Free Don't Close Your Eyes! by R.L. Stine Page A

TV on the kitchen counter. I squinted across the room. I couldn't get my tired, burning eyes to focus.
    It took me a while to
realize
I was watching a toilet paper commercial.
    A woman was rubbing toilet paper against her face, saying how soft it was.
    I watched her for a few seconds. Then I struggled to my feet.
    “Nicky! Tara!” I cried. “We can do it. We can destroy Inkweed!”

31
    THEYGAPEDATME , their eyes wide. “We
can?”
Tara said.
    “Toilet paper,” I said. “Colin said Dad bought three cases of it. Hurry. Go down to the basement. Bring up a case.”
    They hesitated for a moment. Then they took off, shooting right through the basement door without opening it.
    I pinched my cheeks hard while I waited for them to return. Pinched myself until it hurt. Anything to stay awake.
    Finally, they returned, carrying a big plastic package filled with toilet paper rolls. “Open it,” I said. “Hurry. I can't hold on much longer.”
    “Okay, it's open,” Tara said. She had a roll of the white paper in each hand. “Now what, Max?”
    “Now I go to sleep,” I said. I put my head on the table and shut my eyes. “Good night, everyone.”
    I fell asleep in two seconds. Maybe faster. A deep sleep with no dreams.
    Nicky and Tara told me later that as soon as I was asleep, Inkweed started to pour out.
    Ink seeped out through my skin. Came oozing out in all his inky blackness, through my arms, my neck, my face, through my nose and mouth.
    They stood watching in horror as the inky creature poured silently from my body. The ink formed a steaming black puddle on the floor beside my chair.
    When it had all oozed out, it slowly slid off the floor. It raised itself onto the wall—and formed a man's shadowy figure.
    “Get him!
Get
him!”
    Tara's shouts woke me from my sleep. I jumped up, gasping, my heart thudding in my chest.
    I saw Inkweed rising up on the kitchen wall. Pushing my chair away, I dove for the toilet paper rolls.
    Without a word, Nicky, Tara, and I rushed at Inkweed. And we began wiping the toilet paper over him. Dabbing frantically, wiping hard, rubbing the inky figure.
    “It's working!” I cried. “It … it's
absorbing
him!”
    Inkweed tried to dodge away. His wet, inky body slid one way, then the other against the wall.
    But the two ghosts and I had him trapped.
    I dove to the carton and tossed Nicky and Taramore rolls. Then I leaped back to the wall and wiped furiously, wiped a whole roll against Inkweed's chest. Absorbing him … absorbing the hot, smelly ink.
    We pressed roll after roll against him. The black ink soaked into the paper quickly.
    We had to keep diving to the package and tossing more rolls to each other.
    Inkweed squirmed and thrashed, ducked and dodged. But he couldn't escape.
    We soaked him up. He never made a sound.
    It took two dozen rolls. But the wall was clean.
    No ink. No Inkweed!
    Gasping for breath, Nicky, Tara, and I dropped to the kitchen floor. I gazed around. The floor was littered with ink-soaked toilet paper rolls. I had ink all over my hands, my arms, my clothes.
    “We … did it,” I choked out in a breathless whisper.
    “We absorbed him,” Tara said. She raised her hand to slap me a high five. But I was too weary to slap back.
    I heard the ceiling creak above me.
    “Uh-oh,” I said. “Someone is moving around upstairs.”
    I jumped to my feet. “Quick. Help me carry all this toilet paper to the trash cans behind the garage.”
    We tossed the inky rolls into a garbage bag and dragged it out to the back. Then I slumped into the kitchen, yawning.
    “You saved our lives, Max!” Tara declared. “I'm so proud of you. You did it. You really did it.”
    To my surprise, she threw her arms around me and gave me a hug that almost knocked me over.
    “Yeah, thanks, dude,” Nicky said after Tara backed away. “We owe you one. Big-time.”
    “You can thank me some more in the morning,” I said, yawning. “I'm going to bed now. And I'm going to sleep for hours and