I ran over to the tank when we got there.
The water still looked a little murky, but the form in it seemed more solid. Definitely human-shaped. No more ground round or T-bone steaks or raw eggs or fertilizer floating around in the soup.
The murk cleared a bit, and I made out a skinless face. Eyeballs stared up from nests of raw red muscles with nerves and veins snaking over them.
Then, while I watched, the eyeballs rolled sideways. They stared right into my eyes!
My heart pounded in my chest.
The creature looked at me.
It was alive!
“Cool, huh?” Brad said. “It’s coming together nicely!”
“I—I—” I stuttered. Even with all the amazing instruments Brad had, I never thought his scheme would work. But it was working! There really was a human body forming, in that tank!
“Have a seat,” Brad said. He jerked his thumb toward the big pink chair.
Noooo, I moaned in my head. I never wanted to sit in that chair again!
Brad’s powers forced me to climb up into it anyway. My eyes remained glued to the strange body forming in the tank. I sat still while the chair grabbed me with tentacles and the blue flower.
When Brad flipped the switch, I didn’t try to struggle. It would all be over soon, I told myself.
When he switched off the machine this time, I felt totally drained of all energy.
He leaned on the grow tank. “Good body,” he whispered to the thing inside. “Good body!”
This time Brad practically had to lift me out of the chair and carry me back to our house.
I noticed the skin on his cheek was beginning to peel off, too. Brad’s condition was getting worse, I realized. Soon he’d switch into his new body and get rid of me!
But I wouldn’t let that happen. An idea was forming in my head. One that might actually get rid of Brad—for good.
He came to dinner with an Ace bandage wrapped around part of his face—and nobody said anything! He used the pendant to make my family see what he wanted them to see.
I ate another big dinner, which made Brad happy.
Good, I thought. Smile away, Brad. Because I have a plan. One you’re not going to like.
I only hope that it works.
Instead of lying down in bed, I stuffed pillows under my sheet. Then I hid in the closet. When Brad peeked into my room, I shut my eyes and stopped my ears with my fingers. Brad muttered something, but I didn’t hear it this time.
Yes! Brad thought he had given me a sleep order, but I hadn’t heard it. Hadn’t seen the light of the glistening pendant. I was free. At least until morning.
One more session in that pink chair, and I was going to die. I just knew it.
If I was going to save my life, I had to do it now. Before it was too late!
I thought over the commands Brad had given me. Was there any way around them?
Okay. I had to obey Brad. I couldn’t tell anybody he was an alien, or anything about his plans. I couldn’t shrink him.
What could I do?
Well, Brad didn’t say I couldn’t run away, I realized. I could go someplace far away—someplace where he couldn’t find me.
But how would I live? Eat? Sleep?
And what if Brad put Tyler in the pink chair instead of me? He had my whole family hypnotized with that pendant. He could suck the life out of Tyler just as easily as he did it to me.
No. I couldn’t run. I had to stop Brad!
I snuck down the stairs and out the back door as quietly as I could. No sign of Brad.
I found a rock and broke the window of the vacant house’s kitchen door, then reached inside and unlocked it.
After carefully investigating, I realized that Brad was nowhere to be found. I tiptoed down into the basement.
I tapped Brad’s light globe, and it spread its eerie green light over everything. The pink chair’s tentacles lay quiet. The power pack hummed in the silence.
The grow tank, I thought. I ran to it to check out Brad’s new body.
The water wasn’t murky anymore—I could see the body inside clearly. It had skin and hair in all the right places. It appeared alive, just sleeping.
In this body Brad would no longer resemble a blond California surfer boy. The new body looked more like me and Tyler.
It had curly brown hair. And its face had the same nose and mouth as Tyler’s, the same eyebrows as my face.
It could be our triplet.
Or maybe just Tyler’s new twin, once I was out of the way.
That was Brad’s plan all along. Randi out, Brad in. No way! I thought. He can’t have my family! I am not going to leave them.
I jerked loose the cords that connected the tank to the power pack and the pink chair. I found a bank of colored squares at one end of the tank. I punched the squares furiously—maybe I could wreck the machine. If I did, Brad would have no body to switch into…and no time to make a new one!
Colored light flashed through the liquid in the tank. I saw sparks shooting off the tank’s other end. A burning smell invaded my nose.
Good! I was wrecking something!
My plan was working!
I punched more of the colored squares. Fizzing and hissing noises sounded; the wires embedded in the tank’s side flashed.
A small round window opened in the end of the tank near me, and clear thick liquid poured out onto the basement floor.
I held my nose. Ugh! Sewage, fertilizer, mildew! A combination of the worst smells imaginable. I danced around to keep the goo from soaking my feet.
Then the tank lid popped open.
The body inside lay limp on the bottom of the tank.
Okay! Now I was getting somewhere! I stepped back and turned away. I didn’t want to watch that body shrivel and die.
A horrible sloshing noise sounded in my ears.
What was happening?
I had to look.
I turned—and screamed!
The body stood up in the tank, its eyes wide and solid white. Its mouth hung open. Clear jellylike goo dripped down its face, chest, and arms. It turned this way and that—sniffing—like a dog trying to find a scent.
“Uh…uh…” it grunted.
It took some deep sniffing breaths, then leaned forward. It fell out of the tank with a horrible splosh on the hard cement floor.
Then it staggered to its feet.
And came shambling toward me, its arms outstretched!
Oh, no! That horrible thing was coming for me! It was going to kill me!
I headed for the basement stairs, but I was still so weak! I didn’t have any speed!
The monster’s sticky footsteps sounded right behind me.
I lunged for the stairs—too late! The monster’s cold, wet hands wrapped around my throat!
I tugged at the monster’s warm, gooey hands. No use! It was too strong! I struggled for breath, but the monster held tight—tighter.
Black spots swam before my eyes. No! I thought. This is it. I’m a goner!
The body released its grip.
I sucked in a breath. Air! Oh, air! I thought.
The thing grabbed my shoulders. “Uh! Uh, uh, uh!” it said, shaking me. Then it patted my hair, touched my back.
I turned to look at it.
In its weird white eyes, pale gray irises formed. Black pupil dots floated in their centers.
“Uh?” it asked. It patted my cheek with one of its sticky, sour-smelling hands, then touched my mouth. “Uh?”
Maybe it didn’t want to kill me.
Maybe it just didn’t know what I was!
“It’s okay,” I muttered in a hoarse voice. My throat still hurt. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
It blinked and calmed down. “Uh…uh…”
I patted its head.
Its drooping mouth closed and curved up into a sloppy smile. One that looked a lot like Tyler’s.
It put its arms around me and hugged.
Kind of hard, but not painfully.
>
Whoa. Strange.
Chills pimpled my arms. Hair prickled on the back of my neck. This was almost too weird to think about.
The thing touched my cheek, and I touched his. He made a crooning, gurgling sound, and he looked happy.
I patted him on the head some more. “Good boy! Good monster.”
“Uh,” he mumbled, smiling again.
Then I realized. He didn’t know anything. In the tank he looked like a sleeping person, but now I realized he was a giant baby. He didn’t know what I was saying, and he couldn’t talk.
Brad could try to use that pendant on him and order him around, but how could you give orders to something that didn’t understand you?
“Goo monser,” he said.
“Good monster,” I repeated. Then I thought, no! I shouldn’t teach him any words! Then Brad will be able to control him.
Hey! Maybe I could teach him to grab Brad’s pendant! I couldn’t grab it because Brad was able to control me. But if Brad couldn’t control this body…
I ran to the shelf where Brad left the rest of the alien stuff he took out of the off-limits closet. I searched through all the boxes.
So many tiny machines. I tapped the black patch on some of them, growing them one stage. I had no idea what they did, and now every single one of them was kind of frightening.
I came across a diamond-shaped pink thing that looked a little like Brad’s hypnopendant, attached to a thin black cord. I knotted the cord and slipped the pendant around my neck.
The monster followed me to the shelves. He pawed through the boxes, too. “Uh, uh.” He frowned. He tried to eat a green disk. I grabbed it out of his mouth before he swallowed it.
Who knew what this stuff would do in someone’s stomach?
I led the monster over to the stairs.
I decided I would teach him one word: “Take.”
I patted his shoulder, then grabbed his hand and dragged him down to sit next to me on the bottom stair.
He nudged me with his shoulder and grinned with his mouth half open.
Like a big puppy!
I took one of the monster’s hands and closed it around my pink pendant. “Take,” I said. I wrapped my hands around his and lifted the pendant up and off me. Then I let go of his hand.
The monster opened his hand and stared at the pink thing.
Then he tried to lick it.
“No,” I said, pulling his hand away from his mouth. I took the pendant back from him and put it around my neck again. “Take,” I said.
I closed his hand over it and lifted it so he took the pendant off my neck without strangling me. I released his hand.
He stared at me for a long moment, then opened his hand to look at the pendant. He didn’t try to lick it this time.
I took it back from him and started all over.
It didn’t take him long to figure it out.
I patted his shoulder, and he gave me a big goofy grin.
We rehearsed some more until I was sure he knew what I meant.
I was so tired by the time we finished that just sitting up exhausted me.
The monster looked really tired, too.
But at least I had a plan, and a helper.
I led the monster around the other side of the furnace and settled him on the floor. He’d be safe there for the time being, I figured. I patted his head, and soon he fell asleep. I settled a tarp from the basement floor over him like a blanket.
I thought about Brad’s plans to take over the monster with his consciousness.
I didn’t know the monster very well, but I liked him lots more than I liked Brad.
If the monster would only do what we practiced, we would be saving both our lives.
I closed the tank and hooked it back up to the power pack and the pink chair, so it would look undisturbed. There wasn’t much I could do about the sour smell in the air or the big wet spot on the floor, though.
I made my way back to the house.
The trap was set. Now all I had to do was get to my room before Brad realized I had been gone all night.
I reached the stairs and glanced up. I sucked in a breath.
Brad!
He was sitting on the stairs waiting for me.
And he was not happy.
“Where have you been?” he cried.
I blinked at him.
His body was totally covered up: socks, long pants; long-sleeved shirt, gloves; a bandanna on top of his head under Tyler’s baseball cap; and another bandanna covering the bottom of his face. All I could see of him were his eyes.
“Where were you? Tell me right now!” he yelled. He fumbled with the pendant around his neck.
Sparks of colored light darted around the room.
I couldn’t let him focus that thing on me!
What if he made me tell him all about the monster, and the training, and…
I turned and staggered out of the house.
Brad came after me.
I heard him stumbling a few paces behind me. I glanced over my shoulder.
He wasn’t in much better shape than I was. He dragged one foot behind him.
For a minute I thought about running out into the street and trying to flag someone down.
But there weren’t any cars. It was too early in the morning.
I took a deep breath and ran to the vacant house.
Brad was right behind me as I lurched down the stairs to the basement. He grabbed my shoulder when we reached the floor and spun me around.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I shoved him. My hand sank into his chest as though it were cookie dough. Ugh! He was turning to mush! My stomach heaved.
“Oof!” Brad coughed from the blow. He tried to grab me again. I headed toward the furnace.
Brad grabbed my wrist and spun me around. The pink pendant shone in his other hand. He aimed its lights toward my eyes.
Brad scowled at me. He held the pink pendant up from its place around his neck. He shone it in my eyes. “Since you’re here and I’m here, we might as well complete this operation. I can’t wait much longer anyway. It will kill you, but no matter. I need that body!”
He shoved me toward the pink chair. “Say goodbye to your world, Randi. You’re about to leave it—forever!”
I glanced over Brad’s shoulder. I had only one hope—the monster. Was he awake?
Yes! He was! Over Brad’s shoulder, I could see him shambling toward us.
Would he remember our plan?
I smiled at him.
Brad noticed my expression. He whirled and saw the monster. “No!” he screamed. “Nooo!”
I struggled to pull free from Brad’s grip. “Monster!” I yelled. “Take!”
The monster stretched his goofy mouth into a smile and came closer. He looked at my chest.
No! Not there! I thought. Please, this has to work!
“Monster! Take!” I yelled over Brad’s screams. I pointed to Brad. “Take! Take!”
The monster reached out and ripped the pendant out of Brad’s hand.
“Good monster!” I yelled.
Brad let go of my arm. He grabbed the monster’s hand, trying to free the pendant from his grip.
The monster lifted the pendant high, trying to lift it over Brad’s head the way I had taught him. But the string it was on was really strong. It hooked under Brad’s chin.
The monster couldn’t figure out why the pendant didn’t slip off of Brad. He dragged it this way and that, pulling Brad’s body, flopping him right and left as if he were a rag doll.
Brad fell to the floor. His scarves and hat fell off in the struggle.
Ugh. Most of Brad’s skin was peeling off his bones. I gagged. He looked like a zombie—a rotting corpse from a horror movie now.
The monster put a foot on Brad’s head to hold him still, then he jerked the pendant off him.
Yes! I knew he was smart!
He brought the pendant straight to me.
&n
bsp; “Good boy!” I grabbed the pendant, then gave the monster a hug.
“Uh, uh,” he said, and hugged me back, a little too hard.
I held up the pendant. Held it up and shone its light in Brad’s eyes. “You have no power over me anymore!” I said. “Now I control you! You can’t get up from the floor—ever! You can’t get up from the floor!” I repeated.
“Raaaaandi.” Brad’s disintegrating mouth moaned the word.
He lay on the floor, twitching. A shudder passed over him. His features blurred. His body was totally breaking down.
“I liked this planet,” he whispered. His human face began to melt away, revealing his hideous lizard head.
“All I ever wanted was to stay here,” he said.
He twitched again violently. Then his body disintegrated, melting into a pile of ashes.
Brad was gone. But he had built the monster’s body to last.
I glanced at the monster. He smiled at me. I couldn’t help smiling back. He liked me! He really liked me.
I shook out Brad’s clothes and taught the monster how to put them on.
He learned fast.
I found the black touch pads on the grow tank, the power pack, and the pink chair. I unplugged everything from everything else, and shrank the alien machines until they fit neatly into the cardboard boxes.
The monster helped me carry the boxes back to our house. We put them into the upstairs closet.
The monster needed a shower, for sure, and something to eat. I could use something myself.
I taught the monster how to eat cereal and milk. He really liked Frosted O’s, and I only had to show him how to use a spoon one time.
Soon he’d be a full-fledged human, I thought. He smiled at me through a mouth full of Frosted O’s.
Hmm. How could I get Mom and Dad to adopt him? I wondered. I clutched Brad’s pink pendant in my hand. I’d watched Brad operate it often enough…
A smile spread across my face. I slung my arm around the monster’s shoulders.
Yup. No doubt about it. Tyler and I were going to love having a triplet.
Photograph © Dan Nelken
R.L. (Robert Lawrence) Stine is one of the best-selling children’s authors in history. His Goosebumps series, along with such series as Fear Street, The Nightmare Room, Rotten School, and Mostly Ghostly have sold nearly 400 million books in this country alone. And they are translated into 32 languages.