The Nightmarys - By Dan Poblocki Page 0,14

ton of excuses for wanting to sit out a lap or two, but that was the craziest in a very long time.

The weird thing, though, was that Stuart had looked truly scared. Timothy swept the bottom of the pool with his eyes, trying to make out exactly what Stuart could have mistaken for a monster. But there was nothing down there except for a couple of glimmering pieces of loose change, far away near the drain at the bottom of the twenty-five-foot well. Seconds later, he’d made it to the wall in the shallow end to find Stuart still sitting in the gutter, his feet pulled up out of the water.

Now Thom sounded really angry. “You can get in or go home, Chen. I’m not going to say it again. Let’s move!”

Reluctantly, Stuart slid into the water. He glanced at Timothy briefly before popping his goggles over his eyes. He ducked under the lane lines and entered Timothy’s lane. Timothy was about to push off the wall, when he felt Stuart grab his arm.

“What is it?” said Timothy.

Stuart’s eyes were invisible behind his mirrored lenses. “It was the thing with the claw,” he said in a low voice.

“What was the thing with the claw?”

“The monster from Wraith Wars?” said Stuart, sounding freaked out. “The game? It was at the bottom of the pool.”

Timothy didn’t even know how to respond. Hadn’t they just been fighting? Obviously, Stuart was terrified. Timothy remembered how crazy he had felt in the basement of the museum that morning, when all the golden idols had stared at him.

“I didn’t see anything down there,” said Timothy. “Maybe your goggles were smudged.”

Stuart nodded. “I’m gonna follow behind you, though, okay? In this lane.”

Timothy sighed. “Okay.”

When he finally pushed off the wall, he realized that, in a way, they’d both just apologized to each other.

Twenty laps later, Timothy hopped out of the pool to take a drink from the water fountain. He was out of breath and his brain was racing with numbers. Five hundred yards, twenty laps, twenty minutes on the clock …

Then, pages 102, 149, and 203.

And eventually names: Carlton Quigley. Bucky Jenkins. Leroy “Two Fingers” Fromm … Zelda Kite. Zilpha Kindred. Abigail Tremens.

Timothy had just come up from the fountain, when he noticed someone standing in the last row of bleachers. Since the lights hung low in a similar fashion to the locker room, the steep seats were dark. The pool itself was bright. Timothy held his hand up to shade the light.

What he saw sent goose bumps rippling across his skin. Timothy could see only a silhouette—the man in the long overcoat and the brimmed hat. He understood clearly why the man had come.

The book.

It was still in his locker.

The man descended the stadium stairs and slipped into the nearest exit, disappearing entirely into the shadows of the upstairs hallway.

Timothy turned and dashed toward the boys’ lockers. Slipping and sliding on the cold ceramic tile, he heard Thom shout, “No running!” before careening through the doorway. He ignored his coach, fearing that, in his rush to get away from Stuart, he might have forgotten to put the padlock on his locker.

In the hallway, Timothy slowed. He suddenly felt foolish. Was he really willing to risk his life just to keep a stupid old kids’ book?

He skidded to a halt. The hallway didn’t look the same. It was longer than usual. Where had the showers gone?

Timothy turned around. The hallway behind him stretched on for what looked like hundreds of yards before disappearing into murky darkness.

Had he taken the wrong hallway? Maybe he was accidentally heading toward the girls’ room? Something deep inside told him, No. He hadn’t made a wrong turn—the hallway had.

Timothy decided to return to the pool, toward the safety of his team, but as he ran, the hallway continued to grow even longer. The ceiling sank lower. The walls were covered with grime. The floor was slick with gray-green slime. Mildew. Or something. And it stank, like old cheese.

He stopped again. The pool entrance should have been directly in front of him. But all Timothy could see in both directions was the hallway, which was growing darker by the second. There were no pool sounds. No shouting, no splashing. He could almost hear the mold growing in the wall’s crevices. The sound of his heart was pounding in his ears.

Timothy squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second and violently shook his head. Snap out of it, he told himself. When he