Monster Catchers

Chapter #8 Never Again....Maybe (ENDING)

Nicole's POV

Ellie closed Slappy's book and put a new lock on it, trapping him inside.

For the first time all day, I breathed a sigh of relief, still laying on the ground where I had been choked seconds before. Ellie handed me the book and I sat up to put it into my bag, along with the scarecrow's book that Carly now handed me.

Zipping my bag closed I looked at Brad and my two best friends. Our faces were all dirty and scuffed. Today had beaten us to a pulp, but we came out on top. We had just fought a bunch of monsters, and won. I started to smile.

"What's so funny?" Carly asked.

"We all look like hell." I replied standing up.

We all shared glances at each other, none of us really sure what to say next. Instead, we all went in for a group hug, relieved that the terror was over.

We walked back to the old house in silence. Carly and Ellie walked ahead of Brad and I. I stared at the ground, not really knowing how to process the day.

"You ok?" Brad asked.

"Yeah, just thinking." I answered.

"About what?" He wondered.

"Just today." I said.

"Yeah, that was nuts...I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at one of my little sister's dolls again without getting at least a little scared." Brad replied.

I laughed a bit at that.

"Well I know one thing, I definitely got the inspiration that I needed for my own horror story I've been trying to right." I stated.

"You write? That's amazing. What's your story going to be about?" Brad questioned.

"I'm going to write a story about an evil ventriloquist dummy. From all the monsters today, Slappy intrigued me the most." I explained.

"You just better hope your dummy doesn't come out of it's book." Brad joked.

"Who you calling dummy?" I replied, mocking Slappy's tone and gave Brad a playful push. He laughed and pushed back.

We made it back to the old house and went inside through the basement. Going back up to the study I took my bookbag off of my back and began to unzip it when a thought crossed my mind. I rezipped my bag and turned to my friends.

"What are you doing?" Carly asked.

"We can't just put these back on their shelf. What if some other kid comes in here one day and decides to open one of these? Then the whole problem will start all over again. No, we need to get rid of these things." I started.

"So what do we do with them?" Ellie questioned.

Ten minutes later we were out in the backyard of the house, throwing wood into a pile. I had run home and gotten a lighter and had just gotten back.

"That should be enough wood for now." I said.

"So how are we doing this?" Carly asked.

I took my bookbag off of my back and unzipped it. Reaching my hand in I pulled out a book at random. 'Welcome to Dead House'. The first one ever written....the monsters being sickly pale zombie people needing to feed on the living....I flicked on the lighter and held it up to the book.

"Like this." I replied, setting the book on fire and throwing it onto the logs. It began to ignite the logs.

As the fire began to build, the book burned to ashes. Brad pulled out the next book. 'Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes'. Monsters being unfriendly gnomes....he tossed it onto the fire. Ellie grabbed the next one: 'The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena'. The evil yeti monster who loved candy...Carly threw the next book on. 'The Werewolf of Fever Swamp'. He was ferrel, but he still loved a good game of fetch.