Monster Lake Read Online Free PDF Page B

boathouse remained as
Terri had last seen it, a refurbished office. There was the big
desk next to the window, and on top of the desk sat stacks of
papers, a typewriter, and a computer. There were also several high
file cabinets.
    “ What’s all this stuff?”
Patricia inquired, reaching out to pick up some of the papers
laying on the desk.
    “ Don’t touch it!” Terri
exclaimed. “We can’t touch anything, Patricia! If everything
isn’t exactly the way my Mom left it, she’ll know we were
here!”
    “ Oh,” Patricia slowly
realized, pulling her hand away from the papers. “Sorry… But I
wonder what all these papers and things are.”
    “ Just notes, from my
mother’s zoology work.” Then Terri walked to the back of the
office. There were two more doors against the rear wall. A sign on
one door read SUPPLY ROOM, while the sign on the second door read
DO NOT ENTER.
    “ Are those the rooms you
were telling me about?” Patricia asked. “The rooms that your father
told you to never go in?”
    “ Yeah,” Terri answered, her
curiosity burning. Immediately, she put her hand on the knob to the
supply room. The knob turned—the door was unlocked—and she went in,
Patricia following close behind.
    “ Wait a minute,” Terri
observed.
    “ This doesn’t look like any
supply room to me,” Patricia noticed at once.
    The room was full of more computers on big
racks, with lots of blinking lights. There must’ve been half a
dozen computer screens the size of small television sets. But one
of the screens was turned on, and it had words on it.
    Terri squinted at the screen and read some
of the brightly lit words:
     
    LOT 2: TRANSMISSION FAILURE
    LOT 2a: TRANSMISSION FAILURE
    LOT 3: POSITIVE REAGENT
    TRANSMISSION OF GENETIC
    CARNIVORE MUTATION
     
    “ What’s all that mean?”
Terri asked.
    “ I don’t know,” Terri said,
disappointed. She didn’t know what any of the words
meant.
    “ Come on,” Patricia urged.
“This room is dull. Let’s go into the other one.”
    “ Good idea.”
    The girls went back out; Terri was careful
to remember to close the door behind her—she knew it was very
important that the boathouse be left as it was, otherwise, her
mother and Uncle Chuck would surely guess that she’d been in
here.
    Terri’s frown was sharp when she turned the
knob on the door marked DO NOT ENTER.
    “ It’s locked,” she
said.
    “ Use the library card,”
Patricia suggested. “It worked before.”
    Terri was thinking just that. But this lock
looked different; it looked more sturdy. Again, she slipped her
laminated library card into the door’s gap and went to work.
    “ How come it’s not
opening?” Patricia asked impatiently after a minute.
    “ This lock is harder,”
Terri replied in concentrated frustration. “But… I think the
bolt is moving…”
    “ I’m going to look around
outside,” Patricia said. “Call out to me when you get the door
open.”
    “ Okay. But be
careful.”
    Terri continued to work on
the lock as her friend left the boathouse to examine the deck and
the pier. The bolt of the doorlock continued to move as Terri
wedged the library card in further, but it was much more difficult
than the outside door. Come on, come
on, she thought. Open! Time was growing short, and if
she wasn’t careful, she fully realized that she could ruin the
card.
    Come on, come on…
    And just as the bolt was about to open—
    “ Terriiiiiiiiii!” Patricia
screamed from outside.
    — Terri flinched in
startlement. The library card slipped out of the door.
    And the bolt snapped back into place.
    But Terri wasn’t worried about that. She ran
out to the pier, her thoughts racing along with her heart:
    What happened! Why is Patricia
screaming?
     
    ««—»»
     
    When Terri ran out to the pier, Patricia,
shuddering with fear, ran right into her.
    “ What’s wrong? ” Terri demanded.
    Patricia looked frantic,
her blond hair going every which way. “There’s some thing on the edge of