R. Stine: The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

We moved to Florida during Christmas vacation. A week later, I heard the frightening howls in the swamp for the first time.

Night after night, the howls made me sit up in bed. I would hold my breath and wrap my arms around myself to keep from shivering.

I would stare out my bedroom window at the chalk-colored full moon. And I would listen.

What kind of creature makes such a cry? I would ask myself.

And how close is it? Why does it sound as if it's right outside my window?

The wails rose and fell like police car sirens. They weren't sad or mournful. They were menacing.

Angry.

They sounded to me like a warning. Stay out of the swamp. You do not belong here.

When my family first moved to Florida, to our new house at the edge of the swamp, I couldn't wait to explore. I stood in the back yard with the binoculars my dad had given me for my twelfth birthday and gazed toward the swamp.

Trees with slender, white trunks tilted over each other. Their flat, broad leaves appeared to form a roof, covering the swamp floor in blue shadow.

Behind me, the deer paced uneasily in their wire-mesh pen. I could hear them pawing the soft, sandy ground, rubbing their antlers against the walls of their pen.

Lowering my binoculars, I turned to look at them. The deer were the reason we had moved to Florida.

You see, my dad, Michael F. Tucker, is a scientist. He works for the University of Vermont in Burlington, which, believe me, is a long way from the Florida swamps!

Dad got these six deer from some country in South America. They're called swamp deer. They're not like regular deer. I mean, they don't look like Bambi. For one thing, their fur is very red, not brown. And their hooves are really big and kind of webbed. For walking on wet, swampy ground, I guess.

Dad wants to see if these South American swamp deer can survive in Florida. He plans to put little radio transmitters on them, and set them free in the swamp. Then he'll study how they get along.

When he told us back in Burlington that we were moving to Florida because of the deer, we all totally freaked. We didn't want to move.

My sister, Emily, cried for days. She's sixteen, and she didn't want to miss her senior year in high school. I didn't want to leave my friends, either.

But Dad quickly got Mom on his side. Mom is a scientist, too. She and Dad work together on a lot of projects. So, of course, she agreed with him.

And the two of them tried to persuade Emily and me that this was the chance of a lifetime, that it was going to be really exciting. An adventure we'd never forget.

So here we were, living in a little white house in a neighborhood of four or five other little white houses. We had six weird-looking red deer penned up behind the house. The hot Florida sun was beaming down. And an endless swamp stretched beyond our flat, grassy back yard.

I turned away from the deer and raised the binoculars to my face. "Oh," I cried out as two dark eyes seemed to be staring back at me.

I pulled the binoculars away and squinted toward the swamp. In the near distance I saw a large white bird on two long, spindly legs.

"It's a crane," Emily said. I hadn't realized Emily had stepped up beside me. She was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and short red denim shorts. My sister is tall and thin and very blonde. She looks a lot like a crane.

The bird turned and began high-stepping toward the swamp.

"Let's follow it," I said.

Emily made her pouting face, an expression we'd all seen a lot of since moving down here. "No way. It's too hot."

"Aw, come on." I tugged her skinny arm. "Let's do some exploring, check out the swamp."

She shook her head, her white-blonde ponytail swinging behind her. "I really don't want to, Grady." She adjusted her sunglasses on her nose. "I'm kind of waiting for the mail."

Since we're so far from the nearest post office, we only get mail two times a week. Emily had been spending most of her time waiting for the mail.

"Waiting for a love letter from Martin?" I asked with a grin. She hated when I teased her about Martin, her boyfriend back in Burlington. So I teased her as often as I could.

"Maybe," she said. She reached out with both hands and messed up my hair. She knows I hate to have my hair messed up.

"Please?" I pleaded. "Come on, Emily. Just a short walk. Very short."

"Emily, take a short walk with Grady," Dad's voice broke in. We turned to see him inside the deer pen. He had a clipboard in one hand and was going from deer to deer, taking notes. "Go ahead," he urged my sister. "You're not doing anything else."

"But, Dad — " Emily could whine with the best of them when she wanted.

"Go ahead, Em," Dad insisted. "It will be interesting. More interesting than standing around in the heat arguing with him."

Emily pushed the sunglasses up again. They kept slipping down her nose. "Well…"

"Great!" I cried. I was really excited. I'd never been in a real swamp before. "Let's go!" I grabbed my sister's hand and pulled.

Emily reluctantly followed, a fretful expression on her face. "I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered.

My shadow slanting behind me, I hurried toward the low, tilting trees. "Emily, what could go wrong?" I asked.

It was hot and wet under the trees. The air felt sticky against my face. The broad palm leaves were so low, I could almost reach up and touch them. They nearly blocked out the sun, but shafts of yellow light broke through, beaming down on the swamp floor like spotlights.

Scratchy weeds and fern leaves brushed against my bare legs. I wished I'd worn jeans instead of shorts. I kept close to my sister as we made our way along a narrow, winding trail. The binoculars, strapped around my neck, began to feel heavy against my chest. I should've left them at home, I realized.

"It's so noisy here," Emily complained, stepping over a decaying log.

She was right. The most surprising thing about the swamp was all the sounds.

A bird trilled from somewhere above. Another bird replied with a shrill whistle. Insects chittered loudly all around us. I heard a steady tap-tap-tap, like someone hammering on wood. A woodpecker? Palm leaves crackled as they swayed. Slender tree trunks creaked. My sandals made thup thup sounds, sinking into the marshy ground as I walked.

"Hey, look," Emily said, pointing. She pulled off her dark glasses to see better.

We had come to a small, oval-shaped pond. The water was dark green, half-hidden in shade. Floating on top were white water lilies, bending gracefully over flat, green lily pads.

"Pretty," Emily said, brushing a bug off her shoulder. "I'm going to come back here with my camera and take pictures of this pond. Look at the great light."

I followed her gaze. The near end of the pond was darkened by long shadows. But light slanted down through the trees at the other end, forming what looked like a bright curtain that spilled into the still pond water.

"It is kind of cool," I admitted. I wasn't really into ponds. I was more interested in wildlife.

I let Emily admire the pond and the water lilies a little longer. Then I headed around the pond and deeper into the swamp.

My sandals slapped over the wet ground. Up ahead, a swarm of tiny gnats, thousands of them, danced silently in a shaft of sunlight.

"Yuck," Emily muttered. "I hate gnats. It makes me itchy just to look at them." She scratched her arms.

We turned away — and both saw something scamper behind a fallen, moss-covered log.

"Hey — what was that?" Emily cried, grabbing my elbow.

"An alligator!" I shouted. "A hungry alligator!"

She uttered a short, frightened cry.