Monster Lake

by Edward Lee

  Monster Lake

  by Edward Lee

  Smashwords Edition

  Little Devil Books

  A Division of Necro Publications

  2011

  This book is for readers ages 8-12.

  — | — | —

  Monster Lake

  Monster Lake © 2005 by Edward Lee

  Cover art © 2005 by Erik Wilson

  This digital edition January 2010 © Little Devil Books

  ISBN: 978-1-4524-0926-9

  Cover, Book Design & Typesetting:

  David G. Barnett

  Fat Cat Graphic Design

  www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  a Necro Publication

  5139 Maxon Terrace • Sanford, FL 32771

  www.necropublications.com

  Also available in a signed trade paperback

  ISBN: 1-889186-56-2

  And a limited edition hardcover from Camelot Books.

  www.camelotbooks.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  — | — | —

  DEDICATION: This book is for Audrey Craker. Perhaps one day I'll write The Little Girl Who Was A Skeleton By Day. Oh, and don't forget what redundant means.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The author would like to thank Taylor Bartscht for much needed editorial consultation. Further, I must acknowledge the swamp behind my grandmother's house in Pound Ridge, New York, which was full of green muck...a far-reaching inspiration.

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  Prologue

  It’s nighttime…

  The lake is still, like a black crystal mirror. Fireflies hover over the water, reflecting swarms of green-glowing dots. Bullfrogs and toads hop about at the water’s edge; salamanders climb sluggishly over rocks.

  And the moon hangs low over the trees…

  The night is teeming with sounds. Crickets and peepers pipe their throbbing chorus. Nightbirds caw, and big white-faced owls hoot from high in the trees. And if you listen carefully, you can even hear the distant titters of bats.

  But then—

  Suddenly, the woods turn dead silent.

  The nightbirds fly away. The bullfrogs and toads scamper to hide…

  And the still surface of the lake begins to churn.

  From the water, the hideous thing rises, its huge black eyes never blinking, its mouth crammed with rows of razor-sharp teeth that glitter like bits of broken glass in the moonlight.

  But what is the thing? It’s big, tall as a man, with a wide head and a pitted, bumpy face.

  Not an animal at all but a creature, a monster—

  And it’s coming up out of the water now, looking for something.

  Maybe it’s looking for you…

  Monster Lake

  “Ter-ri!” Patricia complained. The shuttlecock whizzed past her as she rushed to swing her racket and missed. “Don’t serve so hard!”

  “Sorry,” Terri replied. She knew she was a good badminton player; her only problem was finding someone good enough to practice against. And here, in Devonsville, there weren’t many kids her own age. “Let’s just volley, okay?” she suggested, trying to make the game a little easier for Patricia.

  “Yeah, that’d be better. I’m nowhere near as good as you.”

  It was a beautiful summer day, a cloudless blue sky, birds chirping high in the trees around Terri’s house. She and Patricia Kennedy had only met a few weeks ago, when the Kennedys had first moved here, but they’d become best friends fast. They were both the same age—twelve—and they both liked a lot of the same things, like Game Boy, The Simpsons, and nachos with cheese and salsa. And, of course, they both liked to play badminton—or lawn tennis, as Terri’s Uncle Chuck like to call it—but Patricia wasn’t very good. It didn’t matter. They’d been hanging out together most every day since Patricia had moved to Devonsville.

  Patricia’s long blond hair swayed as she rose on her tiptoes to serve. Poink! the shuttlecock went, then sailed across the net. Terri’s hair was just as long but a shiny dark chestnut color, and she had emerald-green eyes instead of blue, like Patricia’s. She easily returned her friend’s serve, and they volleyed the shuttlecock back and forth for several minutes. Terri could tell that Patricia was trying hard to beat her but—poink-poink-poink-poink—Terri was able to return all of Patrica’s hits back hardly without even working up a sweat. Eventually, Patricia missed and declared, “All right, already! You win!”

  Terri smiled to herself. “It’s getting hot. Let’s go around to the back of the house and get a drink from the hose.”

  “Good idea,” Patricia agreed, wiping her brow.

  They returned the badminton rackets to the side shed, then headed for the house, a nice, three-bedroom ranch with cedar shingles. “You’re really good at badminton,” Patricia complimented. “Who taught you to play?”

  Terri’s smile faded. “My Dad. He was going to start teaching me to play tennis soon, too, so that once I get to high school, I’d be good enough for the team. Dad and I would do lots of stuff, until…”

  Patricia kicked at a dandelion puff. “Oh, you mean before he and your Mom got divorced?”

  “Yeah,” Terri sadly replied. These days lots of kids’ parents got divorced. Terri never quite understood it until Uncle Chuck explained that sometimes people changed over time, and they didn’t agree on things, or see things the same way. “Sometimes parents grow apart,” her uncle had explained, “and they can’t get along anymore.” But that was the weirder part, because Terri could never remember a time when her Mom and Dad didn’t get along.

  She could only hope that one day her parents would get back together…

  And there was one thing she’d noticed very clearly: that since the divorce, her mother had started acting really weird, and Uncle Chuck too.

  “How do you like Devonsville so far?” Terri asked, to get her mind off the subject.

  “Oh, it’s okay. It’s a lot different from the city, where we used to live. The city was real crowded and had lots of smog. Devonsville is so pretty,” Patricia observed, looking around now at the healthy, green lawn, the clear sky, and the woods behind Terri’s house.

  “We used to live in the city too,” Terri said. “But I like it here much better.”

  “What’s school like?”

  “It’s okay. Not as many kids as the city, but everyone’s nicer here.”

  Patricia grinned wickedly. “Any cute boys?”

  “There are some,” Terri answered. And then her thoughts drifted. Yes, she was at the age now where she’d be getting interested in boys. She even knew some girls at school who were going steady! And there were a few boys, she knew, who were interested in her, like Matt Slattery, who was on the eighth-grade wrestling team; and Marty Cadeaux, who was fat but nice and asked her to the school dance once. And Terri knew she must be pretty, because if she weren’t, why would these boys be interested in her? It was nice to know that boys liked her, and that she could have a boyfriend if she wanted, but it just seemed that…

  Terri frowned at herself as she and Patricia cut across the big yard.

  It seemed that she’d lost interest in those kinds of things since her parents had gotten divorced.

  And there was still one more weird thing. Terri knew that when parents got divorced, the father usually moved away—like Terri’s father had—but she also knew there was something called visitation rights, so that
the father could visit on weekends.

  But my father’s been gone all summer, she reflected; for months, and he’s never visited me on the weekends. And this made Terri even more sad.

  Maybe he doesn’t want to visit me…

  But Terri couldn’t even think about that.

  “What grade are you in?” Patricia asked, the sun shining brightly in her long blond hair.

  “Seventh—well, I’ll be in the eighth when school starts up after the summer.”

  “But you’re only twelve!”

  “I know. I got moved up a grade.”

  “You must be real smart,” Patricia offered, along with a hint of jealousy.

  “I just study hard,” Terri admitted. “My Mom and Dad always taught me to study hard…”

  And then the thoughts returned. Mom and Dad…

  Dad…

  Suddenly, Terri felt really depressed, like there was a big hole where her heart should be.

  Will I ever see my father again? she wondered, fighting to hold back tears.

  ««—»»

  “Ooo, that’s good!” Patricia remarked.

  Cool, clear, fresh water gushed from the garden hose as Terri and Patricia leaned over and took turns drinking. They laughed, frolicking, as they sprayed each other. The cool water felt wonderful in the hot sun.

  Then: “Look!” Patricia exclaimed.

  A big, bumpy toad looked up at them, sitting in a small corner of shade cast by the back porch steps. It had big black eyes with gold irises.

  “That’s the biggest toad I’ve ever seen!” Patricia observed.

  “Oh, there’re bigger ones,” Terri said.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Yep. I’ve seen toads three times as big as that one, and bullfrogs even bigger. They’re all over the place.”

  Patricia suddenly looked flustered. “I wonder why we don’t have any toads and frogs in our yard.”

  “That’s because we have a lake.” Terri pointed to the tall trees at the back of the house, where a little path formed. “See that trail?”

  Squinting, Patricia nodded.

  “It leads down to the lake,” Terri went on. “It’s not a very big lake, but it’s neat. That’s where all the toads and frogs come from. There’re fish in it too, and big salamanders.”

  Suddenly, excitement lit up Patricia’s face. “Let’s go! I’ve never even seen a salamander, except in books. Come on!”

  Terri hesitated. “No, we better not. I’m not allowed.”

  “Why not?” Patricia objected. “You’ve got a lake behind your house but you’re not allowed to go see it?”

  “Well, I’m allowed but only if my Mom’s with me, or my Uncle Chuck. We’ll go soon though, I promise.”

  Of course, that might be a hard promise to keep since, these days, both her mother and Uncle Chuck frequently worked late into the night.

  “I can’t wait,” Patricia enthused. “I can’t wait to see it!”

  “You will.” Then Terri leaned over, and—

  “No, don’t!” Patricia shrilled.

  —and picked up the big toad by the porch steps.

  “You’re not supposed to touch toads, Terri,” Patricia warned. “They’ll give you warts.”

  Terri scoffed. “No they don’t. I’ve picked up lots of toads and I’ve never gotten a wart. Toads can’t give you warts; that’s just an old wive’s tale.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My Dad told me. He’s a zoologist.”

  “A zoologist? What’s that?”

  “It’s someone who studies animals. There’s a zoology lab not too far from here, where scientists do research. That’s where my Dad worked, until…”

  “Until what?”

  Terri’s suntanned shoulders slumped in despair. Here was that bad subject again. “Until he and my Mom got divorced, and he moved away.”

  “Oh,” Patricia said.

  And this was something Terri didn’t quite understand. She knew what divorce was, but she didn’t see why a divorced person would stop working at the place they usually worked. One day, a couple of weeks after the divorce, Terri asked her Mom if she could call her father at the zoology lab. “He doesn’t work there anymore, honey,” Mrs. Bennet sadly told her. “He moved away.” And Uncle Chuck later told her the same thing. “Sometimes when people get divorced, Terri, they move far away.”

  Far away, the words repeated now in her mind…they move far away…

  Just one more thing that made her feel sad.

  “But that must’ve been neat, having a Dad who studied animals,” Patricia said, not realizing Terri’s constant sadness over the topic.

  “Yeah,” Terri agreed. “It was. I guess it runs in the family. My mother has a zoology degree, and she works at the same lab that my Dad used to work at. And my Uncle Chuck teaches biology at Devonsville Junior High. I’m going to be a zoologist too, when I’m an adult.”

  “Sounds like a neat job.” Then Patricia leaned forward, looking at the big toad that Terri gently grasped behind by its legs. Its big eyes, like black marbles, never blinked. Loose white skin under its throat fluttered back and forth. Then—

  Terri squealed and quickly put the toad back down on the ground.

  “What happened?” Patricia asked.

  Terri laughed, then turned the garden hose back on to wash her hands.

  “It peed in my hand!” she said.

  ««—»»

  Terri washed her hands off again, with water and soap, once they got into the house.

  “What a great house,” Patricia noticed, her eyes glancing around.

  “Yeah, it is nice,” Terri replied half-heartedly. It was a nice house, with big spacious rooms, but…

  More bad feelings.

  It seemed that anytime she looked at anything—anywhere in the house—she was again grimly reminded of her father. Right now, for instance, here in the kitchen. It reminded her of all the times she and her father and mother had had breakfast together in the mornings, before the school bus came and picked her up at the bus stop down the street. She looked at the microwave oven and remembered the time her father had taught her how to use it, how to set the digital timer that beeped, how to adjust the heat setting. Next, she looked at the big four-burner range and recalled how her father liked to make bacon and cheese omelets for the whole family every Saturday morning. And they were great omelets.

  “It seems so empty all the time now,” Terri said without really thinking.

  “Well, maybe your Dad will come back someday,” Patricia offered. “Maybe he and your Mom will get back together.”

  “I hope so…”

  By now, Patricia could probably guess that this was not Terri’s favorite thing to talk about. “But your Uncle Chuck lives here too, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he has since my Dad left. He drives my Mom to work every morning, and picks her up—that’s where he is now. And he looks after me during the day, when school’s out for vacation.”

  thunk, thunk

  The sound of car doors closing.

  “Here they come now,” Patricia said, glancing out the window which she could see from the dining room.

  Terri glanced out too, and sure enough, there was the car in the driveway, with her Mom and Uncle Chuck getting out.

  “What are all those things they’re carrying?” Patricia asked.

  But this was a familiar sight to Terri. Both her mother and Uncle Chuck carried two big black briefcases each as they trundled up the driveway toward the front door.

  “Mom has to bring a lot of work home from the zoology lab,” Terri eventually answered. “She only used to work part-time, but since the divorce she works every weekday.”

  “Well,” Patricia considered, “at least she’s home on the weekends, so you can do stuff with her then.”

  “Not really. She has so much work from the lab, she has to work on it at home on Saturdays and Sundays now.”

  “Oh, that’s a bummer.”

/>   “Hi, Mom, hi, Uncle Chuck,” Terri greeted when they both walked in.

  “Hi, kids,” Terri’s mother replied, smiling in her dark pumpkin-orange business dress.

  “Who’s this?” Uncle Chuck asked when he saw Patricia.

  “This is my friend, Patricia,” Terri introduced. “This is my Uncle Chuck.”

  “Hi,” Patricia said.

  “Pleased to meet you, Patricia,” Uncle Chuck returned the greeting. Uncle Chuck was tall and thin, with short dark hair and a nice smile.

  “Patricia will be in seventh grade when school starts,” Terri said. “I was just telling her that she’ll have you as her biology teacher.”

  “That’s great,” Uncle Chuck said. “So you must be new in town?”

  Patricia nodded. “I only just moved to Devonsville a few weeks ago. It’s a really nice town.”

  “So what have you girls been up to?” Terri’s mother asked.

  “We were playing badminton while Uncle Chuck was picking you up at work,” Terri said.

  “And we saw this absolutely huge toad in the back yard,” Patricia cut in.

  “We do seem to have a lot of toads around here,” Terri’s mother added. “They’re all over the place.”

  “Because you’re so close to the lake, right?” Patricia asked.

  Terri’s Mom and Uncle Chuck traded strange glances at Patricia’s remark. And this just reminded Terri how strange overall her mother and Uncle Chuck had been acting lately.

  “Well, yes,” Terri’s mother eventually answered Patricia.

  But Uncle Chuck looked a little disturbed. “Uh, girls? You weren’t at the lake today, were you?”

  “No, Uncle Chuck,” Terri answered. “You said kids shouldn’t go there unless an adult’s around.”