The Haunting

by Rodman Philbrick

  I could feel the darkness moving in closer each time my back was turned, like a game of red-light, green-light. Small noises nibbled at my attention but always stopped when I paused to listen.

  When we found nothing more behind the stacks of magazines, Steve straightened up. Absently he wiped his filthy hands on his once-clean khaki shorts. “If there’s a body down here, it’s going to be over there,” he said, gesturing toward the owners’ piled belongings.

  I nodded. “You’re right. We’ll just have to be careful to put things back so my mom doesn’t get bent out of shape.”

  Very carefully and slowly we approached that corner of the basement. It seemed darker there, as if the creepy shapes had a way of soaking up the beam from my flashlight.

  “We can’t move all this stuff,” Steve complained. “It’ll take forever.”

  “Hey,” I said, with a tingle of excitement. “Is that a trunk?”

  I pointed out a large rectangular shape standing on end behind a stack of boxes. “It’s big enough to hold a body, isn’t it?”

  Immediately we both began heaving boxes out of the way until the trunk was clear. For a moment we just looked at it.

  Then I reached slowly for the latch. I pulled. The lock clicked.

  Nothing happened.

  “My mom’s calling,” Steve said abruptly, taking a step backwards. “I’ve got to go.”

  “What? You can’t leave now,” I said, flabbergasted. “This could be what we’ve been looking for!”

  “My mom will be mad,” Steve said weakly, looking at the trunk reluctantly.

  Faintly, I could hear Steve’s mother in the distance. So he wasn’t making that up.

  “Just help me with this,” I urged. I tugged again at the latch. “It’s not locked, it’s just stiff. If you hold the trunk steady I think I can get the lid open. It’ll only take a minute.”

  Steve swallowed. “All right.”

  I grinned at him in the gloom and pried at the latch with both hands, grimly determined to get it open. I hadn’t really believed we’d find a body down here, but now, faced with this body-sized trunk, my blood was humming. I just knew this trunk would help me solve the awful mystery of the house.

  With a groan the rusted latch gave way. Eagerly I seized the lid and pulled it toward me like opening a door.

  The lid creaked slowly open as if something feeble was trying to hold it closed from inside.

  It was now or never, while Steve was still here. I yanked hard and the trunk came all the way open, creaking loudly in protest.

  We both gasped.

  There was a body.

  As I stared, transfixed, it leaned out of the trunk and slowly, slowly toppled on top of me.

  22

  I raised my arms to fend the thing off. Gurgling noises came from my throat as I tried to fight free.

  It was stiff and cold, a dead weight.

  I flailed my arms and the thing rolled off me. I scrambled instantly to my feet, my chest heaving.

  “A dressmaker’s dummy!”

  Weak with relief, Steve and I leaned against each other, laughing.

  Then a small noise shut us up.

  “Mice,” I said automatically.

  “Yeah,” said Steve. “But, hey, I got to go before my mom kills me.”

  I nodded and picked up the flashlight from where it had fallen on the floor. “Steve, wait! There’s something else in the trunk.”

  But Steve was already halfway up the stairs. “Later, Jason,” he called over his shoulder.

  I hesitated, then crouched down to reach into the trunk. It was quite deep and I had to crawl forward. My hand touched paper—a packet of envelopes tied with ribbon. I trained the flashlight on the packet and saw faded, spidery writing. Old letters!

  Maybe this was a clue about what had happened in the house. Who had died here. Maybe even who had been murdered here.

  Eager to find out, I put the flashlight on the floor and started to untie the ribbon right there. I was in such a hurry that my fingers fumbled with the knot and the packet dropped back into the trunk.

  As I leaned over to get the package of letters back something slammed me hard in the back.

  I lost my balance and tumbled headfirst into the trunk.

  The lid slammed shut! The darkness was total. The space was so small I couldn’t move, couldn’t even shift around to push the lid with my feet.

  As I thrashed weakly against the sides, I heard soft cackling laughter. Bony fingers scratched teasingly against the sides and lid of the trunk, sending shivers through my body.

  I opened my mouth to scream but my chest was so tight nothing came out. In horror, I realized that there wasn’t enough air. I was going to suffocate in here!

  Then there really would be a body to find. Mine.

  Frantically I rocked back and forth. Maybe I could knock the trunk over, crack it open on the floor.

  After what seemed an eternity of struggling, I felt the trunk slowly tilt, then fall with a thud. The lid popped open on impact, spilling me out onto the dirt floor.

  I was on my feet in a flash.

  But what about the letters? I had to get them. They could be the key to the whole thing.

  I grabbed my flashlight and searched inside the trunk, trying to ignore the tingle of fear between my shoulder blades.

  No letters. But they had to be here. I searched again, every inch, then forced myself to look under the trunk and all around the area. Nothing.

  They were gone. They couldn’t be, but they were. Whatever shut me inside must have gotten them.

  My blood froze as I heard a slithering noise behind me. Then a cackle of laughter.

  I bolted for the stairs. Nothing stopped me.

  At the top I slammed the basement door and shot the bolt.

  If there was a body down there, it could stay where it was!

  23

  Mom was in her office, making notes on some broad sheets of blue paper. As I went in she put down her ruler and looked at me, pencil in hand. She started to smile and then said, “Is that dirt all over your face? You look like a coal miner. What have you boys been up to?”

  I shrugged. She’d never believe me about the trunk. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. “Oh, just exploring. There’s a lot of neat old magazines down there.”

  “That’s nice,” said Mom, picking up her ruler and bending over her papers. “Go wash up, we’ll be having dinner soon.”

  “Where’s Sally?” I asked, turning to go.

  “Napping,” said Mom. She looked at her watch. “I’d better get her up or she’ll never sleep tonight.”

  “I’ll do it,” I said, heading for the stairs.

  “Wash up first,” Mom called after me.

  As soon as I reached the bottom of the staircase, I started feeling anxious about Sally. Some kind of intuition told me something was wrong.

  I took the stairs two at a time. The upstairs hall was completely silent. As if the house was holding its breath, just waiting for something to happen.

  Sally’s door was closed. She never had her door closed—she liked it open just the right number of inches.

  I flung open the door. Sally—or something—was curled up under the bedclothes. “Sally?” I called quietly, tiptoeing over to the bed.

  No answer. Slowly I pulled the blanket back. My stomach shuddered. No Sally. Someone had stuffed a pillow under the covers to make it look as if Sally was sleeping there. But Sally was gone.

  As I raised my head, wondering what to do next, a gust of wind hit me full in the face. The window! It was open, with the screen removed and propped on the floor.

  I ran to the window and stuck my head out.

  “Hi, Jason!” Sally waved at me from the cherry tree below her window.

  She was perched on a high branch. High enough so a fall might be fatal.

  For a couple of heartbeats I couldn’t think what to do. “Hold on tight,” I said in a strangled voice, seeing that Sally was wobbling on he
r narrow branch, her other arm wrapped around her bunny. “I’ll be right there to get you down.”

  But how? I swung my leg over the windowsill. But the uppermost branches of the tree looked too slender to take my weight. I stretched my leg out as far as it would go and my foot barely touched the end of a branch.

  There was only one way. I’d have to climb up from below and grab her. But that meant leaving Sally alone while I ran back through the house.

  “Hold on tight,” I called down. “Don’t move!”

  Sally smiled at me and swung her feet.

  I shuddered. She was so high up. If she fell she’d break her neck. “Don’t move, Sally, please,” I called again.

  Then I ducked back inside and ran for the stairs. As I flew by the office I heard my mom ask what was going on.

  “It’s Sally,” I shouted without stopping. “She’s in the cherry tree.”

  Reaching the base of the tree, I looked up. Sally was impossibly high. She looked down at me and waved.

  That threw off her balance.

  My heart went into my throat. She was going to fall! She teetered, eyes going wide, mouth forming a little round “O” of fright. Then she managed to grab the trunk of the tree.

  For the first time Sally seemed to realize she was in danger. She began to whimper.

  “I’ll get you down,” I promised, hoisting myself up the tree trunk. “Just hold on.”

  The first few feet up were easy. Then the branches became thinner and grew so close together there was hardly room to move. My foot skidded on the smooth bark, and twigs whipped my face. I started slipping back.

  Finally I managed to get a grip and pull myself up.

  “Jason, what if I fall? Will you catch me?”

  “Sally, don’t fall. Just don’t, OK?”

  A branch, hardly more than a twig, snapped off under my foot. I had to hug the tree trunk to keep from falling. Slowly I managed to get back up.

  Sally was still out of reach. I found another narrow wedge for my foot and got up a little higher. I was almost there. The branches bent and groaned under my weight.

  I heard startled cries from below. My mother.

  “Mom! See if you can find a ladder!”

  “OK!” she yelled back. “Don’t go any farther. That limb’s not strong enough to support you both.”

  But Sally was too scared to act sensible. She started to cry as she reached out for my hand.

  “No, Sally, stay there!”

  But she wasn’t listening. She stretched out her arm, impossibly far, and leaned forward, trying to reach me. She slipped, losing her balance.

  I could only watch in horror as she fell.

  At first she dropped quickly, and I almost closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to watch.

  And then a strange thing happened. One moment she was hurtling down, and the next she seemed almost to float. As if something was holding her back.

  “Jason! Jason!”

  My little sister was floating just beyond my reach. Turning in the air to stretch her arms out at me. I grabbed for Sally’s hand, missed, reached again, and clasped it.

  Slowly she drifted gently down to nestle against my chest. And she was still holding her bunny!

  I had my sister, but I was slipping. And with both hands full holding her, I couldn’t get a grip.

  “Jason, I’m here,” cried Mom, leaning the ladder up against the tree trunk. “If I climb up can you hand Sally to me?”

  “I think so.” I didn’t want to let go of Sally, not even to hand her to Mom. But I knew that would be safest. I might drop her trying to get her down myself.

  I waited for Mom to get to the top of the ladder then crouched down to be as close as possible when I passed Sally to her.

  It went off without a hitch, and once Mom and Sally were on the ground, I followed.

  “How did she get up there?” Mom asked.

  “Jason catched me,” said Sally, beaming at me. “He catched me when I was flying.”

  Mom’s face paled. “She started to fall?”

  “It was the weirdest thing. It was like time slowed down and held her up until I could grab her.”

  Mom hugged Sally tight. “That happens sometimes in a real emergency. Time seems to slow down and we seem to speed up.”

  “Maybe,” I said skeptically. “But how did she get into the tree? When I checked on her, her window was open, and the screen was on the floor. But the tree is so far from her window, even I couldn’t climb into it.”

  Sally twisted in Mom’s arms. Her eyes were as clear as blue pools. “Bobby flied me to the tree,” she said. “It’s his favorite place. Me and Bobby and Winky like the tree.”

  Her invisible friend again. He’d almost killed her this time—or was it Bobby who had saved her?

  “Little children have amazing dexterity,” said Mom, shaking her head as she looked up at the tree. “We’ll probably never know how she managed it. I’ll have to remember to keep her window locked.”

  “I flied, Mommy,” said Sally. “Bobby helped me to fly to Jason.”

  “Sure you did, honey. But I don’t ever want you going up in that tree again. It’s too dangerous.”

  Mom rose, carrying Sally.

  “I flied! I flied!” Sally said, giggling as Mom carried her into the house.

  Maybe I was crazy, but I believed her. Something had “flied” her to the tree. And something had saved her from falling. Maybe it was her invisible friend, the one she called Bobby.

  But what kind of friend would put a little girl’s life in danger in the first place?

  Unless, of course, it wanted to make her into a ghost.

  24

  The next week went by without anything much happening. It was as if the house had gone to sleep, or given up and accepted us.

  My parents spent most of their time in the office, poring over the blueprints, or on the telephone with the contractors who were going to build the new town complex. They were so busy with the project they hardly noticed when I offered to take Sally with me wherever I went.

  Because I wasn’t going to let it get my little sister.

  Steve and Lucy were pretty understanding. They let me drag Sally around with us and they didn’t complain, not really. Sally kept talking about Bobby, but she said he was somewhere else.

  “Bobby gone away,” she kept saying. “Gone far away.”

  I believed her. I thought it was all over, that we were safe.

  What a fool. I should have known better. I should have known they were waiting for a chance, a chance to make us part of the house.

  A chance to make us dead, like them.

  One night when I was least expecting it, I woke up abruptly out of a sound sleep.

  Something had disturbed me. But what?

  I sat up. A little moonlight filtered in through the window, turning everything silvery. It was late, very late.

  “Jason.”

  It was Sally’s voice calling. She was right outside my door and she sounded upset, frightened.

  I jumped out of bed, grabbed the flashlight I always left on the night table, and flung open the door, ready to scoop my kid sister into my arms.

  But it wasn’t Sally.

  A tall figure stood outside my door. It was shrouded from head to foot in shapeless black. A black hood covered where the face should be.

  Slowly the hood moved. It was looking right at me. Out of the hood stared a white skull. A dead white skull with deep black holes for eyes!

  The skeleton’s skull jaws opened and an awful hiss emerged, pouring over me with the stench of the grave.

  It tried to grab me. A sticklike arm came out of the sleeve and reached out. I ducked away but the thing knocked the flashlight out of my hand. Stiffly the thing swung toward me again, staggering into my room.

  I let out a yell, dove past it into the hallway and tried to run. But the thing enveloped me with folds of material. It had me. The black stuff draped around my head, blinding me.

 
; I smelled sour earth and mold. The smell of a dead thing.

  I flailed around but I couldn’t get hold of anything solid. Then I tripped on the black shroud and rolled away, getting clear.

  Suddenly fresh air streamed into my lungs. I was free! I crawled away, thinking only about escape. Behind me I heard the whisper of cloth, the sound of bones creaking as they rubbed together, coming after me.

  I was in the hallway. I felt around and located the post at the top of the stairs. Escape! I could run down the stairs and out of the house and never stop running. Get away from this awful thing, this awful house, and never look back.

  But I hesitated. I had to get Sally.

  But how? I couldn’t lead this thing to my little sister. She was safe in her room—for now at least.

  Mom and Dad, then. I had to get to them, wake them up. But my heart sank. I knew they wouldn’t be able to see the skeleton that had come to get me, or to scare me away so it could get Sally. They didn’t see any of the things that happened in this house. They would just send me back to bed and it would come for me again.

  No, I had to fight it myself. Maybe there was something downstairs I could use as a weapon.

  But I had hesitated too long.

  I heard a low cackle, felt its rotten breath on the back of my neck. It was catching up. It reached for me.

  I yelled and flung myself toward the stairs. I reached to catch hold of the banister but missed.

  My hands grabbed nothing but air. Then my back hit the top of the stairs. I was rolling.

  My head slammed the edge of a stair and everything went black.

  25

  The bang on the head stunned me for only a second—long enough for me to tumble halfway down the stairs. A jolt of pain woke me up as I bounced from one stair to the next and landed at the bottom.

  I sat up and rubbed my head. Ouch! A nasty lump was forming.

  All around me was darkness and quiet. The thing in the black shroud had not followed me down the stairs. No sound came from upstairs. Was the gruesome thing gone?

  I tried squinting up the stairway, but I couldn’t see a thing. It was so dark. Cautiously I looked around, peering into the shadowed dimness of the living room and the dining room. Nothing moved. Could the nightmare be over?