The Creature from Club Lagoona Read online

  I sat up slowly. My swimsuit was still soaked. Sand stuck to my face and body.

  A nearby bush full of red flowers shook violently.

  I scrambled to my feet, ready to run.

  “Is that you, Tad?” a voice called from the bush.

  Neal!

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Are you okay?” I asked. I picked my way through the tangled roots and vines toward the bush. Shells crunched under my feet.

  Neal crawled out slowly. “Yeah, I’m fine. But what happened? Where are we?”

  I glanced around. Palm trees and tropical plants surrounded us. Above us was blue sky. “It looks like a jungle,” I reported.

  Neal rubbed his head. “We were swimming in the bottom of the Atlantis pool, by the drain,” he remembered. “Then something grabbed us, and we were pulled through some sort of tube. I thought I was drowning!”

  I nodded. “Me too. But how did we end up here?”

  Neal shook his head. “More important, where is here?”

  “Only one way to find out,” I figured. We decided to explore. Tall bushes, spiky plants, and gnarled tree roots surrounded us.

  Thwack! “Ouch!” I yelped. A thick, heavy leaf whacked me in the face.

  “Yikes!” Neal cried. He stumbled over a low vine.

  I found a stick and tried to beat a path through the thick vegetation. Neal followed. Sweat beaded up on my forehead.

  Tough work!

  After a while Neal took a turn beating back the plants.

  “Shh!” I grabbed his arm to stop him.

  “What?” Neal whispered.

  We stood dead still and listened.

  “Voices,” I murmured. I pointed in the direction they seemed to be coming from. We crept on our hands and knees through the thick underbrush.

  I peered through the bushes into a small clearing. I could see bright colors: purple and orange, red and lime green. Were they flowers? Birds?

  No! They were bathing suits! My parents’ bright, ugly bathing suits!

  I leapt up. “Mom! Dad!” I screamed.

  They turned around as I pushed through the bushes. But my parents weren’t alone! Everyone who vanished from the pool stood in the clearing. Polly, Mark and his family, the two kids in scuba gear. Even the diver from the first day.

  “Neal!” a man called.

  Neal followed close on my heels. “Dad! Mom!” he cried as we stumbled out of the thick undergrowth.

  After we all hugged one another, everyone started chattering at once.

  “The creature!” Polly’s high voice rose above the rest. “In the deep end! It’s horrible. It pulled us down the drain!”

  “Shh.” Mom squeezed Polly tight. “It’s over now. It’s gone. We’re all here. We’re together and safe.”

  We were together, all right. But I wasn’t so sure about the safe part.

  “We’ve got to find a way out of here,” I declared.

  “We searched around this area for one,” Dad told me. “But we haven’t had any luck yet.”

  “Well, let’s search some more,” I suggested.

  Dad agreed. He nodded. “Everyone, stay together,” he called.

  I gripped my stick. Dad and I led the way.

  Whack! I sliced at the thick undergrowth. We moved through the jungle slowly in a long line.

  Whack! We trudged silently along. The jungle seemed to stretch on forever.

  Thunk! I hit something. Something big and hard. I stopped. Neal banged into me from behind.

  “What was that?” Dad shouted.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. The thick plants and vines completely hid whatever it was I smacked. I prodded it with my stick. “There’s something solid.”

  I reached out my hand and felt through the plants. “It feels like a wall,” I told the others. “A straight glass wall.”

  They gathered around me.

  “Maybe it’s a house!” Polly cried. “Maybe someone lives here who can help us.”

  We tried to pry the plants apart. “It’s cold and smooth,” Neal’s mom commented. “I think it’s glass.”

  “It’s glass all right,” Dad said, rubbing his hand along it.

  I leaned into the glass and tried to look through it. All I could see was blue on the other side.

  “Something’s moving in there!” Mom warned.

  A bright blue and yellow fish swam past us.

  “Is it a gigantic fish tank?” Neal asked.

  “Maybe.” Mom sounded very uncertain.

  I looked up. Way, way above my head I could see the top of the wall—and the water line. Above that, I saw blue sky.

  Another fish darted by.

  A terrible suspicion filled my head. One I couldn’t shake.

  I thought back to the dinner we had at Club Lagoona. That night we also watched fish swimming by. It made me feel as if we were the ones in the tank.

  Could the same thing be happening now?

  “I think we should keep exploring,” Dad recommended. He sounded nervous. “That glass wall is very, very high, and I don’t think we’ll find any help on the other side.”

  “Yes. Let’s continue,” Neal’s dad agreed. He sounded nervous too.

  We turned away from the mysterious glass wall and trudged through the jungle again. No one spoke.

  The only sound was the whack, thwack, thwack of my stick as it hit the bushes.

  Ka-thunk! I stopped. “I’ve hit another wall,” I shouted to the others.

  “What on earth?” Mom murmured.

  “Are we trapped inside something?” Neal’s mom asked. Fear made her voice tremble.

  We stared at one another. No one had any answers.

  We continued on. And it happened again.

  We hit another wall. And this one wasn’t covered by plants and vegetation. We could see it clearly. And we could see what was on the other side.

  Dark blue water.

  “It’s just like the other two,” Mark’s dad remarked. “Glass.”

  “Yeah,” Polly added. “And just as high.” I could tell she was about to cry.

  “We’re underwater,” Neal whispered.

  I realized what was going on. I had no doubt about it now.

  “I think we’re stuck inside a terrarium,” I told the others. “Kind of like the Fishbowl Restaurant at Club Lagoona. We’re in a giant terrarium in the middle of the ocean.”

  “But how? Why?” Everyone fired questions at me.

  My dad held up his hands. “I came to the same conclusion as Tad. There are four glass walls surrounding us. Keeping us in here,” he said. “And the question isn’t how we got here. The question is—”

  “How are we ever going to get out!” Mom finished for him.

  “I guess we all just have to keep looking,” I suggested.

  I gazed at the faces surrounding me. Everyone wore terrified expressions. But they nodded.

  I squinted my eyes and peered through the glass. It was deep blue. Way, way above my head I could make out what must be the waterline. The terrarium was only partly submerged in the water. Even if it was a long way up.

  I opened my mouth to tell the others—when something appeared on the other side of the glass.

  Something huge.

  Something round.

  Something hideous.

  An enormous eyeball.

  And it was staring right at me!

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  “Aaaaaaahhh!” I shrieked. I leapt backward and banged into Neal. He clutched my elbow and gasped in fear. Everyone stumbled away from the wall.

  “It’s the creature,” I whispered hoarsely.

  The eyeball was a sickly yellow color. It was bigger than my dad! The creature was so huge, only a small part of its body was visible.

  But what we could see was terrifying!

  The creature was green and scaly, and seemed to be covered with slime. Below the eye was the creature’s huge sucking mouth. It pulsed open and shut, open and shut. When it opened, rows of needlelik
e teeth glittered.

  I shuddered.

  Suddenly the creature’s mouth opened wide. A long green tentacle shot straight out!

  Smack! It slapped against the glass with a loud thud and latched on.

  We all watched frozen in fear as hundreds of suckers on the tentacle fastened to the glass.

  The creature’s tentacle-tongue crept up the glass wall!

  “It’s trying to get in!” someone shouted.

  “Run for it!” Neal screamed.

  I stared at the gigantic, gross tongue as it inched its way up the smooth glass.

  Sluurp! Sluurp! Sluurp! Slurrp!

  “It’s at the top!” Polly shrieked. “It’s getting in!”

  “Run!” Dad hollered. Everyone scattered, racing away from the glass wall and the monster on the other side.

  But I couldn’t move. All I could do was stand and stare as the tentacle-tongue waved in the air over my head.

  The suckers squeezed open and shut, trying to latch on to something.

  The tentacle extended farther. It lashed through the air blindly.

  A terrible smell filled my nostrils. Like brussels sprouts mashed up in dog food. Curtains of green slime dripped from the tentacle and showered over me.

  “Aaaahh!” I shrieked. The green slime oozed over my bare arms.

  Then something wrapped around my wrists.

  I fought back, desperate to shake it off.

  “Stop, Tad! It’s me!”

  I turned. The tentacle didn’t have me. It was Dad, trying to drag me out of the creature’s path.

  I lost my footing and fell into a ditch. Dad fell in on top of me.

  I lay under him, listening to the horrible slurping. I tried not to breathe in the sickening smell.

  Slime dripped onto us as the tentacle-tongue passed over our hiding place. Luckily we were jammed deep into the ditch and the tentacle couldn’t get a grip. It kept moving.

  I heard shrieks and shouts. Dad popped his head up, and I peered out from under him.

  The tentacle lashed back and forth wildly. Then it wrapped itself around Mark, his mom, and his dad. It lifted them off the ground. We heard their terrified screams as the tentacle hoisted them high in the air!

  Everyone raced out of their hiding places. We had to help them!

  I picked up a stone and aimed at the tentacle. It missed. We all tossed rocks and stones. I tried again and hit one of the suckers.

  But it seemed only to infuriate the creature. It lashed more violently, whipping Mark and his parents around above us.

  “It’s taking them!” Mom screamed.

  We all watched helplessly as Mark and his family were yanked over the top of the glass wall. We peered horrified through the glass as they were dragged into the water, and down through it. Then they vanished as the creature sank out of view.

  “Noooooo!” Polly screamed.

  I clutched my stomach. I felt as if I were going to faint.

  But the worst was yet to come.

  Crruncch! Crrunccch! Crunnnccch!

  We stared at one another. We all knew what the sickening sound meant.

  “It’s eating them!” Polly shrieked. “The creature is eating them all!”

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  Polly couldn’t stop screaming. “It’s eating them! And we’re next!”

  Mom tried to calm her down. It wasn’t working.

  I shook all over. My whole body felt numb. It was as if my brain couldn’t grasp what my eyes had just seen.

  “We’re not safe here,” Dad determined. “We’re too close to the side of whatever kind of tank we’re in.”

  “He’s right,” Neal’s dad said. “We need to get away from these walls. We should head to the middle of the tank.”

  We walked quickly for quite a while. No one spoke a word. We were all too freaked out to talk. The only sounds were the leaves and plants softly squashing under our feet.

  “This must be near the center,” I announced finally.

  “Right,” Dad agreed. “Everyone stay together here in this clearing.” He looked at Neal’s dad. “We’ll go find some food. That way, we’ll be able to stay here in the middle for a while. The rest of you, don’t move. We’ll be right back.”

  We watched the two dads disappear into the bushes.

  “We should be searching for a way out!” I complained. Soon, the dads came back with some fruit. It looked like tiny pineapples.

  I rolled my eyes. How could anyone think about eating at a time like this?

  I kicked at the dirt in frustration. I felt more than ever that we couldn’t stop now. We had to find a way to escape.

  I glanced at the group. Everyone sat in a circle, dividing the fruit. No one paid any attention to me. This was my chance.

  I slipped away.

  I followed our path back to where the creature had snatched Mark and his family. I decided to start there and go right around the wall. Maybe I could find a ladder—or some other way out.

  My heart pounded faster as I approached the spot where the creature had been. I didn’t want it to find me, so I dropped to my knees and began to crawl through the bushes.

  I found the glass and decided to go to the right. I scanned the surface of the glass. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. An opening. A door. Anything that wasn’t just flat, smooth glass.

  I crawled slowly, feeling every bit I could reach. I peered up along the wall, straining to see what was above me.

  Every now and then a fish swam past. I tried not to freak out when I saw something.

  I knew the creature could appear at any time. I knew it could latch on to the glass and heave its huge tentacle-tongue right over the side.

  But I had to go on. It was up to me.

  After about twenty minutes, I’d turned two corners. I realized there was probably only one more wall to explore.

  I was beginning to doubt that there was an exit. Maybe we’d just been thrown into the tank by the creature. Maybe it was storing us there until it was hungry. I thought of lobsters I’d seen in restaurants, swimming in tanks, waiting for a hungry diner to pick them out and eat them.

  Now we were the lobsters!

  I paused and glanced around. I realized I was nearly back where I’d started.

  I knew the others would have missed me by now. But I had to go on. Everyone’s life depended on it.

  As I turned the last corner, I spotted a huge green sea turtle. It was swimming up to the wall, butting its nose softly on it.

  I watched it swim around, as if it were trying to get in.

  It went way up the wall. I could see its yellow undershell as it paddled up.

  It kept butting its pointed snout on something.

  I squinted hard.

  High up the glass wall—there was a huge hose connected to the tank. Where the tank met the hose I could just make out—an opening!

  I found an old dead palm tree and dragged it to the wall. I leaned it against the glass. It reached the hole!

  I shinnied up slowly. As I got closer, I could see that on the other side of the glass the hole connected to a long black tube. The tube was so long that it twisted around the corner of the tank and out of sight.

  Could it lead to the drain in the Atlantis pool?

  My heart started pounding again. But this time it was with hope, not fear.

  When I’d nearly reached the top, the sea turtle swam away quickly. It ducked under the tube and vanished around the corner.

  I froze. Something must have frightened it away.

  I was almost too afraid to look. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a shimmering object moving toward me.

  “On the count of three,” I ordered myself.

  The thing kept coming my way.

  “One. Two. Three!” I shouted. I whipped my head around.

  And stared into the face of a big fat eel!

  “Ha!” I was so relieved it wasn’t the creature that I laughed out loud. I felt the tree tip.

  “Whoa!” I
clutched the tree, steadying myself.

  I was never so glad to see an eel in my life!

  I hoisted myself up to the hole. It was the entrance to a tunnel! It had to be the one that Neal and I had hurtled through after we were sucked down the drain. It made sense, because I was nearly back at the spot where we’d all found one another.

  Carefully, I pulled myself into the tunnel. I had to find out if I was right.

  Maybe I had found the way out!

  I crawled forward in the dark, cramped space. I knew I was surrounded by deep water on both sides. I tried not to let that thought get to me.

  I wanted to turn back. I couldn’t see a thing. I started to sweat and feel trapped in the dark tunnel.

  I stopped crawling.

  I took a few deep breaths, trying to control the panic building up inside of me.

  Then I saw it. A tiny point of bluish light!

  There was definitely a light up ahead. It had to be the end of the tunnel.

  I began crawling again, faster now. I wasn’t going to turn back. Wherever this tunnel led, I was nearly there.

  I stopped to wipe the sweat off my forehead. It dripped into my eyes and burned.

  Then I heard a noise. I listened hard.

  It sounded like the whirring noise in the bottom of the Atlantis pool! But the whirring was drowned out by another sound. A low rumbling.

  What was it?

  The rumbling grew louder and louder.

  I glanced back. Nothing but darkness. I couldn’t even see the end where I’d started.

  I faced forward again. Then I saw it. Through the long, dark tunnel, light from the other end reflected on something. Something racing toward me.

  Water!

  A gigantic wall of water!

  Rushing right at me!

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  My scream echoed down the tunnel.

  I tried to back up. I could see the water coming at me. I could hear it rushing. I could even smell it.

  I scurried backward. But it was hopeless.

  There was nothing I could do. I took a deep breath and ducked my head under my arms.

  Whoosh!!!

  The wall of water slammed into me.

  Water rushed into my face. I clamped my eyes shut. The water poured into my ears and up my nose.