“Quit shoving him onto me!” Clark complained. His comic book dropped to the floor.
“Sit still, Gretchen,” Mom muttered. “I knew we should have boarded Charley.”
“I tried to find a kennel for him,” Dad said. “But no one could take him at the last minute.”
Clark pushed Charley off his lap and reached down for his comic. But I grabbed it first.
“Oh, brother,” I moaned when I read the title. “Creatures from the Muck? How can you read this garbage?”
“It’s not garbage,” Clark shot back. “It’s really cool. Better than those stupid nature magazines you read.”
“What’s it about?” I asked, flipping through the pages.
“It’s about some totally gross monsters. Half-human. Half-beast. They set traps to catch people. Then they hide under the mud. Near the surface,” Clark explained. He grabbed the comic from my hand.
“Then what happens?” I asked.
“They wait. They wait as long as it takes—for the humans to fall in their traps.” Clark’s voice started to quiver. “Then they force them deep into the swamp. And make them their slaves!”
Clark shuddered. He glanced out the window. Out at the eerie cypress trees with their long beards of gray.
It was growing dark now. The trees’ shadows shifted over the tall grass.
Clark lowered himself in his seat. He has a wild imagination. He really believes the stuff he reads. Then he gets scared—like now.
“Do they do anything else?” I asked. I wanted Clark to tell me more. He was really scaring himself good.
“Well, at night, the monsters rise up from the mud,” he went on, sliding down in his seat some more. “And they drag kids from their beds. They drag them into the swamp. They drag them down into the mud. No one ever sees the kids again. Ever.”
Clark was totally freaked now.
“There really are creatures like that in the swamp. I read about them in school,” I lied. “Horrible monsters. Half-alligator, half-human. Covered with mud. With spiky scales underneath, hidden. If you just brush against one, the scales rip the flesh right off your bones.”
“Gretchen, stop,” Mom warned.
Clark hugged Charley close to him.
“Hey! Clark!” I pointed out the window to an old narrow bridge up ahead. Its wooden planks sagged. It looked ready to crumble. “I bet a swamp monster is waiting for us under that bridge.”
Clark gazed out the window at the bridge. He hugged Charley closer to him.
Dad began steering the car over the old wooden planks. They rumbled and groaned under the weight.
I held my breath as we slowly rolled across. This bridge can’t hold us, I thought. No way.
Dad drove very, very slowly.
It seemed to take forever to ride across.
Clark clung to Charley. He kept his eyes out the window, glued to the bridge.
When we finally neared the end, I let out a long whoosh of air.
And then I gasped—as a deafening explosion rocked the car.
“Nooo!” Clark and I both screamed as the car swerved wildly.
Skidded out of control.
It crashed into the side of the old bridge.
Plowed right through the old wood.
“We–we’re going down!” Dad cried.
I shut my eyes as we plunged into the swamp.
We hit hard, with a loud thud.
Clark and Charley bounced all over the backseat. When the car finally slid to a stop, they were sitting on top of me.
“Is everyone okay?” Mom asked in a shaky voice. She turned to the back.
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “I guess.”
We all sat quietly for a moment.
