Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum Read online

  BEWARE!!

  DO NOT READ THIS

  BOOK FROM

  BEGINNING TO END!

  Your History class takes a trip to the new wax museum. You and your friends Liz and Jake hope the trip will make history less boring. But you have no idea what the Wicked Wax Museum has in store for you!

  First, Jake vanishes! Do you and Liz stay in the museum to find him? Or do you leave to get help? If you stay, look out for strange men in doctor’s masks. Keep out of the Steaming Room if you can. And beware of wax figures that seem a little too lifelike. Especially that hooded one with the gleaming ax!

  If you leave the museum, get ready for a terrifying time. Meet Sybil Wicked and her skull-faced servant, Axel. They’ve developed a horrible new kind of plastic surgery. Can you and Liz escape before your faces get lifted — right off your bodies?

  This scary adventure is all about you. You decide what will happen. And you decide how terrifying the scares will be!

  Start on PAGE 1. Then follow the instructions at the bottom of each page. You make the choices.

  SO TAKE A DEEP BREATH. CROSS YOUR FINGERS. AND TURN TO PAGE 1 TO GIVE YOURSELF GOOSEBUMPS!

  Contents

  Beware!!

  Title Page

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  Teaser

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Cool!” you exclaim to your best friends, Liz and Jake. “The field trip to the Wicked Wax Museum is today. I can’t believe our class gets to see it the day before the grand opening.”

  “Finally, Mr. Dunning’s History class won’t be such a bore,” Jake adds, flipping his black baseball cap around backward. “Mr. Dunning. More like Mr. Dull!”

  “You said it,” Liz giggles. Her red curls bounce when she laughs. “Hey, why is it called the Wicked Wax Museum, anyway?”

  “That’s the name of the guy who owns it,” Jake explains. “Dr. Izzy Wicked. He made all the wax figures.”

  “Well, according to Mr. Dull,” Liz adds, “the museum is supposed to bring history to life for us, or something like that.”

  “Yeah, right.” Jake smirks. “And maybe the wax figures will come to life, too.”

  “Oh, gross!” Liz cries. “You’re giving me the creeps, Jake.”

  “Come on, you two,” you say. “The bus is here. Let’s be first in line so we can grab the backseats.”

  Go to PAGE 2.

  On the bus, you rush to the back. You and Liz take a two-seater. Jake sits alone across the aisle with his red-sneakered feet on the seat. Now no one else can sit there.

  Jake leans back. His chin-length brown hair falls over the top of the seat. “Let’s get this crate rolling,” he mutters.

  “All right, people,” Mr. Dunning shouts from the front of the bus. “Thanks to my personal donation to the museum, we get to see the place before it opens to the public tomorrow.” The teacher does one last head count. “All right, Sal,” he says to the driver. “We’re all here. Let’s go.”

  As soon as the bus starts moving, Jake presses his nose and open lips flat against the window for the viewing pleasure of other people on the road. Then he breathes on the window and writes in the steam, HONK IF YOU HATE HISTORY!

  “Honk!” you say, laughing.

  “Honk, honk!” Liz adds. You and Liz are honking so loud you don’t see Mr. Dunning coming down the aisle. He looks mad.

  Go to PAGE 3.

  “That’s enough out of you three! You’re always making trouble,” the red-faced Mr. Dunning sputters. “If you hate history so much, you can just wait for the rest of us in the lobby.”

  “Oh, brother,” you groan. “There goes our fun.”

  Minutes later, the bus pulls up to a stone building. Mr. Dunning leads the class into the lobby of the Wicked Wax Museum.

  A scowling woman in a purple turban and gold bracelets sits inside a ticket booth. “These three students will not be going in,” Mr. Dunning tells her. He turns to you, Jake, and Liz and points to a bench by the wall. “Sit there, you little monsters. And you’d better still be sitting there when I come back!”

  The class leaves you behind as they enter the Hall of Historical Exhibits. A red door closes after them. Jake manages to sit still for a few minutes. Then he jumps up and says, “I think it’s time for us to take a little tour of our own.”

  Turn to PAGE 75.

  You know a chance to escape when you see one. You push the door. It swings open!

  Immediately the test tubes stop moving. You jump out. The men with the doctors’ masks are nowhere in sight. You run back to Liz’s tube and unseal her door.

  “Thanks!” Liz exclaims as she jumps out.

  “Are you alright?” you ask.

  “I’m fine,” she assures you. “But what about Jake? I can’t see him anymore. He disappeared into that opening in the wall!”

  Liz is right. Jake’s test tube is out of sight.

  You run to the opening in the wall. When you peer in, you can’t see Jake’s tube. But what you do see is so f
rightening it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up!

  It’s the next step. And it couldn’t be worse.

  A sign at the end of a long tunnel flashes these words: SKIN SCRAPING CENTER.

  “They’re going to skin Jake alive!” you breathe in horror.

  Try your best to save him on PAGE 98!

  Nervously, you and Liz step down from the tubes. You glance around for Jake. But you don’t see him anywhere.

  Where is that voice coming from? you wonder. Then you spot two speakers hanging from wires on the cavelike walls.

  “There’s no one here,” Liz whispers.

  A few steps away, you see two bucket seats lined with cushions. Two comfortable chairs just sitting there in the middle of the cave. Without thinking, you and Liz fall into the soft, cushioned seats to collect your thoughts.

  “We’ve lost Jake.” You state the obvious. “If only we could find Mr. Dunning and the group!”

  “What kind of weird wax museum is this, anyway? There’s something terrible happening here,” Liz says.

  Another recorded message suddenly blares through the cavern: “For the convenience of other visitors, please keep moving …”

  Then the floor beneath your seats starts to move. Just like the test tubes. “Hey!” you shout, trying to get up.

  A bar falls down across your lap. Another drops down on Liz.

  Wait a minute, you think. You’ve been in seats like these before. At the amusement park! You must have stumbled onto some sort of wax museum ride. Hope it’s a good one!

  Hang on as you ride over to PAGE 49.

  Liz looks as scared as you feel. “Don’t be afraid,” the man holding her declares. “The dipping doesn’t hurt … for long.”

  “You won’t get away with this!” you warn. “Our teacher, Mr. Dunning, is friends with the owner of this place! He made a personal contribution to the museum.”

  “You’re the ones who won’t get away,” says your captor. “He doesn’t know it, but the biggest contribution Mr. Dunning made is you kids! You’ll never see your teacher again!”

  “That’s right,” adds Liz’s guard. “Dr. Wicked ordered us to make new figures for the unfinished exhibits before the grand opening of the museum tomorrow.”

  “The press and television newspeople are arriving in two hours!” adds the tall man. “We’ve got a lot of body dipping to do in very little time.”

  “Body dipping?” you screech. “Where’s Mr. Dunning? Where’s Jake? I demand to see him. Now!” And you start to scream.

  “Scream all you like, kid,” says the short one. “Your friend is being processed. It’s done in stages. First the steaming, then the skinning, then the hot wax dipping. It’s hard to create exhibits of such horrifying quality, you know.”

  “But this is supposed to be a history museum!” Liz cries.

  Get Liz’s answer on PAGE 130.

  With your eye on the candle in the window, you start screaming wildly. You fling your arms in the air and flap your hands. You bob your head up and down like a dashboard doll with a loose spring.

  “Grab the kid!” the worker shouts at the Strangler.

  Liz can’t believe her eyes. You’ve never gone totally berserk before. You wink at her, and then she gets the idea. Now she shrieks wildly, too!

  When the attention turns to Liz, you reach for the candle in the window. You wave the flickering flame in the face of the Strangler. Back and forth, closer and closer to his waxy cheeks.

  “No!” the man in overalls screams when he sees what you’re up to. “Not fire! He’ll melt! Take it away!”

  It’s too late for the Strangler. From beneath the wide-brimmed hat, flesh-colored wax drips down in a puddle. The museum worker pushes you aside and tries to glob the hot wax back into place. He looks up at you and snarls, “You’ll pay for this. I promise you that!”

  Get out of there while you still can. Run to PAGE 109.

  You keep running and don’t look back. You don’t have to see him — now you can hear the Strangler’s footsteps behind you. “Hurry, Liz! He’s following us!”

  You run to the entrance door of the brick apartment building closest to you and try the handle. Locked!

  The Strangler is catching up.

  You hurry to the next door. Locked!

  The Strangler is closing in on you.

  Liz trips and stumbles. “My ankle!” she cries, hopping on one foot. “I twisted it!”

  The Strangler is gaining on you. You drag Liz to the next door. Locked! All locked. There’s only one building left to try. “Liz,” you say, pulling her along behind you, “come on, you’ve got to make it a little farther.”

  You reach the door of the last building. “There’s a candle burning in the window on the top floor,” you whisper hoarsely to Liz. “This one’s got to open for us!”

  Run for PAGE 79.

  Liz is right. You’ve just stepped out of the tornado and into the Skin Scraping Center! It’s a laboratory filled with workers in white overalls. They are so busy polishing long steel tables, they don’t see you and Liz standing by an electrical control box in the corner.

  Jake is here, still strapped onto the rolling stretcher. His mouth and eyes are covered with silver tape. A worker is pushing the stretcher toward a giant steel tumbler. Its beehive shape and the way it turns around on an axis reminds you of the back of a cement truck.

  Another worker opens the tumbler door. The inner walls are lined with sandpaper. The worker turns a dial. Inside, a shower of coarse gravel beats against the sandpapered walls. Anything placed in there will be skinned in seconds!

  You watch in horror as Jake is wheeled up the ramp and into the skin scraping machine. “Do something!” Liz cries.

  Quickly, you open the control box behind you. Inside are two levers. One is marked POWER. The other says POWER LESS.

  If you pull the lever marked POWER, turn to PAGE 48.

  If you pull the lever marked POWER LESS, turn to PAGE 15.

  “Liz,” you say, trying to stay calm. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “Problem?” Liz asks. “What problem?” She looks right at you. But she doesn’t realize why you’re standing so still. “What is it?” she asks, staring at you.

  You move your eyes downward. “My hand,” you whisper softly. “His hand,” you add even more softly.

  Liz looks at the Executioner’s fingers wrapped tightly around your hand. As she’s watching, the Executioner raises his index finger and waves it at Liz.

  “He’s ALIVE!” she screams.

  She lunges forward. Using both hands, she shoves the Executioner backward and throws him completely off balance. The ax goes flying out of his hand.

  You scramble over to the ax. It’s yours! As the giant creature tries to get up, you raise the ax over your head.

  But before you can bring it down again on your black-caped enemy, someone stops you.

  “Got you!” says a man’s voice.

  Turn to PAGE 13 to find out who has you.

  “Let’s risk the doors,” you decide. “You never know what might be lurking under a bed!”

  Grabbing Liz’s arm, you race to the right-hand purple door and throw it open. It’s a closet! And it’s full of row after row of identical purple robes.

  The footsteps are right outside the room. “No time to waste,” Liz whispers. She crowds into the closet with you. Then she pulls the door closed. The only light comes through a large keyhole that’s just at eye level.

  Even with that little light, you can tell that the closet is deep. In fact, you can’t find the back wall at all.

  Then the light vanishes. Something is blocking the keyhole. Something that shines faintly.

  An eye! Someone is looking through the keyhole!

  What should you do now? If you stay very still, maybe the eye won’t see you. Or maybe this is the time to find out how far back the closet goes.

  You’d better decide fast!

  If you stay still, get someone t
o turn to PAGE 21 for you.

  If you explore the closet, feel your way to PAGE 38.

  An awful gurgling cry from the doorway behind you makes you both shudder. Jake! There’s no time to figure out why the ticket lady is made of wax. Your friend needs your help!

  “We’ll have to go outside and find the bus driver,” you tell Liz. “Come on!”

  You step outside the lobby and look for Sal, the bus driver. But he’s nowhere in sight. In fact, there isn’t a living soul anywhere around you. What are you going to do?

  At that moment a long black limousine pulls up next to you. The windows are tinted dark blue. You can’t see inside until the passenger-side window slowly glides down.

  A uniformed driver leans across the seat. His hat throws a deep shadow that hides his face. But his voice is friendly as he says, “I’m Axel. May I be of some assistance?”

  Go to PAGE 69.

  Someone yanks the ax out of your hands. You spin around. Your eyes widen in surprise. Two men in doctor’s masks and overalls are standing behind you. One is tall and thin. The other one is short and round.

  “You’re here to finish the exhibits, not to finish them off,” sneers the shorter man.

  “Thanks to you, we have to start all over with this Executioner exhibit,” adds the tall man.

  What are they talking about? You and Liz are too stunned to ask. You watch the two men lift up the frozen Executioner and carry him to the conveyor belt. Curls of wax litter the floor.

  They lay him down on the belt and watch as he disappears through the red velvet streamers. “Dr. Wicked won’t like this. There’s no time for do-overs,” the short man grumbles.

  “As for you two,” the other man says, shoving you roughly, “it’s time for you to join your friend. He’s been waiting for you in the Skin Scraping Center.”

  “No!” Liz cries. “What have you done to Jake?”

  The two men laugh. “Nothing we won’t do to you, too,” the short one promises.

  Turn to PAGE 6.

  “We already know where the other end of the chute comes out. So I guess we should investigate the locked door,” you say reluctantly.

  “If you say so,” Liz agrees. “But I’m not going first.”