Tales From Beyond the Brain Read online

  “If you are trying to be funny and waste my time, young man, I will end this call right now.”

  “But…” I started. “Hasn’t anyone else been looking for these people?”

  Maybe my earlier hunch had been correct. Maybe nobody but us Davids knew about what was going on.

  I had to know how far this curse had gone. “David Thompson,” I said at last.

  “Which one?”

  “Huh?”

  “There are three David Thompsons in this district. Is there one in particular you want to contact?”

  “Uh, not right now. I have to run. But thanks!” I hung up the phone.

  So the letter T was still safe. But how much longer until the curse reached the Zs?

  I realized I was a believer now. I didn’t know how, or why, but Dave Anders was right. The Davids of the world were disappearing, and fast.

  You can’t just call yourself something else. You’ve got to make it legal.

  That’s what Dave had said in the park. Is that how he’d managed to escape whatever this was?

  How much time did I have left? I got on the computer and quickly looked up how to change a name. There was a government office in a plaza downtown that provided that service.

  I ran out the door and grabbed my bike. I only hoped it wasn’t already closed for the day.

  I rounded a corner, and cripes—

  “David!”

  It was my dad, walking home from work. I swerved to avoid slamming right into him. Then I squeezed the brakes and jammed my feet onto the sidewalk to keep from tipping over.

  My dad doubled back and put his hand on my shoulder to steady me. “David, what’s the matter? Where are you going in such a hurry? It’s almost dinnertime.”

  David. The name made tears well up.

  “David, what’s wrong?”

  “I need to change my name,” I said, and I could feel my voice cracking. “All the Daves are disappearing! It’s happening faster than I thought, but I can do this. I can fix it.”

  I could tell from the look on his face that he thought I was crazy.

  “I’ll explain everything soon. Really soon,” I said. Then I added, “I love you, Dad.” He looked shocked. I turned and pedaled away as quickly as I could.

  I sped up the hill, zipping around corners and cutting across parking lots.

  I pedaled past a bus stop and noticed another pile of clothes, crumpled in a heap. I thought I could hear a cell phone ringing.

  I gulped.

  Had that been another Dave who had vanished into thin air? Zapped by some alien force?

  I tried not to think about it as I raced to the plaza.

  By the time I pulled my bike into the parking lot, the final rays of the day’s sunshine were already hitting the windows and tinting the sky a fiery orange.

  I snaked my bike in behind a car pulling in. I hopped the curb and chained my bike beside a newspaper box. I noticed a man getting out of the parked car. I took a step off the curb toward the office, tripped on something and fell down hard.

  The blow from the pavement took the wind out of me, and I desperately heaved air back into my lungs.

  Slowly I pushed myself off the ground and looked at my hands. My palms were cut in a few places from some loose rocks on the ground.

  Then I noticed the pile of clothes. It was just sitting there, next to the open door of the car.

  A complete outfit—shoes, pants, shirt and jacket.

  I stared down at it, feeling a sinking sensation in my stomach. Just like at the park. And the bus station.

  Clothes, but no body to hold them up.

  The man wearing them had been there a moment earlier. I hadn’t even heard him scream. He’d been standing there, and now he was gone. There was no trace left of his body. No gory smear on the road or even a smoking heap of remains. No sign that this man had ever existed!

  I wondered if the clothes were now clean—because if this Dave had gone, then so would have his dandruff, his flaking skin and any lingering odors or smells that announced his presence in our world.

  I almost laughed at this idea, but it was true, wasn’t it? I felt sick.

  I backed away from the pile of clothes and marched quickly into the office.

  I wasn’t sure how to go about changing my name, but maybe someone at the front desk would help. There were a few people in line ahead of me. Only one station was open, and the older lady with glasses as thick as bulletproof glass didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

  I watched her helping the man at the counter. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot and checking the clock on the wall. I followed his gaze. It was 4:49. There was no way this office was open past five.

  “You must be a Z. Maybe a Y.”

  An older man was directly ahead of me in the line. He was wearing a dirty jacket and torn pants. His face was flecked with white stubble. It looked like hadn’t changed or shaved or even bathed in a while.

  Was he talking to me?

  The man nodded. “I had a friend. Dave Walters. But I bet you can guess what happened to him.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came. Dave Walters probably hadn’t had time to do what we were both trying to do now.

  The old man looked at me with fear in his eyes. “You’re so young. Not me, although that’s my name. David Young. I’m seventy-eight.”

  “I’m twelve,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Wait. That wasn’t true. I did have a burning question. “What do you think is causing all this?”

  David Young rolled his eyes. He licked his dry lips. “At first I thought people were behind it. The government, maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “There are over six billion people on the planet. Not enough resources to keep everyone fit, healthy, alive. So maybe someone came up with a kind of mass hypnosis, maybe using the media, to slowly erase every David from existence. They’d have the name and location of every Dave or David on record.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m David Ziegler,” I said instead.

  The old man nodded. “Just like I thought. You’re a Z.”

  “Next,” the woman called.

  I shook my head. “B-but it can’t be p-people behind this,” I stammered.

  The man shrugged. Then he pointed up at the ceiling. “I suppose it could be them,” he said.

  “Them?”

  He leaned in so close to me, I could feel his hot breath in my ear. “Aliens,” he whispered. “Real Area 51-type stuff.”

  Then he leaned back and nodded at me knowingly.

  “Next,” the voice called out again.

  Dave Young and I turned and realized that we were already at the front of the line.

  “You go on ahead of me.”

  I looked at him.

  “You’re young, Dave Ziegler. And if this thing catches up to us, you’ve still got a lot of life left in you. Me? Like I said, I’m seventy-eight. I’ve lived a good life.”

  We were short on time, so I didn’t argue.

  The woman looked at me and said, “Too young for a driver’s license, too young to get married. Let me guess. You’re here to change your name.” She sounded annoyed.

  I nodded.

  “But you haven’t filled out the forms.”

  “Oh,” I said. What forms?

  “And you probably didn’t bring any identification either, did you?”

  I dug my hand into my pocket. I’d raced over here in such a hurry that I’d forgotten to bring my wallet.

  Then I heard a sigh and a crunch. The woman at the counter was staring past me, her mouth hanging open.

  I turned around.

  Dave Young was nowhere to be seen.

  I looked at the floor. Where the man Dave Young had been standing only moments before was a pile of clothes. Crumpled shirt. Underwear poking out of pants. Socks still in shoes. Even a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses.

  Then, without warning, someone stepped on
the pile of clothing. I gasped.

  “There you are. What is going on?” My father looked worried and angry and relieved, all at the same time.

  “Dad, I need to change my name. It’s the only way to stop it.”

  “That is enough, David,” he snapped. Did he even notice he was stepping on the clothes of a dead man? That is, if you could call it death.

  Before I could argue, my dad reached out to take my arm.

  He clasped his hand around my arm, but the entire sleeve of my shirt began to collapse in on itself.

  I started to gasp but couldn’t take in any air.

  Then I heard the gasp, only it wasn’t coming from me. It was coming from my dad. He had a look of shock on his face, which was quickly shifting to horror. He knew! I’d been right all along! This thing, whatever it was, had gone from A to Z, and that meant I was—

  STUFFING

  Since they both lived out in the country, Jerome and Marty had a lot of time to kill on the long bus ride home from school. They usually spent it tearing open the back of one of the seats, ripping out the stuffing and throwing it at each other.

  They usually got away with it, too, because (a) there were so many other kids doing other crazy things on the bus, and (b) they always sat way at the back.

  But on this Tuesday, the driver noticed them.

  “Cut that out!” she growled.

  Jerome peered down the narrow aisle to the oversized mirror tacked to the ceiling of the bus. His eyes met the driver’s. “I think she means us,” he said quietly.

  “But we’re having so much fun.” Marty ran his fingers along the back of the seat. It was made of thick green vinyl. And probably covered with the spit and snot of the five million other kids who had been on this ancient bus before them.

  Marty got back to work. There was already a sizable tear in the back of the seat. Marty stuck his fingers in and pulled out a hunk of spongy stuffing the size of a golf ball. He waited for the bus driver to start yelling at some other kids, then hurled the hunk at Jerome. It landed right in his mouth.

  Jerome screamed, pitched forward and nearly fell into the aisle. There was a loud squeal of grinding metal as the driver slammed on the brakes. This sent twenty or so other kids flying into the backs of the padded seats. Well, mostly padded. Some of them didn’t have all of their original stuffing.

  “I said, CUT THAT OUT!”

  This was not unusual. The bus driver screamed and slammed on the brakes at least three or four times on the runs to and from school, causing about six nosebleeds per week.

  Nobody knew the bus driver’s name. Jerome wondered if she even had one. He only referred to her as Ms. Grumpy-Butt, which fit her perfectly. She had probably been grown in a lab, as she more closely resembled a lump of flesh that had had stubby limbs and eyes stuck to it than a human. Grumpy-Butt kind of morphed into the same form as the driver’s seat. The boys had never seen her get out of it.

  By this time the rest of the kids on the bus had swiveled their heads to face Jerome and Marty.

  The bus driver glared at them through the mirror. “Stop ripping that stuffing out. Repairing those seats costs money.”

  She said this as if Jerome or Marty paid taxes or even cared about them. Then she hit the gas pedal with such a fury that everyone on the bus was sent flying again. Behind them, Jerome could see the skid marks the bus tires left on the road.

  “I wonder if Grumpy-Butt pays taxes,” he whispered to Marty.

  “Probably ugly taxes.” Marty giggled.

  “Keep your feet on the floor,” the bus driver said to the kids, “and sit up straight.”

  Jerome and Marty were the last two to get off the bus. The ride home for them took about half an hour with all the stops, chugging along country roads that seemed to stretch into infinity.

  Marty got off first. For the last five minutes of the drive, Jerome usually moved up to sit near Grumpy-Butt. Not right beside her, but close enough that he could hop off the bus when it was his turn.

  Today, as they neared Marty’s house, Jerome followed his friend to the front of the bus.

  The driver ground the bus to a halt.

  Marty started to make his way off the bus, but Grumpy-Butt flung out her arm and caught him across the stomach. Marty gasped for breath.

  “You’re going to pay for that stuffing you tore out,” Grumpy-Butt said.

  “Huh?” Marty turned to face the driver.

  She stared out the front window. “You heard me.”

  “Who cares?” Marty said. “It’s only stuffing. Why don’t you just do your job and drive us to and from school?” He turned and stormed down the steps.

  The door slammed shut in his face before he could exit the vehicle.

  “Ouch! What did you do that for?”

  “Apologize.”

  “What?”

  “I said, apologize.” Ms. Grumpy-Butt finally turned her head and leered at him. Her fake-red curls bounced.

  “No way. Let me out. Or I’ll…I’ll get my parents to sue you.” Marty’s dad was a lawyer, and Marty often used this threat when he had run out of smart things to say.

  “Let it go,” said Jerome. He knew Marty, and from what he knew of Grumpy-Butt, neither of them was the type to back down from an argument.

  “Seriously? You’re on her side?”

  “I want to go home,” Jerome said.

  “Fine. I apologize. I’m sorry!” Marty roared.

  He stared at the driver. The driver stared back at him. Jerome watched as the two of them narrowed their eyes until they were slits.

  Then the driver threw her head back and let out a throaty laugh. She opened the door.

  “I’m sorry you’re such a loser!” Marty spat out as he flung himself off the bus. He ran toward his house without even glancing back.

  Jerome sunk into his seat. He got up the nerve to look in the rearview mirror and saw that the driver was staring right at him with her beady little eyes.

  Jerome quickly glanced out the window and counted the seconds until his stop.

  Jerome couldn’t figure out where Marty was the next day. He always got picked up first on the ride to school. But he was not on the bus when Jerome climbed on.

  “Is Marty okay?” Jerome asked the driver as they snaked down the dirt road to the next stop.

  The driver mumbled something, but Jerome didn’t catch it. He didn’t know why he’d asked her anyway. The bus came to an abrupt halt. A wave of five or six kids started to climb aboard. Jerome waddled down to his usual seat at the back. It felt weird without Marty there. And weird that he hadn’t texted him or anything.

  Without his sidekick, Jerome had nothing to do, so he just stared out the window for the entire boring ride to school.

  Marty didn’t show up at school late either. Jerome figured maybe he had a doctor’s appointment or something. That meant there would be no one to have a stuffing fight with on the bus ride home.

  Jerome hopped on and stared out the dirty window. He occupied himself thinking about the scary movies he wanted to download when he got home. The bus cleared town and rattled down the dusty country roads.

  The area where he and Marty lived, outside the main town, would be a great place to shoot a horror movie, Jerome decided. It was so remote, and the houses were so far apart. He imagined scenes with creatures stalking people through the woods or tall grasses, or along the vast farmers’ fields, on cold gray afternoons like this one.

  “Mrrrmph.”

  The sound caught Jerome’s attention and brought him back to the bus. He’d been daydreaming for so long, lost in his thoughts, that he’d completely missed all the other kids getting off. He was the only one left on the bus.

  He looked at the back of the seat in front of him. The padding looked strangely lumpy. Jerome wondered if Ms. Grumpy-Butt or someone at the school office had thrown in some new kind of padding to replace the stuffing he and Marty had pulled out.

  They had done a pretty crappy job. The tear he
and Marty had made had been resealed with black hockey tape. Jerome picked at the stretchy tape, which left dark smudges on his fingers. Once he started, it was impossible to stop. He peeled a few strips of the tape back and stretched open the tear.

  The stuffing inside was in loose bits. Jerome squeezed some between his fingers and pulled a chunk out.

  He was about to stuff the chunk back, thinking he’d better not make Grumpy-Butt mad again, when he noticed the hair.

  There were several strands. More like a clump, really. Jerome figured it was probably Ms. Grumpy-Butt’s, but then he looked closer. No. Her hair was red and curly, while this clump was straight and brown. Jerome pulled on it.

  The seat let out a yelp.

  Jerome jerked back. He swallowed, but all the spit in his mouth had suddenly dried up. He glanced above the top of the seat. The driver had her eyes on the road.

  Jerome leaned in closer and tugged on the hockey tape. The tear in the seat opened a little bit more. Just enough for Jerome to reach his hand in. He pulled out another clump of stuffing.

  His stomach did three somersaults. He could see now that the hair was attached to a head.

  A human head. Inside the bus seat.

  Jerome jammed his fist into his mouth and bit down on it. He wanted to scream, tried to scream. The only sound that escaped his lips was a strangled whisper.

  The head turned his way. A single eye peered out through the rip in the seat.

  The bus braked suddenly. Jerome pitched forward, slamming into the seat. The body in the seat gave another pained cry.

  Marty’s cry!

  Jerome pulled his face away from the seat and looked out the window. He realized they should have reached his stop by now. Instead, the bus had pulled over to the side of a small road Jerome didn’t recognize. The landscape was flecked with twisted shrubs and hills. There was no sign of any houses. Jerome looked over his shoulder and through the window in the emergency exit at the back. No cars were heading this way either.

  Jerome stood up. He wanted to help Marty, he really did. But his instincts were telling him to run. Now. Jerome tried the emergency handle on the rear door, but it wouldn’t budge.