The summer night pulsed with the rhythmic hum of cicadas, the air rich with the scent of freshly cut grass and lingering barbecue smoke. Down the block, sprinklers hissed like whispers across well-kept lawns, and the sporadic crackle of a bug zapper provided a staccato soundtrack to the evening. Porch lights glowed softly, casting a warm halo over the neighborhood, transforming it into a haven of familiarity and safety.
Sixteen-year-old Zeke was perched on the sturdy branch of a maple tree outside Julie's house; his back pressed against the rough bark. One sneaker dangled above the ground, swaying slightly as he leaned forward, eager and restless. Julie's window was wide open, the soft purple light of a lava lamp spilling into the night like a secret dream.
A mischievous grin crept across Zeke's face as he whispered under his breath, "C'mon, Jules… do something exciting. Take off your top…"
His binoculars gripped tightly in one hand, he felt a rush of adrenaline. His parents believed he was engrossed in "studying astronomy" for extra credit, but the truth was, his telescope had been aimed at a single star all week: Seven-teen-year-old Julie, the girl across the street who lit up his world.
Inside, she sat at her desk, headphones snug against her ears, tapping a pencil rhythmically against her notebook, lost in her own universe. The purple glow from her lava lamp danced across her walls, illuminating posters of horror movies that spoke to her quirky charm. Julie wasn't just Zeke's crush—she was the embodiment of cool. A straight-A student with a sharp wit, she was the only girl at school who could quote every line from Log Cabin Super Ghouls.
But instead of getting ready for bed, she reached under her desk and pulled out a Super Soaker, checking the water tank with a sly glint in her eye. As if sensing his gaze, she pointed it directly at her window, a playful challenge hanging in the air.
Zeke froze, heart racing.
He could see her lips mouthing the words ' 'I see you.' '
Then, with a mischievous grin, she fired. A high-pressure jet of water slammed into his binoculars with surprising force, knocking him off balance and sending him tumbling from the branch.
"GAH—!" he yelped as he crashed into the lawn, the impact jarring his breath from his lungs. "Busted," he groaned, trying to shake off the shock.
Julie leaned out of her window, a triumphant smirk on her face, her laughter ringing like music in the night. "Nice try, Peeping Zeke. Next time, bring a poncho."
Her playful taunt echoed in the stillness, and Zeke couldn't help but laugh, the sting of embarrassment melting away in the warmth of the summer night.
Julie's bedroom window creaked as she leaned out into the late-summer dusk, the pink glow of the setting sun bleeding across the cul-de-sac. Down below, Zeke stood in the yard brushing grass off his jeans after a tumble. His hair still clung with wet from the sprinkler mishap, but he looked up at her with that dumb grin she could never quite stay mad at.
Julie planted her sneaker on the sill, bent her knees, and vaulted out.
One neat tuck. A twirl. Branch creak. A split-second pirouette that would've had her gymnastics coach handing out medals. Then—
thump! She landed catlike on the grass beside him.
Zeke applauded with both hands, sprawled half-sideways like a guy recovering from a stunt gone wrong.
"I give it a 9.0!" he declared, voice mock-serious like an Olympic commentator.
Julie swept imaginary dust from her shorts, tossing her ponytail. "Why thank you! And what would I have to do for a 10?"
"Stick the landing without making me feel like a loser in comparison." He grinned, offering a soggy hand.
She pulled him up with a laugh. "Then you'd have to stop wiping out on sprinklers, and we both know that'll never happen."
They fell into step down the sidewalk, sneakers squeaking faintly on damp concrete. The neighborhood around them hummed with classic summer suburbia: lawn mowers droning in the distance, a backyard radio coughing out Pearl Jam, someone grilling burgers. Fireflies blinked on and off like nature's own neon signs.
"So," Julie said, elbowing him. "Date night."
Zeke mock-gasped. "You remembered!"
"Of course I remembered. Tradition, babe. Last week you made me sit through Marty Falls Through Time." She said it with theatrical exasperation, but her smile betrayed her.
"C'mon, admit it—you loved when Marty skateboarded through the dinosaur stampede."
Julie rolled her eyes. "Fine. The T-Rex chasing him into the drive-in was kinda cool. But you still owe me. Tonight's my pick."
Zeke pointed dramatically down the street as if unveiling a destiny. "And tonight, my lady, we walk boldly into—"
Julie cut him off: "The Dream Mega Mall USA."
They both cracked up.
The sprawling neon beast of a shopping complex loomed ahead, its glass atrium glowing like a spaceship landed on the edge of their town. Even on a Friday night, the parking lot buzzed with minivans, muscle cars, and kids weaving on skateboards. Inside, escalators carried people toward food courts that smelled of fries, orange chicken, and melted butter popcorn.
Zeke and Julie pushed through the entrance doors, eyes darting to the posters plastered across the theater lobby.
Zeke stopped, slapped a palm dramatically against the wall beside one. "Beast Mode. Coming next month. Look at that—giant glowing wolves, martial artists, explosions. Tell me that's not the greatest thing you've ever seen."
Julie cocked an eyebrow, hands on hips. "Mm, looks like two hours of sweaty dudes growling at each other. Pass."
Zeke clutched his chest. "You wound me."
Julie leaned closer to another poster with sleek chrome lettering, on the poster were six teenagers in robot suits and a bigger robot holding hands with a little girl. The tagline read: Friendship Comes in Frames.
"Toy Frames. Now that's what I'm waiting for. Robots are cool. Robots beat wolves every time."
"You just want a cute robot to do your math homework."
Julie smirked. "Exactly."
They laughed, drifting toward the ticket line, Zeke brushing his hand against hers like it was an accident. She noticed, of course. She always noticed.
"You're trying to be smooth again," Julie teased.
"What? No. Just testing out my new 'casual graze' technique."
Julie laced her fingers through his without hesitation. "Let's skip the test run and get straight to the good part."
Zeke nearly tripped over his own feet, but Julie just tugged him toward the popcorn stand, both of them unaware that tonight's "date night" would turn into something far stranger than movie trailers and buttered kernels.
The mall doors sighed shut behind them, sealing out the cicada hum of the suburbs. Inside, the Dream Mega Mall USA was alive. A Friday-night symphony of squeaking sneakers, distant arcade bleeps, fountain splashes, and teenage voices bouncing off every pane of glass. It was the kind of mall where you could live an entire life—food courts, roller rink, mini-golf, four stories of neon escalators—and never see the same hallway twice.
Zeke grinned as he tugged Julie toward the glowing ticket booth.
"C'mon, before every middle schooler in town buys out the front row."
Julie brushed her black-dyed bangs behind one ear, smirking. "Relax, mister urgency. The zombies aren't going anywhere."
The ticket seller was a heavy-eyed college kid, polo shirt half untucked. He barely looked up from his register as Julie stepped forward.
"One for Night of the Gnashing Dead," she said, voice lilting.
"Two," Zeke corrected, tossing a crumpled ten on the counter.
The seller tore their stubs with a sigh. "Auditorium Six. Enjoy."
Behind them in line, a pack of cheerleaders tittered.
Julie felt the eyes before she heard the whisper.
"Oh my god," one of them snickered, "look at her boots. Did Hot Topic have a clearance sale?"
Julie stiffened, lips pressing into a thin line. She didn't turn, didn't bite. She'd been here before—at school, at lockers, even once at the grocery store when her mom wasn't paying attention. She knew the drill: you don't fight it, you outlast it.
But Zeke heard. He always heard.
He leaned close, whispering in her ear as if narrating a nature documentary.
"Observe: the suburban cheerleader, in her natural habitat. Thrives on mockery, fears eyeliner."
Julie bit back a laugh, tension melting. "You're an idiot."
"Your idiot," he said proudly.
She let him take her hand again, their fingers knotting together as they passed through the red-roped threshold.
The smell hit first: melted butter, synthetic cheese powder, root beer fizz. Zeke tugged Julie toward concessions.
"Large popcorn. Always large. Physics demands it."
Julie arched a brow. "Physics?"
"Yes. You buy small, you run out halfway through the previews. You buy medium, you regret not buying large. Therefore, the large is inevitable. Destiny. Science."
Julie laughed so hard she almost dropped her purse.
They settled on one tub big enough to drown in, plus a cherry Icee Julie would inevitably brain-freeze herself on. As they turned toward Auditorium Six, Julie spotted them again—the cheerleaders, clustered near the nacho machine, tossing her sidelong looks.
Julie's smile wavered for half a second. Zeke caught it.
"Hey," he said, soft this time. "They don't get you. I do. That's the only scoreboard that matters."
Her chest softened. She squeezed his hand. "Sometimes you're not as dumb as you look."
Auditorium Six was already buzzing. Kids shouting down rows, a couple making out two seats from the front, someone throwing M&Ms like bullets. Zeke guided Julie toward their usual sweet spot—back third, middle row.
Only tonight, something was waiting for them.
In Zeke's seat, barely visible under the low lights, sat a toy.
Julie leaned down first. "What the—?"
It was an action figure, maybe 15 inches tall, limbs bent into a frozen sprint. He was child-sized.
And not in a way that made him seem cute.
He wore a cape made of stitched-together blanket corners—frayed, beloved, ancient.
His helmet? A repurposed bucket with crayon war paint.
In one hand, he clutched a staff—a totem pole of stacked alphabet blocks, etched with sacred nonsense.
In the other, he held a half-missing plush dinosaur.
One eye gone.
Still smiling.
Zeke frowned, lifting it.
On the bottom of its foot, in careful paint strokes, were three words:
"The First Toy."
Zeke held it up between them. "What a weird name for a doll."
Julie gasped, grin spreading wide. "It's so freaky—I love it!"
Zeke twisted the joints experimentally. "Julie, do you see this? It has, like...at least ninety-seven points of articulation. Ninety-seven! That's three times what Funhouse Toys makes!"
Julie snorted. "And you would know, oh great Toy collector of action figures."
Zeke's eyes sparkled. "Quick! Put it in the bag before someone else sees. We're keeping it."
Julie hesitated only a second before slipping the figure inside her purse, its dimly glowing eyes disappearing into the dark.
They settled into their seats, popcorn balanced precariously between them. Julie leaned her head on his shoulder, the faint hum of the projector kicking to life above.
The lights dimmed. The chatter hushed.
And Date Night truly began.
Deep beneath the earth, past catacombs and collapsing stairwells, past doors that should not open but do, lay the throne chamber of Dr. Tongue.
The room itself was a grotesque parody of a boardroom: a long, steel-bolted table surrounded by flickering torches instead of fluorescent bulbs. At the head, a throne carved from a single fang of some forgotten beast.
Seated upon it, his yellow teeth glinting in the firelight, was Dr. Tongue himself. Lab coat scorched in places, goggles perpetually cracked, his laugh always just below the surface.
He raised his claw-like hands and steepled his fingers.
"Gentlemen. I trust all is in order for our operation?"
A ripple of shadows passed along the table.
The Grey Aliens, four of them, heads bulbous and eyes wet and black, spoke in eerie chorus:
"Yes, my Lord. The Zombifying Comet is ready. When it streaks across this hemisphere, the very air will turn the flesh of humans… pliable."
Dr. Tongue's smile widened. "Excellent. Excellent."
From the far end of the table, a velvet cloak unfurled. Dracula himself leaned forward, pale fingers clutching his goblet of what was absolutely not wine.
"Dah!" he declared, thick accent curling around every syllable. "And my forces of darkness are prepared to invade ze human vorld! Ze bats are restless. Ze wolves… hungry. Even ze brides vhisper your name in ze night, Doctor."
"Splendid," Tongue purred, clapping once.
The torches flared suddenly as the chamber trembled. All eyes turned to the far right corner, where a massive shadow lumbered. With a squeaky thump, it entered view.
It was a baby.
A gigantic, waddling baby, clad in an oversized diaper, a single blond curl bouncing on its round forehead. Its eyes were bright and clueless, its hands sticky with something unnamable.
The baby slammed both fists on the table, rattling the goblets, and boomed in a toddler's voice:
"GOO-GOO, GAH-GAH! BU BU BOOOOO!"
The aliens nodded solemnly. Dracula raised his goblet in approval.
Dr. Tongue leaned forward, eyes alight with manic glee.
"Then it is decided. Tonight—while humanity waste their minds on moving pictures—we begin. Release the first wave. Let suburbia drown in terror."
The Grey Aliens' ship hung silent over the atmosphere, cloaked in its silver veil. Within, their spindly fingers danced across crystalline consoles.
"Trajectory locked," they hummed in eerie harmony. "Twelve miles in diameter. Saturation imminent."
The launch bay yawned open, and with a shriek of physics breaking, the comet ignited—an impossible sphere of glowing, sickly green, tearing itself free into orbit.
It streaked across the sky like a wound tearing open night.
A paperboy, mid-throw, froze as the comet's green light bathed his bicycle.
Those who stared too long screamed once… then fell silent.
Their bodies convulsed, reshaped, corrupted by alien design.
A high-school jock, his varsity jacket ripping, sprouted fur and fangs, howling into the air as a werewolf.
A burly construction worker, lunchbox still clutched in one hand, found his skin splitting beneath the roar of a chainsaw now fused to his arm.
A playground infant, pacifier glowing green, stood upright, a hatchet materializing in its fist—eyes glazed but furious.
A swimmer, caught in the local pool, convulsed as gills ripped open along his neck, body elongating into the scaly form of a Fishman.
Ant mounds in a nearby field boiled over, black insects swelling and mutating into giant ants the size of pickup trucks.
And from every shadow, already waiting for the comet's call, Dracula's vampires rose like smoke from coffins.
The streets of suburbia filled with the shuffle and groan of the inevitable—the slow, unending march of zombies.
Dr. Tongue stood, laughter echoing like a chainsaw through a graveyard.
"Yes… YES! Behold, gentlemen, the birth of our empire!"
The Giant Baby clapped its hands with thunderous force, drool splattering the table.
"BAH-BUUUUU!"
Even Dracula smiled, fang glinting. "At last, ze children vill scream."
The comet's green aurora stretched across the horizon, transforming the world one gaze at a time.
The end credits of Night of the Gnashing Dead rolled, and the house lights came up. Teenagers stretched, crumpled cups tumbled down rows, and the low din of chatter filled the theater.
Julie popped the last few kernels of popcorn into her mouth. "Well. I give that an eight."
Zeke yawned. "Out of what, ten?"
"No," she smirked. "Eight out of eight."
They walked with the herd toward the lobby. And that was when the laughter stopped.
The mall should have been loud—footsteps, music from the food court, the mall-cop's whistle. But as the theater doors swung open, a hush met them. Empty corridors stretched in every direction. The fountain gurgled to itself. Neon signs blinked over deserted stores.
"Uh…" someone muttered behind them. "Where'd everybody go?"
The words hung like a question no one wanted to answer.
Then came the sound.
A low, dragging moan.
From the far escalator, figures shambled into view. Dozens. Torn clothes, limp arms, eyes clouded with a sickly green glow. Their jaws snapped open and shut as they moved in jerks toward the theater crowd.
"ZOMBIES!" a voice screamed.
The crowd broke instantly. Teenagers scattered into side corridors, bolting toward restrooms, stairwells, anywhere but here. A cheerleader tripped over her own purse; her friend grabbed her arm, pulling her into a sprint.
Julie grabbed Zeke's hand. "This way!"
They sprinted through the chaos, cutting across the food court. The groans grew louder, closer—chairs toppled, a soda machine tipped as the horde spread into the atrium.
Ahead: the elevator.
They slid inside just as the first wave staggered into sight, Zeke jamming the "close door" button until the metal panels sealed shut.
The lift lurched upward, groaning as it carried them higher.
"Okay," Zeke panted, leaning against the wall. "That buys us… maybe two minutes."
The elevator jolted. Then went dark.
Emergency lights failed to flicker on. The hum of the motor died. They stood in pitch black.
Julie's breathing quickened. And then—
From the darkness, a muffled voice. Small. Male. Coming from her purse.
"Hey. Let me out of here."
Julie froze. "What—"
The purse rustled.
Julie screamed and flung it off her shoulder. The bag arced through the air, hit the floor with a thud. The zipper burst open, and the toy tumbled out.
It landed on its feet.
Its eyes blazed in the crayon painted war bucket, casting green-blue light against the steel walls. Plastic limbs flexed, joints cracking as it swelled—three times larger, proportions stretching until it was approximately 3 feet tall and hovering in hues of light.
The voice was clear now, echoing in the darkness.
"I am the First Toy."
The aura around it shimmered, pushing back the black. Its painted face didn't smile, but its eyes gleamed with an alien intelligence.
Julie's hands clutched Zeke's arm, her voice a whisper. "Zeke… what the hell is happening?"
The First Toy turned its Bucket head, mechanical but graceful.
"The night of the comet has begun," it said. "And so has your game."
The First Toy's glowing eyes flared brighter. It raised its staff and tapped the floor with authority, the sound reverberating like a drumbeat in the void.
"I declare the game has begun," it said, voice echoing as if more than one speaker lived inside its chest. "They thought they had a chance, they really did. Except… they didn't count on me. An interdimensional reality warper… disrupting their plans."
Zeke blinked. "Wait—games? What games?"
Julie squinted, her fists tight at her sides. "And who exactly are they?"
The First Toy turned slowly, its crayon-painted bucket helm creaking as it angled toward them. For the first time, the bucket smiled—an unsettling, painted grin that somehow felt alive.
"They are the Evil Council. They think to turn this world into their ballroom of blood. But I—" it pressed a glowing hand against its chest, cape fluttering in a wind that wasn't there— "I am the First Toy. And you two are my player pieces."
Julie and Zeke exchanged a stunned look.
The First Toys aura surged, filling the cramped elevator with pulsing circuitry-light. "You will crash the Monster's Ball. You will break their pieces. You will win this fight. For they are in my guarded quadrant of space time, and this infraction… will not be forgiven."
Zeke coughed nervously. "Cool pep talk, Mr. Bucket-Head, but unless you've got a way to arm us—"
Before he could finish, the Toy Lord raised both hands. Reality bent. The floor beneath them rippled like water, and from its glow emerged two weapons—massive, gleaming Super Soakers, sculpted in impossible chrome and neon colors.
Each one hummed with raw energy, their tanks sloshing not with water but with shifting liquid light. Their nozzles glowed like cannons.
Julie's jaw dropped. "Are those—"
"Toy Verse armaments," the First Toy declared. "Upgraded Super Soakers. They fire streams of liquified imagination—plasma. One blast will shred zombie flesh, melt vampire wings, and crack chainsaw steel."
Zeke grabbed one, feeling its weight vibrate with power. His grin went ear to ear. "Oh. My. God. This is the best day of my life."
Julie clutched hers tight, the tank's glow reflecting in her eyes. She whispered, awestruck: "We're supposed to fight back…"
The First Toys eye's gleamed, brighter than ever.
"No. You are supposed to win."
The elevator shook again, the hatch denting inward as claws hammered against it. The groaning chorus outside grew louder.
Julie cocked her Super Soaker, neon lights dancing along the barrel. "Then let's crash this Monster's Ball."