The Last Kids on Earth and the Nightmare King. Max Brallier

‘You don’t have that competitive spirit like me.’

      She’s about to speed ahead when something INSANE happens.

      And I don’t use the term ‘INSANE’ lightly, since pretty much everything that happens during the Monster Apocalypse could be classified as insane or, at the very minimum, pretty much bonkers bananas.

      We hear a voice.

      A human voice.

      I can’t make out the words, but the voice is coming from inside the fire station. We’ve seen or heard zero other humans since the Monster Apocalypse began. So like I said, yeah, INSANE.

      June and I are instantly hurrying to the station and pressing our ears to the red metal door.

      We hear the voice again.

      June looks at me, eyes bulging. CONFIRMED: this is both INSANE and BONKERS BANANAS.

      I spin around, cupping my hands to my mouth. ‘Quint! Dirk! Time-out!’

      ‘No way, friend!’ Quint shouts as his BoomKart whips around the corner. ‘Not falling for that ruse again!’

      ‘Not a ruse time-out! A real time-out!’ I shout. ‘Really real!’

      June points out that I should not be yelling, since we have no clue who is inside the fire station. Good point. I do a quick brain scan of possibilities – and the results are pretty gnarly . . .

      Tyres screech, and Quint and Dirk skid to a stop and hop from their BoomKarts. ‘What’s up?’ Dirk asks.

      ‘Human-sounding voices,’ June whispers. ‘Inside the fire station!’

      ‘We’ve never investigated the fire station,’ Quint says. ‘I am quite curious.’

      ‘Of course you’re curious!’ I say. ‘We haven’t heard a single other human voice in months! We’ve heard monster voices, but those are all, like, deep and monster-y. The only human voices we’ve heard are our own.’

      Suddenly, my mind is in a whole different place, thinking about how I had no idea my voice was nasally, and could that possibly explain years of difficulty making friends, ’cause who wants to be friends with the kid with the lousy voice, but if it’s nasally, why did no one tell me before, I could have worked on it, even tried to put on a cool Australian accent or something, maybe even –

      ‘Jack!’ June snaps me back to attention, hooking a thumb at the fire station door. Dirk is tugging the handle, opening the door, and –

      ‘Watch out!’ June cries. A hefty undead fire chief is swiping at Quint!

      Quint immediately curls up into a ball and plays dead like it’s a bear attack. Thankfully, Dirk is there. He snags both zombies by their ankles and using his ludicrous strength –

      We hurry inside the station before the other zombies can get their awful arms around us. Rover bolts in behind us, barely squeezing through, and – SLAM! – I throw the door shut.

      The fire station is chilly, and the whole place smells like rotted people and spoiled cheesesteaks and old Chinese takeout.

      But what, exactly, do we see inside?

      Pretty much nothing. Now that the zombies are gone, the fire station is empty.

      So who did we just hear talking? It definitely wasn’t the zombies, ’cause they don’t talk – they moan.

      ‘C’mon,’ I say. ‘We’ll check every room. Someone was in here yapping away.’

      Moving together for prime safety and battle readiness, we search the station.

      We soon determine that there is no one else – zombie or non-zombie – inside the station. I lean against a dusty fire truck. ‘I don’t get this,’ I say. ‘We heard voices!’

      And then it happens. Again.

      IT.

      Capital letters ‘IT’ ’cause IT is BIG.

      We hear the voice. It’s coming from a radio . . .

      My heart just about seizes up and my blood starts pumping to the rhythm of Holy. Moley. Holy. Moley. Holy. Moley.

      June dashes toward the radio, kneeling, practically sliding across the floor. ‘We’re here!’ she cries. ‘We are here! Come in! Repeat, we are here! Other people! Humans! Four of us!’

      And then it comes again: ‘REPEATING, THIS IS – STATIC, CRACKLE – WE ARE – CRACKLE – RESPOND IF – STATIC – WE WILL TRY AGAIN IN – STATIC, CRACKLE –’

      The radio cuts off completely then. No hissing static. Just total silence. The broadcast, it appears, is over.

      June gently reaches out and places her hand on the radio, like it’s some ancient magic artefact. Her eyes are saucers. ‘I don’t get it. I tried to respond,’ she says. ‘But they didn’t hear . . .’

      After a quick examination of the radio, Quint says, ‘We can’t respond. This is a radio scanner – one way only.’

      June sinks. ‘Oh.’

      ‘Do not distress,’ Quint says. ‘Simply hearing from other humans is huge! However, the signal is weak. That’s why there was so much static. Let’s get it back to the tree house. I can look into amplifying the signal.’

      June looks hard at the radio. She gently chews her lower lip, and then she just about explodes . . . Dirk just stands stiff, arms crossed. But after a moment, his mouth forms a wide, square smile.

      My friends are just really really happy. And there isn’t much that’s better than watching your friends be just really really happy.

      I once heard some old grey-haired lady say that the best part of holidays was giving gifts, not getting them. And I thought, lady, you’re a lunatic – getting a bunch of stuff is the total greatest. Now I grew up an orphan, so holidays were never, like, Home Alone-style big, but still, c’mon. Free gifts, yo!

      But now I understand what that old grey-haired lady meant.

      ‘Well, come on! Let’s go!’ June exclaims. ‘What are we waiting for?! Whoever’s talking – we’ve got to find them! Now! No delay!’

      Quint shakes his head. ‘June, we don’t know where to start. When the Monster Apocalypse began, there were rumours that some people had gone out west. But that was months ago! That broadcast could be coming from anywhere ! A different country, even! We need to know where those humans are before we do anything.’

      ‘Oh,’ June says. ‘Right.’

      Suddenly, I have this odd feeling in my stomach – a creeping feeling of confused fright.

      ‘Guys,’ I say. ‘I just want to point out – the voice was really static-y and faint.’

      June squeezes my hand. ‘Jack, that doesn’t matter. What matters is, there are people still alive. There are