by R. L. Stine
Michael stepped off it and stomped toward me, smashing his jaws together.
Out of control … Out of control!
He locked his eyes on me — and growled angrily. He raised his claws to attack.
And leaped at me!
“NOOOOOO!”
I uttered a terrified shriek — and dodged to my right.
I lurched so hard, I fell. And landed on my side.
I heard the other kids screaming.
Gasping in horror, I spun around.
It took me a few seconds to realize that Michael wasn’t attacking me.
He leaped past me to the broken egg. Dropped to his knees. Lowered his head and once again began noisily lapping up the yolk.
It sounded like a dog at its water dish.
He groaned as he sucked down the thick, sticky goo.
When he finally raised his head, he was Michael again. Blinking, he rubbed goo from his eyes. He climbed to his feet and wiped his chin with his torn T-shirt.
He let out a long sigh. “Sorry about that,” he said. He grabbed my arms and helped pull me to my feet. His hands were sticky from the egg yolk.
“That … happened to you before?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m still part monster. Can’t seem to get rid of it.”
Matt pointed to the dead monsters at our feet. “Maybe being part monster is a GOOD thing,” he said.
Our shoes crunched over the broken pieces of eggshell as we started to walk. Matt and Michael led the way, following the tall hedge walls.
The charcoal-colored sky above our heads provided the only light. A flock of shadowy birds, cawing loudly, soared over our heads.
“Probably more crows,” Luke muttered.
He turned to me. And even in the dim light, I could see the fear on my little brother’s face.
“Lizzy, how do we know we’re going the right way? How do we know this maze leads out of Panic Park?”
The same questions were frightening me. I didn’t know how to answer him.
The ground grew hard. A cold wind blew over us.
We came to another split in the hedges. Two paths, each leading in a different direction. I could see only darkness down both paths.
“Which one?” Matt asked, scratching his head.
“Maybe we should split up,” Boone said. “Some of us go this way, some go the other.”
“No way,” Jackson said. “Did you forget what Byron told us? He said to stick together — no matter what.”
“Jackson is right,” Carly Beth said. “We all want to get out of this place together. Let’s try the path on the left. If it doesn’t lead anywhere, we can turn around and come back. Then take the path to the right.”
The cawing birds flew overhead again, this time in the other direction. Their cries were raspy and hoarse. Were they trying to warn us about something?
The sound sent a shiver down my back.
We started walking again, two by two, following the path to the left. My side ached from where I’d fallen on it. The mud caked on my jeans smelled like sour milk.
Luke and I walked near the front of the line, behind Matt and Michael. Michael kept muttering about the monsters. “How did they get to Panic Park?” he wondered. “I defeated them all back home. So how could they follow me here?”
Matt opened his mouth to answer, but he didn’t get a word out.
A girl screamed behind us. I turned and saw that it was Carly Beth.
She pointed straight ahead. And screamed again. “No! NO! I don’t believe it!”
I squinted hard into the dim light. And the masks slowly came into focus.
A line of ugly masks … monstrous-looking human faces floating in the air.
At first I thought they were dangling from a rope or wire. But as we took a few steps closer, I saw that they were floating free. Rising and falling like saggy helium balloons.
“Oh, noooo!” Carly Beth wailed. “Don’t you see? These things — these horrible THINGS are all following us! First HorrorLand — now here!”
We stopped a few feet from the masks and gazed up at them.
Their deep, empty eyeholes appeared to stare down at us. Their fat, rubbery lips bobbed up and down.
The faces were hideous — warty and fang toothed, stringy hair standing straight up, the cheeks puffy and fat … red sores on the foreheads … cuts and wounds and stitch marks.
“Halloween masks?” Julie asked quietly.
“No. They’re alive,” Carly Beth said.
And as she said it, the masks began to speak.
They made jabbering sounds in deep, rumbling voices, so low I couldn’t make out the words.
The rubbery lips bounced up and down. The empty eyes gazed blankly down at us. Their eerie voices were a rumble of grunts and groans.
Matt took a flying leap and tried to grab one and pull it down.
But it shot up out of his reach.
That seemed to make the masks angry. They began jabbering louder, their lips bobbing faster, cheeks puffing in and out.
“You can’t help me,” Carly Beth said, her voice trembling. “I have to deal with them.”
Her friend Sabrina pulled her back. “Carly Beth — no!”
“They’ve come for me,” Carly Beth said. She shrugged Sabrina away. “They’ve come for me.”
She stepped forward until she was right under the ugly, mumbling faces.
“You’ve come for me — right?” she shouted up to them.
An evil-looking green mask floated lower. Its mouth hung open, revealing two rows of vicious, curled fangs. The cheeks and forehead were cracked and rutted. Its eyeholes were ringed with dark red blood.
“The Haunted Mask! You’ve come for me,” Carly Beth repeated, saying it almost like a chant. “You’ve come for me….”
“Carly Beth — DON’T!” Sabrina screamed.
Too late.
“You’ve come for me…. You’ve come for me!”
Carly Beth grabbed the ugly mask from the air — and pulled it down over her head.
“Carly Beth — NO! Take it off!” Sabrina screamed.
She dove at Carly Beth and grabbed for the mask.
But Carly Beth twisted out of Sabrina’s reach.
“It’s tightening against her face!” Sabrina yelled. “It’s already tightening!”
Yes. I could see the green mask stretching over Carly Beth’s cheeks, tightening under her chin.
We all stood and watched in horror. We didn’t know what to do.
We knew this was a foe Carly Beth and Sabrina had faced back home. But we had no idea what would happen next.
The ugly mask appeared to melt against Carly Beth’s face … melt right into her skin.
And then the disgusting mouth hole with its curled teeth dropped open. And Carly Beth let out a roar … an animal roar … not a human sound. A cry of pure evil.
The booming roar sent a chill to the back of my neck. My muscles all tensed.
Carly Beth raised her masked face to the sky and roared again.
I pressed my hands over my ears. I knew the horrifying cry didn’t come from Carly Beth. It came from something evil … something screaming out its rage.
The other ugly masks froze in midair.
The Haunted Mask was Carly Beth’s face now. It had wrapped itself around her until it became her. The rubbery, fanged mouth was her mouth. Her eyes peered out at us angrily through the rings of dark, caked blood.
With another frightening roar, Carly Beth leaped high — and grabbed one of the masks out of the air. She held it in front of her with both hands — and RIPPED it in half.
“AAAAAAIIII!” The mask let out a high, shrill scream of pain.
Carly Beth dropped the mask to the ground. I gasped. I could hear the two halves making little cries.
Carly Beth stamped on it until it stopped whimpering. Then she leaped again and brought down another mask.
Grunting like a hungry animal, she ripped the mask to pieces.
The mask gr
oaned and cried. Then it went silent as it hit the ground.
Two more masks floated above us in the gray sky. They made no attempt to escape. It was like they were waiting their turn.
They squealed and cried as Carly Beth ripped them apart. She stamped on the rubbery pieces.
Then she turned to us, raised both hands as if ready to attack, and let out a bleating sound, an animal cry of pain.
“You’re NEXT!” she screamed in a hoarse, deep voice — the voice of the evil mask. “You’re NEXT! Do you think you can just stand there? Do you think you can ESCAPE my RAGE?”
Without warning, she leaped at the nearest person — her friend Sabrina.
It happened so fast. We didn’t have time to move or scream.
She grabbed Sabrina and wrapped her fingers around her throat. “DIE! DIIIIIE!” Carly Beth wailed.
Sabrina’s eyes bulged. She tried to stagger back. But Carly Beth held on tight. Choking her friend … choking her.
Matt and Michael both leaped at Carly Beth. They grabbed her by the shoulders. They struggled to pull her hands off Sabrina’s throat.
Carly Beth was a little girl, short and thin. But the two boys couldn’t budge her. The evil mask had given her animal strength … the strength of its evil.
“DIIIIIE! DIIIIIE!”
Sabrina’s face turned purple. Her eyelids were half closed. A groan escaped her throat. Her knees buckled.
“Stop! Stop it!” Abby wailed. She threw herself on Carly Beth’s back and tried to help Matt and Michael.
Carly Beth twisted and roared like a furious animal.
And suddenly, Sabrina’s eyes opened. She pulled herself up straight.
“An … act … of … love,” she choked out. “It takes an … act … of love.”
Standing there helplessly, gripped in horror, I didn’t know what Sabrina meant.
But with a startling burst of strength, Sabrina grabbed Carly Beth’s wrists. With a desperate groan, she pulled the hands from around her throat.
Then Sabrina grabbed the sides of the ugly green mask. She pulled it toward her — and KISSED Carly Beth on the rutted, cracked, rubbery cheek!
Sabrina kissed the disgusting cheek. Then she held on to the head, rubbing it gently, as if caressing it. Soothing it …
Carly Beth uttered a soft sigh. Her knees folded. She dropped to the ground.
Sabrina held on to her friend’s green, rubbery face, petting the mask. Petting it so tenderly …
“It takes an act of love,” Sabrina said in a whisper.
And then her fingers dug into the rubbery face — and with a sharp cry, she pulled up with all her strength. And TORE the mask off Carly Beth’s head.
The mask made a sick, wet sound as it slid off Carly Beth’s face. Then, as Sabrina held it high over her head, it opened its mouth in a scream that echoed off the tall hedges.
Sabrina heaved the mask over a hedge. She dropped to her knees and wrapped Carly Beth in a hug.
Carly Beth blinked her eyes and shook her head. She coughed and cleared her throat.
She looked dazed, as if she didn’t know where she was.
Finally, she turned to her friend. “Sabrina? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
Sabrina nodded. “I knew it wasn’t you, Carly Beth. I knew it was the evil of the mask.”
“Do you see what’s happening?” Michael said. “The monsters from the eggs … the Haunted Mask … All those things we defeated back home. They followed us here.”
“And the only way to get home is to defeat them again?” Matt asked.
No one answered. I guess they were all thinking about the horrors they had faced before.
“We … we don’t even know if we’re going the right way,” Julie said, her voice trembling. “We could be going around in circles. And … and who knows what’s waiting for us up ahead!”
“We have no choice,” Matt said finally. “We can’t turn back. Byron said this maze will lead us to HorrorLand.”
“Matt’s right,” Robby said. “We can’t stay here. We know we’re in real danger. We have to keep going. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe right around the next corner …”
His voice faded.
No one else wanted to speak. We started to walk, following the hedges.
Birds cawed overhead. The sky was almost too black to see them. We turned and walked silently down a long, straight passage.
“What time is it?” Jillian asked. “Does anyone have a watch?”
Matt had a watch on a chain on his belt loop. He raised it and squinted at it. “It says midnight,” he said.
“Byron told us it’s always midnight in this maze,” Robby said.
We followed the curve in the hedges. Suddenly, the path led steeply downhill. The ground became sandy and soft.
Tall reeds, waving in the breeze, blocked our way. We had to push the reeds aside to make our own path.
Finally, the reeds ended at a sandy shore. “Whoa. Water!” Luke cried.
We stopped at the edge. We were on the shore of a small, round lake. The water was a velvety black under the starless sky. It lapped gently onto the sand at our feet.
“How do we get to the other side?” Michael asked. “Swim?”
Something was tossing out in the water. I heard a splash. A creaking sound.
Squinting hard, I saw a dark shape come into focus.
A ship.
“There’s a boat out there,” I said. “Can you see it? See the sails moving against the sky?”
We all gazed out over the lake. And as we did, a cover of clouds pulled away from the moon. Pale light washed over the water, and we saw the ship clearly.
An old-fashioned sailing ship with two tall masts. Its sails were unfurled, snapping in the breeze. The boat tilted in the water, rocking gently.
And as the ship came into clear view, we heard voices. Low voices chanting together …
“The bones they crack; the bones they creep.
The men come alive in the briny deep.
Come with us; come with the men.
Come meet your fate with Captain Ben.”
“Oh, NO!” Billy and Sheena Deep both uttered sharp cries. Their mouths dropped open, and they exchanged quick, frightened glances.
“You were right, Michael,” Sheena said. “The horrible things we escaped from before … they’ve followed us to Panic Park.”
“We’ve heard that pirate chant before,” Billy said. “We know who that ship belongs to — a pirate who’s been dead for two hundred years.”
“He calls himself Long Ben One-Leg,” Sheena said. “He … well, let’s put it this way — he doesn’t like Billy and me.”
“This is bad news. We have to go back,” Billy said. “We don’t want to mess with Captain Ben and his dead pirates.”
“We can’t go back,” Matt told Billy. “Do you want to stay here forever in this black-and-white world with those creepy shadow people floating around us? We have to get to the other side of this lake.”
Lights flickered on the ship. The sails cracked and snapped in the wind. We could hear men’s voices. Loud laughter.
A strong gust of wind sent the tall reeds behind us swaying from side to side. They made a creaking sound as the wind pushed them down.
I saw something hidden in the swaying reeds. “Whoa! Check it out!” I cried.
I went running along the shore. My shoes sank into the sand as I ran. The clouds covered the moon again, but I could still see what I had found.
Two longboats. Half buried in the sand. Hidden deep in the reeds.
The other kids hurried over to me. “Look. We can fit eight in a boat. They’re perfect,” I said.
“No way!” Billy cried. “What do you plan to do? Row out to the pirate ship? Ask Captain Ben if it’s okay to go to the other side?”
The poor guy was shaking. He couldn’t hide how frightened he was.
His sister, Sheena, tossed back her dark hair and stared unhappily at the boats. “I … don’t …
think … so,” she said, shaking her head.
“We can row around the lake,” I said. “We can stay far away from that pirate ship. Look how dark it is.”
“Lizzy is right,” Carly Beth said. “We’ll sneak around the pirate ship. We’ll stay as close to the shore as we can. The pirates will never see us.”
Billy and Sheena argued. They didn’t want to do it. But they didn’t want to be left behind, either.
Finally, they agreed to help.
Working as quietly as we could, we dragged the two longboats into the water. They slid easily from the sandy shore and splashed almost silently into the lake.
Then we piled in — eight to a boat. We just fit. We found the oars in the bottoms of the boats.
Luke and I were at the back of the first boat. I lifted a pair of oars and tested them in the water.
The voices of the men on the ship drifted over the lake. I could hear angry shouts. A loud crash. Then wild laughter.
“They’re too busy to look out at the water,” I whispered to Luke. “They’ll never notice us.”
Robby worked his oars in the front of our boat. I rowed from the back.
The narrow boat moved slowly. We were low in the water because of our weight. I had to use all my strength to move us forward.
We kept close to the shore. I could see the reeds bending, swaying in the wind. The cool air felt good on my hot, sweaty face.
I pulled … pulled … raised the oars and pulled …
Suddenly, the boat rocked hard. The bow rose up high, then slapped back down, sending up a spray of lake water.
“Whoa!” Robby whispered from the front. “Something weird is going on!”
“Just row steadily,” I said. “Slow and steady.”
The wind muffled my voice. I don’t know if Robby heard me.
We rocked again. The boat tilted high, then slammed back down with a hard splash.
I leaned over the side of the boat. Beneath us, the water was totally flat and gentle. Why was our boat bucking like a wild bronco?
I turned and glanced back at the second boat. The boat rocked up as if hit by a wave. One of Matt’s oars flew out of his hand and splashed into the water.
Our boat roared up again, then crashed down.
Abby cried, “This is CRAZY! Why are we bouncing like this? The water is FLAT!”
