s willing hand.

  Then he pulled his lips apart to show Hamid what had to be done. He watched Hamid’s face switch from excitement to something else. Hamid jumped when he saw the tangle of twisted kernel fangs that now took up all of Jamie’s mouth. His fright shifted quickly, though, to amusement. “Nice one,” Hamid said. “How’d you manage that?”

  But Jamie didn’t reply. Slowly Hamid’s jaw dropped as he realized the infiltrating teeth were real after all. “What the—?”

  “UURRRMMMM,” Jamie mumbled and pointed to the magnifying glass. Then he pointed to the teeth.

  “You want me to burn your teeth?”

  Jamie nodded—or tried to.

  “I think you need a dentist, Jamie.”

  But Jamie jabbed at the magnifying glass in Hamid’s hand. Suddenly his lips pulled closed. The teeth knew.

  Jamie yanked his mouth open again. Spit flew forth in a massive geyser.

  Hamid jumped back, fear flooding through him.

  “Ppppllleeeeeeeeeeasssse,” Jamie managed through the forest of fangs. He threw himself back onto the desk, knocking over all sorts of marked papers, pencils.

  Hamid swallowed nervously. He clutched the handle of the magnifying glass. He nodded. And then he held the glass up to the window, focusing a beam of sunlight onto Jamie’s mouth.

  Meanwhile, in the front row, someone pointed in Jamie’s direction. “Whoa!”

  That caught the attention of other students. “Jamie, your teeth!”

  It took about ten seconds for the rest of the class to throw down their meals and rush to surround Jamie and Hamid at the teacher’s desk.

  “Sweet! Hamid’s gonna pull another prank on De Palma!” someone shouted, beginning a round of hysteria from the students.

  Hamid remained focused. He directed the hot beam along the yellow kernel fangs hogging Jamie’s mouth. He stood there, transfixed by them. The heat began to change the fangs. They started to jitter in their sockets. Then they writhed like the legs of an angry, upturned centipede.

  “What’s happening?” Hamid heard someone ask.

  “Popcorn!” Hamid said. “Jamie’s got to get rid of the popcorn!”

  And then a kernel exploded out of Jamie’s mouth. It bounced off the whiteboard and rolled under Mrs. De Palma’s desk.

  Jamie screamed. Hamid screamed. Everyone else decided to join in.

  “Popcorn! Popcorn!” The screams turned into a chant.

  Jamie clutched at his lips, pulling them as far apart as he could. He could feel the teeth growing hotter, and hotter, and finally exploding out of his mouth. It was white-hot pain, but with each pop he could feel the kernels loosening their grip on him.

  He widened his mouth even more and let out a scream of pain and triumph. Popcorn continued to erupt from his gaping maw, leaving gaps and holes where his teeth had once been.

  “You cannnnnnnot stopppppp meeeeeee!” Jamie screamed. It was the kernel screaming through him, of course, but Jamie shook his head.

  “Too late for you!” Jamie blurted. “It’s too late now!”

  “What is all this racket?!” boomed a voice so deep and sonorous that Jamie was sure it had erupted from the very bowels of the earth.

  It was, in fact, Mrs. De Palma, standing at the classroom door.

  “Popcorn!” came the excited screams.

  She stared at the mess of popped corn piled up on her desk, then marched over to it, swatting at the children as if they were mice. They scurried back to their desks and watched from the safety of their seats.

  Mrs. De Palma tore the magnifying glass from Hamid’s shaking hands.

  Hamid himself slid off the desk, nearly tumbling to the floor. His knees wobbled. He shifted his uneasy glance from Mrs. De Palma to Jamie and back again. “You okay, Jamie?”

  Now Mrs. De Palma and everyone in the room fixed their gazes on Jamie, with the same level of intensity as the beam of sunlight that had burned out Jamie’s fangs.

  Slowly, surely, Jamie lifted his head from the pile of popcorn. The kernels seemed a bit glazed. A bit red.

  Jamie’s head bobbled unsteadily on his neck. He looked around at the popcorn carnage, then slowly, deliberately, opened his mouth.

  The class screamed.

  Jamie ran his tongue across a dribbly set of gums and understood why. All of his teeth were gone now.

  The fangs, or whatever had last been in his mouth, were scattered across De Palma’s desk, popped and puffy. He was definitely going to need the help of a dentist now.

  Jamie s
lid off the desk, his mind spinning like a top. His mouth ached with a searing pain. But his brain throbbed with relief. He could no longer feel the kernel between his teeth, and not just because he had no teeth. Whatever had taken root in his gums had exploded out of him as well.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Mrs. De Palma picking up a piece of the popcorn. She held it between her fingers and stared at it curiously.

  “Stop, Mrs. De Palma!” Jamie exclaimed. “Whatever you do, don’t eat that!” He said these words as loudly as he could, but without any teeth, all that came out were saliva-filled mumbles.

  He watched as she dropped the popcorn piece inside her cavernous mouth and crunched down on it—

  And then let out a yelp.

  When Mrs. De Palma opened her mouth, that’s when Jamie saw it. A kernel—a small piece of one, but big enough to be seen—was stuck between her teeth.

  Oh no, not again!

  Seeing the horror on Jamie’s face, Mrs. De Palma waved him off. “Not to worry,” she said. Jamie watched as she reached into her purse and fished out a blue spool. “I always carry dental floss.”

  CHEWY ONES

  “Do I have to?” Alain whined, like he did every Halloween.

  The response was swift and firm. “Now, please.”

  Alain rolled his eyes and slung the bag onto the kitchen table. A sea of colorful, cellophane-wrapped gems spilled out. Alain had filled a garbage bag with candy this year. The thing weighed a ton. He felt like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, only this bag was full of candy, and it was all his.

  At least, it had been before Mom and Dad started picking through it.

  His mom dumped the bag on the table, the contents tumbling out and filling every bit of free space. Every Halloween, his parents became obsessed with checking each treat to make sure the candies, chocolates, chips and whatever else he’d gathered were not poisoned, tainted or concealing bits of razor blades.

  Alain was no dummy. He knew good candy from bad candy. But all he could do was stand and tap his foot impatiently as Mom and Dad sorted his loot into the Good and Bad piles.