The Beast by R. L. Stine
“James—what h-happened?” Ashley stammered, gaping in horror at what remained of the two guards.
“I think we’ve traveled through time,” I told her, unable to take my eyes off the skeletons. “I think we’ve come back more than sixty years to our own time.”
“And the guards?”
“I think they died of old age,” I said.
And as I said it, the bones began to crumble.
The patches of blue cloth—what had once been their uniforms—fluttered and floated away in the breeze.
The bones crumbled to gray powder. The powder was carried off by the wind.
“P.D. sent us back in time to 1931,” I said, watching the powder float away in the moonlight. “I guess he hoped we could warn people about the tornado and save lives.”
“But of course we couldn’t,” Ashley said sadly. “You can’t change history, right? You can’t change the past.”
“We proved that,” I replied thoughtfully. “We didn’t change anything at all.”
“Are we really back home?” Ashley asked.
I opened my mouth to answer, but a stern voice interrupted.
“How did you kids get back here? What are you doing here?”
Bright flashlights played over our faces, forcing us to cover our eyes.
The Kings Island security guards had finally caught us.
♦ ♦ ♦
They guided us to the front office and called my mom.
We explained that we had accidentally gotten locked in the park after it closed.
“You should have come right to the security office instead of running around having adventures,” a guard scolded, shaking his head.
Ashley and I apologized.
“Can we just go and say good-bye to P.D.?” Ashley asked.
The guard narrowed his eyes at her. “Who?”
“P. D. Walters,” Ashley replied. “You know. The old man who tests The Beast at night.”
The guards exchanged glances. “Are you feeling okay?” one of them asked her.
“There is no old man who tests The Beast,” the other one said, frowning.
We all stared at one another in silence.
Then I asked if Ashley and I could wait for my mom outside.
The guards eyed us suspiciously. “You’re not going to run away again?”
“No. Promise,” I said.
“Wait by that gate,” the guard said, pointing out the window.
Ashley and I wandered outside. The park was dark and silent. Pale moonlight washed over us as we made our way to the front gate.
“The next time they won’t catch us,” Ashley murmured, grinning.
“Huh? Next time?” I cried.
I started to tell her there wouldn’t be any next time—but something caught my eye.
It was a large brass plaque mounted on the wall beside the gate. The plaque caught the moonlight and glowed brightly against the dark wall.
Ashley saw it, too. We both moved close to read it:
FIRELIGHT PARK
HONOR ROLL
THIS PLAQUE IS IN MEMORIAM
OF THOSE WHO PERISHED
JUNE 15, 1931
My eyes drifted down the long list of names engraved on the metal plaque.
Ashley and I read aloud the very last name at the bottom of the list: “P. D. Walters.”
“He didn’t get out,” Ashley murmured sadly. “He died in the tornado.”
“But then, how—”
I never finished my question.
Through the gate I saw car headlights rolling across the vast parking lot. My mom. Coming to pick us up.
Then behind us I heard a faint sound. A familiar sound, floating on the night air.
I glanced at Ashley. She heard it, too.
We both listened in silence to the sound drifting from the back of the park.
Was it the clatter of roller coaster wheels?
Or was it just the wind?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Where do you get your ideas?”
That’s the question that R. L. Stine is asked most often. “I don’t know where my ideas come from,” he says. “But I do know that I have a lot more scary stories in my mind that I can’t wait to write.”
So far, he has written nearly three dozen mysteries and thrillers for young people, all of them best-sellers.
Bob grew up in Columbus, Ohio. Today he lives in an apartment near Central Park in New York City with his wife, Jane, and fourteen-year-old son, Matt.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1994 by Parachute Press, Inc.
THE BEAST® is a registered trademark of Paramount Parks Inc.
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
ISBN: 978-0-671-88055-2 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8119-0 (eBook)
First Minstrel Books printing June 1994
ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.
R.L. Stine, The Beast