The Haunting

by Rodman Philbrick

  “Go on, Lucy,” urged Steve wickedly. “Tell him.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Tell me.” At first I didn’t want to know but now I had to, she was acting so mysterious.

  “Well,” said Lucy. “A family came to stay in that house last year but they only stayed a couple of days.”

  I nodded. Steve had already told me that.

  “My parents talked to them just before they left. They said that one night the ghost of an old woman came into their kids’ bedroom,” said Lucy. “Although it wasn’t an old woman, really, more a skeleton, all bent over and wearing some kind of black cape. She pointed her fingerbone at the little kids and warned them to get out. They said her voice sounded like it came from the grave.”

  I snorted. It sounded like another made-up story.

  Lucy held up her hand. “That’s not the end of it. The ghost then snapped her skeleton fingers and there was a huge clap of thunder and the bed lifted up and turned over on the kids. They thought they were going to suffocate! Their parents found them like that, trapped under the bed. Naturally they left the next day and nobody’s been in that house since. Until you.” She looked questioningly at me.

  I tried to think of something funny to say but nothing sprang to mind. “There’s always stories about old houses,” I finally said dismissively.

  “Of course,” said Lucy. “We know there isn’t really any such thing as ghosts.”

  She had a real nice way of laughing, I noticed.

  Lucy took a band off her wrist and pulled her long hair into a ponytail. “The real truth is probably something boring like the kids heard noises all night. All old houses make strange noises. They got scared and made up that story so their parents would leave.”

  “Or maybe she threatened to roast the kids like Thanksgiving turkeys,” Steve said with a big laugh, shoving me and then dodging away.

  “Or maybe she sneaked in and pinched their toes, scaring them half to death,” I teased.

  Lucy looked at us and shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m going for a swim.”

  “I’ll come, too,” I said.

  “I’m waterlogged,” said Steve, dropping into one of the wooden chairs on the little beach.

  As we entered the water, I turned to Lucy and asked what she knew about the house on Cherry Street. “Okay, you don’t believe in ghosts,” I said. “But was there really an old lady who lived there?”

  Lucy nodded, her eyes very serious. “Oh, yes. For years and years. She was kind of crazy, I guess. If a kid so much as stepped on her property she would come out screaming and cursing them. Everybody said she was a witch. But that was a long time ago. I don’t remember her at all. She died when I was a little girl.”

  I took a deep breath. I had to know. “Did she die in the house?”

  Lucy hesitated. “No one really knows. They never found her body.”

  15

  When I pushed open the door to my bedroom I was thinking pretty hard about what Lucy had told me about the old lady.

  Then I stepped inside and my heart went right up into my throat.

  The room was in chaos. It looked as if a monster had torn it apart with his bare hands. Stuff I hadn’t bothered unpacking was thrown all around. Models I’d left in the boxes were all in pieces, scattered everywhere. My clothes were tied up in knots and draped around, hanging from the bedposts.

  Worse, the pillow feathers were everywhere. It looked like a million chickens had been fighting on my bed. The mattress was hidden under a layer of tiny white feathers.

  What had really happened here? Who had done this?

  I approached the bed cautiously. My pillow had been cut to ribbons and the feathers thrown every which way.

  Then I noticed it. Something metal sticking out of the mattress. Slowly I reached out and brushed away feathers.

  I jerked my hand away as if I’d been burned.

  Mom’s super-sharp cutting shears. They were plunged up to the hilt in my mattress—right in the spot my heart would be if I had been sleeping!

  I yanked the shears out of the mattress and looked around in a panic. I remembered what Lucy had said—“The kids probably made up the whole story to get their parents to leave.” That’s what my parents would think if they saw this mess. That I’d done it myself to prove that weird things started happening the minute we moved into this creepy old house.

  Think quick, butter brains. You’ve got to clean this mess up before they see it. And you’ll have to sneak those shears back into the office without getting caught.

  First thing, I found a pillowcase and stuffed as many of the loose feathers into it as I could. They were hard to grab and it took forever, but finally the room looked as if only two or three chickens had been fighting, not a million like before.

  Next I put the toys and models away, and unknotted my clothes, and put everything back where it was supposed to be. I found another pillow in the closet and hid the one that had been cut up.

  All the time I was wondering if maybe Steve had snuck up and done this just to scare me. Was that his idea of a practical joke? Was he just getting even with me for giving him a scare at the lake?

  I was going to find out first thing tomorrow, first thing.

  Getting the shears back into the office turned out to be not so hard. I put them in an empty shoe box and carried the box downstairs as if I didn’t have a care in the world. If anybody asked, I’d say it was my baseball card collection, and everybody was so sick of me making them look at the cards they’d never want to see what was inside the box.

  Downstairs I waited until Mom and Dad were both in the kitchen, and then I ducked into the office and closed the door softly.

  It was dark in the room and I didn’t dare turn on the lamp. Enough light came in the windows from the night sky so I could find my way around. Dad had set up his drafting table, and there were blueprints unfurled on just about every flat surface. Mom’s computer was on the desk—you could see the little green warm-up light. All the drafting tools were laid out on the worktable, right where the cutting shears should have been.

  I had just put the shears back in place when the lamp snapped on.

  “Jay? Looking for something?”

  It was my father. He was standing in the doorway, staring at me.

  “I, ah, need some rubber bands,” I said. “For my card collection.”

  I held up the shoe box.

  “How were you going to find them in the dark?” Dad asked.

  “I couldn’t find the light switch.”

  Dad looked at the shoe box and then at me, and he sort of smiled. Like he didn’t want to know exactly what I was up to.

  “Here,” Dad said, handing me a package of rubber bands. “That’s enough for ten card collections.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said.

  I was sweating like a pig from relief. Whew! That was a close one. I decided to get back up to my bedroom and make sure all the feathers were cleaned up.

  I was passing by Sally’s room when I heard her chatting happily.

  It sounded like she was talking to someone, but hers was the only voice.

  A chill went through me.

  I stopped and put my ear to the door. There were pauses as if she was listening and then giggles as if what the other person said was funny.

  I tried to shake off the eerie tingle that crept up my spine.

  Sally often talked to her dolls, I reminded myself. It sounded just the same. Well, almost the same.

  I opened the door as quietly as I could.

  Sally was sitting on the floor in front of a coloring book. As I watched, she selected a crayon, held it out, then returned it to the box.

  Sally glanced up and smiled when she saw me. “Bobby doesn’t like red,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh, really,” I said, stepping into the room. There was a second coloring book, I noticed, set out beside Sally’s.

  “Is that Bobby’s book?” I asked.

 
Sally nodded, blond curls bobbing. “He’s a good colorer, isn’t he? And he’s never even seen a coloring book before today or even a crayon.” Sally giggled as if this was amazing, more amazing than her friend’s invisibility.

  I leaned over to look at the two books—and caught my breath in shock.

  Sally’s book looked like her pictures always did—wide swatches of color, none too careful about the lines. The other book showed very careful, short strokes neatly inside the lines.

  Someone else had been there, coloring in her book.

  16

  I snatched up the two coloring books and ran downstairs. Dad was in the living room, reading a magazine. I put the coloring books down on the coffee table and stood back and said, “Look!”

  Dad raised his eyes at me. “Some of your handiwork?” he joked.

  “Look at them,” I insisted. “They were done by two different kids!”

  Dad looked from one to the other. He nodded. “One’s very controlled, subdued colors. And this one—obviously Sally’s usual wild flamboyance. Very interesting.”

  “Then you believe me?”

  “Believe you?” Dad looked puzzled. “It’s not a matter of believing anything, Jason. I can see they’re different. Obviously, Sally’s imaginary friend is so important to her she’s devised a way to make him seem real by coloring in a style that’s almost opposite her own inclinations.” Dad rose from his chair. “I’ve got to show these to your mother. Amazing.”

  I gritted my teeth and pounded my fist on the back of the now-empty chair. What would it take to make them believe me?

  But wait. Why should they believe me?

  What if I was wrong and they were right? My father’s explanation made perfect sense. And I hadn’t actually seen a crayon moving through the air by itself, had I?

  But what about this morning, when I’d seen the bunny hanging in midair?

  What if my eyes were playing tricks on me? Maybe Sally really had been holding the stuffed animal up somehow, pretending she was giving it to Bobby.

  But what about the bursting pipes? Was it so strange that old pipes would break?

  And what about all the strange noises in the middle of the night? That eerie voice calling my name? Maybe there was a rational explanation for that, too, just like the incident in the basement had been an accident—my foot breaking through a slimy old stair, making me think there was a bony hand grabbing my ankle.

  As for the shears stabbed into my mattress, that had to be Steve. Definitely Steve.

  “Jason?” Mom called from the kitchen. “Your friend Steve is here.”

  That proved it. He’d come back to see how scared I was. So I decided to play it cool, not let on that I knew.

  “Hey, Steve.” I slapped him five.

  “I don’t want you boys going far,” Mom said.

  “We’ll be on the porch,” I said. “Just fooling around, right, Steve?”

  “I guess so,” he said uncertainly.

  When we were out on the porch, Steve took a bag out of his pocket and put it on the table. He had a chocolate chip cookie in his hand and he munched it. “My Mom made these. Help yourself.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “You don’t like cookies?” he said, sounding disappointed.

  “I like cookies fine, but first I want to settle something.”

  “Sure,” he said, eyeing the bag. “What’s up?”

  “Swear on your mother’s grave you’ll tell the truth?”

  Steve made a face as he finished his cookie. “You think I’m a liar, is that it?”

  “Just say you’ll swear.”

  “OK, fine. I swear on my mother’s grave I’ll tell the truth. Satisfied?”

  “Almost,” I said. “Now tell me about the shears.”

  “What?”

  “The shears you took out of my parents’ office and stabbed into my mattress.”

  Steve stood up. “You know what, Jason? You’re totally out of your mind.”

  You could tell he was telling the truth.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I believe you.”

  I told him what had happened.

  “Maybe it was your little sister,” he suggested.

  “No way. She’s not big enough. It was like something really strong just plain went nuts in my room. Like it hated me.”

  “You’re scaring me, you know that, Jason?” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “Here, have a cookie before I eat them all up.”

  Steve handed me the bag. I put my hand in and felt for a cookie.

  My hand closed on something squishy.

  Something gross and slimy.

  “Oh, no,” shouted Steve. “Wait! I picked up the wrong bag. That’s the dog poop I cleaned off the front walk!”

  I dropped the bag and jumped away. And felt as if I was going to barf.

  Steve exploded with laughter. He laughed so hard, he fell on the porch and rolled around. “Gotcha,” he cried when he caught his breath. “Gotcha good. Now we’re even.”

  I headed into the house.

  “Hey, Jason, it’s only rubber. Fake dog poop. I bought it at the joke shop.” Steve laughed some more. “Jason, here’s the real cookies. Don’t you want one?”

  He was still laughing when I went inside.

  17

  The aliens came bursting out of their hiding places in the hills, about to swarm down on the unsuspecting town and take over the minds of the townspeople. Thrilling and exciting and all that stuff—but I couldn’t concentrate.

  I turned a page and realized I’d read through half the battle without understanding a word. Something else was clamoring for attention.

  I put the book down. What was it?

  Sally. Her voice was drifting faintly down the hallway. She should be asleep by now. But she sounded as if she was comforting someone.

  I strained my ears but I couldn’t make out any words. Just the tone. A calming, soothing tone, as she sometimes used with her dolls.

  Nothing weird about that, right? But my heart was starting to beat faster.

  Then Sally’s voice rose. “Nooo,” she said.

  I sat up and swung my feet to the floor. I didn’t want to go down the hall. No way.

  But I had to check on my kid sister.

  She was probably having a bad dream, I told myself. I’d look in on her and then come back and finish my book.

  I cracked open my bedroom door and shivered in the suddenly cold air.

  I started to go through the door and something bounced me right back. I landed on my butt and stared up at the doorway in disbelief.

  There was nothing there. Nothing to stop me from leaving. And yet it had.

  I got up and slowly walked forward again.

  SLAP! I was sproinged back into the room. This time I managed to keep my balance and not fall down. I approached the doorway more slowly, reaching out. My hand came up against an icy-cold barrier. It felt rubbery, like some kind of weird, invisible Jell-O. It yielded a little but I couldn’t push through. And it felt completely creepy—clammy and slippery and unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Just touching it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

  “Jay-son!”

  That was Sally, calling me. And I couldn’t get out of my own bedroom. Something wanted to keep me from helping Sally!

  I couldn’t let that happen. I was getting through that icky stuff one way or another.

  I got down in a three-point stance, tensed myself, and then charged full blast at the door. I sank to my waist in the invisible, icy goo. I started punching at it as hard as I could, desperate to get through.

  The slimy, Jell-O-like stuff tightened around my head, slowed my fists until I couldn’t move at all, forward or backwards. It seeped into my ears and nose, squeezing my head.

  The invisible stuff was sucking me in, digesting me slowly, cell by cell. It felt as if my skin was dissolving.

  It was eating me!

  I opened my mouth to scream and the gelatinous mass
swam over my tongue and flowed down my throat. I was suffocating.

  I struggled and wriggled, pulled with all my might. My chest was burning with effort and lack of air. I heard pounding footsteps on the stairs—somebody was coming, but who?

  Suddenly there was a loud sucking noise and the goo let go. I fell back on the floor with a crash. What breath I had left was knocked out of me.

  As I lay there gasping like a fish, my dad appeared in the doorway. His face was white with shock and alarm.

  “Jason! What happened? Are you all right?”

  Mom’s face appeared behind Dad’s shoulder. She, too, was pale, her eyes wide.

  “Sally,” I croaked.

  Mom dashed down the hall to Sally’s room while Dad came in and helped me up. I blurted out everything that had happened, how the house seemed to be after me and Sally, and how the invisible goo had blocked the doorway and prevented me from helping her.

  Dad went to the doorway and ran his hand up and down in the empty space. “There’s nothing here, Jason,” he said, his eyes troubled. He walked into the hall and then back into the room to demonstrate. “Nothing at all.”

  Mom came running back. “Sally’s fine. She’s sound asleep,” she said, looking anxiously at me. “What’s going on?”

  Dad shook his head and picked up my book off the bed. “Apparently Jay had a nightmare,” he said, showing the cover to Mom. It showed fighting monsters with blood that looked a lot like green Jell-O.

  “You sure gave us a scare,” said Mom, rearranging my covers.”

  I stopped shaking after a while. It was easier to let my parents believe I’d just had a vivid nightmare, but I knew it was no dream.

  There was something evil in this house.

  Something that was careful to hide itself from my parents.

  Something that wanted me and Sally dead.

  18

  I woke up dreaming that something was screaming at me. It turned out to be a bird on the windowsill, cheeping and peeping like crazy.

  Just what I needed, an alarm clock with wings.

  But when I’d had a chance to shake the sleep out of my head, I decided the bird had the right idea. It was another great summer day and I didn’t want to waste it.