Sleepy Hollow Sleepover (3 page)

The horse plodded through the woods. After a few minutes, it stopped next to a tree. Halfway up the trunk, Dink saw a wide black hole. The driver
reached over and thumped the trunk with a pole he’d had on the seat next to him.

Suddenly an explosion of black flying objects erupted from the hole. High-pitched squeaking filled the air around the wagon. Dink saw, heard, and felt hundreds of bats darting past him into the night.

“DIVE!” Ruth Rose screamed. The six kids buried themselves in the hay. Dink could hear giggling and felt the hay scratching his face.

Then they heard the driver laughing. The wagon lurched forward, and once more the horse trudged along.

“You planned that, right?” Josh asked the driver. Like the other kids on the wagon, Josh had hay stuck in his hair.

The driver didn’t answer. He flicked the horse’s neck with the reins.

The horse continued walking forward,
not at all bothered by the bats.

Josh crawled back to the other kids. “That guy’s creeping me out,” he said. “There’s something weird about him. He doesn’t talk. What if he kidnaps us? What if he’s really a ghoul and he takes us to his cave and—”

“Ghouls don’t live in caves,” Ruth Rose said.

“Yeah, they live in graves!” Candy said, raising her voice.

“Hey, Candy, you made a poem!” Adam said.

Dink laughed and lay back in the hay. Suddenly something flew toward the wagon out of the darkness. Dink tried to burrow down into the hay. “Watch out!” he yelled.

“IT’S A WITCH!” Ruth Rose yelled, laughing at the same time. “Watch out, Josh, she’s gonna put you in her pot and boil you with a bunch of frogs’ eyes!”

“Yummy!” Josh said. “I love frog stew!”

All six kids began laughing and yelling.

The witch flew low over the wagon. She wore a black hat and a flowing cloak. As suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone.

“How did he do that?” Andy asked as they all sat up again.

“Who?” his brother asked.

“The driver,” Andy said. “He made those bats attack us, too.”

“Maybe he’s a magic ghoul!” Josh said.

Everyone laughed.

But they stopped laughing when the wagon pulled up next to a small cemetery. Moonlight and shadows made the place look spooky.

The six kids looked over the side of the wagon. There were only about a dozen tombstones. Most were broken and crumbling on the ground. But there was one new-looking grave marker. The stone stood at the head of an open grave. A pile of dirt was mounded next to the hole.

“This is new,” Adam whispered. “There was no grave last year!”

“I don’t like this,” Candy whispered.

Dink didn’t like it, either. He figured
the bats and the witch had been jokes, but this felt different.

Dink started to turn toward the driver, but something caught his eye.

A hand was rising out of the grave! Then came an arm, covered in filthy rags. A second hand and arm appeared, then a face, blotched with dirt. Some of the flesh was peeling off. The hair was ragged, half missing from the awful head.

“I want to go home!” Josh wailed.

The terrible creature crawled from the grave and staggered toward the wagon.

Dink thought he was going to faint. He tried to move, but he had turned to stone.

The man from the grave reached the wagon and jumped onto the ladder.

The kids all screamed as the monster stretched out a hand. He grabbed Dink’s ankle and yelled, “FEED ME!”

The driver turned around and bonked the man on the head with a wooden pole. The man fell off the wagon, onto the trail. He sat up, rubbed his head, and called out, “I’m sooooooo huuunnngry!”

The kids watched the man lurch back toward the open grave.

The wagon continued moving.

“Cool!” Andy said. “Did you see that awesome mask?”

“Mask? Was that another trick?” Josh asked.

“Sure,” Andy said. “All this stuff is planned, just to scare the heck out of us.”

“But he really grabbed me,” Dink said. “I could feel his fingers!”

Just then the driver started laughing. He laughed so hard, he had to put down the reins. The horse stopped walking.

The driver rocked in his seat, holding his head and laughing. Suddenly his head
flew off his shoulders and landed in the hay between the kids. Red gooey blood oozed from the neck.

The six kids screamed and tried to back away from the head.

“Wait a minute,” Adam said. “That’s not a real head. It’s just a hollow pumpkin!”

“He’s right,” Josh said. “Look, it’s been painted to look like a face!”

“And that’s fake blood!” Ruth Rose said.

“That’s right,” a voice said. The kids looked at the driver. A smiling man was looking back at them. “I’m Officer Klevor. Hope my buddy back there didn’t scare you too much.”

“That guy from the grave was your friend?” Dink asked.

The driver nodded, grinning. “Yep. That’s Officer Reilly. We’re both police officers. Ready for the party?”

CHAPTER 4

Officer Klevor flicked the reins, and the horse and wagon began to move again. Minutes later, they came to a wide clearing in the woods. Small lights hung in the trees. Dink could see two other hay wagons parked off to the side. The horses had been unhitched and were grazing. A police cruiser was parked not far from the wagons. The shiny chrome gleamed in the moonlight.

Dink saw a lot of other kids in the clearing. Some wore full costumes, but most just had on masks and were dressed in jeans and sweaters. He noticed several men and women, all wearing masks or costumes. He saw an Elvis, a clown, and a Humpty Dumpty. He figured they were police officers, too. They were setting up games and placing food on two long tables.

Officer Klevor hopped off the wagon. “Okay, kids, jump down,” he said. “We’ve got games and tons of food, and later there’ll be a bonfire.” He
grinned. “Anyone who doesn’t have fun tonight gets arrested!”

The six kids clambered down off the wagon. They wiped hay from their hair and clothing, put on their masks, then ran toward the lights.

“Look,” Josh said. He pointed to a group of kids gathered around a boy who had been blindfolded. He was holding a picture of a man’s face.

“They’re playing pin the head on the headless horseman!” Ruth Rose said. The blindfolded boy staggered forward. Attached to a tree was a picture of a horse with a headless rider.

Everyone in the group laughed when the boy completely missed the tree. One of the police officers whispered something in the boy’s ear, then aimed him in the right direction. The police officer was dressed as a spaceman.

Another group of kids were standing
around a barrel of water, dunking for apples.

Other kids were lawn-bowling. Instead of bowling balls, they used small pumpkins.

“Ruth Rose, can I borrow your phone?” Dink asked. “I’d better call my dad.”

Ruth Rose dug her cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to Dink. He dialed. “Hi, Dad,” he said a few seconds later. “Yeah, we’re here, and it’s awesome. We got attacked by bats and witches and dead guys crawling out of graves. Oh, and our driver’s head fell off! I love this place!”

Dink pushed the button to end the call. He handed the phone back to Ruth Rose. “What do you guys want to do?” he asked.

“Feed me!” Josh said. “I smell hot dogs!”

“I want to dunk for apples,” Ruth Rose said. “I’ll see you guys in a little while.” She headed for the apple dunkers.

“You coming to eat?” Josh asked Dink.

“Not right now,” Dink said. “I think I’ll try that bowling with pumpkins. It looks like fun.”

“Okay, I’ll be at the hot dog table,” Josh said, grinning.
“That
looks like fun!”

“Don’t eat too many,” Dink warned.

“How many is too many?” Josh asked.

Dink laughed. “For you, I’d say about twenty!” he said.

Josh made a goofy face at Dink and jogged toward the food. Dink lowered his mask and walked up to a police officer who seemed to be in charge of the pumpkin bowling. The man wore filthy rags and a mask that looked like rotting flesh.

“Hi,” Dink said. “Are you the guy from the grave?”

The man lifted his mask away from his face. “I sure am,” he said. “But I’m really Officer Reilly. Did I scare you?”