Monster Lake (11 page)

“
Okay.”

Patricia looked around. Crickets were
chirping now, and the sun had long since gone down. “It’s getting
dark,” Terri observed. “I better go home now.”

“
Okay,” Patricia said. “But
don’t forget to call me in the morning.”

“
I won’t. ’Bye.”

Terri walked back to her
own house then. The sky was darkening before her very eyes, the sun
just a dark-orange circle low on the horizon. Stars twinkled
faintly. When she turned onto her own street, a big white-faced owl
hooted at her from some tall trees. And just over the tops of those
same trees, a yellow moon was rising, so large she could see
shadows of its craters. It was a
full
moon.

She tried to distract
herself.
The library,
she thought.
Tomorrow.
There, she and Patricia would be able to find out
more about those strange words because at the library they had a
special wing full of books about science and zoology. And anything
they didn’t understand, they could ask the librarian, Mr. Seymour.
He was a nice man, and he was very smart. Even though she and
Patricia had found the words in the dictionary, Terri still didn’t
quite understand them, nor did she understand what the words might
have to do with whatever was going on. The only thing she could
keep thinking was the idea that her mother and uncle were doing
some sort of experiments.
But what?
Terri asked herself now.
What kind of experiments? And why?

As Terri was walking up her driveway,
another owl hooted at her, and then she noticed several birds
flying in front of the moon…

Or were they bats?

She rushed into the house,
slammed the front door quickly behind her. Suddenly the night had
seemed creepy, and she wanted to get out of it as fast as she
could.
What am I afraid of?
she wondered. But getting back into the house
offered no relief. The house seemed creepy too. Dark. So silent,
she could hear her own eyes blink. Empty.

Yes, the house was
empty.
No one’s here,
she realized after checking in the family room and kitchen.
The lacy curtains around the opened kitchen window puffed back and
forth from a sudden warm breeze outside. “Mom?” Terri called out.
“Are you here?” But there was no answer.

“
Uncle Chuck?”

She waited a moment, but still—

No answer.

Of course, she was really fooling herself.
She knew where they were. The same place they were every night,
sometimes till long after dark…

She peeked out the kitchen window, at the
sinister opening between the trees in the backyard.

They’re still down
there,
she realized.
They’re still down there at the lake…working in the
boathouse…

««—»»

The words echoed ever so faintly:

They’re getting bigger—

Eyes—giant, black, shiny eyes with
gold-colored irises—blinked.

Bigger—

The bushes rustled. Trees shook. Large bent
legs with rumpled, spotted skin strained and pushed forward on big
webbed feet like a duck’s…

Only it wasn’t a duck, was it?

Bigger…

The big black eyes blinked again. They were
so big; they were as big as basketballs!

The crunching sound echoed through the
woods. The giant webbed feet squashed the bushes flat, and as the
thing moved forward, some of the trees actually fell down.

They’re getting
bigger,
the words continued to echo through
her head.

It was a toad, crawling up from the woods
across the backyard in the moonlight—

A toad as big as a car!

Its long, curved, thin-lipped mouth snapped
open, showing teeth the size of kitchen knives…

Bigger, bigger,
bigger,
the words raced round her mind as
the giant, hideous creature hopped toward the house, heading
straight for Terri’s bedroom window—

They’re getting bigger and bigger, Terri,
and they’re coming for you…

««—»»

“
Terri?” A hand gently
nudged her. The voice, at first, seemed far off, like in a dream.
“Terri, honey?”

Terri awoke with a chill buzzing up her
spine; she almost screamed. Her eyes snapped open as she shivered.
She was lying on the couch in the family room, the TV screen full
of white static, and right now, two concerned faces peered down at
her: her mother and Uncle Chuck.

“
Honey, are you all right?”
her mother asked. “My goodness! You’re shivering!”

Gradually, Terri
remembered. She’d come back from Patricia’s and then had gone into
the family room and turned on the TV to watch
The Simpsons,
and then…

I must’ve fallen
asleep,
she realized.
I fell asleep…and dreamed…

“
Terri, honey, are you
sick?” her mother asked.

Uncle Chuck was down on one knee, he put his
palm on her forehead. “She doesn’t have a fever,” he said, “but she
looks awfully pale.”

Terri rubbed her eyes and sat up on the
couch. “I—I’m all right,” she said sleepily. “I just had a bad
dream. I dreamed there was a toad coming up the backyard, but the
toad had teeth, and it was as big as a car…”

Her mother and Uncle Chuck looked worriedly
at each other, in silence. Then Chuck said quickly, “Well, don’t
you worry about that, because everybody has bad dreams sometimes,
and dreams aren’t real. Dreams can never hurt you.”

“
It’s late, honey,” her
mother added. “You better get to bed now.”

“
Up we go,” Uncle Chuck
said, and then he picked Terri up and carried her to her room,
setting her down on her bed.

“
What time is it, Uncle
Chuck?” Terri asked, still groggily rubbing her eyes.

“
Real late. Past midnight.
Your mother and I lost track of time while we were working down
at—”

“
Down at the boathouse,”
Terri finished for him.

“
Er, well, yes,” her uncle
said very quickly. “Like I told you, your mother has a very
important project she’s working on for her job, and I’m helping
her.”

Terri nodded, almost frowning. “Can I go to
the library with Patricia tomorrow?” she asked.

“
Why, sure, honey. But
right now, you better get to sleep, okay?”

“
Okay,” she said.
“Goodnight.”

“
Goodnight.”

Then Uncle Chuck left her bedroom and closed
the door.

Terri put on her pajamas and got into bed;
she was still very tired, but when she reached to turn off the
light, her hand hesitated in the air.

She didn’t want to turn it off.

Because as tired as she was, and as much as
she’d like to go back to sleep, there was one thing that bothered
her.

If I go back to
sleep,
she considered,
maybe I’ll have that dream again.

It was definitely the
scariest dream she’d ever had: the giant monster-toad, as big as
their station wagon, and with teeth the size of kitchen knives! And
when she thought about it just then, she began to shiver again. But
then she calmed herself, and thought:
Don’t be a baby, Terri. Toads
never
get that big!

Uncle Chuck was right: everybody had bad
dreams sometimes, and dreams could never hurt you because they
weren’t real. They were just thoughts and fears inside your head,
and they always went away. Dreams were nothing to worry about.

But then, she knew,
there
were
some
other things she had to worry about.
Like
the way Mom and Uncle Chuck looked at each other when I told them I
dreamed about a huge toad with teeth.
Plus,
the strange words and the boathouse and the glass tanks, the locked
trapdoor, and the weird bottles full of that creepy, ugly-looking
gunk.

But she tried not to think about any of that
now. She got up her courage, turned off her light, and then lay
back in bed to go to sleep.

But…she
couldn’t
…

Nightsounds flowed in through her open
window, a great, loud throbbing sound from all the crickets and
peepers and tree frogs that lived in the woods behind the house.
The moonlight flowed in too, and cast a large square of eerie
faint-white light on the floor. Terri irritably tossed and turned
in the covers. The more she tried to go back to sleep, the more
awake she felt.

Minutes ticked by but they seemed like
hours. Eventually, though, Terri began to nod off and slowly drift
back to sleep, until—

Ka-CRACK!

She jerked up in
bed.
What was that!
she wondered in brand-new fear. She’d heard a loud cracking
sound coming from the open window. She wanted to get up and look
out the window, but something kept her from doing so, and she knew
what it was: fear. She didn’t dare look out the window because if
she did she was afraid she’d see all those big, toothed toads in
the yard like she had the other night. But there was one thing she
was certain of: the loud cracking sound she’d heard had come from
deep in the woods behind the house…

From the lake,
she realized with a chill.

And one other thing she noticed. The room
was completely silent now. The steady, throbbing nightsounds had
stopped the instant she’d heard the cracking, almost as if all
those crickets and peepers had gotten scared from the noise and
fell silent.

And then—

Ka-CRACK!
she heard again. And:

SPLASH!

Something had fallen into
the lake, something, she knew, that was very, very
big
…

Don’t be stupid,
Terri,
she kept telling herself. It was
nothing to be afraid of. It was probably just a tree branch
breaking off and falling in the water.

Yeah,
she thought sleepily, her eyes growing heavy.
Just a tree branch…falling…in the
water…

And a moment later, Terri fell fast
asleep.

And because she was asleep now, she never
heard the next sound that sailed out of the woods:

A scream…

««—»»

An hour earlier, Terri wasn’t the only one
who was having trouble falling asleep. Patricia, too, lay wide
awake in her bed, tossing and turning. So many things were on her
mind right now, things that bothered her, things that just weren’t
right.

The big toad that had jumped out at her this
morning, causing her to fall and cut her knee. And that big
slimy-black salamander she and Terri had seen on the boathouse
pier.

With fangs,
she remembered.
The toad
and the salamander both had fangs…

Patricia wanted to tell her parents but she
knew she couldn’t. Her parents would never believe her; they’d
think she was making it all up. And Patricia knew there was only
one way to prove to her parents that it was true…

I’ll have to go back to
the boathouse,
she thought.
I’ll have to catch one of the toads or
salamanders and show it to them. Then they’ll
have
to believe me.

And she knew she’d have to
go alone; Terri would never go back to the boathouse herself—she
could get into too much trouble.
I’ll have
to go by myself,
Patricia realized.
I’ll have to go alone…

It was a crazy idea, she knew, and a scary
one, but she knew that if she was careful, she could do it.

But then she thought about
that big black salamander again and remembered how big it was—over
three-feet long!—and that toad that had jumped out at her—it was
pretty big too, now that she thought about it. Trying to catch
something that big would be hard or maybe even impossible. The
things would try to bite her if she got too close or tried to pick
one up, and, besides, what could she use to catch one with?
A bucket? A big plastic garbage bag?
she wondered. But, no, she couldn’t see any way to
do that without the risk of getting bitten, and she sure didn’t
want to get bitten by one of those ugly things!

But—

Wait a minute!
she thought next. There
was
a way she could show her parents
without actually catching one, wasn’t there? Downstairs in one of
the cabinets in the den, her father had a digital camera, and it
had a built in flash so it would work in the dark.

I could take some pictures
of the toads and salamanders!
she
realized.
And then show them to my
parents. Then they’d have to believe me!

What a great idea!

Patricia, excited now, got
out of bed and quickly put on her shorts, T-shirt and sandals. Then
she sneaked downstairs. All the lights were out, and she knew her
parents had gone to bed hours ago. She tiptoed through the hall to
the den, careful not to make any noise, and after only a minute or
two, she found her father’s digital camera in one of the
cabinets.
There it is!
she thought.

Then she grabbed the camera and snuck out of
the house.