I wasn't disappointed. It was everything I hoped it would be. A fully decorated tree stood in the corner where it always had. It was lit with multicolored lights that created
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a magical aura in the dark room. A fire crackled in the fireplace, where three stockings were hung with care . . . each stuffed with presents. The tree was surrounded by stacks of gifts wrapped in colorful Christmas wrapping. Santa had worked overtime. The tree looked like every other tree we ever had, only better. Glass bulbs of gold, red, blue, and green hung from every branch, reflecting the colored light. A silver garland of beads was draped perfectly from top to bottom. Santa Claus had definitely come to town. As much as I was lost in this perfect dream, I knew that what I was seeing was impossible. It had to be in my head, but at that moment I didn't care. It all looked so real. So perfect. I wanted to touch it, but feared I would break the spell. Still, I couldn't resist. I stepped up to the tree and reached out to one of the golden glass ornaments. I expected my fingers to travel through it as if it were an illusion.
They didn't. The glass was solid. Was that possible? Could this be real after all? Maybe it had all been there when I got home and I just hadn't seen it. But then who would have done it? Was it Cooper? Or maybe Santa Claus himself. Why not? That made about as much sense as anything else I'd seen. I accepted that everything had been happening in my head. Feeling the solid ornament made me realize I had to deal with the possibility that it was actually there.
I then sensed the music changing. The music box sped up. The song twisted out of tune. I looked to the ornament I was touching to see that it had transformed. Or had it always looked like that? It was no longer a simple, round golden ball. Markings appeared on its surface. Strangely familiar markings. It had become the golden orb I smashed against my bedroom wall. I pulled my hand away and looked at my fingers to see they were wet. And red. They were covered with blood. My mind couldn't accept it. Was I bleeding? No way. I hadn't cut myself. Yet blood dripped from my fingers.
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I looked back to the gold ball to see red streaks where my fingers had touched it. Was the ornament bleeding? I took a step back to see that none of the ornaments on the tree were the same. I was looking at a tree that was now loaded with dozens of the strange, golden orbs.
I backed away, my mind racing to make sense of what I was seeing. No sooner had I stepped back than the bloody ornament fell off the tree on its own, seemingly in slow motion. I watched the blood-streaked golden ball plummet to the floor, where it hit a package wrapped with green Santa paper. The glass bulb exploded the same as when it hit the photo on my wall. Blood splattered everywhere, even on me. I felt the warm wetness on my arms. I wanted to turn away and run, but I was mesmerized by the sight.
One by one, the other balls began dropping off the tree. They released, fell, and exploded to create multiple bursts of blood. The sticky redness splashed over all the presents like a holiday slaughterhouse. The music twisted further. Instead of a happy music box it now sounded like music from a demonic fun house. The thought flashed, I'm dreaming of a red Christmas. The music grew louder, echoing through our house. Our haunted house.
I had seen enough. More than enough. I got my head together, turned, and ran for the front door. It was a short trip.
Standing in my way was a visitor, and it wasn't jolly old Saint Nick. Gravedigger had come to town. The dark figure stood between me and the front door, wielding the silver pick on his shoulder.
I managed to squeak out, "Who are you?"
He grinned, twisted his head like a curious dog, and spoke. "The journey can now begin," he said in the same deep voice I had heard over the phone.
It cut straight through my sanity. He moved toward me but not by taking steps. He floated. I took a step back, my
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shoes crunching tiny bits of wet, broken glass. I was pinned against the tree with branches poking into my back. There was nowhere to go. The ghoul locked his dead, hollow eyes on mine and reached up with his bony fingers. His face broke into a hideous grin that stretched the width of his skeletal head like a gruesome gash. That did it. I snapped. I reached behind me, grabbed a tree branch, and yanked it forward, pulling the Christmas tree down onto the floor between the ghoul and me. I jumped to my right, tripping over bloody packages, desperate to get around him.
I saw a flash of silver and realized the ghoul had swung his pick. Whatever he wanted from me, it wasn't to be friends. I grabbed at anything I could get my hands on to throw down between us. A lamp, a straight-back chair, a small table, bloody packages. Anything to stop him. Gravedigger knocked it all away with casual swings of his gleaming pick and kept on coming. I thought I heard him bellow a laugh, but it was hard to tell above the jangling, discordant notes that blasted from the music box from hell. I made a move for the front door, but Gravedigger slipped back quickly, cutting me off. He didn't even turn to look where he was going. He simply floated back and blocked my way.
"You will walk with me," Gravedigger growled. "Now and forever."
I wasn't going anywhere with this demonic clown. My only option was to escape up the stairs. I half stumbled, half ran up to the second floor. Gravedigger followed close behind, floating up the staircase without breaking eye contact. He was in no hurry. I wanted to scream and maybe I would have, but I didn't want to slow down. Even for that.
I got to the second floor hallway and was about to run back into my room when I realized I would be trapped in there. Instead I ran down the hall toward my father's bedroom. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the dark figure
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float casually up the stairs, turn, and follow me down the hall. I was going insane. Or maybe I was already there. Either way I had to fight to keep it together. I jumped into my dad's room and slammed the door behind me. His windows opened up onto the roof of our front porch. That was my plan. Out the window, across the roof, down the wooden porch pillar, across the yard, and straight into the nuthouse. I ran to the window and tried to pull it open.
It didn't budge.
A soft knocking came on the bedroom door. It was creepier than if Gravedigger had been wailing on it with his pick.
I strained to lift the window, but it was frozen shut, probably from the last time the house had been painted. The soft, polite knocking came again.
What was he? Why had my mind conjured the specter? Why was he coming after me? I banged on the upper frame of the window, but it was no use. The window wasn't going to open.
The doorknob turned. There were no locks in our house. The door swung open slowly to reveal the skeletal image standing in the door frame.
"Prepare yourself," he hissed as he floated toward me.
I grabbed a small potted plant from the floor and threw it through the window. It blew out and spread bits of shattered glass everywhere. A second later I was out on the slanted roof. I half scrambled, half rolled across the broken glass so quickly, I didn't realize how close to the edge I was. Before I knew it, I started to go over. I was falling off my own roof! I reached out, desperate to grab on to anything that would slow me down. What I got was the rain gutter. I grabbed it with my right hand, but it was too late to stop me from falling. The gutter bent under my weight and pulled away from the house. I lunged out with my left hand to grab one of the vertical wooden pillars that held up the roof.
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That's when the gutter gave way. I let go and grabbed the pillar with my other hand, pulling myself to it. I hung there for a second, then slid down to the porch railing.
I had made it. I didn't know where to go but sure as hell didn't want to stay where I was. It was dark. The rain was pouring down hard. I started to run but spotted my bike at the bottom of the porch stairs. I scooped it up and with one quick kick I was riding. I bumped along the brick pathway that led to the sidewalk, picking up speed, desperate to be as far away from that place as quickly as possible. I shot out from between the two bushes that guarded the path and flew into the road . .
.
... as a car came speeding along. I hadn't given a thought to traffic. Why would I? Traffic was normal and at that moment my life was anything but. The car's horn blared. I made a desperate, sharp turn to avoid getting T-boned. The car hit the brakes, but the road was rain-slicked and it kept moving forward. The squeal of locked tires on the wet road sounded like the shrieks that had come through the cell phone. I couldn't stay upright, so I bailed off the bike. The car swerved and barely missed the tumbling bike as it flew past his front grill.
"Idiot!" the driver yelled as he sped by.
I was lucky to land on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. I lay on my stomach, face pressed to the ground. Rainwater streamed down my cheeks as I fought the urge to puke. I didn't know if I was hurt. I was afraid to move. I was afraid of a lot of things. As I lay there trying to calm down, I remembered something that I hadn't thought of in years.
We were ten years old. On hot summer days after a decent rainfall, Cooper and I would ride our bikes along a small river that was normally very shallow. After a good rain the water
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level went up and made for some decent tubing. There was one spot along the river where a gnarly old tree stretched out over the water. Somebody had tied a thick rope to the branch with a loop at the end. It was perfect for swinging out and dropping into the cool water.
Perfect for Cooper, that is. He would put his foot in the loop, scream like Tarzan, and do a flip at the end of the arc before launching and splashing down. He loved it.
I didn't. It scared me.
"C'mon, Skeever!" he taunted. "You gotta at least try!"
It took me weeks to get up the nerve, but I finally did it. I climbed the tree and grabbed the rope.
"Uh-oh," Cooper called with a laugh. "Check this out. Next stop, Trouble Town!"
I gingerly put my foot into the loop and stood there, trying to get up the nerve to jump. I looked to Cooper. He gave me the double okay sign. That was good enough for me. I pushed off and let go before I swung too high, then plummeted down and hit the water with a perfect cannonball. It was great. In that brief moment I understood what it was like to be Cooper Foley. To be fearless. I did it again. And again. Each time I got a little higher and swung out a little farther. I wasn't graceful, but that was okay. I was doing something daring and it was flat-out awesome. All fear was gone. I couldn't get enough of it. We took turns, each trying to get higher and outdo the other. We must have been there for an hour before the final jump.
"I'm doing a flip," I boasted.
"No way!" Coop shouted.
"Yeah way!" I laughed.
"Who are you?" Coop laughed back. "What have you done with Marsh?"
"Marsh who?" I exclaimed, and pushed off from the tree, harder than I had before.
As I swung forward, I shifted my weight to prepare for the
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flip and my foot slipped off the rope. I was so surprised, I did the absolute wrong thing . . . I let go. I fell straight down and when I flipped over, my foot caught in the loop like a snare. My head hit the water, but I was still hanging from the rope . . . by my foot. Gravity had me trapped. My ankle had twisted so violently, I was lucky it didn't break. Still, the pain was excruciating and I couldn't pull myself up. My head dangled in the water. I was going to drown.
Cooper dove in from shore and fought through the current and the neck-deep water to get to me. With one hand he held my head out of the water while he freed my foot with the other. He dragged me to shore, coughing and sputtering the whole way. As soon as I hit dry land, I puked. After losing lunch and most of my breakfast, I looked up to see Cooper leaning casually against a tree with his arms folded.
"You okay, Ralph?"
"Ralph?" I asked.
Cooper shrugged.
I nodded. "Yeah, thanks," I said as I spit ick.
"Don't thank me," he said. "You know I've always got your back in Trouble Town."
My nickname was set on that long-ago summer day. It wasn't like there was anything I could do about it. Whenever I was under stress, I got nauseous. Couldn't help it. From that day on, I was Ralph.
As I lay there in the rain, I knew what I had to do. I had to suck it up and find the guy who always had my back in Trouble Town.
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Chapter 8
"The number you are trying to reach is temporarily out of service. Please try again later."
The more I heard that voice, the more I hated it. Since I had heard it a couple dozen times, I was ready to tear the guy's head off. I sent a load of text messages too. It was like sending them into the void of deep space. I kept hoping that "temporary" meant Cooper would eventually answer.
I was sitting in an old stone bus stop a mile from my house. No way I was going back home. Ever. I was miserable. The rain wouldn't let up, and the ancient stone structure didn't do much to keep me dry. At least it was a warm night. As I sat there alone, I wished I was more like Cooper. Coop had lots of friends. I had Coop. There were plenty of guys I knew, but none that I could stop by their house in the middle of the night and declare that I was being haunted by crazy visions and needed a place to crash.
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After trying Coop's number for the thirty- fourth time, I thought of a plan. When the Foleys went away, they always had somebody stay at their house to watch things and feed their dog. It was ten o'clock at night. Not too late to pay a visit. Chances were that whoever was house-sitting would have the phone number for Mr. and Mrs. Foley. If I could get to Coop's parents, they could get me to Coop. Once he heard how desperate I was, he would definitely convince one of his parents to come pick me up. It was a good plan and it made me feel a little better.
Cooper lived a few miles from me in a big old house at the end of a cul-de-sac. If I had a nickel for every time I had ridden my bike there, well, I'd have enough money to buy a freakin' plane ticket and get my butt to Dad in Las Vegas, where it was sunny and safe, instead of riding my bike around in the rain. When I turned onto Coop's street and saw his house, I was relieved to see lights on inside. The house sitter was there and awake. So far, so good. I dropped my bike near the front door, climbed the stairs to the porch, and rang the bell.
I hoped that whoever was staying there wouldn't be horrified by the sight of a soaked stranger paying a visit that late at night. I had a moment of panic, thinking they wouldn't let me in or give me the Foleys' phone number. I had to somehow convince them I wasn't some homeless dude and that I was Cooper's best friend and it was really important that I speak with him because I was going insane. I decided to leave out the part about going insane.
The porch light came on and a face appeared at the window in the door. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this possibility before, but I hadn't. I suddenly felt totally self-conscious. Peering at me through the window was Cooper's sister, Sydney. She stared at me like I was a strange creep who had no business ringing her doorbell that late at night . . . which is exactly what I was.
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"What do you want?" she said. I felt her iciness through the door.
"It's me, Sydney, Marshall Seaver."
She gave me a blank look. It was like I had said I was an alien from the planet Nimnak.
"Cooper's friend," I added.
Since Sydney and Coop didn't hang around with each other, I hardly ever saw her other than in passing. She was always on the way to somewhere more important than where I was. I didn't think much of it until we got older and Sydney started getting, what's the word ... hot. I wouldn't have minded hanging around with her. Then again, I had trouble speaking in her presence, so maybe it was for the best.
"What do you want?" she repeated impatiently.
"I have to talk to Cooper."
"He's not here," she declared, and turned out the porch light.
Nice.
Ordinarily I would have skulked away, beaten and embarrassed, but there was nothing ordinary about what I was dealing with. I boldly rang the doorbell again. Two second
s later Sydney returned and glared at me. She didn't turn the light back on.
"Are you deaf?" she snarled, annoyed.
"I know Coop's not here," I said quickly. "I've been trying his cell phone, but it's out of service. Please don't walk away, Sydney. I really gotta talk to him."
I must have sounded desperate because, well, I was desperate. Sydney stared at me for another moment with those sharp blue eyes. Normally I would have melted, but I was way beyond that. Sydney unlocked the door. I was so relieved, I could have hugged her. Not that I needed an excuse to want to hug Sydney Foley. She opened the door and I gratefully jumped inside.
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"Hey!" she screamed. "You're all wet!"
I looked down at my dripping sweats. "Uh, yeah. It's raining."
Sydney rolled her eyes. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed."
She reached to the floor and picked up a dirty towel that was probably there for people to wipe their shoes on. She tossed it to me like I was some leper she didn't want to get too close to. I didn't care that the towel was filthy. I took it gladly and dried off, happy for the show of kindness . . . no matter how grudging it might have been. All the while Sydney stared at me like I was an infection.
"You didn't go to the lake?" I asked.
"No," she said. "I'm up there right now."
Her sarcasm didn't bother me. I was just grateful to be able to speak. I guess my insanity was stronger than the self-consciousness I usually felt around Sydney.
She turned her back on me and went to the foot of the stairs, where she sat down and stared at me like my every move annoyed her. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. She had on blue flowered pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that didn't quite reach the top of her bottoms. This was a girl who had no trouble getting boyfriends . . . which gave me a sudden, sick feeling.
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