Creature Keepers and the Perilous Pyro-Paws

by Peter Nelson

  “It’s located at the dead center of the crater,” Abbie said. “Ground zero of the impact. Could be a remnant of the asteroid Wilford talked about.”

  “Asteroids and meteorites don’t stay hot,” Jordan said. “Especially underwater. For millions of years. There has to be some energy source inside it.”

  “Or something alive,” Abbie said.

  “So not an asteroid, more of an egg?” Quisling asked.

  “Or both,” Jordan said.

  “An eggsteroid,” Bernard said.

  “Asteroid, eggsteroid, whatever it is, it’s the key to Chupacabra’s entire plan to take over the world,” Quisling said. “That much I know for certain.”

  “He had the Hydro-Hide,” Abbie said to Quisling. “Why didn’t Chupacabra just swim down and take it? Why’d he keep you around? And don’t say it was your charming personality. Or your needlework.”

  Harvey took a deep breath. “It was precisely because he wanted what was down there that he kept me around. He couldn’t go near it. The effect of the blaststones was too much for him.”

  “You mean this?” Jordan pulled from his pocket the red stone he’d pried out of the rock. “I found one just like it in the snow the day we captured Chupacabra.”

  “Yes,” Harvey said. “To us they’re worthless. Some form of quartz. But to my former master, they were a temporary source of power. And so for me, an opportunity to be useful—and survive.” Harvey looked at Abbie. “Even before he stole the Hydro-Hide, Chupacabra attempted to swim down to that asteroid egg. As he did, the blaststones were drawn to him. He said it felt like he was burning from within. Each time he tried, it was too painful, and he’d have to turn back. But he discovered he could withstand holding one or two blaststones, and they provided him with temporary powers. At least until they faded, like used-up batteries. And when that happened, my former master needed his batteries replaced. He entrusted me to dive down and retrieve more for him. I traded those blaststones for my life.”

  “What kind of powers did the stones give him?” Jordan asked.

  “Oh, nothing like the powers he stole from the three special cryptids. But he found he could harness the heat they created in his body and channel it outward.”

  “To do what?” Bernard asked.

  “Maybe to turn the Yeti’s crystal map trail into toxic sludge,” Jordan said.

  “Or melt that tower of ice from within,” Abbie added. “Capturing Morris and me.”

  “Oh, he could do much more than that,” Harvey said. “With a fresh blaststone, Chupacabra could step into a fire, soaking up the power of the flame and use it to thrust himself through the sky. He called it fireflying. My idea, that name.”

  “You must be so proud,” Abbie sneered.

  “That’s right,” Jordan said. “I remember Izzy and I saw him firefly—straight up into the sky, and right out of the Amazon jungle.”

  “Using powers derived from the blaststones I provided him, he was able to steal the elemental gifts from Nessie, the Sasquatch, and the Yeti.”

  “Again,” Abbie said. “Proud of yourself?”

  “No.” Harvey looked down. “You will never know how sorry I am.”

  “But it sounds like stealing their powers was just part of a bigger plan,” Bernard said. “To get the eggsteroid.”

  “Or what’s inside it,” Abbie added.

  Harvey nodded. “That’s exactly why he needed those three elemental gifts—to get to the fourth. Combining the Hydro-Hide, Soil-Soles, and Blizzard-Bristles, he would somehow access the asteroid egg, crack it open, and take whatever power it holds.”

  “Well, he can’t get to it now,” Bernard said. “Because his butt is frozen solid back at the CKCC.”

  “Right!” Harvey exclaimed. “And you now have the location and know the secret of the final elemental power, all thanks to me, your old pal Harvey Quisling! Case closed, hooray for the Creature Keepers!”

  “Not quite,” Jordan said. “If there’s an unhatched cryptid down there, it’s up to us to get it out, and see that it’s kept safe. Especially if it has a power that could fall into the wrong hands.”

  “But—the only way is to combine the three other powers,” Quisling said. “And the only creature with the three powers is—” He began sweating and trembling. “Surely you wouldn’t—release Chupacabra?”

  Abbie smiled at Jordan. “I dunno,” she said. “I bet he’d be happy to see you, Harvey. We could throw a little reunion party.”

  The old man’s eyes grew wide. He looked at Jordan pleadingly. “Y-you can’t! Please! You mustn’t!”

  “Calm down, Harvey.” Jordan seemed lost in thought. “She’s messing with you.”

  “Consider it payback,” Abbie said. “For what you did to my friend Morris.”

  “Chupacabra isn’t the only one with those powers,” Jordan said.

  “Nessie, Syd, and Wilford,” Abbie said. “Working together, they could do it.”

  “But how would you get those three together?” Bernard said. “They’re in different parts of the world.”

  Abbie smiled coyly. “If only we knew an ace pilot with a supersonic Heli-Jet.”

  Bernard smiled back. “I’d be honored. But not before I find Eldon and try to explain everything. I never should have kept the truth from him. He may never speak to me again. But I have to try.”

  20

  “Bernard!”

  Jordan called out as loud as he dared. He’d been trying to keep up with the excited Skunk Ape as Bernard ducked between the dilapidated shacks and storage sheds on the platform, disappearing into the shadows.

  Across the water, the late-night revelers at the Alebrijes parade were singing and laughing at the end of el Terminal Remota pier. They were far enough away, but Jordan knew one stiff breeze carrying his voice across might alert them to the strange squatters hiding out just a hundred feet away.

  He came to the edge of the platform and looked down. He spotted Bernard bouncing across the webbing that connected the platform to the pier. The Skunk Ape disappeared beneath el Terminal Remota. “What is that maniac doing?” Jordan said to himself.

  A moment later, a sudden, whipping breeze blasted Jordan from behind. He spun around. Hovering silently just off the deep end of the platform was the Heli-Jet. And sitting in the cockpit was Bernard. Jordan realized Bernard had stashed the state-of-the-art hybrid flying machine in such an obvious place, no one would think to look there—beneath the long pier crowded with humans.

  Jordan laughed as he ran toward the Heli-Jet and leaped on board. He shot his hairy pilot an impressed glance. “Not bad, Bernard,” he said. “Not bad at all!”

  The Heli-Jet had two amazing features: a stealth rotor system that worked like a helicopter but was almost completely silent and two massive rocket thrusters that weren’t silent at all but could jettison the craft at incredible speeds.

  Bernard kept the copter in stealth mode, flying it low and farther out over the water until they were a safe distance from the pier and the cruise ship. “Ready?” he said. Jordan nodded. “Hit it, copilot.”

  Jordan slammed the big red button marked Boost Thrusters. The engines roared. Jordan sank back deep into his seat as the Heli-Jet’s rocket engines blasted them across the Gulf of Mexico, toward the Okeeyuckachokee Swamp.

  Francine stood before a small gathering of Face Chompers listening intently on the floor of the cabin. She held a notebook in her twiggy hands. The title on the cover was written in scraggly handwriting: FACECHOMPER Guide to Proper Human Interaction—Property of Bernard.

  “Okay, let’s try another one,” she said. “This time, Donald, I want you to engage me in a normal human-type conversation.”

  “Sure thing,” the apelike Ban Manush said as he stepped up to Francine.

  Francine cleared her mossy throat and read from the journal. “‘Say, fellow citizen. Did you catch the popular sporting event that recently occurred?’”

  “I have seen it!” Donald blurted out. “I am
quite pleased that the team for which I was rooting was victorious!” The rest of them nodded in agreement, lightly applauded, then fell into a sort of depressing silence.

  “Okay, that was good, probably,” Francine said, flipping through the journal. “I wouldn’t really know. Let’s try another one.”

  Abbie sat in the corner trying not to laugh as Francine read from a new page. “Ooh, here’s a good one. ‘Human Transactions.’ For this I’ll need an object. Any common object will—Ow!” A scuba flipper hit her in the head. Clarissa was grinning ear to ear, snapping her claws, eager to play.

  “Sorry,” she lisped. “This is so exciting. Use the flipper!”

  “Fine.” Francine took the flipper and turned to the Tasmanian Globster, who, as usual, was lying in a pile. “Okay, Hogie, you’re up. Pretend I’m a human, and I have this flipper. You pass me on the street, and I’ll give it to you as a gift. Ready?”

  Hogie formed himself into a more vertical blob and grinned. “Wow. Okay.”

  He took a deep, gurgling breath, gathered himself up a bit more, then pretended to casually ooze past her. “Oh!” He suddenly seemed surprised to see Francine. “Greetings there, human person,” the Globster said. “I see you have a flipper as a gift. How wonderful I am for you.”

  Francine held out the flipper. Hogie’s many eyes lit up, and a goopy, armlike protrusion snatched it from her. “Flipper! I find this to be most appreciating, with many more to you!” Hogie admired the flipper for a moment, sniffed it, then tossed it in his mouth, swallowing it whole. He belched loudly and smiled up at her. “So pleasantly I have met you. Someday later!” With that, he oozed away from her.

  The other cryptids applauded as the Tasmanian Globster attempted some version of a bow. “And scene,” Francine said. “Not bad. Let’s try again. Who’s next?”

  A roomful of wings, paws, blobs, and claws shot into the air. Abbie was laughing so hard, tears were running down her face.

  Bernard stared out the front window as he piloted the Heli-Jet across the Gulf of Mexico. “This is all my fault,” he said. “I should’ve found the courage to tell Eldon on my own. I lied to him, and I deceived you and Abbie. I hate that I was so dishonest, but I didn’t know what else to do. When Harvey shared what was at the center of that crater and what Chupacabra had wanted it for, I knew I had to alert the Creature Keepers. But I wasn’t ready to tell Eldon about the Face Chompers. Once you and Abbie became leaders of the Creature Keepers, I thought I could trick you two into coming—without Eldon.”

  “It’s okay,” Jordan said. “I understand. And so will he. You’ll see. Eldon will go right back to being the way he was.”

  “I’m afraid he and I will never go back to the way we were,” Bernard said. “And maybe I deserve that. But I just hope it doesn’t mean he’s done with the Creature Keepers, too.”

  Jordan looked straight ahead. He didn’t say it, but he hoped the same thing.

  The shadow of a land mass in the distance began to grow clearer. As they approached Ponce de Leon Bay, the inlet on the edge of the Okeeyuckachokee Swamp, Jordan and Bernard peered out at the Creature Keepers’ dock and boathouse. They both let out a sigh of relief when they spotted the stolen speedboat beached on the shore, as if Eldon drove it right onto the land and abandoned it. Jordan was overcome with happiness, knowing his friend had made it home.

  Bernard lowered the Heli-Jet over the dock and set it down near the boathouse. Then the two of them split up. The Skunk Ape headed into the swamp, and Jordan ran toward Eternal Acres. He reached Doris’s greenhouse and hit the trap door switch. The floor jerked and began to lower, and Jordan leaped onto his belly, sliding down into the darkness among the loose carrots that had fallen to the floor.

  He rolled into the command center and quickly looked around. All seemed normal. He ran to the port window of the Cooler and peered inside. Chupacabra was safe and sound, still frozen in the block of ice.

  Hap was sitting in an office chair with his feet up, sound asleep. The elevator door in the corner swooshed open, and Jordan ran toward it, hoping to see Eldon on the other side.

  What he saw instead was Doris. She rushed out in her nightgown, her hair in curlers, with a thick, white goo covering her face. She held a large whisk and waved it around like a weapon.

  “Jordan!” she cried. “What in blazes are you doing here? I got a breach signal that the greenhouse entryway had opened! Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he said. “Doris, have you heard from Eldon?”

  “It’s nearly dawn! Why would I have heard from Eldon? He’s supposed to be with you!”

  Doris looked over at Hap, still snoring away near the Cooler. She rushed to him and swung the whisk, batting his feet off the desk. He stumbled forward, woke with a start, and stared wide-eyed at Doris’s face.

  “Aaah!” he screamed into his walkie-talkie. “Mayday! Mayday! I’m under attack by a hideous lunch lady covered in corn chowder! Get down here, anyone!”

  Doris rolled her eyes and pulled out her walkie-talkie. Hap’s walkie let out an ear-piercing squeeee! Doris screamed into it, “Get your lazy butt up off the floor!”

  Hap looked closer at her. “Doris? Oh. Sorry, ma’am.” He rose to his feet.

  “You slept through an intrusion!” Doris snapped. “Jordan slid in here, easy as you please! What if it hadn’t been Jordan? What if it had been a Face Chomper?”

  “Hey, Jordan. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay.” Jordan turned to Doris. “The Face Chomper threat isn’t a threat anymore. We found the missing cryptids. They weren’t kidnapped. They joined the Face Chompers.”

  Doris gasped. “Goodness me, no!”

  “Bummer, man,” Hap said.

  “No, no,” Jordan shook his head. “I mean, they are the Face Chompers. The Face Chompers are a friendly outreach organization made up of rogue cryptids. They gather, welcome, and train any creature who wants to quit the Creature Keepers to come out of hiding and join the human world. And Bernard—is their leader.”

  Doris’s mouth fell open. A glob of the thick, white moisturizing goo on her face dripped onto the floor. “Are you sure? What about the Creature Keepers?”

  “They’re not looking to destroy us,” Jordan said. “They just—well, they just want to be free of us. They really mean us no harm.”

  “Then they should really think of another name,” Hap said.

  Doris glared at Hap. “Let me remind you, Mr. Cooperdock,” she snapped authoritatively. “Falling asleep on Cooler watch is still grounds for termination, Face Chompers or not. Assuming we’re still an organization in the morning, you’ll be lucky to not be free of us yourself. You are dismissed of your duties, for now.”

  Hap lowered his head and slinked off toward the elevator. Jordan called after him, “Hap, could you please be responsible for gathering all the staff and the Keepers tomorrow morning? House meeting, front hall, nine o’clock.”

  “Sure thing,” Hap said. He glanced shamefully at Doris as he stepped onto the elevator. “G’night, ma’am,” he said. Then the doors closed.

  “Don’t you try to help him,” Doris said. “He’s still got a lot of shaping up to do to become part of my team. That is, assuming there’s still any need for us.”

  Jordan told Doris about the mysterious eggsteroid that lay at the center of the crater and how they needed to get it to a safer place. She was still in shock about hearing that Bernard of all creatures had decided to abandon them and was particularly saddened to hear how Eldon had found out.

  “Go,” she said. “You need to find that poor boy. I’ll keep watch down here—and gather up all the carrots you spilled all over the floor.”

  “Sorry about that,” Jordan said.

  “It’s okay. Peggy will be up soon and in need of breakfast, so you did me a favor.”

  As Jordan ran toward the ramp, he thought of one last request. “Oh, and contact Alistair and get him to bring Nessie in as soon as possible. If we have
any chance of cracking that eggsteroid at the bottom of the Chicxulub crater, we’re going to need the help of the Loch Ness Monster—and her Hydro-Hide!”

  21

  Abbie let out a big long yawn and looked around the small dimly lit Face Chompers hideout. In the corner, Harvey was quietly stitching another pink slip. Unlike Abbie, he seemed perfectly able to ignore what was beginning to strike her as an endless rehearsal for a horribly acted and very weird play.

  Gavin had taken command of the notebook and held it in his large talons. “Lou, you’re up next. Remember, in this practice exercise, Bernard is trying to get us to learn how to interact with humans and their, uh . . .” He peered at Bernard’s notes. “‘Celery phones.’”

  Gavin reached into a cardboard box with the word “props” scribbled on its side. He pulled out a bunch of celery and handed it to Lou. “Okay. From the top.”

  Lou took a deep breath and carefully held the celery stalk against one of his pointy devil-ears. He glanced nervously at Gavin. The Owl Man was staring back at him intensely. The tension mounted. Gavin suddenly screeched, “RING-RING!”

  Lou screamed, then threw the celery out the window.

  “Hey, not too shabby, Lou,” Hogie said. “Lot better than I did.” A stalk of celery was sticking out of the side of his gelatinous head.

  “Okay, I’ve seen enough,” Abbie said. “Guys, you have to stop this.”

  “Bernard said we have to practice if we want to meet people,” Francine said.

  “And do what? Show them you’re a bunch of clueless freaks?”

  Gavin held up the notebook. “This is Bernard’s exercise regimen. And until he gets back, we shall keep working with it to refine our people skills.”

  “We all love Bernard,” Abbie said. “But trust me on this—he’s a little fuzzy on his human terminology.” She gestured to her silk nightie. “Just look at his attempt at leaving ‘pink slips.’” She pulled her smartphone out of her pocket. “Also, this is called a ‘cell phone,’ not a ‘celery phone.’” She turned to Gavin. “May I?”