Kraydon, who was now as tall as Freddie, roared and pushed Oddo out of the way. He stood in the doorway and unleashed the rotating pulse from his Cyclops eye. The pulse struck the skittering critters around their feet as they squirmed through the gap between the doors and the dirt floor. The bugs turned to stone, and the kids smashed them.
But the bugs kept coming.
“There’s too many for him to handle!” Manny yelled.
“If we had some kind of prism, we could refract Kraydon’s eye beam and take out more of them at once,” Quincy thought aloud. “Then he could cover more area with the pulse.”
“I have this ring with my birthstone,” Nina said, and passed it to Quincy.
“I’ve got this magnifying glass,” Trevor said, handing it over.
“Good thinking, Quince,” Freddie said, squashing an entomon the size of a loaf of bread.
“Hold them off as long as you can,” Quincy said, and set to work, rigging the magnification lens and gemstone to put over Kraydon’s eye.
The barn doors shook and rattled. The entomons funneled under the door in a steady stream.
“Everybody, get as many as you can,” Manny shouted.
Oddo, Mungo, and Kraydon kept fighting. Oddo’s fur was matted with green slime from body-slamming bug after bug like a pro wrestler. Mungo was doin’ some serious kung-fuin’, karate-chopping them to pieces. Kraydon turned the evil little pests to stone with his eye beam and clubbed them to smithereens.
A few seconds later, Quincy set the gemstone-magnifier on Kraydon’s head. “Everyone, stand back!”
Kraydon’s eye beam shot through the prism and refracted onto the oncoming swarm. The entire flock of bugs coming under the door turned to stone.
“Good job, Kraydon!” They all cheered, but another wave of insect monsters quickly followed. Kraydon’s eye swirled again, turning them to stone, wave after wave until the stone-hardened bugs piled up, blocking the crack.
But Kraydon was running out of steam. His spiraling eyeball stopped rotating and slowed to a halt.
The barn doors started to rumble and rattle and bam! In a burst of splintered wood, the biggest entomon they’d seen yet crashed through the barn doors.
Screeeek! It squealed like a massive prize-winning hog as it ripped through the wood with its giant spiked beetle snout.
“Here they come!” Nina shouted as it tore a hole in the door.
The ginormous entomon tumbled inside the barn. A wave of entomons followed, their mandibles twitching, snapping, and snarling. They charged at the kids.
“Run!” Freddie shouted, and they ran for a ladder that climbed to the rafters of the barn. Oddo and Yapzilla scaled the ladder awkwardly, and Kraydon left a busted rung as he scrambled up to the wooden overhang.
Freddie and Jordan pried open the loft window while everyone else tipped bales of hay off the ledge of the hayloft, trying to crush the giant entomon. The big squares of hay slammed down onto the amassing pool of all-consuming insects with a bunch of crunchy splats.
Freddie peered out the window.
There were entomonsters skittering and crawling everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Moonlight reflected off their shiny beetle shells like a shimmering black lake.
Back inside, the entomon swarm scurried up the rungs of the ladder. Trevor pushed the bug-covered ladder away from the ledge and it fell to the floor.
It looked like they were trapped. But suddenly Freddie spotted a pickup truck parked next to the barn. The back was filled with hay.
That gave Freddie an idea.
“Come on—we have to jump!” Freddie said.
“We can’t jump that far!” Nina said looking down. “This isn’t the movies, Freddie.”
Just then, Kraydon smashed a massive hole in upper wall of the barn. The monsters jumped down first and cleared the ground of any entomons.
One after the other, the kids dropped into the fluffy cushion of Oddo’s arms. Kraydon and Yapzilla tossed the hay bales off the back of the pickup. Jordan and Nina hopped off and got into the front seats, Jordan on the driver’s side. Freddie, Manny, Nina, Quincy, and Trevor crowded in the back with Oddo, Yapzilla, and Mungo.
“Start the engine!” Trevor howled, knocking off a slew of entomonsters from the side of the truck. “Hurry! There’s more coming!”
Mega-Q curled himself up and squeezed between Nina and Jordan in the front, and Kraydon clung to the top of the cabin on all fours.
“Go, go, go!” Manny screamed next to Freddie’s ear so loud, he nearly burst his eardrum.
But the keys weren’t in the ignition.
“Mega-Q!” Quincy shouted up to his monster in the front seat. “Start the engine!”
The monster’s eyeballs lit up, and Mega-Q jabbed one of his sharp legs into the ignition. The monster unleashed a surge of blue electricity, and the truck’s engine started to purr.
“Good work, Mega!” Nina shouted and high-fived the monster. His neon-blue voltage shocked her hand. “Ow!”
The tires squealed and kicked up dirt and entomon guts as they tore onto the road. As they drove off, there was a loud thump behind them. Freddie whipped his head around.
“What was that?!” Freddie yelled.
The biggest bug monster yet, as big as a baby hippo, latched on to the back bumper.
“What’s the matter back there?” Jordan hollered from the driver’s seat. He slammed the gas, but the truck was anchored by the massive entomon.
“Shake it loose, shake it loose!” Freddie cried. “Side to side!”
The bumper sagged toward the monster bug’s snout.
“Hang on!” Jordan switched gears and the engine revved. He jerked the wheel back and forth as they swerved through the charred cornfield.
The giant entomonster swung rapidly from side to side. The monster’s toothy grip only tightened. They hit a bump at the edge of the road and the entomon flew back, ripping off the entire bumper. But at least they were finally free.
The truck’s wheels spun, kicking up scorched popcorn. Mungo’s tongue shot out of his mouth.
“Yum yums!” he cried gleefully into the night.
The pickup truck sped off down the highway, heading back into town.
As they jostled down the bumpy road, Freddie knew they needed a new plan. Their monsters were bigger and tougher now, but even they couldn’t handle this swarm.
Freddie looked at his friends in the back of the pickup truck. They all looked back at Freddie. He knew what they were thinking.
“You know what we have to do, bro,” Jordan called back, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove.
Freddie did know: they needed a bug-eating super monster. “All right,” he said. “But this is the last monster we make. Ever.”
“I’m cool with that,” Manny said.
“Me, too,” said Nina.
“Me three,” Jordan said.
Quincy didn’t say anything.
“What about you, Quincy?” Freddie said. “This needs to be unanimous.”
“I mean, I guess so, unless we really need another one, right?”
Freddie glared at him.
“Okay, fine, no more monsters after this one, whatever . . . ,” Quincy said.
Trevor huddled in the corner of the pickup truck, clutching his knees, eyes bugging out as he stared off into the New Mexico night.
“No more monsters,” he whispered. “No more monsters . . .”
11
Now that they had the 3D printer, which Oddo was carrying in his extra hand, they decided to take it to Quincy’s house. His parents were out of town. “They left you home alone?” Freddie asked.
“Nah,” said Quincy. “My grandma’s ‘babysitting.’ But it’s cool.”
“Your grandma’s gonna be cool with five monsters in the house while we make another monster to defeat all the bug monsters that Trevor created?”
“No, she would totally not be cool with that,” said Quincy. “But she’s got an all-night poker game
going with her friends at the retirement village. My parents don’t know she’s not home. It’s our secret.”
They whizzed down a back road. The sky was still dark. “Next left,” Quincy said. “Right up there.” They passed a water tower in the middle of a dirt lot. The words Go ’Dillos! were written on the side.
Moments later, Jordan pulled into the driveway of Quincy’s house, and they quickly hustled their monsters inside.
“Grandma?” Quincy called out softly. When no one answered, he nodded. “Just checking . . . ,” he whispered and motioned them all down into the basement.
Jordan and Nina yawned at the same time, their eyelids starting to droop. Trevor and Quincy looked exhausted, too. Freddie and Manny were both used to pulling all-nighters during video game marathons, so neither of them was feeling the effects of staying up so late. It’s like we are in our own video game, Freddie thought. Except there are no do-overs in this game of monsters. This one is life-and-death.
“There’s gummi candies in there.” Quincy pointed to a cabinet next to the washing machine.
Freddie poured two large bags of gummi candy into a bowl, and their monsters ate off the floor of Quincy’s basement, polishing off the bowl in less than a minute.
Jordan lugged the 3D printer over to a worktable, and Nina plugged it into the outlet on the wall. Manny set up the printer while Quincy hooked it up to his computer.
Freddie found a pad of paper and a few pencils from the storage closet.
They gathered around the monster-making workstation, looking over Freddie’s shoulders.
“All right, guys and girl,” Freddie said. “We need to brainstorm.”
Freddie rubbed his hands together, then cupped them over his mouth and blew into them three times. It was his way of getting ready to draw something supercool.
“It’s gotta have a huge stomach,” Quincy said. “Like a bottomless pit so it won’t stop eating.”
Freddie drew a big oval in the center of the page.
“Good,” Trevor said. “But more like an anteater.”
“Anteater,” Quincy said. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“Not an anteater though . . . ,” said Manny. “An ENT-eater . . .”
“And it’s going to need more than one aardvark snout if it’s going to suck up all the entomons that are out there . . . ,” Nina added.
“What if it just had a really big snout, like an elephant’s trunk?” Jordan said.
“Why can’t it have more than one snout?” Manny asked. “It can be whatever we want. We’re the ones designing this thing.”
“I don’t know,” Nina said. “More than one nose might look weird.”
“Who cares if it looks weird?” Manny said. “As long as it gets the job done.”
“I mean, I kind of care what it looks like,” Trevor said. “This is going to be my monster.”
“Wrong. Your monster is the disgusting little psycho bug that’s out there reproducing into billions of other disgusting psycho bugs,” said Nina.
“But you guys already have your own monsters. I’m the only one who doesn’t.” He sounded sad.
“That’s because your monster turned into fifty bajillion monsters.”
“I’m so sorry . . . ,” Trevor blubbered.
Jordan looked over at him. “Dude, are you crying?”
“I’m not.” Trevor rubbed his eyes with both hands.
“Because this is a no-crying zone,” Jordan said.
“I’m not crying,” Trevor said. “I just had something in my eye.”
“Yeah,” Jordan said. “Tears.”
“Stop.” Trevor reached out and punched Jordan in the shoulder.
Jordan looked at his shoulder, then stared at Trevor. “Just this once I’m going to let that slide.”
“Can we please get back to our monster-eating monster?” Freddie pleaded, and they all focused back on the task at hand.
“Nina might be right about the snouts,” said Quincy, getting them back on track. “It needs more range of motion than that. More like a bunch of arms that act like aardvark snouts.”
“Guys, I think I’ve got it,” Freddie interrupted. “We’ll design it like an octopus, except the tentacles will slurp up the insects like an aardvark and be as big as elephant trunks. Its stomach will be able to digest as many entomons as it can eat. And it will still be strong enough to squash the entomons that have gotten too big to slurp.”
Everyone stopped talking for a minute. They liked the sound of that.
“An octopus with tentacles like aardvark snouts as big as elephant trunks?” Quincy summarized.
“Sounds cool,” Nina said.
“I can dig it.” Jordan nodded.
“An octovarkephant,” Manny said conclusively.
“Exactly,” Freddie said, cracking his knuckles. He picked up a pencil and began to draw.
Jordan, Nina, Quincy, and Trevor crowded around him, looking over his shoulder.
Freddie’s tongue hung out of the side of his mouth.
His eyes were laser focused.
“Give him some room,” Manny said. “You can’t crowd him while he’s in the zone.”
“It’s all right,” Jordan said. “He doesn’t even know we’re here.”
“Yes, he does,” said Manny. “You don’t know him like I do.”
“All right, chill out . . . ,” Jordan said, backing off. “Sheesh, did he say no or something?”
Manny gave him a confused look. “Huh?”
“When you asked Freddie to marry you . . . ,” Jordan said. “Did he turn you down or something?”
“Why don’t you just hush, man!” Manny shouted.
“Shhhh!” Quincy shushed. “Both of you.”
“Guys, relax!” Freddie said. “I’m not marrying anybody right now. All I wanna do is have everybody calm down so I can draw this monster.”
A few minutes later, Freddie looked up. “Done,” he said, rubbing a cramp out of his hand. The octovarkephant was complete. It looked pretty disgusting with all eight trunk-like tentacles undulating out from its globular body, but it also looked as though it could take on the swarm of entomons. And maybe even win.
“Nice!” Trevor said, admiring Freddie’s work.
“That’s awesome.” Quincy, Jordan, and Nina triple jinxed each other.
“Could be your best work, buddy.” Manny patted his big best friend on the shoulder.
All they had to do was print it and let it soak in water to make sure it grew to its full size. The bigger the better. They could give it silica to shrink it down later.
While Quincy opened the 3D-printing computer program, Jordan checked the back of the printer and Manny made sure all the settings were correct. Nina plucked a cartridge of 3D-printing goo out of the box.
It was the very last one.
“There’s only enough goo for one more monster,” Nina said. “We have to get this right on the first try.”
Freddie placed the drawing of the octovarkephant facedown on the scanner and hit the start button.
Trevor’s eyes bugged out as the 3D printer hummed to life.
Goo drizzled from the nozzle and began to give form to the bug-eating monster. It built up from the bottom, layer by layer, detail by detail exactly the way Freddie had drawn it.
Freddie thought about the past two weeks. About his new friends. About how last week’s monsters were now their pets. About how one little bug monster had become hundreds, then thousands of monsters. And how they had all come from this weird machine and the 3D-printing goo.
It was completely unreal. And yet it was happening right in front of them.
The machine beeped, and the new monster stood before them on the small platform of the 3D printer.
“He’s even grosser and cooler than I imagined.” Freddie smiled. “What are we going to name him?”
“I think we should call him Filburt,” said Nina.
“That’s a terrible name!” Trevor exclaimed.
“I don’t know,” Manny said, giving it a closer look. “I kinda like Filburt.”
“Better come up with something quick, Trevor . . . ,” said Freddie. “We gotta grow this bad boy to size.”
“Slurp!” Trevor blurted.
“Slurp?” Nina asked.
“Slurp.” Freddie nodded. “Slurp’s a good name.”
“All in favor of Slurp?” Jordan said and raised his hand, as did Freddie, Trevor, and Quincy. “Looks like that’s four to two.”
Nina went over to Slurp and crouched before him. “You’ll always be Filburt to me.”
The monsters then turned their attention toward the new monster. Oddo, Mungo, Kraydon, Yapzilla, and Mega-Q leaned over and inspected the tiny Slurp. They stared at him intently, sniffing him like giant dogs getting to know one another’s scents. After a moment, they all nodded in approval. Oddo gave Freddie the thumbs-up with all three hands.
“Welcome to the team, Slurp,” said Freddie and gave the monster a pat on his half-aardvark, half-octopus head.
12
Quincy scooped up the freshly printed critter and cradled him in his arm. “Come on, little Slurp, let’s turn you into big Slurp!” he said, leading the way upstairs from the basement.
They ran up the stairs with their monsters trailing them. They crowded into the master bathroom with a big shower stall.
Quincy set Slurp down on the tiled floor and stuffed a hand towel over the drain. The octovarkephant just sat there, looking up at them dumbly. Freddie imagined a thought bubble above the monster’s head: Wuz happening, guys?
Behind them, the door opened and Quincy’s grandmother poked her head in the bathroom. Quincy spun around. “Grams? You’re home?”
The monsters crammed together in the corner behind the door, trying as best they could to remain out of sight.
“I just got back,” said Grams. “Quincy? What’s going on here?”
Freddie’s heartbeat quickened.
“Hey, Grams,” Quincy said. “It’s nothing. These are my friends. We’re working on a science project. For school.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding at them as Nina gave her an awkward smile and a wave.
Monsters Unleashed #2 Page 5