The Deadly 7

by Garth Jennings

  Flop … Flop … Flop …

  This time the monsters heard it too.

  Nelson proceeded cautiously and the monsters followed suit.

  Flop … Flop … Flop …

  As they slid past an impossibly large and equally sticky black tree trunk, Nelson and his monsters were greeted by a very strange sight indeed.

  From a pond filled to the brim with disgusting-looking black water, lots of strange and extremely ugly little fish were leaping onto the mud. As the black water dripped off them Nelson saw that they had jellified bodies and huge white eyes that bulged from their heads with an eerie, soulless stare that matched Brian’s.

  “Don’t drink the water,” whispered Nelson, remembering Brian’s final words as he lay in the straw.

  Flop … Flop … Flop …

  More horrid little fish joined the slippery pile that now lay gasping for air.

  “Great! It’s just a bunch of stupid fish. She’s not ’ere, is she?!” barked Stan as he cracked his knuckles and looked around for another, more hopeful sign.

  “Jellyfishes! Me eat one, please?” begged Nosh, who was drooling like crazy, but the others ignored him.

  “We have to find Celeste!” said Nelson with rising panic.

  “Then we must close our eyes and say her name,” whispered Miser, and the monsters settled into their usual trance.

  “Celeste,” they chanted, and stood very still and did the pointing thing.

  Nelson turned to see that they were all pointing directly at the pool of black water.

  “That can’t be right. Celeste!” shouted Nelson, turning in order to broadcast his voice as far and as wide as possible.

  “Spread out! Everyone spread out!” shouted Stan.

  “Celeste! Where are you?” cried Nelson, and he felt Crush tugging at his leg. “Not now, Crush, please. Celeste! It’s me! It’s Nelson!”

  Crush continued to tug on Nelson’s leg with even more urgency and honk like a car stuck in traffic.

  “What?” snapped Nelson, looking down with an angry glare. Crush cowered.

  “Stop it! I wasn’t going to hit you, you silly thing. What do you want?”

  Crush pointed to the spot where the ugly little fish had landed.

  Except that they weren’t ugly or little anymore. Or even fish.

  In just a few seconds their jellified bodies had evolved into something far uglier and scarier. They were no longer gasping for breath, but breathing quickly and easily. Legs and claws had replaced the useless fins. And to top it all off, these ghastly creatures were already double their original size and growing larger by the second. You may remember learning that from this very pool of water had evolved the first creatures on Planet Earth. It appeared they still did, but this wasn’t the kind of evolution you read about at school. A process that used to take millions of years now happened within a few seconds. Had the water been pure like it used to be, these fish might have evolved into rather nice humans who would have enjoyed a chat, but now the water was polluted by Carla’s hatred and that was not to be the case.

  Evolving this quickly was apparently a painful process, and the creatures squirmed and shrieked as their skins stretched like inflating balloons, new bones grew like splinters in their new limbs, and new joints popped and snapped into place.

  “Jelly freaks!” shouted Nosh, who had decided he didn’t want to eat them anymore but would rather run away from them as quickly as possible.

  “Nosh must have made a mistake in bringing us here. I suggest we leave quickly, Master Nelson. There is no sign of Celeste,” said Miser, as he and the other monsters backed away from the evolving fish creatures.

  Nelson’s mind whizzed around for an answer to the question all of them were thinking at this very moment: what the heck do we do now? But that only brought even more questions flooding into his head. Where on earth were they? If they all thought of Celeste when they used the Bang Stone, then why wasn’t she here? Had they traveled all this way for nothing? Nelson grasped the pendant, closed his eyes, and tried to bat all these doubts and fears out of his head.

  “Celeste!” he yelled again, but his voice was much, much louder than it had ever been before. It echoed through the thick jungle with all the power of a lion’s roar.

  The monsters joined in. “Celeste!” they screamed in unison, and they would have continued, had it not been for another tug and warning honk from Crush.

  “Honk! Honk! Honk!”

  Nelson and the other monsters turned to see what Crush was honking about, only to discover something terrifying: what only moments ago had been ugly little fish sprouting limbs were now as large as dogs and heading straight for them.

  Until now I have assumed you could sort of imagine what these evolving creatures looked like, but just before things turn very nasty indeed, here is a picture of how the fish had changed into what was about to make our heroes run for their lives. Remember, this is just a rough drawing. Not even the greatest artist in the world could capture just how terrifying these things really were.

  “Run!” shouted Nelson. But most of the monsters had already had the same thought and were running as fast as they could. Even Puff, who normally shuffled barely faster than a slug, was tearing through that jungle, fueled by a rocket tank’s worth of fear, as fast as his fat paws would carry him.

  Nosh tore through bushes and bounced over roots and vines in his bowling-ball mode, his pink body almost completely covered in the black goo. He had no idea where he was going and neither did any of the others. The only thing they were worried about now was staying ahead of those horrible creatures. None of them had turned around to look again, which was a good thing, because their pursuers had already doubled in size once more.

  You would have thought Hoot would have a huge advantage in being able to fly, but remember that he is also spectacularly stupid, and on this occasion he had managed to slam straight into a branch. His beak made a sound like a church bell striking one o’clock, before he fell to the ground right in front of Nelson. Nelson tripped over him and threw his arms out to brace himself for the inevitable fall, but before his hands hit the ground he felt himself being yanked backward as if on a bungee cord.

  The sound of the monsters screaming and running for their lives was suddenly muted, and the world around Nelson became blurry, like it did when he rubbed his eyes in the morning. He was upside down and felt as if he was being squeezed on all sides, like a supermarket chicken breast trapped under plastic wrap. It all happened so quickly that it took him at least twelve seconds to realize he had been eaten whole for the second time in twenty-four hours!

  * * *

  He was inside the belly of one of those awful creatures who had been chasing them through the jungle. He couldn’t believe he had come all this way just to wind up being a mutant’s snack. A smelly mutant too. The creature’s guts grumbled around Nelson and he felt the belly he was in swinging from side to side. The mutant was moving, and as it did, it grew: its ghastly, throbbing veins threading their way through its ever-expanding jellified flesh like red worms.

  It wasn’t just Nelson who had become a snack. All of his monsters were now squirming inside the bellies of these terrible creatures, who were turning around and heading back to the pool they had sprung from as fish less than a minute before.

  * * *

  Nelson’s breathing was speeding up. The air inside this creature was running out and it wouldn’t be long before he would turn blue and pass out. His heart thumped so hard in his chest he could feel it beating in every part of his body. It was precisely at this moment that the creature’s stomach contracted sharply and Nelson suddenly shot up and out of its mouth, as if he was a slippery bar of soap popping out of a squeezing fist. He experienced a brief moment of what can only be described as whoosh! before tumbling through the air and landing with a loud slap in the black mud surrounding the pool.

  Seven more slaps followed, and Nelson looked up and saw his seven monsters being blasted from the mo
uths of the hideous and ever-evolving jelly freaks. Crush was the first to get to his feet. He came and hugged Nelson around the neck as the other six slopped through the mud to cluster around him. Nelson’s vision was blurry from the mud in his eyes, but he could tell the monsters were as frightened as he was.

  “One … two … three … four … five … six … seven…” said a ghostly female voice, and Nelson whipped around to see a gigantic whale-like face staring at him. Of course, Nelson didn’t yet know who this horrible creature really was—that was all to come.

  * * *

  You would have thought Nelson would be used to seeing weird creatures by now, but this big ugly whale thing certainly took the cake. Not only was her face as large as a sofa, but those eyes were so like a human’s it made for a doubly disturbing sight.

  “Seven little monsters and one little boy,” said the whale thing, its mouth so huge that it took her twice as long to say things as it would you or me. “I’m sorry my little friends had to eat you in order to bring you here to me.”

  “H-how come it can see you guys?” whispered Nelson.

  His monsters shrugged and shook their heads. “It takes one … to know one?” suggested Puff, though he spoke in barely a whisper.

  “But where is my beloved Brian?” said the whale thing, its eyes peering into the trees behind them.

  “Ah. I think I might know the answer to this one. I think she means that awfully large fellow who was out cold in the cowshed?” said Hoot in a bright and cheerful voice, as if he’d guessed the answer in a jolly quiz game. It was too late to punch him to shut him up, but Stan did it anyway. Whack!

  “Ouchy!”

  “Shut it, birdbrain,” whispered Stan angrily.

  “You mean my husband is … dead?” asked the whale, as it placed two of its rubbery fins in the mud surrounding the pool.

  Nelson instinctively backed away, his bottom sliding through the mud as he pushed with his heels and his elbows. Brian was her husband? This couldn’t be his auntie Carla … could it?

  Stan was squaring up to the creature. “Maybe ’e’s dead. Who knows? Anyway, it was ’is own fault! The stupid bloke tried to smash us off the road!” Stan was trying to sound like his usual tough self but not doing a very good job of it.

  Crush let out a low honk, though not in fear of Carla. He was more worried about the jelly freaks, who were beginning to grow their first set of teeth. What a horrible sight it was! At least they hadn’t had them earlier, or Nelson and his monsters might have been chewed to bits instead of just swallowed. Judging by the growls and howls coming from the pack, growing teeth this fast was an extremely painful process.

  “Oh, my poor Brian,” said the whale, closing its eyes and taking a deep breath. Nelson could feel the air around him being sucked into that huge mouth before it let out a loud and extremely smelly sigh.

  “At least he did what I wanted,” said the whale, looking Nelson straight in the eye. “I asked him to find you, and here you are.”

  “Where’s my sister?” said Nelson, in a voice that was much louder than he had been aiming for. It was the voice of someone who was not to be trifled with.

  “You must love her to have come all this way to save her.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Yes, and I will give her back to you very shortly.”

  Nelson and the monsters all felt the same shot of hope hit them square in the chest.

  The whale thing continued: “But first you must give something to me.”

  Nelson didn’t hesitate. “Anything. What do you want?”

  “Only that pendant I see you have around your neck.”

  “The pendant? Why?”

  “It belonged … to my sister,” said the whale. Her eyes rolled up to the sky. It’s hard to tell if a water creature is crying, but it definitely looked as if she was getting a bit emotional.

  “It’s your sister’s? Wait—does that mean … you are my auntie Carla?” said Nelson, finally putting the pieces of that blasted jigsaw together.

  Carla nodded and batted her eyelids.

  Nelson put his hand to his chest and felt the pendant. A remnant of the story Uncle Pogo had told him flashed into his mind: the father who poured all his love into a stone in order to save his dying daughter. How it had saved the sick daughter but caused the beginning of a rift between the girl and her twin. At the time Nelson had thought his uncle was making it up, but that was before monsters came into his life and he had made an incredible journey halfway across the planet with them to save his sister. The world was very different from how it had been only a few days ago. Now it was a place where magic could happen. A place where monsters really did exist. And therefore, a place where a father really could save his dying daughter by pouring every single drop of love he had in his heart into a stone.

  * * *

  Carla, this hideous creature, the twin who survived, wanted her father’s love in return for Nelson’s sister. It seemed like a good deal. He would miss the waves of hope and peacefulness the pendant gave him in times of need, but he could live without those. What he couldn’t live without was his sister. Nelson reached into the neck of his T-shirt and pulled out the pendant.

  PARADISE

  Nelson gripped the pendant and raised it above his head so that the chain swung away from his neck.

  Carla’s great eyes grew bigger at the sight of this tiny red stone that now dangled from Nelson’s outstretched fist.

  “Master Nelson,” hissed Miser, keeping his googly eyes on the fleet of jelly freaks who were now grinding and chomping their new sets of teeth, “might I suggest you hold on to that item of jewelry until we have seen Celeste for ourselves?”

  Carla had heard Miser’s whisper and answered his fears.

  “I promise you will have her back, just as soon as you give me that pendant,” she said in her slow, dreamy tone.

  Nelson looked at Miser, who made his feelings clear with a small but very distinct shake of his head. The rest of the monsters merely stared at Nelson, waiting to see what he was going to do.

  With the pendant dangling from his right hand, Nelson raised himself to his feet.

  Though Carla was huge and ugly, as he approached her Nelson could see the very real glimmer of hope in those bulging eyes of hers.

  With every one of the six squelchy steps Nelson took toward her, Carla opened her great mouth wider and wider, so that by the time he was standing no more than a few inches from the edge of the pond, her mouth gaped as wide open as the trunk of a sedan.

  Nelson looked back at his monsters, and all seven of them looked back at him with a mixture of fear and confusion. Without these extraordinary monsters, he would not have had a hope of saving his sister. Thanks to them, he now stood on the brink of getting her back.

  The pendant swung on the end of its chain, drawn forward by Carla taking a great breath.

  “Wait,” said Nelson, and Carla glared hungrily at the necklace hanging from his fingers. “When you took the pendant from Isabelle, you got burned. It was cursed or something. So if I give it to you, you’ll just get burned again.”

  Carla blinked and replied slowly, “Ah, but not this time. No. This time I am ready. I shall be born again.”

  “What’s that massive trout on about?” muttered Stan, and the other monsters hushed him. “Don’t you shush me! Who cares what happens to ’er? We just need Celeste!”

  Nelson turned to look back into Carla’s great mouth, and without another thought he dropped the pendant in as if she was a wishing well.

  As the very last link of the chain left his fingers, Nelson suddenly felt all hope was lost. He tried to grab it back, but it was too late.

  Snap!

  Carla’s mouth slammed shut, her eyes rolled back until only the whites could be seen, and she sank like a submarine into the bubbling black water. Gone.

  The jelly freaks snarled and ground their teeth so hard their teeth crumbled like stale cookies in their rubbery mouths. This co
uld have been a problem for them, had a second set of much nastier and larger teeth not already been tearing their way through the creatures’ gums to replace what must have been their baby teeth.

  Nelson’s monsters jumped to their feet and ran to his side.

  “Gah! She tricked us. The witch has tricked us!” hissed Miser.

  Spike burst into tears and the others were too shocked to speak.

  “Celeste!” yelled Nelson, turning to face the black trees in case she was being held somewhere among them. “Celeste!”

  As if in answer to his call, a fresh green shoot suddenly popped up out of the mud between his shoes. Pop. Another one right beside it. Pop. And another.

  The mud around the pond began to bubble, and luscious green shoots sprouted everywhere before blossoming into magnificent flowers.

  “What’s going on?” cried Nelson, as he was knocked off his feet by an entire bouquet of yellow flowers pushing their way up through the ground. Not one of the monsters could answer him—they could only watch as the black jungle exploded with color and life. The oily mud churned, turning back to its original rich rust-brown clay. The bark of scorched tree trunks cracked and fell away like scabs to reveal fresh healthy bark beneath. A million luscious green leaves fanned out like magicians’ cards from a hundred thousand branches that were twisting and turning up toward the rays of sun breaking through the jungle canopy for the first time in ten long dark years.

  The jelly freaks continued to swell and sprout new features while their bulging white eyes remained empty of any emotion, but they didn’t look as if they were about to attack anymore.

  Nelson felt as if he was watching a nightmare turn into a dream. Above him, the buds of magnolia trees were opening so quickly that the blossoms exploded in snowy clouds of pink petals. Dead branches fell to the ground, where they were swallowed by the red earth and buried forever beneath tall, lush grasses rising from the jungle floor in great waves of bluey green and mustard yellow. Color and life consumed all that had been black and dead with the scale and spectacle of an Olympic opening ceremony.