Swamp Scarefest

by B. A. Frade

  “‘It’s sticks and stones,’” I recited.

  The others looked at me uncomprehendingly.

  “Don’t you get it? The monster is made of the stuff we’re firing at it. They won’t hurt it. In fact”—I squinted at the beast again, horror crawling up my spine—“I think they’re helping it.”

  They all peeked around the tree. Snort, ever our protector, had bounded out to confront the beast. Barking furiously, she feinted forward and retreated back, keeping the monster at bay. That gave us time to really comprehend what we were up against.

  Liv put her hand to her mouth and ducked back behind the trunk. “The rocks. The sticks. They’re stuck in its body.”

  “Guys?” Josh murmured, still staring at the beast.

  “Our plan backfired?” Jenna said.

  “It’s absorbing the missiles,” Liv affirmed grimly. “It’s bigger than before. Stronger too, I’d bet. More powerful.”

  Jenna pressed her fingers to her eyes and shook her head violently, as if trying to clear the image from her mind.

  “Guys!”

  “Just a sec, Josh.” My brain was chasing an idea. “Sticks. Stones. Pinecones. Nature stuff makes it stronger.…”

  “Guys!”

  I rounded on him. “What?”

  “Angrier!”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s not just bigger and stronger—”

  Snort gave a sharp yip and then came barreling around the tree.

  “—it’s angrier!” Josh cried. “And it’s coming to get us!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Josh stumbled back from the tree. He tripped and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed hold of the tire swing.

  A memory flashed through my brain.

  Last summer, Josh and I had been messing around with the swing. We rode double, with Josh hanging off one side and me off the other. We took turns spinning each other dizzy. We threw stuff through the opening (including Liv’s soccer ball—mistake!), both when the swing was in motion and when it was stationary. For our final trick, I gave the empty swing a mighty push. Josh was supposed to jump on when it whizzed past him. I figured he had a 50 percent chance of making it, 50 percent chance of being knocked off his feet. He just managed to grab hold, clinging for dear life as the tire swung back and forth.

  Maybe the swamp beast wouldn’t be so lucky, I thought.

  “Josh! Help me!” I yelled as I raced to his side. He got what I was going for, and together we pulled the tire as far back as we could. Again, I thought there was a fifty-fifty chance—either this would work, or it wouldn’t.

  “Incoming!”

  I meant the swing, but since the monster was lumbering toward the girls, my cry covered that threat too. They dashed out of the way. Josh and I heaved the tire as hard as we could. It swung like a pendulum and squelch! The tire sank deep into the swamp beast’s torso, as deep as Liv’s and my feet had sunk into the mud last spring. The swing kept going, taking the beast with it. The creature bellowed with rage as it writhed and thrashed to free itself. But it was stuck fast—at least for the moment.

  “Come on!” I cried, swooping my arm through the air with a “Follow me!” motion.

  “Where to?” Josh said.

  “Back to camp!”

  “What?” the other three said as one.

  “Trust me,” I yelled. “I’ve got it all figured out!”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Liv yelled back. “Usually right before something goes horribly wrong!”

  I ignored her and instead focused on leading them through the bends and curves in the trail.

  We burst into the campsite a minute later and stopped, hands on knees, panting. Snort brought up the rear and began patrolling the area. I never would have thought her capable of such guard-dog behavior, but I couldn’t have been happier to see it in action.

  “Now will you tell us what we’re doing here?” Liv demanded once she’d caught her breath.

  “You said it yourself. Natural stuff makes it stronger. So I’m guessing…” I rolled my hands to encourage her to finish the thought.

  She screwed up her face. Then her eyes widened. I could almost see the lightbulb go off over her head. “Unnatural stuff might make it weaker!”

  “Or maybe even destroy it altogether!” I finished.

  I ducked into the tent and emerged with the monstrous bag of will-survive-a-nuclear-explosion bright orange Cheezy Balls and several bottles of neon blue Bloo Joose. “It doesn’t get more unnatural than this, folks!”

  “So what do we do with that stuff?” Jenna wanted to know.

  I tossed the bag and the bottles onto the ground. “Separate, they’re harmful. Together”—I shook my head in mock wonder—“they could be lethal.”

  Josh caught on. “So we mix them together! In what?”

  That stumped me for a moment. I scanned the area and spotted something I thought had potential. “How about your monster mask?”

  Josh shook his head. “No good.” He wiggled his fingers in front of his nose and above his scalp. “It has holes.”

  “Right. So maybe—”

  “How about this?”

  Jenna was holding up the dented tin bucket.

  Liv and I exchanged glances. The same thought crossed our minds. We didn’t want to use it. Then we arrived at the same conclusion at the same time. We had no choice but to use it. There was nothing else available.

  I grabbed the pail from Jenna and squatted by the fire pit.

  “Cheezy Balls,” I said, holding out my hand for the bag.

  “Not yet,” Liv said.

  “Huh?”

  She picked up one of my ratty old sneakers and pounded the snack food repeatedly.

  “Cheezy Balls.” She passed me the bag of orange dust. I emptied it into the pail and held out my hand again.

  “Bloo.”

  “Bloo.”

  A bottle of the bright blue fluid followed the dust into the bucket. The mixture foamed up in an alarming fashion that made me think of Mom and her experiments. I stirred it cautiously with a stick of kindling, then called for more bottles.

  When the last of the Bloo was stirred in, I unzipped my backpack, took out the fake blood, and added it to the bucket for good measure. Then I risked life and limb by dunking the empty squeeze bottle as well as two Bloo Joose containers into the mixture, capping them once they were full. I gave Liv the squeeze bottle and the Bloo containers to Josh and Jenna. “For your personal protection,” I said. The rest of the viscous orange-blue-red liquid stayed in the pail.

  “Hey, what about you?” Liv asked when she saw I didn’t have a bottle of my own.

  “I’ve got something else.” I reached into my backpack again and with a great flourish whipped out an object. “This!”

  Jenna made a face. “What are you planning to do, draw a mustache on it?”

  I looked at my hand and realized I’d pulled out the Sharpie. “Whoops.” I replaced the marker with the can of Silly String. “This! I was saving it for later, but I think it’ll be better if I use it on the monster now.”

  Liv glowered. “Trust me. It will be much better if you use it on the monster now. Much better for you.”

  “What now, Aidan?” Jenna asked.

  I stifled a silly grin that threatened to appear because she was looking to me to take charge. Unfortunately, concocting the unnatural mixture was as far as I’d gotten.

  Liv, who had been twirling her hair while I was making the brew, came to the rescue. “I’ve got a plan.”

  Just then, Snort set off her perimeter bark alarm.

  “Better tell us quick,” I said, “because I think the beast is done swinging!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Liv’s plan was so straightforward I should have thought of it myself. “First, we build up the fire again. The swamp beast is attracted to the flames, remember? Two—”

  “We douse it with the potion and three, we shove it into the fire!” Josh said enthusiastically.r />
  I liked the idea and was about to second it when Jenna pointed out the flaw.

  “What happens if it catches on fire and then takes off into the woods? It could burn the whole forest down, with us in it!”

  “Oh.” Josh’s enthusiasm deflated like a stuck balloon. I was glad I’d kept my mouth shut. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “It’s all right, Josh.” I patted his shoulder kindly. “You gave it your best shot.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Liv said. “When it’s distracted by the fire, Aidan shoots it in the eyes with the Silly String. It’s blinded, and I throw the mixture on it!”

  “What do Josh and I do?” Jenna wanted to know.

  “You hope this plan works,” Liv said.

  Jenna looked like she wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time. Snort was going crazy, a sure sign the swamp beast was nearing. We went into action. I threw an armload of kindling and bigger sticks into the fire pit while Jenna and Josh fanned the coals until they shone red-hot. The wood caught. The flames leapt into the air.

  The swamp beast roared.

  “I think it saw our flare,” I said.

  The ground shuddered.

  “I think it’s coming,” I said.

  Snort backed into the campsite, snarling and barking.

  “I think it’s here,” I said.

  I uncapped the Silly String and held it at arm’s length, finger trembling on the button.

  The monster thudded out of the darkness and into the firelight—and I froze.

  One time when I was camping with my dad, he played a trick on me. He sneaked up behind me with a flashlight held under his chin. The beam cast his features into creepy-looking shadows. In that split second, I saw my father as a monster. It was without a doubt the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. Until I saw the swamp beast lit from below by the campfire light.

  The flickering flames illuminated up every muck-slick lump and worm-infested crevice of the creature’s horrifying body. Its maw gaped, the sticky threads of saliva gleaming in the fire’s glow. It staggered toward the fire pit, moaning.

  Liv snapped me back to the moment. “Aidan! Fire!”

  For a brief second, I thought she wanted me to enact Josh’s step three after all and push the monster into the pit. But then I remembered the Silly String. I took aim and fired. A long colorful strand snaked out at the monster, striking it dead in the face. It flung its arms up, howling, and clawed at the air. I kept my finger pressed on the button. The string piled up until the can was empty and the creature’s entire face was encased in thin ropes of chemical fun.

  “Now, Liv!”

  She dashed forward, bucket raised behind her. I held my breath, waiting for her to shower the swamp beast with the Cheezy Ball–Bloo–blood concoction.

  She tripped over my backpack instead. The bucket flew out of her hands. Most of the liquid showered Josh and Jenna instead of the monster. They screamed and flailed their arms to shake off the stuff. Drops scattered everywhere.

  Some hit the beast. The spots sizzled, burning holes into the mud wherever they landed.

  “It’s working!” I yelled. “Throw your bottles at it!”

  Thock! Thock! Thock!

  In retrospect, I should have clarified that I wanted them to throw the liquid in the bottles at it, not the bottles themselves.

  The containers hit the swamp beast and stuck. Luckily, the squeeze bottle didn’t have a proper cap, just an open nozzle for easy one-handed deployment of the product—in this case, the orange-blue-red mess. The liquid drained onto the beast’s right arm. The sludgy limb turned to molten paste and started to smoke. A horrible stench filled the air.

  Snort yelped. We gagged. The swamp beast bellowed. And then it charged right at me.

  Fortunately for me, my reaction time is lightning fast thanks to years of avoiding Liv’s post-prank fury.

  I dodged the creature, scooped up my backpack, and ran—no, not into the woods. That would have made complete sense. Instead, I dove into the tent. Maybe I thought the swamp beast would be confused and not understand where I’d gone. Snort used to get befuddled when I hid under a blanket, so there was some logic there.

  But the beast wasn’t fooled. To my utter terror, it came in after me.

  Zzzttttt! My horror hit its peak when someone zipped the door closed. I was locked inside the tent with a smoking, smelly, seething mass of enraged muck.

  In other words, I was a goner. Again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As I turned to face my doom, I pressed against the tent wall. And then I remembered something: the tent had a back door. I fumbled behind me. The door was open. I ran out the back flap and inhaled deeply. Fresh air never smelled so good.

  Zzzttt! I whirled. Liv was zipping the door closed.

  “Pull!” she yelled.

  The tent trembled and then collapsed with the swamp beast still inside. The creature roared and thrashed about, but couldn’t seem to figure out how to get free.

  Josh and Jenna hurried over. They both held a fistful of tent stakes, which they tossed aside when they saw me. “Come on,” Josh urged, trotting a few steps down the nearest path. “That vinyl might weaken it, but it won’t hold it forever!”

  Once more, we took off into the night, Snort bounding ahead.

  “Why didn’t you tell us what you were planning to do?” Jenna asked as we weaved through the paths.

  “What I was… Oh, you mean luring the swamp beast into the tent so you guys could trap it inside? Yeah, I planned that.”

  Liv cut me a look that very clearly said Yeah, you didn’t. But to my surprise, she kept that bit of knowledge to herself. “It bought us some time,” she said grudgingly. “And I have an idea of how we should spend it. Follow me.”

  She took the lead and surprised me again by taking us to the path to our house.

  I stopped short. “Are you kidding? Going home? That’s your idea? You know the Scaremaster warned us not to!”

  My incredulity was rewarded with a classic Liv eye roll. Usually, those drive me nuts. But not this time. If she was delivering that kind of scorn, it could only mean one thing: She was feeling confident. And when Liv is confident, not much can stop her—not even, I suspected, a swamp beast set on our destruction.

  “We need to find a quiet spot where we can catch up on some reading.”

  She added this last part with great reluctance in her voice. My sense of triumph died. From the looks on their faces, I guessed Josh and Jenna felt the same way. But none of us disagreed with Liv. We all knew that to finish the swamp beast, we had to finish the Scaremaster’s story.

  We emerged from the forest at the outskirts of our backyard. The house was dark until a motion-detecting fixture picked up on our presence and clicked on. Mom is a deep sleeper, luckily, so unless we dropped an armload of saucepans next to her bed, she wouldn’t know we were there. In times of late-night pranking, that had proven helpful. Tonight, though, I wouldn’t have minded if she’d woken up.

  “Wow,” said Josh as we fell onto the furniture on the back porch. “We look awful.”

  He wasn’t wrong. His and Jenna’s clothes were stained orange, blue, and red from the mixture. Liv’s and mine were dirty and torn in a few places. I ran a hand through my hair and discovered it was a mess. I could feel bags packed with exhaustion sagging under my eyes. And I was sure I wore the same haunted expression they all did.

  “I would kill for a shower,” Jenna muttered. “Even a hose down to get this stickiness off me.”

  “First things first,” Liv said. “Aidan?”

  I unzipped my backpack and withdrew Tales from the Scaremaster. She held out her hand, but I shook my head. “I’ll read it this time,” I said, while thinking, Because you’re all in this mess thanks to me.

  I opened the book, flipping to the last part of the story. As before, new paragraphs rose through the paper. The way the writing appeared as if by magic didn’t freak me out quite as much this time.
/>   What was written did, though.

  Well, well, well. You four—excuse me, Snort, five—are surprisingly resilient. But I like a challenge, so don’t think this is over. There are hours to go before it’s light. The beast, unbeaten, still roams the night. It seeks to spread its filth and rot, Its decaying muck and slimy snot. The children yearn for a solution To rid their world of this pollution. I wouldn’t count on their success Against the massive stalking mess. Unless

  The writing stopped abruptly.

  “Unless?” Liv looked around at the others. “Unless what?”

  “That’s all it says,” I told her.

  She took the book from me and, holding it with one hand and twirling her hair with the other, started pacing. “Unless… unless…” she muttered. “Come on, Scaremaster, tell me the rest! Unless what?”

  I watched her for a minute, then sat back, staring up at the porch ceiling.

  The Scaremaster’s words were troubling, but I was more bothered by something else. Namely, the fact that I was responsible for how we looked, how we felt, and how we were apparently going to die if the Scaremaster had his way.

  Josh interrupted my thoughts by stating the obvious. “So, basically,” he said, “we’re still in danger.”

  “Maybe not,” Jenna contradicted. “The swamp beast is around, sure, but that ‘Unless’ makes it sound like there’s a way out.”

  “I’ve got it!” Liv snapped the book shut, startling us all. “There is a way to finish this story. But it could be kind of dangerous. What I’m thinking is—”

  I broke in. “Liv, wait. Before you lay out this dangerous plan, there’s something I have to tell you guys.” I hung my head. “I’m the reason the swamp beast is on the prowl.”

  Liv blew out a long breath. “No, Aidan, you’re not. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twice, actually.” I looked at her in confusion, and she went on. “If I had stayed in Meyer’s and you’d gone out to calm Snort, the weird lady would have given me the bucket, not you.”

  “What weird lady?” Josh whispered to Jenna. She shrugged her ignorance.