Monster Read Online Free PDF Page B

shockingly, the beam of his flashlight cut through the darkness, reached as far as the immediate trees, then stretched itself into oblivion in the tangled forest, bringing back only dim images of leaves, dead branches, dancing shadows. Beck didn’t look—she was afraid of what she might see.
    “What if it really is somebody out there?” Reed whispered. “What if they’re in trouble?”
    “Th-th-then w-why don’t they say s-so?”
    Reed hollered, “Hello? Is anybody out there?”
    No answer.
    Beck thought, Well, if he’s going to holler . . . “Hello? Ar-rrr-re you okay?”
    Nothing.
    They waited. They listened. Was that thing hiding ?
    “I don’t think it w-was a woman,” Beck whispered.
    Now Reed was whispering. “It sounded like one.”
    “N-no, no it didn’t.”
    “I think we made it go away.”
    A growl and a short snuff. It was low, quiet, from the other side of the ravine, somewhere high up the slope. Beck envisioned something big, with lots of teeth and a bad attitude as it crouched in the bushes, feeling intruded upon—
    There it was again, more insistent this time, edged with anger. It was moving. The direction was hard to tell, but it could have been away from them, which was great, and so far, it was out there and not . . .
    A chuckle sniffed out Reed’s nose.
    Beck thought that was quite out of place. “W-what are you laughing at?”
    “It’s a joke.”
    Somehow she wasn’t ready to accept that.
    “It’s a joke,” he insisted. “Cap and Randy Thompson are trying to scare us.”
    “W-what makes you so s-sure?”
    “Well, it’s obvious. Everybody knew we’d be coming up here one day before Cap and Sing, and then Thompson just happens to not show up, and then we start hearing stupid noises out in the woods. It’s a big put-on.”
    Beck sat there, her frightened face indirectly lit by Reed’s flashlight beam. She longed for him to be right.
    He kept trying. “Don’t you remember when we were going to United Christian and we went to that party for the young couples’ group?”
    “Sure.”
    “We all went for that hayride in the back of George Johnson’s truck—”
    “A-a-and the truck b-broke down, and a bear came out of the w-woods.” Her nerves calmed. “And it was just what’s-his-name—”
    “Mr. Farmer wearing that bear rug.” Reed snickered. “But you sure were scared.”
    “I was young! And so were you! ”
    They sat still and listened.
    “S-so you think that’s what it is?” Beck asked.
    Reed hollered, “Okay, you can come out now! Very funny! Ha-ha!”
    “Very funny, Cap!” Beck shouted. “Cap?”
    No answer.
    Then they heard, of all things, a strange, hissing kind of whistle, like a teapot at a boil, but bigger, louder, warbling a little. It sounded like it was far up the opposite bank of the ravine. It could have been moving . . .
    Another whistle answered the first one. This one was much closer, on this side of the ravine, off to their right. Between the pounding of her heart, Beck heard something leaving heavy, munching footfalls on the dead needles and twigs.
    “What if it isn’t a joke?” she asked.
    “Hey—”
    “N-no, no, what if it is Cap and Mr. Thompson, but they’re testing us, trying to demonstrate something, t-trying to show us w-what the mind can do in the dark, in the woods, late at night?”
    Reed thought about that. “Like a simulation?”
    “Y-yeah. To show us how e-e-easy it is to panic and d-do the wrong things.”
    Reed nodded. “I’ve done those before in the department’s training sessions. Crime scenes and hostage situations . . .”
    “Yeah.”
    “That could be it!”
    “So . . . how do we handle this?”
    “Well, if it’s supposed to be a bear, then we should holler and make a bunch of noise and chase it away.”
    She looked at him; he looked at her. They got to their feet, shouting, hollering, shooing. “Yaaa! Go on! Get out of here!”
    The woman outscreamed them in length, in volume, and definitely in terror