Attack of the Killer Prom Dresses

By Don McNair

While Kim Howell tries to beat the prom deadline for sewing dresses for three classmates, she realizes “unworldies” came in with her new sewing machine and are living in her closet. Was she losing her mind? If not, could she redirect the course of events at the prom and change the world, or would she become a victim to something far more sinister than a whacked out machine?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don McNair
• Release date: Feb 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465831361

Don McNair

Don McNair, now a prolific author, spent his working life editing magazines (11 years), producing public relations materials for the Burson-Marsteller international PR firm (6 years), and heading his own marketing communications firm, McNair Marketing Communications (21 years). His creativity has won him three Golden Trumpets for best industrial relations programs from the Publicity Club of Chicago, a certificate of merit award for a quarterly magazine he wrote and produced, and the Public Relations Society of America’s Silver Anvil. The latter is comparable to the Emmy and Oscar in other industries. McNair has written and placed hundreds of trade magazine articles and three published non-fiction “how-to” books (Tab Books). He’s written six novels; two young-adult novels (Attack of the Killer Prom Dresses and The Long Hunter), three romantic suspense novels Mystery on Firefly Knob, Mystery at Mangolia Mansion, and Wait for Backup!), and a romantic comedy (BJ, Milo, and the Hairdo from Heck). McNair now concentrates on editing novels for others and teaching two online editing classes (see McNairEdits.com).

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Attack of the Killer Prom Dresses

By

Don McNair

Smashwords Edition

Copyright© 2012 by Don McNair

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

PROLOGUE

Kim Howell picked up the scissors from the sofa table, swung through the kitchen for a quick glass of water, and walked quietly back up the stairs. Don't run with scissors in your hands, her mom had always said. Good advice, that.

She reached the landing, then the bedroom door, and heard a voice.

"I hear you."

Who was that? Kim stood stark still.

It was a real deep voice, one that rattled in the throat. Kim moved slightly until she saw Sharon through the door crack. Sharon had pinned the dress skirt and bodice into place around herself. She stood stiff as a statue, staring at the closed closet door.

A sound came from the closet. A cross between a wheeze, a sneeze and a bark. Whatever it was, it was not of this world.

"Yes. I'll do it."

That deep, rattily voice again. Now she knew where it came from.

From Sharon!

Sharon moved suddenly, startling Kim so much she almost dropped the scissors. Sharon walked woodenly to the closet door and opened it. The hall door blocked Kim's view of the closet's inside. A throbbing glow shined brightly on Sharon's front.

How could that happen? The closet didn't even have a light!

"Yes… I'll do it."

Sharon reached into the closet. She pulled something out, something shiny. She walked, robot like, to the work table and sat at the sewing machine. She rubbed the shiny thing on the machine, near the needle. Her eyes were all glassy, like she was a zombie or something.

Kim couldn't take it any longer. Sharon!

Sharon jumped up. She threw the shiny thing into the closet.

Sharon! What are you doing?

The growling, hiccupping, scratching noise came from the closet again.

"I will!" Sharon grabbed the bodice by the lapels and shucked out of it. She jerked at the skirt until the pin gave away, and threw it on the bed. She stood there, dazed, looking around as if to get her bearings.

Sharon!

Kim tiptoed into the room. She peered into the closet. Nothing. Nothing but her own clothes, hung neatly on the rod. Nothing but her shoes on the floor, plus a couple of boxes of things.

Nothing else.

What happened? Sharon rubbed her eyes, as if she were just waking up.

Kim plopped down on her bed, and stared at her friend. Something was going on. Something, she was sure, that would change her whole life.

CHAPTER 1

As townspeople walked briskly past the weird door they'd just come out of, Kim Howell twisted around behind her red Toyota's steering wheel and watched Mike stuff the huge TV-sized box into the back seat. She smiled. Yes, he was the handsomest boy at Bloomingdale High. Curly dark brown hair, large brown eyes under bushy brows, a straight nose with a little bitty bump in the middle, full lips. Luscious lips. She'd felt them on hers the first time the previous fall, after the Ft. Branch basketball game. He'd come out of the locker room where she was talking with Ashley and Gina, and they looked at each other and—well, she hadn't been the same since.

Mike grunted and kneed the box up onto the seat. He looked real serious. That's probably what they meant when they said someone had knitted brows, she figured. And boy, did he have the brows to knit.

She leaned toward him and patted the box. Careful, there. You break this thing, my whole life's down the tubes.

His eyes rolled up. Right, right. Jeez, you'd think I was some kind of dweeb.

Not just 'some kind, dahling. The very best kind.

He grinned and pushed the box farther in. I'll ride back here with it. He jumped in beside the box and slammed the door.

She glanced again at the strange shop doorway they'd just carried the box through. It was like a regular door up to waist high, then it got wider. The top part was shaped like a huge upside-down turnip pushed right into the brick wall. It looked like it was out of a mosque in the Far East or something, like she'd seen on the news.

She shook her head and shifted into drive. I still don't remember that doorway. Eppe's drug store there on the left, sure. The barber shop on the right, absolutely. They've probably been around ever since our Founding Fathers first camped here. But I sure don't remember that store. Do you?

Well, not really. But there it is.

Well, duh, Mikey, of course there it is. It's just that—well, somebody would remember a door like that.

She shrugged and peeled out, then tapped the brakes to avoid a collision. She dramatically wiped her hand across her forehead and said whew for effect. Downtown Bloomingdale was sure busy. Horns blasted, people shouted—you'd think you were in Chicago or something, not a little town in Indiana.

She stopped at another light and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she watched people go in and out of offices and stores. She usually shopped at Cordova Mall, south of town. She'd never even considered shopping on Main Street until she saw this unbelievable, super-deal Bernina sewing machine newspaper ad.

The light changed and she floored it. Oops! Too late, she remembered the sewing machine. She stomped the brake. Mike bounced against the front seat.

Kim!

Sorry. The machine okay?

Well, let me move this broken leg out of the way and check it.

She smiled. He was a funny guy, that Mikey. She turned right on Spring Avenue and slowed to make it through the timed lights. The traffic thinned and soon she was in the residential area, driving past dark green maples and an occasional red splashed mimosa. Beech, Oak, Pine streets slipped by. She turned right at the next street, touched the brake, and glided to a stop in the driveway at 1410 Juniper. The two story white frame house sat comfortably back on a trim lawn. She jumped out of the car and opened the back door.

Careful, Mike. That's got to get me through three dresses in the next two weeks.

Mike backed out of the car, dragging the box onto the ground. They could've put handles on it. Here—grab the other end.

They picked up the box. She watched him as he backed along the sidewalk toward the porch, looking over his shoulder. He glanced at the box to adjust his grip and—

She froze. Watch out!

Too late. He missed the first porch step and the heavy load squished him against the railing. He landed on his rear end, and the box landed on him.

He grinned. Saved the Machine, he said in his best science fiction voice. A thousand died, but the Force lives on.

A thousand and one, you keep that up. Hurry—we've got to get back to school.

They lugged the box up the stairs to her bedroom and dumped it onto a card table. He glanced around. Ah, heaven, he said. The royal dressing table, the royal bed. The royal chest of drawers, the royal mirror—

And you're a royal pain, Mike. But she smiled as she said it. He'd called her his Queen Bee ever since she designed the dress with the black and yellow horizontal stripes. After that, everything was royal. Okay, okay, it wasn't her best work. But she was still learning, right?

She glanced into the royal mirror. Nope. She didn't look like a bee, royal or otherwise. Bees didn't have black hair, black eyes, dark olive skin or dimpled chins. Or drop dead figures, like Mike said she had. 'Nuff of that queen bee stuff, Mikey boy, you got a real good deal here.

Help me unwrap it, she said, with as much authority as she could muster. They tore at the Scotch tape and pulled the brown paper away, revealing a box covered with indecipherable foreign squiggles. She tore the box top open and Mike lifted the machine out. Its chrome trim sparkled.

He frowned. It says Berdina, he said, reading the one English word on the machine's side. He sounded disappointed. Berdina with a ‘d.’ Sounds like Bernina, though, doesn't it?

She looked at him. That's what I thought it was. Bernina, not Berdina. I was sure that's what the ad said. No wonder it was so cheap.

I guess I still don't know what's wrong with your mom's sewing machine. He pointed to the scratched-up thing on the floor. Looks perfectly good to me.

But all that one does is sew, Mike.

He stared at her.

I mean—it doesn't do anything fancy. Like make buttonholes, things like that. It just sits there and sews straight lines. I need more than straight lines if I'm going to win that scholarship.

Oh, right.

He picked up some plastic peanuts that had dropped on the floor, and she sighed. He loved her, she knew. But he could never in his whole life understand her devotion to designing dresses. She'd made clothes for her dolls, and graduated to simple things for herself. Then she got into it real big. She took night sewing classes at Bloomingdale Community College, even though she was just a high school Junior. She subscribed to sewing magazines and took out every library book that had anything at all to do with dress design.

And then the Albertson Fashion Design School in New York announced its scholarship contest. She'd read about it, and qualified to try for one of the five scholarships. Five in the whole nation! Mike said it was like his Bloomingdale Raiders making the state basketball finals.

Mike put the peanuts back into the box and shoved it into the closet. Take in a movie tonight?

Can't. Got to meet the girls at the fabric store. Two weeks, Mikey Sweetbuns. Sure your dad doesn't mind doing the pictures?

Mike smiled. I blackmailed him. He's downright eager.

She hugged him and headed for the hall door. His father, a professional freelance photographer, did assignments for big time ad agencies and magazines. Mike was learning the business, too.

She glanced back at the sewing machine, sitting there next to the prom dress sketches. She'd been so sure it was a Bernina. She shrugged and they went out to the car. Mike slid into the passenger seat and she backed out of the driveway.

Then she remembered the