by R. L. Stine
“I can’t remember the last time I had a visitor,” she says, and pats my hand. “When you get to be a certain age, everyone you know is gone long, long ago.”
She looks up at the photo of her brother.
“Now, tell me, are you here visiting from a school? Did they send you to cheer us up?”
“Not exactly,” I say.
An orderly passes in the hallway outside her room and grumbles at a weak old man snoozing in a wheelchair.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask in a low voice. I lean in, and she does the same. “Do you like it here?”
“This old rattrap? No. I don’t like it one bit.” Now she straightens up. She looks kind of indignant. “They’re rude to us, and they make the most horrible food. All of it comes out of a can; did you know that? Even the meat! I guess they think because we’ve lost some teeth we’ve forgotten what food tastes like!”
I smile.
“Good,” I say. “They’ve got an opening at this other place, and I bet we could get you in.” I take a brochure out of my pocket. It’s for the best senior center in all of Virginia: the Residences at Darien Park. “It’s got a gourmet restaurant, and activities you can do. They have classes in, like, photography and ballroom dancing and, like, learning Facebook—”
“Oh,” she cuts me off, laughing. “You’re funny. I like you! You remind me of my brother, Billy. You really do.”
This is as good a time as any, I guess. I take the watch I got from Billy out of my pocket.
“I . . . I found this,” I tell her as I hand it to her.
She takes the watch with a look of wonder on her face.
“Where?” she asks.
“In the basement of a factory,” I tell her. As she examines the watch, I really wish I could tell her the whole story, but I’m not allowed to tell her the truth.
After I staggered out of the factory, the supervisor of the crew called my folks and the police. They wrapped me in a silver space blanket, made me sit in an ambulance, and gave me some hot cocoa. My folks rushed there, and I got to talk to them in private, in the back of the ambulance.
I told my parents the story—the whole crazy story—from the brick sailing through my window to my last glimpse of the ghost of Billy Gust. Then I sat there, just waiting for them to scold me for telling tales.
But my parents believed me.
“You’ve never made up a story like that before,” my mom said. “Can’t think why you’d start now.”
Soon, news vans and reporters were everywhere. The wall to the secret room was broken down, and Billy’s skeleton and all the gold were found. My parents made me promise never to mention the ghost boy. Not to anyone. I think they didn’t want me getting sent to a nuthouse.
I told the police everything else. Especially about the two thugs who shut me down in the cellar and left me to die. The police picked up Mandry and Finn at a local bar, where they were drinking and showing all their friends the bag of old money. Now they’re in jail and awaiting trial. Hope they like how it feels to be locked up, ’cause they’re gonna stay that way for a long time.
Anyway, it all means that I’m not supposed to tell Wilhelmina Gust anything about the ghost of her brother. And it’s hard. I cross my arms and sigh while she turns the watch over in her frail hands.
“What an amazing gift!” she says. “My father’s watch! And you tracked me down? Thank you, son!”
With trembling fingers she opens it. For a long moment she just sits, looking at the photo of her and her brother on the inside cover.
“Our father died when we were little, and Mother took in boarders to pay the bills. Times were lean. Then Billy got mixed up in a rough crowd. He never told me what he did, but I knew he was working for those dirty bootleggers. He always told me we were going to live in style.”
She fumbles for a tissue from a box next to her and dabs it on her eyes.
“Then there was a raid, down near the bottle factory, and the bootleggers were taken to jail. Our Billy. . . . He just never came back.”
Everything makes sense to me now. Billy must have been trapped down there during the raid, and no one ever found him.
The old woman pats my hand and laughs softly.
“I’m really sorry about that,” I say. “I bet. . . . I bet your brother was really sad about it too.”
“Well, you’re talking about him like you know him,” Wilhelmina tuts, a twinkle in her eye.
“I do know him,” I blurt out.
“How’s that?” she asks.
Just then I hear my dad clear his throat behind me. He’s standing in the doorway. He gives me a look meant to remind me of my promise not to tell anyone about Billy’s ghost.
“I guess it’s just the picture in the watch,” I say. “He looks nice. Like a kid who would take care of his sister, no matter what.”
Ms. Gust smiles at me. “Oh, you’re a dear one. And you’re right, that’s just the kind of boy he was. A good boy, like you.”
My father steps into the room. After he introduces himself to Ms. Gust, he tells her about the skeleton of her brother and the gold that I found. He explains we’ve decided to pay for her care at the Residences at Darien Park, if she likes the idea.
“I don’t like it, I love it!” she says. She has tears in her eyes. “And to think Billy’s body will finally be laid to rest. Oh what a day! And what a brave son you have. And generous!” she tells my dad. “You and your wife must be very proud.”
“We sure are,” Dad says. Now he’s got tears in his eyes! I feel really awkward, and my neck gets all hot. I look down at my feet, wishing I could disappear into the gold- and brown-flecked carpeting.
All of a sudden my shoulders go freezing cold. I gasp and try to pull away.
It’s Billy! He’s hugging me, grinning like a fool.
I struggle out of his icy hug, and knock a lamp off a side table. “I told you not to do that!” I shout.
My dad and Ms. Gust both turn to look at me, shocked at my outburst.
I give a lame little chuckle. “Sorry?”
“Jamal’s had a rough couple of days,” Dad says apologizing. “I should take him home to rest.” My dad lifts the lamp and puts it back on the table.
Ms. Gust says she understands, and my dad takes hold of my shoulders and steers me out of the room. But before I go I steal a look over my shoulder. Billy’s ghost is standing behind his sister, looking at the watch in her hands. He waves good-bye to me, still grinning.
I raise my hand and wave back.
Then my dad hauls me off down the hall and out into the sunshine.
In the parking lot, Dad opens the doors of our brand-new Mercedes. He didn’t want to be too showy with our new money, but my mom pointed out they were having a sale down at the dealership, so. . . .
“Let’s go home,” he says.
I grab my skateboard from the back seat.
“If it’s okay with you,” I say, “I’ll ride.”
Ring and Run
by Steve Hockensmith
IT WAS A DARK AND stormy night.
Cooper didn’t like dark and stormy nights. He especially didn’t like dark and stormy nights in his new neighborhood. He liked quiet, calm nights back in Indianapolis, before everything changed.
It was Halloween, though, so some rain wasn’t going to keep his brother, Dan, from going out. But their older sister, Abby, was. Which was why it was dark and stormy inside too.
“YOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Dan screamed.
Abby sprawled on the couch, cell phone held up before her face. She cupped her left hand to her ear while texting with her right. “Did you say something, young man? You’ll have to speak up.”
Dan leaned over her. “YOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! YOU SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK!”
“Sorry,” Abby said. “Still can’t hear you.”
Dan whirled around and started stomping around the living room. “Dad said you have to take us trick-or-treating if th
e rain stops before he’s back from his thing!”
“His date,” Cooper said. He was looking out the window at the gloomy, wet, empty street. Nobody heard him.
“And it did stop raining so you have to get off your butt and go!” Dan went on.
“I still hear rain,” Abby said, thumbs stabbing at her phone.
“That’s just drops falling off the trees!”
“It’s water from the sky. Rain.”
“YOU SUCK!”
“And by the way, Dad didn’t say I have to take you trick-or-treating. He said I could. It’s a choice.”
Dan marched over and started kicking the couch. “You SUCK! You SUCK! You SUCK!”
Abby finally lowered her phone. “All right, stop it, geez! We’ll put it to a vote!”
Dan stepped back.
“A vote?” he said warily.
Abby nodded. “On whether I should take you trick-or-treating. Majority rules.” She raised her hand. “I vote nay.”
Dan shot up his hand. “And I vote yes!”
Then he saw the trap.
It was up to Cooper.
Cooper who didn’t like dark and stormy nights. Cooper who didn’t like dark or stormy nights. Cooper who didn’t like nights, especially in their new house out in the middle of nowhere.
Dan turned to his little brother. “Come on, Cooper. Say yes,” he said. “Don’t be a little wuss.”
Cooper almost said no, just because of the “little wuss” part. Dan was always calling him a little wuss. It hurt because it felt true. Then he noticed what Abby was doing.
She wasn’t even looking at him. She’d gone back to texting. That’s how sure she was that he’d be too scared to leave the house.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yeah! Majority rules!” Dan whooped. “In your face, Abby! We are gonna get us some tuh-REATS!” He ran off to look for his shoes.
Abby lowered her phone again and stared at Cooper. He thought she was going to be mad at him. Maybe try to scare him into staying in or tell him trick-or-treating was for babies.
Instead she just said, “You sure?”
Cooper wasn’t. But he nodded anyway.
Abby rolled off the couch. “All right,” she said. “Let’s see what kind of candy they give out around here.”
Cooper, who was ten, was Batman.
Dan, who was twelve, was a Jedi.
Abby, who was fifteen, was the meaningless void at the center of existence. And burnt toast. And a Tootsie Roll.
She was wearing the black jeans and black T-shirt and black hoodie she always wore, and every few houses she announced that it was a different costume.
“I am a black crayon,” she said.
Then later: “I am a goth mime.”
And later: “I am a Hoosier ninja.”
And a little later: “I am the president’s dark, twisted soul.”
“Don’t get political,” Dan told her.
“Why? Because we live in the boondocks now, and I might offend somebody?”
“Yes,” Dan said. “And then they might not give us any candy. So shut up.”
Abby thought it over as Dan led them to their next stop. It was a house like most of the others in their new neighborhood. Big yard. Lots of trees. Long driveway with a pickup truck (or two). Quiet. Rural. Boring.
“I am a charcoal briquette,” she announced. She looked over at Cooper, who’d been sticking close to her since they’d left their house. “How you doing?”
“Good,” Cooper said, even though walking along the sidewalk-free country road made him nervous; and the black, starless sky overhead made him nervous; and the occasional rumble of distant thunder made him really, really nervous.
Dan hopped up onto the porch and rang the doorbell. Slowly, cautiously, Cooper walked up to stand beside him. Talking to strangers made him nervous, too.
“Trick or treat!” Dan said when the door swung open.
“Trick or treat,” said Cooper.
Abby didn’t say anything. She’d gone back to texting.
They’d been to a half dozen houses before Cooper saw any other trick-or-treaters: a princess and a Spider-Man, both barely old enough to walk, toddled along on the opposite side of the road. A fully grown witch walked between them, holding each by the hand.
“Remember that time . . . ,” Cooper started but trailed off.
“That time what?” said Dan.
“Never mind.”
Abby glanced up from her phone and saw what Cooper had been looking at: the woman with the two little kids.
“The time Mom was a witch for Halloween,” she said.
Cooper nodded. “And her fake nose fell into Ruby Wiltrout’s trick-or-treat bag and totally freaked her out?”
“I remember,” Abby said.
“Oh yeah,” Dan said, grinning. “That was hilarious.”
“It seems like yesterday,” said Cooper. “Sometimes it actually seems like right now when I think about Mom. Like she’s not gone. I can almost feel her about to—”
The darkness around them suddenly disappeared, replaced by a flash of harsh, white light that flared across the trees and mailboxes and houses. A moment later the thunder came. As it faded, it was replaced by a new sound: hysterical crying.
The woman across the road had turned and was now dragging her children in the opposite direction.
They were going home. Cooper and Dan and Abby were about to be the only trick-or-treaters again.
“Good,” Dan said grimly, his grin gone. “More for us.”
He started walking faster. For a while Cooper just concentrated on keeping up.
They had to skip a lot of houses. Most didn’t have their lights on, so minutes would go by when Cooper, Abby, and Dan were just walking, looking for the next place that seemed like a good candidate for a stop. Each step, hopefully, brought them closer to something sweet. And each step, Cooper knew, took them farther from home.
Abby noticed him glancing back at the long stretch of dark road behind them. “You know what Halloween is?”
“The best day of the year besides Christmas?” Dan said through a mouthful of half-chewed M&M’s.
They’d turned toward a house with Styrofoam gravestones out front and plastic skeleton hands sprouting from the lawn and a life-size scarecrow propped stiffly on a chair by the porch.
Abby pointed at the phony tombstones. IVANA B. BREATHIN’: 1905–1975 was written on one. Another read: SURFIN’ SAM: CAUGHT GREAT WAVES TILL THE GREAT WHITE CAUGHT HIM: REST IN PIECES.
“Halloween’s when we laugh at death,” Abby said. “Turn it into something silly so we realize we don’t have to be afraid of it. We can be, like, ‘You don’t bother me, bro. I’m dressed like Batman and I’ve got a buttload of free candy. I am alive, and life is good.’”
Dan swallowed his M&M’s and rolled his eyes. “Very deep.”
“Sounds like something Adam would say,” said Cooper.
Abby smiled at him, then looked back down at her phone.
“That was all me, actually,” she said, typing with her thumbs again. “But I’ll tell Adam you said hi.”
They were only a few steps from the house now, but Cooper was more interested in his sister’s texting.
“Ask him what the weather’s like in Indy,” he said, leaning close to try to look at her phone. “I bet it’s not raining. I bet everyone we know has been out for hours and has a zillion pieces of candy. I bet it’s just like the last time we went trick-or-treating with—”
“GOT YA!” roared the scarecrow on the porch, springing from its seat and lunging at them.
Cooper screamed, tossed his trick-or-treat bag twenty feet into the air, and fell over backward.
Dan whirled around shrieking and ran straight into a tree.
Abby looked up from her phone and spat out a startled “Geez!” When she realized what she was looking at—a man in a scarecrow costume looming over her prone, petrified little brother—she sighed.
“Not cool
, man,” she said. “Not cool.”
The scarecrow felt so badly he knelt down to help Cooper collect the candy he spilled when the screaming started.
“I’m sorry,” the man said, dropping a Blow Pop and a fun-size Butterfinger into Cooper’s bag. “We usually don’t get many trick-or-treaters, and tonight there’ve been hardly any. So I haven’t had many chances to scare anybody, and . . . well, I guess I overdid it a little bit.”
“Gee, ya think?” said Abby.
She’d crouched down beside Cooper and was staring at his face in a way he hated—because he knew she was looking to see if he was crying.
“It’s okay,” Cooper said, voice trembling, eyes down. He swept his hands over a dark patch of grass near the porch. “I just want my candy. The last house we went to they were giving out Snickers bars. Full-size. And now I can’t find mine.”
“I think I have bark in my teeth,” said Dan. He stood beside the tree he’d run into, cautiously probing his mouth with his fingertips.
The scarecrow hopped to his feet and snatched a large metal bowl off the porch.
“Here. Take as much as you want,” he said. He began pulling out fistfuls of candy and tossing them into Cooper’s bag. “Take all of it.”
He walked over to Dan and dumped the rest of the candy into his bag.
“You should call it a night anyway,” he said. “It’s getting late, and another storm’s supposed to blow in any minute. It’s not gonna be safe out here.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right,” said Abby. She looked into Cooper’s face again. “What do you think? Had enough?”
“No way!” said Dan. “My bag’s not even half full!”
Abby kept looking at Cooper.
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
“One more street! One more street!” Dan chanted.
The front yard went from gloomy gray to nearly pitch-black. The scarecrow had stepped inside and flicked off his porch light.
“Well . . . happy Halloween,” he said as he closed the front door.
What little light had been left was gone.
“What is this stuff, anyway?” Dan asked as he and Cooper and Abby walked back to the road. He reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of the candy the scarecrow had just given him. Some of it was in plain orange wrappers. The rest was wrapped in solid black.