A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting #3 by Joe Ballarini

Author:Joe Ballarini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

21

Within seconds, Emmy Banks was in the air, screaming. She grabbed tree branches as the gargoyle’s wings furiously beat the air.

Curtis aimed his crossbow. Bowstring taught. Squinting carefully.

His arrow slashed the sky and missed the beast’s wing. The flying terror’s gray eyes studied our faces. It emitted a high-pitched squeal and flew out of range with its shrieking prey.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled up from a strong rush of wind.

“Run!” I screamed.

The treetops exploded. With piercing squeals, two gargoyles dove after us. We ran, darting over rocks and roots. Their toothy jaws snapped behind us. Talons slashed. They hovered a few feet off the ground, expertly weaving around tree trunks.

Curtis loaded another arrow and haphazardly fired backward. It whizzed past Victor’s face, missing his ear.

“Watch it!” screamed Victor.

Cassie tripped and slammed into the dirt, the sitter sat-phone skidding away through the dead leaves. Berna grabbed for her as reptile-like claws ripped into Cassie’s backpack, and suddenly, Cassie was in the air, flailing in the gargoyle’s grip.

Curtis dropped his crossbow and grabbed Cassie’s legs. But the gargoyle was too strong. Curtis was lifted up. I jumped and grabbed Curtis’s legs and held on tight. The tips of my toes skidded across the forest floor, and then I was in the air, too.

“Help!” I screamed.

Victor’s arms clamped around my legs. Wind from the monster’s wings kicked up a blizzard of dead leaves. The gargoyle refused to release Cassie’s backpack from its grip. I looked down and saw Victor’s wide-eyed fear. His sneakers were barely touching the ground.

“Here comes the other one!” Curtis screamed.

The third gargoyle dipped into a sharp U-turn in the sky and sailed toward us. We were defenseless, wide-open targets. Kids in a barrel.

The approaching gargoyle’s maw opened unnaturally wide. Its jagged nails stretched out hungrily. It was coming in for the kill.

A whistling blur shot past. An arrow pierced its veiny wing. The monster squealed and barrel-rolled past us and slammed into a tree. Wood exploded, and the gargoyle smashed face-first into the forest floor.

We looked where the arrow had come from and saw Berna, reloading the crossbow.

“Nice one, Berna!” I cried.

Berna fumbled to pull back the bowstring. The gargoyle was dragging all of us through the air to a deep gorge. I suddenly remembered watching seagulls eat clams on the beach when I was a little kid. The seagulls had lifted the clams high into the sky and then dropped them onto the rocks, breaking the clamshells into a gooey mess. In this case, we were the clams.

Click-clack! Berna snapped the crossbow string into place and loaded an arrow.

“Stay still,” Berna said.

“Little difficult!” I said.

I know she was aiming at the gargoyle holding on to Cassie, but it sure seemed like she was going to shoot one of us.

“Left! To the left!” Victor cried.

“No, the right!” Curtis screamed.

“Don’t shoot!” Cassie shrieked.

“Shoot!” I shouted.

Berna squinted and took aim. I closed my eyes.

The arrow shot past my face and whiffed into the treetops.

An inch more to the right, and my nose would have been the bull’s-eye.

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