The Last Kids on Earth: June's Wild Flight
Page 1
VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020
Text copyright © 2020 by Max Brallier
Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Douglas Holgate
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE
Ebook ISBN 9780593202937
pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0
For Sally and Ruby.
—M. B.
For Harriet, Philippa, Sakura, Elodie, Lilly and Maggie. The downright coolest, toughest girl gang I know!
—D. H.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Illustrator
chapter one
That’s me.
Not the giant Ogre.
Beneath the giant Ogre. The girl in the driver’s seat of the oversized bumper car. The legendarily heroic girl about to get eaten.
My name is June Del Toro, and I had a good life, while it lasted.
For a while, my claim to fame was that I was the first sixth grader to be editor-in-chief of my middle school newspaper: The Parker Gazette.
Of course, that was before the Monster Apocalypse. . . . These days, there’s no more school, no more newspaper, no more lots of stuff.
Now my claim to fame is that I’m the bravest girl on the block. (To be clear, it’s no great achievement: I’m the only girl on the block.)
Proof of bravery, you ask? I regularly exchange blows with evil beasts, lock horns with zombie hordes, and make mincemeat out of evil monsters.
And here’s the topper—I live in a tree house with three middle school boys.
Yes. It gets gross.
But it’s generally pretty rad, because they’re also my best friends in the whole world: Jack Sullivan, Quint Baker, and Dirk Savage.
And we have a crew of good-guy monster buddies who live at the local pizza joint next door. We spend most of our time competing in high-stakes lip sync battles, cruising around in our post-apocalyptic pickup truck, and having Nutella-sandwich-eating contests.
Also, battling evil forces from another dimension that are trying to take over our world. And yep—in case you were wondering—that happens a lot.
Like I said, it’s been a pretty good life.
I’ve seen, done, and eaten more weird things than, like, ninety-two kids my age.
But it’s not perfect.
I miss my parents—although that’s mostly okay, because I know they’re alive and out there, somewhere. And I miss getting to break big news stories at school, like ORCHESTRA RECITAL CANCELLED—PARENTS, STUDENTS, TEACHERS ALL EQUALLY ECSTATIC.
The other not-so-perfect bit?
An extreme-evil, power-mad monster named Thrull is assembling an army of skeleton soldiers to build something called the Tower. It’s part of his plan to summon the ultimate, endgame evil: Ŗeżżőcħ the Ancient, Destructor of Worlds.
Sooo . . . yeah.
That part is lousy.
But not as lousy as being EATEN BY A GIANT BEAST. WHICH IS WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN!
So y’know what—with the milliseconds remaining before I’m swallowed whole, let me—
EXPLAIN HOW I GOT HERE!
I stood alone at the center of the old Sunshine Roller Rink, tense and alert, ready for action.
Suddenly—
VA-ROOOM!
The roar of revving engines filled the air—a dozen DoomKarts: souped-up bumper cars, built to fit monsters. (Like our BoomKarts—but bigger.)
Then I heard the squeal of microphone feedback. It was Quint, in the stands, shouting into a bullhorn: “LET THE UNNECESSARILY DANGEROUS TEST BEGIN!”
Jack and Dirk were next to Quint, and they all had a front-row view of the action. I was the guinea pig for this “unnecessarily dangerous test”—which was fine with me, ’cause it was my idea in the first place. Also, I love guinea pigs.
Dirk was gulping down beef jerky, while Jack watched the action through a pair of goofy high-powered binoculars.
If I were writing a news story about this, I’d give it a headline like: LOCAL SKATING RINK HOME TO HIJINKS; BRAVE GUINEA PIG GIRL TELLS ALL.
I was just realizing that “Guinea Pig Girl” sounded less cool than I intended when my thoughts were interrupted by—
SCREEEECH!
DoomKart tires. Then, from the wings of the skating rink, they came.
Monsters.
Which sounds bad.
But it’s only half bad.
They’re our monster friends. So that was good.
But they had instructions to run me over. So that was bad.
I braced myself. Forty monsters atop forty DoomKarts came roaring at me . . .
The monsters were bashing and smashing each other. Two DoomKarts spun out and another nearly flipped.
And I was standing there, waiting. My heart was beating so fast it was like there was an engine in my chest.
Fern was the closest to me, so Skaelka RAMMED into her! Fern shrieked as her DoomKart spun out. Skaelka cackled, “Now I am winning!” and gunned it toward me.
“WHEE!” cried Globlet from Skaelka’s passenger seat. Globlet’s way too small to drive but she didn’t want to be left out.
-Globlet-
“Come on,” I muttered as the action drew closer and closer to me. “Come ON.”
“June!” Quint yelled. “Pull the ignition cord! On your backpack!”
Nope, I thought. Not yet.
“June!” Jack shouted, sounding a little bit panicky. “If you’re trying to be a show-off, DON’T! I’m the show-off! I have all the showing off covered . . . and I’m not even that good at it!”
I caught Jack’s eye for a se
cond. He looked ready to rush out and join me. I gave him a quick shake of my head.
Not yet.
This was going to work. I knew it.
A dozen monsters were bearing down. I could see the glint of Skaelka’s ax, slung over her shoulder. Soon I’d feel the heat of her breath. In the stands, Quint was freaking out. “JUNE! THIS IS NOT GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN!”
But I still didn’t move.
Because I didn’t want this to go “according to plan.”
And here’s why: to prevent our dimension from falling into the hands of ultimate evil—we need to defeat Thrull and stop the Tower.
And to do that, we’ll have to venture out into the unknown. And I’m pretty freakin’ sure that out there, in the unknown, things won’t always go “according to plan.”
So we’re going to need to be ready to improvise.
To handle the unexpected.
That’s why I waited until the last possible moment.
Skaelka was nearly upon me. And yeah, Skaelka’s my friend—but she’s also a ferocious warrior and I’m pretty sure she would not lose a combat contest on my account.
But still, I didn’t flinch.
I saw everything in what felt like slow motion. I saw Dirk, in the stands, his jerky forgotten, lips pressed in a firm line. I saw Rover next to him, burying his head in his paws. I saw Jack, mouth open, saying the same thing I was at the same time . . .
“Now!”
chapter two
I yanked the cord on my backpack, and there was a loud—
SNAP!
POOM!
The pack’s top exploded open, and a metal shield burst out! It was instantly unfolding—a swinging mechanical thing, pieces connecting until it formed a half-moon shield atop my forearm.
I swung the shield just as Skaelka’s DoomKart was upon me, and—
“IT WORKED!” I exclaimed, gasping and grinning. “THE SURPRISE SHIELD WORKED!”
And, I mean, I knew it would work. But also—HOLY MOLEY I CAN’T BELIEVE IT WORKED and MAN OH MAN I cut that close.
VA-ROOOM!
I couldn’t lose focus. Spinning back around, I saw the next DoomKart nearly upon me. I slammed the shield into the ground as I dropped to one knee, and—
KLANG!
The DoomKart hit the shield and drove up it, straight over my head!
“That’s it!” Jack hollered, vaulting over the walls and into the rink. “I’m comin’ in!”
Dirk hurled himself into the arena after him and Quint followed.
“Just couldn’t watch from the sidelines, huh?” I shouted.
“No way you’re having all the fun without us!” Dirk barked as he skidded to a stop beside me. My friends each carried shields, though theirs weren’t able to pop out on demand like mine . . . yet.
“We’re gonna need more than shields to find the Tower,” I said.
“You mean destroy the tower,” Jack said.
“Uh, friends,” Quint said. “We have to find the Tower to destroy it. . . .”
“So guess we gotta find Thrull, huh?” Dirk grunted.
I nodded. He was right. We didn’t even know—
SHRIIIIIEK!
A high-pitched, monstrous scream! I spun around, just in time to see something burst into the arena.
Something fast—
“What is that thing?” I yelled, ducking down.
“It looked like a living, breathing rocket!” Jack shouted.
The creature was just a speedy blur—like a bee trapped under a glass, ricocheting from one side of the rink to the other.
And then a crashing. And a crumbling.
And Skaelka shouting a word I’d never heard
before: “RIFTERS!”
RIFTERS! RIDING OGRES!
chapter three
“RIFTERS!” Skaelka shouted again. “EVERYBODY! WEAPONS UP! WE GOT RIFTERS!”
“Rifters?” I cried out. “I never heard of any Rifters!”
“Quint!” Jack yelled, shaking our buddy by the shoulders. “What’s a Rifter? Tell me about Rifters!”
“I don’t know, Jack!” Quint said. “I don’t know all the things!”
“Hey, monster pals!” Dirk barked, as an Ogre stomped past. “We need information here!”
Just then, our flying friend Fern swooped past. She quickly gave us the scoop—
“Ohh, like pirates?” Jack said. “I love pirates!”
Suddenly, a crooked metal arrow came screaming through the air! I tackled Jack an instant before the arrow hit him.
“Never mind. Hate pirates,” Jack grumbled as—
WHOOSH!
A creature zoomed past us. Three more arrows hit the ground in its wake. I watched an Ogre stomp past—and saw the Rifter riding it. He was hurriedly jamming more arrows into a rusty, paint-splattered crossbow.
“I don’t think these Rifters care about us,” I said. “They’re hyper-focused on that neon-colored creature.”
The creature was zooming around like a pinball! It made an impossibly sharp turn, causing the pursuing Ogre to slip, and the Rifter atop him cried out as—
EJECTED!
It was pure chaos.
And suddenly—I was at the absolute center of that pure chaos.
Because the blur creature was zipping toward me. We were eye-to-eye. And in a moment we were going to be head-to-head—by which I mean, his head was going to be crashing into my head at many miles an hour.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I cried out, jumping back, then staggering, falling, and finally landing in an abandoned DoomKart.
“June, look out!” I heard Jack call, and I wanted to shout back something like, Yeah, no kidding! but I could hardly even breathe.
Right before impact, the blur-creature leapt, springing up and over me. I felt my hair rustle just as—
WHOOSH!
Next there was a flash of steel—it was a rusty chain, being swung by a Rifter. They were trying to lasso the creature.
“I’m okay, guys!” I called out, but then—
CHONK!
The DoomKart jerked forward. My eyes shot down and I saw that the Rifter’s chain had hooked on to the cart.
“Just kidding! Not okay!” I shouted. “NOT OKAY AT—”
YANK!
The chain jerked the DoomKart and we SMASHED into an Ogre’s tree-trunk-like leg. It was the biggest Ogre: an enormous, awful thing. And in its saddle was the biggest Rifter.
“Uh . . . hi,” I said.
The Ogre’s enormous hand came down. I curled up in the DoomKart seat, making myself small, and lifted the shield over my head.
The Ogre just grunted. Its massive paw pinned the DoomKart to the ground. Peering around the shield, I saw the monster’s mouth opening wide.
This was it. This was the end. Which brings us . . .
RIGHT BACK TO THE PRESENT!
WHERE I AM SECONDS AWAY FROM BECOMING AN AFTERNOON SNACK!
OR AM I?!
The Ogre snarls, but does as it’s told. The Rifter atop seems to be the established leader of the group.
I come out from under my shield shell, and in the DoomKart’s side mirror, I see the speeding blur-creature LEAP over the crumbled skating rink wall.
Gone.
Out of Wakefield . . . and into the unknown world beyond.
“After him!” the Rifter commands.
“Yes, Boss,” the others grumble.
The ground quakes as the Ogres move in a stampede, pursuing the creature. I collapse back into my seat, gasping for air, relieved. Then—
YANK!
“The Ogre’s chain!” I cry out. “It’s hooked to the DoomKart! And my foot is all jammed up in there!”
The massive beast is stomping out of the rink, picking up speed with every earth
-shattering step—and I’m being pulled along with it!
“Don’t worry, June, we’re coming!” Jack shouts.
BAM!
We explode out of the roller rink.
I grip the sides of the DoomKart as we slice across the parking lot. Cars screech and skid, sparks flying, as the Ogre swats and swipes them aside.
Onto the streets. Long-defunct fire hydrants gush water. Parking meters rain down dimes and quarters.
My heart leaps up into my throat as we start down a steep hill, lined with vine-choked houses, still following that strange, skittery, runaway creature.
This Ogre is squashing cars under its feet, heedless of all obstacles.
“STOP BEING SO HEEDLESS!” I shout.
But the Ogre is so huge, so strong, that it doesn’t even notice me hooked on to it. I’m like a piece of toilet paper stuck to a sneaker! And I really hate being like that!
I look behind me, desperate, and spot Dirk, Jack, Quint, and my monster friends. They’re all in DoomKarts, chasing after me.
But they can’t keep up with the stampeding Ogres.
My friends are quickly growing small in my vision.
Quint shouts something, but I can’t tell what. Dirk too. Then Skaelka. Finally, I hear Jack, calling from the top of his lungs, “JUNE! WE WILL FIND YOU! PROMISE!”
And that last word, promise, fades away as I’m pulled out of sight. . . .
chapter four
I’m pretty fast.
Not bragging, just saying.
Every grade always has “the fast kid.” I was never “the fast kid” but I was “a fast kid.”
I used to be able to run from my house to the school bus stop, three blocks away, in ninety-nine seconds.
The bus left at 7:12 a.m., and my dad always insisted I leave the house at 7:00 a.m. sharp. For no reason! I could have left at 7:10 and still made it to the bus stop with thirty-two seconds to spare! More, if the driver stopped off for a chocolate chunk muffin (which he usually did)!