The Knight in Screaming Armor

by RL Stine

“But it’s gone,” you point out.

  “That scrap of paper looks like it’s been torn from something,” Kip adds. “If we could find more pieces of the poem, maybe we can figure out where the missing armor is. It’s like a puzzle.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Abbey says. Then she rubs her eyes. “I’m sleepy.”

  Kip yawns a big yawn. You feel it, too. An overwhelming urge to fall asleep. You let yourself curl up on the floor and …

  If you wake up and are with your cousins, turn to PAGE 20.

  If you wake up all alone, turn to PAGE 47.

  You’ve just got to know if this is the same clock as the one in the GOOSEBUMPS book. It was such an amazing story. You reach up to the little door just over the clock face. It slides open. You peer inside.

  CUCKOOOO! Out flies the most hideous bird you’ve ever seen. Is it the cuckoo bird of doom? You fall to the ground. You’ve got to protect your face from that bird! You wrap your hands so tightly across your face that you block out all the air. There’s a fluttering and a scraping on your skin. Seconds later, you black out.

  When you wake up, you don’t remember anything. You feel quite strange but you don’t exactly feel younger like Michael Webster was. Smaller, yes. But not younger. What’s happened to you?

  A steady tick, tock, tick booms through the darkness around you — slowly, slowly. Then a little door slides open in front of you. You rush through it and squawk, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” You ruffle your feathers! “I’m a bird!” you screech.

  But then it’s over. That’s it. Until the next hour.

  Guess it wasn’t the cuckoo clock of doom after all. More like the cuckoo clock of craziness. You’re still alive, but all this noise and waiting is going to drive you cuckoo in

  THE END

  You’ve landed in a valley. But the green hills of a moment ago are long gone. In fact, there isn’t a blade of grass as far as the eye can see. It’s all rocks. Broken up shards and boulders and stones. And it’s dark. A pale moon shines up above.

  Abbey tries to move and barely balances on a wobbly platform of stone. She shrieks, “This is like an avalanche waiting to happen!”

  “Be careful!” Kip warns. “These flat rocks aren’t as steady as they look.”

  “Yeah, uh, thanks for the tip, Kip,” Abbey says. “I think we noticed!”

  They’re right. The rock you’re standing on tips and throws you backward to another flat rock below. “Whoa!” you cry as your new rocky floor seesaws back and forth. You glance down. There are more jagged rocks waiting to catch you below.

  Next you look up. And something flashes. High up on the rocky point of this mountain, something silvery shimmers in the moonlight. It seems to be calling to you. What is it?

  Climb over to PAGE 28.

  You let go of the rope and rush over to the kettle. If you can only lift it, you could throw the liquid on the ghosts. That should scatter them.

  The hooded robed figures make their way up the steps. They’re getting closer! You’re getting frantic. You strain against the handle of the kettle with all your strength. It budges a little and some of the liquid sloshes onto the stone floor. It pools around your foot. And you SLIP!

  You fall back, arms flailing. You knock against the bell. BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! the bell tolls.

  The monks’ chant changes: “The bell tolls for us! The bell tolls for us! The bell tolls for us!” One by one the hooded figures slump to the floor of the bell tower. Soon they are nothing more than a pile of empty robes in a heap at your feet.

  BONG! BONG! BONG! You push the bell again. Kip and Abbey pull off their hoods. “You saved us!” Kip cries gratefully.

  “And those stupid ghosts are gone for good!” Abbey adds. “Can you believe those monks? Get a life. I mean, get a death.”

  You breathe a sigh of relief. “We’re safe now,” you say. All is still — all except the flashing eyes on the other side of the courtyard.

  “Uh-oh,” you say. “Those eyes can only mean one thing.”

  Turn to PAGE 52 … if you dare.

  What began as a rescue mission is now a mission to destroy you. The giant black nighthawk zooms upward.

  “Hang on!” you shout to Kip. He clings to one slick black feather sticking out from the bird’s back.

  The hawk swoops down suddenly. It’s trying to shake you off! You fly out to the side of the wings and your body flaps freely in the wind. “Whoooaaaa!” you yell.

  This roller-coaster bird ride is making your stomach do flip-flops. Kip looks just as airsick as you feel. But it’s not over yet. Now the hawk does loop-the-loops until at last you can’t hold on any longer.

  You let go. “Good-bye, Kip!” you call out as you start free-falling! “Good-by-y-y-y-y-y-y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e.”

  Turn to PAGE 117.

  The hedges are behind you. The green hills are in front of you. There’s a warm wind in your face and something … something is coming over those hills. A dark, black mist is rolling toward you. It’s already halfway to where you’re standing.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Kip says.

  The warm wind picks up. Dark clouds gather. Dust whips around in whirlpools. Evil is in the air around you.

  “Look,” you remark, “sooner or later we’re going to have to face this Evil Knight. That’s the only way to break the curse, right? Only a Saxton can defeat him!”

  “I’d prefer later to sooner —” Kip starts to answer back. He never finishes his sentence.

  “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The scream of the Evil Knight announces his arrival.

  Find out what happens next on PAGE 85!

  You read the words of the new puzzle piece again: “That what is NOW is not what’s real.” You don’t know what this means yet, but you do know you have to get out of this room NOW!

  “Zzzzt?” Kip sparks.

  “Zzzt zzzztttz zzt?” Abbey adds.

  They think you have figured something out. They want to know what is happening NOW. You cannot answer NOW, because you understand what this puzzle piece means. There never is a NOW. As soon as NOW comes, it becomes THEN. In the split second that is NOW you know one thing, there is no escaping this place NOW. There is no NOW. Just as you are about to escape NOW, NOW is THEN and your chances of leaving are gone.

  You and Kip and Abbey are stuck in the never-land of NOW. The awful truth is closing in on you and so are the walls. What is NOW is not what’s real. But what is real is that for you and Kip and Abbey, NOW is

  THE END.

  The voice is soft. “Come in,” it says again. You stand up, feeling dizzy from floating. You fall forward through the door. You’re in. The door closes softly behind you. You breathe a sigh of relief until a steel barred gate CRASHES down over the door!

  “AAAAAaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” the scream of the Evil Knight rings out. “WELCOME TO MY KNIGHT-MARE!” he bellows.

  You turn your head left, then right. “This isn’t a cottage!” you cry. “It’s a dungeon!”

  Giant black rats scurry over your feet. Longhaired poisonous spiders scamper across their webs to hang down in your face. Heads without bodies float through the air. Clocks without hands scream out Cuckoo cuckoo! A Mud Slinging monster throws a glob of gooey stuff at you. You duck just in time. THWACK! It splatters against a stone wall.

  Lightning bolts zap and zzzzttt in the air above you. Vampire bats fly blindly through the iron bars of the gate behind you. No, this is not a cottage. This is a Den of Danger! A Hall of Horrors! An Alcove of Evil! The Final Frontier!

  Turn to PAGE 130.

  You stare at the walls of greenery surrounding you. “The hedges are too high,” you say. “We can’t climb over them.”

  “It looks like a maze,” Abbey comments. “You know, Kip, like they used to have at royal palaces and stuff? I wonder if there’s a way out.”

  “We’ll either have to find our way out or break through the hedge. We can’t stay in here forever,” you s
ay.

  “Forever!” Kip wails.

  “Knock it off, Kip!” you and Abbey both cry.

  So what will it be?

  If you try to find your way out, turn to PAGE 51.

  If you try to break through the hedge instead, turn to PAGE 116.

  Where the queen’s head was, Abbey’s head now rests. On Abbey’s neck the queen’s head straightens itself and stares right at you! The new Queen Abbey stands peering at the glass door trying to catch her own reflection.

  Kip hasn’t noticed what’s happened to Abbey yet. He’s busy making faces at a hideous gargoyle head along the wall. The grotesque, bald, wide-mouthed, bulging-eyed head is the ugliest head in the room.

  “A face only a mother could love,” Kip jokes, gazing into the monster’s beady little eyes. In a flash, the gargoyle head changes places with Kip’s!

  You watch in stunned amazement as Kip, the Gargoyle, turns on Abbey, the Queen. “Argh!” says Kip.

  “Aahhh!” the startled Queen Abbey screams. “Guards! Off with his head! Off with his head!”

  A whole row of Royal Guard heads springs to life. The helmeted sentries cry out from their stands, “Save the Queen! Save the Queen!” With one quick motion the whole row of guards’ heads tips forward and rolls onto the floor. They regroup into formation and start rolling full force toward Kip! In seconds he’ll be buried in heads!

  If you use your head to help Kip, turn to PAGE 30.

  If you use someone else’s head to help Kip, turn to PAGE 11.

  The Good Knight’s armor has armed you with more than a battle-ax and shield. It’s armed you with courage. This dungeon doesn’t scare you. “Show your face, Evil Knight!” you shout bravely. You don’t have to wait long.

  A giant figure steps out of the sickly yellow light. It is the Evil Knight! He is taller, darker, and scarier than ever. His eyes shoot flames at you. The flames hit your silver armor and heat it up on contact. His eyes fire at you again! Sweat pours down your face and neck. Inside the armor barbecue pit, you’re melting!

  The Evil Knight laughs as he raises his sword and swings it hard against your helmet. The vibrations from the metal-on-metal make your whole body shake. The Evil Knight swings again and hits you on the other side of your helmet. You’re too stunned to move.

  “Fight!” someone screams. It’s the Sorceress. The same one who created the Evil Knight and watched him defeat Sir Edmund Saxton. She’s been waiting centuries for another showdown. “Fight!” she screams again. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  Take a deep breath and go to PAGE 54.

  “Look at this one!” Abbey calls out. She’s pointing to an antique cuckoo clock standing on the floor in a corner.

  The clock is mostly black. But its designs are painted with silver, gold, and blue, and it’s decorated with scrolls, carvings, knobs, and buttons. It has a white face and gold hands and numbers.

  You glance at the clock and feel an odd sense of doom about it. You wouldn’t be at all surprised if the door opened up and a hideous bird flew out! Something about this clock looks strangely familiar to you. Where have you seen it before?

  If you think you know where you’ve seen this clock before, turn to PAGE 46.

  If another clock hanging on the wall next to this one catches your eye, turn to PAGE 93.

  You run to where the cottage is, but it’s no longer there! Those nasty pixies keep moving it.

  “Over here!” the pixies giggle.

  “Over there!”

  “Over here!”

  “Over there!”

  “Over here!”

  “Over there!”

  Run until you drop on PAGE 104.

  “Abbey!” Kip cries as he watches his sister twist in the grasp of the Evil Knight.

  “Help me!” Abbey cries in terror.

  CRASH! The Evil Knight’s other armored arm rips through the wooden slats of the crate and wraps around Abbey’s body. You and Kip scream in a harmony of horror. Any hopes you had of helping Abbey vanish as the Knight continues crashing through his wooden prison. Nothing can stop him now!

  He’s going to destroy all that is good — and that means YOU!

  Cover your eyes. Don’t look. This is going to be too terrible to watch. Evil spelled backwards is LIVE, which is one thing you won’t be when the Knight in Screaming Armor is done with you!

  THE END

  Or is it the end really? If you think it’s too early to exit this adventure, go to PAGE 99.

  You decide you need all the help you can get. Kip and Abbey are just on the other side of that door, you think.

  You turn back toward the door. As if in answer to your thoughts, a huge iron grating slams into the ground in front of you. Another sheet of metal slams down in front of the grating.

  “Kip! Abbey!” you call to them. Then all the monsters from your nightmares start rattling their cages.

  “You’ll never win!” the warty women sing out together. “You cannot win without the Good Knight’s armor. Evil is as Evil does and Evil does do evil!” They cackle in their cages, taunting you with their wicked words.

  You force yourself not to listen to them. You know what you have to do now. You’ll have to stand firmly and fight the Evil Knight on your own.

  “Show your face, Evil Knight!” you call out.

  The dragon spews a stream of fire, lighting the darkest corners of the Hall of Evil. Still you see no Evil Knight.

  “Show your face, Evil Knight!” you shout again.

  Don’t lose your courage now. Turn to PAGE 118.

  The Evil Knight’s screams mingle with the whistling blast of hot wind. You can almost feel his evil breath mixed in with the wind. You know he’s so close. The dark mist rushes at you!

  The force of the gale throws the three of you backwards against the hedge. But you don’t feel the prickly leaves. You don’t land on the ground where you were before. In fact, you don’t land at all!

  “We’re faaaaaaaaaaaaaaalling!” the three of you cry together. Falling!

  Falling!

  Falling!

  If the chair you’re sitting on has a cushion, turn to PAGE 48.

  If it doesn’t have a cushion, or you’re not sitting on a chair, turn to PAGE 72.

  There’s no way you’re going to just stand here and be mudified by a tribe of mud-slinging mud monsters!

  “Come on!” you shout. You duck a far-flung mud pie aimed right for your face. “We’re getting out of here!”

  “Which way is out?” Abbey cries. She throws her hands up and blocks a blob of ooze. As she blocks the blob, you notice the light from the bare bulb swinging right through the Mud Slinger!

  Suddenly, an idea clicks in your mind. “I’ve got a hunch this is just one big dirty trick being played on us by the Evil Knight,” you guess. “These Mud Slingers aren’t real. They’ve been planted in our minds by the powers of the Knight. The light shines right through them. Watch!”

  You reach for the biggest, muddiest mass of glop and grab it by the neck. Your hands sink down into his shoulders. Still you manage to lift the barrel-bodied beast up over your head.

  If you hold the mud beast up to the light, turn to PAGE 63.

  If you throw it down to the ground, turn to PAGE 29.

  You can’t help it. The SLAM of the door makes you scream.

  “We didn’t mean to scare you.” It’s the old man’s voice.

  “We?” you ask. “Did you say we?”

  To answer your question, the old guy hobbles forward. You see his dusty boots emerge from the shadows. A pair of ragged canvas pants and a cardigan sweater with holes appear. Then you see his face.

  Talk about U-G-L-Y! He cackles as he glares at you from a wrinkled, mole-covered face. This guy must be a hundred years old. And he’s looking at you funny.

  Then something catches your eye. Something next to his grizzled old ear. IT’S ANOTHER HEAD! A horrible, wart-covered, puffy-eyed head with a squirming, dangling tongue! It’s sticking out from the right sid
e of his neck!

  You hear Abbey squealing in terror.

  And there’s ANOTHER HEAD! On the other side! Sticking out from his neck. As this one catches the light you see a mouthful of slimy rotting teeth. His bloodshot eyes roll around out of control!

  “We didn’t mean to scare you,” the old man says. “WE MEANT TO TERRIFY YOU!”

  If you can, run to PAGE 98.

  If you’re frozen in terror, turn to PAGE 108.

  “No bell tolls for us. No bell tolls for us. No bell tolls for us.” Kip’s and Abbey’s voices rise above the others.

  You gaze into their transparent eyes and catch a glimpse of your own reflection.

  Under the hood of your robe there’s NO FACE AT ALL!

  “No bell tolls for us! No bell tolls for us!” you hear yourself say. “No bell tolls for us.”

  Face it — you’re a dead ringer until

  THE END

  You can’t see the Evil Knight, but you know he’s here somewhere. His hideous laughter turns to screams and back to laughter again. This shrinking room is a tiny torture chamber. And it’s getting tinier by the second.

  You brace yourself against one of the advancing walls in a frantic attempt to hold it back. You strain against it with all of your strength. “Aaaaaaaaaaaah!” you yell as your muscles begin to burn and ache. “Try another door, Abbey!” you gasp out. “Quick!” But Abbey is paralyzed with fear. She doesn’t move a muscle.

  Your ear is pushed up against the crushing wall. There is a terrible grinding sound behind it. Your feet start to skid and slip.

  “The door, Kip! The door!” you scream.