Creature Keepers and the Burgled Blizzard-Bristles

by Peter Nelson

  “YOU HALF-WIT!” Chupacabra shrieked. He released Abbie and pushed against Morris. He tried to leap up from the toxic gas but was yanked back violently. His tail was submerged in the ice tower. He hadn’t made it all the way out the top when it froze, and now he was leashed to the rising cloud of noxious green gas. Chupacabra fell to his knees as he choked on the heavy gas, overcome with the thick green plume. From the ground, Jordan caught a glimpse of something small and red, like a gemstone, pop out of Chupacabra’s claw. It bounced off the ice and sailed out of view.

  Morris grabbed Abbie as he fell backward, pulling her tightly to his body before plummeting away from the tower of noxious gas and toward the snowy ground—in a perfect cannonball.

  31

  BOOM! Morris hit the ground shell-first, with the impact of a meteorite. Dirt and snow exploded as he slammed heavily into the earth. Jordan, Eldon, Wilford, and the cryptids began to rush toward the crater, until they heard a horrible sound from above.

  KERRRRACCCKK! Massive splits shot down the ice tower. Through the fog at the top, Jordan could make out a woozy Chupacabra, lying on his back, weakly lifting his Soil-Sole, stomping on the ice, and breaking it into shards.

  KRACK! One last stomp caused the tower to splinter. Everyone on the ground ran for cover as sharp shards of ice came crashing down. In the center of it all, just as he had risen, Chupacabra plummeted through the shaft of falling ice. His limp body hit the ground, followed by a cross-hatching of giant ice spears that completely buried him.

  As the pile of ice settled, an odor filled the chilly air. The thick plume of valerian-root gas seeped out from the ice tomb that had buried Chupacabra, spreading across the field, reaching out into the crowd of cryptids.

  “The gas!” Eldon said. “Everyone move back!”

  The cryptids panicked, pushing and shoving, slithering and creeping over one another as they backed away toward the outer edges of the clearing, closer to the jungle tree line. Those overcome with the gas began to stumble and pass out. Others were coughing and choking.

  Jordan, Eldon, and Wilford tried to avoid breathing the toxic fog as they split up to help the others. Jordan needed to reach Abbie and Morris. Eldon was intent on getting to the cryptids who were overcome with the nauseous gas. And Wilford was working his way toward the pile of ice that had entombed the poisoned Chupacabra.

  As the gas caught more cryptids trying to escape, Jordan pressed on, avoiding it as best he could. But it was everywhere, and he felt his legs get heavier as he made his way toward the crater where Morris and his sister had crash-landed. The green mist was overtaking him, and his vision was growing blurrier by the second.

  Thup-thup-thup-thup! A noise accompanied the sensation of something wet and warm hitting his face. It was a thick, gooey orange liquid, raining down over the amphitheater. Jordan felt his sleepiness lift as the green fog began to dissolve.

  Thup-thup-thup-thup! What was left of the haze swirled up and away like it was being vacuumed up. As it cleared, Jordan could make out a welcome sight. The Heli-Jet hovered low over the field, with Bernard and Zaya in the cockpit window. Not only were they clearing the air with the repaired rotors, they also had a secret weapon: strapped to the bottom of the Heli-Jet was the Mongolian Death Worm, spitting out the orange goo—what must have been valerian-root antidote—all over the crowd.

  “It’s Corky!” Jordan yelled, his senses sharpening as he shook off the drowsy effect of the gas. He never thought he’d be so happy to see a giant Death Worm.

  The bulbous cryptid waved her tail as she happily spit out the syrupy cure, spraying the entire scene with her warm, medicinal regurgitation. Bernard dropped Corky onto the field, then set the Heli-Jet down. Jagger and the other monks leaped out of the side cargo door armed with apple juice cartons filled with the antidote and ran to the cryptids lying unconscious, while the Mongolian Death Worm continued happily spitting directly in the faces of others in need.

  With both the air and his head now clearing, Jordan was finally able to reach the hole where Morris had landed. “Abbie!” He shouted into it. “Are you all right?” All he could see was the side of Morris’s shell. A horrible feeling overtook him as he reached down and touched it. It was cold. And solid. The cryptid had turned to stone. There was a sniffling from beneath it. Jordan leaned farther into the crater and saw Abbie, completely unscratched and protected, still wrapped in Morris’s solid stone arms. She looked up at her brother with tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t save him,” she said. “So he saved me.”

  As Eldon and the cryptids gathered silently behind him, Jordan reached down and gently pulled his sister free from the stone embrace that saved her life. Wilford helped them out of the crater. Then they all stared down at the lifeless statue that was Morris.

  “We can’t leave him here,” Abbie said. “We’re taking him home.”

  As the sun dipped below the tree line, Jordan, Eldon, Wilford, and the others organized all the cryptids to help pull Morris from his tomb. Zaya sat with Abbie, trying his best to comfort her. Behind them, Corky cooed and purred as Zaya stroked her belly. Abbie smiled through her sadness and patted the Death Worm. Corky purred louder. “Hey, I think she might actually like you,” Zaya said with a gentle smile.

  “That’s nice,” Abbie said. “I could use a new friend right now.”

  “Oh. Uh, I was talking to Corky.”

  Abbie laughed despite herself, and Zaya chuckled as he put his arm around her.

  As the other cryptids dug a wider trench to better remove Morris, Jordan, Eldon, Bernard, and Wilford approached the pile of ice left from the tower. Somewhere deep inside the crisscrossing, beam-like shards lay Chupacabra.

  “We got him,” Eldon said. “But now we’ve got to find a way to keep him.”

  “What do we do when he wakes up?” Bernard asked.

  “If he wakes up,” Jordan said. “He inhaled a lot of that gas before he fell.”

  “He will not revive,” Wilford said. “But not because of the gas. Chupacabra ended the life of another cryptid. His fate is now tied to that which he ended. With or without the gas and the ice, he’s forever frozen, just like the Kappa he pushed off that tower.”

  “That’s good,” Bernard said. “Then we can just crack the ice open and take back Nessie’s Hydro-Hide, Syd’s Soil-Sole, and Wilford’s Blizzard-Bristle, right?”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Eldon said. “Because Morris turned to stone, we don’t know if he was in fact killed. He may be only frozen forever. Either way he can never be revived, and that’s a very sad thing. But until we know for certain that Chupacabra is dead in there, we need to be extremely cautious. It might be safer to get him somewhere we can carefully extract what he stole. Unless, of course, any of you are feeling lucky.”

  They studied the ice pile that contained Chupacabra. No one was in the mood to take any chances. Wilford drew a deep breath and blew through his half Blizzard-Bristle. A smooth, thick layer of ice sealed the cage of crisscrossing shards, suspending Chupacabra in a frozen, igloo-shaped cage. “Safe for travel,” Wilford said.

  Jordan smiled up at him. “Fro-yurt,” he said. The Yeti smiled back.

  “I’m thinking the new chamber Peggy and I carved beneath your grandfather’s house would make a very nice temperature-controlled laboratory where we could take our time as well as every precaution,” Eldon said to Jordan. He turned to Wilford. “But until good ol’ C. E. Noodlepen makes a withdrawal of funds for the equipment that will require, do you think we might store him up on one of the five treasures of the high snow? I know you have room, and for now, the colder he is, the better.”

  “You all know how much I love having guests,” Wilford joked. “The monks will keep a sharp eye on him, while I keep an icy wind on him, twenty-four hours a day, just to be safe.”

  Jordan turned to follow the others, when something on the ground caught his eye. Glimmering beneath a chunk of ice was a small ruby-red stone. He crouched, picked it up, and put it in his pocket
.

  32

  It took the strength of all the cryptids pulling together, a rocket-enhanced Heli-Jet, a giant Mongolian Death Worm, and a handful of mountain monks to lift Morris’s heavy stone body out of the crater. Then, with Wilford laying down a slick path of ice through the lush forest of Medog, they eventually were able to slide Morris to the hard-packed, snowy crater walls surrounding it. Trailing behind the procession, Jordan, Abbie, and Eldon pushed the igloo-shaped ice cage that held Chupacabra along the same glide path.

  It was hours later when they all gathered in the dark before the entrances to the tunnels. One by one, the wandering cryptids silently paid their respects to the brave little creature. Jordan then checked each of their GCPS collars to be sure they were all back in working order now that Syd’s CHUPA-enhanced homing collar had been destroyed. Then the creatures were sent off through their appropriate tunnels for the journey back to their respective Creature Keeper.

  Sandy, Paul, and the rest of the group of cryptids Jordan had noticed acting strangely earlier were at it again. After paying their respects to Morris, they huddled together and seemed to be discussing something important. Eldon noticed, too. He and Jordan approached them.

  “I know it’s tough, guys,” Eldon said. “But you need to say your good-byes and start heading home.”

  “We know,” Paul said. “And we are saying good-bye. But not to one another. To you. To the Creature Keepers.”

  “We’re out,” Donald said, holding out his red-furred hand and nodding toward the ice cage. “That kooky dude was dead wrong about nearly everything, but something he said rang true. We don’t need to be kept. We need to be free.” The red-furred Bangladeshi Ban Manush dropped his GCPS collar into Eldon’s hand. “But thanks for everything.”

  Eldon was speechless. “Wait,” Jordan said. “You guys need to think about this. You don’t know what it’s like out in the world.”

  “That’s kind of the point,” Francine said bluntly. She handed Eldon her collar as well.

  “Unacceptable!” Eldon said. “You put these back on and you march right back to your Keepers, do you understand me?”

  Sandy the Golden Liger was the last to step forward. “It’s not you, Eldon,” she said. “It’s us. We do love you. And we love our Keepers. This is not an easy decision for us. But it’s the right one. What Morris did up there of his own free will, for all of us, was our final inspiration. He can’t have sacrificed for us just so we could all go back to living in the shadows. It’s time we do as he did, and choose to live our own lives.” She tore her collar off and dropped it at Eldon’s feet. “Good-bye for now, old friend.”

  Eldon and Jordan stood awestruck as the pack of cryptids walked together toward a far tunnel entrance. They glanced at one another, then entered it, disappearing into the darkness together. They never looked back.

  Bernard approached. “Hey, where are they going?”

  Eldon was at a loss for words again. He crouched down and picked up Sandy’s collar. Jordan spoke up for him. “Wherever they want, I guess.”

  Bernard stared at the tunnel entrance and watched as the gold light faded away.

  Zaya had attached one end of a long, heavy chain he’d gotten off the Heli-Jet to Corky’s tail. The other end he’d secured around Morris. Eldon studied his Badger Ranger pocket compass and wandered a little ways from the tunnel openings. He stopped at an untouched area of the wall of snow. “Here,” he said. “Due east.”

  Jordan and Abbie drew a large X on the snowbank as Zaya led Corky toward it. Wilford pushed from behind, and soon this bizarre-looking caravan was aimed at the X-mark in the white wall.

  Bernard and the monks approached them. “Okay,” the Skunk Ape said. “We’ve got Chupacabra loaded up and secured on the Heli-Jet, all set to go.”

  “Thank you,” Eldon said. “You understand what we need you to do?”

  “Of course. I’ll deliver them all to Mount Kanchenjunga, safe and sound.”

  Wilford bent down to speak to the monks. “I will help return Morris to his home. I need to ask you guys to babysit a frosty old cryptid at the top of a cold, lonely mountain. Do you think you can do that for me?”

  Jagger giggled. “Yeah. I think we can handle that.”

  Bernard gave Morris a final, tearful hug, then said his good-byes to Abbie and Zaya, who were feeding Corky some nutritious jungle fruit. Lastly, he approached Jordan and Eldon. “Thanks, Bernard.” Jordan smiled. “You went beyond the call of duty.”

  “My pleasure,” Bernard said. “And speaking of, I was thinking after I drop the monks off and see that Chupacabra is guarded in a safe spot, I might swoop down and try to find the other end of the tunnel those guys went down on their own.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Eldon said. Jordan glanced at him, surprised. This was the most short-tempered he could recall hearing Eldon speak to his creature. “I need you back at the central command, do you understand?”

  “But as a cryptid I might be able to persuade them to—”

  “Bernard!” Everyone looked over as Eldon snapped. The Badger Ranger took a deep breath, then spoke in a calmer but still very tense tone. “You have your orders. Fly them back to Mount Kanchenjunga, then return to base. Are we clear?”

  Bernard looked at Eldon with an expression of hurt and anger. “Yes, sir,” he said. He turned and stormed toward the Heli-Jet, the mountain monks in tow.

  “I’m sorry I lost my temper,” Eldon said to Jordan.

  “I don’t think it’s me you should apologize to.”

  “He’ll understand,” Eldon said. “I’ll make it up to him when we’re all home. He’s had his eye on a pair of roller skates.” Eldon trudged over to Corky and the others. Jordan watched Bernard make his way toward the Heli-Jet, and ran to catch up to him.

  “Bernard,” he said. “Listen, he didn’t mean it. He’s just really upset. He’s never had a cryptid leave the CK before, and you know how he likes his rules—”

  “It’s fine,” the Skunk Ape said coldly. “Forget it.”

  Jordan stepped in front of Bernard. He was clearly hurt and embarrassed. For all his good-mannered helpfulness, Bernard really was a sensitive creature. Jordan glanced over at Eldon, who was busy with his compass near Abbie, Zaya, and Corky. “Listen,” he whispered. “After you drop them off at Kanchenjunga, why don’t you take a day or so and, y’know, unwind.”

  “Unwind?”

  Jordan glanced over again. “Yeah. Maybe fly down to the lower Himalayas, see the sights.” He winked at Bernard. “We won’t be back from Japan for a few days. No one needs to know. I’ll see to that. Besides, you earned it.”

  A grin spread over Bernard’s face. “Thank you, Jordan.” He lifted him up, gave him a great big skunky hug, then set him down. “Travel safely, now.”

  Jordan smiled up at his old friend. “You too, Bernard.”

  Wilford, Zaya, and Eldon were working at the front end of Corky, leading her to the large X drawn on the eastern face of the snow crater. At her opposite end, Abbie stood next to the solidified Morris. Jordan approached her cautiously.

  “If I only could’ve protected him one more night,” she said, staring skyward.

  Jordan looked up. Surrounded by thousands of stars was the quarter moon, shaped like a perfect white turtle shell floating in the night sky.

  “C’mon, Ab,” Jordan said. “Let’s take him home.”

  “Okay, girl,” Zaya said into the side of his Mongolian Death Worm. “Chow time!”

  Corky opened her gaping mouth and took a massive bite out of the snow wall. She took another, then another. As she began to wriggle forward into her own tunnel, she pulled the long chain, and Morris followed. Wilford helped tug the chain while blowing through his half Blizzard-Bristles between Corky and Morris, creating a track of slick ice on the tunnel floor. As Jordan, Abbie, Eldon, and Zaya pushed from behind, the statue began to slide along steadily.

  33

  The tunnel trek beneath the snowbound landscape
of central China was long and very difficult. After days of making their way, they finally emerged from the deep snow at the banks of the East China Sea, where they were met by Nessie and her Keeper, Alistair MacAlister. Jordan, Abbie, and Eldon were elated to see them, and not just because Alistair greeted them with a submarine full of food, blankets, and supplies.

  “Thank goodness you found your way out of the ice,” Jordan said.

  “Aye,” Alistair said. “Haggis-Breath led us through, and just in the nick of time.”

  “Were you running out of air?”

  “Aye, fresh air. It was getting a wee bit ripe down in that sub.”

  Now that they were out of the long, cold tunnel, they spotted signs that the continent Chupacabra had cruelly transformed into a snowy wasteland was slowly beginning to thaw. Even the frozen East China Sea had begun to split into large, thick chunks of ice. Alistair brought the travelers up to speed on the aftermath of Chupacabra’s great blizzard.

  “The human world in these parts all pretty much stayed indoors and hunkered down, which was probably for the best. We’re lucky nobody got seriously hurt by the storm. To them it was just a one-in-a-century freak blizzard. So that’s good.” Alistair glanced past them and gazed upon Morris. “’Course, I wish we could say that about our crew.”

  Abbie hadn’t spoken for nearly the entire journey. But she spoke up now. “Alistair, where’s Kriss?”

  “He flew Katsu and Shika home from here,” Alistair said. “The twins wanted to prepare for the little guy’s final arrival.”

  They all worked together to slide Morris onto one of the massive floating ice blocks and prepared for the final leg of their journey back to his home. The only ones who didn’t join them on the iceberg were Zaya and Corky.

  “I’m afraid this is where we must leave you,” Zaya said softly. Corky, exhausted from tunneling and dragging Morris, snored beside him. “Please give Katsu and Shika my deepest sympathies. Tell them I had to tend to my creature.”