The Knight in Screaming Armor

by R. L. Stine

  Purple stars flutter before your eyes. Your toes feel numb. Darkness surrounds you. You feel your own arm just to see if you’re alive. “I am alive!” you shout happily.

  “You call this living?” Abbey’s voice says.

  “Abbey!” you and Kip both say. “It’s you! What happened?”

  “We crashed and now we’re crushed! That’s what happened.”

  Abbey’s right. The crash seemed to break the spell. Now you’re crushed together inside the Evil Knight’s crate! Back in your garage! In America! Home!

  “It started when we entered the crate,” Kip says groggily. “A secret door, another world and time … and …”

  “… and the worst night of my life! Aawwk!” Abbey squawks. She pushes on the door of the crate. You bang on it. Kip throws his weight against it. It won’t open.

  “AAAaaaaaahh! Aaaaah!” It’s your scream coming from inside the crate. But you can scream all you want, no one’s going to let you out. They’ve heard it all before. Those screams inside that crate. It’s just the Curse of the Knight in Screaming Armor. A curse that never comes to an

  END.

  Over your cousins’ cries for help, the scraggly old women in cages cackle, “Fight the evil! Earn the armor!”

  Bats baring vampire fangs fly down at you from above. You flail your arms at them. The fire of the dragons’ breath reaches for you with its flaming fingers. You shield your eyes. You take a deep breath and move toward the steel trap holding Kip’s leg.

  Before your hand gets close enough to try to free him, a gust of smoke fills the room. Huge puffs of black smoke burn your eyes. “I can’t see a thing!” you shout.

  You put your hands out in front of you and feel something smooth and metallic. A suit of armor!

  You rub the smoke from your eyes and squint. “Yes!” you shout. “It’s the armor of the Good Knight!”

  You try to open the armor to put it on. It’s no use. No amount of tugging will get you into the suit. You haven’t earned the right to wear it yet.

  “Grab the battle-ax!” Kip cries.

  The armor holds a gleaming battle-ax in its glove.

  “Please save us,” Abbey pleads as she pulls at her snakeskin necklace.

  You yank the battle-ax from the steel-gloved hand of the suit of armor. It pulls free!

  Go to PAGE 129.

  Kip and Abbey burst through the door.

  “What’s happening in here?” Abbey shouts.

  “We heard terrible screams!” Kip adds. “Are you okay?”

  You sit up. That’s right. You sit up and push the covers aside. You’re in BED! Back at HOME! At last!

  “It was the Knight in Screaming Armor. We had an awesome battle and I killed him!” you exclaim proudly. “I broke the curse and brought us home!”

  “What are you talking about?” Kip asks. “The Knight in Screaming what? Oh, you mean that crazy story my grandfather used to tell? How did you know about that?”

  “Kip! Abbey!” you shout. “You have to remember! The Evil Knight was going to destroy all that was good ‘unless a brave and noble Saxton could defeat it.’ Remember? We traveled to England and fought the Evil Knight!”

  “You? Traveled to England?” Abbey says as she flicks her hair. “In your dreams!”

  But it wasn’t in your dreams. And the proof is on your bedroom floor at Abbey’s feet: a small crumpled up scrap of metal. You almost didn’t notice it. Except that it’s steaming.

  Now you know that this story has come to a happy

  END

  “COME FORWARD!” the Evil Knight repeats from the darkness behind the door. His voice works some evil magic on you. You see black and white spirals spinning before your eyes. You struggle to look away, but you can’t. “COME FORWARD! COME FORWARD!” he booms. You are hypnotized by his command.

  “No!” Abbey cries. “Cover your ears! Don’t listen to him! Don’t go in there! I command you!”

  But still your feet shuffle forward.

  You get a funny feeling as you pass through the doorway. Somehow, you know this room isn’t on the official map of the Medieval Museum.

  But still, you’ve just got to see what’s in there!

  “Stop!” Kip yells as you enter the dark room. “It could be a torture chamber, or filled with hungry beasts! Come back!”

  Poor Kip, he could never understand …

  Follow your feet into the darkness on PAGE 90.

  All the creatures in the cages are pressed against the bars, heckling. The purple one spits snails at you. They crunch under your feet as you walk. The werewolf snarls through his drool. It takes all of your strength to lift the enormous battle-ax.

  Then you swing it.

  It crashes down on the werewolf’s cage like a ton of bricks. There’s an explosion. A burst of smoke. And when it all clears, the beast is gone!

  You swing the ax again. This time at the dragons. They explode, too! One by one they vanish — the bats, the vipers, the wretched hecklers, even the steel trap holding Kip’s leg. They all go up in puffs of smoke.

  “You’ve done it!” Abbey shouts happily. “You saved us!”

  “Good work, cousin!” Kip adds, patting you on the back. Each pat sends a metal ringing through your ears. You’re staring out at your cousins through a metal face mask!

  “Hey!” you cry out. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” your voice echoes back. Suddenly, you realize you’re not the same kid you were a minute ago. You have confronted all your fears and won! Your bravery has earned you the right to wear the armor of the Good Knight!

  But it’s not THE END, the Evil Knight is waiting for you on PAGE 80.

  It’s a Dorm of Doom, and you’re the only student. A ghastly light shines from somewhere above you. The yellow glow reveals a throne. On the throne is a woman. She smiles. “Are you the mighty Saxton who will fight for right?” she asks.

  “Me? I-I-I’m j-j-j-just a k-k-kid,” you stammer.

  “PUT ON THE ARMOR!” the woman bellows.

  You feel something hard against your back. You turn and come face-to-face with a shining suit of silver armor. You gasp. One steely-gloved hand holds a battle-ax. The other hand holds a shield engraved with the Saxton family crest.

  Magically, the armor pops open. You don’t know what else to do, so you step in. It closes in around you.

  You feel taller and stronger than you’ve ever felt before. The battle-ax feels like a feather in your armored, gloved hand. You look out from the silver face mask. The woman on the throne starts to laugh.

  “Yes, yes,” she cackles. “That is the way Sir Edmund looked when he got what he deserved. And I’m the one who GAVE IT TO HIM! I’m the SORCERESS!”

  If you feel ready for battle, turn to PAGE 80.

  If you don’t think you’re ready, turn to PAGE 64.

  The hanging lightbulb starts to spin. Kip struggles to lift his sister to her feet. He looks really scared now. It’s going to be up to you to do something. But what? Should you open the Evil Knight’s crate and confront the enemy — whatever it is? Maybe it’s all just a practical joke. You wouldn’t put it past Kip, would you?

  Then again, maybe there really is a curse. If there is, maybe whatever’s in the crate marked GOOD KNIGHT could help you. You’d better open one of them. Which will it be?

  If you open the crate marked EVIL KNIGHT, turn to PAGE 49.

  If you open the crate marked GOOD KNIGHT, turn to PAGE 38.

  “Ouch!” Abbey cries. She breaks herself free from the prickly bush. You can’t help laughing. Abbey’s a human pincushion! She has little prickly leaves stuck all over her.

  “OUCH!” you and Kip say together as you fall out of the bushes. You find yourselves looking like two porcupines, too.

  You hear giggles. And they’re not Abbey’s. You glance over your shoulder and see something you never imagined you’d see.

  Two miniature men are laughing and rolling on the ground. Each man is about the size of a football. They laugh and smack their knees
and point at you.

  “Pixies!” Kip cries.

  “Pixies?” you say. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  The little men disappear for a minute. They resurface in the bushes close by.

  “This way out!” one giggles, pointing to the left.

  “No, this way out!” says the other, pointing to the right. Which one can you trust?

  Follow the pixie pointing to the left on PAGE 32.

  Follow the pixie pointing to the right on PAGE 100.

  You peer closer at the hand sticking up out of the rocks. It’s only made of stone! That’s when you notice that the rock you’re sitting on has a face!

  “Aaaah!” you yell. The stone face is frozen in an expression of pain. You move to another rock. But as you look around, ALL of the broken rocks are shaped like PEOPLE! BROKEN PIECES OF PEOPLE!

  “Abbey! Kip!” you cry. But there’s no answer.

  You can’t see them from where you are without losing your balance. What if they’re turning into stone or something! you think. You call out again. But again, there’s no reply.

  What’s going on? Maybe they just can’t hear you from down below. But maybe you should climb back down and check on them. Just to be safe.

  If you keep climbing for the shimmering object, turn to PAGE 124.

  If you scramble back down the mountain to help your cousins, turn to PAGE 35.

  The three of you make your way up the path. All the way up and over the top of the hill. Off in the distance, you see a cottage.

  “It’s that cottage again,” you say. Then you have an idea. “The key! Maybe it fits the door to that cottage!”

  After walking on all those rocking rocks, the trip to the cottage is easy. No pixies change your path. No sheep stampede. And so far there’s no Evil Knight in sight.

  “Hurry!” you call to Kip and Abbey. You move quickly and quietly along the dirt road to the cottage.

  When you are a few feet from it, you stop to look at the cottage more carefully. It’s a small, two-story, white house with a thatched roof. A garden of petunias and snapdragons lines the curved stone walkway leading to the heavy wooden door.

  “I wonder who lives here?” Abbey asks. “It’s quite stylish in an old-fashioned way.”

  She peeks in the windows. “It’s too dark in there,” she whispers. “I can’t see a thing!”

  You knock on the door. There’s no answer. You knock harder. Still no answer.

  “Try the key,” Kip suggests.

  You put the silver key in the lock and try to twist your hand.

  Turn to PAGE 39.

  When you get to the stone steps, you look back for Abbey and Kip. But they’re not there.

  Then you see them. They’re walking over toward the table. What are they doing? “Come on, you guys! This way!” you shout. But it’s too late. Their faces are already starting to fade!

  The chanting grows louder. Now you can hear what they’re saying. “No bell tolls for us. No bell tolls for us,” they chant.

  Find out what it means on PAGE 41.

  “AAAaaaahhhh!” the Evil Knight screams again. But this time his screams fade slowly away. Through the smoke you see the heap of black armor shrivel up and turn into … into … a ball of tinfoil on the floor.

  From the throne in the corner, the Sorceress cries out, “No! No! All spells are broken! All spells are broken!”

  You watch in amazement as her throne disappears. Her Sorceress robes turn to rags. Her face grows older and older even as you watch. The evil creatures around you shrivel and vanish.

  The Sorceress is nothing more now than a bent and withered old woman. The iron gate is gone. The darkness in the dungeon starts to lift.

  Then, you hear pounding on the door behind you.

  POUND! POUND! POUND! What could it possibly be now?

  Turn to PAGE 127 to find out!

  BEWARE!!

  DO NOT READ THIS

  BOOK FROM

  BEGINNING TO END!

  It’s vacation time! Your family is going to WoodsWorld cabins. All the kids say terrifying creatures roam the woods there at night — werewolves, trolls, and hideous monsters. But you’re not scared. Until your mom makes nerdy Todd Morris come along. And until Todd insists that the two of you must brave the dark woods on the night of the full moon to find his stolen treasure. Can you survive until sunrise — alive?

  The scary adventure is all about you. You decide what will happen. And you decide how terrifying the scares will be.

  Start on PAGE 1. Then follow the instructions at the bottom of each page. You make the choices.

  If you make the right choices, you will escape the werewolves of WoodsWorld. If you make the wrong choice … BEWARE!

  So take a long, deep breath, cross your fingers, and turn to PAGE 1 to GIVE YOURSELF GOOSEBUMPS!

  “Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!”

  We interrupt your perfect summer vacation at Deep Woods Lake to bring you this special Nerd News: Your parents have invited their best friends, Mr. and Mrs. Morris, and their supernerd son, Todd, to share the cabin with your family this year! You can’t believe it. Your worst nerdmare has just come true.

  “This can’t be happening to me!” you say aloud as your family’s minivan pulls up to WoodsWorld. You’ve already spotted the Morrises’ car. It’s parked beneath a string of colored lanterns hanging over the entrance to WoodsWorld. WoodsWorld is the cabin community that your family has vacationed at every summer since you were a baby.

  Then you spot Todd. He’s gawky, stringy-haired, and wears thick black-rimmed glasses.

  “Hey! Hey! What do you say?” Todd calls to you. His big hand whirly-birds out of the car window in a nerdy wave.

  “Be nice,” your mom cautions.

  “Yes, maybe Todd is different now,” says your dad.

  “Oh, he’s different, all right,” you moan. “From everyone else on this whole planet!”

  Go to PAGE 2.

  Your minivan and the Morrises’ car both roll up the gravel drive next to Evergreen Cabin. You gaze around. Nothing has changed since last summer. The woods behind your cabin are still dark and deep. The sparkling blue lake in front of the cabin is as smooth as glass. A narrow, sandy beach stretches into an easy curve around the shoreline of the lake.

  The sun has almost set, leaving behind a fiery pink-orange glow in the sky. There’s enough daylight left for you to notice a note taped to the screen door of your cabin.

  “Cool!” you cry. You jump out of the car. “That must be a note from my friends,” you tell your parents. You sprint across the lawn and up the porch steps. You pull the note off the cabin door.

  To read what the note says, turn to PAGE 3.

  You unfold the note. You read it out loud. “Kids-only campfire tonight — eight P.M. at the beach.”

  “Wonderful!” your mom cries, as she hurries up behind you. “It’s only seven o’clock now. You can help unload the car and then go. This will be a perfect opportunity for the other WoodsWorld kids to meet Todd.”

  “And a perfect opportunity for them to think I’m a nerd, too, because I’m with him,” you mutter. But no one hears you. Your parents and Mr. and Mrs. Morris have gone inside the cabin.

  You watch Todd unload his stuff from the car. As he pulls out a red tin box, three very large, red-haired boys bike up your driveway. They’re the Murphy brothers — Jess, Buck, and Sharky.

  “Welcome to WoodsWorld, Nerdo,” the oldest brother, Sharky, taunts Todd. Sharky is fifteen. He looks as if he has been lifting weights since he was two years old. Last summer a kid told you that Sharky got his nickname because “getting into a fight with Sharky is like trying to survive a shark attack.”

  “I see you brought us a present,” Sharky says to Todd. He grabs the tin box and tosses it to his youngest brother, Jess.

  “Hey!” Todd shouts. “That’s my pewter figure collection! Bring that box back!” Tears form in his eyes as the Murphy brothers pedal away, taking the box with them.<
br />
  Go to PAGE 12.

  R.L. Stine’s books are read all over the world. So far, his books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children’s authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written the teen series Fear Street and the funny series Rotten School, as well as the Mostly Ghostly series, The Nightmare Room series, and the two-book thriller Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and Minnie, his King Charles spaniel. You can learn more about him at www.RLStine.com.

  Goosebumps book series created by Parachute Press, Inc.

  Copyright © 1996 by Scholastic Inc.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.