Killer Pizza: The Slice

by Greg Taylor

Overview

Four months after they discover that their new place of employment, Killer Pizza, was a front for an underground Monster Hunting Organization, Toby and his fellow rookie Monster Combat Officers, Annabel and Strobe, have been invited to New York City to tour KP Headquarters. But the exclusive tour is cut short when a monster emergency sends the trio off on a secret mission delivering Calanthe, a beautiful 14-year-old, defecting monster with serpent-like abilities, into the Monster Protection Program. It seems like an easy assignment until the teens realize Calanthe is the sacrificial offering in a ceremony set to happen in a few days and her people will stop at nothing to get her back!

Greg Taylor delivers a tale of horror and humor that even reluctant readers will love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429940429
Publisher:	Feiwel & Friends
Publication date:	06/21/2011
Series:	Killer Pizza Series , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
File size:	927 KB
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Greg Taylor is the author of the young adult novels The Girl Who Became a Beatle and Killer Pizza. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Penn State University and started out his career as a professional drummer, before moving to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter. His screenwriting credits include Jumanji, Harriet the Spy, Prancer, and The Christmas Box.

Greg Taylor is the author of the young adult novels The Girl Who Became a Beatle, Killer Pizza, and Killer Pizza: The Slice. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Penn State University and started out his career as a professional drummer, before moving to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter. His screenwriting credits include Jumanji, Harriet the Spy, Prancer, and The Christmas Box.

Read an Excerpt

Killer Pizza

The Slice

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By Greg Taylor

Feiwel and Friends

Copyright © 2011 Greg Taylor
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-4042-9

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CHAPTER 1

"I give up. This is totally insane."

Jostled by waves of people walking briskly in dozens of directions, Toby Magill looked hopelessly lost. His friend Strobe, a tall teen wearing a black watch cap, regarded the teeming crowd with a bemused expression. "I think we need to go over there. Past that sign and down those stairs."

"We just came up those stairs."

"No, we didn't."

"Yes, we did."

"You sure?"

"That's the only thing I am sure of."

"In that case ... this is totally insane!"

"Take it easy, you two. We can figure this out."

That's exactly what Annabel Oshiro was trying to do ... figure out the New York subway system with only a map as her guide. As Annabel studied her map, Toby and Strobe continued to take in the intense scene that surrounded them. Compared to the trio's Ohio suburban community of Hidden Hills, New York City was like a rocket blast of sound and movement.

Hundreds of people navigated the huge underground area that was an intersection for dozens of subway destinations. A bewildering number of overhead signs pointed the various ways to red, blue, green, and yellow subway lines, not to mention subway trains identified by numerous numbers and letters ... a unique underground language. To the uninitiated, it was like standing inside a gigantic 3-D puzzle that simply didn't fit together.

"It would have made a lot more sense for the big guy to send someone to pick us up at the airport," Strobe said, obviously annoyed at this slight.

Annabel looked up from her map, nodded when she found the sign she was looking for, then slid her map into a side pocket of her backpack. "I think Harvey means this as a test, Strobe. He wants us to figure out how to get to KP headquarters on our own. Which is this way."

"I'm done with tests," Strobe declared as he followed Annabel down a narrow stairway toward a subway platform teeming with people. "We passed our test. A little respect is in order here."

It had been almost four months since Annabel, Toby, and Strobe met when they began working at Killer Pizza, Hidden Hills' newest pizza place. What they discovered not long after the grand opening was that the Killer Pizza franchise offered something much more than award-winning pizzas.

"Just because we killed an ugly-as-sin monster, doesn't mean we're experts," Toby pointed out. "There're always gonna be more tests to pass."

It was after a typically busy day in the Killer Pizza kitchen that Harvey P. Major III, the owner of KP, had revealed to an astonished Toby, Annabel, and Strobe that his pizza chain was actually a front — a legitimate front, with award-winning pizzas and franchises all over the world — that put all of its profits into an underground organization of monster hunters. Even though Annabel and Toby were only fourteen — Strobe, fifteen — Harvey had asked the still-disbelieving trio to try out for his elite group.

"That's our train," Annabel called out, quickly bounding down the stairs. The trio pushed their way into the rush-hour horde that was cramming into the subway car. They made it inside just as the doors closed. Toby, the last one in, was jolted when the doors slammed into his backpack. He yanked away from the doors to free himself, then flew across the aisle and landed in the lap of a passenger dressed in a smartly tailored business suit.

"Sorry!" Toby said, pushing himself away from the startled woman. When the train jerked forward and accelerated down the track, Toby lost his balance and toppled over. Fortunately, Strobe was there to catch the flailing teen before he hit the floor.

"Please excuse the boy," Strobe told the woman with a smile. "This is his first trip to New York." Tersely readjusting her crumpled newspaper, the woman pointedly ignored Strobe. After pulling Toby away from the woman and down the aisle of the crowded subway car, Strobe indicated an overhead bar. "Grab hold of that, will you. And try not to embarrass us for the rest of the ride."

"The doors attacked me," Toby countered good-naturedly. "You saw it."

Standing nearby, Annabel shook her head in exasperation. "I can't take you two anywhere. I swear."

"That may be true, but I ask you this," Strobe said. "Where would you be without us, huh?"

The subway train plunged into a dark tunnel, leaving the well-lit platform behind. Hurtling through the endless night of the tunnel on the swaying, jerking train, Toby found himself thinking about Strobe's question, but from his point of view. Where would he be without Strobe and Annabel? Toby looked around the packed subway car. Not here, in New York City, that's for sure.

Fact was, Toby's life had been rather mundane before he started working at the take-out pizza place located on a Hidden Hills dead-end street. Since his first day at Killer Pizza, however, life had become tons more interesting. And maybe a bit too exciting at times.

The train suddenly entered another brightly lit platform area.

"This is our exit, guys," Annabel announced.

Toby threw himself into the middle of the competing mobs of people jostling to get on and off the subway. A veteran now of three subway car departures since arriving in New York, Toby was actually starting to enjoy what felt like a thirty-second extreme-sports event. The object? Get on or off the subway car before the doors close!

Energetically elbowing his way toward the beckoning platform, Toby made it just as the doors closed behind him, this time avoiding the subway-door backpack grab. Toby nodded in satisfaction as he located his KP partners on the crowded platform. He was already getting better at navigating the wild energy that NYC was famous for.

"From here," Annabel was saying as Toby approached, her eyes locked on her all-important subway map, "we need to get to the Fifty-first Street downtown platform of the green line and ..."

"Annabel?" Strobe interrupted. "Just lead the way, okay?"

"What a surprise, Strobe. You're actually willing to let me lead. A little advice? Keep me in sight or you just might get lost." Annabel gave Strobe a competitive nudge, then pushed her way through the crowd.

* * *

Toby smiled when he caught sight of an unusual triangular high-rise building through the trees. "Hey, check it out, guys. How cool is Killer Pizza's headquarters?"

From a certain angle, New York's Flatiron Building looked like a huge ship's bow, aiming for Madison Square Park. Crisscrossing the park, the trio was on a collision course with the New York landmark.

"Bet you didn't know it's considered one of the first skyscrapers ever built," Toby revealed. "It was finished in 1902 —"

"Looks like where Peter Parker works in the Spider-Man movies," Annabel observed.

"It is. It's one of the most recognizable buildings in the city, and not just because of the Spider-Man movies. Know how it got its name? It's built on a lot that resembles a clothing iron."

"I think somebody did a little research for this trip."

"You bet I did. I mean, how exciting is this?"

"It's not that exciting," Strobe said, playing it cool, as usual. "You obviously don't get out much, do you, Tobe."

"Compared to you, no, of course not. You know what? I can't wait to see KP's culinary operations."

"Well, you're gonna have to wait," Strobe shot back. "We're not here to learn how to make better pizzas, after all."

That's exactly what the trio's parents thought their children were doing in New York. Attending a weekend training session for "promising young employees" of Killer Pizza. But the real purpose of the trip was an intensive tour of KP's underground Monster Combat Officer headquarters.

Emerging from the park, the trio joined a crowd that was waiting for the light to turn at a nearby crosswalk. Then they walked across Broadway to the epicenter of Killer Pizza's worldwide operations.

CHAPTER 2

The lobby of the Flatiron Building gave no indication of what went on inside its walls. Toby and Strobe strolled around the perimeter of the lobby, checking out the place as Annabel walked over to a security guard sitting behind a kiosk.

"Hi. I'm Annabel Oshiro, with Toby Magill and Strobe ..." Annabel caught herself. Nicknames wouldn't do at KP headquarters. "Gordon Tibbles. We're here to see Harvey Major."

The guard gave Annabel a deadpan once-over, then pointed to an area just above and behind his kiosk. "Look up there, please."

"Excuse me?"

"Up there."

Annabel looked up in the direction indicated by the guard.

"Your companions need to do the same," the guard said.

"Hey, guys. Over here."

By the time Toby and Strobe had gotten their pictures taken by the phantom camera above the kiosk, the guard had put a call into Harvey's office. "Seventh floor," the guard said, pointing to the nearby elevators. "Someone will be there to meet you."

It was Harvey Major III himself waiting for the trio when the elevator doors opened onto the seventh-floor landing. At first glance, Harvey looked very boyish, certainly younger than his twenty-one years. But on closer examination, one could see that he had the eyes of a much older man, eyes that had seen a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Harvey never smiled much, but the trio noticed a slight uptick at the corner of his mouth when they stepped from the elevator.

"Welcome to New York," Harvey said, shaking hands with each of his employees.

"What are we seeing first, Chief?" Strobe asked.

"Unfortunately, your tour has to be postponed. Temporarily."

"Why's that?" Annabel asked.

Harvey walked to another elevator and pressed the button. "There's something I need you to do for me."

"Like a job?" Strobe was definitely up for anything resembling a job. Very much the gung ho soldier when it came to the smell of battle — of the monster variety — Strobe had been disappointed in the recent lack of supernatural activity back in Hidden Hills.

"Actually, it is," Harvey confirmed. "I need you to make a pickup for me."

"Pickup?" Toby asked. "What are we pickin' up?"

The elevator doors opened, and the trio followed Harvey into the elevator. "A dekayi is coming in from the monster side," Harvey revealed as the doors closed and the elevator started to move slowly downward.

The trio had studied for, and passed, an examination covering all types of creatures of the night, the final step to becoming official Monster Combat Officers, but they had never heard of a dekayi. As for "coming in from the monster side," they could only guess what that meant.

"It's a division we have here," Harvey explained. "MPP. Monster Protection Program."

"You're kidding me," Strobe said.

"No."

"You never told us anything about a monster protection program." Strobe didn't like how secretive Harvey could be about his operation.

"There was never any need to. Until now."

"Do a lot of monsters come in from the monster side?" Annabel asked.

"Not in droves. But it's still a very important division here at Killer Pizza. Mostly they're monsters we've captured. Remember, a lot of our enemies don't start out as enemies. They were humans bitten by any number of creatures. But in this case, with the dekayi, contact was made with one of our Canadian MPP specialists. Our agent was on her way to New York with her charge, when ..."

The elevator abruptly shuddered to a stop. The doors slowly opened. Harvey lead the trio out of the elevator and down a deserted basement hallway.

"When what?" Toby asked.

"As it turned out, the dekayi had been followed by some of her people. There was a skirmish near the Canadian-American border. My person was injured. She's in the hospital. The dekayi managed to escape and has been on her own ever since."

"How is your agent doing?" Annabel asked.

"Time will tell. At present she's still in intensive care."

The foursome fell silent after this somber news. They were approaching a large metal door at the end of the hall when Strobe broke the lull in the conversation. "What makes you think this dekayi defector can be trusted?"

"Excellent point. One always has to be wary of a deserter from the other side. Which is why, after making contact with this one, you will take her to an apartment where she'll stay until we can debrief her. We need to be absolutely certain the flight from her community is not just a ruse to gather information on our organization. Until then, she'll be kept far away from KP headquarters."

Arriving at the end of the hall, Harvey slid a plastic card through a slot next to the metal door and pushed his way into a large gym. Strobe smiled at the sight. The trio's secret training center in the basement beneath the Killer Pizza building back in Hidden Hills was more than adequate, but it was nothing compared to this. A full-size basketball court took up one half of the large room. The other half was filled with a maze of sleek-looking exercise machines.

"Now I know what it feels like coming to the bigs after playing in the minors," Strobe said. "There is definitely money in pizza, isn't there."

"Let me put it this way," Harvey replied. "The man who owns one of my rival pizza chains built an entire university in Florida. I built ... this." Harvey stared across the gym with an indecipherable look in his eyes. Then he turned and led the trio through an open doorway and into a locker room that was easily ten times the size of the one back in Hidden Hills. As in the gym, there were no people in sight.

"Why's it so deserted?" Toby asked. "Where is everyone?" Toby had been expecting overdrive activity, something like the scenes in all of those movies in which the lead characters are led into the bustling headquarters of some secret organization or other.

"There may be money in pizza, but there's never enough money. Which means I'm chronically understaffed. I had to send a large crew to Thailand last week. Just this morning, Steve took another group to Mexico." Steve Rogers, Harvey's right-hand man, had helped train the trio back in Hidden Hills. "The rest of my New York people are spread out across the U.S., helping the MCOs of various KP outposts."

Toby frowned as Harvey led the trio down a long row of lockers. "Is this typical, all this monster activity?"

"No, this is an especially busy time for us. Leap years tend to be like that. Don't ask me why. But every seven years, things get much more active in the monster community. Always been like that, according to my grandfather." Harvey stopped and nodded at several lockers. "You'll find the necessary gear in here. Prepare a backpack. Then I'll take you to the weapons room. You'll be using the crossbow on this excursion."

Toby felt a familiar tingle of excitement — laced with anxiety — as he exchanged his backpack for a black KP field pack. Preparing for a possible rumble with monsters was a unique feeling — to put it mildly — one that Toby had learned to channel instead of allowing it to bring him to his knees, which is what had happened when he first started out in the KP program. As he and his partners filled their packs with the necessary items, Harvey relayed the few facts he knew about dekayi.

They were an ancient, secretive race. Unlike the guttata the trio had battled back in Hidden Hills — who, with their ability to morph between their human and monster personas, preferred to live among the human population — the dekayi lived in their own secluded communities. They raised their children very strictly. No television. No public schools. No contact with the outside world. The dekayi the trio were about to meet apparently felt that life in her colony had become too repressive. Not to mention weird. She wanted a clean break. A new life.

"So you don't know what the dekayi's specialty is, how they go about doing their monsterly deeds?" Strobe had selected his crossbow — the same collapsible, high-tech variation on an ancient weapon the trio had used back in Hidden Hills — and was concealing it in a side slot of his backpack.

"No. What I do know I got from my father. He made contact with one decades ago. A similar situation to this one. The dekayi escaped from his village, got in touch with my father. A meeting place was arranged. When my father arrived, no dekayi. He never heard from him again."

"So his people got to him."

"That's what was assumed."

"Ruthless group."

"It's clear they don't want anyone leaving their community, that's for sure."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Killer Pizza by Greg Taylor. Copyright © 2011 Greg Taylor. Excerpted by permission of Feiwel and Friends.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Prologue: Escape,
Part One: Monstropolis,
Part Two: Lifestyles of the Real and Otherworldly,
Part Three: The Stand,
Epilogue: Good-Bye,
Recipe for Sweet Tooth Pizza,
Acknowledgments,
Copyright,

Editorial Reviews

I love the idea of a pizza joint being a front for fighting monsters! I love the names of the pizzas, and I love the banter between the three friends and the co-workers. THE SLICE includes lots of action, danger, and suspense. It’s a winner!”—Teensreadtoo.com

 

“Readers new to the series can jump right in to this follow-up, which opens with a battle scene and leans heavily on action.”—School Library Journal

 

Praise for Greg Taylor and Killer Pizza:

 

“A monster is roaming the nights in Hidden Hills, Ohio. But why worry about monsters when you can sink your teeth into a Killer Pizza? Greg Taylor serves up a hot slice of horror that I couldn’t put down!”—R.L. Stine

 

“Taylor keeps the action coming at a brisk pace. . . . a fun diversion.”—Publishers Weekly

 

“A delectable choice for horror fans as well as reluctant readers.”—School Library Journal

 

“This much-needed book definitely fills a gap in horror stories for young readers left by the end of the Goosebumps series.”—VOYA

From the Publisher