Chapter One - Invasion
Once upon a time at 'The Old Ice Cream Creamery'...
Ding! Bleep bleep dong ding! The sounds of a pinball machine echo through the creamery. Pop! The sweet watermelon flavored bubble gum pops over Zoey's lips. A quick swipe of the tongue and Zoey's back to chewing. She leans in, hovering just inches over the pinball machine. She glances down to see Logan and Mackenzie smile's gleaming at her in the reflection of the pinball machine's glass.
"This is it! The final ball. Let's rock and roll!" Zoey hypes as she fires the final ball off.
Clink! "Yes! Skill shot!" Zoey plays on.
Logan and Mackenzie, stand on bar stools watching Zoey play. Logan sips on a root beer float while Mackenzie licks away at a strawberry flavored ice cream cone, topped off with gummy worms. Mackenzie shakes with excitement as she tracks the ball zipping around the playfield.
Dink dink! The ball bounces and flies.
"Just got to get this one hit and then multi-ball!" exclaims Zoey.
The metallic pinball clanks around and heads straight for the outer left lane.
"Mackenzie!" cries Zoey.
Mackenzie nearly drops her ice cream as she starts kicking the machine from her stool. The ball teeters from draining in the outside lane to rolling back down to the flipper.
"Yes!" screams Logan spitting whipped cream.
"Multi-ball!" The pinball machine announces.
"Buckle up guys!" Zoey whispers intensely as she locks in.
"Jack! Come here, come here!" Logan begs.
Jack, the current creamery employee on duty, sets down his cup of instant ramen on the counter and walks over to join.
"Yo! No way! You might actually do it! First to break 1 billion points!" Jack observes watching over Zoey's shoulder.
Zoey smiles. Dink ding cling clang! The points rack up. The five metallic pinballs smash about the playfield. Logan holds his breath. Mackenzie squirms.
Darkness. Everything goes dark. The fading ambient light of the sunset outside allows only the faintest of silhouettes to be made out.
"No!... no no no!" Zoey cries.
Everyone else groans. Zoey smacks the flippers but nothing happens.
Clink, clank, dink... the metallic balls roll down the sleeping pinball machine.
Zoey watches the balls drain one by one into the lifeless machine.
A sadness fills the room as the last ball drains. Absolute silence takes over.
10 seconds pass. Everyone glances at each other. Then. Flash. The power blips on. The pinball machine resurrects back to life. Zoey, Logan, Mackenzie, and Jack fix their attention back at the machine.
"Did it save?" asks Jack.
The pinball machine cycles through its screens. The High Score appears. It reads:
High Score
878,600,098
TJ
"Blast! I hate TJ!" Zoey yells!
She bangs on the machine. Shaking it. The machine cries out, "Danger, Danger, Tilted!"
"This is stupid! Stupid power. Stupid machine. Stupid game. Why me!?" Zoey abandons everyone and stomps over to the ice cream counter.
Logan, Mackenzie, and Jack look at each other, unsure what to do. Then, Jack chases after her. He runs around the counter, snatches a small waffle cone, and says with a smirk, "Let's cool that attitude."
Zoey, furious, locks eyes with Jack and growls, "Shut up." Then points to the Rocky Road flavored ice cream. Jack, taken aback, fills up the cone with a scoop. He hands it to her.
"Thanks." Zoey says as she licks her ice cream.
Zoey and Jack sit for a full minute in silence.
"I must say, that was some epic playing once again." Jack breaks the silence.
"Thanks, and it's a real shame about the power too. I don't get it. The power, like, never goes out here."
"Yeah... worst timing ever I guess." Jack agrees.
Logan runs up,"Zoey are you going to give it another try tonight?"
Zoey answers, "No, it's getting late, I need to get you guys back home soon, plus I only got one quarter left. Here, you guys take it. Go play some Pac-Man."
"Sweet! You're the best babysitter ever Zoey!" Logan screeches as he swipes the quarter from Zoey's hand. He and Mackenzie drag their stools to the Pac-Man machine in the far back corner of the creamery.
"So, question, what's it like to eat ice cream while chewing gum?" inquires Jack.
Zoey's face goes red. "Actually terrible" replies Zoey as she spits her gum out.
Logan and Mackenzie giggle as Pac-Man chimes to life.
Jack looks over at the kids. "How long do you think that game will last?"
"Approximately, 86 seconds," replies Zoey.
"Really? Even with four lives?" Jack questions.
"Yes, you'd be surprised." says Zoey.
Jack turns away to clean up the ice cream counter. He remembers his cup of Ramen Noodles and he goes to reheat it. Zoey watches. She notices a TV remote sitting on the counter. She snatches it, presses the power button and across the creamery, a TV blips on, tuning in on the local news.
"What's this?" Jack returns.
"I thought maybe there was an accident or something and they would be talking about why the power went out." Zoey mutters.
"Still hung up on that high score." Jack teases.
"It's not fair! I had it beat fair and square! No reason for why I shouldn't be the top dog right now! One billion points. Gone. Just like that." Zoey retorts.
"Well... You never actually made it one billion." Jack corrects.
Zoey huffs while crossing her arms.
On the TV the newscaster starts talking. The current headline reads, "Piles of Pasta Plague America: Prank or Predicament?" Images of pasta covering various landmarks in America appear on screen.
"Hey! I think I saw one of those pasta piles on the way here? Yeah! A whole bunch of pasta was dumped next to the bridge." Jack exclaims.
"Oohh! Spooky!" Zoey says while leaning in on the counter. She puts down the remote and pretends to be a zombie hunting down Jack. Jack giggles as he play fights back. He grabs the ice cream scooper and pretends to bash Zoey on the head. Zoey pretends to die on the counter.
Splat! The remaining ice cream in her ice cream cone falls onto the counter.
"Oops." Zoey blinks back to life. She grabs some napkins, then begins wiping up her mess.
Outside the creamery a man zips by the window. Jack notices. After another quick surveillance glance, Jack is unsure of what he saw but deems it not dangerous. He returns his attention back to Zoey who has now returned to her normal human unpossessed self.
"Do you think monsters actually exist?" Jack asks.
"No." Zoey insists. She mutes the TV. "I do however believe that there are aliens out there... somewhere."
"Wait... really?" Jack inquires.
"Yeah, no doubt." Zoey turns and walks over to the Pac-Man machine. Jack follows.
"The universe is huge! Humongous even! There's no way we are the only people out here. There has to be more stuff, like, somewhere."
The kids are down to their last life on the Pac-Man game. Logan is in the zone. Focused intensely on the yellow puck zooming across the screen.
"Zoey! Look!" Mackenzie squeaks as she points to the score at the top of the screen. "It's his highest score yet!"
The score on the screen reads: 1,300 points.
Logan smiles and remains focused. Zoey and Jack watch over his shoulder.
The front door of the creamery chimes. Jack leaves to go serve the customer.
Zoey, Mackenzie, and Logan continue to Pac-Man. Several more dings of the chime ring out.
"Whoa! Seems like an ice cream rush." Zoey observes. "I'll be right back guys."
Zoey leaves to check on Jack. As she whips around the corner she catches a whiff of tomato in the air.
"Smells like Marinara."
Zoey freezes.
Jack stands on the counter swinging a broom, surrounded by angry customers. Fighting Jack is no standard ice cream mob. This is a mob of angry pasta people.
Gooey, slimy, slippery stands of pasta intertwined to form a humanoid shaped being. Similar to a mummy but instead of being wrapped in toilet paper and bandages they are wrapped with pasta.
"Jack! What's going on?" Zoey sneaks through the cash register area to meet up with Jack, avoiding the mob.
Jack beats the pasta people back with his broom. The pasta people retaliate. Two pasta monsters sling their arms and lasso their pasta strands around the broom. A mighty yank rips it out of Jacks hands. The pasta people engulf the broom entirely. Jack stumbles back in shock of what he has just witnessed. He steps too far back and crashes down off the counter.
Zoey rushes over in an attempt to catch him. It's not much of a catch but she does break his fall by having him land on her.
"Ouch..." Zoey says flatly from underneath Jack, laying on the floor.
"Sorry." Jack mutters. Not moving much.
"It's all good but like, get off me dude." Zoey complains, shoving him off.
"Oh right!" Jack rolls off her quickly. He snaps back to his feet. Jack offers a hand to help Zoey up and says, "Oh and by the way, I think you were wrong. Looks like monsters exists."
Zoey glares back at him, absolutely furious. Smacks his hand away and gets up herself.
"Geez, sorry. It was just a joke." Jack mumbles, unsure how to react. Just then a pasta monster rushes the counter. It launches its lasso pasta arm at Jack. Jack ducks. He pushes Zoey along with him as they dart into the back kitchen.
Jack closes the kitchen door and slides a cart in the way to block it from opening. Zoey pops her head out the back entrance of the kitchen to check on the kids.
Over at the Pac-Man machine, Logan and Mackenzie are poking the coin return begging for a quarter to appear. The Game over/high score screen screen blinks patiently.
"Psst! Logan! Mackenzie! Get over here!" Zoey whisper shouts from the kitchen. She waves them over as they scramble in.
"What's going on?" Logan asks out of breath.
"We're being attacked!" Jack joins up with the group.
"By who!? I don't want to be under attack." Mackenzie cries into Zoey's arms. Zoey gives her a warm secure hug.
"Pasta People-" Zoey announces.
"No, Pasta Monsters!" Jack cuts in.
Jack gasps dramatically, Logan and Mackenzie gasp with him. Zoey stares at Jack, not amused.
"We are going to get you guys back home. You have nothing to worry about." Zoey assures Logan and Mackenzie.
"Here's what we all need to know. They are slow. You could probably out run them. There's a lot of them though so it'll be easy for them to corner and trap us. Next up, be careful about their arms. They can lasso and tangle up their pasta noodle's any which way they want." Jack informs the group.
Thud! Thud! Thud! A Pasta Monster pounds on the kitchen door peering into the window. Smack! Another one appears. The mob has turned all their attention to the kitchen. They are determined to break in.
"Boo!" screams from behind the group. As a pasta monster enters the kitchen from the backdoor.
"Rats!" Jack rushes over to the pasta monster. He picks up a blender jar from the milkshake stand. Wack! The blender jar smashes into the pasta monster. Glass shatters on impact! Jack cuts away at the monster with the remaining sharp bit of the blender jar handle still in his hand. More monsters try to fight their way in as Jack pushes them back.
The Monsters pound on the kitchen's front door. They punch out the tiny round glass windows in the doors. Zoey runs over to fight them off. The Monsters reach through the windows. They shoot their thick pasta lassos around Zoey's arms. Zoey fights back but slowly and surely they reel her in. She continues to fight back but it is futile.
"Logan! Mackenzie! Hide!" Zoey screams as the pasta lassos suspend her in the air as they bring her towards the windows.
Logan and Mackenzie run circles around the kitchen trying to figure out where to hide. They squeeze under and in every cabinet. They don't fit.
Meanwhile, at the back of the kitchen. Jack attempts to close the door. Pushing it shut when two pasta monsters collapse to the floor unstranding themselves and slither through crack under the door. They lash out restringing themselves to wrap around Jack's ankles. They yank Jack's feet out from under him. He slams into the ground. He fights on the floor grabbing at nothing as they drag him away. Jack manages to grab a piece of shattered glass and cut away at the pasta around his ankles. More and more noodle's wriggle back to fill their place. Resistance is futile. Jack is pulled through the door and away into the mob.
Zoey, suspended in the air by her pasta restraints, glances over to see Logan and Mackenzie slip into the large freezer. Click! The freezer door latches shut, sealing the kids in. Pasta monster's rush the area through the now unprotected back door of the kitchen.
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