Monsterville

by Sarah S. Reida

  A sour taste filled my mouth. I didn’t know exactly why, but I had a bad feeling, too. In monster movies, it’s important to trust your instincts.

  “Blue’s right,” I whispered. “I’m getting a weird vibe. Something’s … wrong.”

  Adam led the way into the store area. “What is it?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it….”

  As we crept inside, I glanced around the room. Dust coated empty shelves, and the glass freezer doors along the back wall were so dirty I couldn’t see through them.

  “I know it’s creepy, but the other path was worse. That bridge wasn’t safe,” Adam said.

  This place was straight out of a horror movie. The beige linoleum floor was cracked and filthy. Part of the ceiling was caving in.

  Something rustled behind the counter. I sucked in my breath and aimed my flashlight at the sound. “Did you hear that?”

  Adam cocked his head. “No. What?”

  “I don’t know.” I strained my ears, but everything was quiet again. “Maybe I’m hearing things.” Clicking off the flashlight, I rubbed my hand across my eyes. “But in the movies, when someone hears a noise, it’s better to assume something’s there, even if no one else hears anything.”

  For a moment, we stood rigid. Nothing.

  We crept deeper into the store, Blue still clinging to my side. “It’s okay. Two minutes and we’re gone.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispered back.

  “Here!” Adam bent to pick up a metal pole. “This’ll work.”

  The rod was part of a broken, rusted display. Adam ripped a metal shelf from three remaining poles, tossing it toward the freezer section. He twisted two metal poles free from the bottom frame, handing one to Blue and one to me. “Here you go.”

  “Great, we’re armed. Now let’s get out of here.” My skin felt like bugs were crawling under the surface. I’d never wanted to leave a place so badly before. “Maybe we—”

  Something heavy—a brick or a rock—smashed through the window. The object landed at my feet and I jumped back.

  “The light! They must have seen the flashlight!”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! I knew better than to use the light in a store with windows, even if only for a second. But I was tired and on edge, and that’s when people make mistakes that cost them their lives.

  The window by the cash register shattered, followed by the glass doors at the front of the store. Blue shined his flashlight toward the back door. Lurching, stumbling figures blocked the way. We were closed in on all sides. It couldn’t end like this.

  “Quick!” Adam cried. “Into the fridge!”

  There wasn’t time to protest. We raced to the refrigerators lining the back of the store.

  Adam flung one open, revealing metal shelves. “Through here!” He tossed our metal poles first. I heard them clatter on the other side, and I winced.

  Blue dove onto a shelf, and I shoved him, hard. “Eeee!” he screeched, sliding across and landing on the other side.

  I went next, headfirst. As I grabbed for the shelf’s edge with my one free hand, my fingers slipped against the slick surface. Fingers grabbed my wrists and slid me forward across the cold metal.

  I fell in a heap on the floor, banging my elbow. “Ow!” I winced and flexed my arm, gripping the flashlight. I tried peering through the shelves behind me, but I couldn’t see a thing. “Come on, Adam!”

  He grunted as he tried to squeeze himself through the shelves. The metal squeaked underneath him. He didn’t sound stuck, but he sure wasn’t moving fast. Soon his head came into view. “Lissa,” he gasped. “Grab my—” His eyes widened. “Zombie!”

  “Blue!” I yelled. “Get his hands!” Dropping my flashlight, I grabbed one of the display poles. I picked it up and thrust it into the space between the shelves, stabbing wildly.

  “Let go, you stupid—” Adam panted. His hair was wet with sweat, his eyes wild. “It’s too strong!”

  I couldn’t see the zombie, but I could hear and smell it. It grunted and wheezed. I tried breathing through my mouth to avoid the stench of its rotting flesh.

  My fingers tightened around my pole. I pulled it back and jabbed it at the zombie. The metal connected with something soft and the zombie roared.

  “Yes!” I hissed, and Adam finally scrambled through, almost landing on top of Blue.

  Drawing the pole back, I looked at the tip. Something soft and misshapen was skewered there. I moved it closer for a better look.

  “Gross! Zombie eyeball!” I flung the pole across the room, shuddering.

  “Where are we?” I asked Adam as I retrieved my flashlight.

  Every muscle in my body was tense. I’d seen movies like this—the heroes escape the zombies/monsters/unidentified scary creatures, only to light a match and find even worse terrors lying in wait.

  “The fridge room.” Adam sounded about ten feet ahead of me, to the right. “Where they store stuff that isn’t ready to go on the shelves. I’m trying to find the door.”

  Man, we were dumb. In the past five minutes, we’d broken two major rules. First, we’d let the zombies know where we were. Second, we’d trapped ourselves in an enclosed space.

  “Yes!” Adam hissed. “Found the door! You guys ready to run?”

  “Yep!” Blue and I squeaked in unison, and I braced myself. If zombies waited for us on the other side, we were toast.

  The door’s rusty metal hinges screamed as Adam pushed it open.

  I didn’t hear anything—no scrapes or footsteps or groans. I relaxed a little.

  At least there was one good thing about zombies—they’re dumb. You always know they’re coming.

  I wasn’t relaxing too much, though. You can’t let down your guard when you’re in the dark, surrounded by monsters.

  “Hold on,” I whispered, tugging on Adam’s sleeve. “We can’t just go out there. If one’s waiting …”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  I looked at Blue. “Yes.” I ducked back into the storage room and gestured for the guys to follow. “We should disguise ourselves.”

  “How do we do that?” Adam asked, and I jerked my head at Blue. “Ahem.”

  Blue’s eyes lit up. “Oh!”

  “Right.” I nodded. “You turn into a zombie. And if we’re following you, hopefully these dummies won’t realize we’re not undead. Let’s go!”

  I couldn’t see clearly, but I felt Blue turn. He groaned softly as he grew taller, stretching out his limbs. And the smell—whew! It was like standing next to a seventeen-year-old spoiled pumpkin.

  After tucking his flashlight into his waistband, Blue shuffled down the hall, arms outstretched. With a deep breath, I followed him, making sure I was right behind him. I didn’t want the other zombies to catch a whiff of Human.

  In only fifteen steps, we were out the door. We lurched away quickly, following the broken sidewalk, just three undeads out for a moonlight stroll. “Errrr,” I moaned for good measure, keeping my eyes on the ground.

  “Errrr!” a zombie passing us replied. It was so close I could have touched it. I definitely smelled it. Whew.

  After the monster was a safe distance away, I twisted my head to look back at the store and stifled a gasp.

  Zombies were stumbling toward the store from all directions. There were at least two dozen of them, all greenish, rotting, and lumbering at the same target. They descended on the store like vultures on roadkill.

  I turned my attention back to the path, and my heart sank.

  An army of zombies was staggering toward us, blocking any chance of continuing on our way uninterrupted. We’d have to leave the way we came.

  “Faster,” I whispered, and we lurched ahead and out the door. In another block, we started running. My feet slapped against the road, and my right foot smarted. I only had to imagine a zombie’s moldy fingers grazing my back, and I found the energy to speed up.

  When we reached the town limits, we kept going. I counted in m
y head to one hundred, then started counting again.

  Adam stopped. “Do you hear that?”

  When I strained to hear, I realized what he was talking about. The night sounds on loop. Owl, crow, horse, frog. We were close to the bridge again.

  SCENE SEVEN:

  TWO HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LEFT

  The Monster-made stars shined brightly, illuminating the road. We didn’t even need our flashlights.

  “There!” Blue pointed. “The bridge.”

  I crossed the road, lacing my hands behind my head and breathing in and out slow, steady breaths. My mouth was so dry it felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.

  “I can’t believe we got away.” Adam’s face was damp with sweat, ghostly pale in the fake moonlight. “If you hadn’t thought of pretending to be zombies …” He shook his head. “How’d you think of that? From some movie?”

  “Actually, no. I mean, I’ve seen zombie movies where people try that to get away. But I remembered what Aunt Lucy’s journal said when she came Down Below—she dressed like a zombie.”

  Adam bent to pick up a piece of gravel and chucked it through a hole in the bridge. “Man. You know, and all this time I just thought she was the nice lady who lived next door. She was like … a superhero.”

  I adjusted the nub that was now my ponytail. “She was better than that. Superheroes get to use powers. You think Peter Parker would have been scaling buildings and rescuing people if he wasn’t bitten by that spider?” I felt a swell of pride. Aunt Lucy was amazing.

  “Probably not.”

  “How’d you know about the fridge room?” I asked. “If you hadn’t bought us time, the zombies would have been on us right away.”

  Adam wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Charlie. He used to work at the Gas Mart in town. He gave me a tour once.”

  “I knew Upchuck would serve a purpose. In good horror movies, even the throwaway characters are there for a reason.”

  “I’ll let him know you said that.” Adam stood at the edge of the bridge, his hands resting on a wooden post. “Who goes first?”

  “Me!” Blue piped up immediately.

  Adam and I looked at him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea….” I said slowly. The bridge looked even longer and flimsier than I’d remembered. And the fog was a creepy special effect.

  How could we let Blue go first when we knew that he was actually a little kid? I wouldn’t let Haylie cross a bridge like this in a million years.

  “I’m the lightest,” Blue insisted. “The lightest one should go first.”

  “You’re also the youngest,” I said. “We should be protecting you.”

  “I came down here to help Haylie. Let me go first.”

  “No,” I said again, but this time less forcefully. We were running out of time. Regardless of who went first, we needed to get moving.

  “Humph.” Blue stuck his nose in the air. “No one ever lets me do anything.” He walked into the ditch and plopped down facing away from us, drew up his knees and clicked his flashlight. On-off, on-off.

  “Blue!” I called after him. “We’re not deciding who gets the first piece of cake here. This is dangerous.”

  “I know that! I’ve been here before.”

  Adam and I looked at each other. Maybe Blue was right. Adam twisted his wrist to look at the time. He inhaled sharply.

  “What?”

  “After three thirty.”

  Less than three hours left, and we weren’t even halfway there. We still needed to save Haylie and retrace our steps.

  And getting to Haylie wasn’t like crossing a finish line. We weren’t going to arrive at the Transformation Room and have the monsters say, “Our bad, of course you can have your little sister back!” as they handed her over.

  Blue stood up, straightening his shorts. “I’m going first,” he said firmly, handing Adam his flashlight. We didn’t argue this time.

  Gingerly, Blue stepped onto the bridge. He held his arms out and kept his legs bowed like he was surfing.

  I almost couldn’t watch. What if he pitched over the side? What if he fell through a rotted board? What if the twine holding the bridge together snapped?

  “Come on, come on,” I muttered, urging him along under my breath. He took another step. The bridge held.

  I shivered. The temperature was dropping, and white fog was crawling across the ground. It wrapped around my ankles until I couldn’t see my borrowed black socks anymore.

  The fog was thicker on the bridge. With his next step, Blue disappeared completely.

  I didn’t know what was worse—watching Blue’s every step across that rotting bridge, or not being able to see him at all.

  Something touched my hand: Adam. He squeezed. We stayed huddled together, waiting.

  “Made it!” Blue’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away. “I’m on the other side!”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” I whispered. My heart pounded as I looked into Adam’s eyes. They were really blue in the pseudo-moonlight.

  I bit my lip. “I guess I’m next, huh?”

  Adam nodded. “In case my big butt breaks the ropes.”

  I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t. What if Adam really did break the bridge? He was at least fifty pounds heavier than me, and way heavier than Blue.

  I turned and faced the path, taking a deep, steadying breath. I’d pretend I was on a tightrope. Like there was a net below, and if I fell, it would be uncomfortable and embarrassing, but not, you know, fatal.

  Tentatively, and wishing I wasn’t weighed down by a flashlight, I placed my left foot on the first board. The bridge rocked, and my eyes flew to one of the wooden posts, which I now noticed looked splintered and rotted.

  “You can do it,” Adam called behind me. “One step at a time.”

  “One step at a time,” I repeated, my voice low. Narrowing my eyes, I concentrated on the wooden slats just ahead. I counted five until they disappeared into fog. There should have been six, but there was a gap between the third and the fourth ones.

  Another step, and the bridge rocked again. The slats felt rough under my feet. I thought for a millisecond about splinters, and then realized I had far worse things to worry about.

  Keeping my arms outstretched for balance, I took another step, squinting to see up ahead.

  It couldn’t be too far. I tried to remember how long it had taken Blue to reach the other side, how fast he’d been going.

  With a big step, I passed over the missing section of the bridge. The only sounds around me were the creaking of the ropes and my breathing.

  “I’m okay!” My voice was shaky. “The bridge is holding.”

  As a movie expert, I should have known than to say that. When I took my very next step, my foot punched through a rotten board. I screamed, deciding in a split second to let myself fall forward. My flashlight banged against the wood as my hands connected with the bridge. My right leg dangled through a gaping hole, and I tried to wrench it free.

  “Lissa! You okay?” Adam yelled.

  “Yeah! The bridge isn’t holding everywhere! I’m, maybe, fifteen steps in.” I craned my head to look behind me, but I only saw fog.

  “But you’re okay?” I could tell Adam was trying to stay calm, but panic edged his voice.

  “Yeah.” I grunted, still trying to pull my leg back through the hole. Careful, careful, I told myself. I couldn’t afford to damage the bridge more. Adam still needed to cross. Even now, he would be in danger with every step he took.

  Every step he took.

  “Adam!” I yelled.

  “What?”

  “You need to crawl across the bridge. That’ll distribute your weight better.”

  There was silence. “Lissa, has anyone ever told you you’d make a fantastic Boy Scout?”

  “Not once.” I waited until my legs stopped shaking before I started forward again. Baby steps, baby steps, I told myself. “Blue! Where are you?” I yelled into the void.

  “Over he
re.” He sounded close. I could do this.

  I realized I was climbing up, making my way from the dip in the middle. That meant I was more than halfway there. Wisps of fog curled around my feet and hands.

  Gritting my teeth, I picked my way forward. I wanted, so badly, to make a break for the other side, but I knew rushing would get me killed.

  Patience is a virtue, I thought hysterically, panic bubbling up inside me.

  I counted my steps. When I hit thirteen, I felt solid ground under my feet.

  “You’re here! You’re here!” Blue shrieked, hugging me.

  I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Adam!” I shouted across the chasm. “Your turn!”

  “Crawling!” he called back.

  I waited, clutching Blue’s hand. He squirmed the same way Haylie does when I hold her too tight, and I loosened my grip. He drew away.

  “Don’t go far,” I muttered.

  What if Adam doesn’t make it? What if this is my last chance to talk to him? To thank him?

  Blue was fidgeting behind me. He kept hitting a stick or something against the ground. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I was focused on the bridge and the thick fog that made it impossible to see what was happening.

  Adam screamed, and a horrible snapping sound echoed through the air. The bridge twisted to the right before slackening, then dropping, still tethered to our side of the chasm.

  I moved as close to the edge as I dared, straining to hear. When I heard something hit the bottom, I crumpled, unable to support my legs. “No!” The word came out as a whisper.

  “Adam!” Blue yelled beside me. “Adam!”

  “Don’t look, Blue.” I covered my face. Blood was rushing around in my ears. Adam was gone. He’d never tease me again, or show me the stars, or point out something amazing about nature I’d never have noticed on my own.

  I was having trouble breathing. Adam couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be.

  In the movies, when someone freezes because something terrible just happened, I always scoff. Move your butt! The killer’s still right behind you! Or, You still need to complete your quest, dummy! I would never scoff again. Because, right then, I didn’t know if I could take another step.