The Haunted Serpent

by Dora M. Mitchell

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Von Slecht said. “Just do your job. Treat my wife.”

  Dr. Darke snarled something under her breath as she held the laboratory door open for Von Slecht and his wife to enter.

  Spaulding’s breathing slowed a little. If they hadn’t been so distracted by squabbling, he was sure they would have sensed they were being spied on. As it was, they disappeared into the lab without even looking around. The door slammed behind them.

  “Whew,” Spaulding breathed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They raced off into the long grass of the field toward the drain tunnel.

  If they had stayed a moment or two longer, they would have heard a commotion inside the lab. There was a crashing and banging of things being thrown around in a frenzy, and a voice sliced through the silence of the factory.

  “Where is my book? I left it right here. It’s not here—it’s not here!”

  The lab door was flung open and smashed into the wall. Dr. Darke stepped out, her face tight with fury. Her sharp eyes scanned the darkening field, where a flattened trail of grass showed the direction Spaulding and Lucy had gone as plainly as a pointing finger. A tiny smile crept across Dr. Darke’s thin lips.

  “Werner,” she said over her shoulder, “unlock the cells. I’m going to need a team of our less friendly specimens.”

  By the time Spaulding got home, he felt like he’d been gone for ages. In fact, it was only a little after dinnertime, but he went straight to bed anyway. He’d never been so tired. He only hoped his worries about what they’d found at the factory wouldn’t keep him awake.

  They didn’t. He fell into a deep sleep as soon as he closed his eyes. When he woke, he couldn’t remember having a single dream to bother him all night long—although, he realized groggily, he hadn’t made it through the night yet. It was still pitch black in his room.

  The back of his neck tingled. Something had woken him from a sound sleep. Someone was in the room.

  He held his breath and lay very still. The floor behind him gave a tiny creak. And then he realized this all felt very familiar.

  He flipped over with a sigh. “Mr. Radzinsky, I told you I didn’t like you coming in unannounced—”

  But it wasn’t Mr. Radzinsky.

  The revenant swayed a little, its bones grinding faintly as it moved. From its throat came a low growl.

  Spaulding felt a ripple of terror like ice water down his back. Growling? That was new. It didn’t seem good.

  He scooted across the bed so fast he fell out the other side, stumbled to his feet, and dashed for the door.

  The creature snatched at him as he passed. Leathery fingers wrapped around his arm.

  Spaulding wrenched hard against its grip. The revenant held on tighter—but the strain was too much for its decomposing hand. With a wet shlurp, Spaulding’s arm slipped free.

  He shuddered, holding his damp arm away from himself. “I’m going to have to disinfect everything in this whole room,” he muttered.

  As he opened the door, a whiff of rot hit his nostrils and a chorus of moans and groans arose from the hallway. Great—more of them. It was dark in the hall, but from what he could see, it was pretty crowded.

  Behind him, the revenant in his room sidled closer, clacking its finger bones greedily.

  He was trapped.

  An angry hissing broke out in the hall. Underlying the stench of death, Spaulding caught the familiar scent of rodents and alligator handbags. Then a long, heavy form swooped down from above, sending the undead flying like bowling pins.

  “David Boa!” Spaulding cried.

  The boa constrictor had apparently been sleeping on top of the bookshelf in the hall, and he didn’t seem too pleased that his nap had been interrupted. Within seconds, he had the revenants in the hall hopelessly entangled. The one in Spaulding’s room tried to make a break for it, but the snake sank his teeth into the creature’s leg and dragged it to the ground with the others.

  While David busied himself with squeezing his victims, Spaulding edged past, heading for Aunt Gwen’s room. “Thanks!” he called over his shoulder. The snake gave a self-satisfied flick of his tongue.

  Spaulding wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to tell her—Hey, Aunt Gwen, sorry I didn’t mention this before, but I’m being stalked by the dead?—but it was clear he had to tell her something. If revenants were going to be attacking them in their own home, it was just too dangerous to keep her in the dark any longer.

  “Aunt Gwen! Wake up!” He lifted a fist to bang on her door, but it swung open at the first touch.

  His heart began to pound. He flicked on the light. It cast a warm glow over the rumpled, empty bed.

  “Aunt Gwen?” he whispered.

  Across the room, the curtains stirred in a breeze from the open window. But Aunt Gwendolyn was always cold. She never left her window open at night.

  Slowly, Spaulding crossed the room and looked out. The yard below was empty. The street was silent.

  “Aunt Gwen . . .” he repeated hopelessly.

  Spaulding wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing at the window, his mind blank, before the silence was broken by the sound of bare feet on pavement. Marietta and Lucy raced up the street.

  “Spaulding!” Marietta waved frantically. Lucy was silent, her face streaked with tears.

  “I’m coming!” he yelled.

  Back in the hall, there was no sign of David or his captives—he must have dragged them off somewhere to dispose of them in private.

  Outside, Lucy sobbed as Spaulding ran up. “They took our dad, Spaulding!” She clutched Daphne to her chest tightly. “What are we going to do? Why would they take him?”

  “They took Aunt Gwen, too.” He realized he was shivering, both from the cold—he was only wearing his pajamas—and from sheer panic.

  “What about Kenny?” Lucy sniffed.

  Spaulding’s heart sank. She was right. Poor Kenny was mixed up in this, too. “We have to go check on him.”

  But Marietta shook her head. “No. This has gone way too far. We have to go straight to the police.”

  “And tell them what?” Spaulding wrapped his arms around himself against the chilly air. “We’ve been over this. They’ll never listen.”

  “But now they’d have to listen! There’s hard evidence—our families are missing.”

  “Yeah, and how do we get them to believe that we know where they are? We say the undead kidnapped them and we know who the necromancer is? That’ll be really convincing. Look, we don’t have time to argue about this. We need to get to Kenny’s house, fast. Then we can figure out what to do next.”

  Marietta scowled, but she didn’t argue anymore. She and Lucy went back to their house to get their bikes and slip on sneakers, and Spaulding did the same. While he was in his room, he grabbed his backpack and threw in his flashlight, notebook, and anything else that seemed as if it might come in handy.

  A few minutes later, they met up again in front of Spaulding’s house. There was a brief delay while they discussed whether Lucy could bring Daphne,

  As Spaulding mounted his bike, an imperious voice rang out behind him. “Just a moment there!”

  He turned to see Mr. Radzinsky glaring at him, his head thrust through the wall of his house. Marietta flinched at the sight of him, and Lucy cowered behind Daphne.

  The ghost eyed the girls a little guiltily. “Hello again, you two. No need to be alarmed.”

  “But you don’t want us to see you!” Lucy squeaked from behind her instrument case.

  Mr. Radzinsky harrumphed and smoothed his hair. “Ah, yes. I suppose I was a bit touchy about that the last time we met. But I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m trying to get out more, make new friends—being dead is no reason not to have a social life, eh? Heh!”

  The girls laughed nervously at Mr. Radzinsky’s little joke and edged farther away as soon as he wasn’t looking.

  The ghost turned to Spaulding. “Now, Spaulding, where is Dav
id? He went to your house over an hour ago.”

  “Yeah, I saw him. Actually, he saved my life. A bunch of revenants tried to kill me, but he protected me.”

  Mr. Radzinsky couldn’t hide a smile. “Well! I’m not surprised. He is very assertive. But if you see him again, send him home directly.”

  Spaulding nodded and turned away.

  “Hold on there.” The ghost leaned farther out of his wall, squinting. “What is that peculiar aura around you?”

  Spaulding looked down at himself. T-shirt, striped pj pants, feet . . . nothing seemed to have an aura.

  “I can’t quite make it out from here . . .” Mr. Radzinsky waved him closer. “Ah, yes, that’s it—there’s a bug on you.”

  “What? Ew! Get it off! Get it off!” Spaulding squealed, slapping at his hair and pajamas.

  The ghost somehow managed to roll his eye sockets. “Not that kind of bug. Someone’s watching you.” He crooked his finger for Marietta to come closer. “Look at his head, right there. You see it?”

  Marietta leaned forward to look closer. “Oh, gross—there is something . . .”

  Spaulding felt her tug at his hair just above his ear. Then she held something out on her fingertip for him to see. It didn’t look like much more than a whitish speck until he took it from her and brought it right up to his eye.

  “Is it electronic or something?” he asked Mr. Radzinsky.

  “Heavens, no. It reeks of black magic. You’ve heard of spells that use part of a person—hair or fingernail clippings or some such—to put a hex on them? This is similar, except in this case the spell uses a part of the spell-caster, not the victim. It’s made of someone’s skin.”

  “Ew!” Spaulding threw the thing down and stomped it into the dirt, rubbing at his head where it had been.

  “By attaching a fragment of himself to a victim, the sorcerer is able to observe anyone he chooses. It’s magical surveillance.” Mr. Radzinsky checked Lucy and Marietta and assured them they were clean. He frowned at Spaulding. “Where did you run into someone powerful enough to do that kind of magic? I question the company you’re keeping, I really do.”

  Spaulding scratched his head again—his skin still felt crawly at the thought of the bug being stuck to him since who-knew-when. “I think it’s the same person who’s been causing the disturbance in the world of the dead you mentioned before. I guess they can do more than just necromancy.”

  Mr. Radzinsky crouched down to look at the bug more closely. “Perhaps you’d better get away from this device before we discuss things any further. I think—”

  Before he could finish, the bug began to glow faintly red. There was a crackle like electricity, and a spark of reddish light jumped from the bug to the ghost. Mr. Radzinsky looked down at his chest, patting anxiously at himself where the spark had disappeared. “Oh, dear,” he said.

  “What was that?” Lucy whispered.

  Mr. Radzinsky was trembling faintly. The trembling rapidly became twitching. His head began to wrench from side to side. Then a strange, hollow voice spoke. It came from Mr. Radzinsky, but it wasn’t his usual voice at all.

  “Return . . .” the voice hissed. “Return what you have stolen . . .”

  Everyone backed away from the ghost except Spaulding. He steeled his nerves and took a step forward. “Mr. Radzinsky?” he whispered, cautiously stretching a hand toward him.

  Mr. Radzinsky shuddered, his body curled up in midair as if he was racked with pain. Then he suddenly straightened up, like he’d thrown something heavy off his shoulders.

  “Not . . . not me,” he gasped in his normal voice. “Sorry—trying to fight it—” He broke off with a choking sound.

  “The red mercury!” Lucy said, clutching Spaulding’s arm. “You said it gives control over the dead!”

  Spaulding nodded. “You’re right—I guess that means power over ghosts, too.”

  Mr. Radzinsky hunched over again, his face hidden in his hands. Slowly, he lifted his head to look at them—but he did it by twisting his head around backward and upside-down. His eyes were glowing a deep, pulsating red.

  “Return what you stole, little boy,” he said in a nasty sing-song, “or Auntie and Daddy are going to die.”

  Then he winked out, like a match dropped in water.

  Lucy burst out crying again. Spaulding felt like he was frozen in place, staring at the empty air where Mr. Radzinsky had been.

  A vise-like hand landed on his shoulder. He flinched and whirled around, half-expecting to see a revenant or the possessed version of Mr. R staring back at him, but it was worse: a very angry-looking Marietta.

  “What,” she said through her teeth, “exactly have you done?”

  No one was speaking to Spaulding. Lucy was furious that he had hidden the book from her. Marietta was furious about both the book and the fact that he’d taken Lucy into the factory.

  “This isn’t fair,” he grumbled for the hundredth time as they pedaled toward Kenny’s house.

  Marietta shot him a glare over her shoulder but didn’t reply.

  “How was I supposed to know this would happen?” Spaulding demanded.

  Lucy heaved a sigh. “Everybody knows if you find something magic and you take it with you, you’ll be sorry. That’s like, Rule Number One of snooping around in sorcerer’s lairs or ancient tombs or anywhere.”

  “Well, I was going to take it back! Sometime. I just wanted to look at it a little first.”

  Marietta screeched to a gravel-spitting stop in Kenny’s driveway. “The bottom line is,” she said, “this whole mess is your fault. But at least now we know what we have to do to fix it. Let’s just make sure Kenny’s okay, and then we’ll go turn over the book.”

  Kenny’s house was dark and quiet. Whether this was a good sign or a bad one was hard to know. However, after a few minutes of throwing pebbles, Kenny’s window flew open. There was a terrible groan, and a puffy, squinting face peered out.

  “This’d better be good,” Kenny yawned, rubbing his eyes. “I—whoa, what happened? You guys look terrible.”

  Marietta answered before Spaulding had a chance. “Spaulding has gotten us into an even worse mess than we were in before. Our dad and Spaulding’s aunt have been kidnapped because Spaulding stole something from the factory. You’d better go check on your family and make sure they didn’t get taken, too.”

  Kenny’s face went white, but he pulled himself together quickly. He disappeared from the window without another word. After a moment or two, the front door opened, and he tiptoed out. “They’re sleeping. Everything’s locked up tight.”

  Spaulding nodded. “That makes sense. They targeted us because they were watching me through the bug, and Lucy was with me when I took the book. But they’ve never seen Kenny, so they don’t know he’s involved.”

  Marietta gave a loud sigh. “Just further confirmation that this is your fault. If you hadn’t taken my sister into the factory with you—”

  “For the millionth time, I’m sorry!”

  “He couldn’t stop me from going!” Lucy planted her fists on her hips and tried to look tough.

  Marietta opened her mouth to yell at both of them, but Kenny interrupted. “You guys, drop it! Let’s just get this stupid book from Spaulding’s house and hand it over. If we hurry, we can be done in time to catch some more Zs before school. Being out all night might be okay for some people, but I have a big game tomorrow.”

  Spaulding held up his backpack. “Good news—I have the book with me.”

  Marietta squinted at him. “You don’t look like you think it’s good news. You look worried. You’re not going to argue about handing it over, are you?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just . . . I’m afraid it might not be so simple. Once we turn over the book, why would they let us go? I think we need an insurance policy before we face them.”

  “An insurance policy?” Marietta wrapped one of her curls around her finger and tugged it thoughtfully. “You mean, some way to make sure Von Slech
t doesn’t dare hurt us? Like what?”

  “Well, Von Slecht is using our families against us. How about we do the same to him?”

  Marietta raised an eyebrow. “What do you know about his family? I don’t know anything about his personal life.”

  Spaulding grabbed his notebook and showed her the page with his notes from the visit to the factory.

  “That’s his wife. Lucy and I saw her when we were at the factory. There’s something wrong with her—she was getting treatment from Dr. Darke, and she seemed really loopy, like she was drugged or something. If we can get into their house, I don’t think it would be hard to trick her into coming with us. Then we hold her captive until Von Slecht releases Aunt Gwen and Mr. Bellwood and lets us all go safely.”

  Kenny scratched his head. “I don’t know. Von Slecht’s not going to be exactly terrified that a bunch of kids have his wife. He won’t believe we’d hurt anybody.”

  Spaulding grinned. “I’ve already figured that part out. Von Slecht knows we wouldn’t hurt Griselda, but we also have an extremely dangerous boa constrictor on our side. If he has her, who knows what might happen?”

  Marietta folded her arms. “Nice plan, but you forget—Mr. Radzinsky is the only one who can communicate with David Boa, and he’s turned evil.”

  Spaulding’s face fell. “Oh. I did forget about that.”

  Then a gloomy voice spoke from somewhere overhead. “Don’t be so melodramatic—I’m not evil.” Mr. Radzinsky floated down to join them, looking extremely annoyed, but not red-eyed and twitchy anymore. “I was momentarily overpowered, that’s all.”

  “Mr. R!” Spaulding exclaimed.

  Kenny screamed and leaped backward, tripped over his own feet, and landed on the sidewalk. “Whozat? And why’s he see-through?” he wheezed.