The Haunting of Heck House (7 page)

“What can I do for you, Cheryl?” Pops asked, tipping the baseball cap off his head and wiping the sweat from his brow. Tufts of white hair sprouted like dandelion fluff on either side of his head above his ears. He walked over to the refrigerator in the sunny farmhouse kitchen and fetched the big glass pitcher of lemonade that was always kept full on hot summer days and poured himself a glass.

He gulped thirstily as Cheryl took a deep breath and crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Well,” she said, “um, me and Tweed wanted to know if you'd be okay with us spending the night at … um … a friend's place.” She winced involuntarily at the fib and hoped Pops wouldn't notice. “For a sleepover.”

Pops tugged his hat back onto his head and frowned faintly. “Tonight?”

Cheryl nodded.

Pops scratched at his ear. “That's awfully short notice, don't you think?”

“Um … well … yes,” Cheryl stammered, casting about for just the right words to convince Pops of the benefits of such an outing to his two beloved granddaughters. “But it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

“Oh? Why's that?”

“Well, uh, it's with Hazel Polizzi,” Cheryl said, not
exactly
hedging the truth—after all, according to Pilot, their sitter nemesis (and their other sitter nemesis)— had already jumped at the chance to partake in the Hecklestone invite. “And Cindy Tyson'll be there, too.”

“Aren't those young ladies babysitters here in Wiggins, too?” he asked.

“Exactly!”

Pops's frown turned to a look of confusion. “I thought you didn't get along so good with them.”

“Oh, heh, that! …” Cheryl laughed a bit too
loudly but Pops didn't seem to notice. “Water under the bridge! Heh! Buried the old hatchet, we did! Very thirteen-years-old for a couple of twelve-year-olds, don'tcha think?”

“Well, I must say, I'm very proud of you girls.”

“Thought we'd, uh, celebrate with a, um, professional retreat of sorts. A sleepover sympodium.”

“I think you mean sym
pos
ium.”

“Right! A sitter summit! A meeting of the minders, so to speak.” She was babbling and she knew it, but she couldn't help herself. If Pops didn't let them go, then the greatest business opportunity of their young entrepreneurial lives would just slip right through their fingers. “Heh. You know, us girls will trade advice: movie suggestions to soothe rambunctious charges, share some bedtime tips, toddler-tantrum tricks, tooth-brushing techniques … er … Popsicle etiquette …”

She trailed off finally into silence as Pops stood there contemplating. Finally, he took a last gulp of lemonade and set the glass down on the counter. Then he nodded decisively.

“I think that's a wonderful idea,” he said. “The Polizzi place, you say?”

Cheryl stayed silent, neither confirming nor denying Pops's assumption of location—which was quite fortuitously located on the other side of Wiggins and so not a place Pops could just amble on over to in order to check out the truth of the tale.

“I don't know the Polizzis very well …” Pops mused, rubbing his chin, his gaze drifting over to the telephone hanging on the kitchen wall. “Maybe I should just give them a ring, see if there's anything I can send over for the party—”

“Capital idea! I'll dial!” Cheryl exclaimed, relieved that Pops wouldn't actually pay the Polizzi abode an in-person visit. She fairly leaped across the room and, standing between Pops and the phone, dialed a number. When it started to ring on the other end, she stretched out the cord and handed over the receiver, holding her breath.

“Hello?” The voice was muffled by the press of Pops's ear but Cheryl could still make out the slightly nasal tones saying, “Polizzi residence. Mr. Polizzi, proud father of Hazel and loving husband to—er—Missus Polizzi, definitely speaking.”

Pops blinked for a moment, then held his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Cheryl, “Sounds like an English fella. I thought the Polizzis were Italian.”

“Isn't Italy pretty close to England?” Cheryl asked with an innocent shrug. “They're both on the other side of the ocean …”

Pops returned the shrug and uncovered the phone. “Why, hello there, Mr. Polizzi,” he said jovially. “My name is Jefferson Pendleton—most Wiggins folk call me Pops—and I don't know that we've ever been rightly
introduced, but I run the Starlight Paradise Drive-In theatre here in town. I understand you and your missus are very kindly hosting a slumber shindig for some of the Wiggins girls tonight?”

“Right you are, my good gentleman purveyor of celluloid entertainments!” said the voice.

Pops blinked at the phone. “Uh … right. Well, I was wondering if there was anything you'd like me to send along with the girls?”

“Popcorn and jujubes! Maybe some of those cellopacks of licorice ropes! Milk Duds! Also … one moment please … ah, right! Might come in handy if you can send along any glow tape, road flares, bicycle pumps and any old spare rapiers you might have lying around for the purposes of duelling. Ow! What?” There was a pause, punctuated by garbled whisper-mutters, then the voice came back on the line. “Sorry, old chap! The little woman gets a bit gabby at times—ow! Stop poking!— you know how it is … Well, gotta toddle! We'll have your girls back to you all in one piece come sun-up— heh heh, I hope! Ow!”

 

5
HARRIED
AT THE
HOUSE!

‘‘H
uh.” Cheryl swung her leg over the seat of her trusty ten-speed bike as she dismounted. “This is it, I guess …”

“Y'know,” Tweed said, braking into a dramatic gravel-throwing side slide, “I never noticed this big ol' iron gate here.”

“Yeah … me neither.”

“Not surprising, I guess, considering that we never actually noticed a whole darn road here …”

“Well, Wiggins Cross
is
an awfully big place …” Cheryl giggled at her own expansive sarcasm.

Tweed cracked a smile at the joke and hefted her knapsack higher up on her shoulders. Pops had mir- aculously said yes to the sleepover and even supplied the
girls with provisions—granola bars instead of Drive-In Snak Shak goodies—but, sadly, he'd drawn the line at rapiers and flares. Cheryl hefted her pack, too, made heavier by the weight of one (so far quiet and well-behaved) Drive-In speaker.

“44678,” Tweed said, brushing the overgrown ivy from the numbers on the gate. “That's the right address.”

“Funny that. I mean, far as I can see, this house is the only house on the street. You'd think they'd just number it 1.”

“Enh. Rich people are weird. Let's go.”

The gate creaked like the lifting of a coffin lid in one of the girls' monster movies. Which probably would have sent chills up their spines if they weren't so darned used to the sound. All that was missing, really, was the sound of an organ playing a hollow, haunting strain as they walked their ten-speeds up the overgrown path toward the stone manor. All along the path, in nooks carved into a cedar hedge, classical-style marble statues stood frozen in elegant poses, their once-gleaming white surfaces faded with neglect and tinged green in places with mossy growth. On the leaf-strewn path, a pair of garden lizards ambled along, oblivious to the twins' presence. And at the end of the path stood the imposing edifice of the house of Hector Hecklestone. The darkened window arches above the massive double door seemed to glare down at the girls like the empty eye sockets of a skull,
and the creepy silhouettes of winged gargoyles perched on the roof peaks.

The girls tucked their bikes in behind a tall wall of cedar hedge, grown shaggy and in need of pruning to the extent that it looked as though it might actually come to life—some kind of terrible green monster that might devour the girls' bikes while they were inside. A rusted rake and an abandoned pair of hedge trimmers added to the effect. It looked as if the house's last hapless gardener had, perchance, fallen victim to the leafy monster, mid-trim.

A chill breeze raised the small hairs on the back of the twins' necks.

Yes. A chill breeze. That was it.

“Right.” Tweed cleared her throat. “So.”

Cheryl glanced around uneasily. “Think Cindy and Hazel are here yet?”

“I don't see their bikes …”

“Maybe the hedge ate them.”

“Heh. Heh …”

A spooky silence descended, broken only by the sound of the hedge rustling in the aforementioned chill breeze. Neither of the girls so much as took a step forward toward the house.

“Hey,” Tweed said, eventually. “Why don't we work up a quick game of ACTION!! to get us into our groove?”

“Capital idea.” Cheryl nodded vigorously, gesturing
at the overgrown hedge. “Swamp monster scenario? Jungle epic? Mutant plant-life invasion?”

“I have a better idea,” Tweed said with a grin.

“You do?”

She pointed first at the marble statues, then at the gargoyles on the house and the pair of garden geckos. “We've never really done a classic stop-motion-style sequence before, have we?”

Cheryl returned her cousin's grin, instantly seeing where she was going with this. One of the staples of the B-movie genre was, of course, the time-honoured art of stop-motion special effects. Epic battles fought between brave warriors and enchanted stone monsters—or mythic warriors or skeletons brought to life or impossible winged creatures—were shot using tiny models that were photographed frame by frame and then combined in a sequence with live actors. Such scenes were often combined with giant-creature smackdowns where the filmmakers used to dress up iguanas or turtles in pointy, scaled hats or glue spikes to their shells and shoot them in extreme close-up on papier-mâché sets to make them look like enormous prehistoric dinosaurs or mutant monstrosities instead of run-of-the-mill garden critters.

Jason and the Argonauts
, the Sinbad movies and the original
Clash of the Titans
all employed the glories of the lost art of stop-motion. And the front yard of the Hecklestone House seemed as if it would benefit from some likewise fanciful action. Really liven up the old
place. And with the appropriate props already in place, all it needed was …

Cheryl cracked her knuckles. “Cameras rolling …”

Tweed flipped her hair back over her shoulders. “Aaaaand …”

 

“... ACTION!!”

EXT. ANCIENT ISLAND TEMPLE -- DUSK

CAMERA PANS DOWN from a HIGH OVERHEAD SHOT of a TINY ISLAND in an AZURE SEA, ZOOMING IN on the ELEGANT COLUMNS, OLIVE TREES and CLASSICAL STATUES that dot the crest of the ISLAND's ONLY HILL.

CUT TO:

A PAIR OF ADVENTURER-WARRIORS, dressed in TUNICS and SANDALS and CRESTED HELMETS, carrying SWORDS and SHIELDS. They leave their ship and approach the silent steps leading up to a MOSAIC TERRACE fronting the temple.

As they pass a STATUE of ARES the WARRIOR GOD, the vacant marble eyes GLOW TO LIFE and FOLLOW THEIR MOVEMENTS!

CUT TO:

CLOSE-UP on the WARRIORS: They are ferociously fearsome.

The WARRIORS step forward confidently, ready to face any challenge. Except, maybe,
this
one.

CAMERA PANS suddenly back toward the STATUE, which has COME TO LIFE!! WITH A SOUND LIKE AN AVALANCHE, ARES's FEET break loose from the statue's marble base!

The ground trembles as he strides forward, swinging his GREAT STONE SWORD!!