Traps and Specters (27 page)

M
egan scanned the room for an escape. The outside wall had several windows, but they were surely kept locked, and Megan had no time to get them open. There were no doors other than the one she'd entered through. The only way out was the way she'd come in, and the sasquatch was blocking that passage. Having nowhere to go, she backed toward the front of the class.

The sasquatch crept toward her. It growled and snorted and dripped saliva off its bottom lip. When it bumped into one of the desks it had knocked over, it reached down, seized one of its metal legs, and casually hurled it aside. The spinning desk crashed into the ceiling and came down hard on the floor, breaking into several pieces.

Megan walked backward past several desks and stopped by the slick whiteboard on the front wall. To her right was Ms. Sara's desk. It was littered with books and paperwork and tins filled with assorted junk. A bunch of pens stood on end in a Mickey Mouse coffee mug, and yellow Post-It notes clung to everything: a lamp, a book, a box of tissues, a stapler.

The sasquatch cut across the room at an angle. Headed toward Megan, it plowed through the classroom furniture, its beefy arms heaving items everywhere. Chairs struck the walls, their plastic seats exploding to pieces. Desks flew and knocked over tables and shelves. Papers rained down like large confetti.

Unable to stay quiet any longer, Megan hollered, “Leave me alone!”

The sasquatch hurled another desk into the air, where it turned end over end, its open compartment spilling crayons and markers and pink erasers. The desk bounced off a filing cabinet and struck a window, leaving a web of cracks.

“DeGraff will
never
win!” Megan shouted. “Even if you kill me … it won't do any good!”

The sasquatch threw aside the last desk between it and the front of the class and stepped up to Megan, looking bigger than ever.

“What are you going to do, huh?”
Megan challenged.
“Kill a girl?”

The monster answered by letting loose a roar so powerful that pain erupted in Megan's ears and the pens in Ms. Sara's Mickey Mouse cup shook.

CHAPTER 55

T
he sasquatch crushed a group of lockers directly across from Richie. Handles and hinges tumbled through the air and clinked on the floor. The monster pulled itself from the crumpled remains and charged toward Richie, who watched from the slits in his locker vent. He shut his eyes and winced as the beast threw forward its weight. A deafening rattle stung his ears, and a second later Richie looked out to see the sasquatch charging back across the hall, leading with the mound of its muscular shoulder.

To Richie's right, the metal wall was now bulging inward—his locker had barely been missed.

The sasquatch continued to zigzag down the school, crushing lockers and dumping their contents onto the floor. When it reached the end of the wing, it turned and knuckle-walked back, its head swinging to survey the damage. Most of the lockers had been pulverized, but a few remained intact. The sasquatch again sniffed the air for Richie's smell.

Richie held his breath, his heart beating faster than ever. He realized he was drenched in sweat. If fear had a smell, he stank of it.

The sasquatch abruptly stopped in front of him and aimed its yellow-eyed gaze at his locker. It sniffed the air deeply, then swung its shoulders and knuckle-walked straight at him.

Richie's entire body clenched. A stream of sweat dripped off the tip of his nose.

The sasquatch leaned its head toward the locker vent. Richie watched its face come closer and closer. He began to smell its terrible scent, a cross between a wet dog and wet compost.

The beast pulled back its swollen, cracked lips, exposing the full length of its fangs. Then it leaned in so close that Richie could see nothing but the deep yellow of its eyes and the black of its pupils. The sasquatch was an inch or two away, and all that separated them was a flimsy steel door.

The sasquatch let out a low, rumbling growl.

Richie had been spotted.

CHAPTER 56

N
oah led Ella through the maze of playground equipment, her red cape fluttering behind her, the sasquatch charging after them on all fours. He veered right and headed for the school, which was still more than fifty yards away. Through the fog, the brawl began to take shape: Hannah leaping in the air; Sam flying overhead; Tameron heaving his tail. Hulking bodies lay on the ground. Sasquatches. It seemed the Descenders were winning.

Noah glanced back again. The sasquatch was only a few feet behind Ella. There was no way they were going to outrun it.

“Ella—follow me!”

“What the
heck
do you think I'm doing!”

Noah turned and dove into a plastic crawl tube, roughly fifteen feet long and four across. Each end was mounted on two poles which held it several feet in the air. A line of small oval cutouts, about three feet apart from one another, acted as windows. Ella dove in after Noah, and the two of them crawled to the middle of the tunnel.

The sasquatch slowed down and began to knuckle-walk beside the long piece of equipment, its stench wafting through the holes. Near the middle of the tube, it pressed its face against the plastic and peered inside, its angry yellow eye nearly filling the cutout. The scouts whimpered and pressed their backs against the far side of the tube. Ella kicked her flashy red boot against the cutout and the sasquatch grunted and pulled back. It hesitated, seemed to consider something, then knuckle-walked away, its furry muscles quaking as it grew smaller and smaller and then disappeared altogether in a cloud of dense fog.

The scouts, too stunned for words, sat there in silence. After a few seconds, Ella whispered, “Is it … gone?”

Noah shrugged. The two of them became very quiet again and listened.

The sasquatch suddenly appeared. On all fours, it was charging straight at them.

“Get down!” Noah said.

The scouts dropped in opposite directions, landing on their stomachs on the curved plastic floor. A second later the sasquatch punched its arm through a cutout and clawed at the open space, trying to grab one of the scouts as they squirmed away. Unable to reach them, it tried to pull free and couldn't—its arm was trapped. It roared and rocked its hulkish body back and forth, slamming against the crawl tube again and again.

Noah pointed to the open end of the tube beyond Ella.
“Go! Now's our chance!”

As they clambered for the exit, the sasquatch thrust its full weight against the tube, knocking them off balance. The beast rammed the tube harder than ever. The circular walls began to quake. Then, all at once, the tube snapped off its posts and dropped several feet to the ground, the sasquatch's arm finally slipping free.

The sasquatch jumped to the end of the tube in front of Ella and lowered its overturned head into the opening. Its top lip drooped above its gum line, and drool dripped into its own eyes. In the small space of the tube, a growl rumbled like thunder. The sasquatch grabbed for the scouts, who screamed and crawled out of reach. The monster then pulled back its arm and knuckle-walked to the other end of the tunnel. As its face appeared in the opening, Ella and Noah retreated to their former spot toward the middle of the tube.

The sasquatch straightened its legs and hammered a fist down on the tunnel roof. The plastic cracked, and its blocky knuckles broke through. The beast tipped its head to one side and studied what it had done.

“Oh no,” Ella said.

The sasquatch again knuckle-walked to the middle of the tube. It backed up about fifteen feet, charged forward, and slammed into the plastic wall, which buckled inward as the tube went into a roll. The scouts thrashed, their bodies turning along the revolving curve of the floor. The tunnel wheeled about fifteen feet and came to a stop.

Noah untangled himself and touched the spot that the sasquatch had struck. Along the plastic was a web of cracks.

“He's going to rip this thing apart,” he said. “To get to us.”

Ella crawled out from under her cape, which had settled on top of her head. “How far is the school?”

Noah glanced through one of the cutouts and saw the foggy images of the Descenders.

“Fifty yards,” Noah said. “Maybe more.”

“We have to make a run for it,” Ella said.

As she turned for the exit, Noah seized her shoulder. “Wait.”

“Wait for
what
?”

In response, Noah stood on his knees, gripped the edges of two cutouts on the side opposite the sasquatch, and pulled down. The tunnel wheeled forward about a foot and stopped.

“We can move this thing,” Noah said. “It'll keep us safe.”

The sasquatch struck the tube again, sending it into another roll. Noah and Ella were tossed about until the tube came to a stop, ten feet away from its previous spot. The scouts got to their knees and once more faced the wall opposite the sasquatch. They reached over their heads, gripped the edges of two cutouts, and pulled down while heaving their weight forward. As the tunnel began to turn, they walked their arms along the wall. The tube rolled faster, the scouts crawling along inside it like hamsters in a wheel.

Noah peered through a cutout over his shoulder just in time to see the sasquatch bearing down on them again.