“Did one of you put the trick candy cauldron on the porch earlier?” he questioned.
“Swear—it’s—not—a—prank,” Pez moaned. “Feels—like—something—eating—me—from—inside—out.”
“H-help—us—Fisher!” Champ cried.
That’s when Fisher knew. He could see it in Champ’s and Pez’s eyes. Whatever they were feeling was real.
Then Pez’s eyes turned black.
Solid black.
Like dark marbles.
It was as if the light that was Pez—his personality, his feelings, his spirit—had been snuffed out.
Suddenly, the fabric of Pez’s costume began to change. The plastic melted into slimy skin, then fishlike scales began to form. Fisher could no longer tell where Pez’s skin ended and the swamp creature’s began. Then the gills in Pez’s neck began to move. Inhaling. And exhaling. Like a fish out of water.
Pez let out a wailing cry: Graaauuugghhh!
Horrified, Fisher turned to Squirrel, who was making a distressed gargling noise. His eyes had turned solid black too. The straight-A, predictable boy cocked his head back and bared his fangs to the sky. Only they were no longer plastic fangs. They were razor sharp. His cape, which had a store-bought appearance to it only a moment before, now shimmered black and red, like an evil phantom of the night.
He hisssssed!
Fisher looked around for Champ, but he was nowhere in sight. Strangely, on the ground where Champ had been standing was a top hat sitting upon a pile of clothes.
Just then, someone tackled Fisher, and he fell to the ground. He looked around and didn’t see anyone, but he could hear Champ’s cackling somewhere above him. Magically, a piece of candy unwrapped itself in midair and disappeared into an invisible gullet, followed by a loud belch.
Fisher peered out the eyeholes of his ghost sheet in panic. The Halloweeners were no longer wearing their homemade costumes. They had transformed into actual incarnations of their costumed fears.
There, before him, now stood . . .
A dehydrated swamp creature!
A vegetarian vampire!
And an invisible candysnatcher!
It was as if there was nothing left of Champ, Pez, and Squirrel. Their inner monsters had taken over entirely.
They circled around him, their hideous hands reaching toward his flesh, their mouths salivating with hunger. Fisher was certain they were about to make a feast out of him.
Then suddenly, as if the monsters shared a synchronized appetite, they sniffed the air together, lured by an irresistible scent. Before Fisher could say anything, his monster-fied friends ran across the street and disappeared into a swarm of trick-or-treaters.
“What just happened?” Fisher whispered aloud, wondering if he was trapped inside some twisted nightmare.
He removed his ghost sheet and tossed it onto the grass beside him.
As he took a deep breath, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He lifted it from his jeans and read the text message from his mom:
WHERE ARE YOU?!
BE HOME IN 10 MINUTES,
OR I’M COMING TO LOOK FOR YOU!
A nightmare, he told himself. This has to be a nightmare.
But it was real.
7
Holy Halloween!
Fisher stared down at the text message from his mom and turned off his phone.
If Mom figures out a way to track my phone, I’m done for, he thought. I can’t take any chances.
His heart pounded in his chest as he tried to wrap his mind around what he had just seen. The Halloweeners—dressed in homemade costumes—had eaten a mysterious candy that transformed them into monsters. Real monsters!
Maybe I should have stayed home tonight, he thought, and considered running back to his house and hiding in his closet until morning.
He then glanced up at the mansion and remembered Champ’s last words: “Help—us—Fisher.”
A moment later, Champ’s eyes had turned black and soulless. Fisher wondered if the Halloweeners even still existed somewhere inside their monster flesh.
Halloweeners watch out for each other, Fisher thought. I know they’d try to help me if I was in their shoes.
Fisher picked up Squirrel’s backpack and looped the straps over his shoulders. He then hurried into the neighborhood, chasing after the monsters.
In the streets, he brushed shoulders with pirates and zombies, aliens and superheroes, fairies and clowns. In the yards, he passed by cackling witches and blow-up creatures shrouded in artificial fog. The entire neighborhood was a carnival of wonders, full of pumpkin smells and ghoulish marvels.
But he didn’t see the monsters anywhere.
What if they’ve already hurt someone? he thought. Or worse.
Up ahead, Fisher saw a water hose snaking out from a yard and spilling onto the sidewalk. Amphibian-like footprints were stamped onto the pavement around it.
Pez! Fisher thought.
Nearby in the street, a candy bucket had been poured out, surrounded by a dozen empty wrappers.
Champ broke the Second Sacred Law of Halloween . . . again!
Then Fisher saw a half-eaten jack-o’-lantern lying on a nearby front porch. He could smell the scent of pumpkin guts heavy in the air.
And Squirrel destroyed the most sacred symbol of Halloween!
A light bulb flickered on in Fisher’s mind.
Jeepers creepers! he realized. They’re being driven by the cravings of their costumes! The dehydrated swamp creature needs water, the invisible candysnatcher wants candy, and the vegetarian vampire is after fruits and vegetables!
Terrified, Fisher followed the trail all the way up Hobble Lane until he arrived at a fire hydrant spraying out into the street.
“Where are they?” Fisher wondered.
Just then, a woman screamed a few yards up the sidewalk. She and her husband ran past Fisher, dragging their little boy in a mini DeLorean time machine.
Fisher quickly hid behind a maple tree.
“Holy Halloween!” he cried, peering in the direction from where the family had fled.
The front door of a white two-story house slowly opened on its own, as if unlocked by an invisible hand. Fisher watched as the invisible candysnatcher stepped inside, followed by the freakish silhouettes of the vegetarian vampire and the dehydrated swamp creature. Their fanged mouths salivated as their appetites drew them in, closer to what they craved.
That’s when Fisher realized . . .
The Halloweeners just broke into someone’s house!
8
Monster House
Fisher sprinted across the street, hoping to save the Halloweeners from doing anything they might regret. He crept through the front doorway and quickly hid beneath a table at the foot of the stairs, where a life-size skeleton decoration sat.
Two teenagers were sitting on a couch in the den, watching Hocus Pocus. Fisher assumed they were boyfriend and girlfriend, because the dark-haired boy kept trying to put his arm around the blond girl’s shoulder. Her gaze was glued to the screen as she ate popcorn from a bowl, one kernel at a time.
Fisher then noticed a family photo sitting on the side table next to the couch. In it was the teenage girl with her parents and little brother, who looked a lot like . . .
Champ! Fisher realized. He broke into his own home!
Fisher heard water running upstairs, and looked up to see an open bathroom door where the dehydrated swamp creature was drinking out of the toilet.
Disgusting, Fisher thought. I’m going to call Pez “poop breath” if I ever see him again!
Glancing down the hall to the kitchen, Fisher saw the vegetarian vampire drinking ketchup right out of a bottle he had raided from the fridge.
Squirrel has probably never drunk anything straight out of the bottle in his life! I have to stop them before anyone in the house sees them, Fisher thought.
He looked around for any sign of Champ but couldn’t see him anywhere. He started toward the kitchen to try to wrang
le Squirrel, but quickly hid behind the couch when Champ’s sister began to talk to her boyfriend.
“Is this diet popcorn?” Champ’s sister asked, examining the bowl in front of her.
“I don’t know—I just microwaved the stuff that was in the pantry,” her boyfriend replied, slicking back the side of his hair and scooting a few inches closer to her.
“Oh my gosh, this better not be my little brother’s Buttery Bliss,” she said as if she’d realized she had just ingested poison. “This tastes too good to be diet.”
“So, like, was your brother adopted or what?” the boyfriend asked, pointing to the family photo on the side table next to him. “Cuz you don’t look anything alike.”
Fisher noticed a picture of Champ’s father wearing his Olympic silver medal, another of his mom in her aerobics apparel teaching a class, and a third one of his sister in a newspaper ad for the local sporting goods store. The wall seemed to be a shrine dedicated to their proudest family achievements.
But Champ wasn’t even on the wall.
The boyfriend picked up the family photo from the table and continued, “I mean, he’s sort of porky and dorky, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s just because he never stops eating,” Champ’s sister said. “We try to get him to go on our weekend family hikes, but he always just wants to stay home and play video games. He’s not really like any of us.”
I really hope Champ isn’t hearing any of this, Fisher thought.
Just as Fisher began to crawl toward the hallway, there was a loud crash upstairs, like breaking glass. The teenagers on the couch flinched and looked over their shoulders toward the sound. The popcorn bowl hovered over the table in front of them and poured popcorn onto their heads. The half-empty candy boxes floated in midair too, moving slowly toward the front door.
Champ’s sister screamed in horror and did an awkward somersault over the back of the couch, tumbling into Fisher.
Champ literally had to become invisible for his family to finally see him, Fisher mused, barely able to wrap his mind around the fantastical chaos he was witnessing.
At the sight of Fisher—who was technically a home invader—Champ’s sister screamed again. Her boyfriend chased her out the back door, which was decorated to look like the entrance to a mausoleum. Fisher followed, only to find pieces of glass scattered all over the back porch. Champ’s sister glanced up to the second story and saw the broken bathroom window. When she looked back down, she saw Pez standing in the middle of the pool, soaking up all the water.
She shrieked in terror.
“What is this, some kind of sick Halloween prank?!” she shouted at Fisher, who was now awkwardly standing behind them in the doorway.
At the sound of a threatening hiss, and the prospect of there being more than one creature, she and her boyfriend disappeared back into the house to hide. Fisher quickly ran past them toward the side of the house, only to find Mrs. Sanderson in her garden next door, swatting at Squirrel and yelling at him to stop feasting on her tomatoes. Red juices dripped from his chin as he bared his fangs at her and hissssed again and again!
The old woman screamed and threw her shovel at him, then ran back into her house with her hands waving over her head.
“Squirrel, you guys have to stop this! Before—”
Just then, a trick-or-treater started up the sidewalk toward the front door of Champ’s house.
But it wasn’t just any trick-or-treater. It was . . .
“Ava!” Fisher shouted.
He sprinted around the corner, hopped over a sprinkler, and tackled Ava into the bushes.
“Get off me, you fungus!” she said.
“There’s—monsters!” Fisher warned, hardly able to get the words out as he pointed toward the house.
She huffed angrily and sat up.
“Hey, I recognize your voice—you’re that new kid. Our team already weighed in our candy and had our costumes judged, so it’s too late to sabotage us. I was just trying to fill another couple buckets to enter last minute. I want to break my record from last year.”
“You don’t understand,” Fisher said. “Champ, Pez, and Squirrel—they ate some weird candy, and they . . . transformed.”
“Good for them. They could use a makeover,” Ava replied. “Now, if you’ll please hand me my broom, I have to get to the festival to accept my trophy.”
Fisher picked the broom up from the grass and handed it to her.
She started to stand up, but . . .
Hisssssss!
Squirrel now hovered over them, tomato juices still dripping from his fangs. Pez appeared from around the corner, followed by the two floating boxes of chocolates. At the sight of Ava’s candy buckets, Champ dropped everything and grabbed her candy.
Ava squinted, perplexed, trying to figure out how the buckets were hovering in midair.
She attempted to jerk them back, but Squirrel lurched toward her and hissed like a snake. The swamp creature graaahhhed and shot thick green slime out of his nostrils and all over her face. The stench was more wretched than a skunk’s, and more potent. She tensed up when she realized the slime was burning her skin.
“Disgusting, frog face!” she mumbled, peeling the slime from her mouth, nose, and eyes, so that she could breathe and see.
The monsters drew closer, and Ava observed their black eyes.
For the first time, she realized the monsters were real.
She tried to scream, but some chemical in the slime paralyzed the muscles in her face. It lasted several seconds before she could move her jaw again.
Fisher watched in terror.
Right then, the clock tower in Town Square struck ten. The gongs echoed over the neighborhood like a funeral song.
Together, the monsters turned toward the ringing bell, then rushed into the street, disappearing into the parade of costumed children heading toward the festival.
“What in the name of Halloween is going on?” Ava asked, just as confused as she was terrified. She rubbed her jaw, relieved that the slime had only caused a temporary paralysis. Some of it still dripped from her hair.
“Like I said, they ate some poisoned candy at an abandoned mansion on Burgundy Street, and—”
“On Burgundy?” Ava questioned. “You mean the witch’s mansion?”
Fisher nodded.
“Everyone knows to stay away from that house—especially on Halloween,” Ava scolded.
Fisher shrugged. “After they ate the candy, they transformed into real monsters. And now they’re tearing up the neighborhood! Who knows what they’re capable of?”
“That’s impossible,” Ava said.
Just then, something caught Fisher’s eye. On the ground. Right in front of him.
A black wrapper.
Of a Monsterbar.
“This is it. The candy that they ate,” Fisher said, reaching to pick it up. “It must have fallen out of Champ’s pocket.”
He and Ava stared down at it curiously.
“Look, there’s something written inside the wrapper,” Ava said.
9
Town Square Terror
The warning on the wrapper read:
BEWARE!
EATING MORE THAN ONE PIECE
WILL HAVE A MONSTROUS EFFECT ON THE CONSUMER.
THE RESULTS MUST BE CORRECTED BY SUNRISE,
OR ELSE THE CONSUMER WILL BE DOOMED
TO REMAIN IN THEIR ALTERED FORM . . .
FOREVER!
Fisher put the wrapper in his pocket and gulped. The truth was worse than he had thought.
“Wait,” Ava said, her eyes now plagued with horror. “You’re telling me those geeks are real monsters? Like, really real?”
Fisher nodded.
“And this isn’t some kind of elaborate hoax?” she asked.
“Do you really think we’re capable of pulling off something like that?” Fisher said.
“Good point,” she replied.
Fisher huffed.
“You guys really shoul
dn’t have raided that candy cauldron,” Ava scolded. “If anyone dies, it’s on you.”
Fisher suspected she was right, so he didn’t argue.
Instead, he paced back and forth in front of the bushes, rubbing his forehead like a mad scientist trying to figure out the origins of the universe.
“What are we going to do?” he mused aloud.
“We?” Ava challenged. “There’s no ‘we’ about it. They’re your friends.”
“But it’s your town. Your family, friends, teachers—they’re all in danger. We have to at least try to warn everyone at the festival,” Fisher said.
Ava turned it over in her mind.
Finally, her cheeks puffed up, and she let out a slow breath like her head was a deflating balloon.
“Fine,” she said. “I have to go to Town Square anyway to accept my trophy. But first I have to wash this stuff off—it’s still burning my skin.”
Ava ran over to the fire hydrant and washed off as much slime as she could, but her skin remained sticky and feverish. Then they ran to their bikes and pedaled toward Town Square.
On their way, Fisher noticed more candy wrappers and pumpkin guts scattered all over the pavement, as well as a slime-covered sewer cap pulled off in the middle of the street. The swamp creature’s amphibian-like footprints led right into the hole.
Oh no, Pez has gone into the sewers! Fisher thought.
When they arrived in Town Square, Fisher looked around for any sign of the monsters.
A giant banner hung above Main Street: Annual Halloween Festival!
The mayor and his wife were on a nearby stage, judging costumes and jack-o’-lanterns and weighing candy bags for the Halloween Games. Fisher pretended not to notice the scoreboard showing the Pumpkinheads in first place.
Nearby, kids bobbed for apples out of wooden barrels surrounding the historic fountain. Parents and kids carved jack-o’-lanterns in the pavilion. And a dozen scarecrows holding candy buckets stood guard over the corn maze across from Town Hall.
The layout was immaculately organized and efficient. Like clockwork.
That’s when Fisher noticed another couple standing onstage, gazing out over the mass of people having fun. The man looked down at his watch and then up at the clock tower, as if to make sure the two were in sync. He then made a small adjustment to his watch, just like Fisher had seen Squirrel do earlier in the tree house.
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