“Why don’t you give your parents a call?” Beth asked her, offering the girl her cell phone. “I think they’re probably looking for you.”
“Thank you.” She hugged Beth.
“Y’know,” said Luke, “I never thought my love of churros would lead me into this kind of trouble.”
The four friends laughed, glad to be back together.
“You laughed!” Luke told Nicole.
“Okay,” Nicole admitted. “Yeah, I laughed.”
“The posse’s back together!” Luke cheered.
“It’s all because of you, Beth,” Kellen said.
She smiled. “It was because of our friendship. It was stronger than evil.” She laughed. “As corny as that sounds, it’s true.”
“I know,” Nicole said. “Let’s go back to my house. We’ll find my little brother’s Halloween candy and eat all of it. Okay?”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Luke said. He grabbed Nicole by the shoulders, turned her around, and started steering her down the street. “All right. C’mon. I’m starving.”
“Cute,” Beth said, looking at Nicole and Luke. They’d make a good couple. She started to follow them, but Kellen called her back.
“I forgot one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked, stepping closer to him.
He answered her with a kiss.
When they drew apart, she looked at him and smiled. “Well, it’s about time!”
They kissed again, longer this time …
BETH AND KELLEN ARE SO WRAPPED up in each other, they don’t notice the flyer for the Hall of Horrors blowing by in the wind. It surges up between bushes, swirling, twirling …
Finally, it floats to the ground. The wind dies down, but its roar does not.
A light flashes, but there is no one to see the flyer land. Where it touches down, there is something standing on the ground.
The Cabinet of Souls.
There is a burst of light … and the doors of the cabinet begin to vibrate and shake.
With a blinding flash of light, the doors of the Cabinet of Souls burst open. Whatever is hidden inside pours out.
Who will be the next to find it?
No one.
Yet.
High school friends Kellen, Luke, Beth, and Nicole can’t wait to visit Dr. Hysteria’s Hall of Horrors, a traveling haunted house that comes to their small town.
Dr. Hysteria and his assistant, Lilith, have a strange hold over the kids.
Beth and Kellen have been best friends forever, but Kellen wishes they could be more.
But then Beth meets Hunter, and Kellen’s sure he lost his chance.
Beth and Hunter visit the Hall of Horrors together. But Beth gets lost … and discovers some very sinister things.
What’s really going on at the Hall of Horrors? Beth is sure that Dr. Hysteria is up to no good, but Luke wants to believe in him.
Luke and Nicole are no longer themselves — they’ve turned into demons!
Beth is the only one able to resist the lure of the Hall of Horrors. Can she save her friends?
Photos ©: cover art: courtesy Universal Studios; insert background: mfto/iStockphoto; 1 and throughout, 2 bats, 3: freevector/Vecteezy; 2 tree: LeeYenz/iStockphoto; 5 wings and throughout: JDawnInk/iStockphoto; 7 banner and throughout: sarunyu_foto/iStockphoto.
© 2015 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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.
First printing 2016
e-ISBN 978-1-338-03254-3
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
The Cabinet of Souls Page 10
