by Bryan Chick
The sasquatch threw up its fist and punched through the steel grate. It shoved its entire arm through and reached for the scouts. Noah rolled onto the bridge. The sasquatch swiped at Ella’s leg and just missed, its open hand banging the metal grate and rocking the walls. Its huge fingers had square, knotty knuckles and were tipped with long claws.
As Ella tried to crawl away, the monster wrapped its powerful hand around her arm, just above her wrist.
CHAPTER 51
A KEY TO SUCCESS
Within forty yards of Megan, the sasquatch passed into the bright light in the middle of the hall and was fully revealed: the wide wall of its teeth, the flex and release of its massive muscles.
In a panic, Megan ran to a classroom door, Room 203, Ms. Peter’s class. The knob wouldn’t turn. She ran to Room 205. It, too, was kept locked.
Barely more than forty lockers now separated the sasquatch from Megan. It passed Charlie Red, who casually walked on.
Megan dashed across the hall to Room 206 and cranked the doorknob. Nothing. She seized the doorknob to Room 204, which was directly beside Room 206. Again, the knob wouldn’t budge.
She stared up the hall again. Less than twenty lockers away, the sasquatch was now creeping forward on two feet, its arms raised. She saw the details of its face—its swollen lips, its black pupils, its dark nostrils. In seconds it would reach her … and it would kill her.
Megan’s eyes moved to a poster above the lockers on the wall beside the sasquatch. On it was a picture of a closed book, the reader’s spot marked with a gold key. A caption read, “Reading is your key to success.”
Your key.
An idea sparked in her head. She unsnapped the small leather pouch on her pirate belt and pulled out the single item inside it, the gold key that Noah had dropped in the street. The magical gold key that could fit any lock in the Clarksville Zoo.
Could the key fit a lock outside the Clarksville Zoo?
She jabbed the key at the door. Expecting to hear the soft clink of the key jamming halfway into the lock, she instead heard nothing at all. The key had softened and sunk into the lock cylinder, just as it had for the doors in the Clarksville Zoo.
She turned the knob and pushed her way into the classroom. Just as the door slammed shut behind her, the sasquatch banged into it, rattling it inside its frame. The beast dropped its head and peered through the small window, its apelike nose pressed against the glass. Megan had a close-up view of its yellow eyes and square teeth.
She backed away and glanced around. This was Ms. Sara’s third grade classroom. It had at least twenty individual desks in groups of four, and the walls were papered in drawings made of crayon. Normally Megan would have thought this room charming and fun, but now she thought of it as something else—a dead end, no better than the one in the hall.
The sasquatch pulled away from the door, leaving green, goopy snot on the glass. It disappeared from view.
“Leave,” Megan muttered. “Please, please … just leave.”
But right after her words, there was an enormous crash and the door snapped off its hinges and flew inward. It smashed into a group of desks and its window burst in a spray of glass. Two desks toppled over, spilling books and papers and crayons onto the floor. The sasquatch turned sideways and knuckle-walked through the open doorframe.
“No,” Megan uttered.
Inside Room 204 of Clarksville Elementary, the sasquatch stood partially straight, pressing the mound of his back against the ceiling. Then it threw back its head and roared.
CHAPTER 52
INSIDE LOCKER 518
Richie continued to stand with his back against the wall as the sasquatch advanced into the upper-el wing. Was Richie in plain view? He could only hope not.
He glanced around and saw the two walls of lockers stretching in both directions. Suddenly he had an idea.
He slid down to a nearby locker, where a thin metal plate read, “518.” Richie’s locker. He dialed in his combination and gently opened the door. Then he turned sideways, ducked his head to avoid the top shelf, and slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind him, but not allowing it to latch. His world went almost black. The only light came through the vent—five horizontal slits right in front of his face. Through them, he could see maybe fifty feet in either direction.
He waited. He listened. In the dark, confined space, he could hear his heart. Sweat streamed down his temples. His shallow breaths burst against the locker door and wafted back against his face.
He heard something. Footsteps. Then, in the edge of his vision, the sasquatch appeared. It stopped at the beginning of the upper-el wing and peered down the empty hall, its raised snout sniffing the air. It lowered its head, grunted, and scanned the rows of lockers.
Richie watched the beast knuckle-walk to the lockers along the opposite wall. It tipped its head to one side and seemed to wonder about them. It laid one palm flat against the door and softly pushed. The door buckled inward and snapped off its top hinge. Startled, the sasquatch jumped back and the door swung outward and dangled on its bottom hinge like a too-loose tooth ready for pulling. The sasquatch curiously sniffed the exposed space. Then it swung around and faced the hallway again. It swept its gaze down the lockers on one wall, then up the lockers on the other, still hunting for Richie’s scent. It walked across the hall and back again. It seemed confused, and Richie realized why. Richie’s scent was trapped in the locker, and the sasquatch couldn’t pinpoint where he was.
The small space of Richie’s locker was hotter than ever. Sweat had soaked the ribbed cuff of his cap and the armpits of his checkered nerd shirt. His breaths came in quiet, quick gasps.
The sasquatch suddenly lunged to one side and threw itself against the lockers, collapsing a few. Metal clanged and clunked, and fragments of steel burst into the air—latches and locks and small jagged pieces. Books and papers spilled out onto the floor. The monster kicked through the debris and took off toward Richie’s side of the hall, disappearing from view before crashing into the lockers again. The exploding sounds rang in Richie’s ears. Shreds of metal rained down on the hall floor, and pens and pencils rolled across the tiles.
Richie bit his bottom lip to keep from whimpering and tasted the salt of his sweat.
An animal grunt sounded, and then the sasquatch charged across the hall and slammed into several new lockers, smashing their doors and thin walls, emptying their guts onto the floor. It immediately ran to the other side and plowed into several more.
Its intentions became obvious.
The beast was going to move down the hall, crushing lockers until it crushed Richie.
CHAPTER 53
OVER THE BRIDGE
Pain shot from Ella’s wrist to elbow. All the sasquatch needed to do was tighten its grip to crack and crumble her bones to pieces. Something grabbed her other arm, and she glanced over to see Noah holding her with two hands. He was leaning back on the bridge, trying to free her.
“Ella—pull!” he commanded.
Ella did as instructed, the web of pain spreading all the way to her shoulder. Just when she feared she’d never break loose, she fell away from the hut and tumbled over Noah onto the bridge. Stunned, she glanced back and saw the sasquatch holding the broken remains of her Wonder Woman bracelet. The wide silver band had split in two and slipped off her arm, allowing her to pull free.
She turned to Noah, who said, “Defends against all manners of attack.”
Ella nodded, too shocked for words.
Noah grabbed under her shoulder and pulled them both to their feet. “C’mon—we got to move!”
The scouts ran across the bridge, which had a metal grate for a floor and vertical rails for walls. The sasquatch, having freed its arm, jumped beneath them. It reached up and seized both sides of the grate. Then it dropped its weight to one side, snapping the brackets that connected the floor to the hut behind the scouts. The bridge tipped like a drawbridge as one end of it was forced down.
“Noah—h
urry!”
Less than five feet separated the scouts from a new platform. The floor became a steeper and steeper incline as the sasquatch continued to pull. They were no longer simply crossing the bridge—they were climbing it.
As the scouts escaped onto the new platform, brackets and bolts snapped like gunshots and the bridge gave way and crashed to the ground. Tremors moved through the framework of the play structure.
“We have to make it back to the Descenders!” Noah said. “We’ll never beat this thing on our own!”
A straight slide provided the quickest exit to the ground. Three feet above the top of the slide ran a horizontal bar. Noah clutched it in both hands and flung his legs out in front of him, landing on his rear end on the slide. He touched down on the playground and took off running, his feet flinging wood chips into the air.
Ella followed. But as she released the horizontal bar, the sasquatch appeared at the side of the slide, its arm cocked back. It swung at her head, and Ella dropped down just in time to pass beneath the blow, which instantly buckled the slide, tipping up its bottom like a ramp. Ella coasted across the unexpected incline and flew several feet into the air, her arms and leg flailing. She hit the ground running and took off after Noah.
As the scouts dashed across the playground, Ella peered over her shoulder. The sasquatch had already dropped to its hands and feet and was rushing after them.
CHAPTER 54
AGAINST THE WHITEBOARD
Megan scanned the room for an escape. The outside wall had several windows, but they were surely kept locked, and Megan had no time to get them open. There were no doors other than the one she’d entered through. The only way out was the way she’d come in, and the sasquatch was blocking that passage. Having nowhere to go, she backed toward the front of the class.
The sasquatch crept toward her. It growled and snorted and dripped saliva off its bottom lip. When it bumped into one of the desks it had knocked over, it reached down, seized one of its metal legs, and casually hurled it aside. The spinning desk crashed into the ceiling and came down hard on the floor, breaking into several pieces.
Megan walked backward past several desks and stopped by the slick whiteboard on the front wall. To her right was Ms. Sara’s desk. It was littered with books and paperwork and tins filled with assorted junk. A bunch of pens stood on end in a Mickey Mouse coffee mug, and yellow Post-It notes clung to everything: a lamp, a book, a box of tissues, a stapler.
The sasquatch cut across the room at an angle. Headed toward Megan, it plowed through the classroom furniture, its beefy arms heaving items everywhere. Chairs struck the walls, their plastic seats exploding to pieces. Desks flew and knocked over tables and shelves. Papers rained down like large confetti.
Unable to stay quiet any longer, Megan hollered, “Leave me alone!”
The sasquatch hurled another desk into the air, where it turned end over end, its open compartment spilling crayons and markers and pink erasers. The desk bounced off a filing cabinet and struck a window, leaving a web of cracks.
“DeGraff will never win!” Megan shouted. “Even if you kill me … it won’t do any good!”
The sasquatch threw aside the last desk between it and the front of the class and stepped up to Megan, looking bigger than ever.
“What are you going to do, huh?” Megan challenged. “Kill a girl?”
The monster answered by letting loose a roar so powerful that pain erupted in Megan’s ears and the pens in Ms. Sara’s Mickey Mouse cup shook.
CHAPTER 55
ALONG THE WALLS OF LOCKERS
The sasquatch crushed a group of lockers directly across from Richie. Handles and hinges tumbled through the air and clinked on the floor. The monster pulled itself from the crumpled remains and charged toward Richie, who watched from the slits in his locker vent. He shut his eyes and winced as the beast threw forward its weight. A deafening rattle stung his ears, and a second later Richie looked out to see the sasquatch charging back across the hall, leading with the mound of its muscular shoulder.
To Richie’s right, the metal wall was now bulging inward—his locker had barely been missed.
The sasquatch continued to zigzag down the school, crushing lockers and dumping their contents onto the floor. When it reached the end of the wing, it turned and knuckle-walked back, its head swinging to survey the damage. Most of the lockers had been pulverized, but a few remained intact. The sasquatch again sniffed the air for Richie’s smell.
Richie held his breath, his heart beating faster than ever. He realized he was drenched in sweat. If fear had a smell, he stank of it.
The sasquatch abruptly stopped in front of him and aimed its yellow-eyed gaze at his locker. It sniffed the air deeply, then swung its shoulders and knuckle-walked straight at him.
Richie’s entire body clenched. A stream of sweat dripped off the tip of his nose.
The sasquatch leaned its head toward the locker vent. Richie watched its face come closer and closer. He began to smell its terrible scent, a cross between a wet dog and wet compost.
The beast pulled back its swollen, cracked lips, exposing the full length of its fangs. Then it leaned in so close that Richie could see nothing but the deep yellow of its eyes and the black of its pupils. The sasquatch was an inch or two away, and all that separated them was a flimsy steel door.
The sasquatch let out a low, rumbling growl.
Richie had been spotted.
CHAPTER 56
THE CRAWL TUBE
Noah led Ella through the maze of playground equipment, her red cape fluttering behind her, the sasquatch charging after them on all fours. He veered right and headed for the school, which was still more than fifty yards away. Through the fog, the brawl began to take shape: Hannah leaping in the air; Sam flying overhead; Tameron heaving his tail. Hulking bodies lay on the ground. Sasquatches. It seemed the Descenders were winning.
Noah glanced back again. The sasquatch was only a few feet behind Ella. There was no way they were going to outrun it.
“Ella—follow me!”
“What the heck do you think I’m doing!”
Noah turned and dove into a plastic crawl tube, roughly fifteen feet long and four across. Each end was mounted on two poles which held it several feet in the air. A line of small oval cutouts, about three feet apart from one another, acted as windows. Ella dove in after Noah, and the two of them crawled to the middle of the tunnel.
The sasquatch slowed down and began to knuckle-walk beside the long piece of equipment, its stench wafting through the holes. Near the middle of the tube, it pressed its face against the plastic and peered inside, its angry yellow eye nearly filling the cutout. The scouts whimpered and pressed their backs against the far side of the tube. Ella kicked her flashy red boot against the cutout and the sasquatch grunted and pulled back. It hesitated, seemed to consider something, then knuckle-walked away, its furry muscles quaking as it grew smaller and smaller and then disappeared altogether in a cloud of dense fog.
The scouts, too stunned for words, sat there in silence. After a few seconds, Ella whispered, “Is it … gone?”
Noah shrugged. The two of them became very quiet again and listened.
The sasquatch suddenly appeared. On all fours, it was charging straight at them.
“Get down!” Noah said.
The scouts dropped in opposite directions, landing on their stomachs on the curved plastic floor. A second later the sasquatch punched its arm through a cutout and clawed at the open space, trying to grab one of the scouts as they squirmed away. Unable to reach them, it tried to pull free and couldn’t—its arm was trapped. It roared and rocked its hulkish body back and forth, slamming against the crawl tube again and again.
Noah pointed to the open end of the tube beyond Ella. “Go! Now’s our chance!”
As they clambered for the exit, the sasquatch thrust its full weight against the tube, knocking them off balance. The beast rammed the tube harder than ever. The circular walls began to quak
e. Then, all at once, the tube snapped off its posts and dropped several feet to the ground, the sasquatch’s arm finally slipping free.
The sasquatch jumped to the end of the tube in front of Ella and lowered its overturned head into the opening. Its top lip drooped above its gum line, and drool dripped into its own eyes. In the small space of the tube, a growl rumbled like thunder. The sasquatch grabbed for the scouts, who screamed and crawled out of reach. The monster then pulled back its arm and knuckle-walked to the other end of the tunnel. As its face appeared in the opening, Ella and Noah retreated to their former spot toward the middle of the tube.
The sasquatch straightened its legs and hammered a fist down on the tunnel roof. The plastic cracked, and its blocky knuckles broke through. The beast tipped its head to one side and studied what it had done.
“Oh no,” Ella said.
The sasquatch again knuckle-walked to the middle of the tube. It backed up about fifteen feet, charged forward, and slammed into the plastic wall, which buckled inward as the tube went into a roll. The scouts thrashed, their bodies turning along the revolving curve of the floor. The tunnel wheeled about fifteen feet and came to a stop.
Noah untangled himself and touched the spot that the sasquatch had struck. Along the plastic was a web of cracks.
“He’s going to rip this thing apart,” he said. “To get to us.”
Ella crawled out from under her cape, which had settled on top of her head. “How far is the school?”
Noah glanced through one of the cutouts and saw the foggy images of the Descenders.
“Fifty yards,” Noah said. “Maybe more.”
“We have to make a run for it,” Ella said.
As she turned for the exit, Noah seized her shoulder. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
In response, Noah stood on his knees, gripped the edges of two cutouts on the side opposite the sasquatch, and pulled down. The tunnel wheeled forward about a foot and stopped.