MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS

Book 6:

the collector

Mysterious Monsters: The Collector

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, places, incidents, and dialogue are the product of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real, or if real, are used fictitiously. Unless otherwise intended, any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © October 2019 by David Michael Slater

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For more information, to inquire about rights to this or other works, or to purchase copies for special educational, business, or sales promotional uses please write to:

Corgi Bits is an imprint of Incorgnito Publishing Press

A division of Market Management Group, LLC

300 E. Bellevue Drive, Suite 208

Pasadena, California 91101

FIRST EDITION

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-944589-38-7

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Mom and Dad

PROLOGUE:

The Collector!

Dear Readers,

It was a big mistake not to discourage you from coming along on the Mattigans’ last adventure, so I’m not messing around here.

I’ve decided not to write this book. It’s just not safe.

I’m very sorry to end things between us this way, especially after all we’ve been through together. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

However, if you’re holding a book written by someone else about the Mattigans’ final showdown, let me be as clear as possible: DO NOT READ IT!

In fact, you’ve got to destroy it.

Slather the pages in marshmallow fluff and “accidentally” drop it in Killer’s (or Snarl’s or Chomper’s) bowl like you did with that boring novel from English class last year. Or leave it on the ground behind the family’s Armored Combat Earthmover. (If you have one.)

Just make sure no one can read it.

If you’ve been following Maddie (12), Max (10), and Theo (8) on their quest to track down mysterious monsters, you know they’ve discovered that ours is only one of an infinite number of worlds in the Multiverse (the fancy name for the Multiple Universes Theory). And that now they know the monsters they’ve hidden in their basement were hidden on our planet as babies — after being sent here through a channel between the worlds.

I have a theory: I think books are channels, too.

And so, if no one opens this book (if it is a book), and if no one reads the words on its pages (if there are pages) — then maybe the disasters they surely describe can’t happen.

Because the Collector is coming.

The richest, greediest, cruelest, most powerful citizen in all of the countless worlds has discovered our out-of-the-way little planet. He suspects that some of the rarest, most endangered species in the Multiverse live here, creatures he’s been hunting for sport! He will stop at nothing to add the Sasquatch, the alien, the vampire, the ghost, the werewolf, the mermaid, and the shark-baby to the collection of frozen statues he keeps on display in the massive palace of a planet he calls home.

It’s true that, for once, the Mattigan kids do not have to face their fears alone. This time, they have help from their father, Marcus, who finally knows that mysterious monsters are real. The kids also have their long-lost mother, Layla, back — and even their longer-lost Grandpa Joe, too.

But does this sound like a fair fight? One back-together human family and a couple of until-recently-homeless creatures — against the wealthiest creep in all of time and space?

Since you can’t read about it, don’t bother discussing among yourselves.

Unless you can read about it.

In which case, please don’t. Close this shouldn’t-have-been-written book and go deposit it in the nearest nuclear waste dump. Or strap it to a rocket and launch it into outer space. Or eat it yourself. I don’t care — just destroy it.

Right now.

Seriously.

Thank you.

(I do hope to be in touch again, as soon as it’s safe.)

Sincerely,

Your pal

PROLOGUE, TAKE II:

Never Mind

It’s possible that I’m completely wrong about books being channels — or wrong that it matters whether anyone reads them or not. Maybe what happens on the pages happens anyway. Kind of like that tree-falling-in-the-woods thing.

Discuss among yourselves.

No, don’t! There’s even less time now.

I have another theory, but it means you have to read this book. Which means I have to write it.

We can talk about the theory later — if we make it to later. We’ve wasted enough time already.

So, what are you waiting for? I’m writing, so… start reading!

CHAPTER ONE:

Gone

From the less than gentle way the mermaid was bouncing the shark-baby on her human-form knee, all three Mattigan kids could tell she was having trouble keeping calm. “Now that they’ve had the night to sleep on it,” she said, “I’m sure they’ll agree that we creatures — all of us — must leave for other worlds.” She took a deep breath and added, “Shall I wake them up?”

Delphine’s husband, Wolfie, who was no longer in werewolf form, was sitting beside her. He nodded and said, “I will tell them that they must go their separate ways. I’m sure they’ll under—”

“What?” Max, Maddie, and Theo all asked at exactly the same time. They’d been preparing themselves to let the monsters go if that was the only way to save them, but the thought of their new friends having to go off into strange new worlds all alone? That was too much. They looked at each other in alarm, realizing together that the situation was even worse than they’d realized.

“They’ll never agree to that,” Max warned. “They’re a family now. Just like you two. It sounds like you aren’t planning to split up.”

“Then they are fools!” Wolfie barked, not denying Max’s conclusion. His face suddenly sprouted thick tufts of hair and vicious fangs grew down past his lower lip.

“Darling, no!” Delphine cried.

The kids jumped to their feet, fearing an attack, but Wolfie took a few long, deep breaths and, slowly, the hair and fangs withdrew. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That happens when I get upset.”

Everyone sighed and sat back down.

“This is a hairy situation,” Max said, hoping to ease the tension in the room. He looked over at his dad and said, “See what I did there?” But his father, professional skeptic and star of the hit show Monstrous Lies with Marcus Mattigan, wasn’t able to respond. The night’s rest had clearly not been enough for him to recover from the shock of meeting real-life monsters — and the fact that a good amount of what he believed about the world wasn’t true.

No one else was in any condition to appreciate the joke, either.

“We must leave,” Delphine insisted, still bouncing the shark-baby, whose fin was flopping around. “We must return to the channel and depart this world forever — right now! I’m going to wake them up,” she decided, heading for the door to the adjoining hotel room. Without knocking, she threw it open.

“They’re gone!” she gasped.

“What?” the kids yelped, afraid that the Collector had somehow snuck in overnight and taken them.

“A note!” Theo cried, rushing over to the door. There was a piece of paper taped to it. He grabbed it before Delphine could and gave it over to Maddie.

“Dear Everyone,” Maddie read. “Our decision to remain on Earth, our home, is final. Surely, we would have been advised not only to flee, but to flee separately. We do not wish to spend the rest of our lives running from world to world, afraid and alone. We have lived most of our lives in this world that way. We have returned to the Mattigan Mansion because we belong together. Sincerely, the monsters.”

“Yay!” Theo cheered.

“They will belong together as statues!” Delphine shouted.

“Does anyone know anything about this Collector guy?” Max asked, holding back his own cheer. He was scared for the monsters and terrified to think that danger might now come to their own house, but he was still happy they’d gone back home. “Maybe he has a weakness or something we can use to our advantage.”

Layla Mattigan, the kids’ mom, who’d only returned last night from being lost in the Multiverse for two years, began padding the many pockets on her pants. “I actually might be able to help with that,” she said. “On a strange world, I traded my phone for a device that appeared to be for educational purposes. I was hoping it might help me find my way home.” She produced a black disk that looked like a thin, metal hockey puck. “It didn’t help,” she added. “Nothing on it is in English, of course, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of its maps. But if we can get a computer here to—”

“Enough of this!” Delphine shouted. “This is a catastrophe! At any moment, your Grandpa Joe could burst in here to tell us the Collector has come through the channel, and here two of us sit, less than a mile away, and your friends are all gathered up together in one house!”

Just then, the door burst open.

It was Grandpa Joe.

CHAPTER TWO:

Bigger Responsibilities

Joe was still wearing the climbing gear he’d been in when the group had seen him clamber out of the hole hidden in the woods — a hole that was actually a gateway to the Multiverse. It was hard to believe that had happened, and just last night, too. His gray hair and beard were both typical Mattigan wild.

“Is the Collector here?” Delphine cried, clutching the shark-baby to her chest.

“Good news,” Joe said. “We have some time.”

Everyone let out a big sigh.

“I went back through the channel to see if I could learn anything,” Joe explained. “It turns out that the Collector is big news. Everywhere. In every world. Everyone all across the Multiverse knows he’s tracking the trophies he’s been after the longest, because he’s offering a huge reward for help finding Earth. So, he’s coming, alright, but he’s having trouble finding it. The reward offer is getting him all kinds of advice — luckily, most of it’s bad. From what I heard, he’s heading in the wrong direction. I’m guessing you have at least a few days before he gets here. I assume everyone has come to their senses, so let’s get going.”

“They’re gone!” Delphine groaned.

“The creatures? What do you mean gone?”

“They went home,” Max said. “And we want to go home, too.”

“True story,” Theo confirmed.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joe said. He turned to Marcus and added, “But at least you will have some time to do — whatever it is you’re planning to do. What are you planning to do?”

Marcus looked at Layla, then at his kids. No one said anything because no one had anything to say.

“Well, I have a plan,” Joe told them, “and you should follow it. Me and my friends here—” he nodded at Delphine and Wolfie, “are going to get off this island and out of this world, while there’s still time. We’re going to find a new out-of-the-way little speck of a world where endangered creatures can live in peace. If we can find such a place in time, we will return to facilitate an evacuation. Either way, we will set up a new operation like the orphanage we had here.”

“Yes!” Delphine cried. “Let’s go right now!” She headed straight out into the hall with the shark-baby to show how serious she was. Wolfie was right behind her.

“Dad?” Maddie asked, seeing the shocked look on her father’s face. “What’s wrong?” This whole situation was upsetting, but he looked like he’d just been given the worst of all possible news.

“You’re — you’re leaving?” Marcus asked his father. “I haven’t seen you since I was ten years old! And you’re turning around and leaving again? Just like that?”

“I’m sorry, son,” Joe told him. His seen-too-much eyes looked sad now. “Maybe it was a mistake to settle down and have a family, but I thought the Collector was out of business back then. I was wrong. It turned out he had only run out of room for his collections. But then he bought an entire planet for them. The reason I have to leave you now is the same reason I had to leave you then: bigger responsibilities. I’ve made it my duty in life to save these creatures. As I told you last night, son, I am not from this world. We’ve been doing this job for hundreds of your years.”

Marcus opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Seeing their father unable to speak was just about as scary as anything else that was scaring his kids right now.

“I urge you to convince your friends to escape through the channel as soon as possible,” Joe said. “Tell them this for me: The Collector is never satisfied. If he finds them — and it will be much easier for him if they choose to stay together — they will wind up on display with his other catches and all his other fancy ‘collectibles.’ But then he’ll go looking for more of their kind. I just hope he doesn’t look here.”

And, with that, Grandpa Joe turned and stepped into the hall to join Delphine, Wolfie, and the shark-baby. Without so much as a goodbye, he turned away, closing the door behind him.

Marcus remained standing where he was — as if he were one of the Collector’s statues. Layla went and put her arms around him. The kids got up to hug him, too.

“Thank you, everyone,” Marcus said. “My father did what he had to do. Now we have to do the same. It’s time to go home. Our monsters need us.”

CHAPTER THREE:

Chopped Liver

After riding the ferry back to the mainland, the Mattigans headed back to Portland in their beat-up “Yuck” of a truck. Max, Maddie, and Theo spent most of the four-hour drive telling their mother pretty much everything that had happened to them over the last two years. That meant sharing boring details about school, but also telling her all about their incredible adventures tracking down the monsters.

Layla was amazed.

Their father was, too, the kids could tell, but he stayed quiet, because that’s how he came up with plans. And they needed a plan more than they ever had before.

Layla had a lot to share, too. She described the astonishing worlds she’d passed through on her quest to get back to them. In one, everyone had spoken in colors. In another, the only inhabitants had been brains that lived in jars. She’d almost gotten stuck in a world where everyone woke up at night and went to bed in the morning and walked around backwards.

The kids were amazed.

With all the amaze-ing going on, the trip went by in a flash, and at noon, the Yuck came to a stop at the edge of Forest Park, right in front of the old Mattigan Mansion. The kids jumped out, ready to hear their father’s surely genius plan to let them live happily ever after with their mysterious monsters.

But just as Marcus was climbing out of the driver’s seat, a bell began ringing from somewhere in the woods. It rang hard and fast, like an alarm. Then, with no warning, figures sprang up from the weeds around them — five frightening ghouls in tattered clothes, all with hideous faces.

“Ahhhh!” Max, Maddie, and Theo all screamed.

This was it, they thought. They were already doomed. The monsters had been captured, and now they would be, too.

“Hold on! Hold on!”

Slowly, the kids realized their father was shouting at them.

“Calm down!” he shouted.

One by one, the kids stopped wailing.

“Look!” Marcus said, pointing at the nearest ghoul.

He walked over and knocked on it. It was clearly made of wood. And now it was obvious that all of the ghouls were made of wood. They were wooden scarecrow sorts of things with painted faces. They were draped in Marcus’ old clothes.

“Vat do you think of our guards?” Dracula asked. The tall, stiff, and always well-dressed vampire was suddenly standing among them. And now the kids, trying to catch their breath, realized that J-Rod and the black shape of Shade were there, too, standing on the porch. “Maybe ze Collector vill think many monzters are here. Too many for him to catch!”

“Great idea!” the kids declared.

“Zank you. Ve vorked all night.”

“Well, when you need some sleep,” Marcus insisted, “please use any rooms you like. I’m terribly ashamed that you all had to hide in the basement. I — I guess I wasn’t ready to believe.”

“No explanation necessary,” J-Rod said, putting a four-fingered hand on Marcus’ shoulder. “You never had any reason to.” His large almond-shaped eyes were full of understanding.

“I told the kids I wouldn’t want to know the truth if they found it,” Marcus explained anyway, “which goes against everything I stand for. I’ll never change my mind about actual proof being required for belief….” He turned to his children and added, “But you kids couldn’t have found better proof. And by that, I mean that you found brave and noble proof who I’m honored to know.”

At this, the three monsters simply bowed.

“Now,” Marcus said, “how can I help?”

“These are just our first efforts, of course,” J-Rod said, indicating the ghoulish guards. He was holding some sort of remote control, which he’d used to make the decoys spring up on hinges that had been screwed to bits of wood on the ground. “We are hoping you don’t mind that we destroyed some of your furniture from the basement — and also borrowed some of your clothes.” J-Rod meant they’d borrowed clothes both for the ghouls and for himself, as he was wearing another of Marcus’ running outfits.

“I don’t mind a bit.”

“Outstanding. Of course, the ghouls are not our first line of defense.” He held the remote up to his slit of a mouth and spoke into it. “We’re good, Quatchy,” he said. “Come on back.”

Everyone turned at the sound of the bell ringing again. This time, they also heard heavy feet tramping through the woods. And grunting. Bigfoot appeared, rumbling out of the trees. When he reached the group, he scooped the kids up into a big, hairy hug.

“Qvatchy is guarding ze voods,” Dracula explained. “He vill zound alarm if anyone comes. But ve need more vooden guards. Zis is okay?”

“Feel free to use every stick of furniture in the house,” Marcus said. “All that useless stuff I’ve been buying over the years will finally have a purpose.”

Bigfoot gave a growl of delight and rumbled off into the house.

“He enjoys breaking the furniture,” Shade explained.

“What’s your plan, Dad?” Theo asked. Everyone turned to Marcus with hopeful eyes. “You have one, right?”

“Well, there is something I’ve been thinking about.” He turned to the monsters and said, “My father mentioned that the Collector is never satisfied, that after he catches you all, he’ll just go looking for more monsters. But the part that struck me was that he also said, ‘I just hope he doesn’t look here.’”

“There are more monsters!” Max and Maddie both cried. “On Earth!”

“Zere is no time to zearch far and vide,” Dracula said. “But I vill leave no ztone unturned az far as zese vings can carry me.”

Everyone looked at one another and traded nods. It was agreed.

Dracula, a bat already, flapped into the woods.

“I’ll take over ghoul guard construction duty,” Marcus said. “Just in case.”

“Outstanding,” J-Rod said. “Did you have any other ideas?”

“Well,” Marcus said, “I think our best bet is the device that Layla brought back from the Multiverse. We need to learn whether it contains information that might help us deal with the Collector.”

Layla took the hockey puck-like gadget out of her pocket and handed it to a very interested J-Rod. The kids all craned their necks to get a look at it. The thing had strange-looking holes around its outer edge.

“I was thinking,” Marcus said to J-Rod. “You’re not really an alien. I mean, you are from another world — not another planet in this world — so…”

J-Rod nodded as he inspected the puck. Then his giant eyes got even gianter. “Outstanding!” he cried. “These inputs bear a strong resemblance to those in my downed ship!”

“I will take it,” Shade said, stepping forward. “I can get it all the way to Las Vegas in minutes, and it won’t be a problem finding Area 51 or getting someone there to help examine the device.”

“By jumping into someone’s body and making them do what you say!” Max realized. “But,” he added, thinking out loud, “why don’t you just do that to the Collector when he comes?”

“I will try,” Shade promised, accepting the device from J-Rod. “I will most definitely try.” And with that, she was suddenly gone.

A moment of quiet followed, as everyone hoped Shade wouldn’t have to take on the Collector all by herself.

“I have some theories about the Multiverse I’d like to work on,” Layla said, breaking the silence. “Something that might be of use.”

“Great,” Marcus said. “Let’s all get busy then.”

He and Layla headed up onto the porch with J-Rod, and then the three of them hurried into the great, rambling house.

Max, Maddie, and Theo were left standing on the driveway. When they realized they’d been pretty much forgotten, Max looked at his brother and sister and said, “What are we, chopped liver?”

CHAPTER FOUR:

Mad Skills

“They seem to have forgotten that I’m a spy,” Max complained. He got into his spy crouch and held his spy kit up to prove that he always had it handy.

“There has to be something we can do,” Maddie said, shaking her head at what was really just her father’s old briefcase with a few goofy “spy” tools in it.

“Let’s go look through my books,” Max suggested, un-crouching himself. For some reason, and for the first time ever, it felt silly. He had no idea why, but there was no time to figure it out right now. “Maybe we can find something useful to—”

Before he could finish the thought, Theo took off running for the house.

“Theo!” Maddie called after him. But he didn’t answer. She and Max watched him disappear inside. They could hear the sound of his feet pounding up the wooden stairs inside.

“Wow,” Max said. “I wish everyone reacted to my ideas that way. Things could really get done around here.”

“Um,” Maddie said, “I don’t think that’s exactly what just happened. Let’s go.” She headed up the porch steps and then into the house. Max followed behind her.

As Maddie expected, Theo hadn’t gone to Max’s room to get a head start on digging through his brother’s books. He’d gone to his own room. They found him in there sitting on the floor, hard at work on his hobby, which was taking apart used toys and putting them back together in strange and interesting ways. He didn’t even look up when they came in.

Just as Max’s room was swamped with books, Theo’s room was filled with what he called his “Frankentoys.” There were car-plane-rockets, buildings that were part animals, part puzzles with wheels and wings, and all sorts of sculptures made of broken parts.

It had been a while since either Max or Maddie had been in Theo’s room, and both were struck now by how cool it all was.

“It’s like all the random stuff from the Multiverse got smashed up in here,” Max said.

Theo finally looked up from the puzzle cube/robot he was working on, not sure whether he was being teased or not.

“It’s really impressive,” Max added, seeing the question in his brother’s eyes.

“It’s like a museum in here,” was Maddie’s observation. “But, why did you rush up here to do this — now? Don’t you want to help make a plan? The Kid Plan?”

“NO!” Theo shouted. “I don’t! I want this whole thing to be over! Right now! It’s not fun anymore!”

“What’s not fun anymore?”

“Everything!” Theo’s face was suddenly boiling, and his Mattigan curls were almost standing up. “It was fun finding the monsters!” he raged. “They’re funny! But this Collector guy is scary and everyone’s scared, and I’m scared, and nothing is fun or funny anymore, AND EVEN IF WE GOT MOM BACK, I DON’T WANT MY GRANDFATHER TO BE AN ALIEN! Or from another world, or whatever that makes him.”

“But—”

“I QUIT! Okay? I just want to make my Frankentoys like I used to.”

Maddie could tell that Max was about to say something, and that it wasn’t going to be nice, so she Eyeballed him to keep it to himself. “Okay, Theo,” she said. “That’s actually a really good idea. Why don’t you do that? Max and I will go look through his library and see if he’s got anything helpful. You make something really super-neat in the meantime. Deal?”

“Everything I make is really super-neat,” Theo grumbled, already back at work. “So — Humpf. That’s the easiest deal ever.”

Max’s bedroom door only opened partway because of all of the books piled up on the floor behind it. The walls in his room were filled with shelves — used ones that Marcus had fixed up for him, of course. But they’d overflowed years ago. He and Maddie stepped carefully over and around the piles and made their way to his bed.

Maddie sat down, then looked around the room, thinking.

“What?” Max asked, sitting down beside her.

“I just realized that you and Theo both have hobbies — things you’re both really good at. I don’t have a hobby. What am I good at?”

Without thinking about it for even a second, Max had an answer: “People.”

“People? What do you mean?”

“You’re good at people,” Max said. “You understand them. Like with Theo back there. I thought he wanted to help when he ran into the house. And then I was going to yell at him for not helping, and I was going to make things worse. You knew that was a bad idea. You do things like that all time. You do it so often that you don’t even notice it’s your hobby. You have mad people skills. Maddie people skills.”

“Huh,” Maddie said, looking considerably less upset.

“Let me put it another way,” Max said: “I hate your teachable moments a little bit less than I hate Dad’s.”

“Wow,” Maddie said, pleased by the compliment. “That’s really nice of you to say.”

“Here,” Max said, getting up and tiptoeing over to a shelf. He had to dig into it a bit, because the books there were stacked three deep, but he pulled one out. It was a large paperback, which he brought back to his sister.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s a book about collecting stuff. Dad got it for me a few years ago. I think he was worried about my book-collecting habit. Or his furniture-collecting habit. Or both. Anyway, it has a chapter on hoarders, the kind of collectors that can’t stop collecting. I never read it, but maybe you can use it to figure out why this Collector guy wants the monsters so badly.”

“Not a bad idea,” Maddie agreed, looking for the chapter. “What will you do?”

“Hmmm.” Max sat back down on the bed and closed his eyes.

“Really?” Maddie was worried Max was going to take a nap while she did all the work. “Maybe you can just root around in all this mess for something useful. You never know what you might—”

“Got it,” Max said, opening his eyes. He tiptoed through the piles again, this time to a stack in the corner. He pulled one out of the middle, an old hardback with a torn cover, and then held it up.

“The Art of Negotiation,” Maddie read. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you know where every book in this room is. That’s incredible.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Well, reading about how to negotiate is a great idea,” Maddie said, extremely impressed. “Maybe the Collector will be willing to talk to us.”

“Then we both have a job.”

“And we both have something else, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Mad skills, bro!”

CHAPTER FIVE:

News

For four solid hours, the Mattigan mansion sat peacefully at the edge of Forest Park. To any outsider, it would have looked like the Mattigan kids were enjoying a lovely, lazy day. The youngest was playing with toys in his room — in a strange way, perhaps, but certainly a creative one. His older brother and sister, who could easily have been arguing about one thing or another, were in the living room only inches away from each other, reading in total silence. Each was snuggled inside one of the two massive built-in benches under the even-more-massive picture windows.

There was some sawing and hammering coming from the basement, it was true, but that sounded like pleasant background noise.

At last, Max poked his head out of his bench and looked in on Maddie, since she’d left her seat top open, too. “Find anything interesting?” he asked.

“Actually, quite a bit.” Maddie got up on her knees so they could talk. “How about you?”

“A lot!”

But before they had a chance to share what they’d learned, their mother came rushing down the stairs with a bunch of papers clutched in her fist. Layla had not been born a Mattigan, so she didn’t have their naturally crazy hair, but her flying auburn curls were a mess anyway.

Max and Maddie smiled at each other, happy to see their mother in “Brain Buster” mode again after so long. When she got that way, she could forget about everything else for incredible stretches of time. She could forget about eating, sleeping — even them. They didn’t mind, though, because it was for science.

“Marcus!” Layla shouted. “Marcus!”

“What is it?” Maddie asked, wondering whether she should be more worried than excited.

Layla halted halfway down the steps, startled. She hadn’t noticed her kids’ heads and shoulders sticking out of the benches.

“Oh!” she said, grabbing her heart.

At that moment, J-Rod and Marcus burst into the living room from the basement, both covered in sawdust.

“What’s happening?” Marcus asked his wife, looking terrified. “Is everything okay?” He noticed Max and Maddie then. “Are you two okay? Is Theo okay? I didn’t hear Bigfoot’s bell.”

“I might have made a breakthrough,” Layla explained, rushing down the rest of the stairs, waving her papers. “I think it’s possible that the channel on Vancouver Island is not the only passage into the Multiverse — or not the only potential channel.”

“Really?” Marcus asked. “That’s remarkable.”

“In fact,” Layla continued, “I think it might be possible to open a channel pretty much anywhere. I really think I could do it. Only, the thing is, I’d need the power of about ten nuclear power plants.”

“That does present a bit of an obstacle,” J-Rod said.

“For sure,” Layla agreed. “But I might be able to find a way around that problem, if I have enough time.”

“Maybe we could help,” Marcus offered. “We’re done with our ghouls. They’re set up all around the house.”

“Shade’s back!” Max announced.

Shade’s black shadow was suddenly there, standing next to J-Rod. She was holding both Layla’s Multiverse device and a fat notebook full of papers.

“I have news,” Shade said, skipping hello.

“Good news?” Marcus asked.

“Perhaps. The technology on Roddy’s ship was able to access this device.” Shade held up the hockey puck of a disc. “It scanned the data, and I persuaded someone to help me call up and translate everything on it related to the Collector. That information is printed here.” She held up the notebook.

“That’s fantastic!” Marcus said. “Very well done!”

“I did not have time to read it,” Shade warned. “So, it may be of no use.”

“I’ll read it!” Max offered.

“I’ll help!” Maddie added.

Shade handed them the notebook, and the kids sat down on the puffy couch with it. Then she handed the Multiverse device to Layla and said, “I would be very careful with this. It contains the power of ten nuclear power plants.”

Layla’s mouth dropped open.

“I think you brought good news,” Marcus said.

“I need time,” Layla announced as she very carefully inspected the disk.

“I’m afraid,” Shade said, “that is one thing I did not bring.”

Then, as if to prove her point, the sound of Bigfoot’s bell rang out from the woods.

CHAPTER SIX:

Red Alert

“Red alert!” J-Rod cried. He started punching at all the buttons on his remote control with all four of the fingers on his right hand.

On hearing the alarm, Max and Maddie ran to the big windows with their hearts pounding. The ghouls were springing up around the house. There were at least a dozen out there now, and that was just in front. They were simple things, but wearing Marcus’ ripped up clothes, they looked pretty frightening.

But frightening enough?

And here came Bigfoot, hotfooting it through the maze of ghouls with his long arms flying in all directions.

Marcus opened the door and the Sasquatch came flying into the living room, still ringing the bell like a maniac. J-Rod had to wrestle it away from him.

“Is he here?” Shade asked. “Already?”

“Let’s not panic,” J-Rod advised. “Quatchy might be overreacting to — anything. A frightened deer, perhaps.”

Max took his “spy-nocular” out of his spy kit and aimed it out the window. He scanned the forest.

Trees. Lots of trees.

Nothing unusual. But then —

“Oh, no,” Max croaked. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.”

“What?” Maddie was afraid to hear the answer, so she ripped the spyglass out of her brother’s hands and peered through it, hoping to prove to herself that he was seeing things.

It took few moments, but then she saw what he’d seen.

There, just visible among the trees at the edge of the forest, was a terrifying, bug-like creature on two bony legs, with six arms and a helmet-like head. It held a long spear in one of its arms and something too small to make out in another. Its head was moving slowly back and forth.

It was scanning the army of ghouls guarding the mansion.

Then it looked right at Maddie.

Maddie dropped the spyglass and backed away from the window, her stomach turning over. Her parents and the monsters stared at her, waiting for an explanation. She couldn’t say the words, but Max could now:

“He’s here.”

CHAPTER SEVEN:

Not How It’s Supposed to Go

“What do we do?” Max demanded. “Grandpa Joe said we’d have more time!”

“He’s not moving,” Marcus said. He was using Max’s spyglass now, kneeling down at the benches. “I think the ghouls are working!”

Everyone peeked out from the edges of the windows. It was true. The Collector was just standing there at the tree line, still not moving, just watching the phony guards.

“I think he has your cell phone, Layla,” Marcus said.

“That’ll be how he found us,” J-Rod remarked.

Layla looked horrified. “I, I—” she stuttered.

“It’s not your fault,” Marcus said.

“I’m going to solve this,” Layla promised, holding out the Multiverse device. “I’m going to figure out a way to access the power source. And then I’m going to open up an escape route.”

“Well, I hope you can do that quickly,” Marcus said. “I think our ghouls will keep him at bay for a while, but eventually he’s going to figure out that they pose no threat.”

“On it,” Layla said. Then she carefully hurried back up the stairs with the puck.

Maddie picked up the notebook Shade had brought back from Area 51. “Let’s go upstairs and read this,” she said to her brother.

“Good idea,” Max agreed.

“Find something fast,” their father urged.

“On it,” the kids promised, heading upstairs.

“Let’s check on Theo, first,” Maddie said when they reached the top of the steps.

Theo was exactly where they’d left him, sitting on his floor, still completely focused on his Frankentoys. He was working on something with the parts of an old xylophone, a Rubik’s Cube, and a Mr. Potato Head.

“Hey,” Theo said, sounding like it was a normal day with nothing totally abnormal going on. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Max told him, trying to sound confident. “Mom and Dad are taking care of everything.”

“Of course, they are. That’s what they’re supposed to do. ‘Cause they’re parents.”

“Right,” Maddie confirmed, hoping Theo couldn’t tell how she really felt, which was like she was having a nervous breakdown. “Mind if we do some reading in here? We’ll keep you company while you work.”

“Sure. That’s what you’re supposed to do, ‘cause you’re my older brother and sister.”

“True story,” Maddie said. She took out half of the pages from Shade’s notebook and handed them to Max. There was no room on the floor with all the toy parts spread out everywhere, so — intentionally ignoring the window that looked out over the front of the house — they sat down on the bed and starting reading as fast as they could.

An hour later, Max and Maddie looked up at each other. They’d finished their reading at the same time.

“Anything good?” Maddie asked. “All I got was that it sounds like he has enough money to buy a hundred Earths and has since he was about twenty years old, which I’m guessing was hundreds of our years ago. Oh, and that he bought a planet called Zanidoo, where he lives in a palace that covers the entire world. And that it’s full of his collections. He doesn’t only collect living creatures, but all kinds of stuff. Whatever he thinks is rare and amazing and one-of-a-kind. What did you learn?”

“That he’s an orphan.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Until he was ten.”

“You’re ten,” Theo said without looking up from his tinkering.

“I know,” Max said.

“Told ya.”

“What happened when he was ten?” Maddie asked.

“He got adopted by a really rich couple.”

“So, that’s how he got rich?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“They returned him.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“That’s what it said.”

“Did it say why?”

“Just that they sent him back and he stayed an orphan until he was eighteen and was allowed to go off on his own. And when he did that, he got super-rich all by himself, somehow.”

“You know what?” Maddie said. “I read some stuff downstairs, in that chapter about hoarding stuff, that might actually explain a little bit about—”

“We’re doomed, aren’t we?” Theo interrupted. He was working on something else now, an old wooden sled. He was painting a rose on it.

“Let’s just hope for a happy ending, okay?” Maddie asked him.

“Yeah,” Max agreed. “Our ghouls must be really scaring—”

An explosion outside cut him off.

This, the kids could not ignore. They rushed to the window to see one of the ghouls on fire. And they didn’t have to wait long to see how they’d gotten that way. A bolt of something blue shot from the tree line and hit a second one.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to go!” Max protested.

“Crikey,” Maddie said. “This is not good. This is really, really, really not good.”

And now they saw the Collector. He’d come creeping out from the trees, shooting jagged blue bolts from his staff. The ghouls were bursting into flames, one after another.

“Never mind,” Theo said. “I can answer my own question: We’re definitely doomed.”

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Fifty More

The Mattigan kids stood at the window watching their ghouls go up in flames.

Fortunately, they burned down without setting the mansion on fire. When all was quiet, the Collector remained where he’d been standing, still again, waiting for — what, the kids didn’t know.

“Doomed,” Theo said again.

“That’s really not helpful, Theo,” Maddie told him.

“He’s coming,” Max croaked.

The Collector was moving in a disgusting bug-like way toward the house.

“Somebody, do something!” Max demanded when he reached the porch steps.

“Look!” Theo cried.

“What?” his brother and sister wailed.

Something at the edge of the woods had caught Theo’s attention. Neither Max nor Maddie could see anything, but now they could hear it. There was an awful squawking.

The Collector heard it, too. He turned around.

It was a bat.

And then there was a tall figure standing at the forest’s edge, smoothing out his long black coat.

“Dracula!” the kids all cheered.

Maddie slid the window up.

“You have come to ze vrong vorld!” the vampire called to the Collector. “It iz time for you to leave!”

There was another noise now, which started off quiet, but slowly grew louder. It was like squawking, too, but a gross sort of squawking — like a predator trying to clear what was left of something it had eaten from its throat.

Finally, the kids realized what it was: Laughing. The Collector was laughing at Dracula.

But then something else happened.

A second figure stepped out of the trees.

It was — something, a creature the likes of which the kids had never seen. It was large and lumpy, with one giant eye.

“A new monster!” Theo cheered.

And then another stepped out of the trees. Or rolled out. This one was a giant blob with eyes all over it.

And then another came out.

And then another.

And then fifty more.

The Collector stopped its gross laughing.

“Now that,” said Max, “is how it’s supposed to go.”

“And zese friends I found only here in ze Great Northvest!” Dracula warned. “Ve are too much for you!”

“They must be — everywhere,” Max whispered.

“Go avay!” Dracula threatened. “Or ve vill collect you!”

But the Collector did not go away. He stayed right where he was in front of the porch, standing still.

The monsters did not stand still. They moved slowly toward the Collector, stepping and shuffling and slithering. It was clear they were coming for him, and that they were not afraid. Dracula walked in front, his black suit shining, his pale face serious and stern.

The Mattigan kids all held hands and watched from Theo’s window.

“That Collector dude is dooooomed,” Theo whispered.

But the Collector did not look afraid, either.

He aimed his spear at Dracula. A blue light shot from it, this time straight at the vampire.

“Nooo!” the kids all cried.

Dracula went stiff, frozen solid where he was — a vampire statue.

The monsters did not turn away.

The Collector saw this. He aimed his lance again, at another monster, and again a blue streak shot from his lance.

“Nooo!”

This streak hit the blob monster, who froze like Dracula. But this time the blue streak did not disappear. It spread out to the monsters next to the blob, and after they froze, it spread out to the ones next to them, and then to the ones next to them. And it kept spreading out until all of the monsters who’d been advancing on the Collector were bathed in its hideous glow.

And the next thing the kids knew, they were looking down at a large collection of monster statues standing uselessly in front of their house.

CHAPTER NINE:

Their Chance

Maddie slammed the window shut. The kids rushed straight down to the living room, where they found their father, J-Rod, and Shade stacking furniture in front of the door. Their mother was there, too, frantically working with the Multiverse device. She’d managed to open it up.

“We were fools not to convince them to leave with my father!” Marcus cried, shoving the puffy couch over to the pile. “I didn’t even consider it because I was mad at him for leaving me again!”

“I will handle the Collector,” Shade said.

Everyone understood what she meant.

“I think this might work,” Layla said, holding up the puck. “But it needs some time to process my commands.” She turned to the very worried alien and said, “J-Rod, will you take it up to the second floor? Let us know when it’s ready.”

J-Rod nodded. He took the device and rushed upstairs with it.

The moment he was out of sight, the front door — and all of the furniture blocking it — disintegrated.

When the smoke cleared, the Collector bug-walked into the Mattigan mansion.

But before he could aim his lance, Shade’s dark shape flew at him — it flew right into him.

He took two steps back and four of his six arms flew up to steady himself.

Everyone held their breath.

The Collector started to shake.

“She’s taking him over!” Max cried.

But then the Collector pointed the lance at himself. A green bolt shot out and into his body.

An instant later, he straightened up and pressed something on his belt.

There was a hissing noise.

A little compartment on the belt opened, revealing a small canister containing a swirling darkness, which he took out and showed to everyone in the room. Who understood that Shade had been collected inside of it.

“Run kids!” Layla screamed. “Upstairs!”

Max, Maddie, and Theo sprinted for the steps.

They heard their parents sprinting behind them.

But they also heard the snap of the Collector’s lance.

And then the sound of solid objects falling down stairs.

None of the kids could bring themselves to look back, but they all knew their parents had been collected. With tears streaming down their faces, they scrambled up the rest of the steps.

Maddie had no idea where they were going to hide, but when she saw the unnaturally bright light coming from under her youngest brother’s door, she understood where their mother had sent them. “Theo’s room!” she cried.

The kids burst back into the room, then slammed the door and locked themselves in.

J-Rod was standing there, in the midst of all the Frankentoys, watching the Multiverse device, which was sitting on Theo’s bed, shaking and spewing out a warm light.

“I believe it might be starting to work,” the alien whispered.

The device shook harder. Then it began to glow like it was red hot. Then it shined a light so bright that everyone had to cover their eyes. But then, suddenly, the light was gone and the device was black again. Only, now it was leaking blackness over Theo’s blankets and pillows.

A few moments later, what had once been Theo’s bed had become a hole.

A channel.

The kids looked at each other, once again sharing the same thought: this was their chance to save themselves.

CHAPTER TEN:

His Final Collection

But the Mattigans hesitated.

And then Theo’s bedroom door came crashing in.

J-Rod gathered the kids behind him.

The Collector aimed his staff at the cringing bunch…

Theo screamed, “Not a foot, not a fist, not a fingaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

And then —

STOP READING!

Dear Readers,

I’ve been hoping things wouldn’t reach such a desperate point, but they clearly have. As I mentioned earlier, desperate times call for desperate measures, so now is the time to test my new theory. I don’t know what else to do.

Do you remember when I suggested that books are channels between worlds? My first thought was that if nobody reads the words on the pages, then maybe what’s described on them can’t actually happen. That’s why I wasn’t going to write any of this down.

But that was too risky.

Books are channels between worlds. I’m sure of it. Completely, one-hundred percent positive.

You’ve been visiting the Mattigan’s world for a long time now, have you not? You’ve visited many other worlds, too, by traveling between the covers of books. You know it can be done.

It’s time to take it up a notch.

These kids need your help.

Now.

I don’t know what you can do. Stomp. Scream. Reach right into the book and flick the Collector’s buggy ear. I don’t care.

Just do something!

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

Very Special Conditions

A blue streak burst from the Collector’s lance, blasting toward the group cowering together across the bedroom.

But it missed.

The Collector watched it hit the wall above the kids. He stared at the sizzling hole it left.

He’d never missed before.

“Don’t move,” J-Rod whispered.

The Collector didn’t fire his lance a second time. He was just standing in the doorway, or what used to be the doorway, looking around the room.

Then he squatted down to scan the floor.

Maddie realized what was happening and hope leapt into her heart.

They had a chance.

The Collector reached two of his hands — the upper set — to his chin and appeared to want to take his head off. The kids shrank back, but it turned out that the head was a helmet. The Collector’s real head was even more insect-like, with two large eyes on stalks. Its mouth had two sets of nasty-looking teeth, one inside the other. He slowly reached out and picked up one of Theo’s Frankentoys, a colorful sculpture sort of thing made from marbles, dominoes, laundry pins, typewriter keys, and colorful rubber bands.

“That is the only one of its kind in the entire Multiverse,” Maddie declared, standing up straight, even though she was shaking. “There has never, ever been anything like it made anywhere, ever before.”

Max looked at Maddie, amazed, but then he remembered what she’d read about the Collector’s love of anything one-of-a-kind.

“MINE,” the Collector declared, surprisingly, in English. But the kids saw that he’d looked at something in one of his other hands first. Their mother’s cell phone! Then he waved yet another hand at all of the Frankentoys and declared, “ALL MINE.”

His voice was buggy, too.

“They’re mine!” Theo shouted back, poking an angry mop-head out from behind J-Rod.

Max and Maddie looked at each other, sensing that there was an opportunity now to use more of what they’d learned — if only they knew how.

“COLLECTED,” the Collector declared. “MINE.”

“No deal!” Theo shouted, stomping his foot. “Humpf!”

And that’s when Max realized they were negotiating.

With two other hands, the Collector leveled his lance at his final victims, but before he froze them, Max shouted, “There’s more where this… art came from!”

The Collector did not shoot.

Breathing hard, Max thought over the little bit he’d read about negotiation just a few hours earlier. The one thing he remembered was to drive a hard bargain. “Theo here created these,” Max said, pointing to his brother’s hair. “He can make more.”

“THEO,” the Creator repeated, as if trying out a special word. It gave Max confidence to go on.

“He’s the greatest creator in this world. He can make more Frankentoys, but they don’t come cheap.”

“FRANKEN-TOYS,” the Collector said, again inspecting the sculpture he’d still not set down. He looked around at the roomful of strange creations again. Everyone held their breath. Then he said, “HOW MUCH COST?”

“Really?” Theo asked, stepping out entirely from behind J-Rod.

But before he could say anything more, Maddie gathered up her confidence again and said, “He doesn’t work for money.”

“Yes, I—” Theo started to protest, but J-Rod put a four-fingered hand over his mouth.

“He’s an artist,” Maddie told the Collector. “He can only work under certain very special conditions.”

The Collector’s weird eyes moved around as he considered this. “WHAT CONDITIONS?” he asked.

The lance was still aimed.

Maddie took a deep breath. “He needs his friends around to create his masterpieces,” she said. Then she looked the Collector right in his creepy bug eyes and added, “His monster friends.”

CHAPTER TWELVE:

Deal

The Collector met Maddie’s offer with a long, silent stare.

His bug eyes twitched.

He was — thinking.

Maddie looked at Max, willing him to help, to do something to make the Collector lower that lance.

Max looked desperately around the room. He saw his pages from Shade’s notebook lying on the floor next to the bed and got the idea he was searching for. “You probably never got to play with toys when you were a kid,” he said.

The lance was not lowered, but the bug eyes turned to the middle Mattigan.

“It was wrong for the people who adopted you to send you back,” Max continued, sensing that he had the Collector’s full attention. “No one should be allowed to do that. It’s not like they bought you. It’s not like you were some kind of thing with a receipt and a money-back guarantee.”

Now the eyes were twitching at Max.

But the lance was still aimed.

“They were rich when you got adopted,” Maddie said, picking up on her brother’s idea. “You had nice things. But only for a very short while. That’s why you collect so much,” she guessed, “to get it all back, in a way. And more. Much, much more. To make up for it.”

Now the eyes twitched at Maddie.

“And that’s why you catch monsters, too,” she went on, hoping what she was saying made some sense. “It’s like catching a family. But one that you can’t lose. That’s why you freeze them.”

“And you pick rare monsters because they are alone,” Max put in. “Like orphans. Like you. You want your family to be just like you.”

“Right!” Maddie said, smiling at her brother.

“If you let all of your monsters go,” Theo said, pushing J-Rod’s hand away from his mouth, “you can live with us, too.”

The eyes twitched at all of the Mattigans now.

Everyone held their breath.

The Collector leaned over and set Theo’s Frankentoy back down on the floor.

Then he lowered his lance.

“REMARKABLE FAMILY,” he said.

“Does that mean we have a deal?” Max and Maddie both asked at the exact same time.

The Collector reached out four of his six hands, one toward Max, one toward Maddie, one toward Theo, and one toward J-Rod.

All four took one.

They shook.

“DEAL,” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

The Haven

After the deal was sealed, the Collector went out to un-freeze all of the frozen monsters and Mattigans.

Before the kids could collapse with relief, an incredibly loud noise, like a roaring jet engine, filled the bedroom. The black hole that used to be Theo’s bed began to shake violently. Fearing some new disaster, everyone moved back.

“There’s something in there!” Max yelped, pointing into the darkness.

A figure was moving in the channel, and before they could decide what it was, it climbed into the room.

“Grandpa Joe!” the kids cried.

“We’ve found a new haven!” Joe shouted over the deafening noise, taking his climbing goggles off. “And we came back for you! Ready for trouble, too!” he added. “Got an Armored Combat Earthmover with us! Stand clear while the mermaid and werewolf drive it through. It’s gonna get messy in — Good grief!”

The Collector had come back, along with Dracula, Bigfoot, Marcus, Layla, and a huge crowd of crazy-looking monsters.

“It’s all good!” Theo shouted when he saw the stupefied look on his grandfather’s face. “We made a deal! And I’m the deal!”

Grandpa Joe’s mouth opened, but he was speechless.

“I’ll move the channel to the backyard!” Max shouted. “So, we can park the Earthmover back there. I want to keep it. But we don’t need to go anywhere! No one does!”

Delphine and Wolfie stuck their heads into the room. “Oh, no!” the mermaid cried, seeing the Collector, and then Joe standing there frozen like statue.

But then Joe turned to her and said, “I guess they’ve got it under control.”

“True story,” both Marcus and Layla Mattigan said at exactly the same time.

“Grandpa Joe,” Maddie said, sounding more grown up than she ever had before, “your mission has been accomplished. Your duty is done.” But then she added, “Now you have a bigger one.”

Grandpa Joe raised a questioning brow.

“To be a dad,” Maddie explained.

Joe nodded. Then he turned to Marcus and said, “If you’re still looking for a father, I’m available. This time for good.”

Marcus came over and hugged him.

Maddie turned to everyone then, and announced, because she was good with people, “We can all stay. The haven is here!”

POSTSCRIPT:

Mysterious Monsters

I saw what you did there. Sort of. I didn’t actually see it.

But you did it!

I don’t know how you did it, but you did it.

Didn’t you?

You distracted him, the Collector, at the key moment. He missed! Did you spray bug spray on the pages? Did you shake the book? Or did you just will it?

Maybe you think you did nothing.

That’s fine.

Maybe he just missed.

For the first time in his hundreds-of-years-long life.

Books are channels between worlds. I’m sure of it.

But there are others.

Do you know how I know?

I know because you and I have been friends for a long time, much longer than we’ve been looking in on the marvelous Mattigans together.

I do hope they live happily ever after with their mysterious monsters (and that there are enough rooms in the mansion for them all). It’s a wonderful world that has such creatures in it!

Speaking of which — you and I are from different worlds.

Perhaps you’ve known this all along?

I am, of course, your invisible friend (though some people have other names for me).

Discuss among yourselves.

So, here’s my advice so that we never lose touch: Keep your mind open (it’s not as easy as it sounds!) because that’s a channel between us that can never be closed.

Until our next adventure!

Your pal

About The Author

David Michael Slater writes shockingly good books for children, teens, and adults. He promises that he doesn’t use a ghostwriter. You can learn more about David and the work he really wrote, all by his living self, at www.davidmichaelslater.com.

About Mysterious Monsters

Mysterious Monsters is a humorous six-book early chapter book series full of mystery and adventure. When Marcus Mattigan, star of the popular show “Monstrous Lies with Marcus Mattigan” offers to let his kids, Maddie, Max, and Theo, travel around the country with him as he exposes frauds and fakes, the trio manages to find and capture the world’s most mysterious and elusive creatures — and then to hide them in their increasingly crowded basement. As you can imagine, with each book, the situation gets more and more hairy.

Credits

This book is a work of art produced by

Incorgnito Publishing Press.

Susan Comninos

Editor

Mauro Sorghienti

Illustrator/Artist

Star Foos

Designer

Janice Bini

Chief Reader

Daria Lacy

Graphic Production

Michael Conant

Publisher

January 2019

Incorgnito Publishing Press

Books in this Series:

Book One - Bigfoot

Book Two - Alien

Book Three - Vampire

Book Four - GhosT

Book Five - Werewolf

Book Six - The Collector

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE:

CHAPTER ONE:

CHAPTER TWO:

CHAPTER THREE:

CHAPTER FOUR:

CHAPTER FIVE:

CHAPTER SIX:

CHAPTER SEVEN:

CHAPTER EIGHT:

CHAPTER NINE:

CHAPTER TEN:

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

CHAPTER TWELVE:

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

POSTSCRIPT:

About The Author

Credits

Books in this Series: