LAND OF MISTASIA
PHILLIP & WHIZZY TRILOGY (BOOK 1)
BLACK HOLE IN MY BACKYARD
Chapter 5
Running as quickly as I
could I bolted past Whizzy and headed straight for the basement door. Whizzy
yelled for me to wait up, but I was gone.
I felt like I was going
crazy, as if scientists had drilled into my head and were playing around inside
to see what would happen. ‘So Dr. Crazy if you press this part of the
brain Phillip will see strange flying objects. Great Dr. Mental! If you press
this part of his brain he will shout in pig-Latin and pass gas uncontrollably!’
Once I entered
Whizzy’s basement everything changed.
“This is the coolest
place ever!” I announced as if I had never been here before.
Standing at the bottom of
the stairs, I gawked in amazement. To the left were a humongous flat screen
3D-televison and all sorts of cool electronics. Whizzy had at least three
different types of gaming consoles, a blue-ray player and an audio system that
could shake the walls when something blew up in a movie. In the middle of the
room was possibly the most comfortable couch I had every sat on. Beyond that
were a billiards table and a bowling alley…that’s right an actual life-size
bowling alley. In the opposite corner from the bowling lane was a basketball
hoop and hockey goal. It was like the Whizzenmog’s had an entire gymnasium in
their basement. Now you see why I never minded that we always played at
Whizzy’s house instead of mine?
“What’cha wanna do?”
Whizzy questioned. I could tell Whizzy didn’t care what we played.
Where to start? I
thought. There was so much excitement built up inside me I was about to burst.
“What’s that smell?”
“I didn’t do it!” I
quickly denied any possible connection to the smell Whizzy was referring to.
“At least I think I didn’t.” Maybe something could have slipped out during my
feverish anticipation of actually having some fun.
“No. I don’t mean THAT
smell! It smells like wet dog down here.” Whizzy noticed that the sliding glass
door was wide open.
It was still
raining…hard, and the carpet had gotten wet. Whizzy and I walked over to see
who had left the door open. Rachel was standing in the grass, her burgundy
colored umbrella above her with rainwater cascading off its sides. It looked
like she was standing in an amusement park ride.
“Rachel,” Whizzy yelled.
She didn’t respond. He
yelled again, but much louder this time. Rachel’s face was somber. She must
have been crying, but I had never seen her cry in all the years I had known her
so I wasn’t sure what that would look like. She slowly walked past us back into
the house still carrying her umbrella, which just missed gouging out my
eyeball. Rainwater drizzled off the tips of her umbrella and ran onto the
carpet as she sat on the couch facing the television. Whizzy and I waited for
some sign of life, but all we could see was her burgundy umbrella, still over
her head, and the back of the couch.
“Should we go talk to
her?” Whizzy whispered.
I wasn’t equipped to deal
with my own emotions, let alone a 14-year-old-girl’s; I could only imagine what
insane things were swirling around in her head…and I didn’t want involvement in
any of them.
“She’s your sister,” I
responded.
“Yeah, but you like her,”
Whizzy snapped back. He had been saving that for the perfect time to throw it
in my face.
“I…I don’t. That’s…not
true,” It was the best response I could come up with…I know it’s lame.
But before Whizzy and
I could decide who would lose this battle and have to confront Rachel, she
blurted out, “Billy stood me up!”
Whizzy’s eyes almost
popped from his tiny head. I had an odd feeling of relief. Mostly because that
meant she wouldn’t be dating Billy anymore, but that also meant she was free to
be my girlfriend. I started towards the couch to sit with her when she
screamed. Then something yanked her by her feet off the couch. Her umbrella
flew into the air.
Whizzy and I ran to help
her. You’d never believe what we saw. Wrapped around her ankles was a thick,
scaly, brownish-yellow snake. I followed its body along the carpet, but its
head wasn’t visible behind the couch. The snake was dragging Rachel across the
carpet and around the couch. Whizzy reached her first and screamed like a
little girl when he came face to face with the large diamond-headed snake with
its golden sideways shaped eyes, forked tongue and sharp venomous fangs. He
jumped backward and landed on my left foot. He weighed a lot for a small kid. I
stumbled from the pain causing the both of us to crash to the carpet. Whizzy
landed in my lap, which was both uncomfortable and awkward. The snake lurched
at us, then continued to slither forward pulling Rachel behind it.
Everything was happening
so quickly. The snake was almost to the open door. Rachel’s mouth frantically
moved, but I couldn’t hear her. My mind was racing, and I felt nauseous.
Whizzy began angrily belching
out questions, “Where did that snake come from? How did it get in here? What is
it doing? Where is it taking her?”
The last question seemed
the most ridiculous of them all. Where was it taking her?
Whizzy
continued to uncontrollably blurt out questions, “Snakes don’t eat people…do
they? Is it gonna eat Rachel?”
I finally pushed Whizzy
off me. He landed face first next to Rachel. She grabbed on to him, and then
they locked hands. The snake continued to pull both of them. This snake
is really strong. I thought.
Outside the rain started
to wane. Suddenly, the eagle I had just seen at Whizzy’s upstairs bedroom
window swooped down and landed on the cement patio just outside the open
sliding-glass door. It shrieked.
The venomous snake hissed
and then shocked us all. It lunged forward and grabbed the door handle in its
mouth and swung it closed before the eagle could enter.
The eagle spread its
massive wings, which took up the entire frame of the door and shrieked again.
Then it began pecking at the glass.
I grabbed Whizzy’s legs.
Now we made a strange train of interlocked bodies from the snake to Rachel,
then Whizzy and finally me. I attempted to wrap my legs around the arm of the
couch but couldn’t. The snake released its scaly grip for an instant and smashed
its tail into the glass. It scared me.
The glass fractured but
didn’t break. The fractures continued to splinter like a spider’s-web streaking
out in all directions across the doorframe until I couldn’t even see the eagle
outside any longer.
For some reason none of
us used this opportunity to get up and run away from this obviously crazy
snake. Instead we laid there motionless in complete shock watching the glass
splinter.
The brownish-yellow,
diamond-headed snake hissed once more and the glass turned an evil dark gray.
It looked like a black hole from outer space consumed the doorway as it began
swirling viciously.
I felt the pull and
grabbed Whizzy even tighter.
The snake pivoted back
toward us and snapped at Whizzy’s face. He screamed and instinctively released
his grip on Rachel to protect his face. The heinous snake seized the
opportunity to wrap himself around Rachel again and quickly dragged her into
the vortex.
“No,” Whizzy yelled.
“Rachel!”
I couldn’t even speak.
This couldn’t be happening. I must be dreaming.
Then as quickly as the
vortex started it exploded in a flash of white light blinding us both.
I don’t know if we were
knocked unconscious or how long we were laying there on the carpet, but it
couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
The familiar sound of
rain crept back into my ears. Then the rhythmic tapping on glass, and finally
Whizzy springing up into a seated position.
“RACHEL!” my friend
frantically ran for the sliding glass door, which was magically repaired. He
checked it over before slinging it open and bursting outside into the wet
grass. He didn’t even acknowledge the massive eagle standing on the cement
patio outside the door.
As I approached, the
eagle tilted its head at me in a very peculiarly human way. I waited for a
moment to see if it would speak, but that was absurd.
“Where is she, Phillip?
Where did that thing take her?” Whizzy was twitching with rage. His eyes had
transformed from blue to a fiery red. “I have to help her.”
“You can, Whizzenmog!” a
harsh female voice replied.
I instantly looked
directly at the eagle standing beside me. Whizzy gave me an inquisitive look. I
think he believed I had answered him. I pointed at the eagle, which didn’t make
Whizzy any happier.
“Stop foolin’ around,
Phillip.”
“But I,” I started to
defend myself, but was interrupted by the same voice.
“You can save your
sister, Michael Whizzenmog, but only if you listen to my directions.”
I watched as the eagle’s
beak moved in exact sync with the words I could hear.
“That’s just not right!”
I said in amazement. “Did you just talk to us?”
“Yes, Phillip Harper, and
we don’t have much time. You both must listen to me if you are to save Rachel!
We must go inside and close the door. It is the only way the portal will
reopen. Please, you must hurry.” The bird stood tall on its legs and flapped
its massive wings leading us back into the basement. “Now close the door.”
Whizzy did. The eagle
shrieked in a unique pattern. The glass began to fracture the same way it had
when the snake hit it with its tail. Just seconds later the glass turned dark
gray again and the vortex returned.
“Michael Whizzenmog, you
must jump now.” She demanded.
Whizzy’s expression was
hard to read. It was a mesh of confusion, anger and fear that really isn’t a
good look for anyone. He hesitated at the vortex.
Wind swirled around the
room. My shirt billowed like a flag, and my hair stood off the side of my head.
Whizzy stepped up to the
vortex, his back facing me. He turned slightly to look at me. Just then the
eagle pushed Whizzy from behind with her giant wings. He fell into the vortex
and disappeared.
“You are next, Phillip
Harper!”
My stomach sank. I felt
sick. She grabbed me and tossed me into
the vortex. Then everything went black.
Copyright Held by: Christopher M. Purrett
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