Creature Keepers and the Swindled Soil-Soles

by Peter Nelson

  “I don’t think so,” Syd strained as he gripped Gusto even tighter. “I’m not letting you near that Subduction Zone trigger. I’ll hold you ’til my arms fall off.”

  “All right.” Gusto sighed. “I can wait. Sooner or later, though, even the mighty Sasquatch will need to rest.”

  Abbie studied Gusto’s feet. “There must be a way to get those Soil-Soles off.”

  “They only come off if the wearer willingly lets them go,” Syd said.

  “Then why did Jordan lose them? He never would have given them up.”

  Gusto snickered. “Simple. It was either give them up or drown. Choices become clear very quickly when you value your own skin over your cause. That’s the difference between your kind and mine. You see, I care about no one, including myself. There is only my master plan.”

  “So if you could crack open that fault line, what’s your ‘master plan’ on getting out alive?” Abbie said.

  “That’s just it. When I crack open the earth, Señor Areck Gusto will cease to be. But from the flames . . . Who knows who or what will be reborn?”

  “Okay,” Syd said, adjusting his grip. “He’s officially lost it.”

  “I’ve lost nothing,” Gusto said. “Because I have nothing to lose.”

  A tiny rock suddenly bounced off Gusto’s head. Another fell nearby, then another. There was a rumbling from above. The cavern rattled. The Heli-Jet was back.

  The ground shook and Abbie lost her balance. She stumbled backward over a rock.

  “Abbie!” Syd released Gusto as he lunged to help her.

  “HA!” Gusto took a few bounding steps off the ridge. Abbie and Syd watched in horror as he leaped feetfirst toward the center of the cavern, straight at the smooth strip of rock running through the floor below: the Cascadia Subduction Zone fault line.

  SPROING! Something from above suddenly dropped in front of Gusto, catching one of his Soil-Soles like a fish in a net. Gusto jerked to a stop in midair, and hung upside down above the fault line. His great foot was tangled in a long rope ladder dangling down from the open crack in the ceiling. Gusto kicked and jerked wildly, which only caused the strong rope rung to coil even tighter around his right Soil-Sole.

  Aboveground, Eldon saw the rope ladder pull taut. He turned and gave the thumbs-up to Jordan, sitting in the cockpit. The Heli-Jet began to lift, pulling the ladder up with it.

  “AAAARRRGGGH!” Gusto yelled as he rose above the cavern floor. “WHAT IS THIS? WHAT’S GOING ON?”

  “C’mon, that’s our ride!” In a flash, Syd scooped Abbie up in his arms and leaped off the ridge, straight at the bottom of the rope ladder, just catching a rung. As he grabbed it, Abbie slipped from Syd’s grip and fell a short distance before quickly clutching Syd’s thin ankle.

  Gusto hung upside down about a dozen rungs above them, writhing and shrieking in frustration. Abbie noticed Gusto relax his body and hang limp from the ladder. The snagged Soil-Sole suddenly opened up. Gusto had released one of the Soil-Soles so he could use the other to accomplish his master plan.

  He dropped, sailing past Syd toward the fault line below. Thinking quickly, Abbie grabbed Gusto’s skinny, bare ankle, stopping him with a mighty yank. As the ladder pulled the three of them out of the crevasse, Abbie strained to keep her grip on both Syd’s and Gusto’s ankles. She shut her eyes and focused, and didn’t open them until she felt the cool, fresh air of Mount Breakenridge on her face.

  42

  Once clear of the open crack in the earth, Abbie let go of Syd’s ankle. She and Gusto dropped a few feet to the ground. Gusto wriggled free of her grip and frantically rolled toward the fissure, trying to worm his way back into the cavern. He got to the edge and was suddenly stopped cold by a large, strong force pinning him to the ground.

  Planted firmly on Gusto’s puny chest was a Soil-Sole. And planted firmly inside that Soil-Sole was Syd’s foot. The Sasquatch loomed over Gusto. “I’d like the other one back, please. To complete the pair.”

  As soon as Jordan landed the Heli-Jet, Abbie quickly used its attached rope ladder to wrap Gusto from head to toe. Syd pulled the bindings as tight as he could until it squeezed Gusto like an anaconda, and Eldon quadruple–square knotted the ends of it. Once Gusto stood bound and leashed to the Heli-Jet, they all breathed easier.

  “See?” Eldon said. “Nothing beats a grade-A rope and solid knot-tying know-how.”

  Jordan yelled from the Heli-Jet cockpit window. “Your rope wouldn’t have done much good pulling them out of that rock if it weren’t anchored to this XU-57 Heli-Jet. Score one for top-of-the-line modern technology.”

  “You’re both top-of-the-line, grade-A dorks,” Abbie said. “Although on this one, I think maybe you’re both right.”

  “Yes, I couldn’t agree more,” Gusto said. “A hybrid of old and new really is the best option—it offers strength, power, and most importantly, an element of surprise.”

  Eh-eh!

  The chirp of a remote sounded behind them. The Heli-Jet’s rotors suddenly whirred to life. Through the cockpit window, Jordan looked confused and frightened. Abbie glanced back at Gusto. His hands were tied behind his back, but she recognized what he had in his bound hands: the thin, black Heli-Jet remote.

  “Syd! He has the controller! Grab him!”

  Syd dived to tackle Gusto, but he was too late.

  FWOOSH! The Heli-Jet shot straight up into the air, pulling the rope ladder leash, yanking Gusto off the ground.

  Inside the Heli-Jet, Jordan frantically punched at the cockpit controls. Nothing worked. They’d been overridden by the remote, and he was powerless to do anything. Swinging from his leash outside, Gusto randomly stabbed at the buttons on the remote behind his back. The chopper jerked in the air, dropping and soaring erratically, tossing Jordan around inside the Heli-Jet, and whipping Gusto around outside.

  The others watched helplessly from the ground as the Heli-Jet zigged and zagged overhead. It suddenly lurched forward, and Abbie, Eldon, and Syd ran to keep up, following as the chopper dragged Gusto through the treetops. Something small and black caught Abbie’s eye as it tumbled down through the branches. Gusto had dropped the remote.

  In the cockpit, Jordan noticed that the control panel had come back online. He crawled to the pilot’s seat and quickly stopped the Heli-Jet, steadying it in a hover. As he prepared to take it down for a landing, a strong hand suddenly gripped his wrist from behind.

  Jordan spun around. Gusto had bits of the shredded rope ladder hanging off his tattered Hydro-Hide. His face was cut and scraped, and he had chunks of tree bark and branch jutting out of his thick black hair. Despite all this, he looked very pleased with himself as he stood grinning over Jordan.

  “This is the property of Gusto Industries,” he snarled. “Get off my Heli-Jet, Grimsley.” Gusto yanked Jordan out of the pilot’s seat and tossed him across the cargo floor.

  Jordan slid to a stop just before the open doorway. He glanced down at the ground far below the hovering Heli-Jet and thought he spotted Abbie and the others. Then he stood up and bounded back toward Gusto.

  “You can quit pretending,” Jordan said. “Your name isn’t Areck Gusto. I know who you are—or rather, what you are.”

  “Oh?” Gusto stepped toward Jordan. “And who—or what—would that be?”

  “You’ve used cryptosapien tears to hide your true identity—Chupacabra.”

  “Ah. Has someone been listening to magical myths and dolphin tales?”

  “Boto didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already suspect. Remember when you bit that stuffed animal’s head off in the jungle? Well, you also swallowed a tracking device, which led me right to you. It was just before Izzy clocked your ugly head with a log.”

  Gusto laid a hand on the side of his head. His grin began to fade.

  “Still hurt? Good,” Jordan said. “Izzy sends his best, by the way. He and Silvana.”

  Gusto glared at Jordan. “You’ve gotten so smart in your old age, haven’t you, Georgie boy? You want t
o see my true face again? Fine. But only if you show me yours—George.” He glanced at Jordan’s hand. “Lost your ring again, I see. You stole it back from me in the river, but you seem to have misplaced it. Without the elixir that runs through that ring, you’re defenseless against your true age. So show me, George. I want to see that wrinkly old human face before I kill you. In return, I’ll allow you the pleasure of gazing upon my exquisite creature form.”

  Jordan’s mind was racing. He got an idea. “Okay,” he said. “But you go first.”

  “Beauty before age. Got a light?” He grinned at Jordan. “Never mind.” He snapped his fingers. A small flame appeared on the tip of his thumb. He held it to his lips and blew. The spark burst into a flame, engulfing his body. It swirled around him, then disappeared, burning away all that was Gusto, revealing Chupacabra.

  The doglike cryptid looked the same as he had in the jungle. But without his robe, Jordan could now see that the Hydro-Hide had become part of his skin. It had melded onto him like a natural set of scales. The single Soil-Sole on his left foot looked strange, but it too blended onto his calf like it was part of him.

  He burst out laughing. “YOUR TURN, GEORGIE!”

  Jordan took a deep breath. He shut his eyes. He twitched and winced as if in pain, then buried his face in his hands. Chupacabra stepped back as Jordan hunched over, then jerked his body and stumbled around the cargo area. They circled each other until Jordan stood with his back to the cockpit, Gusto staring excitedly from the center of the cargo floor. Suddenly, Jordan dropped his hands, raised his head, and smiled.

  “Hoogly-magoogly!” Jordan shouted, grinning at the startled Chupacabra.

  “What is this?” The confused cryptid barked. “You’re not George Grimsley!”

  “Finally! It’s about time you got that through your thick skull! No, I’m not! But what I am is a dedicated Creature Keeper—and your worst nightmare!”

  Jordan leaped backward and grabbed the controls to drop the Heli-Jet down to the forest floor. Chupacabra lunged at him. “YOU TRICKED ME!”

  The creature slammed them both into the control panel. The Heli-Jet tilted violently. Jordan gripped the back of the pilot’s seat. Chupacabra tried to clutch at Jordan with his sharp claws, but Jordan lifted a bunny-slippered foot and kicked him in the head—squarely in the same spot where Izzy had clunked him with a log.

  “AAAARRRGGGH!” Chupacabra tumbled backward, sliding across the tilted cargo floor and out the open doorway of the Heli-Jet.

  Jordan quickly pulled himself into the pilot’s seat and righted the chopper.

  On the ground, Abbie, Eldon, and Syd had watched the hovering Heli-Jet high above them bank sideways. As it straightened out again, they could see a lanky figure hanging from its side. Eldon peered through his Badger Ranger binoculars. “I’ll be a skunk ape’s sister, Jordan was right!” he exclaimed. “Gusto is Chupacabra!”

  “What?” Syd gazed up at the kicking beast scrambling to climb back into the Heli-Jet. “We’ve got to stop that thing before it gets back in there with Jordan! Somebody hand me a boulder!”

  Abbie looked down at the remote in her hand. “I got this,” she said. She hit a random button, and the Heli-Jet suddenly lurched, sending Chupacabra tumbling along the outside of the ship, frantically trying to grab hold of something. His claws dug in, scraping the side of the Heli-Jet, until he stopped himself. Chupacabra was clinging to a rear rocket, staring straight into the mouth of the massive jet thruster.

  Abbie squinted up at him and placed her thumb on a button marked Thrust.

  “This is for Doris, you two-faced creep.” Click.

  KRRRGGGGSSSHHHH! The thick explosion of orange flame blasted Chupacabra.

  In an instant, he was gone—and so was the Heli-Jet. The thruster sent the airship zooming across the forest, smashing through treetops, careening straight for Syd’s newly refurbished RV-based tree house and deck.

  Branches and tree trunks broke, bounced, and bashed off the cockpit window as Jordan stared wide-eyed at what was dead ahead. He saw Doris, Buck, and the Buckaroo Crew dive out of the way on the deck, spilling their smoothies as they took cover. He clutched the controls of the Heli-Jet and yanked back as hard as he could.

  The aircraft veered straight upward, just missing the edge of the deck, climbing and bursting through the treetops into the blue sky. Jordan cut the rockets, leveled off the Heli-Jet, and began to slowly descend back into the forest. Just before reentering the treetops, Jordan looked through the cracked window out at Harrison Lake spreading peacefully away from Mount Breakenridge. Far beyond the distant mountains on the other side of the lake, Jordan caught a glimpse of a thin, fading red trail of what looked like a meteorite vanishing over the horizon.

  The Heli-Jet touched down on the wreckage of Syd’s fallen house. Jordan was greeted by Abbie, Eldon, and Syd on the ground and by Doris, Buck, and his crew up on the deck. As cheers and hellos greeted him from above and below, Jordan stepped out of the Heli-Jet, stumbled onto the ground, and promptly passed out.

  Syd noticed Jordan’s feet. “Is he wearing my bunny slippers?”

  43

  Jordan wasn’t running away from anything. He was walking through a thick jungle in his pajamas. He immediately realized that this was a dream. He was able to recognize this because his mind wasn’t clouded with fear. He could think clearly. Also, he was walking through a jungle in his pajamas.

  What he couldn’t recall was who he was walking toward, or why. He knew it was someone he was happy to see, and he knew whoever it was would be happy to see him. And that was a good feeling.

  He came to a small clearing with a single, simple hut. There was a smoldering campfire that had recently been put out. Jordan poked his head inside the hut. It was dark and empty. A panic began to overtake him. Had the fire been put out suddenly? Was whoever he’d come to see in danger and had to flee? Jordan’s good feelings were quickly smothered by a horrible fear. His mind was racing when something directly behind him tapped him on the shoulder.

  “AAAAHHH!” Jordan spun around—and saw a great big eye staring at him. “Izzy!” The Mapinguari’s enormous belly-mouth smiled at Jordan, and the two of them hugged. Jordan shut his eyes tightly and squeezed as hard as he could, as the happiness came rushing back in again. And that was a good feeling.

  “Uh, Jordan?”

  The voice was not in Arawakan. And it was not Izzy’s. Jordan opened his eyes. He was awake, sitting up in a strange bed. He pulled back from the furry, one-eyed creature he was hugging. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, wearing a pair of officially trademarked Mapinguari footie pajamas, was Eldon. “Er, welcome back,” he said. “You were out for a while. How’re you feeling?”

  Jordan looked around the tiny bedroom. The walls were adorned with framed Buck Wilde posters, and the bedsheets were Buck Wilde: Squatch-Seeker!–branded.

  “You just needed some rest. You’ve been through quite a lot. Come on out when you’re ready. There are a few folks there who are gonna be happy to see you.”

  A moment later, Jordan stepped out of the bedroom. A cheer went up in the main cabin of Buck’s RV. The first thing Jordan saw was the entire Buckaroo Crew fixing smoothies in the kitchen—all dressed in Izzy footie pajamas.

  “If I’m still dreaming,” Jordan said at the odd sight. “I’d like to wake up now.”

  “Haw!” Buck stepped up to him, sporting Izzy pajamas, too. “We couldn’t wait all night for you to wake up, so we started without ya! Welcome to Syd’s official RV-Tree-House-Warming-Welcome-Home-Hap-Bon-Voyage-Pretty-Much-Everybody-Else Pajama Party!” He held out a glass of some frosty, neon-green concoction. “Smoothie?”

  Jordan took the smoothie. “Did you call him ‘Syd’?”

  “Yeah! Y’know Bigfoot! I finally met him!” Buck leaned in closer. “Although it turns out he doesn’t like that name. But hey—I really appreciate you keeping your promise to me.” He yelled across the cabin. “Yo, Syd! Git yer hairy butt over here!”


  Syd bounded over and lifted Jordan up with a big hug. He had a pair of Izzy pajamas stretched over his great, wide shoulders. “Isn’t this great? This is the actual RV! From the TV show!” Jordan and Buck traded a smile. “This is a piece of television history—his show isn’t on anymore, y’know!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Buck said. “We know.” He threw his arm around Syd’s shoulders like they were old buddies. “My man Syd told some stories about your first coupla days on the job!” He elbowed Jordan in the ribs. “And I thought I had a rough time making a Sasquatch connection! Haw!”

  “Don’t listen to him, man.” A voice caught Jordan’s ear. He turned around to see Hap Cooperdock standing there, looking more than a little silly in his Izzy pajamas.

  “Hap?” Jordan said. “Okay, now I know I must be dreaming.”

  “Nah,” Hap said. “This is as real as it gets, man! And don’t you listen to that blowhard—you and your sister did a great job taking care of Syd.”

  “Thanks, but . . . what are you doing here?”

  “I had road-tripped all the way down to Mexico when I found out about Buck’s last show. When I heard about Gusto turning up, I realized I didn’t do a very good job luring him away from here. So I turned around and started heading back.”

  “Well, welcome home. Sorry about your house.”

  “It’s cool! I’d gotten used to living in the back of the VW bus, so this is like a perfect step up—but with that awesome view! Man, I really missed that.”

  Jordan looked across the RV cabin to the door leading out onto the deck. He saw Doris, Eldon, and Abbie standing outside. His sister was the only person, besides himself, not wearing footie pajamas. Jordan smiled at this.

  The sun was setting behind the trees, casting a beautiful golden glow on the forest all around the deck. Doris grinned as she saw Jordan approach.