"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 16

Dill’s stomach gurgled again, but much louder this time. “Fine. You keep calling. I’m going up to the food court.”

Peter looked around the mall. It was still brightly lit, but he kept imagining the mannequin slowly turning her head…

“Five minutes, Dill,” he warned.

“Ten minutes and we’ll come right back, I promise.”

Peter scowled as he picked himself up off the floor. “What are we going to find to eat, anyway? Everything’s locked up!”

Dill ran up to a nearby escalator that had been shut down for the night. “We’ll see!” he shouted as he started up the steps.

***

All of the burger and Chinese food places in the food court were not only locked up, there wasn’t even any food left in the display cases. The employees had cleaned up for the night without leaving a trace.

“I told you,” Peter scolded.

“Look!”

Dill pointed to a cinnamon bun place. Lo and behold, there were cinnamon buns still on display behind the glass cases. Dill grabbed the metal security gate like a monkey at the zoo and drooled at the food on the other side.

“How are you going to get in there?” Peter scoffed.

Dill lifted up on the gate. The padlock stopped it from going far, but there was probably six or seven inches from the bottom of the gate to the ground.

“Hold it up.”

“What?”

“I’m goin’ in.”

Peter held the gate up, which wasn’t too hard to do – it must have been specially weighted so that any shopkeeper could lift it easily. Meanwhile, Dill got on his back and scooted along the tile.

“You can’t fit in there,” Peter said.

“Watch me.”

He bent his right shoe at an angle and slid it easily under the gate. Then he put his entire right leg under, which was easy, too. But when he got to his body, he had to suck in all his breath.

“Dill…” Peter cautioned.

“Lift it!” Dill wheezed.

It took a bit of scrunching, but Dill was able to finally wedge his entire body underneath. Then he placed his head flat against the floor with one ear against the ground and slid himself all the way under. For a second it looked like his ear was going to catch and rip off, but it finally flipped under the gate, too.

“HA!” Dill exulted as he got up off the ground and rubbed his red ear.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 15

The two adults walked down a side corridor toward an exit. Gradually their voices lessened. A door opened and then closed, followed by the SHUNK of a deadbolt sliding into place…and then the voices were gone.

Dill and Peter were totally alone in the mall.

***

“Try the ones at the end and work you way to the middle,” Peter ordered, as he shoved the bars on the exit doors one by one.

Nothing. On every one, the deadbolt was locked.

“No go on mine,” Dill sighed.

They had tried every exit door on the first floor. Every single one was locked.

“We gotta try the theater,” Peter urged.

“Dude, you heard Jenkins – if he catches us in here, we’re toast!”

“Maybe they won’t call the cops if we explain.”

“Yeah, right.” Dill shook his head. “Let’s try the phone again.”

***

They tried Dill’s house, but still got a busy signal.

“Can’t you DO something?” Peter fretted.

“Like what, wave my magic wand?”

“How long are they going to be?”

“Dude, if Charlene is IM’ing her friends, there ain’t no tellin’,” Dill sighed.

After arguing for several minutes, panic won out and Dill agreed to try the movie theater. They banged on the metal gate for five minutes, but no one ever came. They called and hollered, but got no answer. And the doors were blacked out, so there was no way someone could see them from inside.

Peter slumped to the ground and checked his watch. It was almost 10:00. “My mom is going to call your house soon, and she’s going to FREAK when she finds out I’m not there.”

“As long as somebody’s on the internet, she can’t get through, just like us.”

“Yeah, but she can walk over there.”

“Why don’t you call your mom and ask to sleep over at my place?”

Peter hadn’t slept over at Dill’s house in the two months he’d been in Duskerville. When asked by his mother why not, he had gone on at great lengths about the smell of wet dog in Dill’s house, not to mention that Dill had to share his bedroom with his obnoxious brother Woody. There’s no way Mom would buy it. Of course, he didn’t want to tell Dill that and hurt his feelings.

“We got a new phone with caller ID on it,” Peter lied. “She’ll see it’s not coming from your house.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly, there was a gurgling sound. Peter looked around in fear.

Dill patted his stomach. “I’m hungry.”

“That was you?! It sounded like a cat underwater!”

“I’m really hungry.”

“Well what do you want me to do about it?”

Dill looked up towards the second story and broke into a smile. “Let’s go check out the food court.”

“What?! No, we’ve gotta keep calling your house!”

“It might take ‘em another hour to get off the phone. I’m hungry now.”

“NO. We have to keep calling.”

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 14

“H – ” Dill started to yell, before Peter wrapped his hand around Dill’s mouth and tackled him to the ground.

“Mrrrrmmmmph!” Dill angrily protested.

“Shut up!” Peter hissed.

Dill slopped his tongue over Peter’s palm. Without thinking, Peter pulled his hand away in disgust.

“Gross!”

“Why – ” Dill started.

“What if it’s the mannequin?” Peter whispered.

“Gimme a break,” Dill said sarcastically, but was drowned out by a booming voice far down the aisle of shops.

“Those stupid, snot-nose punks…I’ll have their heads on a platter if it’s the last thing I do!” echoed through the empty hall.

Deputy Jenkins.

Peter looked at Dill. Dill looked back at Peter.

“It’s even worse!” Dill said under his breath.

Peter didn’t know if he agreed with that, but it was a close second.

They crept along the floor like soldiers under fire, until they were hidden safely behind a thicket of the very plants they had dusted and watered earlier that day.

Through the leaves, Peter could see Deputy Jenkins swaggering out of a shoe store. A pretty woman the same age as Peter’s mother followed Jenkins out, then turned back to pull down the gate.

“That twit of a ranger keeps protecting them…they’re bad apples, and he’s too much of an idiot to see it. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re behind the vandalism, too.”

“Well, it’s not bad so far, but it’s been getting worse,” the woman added. “Yesterday, Jennie Monroe told me the locks on the back of her shop were all torn up. And for some reason, the security cameras keep fritzing at night, like somebody’s messing with them…we can never get any of it on video.”

“Maybe I should stay behind and help that idiot security guard the mall hired.”

“I think somebody’s forgetting about our date,” the woman said.

“Well, one day I’m gonna catch ‘em in the act, redhanded, and when I do…”

SLAP! Jenkins whapped his heavy flashlight down into the palm of his hand.

The woman hooked her arm through the deputy’s and cooed, “I feel so safe and secure being around law enforcement.”

“Best in the state,” Deputy Jenkins laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 13

“Stupid phone people,” Dill griped. He looked over at Peter accusingly. “That guy might’ve been a butthole, but he was right – why don’t you have a cell phone?”

“Why don’t you?!”

“You’re rich, I’m not.”

“My grandfather is rich, not me, and he won’t even buy a television. I don’t think he’s going to get me a cell phone.”

“Stupid phone people,” Dill repeated, and banged down the receiver.

They set off in search of a working telephone. As they walked through the mall they never saw a soul. It was eerie, being there by themselves in such a huge, empty place. What was even stranger was that it was so familiar, and yet most of the familiar part had been taken out. With no people anywhere, Peter imagined he and Dill had stumbled on the ruins of some ancient civilization whose inhabitants had mysteriously disappeared.

They finally reached another couple of public telephones near a mall exit. Dill pumped in a few coins left over from the movie theater and dialed a number.

“Is that the diner where your mom works?”

“Naw, she’d’ve left there by now…I’m calling home.”

Even from a few feet away, Peter could hear the busy signal.

“What in the world? Are you the only people on earth without call waiting?” he grumbled.

“No, we have it, but we have dial-up internet. Somebody must be on.”

“What about your sisters? They’ve got to have cell phones, right?”

“Charlene racked up a three hundred dollar bill and got hers taken away. Cuz of that, my parents won’t even let Shayna have one.”

Peter hung his head in despair. “What are we going to do?”

“Let’s go outside. Maybe there’s somebody out there.”

They made their way to an exit, but the doors were already locked. Peter grabbed onto the handle and shook, HARD, but it was no use: the deadbolts were in place.

“Oh my gosh,” he whispered. “We’re locked in.”

“Cool!” Dill laughed.

Peter stared at him.

“What?” Dill protested. “It’s cool, you know it’s cool. We got the whole place to ourself – it’s like we own it!”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry, and I’m tired, and I don’t want to sleep on a bench, and I really don’t want to have my mom screaming at us and grounding me because you LIED and said your mom was going to come pick us up!”

“Oh, yeah…that’s not so cool.”

“‘That’s not so cool,’” Peter mimicked him in an angry little kid voice, then shouted, “It is SO NOT cool!”

“Chill, Pete. There’s gotta be somebody around, let’s go find them.”

They started jogging through the mall, footsteps echoing in the empty halls around them.

They didn’t see anyone.

After a few minutes they stopped to catch their breath. As he leaned heavily on his knees, Peter noticed that they had almost reached the place where Mom had rescued them from the plant dusting.

And where he had seen the mannequin in the ball dress.

Peter’s stomach knotted up even worse than it already was, if that was possible. He remembered looking over at her, seeing that she was facing a different direction, then looking back moments later, and seeing that her head had moved again –

At the worst possible moment in the middle of Peter’s horrible daydream, a loud CLANG echoed in the distance. It was the noise of a shopfront gate rattling noisily. Faint, but within earshot.

In his mind’s eye, he could see the gate slowly rising…to reveal her shoe on the floor. A black shoe on a dead, plastic foot.

He felt his knees go weak with fear.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 12

“Cut that out, you’re gonna get us in trouble.”

Dill rolled his eyes. “No I’m not, I’m just experimenting. You know what your problem is?”

“No, what,” Peter said, with absolutely no interest.

“You don’t experiment enough. You’re always too worried about – ”

“Where are we supposed to meet your mom?” Peter broke in.

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess I should call her.”

“CALL her? I thought she was going to meet us at nine!”

“You believed that? Pff.” Dill waved his hand like give me a break. “I knew your mom was gullible, but…”

“You LIED to my mom?!”

“I didn’t lie, I kind of bent the truth.”

“How did you bend the truth, exactly?”

Dill shrugged. “Okay, so I lied.”

“So no one’s coming to pick us up?!”

“Geez, calm down. We’ll go call the diner now.”

There was a metallic CLANG behind them. Peter jumped, and twisted around to look.

Some pimply teenage guy in a uniform was at the Cineplex’s exit. He was standing on the other side of a metal gate he’d just pulled down from the ceiling.

“Why’re you doing that?” Peter asked fearfully.

“We gotta lock up the entrance to the mall,” the kid said as he padlocked the gate to the floor.

“But there’s 9 o’clock movies! Where’s everybody going to come out?”

“Out the front by the parking lot, duh. You better get out of here, they don’t want people in the mall after nine.”

“We’ve got to call his mom,” Peter said. “Let us back in.”

“Use your cell phone.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

The kid frowned in disbelief. “Who doesn’t have a cell phone?”

“Me! Let us back in!”

“Too late, I already locked it.”

“Let us use your cell phone, then,” Dill said.

“Yeah, right.” The kid pointed to the left. “There’s some public pay phones down there.”

And then he disappeared inside the glass doors of the movie theater, which snapped shut with a loud CLICK. Doors which, Peter noticed for the first time, didn’t have any handles on the outside. It was like he was being locked inside a prison.

Peter and Dill were the only ones left in the empty first floor of the mall.

“Guess we better go call my mom,” Dill suggested.

***

They looked for five minutes before they found a set of pay telephones near a public restroom. Both of them were out of order.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 11

The Coming Attractions started, and Peter spent the next two hours trying to forget what he had seen earlier.

At one point during the movie he almost had a heart attack. In the darkness at the side of the theater aisle, a woman’s white face appeared in the shadows. Her hair was dark, and he could see some kind of blue clothing on her, too. Peter was almost about to scream when a bright scene in the movie bathed the room in light, and he could tell that she was a teenage usher in a blue vest. And she had red hair, which just looked dark in the low light. She scanned the faces in the room, then walked out.

It took Peter a long while to get back into the story onscreen.

***

The movie let out at 8:55.

“That was kind of dumb,” Dill said as they left the theater.

“I thought it was pretty funny.”

“The octopus was stupid. He wasn’t scary at all, and I don’t think he woulda turned good like that all of a sudden.”

As they argued and walked out of the Cineplex’s rear exit into the mall, they found themselves near the giant fountain. A two-foot marble wall circled around the floor; inside that, a shimmering pool stretched twenty feet across. A stone tower rose up out of the center and gushed an unending stream of water into the air. But the best part was the money.

A metal plaque invited everyone to pitch in and make a wish; four times a year the fountain would be cleaned out, with the proceeds going to the “Make A Wish” foundation for terminally ill kids. Apparently a lot of people made wishes, because the fountain floor was a carpet of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. There were even a few big, gold-colored dollar coins scattered here and there.

Dill stood at the edge of the fountain and gazed longingly at the bottom. “Man, if I could just get in there for ten minutes, I’d be the happiest dude on the planet.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. The glittering treasure trove was inviting. “But we’d be stealing money from sick kids, and that’s not cool.”

“Why do you have to always ruin my dreams?” Dill asked in exasperation. He looked around stealthily; the last movie theater crowd had dispersed, and there was nobody else in the mall. All around them, the shops were closed up for the night. Giant metal chain link gates had been pulled down from the ceiling and extended all the way to the ground.

“You know, I could just – ”

“NO,” Peter snapped.

Dill sighed, then walked over to one of the metal gates. “Cool, I’ve never seen that before.”

“You’ve never been at the mall when they all closed up?” Peter asked. He had seen it several times back in California.

“Nope.” Dill grabbed the metal links of the gate and pulled up on it. CLANK. The gate rolled up maybe six inches off the floor, but was stopped by a hook and padlock chaining it to the ground.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 10

The entrance to the Cineplex was actually on the outside of the mall. Night was beginning to fall, and dark clouds were moving rapidly in the distance.

Mom stood beside them in line. Beth was in her stroller, crying about not being able to go see a movie, too.

“Dill, you’re sure your mother is coming to get you at nine o’clock?”

Dill nodded. “She gets off from the diner at nine and she’s gonna come pick me up after that.”

Mom handed a ten dollar bill to Peter. “Be good, go straight in, and when you get out, tell Dill’s mom you have to come straight home, got it?”

Peter nodded. “No problem.”

“You’re going to see the animated movie, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Alright. You sure you’ll be all right?”
“Mom, we’ll be fine!”

His mother smiled worriedly, then turned to go.

Dill coughed.

Mom looked back at him. “Bye, Dill.” Then she started to push Beth’s stroller.

Dill coughed louder.

Mom looked around again. “Is there something you want, Dill?”

“Could you loan me fifteen dollars?”

“What?” Mom asked in disbelief.

“Well, it takes nine bucks to get in. I thought me and Peter could get a popcorn and soda, too.”

Mom’s face contorted in rage. “You said you were planning to go to this movie anyway!”

“I didn’t say I had any money.”

“Dill Bodinski, I have had more than enough of you today – you have been nothing but a pain in my rear end, and you’re always asking for money, and this is too much, it is TOO MUCH!”

“What if I promise never to make smoochy sounds around Eric anymore?”

Mom stared at Dill and gritted her teeth. Then she reached for her wallet.

***

“Am I good or what?” Dill mmphed through a mouthful of popcorn.

“You’re good,” Peter admitted.

They had walked into the theater pretty early, so they had the best seats in the house. As they ate their pop corn and watched the slide show ads for Army recruitment and Arlito’s Sandwich Shop on 4^th street, Dill turned to Peter.

“Do you really think the mannequin moved?”

“Can we not talk about that?” Peter said, irritated.

“Hey, I’m usually the one saying that.”

“No, you say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it!’”

“Well, I don’t want to talk about it,” Dill huffed. “You’re sure you didn’t imagine it?”

“I did not imagine it.”

“Did any other dummies look at you in the department store?”

“Just you.”

“Ha, ha,” Dill said without laughing.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 9

“Let’s get out of here, then.” Dill brightened up. “Let’s go see a movie!”

There was the Cineplex 6 halfway down the mall. Peter had seen a couple of matinees there with Dill since he had moved to Duskerville, but never an evening show.

“Are you crazy? My mom’s not going to let us out of her sight.”

Dill looked around the women’s section, and rubbed his lower lip. “Leave that to me.”

***

Melissa Flannagan had found two new suits and four blouses, all of which were on sale for 25% off. Beth was quietly occupying herself in her stroller, which was a miracle unto itself. All in all, Melissa felt pretty happy. When she stopped to wonder why, she realized that she hadn’t heard Dill Bodinski’s voice in over five minutes.

When he suddenly piped up again, every muscle in her back automatically tensed.

“Hey, Mrs. Normal, can we go sit outside on a bench? It’s pretty boring in here.”

She didn’t bother to turn around. “No, Dill.”

“Okay. Hey, how do you wear this thing?”

Melissa sighed and looked over her shoulder. First she saw that five other women were all standing nearby. Some were giggling behind their hands, others had a look of disdain on their faces.

Then she saw Dill, who was wearing an oversized bra on his head. One cup fit neatly like a cap, while the other dangled onto his shoulder.

“I never saw anybody wear it like this, but I can’t figure out how you’d do it otherwise,” Dill yelled across the aisles.

“Dill, take that off right now,” Melissa hissed. Her eyes darted to the other women nearby, who looked at her like, Can’t you control your children?

“He’s not mine, he’s my son’s friend,” she explained to the nearest woman, who just turned up her nose and walked away.

“What about this?” Dill called out, and held up some rather skimpy women’s underwear. “It looks like underroos to me, but I ain’t never seen underroos like this before.”

“DILL, PUT THOSE DOWN!” Melissa Normal seethed. She could feel her face flushing red.

“Hey, where do babies come from?” Dill shouted.

***

“Told ya,” Dill whispered as he and Peter stood in line at the movie theater.

“You wore a bra on your head,” Peter said, horrified. “And you touched girl’s underwear.”

Dill wiped his hand on his jeans with an expression of disgust. “Don’t remind me. And don’t never say I never did nothin’ for ya.”

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 8

Dill stuck his tongue out at Beth as he and Peter trudged off into the women’s jeans section.

“Man, your mom is so unfair. She’s always taking your bratty sister’s side.” Dill peeked sideways at Peter, who was looking distractedly all around the store. “Cuz she’s such a brat, she’s the biggest brat, the brattiest big-bratty – yo, PETER!”

Peter swung his head around. “Huh?”

“What is with you?!”

Peter glanced nervously around the store. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to make fun of me?”

Dill stifled a laugh. “Oh yeah,” he said, in a tone of voice like Suuuure I will.

“When we were sitting down back in the mall, did you see the mannequin in the dress shop?”

Dill clasped his hands and lifted them up to his cheek. “Ohhhhh, does Pe-tah want a dwess? Does he wanna look all pwetty for the big dance?”

Dill began twirling around like Cinderella at the ball.

“Boom-ba-ba Boom-ba-ba – ” he sang, imitating some kind of polka music.

“Dude, SERIOUSLY,” Peter snapped. “I think she looked at me.”

“Cuz she knew you wanted her pwetty, pwetty dress!” Dill snorted, and doubled over from the laughter. “She wanted to get Teen People and look at all the dweaaamy boys with you – ”

“I think she might have been alive.”

Dill stopped laughing and looked up.

“What?”

“I didn’t see anybody move her head when she looked at me. And I didn’t see anybody move it back, either.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Dill said, his eyes narrowing.

Peter scanned the department store mannequins. “No.”

“You’re telling me that the dummy moved her head herself.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s stupid.”

Peter just kept scanning the room.

“Why do you keep looking around like that? Even if it was true, she’s not here now.” Dill stopped, then got a frantic look on his face. “Is she?”

Peter lowered his voice. “I’ve always hated mannequins. Ever since I was little, I always felt like…something was wrong about them. I can’t explain it. All I know is, I saw one move back there in the mall, and now we’re surrounded by a whole bunch more. I’m not takin’ my eyes off of them.”

As Peter spoke, Dill started looking around the store.

There were mannequins everywhere.

Women in dresses and sweaters.

Men in suits.

Headless bodies in t-shirts.

Legless torsos wearing winter coats.

Bodiless sets of legs in blue jeans.

And heads. Heads with no eyes, no noses, no mouths, wearing cold weather hats and baseball caps.

Dill was fidgeting now. “Why are you always freaking me out?” he whined.

“It’s not like I’m making it up,” Peter protested.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 7

“ALRIGHT!” Dill whooped, and joined in with Mom as she waved goodbye to Eric, who waved back happily in return.

Peter didn’t notice any of that. He was still staring at the clothing store window and the mannequin in the blue ball gown. His knees had gone weak, and the palms of his hands felt cold and clammy. Had someone moved her head, and he just hadn’t seen them? Or…had something else happened?

When Dill touched his shoulder, Peter jumped.

“Jeez, calm down, Pete. You can get one for Christmas.”

Peter had a sudden vision of coming down Christmas morning to find the mannequin standing beside the tree, staring at him. “What? Why would you say that?!”

Dill frowned. “Because they can cut through soda cans, dude. Quit wiggin’ out and come on, before Eric changes his mind.”

“Oh...hahahahaha!” Peter laughed frantically. “You meant knives…knives cut through soda cans!”

Dill didn’t say anything. He just gave Peter a strange look as he walked off after Beth and Mom. Before Peter followed them, he glanced back at the mannequin one last time.

She was facing the glass doors of the parking lot again, as though she had never moved in the first place.

***

“This stinks,” Dill grumbled as he walked down the aisles of women’s clothing in the Brooklines Department store.

They were walking among the business suits and blouses. Mom was pushing Beth’s stroller as she checked the racks, trying to find something she liked. “I can take you back to clean more plants if you’d like,” she offered.

“Why can’t we go hang out in the toy store?”

“Because I don’t trust you,” Mom said as she held up a pink blouse over her body and looked in the mirror.

“We don’ twust you,” Beth sneered from her stroller.

Dill glared at Peter. “Help me out, dude!”

“Huh?”

Peter wasn’t paying attention. He was trying to keep his eyes on every mannequin in the store at once. It was quite difficult, seeing how there was a new one around every corner. Headless ones…armless ones…ones with faces…ones without…

“You’re worthless in a fight, man,” Dill said in disgust.

Beth kicked Dill from her stroller.

“OW! She kicked me!”

“Don’t kick Dill, Beth,” Mom said absentmindedly.

In retaliation, Dill pulled down the adjustable canopy on the stroller so that Beth was plunged into darkness.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Beth screamed.

“You two! Twenty feet away!” Mom said angrily as she lifted up the stroller top.

“I didn’t do anything!” Peter protested.

“She kicked me!” Dill whined.

“Twenty feet! Now!”

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 6

She looked elegant and beautiful, even though her skin was ghostly and her eyes were cold and dead. Peter followed her gaze and tried to find the exact spot where she was looking. It seemed to be the glass doors to the parking lot, and he wondered if that was intentional or an accident. Was she tired of being stuck here, never moving? Did she look all day at those doors so she could watch the freedom just outside? Or had some store clerk just stuck her up there and arranged her any which way?

Dill’s voice interrupted his daydream. “Are you listening to me?”

“What? Uh, yeah.”

“What’d I say?”

“Uhhhh…an amazing idea for getting us out of work for the rest of the day.”

Dill perked up and beamed. “That last one was pretty good, wasn’t it? I – heyyyy, you’re lying to me! What’s so interesting that you can’t pay attention for one single minute?”

“You sound like Mrs. Cashew.”

Mrs. Cashew was their teacher at school. Their very old, very squat, very un-fun teacher.

“That’s not cool, man.” Dill swung his eyes around the mall. “What’re you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, what were you looking at?”

Peter couldn’t admit to looking at the mannequin, because Dill would make fun of him about something stupid like wanting to buy a dress. Worse, he couldn’t admit to being afraid of mannequins, because then Dill would make fun of him for being a wimp in addition to wanting to buy a dress.

“The knives in the window of the cooking store. I was thinking of a bunch of ninjas breaking in and throwing them everywhere.”

“Those are pretty cool,” Dill admitted.

“They could probably cut through a coke can.”

Dill turned to him in excitement. “You saw that on TV, too? Wicked, huh?”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed, relieved that he had escaped endless mockery with his quick thinking. He let his eyes dart back to the mannequin, for no real reason other than he was thinking of how lucky he was –

Her head had moved.

She wasn’t looking out at the glass doors anymore.

She was looking right at Peter.

Peter’s heart thudded against his ribcage so hard he thought it might break through.

Peter’s mom walked over to the bench with Beth in her arms and a big smile on her face. “Okay, guys, time to go.”

Dill slumped back onto his feet. “Man, I hate watering these dang plants.”

“Well then, you owe me, because I got you out of doing it for the rest of the day.”

Dill’s jaw dropped in surprise. “What?!”

“Mr. Hartwell said you’ve only got half an hour left, so you can come with me – if you promise to behave yourself.”

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 5

As they slumped down on the bench about thirty feet away, Peter pointed out, “At least we’re not dusting plants anymore.”

“Hey, you’re right! Your bratty sister actually helped us out!”

“Don’t call her a brat.”

“But she is.”

“Yeah, but only I can call her a brat.”

“My brothers would never say that about me. They’d let anybody call me names.”

“Yeah, well, your brothers are kind of jerks.”

“See, I don’t mind you saying that at all. Mostly cuz it’s true. So I should be able to call your sister a brat, cuz that’s true, too. MAN is that true.”

“Dill…” Peter warned.

“Whatever. Let’s figure out how to get out of the rest of work, too.”

As Dill rattled off another series of bad ideas, Peter’s eyes wandered over the nearby shops. The toy store people had ended the demonstration and taken the SUV back inside, so there was nothing to see there. A cooking store had a bunch of wicked knives on display in the window. They looked like the ones on TV that could cut through a soda can. He could imagine a bunch of ninjas breaking in and stealing a set, then throwing them and pinning each other to trees. Or maybe they could just buy the knives. Although he doubted if ninjas walked into stores and bought knives; it just didn’t seem right.

Then Peter’s eyes drifted to the women’s clothing store next door and he shuddered.

There was a mannequin in the window.

Her skin was bone white. Lifeless blue eyes stared out from her face. She had blood-red lips and eyebrows thin as a razor blade. Her dark brown hair cascaded in curls from her head to her shoulders, and a blue evening gown hugged her body while baring her ivory shoulders and neck.

She was pretty, for a mannequin. But Peter hated mannequins.

They had always creeped him out. He remembered the first mannequins he ever saw as a little kid, and how he’d been convinced that they were following him through Macy’s. The one in the window at least looked human. It was the freaky ones that really got to him: headless. Armless. Heads only. No upper body, just the legs and the waist.

There was some commercial he’d seen years ago that featured a pair of blue jeans walking around without anybody in them. That gave him nightmares for awhile, the thought of empty pairs of jeans creeping up and down the dark sidewalks outside his house. And there were always a couple of those dummies in any department store – legs and feet in jeans or sweatpants or running shorts, but nothing above their waist.

People didn’t get born like that. They died if they did – no heart, no brain, no face. It was way too freaky.

Which is what made the woman in the blue evening gown more comforting than the usual mannequin. Even though she was plastic, all the parts were there. Her hands and arms had joints, so they bent at different angles. Her neck could move, too, and her head was slightly cocked to one side. One arm was positioned in a ‘V’, and a black beaded purse hung from her elbow. She was a fancy woman on her way to a plastic limousine, which would take her to a restaurant with plastic food, where a hundred other mannequins would stiffly dance all night in each others’ inflexible arms.

That thought started to creep him out again.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 4

They were finally saved when Peter’s mom showed up. She was pushing a stroller even though she was carrying Beth in her arms. Beth was like that: after two minutes of riding in the stroller, she wanted to be carried. After two minutes of being carried, she wanted back in the stroller again.

Normally that made Mom very cross. But right now she didn’t seem to mind, because she had a big grin on her face as she walked up.

“Hi, guys. How’s it going?”

“Hi guys, hi guys, hi guys!” Beth screeched.

“How does it look like it’s going?” Dill sulked. “I’m cleaning plants.”

“I’m sure you’re an expert at it by now. Don’t let me stop you.”

Eric suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Melissa!”

“Oh, Eric – I didn’t know you would be here!”

Peter frowned. “But Mom, I told you Eric was going to be here all day – ”

“So how’s it going supervising the outlaws?” Mom interrupted, and stepped in front of Peter to block him out.

Whenever his mom got around Eric, it made him feel kind of weird. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t sure he liked the way she looked at him, or the way he looked back at her. Each of them was fine by themselves, but put them together and it got a little too gooshy.

Dill must have felt exactly the same way, because he crossed his eyes, puckered his lips like a goldfish, and made silent kissing noises. Peter put his hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter. Luckily, nobody but Peter saw.

“Oh, you know, had to crack the whip a few times,” Eric grinned. “What’s new with you?”

Mom laughed. She sounded a little too happy. “Well, remember I told you I got that job as a legal secretary at Charterton University?”

They proceeded to chat about how Mom had started work on Wednesday and was really enjoying it, but didn’t have a thing to wear, that’s why she was here shopping, and blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, Dill had turned around, put his hands around his sides, and started moving them up and down. From Peter’s viewpoint it looked like Dill was kissing somebody who was running their fingers up and down his back.

Peter snorted. Unfortunately, that drew Beth’s attention. She looked over Mom’s shoulder at the lovey-dovey show Dill was putting on, just as he started wiggling his butt, too.

“MOOOOM! Diwl’s makin’ kissy kissy fun of you!” Beth hollered.

Dill froze with his butt poked out midair, and looked over his shoulder.

Mom whipped around, her face redder than Peter had ever seen it. At first he thought it was anger – and then he realized she was blushing.

“Uh…why don’t guys go take a break?” Eric suggested quickly. “You’ve been working a long time, go sit on that bench over there. WAY over there.”

Mom, still Cherry Kool-aid red, glared at Dill and Peter as they trudged off. Dill snarled at Beth, who was the only one with a giant smile on her face.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 3

“You seriously would rather have plastic trees everywhere than beautiful, green, natural oaks and pines?” the ranger asked.

“I wouldn’t have to WATER them,” Dill responded.

“You wouldn’t have to water these, either, if you hadn’t broken the law,” said an angry voice that made both Peter and Dill jump.

Deputy Jenkins walked up, mirrored aviator sunglasses on his nose and a scowl on his face. He wore a brown, wide-brimmed hat, and a brown bomber jacket over his tan Sheriff’s Department uniform. The last time Peter had seen him, Jenkins had been trying to get him and Dill thrown in jail. Grandfather and Eric had been the only obstacles to stand in his way.

“Deputy Jenkins,” Eric greeted him coolly.

“These boys paying their debt to society?”

“They’re doing just fine.”

Jenkins stared Peter down. “You boys got off easy this time, I want you to know that. Watering daisies isn’t my idea of punishment. Next time you screw up, you aren’t gonna have namby pamby wet nurses around to save your sorry hides.” Jenkins looked over at Eric. “No offense, Ranger.”

Eric just gave him a tight, unamused smile.

“What’s a wet nurse?” Dill asked innocently.

“Boy, you sassin’ me?” Jenkins snarled.

Dill shrank back in fear behind Eric’s legs.

“Why don’t you move on, Deputy. I’ve got it from here,” Eric said.

“I’ll move on when I’m good and ready.”

Eric just folded his arms and waited. Peter and Dill didn’t move an inch, out of the fear of doing something wrong.

“Aren’t you going to make them work?” Jenkins barked.

Eric smiled. “Sure, after our visitor leaves.”

Jenkins muttered something under his breath and started to walk away. As soon as Peter relaxed, though, Jenkins whipped back around and pointed at him.

“I’ll be watching you,” he said with a mirthless grin, then turned and stalked off. Eric muttered something under his breath, too. Peter didn’t hear it, either, but apparently Dill did. His eyes got big.

“Did you just say – ”

“Back to work,” Eric commanded.

“That was a bad word.”

Eric snapped his fingers. “I mean it, you two, get back to work or I’ll have Deputy Jenkins order you around for the rest of the day.”

Dill immediately bent over the nearest plant and started polishing. Peter joined him, and Eric left.

“What did he say?” Peter asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve only heard it on HBO, so you know it’s gotta be bad,” Dill whispered. “Dude, we gotta get outta here.”

“How are we gonna do that?”

“One of us could slip and fall and bust our head open. I think they’d let both of us go for that.”

“I don’t want to bust my head open.”

“What’re you lookin’ at me for? I don’t either.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “What else have you got?”

For the next ten minutes as they watered and dusted plants, Dill came up with one bad idea after another. It helped the time go faster.

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 2

“Less talking and more cleaning,” an adult voice called out from behind them. Eric Hartwell was the head of the park rangers. He was really old – 28 or 29 – but cool. He had refused to press charges against Peter and Dill, which meant they wouldn’t go to juvenile detention. But he was also making them clean plants, so he wasn’t that cool.

“Why do we hafta do this?” Dill complained.

“Westland Mall sponsors the Park Rangers. As part of that deal, we maintain all the indoor foliage they’ve planted in the common areas. So every other weekend we clean and water the plants for them.”

“Or get your slaves to do it,” Dill muttered.

The mall was really quite nice: there were sitting areas between a lot of the shops, with brick islands where trees and bushes and plants grew. For such a little town, Duskerville had a pretty big shopping center. If a person stood at one end of the mall, the other end was too far away to see. And there were two floors, all of them full of sitting areas and brick islands.

That was a lot of plants to clean. Peter, Dill, and six other rangers in orange vests had been working since 10AM. As it approached five, they were finally getting close to finishing.

“Why don’t you use fake plants instead?” Dill demanded.

“Live plants look better,” Eric said.

“Yeah, but fake ones don’t die,” Dill pointed out as he picked up a handful of dead leaves and put them in the canvas bag draped over his side.

“We’d still have to dust them.”

“But we wouldn’t have to water them.”

Eric was clearly getting exasperated. “You know what? Why don’t we just rip out all the trees in the forest, and replace them with plastic ones? How about that, would that make you happy?”

“Heck yeah, I wouldn’t have to rake the lawn anymore in the fall. And you wouldn’t have forest fires anymore – everything’d just melt instead of burn. And when trees fell down, you’d just stand them back up again.” Dill sighed wistfully. “The world would be a better place.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Peter warned Eric, but the ranger still plowed ahead.

“You wouldn’t have any more apples,” he argued.

“So? Just drink more grape soda.”

“There wouldn’t be any more grapes to put in the soda.”

“They don’t put it in now,” Dill said, a scornful look on his face. “It’s all arty fishy.”

“Artificial,” Eric corrected him.

“That’s what I said.”

“But trees convert carbon dioxide to oxygen – if we didn’t have trees, we’d suffocate and die.”

Dill put out one hand as though to ward off Eric’s stupidity. “Whatever, witch doctor. I’m a scientist man, and I know if they can make grape soda without any grapes, they can do whatever the heck you’re talking about.”

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"Peter And The Mannequins" - Page 1

Just a quick note: check the very bottom of the blog for some news.

PETER AND THE MANNEQUINS

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Peter was cleaning plants.

Peter and Dill were in Duskerville’s only indoor mall, wearing orange plastic vests over their clothes and wiping the dust off of leaves. As part of their punishment for

wrecking a state park rangers’ station, they had to work for the rangers until they paid off a broken lock, smashed window, and a stolen raft and scuba tank. And at less that minimum wage, it was probably going to take about a hundred and fifty years to get rid of the debt.

Of course, nobody cared that they had done all of that to save two of their classmates from certain death, because nobody believed their story about the giant swamp monster in the town lake. This was Peter’s first experience with telling adults about the strange goings-on that had started when he moved to Duskerville two months ago. The week he moved in, he had to fight thirteen dead men who lived in the woods outside his grandfather’s ancient mansion. Two weeks after that he had to deal with a classmate who died and came back as a vampire. Then there was the fairie changeling that had swapped places with his two-and-a-half year-old sister Beth. And the swamp monster after that. All in all, it had been a busy eight weeks.

No adults other than Grandfather knew about his strange adventures, not even Peter’s mom. Grandfather knew because he had been dealing with the same problems all his life. In fact, Peter’s whole family had been dealing with horrible supernatural disasters for at least 200 years. Peter still didn’t know why; he had found mention of a centuries-old curse among Grandfather’s private papers, but the old man wouldn’t talk about it. In fact, Grandfather wouldn’t talk about much of anything unless a monster was beating down the door and trying to kill them. Most of the time he just kept to his study and read his thousands and thousands of books.

In Peter’s opinion, that reaction was far better than the one he got after saving two kids from being meals for the swamp monster. When the evidence disappeared and the victims couldn’t remember anything, Peter and Dill had been disbelieved by everyone, threatened by a sheriff’s deputy, and sentenced to community service. At the moment, they were cleaning the plants in the sitting area outside a couple of clothing stores. Well, Peter was; Dill just gazed jealously at what was taking place a hundred feet away.

The area around the Way Mo’ Toys store was roped off, and workers at the shop were demonstrating the newest SUV toy to a crowd of kids. It was one of those miniature plastic cars with an electric engine, the kind he’d always seen five year-olds playing with on the driveways of their parents’ homes. He had never had one, and had always associated them with rich kids. This particular one had a lot of pep; it could go really fast, brake on a dime, and turn in tight circles. It was the kind of thing that parents hated because it was dangerous, and that kids loved for the exact same reason.

“I gotta get me one of those,” Dill sighed longingly.

Peter sprayed another plant and wiped it down. “First you’ve gotta help me clean these plants.”

Dill grumbled as he went back to work. “If this is the way they treat heroes, man, I’m turnin’ into a supervillain. I’ll bet the Joker or Lex Luthor tried to save somebody from a giant frog, too, and that’s what turned them bad.”

“Um…I kind of doubt it.”

“Fine, then I’ll be the first bad guy who gets P.O.’d about having to clean plants cuz he saved somebody.”

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Hey, guys!

I've decided to do a daily thang of my own besides the PETER tales. Just posting the stories is great, but sometimes I want to add a little something extra. Communicating with you readers is a lot easier when I don't just do it via the Comments section.

If you just want the stories, that's cool by me - you won't be missing a whole lot down here in the Crypt. If there's any really juicy news, like the prospect of a book, don't worry - it'll be splashed all over the site. I won't LET you miss that. This is more for the daily humdrum stuff, plus an occasional insight into the stories.

I thought I'd kick it off by explaining why Page 1 of MANNEQUINS reads like a "Previously on 24..." segment at the beginning of a television show.

PETER AND THE VAMPIRES was the generic title for the first book of stories, which included "Dead Men", "Vampires", "Changeling", and "Swamp Monster". We're now into what I consider to be the second book - PETER AND THE WEREWOLVES. Every book (aka every collection of four stories) will have a new title. For instance, I already know PETER AND THE FRANKENSTEIN will be the 3rd book in the series.

But PETER AND THE VAMPIRES just sounds cool. And I don't want a whole bunch of www.com addresses, so we're keeping it simple: www.PeterAndTheVampires.com for everything.

But since "Mannequins" is the first story in the second volume, I'm writing it with an eye towards its eventual publication on tree pulp. Hence, anybody who picks up WEREWOLVES without reading VAMPIRES might wonder why two kids broke into a ranger's station. What, are they hoodlums? What's this Pillsbury fool foisting off on the chil'rens these days?

Anyway, there you have it. That's why the page reads like we've been on a six month hiatus, instead of one day.

Settle back and enjoy the community service, cuz things won't get bumpy for a week or two.

But ohhhhh, when they do...

Darren out.

"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 69

“Why do you think Greg isn’t saying what really happened?” Peter asked.

“He may not remember. The brain is a peculiar thing…sometimes when we go through something horrible, the brain only remembers what it thinks we can handle.”

“Then what are they going to say?” Peter asked. “If they don’t believe us, and there’s nobody to tell them the truth, what are they going to tell everybody?”

“Didn’t you learn anything last time with those vampires, boy? They’ll make something up.”

Peter sighed in despair. Even when he told the truth, people didn’t believe him.

They had reached the truck, and Grandfather unlocked the driver’s side door.

“You believe me, right, Grandfather?”

The old man peered down at Peter. “That thing really ate you alive, hm?”

“Yes.”

“And you blew it up from the inside, eh?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You smell like it.” Grandfather jerked his head towards the truck bed. “Ride in the back.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Peter asked in amazement.

“I don’t want my truck smelling like frog guts,” Grandfather said as he climbed into the cab.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Dill laughed, and pointed at Peter. But when he tried the passenger door, it was locked.

“You, too,” Grandfather snarled at Dill through the closed window.

“What?! He smells bad!”

Grandfather shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s about a five mile walk back to the house. Or you can ask Deputy Jenkins for a ride in his cruiser, if you like. I’m sure he’d love to see you again.”

Dill grumbled as he got into the back beside Peter. “I don’t care how much lawyering you did today, you old coot, I ain’t payin’ you for any of it, makin’ me ride in the back of the truck…”

“You like riding in the back of the truck,” Peter pointed out.

“Not with somebody covered in frog guts.”

“So you don’t want to know what it was like?” Peter asked. “Inside the stomach?”

Dill reconsidered. “Well…was it cool?”

“It was GROSS.”

All the way home, Peter told Dill about the horrors of being eaten alive. Out here in the sunshine, it seemed like a fading nightmare, and talking about it made it better. Almost funny, in a way.

Actually, being back there in the truck bed with the wind in his hair made a lot of things better. He didn’t care that nobody except Grandfather believed them…he didn’t care about how long he was going to have to do community service…and he didn’t care that he now had an enemy in the sheriff’s department.

Well, Peter did care a little about that. But he could deal with it, because Greg and Rory were back in the hospital, awake and safe and alive.

He had kept his promise.

COMING MONDAY: PETER AND THE MANNEQUINS


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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 68

Grandfather and Jenkins stared each other down until Eric interrupted. “We’re talking hundreds of dollars of damages, Mr. Flanagan.”

“Well, I suggest a compromise. The boys should pay back what they owe.”

Peter looked up at Grandfather. “Whaaaaat?”

“Hey, what kind of a lawyer are you?” Dill shouted.

“I’m sure we could work out a suitable schedule of community service. That way, the boys can repay their debt to the rangers, and it won’t have to go on their permanent records.”

“You can’t do that!” Jenkins sputtered. “I’m taking this to court!”

“Then I’ll fight it with every penny I’ve got.” Grandfather smiled grimly. “And as you know, Jenkins, I’ve got quite a few pennies. I can see the headlines now: ‘Sheriff’s Department Prosecutes Two Local Boys Over Giant Frog Case.’ It might just make the national newspapers.”

“That’s my lawyer,” Dill grinned, until Grandfather’s heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“You do whatever you want, old man, but those two hoodlums right there are going to see their day in court.”

“Not if the Ranger’s department doesn’t press charges,” Eric said.

Jenkins looked over in surprise. “What?”

“And I don’t think we will,” Eric said. “As senior ranger at the park, the state forestry department will ask me my opinion – and it’s my opinion we shouldn’t press charges. Provided we can work out some sort of a compromise, Mr. Flanagan.”

“Hartworth – ”

“Shut up, Jenkins,” Eric shot back.

The deputy looked like he was going to tear someone in half. “You’ll be sorry you crossed me, boy.” He looked back at Grandfather, Dill, and Peter. “You’ll ALL be sorry,” he swore as he stomped out of the room.

“I apologize about that,” Eric said to Dill and Peter. “The rest of the sheriff’s department is really great, but Jenkins…he’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder.”

“More like a redwood,” Grandfather muttered.

“I’ll call you with the details about the community service, Mr. Flanagan, and we’ll hash something out, okay?”

Eric stuck his hand out towards Grandfather. Grandfather shook it and nodded.

“Take care, guys…I don’t know if I believe all that stuff about monsters, but…I think you probably did something pretty brave out there today.” Eric’s eyes twinkled. “And say hello to your mom for me, okay Pete?”

After the ranger had left, Grandfather ushered them out of the hospital and over to his battered truck in the parking lot.

“Do you think they’ll do anything about the monster’s body?” Peter asked.

“No.”

“Why not? It’s like knowing where the Loch Ness monster is and not doing anything about it!”

“Yeah, we could be famous!” Dill shouted.

“By the time Jenkins frees up the crime scene – which will probably be months from now – fish will have picked those bones clean. And with the currents from the springs, the parts could wind up scattered all over the lake.”

“Maybe it’ll float back up or wash to shore!” Peter protested.
“Maybe.”

“Why don’t you hire a boat like you said and pay people to go find it?”

Grandfather snorted. “I don’t want to give Jenkins a reason to throw me in jail.”

“But you could be famous!” Dill begged.

“All the more reason not to do it.”

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 67

“Well, until you have a more credible alternative, it would seem that the boys will have to be taken at their word,” Grandfather said.

Jenkins pointed out into the hallway. “That kid’s brain has been twisted by these two punks here. I don’t care what you say, old man, these two juvenile delinquents did something to those kids, and I’m gonna find out what.”

“And how do you explain the cave full of bones?” Grandfather asked.

“I got no idea how they did it, but – ”

“Are you suggesting two ten-year-old boys dug an underground cave, gathered hundreds of bones – some human, from what I understand – and placed them there?”

“How do you know so much about this?” Jenkins hissed suspiciously.

“Your fellow deputies are a talkative bunch.”

“Your little grandson here might’ve been mixed up in some sort of Satanic cult with all those bones. What do you say to that?”

“I say we conduct a lie detector test.”

Jenkins looked surprised. “That’s not admissible in court, and you know it.”

“But it would clear things up. While we’re at it, why don’t you dredge the lake? If there really is some giant reptile’s carcass down there, why don’t we settle this once and for all?”

Jenkins huffed and puffed. “I’m not about to ask taxpayers to spend ten thousand dollars in man hours to go running after your boy’s lies.”

Grandfather smiled menacingly. “I’ll pay for, Jenkins. I’ll even hire a private crew to do it.”

Jenkins smirked, then shook his head. “That lake is a crime scene, old man. Nobody but nobody is doing anything until I say so.”

Eric spoke up. “I think that should be Sheriff Gunderson’s call – ”

“Shut up, Hartworth, and stay out of this.”

Eric’s face flushed in anger.

“Who’s going to inspect the cave?” Grandfather asked.

“We called the university. They’re going to send down some biologists to take a look,” Eric muttered.

“I would suggest the archeology department, too. My guess is that some of those bones are well over a hundred years old. Which would seem to rule out these two boys,” Grandfather snarled at Jenkins. “So what other trumped-up charges are you going to try to pin on them?”

“That’s my lawyer,” Dill said, and pointed up at Grandfather.

“Quiet,” he snapped.

“Okay, okay,” Dill whispered.

“Well, there’s the matter of them breaking into the ranger station buildings and stealing the raft and scuba supplies and walkie talkies,” Eric said.

“That’s trespassing, breaking and entering, and grand theft right there,” Jenkins grinned. “That’s enough to put them in juvie till they’re 18, for sure.”

“We did that to save Rory and Greg!” Peter protested.

“Or maybe to cover up whatever you did to them.”

“You think you could prove that in a court of law?” Grandfather asked.

“You bet your bottom dollar, I could,” Jenkins sneered.

“I doubt it. Not until you can provide an eyewitness who remembers something other than giant frogs.”

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 66

The doctor found nothing more than some bruises and scrapes. He did coat their cuts with some purplish liquid, though, which stung like fire.

“OW!” Dill yelled. “Hey, cut that out!”

“And you say you got eaten alive?” the doctor asked Peter.

“Yes,” Peter sighed. It was the fiftieth time he’d answered the question in the last hour, and nobody had believed him yet.

“By a giant amphibian.”

“Dinofrog!” Dill chimed in.

“Mm-hmm,” the doctor said, and scraped some gunk off of Peter’s hair and put it in a plastic bottle, then labeled it with a sticker.

Ranger Eric and Deputy Jenkins came in the room shortly thereafter.

“What’s the word, doc?” Jenkins said.

“Some scrapes and cuts. I cleaned them up with iodine, they’re good to go.”

“What about the…” Eric said, and gestured to his hair.

“I took some swabs. We’ll run them through the lab, but you’d be better off sending the boy’s clothes and those tissue samples to the university’s science department. They’re better equipped for something like this than we are.”

“You actually think he got ate up, like he said?” Jenkins growled.

“I didn’t say that,” the doctor said, and looked back at Peter and Dill. “Maybe we should refer them to psychiatrics for an evaluation.”

“You keep those guys with the butterfly nets away from me. Are we banged up enough to stay home from school tomorrow?” Dill inquired.

“No, you’re fine.”

“Well, crap,” Dill muttered. “You got eaten for nothing, Pete.”

Once the doctor left, Eric looked around the room.

“Uh, where’s your mom, Peter?”

“Back at the house, blissfully unaware of this foolishness. You can deal with me,” Grandfather said through bared teeth.

“Okay…what about Dill’s parents?”

Deputy Jenkins stared down at Dill. “We called ‘em, but from what I know about Bodinski’s folks, they’d probably just assume we lock him up as pay for the gas to come get him. Isn’t that right, Bodinski?”

“Where’s my lawyer, cop?” Dill shot back.

Jenkins bared his teeth. “You little snot-nosed – ”

“Dill, you’re in an awful lot of trouble,” Eric butted in. “It would look better if you cooperated.”

“And what trouble is that, exactly?” Grandfather asked.

“Well, first off, their involvement in the disappearance of those two boys.”

“How are they?”

“They’re awake and doing fine. The doctors said they were under the influence of some kind of depressant or sedative, but they were able to bring them out of it with some stimulants.”

“And what did the two boys say about what happened?”

Eric shifted from foot to foot. “Uh, Rory doesn’t remember anything. Greg says he doesn’t remember much, but he keeps mumbling about a…”

“A what?” Grandfather pressed.

“A giant frog,” Eric said quietly.

“Dinofrog!” Dill yipped.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 65

“Found ‘em!” the man in the cave called, his voice hollow and muffled. “They’re alive!” Then he said something else under his breath, some words Peter had never heard before. “You guys, there’s bones everywhere down here.”

Jenkins and Eric turned around and looked at the boys.

“Don’t look at me, man,” Dill said.

“How’d they get in there?” Eric asked.

“Are you ready to hear the truth yet?” Peter challenged him.

“Does the truth involve a twenty foot dinosaur?”

“Yes.”

“Then no, I don’t think I am,” Eric answered.

“It was more like a giant frog,” Dill offered. “A dinofrog. Or a giant salamander…a dinomander. Or…salasaur. Or – ”

“Dill.” Peter made a ‘zip it’ motion across his lips.

“They’re not waking up, Jenkins!” the man called from down in the hole.

“Get down there,” Jenkins snarled at the two paramedics.

The two men in blue jumpsuits grabbed the rope and climbed down into the ground. After a minute, one of them called out, “They’re breathing and they appear to be stable, but they’re in some kind of stupor and they’re not waking up. We gotta get ‘em back to the hospital.”

Jenkins pointed at Dill and Peter. “You boys better have a good explanation for all this.”

“They’re knocked out,” Peter told him. “The monster stung them and put them to sleep. I think it was going to hibernate and eat them later.”

Jenkins shook his head. “That’s not what I call a good explanation.”

Dill stuck out his chin. “I want a lawyer.”

“What?”

“I know my rights, I watch all the cop shows. I want a lawyer.”

Jenkins balled his hand up into a fist. “Why you little – ”

Eric stood up between the deputy and Dill. “I think we can do this later, can’t we? Right now our priority is those two kids down in that cave.”

Jenkins pointed at Dill. “I’ll deal with you later.”

“Talk to my lawyer, dude,” Dill retorted.

“Yeah,” Peter added.

He’d just been eaten alive. Mean sheriff’s deputies didn’t scare him.

Well…maybe a little.

***

The hospital was small by most standards, but large for a town of Duskerville’s size. It stood three stories high, and probably had a hundred rooms or so. Right now Dill and Peter were on the first floor in an emergency room examining station, sitting atop a padded table where people normally laid down. Grandfather walked into the room as the doctor was examining them.

“You alright, boy?” Grandfather asked.

“Yup,” Dill affirmed.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Grandfather snarled.

Dill fidgeted silently for the rest of the check-up.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 64

There was a stunned silence for about five seconds on the other end of the radio.

“Stay there. We’ll find you. Jacobs, switch over to the other band.”

No other voices came out of the walkie talkie after that.

“I don’t get it…how did those guys ever get to be rangers, and they don’t even know to say ‘over’?” Dill complained. Then he sighed. “So we’re just gonna wait for ‘em, huh?”

“You could take off…I didn’t say anything about you, so you could run for it and not get in trouble.”

Dill brightened. “That’s right, I totally could…” Then he looked serious again. “Naah, I better stick around. You always need back-up.”

Peter smiled. “By the way, thanks for saving my life.”

“Twice,” Dill said, and held up two fingers. “If you’re keeping track. I’m not.”

“How do you figure?”

“I got you out of the cave, and I pulled you out of the water.”

“Well, you dug a hole in the cave, but you smacked me in the face when you jumped in. Plus, I blew up the monster, so that kind of evens out the whole cave thing.”

Dill narrowed his eyes. “Sounds like you’re keeping track.”

The sun was just beginning to peek over the trees across the lake. The wind blew slightly, and the first birds began to chirp behind them.

Dill scooched across the ground on his rear end and settled about ten feet away from Peter.

“What’d you do that for?” Peter asked.

“Nothin’. You just wait over there, and I’ll wait over here.”

Peter looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

Dill pinched his nose with his fingers and thumb. “Cuz you stink, man. Ooooooo-weeeee.”

***

The rangers arrived about thirty minutes later, along with a couple of paramedics and three sheriff’s deputies, including Deputy Jenkins (who had on his sunglasses, even though it was barely light out enough to see). Ranger Eric led the way.

“Peter, Dill – are you alright?” he called as they broke through the woods.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Peter said.

Eric got close to Peter, then backed off with a sour look on his face. “Ugh, what’s that smell?”

“I told you you stank, dude,” Dill guffawed.

“Where’s the other kids?” Officer Jenkins snarled.

Dill pointed. “Down in the hole.”

The deputies rushed over and peered in with flashlights. One of them climbed down the rope and disappeared from view.

The paramedics started checking Peter and Dill out, shining little flashlights in their eyes and moving their arms and heads back and forth.

“Cut that out, man,” Dill complained.

“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Peter assured them. “I think you better go help Rory and Greg.”

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 63

“Hey Pete, you know the best thing about this?” Dill prodded him. “We got proof this time. Yeah, I know your grandfather believes us and all, but we never really got in trouble like this before, and then you went and broke into the rangers station… man, we’d’a gone to jail for sure. But they can’t say anything about THAT!” Dill cackled, and pointed out at the lake. “DUDE, WE GOT PROOF!”

As if it had heard them and wanted to take its last chance at revenge, the monster’s body began to slowly sink into the lake. First the giant hole in its chest filled with water…then the legs and arms slowly sank beneath the surface.

“NOOOOO!” both boys screamed at once, pleading with outstretched arms for the creature not to disappear.

It was over within seconds as the tip of the tail slipped under the surface. The monster’s body was entirely gone.

Peter stared out at the lake in a daze. Dill shook his head and muttered, “Why? Why me?”

“Why you? Why ME?! I’m the one who got swallowed alive!”

Dill frowned and scrunched up his nose. “Yeah, and got covered in monster guts.”

Peter looked down at his clothes and saw that he was indeed slimed over with pieces of skin and raw meat, not to mention a layer of milky-looking goo. In that second, his mind flooded with the horror of what he had just been through. The monster’s mouth slamming down around him…the stomach pressing against his face…the smell.

He screamed, jumped to his feet, and tore the top two layers of sweaters off. Then he pulled the top layer of jeans off, too, and cast them aside. He collapsed on the ground and groaned.

Dill looked at him. “You okay, man? You looked like you were freakin’ out there like ol’ Greg.”

“That’s cuz I was,” Peter grumbled.

“Hey, what about Greg and Rory? What do we do about them?”

“We can’t drag them out, and I don’t about you, but I can’t even walk ten feet.”

Behind them, up further on the bank, there was a burst of static. Peter and Dill both turned around quickly. There was Dill’s walkie talkie, lying on the ground. A series of voices crackled over the speaker.

“This is Jacobs, I’m down at the station. Looks like somebody broke in.”

“How bad?”

Dill pointed at the radio in surprise and indignation. “They’re not saying ‘over’!”

“Broke the window in the main office, cracked the lock on the shed…looks like they stole a raft and some scuba equipment, probably some other stuff.”

“Great. Anybody got any idea who did it?”

Peter crept up the bank and pressed the button on the walkie talkie. “Uh…that’d be me.” He let go of the button, then remembered something and pressed it again. “Um, over.”

“Who’s this?” a voice demanded angrily.

“Tell him he’s supposed to say ‘over,’” Dill instructed.

Peter waved his hand for Dill to be quiet. “Uh, this is Peter Normal. The kid from yesterday?”

“Oh, I remember you, all right,” the voice growled. “Where are you?”

“Out by the lake, on the shore. You might want to bring a doctor or something – we found Greg and Rory. They’re okay, they’re just knocked out. Over.”

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 62

Okay, maybe I am going to drown…

As his head slipped beneath the water, small arms and hands grabbed him under the armpits and forced him up to the surface. Dill. Dill had jumped in the lake, wearing his own life preserver, and was forcing Peter towards the shore.

“KICK!” Dill screamed in his ear.

Peter kicked with every ounce of energy he had. A few seconds later, he felt his feet hit the muddy lake bottom. He and Dill trudged the rest of the way and collapsed on the bank.

Then Peter remembered what had just happened and turned back around.

Thirty feet from shore, the monster’s body was floating in the lake. It lolled about on its back, and its arms and legs twitched in the air. But where its belly had once been, there was a giant gaping hole.

“Oh my GOSH you should have seen it,” Dill gasped. “You ever seen a frog blow up its throat so it can croak? Not die, I mean, but krrk-ikkkk, krkk-ikkkk.” Dill did a pretty good imitation of a frog. “Well, the monster’s belly started getting huge – I mean, HUGE – and he stopped chasing me and just stood there. Then he BURPED, really loud, man, and his belly shrank. And he started coming after me again, but he stopped and burped again. And then he tried to burp again, but he didn’t. He just kept snapping his mouth but nothing would come out, and his stomach got bigger, and bigger, and BIGGER, and he started walking around like he was drunk, and then he fell back in the water and BOOM! Monster guts were flying EVERYWHERE! It was like the nastiest piñata you ever saw, dude! And then YOU came out, and I was like, HOLY CRAP, I thought you were dead! How’d you do it?”

“He ate the scuba tank out on the lake. It was in there when he swallowed me…” Peter stopped for a second and trembled at the horrible memory, then resumed his tale. “I turned it on, which made the stomach bigger. Then I stuffed my life preserver in his throat so he couldn’t burp anymore.”

“AWESOME! Dude, that was better than flippin’ JAWS, man! They just blew the shark up, you came OUT of the monster from the INSIDE! Freakin’ WICKED!”

“Yeah,” Peter laughed weakly. “I kind of feel like Jonah.”

Dill stared at Peter. “Who’s that?”

“Jonah? In the Bible? Got swallowed by a whale?”

There was absolutely no sign of recognition on Dill’s face.

“And the whale spit him up after three days?” Peter persisted.

“Dude, you’re thinking of Pinocchio.”

Peter sighed and looked back out at the lake. The sun had begun to come up somewhere in the distance – not over the horizon, yet, but there was enough light in the grayish-pink sky to clearly see the carcass of the monster, which had stopped twitching. It just slowly floated out further into the center of the lake.

Peter almost felt sorry. It was a magnificent animal…nobody had ever seen anything like it alive before, and now it was dead. He had killed it.

Then he remembered that the thing had swallowed him alive, and he didn’t feel bad at all. In fact, he was pretty dang glad.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 61

Peter shone his light up above him. There was a hole at the top of the stomach, though it was clenched tightly together. It looked a lot like the back of Peter’s own throat when he looked at his tonsils in the mirror.

It was slowly getting farther away from him as the stomach expanded again.

The hole was clamped shut, and then all of sudden, it opened to the size of a basketball.

UUUUUUUUURRRRRRPPPPPPPPP.

Peter shook like he was on a roller coaster, and the stomach shrank smaller.

The monster was burping. It was burping out all the air in its stomach.

“On no you DON’T,” Peter yelled, and ripped off his life preserver. The hole was closer to him now, and he stood up shakily. The way the flesh gave way under his feet, it felt like he was standing on a waterbed or on one of those Moon Bounce castles at little kid’s birthday parties. But he was able to keep his balance long enough to cram his life preserver into the hole, forcing it past the flap of skin that kept the hole clamped shut.

Sssssssssssssss went the air from the scuba tank. The whole stomach was inflating again, and the life-preserver-stuffed hole was out of reach overhead within seconds. Peter toppled back down on his butt and watched.

The whole stomach jiggled again, but this time, the hole didn’t open. It was stuffed closed with the life preserver.

And the stomach was getting bigger.

Big as a refrigerator…

Bigger…

Big as a car…

Peter could have filled the place up with water and done laps like in a pool, it was so big. Suddenly the whole place pitched and swayed, and Peter got thrown to the other side of the stomach. The canister rolled over beside him.

They were moving. But it didn’t feel like before; this time, the monster felt like it was staggering around instead of running.

Then it fell.

Peter toppled over and over. The tank clanged against his head, but he didn’t cry out, because he was so amazed at what he heard outside: a giant kersploosh of water.

The monster was in the lake.

The whole stomach was shaking like an earthquake and getting bigger every second. The stomach lining was stretched as tight as a volleyball now, and Peter’s hands and body didn’t even sink down in the flesh anymore. He knew this because he was bouncing back and forth as the monster thrashed and jerked around him.

Suddenly there was a ripping sound and a POP like a giant balloon. Peter’s face suddenly got smacked with slack, goopy skin, and then cold water rushed over him. He screamed, but only bubbles came out of his mouth. He kicked and tore through whatever was around him like he was tearing through stretched-out bubblegum.

His face broke the surface of the lake, and he coughed and gagged for air.

“PETER?!” Dill screamed from the shore. He was only twenty feet away.

Peter kicked hard and strained with his arms. Without his life preserver, the soggy sweaters were weighing him down, pulling him underwater.

I survived being eaten alive…I’m NOT going to drown today.

He forced himself above water and took another gasping breath, but more water filled his mouth than air.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 60

Terror ran through his body like electricity. Peter forced his arms out in front of him. With his nose tucked under his arm, he now had a pocket of air, and he breathed it in greedily. It smelled worse than the rotting fish in the cave, but he breathed it anyway.

The whole jiggly mess around him shook, and the hard object behind him jutted into his back again. The monster was walking.

Peter kicked his legs until he somersaulted into a right-side-up sitting position. It was like trying to turn around inside a sheet of plastic greased with Crisco, but he did it.

His nose was still under his arm. He pushed his arms out, and the chicken-liver stuff gave way. He had a little more room to breathe. Now if only he could see.

That was when he realized the flashlight was still in his hand. He clicked it on, and kind of wished he hadn’t. The thing’s stomach pressed in on him from all directions like an overly tight sleeping bag. It was rather small, considering how big the monster was. And it looked exactly like chicken guts, too, except spongier and a bit pinker, with tons of veins running just under the skin.

Peter wanted to barf, but he couldn’t let himself. He had to figure out how to get out of here. No time for barfing.

If he only had the hatchet, he could have cut his way out. Kill the monster at the same time, too. But the hatchet was sitting harmlessly outside.

Peter thrashed around in the fleshy balloon and realized he had to do something else before he got out: he had to breathe. There was almost no air in here, and he would probably black out if he didn’t figure out something quick.

The hard object stuck in his back again. He turned his head and the flashlight and immediately saw the scuba tank. The monster had swallowed it out in the boat, and now it was in here with Peter, inside the creature’s stomach.

It’s full of air! At least I’ll be able to breathe…

The whole stomach shook, and Peter and the tank jostled around violently. It felt like the monster was running now.

Peter scrambled to grab the knob atop the scuba tank. He dropped his flashlight, but it didn’t matter because his hand found the dial. He turned it quickly round and round.

Ssssssssssssssssssssss.

The welcome sound of hissing air filled his ears and he whooped with joy. Almost immediately, the fleshy walls of the stomach began to pull away from his body. Faster and faster they expanded, until he could reach out in a sweeping circle and not touch anything.

The air tank is blowing the monster’s stomach up, just like a raft!

The jiggling around him came to a halt; the monster must have stopped moving. Peter and the air tank sloshed around in the goop. In the glint of the flashlight, he could see he also shared the space with at least a dozen dead fish, a car license plate, and a bunch of tangled fishing line.

The stomach kept getting bigger and bigger. The veins stood out even better now against the rapidly stretching flesh.

UUUUUURRRRRRRPPPPPP.

Rattling vibrations shook Peter. Air whooshed past him as the stomach shrank by a good two feet.

Uh oh…nononononononono

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 59

Peter looked for another hiding place, but it didn’t matter; the monster burst out of the lake and slapped its ugly feet up on the shore. Peter backed up beside Dill and watched as the creature stood up to its full height. Fifteen feet of grayish black, outlined against the stars in the sky. Peter could see the outline of its two bulging eyes as the creature stared down at them.

Then it opened its mouth and roared. The ground shook beneath Peter, and the inside of his chest vibrated from the deafening sound.

Dill screamed, grabbed the hatchet from the ground, and threw it through the air. Peter prayed that it would smack the monster right between the eyes and kill it dead so they could all go home.

Instead, it hit the monster’s left arm and glanced harmlessly off. It might have nicked the creature’s skin, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. Either way, the monster didn’t take it well: it roared and lunged its head at Dill.

“oh crap,” Dill whispered just before the giant jaws grabbed him. “HELLLP!” he screamed as the monster lifted him high in the air.

“DILL!” Peter shouted. He looked vainly for anything to use as a weapon, but there was nothing on the ground. The hatchet was too close to the creature. As Peter turned around to look behind him, his flashlight rolled against his skin like a wet popsicle. Peter ripped his tucked-in sweaters out of his pants and out dropped the flashlight.

“HANG ON, DILL!”

Too late. With a flick of its head, the monster tossed Dill a good twenty feet through the air. He landed with a thud on the muddy bank, and his screaming stopped as all the air jolted out of him.

“YOU – YOU – ” Peter screamed, trying to think of the worst word he knew, but instead he just ran forward and smacked the monster on the knee with the flashlight. As soon as he did it, he realized just how bad a mistake he had made.

The creature looked down at him and opened its mouth wide. Peter held up his arms and the flashlight, trying to shield his face. Peter knew the tongue was coming – but unlike before, his head was the closest thing to the monster, and it was unprotected. If the tongue hit him there, he would fall asleep for who knew how long, and then it would zap Dill and carry them both back to the cave, and patch up the hole, and no one would ever find out what happened to them –

But the tongue didn’t flash down at Peter. Instead, the monster’s whole head did.

There was a second’s impression of the mouth getting very big, VERY fast, and then great wet flaps of skin slapped all around Peter. Suddenly he was hoisted into the air and turned upside down. Immediately he slid fast and hard into goopy darkness, like he’d gone head first down a waterpark slide.

Nasty wet flesh pressed against him from all sides until he landed in what felt like a cocoon made of chicken liver. He couldn’t tell, because everything around him was completely black. Water sloshed all around him. Something hard smacked against his back and he grunted in pain – but the chicken liver pressed against his face and wouldn’t allow him to breathe.

It was at that moment he realized he had been swallowed alive.

He was going to suffocate to death in the stomach of the monster.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 58

“HURRY, DILL, I’M COMING UP!”

Peter shoved his flashlight down the neckhole of his sweaters and started to climb. He blinked at the pieces of dirt falling in his eyes from Dill scrambling above. His wet clothes seemed even heavier than before. His feet and hands felt carved from ice. He blocked it all out. None of it mattered.

Just get out of the cave.

He was only halfway up the rope when the water erupted and the monster’s front hands slapped up on the mud bank.

Dill had reached the top and was extending one arm into the hole. “CLIMB, PETER, CLIMB!”

The outraged roars beneath Peter inspired him: he climbed that rope faster than any kid in any gym class in the history of the world. As Peter reached the ceiling of the cave, Dill reached down into the hole, grabbed the straps of Peter’s life preserver, and tugged for all he was worth.

WHAP.

There was a familiar burst of pressure against Peter’s rear end, like his mom had just smacked him a good one on the fanny. The monster was trying to sting him again.

“PULL!” Peter screamed.

“I’M PULLING, I’M PULLING!” Dill screamed back.

WHAP. This time the hit came on the back of his knee.

Peter’s hands reached the dirt of the river bank. He was almost there.

And then something big and powerful clamped down on his left foot. It hurt, but it wasn’t excruciating. It felt like a body builder was pressing his ankle hard between rolled-up wet towels.

“IT’S GOT ME!”

“PULLLLLLL!” Dill howled, and he leaned back with all his weight.

Peter kicked his legs like an Olympic swimmer and pulled against the rope. His free foot smacked against wet, yielding flesh, and he kicked even harder. His left shoe started to slide off the foot in the monster’s mouth.

“IT’S WORKING!”

Just as Peter yelled, his foot slipped out of his shoe and he shot the extra few feet up onto solid ground. Dill somersaulted backwards. From out of the hole came the wet smack of something enormous falling into mud.

Peter lay panting on the ground.

I made it.

Then, down inside the cave, there was an awful, awful sound: a splash of water so huge that it sounded like a sumo wrestler had done a belly flop.

“DILL, IT’S COMING UP FROM THE WATER!”

Dill raised his head. “What?!”

Peter struggled to his feet and looked towards the woods. Ten feet away was a thicket of small marsh trees, one of which Dill had used to tie down the rope. The trees were spaced so closely together that it would be impossible to run through them, and they were no good for hiding: the trunks were so scrawny, the monster could probably just bend them to the side or snap them like twigs.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 57

“Get the rope! Get the rope!” Peter screamed.

“Already on it, jeez!” Dill tossed down one end of the rope into the hole. “Are you gonna be able to fit through? You look pretty fat in all those sweaters.”

Dill had a good point. Not that Peter couldn’t fit through the hole, but that he was going to be weighed down by extra pounds of wet cloth. If he took them off, he could climb out of the cave faster. On the other hand, if the monster came back and tried to sting him, he’d need every bit of protection he could get.

Luckily, Peter had tied knots in the rope while Woody had driven them to the park. Without those, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting up to the surface.

“I’ll be fine!” he yelled, then gave the rope a firm yank. It held. Peter just prayed that Dill was better at tying knots than he was at fractions.

He started to climb, but it was hard going – the rope was hard to hold onto with his cold-numbed hands, and he hadn’t realized how heavy his soggy clothes really were. But the knots helped immensely, and sheer terror lent him strength. He was almost to the top when he heard a giant splash of water and a low, throaty roar. Except the sounds came from above him rather than below.

Dill screamed. “PETER, IT’S HERE, IT CAME OUT OF THE LAKE!”

“RUN, DILL, RUN!”

“I CAN’T, IT’S – WATCH OUT!” Dill howled, and jumped feet first down the hole. His muddy tennis shoes smacked right into Peter’s face, and both boys tumbled down into the muck.

“OW!” Peter yelled as he rubbed his nose. “OW, OW, OW!”

“Sorry, man, it was right behind me!”

As if on cue, the starlight from above went black. A throaty roar shook the cave and drops of liquid showered down on the mud. Dill shone his flashlight up at the hole, and the blackness was replaced with a single red eye.

Both boys screamed. The monster roared again and clawed at the hole with one huge webbed foot. But big as the hole was, the monster couldn’t even get its hand through.

The monster gave up trying. Everything went silent aboveground.

“What’s it doing?” Dill whispered.

“I don’t know.”

Dill lowered his flashlight and caught Greg and Rory in its beam. “OH CRAP! Is that them?”

“Yes, shhhh,” Peter hissed, and strained to hear what was going on above them.

Off in the distance there was a gigantic splash of water.

“Oh my gosh – DILL, CLIMB THE ROPE! CLIMB IT NOW!” Peter screamed as he scrambled to his feet.

“What?!”

“IT’S COMING IN HERE!”

“But the hole’s too small. It can’t – oh.” Dill shone the light back behind him, and saw the pool of water glistening in his flashlight beam.

Peter raced for the rope and squatted down. “Quick, step up on my back!”

Dill didn’t need to be told twice. Using Peter’s shoulders as a launching pad and the rope knots as handholds, Dill was able to reach the ceiling within seconds. The only part that gave him trouble was getting past the last couple feet of soil.

In the pool behind Peter, a couple of air bubbles popped on the water’s surface.

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"Peter And The Swamp Monster" - Page 56

“Dill, you got to get out of there. It’s coming back for you. Over.”

“Well, I’m not there anymore, I went chasing after IT to try to find YOU…over.”

“Dill, you didn’t go in the water, did you? Get out!” Peter yelled. “Over!”

“Dude, I like you, you’re my best friend an’ all, but I don’t like you THAT much. I’m on the bank of the lake. Where are you? Over.”

“I’m under the river bank. I think I saw some trees, and there’s a bunch of snake holes in the ground.”

“Dude, you just described half of the entire lake. How’m I supposed to find you?”

Peter looked up at the ceiling and got an idea. “Can you see that? I’m pointing my flashlight up through the snake holes, can you see it?”

“There’s fog on the ground everywhere, dude!”

“That’s the best way to see it! Look for a lit-up bunch of fog!”

“Okay, I’ll…wait, hold on.”

“Dill?”

“Shut up,” Dill hissed.

Peter stayed quiet for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally Dill spoke again over the walkie talkie. “That thing went by in the water…I don’t think it saw me, it’s headed back where I was when you were out in the boat. I’ll look for your light, hold on.”

Peter counted to thirty. Just as he was about to click the button on the walkie talkie…

“I see it! I see it!” Dill yelled.

There was a muffled thumping overhead, and Dill’s voice spoke through one of the snake holes. It sounded like he was talking into a ten foot cardboard tube. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes!” Peter shouted joyfully. “Get me out of here!”

“How?”

“Have you got the backpack?”

“Yeah…?”

“There’s the hatchet, and I brought a rope – dig a hole, tie the rope to something, and I’ll climb out!”

“Are Greg and that other kid down there?”

“Yeah, but they’re asleep! Hurry, Dill, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Soon there was a dull thwacking sound overhead, and little pieces of dirt began to fall through the snake holes. In less than a minute, larger chunks started to fall. Peter kept looking nervously back at the pool of water, and wondered what he would do if the monster surfaced.

“Hurry it up, man!” he yelled.

“If you wanna come out here and help me dig,” Dill panted, “come on and do it.”

“Watch out for the monster!”

“I’m watchin’, I’m watchin’.”

Two minutes later, a block of soil as big as a cement brick splashed into the mud, followed by an avalanche of smaller pieces. The gap in the soil looked as big as a manhole now. Judging from its sides, the ground must have been at least two feet thick between the cave and the outside world.

A head peered down through the hole in the ceiling, a buzzcut silhouette of black against the starry sky.

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