by Tony Abbott
Danger Guys Hollywood Halloween
Tony Abbott
For Ernest
for the day when we can
make a movie like this
ONE
“Boom! Ba-boom!”
“What?”
“That’s how it starts,” I said. “With lightning flashing and thunder going Boom! Ba-boom!”
“Oh. Okay. Go on.”
I was in my best friend Zeek’s room. He was holding his dad’s new video camera. I was telling him my idea for a movie. And, since it was Halloween, it was going to be a scary movie.
“It’s dark,” I said. “Two kids run into an old house. Their names are Noodle Newton and Zeek Pilinsky.”
“The stars!” Zeek smiled as he looked at me through the camera lens.
“Suddenly, a horrible noise echoes through the house. And Zeek says, ‘I’m afraaaid!’ But Noodle stays cool. He says …”
“CUT! CUT! CUT!” Zeek said, putting down the camera. “That’s not how it goes! I don’t say, ‘I’m afraaaid.’”
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought one of us should be scared … you know … a little?”
“Well, it can’t be me,” he said. “Or you, either. We’re official Danger Guys. We love this stuff.”
It’s true. We are Danger Guys, and we do love this stuff. Action movies, scary movies, adventure movies—we’ve seen them all. And we’ve read every book, too.
“Think of something else, Noodle. You’re always thinking up something or other.”
Yeah, I’m the guy with the ideas. That’s why everybody calls me Noodle. And Zeek’s the sports whiz, the guy with the muscles.
Together, we are one incredible team.
“Well, okay,” I admitted. “How about—”
“Shhh!” Zeek put his finger up to his lips and pointed to his door. The knob turned slowly.
Suddenly—wham! The door swung open. I fell behind Zeek’s bed. Zeek backed into his desk, tripped, and nearly dropped the camera.
“Got you!” said a familiar voice.
“Dad!” said Zeek. “You scared us!” Then Zeek looked at me and smiled. “Well, not really.”
I poked up my head. “We’re going to make a Halloween movie with your camera, Mr. P.”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “If you plan to make a movie, there’s only one place to learn.”
Then he held up a handful of tickets. There was a big golden “P” on each one.
Zeek and I looked at each other. We started jumping up and down.
“Paragon Movie Studio!”
Zeek’s dad smiled. “That’s right. We’ve got tickets for a tour of the oldest studio in Hollywood. Want to eat first, or—”
Whoosh! We never even heard the rest.
A couple of hours later, Zeek and I, dressed in our Danger Guy jackets, backpacks, and sunglasses, were staring up at the golden letters on the Paragon Studio gate.
“Zeek, look. Just like at the beginning of all those movies. The Paragon gate. Then it fades and the movie starts. Remember Storm of Terror? That first scene?”
“Yeah,” said Zeek in his deep movie voice. “‘It was a beautiful day. Then something went wrong. Terribly wrong!’ I can’t believe it—they made that movie right here!”
“Boys, they made everything here,” said Zeek’s mom, gazing at Mr. P. “Why, I remember Strangers in Love and Close Friends and all those other great films. Don’t you, dear?”
Zeek and I looked at each other. “Yeah, I guess they had to make those kinds of movies, too.”
“And,” said Zeek’s sister, Emily, “don’t forget Ali Baba.” Then she started to hum the love theme.
Two seconds later, a small bus drove up. We got on with a bunch of other kids and parents.
“Okay, Zeek,” I said. “Start rolling. We need some good background shots for our movie.”
“Yeah. Too bad it’s such a nice day. Maybe we should make a love story.”
We looked at each other.
“Not!”
“Welcome to Paragon Studio,” the driver said as we drove between some huge buildings. “These buildings are called sound stages. Hundreds of movies have been made on these stages. From the first silent films to modern special effects movies, Paragon is the leader!”
“Effects, Noodle,” Zeek said. “Like in Metalhead, when the cyborg turns into a mailbox right in front of us and the guy goes to open it and—”
“Yes, son, Paragon is known for its special effects,” the driver went on. “In fact, many of the monsters and other creatures you see in movies are actually computerized robots. And all of them are run by a central computer here at the Studio. We call it the Big Brain.”
Zeek nudged me. “Yeah, like some kind of super Noodle.”
I couldn’t believe it. “You mean everything is run by this Big Brain?”
“Everything,” the tour guide said. “Now here is the castle where they filmed …”
Suddenly, the sky turned black above us. I looked up.
Crack! A jagged flash of white light shot down from the clouds. Then—Boom! Ba-boom!
“Cool,” I said. “Now, that’s what I call special effects!”
“Excellent!” said Zeek. “Great opening shot!”
But the driver seemed upset. “These are not effects, boys. That’s real lightning. And it’s going to rain any second.”
He was right. A second later the rain did come down. Real rain. In buckets.
“This way!” the driver shouted. “To the castle!” Everyone jumped off the bus and followed him.
Well, everyone but Zeek and me.
We were too busy trying to get all the rain and lightning on tape. When we stopped looking through the camera, everyone was gone.
“The castle, quick!” I said. “Let’s run for it.” Kraaakkk! A huge bolt of lightning crashed down right in front of us.
Ka-boom! Another blast zapped the street.
“Noodle! This lightning’s got a bad attitude!”
Ka-blam!
I whirled around. I saw a door. “Run!” I screamed.
We tore across the street.
We leaped in the air.
We shot through the door as another jagged bolt of lightning blasted our heels.
TWO
Kaaa-blam!
We hit the floor, slid into something hard, and stopped dead inside a room. A dark room.
I looked out the door.
There was a big black hole in the street where we had just been. It was smoking like a volcano.
“Holy cow,” I said. “Did you see that? That could have been us.”
Zeek didn’t answer.
His mouth was hanging open.
Just like it does when Mr. Strunk calls on him in class and he’s not ready.
I reached over and pushed his mouth closed.
“But … but … Noodle!” he mumbled. “This is a movie studio. Nothing really dangerous happens here. I mean, does it?”
“Naah,” I said. “It’s just a storm. When it stops we’ll just walk right out, and—”
Bam! A sudden bolt of lightning blasted the street again. Wham! A gust of wind slammed the door shut.
“Well, okay, so maybe we don’t just walk out.”
We looked at the lightning outside the window. It was crashing all over the studio.
“I don’t like this, Nood. It’s too much like …”
“A movie?” I said.
“Yeah, and not a very funny one.” Zeek started tripping over things in the dark. “Oww! Where are we, anyway?”
“It’s a movie set, I think.” I felt the wall near the door, found the light switch, and flicked it. The room suddenly blazed with silver light.
“Whoa! Noodle!” Zeek cried. “I think we just stepped
into—the future!”
Zeek was right.
We were standing on the control bridge of the 25th-eentury galactic star cruiser Centauri Vulcan. Well, the movie set of it, anyway. Big cameras, ladders, electrical cables, spotlights, and tools were set up everywhere around the shiny stage.
“Noodle, this is incredible. Look!” Zeek pointed to the end of the set.
There, sparkling in the light, stood the famous transport pods. Each Vulcan movie ended with the crew beaming back into the pods.
“Unbelievable,” whispered Zeek. “I want to live here.” He pulled out his camera and started taping again.
“It’s pretty cool, all right,” I said. “But look at this.” I was standing at a table near the set. “There are tons of future props here. Space suits, communicators, scanners, fazer guns, flashlights …”
“Flashlights? Ennnh!” Zeek made a sound like a game show buzzer. “Wrong! We don’t use flashlights in the future. We wear personal ultra-laser-halo-visor things. Nobody uses flashlights anymore! Those are way—”
Ka-blam! More thunder blasted overhead.
The lights on the set flickered and went out. We were in the dark. Totally.
“Oh, man,” Zeek groaned. “We should be raccoons, we’re in the dark so often. I guess I’ll take one of those flashlights …”
I felt around in the dark and grabbed two of the flashlights from the table in front of me. I was about to turn one on. Then I heard something.
Tap-tap-tap.
I froze.
“Zeek? Was that you?” I whispered. “Say yes. Please.”
“I thought it was you.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It sounded like metal against metal.
Zeek stumbled over to me. “Just before the lights went out, I spotted a door across the room.”
“Someone’s trying to get in,” I whispered.
“Yeah, someone. Or something!”
“I’m going to open it, Zeek. Maybe they’ll show us a way out.” Zeek grabbed my arm. “No way, Nood.” He held me back. “Did you forget the movie we saw last summer?”
I thought for a minute. “We saw tons of movies last summer.”
“The one with the door. The kid opens it and—” Zeek slipped into his movie voice again. “They tried to destroy it. But it kept coming back! It’s—”
Blam! A glowing iron fist punched a hole in the door.
“It’s—”
Blam! Another fist blasted through.
“It’s—”
BLAM! The door blew off its hinges, and a seven-foot monster robot stepped into the room.
THREE
“It’s—Metalhead!”
Steel skull for a head. Blinking red eye. It was Metalhead, all right.
And right now that eyeball was scanning the room for human life.
“Hit the deck!” I yelled. We dove across the set and slid under a navigational scanner desk.
“Zeek!” I gasped. “I remember this dude. He’s from the future. He’s programmed to destroy. That’s all he does. I mean, this guy doesn’t pump iron. He is iron!”
Boom-boom-boom. Metalhead stomped to the center of the room. His eye panned from side to side. Then he started to speak.
“Two humans. Boys. Destroy them.”
“Hey,” Zeek whispered. “He can’t do that. He’s an actor!”
“Unh-uh, Zeek. A robot. Remember what the tour guide said. All their monsters are computerized.”
Suddenly—voom! The desk we were hiding under disappeared. And there was that ugly red eye pulsing down at us.
“Okay, Nood. Be cool. Don’t make him mad.”
But I had a feeling this dude was born mad.
A second later he proved it. He grabbed Zeek, lifted him off the floor, and shook him like a baby rattle.
“Noo-oo-oo-dle!”
“Let go of my pal, Bucket Brain!” I screamed.
I couldn’t believe what happened next.
Before I knew it, I jumped up, my leg flew out, and—wump!—I gave the big guy a perfect karate kick straight to his knee.
“Yeooow!” My whole body throbbed. But the creep dropped Zeek with a thud.
“Big mistake, human boy.” The iron jaw on Metalhead’s face grinned an ugly grin.
Suddenly, I realized what I was doing. I was fighting with a killing machine from the 21st century! I tried to be nice.
“Sorry, Metalhead. Mr. Metalhead. Sir—I—”
“Don’t stand there talking to him, Noodle. He’s a killer robot! Let’s move it!”
“Good call, Zeekie. To the transport deck!”
We sidestepped the big guy and blazed toward the deck at the end of the set. We were making pretty good time.
I was going to give Zeek the old thumbs-up sign. Then we slipped on something. It felt like a skateboard. It wasn’t a skateboard.
Whoa! We took off into the air.
“Jetboard!” shouted Zeek. “From Jump into Time, Part 2!”
“Part 3, you mean.”
“Whatever!”
Shooo-ooom! The jet-powered skateboard shot around the control bridge. I dumped the flashlights into Zeek’s pack and grabbed his jacket so I wouldn’t fall off.
Suddenly we changed direction and blasted off the set and down a dark hall.
“Hey, buddy,” I yelled. “I think I see a door at the end of this!”
Wrong. It just looked like a door. It was a wall.
Wham! The jetboard stopped dead. We didn’t.
Craaack! We crashed through the wall and tumbled outside into the rain.
I looked back.
There was a cutout in the wall where we had broken through. Two heads, four legs, four arms, and two backpacks. Just like in cartoons.
Stomp! Stomp!
“He’s still coming!” Zeek cried.
My brain worked lightning fast. A couple of feet away, there was a puddle of rainwater.
“Excellent,” I said. “I’ve got an idea!”
“Oh, I love when you say that,” said Zeek, smiling. Then he frowned. “But where do we hide?”
“We don’t. We stick out our feet and wait.”
“What?”
Crash! Metalhead blasted through the wall.
Umph! He tripped on our feet. Splash! His electric head hit the puddle.
Sssssss! Like a burger hitting a hot grill. He twitched a couple times, then stopped moving.
“Well,” I said, starting to smile. “I guess that takes care of—”
Blub. Blub. Bubbles came up out of the water.
Zeek stepped closer. “What did he say?”
I looked at my pal.
I gulped.
“He said—’I’ll be back!’”
FOUR
“Let’s get out of here,” said Zeek.
He didn’t have to say that twice.
We jumped the puddle and bolted down a narrow muddy path. The lightning had almost stopped, but it was still raining pretty hard.
We ducked under a leafy tree.
“Okay,” said Zeek. “Time out. What was all that about anyway? I mean, Shovel Face wasn’t really trying to kill us. Was he?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Or maybe it’s just some kind of Halloween show the studio is putting on. You know, to scare us?”
Thunder rumbled over our heads.
“Maybe,” I said. But something told me, maybe not. “But I think we’d better get to the castle and tell everybody what happened.”
Zeek nodded. “Where are we, anyway?”
I did a quick look around. Big green ferns and leafy plants grew up on each side of the path. Tall skinny trees with lots of vines towered above us into the mist. The rain pattered on the leaves.
“A jungle,” I said.
I pushed through some bushes. “I think there’s a building up there. The castle is probably just around the corner.” I smiled and poked up my thumb. Zeek did the same.
We made our way through the j
ungle. Zeek swung his camera all around at the wild plants. “Maybe we could make a jungle movie. Noodle, the Ape Boy or something like that.”
“Ha, ha,” I said. “Let’s just keep going.”
But when we got to the building, there wasn’t any. Building, I mean. It was just a wall, painted to look like a building.
“Whoa!” said Zeek.
“I agree,” I said. Then I swallowed hard and started back into the jungle. “This isn’t really happening.”
“Sorry, Nood,” said Zeek, tapping his video camera. “It’s happening. I’ve got it all on tape.”
Lightning flashed in the distance. The rain dripped down through the leaves as we walked.
“I wish I knew why Metalhead attacked us,” I said. “I don’t really think it was part of the Paragon Studio experience.”
“But what could make him go so crazy?” Zeek said. “The lousy weather?” He smiled.
“Yeah, right,” I said. Then I looked up at the sky. Something was starting to click in my head.
We pushed through a thick wall of leaves and into a clearing. At the center was a huge black boulder.
“All right,” I said, running over to it. “We should be able to see the castle from here.”
We clambered up the rock, stood on top, and looked around.
“Cool view!” Zeek took out the video camera again and started panning around.
The view was cool, all right.
We could see the whole studio from there. To our left was the western town where they filmed Trigger Happy. Next to it was the lake from Swamp Creep and the streets of Metro City where they made Catman and Catman Returns.
Not too far away was an old broken-down house. I didn’t like the look of that house. It made my skin crawl.
But just behind it was the castle.
“Bingo,” I said. “In three minutes we’re there.”
“Yeah, just wait until they hear what happened to us.”
We started down from the boulder.
“You know, Zeek,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about what happened with Metalhead. I haven’t figured it all out yet, but—”
Suddenly, the boulder shifted a little.
“Whoa, Zeek! Did you feel anything?”
Zeek looked at me. “The Paragon Earthquake ride? I thought that opens next summer.”
I looked down at the rock under our feet. The surface started to wrinkle. Then it stretched out. Then it—breathed!
