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Copyright © 2016 by Danica Davidson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Brian Peterson
Cover artwork by Lordwhitebear
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1620-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1622-3
Printed in Canada
CHAPTER 1
I WAS IN A DARK ROOM, SURROUNDED BY MONSTERS.
To my left I saw skeletons, their bones gleaming in the darkness. To my right I saw a group of vampires with red on their mouths. The rest of the room was full of different types of ghouls, all of them pressed close together.
My hand went automatically to my diamond sword. But before I could draw it, my best friend Maison exclaimed, “No, Stevie! They’re just costumes!”
I blinked. We had just entered the Halloween party at Maison’s middle school. Red and orange lights were moving around the room, giving it an eerie feeling, and music was pulsing from the walls. Tables were decorated with angry-looking Jack o’ Lanterns, and people were eating colorful worms and drinking out of a giant cauldron. There was a little stage set up close to the entrance where some people were dancing, but mostly the people were fighting with one another. It didn’t look like any party I had ever seen.
“Are you sure they’re costumes?” I asked. This room was spooking me so much that I didn’t want to lower my sword, just in case. “These aren’t servants of Herobrine?”
“This is what we do here on Earth,” Yancy said. Yancy was my former enemy, current friend. “On October 31st in the Overworld, mobs are more likely to spawn with Jack o’ Lanterns on their heads. On Earth, we celebrate Halloween by dressing up, having parties, eating gummy worms, and drinking punch from cauldrons. You know, we have fun.”
Destiny, Yancy’s cousin, could see I still wasn’t convinced. “They’re not servants of Herobrine,” she said.
“Who cares about having fun right now?” my cousin Alex scoffed. “We have a much bigger problem on our hands.”
That problem was Herobrine, the greatest mob the Overworld had ever seen. After turning the Overworld into an angry and crime-riddled place, he’d jumped through a portal to Earth, wanting to take it over and destroy it. While he was at it, he’d brainwashed everyone he could, turning them against one another. That portal, by the way, was a special one, the only one to take people back and forth from the Overworld and Earth. Maison had accidentally created it and I’d been the first person to discover how it worked.
Herobrine had even kidnapped my own dad, Steve, and made him second-in-command for the Earth takeover. At the moment we didn’t know where Dad was. We had been able to un-brainwash Alex’s mom, my Aunt Alexandra. Because Aunt Alexandra was a powerful and well-respected mayor, she was off collecting the armies of the Overworld to help us fight Herobrine.
But we had no idea when she’d be back or what sort of armies Herobrine would have collected for himself. Right now, there were five of us here to fight against Herobrine. I was an eleven-year-old boy from the Overworld and I was here with my friends Maison, Destiny, and Yancy, and my cousin, Alex. Five kids against a mob straight out of our nightmares.
“We shouldn’t even be at this stupid party,” Alex said grouchily. “Herobrine is planning to march on us, and we don’t have plans!”
I felt sick, knowing she was right. How were we going to defeat Herobrine, especially if Aunt Alexandra didn’t make it back in time?
The thing was, the five of us had been in Maison’s bedroom half an hour ago, starting to make plans to fight Herobrine. But before we could do anything, Maison’s mom burst into the room. Alex and I had both gone totally still in fear, because we were from the Overworld and Maison’s mom didn’t know about us.
However, instead of gawking at two square-looking people, Maison’s mom started acting like everyone Herobrine’s power had affected. She was yelling at us, telling us to get to the school Halloween party, because she hadn’t spent all that money on Maison’s Halloween baseball uniform costume for it to go to waste. Things that might have been a little annoying before now seemed like the end of the world to her, thanks to Herobrine’s influence, and she was furious.
Trying to tell Maison’s mom that the end of the world really might be coming didn’t work, as you might imagine.
And so here we were, standing in the middle of this crazy Earth party with people eating worms made of gummies, of all things. If I hadn’t been so worried about Herobrine, I would have thought this party was pretty funny.
Well, maybe not that funny. Like Maison’s mom, the people in this room were angry and arguing with one another. One kid took a Jack o’ Lantern and threw it at another kid. A teacher was screaming at someone. I hadn’t just been scared by the costumes when I first walked in here—I’d been scared by the hate. It might sound weird, but you could actually feel the hate in the air. That was the power of Herobrine.
Yancy was fiddling around on his cell phone, still trying to do Herobrine research. “The Internet is back up,” Yancy said, since Herobrine had been causing the Internet to go on and off throughout the day. Herobrine had also been taking over the Internet now and then to stream scary messages to all the people of Earth, telling them he would destroy them soon. The media thought it was all a prank and didn’t think Earth had anything to worry about. We knew better, of course.
As Yancy fiddled with his phone, I saw his face go very pale.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, heart pounding. I knew it had to be something bad.
Slowly Yancy lowered his cell phone so we could all see. Scene after scene was flashing over the cell phone, as if it were a super-fast movie. I was seeing cities and landscapes, all of them on Earth. And in every single one sat a portal to the Overworld, glowing.
“We haven’t opened any more portals!” I said, feeling chilled all over.
But there was no doubt in my mind who had.
The scenes stopped flashing and a news program came on. A man in a suit was staring out at us, saying, “Thank you for joining us for the evening news. As you might have noticed, people around the world have been having difficulty connecting to the Internet during portions of the day. All of this started after the so-called
‘Herobrine video,’ in which a digital man referring to himself as ‘Herobrine’ threatened to destroy the world. Officials are calling this an elaborate Halloween prank, but it seems the prank may not be over.”
Now the news program began to show some of the same scenes of Earth cities with portals in them. The newsman’s voice continued over the pictures, “Strange portals have abruptly appeared in major cities across the globe. Our viewers continue to send us pictures from where they live. Here you can see portals appearing in London, Tokyo, and New York City.”
The news flashed to another man, giving an interview. He seemed to be one of the “officials” the newsman had talked about.
“We’re well aware of the situation,” the official was saying. He looked a little nervous but very confused. “We are currently investigating, and as with the Herobrine video, we believe it is all part of a sophisticated Halloween prank. I’ll take no further questions at this time.”
The footage returned to the newsman. “While the portals have some people spooked, officials tell us they don’t believe there is anything to worry about,” he said.
“Not something to worry about!” Alex said. “Herobrine’s going to send out mobs from the Overworld to Earth with these portals!”
“There’s a news van out front,” Destiny said. “Maybe we could warn them.”
“Why would there be a news van at a Halloween party?” Maison asked
“Who cares?” Yancy said. “We have to warn the people of Earth about what’s really happening.”
It wasn’t going to be that easy, though. As soon as I turned to follow the others outside, four green zombie arms grabbed me and slammed me back against the wall.
CHAPTER 2
“WELL, WELL, WELL,” ONE ZOMBIE SAID TO the other. “What do we have here, Dirk?”
The other zombie was smirking. “I don’t know, Mitch. Is it our little Stevie?”
I was pinned back against the wall, my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Dirk?” I said. “Mitch? You remember me, right? Maison and I saved you from zombies earlier this year!”
Dirk and Mitch were eighth graders who used to bully Maison, but after she and I saved this middle school from a zombie attack at the beginning of the school year, Maison said Dirk and Mitch had stopped bullying and turned over a new leaf. It had taken me a minute to realize that Dirk and Mitch weren’t really zombies. They were just dressed up like them. (The fact that they both smelled bad sure helped make it more realistic, though.)
I looked from one creepy grinning face to the other. If they’d changed, I couldn’t tell.
“I don’t remember anything about you saving us,” Dirk said.
Mitch laughed. “Me neither. But I got a question for you, Stevie: Trick or treat?”
“Huh?” I said, not following. I was frantically looking for the others. They must have all gotten out the door before I could. Then I saw Maison running back over—she must have gone outside and then realized I wasn’t with the others.
“Mitch! Dirk!” Maison exclaimed. “Leave Stevie alone!”
“I just want him to answer one question,” Dirk said, grinding his fist into my shirt so I couldn’t move. “What is it, Stevie? Trick or treat?”
I shook my head.
“He’s not from here,” Maison said. “He doesn’t know about Halloween.”
“Oh, boy!” Mitch said. “Then we get to teach him.”
“Listen up, blockhead,” Dirk said. “There are two things about Halloween: candy and tricks. And scary things.”
“Those are three things,” I said. I couldn’t help it, especially after he called me “blockhead.” In the Overworld everyone had blocky heads, but in this world telling someone they had a block head was an insult for some reason.
The bullies glared at me.
“On Halloween, you get to pull tricks on one another,” Mitch said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“We’re also here because of the candy,” Dirk said.
“I was getting to that,” Mitch said, annoyed. “Whoever wins the school costume contest gets tons of candy for a prize. With a clever idea like zombie costumes, we’re sure to win.”
I glanced around. “I don’t know,” I said. “I see a lot of people dressed as zombies.”
It was true: Zombies seemed like a popular costume at this Halloween party. I’d seen enough zombies in my life to never want to dress up like them for fun, thank you very much.
Dirk and Mitch scowled harder. “Be quiet, blockhead,” Dirk said. “Or you’ll find yourself attached to the flagpole by your underwear.”
“We could also give him a swirly,” Mitch suggested brightly.
“Nah, his head wouldn’t fit in the toilet,” Dirk said, as if he’d really thought about this.
“The thing is,” Mitch said, “that Halloween is for babies. We’re too old to be scared by it. Halloween isn’t fun when it’s not scary, but that’s okay. Now we have a fun time scaring other kids.”
“You’re going to have the worst night of your life,” Dirk said, a grin splitting up his green face.
I believed him, but not for the reason he thought.
“You guys really need to let me go,” I said, struggling unsuccessfully to get loose. Dirk and Mitch might not have been the brightest, but they were both stronger than me. “Really, I need to get with the others before Halloween really does turn scary.”
They both laughed uproariously. But their laughter turned to screams when someone grabbed them.
CHAPTER 3
YANCY HAD RETURNED AND SLAMMED HIS HANDS down on Dirk and Mitch’s shoulders, startling them. They both jumped back and let me go.
“Hey, what’s it to you?” Dirk demanded, eyeing Yancy up and down. “If you’re here to get the candy, it won’t work. Our costumes are way better than yours.”
This was an especially dumb thing to say because Yancy wasn’t even wearing a costume. Maison had on her baseball uniform and was holding a bat, Destiny had on a lacy black dress, and Alex and I were pretending our real bodies were our costumes—or at least, that’s what Maison told us to say in case anyone asked why we looked the way we did. When Destiny had asked Yancy earlier what he was for Halloween, Yancy replied, “A surly teenager.” I think he was joking, because he was just dressed as himself.
“I’m not here for the candy,” Yancy said. “And by the way, I made a better zombie than you ever did.”
That was a really good line, even though it went over Dirk and Mitch’s heads. Yancy and Destiny had once turned into zombies while they were in the Overworld, and they learned that people from Earth who were bitten by zombies became zombies but still managed to keep their minds. They even had the power to tell normal zombies what to do.
“No, our zombie costumes are the best ever,” Mitch argued. “Do you know why we’re so believable as zombies?”
“Because you don’t have any brains?” Yancy offered.
It took them a second, but when they got it, it made them mad. I think the only reason they weren’t charging Yancy like they’d charged me was because Yancy was older and bigger than them. Eighth graders got a lot less all-powerful next to twelfth graders.
“We’re going to get you!” Dirk threatened. “You and Maison and Stevie and Destiny and—who are you?” He was distracted by Alex, who’d just joined us.
The next thing Dirk knew, he had an arrow pointed at his chest. Alex didn’t mess around with her bow and arrows. “I’m the best shot under twelve in the Overworld,” Alex said. “Want to test me?”
“Um, hey, look over there,” Mitch said. We didn’t look, but he and Dirk still took the opportunity to hightail it out of there and hide among the crowd.
Yancy shook his head in disgust. “Let’s get back to the news van,” he said.
When we stepped outdoors, I saw that twilight was falling and the street lamps were all coming on. Before long, it would be completely dark. A big van with some sort of gia
nt oval jutting out from the top was parked under the glare of a street lamp, near the middle school. Standing next to the van were a man and woman. The man was holding some heavy equipment on his shoulder that I guessed was a camera, though it was much bigger than the cameras Maison had shown me. The blond woman beside him was holding a microphone and her hair was so done up that it reminded me of cotton candy. But there was also something very familiar about this woman …
“I know her!” Maison cried. “She’s the woman who interviewed me for the news after the school had the zombie attack!”
Maison obviously remembered the woman’s name, too, because she ran over, shouting, “Lilac Waters! Lilac! Ms. Waters! We need to talk to you!”
Lilac was fiddling with something by her ear and then turned her attention our way. Her name reminded me of the lilacs in the Overworld, which got me thinking about how much I missed home. And how I couldn’t go home until Herobrine was defeated … if we could defeat him.
“I remember you,” Lilac said. “Maison, right?”
“We have to talk to you about the Herobrine messages,” Maison said. “And all the portals showing up around the world!”
The woman sighed. “Oh, those things? I told my boss I wanted to do a story on it, because it made me think of the zombie attack your school had. But do you know what my boss said? He said the story was just some prank and wasn’t ‘hard news.’ So that was the end of that.”
“Wasn’t ‘hard news’?” Yancy cried. “Everyone’s computer was taken over by someone threatening to destroy the world! And how do you explain all those portals?”
“Well, no one can actually destroy the whole world,” she said with a dark little chuckle, like she thought we were being ridiculous. “I mean, how would they even go about it? The portals, well, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”
We exchanged grim looks. Herobrine had powers beyond anything a person on Earth would understand. He had entered my nightmares to tell me about his plans, he could teleport through the air, and he was wreaking havoc through this world’s technology. Who knew what else he had up his sleeve?
The Armies of Herobrine Page 1