Dark Tales from Dreamdale

Jeremy Robertson

Description

When a scary nightmare creature escapes its underworld prison, a brave boy, Arden Wonder, must slay the quirky dream monster Count Comatose before the villain has an opportunity to feed on the dreams and nightmares of young souls that will allow Count Comatose to unleash a nightmarish apocalypse that will corrupt reality. Every dreaming child will turn into fantasy creatures and be the monster''s slaves in its lair--forever.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645364436
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dark Tales from Dreamdale
Book One: Going Through Strange Changes
Jeremy Robertson
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-07-31
Dark Tales from Dreamdale About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Chapter One Never Travel to Nod Chapter Two The Delightfully Dreaded Dreamers Chapter Three The Remedy for the Lost Reality Chapter Four The Spooky Search Chapter Five Dreamdale’s Descendants Chapter Six Comatose and the Sleepy Curse Chapter Seven Death by a Diabolical Dreamcatcher Chapter Eight The Jewel for Jasmine the Friendly Ghoul Chapter Nine Combine All Power-Ups for Comatose Chapter Ten Free the Monsters in the Dream Mural! Chapter Eleven Go to School, or You’ll Be a Ghoul! Chapter Twelve Experiments of Dr. Wonder Can Be Eerie Chapter Thirteen The Dream God Who Escaped the Nether Nod
About the Author
When Jeremy Robertson isn’t writing or reading, he works part-time at a grocery store. He grew up in a small town. Jeremy loves stories. They transport him to other worlds.
Dedication
I would like to dedicate my first book to my dearly departed grandma. She was my best friend and never got the chance to read my first book.
Copyright Information ©
Jeremy Robertson (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Robertson, Jeremy
Dark Tales from Dreamdale
Book One: Going Through Strange Changes
ISBN 9781641825665 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781641825672 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645364436 (ePub e-book)
The main category of the book — YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Fantasy / Dark Fantasy
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907824
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
[phone]
Chapter One

Never Travel to Nod
A bright, glowing, green portal appeared in front of young Arden Wonder’s village house. In a real-world town, called Dreamdale, at the stroke of midnight, the magic door opened, and fog spilled from the magic door. Giant hands gripped the edge of the portal. An angry dream monster, Count Comatose, stepped through it. The vampire villain had come from another planet. His solid black eyes and long pointed drooling fangs looked menacing. He stretched, getting a cramp. The light in Arden’s bedroom told the Goth vampire Arden wasn’t asleep.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Count Comatose said excitedly. He was about to collect a magical young soul tonight. He put his hands through the still open portal, and yanked out his helper, Mr. Morpheus. He had been a good overweight troll friend of his, with warts covering his face. He was not at all interested in helping his boss so late. “Arden can’t save the world if he doesn’t have a soul, right? After I collect it from him, he won’t miss it. In fact, the boy will get so used to being a dream monster; he won’t miss being human!” he told Mr. Morpheus. “Do you have the Monster Medallion ready?”
The big ugly troll growled. Mr. Morpheus was not in the mood to take a soul, not even to save them from becoming extinct. Mr. Morpheus reached into his baggy trousers pocket, pulled out the shiny gold Monster Medallion, and handed it to the Count who accepted it. “I’m so tired; I don’t know why I even put up with your old self anymore, Count Comatose.” Mr. Morpheus let out an exhausted yawn.
“This will be fun. You’ll see,” Count Comatose promised, floating up toward Arden’s bedroom on the second floor. Of course, Mr. Morpheus didn’t have any vampire powers as his old boss did, so the poor troll just sat on his rump and began eating yellow dandelions from the front lawn.
Count Comatose peered through the parted, draped window of Arden’s bedroom. He was spying on the boy. The vampire’s stomach growled. Arden was lying in bed reading a horror book. Scary books only made real monsters less intimidating. The dream monster king gawked at the Monster Medallion, reflecting in the full moon. It almost blinded him, so he looked away.
Arden’s mother stood at the door. “Time for bed. You’ve got school tomorrow, and you’ll have to finish your book report another time. It’s late. And don’t forget we’re going to celebrate your big birthday in a couple of weeks. Plan how you want to do it. You’re turning lucky number thirteen this year!” Mrs. Wonder said and switched Arden’s bedroom light off.
Arden placed his book on the dresser next to his small cot and drifted off into a deep sleep. It didn’t take long until Arden woke up again, terrorized. A monster growled under his bed. He bolted upright. Arden turned on his lamp. Count Comatose snickered. He had summoned a terrifying Dark Heart from outer space. It would devour Arden’s personality. The evil vampire glanced at the Monster Medallion glowing bright yellow. It could’ve been powerful enough to summon two dream monsters at the same time!
“You would make a delicious midnight snack!” a creature called the Snoozie said. It was hiding under his bed and growled with hunger. It was a shadowy monster, with dark metal armor and big metal helmet. Snoozie had large horns poking out from the sides of the silver metal helmet. It had bright red eyes. Snoozie had haunted Arden before. And this time, it was summoned to do more than just haunt him. “I crave your soul more than anything in this world. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it! You won’t survive until your thirteenth birthday. I’m going to put you out of your misery so fast, you won’t even have time to scream!” it growled as fog formed from underneath Arden’s bed and his bedroom lights began to flicker on and off, scaring the boy even more.
Arden scrambled from the bed and headed for the door. A warty blue monster claw grabbed hold of him and dragged him back to the bed. His yelp was cut short when Snoozie chomped down on him and blood splattered on the brown wooden floors. Snoozie burped wetly and laughed victoriously. “Who has the Dark Heart now?” Snoozie snarled.
The shadowy form of a blue Snoozie creature crawled its way out from underneath Arden’s small bed and shape-shifted into Arden. He now turned into Dream Arden. He looked around the room, puzzled, like he didn’t know where he was. A tapping sound from his bedroom window interrupted his thoughts, which at first, he thought was just a tree branch scraping against it. A closer look revealed Count Comatose’s sharp-clawed finger was beckoning him.
Dream Arden walked over and opened it. “This will be our day of victory, my boy! I am so proud of you! Come on, it’s time to go home,” the creature said. He grabbed hold of Arden through the window, and they all warped back into the still open portal. The magic door closed behind them and they disappeared. The fog from the entrance spread all over the town.
The magic mist placed a spell on the Gifted Souls who protected Dreamdale. The haunted cloud, however, turned the Gifted Souls into terrifying Dark Hearts. This fog left the mysterious children fleeing from their houses. A dangerous thunderstorm got the young Dark Hearts soaked. The cursed kids didn’t care. The helpless children just wanted to wake up, only they weren’t dreaming.
Chapter Two

The Delightfully Dreaded Dreamers
Dream Arden bolted upright in bed with an evil smile, thinking about all the havoc he was going to cause. He jumped out of bed and began ransacking the closet looking for something to wear, finally choosing a black sweater with bright orange stripes and apple-red pants. Smelling the delicious aroma of breakfast, he stomped downstairs and plopped onto one of the bright yellow chairs. “I want a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, fifteen pieces of toast, and a gallon of orange juice, and I want it right now!” he demanded, in a super loud voice that sounded nothing like the real Arden. The monster from Nether Nod had not learned the skills to hide the fact that he had taken over Arden’s body. He had recently made a dreadful mistake by not acting like Arden.
Mrs. Wonder knew there was something very, very wrong. As she scrambled upstairs to get Mr. Wonder, Dream Arden was running after her screaming wildly. Mr. Wonder ran out of his room with a startled cry, wanting to know what the heck was going on. Mrs. Wonder was frantically trying to tell him that something was wrong with Arden, but Dream Arden was jumping on her and biting her back like a wild animal.
Mr. Wonder grabbed Arden and headed for his room to get the dreamcatcher. When they reached his office, Mr. Wonder gasped, “The dreamcatcher, it’s gone!” He quickly ran past Mrs. Wonder and yelled, “I’ve got to get Arden to the idea lab immediately!”
Once he got Arden into the dream lab, he gave him a big shot of the potion he had been working on to put monsters to sleep and crossed his fingers hoping it would work. He had never tested it before. After a couple of minutes, Dream Arden fell into a deep sleep.
Mr. Wonder worked all night frantically trying to get Arden back into his body before the potion wore off. He was beginning to feel hopeless when, at last, he had a breakthrough.
Forgetting where he was, Dream Arden awoke in the hospital bed at his father’s lab, where his parents tried comforting him. Before they could stop Arden, he scrambled out