Search for the Silver Swamp Monster (A Griffin Ghostley Adventure Book 1)

by Thomas J. Prestopnik

  “I have no idea,” she tells me, reading the clue to herself. “If we’re to seek out nobody’s tombstone, why would the swamp monster lure us to a cemetery? There is nothing but tombstones here.”

  “And since every tombstone marks somebody’s grave, that means every tombstone belongs to somebody,” I explain, hoping that I’m making sense. “This isn’t even a logical clue. How can a nobody have a tombstone?” I grimace and begin to pace about, summoning up my detective skills. But for the moment I have nothing to show for it and sigh, letting my arms drop to my side in defeat. Mindy immediately recognizes my state of mind.

  “Don’t give up just yet, Griffin. After all, we solved the first two clues easily enough,” she tells me. “Let’s look around first and maybe we might stumble onto something that makes sense.”

  “All right,” I reply, her words giving me a bit of encouragement. “Besides, what choice do we really have?”

  So with both flashlights blazing, we walk through the main gate, keeping our voices at a whisper. Alpha, Beta and Gamma cautiously lead the way. The climbing full moon is obscured in spots by the trees, its light filtering through the branches more strongly in some areas than in others. Unlike in the pumpkin patch, we decide to stay together during this search. Hey, we’re in a graveyard, after all, and wish to take no unnecessary risks. And as the canine trio keeps close to us every step of the way, I believe that they are thinking the same thing, too.

  Mindy and I hurry to one corner of the cemetery to begin, discussing how it will even be possible to examine the hundreds of gravestones placed about in row after neat row. But we have to try. I shine the light upon the first stone belonging to one Albert Tanner who died in 1907. His wife, Ruth, whose stone is next to his, passed away in 1920. But there are no other unusual inscriptions or markings of any kind on the front or back of either stone that would serve as an answer to the third clue.

  “So on to the next one,” I say with little enthusiasm, not expecting a different result.

  “Don’t be pessimistic,” Mindy tells me, though I don’t hear convincing tones of optimism in her voice either.

  “But this is somebody’s tombstone,” I say. “As are all of these!” I sweep an arm through the air to indicate the vast array of headstones, frustrated that I can’t figure things out. “Why would a nobody need a tombstone? We’ve missed something in this clue.”

  “Yeah, the answer,” Mindy jokes, making me smile just a bit. “But maybe it’s more obvious that we realize,” she adds as we continue our search. “Maybe it might refer to a newly dug grave that has a stone in place but no dead body yet.”

  “That’s a possibility,” I reply, feeling a little better. “Or maybe…” But my mind draws a blank as I am unable to come up with a second example. “Let’s keep looking.”

  We continue on to the end of the first row, finding nothing that resembles an answer to the third clue. Nor do we spot a newly dug grave in the vicinity, though I don’t give up hope that one may have been dug somewhere else in the cemetery. But after we finish looking through the second row and part of the third, Mindy suggests that maybe we should split up to cover more ground.

  “I’m becoming more exasperated and less frightened by the minute being stuck in this graveyard,” she admits.

  “Me too,” I say, noticing that Alpha, Beta and Gamma have been trudging along at a snail’s pace for the last few minutes. “Even the dogs are getting bored.”

  “Then we split up?”

  “Fine,” I reply, looking around the cemetery for a good place to begin a second search. “You continue working here, Mindy, and Gamma and I will go…”

  “Go where?” She looks at me as I stare off toward the west, suddenly transfixed. “What do you see, Griffin? A ghost?”

  “A glow.”

  “Huh?”

  I quickly turn off my flashlight and tell her to do the same. We plunge into almost complete darkness since the moon is hidden behind some trees from where we are standing. The dogs gather around us, sensing that something has changed.

  “Look,” I whisper, pointing to an area twenty or so rows beyond us. “Can you see it? A pale green glow.” I turn to Mindy with a hopeful smile, though she probably can’t see it. “I believe it’s a glowing tombstone.”

  “Maybe the swamp monster is giving us a little help in solving this clue,” she says. “Or maybe it’s a trap.”

  “Maybe. But whether it’s nobody’s tombstone or a glowing tombstone–or both–we have to check it out. Let’s go.”

  We rush onward, passing through row after row of tombstones, careful not to trip over tree roots or small rocks embedded in the ground despite the bright beams from our flashlights wildly weaving back and forth in front of us. Alpha, Beta and Gamma have no problem keeping up, though no doubt they are wondering what has captured our attention.

  Finally, we reach the correct row of tombstones. We slow down and make a right turn before cautiously walking along the row, keeping a constant eye on the steady green glow now just a few yards ahead of us as we close in fast.

  “Any sign of the scarecrow or werewolf?” Mindy asks when she notices me scanning the terrain in every direction. “I assume that’s who you’re looking for.”

  “You assume correctly,” I reply. “But fortunately I see no movement anywhere around us. And as Alpha, Beta and Gamma don’t seem particularly troubled at the moment, I’m guessing we’re safe.”

  “Safe from them,” she softly replies. “You never know what else could be waiting near that green glow.”

  “That’s the spirit…” I mutter.

  When the three dogs eye the steady glow and guess that we are heading toward it, they race the last stretch and meet us there, bouncing about as if I were about to hand them a treat. And as I had earlier guessed, a large, green glowing tombstone silently greets us in the chilly night. But something about it seems odd, other than the pale sickly glow, of course.

  “That’s a weird looking tombstone,” Mindy remarks at once. “First, it’s not lined up with the others, as if it was just set down randomly. And second, there is no writing on it other than the letters RIP.”

  “Rest in peace,” I whisper, stepping close to the stone. I gently rap my knuckles against it, raising an eyebrow with suspicion when I hear a loud, sharp noise in reply. “It’s a weird looking tombstone, Mindy, because it’s not a real tombstone. It’s made of a hard plastic that glows in the dark. Something you’d buy to decorate your lawn for Halloween.”

  We look up at each other and grin. “It’s nobody’s tombstone!” we utter at the same time.

  Mindy taps it with her flashlight, but doesn’t look any less worried. “Real or not, the swamp monster no doubt had one of its helpers put it here for us to find. But why? I don’t see any other writing on it. No third number in the combination, unless the RIP is some sort of numerical clue we’re missing.”

  I walk around to the back of the fake tombstone which looks completely blank upon first glance. “A dead end,” I say with a mild sigh. “No pun intended.”

  “So what should we do?” Mindy asks as she continues to examine the front of the gravestone more closely.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should– Hey, what’s this?”

  Mindy dashes around to the other side. “What’d you find, Griffin?”

  “Look. Down at the bottom left corner. It looks like something has been carved into the plastic.” I bend down on one knee and shine my flashlight at the spot, the mixture of the pale green glow and the bright white light producing a hideous color combination.

  “There is something carved there, but I can’t read it clearly,” Mindy says. “Can you?”

  I shake my head. “I think it might be the number 3 at the beginning, but there’s more to it. It’s too blurry to make out the other digits.”

  “So now what?”

  “Well, we can’t stand around in this cemetery forever.” I snap my fingers as an idea suddenly hits me, and then grab hold o
f the fake tombstone, pulling it out of the ground from where it had been anchored with a small plastic spike attached to its base. “We’ll take it with us.”

  “A little extreme, don’t you think?” Mindy says, signaling for me to lay it upon the ground so the back side faces up. “Give me the slip of paper with the first number upon it.” I fish it out of my pocket and hand it to her, the number 90 visible in the light. “And surely you have a pencil, right?”

  “Of course,” I tell her, removing one from another pocket. At once, Mindy places the piece of paper over the carved number and gently rubs the side of the pencil lead over it repeatedly, slowly transferring the image to the paper.

  “I’ve done some gravestone rubbings before for a history project,” she says. “Charcoal or wax would work much better, but this will have to do.” Soon she jumps up and hands me the piece of paper. “Here. This will be much easier to carry around instead of a bulky tombstone.”

  “Thanks.” I examine it in the light, and though the number 3 is clearly visible, the rest of the number is still a bit blurry. I shake my head, noting that there is something unusual about this particular number in the vault combination. Something different. “So far we have 90, 32 and…3 something,” I whisper to myself. “Just what could it be?”

  X Marks the Spot

  We leave the cemetery and move on, hoping to solve our last number mystery in a far less eerie location. At least we hope so. We soon pass through the main gate. The one-lane asphalt road greeting us is as desolate as the graveyard itself. We head east.

  Our next destination is less than a mile up the road. But I don’t have to consult my map again to confirm where we’re going. We both know the location–the Kensington Circle Corporation, the X on my map. But what might await us in that abandoned bicycle factory is anybody’s guess, yet the five of us walk bravely toward it anyway.

  In time we see the outline of the hulking structure in the distance to our right. It is as black as coal from our vantage point, its rows of windows reflecting the moonlight like dozens of curious eyes. As we draw closer, we notice several thickets of scraggly trees dotting the surrounding property. There are patches of dry, spindly grass that had grown wild during the summer months.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Griffin? It’s not too late to turn around,” Mindy advises me, her tone both cautious and supportive at the same time.

  “I have no choice, Mindy. The Silver Swamp monster has leveled its greatest challenge at me to date,” I say, letting her words swirl about my mind that tempt me with second thoughts. But I do not relent. “I must go forward and see this through to the end, whatever awaits me.” I turn to her as we continue to briskly walk. “But you don’t have to go any farther. You can wait outside with Alpha, Beta and Gamma.”

  “Not on your life, Griffin Ghostley! I’ll follow you wherever this escapade leads,” she boldly says. “And I know that Alpha, Beta and Gamma won’t leave your side no matter what happens.” She smiles, calming my nerves. “Like it or not, you’re stuck with us.”

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I reply. “And thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me just yet,” she adds, stopping and pointing to the right side of the road. “We’re here.”

  The remains of the Kensington Circle Corporation building rise five stories high in the moonlit gloom. A rusty chain link fence surrounds the property, but the main gate is open. A wooden FOR SALE sign is visible nearby, its paint chipped and faded by the passing seasons. Apparently there haven’t been many people interested in buying the place by the look of things. I sniff the air.

  “What is that awful stench?” I ask, waving a hand in front of my nose. “It smells like mud and dead fish.”

  “Maybe it’s from the swamp.”

  “But the Silver Swamp is a half mile away from here. Still, if that’s the case, it’s no wonder this place hasn’t sold yet. By the size of it, I’ll bet a hundred or so people once worked here,” I theorize, intently studying the deteriorating structure.

  “I wish some of them were with us now,” Mindy whispers.

  We slowly walk to the main entrance where a large metal door looks down upon us. Three wide stone steps lead up to it. I shine my light about but see nothing unusual, only dried tufts of grass growing around the edge of the building and through cracks in the pavement of what were once sidewalks and a large parking lot close by. When I aim the light above the door, we see three words chiseled into the stone wall–KENSINGTON CIRCLE CORPORATION. Centered above that is carved a circle with a horizontal line running through its center. I guess that it is an artistic representation of a bicycle wheel since they used to be manufactured in this plant.

  “Let’s take a walk around the perimeter before we attempt to go in,” I suggest. “I want to know if there are any surprises lurking about outside.”

  “Good idea,” Mindy replies. “I’m still not a hundred percent ready to see what’s behind this door.”

  We walk along the left side of the building, but encounter nothing out of the ordinary. Alpha, Beta and Gamma move about rambunctiously, seemingly unalarmed by their surroundings. Then we take a right turn around the corner of the building. Instantly everything changes. We hear and smell the unexpected, a sight we never imagined we’d see this close to the building. Our nerves are suddenly on edge as the canine trio whimpers. The dogs correctly sense that something unnatural lies before us.

  “I thought that the swamp was another half mile away,” Mindy utters in sheer disbelief.

  “I did too,” I reply, shaking my head as if trying to wake up from a weird dream. “How can this be? It’s as if it’s–alive.”

  As Mindy and I walk warily along the side of the building, Alpha, Beta and Gamma stay close by, occasionally looking at us for reassurance. The bright beams of our flashlights are aimed directly ahead. The light is instantly absorbed within the grotesquely shaped swamp trees dripping with moss and draped with leafy vines, and into the dark, murky water of a huge swamp that has no earthly business being here. The fetid smell is nearly suffocating.

  “How can this be, Griffin? It’s as if this swamp has been growing like an organism,” Mindy says, still in a state of confusion. “It stretches on as far as the eye can see.”

  I cautiously approach the edge of the water. The shoreline is dotted with tall reeds and cattails. The sound of croaking frogs echoes in the background. When I look to the right along the back side of the building, I notice that the swamp has already reached the farthest corner from us, its grimy waters lapping up against the stone wall. Then I notice something that makes my eyes widen even more in shock, if that were now possible.

  “Mindy, look at that!” I point with my flashlight to the edge of the water closest to the old factory. “You can see how the swamp is still growing, getting closer to this corner of the building. But that’s–impossible!”

  “Yet we’re witnessing it with our own eyes.”

  Alpha barks at the waterline, noticing its ghostly movement. I gently pet him to calm him down, thinking it best that we should leave at once.

  “No wonder this place won’t sell,” I say, urging everyone to move away before the water advances to where we’re standing. “There’s some sort of magical enchantment upon this swamp, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess who put it there.”

  “There may not be a place to sell for very much longer,” Mindy explains with a renewed sense of urgency. “This building could be swallowed up whole if the swamp expands much farther. And after that?”

  I shudder, realizing her grim point. “Our entire city could be next, slowly gobbled up by the swamp monster’s watery lair. It’s a diabolically ingenious plan.”

  “But what can we do about it?”

  “What else can we do?” I calmly state.

  I glance at Mindy. By her resigned, almost heartbroken expression, she has already guessed my next move.

  “You’re still going inside, aren’t you,” she replies,
knowing she can’t convince me otherwise. I nod, hoping that the next sentence she utters isn’t the one I fear she might say. But she says it anyway. “Then I’m going with you.”

  We hurry around to the front of the building as the sound of lapping water haunts us. I feel on edge more now than ever before, knowing I must confront the Silver Swamp monster and somehow open that combination vault to once and for all beat this ghoulish entity at its own game. I recall its chilling words of warning written on the map. The fates of you and of so many others are in your hands if you do not get that door open in time. What catastrophe awaits us if I dare not try? What catastrophe awaits us if I fail?

  Moments later, Mindy, my three canine companions and I bound up the front steps and stand at the main door of the Kensington Circle Corporation. I place a hand on the door knob, anticipating the worst.

  “Keep your fingers crossed,” I softly say as I turn the handle and push. The door opens easily, much to my surprise. “Hmmm, no locks, so squeaks, no ghostly guards.”

  “I was expecting a few complications,” Mindy remarks. “It was almost too easy.”

  “I’ll take any advantage I can get right now,” I say. “Besides, the swamp monster wants to see me, and as I correctly followed the clues on the map, it’s the very least that miserable creature can do to help me. Now let’s find the vault.”

  I lead the way into the thick and dreary darkness as Mindy and the dogs follow. The two flashlights provide enough illumination for us to wander about, but it takes several moments for our eyes to adjust. As they do, I can better make sense of my surroundings.

  We proceed down the main hallway, the tiled floor chipped in many spots and coated with a thin layer of dust. A series of large picture windows line the hallway on either side, offering views of now silent production facilities. Various machines and workbenches lie asleep as if under some sort of spell. The air is cold and stale as our footsteps faintly echo off the walls.