Monster Lake

Terri spun around. But she didn’t see anything except the trees. And what was that sound? It sounded like someone whispering.

Then she heard it again:

“Pssssssst! Over here!”

And that’s when Terri noticed the figure standing in the shadows, looking at her.

««—»»

The dark figure waved at her. “Psssssssst! Terri! Over here! It’s me, Patricia!”

Patricia? Terri thought. What would she be doing down here? And why was she standing in the shadows?

Terri walked quickly up the path, to see her friend, but then Patricia held her hand up. “Stop! Don’t come any closer!”

“Oh, yeah,” Terri recalled. “I called your house this morning and your Mom said you had the flu. I guess you don’t want me to get too close. Shouldn’t you be home in bed?”

“It’s not the flu,” Patricia said. “I snuck out of the house.”

“Why?”

“Never mind that. I have to talk to you. It’s real important.”

“Okay, but—” This was aggravating. “At least step out of the shadows.”

“No,” Patricia said. “Just listen. My parents are looking for me, and I haven’t got much time. I have to tell you what happened last night.”

Terri was instantly confused. “Last night? You mean when I came over to use your dictionary?”

“No, after that. It was real late, like way past midnight.” The shadow paused. “I—I snuck out of the house and I came down here.”

“You came here? To the boathouse? At night?”

“Yeah. I brought my Dad’s digital camera. I thought if I took some pictures of the toads and salamanders, then I could prove to them that something’s really messed up down here. But—but I never got the chance.”

“Patricia!” Terri exclaimed. “Are you crazy? You know how dangerous it is down here at night!”

Patricia’s shadow nodded. “I did something really bad. I used my library card, like you did, and got into the boathouse.”

“No!”

“Yes,” Patricia countered. “And I also got into the backroom where all those tanks and bottles are. And then—” Patricia hesitated again. “I accidentally dropped one of the bottles on the floor, and it broke, and all that gross gunk spilled all over the place.”

Then it dawned on Terri. That’s what her mother and Uncle Chuck were talking about just a moment ago.

“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—