47 - Legend of the Lost Legend by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead)

me.
    I grabbed Marissa’s shoulder to steady myself. We clung together for a
moment, getting used to the water.
    “Brrrr.” I shivered. The water felt ice cold, even through my jeans legs.
    But it was shallow, as Marissa had said. It came up only a few inches above
my boots.
    I took another step, leaning forward, trying to balance against the stream’s
fast current.
    One more step. We were both halfway across the stream.
    “Oh—!” I cried out when I realized I couldn’t take the next step.
    “Hey—!” Marissa exclaimed. I saw her struggling, too. “I’m stuck!”
    “The bottom is so soft!” I cried. I worked to pull my foot up from the mud.
    Stuck. My hiking boots had sunk below the surface of the muddy bottom.
    I leaned down. And pulled. Pulled my leg up.
    It wouldn’t budge.
    I grabbed my leg with both hands and tried to tug my foot out from the muddy
stream bottom.
    No.
    “We-we’re sinking!” Marissa wailed. “Justin—look! We’re sinking fast!”
    I swallowed hard. She was right. I could feel myself being pulled down. Down
into the cold water, into the soft, sticky mud.
    The water came up to my knees now. It seemed to be rising quickly.
    But I knew the water wasn’t going up. I was heading down.
    “Pull off your boots and swim for it!” I instructed Marissa.
    We both bent over and struggled to reach our hiking boots.
    But they were buried too deeply in the mud.
    The water rose up over my waist. If I kept sinking, it would be over my head
in a few minutes.
    Booom. Booom.
    The thundering footsteps made the water ripple.
    The dark shadow spread over the stream.
    “Justin—look!” Marissa cried. She pointed to the other shore.
    I turned to the shore—so close. But so far away.
    I squinted into the shadows to see what she was gawking at. “What is it?” I
cried.
    “A big plug,” Marissa reported. “In the stream bottom. Like a bathtub drain
plug. This stream isn’t real, either. It’s a fake.”
    “The water feels plenty real!” I exclaimed, feeling myself sink even deeper
into the mud. “Can you reach the plug, Marissa? Maybe if you pull it up, the
water will drain.”
    She leaned toward it, bending at the waist. She stretched out both hands for
the ring on top of the plug. “I-I’m trying,” she groaned. “If only…”
    Boooom. Booooom.
    Marissa uttered a sigh. “I can’t! I can’t reach it! It’s too far away.”
    The cold stream water flowed against my chest. I felt myself drop farther
into the muddy bottom.
    “I think we failed Ivanna’s test,” I murmured.
    “Noooo!” Marissa wailed. She began thrashing at the water with both hands,
twisting her body one way, then the other.
    The deepening shadow moved over us.
    I turned back and raised my eyes to the shore.
    I saw the creatures lurching toward us.
    And opened my mouth in an ear-shattering scream of horror.

 
 
23
     
     
    At first I thought I was seeing black clouds, floating low over the trees.
    But then I realized the bobbing shapes were too dark to be clouds. Too dark
and too solid.
    And then I saw the twin pairs of yellow eyes.
    And I recognized the shapes of the heads. And I knew I was staring at cats.
    Cats!
    Black cats. Huge heads rising over the trees. Tails curling up like smoke
from chimneys.
    Two giant black cats, their paws thundering over the forest, shaking the
ground and the trees. Their yellow eyes locked on Marissa and me.
    “They’re… not real!” Marissa murmured. “Not real… not real.” She had
stopped thrashing the water and stood now perfectly still, staring back at the
enormous cats, repeating the words like a chant.
    Trees crunched and fell. The two cats thundered their way to the shore.
    “Noooo…” A low wail escaped Marissa’s throat.
    I struggled to breathe. My chest ached. My head started to spin.
    The cats pulled back their lips in a terrifying hiss.
    I saw rows of sharp teeth. I saw their yellow eyes narrow menacingly.
    Tossing back their heads in another hiss,