But I knew it wasn’t the wind. There wasn’t any wind at all. The air was as still as the grave.
8
The grandfather clock was as tall as my father—six feet. It stood beside the stairway in the hall between the living and dining rooms.
Dad knelt on the floor shining a flashlight into the works. I stood nearby so I could hand him stuff from his toolbox.
Helping my father is usually pretty cool because he knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t mind explaining. My mom says if he hadn’t been an architect, he’d probably have been a teacher.
Normally I like giving him a hand. So how come I wanted to get away as fast as I could?
For some reason being near that big old grandfather clock made me feel out of breath. I didn’t dare say so, not after what had happened in the attic. My dad would think I was losing my mind or letting my imagination run wild.
But it wasn’t my imagination. The thing really did give me the creeps. For one thing the clock face looked way too much like a real face. A cold, unfriendly face that watched me with some secret knowledge.
As if the clock could read my thoughts.
“I don’t understand it,” said Dad. He rocked back on his heels and frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with the works or the springs. And I’m sure I’ve wound it correctly. But it just doesn’t want to go.” He clapped his hands on his knees and stood. “I give up. How about you put these tools away, buddy, while I wash up?”
“Sure, Dad.” I gathered up his things and slipped each tool into its proper slot.
My eyes avoided the clock. But when I was finished putting the tools away, something made me whirl around to look at its face.
The hands of the clock had moved. And it had never even ticked. I felt a change in the air. The clock was definitely watching me. And waiting.
Something was about to happen, I could feel it.
Footsteps. I heard footsteps!
In the hall above me, running hard. A child’s footsteps, hurtling headlong down the hallway.
And something larger in pursuit. Something gaining on the child, something big and bad.
I found myself silently rooting for the running child. “Come on, come on! Don’t let whatever it is catch you!”
The running footsteps were coming closer, heading for the stairway landing. I ducked under the stairs and looked up at the landing. I wanted to yell for my dad but my breath was stuck in my chest.
I stared up at the landing, unable to blink as the pounding footsteps came closer, closer.
Then it screamed.
A loud, piercing shriek. I heard a small body hit the stair railing, hurtle over the top, and crash to the floor with a sickening thud.
Then came a silence. A terrible silence. A deadly, deadly silence.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I jumped out from under the stairs, expecting to see a dead body crumpled on the floor.
There was nothing.
No dead body. Nothing. There was nothing there at all.
Except for the shadows closing in. And the clock watching me. Watching and waiting.
9
That night I couldn’t get to sleep.
The old house kept making noises in the dark. The walls creaked, the pipes moaned, the floorboards groaned.
Small animals scratched and scrabbled inside the walls. Or that’s what it sounded like. Maybe it was just leaves brushing against the outside of the house.
Maybe.
While tossing and turning I worked out what had been happening to me all day. The thing was, I just wasn’t used to old houses. In my neighborhood at home, normal sounds were stuff like cars going by, horns tooting sometimes, birds in the trees, people running lawn mowers and power tools.
Here you heard all kinds of stuff I wasn’t familiar with. Probably I’d heard mice chasing each other in the walls and imagined a child running. Then some old plumbing pipe hissed an air bubble and it sounded to me like a scream.
That must have been what happened.
That time when I thought Sally was crying? It was probably some neighbor’s yowling cat or maybe the pipes again.
And the weird laughter in the attic? Obviously the wind moved through all those little rooms and gables in some odd way I wasn’t used to.
It was a good thing my parents didn’t know the half of it. They’d think I was acting like a two-year-old.
Anyhow, that’s the kind of stuff I was thinking about. Instead of counting sheep, or whatever it is you do when you can’t fall asleep, I was counting all the weird things that had happened the very first day in the house. The noises, the child crying, the strange little rooms in the attic, the shaking, the crazy laughter, the watching clock, the sound of a body falling …
Slowly I dozed off.
Hours later I woke up suddenly, my muscles rigid.
Where was I? It was dark, pitch-black. Then slowly it came back to me.
I was on summer vacation. This was my new room, my new bed. My first night in a strange house. Nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all.
I relaxed, wondering what had woken me up. A creaky noise? A squirrel in the attic? Had to be something like that.
Then I heard it. the grandfather clock chimed once, twice. Two A.M.
BONG. BONG.
The clock! I shot up off my pillow. The clock was supposed to be broken!
As soon as the second BONG faded, I heard a light, pitter-pattering sound in the hallway. Footsteps running past my door.
Was my kid sister Sally walking in her sleep?
The footsteps stopped, and I heard a creaking groan, as if the whole house was shuddering. Then a SHREEEEEEEEK! like a stubborn nail being pulled out of an old piece of wood.
Except it wasn’t a nail. That shriek sounded as if it was coming from someone alive. Or maybe dead.
More little footsteps. There was a child out there. What if it was Sally? What if she was in trouble and needed my help?
I forced myself out of bed and felt my way across the room. When I was almost to the door the footsteps stopped as suddenly as they had started.
Whew! If that was really Sally out there, she’d gone back to her own room. Probably just sleepwalking. I sighed and turned from the door when I heard a skittering, scratchy sound.
Out in the hall. Something was moving around out there, dragging itself around.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!
I jumped about a foot. That was the sound of nails being screeched along the wall—like fingernails on slate! The scratching noise was coming down the hall, getting closer and closer.
It stopped right outside my door.
I could hear ragged breathing. And then an old, creaky voice spoke to me through the door.
“Where is it?” the eerie voice hissed. “Give it to me. It’s mine. MINE!”
I had two choices. I could either hide under the bed or open the door and see who was out there.
I’m thinking bed, absolutely, hide under the bed—but before I could make a move, the door slowly creaked open.
I stood there frozen. My whole body was tingling with fear. Something was coming into my room!
I took a deep breath, gathered up my courage, and jumped out into the hallway. With my fists up, ready to take a swing.
The hallway was empty. Except for the whispering.
A soft, whispering murmur came from the shadows. A whispering that seemed to move around, as if going from one dark corner to the next.
“Jayyyyyyy-sssssssonnnnnnnnnn. Jayyyyyy-ssssonnnnnnn.”
It knew my name.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flicker of movement in the shadows.
The whispery voice said, “Jayyyyyy-ssssonnnnn. Give it to meeeeeeeeeee!”
I ran back into my room and slammed the door. I turned the key in the lock and waited, but nothing happened. Nobody tried to turn the handle or rattle the door. And the whispering had turned into the sound of wind.
Wind?
I turned. The window was open an
d the night breeze was making the curtains billow. Ghostly white curtains shivering in the moonlight.
Strange. Because the window had been closed when I left the room.
The breeze was cold. Bone-chilling cold. I went to the window. The curtains blew up around my face, touching me like cool, soft fingers. I shoved the curtains aside and tugged on the window.
It was stuck. It wouldn’t close. The frame was big and heavy and the window wouldn’t budge. I yanked it for a while and then gave up—I’d just have to wrap up in the blankets and hope it didn’t get any colder.
I sighed and started to turn away from the stubborn old window when something made me look outside. The moon. There were clouds racing across the moon. Suddenly the clouds cleared from the sky and the moonlight cast long, wavery shadows from the tall trees.
Something was out there, moving among the trees. Trees that looked like tall soldiers marching against the night sky.
I stuck my head out the open window to see what it was. An animal? Maybe a deer, that would be cool, seeing a deer in the moonlight.
Somebody laughed. Somebody in the room right behind me.
It was an old, cackling voice.
I flinched, and as I did, I sensed the window moving above my head. I whipped my head out of the way. There was a searing pain and then BANG! the window came down like a guillotine blade.
If I hadn’t moved it would have cut my head off! Or at the very least broken my neck.
I whirled around but the room was empty. Nobody there. Nobody at all.
Something caught my eye at the window. A lock of my hair caught in the sash where it had nicked my head on the way down. So close. So deadly.
It wanted to kill me. Something in this house wanted me dead.
10
The next time I woke up the sun was streaming in the window. It was going to be a warm summer day, but I shivered, remembering what had happened.
Or had it?
The room was so bright and cheerful, so totally normal, it made me wonder.
I decided it was Steve’s fault, filling my head with all those creepy stories about an old lady who hated kids.
Suddenly the smell of bacon frying downstairs made my mouth water. I’d never been so hungry in all my life. I got dressed in a hurry, pulling on an oversized T-shirt and shorts.
I yanked on my baseball cap. Ouch! It was still sore where the window had grazed me. I checked out the little scrapy place on my scalp—proof that at least the falling window hadn’t been imaginary.
Mom would say: You know better than to leave an old window open without making sure it’s propped up. Which is exactly why I decided not to tell her about it. No point in making a big stink until I had proof there was something wrong.
I ran downstairs hoping that my mom was making pancakes to go with the bacon.
Yes! Mom was at the stove, humming some old tune of hers and flipping a pancake. Sally, still wearing her pj’s, was already chowing down at the table.
“Hi there, sleepyhead,” Mom said.
“Morning, Mom. Where’s Dad?”
“He had to deliver some blueprints to the job site. He’ll be back soon.”
“I could eat a horse,” I said. “But I’ll settle for about six pancakes.”
“I expect this country air has given you an appetite,” said Mom, turning to smile at me. “Were you the one who had the midnight munchies?”
“Huh?” I blinked at her stupidly.
“The corn muffins your father picked up yesterday,” said Mom, cocking her head. “You must have been hungry to eat all four of them.”
“I didn’t eat any of them,” I said. “I didn’t even know we had corn muffins.”
Mom frowned slightly, then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll turn up probably. Do you think you can manage six pancakes?”
“Absolutely,” I declared, pulling out a chair. “No problemo.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I didn’t hear you washing up before you came down.”
“Ah, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know the rules. Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you don’t have to wash up before meals.”
It was no use arguing. With my stomach rumbling from near starvation, I dragged myself off to the downstairs bathroom.
This was the first time I’d really checked out the place. It was a small bathroom with very high ceilings and a lot of pipes running outside the walls, like they used to do in the old days. Instead of regular faucets there were these two bronze levers you pushed. I gave them a shove and stuck my hands under the spout. Barely a trickle of cold water came out. I frowned and gave the levers another hard push. The water sputtered and burped. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the house the pipes clanged loudly, making me jump.
Suddenly water gushed out, scalding hot. I jerked my hands away and jumped back from the sink as splashing droplets stung my legs.
“Darn!” The faucet was so hot to the touch I couldn’t turn it off. I looked for a towel to use to protect my hands.
Just as I turned my head, the pipes along the wall burst, shooting hot water and steam right where my face had been a second before.
I let out a yell and leaped for the door, trying to get away. The scalding water was spraying everywhere now and the room was filling with steam.
I grasped the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge.
A stream of hot water hit me behind the ear and I screamed. My shoulders and back felt half-boiled. My bare legs burned.
And then I heard it. Someone laughing. A mean, cruel laugh that echoed through the steam-filled bathroom.
I had to think quick. Cover yourself, I thought. So I grabbed the shower curtain, tore it off the hooks, and wrapped it around myself.
That helped, but the hot water was still jetting from everywhere and the plastic shower curtain felt like it was going to melt on my back.
I dodged the worst streams but wherever I moved in the tiny bathroom a forceful jet of water seemed to seek me out, piercing me with hot needles.
I pulled again on the door. The doorknob came off in my hands. I stood staring at it like a total moron, feeling the metal grow hot in my numb fingers.
Meanwhile the water was getting hotter and hotter. As hot as boiling water. Hot enough to steam me alive.
11
I tried to get a grip on the door with my slipping fingernails, squirming to avoid the worst of the water’s fury.
In another few seconds I’d be boiled like a lobster.
A sudden rush of cool air seemed like a dream.
“Jason!”
No dream. My mother’s hand closed on my arm, pulling me out into the hall, away from the scalding water. I was saved.
“The house wants to get me, Mom!” I blurted out. “It wants to kill me!”
“Hush now, let me help,” Mom said. “Let’s see how bad it is.”
She helped me take off my hot, wet T-shirt and checked my back for burns. Luckily the shower curtain had done a pretty good job protecting me.
“That was a close call,” she said, and kissed me on the forehead like she did when I was little. Usually I hate that, but I didn’t this time.
Just then Dad came in the front door. His whistle died on his lips when he saw the steam boiling from the bathroom.
“Dave!” Mom said. “Jason almost got badly burned!”
“It’s that old plumbing,” Dad said, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll check it out.”
My skin felt tender, especially on the back of my neck, but once I was cooled off and in dry clothes I was hungrier than ever.
I was just mopping up the last of the maple syrup when Dad came into the kitchen, drying his hands and looking pleased, like he always did when tackling a new project.
“Those pipes were about rusted through,” he said to me. “Just your bad luck to be there when they decided to blow.”
Dad turned to Mom, who still looked a little pale from the incident. “We’ll have to watch out
for things like that,” he said cheerfully. “This is an old house. I expect there’s lots of things ready to give way as soon as we lay hands on them. But we knew that when we rented the place, right?”
Mom looked at me. “Jay seems to think the house is out to get him.”
Dad said, “It was just an accident, Jay. It could have happened to any one of us.”
“Forget it,” I said.
Maybe the crazy laughter had really been the steaming, rattling pipes. I didn’t really think so, but there was no way my parents were going to believe me, and I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture on my overactive imagination.
Still, it did seem like something was out to get me. How come all the “accidents” in the house seemed to be happening to me? And how come my mother could open the bathroom door so easily when I’d pulled and tugged with all my might, just to have the doorknob come off?
A guy could get paranoid around here, that was for sure! But before I had a chance to really brood on it, Steve knocked on the backdoor and shouted my name.
He was standing out there with a bat over his shoulder. “Game time,” he said. “I know you can catch, let’s see if you can hit.”
Excellent! That would get my mind off this crazy house. I ran upstairs to get my ball and glove. I was heading for the stairs, thinking about maybe sliding down the banister, when I froze. It was like sparkles of ice suddenly forming in my veins.
Strange laughter.
I listened and there it was again. Echoing in the hallway. And it seemed to be coming from Sally’s room.
Very quietly I tiptoed down the hall and stopped outside her door. Inside, Sally giggled—and there was another, answering laugh. A child’s laughter. But not Sally. Definitely not Sally.
I put my hand on the doorknob. It was icy to the touch, so cold my fingers almost stuck, frozen in place. I got a grip on the baseball, ready to throw it with all my might, and leaned my shoulder into the door.
It popped open and suddenly I was inside.
Sally was sitting on the floor, playing by herself. She didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid, and she was smiling at the space across from her, as if someone was there. But she was alone, completely alone.
The Haunting Page 3
