Monster Club

by Gavin Brown

  Teleporting weevils are pests known for raiding farms in the Midwest, but in the modern era they can be found wherever wheat-based food is stored.

  They can be a bit of a nuisance, but beyond the shock of their sudden appearance, they are harmless to humans.

  The teleporting weevil is very sensitive to electricity—even a small shock will knock it unconscious. Their teleportation is very limited: Weevils can only teleport around eight to ten feet and need five to ten seconds to recharge before they can teleport again. They are able to teleport through most materials but can’t pass through barriers of lead, gold, or mercury. Also, their eyesight is based entirely on motion, so they can only see objects that are moving.

  I ran into one of these guys one summer while I was chasing a flame-snorting stallion in Nebraska. I was just in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, pants around my ankles, when a teleporting weevil appeared right in front of me. We just stared at each other for five seconds, and then the little bugger popped out of existence, never to be seen again.

  Karim took a deep breath as they reached the bottom of the stairs. Tommy went first, stomping loudly.

  “Hey, weevil, weevil!” he said loudly. “We’re here! Go hide.” The plan was to get it to hide first so they didn’t accidentally touch it without knowing. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous, but Spike sure didn’t want it teleporting out in front of them. It was bad enough when they went after the invisible snipe. A monster that could literally teleport was a whole new level of creepy.

  Karim stepped forward and laid the magic sword on the concrete slab in the middle of the basement.

  Spike stepped carefully to the wall, expecting at any moment to feel the touch of a creepy beetle thing appearing behind her. But the teleporting weevil seemed to be in hiding.

  Upstairs, they’d seen the evidence that the weevil was around. Adam’s whole pantry had been raided. Boxes of pasta ripped apart, cereal spilled all across the floor. He claimed that he’d seen it eating a hole in a bag of flour the night before, but it must have teleported before he got a good look. Spike plugged in the device.

  “So it’s supposed to be attracted to the sword,” Karim was explaining to Tommy. “Unlike most monsters, teleporting weevils actually are attracted to magical items. Probably because they can teleport out of danger, so they’re not threatened by weapons and so they don’t need to avoid—”

  Spike stopped paying attention as Karim went into his theories about monster adaptations. They’d come up with this plan yesterday while Tommy was complaining to the cafeteria ladies that there were no meal options for what he called “protein-etarians.” She wasn’t sure if he was claiming it was a religion or a health need, but either way, the cafeteria ladies weren’t having it.

  Spike had to admit that Karim’s idea was pretty solid. She pressed the button and the fog machine started up. Tommy’s sister had used it for her last birthday party, and when she heard why they needed it, she was only too glad to help. The price, of course, was that now Tommy’s little sister knew their plan to earn enough money for Adventure Camp. Spike hated letting someone know about a goal before it was completed, but there had been no way around it.

  Spike stepped to the sword as the fog machine started working, at first pouring fog out onto the floor and then slowly blanketing it.

  The three friends crouched in a triangle around the magical sword. Spike grinned, looking down at its purple sparkles. The purple perfectly matched her nails, but it looked ridiculous on the sword—and it annoyed Karim and Tommy, which was what really mattered.

  “The weevil only sees through motion. If we just don’t move at all, it won’t see us and will come out.” Karim handed them each a bug zapper that looked kind of like a tennis racket. “Wait until it gets close, then try to zap it. Monsterpedia says it can’t fly, so we should be able to trap it by working together.”

  “It will probably teleport away,” Spike explained, even though they’d already gone over this once before. Tommy could be a bit forgetful. “But once it teleports, we’ll see from the movement of the fog where it teleports. Then we have five to ten seconds to catch it.”

  “Are we going to kill it?” Tommy asked, looking at the tennis-racket zappers with his brows knit together. “That seems mean. It’s not actually a danger to anyone!”

  “No, the shock will just stun it.” Karim gestured to the Magical Creature Containment Box that they’d gotten after the pasta-pot incident. “That’s why I had you bring that. It’s lined with gold so the weevil can’t teleport out.”

  “Okay.” Spike glanced at the walls. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  They waited in silence for several long minutes. In the corner, the smoke machine whirred away, and the fog on the ground thickened. As the wait stretched on, Spike tried not to grind her teeth too badly. She had to focus on doing this for her friends, not on Luis and the annoying stuff he put her through, and how he kept butting into her life no matter what she did.

  Suddenly, her attention was drawn away from stewing in her rage. There was movement by the bookshelves. Trailing through the smoke, something had emerged from behind a trophy at the bottom of the case.

  It was incredibly odd, seeing the ripples made in the smoke as the creature cautiously advanced. As the weevil moved forward, Spike noticed that all three of them were holding their breath.

  The creature reached them and paused only inches from Karim. His zapper was perfectly positioned to strike, but he stayed as still as a gargoyle in the daylight.

  “Do it,” Spike whispered, trying to move her lips as little as possible.

  “But what if it … but what if …” Karim muttered, his wide eyes staring at the thing creeping along right next to his leg.

  This was ridiculous. Karim’s timid nature was going to cost them this adventure. Didn’t he realize the sacrifice she was making?

  Spike raised an eyebrow and glared at him. Karim stared back blankly, eyes wide. Finally, she had had enough.

  She jumped forward in a burst, swinging her zapper at the creature. She thought she had been quick, but the weevil was quicker. The zapper swung down, struck the bare concrete floor, and broke in half. The smoke contracted in the spot where the weevil had been, like an explosion in reverse. It had teleported away.

  They all glanced around the room. On the other side of the room, she could see what looked like a rippling shock wave in the smoke. It was near the trophy shelf, just about eight to ten feet from where it had been a moment before.

  From her knees, Spike looked up and saw Tommy charging toward the weevil.

  “Five seconds!” Spike yelled.

  It was Tommy Time. Time for fast action. Time to zap this weevil’s butt with … however much power four AA batteries gave him.

  The weevil’s outline in the smoke faded away, leaving a trail through the gray fog on the floor. Tommy jumped after it, but the weevil was just too fast.

  “Four!” Spike yelled. She and Karim were up now, each coming at the creature from a different direction.

  The weevil skittered away from Tommy, and for a second it looked like Karim actually had a shot at it. But he slid a bit too far on the smooth basement floor and missed by inches.

  “Three!” Spike shouted. The weevil darted toward the trophy case, but Tommy had circled around and was in its way. He started his zapper in a long sweep along the ground.

  And then, suddenly, the creature lifted off and was sailing through the air. It kept going up and up, sailing clear over Tommy’s head. He lifted his zapper to take a swipe, but the weevil was already too far out of reach.

  “Two!”

  Now this truly was Tommy Time. One last chance. He jumped forward, extending his zapper for the final blow. He could feel the zapper whiffing as the weevil reached the trophy case and hid behind one of the large cup-shaped trophies on the second shelf. All Tommy needed to do was grab the trophy and swing his zapper in one smooth movement …

  “One!” Spike’s voic
e came from behind him.

  It was then that Tommy realized he was going too fast. He tried to pull up, but it was too late. He twisted as he smashed into the bookshelf and landed with a thud on the floor.

  The golden cup fell to the side just as the weevil disappeared with a pop. Their five seconds were up.

  Time seemed to stand still. The shelf teetered back, then forward, and a shower of track-and-field trophies and medals rained down on him. He covered his head with his hands and pushed himself backward, only pausing to look at the case when he was on the other side of the basement.

  The bookshelf started leaning to the left and then collapsed, a cloud of sawdust mixing with the fog that was roiling on the ground.

  They sat for a long moment in the wreck of the basement. There was the squeal of a hinge, and a figure stood outlined by bright light at the top of the stairs.

  “What did you do?” Adam demanded. “What—my trophies!”

  In an instant, he was charging down the stairs and grabbing trophies, examining the damage. Most were unharmed, but Tommy could see at least one where the man with the javelin had snapped right off the top.

  “These took me a lifetime to earn!” the man exclaimed. “Did you know that I was an Olympic athlete? I got a silver medal in the javelin! That medal had better not be scratched—”

  “We’re sorry!” Karim squealed.

  “We can fix it!” Tommy protested.

  “Maybe the falling bookcase killed the weevil?” Spike suggested.

  “Just GET OUT!” Adam roared. “OUT!”

  Tommy stayed silent as Spike tried to sweet-talk the guy, but it was no use. He practically pushed them up the stairs, barely giving Karim time to grab the fog machine.

  “I’m going to call Sword Squad, even if it costs a lot more,” the old man grumbled as they trampled up the stairs. “I don’t know why I trusted that slick-talking boy on the internet. I never should have let my niece set this up.”

  Spike said, “Do you want us to—”

  “No, I think you brats have helped enough!” Adam said. “Out!”

  They slunk out the front door together. Behind them, Tommy could hear the old man grumbling and yelling all the way from the street.

  “It flew!” Karim whined as they made the slow walk to the bus stop. “Monsterpedia said it couldn’t fly!”

  “It didn’t fly, it just jumped really high!” Spike shot back. “And if you had zapped it when you got the chance, none of this would have happened.”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t jumped at it from across the room, I would have!” Karim answered, hunching his shoulders and gripping the straps of his backpack tightly.

  Tommy cringed. This was not good. “Look, guys, I’m the one who knocked down the bookshelves. It’s my fault, if it’s anyone’s.”

  Spike and Karim kept squabbling for several minutes. Tommy tried to step in and defuse things, but it seemed like they just wanted to be mad at each other.

  Finally, they lapsed into silence until they reached the corner where Karim would head in the other direction.

  “Look,” Spike said. “This was a hot mess. Let’s just take a day off. I don’t think I can do this AppVenture stuff anymore. I need to be alone for a while. I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

  “Whatever,” Karim said, stalking off toward his house.

  Tommy walked with Spike for another few minutes in icy silence.

  “Okay, uh, see you Monday,” he said when they reached the turn onto his street.

  “Yep,” Spike said, and walked away.

  Karim leaned forward, grinning. “Oh, cool! Mad Mackenzie is streaming again!” If anything would distract Spike from the waves of rage that he was sensing from her, this was it.

  Over the weekend, Karim’s anger had cooled, but Spike’s seemed just the same. She had insisted that she was done with AppVenture, but Karim and Tommy had come up with one last plan to try to get her back in—watch some adventure streaming together. Maybe seeing someone else at it would spark her interest again.

  He pulled up the live stream, and they all gathered around the tablet to watch.

  “Crikey! And that, mates,” Mad Mackenzie was saying, “is why you never yank a griffin’s tail. Nasty beast, that. Also, don’t forget to follow and subscribe!”

  On-screen, Mad Mackenzie was driving her Jeep along a coastal highway. Probably somewhere near Seattle, where she lived. Karim wasn’t entirely sure why she had an Australian accent, but it seemed to work.

  “I was scared going after that griffin, sure,” she continued as the trees whizzed by. “There’s always that voice in your head saying to run away, to let somebody else take care of this one. But that’s the fear talking. You can choose to listen to the fear or ignore it.”

  Karim nodded. Mad Mackenzie always seemed so fearless. It was cool to see that she got scared, the same as he did.

  “Anyway, enough story time,” she finished. “We’re here. I’ve got reports on a fresh monster sighting, right here in Chambers Bay golf course in Washington. Apparently, a gremlin has been sabotaging golf cart parts for the past two days, and this morning it somehow drove off with an entire cart.”

  “Yikes,” Karim said with a cringe.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t mess with our Jeep!” Mad Mackenzie added. “This is why I had it reinforced after the incident with the acid chameleon last fall. It should be basically gremlin proof at this point.”

  “Psh,” Spike said. “We captured a gremlin just last week. No big deal.”

  “Yeah, and on our first official adventure!” Tommy added.

  “Quiet!” Karim said. “Just watch. I bet we can still learn something.”

  “Whatever,” Spike said. “I’m going to start my homework.”

  While Spike sat back and muttered about her geometry, the boys watched Mad Mackenzie put her camera drone into the air and head out onto the dark golf course to hunt down the gremlin. Karim wished he’d thought of Mad Mackenzie’s drone trick. The drone had a camera and would automatically follow her wherever she went, live streaming the whole way. She had been the first live casting adventurer to do it, but now all of them had gadgets following their exploits. They watched as Mad Mackenzie used an encyclopedic knowledge of gremlin lore to track it through the course.

  “She is so good. How does she know how to track it so well?” Karim asked. “I would never have thought to look for engine grease markings to track it, but it makes so much sense.”

  “No worries, bro,” Tommy answered. “We’ll get there. Though I do wish we had a sweet ride like hers.”

  “Yeah, only four more years until we can drive, right?”

  “We’ll have to do a heck of a lot of AppVenture quests to afford anything better than the twelve-year-old Subaru my dad promised me,” Tommy said.

  Spike just shook her head and returned to her homework while he and Karim watched the stream.

  “Wait a second!” Tommy said excitedly, pausing the video. He rewound it and played the last few seconds. He paused it again and, finger shaking, pointed at the gremlin on the screen.

  Karim leaned in, squinting. “Wow,” he breathed. “Spike, you’re going to want to see this.”

  “So what?” Spike demanded. “She’s caught the gremlin. Good for her.” Couldn’t they see she was trying to work? And was also super mad? They should know by now to just leave her alone.

  Karim shook his head and pointed. “No, look closer. Tommy, I can’t believe you caught that!”

  Spike leaned closer. What were these idiot boys talking about?

  Then she saw it.

  “Wow. I’d know that nicely shaped dent anywhere,” she said. “I left the same one on that eighth grader who tried to steal my ice cream sandwich.” It was the impression of her grandmother’s ring. At this point, it was the one thing her father had given her that she hadn’t thrown away.

  “It’s the gremlin we caught from Mrs. Peabody’s place,” Karim said. “It has to be!”

 
; “That’s a pretty crafty gremlin!” Tommy exclaimed. “How do you think it escaped?”

  How could Tommy be so smart to catch this, and yet not understand what he was seeing? He was pretty observant half the time, and ignored the obvious the other half.

  “I don’t think it escaped,” Spike said. “I think those jerks who work at AppVenture released it. That must be why they insisted on taking it off our hands.”

  “Why would they do that?” Tommy asked. “Capturing monsters is, like, their whole thing!”

  Spike sighed and grabbed her laptop. “Exactly,” she said as she started typing. “Profit motive. The more monsters in the wild, the more people call adventurers with their app, the more money they make.”

  “Oh,” Tommy said. “That’s not cool. Not cool at all.”

  “That’s insane!” Karim looked perplexed. “But … it would explain why there have been so many more monster incidents this spring. If someone was catching them and then releasing them again …”

  “Like how when I was in my lemonade business,” Spike said, “I wanted to go around breaking air conditioners so people would really want a refreshing lemonade.”

  “Um, that sounds super illegal,” Karim said.

  “Well, I didn’t do it! Mom talked me out of it.” Spike was already on her computer, checking facts and figures with other people on chat. “I decided I wanted to win by being better than everyone else, not by cheating.”

  “But is that really what they’re doing?” Karim scratched his ear, thinking it over. “Gremlins are good at sabotaging technology. That’s kind of their whole thing. It could have escaped, right?” he asked.

  “Karim, you have got to stop believing in the basic goodness of people,” Spike said. “Tommy, can you send me that selfie?”

  Tommy jumped up. “I thought you’d never ask! Um. Which one do you want?”