“Thanks, Cort. You always know what to say.”
Amrita turned her attention back to the window and looked outside. The bus was passing by some woods on the way to Amrita’s neighborhood. She started to imagine that the rows and rows of towering evergreen trees were skyscrapers and the clunky cars passing by were bright yellow taxicabs. Amrita saw herself in a black power suit, cell phone in one hand and a briefcase in the other, rushing past people on the busy streets of New York City. When she grew up, Amrita was going to be a somebody. She just had to be.
BUMP!
The bus hit another pothole. Amrita’s head bounced, hitting against the window. “wwwww,” Amrita groaned, looking down at her lap and rubbing her head.
If she had been able to look at the forest for just an instant longer, she would have seen a tall tree shudder and crash to the ground.
THE BRAKES on the bus gave a loud screech as it skidded to a halt. Amrita and Courtney hopped off. They were only a hundred yards or so from Courtney’s house. Amrita wasn’t quite so lucky—her house was a long walk from the bus stop.
Amrita let her backpack, heavy with books and homework, drop to the gravel-covered ground below. The cold wind blew, and Amrita zipped up her warm coat to the top. The bus door closed behind her, and the brakes made another screeching sound as the bus pulled away.
“You comin’ over?” Courtney asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of her house. “Cartoons aren’t gonna watch themselves, you know.”
Amrita shook her head. “Not today. I mean, I’d rather come over and watch ghost shows with you, but I’ve got a ton of homework. And I have to think of some story for the front page. Something that isn’t cheese related.” She laughed.
Courtney raised her hands. “Suit yourself! I’m gonna head inside. Talk later?”
“Like I have a choice?” Amrita said as she hefted her backpack over her left shoulder. “You’re my best friend! Of course we’ll talk later!” With that, she started down the road toward her house.
As she walked on the side of the road, Amrita was struck by how quiet it was. Especially now that the noisy bus was gone. The part of town where she and Courtney lived was out of the way, but really peaceful. The houses were all built right in the woods. It was actually kind of nice being surrounded by nature.
Except for the bugs. Amrita didn’t like the bugs. Maybe that’s why she didn’t mind the cold weather so much. At least in the cold weather, annoying bugs weren’t a problem.
On the walk home, Amrita started thinking about her front-page story for the newspaper again, running possible topics through her mind. As always, her mind started drifting to the future. She thought about what it would be like to work at the Daily Bugle in New York City, reporting on all the Super Heroes—and Super Villains. Having her name splashed across the front page, her very own byline—“Story by Amrita Lakhani.” That’s when she started to have a weird feeling.
You ever have that feeling like you’re being watched?
That’s the one Amrita had right at that moment. She stopped walking. There was no one around, as far as she could tell. Just the woods to her right, and across the road, more woods. There wasn’t anybody around at all.
Weird.
She started walking again, but picked up her pace a little bit. I’m sure I’m just imagining things, she thought.
Then she felt it again. Like something was watching her every move. An electric jolt shot up and down the length of her spine. She stopped again, and looked all around.
SNAP!
“What was that?” Amrita shouted, startling herself. “Who’s there?” She couldn’t see anything for the dense woods. But the loud noise she heard sounded like wood being cracked in two. Like a tree coming down? She stared into the woods closest to her, squinting. The entire forest was dead quiet. This is so spooky, Amrita thought. I don’t even see a squirrel or hear any birds. The air had become still, and her heart was racing now. She could see her breath making small clouds in the cold air. Suddenly, she heard the deafening cracks of hundreds of tiny branches. She spun to her left, her dark hair whipping across her face.
Staring back at her from a bush was a pair of enormous eyes!
Amrita didn’t bother to find out who they belonged to.
She turned in the other direction and sprinted back toward Courtney’s house.
COURTNEY HAD JUST sat down on her couch with a big glass of lemonade and a bowlful of baby carrots and onion dip. Everything was positioned just so, and she grabbed the TV remote. She pointed the remote at the TV and said, “Let’s see what kind of trouble I can get into.” And then her front door flew open.
“What in the—” Courtney said as she leaped off the couch. She was shocked to see Amrita standing in her front door, wide-eyed. Amrita threw her backpack right at Courtney as she whirled around, slamming the door shut. Then she slumped against the door with her back and slid down to the floor.
“Doorbell broken?” Courtney asked, clutching Amrita’s backpack in her arms.
“Shhhhhhh!” Amrita said, raising an outstretched finger to her mouth in an exaggerated shushing motion. “I might have been followed!”
Courtney set the backpack on the floor and walked over to Amrita. She put both hands on her hips, extending her elbows wide. Amrita grabbed her friend’s arm and frantically led her into the kitchen.
“Who would follow you? I mean, who’s even around here to follow you? We live in the middle of nowhere!” Courtney walked over to the nearby cabinet and grabbed a cup. She opened the refrigerator, pulled out a pitcher, and poured a glass. “Here, have some lemonade,” she said. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
Amrita was glancing over her shoulders. She ran to the only window in the kitchen and grabbed the curtains, throwing them shut with a swoosh. Then she peeked out through an opening she made. It was clear that she was more than a little spooked.
“Well, I’ll leave the lemonade here on the counter in case you want it later,” Courtney said with a sigh. She walked back to the living room, plopped back on the couch, and grabbed the remote.
“I was just about to catch up on some reality TV,” Courtney shouted back at Amrita.
“Don’t you care that your best friend could’ve been killed by who knows what?!” Amrita said, hysterical. She had reappeared behind the couch, her arms up in the air and eyes wide. “And I thought you were gonna watch your ghost shows!”
“Slow down, Am! You know how much sense you’re making? All none of it,” Courtney replied. “Why don’t you take a deep breath and tell me what happened? And yes I was gonna watch Europe’s Haunted Cottages, but a girl can change her mind.”
Amrita flung herself on the couch next to Courtney. She took a deep breath, and the words started flowing out of her mouth. “Okay, it’s like this. I was walking home down the road—you know, the road I walk down every day—and it was dull and quiet because we live in the middle of a forest or whatever. And I’m walking and walking and thinking about the school paper and cheese and Super Heroes and my life and how it’s over and all that, and then I hear something like a loud SNAP! and I’m all like, ‘What?’ But there’s nothing around, at least I can’t see anything, you know? I’m looking into the woods and I don’t see anything, so I’m a little freaked-out, but then I look harder and then there they are—two of the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life! And they’re staring right back at me, Cort!”
Courtney looked at her friend. “Amrita,” she began. “I’m your best friend. Right?”
Amrita nodded rapidly.
“Of course I am. That’s why I’m going to tell you that THIS IS SUPER EXCITING! You may have had an encounter with a cryptid!” Courtney held on to Amrita’s shoulders and shook her friend.
“I had a what with a who?” Amrita said.
“A cryptid! You had an honest-to-goodness for reals cryptid encounter! I don’t believe it. Right here, in our neighborhood!”
Courtney had the biggest, gooniest smile on her fac
e as she stared into Amrita’s eyes. She looked like she had just won the lottery or something.
Amrita stared at her friend. At last, she broke the awkward silence. “Pretend I have no idea WHAT a cryptid is, or WHAT you’re talking about. Oh wait, you don’t have to pretend. Because I don’t have any idea what a cryptid is, or what you’re talking about!” As soon as the words left her mouth, Amrita felt awful. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had an opportunity to learn all about cryptids from Courtney. Courtney talked about them all the time. As good a reporter as she was, Amrita had a bad habit of only half listening sometimes.
Ugh…I’m such a bad friend, Amrita thought.
“Am, come with me,” Courtney said, making a tsk-tsk sound with her mouth. “You are about to take your first step into a larger world.” Courtney hopped off the couch and raced up the stairs toward her bedroom.
Amrita looked around the family room nervously to make sure no one was watching her, and ran up the stairs right after her best friend.
COURTNEY’S BEDROOM was a sight to behold. The walls were plastered with posters, featuring all kinds of…well, monsters. They had the goofiest-sounding names, like “Tim Boo Ba” and “Spoor” and “Grottu.” Some of the creatures were staggeringly huge, dwarfing people and buildings. They all looked mad and mean, like they were ready to rip up a city and eat all the people.
Then there were the books. There were books everywhere! On the bookshelf, sure, but they were also on the floor, on Courtney’s desk, and on her bed. There didn’t seem to be any surface in the bedroom that wasn’t covered with a book of some kind. In its own way, it reminded Amrita of her newspaper office at school. No wonder she and Courtney were best friends. Both girls were completely gung ho about their interests. They immersed themselves into whatever they liked. They were also both pretty messy.
When Amrita got to Courtney’s room, her friend was already on the bed, shoving a pile of books onto the floor. They landed with a loud thud. Courtney then patted the bed, indicating for Amrita to sit next to her.
“Lesson time!” Courtney shouted, clearly excited. She had her tablet computer in her hands, and flipped open the cover. Her hand pressed the screen as Amrita plopped down next to her on the bed. “Cryptids,” she began, sounding like an overly earnest teacher. “What are they? Creatures! Creatures that have not yet been proven to exist.”
Amrita glanced at her friend, nodding, but couldn’t take her eyes off the sheer number of books that populated Courtney’s room. “Seriously, Cort. How many books do you have? And they’re all on the same subject!” Amrita chided. Then she made a face. “I wasn’t listening, was I?”
Courtney tapped the edge of the tablet impatiently, waiting for a page to load. “First of all, they are NOT all on the same subject. Some of these books are about lake-dwelling cryptids. There’s a whole section about ancient cryptids that have been revived in the present day. I even have a book all about the Avengers fighting Fin Fang somebody or other. I could go on, but you get the point.”
Amrita nodded again, sheepishly. She really was trying to listen. But it was all so fantastic! Monsters—like, for real monsters. Was it possible that such things really existed?
“Aha!” Courtney yelled, startling Amrita. “Take a look at this!” She thrust the tablet into Amrita’s hands and pointed at the screen.
“Tales to Astonish?” Amrita said. “This is the website that you’re always talking about.”
Courtney grinned. “Indeed! You should totally check it out. Maybe we can find out something about those big, creepy eyes that were watching you from the woods! Like, what those eyes are connected to!”
Amrita shuddered. Part of her was scared, almost too scared—did she really want to know what lurked in those woods? But then another part of her, the reporter, told her that this was a big story. Maybe the story.
Courtney hit the Message Board button on the Tales to Astonish site, and the page loaded. Amrita looked over Courtney’s shoulder at some of the topics: Land Cryptids, Sea Cryptids, Myths & Monsters, Super Heroes & Cryptids…it all seemed kind of unbelievable to Amrita. But Courtney was her best friend—they had known each other since first grade! She knew Courtney was really smart, and wouldn’t just believe something without doing her research. Maybe there was something to this…?
“I’m e-mail buddies with a kid from a couple of towns over: Ben,” Courtney said, as Amrita scrolled through the various topics. “He’s super into this site, too. We exchange a lot of messages about all the interesting stuff on Tales to Astonish. Cryptids. Y’know, weird creatures. Monsters.” Courtney made a spooky face, and Amrita laughed.
“This is an awful lot to take in, Cort,” Amrita said, riveted to the screen. “I mean, real monsters?”
“Sure! The Hulk’s kind of a monster, sort of, isn’t he? You believe in him, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah,” Amrita said, shrugging her shoulders. “But that’s because the Hulk is real. He’s one of the Avengers, for crying out loud! We’ve seen him on TV. He’s had his picture taken with Tony Stark! Not believing in the Hulk is like not believing in processed cheese food.”
“So, same thing with monsters! Ben was posting recently about a monster—like, a real monster. That he and his sister found. It’s called the Glop!”
“Get out. They did NOT find a monster! And ‘the Glop’? Really? What kind of a name is that?”
“First of all, my house, so I don’t have to get out—you do. Second, they did so! And third, yeah, it’s really called the Glop! I don’t name the monsters, Am, I just talk about ’em. Ben has a whole thread about it. Here, take a look!” Courtney clicked on the thread, and Amrita started to read. She couldn’t believe it at first. The thread talked all about a weird statue covered in some kind of goo that suddenly came to life and started chasing after a kid and his sister. The post made it sound like the goo was from another planet—an alien!
As Amrita read, she noticed that a lot of the posts in the thread were from a “Kid Kaiju.” The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“Who’s Kid Kaiju?” Amrita asked innocently enough.
“Who’s Kid Kaiju?” Courtney said, jumping up, now standing on her bed. She gave Amrita a look that said, I can’t believe you’re asking me this question.
“Who’s Kid Kaiju?! He’s, like, the main cryptid kid!” Courtney said. “He knows everything about monsters! Everything! How is it remotely possible that you don’t know who Kid Kaiju is, Am?! I talk about him all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.”
Amrita grimaced. “I don’t know?” she answered. “Bad listener?”
“You have a lot to learn, and you need new ears,” Courtney said, shaking her head. “But the first thing you’re going to do is make a post.”
“I am?” Amrita asked. “Wait. What. On Tales to Astonish?”
“Definitely! Do you want to find out what those big freaky eyes belonged to?”
“Not really.”
“Of course you do! You’re a journalist, aren’t you? You want to know the truth, don’t you? Here, I’ll help you!” With that, Courtney started to type. Amrita knew there was no talking her friend out of it. So she started talking, telling her tale again, as Courtney made a new thread on Tales to Astonish.
SCHOOL DIDN’T START until 8:30 a.m. So the halls were completely empty when Amrita showed up at 7:30. She liked getting to school before any of the other students. It gave her time to think and plan what she was going to write about. Amrita opened her locker and chucked her backpack inside. Then she grabbed a notebook and headed straight for the newspaper office. It was a little generous, calling it an office, Amrita thought. All the other clubs in school had designated meeting places, like the gym, or the cafeteria, or the library. But those clubs needed the space because they had a lot of members. There was only one member of the school newspaper—Amrita.
She came to a nondescript wooden door with a piece of paper taped to it. On the piece of paper were the words THE WEEKLY
CALLER written in black permanent marker. When she opened the door, Amrita regarded the room. But it wasn’t a room, she thought. It was a closet. Like, literally a closet. It had been a custodian’s supply closet until Ms. Malloy fought to convert the space for the school newspaper. Oh well, Amrita thought. Closet or no, it’s home.
“All right people, let’s get to work!” she said, to no one. Even though she was the only person who worked on the newspaper, Amrita liked to imagine she had a big staff. It made things a little less lonely.
Sitting down at her computer, Amrita started to type a new story. No more processed cheese food stories for her. This one was all about her strange experience from yesterday. She was going to tell everyone in school about it! Maybe this could be her big scoop.
Amrita wanted to make sure she got every last detail right, so she logged into talestoastonish.com. Courtney had done an awesome job of transcribing everything Amrita had told her, and she wanted to check her notes. Amrita found her thread, and was surprised to see that she actually had a response!
The post was signed Kid Kaiju. The guy that Courtney was telling her about! Right off the bat, Courtney was talking with the monster expert himself. Maybe Amrita could get an exclusive interview for the newspaper! Excited, Amrita bit her lip and started to type a response:
She hit Post, and went back to work on her article. The idea that maybe she could get Kid Kaiju on the record to talk about this monster stuff was too exciting. Who would have thought? Her fingers flew across the keyboard. The story seemed to write itself!
As Amrita worked, she kept the web browser open behind her article. She wanted to be able to refer back to her account of yesterday’s big-eyed monster encounter on Tales to Astonish. She was surprised when she saw the thread updated—Kid Kaiju had just posted another response!
Marvel Monsters Unleashed: The Gruesome Gorgilla! Page 2
