The Haunting (3 page)

“Tell me if I throw too hard,” he said, whipping the ball at me.

It stung, but I said, “Don't worry about throwing too hard. I know how to catch.”

Me and my big mouth. Steve did a full windup and threw a fastball right at my head. I caught it in the web of my glove, so it didn't hurt that time, but he kept showing off and after about ten minutes my hand was so numb it almost didn't hurt anymore.

“Pretend like there's a batter at the plate,” he said. “Signal where I should throw, inside or outside, high or low.”

I signaled for a low and inside pitch, and what do you know, he did it perfectly.

I had figured Steve was just bragging about wanting to be the ace pitcher on his school team, but it turned out he was really good. A lot better than me, in fact. You had to pay attention or that fastball of his would take your head off.

I had to concentrate so hard that for a while I almost forgot about the house. That strange feeling it gave me. Then when we took a break, it was back.

We were sitting under the tree, taking it easy, when I felt it. A tingling sensation right between my shoulder blades. I tried to shake it off, like a pitcher shakes off a signal he doesn't like.

But still I felt it, a creepy tingle moving up to the back of my neck.

This was ridiculous! It was all those stories Steve had been telling me. I kept imagining what it would be like to stumble on the old lady's skeleton under a pile of junk in the garage. Or what if I opened a closet and there she was.

Someone called out Steve's name.

“That's my mom, I gotta go,” he said, getting up. “See you later, alligator.”

“In a while, crocodile,” I said right back. But my heart wasn't in it. All I could think about was the house—that something was wrong, something that might put me and my family in danger.

After Steve was gone I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and turned to look up at the building.

It was just a house. A big, rambling house with lots of windows and shadowy places, but just a house. Its windows were just glass. I stared at the place defiantly, my eyes traveling from one blank window to another, across the first floor, back across the second, up to the attic—

My heart slammed in my chest.

A small boy was there in the attic window. Watching me. Staring down at me.

A small, skinny boy with skin as pale as death.

6

I raced for the house and yanked open the kitchen door. I ran into the study, where my parents had set up their temporary office. There was a drafting table and rolls of blueprints and a couple of jars of sharpened pencils. Mom looked up from the worktable, where she was checking figures on her desktop computer. She smiled when she saw me.

“Hey, Jay, did you have fun with your new friend?”

“Mom,” I said, catching my breath. “Did any little kids come into the house? A boy about Sally's age?”

She shook her head no, and I bolted for the hallway and ran up to the second floor.

It took me a few moments to figure out where the attic staircase was located. At the end of the hall, across from my bedroom, behind a narrow door.

As I went up, the attic steps groaned under my feet—if I didn't know better I'd say it sounded almost human.

I got to the top and threw open the attic door.

It wasn't what I expected. Back home the attic is wide open, you can see from one end of the house to the other. But this attic was divided up into smaller rooms, one leading into another. Sort of like a maze.

It was strange, but as I went from one little room into the next, it seemed like I was walking for miles. Impossible, of course. It was just an old attic. It couldn't be miles long. No way. Maybe I was just tired from playing ball with Steve.

I tried to picture where it was I'd seen the little boy—what part of the attic he'd been in when he looked down at me from the window.

Had to be somewhere over here to the left.

I went through a door and found myself in a small room with no windows. Not the right room. But there was a small door at the other end of the room.

I pushed through the door and gasped in surprise.

Somehow I'd gotten completely turned around. This bare room had a window all right, but it seemed to be facing the wrong direction. Instead of looking over the backyard I was seeing out the front, toward the street and the tall pines.

How could I have messed up so badly?

I'd have to go back and start over. But which way? My heart lurched as I realized this room also had two doors and I couldn't remember which one I'd entered.

Crazy. You couldn't get lost in your own house, right? Right?

When I finally decided which door to try, my feet moved like I was wearing lead boots. For some reason my heart started pounding hard against my ribs. I could hardly bring myself to reach out for the doorknob. But I did. I turned it, went through the door, and found myself in another small windowless room with a door opposite.

It was exactly like the room I'd just left. Weird. What was going on here? And why was I in a cold sweat? Why were my hands shaking?

Got to get out of here, I decided. Forget looking for that stupid kid. He could have this weird old attic and all these strange little rooms!

I turned back, opened the door I'd just come through.

And almost walked into a blank wall. It was a closet.

“Pull yourself together,” I whispered to myself. “There has to be an explanation. You just got confused, that's all.”

That's when I heard someone on the stairs. Someone was coming up into the attic. Whoever it was was trying to be quiet but the steps creaked and groaned.

“Dad?” I called out hopefully.

I heard the attic door open. Footsteps coming closer, very quiet.

“Mom? Sally?”

No response.

Just the footsteps shuffling closer and closer.

I started for the other door, wanting to get away from those creepy footsteps, and the door swung slowly shut, right before my horrified eyes.

Then the laughter started. Creepy laughter echoing through the maze of little rooms, bouncing from one to another.

It was the laughter of an evil witch at least a thousand years old.

I stood frozen to the spot as the shuffling footsteps came closer, closer, and the laughter rose and fell.

Closer and closer.

The doorknob rattled.

I pressed myself against the wall, staring at the closed door, my heart slamming so hard I thought it might jump right out of my chest.

The knob turned and rattled again.

The door started shaking, as if something big was outside, trying to get in. It shook so hard the screws started popping out of the hinges.

Now the floor was shaking, too.

I tried to grab hold of the wall as the whole room began to twist and buck. As if an earthquake was set on tearing it apart. Or as if the room itself was quaking in terror.

I fell to the floor and covered my head.

All around me the laughter rose higher and higher, louder and louder. An eerie, cackling noise filled my head and made me want to scream. But I clenched my teeth together—if I made any noise, whatever it was out there would know I was in the room.

Slowly the shaking subsided, but the laughter lingered right outside the door.

As quietly as possible I crawled and slid over to the closet. Something told me it wasn't over, and that I'd better hide. I got into the closet, eased the door shut, and crouched in a corner.

There, I was safe. It would never find me in here.

I waited in the darkness for what seemed like a long time. The laughter faded. Slowly my muscles began to unknot.

It's safe to come out, I thought. I started to get to my feet when I heard something enter the room.

Footsteps came slowly across the floor and stopped right outside the closet door.

It had found me.

7

“Jason? You up here?”

“Dad!”

Relieved beyond relief, I burst out of the closet and fell to my knees, gasping but happy.

“Jason, what's going on here? Is this some sort of game?”

“It's no game, Dad. There's something wrong with this house,” I said. “It's—it's haunted!”

I told Dad about the boy I'd seen in the window, the violent shaking of the room, the eerie cackling. “You must have heard that spooky laughing,” I added. “It was really loud.”

My father shook his head slowly. “No, son, I didn't. I didn't hear anything but you crashing around up here.”

“I swear I saw somebody up here. He was watching me.”

My dad kind of smiled, as if he thought I was joking. “Tell you what, Jay. Let's you and me walk back through these rooms and see if anybody's up here.”

As I followed my father back through the empty rooms, an odd thing happened. This time the attic didn't seem to be miles long, and in no time at all we'd checked out every single room.

No kid. No boy at the window. Nobody at all.

“You think I'm crazy, right?” I said.

Dad smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “I think you've been reading so many of those scary books that your imagination has gotten the best of you. Think about it, Jason—you know there's no such thing as a haunted house.”

“I guess you're right,” I said. But in my heart I wasn't so sure. I'd seen the boy with the sad-looking eyes and the skin as pale as death. Like he'd just got up out of a coffin.

“Come on,” Dad said, turning to leave. “You can give me a hand fixing that old clock in the hallway.”

As we started back down the stairs, a door somewhere in the house slammed violently—BANG!—making us both jump.

Dad chuckled. “Now you've got me doing it,” he said. “It's just the wind, Jason.”

But I knew it wasn't the wind. There wasn't any wind at all. The air was as still as the grave.

8

The grandfather clock was as tall as my father—six feet. It stood beside the stairway in the hall between the living and dining rooms.

Dad knelt on the floor shining a flashlight into the works. I stood nearby so I could hand him stuff from his toolbox.

Helping my father is usually pretty cool because he knows what he's doing and he doesn't mind explaining. My mom says if he hadn't been an architect, he'd probably have been a teacher.

Normally I like giving him a hand. So how come I wanted to get away as fast as I could?

For some reason being near that big old grandfather clock made me feel out of breath. I didn't dare say so, not after what had happened in the attic. My dad would think I was losing my mind or letting my imagination run wild.

But it wasn't my imagination. The thing really did give me the creeps. For one thing the clock face looked way too much like a real face. A cold, unfriendly face that watched me with some secret knowledge.

As if the clock could read my thoughts.

“I don't understand it,” said Dad. He rocked back on his heels and frowned. “There's nothing wrong with the works or the springs. And I'm sure I've wound it correctly. But it just doesn't want to go.” He clapped his hands on his knees and stood. “I give up. How about you put these tools away, buddy, while I wash up?”

“Sure, Dad.” I gathered up his things and slipped each tool into its proper slot.

My eyes avoided the clock. But when I was finished putting the tools away, something made me whirl around to look at its face.

The hands of the clock had moved. And it had never even ticked. I felt a change in the air. The clock was definitely watching me. And waiting.

Something was about to happen, I could feel it.

Footsteps. I heard footsteps!

In the hall above me, running hard. A child's footsteps, hurtling headlong down the hallway.

And something larger in pursuit. Something gaining on the child, something big and bad.

I found myself silently rooting for the running child. “Come on, come on! Don't let whatever it is catch you!”

The running footsteps were coming closer, heading for the stairway landing. I ducked under the stairs and looked up at the landing. I wanted to yell for my dad but my breath was stuck in my chest.

I stared up at the landing, unable to blink as the pounding footsteps came closer, closer.

Then it screamed.

A loud, piercing shriek. I heard a small body hit the stair railing, hurtle over the top, and crash to the floor with a sickening thud.

Then came a silence. A terrible silence. A deadly, deadly silence.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I jumped out from under the stairs, expecting to see a dead body crumpled on the floor.

There was nothing.

No dead body. Nothing. There was nothing there at all.

Except for the shadows closing in. And the clock watching me. Watching and waiting.

9

That night I couldn't get to sleep.

The old house kept making noises in the dark. The walls creaked, the pipes moaned, the floorboards groaned.

Small animals scratched and scrabbled inside the walls. Or that's what it sounded like. Maybe it was just leaves brushing against the outside of the house.

Maybe.

While tossing and turning I worked out what had been happening to me all day. The thing was, I just wasn't used to old houses. In my neighborhood at home, normal sounds were stuff like cars going by, horns tooting sometimes, birds in the trees, people running lawn mowers and power tools.

Here you heard all kinds of stuff I wasn't familiar with. Probably I'd heard mice chasing each other in the walls and imagined a child running. Then some old plumbing pipe hissed an air bubble and it sounded to me like a scream.

That must have been what happened.

That time when I thought Sally was crying? It was probably some neighbor's yowling cat or maybe the pipes again.

And the weird laughter in the attic? Obviously the wind moved through all those little rooms and gables in some odd way I wasn't used to.