The Beast with 1000 Eyes (7 page)

San San grabbed her chest and began to gasp for air. “It's coming for me!” she said.

“Wait a minute!” Lindsey held up one of the silver-framed antique photos from the dining room shelf. It was a black-and-white picture of San San on the set of
Rodiak
. “Maybe it's coming for you—
and
Stella. You look exactly alike.”

San San and I gave each other a quick once-over as if to make sure, one last time, that we looked alike. There was no debate. San San wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “I'm so sorry you had to get involved in all of this!”

“Don't apologize, San San. It's not your fault that the monster thinks I'm you.”

“So what now?” San San said. “You need some real help to fight this beast.”

“Wait. You can help,” Jesse said. “We still have to research ways to destroy the beast, right? Leery always tells us that the more we learn about a monster—”

“The more ways we can figure out how to destroy him,” I finished.

“How can I help you?” San San said. Her voice was shaking.

“The script! How was Leery planning to kill the beast before he stopped production on the movie?”

San San flipped back through the script. But the last pages were missing.

San San, her eyebrows knit, was very quiet for a moment. “Wait! I know what to do!” she cried. A thin grin crossed her face. “Leery was very superstitious and often spoke about tempting the evil eye. I bet he built the monster so that it could be vanquished in the same way as the evil eye.”

“Yes!” I said. “That's a great lead. We should try and find out everything we know about the evil eye.” I raised my arms up with the battle cry, “To the library!”

“No!” San San cried. “We can't go.”

“But San San, we
have
to finish this,” I said.

“We can't go,” San San explained, “because it's too late. The library is closed right now! But it opens up first thing in the morning.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday. We can meet there when it opens.”

Damon made a face. “Yo, I like to sleep in on the weekend.”

“Look, Damon! I've got the biggest karate meet of my life tomorrow, but I'm still going to help Monster Squad!”

“Aye, eye!” Lindsey quipped. She and her bad puns.

“Meet me at nine o'clock in front of the library,” San San said as we headed out to the elevator.

“Double ninja power!” I shouted, just as the doors shut.

CHAPTER 10

BREATHLESS

By 9:06 AM on Saturday morning, the Monster Squad was on the clock. Even Damon “I-Don't-Wake-Up-Until-Noon” Molloy arrived on time.

We had to sort out all the Eyeball Beast mess smartly and quickly. How hard would it be to squash a thousand or so eyeballs?

We swept past Tricks, the three-legged dog, on the library lawn and hustled up the wide, stone steps to the library entrance. San San was there already, huffing and puffing from the climb. It had been a long time since she left her apartment, let alone had to climb a flight of stairs.

“I forgot how beautiful this library is,” San San said wistfully as we pushed through the enormous library doors. “And high up! Whew! What a workout!”

San San pointed to the stone surrounding the door. There were gargoyles and some symbols cut into the stone as well as some faces.

“Look there!” San San said.

We all looked up and spied a row of eyes over the door.

“Remember that, wherever you go, someone is always watching you,” San San reminded us.

I dreaded the thought of what could have been watching us at that moment.

Inside, the library was dead quiet. The floors were marble and stone, so every footfall, every breath, every single word we spoke amplified like a loudspeaker. Sound bounced around in the entryway like a wonder ball.

Ms. Shenanigans appeared from a side door. She looked surprised.

“My stars! You kids must have gotten up with the roosters! What have I done to deserve a library visit this fine morning?”

Damon cleared his throat. “We need to do a little . . . um, research,” he said.

“Research?” Ms. Shenanigans crossed her arms. “What
kind
of research?”

“We need to learn stuff about . . . well . . .” Lindsey stammered.

San San stepped up to Ms. Shenanigans and placed her hand on the librarian's arm. “My dear, we have a situation. We could use the help of an expert . . . and you were the first person we thought to ask.”

Ms. Shenanigans smiled. “Oh, well, if you put it that way . . . Where do you need to do the research? The periodicals room? The rare bookstall? How about the—”

“Stacks!” I blurted. I was eager to get going, we were racing against the clock.

“What's your topic?” Ms. Shenanigans asked.

“Superstitions,” I said, as if it were the most normal thing of all.

“Hmmm,” Ms. Shenanigans scrunched up her nose. “We've got loads of material!”

San San spoke up. “Eyeball superstitions in particular. You know, evil eyes, that sort of thing . . .”

“Well, that's a tall order,” Ms. Shenanigans said. “But I love a challenge!”

Ms. Shenanigans led us to a cold staircase that went down to the lower level of the library. We followed nervously behind in the dark. Then she clicked switches on the wall and the darkness evaporated. Fluorescent light tubes over our heads began to hum. The light burned gray-white. We stepped into a wide, open space packed with books. All those old books smelled musty, like no fresh air had gotten in here for years.

“This place is like a museum!” Jesse said.

I headed for the computers and punched in the words
eye, sight,
and
symbol
. A large book cover image popped up on-screen. It looked like hieroglyphics. There was a picture of an Egyptian holding a scepter. I think he was a pharaoh. In the center of his head was an eye. The title of the book was
Horus, Horses, and Hijinx: Ancient Symbols, Ancient Curses
. It said there was one copy in the Riddle Library stacks.

I called out to Lindsey who ran over to see the book with me.

“Ooooooh! Cool!” Lindsey said. “I know Horus. He is a cool dude with a giant eye on his hand. That book should be in the nonfiction section.”

I clicked on the cover again to locate the book's call number. Then Lindsey raced off in search of it.

I glanced at the digital clock on the computer screen: 10:13 AM.

Time was really flying by. I wondered when Ms. Shenanigans would come back.

I shot a look at the stairs. “Hello?” I cried. “Ms. Shenanigans?”

No one responded. I turned back to the books.

Damon ran over with another book covered in green leather. It was coated in a fine layer of dust. He blew some off and cracked the book open. Lindsey and Jesse looked over our shoulders.

“Great,” Jesse said. “So if a stare from a regular person with
two
eyes can cause harm . . . what about
one thousand
eyes?”

“Keep reading, Stella,” Damon said. “What else does it say?”

“Aw, those are just gross,” Damon mumbled. “Dirty water? Gack! And I'm not licking one thousand eyeballs! Ptttuey!”

“Keep reading!” I said, pointing to another passage, “It says here you can crack a whole egg on a person's head if you want to take away the curse of the evil eye—”

“Okay, so that means we need to come up with a thousand eggs, right?” Lindsey said. “Every one of the curses needs to be multiplied by a thousand in order to work.”

All at once, San San appeared from behind one of the stacks, holding up an entirely different book. This one was oversized with a picture of Horus on the front.

“Kids, it says in
this
book,” San San continued, “that a person can defeat the power of an evil eye by collecting spit. That spit can then be thrown down onto a cursed person . . .”

“What? Like a SPIT SHOWER?” Damon cried. “Now that's something I can really get into!”

“No wonder Leery couldn't figure out how to end the movie,” Jesse said. “There are too many different ways to fight the evil eye!”

“Why isn't Ms. Shenanigans back yet?” Lindsey wondered aloud. “She said she'd return in a few minutes. It's been more like a half hour.”

I glanced up at an old wall clock: 11:10.

“Actually, it's been an hour,” I said.

San San opened a thick encyclopedia of myths and read part of a Greek myth aloud to us.

The story was about a cool creature called Argus. Argus was a watchful giant with one hundred eyes; not unlike the Eyeball Beast that was coming after me and Great Auntie San San. Unfortunately, Argus wasn't very lucky. A clever guy named Hermes killed him with a magic wand. The wand sealed off all of Argus's eyes and cut off his head.

“Wow!” I cried. “So what we need is a magic wand like Hermes!”

I reached for the amulet in my pocket. It was warming up.

“Hey, Monster Squad,” I started to say.

Out of nowhere, the florescent lights that Ms. Shenanigans had turned on in the stacks all went off at the exact same time.

But there was still light to help us see down there.

The amulet was burning brightly.

“Damon? Stella? Lindsey? Jesse?” Great Auntie San San's voice sounded panicked. “Where are you?”

“OH NO!” I yelled. “Did you guys hear that? The beast is here!”

I could barely see my hand in front of my face, let alone another person in the stacks. But I could hear clearly. The sound was way too familiar.

“
RIVE RIT RACK!
”

“Nooooo! It's here!” I cried. Then I whipped around in a karate pose. “The Eyeball Beast must be in the stacks!”

I heard something move nearby, dodging around the shelves of books. “Monster Squad, where are you?” I yelled out. “Is anyone there?”

“Yes! We're here!” Jesse cried.

Lindsey clicked her camera. The flashes helped us to see better, even for just a little bit.

“Lindsey? Where's the stairwell?”

I spotted an orange EXIT sign at the side of the room. At last we found a way out! Slowly, I moved along a row of bookshelves. I heard something weird way back in the stacks. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so I was able to make out a silhouette.

“Run!” I yelled, and pushed the others in front of me. “Move it now before the beast turns us into statues!”

CHAPTER 11

RIVER OF TEARS

We ran, but the beast caught up.

I nearly fainted when I saw that B-Monster in the icky, oozy flesh.

For starters, it was way more massive than I expected. It was at least eight feet tall! The thousand eyes were incredible! They spun around in different directions like they had minds of their own, blinking out of synch, like stoplights. It made the worst noises ever. What
was
that? And then, as we stood there, stunned by the beast's very presence, it began to blink faster and faster and faster.