Ghost Invasion (7 page)

“Yeah, sure,” Ari said. “I know you do. But you don’t have to go up the ladder. The way Web and I have it figured out, you won’t have to go anywhere near that big stall. Right, Web?”

Web nodded doubtfully. “Yes,” he said. “If it works.”

“It will work,” Ari said. “But the thing is, we’re going to have to be very quiet when we go in. Okay?”

“Okay,” Web and Carson whispered, and they started toward the barn again—on tiptoe. They were almost to the door when Web stopped and whispered, “Why? I mean why are Kate and Aurora going to be here?”

That was the question Ari had hoped he wouldn’t have to answer.

“Well.” Ari was trying to come up with a better way to put it, but he couldn’t think of a thing. Finally he gave up and said, “I guess they think there are going to be some ghosts in the barn tonight. But we don’t have to worry about stuff like that. I mean, you don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

Web shook his head uncertainly.

“How about you?” Ari asked Carson. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

Carson shook his head and then nodded. “Don’t I?” he said.

C
ARLOS FELT DUMB IN
the crummy tramp outfit. And when a little kid dressed like a bumblebee asked him when he was going to put his costume on, he felt even dumber.

“This
is
my costume,” he told Athena. She was wearing a mask, but you could tell it was Athena by the ponytail. “Why don’t you go put yours on?”

She glared at him. Even with a mask on you could tell that Athena was glaring. Her lower lip poked out and her chin quivered. “You’re a creep,” she said, and then she ran off to where her sister and Karate Kate were standing. It was easy to tell that it was Kate and Aurora. Nobody had hair like Aurora’s and almost nobody had muscles like Kate’s. Except, of course, Bucky. Right at that moment when Carlos was thinking about Bucky’s muscles somebody punched Carlos in the ribs so hard it almost knocked the air out of him. It was Bucky, of course. Who else?

“Look, there they are,” Bucky whispered, nodding toward the two girls. “Wooee. Are we going to give them an exciting evening.”

“Yeah, I guess we are,” Carlos said.

“Well, keep an eye on them,” Bucky said. “You too, Eddy. So we’ll know when they leave to go to the barn. We’ll wait till they go and then we’ll split right afterwards.”

Eddy said he would and so did Carlos, but it turned out to be harder than you might think. What they hadn’t counted on was running into the big gang of Beaumont Avenue kids as soon as they left the cul-de-sac. Another thing they hadn’t counted on was some typical Brockhurst behavior. They should have but they didn’t. They didn’t realize that Bucky was going to insist that everybody play Bucky Wins all the way down the avenue. Whether they wanted to or not. Bucky never played anything but Bucky Wins if he could help it.

The problem was that you-know-who had to be at the head of the line at every house they came to so he could have his pick of the goodies. Whenever he saw a bunch of kids heading toward a different front door, he had to get to the head of the line—no matter how many people were in the way and how many little kids he had to tromp on to get there. Which meant Eddy and Carlos were pretty busy just keeping track of Bucky.

It wasn’t until they’d gone almost two blocks down Beaumont Avenue that Carlos realized he hadn’t seen an ancient Greek and a muscle-bound gypsy for quite a while. Grabbing Eddy, he pulled him aside and whispered, “Hey, have you seen Kate and Aurora lately? I haven’t.”

Eddy was looking worried. “No. I haven’t. I’ll bet they’ve already split. We better tell Bucky.”

But where was he? Just then they heard a big commotion up ahead, and sure enough, there was Bucky having a shoving match with Elvis Presley. Elvis was actually Gabe, of course, Carlos’s thirteen-year-old brother, one of the people who was supposed to be in charge.

“Quit crowding in, Brockhurst,” Gabe was yelling, and Bucky was yelling a lot of other stuff back at him. Carlos and Eddy looked at each other and started to run.

They got to where the shoving match was going on just as Bucky started to take a swing at Gabe, but when they grabbed his arms he let himself be pulled away.

“Hey, cool it,” Carlos whispered in his ear. “We have to go. Kate and Aurora split a long time ago.”

That brought Bucky back to his senses, or at least partway. But all the way back down the avenue he kept gloating about how he’d gotten all the best stuff and didn’t have to settle for any of that healthy junk. He didn’t really get tuned in to what they were doing until they were sneaking across backyards in Castle Court heading for Carlos’s backyard.

Just the way they’d planned, they changed into their real costumes in the Garcias’ pool house. Bucky had a complete skeleton outfit. And not your ordinary bare-bones skeleton either. The bones painted on the black stocking suit looked as if they still had blood and rotting flesh attached to them, and so did the rubber skull that went over his head.

Eddy had a long black cape and a Dracula vampire mask with long bloody fangs. Carlos was more of a werewolf. His rubber mask had hairy ears and long bloody fangs, and there were rubber gloves that made his hands look like huge paws with long bloody claws.

It took a while for them to get into all the stuff, but when they finally were ready to go Bucky lined them up in front of the mirror in the pool house dressing room and laughed his most fiendish “He, he, he.”

“Wait till old Karate Kate gets a load of this,” he said. “She’ll probably freak out so bad they’ll have to put her back together with Krazy Glue.”

Carlos looked in the mirror. He opened and shut his werewolf mouth and flexed his bloody claws. He had to admit they looked pretty impressive. All three of them.

They started off across Prince Field, climbing over the fences on either side. That slowed them down a bit because Eddy’s cape kept getting hung up on fence posts, and Bucky lost his skull once when he tripped doing a high-hurdle-type jump.

Sneaking through the Andersons’ yard made Carlos a little nervous. There was a jack-o’-lantern burning on the front porch, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had suddenly come out to check on it or to watch for trick-or-treaters. It wasn’t until they finally reached the safety of the pine forest that Carlos allowed himself a deep breath of air.

“Okay. We made it,” Bucky whispered. “Remember. We go in very quietly until we see them. No moaning or growling until we see the whites of their eyes.”

The old barn was very near now, a huge black shadow looming up in the twilight gloom. Suddenly, as one person, they came to a stop—looking and listening. Dark shadows seemed to squirm like living things across the barn’s gray walls, and a soft moan drifted through the air. A moan that maybe was just the wind, or possibly—something else.

Bucky shrugged and tried for a grin that didn’t quite come off. “The wind,” he said. “It’s just the wind.”

“Yeah,” Eddy agreed. “Just the wind.”

They stood there looking at the barn and then at each other’s gruesome masked faces. “Uh, what did the thing you found say—I mean about ghosts?” Eddy asked finally.

Bucky made a gulping noise before he answered, “Oh, you mean the little nerd’s notebook? Well, it said that some people got killed in the barn a long time ago, and ever since then their ghosts come back on Halloween. It said the ghosts would be there on Halloween.” Bucky’s laugh had a hollow sound. “But you don’t believe stuff like that, do you? I sure as hell don’t.”

“No.” Eddy shook his head, and Carlos did, too, but right at that moment he wasn’t too sure he meant it. Nobody moved.

“Okay,” Carlos said a few seconds later. “Let’s go.” He took the first step and the others followed close behind. At the barn door he turned and put his finger to his lips before he began to ease it open.

Inside the barn it was very dark. As Carlos began to feel his way down the aisle that ran between the stalls, he could feel Eddy and Bucky close behind him. A few feet farther on he stopped and listened. Except for the distant moan of the wind and a shuffling noise up in the loft, it was very silent.

“What’s that noise?” Bucky breathed in his ear.

“Pigeons,” Carlos whispered back. “I think it’s just the pigeons.”

“I don’t hear Kate and Aurora,” Eddy said. “Do you suppose they’re not here yet?”

“Maybe not,” Carlos said. “Maybe they’re waiting till midnight or something.”

“It’s dark in here,” Bucky said. “Let’s go on up in the loft. It’s lighter up there. We can wait for them in the loft.”

“Okay,” Carlos said. “We can wait up there. But remember. Be very quiet.”

Bucky was the first one up the ladder, but Eddy and Carlos were close behind. Bucky was right—it was lighter up in the loft. Pale reddish rays of sunset light filtered in through gaping holes in the roof and walls and slanted down between pools of darkness. Pigeons cooed and shuffled on the roof beams.
And
—high above their heads small dark shadows flittered and flickered everywhere.

“Bats,” Eddy said in a whisper that turned into a squeak.

“Yeah, I see them,” Bucky said. “You’re not afraid of—” Suddenly Bucky’s voice faded away and then returned in a frantic squeal. “Look!”

Carlos followed Bucky’s pointing finger downward, down to the floor of the loft, where something ghostly white was rising. Rising right through the floorboards. As the three of them watched, horror-stricken, a round head with huge dark eyes, followed by a shapeless white body, rose through the floor—rose above it—and continued to rise right up toward the roof of the barn.

As if frozen to the spot, they went on staring as the unearthly shape drifted silently upward. But when the ghost suddenly began to twist and turn and flail the air, the spell was broken and, as one person, they broke and ran. Ran for the ladder as if their lives depended on it.

Carlos got there first, but Bucky jerked him away and started down ahead of him. His feet must have slipped halfway down, because Eddy and Carlos, coming down more or less at the same time, found him lying on the floor. They found him by landing on top of him. A second later all three of them were racing madly for the barn door.

A
S SHE FOLLOWED AURORA
down the front steps of the Andersons’ house, Kate was boiling inside. She was so mad that when Aurora turned to wave good-bye to Mrs. A., she almost didn’t. But she finally did, because actually she was a lot angrier at Aurora than she was at Mrs. A.

At the front gate Aurora turned again. “Look,” she said. “Mrs. A. blew out her jack-o’-lantern. I guess she thinks Halloween is over.”

Kate didn’t look back, but she didn’t look at Aurora either. She was too mad. She was still staring off into space when she realized that Aurora had changed direction. Instead of going out the gate, she was heading across the lawn toward the backyard—and the old barn.

“Hey,” Kate said, “where do you think you’re going?”

Aurora stopped and turned around. “To the barn.” She sounded surprised. “We’re going to the barn, aren’t we?”

“Why?” Kate’s voice was high and tight. “Why should we go all that way to see ghosts that aren’t going to be there? And never were going to be there.”

Aurora didn’t answer. Instead she just stood very still, looking thin and pale and almost ghostly herself. Ghostlike or angel-like, in her flowing white robe, with her huge mop of hair exploding out from under the wreath of olive leaves like a crinkly halo.

“What are you angry about?” she asked finally in her soft, breathy voice. “I didn’t know for sure whether the Addie ghost was real or not. Not till Mrs. A. told us.” She paused for a minute. “Most of the time I thought Bettina had made it all up, but sometimes I wasn’t sure.”

“You should have told me you thought she was lying,” Kate said. “Why didn’t you?”

Aurora didn’t answer right away. When she did, all she said was “I don’t know. There
was
something there, though. Someone …” Aurora’s face got the faraway, dreamy look it always got when she was having a mysterious feeling. “Not someone who died there, though. Someone who was happy there.” She paused, staring into space with cloudy eyes. “Yes. Where she was happiest.”

Kate found herself nodding—believing in Aurora’s feelings, like always. But then she remembered why she was angry. She made a huffing noise and said, “Well, anyway. You should have told me.” She huffed again and yanked her gypsy kerchief farther down over her forehead. She glanced at her watch and then looked up at the darkening sky. “It’s probably too late to go trick-or-treating, anyway. Do you want to go to the barn or not? I’ve got a flashlight.”

“Yes,” Aurora said without hesitating. “I want to go to the barn. I think we should—”

“Should what?”

“I think we should be there. Soon. I think we should be there very soon.”

They hurried then, through the Andersons’ backyard and into the old pine forest. They were almost to the barn when Aurora stopped suddenly and clutched Kate’s arm. “Listen,” she said. “Someone’s coming.”

At that very moment Kate began to hear it too. Running feet, pounding louder and louder, and then other sounds—breathless gasps and pants and wheezes. And suddenly there they were. Three terrible, gruesome figures, with large inhuman heads, were running through the forest. Running so fast they almost crashed into Kate and Aurora before they came to a frantic, sliding stop.

“Ghost!” gasped one of them, pointing back the way they had come. His weird skull-shaped head swiveled around and then turned back. “Ghost!” he gurgled once more, and then they were running again—this time in three different directions. The pounding feet and breathless panting faded away into the distance, leaving Kate and Aurora staring after them, clutching each other’s arms.

When Kate found her voice she whispered, “Who—Who—What was that?”

Aurora made a strange noise that almost sounded like a giggle. “I’m not sure, but I think one of them was Bucky Brockhurst.”

“Bucky?” Kate was amazed. She considered the possibilities and then went on. “Yeah, maybe it was. The PROs. All three of them. But they weren’t dressed like that before. Remember? They were just crummy-looking tramps.”