Zombie King and Other Scary Short Stories for Halloween (Mystery Underground) Read online

were arm-like but could propel the beasts quickly as they scampered on all fours. Their hateful eyes were as black as night.

  Brady and Calvin huddled in the center of the chamber. The swarm of gatormen surrounded them.

  “Please don’t eat us!” Brady wailed.

  “We don’t taste like chicken!” Calvin howled.

  The gatormen pressed in closer. Their breathing sounded like hissing. Their reptilian bodies smelled like a swamp.

  To the boys’ astonishment, one of the gatormen pushed itself upright and stood on its hind legs. Its baleful face met Brady and Calvin’s.

  “We don’t eat slaves,” it hissed dryly. “Unless they prove to be useless.”

  “S-slaves?” Brady stuttered.

  “Yes, slaves,” it rasped. “Kept to dig our tunnels.”

  Human slaves digging tunnels! Could that be how sinkholes were really formed?

  Calvin, still holding the news camera, heaved it at the gatorman standing on two legs. The sudden attack caught the monster off-guard and knocked it to the limestone floor.

  “Run, Brady, run!” Calvin yelled.

  Head down, he plowed into two gatormen that blocked the exit tunnel. Calvin was an offensive lineman, after all. He knew how to push people—including alligator people—down. The three of them fell in a tangle of snarls and grunts.

  He also knew how to protect Brady, his quarterback.

  “Go!” he cried as the gatormen slithered over him and pinned him to the ground.

  Brady bolted. He ran through the hole that Calvin had opened toward the main tunnel. The light from his phone flickered wildly with the motion of his stride. Behind him the creatures roared in disapproval.

  “Get it!” the lead gatorman bellowed. “Stop that human!”

  But Brady was fast, a true athlete. He leaped over the gatormen blocking his way and dashed into the tunnel. Up ahead the tunnel’s exit shined with the light of day. It was his goal line, his end zone, and his escape. He prayed he would make it in time.

  He burst through the tunnel’s opening and the brilliant daylight stung his eyes. He tripped, fell to his knees, and covered his face. But he had reached the sinkhole. The ladder to the surface couldn’t be far away.

  “I told you not to come down here,” hissed a familiar voice.

  Brady pried open his eyes.

  Troy lay on his belly in the bottom of the sinkhole.

  “What?” Brady muttered. “What are you doing on your—”

  His eyes adjusted to the light and his words died.

  Troy wasn’t lying on his belly. He was standing on all fours like an alligator.

  “What are you?!” Brady wailed.

  But he knew the answer. Troy was a gatorman, just like the monsters in the tunnels! Somehow he could change his shape.

  Worse, Brady also knew that Troy was here to prevent him from running away. Troy was a defenseman on the football field, and at the bottom of a sinkhole.

  Brady squeezed his eyes shut again helplessly. He was going nowhere until the other gatormen arrived.

  The End

  This story and twelve others appear in the book Mystery Underground: Frightening Florida. Look for it on MysteryUnderground.com.

  Tar Pit Terror

  Los Angeles, CA

  April 12, 4:46 pm

  Liam drew in a deep breath through his nose, held it, and then exhaled slowly.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked his friend Charlotte. “That’s the stink of forty thousand years.”

  “Is that how long it’s been since your last shower?” Charlotte teased him.

  “Very funny,” he said. “I meant the tar pits. They’re about forty thousand years old.”

  “Just like that dirt stain on your elbow,” Charlotte said with a straight face.

  “Forget it,” Liam huffed.

  Charlotte laughed and gave him a shove.

  The two friends were leaning against the fence that surrounded Lake Pit. That was the biggest tar pit in Hancock Park, home of the famous La Brea Tar Pits. The tar bubbled lazily as methane gas escaped its oily depths.

  “It actually smells like your dad’s auto shop,” Charlotte observed.

  “Want to go for a swim?” Liam asked, grinning.

  “Only if we want to end up like her,” Charlotte replied, nodding at a sculpture that stood partially submerged in Lake Pit.

  The fiberglass statue was of a female mammoth. She was depicted trapped in the tar. On the shoreline, two other mammoth sculptures, one an adult male and one a child, trumpeted in silent despair. It was a sad but accurate scene. Many prehistoric animals—mammoths, dire wolves, and saber-toothed cats included—had wandered into the tar pits and become trapped.

  “Too bad this fence wasn’t around to keep the animals out,” Liam suggested. “That would have saved a lot of lives.”

  “I don’t think a fence would have helped,” Charlotte said. “Just look at those tusks. They could tear through this fence like tinfoil.”

  “I wish I could see that,” Liam said.

  “Me too,” Charlotte agreed. “Prehistoric animals are awesome!”

  “Especially dinosaurs,” Liam said. “Do you think there are any dinosaur fossils in the tar?”

  The question irritated Charlotte immediately. She and Liam had had the same conversation almost every time they visited the park. He could be so dense!

  “No, for about the millionth time,” she huffed. “The tar pits weren’t around when the dinosaurs were alive. You know that.”

  A slow smile spread across Liam’s face. “Gotcha,” he said.

  Charlotte caught her breath and then shoved him again. He was teasing her!

  “You’re impossible!” she exclaimed.

  “Hi, kids!”

  A third person was striding toward the fence. He wore khaki pants and a polo shirt with a Hancock Park logo on the left breast. He was Mr. Cruz, a park security guard. Liam and Charlotte knew him well.

  “Are you two keeping out of trouble?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Hi, Mr. Cruz,” Charlotte greeted him. “Liam was just about to need your help.”

  “What happened this time?” Mr. Cruz replied.

  “Nothing yet,” Charlotte said. “But I sense a knuckle sandwich in his future.”

  Mr. Cruz laughed. “Liam, were you bugging poor Charlotte about the name of the park again?”

  “Not this time,” Liam protested. “But now that you mention it, why do we call them the La Brea Tar Pits?”

  Neither Charlotte nor Mr. Cruz responded.

  “Because la brea means ‘tar’ in Spanish, right?” Liam continued.

  Still silence from his friends.

  “So that means the La Brea Tar Pits are really the Tar-Tar Pits.”

  “Is that like Dum Dums?” Charlotte said.

  “Those are candy,” Liam retorted.

  “Not always,” Charlotte smirked.

  “Okay, kids, that’s enough,” Mr. Cruz cut in. “I have something neat to show you.”

  “What is it?” Liam and Charlotte asked together.

  “Walk with me,” Mr. Cruz said. “You have to see it for yourselves. It’s across the park. You won’t believe it!”

  “Lead the way!” Liam exclaimed.

  He and Charlotte followed Mr. Cruz across the grass and onto the sidewalk. Dusk was settling in and the shadows grew long as they crossed the quiet park. Few people remained. It was almost closing time.

  “I was making my evening rounds,” Mr. Cruz explained as they walked. “You know, letting everyone know the park was closing. That’s when I found this.”

  He stopped at a spot in the tall grass, somewhat off the sidewalk, and pointed at the ground. A pool of tar as wide as a hot tub bubbled in front of his feet. There was no fence around the pool and no mammoth sculptures were nearby. It looked completely natural and untouched by humans.

  “Wow!” Charlotte gasped. “Where did this come from?”

  Liam pinched his nose. “It
smells worse than Lake Pit,” he said.

  “I think it just bubbled up today,” Mr. Cruz shrugged. “I didn’t think that was possible, but I’ve never seen this here before. So what do you think?”

  “It’s awesome!” Charlotte smiled.

  “Do you think there’s anything in it?” Liam wondered. “Like maybe—”

  “Don’t say dinosaur bones,” Charlotte warned, one finger raised.

  “—more fossils,” Liam finished.

  “There could be all sorts of interesting specimens—mammals, plants, insects,” Mr. Cruz said. “I can’t wait to find out.”

  “Neither can we,” Charlotte assured him.

  “Right now, though, I’ve got to report this,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I was on my way to do that when I spotted you. And you kids need to go home. The park closed ten minutes ago.”

  Liam saluted. “Thanks for showing us first.”

  “We won’t tell anyone,” Charlotte swore.

  Mr. Cruz nodded at them. “Thanks, kids. You know the way out. I’ll see you soon.”

  He turned and marched quickly toward the Page Museum.

  Charlotte and Liam remained. The new tar pit fascinated them. What a discovery! Even though they hadn’t found it themselves, they were some of the first people to ever see the tar pit. They felt like explorers.

  Clutching a stick he found in the grass, Liam squatted in front of the tar pit. He carefully probed its bubbling surface with the tip of the stick. Nothing happened.

  “What are you doing?” Charlotte demanded. She squatted next to him and peered into the gurgling tar.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing?” he grinned at her. “I’m fishing for fossils.”

  “I hope you fish up a brain,” Charlotte teased. “But you’d better hurry. It’s getting late.”

  The evening sky was darkening rapidly. The park’s lamps had come on and a chill had crept into the air. Charlotte shivered, suddenly uneasy.

  “Hurry,” she repeated.

  If