Ghosthunters and the Muddy Monster of Doom! Read online

  What’s he up to? wondered Tom. But Hornheaver was already bending down, and when he stood up again he was holding the mud-spattered sword.

  “Let them go at once, you horned monster!” he bellowed, waving the sword around so wildly that Tom feared for his arms and legs. The Zargoroth growled — shaking his prisoners so violently that Tom’s teeth chattered — and laughed.

  It was a truly horrible laugh.

  “Oh, you find it funny, do you?” bellowed Erwin Hornheaver, prancing around the demon as if they were in a boxing ring. “Watch it, or I’ll turn you into demon goulash! I’ll cut you up into such tiny pieces that it’ll take your ghost friends years to pick them all up!”

  “Tom!” yelled Hetty Hyssop, and Tom saw she’d managed to extract her spark sprayer from her belt. “Aim at his side!” Then she started firing.

  With a cry of rage, the demon dropped her in the mud. Tom tried to copy her, but his spark sprayer could manage only a thin trickle. The Zargoroth bellowed angrily, held him high in the air, and opened his terrible mouth directly underneath Tom’s feet.

  Well, my Ghosthunting Diploma’s a lost cause now! thought Tom, and was just about to shut his eyes so that he didn’t have to see the terrible demon’s teeth as they devoured him, when he saw Erwin Hornheaver raising his arm again. In it was the gigantic sword that had spent centuries peacefully drowsing in a cornfield.

  “Legs up, Tom!” he bellowed — and struck the Zargoroth straight down the middle.

  Such a moan coursed through the deserted village that the roof tiles flapped. The branches were torn off the bare trees, and the demon’s entire band of ghostly followers was blown away by their mighty master’s last powerful sigh.

  Tom, however, could feel icy ASG fingers gently catching hold of him as the claws of the doomed demon were loosening their grip. Then a second abyssal moan blew him and Hugo away, over the village rooftops, over an empty field, until they finally landed with a bump on the damp ground.

  “Ohmygoodnessohmygoodness!” groaned Tom, struggling to stand up. “Ohmygoodnessohmygoodness ohmygoodness!” He simply couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say. He could still picture the Zargoroth’s teeth beneath the soles of his shoes, and smell his hot, stinking breath. Exhausted, he took off his misted-up glasses. “Are you OK, Hugo?” he asked. “What happened to the beast? All I saw was the sword.”

  “Dissoooooooooolved!” replied Hugo, unraveling a knot in his pale arm. “Dissooooolved into the air, nothing but stinking aaaaair left!”

  “Hmm.” Tom nodded, replaced his glasses, and looked around. There were still one or two pale figures dotted about the sky. “His followers seem to be leaving, too,” he murmured. “I reckon the haunting of Bogpool is over for the time being. Now it’s a question of what’s happened to the mud. That can’t exactly have dissolved into thin air.”

  But as Tom floated back to the village on Hugo’s back, he saw that the mud did indeed seem to have dissolved into thin air. The ground beneath Tom’s mud-splattered boots was as dry as a bone when the ASG set him back down in Bogpool’s church square. It was almost as if a desert wind had swept through the village.

  “Oh, there you are!” cried Hetty Hyssop when she spotted the pair. “We had no idea where to start looking for you.”

  “Where’s the mud gone?” asked Tom, looking around. The altar was still standing there, and the stone slabs were still looming up from the ground. The air smelled of fire and scorched earth.

  “Well, that was one almighty sigh the Zargoroth let out,” said Hetty Hyssop. “It was like a giant hair dryer. The mud went dry and crumbly within seconds.”

  “What should I do with these?” asked Erwin Hornheaver, approaching them with a massive pair of horns in his hands. “Our demonic friend left them behind before he vanished.”

  Tom fished his GES out of his pocket and passed it across the horns. “Clearly harmless,” he announced, putting the sensor away again. “You know what?” he said to Erwin Hornheaver. “You’ve got a natural talent for ghosthunting. We’d have looked pretty sorry this past night without your help.”

  “I fear we wouldn’t have looked like anything at all,” said Hetty Hyssop, giving Hornheaver a grateful thump on the shoulders. “Tom’s absolutely right. You’d make a top-class ghosthunter. Be warned, my friend: If we ever need that kind of energetic help again, I’ll give you a call.”

  Erwin Hornheaver smiled and rubbed his large chin, embarrassed. “You do that!” he growled. “Bogpool can be a bit of a boring spot sometimes. And now that the ghosts have gone, it certainly isn’t going to become any more exciting.”

  “How about meeee dropping in every nooooow and then?” Hugo generously suggested. “I could dooooo a bit of hooooowling on the church steeple or make the vicarage all sliiiimy….”

  “That’s very kind, but I think everyone else will be glad there’s been an end to all the haunting,” said Erwin Hornheaver. “Thanks all the same, though; it’s a nice thought, really it is.”

  Side by side, they strolled across the church square toward the Final Round. Hugo floated in front. Tom, though, kept stopping to look back at the stone altar, which still loomed up, gray and alien, in the middle of the square.

  “So is there really a second one?” he murmured.

  “A second one?” asked Erwin Hornheaver.

  “Tom’s thinking of the theory that there are always two specimens of Zargoroth,” replied Hetty Hyssop.

  “Oh yes, I remember!” growled Erwin Hornheaver. Thoughtfully, he swung the demon’s horns. He was carrying them in one hand as if they weighed no more than a bird’s egg. “Well, I prefer to think of it this way,” he said as they arrived at the inn. “If this demon really was created by a bull sacrifice and a human sacrifice, then things were joined together that don’t go together. And we’ve put it to rights again. Everything’s as it should be, and the two now have their peace.”

  Hetty Hyssop smiled. “Interesting idea,” she said, opening the door to the inn. “Yes, I like that idea. But I have to contradict you all the same. There’s no way everything’s back to rights yet. Tom and I still have a score to settle. Haven’t we, Tom?”

  “Too right,” replied Tom, trying to imagine the look on Lotan Slimeblott’s face when he came marching into his office as fit as a fiddle.

  13

  Professor Slimeblott turned as yellow as an old newspaper when Tom appeared, unannounced, in his office. “Tom!” he exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

  “You know full well where he’s been,” replied Hetty Hyssop, barging through the door behind Tom. “Good evening, Lotan.”

  Slimeblott turned the color of a very ripe lemon. “H — Hetty!” he stammered. “I don’t understand —”

  “How we’re still alive and standing in front of you?” Tom finished his sentence. “Well, it’s certainly no thanks to you. Is it, Hugo?”

  “Noooo, it certainly iiiisn’t!” breathed Hugo, floating elegantly through Professor Slimeblott’s mahogany door.

  “You dare to bring that ASG here?” cried Lotan Slimeblott, rising from his chair. His voice almost cracked.

  “Hugo,” said Hetty Hyssop without taking her eyes off the professor. “Shut the door and give me the key.”

  “With the greatest oooof pleeeeasure!” breathed Hugo, throwing her the key. Hetty Hyssop caught it in one hand and slipped it into her pocket.

  His fingers trembling, Lotan Slimeblott reached for the coffee mug standing on his desk and took a big sip. Tom glanced quickly at Hetty Hyssop.

  “Hugo,” he said. “Just wobble over there and have a sniff at the mug.”

  Professor Slimeblott froze in horror as the ASG floated across to his desk with an evil smile and took the mug from his hand.

  “Saltwaaaater!” reported Hugo, putting the mug back down on the desk in disgust. Lotan Slimeblott stared at him, full of hatred, and clung to his armchair.

  “Don’t you come near me, you revolting icy-fingered thing!” he
growled. “You disgusting slime-spilling nobody of a ghost!”

  “Very interesting!” said Hetty Hyssop, folding her arms across her chest. “Isn’t it, Tom?”

  “Absolutely,” said Tom. “Slurpers always did have a strong aversion to ASGs.”

  “What … what’s that supposed to mean?” Professor Slimeblott burst out, taking another sip from his mug. “What kind of nonsense are you talking, Tom? And what happened to the assignment I gave you?”

  “Oh yes, the assignment … umm, that’s a bit of a complicated story.” Tom came up to the desk. “Hugo, bring over the professor’s present!” he said.

  Hugo disappeared through the door and returned with the Zargoroth’s horns. He dropped them on Professor Slimeblott’s desk with a bump.

  “You know, I guess my diploma’s down the drain,” Tom continued as the professor stared, dumbfounded, at the horns. “I did catch the unknown ghost, but I let it go again so I could get a different ghost. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  Professor Slimeblott made no reply. He downed what was left of his saltwater, wiped his lips with the back of his trembling hand — and floated up to the ceiling.

  “That’s impossible!” he cried, flapping his arms and legs like someone learning to swim. “Nobody can finish off a Zargoroth, especially not a little squirt like you!”

  Tom stepped aside just in time as the professor spat at him.

  “‘Little squirt’? Well, that really isn’t very kind!” he said.

  “My dear Lotan!” Hetty Hyssop called up to Slimeblott. “At first I thought you’d assigned Tom this test out of sheer spite and envy. After all, you always were an extremely unpleasant character. I assumed you wanted to get your revenge on me in this brutal way, and that you were jealous of Tom’s fantastic success, what with him being so much younger than you. But then I thought again….”

  “Hugo, watch it!” yelled Tom, for Lotan Slimeblott was making for one of the windows. Hugo cut off his route, poking his cold fingers into his chest so that the professor started to spin. With the greatest difficulty he paddled up to the lamp that dangled from the ceiling, then held on tightly to the cable.

  “Oh, just stop all these pathetic attempts to escape!” said Hetty Hyssop impatiently. “You know that it’s very hard for even fully grown Slurpers to do anything against ASGs. Not to mention amateurs like you.”

  Lotan Slimeblott spat again, but this time it only hit his desktop.

  “Well, then, as we said, we thought it was just your character at first!” said Tom, running his finger over the Zargoroth’s horns. “But then we had another idea: Humans who are attacked by Slurpers have to take pepper pills for two months afterward, or else they gradually turn into Slurpers themselves — into pretty harmless sub-Slurpers, in fact, whose main characteristics are malice and a pronounced lust for revenge — along with an insatiable thirst for saltwater.”

  “Admit it, Lotan!” said Hetty Hyssop, pulling from her large bag something that looked like a spray gun. “You didn’t take the pepper pills I gave you at the time.”

  “Put that Ghost-Sucker-Upper away!” bellowed Lotan Slimeblott. “Pepper pills, pah! Surely you don’t think that I believe in any of your potions and pastes! You wanted to poison me! Yes, you did! I wish that Zargoroth had spiked you and your ridiculous assistants on his horns like kebabs! I wish he’d ripped you to shreds in the air and turned you into confetti!”

  “Yes, yes, as I said, you always were a more than unsavory character!” continued Hetty Hyssop, screwing a large plastic container onto the Ghost-Sucker-Upper.

  Lotan Slimeblott’s face was shimmering a luminous yellow, rather like a neon sign. He took a nosedive and tried to grab one of the bottles next to his desk lamp, but Tom got there first.

  “A bit more saltwater?” he asked, shaking his head as he put the bottle into his backpack. “No, that’s the worst thing you could possibly do. The state you’re in, it’ll take at least a year for you to be despookified. And it won’t be pleasant — I can tell you that much.”

  Professor Slimeblott gave a howl and tried once again to escape through one of the windows, but Hugo had been paying attention. Howling and spitting, Lotan Slimeblott retreated from his icy ASG fingers.

  “Tom, you take over!” said Hetty Hyssop, handing him the sucker-upper. “After all, you’re the one he set his devious trap for.”

  Tom checked one final time that the plastic container was properly attached — and took aim. Lotan Slimeblott tried to squeeze himself behind a cupboard, but Tom opened the valve on the sucker-upper before the professor could hide. They heard a sharp hissing sound, and Lotan Slimeblott’s figure became longer and longer, before fluttering like a piece of paper in a gale-force wind. And then it disappeared with a screech into the nozzle of the sucker-upper.

  “Well, how about that,” said Tom, peering into the plastic container. Professor Slimeblott was crouching inside it, looking flabbergasted — and still a bit stretched, despite having been shrunk to the size of a guinea pig.

  “Ha-ha-ha, yoooou miserable Sluuuuuurper, pah!” said Hugo, floating over to Tom.

  “Oh, he still wasn’t a real Slurper, or he’d have given us more trouble than that!” said Tom. He unscrewed the plastic container from the sucker-upper, quickly shut it off with a special air-permeable lid, and gave it to Hetty Hyssop. “Here you are. I believe this is a case for the CDEGH.” (That is, gentle readers, the Clinic for the DEspookification of GhostHunters.)

  “I think so, too,” said Hetty Hyssop, stuffing Lotan Slimeblott into her capacious handbag.

  “But what’s going to happen with my diploma?” Tom asked helplessly as they made their way out of Slimeblott’s office. “Presumably I’ll have to get someone to assign me another field test, won’t I?”

  “Nonsense!” Hetty Hyssop put her arm around his shoulders. “Erwin Hornheaver and I already gave the examinations board a detailed account of what you did in Bogpool, whereupon they unanimously voted to award you the FIGHD on the spot and with no further conditions.”

  “The FIGHD?” Tom gasped. He looked at Hetty Hyssop disbelievingly. “The FIfth GhostHunting Diploma! But — but — but only fourteen people in the world have got that, as far as I know. Including you.”

  Hetty Hyssop smiled. “Well, now it’s fifteen,” she said. “And you’re the youngest of them by a long shot, Tom, champion ghosthunter.”

  “Congraaaaatulaaaaations!” breathed Hugo, lifting Tom up on his shoulders.

  “Hugo, put me down at once!” cried Tom.

  But Hugo was having none of it.

  In Case of an Encounter

  Ravenous readers, as told in the pages you have just devoured as greedily as the Zargoroth did that fateful bucket of ketchup, Tom indeed battled to the death with a bull-headed demon in Ghosthunters and the Muddy Monster of Doom!, but he also had to face an even scarier foe:

  The unfair teacher.

  These evil beasts lurk in the hallways of almost every institute of higher learning — no doubt your own educational experience has already confirmed this.

  So if the school principal appears as pale as skim milk, or the Spanish instructor has a strange, insatiable thirst for saltwater, be warned! Your report card may be at the mercy of a Slurper.

  Confronted with the same bone-chilling conundrum — prehistoric minotaur demon or modern-day mean teacher — which would you, fledgling ghosthunter, choose?

  In the statistically impossible and yet hey-you-never-know event of meeting both monstrosities — whether in the muddy square of a medieval village or the musty stacks of the public library — all ghosthunters committed to their continued existence are strongly recommended to consume a few pages more….

  PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

  Against Ghosts in General

  • The color red — as in socks, sweaters, curtains, sofas, and so on. If you ever happen upon a so-called ghosthunter with walls in any other color, be on your guard.

 
; • Raw eggs, for throwing.

  • Food, for eating: Serious ghosthunters always carb-load before getting down to business; on a full stomach it’s easier to withstand the sensation of a ghost floating through you.

  • Salt: It burns.

  • Mirrors: Hang them on your red-painted walls; wear pocket-sized varieties when in the field.

  • A spare pair of shoes: Depending on the variety of ghost, it will leave a trail that’s sticky, snowy, muddy, etc. If in the thrill of the chase your sneakers get glued in place, it helps to have a backup.

  • Graveyard dirt that’s been gathered at night (see Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost! for specifics).

  • Chapels and crypts: With the exception of a few species, ghosts wouldn’t be caught dead in these places. Recommended as locations for regrouping when a ghosthunt goes wrong.

  • Daylight: Aim to accomplish the bulk of your ghosthunting during the day, as hauntings tend to intensify in the dark.

  • And no matter what, do not — do NOT — carry a flashlight on ghosthunting expeditions. The beam of a flashlight will drive a ghost into a violent rage.

  • But don’t bother whispering: Most ghosts can’t hear very well, and rely instead on their sense of smell. (For this and reasons of basic human hygiene, ghosthunters should make a habit of bathing.)

  IN CASE OF AN ENCOUNTER WITH A NEPGA

  (NEgative Projection of a Ghostly Apparition)

  • Buckle up your neutralizer belt: Beltless contact with a NEPGA causes fourteen days of muscle cramps, minimum.

  • Be rude: Contrary to what you’ve been taught in charm school, decline to shake a NEPGA’s hand. Doing so will you leave you stiff as a surfboard for a month — a highly impolite outcome, four out of five etiquette experts agree.

  • Be ruder: Hurl invective to lure it into a trap. Proven categories of insult include comments about the ghost’s papery appearance as well as universally offensive “Your momma …” jokes.