scraping fills my ears while dread floods my stomach.
Rover suddenly snarls and – SLASH! – strikes with his claws, smacking the Wretch’s talons. Rover is released. He plunges into the pavement – cracking, bouncing, and flipping across the ground.
He rolls to a stop.
He’s on his side.
Not moving.
‘Rover!’ I cry as I speed down the street. My monster-dog has been hauled and tossed, like, fifty feet. ‘Oh no,’ I say, dropping to one knee beside him.
I scratch the thick, soft hair behind Rover’s ears.
The monster’s wings beat and snap. He’s swooping toward me and Rover, returning to finish what he started.
But then I hear voices yelling.
I snap my head around and see my friends –
Quint is a very literal person.
But the beast is not distracted.
The monster’s focus is only on Rover and me. He screams through the sky. His wings smack the ground, and debris whirls as he rockets toward us.
Three hundred feet and closing in.
Two hundred feet and closing in.
One hundred feet and closing in.
The monster’s dragon-like mouth opens, and I see an army of thick fangs. I gulp. But suddenly, the monster’s wings snap to his sides and his legs stab forward.
It feels like an earthquake as his talons slam into the street, claws digging into the asphalt.
I crane my neck to look up at the monster – and I see him, fully and 100 percent clearly for the first time. He is bigger than any Winged Wretch. In fact, it’s more like . . .
-The King Wretch!-
The smell of my own blood in my nose does nothing to lessen the terror. But Rover yowls behind me, and my fear is replaced by furious rage at the big ugly fiend that hurt my friend.
I draw my blade – the Louisville Slicer. It’s basically my post-apocalyptic baseball bat version of a lightsaber.
It is the weapon that felled Blarg, the ancient evil.
It is the weapon that sliced open the great Wormungulous.
It is the weapon that, hopefully, is going to save our butts right now.
I step forward, putting myself between the King Wretch and my injured friend. The monster takes heavy, planet-rocking steps forward until he towers over Rover and me.
My mouth is dry. It takes me a moment to speak – but when I do, I roar –
The King Wretch’s colossal cranium dips and lowers until we’re nearly eye to eye. The monster glances down at Rover and then up to me – staring into my eyes, peering into my pupils.
Something catches in my throat. The back of my neck goes tingly.
And then I feel soda bubbles in my brain . . .
It’s like the King Wretch looks through my eyeballs, beyond, and straight into my brain – like he’s gazing deep into my soul. My vision clouds. Everything begins to go black.
My body is loose. Wobbly.
It’s strange, but – I think I’m falling asleep. On my feet. Everything is becoming very –
SCREECH!
Squealing tyres snap me out of my strange waking slumber. I manage to turn and see –
The King Wretch glances at my friends and our BoomKart weaponry, then his head swings back to me. There’s something in his chilling eyes and dripping fangs that resembles a sly smile. I see – I know – this monster has zero fear of me or my buds.
But he leaves anyway.
The King Wretch gives me a final look – a once-over – and then shoots into the sky with a burst of beating wings. His tail snaps the pavement as he rockets away, winging, curving, and slicing into the distance.
The soda bubbles in my brain are fading away and my head is feeling halfway normal again. I drop to my buddy. ‘Rover, you OK?’
Rover shakes his head like he’s knocking the cobwebs loose, then gets to his feet. He looks OK, although there’s an anger on his face that I’ve never seen – like he wouldn’t mind seeing that King Wretch again.
Like he wouldn’t mind a bit of revenge.
Suddenly, June gasps. She’s frantically ripping open Rover’s saddlebag. ‘The radio!’ she exclaims. ‘It’s busted up!’
June’s face has gone pale and she looks like she’s about to vomit, but Quint and Dirk save the moment.
‘I promise to repair it, June,’ Quint says.
‘Like the geek said,’ Dirk adds, ‘we’ll fix it. No question.’
June nods and breathes a shaky sigh of relief. ‘OK . . .’
I stare into the distance. I watch the King Wretch fading, getting small, and finally disappearing behind the crumbling Wakefield skyline.
With any luck, that’s the last we’ll be seeing of that beast.
So things are different now.
A lot different.
And not just different since before the Monster Apocalypse.
I mean different since the last time you saw us. In the past month, things have changed A TONNE.
Here’s a quick recap
