خیابان های پارک وحشت فصل 28

Streets of Panic Park - Chapter 28

Matt shoved Byron hard in the chest. Michael head-butted him.

Byron staggered back.

We pushed our way into the study. And gathered in front of The Menace’s desk.

Tall bookshelves were lined up behind him. A Fear Meter stood in the corner. The red line bobbed at 95.

“No fear!” I cried. The words burst from my mouth.

But I was shaking so hard, I couldn’t think straight.

Abby and Julie picked up the chant. “No fear!” they said. And everyone repeated it.

The Menace raised his head slowly from his book. His dark eyes moved down the line, stopping for a few seconds on each one of us.

We all stared back. We didn’t blink. We locked our eyes on him.

“No fear! No fear! No fear!”

Luke grabbed my hand. I grabbed Sheena’s hand. We all held hands and kept up the chant.

“No fear! No fear!”

As we chanted, I could feel my fear slipping away. I felt stronger. I felt it working.

“No fear! No fear! No fear!”

We can do this! I thought.

We can stare him down. We can defeat him!

The red line on the Fear Meter hadn’t moved. It stayed at 95.

The Menace slowly closed the book. He clasped his hands on top of his desk. He stared back at us for a while.

His face was a blank. No expression at all. His dark eyes didn’t reveal a thing.

“No fear! No fear!”

And then … The Menace slapped his hands down on the desktop. He tossed back his head and laughed.

“How STUPID can you be?” he shouted.

We cut off our chant. Luke and Sheena let go of my hands.

The Menace jumped to his feet. His desk chair clattered back against the bookshelves behind him. “Do you really think a staring contest can defeat ME?” he boomed.

“Or ME?” his second face cried.

The red line on the Fear Meter jumped to 97.

The Menace leaned over his desk, and I saw a computer keyboard in front of him. He tapped a few keys.

“Let’s see … Let’s see what we can do,” he muttered to himself.

I heard a loud hum. The whole room started to vibrate.

The Menace tapped more keys on his keyboard. “Let’s see …” A cold smile spread over his face.

“You evil thing!” his red face cried. “You wouldn’t do that to them — would you?” The Menace nodded. He tapped more keys. “No fear?” he said. “Is that your slogan? Well … my slogan is MORE FEAR!” The room vibrated harder. I could feel the floor move beneath my shoes.

My ear itched. I felt strange. Suddenly, I couldn’t hear well.

I reached up to scratch my ear … and felt something warm and wet inside it….

“Oh, nooo!” A moan escaped my throat as I pulled something from my ear.

A worm!

A fat brown worm.

I held it up in front of me. I could hear kids screaming all around me. But I could only think about the worm, alive, wriggling between my fingers.

And then I gagged — and reached into my mouth. And pulled another fat, sticky worm from under my tongue.

I turned and saw Boone pulling worms from his nose. Worms dangled from both his nostrils.

I saw worms crawling in Sabrina’s hair. She started to tug at them, screaming and pulling them from her scalp.

Beside me, Sheena pulled a long worm from her mouth. It seemed to stretch as she pulled it. She kept spitting … spitting … and another worm poked out from between her lips.

Kids cried and screamed for help. We struggled and squirmed and choked, pulling worm after worm from our mouths, our ears, our noses.

“Go ahead!” The Menace exclaimed. “Why aren’t you staring at me now? Go ahead! See how it works out for you!” “Oh, nooooo!” I let out a sharp cry when I saw the Fear Meter.

At the top! The red line had climbed to 99!

“We never should have listened to those villains!” Matt screamed. “We’ve been TRICKED! It’s a TRAP! A horrible TRAP!”