Read Monster Lake for Free Online

the
pier,” she wheezed, nearly out of breath. “It’s black and slimy,
and it’s really huge! I think it’s some kind of giant lizard!”
    “ Yeah, right, Patricia,
just like you thought that old branch was a poisonous
snake.”
    “ I’m serious, Terri!” Patricia insisted.
“Go and look! It’s right around the corner!”
    Terri skeptically did so, rounding the
corner of the boathouse. But the instant she turned, she came to a
dead stop.
    She couldn’t believe what she was
seeing.
    Patricia was at least partly right. At the
very end of the wooden pier-walk sat a shiny, coal black thing with
four pudgy feet and a long tail. But it wasn’t a lizard—
    “ It’s a salamander,” she
said distractedly. “I can tell by the yellow dots on its
back.”
    “ It looks like a lizard to
me,” Patricia remarked, clinging to Terri’s shoulders, still
obviously afraid.
    “ Lizards are reptiles,”
Terri informed her friend. “They can’t go in the water. But
salamanders are amphibians.”
    “ Amphibians?”
    “ It’s a kind of animal that
can live on land or in the water. Like toads and frogs. And that
thing has definitely been in the water. You can tell. See how wet
its skin is?”
    “ Well, yeah,” Patricia
agreed.
    “ Besides, I know it’s a
salamander because I’ve seen them before, and I’ve read about them
in my Golden Nature books.” But this was where Terri’s knowledge of
wildlife ended. “There’s only one problem,” she said, now even a
little scared herself.
    “ What’s that?”
    “ Salamanders never get to be more than
eight or ten inches long.” And after she said that, all she could
do was stare at the puffy, wet, black thing on the pier.
    “ Eight to ten inches long?”
Patricia questioned, staring in disbelief. “But that thing
is—”
    “ I know,” Terri said, her
own eyes wide in what she was seeing.
    Because this salamander was no eight or ten
inches.
    It easily over three feet long.
     
    ««—»»
     
    “Don’t go near it!” Patricia warned.
    “ I’m not,” Terri assured
her. “I just want a closer look.” She still couldn’t believe it.
She knew for a fact that salamanders didn’t get this big; she’d
seen lots of salamanders in the yard, and they all had the same
shiny black color with the bright yellow spots on their
backs.
    But I’ve never seen one this
big, she reminded herself. Nothing even close to this…
    The giant salamander lay there lazily. Terri
could see its cheeks puffing in and out as it breathed, and its two
big eyes on top of its head looked like giant black marbles that
never blinked. Its tail alone must’ve been over a foot long
itself.
    I can’t believe
this, Terri thought.
    “ Terri,” Patricia continued
to nervously warn. “You better not get too close. That thing could
bite you.”
    “ No, it can’t,” Terri
responded, and leaned over to take another step. “Salamanders don’t
have teeth.”
    But then her own thoughts
stalled right after she’d said that, and she couldn’t help but
remember last night. Just when she’d finally convinced herself that
what she’d seen was really just a dream—now, again, she wasn’t so
sure. Toads don’t have teeth
either, she reminded herself. But that toad I saw last night definitely had
teeth…
    And, then, when Terri took one more step
toward the giant salamander—
    The salamander lurched forward, its big lazy
head raised, and it opened its thin-lipped mouth and hissed at
her.
    Terri’s heart thudded in her chest, and she
jumped back.
    Then she and Patricia screamed at the same
time, because the salamander’s mouth stretched open wider, and
Terri could easily see that it too had teeth.
    Two rows of gleaming, white teeth that
looked sharp as sewing needles.
    Then the creature hissed again, and began to
move toward Terri and Patricia, its jaw nearly snapping like a mad
dog’s.
     
    ««—»»
     
    “Run!” Terri yelled.
    And they ran, all right, as fast as they’d
ever run before