Chapter 15

The Reindeer Are Coming to Town

Ty stayed by the spot where the frog had been for quite a while after it vanished. He wasn't sad, he wasn't angry, he wasn't... anything. He felt numb. But... somewhere inside of him, he also thought he’d found some peace. By freeing the frog he did something—a small something, sure—to make things right again.

When Ty finally stood up and turned to Gentry, he smiled.

“Feel better?” The puppet asked.

“Loads.”

“That's good. Now—” From out of the factory came a loud alarm, resonating throughout the town and piercing Ty's ears. Gentry swore under his breath. “We've been found out, hurry!”

Gentry ran toward the end of the roof, and Ty hopped onto his back at once. Gentry jumped, his cloak opened, and they soared down into the square.

“If we're quick,” Gentry said in a calm but urgent tone, “we can still do this.”

“Of course we can! Look, it's right there!”

The door was almost directly below them now, in the center of the Square just as Gentry said. With a single flap of his cloak, the puppet brought the door seconds away from their grasp.

“You don't understand, San has more than plush creatures and the Elves—something even worse.”

Even with those ominous words, Ty couldn't see how they weren't going to make it. The door was right there! They were several feet away now... three feet... one... inches remaining...

Gentry reached for the doorknob, touched it ever so briefly before the world broke into noise and chaos. Black things were everywhere, the door vanished into darkness, and they were pushed skyward again. Ty's ears were hammered by flapping and screeching, like little claws tearing at his eardrums. And real claws—or teeth, or both—nipped at him all over his body.

The abusive force carried Ty higher. He tried to get his spear out of his belt loop, but whenever he made a grab for it, the dark creatures took vicious bites at his hand. He attempted to punch and kick his attackers, but his efforts met with similar results.

Then Ty couldn't move at all, the speed and brute force of his assailants impossible to fight against. The air thinned and he couldn't move enough to get a decent breath. Suddenly, a group of the monsters rammed him in the chest as others moved aside, throwing the boy out of their midst like a broken toy.

Ty fell through open sky again, time almost seeming to pause as he took in his surroundings. Below him, the giant cloud sat (had they really passed through it that fast?), as large and imposing as the first time he saw it. More of the black things poured out from inside of the cloud, continuing on and past him. He looked closer as they went by: wings, claws, fangs, red and glowing eyes. They were bats, millions of them. Ty's skin crawled. He hated bats. The thought that he’d been surrounded by them was almost too much to deal with.

He turned his head to the side, unable to look at the tornado of bats any longer, hoping to catch sight of Gentry. Instead, he saw the smoke stacks, just a hundred feet or less away. Their tallest points—while still much higher than he was—were uncomfortably close. Standing on the rim of them were three alarming silhouettes, darker than the black night around them.

All three jumped from the smokestacks, the one in the middle going just a tad faster, leading the charge.

Ty doubted he imagined that they were coming straight for him.

He couldn't help but wonder how he kept getting himself mixed up in these predatory chases. Just once he would like to be the pursuer and not the pursued. And were those things more sock monkeys? If so, this would be the second time he was chased by bloodthirsty monkeys. What is the deal with that?

At any rate, it didn't matter what they were or why fate decided to curse him. What mattered was not being caught.

Ty angled himself down, as he'd seen Gentry do, willing himself to go faster. No matter what he did, no matter how much positive thinking he threw onto his inner fire, he was not going as fast as he needed to be. The cloud was close now and, at this rate, he would dive into it and be crushed immediately.

He didn't have the convenience of worrying about that at the moment, however. He was afraid to look back at how close the things were, so he didn't see the clawed hand reaching for him. He didn't see the two flunkies' glowing jack-a-lantern smiles as they edged on their leader, eager to have the boy for themselves.

And he didn't see the blur burst from the torrent of bats.

Gentry's wooden fist cracked against the leader's face, catching him completely off guard. The thing catapulted off to the side, crashing into one of the smokestacks and continuing right on through in a cloud of dust and debris.

Ty heard the commotion and looked behind him, expecting to see his doom just inches away. Instead, he was treated to the wonderful sight of Gentry taking out the remaining two with his detached fists.

Gentry spun, exchanged a glance with Ty silently acknowledging what the other needed to do, and fired his right hand down at Ty's outstretched one. Wood closed around flesh and Gentry hauled the boy once more onto his back.

Ty smiled at his friend, the only way he could express his gratitude before the two creatures recovered and resumed their chase. And below, the cloud still sat, calmly waiting for the inevitable snack it was sure to have at their current speed.

Gentry ignored both dangers and sunk his fingers into the closest smoke stack. Ty held on tighter, well aware of the puppet's plan. His cloak closed around both of them for extra protection, and then he pulled them toward the tower, using his body as a battering ram.

The noise of breaking cement was the only way Ty knew they made it through; he felt nothing from inside the cloak. From behind, he also heard angry hissing as the two creatures rushed past their prey, unable to stop in time. He hoped the cloud ate them.

The cloak unfurled itself and knocked away a few stray pieces of rubble. They sped down the inside of the smoke stack, safe from the cloud outside.

Surprisingly, there was actually very little smoke. The air was breathable, a slight hazy tint to everything the only sign that the smoke had been there.

As they continued on, Ty looked up, checking for the two creatures. There was no sign of them. But...

“Gentry... where's the other one?”

The puppet opened his mouth to speak but was cut short by the hand sticking out of the side of the wall. Before Ty could give any kind of warning, it grabbed Gentry by the neck and yanked both of them right out of the tower.

The cloak reacted first, rushing to shield Ty and Gentry from most of the blow's force. It spun in a circle, brushing the debris aside and back at their attacker. The thing, in turn, knocked the rubble away with its free hand just as easily, giving Ty a clear view of the monster for the first time.

It had little in the way of normal fingers, instead they were all claw. Two on either side of the hand and a third underneath, like a bird's talon. The monster's ears stuck straight up, ending at pointed tips. Sharp teeth decorated its mouth, dominated by two large fangs on the top row. And the eyes... they were little more than two red dots stamped on its face. Somehow, that made them even more terrible and impossible to look away from.

Fear locked Ty in place as the creature wrapped him up in a long tail. The tail pulled him close while the monster kicked at the puppet, sending him spiraling through the air.

Ty struggled in the creature's grip, trying to free his hand enough to reach his spear still attached to his belt. The tail compressed down, making it perfectly clear that he was not going to get to his weapon. To further illustrate the point, the monster put a blade to his neck. It extended out of the tip of the tail, a long and sleek weapon, horrible but with a sort of beauty to it—like a lithe butcher knife designed by a skilled artist.

There was no denying it—every inch of the monster was designed for killing.

The monster spread a pair of wings—bat wings—and used them to push itself down, taking its prey along with it. In the span of a second, they went from hanging in mid-air to plummeting as fast as Gentry had been before they were rudely interrupted.

It was hard to breathe at that speed on Gentry's back, with a tail crushing him it was near impossible. He resorted to small, fast intakes of breath to keep himself from blacking out.

He couldn't last much longer.

#

Meanwhile, Gentry was still spinning—and quite angry about it, too. Well, angry at himself, mostly. How could he have let this happen? How many times had he done this job, faced these very same foes? Yet he underestimated them; let his guard down.

That wasn't going to happen again.

Gentry allowed himself to spin a final time and then spread his cloak wide, catching the air, simultaneously canceling out his mad spin and slowing himself down. He had only moments to spare before he crashed into the smoke stack.

He twisted the ropes inside of his legs, readying his springs. At the precise instant of impact, Gentry released the coils, and gave chase after Ty and his captor.

Gentry held his right hand back and inside his strings went to work, coiling up until his fist became a dangerous, spring-loaded weapon. The perfect tool for the job.

He released the tension and his hand homed in on the monster. His cloak fluttered with excitement.