The Haunting (2 page)

I bounced up and down in front of the weird old mirror a few times watching how a wave in the middle turned my body to rubber, and my ears wiggled like elephant flaps.

This was better than a funhouse and the admission was free, right in my own bedroom. After a while it got pretty boring, though, so I went back and checked out the window seat.

I took off the cushion and you could tell it was like a built-in toy box, and the seat part was the lid.

So open it up, Doofus, I told myself. See if there're any toys inside. But a funny feeling made me not want to open the lid.

Maybe there was something inside. Something that wanted to come out.

“Don't be ridiculous,” I said out loud.

Then I reached out and flung open the lid.

The toy box was empty.

Whew! I let out the breath I'd been holding. What a complete goon I was being, afraid of an empty toy box!

I let the lid fall and started unpacking my suitcase. It's going to be a great summer, I thought, throwing my clothes into the old dresser hurriedly.

Suddenly I wanted to get unpacked and get outside, check out the neighborhood, and see if there were other kids my age.

The bottom drawer stuck. I reared back, ready to kick it, then remembered what my mom said about it being valuable. Which you'd never know to look at it, that was for sure!

Sighing, I got down on my knees and worked to loosen that stupid drawer. I jiggled it sideways and finally it came free with a piercing shriek of wood on wood.

I winced and let go of the drawer.

But the shriek went on. It got louder. More urgent.

Sally. My little sister was screaming. Screaming as if somebody—or something—was trying to hurt her.

3

I ran out into the hall. The scream was louder. It was definitely coming from up here on the second floor.

“Sally?” I hurried toward the sound, worried that Sally was really hurting and not just crying for attention like she sometimes does.

The crying was coming from a room at the far end of the hall. The door was closed.

“Sally?”

I opened the door and the sobbing stopped in mid-wail.

There was nobody in the room.

A child-sized chair rocked gently in the corner. Which really spooked me until I realized it must have been the force of my opening the door that got it started. Or these creaky old floors, totally uneven.

I started to leave when a movement outside the window caught my eye. Frowning, I took a step toward the window.

Sally! She was down there in the backyard chasing a beach ball and laughing like she never had a care in the world. What was going on here? The hairs prickled along the back of my neck.

Someone had been in this room, crying and screaming bloody murder.

And if it wasn't Sally, then who was it?

As I stood there like a dolt staring out the window, trying to get a grip on some kind of logic with my sluggish mind, I heard a loud banging noise coming from downstairs.

Someone was at the door, trying to get in.

“Hey, Mom!” I shouted. “Someone's at the door!”

No answer. Mom must be outside, looking after Sally. The pounding was making the walls shake and I decided I had better answer the door before the house fell down. So I sprinted down the hall, slid down the banister, and jumped off the end. That's when I realized the pounding wasn't coming from the front door like I'd thought. It was coming from the back door.

My throat felt thick, like it was hard to swallow. Why was everything so strange in this old house?

Go ahead, I told myself, answer the door.

I went into the kitchen. Nobody was there. The banging on the back door was deafening. Wham, wham, wham!

Somehow I knew it was a summons meant for me alone.

4

I gathered up my courage, grabbed the knob, and flung the door open.

There on the back steps was a round-faced kid with fat freckles and a gap-toothed grin.

“Hi! Jason? I'm Steve. From next door.”

I stared at him, trying to smile back. Steve was a little shorter than me but husky and solid instead of beanpole skinny. He was wearing a Stephen King T-shirt and baggy shorts and looked about my age.

“Your mom said I should knock real loud since you were upstairs.”

So that was it. Relieved, I stepped back from the door. “Come on in.”

“I've never been in here before,” said Steve, looking around the kitchen eagerly. “My family comes every summer but nobody ever stays in this house.” Steve ducked his head as if he'd said too much. “Hey, do you play ball? There's not a whole lot of kids here but we might be able to get a game together—if you don't mind playing with girls.”

“What do you mean, nobody ever stays here?” I demanded.

Steve avoided looking me in the eye. He shrugged and scuffed at the floor with the toe of his sneaker. “People don't, that's all.”

“What's wrong with this house?” I asked.

Steve hesitated, like he didn't want to say any more. Right away I figured he had an active imagination, like they're always saying about me, and he was used to people not believing him.

“It's okay,” I said. “You can tell me.”

I grabbed a package of cookies from the counter and dropped into a chair at the kitchen table, kicking another one out for Steve. I opened the cookies and held out the package. “Tell me about this house,” I said.

Steve sat down and helped himself to a fistful of Oreos. He broke one apart and ate it, inside first, while I waited, watching him. Steve sighed and leaned across the table. “OK. There was some people rented it last year. They had a couple of little kids, about the same age as your sister. I don't know anything except they left in the middle of the night and never came back.”

“That's it?” I said.

Steve looked stung. He looked over his shoulder and leaned in close again. “There used to be an old lady lived here. All by herself for years and years. She had bedbugs in her attic, if you know what I mean. And she was mean—she hated kids, I guess.” He sat back and reached for another cookie, looking pleased with himself. “I heard she died in here and nobody ever found the body.” He grinned at me. “What do you say we look for it?”

The backdoor opened and sunlight fell across the table. “OK, guys, out of here.” Mom came in and the first thing she did was confiscate the cookies. “I want to get the rest of our stuff unpacked and I don't need you boys underfoot.”

“Sure, Mrs. Winter,” said Steve, standing quickly. “I'll show Jason the lake.”

Good idea. I needed to get out of that musty old house and clear my head.

“Wait a second,” said Mom. “Put these empty boxes in the garage, will you?”

“Sure, Mom, no problemo.”

The garage was this old, rickety building attached to the side of the house. When we'd first come up the driveway, the overhead door had been shut. Now it was wide open.

“What a mess,” Steve said. “Look at all that neat old stuff.”

The garage was dark—no windows—but I could make out all the old junk stacked inside. There hardly seemed to be room for any more empty boxes.

I stepped over a broken chair, making my way toward the rear of the building.

Steve followed. “All this junk must have belonged to the old woman,” he said, picking up a battered lampshade. He lowered his voice to a spooky whisper. “I didn't tell you everything.”

“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes sarcastically but of course Steve couldn't see me in the gloom.

“No, really. She was a witch. And she really hated kids. Especially little kids. Of course, now that she's a ghost she has more power. She can do anything. Over the years lots of little children have disappeared from this neighborhood.”

Right then I banged my shin on a rusted rake. “Ouch! You know what, Steve? I think you're making all this up. Give me a hand here.”

“Am not,” Steve protested as he helped me shove the empty boxes way up on a stack of junk.

“Yeah? Then prove it,” I said. “Prove that this place is haunted.”

Suddenly the garage door slammed shut.

It was as if the sun had winked out. The garage was instantly, totally, utterly dark.

“How'd that happen?” Steve whispered, his voice shaky.

“I don't know but let's get out of here.”

I pushed past Steve and began to pick my way toward the front of the garage. I kept bumping into things and stumbling over old paint cans.

Finally my outstretched hands found the door. “I got it,” I shouted, fumbling for the handle. “We're out of here!”

Behind me I could hear Steve letting out a long sigh of relief.

My fingers found the handle, turned and pulled. Nothing happened.

The door was locked. We were trapped.

5

“We gotta get out of here,” said Steve, his voice rising.

Somewhere in all the mess something rustled.

“Was that you?” I said.

“Was what me?”

It came again, a scratching, scrabbling kind of sound. Whatever it was, it wasn't human.

“That's not me,” said Steve. “I didn't move a muscle.”

A cobweb brushed my forehead and I jerked my head away. You never know about poisonous spiders.

“I'll bet there's rats in here,” I said. “That must be what's making that scrabbling noise. Rats.”

Steve groaned in the dark. “Stop fooling around and open the door, Jason. It wasn't true what I said, I admit it, OK?”

Wasn't true? What was he talking about?

“About the old lady,” said Steve. “I don't know anything about any missing kids. Now get us out of here.”

I should have been relieved that he was making it up, but something about the darkness put a creepy-crawly feeling in my stomach. Like there were shapes in the dark I couldn't quite see, or invisible hands reaching out to touch me.

Yeah, right. I was acting like a five-year-old, scared of the dark!

“Jason, get us out of here, OK?” Steve said. His voice was kind of high-pitched.

The darkness was getting to both of us.

We pounded on the door and shouted as loud as we could but no one came.

“It could be hours,” I said dejectedly. “My mom's inside and my dad's probably helping her. They'll never hear us.”

“Let's try again.” Steve's breath sounded ragged.

I banged again on the door and shouted as loud as I could. Steve shouted even louder and banged on the wall. We were making so much noise we didn't hear the smooth click of the lock.

Suddenly the door opened and sunlight blinded us. I blinked and shaded my eyes, trying to make out the looming figure coming into the garage.

It was my dad, of course. Who else had I been expecting? Some made-up little old lady? Yeah, right.

“You boys stop your goofing around,” my father said. “I've got too much to do to be watching out for you.”

“We weren't fooling around,” I insisted. “I was putting some stuff away for Mom and someone came along and shut the door. It wasn't you?”

“This is an old house,” Dad said. “I don't want you horsing around and breaking something valuable or putting your foot through some rotten board and breaking a leg, understand?”

There's no point in arguing with my dad when he gets that tone. “Yes, sir,” I said.

Steve didn't say anything until my father was gone.

“The 'rents never understand,” he said.

“Rents?”

“Short for parents,” he explained. “Anyhow, I'd just as soon forget about that stupid garage door. Maybe it was the wind or something.”

“Maybe,” I said. But there hadn't been any wind.

“It's great to have a guy my own age right next door,” said Steve. “Hartsville's OK but there's not that many kids. How did you happen to come here?”

“My parents are architects,” I explained. “They're designing Hartsville's new town complex. So this isn't a vacation for them. A real-estate agent found the house for us.”

“Spooky house,” said Steve as we walked under the tall pines. “Wouldn't it be neat if it was really haunted?”

“Yeah, right,” I said. For some reason I didn't feel like joking about it. As we turned toward the house, I searched the upstairs windows but didn't say anything to Steve about whatever it was that had been watching me when we first arrived.

No way would he believe me.

“You play baseball?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Tell you what,” Steve said. “Wait here and I'll go get my ball and glove. We can practice. I start junior high this fall and I want to be the ace pitcher.”

Steve went home to get his stuff and I ran upstairs to get my own ball and glove.

Something made me stop at the top of the stairs. I don't know what—just a feeling. As if something was watching me. Something waiting for me to make some kind of mistake.

As if the old house itself was watching, waiting.

I shook off the feeling—don't be a total moron, it's only an old house—and grabbed my glove.

On the way back down the stairs I noticed a few shelves full of these little ornaments. Really fragile-looking vases and china figures and old glass bottles. Just running down the stairs made them vibrate and shake, and all of a sudden it came to me.

The place was chock-full of breakable old stuff, and my mom had made a big deal about how valuable some of it was—I knew I'd be in big trouble if stuff got broken somehow, even if I didn't do it on purpose. Maybe
that's
why I was so nervous and jumpy around the house.

Get a grip, Jason.

What I did was slow down and take the steps one at a time. Much better. Get used to the house and maybe it would get used to me.

Steve was waiting in the backyard, seeing how high he could chuck a ball straight up. Which was pretty impressive—he had a strong arm.