Paul Jenning's Spookiest Stories

by Paul Jennings

  I started to explore the room. It had a very high ceiling. I could see because candles were burning. I didn’t know then, but later I discovered that the candles never went out. They burned on and on without getting smaller.

  The walls were lined with books. More books than I had ever seen before. There were more books than in the Port Fairy Library. There were ladders on wheels which moved along the shelves. The ladders were there so that you could get to the books that were up high.

  In the middle of the room was a bed. A large four-poster bed, big enough for four people. Above the pillows on the bed was a sign written in old-fashioned writing. This is what it said:

  One child shall dwell within this room

  For him to be a living tomb.

  A lonely boy of fifteen years

  Will cry and shed a thousand tears.

  The sturdy door will only crack

  For one with clothes upon his back.

  It will open at the hour of three.

  When the captive will be freed.

  What did it mean? I read it again and again. It seemed to say that a boy of fifteen was trapped. I was fifteen. Was it me?

  It said that the door would only open if the boy was wearing clothes. I was wearing clothes. What did the last bit mean about the hour of three? I thought it meant that the door would open at three o’clock. I looked at my watch. It was one-thirty.

  I sat down on the bed and thought about it. I thought long and hard. The way I worked it out, the message said that the door would open in one and a half hours. It would open for a fifteen-year-old boy who was wearing clothes. It would not open for anybody who was not wearing clothes.

  It was very strange. It was creepy. My head was spinning. This couldn’t be true. Where was I? Was I dead? I didn’t know. I wished I were home, away from this awful place.

  The room was quiet. It was so still that I could almost hear myself thinking.

  A feeling came over me that I was not alone. I thought I heard whispers and soft footsteps. Bare feet on the cold stones.

  My mind went back to ‘The Legend of John Black’. He had fallen down the well fifty years ago. He was naked. Did this have something to do with him? Whose presence could I feel in the room? Was someone under the bed? I was too scared to look.

  I took a marble out of my pocket and rolled it under the bed. It came out the other side. There was no one under the bed and there was nowhere else for anyone to hide.

  I decided that I would have to wait and see what would happen at three o’clock. I sat on the bed and undid my shoes. I put them on the floor because they were muddy. I took off my socks and pushed one into each shoe.

  I felt as if someone was close by. Something was happening. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I was cold all over. Then I noticed my socks. I couldn’t believe it. They were walking around. They were walking with no one in them. I could see lumps where toes were pushing out but there were no legs and no body.

  I looked at my own feet.

  They were gone! I could feel them with my hand but couldn’t see them. My feet were invisible and someone else’s feet were walking around in my socks!

  The socks walked over to my shoes and put themselves into them. Invisible hands started to do up the laces.

  I was frozen with fear. You can imagine what it felt like to see a pair of shoes and socks walking around on their own. Even worse, my feet had become invisible. The shoes walked off and parked themselves in a corner. I sat on the bed and looked at them.

  An hour went by. It was two-thirty. The door was supposed to open at three o’clock. That’s what the rhyme said.

  It will open at the hour of three

  When the captive will be freed.

  A nasty thought was hanging around somewhere in the back of my mind. It would not quite come out. I kept thinking about another bit of the rhyme.

  The sturdy door will only crack

  For one with clothes upon his back.

  No one was going to get out of that door without their clothes. I had already lost my shoes and my socks.

  The shoes came walking towards the bed. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t move. I tried to scream but nothing came out of my mouth. Unseen hands snatched the cap off my head. It floated through the air and landed in the corner of the room.

  The buttons on my shirt began to undo. I wanted to fight but I couldn’t. I was terrified. Frozen with fear. I felt cold fingers undoing the buttons. Someone or something ripped the shirt off my back and threw it on top of the cap. I thought my heart was going to freeze.

  Next came my singlet. Damp hands pulled up my arms and peeled it off my body like a banana skin. I looked down at myself. The top part of my body was invisible. All I could see of myself was my trousers. I had almost vanished from sight.

  My cap, singlet and shirt were all piled in the corner. The parts of my body they had covered were gone.

  I was shaking like a leaf. I think I must have fainted for a minute or two. The next thing I can remember is noticing that my trousers had gone too. Now all that I could see of myself was a pair of underpants. The rest of me was invisible.

  Suddenly my fear went. I was mad. Really mad. Whatever was doing this to me was not going to get those underpants. No way. I decided to fight my invisible enemy.

  Chilly fingers began to tickle me under the armpits. I grabbed something. It was a hand. I bent its fingers back. A scream filled the room. It was a young voice. Like my own.

  Then something poked into my eye. It felt like a finger and it hurt like mad. I held both hands up to my eyes. That was a mistake. My underpants were ripped off.

  Now I was naked. I didn’t have a stitch on. And I was invisible. The only sign that I existed was my watch. It looked as if it was floating in the air on its own.

  Over in the corner my clothes were starting to dress themselves. First my underpants went on, then my singlet, shirt, cap and trousers. A person appeared. It was a boy about my age. He had black hair, black eyes and a large scar stretching from his mouth to his ear.

  I decided to fight him. I wanted my clothes back. But before I could move he spoke to me.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘but I will be back to rescue you.’ At that moment the door swung open and he jumped out through it. I rushed to the door but it slammed in my face. I kicked the door with my bare feet. I hammered against it with my hands. It was no use. I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock.

  3

  It is not going to take me long to tell you about the next fifty years of my life. They were all spent in that room. I tried everything I could to get out.

  I tried to dig under the door with a stick. I dug a small hole but then it started filling itself in. Soon it was completely filled in. It was just as it was before I had started. The floor was smooth again. I tried to dig my way out time after time, but the same thing always happened. It was like trying to dig a hole in a pool of water.

  The room seemed to be alive. No matter what I did it always stayed the same. Finally I gave up. I stopped digging. I had come to a dead end.

  Next I tried to make some clothes out of the bedcovers. I thought the door might open for me if I did this. I made a needle out of a splinter of wood and pulled a thread out of a sheet. I used these to make a pillowcase into a shirt. It was a good shirt. But as soon as I put it on it fell to pieces. The pieces all joined themselves back into a pillowcase. I tried this over and over again, but the same thing always happened.

  I did a lot of shouting. I banged on the door and yelled, ‘Let me out, let me out!’

  No one ever came. The room never got untidy. The sheets never became dirty or crumpled. The candles never burned out, and no one ever came. No one ever came.

  I was never hungry, and I didn’t eat or drink. I guess ghosts don’t eat or drink. I was a living ghost.

  There was only one thing to do – read. I read books for fifty years. There were books about anything that y
ou could think of. I read them all. That is why I know so much now.

  On one wall was a mirror. I looked in the mirror a lot. I couldn’t see myself. Ghosts do not have reflections. I did a lot of thinking in those fifty years. I thought about that boy with the scar who stole my clothes. I knew he was John Black. The legend of John Black was true. He said he would come back, but he never did.

  Sometimes I would get so lonely that I would cry. I would sit by the door and cry. I would call out for help.

  I talked to myself a lot but mostly I read books. I read about far-away places. I read about clouds and flowers and waterfalls. I read about the ocean and the mountains. In my mind I could see all those places but I couldn’t go to them. I was trapped underground in a room full of books.

  I did many strange things and thought many strange thoughts. I’m not going to tell you about them, but I am going to tell you what happened after my fifty years in that prison.

  4

  In fifty years I never saw a face. Or heard a voice. When I finally saw another person it was a great shock. I wasn’t ready for it. It happened out of the blue.

  The door suddenly burst open and light poured into the room. A teenage boy came carefully into my cell. He pointed a lantern around. I had never seen a lantern like it before. It shone a very bright light wherever he pointed it.

  He had pink cheeks and looked strong and healthy. He had red hair and brown eyes. He looked as if he had spent a lot of time in the sunshine.

  The door banged shut behind him. He did just what I had done. He kicked the door and tried to open it. It wouldn’t open, so after a while he sat on the bed.

  He couldn’t see me because I was invisible. I had been invisible for most of my life.

  I wondered what the time was. My watch had stopped working many years ago. I had taken it off. I hoped that it was close to three o’clock. I am ashamed of what I did next. What I did was wrong. I know that it was wrong. I hope that you will understand. I had to get out of there. I had to see the rivers and fields again. I had to take this chance. It might have been my only opportunity to leave that room.

  The boy was sitting on the bed. I could see that he was frightened. He was scared stiff. I crept up to him and grabbed his shoes. I pulled them off his feet. Then I ripped off his socks.

  He fainted just as I had fainted all those years ago. He stayed unconscious for about five minutes. In that time I took off all his clothes. As I took off his clothes he began to disappear. Finally he was invisible.

  Now there were two invisible people in the room. Neither could see the other. In the corner was a pile of his clothes. They were strange clothes made out of strange materials. But they were clothes. They would do the job.

  I quickly put them on. I was a person again. I could see myself. I could see my hands and feet. They were young hands. They were the hands of a boy. I had thought that I would have grown old. I rushed to the mirror. I could see my face. I had a reflection. A young reflection. I should have been an old man. But I was still a teenager. I still looked just as I did fifty years ago.

  A nasty thought struck me. When the boy became conscious he would be able to see me. He would be able to see me but already I couldn’t see him.

  I stood by the door, waiting for it to open. A long time passed. I could feel someone creeping around. It was the boy. He must have read the rhyme over the bed by now. He might have worked it out.

  Something started pulling at my shoes, trying to get them off. It was him, trying to get his clothes back. Once again I was struggling with an invisible boy. I kicked out at where I thought he was. There was a sharp scream and then the sound of heavy breathing. I think I must have kicked him in the face.

  At that moment the door swung open. I jumped out quickly. As the door began to close behind me, I called out, ‘I’m sorry. I will be back. I will be back to rescue you.’

  I was at the bottom of the well. There was a blue rope hanging down from the top. I had never seen a blue rope before. But I climbed up it quickly.

  5

  I have been back to that well many times since then. I have been down to the bottom with picks and shovels. I have dug and dug but there is no door there. It has vanished.

  The world outside seems very strange to me. It has changed a lot in fifty years. The cars are very fast with fat tyres. They have strong lights that blind your eyes. They are dangerous. Many people get killed by them.

  And the women! The women wear trousers. They think they are men. I cannot get used to it.

  The aeroplanes have no propellors. How do they stay up without propellors? It is hard to understand.

  Every home has a box which shows moving pictures which talk. The people on them are like ghosts. They are frightening. But not as frightening as the ghost of John Black.

  No one believes my story about John Black. No one believes there is a room at the bottom of the well. I tell them there is a boy still trapped there. A naked ghost. They laugh. They think I am mad. They say I am insane.

  They have locked me up with mad people. Once again I am a prisoner. This time I am not alone. I have a madman who shares my room. He thinks he is a chicken. The man in the next room thinks he is a tree.

  I have been told that long ago there was another boy here like me. He thought he had been a ghost. He was never let out. They think I have the same madness.

  I must get out of here. I must rescue the boy in the well at Fort Nelson. Someone must know that my story is true.

  You believe me, don’t you?

  About the author

  The Paul Jennings phenomenon began with the publication of Unreal! in 1985. Since then over eight million books have been sold to readers all over the world.

  Paul has written over one hundred stories and has been voted ‘favourite author’ by children in Australia over forty times, winning every children’s choice award. The top rating TV series Round the Twist and Driven Crazy are based on a selection of his enormously popular short-story collections such as Unseen!, which was awarded the 1999 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Best Children’s Book.

  In 1995, Paul was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to children’s literature, and in 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Dromkeen Medal.

  His most recent titles include Paul Jennings’ Funniest Stories, and Paul Jennings’ Weirdest Stories, The Reading Bug … and how you can help your child to catch it (2003), his Rascal storybooks for early readers and his first full-length novel, How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare … (shortlisted for the 2006 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers).

  This collection of twenty stories has been hand-picked by Paul from his extensive collection and contains some of his spookiest and fun-filled tales.