46 - How to Kill a Monster (6 page)

“I knew they’d be back! I knew they wouldn’t just leave us!” I flew down the
steps, two at a time.

And heard the engine start.

Heard the car rumble away.

Heard the tires crunch down the driveway.

“Noooo!” I shouted as I reached the front door. “Don’t go! Don’t go!”

I pounded the door with my fists. I kicked it hard. And then I saw the pink
slip of paper on the floor, slipped under the door.

A message. I picked it up with a trembling hand. And started to read:

We’re not coming back. Until next week. Sorry, kids. But work is taking much
longer than we thought.

A phone message—from Mom and Dad.

Grandma and Grandpa didn’t come back, I realized. Mr. Donner, from the
general store, had driven over to deliver this phone message.

The roar of the monster tore through my thoughts.

I spun around.

Clark was gone.

“Clark!” I shouted. “Where are you?”

The monster’s growls grew louder. Meaner.

“Clark!” I called out again. “Clark!”

“Gretchen—come quick!” I heard his desperate cry from the kitchen.

“Gretchen! Gretchen!”

As I charged through the living room, he shouted my name over and over again.
Each time his voice grew higher, more excited.

“I’m coming!” I yelled. “Hold on, Clark. I’m coming!”

I rounded the couch—and tripped over a footstool. My head hit the floor
hard.

Clark continued to cry out my name, but his voice seemed distant now. So far
away.

My head throbbed with pain.

I struggled to stand, and the room spun around me.

“Gre-tchen! Gre-tchen!”

He sounded more frantic than ever.

“I’m coming!” I said through a dizzy haze.

Then I heard the monster’s bellow. It thundered through the house.

I have to get to Clark. He’s in trouble! The monster has him!
I
realized.

I stumbled through the living room. Toward the kitchen.

The creature’s roars shook the walls.

“Hold on, Clark!” I tried to shout, but my voice came out in a moan. “I’m
coming!”

I stumbled into the kitchen.

“Gretchen!” Clark stood next to the refrigerator.

Alone.

“Where is he?” I cried. My eyes darted around the room, searching for the
monster.

“Wh-where’s who?” Clark stammered.

“The monster!” I yelled.

“Upstairs,” Clark replied, puzzled. “What took you so long to get here?”

Clark didn’t wait for an answer. “Look at this.” He pointed to the
refrigerator. I turned and saw two letters stuck there with magnets.

“You were screaming like a
maniac
to show me that?” I shrieked. “I
nearly killed myself! I thought the monster had grabbed you!”

Clark’s hand trembled as he lifted the envelopes from the refrigerator. “It’s
two letters addressed to us. From Grandma and Grandpa.”

I stared at the envelopes in Clark’s hand. They were addressed to us, just as
he said. And they were numbered, one and two.

“They left us letters?” I couldn’t believe it.

Clark ripped open the first envelope. The paper shook in his hands as he
began to read it to himself.

His eyes scanned the paper. He mumbled as he read. I couldn’t understand what
he was saying.

“Let me have that!” I reached out for the letter, but Clark jerked back. He
held the paper tightly and continued to read.

“Clark, what does it say?” I demanded.

He ignored me. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and kept on reading.
Mumbling.

I watched Clark as he read.

I watched his eyes move down the page.

I watched his eyes grow wide with horror.

“Clark!” I shouted impatiently. “What does it say?”

Clark began to read the letter out loud. “‘Dear Gretchen and Clark,’” he
started. The paper fluttered between his trembling fingers.

“‘We’re sorry to do this to you, but we had to leave. A few weeks ago, a
swamp monster invaded our house. We captured it in the room upstairs. Then we
didn’t know what to do with it. We didn’t have a car, so we couldn’t get to a
phone to call for help.

“‘We’ve lived in terror for the past few weeks. We were afraid to let the
monster out. It’s so loud and angry all the time. We know it would have killed
us.’”

My knees started to wobble as Clark continued.

“‘We didn’t want to tell your parents about the creature. If we did, they
wouldn’t have let you come. We don’t get many visitors here. We wanted so much
to see you. But I guess we were wrong. You should have gone to Atlanta with your mother and father. I guess
we were wrong to let you stay.’”

“They guess they were wrong!
They guess!”
I shrieked. “Can you
believe
them?”

Clark peered up from the letter. His face was white. Even his freckles seemed
to disappear. He shook his head, stunned.

Then he continued to read our grandparents’ letter. “‘We’ve been feeding the
creature, slipping food through an opening Grandpa sawed in the bottom of the
door. The monster eats a lot. But we had to feed him. We were afraid not to.

“‘We know it’s unfair to run off now. But we’re just going for help. We’ll
be back—as soon as we can find someone. Someone who knows what to do with this
horrible beast.

“‘Sorry, kids. We really are—but we had to bolt you inside the house. To
make sure you didn’t wander into the swamp by yourselves. It’s not safe out
there.’”

Were they for
real
?”

“Not safe
out there
!” I cried. “They left us in this house with a
killer monster—and they say it’s not safe
out there!
They’re both
crazy, Clark. Totally crazy!”

Clark nodded and continued reading. “‘Sorry, kids. We really, really are
sorry. But just remember one thing: You are perfectly safe as long as…’”

The monster upstairs let out a loud bellow. And Clark dropped the letter.

I watched in horror as it sailed through the air.

Floated down to the floor.

And slid under the refrigerator.

“Get it, Clark!” I yelled. “Quick!”

Clark stretched out on the floor and shoved his fingers under the
refrigerator. But his fingers only managed to brush the tip of the paper,
shoving it back.

“Stop!” I yelled. “You’re pushing it away!”

But Clark didn’t listen.

He shoved his hand in deeper. Groping for the paper.

Pushing it back. Farther and farther.

Until we couldn’t see it anymore.

“What did it say?” I hollered. “You read the letter! We’re perfectly safe as
long as… what?”

“I—I didn’t get to that part,” Clark stammered.

I wanted to strangle him.

I spun around. And frantically searched for something to slip under the
refrigerator—to ease out the letter.

But I couldn’t find anything slim enough or long enough. Everything was way
too big to fit underneath.

Clark tore open the kitchen cabinets and drawers looking for something we
could use.

The monster stomped on the floor above us.

The ceiling quaked.

A dish fell off the counter and shattered on the cold gray tiles. Shattered
into a thousand tiny pieces.

“Oh, no,” I moaned, staring up at the ceiling, watching the paint crack and
crumble. “He’s down to the second floor. He’s coming closer.”

“We’re doomed,” Clark groaned. “He’s going to catch us and—”

“Clark. We have to move the refrigerator. We have to find out what it says in
the rest of that letter!”

Clark and I tugged on the refrigerator. We pushed and tugged with all our
strength.

Upstairs, the monster roared an angry roar.

We tugged harder.

The refrigerator began to move.

Clark knelt down and peered underneath it. “Push!” he told me. “Push! I can
see a corner of the letter! Push—just a little more!”

I gave the refrigerator one more hard shove—and Clark had it! He grasped
the corner of the letter between his thumb and index finger. And pulled it out.

He shook the paper, to free a clump of dust that clung to it.

“Just read it!” I shouted at him. “Read it!”

Clark started to read again. “‘You are perfectly safe as long as…’”

I held my breath, waiting for Clark to finish the sentence. Waiting to find
out how we could keep ourselves safe.

“‘You are perfectly safe,’” Clark read, “‘as long as you do not open the
door and let the monster out.’”

“That’s it?” My jaw dropped. “It’s too late for that! It’s too late! Did they
say anything else? They must have said something else!”

“There’s a little more.” Clark read on:

“‘Please. Please stay away from that room. Do not open that door.’”

“Too late!” I wailed. “It’s too late!”

“‘If the monster escapes, you will have no choice. You will have to find a
way to kill it.’” Clark looked up from the letter. “That’s it, Gretchen. That’s
all it says.
You will have to find a way to kill it.”

“Quick!” I ordered Clark. “Open the other letter. It’ll probably tell us
more. It has to!”

Clark started to tear open the second envelope when we heard the heavy
footsteps.

Footsteps downstairs.

In the next room—the living room.

“Hurry, Clark! Open it!”

Clark’s fingers fumbled as he tried to rip through the sealed envelope. But
he stopped when we heard the creature’s breathing.

Deep, wheezing breaths.

Coming nearer.

My heart thumped wildly as the monster’s wheezing grew louder.

“He-he’s coming for us!” Clark cried, stuffing the unopened envelope in his
pocket.

“The dining room!” I shouted. “Head for the dining room!”

“What are we going to do? How can we kill it?” Clark cried as we bolted from
the kitchen.

“We—
owwww!”
A sharp pain shot up my leg as I ran smack into the
dining-room table.

I clutched my knee. I tried to bend it. But the pain tore through it.

I spun around.

And there he stood.

The swamp monster.

In the kitchen—lumbering toward us hungrily.

The monster glared at me with his horrible bulging eyes. I watched the veins
in his head throb as he let out a long, low growl.

I stared at those huge, pulsing veins. Stared as they beat against his coarse
alligator skin.

“Run, Gretchen!” Clark pulled me from behind. He yanked me out of the dining
room. We dove toward the stairs.

“We need a place to hide.” Clark panted as we fled to the second floor. “We
have to hide until Grandma and Grandpa come back with help.”

“They’re not coming back!” I screamed at him. “They’re not coming back with
help!”

“They said they would,” Clark insisted. “They said so in the letter.”

“Clark, you are such a jerk.” We reached the top of the stairs. I stopped to
catch my breath. “Who is going to believe them?” I said, gulping air. “Who’s
going to believe they have a swamp monster trapped in their house?”

Clark didn’t reply.

I answered for him. “No one! That’s who. Everyone they tell the story to will
think they’re nuts.”

“Someone might believe them.” Clark’s voice cracked. “Someone might want to
help.”

“Yeah, right.
‘Will you help us kill a swamp monster?’
they’ll ask.
I’ll bet they get loads of volunteers!” I rolled my eyes.

I stopped yelling at Clark when I heard the monster’s heavy breathing. I spun
around—and saw the creature.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs. Eyeing us. Drooling hungrily.

Clark and I backed slowly away from the top of the stairs.

The monster followed us with his eyes.

“We have to kill it,” Clark whispered. “That’s what the letter said. We have
to kill it. But how?”

“I have an idea!” I told Clark. “Follow me!”

We turned and ran. As we charged past the bathroom, we heard Charley
whimpering.

“Let’s get Charley!” Clark stopped running. “It’s too dangerous to leave him
closed up in there. We have to take him with us.”

“We can’t, Clark,” I replied. “He’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

I wasn’t as sure about that as I sounded. But there was no time to stop for
Charley now—because the monster had reached the second floor.

There he stood. Looming at the end of the hall.

He raised his hands up over his head. I saw that he held the wooden footstool
I had tripped over in the living room.

His eyes burned with anger.

He glared at me, then growled a loud, savage growl. A stream of thick white
drool dribbled down his chin.

He licked the drool away with a reptile tongue—and smashed the stool down
across his leg. It splintered into two jagged pieces.

He raised the pieces and hurled them at us.

“Let’s go!” Clark shrieked as the footstool bounced off the wall.

We ran up the stairs. Up to the third floor.

The monster lumbered after us. The whole house shook with each heavy step he
took.

“He’s coming!” Clark cried. “What are we going to do? You said you had an
idea. What?”

“There’s a collapsed stairway up here,” I told Clark, running as fast as I
could through the dark, twisting hall. “It’s totally fallen down. Just a big
hole. When we turn the corner, grab onto the railing. The monster will chase us
around the corner—and he’ll fall down the open stairway.”

The roar of the monster thundered in my ears. I saw him plodding down the
hall after us.

“Come on, Clark! Hurry!”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Clark demanded, very frightened. “What if the fall only
hurts
him? Won’t it make him
even more angry?”

“Don’t ask questions, Clark,” I replied impatiently. “It’s got to work! It’s
got to!”