In the Arctic (2 page)

The Adventures of . . .
ARCHIBALD & JOCKABEB

In the Forest

In the Mountains

In the Amazon

In the Desert

In the Caribbean

In the Big City

In the Arctic

In the Orient

In the Outback

A barren stretch of icy tundra north of the Arctic Circle is the setting for the latest book in The Adventures Archibald and Jockabeb series. The Paranormal Surveillance Agency, a secret government agency that tracks extraterrestrials, mistakenly believed that the two brothers had firsthand experience with ETs because they helped destroy the Ratweil, a supernatural mutant that roamed the labyrinth of abandoned subway tunnels under New York City. When a PSA agent arrived one snowy night and requested their assistance in investigating a possible extraterrestrial landing near the North Pole, the two brothers never thought their parents would agree. Miraculously, they did! That decision landed Archibald and Jockabeb on a special task force and launched them one of their most exciting and dangerous adventures ever. It also reunited them with two members of the mysterious subterranean Moonlight Clan—Meatloaf and Willow. As you begin reading the seventh book in the series, get ready for another epic battle between good and evil—a battle that will test the boys courage and sadly have a few unsuspected casualties along the way!

Copyright © 2012 by Arthur D. Collins Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Published and distributed by A & J Publishing, LLC.

ISBN 978-1-943346-19-6

e-ISBN 978-1-943346-20-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015956938

All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

For more information on The Adventures of Archibald & Jockabeb series, visit our website at
www.TheAJAdventures.com

Design: Scribe Inc., Philadelphia, PA

This book is dedicated to Constance Collins and Emma Sheridan, my two departed grandmothers. Both of them had the courage to leave their homeland to raise their children in the United States—one right after her husband died; the other only a few years before her husband would pass away.

Chapter 1. A Very Different Winter Break Begins

Chapter 2. Checkpoint Zulu

Chapter 3. Crunch Time

First Epilogue

Second Epilogue

The five months had flown by quickly since Archibald, Jockabeb, and Tess returned home from spending a long weekend with their Aunt Claire in New York City. They’d managed to pack a lot into those three days—a truly amazing weekend, but one that had almost cut the boys’ lives short.

After evading a Haitian police dragnet and murdering his father out in the Sonoran Desert, the elusive Tommy Nat had fled to New York City. Once he learned that Archibald and Jockabeb would also be in Manhattan visiting their aunt, he was certain that he could finally take care of unfinished business, namely killing the boys. The drug-dealing bokor had already come close to succeeding once in Haiti, and this time
he was not going to fail. From the moment that Tommy Nat and his two zombie bodyguards surprised the boys in Times Square, the deadly chase was on!

Confronted by Tommy Nat and his henchmen, Archibald made his first split-second decision when he and Jockabeb quickly turned and raced down the steps of the Times Square subway station. The plan was to escape by boarding a train. However, when Jockabeb arrived on the subway platform shortly after his brother and saw the tail lights of the departing train disappear into a tunnel, he thought they’d be caught for sure.

Jockabeb was completely mystified by his brother’s next decision. Yelling, “Come on,” Archibald leapt onto the tracks and began running into the opposite end of the dark tunnel. Afraid of being hit by an oncoming train, but even more afraid of the three killers who were close behind, Jockabeb jumped down and sprinted after his brother.

Tommy Nat and the two zombie thugs were closing in fast when Jockabeb found a door that led out of the subway tunnel, a door he knew would be there after seeing it in a recent nightmare. Just as he slammed the metal door shut and locked it tight, a subway train roared by. Although the train had sheared off the arm and back half of the head of one of the zombies, Tommy Nat and the other zombie survived.

Hoping that someone had seen what had happened and had called the police, the two stunned brothers
waited in total darkness by the door for the next hour. When a flashlight beam appeared from the dark recesses of a passageway leading away from the door, the boys were petrified that it might be Tommy Nat returning to finish them off.

Both brothers were greatly relieved when they heard a girl’s voice ask who was huddled in the darkness. After several exchanges, the girl, who was armed with a hi-tech crossbow, agreed to hear them out, but from a safe distance.

It was only after Archibald had told the girl who they were and what had just happened, that she decided to take them to meet her clan’s two leaders. Since it was pitch-black during their journey through the passageways and tunnels that burrowed further underground and farther away from the Times Square station, the boys didn’t get a chance to see her face or learn her name until they arrived at Sub-Station Zero. The moment Archibald had looked into Willow’s large, beautiful eyes, he was smitten.

The Moonlight Clan had two unofficial leaders. The first was Baron Franz Gustav von Koromia, or as his friends called him, Koro. He was an Austrian baron who’d been part of New York high society until he fled underground after killing a man while driving in a drunken stupor one night.

The second was a burly one-armed man from Northern Wisconsin named Meatloaf. Meatloaf had
lost his arm when the Ratweil, an indestructible mutant that was part giant black rat and part rabid Rottweiler, attacked him. For as long as anyone could remember, the deadly creature had roamed the maze of abandoned underground subway tunnels, stalking its human prey and killing at will.

Shortly after losing his arm, Meatloaf learned how to throw a Bowie knife with deadly accuracy, a skill that he hoped one day would allow him to settle the score with the supernatural beast that had maimed him. As it turned out, Meatloaf’s knife wouldn’t have been effective against the Ratweil, but it was highly effective when a one-eyed gangbanger named Shabazz and his Purgatory Plague gang threatened Willow and the boys.

While at Sub-Station Zero, the boys learned that government agents from the secret Paranormal Surveillance Agency had visited the clan. The PSA had somehow found out that a supernatural mutant lived underground in the abandoned subway tunnels, although they mistakenly thought it was an extraterrestrial being. Since the PSA agents were unable to find the Ratweil, they instructed Meatloaf to report back to them if he ever saw it again.

When Archibald described how the evil warriors of the Black Raven tribe morphed into a series of supernatural creatures, Meatloaf paid close attention. With six of the seven warriors already destroyed, the one-armed
man became convinced that the seventh and unaccounted warrior was, in fact, the Ratweil. After listening to how a seemingly invincible black jaguar down in the Amazon Rainforest had finally been slain by spears and arrows coated with local poison mixed with blue feather dust, he hatched a plan to finish off the mutant once and for all.

Meatloaf already had enough deadly poison at Sub-Station Zero, but he needed one of the blue feathers from Tommy Two Feathers’ hat to prepare his lethal brew. Seconds after Jockabeb heard Meatloaf’s offer was a promise to return the boys safely to the Times Square station in exchange for one of the blue feathers, he quickly and decisively exclaimed, “Deal!”

Willow was an expert archer who rarely missed her target. With that knowledge, Meatloaf felt confident that the coated arrows in her quill would find their mark and kill the Ratweil as soon as the beast showed its gargoyle-like face. But what the one-armed man didn’t know as he led the three teenagers on “The Great Ratweil Hunt” was that another hunt was about to begin—a hunt where the hunters would quickly become the hunted!

After studying maps of all the subway lines that were in use or long ago abandoned, Tommy Nat was able to determine the most likely route the boys had taken. With that knowledge and armed with sawed-off
shotguns, Tommy Nat and the remaining zombie bodyguard headed back underground, confident that it wouldn’t be long until the two meddlesome brothers would be dead.

When he arrived at Sub-Station Zero an hour and a half later, Tommy Nat quickly took a little girl hostage, threatening to kill her if he didn’t get the information he wanted. By the time the bokor and his zombie departed Sub-Station Zero, they knew Meatloaf’s final destination, together with every turn he’d make to get there. Tommy Nat was sure he could make up the twenty-minute head start that the group in front of him had as an advantage. He also knew that the element of surprise was on his side, and he intended to use that advantage to its fullest extent.

While surprise did initially play to his favor when he and the zombie strode into an abandoned subway station armed with their shotguns, the biggest surprise was yet to come, and it was a surprise no one expected!

The Ratweil had silently arrived and was perched on a ledge directly above Tommy Nat. As the hideous mutant watched the curious scene unfolding below, it selected the first of the several humans it intended to kill and eat that night. With its demented mind made up, the Ratweil sprang forward with incredible speed.

Within seconds of the powerful monster landing on its first victim, Tommy Nat’s face was a shredded piece of flesh. An instant later, the Ratweil’s razor-sharp
teeth found the bokor’s neck and quickly ended his life. A blast from the zombie’s shotgun didn’t faze the indestructible beast, and soon the zombie was dead.

When the Ratweil turned on its third victim and started to charge Meatloaf, it appeared all was lost, that is until Meatloaf bellowed, “Nito, Vito, Samu,” and one of Willow’s coated arrows penetrated the mutant’s skull.

By the time a second arrow entered the Ratweil’s heart only seconds later, its fate had been sealed. Following in the footsteps of the six previous Black Raven warriors, the seventh and last evil warrior exploded in a blinding burst of brilliant light.

Meatloaf was true to his word when he made good on his promise to safely return the boys to where Willow had found them six hours earlier. Before leaving Willow, Archibald fought off his nervousness and kissed her good-bye, promising to return some day. He also gave her something to remember him by, the last blue feather from Tommy Two Feathers’ hat.

Soon after arriving home from New York City, Archibald and Jockabeb received a call from PSA Special Agent Josh Quade. Special Agent Quade said the PSA wanted the boys to know that a letter of commendation was being placed in their files—a letter noting the crucial role they’d played in helping a young woman destroy the extraterrestrials that the agency had been tracking for some time.

When Special Agent Quade ended the call by saying, “We’ll stay in touch,” Jockabeb had rolled his eyes, hoping but not really believing that this would be his last contact with the PSA.

As it turned out, Jockabeb’s uncanny intuition foreshadowed another great adventure that was only months away, and it would be an adventure like nothing they’d ever experienced before!