It's Alive! It's Alive! Page 8

  Her smile stayed frozen on her face. “Yes. Apologize for all those terrible names you called your father and me. Are you sorry we had that awful fight?”

  “I—I—I—” I stammered.

  Mom slid the cookies into the oven and closed the door. Dad put his magazine down and, sucking on his pipe, gazed at the police officer.

  “Sorry to intrude,” Miller said, pushing his cap back. “These kids reported—”

  “Where did you find them?” Dad interrupted. “We had a stupid argument, and they ran out. We were so worried about them.”

  “But we knew they wouldn’t go far,” Mom said.

  “Well … they told me a strange story about robots wanting to kill them,” Miller said.

  “Seriously?” Mom said, and laughed.

  “They’re into Robotics in school,” Dad told Miller. “And they’re always making up crazy stories about robots.” He tapped his pipe with the palm of one hand. “I guess it’s good they have such great imaginations.”

  “Can I offer you a cold drink?” Mom asked, crossing over to us.

  “No, thank you,” Miller said. He took a step back. “If this was just a family fight, I’d better get going.”

  “No!” I screamed, finally finding my voice. “No!”

  “Livvy and I weren’t lying,” Gates said.

  “You shouldn’t call the police just because you’re upset with your parents,” Miller scolded. He took another step toward the front door.

  “Don’t go!” I cried. “Don’t let them fool you. Here. I’ll show you. I’ll prove Gates and I weren’t lying. These people aren’t my parents. They’re bots!”

  And I dove at my mother, spun her around, grabbed her by the neck—and ripped open her neck flap.

  Only there was no neck flap.

  Only skin.

  And muscles under the skin.

  My mom uttered a cry and spun out of my grasp. “Livvy—what are you doing?” she howled.

  I didn’t let her get away. I reached for her neck again. The skin had reddened from where I tugged at it. I squeezed her neck. Perfectly normal.

  Dad was on his feet now. “Livvy, why did you just attack your mother?” He said it calmly, not raising his voice. His eyes were on Officer Miller.

  Dad stepped up to me and turned around. “Do you want to squeeze my neck, too? Are you trying to prove something?”

  My heart pounding, I grabbed the back of his neck. No flap. I took his head in my hands and tried to twist it off. It turned with his neck. Everything perfectly normal.

  “It’s a trick!” I called to Officer Miller.

  He tugged his uniform cap over his forehead. “I think you should sit down and have a nice long family discussion with your parents.”

  He turned and vanished out the door.

  Gates and I stood staring at my parents. No one moved for the longest moment. I heard the patrol car roar away. I kept my eyes on Mom, then Dad.

  What happens next?

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Mrs. Bernard marched in from the den. She pointed to Gates and me. “They almost gave us away,” she told Mom and Dad. “Finish them off now—before there’s more trouble.”

  “I—I don’t get it,” Gates said. “Are they bots or not?”

  No time to answer that question. My two parents came at us fast.

  I tried to run. But I stumbled over Gates’s shoes and fell heavily to the floor.

  Dad grabbed me by both arms and tugged me to my feet.

  “No! Please!” I cried. “Don’t hurt me!”

  His eyes were wide. His mouth was twisted in anger. He uttered low growls with every breath.

  “Finish her!” Mrs. B called. “Finish her!”

  And then I saw something. A little white disc. It was stuck deep in Dad’s ear.

  He grasped my shoulders and started to shake me furiously. But I freed one hand and reached it up … up … up to his ear.

  And I tugged out the white disc.

  Dad’s hands slowly loosened. His arms lowered. He blinked at me, confused. “Livvy?” he cried. “Livvy?” He squinted at me as if he didn’t recognize me. “Livvy? Are you okay?”

  He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tightly. “Oh, Livvy. I’m so sorry.”

  But then he turned. Mom and Gates were struggling across the room. Mom had Gates by the shoulders and was slamming his back against the wall.

  Dad let go of me and tore across the room. He spun my mother around—and pulled the white disc from her ear.

  Mom made a whimpering sound. She blinked her eyes really fast. Then she squinted around the room. “Is everyone okay?” she asked. “Are we okay again?”

  She patted Gates’s shoulder. “What is happening? Was there some kind of fight?”

  “We’re back,” Dad said. “We’re back in control again.”

  “No, you’re not!” Mrs. B shouted, moving toward us. She raised a slender black controller. It looked like a TV remote.

  “Not so fast!” she cried. “I’m still in control of you. You can’t—”

  My dad dove forward. He grabbed her head with both hands—and ripped it off her body.

  Wires and circuit boards spilled out from Mrs. B’s open neck. Her glasses bounced on the rug. She stood upright for a few seconds, then tumbled in a heap to the floor.

  “She’s a bot!” Gates cried.

  “A very dangerous bot,” Mom told him. “We created her, but we didn’t know what we were doing. We gave her too much intelligence, too much power. And she worked out a way to control us.”

  “She took over,” Dad said, shaking his head angrily. “And she used these discs to do it.” He took the white disc and heaved it across the room. “And that wasn’t enough for her. She had to build copies of us so that she could control them, too!”

  Mom rushed over to hug me. “We’re so sorry,” she said. “We lost control of our own creation. And it almost destroyed our family.”

  “And me!” Gates reminded her.

  “And you,” she said. She hugged him, too.

  “But … what about the Mom and Dad bots?” I asked. “Where are they?”

  “In the basement,” Dad replied. “But they aren’t a problem anymore. Mrs. Bernard built them. And they cannot operate unless she is operating. Good-bye, Mrs. B. Good-bye, Mrs. B’s two bots.”

  “We’ll show you,” Mom said. “Come see with your own eyes.”

  We all trooped down to the basement. Sure enough, the Mom and Dad bots were hunched over, lifeless.

  “They’re not dangerous anymore,” Mom said. “But we’re not going to destroy them. We’re going to study them. They are very advanced, and we need to see their programming.”

  I swallowed. I was starting to feel more normal. Gates definitely looked calmer, too. He even had a smile on his face, staring at the lifeless bots.

  Then I heard a tinny voice and raised my eyes to the other end of the room. Francine stood with her back to the wall, arms at her sides.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “Listen to me.”

  That Saturday, the Robotics tournament against Swanson Academy was just as exciting as Gates and I hoped it would be. It was held in the Swanson gym. And the bleachers were packed with kids from our school and theirs, cheering on their bots.

  Gates and I agreed that Coach Teague had to be the nicest guy on the planet Earth. We explained to him that Francine wasn’t dangerous any longer, that my parents had helped us totally reprogram her.

  He thought about it for a moment, then he said, “Okay. You can compete. If that is all true, you can enter Francine in the tournament.”

  So there we were. And I couldn’t describe how excited Gates and I were to be there. We had tested Francine over and over, and she had the egg-cracking thing down perfectly.

  What a winner!

  The Swanson bots were amazing, but we knew our bot was amazing, too.

  We watched Chaz Fremont put his basketball-shooting bot through its paces. T
he little bot put up shot after shot at the basketball hoop. It made them all, and the crowd went wild.

  Chaz was so pumped, he actually took a bow.

  Our turn next.

  Gates and I moved Francine to the center of the gym floor. The crowd grew quiet. Because Francine was so old-fashioned looking, she towered over all the other bots.

  We set up a small table and a bowl full of eggs. Gates took the microphone to announce what Francine was about to do.

  But before he could speak, Francine took a big step away from us.

  “Hey, wait—” I cried.

  I watched in horror as Francine moved quickly across the floor. She tromped to where the Swanson team had lined up their bots. Then she raised a big, heavy foot, slammed it down hard—and smashed Chaz’s bot flat.

  Horrified cries rang out. Angry shouts.

  Francine backed away from the crushed bot and raised both claw hands high above her head for silence.

  “I’ve locked all the doors,” she announced. “I’m in charge now. Listen to me. Listen to me carefully—and NO ONE WILL GET HURT!”

  Hahahaha!

  I guess Francine won the contest! She was a smash hit!

  Now it appears the kids are ALL losers.

  There’s a lesson here for everyone: Humans can never win.

  I mean, how can any human win over a smart robot? Or a brilliant dummy? You know, my IQ is so high, I need to climb a ladder to read it!

  I’m almost as smart as I am good-looking! Hahahaha.

  And speaking of looking, I’ll be looking for you next time when I return with another Goosebumps SlappyWorld book.

  Remember, this is SlappyWorld.

  You only scream in it!

  The tall pyramid-shaped tomb cast a long shadow over the desert sands. Klopfer and his team arrived in a caravan of jeeps. They parked in a line near the narrow entrance, a low, dark cave opening.

  The entrance and the tunnel inside the ancient tomb had taken two years to dig. And now Klopfer’s heart beat with excitement. He was finally going to see the mummy. He was finally going to achieve his dream.

  The local guards went in first to make sure the tunnel was clear and safe. The video crew went next. Klopfer wanted every second of his triumph to be seen by the world.

  Then Klopfer led the way, followed by only the necessary members of his team. Bella, his assistant, had pleaded to come along. At the last minute, he gave her the pith helmet and khaki uniform all who entered had to wear.

  Klopfer ducked his head and stepped into the darkness of the tomb. He paused and took a deep breath. Was the air he breathed really five thousand years old?

  A smile crossed his face. In a few hours, he knew he would be the envy of scientists around the world.

  Klopfer’s boots scraped the dusty tunnel floor, sending up a curtain of dust. The tunnel headed down. The air grew warmer with every step. The lights held by the team crisscrossed the walls and floor as they walked.

  Klopfer took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, to slow his heartbeat. He could feel his hot sweat drench the back of his neck. “Unbearable excitement,” he murmured to himself.

  He raised his face to a video camera that was trained on him. “We are about to make history,” he said. “We are about to uncover something the world has not seen in five thousand years.”

  He turned to Bella Wortham, who walked a few steps behind him. “I will need you to write the first report,” he told her. “The first impressions. The first thoughts upon seeing Arragotus.”

  She smiled. “So I guess you’re glad you decided to bring me along?”

  Klopfer didn’t reply. His mind was whirring with ideas of what was about to happen.

  They finally reached the chamber where Arragotus rested in his stone case. It seemed to take forever to get the work crew in place.

  Klopfer stopped a few feet away. Wortham stayed close at his side. Six workers lined up on each side of the mummy case.

  Klopfer could barely breathe as they gripped the heavy lid and slowly began to slide it off the case. The lid made a whining scraping sound that echoed down the long tunnel.

  Video cameras were trained on the case. All eyes were on the lid as the workers struggled to move it away.

  “Yes!” Klopfer let out a cry as the case was opened. “This is the moment, everyone! This is history!”

  Heart thudding in his chest, he moved forward. His legs felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds each. His whole body trembled with excitement.

  Holding his breath, Klopfer stepped up to the tall case. He leaned over and peered inside.

  It was empty.

  R.L. Stine’s books are read all over the world. So far, his books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children’s authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written the teen series Fear Street and the funny series Rotten School, as well as the Mostly Ghostly series, The Nightmare Room series, and the two-book thriller Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and Minnie, his King Charles spaniel. You can learn more about him at RLStine.com.

  GOOSEBUMPS®

  HALL OF HORRORS

  #1 CLAWS!

  #2 NIGHT OF THE GIANT EVERYTHING

  #3 SPECIAL EDITION: THE FIVE MASKS OF DR. SCREEM

  #4 WHY I QUIT ZOMBIE SCHOOL

  #5 DON’T SCREAM!

  #6 THE BIRTHDAY PARTY OF NO RETURN

  GOOSEBUMPS®

  MOST WANTED

  #1 PLANET OF THE LAWN GNOMES

  #2 SON OF SLAPPY

  #3 HOW I MET MY MONSTER

  #4 FRANKENSTEIN’S DOG

  #5 DR. MANIAC WILL SEE YOU NOW

  #6 CREATURE TEACHER: THE FINAL EXAM

  #7 A NIGHTMARE ON CLOWN STREET

  #8 NIGHT OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE

  #9 HERE COMES THE SHAGGEDY

  #10 THE LIZARD OF OZ

  SPECIAL EDITION #1 ZOMBIE HALLOWEEN

  SPECIAL EDITION #2 THE 12 SCREAMS OF CHRISTMAS

  SPECIAL EDITION #3 TRICK OR TRAP

  SPECIAL EDITION #4 THE HAUNTER

  GOOSEBUMPS®

  SLAPPYWORLD

  #1 SLAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

  #2 ATTACK OF THE JACK!

  #3 I AM SLAPPY’S EVIL TWIN

  #4 PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE WEIRDO

  #5 ESCAPE FROM SHUDDER MANSION

  #6 THE GHOST OF SLAPPY

  GOOSEBUMPS®

  Also available as ebooks

  NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY

  DEEP TROUBLE

  MONSTER BLOOD

  THE HAUNTED MASK

  ONE DAY AT HORRORLAND

  THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB

  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

  SAY CHEESE AND DIE!

  THE HORROR AT CAMP JELLYJAM

  HOW I GOT MY SHRUNKEN HEAD

  THE WEREWOLF OF FEVER SWAMP

  A NIGHT IN TERROR TOWER

  WELCOME TO DEAD HOUSE

  WELCOME TO CAMP NIGHTMARE

  GHOST BEACH

  THE SCARECROW WALKS AT MIDNIGHT

  YOU CAN’T SCARE ME!

  RETURN OF THE MUMMY

  REVENGE OF THE LAWN GNOMES

  PHANTOM OF THE AUDITORIUM

  VAMPIRE BREATH

  STAY OUT OF THE BASEMENT

  A SHOCKER ON SHOCK STREET

  LET’S GET INVISIBLE!

  NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY 2

  NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY 3

  THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF PASADENA

  THE BLOB THAT ATE EVERYONE

  THE GHOST NEXT DOOR

  THE HAUNTED CAR

  ATTACK OF THE GRAVEYARD GHOULS

  PLEASE DON’T FEED THE VAMPIRE!

  THE HEADLESS GHOST

  THE HAUNTED MASK 2

  BRIDE OF THE LIVING DUMMY

  ATTACK OF THE JACK-O’-LANTERNS

  ALSO AVAILABLE:

  IT CAME FROM OHIO!: MY LIFE AS A WRITER by R.L. Stine

  Goosebumps book series created by Parachute
Press, Inc.

  Copyright © 2019 by Scholastic Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, GOOSEBUMPS, GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing 2019

  Cover design by Maeve Norton

  Cover art by Brandon Dorman

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-22304-0

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