by R. L. Stine
“B-E-S-T,” Caroline murmured through swollen lips. “Best friends.”
“That’s it!” I yelled. “Come on, Caroline, one more time!”
Caroline joined in. We sang our song again.
Was it working?
I peered at Caroline’s hideous face.
As I stared, the sore on her forehead began to fade.
Then it vanished!
It was working. The cheer really was working!
The ghouls stopped singing.
“No!” Amy screeched. “Noooo!”
Caroline and I sang the cheer again—this time bellowing it at the top of our lungs. “We’re the very best of friends—•”
“Stop!” the ghouls wailed.
“We’ll be best friends till the end.”
Caroline’s face returned to normal.
She grinned at me and shouted, “B-E-S-T, best—”
She didn’t finish. Her smile faded. She stared over my shoulder in horror.
I whipped around to the campfire behind me.
My mouth suddenly went dry. “Whoa,” I whispered.
There, floating above the flames, was Pearl!
25
Pearl hovered over us. She wore her troop uniform—purple sash and all.
But I could see right through her to the trees surrounding the clearing.
Pearl wasn’t a ghoul anymore. She was a ghost!
“You have failed!” she bellowed.
“No!” I shrieked. “We passed!”
“Not you.” Pearl slowly turned her head to stare at the troop. “You!” She pointed a ghostly finger at Amy and the Camp Fear Ghouls. “You have all failed!”
Amy shrank back in fear. “Wh-what are you doing here?” she stammered. “We destroyed you. Just like we destroyed Rose!”
Pearl’s voice boomed over the trees. “Fool! You destroyed my body. But you cannot destroy me! I am the leader. I must always be part of the thirteen!”
“I told you we couldn’t get rid of her,” Trudy whispered to Amy. “But you wouldn’t listen.”
“Shut up!” Amy growled.
Pearl floated closer to Amy. “Amy is the most to blame. Because of her, we do not have the correct number of members. But you all did as Amy told you. You all broke the rules.” Pearl suddenly bellowed, “Now you all must pay!”
Amy dropped to her knees. “No!”
“Yes!” Pearl pointed her skeletal hand at Amy and ordered, “Camp Fear Ghouls, COUNT OFF!”
Amy clasped her hands together. “Please, don’t make me!”
Pearl sucked in a huge breath of air, then roared, “ONE!”
The Camp Fear Ghouls stared up at Pearl. Total fear showed on their disgusting faces.
What were they afraid of? What would happen if they counted off?
Pearl floated closer to Amy. “I said, ONE!”
Amy covered her head and moaned, “TWO!”
“THREE!” Priscilla whimpered.
“FOUR!” Trudy cried.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The ghouls kept counting.
“FIVE!”
“SIX!”
I watched their faces, trying to put it together.
There were supposed to be thirteen girls in the troop. That was the key, I knew. But the key to what?
The thunder crashed again. Closer to camp this time.
Violet was the last of the ghouls to count off. “TWELVE!”
The troop turned to face Caroline and me.
Pearl hovered over me. “Say it!” she ordered.
“THIRTEEN!” I shouted.
Lightning struck a tree a few feet away. The night sky exploded with light.
“Now you!” Pearl pointed at Caroline.
I turned to Caroline. She stood frozen, her eyes wide with fear.
“Caroline,” I whispered. “Say it.”
Caroline stared blankly ahead, shivering.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Say it, Caroline!” I ordered. “Say ‘fourteen!’ “
But Caroline didn’t say a thing.
26
“Say it!” I screamed. “Say it!”
Caroline’s whole body trembled. Her eyes remained fixed on Pearl.
I shook her again. “Caroline! You have to do it! Please! You have to yell—”
Caroline blinked her eyes. “FOURTEEN!” she shouted.
Crraaaack! A lightning bolt sizzled down into the camp.
Dazzling white light flashed all around. The ground heaved under me. Caroline and I flew through the air. Whump! We hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.
Amy and the other Camp Fear Ghouls screeched in agony. I rolled over and peered toward them.
But there was no one there.
The Camp Fear Ghouls had disappeared.
“They’re gone,” I gasped. “The ghouls are gone!”
“Not all of them,” Caroline corrected me. She clutched my arm and pointed.
Pearl remained, floating above the flames of the campfire.
She smiled a ghoulish grin at us. “Fourteen!” she howled. “We can’t have fourteen girls. That’s breaking the rules!”
Then she shot skyward—and vanished into the night.
The campfire went out.
We were in total darkness.
Then a yellow cone of light shone in my eyes. “Oh, no!” I moaned. Caroline and I clutched at each other. What now?
“Lizzy?” a familiar voice called.
“Lizzy, where are you?” another voice called.
I let go of Caroline. “Mom? Dad?”
I leaped to my feet and ran to my parents.
“Mom! Dad!” I squealed. “What are you doing here?”
“The Weather Service reported severe thunderstorms in the area,” Mom explained. “We just didn’t think it was a good idea for you to camp in these woods tonight. We came to take you home.”
“I’m never camping in these woods again!” I said. I flung my arms around her neck.
“Lizzy, where is the rest of your troop?” Dad asked me, frowning.
“They—uh—just left,” I replied.
Well, it was true. Sort of.
“That’s why we were so happy to see you,” Caroline added.
We followed my parents out of the woods to our car.
As we drove toward Mill Bridge, Mom turned in her seat. “Oh, Lizzy, I almost forgot. This came in the mail for you.”
She passed an envelope over the back of the seat. I opened it and read the letter out loud. “Join the Shadyside Drama Club.”
Hmm, I thought. A drama club sounds fun. Maybe . . .
“Don’t even think about it.” Caroline yanked the letter out of my hands. She tore it into little pieces and tossed them out the window. “We’ve had enough of clubs—”
“And Fear Street,” I added, watching the bits of paper float away.
“Right!” Caroline slung her arm around my shoulder. “No more Fear Street. No more clubs. From now on, it’s just you and me.”
“Oh! Look, girls,” Mom called. She pointed out the window.
I peered out. And gasped.
“Hi, girls!” The Camp Fear Ghouls’ driver stood on Mill Bridge. Waving. “See you tomorrow night!”
Are you ready for another walk down Fear Street?
Turn the page for a terrifying sneak preview.
Jesse stared at me. “You really want to go in there? In Fear Lake?”
The lake, just like the Fear Street Woods, had a pretty creepy reputation.
“No. I don’t want to go in,” I replied. “But what choice do we have? We have to get our backpacks.”
Jesse knew we had no choice. We had to go in.
We pulled off our shoes and socks and rolled up our jeans as high as they would go.
“That water is going to be freezing,” Jesse warned.
I hoped he was wrong. I walked up to the edge of the lake and peered in. Above, the sun slid behind clouds again. The water was so dark and cloudy, I
could barely see the bottom. I dipped my big toe in for a half a second—and drew it back.
Cold. Very cold.
“I can’t believe the Burger brothers did this to us! I hate them for throwing our packs in Fear Lake!” I cried. “I wish we could pay them back!”
I took a deep breath and waded into the cold water, moving as fast as I could. The cold took my breath away. I gasped. And shivered. And gasped again. I wrapped my arms around my body to keep warm.
“Whooooa!” I shouted. Did something slimy brush up against my leg? It sure felt like it. And in Fear Lake, I wasn’t taking any chances. I started to wade back to the shore—fast.
“Jesse! Something’s here—in the water!” I shouted. “Something alive!”
Jesse grabbed my wrist. “Yeah. They’re called fish.”
Together we walked a few more steps into the dark, cold water. Then, in front of me, something splashed to the surface.
A fish?
No. It bobbed in slow circles just under the surface.
What could it be?
“Got it!” Jesse cried.
He yanked his backpack up from the water. “Yuccck!” he moaned. The backpack was covered in black mud.
I lowered my eyes to the water. The strange object began to bob toward me!
A voice in the back of mind told me to get out of the lake right away. To stay away from that thing in the water.
I should have listened.
But instead, I took a step forward. I squeezed my eyes shut—and reached my hand out to grab it.
I wrapped my fingers around the object. It felt slick and hard. I pulled it out of the water and held it up to examine it.
A bottle?
Yes. It was a bottle. An ordinary, brown, glass bottle with a cork in it.
I let out a sigh of relief. Nothing spooky or weird about a bottle. Someone probably threw it in the lake after a picnic.
I was about to drop the bottle back into the water, when I noticed something strange about it. It should have been cold—but it felt warm. Warmer than my hand.
I held onto the bottle as I hunted for my backpack.
“Found it,” I called to Jesse, who was already on shore.
I dredged up my backpack. Gross. It was muddy and covered with clumps of soggy green weeds.
I waded back to shore with the bottle and my backpack. “Hey, Jess. Check out this bottle. It feels warm and—”
The bottle jerked in my hand!
I nearly dropped it.
Did something move inside it? Was something alive in there?
I tried to peer through the brown glass. But it was thick and dirty. I couldn’t see a thing.
Get a grip, Hannah! I thought to myself. Nothing could be living in this old bottle.
I turned to Jesse. He frowned as he stared at his mud-soaked backpack. “Totally ruined,” he moaned, shaking his head. “Dad is going to freak. He’ll totally freak.”
I began to answer Jesse, when I felt my hand grow warmer. The bottle was heating up! It jerked in my hand again. Harder this time.
Something very weird was going on here. I set the bottle down in the grass. I didn’t want to hold on to it another second.
“Hey, what’s that?” Jesse asked, nodding his head toward the bottle.
“What does it look like, Brain? It’s a bottle I found in the lake.”
“Wow. It looks really old,” he said, bending down to examine it.
He reached his hand out and picked it up. “Yuck! It’s . . . it’s hot!”
So I wasn’t going crazy! There really was something strange about that bottle.
Jesse held it up to the sun. He squinted his eyes, trying to peer inside.
“Is there a note inside? People always do that in the movies.”
“I found this in the lake, Jesse. People don’t throw bottles with notes in them in a lake. They throw them in the ocean to see how far they will travel.”
“Hey, maybe it’s got money inside!” Jesse cried. He tried even harder to see through the dark brown glass. He shook the bottle.
“Oh, yeah, people are always throwing bottles filled with money into the lake.” I scowled at my brother. “Look, just put it down, okay? We’re soaked. We have to go home and change.”
Jesse ignored me as he squinted at the bottle. “Hey, it feels as if it’s getting even warmer.”
“Jess, put it down!” I insisted. My voice quivered.
“What’s your problem, Hannah? It’s just a bottle.” He turned it around in his hand, inspecting every inch. “I’m going to open it.”
“No! Wait!” I cried. I grabbed the bottle from him. “There’s something written on the side. Maybe it’s important.”
“If you say so.” Jesse sighed.
A yellow label clung to the side of the bottle. The letters on it were so faded, I could barely make them out.
“ ‘DANGER,’ ” I read out loud. “‘DO NOT OPEN.’ ”
The bottle began to vibrate in my hand.
I jumped.
This was definitely not my imagination.
I dropped the bottle back onto the ground and kicked it away. “This bottle is bad news. I’m not opening it! I don’t even want it near me!”
It sat there on its side in the grass. Then, slowly, it rolled back to me.
“Did you see that, Jesse?” I whispered. “It—it moved on its own!”
Jesse groaned and picked the bottle up again. “It just rolled. Bottles do that.”
“Let’s go,” I urged. “I told you what it says on the label. We are not supposed to open this bottle.”
Jesse took hold of the cork. “That’s stupid.”
“No, Jesse, don’t!”
I reached out to swipe the bottle from him.
Too late.
He grasped the cork and tugged it out of the bottle.
About R. L. Stine
R. L. Stine, the creator of Ghosts of Fear Street, has written almost 100 scary novels for kids. The Ghosts of Fear Street series, like the Fear Street series, takes place in Shadyside and centers on the scary events that happen to people on Fear Street.
When he isn’t writing, R. L. Stine likes to play pinball on his very own pinball machine and explore New York City with his wife, Jane, and son, Matt.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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