by RL Stine
You start to examine the floor. The walls. The ceiling. Maybe there’s another way out of this place….
Hey — what’s that crack in the wall?
You stare to your left and see what looks like a sliding panel. You press on it. It slides open. You stop, frozen. You peer into the passageway. What is that in the darkness?
“Sam! Hey, Sam!” you whisper. “There’s something here!”
“Huh?” Sam whirls around and stares into the dark, too.
A large shape looms in the blackness.
“Sh-should we check it out?” you stutter.
Sam squints, trying to see what’s ahead. Nothing moves. “Sure,” Sam replies, with a shrug. “Let’s go. It’s probably just a shadow.”
You and Sam inch into the passageway.
And then you realize that Sam was wrong. That thing is not a shadow.
You hold back a scream. You grab Sam’s arm and point.
To see what awaits you in the darkness, turn to PAGE 121.
Congratulations. You leap into the air and BINGO! You hit the button with your nose!
All at once, a piece of the wall slides open, revealing a stairwell. You and Sam run in. You sniff. Something smells familiar.
Sniff-sniff-sniff.
What is that smell?
And then you realize: It’s your mom’s perfume!
You follow the scent down the stairs to the floor below. To a door that is closed. You bark until someone comes to open it. Who is it?
“Mom!” you try to cry when you see her. You jump up on her, barking and wagging your tail.
“Get down,” she scolds. “What are you dogs doing in here, anyway?”
Then she turns and calls to someone behind her. “Hey, Harold, come here and look. A pair of dogs! They probably escaped from Eeek’s lab.”
“Mom, don’t you recognize me?” you want to ask. But all you are able to say is, “Woof. Woof-woof-woof. Woof.”
Go on to PAGE 118.
You tear off the headset and jump out of the black leather chair.
“Sam!” you shout. “Let’s get out of this place!”
Sam glares at you, his eyes full of hate.
“What did you do with my friend?” he cries.
“Sam! It’s me!” you shout. “I am your friend! I just don’t look like myself. Dr. Eeek turned me into a copy of him.”
Sam shakes his head and backs away from you as fast as he can. You run after him. But for some reason he’s much faster than you. He reaches the waiting room first, then dials 911. He stands on the desk so you can’t reach him while he talks on the phone.
Why can’t you reach him? Because no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to climb up on the desk. Your legs hurt too much. You have creaky old joints — caused by arthritis!
Arthritis? That old person’s disease? Of course! You’re Dr. Eeek — a fifty-eight-year-old man! Bad luck. You’ve got bad breath and a bad back, too.
Before you know it, the police are on their way. They arrest you for doing experiments on kids. And when Sam tells them that you are missing, they throw you in jail for kidnapping, too — and throw away the key.
THE END
“No thanks,” you say, making a face.
That brown crunchy stuff tastes gross!
You turn your back on Sam and take a peek around the corner, into the hall, to see if anyone’s coming. After all — you are in a canine maze. And Dr. Eeek did say beware of the dogs.
And besides — it gives you the creeps to be here. Trapped in a tiny room at the end of a skinny hall.
Then you smell it again. Dog smell. But stronger. And really, really close.
You hear a growl. Behind you! Your muscles tighten. You whirl again — just in time to see Sam transforming into a dog!
“No!” you cry out. You watch as his canine teeth grow longer! Then the hair. The short brown hair. It pops out all over his arms. Or really, his legs. His four legs.
“Sam! Stop eating that stuff!” you scream.
But it’s too late. In the next instant, the transformation is complete. Sam’s a German shepherd — and he’s ready to attack!
Well, Dr. Eeek told you to beware of the dogs. Too bad he didn’t tell you to beware of your best friend!
THE END
“This way!” you shout to Sam. You turn left and run down the long white hallway.
In a minute, you reach a door at the end. You yank it open.
BINGO!
You’re back in the waiting room!
“We did it!” Sam yells, slapping you a high five. “Let’s get out of here!”
But just as you’re about to race to the front door, you freeze. It’s that vault door — the one that’s six inches thick. Only there’s one big problem.
There’s no handle on the inside. No doorknob. Nothing. No way to open it.
“Maybe it pushes open,” you say. You race across the room and lunge at it. Ouch! You ram your shoulder into the door, but it doesn’t budge.
“We’re trapped,” Sam moans. “We’re locked in!”
Oh, no, you think. And then you hear footsteps! Someone’s coming. Probably Dr. Eeek. What now?
Maybe you’d better hide behind the door — and ambush whoever comes in.
Hide on PAGE 65.
The blob of green goo flies toward you. Sam dives in front of you and catches it. It’s an old habit of his. Hogging the ball.
Dr. Eeek chuckles. “Nice catch,” he declares in a deep, sinister voice. “How do you like my new invention?”
Sam stares down at his hands. His eyebrows wrinkle with worry. The green goo is sticking to his hands — and he can’t seem to get them apart!
“What is this stuff?” Sam moans.
“That’s one of my very best experimental results,” Dr. Eeek replies. “I call it my G-substance. G for green. G for glowing. G for gooey.”
“How about G for ‘Get it off me?!’ ” Sam shrieks.
You gasp. The stuff seems to be growing up Sam’s arm!
“Ah, yes,” Dr. Eeek says. “And I forgot to mention. G for growing, too.”
“Help!” Sam screams. The goo slowly creeps up both of his arms, toward his face.
Quick! Help your best friend on PAGE 82.
It takes about twenty minutes, but you and Sam finally do escape. You find an emergency exit door in the Canine Maze. It leads into a stairwell that leads to the floor below, which is where your mom’s lab has been all the time.
You hurry into her office. She’s bent over a microscope, lost in her work.
“Oh, hi!” your mom says, looking at her watch. “I guess I forgot the time. Ready for a movie? I thought we’d go see the new science fiction film about the crazy scientist who traps these two kids and —”
You and Sam glance at each other and roll your eyes.
“Hold it, Mom,” you interrupt. “Sam and I were thinking. We’d rather do something … uh … a little less exciting. Could we just go home, eat pizza, watch cartoons, and then go to bed?”
Your mom stares at you blankly.
“Uh, okay,” she replies. “But I hate to think you came all the way to my lab for nothing. Isn’t there something fun we could do? How about if we stop on the way home and get a scary book to read?”
You and Sam roll your eyes again. A scary book? Now?
“Not tonight, Mom,” you tell her. “Not tonight!”
THE END
“Sure,” you insist. “Anything.”
Dr. Eeek doesn’t even chuckle. He straight-out laughs. A big, roaring, throwing-his-head-back-and-laughing-in-your-face laugh.
“Great!” he cries, rubbing his hands together.
Sam stares at you and just shakes his head.
“Not me,” Sam says. “I’ll stay here and take my chance with the doggy thing.”
You wave good-bye to Sam. Dr. Eeek leads you down the hall and around the corner to a pink door. Then he opens it. And pushes you into a room full of feathers. White feathers. Brown
feathers. Pink flamingo feathers.
They’re piled so deep, they come up to your waist.
It tickles your ankles to move through this big mass of fluff. But otherwise it feels sort of soft and nice.
“Take off your shoes,” Dr. Eeek orders you, still laughing.
Get barefoot on PAGE 109.
Sam’s all right, you decide. And besides — that cry definitely came from somewhere in front of you.
“Help! Please!” the voice calls out desperately.
It seems to be coming from a room just a few feet ahead.
You dash forward and pull open a lab door. There’s nothing inside except an empty laboratory. A big blob of some kind of green stuff sits on the counter.
Wrong room, you say to yourself.
You continue down the hall. You try another door. Nope. Just a broom closet.
The next door on the left has to be it. It’s already partly open. You give it a push — and gasp!
Catch your breath on PAGE 38.
No way, you decide. You won’t open your mouth.
Wait a minute. Are you kidding? You’re never going to open your mouth? You’re just going to cling to Dr. Eeek’s leg for the rest of your life?
Don’t be silly. You’ll never get out of here that way.
In fact, you’ve got to open your mouth sooner or later — or you’ll starve!
So you might as well start by eating that big red pill.
How bad can it be?
Go to PAGE 106 — and take your medicine.
You follow the chimp. He leads you quickly down the gleaming-white hallway. Oddly enough, he seems to know exactly where he’s going.
When the chimp’s not watching, Sam stoops over. He copies the chimp’s lumbering scamper. “Ooo! Ooo!” Sam cries, scratching his underarms and making chimp faces.
The chimp turns around and catches Sam at it. He glares at both of you.
Weird, you think. You know chimps are supposed to be smart animals, but the gleam in this one’s eyes … ! Frankly, you think, he looks smarter than Sam!
At last you come to a door. The chimp opens it and makes a sound. It sounds kind of like “eeek.”
What’s in here? you wonder. You step through the door into a large laboratory. Sam follows right behind.
Inside, a tall man wearing a lab coat writes on a clipboard. He whirls around. He glares at you with intense dark eyes.
“Who are you?” he demands loudly. “What are you doing here?”
Explain who you are on PAGE 122.
You dash to the right, feet pounding.
“Run — this way!” you scream at Sam, who seems to have headed in the opposite direction.
You reach the end of the hallway. You yank open the door to the waiting room.
Uh-oh.
This isn’t the waiting room — although there is definitely something waiting for you there!
Inside a big steel-walled room sits a huge, horrifying creature with long pointy fangs.
Have you ever seen a cross between a gorilla and a vampire bat?
Well, now you have!
And cross is the right word, too. The “vamporilla” thing is so grouchy, it decides to tear you apart just for the exercise.
Cross your fingers that next time you won’t cross paths with this guy!
And cross yourself off the list of the living, because this is definitely …
THE END.
“Get your hands off me!” you shout at Dr. Eeek.
But he doesn’t back up. You reach out and give him a shove. Then you shove him again. Harder.
“You can’t experiment on kids like this!” you yell. You give him another push.
He stumbles backward, slightly dazed, and cowers against a tiled wall.
Then you and Sam charge out through the swinging doors.
You’re getting outta this joint!
“Wait. Who are you?” Dr. Eeek calls. “How did you get into my lab, anyway?”
It won’t hurt to answer him — will it?
If you think it’s safe to answer Dr. Eeek, turn to PAGE 125.
Or maybe you’d better just get out of there on PAGE 78.
Hey — let’s face it.
You tried to worm your way out of things, but you just weren’t wormy enough in …
THE END.
You gulp and bravely sit back down in the leather chair. If this is the only way to save Sam, you’re willing to do it.
Dr. Eeek straps on the headset — and straps down your arms. Then he pushes some buttons on the console. Instantly, you see what Sam is seeing.
YIKES!
Sam is underwater in a huge tank in Eeek Labs — and he’s struggling with a two-headed octopus! And if it has two heads, you know without even counting that it must have sixteen arms!
You lean over the edge of the tank. You try to give Sam a hand. But before you reach Sam, the octopus reaches out to you!
It wraps one long gray-black tentacle around your neck!
Quick! Save your own neck on PAGE 27.
Slowly, you open your mouth just wide enough to let go of Dr. Eeek’s leg. Then you quickly gobble down the red pill in his hand.
Yuk! It tastes terrible.
But almost at once, you can feel yourself changing back into a human being!
You stand up on your back legs and stretch. Ahhh … that feels much better. You were getting pretty tired of walking on all fours.
You stare down at your paws. They’re changing back into hands and feet. Within a few minutes, you are yourself again.
Phew! Close one!
“Okay,” you say to Dr. Eeek. “Here are your choices. Either you go with me to the police — right now — and confess that you’ve been doing deadly experiments. Or I’ll sic my dog on you.”
“Your dog?” Dr. Eeek sneers with a nasty laugh.
Then he glances down and sees Sam — who is still a dog! Sam wags his tail at you. He bares his teeth and snarls at Dr. Eeek.
“Don’t I have any other choices?” Dr. Eeek asks meekly.
“Not this time,” you tell him. “Not this time!”
THE END
You take another bite of the crunchy brown stuff. And then another. Sam’s right — it’s not so bad. In fact, you eat so much, you begin to feel really full. Or not full, exactly. Top-heavy. Like you can’t stand up.
All of a sudden, you have an overwhelming urge to drop down to the floor on all fours.
All fours? Wait a minute. You don’t have four legs.
Do you?
Quick! Find out on PAGE 85.
“Thanks, but we can’t go in the lab,” you say politely.
“That’s okay,” Professor Yzark replies. “You probably don’t have time anyway. Your mother just telephoned me. She had to go to a meeting. But she wants you to take Oscar home with you. Then someone will drop by your house later today to pick him up.”
“Really?” you ask. “Take the chimp home?”
“Cool!” Sam shouts.
But it’s not cool. It’s not cool at all. The minute you get home, Oscar goes wild. He runs to the refrigerator and helps himself to snacks — but not to eat. To play with! He throws a handful of pineapple yogurt at the wall. Then he starts swinging from the chandeliers.
Help! You and Sam are worn out from chasing Oscar!
“I wish someone would come get this monkey,” you say.
That instant, the doorbell rings. You peek out the window. There’s a Jeep parked outside. And standing on your porch is a tall, muscular teenager wearing sandals and a pair of cutoff jeans. No shirt. His sun-streaked brown hair hangs down onto his broad, tanned chest. He looks a little familiar — but you can’t remember from where.
Who is he?
Answer the door on PAGE 15.
You quickly take off your shoes.
Why not? Even if you are incredibly ticklish, this can’t be any worse than the Canine Maze.
Can it?
“Heh-heh-heh,” you giggle, as you w
alk barefoot on the tickly feathers.
An instant later, Dr. Eeek dashes out into the hall. He locks the door behind him. You’re locked inside!
Then, all at once, a sliding panel in the wall opens. Forty small chimpanzees run into the room. They pick up the feathers and begin tickling you. Behind the ears. On the neck. Under your chin.
And on your feet. The soles of your feet. That’s the worst part.
In fact, they tickle you to death.
But at least it’s a happy ending, because your last words are “Ha-hah-ah-ha-ha!” — and you end up with a smile on your face!
THE END
No whistle?
Oooohhhhh — too bad.
You seemed like such a nice person, too.
But with all six dogs surrounding you, there’s no possible way you’re going to get out of there.
Not because the dogs attack you, though. They don’t. They’re trained to simply corner you — and keep you there forever.
And forever is a very, very long time, which is why this is
THE END.
“I don’t know,” you say, hesitating. “The canine lab?”
“Don’t be a jerk!” Sam exclaims. “Maybe we can get another fifty bucks. And anyway, I love dogs.”
You think about it. So far, exploring your mom’s lab has been fun. A little scary, but fun. Anyway it’s more fun than waiting in the reception area for your mom.
But where is your mom?
And what about that person who was calling for help?
Doesn’t that worry you?
It does — but you decide to put it out of your mind. It was probably nothing, right? Maybe it wasn’t even a real person. Maybe it was just a voice on the radio somewhere. Or on TV.
“Okay,” you announce. “I’m in. Let’s go to the canine lab.”
