Dunc and the Flaming Ghost (3 page)

“I already told you. One of those two guys in the van was Blackbeard.”

“You don’t know that.”

“One of them had to be.” Dunc walked around the side of the house. Amos could see there was no point in trying to stop him.

It was already dark inside. The house looked almost the same as it had the night before, except there was no ghost at the top of the stairs.

Yet
, Amos thought.

There wasn’t a ghost there yet. To make him blow bubbles with his cheeks. Or worse. Yet.

He stopped just inside the door. “I don’t see anything, do you? Good. Let’s go.” He took two steps, then Dunc grabbed him by the back of his collar.

“You’re choking me, Dunc!”

“Sorry.” He let go. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that we’ve come too far to give up now.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

Dunc ignored him. “That box must be upstairs.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where the ghost tried to keep us from going last night.”

“There”—Amos nodded—“you called him a ghost. Right there. You actually did it. Let’s go. Now.”

“Come on.” Dunc moved toward the
staircase. Halfway across the living room, Amos stopped him.

“What?”

“Do you smell something burning?”

Dunc sniffed. “No.”

“I do. It smells like matches. Ghost matches.”

“Amos, don’t be ridiculous. I already told you—”

They heard footsteps on the landing above them.

“Run!” Amos gasped.

“No. Let’s wait a minute.”

Amos wanted to run, but he stopped, waiting. He put his hands over his eyes—he’d read that you turned to stone or salt or mayonnaise or something if you looked directly at them. But he couldn’t keep from peeking between his fingers. He saw a glow coming from the door.

Suddenly the ghost stepped onto the landing, the two sides of his head burning ghastly white. He saw them and raised his lantern.

“Get out.”

Amos grabbed Dunc’s shoulder. “That’s a good idea, Dunc. Let’s go.”

“This isn’t possible,” Dunc said. “He can’t exist.”

“I don’t care. I’m taking his advice.” Amos tried to run, but his knees wouldn’t bend. Neither would his fingers. Or his tongue. He was scared stiff.

“
Get out
,” the ghost repeated. He trudged down the creaking stairs.

Amos tried to oblige him, but he couldn’t lift his feet off the floor. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.

It was a little gummy, he thought. Maybe with some sugar …

He finally forced his feet to move, just barely. But as he dragged them toward the door, his heel caught on a loose floorboard. He fell, dragging Dunc down with him. The ghost was halfway down the stairs.

“Kill …” Amos groaned, trying to crawl out from beneath Dunc. “Dead … us …”

“No, he won’t.”

“Pirates, broadswords, cuts,” Amos hissed. “Torture, bubbles, big red bubbles.”

“Why would he kill us? What have we—”

At that moment the step underneath the ghost’s right foot caved in. He hung in the air for a moment, teetering, then fell forward with a sound like a tree coming down. He landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs.

•
5

“Why me? Why always me?”

The ghost climbed to his feet and sat on the bottom stair. He pulled the matches out of the brim of his hat and held his head in his hands.

“Are you all right?” Dunc asked. He and Amos still sat in the middle of the floor, watching him.

“I just fell down the stairs, and my knee hurts, and I bruised my elbow and singed my ear with a match, and you ask me if I’m all right?”

“Who are you?”

“Who do I look like?”

“You look like Blackbeard.”

“I do?” The ghost’s face brightened. “Thank you. That’s who I was trying to look like.”

“Trying to? You mean you’re not?”

“Me—Blackbeard?” The ghost laughed. “Of course not! Blackbeard would never have fallen down the stairs. He would have been able to scare people out of his home. Any ghost should be able to do that, don’t you think?”

“I think so.”

“Of course! But I can’t. I’m a failure.” He shook his head again.

“What’s your name?” Amos asked.

“Eddie.”

“Eddie?” He looked at Dunc.

“Is there something wrong with that name?” the ghost asked.

“I thought ghosts were supposed to have big, evil-sounding names. Eddie is kind of, well … tame.”

“It’s not my fault. That’s what my parents named me. And I never said I was a ghost.”

Dunc climbed to his feet. “You’re not?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course not. There’s no such things as ghosts.”

Amos stood up, too. “You look like a ghost.”

“Don’t try to flatter me.”

“I mean it.”

“Really?” His face brightened again. “Thank you.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Eddie sighed. “I found this nice old house to live in that nobody wants, and to keep people from constantly bothering me, I decided I’d play ghost until everyone was scared away. But you can see how good I am at that. No, I can’t do anything right.” He put his head in his hands again.

Eddie looked a little more human up close than he did at the top of the stairs.

“How’d you get so white?” Amos asked.

“Makeup.”

“Why would you want to live in an old rickety house like this?” Dunc asked.

“I can afford it.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I used to be a schoolteacher, but they fired me for whispering and passing notes
in class.” He stuck his chin out. “Now,” he said with dignity, “I am a gentleman of leisure.”

Amos looked at Dunc. “A bum.”

Eddie stood up and paced back and forth across the floor, testing his knee. He limped a little.

“All I wanted was a place where no one would bother me. Now everyone in town will know about the old crazy guy at the Rambridge house pretending to be Blackbeard’s ghost. I’ll never have a moment’s peace.”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Dunc said.

“You won’t?”

“No. If no one else is using this place, why shouldn’t you?”

“That’s the problem.” Eddie sat back down on the stair. “Somebody else
is
using it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—” The stair groaned loudly once, then snapped in half. Eddie fell through. He looked like a white pretzel with two ends sticking in the air, wiggling. Amos and Dunc had to help him up.

Eddie clenched his teeth, reached behind, and jerked. “Splinter,” he said, his breath whistling. “I hate this—if I’m not falling down the stairs, I’m getting splinters in my butt. I’m just not having a very good day.”

“What do you mean, somebody else is using the house?” Dunc repeated.

“I can hear them prowling around in the cellar.” He rubbed his behind. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Why don’t you try to scare them off?”

“Because they aren’t two boys frightened of their own shadows. They’re big, rough men. They have to be.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because they go down in the cellar.”

“So?”

“There are … things down there.” Eddie shuddered.

“What kind of things?” Dunc asked.

“Things that make noises in the night. Big noises. Clunking and pulling and dragging and rattling noises.”

“And you still want to live here?”

“I live upstairs. They stay in the basement and don’t bother me.”

“That wouldn’t be a good enough reason for me to live here,” Amos said. “In fact, I might just leave the city—even the state. I’m going to grow up, buy a car, marry Melissa, and leave. Tomorrow.”

“Amos—”

“Or maybe the whole country. I’ll have to find another one. Do they have ghosts in England?”

“Millions,” Dunc said. “That’s the worst place for them.”

“Then I’ll go to Antarctica. The worst thing there would be ghost penguins.”

Dunc shook his head. “First of all, we don’t know if the noises are really ghosts—”

“I do,” Amos said. “I know it.”

“—and if the men can go down in the cellar, they can’t be all that scary. Let’s have a look.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Amos, the men brought the box down there. Don’t you want to find out what’s in it?”

“Not if it means running into dead things that still move around.”

“Noises,” Eddie corrected. “Dead noises.”

“Okay. Dead noises that still move around.”

But Dunc was gone, headed for the back of the house where a stairway led down from the kitchen.

“I hate that,” Amos said to Eddie.

“What?”

“When he just leaves like that. I hate that. He knows I’ll follow him and I always do follow him, and I just hate that.”

He followed Dunc.

•
6

From the top of the stairs the cellar looked like a bottomless pit. The light from Eddie’s lantern didn’t seem to illuminate very much.

“Do you see anything?” Dunc asked.

“Nothing,” Amos said, “and I prefer to keep it that way.”

“Go down the steps a little farther.”

“Are you crazy?”

Dunc sighed. “I guess I’ll have to find the box myself. I’ll get all the credit, all the glory. My picture will be on Melissa’s wall.”

Amos led the way down the stairs.

The lantern light showed what looked
like a typical cellar. All the walls were made of brick except the far wooden one. There were shelves filled with old boxes, jars, and wine bottles. Everything was dusty. It looked as if no one had been down there in fifty years.

“Look at the floor,” Dunc said.

There were footprints in the dust leading to the wooden wall.

“The two men in the van. It’s their tracks. See how they lead from the door to the wooden wall and back again?” He rapped the wood with his knuckles. It sounded hollow.

“I bet it’s a secret door,” Eddie said.

“I think you’re right.” Dunc pressed his ear to the wood. “I wonder how they opened it.”

“Maybe they have a key.”

“There’s no keyhole. There must be a secret latch or something.” He ran his hands lightly back and forth across the wood. “See if you can find anything.” Amos and Eddie began searching.

Amos looked through the wine shelves that ran perpendicular to the wall. He ran
his fingertips along the little lip on the bottom shelf that kept the bottles from falling off. Nothing.

He did the same with the other shelves. He had to stretch himself out to reach the top. As he did, he smacked something with his leg.

“Ouch!”

He searched the bottom shelf again, more carefully this time.

“It’s a faucet.”

Dunc knelt down. “Eddie, have you seen any other plumbing in this house?”

“Only in the kitchen.”

“Then what’s a faucet doing down here?” He turned it on. No water came out.

“Look underneath it,” Amos said. “All the dust has been washed away.”

Dunc touched the floor. “It’s even a little damp. There was water coming out of this not too long ago.”

“Why doesn’t it work now?” Amos asked.

“I don’t know.” Dunc turned the faucet handle to off. He sat back and thought hard. After a minute he shrugged his shoulders.

“I can’t figure it out. Maybe there’s another
valve somewhere that you have to turn on first.” They looked around for fifteen more minutes. They didn’t find anything.

“Too bad you’re not a real ghost, Eddie,” Amos said. “If you were, you could just stick your head through the wall and see what’s on the other side. It would save us a lot of trouble. I wish Blackbeard was here.” He stopped. “I take that back.”

Then Amos held up his hand. “Listen—do you guys hear anything? Like a sword rattling or something?”

“Be serious, Amos. I’m trying to think.”

“I am serious. Do you hear anything?”

A scuffling began very faintly on the other side of the wooden wall, then grew louder and louder. They heard vicious snarls, as if a pack of wild dogs were on the other side.

“What is that?” Dunc cocked his head to hear better.

“I don’t know,” Amos said, “and I’m not going to wait to find out, either.” He was halfway up the stairs in one jump.

“I’m right behind you,” Eddie said. He followed him.

Dunc hesitated for a full two count. Then his legs took over, and he was gone.