Quincy swung his racket like a giant fly swatter and caught a dozen entomonsters with a hard backhand.
Pock! Pock! Pock! Pock!
Psssst! Manny sprayed the Raid around his ankles as the bug monsters tried to scurry up his legs. Ten yards to his left, Jordan swung madly with the lacrosse stick, like a medieval swordsman fighting the battle of his life.
To his right, Nina was spinning in a cloud of bug spray so thick that Freddie lost sight of her. Out of the chemical cloud he heard her shriek and watched as an enormous entomon tackled her to the ground.
Freddie raced across the bug-coated grass as the massive entomonster reared back, about to slice Nina’s arms with its razor-sharp pincers.
Freddie rammed the end of the lacrosse stick into the monster bug’s face and felt a satisfying squish.
The monster bug shrieked, black pus shooting out of its eyehole, as Freddie pulled Nina up off the ground.
While the kids stomped and swatted and bashed the skittering carpet of monster bugs, their monsters kept the larger insects at bay. Oddo drop-kicked a massive entomon, crushing its body with his large monster heel, while Mungo ran circles around one bug as big as a Labrador before smashing its noggin with a swift karate chop.
The massive bug creatures growled and grunted, more like large mammals than insects. An entomon as large as a rottweiler charged at Nina. Just in time, Yapzilla scorched the big bug with a stream of fire. The bug screeched and flipped on its back. Its legs squiggled in the air until Kraydon blasted the upside-down bug monster with his eye beam and the thing hardened to stone.
Mega-Q zapped three Chihuahua-size entomons as they charged behind Quincy.
“There’s too many of them!” Nina yelled, and they sprinted away from the roiling cluster of psychotic insects.
Then suddenly, the bugs started to empty out of the park.
The kids stopped fighting, panting in the cool night air.
“What’s going on?” Freddie asked.
“They’re retreating!” Jordan said.
“Thank goodness!” Nina exhaled. “’Cuz. That. Was. Disgusting.”
“I don’t think they’re retreating . . . ,” Trevor observed. “I think they’re moving on to their next meal.”
They all looked around.
The entire park was completely bare. The gigantic bugs had eaten everything in sight and they were only just getting warmed up.
8
Freddie was still in shock. They’d squashed hundreds of bugs and they hadn’t even made a dent in the entoswarm.
Manny’s eyes darted left to right. “Which way do you think they went?”
“What about the cornfields off the highway?” Quincy said.
“If I were an entomon,” Trevor said, “that’s where I’d be.”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” Freddie said.
All eleven of them rushed out of the park and paused at the side of a road—Freddie, Manny, Jordan, Nina, Quincy, Oddo, Mungo, Kraydon, Yapzilla, Mega-Q, and Trevor. Freddie’s eyes strained through the darkness, trying to spot the bugs. He’d never been outside this late before.
Everything was silent except for the constant chirp of desert crickets and the wind whipping through the night. The town was much less populated since the monster madness two weeks ago. A lot of people had left town during the monster attack, and most of them hadn’t returned. They were scared that the monsters were going to come back. Freddie glanced up at Oddo, who was now taller than Freddie. They weren’t wrong, he thought.
It wasn’t too far down the road when they crossed a set of railroad tracks. A minute or two later they found themselves at the edge of the interstate.
On the other side of the four-lane roadway, they came upon a stretch of farmland, eight square acres of cornfield.
“I don’t see anything,” Manny said, scanning the landscape.
Oddo sniffed the air, walking forward as if he had just caught a scent. They followed the fluffy monster down the deserted highway.
In the distance, Freddie could make out a strange blue light.
“There they are!” he exclaimed, and started to jog toward the glow.
They watched as the swarm glided toward the field and began to feast on the farmland. It sounded like a band saw cutting through a thick piece of wood.
The entomons were chowing down, devouring the corn at an alarming rate. Some of the bigger ones were eating whole corn stalks in a single bite.
It looked like there were even more of them than before.
“How is that even possible?” Nina asked, sounding a little freaked out.
Even in the darkness, Freddie could see Trevor’s face going completely white.
“They must be replicating. . . .” Trevor’s voice trailed off.
“How do you know that?” Jordan asked.
“The first one split into two after I fed it,” said Trevor. “So the more they eat, the more they replicate.”
“Look!” Manny pointed, droop-jawed.
Freddie squinted and made out the shape of one gigantic entomon. As the monster bug consumed the cornstalk, its middle started to bulge as it divided into two identical entomons.
“We need a different plan, you guys,” said Freddie. “We can’t kill all these bugs with a couple tennis rackets and a few cans of bug spray.”
Quincy scratched his head, thinking hard. “We know they are drawn to the original two entomons, so maybe we can lure them somewhere if we kidnap the two parents.”
“I’ve got it,” Manny blurted out. “Night of the Lepus!”
“What’s that?” Nina asked.
“Lepus is Latin for bunny rabbit,” Quincy replied.
Manny turned to Freddie. “Night of the freaking Lepus, dude. Do you remember we watched it, like, a month ago at my house?”
“Of course, I remember. You don’t exactly forget a movie about giant killer bunnies terrorizing a small Texas town.” Freddie gave his best friend a grin.
“Do you remember the end?” Manny said.
Freddie thought for a moment. “The railroad tracks!”
“Yep, they electrified them and ran all the giant killer bunnies across them.”
“Spoiler alert! I would have watched that,” Nina said. “I love old horror movies!”
Jordan looked at them both funny. “How are we going to electrify the train tracks?”
“Mega-Q!” Manny and Freddie yelled at the same time, and they both did a happy little jig, dancing around in a circle. To Freddie, it felt just like old times with Manny.
“Wow, they are, like, really nerding out right now,” Trevor said to Nina.
“Their nerdiness may just help us get out of this mess,” Nina said.
“Okay, you guys, here’s the plan,” Manny announced. “We’re going to lure the parentomons out of the pack and to the train tracks.”
“Which Mega-Q will have to electrify,” clarified Freddie. “But first, we need a way to get those two glowing creepy-crawlies out of the middle of that field.”
Oddo and Mungo had been listening intently. In a flash they jumped into action.
They thundered across the highway and paused for a moment on the brink of the infested cornfield. Oddo wrapped Mungo in a three-armed bear hug and curled up into a round mound of fur.
The green fluffball rolled forward and disappeared into the base of the corn stalks. Oddo and Mungo headed toward the center of the feeding frenzy, where the parentomons’ glow dimmed and brightened, pulsing at the heart of the swarm.
Freddie squinted through the darkness, but he couldn’t make out what was happening.
“What’s going on?” Manny said nervously.
“They shouldn’t have gone in there,” Trevor said. “That swarm could chew them up and spit them out in, like, two seconds.”
“Thank you for that, Trevor,” Nina said. “Now if you could please shut up for the remainder of forever, that would be fantastic.”
“Don’t worry,” Manny said. “M
ungo’s too quick for them.”
“And he’s got Oddo to help protect him.”
Out in the middle of the cornfield, there was a flurry of movement. Mungo appeared back on the empty highway with the glowing blue bugs under his arms. Mungo sped toward them with Oddo trailing behind, galloping on all fives like a gorilla.
“They made it!” Quincy cheered as the roar of the feeding swarm swelled.
“Come on,” Freddie said. “To the train tracks!”
The kids raced toward the railroad tracks, cutting across the other side of the highway. “Go on, Mega,” Quincy said. “Do your thing.”
Mega-Q crawled up the electric pole and sent a surge through the tracks. The metal tracks hummed and buzzed with electric current.
Down the road, Mungo was heading right toward them. Oddo galloped after him, the swarm close behind him. It looked like a stampede of beasts escaped from a zoo. But not a normal zoo, a zoo for alien insects. Most of the bugs were at least the size of full-grown felines, with some as big as baby rhinos.
“Go, Mungo!” Jordan hooted.
“Come on, Oddo!” Nina hollered.
Their two monsters hopped over the electrified tracks and stood on the other side with the parentomonster bugs.
As the massive swarm of grotesque insects crossed the railroad, the bugs snapped and sizzled, dropping on the electrified tracks.
“It’s working, it’s working!” Trevor yelled.
Just then Mungo yelped and fumbled the two glowing ringleader bugs. The parentomons broke free from Mungo’s grasp.
“Oh no!” Manny cried, as Mungo hit the ground.
The parentomons escaped his clutches and scuttled toward the tracks. It looked like they were going to stop, as if they knew to not electrocute themselves. Instead, the bugs leaped into the air, fluttered for a moment, then landed on the other side of their swarm.
The swarm quickly scurried back into the field and got back to munching on corn.
Freddie elbowed Trevor in the side. “Did you just see that?” he asked in shock.
“They flew,” Quincy said. “Well sort of, but they grew wings.”
“Does that mean the rest of them will get wings, too?” Jordan asked.
“When they mature,” Trevor said. “Yes.”
“And then they’ll all be able to fly?” Nina asked.
Trevor cringed. “Maybe?”
Over by the train tracks, Mungo howled in pain.
Nina and Manny rushed over to Mungo, who held his arm like it was in a sling.
The parentomons had clamped down on his fuzzy monster skin with their clawlike jaws, which was what had made him drop them.
Freddie was too shocked by what had just happened to think straight.
The parentomons had sprouted wings. Soon the rest of the entomons would be flying. But when?
The original two bugs were printed yesterday. And the swarm had hatched a few hours ago. That meant they had less than half a day before the whole swarm took flight.
Freddie tried to picture the rhino-size entomon flying around in the air and felt sick. He was covered in bug slime and the fight seemed far from over. His entire town was about to be eaten by flying bugs. And if he didn’t stop them, they’d move to the next town and the next, and soon the whole world would be consumed.
Nina and Manny helped Mungo as he limped back to the group.
“Strike one,” Trevor said. “What do we do now?”
“They hurt my Mungo, and now they’re gonna pay. Let’s exterminate these suckers,” Manny said.
“But we’re almost out of this stuff!” Jordan said, shaking a Raid can.
“I’m not talking about Raid. We need the real deal!” said Manny.
“How are we going to do that?” asked Quincy.
“My uncle’s extermination company is down the road,” Manny said, brushing Mungo off. “Let’s roll.”
Oddo curled up into a fluffball and started to roll out ahead of them.
“It’s just a figure of speech, dude . . . ,” Manny yelled after him, but Oddo was already leading the way.
9
The group reached the warehouse about ten minutes later, hearts pounding, lungs heaving. In the driveway was a truck with Vasquez Pest Control written on the side.
The skeleton of a bare pine tree loomed over the building. The land had already been picked clean by the entomon swarm.
“Are these things just going to keep eating until there’re no plants left?” Nina asked Trevor.
“I think so. But that’s not the worst part,” Trevor said, looking sheepish.
“What could be worse than that?” Manny asked.
“Well, there’s something I haven’t told you guys yet. . . .”
Freddie looked at him. “What is it?”
“These bugs are polyphagous,” Trevor said, as if this were the most basic word in the English language.
“What the heck does that mean?” asked Jordan.
“It means that they’re herbivores,” Quincy said. “But they could become carnivores!”
“English, please?” said Jordan.
“Once they run out of plants, they’ll start to eat animals,” Trevor said. “And once they run out of animals . . .”
Freddie gulped. “Humans?”
Trevor nodded. “Sorry?”
“You’re killing us, Trevor!” Nina said. “Why would you design them to do that?”
“It seemed cool at the time,” Trevor said. “Obviously, I didn’t think it through.”
“Ugh. Come on, let’s get what we need and get outta there,” Manny said. “We don’t have a second to lose.”
Mega-Q zapped out the alarm system, and Kraydon smashed the locked door handle and the door swung open.
“Your uncle’s gonna be mad!” said Freddie, looking at the busted door.
“What else are we supposed to do?” Manny said. “He’ll have to understand.”
Inside the warehouse, there were storage shelves all the way to the ceiling. They were stacked with metal tanks of industrial-strength bug-killing chemicals.
They read: Keep Away from Open Flame! Highly Flammable!
The kids grabbed the extermination gear and hoisted the metal tanks over their shoulders like backpacks. Oddo, Kraydon, and Yapzilla carried two extra tanks apiece and followed the kids. They hustled out of the warehouse and darted back into the bug-infested night.
Back at the cornfield, the sound of the feeding frenzy filled the air. The kids split up and began to cover the field’s perimeter with the toxic chemicals. The entomons ignored them. They were too busy eating and multiplying.
“It’s not working!” Nina shouted.
“Just give it a minute,” Manny said. “My uncle says they use the strongest stuff on the market.”
“Well, your uncle never had to exterminate giant bug monsters from the deranged imagination of some psychotic sixth grader!” Quincy said, spraying another round of insecticide.
“I’m not psychotic!” Trevor replied. “I’m just misunderstood.”
Nina looked over at Yapzilla. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Yapzilla nodded with a sly smile.
“You want us to set everything on fire?” Trevor asked her.
“Good thinking, Nina!” Jordan said.
Quickly, they doused the rest of the field with the spray, and Yapzilla, now the size of an ostrich, reared back and unleashed a torrent of flames. The fire hit the insecticide, and the whole field went up in a blaze.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The kids ducked for cover in a roadside ditch as the cornfield burst with popcorn.
The bugs were right in the thick of the fire. A high-pitched insectile screech pierced the air as the entomons burned and sizzled.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Freddie could hear their guts exploding and bursting into the air. It was gross, but it was also pretty cool.
“Woo-hoo.” Jordan high-fived Freddie. “We got ’em!”
&n
bsp; Freddie relaxed, hoping this horrible night was over. But then, he noticed a great black wall rising through the flames. Within seconds, bugs of all sizes raced toward them, trying to escape the heat of the popcorn cornfield.
There were big ones and small ones, medium ones and tiny ones. The little entomons crackled and popped in the heat, but the bigger ones tore through the flames, screeching as they ran out of the fire, unscathed.
“Retreat!” Jordan shouted and took off for the road.
The kids and the monsters ran for their lives. The faster Freddie ran, the more the entomonsters gained on him.
“Someone do something!” Freddie yelled. “Help!
But it was too late.
They were bug meat for sure.
10
Freddie was way in last place, a good ten yards behind the rest of the gang. Yapzilla dropped back and trotted alongside him. The two-necked creature squawked, and Freddie plugged his ears as he ran. Yapzilla let out a high-pitched ear-piercing shriek right at the gaining swarm. The monster bugs stopped in their tracks, disoriented.
“Yo, nice trick, Yap!” Freddie cried, and sprinted as fast as he could.
Freddie caught up to his friends and they ducked into a red barn, shutting the doors behind them.
“It’s not going to hold them!” Freddie shouted as the bugs buzzed closer.
Manny screamed back. “It’s going to have to!”
Oddo braced the doors with his tripod of strong furry arms.
Squabam! The entomon swarm slammed into the barn. The hinges rattled and the doors shook. Oddo pushed against the wave of insects with all his might. A few bugs squeezed through the crack under the doors.
“They’re getting in!” Freddie yelled, stomping and squashing and swatting at them with a stick.
Monsters Unleashed #2 Page 4