The Flock of Fury

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “You did it, Owlboy!” Artemus and his goblin buddies cried, emerging from their hiding places.

  “You better run!” Percy screamed, shaking his fist in the direction of the Bounders.

  “You tell ’em, Percy,” Saul said with a nearly toothless smile.

  “No,” Billy said in a loud voice, watching as the last of the monkey demons rounded the corner and disappeared.

  The others all stopped, looking at him.

  “I didn’t do it,” Billy said, shaking his head. “We all did it.” He watched as proud smiles appeared on all their faces.

  “The Flock of Fury did it.”

  “Is that what we’re calling ourselves?” Artemus asked.

  Billy nodded.

  “I like it,” the old goblin said, and his friends nodded in agreement. “It’s got pizzazz.”

  Billy turned and noticed scared faces peeking out of broken windows and shattered doorways.

  “It’s all right,” Billy called to them. “You’re safe now.”

  One by one they emerged, the frightened citizens of Monstros, driven into hiding by attacks most heinous.

  “I’m sorry,” a yellow-skinned creature with tiny wings and a bulbous head said to him.

  “For what?” Billy asked, confused.

  “I’m sorry for having doubted you,” the creature confessed. “I believed that stuff that was in the news papers and on the TV.”

  “I did too!” a fish with human legs said as he came out of his hiding place.

  “Me too,” said another resident that looked more like a ball of dust than an actual living thing.

  They encircled Billy and his team, the apologies coming quickly now. Billy was just glad that they had regained their faith in him, and he was bound and determined that they would never lose it again.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sammy standing in front of his store, his flaming head—which now burned a sad, dark orange—bowed in sorrow.

  Billy left the crowd.

  “Hey,” he said, standing beside Sammy.

  The store owner glanced briefly at Billy before looking back to the store. “It’s okay,” he said.

  “What is?” Billy asked, looking into the blackened remains.

  “That my store got wrecked,” Sammy explained. “You tried.”

  “Just not hard enough,” Billy said.

  Sammy looked back at him, shaking his round, burning head. “No, that’s not true. You tried as hard as you could. These things happen, and I understand that.”

  Billy ran a gloved finger through the thick black soot that covered the window frame. “How would you feel if we helped you rebuild your store?” he asked.

  “Rebuild it?” Sammy asked, a gigantic smile threatening to split his moon- shaped face. The fire atop his head lightened to a vibrant yellow.

  “Yeah, how would that be?”

  “That would be amazing,” Sammy answered.

  Billy turned to his team.

  “Hey, Halifax,” he called out.

  The troll turned.

  “We’re gonna help Sammy rebuild his store, all right?”

  The troll gave him two big thumbs-up.

  “Thank you, Owlboy,” Sammy said, hugging Billy for a second time that night.

  Billy felt his face begin to flush with embarrassment as he tried to pull away. “That’s cool,” he said. “Glad to help.”

  More citizens had emerged from hiding, and Billy was beginning to think that maybe they’d have a little while to catch their breath and put a better plan together. Then a centipede wearing a heavy, multisleeved sweater pointed down the street.

  At first Billy thought it might be the Bounders coming back for seconds, but he soon realized that it was officers of the Monstrous City police force, led by their chief, the rock- bodied Chief Bloodwart.

  Billy was psyched at the sight of the police officers . . . until he realized that they were running.

  The Gaseous Ghost flew through the air behind the fleeing police officers, streams of noxious-smelling fumes streaming from his fingers. A short, armored shape that could only have been the villain Vomitor appeared next. The tiny creature opened its mouth extremely wide and a flood of spew gushed from his maw to sweep the police officers off their feet.

  “On your toes, team,” Billy announced, pointing to the scene unfolding before them. “This isn’t over till the fat lady sings.”

  “What fat lady?” Victoria asked. “You know, that’s not very nice, calling somebody fat. Where is she, anyway?”

  Billy didn’t have the chance to explain the figure of speech. Instead, he chose to run toward the police officers, who were now splashing around in the thick puddles of grossness that had come from Vomitor’s mouth.

  Billy turned to see if his team was following.

  They stood just beyond the flow of vomit, watching him with expressions that said so many things:

  I’m afraid.

  Can I actually be a hero?

  Am I too old for this?

  I still have to go to the bathroom.

  “Well?” he demanded. “Am I gonna be doing this alone?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to the police officers, trying to help as many as he could to regain their footing in the foul-smelling, viscous ooze.

  Chief Bloodwart was having a particularly hard time in the spew, so Billy went to help him.

  “I’ve got you, Chief,” he said, giving the rock cop enough leverage that he could get to his feet.

  “Many thanks, Owlboy,” the chief said. “To you, and to your people.”

  Billy slowly turned to see that, indeed, he wasn’t alone. His Flock was there to back him up, helping the police officers, and anybody else that had been caught in the disgusting flood, reach safety. The old- timers were loading people onto Morty’s wheelchair and pushing them out of harm’s way. Archebold and Halifax had salvaged some parts from the fallen robot to create stilts that allowed them to wade through the muck and pluck the needy from the disgusting stomach juices. Even Victoria was doing her part, using the powers of her Destructo Touch by stomping her feet on the ground, causing cracks to appear and drain the vomit.

  Billy smiled again, watching his team at work.

  “How nice,” a cackling voice mocked from above.

  The Gaseous Ghost flew over their heads, his nasty aroma making Billy want to gag. Vomitor’s metallic face smiled as he surveyed the disgusting damage, and, as if things weren’t bad enough, the Bounder boys were back, their fur still looking as though they’d rubbed their entire bodies with balloons.

  “It would seriously touch my heart to see such unity,” the Ghost said, flitting around in the sky above them. “Too bad I don’t have one.” He cackled insanely.

  The vomit had been reduced to only a few stinking puddles, and Billy gestured for his team to join him.

  “You and the boys might want to step back,” Billy told Chief Bloodwart. “This could get ugly.”

  The Bounder boys had joined Vomitor and the Gaseous Ghost.

  “What’s that smell?” Balthasar asked, pinching his nose with his fingers.

  Bailey pointed to the ghost above their heads.

  “Ohhhhh,” all the monkey demons said in unison, suddenly understanding.

  Billy planted his feet and clenched his hands into fists. He was ready for this, ready to fight for Monstros . . . ready to fight for his city.

  But were the others?

  “Ready for this, guys?” he asked.

  “I was born ready,” Artemus said, cracking his knuckles.

  “Beats the heck out of shuffleboard,” Saul added.

  Percy bent his neck one way with a crack, and then the other. “Hope I don’t hurt these losers too bad.”

  Billy knew about the old-timers, but he wasn’t sure about the others.

  “How’s about it, OwlLad? Hooter? Destructo Lass?”

  “Destructo Ballerina!” Victoria screamed.

  He was still waiting
for their final answer when something in the sky began to roar.

  What now? Billy thought with a roll of his eyes. He couldn’t imagine the day getting any worse, but it kept right on surprising him.

  He looked up into the sky to see something huge descending from the clouds.

  “What the heck is that?” Archebold squawked as the whole team looked up.

  “Looks like a giant robotic octopus,” Halifax answered, staring up at the huge metallic vessel as it dropped from the clouds to the city skyline. “But I could be wrong.”

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t.

  Billy held his breath as he watched the eight-tentacled sky craft hover just above the city street behind the gathered villains.

  “Something tells me we’re pretty much outnumbered,” Artemus said with a gulp.

  The Gaseous Ghost cackled again, rubbing his green, smoky hands together in anticipation.

  “This is going to be ugly,” he said.

  And as much as it pained him to admit it, Billy had to agree.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Where are your big words now, tough guys?” Vomitor gurgled over the disgusting sounds from his belly.

  The Gaseous Ghost giggled insidiously. “Don’t seem to like it too much when you’re outgunned.”

  The Bounder boys were laughing like a pack of hyenas, as if they could sense the massacre to come and were being driven insane by the promise of blood.

  Billy was seriously considering ordering his team to retreat. There was no way they could stand up to the Ghost, Vomitor, the Bounders and a giant mechanical octopus.

  He couldn’t even imagine the Furious Furies being able to pull victory out of this one.

  The octocraft’s huge metal tentacles writhed in the air, and Billy imagined them snatching up his teammates and squeezing the life from them like the last remnants of toothpaste from a tube.

  “Now that the master is here, the fun can really begin,” the Gaseous Ghost stated as wisps of nasty, eye-watering stink drifted from his outstretched fingertips.

  The Ghost turned his vaporous head toward the octocraft.

  “What do you say, boss?” the Ghost asked it. “Do we show these do-gooders how powerful it is to be bad?”

  The mechanical octopus responded by lifting one of its mighty tentacles, and Billy found himself tensing for action.

  Who knew what was going to happen next, but he and his team needed to be ready. He was about to tell his team to watch their backs when the unthinkable happened.

  The octocraft’s tentacle hovered over the head of the laughing ghost, and a small door slid open at its tip. The Ghost had just enough time to turn and look up into the opening, the beginnings of a question on his gaseous lips. “What the . . . ?”

  The foul-smelling villain was suddenly sucked into the mechanical tentacle, the whine of its powerful motor reminding Billy of his mother’s old vacuum cleaner. The Ghost shrieked for about a second and was suddenly gone.

  Billy wasn’t quite sure what he had just seen, and neither were the other villains.

  Archebold gazed at him quizzically.

  “Don’t ask me,” Billy said, continuing to watch, curious to see what was going to happen next.

  Vomitor suddenly turned around. “Hey,” he grumbled. “What did you just do with—?”

  Another of the tentacles whipped down to reveal a strange- looking device, and before the short, metal-clad villain with the perpetually upset stomach could even finish, it had zapped him with a flash of white.

  Everybody had covered their eyes except Billy, whose special Owlgoggles shielded his vision.

  The weirdness train kept right on rolling.

  In front of them, Vomitor was now sealed in what looked to be a large plastic bubble.

  Billy had once had a friend who used something similar for his hamster. He didn’t think the hamster had liked it all that much, and he was sure that Vomitor didn’t. The tiny armored monster roared within the bubble, his screams fogging up the inside of his plastic prison.

  “That’s a good idea,” Halifax said, stroking his chin.

  “Hope he don’t, y’know . . . ,” Victoria said, pretending to throw up.

  Which is exactly what Vomitor did. The armored creature opened his mouth as wide as he could and began to spew inside the confines of the bubble. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before the villain was swimming in a sea of his own bile.

  The Bounders seemed to know what was up, but they didn’t move fast enough.

  One by one, the Slovakian Rot- Toothed Hopping Monkey Demons became snagged in beams of yellow energy streaming from the tips of the octocraft’s eight appendages.

  Billy was flabbergasted to see that the beam of energy had somehow rendered the Bounder boys weightless, leaving the demon monkeys floating helplessly in the air like feathers caught in a draft.

  “Help us!” Balthasar screamed, trying desperately to keep from spinning end over end. “That’s what you hero guys are supposed to do, right?”

  “I want a monkey balloon!” Victoria demanded, pulling on Billy’s sleeve. “Get me a monkey balloon!”

  All Billy could do was stare at the current state of the villains that, mere minutes ago, had been set to kick the Flock’s butts royally: the Gaseous Ghost sucked away someplace; Vomitor trapped in a bubble of his own spew; and the Bounder boys weightless, unable to hop or bounce on anything.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think that whoever was inside that metal octopus was trying to help the good guys.

  But that’s completely bonkers, isn’t it?

  The air was suddenly filled with the sound of trumpets, as if royalty was about to appear. The music was coming from the octocraft, and Billy couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next.

  A doorway appeared in the front of the craft, and a platform, which looked sort of like the octopus’s tongue, extended from the body of the mechanical beast.

  “What now?” Archebold muttered as two shapes moved down the platform toward them.

  Billy wasn’t sure who they were, but they certainly didn’t look like anything special. One had leathery bright red skin. The other looked as though he was sculpted from slime.

  They were both very serious.

  Standing at attention on either side of the metal platform, the pair waited for the trumpeting to stop, and when it did, the one with the red skin cleared his throat.

  “May I now present to you, the one, true superhero of Monstros City!” the leathery monster proclaimed at the top of his lungs.

  One true superhero? What the heck is going on? Billy wondered.

  The Flock looked at each other in confusion as a muttering buzz spread through the crowd of citizens behind them.

  It was the slimy one’s turn next.

  “Put your paws, claws, hands and tentacles together for . . . the Monarch of Monstros City!”

  And a figure clad in a long, flowing robe of bright red, his features hidden by a hood, emerged from the craft and slowly descended the platform.

  Billy had a very bad feeling about this.

  “As my two colorful compatriots have just mentioned, I am the Monarch,” the hooded figure announced with a bow.

  The two creatures on either side of the platform began to clap wildly, the slimy one whistling through his fingers and sending trails of yuck sailing through the air.

  “And, as you can see, I have arrived just in time to save the day,” the Monarch finished.

  Billy wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. He guessed he should thank the Monarch for the help.

  “Thanks a lot for the hand with those bad guys,” he said, stepping forward. “We really appreciate it.”

  Billy couldn’t see within the darkness of the Monarch’s hood, but he knew that the mysterious figure was staring at him. He could feel it, like hot needles poking into his face.

  “I only did what you and yours could not,” the Monarch announced. “Another indication that you and your ilk will n
o longer be required in Monstros.”

  Billy stumbled back as if pushed.

  “No longer required?” he repeated. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

  “I would think it obvious,” the Monarch said with a low, rumbling chuckle. “Monstros has a far more effective champion to protect them from villainy now.”

  “Yeah, and who’s that supposed to be, stupid face?” Victoria yelled, pushing past Billy to confront the supposed hero.

  “Maybe if most of the city’s crimes were occurring at the local day care,” the Monarch replied. “But alas . . .”

  He waved his black-gloved hand in the air with a flourish.

  Billy grabbed Victoria by the shoulder and pulled her back.

  “Any idea who this guy is?” Billy asked Chief Blood-wart, who was standing beside him, out of the corner of his mouth.

  “There’s kind of an urban legend about this extremely powerful criminal mastermind known as the Monarch,” he told Billy. “He’s supposedly behind all the crime that goes on in Monstros, but I always figured it was just a myth.”

  “Well, if that’s who this is, he thinks he’s a good guy now,” Billy pointed out.

  “A good guy,” the Monarch repeated, slowly bringing his gloved hands together. “I always dreamed about being a good guy . . . a hero for the city that I love . . . and now it has at last come true.”

  Artemus, pushing Morty’s chair, stepped forward along with Percy and Saul.

  “And we say welcome to the club,” the old goblin said. “If there’s one thing there’s plenty of room for, it’s heroes.”

  The Monarch closed his hands into fists.

  “No,” he declared, shaking those fists in the air. “There can be only one true hero for Monstros City, and that is me.”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Billy said to the old goblins, hoping he could defuse a potentially explosive situation.

  “There’s something about that one’s voice,” Artemus said to him, stroking his ancient chin as he glared at the Monarch. “Something familiar.”

  “Do you think you know who he is?” Billy asked the goblin.

  “Give me a minute,” Artemus said. “I’m sure it’ll come to me.”