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Authors: Rodman Philbrick

The Haunting (7 page)

BOOK: The Haunting
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As for the shears stabbed into my mattress, that had to be Steve. Definitely Steve.

“Jason?” Mom called from the kitchen. “Your friend Steve is here.”

That proved it. He'd come back to see how scared I was. So I decided to play it cool, not let on that I knew.

“Hey, Steve.” I slapped him five.

“I don't want you boys going far,” Mom said.

“We'll be on the porch,” I said. “Just fooling around, right, Steve?”

“I guess so,” he said uncertainly.

When we were out on the porch, Steve took a bag out of his pocket and put it on the table. He had a chocolate chip cookie in his hand and he munched it. “My Mom made these. Help yourself.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“You don't like cookies?” he said, sounding disappointed.

“I like cookies fine, but first I want to settle something.”

“Sure,” he said, eyeing the bag. “What's up?”

“Swear on your mother's grave you'll tell the truth?”

Steve made a face as he finished his cookie. “You think I'm a liar, is that it?”

“Just say you'll swear.”

“OK, fine. I swear on my mother's grave I'll tell the truth. Satisfied?”

“Almost,” I said. “Now tell me about the shears.”

“What?”

“The shears you took out of my parents' office and stabbed into my mattress.”

Steve stood up. “You know what, Jason? You're totally out of your mind.”

You could tell he was telling the truth.

“Take it easy,” I said. “I believe you.”

I told him what had happened.

“Maybe it was your little sister,” he suggested.

“No way. She's not big enough. It was like something really strong just plain went nuts in my room. Like it hated me.”

“You're scaring me, you know that, Jason?” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “Here, have a cookie before I eat them all up.”

Steve handed me the bag. I put my hand in and felt for a cookie.

My hand closed on something squishy.

Something gross and slimy.

“Oh, no,” shouted Steve. “Wait! I picked up the wrong bag. That's the dog poop I cleaned off the front walk!”

I dropped the bag and jumped away. And felt as if I was going to barf.

Steve exploded with laughter. He laughed so hard, he fell on the porch and rolled around. “Gotcha,” he cried when he caught his breath. “Gotcha good. Now we're even.”

I headed into the house.

“Hey, Jason, it's only rubber. Fake dog poop. I bought it at the joke shop.” Steve laughed some more. “Jason, here's the real cookies. Don't you want one?”

He was still laughing when I went inside.

17

The aliens came bursting out of their hiding places in the hills, about to swarm down on the unsuspecting town and take over the minds of the townspeople. Thrilling and exciting and all that stuff—but I couldn't concentrate.

I turned a page and realized I'd read through half the battle without understanding a word. Something else was clamoring for attention.

I put the book down. What was it?

Sally. Her voice was drifting faintly down the hallway. She should be asleep by now. But she sounded as if she was comforting someone.

I strained my ears but I couldn't make out any words. Just the tone. A calming, soothing tone, as she sometimes used with her dolls.

Nothing weird about that, right? But my heart was starting to beat faster.

Then Sally's voice rose. “Nooo,” she said.

I sat up and swung my feet to the floor. I didn't want to go down the hall. No way.

But I had to check on my kid sister.

She was probably having a bad dream, I told myself. I'd look in on her and then come back and finish my book.

I cracked open my bedroom door and shivered in the suddenly cold air.

I started to go through the door and something bounced me right back. I landed on my butt and stared up at the doorway in disbelief.

There was nothing there. Nothing to stop me from leaving. And yet it had.

I got up and slowly walked forward again.

SLAP! I was sproinged back into the room. This time I managed to keep my balance and not fall down. I approached the doorway more slowly, reaching out. My hand came up against an icy-cold barrier. It felt rubbery, like some kind of weird, invisible Jell-O. It yielded a little but I couldn't push through. And it felt completely creepy—clammy and slippery and unlike anything I'd ever felt before. Just touching it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.


Jay-son
!”

That was Sally, calling me. And I couldn't get out of my own bedroom. Something wanted to keep me from helping Sally!

I couldn't let that happen. I was getting through that icky stuff one way or another.

I got down in a three-point stance, tensed myself, and then charged full blast at the door. I sank to my waist in the invisible, icy goo. I started punching at it as hard as I could, desperate to get through.

The slimy, Jell-O-like stuff tightened around my head, slowed my fists until I couldn't move at all, forward or backwards. It seeped into my ears and nose, squeezing my head.

The invisible stuff was sucking me in, digesting me slowly, cell by cell. It felt as if my skin was dissolving.

It was eating me!

I opened my mouth to scream and the gelatinous mass swam over my tongue and flowed down my throat. I was suffocating.

I struggled and wriggled, pulled with all my might. My chest was burning with effort and lack of air. I heard pounding footsteps on the stairs—somebody was coming, but who?

Suddenly there was a loud sucking noise and the goo let go. I fell back on the floor with a crash. What breath I had left was knocked out of me.

As I lay there gasping like a fish, my dad appeared in the doorway. His face was white with shock and alarm.

“Jason! What happened? Are you all right?”

Mom's face appeared behind Dad's shoulder. She, too, was pale, her eyes wide.

“Sally,” I croaked.

Mom dashed down the hall to Sally's room while Dad came in and helped me up. I blurted out everything that had happened, how the house seemed to be after me and Sally, and how the invisible goo had blocked the doorway and prevented me from helping her.

Dad went to the doorway and ran his hand up and down in the empty space. “There's nothing here, Jason,” he said, his eyes troubled. He walked into the hall and then back into the room to demonstrate. “Nothing at all.”

Mom came running back. “Sally's fine. She's sound asleep,” she said, looking anxiously at me. “What's going on?”

Dad shook his head and picked up my book off the bed. “Apparently Jay had a nightmare,” he said, showing the cover to Mom. It showed fighting monsters with blood that looked a lot like green Jell-O.

“You sure gave us a scare,” said Mom, rearranging my covers.”

I stopped shaking after a while. It was easier to let my parents believe I'd just had a vivid nightmare, but I knew it was no dream.

There was something evil in this house.

Something that was careful to hide itself from my parents.

Something that wanted me and Sally dead.

18

I woke up dreaming that something was screaming at me. It turned out to be a bird on the windowsill, cheeping and peeping like crazy.

Just what I needed, an alarm clock with wings.

But when I'd had a chance to shake the sleep out of my head, I decided the bird had the right idea. It was another great summer day and I didn't want to waste it.

The bright, golden sunshine made what had happened last night seem distant, like maybe it really had been a dream. I knew it wasn't, but I really didn't want to think about it. The daylight made everything seem OK.

No way was I going to let this stupid old house completely ruin my summer. There were too many cool things to do in the yard and around the lake. And so far the house hadn't really been able to hurt me—what was I so afraid of, anyhow? Ghosts couldn't hurt you unless you let them, everybody knew that.

I was nearly finished with my cornflakes when there was a knock at the kitchen door.

Steve. Time for payback.

I took a big gulp of orange juice and held it in my mouth as I flung open the door, ready to spray all over Mr. Plastic Dog Poop himself.

“Hi, Jason.”

Oops. I hurriedly swallowed my orange juice. “Um, hi, Lucy,” I gulped.

“Some kids are going to meet behind the school to play ball,” said Lucy. She had on a lime-green baseball cap with her ponytail pulled through the back, and was dressed in cutoffs and a white T-shirt. “If you bring a lunch, we can picnic at the lake afterwards.”

“No prob,” I said, and slapped together a peanut butter sandwich.

Steve showed up just as we were leaving. He gave me a secret grin but he didn't mention the trick with the dog poop.

“How's it going, Jay? Get a good night's sleep?” he teased.

“What do you care?” I said.

Steve looked hurt. “Hey, I was only asking. All that weird stuff you told me about, I was worried.”

Lucy gave us both a look. “I've been asking around about the house on Cherry Street,” she said. “We'll talk about it after the game.”

My heart lurched. “What have you found out?”

“Later,” she said firmly, waving to some kids coming down the street.

The school with the softball diamond was only a few blocks away. Nothing I did could get Lucy to say more and in a couple of minutes the other kids joined us. I was so distracted I could hardly keep their names straight. What had Lucy found out about the house? Why did she look so grave?

At the ball field there wasn't time to worry. Lucy and Steve knew everybody, so they picked the teams. Steve ended up picking me for third base, which is the position I wanted. It's a lot better than getting stuck in right field and having to shag down all the balls that get hit out of bounds.

Me and my big mouth. Even with Steve pitching, third base turned out to be the hot spot. Some of those ground balls came at me at about a hundred miles an hour and it was all I could do to knock them down and make the throw to first.

I made a couple of stupid errors, but basically I did OK, and we ended up winning 15 to 13.

After the game we left the field and headed for the lake. I was kind of replaying the game in my head—especially the part where I knocked in two runs—and I'd almost forgotten that Lucy wanted to tell me something she'd learned about the house.

I was so out of it, I actually ate a couple of Steve's chocolate chip cookies. I was munching down when Lucy wrapped up her picnic stuff and said, “You haven't asked what I found out, Jason. Don't you want to know?”

I felt like a balloon getting deflated. All the good cheer went out of me. For a couple of hours it had been as if the house didn't exist.

“I hope it's not something too horrible,” I said. But even as I spoke the sun went behind a cloud. That's how it felt—as if that house was a big cloud cast over my whole summer.

“No, not so horrible,” said Lucy. “But I think maybe you do have a reason to worry. It turns out that a little boy who lived there years and years ago died there. He fell out of a tree. Or something like that. He's probably still haunting the place.”

Steve made a farting noise. “Oh, yeah? What about the old lady? She lived there for about a hundred years and no ghost ever scared her away,” he said.

“Yes, but the thing about child ghosts,” said Lucy, “is that only other children can see them.”

“My mom and dad sure can't see this one,” I said. “But then again, neither can I.”

“You can hear it, though,” said Lucy. “You can feel its presence in the house.”

“That's for sure,” I said dejectedly. “And Sally can see it. I'm sure of that.”

“That's what scares me,” said Lucy, leaning forward. “What if the little boy ghost wants another child for company. Permanently.”

I stared at her, my mind a wordless blank.

Even Steve looked horrified.

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“I think you'd better keep an eye on her,” Lucy said. “You're the only one who can keep her safe.”

19

That night I pretended to be asleep when my parents came up to bed.

They couldn't help—it was up to me.

Once the house was quiet—as quiet as it ever got—I dragged the chair from my room out into the hall and down next to Sally's door, which was open just enough for me to see her bed.

I sat in the chair with a baseball bat across my knees, waiting. Let it come! I was pumped up. Nothing was going to hurt my little sister, not if I had anything to say about it.

Nothing happened. The house remained quiet. Sally slept peacefully. The hours slowly passed.

My eyes grew heavy. I fought to stay awake but it was no use. I drifted off listening to the slow, rhythmic sounds of Sally breathing gently as she slept.…

Suddenly I woke up with a start. At first I couldn't remember where I was, or what I was doing there. Then my mind cleared and my hands gripped the baseball bat.

A glance told me Sally's door was still open a few inches exactly as it had been. I was getting up to go inside and check on her when a noise from downstairs stopped me cold.

Screeeeek
.

There was a scrape on the floor as if someone down there had bumped into a chair.

Eeeeeerk
.

That was the sound of a drawer opening very slowly.

Steve. Maybe he was down there playing a prank after all that spooky talk.

Crouching close to the wall, I started hesitantly for the stairs, clutching the bat. More shuffling, stirring noises, then an eerie, echoey voice.


Mama. My mama
.”

A child's voice! Sally must be down there!

BOOK: The Haunting
10.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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