by R. L. Stine
I pointed to the wall. “The banner —” I said to the Horrors. “We’re back in HorrorLand — right? It says we’re back in HorrorLand.”
Some of the Horrors laughed.
“That’s his idea of a joke,” one of them muttered.
“He has a twisted sense of humor,” another Horror said. He sneered. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
I gasped. “You mean — we’re still in Panic Park?”
“Who are you talking about?” Carly Beth demanded. “Who has a twisted sense of humor?”
“Yeah. Who put up that banner?” Matt asked.
The Horrors didn’t answer. They stood in their tight line, staring at us coldly.
“What do you want?” Matt asked. “Tell us. Why are you guarding us? What are you going to do to us?”
They didn’t move or speak.
I felt a wave of panic roll down my body. I shuddered.
After a long silence, Matt turned to Jillian. “They won’t talk. But you can read their minds — right?”
Jillian faced one of the Horrors, a tall creature with yellow fur on top of his green head.
“Go ahead,” Matt urged. “Quick. Read his mind. What do they plan to do?”
Jillian squinted up at the Horror and concentrated hard.
He stared back at her without moving.
A few seconds passed. Then Jillian stepped back.
“I … I can’t,” she stammered. “They’re Horrors. They’re not human. I can’t read their thoughts.”
I let out a sharp cry.
I grabbed Jillian by the shoulders. “Jillian, how could you DO that to all of us?” I screamed.
She snatched my wrists and shoved my hands away. “What are you talking about?” she cried.
“You lied!” I shouted. “You are a LIAR!”
She blinked at me. “Lizzy, you’re crazy! You’re totally crazy!”
“No,” I insisted. “You told us you could read Byron’s mind — remember? When he showed up here and took us to The Midnight Maze. We asked you to read his thoughts. We asked if he was telling the truth.”
“So?” Jillian sneered at me.
“You said you read Byron’s mind. You told us Byron was telling the truth,” I said. “You said we could trust Byron. But Byron is a Horror. And now you say you can’t read Horrors’ minds.”
“Well …” Jillian’s cheeks turned red. She took a step back.
“You’re a total liar!” I repeated. I moved toward her angrily. “You lied about me. And you lied about Byron. Why?”
Jackson stepped between us. “Give Jillian a break,” he said. “Get out of my sister’s face.”
Matt gave Jackson a hard shove — and knocked Jackson onto his back. “You’re both liars — aren’t you!” Matt said. “We thought you were our friends. Why did you trick us? Why did you do this to us?”
Jillian’s face became more flushed. She had tears in her eyes. She shook her head hard, as if she was confused. “I — I —” she stammered.
Then suddenly the Horrors backed up. I turned in time to see a man step out from behind them.
He wore a black suit and a black shirt. His face was hidden in the shadow of a wide-brimmed black hat.
“Go ahead — fight!” he said in a booming, deep voice. “Mix it up. Go ahead, Lizzy. You’re right. Jillian lied to you. Jillian is a liar! Tear her hair. Come on — rip her eyes out! Let’s go, everyone! Let’s fight! I love this! Don’t you just LOVE it?”
I struggled to see the man’s face. But he kept it well hidden under the brim of the black hat.
Staring hard, I realized he was completely covered in black. He wore a black tie over his black shirt. He even had black gloves over his hands.
I backed away from Jillian.
Jackson climbed to his feet and huddled beside his sister.
We all stared in silence at the man with the booming voice.
“No one wants to mix it up? No one wants to give me a good fight? Show me some blood?”
He sounded truly disappointed.
“We just want to know where we are,” Matt said. “And what’s going on here.”
“Let me welcome you,” the man said. “I hope you enjoyed your first little test in Panic Park.”
“Test?” Michael cried. “What kind of test?”
“You did very well,” the man said, ignoring Michael’s question. “Very well indeed. I enjoyed seeing you tremble in fear. Your fear was very real. That’s what we want. REAL fear! And I liked the way you dealt with it. Very impressive.”
“This dude is way weird,” Luke whispered to me. “Is he joking?”
“I wish,” I muttered.
“I already knew you were brave,” the man continued. “That’s why you were all chosen. And you showed a lot of courage in The Midnight Maze. But that was baby stuff.”
He chuckled. “Now we’ll see how brave you are when it REALLY starts to get scary!”
Some kids gasped.
I felt my heart skip a beat.
Panic Park had been terrifying from the moment we arrived. Why was he talking about making it scarier?
“Who are you?” Michael shouted. “Are we supposed to be scared of you because you’re all dressed in black? Why don’t you give us a break and tell us what you want.”
The man touched the brim of his hat. “My name is Karloff Mennis,” he said. “Most people call me The Menace.”
My heart skipped again. I had a sudden heavy feeling in my stomach.
The Menace. We had heard that name before.
“I am your host here,” he said. “I built this park. I brought you here for a reason. I need a favor. Just one little favor, that’s all.”
“A favor from us?” Carly Beth cried.
He nodded.
“If we do it, can we go home?” Carly Beth asked.
“Well … that’s just it,” The Menace replied, lowering his voice. “The simple favor is this … I need you to stay here in Panic Park — FOREVER!”
The Menace was dressed in black from head to toe. His shirt and tie, his pants, his jacket, his shoes, were the deepest black. He wore black gloves. And his face was completely hidden in the shadow of a wide-brimmed black hat.
We had been forced to march down long, dark halls. The walls were gray. The plaster cracked and peeling. I saw no windows.
We ended up in a huge, empty chamber. Our footsteps scraped loudly over the stone floor.
The gray walls were bare. They rose up forever to a balcony that overlooked the chamber.
At the front of the room there was a stage. And a podium. And the man dressed in black. There were no chairs in front of the stage. We stood awkwardly, huddled together.
Behind us, the door was blocked by shadow people. They watched silently as The Menace gripped the podium with his gloved hands.
“Well, well, well … don’t all of you look FRIGHTENED!” he said. His voice rang off the high stone walls.
Matt Daniels is tall and athletic. He is one of the bravest kids. He stepped forward and shouted up to the stage. “Why did you bring us here? What do you want?”
The Menace uttered a cold laugh. “Love the sound of your fear!” he cried. “LOVE it! LOVE it!”
Matt stepped back. He muttered something to Carly Beth Caldwell. Carly Beth is little and pixyish and looks much younger than her age — twelve.
Luke and I stood behind them. I couldn’t hear what Matt said.
The Menace’s words still rang in my ears. His voice was deep but hoarse at the same time.
His icy laugh raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“How does it feel to be so completely AFRAID?” he asked. “Do you think it’s possible to be scared to death? Well, good friends … we’re going to test that out — aren’t we!”
Luke squeezed my hand. “Is he for real?” he whispered.
I started to answer, but the words caught in my throat.
Billy Deep and his sister, Sheena, took a few steps back
from the stage. They kept glancing behind us to the door. Probably thinking of making a run for it.
Britney Crosby and her friend Molly Molloy couldn’t hide the fear from their faces. They stood with their arms crossed tightly in front of them and their jaws clenched.
“We escaped HorrorLand to come to this place!” Matt shouted up to the stage. “We were told we’d be safe here.”
“Safe?” The Menace replied. “No one is safe in MY park!” He slapped the podium with both hands. “Uh-oh, guys. Don’t look now, but I think someone LIED to you.”
His words created an uproar. We all started talking at once.
And then Matt and Michael Munroe stepped in front of Jillian and her twin brother, Jackson. Matt balled his fists at his sides. “YOU’RE the ones who lied to us!” he cried.
We formed an angry circle around Jillian and Jackson.
“You tricked us into coming to Panic Park,” Carly Beth said. “Lizzy told the truth — that we’d be safer in HorrorLand. But you told us she was lying.”
“We thought you were our friends!” Carly Beth’s friend Sabrina Mason said in a trembling voice. “How could you DO that to us?”
Michael is big and powerful. His nickname back home is Monster.
He pushed his face right up to Jillian’s. “Admit it,” he said angrily. “Admit it, Jillian. You tricked us into coming here — because you and your brother were working for The Menace the whole time!”
“NO!” Jillian cried. She stumbled back, trying to get away. But Michael stayed right in her face.
“It’s not true!” Jackson shouted. “Leave my sister alone!”
“We … we were never working for The Menace!” Jillian stuttered, her face bright red. “It’s not true. It’s not TRUE!”
“Oh, but it IS true!” the voice from the stage called.
I gasped. A silence fell over the big room.
“It is true!” The Menace said to the twins. “Don’t lie to your friends.”
“But … but …” Jillian stammered.
The Menace raised a gloved hand to silence her. “Where do you think your special powers came from? From that tacky wooden fortune-teller? Of course not. Your powers came special delivery from yours truly, the one and only Menace!”
“No!” Jillian cried, shaking her head again and again. “No! No!”
“We didn’t know!” Jackson exclaimed. He turned to Matt and Michael and the rest of us. “We didn’t know we were helping The Menace! I swear!”
“You’re both liars!” Michael cried.
“No —” Jackson tried to duck away.
But Michael punched him hard in the stomach, then tackled him to the stone floor. Grunting and groaning, the two boys wrestled at our feet.
“Stop it! STOP it!” Jillian screamed, her hands pressed tightly to her cheeks.
“Love it! LOVE it!” called The Menace, thumping the podium with his gloved fists. “I can SMELL the fear in this room!”
Michael gave Jackson one last punch, then he jumped up.
Jackson lay sprawled on his back, groaning and rubbing his sore stomach.
“Oh, come on.” The Menace sighed. “Don’t you want to fight some more? You know it makes me happy.”
I squinted hard, trying to see the face under the wide brim of the black hat. But I could see only shadow.
Is there a face under there?
The Menace raised one arm and waved to the shadow people at the back of the chamber. “Come over here, shades. Take Jillian and Jackson away.”
“Huh?” Jillian let out a cry.
“Take them away,” The Menace ordered. “They’ve done their job brilliantly. But … I have no more use for them.”
“Wait —” Jackson cried. “What do you MEAN?”
“What are you going to do to us?” Jillian wailed.
But they didn’t get an answer.
Shadow people slid around them. Covered them in a blanket of darkness. And herded them out of the room through a narrow door behind the stage.
I shuddered. I could still hear the twins screaming from the other side of the door.
The Menace leaned over the podium toward us. “How frightening is that?” he said. “Ooh, I’m shaking. I’m tingling all over. And the fun hasn’t even started yet!”
I heard a noise. I turned in time to see Billy Deep spin around and break for the door behind us, his shoes clattering on the hard floor.
“Let’s go! We’re OUTTA here!” he screamed.
Sheena started to follow him.
“No — WAIT!” I cried. “Billy — DON’T!”
I saw the danger. I guess Billy didn’t care.
He was almost to the entrance when a group of shadow people floated in front of him.
They wrapped themselves around him. For a long moment, we couldn’t see him. He disappeared behind the shadows.
I held my breath. And watched him come bursting out — right through the shadow people.
We all saw him. We all saw what had happened to him.
But his sister, Sheena, was the first to scream. “NOOOO! Oh, NO! What have you done to my brother?”
R.L. Stine’s books are read all over the world. So far, his books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children’s authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written the teen series Fear Street and the funny series Rotten School, as well as the Mostly Ghostly series, The Nightmare Room series, and the two-book thriller Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and Minnie, his King Charles spaniel. You can learn more about him at www.RLStine.com.
Goosebumps book series created by Parachute Press, Inc.
Goosebumps HorrorLand #11: Escape from HorrorLand
copyright © 2009 by Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, GOOSEBUMPS, GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First printing, June 2009
e-ISBN 978-0-545-30113-8
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