The Haunted Serpent

by Dora M. Mitchell

  “Nothing happened,” Lucy said in surprise.

  Then the locks popped up.

  “Grab the doors,” Spaulding yelled, but it was too late. The doors opened of their own accord, and the undead rushed forward.

  “Get to the woods! Maybe we can climb the trees or something.” Spaulding threw himself straight at the nearest revenant with all his might, shouldering it aside. Hands clutched at him, but his momentum carried him past. The revenants weren’t individually very strong or coordinated—but there were so many of them. It would be impossible to keep shoving through them for long without tiring out.

  “I don’t see how you’re improving your situation,” Mr. Radzinsky commented as they reached the edge of the woods.

  “You’re not helping,” Spaulding snapped, fighting through a thicket of blackberry brambles. “Lucy, let go of Daphne before she gets you killed!”

  Lucy’s arms were clearly tiring—Daphne was nearly dragging on the ground. But Lucy just clutched the instrument tighter to her chest, as if somehow it could protect her.

  Spaulding’s breath caught in his throat. What if it could protect her? It was a long shot—a huge long shot, since it depended on his parents being right about something for once—but it was worth a try.

  He grabbed Lucy’s arm and pointed to a wide, double-

  trunked oak a few strides ahead. “When we get to that big tree, duck behind it.” They couldn’t keep running if his idea was going to have a chance of working—Lucy would have to catch her breath.

  An instant later, they crouched down on the far side of the broad tree. The noise of the undead thrashing through the brush sounded nearby, but the revenants were too clumsy to move fast through the thick undergrowth.

  “Play something,” Spaulding ordered.

  Lucy gaped at him. “What? Now? Have you gone crazy?”

  “Just do it, Lucy!”

  “Oh, fine,” she sighed. “What would you like to hear? I don’t know what’s appropriate for ten seconds before being torn apart.”

  “Funeral music,” Mr. Radzinsky suggested.

  Lucy rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.

  The first notes spilled forth. Spaulding didn’t recognize the piece, but it was soft and mournful. And Daphne didn’t sound silly and oompa-oompa like he had imagined. She sounded sweet and gentle, like a sad woman singing about something lost forever.

  The sounds of the undead crashing through the woods slowed. Cautiously, Spaulding peered around the side of the oak as the melody continued.

  A few feet away, a revenant stumbled toward him. But it wasn’t moving normally—its knees were flopping in all directions as though its joints no longer connected properly. Then one leg fell apart completely. Its shin, knee, and thigh bones toppled like a crumbling tower of blocks. The revenant stood for an instant, swaying, and then it fell to pieces. With one last, fading wheeze, its body sank in on itself. Nothing was left but a husk of dry skin and disconnected bones.

  Everywhere Spaulding looked, other revenants were stumbling and sinking to the ground. As the music swelled to a crescendo, the last stragglers laid themselves down.

  “It worked,” Spaulding said, eyes wide. “My parents were actually right about something! Music really does banish spirits to the Shadow Realms!”

  “Only the primitive ones,” Mr. Radzinsky sniffed.

  Lucy stopped playing. “Can . . . I . . .stop . . . yet?” she wheezed.

  Hesitantly, Spaulding crept out from behind the tree and prodded the nearest fallen revenant with his toe. It didn’t move. “I think they’re really gone,” he said.

  Mr. Radzinsky nodded. “The spirits animating them departed. They won’t easily be called back.”

  Spaulding ducked behind the tree again. He had a feeling Dr. Darke wasn’t far away, and she wouldn’t be too happy about losing her minions.

  Seconds later, a cold voice spoke, echoing from everywhere at once—the same warped version of Dr. Darke’s voice that had spoken through Mr. Radzinsky before. The ghost shuddered at the sound of it. “I won’t play hide-and-seek with you,” the voice hissed. “Not least because there’s nowhere you can hide.”

  Directly in front of them, the doctor appeared from nowhere. She stretched out a hand. Spaulding felt a soft, feathery touch on his collarbone. Something was twining itself around his neck. But when he felt with his hands, there was nothing there. He looked at Lucy. She was patting at her neck in confusion, too.

  The invisible thing crept up the sides of his face. It tightened around his neck. He clawed at his throat harder, trying to find some grip on it, but there was just nothing there . . .

  “That is quite enough!” Mr. Radzinsky shouted.

  The doctor didn’t even turn her head. “Oh, dear,” she smirked. “Have you forgotten you’re incorporeal? You can’t stop me. Nothing you do matters.”

  Mr. Radzinsky clawed at her face, his own face turning hideous and distorted. But his hands passed right through her.

  The nothingness had reached Spaulding’s mouth and nose. It filled them with a downy softness, like a pillow over his face. He pawed at his mouth desperately, but there was no way to fight it.

  Blackness began to crawl in from the edges of his vision. He stumbled a step toward Dr. Darke, imagining himself leaping at her and breaking the spell.

  She took one slow, leisurely step back and watched him fall to the ground.

  His lungs were nearly empty, but he had one last hope. “Mr. R.,” he croaked.

  The ghost flicked to his side instantly, wringing his hands. “Yes, dear boy?”

  “She’s . . . the one . . . killed . . . you . . .”

  For a moment, the ghost’s expression didn’t change. Then his face filled with understanding. He looked at the smiling doctor.

  “You,” he whispered.

  Her smile widened. Spaulding had never seen her look so genuinely happy.

  “You made me think my best friend killed me.”

  “That’s right,” she agreed. “Well, I can’t take all the credit—

  a colleague at the newspaper helped spread the story. After a touch of persuasion, of course.”

  Mr. Radzinsky’s voice grew colder. “You made everyone think it. If they’d caught him, they’d have killed him for it.”

  Spaulding felt a tiny tremor in the ground under his cheek.

  Maybe Dr. Darke felt something too, because her smile disappeared. “What difference does it make now?” she snapped. “He’s dead anyway.”

  Mr. Radzinsky’s shaking hands clenched into fists. His jaw stretched wide. From his mouth came the most terrifying noise Spaulding had ever heard. It wasn’t a roar or a scream—not a human one, anyway. It wasn’t even exactly loud. It was more like a tearing, like something shredding through the fabric of reality itself.

  Dr. Darke clapped her hands over her ears and screamed. The smothering softness melted away from Spaulding’s face as the doctor lost her concentration.

  The tremors in the ground had grown to earthquake strength. The oak tree groaned and quivered. Spaulding’s eyes widened—the giant tree’s branches were whipping like a tornado was coming. He grabbed Lucy’s arm and they ran blindly away.

  He glanced back. Dr. Darke was doubled over, eyes squeezed shut against the pain of the sound. She didn’t see what was happening to the oak tree behind her.

  But Spaulding saw.

  He saw the crack in the double trunk widening like an opening mouth. He saw one half of the huge tree falling, slowly at first but gaining speed rapidly. At the last moment, he shut his eyes. He only heard the splintering crash and the sudden silence as the shrieking abruptly stopped.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes, still clutching Lucy’s hand.

  Mr. Radzinsky materialized in front of them, his face back to normal. He gave a small smile. “Well done, my boy,” he said quietly. “Well done.”

  But Spaulding’s heart sank as he looked at Mr. Radzinsky. They might have won, but the cost had been s
teep. “David was amazing, Mr. R.,” he said softly.

  “He always was selfless,” Mr. Radzinsky said with a deep sigh. “And he wouldn’t want us to sit here forever. I think it’s time we go find your families and head home.”

  The sun cut through the clouds on the horizon and lanced through the trees, striping light and shade across the road to Blackhope Pond.

  Spaulding didn’t know why he and Lucy were out here—a few days ago, he thought he’d never want to set eyes on the pond again. But when he woke on Saturday to a clear morning, the open road beckoned. He dragged Aunt Gwen’s creaky old bike out of the garage and set off down the street. Lucy was already outside when he passed the Bellwood residence, and she hopped up on the seat behind him while he pedaled. They headed for the pond without even discussing it.

  At the clearing, they got off the bike and walked down to the water’s edge. The pond was a light, sparkling blue. Tiny ripples spread across the surface from the breeze. Spaulding sat down next to Lucy and tried to clear his mind. But dark thoughts kept creeping in.

  “Are you thinking about David?” Lucy asked.

  Spaulding sighed. “Yeah. I have been all week. It’s so unfair. He never did anything wrong, and he saved us all from Von Slecht.”

  “And poor ol’ Mr. Radzinsky,” Lucy said. “Have you noticed how faded he’s looking?”

  Spaulding hugged his knees to his chest. A heavy, clammy, nameless feeling settled over him. He’d first felt it that night, soon after they’d defeated Dr. Darke . . .

  When he and Lucy and Mr. Radzinsky had arrived at the factory, they’d found Kenny and Marietta still crouched at the end of the drain tunnel, discussing how to get past the revenant guards Dr. Darke had left roaming around outside. The revenants had all suddenly collapsed and stopped moving a while before, but Kenny was sure they were faking. Marietta hadn’t been able to get him to budge.

  Even after Spaulding explained what had happened to Dr. Darke, everyone had a creeping fear they would encounter Von Slecht and the doctor inside, somehow alive and lying in wait. But the buildings had been empty and silent. They’d found Aunt Gwen and Mr. Bellwood in the lab, slumped against a wall with their eyes open, not even tied up.

  Marietta had run forward and flung herself at her father. “Dad?” She’d shaken his arm. His head had lolled.

  “They’re in a trance,” Mr. Radzinsky said, peering into Mr. Bellwood’s glazed eyes. “I’m sure they’ll wake up soon.”

  Aunt Gwendolyn and Mr. Bellwood had followed along like sleepwalkers as everyone hurried out of the lab.

  Spaulding came out last. He took one last look around at the blank computer screens and the canisters of red mercury. What would happen to the factory now? And what about the Slecht-Tech corporate office and the regular, alive-type workers there? With their employers gone, he supposed that meant a whole lot of people out of jobs.

  That was when Spaulding had first felt that heavy feeling come over him. He felt like he’d woken something or pushed a boulder down a hill. Like he’d set something bigger than he understood in motion.

  He’d flicked off the lights and hurried after the others.

  The next morning, Aunt Gwen didn’t seem to remember that anything out of the ordinary had happened at all. According to Lucy, it was the same with Mr. Bellwood. All week at school, rumors circulated that Slecht-Tech had closed down, but Lucy said her dad was as puzzled as anyone by the disappearance of Mr. Von Slecht and Dr. Darke. Spaulding had a substitute teacher in homeroom who told the class that Mrs. Welliphaunt had gone to stay with family overseas indefinitely.

  Of the dead bodies someone must have found littering the woods, there was no discussion at all. Not among the kids at school and not in the paper.

  Marietta had also decided to clam up. She wouldn’t talk to either Spaulding or Kenny, and Lucy said she was just as quiet at home. Spaulding wondered if she’d withdrawn from them all because she felt bad that their investigation had nearly gotten her dad hurt. That was how he felt with Aunt Gwen. Every time he saw her, he felt a fresh stab of guilt.

  And the thought that it had all happened because he was trying to impress his parents so he could leave Aunt Gwen and live with them was worst of all. Maybe she wasn’t the most involved guardian, or overprotective and concerned like Mr. Bellwood was, but it would break her heart if Spaulding left . . . he was pretty sure, anyway.

  “Spaulding, look,” Lucy said suddenly, making him jump.

  Across the pond, Mr. Radzinsky had just materialized from thin air, drifting across the water. “Mr. R.?” Spaulding called. “What are you doing out here?”

  The ghost glanced over. “Oh, hello, children. I didn’t notice you over there.” He floated toward them, the breeze across the pond propelling him. “It’s good you’re here—I wanted to tell you I was leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Spaulding demanded. “What do you mean? You can’t just go. Aren’t you stuck here? Don’t ghosts have unfinished business or something?”

  “I’m going after David,” Mr. Radzinsky said. “He is my unfinished business. I go where he goes.”

  “You mean, you’re going to . . .” Spaulding hesitated, trying to think how to put it politely. The only thing that came to mind was a Serena phrase. “. . . cross the veil?”

  The ghost snorted. “Cross the veil! Where do you get these ideas? I meant I’m going down the mine shaft, obviously. I already looked for him the night he fell—I came back after I saw you home. But he wasn’t down there. Neither of them were.”

  “They got out?” Lucy whipped her head around, panicked. “Von Slecht is still around?”

  Mr. Radzinsky shook his head. “No, no. I mean, they weren’t there because the bottom of the shaft wasn’t there. It didn’t end.”

  Spaulding wrinkled his forehead. “How can it not end? They had to stop digging eventually.”

  Mr. Radzinsky shrugged. “I don’t know. It was like no mine I’ve ever seen or heard of. No straight lines, no tracks for mine carts, no signs of ore being extracted. Just tunnels, looping and twisting endlessly, with no pattern or reason I could find. I finally gave up.” He twisted his hands, glancing at the mouth of the pit from the corner of his eye. “I haven’t been frightened of anything since I died, but down there . . . I was afraid. Still, I have to try again.”

  “But—but—” Spaulding tried to think of a way to convince him not to go even though he knew the ghost would never change his mind. Not when David needed his help. “But you’re my friend too.” He stared at the ground, blinking hard.

  Mr. Radzinsky looked stunned. “Really? I thought you just needed me for my expertise.”

  Spaulding sniffed and hunched his shoulders so Lucy wouldn’t see as he scrubbed at his eyes. “Well, your expertise is one of the reasons I like you. We’re both smart.”

  The ghost put a clammy hand on—or more like in—Spaulding’s shoulder. “Thank you, Spaulding. No one’s been so kind to me in a long time. But I’ll come back once I find David. In the meantime you’ll have your other friends.”

  Spaulding couldn’t hold back anymore. “I don’t have other friends, Mr. R.,” he burst out. “They were just using me for my expertise. Now that the mystery’s over, I’ll just be the freak nobody wants to be seen with again.”

  “Spaulding!” Lucy gave him a tremendous wallop to the arm. “What a dumb thing to say! I wasn’t using you for your expert tea. I don’t even know what that means.”

  Spaulding sniffled. “It means you only wanted to be around me because I knew about all the weird stuff that was going on.”

  Mr. Radzinsky chuckled. “Listen, my boy: If you are lucky enough to find people who want to be around you because you know about weird things . . . those are friends.”

  “Yeah! Duh, Spaulding,” Lucy said, giving him a gentler smack to the arm. “I’ll even call you Boat now if you want.”

  He gave her a crooked smile, rubbing his arm. “Nah. I guess I kind of got to liking Spaulding.”

&nb
sp; Mr. Radzinsky clapped his hands together briskly. “There now, you see? All’s well. And I’ll be back before you know it. Just . . . do make sure you stay away from the mines while I’m gone, won’t you?” Mr. Radzinsky gave them both one last smile and turned back to the pit.

  Spaulding blinked, and the ghost was gone.

  “Are we going to do what he said and stay away, Spaulding?” Lucy asked. “Or do we have to try to figure out where that tunnel goes?”

  “Absolutely not,” Spaulding said. “I am officially retired from paranormal research. Maybe even regular research—that can get risky around here, too.”

  The sun sank below the clouds again, and the pond turned back to its usual shade of inky black. Spaulding and Lucy got back on the bike and set out for home.

  They rode back to town in silence. Just as they passed the shopping center, a crowd of kids on bikes turned onto Main Street, headed straight toward them. As the group got closer, Spaulding recognized the cloud of Marietta’s black hair.

  And before he could think better of it, the words had already left his mouth: “You should be wearing your helmet, Marietta!” he called.

  Marietta’s eyes widened in horror.

  Next to her, Katrina slammed on her brakes and skidded to a halt. She gave a hoot of laughter. “Oh my God, Mar,” she said. “Isn’t that just so sweet? Psycho Spaulding’s worried about you!”

  Spaulding stopped too, his cheeks burning as he clenched his fists around his handlebars. Why couldn’t he ever, ever keep his mouth shut?

  From her perch behind him, Lucy tapped his shoulder impatiently. “Come on, Spaulding! Just ignore them.”

  But before he could obey, Marietta spoke. “You know what, Katrina?”

  Katrina glanced over, still smirking. “What?”

  “Sometimes,” Marietta took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. “Sometimes you should just. Shut. Up.” She unclipped her bike helmet from her handlebars and jammed it down over her curls. Then she turned to Spaulding. “There,” she said. “That makes up for it.”