The monster had just swallowed a big metal tank of air, and all it did was burp.
Oh CRAP.
Without warning, the monster snapped its head to one side, and the raft along with it.
Peter’s fingers jerked free of the handhold, and he tumbled through the air and plunged headfirst into the lake.
His body flinched from the shock of the ice–cold water, and he flailed his arms in panic. But his four sweaters and three pairs of pants sucked up water like a sponge and weighed down his limbs so much that he could barely move.
The only thing that saved him was the scuba mask and the life jacket. The mask kept the water from going up his nose, even as buckets of it filled his mouth. And the life jacket bobbed him almost immediately to the surface, right side up, where he choked out the lake water and gasped for breath.
The first thing he saw was the rubber raft go flying through the air and splash down about twenty feet away. The second thing he saw was the monster turn its head towards him and open its mouth.
The life jacket had saved him from drowning. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to save him from being eaten alive.
Something smacked hard against his side.
Peter screamed and furiously tried to swim away. The smart part of his brain knew it was hopeless, but that part wasn’t in charge anymore. The dumb, pure survival part of his brain had taken over and was keeping his legs kicking as fast as they could go.
Something whapped against his leg this time. It was hard and bumpy, and then it disappeared. But it was just pressure — like somebody had clocked him in the butt with a nerf football.
The tongue — it’s hitting me with its tongue!
Peter remembered how fast Greg had gone unconscious — and yet Peter felt fine.
Did it work? Did the clothes keep me safe?
There wasn’t any stinging pain. He could still see clearly. He didn’t feel sleepy — on the contrary, he was just as panicked and terrified as ever.
There was a rumble behind him, a gurgling roll of thunder that he could feel vibrating through the water.
Oh God oh God please please please don’t let me die
Off to his side, the monster glided past him. It didn’t attack, but instead slid through the water, serene and totally calm.
A new fear rose in Peter’s chest.
Is it going after Dill?
He could hear Dill screaming from the bank, his words punctuated every few seconds by “Over! Over!”
Was it going to get Dill, then come back to finish him off?
No. Once it was twenty feet away, the monster curved left and started a slow loop around Peter. Its eyes stayed above the surface of the lake and watched as he frantically doggie–paddled for land.
Peter waited for the thing to rush over and eat him, but it didn’t. It just kept swimming around him in big, lazy circles.
What’s it waiting for?
THWACK.
Another hit underwater, this time on his knee. And Peter finally understood.
It’s waiting for me to pass out!
The tongue had hit him three times now, but every time it had been stopped by multiple layers of clothing. The monster didn’t know that, though. It was probably puzzled about why its venom was taking so long.
Play dead.
The little voice in Peter’s head was quiet, but insistent. He wanted to tell it, “Are you crazy?” but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the best thing to do. The monster had held the dummy out of the water, right? Like it was trying to keep the dummy safe.
Until he ripped it to pieces, the survival part of his brain pointed out.
But it only did that because of the alarm clock, his smart brain argued. Because it figured out the dummy wasn’t real.
Even though it went against every instinct he had, Peter stopped thrashing in the water, stopped kicking his legs, stopped moving his arms. He just floated there and listened to Dill screaming “Over! Over!” in the distance.
The monster glided behind him, off to his right. There was another rumble that he could feel all through the water. Then a splash, like the creature was turning —
Giant jaws clamped down on Peter’s body from his knees to his neck.
31
OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP
Peter wanted to scream, but his throat closed up. Which was probably best, because if he had startled the beast, who knows what it might have done. Instead, it lifted him gently in the air and started moving forward through the water.
The pressure on his limbs was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. He probably couldn’t have escaped it, but it wasn’t crushing him. Kind of like if Dill were sitting on him, but not a 500–pound fat guy.
The water was passing beneath him at a crazy speed, almost like he was on a motor boat. Far away, he could hear Dill shrieking as he realized the creature had gotten Peter.
But it didn’t, Dill. Not yet. It just thinks it has.
Peter stayed as relaxed as he could, although the image of the monster snapping the dummy in half kept playing in his brain. And he kept resisting the urge to turn his head and see what it looked like to be carried in the mouth of a dinosaur. No telling how the thing would react if it still knew Peter was awake. Even if it didn’t react at all, Peter was afraid he would go Dill one better and actually poop his pants from fright.
Peter wished he could tell Dill to not be sad, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even hear his friend screaming anymore. The thing was moving so quickly that they had left Dill far behind.
The scuba mask was fogging up, but Peter could see well enough to know the monster was staying about eighty feet away from the shore at all times.
Please God, please let it stay away from the middle of the lake. Please don’t let it have a cave out there.
And just like that, the monster turned towards the shore. At first Peter was overjoyed, but then he realized that as the monster approached the lake bank, it wasn’t slowing down. The shoreline was getting closer by the second. Sixty feet away…forty feet away…twenty feet away…wasn’t it going to stop?!
There was a big huffing sound in the creature’s throat, almost as though it were taking a breath. At the last second Peter realized that was exactly what it was doing, and he managed to get a mouthful of air just before the monster dove. The last thing he saw was the hard–packed mud of the shore rushing at him before murky water covered his face.
Again, the scuba mask saved him. With his mouth closed and the mask covering his nose, he wasn’t going to drown. If the monster didn’t spend too long underwater, that is.
But…shouldn’t it have hit the bank by now?
Yet the monster was still swimming. Cold water was still rushing past Peter’s face and ears.
We’re underneath the shore, he realized.
Then Peter felt himself tilting upwards, and SPLOOSH, he was out of the water again. Cold air stung the skin on his face. Wherever he was, it was completely black. There was absolutely no light anywhere.
Peter opened his mouth and took another breath. He didn’t even gasp, they had been underwater for so short a time.
The monster lowered Peter slowly through the darkness, then relaxed its jaws and dumped him onto something that felt like squishy mud. He rolled over once, landed on his back, then stayed still. Behind him, he could hear the monster breathing softly.
hhhh…hhhhhh…hhhhhh.
As his eyes adjusted, Peter realized he wasn’t in total darkness. Up over his head he could see pinpoints of light, though they were few and far between. They might have been stars, but there were only a handful of them, and there had been so many out on the lake.
Off to Peter’s side there was a splash, a gurgle, and no more breathing. It took him about ten seconds to decide that he was completely alone in the cave.
Where did it go?
Dill. It went back for Dill.
Peter sat up and felt himself sink slightly in the muck beneath him. He ignored it and u
ntucked his shirt. Immediately, the radio and flashlight spilled out between his legs.
Radio or flashlight first?
I have to warn Dill…but I can go faster if I can see what I’m doing.
He groped for the flashlight, found it next to his knee, and clicked the button. Light flooded the cave. To his unaccustomed eyes, it was like staring into the sun. The fog on his mask didn’t help, either. Though he couldn’t make out the details yet, there was something kind of white in front of him. He blinked several times and moved closer.
It was a skeleton buried halfway in the mud.
Peter screamed and scrambled back through the oozing muck. His rear end thudded into something, and he screamed again as he turned around.
It was a chubby kid in a collared shirt and khaki pants.
“GREG!” Peter yelled, overjoyed.
Greg didn’t move. His eyes stayed shut.
Peter’s mask was almost completely fogged up, so he tore it off and was immediately assaulted by a horrible stench. It was the worst thing he’d ever smelled in his life, the odor of a thousand rotting fish. He stopped himself from gagging and went back to breathing through his mouth.
Peter leaned over Greg and quickly checked his body. No bite marks…no bleeding. Had he been wrong? Had the stinger on the tongue been way more powerful than he thought? Was Greg…dead?
Peter took off a glove, grabbed the kid’s head, and knew instantly that he was alive. Not because of his pulse or anything like that, but because he was still warm. His skin was pink and healthy, and when Peter leaned over Greg’s nose, he could hear a faint whistle coming out of his nostrils.
As Peter swung his flashlight back to the skeleton, his heart lurched inside his chest. But on closer inspection, Peter realized that it couldn’t be Rory — in fact, it wasn’t even human. It was way too big, and the skull was long with a pronounced snout. Was it a bear? Maybe…but it definitely wasn’t the same skull Peter had seen grinning from the Jolly Roger in pirate movies.
Peter shone his light around the cave, which was big, probably a hundred feet wide. Behind him the mud was carved out in a giant room almost ten feet high. Here and there, a dozen thick columns of earth rose from the ground to support the weight of the ‘ceiling’ above. He pointed the flashlight up and saw hundreds of small holes.
Snake holes.
Breathing holes, probably. He could even make out a few stars through the ones directly overhead.
Behind him, there was a giant circle of water twenty feet long, obviously where the monster went in and out.
And all around the cave were bones.
They were in the mud floor, in the columns that jutted up to the ceiling, in the walls. There was no way to tell what all of them were. Peter hoped they were animals — bears and deer and stray dogs — but in one corner of the cave, he spotted a skull that looked exactly like a pirate flag. He only caught a glimpse before turning away.
There was something more important he had to do. About fifteen feet further up in the cave lay another kid’s body. This one was smaller, thinner, with dark hair and a muddy t–shirt. It had to be Rory. Peter shuffled over to him on his knees and checked for signs of life. The kid’s skin was warm, too, and he was breathing softly through his mouth.
Dill. I gotta warn Dill, or this could be him next.
Or ME.
32
Peter slid back through the mud and found the walkie–talkie in the brown goop. He twisted the ON knob, praying that the swim in the lake hadn’t ruined it.
There was a horrifying second of silence…and then the gorgeous hiss of static. He clicked on the button. “Dill? It’s me, Peter, I’m alive!”
He let go of the button. No response.
Please God…let him be okay, please please please
Oh, wait.
He clicked the button again. “Over,” he added.
Nothing.
Then a crackle…
“PETER? OH MY GOSH PETER YOU’RE NOT DEAD I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” Dill screamed over the walkie–talkie.
Peter grinned. “You’re supposed to say ‘over.’ Over.”
“SHUT UP, YOU STUPID — YOU’RE NOT DEAD! I thought you were dead for sure, I saw that thing carry you away — uh, over.”
“Dill, you got to get out of there. It’s coming back for you.”
“Well, I’m not there anymore, I went chasing after IT to try to find YOU…over.”
“Dill, you didn’t go in the water, did you? Get out!” Peter yelled.
“Dude, I like you, you’re my best friend and all, but I don’t like you THAT much. I’m on the shore. Where are you? Over.”
“I’m under the riverbank. I think I saw some trees, and there’s a bunch of snake holes in the ground.”
“Dude, you just described half the entire lake. How’m I supposed to find you?”
Peter looked up at the ceiling and got an idea. “Can you see that? I’m pointing my flashlight up through the snake holes, can you see it?”
“There’s fog on the ground everywhere, dude!”
“That’s the best way to see it! Look for a bunch of lit–up fog!”
“Okay, I’ll…wait, hold on.”
“Dill?”
“Shut up,” Dill hissed.
Peter stayed quiet for what seemed like an eternity.
Finally Dill spoke again over the walkie–talkie. “That thing went by in the water…I don’t think it saw me. It’s headed back where I was when you were out in the boat. I’ll look for your light, hold on.”
Peter counted to thirty. Just as he was about to click the button on the walkie–talkie…
“I see it! I see it!” Dill yelled.
There was a muffled thumping overhead, and Dill’s voice spoke through one of the snake holes. It sounded like he was talking into a ten foot cardboard tube. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes!” Peter shouted joyfully. “Get me out of here!”
“How?”
“Have you got the backpack?”
“Yeah…?”
“There’s the hatchet, and I brought a rope — dig a hole, tie the rope to something, and I’ll climb out!”
“Are Greg and that other kid down there?”
“Yeah, but they’re asleep! Hurry, Dill, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Soon there was a dull thwacking sound overhead, and little pieces of dirt began to fall through the snake holes. In less than a minute, larger chunks started to fall. Peter kept looking nervously back at the pool of water, and wondered what he would do if the monster surfaced.
“Hurry it up!” he yelled.
“If you wanna get out of there faster,” Dill panted, “come out here and help me dig!”
“Watch out for the monster!”
“I’m watchin’, I’m watchin’.”
33
Minutes later, a block of soil as big as a cement brick splashed into the mud, followed by an avalanche of smaller pieces. The gap in the soil looked as big as a manhole now. Judging from its sides, the ground must have been at least two feet thick between the cave and the outside world.
A head peered down through the hole in the ceiling, a buzzcut silhouette of black against the starry sky.
“Get the rope! Get the rope!” Peter screamed.
“Already on it, jeez!” Dill tossed one end of the rope down into the hole. “Are you gonna be able to fit through? You look pretty fat in all those sweaters.”
Dill had a good point. Not that Peter couldn’t fit through the hole, but that he was going to be weighed down by extra pounds of wet cloth. If he took them off, he could climb out of the cave faster. On the other hand, if the monster came back and tried to sting him, he’d need every bit of protection he could get.
Luckily, Peter had tied knots in the rope while Woody had driven them to the park. Without those, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting up to the surface.
“I’ll be fine!” he yelled, then gave the rope a firm yank. It held. Peter just prayed that Dil
l was better at tying knots than he was at fractions.
He started to climb, but it was hard going. The rope was difficult to hold onto with his cold–numbed hands, and he hadn’t realized how heavy his soggy clothes really were. But the knots helped immensely, and sheer terror lent him strength. He was almost to the top when he heard a giant splash of water and a low, throaty roar. Except the sounds came from above him rather than below.
Dill screamed. “PETER, IT’S HERE, IT CAME OUT OF THE LAKE!”
“RUN, DILL, RUN!”
“I CAN’T, IT’S — WATCH OUT!” Dill howled, and jumped feet first down the hole. His muddy tennis shoes smacked right into Peter’s face, and both boys tumbled down into the muck.
“OW!” Peter yelled as he rubbed his nose. “OW, OW, OW!”
“Sorry, man, it was right behind me!”
As if on cue, the starlight from above went black. A throaty roar shook the cave and drops of liquid showered down on the mud. Dill shone his flashlight up at the hole, and the blackness was replaced with a single red eye.
Both boys screamed. The monster roared again and clawed at the hole with one huge webbed foot. But big as the hole was, the monster couldn’t even get its hand through.
The creature gave up trying. Everything went silent aboveground.
“What’s it doing?” Dill whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Dill lowered his flashlight and caught Greg and Rory in its beam. “OH CRAP! Is that them?”
“Yes, shhhh,” Peter hissed, and strained to hear what was going on above them.
Off in the distance there was a gigantic splash of water.
“Oh my gosh — DILL, CLIMB THE ROPE! CLIMB IT NOW!” Peter screamed as he scrambled to his feet.
“What?!”
“IT’S COMING IN HERE!”
“But the hole’s too small. It can’t — oh.” Dill shone the light back behind him, and saw the pool of water glistening in his flashlight beam.
Peter raced for the rope and squatted down. “Quick, step up on my back!”
Dill didn’t need to be told twice. Using Peter’s shoulders as a launching pad and the rope knots as handholds, Dill was able to reach the ceiling within seconds. The only part that gave him trouble was getting past the last couple feet of soil.
In the pool behind Peter, a couple of air bubbles popped on the water’s surface.
“HURRY, DILL, I’M COMING UP!”
Peter shoved his flashlight down the neckhole of his sweaters and started to climb. He blinked at the pieces of dirt falling in his eyes from Dill scrambling above. His wet clothes seemed even heavier than before. His feet and hands felt carved from ice. He blocked it all out. None of it mattered.
Peter And The Vampires (Volume One) Page 35