Missed!
The old lady seemed to fly up the stairs. I dashed after her. She snarled and turned on me. An instant too late I saw the gas can aimed at my head.
WHAM!
The world went black.
When I opened my eyes there was a sheet of flame between me and the top of the stairs.
I heard a shrill scream and looked up to see Sally running with all her might down the upstairs hall. The teddy bear dangled from one small hand. It was like she was Bobby, running for his life.
Behind her came the nanny, the witch!
“Give me my teddy bear!” she shrieked, her voice louder than the roar of the fire.
All around them flames danced along the walls and edged across the ceiling. Sparks fell to the floor and little fires sprang to life everywhere.
Sally ran faster, her terror growing.
I had to get to her. I scrambled to my feet and charged the flames in front of me. But the heat blasted me backward. It was so intense my skin felt blistered.
I looked up and Sally was still running. But the witch was gaining on her. I could see foam flying from her mouth.
My heart felt like it was bursting. I lowered my head to charge the fire again but the flames roared up at me, higher than ever.
“Give me my teddy bear!” screamed the witch. “It’s mine, MINE!”
With a stab of horror I realized what was happening. Above me I heard Sally’s little footsteps desperately running, the witch’s gaining, always gaining.
Bobby was gone. Sally was going to take his place. Sally and the nanny would both die here and haunt this awful place forever.
“No!” I screamed, running once more at the fire.
But it was too late.
Sally hit the banister and with a loud crack it gave way. Her scream turned my heart to ice.
Her little body hurtled through the air, the flames leaping high to meet her.
And then—
“Jason!” Dad appeared out of the smoke, covered in soot. His voice was raspy and his clothes were singed. “Where’s Sally?” asked Dad, panting with exhaustion.
Blinking away tears, I couldn’t speak. I pointed with a shaky finger. Above us another section of the banister fell away, showering sparks everywhere.
Dad gasped and choked. While all around us the fire raged red and white hot, Sally floated above us in a cool blue bubble. Bobby was in the bubble with her and between them they were holding the teddy bear.
“NO!”
A mad scream pierced the air with such fury even the fire shivered. The witch stood against the banister, leaning out, shaking her fist at the bubble. “You can’t get away. You’re mine.”
Her eyes were blazing coals and her mouth was a black hole flecked with foam. She lunged at the bubble.
The banister gave way and the witch teetered out over nothing. For an instant she swayed, still snarling. Then the fire leaped up and hugged her tight.
There was a loud CRACK and everything crashed in at once—the banister, the hallway, the ceiling, the floor. The witch. All of it went up in an explosion of flames.
But somehow we were still alive.
The house heaved a deep sigh as the roof fell, bounced, and settled to the ground for good. The house and everything that had happened here was finished. But for some reason I wasn’t scared anymore.
Then I noticed I wasn’t hot anymore, either. The blue bubble was floating toward us and the fire fell away from it. The bubble wrapped around us and we sailed out over the house down to the cherry tree.
43
“Are we all ready?” asked Mom, putting a fluttery hand to her lips as she cast one more horrified look at the steaming pile of ashes and rubble that used to be the house on Cherry Street.
We were all exhausted. Mom tenderly wiped a last smudge of soot off Sally’s neck. We’d been up all night trying to explain things to the police and the fire department.
Dad did pretty well after the ambulance people bandaged up his arm. He didn’t mention any ghost but he told them all about the witch, only he kept calling her Miss Everett. There were a few gaps in his telling of it but the sight of Dad with his hair all burned off and his bloodshot eyes seemed to account for that.
The only thing no one could figure was Sally. Mom’s ankle was broken and Dad’s arm was burned and I was going to look pretty funny for a while without any eyebrows. But Sally had come through the worst of the fire without even a singed lock of hair.
Her face and clothes were streaked with soot but even that was mostly from us hugging her afterwards. The police just shook their heads. I heard one of them say that parents can get pretty “overwrought” in a situation like that. It was obvious they didn’t believe Sally had really been in danger.
Then the TV people came and things got really confusing. They kept pestering the cops about “Miss Everett” and trying to get pictures of us in front of the burning house. The police clammed up about the old witch and we didn’t tell them anything, either.
But I couldn’t help wondering. Her body still hadn’t been found. I could see the firemen searching through the rubble but some of it was too hot for them to get to. Maybe she was in one of those places.
I hoped they would find her.
The sun was up by the time the police told us we could go. The ambulance people wanted to take Mom and Dad to the hospital but Mom said “no.” All we wanted to do was go home.
We got into the station wagon and fastened our seat belts. Mom twisted around in her seat. “Sally, have you got Winky?” she asked. Mom’s eyes had crinkles around them and she still looked scared.
Sally held up the stuffed bunny in one hand, Bobby’s old teddy bear in the other. “Don’t be sad, Mommy,” she said. “Bobby’s happy now.”
Mom’s eyes widened but all she said was, “That’s good, honey. Try and get some rest, we’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
“And glad to be there, too,” said Dad, turning the key in the ignition.
We rolled down the driveway and pulled out onto the road. I twisted around in the seat as we passed Steve’s house to wave one last time to him and Lucy. I hoped I’d see them again—maybe even next summer—but not if we had to stay anywhere on Cherry Street.
Sally sang a little song to her stuffed animals as we drove on out to the highway. I settled back in my seat, thinking of all the stuff I’d do once we got home.
Then Sally made a weird noise. “Jaayyyyyyssssoooon!” she whispered in a gruff, raspy voice.
I shot up in my seat. But Bobby couldn’t be here! Could he? Could he have decided he didn’t want to leave my little sister after all?
I was afraid to look in Sally eyes. But I swallowed and made myself turn to her.
Sally giggled. Her blue eyes were clear and innocent, the eyes of a mischievous little girl.
“I was only fooling, Jason,” she said. “But look what I found!”
She slipped her hand along the seam of the teddy bear’s back. The seam parted. Sally reached in and brought out something big in her hand.
Sally opened her hand and showed me. It was a farewell present from Bobby. Glossy red and gleaming in the sunlight.
The ruby!
About the Authors
Rodman Philbrick grew up on the coast of New Hampshire and has been writing since the age of sixteen. For a number of years he published mystery and suspense fiction for adults. Brothers & Sinners won the Shamus Award in 1994, and two of his other detective novels were nominees. In 1993 his debut young adult novel, Freak the Mighty, won numerous honors, and in 1998 was made into the feature film The Mighty, starring Sharon Stone and James Gandolfini. Freak the Mighty has become a standard reading selection in thousands of classrooms worldwide, and there are more than three million copies in print. In 2010 Philbrick won a Newbery Honor for The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg.
Lynn Harnett, who was married to Rodman Philbrick, passed away in 2012. She was a talented journalist, editor, and book reviewer
, and she had a real knack for concocting scary stories that make the reader want to laugh, shriek with fear, and then turn the page to find out what happens next.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1995 by Rodman Philbrick and Lynn Harnett
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8537-6
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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The Final Nightmare Page 9
