GLASS SOUP by Jonathan Carroll (funny books to read .txt) 📕

a white dress shirt that was permapressed and shiny, carried four identical ballpoint pens in his breast pocket, and had a kind of Beatles/Merseybeat haircut that didn’t help his look much. “I asked what you’re doing.” He pointed to Haden’s still-erect penis. “You come with me, mister.”

“No, he ain’t going anywhere, mister. And what are you supposed to be, the fucking fifth Beatle?”

Haden heard this but because he was unable to move, he couldn’t turn around and see who’d said it. The voice came from somewhere behind him.

Mr. Nabisco looked toward the speaker. Seeing who it was, his mouth set hard. “Do I know you? Do you go to this school?” He waited, hands on his hips, for an answer that did not come.

The school gymnasium, that giant echoing room full of the ghosts of ten thousand past games, wooden everything, and kids in stocking feet, had grown quiet. No music played now, very few voices spoke.

Something brushed by Haden’s paralyzed body. Seeing what it was turned his angry blood to ice water. It also set him free. As soon as it touched him Haden was no longer encased in whatever, unable to move. He could move everything again. The first thing he did with his everything was look frantically around for the nearest exit.

Because Sunday Suits was here. It had said those rude things to Mr. Nabisco and was now moving toward him. Haden hadn’t been so frightened since dying. He didn’t remember his dreams and he didn’t remember his nightmares but he sure remembered Sunday Suits.

Ironically, it was one of the last nightmares Simon Haden ever had as an adult. Horrific, bloody, and believable, it was so right-in-his-face there, inescapable and pitiless, that it woke him at 3:37 one morning, his mouth locked open in a silent scream.

At the terrifying center of that last nightmare was Sunday Suits. Haden had no idea where its strange name came from. But here it was again, gliding past him toward Mr. Nabisco.

“Wuzzup, Haden? Got a little business to take care of here.” Its voice was low and seductive, confident. “Stick around though—I want to talk to you after I’m done.”

I want to talk to you… The phrase was like a finger jabbed in his eye.

The monster moved on to Mr. Nabisco and without pausing, wrapped itself entirely around him and began to squeeze. The man didn’t even have a chance to run. A snake coils around its prey. Sunday Suits, Haden’s last dream beast, was much worse than any snake.

The teacher’s Beatles hair whipped back and forth as he tried frantically to free himself to breathe, to get air into his lungs. A strangled dry cry sounding more birdlike than human scratched its way out of his throat.

Responding to this cry, the students attacked Sunday Suits. From everywhere in the gym they came running. Those closest leapt straight onto it, only to be swatted off as if they were gnats. Fearless, they got up and went right after it again. The ones farther away raced toward the creature with no hesitation. All of this happened so fast that Haden forgot running away and stared, awestruck.

Kids large and small swarmed the thing, tearing at it, pulling, biting, punching and clawing. Some of them made noise while they did it. One girl kept screaming “Mama!” over and over again in a high mad whine as she stood knee-deep in Sunday Suits, trying like the others to kill it.

Some were silent, but all of them fought in a violent frenzy to stop it, to destroy it. When the monster realized that they weren’t afraid, weren’t going to give up, and that more and more of them kept coming, it dropped the limp teacher on the ground and turned full force on its attackers.

There were sixty-two students at the dance. No matter how fearsome Haden’s nightmare creature was, being attacked by sixty-two enraged, fearless, sugar-stoked, adrenaline-pumped twelve- and thirteen-year-olds was a challenge.

The fight was fierce but astoundingly even. So many kids ganged up on Sunday Suits at once that it couldn’t focus on any of them and was thrown totally off guard. It was like being attacked by a swarm of five-foot-tall bees. Almost the only effective thing it could do in response was twist and turn and swing its limbs around, trying to knock as many of them away as it could. The problem was for every one that fell, four pounced.

There were blood and screams. Those it hit or grabbed were doomed, but there were so many of them that it almost didn’t matter. Sixty-two children wanted to slaughter it. Sixty-two children were trying.

Haden watched as if a brutal car wreck were happening right in front of him. Then he saw the blue mask. The fight was fantastically colorful because most of the kids wore Halloween costumes. There were bursts of jungle green and saffron, silver… all in motion, all at once. But the African mask was such a singular brilliant blue that his eye saw it immediately when it fell. Next he saw Suzy Nichols lifted into the air and snapped back and forth like a flag at the finish line.

Thirteen-year-old Haden who worshiped Suzy Nichols and was totally unafraid of this creature awoke in him and moved to save her.

Forty-year-old Haden, terrified of Sunday Suits and so much else, froze.

He could feel both of his selves pulling powerfully in opposite directions.

The man knew so much. The boy knew no fear.

When he felt the other’s scared resistance, the boy stepped out of the man he would some day be and went to save Suzy by himself. But of course that wasn’t possible. Two steps away, energy poured out of him like blood from an artery. He was barely able to turn to the older Haden and wheeze “Help me!”

The man saw his younger self being brave and magnificent and foolish. But that boy wasn’t him anymore, those qualities were long gone. How many years had passed since he’d been courageous?

Then he watched