14 - The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

  THE WEREWOLF

  OF FEVER SWAMP

  Goosebumps - 14

  R.L. Stine

  (An Undead Scan v1.5)

  1

  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.

  2

  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.

  I laughed. “What’s your problem, Em? It was just some kind of lizard.”

  She squeezed my arm hard, trying to make me flinch. “You’re a creep, Grady,” she muttered. She scratched her arms some more. “It’s too itchy in this swamp,” she complained. “Let’s head back.”

  “Just a little bit farther,” I pleaded.

  “No. Come on. I really want to get back.” She tried to pull me, but I backed out of her grasp. “Grady—”

  I turned and started walking away from her, deeper into the swamp. I heard the tap-tap-tap again, directly overhead. The low palm leaves scraped against each other, shifting in a soft, wet breeze. The shrill cluttering of the insects grew louder.

  “I’m going home and leaving you here,” Emily threatened.

  I ignored her and kept walking. I knew she was bluffing.

  My sandals crackled over dried, brown palm leaves. Without turning around, I could hear Emily a few steps behind me.

  Another little lizard scampered across the path, just in front of my sandals. It looked like a dark arrow, shooting into the underbrush.

  The ground suddenly sloped upward. We found ourselves climbing a low hill into bright sunlight. A clearing of some sort.

  Beads of sweat ran down my cheeks. The air was so wet, I felt as if I were swimming.

  At the top of the hill, we stopped to look around. “Hey—another pond!” I cried, running over fat, yellow swamp grass, hurrying up to the water’s edge.

  But this pond looked different.

  The dark green water wasn’t flat and smooth. Leaning over it, I could see that it was murky and thick, like split-pea soup. It made disgusting gurgling and plopping sounds as it churned.

  I leaned down closer to get a better look.

  “It’s quicksand!” I heard Emily cry in horror.

  And then two hands shoved me hard from behind.

  3

  As I started to fall into the bubbling green stew, the same hands grabbed my waist and pulled me back.

  Emily giggled. “Gotcha!” she cried, holding on to me, keeping me from turning around and slugging her.

  “Hey—let go!” I cried angrily. “You almost pushed me into quicksand! That’s not funny!”

  She laughed some more, then let me go. “It isn’t quicksand, dork,” she muttered. “It’s a bog.”

  “Huh?” I turned to stare into the gloppy green water.

  “It’s a bog. A peat bog,” she repeated impatiently. “Don’t you know anything?”

  “What’s a peat bog?” I asked, ignoring her insults. Emily the Know-It-All. She’s always bragging about how she knows everything and I’m a stupid clod. But she gets B’s in school, and I get A’s. So who’s the smart one?

  “We learned about this last year when we studied the wetlands and rain forests,” she replied smugly. “The pond is thick because it has peat moss growing in it. The moss grows and grows. It absorbs twenty-five times its own weight in water.”

  “It’s gross-looking,” I said.

  “Why don’t you drink some and see how it tastes,” she urged.

  She tried to push me again, but I ducked and skirted away. “I’m not thirsty,” I muttered. I realize it wasn’t too clever, but it was the best reply I could think of.

  “Let’s get going,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead with her hand. “I’m really hot.”

  “Yeah. Okay,” I reluctantly agreed. “This was a pretty neat walk.”

  We turned away from the peat bog and started back down the hill. “Hey, look!” I cried, pointing to two black shadows floating high above us under a white cloud.

  “Falcons,” Emily said, shielding her eyes with one hand as she gazed up. “I think they’re falcons. It’s hard to see. They sure are big.”

  We watched them soar out of sight. Then we continued down the hill, making our way carefully on the damp, sandy ground.

  At the bottom of the hill, back under the deep shade of the trees, we stopped to catch our breath.

  I was really sweating now. The back of my neck felt hot and itchy. I rubbed it with one hand, but it didn’t seem to help.

  The breeze had stopped. The air felt heavy. Nothing moved.

  Loud cawing sounds made me glance up. Two enormous blackbirds peered down at us from a low branch of a cypress tree. They cawed again, as if telling us to go away.

  “This way,” Emily said with a sigh.

  I followed her, feeling prickly and itchy all over. “I wish we had a swimming pool at our new house,” I said. “I’d jump right in with my clothes on!”

  We walked for several minutes. The trees grew thicker. The light grew dimmer. The path ended. We had to push our way through tall, leafy ferns.

  “I—I don’t think we’ve been here before,” I stammered. “I don’t think this is the right way.”

  We stared at each other, watching each other’s face fill with fright.

  We both realized we were lost. Completely lost.

  4

  “I don’t believe this!” Emily shrieked.

  Her loud shout made the two blackbirds flutter off their tree limb. They soared away, cawing angrily.

  “What am I doing here?” she cried. Emily is not good in emergencies. When she got a flat tire during one of her first driving lessons back home in Burlington, she jumped out of the car and ran away!

  So I didn’t exactly expect her to be calm and cool now. Since we were totally lost in the middle of a dark, hot swamp, I expected her to panic. And she did.

  I’m the calm one in the family. I take after Dad. Cool and scientific. “Let’s just figure out the direction of the sun,” I said, ignoring the fluttering in my chest.

  “What sun?” Emily cried, throwing her hands up.

  It was really dark. The palm trees with their wide leaves formed a pretty solid roof above us.

  “Well, we could check out some moss,” I suggested. The fluttering in my chest was growing stronger. “Isn’t moss supposed to grow on the north side of trees?”

  “East side, I think,” Emily muttered. “Or is it the west?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the north,” I insisted, gazing around.

  “Pretty sure? What good is pretty sure?” Emily cried shrilly.

  “Forget the moss,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m not even sure what moss looks like.”

  We stared at each other for a long time.

  “Didn’t you used to carry a compass with you wherever you went?” Emily asked, sounding a little shaky.

  “Yeah. When I was four,” I replied.

  “I can’t believe we were so stupid,” Emily wailed. “We should have worn one of the radio transmitters. You know. For the deer. Then Dad could track us down.”

  “I should have worn jeans,” I muttered, noticing some tiny red bumps along my calf. Poison ivy? Some kind of rash?

  “What should we do?” Emily asked impatiently, wiping sweat off her forehead with her hand.

  “Go back up the hill, I guess,” I told her. “There were no trees there. It was sunny. Once we see where the sun is, we can figure out the direction to get back.”

  “But which way is the hill?” Emily demanded.

  I spun around. Was it behind us? To our right? A cold chill ran down my back as I realized I wasn’t sure.

  I shrugged. “We’re really lost,” I murmured with a sigh.

  “Let’s go this way,” Emily said, starting to walk away. “I just have a feeling this is the way. If we come to that bog, we’ll know we’re going right.”

  “And if we don’t?” I demanded.

  “We’ll come to something else, maybe,” she replied.

  Brilliant.

  But I d
idn’t see any good in arguing with her. So I followed.

  We walked in silence, the shrill ringing of the insects on all sides, the calls of birds startling us from above. After a short while, we pushed our way through a clump of tall, stiff reeds.

  “Have we been here before?” Emily asked.

  I couldn’t remember. I pushed a reed away to step through and realized it had left something sticky on my hand. “Yuck!”

  “Hey, look!” Emily’s excited cry made me glance up from the sticky green gunk that clung to my hand.

  The bog! It was right in front of us. The same bog we had stopped at before.

  “Yay!” Emily cried. “I knew I was right. I just had a feeling.”

  The sight of the gurgling green pond cheered us both up. Once past it, we began to run. We knew we were on the right path, nearly home.

  “Way to go!” I cried happily, running past my sister. “Way to go!”

  I was feeling really good again.

  Then something reached up, grabbed my ankle, and pulled me down to the swampy ground.

  5

  I hit the ground hard, landing on my elbows and knees.

  My heart leapt into my mouth.

  I tasted blood.

  “Get up! Get up!” Emily was screaming.

  “It—it’s got me!” I cried in a tight, trembling voice.

  The fluttering in my chest had become a pounding. Again, I tasted blood.

  I raised my eyes to see Emily laughing.

  Laughing?

  “It’s just a tree root,” she said, pointing.

  I followed the direction of her finger—and instantly realized I hadn’t been pulled down. I had tripped over one of the many upraised tree roots that arched over the ground.

  I stared at the bonelike root. It was bent in the middle and looked like a skinny, white leg.

  But what was the blood I tasted?

  I felt my aching lip. I had bitten it when I fell.

  With a loud groan, I pulled myself to my feet. My knees ached. My lip throbbed. Blood trickled down my chin.