The Battle of the Werepenguins

by Allan Woodrow

  The ship bumped against the icy shore as arctic winds swirled across a vast, cold land. Large crests of snow filled the vista as far as the eye could see.

  “Are you s-sure this is it?” asked Annika, shivering.

  Bolt was certain, although he couldn’t quite explain why. It was just a feeling.

  “And p-people live here?” Annika was too cold to speak without stuttering.

  “Penguins live here. And a werepenguin.” Bolt should have been scared, so close to the Stranger. But, strangely, he wasn’t. It felt penguin-y here. It felt like home.

  Except.

  Or maybe accept? Odd that accept popped into his head just then. He couldn’t explain why.

  Bolt felt a hostile and violent aura coming from the glaciers, creeping toward them like a giant spider approaching its kill. That was something that did scare him. “Do you feel that?” Bolt asked Grom. “Do you feel the hate?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Grom, who clearly did not feel the hate, much to Bolt’s relief.

  Born from love, Bolt thought, clinging to the hope that it mattered.

  Annika swung a rope ladder from the boat, and they climbed down it, first Bolt, then Grom, and lastly Annika. She had brought a heavy coat lined with sheepskin, but she still trembled. “I thought this would k-keep me warm.”

  “There’s a reason sheep don’t live in the South Pole,” said Bolt, who wore only a T-shirt and jeans, as did Grom. Werepenguins did not feel cold.

  “I feel a bit toasty, actually,” admitted Grom.

  “You d-don’t have to b-brag about it,” snapped Annika between chattering teeth.

  At first, all Bolt saw was white: white snow tossed by the wind, white snowcapped mountains in the distance, and ice and snow at their feet. But as his eyes adjusted to the glare, he also saw penguins. They stood far up in the mountains, gathered in circles on the icy plains. They peeked out from holes in the ground. Thousands of them, everywhere.

  “They’re watching us,” said Bolt.

  “A b-bit unsettling,” said Annika.

  “Whazzup, penguins?” asked Grom, waving.

  They walked farther inland, upon more ice and snow, lots and lots of snow, and as they did the penguins grew more numerous, emerging from wherever they hid to gawk at the newcomers, curious.

  But these penguins did not stare with friendly expressions. Bolt felt their hate like a gelatinous mass of anger. It was almost as if they had expected him. They probably had. Bolt would not catch the Stranger by surprise.

  In fact, Bolt could feel the Stranger’s thoughts. Come to me, come to me. Bolt did his best to ignore the words, but he couldn’t tune all of them out. The hate in the air was thick.

  “So much violence,” moaned Bolt. “The very air is coated with it, like an evil chill.”

  “Don’t start c-complaining about the ch-chill,” snapped Annika amid her shivering.

  “I like it here!” said Grom, happily whistling.

  They continued walking. Bolt let the hate blow by him with the breeze as he warmed himself with happier thoughts. Charity. Goodwill.

  But those happy thoughts merely bounced off the dense wall of misery filling the island and fell, unheard, at Bolt’s feet. He tried again. Friends. Caring for one another.

  None of those thoughts traveled more than a foot before dissipating into the wind.

  It felt different than Pingvingrad had, where all of Bolt’s thoughts had bounced off silver. There was no fuzziness here, only so much evil that it seemed to suffocate everything that was good.

  Welcome to my home. I have looked forward to this day! Bolt curled his hands into fists as the Stranger’s voice filled his head, and his shoulders, and his legs, and other places he didn’t want to think about.

  Bolt forced the thoughts out of his ears, and his nose, but like a bad cold, they merely refilled inside him. He breathed slowly, expelling each feeling of rottenness as it flooded into him, like trying to empty a bathtub with the faucet still running.

  You were chosen to be with me, thought the Stranger.

  No! I was chosen to fight you.

  You don’t really believe that, do you? You are one of us now.

  “Leave me alone!” Bolt screamed.

  Annika and Grom stared at Bolt.

  “Why w-would we l-leave you alone? I thought you w-wanted us here,” said Annika.

  Bolt was sweating, but his head was clear. “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Then who were you t-talking to?” Annika asked, brow furrowed.

  “No one,” mumbled Bolt, stomping past her. He snuck a peek at Grom, wondering if he had heard the Stranger, too. Apparently not. Grom walked forward with a hop in his step.

  Did the Stranger even know Grom was here? Or because Grom was born from love, could the Stranger not sense him at all?

  The penguins—tens of thousands of them probably, although Bolt didn’t have time to count—continued to stare as Bolt, Annika, and Grom walked down a path dug into the snow, a narrow trough that wound through glaciers, up ice slopes, and around fissures.

  “Will they attack us?” asked Annika, eyeing the birds.

  Bolt shook his head. The Stranger wanted Bolt to arrive. He was waiting.

  In front of them were mountains, icy crags that were so tall they seemed to reach up forever. The mountain range looked close by, but they walked for over an hour, although it was impossible to say for how long, exactly, before reaching its edge. They could no longer see their ship or even the water where they had left it.

  Up ahead, the winding path began to rise up, leading into the mouth of an ice cave. Although they were still a good half mile from its entrance, an incredible amount of hate energy emanated from it, more hate and more pulsating evil than Bolt had ever felt before, and he had felt plenty of similar pulses over the last few weeks.

  The Stranger was waiting.

  Yes, I’m waiting!

  “Go away!” Bolt wailed.

  Annika and Grom stopped. “Why are you t-telling us to go away?” snapped Annika, annoyed.

  “No reason,” Bolt mumbled.

  They continued onward along the path. Bolt dug one of his hands into his pants pocket, feeling the smooth tooth inside. One plunge of the dagger would end the Stranger’s life.

  But Bolt couldn’t kill. He wouldn’t kill.

  He had to, to save all the penguins.

  No!

  Yes!

  No!

  “Argh!” Bolt screamed, and he didn’t even care that Annika and Grom shot him confused glances once again.

  Grom hopped along, seemingly oblivious to the heavy despair around them. If only Grom wasn’t so inexperienced as a penguin! He hadn’t even been able to keep Bolt’s thoughts out of his head during their practice sessions. Not once. Could he hope to stop the Stranger’s?

  Bolt halted. He looked at the cave, then back at Grom. And then at Annika.

  This was the moment he had been planning for, dreading, since their adventure began. But why he had been picked for this monumental task, why fate had given him a penguin birthmark, still remained a mystery to him.

  It didn’t matter. Bolt was the chosen one, and he needed to fight the Stranger alone. How, exactly, he didn’t know—how could a boy who refused to kill defeat the world’s mightiest monster, even with a tooth? And he still had no idea what all of the seer’s chant meant.

  “You guys stay here,” said Bolt.

  Annika turned around sharply. “What are you talking about?” she asked, her mouth falling open along with Grom’s.

  “I appreciate you both coming with me. I really do,” said Bolt. “But this fight needs to end with me.”

  “Face it, Bolt. You’re no warrior,” said Annika.

  “I know,” said Bolt. “I’m just an orphan who never want
ed anything but a family. But maybe that’s enough. You have to fight for your family. You taught me that, Annika. And, Grom, you sacrificed so much for your sister and for me. I can’t have you guys risk your lives for nothing. I need to do this.”

  Bolt strode forward, almost surprised when Annika and Grom stayed behind.

  He wished he were as brave as he pretended to be.

  37.

  The Lair of the Stranger

  As Bolt entered the ice cave, he bit his lips—until he remembered that biting his lips was just a bad habit and he was doing way too much of it lately, and so he stopped, but then immediately began to bite them again. How could he not? He’d try to break this habit when he was not in grave danger. If he was, one day, not in grave danger. It had been a long time since he had felt anything other than encroaching dread.

  Despite the danger, Bolt admired the cave’s beauty. It glittered with ice so pure and blue Bolt had to look away and blink a few times.

  The ceiling of the cave was impossibly high and glistened like glass. If it weren’t for the long icicle stalactites hanging from the ceiling—or were those stalagmites? Bolt never could remember which was which—looking as sharp as knives, Bolt might have called the ceiling beautiful. Dead fish littered the ground.

  In the back of the cave, on a raised shelf lined with stalagmites that reminded Bolt of whale fangs—or were the ones on the ground stalactites?—was an elaborately carved ice throne. Next to the throne stood a female penguin in a suit of armor. Sitting on the throne was a man.

  The Stranger.

  Power seemed to ooze from him. Bolt couldn’t feel cold, but he felt the man’s coldness all the same. It crept up Bolt’s back like a cockroach.

  And Bolt knew creeping cockroaches well. The orphanage back home had been filled with them.

  Bolt continued walking inside the cave, and the Stranger stood up and waved. Bolt paused in surprise. He had expected a giant man, one who seemed larger than life.

  The Stranger was tall and thin, bone thin. His face was lined with a dozen oddly shaped, long scars. But with his hair in a ponytail and a long, straggly beard, he looked more like an old hippie than a werepenguin ruler. He wore a gray pair of shorts, a tie-dye T-shirt, and Birkenstock sandals with socks pulled up mid-calf. His first words were, “You made it. Outta sight, man!” His eyebrows were so thick and his nose so long they reminded Bolt of someone wearing funny Halloween glasses. His thin lips smiled crookedly, revealing blackened teeth underneath. “How was the trip?”

  “Long.”

  “Yeah, and what a long, strange trip it’s been, huh? Sorry about living so far out, though.” The Stranger waddled toward Bolt, a slow and shifting waddle. He weaved around a few piles of dead fish, careful not to step on one. “But we’re finally together! Can you dig it?” When he reached Bolt, he put his hand up for a high five. Bolt ignored it. The man shrugged, lowered his hand, and turned to the armored penguin. “Saytana, don’t be a drag. Get over here. Say hello to our honored amigo.” To Bolt he added, “It’s not easy to find suits of armor that fit penguins, you know.”

  The penguin waddled over, her metal clanging, her visor up and revealing a sneering beak with a long scar across it. The penguin snarled.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” said Bolt. He tried to dip into her mind. I am here to help free you!

  The words bounced off her. “The armor is made of silver,” said the Stranger. “Pretty groovy, huh? Even I can’t penetrate the stuff. But Saytana is naturally evil anyway. She doesn’t need much help from me.” He did a small, happy hop and then put his arm around Bolt’s shoulders. Bolt shivered at the man’s touch. The crawling-cockroach feeling returned. “It’s been a bummer waiting for you, man. But here we are! I must admit, I’m totally stoked. First, you defeat my Baron. Not easy to do! Then my Earl! And then my dentist! You’re the man! Or the boy, really. Age is relative, you know? I mean, I’m 328 years old, but really, do I look it? High five!” Again he held up his hand, and again Bolt ignored it. “Get with the program, man. We’ll have a gas together, I know it. What a team we’ll make! Two cool cats! Or rather, two cats, since we don’t feel cool or cold, right? Ha!”

  Bolt stepped back, so the Stranger’s arm no longer hung around his shoulders. “A team? You’re out of your mind. I’m here to stop you.”

  The Stranger didn’t look worried at all. “Relax, my man. You have me all wrong. I’m the good guy in this story.”

  “The good guy?” Bolt might have laughed at the words, but this didn’t seem like an appropriate time for laughter. “You’re a monster who wants to rule the world’s penguins, take all people prisoner, and force them to fry fish sticks for you. How does that make you a good guy?”

  “I’ll give everyone Sundays off!”

  “I’m here to end this,” hissed Bolt. He plunged his hand into his pocket and felt the smooth surface of the tooth. This was the moment he had fought for, planned for. He needed to grab the tooth and attack the Stranger. Now.

  Bolt took his hand out of his pocket, nothing in his grip.

  He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  “You’re here to end this?” asked the Stranger, repeating Bolt’s last words, and then giggled. It wasn’t a cackle—Bolt would have expected the Stranger to cackle—but instead it was a high-pitched snicker. “He-he-he. No, no, no,” said the Stranger, wagging his finger at Bolt. “Get it together, friend. Not happening. I’ll tell you what will happen, though.” The Stranger paced back and forth, his hands gesturing wildly. “First, you’ll join my army. Then the penguins will rise up and fight the man. And the woman. All of them. Why do you think I’ve spent the last hundred years dropping hate nuggets into every penguin in the world? Just for kicks? Well, sort of. But now, we will fight the penguin war to end all penguin wars. Not that there have been other penguin wars. You know what they say. Make war, not love!”

  “The expression is the other way around,” said Bolt. “Make love, not war.”

  “I like my way better. But either way, we will rule the world. Is that outta sight or what?”

  “None of that is going to happen,” growled Bolt.

  “Don’t freak out, man. Of course it will.” The Stranger stopped pacing and stood in front of Bolt, his mouth twisted into a grin. With his black, decaying teeth, the man looked maniacal. Then again, he sort of was. “You just got to my pad, so we’ll hang loose and start tomorrow. Today, we’ll make the penguins in the ravine tickle one another. It’ll be a blast!”

  “I won’t do that,” declared Bolt, horrified at the thought, knowing how much penguins hate being tickled despite being very ticklish. Few people know that penguins are the second most ticklish birds in all of the South Pole, right after yellow-billed pintail ducks. “Your reign ends today.”

  If only Bolt believed his own words! His mind raced. How could he defeat the Stranger without killing him? Maybe something from the seer’s chant?

  Nothing came to him.

  The Stranger giggled again. Even Saytana, the armored penguin, let out a chuckle. Penguin laughter, which is a mixture of snorting and blubbering, is very disturbing. But Saytana’s laugh was even more disturbing than most; it sounded wetter. Bolt hissed, baring his teeth.

  “You really need to mellow,” said the Stranger. He snapped his fingers.

  Bolt’s legs grew weak. He couldn’t stand. It was as if he were a car tire and someone had slashed all the air out of him. The Stranger stared at him, one of his bushy eyebrows raised inquisitively. Bolt felt an enormous weight in his body and a voice commanding him, Kneel, boy!

  Bolt found himself collapsing onto his knees, and despite his struggles against it, his head bowed.

  “If I can control the world’s penguins, I can control you. Don’t forget who I am!”

  “And who are you?” asked Bolt, forcing the words through his mostly frozen mouth.

  “Well, honestl
y, I forgot my name long ago. It’s a bummer. Just think of me as your worst nightmare come to life.” The Stranger may have sounded friendly before, but there was no mistaking the evil inside him now, his voice dark and ominous. His eyes flashed red, and his face twisted into a malicious grin.

  38.

  Born from Hate

  Bolt could move his eyes and his mouth, but nothing else. The Stranger paced in front of him. “Do you think I was always a penguin creature, Bolt?” The Stranger picked up a dead fish from the ground, swallowed it bones and all, and then continued without waiting for an answer. “I wasn’t, although I can’t remember much about my life before.”

  “I don’t care,” Bolt said, snarling. “Let me go.”

  The Stranger ignored him, continuing to pace, talking as much to himself as to Bolt. “I remember a shipwreck. It was a real downer, man. Why was I on the ship? Why was it wrecked? I have no clue. I recall lying injured in the sand on a small deserted island and thinking that was the end for me. Sayonara, world. But that night a dying penguin bit me with its final bite. And you know what they say about penguins who die while biting you.”

  “I don’t, actually,” said Bolt.

  “They say a penguin that bites you with its dying breath passes its soul on to you. Pretty heavy, huh? That night I changed. I was healed! And I could control all the penguins on the island. I told them, Build me a ship, pronto. This was a hairy task for penguins without any tools, or thumbs, or any idea what a ship was. So it took a while. I slowly went about growing my empire, spreading the power of hate across the penguin-verse. Nothing is more powerful than hate! Right on!”

  “Love is greater.”

  The Stranger shook his head. “You sound like a hippie from the 1960s.”

  Bolt began to point out that it was the Stranger who sounded like a hippie, but then decided to let it go.

  “You were all I needed, man,” said the Stranger. “The final piece of my earth-sized jigsaw puzzle. Isn’t that the grooviest?”

  “No, it’s the un-grooviest. But why conquer the world? Penguins are about love and family, not hate!”