Monsterville

by Sarah S. Reida

  On impulse, I dove to the floor and grabbed a fistful of scattered Monsterville cards. Like the journal, they might come in handy Down Below. “Ready,” I panted.

  Blue dove headfirst under the bed, vanishing through the floor. His head popped up. It looked so gross—a severed goblin head under Haylie’s bed. Then it popped back under the floor. “Come on.” Blue’s voice was muffled. “I’ll pull you under.”

  I scrambled under the bed, scratching around for a trapdoor or a raised edge—something. I felt only hard wood. I rapped on it. “Little help?”

  “Lissa?” Adam asked quietly. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing yet!” I whispered, just as Blue’s bony hands shot through the floor and wrapped around my wrists. I watched my outstretched hands being sucked into the floor. It was like moving through molasses—I couldn’t breathe and my body felt squeezed in on all sides, like I was in one of those vacuum bags used to shrink down clothes.

  The feeling passed, and I fell, landing hard on stony ground. “Ow!” I yelped, getting to my feet and squinting around me. It looked like I was in a cave—rocky walls and ground, and hazy light. A cold wind chilled my face, and I pulled my jacket up.

  Blue reached overhead, grunting and pulling at something. His hands had disappeared into dark shadow.

  “One. Two. Three!” he counted, tugging hard, and Adam tumbled down next to me.

  “Ouch!” he said, catching himself with his hands. He shook his head, looking dazed. “That was weird.”

  “I’ll say.” I helped him up. “So. This is Down Below.”

  ACT THREE

  DOWN BELOW

  SCENE ONE:

  SIX HOURS LEFT

  There wasn’t much to see, at least not yet. I paused, letting my eyes adjust to the dimness. We were in a twisting tunnel. When I groped to the right, my hand connected with a cold, rough surface, and light trickled in up ahead. Blue nodded, running a gnarled hand along the wall. “This is it,” he said softly, then pointed up. A soft light edged the portal we’d come through, like a door closed on a lit room. “See that? Your portal glows when it’s open.”

  “Huh,” I replied. I was more concerned with where we were going, not where we’d come from.

  Adam dropped his backpack to the ground and surveyed the area. “Let’s get down to business,” he said brusquely, pulling something small from the front pocket. “This is for you.” He extended something to me that glinted in the dim light.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a Boy Scout Backpacker Wrist Watch. Unbreakable, waterproof, and it glows in the dark.”

  I examined it. “Thanks! Wow, this is really nice. But you didn’t have to buy me this.”

  “I didn’t. I stole Charlie’s from his nightstand before I left.” Adam grinned. “Now!” He clapped his hands. “How do we get to Haylie? Which path?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I crept forward, keeping my hand against the wall for balance. My whole body trembled. “The middle right path is the shortest,” I said. “When we played, the person on that path always won. But Aunt Lucy’s journal went on and on about how the spiders will kill you …”

  “We can’t risk a spider bite we can’t treat. Not down here.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. So … middle left path.”

  “Is that what your gut says?” Adam asked. “Middle left path?”

  I made up my mind. “Yeah. Middle left. Sandmen and mummies and zombies. Let’s go!”

  I sounded just like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Only sandmen and mummies and zombies were way more terrifying than lions, tigers, and bears. I cracked my knuckles and took a deep breath.

  Then I noticed Blue. His forehead was beaded in sweat and even in the dusky light, he looked ghostly pale.

  “Blue? You okay?”

  “Atticus,” he whispered.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll protect you from him,” Adam said, standing up straighter.

  Blue managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”

  “Ugh.” I closed my eyes. Being down here still felt surreal. “We’re in Monsterville. The game.”

  “This ain’t no game,” Adam replied quietly.

  “No kidding. How much time do we have to get out of here?” I twisted my arm to glance at my new watch. “A quarter after midnight. How long until sunup?”

  “Six hours. It’ll come up right around quarter after six.”

  My pulse quickened. Six hours to find Haylie and escape back up through the portal. Six hours before sunup, and then we were all doomed. Panic bubbled up inside me, and I took a step forward.

  Adam grabbed my arm. “Wait, we need to feel out the terrain first.”

  I bit my lip. He was right, of course. Charging full speed ahead was a recipe for getting killed. I knew better than that.

  Adam pulled three flashlights out of his backpack. “The batteries in these are good for twelve hours.” He handed one to me and one to Blue.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Blue, do you know how to get to the four paths? You know, how they’re laid out in Monsterville?”

  “I think so.” He pointed. “They’re that way.”

  “I’ll go first.” Adam switched on his flashlight and aimed it toward the opening at the end of the tunnel. “Everyone ready?”

  “Wait.” I thrust Lucy’s journal and the Monsterville cards at him. “Do you mind keeping these safe?”

  Adam glanced at them, his face brightening. “Good call! We can use these.” He unzipped his backpack and stowed them before starting down the rocky passageway. He didn’t even hesitate, which made me feel a little bit safer.

  Without a word, Blue and I followed, our footsteps echoing against the flinty walkway, our breaths coming in shallow gasps.

  We were about to enter the depths of Aunt Lucy’s Monsterville.

  SCENE TWO:

  FIVE HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LEFT

  The end of the tunnel opened up on a huge area. “Whoa,” I said in a low voice, glancing around. “What is this? A landfill?”

  We stood on a ledge overlooking a cavernous pit. It was filled with garbage stacked in teetering piles. Peering from behind a large slab of rock, we watched goblins push wheelbarrows along trails that twisted among the piles. One goblin wearing a green nightgown and fuzzy pink slippers picked something off a mound, sniffed it, and tossed it into her wheelbarrow.

  A bright yellow beach umbrella protruded from a heap directly in front of us, open and miraculously unripped. It seemed out of place among all the old junk. Too bright and too new.

  “Oh!” Blue exclaimed. “This is all from the reaping.”

  “What’s the reaping?” Adam asked.

  “Remember how I said that monsters collect old things that humans won’t miss? Well, on Monster New Year, monsters deliver what they don’t need here. For sharing.”

  “That’s actually pretty smart,” I said grudgingly. Even if monsters stunk at life—or nonlife or whatever their status was—that didn’t mean they weren’t practical.

  I cleared my throat, scanning the cavern for the four different paths. I didn’t see them. “How do we get around the other goblins? Adam and I should avoid being seen, right?”

  “Goblins probably won’t hurt us.” Blue said. “And monsters rummaging for Monster New Year stuff are distracted. But they might tell other monsters we’re here.”

  “Well, let’s avoid attracting attention,” Adam said.

  “Agreed,” I said. “Come on.” In my head, I pictured a big clock with the time ticking down, down …

  We descended a rocky path to the bottom of the pit. It smelled rotten, and I held my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth.

  That’s when I saw them. Four different paths, each one leading into a different cave. My stomach flipped. Showtime.

  “Middle left,” I murmured. “Hurry, before someone sees us.”

  We crept along the path, heads lowered. My legs itched to run, but I knew we needed to be as inconspicuous
as possible.

  When we reached the mouth of the cave, Adam pushed Blue and me behind him. “I’ll go first. Scout the area.”

  I thought of the first time Adam and I had explored the woods together. How I hid behind him like a big chicken. “No, I got you into this. I should go first.”

  Adam glanced back at me. There was a smudge of dirt on his forehead, and I resisted the urge to wipe it off. “I want to,” he said. “I’m the tallest, and I know how to handle the wilderness.” He flicked on his flashlight and aimed it on the ground in front of him. “Trust me.”

  “I do.” I reached for Blue’s hand. He was shaking. “Don’t worry,” I told him, squeezing. “We’ll be out of here in no time.” I sounded more confident than I felt.

  The trail through the cave twisted and turned. I played my flashlight along the roof where ragged stalactites hung down like huge icicles—glittering daggers of bright purple, pink, and blue. They were so pretty I almost forget how deadly they were. If one fell on me, I was a goner.

  I could hear water dripping, and I strained to identify other sounds. Rustling, grumbling, slow footsteps—the classic indicators of trouble in any horror film. Nothing.

  We moved effortlessly through the dark. Adam didn’t even have to slouch, and nothing attacked us. It was so easy it made me a little uncomfortable. I had the horrible feeling we were being set up.

  Soon, the tunnel widened and the ceiling rose. I realized we weren’t in the cave anymore. A rocky path wound around the base of a hill. I shivered and pulled up my hood.

  Above us, I could see stars sparkling. It felt like I was mountain climbing, only I was underground.

  There was a loud hiss, followed by a popping sound. “Cover your head!” Blue warned. Something pelted us from above, shattering when it hit the ground.

  “What was that?” Adam asked, crouching low. He reached for broken fragments, but Blue grabbed his hand.

  “Don’t touch! It’s hot!”

  Adam straightened. “But what the heck was that?”

  “A light,” Blue said. “Some monsters are really good at electricity, so they rig fake stars.”

  I peered up. Sure enough, those weren’t stars. Underground, they couldn’t have been. Strings of light bulbs crisscrossed the ceiling. “Well, at least we won’t always need our flashlights.”

  “Good point.” Adam snapped his light off. “Let’s conserve power.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water. “Anyone want one?”

  I shook my head, but Blue took the bottle and drank it all. No self-control whatsoever. Then again, he was a monster. And a little kid.

  My heart ached for him. We were journeying through Monsterville to save Haylie from his fate. I hoped he didn’t realize that.

  We rounded a corner, and everything went black. I waved my hand in front of my nose, but I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Guys?” My voice sounded thin.

  A beam of light shot through the dark, highlighting a boulder next to me.

  “Guess we’ll need these after all,” Adam said. “That was weird. How’d it get dark so fast?”

  Something scaly touched my elbow, and I jumped.

  But it was just Blue. “Atticus said that Down Below, everything changes fast. Light to dark, cold to hot. Desert to arctic, swamp to jungle.”

  As he finished explaining, I realized I wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, my forehead was damp and sweat was trickling down my spine. I put my hood down and pushed up my sleeves.

  “Man!” Adam took another swig from his water bottle. “It’s getting hot!”

  “Can I have a water now?” I asked. He tossed one to me, and I took a long gulp. It was the best water in the history of the planet.

  The smell of burning plastic hit my nostrils, and I sniffed the air. What was that? I aimed my flashlight to the left.

  The hills and rocks were gone. We were standing in a desert. A huge cactus rose from a sandy hill, its smooth, green form dotted with enormous, bloodred flowers. And massive needles. If I had bumped against it, it would have been like hugging a porcupine.

  I felt something sticky and looked down. When I picked up my foot, a long string of something gummy stretched from the bottom of my sneaker. The plastic on my soles was melting. More sweat trickled down my forehead, but I didn’t think it was from the heat.

  I shined my flashlight on the ground. It was hard, cracked earth the color of rust. Only a few steps later, the hard dirt turned to sand.

  “Blue?” Adam asked nervously. “Do you have normal wildlife down here? You know, like snakes and birds and … scorpions?”

  I sucked in my breath. Is that something crawling up my leg?

  “I don’t think so,” Blue said. “Down Below isn’t like Up There. Lots of things don’t live so far below the surface.”

  Adam looked thoughtful. “No ecosystem,” he said. “Or at least, not any natural kind of ecosystem.”

  I sighed. At least I didn’t have to worry about bugs and snakes. Just, you know, huge hairy monsters with eight rows of teeth. No big deal.

  “Do you know how far we have to go, Blue?” I asked, tilting my head to look up at the sky. I couldn’t see anything. The space could have gone on forever or ended ten feet above us—it was too dark to tell.

  “No, I don’t remember. Sorry.”

  “Terrific,” I mumbled. “We’ll probably get there right in time for Transformation.”

  “Don’t joke, Lissa,” Adam said sharply. “We can’t think like that.”

  “Sorry,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. I wished this was a nightmare. Or a scene in a movie, so a director could yell “cut!” and get us out of here.

  My legs began to ache. Walking was getting hard. I had to fight to take each step—kind of like wading through deep snow.

  Soon, I felt a change in the terrain surface and frowned. What was going on?

  “Huh,” Adam said. “Do you notice something?”

  “The ground,” I said. “It’s not hard anymore.” With every step, my sneaker sank into the sand, and I had to wrench it out.

  “Desert quicksand.” Adam stopped. “Okay. According to the Monsterville board, what’s the first thing we’ll run into?”

  “The sandman,” I said quietly.

  “How do you beat a sandman?”

  “Can I get into your backpack? I need to see what the card says.”

  Adam twisted and I unzipped his backpack, digging until I found the pile of cards. I flipped through them quickly, then sighed.

  “We don’t have that one. I didn’t have time to grab them all. Talk about bad luck!” Annoyed, I shoved the stack of cards back into the pocket.

  “Do you need it, though? Haven’t you played that game a million times?”

  “I shouldn’t need it,” I admitted. “But I can’t remember the rhyme.” I was too on edge to think clearly. My hands trembled, and my head buzzed. I needed to get it together.

  Adam reached into his backpack. “Guess we need to go to plan B.”

  “What’s that?” I asked him.

  He tossed me a length of rope. “Here. Hand Blue the other end. If one of us gets stuck in the quicksand, the other two can pull him out.”

  “Or her.” I grabbed the middle of the rope and tossed the end to Blue. “Don’t let go,” I warned him. It was an obvious thing to say, like “don’t get hit by a car” or “don’t burn yourself,” but I couldn’t help myself.

  The ground got stickier, and our pace slowed even more. I had to wrench my foot out of the ground with every step. My leg muscles were burning.

  “It hurts,” Blue whimpered.

  “Just for a little longer,” I replied, aiming my flashlight to see if solid ground was nearby. Nope.

  Suddenly, a hand burst through the ground and wrapped around my left ankle, strong and tight. Fireworks of pain shot through my entire leg.

  I shrieked, almost dropping the rope. “Adam! Blue! Help!”

  The hand’s grip was
like iron, drawing me into the ground. Gritty sand crept up over my ankles, and before I knew it, I was waist-deep in the muck. I dropped my water bottle and flashlight and clutched the rope, trying to kick my way free.

  It was like trying to fight off a five hundred—pound gorilla. I couldn’t loosen the sandman’s hold no matter how much I squirmed and kicked.

  “Blue, get behind me!” Adam commanded. “Hurry!” They braced themselves against the creature’s pull.

  With each passing second, I sank deeper. Now I was up to my armpits. I would have screeched in agony, but I could barely breathe. The sand was crushing me.

  “One. Two. Three. Pull!” Adam screamed, and I moved up an inch. “One. Two. Three. Pull!” Adam screamed again, and I moved up another inch.

  But for every inch I moved when they pulled, I sank three when the rope slackened.

  Adam and Blue were using all their strength against the sandman, and it only had hold of me with one hand. Unless we could change the rules in this game of tug of war, the monster would win. We needed another strategy, and fast.

  My mind raced. I had to remember what that stupid Monsterville card said.

  I tried to focus, but sand was pushing in around me. The hand stayed wrapped firmly around my left leg, each finger digging in. I squealed.

  “Hold on, Lissa!” Adam yelled.

  “Not planning … on letting … go,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  Adam had dropped his flashlight, and though he and Blue were only a few feet from me, they were just silhouettes—silhouettes growing shorter by the second. They were sinking, too.

  The rope was rubbing my hands raw. Blisters formed and burst open. Still, I gripped the rope as hard as I could.

  Closing my eyes, I pictured the Monsterville rectangular card with the rhyme about the sandman.

  The sandman’s grabbed onto your shoe

  Down, down you sink, it feels like glue—

  What came next? A sob escaped me as I racked my brain. But I wasn’t good under pressure. That was why I choked at spelling bees.