by R. L. Stine
“The light must be coming from outside,” Nicole said. “That means there’s a way out of here.”
We crept slowly through the cave. The only sound I could hear was the drip, drip, drip of melting icicles.
Soon we’ll be out of here, I thought. “Jordan,” she whispered. “Look!”
On the floor of the cave I could make out a footprint. A gigantic footprint. Bigger than the fake one I’d made in the snow that morning.
Five of my shoes could fit inside that footprint.
I took a few steps—and saw another footprint.
Nicole grabbed my arm.
“Do you think it’s…?” She stopped.
I knew what she was thinking.
We traced the giant footprints across the cave floor. They led us straight to a shadowy corner in the back—and stopped.
I glanced up.
Nicole gasped.
We both saw it at the same time.
The creature.
The Abominable Snowman!
He loomed over us.
He stood upright like a human, covered in brown fur. Black eyes stared out of an ugly face, half-human, half-gorilla.
He wasn’t that tall—about a head taller than me—but he seemed huge. His body was thick and powerful, with gigantic feet and fur-covered hands—as big as baseball gloves.
“We’re t-trapped!” Nicole stammered.
She was right.
The entrance behind us had been blocked by the avalanche. There was no way we could slip past this giant creature.
No way.
The Abominable Snowman glared down at us. Then it started to move.
17
My teeth began to chatter.
I squeezed my eyes shut and trembled, waiting for the monster to grab us.
A second passed. Then another.
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes. The snowman hadn’t moved.
Nicole took a step forward. “He’s frozen!” she cried.
I blinked in the dim light. “Huh?” It was true. The snowman stood frozen in a huge block of clear ice.
I touched the ice. The monster stood inside it like a statue.
“If he’s frozen in ice,” I wondered, “then what made those giant footprints?”
Nicole bent down to study the prints. She shuddered again at their huge size.
“They lead right to the block of ice,” she declared. “The snowman must have made them somehow.”
“Maybe he walked back here and accidently froze,” I suggested. I touched the back wall of the cave, where icy water dripped from above.
“Or maybe he goes into the ice to rest,” I added. “Like Dracula going to sleep in his coffin at dawn.”
I backed away. It was too frightening, being this close to him. But the monster stayed perfectly still under the thick ice.
Nicole leaned close to the ice. “Look at his hands!” she cried. “Or paws, or whatever.”
Like the rest of his body, his hands were covered with brown fur. He had thick fingers, like a man’s. Jutting out of them were long, sharp claws.
A chill ran down my spine at the sight of those claws. What did he use them for? Ripping wild animals to pieces? Tearing up people who got in his way?
He had powerful legs, with shorter claws on his toes. I studied his face. Fur covered his whole head, except for a circle of hairless skin around his eyes, nose, and mouth. The skin was a pinkish red. His lips were thick and white and set in a mean-looking grimace.
“He’s definitely a mammal,” Nicole declared. “The fur is a dead giveaway.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is no time for biology lessons, Nicole. Wait until Dad sees this. He’ll go crazy! If he can get a picture of this, he’ll be famous!”
“Yeah,” Nicole sighed. “If we can find Dad. If we ever get out of here.”
“There’s got to be a way out,” I said. I moved to a side wall and pressed it with my hands, searching for a hole, a chink in the rock, anything.
After a few minutes I found a tiny crack. “Nicole!” I cried. “I found something!”
She raced to my side. I pointed out the crack in the cave wall. She frowned with disappointment.
“That’s just a crack,” she said.
“You don’t know everything,” I protested. “Maybe there’s a secret door here. A hidden passage. Or something.”
She sighed. “I guess it’s worth a shot.”
We pressed on the crack. We stuck our fingers into it. We kicked it. I even tried karate-chopping it.
Nothing.
“I hate to break this to you, Jordan,” she said. “But I was right. As always. All you found was a crack in the wall.”
“Well, keep looking,” I snarled. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
I kept searching. I ran my hands along the wall, my back to the monster.
Suddenly I heard a noise. A loud crack!
“Nicole!” I cried. “Did you find something?”
I whirled around. I realized Nicole hadn’t made that sound. She stared at the monster in horror.
“What?” I asked her. “What’s wrong?”
I heard another crack!
“The ice is cracking!” Nicole screamed. “The monster—he’s breaking out!”
18
Crack!
The block of ice splintered apart. Nicole and I pressed ourselves against a wall, watching in horror.
The Abominable Snowman burst from the ice. Chunks of ice smashed on the floor and shattered like glass. The snowman shook himself, growling like a wolf.
“Run!” I screamed.
Nicole and I took off. But there was nowhere to go. We scrambled to the other side of the cave—as far away from the monster as we could get.
“The passageway!” I cried. I ducked down and started to crawl through the passage.
Nicole grabbed me.
“Wait! It’s blocked! The avalanche—remember?”
Yes. Of course. The way out of the cave was blocked by tons of snow.
Across the cave, the monster uttered a ferocious roar that shook the walls.
Nicole and I cowered in a corner of the cave. I felt her trembling next to me.
“Maybe he didn’t see us,” I whispered.
“Then why is he roaring?” Nicole whispered back.
The monster twitched his gorilla nose in the air, sniffing.
Oh, no! I thought. Can he smell us from across the cave?
He turned his huge, furry head one way and then the other.
He’s searching for us, I realized. He smells us.
“Unh!” he grunted. He stared into a corner of the cave—our corner of the cave.
“Unh!” he grunted again.
“Oh, no!” Nicole moaned. “He sees us!”
The big creature staggered toward us, grunting with each heavy step.
I pressed myself against the cave wall, wishing the cave would swallow us up.
Anything would be better than having him swallow us!
The monster kept coming. His footsteps shook the floor of the cave. Boom, boom, boom.
We huddled on the floor. We tried to make ourselves as small as we could.
He stopped inches in front of us and roared again. A deafening roar.
“His teeth!” Nicole cried.
I saw them, too. Two rows of huge, razor-sharp teeth.
The monster growled.
And reached for us. His sharp claws flashed.
He swiped at me. I tried to duck away.
The monster snarled in frustration. He reached out again….
He clamped a powerful paw on Nicole’s head.
“Help!” Nicole screamed. “He’s crushing me!”
19
“Let go of her!” I shrieked.
But I knew I was helpless.
The Abominable Snowman growled and turned Nicole around roughly.
Then he reached behind her and grabbed her backpack. He ripped it off her shoulder with a sharp, ha
rd tug.
“Hey!” I cried in horror.
With one claw he sliced open the canvas backpack. He reached inside. And pulled something out.
A bag. A bag of trail mix.
Nicole and I stared in amazement as he poured the trail mix into his mouth.
“Weird,” I choked out. “He likes trail mix.”
The monster crumpled up the bag and shifted through Nicole’s pack, searching for more.
“That’s all there is,” Nicole whispered to me.
With an angry growl, the monster tossed Nicole’s pack away.
“Now what?” Nicole whispered.
I reached into my own backpack, and with a trembling hand I yanked out my bag of trail mix. I heaved it at the monster.
The bag hit the floor and slid to the monster’s feet. He bent down. Grabbed it. Tore it open. And hungrily gulped down the trail mix.
When he finished, I shoved my pack toward him.
He grunted. Then he dumped out my stuff.
No more trail mix.
Uh-oh.
The monster stretched and roared. Then he reached down. With two gigantic arms, he grabbed Nicole and me.
He lifted us up.
He raised us toward his face.
Toward his mouth.
Preparing to eat us.
20
I struggled, but he was too strong. I pounded my fists on his chest. I kicked as hard as I could. He didn’t seem to feel it.
He clutched Nicole and me like a couple of dolls.
“Please don’t eat us!” I begged. “Please!”
The monster grunted. He draped us both over the crook of one arm. Then he staggered back across the cave, gripping us tightly.
I kicked him in the side. No reaction. Nothing.
“Let go!” I shrieked. “Let us down!”
“Where’s he taking us?” Nicole cried, bouncing as the creature tromped across the cave.
Maybe he wants to roast us, I thought grimly. Maybe he doesn’t like his kids raw.
He lugged us to the back of the cave. With one powerful swipe of the paw, he knocked a boulder aside. A narrow passage appeared behind it.
Nicole moaned. “Why didn’t we see that before? Maybe we could have escaped!”
“Too late now,” I groaned.
The snowman pulled us through the passage. We came out into a smaller cave, flooded with light. I glanced up.
Above us I could see the gray sky.
A way out!
Balancing us in one arm, the monster scaled the wall of the cave. With big, lurching steps, he climbed out of the hole.
Cold air blasted me in the face. But the monster’s body pulsed with heat.
The blizzard had stopped. Fresh snow covered the tundra.
The monster stumbled through the snow, grunting as he walked.
His gigantic feet sank deep into the snow. But with each huge step he covered a lot of ground.
Where was he taking us? Where?
Maybe he has another cave, I thought with a shudder. A cave with more monsters in it. His friends. They’ll all feast on us!
I tried again to break out of the snowman’s grip. I kicked and squirmed as hard as I could.
The monster growled. He dug his claws into my side.
“Ow!” I yelped. But I stopped squirming. If I moved, his claws dug deeper.
Poor Dad, I thought sadly. He’ll never know what happened to us.
Unless he finds our bones buried in the snow.
Suddenly, I heard barking. A dog!
The Abominable Snowman stopped. He growled and sniffed the air. Then he gently dropped Nicole and me in the snow.
We landed unsteadily on our feet.
Nicole stared at me in surprise.
We started to run, stumbling through the deep snow. I glanced back.
“Is he chasing us?” Nicole asked.
I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t see him now. I only saw white.
“Keep running!” I shouted.
Then I saw something familiar in the distance. A brown speck.
I bumped Nicole. “The cabin!”
We ran even faster. If we could just get to the cabin…
From the cabin we heard furious barking—the dog Arthur had left behind.
“Dad! Dad!” we shrieked. We burst through the door. “We found him! We found the Abominable Snowman!”
“Dad?”
The cabin stood empty. Empty and bare.
Dad was gone.
21
My eyes darted around the empty cabin.
“Dad? Dad?”
My heart skipped a beat. My throat went dry.
Where did he go?
Was he out searching for Nicole and me? Did he get lost in the snow?
“We—we’re all alone,” I murmured.
Nicole and I ran to the window. A thin layer of snow frosted the pane. We peered out into the bright sunlight.
No sign of Dad.
“At least the snowman didn’t follow us,” I said.
“Jordan, why did he drop us?” Nicole asked softly.
“I think the barking dog scared him,” I replied.
If that dog hadn’t barked, what would the monster have done to us?
As the question pushed into my mind, I heard the dog start to bark again. Nicole and I both gasped.
“The snowman—!” I cried. “He’s back! Hide!”
We glanced around, frantically searching for a good hiding place. The cabin was so bare—it wouldn’t take the monster long to find us.
“Behind the stove!” Nicole urged.
We dashed to the small, square stove and crouched behind it.
Outside the cabin we heard the slow, heavy footsteps of the monster.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Footsteps over the snow.
Nicole grabbed my hand. We froze, waiting. Listening.
Crunch, crunch.
Please don’t come into the cabin, I prayed. Please don’t capture us again.
The footsteps stopped outside the door. I squeezed my eyes shut.
The door burst open. A blast of cold air blew into the room.
“Jordan? Nicole?”
Dad!
We jumped out from behind the stove. There stood Dad, with his camera around his neck.
We both ran to him and hugged him. “Dad! I’m so glad it’s you!”
“Hi!” he replied. “What’s going on, guys? I expected you to be asleep.” He glanced around the cabin. “Hey—where’s Arthur?”
“He took off!” I cried breathlessly. “He took the sled. He took all the food and three of the dogs.”
“We chased after him,” Nicole added. “But he got away.”
Dad’s face filled with surprise, then horror. “I’d better radio for help. We won’t last long without food.”
“Dad—listen.” I blocked his way to the radio. “Nicole and I—found the Abominable Snowman!”
He sidestepped around me. “This is no time for jokes, Jordan. If we don’t get help, we could starve to death out here!”
“He’s not joking, Dad,” Nicole insisted, tugging Dad’s arm. “We really found the snowman. He lives in a cave under the snow.”
Dad stopped and studied Nicole. He always believes her. But this time he wasn’t sure.
“It’s true!” I cried. “Come on—we’ll show you!”
Nicole and I tugged him out the door.
“Jordan, if this is one of your tricks, you are going to be in major trouble,” he warned. “We’re in a serious situation here and—”
“Dad, he’s not kidding!” Nicole cried impatiently. “Come on!”
We led him out into the snow to the spot where the snowman had dropped us. We pointed out his huge footprints.
“Why should I believe this?” Dad said. “You faked the snowman’s footprints this morning, Jordan. These just look a little bigger.”
“Dad, I swear—I didn’t make these prints!”
“We’ll show you the cave,
Dad,” Nicole promised. “Follow the footprints. You’ll see. It’s unbelievable!”
I knew Dad went along with us only because Nicole insisted. He trusted her. She never played jokes on him.
Leaning into the wind, we traced the giant prints across the snow. Dad couldn’t resist snapping pictures of them—just in case.
The footsteps led us back to the cave. They stopped at an opening in the ground.
“The cave is down that hole,” I told Dad, pointing.
I think Dad believed us now. “Let’s go. Check it out,” he said.
“Huh?” I cried. “Back down there? To the monster?”
Dad was already sliding down to the cave opening. He reached up to help Nicole climb down.
I hesitated. “Dad—wait. You don’t understand. There’s a monster down there!”
“Come on, Jordan,” Dad urged. “I want to see this for myself.”
I had no choice. Dad was going in there no matter what I said. And I didn’t want to wait outside alone. I scrambled down to the opening of the cave.
The three of us felt our way along the narrow passage until we reached the mouth of the big cave.
Keeping close together, Dad and Nicole walked in. But I stopped at the entrance and stared into the cave.
“Jordan! Come on!” Dad whispered.
There’s a monster in there, I thought with a shudder. A huge monster with long claws and sharp teeth.
We managed to escape from him once. Why are we going back? What’s going to happen to us in there?
I had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling.
22
Dad grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into the cave. I heard the drip of icy water against the back wall. I blinked in the darkness.
Where was he? Where was the Abominable Snowman?
I heard Dad’s camera clicking away. I tried to stay close to Dad. I cried out when I spotted the snowman. I expected him to roar and lumber after us.
But he stood stiffly, staring straight ahead.
Refrozen again. Inside a huge block of ice.
Nicole stepped closer to the block of ice. “How does he do that?”
“This is amazing!” Dad cried, snapping picture after picture. “Incredible!”