Escape from the Overworld Read online

  “Yes, I said ‘zombies!’” Ms. Reid was still screaming in the background, yet I could barely hear her, even though she was a few feet away. The auditorium was taken up by moans and hisses from zombies and spiders.

  Slamming my sword down and finishing off the spider in front of me, I thought desperately. We needed to get this situation at the auditorium under control. Once that was done, Maison and I could run back to her house and go through the portal. We’d get Dad, and he would have his sword if there were any other mobs in this world. Once all the mobs were taken care of, we’d close the portal.

  Maybe Dad would have to get some of the villagers to come help, too, but the point was he would know how to handle everything. He and his sword. That sparkling diamond sword that my little shop class sword couldn’t hold a candle to.

  “Maison!” I yelled above the uproar as I dodged the front claws of the latest spider. “We need to close the portal!”

  She must have heard me, because the next instant she was by my side. “Give me your sword!” she yelled. “I’m good at Minecraft! I’ll hold this door off while you make more weapons. There are trees just outside past the doors on the other side of the auditorium—run!”

  There was no time to argue. In a moment I passed the sword over and she clutched it in her sweaty fingers, thrusting it deep at the spider and causing it to disappear.

  “Maison, Maison, I’m sorry I ever teased you!” Dirk shouted, still on the floor, still cowering.

  When the next spider swiped out at her, Maison took a step back, dodging. She stepped on Dirk and he wailed out. I know she hadn’t meant to step on him, but I think I might have seen a little smile on her face.

  Meanwhile, I was charging toward the closest door on the other side of the auditorium.

  I threw the door open, holding my breath, ready for there to be another crowd of mobs. But here I could only see clear space and a light mist. And trees. Lots of trees.

  The rain had stopped, and I hoped that meant the cloud covering would go away soon, too. However, there was no sense in sitting around waiting for the sun to break through the clouds. I began knocking down blocks from the trees as quickly as I could. Tree punching was a simple and speedy way to get weapons. Kids saw what I was doing and were snatching the tree blocks up as soon as they hit the ground. They went charging back into the auditorium. The principal came running out, too, grabbing a block. Before returning to the chaos to help the fight, she said, “I don’t know who you are, young man, but I thank you.”

  And back into the building she went.

  I’d made those blocks of wood because they were the fastest weapon I could think of and they could help the kids immediately. But tree blocks weren’t the best weapons—they were only a little better than backpacks. You had to hit a zombie or spider a lot to get anything done with them.

  So I switched gears. With a few planks of wood I made a crafting table, and now that I had a table, I could make real weapons. Fast as can be, I was churning out wooden swords and handing them off to kids. They weren’t diamond swords, but they were the best I could do right then, and I was making them in the Overworld style, with a stick and two wooden planks. No table saw here. Kids were snatching up the wooden swords by the handles and going in after the mobs.

  Ms. Reid came out of the building, yelling hysterically into her silver object. “You heard me! I said there are zombies and spiders and they’re attacking the middle school! This is not a joke!” She must have seen me making swords just as swiftly as I had with the table saw, but this time she didn’t even blink at it.

  “The police don’t believe us,” a kid gasped as he seized the latest wooden sword I’d made. “We’re all on our own for this.”

  “We just have to push them back,” I said, almost out of breath from exertion. “Once we do that, I’ll get my dad, who’s the best mob fighter all around.”

  But I didn’t know how long it would take before we could push them back. If we could.

  Across the lawn a group of kids came running toward us, holding piles of sticks in their hands. No, wait, baseball bats! I recognized them from what Maison had in her room.

  “Great, take them inside!” I said. I’d fully turned three trees into blocks and swords the kids could use. With all those weapons and now these baseball bats, I dashed back inside to see how things were going in the auditorium.

  A few kids had been hurt, but nothing too bad. Maison was back on stage, using the microphone to call out directions. Like a general she was watching everything going on in the room.

  “Jeremy, zombie to your left!” she called. “Good! Dalton, use your block over the spider’s head. Right! Tobias, behind you—good job!”

  As I ran back to where I started, she tossed my sword down to me. I caught it by the handle, and for the briefest second Maison smiled at me. It wasn’t an “Everything is better” smile, because even though we’d made some headway, things were definitely not all better. But it was a “We’re in this together” sort of smile.

  And that sort of smile was all we had time for. With the shop class sword in my hand again, I jumped over Mitch’s shaking, cringing body and hit back a zombie. The zombie moaned, shook itself, came at me again.

  Maison leapt back down beside me.

  “Are there any diamond mines around?” I called out, but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

  “No,” she said, kicking at a spider.

  “Ahhh! I hate spiders!” Dirk was weeping. “All those legs!”

  As I pulled back my sword for a final hit, I was startled to see Ms. Reid jump in, knocking the zombie soundly with one of the wooden swords I’d made. The zombie vanished.

  “Good job, kids,” Ms. Reid said. “I think I finally convinced the police—they said they’re on their way! And Stevie, you can make swords in my shop class class any day.”

  “What are the police?” I asked. I imagined them like the iron golems who protected the village, only softer and less blocky. Would they storm into the school and take out the rest of the mobs?

  “The police will help, but we need to close the portal!” Maison said. “That’s the only way because otherwise the mobs will keep coming!”

  She was right. I looked around the room, checking out the situation. The majority of the mobs had been destroyed, and the few left were being pushed back through the doors.

  “I got it!” I said. “We need to push the rest of the mobs out, then barricade the doors. Spiders can’t open doors, but zombies can, so the barricades will keep them out. Then the kids can stay safe in here until the police come.”

  “I’m on it!” Ms. Reid said, running to the other door and telling the kids what they needed to do. Shutting the doors would be harder for them because of the damage the zombies had done. But if they pushed back and got enough stuff blocking the doorway, it would work.

  “We have to close this door,” I told Maison.

  “The police won’t know how to handle the mobs,” she said.

  “Then I’ll go out there and tell them,” I said. “And then I’ll run back to the portal.”

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  CHAPTER 16

  IN A MATTER OF SECONDS MAISON WAS BACK ON STAGE giving directions. “Everyone, we’re going to push the mobs out and barricade the doors!” she said. “The police are on their way and they’ll be able to help us. We just need to stay safe until then.”

  The mention of the police, whatever they were, seemed to give everyone some relief. They pushed back even harder, knowing this was the last bit of work they had to do. I tried to calm my beating heart—I knew my work was far from over.

  As we destroyed or pushed out the last few mobs, I heard a rhythmic wailing sound from outside, rising and falling. Kids were shouting, “The police! The police!”

  The last few mobs at the other door were pushed out. Kids took their tree blocks and barricaded the heavy door, hearing the skreech, skreech of spider legs rubbing against it on the
other side.

  I looked at the door by me, where a few zombies were trying to climb in. “Get ready,” I said to Maison. “Let’s go!”

  Together she and I knocked the zombies back, pushing them out of the doorway. The auditorium door slammed shut behind us, and I could hear a hasty barricade being made. The kids and the teachers were safe. But now Maison and I were on our own.

  Maison knocked back at the zombies with her tree block and I sliced with my sword, half-aware of several cars zooming up close, flashing red and blue on their tops. Men and women in blue clothing were jumping out of the cars, shouting “Freeze!”

  This was the police? They didn’t look like iron golems at all. They must not have ever played Minecraft, either, because they didn’t know that zombies and spiders wouldn’t follow orders.

  “Help the kids inside the auditorium!” Maison called out to them. She gave a zombie one last good hit and the police all gaped as the zombie went away before their eyes.

  “They’re zombies and spiders from Minecraft!” she continued. “You have to hit them with things.”

  At first the police looked as if they couldn’t believe what she was saying, just like the principal hadn’t believed her. But as they watched what was going on, they couldn’t not believe, either. The police rushed in, helping us take care of the remaining swarm of mobs around the auditorium. They had little wooden sticks they were using to hit back, not as good as baseball bats, but something. Even though the police weren’t iron golems, they were as determined as we were to get the job done.

  “I thought the woman on the phone was playing a prank!” I heard one member of the police say as she hit out at a zombie with her stick. “But it’s all true!”

  When the last zombie vanished and the final spider fell backward and disappeared, the police looked ready to cheer. They threw open the auditorium doors to help the kids out and make sure they were okay.

  Maison and I looked at each other, trying to catch our breaths. The police, kids, and teachers all thought everyone was safe now. They didn’t realize that as long as that portal was open, more mobs would be able to get out. What if a creeper sneaked out and blew everything sky high?

  “Let’s go!” I said to Maison, even though we hadn’t fully caught our breaths yet. The police, kids, and teachers were too caught up in what was going on to notice us rush toward Maison’s house.

  And it was just as we suspected. Another zombie came prowling around her porch as soon as we were rounding the corner into her yard. Her wooden front door had been smashed to pieces. Behind this zombie lurched another one, the two of them moaning on and off as they approached us.

  “I got it!” I said, nailing the first zombie while Maison went after the second one. Deeper in the house we could hear more moans and hisses.

  “Stevie,” Maison said as she fought, “how do we close the portal?”

  I didn’t answer. I just kept fighting the zombie.

  And it’s not because I didn’t know the answer. I did. It just wasn’t an answer I wanted to think about.

  There was only one way to close the portal.

  We would have to destroy it.

  I would have to go into my home world and take the portal apart, piece by piece. It would keep any more mobs from going through into Maison’s world. It would save countless lives.

  But it would also destroy any connection I had to this world. I would never be able to return.

  I would never see Maison again.

  CHAPTER 17

  “WE’RE ALMOST THERE!” MAISON PANTED AS WE battled back through the mobs. There were six of them in the living room, reeling on their dead, unsteady feet. “We’re almost to the portal!”

  There were more items in the house that could be used as weapons, so Maison tossed aside the clunky block of wood and began to grab other things. When a spider came charging into the room and reared at her, she easily ducked back over the couch, saving herself. The spider began to crawl over the couch to investigate, but when it reached the cushions, Maison jumped up from the other side, swinging the poker from the fireplace. The spider flipped back and was gone.

  Maison stepped back into a corner so no mobs could sneak up behind her. She was holding out her poker as if daring them to come close. The zombies either turned toward her or turned toward me.

  I felt the mobs closing in on me and I kept slashing away, too consumed with staying alive to look over at how Maison was doing. If I glanced away even for a second, it could be the end of me. It would probably be the end of her, too, because then she’d have to take on all of the mobs instead of half.

  I had to trust that she knew what she was doing, and judging by everything that had happened so far, she did. I slashed out at the zombies as hard and fast as I could, needing to take care of them so I could see Maison. Slam. Slash. A zombie was gone. Another one reared up. Bam! My sword knocked it back a step.

  I went after another zombie, and when that one got knocked back, I went after another. Enough hits and they were gone. My sword was a blur. When all the mobs in my area of the living room were destroyed, I looked over at Maison, and she was using her poker to finish off the last zombie in her group. A strong jab with her poker and the mob was gone. She appeared relieved for a second and then panicked.

  “My mom’s going to kill me!” Maison screamed, looking around at the torn-apart living room. “Look at this mess.”

  I didn’t think that would be true at all. Maison’s mom sounded nice when I heard her talking the night before. My dad was the person to be scared of—and it wouldn’t be too much longer before I’d have to come face-to-face with him and explain what happened. Running away without telling him, entering a whole new world, letting mobs into that whole new world . . . this day was just going to keep getting worse.

  With the mobs in the living room defeated, we rushed throughout the house, looking for any more mobs that might be there. My skin crawled, expecting to have a mob jump at me from around a corner. I didn’t hear any more hissing or moaning, but somehow the silence was even scarier. If there were more, they were doing a good job at hiding. And they might get us before we had a chance to get them.

  I looked over at Maison who was walking very carefully and then eased up. “We should be okay now,” she said. I felt relieved too. I worried so much about her during all of this fighting. Just then the thought came to mind that Maison could come live with me in Overworld. She had done a good job of surviving the zombies. She and I could finish that tree house. We could go mining together, and I could show her the Nether. Not the Nether as a video game. The real Nether. She could build to her heart’s content, making real houses, not little ones. She wouldn’t have to wait until she was an adult to build a real house. Her dreams could start coming true now.

  And I wouldn’t have to try to make friends with the village kids. I wouldn’t have to strain to impress them, because I already had Maison. I already had a friend. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing her forever.

  But I knew her coming to live with me in Overworld was a stupid idea. Her mom, her family, her whole world was here. I knew she complained about parts of it, but I also knew that deep down inside she liked it here. She would never want to leave.

  “We just need to check my room!” Maison exclaimed. “Then we can close the portal.” But when we stepped into her room, we found the mob we’d missed during our search.

  Standing right in front of the computer portal was a creeper. It looked at me with its frowning face and its black eyes, and when it saw us, it began to shake.

  CHAPTER 18

  THERE WAS NO TIME TO THINK. I HURLED MY SWORD with all my might. It flew through the air and struck through the creeper, making it vanish. I sagged with relief.

  Maison gasped. “Stevie, that was so close!”

  Boy, did I know it. I didn’t realize until after I’d hit the creeper that I was shaking, and shaking hard. I’d taken one look into those black eyes and remembered the night at the tree house
. The explosion. The pain. If I’d hesitated for even a moment, all of that would have happened again. It would have blown up Maison’s house and maybe even killed her.

  Then, I knew for sure I had to destroy the portal and I couldn’t ask Maison to come live in the Overworld with me. As much as I wanted to think of another solution, I knew there was no other way around this situation. Never seeing Maison again wouldn’t hurt as much as knowing I’d brought harm to her. No matter how I felt or how much my heart hurt, I would take apart the portal for her sake.

  “Maison,” I began, turning to her. Maison had dropped the fire poker and picked up her baseball bat from behind the bed. She gave the baseball bat a few test swings.

  “There!” she said proudly. “I’m ready.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I’m going through the portal with you,” she explained. “I’m going to help you get your dad.”

  I tried to say something but all words failed me. She still hadn’t realized what it meant to close the portal.

  “Maison . . .” I began again.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Before another creeper tries to get through!”

  “Maison,” I said. “Do you know what it takes to make sure we never let the mobs go through the portal again?”

  “Yeah,” she said easily. “So let’s get going!”

  She obviously didn’t know. Maybe her Minecraft video game didn’t work like my world, even though she said it was about my world.

  I guessed maybe she could follow me into my world and we’d get Dad, and after Dad knew what was going on, I could tell her the truth about the portal. Then we would have to say our goodbyes and she would go back through the portal, back through her computer, into her world. Forever.

  “All right,” I said with an uncomfortable nod, gripping my sword. “Let’s go.”