Monster Lake

by Edward Lee

  “And this stuff, this reagent,” Patricia gloomily went on, “some of it dripped down through that big trapdoor on the floor.”

  “There’s another tank under there, isn’t there?” Terri asked, remembering what her uncle and mother had just said. “Bigger than the ones on the shelves?”

  “Yes,” Patricia said. “A lot bigger. And that’s what I came to warn you about, what your mother and uncle are really doing. They’re making monsters in there, Terri. They’re turning toads and salamanders into monsters.”

  I knew it, Terri slowly thought to herself.

  But then Patricia went on, “Because when that stuff dripped down through the trapdoor, the thing underneath the floor broke out.”

  “It broke out?”

  “That’s right, and then it raced across the room and jumped in the water, and it’s still out there, Terri. In the lake. Right now. And I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “What was it?” Terri hotly asked.

  Patricia’s voice grew dark. “It was a toad, Terri, but it was huge. It was at least seven-feet tall.”

  Terri gulped.

  “It wasn’t a toad anymore, Terri,” Patricia said. “It was a monster.”

  ««—»»

  The words chilled Terri to the very core of her soul. Yes, she was right about what her mother and uncle were doing, but only now did she know how right. They were using genetic science to turn toads and salamanders into monsters. But not just that—

  Giant monsters.

  Patricia said that the toad that broke out of the trapdoor was over seven-feet-tall!

  “Patricia, we’ve got to tell someone about this,” Terri suggested. “We should call the police!”

  “They’d never believe us,” Patricia answered. “What, two twelve-year-olds telling them there are giant toad-monsters in the lake? They’d think we were crazy.”

  Yeah, Terri thought. But we’re not crazy! It’s all true!

  “I’m going now,” Patricia said.

  “Back home?”

  “No, I can never go home, not like this.”

  “What do you mean?” Terri asked.

  “Never mind. Just get out of here.”

  And then Patricia turned and ran away.

  “Patricia! No!” Terri called out. “Come back!”

  But Patricia kept on running up the path, so Terri had no choice but to follow her. The path wound back up the wooded hill, and soon Terri was gaining on her friend.

  “No! Stay away!” Patricia was shrieking over her shoulder. “You can’t ever see me like this!”

  “Like what?” Terri shouted ahead of her, still running. “What do you mean?”

  “That reagent stuff! When the bottle broke, I tried to clean it up with paper towels, and…”

  “And what!” Terri yelled, huffing and puffing up the hill.

  She was closing in on Patricia fast, which didn’t make much sense because they generally could run at the same speed. But it was then that Terri noticed something strange about the way Patricia was running.

  She wasn’t really running as much as she was, well, sort of…hopping.

  And then Patricia finally answered. “And when I was cleaning it up, some of the stuff got on my hands! And it changed me, Terri!”

  Finally, Terri caught up. “Stop!” she shouted. “You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong! How did it change you?” And then Terri grabbed Patricia from behind and spun her around—

  —and shrieked.

  Patricia faced her now; she was no longer hidden by shadows. And she was no longer Patricia any more either, not really.

  “That stuff,” she said, sobbing, “turned me into this.”

  Patricia’s head had grown to almost twice its normal size. Her skin was all spotted and brown and covered by bumps, and her eyes…were huge. They were as big as baseballs, only they were shiny-black, with bumpy, spotted eyelids.

  Terri shuddered, staring.

  Then Patricia opened her long, wide mouth, showing teeth the size of nails…

  Terri screamed one more time, high and hard till her throat ached, and then she felt very dizzy, and then—

  She fainted right there in the path.

  ««—»»

  And Terri woke up…

  The room was velvety-dark. Her eyes opened very slowly, blinking. It took a few moments to realize where she was:

  In her bed.

  And when her eyes adjusted to the room’s murky darkness, she looked up and saw a figure standing beside her. At first, Terri thought of Patricia, the way she’d been deliberately standing in the shadows down by the lake, and then the rest of the memory jolted her like a bolt of lightning. Patricia said she got some of that reagent gunk on her hands, Terri slowly but surely remembered. And it changed her…

  It changed her into something that was part-human, part-toad…

  But this figure standing before her now couldn’t possibly be Patricia. The figure was much taller, and then, when the figure spoke, Terri knew at once that it was Uncle Chuck.

  “Are you all right, Terri?” her uncle asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think so. I guess I—”

  “You fainted, honey. We heard you scream, so we ran up the trail and found you lying there. Then we brought you back up to the house, to your room. You’ve been sleeping for hours.”

  Beside her, on the nightstand, her clock was ticking. But she couldn’t see the dial. “What time is it, Uncle Chuck?” she asked groggily, and then rubbed her eyes.

  “It’s almost midnight.”

  Midnight! Terri thought. I’ve been sleeping that long?

  And then Uncle Chuck asked, “What happened, honey?”

  It was then that Terri came fully awake, and she remembered everything. All kinds of different feelings in her heart seemed to crash together, and she leaned up in bed and shouted, “What happened? You know what happened, Uncle Chuck! I found out everything, everything that you and Mom have been doing down at the boathouse!”

  Uncle Chuck’s shadow stepped back. A long pause hung in the air, and then, in a lower voice, he asked, “What do you mean?”

  But Terri spat right back, “You’re using genetics! Mr. Seymour at the library told me all about it! And Patricia and I have seen them!”

  “Them?” Uncle Chuck asked.

  “The toads and salamanders that you and Mom used that reagent stuff on. It makes them bigger! It makes them grow teeth! And I also know that you’ve made a giant toad that you’ve been keeping under that trapdoor in the boathouse! And last night, it broke out. You’re using special chemicals to change the genes of toads and salamanders—you’re mutating them!—and turning these poor animals into monsters!”

  Uncle Chuck took another step back in the darkness. “You’ve got it all wrong, honey—well, part of it. It’s true, we did create a special reagent, but not to make monsters.”

  “I don’t believe you!” Terri shouted back at him. “I just told you, I’ve seen them!”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Uncle Chuck repeated.

  But then Terri reached up and turned on the lamp on her nightstand—

  She screamed as loud as she had when she’d seen Patricia.

  Uncle Chuck’s head had turned huge, and his eyes were as big and black as Patricia’s had been when Terri saw her on the path. Tan and brown bumps covered his skin—

  And when he opened his long, wide mouth to speak, Terri could see the jagged teeth.

  “Several weeks ago, we accidentally spilled some of the reagent into the lake,” Uncle Chuck said. “And all the animals there, mostly toads and salamanders…changed. But it was an accident, Terri! We didn’t do it on purpose! I promise you that! It was an accident!”

  But by now, Terri couldn’t believe it. They’d been hiding things for all this time. Lying. Covering up.

  “And the same thing happened to you that happened to Patricia!” Terri yelled, knowing she was right. “Look at what’s happened to you! You’re changing to
o!”

  Uncle Chuck, now standing in the bright lamplight, turned and looked at his reflection in Terri’s mirror hanging on the closet. His giant toad eyes widened, and then he screamed himself, and ran out of the room.

  Terri jumped out of bed and followed him through the house, but Uncle Chuck dashed out the open sliding glass door, ran across the back yard, and disappeared into the opening of the trail.

  Going back to the boathouse, Terri wisely concluded. And my mother’s probably down there right now, too—making more monsters out of the innocent animals in the lake. And she’s probably changed—mutated—just like Uncle Chuck and Patricia.

  She decided not to follow him. Why do that? She was on her own now, and she knew it. The only thing she could think to do was call the police and tell them everything. They’ll have to believe me, she thought. When they see what Mom and Uncle Chuck have been doing down there, and when they see what they’ve changed into, they’ll have no choice but to believe me!

  She went to the kitchen phone, picked it up, was about to dial 911, which her father had taught her to do if there was ever an emergency when she needed the police or an ambulance. But just before she could dial, she heard:

  creak

  Terri stood still as a statue. She knew that sound…

  It was the sound the wood floor made when someone had stepped into the foyer.

  Someone’s there, she realized. Someone’s in the foyer right now, and it can’t be Uncle Chuck, because I just saw him run down the path back to the boathouse.

  It had to be Patricia or Terri’s mother. There was no one else it could be.

  Terri boldly walked toward the darkened hall, toward the foyer. “Patricia?” she called out. “Is that you?”

  But there was no answer.

  “Mom?” she called out. “I know what happened, so you can come out.”

  Again—no answer.

  Terri walked the rest of the way down the hall. Then she turned and faced the foyer.

  It came as no surprise. A tall figure stood there in the darkness, perfectly still.

  “Mom?” Terri asked again. “Patricia? I know it’s one of you. So come out and we can call the police and they’ll take care of things.”

  But the figure didn’t answer her—at least not yet. It stood there looking at her from the other side of the foyer.

  “Come out of there!” Terri exclaimed. “You’re scaring me!”

  And then the figure moved a little, taking half a step forward, and it was then that Terri noticed how tall it was—much taller than Patricia or her mother—

  In fact, it was so tall that it had to duck its giant head just to stand upright in the foyer.

  Terri’s heart skipped in her chest. Her eyes widened, and fear like electricity suddenly ran through her body.

  It’s the monster, she realized, unable to move. It’s the giant seven-foot toad that Patricia saw break out of the trapdoor in the boathouse…

  And the giant figure opened its mouth, revealing shiny white teeth even bigger than Uncle Chuck’s or Patricia’s.

  Teeth that were twice as big…

  “Terri, honey,” the figure croaked. “Help me…”

  And then Terri almost fainted again, when she recognized the voice.

  No, she was right. It wasn’t Patricia or her mother’s voice.

  Oh, no—

  It was…her father’s voice.

  ««—»»

  Terri’s breath seemed to leave her; she couldn’t say a word. Instead, all she could do was stare back at the giant toad-creature that she knew now was her father.

  “Oh, Terri,” the thing croaked. “Things just went so wrong.”

  “Did—did Mom or Uncle Chuck do this to you?” Terri asked in shivery words.

  “No, no, it was me. I accidentally spilled some of the reagent on myself several months ago. Your mother and uncle had to keep me in the big tank under the trapdoor, while they tried to make a counter-reagent to change me back. So far they haven’t been able to, and now they’ll never be able to because they’ve changed too, just like I changed…”

  Terri stared some more, shivered some more. It was a thing, a monster, but still, she realized…

  It’s my father—

  “But—but, Dad,” she asked. “What can I do? There must be something I can do to help you.”

  Her father shook his large toad-like head. “Nothing,” he said in that same low, croaky voice. “There’s nothing. But you have to promise me something, honey. You have to promise me that you’ll leave. There’s money in your mother’s desk—take it and get a bus and go to your grandfather’s house as soon as you can. Get as far away from here as you possibly can…”

  Terri, as shaken as she was, didn’t understand. “But why, Dad? Tell me why!”

  “Because,” her father croaked and paused. “Because we might change more. The reagent—we have no idea how much it will change us. You have to leave while you still can because we might change completely, and…”

  “And what?” Terri asked.

  “We might try to…hurt you.”

  Terri couldn’t believe this, but—

  “We wouldn’t want to, honey,” her father croaked on, “but soon the reagent could take over our minds, and we wouldn’t know what we were doing. So you have to protect yourself. You have to get away from here. So promise me. Promise me you’ll leave as fast as you can.”

  Tears flowed from Terri’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say.

  “I have to go,” her father said next. “I have to get back to the lake, in the water, or else I’ll die. Promise me!”

  “I can’t!” Terri shrieked.

  But then her father was stepping forward. He moved past her, toward the kitchen, and as he did so, he very gently pushed her aside.

  “I love you, honey,” he said, and then ran awkwardly away toward the kitchen.

  “Dad!” Terri screamed. “Don’t go! I’ll call the hospital! Maybe doctors could help! I can call the lab where you used to work—”

  But Terri didn’t hear a word from him after that. He’d slipped out the back sliding door, across the back yard, and was moving toward the path which would take him to the lake.

  ««—»»

  Teary-eyed, Terri watched out the kitchen window as the thing that was her father disappeared down the path.

  I can’t! she told herself. I can’t do it! I can’t leave them!

  No, there was no way she could go away, not after knowing all that had happened. But she couldn’t think straight; millions of questions filled her mind. Like: What about the divorce? If her father and mother had gotten divorced, why was he still here?

  And another question, even more important:

  What should I do?

  She stood a moment more at the kitchen window, let her heart slow down. She had to sort her thoughts out and decide what she was going to do.

  And then it dawned on her:

  No, I can’t leave. I have to go down to the lake. There must be something I can do…

  She had no idea what that might be, but she knew she had to do something—

  But— Oh, no, she thought.

  When she looked more closely out the window, she realized that getting down to the lake might not be so easy. Because the back yard was full of large mutated toads, as big as footballs now, and they were all hopping around with their mouths open, showing long white sharp teeth.

  How could Terri get down the path to the boathouse without getting bitten?

  Carnivores, she thought, remembering the word. The reagent had changed all the toads and salamanders to carnivores, and carnivores ate meat…

  Meat, she thought.

  She rushed to the refrigerator, swung it open. There, sitting on the top shelf was a large package of ground hamburger meat. She plucked it up, her heart racing again, and tore the package open as she ran out the sliding door into the back yard.

  As expected, the giant toads began to move toward her, but as she
jogged across the back yard, she threw a small clump of the ground hamburger whenever she saw one approaching. And—

  It’s working! she thought. The ground meat was the perfect bait to keep them away. The toads went for the meat instead of her! And this allowed Terri to safely get to the path behind the house, without getting bitten.

  The high, bright moon lit her way. She scurried down the path. Gravel crunched under her feet; branches swiped at her face like feisty hands, but she ran on, as fast as she could. The nightsounds throbbed in her ears, louder and louder the closer she got to the lake. Her sneakers skidded to a halt on the dock. An explosion of butterflies seemed to swell in her stomach when she looked over the pier rail; along the lake’s narrow shore, dozens more toads and salamanders hopped about or were slithering out of the dark water, all huge and showing their fangs. But they were far enough away that they didn’t present any danger to Terri. To her left sat the boathouse. The lights were on and the door was open.

  They’re in there, she thought with a shiver. Dad, Mom, Uncle Chuck, but they’re all different now. They’re…changed…

  But then:

  “Terri! Terri!”

  She’d been wrong. The voice didn’t come from the boathouse; it came from the lake. Terri glanced nervously over the rail and squinted out.

  And the butterflies in her stomach doubled.

  There, in the center of the lake, she could see them: Her father, her mother, her Uncle Chuck, and even Patricia. She could only see their heads above the water, but she knew it was them. Their giant, shiny-black eyes looked sadly back at her, and when they spoke, Terri could tell that the mutation—the change—had gotten worse. Their voices were more croaky, barely human at all now…

  “Terri!” her mother croaked.

  “The boathouse!” her uncle croaked.

  “What?” Terri shouted back. She didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

  “You might be able to help us,” her father croaked out.

  “How?” Terri pleaded, her hands gripping the pier rail till her knuckles turned white. “Tell me how!”