Sky Raiders (2 page)

Cole walked along the street beside Dalton, one foot on the curb, the other in the gutter. He was still a scarecrow bristling with arrows. The straw poking out from his neck kept tickling the bottom of his chin. Dalton remained a gloomy clown.

“She wanted to meet at the flagpole?” Dalton verified.

“Just near the house,” Cole said. “Not on his lawn.”

Dalton pulled back the sleeve of his coat and checked his watch. “We’re going to be early.”

“Only a little.”

“Are you nervous?”

Cole shot him a scowl. “I’m not afraid of haunted houses.”

“I don’t mean the spook alley,” Dalton clarified. “Haven’t you always sort of liked—”

“No, Dalton, come on,” Cole interrupted. “Be serious. It isn’t like that. We’re friends.”

Dalton bobbed his eyebrows up and down. “My parents say they started out as friends.”

“Gross, knock it off.” Cole couldn’t let Dalton say or do anything that might make Jenna suspect he thought she was cute. “I should have never told you I used to like her. That was forever ago. We’re just doing this for fun.”

Dalton squinted up ahead. “Looks like a big group.”

He was right. They found Jenna waiting with seven other kids—three of them boys. She was still dressed like Cleopatra.

“Here they are,” Jenna announced. “We can go now.”

“I have the address,” Cole offered.

“I know where it is,” Blake said. “I went by earlier tonight.”

“What’s it like?” Dalton asked.

“I didn’t go inside,” Blake replied. “I just live nearby.”

Cole knew Blake from school. He was the kind of guy who liked to take charge and talked a lot. He always wanted to be goalie at recess, even though he wasn’t that good.

As they started walking, Blake took the lead. Cole fell in beside Jenna. “So what’s your name?” Cole asked.

“Huh?” she replied. “Cleopatra?”

“No, you’re her twin.”

“Right. Want to guess?”

“Irma?”

“That doesn’t sound very Egyptian.”

“Queen Tut?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.” Jenna laughed lightly, then strayed over to her friend Sarah and started talking. Cole fell back to walk with Dalton.

“Do you think the spook alley will actually be freaky?” Dalton asked.

“It better be,” Cole said. “I have my hopes up.”

Blake set a quick pace. They marched briskly, passing a herd of little kids with plastic superhero faces. Most of the houses had halfhearted decorations. Some had none. A few had really elaborate jack-o’-lanterns that must have been carved using patterns.

Dalton elbowed Cole and nodded toward a doorway. A portly witch was handing out full-size Twix bars to a group of little kids.

“It’s okay,” Cole said, hefting his pillowcase. “We already made a good haul.”

“Not much full-size candy,” Dalton pointed out.

“A few little Twixes are just as good,” Cole said, unsure about whether he had any in his bag.

“I heard they have some real cadavers,” Blake was explaining. “Dead bodies donated to science but stolen to use as decorations.”

“Think that’s true?” Dalton wondered.

“I doubt it,” Cole replied. “The guy would end up in jail.”

“What do you know about it?” Blake challenged. “Have you been stealing corpses?”

“Nope,” Cole said. “Your mom was too broke to hire me.”

Everyone laughed at that one, and Blake had no reply. Cole had always been good at comebacks. It was his best defense mechanism and usually kept other kids from bothering him.

As they continued down the street, Cole tried to think
of an excuse to walk alongside Jenna. Unfortunately, she now had Lacie on one side and Sarah on the other. Cole had spoken with Jenna enough to feel fairly natural around her. Sarah and Lacie were a different story. He couldn’t work up the nerve to barge in and hijack their conversation. Every possible comment that came to mind seemed clumsy and forced. At least Dalton was getting plenty of proof that he and Jenna were only friends.

Cole paid attention to the route. Part of him hoped Blake would lead them the wrong way, but he made no mistakes. When the spook alley house came into view, Blake displayed it to the others as if he had decorated it personally.

The house looked decent on the outside. Much better than average. A few fake ravens perched on the roof. Webby curtains hung from the rain gutters. One of the jack-o’-lanterns puked seeds and pulp all over the sidewalk. The lawn had lots of cardboard headstones, with an occasional plastic hand or leg poking up through the grass.

“Pretty good,” Dalton conceded.

“I don’t know,” Cole said. “After all the buildup, I was expecting granite tombstones with actual human skeletons. Maybe some ghost holograms.”

“The best stuff might be inside,” Dalton said.

“We’ll see,” Cole replied. He paused, studying the details. Why did he feel so disappointed? Why did he care about the impressiveness of the decorations? Because he had talked Jenna into coming here. If the haunted house was cool, he might get some reflected glory. If it was weak, she would have gone out of her way for nothing. Was that really it?
Maybe he was just frustrated that he had hardly talked to her.

Blake led the way to the door. He knocked while the other nine kids mobbed the porch. A guy with long hair and a stubbly beard answered. He had a cleaver through his head, with plenty of blood draining from the wound.

“He must be the special-effects pro,” Dalton murmured.

“I don’t know,” Cole said. “It’s pretty gory, but not the ultimate.”

The fatally injured man stepped away from the door to invite them in. A strobe light flashed nonstop. Dry-ice smoke drifted across the floor. Tinfoil coated the walls, reflecting the pulsing light. There were webs and skulls and candelabras. A knight in full armor came toward them, raising a huge sword. The strobe light made his movements jerky. A couple of the girls screamed.

The knight lowered his sword. He moved around a little more, mostly from side to side, trying to milk the moment, but he was less menacing because he had failed to pursue his attack. Seeming to realize he was no longer very threatening, the knight started doing robotic dance moves. A few of the kids laughed.

Cole frowned, feeling even more disappointed. “Why did everyone build this up so much?” he asked Dalton.

“What were you expecting?” Dalton replied.

Cole shrugged. “Rabid wolves fighting to the death.”

“It’s not bad,” Dalton consoled.

“Too much hype,” Cole replied. “My expectations were through the roof.” Turning, he found Jenna beside him. “Are you terrified?”

“Not really,” she said, looking around appraisingly. “I don’t see any body parts. They did a good job, though.”

The clunky knight was retreating to his hiding place. The cleaver guy started distributing candy—miniatures, but he gave everybody two or three.

Then an older kid with messy hair wandered into the hall. He was skinny, probably around college age. He wore jeans and an orange T-shirt that said
BOO
in huge black letters. Otherwise he had no costume.

“Was this scary enough?” he asked nonchalantly.

A couple of the girls said yes. Most of the kids were silent. Cole felt like it would be rude to tell the truth.

The Boo guy folded his skinny arms across his chest. “Some of you don’t look very frightened. Anybody want to see the really scary part?”

He acted serious, but it also could have been a setup for some corny joke.

“Sure,” Cole volunteered. Jenna and a bunch of the others chimed in as well.

The Boo guy stared at them like he was a general and this new batch of troops might not be up to his standards. “All right, if you say so. Fair warning: If any of this other stuff was freaky at all, don’t come.”

Two of the girls started shaking their heads and backing toward the door. One of them turned and buried her head against Stuart Fulsom. Stu left with them.

“Check out Stu,” Cole muttered to Dalton. “He thinks he’s Dr. Love.”

“Why would those girls have come in the first place if
they didn’t want to get freaked out?” Dalton complained.

Cole shrugged. If Jenna had wanted to bail, would he have left with her? Maybe if she had buried her head against his chest, trembling with worry . . .

The remaining seven kids followed the Boo guy. He led them through a regular kitchen to a white door with a plain brass knob. “It’s down in the basement. I won’t be coming. You sure you want to go? It’s really messed up.”

Blake opened the door and led the way down. Cole and Dalton shared a glance. They had come this far. No way were they wimping out now. None of the others chickened out either.

2

C
ole followed Jenna down into the dark basement. Not far beyond the foot of the creaky stairs, black curtains ran from the floor to the ceiling on all sides, concealing most of the room. The only light leaked from an old lantern on a low stool. Grimy and rusty, it looked like a relic from the Old West.

Dalton tugged on Cole’s sleeve. Dramatic shadows fell across his face, making his frowning clown makeup look eerie. A painted tear sparkled on one cheek, the glitter in it barely reflecting the lantern’s glow.

“That guy locked the door,” Dalton whispered. He had been the last one down the stairs.

“What?”

“The Boo shirt guy. When he shut the door, I heard it click, so I checked. We’re locked down here.”

Sighing, Cole glanced up the stairs. “He probably just did it to add suspense.”

“I don’t like it,” Dalton insisted.

Cole had been friends with Dalton since moving to Mesa, Arizona, from Boise in first grade. They liked a lot of the same books and video games. They both played soccer and liked riding their bikes. But Dalton tended to get easily stressed.

Cole recalled a time at the movies when Dalton accidentally left his ticket stub in the restroom before the show. Dalton had spent the rest of the time freaking out that the movie police were going to catch him without it and accuse him of theater hopping. He finally went and confessed to a worker about his lost stub. Of course the guy told him not to worry about it.

“It’s just for effect,” Cole assured his friend. “They’re trying to make it scarier.”

Dalton shook his head. “He did it quietly. I barely heard it. What kind of effect does it have when nobody hears it?”

“You heard it. You checked. You’re scared. Seems like they’re experts.”

“Or psychopaths.”

The five other kids were milling around at the bottom of the stairs. Blake had crouched to inspect the lantern. Stepping away from the light, he tugged at one of the black curtains. “This way.”

As he pulled the drapery aside, Blake revealed a large man. Lantern light reflected off a mostly bald head with a bristly fringe around the sides. His wide, flat nose topped a drooping handlebar mustache. A fragile bone protruded from one earlobe. His overalls looked homemade, sloppily patched together from rough material. Curly hair sprouted from his thick bare shoulders.

Most of the kids jumped or stepped back. Lacie shrieked. The bulky stranger grinned at the reaction. Two of his teeth looked like they were made of dull gray metal.

“Ready to be scared?” he asked, eyes eager. His voice had a vaguely Southern twang. He rubbed his meaty hands together.

Cole glanced at Dalton. Maybe his friend had been right. He didn’t like the idea of being locked down here with this weirdo.

“Who are you?” Jenna asked.

“Me?” the man replied, squinting at her. “You came here to be frightened, am I wrong?”

“That’s right,” Blake said.

The big stranger leered. “I’ll make sure you get what you came for. I’ll take you around, be certain you behave. You mustn’t touch anything.”

Dalton stepped closer to Cole. Jenna held hands with Chelsea.

“They call me Ham,” the man said, picking up the lantern. He reeked of dust and sweat. “Tonight I will guide you to terrors like you have never known. Sure you want to keep going?”

“The door is locked,” Dalton said weakly, twitching his chin toward the stairs.

Ham glared at Dalton. “Then you’d better stay with me.” The big man held the curtain aside. Blake led the way through. Cole and Dalton brought up the rear.