Page 64 of The Wild Zone

A man had appeared a few feet in front of me. That would have been freaky enough, but this guy was misshapen, like a column of clay poorly molded into human form. Hemlines for clothing had been scored into his skin, but all of him was a sickly gray color and glistening as if he’d just been smoothed over with water.

Worst of all was the unchanging expression on his face. His grin was a jagged knife-cut. On either side of his lumpy nose, double eye sockets had been pressed into his face, with eyebrows above them traced in an angry V. He reminded me of those old bangsangssi masks Korean people once used to drive away evil spirits at a funeral. His sightless eyes seemed to leer at me. I got the feeling he knew me and thought my face was even more ridiculous than his.

I’d met a few monsters before, but nothing like this.

Could he be one of Dad’s minions? I hadn’t seen any sign of Ares or the mythical world in ages. (Although, once, about a year before, a wild boar had trotted up our driveway as Mom was getting ready to take me to school. The second she threatened it with her umbrella, it vanished in a puff of blood-colored smoke.)

“H-hello?” I ventured.

The clay man reached for the nearest street sign. Leisurely, like he was picking a pretty flower, he ripped the metal pole from the ground along with its concrete base and a huge plug of soil.

“No!” I ducked as he hurled the entire thing at my head. Unfortunately, the muddy cement end caught the edge of my soccer bag and spun me sideways. My head slammed against the sidewalk.

Blinking stars out of my eyes, I staggered to my feet. I only survived because the clay man was slow. He was one step away, his gooey arms extended to grab me, when I scrambled out of his reach, picked up the street sign from where it had landed, and swung it at him like a baseball bat. It struck the clay man hard in the midsection.

My shout of triumph died in my throat as the pole passed through his body and popped out the other side. His clay flesh mended instantly.

“Oh, come on!” I yelled.

The clay man grabbed for me again, but I dropped the pole and retreated. The neighbor’s backyard ran along the sidewalk where I’d just practiced my impassioned speech and seemed as good an escape path as any. I vaulted over Mr. Bentley’s fence, getting splinters in my fingers from the wooden planks, and then sprinted toward the other side of his yard. If I could only jump a few more fences, I could make it home and retrieve my dad’s dagger or even one of my mom’s competition rifles.

I hoped the clay man was all brawn and no brains. Maybe once he lost sight of me, he wouldn’t know what to do.

CRASH!

The clay man broke straight through the fence behind me, smashing its planks into kindling.

“Go away!” I picked up a lawn umbrella and threw it at him. The wind in its folds made it twirl delicately down to the grass. With an exasperated growl, I hoisted Mr. Bentley’s barbecue grill into my arms. I knew it was his pride and joy—a big old barrel smoker that looked like it used to be a steam-train engine—but I was desperate. I spun and hurled it like a shot put. There was no chance that could pass through the clay man’s body.

I was right. But not in a good way.

Instead of absorbing the grill, the clay man caught it and chucked it back at me. Unprepared for a counterattack, all I could do was twist to one side to avoid being hit straight-on.

Two hundred pounds of metal clipped my right shoulder, knocking me to the patio bricks. That should have kept me down, but my stubbornness (and, okay, my demigod durability) brought me to my feet. I limped around the rear of Mr. Bentley’s house, trying to get back to the front, cringing at the squelch, squelch of heavy footsteps behind me. I was still moving faster than the clay man, but not by much.

There was a gate on the other side of the house that faced the front. I fumbled to unlatch it. As soon as I saw the clay man’s shadow looming behind me, I dropped to my hands and knees. His fist punched through the gate, and he jerked the entire structure toward him.

Unfortunately, I just happened to be in the middle.

The wooden gate slammed into my face, and I toppled backward against the clay man. I was too dazed to do more than squirm as his hands fell heavily on my shoulders. The clay began to soften and ooze—which felt even grosser than it sounds—as his hands formed gooey hooks under my armpits. He lifted me up. The more I struggled to free myself, the more he glommed on to me, slowly encasing me in clay.

“Let me go!” I yelled.

That might have been the last thing I ever said, since a wave of clay was creeping across the side of my face, but then someone behind me shouted, “Hey, Clay Brain!”

Suddenly, water. So much water. I sputtered and gasped for air as the clay man and I got caught in a sideways rainstorm.

The clay man growled and lurched, but his hold on me loosened. I dropped to the ground and crawled away toward the source of the water.

My vision was blurry, but it looked like two people had crashed our party in Mr. Bentley’s backyard. A bearded man with bright red hair, curly goat horns, combat boots, and a kilt was spraying the clay man with a garden hose—which was weird, but I suppose not any weirder than the clay man himself.

Meanwhile, a boy about my age was hoisting a ninety-gallon garbage can over his head. The clay man caught me by the ankle and started to drag me backward, but the boy hurled the bin at him. It hit the clay man square in the chest and stuck there.

Now top-heavy and soaking wet, the clay man didn’t seem able to get rid of his new fashion accessory. He faltered, his knees wobbling, and dropped my leg. His nose had melted halfway down his face, but he kept lumbering toward me.

“Help me with this!” the boy called to me.

He was struggling to yank a tangled bedsheet off a clothesline, which was just about the only thing in Mr. Bentley’s yard we hadn’t destroyed yet. Somehow, I understood what the boy wanted to do. I grabbed the other end of the sheet and got it off the line. While the guy in the kilt kept working his magic with the garden hose, Garbage Can Boy and I opened the sheet wide, ran toward the clay man, and wrapped it around him.