Chapter 5
The trip to the gift shop was a waste of time. Mrs. Crank wasn't there; the gift shop didn't open for another two hours. Before leaving for the hospital to join the rest of the gang Bryce went into the fish and chip restaurant that Mr. Seafish owned to buy some fries. They were for Cindy who hadn't eaten at the bakery because she had got so caught up in their new adventure.
Mr. Seafish had joined them on the gang's adventure with the robotic crabs. In fact, when he and Adam were dragged to the bottom of the ocean to an underground city called Mimba, they had saved his life three times by the end of the day. He often gave them free food.
Cindy and Amy sat on a bench across from the pier on the boardwalk. Amy had tried to get a conversation going a few times, but it was a one-sided effort; Cindy was jealous and didn't want to give the new girl a chance. It wasn't too long before she realized she was being really immature and decided to be a little nice.
"When did you start reading about us?" Cindy asked finally.
Amy looked away from her view of the oddly colored sky which had been clouded over with large, thick purple clouds to Cindy. "When I was nine," she answered. She looked downward and swung her feet back and forth.
A moment or two went by. 'So much for being nice,' Cindy thought.
Suddenly Amy giggled. "You were always my favorite character," she said.
Cindy's interest was perked. "Really?"
"Yeah," she insisted. "I mean, I really admire Sally's wit, Adam's leadership, Bryce's suaveness and Watch's intelligence, but you brought something different to the group: you gave Adam confidence, you tamed Bryce's arrogance, you made Watch feel loved and gave Sally–" Amy trailed off, trying to think of something.
"I gave her something to do," Cindy finished. "I can only imagine how much more she'd have to insult the guys if I were gone."
The girls laughed. Cindy realized Amy wasn't so bad.
"Although," Cindy said, becoming serious. "I'm not sure if I did anything to help Bryce."
"What do you mean?" Amy asked, glancing over at her.
Cindy looked down at the ground. "Well, Bryce changed a lot; he went back to being all James Bond and he dates a lot of girls. He barely even hangs out with us anymore."
"Really?"
"You hadn't noticed, not even a little?"
"No, but I mean I barely know him."
And
that's as far as the girls' conversation went. It was then they were
attacked.
A hideous creature had approached the girls from behind
and grabbed Amy around the neck. Amy only felt the creature's rotting
skin, but Cindy saw the horrific thing and began to scream.
It looked like a starved corpse that had been rotting in the sun for a few days. The creature had wide, vacant eyes and sunken cheeks. Its brown skin hung loosely off its stick figure like the dirty rags it wore. Surprisingly it could talk and seemed to have its own language as it spoke to its partner that then grabbed Cindy as well and began to drag her south on the boardwalk.
Bryce came running towards the girls only a few seconds later but he didn't know how to help them. He searched for some sort of weapon, but it was no use; everything was either attached to the ground or too heavy to lift. Out of desperation he ended up jumping on the creature that was attacking Cindy and the three of them crashed to the ground in a furious struggle.
Once Bryce managed to get the upper hand, the creature screamed at its partner for assistance. The creature who had kept a hold of Amy's throat finally let go to comply with its buddy's calls. Though Amy wheezed for air from the ground, she forced herself to get up and go to Bryce's aid.
Cindy came to Bryce's rescue as well. She decided to stop the first creature from reuniting with his buddy by heading him off. The thing didn't look too threatened by her and was about to attack her next. Amy did the only thing she thought she could to help Cindy which was to yank off her clunky shoe and use it to beat the scraggly beast. She crept up from behind as it had done to her and gave it a good blow to the side of the head. Though it was stunned a moment, it just turned its attention to her once more. Luckily she managed get another hit off and it instead recoiled in fear.
Once again it talked to its partner. Cindy believed it was trying to convince its partner to leave with it, only it seemed to disagree, probably since it was clearly more powerful than Bryce who was now slowly having the life choked from him as well.
Following Amy's example, Cindy pulled off her shoe too and went after Bryce's attacker. However this one was stronger than its partner and once Cindy hit it, it reacted by grabbing her arm and throwing her to the boardwalk. However, to do this it had to let go of Bryce which was a mistake since he got free enough to wrestle the thing to ground once more.
After making contact with its head on the boardwalk a few times, the zombie-like creature let out a screech and struggled furiously to push Bryce off him. It was still stronger than him but it instead used its strength to push Bryce off him and join its buddy in escaping from the teens that were more trouble than they were worth.
And then the three of them slumped to the ground to catch their breaths and their racing hearts.
"Were those zombies?" Cindy asked as she rubbed her backside.
Bryce had obviously received the worst of the attack. He had a cut on his forehead that bled slightly and already there were bruises forming on his throat. "I doubt it," he gasped. "They looked like it, but they were warm to the touch. Plus they were too intelligent." Bryce suddenly burst into a fit of coughing.
"Are you alright?" Amy asked with concern. Cindy gave her a look, feeling a stab of jealousy. Once Bryce nodded, Amy turned to Cindy.
"I'm fine," she lied.
"We should head to the hospital," Bryce said hoarsely. He pushed himself up and gave a hand to Cindy, then to Amy. "We need to figure out what we're going to do; it's clear that there are no dinosaurs. And that's not necessarily a good thing. Now we don't know what we're dealing with."
As they headed for the hospital it became even clearer that the dinosaur theory was just that. Pixies roamed, string rays flew, massive butterflies fluttered and strange plants spread. It was a normal day in Spooksville. They made it to the hospital safely and just as Watch, Adam, Sally and Tira were exiting Dr. Paine's office.
"What happened?" Tira gasped as they approached with their injuries.
"The gift shop wasn't open and as we were leaving we were attacked by these weird creatures that looked like zombies," Cindy explained briefly, trying to save Bryce's voice.
"Are you guys OK?" Adam asked.
Bryce nodded. "But the dinosaur theory is wrong; there are no dinosaurs."
"Dinosaurs or not, we really need to close the Secret Path," Watch said looking around the emergency room. "We'll probably have to go through it to do that, but the more these creatures are here the more people are going to get hurt."
"Yeah," Sally echoed. "If a creature was able to hurt Bryce, we're all in trouble."
"What did the doctor have to say about the flowers?" Cindy asked.
"Basically what we already knew," Watch said. "He also added a few things though. The anthocyanins I was talking about before, the red pigment, is an indication of any one of several things. The pigment is hypothesized to act as sunscreen and possibly protects against intense heat, cold, droughts and/or salt buildup."
Bryce frowned. "Was anything he said definite?"
"Not really. Scientists know little about red plants," Watch told her. "But this is a start. We should be ready for anything when we go through."
Adam took charge. "If we're going anywhere we need supplies."