The Monster Apocalypse Read online

  The gasps emanated out of every visitor, from the most courageous little boy in the front to the shaking twin girls in the back. Nobody knew what to expect. Not even Ash. He watched the fear in everyone’s eyes and thought maybe what was behind the curtain was King Kong.

  The curtain opened to reveal not a cage, but a prison cell, with big, strong bars that reached all the way up to the ceiling. The cell was dark and foreboding, with only a hint of firelight emanating from the left-side wall. Ash stood up on his tippy-toes to catch a glimpse of the monster inside, but at first, he, and no one else, could see a thing.

  Then a pair of slimy hands gripped the bars, two lopsided feet kicked through the sides, and the face of a familiar friend appeared.

  It was no wolf man. There wasn’t even any hair on his chest.

  “Oh my God!” Ash shouted in the center of the huge crowd. “It’s Mr. Barker!”

  Chapter Two

  Ash’s film teacher pressed his face against the bars and tried to see over all the nineteenth century hats.

  “Who said that?” he asked.

  “Mr. Barker! It’s me! Ash!”

  “What?”

  “I’ve come to save you—”

  The boos started erupting from one person, two persons, twenty persons. Everybody had expected a man covered in hair, and the only noticeable hairs on Mr. Barker’s body that weren’t on top of his head were in the form of scruff on his chin.

  “Ash!” Mr. Barker shouted. “You have to get me out of here!”

  A tomato smashed against the teacher’s face, and he fell back inside the cell. More tomatoes hit the bars, and then a few wedges of cabbages started flailing through the air.

  “Really?” Ash said to everyone around him. “I thought the food throwing thing only happened in movies.”

  The dwarf took center stage as the curtain swung closed, and he tried to calm everyone down, waving not one candy cane, but two. “I’m very sorry! We’re having momentary difficulties! Please don’t fret! This hairy, scary wonder of the world will be with you in just a moment!”

  The little person kept talking, trying to control the room, as Ash pushed past the angered patrons and scooted up to the curtain. He couldn’t see the prison cell, or Mr. Barker anymore, but he scooted down to his knees, and turned his head around to make sure nobody was paying attention to him. He pushed himself along the dirt ground and pulled the left edge of the curtain over his head.

  Ash looked up and over at his teacher. He was curled up into a ball in the back corner of the cell.

  “Psst! Mr. Barker!”

  He brought his arms down and, for the first time, probably since being locked in the cell, smiled. “Ash! Is it really you? I thought it was my imagination.”

  He started crawling toward him, with difficulty; he was obviously hurt in some way.

  Most awkward of all, Mr. Barker was only wearing white underwear.

  “Why are you in your tighty whities?” Ash asked.

  “Long story,” he said.

  “Really? Well this might be an even longer story, but could you tell me what the hell a time portal is doing in your office?”

  “Can we talk about this later? You’ve got to get me out of here.”

  “What is happening, Mr. Barker? First vampires, then zombies. Now I’m rubbing shoulders with Jack the Ripper and finding my own film teacher in an 1880’s freak show carnival!”

  Ash’s teacher looked like he wanted to reveal all his secrets—but instead he gripped his hand on the door lock and pointed to his left.

  “Ash, I’ll write you a non-fiction tell-all about everything and dedicate the goddamn book to you, if you will just go find that munchkin and steal the keys from him. They’re in his back pocket!”

  “The key to this door?”

  “No, the key to the Ritz Carlton. Yes, the key to this door!”

  “OK,” Ash said, scooting back. “I’ll save you, Mr. Barker. You just stay right here.”

  “OK,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

  Ash moved his head back under the curtain and looked up to see most of the visitors dispersing, except for one five-year-old girl, wearing a pretty pink dress, her hair in pigtails. She stared at him perplexed.

  “What are you doing down there?” she asked.

  “I’m… uhh… looking for the wolf man,” Ash said.

  “Oh really? Did you find him?”

  “Yep. He’s right here!” Ash lunged at the girl and howled at the top of his lungs. The girl screamed and ran out of the area.

  Ash turned to his left just in time to see the small person stomping angrily down a back corridor. He jumped to his feet and followed the man, staying close behind but trying not to make any noise with his footsteps. He slinked along the brick wall, watching as the little person turned into a back room and closed a door behind him.

  “Don’t be locked, don’t be locked,” Ash whispered. He turned the knob and happily sighed when the door opened.

  The room was stuffy and quaint, filled with a wooden bunk bed in one corner, and a tiny desk in the other. The small person sat at the desk, on a stool, humming to himself, and writing some kind of letter in black ink. His back was turned to Ash; he didn’t see him come in.

  Ash closed his eyes and shut the door as softly as possible. The door clicked shut, but the man didn’t turn around. He just kept on writing, a ring of keys sticking out the back right pocket of his dirty black pants.

  As Ash stepped farther into the room, he felt like he was living out the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, with Bilbo Baggins quietly penning his life story. He suddenly had an image of a hobbit turning around and waving at him a circular gold ring. The image seemed so funny that he couldn’t help but chuckle out loud.

  The small person stopped humming. He turned his head to the left.

  Ash couldn’t do a thing. He just stood completely still, in the middle of the room, trying not to breathe. The man shook his head and went back to his writing.

  Ash swallowed, frightened and unsure of himself. But he pressed forward, taking one step every few seconds. When he approached the little guy’s back, he reached down for the keys. His fingers were practically grazing the copper metal, when the man brought his hand behind his back and scratched his buttocks. Ash lifted his hands back up. He waited for the man to bring his hands back to the desk.

  Ash tried again. He kept one eye closed and one eye open as he leaned forward and wrapped his index finger around the ring of keys. He had them in his grasp. He was going to save Mr. Barker.

  But then, as soon as Ash started lifting up the key ring, the humming stopped a second time. And a hand slammed against his.

  “Who the hell are you?” the little person asked, panicked, and reached his hands for Ash’s neck.

  One second Ash had his hands on the keys, and the next he was sprawled on the dirt ground, a small but exorbitantly strong little person trying to strangle him.

  “Who do you work for?” the dwarf screamed. “What do you want from me?”

  “Oww! Oww! Watch the neck! What’s with all you nineteenth century crazies going after the neck?”

  “I’m going to kill you if you don’t tell me who you are!”

  Ash grabbed the man’s hair and pulled him back. “My name is Ash, you little shit. And you’re harboring my Film teacher!”

  He pushed the dwarf up and kicked him across the room, like a football. The little person struck his head against the brick wall and slumped to the ground unconscious.

  Ash grabbed the key ring from the man’s back pocket and raced out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He ran down the hallway, thrilled to not see any others who could try to stop his rescue mission. He turned to his right and found the curtain.

  He peeked inside to see Mr. Barker shoved up against the locked door, ready as ever to have Ash break him out of this insane asylum.

  “You get the key?” his teacher asked.

  “Got it right here.” Ash stared
down at the ring of sparkly gold and silver keys. There were at least forty of them. “The hard part is going to be finding the one that fits the lock.”

  The two just stared at each other for a moment, until Mr. Barker pounded against the bars and said, “Well, don’t just stand there! Get me out of here!”

  “Wait,” Ash said, a bit playfully. “Will you give me an A if I do?”

  “I’ll give you my entire stash of DVDs, Ash. For God’s sake, let me out!”

  “Damn,” Ash said, and started trying the gold keys first. “Even better.”

  Ash was already on the tenth key, when the sounds of footsteps emanated down the hallway to his right.

  “Hurry Ash,” Mr. Barker said.

  “I’m trying.”

  Ash tried five more keys. Then another ten. None of them fit. Ash started to wonder if he needed to start over.

  “No luck?”

  “No,” Ash said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Barker. This doesn’t seem to be working—”

  The two figures entered the room, just as Ash accidentally dropped the ring of keys to the dirt ground. Ash turned around. One of the men was the energetic showman from outside; the other was Jack the Ripper himself.

  “That’s him!” Jack shouted. “That’s the boy who attacked me!”

  “Hey!” the other man shouted. “What are you doing? Get away from there!”

  “Oh shit,” Ash said.

  The two men rushed toward him. He had time to fit one more key, two at most. He tried another key. Nothing. He shook on the door. Mr. Barker did the same.

  “They’re coming!” the teacher screamed. “Ash, do something!”

  The two men were five feet away, four feet away. Time was up.

  Ash found the last key on the ring, a small silver one that looked the size of a toothpick. He stuck it in the lock and pulled the cell door open with one loud thwack against the brick wall.

  The door was open, but Ash wasn’t out of harm’s way. The emcee from outside grabbed his legs, and the Ripper pulled him up by the top of his Christmas sweater. The Ripper gritted his teeth and brought his hand back to swat the boy.

  “You nearly killed me,” he said, with a big, eerie grin. “Now, I return the favor.”

  Ash closed his eyes, ready to feel the pain of a punch.

  But then, out of nowhere, a loud growl erupted from his left. Ash opened one eye, then two, and watched in horror and total amazement as a giant wolf leaped out of the cell, up and over him, and against his two attackers.

  The wolf catapulted the freak show emcee clear across the room with a sideways jolt of its head, and then clamped its jaw all the way over the Ripper’s head, like the wolf was a hungry snake and the Ripper was a vulnerable mouse. Ash heard a loud crunch, then watched as old man Jack, one of the most legendary serial killers of all time, slumped down to the ground, his face a mess of blood and gore.

  Ash curled up into a ball, just like Mr. Barker did in the cell, and rested his head between his knees. He didn’t know whether to cry in thanks or cry because he had two more seconds to live.

  “Mr. Barker?” Ash said. “Is that really you?”

  The wolf turned to him and snarled, drool dripping down onto the Ripper’s massacred face.

  “But it can’t be. You’re a… you’re a…”

  The wolf trampled over the Ripper’s body and raced straight toward Ash.

  “Oh my God, you’re a werewolf!”

  Chapter Three

  Ash screamed. He closed his eyes. He smashed his hands in front of his face.

  A few seconds later, he started to giggle.

  The wolf was licking his face from top to bottom.

  “Hey, stop! Stop it!” Ash pushed the wolf away. “Mr. Barker! Oh, that’s so gross!”

  “Sorry,” he said, transforming back into a human in the blink of an eye. “It’s a reflex. I can’t help it.”

  Ash’s mouth dropped open, and not because of the transformation. He thought the licking was weird, but now the relationship between teacher and student had become way too intimate.

  Ash put his hands in front of his face. “Mr. Barker, can you please put some clothes on?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Sorry.” He ran back into the cell and grabbed his thin pair of underwear, which he must have removed before becoming the carnivorous wolf.

  “That better?” he asked, walking back up to Ash.

  “Much. So what do you mean a reflex?”

  “When I’m a wolf. I like to lick those who are my friends.”

  “The same way you like to maul a guy’s face when he’s your enemy? What’s the matter with you!”

  “What do you mean? That guy was going to kill you—”

  “I know! But…” Ash and Mr. Barker strolled up to the man’s now very-much-dead body. “You killed Jack the Ripper.”

  “Really? That’s awesome.”

  “Not awesome! The man’s a legend. You’ve rewritten history, and now when we get back to 2015, everything’s going to be all messed up. Haven’t you seen Back to the Future?”

  “Of course I’ve seen Back to the Future. Who do you think I am? I’m your Film teacher for God’s sake!”

  Ash shrugged. “All right, all right, sorry. I thought maybe you only watched horror movies.”

  “Well, they’re my specialty. And I’ll admit there isn’t a precedence for time travel stories in genre films.”

  “Sure there are, Mr. Barker. Did you ever see that remake of The Time Machine? With Guy Pearce? That was scary. For altogether different reasons.”

  “Look, the point is,” Mr. Barker said, grabbing Ash and pulling him down the corridor, toward the closest exit. The teacher glanced to his left real quick to make sure the carnival showman he attacked was still unconscious. “Just because I kill off a legendary murderer doesn’t mean the future of our society is going to be at all different. The only change will be that I just saved the lives of women who would have otherwise had their kidneys ripped out.”

  “Yeah, that, and you took a job away from Johnny Depp! What’s he going to do in 2001 now that From Hell’s never going to get made?”

  Mr. Barker laughed out loud, then pushed Ash up against the curtain at the front exit. “Jeez, growing up I always thought I was the film geek. Turns out, I was completely normal, compared to you.”

  “Normal? I’m not the one who just turned into a wolf.”

  They blew through the curtain and found their way out into the dark, stormy night. Black clouds appeared overhead and started dumping rain down on the dirt. Most London dwellers ran for shelter, but a few of the mischievous boys were dancing wildly in the streets. It was Mr. Barker’s instinct to run, but Ash liked walking, even though it was pouring. He had enough questions to last another week.

  “How did you become a werewolf?” Ash asked.

  “Not now.”

  “Were you born that way? Or did you get bitten by a wolf?”

  “Ash, please—”

  “And why were you so set in class in showing us old vampire and zombie movies, but nothing about werewolves? Why didn’t you show us The Wolf Man? Lon Chaney, Jr, hello—”

  Mr. Barker grabbed Ash by the shoulder and pushed him against the brick wall, just in time to save him from getting run over by not just one fast-moving carriage but three.

  “Whoa,” Ash said, trying to catch his breath.

  “Do you remember where the time portal was? Which house, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. I was busy running away from a serial killer.” He pulled Mr. Barker close to him and opened his eyes wide. “Oh! And speaking of that, you still haven’t answered my question! Why was there a time portal in your office? And why, of all places, would it take us straight to Jack the Ripper’s bedroom! Is that God’s idea of a sick joke?”

  “Uhh, no. It was mine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I made it. I built it. I’ve time traveled before.”

  “What?”

  “Nevermind!
We have to get back! I’ve been here too long. It turns out it wasn’t a good idea at all to go this far back—”

  “Well what do you usually do? Go back in time a day and try a different item on the menu?”

  “Ash, get down!”

  “What?”

  Mr. Barker pulled Ash behind a bench and pointed toward the front of the carnival. The dwarf had just stepped past the curtain, a discernable scowl on his face, proudly holding a large, shining blade up high into the air that was nearly as big as he.

  “Oh no,” Mr. Barker said, his eyebrows narrowed, his breathing heavy. “That’s the man who’s been looking after me, who’s been keeping me prisoner. He’s going to try to kill us!”

  Ash slapped his teacher playfully against his face. “What the hell’s the matter with you? That guy’s two feet tall. He can’t do anything to us. There’s nothing to be scared of!”

  The dwarf caught sight of Ash and Mr. Barker, screamed loud enough to wake up even the Queen of England, and raced straight toward them, waving around his sharp blade like it was a child’s play toy.

  “Oh my God!” Ash shouted two seconds later. “He’s gonna kill us! Run!”

  Ash stepped out in front of Mr. Barker and started sprinting down the corridor, away from the little maniac. Mr. Barker followed close behind.

  “Look for the Ripper’s house!” he shouted.

  “I don’t remember what it looks like!” Ash screamed even louder, trying to ignore the rain pounding hard against his face.

  “Then we’re screwed! How are we going to get back?”

  Ash shook his head, out of ideas. Then the smartest idea struck him—gross, but smart. “Wait a minute!” he said. “I know what to look for!”

  “What?” Mr. Barker looked behind. “Ash! Jesus! The guy’s gaining on us!”

  And he was. The little person was a mere yard behind the scared teacher.

  “Hold on,” Ash said, and he started combing the dirt ground, now not so much dirt anymore, but puddles of mud.