Monster Lake

salamanders. They’re huge! she thought, amazed. But unfortunately, they were too far away for her to get a picture of them. She needed some close-ups, showing the fangs.

Then Patricia’s heart skipped a beat when she walked around to the front of the boathouse.

A long black salamander with big yellow dots on its back was sitting there on the pier, in the same place she and Terri had seen the salamander this morning.

Only this one was even bigger…

And when it raised its wide, black head and opened its mouth, Patricia could see the fangs all too well. She jumped back, almost shrieked. The salamander’s pointed, white teeth were easily as long as Patricia’s fingers!

Her first impulse was too run. But that would defeat the whole purpose of coming down here, and then she remembered how slow salamanders were. Don’t be scared, she ordered herself. Even if it tries to chase me, I can out-run it easy. And I’ve got to get that picture!

Patricia remained where she stood. She raised the camera to her eyes, leaned over, and when she did so, the salamander’s mouth opened even wider. Perfect! Patricia thought. It was just what she wanted! Then she put her finger on the camera’s button, began to press it down, and then—

The salamander jerked around very quickly and slithered over the side of the pier into the water before Patricia could snap the picture.

Oh, man! she thought. He’s gone!

The toads and salamanders on the shore were just too far away, and she sure didn’t want to walk down there. It was all muddy and wet; her feet would sink in the mud, and she’d make a mess of herself. She frowned in frustration, realizing that coming down here had been a total waste. But…maybe not.

Just then she got an idea.

The boathouse, she realized.

Terri had told her that there were more toads and salamanders in the boathouse, in glass tanks in the backroom. Of course, the boathouse door was locked, but then Patricia also remembered how Terri had cleverly opened it with her library card.

And it just so happened that Patricia had her own library card in her pocket right this moment.

Can’t hurt to try, she thought, taking out her card. The moon shined right on the door; Patricia could see how the wedged bolt went into the slot of the doorframe. She thought back, remembering how Terri had done it, and then she did the same thing, slipping the card against the bolt. She pushed down gently, working the card deeper until the bolt started to move.

click!

Patricia couldn’t believe it! The door opened just like that! Well, that was sure easy, she thought. She went into the front room and turned on the lights. One down, one to go, she thought, and then went to work on the next door, the backroom door, marked DO NOT ENTER.

This one was harder, and it took longer, but in only a few minutes of jiggling the library card—

click!

—this door opened too.

“Wow,” she muttered to herself once she got the light on. “Terri was right.” Three of the room’s walls were lined with metal shelves, and on the shelves were dozens of square, glass tanks. In each tank there was either a toad or a salamander, giant ones, like the one she’d already seen. And they all had fangs…

But before Patricia could raise the camera and start taking pictures, she noticed something else.

What is…that?

On the floor, toward the other end of the room, there was a big trapdoor, with large metal hinges and a lifting ring. Why would they have a trapdoor in the floor? she wondered. It couldn’t lead to a basement because she knew the only thing under the boathouse was water.

What could be down there?

Well, that was one question she couldn’t answer, because the trapdoor had a large, heavy-duty padlock on it. There was no way she could use the library card on that—it needed a key.

And then she noticed something else.

More shelves, she saw. On the next wall. Only these shelves contained glass bottles instead of glass tanks, and the bottles were filled with this mucky-looking stuff.

Yuck! Patricia thought when she picked up one of the bottles to have a closer look. The bottle was heavy and felt slightly warm, and when she shook it, the gunk in the bottle barely moved at all. What is that stuff? she wondered. It looks like mud, only it’s yellow. It had a small label on it that read REAGENT 7c. Reagent, she remembered. One of the words they’d looked up in her father’s dictionary. In fact, all of the yellow bottles had labels with the same word. But then, when she looked closer, she noticed a few bottles full of green gunk, and these bottles had a different label. COUNTER-REAGENT, they read. Another one of the words they’d looked up.

This was all very interesting, not to mention weird, but Patricia knew she better take her pictures and get out of here. It was getting really late. So she reached up to put the yellow bottle back on the shelf and—

NOOOOO! she thought, her heart suddenly beating wildly in her chest.

The heavy bottle slipped out of her fingers and fell—

crash!

—right on the floor where it shattered into hundreds of pieces.

“Now you’ve really done it!” Patricia said aloud. “I’m going to get in all kinds of trouble for this!”

The yellow muck in the bottle spread quickly across the floor. At once, a faint creeky smell filled the room. Frantic, Patricia rushed about, looking for a mop and bucket to clean up the mess, but there were none. All she could find, in a small closet, were a few paper towels. She grabbed the towels, then immediately knelt down and started picking up the big pieces of broken glass, careful not to cut herself. And when she wiped at the gunk on the floor—more bad luck.

The stuff was staining the wooden floor yellow!

I better just leave it, she thought. Maybe they’ll think the bottle just fell off the shelf. There was no way she’d be able to clean it up properly. She put the paper towels in the wastebasket. Just take the pictures and get out of here! she thought. So she turned toward one of the shelves with the glass tanks, raised the camera, and—

thunk!

Patricia froze.

thunk! she heard again.

Her heart beat violently against the inside of her chest. What was that noise?

Then she looked down, and her eyes went wide as big silver dollars.

The yellow gunk on the floor, she saw now, was seeping down through the cracks in the trapdoor! And the trapdoor—

thunk!

—was where the thunking sound was coming from!

But then came another sound, a much louder one:

Ka-CRACK!

Patricia shrieked to herself. The trapdoor slammed up an inch with the sound, and that’s when she realized the most frightening thing of all—

Something’s under that door, and it’s trying to get out!

And when she heard the sound again—

Ka-CRACK!

—the padlock broke off, and the trapdoor violently flew open, and Patricia thought her heart would stop when she saw what was now climbing up into the room…

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