Gigantopus from Planet X!

  Gigantopus from Planet X!

  The Weird Zone, Book 6

  Tony Abbott

  For all the great folks at

  The Dinosaur’s Paw

  Contents

  1. Warehouse of the Weird

  2. A Grabby Sort of Guy!

  3. Sourbuss

  4. Grabbing a Bite!

  5. The One Big Thing

  6. Thonk! Pow! Ka-blang!

  7. Alone—With Them!

  8. An Octopus With a View

  9. Typical? As If!

  10. Splash of the Titans!

  11. It’s a Weird World After All

  Preview: Cosmic Boy Versus Mezmo Head!

  About the Author

  1

  Warehouse of the Weird

  The morning air was warming up as Holly Vickers biked down Main Street in Grover’s Mill.

  “It’s going to be hot today,” said her best friend Liz Duffey, pedaling beside her.

  “And weird, too,” added Holly. “I have a feeling.” Riding just ahead was her brother Sean and their friends Jeff Ryan and Mike Mazur.

  Bong! came a loud gonging sound. The extra large donut clock on top of the Double Dunk Donut Den was chiming the morning hour.

  Sssss! The oversized pancake pan on the roof of Usher’s House of Pancakes hissed even louder.

  On their right they passed W. Reid Elementary School and the big fish-shaped Baits Motel. Across the street stood the X-rays Us Medical Clinic.

  Liz turned to Holly as they rode along. “Everything seems pretty normal.”

  Holly nodded at Liz. It did feel normal. It felt normal because everything was so weird. That’s because weird is normal in Grover’s Mill.

  Grover’s Mill. A place she and her friends call … The Zone. The Weird Zone. A place where really normal things never happen. Ever.

  And Holly and her friends were on their way to one of the weirdest places in The Zone. Humongous Horror Movie Studios. Everything there was a creepy set, an icky prop, or a cheesy costume for cheap, sometimes scary, always not-so-good horror movies.

  “Wow!” gasped Mike, stopping with everyone else at the end of Main Street. “There it is!”

  An old airplane hangar just outside of town was home to Humongous Studios. It looked like a huge soup can cut in half and laid on its side. It even had ridges across the curved roof.

  “It’s … it’s … humongous!” Jeff sputtered.

  “That’s the idea,” said Sean. “Dad needed a big place to make big movies!”

  Holly and Sean’s father, Todd Vickers, owned Humongous Studios. But he was the only one who worked there. He wrote, directed, produced, acted in, filmed, and built the props for every Humongous horror movie.

  Today, Mr. Vickers was filming a new movie. And he was going to show the kids how he made movie magic.

  A few minutes later, the five friends parked their bikes outside the huge hangar.

  “Enter, if you dare,” said Sean, grinning.

  Eeeee-oooo-eeee! Creepy organ music floated all around the kids as they stepped inside.

  “With horror movies,” said Sean, “you gotta have creepy music. It comes with the territory.”

  The five kids stepped into a vast room. Out in the middle of the floor was a large lumpy shape covered with a black canvas cloth.

  “Ah,” said Sean, with a little smile. “Maybe a new prop. Let’s take a peek.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said Holly.

  Sean shrugged and moved in front of Holly. He started to pull the cloth off but at the last minute he pushed Holly ahead of him.

  “Aaaaaah!” she shrieked as two huge spiked claws whipped out from under the cloth and closed tightly around her!

  “Hey!” cried Jeff. “A giant claw thing is eating Holly!”

  As Holly struggled to free herself from the gnarly claws, she noticed that the creature’s hard shell was flaking apart in her hands. And it smelled like fresh paint.

  “Wait a second!” she said. “Dad, are you in there?” She tried to see under the cloth. “Dad? Okay, put me down! Come on, Dad!”

  ERKKK! The claws stopped clawing, and Holly heard chuckling from inside the creature.

  A moment later, the jaws opened and out popped the head of Todd Vickers. He had a camera on his shoulder and was beaming with delight. “Great scream, dear! Got it all on film!”

  “Thanks a lot, Dad,” mumbled Holly, slipping out from the claws and dusting the flaky bits of shell off her T-shirt.

  “Welcome to another Humongous scream fest!” Mr. Vickers said cheerily. He whipped off the cloth to show a giant crab monster with two huge spiked claws and eyes on stalks. “I call him—Clawgantua, the Clawed Avenger! Poor Clawgantua. A freak aquarium mishap turns a tiny orphan named Crabcake into—”

  “A giant crab with enormous claws called Clawgantua?” said Holly.

  Mr. Vickers looked stunned. “There’s just no keeping anything from you super-smart kids!”

  Holly smiled back at her father. She loved him a lot, but the truth was Humongous movies were sort of, well, not so good. Props didn’t work. Sets tumbled down. Makeup fell off. But the camera kept rolling.

  “The camera must keep rolling,” Mr. Vickers said. “You never know what might happen.”

  As the five kids followed Mr. Vickers around the hangar, they could see the whole strange movie studio.

  In one corner was a jungle with a volcano. Next to that was a castle dungeon with painted stone walls and lots of chains. Behind that was a giant kitchen with huge forks and spoons and a pair of enormous scissors sitting on a tall table.

  “A total horror playground!” said Mike. “And look! The moon!” Mike stepped onto a bumpy landscape of crusty cardboard craters.

  Mr. Vickers chuckled. “Actually, it’s supposed to be Mars. But only astronauts would know the difference!”

  “Or aliens,” mumbled Liz.

  Then the moviemaker said, “Behold, the den of mystery! The prop workshop!” He led them into a long room filled with work-tables.

  “Excellent!” gasped Sean. “Hairy hands. Zombie eyeballs. Rubber brains. This is where I’m coming for school supplies! Hey, what’s this?” He pointed to a large black box on the floor.

  “Careful with that, son,” said Mr. Vickers. “That’s a fog machine. One false move and we’ll be in fog as thick as a vampire’s accent!”

  “This stuff is cool,” said Jeff, slapping a fake scar on his cheek.

  The director nodded. “Props, costumes, and makeup are the heart of a good story. They transform normal folks into weird monsters.”

  Liz turned to Holly. “In The Zone, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.”

  Just then—Scritch! Holly heard something moving outside the door.

  “And you know, kids,” said Mr. Vickers. “Movie stars come in all shapes and sizes, too. It just happens that I got a call this morning, and one of my … ah … actors, should be here very soon!”

  “Cool!” said Jeff. “Can we meet him?”

  Scritch! Holly moved closer to the door. She heard something for sure. “Dad, what’s out—”

  Suddenly, the door swung open and a long, green arm curled in and wrapped itself tightly around Holly’s neck!

  “Another thing is eating Holly!” cried Sean.

  “Kkkkk!” she gagged as the long green arm yanked her out the door!

  2

  A Grabby Sort of Guy!

  “A giant, real-live octopus!” screamed Mike.

  That was the second-to-last thing Holly heard before things started to go dark. The last thing was her own voice, shrieking for help.

  “Help-p-p-p!” she sputtered as she felt herself getting dragged across the ground.

&
nbsp; Zzzzt! An electrical buzz sounded, and the green arm instantly uncoiled from Holly’s neck and dropped to the ground with a thud.

  “Wow! It’s a giant octopus!” shouted Jeff. “Will you look at those tentacles!”

  Holly looked up at the thing that had grabbed her. “An octopus?” she gargled.

  Yes! An octopus! And boy was it a big one! It had a giant speckled green dome and eight leathery tentacles wrapped like snakes around it. Two deep eyes glared out from the towering dome.

  Sean frowned when he saw the creature was sitting on the back of a truck. “Oh, so, it’s not a real octopus?”

  “Now there’s a movie star!” said Mr. Vickers, rubbing his hands together as he approached the truck. “I hope my new prop didn’t scare you, Holly, dear!”

  “No …” Holly rubbed her neck. “If not being able to breathe, watching your life flash before your eyes, and seeing a big bright light didn’t scare me …”

  Mr. Vickers smiled at her. “That’s the spirit!”

  Holly gulped. “Another second without air and I really would have been a spirit.” She got to her feet and read the words painted on the truck’s door. Acme Beast and Creature Delivery.

  Next to the truck were two men in workmen’s overalls. One held a clipboard and chewed on a pencil. The other, a chubby man, leaned against the back of the truck.

  While Mr. Vickers went over to examine the octopus, the man with the clipboard stepped forward. “I’m delivering one …” He read his clipboard. “Slither-Matic Deluxe Octo-Prop.”

  “Eight legs!” blurted his chubby partner, still leaning against the truck. “It gives a hug like grandma and you need four humans just to shake hands with it! Ha!”

  “Humans?” said Holly to herself. “I wonder why he said that …”

  “Hey, missy, you gonna sign?” The man tapped his clipboard in Holly’s face.

  Holly pulled back. “Uh, sorry, I don’t have anything to write with.”

  “Here ya go.” The man yanked the pencil from his teeth and offered it to Holly.

  Splat. Something green and slimy dripped off the end of the pencil. “Gum,” the man said.

  The other Acme man, who was still leaning against the back of the truck, began to laugh. His wide stomach shook like a bowlful of jellyfish. “Gum!” he snorted. “Dat’s a good one!”

  Holly swallowed hard and signed.

  Suddenly, a soft voice spoke from the front of the truck. “Boys, help me down, won’t you?”

  Everyone turned to see the passenger door of the truck open and a leg slide out. A leg with a boot on it. A high, black boot.

  The two delivery men hustled over.

  A moment later, a woman stood next to the truck. She was tall, with lots of wavy red hair, bright red lipstick, and a green suit.

  “Gosh!” murmured Jeff.

  Sean nodded. “She smells like the perfume counter at Mallwarts!”

  Mike nodded. “Lady, are you an actress?”

  “AWWWK!” the woman exploded, nearly spitting. She covered her mouth and giggled politely. “Er, no, not an … actress! He-he!”

  Then the woman’s expression changed. She stared at Holly. Really, she stared at Holly’s shoulder. She stepped closer. “Is that a piece of … crab shell … on your shoulder?”

  “Huh?” Holly looked at her shoulder. “Oh, no, this is from Clawgantua, the Clawed Avenger.”

  The woman eyed Holly’s shoulder. Then she said, “I’d like to meet this Clawed Avenger.”

  “He’s one of my dad’s movie props,” Holly said.

  “Oh,” said the woman. She seemed disappointed. “Never mind, then.” She looked around and smiled sweetly at everyone. “I am Mary Smith! I will show you how to control your excellent new Slither-Matic Deluxe Octo-Prop. Here is the remote control unit.”

  She took a black box from a little pouch on her belt. “These eight buttons control the eight tentacles, and this red one stops the prop.”

  Mike and Jeff helped Mr. Vickers and the Acme men slide the giant octopus to the ground.

  The woman named Mary Smith then gave Mr. Vickers the box. “If you run into any problems, I’ll be staying at the lake.” She pointed to the north end of Grover’s Mill.

  “Lake Lake?” said Liz. “But there’s no place to stay at Lake Lake.”

  “You should stay at the Baits Motel,” said Jeff. “It’s really neat. It’s shaped like a fish.”

  “A fish!” The woman smacked her lips. “Mmm!” Then she turned to the delivery men. “Take me to the fish place, will you, boys?”

  “Aye-aye, Miss Jones,” said the man with the clipboard. “Me and my partner would love to!”

  Holly’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman with red hair. “But I thought you said your name was Mary Smith.”

  The woman turned and looked deep into Holly’s eyes. “Did I?” Then without another word, she climbed into the truck, and it roared off toward Grover’s Mill, leaving a cloud of dust behind it.

  “Did anybody notice how totally weird that was?” asked Holly.

  “Weird?” said Liz. “Compared to what?” She picked another bit of crab shell from Holly’s shirt.

  Mike bent to sniff the Octo-Prop. Sean and Jeff poked its leathery skin and smiled.

  Holly rolled her eyes. “Never mind.”

  “I shall name you—Gigantopus!” Mr. Vickers said with glee to the Octo-Prop. “Warm up those tentacles, because I’m going to make you a star!”

  The enormous octopus prop sat spread out on the sandy ground. The dome was large enough to fit a whole house inside it. Each of the octopus’s eight long tentacles stretched thirty feet out from the center.

  “He sure is a big guy!” said Mike, gently touching the rubbery green skin. He sniffed it again. “He smells like my mom’s fish sticks!”

  Mr. Vickers’s eyes beamed with excitement as he lifted the camera to his shoulder. “We start filming immediately. Watch closely!” He aimed his camera. “Act one, scene one of Clawgantua vs. Gigantopus! And … action!” He pressed the remote control at the same time.

  KEEE—RUNNNNNNNCH!

  The Slither-Matic Deluxe Octo-Prop jerked its tentacles out, ripped the giant back door off the Humongous hangar, and hurled it up in the air.

  “Great shot!” Mr. Vickers hooted. Then he frowned. “But … wait a minute … he’s not supposed to do that!”

  Everyone watched as the giant door flew up into the clouds and hung there for a moment.

  “Wow,” gasped Holly, looking straight up.

  Then—whoosh!—the door dropped right back down to Grover’s Mill.

  Right back down at Holly.

  3

  Sourbuss

  WHAM!—the hangar door, now a crumpled, twisted piece of metal, slammed to the ground three inches away from Holly’s feet.

  “My goodness, that was unexpected!” said Mr. Vickers, smiling as he fumbled with the control box. “I’m sure we can get Gigantopus under control.” He pushed the stop button firmly.

  Sproing! The box burst apart in his hands.

  “Ooops!” Mr. Vickers grinned nervously at the kids. “Everybody in the car!”

  But before they could run to safety—

  Thhhwupp! Thhhwupp! Two giant tentacles slammed down on the Vickers’ old dented station wagon, coiled around it, and hoisted it off the ground.

  “Careful, it’s a classic!” shouted Mr. Vickers.

  CRUNCH! The octopus threw the car down, and the bumpers, doors, and tires blasted off.

  “Classic wreck, now!” Mike gasped, diving away as one of the beast’s leathery arms snapped like a whip inches from his head.

  “Zone alert!” cried Liz. “One out-of-control movie prop, tentacled and dangerous!”

  As Mr. Vickers tried desperately to piece the remote back together—KA-THOONG! Another long, slithery tentacle slapped down at the top of the Humongous hangar and put a twenty-foot dent in it.

  “So maybe it is a real octopus?”
said Sean.

  Two more tentacles snapped swiftly at the kids. The big suction pads running up and down each arm moved like hundreds of gooey mouths.

  “Whatever it is, it’s gross!” said Holly.

  “And mad!” Liz cried. “And hungry!”

  “Run for your lives!” yelled Mike, leaping to safety with Holly and Liz.

  Sean made a dash away from the hangar just as one long tentacle slithered out with the oversized fork from the Humongous hit Attack of the Very Large Kitchen Utensils.

  Gigantopus hurled the big fork at Sean.

  THWANG! It missed his head by inches.

  “Oooh, bad table manners!” cried Sean.

  With another tentacle, Gigantopus shot the large eyeball from Mysterious Eye Land at Jeff.

  It rolled at him like a supersized bowling ball.

  “Help! It’s gonna strike!” yelped Jeff.

  “Spare him!” cried Liz, who jumped over and pushed Jeff out of the way.

  “Everybody this way!” Holly shouted. “Head for the desert!” She pointed to the wasteland to the west. “He won’t follow us. He’ll head for town!”

  The kids ran full speed across the dusty ground, and tumbled behind a sand dune. Sean climbed up on the dune and looked back at the studio.

  “Gigantopus is still attacking,” said Sean. The tentacles were snapping at the mountain range from Snowmonster.

  “There’s nowhere to hide around here,” said Mike, crouching behind a tiny cactus plant. “Are you guys sure Gigantopus will attack the town?”

  Holly shot a look at Sean. Her brother put his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “It’s the first law of Humongous movies, Mike. Giant Monsters Always Attack Towns.”

  CRUNCH! The giant octopus hoisted itself across the roof of the hangar.

  “Back! Back!” cried Mr. Vickers, still filming as he ran around to the front of the hangar. “Into the background with you!”

  “Dad!” yelled Holly from the top of the sand dune. “Get out of there!”

  Gigantopus’s domed head towered over the hangar, making the building seem like a model.

  THWIRP! The eight long tentacles whipped down with incredible speed. They lunged at Mr. Vickers.

  “I’ve got to save Dad!” Holly shrieked, starting back across the sand to the hangar.