Here Comes Mr. Trouble

There was a thud on the floor above.

“What?” one Maker asked.

Then another, “What?”

And another, “What?”

And the last, “What?”

“I’ve lost contact,” the brunette said.

“Send the other one,” the blond man told her.

Almost instantly, Peter rose from the floor. But before he could reach the gap Tommy had created, something crashed into the barn floor above them again. Only this time the wood didn’t hold, and a thick rectangular object dropped through the boards into the basement, bringing down a hail of splinters and chunks of wood with it.

The object turned out to be an old bale of hay. It must have been one of the things Eric had seen up in the loft when they’d come into the barn. No wonder the crashes had been so fierce. The hay had to fall at least twenty feet before it hit the barn floor.

The Makers were all smiling, each looking up at the hole that now loomed above them. Peter had retreated from the door and was now standing near the bale. He, too, was looking up.

“Come down and join us,” the brunette woman shouted at the new opening.

“Your friends are already here,” the blonde woman next to her said.

They waited expectantly, smiles on their overly beautiful faces.

Something clicked in Eric’s ear. It was coming from the receiver he was still wearing. A glitch or something, he decided. Static.

“Be ready,” Fiona mumbled.

“We have no problem waiting you out,” the blond man said.

“I have no intention of making you wait,” Mr. Trouble announced, his voice not coming from above, but from the gap next to the china cabinet.

Pfffft. Pfffft. Pfffft.

Darts flew through the room. Three of the surrogates standing against the wall fell to the floor, while the three others ducked behind one of the shelving units. The Makers themselves didn’t move.

Maggie immediately pulled Eric deeper into the basement, away from the gap, while Vice Principal Rose all but carried Eric’s mom toward some shelves on the other side. But the gardener was the closest to the opening and never had a chance. Eric couldn’t see where the dart hit him but he went down, hard and fast.

Immediately, the Trouble sisters scrambled around the end of the cabinet and through the gap into the stairway. Two safe, two to go, Eric thought. If Mr. Trouble could get Eric’s mom and Maggie out of there, it would be all right.

By Eric’s count, there were now only six surrogates still standing: Peter, Vice Principal Rose, the three behind the shelf, and, of course, Maggie.

“Nicely done, Mr. Trouble,” the blond male Maker said.

“We would have let your sisters go eventually,” one of the women explained. “They were of no use to us now that we have our Eric.”

“And we do have our Eric,” another woman said.

“So on that front you failed.”

“So very sorry.”

The five Makers in the arc looked at Eric.

“Come,” the brunette woman said. “It’s time to go.”

With sudden realization, Eric knew hers had been the voice he’d been hearing in his head.

He gritted his teeth. “No. Let my mom and Maggie go first, or the deal’s off.”

“There is no off,” the brunette woman said.

Maggie started pulling Eric toward the center of the room, carefully keeping his body between hers and the doorway. He tried to fight her, but she was far stronger than she should have been. All he could do was slow their progress, not stop it.

“Eric?” Mr. Trouble called from behind the china cabinet. “Remember, we talked about this.”

Eric scrunched his eyebrows together. They hadn’t talked about this. They hadn’t talked about anything even close to this.

“That first night you visited the Lady Candice,” Mr. Trouble continued, “I told you then how this would all end.”

Eric tried to think back, but Maggie yanking his arms wasn’t helping. The only things he could remember Mr. Trouble talking about were the tracking devices, the welcome pamphlet, and that stupid unicorn necklace.

Wait, he thought. There was one other thing.

When the time comes, it’ll all be up to you.

If that’s what he meant, then great. Not a whole lot of help there. Because the time had definitely come, and if he had to rely on himself to get out of it, he was in even more trouble than he thought.

“Don’t listen to him,” the brunette woman said. “Your home is with us now.”

Maggie stopped him a few feet in front of the arc of Makers. He looked at them, and felt suddenly horrified that they might reach out and touch him. Though they were beautiful, perfectly so as Mr. Trouble had said, there was something awful about them. He could sense it deep inside. It made his heart feel like it was being strangled.

Then he remembered something else Mr. Trouble had told him. They can’t take you if you don’t let them. He didn’t want to let them, but he had to get his mother and Maggie free. So he had to let them, didn’t he?

They beat you down, make you think you’re going crazy, that everything’s hopeless, then they take you. Mr. Trouble’s voice again.

There were footsteps on the barn floor above them, then a few tidbits of wood and dust sprinkled down from the newly created gap. “Hey, Maggie. How’s it going?”

Everyone looked up.

Fiona and Keira were peering over the edge, each holding one of the dart guns.

“Get out of the way,” Mr. Trouble whispered over the radio.

Eric did nothing for a second, then realized the message was meant for him.

He leaned to his left. Maggie, who was also still wearing her radio, heard the message, too, but her Maker masters hadn’t made the same connection.

Pfffft.

The dart whizzed across the room and stuck into Maggie’s shoulder.

She staggered back, jerking Eric with her, then crumpled to the floor. He barely kept his balance, then tripped over her leg and stumbled straight at the arc of Makers.

And right—

“No!”

— through the screaming brunette female Maker in the center.

It was like the feeling he’d had when he visited his cousin in Houston once. It had been hot and humid and the air felt thick and moist. That’s what passing through the Maker felt like.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhh!” she screamed.

“Yuck!” Eric groaned.

He was now between the group of Makers in the arc and the huddling group of four behind them. But the four looked bewildered and dazed, and no longer had their arms around each other.

Of course, Eric realized. They had been controlling Maggie. It had taken four of them to make her do what they wanted, but now that she’d been knocked out, they had no one to control.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhh,” the brunette Maker continued to wail.

Eric wheeled around. She was twisting and turning and bending and jerking. It was almost like she was trying to take on a new shape. She rotated violently to the right, then to the left, then to the right, until she was whipping back and forth almost too rapidly to see.

The other Makers pulled away from her, their faces full of horror. Some moved their hands up to block their view of her, but couldn’t quite manage not to watch.