by Chase Wilder
But suddenly, with a huge bellow, a huge demon monkey and a horde of little ones come crashing through the trees. There are no eyes in those empty eye sockets, but if there were, they would be glaring at you in anger. They want the idol back, and they’re not leaving without it.
“Run!” Scarlett screams.
“What about the mines?” you yell.
“They aren’t even activated.”
“WHAT?”
“I was bluffing! Do I have to spell it out?” Scarlett sprints past you and across the clearing, away from the demon monkeys. She doesn’t explode.
Guy is furious. “Why, that weaselly little …”
“Worry about it later,” you say. “We need to run!”
All three of you scramble up the rocky slope and dash along the stone path, pursued by the demon monkey and his crowd of little friends. Are they related, you wonder? You don’t stop to ask.
Now that you’re on the same side as Scarlett again, you work together to escape. Guy points out the safest ground to run on and Scarlett uses her zip-line to whizz you all across the gap between two ruined buildings. Eventually, you lose the demon monkeys.
Much later that day, you run into a TV news crew out hunting for you. Millions of people across the world see you hold up the idol in triumph. Scarlett looks bitter, but you know she won’t try anything in front of the cameras.
You make it back home, weary but alive. The idol ends up in a museum. You never made it to your party, though, and you often find yourself wondering what else you missed out on, back in the jungle …
RUN AGAIN?
You run and run, leaving Guy to save himself. You hear a long, drawn-out scream seconds later.
Unfortunately, because Guy isn’t around anymore, he’s not there to help you when you sprint right into the middle of a huge patch of quicksand.
Fortunately, you remember the way to survive falling into quicksand: don’t panic, and move as little as possible. You take off your jacket and spread it out to give yourself a surface to press on.
I’m going to make it, you think.
And then you see the demon monkey at the edge of the quicksand, tossing a huge boulder and catching it. It seems almost amused. It flings the boulder at you.
You do not make it. Sorry!
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
You sprint into the temple tunnels with the demon monkey close on your heels. Fortunately, the tunnels have lots of junctions and turnings. By running one way, then the other, you manage to leave the demon monkey behind.
The bad news is that you’re now lost in a maze of tunnels. Tucking the idol under one arm—it’s heavy, actually—you take out Scarlett’s compass and work out which way is which. Then you steadily pick your way through the tunnels and soon make it outside. Apart from a scary moment when you hear the demon monkey breathing around the corner, it’s an easy run. Feeling confident, you emerge from the temple into the shadow of a ruined building whose walls are overgrown with vines.
It’s pitch-black, and a rumble in the air tells you a storm is brewing. As you hunker down in the corner of a ruin to get as much shelter as you can, you overhear an angry voice muttering.
“Blast that dimwit, where is he? Come on, Guy, it’s been three hours! Oh, who am I kidding? He’s not coming.”
It’s Scarlett Fox! You sneak a look around the side of the wall. She’s on her own, glancing at her watch and fiddling with one of her gadgets. Scarlett screams when you step out of the darkness.
“What’s the matter?” you say. “Did you think you’d seen a ghost?” You advance. She stumbles backward. Thunder crashes overhead, and a lightning flash lights up the ruins around you.
“I’m just surprised to see you!” she stammers. “I’m sorry about any, erm, misunderstandings we …”
You can’t resist showing her the idol. It has to be what she’s been after this whole time. “Hoping to find this?”
Scarlett gasps. She runs at you, maddened with greed—and trips over a tree root. Her yell of pain as she falls is almost drowned out by a fresh crack of thunder. She rolls around on the ground, clutching her leg. It looks like she’s badly hurt, but you hardly know whether to trust anything she does anymore.
Then a blinding flash leaves you blinking and dazzled. Lightning forks down out of the sky, striking the roots of the very tree that Scarlett tripped over! It bursts into flame instantly.
How could lightning strike so close? You were almost burned to a cinder! Maybe this idol you’re carrying is bad luck?
“Help me!” Scarlett wails, still huddled on the ground. “I can’t stand up!”
The fire is spreading from tree to tree now. You hear the crackle of branches going up in flames. Soon, this whole part of the jungle will be burning.
It’s decision time. You might be able to carry Scarlett out of here, but not the idol, too. You’re going to have to leave one of them behind.
To rescue Scarlett and abandon the idol, turn to this page.
To abandon Scarlett and escape with the idol, turn to this page.
You reach your destination, the stone column standing like a signpost in the middle of the tangled jungle. There’s a black SUV with tinted windows waiting there. To your horror, a pair of beefy men in camouflage gets out and grabs you!
“Get off me!” you yell. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up,” grunts one of the goons.
A man in a suit rolls down the SUV window. He’s wearing dark glasses. “Agent Renarde,” he drawls. “Where is the idol we paid you to recover?”
“You’ll have it soon,” Scarlett says. “Sorry, sir.”
“I do not tolerate delays, agent.”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”
You wonder where her attitude has gone. Bold, glamorous Scarlett suddenly looks meek.
“What do we do with the kid?” says a goon.
The man in the suit glances at you. “That presents a problem. With a possibly fatal solution.”
“Hang on!” Scarlett yells. “Let’s use that cave over there as a holding cell while I fetch the idol.”
Your hands are tied together with rope, and then you’re blindfolded and marched into somewhere echoey and cold. “Sit down, shut up, and don’t move,” one of the goons tells you gruffly. Then you hear boots stomping off.
The SUV engine starts and you hear it pull away.
Time passes. Water drips. Nobody returns.
As you wait miserably in the dark, wondering what to do next, you suddenly hear Guy Dangerous calling your name from outside. The guards told you to stay quiet, but do you? Could it be a test?
To call out an answer to Guy, go to this page.
To stay silent, go to this page.
You run through the temple corridors, turning this way and that, trying to shake off the nightmarish giant demon monkey. Any second now, he might chase you down a dead end and you’ll be trapped.
At the end of one tunnel, you see moonlight shining through an opening to the outside world. You’re saved, if you can make it through. The only problem is, the opening’s blocked with a mass of thick, tangled vines.
You remember Guy’s machete!
A few slashes, and you’ve cut your way through the barrier. You dive through just as the demon monkey comes around the corner behind you. It charges, bellowing.
Your moment of triumph turns to disaster as you find yourself on a stone balcony. You’re outside, but there’s nowhere to go. The ground is far below you.
“Hey! Grab my hand!” It’s Guy’s voice, coming from above. You look up to see him hanging over a ledge, reaching out for you. You gratefully grab his hand and he swings you up to safety. The demon monkey crashes out of the opening, stumbles over the balcony, and falls, howling.
“Good timing!” you tell Guy.
He grins. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The ledge Guy pulled you up to adjoins a path down the side of the mountain. As
you begin to walk down it, Guy yells in alarm. To your horror, the demon monkey has flung an arm over and grabbed Guy by the leg! It must have caught hold of the balcony on the way down and hauled itself up.
“Run!” Guy yells. “Save yourself!”
To save your own skin, run to this page.
To dash back up the path and try to save Guy, go to this page.
You clutch the idol tightly and run and run without looking back. The fire quickly spreads. Before long, half the mountainside is ablaze.
The smoke and the fire attract a passing plane, and before long you’re rescued. You never make it to the party, but after all you’ve been through, you’re not exactly in a party mood.
The idol is confiscated and ends up in a museum. You go back to your everyday life, but you’re haunted by guilty thoughts. You don’t sleep well. You try not to think about what happened to Scarlett. Then, one night, in the middle of a storm, there’s a knock on your door. A hoarse-sounding British voice croaks, “Mind if I hang out?”
Uh-oh. This has gotten a bit creepy …
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
“I’m getting us out of here,” you yell. “I’ve got a party to get to!”
Leaving the film crew behind, you fly out of the jungle over miles and miles of featureless land until you finally reach a town. From there, you’re able to travel to Palomar Beach. Scarlett calls a rescue team to fetch Guy, who she feels guilty about abandoning.
Palomar Beach is every bit as awesome as the brochures made it sound. For a whole weekend, you kick back and relax with your closest friends, playing games, relaxing on the beach, and helping yourself to all the food in the fridge. You Jet Ski over the blue rolling waves. You sleep by open campfires on the warm sand.
And then, on Monday, there’s a knock on the door. It’s the police. They are not amused. It turns out Zack Wonder’s film company didn’t take kindly to the theft of company property. You’re going to be grounded for a LONG time. End of the road!
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
“In here, Guy!” you shout.
You brace yourself, wondering if the guards will rush in. But the only sound is Guy’s whoop of joy as he sees you. He pulls off your blindfold and slashes your bonds with a stout knife.
“Thanks for coming back for me,” you tell him.
Guy gives you a drink of water from his hip flask. “You would’ve done the same for me,” he says. Then he sighs. “I’m sorry that I ever got involved in Scarlett’s setup. I feel terrible about it.”
That confirms it, you think—the plane crash was a fake. “Where are Scarlett and the others?” you ask.
“They got away,” he tells you. “I watched them hightail it out of the jungle with that idol on board. Any minute now, they’ll be taking off. Scarlett’s boss has a private plane just down on the coast.”
As you think things over, you realize something doesn’t add up. “If Scarlett’s people have all this gear so close by—SUVs and planes and stuff—then how come you needed to rig our plane crash? Why didn’t they just come in and fetch the idol if they wanted it so badly?”
“Because Scarlett’s corporation isn’t allowed to just go hunting for treasure in other people’s countries,” Guy explains. “A rescue operation, on the other hand? They can get away with that.”
You hear the distant drone of a plane going by.
You and Guy stand outside and watch a small plane pass by overhead. Scarlett’s in there, you think.
Guy pats your shoulder. “That idol was bad luck, kid. You’re better off without it, trust me.”
As you watch, lightning strikes the plane. One of the engines catches fire. The plane begins to lose altitude.
You and Guy exchange looks. “You know, Guy, I think you’re right.”
The last thing you see of the plane is a flaming streak vanishing into the horizon.
*
Over the next few days, you and Guy gradually work your way out of the jungle and back to civilization.
You’re sunburned, bug-bitten, and hungry, but alive. You hardly even care about missing the party.
Weirdly, there’s nothing in the news about Scarlett. Was the crash hushed up, or did the plane make it safely back to land? Is she in the jungle now, still clinging to the idol, running away from demon monkeys?
You’ll never know—but you can’t help wondering.
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
Even if she is a liar and a thief, you can’t leave Scarlett. You put the idol down beside the path, hoping you’ll be able to find it again. The heat from the burning trees is intense.
You pull Scarlett’s arm over your shoulder and you hobble off together. Behind you, a tree topples over with a crash, sending glowing sparks into the sky. In the distance you hear the demon monkey’s wild howl. “Which way?” you gasp.
“Down … the side … of the hill,” she gasps. “There’s a broken stone column about half a mile away. Easy to see. That’s where we’re heading.”
“Why? What’s there?”
“Our ticket out of this place!”
With many looks over your shoulder to see if the demon monkey is coming, you help Scarlett away from the burning jungle and into the cool darkness at the bottom of the hill.
You spot the broken column peeping through the vine-draped trees.
Run on to this page.
Guy calls your name several times, sounding like he’s losing hope. Eventually, he gives up.
You’re held captive for a long time. After what must be ten or twelve hours, you decide the guards aren’t coming back. You have a blindfold on and your hands are tied, but you can still walk. You could even run!
You get to your feet and stagger toward what you hope is the exit. Luckily, you make it outside. Unluckily, there’s a demon monkey waiting for you. He snatches you up as if you were an enormous banana. Nom nom!
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
“You want the idol so much, Scarlett? TAKE IT!” You shove the idol into Scarlett’s hands and run like mad.
For one glorious moment, she doesn’t know whether to keep it or throw it away. Then, as if someone had blown a whistle, all the demon monkeys charge in, screaming.
You can hear fighting behind you—demon monkeys squealing, Guy shouting, Scarlett shrieking, and the guards thumping and kicking. But they’ll have to fend for themselves, because you’re already running.
Just as you’re reaching a crossroads in the jungle, you hear a shout behind you. “Hey! Wait up!”
It’s Karma Lee, covered in bloody scratches, but still very much alive. “Planning on exploring this jungle on your own, were you?” she says jokingly.
“What happened back there?” you ask. “Are Guy and Scarlett … OK?”
“For now,” Karma says, as if it didn’t much matter either way. “I think they’re trying to reach a helicopter somewhere nearby. Between you and me, I think the demon monkeys already trashed it.”
“So, what now?” you ask.
“We keep going. I already told you we make a good team. If we watch each other’s backs, we’ll survive this.”
That is how the adventures begin. Over the next seven weeks, you and Karma Lee beat a path through the jungle, discovering even more ruins, unopened tombs, ghastly statues, and halls full of withered mummies. You run from twisted creatures with their heads on backward, hairy things like half-men half-bats, and even the legendary chupacabra. By the time you arrive back in civilization, you have enough stories to last a lifetime. One day, you think, Hollywood will make a movie of them.
Even after all that, though, you still don’t know what happened to the golden idol …
RUN AGAIN?
OR JUST GO BACK?
You rush through the corridors of the temple, with the idol heavy in your arms and the demon monkey close behind. Its inhuman screech rings in your ears. You have to get away, or that thing will have you fo
r lunch!
Maybe Karma Lee’s talisman can help. You grab it as you run, and wish, harder than you’ve ever wished for anything, for some good luck right now.
Oh, great. Up ahead is a rickety bridge over a pit. Looks like the opposite of good luck. With nowhere else to go, you charge across it. The demon monkey bounds after you, makes a flying leap to grab you—and smashes straight through the old bridge. You glance back and see nothing but falling timbers. The demon monkey is gone!
As if that wasn’t enough good luck, the very next turn you take leads you out onto the mountainside. You’re on a narrow path with a frightening drop to one side, but you’re alive and you have the idol. You take a deep breath, smelling the sweet fresh air.
“Found you!” shouts Karma Lee, running up the path toward you. “Glad to see you made it. Is that … the idol? I have heard so much about this treasure.”
“Sure looks like it is. I don’t think the demon monkey liked me taking it.”
Karma shrugs. “Well, too late to give it back now. Come on. We need to get out of this ruined city, and those monsters won’t stop chasing us.”
You run behind her, heading away from the ruins and back toward the jungle. You realize with a shudder that you’re not just running back to civilization—you’re running for your life!
You work your way around the side of the mountain on a narrow, crumbling rock ledge. Ahead, to the right, is a dark cave mouth. The jungle sprawls below you. Karma grabs your shoulder and points out a patch of jungle where lights are shining. You could swear they’re spotlights.
To enter the cave mouth, run to this page.
To keep running down to the lit-up patch of jungle, run to this page.
“Thank you. I knew you were a sensible kid.” Once she has the idol, Scarlett’s all sweetness and light. She’s true to her word, too. Even the guards in their uniforms are polite to you, once they see you’re not going to cause any more trouble.
As the sun rises over the jungle, a black helicopter comes into view. It sets down in the middle of the camp, and everyone climbs aboard.
