MGMH: Zombie Invasion Chapter 11

Talk

MGMH: Zombie Invasion Chapter 11

Talk

The mystery of the disappearing group was far behind us. Todd and I were hanging out in my room after school. Brooklyn was at volleyball practice, and Colton lived on the opposite side of town from us, so it was only Todd and I.

We had a lot to discuss.

All four of us had taken turns going through the yearbook, hoping to find more references to the Hollow. None of us had come up with anything. We still hadn’t figured out what to do about the monsters, if we caught any. So far, we had only caught one. The Prank Troll. Now, he was in Homeroom for the time being. I wasn’t even sure what was going on with the Trash Can Kraken. Feeding it kept it from going after any students. At least, that’s what I thought. The only other thing we had dealt with was the Hall Ghast. I shuddered thinking about that thing. Our priority had become trying to figure out what and where the Hollow was.

Todd took a sip of the Orange Overdrive he was drinking. “I have found random names written in here that might be other monsters, but there is no drawing to go along with it. Like this one here,” Todd pointed to a random name written at the bottom of the page. It said: Book Ghoul.

“What’s a Book Ghoul?” I asked.

Todd shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s nothing else about it. There is a brief passage written here by a hunter named Clara Hines. She speculates that there are many more monsters than the ones that seem to pop back up every few years. Every year, there are new rumors and sightings of creepy things reported. Most are not seen again and just remain rumors.”

Todd turned the page in the yearbook. “There is a note here that says a girl reported being followed down the hall by something big and shadow-like. But there is nothing further. Didn’t Brooklyn say something about a shadow following kids around?”

“Yeah, she did. So what are you saying?” I asked.

“I think we need to take anything we hear about weird sightings or occurrences seriously. At least take notes about it. Just in case we run into something that isn’t in this book.”

I nodded in agreement. “That’s a great idea, Todd. Let’s tell the others tomorrow.”

Todd flipped a few pages and said, “This book is pretty full of notes and drawings and stuff. I don’t want to mark up this one anymore. This is the original. It’s special. We need another book. Something new to start our notes in.”

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

“Another yearbook?”

“We won’t be getting one until the end of the year. We can’t wait that long.”

“Let’s run it by the others and see if they have any ideas.”

“Okay,” I said. “Have you discovered anything new about the Hollow?”

Todd shook his head in frustration. “No. I’ve read everything in here. Twice. Unless we can find the missing pages, I’m afraid we have nothing.”

“If another monster appears like the Hall Ghast, we are going to need to dispose of it somehow after we trap it,” I said.

“If we come across another Hall Ghast, we can’t free it in the park,” Todd said. “We will have to figure out something until we can find out more about the Hollow.”

“Hopefully, we won’t have to deal with anything worse than a Prank Troll for a while,” I said.

“If he’s the worst we have to deal with most of the time, we won’t have any trouble. He’s such a cute little guy!” Todd gushed.

“Yeah, but Brooklyn was really upset that we took him back in the school.”

“Oh, she’ll get over it. She was still mad that he kicked her when we tried to catch him.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “So now we have a troll living in Homeroom, and a Trash Can Kraken that we feed. We aren’t very good monster hunters.”

Todd sighed. “You’re right. But so far, out of the three monsters, two of them aren’t so bad.” He shrugged and continued, “You know, even Alvin Taylor wrote that not all the monsters were bad and needed hunting. Maybe we won’t have any more evil monsters to catch.”

I thought about Alvin Taylor. He was the first monster hunter. The kid who started the yearbook of monster hunting. I wasn’t so sure I was doing him justice. Or any of the other previous hunters, for that matter. Feeding one monster and taking another to Homeroom wasn’t a very monster hunter thing to do. That’s not a very monster hunter-like thing to do at all. I’m not a very good monster hunter.

“It won’t be so bad if I can talk to more of them and get them to stop making trouble,” I blurted, distracted by my thoughts.

Todd closed the yearbook and placed it on my bed. "Well, that's all I got. What about you?"

“Oh yeah," I said excitedly, "I found something today." I grabbed the yearbook and opened it to the list of names. I pointed to one. "Here," I said.

Todd read the name, “Um, okay. Who's that?”

I told him who I thought it was.

“Really? You think that's her father?” Todd asked.

I smiled. “I suspect it is.”

“Well?” He asked, "What does that mean?'

“I don’t know,” I said. “But, it's just something to be aware of.”

He nodded dismissively, then rattled off several questions in a row. “So what are we gonna do with Gug? Is he gonna be like a pet or mascot or something?”

“How should I know? I do know Brooklyn wants nothing to do with him.”

“I mean, he did kick her," Todd said.

“Yeah, but I really have no idea what we are going to do about him.”

Todd looked disappointed. He finished his Orange Overdrive and burped loudly.

“Aw, dude. Gross,” I said as I laughed.

Todd laughed too, then he tossed the empty bottle into the wastebasket by my desk.

Todd grabbed the yearbook and stuffed it in his backpack. “Okay, dude, I have to go. I need to get home.”

I laughed. “I know you’re only leaving because you’re out of Orange Overdrive.”

Todd smiled. “Yup, pretty much. I'll drop the yearbook at Homeroom in the morning. See you tomorrow.

Author’s Note: Whose father is in the yearbook?

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