A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting 2

by Joe Ballarini

  REEEEEEP! REEEEEP!

  A shrill siren whooped.

  REEEEEEP! REEEEEP!

  Emergency lights flashed, casting shadows across the portrait of Serena that was leaning against the couch, watching us with a victorious smile.

  REEEEEEP! REEEEEP!

  Down the hall, Wugnot screamed, “Stations! Something tripped the alarm!”

  32

  Wugnot darted into a wooden booth beside the training room and checked the small black-and-white security monitors showing the house perimeter. The front entrance was closed. The side garden was empty. The monster stables were secure.

  “Nothing out there,” Wugnot grunted, turning off the shrieking alarm.

  The angular head of a giant locust looked down into security camera D. Wugnot recoiled, disgusted. A terrible buzz arose in the sky.

  “Listen!” said Victor.

  Skreeer-reeer-reeeee!

  Foot-long locusts soared through the fog, icy mist trailing from their wings.

  WHAM! A three-foot-long cockroach leg shattered the living room window. Human-sized cockroaches rose from the ground, twitching and flailing wildly.

  “Phylum: Arthropoda, class: Insecta, and order: Blattodea!” Berna screamed.

  A stampede of giant roaches slithered out of the dark. A terrible wind blew off the beating locusts’ wings. It sounded like a fleet of helicopters had surrounded the house, blasting an earsplitting siren.

  Skreeer-reeer-reeeee!

  “Liz, weapons room!” I shouted, pointing down the corridor. “Have Kevin carry up as much gear as he can. Victor, stay on me. Berna, hey, Berna! We have to protect Theo. We guard this door, okay?”

  Berna was trembling. She still had the needle in her hand. I was worried she would fall and jab herself in the eye with it.

  “Someone needs to take the antidote,” I said. I rolled up my sleeve. “Do it.”

  “But—” Victor said.

  “There’s no time. Now!” I screamed and closed my eyes.

  A sharp jab stuck my arm. OW-ZERS! Searing, fiery liquid burned under my skin. It brought tears to my eyes. Berna capped the needle. “Not so bad.”

  I gave her a watery smile. My stomach suddenly lurched into my throat. The room spun in great big swoops. I tried to stand, but I was too dizzy. I slumped on the couch.

  This might have been a bad idea, I thought.

  I was woozy, and my hands were jelly. My fingers had swollen to the size of plump sausages. Everything was in slow motion.

  “Serena found us. I don’t know how, but she found us,” Liz said, shaking her head.

  I managed to peer outside. Fear shot through me.

  Serena stood in our garden in all her spider glory. Her fourth leg stabbed the ground, and her third leg rubbed against it, raking across the exoskeleton of her lanky shin, creating a horrific shrieking noise like the mating call of a thousand cicadas or the grating love song of a giant cricket.

  Serena’s song pierced the fog and soil.

  “You are trespassing!” Wugnot shouted into the PA system. “By the Order of the Rhode Island Babysitters, stop what you are doing and lay down your weapons.”

  Her legs fiddled faster. The song grew louder. The earth trembled and bulged.

  “Kevin, hand me that crossbow!” Liz screamed.

  Frost on the ground crackled and split as wiry feelers rose from the depths of the garden. More roaches—joy!—clawed their way up from the dirt, shaking the soil from their enormous shells, skittering dutifully in response to the queen’s song.

  Serena smiled, welcoming those in her dominion, and gave them orders to attack.

  THWACK! An arrow thunked between a roach’s eyes. Liz lowered her crossbow.

  “There’s too many to be using arrows!” I shouted.

  But it came out like “Gaaaaaboooooo!”

  I groaned and shook my head, trying to focus on the blurs around me.

  “Get it together, Ferguson!” Liz snapped.

  Berna shined her flashlight into my pupils. “Just hang in there.”

  I felt fingers take my hand.

  It was Victor. He was holding me up.

  “I got you,” he said. I leaned on him, one thought cutting through the haze: Don’t you dare throw up in front of him.

  In the security booth, Wugnot slammed down a large brass switch with a huge red handle. A low electric hum trembled through the walls. The lights in the living room flickered. A wired perimeter outside the cottage glowed bright blue as power surged through it, wrapping the house in crackling electricity, just as the swarm reached it.

  The house shuddered as each insect exploded against the perimeter’s shield, splattering the house in gloopy guts.

  “I got the shutters!” Liz called out, sliding across the floor on her knees.

  She roundhouse kicked a switch on the wall. Storm shutters rolled down over the windows, muffling the angry chirps and clicks and shrieks.

  Victor slung my arm over his shoulder. Acid rose in my clenched throat. I went to speak, but instead I puked all over Victor’s sneakers.

  “Gross!” he yelled, kicking my sick off his shoes.

  “Sorry ’bout your Jordans,” I groaned.

  I felt lighter. And I could talk.

  I grabbed a sword from inside the Lone Wolf and hacked at bug appendages.

  “Get out of our house!” I screamed, filling the air with bug juice.

  The power flickered. All the lights in the cottage died. Only the glow of Penelope the pixie’s lantern-butt skittered across the walls.

  “They bit through the power!” Wugnot announced as he handed out emergency flashlights.

  “Protect the turtle!” I kept shouting.

  WHAM! The door to the lab flung open. Dawn, big-eyed and crazed, glared from the doorway. Tubes stuck out of her arms and nose, and her spider bite looked like a shrunken purple volcano.

  “The queen has arrived!” she screamed. Cackling wildly, Dawn sprinted toward the nursery. With bizarre strength, she threw back the cabinet and wrenched open the door. Baby Theo cried as his bonkers mother hovered over his crib.

  “Come and meet the queen,” Dawn whispered to her child.

  I shoved Dawn aside and scooped up the little chunklet. Baby Theo stopped crying. His giant round eyes locked on me.

  “Adooooo,” said Theo. I took that to mean “thanks.”

  Foam bubbled in the corners of Dawn’s mouth. “Give . . . me . . . my . . . BABY!”

  She lunged, but I pushed her out of the room and kicked the door closed in her face. Her fists pounded on the nursery door as Victor and Berna held it closed.

  “What’s that sound?” Berna asked.

  Beneath the shrieking and hammering of the insects, a high-pitched, airy whistle played a twisted harmony. It was an organ grinder. The kind they used to play at fairgrounds and creepy, old-timey circuses. The tune was so happy and merry it made me sick.

  If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. . . .

  The monster bugs grew still, and soon all that we heard was the chilling toot-toot of the carnival music.

  If you go down in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise!

  I braved a glance through the slats of one of the storm shutters. . . .

  Because today’s the day the teddy bears have their piiiiiiiicnic!

  A spectacled man stood at the start of the gravel driveway, cranking the handle of a wooden music box full of bellows and tall brass pipes on wheels.

  “Professor Gonzalo’s Wonder Harmonium” was embossed in gold letters on the front.

  “Professor Gonzalo!” I said under my breath. “One of the Seven.”

  “Oh gosh, oh man, this is nuts,” Berna mumbled.

  Seeing the fear in Berna’s eyes filled me with dread. She’s usually the chilled-out, smart one. If she was freaked, we were def in trouble.

  Liz cocked her head and listened to the creepy ditty being played by the awful mad Professor who was dressed li
ke an academic undertaker.

  “Why is that freak playing that music?” she said.

  Kevin began panting. Heaving for breath. His eyes glowed bright silver in the darkness.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Victor said quietly.

  A low, unnatural growl rumbled in the beast boy’s throat like a dog about to attack.

  The organ’s tempo grew faster. The chubby Professor sang along.

  Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT!

  Kevin’s paws grabbed at his long, floppy ears, and he let out an agonized wail. Liz dropped everything and ran to comfort him. “Kev, what’s wrong?”

  He roared in her face, stopping her in her tracks.

  Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT!

  Hackles raised, the eight-foot-tall furball snarled through his tusks and turned on me.

  I ran, but Kevin caught the back of my shirt. My feet pedaled the air as the monster dangled me, swiping at Baby Theo. Berna, Liz, and Victor pulled at Kevin’s arms, but he swung his elbows, sending them flying across the room.

  “Kev, chill out!” I screamed, kicking at him.

  The beast tossed me aside and smashed Victor into the wall. Kevin pried open my arms, plucking the newborn with his paws. Theo wailed, red in the face.

  “Turtle!” I shrieked.

  33

  Kevin hurtled down the hall toward the front door, Theo in his arms.

  “Stop right there, boyo.” Wugnot stepped out from the security booth, cracking his knuckles.

  The hobgoblin casually removed his trucker hat and tossed it aside before titling his nubby horn at the woolly freight train. Kevin charged in battering position.

  “Brace for impact.”

  Their horns collided. The house shook. The monsters grunted, eye to eye. But Kevin was bigger, meaner, and younger, and with a powerful twist, Wugnot was sent tumbling aside, skidding across the floor, where he stayed.

  “Wuggie!”

  Poor Wuggie was out for the count.

  Kevin’s big foot booted open the front door. Theo wailed as Kevin carried him out into the night.

  “No, no, no!” Liz screamed. “Kev, don’t you dare!”

  The hairy mutant looked back at Liz with torture in his eyes.

  “Bullgarth,” called Serena. “Come.”

  Serena’s presence and the Professor’s call broke him. Kevin sprinted toward them with Baby Theo. We chased after them, but the doorway suddenly filled with enormous locusts and supersized roaches, and we were caught inside a blizzard of bugs. We retreated back into the house as they smashed through the halls, ripped open doors, ate through the wood.

  Through the swarm, I saw Kevin—with an obedient expression on his dumb, hairy face—kneel in the snow at Serena’s side, holding Theo as the Professor played that hideous tune. Kevin offered his prize to his queen.

  Serena took Baby Theo from Kevin and held him aloft as she looked up at him.

  “My, aren’t you hideous,” sneered Serena, holding the child at arm’s length. “Think you’re going to grow up big and strong and destroy the Boogey family, do you? Not if I have anything to say about you, you dirty, rotten thing.”

  Baby Theo was crying so much, tears dropped from his eyes. Seeing that poor little chunk so scared and afraid made my blood surge.

  “No!” I darted toward them.

  In the distance an alarm bell rang. My eyes widened.

  “The monster stables. They opened the stables,” I gasped.

  The Grunk, the Blue-Bone Sizzler, the Brush Troll, and the Oozer were out and headed toward the house. They smashed through the storm shutters. Everything in the cottage shattered and broke.

  “Fall back!” Liz shouted above the noise.

  The Grunk bashed in the nursery room door. Amid the wreckage, Dawn cried out happily as a cluster of locusts picked her up, talons holding her by her Olive Garden uniform. Their wings beat furiously, and Dawn was lifted off the ground.

  “I’m ready, my queen!” she laughed.

  She looked like a zealot hovering in the sky.

  “Let go of her!” Berna jumped, grabbed Dawn’s legs, and tried to pull her down. More locusts attached to Berna, swinging her up into the air.

  “Kelly!” Berna shrieked, reaching out, vanishing into the cloud of locusts.

  I reached for her, but a Blue-Bone Sizzler stomped in my path. Its cheeks puffed up, filling with noxious gas. I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember a funny detail I had read about the Sizzler’s gas. . . .

  The blue monster spun around and aimed its butt at me.

  Oh, right. It doesn’t shoot fire out of its mouth. It shoots it out of its—

  BOOM!

  A stinky fireball burst from the creature’s crack. The heat was like a searing force field. Flames spread across the walls.

  BOOM! Another flaming gas cloud caught the ceiling on fire. That stinker skipped into the library, filled both its cheeks, and blasted our beautiful, towering bookshelves with farts aflame. Fiery pages fell like giant red snowflakes.

  Emergency sprinklers came on, but it was too late. We were choking in the rolling black smoke that filled the halls. The roaches scattered in the light of the rising fire, while the locusts were oddly drawn toward it.

  “Look out!” screamed Victor as the ceiling began to collapse in great chunks all around us. We were trapped in a raging bonfire.

  Explosions shook from deep within the basement.

  “The teddy bear bombs!” Liz shouted, tackling Victor and me to the ground as screaming jets of flames broke through the floor.

  “This way!” shouted Liz, opening the cabinet of a grandfather clock.

  I grabbed our backpacks and Liz pulled Victor and me inside the clock as the ceiling caved in behind us. We tumbled down a long, spiral metal slide that spat us into a cramped concrete tunnel. Liz flicked on a flashlight and ran down the dark, dusty corridor.

  “What is this?” I asked, following quickly.

  “Sitters built it in 1952 as a bomb shelter. Escape hatch is up here,” she said.

  The ceiling shuddered above us, raining dust on our heads as Liz climbed up a metal ladder. I stopped to catch my breath, poison churning in my veins.

  Through the cracks between the bricks, I could see outside, where Serena was shooting a sticky web around Berna and Wugnot, cocooning them until they were trapped in her spider swaddle. Poor Berna. She looked horrified.

  Liz, Victor, and I poked our heads out of the grass-camouflaged trapdoor like frightened gophers. Headquarters was ablaze. Fire poured from the windows, engulfing the fairy-tale roof. Carnival-masked trolls danced with glee around the flames as they handed their queen the portrait of her they had stolen. The Spider Queen blew her pretty painting a kiss as they strapped it to the roof of the Rolls.

  Professor Gonzalo packed up his Wonder Harmonium and snapped a metal collar around Kevin’s neck as the beast obediently bowed his head. Serena took the chain and yanked it.

  “I knew you’d come to your senses,” she sneered.

  Head hung low, Kevin let out a sad wail.

  “I trained you better than that, Bullgarth!” spat the sweating Professor, shoving the harmonium into Kevin’s paws. “I’m taking you back to the island after this. Someone needs another lesson.”

  Cradling Theo, Serena dragged Kevin into her black Rolls-Royce. She looked back at the crackling fire and smiled wickedly.

  “Good job leading us here, Bullgarth,” said Serena.

  Liz gasped beside me.

  “Your brother is a hairy double agent!” I said.

  Bullgarth—I mean Kevin—glanced in the direction of our voices. We ducked down. His eyes shimmered. I knew he could see us. We held our breaths. Would Kevin give us up?

  The escaped monsters circled Serena, awaiting their orders. “What about the other babysitters?” the Professor asked.

  “They’ll come to us,” said Serena. She looked at the gorgeous, shivering baby in her arms. “Right now, all I want is to do is feed.”
<
br />   34

  Tears streamed from my eyes. I was paralyzed with fear and heartache. In utter shock, Victor looked at me. Ashes and snow fell between us. He couldn’t believe it. None of us could.

  The bad guys had won.

  “This can’t be happening,” I whispered.

  I looked to Liz, but she was entranced by the horrific fire, her tear-filled eyes glistening in the red glow. Our home was gone forever. Hundreds of years of history and memories burned into flames. The crest of the babysitters toppled and vanished into the heat and smoke.

  My insides felt hollow and dead. I had failed. Madame Moon was right. My best was not nearly good enough. I felt like I was drowning. I’d failed. I was a failure. Time to face facts.

  It’s like the Mighty Kang said: the little turtle will bring peace to the world of sun and air.

  I blinked. Wait a minute. Maybe we did have a chance.

  I ran off into the woods. Liz and Victor followed.

  “Mighty Kang!” I shouted. “I call upon you!”

  If anyone can help us, a nine-hundred-year-old Cloud Serpent can.

  The waterfall was a cascade of rippling, bitter frost. A trout tail jutted from the ghostly, icy falls. I squinted into the brackish freeze. The creek behind the cottage had frozen over. The Mighty Kang was trapped in a block of ice behind the waterfall.

  Major gut punch. The Might Kang was frozen. Vee was gone. Cassie, Curtis. Berna, Wugnot. Dawn. My parents. And the handsome little turtle. Baby Theo. I knew Victor and Liz were with me, but I felt strangely alone.

  “What do we do?” Victor asked.

  I saw Victor’s and Liz’s faces. They were just as scared and defeated as me. Liz had found her brother only to lose him again. Victor no longer thought it was cool to be a babysitter. He understood the stakes and danger, and it gave him a defeated look in his eyes.

  I once read about these kinds of moments in the Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting:

  I knew if I fell apart, they would fall apart, and if we were going to save the sitters and the adorable chunklet-turtle, we had to keep going.

  If Mama Vee were here, what would she say? Probably something annoying like “Believe in yourself, Kelly. You have trained for this.”