The Howler (8 page)

We both twisted our hands. And tugged. I gritted my teeth and pulled with all my strength.

But my palm was stuck tight to the back of Scott’s hand. And his hand was pressed to the doorknob.

Behind us, the howls grew louder. The cold, putrid wind floated into the kitchen. I knew the screaming ghosts wouldn’t be far behind.

Vanessa stepped up behind me. “Let me help,” she said.

“NO!” I shouted. “Stay away! Don’t touch us!”

Vanessa’s eyes went wide with horror as she stared at Scott and me, our hands locked together.

Suddenly, the kitchen grew silent.

I turned my head—and saw the five ghosts, staring at us.

Staring at us with blank, glassy eyes.

They were a family. A ghost family. Grandmother, father and mother, two kids.

“They’re—they’re coming for us,” Vanessa whispered.

Yes. They were moving quickly now. Floating silently around the kitchen counter.

Their empty eyes locked on us coldly. Their faces knotted in anger.

As they came toward us, I twisted my hand and tugged hard, trying to free myself. But I couldn’t pull away.

I wanted to scream. But panic choked my throat.

Justin and Ed backed up against the wall. Vanessa hunched over, tensed her muscles, both hands tightened into fists.

“
Trapped…
” the old woman rasped at us. “
You are trapped
.”

Gliding so softly over the floor, they moved to surround us. And as they floated toward us, they changed.

The clumps of hair dropped off. Their faces melted completely away, revealing open-jawed, toothless skulls.

They floated out of their clothes.

I gasped.

No skin on their bodies. No skin at all.

Their bones rattled as they moved, clattering and grinding as bone scraped against bone.

And as they neared, they tossed back their skulls. Another hideous, high wail escaped their toothless mouths.

“
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
”

Not a living sound. The shriek of the dead. Filled
with pain and anger. An ancient cry finally finding its voice.

“
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
”

Shrieking, skull tossed back, bones clattering, the father leaped onto Justin.

The ghost girl floated over Vanessa. Vanessa swung her fists. But she couldn’t keep the ghost girl away.

Scott and I struggled, tossed and squirmed. Bent together. Our hands burning. Stuck. No escape.

No escape…

The mother and the son lowered their shoulder bones, raised their bony arms, and attacked.

I opened my mouth to scream as the boy lowered his head and clamped his toothless jaw down on my shoulder.

Squirming, twisting, desperate to free my hand, I shut my eyes and waited for the pain to rack my body.

Waited…

Waited…

No pain. I opened my eyes. The boy’s jaw had slid right through me!

He raised a bony hand. Tightened it into a fist. And drove his fist into my stomach.

But I felt nothing. His hand shot through me and came out the other side.

I turned to Vanessa, who jumped right through the skeletal ghost girl.

Justin struggled with the father, ducking, dodging. Justin’s head shot through the father’s chest. “I—I can’t feel him!” Justin cried.

“They can’t touch us!” Vanessa shouted. “They can’t hurt us!”

“
EEEEEEEEEEEEE!
” The ghosts shrieked out their unhappiness, their fury.

“
We can hurt you
,” the boy rasped, pointing his bony finger at Vanessa. “
We will have plenty of time for that
.”

“
Trapped…
” the old woman repeated. She opened her toothless, rotted mouth and cackled. An ugly, dry coughing sound.
“Trapped.”

“You’ll never leave the house!”
the ghost father cried.

“Our house! Our prison!”
the mother shrieked.
“Now it will be yours!”

Shrieking and cackling, the ghosts faded away.

The sudden silence was almost as frightening as their ugly cries. My eyes darted around the kitchen. The ghosts had vanished—but for how long?

“Hey!” I let out a startled cry as I realized my hand was free.

Scott stood up too, holding his hand, shaking it. His hand was purple and swollen. “It…came off the knob!”

I gazed down at my hand, tenderly squeezing it, moving the fingers until the ache started to fade. “Maybe when the ghosts left, they freed us.”

“I don’t care!” Scott cried. “Let’s go!” He tried the door again. “It still won’t open!”

“Now what?” Vanessa demanded.

“We can go out a window,” Scott said. “The den window is easy.”

“Yes!” I cried, pumping my fist in the air.

We started running toward the den. But I stopped in the living room.

My eye caught something on the table beside the couch. “The phone!” I shouted.

I flew across the room. “We can call for help. Someone can come and get us out of here!”

“Hurry—please!” Vanessa begged.

“Yes!” I lifted the phone—and punched in 911.

I pushed the emergency number, then pressed the phone to my ear and listened.

Silence for a second or two. And then…

“Hahahahahaha!”
A high, shrill cackling laugh, tinny and distant-sounding.

I jerked the phone from my ear. But the ugly laughter continued to pour out of it.

With an angry grunt, I tossed the phone to the floor. “We can’t call out,” I told my friends. I could still hear the tinny laughter rising from the phone.

“Let’s just get
out
of here!” Justin cried. “Why are we standing around?”

He took off running, into the den. We followed close behind.

Behind the couch, the den window looked out on the side of the house. Justin leaned over the couch and reached to pull up the window.

“No—don’t touch it!” I shouted.

Justin pulled back.

“It might be hot or something,” I warned.

Justin’s eyes were wild. His face was bright red. “Then let’s just break the glass and jump out,” he said breathlessly.

He dove to the fireplace across the room and grabbed up a black wrought-iron fireplace poker. He raised it high in front of him and went charging toward the window.

Halfway across the room, he stopped short. His eyes bulged, and his mouth dropped open in a startled cry.

The fireplace poker dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor.

“Justin—what’s wrong?” I cried.

He didn’t answer. He shot out his arms and tensed his legs, trying to move. Grunting, he lowered his shoulder, as if trying to butt something out of his way.

He struggled and strained. But he couldn’t move.

Was it some kind of invisible wall? A ghostly force holding him in place?

I lurched forward and reached out to help him.

Too late.

The force that held Justin spun him around—and slammed him headfirst into the wall.

THUDDDDD
.

I’ll never forget the sound of Justin’s head crashing so hard against the wood-paneled wall.

Holding my breath, I waited for him to bounce off. To fall to the floor.

But he didn’t fall.

His head…

His head kept going…shooting into the wall.

His head vanished into the wood. And then his shoulders slid in after his head.

As if he had been fired from a cannon, I thought. As if the wall were swallowing him up, swallowing him whole.

His body disappeared up to his waist. His legs dangled in the air. He kicked his feet, struggling, struggling helplessly as he disappeared into the wall.

“Stop him! Save him!” Ed screamed. “Don’t let him go!”

With a desperate cry, Ed leaped forward. He grabbed Justin around the ankles.

With a groan, he pulled back, tugged with all his strength.

“I…I can’t…stop…it,” Ed whispered.

Justin’s sneakers snapped into the wall.

I uttered a cry as Ed’s hands were sucked in too.

Ed screamed and screamed again.

His arms slid into the wood as if being pulled by a powerful force.

And then Ed’s screams were cut off as his head smacked the wall. A wet
squish
—and then Ed’s head shot into the wall.

His shoulders disappeared.

His whole body.

His shoes thudded hard against the wood. Then vanished.

Vanished.

My two friends. Gone.

Scott, Vanessa, and I stared at the wood-paneled wall.

Smooth now. Not a mark. Not a scratch. Not a hole where the two bodies were sucked in.

“Wh-where did they go?” Vanessa choked out.

Scott dropped to his knees on the carpet, his body racked with shudder after shudder. “Are…are they dead? Are they
ghosts
now? Is this what the ghost family plans to do to all of us?”

My heart hammered against my chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off the den wall. Are they gone forever? I wondered. No trace of them? Nothing left at all?

I turned to the fireplace poker on the floor. I wanted to grab it up and start swinging it.

I wanted to batter down the wall and find my friends. Then I wanted to keep swinging it. And swinging it and swinging it.

I wanted to batter down the ghosts that were doing this to us.

But my fear soon overcame my anger.

There were only three of us left. Only three.

We had to be very careful.

“What should we do now?” Vanessa whispered. “Any ideas?”

Before Scott or I could answer, we heard a sound. A car horn honk. From the front.

We ran to the living room window—in time to see a car pulling up the driveway.

“My parents!” Scott cried.

We watched their blue Saturn crunch up the snow-covered driveway, heading to the garage at the back of the house. Scott’s dad honked the horn again, letting Scott know he was home.

“We’ve got to warn them,” Scott said, his eyes wide with fear. “We’ve got to warn them to stay away.”

He started running to the back, but I grabbed him by the shoulders and held him back. “No, Scott—wait,” I pleaded. “This could be our chance. Maybe our last chance.”

He spun around. “You mean—”

“Maybe they can open the door from the outside,” Vanessa said excitedly. “We can’t let ourselves out. But maybe
they
can let us out.”

I heard a car door slam. Then another. Scott’s parents were climbing out of the car, making their way to the kitchen door.

We ran to the kitchen. Outside the window, I could see them. They had stopped beside the drive
way to examine a section of hedge that was tilting.

“Hurry!” I called. “Please—hurry!”

Then I heard a startled shout. I turned from the window to see Scott start to spin.

“Help me!” he screamed. His arms flew straight out. His black hair whipped around as his whole body began to spin. Faster, faster. Like a top picking up speed.

“Help me!” His cry faint now, muffled by the powerful wind around him as he whirled. Whirled helplessly, caught in an invisible force that hurled him around and around.

“Ohhhh…hellllp.”

I saw his twirling feet leave the floor.

Vanessa grabbed my arm as we stared in horror. Stared at Scott—spinning faster, faster—so fast, he had become a blur of color.

Up, up—to the kitchen ceiling.

“Oh, no,” I whispered, seeing the ceiling bubble. The kitchen ceiling was liquid now. A creamy, white, bubbling liquid.

The ceiling made a sick sucking sound as Scott’s spinning head poked into it. The creamy liquid bubbled and puckered.

Spinning harder, Scott’s body shot up into the wet ceiling.

His arms dangled crazily, fluttering around him. His legs kicked at the swirling air.

Sploooosh
.

Another heavy sucking sound as his shoulders slid up into the bubbling, wet ceiling.

In seconds, he was gone.

The ceiling grew hard and smooth again.

No sign of him. No sign at all.

Vanessa and I stared at each other. Her hand still gripped my arm. We were both trembling.

“We’re the only two left,” Vanessa whispered.

And then we staggered to the kitchen door. Careful to stay a foot or two back. And we started to scream to Scott’s parents.

“Help us!”

“Please—hurry!”

“Get us out!”

Scott’s parents turned away from the hedge. Their faces filled with confusion. They glanced all around, as if trying to figure out where the voices were coming from.

Finally, Scott’s mom saw Vanessa and me through the window in the kitchen door. Her mouth dropped open in surprise. She grabbed her husband’s hand and pointed to Vanessa and me.

“Hurry—please!” Vanessa shouted. “Open the door!”

They started to jog across the snow. I could see their breath puffing up in white clouds as they ran.

They took four or five steps before they started to sink.

Both of them cried out at the same time.

Their hands flew up. Scott’s mom’s pocketbook went sailing into the snow.

They sank so fast.

The snow splashed up all around them, as if they had stepped into a big puddle. I could hear the
whoooosh
from inside the house.

They were surrounded by tall waves of sparkling white snow. And then, as the waves fell back to the ground, Scott’s parents dropped with them.

They both uttered shrill screams of horror and shock.

They screamed as they slid down…down.

They thrashed their arms wildly, grasping at the ground. Struggling to keep their heads above the surface. Slapping the snow. Slapping it frantically.

Screaming…screaming.

I could hear the screams even after their heads had vanished beneath the snow.

Then silence.

The snow lay flat and smooth. A soft wind sent a spray of glittering powder over the ground.

Silence.

Shivering, our bodies trembling, Vanessa and I turned to each other. All alone now.

All alone in a house filled with angry ghosts. Ghosts eager to have their revenge.

I turned away from the kitchen door. I didn’t want to see the smooth snow. The snow that had just swallowed Scott’s parents.

Our last hope.

“What do we do now?” Vanessa asked in a tiny voice. “Just wait for them to get us too?”

Her question sent a chill down my back.

I could hear the creak of floorboards in the front of the house. I heard whispers. Snickering laughter. And the soft scrape of ghostly footsteps.

Were they coming for us now?

Would we disappear the way the others had?

I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be jammed headfirst into the wall. Or sucked into the ceiling.

How much would that hurt?

I shut my eyes. Panic made my mind whirl with crazy thoughts. Where could we hide? How do you hide from ghosts?

Even if we did hide, how long could we stay alive in this haunted house?

“The Howler.” The words burst suddenly from my throat.

I opened my eyes and gazed at Vanessa. “Yes. The Howler,” I repeated.

“What about it?” Vanessa whispered.

“Maybe we can reverse it. Send those ghosts back into the closet.”

Vanessa shook her head unhappily. “It won’t work, Spencer. The Howler didn’t summon the ghosts. The Howler didn’t help them escape. We pulled open the closet door—remember? That’s how
they escaped. The Howler only let us hear their howls.”

I stared at her, my mind spinning. She was right.

But I had another idea. “Ian. What if I can use the Howler to reach Ian?” I said. “Would he help us get out of here?”

I grabbed Vanessa’s hand and started to pull her to the stairs. “Hurry. The ghosts won’t give us much time. Maybe…maybe we can reach him.”

“It’s worth a try,” Vanessa said. And then she added in a trembling voice, “I guess.”