Chapter 6

chapter six We all deflate. Nothing? I look at Quint—expecting him to light up with a solution. But even he isn't capable of cobbling together a makeshift monster- fortress-destroying bomb. It's not like we can just scavenge a bunch of plutonium from an abandoned Home Depot. Not where we are anyway. Nevada, maybe... We stand there, contemplating solutions to this conundrum, when June says— "We'll figure it out! We always do!" And she's right. When have we ever let a little thing like lack of fusion stop us? It's just a bump in the road, a snag in the plan, a— "Blowing up a monster fortress sounds impossible," Dirk says. "But doing the impossible is sorta our area of expertise now." And with that, we begin the trek back to the Mallusk... Soon, the fortress is well behind us—but the Mallusk is still about a mile ahead. The sun's starting to go down. A lot of purply reds and reddy purples and stuff.

I catch June looking at it with a secretive smile. I give her a nudge. "What are you grinning about?" I'm thinking how if we can pull this off, we're giant. Step closer to fixing this world. We blow up that fortress. We destroy the tower schematics and we can win. You get that right. "We're still gonna have to fight Thrull," Dirk points out. "Even if he fails to bring rezzoch here, he's still got a giant skeleton army." And that's true. But what's one more massive fight against an other-dimensional terror? We've thwarted

him before. We took down Blarg. And the King Wretch. There's been SO much thwarting! "The world will be far from perfect," Quint points out. "We can't unzombify the zombies." "Or get back the ones eaten by the Tree of Entry," I add. "Or devoured by Dozers or any of the other monsters." "It's not a magic fix, but it's something," June says. It doesn't matter what we throw at her, she won't let it rain on her parade. "But if—no, WHEN—we do, it will be some sort of real world again! We'll figure out where our parents are—and we'll get them back. Heck, we'll get other people back." "Not sure I consider that a plus," Dirk mumbles. We're all smiling when we crest a ridge and finally reach our new home base: the still-healing Mallusk, sheltered beneath a half-crumbled highway overpass, munching on a landfill. Stretching out in front of her is our makeshift camp. We hurry down the hill, June and I excitedly pointing out everything that's been set up over the past few weeks—

Medical tents, dinner, tent tent for storing sparetents. Many sized porta potties for many sized monsters. Memorial Howler assault, atrium of special memories and relaxation. Smud's Monster Warrior Training ring. Dirk spots Smud. The goofy brute—formerly Ghazt's henchmonster—is busy training the citizens of Mallusk City in combat, getting them ready for the fight to come when we reach the Tower. "Hard to get used to bad guy monsters turned good-ish guy monsters," Dirk says. I nod—it's true. But it happens a lot during the monster-zombie apocalypse, and it's confusing. Especially because, in the beginning, the opposite happened. Thrull, the WORST villain of them all, pretended to be our friend. Then he betrayed us. And killed my friend Bardle...

"QUINT!" a friendly voice exclaims. I turn to see Quint reuniting with our favorite conjurer, Yursl. I hurry to join the conversation. Gotta keep up with all the goings-on. They're discussing that Drakkor thing again. You did what? No, an intentional teleportation. I sent the drag or to the needle Buzz Factory far enough to keep it away, but strategically located to keep it there makes sense. Good choice. Exactly what I would've done. Yursl eyes me questioningly, but I just keep on nodding like I know all about the Drakkor. But so far, I only know enough to know that I feel like I missed out on something epic. Yursl's face scrunches up—can't tell if she's happy, infuriated, or possibly just experiencing mild indigestion. Finally, her face settles on something like... grandmotherly pride.

"I gave you the conjuring guidebook because it was essential that you learned conjuring on your own," Yursl says. "And it seems you have, toots!" "Indeed!" Quint says, lifting his cannon, showing it off. "I've got a mean Kinetic Volley now." I agree. "And he can turn Splotchers into trading cards!" Quint elbows me sharply. "Ixnay on the ardscay." Yursl frowns. "I can't think of a conjuration that should cause—" "No, no, that was just a, uh... Jack's blood sugar level was low, and he was seeing stuff—" Quint says quickly, trying to shuffle us away. I hear Yursl murmur, "What an odd pair," as we hurry off.— Back at Hey, Sport—our former campaign headquarters and general living, sleeping, and hanging-out spot—we have big plans for a movie marathon. My Zombie Squad greets us with trays of popcorn and candy. A single box of Raisinets—Dirk's favorite —is set off to the side so it won't contaminate the other candy with its lousiness. But as soon as we spot our makeshift beds, the plan changes.