Chapter 8 My secret weapon

If one wanted to reach the staircase that led to the basement he would first have to pass through my “dark corridor”. No haunted house with any self-respect and sense of its mission could be without such a corridor. Now it would be wrong of you to think that this corridor was nothing but a small passage with a burnt out lamp. Far from it! The darkness there had its own life and literally drowned any kind of artificial light. No electric torch, candle or another similar light source could disperse it. It was the place where my boogey creatures and my other monsters were really powerful.

‘That exorcist must be crazy if he tries to pass through my dark corridor,’ I thought, ‘he will have no choice but to retreat and leave me alone.’

Slimetooth and the weaker boogeymen had already gathered there to greet that horrible exorcist in a way that would really surprise him. But, should he manage to pass this obstacle, I would have no other choice than to play my last most decisive card and I truly hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Indeed, Dr. Mystero having consulted Mrs. Giacometti’s map left the central hall and headed for my impenetrable basement. I can’t tell you how long it had been since anyone had set foot there. My basement was my most valued and carefully preserved room. Τhe heart of my haunted existence. It was no wonder that my ruthless enemy had to descend there in order to dehaunt me.

The door opened with a bloodcurdling creak and my dark corridor, long and threatening, was revealed to the exorcist. Without any trace of fear on his face he gave it a sole cold look and moved on. My boogeymen, all-powerful inside the protecting darkness, were waiting impatiently almost greedily for him to move far enough into the corridor, where they could make their move. A few steps more and huge claws would stretch out to grab him.

It was against my principles to actually hurt someone penetrating my haunted insides, but this time I was determined not to let the intruder pass this obstacle. Everything was at stake and I had to put the well-being of my monsters first. Without me they wouldn’t stand a chance.

The exorcist took a flashlight out of his pocket and tried to turn it on without any result of course.

‘Dam, it must have broken,’ he said with a mysterious smile.

Μy boogeymen steadily and carefully began to come closer, all the closer. It seemed that the exorcist had walked right into my trap. With nervous moves and trembling hands Doctor Mystero took out of his pocket a lighter this time and tried to use it without any success. Τhe icy darkness of the corridor absorbed every warmth and smothered any source of light energy.

My boogeymen started gathering around him. Τhey kept coming all the closer and it was a matter of seconds before they made their move. Τhe exorcist was surrounded. Ηe could already smell the stench of their breath, that stinking breath, the result of many years of careful teeth decay and deliberate neglect of even the most basic rules of personal hygiene.

But what happened next defies all logic. Suddenly all the apparent anxiety and uneasiness of Dr. Mystero vanished and an ironic smirk appeared on his face.

‘So you have a dark corridor,’ he said maliciously. ‘How unoriginal of you! And you have the naivety to think that I have come unprepared for such an eventuality. Do you know what this is?’ he added taking out of his pocket a mysterious long object. ‘It is called a solar flare and it has the light intensity of a hundred thousand sun rays guaranteed to disperse even the most stubborn living darkness and evaporate even the toughest of your boogey creatures. You have been wrong not to give up immediately, house. No matter what you do, in a little while, all the supernatural parasites that have gathered here will be extinct.’

It’s impossible to describe the panic that spread in my dark corridor at the sound of that threat. Pushing and trampling on each other, screaming out of fear all my boogeymen rushed to find refuge in the safety of my basement before Mystero lit up his accursed flare.

Slimetooth and a few others managed to get out of the way in time but many hadn’t been able to escape that horrible fate. Suddenly, originating from where the exorcist was standing, an indescribable blinding light filled everything, extinguishing like a flood every supernatural force in its path and annihilating my living darkness. The light like a great stream was erasing once and for all my powerful shadows while I remained there weak and helpless in the dominating presence of that ruthless man.

Ι had only one last chance: to use my secret weapon. If that didn’t work, I would surely be lost. That monster killer might have dozens of terrible weapons to employ against me but I knew his greatest weakness and was determined to turn it to my advantage.

The Exorcist wasn’t prepared for what I had in mind. I was certain of that, but would my trick work? I couldn’t say for sure. Now everything was at stake. I intended to use my talent in order to create believable illusions, to produce the most impressive, fantastic and imaginative nightmare, a special order for the great Dr. Mystero.

I’m certain that as he was turning the doorknob of my basement door, he felt something like a little shiver inside but I can’t say for sure, because something that he was wearing prevented me from reading his mind.

The door opened and the illusion began. My monsters in white coats, looking as humanlike as I could make them, stood there ready to play their part. They were gathered around a dentist chair holding the most horrible, torturous instruments for mangling a human mouth that my imagination could invent.

The walls, of course, were covered with paintings showing horrible scenes of painful dental horrors. Root canals drillings, pliers and injections with huge needles. I had tried not to overdo it, to preserve an element of realism, but naturally, the result was rather distorted to encapsulate the experience of the dentist as Apollo Mystero must have perceived it when he was still very young and his mother took him there for the first time.

Gorge, the wood elf, was made to look as a dentist assistant. Hasty and efficient she moved with quick threatening moves towards the exorcist.

‘You’ve come at last, young man!’ she said with a mean smile. ‘You’ve kept us waiting long enough. Now the Conference of Italian Dentists can finally start. Today is the day our great doctors experiment on new therapies and guess who’s mouth will pay the price!’

Dr. Mystero remained there for a moment with a blank look on his face like someone who doesn’t want to believe his own eyes. It was an indescribable nightmare, it couldn’t possibly be true and yet there it was. It was obvious that he had been trying to resist the power of my illusion, but soon the feelings that were raging inside him poured out uncontrollable in a way that no one would have expected.

‘Nooo!’ he screamed terrified ’Not a dental conference! Anything but this!’

In a few seconds, the tough exorcist had turned into a frightened little boy and his dauntless facade had collapsed like a house of cards. His case with the awful weapons slipped from his fingers, as he knelt down with tears pouring from his eyes like regular waterfalls. That was the first time I saw someone so scared.

‘No,’ he wept, ‘no! I don’t want to go to the dentist. I’ll be a good boy, I’ll floss every day and I won’t eat sweets. I’ll do anything.’

‘Come now, Apollo,’ said Gorge with evident sadism, ‘Dr. Slimetooth looks forward to trying his new technique. He thought how practical it would be to pin your tongue down on your lower jaw so that the other doctors can work on your precious little teeth without problems.’

‘Neveeer!’ screamed Dr. Mystero.

He seemed to have forgotten everything about the job he had undertaken and started running away leaving behind his dangerous doctor’s case with all his secret weapons. He crossed with admirable speed my dark corridor and reached the small hall and from there the front door ready to open it and disappear into the streets.

In retrospect I think it was a mistake I didn’t let him do it.

My monsters really impertinent after their first victory, with their dentist transformations still intact, were coming out of the basement to chase the frightened man looking forward to their final triumph.

‘Doctor Slimetooth, come quickly! I can’t wait to work over the pinned down tongue of our young patient. I’m thinking of trying a new type of filling, I’ll use cement. It would be very effective. And I’m thinking of sticking these here pliers in his tender gums and ripping off a couple of wisdom teeth in the process,’ screamed Bony.

‘No, no,’ stuttered doctor Mystero completely out of his mind, while he was searching, lost in agony and horror, for something in his pockets. Anythingthatcouldsavehimfrom this nightmare.

Now looking back I can’t help thinking that it had been a huge mistake on my part not to allow him to escape while I was ahead in the game. You have to know when to quit, otherwise your luck may change. In fact the exorcist had something with him that could easily turn my glorious victory into a humiliating defeat. It was nothing more than a little spray can. He held it up like a shield against my little army of monsters coming towards him angry and ready for war. His finger was hiding the inscription and I couldn’t read what was written on it until it was too late.

My monsters had left the corridor and were all more exposed than what would have been wise. That tactic was clearly a mistake but, drunk as we were on our triumph, we had thrown caution to the wind believing that nothing could defeat us now.

‘It’s all a lie,’ said the exorcist with a trembling voice, ‘it’s all a lie, do you hear?’

And with those words, he opened the valve and allowed a small part of the spray to spread in my haunted atmosphere.

Only then his finger moved and I was able to read the terribly ominous writing on the can:

“ILLUSIONEX”

And under that in smaller letters the terrible description of its destructive attributes:

Anti-illusion spray.

Evaporates any illusion, hallucination or dreamlike projection of supernatural origin.”

‘No,’ I screamed. ‘Run, my monsters! Run to save yourselves!’

But it was too late for that. My monsters, excited more than ever before, were standing in front of the powerful exorcist having as their only protection my illusion that would disappear in a second with a single spraying.

‘So, my venerable doctors,’ said wrathfully the exorcist, ‘let’s see what you look like in reality.’

Now my beloved monsters had nowhere to hide. What could I do to protect them? Fortunately, literally at the last moment, Alberto made his appearance entering through the window like an unexpected savior and attacked the exorcist who, in an attempt to protect his eyes, let the spray can fall to the floor.

My monsters, realizing the danger they were in, disappeared some in the basement and others in the attic and the rooms upstairs. My friends were safe but only for a little while. My last trick had failed.

‘Away you!’ screamed the exorcist pushing away my feathered friend. Then he looked around with a frightened look to make sure that no dentists were present.

’I was right! Ιt has been nothing more than an illusion,’ he said relieved. ‘That was it,’ he screamed then with true hatred. ‘Till now it hasn’t been personal, it has been an "only business" affair but, after that stunt you tried to pull back there, I will enjoy erasing you from the map.’

And with these words, the man in a regular frenzy stormed into my basement to complete his evil mission.

‘With that trick of yours you signed your death sentence and the death sentence of all your cowardly monsters,’ he shouted. ‘No house humiliates Apollo Mystero and lives to tell the tale. If you hadn’t done it, I might be inclined to consider letting a few of your friends slip away and seek refuge in a cemetery or in the ruins of some old castle but now none of them will be spared. They will all perish!’

And with these poisoned words the exorcist picked up his medical case from the floor and placing it on a nearby table took out his syringe and filled it with some kind of strange liquid from a vial.

Now there was nothing I could do. I had to face the fact that I was doomed. The tall man laughed maliciously. Now he had nothing more to do but to inject the liquid to a pillar connected with my foundations and this story would never have been written. There was no hope for me anymore.

But what was that? SuddenlyIheardstepscoming down the staircase. That couldn’t be one of my monsters. They were all as helpless as I was and could do nothing to help me. It must be someone else. But who could it be? Once again I had been so focused on the events that had been taking place in my basement that I hadn’t noticed anything else.

Suddenly Pepe, the boy I had helped earlier in the book, made his appearance with a newspaper in his hand like he had the most important news to convey.

‘Who in Beelzebub’s horns are you?’ yelled the exorcist. ‘How dare you interrupt me when I’m in the middle of an exorcism?’

‘Are you Dr. Mystero?’ asked with a tone of great importance and formality the boy.

‘I am,’ replied the man. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

‘You mean to say you are the head of INUNEX, the famous exorcist?’

‘I told you that’s who I am and I asked you a question: Why have you interrupted me?’

‘I have great news that you absolutely have to be informed of.’

‘What news?’ asked the tall man unable to contain his excitement.

‘Buckingham Palace is haunted!’ announced Pepe.

‘Buckingham’, repeated ecstatically the exorcist. ‘Si, Dottore,’ said Pepe, ’and the queen is asking you and only you to travel there and dehaunt it. Τhe old kings are out of their coffins wandering in the corridors, dead lackeys are becoming ghosts and terrifying the queen’s maids of honor. You have to hurry!’

‘But my work here is not finished,’ said the doctor terribly upset. ‘If I go, who will give the injection to the foundations of this wretched house?’

‘Don’t you worry about that! I can take care of that for you. You have bigger fish to fry. Look at the front page of the reliable school newspaper “The match”. The queen announces that the exorcist that will rid her of the ghosts haunting Buckingham palace will be knighted.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ said the exorcist completely lost in his daydreaming. ‘My childhood dream will come true. I will be knighted, I will have a title, I will have glory and honor. In that case, my boy, I trust you with this syringe. You give the injection to one of these pillars and finish with this silly little business. I have to run before some other member of INUNEX gets there first and rob me of my glory.’

’Don’tyouworryaboutthat! I’ll take care of everything.’

‘I’m leaving. What am I saying? I’m out of here!’ exclaimed Dr. Mystero and with that, he disappeared leaving me and my monsters in peace.

I couldn’t believe it! Pepe, that little angel, had saved me!

Τhere was no doubt in my mind that he had slipped the page of the yearbook under the door to warn me.

‘I owed you one,’ he said lifting up his head so that I could hear every word. ‘You’ve helped me and when someone does something like that for me, I never forget it. A few days ago I went to the doctor and he told me that I have a rare heart condition and if I got even a little scared, I could die. I’ll have to be careful all my life. If you had let Carlo and the boys scare me, I wouldn’t be alive today. I had to do something to repay you. I don’t know if you are really as … as evil as everyone says, but I think deep down you have a good heart.’

I didn’t say anything but at that moment I was filled up to my last beam with such gratitude for that young boy that words cannot describe. It seemed that somehow he had managed to find a post in the school newspaper and together with a few friends had printed the fake announcement he showed to doctor Mystero. For the moment I was safe and I had learned a valuable lesson, namely that it’s never wrong to be nice even to those who seem powerless. It was a lesson that I wouldn’t forget soon. Neither will you, I wager.