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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

I sat up suddenly. He was right, of course.

Maybe there was nothing I could do about Mr. Barrett. Maybe he was too big and too well-respected for me and Solomon to hold him accountable.

But Sheffield . . .

I wasn’t sure how, yet, but Sheffield was the weak link we could use to break the chain.

“I need to get that film developed,” I said. “From the football team shoot. Want to come?”

Solomon stared off into the woods. Sound came, from a little transistor radio he had been carrying in his back pocket.

“What a beautiful day for Halloween,” Ms. Jackson said. “My favorite holiday of the year.”

“Solomon?” I asked, but if he heard me at all, he did not respond. I looked off to where he was staring, as if there might be something there to explain where he’d gone.

The woods had closed in on the school in the years since it shut down, tall grasses and shrubs and vines inching forward to encircle it. That ramshackle forest cut like a river through the whole town, or rather the town had been carved into the woods. Trailer parks and rows of identical duplexes and gorgeous old mansions all nestled in it.

“I used to be so scared of the woods,” I said. “Anything at all could come out of them.”

“Only animals,” Solomon whispered, and it was like he wasn’t really there. “The real monsters—they’re all human.”

Fifty-Two

Solomon

“Girl?”

Something had happened to Maraud. I squatted down and touched her cheek, and felt cold steel instead of warm pebbly skin.

“Who did this to you, girl?”

She was a sad, broken, rusty piece of metal, with most of her face flaked off. Smaller than me.

I staggered back, clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out.

Maraud was not a monster at all, but some ancient toy that no one loved.

“This isn’t real,” I whispered—and looked around—and saw that we were gone from the Underbridge—that we stood outside some miserable broken-down building, covered in graffiti, where a couple of kids did drugs in the shadows.

There were no whales in the sky. No brontosaurus necks arcing high overhead.

“Solomon?”

It was Ash—but not. This person was stronger, in some ways. No wicked spell held her back. No faraway look glazed over her eyes.

But she was weaker, too. Not a princess. Not an othersider. Just a person. Like anyone else.

And the woods were empty. No monsters lived there.

I held out my hands, and felt how empty they were. Nothing lived in them. No magic.

As far back as I could remember I could feel it inside me, even if it took me years to figure out what it was and how to use it. Now there was nothing.