37 - The Headless Ghost (6 page)

Stephanie and I walked quickly, leaning into the wind. We usually didn’t stay
out this late.

Tomorrow night, we’d be even later.

“I don’t trust that guy,” I told Stephanie as we reached her front yard.
“He’s too weird.”

I expected her to agree. But she said, “You’re just jealous, Duane.”

“Huh? Me? Jealous?” I couldn’t believe she said that. “Why would I be
jealous?”

“Because Seth is so brave. Because he saw a ghost and we didn’t.”

I shook my head. “Do you believe that crazy story about a ghost sliding down
the banister? I think he made it up.”

“Well,” Stephanie replied thoughtfully, “we’ll find out tomorrow night—won’t we!”

Tomorrow night came too quickly.

I had a math test in the afternoon. I don’t think I did too well on it. I
couldn’t stop thinking about Seth, and Hill House, and ghosts.

After dinner, Mom cornered me in the living room. She brushed back my hair
and studied my face. “Why do you look so tired?” she asked. “You have dark
circles around your eyes.”

“Maybe I’m part raccoon,” I replied. That’s what I always say when she tells
me I have circles around my eyes.

“I think you should go to bed early tonight,” Dad chimed in. Dad always
thinks that everyone should go to bed early.

So I went to my room at nine-thirty. But of course I didn’t go to sleep.

I read a book and listened to a tape on my Walkman. And waited for Mom and
Dad to go to bed. And watched the clock.

Mom and Dad are very heavy sleepers. You can pound and pound on their bedroom
door, and they don’t wake up. They once slept through a hurricane. That’s the truth. They
didn’t hear the tree that fell onto our house!

Stephanie’s parents are heavy sleepers, too. That’s why it’s so easy for the
two of us to sneak out of our bedroom windows. That’s why it’s so easy for us to
haunt our neighborhood at night.

As the clock neared midnight, I wished we were going out on one of our usual
haunting trips. I wished we were going to hide under Chrissy Jacob’s window and
howl like wolves. And then toss rubber spiders into Ben Fuller’s bed.

But Stephanie had decided that was too boring.

We needed excitement. We needed to go ghost hunting. With a strange kid we’d
never seen before.

At ten to twelve, I pulled on my down coat and crept out of my bedroom
window. Another cold, windy night. I felt sprinkles of frozen rain on my
forehead. So I pulled up my hood.

Stephanie was waiting for me at the bottom of her driveway. She had pulled
her brown hair back in a ponytail. Her coat was open. She wore a heavy ski
sweater underneath, pulled down over her jeans.

She raised her head and let out a ghostly howl.
“Owooooooo!”

I clapped my hand over her open mouth. “You’ll wake up the whole block!”

She laughed and backed away from me. “I’m a little excited. Aren’t you?” She
opened her mouth in another howl.

The frozen rain pattered the ground. We hurried toward Hill House. The
swirling wind scattered twigs and dead leaves as we walked. Most of the house
lights had been turned off.

A car rolled by slowly as we turned onto Hill Street. Stephanie and I ducked
behind a hedge. The driver might wonder why two kids were wandering around
Wheeler Falls at midnight.

I wondered, too.

We waited for the car to disappear. Then we continued our journey.

Our sneakers crunched over the hard ground as we climbed the hill that led to
the old haunted house. Hill House rose above us, like a silent monster waiting
to swallow us up.

The last tour had ended. The lights were all off. Otto and Edna and the other
tour guides were probably all home by now.

“Come on, Duane. Hurry,” Stephanie urged. She started to run around the side
of the house. “Seth is probably waiting.”

“Wait up!” I cried. We followed a narrow dirt path around to the back.

Squinting into the darkness, I searched for Seth. No sign of him.

The backyard was cluttered with equipment of all kinds. A row of rusted metal
trashcans formed a fence along one wall. A long wooden ladder lay on its side in the tall
weeds. Wooden cartons and barrels and cardboard boxes were strewn everywhere. A
hand lawnmower tilted against the house.

“It—it’s so much darker back here,” Stephanie stammered. “Do you see Seth?”

“I can’t see
anything
,” I replied in a whisper. “Maybe he changed his
mind. Maybe he isn’t coming.”

Stephanie started to reply. But a choked cry from the side of the house made
us both jump.

I turned to see Seth stagger into view.

His blond hair was wild, flying around his face. His eyes bulged. His hands
gripped his throat.

“The ghost!” he cried, stumbling clumsily. “The ghost—he—he
got
me!”

Then Seth collapsed at our feet and didn’t move.

“Nice try, Seth,” I said calmly.

“Nice fall,” Stephanie added.

He raised his head slowly, staring up at us. “I didn’t fool you?”

“No way,” I replied.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “That’s Joke Number One,” she told Seth. “Duane
and I have pulled that one a thousand times.”

Seth climbed to his feet and brushed off the front of his black turtleneck.
He scowled, disappointed. “Just trying to give you a little scare.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I told him.

“Duane and I are experts at giving scares,” Stephanie added. “It’s sort of
our hobby.”

Seth straightened his hair with both hands. “You two are weird,” he murmured.

I brushed cold raindrops off my eyebrows. “Can we get inside?” I asked
impatiently.

Seth led the way to the narrow door at the far side of the house. “Did you two have any trouble sneaking out?” he asked,
whispering.

“No. No trouble,” Stephanie told him.

“Neither did I,” he replied. He stepped up to the door and lifted the wooden
latch. “I took the tour again tonight,” he whispered. “Otto showed me some new
things. Some new rooms we can explore.”

“Great!” Stephanie exclaimed. “Do you promise we’ll see a real ghost?”

Seth turned back to her. A strange smile spread over his face. “Promise,” he
said.

Seth gave the door a tug, and it creaked open.

We slipped inside. Into total blackness. Too dark to see where we were.

I took a few steps into the room—and bumped into Seth.

“Ssshhh,” he warned. “Manny the night watchman is posted in the front room.
He’s probably asleep already. But we’d better stay in back.”

“Where are we?” I whispered.

“In one of the back rooms,” Seth whispered. “Wait a few seconds. Our eyes
will adjust.”

“Can’t we turn on a light?” I asked.

“Ghosts won’t come out in the light,” Seth replied.

We had closed the door behind us. But a cold wind still blew at my back.

I shivered.

A soft rattling sound made my breath catch in my throat.

Was I starting to hear things?

I pulled off my hood to hear better.

Silence now.

“I think I know where I can find some candles,” Seth whispered. “You two wait
here. Don’t move.”

“D-don’t worry,” I stammered. I didn’t plan to go anywhere until I could see!

I heard Seth move away, making soft, scraping footsteps over the floor,
keeping as quiet as he could. His footsteps faded into silence.

Then I felt another rush of cold wind against the back of my neck.

“Oh!” I cried out when I heard the rattling again.

A gentle rattling. Like the rattling of bones.

Another cold gust of wind swept over me. A ghost’s cold breath, I thought. My
whole body shook as a chill ran down my back.

I heard the rattling bones again. Louder. A clattering sound. So close.

I reached out in the thick blackness. Tried to grab onto a wall. Or a table.
Or anything.

But my hands grabbed only air.

I swallowed hard. Calm down, Duane, I ordered myself. Seth will be back in a
moment with some candles. Then you’ll see that everything is okay.

But another jangle and clatter of bones made me gasp.

“Steph—did you hear that?” I whispered.

No reply.

A cold wind tingled my neck.

The bones rattled again.

“Steph? Do you hear that noise, too? Steph?”

No reply.

“Stephanie? Steph?” I called.

She was gone.

Panic time.

My breaths came short and fast. My heart clattered louder than the skeleton
bones. My whole body began to shake.

“Stephanie? Steph? Where
are
you?” I choked out weakly.

Then I saw the two yellow eyes moving toward me. Two glowing eyes, floating
silently, gleaming with evil. Coming nearer. Nearer.

I froze.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see anything but those two gleaming, yellow eyes.

“Ohh!” I uttered a moan as they floated closer. And I could see them more
clearly. See that they were candle flames.

Two candle flames, moving side by side.

In the soft yellow light, I saw Seth’s face. And Stephanie’s. They each
carried a lighted candle in front of them.

“Stephanie—where
were
you?” I cried in a choked whisper. “I—I
thought—”

“I went with Seth,” she replied calmly.

The orange glow from her candle washed over me. I guess Stephanie could see
how panicked I was. “I’m sorry, Duane,” she said softly. “I said I was going
with Seth. I thought you heard me.”

“S-something is rattling,” I stammered. “Bones, I think. I keep feeling a
cold wind, and I keep hearing—”

Seth handed me a candle. “Light it,” he instructed. “We’ll look around. See
what’s rattling.”

I took the candle and raised it to his. But my hand was shaking so badly, it
took me five tries to light the wick. Finally, the candle flamed to life.

I gazed around in the flickering orange light.

“Hey—we’re in the kitchen,” Stephanie whispered.

A gust of cold wind blew past me. “Did you feel that?” I cried.

Seth pointed his candle flame toward the kitchen window. “Look, Duane—that
window-pane. It’s missing. The cold air is blowing in through the hole.”

“Oh. Right.”

Another blast of air. And then the rattling.

“Did you hear it?” I demanded.

Stephanie giggled. She pointed to the kitchen wall. In the dim light, I saw big pots and pans hanging on the wall. “The
wind is making them rattle,” Stephanie explained.

“Ha-ha.” I uttered a feeble laugh. “I knew that. I was just trying to scare
you,” I lied. “You know. Give you a thrill.”

I felt like a total jerk. But why should I admit that a bunch of pots on the
wall nearly had me scared out of my skin?

“Okay. No more jokes,” Stephanie insisted, turning to Seth. “We want to see a
real ghost.”

“Follow me. I’ll show you something that Otto told me about,” Seth whispered.

Holding his candle in front of him, he led the way across the kitchen to the
wall beside the stove. He lowered his candle in front of a cabinet door. Then he
pulled open the cabinet door and moved the candle closer so we could see inside.

“Why are you showing us a kitchen cabinet?” I demanded. “What’s scary about
that?”

“It’s not a cabinet,” Seth replied. “It’s a dumbwaiter. Watch.” He reached
inside and pulled a rope beside the cabinet shelf. The shelf began to slide up.

He raised the shelf, then lowered it. “See? This dumbwaiter is like a little
elevator. It was used to send food from the kitchen to the master bedroom
upstairs.”

“You mean for midnight snacks?” I joked.

Seth nodded. “The cook would put the food on the shelf. Then he would pull
the rope, and the shelf would carry it upstairs.”

“Thrills and chills,” I said sarcastically.

“Yeah. Why are you showing it to us?” Stephanie demanded.

Seth brought the candle up close to his face. “Otto told me that this
dumbwaiter is haunted. A hundred and twenty years ago, things suddenly started
to go wrong with it.”

Stephanie and I moved closer. I lowered my candle and examined the dumbwaiter
cabinet. “What went wrong?” I asked.

“Well,” Seth began softly, “the cook would put food on the shelf and send it
upstairs. But when the shelf reached the bedroom up there, the food was gone.”

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at Seth. “It disappeared between the first and
second floor?”

Seth nodded solemnly. His gray eyes glowed in the soft candlelight. “This
happened several times. When the shelf reached the second floor, it was empty.
The food had vanished.”

“Wow,” I murmured.

“The cook became very frightened,” Seth continued. “He was afraid that the
dumbwaiter had become haunted. He decided to stop using it. And he ordered
everyone on his staff never to use the dumbwaiter again.”

“And that’s the end of the story?” I asked.

Seth shook his head. “And then something horrible happened.”

Stephanie’s mouth dropped open. “What? What happened?”

“Some kids were visiting the house. One of them was a boy named Jeremy.
Jeremy was a real show-off, and very athletic. When he saw the dumbwaiter, he
decided it would be fun to ride it to the second floor.”

“Oh, wow,” Stephanie murmured.

I felt a chill. I thought I could guess what was coming.

“So Jeremy squeezed onto the shelf. And one of the other kids pulled the
rope. Suddenly the rope caught. The kid couldn’t get it to move up or down.
Jeremy was stuck somewhere between the floors.

“The other kids called up to him, ‘Are you okay?’ But Jeremy didn’t reply.
They started to get very worried. They tugged and tugged, but they couldn’t move
the rope.

“Then suddenly, the shelf came crashing back down.”

“And was Jeremy on it?” I asked eagerly.