Read 25 - Attack of the Mutant for Free Online Page A

As empty as the rest of this
strange, frightening basement.
    “Weird, huh?” I whispered to Libby.
    When she didn’t answer, I turned to make sure she was okay.
    “Libby?”
    She was gone.

 
 
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    I spun around. “Libby?”
    My entire body shook.
    “Where are you?”
    I squinted back down the long, gray hallway. No sign of her.
    “Libby? If this is some kind of a dumb joke…” I started. But the rest of
my words caught in my throat.
    Breathing hard, I forced myself to retrace our steps. “Libby?” I stopped at
every door and called her name. “Libby?”
    The hallway curved, and I followed it. I began jogging, my hands down stiffly
at my sides, calling her name, searching every door, peering into every dark
room.
    How could she get lost? I asked myself, feeling my panic rise until I could
barely breathe. She was right behind me.
    I turned another corner. Into a hallway I hadn’t explored yet. “Libby?”
    The narrow hall led to an enormous, brightly lit room. I had to shut my eyes
against the sudden bright light.
    When I opened them, I found myself nearly face-to-face with a gigantic
machine. Bright floodlights from the high ceiling covered it in light.
    The machine had to be a block long! A big control panel, filled with dials,
and buttons, and lights, stood against the side. A long, flat part—like a
conveyor belt—led to several rollers. And at the very end of the machine stood
a huge white wheel. No—a cylinder. No—a roll of white paper.
    It’s a printing press! I realized.
    I lurched into the room, stepping around stacks of paper and cardboard
cartons. The floor was littered with paper, ink-smeared paper, crumpled, folded,
and ripped.
    As I staggered toward the huge printing press, the sea of paper rose up
nearly to my knees!
    “Libby? Are you in here? Libby?”
    Silence.
    This room was as empty as all the others.
    The paper crackled under my sneakers. I made my way to a long table at the
back of the room. I found a red stool in front of the table, and I dropped down
onto it.
    I kicked big sheets of paper away from my legs and glanced around the room. A
hundred questions pushed into my mind at once.
    Where is Libby? How could she disappear like that?
    Is she somewhere close behind me? Will she follow the hallway to this big
room?
    Where is everyone? Why is this place totally deserted?
    Is this where they print the comic books? Am I in the basement of Collectable
Comics, the company that publishes The Masked Mutant ?
    Questions, questions.
    My brain felt about to burst. I stared around the cluttered room, my eyes
rolling past the gigantic printing press, searching for Libby.
    Where was she? Where ?
    I turned back to the table—and gasped.
    I nearly toppled off the stool. The Masked Mutant was staring up at me.

 
 
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    A large, color drawing of The Masked Mutant stared up at me from the table.
Startled, I picked it up and examined it.
    It had been drawn on thick posterboard in colored inks. The Masked Mutant’s
cape swept behind him. Through his mask, his eyes appeared to stare out at me.
Evil, angry eyes.
    The ink glistened on the page, as if still wet. I rubbed my thumb over an
edge of the cape. The ink didn’t come off.
    I wonder if Starenko drew this portrait, I thought, studying it.
    Glancing across the table, I saw a stack of papers on a low counter that ran
along the entire back wall. Hopping off the tall stool, I made my way over to
the counter and began shuffling through the papers.
    They were ink drawings and pencil sketches. Many of them were of The Masked
Mutant. They showed him in different poses. Some of them showed him moving his molecules around, changing into wild animals and
strange, unearthly creatures.
    I opened a thick folder and found about a dozen color sketches of the members
of The League of Good Guys. Then I found a stack of pencil drawings of
characters I’d never seen before.
    This must be where they make the comic books! I told