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The Gobstomper

by Alex Dal Piaz

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A lot changes as you get older, thought Wilkie Saunders.

For example, he’d been sure older boys like Tom Dunn—who was either in 10th or 11th grade depending on if you counted the year he was repeating—hated his guts. Tom had tormented Wilkie and his friends everywhichway for years. And yet here they all were in the dark, Tom and Wilkie and half a dozen other older boys, gathered up behind the home of the local dentist. This was small-town Indiana, and not the best parts of it. The house of the dentist was plenty run down, perhaps not as much as the other homes along the street, but its peeling dish-sponge-blue paint was enough to make Wilkie feel antsy. Outside was a shingle-style sign, dismally busy with fancy script, advertising the services within. “What’s so special about a dentist?” Wilkie asked.

“Like I said, he deals sweets, to make extra money,” drawled out Tom Dunn. “And if you shut up for a sec, you’ll hear it.”

And then, with the very weirdness the boys had promised, Wilkie heard it: a slurping and gasping sound. And maybe… crying?

“What the hell is that?” Wilkie asked.

“Tears of joy,” Tom replied. “It’s the Gobstomper. Sweetest and most delicious candy on Earth. Kids pay a hundred for it. Of course, if you can’t pay, he does give it away, but one night only—on Halloween, like I said, and to one person only. That could be you, Wilkie,” Tom said as if he didn’t believe a word of it. “Of course, you’d have to keep your cool. And you can only have the candy in the house. It’s a recipe too valuable to let out. Think you can do that? Think you can hang with us now?”

“How good can it be?” asked Wilkie, nervously.

“Well, see, that’s the kind of doubting thing that’s just like a kid to say. Let me ask you—you ever have chicken soup from a can?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve got a grandma, who’s definitely made that same soup for you, straight from scratch herself, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, you tell me if one had anything to do with the other? See? Now you’ve had plenty of candy that comes from giant factories. But you’ve never had nothing like this homemade Gobstomper. None of us had. Until we did. —Hey listen!”

The boys fell silent. Sounds had started back up within the house. Wilkie listened alongside the boys to the gasping, creeping gurgles which sounded half like someone was handling the world’s cutest kitten and half like the kitten was digging its thin claws into the tender part of your arms. Wilkie tried to imagine what such an overwhelming candy might taste like. Then he nodded. And that was all it took: he’d meet the boys back here at the house tomorrow night, on Halloween.

Come alone, they said.

 

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Halloween in the small town of Ameola wasn’t much to look at. There were some scattered pumpkins and streamers, but more houses with lights off than on. The whole thing felt like something over already, like you’d arrived a day late for it. Some smaller kids padded around with their folks near sunset but enthusiasm didn’t run much later than that. It made Wilkie happy that he had his own plans, like a proper 7th-grader ought to. His parents hadn’t even batted an eye when he’d said he’d be out with the older boys ‘til at least 10pm. Wilkie knew his Halloween wouldn’t start until 9, when he was to approach and knock on the dentist’s door.

By 8:50, Wilkie was already in the street, hurrying through the dark towards the dentist’s house and avoiding the working streetlights, just as the boys had instructed. People around town said the sandy-haired dentist was unusual, but Wilkie had seen him before at the market and had always thought he seemed plenty normal.

The front door of the dentist’s house was solid metal, without any windows. Wilkie approached on the quiet of the grass, avoiding the stone path. The boys had insisted on a special knock—thirty-two taps, one for each tooth in his mouth. He was midway through this when he heard footsteps behind the door, falling in rhythm with his tapping. As he finished, the door swung open.

It was the young dentist. He was dressed as one.

“Trick or treat,” Wilkie offered now, shakily.

“Yes of course,” the dentist replied. “Why don’t you come in?” He pulled a basket of sweets off the side-table in the hallway, and backed away deeper into the house.

Wilkie stepped over the threshold. The door closed behind him, and the dentist spoke into the resulting quiet.

“Something tells me you’re here for something better than these candies.”

Wilkie nodded. “The Gobstomper … is what I was told it was …”

A delighted smile opened across the young dentist’s face, as if Wilkie had recalled for him the name of a dear friend “Yes of course, the Gobstomper.”

Wilkie nodded again, a little unsure. “Well, um, can you help me with that?”

“It’s not myself that deals with this. No, no, it’s Dentist Sr., as we call him. Would you like to meet him now?”

“Um … okay?” Wilkie shrugged stiffly. So stiffly that he suddenly wished that he could disappear in plain sight like a mouse does.

But Wilkie could only stand where he was.

The young dentist stepped forwards, gathering Wilkie around the shoulders, revealing a battered door at the end of the hallway behind him. The door was peeling with paint, and the shape of its hinges was distorted with rust. The frosted glass of the door was lit from within by a single yellowed bulb. Wilkie gasped. Old block letter words across the glass spelled out — Dental Treatment – Inquire Within.

“Shall we? Right this way,” said the young dentist, gallantly.

He prodded Wilkie forwards and prompted him to knock. As Wilkie hesitated, the young dentist rapped on the door very hard and fast.

From behind it, the floorboards began to creak, so deeply that even the ones under Wilkie’s feet shifted, and then door was opened.

Standing before Wilkie was a man of great height, so tall that Wilkie felt like he himself had shrunk down. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t—even though he desperately wished he could. Wilkie was stuck completely where he was. The tall man was pale, like flour, and held something tar-black in his hands, a rubber contraption, with holes for eyes, but none for the mouth. From where the mouth would be instead extended a ringed tube, which connected to a canister at the man’s side, held by a strap over his shoulder.

And then the man spoke, weakly, in an exhale.

“Oh … child … are you here for something sweet, are you?” he wheezed. “The Gobstomper?”

Wilkie nodded weakly.

“Have you ever played hide and seek?” asked the man, laying a hand as heavy as a backpack on Wilkie’s shoulder.

“—I—I don’t like it, n—not really…”

“That’s okay. Know what makes it much better? A mask,” said the man.

Wilkie mouthed the air, not knowing what to say, and turned back towards the younger dentist.

“Thank him,” the young dentist prompted. “Tell him it’s why you came.”

“… i-it’s why I came … thanks.”

The pale man smiled through broken teeth and panted as he stretched the mask open with boney fingers.

“Then come. Count sixty and the Gobstomper will find you, easy.”

The man lifted the mask.

“Um, w—wha—wait, w-where is it?” asked Wilkie.

“Why, it’s in this can,” said the old man, showing Wilkie the canister. “Like a genie’s lamp. I only need to rub it and—presto.”

“You promise? And it’s really good and sweet, this candy?” Wilkie forced out nervously, as though this negotiation might assure him of something.

Both dentists spoke with great assurance, “Oh yes.”

“Children weep with joy at it,” said the older man. “It is handmade.”

And while the older man was still speaking, the young dentist brought the mask down over Wilkie’s eyes and tight up against his face.

The old man reached and turned a wheel on the canister. Wilkie gasped. Sound and sweetness surged into the mask. Wilkie tried to hold his breath but failed and took a huge breath in.

“Your Gobstomper soon arrives,” the old dentist wheezed out.

A chalky darkness came over Wilkie. He breathed raggedly and was gathering himself to say something. It was in this moment, then, that he first felt there was something in his mouth. Between the surging saliva, there was something hard but also soft, which seemed to mold into place. His tongue played at a kind of ball or square forming in his mouth.

He looked up in confusion, through the eyeholes, scanning the fish-eyed view of the two figures bent within the dim room.

Then he felt it—unmistakably. His teeth. Softening. Melting across their bottoms. Dripping like wax candles. Weeping down into his mouth. Wilkie started to yell. The old dentist turned a different wheel of the canister and the pitch of the gas altered. Wilkie screeched, but the mass in his mouth puffed rapidly like a marshmallow, growing larger but then also stiffer and firmer—the object soon so large that it took up almost the whole of his mouth and pried his jaws painfully apart. And the more Wilkie tried to chew it down, the harder it got.

Wilkie screamed. And blubbered. He hummed distress hard under the rubber mask.

Then, seemingly mercifully, the gas ceased and the mask was torn forwards off his head. He screeched, but barely, as his mouth was jacked open by the ball that had formed within it. Saliva poured from him and it was all he could do to sip air at the corner of his lips.

Now the old man yelled.

“Boy—do you renounce sugar?! And all corrupting evils like that?!”

Wilkie looked up, unbelieving. But he perceived what was being said as it was repeated at twice the volume, and he hummed yes rapidly and slammed his head up and down in nodding too.

As he did, the old man brought up his wide hand, full of a white powder, and he blew the contents of it into Wilkie’s face.

Wilkie screamed, but then realized—it was sugar! Powdered and fine.

He wanted to weep, that this was all that it was. And he tasted it—yes, sugar! But, at the sweetness of it, saliva flooded into his mouth, filling the little space for air, choking him. Wilkie bent forward shrieking, trying to let the wetness drain from his mouth, trying to breathe.

“Do you really renounce it boy?! Or are you just a common fibber!?”

Wilkie moaned as clear as he could, that he understood. No more sugar! Never again! Halloween was nothing anyway! It never was anything in Ameola! He wished he could tell them both.

Then Wilkie heard something, even louder, outside the house — laughter from beneath the floor. He recognized it. The older boys.

But he had no moment to think.

The younger dentist brought a sharp-edged and shining metal instrument around in front of Wilkie’s face. Wilkie would have screamed again, but his lungs demanded all his breath.

“I can take care of this,” remarked the dentist, pricking at the mass within Wilkie’s mouth.

Wilkie nodded as fast as he could again, hoping this was the end of it and especially feeling so when the old man relented and spoke in dreary tones, “The easy part is done.”

Wilkie kept nodding in agreement.

“Yes. Too bad penitence is never easy” said the younger dentist. “I can remove this awful, toothal mass. But the prognosis is very poor, young man. You will need to come back for more work. Much more work to come. Fillings. Crowns. Root canals. Braces. Dentures. So much work, to restore this damage which you’ve done. This is what you will tell your parents. About the very sweet dentist. The only one you can trust. This is what you will do. Do you understand? Or do you want sugar? Much more sugar?”

Wilkie didn’t know how to respond.

The young dentist looked to the old man.

The old man brought his overflowing hand up again, forcing white powder roughly into Wilkie’s open mouth.

“Scream if you understand!” the dentist commanded as sugar bloomed into the air everywhere around them.

Gagged with suffocation, Wilkie still heard the rising chatter of the men, and the laughter of the boys beneath the house, and in a frenzy he struggled to scream louder than them all—that he’d do it! He’d do it! He would!

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Host Commentary

Well done, you’ve survived another story. What did you think of The Gobstomper by Alex Dal Piaz, brilliantly narrated by Alex Hofelich? If you’re a Patreon subscriber, we encourage you to pop over to our Discord channel and tell us.

As soon as I read this story, I was reminded of the TV show, Eerie, Indiana, which, in my head, was on television in the 1980s and had lots and lots of episodes.

I’m reliably informed it actually first aired in the US late in 1991, and only 19 episodes were actually produced (although there was a later spin-off series).

Here endeth the lesson on the flawed and fractured nature of memory and nostalgia. But anyway. For anyone who missed this show, possibly due to not having been born when it was aired, it featured a teenager whose family moves to the desolate town of, yes, Eerie, Indiana, population sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-one (geddit, geddit?). He immediately runs into all kinds of strange scenarios, including Bigfoot, a very much alive Elvis Presley and magic Tupperware containers that keep everything fresh. Forever.

It will probably not surprise anyone to learn that younger me loved this show. Which brings me to this story: small-town Indiana, you say? A group of teenagers poking around in possibly-probably supernatural goings-on and coming to a (forgive me) sticky end, you say? Perfect. Let’s go!

And Alex Dal Piaz does not disappoint – oh and by the way, quick aside: the town in this story is called Ameola, which the internet tells me is Nigerian for unexplained, or, possibly…. eerie. So I’m pretty certain our author knows his references – this piece is a classic of the genre: a boy facing peer pressure, encouraged to do something he knows he probably shouldn’t? Tick. A forbidden and obviously dangerous but also entirely irresistible prize? Tick. A creepy house? Tick. Horrifying dentistry? Tick-tick-tick!

What is the Gobstomper made of, Wilkie? What IS IT MADE OF?

That’s the question that might have saved him, and he does not ask it.

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I’ve thought about this a lot lately. We often do forget to ask the questions that might save us, don’t we? We’re shown a new, cool thing, and told it can do everything, including the kitchen sink. It will make you a brilliant NEW kitchen sink out of shiny amethyst dragon scales! It’s wonderful! Look! Look!

And there’s often not enough… er… might this be dangerous? Might it be… oh, I don’t know, eating the planet, one huge slobbering crunch at a time? Is it possible that we’re going to find ourselves having to go through a lot of pain and trauma and expense to restore the damage which we’ve done?

Never mind. Look! Purple dragon sink!

… We are telling this story now, and similar stories were being told 30 years ago, and have been told in different ways by different people over and over again, long, long before that. Rushing into things is human nature, and will probably always be human nature. The people who actively refuse to pause and think are… probably not storytellers. They’re probably not even story-listeners.

But we do what we can. We tell stories and we hope. As our usual host Alasdair – he’ll be here soon for our traditional Halloween episode, by the way – said to me the other day: we like to hope. It’s better to hope.

Alasdair is extremely kind and very wise, and I value his words very much. Thanks, Al.

So, ask the questions. Keep asking them. We can only hope that a few more people realise that we can’t trust the very sweet dentist, and we don’t, actually, need, much less want, more sugar.

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PseudoPod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Download and listen to the episode on any device you like, but don’t change it or sell it. Theme music is by permission of Anders Manga.

Next up we have Toby, by Brittany Groves, and our traditional Halloween parade, by, as I mentioned earlier our own host with the most, Alasdair Stuart. Can you catch all the references?

Oops, you missed one.

It’s behind you…

… oh dear.

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And finally, PseudoPod, and Orin Scrivello, say…

“Oh, the gas isn’t for you Seymour, it’s for me. You see, I wanna really enjoy this.”

See you soon, folks, take care, stay safe.