Tales from the Haunted Mansion Vol. 1: The Fearsome Foursome (12 page)

Noah sprinkled the contents into the water. Minute granules sparkled like pink diamonds in the moonlight. Cool to look at, but hardly the eggs of an ancient amphibious race as the ad had described. So much for truth in advertising.

Next he added the secret growthing serum, swirling it around with his finger, hoping the eggs would hatch. Probably not. Twenty years was a long time. But oh, if they did! Philip would be in for a July Fourth celebration right there in his matching swim trunks. Boy, would he ever! Because as the ad also promised…
they bite
.

Noah didn’t have to wait long for a monstrous reaction. “Cheesecake, what’s going on out there?” Philip’s face was mushed up against his bedroom window. “It’s almost midnight! Do you have any idea what time I wake up in the morning?”

Noah decided, on the heels of their last encounter, that honesty might not be the best policy. So he went with a little fib, telling Philip he was checking the pH balance to ensure the pool’s safety for the next day. “Just looking out for you and Dots.”

“All right, then. Get your big butt back to bed.”

“Yes, sir!” said Noah.

Philip kept watch from his window as Noah marched back inside. As much as he wanted to, Noah couldn’t look back at the pool. Not at the risk of spoiling the next day’s surprise.

And what of the unswimmable pool? There was an eruption near the drain. Not an explosion of devastating proportions in and of itself, but the resultant manifestation would prove far more terrible. A singular white-hot tumor rose to the surface, followed by a second and a third, multiplying exponentially until the entire pool resembled a raging, primitive sea. It was volcanic upheaval, the granules splitting and re-forming, evolving, and devolving into a shapeless mass. Something was about to be born. Something ancient. Something inhuman.

Something with an appetite.

I
t was just before two
when the thing inside the pool took Dots. She had slipped outside as Noah was coming in, and spent the next hour and a half growling at the ancient whatever-it-was.

Noah was in bed. He had just managed to close his eyes when he heard the pathetic yelp. He got up and checked the window.

The pool was shrouded by fog. He could have sworn he saw something stirring just below the surface. A shadow flickered across his face, and he heard a firm
ker-plunk
. Noah wasn’t imagining things. Something
was
in the water. And it had taken Dots for a moonlight swim.

Before he could consider what he was doing, Noah slipped on his flip-flops and flew out into the yard.

The floodlight popped on before he could make it to the pool. In the veiled light, Dots appeared to be hovering over the center of the water, and the first thought that went through Noah’s mind after his initial relief was
How is she floating?
She wasn’t, of course. Something was holding her up. Through the mist, he saw what appeared to be a translucent fire hose; it was wrapped around Dots’s belly, lifting her an inch or so above the water. On closer inspection, Noah saw that the “hose” was undulating with organic life. It was a squid-like tentacle, thick and bulging. What was worse: he could only imagine what the rest of it might look like.

Dots eyed Noah, and for the first time, she wasn’t barking. She was too busy shivering. It was no secret that Noah didn’t much care for Dots, but that was only because the dang dog didn’t much care for him first. That’s usually the only reason you dislike a dog: because it didn’t like you first. Still, it was hard seeing her so helpless. So petrified. He even missed her cringe-inducing yelp, because Dots wasn’t doing any yelping now. She knew enough not to upset that thing in the pool. For the moment, Noah was her only hope.

He looked around for potential distractions, anything to save Dots from a fate too terrible even for her. The pool net was leaning against the shed, and it had an eight-foot ratchet pole. Noah snatched it and made his way back to the water. With a little coordination and a whole lot of luck, he might be able to lift Dots to safety before the creature even knew she was gone—no fuss, no muss.

Noah squatted down near the rim. Not too close, mind you. He still didn’t know what he was dealing with. What special powers the creature might possess.

Dots saw him coming and wagged her tail in silent understanding. She agreed with the plan.

The net touched down, skimming the surface of the water until it found its way to her front paws. Perfect. All Dots had to do was hop on board and Noah could lift her out. She’d most likely take a nip at his ankles, but he’d worry about that later.

For the moment, he felt a strong connection to the dog—and she to him. If they got through this, if they somehow survived the night, maybe they could start fresh. Become pals. Go for walks. Play Frisbee. He might even clean up her poop. (All right, before we get carried away, he had to rescue her first.)

Her front paws stepped onto the net.
Keep going, girl, you’re halfway there.
Only the hind legs to go and Dots would be home free.

And she almost made it, too.

Until about five thousand gallons of salt water began shifting beneath her. The creature was aware of the rescue mission and was none too happy. A newly born tentacle sprouted from somewhere under the water, and from that, smaller ones squirted in all directions like tendrils of play string. One of the smaller appendages found the net and whisked it from Noah’s hand. He could only watch, slack-jawed, as it twisted the pole into a metallic pretzel and whisked it over a fence, directly into the neighbor’s yard.

Even more tentacles were starting to form. Thin ones, fat ones, some with hair. Others the length of beanstalks, all with undulating suckers—all searching for Noah!

He backed onto the patio, once again tripping the floodlight. The concealing fog had begun to dissipate, affording Noah his first real look at the hideous newborn in the unswimmable pool. It was enormous, taking up every square inch of the twenty-four-foot round container. Like a terrifying experiment in nature gone wrong, it had no defining shape, for it was ever evolving. Its color, too, was ever changing, blending in with its environment, so you’d never see it coming…until it was too late.
It really was the perfect monster. It could form arms when it wanted to grab you, acquire eyes when it saw fit to see you, grow sharp teeth when it needed to eat you.
It was unlike anything any human being had ever seen before…and lived to talk about.

Noah had to come up with an alternate plan and come up with it fast. He remembered seeing a pitchfork in the garage, but that idea seemed prone to extreme messiness, and it didn’t take a genius to know who’d be assigned the cleanup. The pool ladder, however, was available: nice and light, easy to manage. And long enough to keep some distance between him and the creature.

Noah lifted the ladder as Dots awaited his arrival. Unfortunately, the creature was also waiting. Noah poked at some blubbery limb posturing just below the surface, hoping to divert its attention away from its canine hors d’oeuvre. This only made the creature irritable. (So we have
that
in common. Sea creatures, like people, get completely annoyed when you poke ’em with ladders!)

And when sea creatures get annoyed, they emit a supersonic sound that can shatter glass, which is exactly what occurred.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

Noah covered his ears, and right behind him, the sliding glass door exploded into a billion shards. Of course, he instantly knew who’d be cleaning
that
up.

Obviously, there would be no reasoning with this creature. Its rage knew no bounds; its slithery feelers whipped haphazardly in all directions, looking for something to grab. The ad claimed it hailed from a time before the dinosaurs. As he stared into the pool, Noah couldn’t help wondering if this wasn’t the thing that had
ended
the dinosaurs. If it ever got out, if it somehow left the yard, it would overtake the neighborhood. If it kept on growing…it could very likely take over the world.

Speaking of blobs of thoughtless hostility…Philip emerged from the empty rectangular space that used to be the sliding door, firing off a litany of words not suitable for printing. “What’s going on out here? Where’s my door? Do you know what time it is? Where’s Dots?” That is the abridged version, by the way (with apologies to Willa).

Noah stood there, speechless. He had both nothing and everything to say. In this case, a visual seemed more effective. So he pointed. “Over there,” he managed to say.

Philip whistled for his sidekick. “Dots! Come here, girlie–girl–girl! Come to Daddy!” He looked to Noah for an explanation. “Well, where is she?”

“Inside the pool, sir.” Noah had to tell him. “With…that.”

As Philip moseyed over, the creature swiftly retreated below the surface—totally gone from sight. Philip glanced into the water, noticing only a few innocuous ripples. “With what, cheesecake? Learn to articulate!”

“Don’t get too close!”

Ignoring Noah’s warning, Philip leaned over the rim. “Dots!” He spotted her right away, and he must have seen the other thing, too, because Philip switched over to mute. No yelling, no cursing. And then something happened that Noah hadn’t expected. A new voice emerged, one filled with emotion. Philip was calling to Dots the way Noah imagined a real father might call to his kid. And in that moment, he no longer hated his stepdad. True, true, he wasn’t about to run out and buy him a card, but it was sort of a relief to know that the creep who had married his mom had a heart after all…even if it was about to get eaten.

A beefy tentacle slunk out of the pool, and before Philip knew what was happening, it lassoed around his waist, lifting him straight up into the air for a free ride over the yard. He must have been thirty feet high.

Dots craned her head and watched like it was the fireworks preshow. For the grand finale, Philip came plummeting down into the center of the pool.
KER-PLUNK!
The world’s biggest belly flop.

How delightfully it all worked out. Philip and Dots really did manage that first swim after all. Pity it might be their last.

Philip found himself entangled in a virtual garden of living appendages, although he did receive a small measure of comfort when Dots made it back into his arms. Reunited and it felt so good…if you considered being in the clutches of a giant prehistoric tentacle a good thing.

The creature took them for yet another spin, Philip and Dots whipping around the pool like toys in a bathtub. As they whizzed past Noah, he could hear Philip’s voice pleading: “Help us, Son! You have to help us!”

What? No “cheesecake”?

Of course, technically, Noah didn’t have to do a thing. He could pull up a chair, sit back, and enjoy the show. And for like a millionth of a second, that’s pretty much what he considered doing. If it got Philip and Dots out of the way, that nameless monstrosity might be the answer to his prayers. As they say on those
Learn French Fast
CDs, bon appétit!

But when that millionth of a second had passed, Noah knew in his heart that leaving them to perish was never an option. For the first time in his life, he understood who he was. Noah was his father’s son. For the sake of the name he carried so proudly, there was no way he could take the coward’s way out now.