The Flock of Fury

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “Those are for my volcano,” Billy said. “It makes it erupt.” He demonstrated with his hands.

  “You could very well destroy the world if you’re not careful,” the troll warned, again looking down into the box. “You do know what you’re doing, right?”

  “Sure I do,” Billy said. “But you’ve got to remember, things don’t work the same here as they do in Monstros. This stuff is pretty harmless.”

  Halifax stepped back from the box. “Harmless? I just can’t see it,” he said, shaking his head.

  And then Billy got an idea. “Hey, if these things are so destructive in Monstros, maybe we can use them to defeat the bad guys!”

  Archebold stroked his chin. “In theory, that might be a good idea, but there are more of them than us,” he fearfully explained. “It’s like sending the Ghoul Scouts against the Monstros City Defense Corps.”

  “The Ghoul Scouts?” Billy asked.

  “What, you don’t have the Ghoul Scouts here?” Archebold asked, surprised.

  Billy shook his head.

  “Whatever,” the goblin stated. “Even with the heavy- duty weapons, there just aren’t enough of us.”

  The gears were starting to turn inside Billy’s head; all those years of reading comic books finally paying off. This was just the kind of situation he’d read about thousands of times—the time for heroes to unite their incredible powers for the greater good.

  It was time to form a superhero team.

  The Fabulous Family of Five had come together to defeat X’Tros the Engorged. The Y-Guys had been close to defeat at the hands of their individual enemies until they’d joined together to form an amazing team of heroes. The Furious Furies had joined forces to kick butt because they were so furious all the time they needed to beat up bad guys to keep from beating up each other.

  This was it. “What if we put together a team?” Billy suggested, his eyes twinkling excitedly.

  “A team?” three voices responded.

  “Yeah, a team of superheroes to fight a team of super-villains.”

  “Oh my,” Archebold said. “We know there’s you, but where would we get the other heroes?”

  “OwlLad,” Billy said, pointing at Archebold. The goblin gasped.

  “The Hooter.” Billy pointed at Halifax.

  Then, as if on cue, the door to the garage banged open, revealing a strange figure standing in the doorway.

  They all screamed, not sure who had chosen to interrupt this momentous occasion. Billy silently prayed that it wasn’t one of his parents, because really, how would he explain a troll, a goblin and a giant firefly in the garage?

  “What’s goin’ on in here?” the figure asked, stamping her foot.

  And then Billy knew exactly who it was.

  It must have been destiny.

  “And Destructo Lass,” Billy said pointing to his five-year-old neighbor, Victoria, who was standing in the doorway, hands on her hips. She was dressed rather strangely, wearing a ballerina skirt, tights, her winter jacket and cowboy boots.

  “I’m not Destructo Lass, I’m a ballerina!” she bellowed, her tiny fist clenched in rage.

  “How do you feel about Destructo Ballerina?” Billy asked, and watched as a smile slowly formed on the five-year-old’s face.

  His team was coming together.

  His Flock of Fury.

  “You’re so dumb, when they ask your name you get stuck on the answer,” the bite of heckleberry pie on the end of Klot’s fork heckled as he shoved it in his mouth and began to chew.

  “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” the Monarch’s red-skinned lackey moaned as he prepared for another bite of the insulting pie.

  “Is that your face or are you minding it for a pile of maggots?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted heckleberry pie this fresh,” he said, jabbing at the pie and shoveling bite after bite into his mouth.

  Mukus was equally impressed with the cockroach cluster cookies and the deep- fried cephalopod on a stick. He held one in each hand as he and Klot made their way from the snack room to the monitor room, where they had left the Monarch.

  “Hey,” Klot said, coming to a stop. “Maybe we should have brought the boss back a piece of pie, or at least something bubbly to drink?”

  Mukus thought about that for a moment, taking bites from his insect- filled cookie, then pulling a batter-covered cephalopod from its stick with his slime-covered teeth. “I think we should just ask him if we can get him anything. That way we get a chance to go back and get ourselves some more treats.”

  “I like the way you think,” Klot said, breaking off another piece of pie. “If ugly were a crime you’d get a life sentence,” the piece of pie said as Klot brought it up to his mouth.

  Still gnawing on the various treats, the lackeys entered the elevator and took it up to the monitor room.

  “You have such a striking face,” the last bite of heckleberry pie said.

  Gulp!

  “That stinks,” Mukus said, pieces of cockroach spraying from his mouth.

  “What does?” Klot asked.

  “I didn’t hear the rest of the heckle,” the monster said. “Sounded like a good one.”

  Klot smiled. “Oh, I’m sure it would have been especially nasty,” he said.

  Mukus reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed a worm-covered pastry.

  “Maggot muffin?” he asked.

  “Certainly,” Klot said, licking his lips and reaching for the still- squirming desert.

  Mukus had removed another worm-covered treat and was about to take a bite when they heard a voice from the monitor room up ahead.

  “Who’s that?” Klot asked midbite, maggots squirming on his lips.

  “I don’t know,” Mukus answered. “Maybe the boss has company.”

  They inched closer to the end of the hall and carefully peered around the corner.

  The Monarch sat slumped in a chair before the multiple screens. “I . . . I used to love to watch these screens,” he said softly, sadly, to himself. “For hours I would look for danger . . . danger to the city I . . . I . . .”

  “Who’s he talking to?” Mukus asked in a whisper.

  “Himself, I think,” Klot answered. “What gets me is what he’s talking about. He’s never watched those screens before.”

  “You’re right,” Mukus said, shoving the whole bug-covered muffin into his mouth. “For that to be true he would’ve had to have been here before, and that’s just crazy . . . isn’t it?”

  A maggot crawled up Klot’s nose and the monster began to sneeze insanely.

  The Monarch was startled, sitting up in his chair. “Who dares creep up on me in my moment of contemplation?” he asked, his voice back to its more evil, world-conquering tone.

  “It . . . it’s just us, boss,” Mukus said, dragging a choking Klot out into the open with him.

  Klot massaged his throat, trying to get the squirming maggot to either go down the hatch to his belly or shoot from his mouth.

  “Oh, it’s you two.” The Monarch reclined into his seat and returned his gaze to the screens. “You’re lucky, I almost disassembled your atoms with a wave of my hand.”

  Klot suddenly coughed, sending a particularly large maggot flying through the air to land, wet and squirming, at the Monarch’s feet.

  “Glad you didn’t disassemble us, boss,” the blood-colored monster said. “We appreciate it.”

  The Monarch was silent.

  “Is everything all right, boss?” Mukus worked up the courage to ask.

  “I’m fine. Times such as this,” the crime lord said, “when victory over my enemies is so close I can taste it . . . my head becomes filled with the strangest thoughts.”

  Again he seemed mesmerized by the images being broadcast from all over Monstros.

  “Are you sure?” Klot demanded.

  The Monarch brought his foot down upon the squirming maggot, crushing it with a juicy pop.

  “I’m fine.”

  The Friday-nig
ht movie had done its trick, sending Billy’s parents deep into dreamland. His father was snoring so loudly that he sounded like a chain saw going to town on a redwood.

  Billy had snuck into the house, grabbed his costume from the book bag in his closet and headed back out to the garage without anybody being the wiser.

  “We should get ready to haul this stuff over to the mausoleum,” Billy said, looking around the garage. He found a wheeled suitcase, unzipped it and began to load the science fair stuff inside.

  “Be careful with those!” Halifax screamed, running for cover as Billy picked up the potatoes.

  Victoria giggled like a crazy person, picking up a potato of her own and chasing Halifax around the garage with it.

  “We can’t use the mausoleum entrance,” Archebold said, helping Billy load the suitcase.

  “Why not?” Billy asked. “Didn’t you guys get here that way?”

  The goblin shook his head. “No, we were ambushed on the shadow paths by the Sassafrases, and they blew up the stairway pretty good. It might be all right, but I’m not sure if it—”

  Something crashed in the background behind them, and Billy flinched. Victoria was giggling all the louder now, and he didn’t want to look.

  “So how did you get here?”

  Archebold pointed to where Billy had found them. “We used one of the unmapped paths.”

  “Unmapped?” Billy echoed.

  A breathless Halifax joined them, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to be attacked with a potato.

  “Sure,” the troll said. “Did you think the only way to get from Monstros to Earth was in the Sprylock mausoleum?”

  “Well, kinda,” Billy said with a shrug.

  “There are passages in the darkness of Monstros that can take you all over the world,” Archebold chimed in.

  “We were wicked lucky to find one to your garage,” Halifax added.

  “Wicked lucky to have a firefly with an awesome sense of direction with you,” Walter added from his perch atop the handlebars of an old bike.

  “Yeah, there was that,” the troll conceded.

  “Yaaarrrrgh!” Victoria screamed, shoving the potato into Halifax’s face.

  The troll promptly fainted and Victoria laughed so hard that she doubled over.

  “I’m gonna pee,” she screeched between bouts of hysteria.

  “Don’t you dare!” Billy warned, moving her across the garage. “You’ve got to get ahold of yourself if you’re gonna help me with the bad guys,” he told her.

  “You sure she’s a good idea?” Archebold asked, helping a moaning Halifax up. “Are we forgetting her last visit to Monstros, when she was used as a tool of destruction by the bad guys? She made an awful mess.”

  “I know,” Billy agreed as Victoria started to calm down. “But I think her powers will come in really handy.”

  “Did you see him fall down, Billy?” Victoria giggled. “I showed him the potato and he went like this.” She pretended she was Halifax and crashed to the floor, where she rolled around, laughing crazily.

  “Nice,” Halifax grumbled. “You humans are all twisted.”

  After a few moments, they finally got Victoria calmed down; then they were ready to leave.

  “So you’re saying there’s a magical passage of shadow in a corner of my garage that will take us to Monstros? Who’da thunk it?” Billy said as he finished getting into costume.

  Archebold had gone over to the corner and was moving some boxes out of the way.

  “Well, you had a passage here a little while ago. Let’s hope it’s still here.”

  “The passage can disappear?” Victoria asked.

  “That’s one of the things that makes traveling the unmapped paths so tricky. They can change”—the goblin snapped his chubby fingers—“just like that.”

  “Just like that,” Victoria repeated, trying unsuccessfully to snap her fingers.

  “I got it, thanks,” Billy said dryly.

  Archebold plucked Walter from his shoulder. The giant firefly illuminated the floor of the garage, and Billy saw something that looked like a manhole.

  “Looks like we’re still good,” Archebold said.

  “Wow, would you look at that?” Billy said, pulling the wheeled suitcase over.

  “You expect me to go down there?” Victoria asked.

  “If you want to be part of the superhero team, you have to,” Billy told her.

  “Maybe I need to go home and get Mr. Flops,” she said, making reference to her favorite stuffed animal, who strangely came to life in Monstros City.

  “We don’t have enough time, Destructo Ballerina,” Billy said. “We have to go right now if we want to save the folks in Monstros from the bad guys.”

  Victoria thought about it for a second or two, watching as Walter flew down into the hole, lighting it up and making it not so scary.

  Archebold and Halifax followed the firefly.

  “Are you coming?” Billy asked her.

  “Flops is gonna be very sad that he missed out,” she said, sitting down at the edge of the hole and letting her legs dangle before jumping down.

  Billy wished he could have helped Flops out. He would have gladly let the stuffed rabbit take his place on the journey back to the city of monsters.

  A city under siege.

  The unmapped shadow paths were cramped and cold and smelled like stinky cheese.

  Walter flew a bit ahead of the team, his glowing posterior providing them with enough light to see where they were going. The special night-vision mechanisms built into Billy’s goggles helped him to see where they had been.

  “Any idea how close we are?” he asked, stopping to pull on the ends of his gloves for a tighter fit before taking hold of the suitcase handle again.

  Walter stopped too, hovering in the air before them.

  “We’re close, but I’m not sure how close,” the insect buzzed. “That’s the problem with the uncharted stuff—it’s completely unpredictable. We could end up crawling out of a patch of shadow into somebody’s living room.”

  “Would they have cake?” Victoria asked, eyes twinkling with the thought.

  “What?” Billy asked. “Would who have cake?”

  “The people whose living room we’re going to, stupid head,” she responded with an eye roll. “They have good cake in Monstros City.”

  The last time Victoria had been in Monstros, she had sampled their rather unusual treats before nearly bringing the city down around their ears. Billy thought it was funny that after all she’d gone through there, cake was the only thing she could think about.

  “We don’t even know if we’re gonna end up in somebody’s living room,” Billy explained. “So I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

  The little girl stamped her foot, and the resulting shock wave caused the shadow passage to wiggle and bend.

  “Don’t do that!” Archebold screeched. “These passages are extremely unstable. They can collapse around us and bury us in solid shadow.”

  “And without the proper tools we’d be sunk,” Halifax added. “Ain’t nothing more unpleasant than trying to tunnel out of shadow rubble.”

  Victoria put her hands over her ears. “Stop yelling at me!” she hollered. “All I wanted was some cake!”

  “Knock it off,” Billy warned, wagging his finger in front of her face. “Do you want to get us killed before we even go up against the bad guys? You’ve got to remember that the closer we get to Monstros, the more powerful your Destructo powers become.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and scowled.

  “You didn’t take a nap today, did you?” Billy asked.

  “I hate naps,” Victoria growled.

  “Shhhhhhhhh!” Walter suddenly buzzed.

  “Don’t shush me, you big glow- butted bug,” she snapped.

  “Nice,” Walter answered. “And I wasn’t shushing you, I was shushing all of us. I think when you caused that little ruckus with the foot stomp, you
somehow moved us closer to an entrance to Monstros.”

  The firefly flew down the passage for a better look.

  “See, I might’ve helped us,” she said, and stuck out her tongue.

  “You still need a nap,” Billy muttered beneath his breath, not wanting to get into it with a five-year- old. “For about a month.” He dragged his suitcase down the shadow passage to join the others.

  Billy wondered briefly why he had put himself through this by inviting Victoria along, but then he remembered the enormous power she had shown on her last visit to the city of monsters.

  “Well?” Billy asked, stopping beside Archebold and Halifax.

  Walter was buzzing around what looked to be a puckered hole in the wall of the tunnel. The firefly waved some of the air leaking from the hole toward his face. “Oh yeah,” he said, his insect eyes closed as he inhaled the breeze. “That’s Monstros, all right. Nothing smells like that.”

  Billy stepped closer to give the hole a look. “Seems kind of small.”

  “It’ll stretch,” Halifax said, reaching over and grabbing the hole on either side to pull it apart. “Shadow is very pliable.”

  “More tunnels!” Victoria complained, having caught up to them.

  Billy felt his friends’ disapproving eyes upon him. She was starting to drive them nuts, and who could blame them? Victoria was a pest with a capital P.

  “Yep, more tunnels,” Billy said. “And who knows, maybe there’s cake on the other side.”

  “Cake?” she echoed, a disturbing smile spreading across her cherubic features.

  “You never know,” Billy said. “We could end up in a snack warehouse or something.”

  “Wow,” she said, licking her lips. “Who’s going first?”

  “We should let Walter go first, then Archebold and Halifax, and then you can go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Victoria agreed, and things proceeded just as Billy had described. Billy imagined he was a piece of food passing through a large intestine. It was even colder and smellier inside this tunnel, and he couldn’t wait to get out.

  The passage suddenly angled upward, growing more spacious, and soon they didn’t need to crawl anymore. A few minutes later, they were standing in an open pocket of shadow.