The Creature from Club Lagoona

  It threw me up against the top of the tunnel. My head pounded as if I’d been punched. I twisted and turned, hurtling backward, spinning out of control, tumbling and whirling.

  I’m going to drown! I thought in terror. I’m going to drown in this tunnel.

  Suddenly I felt a big bump. I sped over the ridge of the tunnel entrance. I flew through the air in a jet of water!

  I pulled myself into a ball.

  Wham!

  I lay still for a moment, trying to catch my breath. Then I opened my eyes.

  The first thing I saw was a coconut.

  I was right back at where I landed with Neal! Back at where we found ourselves after being sucked down the drain in the Atlantis pool. But where was the water? I dug through the dirt and found a small drain. The water must get out through that, I realized.

  My whole body ached. I checked quickly for injuries. Just a couple of nasty scratches. I scrambled to my feet.

  I had to find the others. I had to tell them what I found. This tunnel must be the only way out.

  But it was useless if we couldn’t get past the rushing waves of water.

  Well, I reasoned, I found the exit. Let someone else figure out how to handle the water problem!

  Smack!

  I spun around at a sound. My eyes widened.

  “No!” I whispered hoarsely.

  The huge green tentacle pressed against the wall.

  Sluurp. Sluurp. Sluurp. Sluurp.

  The creature was back!

  The tentacle crawled its way up the wall.

  The awful noises grew louder and faster as the tentacle picked up speed.

  Slurp! Sluurp! Slurp! Sluurp!

  My head tilted back as my eyes gazed up and up and up.

  The huge green tentacle waved in the air above me. Green slime streamed off it. The suckers opened and closed. They wanted to grab something.

  They wanted to grab me!

  I flattened myself on the ground and closed my eyes.

  Whap!

  I felt something hit my back!

  It had me!

  The creature’s suckers latched on to my body. They tugged my skin, pulling at it with an awful popping and sucking sound. The tentacle pinned my arms to my sides. It twisted around me.

  Then it raised me high into the air.

  Over the top of the terrarium.

  I glanced down.

  The hideous eye on top of the creature’s huge head blinked at me. Its enormous scaly green body was dimly visible in the water.

  It clutched me in its tentacle-tongue. But I could see that there were many other tentacles thrashing in the water below me!

  My whole body went stiff with terror. I knew what was coming next.

  It was going to eat me!

  15

  “Noooooo!” I screamed. “You’re not going to eat me!”

  I kicked and wriggled in the tentacle. But its grip held me like a vise. It squeezed me so tight, I felt as if I were going to pop. I struggled against it with all my strength.

  But the creature was so much stronger.

  It lashed me violently through the air. The slimy suckers attached to my skin, pulling and twisting my flesh away from my bones! Each time the slippery suckers released me, a horrible wet pop! vibrated through me.

  Then I noticed something. The gross slime oozing from the tentacle’s suckers was like thick grease. My body was becoming slick and slippery.

  Instead of pushing out against the tentacle, I tried slipping my arms up. I squirmed and wriggled like a worm on a hook. I twisted my body and slid my arms up my sides. Farther, farther.

  Thwop!

  I did it! I popped out of the creature’s grip!

  A moment later I landed with a thud on something hard. A coral reef! What luck! I would have a hard enough time fighting the creature on land! If I’d plopped into the water, I’d have been a goner for sure.

  I stood up. My knees were scraped and sore from landing on the reef, but otherwise I was okay. I glanced around quickly. Was there any place to run? I had to put some distance between me and the creature!

  Then I spotted a spray of water in the distance. It shot straight up in the air. I shaded my eyes.

  Yes! The water must be from the fountain in the center of Club Lagoona! I was near the island! Maybe I could get help!

  I raced toward it, running carefully along a high ridge in the center of the reef. Water lapped up both sides.

  The surface was uneven, making it difficult to run. I tried to avoid the huge jagged barnacles that grew along the ridge. My breath came in gasps as I darted along the reef, terrified that the creature might grab me any second.

  Suddenly my foot hit a slippery patch. I tumbled into the water.

  The saltwater made my scrapes burn. I kicked back to the reef and tried to hoist myself up. The reef sloped sharply into the cold water.

  I kept slipping back in. Back in to where the creature might be lurking.

  I could picture its massive green body. Its gaping mouth with its razor-sharp teeth. Its slimy scales and disgusting tentacles and suckers.

  I could still hear the sound of Mark and his family being eaten. That sickening Crunch!

  I had to get out of the water!

  I dog-paddled for a while along the side of the reef, frantically searching for a spot where I could haul myself back up.

  Finally I found a place that wasn’t so steep. I reached out with my arms. I kicked extra hard and pulled for all I was worth.

  I made it! I was back up on the reef. Safe, at least for the moment.

  I moved more carefully. I knew I had to watch out for the barnacles and the slippery patches.

  I gazed toward Club Lagoona. I was nearly at the end of the reef. My mind raced. How will I attract attention? I thought frantically. How will I get help? Will I be able to find the huge tank I escaped from?

  And where is the creature now?

  I picked my way along the reef, knowing I’d soon have my answers.

  I stumbled. The reef seemed to move slightly under my feet!

  I tried to relax. I was exhausted and dizzy. I was imagining things.

  I gazed straight ahead, hoping to see more land, a place to escape to. I noticed something new. The ground felt different under my feet. It seemed to be changing, getting softer.

  Whoa! The reef really moved!

  It wasn’t my imagination! Not at all.

  I gazed at the ground, wondering what was going on. There were fewer barnacles, I realized. The reef seemed more even, almost smooth. I had to slow down as I continued on.

  A sudden violent shake made me stop dead in my tracks. I dropped to my knees.

  Several more shakes followed.

  “What’s happening?” I cried.

  My voice sounded tiny and scared.

  Then I knew! I was on a tiny coral reef island. I was in the middle of an earthquake!

  I had to get off the island fast. I had to get to someplace more secure.

  I started to run again and slid all over the place. I fell and picked myself up again and again.

  The shaking grew more violent!

  I couldn’t hold on much longer!

  The ground rose beneath me, and I was lifted into the air! Higher and higher above the cold, rough water.

  I gazed at the sea below and swallowed hard.

  I tried to cling to the reef. It shifted beneath me. My feet slid on the soft, slippery surface.

  Suddenly I knew. I was not standing on a reef.

  This was no earthquake.

  It was much, much worse!

  16

  “Aaaahhhhhh!” I shrieked. The horrible truth sank in!

  I was walking on the back of the creature!

  The hideous single eye blinked far ahead of me. Below me, dozens of tentacles swirled around in the water.

  I clung to the creature’s back, riding it like a huge bucking bronco!

  The creature was bigger than gigantic. I realized I’d seen o
nly a tiny part of it before. Here, on top of it, the creature was much, much bigger than it looked through the glass.

  Higher and higher into the air I soared as the creature heaved its enormous body. Club Lagoona was a tiny dot below me. Water dripped off the creature’s back, splashing into the ocean.

  My body shivered in fear. But at least while I was on its back, I was out of the reach of its tentacle-tongue!

  Then the creature started sinking. I could see the surface of the water heading up toward me. The creature was submerging!

  How could I escape? I asked myself. What could I do?

  Terror froze my brain.

  The creature lowered itself into the ocean. Water lapped around my ankles. My knees. My neck.

  I was a goner!

  Just as I was about to go under, a tentacle sneaked up from beneath the creature. It wrapped around my waist. The slimy suckers grabbed on to my skin. It lifted me high, high, higher!

  Then the tentacle fell. I flew through the air—plunging toward the water. The wind whistled in my ears. I clung to the tentacle with all my might!

  Smack!

  I hit the water hard. It stung my skin like a terrible sunburn.

  The tentacle released me. I went under, kicking and struggling, trying to fight my way back up to the surface.

  Then I felt two tentacles grab me. One slipped around each ankle! They lifted me out of the water. I felt like a wishbone at Thanksgiving!

  I dangled upside down, far above the water. Higher than the high dive in the Atlantis pool!

  Then the tentacles let go!

  I tried to hold my body straight as I sailed through the air. I whipped my arms out in front of me to break my fall.

  I plunged headfirst into the cold, churning water. It felt as if I’d been pounded by hundreds of fists.

  The force of the dive plunged me deep into the water. I didn’t think I could stop going down. I stretched my arms out, trying to slow myself.

  Then I shifted my arms, hoping I could change direction. To go up. Finally, I turned. I kicked hard. I glimpsed the light of the surface above me.

  I was almost there! I broke the surface and sucked in a breath of air.

  But the tentacle grabbed me and yanked me down again!

  The awful truth hit me. The creature was playing with me. Torturing me. The way my cat likes to torture its stuffed toy.

  And once I was too tired to fight back, or it got bored, it would end it all. It would finally eat me.

  No! I wasn’t going to let it!

  I struggled and kicked and hit the scaly thing. I yanked and pounded. It held me like a fist. It wrapped around my arms and squeezed.

  I couldn’t use my hands anymore. Now what? I refused to give up. I shook with disgust, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  I opened my mouth wide. On the count of three, I told myself.

  One. Two.

  Chomp! My teeth dug into the tentacle.

  Yuck! Bleehhh! A horrible taste filled my mouth.

  And nothing happened. The creature didn’t even seem to know I had bitten it.

  I tried again. This time I aimed my mouth at a sucker. Maybe they would be more sensitive.

  Chomp!

  Ugh! The rubbery sucker wriggled in my mouth. Disgusting slime oozed into my mouth and down my chin.

  The tentacle thrashed, but it didn’t release me.

  Another tentacle reached for my head and wrapped around it like a turban. The tentacles bound me up like a mummy. Then another tentacle floated in front of me.

  Thwap! A gigantic sucker as large as my head landed square on my face.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even see.

  I was doomed!

  17

  I gathered the little bit of strength I had left. I couldn’t give up. I had to make one last try.

  I jerked my head from side to side wildly.

  I kicked and squirmed and thrust my arms and legs out.

  I opened my mouth and screamed harder and louder than I ever screamed in my whole life.

  It worked.

  When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t drowning.

  I wasn’t even in the water.

  I was in a dark and quiet room. Alone. I was sitting in a deep, comfortable chair.

  I was okay!

  I glanced down at myself.

  The suckers! The creature’s suckers were still all over my body! I was still its prisoner! I tore at them, ripping them off me! Grabbing the wires and flinging them across the room. . . .

  Wires?!

  I realized I held something else in my hands too. A pair of strange-looking goggles.

  “Hey, Tad, are you okay?”

  Neal’s voice, I realized, calling me from outside the room.

  “Was that awesome or what?” Mark! Mark was there too!

  But wait—I thought. The creature ate Mark and his whole family. Didn’t it?

  I sank back into the deep, comfortable chair and tried to think.

  I remembered arriving at Club Lagoona, where everyone was water crazy. Okay.

  Mark and Neal were my new pals from my swimming lessons. Images of the different club attractions flashed in my head: the Creature Water Slide. The Atlantis Swimming Pool. The neon Games! Games! Games! sign with the bubble-blowing fish.

  But I couldn’t remember anything else I did that night. And the next morning, strange things began happening. Crazy things went through my mind. A drain. A slimy green tentacle. A giant eyeball. Polly screaming.

  I shook my head. What was real and what wasn’t?

  Then it hit me. I was in the arcade.

  I’d been playing that virtual-reality game Underwater Terror 2.

  I followed the weird little guy with the bucket into the games arcade. But then I lost him. As I searched the place for him, I found the game. And as I was about to play, I ran into Neal and Mark.

  Yeah! It was all coming back to me!

  I remembered Mark challenged Neal to a game of Aqua Doom. I found the virtual-reality game and decided to try it.

  I remembered putting the virtual-reality glasses on and the voice saying, “Get ready for the water adventure of a lifetime!” The same thing I’d heard when we first arrived at the resort. I had to enter my Club Lagoona name and my room number. Then the game told me to put those electric suckers all over me.

  I thought it was weird—I never had to do that for Underwater Terror 1—but the game wouldn’t start until I put them on.

  Yes, I told myself. And everything after that had all been a game.

  I thought hard. So, what was real and what wasn’t?

  Club Lagoona? Weird but real.

  Mom and Dad and Polly? Very real.

  Neal and Mark? Definitely real.

  Mark and his family being eaten? Not real. Whew!

  I climbed out of the booth. Neal and Mark stood beside me now. They looked worried.

  “Boy! You were screaming your head off! You okay?” Mark asked.

  I laughed. “I am now.”

  “How was the game?” Neal asked.

  “Awesome!” I replied truthfully. “Totally advanced graphics. It was so real.” I gazed at them. “You guys were in it!”

  “We were?” Neal shouted.

  “This I have got to see!” Mark exclaimed.

  “Hey, no time now,” Neal interrupted. “The Sink or Swim relay starts in a few minutes.

  “Go Guppies!” Mark shouted.

  We all high-fived.

  18

  It was great to leave the dark arcade. The sun was blazing. Colors seemed even brighter than they had before.

  “So, the virtual reality was scary, huh?” Neal asked as we walked over to the Atlantis pool.

  “You got that right,” I agreed.

  “How did they put us in the game?” Mark wondered aloud.

  “I think I know!” Neal answered. “Remember those pictures they took when we checked in?”

  I thought back. Right
. The receptionist snapped a photo of us on that first day.

  “I asked them what they needed the pictures for,” Neal explained. “They said they scan them into computers and use them for all sorts of stuff. Special buttons, T-shirts, signs.” He grinned at me. “I guess they use them to scare us kids in virtual reality.”

  I kept staring at everything around me. It all seemed kind of unreal after the game.

  Club Lagoona looked just the same. Only a little smaller. Even the Atlantis pool wasn’t as big as in the game.

  “Hey, Guppies, over here!” Barry shouted.

  The sight of Barry and the Atlantis pool made me shudder. In the game, Barry was really evil. He sent us to the deep end even though he knew the creature would capture us.

  I couldn’t help but still feel a little afraid of him. Even though I knew he wasn’t really a bad guy.

  But I couldn’t help thinking about the deep end. The whirring drain. The tentacle . . .

  Snap out of it! I ordered myself. It was just a game!

  I gazed around the huge pool area. People gathered on both sides of the pool. Banners and flags whipped brightly in the warm breeze.

  “Hey, Tad, there’s your family,” Neal said. “They’re sitting next to mine.”

  Neal and I waved. Mom, Dad, and Polly waved back.

  The back of my neck tingled. I turned toward Mark. “Where are your parents?” I asked him.

  “Eaten,” Mark said.

  “Huh?” I gasped.

  “Eating,” he shouted above the noise of the crowd. “I think they’re still eating lunch.”

  “Oh,” I muttered, feeling really stupid.

  Then I remembered being scared by that mechanical shark and seeing the diver disappear.

  I thought about that funny little man who kept giving me those warnings.

  I remembered thinking the seaweed was some kind of monster with tentacles.

  Boy, what a jerk I was!

  Well, now that I had been scared out of my wits playing that game, nothing could bother me. I realized how silly all my fears were.

  Including my fear of the water.

  I gazed across the Atlantis pool. I felt very calm. I was even looking forward to the race.

  That was a first! I realized. Me—eager to swim!

  Barry lined us up for our relay. Me first. Then Neal. Then Mark.