by Peter Nelson
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” Doris’s voice called back. “That big ol’ snake is most definitely on the loose!”
“I’m locked in,” Bernard said. He veered the Heli-Jet to following the snaky trail.
“Looks like he’s crossed the mountain pass along with the others,” Jordan said, consulting the onboard GCPS. “If we want to catch up with them, we’re gonna need some speed.”
“Buckle up, everybody!” Bernard hollered behind him. Eldon and Zaya slid the door shut and scrambled into their seats. Bernard slammed the button marked Boost Thrusters. They zoomed over the frozen bay, heading north, straight for the narrow mountain pass above Bangladesh.
Even at boost-thruster speed, it was a few hours before they finally entered the corridor leading to the deserts on the northern side of the Himalayas. As they made it through, Bernard cut the thrusters and switched over to the normal jet engines. Everyone fell silent at the sight stretching out before them. As far as they could see, from the foothills of the Himalayas all the way up through Xinjiang, and farther north and east to the Gobi Desert, everything was covered in snow. A mean blizzard was just ahead of them, blasting the desert plains. And it wasn’t letting up.
“Incredible,” Eldon said. “The snow must be over a hundred feet deep down there.”
Abbie noticed Zaya staring silently out the window. She felt the same dread that he did at the sight. “He’s turned my desert into a frozen tundra,” Zaya muttered softly.
FRZZZT! The Heli-Jet’s radio transmitter crackled back to life, soon followed by Doris’s shrill voice. “Come in, Creature Keepers! Denmother Doris again!”
“We read you, Doris,” Bernard said. “And we’re through. We see it.” He swooped low, skimming over the flat, snow-covered plains. The wind whipped them around and the ride grew bumpy as they headed deeper into the storm. The only one not glued to the window was Jordan, who was still diligently studying the onboard Global Cryptid Positioning System screen.
“What about the runaway critters?” Doris said. “Do you have a visual on them?”
“That’s a negative, Denmother,” Bernard said. “We have no visuals on any creatures whatsoever! Are you sure you have your glasses on?”
“Don’t sass me, Skunk-squatch! I know what I’m looking at!”
“She’s right,” Jordan said, pointing to dots scattered all over the GCPS map monitor. “They’re down there. We should be right on top of ’em.”
Doris confirmed from her end. “I’m tracking at least a good half-dozen cryptids!”
Eldon scanned the flat, barren, frozen terrain through his Badger Ranger binoculars. “Negative, Denmother. And we’d spot a muskrat dropping down there! Maybe the technology isn’t working properly.”
“Oh, hogwash, Eldon!” Doris’s voice bellowed at him over the transmitter. “Jordan’s technological installations work perfectly fi—” KRZZZZT!
“We lost transmission,” Bernard said. “We’ve entered the snowstorm, and it’s a real stinker. You all had better find a seat.” The Heli-Jet shuddered, sending its passengers stumbling around the cabin and cockpit.
“Bernard, fly as low as you can without crashing!” Jordan was trying to get the GCPS to come back online. As the Heli-Jet swooped lower, it pitched violently, then steadied out a bit. The monitor in front of Jordan blinked to life. “Yes! If we stay close to the ground, we might be able to hold the transmission!”
“What good is that thing if the creatures aren’t really down there?” Zaya said.
“It doesn’t make sense that it’d pick up a signal if nothing were there.” Jordan put his finger on one of the dots slowly moving along on his GCPS screen. “According to the system, that dot represents the Christmas Island Colossus Crab. She should be directly beneath us!” They gazed out the window as the Heli-Jet swayed in the crosswind.
“This is hopeless,” Abbie said. “All that’s down there is a blanket of snow!”
Jordan jolted up, as if he’d been nearly struck by lightning again. He looked out the side window, then at the monitor. Then he grinned at his sister. “Abbie! That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“They are down there, exactly where the tracking system says they are—they’re just under a blanket of snow!”
He turned to Eldon. “Chupacabra isn’t trying to bring on another ice age. With Wilford’s Blizzard-Bristles, he could have put the entire world into deep freeze by now. That’s not his plan. He doesn’t want to wipe everything off the planet, he wants to control it. He froze the Indian Ocean so cryptids could cross it! And he buried this desert in snow so they could travel to him undetected!”
“Of course,” Eldon said.
Zaya peered out his window. “But how could they possibly tunnel under all that snow?”
Jordan looked at Zaya. They all did. Zaya took in their stares. “Oh, right. Tunnels.” A grin grew across his face. “Which means Corky’s okay! I mean, still hypnotized and helping an evil, mutant creature, but aside from that, she’s okay!”
“That’s right,” Eldon said. “She’s just zonked out on that rare, Siberian valerian root.”
“And I have the antidote now,” Zaya said hopefully. “If we can find her, I can make her better, and then I can take her home!”
“Well, I can’t land down there. I don’t know how strong that snow is, especially if it’s drilled full of wormholes. I’d feel awful if I accidentally crushed the Christmas Island Colossus Crab—she sends me a holiday card every year!”
“So what do we do?” Abbie asked. “Where are we going?”
Jordan looked back at the GCPS monitor. The creature dots were all slowly moving toward the same position. He hit a button on the console and a series of trajectory lines came up, showing the path each dot was headed along. They all converged on a single point. He hit another button and a digital topography map overlay appeared on the screen. Jordan pointed to the spot on the map where all the lines converged.
“Here,” he said. “This is Chupacabra’s big cryptid party. And we’re gonna crash it.”
“Okay,” Abbie said. “But where’s that?”
“Wait! I got this!” Eldon excitedly whipped out his beat-up, handy-dandy Badger Ranger pocket atlas. He studied the screen, then flipped through the worn pages. “Bingo! Got it!” He held up his map and pointed to a small name on the frayed atlas page.
Abbie peered at it. “Medog, China.”
Jordan nodded. “Okay, then. I would never second-guess the official Badger Ranger pocket atlas.” He leaned in closer to Bernard and muttered, “Especially when the GCPS mapping database confirms it. But let’s not tell him that.”
“That’s it!” Eldon said proudly. “Bernard, next stop, Medog!”
24
Medog was a tiny, remote, and beautiful jungle area, nestled in a valley between the low hills of Tibet. It was usually thick with thousands of species of plants and trees. At least, when it wasn’t covered in a hundred feet of snow.
As the Heli-Jet descended and approached from the west, the blizzard seemed to kick up and blow harder, toying with the chopper rotors, tossing its passengers around and blinding its shaggy, skunky pilot.
“Heads up, guys,” Bernard said. “This isn’t going to be one of my smoothest landings. And there’s still a good chance we cave in one of those tunnels.”
Jordan hopped in the copilot’s chair. “We don’t have a choice. It’s not just Morris and Corky that are in danger.” He studied the navigation system. “Okay, we’re getting close. It should be just ahead.”
“Not that we’ll see it,” Bernard said. “It’s a total whiteout down there.”
“What if we can’t find it?” Abbie said. “Or if Chupacabra’s gathering all the cryptids in some deep ice cavern somewhere?”
“Then we go and we get them,” Zaya said. “If Corky’s down there, I’ll find her.”
As they dropped lower, the wind pelted the front windshield with ice and snow so hard, Jordan thought it
might crack. There was barely any visibility. The Skunk Ape leaned forward, his leathery snout fogging up the glass. “Wait! What’s that?”
Jordan saw it, too. A tiny patch of green in the distance. He glanced down at the navigation system. They were right on course. “That’s gotta be it! The center of Medog—aim for that, Bernard!”
WHAM! The Heli-Jet jerked as the wind slapped it. Bernard gripped the controls tightly, but they were suddenly spinning sideways. Jordan looked out the side window. The chopper was whipping so chaotically, he could no longer find the green patch.
“What’s going on?” Abbie yelled. The passengers in back were all leaning from the momentum. “Are we crashing?”
“We’re doing the opposite of crashing!” Bernard yelled. “We’re caught in some kind of snowy cyclone!” Bernard yelled. “It’s pushing us up, up, and away!”
Eldon yelled over the whining rotors and the howling wind. “Chupacabra’s used the Blizzard-Bristles to swirl this snow twister, so no one can get anywhere near him!”
Jordan spotted the green patch pass by his window as they spun farther away from their destination. “Bernard! We have to hit the boost thrusters again!”
“You’re crazy! What if we thrust straight into the snow?”
“Trust me! Hit the boosters!”
“Why is that your solution for everything?”
“Because it’s our only chance! Now HIT IT!”
Bernard shut his eyes and slammed the Boost Thrusters button.
FWOOSH! The Heli-Jet jolted as the rocket engines kicked in. Bernard gripped the stick and did the best he could to point the Heli-Jet back downward, against the storm, toward the patch of green. They broke through the whirling wall of white, and he killed the engines and yanked the stick back, leveling them off.
KERRRASSSH! Everyone flew up in their seats as the Heli-Jet hit the thick snow and slid. Bernard employed all the landing gear in hopes that it would slow them down. The aircraft fishtailed in the snow and spun around wildly, finally sliding to a stop.
All was quiet for a moment. They could hear the blizzard howling overhead, but it was perfectly still where they landed. Jordan unbuckled his seat belt and ran to the cockpit window. Peeking out of the flat, snow-covered ground was a small sea of bright-green treetops. “We made it,” he said. “Welcome to Medog.”
Jordan, Abbie, Eldon, Bernard, and Zaya stepped out of the Heli-Jet and sank into the thick snow. With some difficulty, they trudged toward the nose of the aircraft. It hung over a steep, snowy slope that dropped about fifty feet to a lush, grassy floor. Beyond the grass was a circle of thick forest, dark and green like a jungle, and just as warm. It was a calm, tropical oasis in the center of a raging snowstorm.
“This is incredible,” Abbie said. The thick tree line curved away from them on either side. “It’s like a desert island or something.”
“And I’m guessing the perfect spot for Chupacabra’s little creature convention,” Eldon said, consulting his pocket atlas. “Even without a swirling blizzard barrier to discourage any party crashers, Medog is one of the most remote places on earth.”
“So where are the invited guests?” Zaya asked. “Where are the cryptids?”
Beneath their feet, the snow sloped away from them, the tall bank encircling the lush forest like a crater, forming a white fortress wall. Jordan slid down the slope and stepped onto the dry, green land. Then he turned around. “You guys might want to take a look at this,” he said.
The others slid down and joined him. The hard-packed snow wall of the crater looked like Swiss cheese. There were dozens of tunnel entrances. And they were all Mongolian Death Worm–sized.
Zaya looked at them. “You gotta give it to her. My Corky’s a hard worker, especially when she’s heavily drugged and under a deep spell.”
“Chupacabra’s valerian-root powder must have had that poor creature digging her lightning tail off,” Eldon said. “She tunneled clear across China—a bunch of times!”
“We’re going to free her,” Jordan said. “And find Morris. And return all the cryptids safely to their homes. Oh, and we’re going to stop Chupacabra, of course. And we’re also gonna get back all the elemental powers he stole.”
“When you say it in a list like that, it sure sounds like an awful lot,” Bernard said.
“What is that?” Abbie asked. Deep within one of the tunnels, an eerie golden glow caught everyone’s attention. It was getting brighter as it approached, like a headlight on a northbound train.
Eldon stepped forward. “If it’s a cryptid, there’s only one I know who glows like that.” He held out his arms like he was going to greet an old friend. A very large old friend. He suddenly hollered down the tunnel. “Sandy the Sumatran Golden Liger! Get out here, you ol’ pussycat!”
The Sumatran Golden Liger emerged from the tunnel. It was huge, with the body of an overgrown tiger, the mane of a lion, and the golden glow of the sun. Jordan had never seen anything so beautiful in all his life. And it walked right past the open arms of Eldon Pecone.
“Sandy?”
Abbie whispered to Eldon. “Dude, are you sure you’re friends? Because he doesn’t seem to know you.”
“She,” Eldon said over his shoulder as he watched the radiant creature head toward the forest line. “We go way back! Isn’t that right, Sandy!”
“Sandy seems a bit distracted,” Zaya said to Abbie.
Eldon’s brow furrowed. He ran toward the Liger, who had stopped at the edge of the Medog forest to stare into the dark woods. “Sandy, what’s wrong?” He got right in front of her and looked into her eyes. “Don’t you recognize me?” Sandy stared back blankly and cocked her head like a confused dog. She sidestepped Eldon, then with great force pounced over the brush and disappeared into the forest.
Eldon turned around to face the others. “Did you see that? She and I used to be really close! I swear, you think you know a Liger, and then they just turn on you.”
Jordan approached him. “Eldon, this is what Alistair described, when he said he found Sandy standing on the beach, remember?”
“Well, it doesn’t make it any less rude.”
“Zaya and I stocked the Heli-Jet with gallons of antidote to the valerian-root powder,” Bernard said. “Why don’t I go after her.”
“I’ll get my pump sprayer,” Zaya said.
“No,” Eldon said. “She wasn’t poisoned. She showed none of the symptoms that Corky, Jordan, or Abbie did. This is different. Also, it’s far too dangerous. You’re not going anywhere.”
Bernard shot Eldon a look. He looked like he was going to argue, but Abbie cut him off. “It sounds like we’ve got more company coming.”
Suddenly, a half-dozen or so creatures of all shapes and sizes began stepping, crawling, stomping, and scurrying out of various tunnels. Like Sandy, they walked right past Eldon and the others, straight for the forest. They didn’t look sleepy or brainwashed at all. If anything, they looked confused, as if they couldn’t explain where or why they were wandering, but determined to get wherever it was they were headed.
“Ufiti! Srayuda! Francine!” Eldon ran up to them. “Stop! Where are you going?”
“It’s like they’re sleepwalking,” Jordan said. “Like there’s something calling to them.” One by one, the creatures each disappeared into the jungle.
“What are we waiting for? We have to follow them!”
“Zaya’s right,” Abbie said. “I’m tired of waiting. I’m going in.”
“Wait,” Jordan said. “We don’t know what we’re up against. Chupacabra could have some new poison, or worse. If we just run in there, we could endanger not just ourselves, but all the cryptids who are getting sucked into his trap.”
“What’s he up to?” Bernard asked. “Why is he luring them all here?”
“He could be looking for the fourth special cryptid,” Eldon said. “One with a special power that he needs to complete his collection.”
“He already has him,” Abbie spoke up. “A
nd I’m going in there to get Morris back.”
Before Jordan or Eldon could stop her, Abbie sprinted into the woods, following the path the cryptids had taken.
“Abbie!” She was gone. Jordan turned to Eldon. “We have to go after her!”
“Abbie’s proven she can take care of herself,” Eldon said. “Our priority is to protect those lost cryptids. And if one of them is the fourth special, it’s imperative we get to him—or her—before Chupacabra does.”
“Psst!”
They turned. Bernard was leaning his head into another tunnel. “I think there’s another one coming! Let’s ambush this one!”
Eldon stepped toward his cryptid. “Bernard, ‘ambushing’ is not proper Creature Keeper protocol.”
Bernard rolled his eyes at his Keeper. “Well then, why don’t you just welcome him with a big hug. It worked so well last time.”
Eldon shot his creature a look, but Jordan stepped in. “We need answers, Eldon. It may not be by the book, but drastic times call for drastic measures. We’ll gently pin down the creature long enough so you can do an exam with your first-aid kit, like you did with Corky. Maybe we can get an idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“Uh, pin it down?” Zaya asked with some concern.
“C’mon!” Bernard said. “It’s getting closer!”
They all scurried up the snowy slope and perched over the top of the tunnel opening. The loud scrunching of feet in the snow grew closer.
“It sounds big. And like it has a million feet,” Zaya whispered. “I’m really not good with creepy-crawly creatures. Maybe we should try to catch the next one.”
“This from a guy who lives with a worm the size of a small train,” Bernard said.
They all leaned over the mouth of the tunnel. The scrunching got louder. They leaned farther. Suddenly, just as the creature barely emerged, the snow gave way, and a mini-avalanche filled with three people and a Skunk Ape tumbled down on top of the large, unsuspecting cryptid, burying it in the snow.
There was a chaotic tangle of arms and legs and fur and snow as Jordan yelled to the others. “Hold him down!” The creature squirmed and kicked, flashing smooth tan domes mixed with different-colored fur in the melee.