by Bryan Chick
Noah grimaced as the Shadowist howled a second time. After a few seconds, his howl softened to a whimper.
“Guys,” Noah said, “maybe we should—”
Tameron held up a finger at Noah—an unmistakable message for him to keep quiet. As Tameron reached down to grab more quills, Sam seized his wrist, stopping him.
“Hold up,” Sam said.
Through the eyeholes in his thin helmet, Tameron stared at his friend.
Sam said nothing else. In his silence, DeGraff’s sounds became louder, more distinct. DeGraff wasn’t whimpering—he was laughing.
“You got to be kidding me,” Tameron said. Then, to DeGraff: “What could you possibly be laughing at?”
His laughter grew louder and stronger. Then he slowly rolled over, the remaining quills in his back bending flat. As his face turned up, his full identity was revealed for the first time.
“This,” he said. “I’m laughing at this.”
Lying before them was a man the Crossers had seen before. He had a thin face and sunken cheeks covered in splotchy freckles. And even in the darkness and fog, the color of his hair was visible. Red.
“Charlie …” Noah breathed.
Charlie Red squinted his already-squinty eyes and bawled laughter. His breath wafted off his lips like smoke from the mouth of a dragon. The Crossers stood there, too stunned to speak.
Ella took a step forward. “Wait a minute—was it you in my front yard that night?”
A sudden peak in Charlie’s wicked laughter confirmed that it was.
“But …” Megan said. “Why?”
After a few seconds, Charlie’s laughter died down. “Why?” he said. He sat up to face Megan and winced at a fresh spot of pain along his back. “Why? Ohhh … you’re about to see why.”
A deafening crash erupted and everyone turned to see that the two rear doors of the lower-el wing of Clarksville Elementary had banged open, slamming into the brick wall of the school. One battered door dangled crookedly on its lower hinge. In the dark doorway, a beastly leg appeared, then an arm. Something was stepping out onto the playground. The creature had to crouch and turn its body sideways to fit through the frame. Then it moved out of the school.
“No,” Sam uttered. “Impossible.”
Standing just outside Clarksville Elementary was a sasquatch, its mangy hair dangling off its muscular limbs, its bottom fangs pinching its upper lip. It locked eyes on the Crossers and sliced its long claws through the misty air. The sasquatch was followed by another, and another, and another—more and more snaking their crouched bodies through the open doorway. In all, six appeared.
Charlie Red continued to laugh from the ground—a sound that was suddenly more haunting than any Noah had ever heard.
Charlie had led them into a trap.
The scouts huddled behind the Descenders, who lined up side by side to face their adversaries and prepared to fight.
From behind them rose Charlie’s voice: “Now.”
Noah swung his head back to see that Charlie wasn’t speaking to the sasquatches—he was speaking into a walkie-talkie.
CHAPTER 46
THE ON POSITION
At the west zoo entrance, a security guard set down his walkie-talkie and rolled his chair over to a large black box beneath a table in the small shack. He opened its top, exposing rows of knobs, buttons, dials, and lights. A large red switch had two positions, off and on.
The guard gnawed on a toothpick, then rolled it across his lips. As he leaned over the box, a goopy bead of pus dripped onto it. He swiped it up with a fingertip and held it near his eyes. Then he touched the cut on the side of his face, the place from which the pus had fallen. The wound was moist, fresh; he felt its heat.
He smiled. His change was already happening, just as Charlie had promised.
He turned his attention back to the large box in front of him. It was an RF Jammer, a military-grade device that could block communications across different radio frequencies. Not long ago, Charlie had secretly delivered it to him.
The guard reached back into the case. With a twist and pull, he calibrated a few remaining settings. Then he turned the big red switch to the on position.
CHAPTER 47
THE BATTLE ON THE PLAYGROUND
A loud pulsing sound erupted in Noah’s ear. As he swung his hand up and turned off his headset, he realized the other Crossers were doing the same.
“We’re being jammed!” Sam said. “The headsets—keep them off!”
Noah glanced behind him and watched the smile spread on Charlie’s face. This was part of Charlie’s plan.
The sasquatches crept forward, snarling, their bodies slinking in and out of the shifting fog. Streams of blood oozed from their infected gums and trickled off their lower lips.
Hannah stood braced to fight. Tameron swept his tail back and forth along the ground, spilling waves of wood chips across its spikes. Sam shook his wings and ruffled his feathers. Solana held clusters of quills in her fists.
Noah looked to his friends. Ella was pale with shock, and Richie’s whole body was trembling. Even Megan was afraid, her eyes opened as far as the rims of her narrow glasses.
“Guys,” Sam said, “we can’t let these things leave the schoolyard. We do, and it’s all over.”
The Descenders nodded.
Sam swung his attention to the scouts. “I want you to get back. Get out of—”
Before he could finish, the sasquatches charged and the scouts bolted into the foggy playground, a strange landscape of steel bars and dangerous heights. The four friends quickly crouched behind a row of play panels with gears that spun, wheels that turned, and bells that rang. They peered over and around the panels, watching as the Descenders and sasquatches jumped at one another.
Solana released the quills from her grip. The barbs flew like miniature missiles and stuck into the front of a sasquatch, which grabbed and pulled at its chest, tearing them out. Solana plucked more quills from her jacket and attacked a second time.
“The sasquatches—how did they get into our school?” Megan asked.
With his gaze locked on the fight, Noah said, “I have no idea.”
Tameron lunged forward and turned, sweeping around his tail about four feet off the ground. Two sasquatches dodged backward, just missing his attack, but a third wasn’t so fortunate. It flew sideways and slammed down about ten feet away, plowing through wood chips and raising dust in the fog.
When a sasquatch cocked its arm to swipe at Sam, the Descender dove straight up. He kicked out his feet, released his talons, and clasped the sasquatch’s arm as it passed beneath him. With a yank of his legs, he pulled the beast to the ground.
Hannah jumped onto her hands and flipped, planting her boots against the gut of a sasquatch. The beast buckled, shot backward through the air, and crashed against the brick wall of Clarksville Elementary, rattling the ceramic shingles on the rooftop.
To Noah, everything suddenly seemed impossible again. How could monsters live in a world connected to his? How could kids use magic to transform themselves? And how could these two groups be fighting on his school playground?
Tameron heaved his tail through the wood chips and took out the legs of a sasquatch, which fell to its stomach with a ground-shaking thump. Hannah sprang forward, several stories high, and came down directly on its spine. The monster went limp, and its bloody tongue slipped from its mouth.
“Guys!” Ella said. She pointed over the panel in front of her, a tic-tac-toe game with large spinning letters. “Look!”
Over to one side was Charlie Red. A few quills still dangling from his back, he ran through the fracas and disappeared through the open doors of the school.
Megan jumped to her feet and swung around the panel in front of her. “We can’t just let him get away!”
“Megan, wait!”
But Megan was already running after Charlie. She seemed to partly evaporate in the fog before disappearing in the dark school.
As El
la stood to chase after her best friend, Noah grabbed her arm and yanked her down beside him. The panel that she’d been hiding behind exploded into pieces, tic-tac-toe spinners shooting in all directions, bouncing and rolling across the playground. In the jagged remains of the panel stood a sasquatch, wood chips stuck in its hair. Its yellow eyes looked straight at Noah.
Noah peered around the sasquatch to Richie. “Go! Help Megan!”
Richie stood frozen in his nerd costume, his pants pulled high, his white socks exposed.
Ella waved her hand toward the school. “Richie—go!”
Richie turned and ran toward the dark doorway.
Ella and Noah had no choice but to turn and run the other way. They dodged a few play panels and headed across the playground. After a few seconds, they heard the sasquatch grunt and chase after them.
Ella cut across Noah, saying, “Follow me!”
She circled the merry-go-round and weaved through an assortment of spring riders—seats that were shaped like animals and rocked on giant springs. At the play structure, an elaborate contraption with slides and bridges and hutlike platforms, Ella jumped onto a short metal deck and bounded up the stairs. Noah followed. At the first hut, they huddled behind two plastic walls and hid from view.
They waited. They listened. They heard the now-distant sounds of the Descenders battling the sasquatches, but nothing else. With their knees pulled up to their chests and their arms wrapped around their shins, they were so close to each other that Noah could feel Ella’s breath—warm and moist, like steam from a pot. Patches of dense fog rolled through the play structure, leaving wetness on their costumes. He thought of Megan and Richie and whatever danger they now faced in the school. He thought of the Descenders and how Sam had ordered the scouts away. Were the scouts useless? Had the Descenders been right a year ago to want them kept away?
They heard something. A grunt. Then a growl. The sasquatch was nearby. Something snapped loudly—a piece of metal, maybe. Noah peered out between two panels: the sasquatch had broken a spring, knocking a yellow duck to the ground. The beast took a few steps, grabbed a happy blue whale, and hurled it into the air. Noah pulled back his head. The sasquatch was coming their way.
Noah stared into Ella’s eyes and mouthed, Don’t move.
They soon heard another grunt, this one almost directly beneath them. Noah looked down. Through the openings in the metal grate, he saw the ground—a distant spread of wood chips.
Another sound came. A soft, rumbling growl, closer than ever. Through the grate, Noah saw nothing.
Then … something. A long leg of the sasquatch. Then its arm, its body.
The monster was directly beneath them.
CHAPTER 48
THE PADLOCK
As Megan rushed deeper into the school, the sound of the fight faded and then vanished altogether. The only light in the lower-el wing of Clarksville Elementary streamed down from a pair of fluorescent bulbs toward the middle of the hall, leaving the ends dark. Megan peered into the distance and saw Charlie, his fedora hat once again on his head, his trench coat fluttering behind him. He turned right, disappearing from view.
She charged faster. Seconds later, she reached the end of the lower-el wing. The hallway continued straight, passing between the media center and the cafeteria. A new hallway branched off to her right.
Megan turned and chased after Charlie. To her left, the glass wall of the media center blurred past, a few lights revealing long rows of bookcases, tables, and computers. Megan sped past Halloween decor: fake cobwebs in corners, papier-mâché pumpkins in glass cabinets, black cat posters on the walls. She stopped at another corner and spotted Charlie Red nearing the far end of the hall.
“Charlie!”
Megan tore after him, lockers and classrooms streaming by. She passed through a cone of light and then closed in on Charlie, who’d stopped at the dead end. Two double doors blocked him from getting outside, a thick chain coiled around their steel handles. Charlie fumbled with the padlock, and Megan wondered why. Surely he didn’t have a key—a security guard from the Clarksville Zoo had nothing to do with the school.
Then she realized what Charlie was doing. He was pulling down on the lock to make certain it was latched. Charlie wasn’t trying to escape—he was making sure Megan couldn’t.
She abruptly halted twenty feet from the end of the hall. “Charlie?”
Charlie turned and looked out at her from beneath the brim of his hat. He smiled a wicked smile and took a few steps toward her. Even in the dim light of the hallway, Megan could see the spattering of oversized freckles across his face.
“Hey, Meg … funny we should meet here—the school, of all places.”
She took a step back. Something was wrong with Charlie. He seemed … different. He had a new swagger in his walk, and a deep drawl in his voice, as if he was having trouble getting vowels out of his throat. As he took off his fedora hat and held it in his hands, his bangs dangled across his forehead. His hair seemed more red than ever before.
Megan collected her courage and spat out, “What are you doing?”
The corners of his mouth curled upward. “Me? I’ve simply embraced the inevitable.”
Megan began to back up. She suddenly realized she didn’t have a plan to stop Charlie. “What are you—? What’s inevitable?”
Charlie moved toward her, his trench coat clapping against his feet. “Him.”
“Who?” Megan asked. “DeGraff?”
Charlie nodded. “And it’s very important now that you and your friends don’t interfere.”
A low growl sounded behind her and she spun around. At the far end of the hall, more than a hundred feet away, was a sasquatch. Like an ape, it was standing on its four limbs, rocking from side to side. When it threw back its head and roared, Megan saw the silhouette of its fangs. It dropped its chin and crept toward her.
Charlie walked past Megan and headed toward the far end of the hall. “Good-bye forever, Megan.”
She simply stood still. Then she scanned her surroundings and fully realized her predicament.
She was totally trapped.
CHAPTER 49
THE SMELL OF FEAR
Richie, his eyes wide with fear, charged down the lower-el wing. Instead of following the first turn, as Megan had, he continued straight, running between the cafeteria and the media center. At a four-way intersection, he stopped. Ahead was the main entrance, its glass doors appearing as a small, clear rectangle. To his left and right were new hallways.
Richie turned his head one way, then the other. Which way was Megan?
He charged down the hallway to his right. He ran beside the long wall of the media center and then passed the hall that rejoined the lower-el wing. In the upper-el wing, he slowed down and scanned the classrooms as he moved through rows of lockers on both sides. He checked a few closed doors and discovered them locked. The hallway ended at an exit that was chained shut. There was no sign of Megan.
Richie started to return up the dimly lit hall and noticed something standing at the far end, beyond the main entrance and toward the gymnasium.
“Megan?” he muttered.
He peered forward and pulled the distant figure into focus. It was too big to be Megan. In fact, it was big enough to be only one thing. A sasquatch. Richie realized it was knuckle-walking, like an ape.
His heart dropped. He retreated a step and stared over his shoulder at the locked exit. There was no place for him to go.
The sasquatch moved to one side of the hall and began to sniff at something, a classroom door, perhaps. The sasquatch hadn’t spotted Richie—at least Richie didn’t think it had.
To get out of plain view, Richie dashed to the side of the hall and pressed his back against the lockers. When the metal doors clanked, he winced and stared up the hall, hoping he hadn’t been heard. The sasquatch, now perfectly still, seemed to be looking in his direction.
He stretched himself flat against the lockers. Fear raised beads of sweat
on his brow. With his chin on his shoulder, he continued to stare up the hall. For a long time, the sasquatch didn’t move. Then it raised its snout and began to twitch its head. Richie realized it was pulling scents out of the air.
A drop of sweat streamed down Richie’s temple. A second drop became trapped in his eyebrow. He’d once read that animals could smell fear. Had Richie given off an odor while running through the school?
The sasquatch suddenly looked down the upper-el wing of the school. Seconds slowly passed, and then the beast began to knuckle-walk toward Richie. It moved away from the gym and then past the main entrance, its pace slowly increasing.
Richie held his breath and kept perfectly still. He stared at the only intersection between him and the sasquatch, which was as far as a hundred feet away. He’d never be able to reach it in time.
The sasquatch began to heave its weight back and forth. And there was nothing Richie could do.
CHAPTER 50
THE CLUTCHES OF THE SASQUATCH
Ella realized that Noah was no longer breathing. Where she’d once felt his breath on her face, she now felt nothing at all.
The sasquatch was hunched directly beneath them. Through the steel grate, she saw the top of its head, the bulge of its back, and its hulkish shoulders. Its hair hung off its body, and its huge feet pressed wood chips into the ground. Silently, she began to will the monster away: Move. Get out of here.
The sasquatch took a step forward and stopped. Its upturned nose, shiny with snot, began to twitch as it sniffed the air.
Ella’s stomach sank. The beast could smell them. Noah’s eyes bulged, revealing that he understood this, too.
The sasquatch slowly craned its neck upward. Its crusty hair slid down its brow and off its swollen temples. It stared at the scouts, its yellow eyes streaked with bloodshot veins. Its fangs were as sharp and thick as the tusks of a boar. The thing beneath the scouts was no animal—not anymore. Filled with the hate and magic of the Shadowist, it had evolved into a true monster.
