Part 11 (1/2)

”That was my next guess!” Theresa insisted.

”Becky! That's not very nice! You apologize to him!” said her mother, in that Scolding Parent voice I've never quite been able to perfect.

”All right, I'm going back inside,” I decided. ”I'll give him one last chance to come out.”

”What if he doesn't?” asked Becky's mom.

”I don't know yet. I'll be back in five minutes, tops.”

I returned to the house and stepped into the living room, which was still empty. Once again I got that creeped-out feeling, along with the already present feelings of anger and worry.

”Roger, you're taking this way too far,” I announced in a loud voice. ”Theresa's in the car crying. Come on out.”

No response.

”If you don't come out, I'm going to have to a.s.sume that something happened to you, and I'll have to call the police. I'm pretty sure you don't want to explain to the cops that you were hiding out in an abandoned house just to play a joke on some kids. Get out here.”

Still nothing.

Fine. I'd do one last quick search of the house, and then contact the police. What a lousy Halloween. No candy, no creative use of the candy after the kids were asleep, possible trespa.s.sing charges...Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws was looking better and better.

I went back upstairs and waved my flashlight in every possible place that Roger could fit, all the while sharing a loud running commentary about what I was going to do to him when I found him, which included a list of the top five locations on his body that might serve as the flashlight's final resting place.

He wasn't anywhere upstairs. And there was simply no way he'd let the joke go on this long. Something had happened to him. It was officially time to go for help.

I went back to the staircase. As I headed downstairs, my flashlight beam shone across the face of an old man standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me. I recognized the face from the newspaper photos. Jarvis Taywood.

I tried to say ”What the-,” ”Holy-,” and ”AAAIIIIEEEE!!!” all at the same time. It came out as an incoherent gurgle. I dropped the flashlight, which bounced down the stairs and rolled away. The figure was gone.

It took me a good fifteen seconds to realize that I needed to breathe, and another fifteen seconds after that to actually regain the ability to do so. One track of my mind kept insisting that there was a perfectly logical explanation, while another kept saying, ”I do believe in spooks! I do believe in spooks! I do I do I do!”

No, I didn't. There was a perfectly logical explanation for this. Roger wearing a Jarvis Taywood mask, for example. Everything would be explained as soon as I walked down the stairs to investigate.

The dark stairs.

I walked slowly, carefully, making sure I didn't fall and kill myself, which would've been a pretty major act of party p.o.o.ping if this did turn out to be a joke. I reached the bottom without any death on my part, then hurried over and retrieved the flashlight.

Then I waved the flashlight beam all over the living room, trying to catch a glimpse of Jarvis Taywood or his ghost. Nothing. Rationally, I knew that the best course of action was to rush outside and tell Becky's mom to call the police, but I also knew that Roger could be in immediate danger. I headed into the kitchen.

Nothing there, either. No place to hide except the pantry.

Inside the pantry, something fell. I let out a rather embarra.s.sing yelp.

I held up the flashlight at a suitable angle for bas.h.i.+ng somebody's head if the need arose, then threw open the pantry door and quickly stepped back.

It was empty. A can of spinach rolled against my feet.

Could a ghost topple spinach? Would it have any reason to?

And then, with a barely audible creak, the inside wall of the pantry slowly began to swing open, like a door.

I pulled it open all the way, revealing another room slightly smaller than the pantry, containing nothing but a ladder leading down into a hole in the dirt floor.

”Whoa,” was the best I could think to whisper to myself, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even p.r.o.nounce it correctly.

This was definitely the time to call the police.

Roger screamed from down below.

There was definitely not time to call the police.

I peered down into the hole, but while there was a definite flickering below, I couldn't see anything else. I didn't dare s.h.i.+ne my flashlight down there, or even climb down the ladder, not if I wanted to take the old man by surprise. Instead I turned around, praying that this meant I'd be facing the right direction when I landed, stepped backward, and dropped down into the darkness.

I wasn't sure how far I fell. It was far enough that I dropped to my knees with a jolt of pain, but not far enough to shatter any bones.

When I looked up, the first thing that caught my attention was the old man rus.h.i.+ng at me with a meat cleaver.

I jumped to my feet and swung the flashlight, bas.h.i.+ng him across the face. The old man was knocked to the side, the weapon still in his grasp. He struck the wall and began stumbling back toward me, so I gave him another solid bash with the flashlight and he hit the floor. He didn't move.

We were in what looked exactly like a mobile home with reinforced walls. It probably was a mobile home with reinforced walls. There was a large shelf of canned goods, as well as a shelf of books. The place was lit by a couple of candles and a kerosene lamp.

Roger lay on a bed, his arms over his head and his wrists handcuffed to the metal bedposts. ”The guy's crazy!” he shrieked. ”He's a total lunatic! A total complete lunatic! Crazy! I'm not kidding, he's crazy! Oh my G.o.d he's crazy!”

”I sort of got that from the meat cleaver,” I said, walking over to the bed. ”Do you know where the keys to the handcuffs are?”

”They're in his pocket! He's crazy! He was going to eat me!”

I frowned. ”He was going to eat you?”

”Yes! He was going to eat my freakin' leg! Have you ever had some crazy guy say he's gonna eat your leg? It's disturbing! It's really disturbing!”

So in the course of about a minute I'd gone from exploring a haunted house to dealing with a meat-cleaver wielding cannibal. Life is quaint sometimes.

”Just calm down,” I said. ”I'm not going to let him eat your leg. I'm going to go over there, get the keys, set you free, and then we'll go back upstairs where n.o.body ever gets eaten.”

”Are you sure he's unconscious?”

”No. That's why I'm going to drop a can of...” I picked a can off the shelf, ”...yams on his head.”

”Maybe a book would work better,” Roger suggested.

I looked over at the other wall. ”They're all paperback.”

”No, I saw a hardcover one.”

I surveyed the bookshelf, and there was indeed a thick hardcover novel. I pulled it off the shelf. ”The Stand! Perfect! He'll be out for hours!”

”Maybe you should drop the can of yams too, just to be sure,” said Roger.

”Good thinking.”