Monsterstreet #2

by J. H. Reynolds

  It doesn’t look like Ava has much experience with dancing either, Fisher thought. But he knew better than to say it aloud.

  As they danced, they looped the rope around the monsters, pulling it tighter and tighter. Everyone watched, believing the rope to be part of the act. Just as the trap was set, Fisher felt the invisible candysnatcher’s hand grip his shoulder.

  “Fisher—please—help,” Champ’s voice pleaded from somewhere inside the monster.

  Fisher didn’t know whether to feel afraid or elated. Champ was still alive! But it sounded like he was in terrible pain. Lost in some inescapable nightmare.

  Fisher then looked over at Pez and Squirrel and saw that their eyes were half black, half white. Their eyeballs waxed and waned like eclipsing moons.

  “This song,” Fisher whispered to Ava. “It’s . . . freeing them.”

  “Huh?” Ava said.

  But just as he and Ava were about to tighten the knot . . .

  The song ended.

  The monsters stopped dancing.

  And their eyes turned solid black once again.

  13

  Midnight Mayhem

  Fisher and Ava felt the tension in the rope slackening as the monsters twisted their way out of it.

  “Play the song again!” Ava shouted to the lead singer of the Cryptkeepers.

  “Yeah. And hurry!” Fisher added.

  But the applause was so loud, no one could hear them.

  Just as the cheering subsided, the swamp creature raised his webbed hands and grrraaaaagggghhhhed! Slime shot out of his nostrils, spraying the crowd with the green, skunk-like sludge that appeared to glow in the dark. The slimed victims screamed in pain.

  The invisible candysnatcher tossed off his cloak and top hat, then disappeared into the crowd, cackling like a madman.

  When a teenage girl dressed up like a banana ran past them, the vegetarian vampire lunged toward her and bit her arm, his razor-sharp fangs boring into her flesh. Red liquid oozed from the bite, staining the yellow fabric.

  At the sight of blood, the vegetarian vampire spat in repulsion, and the teenagers surrounding the girl screamed and ran away.

  “Everyone needs to get out of here now!” Fisher commanded. “Before—”

  The vampire bit another teenager wearing a pumpkin costume, and more blood dripped onto the gym floor.

  Their appetites are getting worse! Fisher thought.

  Then . . .

  Blue, flickering lights bathed the walls and ceiling.

  Fisher looked out the windows behind the bleachers and saw two police cars pulling up outside. A moment later, two cops entered the gym, their hands readied on their holsters.

  The swarm of teenagers stampeded in every direction, whirling past the cops.

  “Can someone please tell us what’s going on here?” a man in a state trooper uniform yelled. “We had a call about a—”

  Before he could finish, his hat flew off his head, swatted by an invisible hand. Champ’s mischievous laughter soon followed.

  “What the—” the cop began, then tripped over his shoelaces, which the invisible candysnatcher had tied together.

  “Look!” Ava shouted. “They’re getting away!”

  The monsters pushed the speakers off the stage, shattering them to pieces. Then they escaped out the back door of the gym, slipping into the October night once again.

  Fisher and Ava hurried after them.

  As soon as Fisher stepped outside, he saw the monsters disappear into the woods behind the football stadium.

  A third cop car pulled up, and Fisher and Ava quickly hid behind the nearby bushes.

  They could overhear the conversation taking place on the CB radio. . . .

  The dispatcher at the police station buzzed through. “Officer Copeland, we’ve just received a report for a missing child. He’s wearing black air-pump Jordans and a white ghost sheet. His mom has called into the station about ten times, so we need to find him and get him home before she calls in the federal troops.”

  Officer Copeland, whose bald head gleamed in the moonlight, picked up the receiver and replied, “I’ve seen a dozen kids in ghost sheets tonight, Marla. You’re asking me to find a needle in a haystack.”

  “The chief wants you on it immediately,” Marla called back. “We’ve got weirder problems down here at the station. We’re getting reports of mutated creatures drinking out of swimming pools and eating up gardens. We even had one guy call in about an invisible burglar! I really hate Halloween.”

  “Roger that. I’m on it,” Officer Copeland said, then chomped another bite of his doughnut.

  As soon as he drove out of sight, Fisher confessed to Ava, “I’m the missing kid they’re looking for.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, at least your mom is out looking for you,” Ava said. “My parents probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone. They’re out at a masquerade party with their rich friends tonight.”

  Then she patted Fisher’s shoulder. The gesture wasn’t patronizing like usual. It was sincere, as if she was just trying to say, It’s okay.

  “By the way, thanks for saving us back there,” she added.

  “No problem,” Fisher replied, surprised by Ava’s change of persona. “Did you see all the blood on the gym floor? This is getting way serious.”

  “We have to make a plan. Now,” she said. “The warning on the candy wrapper said we have to reverse the curse before sunrise. It’s already past ten o’clock.”

  Fisher glanced toward the forest. The trees waved gently in the breeze. They seemed more haunted than ever.

  “I know a place where we might be able to find the answers we need,” Fisher said. “But it’s sort of secret. So you can’t tell anyone if I take you. Swear?”

  “I swear,” Ava said. “But we have to hurry.”

  They ran toward their bikes, which were still lying in the parking lot. They hopped on and darted back into the night.

  We’re the town’s only hope, they both thought, but neither said it aloud.

  14

  Making a Plan

  As soon as they arrived at the base of the tree house, Fisher blindfolded Ava.

  “You already showed me how to get here, so why does it matter if I can see now?”

  “It will just make me feel better,” Fisher said.

  He tightened the blindfold over Ava’s eyes, then pulled the secret rope in the tree hollow for the ladder to fall down. He led her up, rung by rung, and through the door at the bottom of the fort.

  Once inside, he lit a kerosene lantern. The walls came alive with posters of werewolves and vampires, witches and robots, swamp creatures and zombies.

  Ava looked around. “So this is the secret hideout of the Halloweeners?” she said, running her fingers over each cryptic drawing pinned to the wooden planks. “Impressive. I’ll have to remember to trash this place next time you guys toilet paper my house.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone I brought you here,” Fisher reminded her. “If you do, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” she challenged him.

  “I’ll tell everyone you tried to kiss me.”

  “Gross!” Ava shouted. “Like anyone would believe you.”

  “Just don’t tell anyone, okay? They won’t let me in the club if they find out I brought you here,” Fisher urged.

  “All right, all right, I was just kidding,” Ava said. “But if they ever turn back into their normal selves, I’m sure they’ll understand this was an emergency. Anyway, must be nice to have friends like that.”

  “But . . . you have plenty of friends,” Fisher said.

  Ava shook her head.

  “Those girls you saw me with tonight—they only hang out with me because my parents are rich. I mean, one time I had an argument with my mom, and I called Ginger to talk about it. Ginger said she was busy and would call me back later but never did. She didn’t even ask me about it the next day at school. And another time, I invited them to come to
my piano recital, and they all made up excuses about why they couldn’t be there. The next week they all showed up to my birthday party two hours late just so they could get the party favors and a piece of cake my mom ordered from a luxurious bakery, then they left.”

  “But Champ said you guys win the Halloween Games every year. You’re a team. So you have to at least sort of be friends, right?”

  “There’s a difference between competing together and being friends,” Ava corrected him. “And my parents don’t have much time for me either, so I’m sort of on my own.”

  Fisher suddenly realized that he and Ava had something unexpected in common—they both needed friends. Real friends.

  Ava approached a drawing on the wall of a green monster with electrodes sticking out of its neck.

  “Hey, you guys know that Frankenstein isn’t the name of the monster, don’t you? It’s the name of the scientist who created the monster,” Ava pointed out, back to her usual annoyingly clever self.

  “Of course I knew that,” Fisher replied, sure that he had read it somewhere.

  He fumbled through the bookshelves, looking for something.

  Finally, he pulled a worn leather book from the bottom shelf. A small plastic contraption hung from a ribbon in the middle of the book. It looked like a square magnifying glass, only much smaller. And the lens was yellowish instead of clear.

  “What is that?” Ava asked.

  “I think it’s the Halloweener Diary,” he explained. “I heard the guys talking about it earlier. Supposedly, it holds all their secrets. And this little thing attached to it must be some kind of cypher.”

  Fisher opened the worn leather journal. He turned the pages until he arrived at a series of handmade illustrations. The heading read:

  How to Kill Monsters

  “This may be just what we need,” Fisher said.

  “So . . . you want us to kill your friends?” Ava asked dryly.

  “No. But if we can figure out a way to destroy the monster side of them, then maybe we can save the real them.”

  Ava squinted, considering Fisher’s plan.

  “Sounds tricky. And dangerous.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Fisher asked.

  Ava was silent.

  “Look,” he continued, pointing to a drawing of garlic melting a vampire’s face. He held the cypher up to it, and calligraphic words like those of an ancient monster hunter appeared beneath it:

  Garlic will repel vampire energy.

  A stake through its heart will destroy it forever.

  “We need garlic,” Fisher said.

  “And a stake,” Ava added, pointing to a wooden stake going through the vampire’s heart. “But what about the dehydrated swamp creature?”

  She pointed to an illustration of a mutated beast covered in toxic slime and crawling out of a lake. It then showed the creature lying lifelessly in the sun, with its dried tongue hanging out the side of its mouth and all its scales peeling off.

  He held up the cypher, and more words appeared.

  “Death by dehydration,” Fisher whispered. “Pez is already dehydrated. But we need to finish him off.”

  “With what? We can’t wait until the sun comes out,” Ava said.

  Fisher thought for a moment, then whispered, “Soda.”

  “Soda?”

  “Yeah, sugar and caffeine dehydrate a water-based body,” Fisher explained. “I learned it at summer camp.”

  “And what about the invisible candy-stealer kid?”

  Fisher perused the diary for any mention of invisibility.

  “There’s not anything here about how to defeat an invisible monster,” Fisher said. “Maybe we can throw paint on him so that he becomes visible. People will see him coming, so he won’t be able to cause mischief or steal things as easily. At least until we can find a way to reverse the curse permanently.”

  “You’re not as dumb as you look,” Ava said with a smirk.

  “Thanks,” Fisher replied, unsure if he should feel flattered or offended.

  “What’s this?” Ava asked, moving the cypher to the bottom of the page.

  A cryptic message read:

  Monsters are considered to be part of the animal kingdom.

  Therefore, their senses are . . .

  But the corner of the page was torn off, and they couldn’t read the rest.

  “I wonder what the missing part says,” Fisher mused aloud, then looked out at the moonlit graveyard. “We have to hurry. Before the monsters hurt anyone else.”

  He unzipped Squirrel’s backpack and shoved the diary inside it. Then he took a Super Soaker water gun from the nearby couch and put it in the pack as well.

  “Food Mart will have everything else we need,” he said.

  “Great idea!” Ava agreed.

  They climbed back down the tree to their bikes, rode past the graveyard, and soared into town.

  “Garlic, soda, paint. Garlic, soda, paint,” Fisher repeated over and over again all the way to Food Mart.

  But when they arrived in the parking lot, the windows were all shattered, the lights were flickering, and strange sounds were coming from inside.

  “The monsters,” Ava whispered. “They’re already here!”

  15

  Eat Your Heart Out

  Fisher and Ava stepped up to the sliding doors of Food Mart, activating the motion sensors. They crept inside, shocked by the postapocalyptic appearance of their local grocery store. The lights blinked on and off, buzzing like a swarm of Amazonian insects. Shelves were turned over. Food boxes were scattered across the floor. Fisher felt like he was walking through a scene in a horror film.

  “Look,” Ava whispered, pointing to the produce section.

  It had been ransacked, with fruits and vegetables thrown everywhere. Only a few cores, stems, and pits remained. Fisher picked up a stray clove of garlic and put it in his pocket.

  “We need to get the supplies before the monsters see us,” he urged.

  “Yeah, or eat us,” Ava added.

  “I’ll get the soda. You get the paint,” Fisher said.

  Ava nodded, and the two of them headed off to find their monster-hunting essentials.

  Fisher crept cautiously across the slick floor, careful not to make a screeching sound with his sneakers.

  When he turned onto the soda aisle, he saw the swamp creature at the other end, gulping down gallons of purified water. Dozens of empty jugs already lay on the floor.

  Fisher quietly pulled the Super Soaker from his backpack and reached for a liter of Dr Pepper. When he twisted off the cap, the compressed carbonation made a harsh hissing sound.

  The swamp creature dropped his water jug and turned to Fisher.

  “Oh no,” he whispered, pouring soda into the Super Soaker as fast as he could.

  Then—

  The creature began running toward him.

  Like a madman, Fisher pumped streams of soda at it. The carbonated liquid hissed like acid against its scaly skin. Smoke arose upon impact, and the creature grabbed at its own flesh, squealing in pain.

  Soon, it fell to its knees.

  “It’s working,” Fisher said, quickly reloading with another liter of Dr Pepper.

  He shot the next round of soda at the creature, soaking its chest and head. Fisher could see its skin growing dryer. And grayer. The creature was dying.

  Soon, it lay lifeless on the ground.

  Fisher sprayed one last jet of soda onto its chest. Victoriously.

  “Pez, are you in there? Can you hear me?” But there was no reply.

  With no time to waste, Fisher quickly ran to find Ava.

  When he turned the corner onto the canned foods aisle, he saw the vegetarian vampire holding Ava by her neck high up in the air. Her feet were dangling, trying to find the floor. Empty cans of fruits, vegetables, and lentils were scattered everywhere.

  “Let her go!” Fisher yelled, holding up the garlic clove as he ran at the vampire. But the vampire grabbed Fisher’s
wrist, plucked the garlic right out of his hand, and devoured it in a single gulp.

  Fisher quickly looked around for more ammunition, and then ran to the nearby meat section. He tore open a package of uncooked steaks and grabbed a slimy red rib eye.

  “What—are—you—doing?” Ava managed to get out the words, her face turning blue from lack of air.

  “The chart in the tree house said that a stake through the heart could destroy a vampire,” Fisher reminded her.

  “But—those—are—two—different—things,” Ava corrected him, barely able to speak. “One’s—a—piece—of—meat—and—the—other’s—a—piece—of—wood.”

  “A stake’s a steak,” Fisher said with a shrug, then held up the piece of meat in front of the vampire’s face. “Eat your heart out, vamp!”

  He shoved the steak against the vampire’s cheek, and the meaty juices soaked into his pale skin, searing his flesh. The vampire screamed like a madman and dropped Ava to the ground.

  “I told you it would work,” Fisher called over to her. “Meat is a vegetarian’s Kryptonite.”

  “Now, if we could only get him to eat it, he might die of a heart attack,” Ava added.

  “Good idea. We need to remember that,” Fisher agreed.

  Right then, the mischievous candysnatcher tried to set Ava’s hair on fire with a lighter.

  She grabbed the nearby bucket of blue paint she had already retrieved, popped off the lid, and hurled the thick liquid in the direction of the invisible boy. Two blue legs instantly appeared out of thin air.

  “We can see him now!” she proclaimed as the candysnatcher’s lighter fell to the ground, igniting the pool of paint. A trail of fire followed the invisible boy, who quickly ran down the cereal aisle to hide.

  “Uh-oh,” Fisher said, looking at the growing flames.

  A moment later, the ceiling sprinklers turned on, showering the entire store.

  “The swamp creature!” Fisher remembered, glancing up at the water spraying down on them. He and Ava ran back to the soda aisle just in time to see the invisible candysnatcher slurping soda off the ground around the swamp creature’s body.

  The endless churning of water showered down upon the creature, revitalizing its rubbery flesh with color and new scales. Its arms moved, then its legs, then its gills. It slowly rose from the floor like a zombie from its grave and graaahhhed with fury.