They must have found a ride. Good for them.
Steve squeezed through the gate, entering the hallowed ground. As he passed through a forest of crumbling tombstones, Steve knew this was as scared as he’d ever been. Still, for Rolly Price, he had to press on. Passing grave after grave, name after name, song after song. Yes, the dearly departed do like to sing.
It was true. Steve could hardly believe it himself. He could have sworn he heard a barbershop quartet harmonizing within the graveyard. Steve looked through his phone again to see in night vision, and the sight that met his eyes was beyond his darkest imaginings. The Eternal Grace Cemetery was alive with movement and song in a goregeous panorama of macabre merriment; phantasms of every size, shape, and denomination had manifested everywhere!
To protect his own sanity, Steve decided it was a dream—it had to be—albeit a magical one. And if it was a dream, maybe the whole Rolly Price incident had never happened. He could wake up and start the day all over again. But a new text from Rolly guillotined that happy thought. This one simply said: FASTER NO AIR.
Steve switched back to GPS mode, rendering the graveyard lifeless once more. At least, to the naked eye. A tiny flag on the display indicated YOU ARE HERE. Here happened to be the site of a fresh grave without a headstone. Those come later. For the time being, it was just a big ole pile of dirt. And six feet under that dirt was Rolly Price, snug inside the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner. Guaranteed not to rot for ten years.
Steve pulled the spade from the duffel bag. “Hang in there, Roll. I’m coming!” He began to dig, dig, dig, spraying dirt into the air like somebody’s life depended on it—which it did. Before long, Steve was in the grave, digging as fast as he could until—THWACK! Steve hit coffin, then cleared away the layer of soil on top by hand, worms squishing between his fingers. “Almost there, buddy boy!”
Soon there was only the lock to deal with. Steve used the spade, splitting it in two. You can forget about that ten-year guarantee. He slid his fingers under the lid and, in the millisecond before it opened, thought about what he might find inside. The blue velvet interior would likely be shredded, with bits of Rolly’s fingernails embedded in the lining. And what of Rolly himself? As he’d tried to escape, his frustration might have led to insanity. He would be a foaming mad lunatic; his only thoughts would be acts of vengeance…against ole Steve-o himself.
But whatever the outcome, Steve had accepted his fate. For it was a fate of his own design. His hands clasped the lid, opening the coffin in silence. (You can forget those surround-sound creeeeeaks you hear in the movies.) “Roll?” inquired Steve, really hoping he wouldn’t get a reply from anyone other than Rolly. But Steve’s real fear was getting no response at all, which was what happened. He clicked on his flashlight app and looked inside.
Steve almost fainted when he saw the body, and he had to use the walls of the grave to keep himself from collapsing. There was, as he’d feared, a stiffened corpse inside the coffin, its face an unnatural blend of blues and greens. The eyes, which had retreated into the back of the skull, were a milky white. What had Steve done? How much had his dares cost him?
He leaned in, eyeball-to-eyeball with the lifeless shell of his former rival. There wasn’t much he could say. Sorry I buried you alive? Well, that would be a start. But in fact, the first word to emerge from Steve’s mouth was…“Marshmallows?” He had gotten a good look at the eyes and that was exactly what they were. At the same time, he recognized the face from Parties 4 Smarties. It was a Halloween mask.
Steve had been played, big-time. But how?
Before he could cry out in madness—and I am delighted to inform you, that is coming—he heard the sound of a phone…this time not his own. Steve looked around, finding it by his feet in the corpse’s pipe-cleaner hand. He plucked the cell loose and, with all the craziness swirling around him, managed a demure “Hello?”
A voice on the other end exploded with laughter. “Lost again, Steve-o!” Yes, it was Roland Price.
Steve squeezed the phone, about to crush it as he would have crushed Rolly, given the chance. The complete and utter humiliation. The remarks he would have to endure at recess! But all he could hear then was Rolly laughing his guts out.
“It was your cousin!” Rolly started to explain. “The Drew-meister! The entire shebang was his idea. He said you needed to learn your lesson, once and for all, about the price of all those dares. Well, have you?” Rolly had to stop talking, because from that point on, all he could manage was “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Yet Steve wasn’t in on the joke. No, not that time. His eyes, the same ones the girls usually swooned over, had turned to stone. And his smile was no longer roguish. Now it was wide—a little too wide. As if Steve had gone totally insane.
“Double dare!” he blurted into the phone, invoking the next rule of the game. “All I have to do is last two little hours inside this coffin and I get my title back! Who’s shaking now, buddy boy?”
It might have been a rhetorical question, but as it turned out, Rolly really was shaking. He had heard the change in Steve’s voice. It was the verbal equivalent of that mad smile, and it scared the laugh right out of him. “Okay, Steve, enough is enough. Joke’s over. What are you doing?”
“Taking a little nap. Wake me when I get my title back.” Steve climbed into the coffin, lying on top of the dummy corpse. It was additional padding—not that the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner needed it. And anyway, if Steve got hungry, he could always eat the eyeballs.
Rolly was still pleading when Steve clicked off the phone and lowered the lid. Now his world was dark but far from silent. Because Steve was still rambling for all the nearby apparitions to hear. “Come Monday, I’ll be king again. All hail the king of dares!”
By then, total exhaustion had settled in. It had been quite an evening, filled with searching…and worrying…and digging. So Steve closed his eyes and took a nap, just like he’d said he would. Soon he fell into a deep slumber. He didn’t even stir when a caretaker, accompanied by his shivering bloodhound, wandered by the open grave and, using the same spade Steve had left behind, shoveled the remaining dirt over the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner, burying him alive.
By the time Rolly convinced the sheriff to excavate the grave, more than four hours had gone by. When they finally opened the coffin, they found Steve with his arms folded across his chest, looking positively regal. His oxygen had expired, accounting for the royal-blue hue. And unless Rolly was imagining it, he noticed that Steve’s lips were curled, indicating total satisfaction. The corpse in the casket was filled with pride—and more than a few worms. Rolly Price was forced to concede. Ole Steve-o was once again the king of dares…for all eternity.
The librarian closed the book. But don’t you, dear reader. You still have several pages to go.
His Royal Highness, King Steve-o himself, was now back in the library, surrounded by his best buds. Yet there was no comfort. No warmth. Like his friends, he felt only the chill of the grave. This time, the librarian didn’t ask for criticisms or comments. He knew from the group’s frosty expressions that the time for commentary had passed. “Now do I get my ice cream?”
Steve’s hands balled into fists, but not from anger; he was just trying to conceal the dirt under his nails. “No, you don’t get your ice cream! That was the least scary of them all! Now you said we could leave, old man.” Steve puffed out his chest, as if that might intimidate a talking skull. “Let us leave—right now—or there’ll be trouble.”
“Allow you to leave?” The librarian seemed puzzled. “There’s been a grave misunderstanding. You may come and go as you please—all of you. This is your home, after all. Your happy haunt. Forever.”
“What’s going on?” demanded Steve, looking at the others. “What’s he talking about?”
Willa was the first to piece it together. “Those tales he read. Our stories. Each one ended with the main character…”
“Dying”—the librarian paused—“to know what happens nex
t.”
Noah asked, “What does happen next?”
As if to respond, the book left the librarian’s hand and floated purposefully to its space on the shelf. Other books began to vibrate, growing giddy with excitement. They had their own tales they wanted to share.
“The spirits are indeed playful this evening,” the librarian said. “They can hardly contain themselves.”
And so they were. Volumes of ghost stories began floating across the library. The happy haunts had received their sympathetic vibrations and were beginning to materialize. The group could hardly believe their eyes. All manner of spirits appeared—young, old, tall, short—all carrying the books that contained their tales. And that was the least of it!
Willa pointed at Tim. “Timothy! What do you think you’re doing? You know better than to come apart at the seams!”
But Tim couldn’t help himself. His parts had detached from his torso and were now drifting independently throughout the library, in the same order as Lefty had dismantled them. Tim’s floating head noticed a change in Willa, too. “That’s pretty gnarly, Will,” he said, hovering above. “Pretty gnarly.”
“What are you talking about?” Willa looked down at her arm and saw the real-life chompings of a rabbit, a parrot, and a goldfish. Her flesh was riddled with bite marks.
What about Steve? He was still in one piece, thank goodness, but his complexion was blue, as if he’d been holding his breath for hours…days…weeks…years. And yet he still looked cooler than Noah, who was blowing about five hundred gallons of salt water from his nose—and loving every minute of it.
In that moment, the Fearsome Foursome understood. They, too, were spirits, specters, poltergeists, apparitions. Or, if you prefer…
ghosts.
Their ethereal forms took flight, joining the other spirits in their midst. Music swept in from beyond the bookshelves. The party was just getting started, and Willa so wanted to join in. “Let’s go, Tim-bo. Take me dancing.” She took Tim’s hand and floated through the wall in search of the ballroom. A moment later, the rest of Tim’s parts followed. But not Noah and Steve. They flew off to cause some mischief in the graveyard.
For the Fearsome Foursome, a new and wondrous adventure had begun. For they were the newest residents of the happiest haunt on earth.
Some final words of discomfort before you turn out the lights…
You didn’t heed our warning.
You stayed until the bitter end.
Maybe I misjudged you.
Maybe you are our type.
As I said, every spirit has a story.
Share yours, won’t you?
I’ve cleared a space up on my bookshelf.
You are cordially invited to remain with us for all eternity.
Welcome, foolish reader.
Welcome to the Haunted Mansion.
Amicus Arcane Little is known about the dearly departed Amicus Arcane, save for his love of books. As the mansion librarian, both in this life and in the afterlife, Amicus has delighted in all forms of the written word. However, this librarian’s favorite tales are those of terror and suspense. After all, there is nothing better to ease a restless spirit than a frightfully good ghost story.
John Esposito When John Esposito met Amicus Arcane on a midnight stroll through New Orleans Square, he was so haunted by the librarian’s tales that he decided to transcribe them for posterity. John has worked in both film and television, on projects such as Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift, R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, Teen Titans, and the Walking Dead web series, for which he won consecutive Writer’s Guild Awards. John lives in New York with his wife and children and still visits with Amicus from time to time.
Kelley Jones For the illustrations accompanying his terrifying tales, Amicus Arcane approached Kelley Jones, an artist with a scary amount of talent. Kelley has worked for every major comic book publisher but is best known for his definitive work on Batman for DC Comics. Kelley lives in Northern California with his wife and children and hears from Amicus every October 31, whether he wants to or not.
Tales from the Haunted Mansion Vol. 1: The Fearsome Foursome Page 11
