Creature Keepers and the Burgled Blizzard-Bristles

by Peter Nelson

  The brown, dusty sandstorm had cleared from the cockpit window, and ahead of them on the horizon were the Himalayan Mountains to the south of Xinjiang. “It worked!” Bernard leveled off the Heli-Jet. “I think we’re clear!”

  Abbie sat up where she had landed in the back of the cabin. She smiled as she heard the others cheering. She began to pull herself up when something rattled beneath one of the seats. She looked down, and her stomach dropped. “Oh, no.”

  It was Bernard’s drink-holder helmet.

  “Morris!” Abbie jumped up and ran to the front seat of the cabin. She found the Kappa still strapped in, leaning peacefully against his window. The seat beside him was soaked with water. She peered into the bowl-like sara atop his head. It was empty.

  “I’m sorry, master,” he said. “I made such a mess. Please forgive me.”

  Horrified, Abbie glanced down. Morris’s feet had already begun to dry out and turn to stone. The effect steadily made its way up his stubby legs. Suddenly, the seat gave way, collapsing like a paper cup beneath his increasing weight. The Heli-Jet jerked.

  “What was that?” Bernard said. “What’s going on back there?”

  The others had gotten up and gathered around. “Abbie?” Jordan said. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Abbie had tears in her eyes. “This is all my fault.”

  RRRRRRRR! The Heli-Jet engines began to whine, and the aircraft violently dropped. Zaya bonked his head on the ceiling. As Bernard struggled to keep them in the air, Eldon ran to the cockpit. Jordan and Abbie stayed close to Morris. She held his head gently and tried to pull him close. He was growing heavier by the second. There was a creak beneath him, as his shell began to turn to stone.

  Realizing what was happening, Jordan quickly joined Eldon in the cockpit. He was frantically studying a map readout on the monitor and yelling into the transmitter.

  “Mayday! Mayday! Mac, do you read me?” The radio emitted a crackling static. Then they heard a loud voice with a Scottish accent. It was Alistair MacAlister.

  “Well, isn’t this a sound for sore ears! Where are you fellas?”

  “Emergency landing, Mac! We just cleared the foothill pass east of Kathmandu, and we’re coming through the other side of the Himalayas, heading south over Bangladesh. Please tell me you guys are still in the area!”

  “Aye! Lucky for you ol’ Haggis-Breath decided to stop for a snack in the Bay of Bengal! It sounds like you laddies need a place to put that bird down in a hurry! Continue on course due south, and stay low as you come in over the water! I’m sending you coordinates now!”

  “Staying low will NOT be a problem,” Bernard said as he struggled with the controls. “It feels like we’re towing that fat sand-slug!”

  ERRRRR! The engines whinnied and shrieked as the Heli-Jet suddenly dropped again. Eldon fumbled with the transmitter as Jordan locked in Alistair’s coordinates from the computer, then ran to the main cabin, where he faced Abbie, Zaya, and the almost completely solidified Morris. “Strap in!” he yelled over the straining engine. “Everyone prepare for a crash landing!”

  12

  The Heli-Jet careened low over southern Bangladesh, straight for the tiny, mangrove-covered island that lay just offshore ahead of them. Bernard had cut the engines and was using all his strength to keep the nose of the aircraft up, but Morris had become too heavy for the plane to stay in the air. As they glided in toward impact, Bernard locked down the controls of the Heli-Jet, leaped out of the pilot’s chair, and dived into the cabin, protecting the others as best he could with his large, furry body.

  The Heli-Jet swooped in, brushing the thick treetops that peppered the small island of Sandwip. This helped slow the descending aircraft, but not enough to keep it from clearing the island and hitting the water just beyond it.

  KERSPLASH!

  The cabin’s passengers bounced around wildly as the Heli-Jet skimmed across the calm waters of the Bay of Bengal and immediately began slowly sinking before it even drifted to a stop.

  “Quickly! Everyone out!” Eldon’s voice called out over the sound of water rushing into the cabin. Jordan and Zaya pulled open the cargo door. The sun was setting in the distance as Eldon helped Zaya through the cabin doorway and into the warm, darkening water outside.

  “This might be a good time to tell you that I can’t swim,” Zaya informed Eldon.

  “Of course not,” Eldon said, grabbing Zaya around the waist. “You live in the desert with a giant worm. Luckily I have a Badger Badge in Water Rescue. I’ll show it to you later. For now, just hold on to me—and kick!” The two of them swam away from the steadily sinking plane.

  “Abbie!” Jordan found his sister staring down at water that was pooling and filling from below the seat. Morris was nowhere to be seen. “I have to get out of here!”

  “He’s gone,” she said. “He broke right through and sank like a stone.”

  Jordan looked down. There was a dark, gaping hole in the floor beneath them. Water was rushing through it at an alarming rate. “You can’t stay here! C’mon!” He tugged at his sister, who continued to stare at the floor. The cabin was filling fast. He had his arms around her but couldn’t get her to move.

  That’s when a thick, black-furred arm reached in and pulled the Elite Keepers toward the sliding door.

  “C’mon, you two!” Bernard shouted. “Last stop! Everyone off!” He pushed them out the door, then dived down through the hole in the floor.

  The warm water of the Bay of Bengal mixed with the cool night air as Jordan struggled to pull Abbie away from the sinking aircraft. Friendly voices shouted out to them through the dim dusk. He looked up to find the Creature Keeper submarine floating just a few hundred feet away.

  Suddenly, a shadow darker than the sky swooped past Jordan’s head, plucking his sister from his arms, lifting her out of the water. Kriss the Mothman fluttered awkwardly over the deck of the submarine, where he safely set Abbie down before flopping himself nearby like a wet mop.

  Jordan climbed the steel ladder and was immediately greeted by Eldon and Zaya on the bridge of the Creature Keepers’ submarine. Beside them was a portly older kid with bright orange hair. Even in the dim moonlight, Jordan knew this could only be one person—the Loch Ness Monster’s Keeper, Alistair MacAlister.

  “Oi! Everyone okay an’ accounted fer?”

  Besides being soaked, Jordan felt fine. Abbie was standing at the edge of the deck staring out at the dark water as the top of the Heli-Jet disappeared. Beside her was the West Virginian Mothman. Kriss and Abbie shared a special bond, and while Jordan sometimes felt it a bit creepy, right now Jordan was glad he was there with her.

  “What’s all this, then?” Alistair shouted out. “It’s no time to pout—yer lucky to be alive! You folks just barely survived a crash landing!”

  “Not all of us,” Abbie said softly, gazing out at the still water.

  “Aye, the Kappa,” Alistair said softly as he approached Abbie. “Y’know, that creature always reminded me of the wee snappin’ turtles we have back home on Loch Ness. They’re slow as death when they’re floppin’ around on land like little doorstoppers. But the thing about ’em is, once you get ’em back in the water—whoosh! Off they go, full of life again!”

  Abbie looked up at this strange redheaded Keeper. Alistair was grinning ear to ear. She looked at the others. Bernard, Eldon, Zaya, her brother, they all stood there soaked to the bone, but they were smiling, too.

  Alistair put two chubby fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.

  “SKRONK!”

  The green and graceful head of the Loch Ness Monster lifted out of the water. Her young Hydro-Hide scales sparkled in the moonlight as her back rose up alongside the submarine deck. Abbie slowly approached. Her eyes went wide. Sitting atop Nessie was Morris, his sara refilled with water from the Bay of Bengal. He waved to her as Nessie gently slid him along her tail, safely delivering him on board.

  “Morris!” Abbie hugged the cryptid tightly. “I was so worried you
were gone! I’m so sorry! I’ll never let anything happen to you again!”

  Morris smiled and hugged her back. “I did as you asked, master. I took responsibility for myself, and filled my own sara! See?” He began to bow deeply.

  “NO!” Everyone shouted out as Abbie quickly righted him.

  “No bowing! You’ll spill again!” She laughed through her tears. “Morris, do you see what this means? You filled your own bowl! You can start thinking for yourself!”

  Morris contemplated this for a moment, then broke out into a wide grin. “Yes! And I am now thinking for myself how happy I am that you are still my master, master!”

  “Okay. We’ll work on that one.” Abbie gave him a big hug.

  The tiny island of Sandwip lay just off the southern coast of Bangladesh. It was populated mostly by quiet fishermen who lived near the center of the island to avoid the threat of storms and floods—as well as all the loud screeching. The mangrove trees that grew along the beach at the southern tip of the island were populated with howler monkeys, who were not quiet at all. They were like a living intruder alert system for the inland locals of Sandwip, keeping a loud lookout for strangers approaching from the sea.

  On this moonlit night, those howling alarms had a lot to sound off about. The odd-looking trespassers who walked onto their beach were definitely not locals. First the monkeys screeched at the chubby, red-haired boy in a kilt. They then shrieked at four tired-looking, drenched kids. They hooted at the largest turtle they’d ever seen. Their ruckus grew louder and wilder, right up until they spotted the last member of the group. As the giant, smelly, black-furred ape king casually strolled out of the bay, the monkeys decided maybe they’d give it a rest and call it a night.

  Alistair hooked the Heli-Jet to the submarine, eventually towing it toward the shore. Then Bernard, with a big push from Nessie, was able to get it up on the beach for a full inspection. The damage was substantial. As Bernard and Kriss went to work trying to patch it up and get it running again, Morris splashed and played in the waves. Alistair joined the other humans on the beach for an emergency Creature Keeper campfire conference.

  Jordan was the only one not seated by the fire. After drying his belongings (first and foremost his grandfather’s journal), he sat on the sand away from the others, searching the pages of the old book for something he desperately wanted to find.

  Abbie had already found what she was looking for in her book, and she read to the others from Raising and Caring for Your Kappa. “Water is the life force of your Kappa,” she read. “Take great caution to keep his sara filled at all times, for he will turn to solid stone whenever it runs empty. Be sure to take extra care that your Kappa’s sara is not depleted more than twice between the First Quarter moons—upon the third occurrence within one lunar cycle, the Kappa will remain in a stone state forever.”

  “Twice the First Quarter, third within the second cycle, ack!” Alistair said. “Sounds like math. I’m horrible at math.”

  “It isn’t that complicated, Mac,” Eldon said. He was drying his Badger Badge sash, holding it over the fire with a stick. “Morris can’t spill his hat three times within the lunar month that falls between First Quarter moons. If he does, he’s toast.”

  “Ten-ton toast,” Zaya added.

  “That’s some heavy toast,” Alistair said.

  “Number one was when his own keepers emptied it,” Eldon said. “And I’m afraid it still counts.”

  “And number two, which nearly killed us all, was under my protection.” Abbie stared sadly into the fire.

  “Hey, I’m the one who messed up,” Eldon said to her. “It was reckless of me to ask Shika and Katsu to empty Morris’s sara. I thought it was the best way to keep him safe, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Well, if I hadn’t gone there and reanimated him, he’d be home safe, sound, and solid!” Abbie’s eyes flickered in the firelight.

  “I don’t blame you for reanimating him, Abbie. I should’ve explained what you were going to find in that Japanese forest.” He checked his sash for dampness and slipped it back on. “Of course, in my defense, you were about to toss me out of a moving Heli-Jet.”

  “Can’t we turn Morris to stone and hide him on this island for now?” Zaya asked.

  Abbie shook her head. “He’s spilled twice within the lunar cycle. If he spills again before the next First Quarter moon, we won’t be able to bring him back again.”

  There was a long silence as Abbie stared into the fire. Zaya scooted closer to her. “Don’t blame yourself,” he said. “Blame Chupacabra. He got to my creature, too. He’s behind all of this. He’s the one we have to work together to take down, for the safety of all the cryptids.”

  “Zaya’s right,” Eldon said. “He’s up to something. Look at this.” He held up a small vial. Inside was a dollop of green goo. “I scraped this sample from Corky’s teeth while she slept. By its stinky footlike odor, I’d say it’s a very rare Siberian valerian root extract. It’s particularly effective on cryptids. It induces a dreamlike state where the creature thinks it’s asleep but isn’t. Under this spell, a cryptid could be made to do pretty much anything it’s told.” He held up another vial. It contained the same color goo. “This I got off the side of the Heli-Jet before it sank. It’s what Corky was spitting at us. Same stuff. Chupacabra must have given her the powder, then had her regurgitate it out of her spray glands. We were lucky Bernard was able to fly us out of there without being hit. But please don’t tell him I said that. It’ll go to his head.”

  A revving sound from the shore got everyone’s attention. Bernard yelled to them as the rotors on the Heli-Jet began to spin. “Hey! Look who got the chopper running!”

  Kriss was happily but awkwardly fluttering behind the exhaust valve when a smoky explosion suddenly blasted from the jet, covering him in wet soot. The rotors jerked to a halt. Bernard looked up at the Mothman. “Uh, never mind!” he said.

  Alistair stood up. “Never send a Mothman or a Skunk Ape to do a Keeper’s job. I’ll go and give them a hand before they blow up the island.”

  “Hold up, Mac,” Eldon said. “Those wandering cryptids you’ve been out here returning to their Keepers—any chance they’d been exposed to this root powder?”

  “I don’t think so,” Alistair said. “These creatures have been wanderin’ off from this whole stretch of coastline around the Indian Ocean, from eastern Africa to northwestern Australia. Me, Kriss, and Haggis-Breath had just returned the Sumatran Golden Liger to her Keeper when we got your distress call. Dumb pussycat was just standing on the tip of Sumatra, staring across at this very bay, plain as day for any and all to see! Good thing cats hate water, or I betcha she woulda jumped.”

  “What was she looking for?” Abbie asked.

  “Danged if I know,” Alistair said. “She’d traveled miles, just to stand and stare. When I found her, it was like she didn’t know me. But she wasn’t sleepwalking like you said. She was just fixated on something on the horizon. Like somethin’ I couldn’t hear was callin’ to her. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if whatever it was just stopped. She snapped right out of it. Didn’t know where she was or how she got there.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the aftereffects of valerian-root powder,” Eldon said. “Where is she now? I’d like to examine her.”

  “We got her home safe. Nessie and me laid a nice hoax down at the beach to throw off any folks who might’ve spotted her, and Kriss flew her back to her Keeper. I tell ya this, thank goodness for those tracking devices of Jordan’s. We’d have a real problem on our hands without ’em!”

  Jordan didn’t respond. He was still lost in his grandfather’s journal.

  “Anyway,” Alistair continued, “it’s been the same with all the cryptids we’ve tracked down. Funny thing is, whether they’re on the move or standin’ and starin,’ we find ’em all fixed in the same direction.” Mac stood up and pointed north, back through the torn path in the trees that was cut down by the Heli-Jet’s em
ergency landing. He turned and trudged off in the opposite direction, toward Bernard and the others trying to repair the aircraft at the shore.

  “There’s no way Chupacabra isn’t somehow connected to all this,” Abbie said.

  “That’s right,” said Eldon. “We need to figure out a way to trap him. Without him trapping us again, that is.”

  “I don’t think it’s a smart idea, heading back to that desert. He and Corky are too powerful.”

  “But how are we going to trap him if we don’t go back?” Eldon said.

  “Easy.” Jordan finally spoke up. “We go where we know he’s going to show up next.” He held up the journal so they could all see. On the page was a drawing Grampa Grimsley had sketched years ago.

  13

  As Bernard, Kriss, and Alistair worked through the night repairing the waterlogged Heli-Jet, Zaya slept buried up to his neck in the sand under a nearby mangrove tree, while Morris floated peacefully by the shore, bobbing in the bay water. Jordan, Abbie, and Eldon huddled by the dwindling fire as Jordan shared with them what he’d pieced together.

  “There was something Chupacabra said down in that wormhole. I’ve been reading through Grampa Grimsley’s journal to try to find some answers. Chupacabra has a big plan up his stolen sleeves. Something called Operation Pangaea. And he’s trying to harness the power of the Perfect Storm to achieve it.”

  “What’s the Perfect Storm?” Abbie said.

  Eldon removed his hat and scratched his head. “I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means. The worst-case scenario. The combined force of all three elemental powers, collected under the control of a single cryptid.”

  “He’s well on his way,” Abbie said. “Chupacabra has Nessie’s Hydro-Hide, which can manipulate water. Then he stole one of Syd’s Soil-Soles, allowing him to disrupt earth and rock. The third belongs to the Yeti. A blizzard beard, or something?”