From the creator of My Life As a Teenage Robot comes the second story in a middle-grade horror series about a horrible bag, the spine-chilling world hidden within it, and a terrifying adventure into the world of GrahBhag. Perfect for fans of Coraline , the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Small Spaces . Zenith Maelstrom knows he’s forgetting something… But he can’t quite remember what. He wakes up to notes in his handwriting with messages like, “Prepare for battle!” – but what battle? – and his sister Apogee seems to grow angrier with him by the day. It’s not until he finds Apogee sneaking back into the horrible bag hidden away in their basement that all the dreadful details about GrahBhag resurface. The spiderlike Shlurps. The trio of foul mouths that hunger for blood. Eldritch horrors around every corner. Desperate to save Apogee from her ill-planned attempt to right the wrongs of their last trip into the bag, Zenith is forced to follow her into the bizarre world that has certainly not forgotten them. Between old foes set on vengeance like Raggedy Albert and terrifying new ones like the haunting Wraith, Zenith will have to put things right with his sister without falling into the clutches of those who would do him harm. For if he is caught, Eternity Tower awaits... With a combination of dry, absurdist humor and no-holds-barred horror, Rob Renzetti has crafted a delightfully imaginative fantasy world that will hook readers as surely as it will send chills down their spines. "Renzetti’s imaginative world and its creatures are delightfully dark and twisted… A well-paced follow-up full of deliciously nightmarish creatures and scenes."— Kirkus Praise for The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things : "This book is Terrible, Horrible, and a fiendish delight. Rob Renzetti will send a shiver down your spine and give you a phobia of bags that you never will recover from. Open at your own dismay!"—Alex Hirsch, New York Times best-selling author and creator of Gravity Falls "Exhilarating, spooky, and reminiscent of Through the Looking Glass— if everyone and everything in Wonderland was trying to kill Alice."— Shelf Awareness , starred review Rob Renzetti is a veteran of TV animation whose work on Cartoon Network’s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends earned him an Emmy. He created the Nickelodeon show My Life as a Teenage Robot , acted as the supervising producer for Disney’s Gravity Falls , and served as executive producer on the first two seasons of Disney’s Big City Greens, among other projects. Recently, he has published four books for Disney Publishing, including the New York Times #1 Best Seller Gravity Falls: Journal 3 and Onward: Quests of Yore . The Mysterious Message The bag hissed. When he shoved the hockey stick inside its overstuffed interior, he could have sworn that it hissed in protest. He dropped the bag to the entryway floor. “Hey, watch it.” His friend Kevin chuckled. “I said you could borrow my stuff, not break it.” Zenith Maelstrom ignored Kevin Churl’s sarcasm and stared at his friend’s scruffy duffel bag. The “hissing” was just the sound of the wooden stick scraping the bag’s vinyl interior, but Zenith heard it as a complaint. He’d already crammed Kevin’s baseball bat, tennis racket, and four croquet mallets inside, and he supposed the bag had had enough. Too bad. He grabbed the hockey stick again and shoved it all the way inside the duffel. Zenith tried to zip the bag shut, but only made it halfway before the bulky equipment inside stopped him. He opened the bag back up, then tried zipping faster, as if he could surprise the laws of physics. The seam affixing the zipper to the bag began to rip. “Hey, what did my bag ever do to you?” Kevin’s tone was a little less playful this time. With reluctance, Zenith unzipped the bulging bag. He felt silly. Why was he getting so upset? Kevin’s duffel wasn’t his enemy. It was just a bag with too much stuff inside. And yet he wanted to thrash it for defying him. “So, uh,” Kevin said. “Happy to loan you my equipment. Can you tell me why you need it?” “I can’t,” said Zenith. He flipped the bulbous heads of the croquet mallets around so that the bulky parts of the gear were evenly distributed within the bag, rather than bunched up at one end. Now the zipper closed. “Okay . . . Can you tell me when you’ll return it?” “I can’t,” repeated Zenith. With some difficulty, he shouldered the heavy bag and offered Kevin his hand. Kevin slowly shook it. “Can you tell me anything at all?” “I can’t,” said Zenith as he left through the front door and headed toward his own house at the other end of the block. “Okay, then, thanks!” Kevin called. “Always a pleasure chatting with you.” Zenith felt bad asking so much from his friend and giving so little in return. He couldn’t tell Kevin why he needed his equipment. He couldn’t tell himself why he needed it. He couldn’t remember. He took a note from the pocket of his dark blue hoodie, hop