Dill cleared his throat. “I’m just sayin’. Don’t get all huffy on me.”
“Sorry…let’s just do this.”
They turned on the radios and Peter pressed the talk button. Nothing happened on Dill’s handset.
“Crap,” Dill said.
“Which channel are you on?” Peter asked.
“Huh?”
Peter shined the flashlight on his radio and saw that the knob was dialed to channel 3. When he looked at Dill’s radio, it was on 1. He twisted the knob and tried again. This time, there was a loud crackle of static on Dill’s handset.
“Testing, testing, one two three,” Peter spoke as he walked away from Dill.
Dill pressed the talk button on his radio. “Hear you loud and clear, good buddy, got a big brown bear with a bubblegum machine on top, gonna take my load to Austin and dump it there, over.”
“What?!”
“That’s trucker talk.”
“Well, don’t do trucker talk when I’m out there, I gotta know what you’re saying, alright?”
“Fine,” Dill sulked.
Peter reached inside the dummy’s pocket and pulled out the alarm clock. 4:10. He set the alarm clock for 4:30, then decided to give it a few more minutes and nudged it up to 4:35. He replaced the clock safely, then turned back around to Dill.
“Well…”
Dill shuffled a little. “Good luck, man.”
Peter nodded and got into the raft.
It felt like he was going down a deep dark hole that he wasn’t ever going to climb out of again.
28
Dill pushed the raft off from the beach, and Peter paddled out into the lake. It was tough going, but soon enough he was a hundred feet from shore.
Everything around him was dark. His little flashlight beam didn’t cover much distance out here; all it could really do was illuminate a murky patch of water close to the boat. If he aimed it further than that, it just kind of died out, and if Peter aimed it up into the air, it disappeared completely. It made things scarier, the fact that the darkness could swallow everything up that easily. The only comforting sight was Dill’s little pinpoint of a flashlight on the beach, a beacon to show where safety was.
The water lapped quietly at the edge of the boat. His face was a little cool from the night air, but at least his body was warm. Under all his clothes, Peter was even beginning to sweat a little after all that rowing.
Up above him, a thousand stars filled the night. The moon was only a quarter full, so the stars shone brighter than ever – brighter than he had ever seen in the light-choked skies of Los Angeles, that’s for sure. He would have enjoyed watching the stars for awhile, but he had work to do. He checked his digital wristwatch. 4:21 AM.
The radio squelched. Peter jumped, and the whole raft rocked in the water.
“How’s it goin’ there, good buddy?” Dill’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “Over.”
“Dill, what did I tell you about no trucker talk?” Peter hissed into the radio.
“I just called you ‘good buddy,’ that’s all. Fine, I won’t call you good buddy.”
“Good. Just keep it simple.”
“Hey, I didn’t say over,” Dill complained. “Uh, over.”
“Dill, I swear, if you don’t cut it out, your LIFE is going to be over.”
“You didn’t say ‘over,’ either,” Dill pointed out. “Not a REAL over, anyway. Over.”
“DILL – ”
“Okay, okay!” Dill shouted from the shoreline, far away.
Peter shook his head and checked his watch again. 4:23 AM.
While he was waiting, he decided to inspect the scuba tank and mask. About 30 seconds into it he realized how hopeless it was. There were a couple of hoses sticking out of the mask, and he had no idea how to connect them to the tank. After a few minutes he gave up and prayed that he stayed above water the whole time. Maybe he could use the mask to hold his breath if need be…
He looked over at the dummy and shone the light on it. It lay there totally relaxed and unconcerned about the horrible fate that awaited it: being chomped on and taken to the monster’s underground lair.
Peter shivered and checked his watch again. 4:32.
Better reset the alarm, Peter thought, and reached over to the dummy. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of something strange in the lake.
The water was normally flat with tiny little ripples in the surface. But there was something small floating out about six feet from the raft. The very faint light of the moon reflected off it differently, and that’s how Peter noticed it. In the darkness, it seemed to be about the size of a softball, just kind of floating there on top of the lake.
Suddenly, a thin covering flicked over it, then disappeared.
Peter’s heart seized up. He swung the flashlight beam over at the shape.
The ball was red and glassy.
The monster’s eye.
Instinctively, Peter ducked down in the raft and flattened himself against the floor. That’s what saved him.
The water exploded like there was a bomb underneath the raft, which heaved up into the air. It tipped slightly to one side but didn’t flip over. If Peter had been sitting upright, he would have been thrown into the lake. As it was, the walkie-talkie, flashlight, and scuba mask zipped across the rubber floor and smacked into the far side of the raft. The tank banged into Peter’s leg painfully. The dummy flailed around too, but stayed where it was.
Somewhere in the distance, Dill screamed in terror.
The raft slammed back down on the water. It had probably only jumped up a foot or two at most, but Peter felt like he’d fallen off a cliff.
He wished that he was still in the air as he felt the creature brush up under the raft. The rubber molded to its shape, and for a second Peter actually felt the surface of its skin moving under his hands. Then it was gone, and the raft settled back into the water.
He raised his head for a quick look. The thing had doubled back around and was swimming for the raft again. Peter could see not only its eyes but the whole head just under the surface of the water.
The radio squelched. “Peter, are you there?” Dill shrieked over the speaker. “Oh my gosh, Peter – PETER, ARE YOU THERE? Uh, OVER!”
Peter didn’t have time to grab the walkie-talkie because the monster slammed up under the raft again. This time it roared as its mouth broke through the water.
One half of the rubber boat bent up into the air. Peter and the scuba tank were heavy enough that they anchored the other half down in the water. Even then, the raft felt perilously close to flipping over.
The dummy was in the part of the raft that bent upwards. It tumbled on top of Peter, who stifled a scream as it landed on his head.
There was a zipping sound as the monster’s skin squeaked along the underside of the rubber boat. Without waiting another second, Peter grabbed the dummy and threw it overboard, then plastered his body to the bottom of the raft.
The dummy plopped in the lake. Then came a giant ker-SPLASH as the monster broke up out of the water.
Peter’s head was below the edge of the raft, and he still saw it. The monster rose five feet out of the lake like a miniature whale. The moonlight glistened off its slick body.
The dummy was lodged firmly in its jaws, high up in the air.
SPLASH! The monster smacked back into the lake, and there was a giant churning sound as its tail beat the water into froth. The sound grew further and further away by the second.
Peter raised his head just over the edge of the raft and watched as the monster paddled away. It kept its head high out of the water, and Peter could see the dummy hanging limply from its jaws. Most of the dummy’s body was in the air; only its feet were submerged as they trailed along the surface of the lake.
“PETER? PETER, ARE YOU THERE? OVER! OVER!” the radio crackled.
Peter kept his eyes glued on the monster as he groped for the walkie-talkie. When he found it, he pressed on the button and broug
ht the radio close to his mouth. “It worked, Dill, it worked!” he whispered. “It really worked!”
Just then, the alarm clock went off.
The noise was distant and muffled-sounding to Peter, but that was because he was a hundred feet away. The alarm was plenty loud to the monster, which stopped in shock and looked around, turning its head this way and that as it searched for the source of the clanging.
“Oh crap,” Peter whispered.
“Is that the alarm clock?” Dill asked over the radio. “Isn’t it a little early? Uh, over.”
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap…”
The monster kept its head above water the entire time. Finally it opened its mouth. The dummy toppled out and splashed in the lake. Without the giant jaws smothering it, the alarm clock jangled loud and clear.
The monster roared and grabbed the dummy again. To Peter’s horror, it shook its head back and forth violently until the upper and lower halves of the dummy flew apart.
A choked cry escaped Peter’s throat.
“Not enough duct tape,” Dill murmured over the radio. “Over.”
The alarm clock flew through the air CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG and then plopped in the lake. The bells clanked dully underwater, fading as the clock sank deeper and deeper until nothing could be heard at all.
The monster prodded the lifeless top half of the dummy with its nose. Then it whipped its head around and stared at the rubber raft.
Peter darted his head down. But not quick enough.
“Peter, get out of there!” Dill cried. “Peter, it’s coming!”
29
There was a great whooshing sound, like a movie submarine going into an emergency dive. Peter grabbed an oar, got to his knees, and started paddling like a madman.
“PETER, HURRY!” Dill screamed. Funny thing was, Peter could hear him just as clearly across the lake as he could on the walkie-talkie.
He wasn’t moving fast enough. In fact, the raft was hardly moving at all. It was like a nightmare, where the werewolf is racing through the haunted house towards you, and you can’t even move a muscle.
WHUMP.
A giant shape thumped the underside of the raft. Suddenly, Peter was moving upwards very fast. The raft flew into the air atop the forehead of the monster. Then the monster was falling, and the raft smashed back down into the water.
Peter tumbled head over heels and slammed into the front of the boat. The air tank thudded painfully into his ribs. The flashlight and radio smacked into him, too, but the plastic oars went flying off into the air.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
Peter struggled to a sitting position. He knew he only had a few seconds. A calm voice in his head told him to grab the flashlight and radio and stash them inside his sweaters.
The rangers will be mad if you lose the radio.
He didn’t reflect on how lucky he would be if the rangers ever saw him again.
Instead, he clicked both the flashlight and walkie-talkie off and stuffed them down his shirt, where they felt ice cold against his skin.
The scuba mask. Peter looked around and saw it at the back of the raft. He scrambled past the scuba tank and headed towards the other end, then strapped the mask in place over his head.
At that exact second, the monster thrashed up out of the lake. It chomped on the opposite end of the raft where Peter had been mere seconds before.
Peter screamed and grabbed one of the raft’s plastic handholds. The monster’s gaping jaws opened and closed, moving further and further up the rubber boat. It had no teeth, though, so the raft never popped and deflated. Instead, everything just disappeared into the monster’s gullet, inch by inch.
The scuba tank was down there at the monster’s end of the raft, too, caught on the seams in the rubber boat bottom. The way it was positioned, the tank looked like a giant cigar jutting from the creature’s lips. The monster ignored it and kept chomping away.
Just beneath the lake’s surface, Peter could see the giant webbed hands paddling the water, keeping the swamp monster afloat.
But then its legs stopped paddling.
The monster started to sink.
And as it sank, it pulled the raft along with it underwater.
Now the raft was tilting at a rapidly increasing angle. Gravity tugged Peter down, but he hung on to the plastic handhold for dear life. Cold water surged over the part of the raft still in the monster’s chomping jaws. Peter could see the dark lining of its mouth, and beyond that, the pitch black hole at the back of its throat.
It’s trying to get me to slide into its mouth!
Peter kicked and kicked in an effort to get traction, but his feet just skidded off the slick bottom of the raft.
His hand…his hand was slipping.
No – please God, no –
His fingers slipped off the handle, and down he went across the wet rubber surface.
30
The air tank saved him. Peter’s feet hit it, and it stopped his fall. Now he was perched atop it like a bird on a pole, momentarily saved from the jaws beneath.
There was another handhold by his face, which he grabbed with both hands. That was just a temporary stopgap, though; every second that passed, the creature sank lower underwater, and the raft jutted up at an even worse angle. In seconds, Peter would fall off the tank and then lose his grip on the handhold.
He vaguely remembered Dill’s story about the movie shark and how they used the air tank to blow it up. He had no idea how to make the scuba tank explode, though.
Didn’t matter. He had nothing to lose. He bent his knees and kicked with all his might against the top of the cylinder.
The force was enough to free the scuba tank from whatever seam or strap was keeping it in place, and it slid right down into the monster’s mouth and zip! into the black hole of its throat.
The creature stopped chomping. A shudder went through its body and it started to gag. A great burst of water shot out of its mouth and drenched Peter’s jeans as he hung onto the plastic handhold for dear life.
Maybe it’ll choke to death please God like it die, let it choke to death.
The monster shuddered again – swallowed a giant mouthful of water –
And then it burped. A blast of putrid wind rushed past Peter and the air rumbled with a sound like a foghorn.
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 it
s 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.
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One) (PETER AND THE MONSTERS) Page 35
