STAY INSIDE! (part 4)
They found a place in the basement where Jerry could dangle. They set up some bolts in the rafters and hooked him up so he could have a nice long hang. But the Gurts were clear that he is not to smoke his chains in the house.
After Jerry had dangled for a while, Officer Gurt went to ask him more questions. He descended the stairs and Jerry was hanging there, gently swaying back and forth from his chains which made a faint metallic creaking sound.
“So what was the deal Principal Hairbear made?” he asked the creature.
“Well, he wantsh to get hish body back, right? He doeshn’t want to be a pile of shloppy goop for the resht of his life, right?”
Officer Gurt nodded along.
“Sho, the deal was, he’d get his body back to the way it wash before he had a little munch from The Dimension beast. And in exchange, he would open the hatch that letsh the beasts in.”
“What hatch?” Officer Gurt was confused. “Everyone knows that no one can choose to come back from The Dimension. There are only entrances to it, not exits. Bearhair got lucky when it spat him and Timmy back out!”
Dangling Jerry looked straight at Officer Gurt. “You don’t know about the hatch?”
“Where is it? What is it?” Gurt was getting worked up.
“It’s out in the woodsh on the path to the Tonic Woman’sh place. I have a little poem to remember where it is:
“In the trunk of a tree,
you move a few leaves,
and you tug on the root
and you unleash the beasht.”
Gurt paused, waiting for more. “That’s it?”
“That’sh it.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything about where it is. There are a million trees on the path to the Tonic Woman’s.”
“Well yesh. But I know what tree it is.”
“So it doesn’t help me at all??” Gurt yelled at the dangling creature.
“Well I’ll go with you to look at it. But we can’t go now becaushe we can’t go outshide.”
“Oh…right.” Gurt thought over what he’d just heard. “So, Hairbear would open this hatch in the tree to let some beasts in from The Dimension, and in exchange, he would get his body back so he’s not a sludgy mess?”
“Think sho.”
“And you don’t know who he made this deal with?”
“Right.”
“So there are monsters from The Dimension running around and taking people when they go outside right now. But then how did that get in the newspaper, and how would it know when people read their paper or not? And why would they frame you?”
Jerry thought about this for a moment while hanging from his chains.
“Maybe they know I heard them. They could have heard my chainsh and knew I had information. I don’t know, Offisher.”
Things began to come together in Officer Gurt’s mind. He went back upstairs to call Splind again.
“Ok, Splind, you need to be honest with me this time. What was your deal with Bearhair?”
“I’m sorry, Officer, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You made a deal with him to open the hatch and let the beasts in. Why would you want them running all over Crumb Hill and taking our people??”
The line was silent for a moment. Gurt thought the line had gone dead. Suddenly he heard Splind crying. “I’m sorry, officer!” he sobbed some more. “My little daughter — sob — she fell into the entrance to The Dimension in the woods, behind the Old Crumb Factory.” He sniffled.
“Okay,” said Officer Gurt. “So then what did you do?”
“Well I went back looking for her and saw that an entrance to The Dimension had opened up. And you know the saying, ‘If you yell into the abyss, the abyss will yell back to you.’ So I did, and a voice called back to me. It said that if I open the hatch, it’ll spit my daughter back out.”
“So that’s why you let all the monsters out?”
“No. I was conflicted. I would never just let monsters from The Dimension run amuck in our town.”
“But then Principal Hairbear sweetened the deal?”
Splind’s voice was still shaky. “H-he wants his body back, and apparently The Dimension had talked to him too.”
“What were you going to get from him?”
“He was going to subscribe to the newspaper.”
Officer Gurt was shocked. He expected a massive exchange of money, or a wild favor.
“That’s it? Just subscribe to the paper?”
“Yes, our readership is down.” When Officer Gurt didn’t reply, he went on. “We are down to eight houses. You are one of eight people to get it still. So now we have nine with the Bearhairs.”
“I can’t believe this,” muttered Gurt.
“I’m sorry officer,” Splid said, crying again. “I wanted to save my daughter and my paper. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, which is why I tried to warn everyone to stay inside today!”
“Well I have one more question. Why would people only get taken by the monsters when they knew about the paper? What difference did that make?”
Splind thought about this for a moment. “I have a theory. Haven’t you heard that the beasts can smell fear?”
“Yes, everyone in Crumb Hill knows that.”
“So maybe it’s just those who were warned, they become afraid and then become targets for the monsters.”
“So basically,” said Gurt, restraining his anger, “you simply made targets out of everyone who gets your newspaper by making them afraid?”
Splind was silent again. “Well…when you put it like that…”
“Now we just need to figure out how to shut the hatch and get the beasts back to The Dimension.”
“I might have an idea,” said Splind.
And Gurt hoped he was right, because so far, Splind had just made this whole day a disaster.
e
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Day 77 of 100 Days of Blog
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