Monsterstreet #2 Page 6

  Fisher heard the hisssss of the vampire a few aisles over and the cackling of the candysnatcher running off to another aisle. Then, as if they were all synchronized, the three monsters rushed toward the front of the store at once and disappeared out of Food Mart.

  “They’re running away from town,” Ava said. “Where could they possibly be going now?”

  Fisher’s eyes grew wide as he saw the soft light of a giant movie screen in the near distance, next to the town water tower.

  “To the drive-in movie theater,” he whispered.

  “Oh no!” Ava said.

  16

  Monster Marathon

  The marquee outside the drive-in movie theater read:

  ALL-NIGHT MONSTER MARATHON!

  SPONSORED BY BUGFRY CANDY FACTORY!

  EVERYONE’S INVITED!

  We’re already living inside a monster marathon, Fisher thought as he and Ava rode past the ticket booth, nearly waking up Mr. Palmer, whose family had owned the place for almost seventy years.

  There were at least a hundred cars in the lot—mostly families and teenage couples. Nearby, a dozen food trucks were set up with corn dogs, funnel cakes, and corn on the cob. The entire area was twice as crowded as Town Square had been earlier in the evening. Best of all, Ghostbusters was playing on the giant drive-in screen.

  “What time is it?” Fisher asked.

  Ava glanced at her watch.

  “Almost three a.m. We don’t have much time.”

  Just then, two younger boys walked past them. Fisher and Ava overheard their conversation. . . .

  “Can you believe the Candy Factory ran out of candy tonight?” a boy dressed like a zombie said.

  “It’s never happened before. They should have made more candy,” his friend, a cowboy, said.

  Fisher glanced at the nearby candy truck, where a mass of disappointed customers were walking away after being told the news.

  “How in the world could the candy factory run out of candy on Halloween?” Ava asked.

  Fisher’s eyes grew wide, and he pointed to the car in front of them. “Champ!”

  Just then, a half-eaten candy bar hovered out of the open window. Then another. And another.

  In the cornfield next to the drive-in, Fisher saw shucks being tossed up in the air like candy at a parade. Whatever was eating them was coming right toward the drive-in. Soon, countless screams emanated from Old Joe’s Pumpkin Farm next door.

  “Squirrel!” Fisher whispered. “He’s eating the entire corn field—and all the pumpkins! But where’s Pez?”

  Right then, Ava’s gaze slowly ascended above the trees, and her mouth fell open as if she were looking at a UFO.

  “Oh. My. Gosh.”

  Fisher glanced up to see the swamp creature standing on top of the water tower on the other side of the drive-in fence. He looked like a giant lizard silhouetted against the moon as he tried to break into the town water supply, drinking out of a leaky hole he had made with his talons.

  Once revitalized, the creature leaped from the slide and landed on top of the drive-in screen. People peered out their car windows at the strange form, trying to figure out what it was.

  The swamp creature threw back its head and hawked an unfathomable amount of slime through its nostrils, splattering green ooze onto every windshield and hood in the lot.

  Screams echoed out of the car windows.

  Meanwhile, the vegetarian vampire jumped onto the hood of a truck, shattering its slime-covered windshield. He squeezed packets of ketchup into his mouth, and the red goo dripped from his fangs like blood.

  The teenage girl in the passenger seat screamed, and her panicked boyfriend tried to start the car. Other headlights turned on as families and couples attempted to escape. But every tire in the lot was flat, every battery was dead, and every gas gauge was on empty.

  A mischievous cackling echoed in the night as the invisible candysnatcher finished sabotaging every car, truck, and minivan in the lot.

  “This is madness!” Ava declared as the crowd ran from their cars back toward town, some hardly able to move because of the paralyzing slime. A few kids were stuck lying in the dirt, unable to move until the numbing effect wore off.

  Soon, all three monsters stepped in front of the projector beam, their ghastly silhouettes cast against the movie screen.

  Fisher turned to Ava. “Remember what you said back at Food Mart about giving the vampire a heart attack?”

  “Yeah,” Ava replied.

  “Well, I have an idea,” Fisher said, handing the backpack to her. “Don’t do anything until I say so. Okay?”

  Ava nodded, understanding his plan.

  Fisher crept around the side of the projector house and cautiously confronted the monsters.

  “Champ? Pez? Squirrel? I know you guys are in there somewhere,” he began. “If you can hear me, you have to find a way to help us beat the monsters.”

  The vegetarian vampire hissed. The swamp creature growled. And the invisible candysnatcher laughed wildly, then threw a handful of Reese’s Pieces at Fisher’s face.

  Drool dripped from their mouths as they closed in on him from all sides.

  Closer.

  And closer.

  “I’m warning you guys,” Fisher said, but they kept drawing nearer. And nearer. Finally, he shouted, “Now, Ava!”

  The monsters exchanged confused glances.

  Ava appeared around the corner, holding up two raw steaks Fisher had hidden in the backpack.

  “Meat thy doom!” she yelled, then shoved the two rib eyes into the vegetarian vampire’s mouth.

  The vampire howled in pain as the steak juices singed his tongue and cheeks.

  Ava lifted the Super Soaker and sprayed the dehydrated creature with a stream of acidic soda. Within five seconds, half of the creature’s new scales had disintegrated into dust.

  But then the stream of soda disappeared into thin air.

  The invisible candysnatcher is drinking it! Fisher realized.

  “I’m out of soda!” Ava shouted.

  “Hurry and reload!” Fisher called back, pointing to the backpack.

  While Ava hurried to pour more soda into the Super Soaker, the vampire coughed up the steaks. The swamp creature turned on the nearby hose attached to the projector house and poured it over his own body, rejuvenating his scales. And the invisible candysnatcher laughed victoriously.

  The monsters were undefeatable.

  Suddenly, the vampire grabbed Fisher’s neck and threw him to the ground. The monsters loomed over him like a nightmare gang, their eyes as black as night.

  Fisher realized in that moment that the Halloweeners—the revered protectors of Halloween—no longer existed. Only the monsters remained. And they were about to destroy him.

  Ava stood nearby, watching helplessly. She knew they would get her next.

  At the sight of the vampire fangs bearing down on him, Fisher closed his eyes. And waited for the sting of death.

  But right then, something unexpected happened. . . .

  Pffffpphhh!!!!!

  An air horn shrieked from behind the monsters.

  They covered their ears, turning toward the unbearable sound, and fell to their knees in agony.

  Of course! Fisher thought. Monsters are technically part of the animal kingdom; therefore their senses are heightened! That was the missing piece of the diary! And that’s why they were trying to destroy the speakers at the dance!

  The monsters began to run, stumbling over one another. Fisher watched them disappear around the corner, then glanced in the direction from which the air horn had blown. The light from the projector blinded him, and he put his hand in front of him so he could see the face of his rescuer.

  Cold, stinging fear rushed over him as he laid eyes on the scariest monster he had seen all night. . . .

  “Mom?”

  17

  Mother Knows Best

  Fisher’s mom didn’t say a word the entire drive home. Fisher sat peering out
the window at the chaos. . . .

  Hydrants spewed from every corner. Half-eaten jack-o’-lanterns were smeared upon moonlit sidewalks. And candy wrappers were scattered across lawns like fallen leaves.

  His mom had figured out a way to track his phone even with it turned off, and had followed the homing device all the way to the drive-in. They hadn’t been able to get ahold of Ava’s parents, so they had dropped her off at her house on the way home. Fisher imagined she was sitting in her room at that very moment, wondering if the past six hours had really happened.

  As soon as Fisher and his mom stepped inside their home, she dead-bolted the front door. And then every other door in the house.

  “They’ve evacuated all the streets in town and are warning everyone to stay inside until they can figure out what’s going on,” she explained.

  She began taping cardboard over the windows so that no one could see inside. Then she reached for garlic in the pantry but hesitated.

  “You said the vampire is a vegetarian?” she asked.

  Fisher examined her face to see if she was joking, but her eyes were deadly serious. He nodded.

  She grabbed raw steaks from the fridge and set them at every door.

  “And the swamp creature has a water-based body?”

  Fisher nodded again.

  His mom went to the utility room and turned off all their water.

  She’s monster-proofing the house, Fisher realized, surprised that his mom knew how to do such a thing.

  “You sneaking out tonight is exactly why I don’t care for Halloween,” she said, filling up his Super Soaker with green paint in order to spray any invisible trespassers. “It’s a bad influence on kids.”

  “Mom, I shouldn’t have gone out without letting you know where I was,” Fisher apologized. “But I knew you wouldn’t let me go, and those guys were trying to be my friends. Ever since the divorce, you haven’t listened to—”

  “Enough about the divorce, Fisher,” she said. “You think you’re the only one it’s been hard on? Try being a single parent.”

  You never care about how I feel! Fisher thought, but he didn’t think it would do any good to say it aloud.

  His mom continued, “You disobeyed, and now you’re grounded until we move. You can make new friends at your new school. For now, we need to focus on getting the house packed up.”

  Fisher thought of Champ, Pez, and Squirrel. He wanted them to be his friends. And he knew they still needed him.

  “Mom, I need to tell you something,” he began. “There was this weird candy at a house we went to tonight, and my friends—the Halloweeners—they turned into monsters. They’re the ones you saved me from at the drive-in.”

  She stared at him curiously, and he couldn’t tell if she understood what he was saying.

  “The Halloweeners?” she said, as if she thought it was a strange word.

  “Yeah,” Fisher confirmed.

  “You shouldn’t get mixed up with that sort” was all she replied; then she walked into the hallway.

  She pulled down the attic door and lowered the retractable ladder to the floor.

  “Up!” she commanded, motioning for Fisher to climb the ladder.

  “You want me to go up in the attic?” he said. “By myself?”

  She held out a flashlight and took a sleeping bag out of the closet.

  “You’ll sleep up there tonight until everything is under control,” she said. “There are no windows up there. And no doors. So you’ll be safe.”

  He understood the real reason, though. She was sending him to a prison cell with no escape. He would be locked up there all night while his friends were tasered, captured, or killed by a mob.

  “Now!” his mom urged. “Don’t make me ask again.”

  Fisher hung his head low and took the flashlight and sleeping bag from her. He stepped onto the first rung of the ladder.

  “I just have one question,” he called over his shoulder.

  “What is it?”

  “The air horn. How did you know it would scare away the monsters?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “But it’s all I had in the car.”

  “Oh,” he said, secretly wishing there was a more mysterious reason why she knew.

  Fisher nodded and disappeared into the attic. He wanted to ask her about what he had overheard the teachers saying in the gym and tell her about everything he had experienced that night. But his mom closed the door, shutting him away in the darkness. He could hear her footsteps below, probably booby-trapping the house for invisible trespassers.

  How does someone who hates Halloween know so much about monsters? he wondered.

  18

  Attic Secrets

  The dusty beam of the flashlight licked the walls, illumining cobwebbed rafters and forgotten memories. Fisher walked past a stack of boxes, a grimy mirror, and a broken wardrobe, then ran his finger over an old rocking horse. He knew his mom had grown up in that same house, and he wondered if all these artifacts had been left behind by family members he had never known.

  Soon, something caught his eye.

  Behind the mirror.

  Tucked away in the darkest corner of the attic.

  “An old wooden trunk?” he whispered.

  Black and orange streamers hung out of it like tentacles, and for a moment, Fisher thought there might be something living inside it.

  He pulled on the rusted lock until it broke, then he lifted the brass clamp. When he shined his flashlight inside the trunk, he was surprised by what he found. . . .

  A witch’s hat.

  Several tiny skeletons.

  And a battery-powered ghost.

  What are all these things doing up here? he wondered. Mom never decorates for Halloween.

  He lifted a leather scrapbook from the trunk and dusted off its cover.

  When he opened to the first page, he saw a picture of a little girl standing with her parents. They were all dressed up like the Addams Family.

  “Great Halloween costumes,” he whispered.

  He turned through the pages and saw the same family partaking in various Halloween rituals. . . .

  The girl and her father carving a jack-o’-lantern.

  The girl and her mother hanging fake cobwebs in the kitchen.

  The girl and her little brother scaring trick-or-treaters on their front porch.

  Fisher then noticed a folded piece of construction paper glued into the scrapbook.

  He unfolded it, and smiled at the girl’s drawing of a haunted house. A black candy cauldron was sitting on the front porch. Playful handwriting was inscribed over it with an orange marker:

  BEWARE OF THE WITCH!

  And then beneath it:

  PS Hallie is for Halloween!

  Fisher blinked.

  “Hallie?” he whispered. “But . . . that’s my mom’s name.”

  He let it sink in.

  “My mom was named after Halloween? And she knows about the witch?”

  He turned to the last page in the scrapbook.

  A Polaroid revealed her dressed up like a green-faced witch, stirring a plastic cauldron with a group of friends. They were all wearing Halloween costumes and holding bright orange pumpkin buckets like they were about to go trick-or-treating. Not only that, but they were standing in a tree house. The very same tree house where he had just taken Ava.

  The inscription beneath the photo read:

  The Halloweeners,

  1989.

  Fisher felt his stomach churn. He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering if they were playing tricks on him. Then he glanced at the photo again, and was certain of what he was seeing.

  “My mom . . . was a Halloweener?” he whispered.

  19

  The Haunting Truth

  It took a moment for Fisher to absorb the meaning of the photograph.

  In it, the little girl—his mom—seemed so happy. She was an entirely different person from the grown-up Hallie he knew. Her friends even looked a lot lik
e his own friends, just with different hairstyles and clothes.

  If my mom was a Halloweener when she was my age, then why does she hate Halloween so much now? he wondered.

  He then noticed a yellowed newspaper article buried in the bottom of the trunk. Its edges were curled, and the black ink was covered in dust. He carefully lifted it. The top was dated November 1, 1989.

  On the front page of the article was a picture of his mother’s family. His mom was about Fisher’s age, standing in the front. Her mother’s hands were on her shoulders, and her father’s hands were on her little brother’s shoulders right next to her. All of them were smiling. Happy. Loved. Together.

  Fisher read the headline printed in big block letters:

  HALLOWEEN HORROR:

  TRAGIC ACCIDENT KILLS THREE

  Fisher felt a chill splinter down his spine.

  He read the article aloud to himself: “‘It is suspected that the Gibbs family was searching for their daughter, who had stayed out late trick-or-treating, when their car skidded off the road near Old Joe’s Pumpkin Farm. Witnesses say the car rolled three times, finally ramming into a grain silo. The three passengers were taken to the county hospital, where they later perished. They are survived by their daughter, eleven-year-old Hallie Gibbs. The funeral will be held tomorrow at Irving Chapel, and the deceased will be buried in side-by-side plots in Oakwood Cemetery. . . .’”

  Fisher set down the article. He could barely breathe.

  His body suddenly felt heavier than it ever had before. He had always known that something happened to his mom’s family when she was younger, but he had only asked about it a few times, and his mom was always vague with her answers. Now his heart was broken, not just for his family members who had died, but for his mom. For the first time in his life, he understood her. He understood why she didn’t like being in this house, or in this town.

  She hates Halloween because that’s the night her family died. And she thinks it was her fault, Fisher realized. She probably thinks that if she hadn’t stayed out late trick-or-treating, they never would have gone looking for her and they’d still be alive.