Chapter 1

THE LAST KIDS ON EARTH and the SKELETON ROAD

chapter one See these twelve zombies right here? I call them the Decomposing Dozen. They are the elite. The best of the best. The cream of the crop. I know they're tough—but I'm about to find out what they're really made of. That's why I'm standing on top of an old school bus, staring out at a bizarre series of bone-shattering obstacles. Tiny goo-ball Globlet is beside me, clutching a bullhorn that's twice her size. She squeaks: "ARE THE ZOMBIES READY?" A low murmur echoes in response: "Ermmmm." Globlet turns, then squeaks: "AND ARE THE UNIVERSAL WARRIORS READY?" My friends all shout back, "Yes!" I grip the Louisville Slicer and focus. My heart rate slows. The Cosmic Hand trembles. Then, with a flick of my wrist, I command the

zombies forward as I shout, "ATTACK QUINT!" The zombies heed my command—and together they charge! The lumbering bodies are speeding up a ramp toward Quint. He raises his new gripper-grabber pole, which is just a long stick with pincher jaws at the end. He opens the jaws! The zombies are nearly upon him! And then... Y'know what—HOLD ON, TIME-OUT. You're probably wondering what's going on—

you might be curious why I'm ordering a horde of zombies to barrel headlong into my best friend. Yeah, it's time to hit you with a little recap action.... INITIATE RECAP ACTION! STUFF THAT HAPPENED AND STUFF YOU MISSED! See, for the past few months, Quint, June, Dirk, and I have all been pretty busy. June even got into a crazy adventure that ended in a showdown with a villainous monster pirate: the Boss Rifter. And June learned a lot. Like: (1) Thrull is getting stronger; (2) the Tower is gonna be catastrophic if he finishes it; and (3) there's a place where we can discover more about the Tower and its location: a mysterious Outpost. Find the Outpost, find the Tower. Problem was, the Boss Rifter got away before we could learn where this Outpost is. So, our crazed monster warrior buddy Skaelka ventured out into the wild, searching for it.

Yep, one day, Skaelka simply saddled up onto her Carapace (it's like a monstrous hermit crab, with a car for a shell) and rode off. It's been weeks and she still hasn't returned.... And me? My life? I've been busy polishing my zombie-controlling powers. Total Jedi-like training. Our monster friend Warg has been helping me develop my skills and better understand the capabilities of the Cosmic Hand. That's what I named the sucker-covered monster-tentacle-glove-thing that is now forever wrapped around my wrist and hand.

See, we chopped off Ghazt's tail so he wouldn't have the ability to control zombies, but we didn't anticipate Thrull stealing the tail and taking the ability for himself! But then Thrull didn't anticipate me siphoning it away from him! It was a lot of back and forth, but it amounted to me having one pretty cool suction glove Cosmic Hand thingy and—with the power of Ghazt's tail inside the Louisville Slicer