It was an enormous model of Tillinghast, scaled down to fit into the school’s lobby, with its most distinctive architectural features painted on layers of flat cardboard.
“Wow,” Glen whispered.
“Here’s the best part.” Mrs. Arthur pushed open the cardboard front door and led them into a replica of Tillinghast’s entrance hall, complete with a cardboard staircase, a cardboard fireplace, a cardboard chandelier, even cardboard reproductions of the tapestries.
Tables of food and drink were arranged on both sides of the room. Mrs. Arthur took great delight in pointing out all of what she called the dreadfully tasty treats.
“Maybe you’d like some fresh eyeballs?” she asked, then lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “They’re just peeled grapes.”
“I know,” Robert said.
“Or how about some Witch’s Brew?” she cackled. “No, seriously, it’s just lemonade with gummy worms.”
“Mom, I get it,” Robert said.
She frowned. “You don’t seem very impressed.”
“Whose idea was this? The staircase, the fireplace, the tapestries?”
“Oh, Mr. Price thought of everything. Sarah and Sylvia’s father. He heads the Parents Association and he designed the whole thing. Here he comes now.”
To anyone else at the dance, it might seem like Mr. Price wasn’t in costume. He was dressed for work at his law firm, in a charcoal three-button suit with a crisp white shirt and burgundy tie. But Robert and Glenn understood that Mr. Price was the costume—that beneath the fancy tailoring and suntanned skin lurked another of Tillinghast’s horrific monsters.
“That’s a good disguise,” Glenn said.
“You haven’t seen the best part,” Mrs. Arthur said. “Go on, Bill, show him.”
Mr. Price smiled, revealing a pair of cheap plastic vampire fangs. “Watch out! I’m a blood-sucking lawyer!”
“Isn’t that funny?” Mrs. Arthur laughed. “I think it’s so original.”
Sarah and Sylvia followed their father into the hall; they were dressed in matching pink princess gowns and pointy hats. The girls hurried toward Robert and Glenn holding paper towels from the restroom.
“You poor things,” Sarah said. “You’re dripping wet!”
“Maybe you’d like to sit by the fire,” Sylvia suggested. “You’ll be warm and toasty in no time.”
“Oh, that’s cute!” Mrs. Arthur said.
Robert refused the towels. “We’re okay.”
“Yeah,” Glenn said. “We’ll dry off at the dance. But you should come with us, Mrs. Arthur. I’m sure they need chaperones inside.”
Mr. Price shook his head. “We need her at the front door. In case any more latecomers show up.” He spoke like a good lawyer, with so much conviction and authority that no one dared question his decision. “But don’t worry, Mrs. Arthur, I’m happy to keep you company.”
“Please,” she said, laughing, “call me Mary.”
Robert didn’t like the idea of leaving his mother in Tillinghast Mansion, even if it was a fake replica of Tillinghast Mansion, and especially not with a monster disguised as Mr. Price. But she was already hurrying him toward the dance. “Go on, kids, have fun! I want to see some fancy footwork out there!”
“Thanks, Mrs. Arthur!” Sarah said.
“You’re the best!” Sylvia exclaimed.
Glenn pushed open the door and they entered the gymnasium. It was decorated like the lobby, filled with fake cobwebs and glowing jack-o’-lanterns and fog machines pumping misty vapors across the empty dance floor. Most kids were loitering on the sidelines, a bunch of zombies and pirates and vampires. At the far end of the gym was a small stage where a high-school student played DJ, blasting pop music over giant speakers.
Sarah and Sylvia stepped boldly to the center of the dance floor, waving their arms and shaking their hips.
“Let’s get this party started!” Sarah exclaimed.
“Woooooo!” Sylvia said. “Go, Lovecraft!”
They were dancing alone—but only for a moment. Soon the zombies and pirates and vampires stepped forward to join them, as if drawn to the Price sisters by some kind of powerful magnetic force. Within minutes, the dance floor was packed.
“It’s like they have everyone under a spell,” Robert observed. “Do you think Tillinghast gave them special powers?”
Glenn shook his head. “They’re just popular, that’s all. They don’t need any other powers.”
The boys found Karina sitting alone at the top of the bleachers. She wore a wispy white gown and a ring of flowers in her hair. Draped around her shoulders was a length of metal chain.
“What are you supposed to be?” Glenn asked.
“I’m a ghooooost,” Karina moaned, rattling the chain with both hands. “I’m trapped for eeeeeternity in a middle schoooool. Help meeeeee.”
Robert laughed. “You need to work on your acting.”
They sat down and Robert unzipped the pocket of his flak vest. Pip and Squeak climbed out and sat beside him. It was eight-thirty and the election results wouldn’t be announced until nine o’clock. They passed the time trying to identify teachers and faculty, all of whom were in costume. Mr. Loomis was dressed as Abraham Lincoln, with a black overcoat, fake beard, and tall stovepipe hat. Coach Glandis had come as Michael Jackson, sporting a red leather jacket and a single white sequined glove. And Ms. Lavinia was dressed as a mermaid, complete with a shimmering turquoise gown and ruffled tail fin. She was filling a cup at the punch bowl when she was approached by a man in a wet suit, diving helmet, and swim fins. She recognized him at once, dropped her cup, and pulled him into an embrace.
“Is that who I think it is?” Glenn asked.
It was Warren Lavinia, Robert realized. Of course. Halloween was the one time of year when Ms. Lavinia’s husband could come into Lovecraft Middle School wearing a mask without anyone getting suspicious. He had promised his wife they would be together soon, and he had kept his word.
The lights in the gymnasium dimmed, the music switched to a slow song, and the Lavinias drifted onto the dance floor. All around them, boys and girls were pairing up. Robert scratched the back of his neck. Karina crossed her legs and then uncrossed them.
Glenn elbowed Robert in the ribs. “You should go dance.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Are you chicken?”
“I’m not chicken, I just don’t feel like it.”
“Any girl in the seventh grade would dance with you tonight,” Glenn said. “You just have to ask. You’re a hero now. You should be down there with the cool kids.”
“I’m happy here.”
“What about Lynn Scott? She’s cute.”
“I don’t think so.”
Glenn was incredulous. “You don’t think Lynn’s cute? She’s gorgeous! Look at her hula costume. Look at those shells!”
“I don’t want to dance with her.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Will you leave him alone?” Karina snapped. “He says he’s happy sitting here. Quit bugging him.”
Glenn threw up his hands, exasperated. “I’m just trying to take his mind off the election. He looks nervous.”
Robert confessed he was worried about his mother. “I don’t like her being alone out there with Mr. Price. I’m afraid something bad is going to happen.”
“Glenn and I will go check on her,” Karina offered. “We’ll make sure she’s okay. You wait here in case they announce the results.”
They left and Robert was glad he didn’t have to talk about dancing anymore. He had no interest in dancing with any of the girls in seventh grade, except maybe Karina. But how do you dance with a girl who isn’t really there? How do you hold hands with a ghost?
He was still pondering these questions when he noticed Howard Mergler ascending the bleacher stairs. Each step required a tremendous amount of effort. He was using his forearm crutches like climbin
g poles, as if he was scaling Mount Everest.
“Howard!” Robert called. “You want me to come down?”
“I can make it,” he called back. “Just give me a second.”
More than a few minutes passed before Howard finally reached the summit of the bleachers. Robert couldn’t make sense of his costume; he wore a wild white wig and bushy white mustache that made him look like an old man.
Then Robert noticed Howard’s T-shirt. It read: E=mc2.
“You’re Albert Einstein,” he said.
Howard nodded. “The father of modern physics. You’re the first person to recognize me. Well done.”
“How do you like the dance?”
“I’m not much of a dancer,” Howard said. “I’m only here for the election results.”
Robert laughed. “Me, too.”
“Well, let me congratulate you ahead of time,” Howard said, shaking his hand. “If I have to lose to someone, I’m glad it’s you instead of Sarah Price.”
Robert was confused. “You don’t know that you’ve lost.”
Howard laughed. “Yes, I do. I should have known it was pointless to try. People like me never get to be president.”
“How do you mean?”
He gestured to his legs. “Franklin Roosevelt was the last person to pull it off. He was stuck in a wheelchair and voters still elected him president of the United States. But that was before TV, before the Internet. These days it’s all about image.”
Robert admitted that it seemed unfair.
“No one said life is fair,” Howard said. “But I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll try out for Handwriting Club. I hear they’re always looking for new members.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, I just wanted to say congratulations.”
Howard hobbled down the steps, returning to the dance floor to await the election results. Robert decided the whole student council election was stupid. Either Sarah would win because she was pretty and popular, or Robert would win because he hit a giant bird with a music stand. Neither outcome was right—and the one candidate with good ideas didn’t stand a chance.
But there was no time to dwell on the injustice of it all.
Glenn was running back to the bleachers. He looked scared, and Glenn didn’t frighten easily. Something had to be very wrong.
“It’s your mother,” he said. “She’s gone.”
SEVENTEEN
As they hurried across the dance floor, pushing past all of the vampires and zombies, Glenn explained that he and Karina had already searched outside around the school. “Mr. Price said he needed her to wait outside for latecomers, remember?” he said. “But there’s no sign of her anywhere. She’s disappeared.”
“Where’s Karina?”
“Checking the cafeteria. I want to check inside the haunted house.”
On the far side of the gym, Mr. Loomis climbed the steps to the stage and tapped the microphone a few times.
“Excuse me, everyone!” he called. “We’ll be announcing the winners of the election in just a few minutes. So please, let’s all gather in the gymnasium. Everyone come inside, please, all right?”
Robert and Glenn ignored him. There was no time to waste. As their classmates moved toward the stage, the two boys walked in the opposite direction. They pushed open the exit door of the gymnasium and returned to the entrance hall of the fake Tillinghast Mansion.
There was no sign of Mrs. Arthur—but they did find Sarah and Sylvia Price, still dressed in their princess costumes, standing beside the table of pretzels and potato chips and fake eyeballs.
“Where’s my mother?” Robert demanded.
“We gave you an extraordinary opportunity,” Sarah growled. “You could have surrendered your vessels and served with honor. Now we’re going to take them by force!”
The door to the gymnasium slammed shut, and Robert heard the lock click into place. The room was extremely cold. Somehow the tapestry depicting a vortex had transformed into a real vortex, a real gate, rimmed with frost and venting frigid air.
“We won’t go,” Robert said.
“It’s not your choice,” Sarah answered.
With extraordinary force and agility, she grabbed Robert’s arm and twisted it behind his back, shooting pain up his shoulders until he collapsed to his knees. “There, there,” she said. “Stand up, Robert. Be a good little boy and I won’t hurt you again.”
Glenn tried pushing past Sylvia to no avail. She may have looked like a thirteen-year-old girl, but her strength, speed, and reflexes were superhuman. She flipped Glenn onto his back and knelt on his chest, pinning him to the floor. “Try that again and I’ll claw your eyes out,” she warned. “We don’t need your inferior mammalian vision. Just your hair, muscle, and skin.”
Sarah shoved Robert toward the vortex.
“The spell!” Glenn exclaimed. “Use Warren’s spell!”
Of course! The words sprang to his lips: “K’yaloh f’ah Zhenz’koh.” Robert sputtered the incantation three times while the Price sisters just laughed.
“It doesn’t work twice, you idiot,” Sarah said. “You’ve already brought Zhenz’koh into your world, so you can’t summon her again.”
She shoved him forward another step. With his free hand, Robert reached for anything that might be used as a weapon. He grabbed a bowl of pretzels and flung it at Sylvia. The container clanged off her head and tumbled to the floor, spilling salty snacks everywhere.
Sylvia seemed amused. “You can’t harm us,” she explained. “We descend from an ancient race of superior life forms. Look what I can do.” She grabbed a handful of Glenn’s hair, pulling him off the floor and tossing him upside-down, like a child’s rag doll. Glenn hit the floor hard and groaned. He was helpless.
Sarah shoved Robert forward yet another step. Now he could feel the force of the vortex, drawing him into its vacuum. He was inches away from spending eternity in a ceramic jar. One more step and it would all be over.
Desperate, he grabbed a cup of Witch’s Brew from the table and tossed it in Sarah’s face, hoping it might slow her for just a moment. One last second on earth before an eternity of torment.
To his astonishment, Sarah shrieked.
She released her grip on Robert and stumbled backward, clutching her face. Her skin was venting tiny plumes of gray smoke, as if it had somehow been ignited.
“Nooo!” Sylvia bellowed.
There was no time to think about what was happening or why. Robert grabbed the bowl of Witch’s Brew and dumped it over Sylvia’s head. She ducked but wasn’t fast enough. She fell to the floor, howling with rage.
Robert spotted a few slices of lemon at the bottom of the punch bowl—and suddenly he understood what was going on. His mother had made the Witch’s Brew; she described the recipe as plain old lemonade with gummy worms.
It was, in other words, a two-gallon vat of citric acid—the same substance Warren had used to dissolve the hermit crabs and reveal the cthulhus.
Robert reached under Glenn’s shoulders, lifting him up. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” Glenn said, still groggy. “What’s happening?”
Sarah and Sylvia were writhing on the floor, their skin molting from their bodies as Robert and Glenn watched in horror. They were reacting to the acid just as the hermit crab had in Warren’s laboratory—except their decomposition was a thousand times more disgusting. Skin melted down, peeling off in pink, gooey slabs. The smell was appalling. What remained of their bodies was green, scaled, slimy, and only vaguely human. Instead of legs, each beast ended in long, slithering tails. Instead of hair, their heads were crowned with a tangle of live snakes.
Robert and Glenn bolted for the front exit—the door leading to the front of the school—but the snakesisters were faster, cracking their massive tails across the room and blocking the way. “Fai throdog ky’osiss!” they chanted together. “Fai throdog ky’osiss!”
“What are they doing?” Glenn asked. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Robert sai
d.
“Fai throdog ky’osiss! Fai throdog ky’osiss!” As the sisters continued their chant, their hideous hair-snakes swayed to its rhythm, hissing along with every “ky’osiss.”
The gate was spinning faster; its black vortex was accelerating. One of the snakesisters lashed her tail at Robert, and it tethered around his waist like a bullwhip. “You’re coming with usssss!” she hissed. “Now that you’ve destroyed our vesssssels, Master will insisssst on replacements!”
The other serpent-beast snapped her tail around Glenn’s legs, knocking him off balance. He fell to the floor, unable to stand. The vortex spun faster and faster, creating a powerful vacuum. Everything that wasn’t bolted down—the party streamers, the pretzel bowl, the cardboard chandelier, the melted vessels, the puddles of skin and slime and ooze—all of it was slurped up into the vortex.
Robert hooked one arm around a handrail mounted to the wall. Glenn wasn’t close enough to reach it, so he grabbed Robert’s free hand instead. The snakesisters slithered toward the gate, pulling the boys with their tails, but Glenn held fast to Robert and Robert held tight to the railing.
He knew he wouldn’t last long. Their only hope was for someone in the gymnasium to unlock the door and come to their rescue.
“Help!” Robert shouted.
“Help us!” Glenn screamed. “Somebody! Please!”
They hollered and yelled, but the gymnasium was too noisy; no one could hear them over the music. Except—
“Robert Arthur? Is that you?”
A lone voice on the other side of the door.
It was Mr. Loomis!
“We’re getting ready to announce the winners,” he explained. “What are you doing in there?” The door rattled in its frame as Mr. Loomis tried to open it. “And why is this door locked?”
“We’re trapped!” Robert yelled back. “Do you have a key?”
“I don’t, but I could find a custodian,” he proposed. “Why don’t you boys sit tight for a few minutes and I’ll see what I can do.”
Robert didn’t have a few minutes. The snakesisters were pulling harder on his legs. His fingers were slipping off the railing. It was then that he realized he was going to spend eternity in a ceramic jar, after all. Unless—
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