Monsters Unleashed #2 Read online

  The flying parentomons circled the gigantic bug monster, buzzing around Freddie’s eyes, making it difficult to see what Trevor was doing. Slurp raised two of his tentacles, but it seemed useless.

  I should have given him more eyes, Freddie thought.

  “He needs help!” Manny shouted to their monsters.

  Kraydon, Yapzilla, and Mega-Q tried to defend Slurp. They shot off zaps and shrieks and flames.

  The parentomons hovered over the writhing Godzilla-shaped swarm.

  “I have to go to them,” Trevor said. “I’m not afraid.”

  “They’ll kill you!” Jordan said.

  “They won’t hurt me,” Trevor said. “They know me. I love them.”

  Freddie nodded at Trevor. He understood that Trevor needed to do this—for them, for their town, but also for himself. To prove that he was taking responsibility for what had gone wrong. Freddie had stood in those shoes before.

  “If you’re gonna go, then go!” Nina yelled, stomping out another flock of entomons.

  They watched as Trevor waded toward the giant entomon monster. The monster reached down its hand and scooped up Trevor. The entomons began to cover his entire body, but Trevor didn’t look afraid.

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” Manny asked.

  “Hello, my darlings!” Trevor yelled up to the parentomons and raised his arms.

  Freddie could barely make out Trevor through the swarm. He was just standing there, arms raised. Freddie couldn’t quite tell, but it looked like there were tears streaming down Trevor’s face. He watched as the flying parent bugs descended and landed on Trevor’s arms. The winged parentomons fluttered like crazy on his wrists. Then the swarm thickened and Trevor disappeared from view.

  “What’s he doing?!” Nina shouted.

  “He’s not stopping them!” yelled Jordan. “He’s just letting them flap around!”

  A cloud covered sun and a dark thought crossed Freddie’s mind. Had this been Trevor’s plan the whole time? The good guys lose, and the bugs take over the world with Trevor as their king?

  “Trevor!” Freddie, Manny, and Quincy all screamed at the top of their lungs in a three-way jinx.

  Come on, Trevor, thought Freddie, wanting to believe in the good, but all he could do was watch in horror as the legion of bugs loomed over them in the shape of a Kaiju.

  15

  “Trevor, do it already!” Nina shrieked almost louder than Yapzilla.

  “Do it, you little twerp!” Jordan yelled through the wall of entomons rising before them.

  “Freddie, if we don’t get out of this,” Manny said, talking faster than a third grader on a sugar high. “You’re my best friend! I love you, man!”

  “I love you, too, buddy!” Freddie yelled back over the chattering buzz of the swarm. “You’re my best friend, too.”

  The bug swarm reared up like a Godzilla-shaped tsunami, covering the kids in a pitch-black shadow, blocking the faint light of daybreak.

  The gigantic mass of monster bugs looked ready to slam down over the kids.

  “Look out!” Jordan cried.

  “Run!” Quincy shouted. But there was nowhere to run.

  Freddie froze in place and covered his head with his arms.

  Suddenly all the entomons dropped out of their monstrous formation and hit the ground like a hailstorm. The bugs were loopy and directionless. They wandered around on the ground.

  Slurp quickly slurped up the rest of the entomons.

  “Get ’em!” Freddie said, and they all charged forward. The kids and their monsters destroyed the few remaining entomons that were too big for Slurp to slurp.

  When the octovarkephant’s eight ent-eater trunks finished vacuuming the swarm, there wasn’t a single bug left.

  “Is everyone okay?” Manny asked.

  “We did it!” Jordan screamed.

  “Wait a second,” Nina said. “Where’s Trevor?”

  Freddie turned around and saw Trevor down on his knees, about ten yards away.

  The two original parentomons lay at his feet, crushed by Trevor’s shoe. In the dawn light, a twinkle appeared on Trevor’s cheek as a tear ran down the side of his face. His twin bugs were now nothing more than two green splotches in the dirt.

  “What’s the matter with you, Trevor?!” Quincy shouted at him. “Why did you wait so long?”

  “What do you want from me?” Trevor shouted back. “I did the right thing! I killed them, didn’t I? I killed my precious—” He choked on his next words.

  “You could have gotten us all killed, hesitating like that!” Jordan shouted. “What’s more important? Your friends, or a couple of stupid bugs?”

  “Is that what you think?” Trevor asked, his eyes brimming with tears.

  Freddie turned to the rest of the gang. “Guys, go easy on him—we won . . . and he helped us. . . .”

  “If by helping us you mean scared me half to death, then, yeah,” said Nina. “You were a real gem, Trevor!”

  Freddie jogged over to Trevor and helped him to his feet. “It’s okay, buddy,” he said. “You did the right thing.”

  “I know.” Trevor sniffled. “I know. . . .”

  “I know it wasn’t easy . . . ,” Freddie started to say, when his whole body tensed up.

  They felt a rumble. The earth began to tremble.

  “What was that?” Manny said.

  Then it broke through the damp soil where the water from the tower had soaked into the ground. First the mandibular snout formed, next the squiggly forearms bristled with antennae, then the shiny blue-black shell. Its pincers were longer than Freddie was tall.

  One of Slurp’s tentacles shot out over the kids’ heads and latched on to the side of the monster bug. The octovarkephant snorted hard, but the thing was too massive to suck up.

  Then, the gargantuan entomon started to split into two.

  “What . . . is . . . happening . . . ,” Nina said in shock.

  “It’s replicating again!” Quincy said.

  The behemoth bug split in half to display a newly hatched enormo-insect. It was . . . huge.

  Mungo saw the thing and barfed. It was too gross for even Mungo to handle.

  “He’s going for Slurp!” Freddie yelped as the monster lunged forward.

  Slurp raised its waggling limb to block the oncoming beast.

  The entomon’s mandibles clicked shut and snipped Slurp’s tentacle in half.

  Slurp wailed as the tip of his tentacle dropped in the dirt. It kept wiggling, like it was still alive. The entomon went up on its hind legs and roared. The thing was as big as a triceratops.

  Suddenly Trevor jumped to his feet. “I’ll prove to you guys whose side I’m on, once and for all!” Trevor raced over and pounced onto the back of the entomon.

  “Trevor, don’t!” Freddie shouted, but Trevor was already on the bug like a bull rider. Freddie turned to his friends. “You see what happens when you mess with people?”

  They all hung their heads a little.

  Manny looked up, then sprang into action. “Hold on, Trevor. We’re going to save you!” They all took off, sprinting to help their new friend, who was hanging on for dear life, jostling back and forth on the back of the gigantic entomon.

  As they ran over to help Trevor, their monsters converged on the first massive bug monster. Yapzilla spewed fire at the humongous beastie, and Mega-Q zapped it with bolt after bolt of blue electricity.

  Kraydon swung his spiked tail and knocked out the big bug’s front two legs. The entomon nose-dived into the ground. When the bug went down, Oddo jumped into the air and rolled into a ball. The big fuzzball came down hard on the big bug, making a dent in the side of its hard outer shell.

  The entomonster squealed as Oddo bounced off, and Mungo swooped in as the enormous bug collapsed to one side.

  The huge bug slumped down and went still.

  “One down!” Jordan shouted with glee as they surrounded the second entomon.

  Trevor was still in trouble wit
h the other monster bug. “Whoa!” he shouted from the back of the bucking insect.

  The entomonster scuttled backward and Trevor flew forward over its head. Trevor’s pants leg got caught in the monster’s antennae. He hung upside down, waving his arms for help.

  Freddie sprinted toward the bug monster and jumped. He reached up and grabbed the monster’s pincer.

  SNAP!

  Freddie fell to the ground, still holding the pincer, which was no longer attached to the monster. Trevor fell next to him, and a waterfall of green slime guts poured down on them.

  The final entomon reared back, and its pointy feet lifted over Freddie and Trevor.

  “Freddie, Trevor, watch out!” Nina screamed.

  Just then, one of Slurp’s tentacles swept across the ground and knocked out the monster bug’s back legs. It flipped over onto its back, its giant, spindly legs waving in the air.

  Jordan, Nina, and Quincy ran over. They pummeled the bug monster’s soft underbelly with their sticks and rackets until the bug went limp.

  “Woo-hoo!” Jordan whooped, and high-fived Freddie, Manny, and Quincy, then spun around and did an end zone dance.

  But there wasn’t much time for celebration.

  “You guys, get over here, quick!” Nina called out. She stood next to Slurp, examining the monster. He was slumped over and looked sick. The giant eight-snouted creature was wheezing through his trunks. “Something’s wrong with Filburt!”

  “You mean Slurp.”

  “No, I mean Filburt,” she said tersely.

  The octovarkephant trumpeted a giant belch and then dropped into a heap.

  Slurp did not look good.

  He slunk on the ground. The gurgle of his stomach was audible up to a good ten feet away. The creature emitted a foul, ghastly stench.

  Manny, Jordan, and Quincy all rushed over to Slurp and gathered before him.

  “You think he ate too much?” asked Jordan.

  “No, I think he ate the perfect amount,” Quincy said. “There’s not a single entomon left.”

  “Maybe he just needs time to digest . . . ,” Manny said.

  Freddie limped over to Trevor, trying not to slip on the bug guts.

  “Maybe if we shrink him down it’ll be okay?” Manny suggested.

  “Maybe . . .” Quincy pulled out the tin of silica slugs and dumped the rest of the silica into the giant octovarkephant monster’s mouth.

  They waited for the silica to kick in. Slurp’s body vibrated and jiggled as it shrank to a pint-sized version of his gigantic self.

  Come on, Slurp, Freddie thought. Don’t quit on us now.

  They waited for the monster to come back to life . . . but it was no use.

  Slurp sagged, then melted into a pink puddle and faded into the dirt.

  He was gone.

  “Filburt!” Nina cried, her eyes welling up with tears.

  “His name’s not Filburt, it’s Slurp,” Trevor said, tears streaming down his face.

  “We’ll never forget what you did here today, Slurp . . . ,” Freddie said sadly.

  “The world owes you a debt of gratitude it will never even know it has to repay,” Quincy said solemnly as he stood over the pink puddle.

  “You were the man, Slurp . . . ,” Jordan said, a single tear falling down his cheek.

  “Yeah, you were the man-ster,” Manny said. “Get it? Like mon-ster?”

  “Okay, how about a compromise,” Nina said. “How about we make him a gravestone and we’ll write ‘Filburt von Slurpenstein, the one and only.’”

  “He was a monster of destiny,” Quincy said. “Destined for greatness. A short life, but an important one . . .”

  Trevor’s face drooped into a sad pout.

  “Are you okay, Trevor?” Freddie said. “We still won. Slurp served his purpose.”

  “No, I’m not okay,” Trevor said. “And now I don’t have any bugs or any friends.”

  “Well, I can’t do anything about the bugs . . . but we’ll be your friends,” Freddie said to him.

  “That depends . . . How are you at doing other people’s homework for them?” Jordan asked.

  “How are you at doing chores?” Nina asked.

  “What about foot massages?” Manny said.

  “We’re just messing with you, Trevor,” said Jordan. “Friends wouldn’t make you do all that stuff.”

  “I don’t really know that much about having friends, I guess,” Trevor said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Quincy. “We’ll teach you.”

  “I’m not sure Quincy will be the best teacher,” said Nina. “So you may want to listen to me and Jordan on that one.”

  Trevor let out a chuckle. “Okay.”

  “Freddie and Manny aren’t bad friends to have either,” Jordan said.

  “They’re pretty cool,” Quincy said to Trevor. “All I’m saying is stick with me and you’ll learn everything you need to know.”

  “Looks like you just became a member of monster club!” Freddie gave the small kid a pat on the shoulder.

  “Thanks, guys,” Trevor said. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”

  The sound of police and ambulance sirens whooped faintly in the distance. Freddie listened closely and heard the muffled chop of a helicopter. The sun was poking halfway over the mountain range in the distance, and his town was waking up to another round of monster destruction.

  “I think we better get outta here,” he said. “Quick.”

  They all hopped on the backs of their monsters and galloped home toward the rising sun.

  16

  They took the long way home, down a winding back road, to avoid being seen by any neighbors. The monster night was over and the entomons had been exterminated.

  As they passed by the park, they caught a glimpse of a man and a woman in spandex outfits and running shoes. But they weren’t jogging. They were looking at the bare pine trees and the bug-ravaged grass, scratching their heads.

  A few blocks later, a woman in her bathrobe stood outside, looking at her dirt yard. She rubbed her chin, puzzling how all her grass could have disappeared overnight.

  She was so confused about her lawn she didn’t even notice the caravan of monsters turning the corner one block over.

  Freddie could only imagine what the neighbors were thinking. Unless they knew about a 3D printer capable of making monsters, he was pretty sure their secret would be safe.

  And who would believe that anyway?

  When the kids arrived back at Quincy’s house, they tiptoed through the back door. Quincy followed with a towel to wipe up all the monsters’ dirty paw prints. Thankfully all the entomonsters had left the house in one piece. Except for a few entomons that they’d stomped, there weren’t any bugs left in sight.

  There was one last thing they had to do.

  “We need to shrink these guys back down,” Quincy said, gesturing to their five super-size monsters crowding in the kitchen.

  “Will it work?” Freddie asked.

  “If they can grow again, why can’t they shrink again?” Quincy replied. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  “Cool, feed them the slugs,” Manny said.

  “Um . . . well, I used the last of the silica on Slurp. I don’t know if we have any more,” Quincy said.

  “Where is your mom’s closet?” Nina asked.

  “Upstairs, last door on the left . . . ,” Quincy said, a confused look on his face. “Just don’t bother my grandma, okay?”

  Nina bounded out of the kitchen and raced up the staircase. When she came back, she was holding a shoe box with five or six silica packets inside. “This oughta do it,” she said. “Those packets usually come in shoe boxes, too.”

  The kids took the packets and cut them open, then pressed the pellets into a few gummi worms.

  Freddie handed out the silica-spackled candy, and the monsters looked at him like they wanted to have nothing to do with it.

  “I know it’s not fun to shrink, but if you guys don’t
take this, then people will try to take you away from us,” he said. “Do you understand?”

  The monsters nodded and ate the silica treats a little sadly.

  Kraydon started to shake, followed by Oddo and Mungo, Yapzilla and Mega-Q, all of them convulsing rapidly. The floor vibrated as the large monsters shrank back down to their pet-size mini-selves.

  “I guess we’ll just have to give them the silica every two weeks or so,” Quincy said.

  “Yum yums,” Mungo said, because that’s what Mungo always said.

  “We need to destroy that printer, too,” Freddie said.

  “Why would we do that?” Quincy asked. “We don’t even understand how it works yet.”

  “So what?” Freddie said. “We know what it does. The destruction that it’s capable of.”

  “I agree,” Nina said as she brushed the bug legs and gunk out of Oddo’s fur. “It’s too powerful to keep around. Nothing but trouble.”

  “You know,” Manny said, “maybe it’s not the printer or the goo that has the power. It’s you, Freddie. Your drawings have life in them way before they ever go through some printer.”

  There were good things and bad things that happened because of that 3D printer. People had been scared and some stuff had been destroyed. And, after all, they wouldn’t have their supercool monster amigos if it weren’t for the printer. And there was no way they’d all be friends right now.

  “Thanks, Manny,” Freddie said, “but I don’t care about any of that. We have to make sure it never happens again, and the only way to do that is to destroy it.”

  Freddie went to the basement, followed by Manny, Nina, Jordan, Trevor, and their shrunken minimonsters.

  They gathered around the worktable with the 3D printer on it.

  Quincy took a stand in front of the printer with Mega-Q beside him. “Anyone who tries to touch this printer is going to have to go through me and Mega. . . .”

  “I don’t think Kraydon cares,” Manny said.

  “Huh?” Quincy turned around.

  Kraydon’s eye started to swirl and quickly turned the whole printer to solid rock.