Piper and the Gren - Part 3

Saturday October 21, 1995

“Critter’s mom isn’t here,” observed Piper as they hesitated on the front porch of the Creedor home. She glanced nervously at the conspicuously empty spot beside the red and primer gray Firebird in the driveway. “Maybe we should come back when she’s here.”

Toady shrugged his shoulders. “Come on, Piper, we went toe to toe with the gren and we’re gonna let the Critter spook us?”

“I don’t know, Toady.” Simon shuffled his feet. “Piper may have a point. I mean, this guy is a little off…and we’re talking about going into his basement by ourselves.”

Toady rolled his eyes and sighed. “Please…there are three of us, there’s no way he’s going to do anything. He can’t trap all of us in there unless he’s got some kind of net set up, just waiting to catch unsuspecting kids who wander into his house. I mean...I don't think he’s down in his basement just waiting with a net.”

The three children stood on the porch waiting for someone to concede as muffled music filtered through the front door. Piper finally broke the silence. “I’m not going in there like this,” she stated. “But, I’ll go if one of you waits outside.”

Toady threw his arm up in confusion. “What? Ten minutes ago you were all set to go in by yourself. Now you’ll go in with just one of us, but not with both. This’s stupid!”

Simon nodded his head. “Actually, it’s a good idea. That way, at least someone who’s not in his basement will know we went in there.”

Toady’s face softened as he realized their plan made some sense, but responded, “Fine, but I still don’t think he coulda caught us all. So, who’s staying out?”

“I need to go in,” reasoned Simon, “since I’ve been studying the gren longer than you guys. I’d know what questions to ask. Besides, I’m older.”

Short even for his age, Toady’s head only reached Simon’s chin, but his back stiffened at the suggestion that was about to be treated like a child.

“I don’t care which of you guys come in,” interrupted Piper before Toady could make his retort. “But I’m the one who needs to look into this…I’m not sitting out my own search here.”

Toady bristled. “You’re also the one insisting somebody wait outside. And I’m the current record holder on the gren. Why should I have to sit this out?”

Several minutes and several rounds of rock, paper, scissors later, Piper watched as Toady sulked off to wait at the end of the Creedor driveway. Despite Simon’s age, she would have rather had Toady’s confidence with her in Critter’s house. However, Simon’s claim to a better understanding of the stories about the gren was probably true, so she made her peace with the current situation. She mustered her courage and reached out to press the doorbell quickly before she changed her mind. The muted sound of the chime blended with the sounds of high-volume Smashing Pumpkins from inside the house.

For a moment, nothing changed. The two friends stood with frozen expectation and listened for any sign that the chime had been heard.

Suddenly, the music stopped and a shouted “Come on in!” could be heard before the music resumed. Simon shrugged and pushed the door open.

The entrance to the Creedor home was dominated by a large photograph of Critter and his mother housed in a gold-leaf frame hanging against a soft blue wall. The table beneath the imposing portrait was littered with a crystal flower vase, lace doilies, and commemorative plates depicting cherubic angels. Mrs. Creedor’s warm smile blended smoothly with these decorative touches, but Critter’s looming face seemed to sneer across the top of the plastic flowers. His greasy hair was pulled into a pony-tail and the bottom edge of a tattoo peaked out from under the sleeve of the collared polo shirt he wore. His rat-like face and weasely eyes made it clear that his nickname was not based solely on his last name.

“I’m downstairs!” Critter’s voice called over the music. “Come on down, bro!” Piper hesitated to take a deep breath before stepping into the house and moving quickly for the stairs.

The steps creaked slightly and Piper felt dread as the open door at the bottom loomed larger with each step. As the music below declared that the world was a vampire, Piper couldn’t help wondering if they should have gone to see Oliver Blair instead.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was filled with a smoky haze and cluttered with worn furniture and empty beer bottles. Piper flinched as her eyes adjusted to the low light and discerned hundreds of sinister eyes and teeth glaring at her from the walls. Countless goblins rendered in charcoal drawings surrounded the room. To their right, an unlit alcove was packed with a drawing table, stacks of paper and a massive bookshelf. The small amount of illumination in the dim room came primarily from the glow of a massive television that dominated the far corner. Speakers on either side of the screen sang out “Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved!” The muted television showed an image of a long-haired man labeled “Shannon Hoon.” Critter himself slouched in a tattered recliner on the far end of the basement, his eyes locked on the screen. “That sucks, man. Blind Melon wasn’t bad, ya know?” His attention did not drift from the image on the screen as Piper and Simon waited awkwardly by the steps.

The carpet in the room may have once been tan, but had been stained and burned in so many places that it was hard for Piper to be sure. Overly full ashtrays lay on random small tables beside the occasional magazine with half naked women on the cover.

Piper took a half step behind Simon as she began to regret their decision to venture into Critter’s lair.

Suddenly Critter let out a violent yawp and turned his attention toward the door as his program went to commercial. “What is it with these rock stars not being able to handle their…”

Critter’s eyes went wide at the sight of the two children standing in the back of the room. His gasp of surprise set off a coughing fit. “What…are” he managed between hacks, his finger pointing as if to pin the children in place while he recovered. “What are you doing in my house?”

“We’re from down the street,” Piper called from behind Simon. “You told us to come in.”

“Well, I thought you were someone else,” he growled. He paused as he looked suspiciously at Simon. His face softened slightly. “You…uh…here to buy?”

Simon looked back at his friend with obvious confusion in his eyes, so Piper again took the lead, “No, we’re just here to…”

“Then, get out,” Critter interrupted, his eyes suddenly angry. “You’re wasting my time.”

Simon stood frozen as Piper tried to explain, “We wanted to talk to you about…”

Critter’s face contorted in rage as he shot out of his chair and started toward them. His legs wobbled for a moment and he caught himself on a ratty couch that sat between him and the children. He shook his head as his eyes seemed to lose focus. “When I get over there, you’re gonna wish you’d listened to me the first time.”

Simon turned and began pushing Piper toward the steps. Her heart pounded as she backed away from the man stumbling toward her. Critter rounded the couch.

As she turned, Piper called over her shoulder, “I talked to the gren!” and ran up the steps with Simon directly behind her.

At the top of the steps, Piper opened the front door and paused only after she had Toady in sight. He had been idly flipping the mailbox flag up and down but stiffened when he saw Piper’s obvious panic. Simon attempted to push Piper out the door, but she held her ground. “Wait,” she whispered.

Silence hovered behind the muffled music as Critter slowly stepped into view at the bottom of the steps. He looked smaller from this vantage, defeated somehow. Piper realized he was actually a rather small man. His breath came in deep huffs and Piper could see the anger slipping away from his face. “Did it respond?” he managed at last.

Piper stepped cautiously around Simon and looked Critter in the eye. She recalled the way the eyes in the hollow had tilted with understanding, the dark fog parting to open a path. “Well…it didn’t talk back. But yeah, I’m pretty sure it responded.”

* * *

“You understand I don’t usually talk about this,” explained Critter as he lowered himself back into his ragged chair. “Well…I talk about the gren, but I don’t really share the stuff I know…the real stuff…ya know?.” The eerie light of the muted video screen set the room’s haze aglow and cast dancing shadows against the walls. “You’re serious about this, right?”

Simon and Piper nodded from where they stood by the steps, their legs ready to dart back to safety in an instant.

“A friend of mine got stuck in Old Man Medry’s side yard.” Piper offered. “He was wedged against the house and couldn’t run, but the gren let me go get him. I just asked. I explained what I was doing…and it let me do it.”

Simon added, “I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

They waited while Critter made thoughtful noises and rummaged about in search of a bottle with enough liquid to make it worth his time. Instead of responding to Piper’s story, he seemed to take it merely as proof of their sincerity and began his own tale.

“Ol’ Man Medry used to have a peach tree back there,” he said as he dropped an empty bottle to the floor with a clink. “I used to go back there an’ pick em when the house was vacant, back when I was probably about your age…before Medry moved in.” He swirled the remnants of a whiskey bottle before tilting the bottle to his lips. “I went back there a couple days after he moved in. Figured he was an old guy…probably wouldn’t notice me, so there was no reason to stop snagging my peaches. Anyway, went back there that time and all the fruit was laying on the ground…” he paused for effect in the still room, “rotten.” He nodded his head. “I’d been there not two days before and that tree was full. And now every single peach was off the tree and mushy in the grass? Crazy.”

Piper glanced curiously at Simon. She had expected something more concrete than rotten fruit and the doubt showed on her face.

“I know, I know…but that’s just the first thing I noticed,” came Critter’s defense. “But that’s still pretty weird, right? Anyway, I’m staring at the peach tree and I get this cold chill. People talk about feeling like they’re being watched, right? Well, this was like…feeling like you’re being hated. I mean hate, just cold and…and furious. I turn around and I see those eyes. Swear to God, I was the first person on the street to see those eyes.” He paused to make sure his claim to fame had time to properly sink in. “So, the eyes are staring out of the shadows, just glaring me down. And I’m all the way in the back yard, remember, so there’s no clean path to escape.”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Simon, “No one’s made it to the back yard.”

Critter shook his head, “I was already in that back yard. It didn’t show itself until I was back there staring at the peach tree. I guess it’s just more defensive these days, I don’t know.”

Simon still looked unconvinced. Piper’s suspicion that Simon was reluctant to accept this claim due to its effect on the record book was confirmed when Simon mumbled, “Well, that doesn’t really count, I guess.”

Critter squinted as he tried to decipher what the boy had said before giving up and continuing his story. “Yeah, so, I couldn’t run back past the tree to get to the road but I had to get out of there. I was…it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. And I don’t think I was thinking quite right. I ran up on Medry’s patio. Tried to throw open his patio door, but it was locked. I think I was screaming, maybe crying, but I know I just kept pulling on that door because I couldn’t even think about turning around.” Piper remembered her own panic in the face of the gren’s stare and could well imagine Critter’s state of mind.

“I don’t know how long it took, but eventually Old Man Medry opened the door and stepped out onto the patio with me,” continued Critter.

This struck Piper as strange. “He didn’t let you in?” She imagined herself showing up so obviously shaken at a neighbor’s door and could not believe that the adult would not usher her in to safety.

“No,” answered Critter, shaking his head in the darkness across the room. “He actualy slid himself out so that I wouldn’t be tempted to run inside.”

Piper’s jaw dropped slightly. Of all the horrible bits of street lore she had heard about Old Man Medry, somehow this detail bothered her the most.

Critter continued. “But that was fine. Cuz, as soon as he stepped out there, he sorta nodded toward the tree and the fear just kinda…” he gestured as he looked for the word, “went away.”

Critter’s eyes snapped into focus, back from that day twenty-two years in the past, and glanced around at the empty bottles again. Realized there was no more liquor to be found within arm’ reach, he sighed and pushed himself out of his chair. As he made his way toward a mini-fridge tucked in the far corner of the room, Piper’s curiosity overrode her patience. “So what did he say? What did Medry say to you?”

A smile spread across Critters face as he looked back over his shoulder at his guests. His teeth glowed blue from the television screen.

“He said that I should probably stay out of his yard…or else I’d upset the gren.” The clinking of glass bottles rang as Critter rummaged through the refrigerator. Finding a full bottle, he waved it merrily at Piper and Simon. “You want?” The two friends shook their heads in unison.

“Suit yourself,” Critter muttered. “Anyway…So I asked him, ‘what’s a gren?’ Right? And he kinda chuckles and says in a Frenchie accent, ‘Oh, he eez a bit like a lutin, I zuppoze.’ And before you ask, lutin is French for goblin…I looked it up.” He plopped himself back in his chair and twisted the top off the beer before rewarding himself with a long pull. He wagged his finger in the air as he belched to indicate he had more to say. “So I say, ‘You’ve got a monster livin’ in your tree?’ and he comes back all philosophical like and says, ‘No more a monster than you or me. Really, what eez a monster?’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean, right?”

As Piper considered the question, her mind drifted to the feeling of delight that had coursed through her as the young boy tortured his peer. Guilt welled in her as she recalled her reaction and she glanced about the room for something to distract her. The walls gave no solace. The horrible, twisted faces of a thousand sketched creatures offered only countless answers to Medry’s question. And the small penciled “Creedor” in the bottom corner of each image told her that Critter himself had been wrestling with the question as well. There were versions with horns and versions with ragged, matted hair. Some had clawed feet and some had goat hooves. The only trait each version of Critter’s grens had in common was the vicious yellow eyes. In many pieces, the eyes marked the only color on the page, but on each drawing the eyes were the same as on the drawing beside it. And in each drawing, the eyes were the same as the pair into which she had stared. She shivered under the gaze of so much wickedness.

“Did he say why the gren lived in his tree?” Piper asked at last, not taking her eyes off the drawings.

“That’s a very good question,” Critter smiled. “Which is exactly why I asked him that very good question. And this part I can quote word for word because I have mulled it over countless times. He said, ‘I offer le vieille chèvre a home because eet ees all I ave to offer. Zere ees no longer any other place for eem. Plus he has earned it and more if I had it to give…for he saved my life.’”

Simon, who had been quietly taking in the details of the story, spoke up at this point. “The gren saved Medry’s life. How?”

Critter shrugged casually, “He didn’t really say. I asked him, but instead of saying what the gren did, he just said it was during the Battle of Bang Bo. So, I asked him if that was in Vietnam and he said that it was.” Critter set his bottle on the tv tray beside his chair and waited.

“Then what?” asked Simon, his voice high with anticipation.

Critter shrugged again and said, “Then he told me to go. Made me walk back past the tree, but nothing happened. And that was it. I went back and knocked on his door a few weeks later, you know, to ask him more questions. But he wouldn’t open the door, even though I know he was in there.”

Simon turned to Piper and thought back through the details. “Well, that gives us a little to go on, I guess. We could research this battle and see what comes up.”

Piper nodded. It would have been nice if the Old Man had given more concrete answers, but Critter’s short conversation with Old Man Medry had brought a host of new questions to the field. And it did give them a starting place for research. “So, do we assume the gren came from Vietnam, then?”

Simon’s forehead creased in thought. “I don’t know anything about oriental monster legends. Most the little creatures I’ve read about come from European myths. So, that’s a new avenue of research, too.”

Piper smiled, happy to have Simon’s enthusiast brain working on the problem. “I wish we knew where Medry was from. Probably France from the accent, but it’d be nice to know.”


Critter sat almost forgotten in the gloom. He watched in amusement before casually saying, “Medry’s from a little village west of Montpellier.” He paused as Piper and Simon stuttered in confusion. “It’s in southern France,” he continued innocently, “near the Mediterranean.” When the children continued to stare at him dumbly he smiled. “What, you think just cuz Crazy Critter delivers pizzas and lives in his Momma’s basement he can’t muster up some good research of his own in twenty-two years?”



...Continued in Part 4