37 - The Headless Ghost (2 page)

Then we crept across the street to Ben Fuller’s house.

Ben was our last stop for the night. Ben is a kid in our class, and we have a
special scare for him.

You see, he’s afraid of bugs, which makes him really easy to scare.

Even though it’s pretty cold out, he sleeps with his bedroom window open. So
Stephanie and I like to step up to his window and toss rubber spiders onto Ben
as he sleeps.

The rubber spiders tickle his face. He wakes up. And starts to scream.

Every time.

He always thinks the spiders are real.

He screams and tries to scramble out of bed. He gets all tangled in his
covers and
thuds
onto the floor.

Then Stephanie and I congratulate each other on a job well done. And we go
home to bed.

But tonight, as we tossed the rubber spiders at Ben’s sleeping face,
Stephanie turned to me and whispered, “I just had a great idea.”

“Huh?” I started to reply. But Ben’s scream interrupted me.

We listened to him scream, then
thud
to the floor.

Stephanie and I slapped each other a high five. Then we took off, running
across the dark backyards, our sneakers thumping the hard, nearly-frozen ground.

We stopped in front of the split oak tree in my front yard. The tree trunk is
completely split in two. But Dad doesn’t have the heart to have the tree taken
away.

“What is your great idea?” I asked Stephanie breathlessly.

Her dark eyes flashed. “I’ve been thinking. Every time we go out to haunt the
neighborhood, we scare the same old kids. It’s starting to get boring.”

I wasn’t bored. But I knew that once Stephanie gets an idea, there’s no
stopping her. “So, do you want to find some new kids to scare?” I asked.

“No. Not new kids. Something else.” She began to walk around the tree.
Circling it. “We need a new challenge.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Our scares are all kid stuff,” she complained. “We make some spooky sounds,
toss a few things inside an open window—and everyone is frightened to death.
It’s too easy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But it’s funny.”

She ignored me. She stuck her head through the split in the tree trunk.
“Duane, what’s the scariest place in Wheeler Falls?”

That was easy. “Hill House, of course,” I answered.

“Right. And what makes it so scary?”

“All the ghost stories. But especially the one about the boy searching for
his head.”

“Yes!” Stephanie cried. All I could see now was her head, poking through the
split oak tree. “The Headless Ghost!” she cried in a deep voice, and let out a
long, scary laugh.

“What’s your problem?” I demanded. “Are you trying to haunt
me
now?”

Her head seemed to float in the darkness. “We need to haunt Hill House,” she
declared in a whisper.

“Excuse me?” I cried. “Stephanie, what are you talking about?”

“We’ll take the Hill House tour and sneak off on our own,” Stephanie replied
thoughtfully.

I shook my head. “Give me a break. Why would we do that?”

Stephanie’s face seemed to glow, floating by itself in the tree trunk. “We’ll
sneak off on our own—to search for the ghost’s head.”

I stared back at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

I walked behind the tree and tugged her away from it. The floating head trick
was starting to give me the creeps.

“No, Duane, I’m not kidding,” she replied, shoving me away. “We need a
challenge. We need something new. Prowling around the neighborhood, terrifying
everyone we know—that’s just kid stuff. Bor-ring.”

“But you don’t believe the story about the missing head—do you?” I protested. “It’s just a ghost story. We can search and
search. But there
is
no head. It’s all a story they made up for the
tourists.”

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at me. “I think you’re scared, Duane.”

“Huh? Me?” My voice got pretty shrill.

A cloud rolled over the moon, making my front yard even darker. A chill ran
down my back. I pulled my jacket around me tighter.

“I’m not afraid to sneak off from the tour and search Hill House on our own,”
I told Stephanie. “I just think it’s a big waste of time.”

“Duane, you’re shivering,” she teased. “Shivering with fright.”

“I am not!” I screamed. “Come on. Let’s go to Hill House. Right now. I’ll
show you.”

A grin spread over Stephanie’s face. She tossed back her head and let out a
long howl. A victory howl. “This is going to be the coolest thing the Twin
Terrors have ever done!” she cried, slapping me a high five that made my hand
sting.

She dragged me up Hill Street. The whole way there, I didn’t say one word.
Was I afraid?

Maybe a little.

We climbed the steep, weed-choked hill and stood before the front steps of
Hill House. The old house looked even bigger at night. Three stories tall. With turrets and balconies and dozens of windows, all dark and
shuttered.

All the houses in our neighborhood are brick or clapboard. Hill House is the
only one made out of stone slabs. Dark gray slabs.

I always have to hold my breath when I stand close to Hill House. The stone
is covered with a blanket of thick green moss. Two hundred years of it. Putrid,
moldy moss that doesn’t exactly smell like a flower garden.

I peered up. Up at the round turret that stretched to the purple sky. A
gargoyle, carved in stone, perched at the very top. It grinned down at us, as if
challenging us to go inside.

My knees suddenly felt weak.

The house stood in total darkness, except for a single candle over the front
doorway. But the tours were still going on. The last tour left at ten-thirty
every night. The guides said the late tours were the best—the best time to see
a ghost.

I read the sign etched in stone beside the door. ENTER HILL HOUSE—AND YOUR LIFE WILL BE CHANGED. FOREVER.

I’d read that sign a hundred times. I always thought it was funny—in a
corny sort of way.

But tonight it gave me the creeps.

Tonight was going to be different.

“Come on,” Stephanie said, pulling me by the hand. “We’re just in time for
the next tour.”

The candle flickered. The heavy wooden door swung open. By itself. I don’t
know how, but it always does that.

“Well, are you coming or not?” Stephanie demanded, stepping into the dark
entryway.

“Coming,” I gulped.

Otto met us as we stepped inside the door. Otto always reminds me of an
enormous dolphin. He has a big, smooth bald head. And he’s sort of shaped like a
dolphin. He must weigh about three hundred pounds!

Otto was dressed entirely in black, as always. Black shirt. Black pants.
Black socks. Black shoes. And gloves—you guessed it—black. It’s the uniform
that all the tour guides wear.

“Look who’s here!” he called. “Stephanie and Duane!” He broke out into a wide
grin. His tiny eyes flashed in the candlelight.

“Our favorite guide!” Stephanie greeted him. “Are we in time for the next
tour?”

We pushed through the turnstile without paying. We’re such regulars at Hill
House that they don’t even charge us anymore.

“About five minutes, guys,” Otto told us. “You two are out late tonight,
huh?”

“Yeah… well,” Stephanie hesitated. “It’s more fun to take the tour at night. Isn’t it, Duane?” She jabbed my side.

“You can say that again,” I mumbled.

We moved into the front hall with some others who were waiting for the tour
to begin. Teenagers mostly, out on dates.

The front hall is bigger than my living room and dining room put together.
And except for the winding staircase in the center, it’s completely bare. No
furniture at all.

Shadows tossed across the floor. I gazed around the room. No electric lights.
Small torches were hung from the peeling, cracked walls. The orange torchlight
flickered and bent.

In the dancing light, I counted the people around me. Nine of them. Stephanie
and I were the only kids.

Otto lighted a lantern and crossed to the front of the hall. He held it up
high and cleared his throat.

Stephanie and I grinned at each other. Otto always starts the tour the same
way. He thinks the lantern adds atmosphere.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed. “Welcome to Hill House. We hope you will
survive your tour tonight.” Then he gave a low, evil laugh.

Stephanie and I mouthed Otto’s next words along with him:

“In 1795, a prosperous sea captain, William P. Bell, built himself a home on
the highest hill in Wheeler Falls. It was the finest home ever built here at the time—three
stories high, nine fireplaces, and over thirty rooms.

“Captain Bell spared no expense. Why? Because he hoped to retire here and
finish his days in splendor with his young and beautiful wife. But it was not to
be.”

Otto cackled, and so did Stephanie and I. We knew every move Otto had.

Otto went on. “Captain Bell died at sea in a terrible shipwreck—before he
ever had a chance to live in his beautiful house. His young bride, Annabel, fled
the house in horror and sorrow.”

Now Otto’s voice dropped. “But soon after Annabel left, strange things began
to happen in Hill House.”

This was Otto’s cue to start walking toward the winding stairs. The old,
wooden staircase is narrow and creaky. When Otto starts to climb, the stairs
groan and grumble beneath him as if in pain.

Keeping silent, we followed Otto up the stairs to the first floor. Stephanie
and I love this part, because Otto doesn’t say a word the whole time. He just
huffs along in the darkness while everyone tries to keep up with him.

He starts talking again when he reaches Captain Bell’s bedroom. A big,
wood-paneled room with a fireplace and a view of the river.

“Soon after Captain Bell’s widow ran away,” Otto reported, “people in Wheeler
Falls began reporting strange sightings. Sightings of a man who resembled Captain Bell.
He was always seen here, standing by his window, holding his lantern aloft.”

Otto moved to the window and raised his lantern. “On a windless night, if you
listened carefully, you could sometimes hear him calling out her name in a low,
mournful voice.”

Otto took a deep breath, then called softly: “Annabel. Annabel. Annabel…”

Otto swung the lantern back and forth for effect. By now, he had everyone’s
complete attention.

“But of course, there’s more,” he whispered.

As we followed him through the upstairs rooms, Otto told us how Captain Bell
haunted the house for about a hundred years. “People who moved into Hill House
tried all kinds of ways to get rid of the ghost. But it was determined to stay.”

Then Otto told everyone about the boy finding the ghost and getting his head
pulled off. “The ghost of the sea captain vanished. The headless ghost of the
boy continued to haunt the house. But that wasn’t the end of it.”

Into the long, dark hallway now. Torches darting and flickering along the
walls. “Tragedy continued to haunt Hill House,” Otto continued. “Shortly after
young Andrew Craw’s death, his twelve-year-old sister Hannah went mad. Let’s go
to her room next.”

He led us down the hall to Hannah’s room.

Stephanie loves Hannah’s room. Hannah collected porcelain dolls. And she had
hundreds of them. All with the same long yellow hair, painted rosy cheeks, and
blue-tinted eyelids.

“After her brother was killed, Hannah went crazy,” Otto told us all in a
hushed voice. “All day long, for eighty years, she sat in her rocking chair over
there in the corner. And she played with her dolls. She never left her room.
Ever.”

He pointed to a worn rocking chair. “Hannah died there. An old lady
surrounded by her dolls.”

The floorboards creaked under him as Otto crossed the room. Setting the
lantern down, he lowered his big body into the rocking chair.

The chair made a cracking sound. I always think Otto is going to crush it! He
started to rock. Slowly. The chair groaned with each move. We all watched him in
silence.

“Some people swear that poor Hannah is still here,” he said softly. “They say
they’ve seen a young girl sitting in this chair, combing a doll’s hair.”

He rocked slowly, letting the idea sink in. “And—then we come to the story
of Hannah’s mother.”

With a grunt, Otto pulled himself to his feet. He grabbed up the lantern and
made his way to the top of the long, dark stairway at the end of the hall.

“Soon after her son’s tragedy, the mother met her own terrible fate. She was
on her way down these stairs one night when she tripped and fell to her death.”

Otto gazed down the stairs and shook his head sadly.

He does this every time. As I said, Stephanie and I know his every move.

But we hadn’t come here tonight to watch Otto perform. I knew that sooner or
later, Stephanie would want to get going. So I started glancing around. To see
if it was a good time for us to sneak away from the others.

And that’s when I saw the strange kid. Watching us.

I didn’t see him when we first came in. In fact, I’m sure he wasn’t there
when the tour started. I had counted nine people. No kids.

The boy was about our age, with wavy blond hair and pale skin. Very pale
skin. He was wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck that made his face look
even whiter.

I edged over to Stephanie. She was hanging back from the group.

“You ready?” she whispered.

Otto had started back down the stairs. If we were going to sneak away from
the tour, now was the time.

But I could see that weird kid still staring at us.

Staring hard.

He was giving me the creeps.

“We can’t go. Someone’s watching us,” I whispered to Stephanie.

“Who?”

“That weird kid over there.” I motioned with my eyes.