R. L. Stine_Mostly Ghostly 03 (2 page)

We heard someone humming. A woman's voice.

“Lulu!” Tara whispered.

Lulu, our old housekeeper, is a ghost too. She pops up in the kitchen from time to time. We beg her to tell us about Mom and Dad. But she's very old and her spirit is very faint. She tries to help us. She really does. But we haven’t learned much from her.

Maybe today …

“Glory, glory, it's good to see you kids!” Lulu exclaimed as we hurried into the kitchen. She wore a white apron over her long gray jumper. Her white hair was tied tightly in a bun behind her head.

She bent to pick up a frying pan from the floor. “I … I was making breakfast for you. But the pan slipped out of my hands. Glory, how foolish.”

I helped Lulu pick up the pan. There were eggs sizzling inside it. We set it on the stove.

“So weak these days,” Lulu said, starting to fade from sight. “Glory, I feel so weak. Can’t even hold a frying pan. …”

She vanished. The kitchen grew silent except for the ghostly eggs sizzling in the pan.

“Lulu, come back!” Tara pleaded. “We need to talk to you. Come back!”

Lulu's spatula appeared, floating by itself in the air. Then her pale arm, skin sagging. Then the rest of her. “Glory, it's good to see you.”

“Lulu, help us,” Tara said. She grabbed the old woman's hand. “Mom and Dad were scientists, right. And—”

“Such smart people,” Lulu interrupted. “Everyone said so.”

“And they captured a bunch of evil ghosts and locked them up somewhere, right?” Tara
continued. “But a ghost named Phears helped the evil ghosts escape.”

“The eggs are burning,” Lulu said, scraping the pan with the spatula. “Glory, I feel so weak again.”

“No!”
Tara shouted. She reached out for Lulu's hand. “I won’t let you get away. You have to help us.”

“Phears and his cat,” Lulu said. “That Phears was an evil one. But glory, he loved his cat.”

“Where did all those ghosts go?” I asked. “They’re our only clue. Maybe they can lead us to Mom and Dad.”

“Do you know anything about those ghosts?” Tara demanded.

“Glory,” Lulu whispered, and disappeared again.

Somehow the spatula ended up in Tara's hand. The pan of eggs had vanished with Lulu.

We waited without moving. It seemed like hours, but finally Lulu returned, faint now, a blur of gray and white. “Colder than the grave,” she whispered. “That's what you will need, children. Colder than the grave.”

“Lulu, what does that mean?” I cried. “Please—tell us what that means.”

But she was gone again. And this time we knew it was for good.

Tara shook her head hard. “She didn’t make any sense, Nicky.”

I nodded. “She was trying to tell us something. But … ” My voice trailed off. I had a heavy feeling in my stomach. Wasn’t there
anyone
who could help us?

“Max,” Tara muttered. Had she been reading my thoughts? “Where
is
Max? We need his help—desperately.”

I thought hard.

“Oh, yeah. You remember,” I said finally. “Max and his friend went to some crazy haunted house.”

AARON PULLED ME UP
the twisting walk to the creepy old house. The wind howled, making the scraggly hedges bend and creak. All along the front wall, the gray, stained shingles shook and the window shutters rattled. The whole house appeared to shiver and quake in the blowing wind.

“I really don’t want to go in this house,” I said through gritted teeth. I brushed snowflakes off my eyebrows. “We’re going to freeze our tails off in there, Aaron.”

“So?” He stared at me through his swim goggles. Aaron wears swim goggles wherever he goes. I once asked him why. He thought about it a long time, then said he didn’t know.

He never wears long pants. He only wears shorts—even on the snowiest days.

Yes, Aaron is totally weird. But he's also my best friend, so what can I do?

“You want to see ghosts, don’t you, Max?” Aaron had to shout over the howling wind.

“No. Not really,” I replied.

I have plenty of ghosts at home.

That's what I wanted to tell Aaron. I had tried to tell him about Nicky and Tara a few times. But each time, he thought I was joking or making up a story. He refused to believe me.

Yes, I have ghosts back home. I don’t need to visit a haunted house to see ghosts.

But here we were, up to our knees in snow on a Saturday night, trudging up to the hulking gray house known as the Grover Mansion.

A haunted house. A
real
one. That's what most people in town believed.

My brother, Colin, told me it took the Grover family thirty years to build the place. That's because it's as big as some castles.

And when it came time for the Grovers to die, they refused to go—because they wanted to stay in the house forever. And so the Grovers haunt the house to this day. And they come out every night just before dawn.

Of course, Colin is a big liar. But everyone in town has a story about the Grover Mansion. Everyone thinks it's haunted.

The house has been abandoned for years. The whole block is deserted. Just overgrown lawns and shabby empty houses with shutters banging and the wind whistling through holes in the roofs.

You can’t blame people for moving away. Who wants to live next to a haunted house?

We stepped onto the front stoop. The welcome mat was half covered in snow. I kicked the snow away to read the mat. It didn’t say
WELCOME
. It said
GOOD-BYE
.

“Check out the mailbox,” Aaron said.

I turned and read the name on the rusted mailbox:
DOOM HOUSE
.

I shivered. Not from fright. From the snow and freezing wind. “Aaron, let's go,” I said. “We’re not going to see any real ghosts here. And we’re going to get in major trouble staying overnight. If our parents find out … ” I shivered again.

“They’re not going to find out,” Aaron said. “Your parents think you’re at my house. And my parents think I’m at your house.”

“But—but—” I sputtered.

“And what if we really see some ghosts?” he said. He raised his camcorder. “What if we see ghosts and we get them on tape? Then we’ll be famous. We’ll be on TV. We’ll be celebrities. And Ms. McDonald will have to let us do our social studies project on ghosts.”

“But she said we couldn’t do our project on ghosts, remember?” I said. “Ms. McDonald said ghosts aren’t social studies. She assigned us a project—remember? The history of Paraguay?”

Aaron made a face. “Paraguay? What's a Paraguay?”

“About three pounds,” I said.

Aaron didn’t laugh at my joke. “Max, maybe Ms. McDonald will change her mind. If we find real ghosts and get them on the camcorder, she’ll
have
to change her mind. And maybe she won’t flunk me and make me do fifth grade all over again.”

You see, Aaron was in major trouble. He never did any homework. He just didn’t believe in it.

But Ms. McDonald finally put her foot down. She said if Aaron didn’t get an A on this project, he’d have to repeat fifth grade. And maybe third and fourth grade too!

“Look, Aaron, there aren’t going to be any ghosts in here and you know it,” I argued. “It's just an old house that's been empty for a lot of years. Someone made up a ghost story about it, and someone else made up another one. And now everyone believes them. But they’re just made-up stories.”

I shivered again and pulled my parka tighter. I stamped my boots on the
GOOD-BYE
mat. My feet were both frozen numb.

Aaron grabbed the rusted doorknob. “Come on. If we don’t see anything by dawn, we can go. And we’ll do a project on the history of ghosts in Paraguay.”

“Ha, ha,” I said. My lips were frozen too. I could barely open my mouth to laugh.

Aaron turned the doorknob—and it came off in his hand. “Hey!” he cried out in surprise.

The door creaked open. Aaron pushed it open all the way. We stared into the foggy gray light of the front hallway. A whiff of cold air washed over me. Cold, sour air.

I shuddered.

“Let's go in,” Aaron whispered. He stepped inside and I followed him.

We took two or three steps into the dark hallway—and the front door slammed behind us.

I JUMPED A MILE
into the air. “Hey—who
did
that?” I cried.

Aaron's eyes bulged behind his swim goggles. “M-maybe it was just the wind,” he stammered.

I pulled a flashlight from my backpack and shone it around. We stepped into the living room. Our boots clanked noisily on the bare wooden floor. The furniture was all covered with yellowed bedsheets.

Aaron cupped his hands around his mouth. “Anyone home?” he shouted. His words echoed in the big empty room. “Hello? Any ghosts here?”

Silence.

“Duh. Good try,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Ghosts always come out when you call them.”

Aaron shrugged. “Whatever.” He raised the camcorder and aimed it at himself.

He pushed the Record button. “Saturday night. Twenty-one hundred hours. We have reached our destination and are ready to explore.”

He pushed the button again. Then he turned to me. “Just setting the scene. You know.”

I squinted at him. “It's nine o’clock. Why did you say twenty-one hundred hours?”

“I was trying to impress the ghosts,” he replied.

I told you he's weird.

We started to explore the enormous living room. The sheets draped over the couches and chairs were thick with dust. I raised my light and saw a blanket of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and clinging to one wall. Cobwebs covered the glass chandelier over the center of the room.

“No one has been in here for ages,” I whispered.

A sound above our heads made us both gasp. Loud creaking.

“Hello? Is someone upstairs?” Aaron shouted. He raised his camcorder and aimed it toward the curving stairway at the back wall.

Silence now.

We moved into the next room, a dining room. A long table covered in a white tablecloth. At least, I
thought
it was a tablecloth—until I stepped closer. And saw that the table was actually covered with cobwebs.

“Hey!” I cried out as I stepped in something sticky.

“What's your problem? Did you find anything?” Aaron asked, hurrying over to me.

I lowered my flashlight to the floor—and saw that I had stepped into a sticky puddle of green goo.

“Ectoplasm!” Aaron declared. “Ghosts always leave ectoplasm behind.”

“It's probably bubble gum,” I said.

I mean, I had two real ghosts at home, and they didn’t leave green goo behind everywhere they went.

Aaron bent down to study it. “Yes!” He pumped his fists in the air. “Definitely ectoplasm. This is proof. Quick, Max—put your boot back in the goo.”

“Excuse me? You want me to—?”

“Hurry. I’ve got to get this on tape.”

With a sigh, I stuck my boot back in the green goo. Aaron lowered the camcorder and taped a close-up. “First sighting,” he said in a serious, deep voice. “First evidence that ghosts are here.”

I unstuck myself and we moved to the next room—a large den with a broad stone fireplace against one wall. “We’re getting close. I know it!” Aaron said.

“Aaron, don’t get your hopes up,” I said. I glanced at the cobwebs that covered the window like a shade. “It's just us and a million spiders.”

But then we heard the creaking overhead again. The ceiling groaned. Wind made the windowpanes rattle.

And from somewhere far away, I thought I heard laughter.

SOFT AT FIRST, THEN
louder. Shrill laughter, like someone hitting the highest notes on a piano.

A chill ran down my back. I suddenly felt scared.

I turned to Aaron. “Did you hear that too?”

He stood frozen in front of the fireplace. “Where did it c-come from?” he stammered.

“I … don’t know,” I whispered.

We both stood perfectly still and listened. But the laughter had stopped.

Wind whistled through the windowpanes. Outside, a tree branch tapped hard against the window, as if trying to break in.

“Let's keep moving,” Aaron said. He kept the camcorder raised as we walked quickly down a curving hall and into the next room.

The room seemed to stretch for miles. It was long and bare, except for a faded red carpet and a few scattered wooden chairs. I raised my light to the ceiling high above our heads. Six huge crystal chandeliers formed a line above our heads.

“Wow. This must have been a ballroom or something,” I said. “You know. Like in a castle.”

“Maybe the ghosts still come here and dance,” Aaron said.

“Maybe,” I said, shining my light around the floor.

I nearly dropped the flashlight when I heard the laughter again. Muffled this time, as if coming from behind a closet door.

Cold laughter. Shrill and sharp, like glass breaking.

Aaron and I spun around, expecting to see someone. No. No one.

“Who is it?” Aaron called out. “Who's there?”

Another burst of ugly laughter, farther away this time.

The laughter sent chill after chill down my back. If there were ghosts in this house, they definitely weren’t friendly!

“It's coming from over there,” Aaron said. He pointed to a doorway at the other end of the ballroom. “Let's go.”

We made our way back into the long, curving hallway. Then we both stopped and looked around. “Which way did we come into the house?” I asked. “I’m all turned around.”

“Me too,” Aaron said. “This place is too big.”

A blast of cold wind made me gasp. The air
felt wet and heavy on my cheeks. Where did it come from?

Another swirling gust made Aaron and me turn our backs to it. “Did someone leave a door open?” Aaron asked.

“It … isn’t this windy outside,” I said. “It's like a wind tunnel in here.”

“The ghosts …, ” Aaron said. “They don’t want us to go that way. They’re trying to keep us out.”

The wind howled through the hallway, pushing us back. Aaron and I ducked into a small room. It was narrow and low-ceilinged, and it had no windows.