The Slime That Would Not Die (7 page)

The room was round with huge wooden doors every few feet or so. I'd never seen anything like it. In the center of the room were two massive sofas, assorted chairs, and tables. There were candles, coasters, magazines, cups, saucers, bric-a-brac, and dust (of course) covering every available surface. There was even a stuffed tarantula on the top of the sofa, and coffee table books with alien art on the front stacked next to a chair.

Walter led us to a table with bowls and cups on it. “Here are some snacks and drinks for you,” he said. There were chilled cans of Volt Cola lined up like bowling pins.

Damon grabbed a handful of cheesy-looking mix. Orange stuff got all over his fingers and lips. Stella and Lindsey took huge handfuls, too.

“Mmmmm,” the girls said. “What
is
this?”

“One of Oswald Leery's favorites,” said Walter. “Larva crunch.”

“Ewwwwww!” everyone wailed, spitting the stuff out.
“Larva?”

“Oh, come now! You're not afraid of a little snack food, are you?” Walter asked.

Stella grabbed a can of Volt Cola right off the tray and emptied it into her mouth. It would take a case of the stuff to get the taste out of our mouths.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” Walter asked. “Have a look around. Make yourselves at home. I'll be back in two shakes of a werewolf's tail.”

Then he left the room.

“How exactly do you shake a werewolf's tail?” I cried.

“
Very carefully
,” Lindsey said, giggling again as she adjusted her glasses.

We all groaned.

“What does it mean when Walter says to ‘have a look around'?” Stella asked, touching a large, leather-bound book on the table.

“I bet he's testing us,” I said. “He wants to see what we do.”

“I bet Leery has B-Monster video cams set up all over the castle,” said Damon. “We'll probably end up on the Internet.”

Stella found a box and opened it up. Inside were old pictures of actors, special-effects design people, and makeup artists who had worked at B-Monster Studios. Dad told me once that a bunch of old B-Monster actors still live at the Riddle Retirement Village. I bet they have the best stories to tell!

Hidden behind a large, moving plywood panel, Damon discovered shelves and shelves of back issues of
B-Monster Galaxy
, Oswald Leery's famed monster magazine
.
On another shelf was a giant robot head. Damon stepped near the head and its eyes flashed red.

“Cool!” he exclaimed excitedly.

Lindsey pointed to a line of old black-and-white photographs hanging up on the wall. In one photograph was a man behind a movie camera. Standing next to the man was Oswald Leery.

“Wow! That man in the picture is my Grandpa Max!” Lindsey said.

I told Lindsey how my Great Uncle Rich had worked for Leery, too.

“His nickname was Danger Ranger,” I joked. “Otherwise known as Danger Man.”

“Where is he in these pictures?” Damon asked, eyeing all the photographs again.

I searched the gallery and couldn't find a photo of him anywhere. But I didn't need a photograph. I found some amazing props instead! Inside a costume trunk, I picked up this bug mask with giant light-up eyes. Etched inside was the nameRICH “D” RANGER

“No way!” Damon cried. “Look at this!” He pulled me over to look at a gigantic suit made of steel. “It says right here that this suit was worn by Rich Ranger in
Robototron.
”

“Wow,” Stella said. “There are little bits of your uncle in everything.”

“Yeah,” I mused. “He was a cool guy, wasn't he?”

“When I grow up, I want to be a stuntwoman just like him,” Stella said.

“You could be ‘Danger Min'!” I cried, goofing around.

We all laughed, except for Stella, of course. She smoothed down her black hair and shot me a look. “I'm being serious,” she said.

I spotted a small locked cabinet off to the side of the room. Unable to open it, I grabbed a sharpened pencil and stuck it in the lock. After a few minutes of wriggling, the door opened.

The cabinet was a treasure trove. It held notebooks and albums crammed with photos and facts, guestbooks signed by all the actors who had made the Bs, and a box of original B-Monster trading cards. I opened the box. I'd been searching for a limited-edition
Slimo
trading card for months. There were only five ever issued. Two are owned by collectors in Japan, and I had no clue where the other three might be.

Unfortunately, Oswald Leery didn't have one in this box.

“I wonder where all the doors in this room go,” Damon said.

Lindsey reached for one knob, but Stella cried, “Don't! You don't know what's behind there!”

“Isn't that the idea?” Lindsey said with a smile. She moved over to a curious-looking set of yellow double doors.

The plaque on the doors read: SCREENING ROOM.

With a loud crank, the yellow double doors started to move. They were on some kind of mechanical track and they were opening themselves in slo-mo.

I stepped forward before everyone else. It was pitch-black inside.

I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face!

As I moved inside the room, everything wobbled and before I could find my bearings, the entire floor gave way.

Before I could stop myself, I was falling down, down into the darkness.

CHAPTER 10

I screamed as I fell. It was so dark that I couldn't even see where I had fallen. Then suddenly I bounced against something slippery. This was a slide!

As I twisted down the loop, I squealed like I was on a roller coaster. I could feel wind on my eyeballs. This was like the best amusement park ride
ever.
I was beginning to wonder if it would ever stop.

And then it did.

Just as quickly as I'd dropped onto the slide, I was deposited into a plush chair facing an enormous screen. I was in some kind of futuristic movie theater! There was a creaking noise, and the chair lurched and moved over a little. Stella, who had dropped down after me, was positioned in a chair to my left. She just stared ahead like she'd been hypnotized or something. Or maybe she was just completely freaked out.

I know I was.

On the right side of me, another chair slid into place under the slide chute. Then Lindsey came sliding down into it. Damon slipped into another chair after her.

I always thought the multiplex in Riddle was impressive. After all, it has something like twelve different screens. But the theater at Leery Castle put that place to super-shame. This screening room was WOW all the way.

Our chairs were positioned so close to the screen, I figured we could practically see the actors' nose hair. Obviously, that was the best way to view any Bs. The closer, the grosser, the better the B! I remember reading that somewhere once in an old issue of
B-Monster Galaxy
magazine. It sounded like a cheer.

As the lights inside the screening room faded to a pale glint, a face popped up on the screen.

“Welcome to my castle, Jesse, Stella, Damon, and Lindsey. I am sorry that I cannot be with you today,” Leery said.

His voice echoed. I glanced around. I could barely see in the darkness, but I knew the four of us had the same exact facial expression: freaked. Leery was up there, saying our names and talking directly to us!

“My friends, our beloved town of Riddle is in grave danger,” Leery continued. “Back in the days before my family started making movies here, Riddle was a simple town. No one worried much about danger or horror. But when I invented B-Monster Vision, something strange happened. Riddle changed. Everything changed. For all these many years, I have guarded a deep secret.”

I sank down into my chair. Secret? I loved secrets!

“Let me start at the beginning,” Leery said. “I want you to understand a little bit about my world.”

Grainy old photos of Desmond and Lucas Leery projected onto the oversize screen. We saw photos of old movie sets and actors dressed in all sorts of funny costumes. Then we saw grown-up photos of Leery directing on the very same movie sets we knew. Photos from
Crabzilla
,
Tuskadon
, and
Bog Beast
flashed on-screen. The B-Monsters looked fun and fake, of course, just the way they always had.

“I grew up on movies,” Leery's voice narrated as the photos faded one into the other. “My father and grandfather before him were masters of cinema. I spent all of my time on movie sets and learned the tricks of camera work, makeup, and more from them. When I got older, I started to make movies on my own. That's when I started using the filming process my grandfather and father had invented. I gave it my own name: B-Monster Vision.”

I pressed the small of my back into the chair as I listened and watched the photographs flashing before me. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Leery, but I only knew very little. There was so much to learn!

“One day,” Leery went on, “I realized that my B-Monster Vision was causing problems on the sets of my movies. Things began to disappear. Sets were destroyed by mysterious rain or even slime . . .”

“Slime?” Lindsey gasped. I couldn't see, but I knew that was her voice in the dark. My eyes fixed back on the screen.

“My colleagues and I realized that the unthinkable was taking place right here at B-Monster Studios. Somehow B-Monsters were being
made
real by the very camera I had used to put them in the movies.”

I grabbed the edge of the cushion on the chair where I was sitting.
This has to be a joke
, I told myself.

“My young friends,” Leery continued. “Not only are B-Monsters real, but they are trapped in the original copies of the movies. So, each time an original copy of a film is screened, that B-Monster comes alive again.”

“For years, I tried to fight these Bs,” Leery continued. “I tried swords and armor and even acid. I tried chants and spells. But nothing—
nothing
—has worked. Just when I think I've stopped a monster, it comes back again. Or a new monster strikes . . .”

My stomach was in knots. I wanted to run, but I didn't even know where the ground was under my seat! Leery was still talking.

“My crew and I were able to contain the damage, but only for short periods of time. I began making sequels to my greatest movies to put the real B-Monsters back to work. It kept them contained—for a while. The public loved the sequels. So I just made more and more movies.”

I laughed aloud. He put monsters
to work
. This was too much!

“However, as time passed, I grew tired,” Leery said. I could see the tiredness in his eyes up on the screen. “B-Monsters were getting smarter. I couldn't control them anymore. They wanted to run free in Riddle—and beyond. They wanted to get out. Making movies with them was not enough to keep them away from trouble. I locked the gates of the castle. I put away all the cameras. I went back into my castle, into hiding. I needed to stop the B-Monsters for good.”

Up on the screen, Oswald Leery got very still. He stared directly at the camera and breathed a raspy, eerie breath. He sounded like one of his own special effects.

“To destroy a B-Monster, two important things must happen. Each monster must be controlled and then eliminated. Then you must destroy the original copy of that B-Monster movie!”

Leery stared out at us, as if he were waiting for some kind of response. He blinked slowly. “Do you understand?” he asked as if he were speaking in real time.

“Unfortunately, it took me years to figure out that last part. And I wasn't very careful with the original reels. I had sent them to fans and friends all over the world. I have no idea who has what or which films I sent where. I have tracked down many of the original reels,” he went on, “but there is no way I can find them all on my own. Not now. That's where
you
come in.”

The room got awfully quiet. Stella, Lindsey, Damon, and I were too shocked to breathe.

“I need the four of you to help me. I planned the screening at the library as a way to get you together. I had Walter give your librarian a list of VIP names. You were on that list with other children, but you four were the ones I needed most.”

Could I have seen this coming? I knew there was something fishy about that VIP list! I never would have guessed in a zillion years that Oswald Leery would want
my
help to eliminate an actual B-Monster!

“Together, I need your help to locate my entire catalog of original B-Monster movies. Some are right here in Riddle. Others may be halfway across the world. And owners won't always be willing to part with them. But we must find them all!”