Terrifying Tales to Tell at Night

by Stephen Jones

  Matt and I looked at each other, and I could see how scared Matt was—maybe even as scared as I was.

  The floating shape said, “This test covers . . . chemistry.”

  Chemistry! Okay, I thought, you wanted to be in one of Dr. Addison’s classes, so here’s your chance . . .

  Matt asked, “What kind of test?”

  Dr. Addison grinned, and it looked like an effect from a horror movie. “The rules are simple: you’ll be given a series of clues. If you can solve them all in one hour, you’ll find your friend and you may all leave. If not . . .” He didn’t have to say any more; we got it.

  Matt sidestepped to me and whispered, “Chemistry . . . you can do this, right?”

  Truthfully, I had no idea. But at least I could try.

  “Okay,” I said to the figure, “give us the first clue.”

  Dr. Addison began to laugh. The sound increased in volume, booming through the building until Matt and I were covering our ears in pain. Dr. Addison’s head grew bigger and bigger, his mouth open, and we thought it would swallow us—and then the sound abruptly stopped. The shape vanished, and all that was left was a piece of paper fluttering down to the floor where Dr. Addison had just been.

  Matt darted forward first and grabbed the paper, and just then our flashlights came back on. Matt held his up over the page. “It says, ‘Find the first clue in the seat of higher learning’.” Matt looked up, his brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”

  “‘Higher learning’ usually means a college, but we’re already in a college, so it’s something else . . .” I thought about what we’d seen that might qualify as “higher learning.” “The big classroom, with the tiers of seats—the top row would be higher learning, right?”

  Matt took off running toward the double doors at the far end of the hall, and I went after him. Halfway down the hall, though, when I ran past Dr. Addison’s office, I stopped and thought: if this is going to be all about chemistry, we could use a little help. I went into the office, looked at the few old textbooks left in the bookcase, and there was one titled Chemistry. I pulled it down, flipped through it, and saw stuff I thought might be useful. I also saw an old pencil nub on the desk—that might be needed for notes—so I took both pencil and book with me and I ran after Matt.

  When I burst through the doors, Matt was already at the middle of the top tier, looking down at something. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Come up here and see for yourself.”

  I joined him; he was looking down at a page from a glossy magazine, showing a swimming pool, blue and cool. We both looked at the picture, perplexed. Matt started to reach for it, but hesitated. “Do you think it’s safe to touch?”

  “Do you mean, does it have ghost germs or something?” I picked it up and handed it to him.

  Matt flipped it over, but the back showed a piece of a photo of a car, just part of an ad. We were plainly supposed to focus on the pool.

  “Okay, a swimming pool,” Matt said, and then happily blurted out, “water . . . wait, even I know this one: H2O!”

  “Right! You didn’t totally sleep through all your science classes.”

  Matt jumped excitedly. “I got it: Benny’s in the bathroom!”

  But something bugged me; it was too easy. If Addison had only wanted us to get water, he could’ve put a cup of water there, or a picture of the ocean, or a faucet. Why a swimming pool in particular?

  Because people put chemicals in their pools to keep them clean. “Chlorine!”

  Matt said, “Huh?”

  “I think the answer is not water, but the main chemical that goes into pools—chlorine.” I flipped open the textbook.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Dr. Addison’s office.” I set the book down so I could flip pages with one hand and hold the flashlight with the other. “Chlorine is number 17 on the periodic table, and its symbol is Cl.” I found a blank page at the front of the book and made this note:

  CLUE #1: Chlorine—17—Cl

  “I still think it’s water,” groused Matt.

  “So now how do we find the next clue?”

  Matt moved his flashlight around. “There’s writing on the chair.”

  We both bent over to look. I recognized it as the same writing on the first note Dr. Addison (or his ghost) had left us. It read: For the next clue, go to D-12.

  Matt was already running out. “This way!”

  As I gathered up the book and flashlight, I called after him, “Whoa, slow down!”

  “Can’t,” he yelled back over his shoulder, “we’ve got less than an hour.” He rushed out of the big classroom.

  He was right. Without our phones, we had no way of telling time, so we couldn’t waste even a minute. I ran after him.

  D-12 was one of the smaller classrooms. It only took us a few seconds to reach it; inside, it was like all the other classrooms, with desks and chairs dimly lit by streetlight coming in through the windows . . .

  Windows! Could we break a window to get out? I went up and squinted at the glass, knocked a knuckle against it. The windows were sealed shut, thick, and looked to be reinforced. But even if we could get out that way, what about Benny? And, of course, there was also Dr. Addison to think about—what would a ghost do if it found out we were trying to cheat on its test?

  “What’s that?”

  Matt’s call tore me away from thinking about windows. His flashlight beam was resting on the only object to be found on the teacher’s desk at the front of the room: it was tall, metal, and painted green. There was something next to it, something connected to it with a tube . . .

  “Is that a mask?”

  Matt was just bending over to look when the mask jumped into the air and planted itself on his face.

  His scream was choked off as invisible hands kept the mask clamped onto him, but my scream filled the classroom. I tried to help him, but the same force kept me from reaching him. I could only watch as Matt squirmed, swinging the baseball bat, his eyes wide in terror above the mask . . .

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over; the mask fell away from his face. Matt staggered back, panting, and I was able to run up to him.

  “Are you okay?”

  He couldn’t quite get a word out, but he nodded.

  As soon as I was sure he was fine, I turned to look at the mask and the metal cylinder. I’d seen these things in television shows, whenever there was a scene in a hospital.

  “It’s an oxygen mask,” Matt finally got out between breaths.

  “Yeah, and that’s an oxygen tank.” I didn’t even have to open the book to know about oxygen; it’s one of the most common elements, an essential part of not just the air we breathe but the ground we walk on as well. Its atomic number was 8. But I didn’t want to forget anything, so I opened the book to the page where I was recording clues and wrote:

  CLUE #2: Oxygen—8—O

  Matt watched me write, and then asked, “So what’s next?”

  I swung the flashlight beam around and spotted something written on the chalkboard. “That.”

  As we walked up to see what it said, Matt added, “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there when we came in.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

  There on the chalkboard, in Dr. Addison’s writing, was, Go out and look at the sky.

  Matt asked, “How are we supposed to go outside?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t mean ‘out’ like ‘outside,’ but ‘out’ into the hallway . . .”

  My brother was already heading for the door. “I don’t want to stay in here with that creepy mask, anyway.”

  I followed him out of the classroom and into the dark, empty corridor. Matt, looking around, asked, “Now what?”

  I was saved from having to answer when I glanced up and saw something happening above our heads. “Uhhh . . .”

  Matt followed my gaze, and we both started to back away, slowly. The air near the ceiling was swirling, forming a blacker spa
ce, almost as if it was taking on weight. I wanted to run, but I knew I couldn’t, because I’d miss the next clue.

  Something brighter appeared in the center of the spinning black; it grew bigger, brighter, a light-yellow shade with some darker patches.

  It was the moon, full and clear. It was huge, and even beautiful; for a few seconds, I forgot to be terrified.

  “Wow,” Matt muttered beside me.

  It almost seemed close enough to reach out and touch. It was turning slightly, and I saw features I recognized, but with more detail than I’d ever seen before.

  “That is so cool,” Matt said.

  I was nodding when the moon faded out, the black space vanished, and we once again stood beneath a normal ceiling.

  “So,” Matt said, “what does the moon have to do with chemistry? Is it made mostly of one thing?”

  “I don’t think so . . . I don’t know. The other two were kind of easy, but this one . . .”

  I sat down on the floor of the hallway with my back against a wall and opened the chemistry book, aiming my flashlight down onto the pages. First I checked the index, but there was nothing for the moon. I flipped through the pages, hoping to see a picture of the moon, or of something that would lead me to the answer, but . . .

  Maybe I wasn’t good enough after all. Maybe I wasn’t as good at chemistry as I thought I was, because I couldn’t seem to figure this out. I was failing Cole Addison’s test—

  “Uhhh, April—how long is this gonna take? Because . . .”

  “I know, Matt, I know.”

  In desperation, I opened the book to the periodic table and started looking at all the elements, trying to find connections.

  Nickel, because the moon is round like a nickel? Kind of a stretch.

  Sulfur, because it was yellow like the moon? Again, that didn’t feel right.

  One element that I didn’t know much about caught my eye: selenium. Selenium . . . there was something about that, something I’d read once . . .

  I flipped to the index again, found an entry for selenium, went to the right page—and there it was: selenium was derived from the ancient Greek word for “moon.”

  “I got it!”

  Matt jumped excitedly. “What is it?”

  “Selenium. It’s from an old word for moon.”

  I added to my list:

  CLUE #3: Selenium—34—Se

  Matt scanned the list so far. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know yet. I think we’ve got more clues to go.”

  The voice of Dr. Cole Addison came from behind us: “You are correct.”

  We whirled to see the figure floating a few feet away. “There are five total clues,” it added.

  I had to give my little brother a lot of credit for being so brave just then. He stepped up to that nightmare, pointed the bat at it, and said, “Give us number four now and stop wasting our time.” He’d come a long way from the kid who was too scared to follow his best friend into a spooky building.

  Dr. Addison grabbed the bat and snapped it in two like it was a twig. He dropped the splintered pieces and said, “All right. Let’s go back to the Greeks again. Who is this?” He gestured with his hand, and out of nowhere a book hit the floor by our feet.

  Matt bent to examine it and exclaimed, “Oh, I have this book! It’s all about mythology.” I joined him, and saw the volume had landed open to a drawing of a bearded, brawny man wrestling a lion. “That,” Matt said, “is Hercules, the strongest man in the world.”

  This was another easy one. “Titanium!”

  The floating figure nodded. Matt looked at me, confused, so I explained, “Titanium is the strongest metal in the world.”

  But Dr. Addison wasn’t done yet. “You’ve guessed correctly, except for one thing . . .”

  “What?” I asked, my stomach already clenching in dread.

  “My titanium is lacking this . . .”

  Dr. Addison reached a translucent hand up to his face, dug his fingers in, and pulled out one of his eyes. He held it down toward us, and I saw the pale pupil still watching us, tracking our movement.

  Matt shrieked. I stood frozen. The shape blinked out.

  It took us a few seconds to recover before Matt could ask, “What was that supposed to mean?”

  I shook my head, but was already checking titanium in the periodic table and writing the latest clue:

  CLUE #4: Titanium—22—Ti

  The symbol for titanium was Ti . . . Ti. “Matt, what did he say exactly?”

  Matt thought for a few seconds and then said, “He said, ‘my titanium is lacking this,’ and then he pulled out . . .”

  I grinned. “His eye. Or . . . i!” I took the pencil and crossed out the i in the symbol for titanium so Clue #4 now looked like this:

  CLUE #4: Titanium—22—T

  “So,” Matt said, “there’s one clue left. Where do we find it?”

  “Uhhh . . .” I said, looking past Matt, “there.”

  Letters were forming in the air just past Matt. As we watched, Matt breathed out, “Now he can just write in the air? Why couldn’t he do that before?”

  I guessed, “He’s getting stronger. It probably means we don’t have much time left.”

  The writing ended, and the words hung in the air, waving slightly like seaweed in an ocean current: Here is your final clue: find your friend in a room of silicon.

  Then they faded away.

  Matt turned to me anxiously. “Silicon? What’s silicon used for? Can you have a whole room of it?”

  I was already flipping through the chemistry book. “I don’t know . . .” In the periodic table, silicon had an atomic weight of 14. I wrote down:

  CLUE #5: Silicon—14—Si (Room)

  Matt squinted at the clues. “That’s all of ’em, right?”

  “Yep . . .”

  I looked at the list, trying to find the common thread. Something occurred to me about the final clue then. “The last clue is the only one where he gave us the name of the chemical first. I think that means it’s somehow different from the others.”

  I took the pencil and rewrote the clues in three columns:

  For the last clue, I wrote:

  “How much time do you think is left?” Matt asked.

  I jumped to my feet, grinning. “It doesn’t matter, because I know where Benny is!” I took off running without waiting to explain or even see if Matt was following.

  As I’d looked at the columns, I’d realized that with the first four clues I was supposed to look at the symbols, which (without the i in titanium) spelled out: Cl-O-Se-T.

  Closet.

  With the fifth clue, because Dr. Addison gave us the element’s name first, it was different. We were supposed to look at the number: 14. A “room of silicon” was room 14, or (as the rooms were numbered in this building) classroom D-14.

  We reached D-14, tore the door open, and rushed to the closet. It was a small coat closet at the rear of the room, just two walls with clothes rods, a few old rusting hangers . . .

  Nothing.

  “He’s not here,” Matt stamped in frustration. “The police would’ve found him if he was.”

  “Wait.” I crouched and ran the flashlight beam around the lower part of the closet, looking for something, anything. I had to be right, because there was no time to be wrong, and because I knew I was good at chemistry.

  “The hour’s probably up,” Matt said in defeat.

  I saw it, then: part of the wall where the wood panels didn’t match. I set the flashlight down and ran my fingers along the wall.

  It moved.

  I heard Matt’s breath catch as I applied more pressure, and found that part of the wall slid to one side, revealing a small space behind it.

  Small, yes—but big enough to hide Benny. He had a gag around his mouth and he was tied up, but he was awake and making anxious sounds in his throat.

  Matt helped me get him out and untied. As we lowered the gag, he said, “There’s a ghost
in here—!”

  We cut him off. “We know. Now let’s go home.”

  We made it to the exit without anything stopping us, and this time the doors opened easily. Matt led Benny out, and both boys whooped in relief as they ran out into the night air.

  I was about to join them when I sensed a presence behind me. I turned to see the ghost there, but now Dr. Addison’s smile didn’t look creepy.

  “I passed your test,” I said, in case he was going to try to go back on the deal.

  Instead he nodded and said, “You’ll make a fine scientist some day.”

  He vanished, and I knew he was gone for good; but Cole Addison—the guy who never said anything nice to anyone—had just said something to me that no one else ever had, and I knew my life would never be the same again.

  As we reached our bikes, I couldn’t resist a last dig at the boys. “Hey, next time you two get the urge to investigate some creepy old building . . . don’t, okay?”

  They promised.

  THE MAN WHO DREW CATS

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

  TOM WAS A very tall man, so tall he didn’t even have a nickname for it. Ned Black, who was at least a head shorter, had been “Tower Block” since the sixth grade, and Jack had a sign up over the door saying MIND YOUR HEAD, NED. But Tom was just Tom. It was like he was so tall it didn’t bear mentioning even for a joke: be a bit like ragging someone for breathing.

  Course there were other reasons too for not ragging Tom about his height or anything else. The guys you’ll find perched on stools round Jack’s Bar watching the game and buying beers, they’ve known each other forever. Gone to Miss Stadler’s school together, gotten under each other’s mom’s feet, double-dated right up to giving each other’s best man’s speech. Kingstown is a small place, you understand, and the old boys who come regular to Jack’s mostly spent their childhoods in the same tree house. Course they’d since gone their separate ways, up to a point: Pete was an accountant now, had a small office down Union Street just off the Square and did pretty good, whereas Ned was still pumping gas and changing oil and after forty years he did that pretty good too. Comes a time when men have known each other so long they forget what they do for a living most the time, because it just don’t matter. When you talk there’s a little bit of skimming stones down the quarry in second grade, a whisper of dolling up to go to that first dance, a tad of going to the housewarming when they moved ten years back. There’s all that, so much more than you can say, and none of it’s important except for having happened.