Clash of the Worlds

by Chris Columbus

  “One thousand feet!” Cordelia interrupted. “Everybody brace for impact.”

  Adie and Eleanor ran toward the huge desk and scrambled under it. Lefty Payne clambered in after them.

  “There’s room for one more!” Eleanor yelled.

  “You go.” Brendan nodded at Cordelia, trying to be the brave one. “It’d be too ironic if one of these giant encyclopedias in here flew off the shelf and ended up knocking you out!”

  His sister smiled at him. And he realized just then how difficult this trip to the book world had been on her. Brendan unexpectedly felt a lump in his throat.

  “Brendan, listen to me. . . . You have to survive,” Cordelia said. “Only you can read that Journal and find the Worldkeepers. Now get under that desk! I’ll stay out here. Hurry up, we only have a couple seconds before we hit the water!”

  Brendan realized he wasn’t going to be able to argue with his older sister. Besides, she happened to be right, which was annoying to have to admit yet again. He ran toward the huge desk and squeezed under it with the others, sandwiching himself between the desk’s right drawers and Lefty, who smelled like a mixture of pipe tobacco, whiskey, and a middle-school boys’ locker room.

  “Outlaws don’t get to bathe much, huh?” Brendan asked.

  Lefty’s loud growl was the last thing any of them heard before the thunderous crash of Kristoff House impacting the sea. It slammed into the surface of the salty water with enough force to rattle their bones. And the truth suddenly became clear to Brendan: There was no way they, or the house, were going to survive.

  Brendan slowly opened his eyes, vaguely aware of a dull throbbing in his skull, as if tiny men were inside his head pounding away at his brains with their small hammers. He sat up, shielding his eyes. His vision was too blurry to make out anything aside from a bright light.

  “Am I dead?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately not,” a voice answered.

  “Unfortunately?”

  “Yes, I only need a few of you to leverage as hostages once we get to the Mexican border,” the voice said. “If you had died, I’d be spared your miserable jokes.”

  That’s when Brendan realized he was talking to Lefty. He didn’t bother to tell Lefty that of all the places they were likely drifting toward, Mexico was certainly not one of them. He started to climb to his feet, but swayed and then stumbled. Lefty’s strong hand grabbed his shoulder and steadied him.

  “Cordelia?” Brendan said, rubbing his eyes.

  “I’m here,” she said. “We’re all okay.”

  A small pair of arms wrapped around Brendan’s waist.

  “I thought you were dead,” Eleanor said.

  “Unfortunately not,” he said, hugging her back.

  Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the light. They were still in the second-floor study. Bright sunshine poured in through the room’s shattered windows. He shuffled over to the bay window, careful to avoid all the broken glass, and peered outside. They were back in the air now, the blue sea sparkling below them. He could see the distorted shadow of the house and balloon on the water’s surface.

  “The fire?” he asked.

  “It’s out,” Cordelia said. “We hit hard enough to basically flood the entire first floor. In fact, we were actually sinking until I increased the balloon’s flame to maximum power and lifted us back up again.”

  “The kitchen is all burned up,” Eleanor said. “So is pretty much everything down there.”

  “At least we made it,” Brendan said.

  Adie stepped forward, looking guilty.

  “I’m sorry about what I said before,” she said. “About you being so gloomy all the time. I’m glad you’re not dead. You gave us all an awful fright.”

  Brendan felt his cheeks burning. He managed to throw an awkward grin her way and then turned back toward the bay window to hide his face.

  “Well, I guess I should get started reading the Journal again,” he said, trying to ignore his headache. “So we can figure out where we need to go next.”

  He plopped down on the floor and leaned back against the wall. He winced and then sat forward. There was a huge welt on the back of skull where it had hit the desk when they crashed. He did his best to ignore it and press on with the reading. At first everyone just stood there, watching him read. It was sort of distracting to have a reading audience.

  But at the same time, part of him relished the attention. Being the one everyone was looking to for answers. It made him feel special and heroic. Not only would he get to be the savior of his own family, but also the savior of two entire universes! Even being the MVP of the lacrosse state title didn’t come anywhere close to that. He continued reading, looking for some information about the Worldkeepers, while Kristoff House hovered among a few clouds and the sun over an open sea that stretched out in front of them and disappeared into the horizon.

  The house was silent for the most part. Cordelia, Eleanor, and Adie ventured downstairs into the partially flooded and mostly burned-out kitchen to see what was left of it. Lefty Payne stayed in the study with Brendan, plucking giant volumes of encyclopedias written decades after his time off the shelves, and paging through them with fascination.

  Cordelia, Eleanor, and Adie were just about to give up on their search for rations when they heard Brendan shouting upstairs. They dashed out of the kitchen, their steps sluggish through several feet of seawater, and ran upstairs and into the study to find Brendan standing there with his chest puffed out like a superhero.

  “I found it!” he said with an unabashed smile. “I know where we need to go to find the Worldkeepers!”

  Before he could explain any further, a spine-shaking screech from outside forced them to cover their ears. Seconds later, a sleek head with a long, pointed beak poked into the study through the bay window.

  Several rows of razor-sharp teeth inside a pair of wicked jaws clamped down onto Brendan and began pulling him out the window as he screamed for help.

  “Bren!” Cordelia screamed, running toward the window.

  But Lefty got there first. He clubbed the monster’s head with his right fist, hitting the giant beast’s eye with enough force to knock it back out of the house entirely.

  Brendan slumped forward to the floor and then scrambled quickly back to his feet.

  “Are you okay?” Cordelia asked, distinctly remembering seeing teeth as big as her fist inside the monster’s jaws.

  “Yeah,” Brendan said. “It just snagged the back of my shirt. I’m okay, thanks to Lefty. Wow, dude, you have one heck of a right hook. You could have knocked out Mike Tyson in his prime!”

  “My left hook used to be even better,” Lefty said, looking down at his prosthetic wooden hand.

  “What was that thing?” Adie asked, her eyes open so wide that it seemed like she might never blink again.

  “I think it may have been a—” Cordelia started, but was cut off by another horrible screech.

  They all peered out the windows, careful not to get too close. Dozens of flying dinosaurs hovered around the house. Pterodactyls so massive that their wingspans were longer than a city bus. They screeched as they swarmed in looping, investigative patterns, their sleek, sharp heads swiveling on their long necks.

  Off in the distance, Cordelia spotted a small island covered in bright vegetation.

  “Over there!” she said, pointing. “Let’s try to get to that island. It’s covered with trees. . . . They won’t be able to get close to us if we’re on the ground.”

  Brendan nodded and then adjusted the levers and steering wheel until the gauges indicated they were heading straight ahead.

  “Start bringing us down too,” Cordelia said. “We don’t want to overshoot it.”

  Brendan nodded, turning back to the control panel. He reached out for the altitude lever, but before he could grab it, a massive, yellowish-gray pterodactyl crashed into the house through the bay window, sending him sprawling backward into Lefty Payne. They both fell to the floor as the dinosaur l
unged toward Cordelia.

  She dove left, barely escaping the creature’s snapping jaws.

  The dinosaur was so large that when it tried to flap its wings inside the study, it lost its balance and crashed into the desk, gnashing its beak around as it fell, nearly catching Eleanor’s hair in its jaws.

  The huge prehistoric bird was over eight feet tall with a beak large enough to skewer all three Walkers, Lefty, and Adie, and still have room for vegetables.

  “Lefty, can’t you shoot that thing?” Adie asked desperately.

  “I’m out of ammo,” he said, frowning at the empty bullet chambers on his pistol.

  “We’re going to be a Walker kebab!” Brendan yelled.

  “Not if we get out of here,” Cordelia said, grabbing Brendan’s arm and pulling him to his feet. “Move it!”

  “Back to the attic?” Lefty suggested, holstering his now-useless gun.

  “Way ahead of you!” Eleanor shouted from the hallway, with Adie close behind her.

  The five of them ran up into the attic. Brendan spun around, grabbed the stairs, and tried to pull them closed. They didn’t budge.

  “The stairs won’t go up!” he said.

  They could already hear the screeching pterodactyl making its way clumsily down the hallway in their direction.

  Lefty came over and helped Brendan. The stairs wouldn’t move even a centimeter. Cordelia knelt down and examined the folding stairs’ hinges.

  “It’s stuck,” she said. “The hinges must have warped when the house crashed into the sea.”

  The dinosaur appeared below them. It looked up, cocked its long head to the side, and then screeched so loudly that all of them cupped their hands over their ears. The pterodactyl started awkwardly climbing the stairs.

  Brendan, Cordelia, and Lefty quickly shuffled backward toward the wall where Eleanor and Adie were already crouched with terrified expressions on their faces.

  “Well, we’ve managed to trap ourselves,” Brendan said. “Congratulations, everyone.”

  Nobody responded.

  In the silence, they heard loud ripping noises above them, as if a giant had just torn a hole in the seat of his pants bending over to pick something up. There were more tearing noises, and seconds later it became clear that they were descending rather quickly—far too rapidly to survive the impact this time.

  “The birds are ripping open the balloon!” Cordelia said.

  Brendan spun around. Lefty, who had been standing right beside him a moment ago, was gone.

  “Where did Lefty . . . ,” Brendan started, but then stopped when he saw the outlaw on the other side of the room, behind the pterodactyl.

  The dinosaur was completely inside the attic, walking toward them, its massive beak furiously snapping open and closed.

  Brendan looked desperately at Lefty Payne, who walked slowly and quietly, just a few feet behind the dinosaur. The outlaw mimed a pushing motion and then nodded toward Brendan.

  He spun around and saw a large window behind them.

  “Guys!” Brendan shouted over Eleanor’s and Adie’s screams. “Stay right where you are, as still as you can. When I say now, everyone dive for cover. Okay?” They gave him confused looks. “Just trust me. Say okay if you understand!”

  “Okay,” Cordelia said, her voice shaking.

  “Adie, Eleanor?” Brendan said.

  They both nodded. Which was good enough for him.

  Brendan turned to face the approaching dinosaur again. It was just ten feet away, almost close enough to extend its long beak and pluck out one of Brendan’s eyeballs. He pushed this image out of his brain and instead focused on Lefty, still just a step behind the vicious dinosaur.

  The pterodactyl reared back, getting ready to strike. From the corner of his eye, Brendan saw Eleanor flinch.

  “Wait for the signal!” he said, his voice shaking.

  The pterodactyl turned toward the sound of his shrill voice. It let out another horrible screech and charged, its beak aimed straight at Brendan’s heart. He let out his own screech and dove to the right. Eleanor, Cordelia, and Adie followed Brendan’s move, diving out of the dinosaur’s path.

  Lefty charged it from behind. He slammed into the pterodactyl with his shoulder, propelling the dinosaur into the wall of the attic, just below the window.

  The huge bird crashed right through the thin wall, flying back outside and tearing open a gaping hole with jagged, splintered edges. Combined with the window, the hole was now large enough to drive a car through, and easily large enough to allow for a feeding frenzy, almost as if the doors to the pterodactyl’s lunch buffet had just been opened.

  Brendan scrambled to his feet.

  “Sorry, I, um, hope you realized my screaming was the signal,” he said.

  Cordelia rolled her eyes as they climbed to their feet and gathered around the huge hole in the side of the house.

  The five of them stood there and realized that one small pterodactyl had been the least of their problems. The balloon had been severely punctured. A wall of deep-blue ocean rushed up beneath them. Not only that, but even larger-winged dinosaurs were still circling the house. Several of them had spotted the huge hole in the attic and were dive-bombing right toward it.

  Even if they all survived the fall, then there would still be the man-eating dinosaurs coming after them. There was really only one question facing them now.

  “Well,” Brendan said trying to force a nervous laugh. “Would you guys rather crash into the ocean, or get eaten by giant dinosaurs?”

  Nobody responded, because a crack of electricity ripped open the air, cutting out all other sounds. A flash of bright-blue light zigzagged across the sky like broken glass. There was a sickeningly wet explosion above them as one of the dive-bombing pterodactyls exploded into tiny red and gray pieces that sizzled as they fell toward the water, trailing tendrils of smoke.

  The five occupants of the attic took a step back.

  “What was that?” Eleanor yelled.

  As if attempting to answer her, several more cracks tore open the sky and more blue lighting bolts discharged above them, incinerating three more pterodactyls.

  Then a massive metal sphere floated down into view as the remaining pterodactyls fled, scattering in all directions. The sphere was perfectly round and silver, reflecting the afternoon sun, the water, and a distorted Kristoff House with mirrored precision. Its surface rippled, almost as if it were made of liquid, or mercury, instead of solid metal. It hovered in front of them, and several more bolts of lightning erupted from it on all sides. They fired out and hit three more retreating dinosaurs, blasting them into zillions of smoking pieces.

  “What is that thing?” Adie asked.

  The Walkers seemed to know so much more about all the strange things she had seen that day, she expected them to know what this was as well. But her question was met with silence. The Walkers were too shocked and confused to even attempt to provide an answer that they didn’t have anyway.

  The sphere hovered in front of them for a few seconds, as the house continued its deadly plummet toward the ocean. And, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the sphere zoomed away below them and out of view.

  They looked down, shocked to see that the house was just ten or fifteen seconds away from hitting the ocean. They were descending so quickly that their stomachs were in their throats and their ears popped.

  They barely had time to cry out.

  But then the house slowed. It was a jarring enough transition to send all five of them stumbling to the attic floor and their stomachs plunging back down into their feet.

  Cordelia became vaguely aware of light vibrations humming beneath them, as if there was a massive but silent engine running somewhere on the main floor of the house.

  “That metal sphere,” she said. “I think it’s somehow slowing down our fall. . . .”

  As if to put a period on her statement, the house hit the sea once again. But this time, it was gentler than even the best airplane landing.
A small shudder rattled the floorboards already loosened from the first impact, but the five occupants barely shifted at all.

  Cordelia climbed to her feet and ran over to the nearest window. She saw no sign of the strange sphere that had just saved their lives.

  “Where did it go?” Brendan called out from the gaping hole that the pterodactyl had crashed through. “Do you guys see it?”

  “No,” Cordelia said, eyeing the huge hole in the wall warily. “But let’s get out of here.”

  The five of them headed back downstairs into the second-floor study. From the bay window, they spotted the small island they had seen at the start of the pterodactyl attack. They were just a few hundred yards from shore and drifting right toward it.

  “It’s beautiful!” Eleanor said, amazed.

  Indeed, the island was like none that any of them had ever seen. The sand at the water’s edge was black and sparkling as if it were made of ash and gemstones. The plants and vegetation immediately behind the beach were a variety of bright colors and odd shapes that almost appeared to be backlit by neon. There were bright purple vines, psychedelic swirling green and yellow trees, and bright pink plants with gray flowers the size of houses on them. The whole island almost seemed to glow unnaturally.

  Brendan pulled out the book world map and studied it intently. Now that he knew the location of the Worldkeepers, the next step was figuring out where on the map they were at this moment. His eyes scanned the three large oceans on the map. In the middle of one was a small island labeled Dinosaur Island, presumably also the name of one of Denver’s many novels. Several inches away on the map was another, larger island with a name that terrified him. And it was almost certainly the island they were now headed directly toward.

  He returned to the section in the Journal where Denver Kristoff described the three Worldkeepers and then cross-referenced it with the map. A short time later, there was a scraping beneath them as the house impacted the shore. The house tilted slightly, and the five of them stumbled back toward the same wall. Then, finally, it settled itself upon the black sand making up the island’s shoreline and stopped moving completely.