Vintage Memories

Chapter Thirty-Two "Hell's Bells"

(This chapter gets pretty brutal—carnage out the wazoo—but I had fun writing such an action-driven chapter. I hope it is as thrilling for you to read, as it was thrilling for me to write.)

One week prior to The Extermination:

"Attention! Attention, class!" The imp teacher hushed her bustling first-grade classroom. Rows of wide, inquisitive eyes turned to the whiteboard. She cleared her throat, adjusting her thick black-rimmed glasses and tossing her platinum ponytail over her shoulder.

There was one thing left before afternoon dismissal. The sooner these little brats cleared off campus, the sooner she could scurry down the hall to the English teacher, Mr. Grenninger's, classroom to give him her own special oral presentation. She had been working on it very hard.

But alas, work first. So she masked her avidity behind an aloof cast. "With the Extermination a week out, I'm required to play this PSA before dismissing you this afternoon."

With a click of her projector remote, a rectangle of blue light stretched across the whiteboard of half-erased math manipulatives, and she went to her desk to check her emails. The blue flashed to black, with a vibrant, red apple front and center. An eye opened up in the center of the fruit, and within its striking yellow iris, a countdown formed.

5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Then a burst of bright pastel light and jovial music transformed the dark classroom. A crudely drawn backdrop of an urban street on poster board came into frame. Then a hand puppet popped up from the bottom of the screen. Its motley-patterned ensemble of reds, greens, and purples brought on the instant evocation of roller coasters, carnival games, and cotton candy. The cap 'n' bells atop its head jingled with each bounce. Cheers of recognition erupted from the imp children.

"Hey, kiddos!" The hand puppet exclaimed, throwing his gruff voice up, down, and all around for the sake of entertainment. "It's your pal, Fizzarolli! And I got special orders from the King himself to talk to you about the upcoming New Year's Extermination!" A slide whistle undulated as the Fizzarolli puppet cajoled across the screen.

A six-year-old imp boy, with deep raven hair and a solid, cherry-red face, watched more intently from his back-of-the-class seat than his enthralled peers.

"I'm sure you all have lo-oowoahs-des of questions. What's the deal with these yearly raids? Why do we have to hide if the Extermination is for the sinners? And just what in the freckin-heck are these flying things in the sky?" A detached imp hand draped a photo of an Exterminator over the backdrop. Even though it was just an artistic rendition, the gnarled smile, and long, distorted limbs seemed disturbingly real. It was a blight on the whimsical video.

"Well I'm here to tell ya-" The Fizzarolli hand puppet gripped the picture in its mouth and yanked it off the backdrop, spitting it out and letting it fall. "Don't worry about that, okay? These things have been coming down from Heaven for hundreds of years, and no one's gotten close enough to figure them out and lived. But it's because of them that our cities don't get so overcrowded, so... give a little, get a little."

Two Exterminator puppets bounded into frame, their bodies cut out on uniform black felt, with crude, grinning expressions made of jagged green material. Stitched to their mitts-for-hands, were rough-hewn spears made from twigs, more than likely procured from the nearest park.

"But what I can tell you is that Exterminators kill in-dis-crim-in-ately." Each syllable settled like a brick into a road, and the Fizz puppet danced along it to his point. "That means they'll go after anyone, no matter who or what they are. It's in their design. Makes them more efficient when they don't have to waste time deciding who stays and who's gaaaahtta goooo. Just kabob 'em and move on. Not just that, but they're pretty fast, and cra-yay-azy strong!" Another slide whistle. "We've yet to see one carve through steel or put a hole through a brick wall, but they can for-sure blow down your front door like it's nothing, or lift a huge hellhound into the sky like a rag doll with their creepy bird feet." As the Fizzarolli doll stepped aside, a fourth doll came into frame. It was an imp, basic enough in its design that the quiet boy in the back could associate it with anyone in his life; his neighbors, his classmates, his mom, Him.