03 - Monster Blood by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Page A

Trigger. Disappeared. Vanished. Trigger was still barking his
head off. Somehow I dragged him home and got him in his pen.”
    “So what’s your problem?” she asked.
    “I can’t tell you. I have to show you,” he said. “I’ll be right there. Bye.”
    He hung up the phone and hurried down the stairs, carrying the bucket. Kathryn was in the kitchen, her back to him,
chopping away at something with her big butcher knife. Evan hurried past and
darted out the door.
     
    Andy’s house was a modern, redwood ranch style, with a low hedge of
evergreens running along the front. Her dad, she said, was a fanatic about the
lawn. It was clipped a perfect inch and a half above the ground, smooth as a
carpet. A flower garden stretched along the front of the house, tall orange and
yellow tiger lilies bobbing in the gentle breeze.
    The front door was open. Evan knocked on the screen door.
    “What’s with the bucket?” was Andy’s greeting as she let him in.
    “Look,” he said, out of breath from running all the way to her house. He held
up the aluminum bucket he had taken from Kathryn’s garage.
    “Oh, wow,” Andy exclaimed, raising her hands to her face as she stared into
it wide-eyed.
    “Yeah. Wow,” he repeated sarcastically. “The Monster Blood. It’s grown again.
Look. It’s almost filled this big bucket. What are we going to do?”
    “What do you mean we ?” Andy teased, leading him into the den.
    “Not funny,” he muttered.
    “You didn’t want to share it,” she insisted.
    “I’ll share it now,” he said eagerly. “In fact… do you want it? I’ll give it to you for a bargain price—free.” He held
the bucket toward her.
    “Huh-uh.” Andy shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Put
it down, will you?” She pointed to the corner behind the red leather couch. “Put
it over there. It’s giving me the creeps.”
    “Giving you the creeps!?” Evan cried. “What am I going to do? Every
time I turn around, it grows some more. It’s growing faster than Trigger!”
    “Hey!” they both cried at once.
    Both had the same thought, the same frightening memory. Both suddenly
remembered that Trigger had eaten a ball of the green gunk.
    “Do you think…” Evan started.
    “Maybe…” Andy replied, not waiting for him to finish his thought. “Maybe
Trigger’s growing because he ate the Monster Blood.”
    “What am I going to do ?” Evan wailed, pacing the room nervously, his
hands shoved into his jeans pockets. “The stuff is getting bigger and bigger,
and so is poor Trigger. I’m all alone here. There’s no one who can help me. No
one.”
    “What about your aunt?” Andy suggested, staring at the bucket on the floor in
the corner. “Maybe Kathryn can think of something—”
    “Are you kidding? She can’t hear me. She doesn’t want to hear me. She hates me. She just sits at her jigsaw puzzle and argues with that horrible black cat all day.”
    “Okay. Forget the aunt,” Andy said, making a dispirited face.
    “Perhaps if you told Dr. Forrest—”
    “Oh, yeah. For sure,” Evan snapped. “He’d really believe that Trigger is
turning into a giant because I let him eat Monster Blood.”
    He threw himself down on the couch. “I’m all alone here, Andy. There’s no one
to help me. No one I can even talk to about this.”
    “Except me?”
    “Yeah,” he said, locking his eyes on hers. “Except you.”
    She plopped down on the other end of the couch. “Well, what can I do?” she
asked hesitantly.
    He jumped up and carried the bucket over. “Take some of this. Let’s split it
up.”
    “Huh? Why don’t we just toss it in the trash?” she asked, staring down at it.
The green gunk was pushing up near the top of the bucket.
    “Toss it? We can’t,” he said.
    “Sure, we can. Come on. I’ll show you.” She reached for the bucket handle,
but he shoved it out of her reach.
    “What if it outgrows the trash can?” he asked. “What if it just