by Chase Wilder
“Better you than me,” she murmurs.
You wonder what she means exactly. Scarlett is standing well back with her arms tightly crossed. Is she using you as a sort of human shield? Maybe that’s why she was so eager for you to clamber into that sluice. She wanted to know if it was safe.
“What are you waiting for?” she asks, checking her watch.
The front door looks harmless enough. There are no obvious trip wires or trapdoors. Ah well. Here goes nothing.
Turn to this page.
Fortunately, the floor holds as you tear up the other corridor. Jumping another fallen girder, you slow down to catch your breath. But right away the ship shudders again, throwing you against the wall.
Guy isn’t out of breath at all.
“You can’t tell me that wasn’t exciting,” he says.
“I thought the whole ship was going to collapse on top of us,” you say.
“Exactly,” Guy says. “By my watch, we’ve got about ten minutes until the wreck sinks into the mud. Forever.”
“Ten minutes?”
Guy mistakes your shock for doubt. “OK,” he admits. “So that was me trying to cheer you up. We’ve got eight minutes, if we’re lucky.”
Eight minutes to find your treasure? You need a time-out! But you definitely won’t get one.
“I say we head straight for the cargo hold,” Guy says. “That’s all we’ve got time for. If that mask is anywhere, it’ll be there.”
You feel the floor tremble again beneath your boots.
“Did I say eight minutes?” Guy says. “I meant six.”
Six minutes is no time at all. Barely enough time to make it safely from the ship. Maybe you should forget treasure hunting and just worry about making it out alive.
To head up to the deck and try to find safety, run to this page.
To look for treasure in the cargo hold, turn to this page.
You run to the exit. As you do, it grinds open, revealing daylight beyond. Then, just as you’re about to charge through, a curved blade swings at you from the wall. But your reflexes are on fire. Without thinking, you drop and slide, scooting out of the temple on your backside.
You have the mask! You’re free!
You’re so busy being excited about this that you run straight into Scarlett, who is waiting outside the front door. How did she get there?
“Thank you,” she says. “You’ve just saved me a great deal of trouble.”
“This is my mask,” you tell her firmly, “and I’m taking it to a museum—where it belongs!”
Scarlett shakes her head. “That mask is far too valuable for a museum. Hand it over.”
You don’t move. Hissing with frustration, Scarlett lurches forward and tries to wrench the mask out of your hands.
“We both know it’s safer with me!” she shrieks.
“I found it!” you cry.
Behind you, there’s a loud rumble. The front wall of the temple has collapsed, and standing atop the rubble is the largest monkey you’ve ever seen.
It has a weird, skull-like face, as if it’s wearing a mask of bone. But that’s no mask. And that’s no ordinary monkey.
You feel the blood drain from your face. The legends were true. The demon monkey beats its chest and roars, turning your legs to jelly.
Scarlett flees down the path, dropping the mask in her haste. You snatch it up—but which way should you run?
To run after Scarlett, head to this page.
To find your own escape route, go to this page.
“Put your hands where I can see them!” you say in your deepest, scariest voice.
The two men ahead of you don’t move. At all. They certainly don’t shake in their boots. Maybe you need to drop your voice even deeper.
“I said, put your hands up,” you growl.
The men still don’t move. You edge forward.
“I’m aiming for your heads,” you say, holding your fingers out like a pretend pistol.
This does the trick. One of the men cleverly drops his head from his shoulders, out of harm’s way. It drops all the way to the ground, where it lands with a worrying crack. Ugh.
You’re close enough now to see that both of these men are long dead. From the looks of it, they killed each other in a duel.
In fact, it seems that these were the thieves who raided the wreck. Beneath their withered bodies, you find a chest of stolen gems from the Marie Laveau. You’ve found your treasure, but there’s no sign of the mask. On the plus side, there’s a worn map stuck to the inside of the chest’s lid. It not only shows you a route out of the mine, but highlights a crooked path that leads to a temple, hidden deep in the swamp.
By the time you make it back to Barry, there’s no sign of the demon monkey men. Instead, the tunnels are full of police.
“Nice haul,” Barry says when you show him your treasure. “How are you going to spend it?”
You’re not sure. You never imagined you’d end up rich.
“Shame we never found that mask,” Barry says. “If it ends up in the wrong hands, there could be trouble.”
The police give you a ride back into town. The whole way there, you’re thinking about the map. And about Scarlett. And her secret spying. The treasure is amazing, but you can’t help feeling you’re not done here.
As soon as you can, you leave the treasure in the hotel safe, tuck that map into your back pocket, and head out into the swamp on foot. It takes you most of the morning, but the map is easy to follow. By lunchtime, you’re standing on a stony path leading up an overgrown mountain. The wall of the path is engraved with the same mask the demon monkey men were wearing. You can’t help but feel you’ve come to the right place …
Take the path to this page.
You sprint away through the undergrowth. Scarlett shouts after you angrily. Never mind.
You find it quicker to dart on and off the path, leaping over or around obstacles instead of trying to tear through them. Finally, you arrive at the top of the mountain. You look back down the slope, but there’s no sign of Scarlett. Still, you swear someone—or something—is moving around in the bushes.
The temple is an impressive stone structure, overrun with moss and vines. The entrance is a terrifying re-creation of the mask, with a heavy door set into its fanged mouth.
You’re about to press at the door, but something makes you pause. Maybe it’s those stories of a curse. Or all the legends you’ve read about Egyptian tombs and booby-trapped pyramids. Ancient people were devious and ingenious when it came to protecting their precious things from treasure hunters.
You could always climb up the wall and try the roof. Run to this page.
But the front door is right there … You could go to this page.
Running back down the corridors, your boots slip. Heavy rain cascades down the sloping floors. You land on your back and water sweeps you away down the corridor. Maybe that’s for the best. You don’t have time to run. Any minute now, the rain will tear this ship apart.
“Woo-hooooo!” Guy whizzes past you on the seat of his pants, holding the trunk of treasure above his head.
You follow his lead, using the flooded floors as a water slide. You skim and slip along corridors and down stairwell waterfalls, heading back into the belly of the wreck. You have to duck collapsed girders and paddle yourself around corners, but you start to get the hang of it. If this wasn’t so dangerous, it would be great fun!
Still, you start to worry you’re going too fast.
You shout at Guy: “Shouldn’t we be looking for a way out?”
“Let gravity show us a way out!” he shouts back. “All this water has to be going somewhere!”
You wonder if this is the sort of thinking that makes people go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Something you’ve never wanted to do.
Guy said this wreck had ten minutes left. That was about twenty minutes ago. You need to get off this ship, fast.
To grab hold of something and look for an exit, turn to this
page.
To keep sliding after Guy, turn to this page.
You carefully lower yourself through the hole. This would be a really bad time to slip. You’d be meeting the mask headfirst, in way too much of a rush.
The curved ceiling is held up by wooden beams. There’s just enough of an edge to cling onto one of them and so, hand over hand, one leg in front of the other, you clamber down to the floor. Almost like an ancient dance of hokey pokey.
Climb down to this page.
You follow Guy’s lead and swing down quickly through the trees. The demon monkey crashes through the trees behind you.
You swing, you jump, you swing again. Soon you’re halfway down the mountain.
Then—disaster! As you swing out from a treetop, the mask comes loose from the belt of your jeans. It spins through the air in front of you and you snatch blindly at it with one hand. You just manage to hook a finger through and clutch it back to your chest.
Lucky. But you’ve lost your momentum. In that split second the demon monkey has caught up, and is now waiting for you to swing right into its open jaws. Luckily, Guy lurches over, grabs you by the leg, and pulls you to safety.
“Caught you!” he says, winking.
He swings off to the next tree with a whoop. You follow, tree to tree, just mere seconds ahead of the huffing, roaring demon monkey.
At last, you crash down in the final tree, a hair in front of the beast. Guy is waiting at the base of its trunk, revving the swamp buggy’s engine. “Jump!”
You drop into the passenger seat and Guy slams his foot down on the accelerator. Just in time, too. The tree collapses under the demon monkey’s weight. The beast somersaults and belly flops down into the swamp.
As you burn off into the distance, you see the demon monkey struggling with a pack of hungry gators.
Guy looks over at you. The mask is resting on your lap, glaring up with its empty eyes. “That’s some treasure,” he says. “Where are we taking it?”
You’re surprised. “Don’t you work for Scarlett?”
“You won’t catch me working for anybody, kid. I was just in this for the adventure. So where to?”
You consider. Part of you isn’t ready to think about letting go of the mask. Not after all the trouble you’ve been to getting hold of it.
“I should take it to Barry Bones,” you say, trying to sound surer than you feel. “He’ll make sure it goes to a museum. That’s where I want it to end up.”
Surprisingly, Guy agrees. “Good call. You know, there’s a whole world of lost treasures out there. If you’ve got a taste for exploring, next week I’m off to—”
You nod along as Guy outlines his next great adventure. It sounds tempting. But right now you can’t take your eyes off your treasure. You have a weird feeling the mask doesn’t want you to say good-bye.
Maybe you don’t really have to give it to Barry. It is yours, after all. Wouldn’t it be a waste to see it locked up in some dusty old museum? After everything you’ve been through, you reason, maybe you deserve a memento.
If nothing else, you might need proof that all this craziness really happened.
To hand the mask over to Barry, go to this page.
To keep it for yourself, sneak off to this page.
Guy slices through the netting of the New York pile and you both snatch up cases and empty their contents at your feet. Soon you’re standing in a mess of moldy old clothes. You almost give up the search. Is there still time to make it off the wreck before it collapses on top of you?
“We’ve got about three minutes,” Guy says, as if reading your mind. Then he presses a finger to his lips. “Wait.” He spins around, knife in hand. The rattlesnake is sliding across the floor toward you. Guy throws his weapon, almost casually, and the blade neatly pins the snake to the floor.
“OK, two and a half minutes,” he says.
One last case and you’re out of here. You heave up a crocodile-skin suitcase and there beneath it is a wooden trunk. It looks really old, and you get the feeling it’s been hidden at the center of the pile.
You pry open the lid. The trunk is packed with gold doubloons and gems. They glitter and gleam in the light from your flashlight. It’s not the mask, but it’s still—
“Treasure!” Guy says, beaming. “You’re rich!”
Without another word, he swings the trunk up on his shoulder and takes off across the room. As you follow, you feel the ship shake and tilt again. You fall to the floor, which is now at forty-five degrees. It’s going to be a steep climb to the top deck.
“Maybe we should find another hole in the side and jump down?” you say, looking at the ceiling and waiting for it to fall. Water is starting to gush through widening cracks.
Guy shakes his head. “Best we keep heading up. With a bit of luck, we can zip-line down from the deck.”
You’re not sure how much luck you have left. You’re at least three floors from the top deck. And you have slightly less than two minutes until the whole wreck collapses.
To look for a quicker way out, go to this page.
To try to reach the deck, dash to this page.
You sprint out of the chamber, the mask heavy in your hands. Something in the floor clicks beneath your feet. A burst of flame jets across the passage in front of you.
“Whoa!”
You manage to slide beneath it, clutching the mask to your chest.
Another roar echoes down the corridor after you. There is a loud crash and the floor rocks. Something very large and very nasty has just landed on the spot where the altar used to be. Now, there’s only rubble.
You don’t dare look back. Which is just as well, as a spiked hammer swings out at you from a wall. You breathe in and dart to the right. It misses you, but not by much.
Keep running. Don’t look back.
Wait. Is the floor moving? Yes. The floor is parting down the middle. A rusted saw comes spinning up at you. You leap across it like an Olympian long jumper and crash down, nearly losing your balance. But you keep running—with both your legs.
The whole temple is shaking now. Something is chasing you, tearing the place apart as it runs.
Don’t look back.
Ahead of you is a large stone door. If your sense of direction is right, it must be the front door.
You’re nearly out of here! But wait—maybe this is too easy.
Imagine you were an ancient, devious trap-maker. Wouldn’t you booby-trap the front door?
To look for another exit, go to this page.
To risk it, turn to this page.
This is one rickety bridge. Far too rickety. Even though you’re crawling carefully, it starts to break apart. Board after board plunges toward the rushing water below—and soon you do, too!
Aaaaaaaaah!
At least you left your mark on the world. Or on that rickety bridge, anyway!
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
Another corridor peels off to the left. You take it, trying not to listen to the thundering footsteps right behind you.
Too late, you realize this corridor is a dead end. And you’re running too fast to slow down. On the plus side, you might knock yourself unconscious before you’re caught by whatever is chasing you.
At the last second, the wall pulls back. It’s a door!
“Kid?” Guy Dangerous is standing on the other side of the wall, as surprised as you are. He looks battered, sweaty, and very happy.
“Run!” you shout. “Something’s coming!”
Guy frowns, peering down the dark corridor behind you. “I don’t see anything. You haven’t been eating those yellow swamp berries, have you?”
You spin around, gasping for air, but—he’s right. The temple is still shaking, but there’s nothing chasing you. Maybe you lost it?
You show Guy the golden mask. He looks impressed, whistling and ruffling your hair. Then he tells you he’s climbed up the mountain through the treetops. Just for fun. “I saw the temple from the swamp and
thought, what the heck!”
You can see a series of ropes leading down through the trees to the foot of the mountain. You’re relieved. You want to get as far away from this temple as you can, and quickly.
“We need to get the mask to safety,” you tell him.
“Safety? I don’t see anything dangerous. And I should know, because my—” Guy is drowned out by an unearthly roar that seems to shake the temple. Looking up, you find the biggest monkey you’ve ever seen, standing atop the roof. It bellows right at you, flinging back your hair like a gale-force wind. You have the distinct, horrible impression that this demon monkey won’t rest until it gets its mask back.
“OK,” Guy gulps. “Follow me.” He swings off back the way he came. You pause a moment, torn.
Do you follow Guy and swing through the trees? Head to this page.
Or do you try giving the demon monkey its mask back? Turn to this page.
You stumble along the overgrown path, the mask heavy in your hand, glimpsing Scarlett’s red hair through the trees. How does she move so fast?
The demon monkey is even faster. You feel the earth shake as it pounds after you. You turn back to see how close it is. That was a mistake. For one thing, the demon monkey is way closer than you want it to be. For another, it means you don’t notice a sharp turn in the path. You crash to the floor and wind up flat on your back. Oof. Man down!
The demon monkey looms above you, blocking out the sunlight. It rips the mask out of your hands and bellows in triumph.
Maybe the demon monkey will forget about you now that it has its prize. That would be nice. But demon monkeys aren’t nice. All you can hope for is that you give the big hairy beast a real stomachache.
Chomp!
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
