“Uh…one of them,” Peter said.
“Do you happen to remember what Itcheepatucknee means?”
“…something about waters?”
“‘Hidden waters,’ that’s what those fools staple up on their boards everywhere. ‘Hidden waters,’ my foot.”
“Can we just skip this part, and go to where you tell us everything we need to know?” Dill asked impatiently.
Grandfather turned his blazing eyes slowly over to Dill. Dill, in turn, shrank back behind Peter.
“They’re mistranslating the original root of the words from the Winnapotakan language,” Grandfather continued.
“Ohhhh man,” Dill moaned. “Here they come again.”
“Here comes who again?” Grandfather snapped.
“The Indians. The Indians this, the Indians that. Vampires and Indians, giant frogs and Indians — every freakin’ thing is about the Indians. Why you gotta bring up the Indians again?”
“Because they were here long before the white man, you young fool, and knew far more about the land around us — including the things in it.”
“Well, they’re not here anymore, so why you gotta keep bringing ‘em up? Know–it–all Indians,” Dill muttered.
Grandfather looked like he was about to have a fit.
“The name is wrong?” Peter broke in.
“What? Oh — yes.” Grandfather shot daggers at Dill, then turned back to the road. “The Indians use a similar term for both ‘hidden’ and ‘deadly,’ the thought being that whatever you’re hunting out in the wild is especially dangerous when you can’t see it. ‘Itcheepatucknee’ doesn’t mean ‘hidden waters’, it means ‘deadly waters.’”
“Does it mean ‘giant salamander,’ too?” Dill asked.
Peter expected Grandfather to lay a verbal smackdown on Dill, but the old man surprised him.
“Not the word itself, but strangely enough, there are cave paintings south of here which depict large animals the Indians hunted. Bear, deer, wild boar…they were all followed by depictions of men, the order perhaps suggesting a chain of who hunted what. But there is a larger drawing that follows those men, larger than any known animal in these parts, and it looks a bit like what you described this evening to the rangers. Tail… triangular hands and feet…giant mouth, taller than two men standing on the other’s shoulders. That drawing has never been adequately explained, although it suggests that something might have been hunting the Indians.” Grandfather paused. “According to the eggheads over at the Charterton University archeology department, that cave painting is over four hundred years old. Perhaps a thousand. And if you go back in the historical record, every seven years — or at least, a multiple of seven — there is a major disturbance, and often a tragic disappearance. The tribal elders even proclaimed that every seventh year, the tribe would move away from the springs and not allow their children to go there.”
“What are you saying?” Peter asked.
“It seems this creature you saw is on a cycle. And for whatever reason, it goes on a rampage every seventh year. Perhaps it is preparing for hibernation, perhaps it needs food for…other purposes.” Grandfather glanced uncomfortably over at the boys, then back at the road. “Whatever the case, this is a very dangerous time to be around the springs.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that before we went over there?” Dill asked sharply.
“I didn’t know you were going, you idjit! The first I heard of it was when the rangers called, saying you were spouting off about giant lizards! And even if I had known you were going to the springs, I wouldn’t have necessarily remembered — the cycle is every seven years, not exactly something I write on my calendar.”
“What about it stinging me, and my falling asleep?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know about that,” Grandfather admitted.
“Well, it stung Greg, too, and carried him off. What do you think it did with him?”
“I don’t know about that, either,” Grandfather said quietly.
“All he knows about is Indians,” Dill muttered.
“What did you say?!”
“Nothing!” Dill said with a fake smile.
“Do you think that they could still be alive?” Peter asked.
Grandfather was silent a good ten seconds before he answered. “I don’t know, boy. I don’t know. But it might be better for them if they’re not.”
“What does that mean?” Dill asked.
“It means I don’t want you going around those springs ever again, you hear me?”
“But — ”
“I mean it! You hear me?”
“Yes, sir…” Peter murmured.
“Okay, okay,” Dill said. “Jeez.”
Grandfather pointed at Dill. “You, now, you can go there as much as you want.”
“Ha, ha. Funny–funny,” Dill said, without a trace of amusement in his voice.
Peter wasn’t paying attention. He was staring out the side window. Grandfather’s truck was passing over the bridge that spanned the lake. Half a mile away, he could see flashlight beams slashing through the trees and reflecting dimly across the water.
You promised…
Peter settled back into his seat and didn’t say another thing for the rest of the ride home.
19
The truck pulled into the gravel driveway of Peter’s house.
“Out,” Grandfather commanded. Peter and Dill spilled out the passenger side door, and the truck continued on towards the garage.
There was an uncomfortable silence as the two boys stood there. Peter realized that they hadn’t talked about what had happened — to each other, without adults around them — since they had been under the fallen tree.
In other words, they hadn’t talked about Greg.
“Well,” Peter said.
“Yeah,” Dill replied.
“We got lucky.”
Dill nodded. “SUPER lucky.”
“What, uh…what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m never going back there again.”
Peter moved some gravel around with his foot. “What about Greg?”
Dill stiffened. “What about him?”
“Dill, it’s our fault that he got…that the monster got him.”
Dill shook his head. “No. No way.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it is.”
“He didn’t have to go.”
“Dill, you said that we were going to leave him there for the monster to get him unless he took us to — ”
“I KNOW WHAT I SAID!” Dill shouted. Peter could barely see Dill’s face in the darkness, but it was obvious from his voice how much he was suffering. “I was there, remember?”
“I just feel really bad.”
“Well so do I!” Dill whimpered. “So do I. But what are we supposed to do about it? You want to go find that thing again? Cuz I sure don’t.”
“No, but…”
Peter’s voice trailed off.
Dill stared at the ground. “I’m sorry it happened. I really, really am. I’d give a whole lot if we could just have a do–over, but that’s never gonna happen.”
Peter shook his head. “No, I guess not.”
They stood there in silence a few seconds more until Peter’s mom drove up in the battered little Honda. Its headlights washed over them, illuminating Dill’s sad, hurt eyes.
“I’m goin’ home now,” Dill mumbled.
“I’ll see you,” Peter called after him.
“Yeah.” Dill walked on over to his house. No one was there to greet him, no one to worry about him almost dying today, nobody to tell him how much they loved him.
They’ll probably yell at him for being late, Peter thought gloomily.
He turned back to his own house and went inside.
20
The first thing Peter did was take a bath to get the dried mud and sweat off him. Shortly after he got dressed, Mom called up that dinner was ready.
Everything
was quiet at the kitchen table. Even Beth, who was usually talkative during the most tense and inappropriate moments, looked expectantly back and forth between Peter and Mom. Thank goodness Grandfather was back in the study, same as he always was.
Peter scraped his plate with a fork through most of the meal. He ate little and said even less.
Mom kept silent until the very end. “Is there anything you want to talk about, Pete?”
He shook his head ‘no.’
“Is there…anything new you might want to tell me?”
Peter lifted his eyes from his uneaten meatloaf and glared at her. “Why, so you can tell that Ranger Eric guy?”
Mom frowned. “This is serious, Peter.”
“Isss sewious, Petah,” Beth said very seriously.
“I know that! Don’t you think I know that? I was there!” he yelled.
He realized that he sounded just like Dill had back in the driveway. Peter wondered if Dill had felt then the way that Peter did now: that his Mom didn’t believe him, that she was attacking him when he already felt awful and completely powerless to do anything about it. He made a mental note to apologize to Dill tomorrow morning.
Mom sat up tall in her seat. “I’m going to overlook your little temper tantrum and chalk it up to a really bad day.”
Peter went back to staring at his food.
“But I want you to absolutely promise me something: are you sure you don’t know anything else about what happened to those two boys.”
“I already told you everything,” he said sullenly.
“Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it?”
Peter let his fork clank down on his plate.
Good thing I never told her about the dead hobos or Mercy.
“May I be excused?”
His mother looked angry, then softened a little.
“If you want to talk about it later, I’ll be here to listen.”
Peter got out of his chair and went up to his room.
21
Sleep didn’t come easily. It seemed like hours as Peter lay in bed watching shadows move on the ceiling. A couple of times he had to go to the window to reassure himself that nothing was out there. Both dead men and little girl vampires had attacked this house; there was no reason to think that a giant frog monster wouldn’t walk a few miles to come after him, too.
He dropped off to sleep around midnight, but his dreams were troubled. In them, he was back in the swamp, running for his life, holding onto someone’s hand. Sometimes it was Greg, sometimes it was Dill, sometimes Mom or Beth. But every time, he felt their hand slip out of his. When he looked back, there was the swamp monster, plucking them from the ground. Peter would scream and cry, but he had to keep running, he had to keep running away…and he would see the next person, Dill or Mom or Beth, and he would take them by the hand. But then the swamp monster came and grabbed them all over again.
Finally he reached the end of the swamp, an endless field of holes dotted with moss–covered tree trunks. He was alone, with everyone he cared about gone — because he had left them, because he was scared, because he had run away. Behind him, he could hear the swamp monster crashing through the trees.
He started to run between the holes in the ground, but hands grabbed the cuff of his jeans. He looked down and saw Greg’s pale face in the dark beneath the tree trunk, his hands reaching out, his lips forming the silent words:
You promised.
Peter tore himself away, but backed too close to another hole, where more hands reached out and pulled at his clothes. Again, Greg, trapped beneath the tree, moaning silently.
You promised…you promised.
The sound of falling trees and ripping branches was getting closer.
He tripped and stumbled from hole to hole, every one of them with clutching hands, a pale face with terrified eyes, and a single phrase repeated over and over again.
You promised…you promised…you promised…you promised…
The trees of the swamp burst apart and there was the monster, mouth open, tongue lashing out.
Peter fell backwards into one of the holes, but instead of one pair of hands, there were hundreds pulling him down into the darkness. Instead of one face, there were dozens: all of them Greg’s, all of them pressing around him, all of them forming those two words in a silent scream:
YOU PROMISED.
• • •
Peter’s whole body jerked like he’d just stuck his finger in an electrical socket.
He was awake, back in his room, in his own bed. His pajamas were soaked in cold sweat. He trembled and hugged his legs tight to his chest. The scratch on his thigh smarted a little. He rubbed it, and remembered falling asleep…
Which made him think of Greg getting thwacked in the back…
Which made him think of Rory and Greg asleep somewhere, alive but unconscious, with the giant monster drooling over them.
Peter felt awful as he lay there trying to figure out what to do. The answer didn’t come, but he did realize where he should start looking for it. He climbed out of bed, changed into a fresh t–shirt and shorts, and crept quietly out of his room and down the stairs.
22
In the kitchen there was a wooden desk built into the wall, with shelves above it where old cookbooks went to die. This nook was Mom’s little office, with a coffee cup stuffed full of pens, and tons of post–it notes stuck everywhere. Peter found that funny; he doubted Grandfather’s house had ever seen a post–it note before they’d moved in.
But the most important thing was Mom’s laptop computer, which she had brought with her when they moved from California. He sat in front of it now as he waited for it to boot up.
He’d been bugging his mom for a year to get a faster computer, but they’d been too poor. Now that they were better off, Peter still didn’t see them buying a new one any time soon. Even if Grandfather was stinking rich, he was less familiar with computers than with post–it notes. He absolutely refused to look at the thing, no matter how many times Mom offered to show him how much information he could find online.
“I have all the books I’ll ever need in the study, thank you very much,” he always harrumphed.
They still didn’t have a cable modem, so Peter had to wait for the computer to finish beeping and squelching as it logged on to the internet. He supposed he should be thankful that he could get on the web at all. Living in a house without a television made him appreciate the smallest things, even ancient internet connections.
When it finally came up, he went onto Google. It took him a while to bring himself to type the gruesome words, but he finally entered
how animals store food
and pressed ‘Enter.’ After several minutes of reading through entries on body fat, he found an interesting link:
An Australian man was attacked and knocked unconscious Thursday by a freshwater crocodile. Mr. Robin Attenbrough told reporters that he was certain he was going to die when the animal dragged him under the water and he blacked out. However, he awoke in an underground lair where the crocodile hid its food. He had suffered numerous injuries in the attack, but the crocodile was not present when he awoke. Mr. Attenbrough swam out of the cave entrance back to the river, over a hundred meters from where he was attacked, and escaped to shore where a passerby alerted authorities. “I don’t think I’ll go swimming again except in a swimming pool,” Mr. Attenbrough told reporters.
Peter wanted to know more, but after ten minutes of searching, he found almost nothing about crocodiles’ underwater hideouts.
But they exist. And a crocodile is close to an alligator…and an alligator is sort of close to the thing we saw today.
Then he typed in the search words
animal stings
After clicking through another dozen links, he found one on spiders.
Depending on the species, the venom can paralyze its prey rather than killing it. This keeps the victim alive and fresh longer for consumption days or weeks later.
&nbs
p; Not only that, he found another interesting bit on jellyfish, of all things.
In order to avoid the poisonous effects of the box jellyfish’s tentacles, Australian lifeguards will wear full body suits made of a pantyhose–like material. The cloth is thin enough to allow them to swim freely in the ocean, but thick enough to stop jellyfish stinging cells from reaching their skin.
That last article set Peter’s mind working.
“Although I’m not wearing pantyhose,” he murmured to himself.
23
Peter rapped lightly on the window of Dill’s bedroom, the one he shared with his brother Woody. The whole house was only one story tall, so the window was easy to reach. However, it was three o’clock in the morning. Peter wondered how hard he would have to knock, and how long, before Dill woke up.
As it turned out, not long at all. Almost immediately he heard Dill’s panicked voice.
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me,” Peter whispered.
Dill came to the window, lifted it up, and stared at Peter in disbelief.
“What are you doing here?” Dill looked him up and down. “And what are you wearing?”
It was true, Peter had on some pretty odd clothes: layers and layers of thick sweaters, three pairs of jeans, and gloves and a cap for cold weather. Luckily the air was still cool, or he would have been sweating like a pig.
“I gotta go back,” Peter explained. “This is what I’m wearing so it can’t sting me.”
Dill looked at him in shock and then slowly got angry. “No. No, unh–unh, NO,” he hissed. “I’m not going.”
“Okay, but I’ve got to go back. I’m having nightmares about Greg, and I know it’s not going to get any better until I try to keep my promise.”
“We did try,” Dill said bitterly. “We did everything we could.”
“Not everything. Not yet.”
“It’s not fair.” Dill was almost crying now. “We’re didn’t want Greg to get taken…we shouldn’t have to go back.”
“You don’t. I do. I think I can help him, so I’m going to try.”
“What, looking like you weigh five hundred pounds?”
Peter glanced down at his bulky clothing. His arms wouldn’t even lay flat on his sides, his sweaters were so thick. “If its tongue can’t punch through the clothes, it won’t be able to get me.”
“You gonna bet your life on that?”
Peter shrugged.
“Let the cops and the rangers handle it!” Dill whispered.
Peter And The Vampires (Volume One) Page 32