Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown (5 page)

No, Joe decided. Not possible at all. The prints definitely were not there when he brushed his teeth last night.

That meant someone made them after he fell asleep on the couch.

An icy chill slid down Joe’s spine.

What if someone was in the house last night? What if he, or she, opened the closet door—and gave Ralph an extra toy? And what if that same someone covered the mirror with handprints?

Slowly, trying not to notice the way his own hand trembled, Joe reached for the towel to wipe the prints away. He rubbed at the mirror. Then he rubbed again.

The handprints stayed right where they were. He couldn’t wipe them off. Joe looked at them more carefully. The prints looked as if they were
inside
the mirror.

Joe felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up.
Weird
didn’t describe this. This was flat-out spooky.

Okay, calm down,
he told himself. There had to be an explanation. Maybe the prints were somehow put there when the mirror was made.

Right,
he thought.
So why haven’t you seen them before now?

First a dog toy that shouldn’t have been there. And now these
handprints. Was he imagining these things? Was he losing his mind?

Slowly, carefully, as if he expected the mirror to shatter at any moment, Joe reached out. He could hear Ralph whining outside the door. Joe chose a handprint. The one in the very center. And he laid his hand on top of it.

Well, at least that ruled out one possibility. He couldn’t have made the prints himself. There was absolutely no way.

The hands on the mirror were way too small.

They had to be the handprints of a little child.

A strange, high-pitched electronic pinging sound echoed through the Hammond brothers’ kitchen.

“Will you turn that thing down?” Mark asked his twin, Mike. “Every time your phone rings, it sounds like you’re getting a message from outer space.”

“I like my ringtone,” Mike said. “It’s not some stupid song, and I always know it’s my phone.”

“Well, are you gonna answer it or what?” Mark asked as the phone continued to emit the weird sound. “It’s ruining my breakfast.”

Mike put down the cereal box and picked up the phone. The caller ID read
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Mike answered anyway.

“Hello?”

“Hammond,” said a voice on the other end of the phone.

“Lucky guess,” Mike said. “Which one? Whatever you want, the answer is
no
until you get it right.”

“Mikey,” the voice said. “Come on, man. It’s me. I think maybe I need your help.”

“Joe?”
Mike asked. He sat down at the table with a
plop.
“What’s the matter?”

There were only three people in the world who got away with calling Mike Hammond “Mikey.” The first one was his mom. The second was Aunt Mona. Since she’d been dead for about ten years, she no longer did it very often. That left just one person: Joe Hensick. He had been the twins’ best friend when they were growing up.

Joe had been there the first time Aunt Mona had come for a visit. She pinched Mike’s cheek and told him how much he had grown, even though she had never seen him before. And
then
she called him Mikey. And to make it worse, she didn’t call Mark “Marky.” So Joe and Mark started calling him Mikey all the time. It made Mike furious. Finally he made them swear they would never do it again.

“Okay,” Mark had said back then. “I promise.”

“Me too,” Joe agreed. “There’s just one thing. I get to use the name only if I’m in real trouble. It will be a sort of secret code between us.”

Mike had agreed to those terms, and Joe had never used the name Mikey again. Until now.

“Where are you?” Mike asked.

“I’m in Boston,” Joe said. “I just got settled into my new house that I’m renting. Sorry, I’ve been meaning to call.”

“Dude,” Mike said. “You used the name. What’s going on?”

“I think I may need you to tell me that,” Joe said. “You guys are still doing the ghost thing, right?”

“Right,” Mike said. “Wait a minute! You’ve got a ghost?”

“That’s what I need
you
to tell
me,
” Joe said again. “Come on, Mike. Keep up.”

“Give me your new address,” Mike said. He reached for a notebook. “Then tell me everything you know.”

“The situation sounds unusual—and interesting,” Jason said later that morning.

“So we can take the case?” Mike asked.

“
You
can take the case,” Grant spoke up. “Jay and I are going to New York City, remember? We’re checking out a possible haunted floor in an old hotel.”

“Right,” Mike said. “I forgot about that.”

Grant smiled. “I don’t see any reason why you and Mark
shouldn’t take the case,” he said. “Jen can go along. Lyssa’s coming with us.”

“Okay.” Mike nodded. “I’ll call Joe and tell him we’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Oh, man, you brought reinforcements,” Joe said. “This is awesome.”

Joe Hensick looked nice, Jen decided. He had brown eyes and dark brown hair that he wore just a little long.

“Come on in,” Joe said. “I’ll show you around.”

“This is a great old place,” Jen commented as she stepped across the threshold, carrying her laptop and a video camera. The house was made of brick and had smooth wooden floors.

“I like it,” Joe said simply. “I still can’t believe they let me have a dog.”

“Where is he?” Jen asked.

“Probably eating a pair of shoes somewhere,” Joe replied, then called, “Ralph! We’ve got company. Get out here, big guy.”

A moment later, the ugliest dog Jen had ever seen bounded into the living room. There was something brown and fuzzy dangling from his mouth. Something with legs.

“What
is
that?” she asked. “Or maybe I don’t want to know?”

Joe laughed. “That’s Mr. Rabbit, his current favorite squeaky toy.” He reached down and gave one of the dangling legs a tug. Ralph backed up, tightening his grip on the plush animal to play tug-of-war.

Squeeak.

“O-kaay,” Jen said. “Got it.”

Ralph took his rabbit to his doggie bed near the fireplace. He chomped on the toy, and the rabbit squeaked louder. Jen smiled. There was just something about a happy dog…

“Any new handprints?” Mike asked.

Joe shook his head. “Nope. They only appeared that one time.”

“Have you ever noticed unusual activity anywhere else in the house?” Jen asked.

Joe frowned. “I don’t think so. Just the prints on the bathroom mirror and the toys.”

“Are they always new ones?” Mike asked.

“Huh?”

“The toys you find.”

All of a sudden, Joe’s face went pale. “Yeah,” he said. “At first it was just one extra toy. But last night the ones I found were all new. I didn’t buy any of them.”

Mike frowned. “Well, either you’ve got someone who likes Ralph so much that they sneak into your house every night to give your dog new toys or—”

“Or there’s someone—or some
thing
—already in the house with me,” Joe finished. He took a deep breath. “This is getting very creepy.”

Mike slapped Joe on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’re going to figure this out.”

“He’s right.” Jen tried to sound encouraging. “That’s our job.”

Joe looked doubtful. “You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“Positive,” Mark said. “We’ll work better if we’re here on our own. You’ve got somewhere to go, right?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be at my friend Scott’s place. Call my cell if you need me, okay?”

“We will,” Mike promised. “You just get a good night’s sleep.”

Joe patted Ralph and told him to be a good boy. Then he grabbed his pack and left for the night.

Mike turned to the TAPS team. “Okay, guys. Let’s get set up and see if we can find out who else around this place is into squeaky toys.”

They set up quickly and were ready to get started. “And going dark in five, four, three, two…
one.
Kill the lights,” Mike said.

Jen flipped down the light switch in the house’s small dining room. The room went dark.

Still lots of outside light, though,
Jen thought. The house was in
the middle of Boston, after all. There was a big streetlight just outside the front door.

“Okay,” Mike went on. “Mark and I will take the hall and bathroom. I’d like you to stay in the Command Center, Jen. This is kind of a small place. No reason for the three of us to be tripping over each other.”

“Sounds good.” Jen nodded. “I put cameras and audio recorders in both the hall and the bathroom. Watch out for the recorders in the hall. They’re on the floor. And I’ve got a camera on the closet, just in case.”

“Great,” Mark said. “Let’s go.”