Chapter 1

The last kids on earth and the Monster Dimension by Max Brower. Read by Robbie Damon.

chapter one Next up, the tower. Full speed ahead. Stop for nothing. "You don't have to keep saying that, Jack," Dirk groans. "We've been doing 'full speed ahead, stopping for nothing' for weeks." "Yeah, who you talking to, duder?" June says, giving me a little elbow jab. I shrug. "I'm doing, like, a pirate-captain bit. Why, ya don't like the bit?" "Not even a bit," June says, smirking. "And what would we possibly stop for?"

"I dunno," I say. "Like if someone needed a bathroom break." "We're riding on top of a mall containing forty-two bathrooms," Quint points out, very reasonably. "I don't foresee bathroom breaks being necessary." "Exactly," June says. "We don't need to stop for anything! There is literally nothing in the entire world that would cause us to—" We're hurled into our makeshift captain's wheel as the Mallusk screeches to a halt. Imagine a dog sprinting full speed, then suddenly, and with great surprise, reaching the end of its leash. Except in our case, the "dog" is a thirty-nine-ton monster carrying the world's largest shopping mall on its back. It takes us a moment to gather our senses. "What happened?" June groans, rubbing at her head. "Squirrel in the road?" I suggest.

We slowly get to our feet. A tremendous thicket of trees lies ahead of us. Through them, in the far-off distance, we see the reason for the Mallusk's abrupt halt. An incomprehensibly massive army blocks our path forward. An army of skeleton soldiers and evil monsters, called by their master, Thrull. Summoned to the same place we're going: the Tower. THRULL'S ARMY! Sorry, hold up, pause. We need to play a little game of catch-up. I gotta fill you in on the big important stuff. First off, the Tower. It's bad news. Once it's complete, it will bring rezzoch the Ancient, Destructor

of Worlds, into our dimension. And rezzoch will do the thing he does so well it's actually part of his name: DESTRUCT THE WORLD. Which basically means devour every living thing on our planet. He's got a big appetite, apparently. The Tower is Thrull's big project. It was nearly complete, but then he hit a snag. Thrull was missing a crucial piece of information—information that could be gleaned only from the Tower Schematics. And the schematics weren't, like, scribbled on a scrap of paper. They were inside the brain of the monster Ghazt. So, Thrull snatched Ghazt and brought him to a sentient fortress. Ruling over the fortress was the mad doctor Wracksaw, aided by his loyal Dire Nurses: Debra and Eye-Bulb.

Dire nurses are the worst. Thrull ordered Wracksaw to open up Ghazt's brain and retrieve the schematics. My friends and I saw our chance! We'd sneak into the fortress and blow the whole thing up, Death Star– style. Then Thrull would never be able to complete the Tower, and rezzoch would never be able to come here. Genius! Inside the fortress, we made some new friends: the Goon Platoon, a trio of monsters who had undergone cruel experiments and modifications at the hands (tentacles?) of Wracksaw.