The Horror (5 page)

My feet, shuffling the dry pine needles, began moving faster.

The house had been waiting for me to leave. It had
wanted
me to go play ball.

“This is really, really stupid,” I muttered to myself.

But my feet picked up the pace anyway. By the time I reached the back porch, I was running full blast.

I stopped a second to catch my breath. Wouldn't want Katie to think I didn't trust her to watch Sally for a couple hours.

I opened the kitchen door and went inside, expecting to find Katie and Sally just sitting down to lunch.

Nobody there.

The breakfast dishes were still on the table.

“Sally! Katie!” I called out.

No answer. Maybe they'd gone for a walk. Down to the lake, maybe.

Sure. That was it. And I'd have to fix my own lunch. No big deal.

As I opened the refrigerator door and looked inside, there was a loud thud behind me.

I whipped around. Nothing there.

Then I heard a croaking noise. Like somebody couldn't breathe. Like they were gasping for breath.

It was coming from behind the basement door.

My heart was hammering.

“Jason!”
called a strange, cracked voice from behind the basement door.
“Help me! Please help me! Open the door!”

Forget it. The house was trying to trick me again. I never, ever wanted to go anywhere near that dark and haunted basement.

“No way,” I said to myself. “Don't be a sucker.”

But my feet weren't listening. They were taking me closer and closer to the basement door.

“Help,”
begged a faint voice.
“Let me out!”

BAM! A fist rattled the door.

“Jay-sssson, please let me out.”

There was something about the voice. Something familiar.

“Jaysssonnnnnn!”

I unlocked the door and yanked it open.

Katie fell out in a heap at my feet. “Thank God,” she croaked. “Water!”

I quickly got her a glass of water. She gulped it down and then sighed deeply.

“I heard a noise,” she said, getting her voice back. “A weird noise in the basement. I just went down for a second to check on it. Then the door slammed behind me. It locked from the outside, so I was trapped.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “
Someone
must have thought it was a pretty funny joke. I've been calling and yelling for hours.”

“Hours?” The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “You've been down there for hours?”

She gulped some more water and looked around. “Where's your sister? Isn't she with you?”

I shook my head. “No. She didn't answer when I called,” I said slowly.

“Come on, Jason, the joke's over,” said Katie.

“But I couldn't have locked you in the basement. I've been playing ball with my friends—you can check on that,” I said.

Slowly it dawned on Katie that I was telling the truth. “Then if Sally's not with you, where is she?” she asked.

We ran upstairs.

As if, after all this time, speed would make any difference.

My sister's bedroom door was closed.

“Sally!” I called.

Katie turned the knob. The door was locked.

Sally would never lock her door. She wasn't allowed, for one thing. And that old lock didn't even have a key.

Katie banged on the door.

“Sally! Are you in there?”

Sally didn't answer.

16

What were we going to do? My sister was locked in her room in a house where anything could happen—and frequently did.

“Have you got a screwdriver?” asked Katie, examining the lock.

“A screwdriver?”

“Preferably a long, skinny one.”

I dashed back downstairs to my parents' office where my dad keeps his tools. The room with its empty drafting tables and long-necked lamps looked dusty, as if no one had been there for months.

Hard to believe it was only yesterday they'd left.

On my way back upstairs I heard Katie still calling Sally through the door.

No response.

My stomach felt hollow. It had been hours since anyone had seen Sally.

Katie looked worried. “If your sister's in there, she's not answering,” she said, and took the screwdriver from my hand. “But why would she lock me in the cellar?”

Katie forced the door open with the screwdriver.

“Sally?” I called, stepping into the room.

There was nobody there. The room was empty.

The last time we couldn't find Sally she'd been in the cherry tree, impossibly high up. She told us Bobby “flied” her there from the open window.

This time the window was closed. I went over and looked out. There was nobody in the tree.

I didn't know whether to be relieved or more scared.

“Well, she has to be somewhere, right?” said Katie, searching the room. She was trying to sound brave but I knew she was as worried as I was.

We looked all over the house, in every room, in all the closets, upstairs and downstairs. No Sally.

“There's only the attic left,” I said, opening the narrow door with a feeling of dread. I didn't like the attic.

The attic is where the fear lives
.

I jerked my hand away from the door. Where had that thought come from?

“I hear something,” said Katie excitedly.

Her voice got through the cobwebs in my head.

Then I heard it, too: scampering feet and a child's laughter.

“Sally!” I hollered, taking the steps two at a time.

I got to the top just in time to see a small foot disappear through the door into the next room.

The attic was broken up into small rooms. Some of them went off at odd angles on account of all the gables. I'd already had one weird experience up here where the little rooms formed a kind of maze and I couldn't find my way out.

“Sally, come back,” I shouted.

Katie pushed past me and ran into the next room. But Sally kept going, keeping out of sight, giggling like it was a game.

By the time I caught up with them, I could hear an animal snarling.

It wasn't an animal, it was my little sister. Her eyes burned into us like glowing coals.

“Keep away,” she said in a rough, weird voice.

Bobby's voice. A voice from deep in the grave.

My spine tingled. I moved in front of Katie.

“I know it's you, Bobby,” I said. “Let me talk to Sally.”

“I keep Sally safe,” said Sally-Bobby. She pointed at Katie. “Safe from her. Safe from witches!”

The Bobby voice was beginning to sound less raspy, more like a real kid's voice. For some reason this made my blood run colder.

I inched closer. “Let me talk to my sister right now,” I demanded.

“I'm calling your parents,” said Katie, turning on her heel. “This is too weird for me. I give up.”

As Katie left the room, Sally-Bobby tried to dart around me but I grabbed her and held tight.

She was strong, much stronger than my little sister, but I held on.

Finally she got too tired to struggle. I picked her up and followed Katie downstairs, trying to ignore a few painful kicks in the ribs.

Katie was already on the phone with my parents. “I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. and Mrs. Winter,” she was saying, “but Sally's acting very strange and I thought you should know. She's pretending she's some kid named Bobby—a ghost, I guess.”

Katie paused to listen. Sunlight fell across her from the kitchen window like a spotlight or a magic circle, leaving me and Sally out in the gloom.

Sally began to struggle in my arms again.

“Bobby is her imaginary playmate?” echoed Katie. “Well, he doesn't seem to like me much. I was wondering, Mrs. Winter, if maybe you could talk to Sally about this Bobby. She's right here.”

Katie held out the phone.

“Mommy,” cried Sally in her own voice. Her body instantly felt cuddly again instead of hard and tense.

I let her down and she reached eagerly for the phone, the sun catching her blond curls, making them shine like a gold princess crown. “Hi, Mommy!”

Sally listened to the phone for a minute and giggled. “Me and Bobby were just playing,” she said. “He doesn't like baby-sitters but I do. I like Katie. We were just teasing.” She paused and smiled up at the baby-sitter. “Yes, Mommy, we'll be good. I promise!”

Katie gave me an I-knew-it-all-along look. Now she really believed the haunting was fake!

Just like the house wanted.

17

Dinner wasn't much fun that night, so when I heard a knock on the back door I hoped it was Steve. At least we could hang out in the backyard together.

But there was nobody there.

“Steve? Are you out there?”

No answer. Just the shadows of night growing longer and longer, and the tree branches sighing in the wind.

I went back to the living room and continued to help Sally put her puzzle together.

Katie was reading, tight-lipped. Still mad at us because she'd been locked in the basement.

A few minutes later she got up and went into the kitchen and a second after that there was a blood-curdling scream.

I ran into the kitchen. Katie stood there shaking, a broken glass at her feet.

“What happened?” I asked.

She pointed at the window. “Something's out there. It was horrible. This huge hairy face was pressed up at the window, grinning at me.”

“What did it look like?” I asked.

Katie shivered. “I don't know. Like a monster, I guess.”

“You must have scared it away,” I said. “There's nothing there now.”

I ran to the door and opened it, which was probably not that smart but there was no one—and no thing—there.

Katie poured another glass of lemonade and we went into the living room.

I was back helping Sally when Katie screamed again.

“No! It's horrible! Horrible!” Katie pointed at the living room window.

I swung around to look just as a hunched shape dropped out of view.

Sally started to cry.

Suddenly something scratched from outside the front door.

“Katie, I want Katie,”
said a strange, spooky voice through the door.
“I will drink your blood.”

I yanked open the door and a large lump in a big, black sweatshirt fell into the hall. “Ow!” it cried.

I prodded it with my foot and it got up. Its face was a horrible mass of sores and warts with hairs growing out of them. Blood dripped from one eye.

With a screech of fury, Katie pushed me out of the way and grabbed the thing by the nose.

The horrible face peeled off in her hands.

“Ow,” said Steve, rubbing his nose. “Can't you guys take a joke?”

“I've had enough jokes from you two to last me a lifetime,” snapped Katie, throwing the mask on the floor and flouncing out of the room.

“You scared my little sister half to death,” I told Steve. “You'd better go home.”

“Sorry,” said Steve. “It was just a joke.”

“See you tomorrow,” I said. “And no more jokes.”

18

Not long after Steve left I went up to my room. The house was a creepy place, no doubt about that, but my bedroom was pretty cool. It was big with high ceilings and a neat, old-fashioned window seat. The kind where you lift a lid that hides a toy box. Not much furniture—just my bed and a battered table I glued airplane models on, and an even rattier old bureau my mom said was a valuable antique.

Built into the closet door was something that was almost as good as a fun house mirror. It made me look like a nine-foot high beanpole with a kink in the middle. If I jumped up and down in front of that mirror it made my reflection slither like a snake.

I messed around with the old mirror for a while, but tonight it was boring. I tried reading, but my books were boring, too. I liked science fiction and scary-monster stuff but somehow with a ghost or two in the house the thrill wasn't the same.

So I put together some warm clothes and rolled up my extra blanket for later. I was going to wait for Katie to go to bed and then go get Sally and take ourselves out to sleep under the cherry tree where, maybe, it was safe. Safer than inside, anyway.

Last night had been no big deal but I didn't think the house would let us off that easy two nights in a row.

And it was my job to keep Sally safe.

So I lay down on the bed with my clothes on and stared up at the ceiling. Trying to stay awake no matter how heavy my eyelids got.

But I couldn't fight it. The bed was so soft. My eyelids drooped and I fell asleep.

The next thing I knew there was a light shining in my eyes.

I was too late. It had started.

My room was filled with silvery blue light. A cold, cold light that made my skin look gray, like a corpse's.

The light was coming out of my closet! No, not the closet. The mirror on the closet door. The mirror was glowing.

A strange, glowing cloud swirled in the center of the mirror.

It was getting thicker, spinning faster and faster. I couldn't stop staring. I tried closing my eyes but I couldn't. It was as if the mirror was hypnotizing me, sucking me in.

The cloud darkened. It was taking shape.

A picture was forming in the mirror!

It was a room. I almost recognized it. Almost—then the cloud dissolved into mist again, swirling and plucking at me.

I sat up, moving like a zombie.

The mist in the mirror came together. It formed the image of a bedroom. A room right here in the house.

My sister must be in danger!

I tried getting up—I wanted to run in and check on her—but suddenly I couldn't move a muscle. I could only stare into the mirror as the picture became clearer and more detailed.

Slowly a bed swam into view, then a long black shape. The shape grew darker and sharper.

It was the old lady, the skeleton thing shrouded in black.