“If you refuse to go, Richard,” said Mrs Stricks from across the way, “we cannot be held responsible for the fate that befalls you.”
Fisher turned to his companion. “Ready, Mr Murl.”
Murl pointed his weapon at Thingus, preparing to fire.
Milo felt like he might faint. Don’t do it, Dad. Please.
“All right,” said the Other Mrs Stricks. “Have it your way.” She snapped her fingers once more.
Each of the Pretenders’ eyes began to glow fiery orange.
What the—
“Agghh!” Murl threw his taser to the ground. “It’s hot!”
Squealing in turn, all the security operatives tossed their guns away, waving their scorched, steaming hands as their weapons sparked and fizzled in the mud, affected by some unseen force unleashed by the paranormal creatures around them.
“What is this?” said Fisher, looking around in alarm.
Another boom rang out as a bolt of lightning shot down from the clear sky and struck Thingus, who vanished in a burst of sound and smoke. Murl and Fisher were thrown by the force of the blast, colliding violently with the men around them.
“Dad!” Milo watched his father stagger to his feet.
A low hum emanated throughout the clearing as the Pretenders chanted in unison in an unrecognisable tongue, their eyes shining brighter and brighter in a dynamic spectrum of colour, turning yellow, then blue, then violet. The ground began to shake.
“What’s happening?” Milo asked.
For once Lucy didn’t have an answer. She gripped the truck’s tailgate, fear in her eyes.
The truck jolted and Milo fell painfully to his knees. A puff of smoke burst from under the hood as the motor overheated, presumably caused by the same force that had felled the drones and the high-tech weaponry. Milo had never dreamed that such terrifying power was possible.
He scanned the chaotic scene of prostrate security men. His father was standing at the centre of it all, looking remarkably unconcerned. In fact, he was laughing.
“Dad, you have to get out of there!” Milo yelled.
Mr Fisher reached into his pocket and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Unit Two,” he commanded, “let’s show them what we’ve got. Go!”
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Shot after ear-splitting shot was fired as the Pretenders were peppered with large syringe-like darts filled with a shimmering sky-blue liquid. Substance Nu-791. Howling in pain and fear, their eyes stopped glowing and the earth’s shaking subsided.
Milo peered over at Carlos Felina. Or what was left of him. The floundering weatherman, three yards away and covered in darts, no longer appeared human. His shape stretched and sagged. His skin glowed like the moonlight. It almost looked like he was melting, except he was growing larger instead.
The wails of the Pretenders echoed around the orchard, as each of them morphed hideously into an endless array of unearthly forms. Two giant beasts made of glimmering goo lumbered towards one other – was it Kenzo and Marietta Corbin? They collided in a twisted embrace, their bodies fusing together, their swollen, misshapen mouths howling piteously at either side.
Mr Fisher gazed upon his handiwork with excited uncertainty.
Dad, what have you done? thought Milo.
The unnerved security squad gaped at the scene around them. One of the men vomited in the mud.
“Get the nets!” Mr Fisher shouted into his walkie-talkie. He jogged over to the pickup truck.
“It’s over,” said Fisher. “The two of you need to get back home befo—” He lurched forward as the ground shook violently once again.
Milo and Lucy clung to one another to keep from falling.
Fisher scrambled to his feet, unsteady as the quakes continued. “It’s not possible. How?”
Milo became aware of a strange cicada-like chittering rising from the forest across the clearing. He whipped round. There, rising up through the trees in a wave of fluttering sound that washed over the sky, were eyes. Dozens of violet glowing eyes.
Lucy started to laugh, although Milo wasn’t sure what was funny.
“He thought the Pretenders were all people.” She seemed hardly able to catch her breath. “But why would they be?”
“What do you mean?” snapped Mr Fisher.
Milo understood. “It’s the animals,” he said. “Some of the animals are Pretenders, too.” Of course. Not all the members of this race chose a human form. Why not remain a rabbit, or a raccoon, or an owl if you had the option? Perhaps, to them, humanity was overrated.
Fisher’s wan expression made him seem older than his forty-odd years.
The luminous creatures swirled overhead in a sonorous swarm. Sharply, the amplitude of the tremors increased and Lucy was thrown from the truck. Milo leapt down after her just as, with a tremendous CRACKKKKKKKKKK, the ground split and broke open. The smell of sulphur gusted out of the fissure.
The rift sped through the orchard, encompassing the grove at the centre. “No,” cried Fisher as he heard the geodesic dome buckle and crumble.
A blast of lightning struck once more as blinding bolts rained down, striking each of the eight humanoid Pretenders. When the smoke cleared, all of the suffering gelatinous beings had disappeared, leaving nothing but puffs of smoke in their wake.
The chasm widened, trees toppling into its depths. In seconds it swallowed the dome in a crunch of twisted metal beams. Fisher’s security ops escaped into the forest and clambered over the chain-link fence in mortal desperation.
Following the structural line of the underground tunnel, the crack in the earth continued its rapid spread towards the Nu Co. factory.
“No!” Fisher bolted towards the massive brick building, like a child trying to catch a glass vase before it shattered on the floor.
“He’s crazy,” said Lucy.
His heart beating out of his chest, Milo took off after his father.
“Careful!” cried Lucy. She raced over and pulled him back as the void widened again, nearly reaching Milo’s feet. They teetered on the edge as more trees plunged into its fathomless depths, crashing against the crumbling wreckage of the underground laboratory.
Giving the ever-expanding fissure a wide berth, Milo and Lucy ran towards the factory. When they reached the employee parking lot, they found Fisher standing on the roof of his silver sedan, swinging his fist at the sky.
An expansive murmuration of sparkling violet roiled above the brick building, the many unnatural birds and bats shrieking cacophonously.
The parking lot broke open, consuming a handful of cars and trucks as the chasm split and encircled the factory.
Fisher ran towards the building, his eyes wild.
“It’s going to collapse,” Lucy warned.
With a hideous creaking wail the pyramidal smokestack began to judder and sway, bricks breaking free and toppling down its sides. The mossy base of the complex began to crumble, and then, all at once and with a terrifying groan, the structure caved in, its parts cascading into the hot bowels of the Earth.
Fisher tripped frantically across the shattered pavement to the edge of the gaping pit, where he fell to his knees in anguish. With one final rumble, the shrill animal murmur ceased and the orchestra of glowing eyes extinguished themselves. At last, the tremors slowed to a standstill.
The night was engulfed in total silence.
“Gone,” said Fisher.
Milo hadn’t seen his father look so powerless since the day his mother had died.
“Come on, Dad.” Milo beckoned from beside the sedan. “Please.”
“Nu Co.” Fisher stood. “It’s all gone.”
“I’m still here,” said Milo. He held out his hand.
Jerking himself out of a daze, Fisher took a step towards his son, but the ground crumbled under his feet. “W-whoa,” he waved his arms to keep his balance but it was too late. He was falling into the hole.
Milo’s senses dulled as he dashed to save his father
, like he was running in slow motion through a tunnel of fog. Fisher clawed at the edge of the disintegrating cliff, his nails scratching against the asphalt, grappling to hold on.
Milo slid out on his knees and caught his father’s hand, but he wasn’t strong enough – they were both being pulled into the abyss. “Come on, Dad, climb!”
Fisher struggled to find a foothold on the sheer rock face. “Let go,” Fisher ordered his son.
“Never!” Milo strained to tighten his grasp. He could feel his father slipping away. Then another pair of hands gripped Fisher’s flailing arm. Milo looked over to see Lucy, beet-red, pulling his father up with all her might.
Lucy and Milo heaved in tandem. Slowly, slowly, they lifted Mr Fisher out of the crumbling hole and dragged him into the parking lot, where he collapsed on the solid ground.
Lucy rested against the wheel of Fisher’s sedan, panting. She gave Milo a thumbs-up, then closed her eyes tightly.
Milo lay on his back, staring into a star-studded sky that seemed to be spinning. They were safe. But for how long? Both Lucy and his father had been right. The world was not as simple as it seemed. And now Milo knew something that even Lucy had to agree with.
Sticky Pines is full of monsters. The Pretenders must be stopped, before it’s too late.
Fisher’s Fissure
“Mr Fisher is a monster.” Lucy’s tongue poked out the side of her mouth as she typed up the article for the SPEAMS Sentinel on her battered laptop. Gertie’s mind is about to be so blown her nose ring might fly off. Maybe I’ll be the one to get that scholarship to Stanford, after I win a Pulitzer and get elected leader of the solar system.
Lucy typed at the coffee table in the living room, knees drawn up to her chin, the warmth of the wood-burning stove at her back. She was only vaguely distracted by the clinking of dishes being washed in the kitchen and Willow’s squeaks of glee each time she fitted a jigsaw-puzzle piece. Her father was on the phone in the bedroom, as he had been all afternoon, most likely discussing the fact that nearly everyone he knew had to find a new job.
It had been two days since the demolition of the Nu Co. factory, and Lucy was still sparking with adrenaline. Every corner of the Big Crater Valley had felt the tremors. School was cancelled for the rest of the week and many businesses were closed (including, unsurprisingly, Mandy’s Candies and The Woo Woo Store). The whole town was stunned to learn about the factory’s demise, but so far Mr Fisher had successfully kept the cause under wraps. Remarkably, it seemed that nobody in his security team had leaked the story to the press. Lucy had overheard her father telling her mother that Mr Fisher had introduced “one heck of a non-disclosure agreement” in everyone’s employment contract.
For the first time in Lucy’s life the world was totally primed for her to spill all the beans she had, and fast. She’d been working all day to ensure that she’d finish her article before someone tried to convince her to keep quiet. But Lucy was done with lies once and for all. Eat slugs, secret-mongers!
She rubbed the dryness out of her eyes and typed on:
As the Nu Co. factory kerplooied into the crater, Mr Fisher’s angry purple face looked like it was about to explode into a zillion pieces. He fought like a badger and lost, and Nu Co., as we know it, is no more. Once again, the mysterious Pretenders of Sticky Pines had escaped Fisher’s Nucralose of Doom. But though the lives of countless shapeshifting weirdos had been saved, the factory was dustified beyond repair.
There’s still tons left to learn about these incredible beings. Who are they? What do they want? Where did they come from? What are their powers? And do they really like candy as much as it seems? But two undeniable TRUTHS remain: one, many of our friends and neighbours (and possibly pets?) are actually extranatural transmutational beings of unknown origin; and, two, by playing with forces he doesn’t understand, Mr Fisher is putting Sticky Pines, and possibly the whole world, at risk. He must be stopped, before it’s too late.
That’s it. She smacked her hands. It’s ready. She attached the document to an email – subject line: “FRONT-PAGE BONANZA” – and sent it off to Gertie Lee.
“Why do you look so triumphant?” said Miranda Sladan, watching her daughter from behind the kitchen island. “You’re still grounded, you know.”
“I know,” Lucy sang. But not for long. She was pretty sure that making the front page of every single newspaper in the universe would counteract the trouble she was in for getting home “later than your father or I thought possible to even dream”.
Following the undeniable and irreversible destruction of the Nu Co. factory, Mr Fisher had unceremoniously dropped off Lucy, her bike and the metric ton of dust they were covered in at the end of her driveway. He’d driven off without a word. Lucy was pretty sure he’d only offered her the ride in the first place because she’d helped save his life. It seemed a fair enough trade.
Lucy’s parents had greeted her at the door with equal parts anger and relief. They’d asked her where she’d been and if she had felt the earthquake. Lucy had intended to tell them everything that had happened, but she’d started with, “I saw the Nu Co. factory fall into a giant hole in the ground,” and the conversation quickly got out of hand. Her statement seemed to confirm a rumour her parents had heard, which sent them into an increasingly upsetting series of phone calls. After that, Lucy decided it might be best for them to read about what really happened on the front page of the school paper before the onslaught of TV interviews began.
She checked her messages. There was one from Milo: “Did you finish the article?”
Lucy typed a response: “i just hit send.”
Three dots appeared in the message window as Milo wrote back. “Did you tell the Whole Truth?”
“i put in EVERYTHING. start to finish. top to bottom. creatures to catastrophes:-O”
“:-O Good.”
“wanna meet up at Buck’s tomorrow?”
“I would, but my dad and I are heading up to Vancouver for a couple days. We can grab a shake when I get back!”
“deal.”
“:-)”
“:-D”
Willow jumped to her feet. “I’ve done it,” she beamed. “This is the last piece.” She inserted it into the puzzle dramatically. “Ta-dah!”
Lucy leaned over and examined the jigsaw, a near complete print of “The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh. “There’s still a piece missing, Will.”
“What?” Willow bent down to look. There was indeed, another empty space on the board. She fell back on to the couch, sinking into its deep cushions. “Oh.”
“Check under the rug,” Lucy hopped over a sleeping Errol and sauntered into the kitchen. “‘Sup, señorita,” she said to her mother. She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl.
Miranda scrutinised her sassy daughter as she dried the soup pot. “Did you finish your article?”
“Did I ever.” Lucy plopped down on a stool, chewing loudly.
“You’ve been so secretive about it. What angle did you take?”
Errol trotted into the kitchen and stared hopefully up at Lucy. She bit off a piece of the apple and tossed it into his open mouth.
“Well,” said Lucy, “I can’t tell you what it’s about, but I can tell you the title.”
Miranda stuffed the pot into the cupboard. “I’m all ears, maestro.”
Lucy placed each word on an imaginary banner with her hand. “Monsters, Madness and Machinations: The Mysteries of Sticky Pines Revealed.”
“That sounds very exciting. But I thought you were writing about Nu Co., not the supernatural.” Miranda wiped down the counter. “You could have written about the earthquake. Isn’t that enough excitement for you?”
“Everything is connected,” Lucy winked.
Miranda tossed the towel on the counter, clearly concerned for her daughter’s psychological well-being.
Silas shuffled into the room wearing his coat and boots. “I’m heading off to the Banana Slug Saloon. Some of the guys are there, commi
serating. There’s a lot to discuss.”
“Understatement of the millennium,” Miranda sighed.
“Will Alastair Chelon be there?” asked Lucy.
“I dunno.” Silas hugged Lucy and smoothed her bushy hair. “I haven’t heard from him today.” He froze halfway to the door. “Gosh, I hope he’s okay. They did say the factory was empty when it went down, didn’t they?”
“He’s fine, don’t worry.” Lucy waved off his concern.
“How would you—” Silas was cut short when Willow ran up and clung to his legs from behind. He caught himself on the counter and pulled her up into a koala bear hug. “I’ve gotta run, kiddette.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning. But not too early!” He set her down on the peeling linoleum floor.
Lucy’s parents shared a solemn gaze before Silas stepped out into the garage.
“Is Dad gonna be okay?” Willow asked once the door had closed behind him. “Without a job, I mean.”
Lucy scoffed. “He hated that job, especially since Fisher took over. He’ll find a new one, easy. Right, Mom?”
Miranda nodded stiffly. “We’ll be fine, girls. Don’t worry.” She went into the living room and switched on the television, turning the volume up high.
The phone rang. Lucy reached for the cordless receiver on the wall but Willow got to it first.
“H’lo?” she said. “No, you’re a silly goose.”
Lucy could hear the sound of laughter on the other line. “Who are you talking to?”
“It’s for you.” Willow handed her the phone.
“Lucille,” said Tex. “When did you become a comic genius?”
“Since birth,” she replied. “Why?”
“We just read your piece for the paper. We have not laughed so much in ages.”
Lucy heard a female voice giggling in the background. “We?”
“Gertie is here,” said Tex.
What?
“In light of the unanticipated school closure,” he continued, “I have graciously offered Ms Lee the use of my processing power to ensure that the Sentinel is printed on time.”
Has the apocalypse begun?
The Thing At Black Hole Lake Page 15