She kept making me promise her I wasn’t going to participate in the Games and I kept saying I’d think about it as images of her and another guy flashed in my head.
Then she said: “I’m staying over in Northington. Lorne is visiting his grandparents.”
Hearing that name was like being punched in the face by a thousand penis-tentacles.
“Lorne?” I asked.
Agent Gaylord Lorne was the dickhead BEAST operative who I believe played a big role in having the NOD shut down. Though he eventually showed some respect to us when arriving on the scene at Perdition Cemetery as well as a place on the SOD, I still didn’t like him. Besides Doctor Blood, the dark magician who’d killed my father, I would’ve said Lorne was number two on my Mortal Enemies list.
“Yeah, Lorne. You met him, didn’t you?”
I nodded. I didn’t add the Unfortunately like I was thinking.
“Are you guys like—are you guys a thing?” I asked.
She laughed and waved me away. “No way. He just needed support. His grandad is pretty sick. I don’t think he’ll make it much longer.” But as she said this I noticed her cheeks reddened and she wouldn’t meet my eyes for the first time since she’d been here.
“Call me if you need anything, Abe,” she said as the anger, disappointment, despair simmered in my gut like some sort of terrible stew.
“I will,” I said. My voice came out as a whisper.
She was at the door now, halfway in the hall. It was close to eleven in the morning. She’d been here for almost two hours and I didn’t even realize it.
“I’m serious,” she said, still avoiding my eyes, and then leaned forward and kissed me on the corner of the mouth.
I stood there in stunned silence as she walked down the hallway toward the stairs.
When I finally pulled my eyes away from the closed door that led to the stairwell, I noticed the college kid across from my apartment was in the hall.
He nodded with a smile on his face.
“Dude?” He said it as a question, one I didn’t answer. Then he said, “Nice!” and crossed the hall for a high-five.
I shut the door in his face, now a broken man.
13
Getting Sabotaged
The next few days went by in a blur. I didn’t have any more dreams and Lola didn’t make any more surprise visits.
The Games were only a day away. I wasn’t ready. I don’t think I ever would be.
Each night, Maddie, Zack, and I met up at the apartment, waiting for a phone call from Walker for a job, but none came our way. If the monsters were out and about they weren’t making any trouble.
My guess: They didn’t want to be dead and miss out on the Monster Games—well, those that weren’t dead already.
We were sitting in the living room, pouring over some books Maddie had dragged out of the old and defunct NOD headquarters. SOD was in the process of moving everything out of there, but like usual, they were very slow about it.
The book currently opened on the coffee table, surrounded by large sodas from the nearby Speedway, was Monster Sports: Blood, Sweat, & Tears…but Mostly Blood. Inside was a long history of the Monster Games, the longest we’d been able to find so far. Not even Val could’ve helped us out in that regard, not to mention that we’d been attacked by the ‘Stein in the process of our visit.
“So she just showed up?” Zack was asking me about Lola for the fiftieth time. “And she didn’t want to bang?”
Maddie growled.
“Oops, sorry,” Zack said. “I mean, she didn’t want to make love?”
“No, dude,” I said. “It was nothing like that. She was worried.” I pointed to The Daily Bite on the TV stand, the one with our pictures on the front page, which had thrown Zack and Maddie for a loop. Zack had shouted with joy that he was now a celebrity—“In the monster community, at least.” While Maddie complained about how her hair looked. Well, complained is an understatement. She looked like she was about ready to call The Daily Bite’s offices and demand the picture to be burned. She even mentioned contacting a lawyer before Zack calmed her down and told her she looked beautiful like she always did. She smiled and kissed him and I felt right then that despite all of the chaos and madness, the getting choked by ‘Steins and chased by ghosts and creatures from beneath the Rodanian Mountains, that life was good. If there was something worth fighting for, it was evident in Zack and Maddie’s relationship. Though they hadn’t said it yet to one another, I could tell they were in love.
This, of course, made me think of Lola, which snowballed to Lola and Agent Lorne, who must’ve been old enough to be her father or, at the very least, her older brother, staying in some room by themselves, doing God knew what.
It was just a passing feeling.
Not because I’m strong enough to put it out of my mind or anything like that—because I’m not—but because the air shimmered and cracked and a smell like moist basements invaded our nostrils. I would like to tell you I was used to this smell, but if I did, that would be a lie.
In truth, the smell was so harsh that I thought I was going to choke.
Once the confusion passed (believe me, when a giant swamp monster just randomly spawns in your tiny apartment, confusion is just one of the many emotions coming over you), Fizzler stood, dripping on my carpet.
I pointed at the wet spot. “Couldn’t you bring a towel?”
He followed my finger. “Oh, Abraham,” he said, taking a step over to the kitchenette and dripping on the tile. “For future visits, I shall spawn here.”
“Or don’t spawn in my apartment at all,” I mumbled.
“Pardon?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Zack was saying as he was cradled in Maddie’s arms.
“Yeah, we need a better way of doing this,” I said.
“I agree,” Fizzler said. He stood straight up, his scales rippling and shining with reflected light from the living room. “However, we do not have time.”
I noticed in Fizzler’s odd, fish-like eyes, that there was something like worry in them. How a creature of his size and ferocity could worry, I didn’t know, but he was doing it.
“It’s time,” he said as we all stared at him.
“Yeah,” I said. “For what?”
“Bed,” Zack promptly answered.
“No,” Maddie said, now looking at Fizzler with big eyes. “It’s time for…the Games?”
Fizzler nodded sagely.
“But—” I began and shot up from the arm of the couch. “I thought we had another day.”
“The Opening Ceremonies start in less than twelve hours,” Fizzler went on in his steady, deep voice.
“Twelve hours?” I almost jumped through the ceiling. Since our visit to the swamps and the cave near the Rodanian Mountains, we hadn’t heard much from the gaslings, which made me think I might’ve dreamed it. Or maybe they forgot about us accepting their offer. Deep down, I had hoped they’d forgotten.
Since we’d accepted, life had been a steady stream of monster threats. Five days out of the past week, we’d been sabotaged or humiliated or ridiculed in some way.
Zack caught a gremlin letting the air out of the tires of his PT Cruiser. Maddie was taking a shower when she heard something knock against the window. After she wiped away the fog, she saw a vampire sitting on a nearby tree branch. He had a camera around his neck too, so we didn’t know for sure if this was sabotage or just some pervert. Me, well, after the article was released in The Daily Bite a pack of werewolves in their human forms threw a few hot dogs my way, which I wasn’t quick enough to dodge. I am mostly a peaceful person. I don’t seek out violence. I retaliate when I have to, but I didn’t think werewolves throwing wieners at me really called for retaliation. So I just walked on to the gas station with my hands in my pockets and looked back. Sure enough, the werewolves were picking up these dirty hot dogs. I expected a round two. A round two might’ve resulted in my retali
ation—after the penis-tentacle debacle, I realized I could only take so many phallic-shaped projectiles before I snapped. But the werewolves didn’t throw their hot dogs again. Instead, they devoured them in less than two bites, gobbling them down as if they were actually in their werewolf forms, dirt and pebbles and all. It didn’t strike me until later that this incident had occurred on the sidewalk not too far away from my apartment complex in front of a local college bar. To say that sidewalk had seen an ocean’s worth of drunk-vomit, especially on Thirsty Thursdays and Karaoke Fridays, would be an understatement. The joke was on the werewolves. But it also didn’t occur to me until later that most canines—werewolf or otherwise—enjoyed eating vomit, perhaps even more so than they enjoyed eating pork.
On top of the werewolf incident, I’d seen a couple of ‘Steins hanging around the apartment building. Mostly they’d stick to the shadows out of fear of being spotted, but there’d been one occasion where I’d gone to Walmart sometime after midnight—I’m a night owl by nature—and the ‘Stein had followed me in. This didn’t completely surprise me, considering who Walmart’s late-night clientele usually was, but the ‘Stein kept following me around while I shopped. The aisles’ shelves weren’t very tall so I kept seeing that large, scarred and stitched together forehead peeking over at me under its hood. Sometimes when I picked up a certain brand, like when I smelled at least fifteen different scents of Old Spice, the ‘Stein would laugh at me, as if wearing deodorant was funny or something. Then again, I doubted ‘Steins cared much in the way of personal hygiene. When I was checking out, the ‘Stein strolled past the cashier and I in his parachute-sized overcoat and whispered in a deep voice that was impossible to be heard as a whisper, “We gonna git you, Crowley…” and he disappeared through the automatic door empty-handed, spooking the old lady greeter out of her midnight cat nap and ducking beneath the metal door frame.
The cashier asked me if I wanted to call the cops, and I said no, but walking out into the dark parking lot toward the Cruiser, which Zack had let me borrow, was quite an exercise in courage, I’ll tell you.
The last incident was just the other night. I lied in bed, half-asleep, the TV on in the living room, the volume low. From my closet, I heard a whispering.
Normally, I’d just chalk this up to the fact that I was exhausted and out of my mind, both sick with the realization that one of the few people I considered my enemy was probably sleeping with the girl I’d fallen in love with and the fact that in a few days’ time, I’d be battling all kinds of monsters in front of a live audience. But this voice, this one I was hearing in my room, sounded so familiar.
“You’re dead, Crowley,” the voice said. “They’re gonna tear you limb from limb. Don’t even have a chance.”
When it’s the middle of the night and you hear a chilling voice in an apartment that is supposed to be empty, you usually start thinking of all these terrible things. Has someone broke in? Is the Boogeyman in my closet (no, because the Boogeyman doesn’t personally scare people any more since he’d become the self-proclaimed King of the Monsters)? Am I going insane?
The latter question being the most valid.
Then I heard the laugh following the voice and I knew instantly who it was.
Off the bed I went, toward the closet. I threw open the doors. Inside of the closet stood a safe about three feet in height. Those of us at the Fright Squad called it a “Specimen Safe,” which I now realize sounds like we kept vials of semen and other various bodily fluids inside, but I promise, that wasn’t the case. The only thing in that safe, behind those thick walls of metal, was a demon spirit trapped in a ghost catcher. His name was Xaluney and he was a dick.
I kicked the safe. A mistake. Never kick a thick wall of metal without proper footwear. Once the pain subsided, I said, “Shut up, Xaluney!”
“Make me!”
“I will, man. You know I will.”
“You can’t,” the evil spirit said. Then he added a Na-na-na-na! for good measure.
The spirit was just trying to get me riled up. If I was riled up, I’d be more likely to do something stupid, like let him out so he could possess me, which would be an act of desperation on the demon’s part.
“The monsters are already talking about grouping up at the Games. That’s unheard of, Crowley. They’re gonna group up and tear your little Fright Squad apart. Oh yessssss. I hear the plans.”
“Shut up, Xaluney,” I said again.
But he didn’t. He kept on talking and I eventually went into the bathroom with my pillow and blanket and slept in the tub with the door shut and locked behind me. Slayer slept on the floor, on the fuzzy rug, snoring and humming the Spongebob theme song in his sleep. It was comforting but I could still hear Xaluney. Apparently, according to him, I wouldn’t last more than five seconds when the first task started.
We’d see about that. Sooner than later.
“Come, my friends,” Fizzler said. “The elders await.” His thrumming voice snapped me back to the present.
“We need more time,” Maddie said. “I haven’t finished packing or told my mom that I loved her.”
“All that you need shall be given to you in your quarters,” Fizzler said.
Zack breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” he said, “I keep forgetting to buy deodorant—”
“You said you didn’t know what that smell was!” Maddie said.
He shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Come, my friends,” Fizzler said again.
“What about Slayer?—” I began, but before I could get an answer or protest once more, the air shimmered and I felt that sickening feeling of my soul being flushed out of me through my pores.
It sucked. It really sucked.
14
The Elders
When we came out on the other side, the urge to throw up wasn’t as bad as the first time.
For me, at least.
Zack, however, spewed his guts all over a crimson runner.
Slowly, I looked up, trying to put the sounds of Zack’s heaves to the back of my mind.
We were in some kind of royal palace. The walls were gray stone, as smooth as marble, as shiny as a newly minted coin. The room was brightly lit by greenish flames in large sconces. On either side of the red carpet were pools of swamp water. Green like the flames. It really threw off the royal look of the place.
“This is them?” a booming voice said.
I allowed my eyes to follow that voice. As they scanned up the runner, they came to a stop at the base of a platform. On the platform sat a gasling even larger than Gizzler and Fizzler. By all indications, this was a male gasling, but, like I said before, who really knew when it came down to the sexes of these swamp creatures?
This particular gasling sat in a chair higher than the four others. He wore a crown and a velvety red cape with a white fur fringe around the collar. This, of course, was dampened by the natural slime that leaked out of the gosling’s glands or gils or whatever, but he still, somehow, looked regal.
“This is them, my king,” Fizzler said. Out of the corner of his mouth, he told us, “Rise.”
We did. Not very easily, though.
“The humans Abraham Crowley, Madilyn Pepper, and Zackary Murphy,” Fizzler said.
“Hi!” Gizzler said from near the row of chairs on the platform. “I know dem.”
Along with the king, the other gaslings looked quite old. White hairs sprouted off the sides of their heads. One of them wore glasses. Another had a chunk of its ear missing. To the king’s left, was, what I realized for the first time, a female. The only reason I knew this was because of her rather large mammary glands hanging from her chest, which she did not bother to cover up.
Zack was half bent over with Maddie’s hand on his back. He looked as green as the gaslings. “Sorry about throwing up on your nice rug,” he said.
The king waved a hand, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all.
“Approach, my friends,” he said.
Fizzler gave us a li
ttle push.
I was the first one to budge. I walked up the runner, my footsteps muffled. All around us on the walls were large paintings depicting gaslings. One riding what looked like a horse. Another of a group of younger and smaller creatures playing with a ball shaped rock, smiles on their faces. One of a female, her sagging breasts nearly to her waist, holding a torch. And many more. None of these, I noticed, depicted gaslings in battle.
I stopped at the foot of the platform. Even sitting down, the gaslings towered over me. A steady thumping in my chest was all I could hear for the moment.
The king clapped his webbed hands together. “Welcome, humans!” he said. He smiled wide, showcasing fangs even larger than those of Fizzler and Gizzler.
“Thank you,” I said.
“We are honored to have you in our stead,” the king said. “My name is King Plizzler. To my left is my queen, Hizzler. The rest of the elders are as follows: Tizzler, Splizzler, and Fred.”
Fred, the one too old to have a name ending in “-izzler.”
The older gasling with his missing ear waved. His eyes looked at me but they were hazy.
Maddie and Zack stepped up now so we were all even.
“It means so much to us that you have accepted our offer,” the king said. “Gizzler and Fizzler speak very highly of you.”
“Enough chattering,” the queen said. Her voice was whip-like, harsh. “The fate of our race depends on you. This is not about fun and games. This is about victory.”
“Ma’am,” I said, “we will give it our best shot.” I cleared my throat. “Losing the Games means more than just the end of your race. It means our death. We don’t want to die.”
“Good,” the queen said.
“Go easy on them,” the one named Fred said. He spoke with an air of confusion in his voice. “They are brave for taking on this challenge.”
The Monster Games Page 10
