The Beast with 1000 Eyes (4 page)

Why did the monster have so many eyes? Was it to see better? Did it have X-ray vision? The scientists poked the beast with needles and paddles and pretty much anything they could get their mitts on but they never were able to find an answer.

And no big surprise, but the beast was very unhappy. One day, it just snapped. All of its googly eyes opened wide at the same time and it started to blink, and the more it blinked, the more bad things started to happen in Riddle.

The scientists were the beast's first targets. It put them in a coma by blinking at them. Eventually, it busted out of the lab and hit the real world. That was when it saw Iris, my aunt's character, for the first time. The beast chased Iris everywhere, but she never stopped running—not even to catch her breath. This made it mad. It started trashing everything—buildings, roads, machines, and then it did something scarier than anything: It cried. Out of all one thousand eyes.

Next, the beast moved into a movie theater. It seemed to put the moviegoers into a trance just by using its blinking power. The camera panned around the theater. People's eyes glowed, entranced.

And then the beast opened its mouth. I thought for sure it was about to say something. That maybe it would shout, “DIE!” and be super dramatic.

But the monster opened its mouth to speak and instead of words—a giant, bulbous, oozing eye came out of its mouth! It had an eye attached to its tongue!

There are movie monsters who have venomous fangs or sharp, deadly claws. But an eye that pops out of a creature's tongue? That's about as gross as it gets.

All at once, the entire movie theater began to glow, and without warning . . .

“Huh?” I cried out in the darkness.

I looked to my left and right. Were the other Monster Squadders still here? What was going on?

Jesse's voice piped up from the dark. “Well, we knew the movie ran out of money . . .”

“Yeah, but we didn't know it would end there! What a scam!” Lindsey said.

My mind raced.

The dream.

The eyeball room.

The tongue. And now . . . Walter swept in and stood up on the little stage. He turned up the lights.

“Look, I don't want to alarm you, kids, but while we were watching the film, I phoned Dr. Leery and told him about your theory. He wants to speak with all of you right away.”

CHAPTER 5

LOCKS AND CLOCKS

Walter took us into a small office and asked us to squeeze onto a long sofa. He powered up a large computer and turned up the volume so we could all hear.

“Greetings, Monster Squad,” Leery said. “So we meet again.”

There was a lot of blustery wind in the background, so we had to lean into the computer in order to see and hear him. “Walter tells me that you believe the Eyeball Beast is the latest monster to hit Riddle. As you now know, this monster starred in a movie that was never shown to the general public. But if you believe that he's rearing his head, and somehow this movie was screened, we have a serious situation.”

Up on the videophone, Leery's face was tucked into the hood of a parka, so we could just see his black glasses framed in fur and icicles. In the background were dancing penguins. I think I spotted a polar bear floating on a floe.

“I'll be honest, I have my doubts about the Beast with 1000 Eyes,” Leery said, his voice cracking. “But I believe in you, Monster Squad. And if you do end up coming face-to-face with the monster, there are two essential things you must know if you have any chance of beating him.”

“First!” Leery said. “The monster is covered with eyeballs—more than a thousand of them. And if he blinks all of his eyeballs at you at the same time, you may be put into a trance or a deep sleep.

“Second! A glance from any or all of these eyeballs could possibly leave a mark on your skin. But fear not! This is only temporary, like an eyeball tattoo. Unless, of course, he glances at you with his primary eye, the one located on his tongue.”

I gasped.

“Primary eye?” I cried. “Is that the eye on the tongue from that creepy scene in the movie?”

The image of Leery went to static for a moment and then we watched him push back the hood of his parka and lean closer into the camera again.

“Monster Squad,” Leery said, “you have a lot of research to do. Look up eyes and find out how they work. Find out all you can about superstitions related to eyes. There must be answers there! Good luck!”

As soon as Leery signed off, Walter shut down the computer.

“Are you kids clear on what you need to do?” Walter asked.

We all shrugged. Was
anything
ever really clear when it came to Monster Squad?

“So we still haven't even seen the B-Monster up close, right?” Damon said.

“But we're going to assume it's the Eyeball Beast,” Jesse said. “We're going to back Stella. We're in this together.”

I puffed out my chest a little bit.

“Thanks, Jesse,” I finally said, crossing my arms tightly in front of me.

The truth was, there was no harm in investigating now. We could always rule it out later. I was just pleased to
finally
get the support of my fellow Monster Squadders—especially Damon.

After Walter turned off the power in the screening room, he offered to drive us home. It was getting so late! As we rode along, the wheels inside my head started turning, too. I had a genius idea! Walter dropped the others off first. Then he drove to Dojo Academy because I told him I had karate class. I went into the studio like normal, but as soon as I got inside the karate studio locker room, I made a U-turn back to the front desk.

I approached Front Desk Lady.

“May I borrow your Yellow Pages?” I asked.

Front Desk Lady dropped the phone book on the counter with a thud. I flipped through the pages until I got to the letters H, I, J, K, L . . .

I had one measly hour before my Mom picked me up—and a ton of work to do. I set my cell phone timer for fifty minutes and hustled outside. There was no time to waste. The air outside was brisk so I walked faster than usual. My destination was 101 Main Street. Within five minutes, I was already staring up at a steel engraved sign: Riddle Towers. What a fancy building! Ornate glass, revolving doors, and a formal-looking doorman standing guard!

I went right up to the guy.

“Is Sandra Lee at home this evening?”

The doorman gave me a bugged-out stare and, for a moment, I worried that I had the wrong address. But then he nodded and reached for the intercom.

“Ms. Lee, you have a visitor . . .
no
, it's not a Grocery Town delivery, it's . . . a young girl.”

I fidgeted with the zipper on my jacket. “It's her niece,” I said. “Stella Min. Stella
Lee
Min.”

I figured our same name might help me get inside. Sure enough, a moment later, a flustered voice came through the speaker.

“Stella?” the voice cracked.

San San! I'd recognize that voice anywhere! It was the voice of a ton of Bs!

I expected the doorman to send me right up to her apartment after that, but then he pulled out this logbook and started asking me all these obscure questions. He called it a “security precaution.”

“Are you with anyone?”

“Did you pack your own bags?”

“What is the capital of East Mauritanea?”

For a split second, I felt like I was on
Quizzle
, that game show where you have to answer a series of questions in order to get to the top level and win buckets of cash. Only there was no cash involved here; just an old aunt who wouldn't let me on the elevator. She was more of a hermit than I expected.

The doorman led me to the elevator. “Sorry about the interrogation,” he whispered. “She usually doesn't let
anyone
up. She has a lot of locks on her door, too.”

“She was a movie star, you know,” I said as the elevator door opened.

“You're family, right?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “How did you know?”

“Are you kidding? You look exactly alike!” the doorman said.

I glanced at my reflection in the mirrored wall near the elevators and smoothed down my hair. She was beautiful, too, of course.

“Thanks for your help,” I said as I stepped onto the elevator. When we got to the penthouse floor, the doors opened onto a wide and empty hall.

“Auntie San San?” I asked, stopping in my tracks. “Hello? Are you here?”

All at once, a flurry of locks twisted and clicked, one after the other. I counted ten in all. Then a door creaked. San San appeared, peering around the side of the door. Her eyes bulged at me.

“Who sent you?” San San called out.
S
he wasn't opening the door any wider to let me inside until I answered.

“No one
sent
me,” I said. “I just wanted to see you. I mean, you're my aunt, aren't you?”

“No one comes here unless they want something,” San San said before she slammed the door shut again. For a moment, I thought all hope was lost. But then the door reopened—wide.

“I'm sorry,” San San said in a hurried voice. “Come in. And hurry.”

For a split second, my feet wouldn't move forward. I wasn't nervous because, of course, ninja's don't get nervous. Finally, I was able to go in.

Once inside, I couldn't believe my eyes. It looked a little bit like the rooms in Leery Castle in there, with B-Monster stuff all over the place, crazy rugs all over the floors, and photographs framed on every square inch of wall space.

The objects inside San San's apartment seemed frozen in time. Nothing had been updated since a dozen years ago—or more. The dining room table was covered in dingy, white lace. In the center was a bowl of dusty waxed fruit and a basket of napkins with the initial B. On the wall, I spotted at least a dozen different clocks in the shapes of all the B-Monsters I knew. There was a Crabzilla clock with moving claws that told the time.