Boogers from Beyond #3

by M. D. Payne

  “He can’t take the Director,” screeched a banshee.

  Old Bigfoot pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed the bottom of the gate.

  “RAAAAAWWWWRRR!” he grunted, and the gate slowly rose.

  There was about a foot of room from the floor to the bottom of the gate.

  “Gooooooo!” he said. “Can’t. Hold. For. Long.”

  Ben, Shane, Gordon, Nabila, and I slid through, and the gate came crashing down again.

  “Shane and Nabila,” I yelled. “We have to catch up with him. Ben and Gordon, open the gate for the others.”

  The three of us rushed down to the end of the hall, where a mysterious open door led to the grounds.

  “Hey, where did this door come from?” Shane asked as we burst through and could see Murrayhotep in the moonlight up ahead, running for the forest.

  “It’s too far for me to throw a spell on him,” Nablia said, gasping.

  “Hurry,” I huffed.

  We had almost caught up to Murrayhotep when he hit the forest.

  “I can’t see anything,” I said as we entered the thick, tall trees.

  “Over there!” yelled Shane.

  “Is he bringing him to a tree trunk?” I said. “That tree is huge.”

  “It’s not a tree,” said Nabila. “It’s a spaceship. A huge rocket.”

  “No way!” I gasped.

  Murrayhotep ran up to the tall, oil-black, shiny ship, and placed his hand on the door. A light shone into the forest as the door slowly hummed open. Inside the opening, monster arms and legs walked around.

  “So that’s where they were running to,” said Shane.

  Murrayhotep rushed inside, and the door began to close.

  “Go!” I yelled. “We can make it!”

  We rushed up to the door, just as it slid back into place.

  We slammed into the cold hard metal.

  “Noooooo!” I yelled, kicking the ship.

  A great vibration shook our feet.

  “No time for anger,” Shane said. “This thing’s gonna take off!”

  We ran back toward the grounds of the manor. At the forest’s edge, monsters started to zoom past us.

  “Guys, no!” I yelled. “Get back to the manor!”

  The monsters, who normally never listened to me, turned back and ran with us.

  There was a great roar, and a bright light, as the ship took off, blowing us all over the grounds in a burst of hot wind. I rolled until I hit the bush shaped like a raven and watched the ship take off into the night.

  The Moon’s Face

  We rushed to the West Tower of the manor, and I swung up my telescope.

  “Where is he going?” asked Nabila.

  I focused on the ship and then pulled back a little. The ship was tall, with strange spines jutting out of the sides, and a green glow propelled it through the atmosphere. It was so black, I shouldn’t have seen it, but its surface shone like crazy.

  “The moon,” I gasped. “It’s headed right for the moon.”

  “No way!” said Ben.

  “The moon . . . ,” I said, trying hard to think.

  “What?” asked Shane.

  “Before he passed out, Director Z said, ‘The moon’s face is the perfect place for record keeping.’”

  “What does that mean?” asked Gordon.

  “I have no idea . . . ,” I said, staring again through the telescope at the moon’s face.

  The moon winked at me.

  “Huh?” I said, shocked, pulling my face back. “It’s like the moon has a real face . . . just like . . .”

  “What!?” Nabila screeched, dying of anticipation.

  “Just like the face of the moon in that weird room I saw.” I gasped. “Guys, follow me!”

  We rushed downstairs to the dining room.

  The stronger monsters were helping the Nurses clean the dining room, though most of the monsters had gone to bed to get some rest.

  “It was this door,” I said, stopping in front of the weird room. “This is where I saw it!”

  I turned the handle . . . and the door opened.

  We rushed in, and I pointed up to the grainy old photo.

  “See?” I asked.

  “Totally cool,” said Shane.

  Gordon closed the door, and we found ourselves in a small library, with a model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. The planets were all metal balls. I opened a closet to find a metallic space suit with a glass helmet.

  “I just need to figure out what kind of records we’re looking for,” I said, biting my bottom lip.

  “Well, there are plenty of books here,” said Ben, pulling one out of a bookshelf with a puff of dust. “This one’s on the effects of zero gravity.”

  “This one’s about the great wars of the Andromeda Galaxy,” said Nabila, opening another.

  “What’s this?” asked Gordon, holding up a small black cylinder.

  “I think that’s an old record,” said Shane. “I saw one once in a museum.”

  “A record!” I said. “‘The perfect place for record keeping.’ Director Z must want us to listen to that record.”

  “Didn’t we see an old phonograph in one of the rooms?” asked Shane.

  “Yeah!” replied Nabila. “But which one . . .”

  “The music room?” Gordon said.

  “No,” said Ben. “The bear-rug room?”

  “No,” I said, frustrated. “This place is too big! It doesn’t matter. We all remember seeing one. Let’s go find it.”

  We found it in the game room, tucked behind the chessboard in the corner.

  “How do we work it?” I asked. “Any guesses?”

  “Well,” said Shane, grabbing the cylinder. “It looks like the cylinder fits here.”

  He clicked it into place.

  “I think you crank this handle,” said Gordon, and started to crank.

  “Put the needle on the record,” said Nabila.

  “It looks like it’s going to scratch it like crazy,” I said.

  “Just do it!” said Ben.

  I put the needle down on the cylinder, and a great scratching sound came out of the huge cone at the top of the phonograph.

  SCHHLLLRRPPHHHSCHHLLLRRPPHHH!

  “I think we broke it!” I said.

  Then, out of the scratching, came a voice.

  “Journal entry dated July 24, 1892. Today, my work is finally finished. The Stratford family has been kind enough to endure all of my late-night madness and the strange clanking from deep below their dungeon. I will have to thank them for the use of their manor for years to come. But it is finally complete. A fully functional spaceship, capable of transporting over one hundred souls, set on a course to the moon. Unfortunately, I have lost my previous creation, Frederick, a monster crafted of human flesh and brought to life by electricity. He escaped from his home weeks ago, and I would have hoped to have found him by now. For only he can sit in the captain’s chair and power the great ship into the cosmos with his strange electrical energies.”

  “Did Frederick make it through the sangala attack?” I asked.

  “I think so,” said Ben.

  “Well, it sounds like all we need to do is get him into the captain’s chair of that ship that’s hiding somewhere deep below the dungeon,” I said, “and we can save Director Z.”

  “On the MOON?” asked Nabila. “I can’t go to the moon! I have to ask my parents’ permission first.”

  “I’d like to see that conversation,” Ben said, snickering.

  “I don’t think this is the kind of thing you ask permission for . . . ,” I said.

  “This is crazy,” said Gordon. “We’re going to the moon.”

  “To the MOON!” yelled Shane.

  “My dream co
me true!” I yelled, suddenly insanely excited.

  “Was your dream to go to the moon with a ship full of monsters?” asked Nabila. “Because we’re going to need them for whatever’s up there. We can’t do it alone.”

  “Ah, so you’re ready to go now?” asked Gordon.

  “Monsters in space,” said Shane. “I think I saw that movie when I was a little kid.”

  “Oh no!” I said, slapping my forehead.

  “What is it?” asked Nabila.

  “The moon,” I said. “Because of the lunar cycle and the time of day, I think . . .”

  “What?” Shane asked, pulling my hand off my forehead.

  “Oh, man . . .” I didn’t want to tell them until I was sure.

  I pushed away from Shane and rushed to the bookshelves, pulling out books like a madman. “This isn’t what I’m looking for,” I screeched, tossing dusty old books to the floor.

  “What is it?” yelled Ben, upset that I was so upset.

  I ran over to a large table, which was piled high with charts and diagrams. I frantically dug through the pile, finally finding what I was looking for: a dusty, yellowed old launch-window chart.

  “Yes!” I yelled, and held it up for closer study. “NO!”

  “WHAT IS IT!?!” yelled all four of my friends.

  “The current window for launch to the moon is going to close in”—I looked at my iPhone—“forty-five minutes.”

  “Okay, so we’ll wait a few days,” said Nabila. “I need to think up a story to tell my parents, anyway.”

  “No,” I said, studying the crusty document. “It could be more than a few days—even a week or two before the next window opens. Who knows what they’ll do to Director Z before then. We have to go NOW!”

  “All right,” said Shane. “Let’s find Frederick. Then we’ve got to find the ship. And then we’ll blast out of here!”

  “All right, all right,” said Ben and Gordon.

  “Fine,” said Nabila. “But we’re all going to be in huge trouble.”

  “Not as much trouble as Director Z is in,” I said. “We’ve got to move fast.”

  Must. Find. FREDERICK!

  “The East Wing is clear,” said Gordon. “No sign of Frederick?”

  Monsters shuffled into the foyer from different parts of the manor.

  “Nothing,” said Clarice.

  “Where did he go?” asked Medusa. Her snakes hissed sadly.

  “FREDERICK!!!” Roy’s voice boomed through the foyer. All of us—monsters, boys, and girl—waited for a sound.

  NOTHING.

  “Now that I think of it,” said Pietro, “I don’t seem to remember seeing him after the battle. Maybe his head came off and ran into the spaceship.”

  “Ew,” I said.

  Nabila shuddered.

  “No, no, no,” said Shane. “I’m sure that I saw him.”

  “Pietro,” I said to the old werewolf. “We’ve only got twenty minutes left. Come with the five of us to Frederick’s room, and give it a good sniff.”

  “I’m no bloodhound,” said Pietro.

  “You are today,” said Gordon, who slapped Pietro on the back. “Maybe your nose can tell us something.”

  Pietro turned into a wolf and padded down the West Wing into Frederick’s room. We followed.

  Sniff, sniff, sniiiiiiiff!

  Pietro sniffed around the old stitched-together monster’s room. Then he pushed his snout out of the room and sniffed the hallway.

  “Anything?” asked Ben.

  “Grrrr . . . ,” grumbled Pietro, shaking his mangy head no.

  “Wait,” I said, walking over to the laundry basket in the room. “I think this will help.”

  I opened it up, and used the tips of my fingers to grab a dirty pair of Frederick’s tighty-whities.

  “Ick,” I yelled, tossing them at Pietro.

  Sniff, sniff . . . HOOOOOOWWWWL!

  Pietro was off, racing down the hallway, back toward the foyer.

  “Hurry!” I yelled, running after him. My friends followed.

  In the foyer, he took a sharp left toward the North Wing, and then with a great SCREEEECH of nails, changed his mind and decided to go down the East Wing instead.

  “Don’t you DARE lick my face again,” Lucinda B. Smythe screeched as Pietro ran past.

  We burst through the huge doors and followed Pietro to the organ keyboard at the back of the banquet hall.

  Pietro stopped in front of the keyboard, barking furiously.

  “What’s next?” Ben knelt down and asked the werewolf. Drool sprayed into his face. “Is he behind the keyboard? Can’t you change back to human form and tell us what’s happening?”

  “WAIT!” I said. “He might be naked. You never know—sometimes they lose their clothes when they change.”

  “Don’t!” yelled Gordon.

  I held my hands over my eyes, but Pietro just kept barking. Then he lifted a paw up onto the organ, and three sour notes echoed through the huge, empty room.

  “You want us to play it?” I asked.

  “Look!” said Nabila, pointing at a key. “This one’s more worn than the others. And this one. That one, too.”

  She pushed the frothing werewolf to the side, and pushed down on all three keys at once.

  With a great creak, the organ keyboard jerked forward, throwing Nabila on her rump. Then, with a great scrape of wood and stone, it slid to the left.

  “A secret stairway!” Nabila said. “I knew it!”

  With another bark, Pietro jumped down spiraling stairs.

  “Are you sure we should—?” Ben tried to ask, but the rest of us followed Pietro.

  “Okay, okay, I’m coming,” huffed Ben.

  “This reminds me of going down into the vampire crypt at Raven Hill,” said Shane. “Ah, the good old days.”

  “Don’t talk,” said Gordon. “I’m getting dizzy.”

  Candles on the wall gave us a little light, but there was something brighter at the bottom.

  We made our way to a locked iron door with torches at either side. Pietro started barking like crazy again. We jiggled at the handle, and pushed the door, but . . .

  “Nothing!” I grunted. “Ugh! We’ve got ten minutes left! How are we going to get behind that door, find Frederick, and then find the ship?”

  “I can help,” Quincy said from stairs. “Let me see what’s on the other side.”

  “Oh, Quincy!” yelled Nabila. “That’s a great idea. How did you know we were down here?”

  “I’ve been following you this whole time!” he said. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in the manor.”

  “If Frederick is on the other side, tell him to open the door,” Nabila said.

  “I will!” said Quincy, and he floated through the door.

  Pietro finally stopped barking, and it was silent at the bottom of the stairs.

  After what felt like an eternity, Quincy popped his head through the door with a “Boo!”

  “Wah!” yelled Nabila. “Stop doing that to me! What’s the news!?”

  “Frederick is on the other side,” said Quincy, “but he’s in bad shape. He’s on the floor, rolling around and moaning.”

  “Oh no!” I said. “We’ve got to get in there.”

  “There’s a latch on the other side of the door,” said Quincy. “But I can’t lift it.”

  Gordon was inspecting the door frantically.

  “Hey, look at this,” he said, sticking his finger through a small hole in the door.

  “It’s not near the latch,” Quincy said.

  Gordon’s brow furrowed. “Unless . . .” His eyes lit up. “Quincy, go get Medusa as fast as you can!”

  “Aha!” Shane said, immediately realizing what Gordon meant to do.

  Two minutes
later, Medusa came down the stairs. She stood in front of the door, scratching her head.

  “Which one of you is the longest?” she asked.

  “I am,” hissed one snake.

  “No, it’s ME,” hissed another.

  “I’m long enough,” another said. “Let me try.”

  “Just hurry!” I yelled. “We’re running out of time.”

  Medusa quickly put her head up against the door, and after a few more seconds of shoving and hissing, one snake went through quickly.

  CLICK!

  “Got it!” I yelled, pushing the door forward.

  “Hey!” yelled Medusa, who was dragged forward with the door. “Give Jimmy a chance to slither back out of the hole!”

  “Sorry!” I yelled. “The clock’s ticking.”

  We rushed down a dark stone hallway and then popped out into a huge cave—with a rocket ship sitting in its center.

  “Whoa!” I gasped.

  “Awesome,” said Shane.

  “Why didn’t you tell us the spaceship was in here, Quincy?” Gordon asked.

  “You never asked,” he replied.

  I was stunned. It looked more like a funky skyscraper than a spaceship—all glass and metal.

  “Look up there, you can see the stars,” said Ben, pointing to a huge hole in the roof of the cave. Forest vegetation poured over the side.

  “Look at the bottom set!” Nabila pointed at Frederick, slumped against the ship, motionless.

  “Frederick. FREDERICK!”

  The Final Countdown

  Shane rushed over to Frederick. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Frederick woke up from a daze and slowly got to his feet.

  “Whew!” said Nabila.

  “No, I’m fine,” said the giant monster. “This is a safe place for me. This was my home when I was first created by my father. After the sangala attack, I decided to retreat here.”

  “Why were you moaning and rolling around?” asked Gordon.

  Frederick stared up at the huge ship, a tear in his eye. “This wonderful monument makes me miss my father.”

  “It’s all right,” said Shane, patting Frederick on the back. “Let it out.”

  “NO!” I screeched. “Let it out later! We’ve got to go in five minutes, or we’ll have to wait for weeks! Director Z might not even be alive then.”