Chapter 22
Hunter was gripping his staff so tightly it indented into his hands. It was so dark down here he could barely see and things loomed everywhere. Luz and he skirted around a room and entered a section of the basement. He was pretty sure it wasn’t even under the owl house. He was regretting coming down here. Most of it was also moth-eaten and stuff was piled up high. Boxes seemed to totter on top of stacks. He had to reassure himself with the reminder that if they fell there was a very likely chance it wouldn't happen in the short time he and Luz were here. Luz's actions didn’t help.
He had convinced her to walk behind him but she kept darting forward when she saw interesting things. Her squeals when she saw cool things were not promising down here with who knew what lurking in the shadows.
She kept darting away then back to him grinning and showing him things. When he asked her if she wanted any of the things she looked at him for another second her grin dropped slightly and then she sighed, shook her head, and returned each thing to its place. She put a sticker on the box or item, “just in case I need to find it again” she told him.
“Look over there!” Luz shouted
Hunter winced and Luz smiled sheepishly. "Sorry".
The box Luz gestured to was labeled 'Dolls and stuff'. She pointed to a handful of signs. Sure enough, they all seemed to indicate smaller items. Perfect for Flapjack. He wasn’t expecting this to be this easy. Luz dashed toward the boxes.
He let Flapjack off the staff and walked toward her at a much slower pace. He had almost made it to her when a shape loomed out of the shadows. Unlike all of the other shapes, this one moved.
"Watch out!" He tried to dash before remembering Flapjack was off his staff. He launched himself toward her and tackled her.
“What?” Luz asked. The monster roared.
The box Luz had been looking at had fallen and Hunter pulled them behind another stack.
He peered out. The monster was a dark mass with black bubbling blisters all over its skin. What seemed to be its face snuffled at the spilled box. Something emerged from the mass. A strange-looking hand of a sort Hunter thought. It had 3 finger-looking appendages and the hand curled around a doll that looked surprisingly well taken care of for being down here and placed it in its mouth.
“What?” Luz muttered. “What is that Hunter?” She asked.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those before. He analyzed it.
Could the bubbles be weaknesses? Would it be weak against any of Luz’s glyphs?
“Do you think it’s sentient?” Luz asked
Before Hunter could tell her he doubted it she was moving. He got ready to grab her but she didn’t move out from behind cover. She grabbed a small object, he couldn’t see what and tossed it toward an object a bit away from them. It hit a button on the object and the object lit up.
“The slitherbeast says” the device chirped- the machine was interrupted by a roar from the monster and it lunged for the device.
The monster ate the device in one bite and spit out a spray of little pieces.
Luz’s eyes were wide. She looked at Hunter. Not sentient.
“How do we beat it?”
A warm feeling settled in Hunter’s chest. Luz was pretty good at fighting monsters but she was still asking him. He wouldn’t let her down.
“Try light first, then fire." She nodded and went to exit cover. He grabbed her wrist. "Before we do that we should watch for weaknesses." Luz nodded again. Flapjack landed next to Hunter "I'll distract it while you attack."
Hunter’s eyes drifted. The monster didn’t seem to be limping, sadly, that was always helpful. The monster seemed corporeal in the way it moved but he couldn’t be sure.
One of the blister-looking things seemed to lighten all of a sudden. For a second it was partly seethrough. He could make out a piece of paper before it popped as soon as the blister popped it crumbled to ash. Could the blisters be a weakness? He was pretty sure he had never seen a monster like this before. The hand and the mouth were the only two parts of it he had proof was corporeal.
Usually, monsters would be fully corporeal or not at all corporeal but you never know. Another blister lightened. This time he could make out the shape of some sort of stuffed animal. The blister popped and again it was ash.
He couldn’t tell how good its vision was. It had good hearing but he might be able to confuse it by teleporting to different points surrounding it and making sound. It might even scare the monster away if it felt like it was outnumbered.
He only saw the third blister only a second before it popped. This time it had been an unidentifiable mass. Did the monster have a good sense of smell? If it did that might interfere with the teleport plan a little bit, still probably not enough that he couldn't manage it. His grip tightened and he started to stand but this time Luz grabbed him.
“Wait, what’s the new plan?”
He stared at her. Why did they need a new plan? Had she seen something he hadn’t?
“What?”
He whispered as quietly as possible.
"Now that we know what it is, what's the plan?"
“You recognize it now?”
That was good news. If she knew what it was, they could make a better plan.
She looked at him with her this-is-so-obvious-how-do-you-not-see-it look.
“It’s after memories. We can’t just let it get away with that.”
“Memories?”
“A marriage or birth certificate, a child’s stuffed animal, what looks like a baby blanket.”
So that’s what the third item was.
"And it ate a doll. What’s our new plan?”
“It’s a monster. Why do we need a new plan?"
“If we blast it with fire we’ll destroy the important objects inside it. We need to do something else.”
Was Luz crazy? It was a monster they needed to take it down. Who even knew if the people with these things were even still alive? Still, he knew it was important. Luz couldn’t stand it if she destroyed things important to others.
How would he feel if it went after his closet with everything from Luz over the years? Or his old plushie? They didn’t matter in the long run, he reminded himself. They should just destroy it but if they did, it would hurt Luz.
“I’ll distract it. You find a way to subdue it.”
“That’s dangerous.” Luz looked at him eyes wide.
“Not for me. I’m with Flapjack. I’m good."
"Are you sure? We can figure something else out"
"I can handle it." He clenched his fists harder on Flapjack's staff.
Luz bit her lip. “Alright.”
“Go!” He sprung up and teleported behind the monster.
Luz
This would work. It had to. Except there was no way to subdue it easily. She had her plant glyphs but that alone might not be enough. She hadn’t passed any boxes she could remember useful for that.
Except for maybe one.
She dashed toward the area where she had seen the box.
After a bit of searching, she found it.
Playground equipment
She dug through the stack of way too many balls. She was almost at the bottom when she found it - a hula hoop. If she tied vines to the hoop and tricked the monster into running through it, it might get stuck.
She heard a shout from the monster’s direction. She dashed back toward Hunter.
He was holding the monster back pretty well. Luz thought she only needed maybe two minutes to make something that might hold the monster. She started piercing the items together she tied several plant vines to the hoop.
Now all she needed was to find some stationary objects and to find a way to trick the monster into running through the hoop. Eda might know how to make the monster cough up the valuables. She just needed time to find time to tie the item to a couple of things.
When she looked up Hunter was panting. He had a gash- not too bad but still bleeding, on his arm. His eyes burned with determination he would keep holding the monster off but he would get hurt.
There was no time and Hunter getting hurt was not acceptable.
She dropped the hoop and dashed to the box she was at before the monster showed up. She really hoped this worked.
“Take this!”
She yelled at the monster as she threw something in the air. The monster turned to her with a growl but only got a step. Then it sniffed and caught the thing she threw in its mouth. She pulled out another doll. She threw it too.
She threw several more until the box was empty. Then she moved to another, this time it was labeled ‘least disastrous childhood toys.’ She threw them at the monster. Blisters started to form all over it. A third box was full of books which she tried not to think about. She threw them at the monster. Halfway through the monster collapsed.
Luz froze. What happened? Had she put it in a food coma?
“Got it” Hunter materialized pointing his staff at the monster.
“Let’s go” she yelled
He ran toward her and they darted toward the door.
They burst through the door “Eda”
Luz yelled
The owl lady barreled in. “what’s going on?"
“SOS! The basement has been invaded by a huge, shadowy, weird-handed, blister monster that eats important stuff.”
Owlbert fluttered onto Eda’s staff and she tensed. "How far behind you is it?"
“How far back did we leave it Luz?” Hunter asked.
Maybe Luz shouldn’t have run in yelling about it.
"The monster is knocked out in the basement. Hunter managed to take it down but we need to find a more permanent way to stop it."
“Kid, next time you should tell me the danger is passive. You scared me half to death. I can go take a look at it."
Eda led the way downstairs then Luz took the lead Hunter trailing behind them. When they got to the point where they left the monster they saw nothing.
“It was right here!”
“You sure it isn’t a bit further ahead? Eda asked.
Hunter glared at the owl lady. "I was here too, this is where we left it."
"Yeah, these are the boxes of stuff I threw at it."
“Where is it now? Hunter’s shoulders stiffened and he glared around the area.
"You probably won’t run into it again."
Hunter began to protest but Eda raised a hand.
"Listen, kid, I don't come down here often but this part of the basement extends way beyond the area under the house. For all I know this is a tunnel connecting to another place. I don't suggest you stay here much longer but you probably won’t find anything else if you do." Eda turned and walked back upstairs.
Eda didn’t think it would come back. Luz relaxed. Then she remembered why they had come down in the first place. "We never did find anything for Flapjack, did we?" Flapjack was still in staff form and Hunter was still glaring around suspiciously. After she looked at him for a second he reluctantly returned Flapjack to normal.
Flapjack chirped something and Hunter smiled and he walked over to a box labeled ‘blankets for the whole family’. Sure enough, a lot of blankets were inside. Hunter dug around and found a blanket a good size for Flapjack at the bottom. It looked soft too. He found a couple of pillows in a nearby box. Hunter picked up a load of blankets and pillows and started to carry them upstairs. She blinked after him for a second before she followed.
“Why do you have those?”
“I would rather not have to use the stuff the owl lady lent me.”
He folded the blankets and stacked them neatly before making the bed- Making the couch? With the new blankets and pillows and set out flapjacks too. Flapjack chirped happily.
Luz froze, wait a second that meant-
"Hunter, are you staying again?"
Hunter paused for a second then nodded.
“You said I should stay if some part of me wants to stay. Other than the fact I like being around you. I figured out who Willow is so I should stay for a couple more days now.”
“That’s amazing!” Luz grinned at him and he grinned back before his expression fell.
"I’m sorry about the monster, it's still out there eating memories we didn’t manage to carry out the plan." He looked at her with a crease in his brow
“You were in danger, how could I just leave you alone like that! People are worth more than things. You're worth a bazillion times more than some old keepsakes.” She hoped he saw she meant it.
“Is bazillion a number?”
Luz laughed.
“Let’s get your arm fixed then go do some puzzles.”
“My arm is fine.”
“No, it’s not let’s go”
She went to find the medical supplies.
…
“Luz, time to go to school.”
Luz looked up from the puzzle. They had gotten a good amount of it done even with Hunter’s breaks to do the other puzzles. Time passed more quickly than you like.
“Thanks, Eda!”
Luz had told Eda to tell her when it was time to head to school Luz jumped up and grabbed her bag.
“Bye Hunter”
Hunter looked up from the puzzle. Something crossed his face but she couldn’t tell what. She thought she saw his eyes narrow but maybe she just imagined it.
"Good luck Luz."
"Thanks." Luz darted out the door she needed to hurry if she wanted to get there on time.