Edward Lee - Monster Lake

Only it wasn’t a duck, was it?

Bigger…

The big black eyes blinked again. They were so big; they were as big as basketballs!

The crunching sound echoed through the woods. The giant webbed feet squashed the bushes flat, and as the thing moved forward, some of the trees actually fell down.

They’re getting bigger, the words continued to echo through her head.

It was a toad, crawling up from the woods across the backyard in the moonlight—

A toad as big as a car!

Its long, curved, thin-lipped mouth snapped open, showing teeth the size of kitchen knives…

Bigger, bigger, bigger, the words raced round her mind as the giant, hideous creature hopped toward the house, heading straight for Terri’s bedroom window—

They’re getting bigger and bigger, Terri, and they’re coming for you…

««—»»

“Terri?” A hand gently nudged her. The voice, at first, seemed far off, like in a dream. “Terri, honey?”

Terri awoke with a chill buzzing up her spine; she almost screamed. Her eyes snapped open as she shivered. She was lying on the couch in the family room, the TV screen full of white static, and right now, two concerned faces peered down at her: her mother and Uncle Chuck.

“Honey, are you all right?” her mother asked. “My goodness! You’re shivering!”

Gradually, Terri remembered. She’d come back from Patricia’s and then had gone into the family room and turned on the TV to watch The Simpsons, and then…

I must’ve fallen asleep, she realized. I fell asleep…and dreamed…

“Terri, honey, are you sick?” her mother asked.

Uncle Chuck was down on one knee, he put his palm on her forehead. “She doesn’t have a fever,” he said, “but she looks awfully pale.”

Terri rubbed her eyes and sat up on the couch. “I—I’m all right,” she said sleepily. “I just had a bad dream. I dreamed there was a toad coming up the backyard, but the toad had teeth, and it was as big as a car…”

Her mother and Uncle Chuck looked worriedly at each other, in silence. Then Chuck said quickly, “Well, don’t you worry about that, because everybody has bad dreams sometimes, and dreams aren’t real. Dreams can never hurt you.”

“It’s late, honey,” her mother added. “You better get to bed now.”

“Up we go,” Uncle Chuck said, and then he picked Terri up and carried her to her room, setting her down on her bed.

“What time is it, Uncle Chuck?” Terri asked, still groggily rubbing her eyes.

“Real late. Past midnight. Your mother and I lost track of time while we were working down at—”

“Down at the boathouse,” Terri finished for him.

“Er, well, yes,” her uncle said very quickly. “Like I told you, your mother has a very important project she’s working on for her job, and I’m helping her.”

Terri nodded, almost frowning. “Can I go to the library with Patricia tomorrow?” she asked.

“Why, sure, honey. But right now, you better get to sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Then Uncle Chuck left her bedroom and closed the door.

Terri put on her pajamas and got into bed; she was still very tired, but when she reached to turn off the light, her hand hesitated in the air.

She didn’t want to turn it off.

Because as tired as she was, and as much as she’d like to go back to sleep, there was one thing that bothered her.

If I go back to sleep, she considered, maybe I’ll have that dream again.

It was definitely the scariest dream she’d ever had: the giant monster-toad, as big as their station wagon, and with teeth the size of kitchen knives! And when she thought about it just then, she began to shiver again. But then she calmed herself, and thought: Don’t be a baby, Terri. Toads never get that big!

Uncle Chuck was right: everybody had bad dreams sometimes, and dreams could never hurt you because they weren’t real. They were just thoughts and fears inside your head, and they always went away. Dreams were nothing to worry about.

But then, she knew, there were some other things she had to worry about. Like the way Mom and Uncle Chuck looked at each other when I told them I dreamed about a huge toad with teeth. Plus, the strange words and the boathouse and the glass tanks, the locked trapdoor, and the weird bottles full of that creepy, ugly-looking gunk.

But she tried not to think about any of that now. She got up her courage, turned off her light, and then lay back in bed to go to sleep.

But…she couldn’t …

Nightsounds flowed in through her open window, a great, loud throbbing sound from all the crickets and peepers and tree frogs that lived in the woods behind the house. The moonlight flowed in too, and cast a large square of eerie faint-white light on the floor. Terri irritably tossed and turned in the covers. The more she tried to go back to sleep, the more awake she felt.

Minutes ticked by but they seemed like hours. Eventually, though, Terri began to nod off and slowly drift back to sleep, until—

Ka-CRACK!

She jerked up in bed. What was that! she wondered in brand-new fear. She’d heard a loud cracking sound coming from the open window. She wanted to get up and look out the window, but something kept her from doing so, and she knew what it was: fear. She didn’t dare look out the window because if she did she was afraid she’d see all those big, toothed toads in the yard like she had the other night. But there was one thing she was certain of: the loud cracking sound she’d heard had come from deep in the woods behind the house…

From the lake, she realized with a chill.

And one other thing she noticed. The room was completely silent now. The steady, throbbing nightsounds had stopped the instant she’d heard the cracking, almost as if all those crickets and peepers had gotten scared from the noise and fell silent.

And then—

Ka-CRACK! she heard again. And:

SPLASH!

Something had fallen into the lake, something, she knew, that was very, very big …

Don’t be stupid, Terri, she kept telling herself. It was nothing to be afraid of. It was probably just a tree branch breaking off and falling in the water.

Yeah, she thought sleepily, her eyes growing heavy. Just a tree branch…falling…in the water…

And a moment later, Terri fell fast asleep.

And because she was asleep now, she never heard the next sound that sailed out of the woods:

A scream…

««—»»

An hour earlier, Terri wasn’t the only one who was having trouble falling asleep. Patricia, too, lay wide awake in her bed, tossing and turning. So many things were on her mind right now, things that bothered her, things that just weren’t right.

The big toad that had jumped out at her this morning, causing her to fall and cut her knee. And that big slimy-black salamander she and Terri had seen on the boathouse pier.

With fangs, she remembered. The toad and the salamander both had fangs…

Patricia wanted to tell her parents but she knew she couldn’t. Her parents would never believe her; they’d think she was making it all up. And Patricia knew there was only one way to prove to her parents that it was true…

I’ll have to go back to the boathouse, she thought. I’ll have to catch one of the toads or salamanders and show it to them. Then they’ll have to believe me.

And she knew she’d have to go alone; Terri would never go back to the boathouse herself—she could get into too much trouble. I’ll have to go by myself, Patricia realized. I’ll have to go alone…