The Deadly 7

by Garth Jennings

  Miser wrapped his tentacles around Brian’s throat and squeezed like a boa constrictor. Brian’s eyes bulged more than ever and his fat tongue popped out of his mouth as if it was trying to wriggle out of his head. He managed to grab a part of Miser’s tentacle and bit down on it hard. Miser yelped in pain, but help was on its way from above.

  “Bombs away!” shouted Hoot, who proceeded to drop a very dusty but extremely angry Stan onto the front of the truck. This time, when Stan swung his huge red fist back it would complete its journey to the middle of Brian’s creepy puffy face.

  Pow!

  You often hear the expression “He didn’t know what hit him,” but it was never truer than in this case. One second Brian was conscious of biting something invisible that was wrapped around his neck, the next he was slumped across the steering wheel completely unconscious.

  * * *

  The monsters leaped free of the truck just as it careered off the road and slammed into a telegraph pole. Brian’s big slippery body shot out through the open windshield, sailed through the air, and crashed straight through the tiled roof of a nearby cowshed. The cows, who had been using the shed as refuge from the hot sun, ran out of it with a great deal of mooing.

  * * *

  “Stop the car, Jesus,” said Spike, and Jesus gently applied the brake and pulled the car over on the side of the road. “Thank you, Jesus,” said Spike, and Jesus replied with a low, dreary moan. “Huuurgh.”

  Nelson was already running across the road to where Crush, Miser, and Stan lay coughing and spluttering in the dust.

  “Are you all right?” cried Nelson.

  “Did we get ’im?” snarled Stan, struggling to his feet, and Nelson turned back to the cowshed. Apart from some seriously freaked-out cattle, there was no sign of life.

  “We must be sure. Follow me,” hissed Miser, his eyes still red from the fight.

  “Let’s just go. He won’t come after us again,” suggested Nelson, but the monsters, including Nosh, were already running toward the cowshed.

  DON’T DRINK THE WATER

  Stan went into the cowshed on his own first, clearly hoping to find Brian alive so that he could punch him on the nose again, but after a few silent seconds he called to Nelson, “Don’t worry, it’s safe!”

  Nelson stepped into the shed and all at once was struck by how much cow-flavored dust there was in the air. He pulled his T-shirt up over his mouth, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Brian lying in the middle of a huge pile of hay. It looked like a very badly staged nativity scene, but there was nothing funny about the man’s face: the white, bulging fish eyes were gone, and in their place two very sad blue eyes looked up at Nelson.

  “I should never have kissed her,” the man whispered. “Years. For years I have been her slave. But now … now I am free,” he croaked, and started to cough.

  This wasn’t what Nelson had been expecting at all. “Uh … do you want me to get you some water?” he offered, and Brian’s eyes suddenly became wide with terror.

  “No! Don’t drink the water!” he wheezed, before coughing hard again. “She poisoned the water. The day I put her in there. The water. It turned black. The flowers. They all died.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “You cannot save your sister,” whispered Brian.

  “What? You know where my sister is?” said Nelson with a great gasp, and Brian reached out and grabbed Nelson’s wrist with his huge meaty hand. The monsters took a step closer, ready to knock Brian into the air, but Nelson raised a hand for calm. The monsters did as they were told for once, and Nelson leaned forward to hear what Brian had to say.

  “Turn back. You must turn back. You’re just a boy. If you don’t, you’ll regret it.”

  I may be a boy, thought Nelson, but I’m a boy with seven monsters who’s managed to travel all the way to Brazil. And you’re the one lying in the straw.

  “I’m sorry,” Brian said with the saddest smile Nelson had ever seen. “It was her kiss. She poisoned me. She made me do it.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Carla. Your auntie Carla. My … my wife.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Brian.”

  And with one loud exhale that sounded like someone climbing into their own bed after a very long day, Brian closed his eyes and drifted away.

  CHOOSE YOUR COW

  “I know he tried to kill me, but we can’t just leave him there!” protested Nelson as he followed the monsters out of the cowshed.

  “Oh, great,” moaned Spike sarcastically. “We’ll just lug a massive unconscious bloke around with us then, shall we? Or better still, we should just stand around here discussing it.” Even though Spike’s sarcastic tone was deeply irritating, Nelson couldn’t help thinking he had a point.

  Actually, it was a very good point.

  But it was all so confusing.

  Everything was happening so fast and it was all so … mad. It was as if someone had taken reality, made it into a jigsaw, thrown the jigsaw onto the floor, and then said, “Now, hurry up and put it all together!” as they danced all over the jigsaw pieces in a clown suit, blowing a trumpet.

  If Brian was married to Nelson’s sort-of auntie Carla, wouldn’t that make him his sort-of uncle? How could he have been Carla’s slave if she had died in the fire? And why would he want to ram him off the road?

  Nelson could feel the thick dust from the cowshed making a home for itself in his lungs. The cool air-conditioned limo would be a great relief from the dust, heat, and danger, but it was not to be. Spike pointed to the freeway about half a mile away. “Look at them all, in their perfectly working cars. It’s all right for some, isn’t it? Never me though.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Nelson, and Spike pointed to liquid pooling out from under the limo. But the smell told Nelson it wasn’t water. It was gas.

  “We must’ve gone over a rock when we came off the road. It’s ripped the tank right open.”

  “Great! Just great! You were supposed to be controllin’ the driver!” bellowed Stan.

  “I can’t make rocks disappear, you stupid angry tomato!” yelled Spike.

  Stan squared up to Spike, desperate to punch him in his spiky head, and he would have done so had it not been for the police sirens.

  Everyone turned to look in the same direction. There wasn’t a police car to be seen, but the sirens were getting louder and they all knew it was just a matter of seconds before one came over the horizon, and that would mean Trouble with a capital T.

  In that moment of panic, it was Miser who spoke first. “Master Nelson, there is not a moment to lose. You must choose your cow.”

  “Choose my cow?” said Nelson, turning to see Miser pointing at the herd of cattle that were staring at Nelson and his monsters as if glued to a thrilling TV show.

  “Indeed. There are eight of us, but Hoot can fly, so we shall only need seven of the animals. Might I suggest the bull? I think it most appropriate for you, Master Nelson,” said Miser, gesturing toward a hefty-looking fellow at the front of the herd. The bull had a heavy fringe of coarse hair that covered his eyes and two huge white horns that jutted out from the sides of his head.

  Anticipating Nelson’s next question, Miser took the lead. “These beasts are strong; they will carry us quickly. With some assistance from Master Spike, we shall make good time,” said Miser.

  “Seven needles?! If I take out seven of my needles, I’ll lose all my water and shrivel up,” complained Spike, showing the small hole in his arm that was still leaking from earlier.

  “Sorry, just a second,” said Nelson, holding up his hand as if in class. “Are you saying that Spike should do that thing with his needles to all those cows so we can ride them?”

  “Well, of course, if you have a better plan, Master Nelson?” replied Miser with a slight bow, but Nelson did not, and exactly twenty-six seconds later seven cows, one of whom was the bull I just described, stood very still with wide,
googly eyes and a cactus needle sticking out of their foreheads while the monsters did their humming thing and pointed the way to Celeste.

  Spike was leaking water from the new holes in his green flesh but stood with his straggly arms raised before the herd like the conductor of a cow choir.

  “Cows! You will do as I command! You will carry us and you will run as fast as you can, and not stop until we have reached Celeste,” shouted Spike, but cows being a bit on the stupid side of things only heard the words “You … run … not … stop…” And with a great moooo! all seven set off at a speed normally reserved for the likes of racehorses or zebras being chased by lions. This would have been a fantastic start to the next leg of their journey had Nelson and his monsters actually been on the cows’ backs at the time.

  Seven monsters and one boy instantly gave chase.

  “Couldn’t you have waited until we were sitting on them?” shouted Nelson as they sprinted after the herd.

  “It’s not my fault! They’re stupid cows! They didn’t listen!” yelled Spike.

  “Tell them to stop!” begged Nelson, his fists pumping like pistons and his sneakers pounding the earth.

  “I’m trying, but you keep interrupting me!” yelled Spike in return.

  “Catchy cows! Catchy cows!” shouted Nosh, rolling through the dirt like a runaway bowling ball.

  “I say! Shouldn’t you chaps be riding these horseys?” called Hoot from above.

  “They’re cows, yer great fool!” cried Stan, whose little legs were struggling to carry his enormous upper half. The rest of the monsters howled and yelled and screamed and above all ran as fast as they could after the cows.

  * * *

  The herd stampeded down through the field, which sloped toward a low wooden boundary fence, smashed that fence to bits as if it was made of breadsticks, and then ran straight into a narrow river. The splash was immense and the water deep, but that didn’t stop them from swimming toward the other side. Luckily cows aren’t very fast swimmers.

  “This is our chance! While they’re in the water! Jump on!” cried Nelson, launching himself off the riverbank. The water that engulfed him was so cold that Nelson would have screamed but his lungs seemed to have shrunk to the size of two Brussels sprouts.

  In that split second of madness, Nelson reached out, grabbed the tail of the bull, and pulled himself forward. All around, the river was erupting as the monsters landed like bombs among the herd.

  “It looks very cold,” said Spike, hesitating at the river’s edge before Stan came right up behind him and with a great kick in the backside sent him sailing through the air and into the water before leaping in himself.

  Only now did Nelson realize just how huge the bull was. Its back was easily as wide as a kitchen table, and those horns were as long as Nelson’s own arms! Though they were clearly to be avoided under normal circumstances, the horns gave Nelson something to grab on to, and with a great heave he managed to swing his right leg over the bull’s back.

  I’m sitting on a bull in a river, thought Nelson, and as he looked around he saw his monsters clawing and pulling their way onto the backs of the herd too.

  “Bravo!” shouted Hoot from above, but none of them could hear for the great crashing of water and the pounding of hooves as the cows arrived on the other side of the river and thundered up the bank.

  * * *

  Jesus sat in his gas-drained limo feeling incredibly envious of all the other cars zooming along the highway. Spike had made sure he had a clear memory of driving to the airport in order to pick up his client Donna Gatsky, only to be rammed off the road on his way there by a crazy truck driver who was now lying unconscious in the cowshed. Spike had also made sure that Jesus’s memory did not contain a single trace of a boy called Nelson or any peculiar goings-on. Not only would the police who arrived shortly afterward completely believe Jesus, they would ask for his autograph as several officers had been his biggest fans when he had been a kickboxer.

  As for the man lying in the cowshed … the police would discover he was extremely concussed and recovering from ten years of deep hypnosis. They would have to investigate his story further …

  ABBA’S GREATEST HITS

  “Waterloo” by ABBA blasted from a speaker in Uncle Pogo’s false leg. ABBA was the first artist on Pogo’s alphabetical playlist, and since it had been triggered by all the bouncing around of Nelson’s backpack, ABBA’s greatest hits would now provide the sound track to their stampede across the dusty orange plains toward the dark green strip of jungle on the horizon.

  Nelson gripped the shaggy rust-brown hair of the bull with all his might. He was at the head of the herd, which for some reason had fallen into a perfect arrowhead formation, like a flock of geese. Above them Hoot sailed through the sky with enviable ease, the Brazilian sun glinting off his golden feathers in eyeball-scorching flashes of light.

  Nelson might have been frightened of falling off, but the deep feeling of certainty that they were headed toward his sister far outweighed any fear that might be bubbling below. Brian’s warning about the danger ahead that had at first seemed so real and scary was being gradually broken into tiny insignificant pieces by this exhilarating ride. With his left hand gripping the bull’s coat as tightly as possible, Nelson reached up with his right and grasped the pendant that bounced against his chest. A howl came out of him as if from nowhere.

  Not a scary or sad howl, but a loud and happy howl. A sound that said to the world, “I am going to save my sister!” And apart from Spike, who was feeling weak from all the water leaking out of him, the rest of the monsters howled too. Great hoots and hollers competed with the deafening rumble of charging cattle. Even the cows joined in with the happy feeling and mooed for all they were worth. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees dead ahead. By the time ABBA had gotten around to singing “SOS” Nelson and his monsters had reached the edge of the jungle and the only light left in the sky was the ever-darkening remnants of a pink and gold sunset.

  HOT-DOG MISSILES

  Getting the cows to go fast had been easy, but getting them to slow down was more of a challenge. It wasn’t that Nelson wanted to take his time, but as the gaps between the trees narrowed, the chances of having his head knocked off by a low branch became higher and higher.

  * * *

  “I’m too weak. I can’t control the cows anymore,” said Spike, but he spoke in a faint whisper and Nelson didn’t hear him.

  He didn’t need to; one look back at the cactus monster barely clinging to the back of a rampaging cow told Nelson everything he needed to know. Spike’s skin was no longer bright green and rubbery. It was a dull brown and shriveled and bits of it were peeling off. Even his eyes seemed to have vanished into their dark sockets. For the first time ever, Spike had every reason to moan.

  “He’s leaked too much! He needs water!” shouted Nelson to Puff, who was riding closest to him, but Puff just yawned and continued to cling on to his cow like a great purple blanket spread across its back. Nelson turned to Miser on his left side and shouted, “Spike needs water! We need to stop!” At that very same moment, the bull Nelson was riding charged straight through a large bush, which was shredded by its horns, covering Nelson in splinters.

  “If we stop now we shall lose the herd, Master Nelson!” said Miser, using his tentacles like whips to spur on his cow.

  “But what about Spike?”

  “Who cares about that moaner?! We have to get to Celeste!” bellowed Stan.

  “Nelly-son! Nelly-son! We almost there! We almost there! Nosh feel it in his big belly!” cried Nosh, who proceeded to blast flames out the top of his head after digesting a delicious branch that had snapped off in his cobblestone teeth only a few moments before.

  “Hold on, Spike! We’re not far now!” called Nelson, even though he had no idea how far it was. But at that very moment Spike’s cow jumped a fallen tree and Spike lost his grip, tumbling from the back of the cow and rolling in the dirt.

  “Spike!�
�� shouted Nelson, and let go of his bull, but his ankles were so unprepared for the landing that they twisted beneath him.

  Skronch!

  This is a word I just made up to describe the sound Nelson made as he hit the ground. It’s lucky he landed in a patch of dried leaves and sticks to cushion the blow or he might never have gotten up again.

  Nelson rose from the dust, coughing and spitting out bits of twig as he ran toward the spot where Spike lay.

  The rest of the monsters realized Nelson’s change of direction and reluctantly leaped from their cows, who ignored the fact that their passengers had disembarked and continued to charge through the jungle at high speed.

  Nelson cradled the brown husk that was Spike without fear of being pricked by needles, as they had all fallen out now.

  “Spike? Spike?” he said, panting furiously.

  “Water,” whispered Spike through parched lips that, like the rest of his body, were beginning to look more like wood than cactus.

  Nelson looked around in a panic, ignoring the shouts of protest from the rest of the group, who were ambling through the brushwood like angry children who had been forced by their parents to go for a walk.

  “Hoot! See if you can find some water. Even a tiny bit. There must be some nearby.”

  “Water? Splendid idea! I am rather thirsty.”

  “Not for you, for Spike!” yelled Nelson.