A Ghost in the Attic

by Solomon Petchers

Chapter Nine

  Swept Away

  Rain began to fall during the bus ride home. Nathaniel, who arrived late to school, wanted to talk the entire ride. I didn’t feel like talking except to be polite – I entertained his questions about which comic books I’d read, who were my favorite superheroes, and if I could have one power what it would be, but for the most part I was silent. Moose sat two seats ahead of us. We hardly spoke at all. Something weighed heavy between us and to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure how to get past it. I was supposed to venture into the attic today with my mother. I was afraid we’d suffer the same fate as the other families who lived in the old Henderson home. Would we be the fourth family to be swept away?

  The rain started falling heavier as we departed the bus. Nathaniel ran off to his mom’s station wagon, and Moose and I walked down the street with neither of us making effort to dodge rain drops. We walked in silence. It looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t get it out. In fact, it seemed like he had wanted to say something to me all day. “What’s on your mind?” I finally asked throwing up my hands.

  He didn’t answer at first. He just looked straight ahead, but so much was riding on his broad shoulders. Well, of course it was. It was something that I could only imagine. But Moose? He was trapped in it like a nightmare that never ends. “Samson,” he finally spoke, “I don’t think I can do this without your help.”

  I didn’t say anything. For some reason, I knew that he was right. Then, something caught my eye that stopped me dead in my tracks. Moose didn’t realize I stopped until he was two or three steps ahead of me. He looked back. “What’s the matter?”

  I raised a shaky finger in the air and pointed towards my house. In the driveway was my mother’s car. “My mom’s home already.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? What if she got started on the attic without me?” I brushed past Moose into the yard and ran up the porch stairs. I fished the key from my pocket, and on the third try my shaky hands found the key hole. I turned the key and opened the door. “Mom? I’m home! Mom?”

  As Moose joined me at the door, both of us listened as only the rain answered. On the kitchen table sat her camera bag and purse. The cabinet doors under the sink, where she stored cleaning supplies, were open. I looked up the stairs and there; at the top of the stairs, was the attic ladder unfolded. “She started without me,” I muttered to Moose. I tried calling again from the bottom of the stairs, “Mom?! Are you up there?” Again, we waited, hoping to hear her voice. But again, there was only deafening silence.

  Out of nowhere, a scream broke its way into the air, “Someone help me!” It was Mom.

  I started to sprint up the stairs, when Moose’s strong hand grabbed me from behind. “What are you doing?”

  “Hello? Did you hear that? My mother’s up there!” I tried to get away from him.

  “Samson,” he held me in place for a moment, “it’s my mess. Let me go first,” he said, his voice determined.

  I nodded my head in agreement. When we got to the base of the ladder, Moose froze. “He’s nearby.”

  “Who?”

  “Nanuk.” Moose took a deep breath through his nose. “Your mom was definitely up here. I can smell her.”

  “How do you know what she smells like?” I whispered.

  “I know her smell from your clothes.” I followed closely behind Moose as he turned to climb the attic ladder.

  When we got to the top, we could hear the whirring sound of the attic fan. My mother must have turned it on because it was so dusty up here, I thought. I switched it off and listened. A faint light bulb cast an eerie dull light over the attic. I panned my head from side to side trying to find her, but she wasn’t there. On the floor, lay a broom and a dust pan. Not far from that I could see the trunk that Moose told me about. Fear settled into my body. On the wooden planks, I saw my mother’s tennis shoe prints in the dusty floor and some sweep marks made by the broom. Her footprints moved towards the trunk. On the trunk, two hand prints lay in the dust. “She must have tried to move the trunk,” I whispered to Moose. On the floor her shoes had made scuff marks. Next to them were her hand prints but they looked like they were dragged across the floor. “Did she fall?” What I saw next chilled me to my very core. Not far from where she had been, paw prints rested in the dust. They weren’t just your standard dog prints. These were the biggest I’d ever seen. Big as bear prints, they easily dwarfed Spike’s prints, and I’d considered him a large dog.

  When I knelt down to compare my hand to the size of the paw print, it was then that I had the realization that my mother had been swept away. Suddenly, drops of water fell by my hands. The rain? A leak in the roof? Through the silence of the attic, I heard my mother’s voice. Not in the attic, but somewhere else. “Samson! Samson! RUN!” I looked up and in the pale light of the attic and stared right into the face of Nanuk as drool dripped from his lips. I shuffled my feet to try and get away. Moose grabbed me by my shoulders and dragged me back. Then, he jumped in front of me and threw off his hat. He crouched down and let out a hiss that filled the entire attic. Through the dusty air, Nanuk’s teeth showed but Moose wasn’t backing off. Suddenly, Nanuk let out a howl that completely shook the house and nearly knocked me to the attic floor.

  I grabbed Moose’s arm and yelled, “C’mon! Let’s go!”

  “I got this,” he yelled back, trying to free himself from my grip. “I’m going to go for the vial.”

  “Are you crazy? Let’s go!” I pulled harder on his flannel and encouraged him to move down the ladder. Bolting down the ladder as fast as I could, Moose let out one last scream and followed. I folded up the ladder and pushed the attic door up with all my force slamming it flush against the ceiling. Only aware of my heavy breathing for a moment, I felt for the wall behind me, leaned up against it, and slumped down.

  Moose sat, his cap clenched into his hands, muttering to himself, “It was right there. It was right there.”

  I felt the confusion of what just happened slowly morph into a clearer picture. First my dad and now my mother. I was alone. I looked over at Moose who was still muttering to himself. “This is your fault,” I said through gritted teeth. He either ignored me or couldn’t hear me. “This is YOUR fault!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Everything you touch. Everything you do. It…it…all turns out bad!”

  Moose turned his head, his eyes, soaked with tears, glowed through his matted, sweaty hair. “What?”

  “You heard me. You are a monster,” the words came out through clenched teeth.

  “You stopped me. I had a chance to make it all right.”

  “What made you think, of all the times that this was the time you were going to succeed?!” I yelled back throwing my hands into the air. “I wasn’t about to risk getting swept away. If I’m gone, then I won’t have a chance to save my mother. Didn’t you hear her? She told us to run! Even she thought you didn’t have a chance.”

  “She told you to run, not me! I had it!”

  “You don’t know that. Besides, I was – I am terrified!”

  After a moment of silence, I stood up, walked down the stairs, and opened the front door. Apparently, my glare said it all. He picked himself off the floor, walked down the stairs, and headed for the door. Looking back at me he tried to reason, “Samson. I-,”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” He walked through the door, and I slammed it behind him.

  Spike barked from the basement. Mom must have put him there when she got home. I let him out and found my way to the couch where he joined me. He rested his head on my lap. I cried, feeling more helpless than I ever had.

  Chapter Ten

  The Ghost Avengers

  The next morning, I woke up on the couch with Spike curled up next to me. I had cried myself to sleep. I thought about who I could call for help, but no one came to mind. Being new in town, I had no one. The police? How do I explain that? Mr. Officer. Yes, you got that right. A ghost dog lives in my attic because my creep of a neig
hbor killed him. Now, he haunts my house and swept my mom away. Oh, yeah. I forgot one detail. That creep of a neighbor I told you about? He was turned into a cat. I chuckled to myself at how crazy it sounded.

  The truth was that there really was only one person who could help me, but right now, I had a hard time even being in the same room with him. I moped around the house all day, every once in a while, looking up the stairs at the attic door trying to think of a plan. The truth was that I was going to need Moose’s help, and he was going to need mine.

  Spike followed me out onto the porch where I sat on the steps. The rain had stopped overnight, and only puffy clouds dotted the sky. A familiar voice broke the silence, “Hey Samson.” Nathaniel looked up at me from the sidewalk his arms filled with comic books. “Missed you at school today. Are you sick?”

  “What are you doing here, Nathaniel?” I asked harshly, my voice cutting through the air like a knife.

  The tone of my voice must have caught him by surprise because he took a step back. It caught me by surprise, too. The last thing I wanted to do was hang out with anyone. It wasn’t like Nathaniel was going to be able to help save my mother. I had bigger problems than trying to make friends.

  “Well, you said we could hang out sometime. Then I saw you weren’t at school today, so I figured I’d come by and see how you were doing.” His nasally voice set my teeth on edge. He walked up towards the house. Spike moved to a seated position and extended his paw out to Nathaniel. He cautiously patted Spike on his head. “Wow, I never thought I’d be doing this. He’s always been such a nasty animal at the bus stop.”

  “That’s because you aren’t a cat,” I said under my breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. Look Nathaniel, today isn’t such a great day. I’m kind of going through something right now.”

  Dejected, Nathaniel said, “I’m sorry.” His smile escaped his face leaving a frown. I felt badly, but it was the truth. Nathaniel turned to walk away.

  Then, my mother’s voice from our conversation earlier echoed loudly in my head, you’re only going to make friends if you go out and just make them yourself. “Hey, Nathaniel, wait. I’m sorry. I have a few minutes. Do you want to come in and have a piece of cake? It’s not homemade, but it will have to do.”

  Nathaniel’s eyes lit up. He was smiling again. “Sure!” He said bounding up the steps behind me causing Spike to think he was ready to play. He crouched and took off down the steps past Nathaniel and darted around in circles in the yard until he was ready to follow us. “I can’t believe this is the same dog,” he said in wonder.

  While sitting down with Nathaniel, he spoke, “You know, when I was talking about how old Spike here and how he used to be such a nasty animal, you said something strange. You said to me that it was because I wasn’t a cat. What did you mean by that?”

  I didn’t realize he even heard me. I grabbed the cake box, “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me,” his voice tried to sound grown-up. “I’m pretty mature for a third grader. My teachers say I’m very advanced.”

  I cut off two big chunks of cake and sat back down. “I can see that, but this is all part of my family crisis.”

  “Umm…what’s a cat have to do with your family crisis. What’s it sick or something?”

  I laughed. He was pretty smart. “It has to do with the Hendersons, a cat, a dog, and my mother.”

  Confused, Nathaniel cocked his head the same way Spike does. “Huh? It has to do with the Hendersons?” Then, as if struck by something, he realized he was in the house where strange things happen. He whispered, “Ohhh, the people that lived here a long time ago?”

  “Yes, Nathaniel.” I then found myself telling him an abbreviated version of what happened. I left out some parts — especially the part that Moose was a cat and that he killed Nanuk. Moose wouldn’t want that part revealed. I did, however, explain that my mother had encountered Nanuk and she was swept away. “So, in order for the curse to disappear, we have to retrieve this magical golden vial of milk.”

  When I finished, Nathaniel looked at me in astonishment. He could only exclaim a piercing, “WOW!”

  “Yeah, wow. So now you understand why I wasn’t in the mood for company today.”

  “Well, that’s totally understandable. So, now what?”

  I chomped down on the last bite of my cake. “So, now what? I must figure out a plan to outsmart the ghost of Nanuk and get my life back in order. Simple, huh?” I chuckled with nervous sarcasm.

  Nathaniel paused for a moment to swallow the last bite. Then he said something that I completely didn’t expect. “It is simple.”

  I nearly choked on the last sip of milk, “Yeah right it is. You didn’t see the size of this beast. It made Spike look tiny.” Spike lifted his head up and whimpered. “Sorry boy, but it’s true.” Spike put his head back down. I turned my attention to Nathaniel again.

  “Well, your solution is simple. In The Ghost Avengers, Volume 3, there was a similar story. They found out the solution to their problem is that ghosts that have been ghosts for a long time often crave something they loved when they weren’t ghosts. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t fully get it. I sat quietly trying to make sense of it. It was obvious that my face showed my confusion because Nathaniel continued, after a long squeaky sigh and an eye roll, “Luke Lucky from The Ghost Avengers Team faced something similar to this. He had to bring back triplets from another dimension who were taken there by this ghost, King Pig. They called him King Pig because he had made a fortune in the bacon industry. Anyway, before he was killed, he swore he would come back and get revenge. He did just that.”

  “Well, how did it end? What did King Pig want?”

  “Money! You see, he was very rich, but most of his money he got illegally. I mean who gets that rich on bacon, right? The mob boss that killed King Pig outsmarted him of his money. When King Pig confronted him, that’s when that mob boss let ole’ King Pig have it.” Nathaniel made a weird clicking sound, stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth, and rolled back his eyes mimicking something dead. “Well, King Pig came back and kidnapped the mob boss’s kids and swore he would never give them back. To make a long story short, Luke Lucky confronted King Pig. King Pig’s ghost got the upper hand and was about to defeat Luke Lucky when he says to King Pig, ‘If you do this, you won’t get what I brought for you.’ Well, King Pig being greedy, loosened his ghostly grip. Luke Lucky says, ‘That’s right, Piggy. Go ahead. See that box over there. There’s over one hundred thousand dollars in it. I’m the only one with the key. You take me away and you get nothing.’”

  Nathaniel continued, “Well, as you can probably guess King Pig let Luke Lucky go, and Lucky threw the key over to where the box was sitting. King Pig rushed over there, opened the box, and rolled around in all that dough like a pig in mud.”

  Nathaniel paused for a second or two which drove me crazy. “What happened next?”

  “I thought you’d ask that,” Nathaniel snickered. “While King Pig was distracted, Luke Lucky sprang into action. He put on his ectoplasmic glasses and located where the kids were. With his ectoplasmic ray, he opened up a portal, jumped through, and grabbed the triplets. The plan was nearly perfect until King Pig got wise to what was happening. He charged at Luke Lucky and the kids. Luke Lucky stood his ground. In his hand, he held a device with a trigger on it. Just as King Pig was upon them, Luke Lucky said his signature line, ‘It’s Gotcha Time!’ and just like that, King Pig was frozen in the air. Then his body spun around and spiraled into a device on the floor.”

  Confused I asked, “What the heck is ectoplasm?”

  “Don’t you know anything about ghosts?” Nathaniel asked, amusingly annoyed. “Think of it like a snail. You have seen a snail before, right?” I nodded. “Well, you know that trail of yuck that snails leave behind them? Well, it’s the same with ghosts. Where every they go, they leave this sort of trail that tells where they’ve been.”

  I
waited for a minute digesting Nathaniel’s story. “Where are we going to get an ectoplasmic ray? That stuff doesn’t even exist. Does it?”

  Nathaniel paused for a moment. “Of course, it doesn’t exist. Believe me, I’ve tried building one. That’s not the point, Samson. The point is that maybe your solution is to find something that your ghost, Nanuk, craved when he wasn’t a ghost. I mean, it’s a dog. It can’t be that difficult. It could be a chew toy, a pair of socks, or some type of food.”

  My face lit up, “That’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “Nathaniel, you’re a genius!” Spike jumped up and down next to me.

  “Well, I’ve never been called that before — except by my piano teacher. I told you I was smart for my age.”

  “You are, buddy. You are! If this works, we’ll be the best of friends!” I stopped for a second. “Moose. I have to tell Moose.” I turned to Nathaniel, “Listen, you can’t tell anybody about this, okay? I have to run over to Moose’s house. We’ll hang out when this is all over. I promise.”

  “Who would believe me?” Nathaniel threw up his hands as his thick-rimmed glasses bounced on his nose.

  Bounding towards the front door, Nathaniel and I raced to the porch. As we walked down the stairs, I could see he felt proud of himself. As he turned to walk away, I asked, “Hey, Nathaniel, one more thing.”

  “Sure, anything!”

  “Can you bring The Ghost Avengers comic to school tomorrow?”

  He stuck a thumb in the air, “You bet!”

  I watched Nathaniel skip away. He certainly had a pep in his step. I gazed over at Moose’s jungle of a yard. Could this be the solution to everyone’s problems? I didn’t know, but I was excited at the possibility. As the sun started to set, I led Spike to the backyard, and I darted over to Moose’s house calling for him, “Moose! Moose? Get out here. I’ve got great news. I think we can break the spell!”