The Creature from Club Lagoona (9 page)

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!

“A
aaahhhhhh!” 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 only 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!

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.

I
t 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.