by R. L. Stine
“Wait!” you scream, running after them.
This can’t be the guy the professor sent — can it?
Then you see the guy’s license plate. It’s one of those vanity plates — the kind that spells out a sentence or word.
You stare, mouth hanging open, at the simple black letters.
No one is going to believe this, you realize. Not when you tell them the chimp was picked up by a tanned, half-naked guy who grunted and drove a car with a license plate that read:
T A R Z A N
Nah. Don’t even think it.
No way. Couldn’t be.
Could it?
THE END
Dr. Eeek is holding you tight by your right wrist. So you take a swing with your left and try to smack him. You miss.
You kick at him and start yelling. “Sam! Sam!” you shout.
Dr. Eeek shoves you out into the hall before Sam can reach you. Down the corridor. Into yet another lab room.
How many rooms does this place have, anyway?
Plenty!
This one is filled with mirrors — on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. There’s a big red switch on the inside of the door.
Still holding your wrist, Dr. Eeek pulls the switch.
You hear a buzzing sound. Then a crackle. Then a flash of light so bright, so intense, you think you’re going to be blinded forever. It’s like the glare from a super-huge flashbulb on the world’s biggest camera.
The light shuts off. But you still can’t see for several minutes. Finally your eyes return to normal. You look in the mirror.
Hey — where are you? All you can see is a hundred reflections of Dr. Eeek. Dr. Eeek … holding on to Dr. Eeek’s wrist!
Wait a minute. Wasn’t he holding on to your wrist?
Figure this out on PAGE 50.
You clear your throat.
“Uh, actually, I’ve got to go,” you say to Dr. Eeek. “I’ve got to meet my mom.”
“I’m staying,” Sam announces.
Dr. Eeek shrugs. “As you wish,” he says to you. “Good-bye. Pleasant meeting you.”
You glare at Sam and motion toward the door. But he won’t follow you.
You step out into the hallway alone.
You start toward the reception area. But then you hear a voice cry out.
“Help! Someone help me!”
You freeze. Was that Sam? Did the sound come from behind you? Or was it in front of you? You can’t be sure.
An instant later, you hear the cry again.
If you go back and check on Sam, run to PAGE 81.
If you think someone else might be in trouble, hurry to PAGE 99.
You quickly turn left. And stare at six German shepherds racing toward you in the Canine Maze. Three come at you from one side. Three from the other. You’re trapped!
Their needle-sharp teeth drip with saliva. Two of them froth at the mouth. One of them has caked, dried blood all over its face.
As if it had eaten raw meat — or something — earlier today.
Don’t scream, you tell yourself. Don’t show fear. And don’t run.
But what can you do?
There’s only one way to call off the dogs — with a silver whistle.
But do you have one?
If you met the half-boy, half-dog and got a silver whistle from him, turn to PAGE 127.
If not, turn to PAGE 110.
All of a sudden, the sprinklers turn on. Hard.
VERY hard.
In fact, the water gushes out so fast, it almost knocks you down. You stumble. Your foot slips off the chair.
GLUG. Water fills your mouth. Instantly, you’re not only soaking wet — you’re almost drowning!
What’s happening? you ask yourself as you spit water. You stand up and gaze around the reception area.
Oh, no! you realize. Water is gushing out of the sprinkler so fast, the room is filling up!
Within minutes, you’re ankle-deep in water — and it’s quickly rising.
You can’t believe how fast the water pours out. It’s more like Niagara Falls than like a sprinkler!
You gulp — and then suddenly you know the truth. This is another one of Dr. Eeek’s traps!
The room seems to be watertight. And the water is rising.
Rising.
It’s up to your knees….
Close your mouth and hold your nose until you get to PAGE 79.
“Fifty bucks?” Sam exclaims. His eyes light up.
“Great,” you say, grinning. “What do we have to do?”
“Dr. Eeek will explain it to you,” Vanessa replies mysteriously. “Follow me.”
You follow Vanessa into a long hallway. The place is empty — eerily empty. Closed doors line both sides of the hall. Vanessa’s high heels click on the tile floor as she leads the way.
Where is she taking you?
Finally, she stops in front of a door with triple locks. There’s an intercom box on the wall beside the door. She pushes the button.
“Yes?” a man’s voice crackles.
“They’re here,” Vanessa announces.
Why is she acting as if they were expecting you?
Click. You hear an electronic lock unlocking. Then another. And another. The door swings open. You peer into the room. It’s pitch-black.
“Come in,” a voice says from the darkness.
Find out what’s waiting for you on PAGE 32.
You get a sinking feeling in your gut, as the message sinks in.
You’re on the wrong floor. Your mom’s lab is downstairs!
“I’ll give you one chance,” Dr. Eeek says as the goo starts creeping back up your face. “One chance to either escape — or find the antidote.”
The antidote? You mean there’s something that will reverse the effects of the goo? A way to make this stuff stop growing all over you?
“Twenty seconds left,” Dr. Eeek warns. Then he closes his eyes and starts to count.
“One, two, three …”
He’s counting pretty fast.
If you search the lab for an antidote, hurry to PAGE 128.
If you buy more time by smearing goo all over Dr. Eeek’s real face, turn to PAGE 73.
You decide to look under the sheet. Why not? It can’t be that bad. Can it?
Trembling, you walk over to the operating table. Sweat beads on your forehead.
But you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to pull back that sheet.
Slowly, you lift just a corner of the sheet. You peek underneath. Near the head. Or at least you hope it’s the head. It’s the opposite side from the sneaker, anyway.
Then you lift the sheet just a little more.
Then more.
“No!” you scream when you spot what’s underneath the stained cover.
“Help me!” cries a boy about your age.
Or at least you think it’s a boy.
You can’t really tell — because half of his body is covered in fur!
Turn to PAGE 7.
“Dogs?” you say. “But I thought …”
“What did you think?” Dr. Eeek asks coldly.
“I, uh … well, I thought this was a maze that you usually used for dogs,” you say. “To train them, or something. I thought we had to find our way out. But I didn’t think the dogs would be in there with us at the same time!”
“You just didn’t think,” Dr. Eeek says briskly. “Ah, well. Too bad.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at you.
This conversation is over.
“Oh, well,” Sam groans. “Come on. What are we waiting for? The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll get out of here.”
Sam’s right, you decide. Except that you keep remembering what Dr. Eeek said.
Beware of the dogs. Beware of the dogs. Beware of the dogs.
You step into the maze corridor. There’s a strange smell in the air. Like a dog smell. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Creep down the hall on PAGE 31.
All at once, you hear a buzzing sound.
You open your eyes. Dr. Eeek is holding some kind of electronic wand device in his hands. The device is about eight inches long and two inches thick — about the size of a battery-powered screwdriver.
He passes the wand in the air over the goo, without touching it. Immediately, the goo begins to fall away from your arms, your hands, your face.
Whew! Close one, you think.
You’d like to yank open the door and run like crazy. But you’ve still got to wait for Sam.
Dr. Eeek passes the buzzing wand over Sam. Within seconds, the goo is gone for good.
Or rather, it’s lying in a puddle on the lab floor.
Dr. Eeek gathers it up in his hands. He molds the goo into a giant sticky wad the size of a basketball.
“How did you do that?” Sam asks. The goo didn’t stick to Dr. Eeek’s hands!
“Never mind,” Dr. Eeek says. “Follow me.”
Follow him to PAGE 28.
“Okay,” you give in. “We’ll do it. What do we have to do?”
Dr. Eeek just smiles slightly. Then he motions for you to follow him.
“This way,” he orders.
He leads you down a long hall, with doors on both sides. He stops short at a door painted green.
“What’s in there?” you whisper to Sam.
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “Some kind of experiment, probably.”
Yeah. Probably, you think.
Until Dr. Eeek pulls open the door.
Go to PAGE 56.
Okay.
Let’s be clear. You want to worm your way out of this mess. Which means you want another chance to face the evil-minded, twisty-faced Dr. Eeek.
Right?
Right.
Sounds reasonable.
So all you have to do is prove one of the following:
A) You’ll break out in hives if you read the words THE END one more time in the next five minutes.
B) You know the difference between creepy, spooky, and scary — and you can spell all three correctly.
C) Between you and your best friend, you’ve read every single GOOSEBUMPS book in existence — and you haven’t had nightmares once.
If you can honestly claim A, B, or C — congratulations! You get to start again — and make a better choice — on PAGE 17. (Hint: Help Sam this time.)
If not, turn to PAGE 104.
“Let go!” you shout at the octopus. You grab at a spear that’s hanging near the edge of the oversized tank. You jab the octopus with the spear. The huge, gray-black tentacle jerks back. Then you reach in the tank and jab the tentacle around Sam’s neck.
Inky black liquid squirts out into the water. For a moment, you can’t see a thing.
Then all at once, Sam bobs to the surface.
“Thanks!” he shouts. You give him a hand out of the tank.
The two of you dry off, using towels that seem to be waiting for you. Then Sam ducks into a locker room to find a change of clothes. While he’s gone, Dr. Eeek walks into the room.
Hey — isn’t this still virtual reality? What’s he doing here?
“Well, well, well,” Dr. Eeek says. “How are we doing, people? Having a nice swim?”
Oh, no! You suddenly get it. You’ve got to defeat Dr. Eeek here — in the virtual reality game! On his own turf!
You try to dodge and run around him. But he grabs you on the wrist. Your right wrist. You were planning to slug him.
Now what are you going to do?
If you are right-handed, turn to PAGE 16.
If you are left-handed, turn to PAGE 88.
Dr. Eeek leads you into an adjoining room. Two big black leather chairs with padded headrests stand side by side. The chairs look like airplane cockpit console seats. They sit all alone in the middle of the empty, darkened room, facing a two-way mirror.
Then you notice something. Each chair has a headset on the seat. Like the headgear Sam has with his virtual reality game.
“Have a seat,” Dr. Eeek instructs, pointing. He clearly wants you to take the seat on the right. He points Sam to the chair on the left. “And put on the headsets.”
You’re about to sit down when you notice something else.
Straps. On the arms of the chairs.
It looks as if he’s planning to strap you in!
If you sit down and put on the headset, turn to PAGE 35.
If you’d rather get out of there — FAST! — run to PAGE 113.
You and Sam run down the hall to the canine lab.
Luckily, Dr. Eeek is nowhere to be seen.
Then you spot something that makes your heart leap into your throat. Your mom’s other shoe! It’s lying on the floor, wedged in the opening of another door. Across from the operating room.
In small black letters, a sign on the door reads: CANINE MAZE. You pick up the shoe and push the door open.
Instantly, the sound of snarling, growling, barking dogs fills your ears.
“Weird!” Sam says, staring into the Canine Maze hallway.
Straight ahead, you see a twisting, turning corridor. Much narrower than a regular hall.
And then you see her. Your mom!
She’s trapped at the end of that narrow hall — surrounded by five angry German shepherds!
They’ve got her pinned against the wall.
And they’re moving in for the kill!
Quick! Do something before they turn her into chomped meat!
Sprint to PAGE 59.
“There’s got to be a way out — doesn’t there?” Sam cries.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember what Dr. Eeek said. Maybe the maze just goes around and around in circles — forever!” you shriek. “Maybe we’ll die of starvation. Or run out of air. Maybe the only way out is that door back there — the one he just locked.”
You and Sam don’t say anything for the next few minutes. But you’re both beginning to sweat. The worst part is the silence in the maze. The dead silence. It doesn’t even echo a little. The only sound is the sound of your sneakers — and Sam’s thick hiking boots — on the tile floor.
And the smell. That doggy smell. It’s getting stronger.
And stronger.
Then all at once you come to a fork. A choice. The maze corridor goes either left or straight ahead.
You look left. You see only a short piece of hallway and then another turn.
Straight ahead, the hallway seems to stretch on for a long, long time without turning.
Which way?
To go left, turn to PAGE 18.
To go straight, turn to PAGE 130.
You take a few more steps forward — farther into the maze.
BLAM!
The door slams shut behind you with a clang.
Now you really are trapped.
“Which way?” Sam asks.
“Don’t be dumb,” you snap. “We haven’t come to a choice yet. Just keep going straight.”
You continue walking. The hallway twists and turns five times. Left. Right. Right. Left. Left again, but at an angle. Still, you aren’t exactly lost. You could easily turn around and go back the way you came.
But your heart pounds wildly. You feel like an animal caught in a trap. Just knowing that it’s a maze — that there’s only one way out….
Then it hits you. “Hey,” you call to Sam, swallowing hard. Your voice sounds high. You hope Sam doesn’t notice how freaked out you are. “Did Dr. Eeek actually say there was a way out of here?”
Go on to PAGE 30.
You step into the dark room. A light flashes on.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” says an older man in a white lab coat. He has gray hair and a soft, pudgy face.
“Our next two appointments,” Vanessa explains. She tucks a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. “They’re here for the Raster experiment.”
“Really?” the man says. He pushes his wrinkled face right up to within an inch of your nose. He stares you in the
eye.
You try to gaze away. There’s something odd about him. About one of his eyes. It looks as if his right cheek has been pulled up to meet the eye — and been stapled there. It gives him a weird squint.
Then you notice something else. His lab coat is on backward.
“I’m Dr. Eeek. Are you sure you’re here for the Raster experiment?” the man asks.
“Yeah — definitely,” Sam insists. “What do we have to do?”
“That all depends,” Dr. Eeek says with an evil-sounding laugh. “What are you willing to do?”
Decide on PAGE 64.
You stare at your image in the chrome panel.
The goo has grown up over your nose, eyes, hair — and all the way down the back of your head. In fact, it covers every inch of the top half of your body.
From the waist up, you’re green and sticky-gooey. You look like a creature from a cheap sci-fi film. From the waist down, you look like a regular kid.
Luckily, the goo doesn’t choke you. You can breathe through it — and you can see. It just makes everything look green.
When the elevator reaches the next floor, the doors open. And your mom gets on!
“Mom! Hi!” you try to say. Only, the sound doesn’t come out.
“Aahhhhh!” she screams, spotting you and Sam. “Aliens from outer space!”
And she calls herself a scientist?
Well, bad news. If your own mother thinks you’re an alien, what do you think the United States military is going to do when they get a look at you?
That’s right. It’s time to learn how to say, “Wrxt Rinp” — which is Martian for …
THE END.
You decide to hide in Dr. Eeek’s office. You run in, shut the door, and lock it.
You duck down so you can’t be seen through the office window. The feeling of being hunted is terrifying. Your heart races a mile a minute.