The Armies of Herobrine Read online

  “Then why are you here?” Maison said.

  The woman sighed again. “Because my boss said everyone seems angry and jumpy, and he wanted me to get a ‘feel-good’ story to cheer people up. So I’m here to do a story on who wins the middle school costume contest.” She pointed at Alex and me. “I think you two have a good shot at winning. You really look like those Minecraft characters.”

  “What if we have details about the Herobrine story that we can share?” Destiny said.

  This intrigued her. “Like what?”

  “Like that you’re right: There’s a connection between Herobrine and the school attack before,” Maison said. “Those zombies came through a portal from the Minecraft world, and so did Herobrine. Except those zombies were mindless monsters and just attacked the school because they found it. Herobrine is way smarter, and he wants to ruin everything.”

  Lilac’s eyebrows jumped up her forehead. “That’s quite a story,” she said, sounding skeptical.

  I had started to get excited because she was listening to us. Now I got worried. How were we going to convince her?

  “You see this?” Yancy said, holding out his cell phone. “This is how Herobrine got out. He got on my game here and jumped out ….”

  “Okay, kids, okay,” she said. “Your story is very cute, but I need solid proof or my boss will laugh me out of town. After he fires me. You kids should go enjoy the punch inside. I need to get to work.”

  She turned and talked with the man who had the camera, already over what we’d said.

  “Ms. Waters!” Maison tried again, “We need—”

  Lilac turned back to us, her eyes flashing with sudden, cold anger. “I said I have to get back to work!” she snapped. Herobrine’s abrupt power over her was unmistakable. We slowly backed away.

  “I knew it was too good to be true, that she was being nice to us at first,” Yancy muttered. “I’ve met a few people today who are still acting nice, but then they start to get meaner and meaner. Sometimes they snap out of it for a bit, but then they get cruel again.”

  Maison and Destiny nodded sadly, as if they’d experienced the same thing with people.

  That wasn’t the only thing that had me upset about this meeting with Lilac, though: It stung that she called us “kids.” I knew what that meant. She didn’t think kids could do anything that important.

  I looked at the four people with me. In the Overworld, we’d found music discs that had prophesied we’d be the five to defeat Herobrine, if anyone could defeat him. We’d been the only people to hear those music discs while everyone else in the Overworld was falling under Herobrine’s spell.

  We were a ragtag group of people from two different worlds, with very different backgrounds. But we didn’t have any special powers, like Herobrine. We didn’t have people believing us when we were trying to warn them of the danger they were in.

  And like Lilac said, we were just kids.

  I had one of the music discs in my toolkit, and I took it out and shook it. Unfortunately, now that we knew Herobrine was close, the music discs had gone silent. Right when we needed those clues the most.

  “We need help!” I said. “Why are you so quiet now?”

  The music disc was as silent as ever, but I heard a familiar voice gasp, “Stevie?”

  CHAPTER 4

  IT WAS DEFINITELY A NIGHT FOR SEEING OLD FACES. I turned and there was Ms. Reid, Maison’s shop class teacher. Ms. Reid had been there the day of the zombie attack, and she’d helped us fight back.

  Right now Ms. Reid wasn’t looking mad, unlike just about everyone else we’d seen. She looked worried. And very interested in me.

  Ms. Reid beckoned us away from Lilac and the news van. “What are you doing here, Stevie?” Ms. Reid whispered.

  She looked like a sympathetic listener, and before I knew it, I spilled everything, with Yancy and Maison backing me up. Destiny and Alex mostly watched and listened. I pushed the music disc back into my toolkit, thinking Ms. Reid might be a better help right now.

  When I was done, Ms. Reid sucked in a deep breath. “I knew it!” she said. “That news reporter Lilac never saw the zombie attack. But I did, and it made me a believer. And I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the end of it. Oh, I told the PTA that there was probably going to be a zombie apocalypse and we needed to be prepared, but they didn’t believe me!”

  “Will you help us, Ms. Reid?” Maison asked.

  She nodded. “I don’t know the rules of Minecraft like you do, though,” she said. “I need your directions. But first I need to go get us some stuff from the shop class room that might be helpful.”

  She started to head back into the school. Unfortunately, Mitch and Dirk barreled out the door, fighting with some other kids, and she had to go take care of that first.

  “I wonder what she has in the shop class room,” Destiny said.

  “She looks pretty preoccupied,” Maison noted, watching as Ms. Reid was trying to physically drag Dirk off some other kid. “Maybe we should go ahead there and wait for her. Going through the party will be the fastest way.”

  When we stepped inside, the music seemed even louder. It was singing something about the Monster Mash, whatever that was. A screen was pulled down across one wall and was playing some kind of scary movie with fake-looking zombies and screaming people, but the kids weren’t paying much attention to it. More fights were going on and more people were throwing Jack o’ Lanterns.

  As we tried to walk through the room, people were shoving against us and yelling. It was making me so mad that I almost shoved back. I wanted to yell, “Can’t you see we’re trying to do something important here?” I swallowed the words down. Being pushed around was annoying, but my anger was so strong that I had a feeling it was Herobrine getting to me. I couldn’t let him do that. Someone shoved Alex so hard that she fell down. Her hands immediately went to her arrows, then stopped. Like me, she’d almost just reacted out of anger.

  “This place is a mess,” Yancy muttered as I helped Alex back up. “Halloween is supposed to be scary, but it’s supposed to be fun-scary.”

  A brawl started in front of us, with two kids really going at it. Ms. Reid had to rush over and pull them apart now, too.

  “What’s wrong with you kids?” Ms. Reid shouted, her face gone nasty with anger. I tensed up. I didn’t want Ms. Reid falling under Herobrine’s spell, too! Did this mean she was no longer going to help us?

  “My mom needs to get here with her Overworld armies soon,” Alex said. “Until then, maybe we should go to where all these portals are and try to warn the people. Earth isn’t that big, is it?”

  When she saw the depressed looks on Yancy, Destiny, and Maison’s faces, she clammed up.

  Right then, a very loud noise exploded from Yancy’s pocket. Even in the midst of all the yelling, screaming, music, and movie sounds, the noise was so loud that we all jumped.

  Yancy pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, confused. The glow of the cell phone lit up Yancy’s face, making it glow luridly in the middle of all the orange and red flashing lights. Despite all the strange shades reflecting on his skin, I could still see his face immediately drain of all color.

  “What is it?” Alex demanded.

  Slowly Yancy lowered his cell phone so we could all see.

  “What’s going on, Yancy?” Destiny asked, frightened. “What did you press to get the phone to say that?”

  “I didn’t press anything!” Yancy said.

  Block letters slowly filtered across the screen. It was the same handwriting Herobrine had used in signs he’d left for us around the Overworld.

  TURN AROUND, it said.

  CHAPTER 5

  CRINGING, WE TURNED TO FACE THE ENTRANCE, and the stage. Standing on the stage was a giant portal with mists swirling out from its bottom like smoke. It hadn’t been there seconds before.

  “He knows we’re here,” I gasped.

  The big screen playing the scary movie had changed. It was now playing scenes of por
tals all over Earth. The portals also had the smoke-like wisps of mist curling around the bottom like a spooky threat. Portals in the Overworld didn’t have mist like that.

  And we weren’t the only ones to notice the change. Slowly, the other kids stopped arguing and attacking one another and looked at the movie screen and the portal on stage.

  Suddenly, all the lights went out! Kids started to scream, this time in terror. Except for the glowing portal, the room was nothing but darkness.

  Just as quickly, the movie screen began working again. A few lights snapped back on, but it was only the red lights, casting a frightening glow over everyone’s features.

  Herobrine’s face was on the giant movie screen.

  “Happy Halloween,” Herobrine said with menacing, evil politeness. His smile was almost a sneer. “I think I heard someone earlier saying that Halloween was just for babies, and it wasn’t scary anymore.”

  “Yeah!” Mitch cheered out of the crowd. “You got that right!”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Herobrine said, that terrible smile growing even bigger, even colder. “I’ve been treating you long enough. I think it’s time that we had a little trick. Are you all ready for my grand entrance?”

  I clutched my sword. He was still milking it, enjoying the torture of keeping us uncertain. I burst out, “Stop it, Herobrine! Stop hiding and show yourself!”

  Even without pupils, I felt it when Herobrine’s enormous white eyes sought me out. “Stevie,” he purred with pretend fondness. “If you insist, I’ll be right there.”

  The red lights all rushed to highlight the glowing portal. The movie screen went blank.

  “He’s coming out of the portal!” I cried.

  Immediately my friends and I tried to run for the portal, only to find we couldn’t get to it. All the kids and teachers were stuck in place, as if they were frozen in a nightmare. I could see them blinking and turning their heads, their faces filled with fear, but their feet stayed planted on the ground. We were running into people and they couldn’t move out of our way.

  “Look!” someone said.

  When I looked back at the stage, I found myself frozen, too. The whole room felt icy cold as a leg slowly emerged from the portal. There was a crunch as the large foot came soundly down on the stage. Another foot emerged, and out of the glowing portal loomed the rest of Herobrine’s body. He seemed even taller than I remembered, stepping right out in the open there, daring us to do anything to stop him.

  If the people in here knew what was good for them, they’d be running away, screaming. They wouldn’t be caught standing there, staring at the very being who promised to destroy them all.

  Then I heard someone manage to cry, “His eyes!”

  Normally you could look at someone’s eyes and get a feeling for what they were thinking. When I looked into the depths of Herobrine’s eyes, I couldn’t get his thoughts, but I could feel his evil, and it made me want to cry out.

  This was a being who lived only for destruction. This was a being with no sympathy or understanding. Real people could do good and bad things. Herobrine had only hatred because he’d been created by a cyberbully, so hatred was the core of him.

  In his hand he held a diamond sword, the most powerful kind of sword you could have in the Overworld. On his face, he had a terrible smile.

  “My name is Herobrine,” he told the rapt audience. “And tonight is your last night on Earth.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “NO FAIR!” MITCH SHOUTED FROM THE CROWD. “He’s going to win the costume contest for sure!”

  “Yeah!” Dirk complained loudly. “He got to use special effects! That’s cheating!”

  Herobrine turned his sickly smile toward Mitch and Dirk, who were close to the front of the crowd. “I’m not interested in your costume contest,” Herobrine said. “But there is something I’d like you to see. Do you enjoy scary movies?”

  Mitch and Dirk whooped, which I guess was a yes. Everyone else couldn’t even move, let alone talk.

  Herobrine pointed to the screen on the wall, which was still showing cities with portals. “Then I’d like to call your attention to this new film.”

  Heads turned. Mitch complained, “That’s just a bunch of cities! Where’s that zombie movie from earlier?”

  “Oh?” Herobrine looked beside himself with excitement. “Keep watching.”

  On the screen, zombies began to come out of the portal.

  “No!” I realized it was my own voice that broke out. As I watched, zombies approached unsuspecting people who were out trick-or-treating in their Halloween costumes. The people really seemed to believe that this was just a prank.

  One zombie approached a man who’d stopped to take a picture with his phone, laughing. I wanted to shout at the man to get away, but of course this film was happening somewhere else and he’d never hear me.

  The man’s laughter turned to shrieks as one zombie grabbed him and sank his teeth into the man. The man was screaming and screaming. The zombie threw him to the ground, done with him, and the man cried out as his skin turned green and zombie features came over his face.

  “Cool!” Mitch said.

  “It looks so real!” Dirk said. “This is way better than the zombie movie they were playing earlier!”

  Herobrine smiled with pride.

  “That’s sick!” Yancy said in a low voice, as if he couldn’t bear to talk louder. I saw that Destiny was struggling not to cry.

  “Those people don’t know how to protect themselves!” Destiny whimpered.

  No, they didn’t—that was clear from the video that was still playing. Seeing what had happened to the man, all the people nearby began running as fast as they could, zombies at their heels. One zombie grabbed a woman and—

  The screen flashed to another scene, in a different city. The people here were speaking in a language I didn’t recognize, and they were laughing with delight as they saw the first zombies come out of the portal in front of them. It was a repeat of the last time. People were taking pictures, then getting attacked. The lucky ones managed to escape … for now. The ones caught off guard were seized and bitten by the zombies. One by one, Herobrine was starting to turn every person on Earth into a zombie.

  Then the screen split into a bunch of different scenes. Twenty different shots showed twenty different portals with emerging zombies. The zombies moaned and staggered, hunting their prey. Twenty scenes of kids and adults running for their lives, trying to stay out of the clutches of monsters. Some of them tried to run in one direction, only for zombies to pop out in front of them, blocking them off. They didn’t stand a chance.

  “What do you think?” Herobrine asked. “Is this scary enough for you?”

  “It’s okay,” Dirk said with a shrug.

  The red lights blared over Herobrine’s face, making his white eyes turn the color of blood. “I can make it scarier,” he offered.

  Immediately, zombies began to emerge from the portal on the stage, lurching toward everyone at the party.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE NEAR-TOTAL SILENCE TURNED TO SCREAMS AS kids and teachers tried to make a beeline out of the room and outdoors to safety. Mitch and Dirk let out the highest shrieks of all and fell down to the floor in terror, holding their arms over their heads in protection.

  “Not this again!” Mitch wailed.

  “I hate zombies!” Dirk cried.

  With the rush of people, I found a path through the crowd. I dashed toward the stage, my sword at the ready.

  “Herobrine!” I yelled. “Stop this now!”

  Maison and Alex were right at my heels. When a zombie reared up before us, Maison hurled her baseball bat at it, knocking it away. Alex had her bow and arrows at the ready, shooting zombies as fast as she could. She was hitting them moments before they reached students, saving the kids just in the nick of time.

  But more and more zombies kept coming out of the portal, and Alex only had so many arrows.

  I leapt onto the stage, my sword out. H
erobrine laughed.

  “A diamond sword?” Herobrine said. “You think you can defeat me with that little thing?”

  “We will defeat you!” I promised, rushing at him with the sword. I thought he might disappear on me, but instead he simply raised his diamond sword, blocking me. He did it so easily that he had time to yawn and stretch before I could recover to attack again.

  “You have a diamond sword and I have a diamond sword,” Herobrine said. “Do you think we’re evenly matched?”

  Without waiting for me to answer, he went on, “Of course, I also have power over the Overworld, the Nether, and now Earth as well. You don’t have any of those things, do you, Stevie?”

  “Earth is not going to sit back and let you destroy it!” I said.

  He laughed again, as if my words really cracked him up. “Earth people don’t know how to fight zombies,” he sneered. “You saw for yourself. The Overworld already bows before me and calls me its master. It won’t be long before I have Earth as well.”

  Maison was battling through the zombies, swinging her baseball bat in every direction. When she managed to get onstage, Maison shouted to the audience, “I need your attention! This is just like the time we had the mob attack in the auditorium! Grab whatever you can use for weapons and hit back at the zombies.”

  The kids instantly ran to obey. Earlier they couldn’t get along, but with a zombie army at their heels, they saw they couldn’t be bickering if they wanted to stay safe. Kids were hitting back at zombies with Jack o’ Lanterns, decorations, even parts of their Halloween costumes. Someone knocked over the cauldron of punch and the zombies slipped in the liquid, falling before they could hurt anyone. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Alex’s arrows continue to fly, taking out zombies right and left.

  “I’m just giving the kids what they asked for,” Herobrine said to me with a shrug. “They wanted something scary.”

  “Don’t play dumb!” I said, slashing out with my sword. Herobrine jumped back, missing my slashes. “You know that’s not what they meant!”