Even though it was one in the morning, none of them
were tired. There was nothing good on TV to watch, so they decided to engage in
one of their favorite pastimes. The three sat in their pajamas in Gerald's bedroom,
with all the lights out leaving the room in pitch black darkness, and told scary
stories to each other. It may have been an activity left behind by most in summer
camp in elementary school, but it was still fun nonetheless! Duncan, a dog, was
currently holding a flashlight up to his face, finishing up his story.
"...and they never heard from the girl again.
But they say, on clear quiet nights in the woods, if you go near the tree where
she was buried you can see her ghost walking around, asking people to play with
her..." Dean, a raccoon, shivered.
"Brr. Where do you get these stories from, Duncan?
They always give me the chills." Duncan just grinned, and Gerald, a human,
chuckled.
"Hey!" Gerald suddenly shouted. "Give
me the flashlight next! I have a good story, too!" Duncan chuckled, and tossed
Gerald the flashlight. He turned it to his face, and grinned.
"This is the story about three young friends.
And they were about to start college, so they decided to have a sleepover a few
nights before they had to start classes..." Duncan and Dean giggled softly,
but continued listening to the story. "They stayed up real late, telling scary
stories, then finally went to bed. But the next morning they were woken up really
early. There was a man at the door, and he told them they won a brand new vacuum
cleaner in a contest. So they took it into the room and decided to try it out to
clean all the crumbs and fuzz off the carpet. And do you know what happened then?"
"What?" Duncan asked excitedly.
"Yeah, what?" Dean echoed.
"Well... they opened the box, but it wasn't
a vacuum at all. It was a monster! A giant monster that grew to three times its
size when it was exposed to the light! It had a huge, round body, a long thin neck,
and a giant mouth like a funnel, and it sucked the three up before they even knew
what happened, eating them whole! And they say any three friends who sleep over
a few days before classes start will be eaten by a monster, too..." Dean shivered,
but Duncan just laughed.
"Aw, come on, Gerald! Can't you think of anything
scarier than that?" Gerald just laughed.
"Not really, but probably because it's almost
three in the morning and I'm exhausted. How about you guys?"
"Yeah, I'm beat," Dean said with a yawn.
"We should probably go to sleep." With that, Gerald crawled into his
bed, and Duncan and Dean into sleeping bags they had brought and laid out on the
floor, all three quickly falling asleep.
Gerald woke up the next morning at about ten, finding
Duncan and Dean were already awake, talking. They noticed Gerald yawn and stretch,
and looked over at him.
"G'morning, sleepyhead," Gerald said with
a chuckle. "It's a little after ten, you know."
"Ten?!" Gerald asked, unable to believe
his ears. A quick look at the clock confirmed it, though. He scratched his head,
and yawned again. "Wow, I didn't mean to sleep so late... I was really tired,
though."
"Yeah, we thought we'd let you sleep. We've
been up since eight. I hope you don't mind, but we already had breakfast,"
Dean said.
"Oh, that's okay. What'd you have?"
"Doritos," Dean giggled, pointing at an
empty bag in the trashcan. Duncan sighed, looking around at all the orange crumbs
on the floor, now knowing where they came from.
"Well, aren't you still hungry?" Duncan
asked sarcastically with a smile. "After all, it looks like you got most of
it on the carpet." Dean and Gerald laughed, embarrassed.
"Sorry about that," Gerald said. "We
were gonna clean it up, but we didn't want to wake you up with the vacuum."
Duncan shook his head, hopping out of bed.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm just teasing you. Hey,
move everything off the floor you guys, I'll go get the vacuum." Dean and
Gerald nodded, getting up as well and picking up their sleeping bags, the garbage
can, and everything else on the floor that was big enough to pick up, moving it
into the other room. Meanwhile, Duncan dug around in the closet in the other room,
finding a large box and dragging it back into the bedroom. He was about to open
the box's flaps when Dean suddenly shrieked, startling Duncan and Gerald and making
them jump.
"What?! What's wrong?!" Gerald asked in
a panic.
"This! The box! It's almost just like the story
last night!" Dean whined. Duncan and Gerald laughed.
"Come on, Dean, you don't really believe in
those silly stories, do you?" Duncan asked. "Gerald just made that up
right then. Nothing like it happened, and nothing like it ever will happen."
Dean sighed, and giggled, obviously still slightly nervous but trying to shake
it off.
"You're right, I guess. All right, let's get
started cleaning then!"
Duncan worked the flaps of the box open, and even
though Dean cringed slightly, much to his relief, nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Instead, Duncan just pulled a rather old looking vacuum out of the box, setting
it on the floor next to them. Dean and Gerald looked it over silently. Neither
one of them had seen a vacuum that looked quite like this one before. It had the
old vacuum design, made of the actual unit (a separate, box-like structure on wheels),
a large rubber hose attached to it, and the "mouth" of the vacuum which
looked like a funnel stuck into the end of the hose but bigger. Gerald whistled.
"Wow, that's an antique. Where'd you get that
old clunker from?" Duncan shrugged.
"My parents gave it to me since they didn't
need it anymore, and it's always worked, so I figured hey, why not?" Duncan
pulled out a plug, and tossed it to Dean, who was near an outlet on the wall. He
plugged it in, and Duncan knelt down, looking at a knob on the rectangular main
unit. "Let's see... if I remember correctly, mom said six is for carpet."
He turned the knob, and as soon as it clicked past the zero, the vacuum began to
whirr noisily. Duncan set it to six (out of the ten settings), and begin to pass
the funnel-shaped mouth of the vacuum over the Doritos on the floor. It picked
up a small amount, but the majority of the mess remained on the floor.
"Just turn it up," Gerald said. "I'm
sure full power would take care of this mess no problem."
"Yes, but mom said never put it on ten."
"Why?"
"No idea, it's probably so old it might break
the motor or something. Well, let's turn it up higher." Duncan turned the
knob up to eight, and tried vacuuming up the crumbs again. Again, only a few crumbs
came up, but the majority of the crumbs were left on the floor. Duncan looked at
the mouth of the vacuum, pressing his hand against it, finding the vacuum was quite
strong. The vacuum began to whir at a louder, higher pitch, and with some effort,
he pulled his hand away as the vacuum's noise returned to normal.
"That's odd," Duncan muttered, "it's
a strong vacuum. Maybe the crumbs are just really deeply embedded into the carpet?"
Duncan turned the vacuum up to nine, and the whirring of the motor became even
louder. He tried vacuuming up the crumbs, still to no avail. Gerald sighed, and
knelt down next to Duncan.
"Let me see that," Gerald said, grabbing
the vacuum's hose from Duncan. He turned the vacuum off, and the whirring slowly
ceased, leaving the room in silence. He began to lightly squeeze the hose from
the mouth of the vacuum all the way to the main unit, and frowned. "Hmm. There's
nothing stuck in the hose. And look." Gerald ran his hand along the carpet,
and the crumbs moved quite easily back and forth. "It should be picking them
up no problem. I'll make it pick them up, then!" Gerald turned the knob of
the vacuum on again, this time turning it all the way to ten. Duncan shrieked.
"No, Gerald, don't! You might break it!"
It certainly sounded like the vacuum was going to break, as the motor began to
whir furiously, louder than it had been before. Gerald dropped the mouth of the
vacuum in surprise at the noise, but when he tried to turn the vacuum down, the
knob was stuck.
"I can't turn it off! Unplug it, Dean!"
Dean, who was the closest to the wall where it was plugged in, quickly yanked the
plug out of the wall, but to the surprise of the three, the vacuum continued unhindered.
The unit was whirring furiously, the rectangular unit beginning to expand slightly.
"That doesn't look good!" Dean whined.
"I say we get out of here!" The three were about to make for the door,
but the vacuum's unit grew larger and larger, and as it did the hose and mouth
did as well. Without warning, the three fell towards the vacuum as they felt a
powerful force pulling them towards it.
"We've got to get out of here, quick!"
Duncan yelled, trying to get back to his feet in vain. The vacuum's pull only grew
stronger, however, and the three found themselves being dragged along the floor
towards the now-huge mouth of the vacuum. Dean, the farthest away, grabbed a hold
of the rubber door stop mounted on the wall behind the door near the floor (the
kind that keep the door from smacking into the wall if they open too quickly),
Gerald grabbed on to one of the legs of Duncan's bed, and Duncan himself simply
dug his claws into the carpet, managing to work his way towards his computer desk,
grabbing onto one of the legs of that.
The three held on with every ounce of strength they
had, the vacuum steadily growing larger, louder, and more powerful with every second
that passed. The rectangular main unit now bulged out on all sides, looking more
like a ball than a rectangle now. Loose papers from all around the room flew towards
the mouth of the vacuum, disappearing into the dark black rubber hose. Duncan,
Dean, and Gerald's pajamas all flapped wildly in the strong vacuum as they held
on as tightly as they could to avoid being sucked in as well. It was getting harder
and harder to hold on, though, as they fought against the vacuum, constantly having
to grip harder and harder onto whatever they were holding onto, pulling against
the vacuum. They knew trying to crawl away was out of the question; the vacuum
was simply too strong. Dean, who had only the small doorstop to hold onto, suddenly
lost his grip, hurtling towards the gaping mouth of the vacuum with a scream. Duncan
and Gerald could only watch helplessly as the poor raccoon was pulled through the
air towards the mouth of the vacuum, almost as if in slow motion. Dean, however,
quickly tried to turn himself to face the vacuum, spreading his arms and legs apart
as far as he could. He ended up facing away from the vacuum's mouth, but just as
he planned, his paws and feet caught the rim of the vacuum, keeping him from being
sucked in.
"Dean! Dean, are you okay?!" Gerald screamed
over the noise of the vacuum. The vacuum's noise was deafening, but Dean barely
heard him, nodding as his face strained, showing he was using every ounce of strength
he had to keep from being pulled in.
"I'm okay," Dean shouted as loudly as he
could, "but the vacuum is pulling my tail and it really hurts!"
"Hold on, Dean!" Duncan shouted. "Hold
on, and don't let go!"
"I'm trying, but... but I don't know how much...
how much longer I--" Dean was cut off by a scream as he felt his arms give
out, sending him tumbling backwards into the hose of the vacuum, and Duncan and
Gerald could only watch in horror as a Dean-shaped bulge traveled through the hose
and into the main holding unit. The vacuum still showed no signs of stopping, and
Duncan and Gerald continued holding on, both silently hoping Dean was all right.
Duncan and Gerald, while neither was looking at
the other, were both trying to think of something, anything they could do. Duncan's
thought processes, however, were interrupted by a scream from Gerald. He looked
over, finding that while the vacuum still steadily grew larger and larger, Gerald's
grip on the metal bed post was beginning to weaken as well.
"Gerald! Don't let go! Whatever you do, don't
let go!"
"I can't hold on any more!" Gerald shouted
back. "My hands, they're too sweaty, my grip..." Duncan sighed. He had
to do something, and fast. Before he could think of anything to do, however, Gerald's
grip gave way, and he hurtled towards the mouth of the vacuum as well. Unlike Dean,
though, Gerald had no time to react, and instead was sucked straight into the vacuum's
mouth, through the tube, and into the main holding unit. It was now just Duncan
and the vacuum, and the vacuum was definitely winning. It continued growing larger
and larger, now taking up almost half of the room. The noise was making Duncan's
head pound, and the sucking power was growing stronger and stronger as Duncan felt
his death grip on the desk leg being worked looser and looser. He was tempted to
just give up and let go, but he refused to go down without a fight. The vacuum,
however, simply continue to grow larger and larger. The smallest part of the mouth
of the vacuum (where the funnel-shaped mouth connected to the hose) had gone from
being only about two inches in diameter to being at least three and a half feet
wide now, and it was only getting bigger. He fought it as long as he could, but
after a few more minutes and the vacuum growing more and more powerful, he felt
his grip beginning to weaken as well. With a sigh, Duncan resigned himself to fate,
and let go, hurtling through the air and disappearing into the darkness of the
vacuum as well.
Once Duncan had gone through into the main holding unit, the vacuum slowly began to become quieter and quieter, finally turning off. The bulging unit slowly shrank back to its normal size (although if you were to closely examine the underside of the vacuum, it still bulged out slightly), and soon the room was silent once more. If anybody had been around, though, they would have heard a distinctive belch come from the vacuum...