House of a Thousand Screams Read online

  It was much, much worse!

  10

  I stared at the nightmare thing in front of me. My mouth opened and closed. But I couldn’t manage to get my voice going.

  The dressmaker’s dummy! Somehow, it had come to life! It floated in the air. Drapes of rotting fabric spread from its form like bat wings. One of the ladies’ bonnets floated above. Between the bonnet and the dress dummy, where a face should have been, there was—nothing. Just dark, empty space.

  Then the dummy swooped down at me!

  “Look out!” Freddy screamed.

  I yelped and stumbled backward. The fabric shaped itself into tattered hands and wrapped around the box I was holding. It tried to pull the box from my hands!

  I hung on, too scared to let go. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t breathe.

  Freddy hammered at the dummy with his fists. “Leave my sister alone!” he yelled.

  I made a last desperate pull to get away. The box slid out of my sweaty hands and I fell backward.

  But the dress dummy’s fabric hands couldn’t hold on either. The box hit the floor with a clatter. The top sprang open. I heard a whoosh of air.

  Above me, the lightbulb exploded in a shower of glass.

  And then everything went quiet again.

  The dress dummy stood by the chair, where it belonged. The fabric was just fabric. The bonnet lay on the floor.

  I sat there, dazed. And scared.

  And mad.

  If the poltergeist was trying to scare us away, its little plan had just backfired. Big time.

  No poltergeist was going to drive me out of our new house!

  Freddy ran to me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll live. Thanks for trying to rescue me.” I grabbed his arm and pulled myself to my feet.

  “Maybe we should get out of here, huh?” he asked hopefully.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “We came up to find a poltergeist, right? Well, it’s definitely here.”

  “Right. We found it. So let’s go, okay?” Freddy started toward the door.

  “Would you hold on?” I demanded, grabbing his arm. “We have to figure out how to fight it. Maybe there’s something up here that will show us how. Let’s look around a little more, okay?”

  Freddy swallowed. “Okay,” he agreed.

  As he stepped toward me, his foot hit the box that the dummy and I fought over. Something small and shiny slid out and skidded a few inches along the floor.

  “Hey.” Freddy bent down and picked up a pair of glasses. “These were in the box.” He handed them to me, then picked up the box. “Nothing else. The puppet isn’t in here. Uncle Solly must have stuck him somewhere else.”

  I examined the spectacles. They were old-fashioned. Wire rims framed narrow rectangular lenses. The lenses were super thick, like Coke-bottle bottoms.

  I put them on.

  I don’t need glasses, so these should have made everything blurry for me. But I could see perfectly clearly.

  I pulled them off again and studied them. They looked like ordinary thick glasses.

  I slipped them on again. Nothing.

  “They’re just plain glass,” I said, surprised.

  I handed them to Freddy. He took off his own and slipped them on. “You’re nuts. These are exactly the same prescription as my glasses!”

  “No way!” I protested. Freddy has a heavy-duty prescription. Without his glasses he’s pretty much a mole person—totally blind.

  I took the glasses from him and tried them on again. They were clear as a windowpane. I could see perfectly.

  How could they work for me and for Freddy? There was something very strange about these glasses.

  Something moved at the edge of my vision. My heart thumped. I jerked my head around.

  Nothing there.

  Squinting, I studied the shadows along the wall.

  “What’s up?” Freddy whispered.

  I held up my hand to keep him quiet. There. A shadow moved behind one of the boxes. I was sure of it.

  “There’s something there,” I whispered. “I can almost see it.”

  Slowly, I moved sideways to get a better look.

  And there he was.

  He looked like a tiny man, but covered all over with woolly brown hair. He stood on little bow legs, like a hairy cowboy. He couldn’t be more than six inches tall. His lips poked forward, pooching out into a tube, kind of like a straw. Little black eyes glinted above a flat nose.

  I felt a shiver of fear. Was this the poltergeist?

  The hairy little man raised a hand and scratched his face. I saw the long, sharp nails on his hand. I remembered the claws of the thing in the flour. This had to be the poltergeist.

  I stared at him. He stared back with bright, hard eyes. And I could suddenly feel how much he hated me. Wanted me gone.

  I tore off the glasses and closed my eyes. My heart thudded in my chest. That feeling! How could anything hate me so much?

  “Jill, what’s wrong?” Freddy demanded. “What did you see?”

  “The poltergeist,” I croaked. “Over there, behind that box.”

  Freddy stared. “I don’t see anything.”

  I peered into the gloom.

  Neither did I! The poltergeist was gone!

  Then I had a crazy idea. I handed Freddy the old-fashioned glasses. “Try these.”

  He slipped the glasses on. Meanwhile, I tried not to panic.

  Freddy spoke softly. “I see it now! It’s ugly, but it’s small. Maybe we can catch it.” He started toward the pile of boxes.

  “Freddy, don’t!” I shouted.

  Too late. The trunk we had emptied earlier was already flying through the air! As I stared, it landed upside down with its lid open. Right on top of Freddy.

  And then the trunk rolled over and scooped my little brother inside. Slam! The lid swung shut.

  “Freddy!” I screamed. I sprang to the box and pulled frantically at the lid.

  It wouldn’t open!

  I could hear my little brother thumping and yelling inside. “Freddy!” I called. “Push the lid! Push as hard as you can!”

  Behind me came the whisper of things moving. I turned.

  Oh, no!

  The dressmaker’s dummy had come back to life. And it wasn’t alone. All of Uncle Solly’s junk was on the move.

  Books whipped down to whack my arms and legs. Scarves formed into bat shapes and hovered around my head. An army of plastic fingers scurried across the floor, stalking me.

  “Leave me alone!” I yelled. I swiped at the books and bat things. They fluttered out of reach. Then I began to hit the trunk latch as hard as I could. I banged on it. I kicked it. I hammered it with my sneaker.

  Finally it sprang open. I slammed up the lid, grabbed Freddy’s hand, and pulled. “Come on. Run!”

  We tore through the cloud of flying things. Plastic fingers crunched under our feet. Freddy yanked open the door while I whacked at a brown leather book that was dive-bombing me. We squeezed through the opening and pulled the door shut.

  Then we dashed down the stairs, three at a time. We didn’t stop until we got to my room and slammed the door behind us.

  I threw myself on my bed, panting. “You saw the poltergeist,” I said to Freddy.

  Freddy nodded. “Yeah. With all that hair, and that weird pointy mouth, he looked like a cross between a monkey and a mosquito. A mean monkey,” he added with a shiver.

  He pulled the old-fashioned glasses out of his pocket and set them on my bed between us. We both stared at them for a second. How come we could see the poltergeist only when we were wearing them?

  “You know they’re magic glasses,” Freddy said at last. It wasn’t a question.

  I nodded slowly. I had to admit it. Uncle Solly did have real magic!

  “Now what?” Freddy asked.

  I picked the glasses up and turned them over in my hands. “Well, with these at least we can see the poltergeist.”

  “Big deal. They didn’t help u
s catch him,” Freddy pointed out. “They didn’t stop any bad stuff from happening.”

  I saw where he was heading. “We can’t give up now!” I snapped at him. “There has to be a way to beat this thing.”

  Freddy shook his head. “We have to tell. Jill, the poltergeist is trying to get us. Aren’t you even scared?”

  I stared at him, shocked. “Are you kidding? Of course I’m scared. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “You don’t act like it,” Freddy told me. His round face was very serious. “You keep talking about how Mom loves this house, and we can’t break her heart by telling her we have to move. But she loves us too. It would break her heart if something happened to us. And something almost happened just now. Up in the attic.”

  His words hit me hard. He was right. Maybe I should face facts. This thing was too powerful for me and Freddy to fight. We’d only lose.

  I heard the front door open. Dad’s cheery voice boomed through the house.

  “Hi, all. The man is home!”

  “You win,” I said. “We’ll tell them.”

  But could we make them believe us?

  Or would they ground us for the next ten years?

  11

  “Poltergeists, huh? Sounds to me like somebody’s got a case of Fear Street fever,” Dad told us, grinning.

  Freddy and I exchanged glances. Not a good start.

  We were all gathered in the den. It was about nine-thirty that night. Freddy and I had decided to wait until after dinner to talk to Mom and Dad.

  Dad started hunting around the couch. “Where’s that remote control?” he asked. “I keep telling you kids to leave it on the coffee table.”

  “Dad,” I pleaded. “Won’t you listen?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Well, sure, pumpkin, I’ll listen. Just as long as I don’t have to believe.” Even though Dad was born in Shadyside, his years in Texas left him with a drawl. He likes to pour it on even thicker than usual when he’s joking with us.

  He went back to hunting for the remote. “Ah, here it is, under the cushion. Of course, I know you kids didn’t put it there. Probably that rascal poltergeist.”

  Mom sat in the chair next to the couch, looking annoyed. Neither of them believed a word we’d said.

  “Why won’t you believe us?” Freddy asked.

  “Freddy, you forget, I was there.” Mom leaned forward, her eyes filled with concern. “I heard you wrestling before you broke the lamp. I saw the video of your uncle juggling those books, just the way you two did. And when I walked into that mess in the kitchen, all I saw were two kids whose horseplay had gotten out of hand.”

  “But the glasses—” I began.

  “Ah, yes, the glasses,” Dad said. “Let me see them.”

  I passed him the magic glasses. He slipped them on and peered around the room, searching. Suddenly his eyes widened. He gasped.

  “Do you see it?” Freddy demanded.

  “I do, I do,” Dad cried. “By the fireplace. By golly, it’s a snark! Right next to the frumious bander-snatch!”

  “Dad!” I protested. He was treating the whole thing as a joke!

  “And there’s a rattlesnake, and the Cisco Kid,” Dad went on. “And—why, I do believe that’s a goblin! Eating a burrito.”

  Mom frowned. “There’s no point in teasing them, John,” she scolded.

  “There’s no point in them getting wrapped up in wild tales either,” Dad replied. He slipped off the magic glasses and set them on the table.

  “Look, kids,” he went on in a more serious voice. “I remember what it was like when I was growing up in Shadyside. Kids at school told all kinds of stories about Fear Street. But in all my years here, I never met anyone this spooky stuff ever happened to firsthand. It was always ‘a friend of a friend.’ Which is usually a sure sign that a story isn’t true.”

  “I can understand Freddy letting his imagination run away with him,” Mom put in. “But you, Jill, are certainly old enough to know better.”

  I glanced over at Freddy. What were we going to do?

  It wasn’t fair. Parents never believe the really big stuff that happens to you. They always think you’re exaggerating.

  Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow we’d be able to think up a new plan. I sighed and got up to leave.

  “Don’t forget your glasses, Jill,” Dad called after me. “What if you have a visitor?”

  Silently, I walked back and picked up the specs. Freddy and I climbed the stairs as if we were marching to the hangman.

  “I can’t believe they just ignored us,” Freddy complained. “I guess you were right, Jill. Sorry.”

  “Forget it,” I advised. “No matter what Mom and Dad say, we know it’s real. We just have to be on our guard from now on.”

  Using the glasses, Freddy and I did quick sweeps of both our bedrooms. Poltergeist free.

  I went back to my room and put on my pajamas. Then I tottered down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I studied myself in the mirror as I gargled.

  Well, what now? I asked myself.

  I didn’t have any good answers.

  Back at my room, I hesitated at the door. Had I shut it? I didn’t remember shutting it.

  I turned the knob. The door swung wide.

  I froze in horror.

  In the doorway stood a huge yellow blob. It must have been seven feet tall. It towered over me. Its lumpy head had a wide, gaping black hole of a mouth.

  A mouth that stretched even wider as the thing came after me!

  12

  I didn’t even have time to scream. The monster’s body wrapped around me. It was like being caught in a fishing net.

  I struggled and beat at it. My heart raced. My stomach churned. I tried to call for help. But part of the yellow blob covered my mouth. It was tough to breathe, let alone yell.

  The part around my legs suddenly tightened. I crashed to the floor. Help! I was being smothered!

  I kicked, bit, and clawed. The thing was soft and yielding. Light filtered through its yellow sides. I felt as if I’d been swallowed by a tent.

  Finally I clawed my way out. Free! Then I crawled away as fast as I could. The monster lay there, unmoving. Flat. Maybe I’d killed it!

  Freddy dashed out of his room. “What was all that noise? And why is your bedspread lying out here in the hall?” he asked.

  “Huh?” I stared at the yellow blob. Then, cautiously, I leaned over and prodded it.

  Freddy was right. It was only my big yellow bedspread.

  But a minute ago it was coming after me!

  I grabbed the spread and climbed to my feet. “Follow me,” I said.

  While I told Freddy what had happened, I wadded the bedspread up and stuffed it into my closet. Then I realized I would spend the night waiting for it to come back out of the closet. So I tilted my dresser up and told Freddy to shove it under there.

  “It’ll get dirty,” he objected.

  “I hope it does,” I retorted. “I hope it’s afraid of the dark. I hope moths come and eat it in the middle of the night. Now shove it under there.”

  Freddy did as I asked. I lowered the dresser again. The bedspread fit nicely. Good thing it wasn’t one of our thick winter comforters.

  I was still shaking from my close call. Three times in one day! I thought. How am I ever going to survive?

  “Freddy?” I said. “Can I sleep in your room tonight?”

  Believe it or not, I had to talk him into it. Even though he has bunk beds! I guess it’s because we had to wait so long to get our own rooms. But you’d think he could have been a little more understanding. Especially after all we’d been through that day.

  We stayed in our own rooms until Dad and Mom went to bed. No point trying to explain to them. Then I sneaked into Freddy’s room.

  He was sitting on the top bunk, his back against the wall. He clutched a baseball bat tightly in his hands. But he relaxed when I showed up.

  “Do you want me to sleep on the bottom?” he asked.

&n
bsp; “I don’t care,” I answered, yawning. “I’m so tired I could sleep standing up. It’s been a long day.”

  “You ain’t just a-woofin’,” Freddy said.

  I grinned to myself. That was one of Dad’s expressions. It was kind of cute to hear it coming from the little Brainiac.

  Time ticked along. But even though I felt wiped out, I couldn’t fall asleep. Lying there in the dark, I heard every creak and groan in the old house. “Settling,” Mom called it. But in the middle of the night, I wasn’t so sure.

  What was that creak? Was the poltergeist sneaking up on us now? If it could make dress dummies and bedspreads come to life, what else could it do? Could it take over our parents? Control them? Make them wander through the house like robots?

  I shuddered and burrowed farther into the covers. Something hard poked my arm. I felt around and found the object. I peered at it in the dark.

  The magic glasses!

  But I’d left them in my room! I clearly remembered putting them down on my dresser. Right before I went to brush my teeth.

  “Freddy?” I called softly.

  No answer.

  “Freddy, wake up.” I reached up and gave him a shove.

  “What?” He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What is it? What?”

  “The magic glasses,” I said urgently. “Did you bring them in here from my room?”

  Freddy leaned down from his bunk and grabbed his own glasses from the nightstand. “No.”

  “Well, why are they in my bunk, then?” I felt panic rising again, grabbing me by the throat.

  The glasses had moved on their own!

  “Maybe the poltergeist put them there,” Freddy suggested.

  Maybe. But why?

  I slipped the glasses on and looked around the room. It was easy to see in the dark with them on. Another magic quality they had, I guess. No poltergeist in the room.

  Then I heard another noise from downstairs. A new noise. The sound of something scraping, shuffling against the floor.

  Something was down there. I was certain of it. Was it planning to get me and Freddy? Or Mom and Dad?

  Stay calm, I told myself.

  Yeah, right.

  I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. “Get up,” I ordered Freddy.