The latest Burdick Mystery. Enjoy.
He
pushed his round spectacles up his nose. He straightened his purple bowtie and
checked that his belt was cinched tight. Running his hands over his mostly bare
head, brushing the tufts that resolutely clung to the sides, he took a deep
breath. He was ready.
He
kicked in the door with one slipper-shod foot. A burst of hot air immediately
struck his face, steaming up his glasses. Blind, he ducked down, scanning the
floor with his hands. He found it! He rose and flailed the heavy wrench. CLANG!
The steam-spewing pipe bent, shooting straight up harmlessly.
An
old boot fell onto his head. He looked up and a swinging pipe took his legs out
from under him. Gnashing gears and clanking pipes and shrieking spouts created
a cacophony on par with a tornado during an earthquake. He waited on the floor.
Finally the other shoe dropped.
He
rolled away from the falling boot and scrambled toward the back of the room.
Loose screws pinged off his unprotected pate, the furnace released scorching
billows of stygian smoke, unrelenting pieces of rebar swung out, ball bearings
scattered across the floor amongst wildly erratic bouncy balls. He ducked,
rolled, slid, counterattacked with his wrench and even picked up a hard hat,
which he used as a shield until a rogue Bunsen burner melted it away.
At
last he reached the back wall of the basement. Just as he had suspected, the
pipe casing on the photoionic reactor sheath was loose. With his free hand he
shoved the ugly tangle of wires into the casing while he batted away a swarm of
wingnuts with the wrench.
He
crammed a slipper into the extra space to hold the wires back then swiftly
grabbed his krazy glue from his back pocket. He quickly slathered the threads
in glue and began to screw the casing closed with the wrench. A three-foot
machete and a rubber ducky punched into the wall, scraping just past his
shoulder. One of them fell to the floor. With a curse, he gave the wrench a
final turn. Only two things left to do.
He
sprinted, as best he could in the hazardous environment, back to the stairs. He
lost one sleeve of his sweater, had multiple holes singed into his pant legs,
not to mention countless contusions caused by marbles. One last desperate lunge
got him to the circuit switch ahead of a surging anvil.
He
threw the switch and dove. A dirty fly swatter caught him full in the face and
a staple gun shot him in the buttock seven times before he landed. But he had
made it at long last. He unplugged the toaster.
Instantly
a hush fell in the basement, a thin hiss of residual steam the only surviving
sound. Tools and parts came to a halt. Clearly the Dark Matter Newt Teleporter
still had some issues. He would reset the slinky and the Higgs Boson Injector
and try again. After he got a new Newt (the other one had evaporated). And
after lunch.
Carl
Burdick trudged up the stairs musing over his luncheon menu. He knew there was
pastrami, mozzarella, and pickles leftover from the pizzas they had made for
dinner the night before, but it wasn’t enough. Surely, it would make a good
sandwich, but to be a great sandwich it would need a little extra kick.
As
his mind moved, so did his feet. He breezed through the kitchen, giving the
refrigerator a stare; he tried to penetrate the door with his gaze to discern
what else it held that might improve his sandwich. He would return to the
kitchen in a moment, but first he had to address the needs of other internal
organs. Carl moved down the hallway to the bathroom.
It
was no exaggeration to say that over half of Carl’s inventions had begun as
seeds, nurtured in the very room where he now sat. Many germinated, and some
even came to full bloom while he rode the white throne. All they required when
he was finished was construction: the full plans were already made in his head.
Unfortunately,
such inspiration did not seem to extend to great sandwiches. When Carl was all
finished he washed his hands and exited, still at a loss for what ingredient
would round out his sandwich. He mentally discarded peanut butter, anchovies,
and soy sauce as he retraced his path through the hallway.
Before
he knew what had happened, or whether or not a habanero chili pepper was the
right choice, he was on the floor. Carl shot a look at his feet. Clearly they
had betrayed him. But as he gave them an accusing glare, he noticed the rug
rising. It was as if something was trying to poke through.
Carl
adjusted his glasses as he crouched next to the bulge in the floor. He
stretched out a hand, but the shape retreated. The floor was flat again. Then
the rug began to rise once more. Carl watched, keeping his hands to himself.
For
a full minute the rug pulsed. Slowly, rhythmically, always in the same place,
never bigger or smaller, it rose and fell. Then, for no apparent reason, it
didn’t recede. It remained raised up. Carl gave it the evil eye. He couldn’t
get to his sandwich until this was resolved.
Carl
rose to his full height (five foot five, hardly impressive) and stared angrily
at the bulge. It gave no sign of retreating, so Carl attacked. He jumped
straight up into the air and slammed both feet down on the protuberance. When
he landed he could detect no anomalies in the floor beneath him. It was once
again flat.
He
backed away several steps, never taking his eyes away from the unruly patch of
floor. It seemed the rug rebellion was over. Carl walked backwards into the
kitchen, not fully trusting that the event was ended, but unable to ignore the
rumbles emanating from his stomach.
A
sudden thought burst upon Carl’s confused mind. He rushed down to the basement.
The Easy Bake had been acting strange recently, perhaps it was the cause of
this. But the basement was still and silent when Carl arrived.
Hands on his hips, mystified, Carl
headed for the fridge. His hungry brain shifted gears, contemplating a graham
cracker with chocolate sauce, Reese’s peanut butter chips and chopped pine nuts
as a way to round out the imminent meal.
Two
weeks passed and it happened again. This time in the second-story hall, which
meant there was no way the Easy Bake could be blamed. A man who spent his life
unraveling and harnessing mysterious forces, Carl was upset that this one was
so elusive.
When
the swelling of the floor knocked the lamp from its table, Carl lost control.
With both hands he grasped the antique chair next to the small table. It too
had been wobbling from the ferocity with which the floor was pulsing. But Carl
was intent on doing more than merely stabilizing the faltering furniture piece.
Teeth
bared, seething with anger at this enigmatic force, Carl whipped the chair
above his head. With a feral cry he brought it down on the lump with brutal
force. The poor chair exploded into countless pieces. Carl stood above the
wreckage, chest heaving. The floor rose again slowly, haltingly, before
subsiding.
Carl
pushed his glasses up his nose and straightened his bowtie. He took a deep
breath and collected his thoughts. It was unreasonable for him to patrol the
house at all times in case of further actions by this inscrutable force. In any
case, they would run out of furniture eventually. Molly wouldn’t be happy about
the chair either.
Carl
marched down both flights of stairs with determination. A dim plan was forming
in his mostly bald head. He entered the basement and began to work.
The
days passed in a blur. Carl worked through meals and slept very little. When he
did sleep he was bothered by nightmares. In one particular dream, the bulging
floor popped. A hand erupted through the floor and launched a ferocious attack
on the rug surrounding it. Carl awoke and immediately went down to the basement
to continue his work.
Finally
his preparations were complete. A man’s house was his castle and Carl had armed
his castle with a fantastic security garrison. He grinned then put the bugle to
his lips. He blew the activating charge and watched his army take their places.
Ranks
of gauntleted rabbits marched up the stairs. Each a different color ranging
from fire engine red to Christmas tree green, each held a hefty rubber mallet.
Miniature fusion packs protruded from their backs, vaguely resembling the
Energizer Bunny, if the Energizer Bunny was prepared for war.
In
addition to the arm protection, each rabbit wore a helmet. The burnished steel
gleamed as the foot-high rabbit climbed into the house. The springs loaded into
their feet were concealed by fur, but multiple rounds of testing had proven
their efficacy.
Next
came the copters. Tiny rotors whirring, the flying spheres puttered past Carl’s
head. Less menacing than their furry companions, the copters were designed to
monitor the house. With 360 degree surveillance cameras mounted on gyroscopes,
the flyers were the eyes for the blunt instruments of the rabbits.
Carl’s
castle was ready to defend itself.
Feeling prepared, Carl relaxed a
bit. He returned to his normal work, shared stories with Molly and the kids
during dinner.
One day Archie and Abby mentioned
something about a Ninja Day. He didn’t see them at all, but pulled several
ninja stars out of the kitchen wall and his shoulder.
At all times the rabbits stood
sentry in every room on every floor. The copters hovered around, patrolling
ceaselessly. Carl waited patiently for the house to make a move.
The house did not disappoint.
It happened on a Tuesday. The wail
of a Bagpipe Alarm pierced the silence of lunchtime in the Burdick house. (The
Bagpipe Alarm was installed in each copter, as well as Carl’s alarm clock. It
never failed to wake him. Or Molly. Or Archie or Abby on the floor below. Or
the neighbors.)
It was coming from the second
floor. Without pausing to remove the napkin from his shirt collar, Carl dropped
his spoon into the applesauce drenched pancake casserole and charged up the
stairs.
He arrived on the scene just in
time to see the rabbit in Archie’s room pound the bump under the rug into
submission. One hit might have been enough, but the rabbits were programmed to
be thorough. The mallet slammed the floor a dozen times even though the
protuberance showed no sign of returning after the first strike.
Suddenly bagpipes sounded
downstairs. Carl now had no doubts on the effectiveness of his system. He
waltzed serenely down to watch another rabbit beat the unruly floor into
submission.
Before he reached the bottom of the
stairs, another set of bagpipes went off, probably the third floor. Then
another set, and another. The air filled with the sounds of Scotland, melodies
fluting in and around each other. The muffled percussion of mallets kept an
erratic beat.
Carl’s eyes went wide and his
glasses sagged down his nose. He could see the living room, the hallway, and a
tiny bit of the kitchen from where he stood. In all directions he could see
bulges in the floor. Pulsing up and down, the bumps rose and fell. Rabbits
scurried to and fro, clobbering left and right liked some crazed game of
Whack-A-Mole.
The floor bubbled up furiously as
if something beneath the rug was boiling. The crescendo of bagpipes and hammers
grew and grew. Carl began to feel dizzy when he noticed that there were also
lumps growing from the walls. He was certain that hands and arms would sprout
from these protrusions, just like his dream.
Rabbits began bouncing around,
utilizing the springs Carl had engineered into them. Spots were popping before
his eyes when Carl felt the house begin to shake.
The raw energy of the rebelling
house came to a head with an apocalyptic explosion. Something erupted from deep
beneath the kitchen, tearing the basement door from its hinges.
At that exact moment everything
came to a halt. The floor had resumed its normal flatness. The walls no longer
moved in any way. Bagpipes no longer heralded pending danger. Rabbits remained
floor-bound. Mallets ceased to beat.
Carl gathered his courage. Whatever
was the cause for such a cataclysmic disturbance had arrived. And it was in his
basement.
He shuffled slowly forward in his
house slippers, trying to catch his breath. He approached the gaping doorway. A
thin pall of smoke oozed into the kitchen. Standing in the empty doorway at the
top of the stairs, Carl looked down.
Fear of the unknown clutched his
heart with cold hands. A chill went down his spine. The hairs on the back of
his neck stood to attention.
At the base of the stairs, where
there had previously been nothing, was a door.
