Chapter 18

chapter eighteen There's a strange weightlessness to my body. I felt this same way a year earlier when the king wretch hijacked my brain-showing me visions of possible futures, possible realities. But this isn't a nightmare world. This is a nothing world. And in this nothing world. I have time to think

My mind goes back Before the Mallusk. Before leaving Wakefield. Back to the night Bardle died. That's when I first connected to the dark energy, the power to control and manipulate the undead. I pulled Ghazt's powers out of the tail and that strange. cosmic energy filled the Scrapken tentacle that covered my hand. It lived in that hand for a brief moment And then that energy and power was transferred into the Slicer. It was drained from my hand and injected into the slicer, turning it the color of midnight, the Midnight Blade. After that, the Scrapken tentacle became a permanent glove. The cosmic hand Ghazt's powers in the blade, combined with the scrapping tentacle wrapped around my hand. Those

are two major forces uniting to form one cosmic mega-weapon And that mega-weapon is the only way I'm able to control the zombies Suddenly, a strange bolt of lightning—reverse lightning, erupting through the ground—appears in the distance of this nothing world as the thought strikes my brain Alfred! Cood day Sir. Whoa!

"Um, sorry," I say after a moment. "You scared me. Didn't know anyone else was, uh, here. Thought I had this astral plane all to myself. But... you are here, too? Right?" Alfred glances around. "Apparently, I am, sir." "You just appeared? And—wait!—you actually talk like a butler?! That's how you speak?" "I speak exactly the way you imagine I speak," Alfred says. His voice is soft and flat and calm. "Oh. OK. Um, can we chat? 'Cause I'm... I'm just really confused. Bardle and Warg taught me to control zombies. I speak, out loud, the things I want you guys to do, and then I swing the Slicer and you guys do those things. You follow the commands. Like, I dunno... 'ALFRED, BRING ME A CHAIR!'"

Hey, Oh, thanks. I look down at the chair, decide it's real enough to get comfy in, and lean back and continue. "But Alfred, back at the water park, I controlled you without the Slicer. That happened, right? I didn't make that up?" Alfred is silent. "See, I thought it was my brain reaching out— like the Force. That's what it felt like. Bu..." "But....?" Alfred asks. "But it wasn't some sort of Jedi telepathy, was it?" "Certainly not, sir," Alfred says. "You are no Jedi." "OK, you don't have to sound so happy about it," I say. I look down at the Cosmic Hand. "So

now I'm thinking... it was this. The Cosmic Hand. It delivered the commands—just like the Slicer delivers commands. I don't think there's any other-dimensional, zombie-controlling power in me. It's just... the Cosmic Hand and the Slicer, together—they, like, allow me to wield that power." "Hmm," Alfred says. "Without the Cosmic Hand, I could have sat up on Blargus's back all day long, trying to send thoughts and commands from my brain to yours— but nothing would have happened. Right?" "Perhaps," Alfred says. "So I used the Cosmic Hand and only the Cosmic Hand to control you... and after that, it began to change The Cosmic Hand has been different. Felt different. Looks different! Makes me feel different. Do you think so?" "I think whatever you think," Alfred tells me. "I am a figment of your imagination." I shake my head. The Cosmic Hand is a bigger unknown than I ever realized: maybe the Biggest Unknown. And I used that Biggest Unknown to grab the wounded Howler as it rocketed toward Quint. And the Howler felt its power. It knew, then, that it had found Jack Sullivan, the kid with the blade who