Chapter Sixteen
I’m frozen for a moment. Then I’m unstuck, running up to the tree house ice ball cannon launcher. I need to fight back. I need to stop her!
But it’s too late.
Evie and Meathook are gone, disappeared into the snow.
Back downstairs. Moving quick. My hands slam the table. My voice jumps and spikes and it doesn’t even sound like me. “Bardle, how do we fix Dirk? Just tell me.”
Bardle’s face is blank. He doesn’t know. I can see it. “There’s nothing I can do. There’s too little time.”
Bardle brushes past me to the chalkboard I took from the elementary school months earlier. Our map of Wakefield is taped there.
Bardle points a long, thin finger at the map.
June leans forward. “The Christmas tree farm?” she asks.
“Huh? I don’t even know what that is,” I say.
“It’s where people could go and chop down their own Christmas trees. Before the Monster Apocalypse,” Quint says. “Before you could simply grab whatever tree you liked, as we did.”
“There’s a creature there who perhaps could help,” Bardle says. “A monster named Warg.”
“Warg . . .” I repeat. I’m thinking back to our ice fishing failure. “Wait, Skaelka mentioned a Warg! Oh, man, we don’t have to, like, slay this creature, do we? Like, because Warg’s green monster blood cures zombieness or something?”
For a second, I think Bardle is going to laugh. But this isn’t any sort of moment for laughing. “Slay her?” Bardle asks. “Oh, no, you will not slay her—I promise you that. You could not if you tried.”
“Skaelka said Warg was ‘One not in the community,’” June comments. “‘One that does not matter.’”
“Did you guys kick her out?” I ask Bardle. Bardle scoffs. “She exiled herself. She has no interest in contributing to our community. For that reason, I do not think she will help you. But—she is your only chance.”
I nod. We’re desperate.
And when you’re desperate, your only chance is the chance you take.
The monsters watch us leave town. Their heads are rolled back, skyward. That’s like the monster version of sad head-hanging. I learned that when I mistakenly knocked over our milkshake tower.
Bardle stops us at the edge of town. “You should know . . .” Bardle says, “based on the size of Dirk’s bite, he has three Earth hours. After that, he will no longer be Dirk. He will no longer be your friend. He will no longer be human. . . .”
Quint reaches down and sets a timer on his Back to the Future watch. It beeps.
Three hours to save our friend’s life. . . .
The Christmas tree farm is beyond the train tracks. A thin layer of frost covers every inch of ground. We stomp in, following a winding path through the woods.
Up ahead, beyond the fir trees, I can make out a big red barn. Its doors are just barely open. We approach a metal fence covered in ice. I grab hold and shake it. Ice cracks. Normally, Dirk would just rip through this. But we don’t have that help now.
Instead, we climb over it. Land hard. Feet crunching on icy grass
Quint looks at me. “We need Warg’s help. Don’t forget. Just help. Nothing else, Jack!”
I frown. “Why do I feel like that comment was intended for me?”
“Because I was staring at you when I said it and the last word in the comment was Jack.”
“What he means,” June says, “is that we don’t need to get into a whole big monster battle, here. Just find out how to save Dirk—and get out. Don’t go instigating!”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t instigate. When have I ever instigated a big monster battle?”
June cocks her head. “Jack. . . .”
Times Jack Instigated a Monster Battle!
“Fine,” I grumble. “I won’t instigate.”
The tree farm stretches out in front of us. I see thousands of Christmas trees, arranged in long, perfectly ordered rows. But they haven’t been trimmed, of course, and are now a bit overgrown. These Christmas trees will never be used for their intended purpose. I look at June. She’s thinking the same thing I am. It’s a bummer—but at least we got our Christmas.
Then she whispers, “Guys, look.”
Something is rolling toward us along the path. It leaves a smooth path in the thin snow.
“It looks like a bowling ball,” Quint says, “made of mucus.”
As it spins to a stop, I realize. . . .
“Guys, I’ve seen this before,” I whisper. “On our way to ice fishing. I thought it was, like, some monstrous critter—but it’s . . .”
It’s a reminder of just how bizarre the world is now that the sight of a rolling, gooey, eyeball creature only medium weirds us out.
The eyeball rocks back, then forward. And then it tilts to the side, looking beyond us.
June says, “It’s like it’s checking to see if anyone else is coming.”
“It’s just us, dude,” I say. “We’re the whole adventure party.”
And then more eyeballs show up, coming from every direction. Nearly a hundred, tumbling through the trees. The biggest are like beach balls, the smallest aren’t much larger than a peanut M&M.
Soon, we’re surrounded. . . .