Creature Keepers and the Burgled Blizzard-Bristles

by Peter Nelson

  Abbie thought for a moment as Bernard walked up, bent down, and effortlessly lifted Morris straight up over his head, careful not to spill his head-bowl. “Just checking,” he said, setting the Kappa back down. “Wanted to make sure I hadn’t lost my brute strength. That water diet we put you on has really helped you shed the pounds, Morris. Like, a thousand of them.”

  He headed off into the forest. “I’m going to go back and get the Heli-Jet ready for takeoff. We need to pick up the other two before nightfall.”

  Zaya rushed over to them. “Morris, did you say it was your Keepers who emptied your sara?”

  Morris looked down. “I don’t really like thinking about it,” he said sadly.

  “I remember back at the CKCC,” Abbie said. “Eldon mentioned something about Morris being left in a state where no one could harm him. Turning him to solid stone must be what he meant. It was the safest way to protect him, I suppose.”

  “No!” Zaya was suddenly upset. “Why would my Corky be the only one?”

  Abbie turned to him. “What are you talking about? Who’s Corky?”

  “My cryptid. She was hypnotized by some mutant creature, put into a sleep state. I tried to wake her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t help her.”

  “Wait. Mutant creature? What mutant creature?”

  “Freakish-looking beast. Strange green reptilian scales, but a doglike face. And one giant foot. Like he was built from different parts.”

  “Chupacabra,” Abbie said.

  “He paralyzed my Corky, but spared me. Let me go so I could tell others what had happened. He said he’d do the same to all cryptids who didn’t join him. I didn’t know where to go, so I came to warn my neighbors, Katsu and Shika, and make sure they were safe. But when I arrived, they were gone, and their creature was paralyzed, too.”

  “And you thought this mutant creature did to Morris what he did to Corky?”

  Zaya nodded sadly. “It’s why I booby-trapped the forest. In case that thing came back. And then you showed up. I was hoping that if an Elite Keeper came all this way to save Morris, you might save Corky next.” He looked at Abbie with eyes full of tears. “Can you? Can you help me?”

  “Of course,” Abbie said. “But if we’re dealing with who it sounds like, we’ll definitely need to go to the Xinjiang Desert first, to get my brother and Eldon.”

  “The Xinjiang Desert? That’s where Corky is!”

  Abbie’s mind was suddenly reeling. “I thought you said you were neighbors!”

  “Out here ‘neighbors’ is a relative term. It’s not like in the West, where you couldn’t swing a Mongolian Death Worm without hitting another cryptid.”

  Abbie stared at him for a moment. A chill ran down her spine. “Zaya. What and where, exactly, is your creature from?”

  “Corky’s the Mongolian Death Worm,” he said. “From Mongolia?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “We lived happily beneath the great Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia until that horrible mutant showed up. It brainwashed Corky. Before I knew what was happening, Corky had burrowed southward beneath the sand, tunneling away from our home. Away from me. I followed them for hundreds of miles, all the way to the middle of nowhere.”

  “The Xinjiang Desert. Oh, no, no, no . . .”

  “That’s where I found her, fast asleep underground, just her tail sticking out of the desert floor, unable to wake up.” Zaya sniffled as he pulled out a crumpled photo. “Here’s a picture of the two of us together, in happier times.”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” she said, gazing at the picture. “We have to go. We have to go right now!”

  Abbie and Zaya raced back toward the Heli-Jet, running as fast as they could along the bank of the Anmon River. Swimming alongside them, Morris happily zipped through the water like a torpedo.

  Bernard stood in the open Heli-Jet cargo door with a look of concern on his furry face. Abbie yelled to him as they approached.

  “Start the engine!” she cried out. “We have to get back to the desert right away! I think the whole thing might be a trap set by Chupacabra!”

  Bernard turned to do as he was ordered, but stopped and pointed past them. “What about him?”

  Abbie and Zaya turned around. Morris stood at the edge of the Anmon River, almost as frozen as when he was made of stone. He looked up at them, then back down at the water rushing past his webbed feet.

  “Morris, c’mon!” Abbie yelled to him. “We have to go!”

  Morris went to take a step out of the river, then stopped.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Zaya said.

  “Morris,” Abbie called out. “We don’t have time for games. I need you to come with us now!”

  “As you wish, master,” Morris said with a tremble in his voice. He lifted his foot, then raised his arms to his bowl-head, checking that it was still full of river water. He lowered his leg and looked up at her.

  Abbie suddenly realized something. “Morris, is that what happened with your Keepers? Did they ask you to come out of the river before they—?” Morris nodded slightly, his water bowl sloshing around. Abbie reached up and put a hand on each of his scaly cheeks. “Listen to me,” she said carefully. “I wouldn’t do that. You can trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you understand?”

  Morris smiled a little, then struggled to lift his leg out of the water. “I’m trying, master. I know I need to do what you say, I just—”

  “No, Morris. You don’t have to do what I say. You have to think for yourself. It’s up to you. But I have an emergency. People I care about, as well as another cryptid like you, may be in very real danger. I don’t want to risk leaving you here alone, but I can’t make you come. It’s your decision. But I’m afraid you have to decide right now.”

  Morris looked at her, then glanced down at his river home. She held out her hand. He slowly raised his claw. It was trembling.

  “Hold on!” Bernard bounded toward them with something in his hand. He bent down at the edge of the river. When he turned around, he had a big grin on his face. In his hand was his plastic “THIRST AID” drinking helmet. Two apple juice boxes on either side were filled with river water, and the straws that had siphoned apple juice into the Skunk Ape’s mouth earlier were redirected to flow back into the air holes at the top of the helmet. Bernard stepped toward Morris and held it out to him.

  “Ta-da!” he said. “Hands-free beverage helmet and automatic sara replenisher!”

  “Bernard, you’re a genius,” Abbie said.

  The helmet fit snugly over the lip of Morris’s concave sara, tightly covering the bowl, sealing the water inside. The reserve tanks were at the ready, able to top off any water that might seep out. Morris smiled more confidently. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the river, onto dry land. “Thank you,” he said, tapping a clawed finger to his new helmet. “It’s a lovely hat. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  A moment later, Zaya strapped Morris into a flight seat on the Heli-Jet as Abbie joined Bernard in the cockpit. “Okay. How fast can you get us back to Xinjiang?”

  “This baby can move pretty fast,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “I hope I’m wrong, but I think Chupacabra may have set a trap to try to hook himself a Creature Keeper or two. And for bait he’s using a really, really big worm.”

  8

  “I’m okay! Knock it off!” Jordan sat on the ground as Eldon continued to attack him with a tongue depressor, miniature stethoscope, and disposable blood-pressure gauge. He’d pulled out nearly everything in his official Badger Ranger first-aid kit, and was prodding and poking at Jordan like he was an overcooked chicken.

  “You were nearly struck by lightning,” Eldon said as he packed up his kit and returned his attention to the sand surrounding the dung pile. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Jordan cautiously approached the little pile of dung. He figured Eldon was right—he must’ve been in a state of shock when he imagined a lightning bolt had burst out of it. Dec
iding that he wasn’t going to let a little sunbaked cryptid dropping get the best of him, he picked up the pooper-scooper and swung the metal spade back. Then, with all the force he had, he slammed it into the base of the pile.

  RUUUMMMBLLLE! The ground erupted in a trembling quake. The sand beneath Jordan’s feet shifted, then dropped, as if sifting into a sinkhole. Jordan’s feet were caught up in it, and he stumbled backward, as—ZAPOW!—a burst of lightning shot into the sky. There was no doubt this time—it came directly out of the tip of that dung heap.

  “JORDAN!”

  He saw Eldon rush toward him, then stop at the edge of the sinkhole that was swirling around both Jordan and the pile of dung—which was now moving. The turd wriggled and squirmed, shifting and stirring the sand, as it sank deeper.

  ZAPOW! Another lightning blast shot out of the dung tip. Jordan tried to dive away from it, but his feet were buried. Then his ankles. Then his knees.

  “Jordan! That’s not scat! Quick! Grab hold of the T-549!”

  Eldon waved the pooper-scooper over Jordan’s head. He reached for it but slipped deeper, following the false turd as it wriggled violently into the swirling sand. Jordan looked down and spotted something terrifying. That little lightning-charged non-turd seemed to be, in fact, the tail end of a very large creature. And that creature was working its way straight down, caving in the ground beneath Jordan along with it.

  Glancing back up, the last thing Jordan saw before being sucked underground was Eldon’s face looking over the edge of the sinkhole. The two boys made eye contact for a second, and then Jordan was engulfed in total darkness.

  Churning sand flew past Jordan’s face as he fell downward. He reached out for the deadly tail tip and pulled himself onto the back of the creature. He knew if he didn’t catch a ride and get pulled through by whatever this horrible thing was, he might be left behind and buried alive. Holding on to its slimy back was like trying to hug a giant, overfilled water balloon. As it tunneled, Jordan slid toward the tail of the creature. His foot snagged on something like a strap. Even in the dark, Jordan knew what this was. He kept his foot tucked in the tracker collar attached to the creature’s tail as if it were a stirrup on a horse. The creature leveled off, tunneling horizontally deep beneath the ground. Jordan saw that it was leaving a clean tunnel in its wake, and he thought for a second of letting go and backtracking out to Eldon. That notion was quickly ruled out, however, as a crack of lightning burst from the tip of the creature’s tail, blasting white light down the tunnel behind it. Jordan decided to shut his eyes and hold on tight.

  The wild, dark ride suddenly ended in a large, dimly lit underground chamber. As the creature slid to a stop, it flicked its tail, sending Jordan flying. WHAM! He slammed into a far dirt wall and slid down onto the cold ground. His eyes adjusted to the light and he noticed candles glowing throughout the cavern. He also could make out in the shadows the beast that had transported him to this strange place. It squirmed toward the opposite side of the cavern, then coiled up in the corner. It was a gigantic, hideous worm creature, at least fifty feet long, with four tiny, beady black eyes indented in its veiny head. Limbless, its fleshy body was ribbed like that of an earthworm, all the way down to the end of its turd-like tail. There, tightly choking the very tip, was Syd’s old GCPS tracking bracelet—the one that had been swallowed by Chupacabra.

  The opposite end of the worm suddenly rose up. It opened its gaping mouth to reveal long, curving teeth, each one the size and shape of a pickax. It hissed at Jordan, and a spray of hot saliva shot out of some gland deep in the back of its throat.

  A bodiless voice echoed within the chamber, startling Jordan. “Now, now, Corky. Where are your manners? George Grimsley is our guest. Please. Try not to spit on him.”

  The worm immediately recoiled, as did Jordan. This was a voice he knew all too well. And even if he didn’t recognize it, there was only one person—or in this case one cryptid—who would call him by the name of his grandfather. It was Chupacabra.

  Peering into the dim light, Jordan could make out a shadowy figure petting the worm’s fleshy head. “Here, have a snack, Corky, it’ll help you to relax,” the shadow said. He tossed something into Corky’s gaping mouth. The air suddenly took on an odor of smelly feet.

  As Chupacabra stepped slowly toward Jordan, he seemed to avoid the patches of candlelight, staying in the darkness. Behind the approaching shadow, the worm’s giant head began to bob and nod as it grew drowsy, until it lowered onto the ground and passed out. From what Jordan could make out in the candlelight, there was only one way out—the tunnel he’d come in through. And that was being blocked by a gigantic worm’s coiled, unconscious body.

  The shadow’s red eyes glowed in the darkness. “He loves those snacks,” Chupacabra’s voice echoed. “My own special recipe, made from a very rare Siberian valerian root. I’ve found it causes a sort of sleepwalking state in not only the Mongolian Death Worm, but nearly all cryptids. I discovered the plant on a recent trip. Oh, but what am I saying—you were there! Remember the lovely send-off you gave me?”

  “Yes,” Jordan said, his voice trembling. “And it should have killed you.” The dark figure stood in the shadows, directly before him.

  “Well, I must say that thanks to you I feel quite reborn. That jet thruster blasted me back to my true self, with no disguises and no one to help me. It forced me back to my old ways—creeping through the night, lying low by day, avoiding being hunted, simply surviving! It’s how I lived when you first exposed me to the world, all those years ago. You remember, don’t you, Georgie?”

  “For the last time, that was my grandfather. Not me,” Jordan said. “And I’m sorry he did that to you. But he’s gone now. You need to stop being a jerk and hurting people.”

  “DON’T LIE TO ME!” Chupacabra’s face pitched forward, catching the candlelight, giving Jordan his first glimpse at the creature since he’d scorched him with the jet thruster. Jordan could feel his hot breath. “I never forget the scent of an enemy, Georgie boy. Yours may be faint beneath your elixirs and disguises, but I can still smell you in this chamber.”

  Chupacabra stood up straight again, plunging his face back into the darkness. “That blast didn’t just destroy my power to change into human form—as it burned away the pathetic mask of Señor Areck Gusto, it welded into place the creature I was always meant to be . . . with a few minor improvements, of course.”

  Chupacabra finally stepped into the light. Jordan couldn’t believe his eyes. He knew Chupacabra had taken the Loch Ness Monster’s Hydro-Hide and turned it into a coat of her powerful scales. And he was all too aware that Chupacabra had gotten away with one of the Sasquatch’s Soil-Soles. Jordan had seen these “improvements” the last time he faced Chupacabra. They looked silly and mismatched on him then. But this was different. Something had changed. And not for the better.

  Chupacabra’s suit of scales from Nessie’s Hydro-Hide was now seared to his body, like it had become part of him. They had a green, glazed glimmer that Jordan didn’t recognize. Syd’s Soil-Sole on Chupacabra’s left foot was still oversized compared to his right, but it too had melded to his body in a more natural-looking way. In a word, Chupacabra now looked—

  “Rather impressive, wouldn’t you say?” The cryptid grinned. “Not only were you instrumental in helping me acquire these little gifts, but by blasting me with fire, you also fused my newfound elements into one, making me something of a . . . super-cryptid.”

  “You have no right to those powers,” Jordan said. “They’re not yours to keep.”

  “Says who? You? That’s the problem with you and your Creature Keeping organization, George. So many rules! Of course, with all your well-thought-out guidelines on how to ‘protect’ my kind, you forgot one very important thing—rules are for men, not creatures. We’re not meant to abide by your plan to have us live in the shadows. Far from it! Throughout history, we cryptids sprang from the earth’s most explosive and destructive moments. And our history will be
your downfall. But you won’t recognize when history repeats itself, Georgie, even as it’s happening all around you. Because you never bothered to learn it in the first place. By the time Operation Pangaea has begun, there won’t be anything you can do about it. Even your prized three special creatures won’t be able to stop me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “My point exactly.” He fluttered his Hydro-Hide scales and wiggled the bulbous toes of his single Soil-Sole, admiring his appearance. “Yes, you discovered and successfully brainwashed those three special cryptids. The ones endowed with elemental powers, they think they’re so superior. But did you ever try to find out where they came from, or even wonder why they had such unique gifts? That Scottish sea cow you all worship was bestowed a Hydro-Hide to control the seas and oceans. And that idiotic ape you call Bigfoot? He was foolishly given the dangerous element of his Soil-Soles to command earth and stone. But we all evolve, Georgie. And now, thanks to you, evolution has passed their sacred gifts along to me.”

  “You mean you stole them. You’re not special like them. You’re just a two-bit thief.”

  “That’s an amazing bit of name-calling coming from you, Georgie boy. You who created your little group to steal my kind from the world, stashing us out of sight, stuffing us into caves, brainwashing us to believe we actually needed your protection! Even after all this time, you still don’t really know what you’re dealing with. I feel sorry for you.”

  Chupacabra leaned in closer. “Tell you what. Since you’re about to help me once again, I’ll enlighten you with a little secret. There aren’t three elemental powers in the cryptid world, as your sad little squad has always believed. There are four! And as with the first two, you will be the one who helps me complete my collection. Once I possess all four elemental powers, nothing will stop me. And that will be the end of your world as you know it, sealing the fate of your kind to history, forever.”