Making and Breaking the panel, one comic at a time.
Collage Comics is a mixed-media literary magazine that uses panels and other comic elements to re-organize and re-purpose submissions.
It's a little bit of everyone and everything.
Calvin Clayton stood with his nose pressed against the front window. So far he had seen a Corvette, a stray cat, a man walking a Chihuahua, but there was still no sign of the blue sedan. His Aunt Bea and cousin Juliana should have arrived ten minutes ago. Ever since Wednesday night, when he heard that Juliana would be staying for the weekend, time seemed to slow down to a sloth’s crawl.
Calvin heard his mom call from the dining room, “Don’t wait around, Calvin. Go back to playing GI Joe or something. I’ll tell you when she gets here.”
Calvin sighed and supposed his mom was right. Time would go more quickly if he played GI Joe. Calvin trudged up the stairs and went into his room. He sat on his dinosaur patterned carpet and picked up Joey, his favorite GI Joe.
“When do you think Julie’s gonna get here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Joey replied.
Calvin thought back to the last time his cousin had come over for the weekend. Juliana had been Captain Jewel the Pirate Queen while he had been Scalawag Cal: First Mate Extraordinaire. They had sailed around the living room in their refrigerator box boat, the SS Clayton, and they had defeated their nemesis Captain Pug-Face multiple times. Calvin’s pug Boris was easily defeated by belly rubs and beef treats.
When Calvin heard the doorbell, he tossed Joey back with the other GI Joes and raced downstairs. He bounced up and down on his toes as he waited for his mother to unlock the door.
Juliana entered the house with a huge smile on her face. She wore a lacy purple dress, and her hair was put up in three pigtails. Juliana always picked out her own clothing and styled her own hair. Calvin never really had the option of choosing his hairstyle since his mother kept his black hair cut short, but he did get to choose whether to wear a shirt with patterns or one with dinosaurs. He usually selected one with dinosaurs.
“Come on!” said Juliana. They left their mothers to chat in the hallway and ran into the living room. Juliana began to look around with a slight frown and asked, “Hey, where’s the SS Clayton?”
Calvin explained, “Mom had to throw it out. She said it was taking on water.”
“Aw, well that stuff happens sometimes.”
Aunt Bea called from the hallway, “Why don’t you kids go outside? It’s a terrible shame to be cooped up indoors on such a nice day.”
Calvin thought for a moment and then suggested, “We could play soccer.”
“Can we play with only two people?” Juliana asked.
“Sure! We can each be a team captain, and we can find a soccer ball and set up two goals…”
Calvin paused. He had spotted the black and white edge of the ball poking out from behind the computer desk as though it were playing hide and seek. The sight gave him a chill at the back of his neck.
“Maybe… we should play something else.” Calvin said.
“What do you want to play instead?” Juliana asked.
“How about GI Joe?”
“I guess. Maybe we could play soccer later,” Juliana answered. She followed Calvin up to his room. Calvin closed the door after them and then put his ear against the door to listen for anyone out in the hall.
When Calvin was sure that all the adults were downstairs, he stated, “We can’t play soccer.”
“Why?”
“Cause we can’t get the ball. It’s behind the computer desk, and we can’t go behind the computer desk.”
“Why? Because of the wires? I’m sure Auntie Mabel wouldn’t mind getting it.”
“That’s not it. It’s much worse than that. You can’t tell anybody, but there’s a vampire that lives behind there.”
“A vampire!”
Juliana grinned, and Calvin felt a pang in his stomach.
“Julie! Vampires are really scary. If one finds you, he’ll bite you in the neck and drink all your blood and then you’ll be a vampire too!”
“I know. That’s why we have to scare him away! Like they do on TV!”
“How would we do that?”
Juliana grabbed Calvin’s T-Rex flashlight off his bedside table. She explained, “Vampires hate the light. So all we have to do is shine a flashlight on him, and he’ll be scared away for good. We can do it tonight after your parents are asleep!”
Aunt Bea’s voice called from downstairs, “Juliana! I’m leaving now. Come say goodbye.”
Juliana ran downstairs to her mother and gave her a hug before shouting, “Come on Calvin! Let’s go outside.”
After a few minutes of searching, Calvin and Juliana found an old football under the deck. The ball looked like something Boris had been gnawing on.
After a half hour or so of playing catch with the ratty football, Juliana said, “It’s gonna be great playing with that soccer ball tomorrow!”
Calvin said nothing.
***
That night, Calvin sat with Juliana on top of her sleeping bag. They had wrapped Calvin’s comforter around their shoulders like the walls of a protective barrier. Using a flashlight, they flipped through Juliana’s book of ghost stories. Calvin stared out the window at the fingers of the swaying trees that scraped against the moonlit sky.
“Are you sure we can’t scare the vampire away tomorrow morning?” Calvin asked.
“Nope. Vampires sleep during the day. You can’t be scared when you’re asleep. Unless of course you have a nightmare, and I have no clue how to give a vampire nightmares.”
Calvin nodded and pulled the comforter up over his head.
“Are you sure we can’t just get my mom and dad to scare him away?”
“I don’t think so. Cal, have you ever noticed how on TV, the kids are always the ones to save the day?”
Calvin thought for a minute, “Yeah, you’re right.”
“This is our job. We gotta do this.”
Juliana threw off the comforter and leapt up from her sleeping bag. She carefully opened the bedroom door and then beckoned Calvin to follow her. Calvin slowly pushed the comforter off his shoulders.
Juliana let Calvin lead the way downstairs. Whenever Calvin had trouble sleeping, he would go downstairs to play with Boris. From experience, he had learned the locations of the creaky floorboards. When they came to the staircase, Calvin leaned on the banister and reached his leg from the thirteenth step to the eleventh step to avoid the twelfth, and Juliana followed his lead. At least one of his parents would wake up if someone stepped on the twelfth step.
At the bottom of the staircase, Boris panted and rolled over for a belly rub, and Calvin kneeled down to pet him.
“Should we take Boris along with us?” Juliana asked.
“No, Boris is kind of a scaredy cat. He’ll just run away if he sees a vampire,” Calvin replied. He wished he could continue petting Boris for a while longer, but Juliana was edging eagerly toward the living room.
As they crept through the living room, Calvin imagined each shadow to be that of the vampire. The shadow of the curtains mimicked the vampire’s cape while the shadow of the chair looked like the vampire’s hunched over body. The doorway to the den was a giant mouth that would attempt to swallow them in.
When they got to the threshold, Juliana turned on her flashlight and shined it around the room before landing on the space behind the computer desk.
“There it is!” Calvin warned. He saw a glimmer as the flashlight beam bounced off of one of the vampire’s long white fangs. Juliana stumbled back into the living room, and the flashlight beam wavered. Calvin watched the shadowy creature flick around the desk and into the kitchen.
“It’s going toward the kitchen,” Calvin said, following Juliana, who led the pursuit. He wondered if they might really frighten away the vampire.
Juliana called out, “It’s by the backdoor! I can see its red eyes!”
Calvin looked up at the vampire, and the creature stared back down at him. Its red eyes glowed like taillights from its pale face and its thin lips were curled into a snarl. Before Juliana could shine the flashlight beam on the spot where it stood, the creature seemed to melt through the sliding door.
“We did it! We scared it away! It’s gone outside!” Juliana cried.
“What are you kids doing down here?” asked Calvin’s dad.
They jumped and turned around. Neither of them had heard Calvin’s father coming up behind them. He stood in the middle of the den, rubbing his eyes.
“We were scaring away a vampire. We just scared him out of the house!” Juliana explained.
Calvin’s dad walked over and looked out the door. He turned back to the kids and said, “I’m sorry to ruin all the fun, but there’s plenty of time for you kids to play tomorrow. Aunt Mabel and I really need to sleep and so do you two.”
Calvin watched through the door as one of the floodlights flickered on in the backyard. The vampire winced from the illumination and then turned to stare at Calvin. Its mouth curled into a long, fanged smile, and it glided under the deck.
Juliana and Calvin followed his dad back upstairs. Juliana slid into her sleeping bag while Calvin gathered his comforter from the floor and put it back on his bed.
As Calvin got into bed, Juliana said, “That was a lot of fun. Are there any other monsters in the house that we can scare away?”
“Not that I know of,” Calvin replied.
“Well at least we get to play soccer tomorrow. Goodnight Calvin.”
“Goodnight.”
Calvin prayed for rain. Regardless, he did not plan to go anywhere near the deck for a long, long time.
