“AAAHHH!!!”
George rushed up the stairs at the ear-piercing scream and swung open the double doors. There lay his Dad on the ground with blood trickling down his forehead.
“ DAD!!!” screamed Lily, George’s little sister.
But George had no intention of screaming like his sister, sobbing like his mother, or begging for mercy like his grandmother.
He was staring in fright at the zombies, skeletons, witches, wizards, and dragons the size of dining room tables. He was shocked to learn that these mobs existed. They were staring at his Dad with sneers glued on their faces. George stared at the advancing monsters.
“You horrendous monsters!” cursed George. ”I’ll get you BACK#$%&@!!!”
This seemed to anger the creatures, so they started lumbering toward them with swift slides. This frightened the lot, and they panicked immediately.
“Everyone listen up, these monsters are from the games Minecraft and COC (Clash of Clans). I know how to fight these mobs. But first, we all have to evacuate this building, and fast,” George explained. “Women, elders and children first!” he added.
George, Mom, Lily, Nonni, Granny, Pop and Aunt Maria went out the house first followed by Uncle Bob, Uncle Nick, and Jerry, who just graduated Stanford University and started working for apple, came out last.
“Run for the hills!” yelled Pop. The whole city of San Diego was running down Main Street, because the train to Los Angeles was leaving soon. So many people squeezed into the train that Lily couldn’t see the light above her.
”Everyone stay calm,” directed George.
“We will arrive at Los Angeles shortly,” said the conductor. During the train ride George reassured everyone that he would put an end to these mobs.
Two hours later, TOOT! TOOT! TOOT!
The train screeched to a stop. People poured out of the train, including the family. But what they saw was not what they were expecting. The whole city was overrun by Ghasts, Blazes, and Lava Hounds. Ghasts look like big white squares with red mouths, Blazes look like a yellow head with yellow arms circling around them, and Lava Hounds look like pigs that are on fire that fly.
All the woman and the girls on the train screamed, and all men and boys groaned and moaned.
Everyone pushed their way back into the train, all of them except George, he went into the city to see what was going on. “Bye! See you in Sacramento!” Lily yelled.
“The next and final stop will be Sacramento!” said the conductor.
George sneaked into the city on tippy toes and made sure that he was not followed. The whole city was up in flames, and there was wreckage spilling into the streets.
BOOM!!! A fireball from a Ghast burst into smithereens inches from Georges feet, causing George to fall back and crash into a broken food trailer. BANG!!! CRASH!!! This caused sooo much noise it was as loud as an exploding atomic bomb. Soon the whole army of fire-type mobs started chasing George through the wrecked Los Angeles streets.
The angry mobs chased him for so long, that they dropped lower every second. Soon the mobs were so low, George could slice them.Then, he took out a bucket of water and dumped it on the mobs. HISS! The mobs started to disintegrate. Then poof! They vanished into thin air. So far, this was a major victory for George. But now he had to find a way to travel back to San Diego to fight off the mobs in his hometown.
“WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! ARF!” A handsome Golden Retriever bounded toward him. “AWWWWW!!! You’re such a cutie!!!” George cooed.
“TOOT! TOOT! TOOT! TOOT!” The train pulled into the train station at 12 o’clock sharp midnight.
“HOORAY!” yelled George happily. “WOOF!” barked the Golden Retriever.
“I’ll name you Sparky,” murmured George as they climbed up the stairs to the dormitories in the bus.
“TOOT! TOOT! TOOT! TOOT!“ The train pulled into the deserted San Diego downtown train station at 2:30 a.m.
“Bye,” the train driver gloomingly responded.
“Thank You!!!” replied George cheerfully, but still, he worried about his family. Where were they now? He rushed down Main Street as fast as a Ferrari with Sparky right at his heels. Little did they know that the troublemaker was at the other end of the city.
* * * * * *
“HA! HA! HA! That clever little George does not know that I’m going to ruin his life!” thought Pop. Pop had spent half of the year hacking, programming and making these video games spill out monsters that were programmed to target George, because he absolutely hated George’s Dad. Six months ago, when they were on the Mississippi river, George’s father chose to save Pop’s daughter over Pop when the kayak flipped over. Pop was gravely injured.
Pop hated that George and his Dad got all the attention. Like that time at the Holiday event and all the attention was focused on showering George with compliments.
The most popular games on the planet will now be named the most treacherous game on the planet! thought Pop. “Clomp! CLomp! CLOmp! CLOMp! CLOMP! CLOMP!”
It was footsteps that were approaching him quickly! He cautiously climbed over a fence and ran into a construction hole and hid in there for 3 hours until the footsteps had disappeared completely. He carefully lifted himself out of the pit and snuck to the fence and listened for any more footsteps before he climbed over it and…
“AHA! SO it was YOU that did all this!
* * * * * *
“ CLOMP! CLOMP! CLOMP!”George’s footsteps echoed through the isolated city. RATTLE! SHAKE! BANG! Mysterious sounds echoed through the empty city that made George jump. Then George hid behind a fence and waited for the person to climb over the fence again.
“Pant pant pant!” The suspect waited inside the construction site panting so that meant that the suspect was running away from George and did not want to show his face to him so he/she could be the troublemaker. Then what George wanted to happen, happened. The Suspect climbed over the fence and George got a heart attack. It was Pop!
George should have known, he directed the family to leave then he disappeared! George jumped on Pop.
“AHA SO it was YOU that did this! I should have known that it was you … ” George trailed off because Pop was no longer in his arms and a trail of black dots was going down main street! That probably meant that Pop’s trail was heading that way!
George slowly followed the black dots, but then started to run because he spotted Pop at the train station! George got there just in time, but nobody was there!? Splat! George stepped into a puddle of red goo.
“AEII!” screamed George in the shrillest sound anyone could imagine. It look like blood, but it really just was a distraction made by Pop. Then George spotted Pop standing over the train driver holding a kitchen knife! “STOP!” George screamed.
Pop was startled and fled to the train and took over and started the train to Sacramento.
“NOOOOOOOO!” yelled George.
The train to Sacramento took off flying down the tracks and speeding away from San Diego.
After a while, George gave up waiting and started wandering around the city to find anything he could salvage from the wreckage. There was wreckage spilling into the streets like Los Angeles and it was isolated. At least, he thought it was empty. Then he went to check on his house to see its shape. When he got there, he was horrified to see that the house was covered in black stains, like something exploded. He rushed inside and saw the Monsters were eating all the furniture, so he rushed out in fright. The city was full of lumbering mobs and they hadn’t been there two minutes ago!
He remembered that Pop had a lab in the basement and George could find some Interesting documents that could be useful. It would give George a head start on the chase. Now, the objective was to capture Pop and get some Information out of him.
On Pop’s desk, George found a binder of “To Do” lists. The last list was today’s entry, which said:
- start massive mob army
- continue search of George
- Start entire continent takeover
- kill ALL family members in Sacramento
George burned the entry in fright and disgust. Pop had betrayed us all! George thought angrily.
George went on to Pop’s computer and went to Minecraft and started decoding. After that, he hacked and got all the mobs in to the game again and sent them out. Only this time, they were programmed to target Pop. But George made a mistake. He had typed capital C instead of capital V, so he made it all temporary. George commanded Sparky to sniff out Pop.
What a brilliant idea! thought George.
“Sparky, I need you to track the scent of this pen, OK?”
“Arf!” replied Sparky.
Sparky took off, running through the San Diego streets with George behind enthusiastically, mostly because he was nearing the truth of Pop and the end of this violent era.
* * * * * *
Clickety, clackety, clack. The train putted down the old rusty train track into Sacramento station at 10 p.m. sharp.
“HA HA HA!” cackled Pop. Soon Pop will be killing all the family members by midnight! “A month’s research and tracking has finally paid off!” When they left the mansion, Pop got tracking devices on everybody.
* * * * * *
George hopped on to the first class train that rolled into the station at 10:15 p.m. George rolled up his sleeves and said, “Please bring me to Sacramento.” George was thinking Pop MUST be in Sacramento because in the computer, there was another list that said “ family in Sacramento.”
* * * * * *
Bang!!! The moment Pop pushed the door of the train, the gears jammed and Pop was locked inside.
“OPEN!!! You stupid door!! What horrible luck! @#$%^&!” cursed Pop. The door was shut closed but who did it!? Who who who? It was a conundrum.
Bam!
A monster was pushing against the door.
“So that’s what happened!” exclaimed Pop angrily. “George must have reversed it! But that means he discovered the to-do list I left on the table a few hours ago!” Pop became very worried.
* * * * * *
The train clacked down the track toward Sacramento. The tension was building and even George was scared, but it was the right thing to do and someone had to stop Pop.
* * * * * *
BAM!!! The door burst open and Pop charged out and …
“What!? NO!!” The monsters started charging at Pop and Pop saw that a bunch of civilians that looked completely defeated started picking up ruins of the buildings and start throwing the pieces of metal and glass at Pop.
“GO! GO!” The WHOLE POLICE department charged at Pop and tackled him. But for some reason, George’s programming wore off and now, ALL the monsters from every single square inch of the world showed up at the train station and they started attacking police and the civilians!
“YEAH MULE YEAH!” screamed Pop. “GO KICK THEIR BUTTS!” The train station was totally overwhelmed with hollering police, groaning monsters and screaming citizens. Clouds of dust formed around the bystanders, making it hard to see and breathe.
* * * * * *
George heard the racket a mile away and the train conductor looked worried. When the train station came in view, George was shocked to see Pop punching a policeman. They drove in and George took a spare tire from the back and threw it at Pop. Pop swayed and fell to the ground, he was knocked out. Mission accomplished!
“Good job lad!” A policeman shouted after Pop was taken away and suddenly, the monsters one-by-one exploded into puffs of smoke. George smiled. He had accomplished his quest. He had saved the world from mortal peril. He had sent Pop to jail. An era had ended. GEORGE! GEORGE! The crowd started chanting. “GEORGE! GEORGE! GEORGE!”
In the crowd, he glimpsed mom and Lily crying with happiness and Jerry yelling, “MY VERY OWN BROTHER! GET PAST A MAD GENIUS AND THE MONSTERS OF THE VIDEO GAMES!!!”
His whole family (except his dad and Pop) rushed toward him and hugged him, but it was more like a tackle. The chanting and cheering went on. Soon, right when the chanting died down a little bit, the PRESIDENT came and gave a speech. In his speech, he said thank you to George, said he was happy that George had dealt with the monsters without the army and, for the finale, he rewarded George with ONE MILLION dollars as well as the Nobel Peace Prize.
CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! George was crying! There he was! Standing on the stage shaking hands with the President, getting his autograph, and having the President give him a trophy! He fell into the crowd and had hands pushing him along like he was a rock star. He went to the end, got up, bowed, waved and sat in the limo the president had given him and sped home.
Epilogue
The next day, however, was normal. Unless you include all the teen girls asking him to go out to dates at school today. The newsboy was yelling, the neighbor’s dog was barking and George was trying to concentrate on his homework (Detecting Commutative Permeability in Physics and Algebra). The biggest difference is that he had given out 220 autographs and had been interviewed for the Daily News. It was the best life ever for George. After all the homework was finished, the whole family (except Pop) went to the traditional Italian restaurant to celebrate. While they were there, George signed 40 autographs and personal items and got a free lamb chop for his linguini with alfredo sauce and thyme. Back at home, George rested on the couch reading, A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park. All was well.